Plal ll|f v OSt .f * & f* . II THE COLLECTED WORKS OF VOL. T. THE COLLECTED WORKS DUGALD STEWART, ESQ., ER.SS., HONORARY MEMBER OF THE IMPERIAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AT ST. PETERSBURG J MEMBER OF TUB ROYAL ACADEMIES OF BERLIN AND OF NAPLES J OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETIES OF PHILADELPHIA AND OF BOSTON ; HONORARY MEMBER OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF CAMBRIDGE ; PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. EDITED BY SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BART., ADVOCATE; A.M. (oxon.), ETC. ; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE ; HONORARY MEMBER OF THE LATIN SOCIETY OF JENA, ETC. ; PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS IN THB UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. VOL I. EDINBURGH: THOMAS CONSTABLE AND CO. HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO., LONDON. MDCCCL1V. EDINBURGH : T. COHSTABLE, PKINTtll TO HEP. MAJESTY. DISSERTATION: EXHIBITING THE PROGEESS OF METAPHYSICAL, ETHICAL, AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, SINCE THE REVIVAL OF LETTERS IN EUROPE, WITH NUMEROUS AND IMPORTANT ADDITIONS NOW FIRST PUBLISHED. BY DUGALD STEWART, ESQ. EDITED BY SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BART. EDINBURGH: THOMAS CONSTABLE AND CO. HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO., LONDON. MDCCCLIV. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY 01 CALIFORNIA SAJN1A BAIUIAKA ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. OF Mr. Stewart's historical Dissertation on the progress of Philosophy, there are two editions ; which being both prepared with the participation of the Author, must, consequently, both be consulted by an Editor in the constitution of a comprehensive and authoritative text. In both also the Dissertation is prefixed to re-impressions of the Encyclopaedia 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 stereotyped. The editions are substantially identical ; but in the second there are found a few additions, and at least two omissions, (pp. 201, 613.) The present volume is printed from the second edition, collated, however, with the first. The omitted passages have been reinstated, but explicitly dis- tinguished ; 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 So much as to the pub- lished sources ; it is now requisite to add somewhat in regard to the unpublished. Vlll ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. In the present edition of the Dissertation, beside the con- cluding Chapter of Part Third and its relative Note, which 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, however, 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 favourable footing; in so far as whatever they aiford 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 Encyclopedia, 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 restorations ; and 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 this, 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 passages ADVE11TISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. IX which, though unpublished, merit preservation. Of this, it indeed appears that Mr. Stewart was fully 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 daughter's handwriting, that " this particularly is to be preserved with care," as containing " some valuable passages not printed." Accordingly, these omissions have, in a great measure, been recovered, and as already noticed, those from the two last sources are indifferently marked out by the word restored, In the historical development 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 appear occasionally to require, beside defence,* perhaps supplement, qualification, or even correction. But as I am persuaded of its propriety, so I have * I may take this opportunity of sup- versy concerning Perception lias been plying an example. Mr. Fearn, in his carried on during near a century ; I will ingenious work, First Lines of the venture to believe, there is not the most Human Mind, (1820,) has, throughout distant hint, in anyone of their volumes, a long preface, made a vehement attack that a VARIETY of colours is necessary on Mr. Stewart, for statements contained for the act of perceiving visible figure or in the First Part of his Dissertation, in outline: nor do they at all hint at any regard to colours, (infra, pp. 131-134 ;) such assertion as being made by any asserting, that the fact, which is sup- writer, ancient or modern." The italics posed to be there first alleged, had been and capitals are Mr. Fearn 's. The letter taken, without acknowledgment, from his to Dr. Reid, "of forty years before," (Mr. Fearn 's) writings. Mr. Fearn says, and now first printed, (p. 133, seq.,) (p. xix.) " To justify most conclusively completely vindicates, what he hini- my assertions, made at different times, self could not condescend to do, Mr. that the original notice of even the Stewart's statements. He therein, inter f/eneric fact resides with myself, I now alia, expressly maintains : "Tothisopi- proceed to observe, that, although I nion [Reid's] Icannot subscribe ; because have had occasion to peruse, and make it appears to me to be evident, that our very frequent references to, the works perceptions of colour and figure are not of BERKELEY, of HUME, of DR. 11 KID, only received by the same organ of and of PROFESSOR STEWART, between sense, but that the varieties in our pcr- whom it is undeniable the great contro- ceptions of colour are the m-eans of our ADVERTISEMENT BY THE ED1TOK. 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 proper 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. Where also Mr. Stewart had neglected a useful reference, such has been silently filled up ; while verbal inaccuracies and imperfections have, in 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. EDINBURGH, 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 breadihless lines, (a speculation, in fact, hardly contemplated by Mr. Stewart,) can be traced to Aristotle, but more explicitly to Proclm and his scholar, Ammonius Hermice; while in modern times, I find the phenomenon signa- lized, among others, by Clavius, by D'Alembert, andbyZ>r. Thomas Young. Nor should it now remain a paradox ; nor even an unemployed truth. CONTENTS. DISSERTATION. PROGRESS OF METAPHYSICAL, ETHICAL, AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, PAOB PREFACE, containing some Critical Remarks on the Discourse prefixed to the French Encyclopedic, ..... 1 PART FIRST. INTRODUCTION, ' . ... *!' . ' . 23 CHAPTER I. Progress of Philosophy from the Revival of Letters to tho publication of Bacon's Philosophical Works, . . 25 CHAPTER II. Progress of Philosophy from the publication of Bacon's Philosophical Works till that of the Essay on Human Under- standing. SECT. 1. Progress of Philosophy in England during this period. Bacon, ....... (53 Hobbes, , . . , . .79 Antagonists of Hobbes, .... .85 SECT. 2. Progress of Philosophy in France during the Seventeenth Century. Montaigne. Charron. La Rochefoucauld, . . 98 Descartes. Gassendi. Malebranche, . . .112 SECT. 3. Progress of Philosophy during the Seventeenth Century in some parts of Europe not included in the preceding Review, . . . . . .170 PART SECOND. INTRODUCTION, . . 203 Progress of Metaphysics during the Eighteenth Century. SECT. 1. Historical and Critical Review of the Philosophical Works of Locke and Leibnitz. Locke, .... 206 SECT. 2. Continuation of the Review of Locke and Leibnitz. Leibnitz, 202 Xll CONTENTS. 1'AGK SECT. 3. Of the Metaphysical Speculations of Newton and Clarke. Digression with respect to the System of Spinoza, Collins, and Jonathan Edwards. Anxiety of both to reconcile the scheme of Necessity with Man's Moral Agency. Departure of some later Necessitarians from their views, ...... 287 SECT. 4. Of some Authors who have contributed, by their Critical or Historical Writings, to diffuse a taste for Metaphysical Studies. Bayle. Fontenelle. Addison. Metaphysi- cal Works of Berkeley, .... SECT. 5. Hartleian School, ...... SECT. 6. Condillac, and other French Metaphysicians of a later date, SECT. 7. Kant, and other Metaphysicians of the New German School, SECT. 8. Metaphysical Philosophy of Scotland, PAET THIRD. Progress 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 SUPPLEMENT, ........ 615 INDEX, . ... 619 PREFACE. CONTAINING SOME CRITICAL REMARKS ON THE DISCOURSE PREFIXED TO THE FRENCH ENCYCLOPEDIE. WHEN I ventured to undertake the task of contributing a Preliminary Dissertation to these Supplemental Volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, my original intention was, after the example of D'Alembert, to have begun with a general survey of the various departments of human knowledge. 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 present advanced state of the sciences ; while the unrivalled authority 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 attempt 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 justness 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 speculations which I conceived to be fundamentally unsound, I resolved to avail myself of the present opportunity 2 DISSERTATION. PEEFACE. to point out their most important defects, defects which, I am nevertheless very ready to acknowledge, it is much more easy to remark than to supply. The critical strictures which, in the course of this discussion, I shall have occasion to offer on my predecessors, will, at the same time, account for my forbearing to substitute a new map of my own, instead of that to which the names of Bacon and D'Alembert have lent so great and so well-merited a celebrity; and may perhaps suggest a doubt, whether the period be yet arrived for hazarding again, with any reasonable prospect of success, a repetition of their bold experi- ment. For the length to which these strictures are likely to extend, the only apology I have to offer is the peculiar import- ance of the questions to which they relate, and the high autho- rity of the writers whose opinions I presume to controvert. Before entering on liis main subject, D'Alembert is at pains to explain a distinction, which he represents as of considerable importance, between the Genealogy of the sciences, and the Ency- clopedical arrangement of the objects of human knowledge. 1 " In examining the former," he observes, " our aim is, by re- mounting to the origin and genesis of our ideas, to trace the causes to wliich the sciences owe their birth ; and to mark the characteristics by which they are distinguished from each other. In order to ascertain the latter, it is necessary to comprehend, in one general scheme, all the various departments of study ; to arrange them into proper classes; and to point out their mutual relations and dependencies." Such a scheme is some- times likened by D'Alembert to a map or chart of the intellec- tual world ; sometimes to a genealogical 2 or encyclopedical tree, indicating the manifold and complicated affinities of those stu- dies, which, however apparently remote and unconnected, are all the common offspring of the human understanding. For 1 II ne faut pas confonclre 1'ordrc Ency- genealogical should have been employed clopedique des connoissances Imrnaines on this occasion, where the author's wish avec la Genealogie des Sciences." was to contradistinguish the idea de- ^vertissement, p. 7. noted by it, from that historical view of the sciences to which the word genea- * It is to be regretted that the epithet logy had been previously applied. ON U 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. 1 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 transitions. 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- quiries. 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 1 The true reason of this might per- considered as the basis of the arts ; and, haps have been assigned in simpler in a course of liberal education, the for- terms, by remarking that the order of mer are always taught prior to the latter, invention is, in most cases, the reverse But, in the order of invention and dis- of that fitted for didactic communication. covery, the arts preceded the sciences. This observation applies not only to Men measured land before they studied the analytical and synthetical processes speculative geometry ; and governments of the individual, but to the progressive were established before politics were stu- improvements of the species, when com- died as a science. A remark somewhat pared with the arrangements prescribed similar is made by Celsus concerning the by logical method for conveying a history of medicine : " Non medicinam knowledge of them to students. In an rationi esse posteriorem, sed post rnedici- enlightened age, the sciences are justly nam inventam, rationem esse qusesitam." 4 DISSERTATION. PREFACE. the curiosity may be conceived to have been gradually con- ducted from one intellectual pursuit to another ; but, in the execution of this design, (which in itself is highly philosophical and interesting,) he does not appear to have paid due attention to the essential difference between the history of the human species, and that of the civilized and inquisitive individual. The former was undoubtedly that which principally figured in his conceptions ; and to which, I apprehend, he ought to have confined himself exclusively ; whereas, in fact, he has so com- pletely blended the two subjects together, that it is often impos- sible to say which of them was uppermost in his thoughts. The consequence is, that instead of throwing upon either those strong and steady lights which might have been expected from his powers, he has involved both in additional obscurity. This indistinctness is more peculiarly remarkable in the beginning of his Discourse, where he represents men in the earliest infancy of science, before they had time to take any precautions for securing the means of their subsistence, or of their safety, as philosophizing on their sensations, on the existence of their own bodies, and on that of the material world. His Dis- course, accordingly, sets out with a series of Meditations, pre- cisely analogous to those which form the introduction to the philosophy of Descartes ; meditations which, in the order of time, have been uniformly posterior to the study of external nature ; and which, even in such an age as the present, are confined to a comparatively small number of recluse meta- physicians. Of this sort of conjectural or theoretical history, the most unexceptionable specimens which have yet appeared, are indis- putably the fragments in Mr. Smith's posthumous work on the History of Astronomy, and on that of the Ancient Systems of Physics and Metaphysics. That, in the latter of these, he may have occasionally accommodated his details to his own peculiar opinions concerning the object of Philosophy, may perhaps, with some truth, be aUeged ; but he must at least be allowed the merit of completely avoiding the error by which D'Alembert was misled ; and even in those instances where he himself seems ON D'ALEMBEKT'H ENCYCLOPEDICAL TREE. 5 to wander a little from the right path, of furnishing 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 bewilder 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 be wished, therefore, that instead of occupying the first pages of the Encyclopedic, it had been 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 his Encyclopedical Tree, D'Alembert has, in my opinion, been still more unsuccessful than in the specula- 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 powerful and fertile genius, and has engaged him in the fruitless task of attempting, by means of arbitrary definitions, to draw a veil over incurable 6 DISSERTATION. PREFACE. defects and blemishes. In this part of Bacon's logic, it must, at the same time, be owned, that there is something peculiarly captivating to the fancy ; and, accordingly, it lias united in its favour the suffrages of almost all the succeeding authors who have treated of the same subject. It will be necessary for me, therefore, to explain fully the grounds of that censure, which, in opposition to so many illustrious names, I have presumed to bestow on it. Of the leading ideas to which I more particularly object, the following statement is given by D'Alembert. I quote it in preference to the corresponding passage in Bacon, as it contains various explanatory clauses and glosses, for which we are in- debted to the ingenuity of the commentator. " The objects about which our minds are occupied, are either spiritual or material, and the media employed for this purpose are our ideas, either directly received, or derived from reflec- tion. The system of our direct knowledge consists entirely in the passive and mechanical accumulation of the particulars it comprehends; an accumulation which belongs exclusively to the province of Memory. Keflection is of two kinds, according as it is employed in reasoning on the objects of our direct ideas, or in studying them as models for imitation. " Thus, Memory, Keason, strictly so called, and Imagination, are the three modes in which the mind operates on the subjects of its thoughts. By Imagination, however, is here to be under- stood, not the faculty of conceiving or representing to ourselves what we have formerly perceived, a faculty which differs in nothing from the memory of these perceptions, and which, if it were not relieved by the invention of signs, would be in a state of continual exercise. The power which we denote by this name has a nobler province allotted to it, that of rendering imitation subservient to the creations of genius. " These tlrree faculties suggest a corresponding division of human knowledge into three branches : 1. History, which derives its materials from Memory; 2. Philosophy, which is the product of Reason ; and 3. Poetry, (comprehending under this title all the Fine Arts,) which is the offspring of Imagina- ON D ALEMBERT S ENCYCLOPEDICAL TREE. 7 tion. 1 If we place Reason before Imagination, it is because this order appears to us conformable to the natural progress of our intellectual operations. 2 The Imagination is a creative faculty, and the mind, before it attempts to create, begins by reasoning upon what it sees and knows. Nor is this all. In the faculty of Imagination, both Eeason 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 rules 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 1 The latitude given by D'Alembert naturelle, qui n'est autre chose qu'in- to the meaning of the word Poetry is a vention ou creation." real and very important improvement * In placing Reason before Imagina- on Bacon, who restricts it to fictitious tion, D'Alembert departs from the order History or Fables. (De Aug. Sclent, lib. in which these faculties are arranged by ii. cap. i.) D'Alembert, on the other Bacon. " Si nous n'avons pas place, hand, employs it in its natural signifi- comme lui, la Raison apres 1'Imagina cation, as synonymous with invention or tion, c'est que nous avons suivi, dans creation. " La Peinture, la Sculpture, le systeme Encyclopedique, 1'ordre meta- 1' Architecture, la Poesie, la Musique, et physique des operations de 1'esprit, leurs differentes divisions, composent la plutot que 1'ordre historique de ses pro- troisieme distribution generale qui nait gres depuis la renaissance des lettres." de I'lmagination, et dont les parties sont (Disc. Prelim-) How far the motive comprises sous le nom de Beaux-Arts. here assigned for the change is valid, On pent les rapporter tous a la Poesie, the reader will be enabled to judge en prenaut ce mot dans sa signification from the sequel of the above quotation. 8 DISSERTATION. PREFACE. between them is formed by metaphysics, are disposed to employ their wit in depreciating its value. The truth is, that, to the geometer who invents, Imagination is not less essential than to the poet who creates. They operate, indeed, differently on their object, the former abstracting and analyzing, where the latter combines and adorns ; two processes of the mind, it . must, at the same time, be confessed, which seem from expe- rience to be so little congenial, that it may be doubted if the talents of a great geometer and of a great poet will ever be united in the same person. But whether these talents be, or be not mutually exclusive, certain it is, that they who possess the one, have no right to despise those who cultivate the other. Of all the great men of antiquity, Archimedes is per- haps he who is the best entitled to be placed by the side of Homer." D'Alembert afterwards proceeds to observe, that of these three general branches of the Encyclopedical Tree, a natural and convenient subdivision is afforded by the metaphysical distribution of things into Material and Spiritual. " With these two classes of existences," he observes farther, " history and philosophy are equally conversant ; but as for the Imagina- tion, her imitations are entirely confined to the material ivorld ; a circumstance," 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." 1 Upon this subdivision he enlarges at some length, and with considerable ingenuity; but on the present occasion it would be quite superfluous to follow him any farther, as more than enough has been already quoted to enable my readers to 1 In this exclusive limitation of the pro- precisely expressed in our language by vince of Imagination to things material the word Conception. The province and sensible, D'Alembert has followed assigned to Imagination by D'Alembert the definition given \>y Descartes in his is more extensive than this, for he as- second Meditation : " Imaginari nihil cribes to her also a creative and combin- aliud est quam rei corporece figuram ing power ; but still his definition agrees sen imaginem contemplari ;" a power with that of Descartes, inasmuch as it of the mind, which (as I have elsewhere excludes entirely from her dominion both observed) appears to me to be most the intellectual and the moral worlds. ON D'ALEMBEKT'S ENCYCLOPEDICAL TREE. ;) judge, whether the objections which 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 operations 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 Encyclopedical classification. 1 This, however, will be found more specious 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 comprehensive combination of all our mental gifts is indispensably requisite. Another, and a still more formidable objection to Bacon's 1 1 allude here to the following apo- sairement dans chaque art, comme dans logy for Bacon, suggested by a very chaque science. Mais on peut repondre, learned and judicious writer : que 1'une ou 1'autre de ces trois facultes, " On a fait cependant a Bacon quel- quoique secondee par les deux autres, ques reproches assez fondes. On a ob- peut cependant jouer le role principal, serve que sa classification des sciences En prenant la distinction de Bacon dans repose sur une distinction qui n'est pas ce sens, sa classification reste exacte, et rigoureuse, puisque la memoire, la rai- devient tres utile." Degerando, Hist. son, et I'lmagiuation concoureiit neces- Comp. tome i. p. 298. 10 DISSERTATION. PREFACE. classification, may be derived from the very imperfect and par- tial analysis of the mind which it assumes as its basis. Why were the powers of Abstraction and Generalization passed over in silence ? powers which, according as 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 be remarked among the objects of human study, according as our aim is to treasure up particular facts, or to establish general conclusions. Does not this distinction mark out, with greater precision, the limits which separate philosophy from mere historical narrative, than that which turns upon the different provinces of Reason and of Memory ? I shall only add one other criticism on this celebrated enume- ration, and that is, its want of distinctness, in confounding together the Sciences and the Arts under the same general titles. Hence a variety of those capricious arrangements, which must immediately strike every reader who follows Bacon through his details ; the reference, for instance, of the mechani- cal arts to the department of History; and, consequently, according to his own analysis of the mind, the ultimate refer- ence of these arts to the faculty of Memory : while, at the same time, in his tripartite division of the whole field of human knowledge, the art of Poetry has one entire province allotted to itself. These objections apply in common to Bacon and to D'Alem- bert. That which follows has a particular reference to a passage already cited from the latter, where, by some false refinements concerning the nature and functions of Imagination, he has rendered the classification of his predecessor 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 ; and, therefore, without departing from the common and popular use of language, it may un- doubtedly be said, that the faculty of abstraction is not less essential to the Poet, than to the Geometer and the Meta- ON D'ALEMBERT'S ENCYCLOPEDICAL TREE. 11 physician. 1 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, will, 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 synonymous 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 which 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 his 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 1 Tins assertion must, however, be Those of the poet amount to nothing understood with some qualifications; more than to a separation into parts of the for, although the poet, as well as the realities presented to his senses ; which geometer and the metaphysician, be separation is only a preliminary step perpetually called upon to decompose, to a subsequent recomposition into new by means of abstraction, the complicated and ideal forms of the things abstract- objects of perception, it must not be ed ; whereas the abstractions of the me- concluded that the abstractions of all taphysician and of the geometer form the the three are exactly of the same kind. very objects of their respective sciences. 12 DISSERTATION. PBEFACE. Satan's intellectual and moral character was not the offspring of the same creative faculty which gave birth to his Garden of Eden ? After such a definition, however, it is difficult to con- ceive how so very acute a writer should have referred to Ima- gination the abstractions of the geometer and of the metaphy- sician ; and still more, that he should have attempted to justify this reference, by observing, that these abstractions do not fall under the cognizance of the senses. My own opinion is, that in the composition of the whole passage he had a view to the unexpected parallel between Homer and Archimedes, with which he meant, at the close, to surprise his readers. If the foregoing strictures be well founded, it seems to follow, not only that the attempt of Bacon and of D'Alembert to clas- sify the sciences and arts according to a logical division of our faculties, is altogether unsatisfactory, but that every future attempt of the same kind may be expected to be liable to simi- lar objections. In studying, indeed, the Theory of the Mind, it is necessary to push our analysis as far as the nature of the subject admits of; and, wherever the thing is possible, to exa- mine its constituent principles separately and apart from each other : but this consideration itself, when combined with what was before stated on the endless variety of forms in which they may be blended together in our various intellectual pursuits, is sufficient to shew how ill adapted such an analysis must for ever remain to serve as the basis of an Encyclopedical distri- bution. 1 The circumstance to which this part of Bacon's philosophy is 1 In justice to the authors of the En- pareille division, pour croire que notre cyclopedical Tree prefixed to the French systeme soit 1'unique ou le meilleur ; Dictionary, it ought to be observed, that il nous suffira que notre travail ne soit it is spoken of by D'Alembert, in his pas entierement desapprouve par les Preliminary Discourse, with the utmost bons esprits." And, some pages after- modesty and diffidence ; and that he has wards " Si le public eclaire donne son expressed not only his own conviction, approbation a ces changemens, elle sera but that of his colleague, of the impos- la recompense de notre docilite ; et s'il sibility of executing such a task in a ne les approuve pas, nous n'en serons manner likely to satisfy the public. que plus convaincus de 1'impossibilitc " Nous sommes trop convaincus de 1'ar- de former un arbre encyclopcdique (jui bitraire qui regnera toujours dans une soit au grc de tout le nionde." ON D'ALEMBEHT'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, Philosophy, 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 pass 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 accomplishment 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 positions and bearings of their respective districts, as parts of one great whole, might invite them all, for the .fommon benefit, to a reciprocal exchange of their local riches. The societies or academies which, soon after, sprung up in different countries of Europe, for the avowed purpose of contributing to the general mass of information, by the collection of insulated facts, conjectures, and DISSERTATION. PREFACE. queries, afford sufficient proof that the anticipations of Bacon were not, in this instance, altogether chimerical. In examining the details of Bacon's survey, it is impossible not to be struck (more especially when we reflect on the state of learning two hundred years ago) with the minuteness of his information, as well as with the extent of his views ; or to for- bear admiring his sagacity in pointing out, to future adven- turers, the unknown tracts still left to be explored by human curiosity. If his classifications be sometimes artificial and arbi- trary, they have at least the merit of including, under one head or another, every particular of importance ; and of exhibiting these particulars with a degree of method and of apparent con- nexion, which, if it does not always satisfy the judgment, never fails to interest the fancy, and to lay hold of the memory. Nor must it be forgotten, to the glory of his genius, that what lie 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 philosophy has yet to boast ; and that the united talents of D'Alembert and of Diderot, aided by all the lights of the eighteenth cen- tury, have been able to add but little to what Bacon performed. After the foregoing observations, it will not be expected that an attempt is to be made, in the following essay, to solve a pro- blem which has so recently baffled the powers of these eminent writers ; and which will probably long continue to exercise the ingenuity of our successors. How much remains to be pre- viously done for the improvement of that part of logic, whose province it is to fix the limits by winch contiguous departments of study are defined and separated ! And how many unsus- pected affinities may be reasonably presumed to exist among sciences, which, to our circumscribed views, appear at present the most alien from each other ! The abstract geometry of Apollonius and Archimedes was found, after an interval of two thousand years, to furnish a torch to the physical inquiries of Newton ; while, in the farther progress of knowledge, the Ety- mology of Languages has been happily employed to fill up the chasms of Ancient History ; and the conclusions of Compara- ON D'ALEMBEKT'S ENCYCLOPEDICAL THEE. 15 tive Anatomy, to illustrate the Theory of the Earth. For my own part, even if the task were executed with the most com- plete success, I should be strongly inclined to think, that its appropriate place in an Encyclopedia would be as a branch of the article on Logic ; certainly not as an exofdium to the Pre- liminary Discourse ; the enlarged and refined views which it necessarily presupposes being peculiarly unsuitable to that part of the work which may be 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 D'Alembert's Discourse, and of Diderot's Prospectus. No English 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 slight strictures on a very concise and comprehensive division of the objects of Human Knowledge, proposed 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 which the original projectors, as well as the continua- tors, of the Encyclopaedia Britannica appear to have proceeded. These strictures will, at the same tune, 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 compass of Human Understanding being either, first, The nature of things <) DISSERTATION. PREFACE. as they are in 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 may be divided properly into these three sorts : " 1. $t*ftKi}, or Natural Philosophy. The end of this is bare speculative truth ; and whatsoever can afford the mind of man any such falls under this branch, whether it be God himself, angels, spirits, bodies, or any of their affections, as number and figure, &c. " 2. IIpaKTiKrj, The skill of right applying our own powers and actions for the attainment of things good and useful. The most considerable under this head is Ethics, which is the seek- ing out those rules and measures of human actions which lead to happiness, and the means to practise them. The end of this is not bare speculation, but right, and a conduct suitable to it. 1 " 3. ^//.et&m/cT;, or the doctrine of signs, the most usual whereof being words, it is aptly enough termed also Aoyucrj, Logic. The business of this is to consider the nature of signs the mind makes use of for the understanding 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 nothing but either the contemplation of things themselves, for the dis- covery of truth, 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., things as they are in themselves knowable ; actions as they depend on us, in order to happiness ; and the 1 From this definition it appears, that and the Philosophy of tJie Human Mind, as Locke included under the title of Phi/- so he meant to refer to the head of Prac- sics, not only Natural Philosophy, pro- tics, not only Ethics, but all the various perly so called, but Natural Theology, Arts of life, both mechanical and liberal. ON D'ALEMBERT'S ENCYCLOPEDICAL TREE. 17 right use of signs, 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." 1 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," says Mr. Smith, " was divided into three great branches, Physics, or Natural Philosophy ; Ethics, or Moral Philosophy; and Logic. This general division" he adds, "seems perfectly agreeable 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 whatever their essence may be supposed 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." 2 Dr. Campbell, in his Philosophy of Rhetoric, has borrowed from the Grecian schools the same very extensive use of the words physics and physiology, which he employs as synonymous 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, " have 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 experience." 3 1 See the concluding chapter of the * Wealth of Nations, Book V. chap. i. Essay on the Human Understanding, entitled, " Of the Division of the s 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. Turgot to comprehend under the name of Physics, not only Natural Philosophy, (as that phrase is understood by the Newtonians,) but Metaphysics, Logic, and even History. 1 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 province of observation, a power habitually awake to all the perceptions and impressions of the bodily organs ? and does not the other fall exclusively under the cognizance of reflection, an operation which inverts all the ordinary habits of the understanding, abstracting the thoughts from every sensible object, and even striving to abstract them from every sensible image ? What abuse of language can be greater than to apply 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 Physics, in particular, which, in our language, long and constant use has restricted to the phe- 1 " Sous le nom de sciences phy- (Euvres de Turgot, tome ii. pp. 284, siques je comprends la logique, qui est 285. la connoissance des operations de notre In the year 1795, a quarto volume esprit et de la generation de nos idees, was published at Bath, entitled Intel- la, metaphysique, qui s'occupe de la lectudl Physics. It consists entirely of nature et de 1'origine des etres, et enfin speculations concerning the human la physique, proprement dite, qui ob- mind, and is by no means destitute of serve 1'action mutuel des corps les uns merit. The publication was anony- sur les autres, et les causes et 1'en- mous ; but I have reason to believe that chainement des phenomenes sensibles. the author was the late well-known On pourroit y ajouter I'histoire." Governor Pownall. ON D'ALEMBERT'S ENCYCLOPEDICAL TREE. 19 nomena of Matter, cannot fail to strike every ear as anomalously, and therefore illogically, applied, when extended to those of Thought and of Consciousness. Nor let it be imagined that these observations assume any particular theory about the nature or essence of Mind. Whether we adopt, on this point, the language of the Materialists, or that of their opponents, it is a proposition equally certain and equally indisputable, that the phenomena of Mind and those of Matter, as far as they come under the cognizance of our faculties, appear to be more completely heterogeneous than any other classes of facts within the circle of our knowledge ; and that the sources of our information concerning them are in every respect so radically different, that nothing is more carefully to be avoided, in the study of either, than an attempt to assimilate them, by means of analogical or metaphorical terms, applied to both in common. In those inquiries, above all, where we have occasion to consider Matter and Mind as conspiring to produce the same joint effects, (in the constitution, for example, of our own compounded frame,) it becomes more peculiarly necessary to keep constantly in view the distinct province of each, 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 sciences and arts. No branch of human knowledge, no work of human skill, can be mentioned, which does not obviously fall under the former 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 attempted 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 different 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 innumerable 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 Black 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 this disadvantage may be partly compensated 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 requires a discriminating eye to detect its existence, and a tedious, as well as nice process, to extract it from the ore. ON D ALEMBEKT S ENCYCLOPEDICAL TREE. 21 To the same circumstance it is owing, that improvements in moral and in political science do not strike the imagination with nearly so great force as the discoveries of the mathematician or of the chemist. When an inveterate prejudice is destroyed by extirpating the casual associations on which it was grafted, how powerful is the new impulse given to the intellectual faculties of man ! Yet how slow and silent the process by which the effect is accomplished ! 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 believe that the reason of the species is progressive. In this respect, the religious and academical establishments in some parts of Europe are not without their use to the historian of the human mind. Immovably moored to the same station by the strength 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. This, too, is remarkable in the history of our prejudices, that as soon as the film falls from the intellectual eye, we are apt to lose all recollection of our former blindness. Like the fantastic 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, while the illusion lasts, the same effect with truths and realities ; but the moment the eye has caught the exact 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 already 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 professedly to be carried 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. definitions, the subsequent freedom of thought and of expression. The example of the French Encyclopedic cannot be here justly alleged as a precedent. The preliminary pages by 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 prevailing 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 principles. The Sciences to which I mean to confine my observations are Metaphysics, Etliics, 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 modern 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. PAKT I. IN the following Historical and Critical Sketches, it has been judged proper by the different writers, to confine their views entirely to the period which has elapsed since the revival of letters. To have extended their retrospects 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 pages 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 perspi- 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 rapid succession of evanes- cent portraits, shall study to fix their attention on those great lights of the world by whom the torch of science has been sue- 24 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. cessively seized and transmitted. 1 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. 1 I have ventured here to combine a petually transferring from hand to hand scriptural expression with an allusion the concerns and duties of this fleeting of Plato's to a Grecian game ; an allu- scene. Tirtuvrts *< ixrgiQovns xa.lla.s, sion which, in his writings, is finely and x.a.6a.it(.^ Xa^WSa TO> /3/ov -ra,^a^t^ovTi( pathetically applied to the rapid succes- aXXa/; i| a/./.wv (Plato, Leg. lib. sion of generations, through which the vi.) continuity of human life is maintained "Et quasi cursores vital lampadatradunt." from age to age ; and which are per- Lucret. PHILOSOPHY FROM THE REVIVAL TO BACON. 25 CHAPTER I. FROM THE REVIVAL OF LETTERS TO THE PUBLICATION OF BACONS PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS. THE long interval, commonly known by the name of the middle ages, which immediately preceded the revival of letters in the western part of Europe, 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 affords, in conjunction with other causes, which will afterwards fall under our review, some security against any future recurrence 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 contemporaries the fruits of their own acquirements. For in no one age from its commencement to its close, does the continuity of knowledge (if I may borrow an expression of Mr. Harris) seem to have been entirely inter- rupted : " There was always a faint twilight, like that auspi- cious gleam which, in a summer's night, fills up the interval between the setting and the rising sun." 1 On the present occa- 1 Philological Inquiries, Part iii. chap. i. 26 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. sion, I shall content myself with remarking the important effects produced by the numerous monastic establishments all over the Christian world, in preserving, amidst the general wreck, the inestimable remains of Greek and Koman refinement ; and in keeping alive, during so many centuries, those scattered sparks of truth and of science, which were afterwards to kindle into so bright a flame. I mention this particularly, because, in our zeal against the vices and corruptions of the Eomish Church, we are too apt to forget, how deeply we are indebted to its superstitious and apparently useless foundations, for the most precious advantages that we now enjoy. The study of the Koman Law, which, from a variety of causes, natural as well as 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 the curiosity of men, more happily adapted to improve their taste, to enlarge their views, or to invigorate their reasoning 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, while 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. PHILOSOPHY FROM THE REVIVAL TO BACON. 27 everywhere turned the spirit of philosophical inquiry from frivolous or abstruse speculations, to the business and affairs of men." l The revival of letters may be considered as coeval with the fall of the Eastern empire, towards the close of the fifteenth century. In consequence of this event, a number of learned Greeks took refuge in Italy, where the taste for literature already introduced 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 translations, 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 succeeded by an unbounded admira- tion for the wisdom of antiquity ; and in proportion as the pedantry of the schools disappeared in the universities, that of erudition and philology occupied its place. Meanwhile an important advantage was gained in the im- mense stock of materials which the ancient authors supplied to the reflections of speculative men ; and which, although fre- quently accumulated with little discrimination or profit, were much more favourable to the development of taste and of genius than the unsubstantial subtleties of ontology or of dia- lectics. By such studies were formed Erasmus, 2 Ludovicus 1 Dr. Kobertson, from whom I quote Luther himself to the progress of the these words, has mentioned this change Eeformation among men of education as the glory of the present age, mean- and taste ; but, without the co-operation ing, I presume, the period which has of bolder and more decided characters elapsed since the time of Montesquieu. than his, little would to this day have By what steps the philosophy to which been effected in Europe among the he alludes took its rise from the systems of lower orders. "Erasmus imagined," jurisprudence previously in fashion, will as is observed by his biographer, " that appear in the sequel of this Discourse. at length, by training up youth in learn- * The writings of Erasmus probably ing and useful knowledge, those reli- contributed still more than those of gious improvements would gradually be 28 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. Vives, 1 Sir Thomas More, 2 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 Eeformation, which foUowed 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 which it was produced. The renunciation, in a great part of Europe, of theological brought about, which the princes, the prelates, and the divines of his days could not be persuaded to admit or to tolerate." (Jortin, p. 279.) In yield- ing, however, to this pleasing expecta- tion, Erasmus must have flattered him- self with the hope, 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 Eomish Church, that " Erasmus laid the egg, and Luther hatched it;" and there is more truth in the remark, than in most of their sarcasms on the same subject. 1 Ludovicus Vives 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. 255. " He was invited into England by Wolsey in 1523 : and coming to Oxford, he read the Cardinal's lecture of Hu- manity, and also lectures of Civil Law, which Henry VIII. and his Queen, Catharine, did him the honour of at- tending." (JfoW. 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, he discovers a mind more comprehen- sive and sagacious than any of them. Erasmus appears, from a letter of his to Budseus, (dated in 1521,) to have fore- seen the brilliant career which Vives, then a very young man, was about to run. " Vives in stadio literario, non minus feliciter quain gnaviter decertat, et si satis ingenium hominis novi, non conquiescet, donee omnes 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 seq. 1 See Note A. CHAP. I. PHILOSOPHY FROM THE REVIVAL TO BACON. 29 opinions so long consecrated by time, and the adoption of a creed more pure in its principles, and more liberal in its spirit, could not fail to encourage, on all other subjects, a congenial freedom of inquiry. These circumstances operated still more directly and powerfully, by their influence in undermining the authority of Aristotle ; an authority which for many years was scarcely inferior in the schools to that of the Scriptures, and which, in some Universities, was supported by statutes, requir- ing the teachers to promise upon oath, that, in their public lec- tures, they would follow no other guide. Luther, 1 who was perfectly aware of the corruptions which the Romish Church had contrived to connect with their venera- tion for the Stagirite, 2 not only threw off the yoke himself, but, in various parts of his writings, speaks of Aristotle with most unbecoming asperity and contempt. 3 In one very remarkable passage, he asserts, that the study of Aristotle was wholly use- less, not only in Theology, but in Natural Philosophy. " What does it contribute," he asks, " to the knowledge of things, to trifle and cavil in language conceived and prescribed by Aris- totle, concerning matter, form, motion, and time ?" 4 The same 1 Born 1483, died 1546. naturalem philosophiam. Quid enim 2 In one of his letters be writes thus : juvet ad rerum cognitionem, si de ma- " Ego simpliciter credo, quod impossi- teria, forma, motu, tempore, nugari et bile sit ecclesiam reformari, nisi funditus cavillari queas verbis ab Aristotele con- canones, decretales, scholastica theo- ceptis et praescriptis ?" Bruck. Hist. logia, philosophia, logica, ut nunc haben- Phil. torn. iv. p. 101. tur, eradicentur, et alia instituantur." The following passage to the same Bruckeri Hist. Crit. Phil. torn. iv. p. 95. purpose is quoted by Bayle : " Non mihi 8 For a specimen of Luther's scur- persuadebitis, philosophiam esse garru- rility against Aristotle, see Bayle, Art. litatem illam de materia, motu, infinite, Luther, Note HH. loco, vacuo, tempore, qua) fere in Aris- In Luther's CoUoquia Mensalia we totele sola discimus, talia quse nee in- are told, that " he abhorred the school- tellectum, nee affectum, nee communes men, and called them sophistical locusts, hominum mores quidquam juvent ; tan- caterpillars, frogs, and lice." From the turn contentionibus serendis, seminan- same work we learn, that " he hated disque idonea." Bayle, Art. Luther, Aristotle, but highly esteemed Cicero, Note HH. as a wise and good man." See Jortin's I borrow from Bayle another short Life of Erasmus, p. 121. extract from Luther: "Nihil ita ardet 4 "Nihil adjumenti ex ipso haberi animus, quam histrionem ilium, (Aris- posse non solum ad theologiam seu totelem,) qui tarn vere Grseca larva sacras literas, verum etiam ad ipsam ecclesiam lusit, multis revelare, igno- 30 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. freedom of thought on topics not strictly theological, formed a prominent feature in the character 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 morality to accept of interest for a pecuniary loan ?" On this question, which, even in Protestant 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 be judged of from any particular text of Scripture, but upon the principles of natural equity. 1 The example of these two Fathers of the Keformation, would probably have been followed by conse- quences still greater and more immediate, if Melanchthon had not unfortunately given the sanction of his name to the doc- trines of the Peripatetic school ; 2 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, which took place very nearly at the same time with the fall of the Eastern Empire, besides add- ing greatly to the efficacy of the causes above-mentioned, must have been attended with very important effects of its own, on the progress of the human mind. For us who have been accus- miniamqne ejus cunctis ostendere, si strenuous parti san of the sect of Nomln- otium esset. Habeo in maims comment- alists, or, as they were then generally ariolosin 1. Physicorum, quibus fabulam called, Terminists. Bruck. torn. iv. pp. Aristae? denuo agere statui in meum 93, 94, et seq. istumProtea (Aristotelem). Pars crucis l See Note B. meae vel maxima est, quod videre cogor * "Et Melanchthoni quidem prsecipue fratrum optima ingenia, bonis studiis debetur conservatio philosophise Aris- nata, in istis ccenis vitam agere, et totelicae in acaderaiis protestantium. operam perdere." Ibid. Scripsit is compendia plerarumque dis- That Luther was deeply skilled in the ciplinarum philosophise Aristotelicae, scholastic philosophy we learn from very quae in Academiis diu regnarunt." high authority, that of Melanchthon; Heineccii, Elem. Hist. Phil. $ciii. See who tells us farther, that he was a also Bayle's Diet., Art. Melanchthon. CHAP. I. PHILOSOPHY FROM THE REVIVAL TO BACON. 31 tomed, from our infancy, to the use of books, it is not easy to form an adequate idea of the disadvantages which those laboured under, who had to acquire the whole of their knowledge through the medium of universities and schools ; blindly devoted as the generality of students must then have been to the peculiar opinions of the teacher, who first unfolded to their curiosity the treasures of literature and the wonders of science. Thus error was perpetuated ; and, instead of yielding to time, acquired ad- ditional influence in each successive generation. 1 In modern times, this influence of names is, comparatively speaking, at an end. The object of a public teacher is no longer to inculcate a particular system of dogmas^ but to prepare his pupils for exer- cising their own judgments ; to exhibit to them an outline of the different sciences, and to suggest subjects for their future examination. The few attempts to establish schools, and to found sects, have all (after perhaps a temporary success) proved abortive. Their effect, too, during their short continuance, has been perfectly the reverse of that of the schools of antiquity ; for whereas these were instrumental, on many occasions, in establishing and diffusing error in the world, the founders of our modern sects, by mixing up important truths with their own peculiar tenets, and by disguising them under the garb of a technical phraseology, have fostered such prejudices against themselves, as have blinded the public mind to all the lights 1 It was in consequence of this mode as well as most eloquent adherents, of conducting education, by means of "As for other sects," says Cicero, "who oral instruction alone, that the different are hound in fetters, before they are able sects of philosophy arose in ancient to form any judgment of what is right Greece ; and it seems to have been with or true, and who have been led to yield a view of counteracting the obvious in- themselves up, in their tender years, to conveniences resulting from them, that the guidance of some friend, or to the Socrates introduced his peculiar method captivating eloquence of the teacher of questioning, with an air of sceptical whom they have first heard, they assume diffidence, those whom he was anxious to themselves the right of pronouncing to instruct ; so as to allow them, in upon questions of which they are corn- forming their conclusions, the complete pletely ignorant ; adhering to whatever and unbiassed exercise of their own rea- creed the wind of doctrine may have son. Such, at least, is the apology driven them, as if it were the only rock offered for the apparent indecision of the on which their safety depended." Cic. Academic school, by one of its wisest, Lucullus, 3. 32 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. they were able to communicate. Of this remark a melancholy illustration occurs (as 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 would 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 individuals, 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 gradually 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 within certain artificial channels, marked out by the narrow views of human policy. The diffusion of knowledge, therefore, occasioned by the rise of the lower orders, would necessarily contribute to the improvement of useful CHAP. I. PHILOSOPHY FEOM 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 effect 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 tongues. 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. 1 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 thrown down ; and the naked shepherd levelled with the knight clad in steel." To all these considerations may be added the gradual effects of time and experience in correcting the errors and prejudices which had misled philosophers during so long a succession of ages. 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 the history of ancient science. 2 The boldest and most suc- cessful of this new school was the celebrated Paracelsus ; born in 1493, and consequently only ten years younger than Luther. " It is impossible to doubt," says Le Clero, in his History of Physic, "that he possessed an extensive knowledge of what " The sacred books were, in almost of oral speech, may he easily imagined, all the kingdoms and states of Europe, The vulgar translation of the Bible into translated into the language of each English, is pronounced hy Dr. Lowth respective people, particularly in Ger- to be still the best standard of our many, Italy, France, and Britain." language. (Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. vol. iii. p. 2 " Hsec nostra (ut ssepe diximus) 265.) The effect of this single circura- felicitatis cujusdam sunt potius quam stance in multiplying the number of facultatis, et potiu-s temporis pnrtus readers and of thinkers, and in giving quam ingenii." Nov. Org. lib. i c. a certain stability to the mutable forms xxiii. VOL. I. C 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 results 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." 1 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 have hid, but Paracelsus extin- guished the light of nature. The sophists 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 revival 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 1 Hisioire de la Hedecine, (a la Haye, 1729 ; ) p. 819. CHAP. I. PHILOSOPHY FliOM THE REVIVAL 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 was transplanted to the south, and the inhabitants 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. " Everything," continues the same writer, " has changed, and must yet change more. But it is a question whether the revo- lutions that are past, or those which must hereafter take place, have been, or can be, of any utility to the human race. Will they add to the tranquillity, to the enjoyments, and to the hap- piness of mankind ? Can they improve our present state, or do they only change it ?" 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 moral importance of the events in question. I cannot, however, forbear to remark, in addition to Kaynal's eloquent and impressive summary, the inestimable treasure of new facts which these events have 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 prophecy, Multi pertransibunt, et augebitur scientia ; or, in the still more emphatic words of our English version, " Many shall go to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." * The same prediction may be applied to the gra- 1 " Neque omittenda est prophetia tia: Manifesto innuens et significans, Danielis de ultimis mundi temporibus ; esse in fatis, id est, in providentia, ut multi pertransibunt, et augebitur scien- pertransitus mundi (qui per tot longiu- DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. dual renewal (in proportion as modern governments became effectual in securing order and tranquillity) of that intercourse between the different states of Europe which 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, 1 the Genius of the human race quas navigationes impletur plane, aut jam in opere esse videtur) et augmenta scientiarnm in eandem setatem inci- dant." Nov. Org. lib. i. xciii. 1 Such 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, hut 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 Philosophj', by Bacon, Gas- eendi, 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- set Democritus, exsiluisset forte ; et mo- dum videndi Atomum (quern ille invisi- bilem omnino affirmavit) inventum fuisse putasset." Nov. Org. lib. ii. g 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, 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 the 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 1'imprimerie a sans doute avance le pro- gres de 1'espece humaine ; rnais cette invention etoit elle-meme une suite de 1'usage de la lecture repandu dans nn grand nombre de pays." Vie de Turgot. CHAP. I. PHILOSOPHY FROM THE REVIVAL TO BACOX. 37 seems, all at once, to have awakened with renovated and giant strength from his long sleep. In less than 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 afterwards, 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 imperfectly understood ; or the bold spirit of inquiry which encouraged him to exercise his private judgment, in opposition to the authority of Aristotle, to the decrees of the Church of Home, and to the universal belief of the learned, during a long succession of ages. He appears, indeed, to have well merited the encomium bestowed on him by Kepler, when he calls him " a man of vast genius, and, what is of still greater moment in these researches, a man of a free mind." The establishment of the Copernican system, beside the new field of study which it opened to Astronomers, must have had great eifects on philosophy in all its branches, by inspiring those sanguine prospects of future improvement, which stimulate curiosity and invigorate the inventive powers. It afforded to the common sense, even of the illiterate, a palpable and incon- trovertible proof, that the ancients had not exhausted the stock of possible discoveries ; and that, in matters of science, the creed of the Komish Church was not infallible. In the conclu- sion of one of Kepler's works, we perceive the influence of these prospects on his mind. " Haec et cetera hujusmodi latent in pandectis sevi sequentis, non antea discenda, quam librum hunc Deus arbiter seculorum recluserit mortalibus." 1 I have hitherto taken no notice of the effects of the revival 1 Epit. Astron. Copernic. 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 Reforma- tion on the practical doctrines of ethics appears to have been great and immediate. We may judge of this 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," 1 This language was, un- doubtedly, a most important step towards a just system 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. 2 Many 1 " Proinde sic statuimus, nihilo minus See his Historia Doctriiue de Vero divinaprseceptaesseea,qusea sensu com- Deo. Lemgoviae, 1780, p. 12. muni et naturae judicio mutuati docti s It is observed by Dr. Cudworth, that homines gentiles literis mandarunt, the doctrine which refers the origin of quam quae extant in ipsis saxeis Mosis moral distinctions to the arbitrary ap- tabulis. Neque ille ipse caelestis Pater pointment of the Deity, was strongly pluris a nobis fieri eas leges voluit, quas reprobated by the ancient fathers of the in saxo scripsit, quam quas in ipsos ani- Christian church, and that it crept up morum nostrorum sensus impresserat." afterward in the scholastic ages ; Occam Not having it in my power at pre- being among the first that maintained, sent to consult Melanchthon's works, I that there is no act evil, but as it is have transcribed the foregoing para- prohibited by God, and which cannot graph on the authority of a learned be made good, if it be commanded by German Professor, Christ. Meiners. him. In this doctrine he was quickly CHAP. I. PHILOSOPHY FROM THE EEVIVAL TO BACON. 39 years were yet to elapse before any attempts were to be made to trace, with analytical accuracy, the moral phenomena of human 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. 1 followed by Petrus Alliacus, Andreas de Novo Castro, and others. See Treatise of Immutable Morality. It is pleasing to remark, how very generally the heresy here ascribed to Occam is now reprobated by good men of all persuasions. The Catholics have even begun to recriminate on the Re- formers as the first broachers of it ; and it is to be regretted, that in some of the writings of the latter, too near ap- proaches to it are to be found. The truth 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 from a highly respectable Catholic writer on the law of nature and nations : " Qui rationem exsulare jubent a moralibus praeceptis quse in sacris literis tra- duntur, et in absurdam enormemque LUTHERI sententiam imprudentes inci- dunt (quam egregie et elegantissime re- futavit Melchior Canus Loc. Theolog. lib. ix. and x.) et ea decent, quae si sectatores inveniant moralia omnia sus- que deque miscere, et revelationem ipsam inutilem omnino et inefficacem reddere possent." (Lampredi Floren- tini Juris Natures, et Gentium Theore- mata, torn. ii. p. 195. Pisis, 1782.) For the continuation of the passage, 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 dis- approbation of them so explicitly and decidedly as Melanchthon and other re- formers have done. 1 " 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 Reformation. The glorious defen- ders of religious liberty, to whom we owe the various blessings of the Refor- mation, could not, at once, behold the truth in all its lustre, and in all its ex- tent ; but, as usually happens 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 Moslieim. Lon- don, 2d ed. vol. iv. p. 19.) He after- 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 works are an impediment to salvation." Ibid. p. 39. Mosheim, after remarking that " there are more excellent rules of conduct in the few practical productions of Luther and Melanchthon, than are to be found in the innumerable volumes of all the ancient casuists and moralizers," can- didly acknowledges, " that the notions of these 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 rettgiosa calliditas, 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 Reformers, 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 I 1 From this period may be dated the decline 2 of that worst of portant science of morality were far from being sufficiently accurate or ex- tensive. Melanchthon 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 instructions, under the theological articles that relate to the law, sin, free-will, faith, hope, and charity." Mosheiin's Eccles. Hist. 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, life, and manners for its objects." Ibid. pp. 120, 121. 1 " Et tamen ni doctores, angelici, cherubici, seraphici non modo uni- versam philosophiam ac theologian! erroribus quam plurimis inquinarunt ; verum etiam in philosophiam moralem invexere sacerrima ista principia pro- babilismi, methodi dirifjendi intentio- nem, reservations mentalis, peccati phi- losophici, quibus Jesuitce etiamnum mirifice delectantur." Heinecc. Elem. Histor. Phil. 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 Ecclesias- tical History, vol. iv. p. 354 ; Dornford's Translation of Putter's Historical De- velopment of the Present Political Con- stitution of tJie Germanic Empire, vol. ii. p. 6 ; and the Appendix to Penrose's Hampton Lectures. 2 I have said, the decline of this heresy, for it was by no means imme- diately extirpated even in the reformed churches. " As late as the year 1598, Daniel Hoffman, Professor of Divinity in the University of Helmstadt, laying hold of some particular opinions of Luther, extravagantly maintained, that philosophy was the mortal enemy of CHAP. I. PHILOSOPHY FROM THE REVIVAL TO BACON. 41 all heresies of the Romish Church, which, by opposing revela- 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 born as early as 1469, that is, about ten years before Luther ; and, like that reformer, acquired by the commanding superiority of his genius, an astonishing ascendant (though of a very different nature) over the minds of his followers. No writer, certainly, either in ancient or in modern 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 graphical skill in holding up to laughter the comparatively harmless follies of ordinary life. His dramatic humour has been often compared to that of Moliere ; but it resembles it rather in comic force, than in benevolent gaiety, or in chastened morality. Such as it is, however, it forms an extraordinary contrast to that strength of intellectual character, which, in one page, reminds us of the deep sense of Tacitus, and in the next, of the dark and infernal policy of Ceesar Borgia. To all this must be superadded a purity of taste, which has enabled him, as an his- religion ; that truth was divisible into what was true in philosophy, was two branches, the one philosophical, false in theology." Mosheim, vol. iv. and the other theological ; 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 afterwards to atTord 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 cause dans 1'Etat, e'est la pratique que leurs interets particuliers mal entendus y ont introduite, de soutenir toujours le superieur con- tre Tinferieur. Cette maxime est de Machiavel, que la plupart des gens qui le lisent u'entendent pas, et que les autres croient avoir ete habile, parce qu'il a toujours ete mediant. II 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." 1 ] Eminent, however, as the talents of Machiavel unquestionably were, he cannot be numbered among the benefactors of man- kind. In none of his writings does he exhibit any marks of that li vely sympathy with the fortunes of the human 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 Reason and the diffusion 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. 2 He assumes also 1 [Memoires du Cardinal de Retz. when one man, the worst and perhaps Liv. iii. (1650).] the basest in the country, governs a 2 " 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 possibility of retaining mankind in perpetual bondage by the old policy of the double doctrine ; or, in other words, by enlightening the few, and hoodwinking the many; a policy 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 been contended, indeed, by some of Machiavel's apologists, 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 be most effectually resisted ; and, at the same time, to satirize, under the ironical mask of loyal and courtly admonition, the characteristical vices of princes. 1 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 views, 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 which it has been regarded by this class of students as a disguised panegyric upon liberty and virtue. The question concerning the motives of the author is surely of little moment, when experience has enabled us to pronounce so de- cidedly on the practical effects of his precepts. " About the period of the Reformation," says Condorcet, " the principles of religious Machiavelism had become the only creed of princes, of ministers, and of pontiffs ; and the same opinions had contributed to corrupt philosophy. What code, indeed, of morals," he adds, " was to be expected from a system, of which one of the principles is, that it is necessary 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 escape !" The fact is 1 See Note C. 44 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. perhaps stated in terms somewhat too unqualified ; 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 Eoman Pontiffs, does not seern 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- tianas fidei Columnae 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 arcanae illius Theologias quae inter eos regnat, caput est; millum esse Deum; casterum, quaecunque de Christo scripta sunt docentur mendacia esse et imposturas." 1 ] 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 oppo- 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." 2 And here, may I be permitted to caution my readers against the common error of confounding the double doctrine of Machi- avellian politicians, with the benevolent reverence for established opinions, manifested in the noted maxim of Pontenelle, " 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 light, because 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 mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately as candle-light." The philosopher, on the other hand, w T ho is duly impressed with the 1 [Calvini Instit. lib. iv. cap. 7, 17.] 2 Millot. CHAP. I. PHILOSOPHY FROM THE REVIVAL TO BACON. 45 latter, may be compared to the oculist, who, after removing 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. 1 Machiavel is well known to have been, at bottom, no friend to the priesthood ; and his character has been stigmatized by many of the order, with the most opprobrious epithets. It is nevertheless certain, that to his maxims the royal defenders of the Catholic faith have been indebted for the spirit of that policy which they have uniformly opposed to the innovations of the Reformers. The Prince was a favourite book of the Emperor Charles V., and was called the Bible of Catharine of Medicis. At the court of the latter, while Regent of France, those who approached her are said to have professed openly its most atrocious maxims, particularly that which recommends to sovereigns not to commit crimes by halves. The Italian cardinals, who are supposed to have been the secret instigators of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, were bred in the same school. 2 mernent a 1'interet personnel qu'il avoit de les soutenir ; et la liberte des opin- ions de Fontenelle a 1'interet general, pent etre quelquefois mal entendu, qu'il prenoit au progres de la raison dans tons les genres." What follows may be regarded in the light of a comment on the maxim above quoted : " La finesse de la Motte est plus developpee, celle de Fontenelle laisse plnsadeviner a son lecteur. La Motte, sansjamais en trop dire, n'onblie rien de ce que son sujet lui presente, met habilement tout en ceuvre, et semble craindre perdre par des reticences trop subtiles quelqu'un de ses avantages ; Fontenelle, sans jamais etre obscur, excepte pour ceux qui ne meritent pas meme qu'on soit clair, se menage a la fois et le plaisir de sous- entendre, et celui d'esperer qu'il sera pleinement entendu par ceux qui en sont dignes." Elor/e de la Motte. 2 Voltaire, Essay on Universal His- tory. 1 How strange is the following mis- representation of Fontenelle's fine and deep saying, by the comparatively coarse hand of the Baron de Grimm ! " II disoit, que s'il cut tenu la verite clans ses mains comme un oiseau, il 1'auroit etouffee, tant il regardoit le plus beau present du ciel inutile et dangereux pour le genre humain." (Memoir es Jfistoriques, &c. par le Baron de Grimm. Londres, 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 form- ed from an expression of D'Alembert, in his very ingenious and philosophical parallel between Fontenelle and La Motte. " Tons deux ont porte trop loin leur revolte decidee, quoique douce en apparence, contre les dieux et les lois du Parnasse ; mais la liberte des opin- ions de la Motte semble tenir plus inti- 46 DISSERTATION. PART 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 having confined his study to the furious and tyrannical governments of ancient times, or to the little disorderly principalities of Italy, his reasonings, especially upon monarchical 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." l To these very judicious remarks, it may be added, that the bent of Machiavel's mind seems to have disposed him much more strongly to combine and to generalize his historical reading, than to remount 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 empirical 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 morality and good order, in every part of Europe, since the period of which I am now speaking, forms so pleasing a com- ment on the profligate and short-sighted policy of Machiavel, 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 writer, whose strictures on Machiavel's Prince I had already occasion to quote. " Though all kinds of government," says Mr. Hume, " be improved in modern times, yet monar- chical government seems to have made the greatest advances towards perfection. It may now be affirmed of civilized monarchies, what was formerly said of republics alone, that 1 Essay on Civil Liberty. CHAP. I. PHILOSOPHY FROM THE REVIVAL TO BACON. 47 they are a government of laws, not of men. They are found susceptible of order, method, and constancy, to a surprising degree. Property is there secure, industry encouraged, the arts flourish, and the Prince lives secure among his subjects, like a father among his children. There are, perhaps, and have been for two centuries, near two hundred absolute princes, great and small, in Europe ; and allowing twenty years to each reign, we may suppose that there have been in the whole two thousand monarchs or tyrants, as the Greeks would have called them. Yet of these there has not been one, not even Philip II. of Spain, so bad as Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, or Domitian, who were four in twelve among the Roman Emperors." 1 For this very remarkable fact, it seems difficult to assign any cause equal to the effect, but the increased diffusion of knowledge (imperfect, alas ! as this diffusion still is) by means of the Press ; which, while it has raised, in free states, a growing bulwark against the oppression of rulers, in the light and spirit of the people, has, even under the most absolute governments, had a powerful influence by teaching princes to regard the wealth, and prosperity, and instruction 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 prospect thus opened of the future history of the world ! And what a motive to animate the ambition of those, who, in the solitude of the closet, aspire to bequeath their contributions, how slender soever, to the progressive mass of human improvement and happiness ! [The true interest of an absolute monarch, (says Gibbon,) generally coincides with that of his people. Their numbers, their wealth, their order, and their security, 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 same 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 splendid period of its history which commences with the revival of 1 Essay on Civil Liberty. 48 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. letters, it is surprising how few names occur, which it is possi- ble to connect, by any palpable link, with the philosophical or political speculations of the present times. As an original and profound thinker, the genius of Machiavel completely eclipses that of all his contemporaries. Not that Italy was then desti- tute of writers who pretended to the character of philosophers ; but as their attempts were, in general, limited to the exclusive illustration and defence of some one or other of the ancient systems 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 occasional recurrence of their names in the catalogues of the curious, or in works of philological erudition. The zeal of Cardinal Bessarion, and of Marsilius Ficinus, for the revival of the Platonic philosophy, was more peculiarly remarkable ; 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 the 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 conclusions with his premises, we are not informed. To those who are uninitiated in the mysteries of the conclave, his inference would certainly appear much less logical than that of the old Koman Pagans, who petitioned the Senate to condemn the works of Cicero to the flames, as they predisposed the minds of those who read them for embracing the Christian faith. [That the apprehensions of these Pagans were not altogether groundless, appears from the account 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 liber de laudibus erat Philosophias a deo admirari se solitum scribit nihil ut requireret hie amplius, prater Jesu Christi nomen. Hujus etiam libri lectione ad Christianas, hoc est verre Philosophise CHAP. I. PHILOSOPHY FROM THE REVIVAL TO BACON. 49 contemplationem incensum se fuisse ingenue confitetur. (Lib. iii. Confess, cap. 4, et lib. viii. cap. 7, et principio Libri de Vita Seata). 1 ] By a small band of bolder innovators, belonging to this golden age of Italian literature, the Aristotelian, doctrines were more directly and powerfully assailed. Laurentius Valla, Marius Mzolius, and Franciscus Patricius, 2 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, Mzolius is the only one who seems entitled to maintain a permanent place in the annals of modern science. His principal work, entitled Antibarbarus, 3 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 Realists 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 written by himself. At the same period with Franciscus Patricius, nourished 1 [Cicero a Calumniis Vindicatus, auctore Andrea Schotto. Vide Cice- ronis Opera. Edit. Verburgii, torn. i. p. 59.] a His Discussiones Peripateticce were printed at Venice in 1571. Another work, entitled Nova de Universis Phi- losophia, also printed at Venice, appear- ed in 1593. I have never happened to meet with either : but from the account given of the author by Thuanus, he does not seem to have attracted that notice from his contemporaries to which his learning and talents entitled him. (Thuan. Hist. lib. cxix. xvii.) His Discussiones Peripateticce, are mention- ed by Brucker in the following terms : " Opus egregium, doctum, varium, lucu- lentum, sed invidia odioque in Aristo- telem plenum satis superque." (Hist. Phil. torn. iv. p. 425.) The same very laborious and candid writer acknow- ledges the assistance he had derived from Patricius in his account of the VOL. I. Peripatetic philosophy. " In qua trac- tatione fatemur egregiam enitere Pa- tricii doctrinam, ingenii elegantiam prorsus admirabilem, et quod primo loco ponendum est, insolitam veteris philo- sophise cognitionem, cujus ope nos Peri- pateticse discipline historise multoties lucem attulisse, grati suis locis professi sumus." Ibid. p. 426. 8 Antibarlarus, sive de Veris Prin- cipiis et Vera Ratione Philosophandi contra Pseudo -philosophos. Parma?, 1553. " Les faux philosophes," dit Fontenelle, " etoient tous les scholas- tiques passes et presens ; et Nizolius s'eleve avec la derniere hardiesse centre leurs idees monstrueuses et leur langage barbare. La longue et constante ad- miration qu'on avoit eu pour Aristote, ne prouvoit, disoit-il, que la multitude des sots et la duree de la sottise." The merits of this writer are much too lightly estimated by Brucker. See Hist. Phil. torn. iv. Pars I. pp. 91, 92. D 50 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. another learned Italian, Albericus Gentilis, whose writings seem to have attracted more notice in England and Germany 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. 1 He was the author of a treatise De Jure Belli, in three books, which appeared successively in 1588 and 1589, and were first published together 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 Pads 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 Gentilis to counteract the effect of Machiavel's 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. 2 The only other Italian of whom I shall take notice is Cam- panella, 3 a philosopher now remembered 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 grounds the eulogy of Leibnitz proceeds ; but as it is difficult to suppose that the praise of this great man 1 Wood's Atkence Oxonienses, vol. ii. primus, et fortasse in causa fuit cnr col 90. Dr. Bliss's edition. Grotius opus suum conscribere aggre- * The claims of Albericus Gentilis to deretur ; dignus sane qui prae ceteris be regarded as the father of Natural memoretur, Italiae enim, in qua ortus Jurisprudence, are strongly asserted by erat. et unde Juris Romani disciplinam his countryman Lampredi, in his very hauserat, gloriam auxit, effecitque ut judicious and elegant work, entitled, quse fuerat bonarum artium omnium Juris Publici Theoremata, published at restitutrix et altrix, eadem esset et Pisa in 1782. " Hie primus jus aliquod prima Jurisprudentise Naturalis ma- Belli et esse et tradi posse excogitavit, gistra." et Belli et Pacis regulas explanavit 3 Boni 1568, died 1639. CHAP. I. PHILOSOPHY FROM THE REVIVAL TO BACON. 51 was, 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 minutiae 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, possessed 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, their 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." * 1 Leibnit. Opera, vol. vi. p. 303, Ed. Campan. Physioloij. cap. xx. art. 2.) Of Dutens. It is probable that, in the his Political Aphorisms, (which form above passage, Leibnitz alluded more to the third part of his treatise on Morals,) the elevated tone of Campanella's rea- a sufficient idea for our purpose is con- soning on moral and political subjects, veyed by the concluding corollary, when contrasted with that of Hobbes, " Probitas custodit regem populosque ; than to the intellectual superiority of non autem indocta Machiavellistarum the former writer above the latter. No astutia." On the other hand, Campan- philosopher, certainly, has spoken with ella's works abound with immoralities more reverence than Campanella has and extravagancies far exceeding those done, on various occasions, of the dignity of Hobbes. In his idea of a perfect of human nature. A remarkaTSe in- commonwealth, (to which he gives the stance of this occurs in his eloquent name of Civitas Solis,} the impurity of comparison of the human hand with the his imagination and the unsoundness of organs of touch in other animals. ( Vide 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 1'Hopital, 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 effusions of his literary hours ; but as an upright and virtuous magistrate, he has left behind him a reputation unrivalled to this day. 1 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, 2 and gives the principal charm to the justly admired preface prefixed to his history. In tracing the progress of the human mind during the sixteenth century, such insulated and anomalous examples of the triumph of reason 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,) 3 an eminent French lawyer, who appears to have been one of the first that united a philosophical turn of thinking with an exten- sive knowledge of jurisprudence and of history. His learning is often ill digested, and his conclusions still oftener rash and unsound ; yet it is but justice to him to acknowledge that, in Ins views of the philosophy of law, he has approached very He recommends, under certain regula- 2 " One cannot help admiring," says tions, a community of women ; and in Dr. Jortin, " the decent manner in which everything connected with procreation, the illustrious Thuanus hath spoken of lays great stress on the opinions of as- Calvin: Acri vir ac vehementi ingenio, trologers. et admirabili facundia prreditus ; turn 1 " Magistrat au-dessus de tout eloge ; inter protestantes magni nominis Theo- et d'aprt-s lequel on a juge tous ceux logus." (Life of 'Erasmus, p. 555.) The qui ont ose s'asseoir sur ce meme tri- same Writer has remarked the f/reat de- bunal sans avoir son courage ni ses cency and moderation with which Thu- s." Henault, Abreye" Chrono- anus speaks of Luther. Ibid. p. 113. * Born 1530, died 1596. CHAP. I. PHILOSOPHY FEOM THE REVIVAL TO BACON. 53 nearly to some leading ideas of Lord Bacon, 1 while, in his re- fined combinations of historical facts, he has more than once struck into a train of speculation bearing a strong resemblance to that afterwards pursued by Montesquieu. 2 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 TJie Spirit of Laws (but in my opinion without any good reason) to the imputation of plagiarism. 3 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 Bpublique, 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 1 See, in particular, the preface to his the sixteenth centnry to have subjected book entitled Methodus adfacilem His- such questions to philosophical exami- toriarum cognitionem. nation, and to have formed so just a conception, as Boclin appears evidently 2 See the work De la Republique, to have done, not only of the object, but passim. In this treatise there are two of the importance of the modern science chapters singularly curious, considering of political economy. the time when they were written the Thuanus speaks highly of Bodin's second and third chapters of the sixth dissertations De re Monetaria, which I book. The first is entitled Des Fin- have never seen. The same historian ances; the second, Le Moyen d'empe- thus expresses himself with respect to cher que les Honnoyes soyent alter ees the work De Bepublica: "Opus in quo de Prix ou falsifiees. The reasonings ut omni scientiarum genere non tincti of the author, on various points there sed imbuti ingenii fidem fecit, sic non- treated of, will be apt to excite a emile nullis, qui recte judicant, non omnino among those who have studied the In- ab ostentationis innato genti vitio vacu- quiry into the Wealth of Nations ; but um se probavit." Hist. lib. cxvii. ix. it reflects no small credit on a lawver of s 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 G6- ngraux, assembled at Blois in 1576. " The mightier that a man is," says Boclin, " 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 Home'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 all 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." l The aim of the chapter from \vhich I have extracted the fore- going passage is to shew, that " it is a most dangerous thing, at 1 Book iv. chap. iii. The book from conduct of the judges who condemned which this quotation is taken was pub- to the flames this incorrigible heretic, lished only twenty-three years after the affords the most decisive of all proofs, murder of Servctus at Geneva, [on which how remote the sentiments of the most consult Gibbon's Misc. Works, vol. ii. enlightened Fathers of the Bcformation p. 214,] an event which leaves so deep a were from those Christian and philoso- stain on the memory not only of Calvin, pineal principles of toleration to which but on that of the milder and more chari- their noble exertions have gradually, table Melanchthon. The epistle of the and now almost universally, led the latter to Bullinger, where he applauds 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 commonwealth." The scope of the author's reasonings may be judged of from the concluding 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 between winter and summer, 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 appeareth." J 1 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 Latin versions of their respective authors. " Deum igitur prsepotentem naturae parentem imitemur, qui omnia paula- tim : namque semina perquam exigua in arbores excelsas excrescere jubet, id- que tarn occulte ut nemo sentiat." Bodinus. " Novator maximus tempus ; quidni igitur tempus imitemur ? " Quis novator tempus imitatur, quod novationes ita insinuat, ut sensus fal- lant ?" Bacon. The treatise of Bodin, De la Repub- lique, (by far the most important of his works,) was first printed at Paris in 1576, 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- con ; 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 Tlie Republic was done into English by- Richard Knolles, who appears to have collated the French and Latin copies so carefully and judiciously, that his ver- sion is, in some respects, superior to either of the originals. It is from this version, accordingly, that I have tran- scribed 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 Knolles's . merits as an historian and as an English writer, see the Rambler, No. 123. 56 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. Notwithstanding these wise and enlightened 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 affected to be sceptical about the reality of that crime, he has left a lasting memorial in a learned and curious volume entitled Dtmonomanie;^ while the eccentricity of his religious tenets was such as to incline the candid mind of Grrotius to suspect him of a secret leaning to the Jewish faith. 2 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 1 De la Demonomanie des Sorciers. tholic Church, having been formally Par J. Bodin Angevin, a Paris, 1580. condemned and prohibited by the Ro- This book, which exhibits so melan- man Inquisition. The reflection of the choly a contrast to the mental powers Jesuit Martin del Rio on this occasion displayed in the treatise De la Repub- is worth transcribing : " Adeo lubri- lique, was dedicated by the author to cum et pericidosum de his disserere, his friend, the President de Thou ; and nisi Deum semper, et catholicam fidem, it is somewhat amusing to find, that it ecclesueque Romance censur am tanquam exposed Bodin himself to the imputation cynosuram sequaris." Disquisitionum of being a magician. For this we have Magicarum, Libri sex. Auctore Mar- the testimony of the illustrious histo- tino del Rio, Societatis Jesu Presbytero. rian just mentioned. (Thuanus, lib. Venet. 1640, p. 8. cxvii. ix.) Nor did it recommend the * JEpist. ad Cordesivm, (quoted by author to the good opinion of the Ca- Bayle.) CHAP. I. PHILOSOPHY FROM THE REVIVAL TO BACON. 57 from his letters, was an interpreter of dreams, and a caster of nativities; 1 [Erasmus, as Mr. Gibbon has remarked, "who could see through much more plausible fables, believed firmly in witchcraft ;" 2 J 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. 3 Nor was the study of the severer sciences, on all occasions, an effectual remedy against such illusions of the imagination. The sagacious Kepler was an astrologer and a visionary ; and his friend Tycho Brahe, the Prince of Astro- nomers, kept an idiot in his service, to whose prophecies he listened as revelations from above. 4 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." 5 1 Jortin's Life of Erasmus, p. 156. neglect ; otherwise it is impossible that 2 [Gibbon's Miscell. WorJcs, vol. ii. so many gross mistakes should be cur- p. 76. The character of Erasmus, both rent about the scope and spirit of his intellectual and moral, is drawn in the principles. By many he has been men- passage here referred to, with an im- tioned as a zealot for republican forms partial and masterly han/1. The critical of government, (probably for no better reflections on his Ciceronianus are en- reason than that he chose to call his titled to particular attention.] book a Treatise De Mepublica /) where- 3 See Note E. as, in point of fact, he is uniformly a * See the Life of Tycho Brahe, by warm and able advocate for monarchy ; Gassendi. and, although no friend to tyranny, has, 5 I have allotted to Bodin a larger on more than one occasion, carried his space than may seem due to his literary monarchical principles to a very blame- importance ; but the truth is, I know of no able excess. (See, in particular, chapter political writer, of the same date, whose fourth and fifth of the Sixth Book.) On extensive and various and discriminat- the other hand, Grouvelle, a writer of ing reading appears to me to have con- some note, has classed Bodin with tributed more to facilitate and to guide Aristotle, as an advocate for domestic the researches of his successors; or slavery. " The reasonings of both," he whose references to ancient learning says, " are refuted by Montesquieu." have been more frequently transcribed (De Vautorite de Montesquieu dans la without acknowledgment. Of late, his Revolution presente. Paris, 1789.) Who- works have fallen into very general ever has the curiosity to compare Bodin 58 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. In the midst of the disorders, both political and moral, of ' that unfortunate age, it is pleasing to observe the anticipations 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 Budteus. 2 But, of all the writers of the sixteenth century, Ludovicus Vives 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 satis- 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 a Jean Bodin la qualite d'ecrivain exact et judicieux, laissons lui sans controverse, uu grand genie, un vaste savoir, une memoire et une lecture prodigieuses." 1 See, in particular, his Metlwd of Studying History, chap. vii. entitled, Confutatio eorum qui quatuor Mo- narchias Aureaque Secula statuerunt. Tn this chapter, after enumerating some of the most important discoveries and inventions of the moderns, he concludes with mentioning the art of printing, of the value of which he seems to have formed a very just estimate. " Una Typographia cum omnibus veterum in- vcntis certare facile potest. Itaque non minus peccant, qui a veteribus aiunt omnia comprehensa, quam qui illos de veteri multarum artium possessione de- turbant. Habet Natura scientiarum thesauros innumerabiles, qui nullis seta- tibus exhauriri possunt." In the same chapter Bodinus expresses himself thus : " ./Etas ilia quam auream vocant, si ad nostram conferatur, ferrea videri pos- sit." * The works of Budaeus 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, exactiore diligentia, majore eruditione hullum unquam pro- duxit ; hac vero eetate nee Italia quidern." The praise bestowed on him by other contemporary writers of the highest eminence ie equally lavish. CHAP. I. PHILOSOPHY FROM THE REVIVAL 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 stature, by remaining prostrate on the ground." l I pass over, without any particular notice, the names of some French logicians who flourished about this period, because, however celebrated among their contemporaries, they do not seem to form essential links in the History of Science. The bold and persevering spirit with which Kamus disputed, in the University of Paris, the authority of Aristotle, and the per- secutions he incurred by this philosophical 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 parts of the Aristotelian logic ; without, however, exhibiting any marks of that deep sagacity which afterwards enabled Bacon, Descartes, and' Locke, to strike at the very roots of the system. His copious and not inelegant style as a writer, recommended his innovations to those who were dis- gusted with the barbarism of the schools ; 2 while his avowed partiality for the reformed faith (to which he fell a martyr in 1 Vives de Cans. Corrupt. Artium, power over the destiny of his own lib. i. Similar ideas occur in the works species. Among other passages to this of Roger Bacon : " Quanto juniores purpose, see Nov. Org. lib. i. cxxix. tanto perspicaciores, quia juniores pos- teriores successione temporum ingre- 2 To the accomplishments of Ramus as diimt-ur labores priorum." (Opus Ma- a writer, a very flattering testimony is jus, Edit. Jebb. p. 9.) Nor were they given by an eminent English scholar, by altogether overlooked by ancient writers. no means disposed to overrate his merits " Veniet tempus, quo ista quse latent as a logician. " Pulsa tandem barbaric, nunc in lucem dies extrahet, et longioris Petrus Ramus politioris literaturse vir, ajvi diligentia. Veniet tempus, quo ausus est Aristotelem acrius ubique et posteri nostri tarn aperta nos ignorasse liberius incessere, universamque Peripa- imrabuntur." (Seneca, Qucest. Nat. teticam philosophiam exagitare. Ejus lib. vii. c. 25.) This language coin- dialectica exiguo tempore fuit apud plu- cides exactly with that of the Chan- rimos summo in pretio, maxime elo- cellor Bacon ; but it was reserved for quentise studiosos, idque odio scholasti- the latter to illustrate the connexion corum, quorum dictio et stylus ingrata between the progress of human know- fuerant auribus Ciceronianis." Logicce ledge, and of human happiness; or (to Artis Compendium, auctore R. Sander- borrow his own phraseology) the con- son, Episc. Lincoln, pp. 250, 251. Edit, nexion between the progress of know- Decima. Oxon. The first edition was ledge, and the enlargement of man's printed in 1618. 60 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. the massacre of Paris) procured many proselytes to his opinions 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 rnethodizer 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 Kamus, that, " although he had genius sufficient to shake the Aristotelian fabric, he was unable to substitute anything more solid in its place :" 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. 1 It is observed, with great truth, by Condorcet, that, in the 1 Dr. Barrow, in one of his mathe- matical lectures, speaks of Kamus in terms far too contemptuous. " Homo, ne quid gravius dicam, argutuhis et dicaculus." " Sane vix indignationi meae 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 Kamus 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 pra?cepti unicum exemplum est, ac ssepissime nullum : Sed unico et singulari exemplo non potest artifex efSci ; pluribus opus est et dissimilibus. Et quidem, ut Aristotelis exempla tan- tummodo non falsa sint, qualia tamen sunt ? Omne b est a : omne c est b : ergo omne c est a. Exemplum Aris- totelis est puero a grammaticis et ora- toribus venienfi, et istam mutorum Mathematicorum linguam ignoranti, novum et durum : et in totis Analyticis ista non Attica, non lonica, non Dorica, non JEolica, non communi, sed geome- trica lingua usus est Aristoteles, odiosa pueris, ignota populo, a communi seusu remota, a rhetoricae usu et ab humani- tatis usu alienissima." (P. Kami pro Philosophica Parisiensis Academue Disdplina Oratio, 1550.) If these strictures should be thought too loose and declamatory, the reader may con- sult the fourth chapter (De Ccnversioni- bus) of the seventh book of Ramus's Dialectics, where the same charge is urged, in my opinion, with irresistible force of argument. CHAP. I. PHILOSOPHY FROM THE REVIVAL TO BACON. 61 times of which we are now speaking, " the science of political economy did not exist. Princes estimated not the number of men, but of soldiers in the state ; finance was merely the art of plundering the people, without driving them to the despera- tion that might end in revolt; and governments paid 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 favourable to the growth of this science, considered as a branch of speculative study. Keligious 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 subjects, which, by threatening to resolve society into its first elements, present to restless and aspiring spirits the most inviting of all fields for enterprise 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 the most sanguine benevolence ; and, accordingly, the political specula- tions of this period turn almost entirely on the comparative advantages and disadvantages of different forms of govern- ment ; or on the 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 (pardonable in a scholar warm from the schools of ancient Greece and Home) for forms of policy unsuitable to the cir- cumstances of modern Europe, bears, nevertheless, in its general spirit, a closer resemblance to the political philosophy of the eighteenth century, than any composition which had pre- viously appeared. The ethical paradoxes afterwards inculcated by Hobbes as the ground-work of his slavish theory of govern- ment, are anticipated and refuted ; and a powerful argument is urged against that doctrine of utility which has attracted so much notice in our times. 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 sufferers. 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 the 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 wnich, in a more fortunate part of the island, was already beginning to rise on the philosophical world. 2 1 Praefervidum Scotorum ingenium. turn my eyes to the niceness and ele- 2 That, at the end of the sixteenth gance of our own times, the ancient century, the Scottish nation were ad- manners of our forefathers appear sober vancing not less rapidly than their and venerable, but withal rough and neighbours, in every species of mental horrid." " Quoties oculos ad nostri cxiltivation, is sufficiently attested by temporis munditias et elegantiam rc- their literary remains, both in the Latin fero, antiquitas ilia sancta et sobria, sed language and in their own vernacular horrida tamen, et nonduni satis expolita, tongue. A remarkable testimony to the fuisse videtur." De Jure Eegni apud same purpose occurs in the dialogue Scotos. One would think, that he con- above quoted ; the author of which had ceived the taste of his countrymen to spent the best years of his life in the have then arrived at the ne plus ultra most polished society of the Continent. of national refinement, " As often," says Buchanan, " as I Aurea nunc, olim sylvestribus horrida dumis. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACOX TO LOCKE. CHAPTER II. FROM THE PUBLICATION 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. 1 THE state of science towards the 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 had 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." 2 He might have added, with still greater truth, 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 philosophical artist ; and 1 Born 1561, died 1626. of the Royal Academy, January 2, s Discourse delivered at the opening 17 69. 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, that 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 difficult 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 FHOM 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, which has furnished occasion to so many over-refinements among the French critics, and to so much extravagance and mysticism in the cloud-capt metaphysics of the new German school. 1 In considering imagination as connected with the nervous system, more particularly as connected with that species of sympathy to which medical writers have given the name of imitation, he has suggested some very important 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 laws regulating the union between Mind and Body. 2 His illustration of the different 1 " Cum mundus sensibilis sit anima rational! dignitate inferior, videtur Poesis hsec humanse naturae largiri quae historia denegat ; atque animo umbris rerum utcunqne satisfacere, cum solida haberi non possint. Si quis enim rem acutius introspiciat, firmum ex Poesi sumitur argumentum, magnitudinem rerum magis illustrem, ordinem magis perfeetum, et varietatem magis pul- chram, animae humanae complacere, quam in natura ipsa, post lapsum, re- periri ullo modo possit. Quapropter, cum res gestae et eventus, qui verse historise subjiciuntur, non sint ejus amplitudiriis, in qua anima humana sibi satisfaciat, praesto est Poesis, quse facta magis he- roica confingat. Cum historia vera suc- cessus rerum, minime pro mentis virtu- turn et scelerum narret, corrigit earn Poesis, et exitus, et fortunas, secundum merita, et ex lege Nemeseos, exhibet. Cum historia vera obvia rerum satietate et similitudine, animae Immanse fastidio sit, reficit earn Poesis, inexpectata, et varia, et vicissitudinum plena canens. Adeo ut Poesis ista non solum ad de- lectationem, sed ad animi magnitudi- nem, et ad mores conferat." De Aug. Scient. lib. ii. cap. xiii. VOL. I. 2 To this branch of the philosophy of mind, Bacon gives the title of Doctrina de foedere, sive de communi vinculo animce et corporis. (De Aug. Scient. lib. iv. cap. 1.) Under this article, he mentions, among other desiderata, an inquiry (which he recommends to physi- cians) concerning the influence of imagi- nation over the body. His own words are very remarkable ; more particularly the clause in which he remarks the effect of fixing and concentrating the attention, in giving to ideal objects the power of realities over the belief. " Ad aliud quippiam, quod hue pertinet, parce admodum, nee pro rei subtilitate, vel utilitate, inquisitum est ; quatenus scili- cet ipsa imaginatio animce vel cogitatio perquamftxa, et veluti infidem quondam exaltata, valeat ad immutandum corpus imaginantis." (Ibid.) He suggests also, as a curious problem, to ascertain how far it is possible to fortify and exalt the imagination ; and by what means this may most effectually be done. The class of facts here alluded to, are mani- festly of the same description with those to which the attention of philosophers has been lately called by the pretensions of Mesmer and of Perkins : " Atque E 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 Ms 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 hints 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 conjnncta est disquisitio, quomodo majorem fieri detur ? Atque hie ob- iuinginalio intend! ct fortificari possit ? lique, nee minus periculose se insinuat Quippe, si imaginatio fortis tantarum palliatio quaedam et defensio maximse sit virium, operae pretium fuerit nosse, partis Mat/ice Ceremoniulis," &c. &c. qnibus modis earn exaltari, et se ipsa De Aug. Sclent, lib. iv. cap. iii. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM 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 his own opinion, than if he had descended to the ungrateful task of exposing their absurdity. 1 While Bacon, however, so cautiously avoids these unprofit- able discussions about the nature of Mind, he decidedly states his conviction, that 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 that confused and promiscuous method in which philosophers are accustomed to treat of pneumatology ; as if the human Soul ranked above those of brutes, merely like the sun above the stars, or like gold above other metals/' Among the various topics started by Bacon for the considera- tion of future logicians, he did not overlook (what may be justly regarded, in a practical view, as the most interesting of all logical problems) the question concerning the mutual in- fluence of Thought and of Language on each other. " Men believe," says he, " that their reason governs their words ; but, it often happens, that words have power enough to re-act upon reason." Tlu's aphorism may be considered as the text of by far the most valuable part of Locke's Essay, that which relates to the imperfections and abuse of words; but it was not till within the last twenty years, that its depth and im- 1 Notwithstanding the extravagance phraseology, which is here adopted by of Spinoza's own philosophical creed, Spinoza, the word perception is a general he is one of the very few among Bacon's term, equally applicable to all the intel- successors, who seem to have been fully lectual operations. The words of Des- aware of the justness, importance, and cartes himself are these : " Omnes modi originality of the method pointed out in cogitandi, quos in nobis experimur, ad the Novum Organon for the study of duos generales referri possunt : quorum the Mind. " Ad hsec intelligenda, non unus est, perceplio, sive operatic intel- est opus naturam mentis cognoscere, lectus ; alius vero, volitio, sive operatic sed sufficit, mentis sive perceptionum voluntatis. Nam sentire, imaginari, et historiolam concinnare modo illo quo pure intettigere, sunt tantum diversi VERULAMIUS docet." Spin. Epist. 42. modi percipiendi ; utetcupcre, aversari, In order to comprehend the whole affirmare, negare, dubitare, sunt diversi merit of this remark, it is necessary to modi volendi." Princ. Phil. Pars T. know that, according to the Cartesian 3 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 modern 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 tilings;" 1 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 hints, 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 Komans 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 views 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, savouring of the habits of thinking prevalent in his time. A curious example of this occurs in the same chapter which con- tains his 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 1 De Aug. /Sclent, lib. vi. gap. i. 2 Ibid. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 69 tenses, and of other similar inflections; while the modern, almost entirely destitute of these, indolently accomplish the same purpose by the help of prepositions, and of auxiliary verbs. Whence/' he continues, "may be inferred, (however we may flatter ourselves with the idea of our own superiority,) that the human intellect was much more acute and subtile in ancient, than it now is in modern times/' 1 How very unlike is this last reflection to the usual strain of Bacon's writings ! 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 authors. 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 opportunity for remarking the progress and diffusion 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 universally ranked, 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 modern substitution in their place of prepositions and auxiliary verbs, are both of them the deli- berate and systematical contrivances of speculative gramma- rians ; the other, (still less analogous to Bacon's general style of reasoning,) that the faculties of man have declined as the world has grown older. Both of these errors may be now said to have disappeared 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 placed, 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- 1 De Aug. Sclent lib. vi. cap. i. 70 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. mon sense. And yet, till about the time 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 religion, 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 principle 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. 1 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, 1 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 inexhaustible aliment they furnish to our own thoughts, and the sympathetic activity they impart to our torpid faculties. The suggestions of Bacon for the improvement of Political Philosophy, exhibit as strong a contrast to the 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 passages, when compared with the scope of the celebrated treatise De Jure Belli 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 Protestant universities of Europe, as an inexhaustible treasure of moral and jurisprudential wisdom ! " The ultimate object which legislators ought to have in view, and to which all their enactments and sanctions ought to be subservient, is, that the citizen may live happily. For this purpose, it is necessary that they should receive a religious and pious education ; that they should be trained to good morals ; that they should be secured from foreign enemies by proper military arrangements; that they should be guarded by an effectual police against seditions and private injuries ; that they should be loyal to government, and obedient to magistrates ; and finally, that they should abound in wealth, and in other national resources." l " The science of such matters certainly belongs more particularly to the province of men who, by habits of public business, have been led to take a comprehen- sive survey of the social order ; of the interests of the commu- nity at large ; of the rules of natural equity ; of the manners of nations ; of the different forms of government ; and who are 1 Exemplwm Tractatus de Fontibus account of the general principles of law Juris, Aplior. 5. This enumeration of and government, and of the different re- the different objects of law approaches volutions they have undergone in the very nearly to Mr. Smith's ideas on the different ages and periods of society ; same subject, as expressed by himself not only in what concerns justice, but in the concluding sentence of his Theory in what concerns police, revenue, and of Moral Sentiments. " In another arms, and whatever else is the object of Discourse, I shall 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, while 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 heart 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 which he mentions it as the proper business of those who might attempt to carry his plan into execution, to investigate those " LEGES LEGUM, ex quibus informatio peti possit, quid in singulis legibus bene aut perperam positum aut constitutum sit." 2 I do not know if, in Bacon's prophetic anticipations of the future pro- gress of physics, there be anything more characteristical, both 1 De Aug. Sclent, lib. viii. cap. iii. to make more use of them for the deci- sion of other cases more doubtful ; so * De Fontibus Juris, Aphor. 6. that the uncertainty of law, which is From the preface to a small tract of the principal and most just challenge Bacon's, entitled The Elements of the that is made to the laws of our nation at Common Laws of England, (written this time, will, by this new strength while he was Solicitor-General to Queen laid to the foundation, be somewhat the Elizabeth,) we learn, that the phrase more settled and corrected." In this legum leges had been previously used by passage, no reference whatever is made some " great Civilian." To what civi- to the Universal Justice spoken of in lian Bacon here alludes, I know not ; the aphorisms de Fontibus Juris; but but, whoever he was, I doubt much if merely to the leading and governing he annexed to it the comprehensive and rules which give to a municipal system philosophical meaning, so precisely ex- whatever it possesses of analogy and plained in the above definition. Bacon consistency. To these rules Bacon gives himself, when he wrote his Tract on the the title of leges legum; but the mean- Common Laws, does not seem to have ing of the phrase, on this occasion, yet risen to this vantage-ground of Uni- differs from that in which he afterwards versal Jurisprudence. His great object employed it, not less widely than the (he tells us) was "to collect the rules rules of Latin or of Greek syntax differ and grounds dispersed throughout the from the principles of universal gram- body of the same laws, in order to see mar. [The phrase " Legum leges," more profoundly into the reason of such occurs also in Cicero ; vide lib. ii De judgments and ruled cases, and thereby Legibus, cap. vii.] CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FKOM BACON TO LOCKE. 73 of the grandeur and of the justness of his conceptions, than this short definition ; more particularly, when we consider how widely Grotius, in a work professedly devoted to this very in- quiry, was soon after to wander from the right path, in con- sequence of his vague and wavering idea of the aim of his researches. The sagacity, however, displayed in these, and various other 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 frequently inculcated by the author, on the subject of political 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 profound re- flections in the first book De Augmentis Scientiarum, on the necessity of accommodating every new institution to the character and circumstances of the people for whom it is intended ; and on the peculiar danger which literary men run of overlooking this 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 policy of Henry VII., was manifestly 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 particular occasion for the present, but out of providence for the future ; to make the estate of his people still more and more happy, after the man- 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 modern prince on whom Bacon has be- stowed it, is a question of little moment. I quote it merely on account of the important philosophical distinction which it in- directly marks, between " 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 natural 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. Hume, that the statutes of Henry VII. relating to the police 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 everything that regards the internal administration of j ustice ; 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 be entrusted to the common course of business and commerce." " For a like reason," the historian continues, " the law enacted CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON 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 people employed in the country. During a century and a hah 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 illustrate 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 diffusion which has since taken place, among the people of Great Britain, of juster and more enlightened opinions on this important branch of legislation. Wherever such doctrines find their way into the page of history, it may be safely inferred that the public mind is not indisposed to give them a welcome reception. The ideas of Bacon concerning the education of youth were such as might be expected from a philosophical statesman. On the conduct of education in general, with a view to the develop- ment and improvement of the intellectual character, he has suggested various useful hints in different parts of his works ; but what I wish chiefly to remark at present is, the paramount importance which he has attached to the education of the people, comparing (as he has repeatedly done) the effects of early culture on the understanding and the heart to the abun- dant harvest which rewards the diligent husbandman for the toils of the spring. To this analogy he seems to have been par- ticularly anxious to attract the attention of his readers, by bestowing on education the title of the Georgics of the Mind ; identifying, by a happy and impressive metaphor, the two proudest functions entrusted to the legislator the encourage- ment of agricultural industry and the care of national instruc- tion. In both instances, the legislator exerts a power which is literally productive or creative ; compelling, 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, 1 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 have felt more deeply that he properly belonged to a later and more enlight- ened age a sentiment which he has pathetically expressed in that clause of his testament, where he " bequeaths his name to posterity, after some generations shall be past." 2 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 el Pacis, 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 literature of our own country, prior to the appearance of Mr. Locke's Essay. 1 " La celebrite en France des ecrits the most insignificant characters, and to du Chancelier Bacon n'a guere pour date whom Le Clcrc has very justly ascribed que celle d'e 1'Encyclopedie." (Histoire the merit of une exactitude etonnante des Mathematiques par Montucla, Pre- dans des choses de neant, should have face, p. ix.) It is an extraordinary cir- devoted to Bacon only twelve lines of cumstance that Bayle, who has so often his Dictionary, wasted his erudition and acuteness on * See Note F. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FEOM BACON TO LOCKE. 77 The rapid advancement of intellectual cultivation in Eng- land, between the years 1588 and 1640, (a period of almost uninterrupted peace,) has been remarked by Mr. Fox. " The general improvement," he observes, " in all arts of civil life, and above all, the astonishing progress of literature, are the most striking among the general features of that period ; and are in themselves causes sufficient to produce effects of the utmost importance. A country whose language was enriched by the works of Hooker, Raleigh, and Bacon, could not but experience a sensible change in its manners, and in its style of thinking ; and even to speak the same language in which Spencer and Shakespeare had written, seemed a sufficient plea to rescue the Commons of England from the appellation of Brutes, with which Henry the Eighth had addressed them." The remark is equally just and refined. It is by the mediation of an improving language, that the progress of the mind is chiefly continued from one generation to another ; and that the acquirements of the enlightened few are insensibly imparted to the many. Whatever tends to diminish the ambiguities of speech, or to fix, with more logical precision, the import of general terms ; above all, whatever tends to embody, in popular forms of expression, the ideas and feelings of the wise and good, augments the natural powers of the human under- standing, and enables the succeeding race to start from a higher ground than was occupied by their fathers. The remark applies Avith peculiar force to the study of the Mind itself; a study, Avhere the chief source of error is the imperfec- tion of words ; and where every improvement on this great instrument of thought may be justly regarded in the light of a discovery. 1 1 It is not so foreign as may at first known, that the treatises on husbandry be supposed to the object of this Dis- and agriculture, which were published course, to take notice here of the extra- during the reign of King James, are so ordinary demand for books on Agricul- numerous, that it can scarcely be ima- ture under the government of James I. gined by whom they were written, or The fact is thus very strongly stated by to whom they were sold." Nothing can Dr. Johnson, in his introduction to the illustrate more strongly the effects of a Harleian Miscellany. " It deserves to pacific system of policy, in encouraging be remarked, because it is not generally a general taste for reading, as well as 78 DISSERTATION. PAHT FIRST. In the foregoing list of illustrious names, Mr. Fox 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 their contemporaries, by the originality and enlargement of their philosophical views ; and both divide, with the venerable Hooker, the glory of exemplifying to their yet unpolished countrymen, the richness, variety, and grace, which might be lent to the English idiom by the hand of a master. 1 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 disrelish for metaphysical theories. As a writer, Hobbes unquestionably ranks high among the older English classics ; and is so peculiarly distinguished by the simplicity 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 2 or an active spirit of national improvement. absurd. Dr. Lowth certainly went much At all times, and in every country, the too far when he said, " That in correct- extensive sale of books on agriculture ness, propriety, and purity of English may be regarded as one of the most style, Hooker hath hardly been sur- pleasing symptoms of mental cultivation passed, or even equalled, by any of his in the great body of a people. successors." Preface to Lowth' s Eng- 1 To prevent being misunderstood, it lish Grammar. is necessary for me to add, that I do not 2 According to Dr. Burnet, (no con- speak of the general style of these old temptible judge of style,) Bacon was authors ; but only of detached passages, " the first that writ our language cor- which may be selected from all of them, rectly." The same learned prelate pro- as earnests or first-fruits of a new and nounces Bacon to be " still our best brighter era in English literature. It author ;" and this at a time when the may be safely affirmed, that in tJieir works of Sprat, and many of the prose works, and in the prose compositions of compositions of Cowley and of Dryden, Milton, are to be found some of the were already in the hands of the public, finest sentences of which our language It is difficult to conceive on what has yet to boast. To propose them now grounds Burnet proceeded, in hazard- as models for imitation, would be quite ing so extraordinary an opinion. See CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 79 of Ealeigh. It is with the philosophical merits, however, of Hobbes, that we are alone concerned at present ; and, in this point of view, what a space is filled in the subsequent history of our domestic literature, by his own works, and by those of his innumerable opponents ! Little else, indeed, but the sys- tems which he published, and the controversies which they provoked, occurs, during the interval between Bacon and Locke, to mark the progress of English Philosophy, either in the study of the mind, or in the kindred researches of Ethical and Political Science. Of the few and comparatively trifling exceptions to this re- mark, furnished by the metaphysical tracts of Glanvill, of Henry More, and of John Smith, I must delay taking notice, till some account shall be given of the Cartesian philosophy ; to which their most interesting discussions have a constant reference, either in the way of comment or refutation. HOBBES. 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 controversy; and every young churchman militant, would try his arms in thundering on Hobbes's steel cap." 2 Nor was the opposition to Hobbes con- fined to the clerical order, or to the controversialists of his own the Preface to Burnet's translation of stiff and pedantic ; though their sense More's Utopia. he excellent." It is still more difficult, on the other How insignificant are the petty gram- hand, to account for the following very matical improvements proposed hy Swift, bold decision of Mr. Hume. I tran- when compared with the inexhaustible scribe it from an essay first published riches imparted to the English tongue in 1742 ; but the same passage is to be by the writers of the seventeenth con- found in the last edition of his works, tury ; and how inferior, in all the corrected by himself. " The first polite higher qualities and graces of style, prose we have was writ by a man (Dr. are his prose compositions, to those of Swift) who is still alive. As to Sprat, his immediate predecessors, Dryden, Locke, and even Temple, they knew too Pope, and Addison ! little of the rules of art to be esteemed 1 Born 1588, died 1679. elegant writers. The prose of Bacon, a Divine Legation, Preface to vol. ii. Harrington, and Milton, is altogether p. 9. 80 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. times. The most eminent moralists and politicians of the eighteenth century 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 through 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 circumstance which, we may presume, contributed not a little to encourage that bold spirit of inquiry, and that aversion to scholastic learning, which characterize his writings. 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 ! But such was the obstinacy of his temper, and his overweening self-conceit, that, instead of co-operating with Bacon in the execution of his magnificent design, he re- solved to rear, on a foundation exclusively his own, a complete structure both of Moral and Physical Science ; disdaining to avail himself even of the materials collected by his predecessors, and treating the experimentation philosophers as objects only of contempt and ridicule I 1 In the political writings of Hobbes, we may perceive 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 been 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 opinions he was more and more confirmed by the events he afterwards witnessed in England ; the fatal consequences of which he early 1 See Note G. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 81 foresaw with so much alarm, that, in 1640, he withdrew from the approaching storm, to enjoy the society of his philosophical friends at Paris. It was here he wrote his book De Give, a few copies of which were printed, and privately circulated in 1642. The same work was afterwards given to the public, with material corrections and improvements, in 1647, when the author's attachment to the royal cause being strengthened by his personal connexion with the exiled King, he thought it in- cumbent on him to stand forth avowedly as an advocate for those principles which he had long professed. The great object of this performance was to strengthen the hands of sovereigns against the rising spirit of democracy, by arming them with the weapons of a new philosophy. The fundamental doctrines inculcated in the political works of Hobbes, are contained in the following propositions. I re- capitulate them here, not on their own account, but to prepare the way for some remarks which I mean afterwards to offer on the coincidence betAveen the principles of Hobbes and those 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 hypothetical assumptions. All men are by nature equal ; and, prior to government, they had all an equal right to enjoy the good things of this world. Man, too, is (according to Hobbes) by nature a soli- tary and purely selfish animal ; the social union being entirely an interested league, suggested by prudential views of personal advantage. The necessary consequence is, that a state of nature must be a state of perpetual 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 secure enjoyment of its fruits. In confirmation of this view of the origin of society, Hobbes appeals to facts fall- ing daily within the circle of our own experience. " Does not a man (he asks) when taking a journey, arm himself, and seek to go well accompanied ? When going to sleep, does he not lock his doors ? Nay, even in his own house, does he not lock VOL. I. F 82 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. his chests ? Does he not there as much accuse mankind by his actions, as I do by my words ?" 1 An additional argument to the same purpose 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 peace and security, 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 nature ; the right of all men to all things being in effect no better than if no man had a right to any thing." 2 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 misgovernment. 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- posed. 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, 3 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 maintained are the same as in the book De Give; but as it inveighs more particularly against ecclesiastical tyranny, with the view of subjecting the consciences of men to 1 Of Man, Part I. chap. xiii. - De Corpore Politico, Part I. chap. i. 8 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 unmolested. The same circumstances operated to his disadvantage after the Eestoration, 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. 1 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 be 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 very 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 be done to more advantage than he has done, upon maxims more virtuous and solid. 2 ] Mr. Addison, on the other hand, gives a decided preference (among all the books written by Hobbes) to his Treatise on 1 See Note H. Moral and Political Works. Lond. "[Life of Hobbes; prefixed to his 1750. Fol.] 84 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. Human Nature; and to his opinion on this point I most impli- citly subscribe ; including, however, in the same commendation, some of his other philosophical essays on similar topics. They are the only part of his works which it is possible now to read with any interest ; and they everywhere evince in their author, even when he thinks most unsoundly himself, that power of setting his reader a-thinking, which is one of the most un- equivocal marks of original genius. They have plainly been studied with the utmost care both by Locke and Hume. To the former they have suggested some of his most important observations on the Association of Ideas, as well as much of the sophistry displayed in the first book of his Essay, on the Origin of our Knowledge, and on the factitious nature of our moral principles ; to the latter, (among a variety of hints of less consequence,) his theory concerning the nature of those established connexions among physical events, which it is the business of the natural philosopher to ascertain, 1 and the sub- stance of his argument against the scholastic doctrine of general conceptions. It is from the works of Hobbes, too, that our later Necessitarians have borrowed the most formidable of those weapons with which they have combated the doctrine of moral liberty ; and from the same source has been derived the leading idea which runs through the philological materialism of Mr. Home Tooke. It is probable, indeed, that this last author borrowed it, at second hand, from a hint in Locke's 1 The same doctrine, concerning the craft, by the same author, adds another proper object of natural philosophy, proof to those already mentioned, of the (commonly ascribed to Mr. Hume, both possible union of the highest intellec- by his followers and by his opponents,) tual gifts with the most degrading in- is to be found in various writers con- tellectual weaknesses, temporary with Hobbes. It is stated, With respect to the Scepsis Scien- with uncommon precision and clearness, tifica, it deserves to be noticed, that the in a book entitled Scepsis Scientifica, doctrine maintained in it concerning or Confessed Ignorance the way to physical causes and effects does not Science ; by Joseph Glanvill, (printed occur in the form of a detached ob- in 1065.) The whole work is strongly servation, of the value of which the marked with the features of an acute, author might not have been fully aware, an original, and (in matters of science) but is the very basis of the general a somewhat sceptical genius ; and, when argument running through all his dis- compared with the treatise on witch- cussions. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 85 Essay; but it is repeatedly stated by Hobbes, in the most explicit and confident terms. Of this idea, (than which, in point of fact, nothing can be imagined more puerile and un- sound,) Mr. Tooke's etymologies, when he applies them to the solution of metaphysical questions, are little more than an in- genious expansion, adapted and levelled to the comprehension of the multitude. The speculations of Hobbes, however, concerning the theory of the understanding, do not seem to have been nearly so much attended to during his own life, as some of his other doctrines, which, having a more immediate reference to human affairs, were better adapted to the unsettled and revolutionary spirit of the times. It is by these doctrines, chiefly, that his name has since become so memorable in the annals of modern 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 subsequent history both of political and of ethical science, than any other publication of the same period. ANTAGONISTS OF HOBBES. Cudworth 1 was one of the first who successfully combated this new philosophy. As Hobbes, in the frenzy of his political zeal, had been led to sacrifice wantonly all the principles of religion and morality to the establishment of Ms conclusions, his works not only gave offence 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 dependent on the arbitrary will of the civil magistrate, was so obviously subversive of all the commonly received ideas concerning the moral constitution of human nature, that it became indispen- sably necessary, either to expose the sophistry of the attempt, 1 Born 1617, died 1688. 86 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. or to admit, with Hobbes, that man is a beast of prey, incapable of being governed by any motives but fear, and the desire of self-preservation. Between some of these tenets of the courtly Hobbists, and those inculcated by the Cromwellian Antinomians, there was a very extraordinary and unfortunate coincidence ; the latter insisting, that, in expectation of Christ's second coining, " the obligations of morality and natural law were suspended ; and that the elect, guided by an internal principle, more perfect and divine, were superior to the beggarly elements of justice and humanity." 1 It was the object of Cudworth to vindicate, against the assaults of both parties, the immutability of moral distinctions. In the prosecution of his very able argument on this sub- ject, Cudworth displays a rich store of enlightened and choice erudition, penetrated throughout with a peculiar vein of sobered and subdued Platonism, from whence some German systems, which have attracted no small notice in our own times, will be found, when stripped of their deep neological disguise, to have borrowed their most valuable materials. 2 1 Hume. For a more particular account of the English Antinomians, see Mosheim, vol. iv. p. 534, et seq. 3 The mind (according to Cudworth) perceives, by occasion of outward ob- jects, as much more than is represented to it by sense, as a learned man does in the best written book, than an illiterate person or brute. " To the eyes of both the same characters will appear ; but the learned man, in those characters, will see heaven, earth, sun, and stars ; read profound theorems of philosophy or geometry ; learn a great deal of new knowledge from them, and admire the wisdom of the composer ; while, to the other, nothing appears but black strokes drawn on white paper. The reason of which is, that the mind of the one is furnished with certain previous inward anticipations, ideas, and instruction. that the other wants." " In the room of this book of human composition, let us now substitute the book of Nature, written all over with the characters and impressions of divine wisdom and goodness, but legible only to an intel- lectual eye. To the sense both of man and brute, there appears nothing else in it, but, as in the other, so many inky scrawls ; that is, nothing but figures and colours. But the mind, which hath a participation of the divine wisdom that made it, upon occasion of those sensible delineations, exerting its own inward activity, will have not only a wonderful scene, and large prospects of other thoughts laid open before it, and variety of knowledge, logical, ma- thematical, and moral displayed ; but also clearly read the divine wisdom and goodness in every page of this great CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 87 Another coincidence between the Hobbists and the Antino- mians, may be remarked in their common 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 God. 1 The strongest of all presumptions against this scheme is afforded by the other tenets with which 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 Hobbists,) " grew up from the doctrine of the fatal neces- volume, as it were written in large and legible characters." I do not pretend to lie an adept in the philosophy of Kant ; but I certainly think I pay it a very high compliment, when I suppose, that, in the Critic of pure Benson, the leading idea 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 : " Nempe, nihil est in intellectu, quod non fuerit in sensu, nisi ipse in- tellectug." In justice 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 alto- gether overlooked the important excep- tion to it pointed out by Leibnitz. In- deed, this exception or limitation is very nearly a translation of Aristotle's words. K< ttvTOi ? vov; votiTOf iffriv, i(> TO. voitra. Ivrt ftlv s, TO al/To HFft TO vaou TUV cntu /uiva*. " And the mind itself is an ob- ject of knowledge, as well as' other things which arc intelligible. For, in immaterial beings, that which under- stands is the same with that which is understood." (De Anima, lib. iii. cap. v.) I quote this very curious, and, I suspect, 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 Locke's 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 he had been educated. 1 " The doctrines of fate or destiny were deemed by the Independents es- sential to all religion. In these rigid opinions, tlie whole sectaries, amidst all their other differences, unanimously con- curred." Hume's History, chap. Ivii. [A Sermon of Dr. Cud worth's, " preach- ed before the Honourable the House of Commons, on March 31, 1647, being a day of public humiliation," has been lately reprinted (1812) by the Philan- thropic Society. It is levelled from beginning to end against the Predesti- narians and Antinomians of those days ; and, considering the audience to which it was addressed, (including among others Oliver Cromwell himself,) dis- covers no common intrepidity in the preacher. In the advertisement pre- fixed to this publication, we are told, " that the sermon is called in the votes of the House, a painstaking and heart- searching sermon ; and that the preacher had the sum of 20 voted to him."] DISSERTATION. 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 opportunities 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 disposed to regard it in the light of a fair and harmless the] ne 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- posed. " You repeat to me incessantly," says Rousseau to one of his correspondents, " that truth 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." 1 But the principal importance of Cudworth, as an ethical writer, arises from the influence of his argument concerning the immutability of right and wrong on the various theories of morals which appeared in the course of the eighteenth century. 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 Reason, 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 011 this controversy must evidently be delayed, till the writings of these more modern authors shall fall under review. The Intellectual System of Cudworth embraces a field much wider than his treatise of Immutable Morality. The latter is particularly directed against the ethical doctrines of Hobbes, and of the Antinomians ; but the former aspires to tear up by the roots all the principles, both physical and metaphysical, of the Epicurean philosophy. It is a work, certainly, which re- ' " Vons ivpetez sans cesse quo la la preuve quo ce quo vous tlitcs iiVst vmtc ne pent -jainnis f'airc de nial mix pas la verite." Iminmcs : jp le croifi, et c'cst pour moi CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 89 fleets 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 writings 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 purposes." 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, with far less reason, of the works of the school- men, " Scholasticos agnosco abundare ineptiis ; sed aurum est in illo cceno" * Before dismissing the doctrine of Hobbes, it may be worth while to remark, that all his leading principles are traced by Cudworth 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 disposed to call in question the originality of Hobbes j 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, " as 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 proportionably greater degree of care. He was certainly well-informed on some subjects very foreign to his philosophical pursuits. The following testimony to his knowledge of the Common Law of England, is borne by a very competent judge : " It appears by 1 The Intellectual System was pub- did not appear till a considerable num- lished in 1678. The Treatise concern- bc-r of years after the author's death. iiiff Eternal and Immutable Morality *)() DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. Hobbes's Dialogue between a Lawyer and a Philosopher, that this very acute writer had considered most of the fundamental principles of English Law, and had read Sir Edward Coke's Institutes with great care and attention." 1 ] But similar poli- tical circumstances invariably reproduce similar philosophical theories ; and it is one of the numerous disadvantages attend- ing an inventive mind, not properly furnished with acquired information, to be continually liable to a waste of its powers on subjects previously exhausted. The sudden tide of licentiousness, both in principles and in practice, which burst into this island at the moment of the Kestoration, conspired with the paradoxes of Hobbes, and with the no less dangerous errors recently propagated among the people by their religious instructors, to turn the thoughts of sober and speculative men towards ethical disquisitions. The established clergy assumed a higher tone than before in their sermons ; sometimes employing them in combating that Epi- curean and Machiavellian pliilosophy which was then fashion- able at court, and which may be always suspected to form the 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 by which the ignorant enthusiasts of the preceding period had exposed Christianity itself to the scoffs of their libertine opponents. Among the divines who appeared at this era, it is impossible to pass over in silence the name 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. As a writer, he is equally distinguished by the redundancy of his matter, and by the pregnant brevity of his expression ; but what more peculiarly characterizes his manner, is a certain air of powerful and of conscious facility in the execution of whatever he undertakes. Whether the subject be mathematical, metaphysical, or theolo- 1 [Barrinfjton on Ancient Statutes, p. 275.] CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 91 gical, lie Reems 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 Lectiones Maihematicce (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 literally 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. 1 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 shall find inordinate self-love to be a main ingredient and a common source of them all ; so that a divine of great name had some reason to affirm, that original sin (or that innate distem- per from which men generally become so very prone to evil and averse to good) doth consist in self-love, disposing us to all kinds of irregularity and excess." In another passage, the same author expresses himself thus : " Keason dictateth and pre- scribeth to us, that we should have a sober regard to our true good and welfare ; to our best interests and solid content ; to 1 In a note annexed to an English of the Life of Barrow, addressed to Dr. translation of the Cardinal Maury's Tillotson) contents himself with saying, Principles of Eloquence, it is stated, that " Some of his sermons were written upon the authority of a manuscript of four or five times over ;" mentioning, at Dr. Doddridge, that most of Barrow's the same time, a circumstance which sermons were transcribed three times, may account for this fact, in perfect and some much oftener. They seem to consistency with what I have stated me to contain very strong intrinsic evi- above, that " Barrow was very ready dence of the incorrectness of this anec- to lend his sermons as often as de- dote. Mr. Abraham Hill (in his Account sired." 92 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. that which (all things being rightly stated, considered, and computed) will, in the final event, prove most beneficial and satisfactory to us : a self-love working in prosecution of such things, common sense cannot but allow and approve." Of these two opposite and irreconcilable opinions, the latter is incomparably the least wide of the truth ; and accordingly Mr. Locke and his innumerable followers, 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 passages here merely to shew the very little attention that had been paid, at the era in question, to ethical science, by one of the most learned and profound divines of his age. Tliis is the more remarkable, as his works everywhere inculcate the purest lessons of practical morality, and evince a singular acuteness and justness of eye in the observation of human character. Whoever compares the views of Barrow, when he touches on the theory of morals, with those opened about fifty years after- wards by Dr. Butler, in his Discourses on Human Nature, will be abundantly satisfied that in this science, as well as in others, the progress of the philosophical spirit during the intervening period was not inconsiderable. [I am at a loss to comprehend the import of the following judgment on the works of Dr. Barrow, pronounced by Mr. Gibbon : " Barrow was as much of a philosopher as a divine could well be." Note, p. 76. 1 ] The name of Wilkins (although he too wrote with some re- putation against the Epicureans of his day) is now remembered chiefly in consequence of his treatises concerning a universal language and a real character. Of these treatises I shall here- after have occasion to take some notice, under a different article. With all the ingenuity displayed in them, they cannot be con- sidered as accessions of much value to science ; and the long period since elapsed, during which no attempt has been made to turn them to any practical use, affords of itself no slight pre- sumption against the solidity of the project. 1 [Misce'l. irortfo, vol. ii. p. 61.] CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 93 A few years before the death of Hobbes, Dr. Cumberland (afterwards Bishop of Peterborough) published a book, entitled, De Legibits Naturce, Disquisitio Philosophica ; the principal aim of which was to confirm and illustrate, in opposition to Hobbes, the conclusions of Grotius, concerning Natural Law. The work is executed with ability, and discovers juster views of the object of moral science, than any modern system that had yet appeared ; 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 human race. The circumstance, however, which chiefly entitles this publication to our notice is, that it seems to have been the earliest on the subject which attracted, in any considerable degree, the attention of English scholars. From this time, the writings of Grotius and of Puffendorff began to be generally studied, and soon after made their way into the Universities. In Scotland, the impression produced by them was more peculiarly remarkable. They were everywhere adopted as the best manuals of ethical and of political in- struction that could be put into the hands of students; and gradually contributed to form that memorable school, from whence so many Philosophers and Philosophical Historians were afterwards to proceed. From the writings of Hobbes to those of Locke, the transi- tion is easy and obvious ; but, before prosecuting farther the history of philosophy in England, it will be proper to turn our attention to its progress abroad, since the period at which this section commences. 1 In the first place, however, I shall add a 1 Through tlie whole of this Discourse, porary nature, inconsistent with my I have avoided touching on the discus- general design. In the present circum- sions which, on various occasions, have stances of the world, hesides, the arisen with regard to the theory of theory of government (although, in one government, and the comparative ad- point of view, the most important of all vantages or disadvantages of different studies) seems to possess a very sub- political forms. Of the scope and spirit ordinate interest to inquiries connected of these discussions it would he seldom with political economy, and with the possible to convey a just idea, without fundamental principles of legislation, entering into details of a local or tern- What is it, indeed, that renders one' 94 DISSERTATION. PART FiltST. few miscellaneous remarks on some important events which occurred in this country during the lifetime of Hobbes, and of which his extraordinary longevity prevented me sooner from taking notice. Among these events, that which is most immediately con- nected with our present subject, is the establishment of the Royal Society of London in 1662, which 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 on the general progress of human reason has been far greater than could possibly have been foreseen at the moment of their foundation. On the happy effects resulting from them in this respect, La Place has introduced some just reflections in his System of the World, which, as they discover more originality of thought than he commonly displays, when he ventures to step beyond the circumference of his own magic circle, I shall quote, in a literal translation of his words. " The chief advantage of learned societies, is the philosophical form of government more favourable sure of his general principle, tJiat the than another to human happiness, but balance of power depends on that of the superior security it provides for the property, that he ventured to pronounce enactment of wise laws, and for their im- it impossible ever to re-establish nio- partial and vigorous execution ? These narchy in England : But this book was considerations will sufficiently account scarcely published when the King was for my passing over in silence, not only restored ; and we see that monarchy the names of Needham, of Sidney, and has ever since subsisted on the same of Milton, but that of Harrington, whose footing as before. So dangerous is it Oceana is justly regarded as one of the for a politician to venture to foretell the boasts of English literature, and is pro- situation of public affairs a few years nounced by Hume to be " the only hence." Ibid. Essay vii. valuable model of a commonwealth that How much nearer the truth (even in has yet been offered to the public." the science of politics) is Bacon's ear- Essays and Treatises, vol. i. Essay dinal principle, that knowledge is power! xvi. a principle, which applies to Man not A remark which Hume has elsewhere less in his corporate than in his indi- made on the Oceana, appears to me so vidual capacity ; and which may be striking and so instructive, that I shall safely trusted to as the most solid of all give it a place in this note. " Hairing- foundations for our reasonings concern- ton," he observes, " thought himself so ing the future history of the world. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FKOM BACON TO LOCKE. 95 spirit to which they may be expected to give birth, and which they cannot fail to diffuse over all the various pursuits of the nations among whom they are established. The insulated scholar may without dread abandon himself to the spirit of system; he hears the voice of contradiction only from afar. 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 everything to the exami- nation of a severe logic, they have dissipated 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 opposed to empiricism a mass of knowledge, against which the errors adopted by the vulgar, with an enthusiasm which, in former times, would have per- petuated their empire, have spent their force in vain. In a word, it has been in their bosoms that those grand theories have been conceived, which, although far exalted by their generality above the reach of the multitude, are for this very reason entitled to special encouragement, from their innumer- able applications to the phenomena of nature, and to the practice of the arts." 1 In confirmation of these judicious remarks, it may be farther observed, that nothing could have been more happily imagined than the establishment of learned corporations for correcting those prejudices wliich (under the significant title of Idola Specus) Bacon has described as incident to the retired student. 1 The Koyal Society of London, though purpose of philosophical discussion, not incorporated by charter till 1662, Even these meetings were but a con- may be considered as virtually existing, tinuation of those previously held by at least as far back as 1638, when some the same individuals, at the apart- of the most eminent of the original ments of Dr. AVilkins in Oxford. See members began first to hold regular Sprat's History qf the Itoyal So- meetings at Grcsham College, for the ciety. 9G DISSERTATION'. PART FIRST. While these idols of the den maintain their authority, the culti- vation of the philosophical spirit is impossible ; or rather, it is in a renunciation of this idolatry that the philosophical spirit essentially consists. It was accordingly in this 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 arid mechanical subdivision of literary labour ; and anticipated the advantages to be expected 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 pursuits are different from our own ; and that expanded knowledge, both of man and of nature, of which such an intercourse must necessarily be productive ! Another event which operated still more forcibly and univer- sally on the intellectual character of our countrymen, 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, under the Commonwealth, engaged the country gentlemen to bind their sons apprentices to merchants ; and that commerce has ever since been more honourable in England, than in any other European Kingdom." l " 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." 2 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, which issued from the press, in the short interval between the Restoration 1 Hittory of England, chap, Ixii. * Chalmers's Political Estimate, &c. (London, 1804.) p. 44. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 97 and the Revolution ; an interval during which the sudden and immense extension of the trade of England, and the cor- responding rise of the commercial interest, must have presented a, spectacle peculiarly calculated to awaken the curiosity of inquisitive observers. It is a very remarkable circumstance with respect to these economical researches, which now engage so much of the attention both of statesmen and of philosophers, that they are altogether of modern origin. " There is scarcely," says Mr. Hume, " any ancient writer on politics who has made mention of trade ; nor was it ever considered as an affair of state till the seventeenth century." 1 The work of the celebrated John de Witt, entitled, " The true interest and political maxims of the Republic of Holland and West Friesland," is the earliest publication of any note in which commerce is treated of as an object of national and political concern, in opposition to the partial interests of corporations and of monopolists. Of the English publications to which I have just alluded, the greater part consists of anonymous pamphlets, now only to be met with in the collections of the curious. A few bear the names of eminent English merchants. I shall have occasion to refer to them more particularly afterwards, when I come to speak of the writings of Smith, Quesnay, and Turgot. At present, I shall only observe, that, in these fugitive and now neglected tracts, are to be found the first rudiments of that 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 have had its cradle in the Royal Exchange 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 condescended to treat of trade as an object of liberal study. Notwithstanding 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 vigour or of the originality of his 1 Essay of Civil Liberty, VOL. I. U 98 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. genius. But the name of Locke reminds me, that it is now time to interrupt these national details ; and to turn our attention to the progress of science on the Continent, since the times of Bodinus and of Campanella, SECT. II. PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. MONTAIGNE CHAERON LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. AT the head of the French writers who contributed, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, to turn the thoughts of their countrymen to subjects connected with the Philosophy of Mind, Montaigne may, I apprehend, be justly placed. Pro- perly speaking, he belongs to a period somewhat earlier ; but his tone of thinking and of writing classes him much more naturally with his successors, than with any French author who had appeared before him. 1 In assigning to Montaigne so distinguished a rank in the history of modern philosophy, I need scarcely say, that I leave entirely out of the account what constitutes (and justly consti- tutes) to the generality of readers the principal charm of his Essays ; the good nature, humanity, and unaffected sensibility, which so irresistibly attach us to his character, lending, it must be owned, but too often, a fascination to his talk, when he cannot be recommended as the safest of companions. Nor do I lay much stress on the inviting frankness and vivacity with which he unbosoms himself about all his domestic habits and concerns ; and which render his book so expressive a portrait, not only of the author, but of the Gascon country-gentleman, two hundred years ago. I have in view chiefly the minuteness and good faith of his details concerning his own personal qualities, both intellectual 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, 1 Montaigne was born in 1533, and died in 1592. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 99 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." 1 He has ac- cordingly produced a work, unique in its kind ; valuable, in an eminent degree, 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 so 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 what painters call studies ; in other words, of those slight sketches which 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 that we can thoroughly un- 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-Royal 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 1 Essays, Book iii. chap. xiii. DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. own account, ; ' very vague and imperfect," l and his book- learning rather sententious and gossiping than comprehensive and systematical, it would be unreasonable to expect, in his philosophical arguments, much either of depth or of solidity.' 2 The sentiments he hazards are to be regarded but as the im- pressions of the moment ; consisting chiefly of the more obvious doubts and difficulties which, on all metaphysical and moral questions, are apt to present themselves to a speculative mind. Avhen it first attempts to dig below the surface of common opinions. In reading Montaigne, accordingly, what chiefly strikes us, is not the novelty or the refinement of his 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 circum stance, rather than to any direct plagiar- ism, that his Essays appear to contain the germs of so many of the paradoxical theories which, in later times, Helvetius and <>11 UTS have laboured to systematize and to support with the 1 Book i. chap. xxv. 8 Montaigne's education, however, had not been neglected by his father. On the contrary, he tells us himself, that " George Buchanan, the great poet of Scotland, and Marcus An- tonins MuretiiB, the best orator of his time, were among the number of his domestic preceptors." " Buchanan," he adds, " when I saw him afterwards in the retinue of the late Mareschal de Mrissae, told me, that he was about to write a treatise on the education of children, and that lie would take the model of it from mine." Book i. chap, xxv. [Traces of Buchanan's tuition may be perceived in various opinions adopted by Montaigne, strongly at vari- ance with the political ideas then com- monly received. " All (says Montaigne) that exceeds a simple deatli appears to me mere cruelty ; neither can our justice expect, that he whom the fear of death, by being beheaded or hanged, will not restrain, should be any more awed by the imagination of a slow fire, burning pincers, or the wheel. And, I know not, in the meantime, whether we do not drive them to despair, &c." Book ii. chap, xxvii. Compare this with the pas- sage quoted from Buchanan, p. 62. The remark of Montaigne on Substi- tutions or Entails, savours also of Bu- chanan's principles. " In general, the most judicious distribution of our estates. when we come to die, is, in my opinion, to leave them to be disposed of accord- ing to the custom of the country. We are too fond of masculine substitutions, and ridiculously think to make our names thereby last to eternity." Book ii. chap. viii. The following is Buchan- an's reflection on the vanity and short- sightedness of those princes who have laboured to establish a perpetuity of their race and name. " Adversus na- turam rerum certamen sibi et rem maximc fluxam et.fragilem, omnitimque casuum momentis obnoxiam, aeternitate, (juam ipsi nee habent nee habere pos- sunt, donare contendunt."] CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 101 parade of metaphysical discussion. In the mind of Montaigne, the same paradoxes may be easily traced to those deceitful appearances which, in order to stimulate our faculties to their best exertions, nature seems purposely to have thrown in our way, as stumbling-blocks in the pursuit of truth ; and it is only to be regretted on such occasions, for the sake of his own happi- ness, that his genius and temper qualified and disposed 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 temper, it is probable, predisposed him to scepticism ; but this original bias could not fail to be mightily strengthened by the disputes, both religious and political, which during his lifetime convulsed Europe, and more particularly his own country. On a mind like his, it may be safely presumed that the writings of the Reformers and the instructions of Buchanan were not altogether without effect; and hence, in all probability, the perpetual (struggle, which he is at no pains to conceal, between the creed of his infancy and the lights of his mature understanding. He speaks, indeed, of " reposing tranquilly on the pillow of doubt;" but this language is neither reconcilable with the general com- plexion of his 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 should be paid to his behaviour at the end of it ;" to which he pathetically adds, " that the chief study of his own life was, that his latter end might be decent, calm, and silent." The fact is, (if we may credit the testimony of his biographers,) that, in his declining years, he exchanged his boasted pilloiv of doubt for the more powerful opiates prescribed by the infallible church, and that he expired in performing what his old preceptor Buchanan would not have scrupled to describe as an act of idolatry. 1 1 " Sentant sa fin appvocher, il fit leva dans cc moment memo, !<' 15 Sep- dirc la niesse dans sa chambre. A 1'elc- tembre 1592, a 60 ans." Nouveau vation de 1'hostie, il se leva tmr son lit Diet. Histor., a Lyon, 1804. Art. Mon- poiiv 1'adorev ; raais une foihlesse Ten- taignc. 102 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. The scepticism of Montaigne seems to have been of a very peculiar 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, by exposing the uncertainty of our reasonings whenever we pass the limit of sensible objects, to inspire their readers with a complete distrust of the human faculties on all moral and metaphysical topics. Montaigne, on the other hand, never thinks of forming a sect ; but, yielding passively to the current of his reflections and feelings, argues at different times, according to the varying state of his impressions and temper, on opposite sides of the same question. On all occasions he pre- serves an air of the most perfect sincerity ; and it was to this, I presume, much more than to the superiority of his reasoning powers, that Montesquieu alluded, when he said, " In the greater part of authors I see the writer ; in Montaigne I see nothing but the thinker" The radical fault of his understanding con- sisted in an incapacity of forming, on disputable points, those decided and fixed opinions which can alone impart either force or consistency to intellectual character. For remedying this weakness, the religious controversies, and the civil wars recently engendered by the Reformation, were but ill calculated. The minds of the most serious men, all over Christendom, must have been then unsettled in an extraordinary degree ; and where any predisposition to scepticism existed, every external circum- stance must have conspired to cherish and confirm it. Of the extent to which it was carried, about the same period, in Eng- land, some judgment may be formed from the following de- scription of a Sceptic by a writer not many years posterior to Montaigne : " A sceptic in religion is one that hangs in the balance with all sorts of opinions ; whereof not one but stirs him, and none sways him. A man guiltier of credulity than he is taken to be ; for it is out of his belief of everything that he believes nothing. Each religion scares him from 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, but that he is partly a Christian ; and a perfect Heretic, but that there are so CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY 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 himself." 1 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. 2 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 Naturalis, 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 Essays, printed at Bourdeaux in 1580 ; but the execution of this filial duty seems to have produced on Montaigne's own mind very different effects from what his father had antici- pated. 3 1 Micro-cosmography, or a Piece of among the ancients," Montaigne tells the World Discovered, in Essays and us on one occasion, " being full and Characters. For a short notice of the solid, tempt and carry me which way author of this very curious book, (Bishop almost they will. He that I am read- Earle,) see the edition published at ing seems always to have the most London in 1811. The chapter con- force ; and I find that every one in turn taining the above passage is entitled has reason, though they contradict one A Sceptic in Religion; and it has plain- another." Book ii. chap. xii. ly suggested to Lord Clarendon some of s The very few particulars known with the ideas, and even expressions, which respect to Sebonde have been collected occur in his account of Chillingworth. by Bayle. See his Dictionary, Art. 2 " The writings of the best authors Sebonde. K)4 DISSERTATION. PAKT FIRST. The principal aim of Sebonde's book, according to Mon- taigne, is to shew that " Christians are in the wrong to make human reasoning the basis of their belief, since the object of it is only conceived by faith, and by a special inspiration of the divine grace." To this doctrine Montaigne professes to yield an implicit assent ; and, under the shelter 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 powers of the human understanding, in all inquiries, whether physical or moral, are held up to ridicule ; a universal Pyrrhonism is recommended ; and we are again and again reminded, that " the senses are the beginning and the end of all our knowledge." Whoever has the patience to peruse this chapter with attention, will be sur- prised to find in it the rudiments of a great part of the licen- tious philosophy of the eighteenth century ; nor can he fail to remark the address with which the author avails himself of the language afterwards adopted by Bayle, Helvetius, and Hume : " That, to be a philosophical sceptic, is the first step towards becoming a sound believing Christian." 1 It is a melancholy fact in ecclesiastical history, that this insidious maxim should have been sanctioned, in our times, by some theologians of no common pretensions to orthodoxy; who, in direct contradic- tion to the words of Scripture, have ventured to assert, that "he who comes to God must first believe that He is NOT." Is it necessary to remind these grave retailers of Bayle's sly and ironical sopliistry. that every argument for Chris- tianity, drawn from its internal evidence, tacitly recognises the authority of human reason ; and assumes, as the ultimate criteria of truth and of falsehood, of right and of wrong, certain fundamental articles of belief, discoverable by the light of Nature? 2 1 This expression is Mr. Hume's ; upon by Bayle in tlio Illustration but the same proposition, in substance, upon the >Scej)tics, annexed to his Die- is frequently repeated by the two other tionary. writers, and is very fully enlarged 2 " I once asked Adrian Turnebus" CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. Charroii is well known as the chosen friend of Montaigne's latter years, and as the confidential depositary of his philoso- phical sentiments. Endowed with talents far inferior in force and originality to those of his master, he possessed, nevertheless, a much sounder and more regulated judgment ; and as his re- putation, notwithstanding the liberality of some of his peculiar tenets, was high among the most respectable and conscientious divines of his own church, it is far from improbable, that Mon- taigne committed to him the guardianship of his posthumous fame, from motives similar to those which 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 unlimited scepticism, and the indecent levities of the former, were viewed by the zealots of those days with a smile of tenderness and indulgence, the slighter heresies of the latter were marked with a severity the more rigorous and unrelenting, that, in points of essential im- portance, they deviated so very little from the standard of the Catholic faith. It is not easy to guess the motives of this in- consistency ; but such we find from the fact to have been the Rays Montaigne, "what he thought of thors of the Nouveau Dictioiinaire Sebonde's treatise ? The answer he Historique (Lyons, 1804) have entered made to me was, That he believed it to much more completely into the spirit be some extract from Thomas Aquinas, and drift of Sebonde's reasoning, when for that none but a genius like his was they observe, '"Ce livre offre des sin- capable of such ideas." gularites hardies, qui plurent dans le I must not, however, omit to mention, temps aux philosophes de ce siecle, et that a very learned Protestant, Hugo qui ne deplairoie.nt pas a ceux du Grotius, has expressed himself to his notre." friend Bignon not unfavourably of Se- It is proper to add, that I am ac- bonde's intentions, although the terms quainted with Sebonde only through the in which he speaks of him are somewhat medium of Montaigne's version, which equivocal, and imply but little satisfac- does not lay claim to the merit of strict tion with the execution of his design. fidelity; the translator himself having " Non ignoras quantum excoluerint is- acknowledged, that he had given to the tarn materiam (aryumentum sett, pro Spanish philosopher " un accoutrement Eelinione Christiana} philosophica sub- a la Francoise, et qu'il 1'a devctu de son tilitate Raimundus Sebundus, dialogo- port farouche et maintien barbarcsque, rum varietate Ludovicus Vives, maxima de maniere qu'il a mes-hui assez de autem turn eruditione turn facundia fafon pour se presenter en toute bonne vcstras Philippus Morn?us." The ait- compagnie." 106 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. temper of religious bigotry, or, to speak more correctly, of poli- tical religionism, in all ages of the world. 1 As an example of Charron's solicitude to provide an antidote against the more pernicious errors of his friend, I shall only mention his ingenious and philosophical attempt to reconcile, with the moral constitution of human nature, the apparent dis- cordancy in the judgments of different nations concerning right and wrong. His argument on this point 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 this instance, the coincidence between Montaigne and Locke, or that between Charron and Beattie, be the more remarkable. 2 Although Charron has affected to give to his work a systema- tical form, by dividing and subdividing 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 science of Ethics. On the powers of the understanding he has touched but slightly ; nor has he imitated Montaigne, in anatomizing, for the edification of the world, the peculiarities of his own moral character. It has probably been owing to the desultory and popular style of composition common to both, that so little attention has been paid to either by 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; but his influence on the subsequent habits of thinking among his countrymen remains still to be illustrated. He has done more, perhaps, than any other author, 1 Montaigne, cet auteur charmant, Des bavards fourres de 1'ecole. Tour a-tour profond et frivole, Mais quand son eleve Charron, Dans son chateau paisiblement, Plus retain, plus methodiquc, Loin de tout frondeur malevole De sagesse donna lefon, Doutoit de tout impunement, II fut pres de perir, dit on, Et se moquoit tres librement Par la haine theologique. Voltaire, Epitre au President Henault. * See Beattie's Essay on Fable and reasonings of Charron with a Memoir in Romance; and Charron de la Saaesse, the Phil. Trans, for 1773, (by Sir Roger liv. ii. c. 8. It may amuse the curious Curtis,) containing some partimhn-K reader also to compare the theoretical with respect to tJie country of Labrador. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 107 (I am inclined to think with the most honest intentions,) to in- troduce into men's houses (if I may borrow an expression of Cicero) what is now called the neiv philosophy, 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 his writings, of a semblance of erudition, with what Malebranche happily calls his air du monde, and air cavalier. 1 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, with the more celebrated name of Montaigne. 2 The preceding remarks lead me, by a natural connexion of ideas, (to which 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 philosophical taste of France has been far greater than seems to be commonly imagined. I allude to the Duke of La Kochefoucauld, author of the Maxims and Moral Reflections. Voltaire was, I believe, the first who ventured to assign to La Kochefoucauld the pre-eminent rank which belongs to him among the French classics. "One of the works," says he, " which contributed most to form the taste of the nation to a 1 " Ah 1'aimable homme, qu'il est de d'annees ; s'il c'eut ete une matiere de bonne compagnie! C'est mon ancien duree, il I'eut fallu commettre a un Ian- ami ; mais, a force d'etre ancien, il gage plus ferme. Selon la variation con- m'est nouveau." Madame de Sevigne. tinuelle qui a suivi le notre jusqu'a cette heure, qui peut esperer que sa forme 8 Montaigne himself seems, from the prcsente soit en usage d'ici a cinquante general strain of his writings, to have ans ? il ecoule tous les jours de nos had but little expectation of the pos- mains, et depuis que je^tis, s'est altere thumous fame which he has so long de moitie. Nous disons qu'il est a cette continued to enjoy. One of his reflec- heure parfait : Autant en dit du sien tions on this head is so characteristical chaque siecle. C'est avx bons et vtiles of the author as a man ; and, at the ecrits de le clover a eux, et ira sa fortune same time, affords so fine a specimen of selon le credit de notre etat." the graphical powers of his now anti- How completely have both the pre- quated style, that I am tempted to tran- dictions in the last sentence been veri- scribe it in his own words : " J'ecris fied by the subsequent history of the mon livre a peu d'hommes et a- peu French language ! 108 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. justness and precision of thought and expression, was the small collection of maxims by Francis Duke of La Rochefoucauld. Although there be little more than one idea in the book, that self-love is the spring of all our actions, yet this idea is pre- sented in so great a variety of forms, as to be always amusing. When it first appeared, it was read with avidity ; and it contri- buted, more than any other performance since the revival of letters, to improve the vivacity, correctness, and delicacy of French composition." Another very eminent judge of literary merit (the late Dr. Johnson) was accustomed to say of La Rochefoucauld's Maxims, that it was almost the only book written by a man of fashion, of which professed authors had reason to be jealous. Nor is this wonderful, when 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 exquisite taste could l>estow. When he had committed a maxim to paper, he was accustomed to circulate it among his friends, that he might avail himself of their critical animadversions ; and, if we may credit Segrais, 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, un- favourable to morality, and that they always leave a disagree- able impression on the mind, must, I think, be granted. At the same time, it may be fairly questioned, if the motives of the author have in general been well understood, either by his admirers or his opponents. In affirming that self-love is the spring of all our actions, there is no good reason for supposing that he meant to deny the reality of moral distinctions as a philosophical truth ; a supposition quite inconsistent with his own fine and deep remark, that hypocrisy is itself a homage ivhich 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; had found very generally verified in the higher classes of society ; and which he was induced to announce without any qualifica- tion or restriction, in order to give more force and poignancy to his satire. In adopting this mode of writing, he has unconsci- CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 1() 1 J ously conformed himself, like many other French authors, who have since followed his example, to a suggestion which Aristotle has stated with admirable depth and acuteness in his Khetoric. " Sentences or apophthegms lend much aid to eloquence. One reason of this is, that they flatter the pride of the hearers, who are delighted when the speaker, making use of general language, touches upon opinions which they had before known to be true in part. Thus, a person who had the misfortune to live in a bad neighbourhood, or to have worthless children, would easily assent to the speaker who should affirm, that nothing is more vexatious than to have any neighbours ; nothing more irrational than to bring children into the world."! This observation of Aristotle, while it goes far to account for the imposing and dazzling effect of these rhetorical exaggerations, ought to guard us against the common and popular error of mistaking them for the serious and profound generalizations of science. As for La Rochefoucauld, we know, from the best authorities, that, in private life, he was a conspicuous example of all those moral qualities of which he seemed to deny the existence ; and that he exhibited, in this respect, a striking contrast to the Cardinal de Retz, who has presumed to censure him for his want of faith in the reality of virtue. In reading La Rochefoucauld, it should never be forgotten, that it was within the vortex of a court he enjoyed his chief opportunities of studying the world ; and that the narrow and exclusive circle in which he moved was not likely to afford him the most favourable specimens of human nature in general. Of the Court of Lewis XIV. in particular, we are told by a very nice and reflecting observer, (Madame de la Fayette,) that " ambition and gallantry were the soul, actuating alike both 1 "E%otiv; r'txtot; ifavXat;, acraSs|a;T* av THU tivrivm;, fiowhiav fAlydXni, [t.ia.v piv S^ ja Qogrixo- OTI cvSiv ytirovia; ^et^tirun^av j, art auTm Tjra Ttat Kx^amrtav %u.ig/>uiri yat.t>, lav 71; rt^iQturt^iv Ttxvaveiia,f. Arist. Rhet. lib. xo.6i>Xou Xiyeov, lfirv%ti TUV $o%o>v ; ; ii. c. xxi. ixtlvoi XKTO. fjt,'it>; i%i>v I'lfHTcti, xccfa^ou avroipamrii instructive, and shews how profoundly IffTt- xaigwri SE xattfaou /.lyoftivou, S Aristotle had meditated the principles Kara, fii^o; ^oi/VaXa^/Sayavrif Tuy^eiiau- of the rhetorical art. aiv. Oiav. i'lTis ytiTaffi rv^oi xi%gnftita; n 110 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. men and women. So many contending interests, so many dif- ferent cabals were constantly at work, and in all of these women bore so important a part, that love was always mingled with business, and business with love. Nobody was tranquil or indifferent. Every one studied to advance himself by pleas- ing, serving, or ruining others. Idleness and languor were unknown, and nothing was thought of but intrigues or plea- sures." In the passage already quoted from Voltaire, he takes notice of the effect of La Rochefoucauld's maxims, in improving the style of French composition. We may add to this remark, that their effect has not been less sensible in vitiating the tone and character of French philosophy, by bringing into vogue those false and degrading representations of human nature and of human life, which have prevailed in that country, more or less, for a century past. Mr, Addison, in one of the papers of the Toiler, expresses his indignation at this general bias among the French writers of his age. " It is impossible," he observes, " to read a passage in Plato or Tully, and a thousand other ancient moralists, without being a greater and better man for it. On the 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 everything about me. Their business is to depreciate human nature, and to consider it under the worst appearances; they give mean interpreta- 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 fashionable French wits of his time, should be so strictly applicable to Helvetius, and to many other of the most admired authors whom France has produced in our own day. It is still more remarkable to find the same depressing 1 Tatler, No. 103. The last paper of be understood as referring to the modish the Tatler was published in 1711 ; and, tone of French philosophy, prior to the consequently, the above passage must death of Louis XIV. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. Ill spirit shedding its malignant influence on French literature, as early as the time of La Eochefoucauld, 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 paradoxes ; disguising and for- tifying them by the aid of those logical principles, 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 which the excesses of the French Kevolutionists have entailed such merited disgrace, it is usual to remount no higher than to the profligate period of the Eegency ; but the seeds of its most exceptionable doctrines had been sown in that country at 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 Eochefou- 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 Europe, 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 be appre- hended, to the subsequent history of ethical and of metaphysical speculation. It is time, however, now to turn our attention to a subject far more intimately connected with the general pro- gress of human reason the philosophy of Descartes. DISSERTATION. PART DESCARTES GASSENDI MALEBRANCHE. According to a late writer. 1 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 modem 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 with 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 which 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 physical sciences, his march l>e 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 his rivals could not awake from their lethargy. He willed upon men to throw off the yoke of authority, acknowledging no influence but what reason should avow: And his call was obeyed by a multitude of followers, encouraged by the boldness and fascinated by the enthusiasm of their leader." In these observations, the ingenious author has rashly gene- ralized a conclusion deduced from the literary history of his own country. That the works of Bacon were but little read there till after the publication of D'Alembert's Preliminary Discourse is, I believe, an unquestionable fact ; 2 not that it necessarily 1 Condorcet. out by D'Alembert: "II n'y a que les One reason for this is well pointed chefs de secte en tout genre, clout les CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 113 follows from this, that, even in France, no previous effect had been produced by the labours of Boyle, of Newton, and of the other English experimentalists 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 slightest colour to the supposition that it contributed, in the most distant degree, to the subsequent 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 proper attention, they might have done much more. But of this part of their merits Condorcet seems to have had no idea. His eulogy, therefore, is rather misplaced than excessive. He has extolled Descartes as the father of Experimental Physics: he would have been nearer the truth, if he had pointed him out as the father of the Experimental Philosophy of the Human Mind. In bestowing this title on Descartes, I am far from being inclined to compare him, in the number or importance of the facts which he has remarked concerning our intellectual powers, to various other writers of an earlier date. I allude merely to his clear and precise conception of that operation of the under- standing (distinguished afterwards in Locke's Essay by the name of Reflection) through the medium of which all our know- ledge of Mind is exclusively to be obtained. Of the essential subserviency of this power to every satisfactory conclusion that can be formed with respect to the mental phenomena, and of the futility of every theory which would attempt to explain them by metaphors borrowed from the material world, no other philo- sopher prior to Locke seems to have been fully aware ; and from the moment that these truths were recognised as logical prin- ciples in the study of mind, a new era commences in the history of that branch of science. It will be necessary, therefore, to allot to the illustration of this part of the Cartesian philosophy a larger space than the limits of rny undertaking will permit ouvrages puissent avoir un certain eclat ; sa philosophic s'y opposoit : elle etoit trop Bacon n'apasetedunonibre, etla forme de sage pour etonnerpersonne." Disc.Prfl. VOL. I. H 114 DISSERTATION. 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 spirit or as a spark of celestial fire, employed these expressions, not with any intention to mate- rialize 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 nature 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 corollary from these facts, 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 I'HAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 115 observation bears to the study of the material world, appears, nevertheless, 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 supposing the Deity to have superadded to the other qualities of matter the poruer 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 abstracting from the analogy of matter, in studying the laws of our intellectual frame. The question about the nature or essence of the soul, has been, in all ages, a favourite subject of discussion among Meta- physicians, from its supposed connexion with the argument in proof of its immortality. In tliis light it has plainly been considered by both parties in the dispute ; the one conceiving, that if Mind could be shewn to have no quality in common with Matter, its dissolution was physically impossible ; the other, that if this assumption could be disproved, it would necessarily follow, that the whole man must perish at death. For the last of these opinions Dr. Priestley and many other speculative theologians have of late very zealously contended ; flattering themselves, no doubt, with the idea, that they were thus preparing a triumph for their own peculiar schemes of Christianity. Neglecting, accordingly, all the presumptions for a future state, afforded by a comparison of the course of human affairs with the moral judgments and moral feelings of the human heart; and overlooking, with the same disdain, the presumptions arising from the narrow sphere of human know- ledge, when compared with the indefinite improvement of which our intellectual powers seem to be susceptible ; this acute but superficial writer attached himself exclusively to the old and hackneyed pneumatological argument ; tacitly assuming as a principle, that the future prospects of man depend entirely on the determination of a physical problem, analogous to that which was then dividing chemists about the existence or non- existence of Phlogiston. In the actual state of science, these 11G DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. speculations might well have been spared. Where is the sober metaphysician to be found, 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 of mind ^ 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 annihilation must be the obvious and necessary effect of the dissolution of the body. 1 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. 2 Between 1 " We shall here be content," gays cartes n'ait point parle de 1'immortalite the learned John Smith of Cambridge, de 1'ame. Mais il nous apprend lui- " with that sober thesis of Plato, in his meme par une de ses lettres, qu'ayant TimcBus, who attributes the perpetuation etabli clairement, dans cet ouvrage, la of all substances to the benignity and distinction de Tame et de la matiere, il liberality of the Creator ; whom he suivoit necessairement de cette distinc- thereforc brings in thus speaking, vpi7 s tion, que 1'ame par sa nature ne pouvoit olx. IffTi a.i.v*.fia,Tixr>, as the Greek philosopher expresseth 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 souls are, but only by their xiwriis xvx>.ixa,i, their circular or reflex motions, and converse with themselves, which can only steal from them their own secrets." Smith's Select Discourses, pp. 65, 66. " If we reflect but upon our own souls, how manifestly do the notions of reason, freedom, perception, and the like, ofler themselves to us, whereby we may know a thousand times more distinctly what our souls are than what our bodies are. 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 \incertain experi- ments which we make of them ; but the notions which we have of a mind, i.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 that if all body- beiny in the world were destroyed, yet we might then as well subsist as now we do." Ibid. p. 98. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 123 theories of Hobbes at the very same period ! and how often have they been since lost sight of, notwithstanding the clearest specu- lative conviction of their truth and importance, by Locke him- self, and by the greatest part of his professed followers ! Had they been duly studied and understood by Mr. Home Tooke, they would have furnished him with a key for solving those etymological riddles, which, although mistaken by many of his contemporaries for profound philosophical discoveries, derive, in fact, the whole of their mystery, from the strong bias of shallow reasoners to relapse into the same scholastic errors, from which Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Keid, have so successfully laboured to emancipate the mind. If anything can add to our admiration of a train of thought manifesting in its author so unexampled a triumph over the strongest prejudices of sense, it is the extraordinary circum- stance of its having first occurred to a young man, who had spent the years commonly devoted to academical study, amid the dissipation and tumult of camps. 1 Nothing could make this conceivable, but the very liberal education which he had previously received under the Jesuits, at the college of La Fleche ; 2 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 the Philosopher. Indeed, it is only at that early age that such habits are to be cultivated with complete success. 1 " Descartes porta les armes, d'abord 8 It is a curious coincidence, that it en Hollande, sous le celebre Maurice was in the same village of La Fleche de Nassau ; de-la en Allemagne, sous that Mr. Hume fixed his residence, Maximilien de Baviere, au commence- while composing his Treatise of Human ment de la guerre de trente ans. II Nature. Is it not probable, that he was passa ensuite au service de 1'Empereur partly attracted to it by associations Ferdinand II. pour voir de plus pres similar to those which presented them- les troubles de la Hongrie. On croit selves to the fancy of Cicero, when he aussi, qu'au siege de la Rochelle, il visited the walks of the Academy ? combattit, comme volontaire, dans une In the beginning of Descartes' disser- bataille centre la flotte Angloise." tation upon Method, he has given a very Thomas, Eloye de Descartes, Note 8. interesting account of the pursuits which When Descartes quitted the pro- occupied his youth ; and of the considera- fession of arms, he had arrived at the tions which suggested to him the bold age of twenty-five. undertaking of reforming philosophy. 124 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. The glory, however, of having pointed out to his successors the true method of studying the theory of Mind, 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 our 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. 1 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 unquestionably belongs to Descartes, although it must be owned that he has not always sufficiently attended to it in his own researches. 2 2. His observations on the different classes of our prejudices 1 Such too is the judgment pro- philosophic Be trouvoit dans un etat nounced hy D'Alembert. " Les mathe- bien different, tout y etoit a commence! 1 ; matiques dont Descartes semble avoir et que ne content point les premiers pas fait assez peu de cas, font neanmoins en tout genre! le merite de les faire aujourd'hui la partie la plus solide et dispense de celui d'en faire de grands." la moins contestee de sa gloire." To Disc. Prel. this he adds a very ingenious reflection * " The names of simple ideas are on the comparative merits of Descartes, not capable of any definitions; the names considered as a geometer and as a phi- of all complex ideas are. It has not, losopher. " Comme philosophe, il a . that I know, been yet observed by any- peut-etre etc aussi grand, mais il n'a body, what words are, and what are not pas ete si heureux. La Geometric, qui capable of being defined." (Locke's par la nature de son objet doit toujours Essay, Book iii. chap. iv. 4.) Com- gagner sans perdre, ne pouvoit man- pare this with the Piindpia of Des- quer, etant maniee par un aussi grand cartes, I. 10 ; and with- Lord Stair's genie, de faire des progres tres-sensibles Physiologia Nova Experimentalis, pp. 9 et apparens pour tout le monde. La and 79, printed at Leyden in 1686. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 125 particularly on the errors to which we are liable in consequence of a careless use of language as the instrument of thought. The greater part of these observations, if not the whole, had been previously hinted at by Bacon ; but they are expressed by Des- cartes with greater precision and simplicity, and in a style better adapted to the taste of the present age. 3. The paramount and indisputable authority which, in all our reasonings concerning the human mind, he ascribes to the evidence of consciousness. Of this logical principle he has availed himself, with irresistible force, in refuting the scholastic sophisms against the liberty of human actions, drawn from 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 between the primary and the secondary quali- ties of matter. This distinction was not unknown to some of the ancient schools of philosophy in Greece ; but it was after- wards rejected by Aristotle, and by the schoolmen ; and it was reserved for Descartes to place it in such a light, as (with the exception of a very few sceptical, or rather paradoxical theo- rists) to unite the opinions of all succeeding inquirers. For this step, so apparently easy, but so momentous in its conse- quences, Descartes was not indebted to any long or difficult processes of reasoning, but to those habits of accurate and patient attention to the operations of his own mind, which, from his early years, it was the great business of his life to cultivate. It may be proper to add, that the epithets primary and second- ary, now universally employed to mark the distinction in ques- tion, were first introduced by Locke, a circumstance which may have contributed to throw into the shade the merits of those inquirers who had previously struck into the same path. 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, in 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. 1 In proof of this, it might be sufficient to refer to his own statement in the first part of the Principia;' 2 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 those con- 1 " Descartes, Malebranche, and Locke dicimus nos percipere colores in objec- revived the distinction between primary tis, ac si diceremus nos percipere aliquitl and secondary qualities. But they in objectis, quod quidem quid sit igno- made the secondary qualities mere sen- ramus, sed a quo efficitur in nobis ipsis sations, and the primary ones resem- sensus quidam valde manifestus ct per- blances of our sensations. They main- spicuus, qui vocatur sensus colonim. tained that colour, sound, and heat, are . . . Cum vero putamus nos percipere not anything in bodies, but sensations of colores in objectis, etsi revera nesciamus the mind. . . . The paradoxes of these quidnam sit quod tune nomine colon's philosophers were only an abuse of appellamus, nee ullam similitudinem words. For when they maintain, as an intelligere possimus, inter colorem quern important modern discovery, that there supponimus esse in objectis, et ilium is no heat in the fire, they mean no quern experimur esse in sensti, quia more than that the fire does not feel tamen hoc ipsum non advertimus, et heat, which every one knew before." multa alia sunt, ut magnitude, figura, Reid's Inquiry, chap. v. sect. viii. numerus, &c. quse clare percipimus non * See sections Ixix. Ixx. Ixxi The aliter a nobis sentiri vel intelligi, quam whole of these three paragraphs is highly ut sunt, aut saltern esse possunt in objec- interesting, but I shall only quote two tis, facile, in eum errorem delabimur, ut sentences, which are fully sufficient to judiceimis id, quod in objectis vocamus shew that, in the above observations, I colorem,, esse quid omnino simile colori have done Descartes no more than strict quern sentimus, atque ita ut id quod justice. nullo modo percipimus, a nobis clare " Patet itaque in re idem esse, cum percipi arbitraremur." CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 127 fused and indeterminate questions, whether fire is hot, grass green, and sugar sweet, philosophers are in use to reply, by dis- tinguishing the equivocal meaning of the words expressing sen- sible qualities. 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 understand what I feel by fire, what I see in grass, &c., fire is not hot, nor grass green ; for the heat I feel, and the colours I see, are only in the soul." 1 It is surprising how this, and other passages to the same purpose in Malebranche, should have escaped the notice of Dr. Keid ; for nothing more precise on the ambiguity in the names of secondary qualities is to be found in his own works. It is still more surprising that Buffier, who might be expected to have studied with care the speculations of his illustrious countrymen, should have directly charged, not only Descartes, but Malebranche, with maintaining a paradox, which they were at so much pains to banish from the schools of philo- sophy. 2 The important observations of Descartes upon this subject, made their way into England very soon after his death. They are illustrated at considerable length, and with great ingenuity, by Grlanvill, in his Scepsis Scientifica, published about thirteen years before Malebranche's Search after Truth. So slow, how- ever, is the progress of good sense, when it has to struggle against the prejudices of the learned, that, as lately as 1713, the paradox so clearly explained and refuted by Descartes, 1 Recherche de la Verite, livre vi. Uniquement de 1'imperfection nerT6( and Tein . of Prior affords incontestable evidence. KUDS here and there like Hamlet's Ghost. From the same poem it appears, how While everywhere she rules the roast. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 141 It would be useless to dwell longer on tlie reveries of a philosopher, much better known to the learned of the present age by the boldness of his exploded errors, than by the pro- found and important truths contained in his works. At the period when he appeared, it may perhaps be questioned, Whether the truths which he taught, or the 'errors into which he fell, were most instructive to the world ? The controversies provoked by the latter had certainly a more immediate and palpable effect in awakening a general spirit of free inquiry. To this consideration may be added an ingenious and not altogether unsound remark of D'Alembert, that " when absurd opinions are become inveterate, it is sometimes necessary to replace them by other errors, if nothing better can be done. Such (he continues) are the uncertainty and the vanity of the human mind, that it has always need of an opinion on which it may lean ; it is a child to whom a play-thing must occa- sionally be presented in order to get out of its hands a mis- chievous weapon: the play-thing will soon be abandoned, when the light of reason begins to dawn." 1 Among the opponents of Descartes, Grassendi was one of the earliest, and by far the most formidable. No two philosophers were ever more strongly contrasted, both in point of talents and of temper ; the former as far superior to the latter in originality of genius in powers of concentrated attention to the pheno- mena of the internal world in classical taste in moral sensi- This system, Richard, we are told, Up0 n the various hypotheses of phy- The men of Oxford firmly hold ; siologists concerning the nature of the The Cambridge wits, you know, deny . L . , . With ipse dixit to comply. communication between soul and body. They say (for in good truth they speak The amusing contrast between the With small respect of that old Greek) solemn absurdity of these disputes, and That, putting all his words together, the light pleasantry of the excursions Tis three blue beans in one blue bladder. to ^^ ^ kad ^ f f th Alma, they strenuously maintain, . , * Sits cock-horse on her throne the brain, constitutes the principal charm of this And from that seat of thought dispenses performance ; by far the most original and Her sovereign pleasure to the senses, &c. ic. characteristical of all Prior's Works. 1 See Note P. [For Dr. Barrow's The whole poem, from beginning to opinion of the philosophical merits of end, is one continued piece of ridicule Descartes, see his Opuscnla, p. 156.] DISSERTATION 1 ". 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, which 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 Gassendi, 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 his 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, before 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 instauratio ma-gna. " 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 effects. 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 God 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. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 143 promises everything that can be expected from human genius, it does not, therefore, lay any claim to the art of divination ; but only boasts of deducing from the assumed data, all the truths which follow from them as legitimate consequences ; which data can, in physics, be nothing else but principles previously established by experiment." 1 In Gassendi's con- troversies with Descartes, the name of Bacon seems to be studiously introduced on various occasions, in a manner still better calculated to excite the curiosity of his antagonist ; and in his historical review of logical systems, the heroical attempt which gave birth to the Novum Organon is made the subject of a separate chapter, immediately preceding that which relates to the Metaphysical Meditations of Descartes. The partiality of Gassendi for the Epicurean physics, if not originally imbibed from Bacon, must have been powerfully encouraged by the favourable terms in which he always men- tions the Atomic or Corpuscular theory. In its conformity to that luminous simplicity which everywhere characterizes the operations of nature, this theory certainly possesses a decided superiority over all the other conjectures of the ancient philoso- phers concerning the material universe ; and it reflects no small honour on the sagacity both of Bacon and of Gassendi, to have perceived so clearly the strong analogical presumption which this conformity afforded in its favour, prior to the unexpected lustre thrown upon it by the researches of the Newtonian school. With all his admiration, however, of the Epicurean physics, Bacon nowhere shews the slightest leaning towards the meta- physical or ethical doctrines of the same sect ; but, on the contrary, considered (and, I apprehend, rightly considered) the atomic theory as incomparably more hostile to atheism, than the hypothesis of four mutable elements, and of one immutable fifth essence. In this last opinion, there is every reason to believe that Gassendi fully concurred ; more especially, as he was a zealous advocate for the investigation of final causes, even in inquiries strictly physical. At the same time, it cannot be 1 See the first Epistle to Descartes, prefixed to his Treatise on the Passions. Amstel. 1664. 144 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. denied, that, on many questions, both of Metaphysics and of Ethics, this very learned theologian (one of the most orthodox, professedly, 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 his 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 Gussendi'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 have created in his mind an undue prejudice against the speculations of Descartes on all other subjects. His objections to the argument by which Descartes has 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 into sensible images y 1 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 facidties to rear any superstructure. The sum of the whole matter is, (to use Ms own language,) that " there is no real distinction between imagination and intellec- tion ;" meaning, by the former of these words, the power which the mind possesses of representing to itself the material objects 1 [" Deinde omnis nostra notitia vi- loquuntur, fiat ; perficiatur tanien ana- clctur plane ducere originem a scnsibus ; logia, compositione, divisione, amplia- et quamvis tu neges quicquid est in tione, extenuatione, aliisque similibus intellects prseesse debere in sensu, vi- modis, quos commemorare nihil est ne- detnr et esse niliilominus verum, cum cesse." Objeciioms in Meditatlonem nisi sola incursione, Kara, vt^frutriv, ut Secundam.] CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 145 and qualities it has previously perceived. It is evident that this conclusion coincides exactly with the tenets inculcated in England at the same period by his friend Hobbes, 1 as well as with those revived at a later period by Diderot, Home Tooke, and many other writers, both French and English, who, while they were only repeating the exploded dogmas of Epicurus, fan- cied they were pursuing, with miraculous success, the new path struck out by the genius of Locke. It is worthy of remark, that the argument employed by Gas- sendi against Descartes is copied almost verbatim from his own version of the account given by Diogenes Laertius of the sources of our knowledge, according to the principles of the Epicurean philosophy ; 2 so very little is there of novelty in the consequences deduced by modern materialists from the scholastic proposition, Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuit prius in sensu. The same doctrine is very concisely and explicitly stated in a maxim for- merly quoted from Montaigne, that " the senses are the beginning and end of all our knowledge ; a maxim which Montaigne learned from his oracle Kaymond de Sebonde ; which, by the present race of French philosophers, is almost universally sup- posed to be sanctioned by the authority of Locke ; and which, if true, would at once cut up by the roots, not only all meta- physics, but all ethics, and all religion, both natural and re- vealed. It is, accordingly, with this very maxim that Madame du Deffand (in a letter which rivals anything that the fancy of Moliere has conceived in his Femmes Savantes) assails Voltaire for his imbecility in attempting a reply to an atheistical book then recently published. In justice to this celebrated lady, I shall transcribe part of it in her own words, as a pre- cious and authentic document of the philosophical tone 1 The affection of Gassendi for ut opinor, medulld scatet!" (Sorberii Hobbes, and his esteem for his writ- Pref.) Gassendi's admiration of Hobbes's ings, are mentioned in very strong terms treatise De Give, was equally warm, as by Sorbiere : " Thomas Hobbius Gas- we learn from a letter of his to Sorbiere, sendo charissimus, cujus libellum De prefixed to that work. Corpore paucis ante obitum mensibus accipieus, osculatus est subjungens, mole 2 Compare Gassendi Opera, torn, iii, quidemparvusestiste liber, verum totus, pp. 300, 301 ; and torn. v. p. 12. VOL. I. K 146 DISSERTATION. PART FIKST. affected by the higher orders in France during the reign of Louis XV. " J'entends parler d'une refutation d'un certain livre, (Sys- tdme de la Nature,) Je voudrois 1'avoir. Je m'en tiens a con- noitre ce livre par vous. Toutes refutations de systeme doivent etre bonnes, surtout quand c'est vous qui les faites. Mais, mon cher Voltaire, ne vous ennuyez-vous pas de tous les raisonne- mens metaphysiques sur les matieres inintelligibles. Peut-on donner des id^es, ou peut-on en admettre d'autres que celles que nous regevons par nos sens ?" If the Senses be the bey inning and end of all our knowledge, the inference here pointed at is quite irresistible. 1 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. 2 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 1 Notwithstanding the evidence (ac- qu'en parlant de la nouvelle philosophic cording to my judgment) of this con- de 1'esprit humain, nous disions toujours, elusion, I trust it will not be supposed la philosophic de Locke. D'Alembert that I impute the slightest bias in its et Condillac ont autorise cette expres- favour to the generality of those who sion, en rapportant 1'un et 1'autre a have adopted the premises. If an author Locke exclu si vement, la gloire de cette is to be held chargeable with all the invention," &c. &c. De Gerando, Hist. consequences logically deducible from Comp. des Systemes, tome i. p. 301. his opinions, who can hope to escape [The blind and idolatrous admiration of censure ? And, in the present instance, the French philosophers for Locke can how few are there among Montaigne's be accounted for only by their very im- disciples, who have ever reflected for a perfect acquaintance with his writings, moment on the real meaning and import If Voltaire had ever read the Essay on of the proverbial maxim in question ! Human Understanding, his estimate of the merits of that excellent work would s " Gassendi fut le premier auteur de probably have been somewhat more dis- la nouvelle philosophic de 1'esprit hu- criminating. " Locke seul a developpe main ; car il est terns de lui rendre, a Ventendement humain dans un livre ou cet egard, une justice qu'il n'a presque il n'y a que des verites ; et ce qui rend jamais obtenue de ses propres compa- 1'ouvrage parfait, toutes ces verites sont triotes. H est tres singulier en effet, claires." (Siecle de Louis XIV.)] CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 147 country. The main scope, indeed, of Gassendi's argument against Descartes, is to materialize that class of our ideas which 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 conceptions borrowed from things external. It is not, therefore, what is sound and valuable in this part of Locke's system, but the errors grafted on it in the comments of some of his followers, that can justly be said to have been borrowed from Gassendi. Nor has Gas- sendi the merit of originality, even in these errors ; for scarcely a remark on the subject occurs in his works, but what is copied from the accounts transmitted to us of the Epicurean metaphysics. Unfortunately for Descartes, while he so clearly perceived that the origin of those ideas which are the most interesting to human happiness, could not be traced to our external senses, he had the weakness, instead of stating this fundamental pro- position in plain and precise terms, to attempt an explanation of it by the extravagant hypothesis of innate, ideas. This hypothesis gave Gassendi great advantages over him, in the management of their controversy ; while the subsequent adop- tion of Gassendi's reasonings against it by Locke, has led to a very general but ill-founded belief, that the latter, as well as the former, rejected, along with the doctrine of innate ideas, the various important and well-ascertained truths combined with it in the Cartesian system. 1 The hypothetical language afterwards introduced by Leib- nitz concerning the human soul, (which he sometimes calls a living mirror of the universe, and sometimes supposes to con- tain within itself the seeds of that knowledge which is gradually unfolded in the progressive exercise of its faculties,) is another impotent attempt to explain a mystery unfathomable by human reason. The same remark may be extended to some of Plato's reveries on this question, more particularly to his supposition, that those ideas which cannot be traced to any of our external senses, were acquired by the soul in its state of pre-existence. 1 [See 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 unex- plained) in our intellectual frame. It is very justly observed by Mr. Hume, 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." 1 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. Reid as a motto to his Inquiry, conveys, in a few words, the result of his own modest and truly philosophical 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 meilleur litterateur des philosophes," appears to me quite extravagant. 2 His learning, indeed, was at once vast and accu- 1 History of Great Britain, chap. a Essai aur VEtude de la Litttra- Ixxi. ture. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FKOM BACON TO LOCKE. 149 rate ; and, as a philosopher, he is justly entitled to the praise of being one of the first who entered thoroughly into the spirit of the Baconian logic. But his inventive powers, which were pro- bably not of the highest order, seem to have been either dissi- pated amidst the multiplicity of his literary pursuits, or laid asleep by his indefatigable labours, as a Commentator and a Compiler. From a writer of this class, new lights were not to be expected in the study of the human Mind ; and accordingly, here he has done little or nothing, but to revive and to repeat over the doctrines of the old Epicureans. His works amount to six large volumes in folio ; but the substance of them might be compressed into a much smaller compass, without any diminution of their value. In one respect Gassendi had certainly a great advantage over his antagonist the good humour which never forsook him in the heat of a philosophical argument. The comparative indif- ference with which he regarded most of the points at issue between them, was perhaps the chief cause of that command of temper so uniformly displayed in all his controversies, and so remarkably contrasted with the constitutional irritability of Descartes. Even the faith of Gassendi in his own favourite master, Epicurus, does not seem to have been very strong or dogmatical, if it be true that he was accustomed to aUege, as the chief ground of his preferring the Epicurean physics to the theory of the Vortices, " that chimera for chimera, he could not help feeling some partiality for that which was two thousand years older than the other." About twenty years after the death of Gassendi, (who did not long survive Descartes,) Malebranche entered upon his philo- sophical career. The earlier part of his life had, by the advice of some of his preceptors, been devoted 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 predi- lection which afforded any promise of future eminence. At length, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, he accidentally met 1 See Note R. 150 DISSERTATION. PAIiT FIRST. with Descartes' Treatise on Man, which opened to him 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 describes 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 after Truth; 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 ; l 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 inveighs against this treacherous faculty, as the prolific parent of our most fatal delusions. 2 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 1 Bayle. Fontenelle. D'Alembert. his own. The following allusion of * In one of his arguments on this Bacon's, quoted by Malebranche, is enri- head, Malebranche refers to the re- nently apposite and happy : " Omnes marks previously made on the same perceptiones tarn sensus quam mentis subject by an English philosopher, who, sunt ex analogia hominis, non ex ana- like himself, has more than once taken logia universi : Estque intellectus hu- occasion, while warning his readers manus instar spcculi insequalis ad radios against the undue influence of hnagina- rerum, qui suam naturam naturae rerum tion over the judgment, to exemplify immiscet, eamque distorquet et in- the boundless fertility and originality of ficit." CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 151 all the prejudices connected with the peculiar dogmas of the Roman Catholic faith. Unfortunately, too, he everywhere discovers a strong disposition to blend his theology and his metaphysics together ; availing himself of the one as an auxiliary 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 admired, and, in point of fact, the indis- putable author of some of the most refined speculations claimed by the theorists of the eighteenth century. As for those mystical controversies about Grace with Anthony Arnauld, on which he wasted so much of his genius, they have long sunk into utter oblivion; nor should I have here revived the recollection of them, were it not for the authentic record they furnish of the passive bondage in which, little more than a hundred years ago, two of the most powerful minds of that memorable period were held by a creed, renounced at the Reformation, by all the Protestant countries of Europe ; and the fruitful source, wherever it has been retained, of other prejudices, not less to be lamented, of an opposite description. 1 When Malebranche touches on questions not positively de- cided by the church, he exhibits a remarkable boldness and freedom of inquiry ; setting at nought those human authorities 1 Of this disposition to blend theo- effect, by the suspicious authority of a logical dogmas with philosophical dis- philosopher not in communion with the cussions, Malebranche was so little Church of Eome. Recherche de la conscious in himself, that he has Verite, liv. ii. chap. ix. seriously warned his readers against Dr. Reid, proceeding on the supposi- it, by quoting an aphorism of Bacon's, tion that Malebranche was a Jesuit, has peculiarly applicable to his own writ- ascribed to the antipathy between this ings : " Ex divinorum et humanorum order and the Jansenists, the warmth inalesana admixtione non solum educitur displayed on both sides, in his disputes philosophia phantastica, sed etiam re- with Arnauld, (Essays on the Int. ligio hreretica. Itaque salutare admo- Powers, p. 124) ; but the fact is, that dum est si mente sobria fidei tantum Malebranche belonged to the Congre- dentur quse fidei sunt." In transcrib- gation of the Oratory ; a society much ing these words, it is amusing to ob- more nearly allied to the Jansenists serve, that Malebranche has slily sup- than to the Jesuits ; and honourably pressed the name of the author from distinguished, since its first origin, by whom they are borrowed ; manifestly the moderation as well as learning of from an unwillingness to weaken their its members. 152 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. which have so much weight with men of unenlightened 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 rimagiriation des autres, je veux dire par Topiuion 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 ve'ritablement 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 terns ils ne seront plus sorciers ; parce que ceux qui ne le sont que par imagination, qui font cer- tainement le plus grand nombre, deviendront comme les autres hommes. " C'est done avec raison que plusieurs Parlemens ne punissent point les sorciers : ils s'en trouve beaucoup moins dans les terres de leur ressort : Et Fenvie, la haine, et la malice des medians ne peuvent se servir de ce pretexte 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 ! 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 same air with the associates and friends of Descartes and of Gassendi ; and that no philosopher CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 153 seems 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'autrui." Another feature in the intellectual character of Malebranche, presenting an unexpected contrast to his powers of abstract meditation, is the attentive and discriminating eye with which he appears to have surveyed the habits and manners of the comparatively little circle around him; and the delicate yet expressive touches with which he has marked and defined some of the nicest shades and varieties of genius. 1 To this branch of the Philosophy of Mind, not certainly the least important and interesting, he has contributed a greater number of original remarks than Locke himself; 2 since whose time, with the 1 See among other passages, Seek, de la Verite, liv. ii. chap. ix. * In one of Locke's most noted re- marks of this sort, he has been antici- pated by Malebranche, on whose 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 memory ready at hand, consists 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 clearness of reason, which is to be observed in one man above another. And hence, perhaps, may be given some reason of that com- mon observation, that men who have a great deal of wit, and prompt memories, have not always the clearest judgment, or deepest reason. For Wit, lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and va- riety, wherein can be found any resem- blance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures, and agreeable visions in the fancy ; Judgment, on the con- trary, lies quite on the other side, in separating carefully, one from another, ideas wherein can be found the least dif- ference, thereby to avoid being misled by similitude, 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. Les uns remarquent aisement les dif- ferences des choses, et ce sont les bons esprits. Les autres imaginent et sup- posent de la'ressemblance entr'elles, et ce sont les esprits superficiels." Recli, de la Verite, liv. ii. Seconde Parlie, chap. ix. At a still earlier period, Bacon had pointed out the same cardinal distinc- tion in the intellectual characters of in- dividuals. "Maximum et velut radicale discri- men ingeniorum, quoad philosophiam et scientias, illud est ; quod alia ingenia sint fortiora et aptiora ad notandas re- rum differentias ; alia, ad notandas re- rum similitudines. Ingenia enim con- stantia et acuta, figere contemplationes, et morari, et hserere in omni subtilitate differentiarum possunt. Ingenia auteni sublimia, et discursiva, etiam tenuissi- mas et catholicas rerum similitudines et cognoscunt, et componunt. Utrumque autem ingenium facile labitur in exces- 154 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. single exception of Helvetius, hardly any attention has been paid to it, either by French or English metaphysicians!. 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 Arnauld ; 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 Tie 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 facilite, s'il garde une mesure agreable dans ses periodes, s'il a l'air d'un honnete homme et d'un homme d'esprit, si c'est une personne de qualite, s'il est suivi d'un grand train, s'il parle avec autorite et avec gravite, si les autres Tecoutent 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 estime, 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." 1 In his philosophical capacity, Malebranche is to be considered sum, prensando aut gradus rerum, ant indeed, a talent very subordinate in umbras." dignity to most of the others. That strain I heard ivas of a higher I shall indulge myself only in one 'i,toodl It is evident, that Bacon has other citation from Malebranche, which here seized, in its most general form, I select partly on account of the curious the very important truth perceived by extract it contains from an English pub- liis two ingenious successors in parti- lication long since forgotten in this cular cases. Wit, which Locke con- country ; and partly as a proof that this trasts with judgment, is only one of the learned and pious father was not nlto- various talents connected with what gether insensible to the ludicrous. Bacon calls the discursirf r/fni>i*: and "Un illnstre ontre les Scavans, qui n CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 155 in two points of view ; 1. As a commentator on Descartes ; and, 2. As the author of some conclusions from the Cartesian prin- ciples, not perceived or not avowed by his predecessors of the same school. 1. I have already taken notice of Malebranche's comments on fonde des chaires de Geometric et d' As- tronomic dans 1'Universite d'Oxford,* commence un livre, qu'il s'est avise de faire sur les huit premieres propositions d'Euclide, par ces paroles. Consilium meum est, auditores, si vires et valetudo suffecerint, explicare definitiones, peti- tiones, communes sententias, et octo pri- or es propositiones primi libri element- orum, ccetera post me venientibus re- linquere: et il le finit par celles-ci : Exsolvi per Dei gratiam, Domini au- ditores, promissum, liberavijidem meant, explicavi pro modulo meo defaiitiones, petitiones, communes sententias, et octo priores propositiones elementorum Eu- clidis. Hie annis fessus cydos artem- que repono. Succedent in hoc munm alii fortasse magis vegeto corpore et vivido ingenio. II ne faut pas une heure a un esprit mediocre, pour ap- prendre par lui meme, ou par le secours du plus petit geometre qu'il y ait, les definitions, demandes, axiomes, et les huit premieres propositions d'Euclide : et voici un auteur qui parle de cette en- treprise, comme de quelque chose de fort grand, et de fort difficile. II a peur que les forces lui manquent ; Si vires et valetudo suffecerint. II laisse a ses suc- cesseurs a pousser ces choses : ccetera post me venientibus relinquere. II re- mercie Dieu de ce que, par une grace particuliere, il a execute ce qu'il avoit promis : exsolvi per Dei gratiam pro- missum, liberavi fidem meam, explicavi pro modulo meo. Quoi ? la quadrature du cercle ? la duplication du cube ? Ce grand homme a expliquo pro modulo suo, les definitions, les demandes, les axiomes, et les huit premieres proposi- tions du premier livre des Elemens d'Euclide. Peut-etre qu'entre ceux qui lui succederont, il s'en trouvera qui auront plus de sante, et plus de force que lui pour continuer ce bel ouvrage : Succedent in hoc munus alii FORTASSE magis vegeto corpore, et vivido ingenio. Mais pour lui il est terns qu'il se re- pose ; hie annis fessus cydos artemque repono." After reading the above passage, it is impossible to avoid reflecting, with satisfaction, on the effect which the pro- gress of philosophy has since had in removing those obstacles to the acquisi- tion of useful knowledge which were created by the pedantic taste prevalent two centuries ago. What a contrast to a quarto commentary on the definitions, postulates, axioms, and first eight pro- positions of Euclid's First Book, is pre- sented by Condorcet's estimate of the time now sufficient to conduct a student to the highest branches of mathematics ! "Dans le siecle dernier, il suffisoit de quelques annees d'etude pour savoir tout ce qu'Archimede et Hipparque avoient pu connoitre ; et aujourd'hui deux annees de 1'enseignement d'un professeur vont au dela de ce que sa- voient Leibnitz ou Newton." (Sur I 'In- struction Publique.} In this particular science, I am aware that much is to be ascribed to the subsequent invention of new and more general methods ; but, I apprehend, not a little also to the im- provements gradually suggested by ex- perience, in what Bacon calls the tradi- tive part of logic. * Sir Henry Savile. The work here referred to is a 4to volume, entitled, Prelectiones xiii. in Principium Elementorum Euclidis, Oxoniae habitas, Anno 1620. 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 onr 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; 1 as well 1 " Toutes nos differentes perceptions nerfs, qui se communique jusqu'au sont attachues aux differens changemens cerveau:" thus translated by Taylor: qui arrivent dans les fibres de la partie " The second thing that occurs in every principale du cerveau dans laquelle sensation is the vibration of the fibres 1'ame reside plus particulierement." of our nerves, which is communicated (RecJi. de la Verite, lib. ii. chap, v.) to the brain." (Liv. i. chap, xii.) Nor These changes in the fibres of the brain was the theory of association overlooked are commonly called by Malebranche by Malebranche. See, in particular, ebranlemens ; a word which is fre- the third chapter of his second book, quently rendered by his old English entitled, De la liaison mutuelle (les translator (Taylor) vibrations. " La idees de V esprit, et des traces du seconde chose," says Malebranche, cerveau; et de la liaison mutuelle des " qui se trouve dans chacune des sensa- traces avec les traces, et des idees avec tioris, est I'e'branlement des fibres de nos Us idees. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 157 as a hypothesis concerning the nature of habits, which, rash and unwarranted 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. 2 From this single prin- ciple, the greater part of his distinguishing doctrines may be easily deduced, as obvious corollaries. 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 remarked by Hobbes, and more fully shown by Glanvill in his Scepsis Scienti/ica. Malebranche, however, has treated the same argument much more profoundly and ably than any of his predecessors, and has, indeed, anticipated Hume in some of the most ingenious reasonings contained in his Essay on Necessary Connexion. From these data, it was not unnatural for his pious mind to conclude, that what are commonly called second causes have no 1 " Mais afin de suivre notre expli- " Habits seem to be but trains of cation, il faut remarquer que les esprits motion in the animal spirits, which, ne trouvent pas toujours les chemins, once set a-going, continue in the same par ou ils doivent passer, assez ouverts steps they have been used to, which, by et assez libres ; et que cela fait que nous often treading, are worn into a smooth avons de la difficulte a remuer, pair path.' 1 Locke, book ii. chap, xxxiii. exemple, les doigts avec la vitesse qui 6. est necessaire pour jouer des instrumens de musique, ou les muscles qui servent 2 " Afin qu'on ne puisse plus douter a la prononciation, pour prononcer les de la faussete de cette miserable philo- mots d'une langue etrangere : Mais que sophie, il est necessaire de prouver qu'il peu-a-peu les esprits animaux par leur n'y a qu'un vrai Dieu, parce qu'il n'y a cours continuel ouvrent et applanissent qu'une vraie cause ; que la nature ou la ces chemins, en sorte qu'avec le terns force de chaque chose n'est que la ils n'y trouvent plus de resistance. Car volonte de Dieu : que toutes les causes c'est dans cette facilite que les esprits naturelles ne sont point de veritable animaux ont de passer dans les membres causes, mais seulement des causes occa- de notre corps, que consistent les habi- sionelles." De la Verite, livre vi. 2de tudcs." Hech.delaVerite,lrv.ii.chap.v. 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 nature. 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 causes, 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 laws everywhere manifested to our senses, in a depar- ture from which laws, the very essence of a miracle 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 from the limited sphere of human power. 1 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 1 This objection, frivolous as it is, all the purposes of providence, than if was strongly urged by Mr. Boyle, (In- the great Creator were obliged every quiry into the Vulgar Idea concerning moment to adjust its parts, and animate Nature,) and has been copied from him by his breath all the wheels of that stu- by Mr. Hume, Lord Kames, and many pendous machine." (Essay on the Idea other writers. Mr. Hume's words are of Necessary Connexion.) An observa- these : " It argues more wisdom to con- tion somewhat similar occurs in the trive at first the fabric of the world with Treatise I)e Mundo, commonly ascribed such perfect foresight, that, of itself, to Aristotle, and by its proper operation, it may serve CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 159 the effects of second causes, placed beyond the reach of our faculties. 1 Such, however, were the chief reasonings opposed to Male- branche by Leibnitz, in order to prepare the way for the system of Pre-established Harmony; a system 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 God. 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, that every perception of the mind is the immediate effect of the divine illumination. As to the manner in which this illumination is accomplished, the extraordinary hypothesis adopted by Malebranche was forced upon him, by the opinion then universally held, that the immediate objects of our perceptions are not things external, but their ideas or images. The only possible expedient for reconciling these two articles of his creed, was to transfer the seat of our ideas from our own minds to that of the Creator. 2 1 In speaking of the theory of occa- Isaac Newton. In fact, on the point sional causes, Mr. Hume has committed now in question, his creed was the same a historical mistake, which it may be with that of Malebranche. The follow- proper to rectify. "Malebranche," he ing sentence is very nearly a translation observes, "and other Cartesians, made of a passage already quoted from the the doctrine of the universal and sole latter. " The course of nature, truly efficacy of the Deity, the foundation of and properly speaking, is nothing but all their philosophy. It had, however, the will of God producing certain effects no authority in England. Locke, Clarke, in a continued, regular, constant, and and Cudworth, never so much as take uniform manner." Clarke's Works, notice of it, but suppose all along that vol. ii. p. 698, fol. ed. matter has a real, though subordinate and derived power." Hume's Essays, a We are indebted to La Harpe for vol. ii. p. 475, edition of 1784. the preservation of an epigrammatic Mr. Hume was probably led to con- line (un vers fort plaisant, as he justly nect, in this last sentence, the name of calls it) on this celebrated hypothesis : Clarke with those of Locke and Cud- " Lid, qui voit tout en Dieu, n'y voit-il worth, by taking for granted that his pasqu'ilestfou? C'etoitaumoins," La metaphysical opinions agreed exactly Harpe adds, " un fou qui avoit beaucoup with those commonly ascribed to Sir d'esprit." 160 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. In this theory of Malebranche, there is undoubtedly, as Bayle has remarked, 1 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 uniform." 2 In some of Malebranche's reasonings upon this 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 cree le ciel et la terre. Elle m'apprend que rEcriture 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. II y a des corps ; cela est demontre en toute rigueur la foy supposee." 3 In reflecting on the repeated reproduction of these, and other 1 See his Dictionary, article Amelius. and Hume. The illogical transition by 3 Introduction to a Translation of which he attempted to pass from this some Hindoo verses. first principle to other truths, was early 3 Entretiens sur la Metaphysique, remarked by some of his own followers, p. 207. who were accordingly led to conclude, The celebrated doubt of Descartes that no man can have full assurance of concerning all truths but the existence anything but of his own individual ex- of his own mind, (it cannot be too often istence. If the fundamental doubt of repeated,) was the real source, not only Descartes be admitted as reasonable, of the inconsistency of Malebranche on the conclusion of these philosophers this head, but of the chief metaphysical (who were distinguished by the name of puzzles afterwards started by Berkeley Egoists) is unavoidable. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 1G1 ancient paradoxes, by modern authors, whom it would be highly unjust to accuse of plagiarism ; still more, in reflecting on the affinity of some of our most refined theories to the popular belief in a remote quarter of the globe, one is almost tempted to suppose, that human invention is limited, like a barrel-organ, to a specific number of tunes. But is it not a fairer inference, that the province of pure Imagination, unbounded as it may at first appear, is narrow, when compared with the regions opened by truth and nature to our powers of observation and reason- ing ? l Prior to the time of Bacon, the physical systems of the learned performed their periodical revolutions in orbits as small as the metaphysical hypotheses of their successors ; and yet, who would now set any bounds to our curiosity in the study of the material universe ? Is it reasonable to think, that the phenomena of the intellectual world are less various, or less marked with the signatures of Divine wisdom ? It forms an interesting circumstance in the history of the two memorable persons who have suggested these remarks, that they had once, and only once, the pleasure of a short interview. " The conversation," we are told, " turned on the nori-existence of matter. Malebranche, who had an inflammation in his lungs, and whom Berkeley found preparing a medicine in his cell, and cooking it in a small pipkin, exerted his voice so violently in the heat of their dispute, that he increased his dis- order, which carried him oif a few days after/' 2 It is impossible not to regret, that of this interview there is no other record ; or rather, that Berkeley had not made it the groundwork of one of his own dialogues. Fine as his imagination was, it could scarcely have added to the picturesque effect of the real scene. 3 1 The limited number of fables, of an d Malebranclie in the seventy-seventh humorous tales, and even of jests, which, year of his age. What a change in the it should seem, are in circulation over state of the philosophical world (whether the face of the globe, might perhaps be for the better or worse is a different alleged as an additional confirmation of question) has taken place in the course this idea. of the intervening century ! 2 Biog. Brit. vol. ii. p. 251. Dr. Warburton, who, even when he 3 This interview happened in 1715, thinks the most unsoundly, always pos- when Berkeley was in the thirty-first, sesses the rare merit of thinking for VOL. I. L 162 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. Anthony Arnauld, whom I have already mentioned as one of the theological antagonists of Malebranche, is also entitled to a distinguished rank among the French philosophers of this period. In his book On true and false ideas, written in oppo- sition to Malebranche's scheme of onr seeing all things in God, he is acknowledged by Dr. Keid to have struck the first mortal blow at the ideal theory, and to have approximated very nearly to his own refutation of this ancient and inveterate prejudice. 1 himself, is one of the very few English authors who have spoken of Malebranche with the respect due to his extraordinary talents. " All you say of Malebranche," he observes in a letter to Dr. Hurd, "is strictly true ; he is an admirable writer. There is something very different in the fortune of Malebranche and Locke. When Malebranche first appeared, it was with a general applause and ad- miration ; when Locke first published his Essay, he had hardly a single ap- prover. Now Locke is universal, and Malebranche sunk into obscurity. All this may be easily accounted for. The intrinsic merit of either was out of the question. But Malebranche supported his first appearance on a philosophy in the highest vogue ; that philosophy has been overturned by the Newtonian, and Malebranche has fallen with his master. It was to no purpose to tell the world, that Malebranche could stand without him. The public never examines so narrowly. Not but that there was another cause sufficient to do the busi- ness ; and that is, his debasing his noble work with his system of seeing all things in God. When this happens to a great author, one half of his readers out of folly, the other out of malice, dwell only on the unsound part, and for- get the other, or use all their arts to have it forgotten. "But the sage Locke supported him- self by no system on the one hand ; nor, on the other, did he dishonour himself by any whimsies. The consequence of which was, that, neither following the fashion, nor striking the imagination, he, at first, had neither followers nor admirers ; but being everywhere clear, and everywhere solid, he at length worked his way, and afterwards was subject to no reverses. He was not affected by the new fashions in philoso- phy, who leaned upon none of the old ; nor did he afford gnmnd for the after attacks of envy and folly by any fanciful hypotheses, which, when grown stale, are the most nauseous of all things." The foregoing reflections on the oppo- site fates of these two philosophers, do honour on the whole to Warburton's penetration; but the unqualified pane- gyric on Locke will be now very gener- ally allowed to furnish an additional example of "that national spirit, which," according to Hume, "forms the great happiness of the English, and leads them to bestow on all their eminent writers such praises and acclamations, as may often appear partial and exces- sive." 1 The following very concise and ac- curate summary of Arnanld's doctrine concerning ideas, is given by Brucker. " Antonius Arnaldus, ut argumenta Malebranchii eo fortius everteret, pecu- liarem sententiam defendit, asseruitque, ideas earumque perceptiones esse unura idemque, et non nisi relationibus dif- ferre. Ideam scilicet esse, quatenus ad objectum refertur quod inens considerat ; perceptionem vero, quatenus ad ipsam mentoin quae percipit ; duplicem tamen CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 163 A step so important would of itself be sufficient to establish his claim to a place in literary history ; but what chiefly induces me again to bring forward his name, is the reputa- tion he has so justly acquired by his treatise, entitled The Art of Thinking ; l a treatise written by Arnauld in con- junction with his friend Nicole, and of which (considering the time when it appeared) it is hardly possible to estimate the merits too highly. No publication certainly, prior to Locke's Essay, can be named, containing so much good sense and so little nonsense on the science of Logic ; and very few have since appeared on the same subject, which can be justly preferred to it in point of practical utility. If the author had lived in the present age, or had been less fettered by a prudent regard to existing prejudices, the technical part would probably have been reduced within a still narrower compass ; but even there he has contrived to substitute, for the puerile and contemptible ex- amples of common logicians, several 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 frequently and freely given scope to his original reflections. Among these excursions, 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 instructive supplement to the enumeration of sophisms given by Aristotle. 2 illam relationem ad unam pertinere men- of Descartes, to improve the established tis modification em." (Hist. Phil, de modes of academical education on the Ideis, pp. 247, 248.) Anthony Arnauld Continent. (See the Preface to his farther held, that " material things are Logic, printed at Geneva, 1724.) Leib- perceived immediately by the mind, nitz himself has mentioned it in the without the intervention of ideas." most flattering terms, coupling the name (Hist, de Ideis, p. 261.) In this respect of the author with that of Pascal, a still his doctrine coincided exactly with that more illustrious ornament of the Port- of Reid. Royal Society: " Ingeniosissimus Pas- 1 More commonly known by the name calius in prreclara dissertatione de in- of the Port-Royal Logic. genio Geometrico, cujus fragmentum 4 According to Crousaz, The Art of extat in egregio libro celeberrimi viri Thinking contributed more than either Antonii Arnaldi de Arte bene Cogi- the Organon of Bacon, or the Method tandi," &c. ; but lest this encomium 164 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. The soundness of judgment so eminently displayed in The AH of Thinking, forms a curious contrast to that passion for theological controversy, and that zeal for Avhat he conceived to be the purity of the Faith, which seem to have been the ruling passions of the author's mind. He lived to the age of eighty- three, continuing to write against Malebranche's opinions con- cerning Nature and Grace to his last hour. " He died," says his biographer, " in an obscure retreat at Brussels, in 1692 7 without fortune, and even without the comfort of a servant ; he, whose nephew had been a Minister of State, and who might himself have been a Cardinal. The pleasure of being able to publish his sentiments was to liirn a sufficient recompense." Nicole, his friend and companion in arms, worn out at length with these incessant disputes, expressed a wish to retire from the field, and to enjoy repose. " Repose !" replied Arnauld ; " won't you have the whole of eternity to repose in ?" An anecdote which is told of his infancy, when considered in connexion with his subsequent life, affords a good illustration of the force of impressions received in the first dawn of reason. He was amusing himself one day with some childish sport, in the library of the Cardinal du Perron, when he requested of the Cardinal to give him a pen. And for what purpose ? said the Cardinal. To write books, like you, against the Huguenots. from so high an authority should excite affords, on the other hand, a remarkable a curiosity somewhat out of proportion illustration of the force of prejudice, that to the real value of the two works here Buffier, a learned and most able Jesuit, mentioned, I think it right to add, that should have been so far influenced by the praises bestowed by Leibnitz, whe- the hatred of his order to the Jansenists, ther on living or dead authors, are not as to distinguish the Port-Royal Logic always to be strictly and literally inter- with the cold approbation of being " a preted. " Xo one," says Hume, "is so judicious compilation from former works liable to an excess of admiration as a on the same subject, particularly from truly great genius." Wherever Leib- a treatise by a Spanish Jesuit, Fonseca." nitz has occasion to refer to any work (Cours de Sciences, p. 873. Paris, of solid merit, this remark applies to him 1732.) Gibbon also has remarked how with peculiar force ; partly, it is pro- much " the learned Society of Port- bable, from his quick and sympathetic Royal contributed to establish in France perception of congenial excellence, and a taste for just reasoning, simplicity of partly from a generous anxiety to point style, and philosophical method." Misc. it out to the notice of the world. It Works, vol. ii. p. 70. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FEOM BACON TO LOCKE. 165 The Cardinal, it is added, who was then old and infirm, could not conceal his joy at the prospect of so hopeful a successor ; and, as he was putting the pen into his hand, said, " I give it to you, as the dying shepherd Damretas 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 that of any of the other learned and polished anchorites, who have rendered 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 which Voltaire, notwithstanding his strong prejudices against the author, dates the fixation of the French language ; and of which the same excellent judge has said, that " Moliere's best comedies do not excel them in wit, nor the compositions of Bossuet in sublimity." The enthusiastic admiration of Gibbon for this book, which he was accustomed from his youth to read once a year, is well known ; and is sufficient to account for the rapture with which it never fails to be spoken of by the erudite vulgar 1 in this country. I cannot help, however, suspecting, that it is now more praised than read in Great Britain ; so completely have those disputes, to which it owed its first cele- brity, lost their interest Many passages in it, indeed, will always be perused with delight ; but it may be questioned, if Gibbon himself would have read it so often from beginning to end, had it not been for the strong hold which ecclesiastical controversies, and the Roman Catholic faith, had early taken of his mind. In one respect, the Provincial Letters are well entitled to the attention of philosophers ; inasmuch as they present so faithful and lively a picture of the influence of false religious views in perverting the moral sentiments of mankind. The overwhelming ridicule lavished by Pascal on the whole system of Jesuitical casuistry, and the happy effects of his pleasantry 1 Eruditum VuJfjus. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. ii. IGti DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. in preparing, 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 Keason 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 Eidicule, 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 faculties. Vol- taire has animadverted on this fragment with much levity and petulance ; mingling, at the same time, with 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: 1 " To con- sider the world as a dungeon, arid 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 1 Spectator, No. 381 and 387. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 167 Animals, are, all of them, subservient to the purposes of an 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 inoffensive play of a lively and sportive fancy,) the eye turns with pleasure to repose on the mitis sapientia, and the Elysian imagination of Fenelon. The 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 advantages. The reputation of Fenelon as a philosopher would probably have been higher and more universal than it is, if he had not added to the depth, comprehension, and soundness of his judgment, so rich a variety of those more pleasing and attrac- tive qualities, which are commonly regarded rather as the flowers than the fruits of study. The same remark may be extended to the Fenelon of England, whose ingenious and original essays on the Pleasures of Imagination would have been much more valued by modern metaphysicians, had they been less beautifully and happily written. The characteristical exceUence, however, of the Archbishop of Cambray, is that moral wisdom which (as Shaftesbury 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, than on the absence of those narrow and malignant passions, which, on all questions of ethics and politics, (perhaps I might add of religion also,) are the chief source of our speculative errors. The Adventures of Telemachus, when considered as a pro- duction of the seventeenth century, and still more as the work of a Koman Catholic Bishop, is a sort of prodigy ; and it may, to this day, be confidently recommended as the best manual extant for impressing on the minds of youth the leading truths both of practical morals and of political economy. Nor ought 1G8 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. it to be concluded, 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 oil 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 commerce ; 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. Keceive 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 ah 1 , never re- strain the freedom of commerce, by rendering it subservient 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." x 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 1 Hawkesworfh's Translation. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FKOM BACON TO LOCKE. 169 same, and consecrated by the whole nation ; that these laws should be paramount to everything else ; that those who govern should derive their authority from them alone ; possessing an unbounded power to do all the good which the laws prescribe, and restrained from every act of injustice which the laws pro- hibit." But it is chiefly in a work which did not appear till many years after his death, that we have an opportunity of tracing the enlargement of Fenelon's political views, and the extent of his Christian charity. It is entitled Direction pour la Con- science d'un Hoi; and abounds with as liberal and enlightened maxims of government as, under the freest constitutions, have ever been offered by a subject to a sovereign. Where the variety of excellence renders selection so difficult, I must not venture upon any extracts ; nor, indeed, would I willingly injure the effect of the whole by quoting detached passages. A few sentences on liberty of conscience (which I will not pre- sume to translate) may suffice to convey an idea of the general spirit with which it is animated. " Sur toute chose, ne forcez jamais vos sujets a changer de religion. Nulle puissance hu- maine ne peut forcer le retranchement impenetrable de la liberte du cceur. La force ne peut jamais persuader les hommes ; elle ne fait que des hypocrites. Quand les rois se melent de reli- gion, au lieu de la proteger, ils la mettent en servitude. Ac- cordez a tous la tolerance civile, non en approuvant tout comme indifferent, mais en souffrant avec patience tout ce que Dieu souffre, et en tachant de ramener les hommes par une douce persuasion." AND so MUCH for the French philosophy of the seventeenth century. The extracts last quoted forewarn us that we are fast approaching to a new era in the history of the Human Mind. The gloiv-ivorm 'gins to pale his ineffectual fire ; and we scent the morning air of the coming day. This era I propose to date from the publications of Locke and of Leibnitz ; but the remarks which I have to offer on their writings, and on those 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. 1 SECT. III. PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, IN SOME PARTS OF EUROPE, NOT INCLUDED IN THE PRECEDING REVIEW. DURING 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 Paris, (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 1 I have classed Telemaque and the death of Louis XIV., nor that of the Direction pour la Conscience d'un Boi 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 religion former was not permitted till after 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- withstanding 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 history of modern 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 shah 1 endeavour to shew in the Second Part of tliis Discourse) that we are chiefly indebted for the modern science of Political Economy. 1 For the information of those who have not read the Treatise De Jure Belli et Pacis, it may be proper to observe, that, under this title, Grotius has aimed at a complete 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 himself; but he constantly labours to support his conclusions by the authority of others ; producing, on many occasions, in support of the most obvious and indisputable propositions, a long string of quotations from the Mosaic law ; from the Gospels ; from the Fathers of the Church ; from the Casuists ; and not un- frequently, in the very same paragraph, from Ovid and Aris- tophanes/' In consequence of this cloud of witnesses, always at hand to attest the truth of his axioms, not only is the atten- tion perpetually interrupted and distracted ; but the author's reasonings, even when perfectly solid and satisfactory, fail in making a due impression on the reader's mind ; while the very little that there probably was of systematical arrangement in the general plan of the book, is totally kept out of view. 1 From a letter of Grotius, quoted by futurum est, ut lectores demereri possit, Gassendi, we learn, that the Treatise habebit quod tibi debeat posteritas, qui De Jure Belli et Pacis was undertaken me ad hunc laborem et auxilio et hor- at the request of his learned friend tatu tuo excitasti." Gassendi Opera, Peireskius. " Non otior, sed in illo de torn. v. p. 294. jure gentium opere pergo, quod si tale 172 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. 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 Oxenstiern ; 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, being 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. 1 1 I have borrowed, in this last para- <: Ootii ct Puffenclorfii interpretes, viri graph, some expressions from Lampredi. quidem diligentissimi, sed qui vix fruc- CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 173 In perusing the systems now referred to ; it is impossible not to feel a very painful dissatisfaction, from the difficulty of ascertaining the precise object aimed at by the authors. So vague and indeterminate is the general scope of their researches, that not only are different views of the subject taken by differ- ent writers, but even by the same writer in different parts of his work ; a circumstance which, of itself, sufficiently accounts for the slender additions they have made to the stock of useful knowledge ; and which is the real source of that chaos of heterogeneous discussions, through which the reader is per- petually forced to fight his way. A distinct conception of these different views will be found to throw more light than might at first be expected on the subsequent history of Moral and of Political Science; and I shall therefore endeavour, as accu- rately as I can, to disentangle and separate them from each other, at the risk perhaps of incurring, from some readers, the charge of prolixity. The most important of them may, I ap- prehend, be referred to one or other of the following heads : 1. Among the different ideas which have been formed of Natural Jurisprudence, one of the most common (particularly in the earlier systems) supposes its object to be to lay down those rules of justice which would be binding on men living in a social state, 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 been uppermost in the mind of Grotius, in various parts of his Treatise. To this speculation about the state of nature, Grotius was manifestly led by his laudable anxiety to counteract the at- tempts then recently made to undermine the foundations of morality. That moral distinctions are created entirely by the turn aliquem tot commentariis, adnota- ne latum quiclem unguem progreditur, tionibus, compendiis, tabulis, ceterisque et dum aliorum sententise disquiruntur ejnsmodi aridissimis laboribus attule- et explanantur, Eerum Natura quasi runt : perpetuo circulo eadem res cir- senio confecta squalescit, neglectaque cumagitur, quid uterque senserit quse- jacet et inobservata omnino." Juris ritur, interdum etiam utrisque sententize Public! Theorematct, p. 34. obscurantur; disciplina nostra tamen 174 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. arbitrary and revealed will of G-od, had, before liis time, been zealously maintained by some theologians even of the Reformed Church ; while, among the political theorists of the same period, it was not unusual to refer these distinctions (as was afterwards done by Hobbes) to the positive institutions of the civil magistrate. In opposition to both, it w r as contended by Grotius, that there is a natural law coeval with the human con- stitution, from which positive institutions derive all their force ; a truth which, how obvious and trite soever it may now ap- pear, was so opposite in its spirit to the illiberal systems taught in the monkish establishments, that he thought it necessary to exhaust in its support all his stores of ancient learning. The older writers on Jurisprudence must, I think, be allowed to have had great merit in dwelling so much on this fundamental principle ; a principle which renders " Man a Law to Himself;" and which, if it be once admitted, reduces the metaphysical question concerning the nature of the moral faculty to an object merely of speculative curiosity. 1 To this faculty the ancients frequently give the name of reason; as in that noted passage of Cicero, where he observes, that " right reason is itself a law; congenial to the feelings of nature ; diffused among all men ; uniform ; eternal ; calling us imperiously to our duty, and peremptorily prohibiting every violation of it. 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 ; but it addresses itself to all nations, and to all ages ; deriving its authority from the common sovereign of the 1 " Upon whatever we suppose that to superintend all our senses, passions, our moral faculties are founded, whether and appetites, and to judge how far upon a certain modification of reason, each of them was either to be indulged upon an original instinct, called a moral or restrained. The rules, therefore, sense, or upon some other principle of which they prescribe, are to be regarded our nature, it cannot be doubted that as the commands and laws of the Deity, they were given us for the direction of promulgated by those vicegerents which our conduct in this life. They carry he has set up within us." (Smith's along with them the most evident Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part iii. badges of this authority, which denote chap, v.) See also Dr. Butler's very that they were set up within us to be original and philosophical the supreme arbiters of all our actions, on Human Nature. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 175 universe, and carrying home its sanctions to every breast, by the inevitable punishment which it inflicts on transgressors." 1 The habit of considering morality under the similitude of a law, (a law engraved on the human heart,) led not unnaturally to an application to ethical subjects of the technical language and arrangements of the Koman jurisprudence ; and this inno- vation was at once facilitated and encouraged, by certain pecu- liarities in the nature of the most important of all the virtues, that of justice; peculiarities which, although first explained fully by Hume and Smith, were too prominent to escape 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 be laid down with a degree of accuracy whereof moral precepts do not, in any other instance, admit. Secondly, its rules may be enforced, inasmuch as every transgression 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, corresponding to an obligation on the other, the various rules enjoined by it may be stated in two different forms ; either as a system of duties, or as a system of rights. The former view of the subject belongs properly to the moralist the latter to the lawyer. It is this last view that the writers on Natural Jurisprudence (most of whom were lawyers by profession) have in general chosen to adopt, although, in the same works, both views will be found to be not unfrequently blended to- gether. To some indistinct conception among the earlier writers on Natural Law, of these peculiarities in the nature of justice, we may probably ascribe the remarkable contrast pointed out by Mr. Smith between the ethical systems of ancient and of mo- dern times. " 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 1 Frag. lib. iii. de Rep. 17f> DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. Aristotle in his Ethics, treat of justice in the same general manner in which they treat of generosity or of charity." 1 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 would obviously be absurd to spend much time in speculating about the prin- 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 individuals to so great a degree as to suggest problematical questions with respect to their rights and their duties, necessarily gives birth to certain conventional laws or customs, by which the conduct of the different members of the association is to be guided ; and agreeably to which the dis- putes that may arise among them are to be adjusted. The imaginary state referred to under the title of the State of Na- ture, though it certainly does not exclude the idea of a moral right of property arising from labour, yet excludes all that variety of cases concerning its alienation and transmission, and the mutual covenants of parties, which the political union alone could create ; an order of tilings, indeed, which is virtually supposed in almost all the speculations about which the law of nature is commonly employed. 2. It was probably in consequence of the very narrow field of study which Jurisprudence, considered in this light, was found to open, that its province was gradually enlarged, so as to com- prehend, not merely the rules of justice, but the rules enjoining all our other moral duties. Nor was it only the province of Jurisprudence which was thus enlarged. A corresponding ex- tension was also given, by the help of arbitrary definitions, to its technical phraseology, till at length the whole doctrines of prac- tical ethics came to be moulded into an artificial form, origi- nally copied from the Koman code. Although justice is the only branch of virtue in which every moral Obligation implies a cor- responding Right, the writers on Natural Law have contrived, by fictions of imperfect rights and of external rights, to treat indirectly of all our various duties, by pointing out the rights 1 Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part vii. sect. iv. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 177 which are supposed to be their correlates : in other words, they have contrived to exhibit, in the form of a system of rights, a connected view of the whole duty of man. This idea of Juris- prudence, which identifies its object with that of Moral Philo- sophy, seems to coincide nearly with that of Puffendorff ; and some vague notion of the same sort has manifestly given birtli to many of the digressions of Grotius. Whatever judgment may now be pronounced on the effects of this innovation, it is certain that they were considered, not only at the time, but for many years afterwards, as highly favourable. A very learned and respectable writer, Mr. Car- michael of Glasgow, compares them to the improvements made in Natural Philosophy by the followers of Lord Bacon. " No person," he observes, " liberally educated, can be ignorant that, within the recollection of ourselves and of our fathers, philosophy has advanced to a state of progressive improvement hitherto unexampled ; in consequence partly of the rejection of scholas- tic absurdities, and partly of the accession of new discoveries. Nor does this remark apply solely to Natural Pliilosophy, in which the improvements accomplished by the united labours of the learned have forced themselves on the notice even of the vulgar, by their palpable influence on the mechanical arts. The other branches of philosophy also have 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 esteemed, 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 the rubbish of the dark ages, till (soon after the commencement of the seven- teenth century) the incomparable Treatise of Grotius, De Jure Belli et Pacts, restored to more than its ancient splendour that part of it which defines the relative duties of individuals ; and which, in 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 polite scholars of Europe, as if suddenly roused by the alarm of a trumpet, have vied with each other in the prosecution of this study, so strongly recom- 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." x 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, 1 The last sentence is thus expressed in the original : " Ex illo tempore, quasi classico dato, ab eruditissimis passim et politissimis viris excoli certatim ccepit, utilissima hsec nobilissimaque doctrina." (Seethe edition of Puffendorff, De Offi- cio Hominis et Civis, by Professor Ger- schom Carmichael of Glasgow, 1724;) an author whom Dr. Hutcheson pro- nounces to be " by far the best commen- tator on Puffendorff," and " whose notes," he adds, " are of much more value than the text." See his short Introduction to Moral Philosophy. PuffendorfFs principal work, entitled De Jure Naturce 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 PuffendorfFs aim, formed by Mr. Carmichael, coincides ex- actly with the account of it given in the text : " Hoc demum tractatu edito, fa- cile intellexerunt sequiores harum rerum arbitri, non aliam esse genuinam Morum Philosophiam, quam quse ex evidentibus principiis, in ipsa rerum natura funda- tis, hominis atque civis officia, in sin- gulisvitfe humanae circumstantiisdebita, cruit ac demonstrat ; atque adeo Juris Naturalis scientiam, quantumvis diver- sam ab Ethica quse in scholis dudum obtinuerat, prse se ferret faciem, non esse, quod ad scopum et rem tractan- dam,vere ali.am disciplinam, sed eandem rectius duntaxat et solidius traditam, ita ut, ad quam prius male collineaverit, tandem reipsa feriret scopum. " See Cannichacl's edition of the Treatise De Officio Hominis et Civ is, 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 (afterwards 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 attend a lecture on one Puffendorff." And, much in the same spirit, Voltaire thus expresses himself with respect to the schools of the Continent : " On est partage, dans les ecoles, entre Grotius et Puffendorff. Croyez moi, lisez les Offices de Ciceron." From the contemptuous tone of these two writers, it should seem that the old systems of Natural Jurisprudence 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. Smith's complaint, that " the 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 corner 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 ho wrote the foregoing sentence. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 179 it appears to me peculiarly interesting to mark the progress of Ethical and Political speculation in that seat of learning, which, not many years afterwards, was to give birth to the Theory of Moral Sentiments, and to the Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, The powerful effect which the last of these works has produced on the political opinions of the whole civilized world, renders it unnecessary, in a Discourse destined to form part of a Scottish Encyclopaedia, to offer any apology for attempting to trace, with some minuteness, the train of thought by which an undertaking, so highly honour- able to the literary character of our country, seems to have been suggested to the author. The extravagance of the praise lavished on Grotius and Puffendorff, in the above citation from Carmichael, can be accounted for only by the degraded state into which Ethics had fallen in the hands of those who were led to the study of it, either as a preparation for the casuistical discussions subser- vient to the practice of auricular confession, or to justify a scheme of morality which recommended the useless austerities of an ascetic retirement, in preference to the manly duties of social life. The practical doctrines inculcated by the writers on Natural Law, were all of them favourable to active virtue ; and, how reprehensible soever in point of form, were not only harmless, but highly beneficial in their tendency. They were at the same time so diversified (particularly in the work of Grotius) with beautiful quotations from the Greek and Roman classics, that they could not fail to present a striking contrast to the absurd and iUiberal systems which they supplanted ; and perhaps to these passages, to which they thus gave a sort of systematical connexion, the progress which the science made in the course of the eighteenth century, may, in no inconsider- able degree, be ascribed. Even now, when so very different a taste prevails, the treatise De Jure Belli et Pacis possesses many charms to a classical reader ; who, although he may not always set a very high value on the author's reasonings, must at least be dazzled and delighted with the splendid profusion of his learning. 180 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. The field of Natural Jurisprudence, however, was not long to remain 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 Law 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 human 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 FKOM BACON TO LOCKE. 181 its governors by force. To Jurisprudence, therefore, consi- dered in. this light, came with great propriety to be referred all those practical discussions which relate to the limits of allegiance, and the right of resistance. By a step equally simple, the province of the science was still farther extended. As independent states acknowledge no superior, the obvious inference was, that the disputes arising among them must be determined by an appeal to the Law of Nature; and accordingly, this law, when applied to states, forms a separate part of Jurisprudence, under the title of the Law of Nations. By some writers we are told, that the general principles 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, 1 PufTendorff has given his sanc- 1 " Lex Naturalis dividi potest in na- turalem hominum quse sola obtinuit dici Lex Naturae, et naturalem civitatum, quse dici potest Lex Gentium, vulgo autem Jus Gentium appellatur. Prae- cepta utriusque eadem sunt ; sed quia civitates semel institutae induunt pro- prietates hominum personales, lex quam loquentes de hominum singulorum officio naturalem dicimus, applicata totis civi- tatibus, natiouibus, sive gentibus, vo- catur Jus Gentium." De Cive, cap. xiv. 4. In a late publication, from the title of which some attention to dates might have been expected, we are told, that " Hobbes's book, De Cive, appeared but a little time before the Treatise of Grotius ;" whereas, in point of fact, Hobbes's book did not appear till twenty-two years after it. A few copies were indeed printed at Paris, and pri- vately circulated by Hobbes, as early as 1642, but the book was not published till 1647. (See " An Inquiry into the Foundation and History of the Law of Nations in Europe" &c., by Robert Ward of the Inner- Temple, Esq., Lon- don, 1795.) This inaccuracy, however, is trifling, when compared with those committed in the same work, in stating the distinguishing doctrines of the two As a writer on the Law of Nations, Hobbes is now altogether unworthy of notice. I shall therefore only remark on this part of his philosophy, that its aim is precisely the reverse of that of Grotius ; the latter labouring through the whole of his treatise, to extend, as far as possible, among independent states, the same laws of justice and of humanity, which are universally recog- nised among individuals ; while Hob- bes, by inverting the argument, exerts his ingenuity to shew, that the moral repulsion which commonly exists be- tween independent and neighbouring communities, is an exact picture of that which existed among individuals prior to the origin of government. The in- ference, indeed, was most illogical, inas- much as it is the social attraction among individuals which is the source of the mutual repulsion among nations : and as this attraction invariably ope- 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 ; l but without heing at suffi- 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 Nature, properly so called, than it has rates with the greatest force, where the ascribed by Vattel (one of the most individual is the most completely inde- esteemed writers on the subject) to the pendent of his species, and where the celebrated German philosopher "Wolfius, advantages of the political union are the whose labours in this department of least sensibly felt. If, in any state of study he estimates very highly. human nature, it be in danger of be- (Questions tie Droit Nature!. Berne, coming quite evanescent, it is in large 1762.) Of this great work I know and civilized empires, where man be- nothing but the title, which is not cal- comes indispensably necessary to man ; culated to excite much curiosity in the depending for the gratification of his present times : " Christiani Wolfii jus artificial wants on the co-operation of Naturce metfiodo scientifica pertrac- thousands of his fellow-citizens. tatum, in 9 tomos distributum/' Let me add, that the theory, so (Francof. 1740.) " Non est," says fashionable at present, which resolves Lampredi, himse'f a professor of public the whole of morality into the principle of law, "qui non deterreatur tanta lib- utiltty, is more nearly akin to Hobbism, rorum farragine, quasi vero Herculeo than some of its partisans are aware of. labore opus esset, ut quis honestatem 1 The credit of this improvement is et justitiam a-ddiscat." CHAP. 11. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 183 with the rules of the Koman law, or of any other municipal code. The details contained in it are highly interesting and useful in themselves ; but they belong to a science altogether different ; a science, in which the 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 alliance, however, thus established between the Law of Nature and the conventional Law of Nations, has been on the whole attended with fortunate effects. In consequence of the discussions concerning questions of justice and of ex- pediency which came to be blended with the details of public law, more enlarged and philosophical views have gradually presented themselves to the minds of speculative statesmen; and, in the last result, have led, by easy steps, to those liberal doctrines concerning commercial policy, and the other mutual relations of separate and independent states, which, if they should ever become the creed of the rulers of mankind, promise so large an accession to human happiness. 3. Another idea of Natural Jurisprudence, essentially dis- tinct from those hitherto mentioned, remains to be considered. According to this, its object is to ascertain the general prin- ciples of justice which ought to be recognised in every municipal code ; and to which it ought to be the aim of every legislator to accommodate his institutions. It is to this idea of Juris- prudence that Mr. Smith has given his sanction in the conclu- sion of his Theory of Moral Sentiments ; and this he seems to have conceived to have been likewise the idea of Grotius, in the Treatise De Jure Belli et Pads. " It might have been expected/' says Mr. Smith, " that the reasonings of lawyers upon the different imperfections and improvements of the laws of different countries, should have given occasion to an inquiry into what were the natural rules of justice, independent of all positive institution. It might have been expected, that these reasonings should have led them to aim at establishing a system of what might properly be called Natural Jurisprudence, or a theory of the principles ivhich ought to run through, and to be the foundation of the 184 DISSERTATION. PART 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. 1 Nor do the views of Grotius appear always enlarged or just, even when he is pointing at the object described by Mr. Smith. The Roman system of Jurisprudence seems to hate 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 preetoris edicto, neque a duodecim tabulis, sed penitus ex intima philosophia, hauriendam juris discipli- uam." In this idolatry, indeed, of the Roman law, he has 1 " Of what stamp," says a most in- serial ? Sometimes one thing, some- genious and original thinker, " are the times another : they seem hardly to have works of Grotius, Pnffendorff, and Bur- settled the matter with themselves." lamaqui? Are they political or ethical, Bentham's Introduction to the Principles historical or juridical, expository or cen- of Morals and Legislation, p. 327. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FKOM BACON TO LOCKE. 185 not gone so far as some of his commentators, who have affirmed, that it is only a different name for the Law of Nature ; but that his partiality for his professional pursuits has often led him to overlook the immense difference between the state of society in ancient and modern Europe, will not, I believe, be now disputed. It must, at the same time, be mentioned to his praise, that no writer appears to have been, in theory, more completely aware of the essential distinction between Natural and Municipal laws. In one of the paragraphs of his Prolego- mena, he mentions it as a part of his general plan, to illustrate the Roman code, and to systematize those parts 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 hitherto accomplished by none. Nor indeed was the thing possible, while so little attention was paid to the distinction between natural and positive institutions; for the former being everywhere the same, 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 individual objects present to our external senses." This passage of Grotius has given great offence to two of the most eminent of his commentators, Henry and Samuel de Cocceii, who have laboured much to vindicate the Roman legislators against that indirect censure which the words of Grotius appear to convey. " My chief 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 supposition implied in the foregoing passage of Grotius, which is indeed one of the most exceptionable to be found in his work. The remarks on this subject, scattered over the following commentary, the reader will find arranged in due order in my twelfth Preliminary Dissertation, the chief design of which is to systematize the whole Roman law, and to de- 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 Roman 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 deviations from the Law of Nature jso frequent as is commonly apprehended." CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 187 In the last sentence of this passage, Leibnitz had probably an eye to the works of Grotius and his followers ; which, how- ever narrow and timid in their views they may now appear, were, for a long time, regarded among civilians as savouring somewhat of theoretical innovation, and of political heresy. To all this may be added, as a defect still more important and radical in the systems of Natural Jurisprudence considered as models of universal legislation, that their authors reason concerning laws too abstractedly, without specifying the parti- cular circumstances of the society to which they mean that their conclusions should be applied. It is very justly observed by Mr. Bentham, that " if there are any books of universal^ Juris- prudence, they must be looked for within very narrow limits." He certainly, however, carries this idea too far, when he asserts, that " to be susceptible of a universal application, all that a book of the expository kind can have to treat of, is the import of words; and that, to be strictly speaking universal, it must confine itself to terminology ; that is, to an explanation of such words connected with law, as poiver, right, obligation, liberty, to which are words pretty exactly correspondent in all lan- guages." 1 His expressions, too, 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 laws, sometimes to what law is, sometimes to what it ought to be" 2 Nothing, indeed, can be more exact and judicious than this description, when restricted to the Law of Nature, as commonly treated of by writers on Jurisprudence ; but if extended to the Law of Nature, as originally understood among ethical writers, it is impossible to assent to it, without abandoning all the principles on which the science of morals ultimately rests. With these obvious, but, in my opinion, very essential limitations, I perfectly agree with Mr. Bentham, in considering an abstract code of laws as a thing equally unphilosophical in the design, and useless in the execution. 1 Introduction to the Principles of Mora's and Legislation, p. 323. 1 Ibid. p. 327. 188 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. In stating these observations, I would not be understood to dispute the utility of turning the attention of students to a comparative view of the municipal institutions of different nations ; but only to express my doubts whether this can be done with advantage, by referring these institutions to that abstract theory called the Law of Nature, as to a common standard. The code of some particular country must be fixed on as a groundwork for our speculations ; and its laws studied, not as consequences of any abstract principles of justice, but in their connexion with the circumstances of the people among whom they originated. A comparison of these laws with the corresponding laws of other nations, considered also in their connexion with the circumstances whence they arose, would form 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 the advantages of a liberal education. In fixing on such a standard, the preference 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 Jurisprudence, (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 passport to a knowledge of that system, which so long determined the rights of the greatest and most celebrated of nations. " Universal grammar," 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 exemplified." 1 The same observation may be applied (and for reasons strikingly analogous) to the science of Natural or Universal Jurisprudence. Of the truth of this last proposition Bacon seems to have been fully aware ; and it was manifestly some ideas of the same kind which gave birth to Montesquieu's historical speculations 1 Preface to his English Grcniuixtr. CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 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 circumstances of the nations among whom they have sprung up. 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 quoted a few of the most prominent of those fortunate anticipations, so profusely scattered 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 contemporaries. These antici- pations, as well as many others of a similar description, haz- arded by his bold yet prophetic imagination, have often struck me as resembling the pierres d'attente jutting out from the corners of an ancient building, and inviting the fancy to com- plete what was left unfinished of the architect's design ; or the slight and broken sketches traced 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 abandon for a moment the order of time, while I pass from the Fontes Juris to the Spirit of Laws. To have a just conception of the comparatively limited views of Grotius, it is necessary to attend to what was planned by his immediate predecessor, and first executed (or rather first begun to be executed) by one of his remote successors. The main object of the Spirit of Laws (it is necessary here to premise) is to show, not, as has been frequently supposed, what laws ought to be, but how the diversities in the physical and moral circumstances of the human race have contributed to produce diversities in their political establishments, and in their municipal regulations. 1 On this point, indeed, an appeal 1 This, though somewhat ambiguously sentence: "Dans cet ouvrage, M. de expressed, must, I think, have been the Montesquieu s'occupe moins des loix idea of P'Alembert in the following qu'on a faites, qiie de relies qu'on a du 190 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. may be made to the author himself. " I write not," says he, " to censure anything established in any country whatsoever ; every nation will here find the reasons on which its maxims are founded." This plan, however, which, when understood with proper limitations, is highly philosophical, and which raises Jurisprudence, from the uninteresting and useless state in which we find it in Grotius and Pufferidorff, 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 Matre creatam. Instead of confining himself, after the example of his predecessors, to an interpretation of one part of the Bonian code by another, he studied the SPIRIT of these laws faire." (Eloge de M. de Montesquieu.} ing which I conceive to be the very re- According to the most obvious interpre- verse of the truth, tation of his words, they convey a mean- CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY 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 political 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 people. Nor did he limit his inquiries to the Roman law and to Eoman history ; but, convinced that the general principles of human nature are everywhere 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 his power, and recalled the attention of the philosopher from abstract and useless theories, to the only authentic monuments of the history of mankind. 1 This view of law, which unites History and Philosophy with Jurisprudence, has been followed out with remarkable success by various authors since Montesquieu's time ; and for a con- siderable number of years after the publication of the Spirit of Laws, became so very fashionable (particularly in this country) that 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 periods of society, in which governments and laws may be universally regarded as the gradual 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, that its influence will 1 As examples of Montesquieu's pecu- his Theory of the Feudal Laws among liar and characteristical style of think- the Franks, considered in relation to ing in The Spirit of Laws, may be the revolutions of their monarchy. On mentioned his Observations on the many points connected with these re- Origin and Revolutions of the Roman searches, his conclusions have been Laws on Successions ; and what he has since controverted; but all his succes- written on the History of the Civil sors have agreed in acknowledging him Laws in his ovyn Country ; above all, as their common master and guide. 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, would 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 think 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 species of refutation, which, as Mr. Bentham has well remarked, is, with many understandings, the only one that has any weight. 1 To men prepossessed 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 " If our ancestors Jiave been all shewn to be insufficient, we still cannot along under a mistake, how came they forbear looking to some unassignable; to have fallen into it ? is a question and latent reason for its efficient cause, that naturally occurs itpon all such oc- But if, instead of any such reason, we rasions. The case is, that, in matters can find a cause for it in some notion, of law more especially, such is the of the erroneousness of which we are dominion of authority over our minds, already satisfied, then at last we are and such the prejudice it creates in content to give it up without further favour of whatever institution it has .struggle ; and then, and not till then, taken under its wing, that, after all our satisfaction is complete." Defence manner of reasons that can be thought of Usury, pp. 94, 95. of in favour of the institution have been CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FEOM BACON TO LOCKE. 193 effectual. The plans of both have been since combined with extraordinary sagacity, by some of the later writers on Political Economy ; l but with their 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 afforded, of the absurdity of all schemes of Universal Legislation ; and 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 this., 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 hundred years, constituted the whole philosophy, both ethical and political, of the largest portion of civilized Europe. With respect to Germany, in par- 1 Above all, by Mr. Smith; who, in interesting subject," which, according his Wealth of Natiotis, has judiciously to Gibbon, " broke from Scotland in our and skilfully combined with the investi- times," was but a reflection, though gation of general principles, the most with a far steadier and more concen- luminous sketches of Theoretical His- trated force, from the scattered but bril- tory relative to that form of political Kant sparks kindled by the genius of society, which has given birth to so Montesquieu. I shall afterwards have oc- many of the institutions and customs casion to take notice of the mighty influ- peculiar to modem Europe. " The ence which his writings have had on the strong ray of philosophic light on this subsequent history of Scottish literature. VOL. I. N 194 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. ticular, it appears from the Count de Hertzberg, that this science continued to maintain its undisputed ground, till it was 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 studies of his countrymen. 1 When from Germany we turn our eyes to the south of Europe, the prospect seems not merely sterile, but afflicting and almost hopeless. Of Spanish literature I know nothing but through the medium of translations ; a very imperfect one, undoubtedly, when a judgment is to be passed on compositions addressed to the powers of imagination and taste, yet fully suffi- cient to enable us to form an estimate of works which treat of science and philosophy. On such subjects it may be safely con- cluded, that whatever is unfit to stand the test 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," says Montesquieu, " which the Spaniards have 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 sacrifice 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. 2 1 " La conuoissance des t-tats qu'on as he informs us in his Anecdotes, that so plait aujourd'hui d'appeller Stalls- Dryden assured him he was more in- tique, est une de ces sciences qui sont debted to the Spanish critics than to devenues a la mode, et qui ont pris une the writers of any other nation." Ma- vogue generale depuis quelques annees ; lone, in a note on Dryden's Essay on clle a presque depossede celle du Droit Dramatic Poesy. Public, qui regnoit au commencement The same anecdote is told, though et jusques vers le milieu du siecle pre- with a considerable difference in the sent.'' Reflexions sur la Force ties circumstances, by Warton, in his Essay Etats. Par M. le Comte de Hertzberg. on the Writings of Pope. " Lord Bol- Berlin, 1782. ingbroke assured Pope, that Dryden 1 "Lord Bolingbroke told Mr. Spence, often declared to him, that he got more CHAP. II. PHILOSOPHY FROM BACON TO LOCKE. 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 miraculous. 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. " Borne," 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 Gallican church ; and (who could have be- lieved it ?) the translations of the Holy Scriptures. Meanwhile, from the Spanish critics than from the ture of his own country and with that Italian, French, and all other critics put of England, assures me, that he cannot together." recollect a single Spanish critic from I suspect that there is some mistake whom Dryden can reasonably be sup- in this story. A Spanish gentleman, posed to have derived any important equally well acquainted with the litera- lights. 196 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. this tribunal, though always ready to condemn judicious authors upon frivolous suspicions of heresy, approved those seditious and fanatical 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 history of the human mind." The great glory of the Continent towards the end of the seventeenth century (I except only the philosophers of France) was Leibnitz. He was born as early as 1646 ; and distinguished himself, while still 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 jurist belongs to one century, and Leibnitz the philosopher to another. In this and other analogous distributions of my materials, as well as in the order I have followed in the arrangement of par- ticular facts, it may be proper, once for all, to observe, that much must necessarily be left to the discretionary, though not to the arbitrary decision of the author's judgment ; that the dates which separate from each other the different stages in the progress of Human Keason 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 perplexed rights of the innumerable claimants in this intel- lectual and shadowy region, a task is imposed on the writer, resembling not unfrequently the labour of him, who should have attempted to circumscribe, by mathematical lines, the melting and intermingling colours of Arachne's web ; In quo diversi niteant cum mille colores, Transitus ipse tamen spectantia lumina fallit, Usque adeo quod tangit idem est, tamen ultima distant. But I will not add to the number (already too great) of the foregoing pages, by anticipating, and attempting to obviate, 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 know not what to demand, or those who demand by design what they think impossible to be done." DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. [ONLY IN FIRST EDITION. EDITOR.] 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 sheets 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 which 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 2O2 DISSERTATION. ADVERTISEMENT. so painfully, on the leisure which I had destined for a different purpose, that, at my advanced years, I can entertain but a very faint expectation (though I do not altogether abandon the hope) 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 rny 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. KISNIEL HOUSE, August 1, 1821. DISSERTATION. PAKT 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 intercourse between the different nations of Europe was comparatively so slight, that it seemed advisable to consider, separately and suc- cessively, the progress of the mind in England, in France, and in Germany. But from the era at which 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 have, in modern times, diverged to the other quarters of the globe. I propose also, in consequence of the thickening crowd of useful authors, keeping pace 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 Poli- 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 peculiar 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 preliminary 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. INTRODUCTION". 205 of the literature of the eighteenth century. I have 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 commentator ; earnestly entreating them, before they proceed to the sequel of this dissertation, to collate care- fully 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 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. 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 affinity, 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 from it as seldom, and as slightly, as the miscellaneous nature of my materials will permit. JOHN LOCKE, from the publication of whose Essay on Human Understanding a new era is to be dated in the History of Philosophy, was born at Wrington in Somersetshire, in 1632. Of his father nothing remarkable is recorded, but that 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 presumed from the son's political opinions, would not be regarded by him as a stain on the memory of his parent. In the earlier part of Mr. Locke's life, he prosecuted for some years, with great ardour, the study of medicine ; an art, 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. Sydenham's Observations on the History and Cure of Acute Diseases ; l 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, has scarce any superior, and few equals, now living." The merit of this METHOD, therefore, which still continues to be regarded as a model by the most competent judges, may be presumed to have belonged in part to Mr. Locke, 2 a 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 rules derived from the resources of a higher philosophy. On the other hand, no science could have been chosen, more happily calculated than Medicine, to prepare such a mind as that of Locke for the prosecution of those speculations which have immortalized his name ; the complicated, and fugitive, and often equivocal phenomena of disease, requiring in the observer a far greater 1 Published in the year 1676. This is precisely the idea of Locke z It is remarked of Sydenham, by the concerning the true use of hypotheses, late Dr. John Gregory, " That though " Hypotheses, if they are well made, full of hypothetical reasoning, it had not are at least great helps to the memory, the usual effect of making him less at- and often direct us to new discoveries." tentive to observation ; and that his (Locke's Works, vol. iii. p. 81.) See hypotheses seem to have sat so loosely also some remarks on the same subject about him, that either they did not in- in one of his letters to Mr. Molyneux. fluence his practice at all, or he could (The edition of Locke to which I uni- casily abandon them, whenever they formly refer, is that printed at London would not bend to his experience." in 1812, in ten volumes 8vo.) 208 DISSERTATION. 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 be similar to what we may trace in the works of Hartley, Darwin, and Cabanis ; to all of whom we may more or less apply the sarcasm of Cicero on Aristoxenus, the Musician, who attempted to explain the nature of the soul by comparing it to a Harmony ; Hie AB ARTIFICIO suo NON RECESSiT. 1 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 which gave him access to a society very different from what he had previously lived in) 2 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 1 Tusc. Qusest. lib. i. tioned among those who were delighted 2 Villiers Duke of Buckingham, and with his conversation, (he Lord Halifax, are particularly men- METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 209 coincidence between the taste of Locke and that of Descartes, tlirows 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 afforded him, to com- plete his long meditated design. He returned to England soon after the Kevolution, and published the first edition of his work in 1690; the busy and diversified scenes through which he had passed during its progress, having probably contributed, not less than the academical retirement in which he had spent his youth, to enhance its peculiar and characteristical merits. Of the circumstances which gave occasion to this great and memorable undertaking, the following interesting account is given in the Prefatory Epistle to the Header : " Five or six friends, meeting at my chamber, and discoursing on a subject very remote from this, found themselves quickly at a stand, by the difficulties that rose on every side. After we had a while puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a resolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into my thoughts that we took a wrong course, and that, before we set ourselves upon inquiries of that nature, it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see what objects our understandings were, or were not, fitted to deal with. This I proposed to the com- pany, who all readily assented, and thereupon it was agreed, that this should be our first inquiry. Some hasty and undi- gested thoughts on a subject I had never before considered, which I set down against our next meeting, gave the first entrance into this discourse, which having been thus begun by chance, was continued by entreaty ; written by incoherent parcels, and, after long intervals of neglect, resumed again as my humour or occasions permitted ; and at last in retirement, where an attendance on my health gave me leisure, it was brought into that order thou now seest it." Mr. Locke afterwards informs us, that "when he first put pen to paper, he thought all he should have to Ray on this VOL. i. o 210 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. matter would have been contained in one sheet, but that the farther he went the larger prospect he had ; new discoveries still leading him on, till his book grew insensibly to the bulk it now appears in." On comparing the Essay on Human Understanding with the foregoing account of its origin and progress, it is curious to observe, that it is the fourth and last book alone which bears directly on the author's principal object. In this book, it is further remarkable, that there are few, if any, references to the preceding parts of the Essay; insomuch that it might have been published separately, without being less intelligible than it is. Hence, it seems not unreasonable to conjecture, that it was the first part of the work in the order of composition, and that it contains those leading and fundamental thoughts which offered themselves to the author's mind, when he first began to reflect on the friendly conversation which gave rise to his philosophical researches. The inquiries in the first and second books, wliich are of a much more abstract, as well as scholastic nature, than the sequel of the work, probably opened gradually on the author's mind in proportion as he studied his subject with a closer and more continued attention. They relate chiefly to the origin and to the technical classification of our ideas, frequently branching out into collateral, and sometimes into digressive discussions, without much regard to method or connexion. The third book, (by far the most important of the whole,) where the nature, the use, and the abuse of language are so clearly and happily illustrated, seems, from Locke's own account, to have been a sort of after-thought; and the two excellent chapters on the Association of Ideas and on En- thusiasm (the former of which has contributed as much as anything else in Locke's writings, to the subsequent progress of Metaphysical Philosophy) were printed, for the first time, in the fourth edition of the Essay. I would not be understood, by these remarks, to undervalue the two first books. All that I have said amounts to this, that the subjects which they treat of are seldom susceptible of any practical application to the conduct of the understanding ; and METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 211 that the author has adopted a new phraseology of his own, where, in some instances, he might have much more clearly conveyed his meaning without any departure from the ordinary forms of speech. 1 But although these considerations render the two first books inferior in point of general utility to the two last, they do not materially detract from their merit, as a precious accession to the theory of the Human Mind. On the contrary, I do not hesitate to consider them as the richest contribution of well-observed and well-described facts, which was ever bequeathed to this branch of science by a single 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 have been since brought to light by succeeding inquirers. After the details given by Locke himself, of the circumstances in which his Essay was begun and completed ; more especially, after what he has stated of the "discontinued way of writing" imposed on him by the avocations of a busy and unsettled life, it cannot be thought surprising that so very little of method should appear in the disposition of his materials ; or that the opinions which, on different occasions, he has pronounced on the same subject, should not always seem perfectly steady and consistent. In these last cases, however, I am inclined to think that the inconsistencies, if duly reflected on, would be found rather apparent than real. It is but seldom that a writer 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 presumption is, that in each of these pro- positions there is a mixture of truth, and that the error lies chiefly in the unqualified manner in which the truth is stated ; proper allowances not being made, during the fervour of com- position, for the partial survey taken of the objects from a par- ticular point of view. Perhaps it would not be going too far to assert, that most of the seeming contradictions which occur 1 [*I allude here to such phrases as simple and mixed modes, adequate and inadequate ideas, &c. &c.] * Restored. FA. 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. 1 In a work thus composed by snatches, (to borrow a phrase of the author's,) it was not to be expected that he should be able accurately to draw the line between his own ideas and the hints for which he was indebted to others. To those who are well acquainted with his speculations, it must appear evident that he had studied diligently the metaphysical writings both of Hobbes and of Gassendi ; and that he was no stranger to the Essays of Montaigne, to the philosophical works of Bacon, or to Male- branche's Inquiry after Truth.'- That he was familiarly con- versant with the Cartesian system may be presumed from what we are told by his biographer, that it was this which first inspired him with a disgust at the jargon of the schools, and led 1 That Locke himself was sensible watchful in such points, and to take the that some of his expressions required alarm even at expressions which, stand- explanation, and was anxious that his ing alone by themselves, might sound opinions should be judged of rather from ill, and be suspected." Locke's Works, the general tone and spirit of his work, vol. ii. p. 93, note, than from detached and isolated propo- sitions, may be inferred from a passage * Mr. Addison has remarked, that in one of his notes, where he replies to Malebranche had the start of Locke, by the animadversions of one of his anta- several years, in his notions on the sub- gonists, (the Reverend Mr. Lowde,) who ject of Duration. (Spectator, No. 94.) had accused him of calling in question Some other coincidences, not less re- the immutability of moral distinctions. markable, might be easily pointed out " But (says Locke) the good man does in the opinions of the English and of the well, and as becomes his calling, to be French philosopher. METAPHYSICS DUKIKG THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. 213 him into that train of thinking which he afterwards prosecuted so successfully. I do not, however, recollect that he has any- where in his Essay mentioned the name of any one of these authors. 1 It is probable that, when he sat down to write, he found the result of his youthful reading so completely identified with the fruits of his subsequent reflections, that it was 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 unity and raciness of style, which demonstrate that, while he was writing, he conceived himself to be drawing only from his own resources. With respect to his style, it may be further observed, that it resembles that of a well-educated and well-informed man of the world, rather than of a recluse student who had made an object of the art of composition. It everywhere abounds with collo- quial expressions, which he had probably caught by the ear from those whom he considered as models of good conversation ; and hence, though it now seems somewhat antiquated, and not altogether suited to the dignity of the subject, it may be pre- sumed to have contributed its share towards his great object of turning the thoughts of his contemporaries to logical and meta- physical inquiries. The author of the Characteristics, who will not be accused of an undue partiality for Locke, acknowledges in strong terms the favourable reception which his book had met with among the higher classes. " I am not sorry, however," says Shaftesbury to one of his correspondents, " that I lent you Locke's Essay, a book that may as well qualify men for business and the world, as for the sciences and a university. No one has 1 The name of Hobbes occurs in Mr. the works of either. " I am not so well Locke's Reply to tJie Bishop of Wor- read in Hobbes and Spinoza as to be cester. See the Notes on his Essay, able to say what were their opinions in b. iv. c. 3. It is curious that he classes this matter, but possibly there be those Hobbes and Spinoza together, as writers who will think your Lordship's autho- of the same stamp; and that he dis- rityof more 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 Warburton's letters to Hurd, which I had occasion to quote in the first part of this Dissertation, it is stated as a fact, that " when Locke first published his Essay, he had neither followers nor admirers, and hardly a single ap- prover." I cannot help suspecting very strongly the correctness of this assertion, not only from the flattering terms in which the Essay is mentioned by Shaftesbury in the foregoing quota- 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 thirteenth edition, printed as early as 1748, is now lying before me. So rapid and so extensive a circulation of a work, on a subject so little within the reach of common readers, is the best proof of the established popularity of the author's name, and of the respect generally entertained for his talents and his opinions. That the Essay on Human Understanding should have 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. 2 It is more difficult to account for the long continu- ance, in that illustrious seat of learning, of the prejudice against 1 See Shaftesbury's First Letter to a * " It was proposed, at a meeting of Student at the University. the heads of houses of the University of METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 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. 1 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 Avith that learned body may be traced (as will after- wards appear) the origin of the 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. 2 Oxford, to censure and discourage the reading of Locke's Essay ; and, after various 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 Works, vol. x. p. 284. i [*"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 Essay 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 for it, lie hath so closely confined it, that it cannot depart from them without arguing inconsequentially." Warton's Essay on the Writings of Pope, vol. i. p. 168. This luminous account of the scope of Aristotle's Logic may serve to illus- trate the superiority of this logic to that of Locke, in training the mind to habits of correct thinking and of precise ex- pression.] 2 1 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 University of Cambridge about the middle of the seventeenth century. They 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 notions to an excess bor- dering on mysticism, and may, perhaps, have contributed to give a bias to some of their academical successors towards the opposite extreme. A very 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 Own Times. To the credit of Smith and of More, it may be added, that they were among the first in England to perceive and to acknowledge the merits of the Cartesian Metaphysics. * Restored. E?W. p. 125. 224 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. Locke has, if I am not widely mistaken, been very grossly misapprehended or misrepresented, by a large portion of his professed followers, as well as of his avowed antagonists. 1. The objections to which Locke's doctrine concerning the origin of our ideas, or, in other words, concerning the sources of our knowledge, are, in my judgment, liable, I have stated so fully in a former work, 1 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, Gassendi. " All our knowledge (he observes in a letter to Descartes) appears plainly to derive its origin from the senses ; and although you deny the maxim, 1 Quicquid est in intellectu prreesse debere in sensu,' yet this maxim appears, nevertheless, to be true ; since our knowledge is all ultimately obtained by an inftiix 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." 2 1 Philosophical Essays. dans le monde commence sa logique par * " Deinde omnis nostra notitia vide- cette proposition : Omnis idea orsum tur plane ducere originem a sensibus ; ducit a sensibus. Toute idee tire son et quamvis tu neges quicquid est in in- oriyine des sens. II avoue neanmoins tellectu prseesse debere in sensu, videtur que toutes nos idees n'ont pas etc dans id esse nilrilominus verum, cum nisi nos sens telles qu'elles sont dans notre sola incursione Kara rt^i-rruffn, ut lo- esprit : mais il pretend qu'elles ont au quuntur, fiat ; perficiatur tamen analo- moins etc formces de celles qui ont gia, compositione, divisione, ampliatione, passe par nos sens, ou par composition, extenuatione, aliisque similibus modi's, comme lorsque des images separees de quos commemorare nihil est necesse." 1'or et d'une montagne, on s'eri fait une Objectiones in Meditationem Secundam. montagne d'or ; ou par ampliation et This doctrine of Gassendi's is thus diminution, comme lorsque de 1'image very clearly stated and illustrated, by d'un homrne d'une grandeur ordinaire the judicious authors of the Port-Royal on s'en forme un geant ou un pigmee ; " Un philosophe qui est estimc ou par acroinmodatirm et proportion. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 225 This doctrine of Grassendi'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 nothing more than transformed comme lorsque de 1'idee d'une maison qu'on a vue, on s'en forme 1'image d'une maison qu'on n'a pas vue. ET AIXSI, dit il, NOUS CONCEVONS DlEU QUI NE PEUT TOMBER SOUS LES SENS, SOUS L 'IMAGE D'UN VENERABLE VJEILLARD." " Selon cette pensee, quoique toutes nos idees ne fussent semblables a quelque corps particulier que nous ayons vu, on qui ait frappe nos sens, elles seroient neanmoins toutes corporelles, et ne vous representeroient rien qui ne fut entre dans nos sens, an moins par parties. Et ainsi nous ne concevons rien que par des images, semblables a celles qui se forment dans le cerveau quand nous voyons, ou nous nous ima- ginons des corps." L'Art de Penser, 1 Partie, c. 1. The reference made, in the foregoing quotation, to Gassendi's illustration drawn from the idea of God, aftbrds me an opportunity, of which I gladly avail myself, to contrast it with Locke's opinion on the same subject. " How many amongst us will be found, upon inquiry, to fancy God, in the shape of a man, sitting in heaven, and to have many other absurd and unfit 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 although we find few amongst us, who profess themselves Anthropomorphites (though some I have met with that own it,) yet, I believe, lie that will make it his business, may find amongst the ignorant and unin- structcd Christians, many of that opi- nion."* Vol. i. p. 67. " Let the ideas of being and matter be strongly joined either by education or much thought, whilst these are still combined in the mind, what notions, what reasonings will there be about separate spirits ? Let custom, from the very childhood, have joined figure and * In the judgment of a very learned and pious divine, the bias towards Anthropomorphism, which Mr. Locke has here so severely reprehended, is not confined to " ignorant and unin- structed Christians." " If Anthropomorphism (says Dr. Maclaine) was banished from theology, orthodoxy would be deprived of some of its most precious phrases, and our confessions of faith and systems of doctrine would be reduced within much narrower bounds." Fate on Mosheim's Church History, vol. iv. p. 550. On this point I do not presume to offer any opinion ; but one thing I consider as indisputable, that it is by means of Anthropomorphism, and other idolatrous pictures of the invisible world, that superstition lays hold of the infant mind. Such pictures^perate not upon Reason, but upon the Imagination ; producing that temporary belief with which I conceive all the illusions 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 very carefully superintended in early infancy. I have applied to Anthropomorphism the epithet idolatrous, as it seems to be essentially the same thing to bow down and worship a graven image of the Supreme Being, and to worship a supposed likeness of Him conceived by the Imagination. In Bernier's Abridgment of Gassendi's Philosophy, (torn. iii. p. 13 et seq.) an attempt is made to reconcile with the Epicurean account of the origin of our knowledge, that more pure and ex- alted idea of God to which the mind is gradually led by the exercise of its reasoning powers : But I am very doubtful if Gassendi would have subscribed, in this instance, to the comments of his ingenious disciple. VOL. I. V DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. sensations." " Every idea," says the first of these writers, " must necessarily, when brought to its state of ultimate decom- position, resolve itself into a sensible representation or picture ; and since every thing in our understanding has been introduced shape to the idea of God, and what ab- surdities will that mind be liable to about the Deity ?" Vol. ii. p. 144. The authors of the Port-Royal Logic have expressed themselves on this point to the very same purpose with Locke ; and have enlarged upon it still more fully and forcibly. (See the sequel of the passage above quoted.) Some of their remarks on the subject, which are more particularly directed against Gas- sendi, have led Brucker to rank them among the advocates for innate ideas, (Brucker, Historia de Ideis, p. 271,) although these remarks coincide exactly in substance with the foregoing quota- tion from Locke. Like many other modern metaphysicians, this learned and laborious, but not very acute his- torian, could imagine no intermediate opinion between the theory of innate ideas, as taught by the Cartesians, and the Epicurean account of our know- ledge, as revived by Gassendi and Hobbes ; and accordingly thought him- self entitled to conclude, that whoever rejected the one must necessarily have adopted the other. The doctrines of Locke and of his predecessor Arnauld will be found, on examination, essen- tially different from both. Persons little acquainted with the metaphysical speculations or the two last centuries are apt to imagine, that when " all knowledge is said to have its origin in the senses,' 1 nothing more is to be understood than this, that it is by the impressions of external objects on our organs of perception, that the dor- mant powers of the understanding are at first awakened. The foregoing quo- tation from Gassendi, together with those which I am about to produce from Diderot and Condorcet, may, I trust, be useful in correcting this very common mistake ; all of these quotations expli- citly asserting, that the external senses furnish not only the occasions by which our intellectual powers are excited and developed, but all the materials about which our thoughts are conversant ; or, in other words, that it is impossible for us to think of anything, which is not either a sensible image, or the result of sensible images combined together, and transmuted into new forms by a sort of logical chemistry. That the powers of the understanding would for ever con- tinue dormant, were it not for the ac- tion of things external on the bodily frame, is a proposition now universally admitted by philosophers. Even Mr. Harris and Lord Monboddo, the two most zealous as well as most learned of Mr. Locke's adversaries in England, have, in the most explicit manner, ex- pressed their assent to the common doc- trine. " The first class of ideas (says Monboddo) is produced from ideas fur- nished by the senses ; the second arises from the operations of the mind upon these materials : for I do not deny, that in this our present state of existence, all our ideas, and all our knowledge, are ultimately to be derived from sense and matter." Vol. i. p. 44, 2d Ed. Mr. Harris, while he holds the same lan- guage, points out, with greater preci- sion, the essential difference between his philosophy and that of the Hob- bists. " Though sensible objects may be the destined medium to awaken the dormant energies of man's understand- ing, yet are those energies themselves no more contained in sense, than the explosion of a cannon in the spark METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 227 there by the channel of sensation, whatever proceeds 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 signifi- cation." (Euvres de Diderot, torn. 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 com- pounded of sensations." Esquisse Historique, &c. If this were to be admitted as a fair account of Locke's opinion, it would follow, that he has not advanced a single step beyond Gassendi and Hobbes ; both of whom have repeatedly expressed themselves in nearly the same words with Diderot and Condorcet. But 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 fie/lection, as an original source of our ideas, altogether different from Sensation? " The other fountain" says Locke, " from which experience furnisheth the understanding with ideas, is the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got ; which operations, when the soul comes to rejlect on and consider, do furnish the understanding with another set of ideas, which could not be had from things without ; and such are Perception, Thinking, Doubting, Believing, Reasoning, Knowing, Willing, and all the different actings of our own minds, which, we being conscious of, and observing in our- which gave it fire." (Hermes.) On sented, although the contrary opinion this subject see Elements of the Philo- has been generally supposed by his ad- sophy of the Human Mind, vol. i. chap. i. versaries to be virtually involved in his sect. 4. Theory of Innate Ideas. My reasons To this doctrine I have little doubt for thinking so, the reader will find that Descartes himself would have as- stated in Note X. 228 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. selves, do from these receive into our understandings ideas as distinct as we do from bodies affecting our senses. This source of ideas every man has wholly in himself: And though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called internal sense. But as I call the other SENSATION, so I call this KEFLECTION ; the ideas it affords being such only as the mind gets by reflecting on its own operations within itself." 1 Locke's Works, vol. i. p. 78. " The understanding seems to me not to have the least glim- mering of any ideas which it doth not receive from one of these two. External objects furnish the mind with the ideas of sen- sible qualities; and the mind furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own operations." Ibid. p. 79. In another part of the same chapter, Locke expresses himself thus : " Men come to be furnished with fewer or more simple ideas from without, according as the objects they converse with afford greater or less variety ; and from the operations of their minds within, according as they more or less REFLECT on them. For though he that contemplates the operations of liis mind, cannot but have plain and clear ideas of them ; yet, unless he turn his thoughts that way, and consider them attentively, he will no more have clear and distinct ideas of all the operations of his mind, and all that may be observed therein, than he will have all the particular ideas of any landscape, or of the parts and motions of a clock, who will not turn his eyes to it, and with attention heed all the parts of it. The picture or clock may be so placed that they may come in his way every day ; but yet he will have but a confused idea of all the parts they are made up of, till he applies himself with attention to consider them in each particular. " And hence we see the reason why it is pretty late before most children get ideas of the operations of their own minds ; and some have not any very clear or perfect ideas of the great- est part of them all their lives. . . . Children, when they first come into it, are surrounded with a world of new things, which, 1 See Note Y. 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 is to be found without ; and so growing up in a constant attention to outward sensations, seldom make any considerable reflection on what passes within them, till they come to be of riper years ; and some scarce ever at all." Ibid. pp. 80, 81. I beg leave to request more particularly the attention of my readers to the following paragraphs : " If it be demanded, when a man begins to have any ideas ? I think the true answer is, when he first has any sensation. . . . I conceive that ideas in the understanding are 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 our senses by outward objects, that the mind seems first to employ itself in such operations as we call Perception, Remembering, Consi- deration,, Reasoning, &c. " In time, the mind conies to reflect on its own operations, and about the ideas got by sensation, and thereby stores itself with a new set of ideas, which I call ideas of reflection. These impressions that are made on our senses by objects extrinsical to the mind ; and its own operations, proceeding from powers intrinsical and proper to itself, (which, when reflected on by itself, become also objects of its contemplation,) are, as I have said, the original of all knowledge." 1 Ibid. pp. 91, 92. 1 The idea attached by Locke in the uses it when he refers to Reflection our above passages to the word Reflection, ideas of Cause and Effect, of Identity is clear and precise. But in the course and Diversity, and of all other relations. of his subsequent speculations, he does " All of these (he observes) terminate in, not always rigidly adhere to it, fre- and are concerned about, those simple quently employing it in that more ex- ideas, either of Sensation or Reflection, teusive and popular sense in which it which I think to be the whole materials denotes the attentive and deliberate con- of all our knowledge." (Book ii. c. xxv. sideration of any object of thought, whe- sect. 9.) From this explanation it would ther relating to the external or to the appear that Locke conceived it sufficient internal world. It is in this sense ho to justify his account of the origin 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, and have so subjected their minds to their senses, that they seldom reflect on anything beyond them, are apt to say they cannot comprehend a thinking thing, which perhaps is true : But I affirm, when they consider it well, they can no more com- prehend an extended thing. " If any one say, he knows not what 'tis thinks in him ; he means he knows not what the substance is of that thinking thing : No more, say I, knows he what the substance is of that solid thing. Farther, if he says he knows not how he thinks ; I answer, Neither knows he how he is extended ; how the solid parts of body are united, or cohere together to make extension." Vol. ii. p. 22. " I think we have as many and as clear ideas belonging to mind as we have belonging to body, the substance of each being knowledge, if it could be shewn that all to him by the French and German com- our ideas terminate in, and are con- mentators. For my own part, I do not cerned about, ideas derived either from think, notwithstanding some casual ex- Sensation or Keflection, according to pressions which may seem to favour the which comment, it will not be a difficult contrary supposition, that Locke would task to obviate every objection to which have hesitated for a moment to admit, his fundamental principle concerning with Cudworth and Price, that the Un- the two sources of our ideas may appear derstandintj is itself a source of new to be liable. ideas. That it is by Reflection (which, In this lax interpretation of a prin- according to his own definition, means ciple so completely interwoven with the merely the exercise of the Understand- whole of his philosophy, there is un- ing on the internal phenomena) that we doubtedly a departure from logical accu- get our ideas of memory, imagination, racy ; and the same remark may be reasoning, and of all other intellectual extended to the vague and indefinite powers, Mr. Locke has again and again use which he occasionally makes of the told us ; and from this principle it is so vf or A Reflection a word which expresses obvious an inference, that all the simple the peculiar and characteristical doc- ideas which are necessarily implied in trine by which his system is distin- our intellectual operations, are ultimately guished from that of the Gasseudists to be referred to the same source, that and Hobbists. All this, however, serves we cannot reasonably suppose a philo- only to prove still more clearly, how sopher of Locke's sagacity to admit the widely remote his real opinion on this former proposition, and to withhold his subject was from that commonly ascribed assent to the latter. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 231 equally unknown to us ; and the idea of thinking in mind ^,s 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. 1 " To conclude : Sensation convinces us, that there are solid extended substances ; and Keflection, that there are thinking ones : Experience assures us of the existence of such beings ; and that the one hath a power to move body by impulse, the other by thought ; this we cannot doubt of. But beyond these ideas, as received from their proper sources, our faculties will not reach. If we would inquire farther into their nature, causes, and 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 how a substance we know not should, by thought, set body into motion, than how a substance we knoAv not should, by impulse, set body into motion." Ibid. pp. 26, 27. The passage in Locke which, on a superficial view, appears the most favourable to the misinterpretation put on his account of the Sources of our Knowledge, by so many of his professed followers, is, in my opinion, the following : " It may also lead us a little towards the original of all our notions and knowledge, if we remark how great a dependence our words have on common sensible ideas ; and how those which are made use of to stand for actions and notions quite removed from sense, have their rise from thence, and from obvious sen- sible ideas are transferred to more abstruse significations, and made to stand for ideas that come not under the cognizance of our senses ; e. g. to imagine, apprehend, comprehend, adhere, conceive, instil, disgust, disturbance, tranquillity, &c., are all 1 In transcribing this paragraph, I have and the latter (which seems to involve a taken the liberty to substitute the word theory concerning the nature of the think- Mind instead of Spirit. The two words ing principle) is now almost universally were plainly considered by Locke, on the rejected by English metaphysicians from present occasion, as quite synonymous ; their Philosophical Vocabulary. 232 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. words taken from the operations of sensible things, and applied to certain modes of thinking. Spirit, in its primary significa- tion, is breath ; angel, a messenger : and I doubt not, but if we could trace them to their sources, we should find, in all lan- guages, the names which stand for things that fall not under our senses, to have had their first rise from sensible ideas. By which we may give some kind of guess what kind of notions they were, and whence derived, which filled their minds, who were the first beginners of languages ; and how nature, even in the naming of things, unawares suggested to men the ori- ginals and principles of all their knowledge." So far the words of Locke coincide very nearly, if not exactly, with the doctrines of Hobbes and of G-assendi ; and I have not a doubt, that a mistaken interpretation of the clause which I have distinguished by italics, furnished the germ of all the mighty discoveries contained in the "Evrea Tlrepoevra. If Mr. Tooke, however, had studied with due attention the import of what immediately follows, he must have instantly perceived how essentially different Locke's real opinion on the subject was from what he conceived it to be. " Whilst to give names, that might make known to others any operations they felt in themselves, or any other ideas that came not under their senses, they were fain to borrow words from ordinary known ideas of sensation, by that means to make others the more easily to conceive those operations they experienced in themselves, which made no outward sensible appearances ; and then, when they had got known and agreed names, to signify those internal operations of their own minds, they were sufficiently furnished to make known by words all their other ideas; since they could consist of nothing but either of outward sensible percep- 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, he had not the most distant intention to draw from it any inference which might tend to identify the sensible images which this language presents to the fancy, with the METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 233 metaphysical notions which it figuratively expresses. Through the whole of his Essay., he uniformly represents sensation and reflection as radically distinct sources of knowledge ; and, of consequence, he must have conceived it to be not less 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 the analogy of mind. To this fundamental principle concerning the origin of our ideas, he has added, in the passage now before us, That, as our knowledge of mind is posterior in the order of time to that of matter, (the first years of our existence being necessarily occupied about objects of sense,) it is not surprising, that " when men wished to give names that might make known to others any operations they felt in themselves, or any other ideas that came not under their senses, they should have been fain to borrow words from ordinary known ideas of sensation, by that means to make others the more easily to conceive those operations which make no 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 predecessor 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 this as unnecessary, after having dwelt so much on reflection as the exclusive source of ah 1 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 together our notions of mind and of matter. The misapprehensions so prevalent on the Continent, with respect to Locke's doctrine on this most important of all meta- physical questions, began during his own lifetime, and were countenanced by the authority of no less a writer than Leibnitz, who always represents Locke as a partisan of the scholastic 234 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. maxim, Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu. " Nempe (says Leibnitz, in reply to this maxim) nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu, nisi ipse intellectus" 1 1 Opera, torn. v. pp. 358, 359. That the same mistake still keeps its ground among many foreign writers of the highest class, the following passage affords a sufficient proof: " Leibnitz a combattu avec une force de dialectique admirable le Systeme de Locke, qui attribue toutes nos idees a nos sensa- tions. On avoit mis en avant cet axiome si connu, qu'il n'y avoit rien dans 1'intelligence qui n'eut etc d'abord dans les sensations, et Leibnitz y ajouta cette sublime restriction, si ce n'est I'intelli- gence elle-meme. De ce principe derive toute la philosophic nouvelle qui exerce tant d'influence sur les esprits en Alle- magne." Madame de Stael de VAUe- magne, torn. iii. p. 65. I observed in the First Part of this Dissertation, (page 87,) that this sublime restriction on which so much stress has been laid by the partisans of the Ger- man school, is little more than a trans- lation of the following words of Aristotle : K) auTog ot vovs vonTos iffvtv, u TK vatiTti- \"!tl flit ya.o om- bast, and more frequently to sink into buffoonery. As an honest inqiiirer after moral and religious truth, he is entitled to the most unqualified approbation. But I must be permitted to add, that, as a metaphysician, he seems to me much more fanciful than solid ; and, at the same time, to be so rambling, ver- bose, and excursive, as to be more likely to unsettle than to fix the principles of his readers. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 237 illuminating the understanding before the external senses begin to operate. The very close affinity between this theory, and some of the doctrines of the Platonic school, prevented Leibnitz, it is probable, from judging of Locke's argument against it, with his usual candour ; and disposed him hastily to conclude, that the opposition of Locke to Descartes proceeded from views essentially the same with those of Gassendi, and of his other Epicurean antagonists. How very widely he was mistaken in this conclusion, the numerous passages which I have quoted in Locke's own words sufficiently demonstrate. In what respects Locke's account of the origin of our ideas falls short of the truth, will appear, when the metaphysical 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 variance with the whole spirit of his Essay, as to prove to a demonstration that, in point of numbers, the intelligent readers of this celebrated work have hitherto borne but a small proportion to its purchasers and panegyrists. What an illustration of the folly of trusting, in matters of literary history, to the traditionary judgments copied by one commentator or critic from another, when recourse may so easily be had to the original sources of information ! l 1 In justice to Dr. Hartley I must may not be amiss here to take notice here observe, that, although his account how far the theory of these papers has of the origin of our ideas is precisely the led me to differ, in respect of logic, from same with that of Gassendi, Hobhes, and Mr. Locke's excellent Essay on tJie Condillac one of his fundamental prin- Human Understanding, to which the pies being, that the ideas of sensation world is so much indebted for removing are the elements of which all the rest prejudices and encumbrances, and ad- are compounded (Hartley on Man, vancing real and useful knowledge. 4th Edit. p. 2 of the Introduction) he " First, then, it appears to me, that has not availed himself, like the other all the most complex ideas arise from Gassendists of later times, of the name sensation, and that reflection is not a of Locke to recommend this theory to distinct source, as Mr. Locke makes it." the favour of his readers. On the con- Hartley on Man, 4th Edit. p. 360 of trary, he has very clearly and candidly the Introduction. pointed out the wide and essential dis- This last proposition Hartley seems tinction between the two opinions. " It to have considered as an important and 238 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. II. Another misapprehension, not less prevalent than the former, with respect to Locke's philosophical creed, relates to the power of moral perception, and the immutability of moral distinctions. The consideration of such questions, it may at original improvement of his own on Locke's logic ; whereas, in fact, it is only a relapse into the old Epicurean hypothesis, which it was one of the main objects of Locke's Essay to explode. I would not have enlarged so fully on Locke's account of the origin of our ideas, had not a mistaken view of his argument on this head, served as a groundwork for the whole Metaphysical Philosophy of the French Encyclopedia. That all our knowledge is derived from our external senses, is everywhere as- sumed by the conductors of that work as a demonstrated principle ; and the credit of this demonstration is uniformly ascribed to Locke, who, we are told, was the first that fully unfolded and esta- blished a truth, of which his prede- cessors had only an imperfect glimpse. La Harpe, in his Lycee, has, on this account, justly censured the metaphysi- cal phraseology of the Encyclopedic, as tending to degrade the intellectual nature of man ; while, with a strange inconsistency, he bestows the most un- qualified praise on the writings of Con- dillac. Little did he suspect, when he wrote the following sentences, how much the reasonings of his favourite logician had contributed to pave the way fo those conclusions which he reprobates with so much asperity in Diderot and D'Alembert. "La gloire de Condillac est d'avoir etc le premier disciple de Locke ; mais si Condillac cut un niaitre, il merita d'en servir a tous les autres ; il repandit meme une plus grande luiniere sur les decouvertes du philosophe Anglois ; il les rendit pour ainsi dire sensibles, et c'est grace a lui qu'elles sont devenues communes et familieres. En un mot, la saine Metaphysique ne date en France, que des ouvrages de Condillac, et a ce titre il doit etre compte dans le petit nombre d'hommes qui ont avance la science qu'ils ont cultivee." Lycee, torn. xv. pp. 136, 137. La Harpe proceeds in the same pane- gyrical strain through more than seventy pages, and concludes his eulogy of Con- dillac with these words : " Le style de Condillac est clair et pur comme ses con- ceptions ; c'est en general 1'esprit le plus juste et le plus lumineux qui ait contribue, dans ce siecle, aux progres de la bonne philosophic." Ibid. p. 214. La Harpe' s account of the power of Reflection will form an appropriate sup- plement to his comments on Condillac. " L'impression sentie des objets se nom- ine perception ; 1'action de Fame qui les considere, se nomme reflexion. Ce mot, il est vrai, exprime un mouvement phy- sique, celui de se replier sur soi-meme ou sur quelque chose ; mais toutcs nos idees venant des sens, nous sommes souvent obliges de nous servir de termes ph}*- siques pour exprimer les operations de 1'ame." (Ibid. p. 158.) In another passage, he defines Reflection as follows : " La faculte de reflexion, c'est-a-dire, le pouvoir qu'a notre ame, de comparer, d'assembler, de combiner les percep- tions." (Ibid. p. 183.) How widely do these definitions of reflection differ from that given by Locke ; and how exactly do they accord with the Philosophy of Gas- sendi, of Hobbes, and of Diderot ! In a lately published sketch Of the State of French Literature during the Eighteenth Century, (a work, to which the Author's taste and powers as a writer have attracted a degree of public atten- METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 239 first sight 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 Argument against the Theory of Innate Ideas. An Ethical disquisition of this sort formed, it must be owned, an awkward introduction to a work on the Human Understanding ; but the conclusion on which it is meant to bear is purely of "a Metaphysical nature ; and when combined with the premises from which it is de- duced, affords a good illustration of the impossibility, in tracing the progress of these two sciences, of separating completely the histoiy 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 my opinion, sound remarks, on the moral tendency 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, negligeant d'examiner tout ce mecanisme des sens, tous ces rapports directs du corps avec les objets, les philosophes ne s'occupoient que de ce qui se passe au-dedans de 1'homme. La science de 1'ame, telle a etc la noble etude de Descartes, de Pascal, de Male- branche, de Leibnitz. (Why omit in this list the name of Locke ?) . . . Peut- etre se perdoient-ils quelquefois dans les nuages des hautes regions ou ils avoient pris leur vol ; peut-etre leurs travaux etoient-ils sans application directe ; mais du moins ils suivoient une direction elevee, leur doctrine etoit en rapport avec les pensees qui nous agitent quand nous reflechissons profondement sur nous-memes. Cette route conduisoit necessairement au plus nobles des sci- ences, a la religion, et a la morale. Elle supposoit dans ceux qui la cultivoient un genie eleve et de vastes meditations. " On se lassa de les suivre ; on traita de vaines subtilitcs, on fletrit du titre de reveries scholastiques les travaux de ces grands esprits. On se jeta dans la science des sensations, esperant qu'elle seroit plus a la portee de 1'intelligence humaine. On s'occupa de plus en plus des rapports mecaniques de 1'homme avec les objets, et de 1'influence de son organisation physique. De cette sorte, la metaphysique alia toujours se rabais- saut, au point que maintenant, pour quelques personnes, elle se confond pres- que avec la physiologic. . . . Le dix- huitieme siecle a voulu faire de cette maniere d'envisager 1'hommc un de ses priucipaux titres de gloire. . . . " Condillac est le chef de cette ecole. C'est dans ses ouvrages que cette meta- physique exerce toutes les seductions de la methode, et de la lucidite ; d'autant plus claire, qu'elle est moins profonde. Peu d'ecrivains out obtenu plus de suc- ces. II reduisit a la portee du vulgaire la science de la pensee, en retranchant tout ce qu'elle avoit d'eleve. Chacun fut surpris et glorieux de pouvoir philo- sopher si facilement ; et 1'on eut une grande reconnoissance pour celui a qui Ton devoit ce bienfait. On ne s'apper- fut pas qu'il avoit rabaisse la science, au lieu de rendre ses disciples capable d'y atteindre." Tableau de la Littera- ture Frangoise pendant le di& huitieme Siecle, 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 author, who had certainly no wish to do injustice to Locke's opinions. " The First Book (says Dr. Beattie) of the Essay on Human Understanding, which, with submission, I think the worst, tends to establish this dangerous doctrine, that the human mind, previous to education and habit, is as susceptible of any one impression as of any other : a doctrine which, if true, would go near to prove, that truth and virtue are no better than human contrivances ; or at least, that they have nothing permanent in their nature, but may be as changeable as the inclinations and capacities of men." Dr. Beattie, however, 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 tendency, 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. 1 It is fortunate for Locke's reputation, that, in other parts of his Essay, he has disavowed, in the most unequivocal terms, those dangerous conclusions which, it must be owned, the general strain of his first book has too much the appearance of favouring. " He that hath the idea (he observes on one 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 Grod, 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 1 See Principles of Moral and Politi- the author discusses the question con- cal Philosojihy, book i. chap. 5, where cerning a moral sense. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 241 open his eyes, and turn them that way. But yet these truths being never so certain, never so clear, he may be ignorant of either, or all of them, who will never take the pains to employ his faculties as he should to inform himself about them." To the same purpose, he has elsewhere said, that " there is a Law of Nature, as intelligible to a rational creature and studier of that law, as the positive laws of commonwealths." Nay, he has himself, in the most explicit terms, anticipated and disclaimed those dangerous consequences which, it has been so often 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 difference between an innate law and a law of nature ; between something imprinted on our minds in their very original, -and something that we, being ignorant of, may attain to the knowledge of, by the use and due application of our natural faculties. And I think they equally forsake the truth, who, running into the contrary extremes, either affirm an innate law, or deny that there is a law knowable by the light of nature, without the help of a positive revelation." (Vol. i. p. 44.) Nor was Locke unaware of the influence on men's lives of their speculative tenets concerning these meta- physical and ethical questions. On this point, which can alone render such discussions interesting to human happiness, he has expressed himself thus : " Let that principle of some of the philosophers, that all is matter, and that there is nothing else, be received for certain and indubitable, and it will be easy to be seen, by the writings of some that have revived it again in our days, what consequences it will lead into. . . . Nothing can be so dangerous as principles thus taken up without due ques- tioning or examination ; especially if they be such as influence men's lives, and give a bias to all their actions. He that with Archelaus shall lay it down as a principle, that right and wrong, honest and dishonest, are defined only by laws, and not by nature, will have other measures of moral rectitude and pravity, than those who take it for granted, that we are under obligations antecedent to all human constitutions." (Vol. iii. VOL. i. Q 242 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. p. 75.) Is not the whole of this passage evidently pointed at the Epicurean maxims of Hobbes and of Gassendi P 1 Lord Shaftesbury was one of the first who sounded the alarm against what he conceived to be the drift of that philosophy which denies the existence of innate principles. Various strictures on this subject occur in the Characteristics; particu- larly in the treatise entitled Advice to an Author; but the most direct of all his attacks upon Locke is to be found in his eighth Letter, addressed to a Student at the University. In this letter he observes, that " all those called free writers now- a-days have espoused those principles which Mr. Hobbes set 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 oif the poison of his philosophy. 'Twas Mr. Locke that- struck at all fundamentals, threw all order and virtue out of the world, and made the very ideas of these (which are the same with those of GOD) unnatural, and without foundation in our minds. Innate is a word he poorly plays upon : the right word, though less used, is connatural. For what has birth or progress of the 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- 1 To the above quotations from Locke, What greater light can be hoped for in the following deserves to be added: the moral sciences? The subject part " Whilst the parties of men cram their of mankind in most places might, in- tenets down all men's throats, whom stead thereof, with Egyptian bondage they can get into their power, without expect Egyptian darkness, were not the permitting them to examine their truth candle of the Lord set up by him- or falsehood, and will not let truth have self in men's minds, which it is i>n- fair play in the world, nor men the possible for ilie breath or power of liberty to search after it, what improve- man wholly 1o extinguish" Vol. ii. ments can be expected of this kind? pp. 343, 344. METAPHYSICS DU1UNG THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 243 tion of man be such, that, being adult and grown up, 1 at such a time, sooner or later (no matter when) the idea and sense of order, administration, and a GOD, will not infallibly, inevitably, necessarily spring up in him." In this last remark Shaftesbury appears to me to place the question about innate ideas upon the right and only philoso- phical footing ; and to afford a key to all the confusion running through Locke's argument against their existence. The sequel of the above quotation is not less just and valuable but I must not indulge myself in any farther extracts. It is suffi- cient to mention the perfect coincidence between the opinion of Shaftesbury, as here stated by liimself, and that formerly quoted in the words of Locke ; and, of consequence, the injustice of concluding, from some unguarded expressions of the latter, that there was, at bottom, any essential difference between their real sentiments. 2 1 Lord Shaftesbury should have said, " grown up to the possession and exer- cise of his reasoning powers." 2 I must, at the same time, again re- peat, that the facts and reasonings con- tained in the introduction to Locke's Essay, go very far to account for the severity of Shafteshury'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 have felt precisely in the same manner with the author of the CJiaracteristics. Such, at least, were his first 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 beg 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 suspicions 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 most humble and most unfortunate ser- vant, Is. 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 the good-humoured forbear- ance of a man of the world ; and it breathes throughout so tender and so unaffected a veneration for the good as well as great qualities of the excellent person to whom it is addressed, as de- * It is dated at the. Bull in Slioredilch, London, September 1693; and is addressed, For John Locke, Esq., at Sir Fra. Masham'*, Hart., al Oatfs, in Ester. 244 ! >1S8ERTATION. FART SECV-N 1 ). 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 liis 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. NEWTON. " Oatft, 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 shall always think your own reflection on my carriage both to you and all mankind will sufficiently do that. Instead of that, give me leave to assure you, that I am more ready to forgive you than you can be to desire it ; and I do it so freely and fully that I wish for nothing more than the opportunity to convince you that I truly love and esteem you ; and that I have still the same good will for you as if nothing of this had 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 de.il more than this for my sake, who, after all, have all the concern of a friend for you, wish you extremely well, and am, without compliment," &c. &c. (For the preservation of this precious memorial of Mr. Locke, the public is indebted to the descendants of his friend and relation the Lord Chancellor King, to whom his papers and library were bequeathed. The original is still in the possession of the present representative of that noble family ; for whose 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- METAPHYSICS DURING THE 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. 1 It has been often remarked, that they display less originality than might have been expected from so bold and powerful a thinker ; and, accordingly, both of them have long fallen into very general neglect. It ought, however, to be remembered, that, on the most important points discussed in them, new 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, ivhich of them were sanctioned, and which reprobated by the judgment of Locke. The candid and unreserved thoughts of such a writer upon such subjects as Education, and the culture of the intellectual powers, possess an intrinsic value, which is not diminished by the consideration of their triteness. They not only serve to illustrate the peculiarities of the author's own character and views, but, considered in a practical light, come recommended to us by all the additional weight of his discriminating experi- ence. In this point of view, the two tracts in question, but more especially that on the Conduct of the Understanding, will always continue to be interesting manuals to such as are qualified to appreciate the mind from which they proceeded. 2 1 Mr. Locke, 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 Works, vol. ix. p. 407. as an additional chapter to his Essay. 2 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 Newbcrry's me. T have written several pages on it, authors ; but with what additional in- but the matter, the farther I go, opens terest 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 be, Of the Conduct of the 317. (fnderstandinrj, which, if I shall pur- It is a judicious reflection of Shen- suc as far as I imagine it will reach, stone's, that " every single observation 24G 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 Trea- tise on Education as a work of still greater merit than the Essay on Human Understanding. 1 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 ! But how different was the case (even in Protestant countries) till a very recent period of the last century ! I have, on a former occasion, taken notice of the slow but (since the invention of printing) certain steps by which Truth makes its way in the world : " The discoveries which, in one age, are confined to the studious and enlightened few, becoming, in the next, the established creed of the learned ; and, in the third, forming part of the elementary 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 these, having no chance to incor- porate themselves with the progressive reason of the species, are published by a man of genius, be it ever and happily than to Locke, when he so trivial, should be esteemed of import- touches on the culture of the intellectual ance, because he speaks from his own powers. His precepts, indeed, are not impressions ; whereas common men all equally sound ; but they, in general, publish common things, which they contain a large proportion of truth, and have perhaps (/leaned from frivolous may always furnish to a speculative writers. I know of few authors to whom mind matter of useful meditation. tin's observation applies more forcibly 1 J,rib. Op torn. vi. p. 226. METAPHYSICS DURING *THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 247 the more likely to immortalize the eccentricity of their authors, and to furnish subjects of wonder to the common compilers of literary history. This ambition is the more general, as so little expense of genius is necessary for its gratification. " Truth (as Mr. Hume has well observed) is one thing, but errors are numberless ;" and hence (he might have added) the difficulty of seizing the former, and the facility of swelling the number of the latter. 1 Having said so much in illustration of Locke's philosophical merits, and in reply to the common charge against his 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 with which he listens to historical evidence, when it happens to favour his own conclusions. Many remarkable instances of this occur in his long and rambling argument (somewhat in the style of Montaigne) against the existence of innate practical principles ; to which may be added, the degree of credit he appears to have given to the popular tales about mermaids, and to Sir William Temple's idle story of Prince Maurice's " rational and intelligent parrot/' Strange ! that the same person who, in matters of reasoning, had divested himself, almost to a fault, of all reverence for the opinions of others, should have failed to perceive, that, of all the various sources of error, 'one of the most copious and fatal is an unreflecting faith in human testi- mony ! 1 Descartes has struck into nearly the le naturel cles homines qu'ils n'esthnent same train of thinking with the ahove, que les choses qui leur laissent d'ad- but his remarks apply much better to miration et qu'ils ne possedent pas tout- the writings of Locke than to his own. a-fait. C'est ainsi que quoique la sante " L'experience m'apprit, que quoique soit le plus grand de tous les biens qui mes opinions surprennent d'abord, parce concernent le corps, c'est pourtant celui qu'elles sont fort differentes des vul- auquel nous faisons le moins de reflex- gaires, cependant, apres qu'on les a ion, et que nous goutons le moins. Or, comprises on les trouve si simples et si la connoissance de la verite est comme conformes au sens commun, qu'on cesse la sante de 1'ame ; lorsque on la pos- entierement de les admirer, et par la scde on n'y pense plus." Lettres, tome nionie d'en faire cas: parccque tel est i. Lettre xliii. 248 DISSERTATION. PAKT 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 Roman writers were held by his immediate predecessors, although it may help to account for this weakness, cannot altogether excuse it in a man of so strong and enlarged an understanding. Locke, as we are told by Dr. Warton, " affected to depreciate the ancients ; which circumstance, (he adds,) as I am informed from undoubted authority, was the source of perpetual 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 modern times, the foregoing anecdote will serve at once to explain and to palliate the acri- mony of some of Shaffcesbury's strictures on Locke's Ethical paradoxes. 1 With this disposition of Locke to depreciate the ancients, was intimately connected that contempt which he everywhere expresses for the study of Eloquence, and that perversion of taste which led him to consider Blackmore as one of the first of our English poets. 2 That his own imagination was neither sterile nor torpid, appears sufficiently from the agreeable 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 1 Plebcii Philosophi (says Cicero) qui in comparison to Sir Richard Black - a Platone et Socrate, et ab ea familia more." In reply to which Locke says, dissident. "There is, I with pleasure find, a strange 2 ' All cur English poets, except harmony throughout between your Milton," says Mulyneux in a letter to thoughts and mine." Locke's I/icko, " havp lioeii nipro ballad makers vol. ix. pp. 423. 42fi. METAPHYSICS DUIUNG THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 249 to wliich it is subservient, both in our intellectual and moral frame. Hence, in all his writings, an inattention to those more attractive aspects of the mind, the study of which, as Burke has well observed, " while it communicates to the taste a sort of philosophical solidity, may be expected to reflect back on the severer sciences some of those graces and elegancies, without which the greatest proficiency in these sciences will always have the appearance of something illiberal/' To a certain hardness of character, not unfrequently united with an insensibility to the charms of poetry and of eloquence, may partly be ascribed the severe and forbidding spirit which has suggested some of the maxims in his Tract on Education? 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 Ms natural dispositions ; and which, under a gentler and more skilful culture, might have assumed a still more engaging and amiable form. His father, who had served in the Parliament's army, seems to have retained through life that austerity of manners which characterized his puritanical associates ; and, notwithstanding the comparative enlargement and cultivation of Mr. Locke's mind, something of this heredi- tary leaven, if I am not mistaken, continued to operate upon many of his opinions and habits of thinking. If, in the Con- duct of the Understanding, he trusted (as many have thought) too much to nature, and laid too little stress on logical rules, he certainly fell into the opposite extreme in everything connected with the culture of the heart ; distrusting nature altogether, and placing his sole confidence in the effects of a systematical and vigilant discipline. That the great object of education is 1 Such, for example, as this, that neux observes) " which seems to bear "a child should never be suffered to harden the tender spirits of children, have what he craves, or so much as and the natural affections of parents." xpeaksfor. much less if he cries for it!" Locke's Works, vol. ix. p. 319. A maxim (as his correspondent Moly- 250 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. not to thwart and disturb, but to study the aim, and to facili- tate the accomplishment of her beneficial arrangements, is a maxim, one should think, obvious to common sense ; and yet it is only of late years that it has begun to gain ground even among philosophers. It is but justice to Rousseau to acknow- ledge, that the zeal and eloquence with which he has enforced it, go far to compensate the mischievous tendency of some of his other doctrines. 1 To the same causes it was probably owing, that Locke has availed himself so little in his Conduct of the Understanding, of his own favourite doctrine of the Association of Ideas. He has been, indeed, at sufficient pains to warn parents and guard- ians of the mischievous consequences to be apprehended from this part of our constitution, if not diligently watched over in our infant years. But he seems to have altogether overlooked the positive and immense resources which might be derived from it, in the culture and amelioration, both of our intellectual and moral powers ; in strengthening, (for instance,) by early habits of right thinking, the authority of reason and of con- science ; in blending with our best feelings the congenial and ennobling sympathies of taste and of fancy ; and in identify- ing, with the first workings of the imagination, those pleasing views of the order of the universe, which are so essentially necessary to human happiness. A law of our nature, so mighty and so extensive in its influence, was surely not given to man in vain ; and the fatal purchase which it has, in all ages, afforded to Machiavellian statesmen, and to political religion- ists, in carrying into effect their joint conspiracy against the improvement and welfare of our species, is the most decisive 1 [* The most exceptionable part of him to do otherwise. His remarks on the Treatise in question is, in my opin- the treatment of yoxith in their approach ion, that which relates to the manage- to manhood are of far greater value, ment of the temper and dispositions of They discover much knowledge of the children. On this subject Locke seems world, as well as of human nature, and are to have written more from theory than totally uninfected with that spirit of false from actual observation; nor, indeed, refinement by which so many of our later did the circumstances of his life enable writers on education have been misled.] * Restored. Kd. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH 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 Government. They appear to me to connect less naturally and closely with the literary history of the times when they appeared, than with the systematical views which were opened on the same subjects about fifty years 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 modern science of Political Economy. With respect to his merits as a logical and metaphysical reformer, enough has been already said for this introductory section : but I shall have occasion, more than once, to recur to them in the following pages, when I come to review those later theories, of which the germs or rudiments may be distinctly traced in his works ; and of which he is, therefore, entitled to divide the praise with such of his successors as have reared to maturity the prolific seeds scattered bv his hand. 1 1 And yet with what modesty does ployed as an under-labourer in clearing Locke speak of his own pretensions as the ground a little, and removing some a Philosopher! "In an age that pro- of the rubhish that lies in the way to duces such masters as the great Huy- knowledge." Essay on Human Under- genius and the incomparable Mr. New- standing. Epistle to the Reader. See ton, it is ambition enough to be em- Note Z. 252 DISSERTATION. PAUT 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 Germany, 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 Gassendi ; 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 DUKING THE EIGHTEENTH OENTUKY. 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 from local details to more enlarged views of the globe which we inhabit. A striking change in this literary commerce among nations took place, at least in the western parts of Europe, before the death of Leibnitz ; but during the remainder of the last century, it continued to proceed with an accelerated rapidity over the whole face of the civilized world. A multitude of causes, undoubtedly, conspired to produce it ; but I know of no individual whose name is better entitled than that of Leibnitz to mark the era of its commencement. 1 I have already, in treating of the philosophy of Locke, said enough, and perhaps more than enough, of the opinion of 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 Cudworth, whose mind, like his own, was deeply tinctured with the Platonic 1 The following maxims of Leibnitz chose. Le mal est souvent que les gens deserve the serious attention of all who de hien ont quelques caprices ou opi- have at heart the improvement of man- nions particulieres, qui font qu'ils sont kind : contraires entr'eux. . . . L 'esprit sec- " On trouve dans le monde plusieurs taire consiste proprement dans cette personnes bien intentionnees ; mais le prevention de vouloir que les autres se mal est, qu'elles ne s'entendent point, et reglent sur nos maximes, au lieu qu'on ne travaillcnt point de concert. S'il y se devroit contenter de voir qu'on aille avoit moyen de trouver nne espece de au but principal." Leib. Op. torn. i. glu ponr les reunir, on feroit quelque p. 740. 254 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. Metaphysics, is not unworthy of notice here, as an historical fact; and it is the only remark on this part of his system which I mean to add at present to those in the preceding history. " The seeds of our acquired knowledge," says Leibnitz, " or, in other words, our ideas, and the eternal truths which are derived from them, are contained in the mind itself; nor is this wonderful, since we know by our own consciousness that we possess within ourselves the ideas of existence, of unity, of 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 con- 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 Theodiccea : " I cannot help corning into this notion, that God created the soul in such manner at first, that it should represent within itself all the simultaneous changes in the body ; and that he has made the body also in such manner, as that it must of itself do what the soul wills : So that the laws which make the thoughts of the soul follow each other in regular succession, must produce images which shall be coincident with the 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, METAPHYSICS DU1UNG THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 255 as to give to our volitions and actions the very sarne appear- ance, as if the latter were really the natural and the necessary consequences of the former." (Leib. Op. i. p. 163.) Upon another occasion he observes, that " everything goes on in the soul as if it had no body, arid 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. Jaquelot 1 a comparison, which, whatever may be thought of its justness, must be at least allowed some merit in point of ingenuity. " Suppose that an intelligent and powerful being, who knew beforehand every particular thing that I should order my footman to do to-morrow, should make a machine to resemble my footman exactly, and punctually to perform, all day, whatever I directed. On this supposition, would not my will in issuing all the details of my orders remain, in every respect, in the same circumstances as before ? And would not my machine-footman, in performing his different movements, have the appearance of acting only in obedience to my 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 common Creator. From this outline of the scheme of Pre-established Harmony, it is manifest that it took its rise from the very same train of thinking which produced Malebranche's doctrine of Occasional Causes. The authors of both theories saw clearly the 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 1 Author of a book entitled Conformity de la Foi arfc In Jtaison. '256 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. connexion or union which seems to exist between them is not real, but apparent. The inferences, however, which they drew from this common principle were directly opposite ; Malebranche maintaining that the communication between mind and body was carried on by the immediate and incessant agency of the Deity ; while Leibnitz conceived that the agency of God was employed only in the original contrivance and mutual 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 nnphilosophical and untenable. The chief objection to the doctrine of occasional causes is, that it presumes to decide upon a question of which human reason is altogether incompe- tent to judge ; our ignorance of the mode in which matter acts upon mind, or rnind upon matter, furnishing not the shadow of a proof that the one may not act directly and immediately on the other, in some way incomprehensible by our faculties. 1 But 1 The mutual action, or (as it was sequi mihi apparct, omnem influxiim called in the schools) the mutual inflii- esse rejiciendum. trice (influxus) of soul and body, was, " Substantiae incognitae sunt. Jam till the time of Descartes, the prevailing videmus naturam mentis nos latere ; hypothesis, both among the learned and scimus hanc esse aliquid, quod ideas the vulgar. The reality of this influx, habet, has confert, &c. sed ignoramus if not positively denied by Descartes, quid sit subjectum, cui hse proprictates was at least mentioned by him as a sub- conveniant. ject of doubt ; but by Malebranche and " Hoc idem de corpore dicimus ; est Leibnitz it was confidently rejected as extensum, impenetrabile, &c. sed quid absurd and impossible. (See their works est quod habet hasce proprietates ? passim.} Gravesande, who had a very Kulla nobis via aperta est, qua ad hanc strong leaning towards the doctrines of cognitionem pervenire possimus. Leibnitz, had yet the good sense to per- " Inde concludimus, multa nos latere, ccive the inconclusiveness of his reason- quse proprietates mentis et corporis spec- ing in this particular instance, and states tant. in opposition to it the following sound " Invicta demonstratione constat, non and decisive remarks : " Xon concipio, mentem in corpus, neque hoc in illam quomodo mens in corpus agere possit ; agere, ut corpus in corpus agit ; sed non etiani video, quomodo ex motu nervi mihi non videtur incle concludi posse, percoptio soquatur : non tamen inde omnom influ.rinn esse impossibilem. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. 257 the doctrine of Pre-established Harmony, 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 suo corpus non agit in aliurl corpus, sine resistente ; sed an non ac- tio, omnino diversa, et cujus ideam non habemus, in aliam substantiam dari pos- sit, et ita tamen, ut causa effectui re- spondeat, in re adeo obscura, determinare non ausim. Difficile certe est influxum negare, quando exacte perpendimus, quomodo in minimis quse mens percipit, relatio detur cum agitationibus in cor- pore, et quomodo hujus motus cum men- tis determinationibus conveniant. At- tendo ad ilia quse medici, et anatomici, nos de his docent. " Nibil, ergo, de systemate inftuxus determine, prseter hoc, mihi nondum hujus impossibilitatem satis clare de- monstratam esse videri." Introductio ad Phihsophiam. See Note A A. With respect to the manner in which the intercourse between Mind and Mat- ter is carried on, a very 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 manifestly l>y impulse, the only way which we can conceive VOL. I. bodies operate in." Essay, B. ii. ch. viii. 11. In the course of Locke'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 I 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 only be accounted for by the variety of Mr. Locke's other pursuits, that in all the later editions of the Essay which have fallen in my way, the proposition in question has been allowed to remain as it originally stood. 11 258 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. subsequent agency in the first contriver and mover, excepting in the case of a miracle. But the falseness of the analogy ap- pears from this, that the moving force in every machine is some natural power, such as gravity or elasticity ; and, consequently, the very idea of mechanism assumes the existence of those active powers, of which it is the professed object of a mechanical theory of the universe to give an explanation. Whether, therefore, with Malebranche, we resolve every effect into the immediate agency of God, or suppose, with the great majority of New- tonians, that he employs the instrumentality of second causes to accomplish his purposes, we are equally forced to admit with Bacon, the necessity not only of a first contriver and mover, but of his constant and efficient concurrence (either immediately or mediately) in carrying his design into execution : " Opus (says Bacon) quod operatur Deus a priinordio usque ad finem." In what I have now said I have confined myself to the idea of Mechanism as it applies to the material universe ; for, as to this word, when applied by Leibnitz to the mind, which he calls a Spiritual Automaton, I confess myself quite unable to annex a meaning to it ; I shall not, therefore, offer any remarks on this part of his system. 1 To these visionary speculations of Leibnitz, a strong and instructive contrast is exhibited in the philosophy of Locke ; a philosophy, the main object of which is less to enlarge our knowledge, than to make us sensible of our ignorance ; or (as the author himself expresses it) " to prevail with the busy mind of man to be cautious in meddling with things exceeding its comprehension ; to stop when it is at the utmost extent of 1 Absurd as the hypothesis of a Pre- ignorans, ou des esprits homes." (Let- establisJied Harmony may now appear, tres de M. EUI.EK a une Princesse not many years have elapsed since it d'Allemagne, 83me Lettre.) It would he was the prevailing, or rather universal amusing to reckon up the succession of creed, among the philosophers of Ger- metaphysical creeds which have been many. " II fut un temps" (says the since swallowed with the same implicit celebrated Euler) " ou le systeme de faith by this learned and speculative, and 1'harmonie preetablie etoit tellement en (in all those branches of knowledge where vogue dans toutel'Alleinagne, que ceux imagination has no influence over the qui en doutoiont, passoient pour des judgment) pro found and in s'entivo nation. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 25i) its tether ; and to sit down in a quiet ignorance of those things which, upon examination, are found to be beyond the reach of our capacities." . . . . " My right hand writes," says Locke, in another part of his Essay, " whilst my left hand is still. What causes rest in one, and motion in the other ? Nothing but my will, a thought of my mind ; my thought only changing, my right hand rests, and the left hand moves. This is matter of fact which cannot be denied. Explain this and make it intelli- gible, and then the next step will be to understand Creation. .... In the meantime, it is an overvaluing ourselves, 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 contain." 1 Vol. ii. pp. 249, 250. This contrast between the philosophical characters of Locke and of Leibnitz is the more deserving of notice, as something of the same sort has ever since continued to mark and to 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 natural and 1 That this is a fair representation of do grow in the womb of her that is with the scope of Locke's philosophy, ac- child ; even so, thon knowest not the cording to the author's own view of it, works of God, who maketh all things." is demonstrated by the two mottos pre- The other motto (from Cicero) strongly fixed to the Essay on Human Under- expresses a sentiment which every com - standing. The one is a passage of the petent judge must feel on comparing book of Ecdesiastes, which, from the the above quotations from Locke, with place it occupies in the front of his the monads and the pre-established har- work, may be presumed to express what mony of Leibnitz. ' Quam bellum cst he himself regarded as the most impor- velle confiteri potius nescire quod ries- tant moral to be drawn from his spccu- cias, quam ista effutientem nauseare, lations. " As thou knowest not what is atque ipsnm sibi displicere!" See the way of the spirit, nor how the bones Note B B. 260 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. obvious transition, to the scheme of Optimism. As it repre- sented all events, both in the physical and moral worlds, as the necessary effects of a mechanism originally contrived and set a-going by the Deity, it reduced its author to the alternative of either calling in question the Divine power, wisdom, and good- ness, or of asserting that the universe which he had called into being was the best of all possible systems. This last opinion, accordingly, was eagerly embraced by Leibnitz ; and forms the subject of a work entitled Theodiccea, in which are combined together, in an extraordinary degree, the acuteness of the logi- cian, the imagination of the poet, and the impenetrable, yet sublime darkness, of the metaphysical theologian. 1 The modification of Optimism, however, adopted by Leibnitz, was, in some essential respects, peculiar to himself. It differed from that of Plato, and of some other sages of antiquity, in considering the human mind in the light of a spiritual machine, and, of consequence, in positively denying the freedom of human actions. According to Plato, every thing is right, so far as it is the work of God ; the creation of beings endowed with free will, and consequently liable to moral delinquency and the government of the world by general laws, from which occasional evils must result, furnishing no objection to the perfection of the universe, to which a satisfactory reply may not be found in the partial and narrow views of it, to which our faculties are at present confined. But he held, at the same time, that, although the permission of moral evil does not detract from the goodness of God, it is nevertheless imputable to man as a fault, and renders him justly obnoxious to punish- ment. This system (under a variety of forms) has been in all ages maintained by the wisest and best philosophers, who, while they were anxious to vindicate the perfections of God, 1 " La Theodicee seule (says Fon- et lumineuses, des raisonnemens au tenclle) suffiroit pour represeuter M. fond desquels on sent toujours 1'esprit Leibnitz. Une lecture immense, des geometrique, un style ou la force do- anecdotes curieuses sur les livres ou les mine, et oil cependant sont admis les personnes, beaucoup d'cquite et mOme agremens d'une imagination heureuse." de faveur pour tons les auteurs cites, fut- Eloge de Leibnitz. ce en lea combattant ; des vucs sublimes METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. 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. 1 1 It is observed 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 Pleasures of the Imagination. I am perfectly aware, at the same time, that different opinions have beeii 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 Intellec- 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 Bepublica, seems suf- ficient of itself to authorize this liberty : /xa^tav, vr\itiv xai iXarrov aiirvs 'ixaffro; i%ti' 0,'lritt. i\o(t,ivt>u. Ssos avxtTias. Vir- tus inviolabilis ac libera quam prout honordbit quis aut negliaet, itaplus aut minus ex ea possidebit. Eligentis qui- dem culpa est omnis. Deus vero extra culpam. A short abstract of the allegory with which Leibnitz concludes his Theodi- ccea, 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 Laurentius Valla, in opposition to Boethius ; 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 Home. (Exul inopsque cades irata pulsus ub 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 tlie alle- gory of Valla, which Leibnitz thus con- tinues, agreeably to his own 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,) 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 " Futura iiovi, non facio." 262 DISSERTATION. 1'AKT SECOND. It is of great importance to attend to the distinction between these two systems ; because it has, of late, become customary among sceptical writers, to confound them studiously together, in order to extend to both that ridicule to which the latter is justly entitled. This, in particular, was the case with Voltaire, who, in many parts of his later works, and more especially in his Candide, has, under the pretence of exposing the extrava- gances of Leibnitz, indulged his satirical raillery against the order of the universe. The success of his attempt was much aided by the confused and inaccurate manner in which the scheme of optimism had been recently stated by various writers, who, in their zeal to " vindicate the ways of God," had been led to hazard principles more dangerous in their consequences, than the prejudices and errors which it was their aim to correct. 1 you shall be happy. If you return to Rome you are undone." Sextus, un- willing to submit to such a sacrifice, quits the Temple, and abandons him- self to his fate. After his departure, the high priest, Theodoras, asks Jupiter why he had not given another Witt to Sextus. Jupiter sends Theodoras to Athens to consult Minerva. The goddess shows him the Palace of the Destinies, where are re- presentations of all possible worlds,* each of them containing a Sextus Tar- quinius with a different Witt, leading to a catastrophe more or less happy. In the last and best of these worlds, form- ing the summit of the pyramid coni- posad by the others, the high priest sees Sextus go to Rome, throw every thing into confusion, and violate the wife of his friend. " You see " (says the Goddess of Wisdom) " it was not rny father that made Sextus wicked. He was wicked from all eternity, and he was always so in consequence of his own will.f Jupiter has only bestowed on him that exist- ence which he could not refuse him in the best of all possible worlds. He only transferred him from the region of pos- sible to that of actual beings. "What great events does the crime of Sextus draw after it ? The liberty of Rome the rise of a government fertile in civil and military virtues, and of an empire destined to conquer and to civilize the earth." Theodoras returns thanks to the goddess, and acknowledges the jus- tice of Jupiter. 1 Among this number must be in- cluded the author of the Essay on Man, who, from a want of precision in his metaphysical ideas, has unconsciously fallen into various expressions, equally inconsistent with each other and with his own avowed opinions : If plagues and earthquakes break not Heaven's design, Why then a Borgia or a Catiline ? Who knows but He whose hand the lightning forms, * World (it must be remembered) is here synonymous with Unii-erse. t " Vides Sextum a Patre meo non fuisse factura improbum, talis quippe ab omni aeternitate fuit, et quidem semper libere; existere tantum ei concessit Jupiter, quod ipsum profecto ejus sa- pientia mundo, in quo ille continebatur, denegare nou poterat : ergo Sextum e regione possibilium ad rerum existentium classem transtulit." METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. The zeal of Leibnitz in propagating the dogma of Necessity, is not easily reconcilable with the hostility which, as I have already remarked, he uniformly displays against the congenial doctrine of Materialism. Such, however, is the fact, and I believe it to be quite unprecedented in the previous history of philosophy. Spinoza himself has not pushed the argument for necessity further than Leibnitz, the reasonings of both con- cluding not less forcibly against the free-will of God than against the free-will of man, and, of consequence, terminating ultimately in this proposition, that no event in the universe could possibly have been different from what has actually taken Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the storms, Pours fierce ambition on a Caesar's mind, Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind ? ***** The general order since the whole began, Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man. [*"How this is 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 Eight Eeverend 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 makes all physical and moral ill ? There deviates Nature, and here wanders Will. In this last couplet he seems to admit, not only that Will may wander, but that Nature herself may deviate from the general order,- whereas the doctrine of his universal prayer is, that, while the material world is subjected to esta- blished laws, man is left to be the arbiter of his own destiny : Yet gav'st me in this dark estate To know the good from ill, And, binding Nature fast in fate, Left free the human will. [* 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 Waitings of Pope. The late Lord Bathurst (we are told) had read the whole scheme of the Essay on 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 passages quoted above.] In the Dunciad, too, the scheme of Necessity is coupled with that of Mate- rialism, as one of the favourite doctrines of the sect of free-thinkers. Of nought so certain as our Reason still, Of nought so doubtful as of Soul and Will. " Two things," says Warburton, who professes to speak Pope's sentiments, " the most self-evident, the existence of our souls and the freedom of our will!" * Restored. Ed. 2(54 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. place. 1 The distinguishing feature of tins article of the Leib- nitzian creed is, that, while the Hobbists and Spinozists were employing their ingenuity in connecting together Materialism and Necessity, as branches springing from one common root, Leibnitz always speaks of the soul as a machine purely spiri- tual, 2 a machine, however, as necessarily regulated by pre- ordained and immutable laws, as the movements of a clock or the revolutions of the planets. In consequence of holding this language, he seemed to represent Man in a less degrading light than other necessitarians; but, in as far as such speculative tenets may be supposed to have any practical effect on human conduct, the tendency of his doctrines is not less dangerous than that of the most obnoxious systems avowed by his prede- cessors. 3 1 So completely, indeed, and so ma- thematically linked, did Leibnitz con- ceive all truths, both physical and moral, to be with each other, that he represents the eternal geometrician as incessantly occupied in the solution of this problem, TJte State of one Monad (or elemen- tary atom) being given, to determine the state, past, jtresent, and future, of the whole universe. 2 " Cuncta itaque in homine certa stint, et in antecessum determinata, uti in cseteris rebus omnibus, et anima humana est spirituale quoddam automatum." Leib. Op. torn. i. p. 156. In a note on this sentence, the editor quotes a passage from Bilfinger, a learned German, in which an attempt is made to vindicate the propriety of the phrase, by a reference to the etymology of the word automaton. This word, it is observed, when traced to its source, literally ex- presses something which contains within itself its principle of motion, and, conse- quently, it applies still more literally to Mind than to a machine. The remark, considered in a philological point of view, is indisputably just ; but is it not evi- dent that it leads to a conclusion pre- cisely contrary to what this author would deduce from it? Whatever may have been the primitive meaning of the word, its common, or rather its universal mean- ing, even among scientific writers, is, a material machine, moving without any foreign impulse ; and, that this was the idea annexed to it by Leibnitz, appears from his distinguishing it by the epithet spirituale, an epithet which would have been altogether superfluous had he intended to convey the opinion ascribed to him by Bilfinger. In apply- ing, therefore, this language to the mind, we may conclude, with confidence, that Leibnitz had no intention to con- trast together mind and body, in respect of their moving or actuating principles, but only to contrast them in respect of the substances of which they are com- posed. In a word, he conceived both of them to be equally machines, made and wound up by the Supreme Being ; but the machinery in the one case to be material, and in the other spiritual. 3 The following remark in Madame de StaeTs interesting and eloquent re- view of German philosophy, bears marks of a haste and precipitation with which her criticisms are seldom chargeable : " Les opinions de Leibnitz tcndent stir- METAPHYSICS DUE1NG THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 265 The scheme of necessity was still farther adorned and su- blimed in the Tlieodiccea 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. torn. i. p. 135. 1 tout au perfectionnement moral, s'il est vrai, comme les philosophes Allemands out tache de le prouver, que le libre ar- bitre repose sur la doctrine qui affranchit Fame des objets exterieures, et que la vertu ne puisse exister sans la parfaite independance 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 first 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 with all the confidence of demonstration as an 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 Litterature Fran- qoise, thus expresses himself: " La sci- ence de 1'ame, telle a ete la noble etude de Descartes, de Pascal, de Malebranche, de Leibnitz. Cette metaphysique les conduisait directement a toutes les questions qui important le plus a notre cceur ; . . . et aux plus nobles des sciences, a la religion et a la morale." Tableau, &c. pp. 87, 88.] 1 The celebrated Charles Sonnet, 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 1'echelle de la creation ne se termine point au plus eleves des rnondes planetaires. La commence un autre univers, dont I'etendue est peut-etre a celle de 1'univers des Fixes, ce qu'est 1'espace du systeme solaire a la capacite d'une noix. " La, comme des ASTRES resplendis- sans, brillcnt les HIERARCHIES CE- LESTES. " La rayonnent de toutes parts les ANGES, les ARCHANGES, les SERAPHINS, les CIIERUBINS, les TRONES, les VEKTUS, les PRINCIPAUTES. les DOMINATIONS, les PUISSAXCES. * Restored. Ed. 2GG DISSERTATION. - PAHT SECOND. In various other instances, he rises from the deep and seem- ingly hopeless abyss of Fatalism, to the same lofty conceptions of the universe ; and has thus invested the most humiliating article of the atheistic creed, with an air of Platonic mysticism. The influence of his example appears to me to have contri- buted much to corrupt the taste and to bewilder the specula- tions of his countrymen ; giving birth in the last result, to that heterogeneous combination of all that is pernicious in Spinozism, with the transcendental eccentricities of a heated and exalted fancy, which, for many years past, has so deeply tinctured both their philosophy and their works of fiction. 1 "Au centre de ces AUGUSTES SPHERES, eclate le SOLEIL DE JUSTICE, L'ORIEXT D'ENHAUT, dont tous les ASTRES ein- pruntent leur lumiere et leur splendeur." " La Theodicee de Leibnitz," the same author tells us in another passage, " est un de mes livres de devotion : J'ai intitule mon Exemplaire, Manuel de Philosophic Chretienne. ' ' 1 " The gross appetite of Love (says Gibbon) becomes most dangerous when it is elevated, or rather disguised, by sentimental passion." The remark is strikingly applicable to some of the most popular novels and dramas of Germany ; and something very similar to it will be found to hold with respect to those spe- culative extravagances which, in the German systems of philosophy, are ele- vated or disf/uised by the imposing cant of moral enthusiasm. In one of Leibnitz's controversial dis- cussions with Dr. Clarke, there is a pas- sage which throws some light on his taste, not only in matters of science, but in judging of works of imagination. " Du temps de M. Boyle, et d'autres excellens hommes qui fleurissoient en Angleterre sous Charles II. on n'auroit pas ose nous debiter des notions si creuses. ( The notions here alluded to are those of Newton concerning tlie law of gravitation.) J'espere que le beau- temps reviendra sous un aussi boii gouvernement que celui d'a present. Le capital de M. Boyle etoit d'inculquer que tout se faisoit mecaniquement dans la physique. Mais c'est un malheur des hommes, rhr se degouter enfin de la raison meme, et de s'ennuyer de la lumiere. Les chimeres commencent a revenir, et plaisent parce qu'elles ont quelqne chose de merveilleux. II ar- rive dans le pays philosophique ce qui est arrive dans le pays poetique. On s'est lasse des romans raisonnables, tel que la Clelie Franchise ou VArc/nicne Allernandf,; et on est revenu depuis quelque temps aiix Contes des Fees." Cinquieme Ecrit de M. Leibnitz, p. 266. From this passage it would seem, that Leibnitz looked forward to the period when the dreams of the Newtonian phi- losophy would give way to some of the exploded mechanical theories of the universe ; and when the Fairy-tales then in fashion (among which number must have been included those of Count Anthony Hamilton) would be supplant- ed by the revival of such reasonable Romances as the Grand Clelia. In neither of these instances does there seem to be much probability, at pre- sent, that his prediction will be ever verified. The German writers, who, of late years, have made the greatest noise among the sciolists of this country, will METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 267 In other parts of Europe, the effects of the Theodiccea have not been equally unfavourable. In France, more particularly, it has furnished to the few who have cultivated with success the Philosophy of Mind, new weapons for combating the materialism of the Gassendists and Hobbists ; and, in England, we are indebted to it for the irresistible reasonings by which Clarke subverted the foundations on which the whole super- structure of Fatalism rests. be found less indebted for their fame to the new lights which they have struck out, than to the unexpected and gro- tesque forms in which they have com- bined together the materials supplied by the invention of former ages, and of other nations. It is this combination of truth and error in their philosophical systems, and of right and wrong in their works of fiction, which has enabled them to perplex the understandings, and to unsettle the principles of so many, both in Metaphysics and Ethics. In point of profound and extensive eru- dition, the scholars of Germany still continue to maintain their long esta- blished superiority over the rest of Europe. 1 A very interesting account is given by Leibnitz, of the circumstances which gave occasion to his Theodiccea, in a letter to a Scotch gentleman, Mr. Bur- net of Kemney ; to whom he seems to have unbosomed himself on all subjects without any reserve : " Mon livre in- titule Essais de Theodicee, sur la bonte de Dieu, la liberte de 1'homme, et 1'origine de mal, sera bientot acheve. La plus grande partie de cet ouvrage avoit etc faite par lambeaux, quand je me trouvois chez la feue Heine de Prusse, ou ces matieres etoient souvent agitees a 1'occasion du Dictionnaire et des autres ouvrages de M. Bayle, qu'on y lisoit beaucoup. A pros la mort de cette grande Princesse, j'ai rassemble et augmente ces pieces sur 1'exhortation des amis qui en etoient informes, et j'en ai fait 1'ouvrage dont je viens de parler. Comme j'ai medite sur cette matiere depuis ma jeunesse, je pretends de 1'avoir discutee a fond." Leibnitii, Opera, torn. vi. p. 284. In another letter to the same corre- spondent, he expresses hims-elf thus : " La plupart de mes sentimens ont etc enfin arretes apres une deliberation de 20 ans : car j'ai commence bien jeune a mediter, et je n'avois pas encore 15 ans, quand je me promenois des journees entieres dans un bois, pour prendre parti entre Aristote et Demo- crite. Cependant j'ai change et re- change sur des nouvelles lumieres, et ce n'est que depuis environ 12 ans que je me trouve satisfait, et que je suis arrive a des demonstrations sur ces matieres qui n'en paroissent point cap- ables : Cependant de la maniere que je m'y prends, ces demonstrations peuvent etre sensibles comme celles des nombres, quoique le sujet passe I'imagination." (Ibid. p. 253.) The letter from which this last para- graph is taken is dated in the year 1697. My chief reason for introducing these extracts, was to do away an absurd suspicion, which has been countenanced by some respectable writers, (among others by Le Clerc,) that the opinions maintained in the Theodicee of Leibnitz were not his real sentiments, and that his own creed, on the most important questions there discussed, was not very 268 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. It may be justly regarded as a proof of the progress of reason and good sense among the Metaphysicians of this country since the time of Leibnitz, that the two theories of which I have been speaking, and which, not more than a century ago, were honoured by the opposition of such an antagonist as Clarke, are now remembered only as subjects of literary history. In the arguments, however, alleged in support of these theories, there are some logical principles involved, which still continue to have an extensive influence over the reasonings of the learned, on questions seemingly the most remote from all metaphysical conclusions. The two most prominent of these are, the principle of the Sufficient Reason, and the Law of Continuity ; both of them so intimately con- nected with some of the most celebrated disputes of the last century, as to require a more particular notice than may, at first sight, seem due to their importance. different from that of Bayle. Gibbon ingenuity and learning in support of an hypothesis to which he attached no faith whatever ; an hypothesis, he might have added, with which the whole prin- ciples of his philosophy are systemati- cally, and, as he conceived, mathemati- cally connected. It is difficult to believe, that among the innumerable correspon- dents of Leibnitz, he should have se- lected a Professor of Theology at Tubin- gen, as the sole depositary of a secret which he was anxious to conceal from all the rest of the world. Surely a solitary document such as this weighs less than nothing, when op- posed to the details quoted in the be- ginning of this note ; not to mention its complete inconsistency with the char- acter of Leibnitz, and with the whole tenor of his writings. For my own part, I cannot help thinking, that the passage in question has far more the air of persiflage, pro- voked by the vanity of Pfaffius, than of a serious compliment to his sagacity and penetration. No injunction to se- crecy, it is to be observed, is here given by Leibnitz to his correspondent has even gone so far as to say, that " in his defence of the attributes and provi- dence of the Deity, he was suspected of a secret correspondence with his ad- versary." (Antiquities of the House of Brunswick.} In support of this very improbable charge, I do not know that any evidence has ever been produced, except the following passage, in a letter of his addressed to a Professor of Theo- logy in the University of Tubingen (Pfaffius) : " Ita prorsus est, vir sum- me reverende, uti scribis, de Theodicrca mea. Hem acu tetigisti ; et miror, neminem hactenus fuisse, qui sensum hunc meum senscrit. Neque enim Phi- losophorum est rem serio semper agere ; qui in fingendis hypothesibus, uti bene mones, ingenii sui vires experiuntur. Tu, qui Theologus, in refutandis errori- bus Theologum agis." In reply to this it is observed, by the learned editor of Leib- nitz's works, (Dutens,) that it is much more probable that Leibnitz should have expressed himself on this particular occa- sion in jocular and ironical terms, than that he should have wasted so much METAPHYSICS DUEING THE EIGHTEENTH 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 Sufficient 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 ^Equilibria, to take for granted, that if there be a balance, in wliich every- thing is alike on both sides, and if equal weights are hung on the two ends of that balance, the whole will be at rest. It is because no reason can be given why one side should weigh down rather than the other. Now, by this single principle of the Sufficient Reason, may be demonstrated the being of a God, and all the other parts of Metaphysics or Natural Theology; and even, in some measure, those physical truths that are independent of Mathematics, such as the Dynamical Principles, or the Principles of Forces." 1 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 1 [* The following sentence in a letter goiiteront point les Attractions pro- from Leibnitz to M. Des Maizeanx, af- prement dites ; ni le Vuide ; ni le Sen- fords a strong proof of the importance sorium de Dieu ; ni cette imperfection which he attached to the principle in de 1'Univers, qui oblige Dieu de le re- question. (See Leib. Opera, vol. Y. pp. dresser de terns en terns ; ni la nccessite 38, 39.) " J'espere qu'il y a beaucoup ou les sectateurs de Newton se trou- de gens en Angleterre, qui ne seront vent, de nier le grand Principe du pas de 1'avis de Mr. Newton ou de Mr. besom d'une Raison Suffisante, par Clarke sur la Philosophic, et qui ne lequel je les bats en ruiue."] * Restored. Ed. 270 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. things perfectly alike could not have been produced even by Divine Power. It was upon this ground that he rejected a vacuum, because all the parts of it would be perfectly like to each other ; and that he also rejected the supposition of atoms, or similar particles of matter, and ascribed to each particle a monad, or active principle, by which it is discriminated from every other particle. 1 The application of his principle, how- ever, on which he evidently valued himself the most, was that to which I have already alluded ; the demonstrative evidence with which he conceived it to establish the impossibility of free-agency, not only in man, but in any other intelligent being : 2 a conclusion which, under whatever form of words it may be disguised, is liable to every objection which can bo urged against the system of Spinoza, 1 See Note C C. 2 The following comment on this part of the Leibnitzian system is from the pen of one of his greatest admirers, Charles Bonnet: " Cette Mctaphysique transcendante deviendra un pen plus intelligible, si 1'on fait attention, qu'en vertn du principe de la raison suffisante, tout est necessairement lie dans 1'uni- vers. Toutes les Actions des Etres Simples sont harmoniques, ou subordon- nees les unes aux autres. L'exercice actuel de 1'activite d'une rnonade don- nee, est determine par 1'exercice actuel de 1'activite des monades auxquelles elle correspond immediatement. Cette correspondance continue d'un point quel- conque de 1'univers jusqu'a ses extre- mites. Bepresentez-vouz les ordres cir- culaires et concentriques qu'une pierre excite dans une eau dormante : Elles vont toujours en s'elargissant et en s'affoiblissant. " Mais, 1'etat actuel d'une monade est necessairement determine par son etat antecedent: Celui-ci par un etat qui a precede, et ainsi en remontant jusqu'a 1'instant de la creation. . . . " Ainsi Ic passt', le present, et It- futur ne forment dans la tneme monade qu'une seule chaine. Notre philosophe disoit ingenieusement, que le present est toujours gros de Pavenir. " II disoit encore que PEternel Geo- metre resolvoit sans cesse ce Probleme 1'etat d'une monade etant donne, en determiner 1'etat passe, present, et futur de tout l'univers." BOXNET, torn. viii. pp. 303-305. [* For some account of the monads of Wolff, see Euler Lettres, 76, 92. To this hypothesis Wolff was natu- rally led by the phrase Spiritual ma- chine, which Leibnitz applied to the soul. In a view of the Necessitarian or Best scheme, ascribed to Collins, and commonly annexed to his Inquiry con- cerning human liberty, I find the fol- lowing sentence : " That our bodies are machines is not denied, but I never heard that Leibnitz called spirits or intelligences machines." This single sentence affords a proof how imperfectly the writer was acquainted with Leib- nitz's works.] * Restored. Ed. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. With respect to the principle from which these important consequences were deduced, it is observable, that it is stated by Leibnitz in terms so general and vague, as to extend to all the different departments of our knowledge ; for he tells us, that there must be a sufficient reason for every existence, for every event, and for every truth. This use of the word reason is so extremely equivocal, that it is quite impossible to annex any precise idea to the proposition. Of this it is unnecessary to produce any other proof than the application which is here made of it to things so very different as existences, events, and truths; in all of which cases, it must of necessity have 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 theological nature, 1 necessarily involved in so detailed an examination, would, in the present times, (even if this were a proper place for introducing them,) be equally use- less and uninteresting ; the peculiar opinions of Leibnitz on most questions connected with these sciences having already fallen into complete neglect. But as the maxim still continues to be quoted by the latest advocates for the scheme of necessity, it may not be altogether superfluous to observe, that, when understood to refer to the changes that take place in the material universe, it coincides entirely with the common maxim, that " every change implies the operation of a cause;" and that it is in consequence of its intuitive evidence in this par- 1 Since the time of Leibnitz, the much advantage ; except perhaps in principle of the sufficient reason has demonstrating a few elementary truths, been adopted by some mathematicians (such as the 5th and 6th propositions as a legitimate mode of reasoning in of Euclid's first book,) which are com- plaue geometry ; in which case, the ap- monly established by a more circuitous plication made of it has been in general process : and even in these instances, just and logical, notwithstanding the the spirit of the reasoning might easily vague and loose manner in which it is be preserved under a different form, expressed. In this science, however, much less exceptionable in point of the use of it can never be attended with phraseology. 1572 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. ticular case, that so many have been led to acquiesce in it, in the unlimited terms in which Leibnitz has announced it. One thing will be readily granted, that the maxim, when applied to the determinations of intelligent and moral agents, is not quite so obvious and indisputable, as when applied to the changes that take place in things altogether inanimate and passive. What then, it may be asked, induced Leibnitz, in the enun- ciation of his maxim, to depart from the form in which it has generally been stated, and to substitute instead of the word cause, the word reason, which is certainly not only the more unusual, but the more ambiguous expression of the two ? Was it not evidently a perception of the impropriety of calling the motives from which we act the causes of our actions ; or, at least of the inconsistency of this language with the common ideas and feelings of mankind ? The word reason is here much less suspicious, and much more likely to pass current without examination. It was therefore with no small dexterity that Leibnitz contrived to express his general principle in such a manner, that the impropriety of his language should be most apparent in that case in which the proposition is instantane- ously admitted by every reader as self-evident ; and to adapt it, in its most precise and definite shape, to the case in which it was in the greatest danger of undergoing a severe scrutiny. In this respect he has managed his argument with more address than Collins, or Edwards, or Hume, all of whom have applied the maxim to mind, in the very same words in which it is usually applied to inanimate matter. But on this article of Leibnitz's philosophy, which gave occasion to his celebrated controversy with Clarke, I shall have a more convenient opportunity to offer some strictures, when I come to take notice of another antagonist, more formidable still, whom Clarke had soon after to contend with on the same ground. The person I allude to is Anthony Collins, a writer certainly not once to be compared with Leibnitz in the grasp of his intellectual powers ; but who seems to have studied this particular question with greater attention and accuracy, and who is universally allowed to have defended his opinions con- METAPHYSICS DUMNG THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 273 cerning it in a manner far more likely to mislead the opinions of the multitude. II. The same remark which has been already made on the principle of the Sufficient Reason, may be extended to that of the Law of Continuity. In both instances the phraseology is so indeterminate, that it may be interpreted in various senses essentially different from each other ; and, accordingly, it would be idle to argue against either principle as a general theorem, without attending separately to the specialties of the manifold cases which it may be understood to comprehend. Where such a latitude is taken in the enunciation of a proposition, which, so far as it is true, must have been inferred from an induction of particulars, it is at least possible that while it holds in some of its applications, it may yet be far from possessing any claim to that universality which seems necessarily to belong to it, when considered in the light of a metaphysical axiom, resting on its own intrinsic evidence. Whether this vagueness of language was the effect of arti- fice, or of a real vagueness in the author's notions, may perhaps be doubted ; but that it has contributed greatly to extend his reputation among a very numerous class of readers, may be confidently asserted. The possession of a general maxim, sanctioned by the authority of an illustrious name, and in which, as in those of the schoolmen, more seems to be meant than meets the ear, affords of itself no slight gratification to the vanity of many ; nor is it inconvenient for a disputant, that the maxims to which he is to appeal should be stated in so dubious a shape, as to enable him, when pressed in an argu- ment, to shift his ground at pleasure, from one interpretation to another. The extraordinary popularity which, in our own times, the philosophy of Kant enjoyed for a few years, among the countrymen of Leibnitz, may, in like manner, be in a great degree ascribed to the imposing aspect of his enigmatical oracles, and to the consequent facility of arguing without end, in defence of a system so transmutable and so elusive in its forms. The extension, however, given to the Law of Continuity, in VOL. i. s 274 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. the later publications of Leibnitz, and still more by some of his successors, has been far greater than there is any reason to think was originally in the author's contemplation. It first occurred to him in the course of one of his physical 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 law of continuity. It would, perhaps, have been still more logical, had he argued against the universality of a law so gratuitously assumed, from its incompatibility with an hypothesis, which, whether true or false, certainly involves nothing either contradictory or impro- bable : but as this inversion of the argument would have undermined some of the fundamental principles of his physical system, he chose rather to adopt the other alternative, and to announce the law of continuity as a metaphysical truth, which admitted of no exception whatever. The facility with which this law has been adopted by subsequent philosophers is not easily explicable ; more especially, as it has been maintained by many who reject those physical errors, in defence of which Leibnitz was first led to advance it. One of the earliest, and certainly the most illustrious, of all METAPHYSICS DUK1NG THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 275 the partisans and defenders of this principle, was John Ber- nouilli, whose Discourse on Motion first appeared at Paris in 1727, having been previously communicated to the Royal Aca- demy of Sciences in 1724 and 1726. 1 It was from this period it began to attract the general attention of the learned ; although many years were yet to elapse before it was to acquire that authority which it now possesses among our most eminent ma- thematicians. Mr. Maclaurin, whose Memoir on the Percussion of Bodies gained the prize from the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1724, continued from that time, till his death, the steady opposer of this new law. In his Treatise of Fluxions, published in 1742, he observes, that " the existence of hard bodies void of elasti- city has been rejected for the sake of what is called the Law of Continuity; a law which has been supposed to be general, without sufficient ground." 2 And still more explicitly, in his Posthumous Account of Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, he complains of those who " have rejected hard bodies as impos- sible, from far-fetched and metaphysical considerations ;" pro- posing to his adversaries this unanswerable question, " Upon what grounds is the law of continuity assumed as a universal law of nature ?" 3 1 " En effet (says Bernoulli!) un pa- suggests an argument, in proof of the reil principe de durete (the supposition, law of continuity, from the principle of to wit, of bodies perfectly hard) ne sfau- the sufficient reason-. roit exister ; c'est une chimere qui re"- It may be worth while to observe pugne a cette loi gencrale que la nature here, that though, in the above quota- observe constamment dans toutes ses tion, Bernouilli speaks of the law of con- operations ; je parle de cet ordre immu- tinuity as an arbitrary arrangement of able et perpetuel etabli depuis la crca- the Creator, he represents, in the pre- tion de 1'univers, qiConpeut cppeleriMi ceding paragraph, the idea of perfectly DE CONTINCITE, en vertu de laquelle tout hard bodies as involving a manifest con- ce qui s'execute, s'execute par des degres tradiction. infiniment petits. II semble que le bon 2 Maclaurin's Fluxions, vol. ii. p. 438. sens dicte, qu'aucun changement ne s Nearly to the same purpose Mr. peut se faire par satit; natura non ope- Robins, a mathematician and philoso- ratur per saltum ; rien ne peut passer pher of the highest eminence, expresses d'une extremite a 1'autre, sans passer himself thus : " M. Bernouilli, (in his par tons les degres du milieu," &c. The Discours sur les Lois tie la, Communi- continuation of this passage (which I cation du Mouvement,) in order to prove have not room to quote) is curious, as it that there are no bodies perfectly hard 276 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. In the speculations hitherto mentioned, the law of continuity is applied merely to such successive events in the material world as are connected together by the relation of cause and effect ; and, indeed, chiefly to the changes which take place in the state of bodies with respect to motion and rest. But in the philo- sophy of Leibnitz, we find the same law appealed to as an indisputable principle in all his various researches, physical, metaphysical, and theological. He extends it with the same confidence to mind as to matter, urging it as a demonstrative proof, in opposition to Locke, that the soul nerer ceases to think even in sleep or in deliquium y 1 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. 2 It is by no means probable that the author was at all aware, when he first introduced this principle into the theory of motion, how far it was to lead him in his researches concerning other ques- and 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. Bernouilli thinks is evident from that principle, Natura non operatur per saltum, and from good sense. BUT now GOOD SENSE CAN, OF ITSELF, WITHOUT EXPERIMENT, DETER- MINE ANY OF THE LAWS OF NATURE, TS TO ME VERY ASTONISHING. Indeed, from anything M. Bernouilli has 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 bodies shall be flexible." Robins, 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 Continuity 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. 1 " Je tiens que 1'ame, et meme le corps, n'est jaiuais sans action, et que 1'ame n'est jamais sans quelque percep- tion ; meme en dormant on a quelque sentiment confus et sombre du lieu ou Ton est, et d'autres choses. Mais qucmd I 'experience ne le confirmeroit pas, je crois qu'il y en a demonstration. C'est a peu pros comine on ne sfauroit prouver absolument par les experiences, s'il n'y a point de vuide dans Tespace, et s'il n'y a point de repos dans la matiere. Et cependant ces questions me paroissent decidees demonstrativement, aussi bien qu'a M. Locke." Leib. Op. tome ii. p. 220. 2 See Note E E. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 277 tions of greater moment ; nor does it appear that it attracted much notice from the learned, but as a new mechanical axiom, till a considerable time after his death. Charles Bonnet of Geneva, a man of unquestionable talents and of most exemplary worth, was, as far as I know, the first who entered fully into the views of Leibnitz on this point ; per- ceiving how inseparably the law of continuity (as well as the principle of the sufficient reason) was interwoven with his scheme of universal concatenation and mechanism ; and infer- ring from thence not only all the paradoxical corollaries deduced from it by its author, but some equally bold conclusions of his own, which Leibnitz either did not foresee in their full extent, or to which the course of his inquiries did not particularly attract his attention. The most remarkable of these conclusions was, that all the various beings which compose the universe, form a scale descending downwards without any chasm or saltus, from the Deity to the simplest forms of unorganized matter ; ' 1 " Leibnitz admettoit comme un principe fondamental de sa sublime phi- losopbie, qu'il n'y a jamais de sauts dans la nature, et que tout est continu ou nuance dans le physique et dans le mo- ral. C'etoit sa fameuse Loi de Con- timdte, qu'il croyoit retrouver encore dans les mathematiques, et 9'avoit etc cette loi qui lui avoit inspire la singu- liere prediction dont je parlois."* "Tous les etres, disoit il, ne forment qu'une seule cbaine, dans laquelle les differentes classes, comme autant d'anneaux, tien- nent si etroitement les unes aux autres, qu'il est impossible aux sens et a 1'ima- gination de fixer precisement le point ou quelqu'tm commence ou finit : toutes les especes qui bordent ou qui occupent, pour ainsi dire, les regions d'inflection, et de rebroussement, devoit etre equi- voques et douees de caracteres qui peu- vent se rapporter aux especes voisins t'galement. Ainsi, 1'existence des zoo- phytes ou Plant- Animaux n'a rien de monstrueux ; mais il est meme conven- able a 1'ordre de la nature qu'il y en ait. Et telle est la force du principe de con- tinuite chez moi, que non seulement je ne serois point etonne d'apprendre, qu'on cut trouve des etres, qui par rapport a plusieurs proprietes, par exemple, celle de se nourrip ou de se multiplier, puis- sent passer pour des vegetaux a aussi bon droit que pour des animaux, .... J'en serois si peu etonne, dis-je, que meme je suis convaincu qu'il doit y en avoir de tels, que 1'Histoire Naturelle parviendra peut-etre a connoitreun jour," &c. &c. Contemplation de la Nature, pp. 341, 342. Bonnet, in the sequel of this passage, speaks of the words of Leibnitz as a pre- diction of the discovery of the Polypus, deduced from the Metaphysical prin- ciple of the Law of Continuity. But would it not be more philosophical to * La prfcdiction de la dfcouvcrte des Polypes. 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 important limitations and exceptions it must be received, even when confined to the comparative anatomy of animals, has been fully demonstrated by Cuvier ; l 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 which are quoted in support of the general rule. 2 regard it as a query founded on the ana- logy of nature, as 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'une production a une autre production ; point de sauts dans sa marche ; encore moins de cataractes. II senible que la loi de Continuite soit la loi universelle, et le philosophe qui 1'a introduite dans la physique, nous a ouvert un grand spec- tacle. C'est en consequence de cette loi que Leibnitz soutenait que la nature va toujours par nuances et par grada- tions, d'une production a une autre pro- duction, et que tous les etats par les- fjuels un etre passe successivement, sont tous determines les un-s par les autres, en sorte que I'etat subsequent etoit ren- ferme dans I'etat antecedent comme I'effet dans sa cause." Bonnet, torn, viii. pp. 350, 351.] 1 Lemons d'Anatomie C'omparee. z While Bonnet was thus employing his ingenuity in generalizing, still far- ther than his predecessors had done, the law of continuity, 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- seai-ches 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 not continuous." In other words, " each of its impressions is finite ; and the interval of time which 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 following very paradoxical corollary, That " Projectiles do not move in curvilinear paths, but in rectilinear polygons."| " O'est ainsi (he adds) qu'un pre, qui vu de pres, se trouve couvert de parties vertes reellement se- parees, offre cependant aux personnes qui le regardent de loin, la sensation d'une verdure continue : Et qu'un corps poli, auquel le microscope decouvre mille * " Ad eum modum summus opifex rerura seriem concatenavit a planta ad hominem, ut quasi Bine ullo cobaereaut inteirallo ; sic ZUO^UTO. cum plantis bruta conjungunt ; sic cum homine simia quadrupedes. Itaque in hominis quaque specie invenimus divines, humanos, feros." Scaliger, (prefixed as a motto to Jlr. White's Essay on the regular gradation in Man. London, 1799.) t Restored. Ed. t " Ullas vero curvas in rerum natura esse negavere multi. Nominabo tantuia, qui mine occur- runt: Lubiiutm, Bassoneni, Regium, Bonartem, et quern parum abcst, quin addum Hubbetium." ' Leibnitii Op. torn. ii. p. 4". METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 279 At a period somewhat later, an attempt has been made to connect the same law of continuity with the history of human improvement, and more particularly with the progress of inven- tion in the sciences and arts. Helvetius is the most noted writer in whom I have observed this last extension of the Leibnitzian principle ; and I have little doubt, from his known opinions, that, when it occurred to him, he conceived it to afford a new illustration of the scheme of necessity, and of the mechanical concatenation of all the phenomena of human life. Arguing in support of his favourite paradox concerning the original equality of all men in point of mental capacity, he re- presents the successive advances made by different individuals in the career of discovery, as so many imperceptible or infi- nitesimal steps, each individual surpassing his predecessor by a trifle, till at length nothing is wanting but an additional mind, not superior to the others in natural powers, to combine to- gether, and to turn to its own account, their accumulated labours. " It is upon this mind," he observes, " that the world is always ready to bestow the attribute of genius. From the tragedies of The Passion, to the poets Hardy and Rotrou, and to the Mariamne of Tristan, the French theatre was always acquiring successively an infinite number of inconsiderable im- provements. Corneille was born at a moment when the addi- tion he made to the art could not fail to form an epoch ; and accordingly Corneille is universally regarded as a Genius. I am far from wishing," Helvetius adds, " to detract from the glory of this great poet. I wish only to prove, that Nature never proceeds PER SALTITM, [an old and common axiom in philo- sophy. Ed.~\ and that the Law of Continuity is always exactly observed. The remarks, therefore, now made on the dramatic solutions de continuite, paroit a 1'ocil tm, peloicnt philosophes de decider si dog- posseder une continuitc parfaite." matiqueinent, la continuite reelle, de ce " Generalement, le simple bons sens, qui avoit nue continuite apparente ; et qni vent qu'on suspende son jugement la non-existence des intervalles qu'ils Bur ce qu'on ignore, et qtie Ton ne n'apercevoient pas." Essai de Chymie tranche pas hardiment sur la non-exist- Mecanique. Couronne en 1758, par ence de ce qui ecliappe a nos sens, 1' Academic de Eouen : Imprime a Ge- atiroit du empecher des gens qui s'ap- neve, 1761. Pp. 9-1-96. 280 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. art, may also be applied to the sciences which rest on observa- tion." 1 De I' Esprit, dis. 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. 2 1 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- neille as the only exemplification of this theoiy, Helvetius has been singularly unfortunate. It would have been diffi- cult to have named any other modern poet, in whose works, when compared with those of his immediate predeces- sors, the Law of Continuity has been more remarkably violated. " Corneille (says a most judicious French critic) est, pour ainsi dire, de notre terns ; mais ses contemporains n'en sont pas. Le Cid, les Horaces, Cinna, Polieucle, for- ment le commencement de cette chaine brillnnte qui reunit notre litterature actuelle de cclle du regne de Richelieu et d\s la minovite de Louis XIV. ; mais autour df res points Imuineiix regne encore une nuit profonde ; leur eclat les rapproche en apparence de nos yeux ; le reste, repousse dans 1'obscurite", sem- ble bien loin de nous. Pour nous Cor- neille est moderne, 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.) a Locke has fallen into a train of thought very similar to that of Bonnet, concerning 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.) In 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 context, that he meant this allusion merely as a popular illustration of a fact in Natural History ; not as the. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 281 If on these two celebrated principles of Leibnitz, I have enlarged at greater length than may appear to some of my readers to be necessary, I must remind them, 1st, Of the illus- tration they afford of what Locke has so forcibly urged with respect to the danger of adopting, upon the faith of reasonings a priori, metaphysical conclusions concerning the laws by which the universe is governed : 2dly, Of the proof they exhibit of the strong bias of the human mind, even in the present advanced stage of experimental knowledge, to grasp at general maxims, without a careful examination of the grounds on which they rest ; and of that less frequent, but not less unfor- tunate bias, which has led some of our most eminent mathema- ticians to transfer to sciences, resting ultimately on an appeal to facts, those habits of thinking which have been formed amidst the hypothetical abstractions of pure geometry : Lastly, Of the light they throw on the mighty influence which the name and authority of Leibnitz have, for more than a century past, exercised over the strongest and acutest understandings in the most enlightened countries of Europe. It would be improper to close these reflections on the philo- sophical speculations of Leibnitz, without taking some notice of his very ingenious and original thoughts on the etymological study of languages, considered as a guide to our conclusions concerning the origin and migrations of different tribes of our species. These thoughts were published in 1710, in the Memoirs of the Berlin Academy, and form the first article of the first volume of that justly celebrated collection. I do not recollect any author of an earlier date, who seems to have been completely aware of the important consequences to which the rigorous enunciation of a theorem ap- can observe, lessen and augment, as the plicable alike to all truths, mathema- quantity does in a regular cone, where, tical, physical, and moral. "It is a though there be a manifest odds betwixt hard matter to say where sensible and the bigness of the diameter at a remote rational begin, and where insensible and distance, yet the difference between the irrational end ; and who is there quick- upper and under, where they touch one sighted enough to determine precisely, another, is hardly discernible." Ibid. which is the lowest species of living See some Keflections on this specu- things, and which is the first of those lation of Locke's in the Spectator, who have no life ? Things, as far as we 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, when our knowledge of the globe, and of its inhabitants, is so wonderfully enlarged by commerce, and by conquest ; and when so great advances have been made in the acquisition of languages, the names of which, till very lately, were unheard of in this quarter of the world, there is every reason to hope for a series of farther discoveries, strengthening progressively, by the multipli- cation of their mutual points of contact, the common evidence of their joint results ; and tending more and more to dissipate the darkness in which the primeval history of our race is in- volved. It is a field, of which only detached corners have hitherto been explored ; and in which, it may be confidently presumed, that unthought of treasures still lie hid, to reward sooner or later the researches of our posterity. 1 My present subject does not lead me to speak of the mathe- matical and physical researches, which have associated so closely the name of Leibnitz with that of Newton, in the history of modern science ; of the inexhaustible treasures of his erudition, both classical and scholastic ; of his vast and 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 fur as to allude here to these particulars, 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 1 See Note F F, METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 283 acquired a singular facility in the composition of Latin verses ; and he seems to have delighted in loading his muse with new fetters of his own contrivance, in addition to those imposed by the laws of classical prosody. 1 The number, besides, of his literary correspondents was immense, including all that was most illustrious in Europe : and the rich materials everywhere scattered over his letters are sufficient of themselves to show, that his amusements consisted rather in a change of objects, than in a suspension of his mental activity. Yet while we admire these stupendous monuments of his intellectual energy, we must not forget (if I may borrow the language of Gibbon) that " even the powers of Leibnitz were dissipated by the mul- tiplicity of his pursuits. He attempted more than he could finish ; he designed more than he could execute ; his imagina- tion was too easily satisfied with a bold and rapid glance on the subject which he was impatient to leave ; and he may be compared to those heroes whose empire has been lost in the ambition of universal conquest/' 2 From some expressions which Leibnitz has occasionally dropped, I think it probable, that he himself became sensible, as he advanced in life, that his time might have been more pro- fitably employed, had his studies been more confined in their aim. " If the whole earth (he has observed on one occasion) had continued to be of one language and of one speech, human life might be considered as extended beyond its present term, by the addition of all that part of it which is devoted to the acquisition of dead and foreign tongues. Many other branches of knowledge, too, may, in this respect, be classed with the languages; such as Positive Laws, Ceremonies, the Styles of 1 A remarkable instance of this is that the native powers of Leibnitz's mentioned by himself in one of his mind, astonishing and preternatural as letters. " Annos natus tredecim una they certainly were, seem sometimes op- die trecentos versus hexametros effudi, pressed and overlaid under the weight sine elisione omnes, quod hoc fieri facile of his still more astonishing erudition ? posse forte afilrmassem." (Leib. Op. The influence of his scholastic reading torn. v. p. 304.) He also amused him- is more peculiarly apparent in warping self occasionally with writing verses in his judgment, and clouding his reason, German and in French. on all questions connected with Meta- * M ay I presume to remark farther, physical Theology. 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 pliiloso- 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/' 1 Hence the disregard manifested in his writings to the simple and ob- vious conclusions of experience and common sense ; and the perpetual effort to unriddle mysteries over which an impene- trable veil is drawn. " Scilicet sublime et erectum ingenmm, pulchritudinem ac speciem excels* magnaeque glorias 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 astas ; retinuitque, quod est difficillimum, et in sapientia modum" z 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 ! 1 " Sentio paucos csse mei charac- omnia contra difficilia mihi facilia esse." tcvis, et crania facilia niihi difficilia, Leib. Op. torn. vi. p. 302. 1 Tacitus, Agric. METAPHYSICS DUKING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 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, stamped 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 j 1 but it would be difficult to find in Locke's writings, anything so absurd as an account gravely transmitted by Leib- nitz to the Abbe de St. Pierre, and by him communicated to the Eoyal Academy of Sciences at Paris, of a dog who spoke. 2 No person liberally educated could, I believe, be found at present in any Protestant country of Christendom, capable of such credulity. By what causes so extraordinary a revolu- tion in the minds of men has been effected, within the short space of a hundred years, I must not here stop to inquire. Much, I apprehend, must be ascribed to our enlarged know- ledge of nature, and more particularly to those scientific voy- ages and travels Avhich have annihilated so many of the pro- digies which exercised the wonder and subdued the reason of our ancestors. But, in whatever manner the revolution is to be explained, there can be no doubt that this growing disposi- tion to weigh scrupulously the probability of alleged facts against the faith due to the testimonies brought to attest them, and, even in some cases, against the apparent evidence of our own senses, enters largely and essentially into the composition of that philosophical spirit or temper, which so strongly dis- tinguishes the eighteenth century from all those which preceded it. 3 It is no small consolation to reflect, that some important maxims of good sense have been thus familiarized to the most ordinary understandings, which, at so very recent a period, failed in producing their due effect on two of the most powerful minds in Europe. 1 [* The passages commonly cited in gree of credit he appears to have given proof of Locke's credulity, are the refer- to the story of a rational parrot, and to cnces to the manners of savage nations the popular fables about mermaids. introduced in the course of his argu- Vide p. 247.] ment against innate Practical Princi- a See Note G G. pies. To these may be added, the de- 8 See Note H H. * Restored. Ed. 286 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. On reviewing the foregoing paragraphs, I am almost tempted to retract part of what I have written, when I reflect on the benefits which the world has derived even from the errors of Leibnitz. It has been well and justly said, that " every 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 path, 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 become more fertile, in proportion as a more accurate survey of its boundaries adapts it better to the limited resources of the cultivators. In this point of view, what individual in modern times can be compared to Leibnitz ! To how many of those researches, which still usefully employ the talents and industry of the learned, did he not point out and open the way ! From how many more did he not warn the wise to withhold their 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 which, whoever takes 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 afford one of the few instances to which the words of the poet may literally be applied : " Si non errasset, fecerat ille minus/' 1 1 See Note I T. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 287 SECT. III. OF THE METAPHYSICAL SPECULATIONS OF NEWTON AND CLARKE DIGRESSION WITH RESPECT TO THE SYSTEM OF SPINOZA COLLINS AND JONATHAN EDWARDS ANXIETY OF BOTH TO RECONCILE THE SCHEME OF NECESSITY WITH MAN*S MORAL AGENCY DEPARTURE OF SOME LATER NECESSITARIANS FROM THEIR VIEWS. 1 THE foregoing review of the philosophical writings of Locke and of Leibnitz naturally leads our attention, in the next place, to those of our illustrious countrymen Newton and Clarke ; the former of whom has exhibited, in his Principia and Optics, the most perfect exemplifications which have yet appeared of 1 In conformity to the plan announced in the preface to this Dissertation, I confine myself to those authors whose opinions have had a marked and gene- ral influence on the subsequent history of philosophy ; passing over a multitude of other names well worthy to be re- corded in the annals of metaphysical science. Among these I shall only mention the name of Boyle, to whom the world is indebted, beside some very acute remarks and many fine illustra- tions of his own upon metaphysical questions of the highest moment, for the philosophical arguments in defence of religion, which have added so much lustre to the names of Dcrham and Bentley ; and, far above both, to that of Clarke.* The remarks and illustra- tioiis, which I here refer to, are to be found in his Inquiry into the Vu'gar Notion of Nature, and in his Essay, inquiring whether, and Jtow, a Natural- tut should consider Final Causes. Both of these tracts display powers which might have placed their author on a level with Descartes and Locke, had not his taste and inclination determined him more strongly to other pursuits. I am inclined to think that neither of them is so well known as were to be wished. I do not even recollect to have seen it anywhere noticed, that some of the most striking and beautiful instances of design in the order of the material world, which occur in the Sermons preached at Boyle's Lecture, are borrowed from the works of the founder.f Notwithstanding, however, these great merits, he has written too little on such abstract subjects to entitle him to a place among English metaphysicians ; nor has he, like Newton, started any leading thoughts which have since given a new direction to the studies of meta- physical inquirers. From the slight specimens he has left, there is reason to conclude, that his mind was still more happily turned than that of Newton, for the prosecution of that branch of science to which their contemporary Locke was then beginning to invite the attention of the public. * To the English reader it is unnecessary to observe, that I allude to the Sermons preached at the Lecture founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle. t Those instances, more especially, which are drawn from the anatomical structure of animals, and the adaptation of their perceptive organs to the habits of life fur which they are destined. 288 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. the cautious logic recommended by Bacon and Locke ; while the other, in defending against the assaults of Leibnitz the metaphysical principles on which the Newtonian philosophy proceeds, has been led, at the same time, to vindicate the authority of various other truths, of still higher importance, and more general interest. The chief subjects of dispute between Leibnitz and Clarke, so far as the principles of the Newtonian philosophy are concerned, have been long ago settled, to the entire satisfaction of the learned world. The monads, and the plenum, and the pre- established harmony of Leibnitz, already rank, in the public estimation, with the vortices of Descartes, and the plastic nature of Cudworth ; while the theory of gravitation prevails everywhere over all opposition ; and (as Mr. Smith remarks) " has advanced to the acquisition of the most universal empire that was ever established in philosophy." On these points, therefore, I have only to refer my readers to the collec- tion published by Dr. Clarke, in 1717, of the controversial papers which passed between him and Leibnitz during the two preceding years ; a correspondence equally curious and instructive ; and which it is to be lamented, that the death of Leibnitz in 1716 prevented from being longer con- tinued. 1 Although Newton does not appear to have devoted much of his time to metaphysical researches, yet the general spirit of his physical investigations has had a great, though indirect, 1 From a letter of Leibnitz to M. principle of the sufficient reason that he Remond de Montmort, it appears that trusted for the accomplishment of this he considered Newton, and not Clarke, object. " J'ai reduit 1'etat de notre as his real antagonist in this contro- dispute a ce grand axiome, que rien versy. " M. Clarke, ou plutot M. n'existe ou n'arrive sans qu'il y ait une Newton, dont M. Clarke soutient les raison snffisante,pourqnoi il en est pi u- dogmes, est en dispute avec moi sur la tot ainsi qiiautrement. S'il continue a philosophic. " (Leib. Op. torn. v. p. 33.) me le nier, ou en sera sa sincerite ? From another letter to the same corre- S'il me 1'accorde, adieu le vuide, les spondent we learn, that Leibnitz aimed atonies, et toute la philosophic de M. at nothing less than the complete over- Newton." (Ibid.} See also a letter throw of the Newtonian philosophy; from Leibnitz to M. des Maizeaux in and that it was chiefly to his grand the same volume of his works, p. 39. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 289 influence on the metaphysical studies of his successors. It is justly and profoundly remarked by Mr. Hume, that " while Newton seemed to draw off the veil from some of the mysteries of nature, he showed, at the same time, the imperfections of the mechanical philosophy, and thereby restored her ultimate secrets to that obscurity in which they ever did, and ever will remain." In this way, his discoveries have co-operated power- fully with the reasonings of Locke, in producing a general con- viction of the inadequacy of our faculties to unriddle those sublime enigmas on which Descartes, Malebranche, and Leib- 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 pneumatology of the dark ages have been abandoned for inquiries resting on the solid basis of expe- rience and analogy ; and that philosophers have felt themselves emboldened by his astonishing discoveries concerning the more distant parts of the material universe, to argue from the known to the unknown parts of the moral world. So completely has the prediction been verified which he himself hazarded, in the form of a query, at the end of his Optics, that " if natural philosophy should continue to be improved in its various branches, the bounds of moral philosophy would be enlarged also." How far the peculiar cast of Newton's genius qualified him for prosecuting successfully the study of Mind, he has not afforded us sufficient data for judging ; but such was the admiration with which his transcendent powers as a mathe- matician and natural philosopher were universally regarded, that the slightest of his hints on other subjects have been eagerly seized upon as indisputable axioms, though sometimes with little other evidence in their favour but the supposed sanction of his authority. 1 The part of his works, however, which chiefly led me to connect his name with that of Clarke, 1 Witness Hartley's Physiological theories in medicine, grafted on a hint Theory of the Mind, founded on a query thrown out in the same query, in the in Newton's Optics; and a long list of form of a modest conjecturo. VOL. I. T 290 DISSERTATION. PAKT SECOND. ir, 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 God, which is commonly, though, I apprehend, not justly, regarded as the most important of all Clarke's contributions to Metaphysical Philosophy. I shall quote the passage in Newton's own words, to the oracular conciseness of which no English version can do justice. " ^temus est et infinitus, ornnipotens et omnisciens : id est, durat ab aeterno in seternum, et adest ab infinite in infinitum. . . . Non est teternitas et infinitas, sed seternus et infinitus ; non est duratio et spatium, sed durat et adest. Durat semper et adest ubique, et existendo semper et ubique durationem et 1 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 1687, lias 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 priori of the exist- ence of God. After some new illustra- tions, drawn from his own discoveries, of the common argument from final causes, he thus concludes : " There is yet another argument for a Deity, which I take to be a very strong one ; but, till the principles on which it is grounded are better received, I think it more ad- visable to let it sleep." Four Letters from Sir I. Newton to Dr. Bentley, p. 11. London, Dodsley, 1756- 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 countrvmen to add to the evidence of this conclusion, by deducing it from oilier principles : " Let others creep by timid steps and slow, On plain experience lay foundations low, By common sense to common knowledge bred, And last to Nature's cause through Na- ture led ; We nobly take the high priori-road, And reason downwards till we doubt of God." That Pope had Clarke in his eye when he wrote these lines, will not be doubted by those who recollect the 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 live half his life the poor'n support, But let him live the other half at court." And again " Even in an ornament its place remark; Nor in a hermitage set Dr. Clarke :" in which last couplet there is a mani- fest allusion to the bust of Clarke, placed in a hermitage by Queen Caro- line, together with those of Newton, Boyle, Locke, and Wollaston. See some fine verses on these busts in a poem called the Grotto, by Matthew Green. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 291 spatium constituit." 1 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 impossible) are not substances, but attributes, the immense and eternal Being, whose attributes they are, must exist of necessity also. The existence of God, therefore, according to Clarke, is a truth that follows with demonstrative evidence from those concep- tions of space and time which are inseparable from the human mind. ..." These (says Dr. Reid) are the speculations of men of superior genius ; but whether they be as solid as they are sublime, or whether they be the wanderings of imagination in a region beyond the limits of the human understanding, I am at a loss to determine." After this candid acknowledgment from Dr. Keid, I need not be ashamed to confess my own doubts and difficulties on the same question. 2 But although the argument, as stated by Clarke, does not carry complete satisfaction to my mind, I think it must be granted that there is something peculiarly wonderful and overwhelming in those conceptions of immensity and eternity, which it is not less impossible to banish from our thoughts, than the consciousness of our own existence. Nay, further, I think that these conceptions are very intimately connected with the fundamental principles of Natural Religion. For when once we have established, from the evidences of design every- where manifested around us, the existence of an intelligent and powerful cause, we are unavoidably led to apply to this cause our conceptions of immensity and eternity, and to conceive Him as filling the infinite extent of both with his presence and with 1 Thus translated by Dr. Clarke : constitutes duration and space." See " God is eternal and infinite, omnipotent Clarke's Fourth Reply to Leibnitz. and omniscient; that is, he endures from everlasting to everlasting, and is 2 An argument substantially the same present from infinity to infinity. He is with this for the existence of God, is not eternity or infinity, but eternal and hinted at very distinctly by Cudworth, infinite. He is not duration or space, Intellect. System, chap. v. 3, 4. Also but he endures and is present. He en- by Dr. Henry More, Encliir. Metaph dures always, and is present everywhere, cap. 8, 8. See Mosheim's TramsJ. of and by existing always and every where, Cudworth, torn. ii. p. 356. 292 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. his power. Hence we associate with the idea of God those awful impressions which are naturally produced by the idea of infinite space, and perhaps still more by the idea of endless duration. Nor is this all. It is from the immensity of space that the notion of infinity is originally derived ; and it is hence that we transfer the expression, by a sort of metaphor, to other subjects. When we speak, therefore, of infinite power, wisdom, and 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 demon- strate the existence of God, yet necessarily enter into the ideas we form of his nature and attributes. To these various considerations it may be added, that the notion of necessary existence which we derive from the 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 still less is it to be wondered at, that, in pursuing this lofty argument, they should have soared into regions where they were lost in the clouds. I have said above, that Clarke's demonstration seems to have been suggested to him by a passage in Newton's Scholium. It is, however, more than probable that he had himself struck into a path very nearly approaching to it, at a much earlier period of his life. The following anecdote of his childhood, related, upon his own authority, by his learned and authentic, though, in many respects, weak and visionary biographer, (Whiston,) exhibits an interesting example of an anomalous develop- ment of the powers of reflection and abstraction, at an age when, in ordinary cases, the attention is wholly engrossed with sensible objects. Such an inversion of the common process of nature in unfolding our different faculties, is perhaps one of the rarest phenomena in the intellectual world ; and, wherever METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUBY. 2ws|ierity of the wicked. '] METAPHYSICS 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 truths so essential to human happiness ; l and, ac- cordingly, it was on this very ground that Bishop Butler and Dr. Francis Hutcheson were induced to strike into a different and more popular path for establishing the fundamental 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 circumstance as an important step in the progress of Moral Philosophy. The farther illustration of it properly belongs to another part of this discourse. The chief glory of Clarke, as a metaphysical author, is due to the boldness and ability with which he placed himself in the breach against the Necessitarians and Fatalists of his times. With a mind far inferior to that of Locke, in 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, which 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. This logical foresight (the natural result of his habits of mathematical study) rendered him peculiarly fit to contend with adversaries, eager and qualified to take ad- ous followers of Calvin, and withal very l [* Quicquid nos aut meliores aut pious and good persons." Preface to beatiores facturum est vel in aperto, vel the first volume of his Philosophical in proximo posuit natura. Seneca ?\ Works] Restored. K<\. 29G DISSERTATION. PAKT 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 raisomiement,} and the expression, though doubtless much too unqualified, possesses a merit, in point of just discrimination, of which Voltaire was probably not fully aware. 1 1 In the extent of his learning, the correctness of his taste, and the depth of his scientific acquirements, Clarke possessed indisputable advantages over Locke ; with which advantages he com- bined another not less important, the systematical steadiness with which his easy fortune and unbrcken 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, straggling 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 conceived himself to be an advocate for free-will, appears indisputably from many expressions in his chapter on Power; and yet, in that very chapter, he has made various concessions to his adversaries, in which he seems to yield all that was contended for by Hobbes and Collins : And, accordingly, he is ranked, with some appearance of truth, by Priestley, with those who, while they opposed verbally the scheme of necessity, have adopted it substan- tially, without being aware of their mistake. In 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 of the fact. This declaration of Locke I consider as well worthy of attention in the argument about Free Will ; for, although in questions of pure 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. * See Note KK. METAPHYSICS DUKING 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 his master, and with a weight of personal character in his favour, to which his master had no pretensions, 1 gave to the cause which he so warmly espoused, a degree of credit among sober and serious inquirers, which it had never before possessed in England. I have reserved, therefore, for this place, the few general reflec- tions which I have to offer on this endless subject of contro- versy. In stating these, I shall be the less anxious to condense my thoughts, as I do not mean to return to the discussion in the sequel of this historical sketch. Indeed, I do not know of anything that has been advanced by later writers, in support of For the information of some of my readers, it may be proper to mention that it has of late become fashionable among a certain class of metaphysicians, boldly to assert, that the evidence of their consciousness is decidedly in fa- vour of the scheme of necessity. But to return to Mr. Locke. The only consideration on this subject which seems to have staggered him, was the difficulty of reconciling this opinion with the prescience of God. As to this theo- logical difficulty, I have nothing to say at present. The only question which I consider as of any consequence, is the matter of fact ; and, on this point, no- thing can be more explicit and satis- factory than the words of Locke. 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 Indifference ; for as to the former, there seems to be no difficulty in reconciling it with the prescience of God. " I own (says Mr. Locke) freely to you the weakness of my understanding, that though it be unquestionable that there is omnipot- ence and omniscience in God our Maker, and though / cannot have a clearer perception of anything than tliat I am free; yet I cannot make freedom in man consistent with omnipotence and omniscience in God, though I am as fully persuaded of both as of any truth I most firmly assent to ; and therefore I have long since given off the consi- deration of that question ; resolving all into this short conclusion, that, if it lie possible for God to make a free agent, then man is free, tlwunh I see not the way of it." 1 In speaking disrespectfully of the personal character of Hobbes, I allude to the base servility of his political principles, and to the suppleness with which he adapted them to the opposite interests of the three successive govern- ments under which his literary life was spent. To his private virtues the most honourable testimony has been borne, both by his friends and by his enemies. 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 proselytes ; the extravagant and alarming consequences in which his system terminated, serving with most persons as a sufficient antidote against it. Clarke was probably the first who perceived distinctly the logical accuracy of his reasoning ; and that, if the principles were admitted, it was impossible to resist the conclusions deduced from them. 1 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, 2 it may be proper to mention, was an Amsterdam * Dr. Eeid's opinion on this point of doctrine, connected according to the coincides exactly with that of Clarke. method of geometricians, yet, in other See his Essays on the Active Powers of respects, his opinion is not new, the Man. (p. 289, 4to edition,) where he substance of it being the same with that pronounces the system of Spinoza to be of several other philosophers, both an- " the genuine, and the most tenable cient and modern, European and East- system of necessity." ern." See his Diet., Art. Spinoza, and 2 Born 1632, died 1677. It is ob- the authorities in Note S. served by Bayle, that "although Spi- It is asserted by a late German writer, noza was the first who reduced Atheism that " Spinoza has been little heard of to a system, and formed it into a body in England, and not at all in France, METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 299 Jew of Portuguese extraction, who (with a view probably to gain a more favourable reception to his philosophical dogmas) withdrew himself from the sect in which he had been educated, and afterwards appears to have lived chiefly in the society of Christians ; : without, however, making any public profession of the Christian faith, or even submitting to the ceremony of baptism. In his philosophical creed, he at first embraced the system of Descartes, and began his literary career with a work entitled, Renati Descartes Principiorum Philosophic, Pars Prima et Secunda, More Geometrico Demonstrates, 1663. It was, however, in little else than his physical principles that he agreed with Descartes ; for no two philosophers ever differed more widely in their metaphysical and theological tenets. Fontenelle characterizes his system as a " Cartesianism pushed to extravagance," (une Cartfaianisme outrtfe;) an expression which, although far from conveying a just or adequate idea of the whole spirit of his doctrines, applies very happily to his boldness and pertinacity in following out his avowed principles to the most paradoxical consequences which he conceived them to involve. The reputation of his writings, accordingly, has fallen entirely (excepting perhaps in Germany and in Holland) with the philosophy on which they were grafted ; although some of the most obnoxious opinions contained in them are still, from time to time, obtruded on the world, under the dis- guise of a new form, and of a phraseology less revolting to modern taste. 2 and that he has been zealously defended at his apostasy, that they pronounced and attacked by Germans alone." The against him their highest sentence of same writer informs us, that " the excommunication called /Schammata. philosophy of Leibnitz has been little The form of the sentence may be found studied in France, and not at all in Eng- in the Treatise of Selden, De Jure Na- land." Lectures on the History of turce et Gentium, lib. iv. c. 7. It is a Literature, by FRED. SCHLEGEL. Eng. document of some curiosity, and will lish Transl. published at Edin. 1818. scarcely suffer by a comparison with the Vol. ii. p. 243. Popish form of excommunication re- Is it possible that an author who pro- corded by Sterne. For some farther nounces so dogmatically upon the phi- particulars with respect to Spinoza see losophy of England, should never have Note L L. heard the name of Dr. Clarke ? a " On vient de proposer a 1'Acadc- 1 The Synagogue were so indignant mie de Berlin, pour sujet de concours : 300 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. In no part of Spinoza's works has he avowed himself an atheist ; but it will not be disputed, by those who comprehend the drift of his reasonings, that, in point of practical tendency, Atheism and Spinozism are one and the same. In this respect, we may apply to Spinoza (and I may add to Vanini also) what Cicero has said of Epicurus, Verbis reliquit Deos, re sustulit ; a remark which coincides exactly with an expression of New- ton's in the Scholium at the end of the Principia : cf DEUS sine dominio, providentia, et can sis finalibus, nihil aliud est quam FATUM et JSATURA." 1 Among other doctrines of natural and revealed religion which Spinoza affected to embrace, was that of the Divine 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 soul of the world ; 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. 2 I am particularly anxious to direct ' Quels sont les points de contact du sical and moral, at once cause and effect, Cartesianisme et du systeme de Spi- agent and patient." View of Newton's noza?' " Recherches Philosophiques, Discoveries, book i. chap. iv. par M. de Bonald, 1818. 8 Spinoza supposes that there are in 1 One of the most elaborate and acute God two eternal properties, thought and refutations of Spinozism which has yet extension ; and as he held, with Des- appeared, is to be found in Bayle's Die- cartes, that extension is the essence of tionary, where it is described as " the matter, he must necessarily have con- most monstrous scheme imaginable, and ceived materiality to be an essential the most diametrically opposite to the attribute of God. " Per Corpus intelligo clearest notions of the mind." The modum, qui Dei essentiam quatenus ut same author affirms, that " it has been res extensa consideratur, certo et deter- fully overthrown even by the weakest minato modo exprimit." (Ethica or- of its adversaries." " It does not, in- dine Geometrico Demonstrata, Pars ii. deed, appear possible," as Mr. Mac- Defin. 1. See also Etliic. Pars i. Prop, laurin has observed, " to invent another 14.) With respect to the other attri- system equally absurd ; amounting (as butes of God, he held that God is the it does in fact) to this proposition, that cause of all things ; but that he acts not there is but one substance in the uni- from choice, but from necessity ; and of verse, endowed with infinite attributes, consequence, that he is the involuntary (particularly infinite extension and cogi- author of all the good and evil, virtue tation,) which produces all other things and vice, which are exhibited in human necessarily as its own modifications, and life. " Ees nullo alio modo, neque alio which alone is, in all events, both phy- online a Deo produci potuerunt, quam METAPHYSICS DUKING 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 productse sunt." (Ibid. Pars i. Prop. 33.) In one of his letters to Mr. Olden- burg, (Letter 21,) he acknowledges that his ideas of God and of nature were very different from those entertained by modern Christians ; adding, by way of explanation, " Deum rerum omnium causam immanentem, non vero 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 transient acts of God (according 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." Exposit. pp. 26, 27.] The diversity of opinions entertained concerning the nature of Spinozism has been chiefly owing to this, that some have formed their notions of it from the books which Spinoza published during his life, and others from his posthumous remains. It is in the last alone (parti- cularly in his Ethics] that his system is to be seen completely unveiled and un- disguised. In the former, and also in the letters addressed to his friends, he occasionally accommodates himself, with a very temporizing spirit, to what he considered as the prejudices of the world. In proof of this, see his Tractatus Theo- logico-Politicus, and his epistolary cor- respondence, passim ; above all, his letter to a young friend who had apostatized from Protestantism to the Catholic Church. The letter is addressed, " No- bilissimo Juveni, Alberto Burgh." Spin. Op. torn. ii. p. 695. The edition of Spinoza's works to which my references are made, is the complete and very accurate one pub- lished at Jena, in 1802, by Henr. Eberh. Gottlob Paulus, who styles himself Doc- tor and Professor of Theology. This learned divine is at no pains to conceal his admiration of the character as well as talents of his author; nor does he seem to have much to object to the system of Spinozism, as explained in his posthumous work upon Ethics ; a work which, the editor admits, con- tains the only genuine exposition of Spinoza's creed. " Sedes systematis quod sibi condidit in ethica est." (Prcef. Iterates Editionis, 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. Clarke 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 Dodwell. A late German writer, who, in his own opinions, has certainly no leaning towards Spinozism, has yet spoken of the moral tendency of Spinoza's writings in terms of the warmest praise. " The morality of Spinoza (says M. Fred. Schlegel) is not indeed that of the Bible, for he himself was no Christian, but it is still a pure and noble morality, re- sembling that of the ancient Stoics, perhaps possessing considerable advan- tages over that system. That which makes him strong when opposed to adversaries who do not understand or * Restored. Ed. 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, but 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 whole ter- minating ultimately in the maxim with which, according to Plutarch, Anaxar- chus consoled Alexander after the mur- der of Clytus : na> TO vrii%fav a,vro - the extravagances and inconsistencies wort l^ajiti. of the learned, is precisely similar. We * Warburton, indeed, always professes are told by Tacitus, (Annal. lib. xiv.) great respect for Newton ; but of his that Nero was accustomed, at the close hostility to Clarke it is unnecessary to of a banquet, to summon a party of phi- produce any other proof than his note losophers, that he might amuse himself on the following line of the Dunciad: with listening to the endless diversity Where Tindal dictateg( and gilenus snores and discordancy of their respective sys- B. iv. l. 492. terns : nor were there wanting philo- May j yenture tfl ^ ^ the noted sophers at Rome, the same historian i ine O f the .Efcay on Jfen, adds, who were flattered to be thus ex- i.,., j , , , ,1 , , , c ,1 "And shew'd a Newton as we shew an ape." hibited as a spectacle at the table 01 the emperor. What a deep and instructive could not possibly have been written by moral is conveyed by this anecdote ! and any person impressed with a due vene- what a contrast does it afford to the sen- ration for this glory of his species ? 304 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. " All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul. ***** Lives through all Life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent." l 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 ccelum, et virtus ? Superos quid quserimus ultra ? Jupiter est quodcumque vides, quocumque moveris." " Is there a place that God would choose to love Beyond this earth, the seas, yon Heaven above, And virtuous minds, the noblest throne for Jove ; Why seek we farther then ? Behold around, How all thou seest does with the God abound, Jove is alike to all, and always to be found." Kowe's Lucan, Who but Bayle could have thought of extracting anything like Spinozism from such verses as these ! On a subject so infinitely disproportioned to our faculties, it is vain to expect language which will bear a logical and cap- tious examination. Even the Sacred Writers themselves are forced to adapt their phraseology to the comprehension of those to whom it is addressed, and frequently borrow the figurative diction of poetry to convey ideas which must be interpreted, not according to the letter, but the spirit of the passage. It is thus that thunder is called the voice of God ; the wind, His breath ; and the tempest, the blast of His nostrils. Not attend- ing to this circumstance, or rather not choosing to direct to it 1 This passage, as Warton has re- ticularly in the Hymn to Narrayna, 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 Tlt^i xoa-pav, ancient authors : ascribed to Aristotle ; and it is not a ,. , . ,, , ,, ., Omniscient Spirit, whose all-ruling power little curious, that the same ideas occur Bids from JJ sense bright emauations beam . in some specimens of Hindoo poetry, G i owg in t h e rainbow, sparkles in the stream , translated by Sir W. Jones ; more par- &e. &c. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 305 the attention of his readers, Spinoza has laid hold of the well- known expression of St. Paul, that " in God we live, and move, and have our being," as a proof that the ideas of the apostle, concerning the Divine Nature, were pretty much the same with his own ; a consideration which, if duly weighed, might have protected some of the passages above quoted from the unchari- table criticisms to which they have frequently been exposed. 1 To return, however, to Collins, from whose controversy with Clarke I was insensibly led aside into this short digression 1 Mr. Gibbon, in commenting upon the celebrated lines of Virgil, " Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus, Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpora mis- cet," observes, that " the mind which is INFUSED into the different parts of matter, and which MINGLES ITSELF with the mighty mass, scarcely retains any property of a spiritual substance, and bears too near an affinity to the prin- ciples which the impious Spinoza re- vived rather than invented." He adds, however, that " the poverty of human language, and the obscurity of human ideas, make it difficult to speak worthily of the GREAT FIRST CAUSE ; and that our most religious poets, (particularly Pope and Thomson,) in striving to express the presence and energy of the Deity in every part of the universe, deviate unwarily into images which require a favourable construction. But these writers (he candidly remarks) deserve that favour, by the sublime manner in which they celebrate the Great Father of the universe, and by those effusions of love and gratitude which are incon- sistent with the materialist's system." Misc. Works, vol. ii. pp. 509, 510. May I be permitted here to remark, that it is not only difficult but impossible to speak of the omnipresence and omni- potence of God, without deviating into such images ? VOL. I. With the doctrine of the Anima Mundi, some philosophers, both ancient and modern, have connected another theory, according to which the souls of men are portions of the Supreme Being, with whom they are re-united at death, and in whom they are finally absorbed and lost. To assist the imagination in conceiving this theory, death has been compared to the breaking of a phial of water, immersed in the ocean. It is needless to say, that this incompre- hensible jargon has no necessary con- nexion with the doctrine which repre- sents God as the soul of the world, and that it would have been loudly dis- claimed, not only by Pope and Thomson, but by Epictetus, Antoninus, and all the wisest and soberest of the Stoical school Whatever objections, therefore, may be made to this doctrine, let not its supposed consequences be charged upon any but those who may expressly avow them. On such a subject, as Gibbon has well remarked, " we should be slow to suspect, and still slower to condemn." Ibid. p. 510. Sir William Jones mentions a very curious modification of this theory of absorption, as one of the doctrines of the Vedanta School. " The Vedanta School represent Elysian happiness as a total absorption, though not such as to destroy consciousness, in the Divine Essence." Dissertation on the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India. U 30G 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 account 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, 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 ivills or pleases ; [* which is the notion of liberty maintained by Aristotle, Cicero, 1 Mr. Locke, and several other philosophers, ancient and modern.] . . . " 2. Secondly, When I affirm 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/' 2 1 [* How far this is a just account of lit veils." But Cicero is here speaking Cicero's notion of liberty, the reader of that liberty which consists in exemp- may judge from his own words. " Si tion from external restraint ; in which omnia fato fiunt (says 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 uobis," &c. has been so long the subject of dispute De -Fato, cap. xvii. among metaphysicians.] Cicero, indeed, has elsewhere said, * A Philosophical Inquiry concerning " Quid est liberta^? Potestas vivendi Human Liberty, 3d edit. Lond. 1735. * Restored. Ed. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 307 In the prosecution of his argument on this question, Collins endeavours to show, that man is a necessary agent: 1. From our experience. (By experience he means our own conscious- ness that we are necessary agents.) 2. From the impossibility of liberty. 1 3. From the consideration of the Divine prescience. 4. From the nature and use of rewards and punishments; and, 5. From the nature of morality. 2 In this view of the subject, and, indeed, in the very selection of his premises, it is remarkable how completely Collins has anticipated Dr. Jonathan Edwards, the most celebrated and indisputably the ablest champion of the scheme of Necessity who has since appeared. The coincidence is so perfect, that the outline given by the former, of the plan of his work, might have served with equal propriety as a preface to that of the latter. From the above summary, and still more from the whole tenor of the Philosophical Inquiry, it is evident that Collins (one of the most obnoxious writers of his day to divines of all denominations) was not less solicitous than his successor Edwards to reconcile his metaphysical notions with man's accountableness and moral agency. The remarks, accordingly, of Clarke upon Collins's work, are equally applicable to that of Edwards. It is to be regretted that they seem never to have fallen into the hands of this very acute and honest reasoner. As for Collins, 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 reasonings contained in it, together with those on the same subject in his correspon- dence with Leibnitz, and in his Demonstration of the Being 1 See Note M M. 1759, a book printed but never pub- 2 See Note N N. lislied, and containing " Cursory Re- * [Not during Clarke's life. But in marks upon Dr. Clarke's Answer to 1729, Collins published a treatise On Mr. Collins's Inquiry concerning Human Liberty and Necessity, being a vindica- Liberty," this author says, (pp. 6, 7, tion of his Inquiry. This defence, 61, 66,) that Collins was deterred from which seems now quite unknown, was, answering Clarke " by a fear of tlie however, answered in the following year Civil Magistrate.'" Bayle's Dictionary by two Anglican divines, (Jackson and in English (Art. Collins) makes an un- Gretton.) The author of Reflections qualified assertion equivalent to Mr. upon Liberty and Necessity, &c., Lond. Stewart's. Edl\ 308 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. and Attributes of God, form, in my humble opinion, the most im- portant as well as powerful of all his metaphysical arguments. 1 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." 2 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 this 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 which he opposed. " Thus (says a very learned disciple of Leibnitz, who made his first appea ranee as an author about thirty years after the death of his master 3 ) thus, the same chain embraces the 1 Voltaire, who, in all probability, Works. The vital importance which never read either Clarke or Collins, has Clarke attached to this question, has said that the former replied to the given to the concluding paragraphs of latter only by Theological reasonings : his remarks on Collins, an earnestness " Clarke ria repondu a Collins qu'en and a solemnity of which there are not Theoloijif.n" (Quest, sur VEncyclo- many instances in his writings. These pedie, Art. Libfrte.} Nothing can be paragraphs cannot be too strongly re- more remote from the truth. The argu- commended to the attention of those ment of Clarke is wholly Metaphysical; well-meaning persons, who, in our own whereas, his antagonist, in various times, have come forward as the apostles instances, has attempted to wrest to his of Dr. Priestley's " great and glorious own purposes the words of Scripture. Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity." 2 Preface to the folio ed. of Clarke's 8 Charles Bonnet, born 1720, died 1793. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH 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 the existence of this chain, has doubtless willed that of every link of which it is composed. A CALIGULA is one of those links, and this link is of iron : a MARCUS AUBELIUS is another link, and this link is of gold. Both are necessary parts of one whole, which could not but exist. Shall God then be angry at the sight of the iron link ? What absurdity ! God esteems this link at its proper value: He sees it in its cause, and he approves this cause, for it is good. God beholds moral monsters as he beholds physical monsters. Happy is the link of gold ! Still more happy if he know that he is only fortunate. 1 He has attained the highest degree of moral perfection, and is nevertheless without pride, knowing that what he is, is the necessary result of the place which he must occupy in the chain." " The gospel is the allegorical exposition of this system ; the simile of the potter is its summary." 2 BONNET, torn. viii. pp. 237, 238. In what essential respect does this system differ from that of Spinoza ? Is it not even more dangerous in its practical tendency, in consequence of the high strain of mystical devo- tion by which it is exalted ? 3 1 The words in the original are, thing is more usual for fervent devotion, " Heureux le chainon d'or! plus heur- (says Sir James Mackintosh, in speak- eux encore, s'il salt qu'il n'est qu' heur- ing of some theories current among the eux." The double meaning of heureux, Hindoos,) than to dwell so long and so if it render the expression less logically warmly on the meanness and worth- precise, gives it at least an epigram- lessness of created things, and on the matic turn, which cannot be preserved all-sufficiency of the Supreme Being, in our language. that it slides insensibly from compara- * See Note 0. tive to absolute language, and in the * Among the various forms which eagerness of its zeal to magnify the religious enthusiasm assumes, there is Deity seems to annihilate everything a certain prostration of the mind, which, else." See Philosophy of the Human under the specious disguise of a deep Mind, vol. ii. p. 529, 2cL ed. humility, aims at exalting the Divine per- This excellent observation may serve fections, by annihilating all the powers to account for the zeal displayed by which belong to Human Nature. "No- Bonnet, and many other devout men, in 310 DISSERTATION. 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 unfounded as some worthy and able inquirers have supposed. May I be permitted to observe farther on this head, that, as one of these writers spent his life in the pay of a German prince, and as the other was the favourite philosopher of 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 offensive, in their judgments, to the ears of their protectors ? " All that is must be, (says the Baron de Grimm, addressing himself to the Duke of Saxe-Gotha) all that is must be, even because it is ; this is the only sound philosophy ; as long as we do not know this universe a priori, (as they say in the schools,) ALL is NECESSITY. 1 Liberty is a word without meaning, as you shall see in the letter of M. Diderot." The following passage is extracted from Diderot's letter here referred to : favour of the Scheme of Necessity. trol of causes which he is unable to re- " We have nothing (they frequently sist. So completely does this scheme and justly remind us) but what we defeat the pious views in which it has have received." But the question here sometimes originated. I say sometimes ; is simply a matter of fact, whether we for the very same argument against the have or have not received from God the liberty of the Will is employed by Spi- gift of Free Will ; and the only argn- noza, according to whom the free-agency ment, it must be remembered, which of man involves the absurd supposition they have yet been able to advance for of an imperium in imperio in the uni- the negative proposition, is, that this verse. Tractat. Poit. cap. ii. sect. 6. gift was {'possible, even for the power J The logical inference ought un- of God ; nay, the same argument which doubtedly to have been, " as long as we annihilates the power of Man, annihi- know nothing of the universe a priori, lates that of God also, and subjects him, we are not entitled to say of anything as well as all his creatures, to the con- that it either is, or is not, necessary." METAPHYSICS 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 ; l that there are not, and that there cannot be free beings ; that we are only what accords with the general order, with our organization, our education, and the chain of events. These dispose of us invincibly. We can no more conceive a being acting without a motive, than we can one of the arms of a balance acting without a weight. The motive is always exterior and foreign, fastened upon us by some cause distinct from ourselves. What deceives us, is the prodigious variety of our actions, joined to the habit which we catch at our birth, of confounding the voluntary and the free. We have been so often praised and blamed, and have so often praised and blamed others, that we contract an inveterate 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 rewarded or punished. What then is the distinction among men ? The doing of good and the doing of ill ! The doer of ill is one who must be destroyed, not punished. The doer of good is lucky, not virtuous. But though neither the doer of good or of ill be free, man is nevertheless a being to be modi- fied ; it is for this reason the doer of ill should be destroyed upon the scaffold. From thence the good effects of education, of pleasure, of grief, of grandeur, of poverty, &c. ; from thence a philosophy full of pity, strongly attached to the good, nor more angry with the wicked, than with the whirlwind which fills one's eyes with dust. Strictly speaking, there is but one sort of causes, that is, physical causes. There is but one sort of necessity, which is the same for all beings. This is what reconciles me to humankind : it is for this reason I exhorted you to philanthropy. Adopt these principles if you think them good, or show me that they are bad. If you adopt them, they will reconcile you too with others and with yourself: you 1 Does not this remark of Diderot the word necessity, as employed in this apply with infinitely greater force to controversy? 312 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. will neither be pleased nor angry with yourself for being what you are. Keproach others for nothing, and repent of nothing ; this is the first step to wisdom. Besides this, all is prejudice and false philosophy." 1 The prevalence of the principles here so earnestly inculcated among the higher orders in France, at a period somewhat later in the history of the monarchy, may be judged of from the occasional allusions to them in the dramatic pieces then chiefly in request at Paris. In the Mariage de Figaro, (the popularity of which was quite unexampled,) the hero of the piece, an intriguing valet in the service of a Spanish courtier, is introduced as thus moralizing, in a soliloquy on his own free- agency and personal identity. Such an exhibition upon the English stage would have been universally censured as out of character and extravagant, or rather, would have been com- pletely unintelligible to the crowds by which our theatres are filled. " Oh bizarre suite d'evenemens ! Comment cela m'a-t-il arrive ? Pourquoi ces choses et non pas d'autres ? Qui les a fixees sur ma tete ? Force de parcourir la route ou je suis entre sans le savoir, comme j'en sortirai sans le vouloir, je 1'ai jonchee d'autant de fleurs que ma gaiete me la permet : encore je dis ma gaiete, 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 philosophical jargon at that time affected by courtiers and men of the world, will not be doubted by those who have attended to the importance of the roles commonly assigned to confidential valets in French comedies, and to the habits of familiarity in which they are always repre- 1 Nearly to the same purpose, we are to have been different. " The doctrine told by Mr. Belsham, that " the folia- of Necessity has a tendency to abate all cious feeling of remorse is superseded resentment against men. Since all by the doctrine of necessity." (Elem. they do against us is by the appoint- p. 284.) And again, " Bemorse sup- ment of God, it is rebellion against him poses free will. It is of little or no use to be offended with them.'' in moral discipline. In a degree, it is For the originals of the quotations even pernicious." Ibid. p. 406. from Grimm and Diderot, see Note Nor does the opinion of Hartley seem P P. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. 313 sented as living with their masters. The sentiments which they are made to utter may, accordingly, be safely considered as but an echo of the lessons which they have learned from their superiors. 1 My anxiety to state, without any interruption, my remarks on some of the most important questions to which the attention of the public was called by the speculations of Locke, of Leib- nitz, of Newton, and of Clarke, has led me, in various instances, to depart from the strict order of Chronology. It is time for me, however, now to pause, and, before I proceed farther, to supply a few chasms in the foregoing sketch. 2 SECT. IV. OF SOME AUTHORS WHO HAVE CONTRIBUTED, BY THEIR CRITICAL OR HISTORICAL WRITINGS, TO DIFFUSE A TASTE FOR METAPHYSICAL STUDIES BAYLE FONTENELLE ADDISON. METAPHYSICAL WORKS OF BERKELEY. AMONG the many eminent persons who were either driven from France, or who went into voluntary exile, in consequence of the revocation of the edict of Nantz, the most illustrious by far was Bayle ; 3 who, fixing his residence in Holland, and availing himself, to the utmost extent, of the religious tolera- tion then enjoyed in that country, diffused from thence, over Europe, a greater mass of accurate and curious information, accompanied by a more splendid display of acute and lively 1 A reflection of Voltaire's on the Had Voltaire kept this last remark writings of Spinoza may, I think, be steadily in view in his own writings, here quoted without impropriety. " Vous how many of those pages would he have ctes tres confus, Baruc Spinoza, mais cancelled which he has given to the ctes vous aussi dangereux qu'on le dit ? world ! Je soutiens quo non, et ma raison c'est * [If any of my readers wish for que vons etes confus, que vous avez further information concerning the his- ecrit en mauvais Latin, et qu'il n'y a tory of the controversy about Liberty pas dix personnes en Europe qui vous and Necessity, I beg leave to refer them lisent d'un bout a 1'autre. Quel est to a small work entitled Theatrum Fati. 1'auteur dangereux ? C'est celui qui Notitia scriptorum de Providentia, For- est lu par les Oisifs de la Cour, et par tuna, etFato; auctore Petr. Frid. Arpe. les Dames." Quest, sur VEncydop. Roterodami, 1712.] Art. Dieu. Born in 1647, died 1705. 314 DISSEKTATION. PART SECOND. criticism, than had ever before come from the pen of a single individual. 1 Happy ! if he had been able to restrain within due bounds his passion for sceptical and licentious discussion, and to respect the feelings of the wise and good, on topics 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 him, such a spirit of moderation was rather to be wished than expected. When Bayle first appeared as an author, the opinions of the learned still continued to be divided between Aristotle and Descartes. A considerable number leaned, in secret, to the metaphysical creed of Spinoza and of Hobbes ; while the clergy of the Roman Catholic and the Protestant churches, instead of uniting their efforts in defence of those truths which they 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 humour at the common expense of the various com- batants. Unattached himself to any system, or, to speak more correctly, unfixed in his opinions on the most fundamental questions, he did not prosecute any particular study with suffi- 1 The erudition of Bayle is greatly Latin authors ; and he had more of a undervalued by his antagonist Le Clerc. certain multifarious reading than of real " Toutes les lumieres philosophiques de erudition. Le Clerc, his great anta- M. Bayle consistoient en quelque peu gonist, was as superior to him in that de Peripatetisme, qu'il avoit appris des respect as inferior in every other." Ex- Jesuites de Toulouse, et un peu de Car- traits Raisonnes de mes Lectures, p. 62. tesianisme, qu'il n'avoit jamais appro- [* The Bibliolheques of Le Clerc (his fondi." Bibl. Choisie, torn. xii. p. 106. Bibliotheque Universelle and his Biblio- [* Mr. Gibbon, although he does not theque Choisie) are characterized by go so far on this point as his favourite Gibbon as " an inexhaustible source of author, Le Clerc, has yet carried his de- amusement and instruction." (Misc. ference for Le Clerc's authority to an Works, vol. ii. p. 55.) Of these two, undue length in the following judgment the Bibliotheqiie Choisie is elsewhere upon Bayle's erudition.] pronounced by the same excellent judge In the judgment of Gibbon, " Bayle's to be " by far the better work." Vol. i. learning was chiefly confined to the p. 100-] * Restored. Ed. METAPHYSICS 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 persuasions, has been so great, as to mark him out as one of the most conspicuous characters of his age ; and I shall accordingly devote to him a larger space than may, at first sight, appear due to an author who has distinguished himself only by the extent of his his- torical researches, and by the sagacity and subtlety of liis criti- cal disquisitions. We are informed by Bayle himself, that his favourite authors, during his youth, were Plutarch and Montaigne ; and from them, it has been alleged by some of his biographers, he imbibed his first lessons of scepticism. In what manner the first of these writers should have contributed to inspire him with this temper of mind, is not very obvious. There is certainly no heathen philosopher or historian whose morality is more pure or elevated ; and none who has drawn the line between super- stition and religion with a nicer hand. 1 Pope has with perfect truth said of him, that " he abounds more in strokes of good nature than any other author;" to which it may be added, that he abounds also in touches of simple and exquisite pathos, seldom to be met with among the greatest painters of anti- quity. In all these respects what a contrast does Bayle present to Plutarch ! Considering the share which Bayle ascribes to Montaigne's Essays in forming his literary taste, it is curious, that there is no separate article allotted to Montaigne in the Historical and 1 See, in particular, his account of the papers on Cheerfulness. " An eminent effects produced on the character of Pagan writer has made a discourse to Pericles hy the sublime lessons of show, that the atheist, who denies a Anaxagoras- God, does him less dishonour than the Plutarch, it is true, had said before man who owns his being, but, at the Bayle, that atheism is less pernicious 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 Greek phi- would rather it should be said of me, losopher, and as interpreted and applied that there was never any such man as in the Reflection on the Comet! Mr. Plutarch, than that Plutarch was ill- Addison himself seems to give his sane- natured, capricious, and inhuman." lion to Plutarch's maxim in one of his Spectator, No. 494. 316 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 Dictionary, 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 ttourderie of Henry IV. when he exclaimed, after hearing two lawyers plead on opposite sides of the same question, " Venire St. Gris ! il me semble que tons les deux 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 METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH 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 tationis." 1 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, should 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. 2 The profession of Bayle, which made it an object to him to turn to account even the sweepings of his study, affords an ad- ditional explanation of the indigested mass of heterogeneous 1 " En verite, il ne faut pas trouver etrange que tant des gens aient donne dans le Pyrrhonisms. Car c'est la chose du monde la plus commode. Vous pou- vez impunement disputer contre tous verians, et sans craindre ces argumens ad hominem, qui font quelquefois tant de peine. Vous ne craignez point la re- torsion ; puisquc ne soutenant rien, vous abandonnez de bon cceur a tous les sophismes et a tous les raisonnemens de la terre quelque opinion que ce soit. Vous n'etes jamais oblige d'en venir a la defensive. En un mot, vous contes- tez et vous daubez sur toutes choses tout votre saoul, sans craindre la peine du talion." (Euv.Div.de Bayle, iv.p.537. 2 The estimate formed by Warburton of Baylc's character, both intellectual and moral, is candid and temperate. " A writer whose strength and clearness of reasoning can only be equalled by the gaiety, easiness, and delicacy of his wit ; who, pervading human nature with a glance, struck into the province of paradox, 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 supposed to bring to its pro- fessors." Divine Legation. If there be anything objectionable in this panegyric, it is the unqualified praise bestowed on Bayle's wit, 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 gaiety and delicacy as that of Warburton himself. Leibnitz 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 use- fully, would be to attack him when he advances propositions that are sound and true ; and to abstain from attacking him, when he says anything false or pernicious." " Le vrai moyen de faire ecrire utile- ment M. Bayle, ce seroit de 1'attaquer, lorsqu'il ecrit des bonnes choses et vraies, car ce seroit le moyen de le piquer pour continuer. Au lieu qu'il ne fau- droit point 1'attaquer quand il en dit de mauvaises, car cela 1'engagera a en dire d'autres aussi mauvaises pour soutenir les premieres." Tom. vi.p. 273. Leibnitz elsewhere says of him : Ubi be.ne, nemo meliiis. Tom. i. p. 257. 318 DISSERTATION. 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 by Bayle of the article Montaigne will not be much regretted by the admirers of the Essays. It is extremely doubtful if Bayle would have been able to seize the true spirit of Montaigne's character ; and, at any rate, it is not in the de- lineation of character that Bayle excels. His critical acumen, indeed, in the examination of opinions and arguments, is un- rivalled ; 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 1 " The inequality of Bayle's volumi- pitch on what articles he pleased, and nous works, (says Gibbon,) is explained say what he pleased on those articles." by his alternately writing for himself, Extraits Eaisonnes de rn.es Lectures, for the bookseller, and for posterity ; and p. 64. if a severe critic would reduce him to a " How could such a genius as Bayle," single folio, that relic, like the books of says the same author, " employ three or the Sybils, would become still more four pnges, and a great apparatus of valuable." Gibbon's Mem. p. 50. learning, to examine whether Achilles Mr. Gibbon observes in another place, was fed with marrow only ; whether it that, " if Bayle wrote his Dictionary to was the marrow of lions and stags, or empty the various collections he had that of lions only?" &c. Ibid. p. 66. made, without any particular design, he For a long and interesting passage could not have chosen a better plan. It with respect to Bayle's history and char- permitted him everything, and obliged acter, see Gibbon's Memoirs, &c., vol. i. him to nothing. By the double freedom pp. 49, 50, 51. of a Dictionary and of Notes, he could METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 319 exacter sciences in which Kepler, Galileo, and others, had, in the preceding age, made such splendid advances. In Geometry he never proceeded beyond a few of the elementary proposi- tions ; and it is even said, (although I apprehend with little probability,) that his farther progress was stopped by some de- fect in his intellectual powers, which disqualified him for the successful prosecution of the study. It is not unworthy of notice, that Bayle was the son of a 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 Roman Catholic persuasion j 1 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. 2 To these early fluctuations in his religious creed, may be ascribed his singularly accurate knowledge of controversial theology, and of the lives and tenets of the most distinguished divines of both churches ; a knowledge much more minute the discovery of a philosophical argu- ment against the doctrine of Transub- stantiation ; that the text of Scripture, which seems to inculcate the real pre- sence, is attested only by a single sense our sight ; while the real presence itself is disproved by three of our senses the sight, the touch, and the taste." (Ibid. p. 58.) That this "philoso- phical argument" should have had any influence on the mind of Gibbon, 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 harder 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 presence ; 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- ritv of both. 1 " 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 Misc. Works, vol. i. p. 49. 2 According to Gibbon, " the piety of Bayle was offended by the excessive worship of creatures ; and the study of physics convinced him of the impossi- bility of transubstantiation, which is abundantly refuted 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 solitary transport at 320 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. 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 striking resemblance to the historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire : Nor is the par- allel between them less exact in the similar effects produced on their minds, by the polemical cast of their juvenile studies. Their common propensity to indulge in indecency is not so easily explicable. In neither does it seem to have originated in the habits of a dissolute youth, but in the wantonness of a polluted and distempered imagination. Bayle, it is well known, led the life of an anchoret ; l 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. 2 On the mischievous tendency of Bayle's work to unsettle the principles of superficial readers, and, what is worse, to damp the moral enthusiasm of youth, by shaking their faith in the reality of virtue, it would be superfluous to enlarge. The fact is indisputable, and is admitted even by his most partial 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 1 " Chaste dans ses discours, grave impossible to observe the patient indus- dans ses discours, sobre dans sesalimens, try and fidelity with which they have austere dans son genre de vie." Por- executed this part of their task without trait de Bayle, par M. Saurin, dans son feelings of indignation and disgust. For Sermon sur 1'accord de la Religion avec such an outrage on taste and decorum, la Politique. their tedious and feeble attacks on the 8 In justice to Bayle, and also to Manicheism of Bayle offer but a poor Gibbon, it should be remembered, that compensation. Of all Bayle's suspected over the most offensive passages in their heresies, it was perhaps that which works they have drawn the veil of the stood the least in need of a serious refu- learned languages. It was reserved for tation ; and, if the case had been other- the translators of the Historical and wise, their incompetency to contend with Critical Dictionary to tear this veil such an adversary would have only iu- asunder, and to expose the indelicacy of jured the cause which they professed to their author to everv curious eve. It is defend. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 321 their judgment, he has taught them also to think and to reason for themselves ; a lesson which appeared to a late philosophical divine of so great importance, as to suggest to him a doubt whether it would not be better for authors to state nothing but premises, and to leave to their readers the task of forming their own conclusions^ Nor can Bayle be candidly accused of often discovering a partiality for any particular sect of philosophers. He opposes Spinoza and Hobbes with the same spirit and abi- lity, and apparently with the same good faith, with which he controverts the doctrines of Anaxagoras and of Plato. Even the ancient Sceptics, for whose mode of philosophizing he might be supposed to have felt some degree of tenderness, are treated with as little ceremony as the most extravagant of the dogma- tists. He has been often accused of a leaning to the most absurd of all systems, that of the Manicheans ; and it must be owned, that there is none in defence of which he has so often and so ably 2 exerted his talents ; but it is easy to perceive that, when he does so, it is not from any serious faith which he attaches to it, (perhaps the contrary supposition would be nearer the truth,) but from the peculiarly ample field which it opened for the dis- play of his controversial subtlety, and of his inexhaustible stores of miscellaneous information. 3 In one passage he has pro- nounced, with a tone of decision which he seldom assumes, that 1 See the Preface to Bishop Butler's contre, sans rien dissimuler, qne pour Sermons. donner de 1'exercice a ceux qni enten- 4 Particularly in the article entitled dent les matieres qu'il traite, et non Paulicians. pour favoriser ceux dont il explique les 3 One of the earliest as well as the raisons." (Parrhasiana, ou Pensees ablest of those who undertook a reply to Diverges, p. 302, par M. Le Clerc. the passages in Bayle which seem to Amsterdam, 1 699.) [* The testimony favour Manicheism, candidly acquits of Le Clerc on this point is of peculiar him of any serious design to recommend value, as he knew Bayle intimately. It that system to his readers. "En re- may be thought trifling to add, but I pondant aux objections Manicheennes, cannot help mentioning it as a curious je ne pretends faire aucun tort a M. accident, that the copy of the Parrha- Bayle : que je ne soup^onne nullement siana now lying before me is marked de les favoriser. Je suis persuade qu'il with the name of John Locke in his n'a pris la liberte philosophique de dire, own handwriting, and appears to have en bien des rencontres, le pour et le been presented to him by the author.] * Restore .1. Ed. 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 afford 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. 2 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, 3 are to be numbered 1 See the illustration upon the Seep- such a controversy, would be on the side tics at the end of the Dictionary. of the assailant. a This supposition may be thought The tribute paid by Leibnitz to the inconsistent with the well-known fact, memory of his illustrious antagonist de- that the Theodlcee of Leibnitz was not serves to be quoted. " Sperandum est, published till after the death of Bayle. Bodium luminibus illis nunc circumdari, But it must be recollected, that Bayle quod terris negatum est : cum credibile had previously entered the lists with sit, bonam voluntatem ei nequaquam Leibnitz in the article Jiorarius, where defuisse." he had urged some very acute and for- " Candidas insuetum miratur limen Olympi, cible objections against the scheme of Sub pedibusque yidet nubes et sidera pre-estaMishfd harmony ; a scheme Daphnis." which leads so naturally and obviously [* " Charite rare (adds Fontenelle) to that of Optimism, that it was not parmi les Theologiens, a qui il est fort difficult to foresee what ground Leibnitz familier de damner leurs adversaires."] was likely to take in defending his prin- ciples. The great aim of Bayle seems * I speak of that metaphysical depth to have been to provoke Leibnitz to un- which is the exclusive result of what fold the ivhole of his system and of its Newton called patient thinking. In logi- necessary consequences ; well knowing cal quickness and metaphysical subtlety, M-hat advantages, in the management of Bayle has never been surpassed. * Restored. Ed. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 323 among the characteristical attributes of his genius. Far less does he ever anticipate, by the moral lights of the soul, the slow and hesitating decisions of the understanding, or touch with a privileged hand those mysterious chords to which all the social sympathies of our frame are responsive. Had his ambition, 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 facts 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 liistory that it was only a collection of Fables Convenues ; a most signifi- cant and happy phrase, to which I am sorry that I cannot do justice in an English version. But though Fontenelle pushed his maxim to an extreme, there is yet a great deal of important truth in the remark ; and of this I believe every person's con- viction will be stronger, in proportion as his knowledge of men and of books is profound and extensive. 1 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 this, I have only to refer to the copious and instructive extracts which he has produced from Roman Catholic writers, concerning the lives, and still more concerning the deaths, of Luther, Knox, 2 Buchanan, and various other leaders or partisans of the Reformation. It would be impos- sible for any well-informed Protestant to read these extracts 1 Montesquieu has expressed himself on bien a 1'occasion des vrais." Pense.es on this subject in nearly as strong tenns Diverges de Montesquieu, torn. v. cle ses as Fontenelle. " Les Histoires sont des GEuvres. Ed. de Paris, 1818. faits faux composes sur des faits vrais, * See Note Q Q. 324 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. without indulging a smile at their incredible absurdity, if every feeling of levity were not lost -in a sentiment of deep indignation at the effrontery and falsehood of their authors. In stating this observation, I have taken my examples from Eoman 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. 1 A few years before the death of Bayle, Fontenelle began to attract the notice of Europe. 2 I class them together on account of the mighty influence of both on the literary taste of their contemporaries ; an influence in neither case founded on any claims to original genius, or to important improvements, but on the attractions which they possessed in common, though in very different ways, as popular writers ; and on the easy and agreeable access which their works opened to the opinions and speculations of the learned. Nor do I depart so far as might at first be supposed from the order of chronology, in passing from the one to the other. For though Fontenelle survived almost to our own times, (having very nearly completed a cen- 1 Of all Bayle's works, " the most gence which they claim for themselves useful and the least sceptical," accord- in Catholic countries. The work is dif- ing to Gibbon, " is his Commentaire fuse and rambling, like all Bayle's com- Philosophique on these words of the positions ; but the matter is excellent, Gospel, Compel ttom to come in." and well deserves the praise which The great object of this Commentary Gibbon has bestowed on it. is to establish the general principles of 2 Bayle died in 1706- Fontenelle's Toleration, and to remonstrate with the first work in prose (the Dialogues of the members of Protestant churches on the Dead} was published as early as 1683, inconsistency of their refusing to those and was quickly followed by his Con- they esteem heretics, the same inclul- versations on the Plurality of Worlds. METAPHYSICS DUHING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 325 tury 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 1 ) by those very pupils to whose minds he had given so powerful an impulse, and whom he had so long taught by his example, the art (till then unknown in modern times) of blending the truths of the severer sciences with the lights and graces of eloquence. Even this eloquence, once so much admired, had ceased before his death to be regarded as a model, and was fast giving way to the purer and more manly taste in writing, recommended by the precepts, and exemplified in the historical compositions of Voltaire. Fontenelle was a nephew of the great Corneille ; but his genius was, in many respects, very strongly contrasted with that of the author of the Cid. Of this he has himself enabled us to judge by the feeble and unsuccessful attempts in dramatic poetry, by which he was first known to the world. In these, indeed, as in all his productions, there is an abundance of in- genuity, of elegance, and of courtly refinement ; but not the faintest vestige of the mens divinior, or of that sympathy with the higher and nobler passions which enabled Corneille to re- 1 Excepting on a few metaphysical guasre coinciding exactly with that of points. The chief of these were, the Gassendi. " A force d'operer sur les question concerning the origin of our premieres idees formees par les sens, d'y ideas, and that relating to the nature of ajouter, d'en retrancher, de les rendre the lower animals. On the former of de particulieres universelles, d'univer- these subjects he has said explicitly : selles plus nniverselles encore, 1'esprit " L'Ancienne Philosophic n'a pas tou- les rend si differentes de ce qu'elles jours eu tort. Elle a soutenu que tout etoient d'ahord qu'on a quelquefois peine ce qui etoit dans 1'esprit &\oitpass6 par a reconnoitre leur origine. Cependant les sens, et nous n'aurions pas mal fait qui voudra prendre le fil et le suivre de conserver cela d'elle." (Fragment of exactement, retournera toujours de 1'idee an intended Treatise on the Human la plus sublime et la plus elevce, a quel- Mind.) On another occasion, he states que idee sensible et grossiere." his own opinion on this point, in Ian- 326 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. animate and to reproduce on the stage the heroes of ancient Rome. The circumstance, however, which more peculiarly marks and distinguishes his writings, is the French mould in which education and habit seem to have recast all the original features of his mind ; identifying, at the same time, so per- fectly the impressions of art with the workmanship of nature, that one would think the PARISIAN, as well as the MAN, had started fresh and finished from her creative hand. Even in his Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, the dry discus- sions with the Marchioness about the now forgotten vortices of Descartes, are enlivened throughout by a never-failing spirit of light and national gallantry, which will for ever render them an amusing picture of the manners of the times, and of the character of the author. The gallantry, it must be owned, is often strained and affected ; but the affectation sits so well on Fontenelle, that he would appear less easy and graceful without it. The only other production of Fontenelle's youth which de- serves to be noticed is his History of Oracles; a work of which the aim was to combat the popular belief that the oracles of antiquity were uttered by evil spirits, and that all these spirits became dumb at the moment of the Christian era. To this work Fontenelle contributed little more than the agreeable and lively form in which he gave it to the world ; the chief mate- rials being derived from a dull and prolix dissertation on the same subject, by a learned Dutchman. The publication ex- cited a keen opposition among divines, both Catholic and Pro- testant ; and, in particular, gave occasion to a very angry, and, it is said, not contemptible criticism, from a member of the Society of Jesuits. 1 It is mentioned by La Harpe, as an illus- 1 To this criticism, the only reply qu'il croit cela plus orthodoxe.'' (D'- made by Fontenelle was a single sen- Alembert, Elor/e de La Motte.} We are tence, which he addressed to a Journal- told by D'Alembert, that the silence of ist who had urged him to take up arms Fontenelle, on this occasion, was owing in his own defence. " Je laisserai mon to the advice of La Motte. " Fontenelle censeur jouir en paix de son triomphe ; bien tente de terrasser son adversaire je consens que le diable ait ete pro- par la facilite qu'il y trouvoit, fut retenii phete, puisque le .Tr suite IP vent, et par les avis pnidens de La Motte ; cet METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 327 tration of the rapid change in men's opinions which took place during Fontenelle's life, that a book which, in his youth, was censured for its impiety, was regarded before his death as a proof of his respect for religion. The most solid basis of Fontenelle's fame is his History of the Academy of Sciences, and his Eloges of the Academicians. Both of these works, but more especially the latter, possess in an eminent degree all the charms of his former publications, and are written in a much simpler and better taste than any of the others. The materials, besides, are of inestimable value, as succinct and authentic records of one of the most memorable periods in the history of the human mind; and are 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, 1 as well as of his acute and fine discrimination of the varieties and shades of character, both intellectual and moral. The chief and distinguishing merit of Fontenelle, as the historian of the Academy, is the happy facility with which he adapts the most abstruse and refined speculations to the com- prehension of ordinary readers. Nor is this excellence pur- ami lui fit craindre de s'aliener par philosophers, they might certainly be sa reponse une societe qui s'appeloit more easily learned. Philosophers would Legion, quand on avoit affaire au der- have established everywhere a syste- nier de ses memhres." The advice matical uniformity, which would have merits the attention of philosophers in proved a safe and infallible guide ; and all countries, for the spirit of Jesuit- the manner of forming a derivative word, ism is not confined to the Church of would, as a necessary consequence, have Rome. suggested its signification. The un- 1 An instance of this which happens civilized nations, who are the first au- at present to recur to my memory, may thors of languages, fell naturally into serve to illustrate and to confirm the that notion with respect to certain ter- above remark. It is unnecessary to mlnations, all of which have some coin- point out its coincidence with the views mon property or virtue ; but that ad- \vhich gave birth to the new nomencla- vantage, unknown to those who had it ture in chemistry. in their hands, was not carried to a " If languages had been the work of sufficient extent." 328 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. chased by any sacrifice of scientific precision. What he aims at is nothing more than an outline ; but tliis outline is always executed with the firm and exact hand of a master. " When employed in composition, (he has somewhere said,) my first concern is to be certain that I myself understand what I ani about to write ;" and on the utility of this practice every page of his Historical Memoirs may serve as a comment. 1 As a writer of Eloges, he has not been equalled (if I may be allowed to hazard my own opinion) by any of his countrymen. Some of those, indeed, by D'Alembert and by Condorcet, mani- fest powers 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 his readers in the fortunes of every individual whom he honoured by his notice. In this art it is not improbable that they might have succeeded better had they imitated Fontenelle's self-denial in sacrificing the fleeting praise of brilliant colouring, to the fidelity and lasting effect of their portraits ; a self-denial which in him was the more meritorious, as his great ambition plainly was to unite the reputation of a bel-esprit with that of a 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. 2 1 From this praise, however, must be aux jeunes geometres que 1'auteur y excepted the mysterious jargon in which presente les sophismes avec une sorte (after the example of some of his con- d'elegance et de grace, dont le sujet ne temporaries) he has indulged himself in paroissoit pas susceptible." Melanges, speaking of the geometry and calculus &c., torn. v. p. 264. of infinites. " Nous le disons avec peine, s D'Alembert, in his ingenious paral- (says D'Alembert,) et sans vouloir out- lei of Fontenelle and La Motte, has rager les manes d'un homme celebre qui made a remark on Fontenelle's style n'est plus, il n'y a peut-etre point d'ou- when he aims at simplicity, of the just- vrage oil 1'on trouve des preuves plus ness of which French critics alone are frcquentes de 1'abus de la metaphysique, competent judges. " L'un et 1'autre ont que dans 1'ouvrage tres connu de M. cent en prose avec beaucoup de clarto, Fontenelle, qui a pour titre Elemens de d'elegance, de simplicite meme ; mais In Geometric de I'Infini; ouvrage dont La Motte avec une simplicite plus natu- ];i lecture est d'autant plus dangereuse relle, et Fontenelle avec une simplicite METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. 329 But the principal charm of Fontenelle's Eloges arises from the pleasing pictures which they everywhere present of genius and learning in the scenes of domestic life. In this respect, it has been justly said of them by M. Suard, 1 that " they form the noblest monument ever raised to the glory of the sciences and of letters." Fontenelle himself, in his Eloge of Varignon, after remarking, that in him the simplicity of his character was only equalled by the superiority of his talents, finely adds, " I have already bestowed so often the same praise on other members of this Academy, that it may be doubted whether it is not less due to the individuals, than to the sciences which they cultivated in common." What a proud reply does this reflec- tion afford to the Machiavellian calumniators of philosophy 1 2 The influence of these two works of Fontenelle on the studies of the rising generation all over Europe, can be conceived by those alone who have compared them with similar productions of an earlier date. Sciences which had long been immured in colleges and cloisters, began at length to breathe the ventilated and wholesome air of social life. The union of philosophy and the fine arts, so much boasted of in the schools of ancient Greece, seemed to promise a speedy and invigorated revival. Geometry, Mechanics, Physics, Metaphysics, and Morals, 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 etudiee : car la simplicite pent * Notice sur la Vie et les Ecrits du 1'etre, et des lors elle devient maniere, Docteur Bobertson. Paris, 1817. et cesse d'etre modele." An idea s [* Gibbon, whose critical opinions very similar to this is happily ex- in matters of taste, when he trusts to pressed by Congreve, in his portrait his own judgment, are not unfrequently of Amoret: erroneous, praises Fontenelle's History of Oracles, and even his Eclogues, but Coquet and coy at once her air, geemg to have been ^ ; nsensible to Both studied, though both seem neglected : . . . . _,, , ,.,. Carcle*, she is with artful care, the ments of .. hls B*9*- See hls Mlsc - Affecting to teem unaffected." Works, vol. ii. p. 55.] * Restored. Ed. 330 DISSERTATION. FART SECOND. Nor was this change of manners confined to one of the sexes. The other sex, to whom nature has entrusted the first develop- ment of our intellectual and moral powers, and who may, therefore, be regarded as the chief medium through which the progress of the mind is continued from generation to genera- tion, shared also largely in the general improvement. Fon- tenelle aspired above all things to be the philosopher of the Parisian circles ; and certainly contributed not a little to diffuse a taste for useful knowledge among women of all con- ditions in France, by bringing it into vogue among the higher classes. A reformation so great and so sudden could not pos- sibly take place, without giving birth to much affectation, extravagance, and folly; but the whole analogy of human affairs encourages us to hope, that the inconveniences and evils connected wdth it will be partial and temporary, and its beneficial results permanent and progressive. 1 1 Among the various other respects in which Fontenelle contributed to the intellectual improvement of his country- men, it ought to be mentioned, that he was one of the first writers in France who diverted the attention of metaphysi- cians from the old topics of scholastic dis- cussion, to a philosophical investigation of the principles of the fine arts. Vari- ous original hints upon these subjects are scattered over his works : but the most favourable specimens of his talents for this very delicate species of analysis are to be found in his Dissertation on Pastorals, and in his Theory concern- ing the Delight toe derive from Tragedy* His speculations, indeed, are not always just and satisfactory ; but they are sel- dom deficient in novelty or refinement. Their principal fault, perhaps, arises from the author's disposition to carry his refinements too far ; in consequence of which, his theories become charge- able with that sort of sublimated inge- nuity which the French epithet Alam- Inque expresses more precisely and forcibly than any word in our language. Something of the same philosophical spirit may be traced in Fenelon's Dia- logues on Eloquence, and in his Letter on BJietoric and Poetry. The former of these treatises, besides its merits as a speculative discussion, contains various practical hints, well entitled to the at- tention of those who aspire to eminence as public speakers ; and of which the most apparently trifling claim some re- gard, as the results of the author's reflections upon an art which few ever practised with greater success. Let me add, that both of these emi- nent men (who may be regarded as the fathers of philosophical criticism in France) were zealous partisans and ad- mirers of the Cartesian metaphysics. It is this critical branch of metaphysical * In the judgment of Mr. Hume, " there is not z. finer piece of criticism than Fontenelle's Dissertation on Pastoral* , in which, by a number of reflections and philosophical reasonings, he endeavours to fix the just medium between simplicity and refinement, which is suitable to that species of poetry." METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 331 Among the various moral defects imputed to Fontenelle, that of a complete apathy and insensibility to all concerns but his own is by far the most prominent. A letter of the Baron cle 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 German Prince, the literary scandal of Paris, is not much to be relied on in estimating a character with which he does not appear to have had any opportunity of becoming personally acquainted ; more especially as, during Fontenelle's long 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. 1 science which, in my opinion, has been most successfully cultivated by French writers ; although too many of them have been infected (after the example of Fontenelle) with the disease of sickly and of hyper-metaphysical subtlety. From this censure, however, must be excepted the Abbe Dubos, whose Criti- cal Reflections 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 leading 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 cet ouvrage (says Voltaire) c'est qu'il n'y a que peu d'erreurs, et beaucoup de reflexions vraies, nouvelles, et profondes. II manque cependant d'ordre et sur-tout cle precision ; il an- roit pu etre ecrit avec plus cle feu, de grace, et d'elegance ; mais Vecrivain pense et fait penser." Siecle de Louis XIV. 1 As to Voltaire himself, it must be mentioned, to his honour, that though there seems never to have been much cordiality between him and Fontenelle, he had yet the magnanimity to give a place to this Nestor of French literature in his catalogue of the eminent persons who adorned the reign of Louis XIV. : a tribute of respect the more flattering, as it is the single instance in which he has departed from his general rule of excluding from his list the names of all his living contemporaries. Even Fon- tenelle's most devoted admirers ought to be satisfied with the liberality of Voltaire's eulogy, in which, after pro- nouncing Fontenelle " the most uni- versal genius which the age of Louis XIV. had produced," he thus sains up his merits as an author. " Enfiu on 1'a regarde comme le premier des hommes dans 1'art nouveau de repandre de la lumiere-et des graces sur les 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 i 1 Or rather, (if it be true, as Dr. Hutcheson has somewhere remarked, that " men have commonly the good or bad qualities which they ascribe to mankind,") the most 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 pliilosophy, 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- abstraites, et il a en du merite dans tons froideur, sans chercher a les detromper, les autres genres qu'il a traites. Tant parce que, bien sur que les vraies amis de talens ont etc soutenus par la con- n'en seroit pas la dupe, il voyoit dans noissance des langues et de 1'b.istoire, cette reputation un moyen commode de et il a ete sans contredit au-dessus de se delivrer des indifferens sans blesser tons les s$avans qui riont pas eu le don leur amour-propre," Eloge de Fonte- de V Invention." nelle,par Condorcet. Many of Fontenelle's sayings, the 1 Condorcet has said expressly, that import of which must have depended his apathy was confined entirely to entirely on circumstances of time and what regarded himself; and that he was place unknown to us, have been ab- always an active, though frequently a surdly quoted to his disadvantage, in concealed friend, where his good offices their literal and most obvious accepta- could be useful to those who deserved tion. "I hate war, (said he,) for it spoils them. " On a cru Fontenelle insensi- conversation." Can any just inference ble, parce que sachant maitriser les be drawn from the levity of this con- mouvemens de son arne il se conduisoit vivial sally, against the humanity of the d'apres son esprit, toujours juste et person who uttered it? Or rather, toujours sage. D'ailleurs, il avoit con- when connected with the characteris- senti sans peine a conserver cette repu- tical finesse of Fontenelle's wit, does it tation d'insensibilite ; il avoit souffert not lead to a conclusion precisely op- les plaisanteries de HPS societes sur sa posite? METAPHYSICS DURING 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 France, a similar progress was taking place, upon a larger scale, and under still more favourable circumstances, in England. To this progress nothing contributed more powerfully than the periodical papers published under various titles by Addison 1 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 Kestoration ; in recommending the most serious and important truths by the united attractions of wit, humour, imagination, and eloquence ; and, above all, in counteracting those superstitious terrors which the weak and ignorant are so apt to mistake for religious and moral impressions, has been remarked by numberless critics, and is acknowledged even by those who felt no undue partiality in favour of the authors. 2 Some of the papers of Addison, however, are of an order still higher, and bear marks of a mind which, if early and steadily turned to philosophical pursuits, might have accomplished much more than it ventured to undertake. His frequent references to the Essay on Human Understanding, and the high encomiums with which they are always accompanied, shew how successfully he had entered into the spirit of that work, and how completely he was aware of the importance of its object. The popular nature of his publications, indeed, which rendered it necessary for him to avoid everything that might savour of scholastic or of meta- physical discussion, has left us no means of estimating his phi- losophical depth, but what are afforded by the results of his thoughts on the particular topics which he has occasion to allude to, and by some of his incidental comments on the scientific merits of preceding authors. But these means are sufficiently ample to justify a very high opinion of his sound and unprejudiced judgment, as well as of the extent and 1 Born in 1672, died in 1719. book ii. epistle i. "Unhappy Dryden," * See 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. 1 But what chiefly entitles the name of Addison to a place in this Discourse, is his Essays on the Pleasures of Imagination, the first attempt in England to investigate the principles of the fine arts ; and an attempt which, notwithstanding many defects in the execution, is entitled to the praise of having struck out a new avenue to the study of the human mind, more alluring than any which had been opened before. In this respect, it forms a most important supplement to Locke's Survey of the Intellectual Powers ; and it has, accordingly, served as a text, on which the greater part of Locke's disciples have been eager to offer their comments and their corrections. The progress made by some of these in exploring this interesting region has been great ; but let not Addison be defrauded of his claims as a discoverer. Similar remarks may be extended to the hints suggested by Addison on Wit, on Humour, and on the causes of Laughter. It cannot, indeed, be said of him, that he exhausted any one of these subjects ; but he had at least the merit of starting them as problems for the consideration of philosophers ; nor would it be easy to name among his successors, a single writer who has 1 I quote the following passage from the like faculties, is for the better en- Addison, not as a specimen of his meta- abling us to express ourselves in such physical acumen, but as a pooof of his abstracted subjects of speculation, not good sense in divining and obviating a that there is any such division in the difficulty which I believe most persons soul itself." In another part of the will acknowledge occurred to themselves same paper, Addison observes, that when they first entered on metaphysi- " what we call the faculties of the soul cal studies : are only the different ways or modes in " Although we divide the soul into which the soul can exert herself." several powers and faculties, there is no Spectator, No. 600. such division in the soul itself, since it For some important remarks on the is the whole soul that remembers, un- words Powers and Faculties, as applied derstands, wills, or imagines. Our to the Mind, see Locke, book ii. chap, manner of considering the memory, xxi. 20. understanding, will, imagination, and METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 335 made so 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 modern metaphysicians, who were but ill entitled to erect themselves into judges on such a question. 1 The singular simplicity and perspicuity of Addison's style have 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 effect 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 1 See Note BR. 336 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. confined to the speculative few, are already current in every country of Europe, as proverbial maxims. 1 To touch, however slightly, on Addison's other merits, as a critic, as a wit, as a speculative politician, and, above all, as a moralist, 2 would lead me completely astray from my present object. It will not be equally foreign to it to quote the two following short passages, which, though not strictly 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 to the philosophy of Turgot and of Smith. " Among other excellent arguments for the immortality of the soul, there is one drawn from the perpetual progress of the soul to its perfection, without a possibility of ever arriving at it ; which is a hint that I do not remember to have seen opened and improved by others who have written on this subject, though it seems to me to carry a great weight with it. A brute arrives at a point of perfection that he can never pass. In a 1 The expressions " Laissez nous original sketches, there yet remains to faire," and "pas trop gouvemer," Addison the undisputed praise of invent- which comprise, in a few words, two of ing as well as of painting, by far the the most important lessons of Political finest features of the several portraits. Wisdom, are indebted chiefly for their This supposition, however, appears to extensive circulation to the short and me to ascribe to Steele a great deal too luminous comments of Franklin. See much. Is it conceivable, that Addison his Political Fragments, 4. should have promised his powerful aid 3 [Mr. Stewart in his proof had here in carrying on so great an undertaking, the words " and, above all, as the in- without taking a very anxious charge of ventor and painter of Sir Roger de Co- those prefatory discourses, on the happy verley." To this the following note was execution of which the success of the appended ; and both text and comment infant work was essentially to depend, were deleted merely in pencil, as if That Steele held the pen on this occa- doubtful of their propriety. Editor. sion is ascertained by the signature ; but In calling Addison the inventor of it seems impossible to doubt, that the Sir Roger de Coverley, I am perfectly great outline of the Dramatis Persona; aware, that the second number of the would be furnished by the writer, who Spectator, in which the different mem- of all Steele's associates, was alone bers of his Club are first introduced to equal to the task of filling up the parts the reader's acquaintance, is marked In the case of Sir Roger, more parti with the signature of Steele. But allow- cularly, this conclusion seems almost ing to Steele the whole merit of the to amount to a certainty.] METAPHYSICS JHJKING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKV. 337 few years he has all the endowments he is capable of; and were he to live ten thousand more, would be the same thing he is at present. Were a human soul thus at a stand in her ac- complishments, were her faculties to be full-blown, and incap- able of further enlargement, I would imagine it might fall away insensibly, and drop at once into a state of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking being, that is in a perpetual pro- gress of improvement, and travelling on from perfection 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 beginning of her inquiries ?" 1 The philosophy of the other passage is not unworthy of the author of the Wealth of Nations. The thought may be traced to earlier writers, but certainly it was never before presented with the same fulness and liveliness of illustration ; nor do I know, in all Addison's works, a finer instance of his solicitude for the improvement of his fair readers, than the address with which he here insinuates one of the sublimest moral lessons, while apparently aiming only to amuse them with the geogra- phical history of the muff and the tippet. " Nature seems to have taken a particular care to disseminate her blessings among the different regions of the world, with an eye to the mutual intercourse and traffic among mankind ; that the natives of the several parts of the globe might have a kind of dependence upon one another, and be united together by their common interest. Almost every degree produces something peculiar to it. The food often grows in one country, and the sauce in another. The fruits of Portugal are corrected by the products of Barbadoes ; the infusion of a China plant 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. 1 This argument has been prosecuted sics,) by the late Dr. James Hutton. with great ingenuity and force of reason- See his Investigation of the Principles ing, (blended, however, with some of the of Knowledge, vol. iii. p. 195, et seq. peculiaritieN of his Berkeleian metnphy- Edin. 1794. VOL. 1. Y 338 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. The muff and the fan coine 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, a Moka, dans le sable Arabique, Ce Gaffe necessaire aux pays des frimats ; II met la Fievre en nos climats, Et le remede en Amerique." Epitre au Roi de Prusse, 1750. And yet Voltaire is admired as a philosopher by many who will smile to hear this title bestowed upon Addison ! It is observed by Akenside, in one of the notes to the Plea- 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 Dry den 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. Hume, that "Addison will be read with pleasure when Locke shall be entirely forgotten." Essay on the Different Species of Philosophy. A few years before the commencement of these periodical works, a memorable accession was made to metaphysical science, by the publication of Berkeley's* New Theory of Vision, and of his Principles of Human Knowledge. Possessed of a mind which, however inferior to that of Locke in depth of reflection * [Born 1684; died 1753 Ed.} METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH 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 poets, his favourite author was Sir Kichard 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 Tory, 1 lived in habits of friendship with Steele and Addison, as well as with Pope and Swift. Pope's admiration of him seems to have risen to a sort of enthu- siasm. He yielded to Berkeley's decision on a very delicate question relating to the exordium of the Essay on Man ; and on his moral qualities he has bestowed the highest and most unqualified eulogy to be found in his writings. " Even in a Bishop I can spy desert ; Seeker is decent ; Bundle 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 metaphysical pursuits which they had never before acquired in England. Nor was this popularity diminished by the boldness of some of his paradoxes ; on the contrary, it was in no small degree the effect of them, the great bulk of mankind being always prone to mistake a singularity or eccentricity- of thinking for the originality of a creative genius. 1 See a volume of Sermons, preached and non-resistance as an essential article in the chapel of Trinity College, Dublin. of the Christian faith. "The Christian See also a Discourse addressed to Ma- religion makes every legal constitution gistrates, &c., printed in 1736. In both sacred, by commanding our submission of these publications, the author carries thereto. Let every soul be subject to the his Tory principles so far, as to repre- higher powers, saith St. Paul, for the sent the doctrine of passive obedience powers that be are ordained of God." 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. 1 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 faith. Of a theory, 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 later period, to draw the line between the original and the acquired perceptions of the eye. They who wish to study it in detail, will find ample satisfaction, and, if they have any relish for such studies, an inexhaustible fund of entertainment in Berkeley's own short but masterly exposition of his principles, and in the excellent comments upon it by Smith of Cambridge ; by Porterfield ; by Reid ; and, still more lately, by the author of the Wealth of Nations? That this doctrine, with respect to the acquired perceptions of sight, was quite unknown to the best metaphysicians of antiquity, we have direct evidence in a passage of Aristotle's Nicomachian 1 [* See Bayle, Art. Charron.] losophical Analysis that is to be found * By this excellent judge, Berkeley's in our own or any other language." -Yew Theory of Vision is pronounced to Essays on Philosophical Subjects. Loud. be "one of the finest examples of Phi- 1795, p. 215. * Restore.! Ed. METAPHYSICS DUKING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 341 Ethics, where he states the distinction between those endow- ments which are the immediate gift of nature, and those which are the fruit of custom and habit. In the former class, he ranks the perceptions of sense, mentioning particularly the senses of seeing and of hearing. The passage (which I have tran- scribed in a Note) is curious, and seems to me decisive on the subject. 1 The misapprehensions of the ancients on this very obscure question will not appear surprising, when it is considered, that forty years after the publication of Berkeley's Theory of Vision, and sixty years after the date of Locke's Essay, the subject was so imperfectly understood in France, that Condillac (who is, to this day, very generally regarded by his countrymen as the father of genuine logic and meta-physics) 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 Knoioledge. It is difficult to suppose, that a person of mature years, who had read and studied Locke and Berkeley with as much care and attention as Condillac appears to have bestowed on them, should have reverted to this ancient and vulgar pre- judice, without suspecting that his metaphysical depth has been somewhat overrated by the world. 2 It is but justice, 1 Ou yag in, r5 vtD.a.xis n d'un objet d'avec les couleurs de cet objet. Nous ne voyons jamais rien que d'etendu, et de-la nous sorumes tous poites a croire que nous voyons en effet 1'etendue." Phys. Newton, Par. ii. ch. 5. An attempt was made some years ago in a memoir published in the Philoso- phical Transactions, 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 colours, 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 friend when this memoir first appeared,) than if it had been alleged that a child had come into the world repeating the Athanasian creed."] * Restored. I'.rt. METAPHYSICS DURING 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 progress ; on the contrary, it supposes them already made ; and hence the origin of our disposition to believe them connate with ourselves. To say that we have learnt to see, to hear, to taste, to smell, to touch, appears a most extraordinary paradox. It seems to us that nature gave us the complete use of our senses the moment she formed them, and that we have always made use of them without study, because we are no longer obliged to study in order to use them. I retained these pre- judices at the time I published my Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge ; the reasonings of Locke on a man born blind, to whom the sense of sight was afterwards given, did not undeceive me : and / maintained against this philosopher that the eye judges naturally of figures, of sizes, of situations^ and of distances." Nothing short of his own explicit avowal could have convinced me, that a writer of so high pretensions and of such unquestionable ingenuity as Condillac, had really commenced his metaphysical career under so gross and unac- countable a delusion. In bestowing the praise of originality on Berkeley's Theory of Vision, I do not mean to say, that the ivhole 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 be more clear and forcible than the statement of Locke quoted in the Note below and what an idea does it convey 344 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. of his superiority to Condillac, when it is considered, that he anticipated & 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 ! l 1 " 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 difference of the sensible figure of bodies ; the judgment presently, by an habitual custom, alters the appearances into their causes, so that, from what truly is variety of shadow or colour, col- lecting the figure it makes it pass for a mark of figure, and frames 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 different 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 frequent 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 sounds, but of the ideas that are excit- ed in him by them. " Nor need we wonder that it is dona 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, however, have remarked something very similar to it in the perceptions of the ear ; a very large proportion of its appropriate objects being rather judged of than actually pcrci ifed. In the rapidity (for example) of common conversation, how many syllables, and even words, escape the notice of the most attentive hearer ; which syllables and words are so quickly supplied from the relation which they bear to the rest of the sentence, that it is quite impossible to distinguish between the audible and the inaudible sounds ! A very palpable instance of this occurs in the difficulty experienced by the most acute car in catching proper names or arithme- tical fums, or words borrowed from unknown tongues, the first time they are pronounced. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 345 1 believe it would be difficult to produce from any writer prior to Locke, an equal number of important facts relating to the intellectual phenomena, as well observed, and as unex- ceptionably described, as those which I have here brought under my reader's eye. It must appear evident, besides, to all who have studied the subject, that Locke has, in this passage, enunciated, in terms the most precise and decided, the same general conclusion concerning the effect of constant and early habits, which it was the great object of Berkeley's Theory of Vision to establish, and which, indeed, gives to that work its chief value, when considered in connexion with the Philosophy of the Human Mind. Berkeley himself, it is to be observed, by no means lays claim to that complete novelty in his Theory of Vision, which has been ascribed to it by many who, in all probability, derived their whole information concerning it from the traditional and inexact transcripts of book-making historians. In the intro- ductory sentences of his Essay, he states very clearly and candidly the conclusions of his immediate predecessors on this class of our perceptions ; and explains, with the greatest pre- cision, in what particulars his own opinion differs from theirs. " It is, I think, agreed by all, that distance, of itself, cannot be seen. For distance being a line directed end-wise to the eye, it projects only one point in the fund of the eye, which point remains invariably the same, whether the distance be longer or shorter. fleet on them. How, as it were in an escape our observations. How fre- instant, do our minds with one glance quently do we in a day cover our eyes see all the parts of a demonstration, with our eye-lids, without perceiving which may very well be called a long that we are at all in the dark ? Men one, if we consider the time it will re- that have by custom got the use of a quire to put it into words, and step by by-word, do almost in every sentence step shew it to another? Secondly, we pronounce sounds, which, though taken shall not be so much surprised that this notice of by others, they themselves is done in us with so little notice, if we neither hear nor observe ; and, there- consider how the facility which we get fore, it is not so strange, that our mind of doing things by a custom of doing should often change the idea of its sera- makes them often pass in us without sation into that of its judgment, and our notice. Habits, especially such as make one serve only to excite the other, are begun very early, come at last to without our taking notice of it." produce actions in us, which often Locke's Works, vol. i. p. 123, et seq. 34G 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 ; J or (to use his own phraseology) " by which 1 For assisting persons unaccustomed the best illustration I know of is fur- to metaphysical studies to enter into the nished by the phenomena of the Phan- and scope of Berkeley's Theory, taematforia. It is sufficient to hint at METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 347 distance is suggested 1 to the mind." The result of the whole is, that " a man horn blind, being made to see, would not at first have any idea of distance by sight. The sun and stars, the remotest objects as well as the nearest, luould all seem to be in his Eye, or rather in his Mind." 2 From this quotation it appears, that, before Berkeley's time, philosophers had advanced greatly beyond the point at which Aristotle stopped, and towards which Condi! lac, in his first pub- lication, made a retrograde movement. Of this 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. 1 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 Knowledge, 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, that one cannot easily con- ceive how the use of it was so long dis- pensed with. Locke (in the passage quoted in the Note, p. 344) uses the word excite for the same purpose ; but it seems to imply an hypothesis con- cerning the 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 incumbent 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 the 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 fxplain, by an example, what I under- stand by this word. We all know that a certain kind of sound suggests 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 produce this belief; nor is there the least similitude between the sound we hear, and the coach we imagine and believe to be passing." So far Dr. Reid's use of the word co- incides exactly with that of Berkeley ; but the former will be found to annex to it a meaning more extensive than the latter, by employing it to comprehend not only those intimations which are the result of experience and habit, but another class of intimations, (quite over- looked by Berkeley,) those which result from the original frame of the human mind. See Reid's Inquiry, chap. ii. sect. 7. 2 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 a conclusion, so very curious with respect to the objects of sight, should have been, in the first ardour of discovery, too hastily extended to those qualities also which are the appropriate objects of touch. 348 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. tury in the Optics of Alhazen ; ] and they uiay be perceived still more clearly and distinctly in various optical writers since the revival of letters ; particularly in the Optica Promota of James Gregory. 2 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, 3 I have ascribed to his predecessors nothing more than what he has himself explicitly acknowledged to belong to them. All that I wished to do was, to supply some links in the historical chain which he has omitted. The influence which this justly celebrated work has had, not only in perfecting the theory of optics, but in illustrating the astonishing effects of early habit on the mental phenomena in general, will sufficiently account to my intelligent readers for the length to which the foregoing observations upon it have extended. Next in point of importance to Berkeley's New Theory of 1 Alhazen, 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 was first published in 1709, and in regard to what had previously been done on the theory of the yision of distances, see Charleton's Physiologia, book iii. chap. 3, p. 164 ; Gassendi Opera, torn. iii. p. 455, seq. In 1733 Berkeley published The Theory of Vision, <$<:., Vindicated and Ex- plained, pp. 64, 8vo. An important tract, wholly unknown to his collectors, editors, and biogra- phers ; nay, as far as I am aware, to all historians of philosophy, physics, and psychology. This, jw we have leen, is not a singular case of oblivion in English philosophy. Ed .] METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 349 Vision, which I regard as by far the most solid basis of hia philosophical fame, may be ranked his speculations concerning the Objects of General Terms, and his celebrated argument against the existence of the Material World. On both of these questions I have elsewhere explained my own ideas so fully, that it would be quite superfluous for me to resume the con- sideration of them here. 1 In neither instance are his reason- ings so entirely original as has been commonly supposed. In the former they coincide in substance, although with immense improvements in the form, with those of the scholastic 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. Nonis, a very learned divine of the Church of England, whose name has un- accountably failed in obtaining that distinction to which his acuteness as a logician, and his boldness as a theorist, justly entitled him ! 2 The great object of Berkeley, in maintaining his system of 1 See Philosophical Essays. yields to them less in force of argument, 2 Another very acute metaphysician than in composition and variety of illus- of the same church (Arthur Collier, tration. The title of Collier's book is author of a Demonstration of the Non- " Clavis Universalis, or a New Inquiry existence and Impossibility of an Exter- after Truth, being a Demonstration, &c. nal World) has met with still greater &c. By Arthur Collier, Rector of Lang- injustice. His name is not to be found ford Magna, near Sarum. (Lond. printed in any of our Biographical Dictionaries. for Robert Gosling, at the Mitre and In point of date, his publication is some Crown, against St. Dunstan's Church, years posterior to that of Norris, and Fleet Street, 1713.") The motto pre- therefore it does not possess the same fixed by Collier to his work is from Male- claims to originality ; but it is far supe- branche, and is strongly characteristi- rior to it in logical closeness and preci- cal both of the English and French sion, and is not obscured to the same Inquirer after Truth. " Vulgi assensus degree with the mystical theology which et approbatio circa materiam difficilem Norris (after the example of Male- cst certum argumentum falsitatis istius branche) connected with the scheme of opinionis cui assentitnr." Maleb. De Idealism. Indeed, when compared with fnquir. Verlt. lib. iii. p. 194. See the writings of Berkeley himself, it Note SS. 350 DISSERTATION. 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 triumph in the world." Not satisfied with addressing these abstract speculations to the learned, Berkeley conceived them to be of such moment to human happiness, that he resolved to bring them, if possible, within the reach of a wider circle of readers, by throwing them into the more popular and amusing form of dialogues. 1 The skill with which he has executed this very difficult and un- 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 point of purity and of grammatical correctness, to any English composition of an earlier date. 2 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 1 I allude here chiefly to Alciphron, cepts from his encomium " those pas- or the Minute Philosopher ; for as to sages in the fourth dialogue, where the the dialogues between Hi/las and Phil- author has introduced his fanciful and onoM-s, they aspire to no higher merit whimsical opinions about vision." than that of the common dialogues be- (Essay on the Writings and Genius of tween A and B ; being merely a com- Pope, vol. ii. p. 284.) If I were called pendious way of stating and of obviat- on to point out the most ingenious and ing the principal objections which the original part of the whole work, it would author anticipated to his opinions. be the argument contained in the pas- sages here so contemptuously alluded to 1 Dr. Walton, after bestowing high by this learned and (on all questions of praise on the Minute Philosopher, ex- taste) most respectable critic. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 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 understood than by this club of young Scotsmen. 1 The ingeni- ous Dr. Wallace, author of the Discourse on the Numbers of Mankind, was one of the leading members ; and with him were associated several other individuals whose names are now well known and honourably distinguished in the learned world. Mr. Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, which was published in 1739, affords sufficient evidence of the deep impression which Berkeley's writings had left upon his mind ; and to this juvenile essay of Mr. Hume's may be traced the origin of the most important metaphysical works which Scotland has since produced. It is not, however, my intention to prosecute farther, at 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 modern 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. 1 The authority I here allude to is who was accustomed for many years to that of my old friend and preceptor, Dr. mention this fact in his Academical John Stevenson, who was himself a Prelections. member of the BanJcenian Club, and 352 DISSERT AT TON. PART SECONIX SECT. V. HARTLEIAN 7 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 been previously sown in the university where he was educated,) it was nevertheless reserved for him to combine them together, and to exhibit them to the world in the imposing form of a system. Among the immediate predecessors of Hartley, Dr. Law, afterwards Bishop of Carlisle, seems to have been chiefly 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. 1 In his own original speculations, he is weak, paradoxical, and oracular ; 2 1 King's argument in proof of the pre- jects are obscured by an affected use of valence in this world, both of Natural hard and unmeaning words, ill becom- and Moral Good, over the corresponding ing so devoted an admirer of Locke. Evils, has been much and deservedly The same remark may be extended to admired ; nor are Law's Notes upon an Inquiry into the Ideas of Space and this head entitled to less praise. In- Time, published by Dr. Law in 1734. deed, it is in this part of the work that The result of Law's speculations on both the author and his commentator Space and Time is thus stated by him- appear, in my opinion, to the greatest self: "That our ideas of them do not advantage. imply any external ideatum or objective 2 As instances of this I need only refer reality; that these ideas (as well as to the first and third of hisNotes onKing; those of infinity and number) are univer- the former of which relates to the word sal or abstract ideas, existing under substance, and the latter to the dispute that formality nowhere but in the mind; between Clarke and Leibnitz concern- nor affording a proof of anything, but of ing space. His reasonings on both sub- 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. Gay ; a performance of considerable ingenuity, but which would now be entitled to little notice, were it not for the influence it appears to have had in suggesting to Dr. Hartley the possi- bility of accounting for all our intellectual pleasures and pains, by the single principle of the Association of Ideas. We are informed by Dr. Hartley himself, that it was in consequence of hearing some account of the contents of this dissertation, he was first led to engage in those inquiries which produced his celebrated Theory of Human Nature. The other principle on which this theory proceeds, (that of the vibrations and 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 be found in the concluding sentence of Smith's Harmonies. Very nearly about the time when Hartley's Theory appeared, Charles Bonnet of Geneva published some speculations of his own, proceeding almost exactly on the same assumptions. Both writers speak of vibrations (6branlemens) in the nerves ; them." (Law's Trans, of King, p. 7, contributed not a little to force some 4th edit.) This language, as we shall authors into the opposite extreme of afterwards see, approaches very nearly maintaining, with Leibnitz and Dr. Law, to that lately introduced by Kant. that our idea of space does not imply Dr. Law's favourite author might have any external ideatum or objective reality, cautioned him against such jargon. Gravesande's words are these: " Sub- See Essay on the Human Understand- stantia; sunt aut cogitantes, aut non cogi- ing, book ii. chap. xiii. sect. 17, 18. tantes; cogitantes duas novimus, Deum The absurd application of the scholas- et Mentem nostram : praeter has et alias tic word substance to empty space ; an dari in dubium non revocamus. Duae absurdity in which the powerful mind etiam substantise, quae non cogitant, of Gravesande acquiesced many years nobis noise sunt Spatium et Corpus." after the publication of the Essay on Gravesande, Introd. ad PhilosopJiwm, Human Understanding, has probably sect. 19. VOL. I. Z 354 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. and both of them have recourse to a subtle and elastic ether, co-operating with the nerves in carrying on the communica- tion between soul and body. 1 This fluid Bonnet conceived to be contained in the nerves, in a manner analogous to that in which the electric fluid is contained in the solid bodies which conduct it; differing in this respect from the Cartesians as well as from the ancient physiologists, who considered the nerves as hollow tubes or pipes, within which the animal spirits were included. It is to this elastic ether that Bonnet ascribes the vibrations of which he supposes the nerves to be susceptible ; for the nerves themselves, (he justly observes,) have no resemblance to the stretched cords of a musical instru- ment. 2 Hartley's Theory differs in one respect from this, as 1 Essai Analytique de I'Ame, chap, v. See also the additional notes on the first chapter of the seventh part of the Contemplation de Ja Nature. s Mais les nerfs sont mous, ils ne sent point tendus comme les cordes d'un in- strument ; les objets y exciteroient-ils done les vibrations analogues a celle d'une corde pincee ? Ces vibrations se communiqueroient-elles a 1'instant au siege de I'ame ? La chose paroit diffi- cile a concevoir. Mais si 1'on adraet dans les nerfs un fluide dont la subti- lite et 1'elasticite approche de celle de la lumiere on de 1'ether, on expliqtiera fa- cilement par le secours de ce fluide, et la celerite avec laquelle les impressions se communiquent a I'ame, et celle avec laquelle 1'ame execute tant d'operations differentes." Essai Anal, chap v. " Au reste. les physiologistes qui avoi- ent cm que les filets nerveux etoient solides, avoient cede a des apparences trompeuses. Ils vouloient d'ailleurs faire osciller les nerfs pour rendre raison des sensations, et les nerfs ne peuvent osciller. Ils sont mous, et nullement elastiques. Un nerf coupe ne se retire point. C'est le fluide invisible que les nerfs renferment, qui est done de cette elasticite qu'on leur attribuoit, et d'une plus grande elasticite encore." Con- temp, de la Nature, vii. partie, chap i. Note at the end of the chapter. M. Quesnai, the celebrated author of the Economical System, has expressed himself to the same purpose concerning the supposed vibrations of the nerves: " Plusienrs physiciens ont pense que le seul ebranlement des nerfs, cause par les objets qui touchent les organes des corps, suffit pour occasioner le mouve- ment et le sentiment dans les parties ou les nerfs sont ebranles. Ils se repre- sentent les nerfs comme des cordes fort tendus, qu'un leger contact met en vi- bration dans toute leur etendue. Des philosophes, peu instructs en anatomie, ont pu se former une telle idee. . . . Mais cette tension qu'on suppose dans les nerfs, et qui les rend si susceptibles d'ebranlement et de vibration, est si grossierement imaginee qu'il seroit ridi- cule de s'occuper serieusement a la re- fnter." Econ. Animate, sect. 3, c. 13. As this passage from Quesnai is quot- ed by Condillac, and sanctioned by his authority, ( Traite des Animaux, chap, iii.,) it would appear that the hypothesis which supposes the nerves to perform their functions by means of vibrations was going fast into discredit, both METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 355" he speaks of vibrations and vibratiuncles in the medullary substance of the brain and nerves. He agrees, however, with Bonnet in thinking, that to these vibrations in the nerves the co-operation of the ether is essentially necessary ; and, there- fore, at bottom the two hypotheses may be regarded as in sub- stance the same. As to the trifling shade of difference between them, the advantage seems to me to be in favour of Bonnet. ISTor 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 cannot be said of either, that his metaphysical writings have contributed much to the instruction or to the improvement of the public. On the contrary, they have been instrumental in spreading a set of speculative tenets very nearly allied to that - sentimental and fanatical modification of Spinozism which, for many years past, has prevailed so much, and produced such mischievous effects in some parts of Germany. 1 among the metaphysicians and the phy- declares for the indifference of the will, siologists of France, at the very time as maintained by Archbishop King." when it was beginning to attract notice We are told by Hartley himself that his in England, in consequence of the vi- notions upon necessity grew upon him sionary speculations of Hartley. while he was writing his observations 1 In a letter which I received from upon man ; but it is curious, (as Dr. Dr. Parr, he mentions a treatise of Dr. Parr remarks,) that in the course of a Hartley's which appeared about a year year his opinions on so very essential a before the publication of his great work, point should have undergone a complete to which it was meant by the author to change. serve as a precursor. Of this rare trea- [* Of this first work of Hartley's, as tise I had never before heard. "You previously stated, I had never heard will be astonished to hear," says Dr. before ; and from the manner in which Parr, " that in this book, instead of the Dr. Parr writes of it, I presume it is doctrine of necessity, Hartley openly very little known even in England. * Restored. I may also mention, that the collection here referred to, and which was printed previously to Dr. Parr's death, has since been published by Mr. Lumley. Ed. 356 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. But it is chiefly by his application of the associating principle to account for all the mental phenomena, that Hartley is known to the world ; and upon this I have nothing to add to what I have already stated in another work. (Phil. Essays, Essay IV.) His theory seems to be already fast passing into oblivion ; the temporary popularity which it enjoyed in this country having, in a great measure, ceased with the life of its zealous and inde- fatigable apostle, Dr. Priestley. 1 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 is sufficient, of itself, to draw a strong line of distinction between his Ethical System and theirs. (See his Notes on King, passim.} But I must be allowed to say of him, that the general scope of his writings tends, in common with that of the two other meta- physicians, to depreciate the evidences of Natural Religion, and more especially to depreciate the evidences which the light of nature affords of a life to come ; "a doctrine equally necessary to comfort the weakness, and to support our lofty ideas of the grandeur of human nature ;" 2 and of which it seems hard to confine exclusively the knowledge to that portion of mankind who have been favoured with the light of Revelation. The influence of the same fundamental error, arising, too, from the (June 1820.) I am glad to add that a ful light upon the theory of the mind, republication of it, and of some other than Newton did upon the theory of the rare tracts on metaphysical subjects, natural world." Remarks on Meid, may soon be expected from this illus- Beattie, and Oswald, p. 2. London, trious scholar and philosopher. Among 1774. these tracts it gives me particular plea- * Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, sure to mention the Clams Universalis 6th ed. vol. i. pp. 325, 326. of Arthur Collier, of which I had pre- Dr. Law's doctrine of the sleep of the viously occasion to take notice in speak- soul, to which his high station in the ing of the Idealism of Bishop Berkeley. church could not fail to add much weight See p. 349 of this Dissertation.] in the judgment of many, is, I believe, 1 Dr. Priestley's opinion of the merits now universally adopted by the followers of Hartley's work is thus stated by him- of Hartley and Priestley ; the theory of self: " Something was done in this vibrations being evidently inconsistent field of knowledge by Descartes, very with the supposition of the soul's being much by Mr. Locke, but most of all by able to exercise her powers in a separate Dr. Hartley, who has thrown more use- state from the body. METAPHYSICS DURING 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 LlandaiF. 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. 1 Among the disciples of Law, one illustrious exception to these remarks occurs in Dr. Paley, whose treatise on Natural Theology is unquestionably the most instructive as well as interesting publication on that subject which has appeared in our times. As the book was intended for popular use, the author has wisely avoided, as much as possible, all metaphysical 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. 1 Without entering at all into the argument with Dr. Law or his followers, it is sufficient here to mention, as a his- torical fact, 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 God and his perfec- tions, insomuch that Divine Revelation itself does suppose these for its founda- 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 good 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 88.) " Natural religion is obedience to the natural law, and the performance of such duties as natural light, without any express and supernatural revelation, doth dictate to men. These lie at the bottom of all religion, and are the great fundamental duties which God requires of all man- kind. These are the surest and most sacred of all other laws ; those which God hath ri vetted in our souls and writ- ten upon our hearts ; and these are what we call moral duties, and most valued by God, which are of eternal and perpe- 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 suppose them and build upon them." Sermons 48, 49. 358 DISSERTATION. PART SECON D. SECT. VI. CONDILLAC, AND OTHER FRENCH METAPHYSICIANS OF A LATER BATE. WHILE Hartley and Bonnet were indulging their imagination in theorizing concerning the nature of the union between soul and body, Condillac was attempting to draw the attention of his countrymen to the method of studying the phenomena of Mind recommended and exemplified by Locke. 1 Of the vanity of expecting to illustrate, by physiological conjectures, the man- ner in which the intercourse between the thinking principle and 1 It may appear to some unaccount- able that no notice should have been taken, in this Dissertation, of any French metaphysician during the long interval between Malebranche and Condillac. As an apology for this apparent omis- sion, I beg leave to quote the words of an author intimately acquainted with the history of French literature and phi- losophy, and eminently qualified to ap- preciate the merits of those who have contributed to their progress. " If we except," says Mr. Adam Smith, in a Memoir published in 1755, " the Medi- tations of Descartes, I know of nothing in the works of French writers which aspires at originality in morals or meta- physics ; for the philosophy of Eegis and that of Malebranche are nothing more than the meditations of Descartes unfolded with more art and refinement. But Hobbes, Locke, Dr. Mandeville, Lord Shaftesbury, Dr. Butler, Dr. Clarke, and Mr. Hutcheson, each in his own system, all different and all incompatible, have tried to be original, at least in some points. They have attempted to add something to the fund of observations collected by their predecessors, and already the com- mon property of mankind. This branch of science, which the English themselves neglect at present, appears to have been recently transported into France. I dis- cover some traces of it not only in the Encydopedie, but in the Theory of Agreeable /Sensations, by M. de Pouilly ; and much more in the late discourse of M. Rousseau, On the Origin and Foun- dation of the Inequality of Hanks among Men." Although I perfectly agree with Mr. Smith in his general remark on the sterility of invention among the French metaphysicians posterior to Descartes, when compared to those of England, I cannot pass over the foregoing quota- tion without expressing my surprise, 1st, To find the name of Malebranche (one of the highest in modern philosophy) degraded to a level with that of Regis ; and, 2dly, To observe Mr. Smith's silence with respect to BufEer and Con- dillac, while he mentions the author of the Theory of Ayreeable Sensations as a metaphysician of original genius. Of the merits of Condillac, whose most im- portant works were published several years before this paper of Mr. Smith's, I am about to speak in the text ; and those of Buffier I shall have occasion to mention in a subsequent part of this Discourse. In the meantime, I shall only say of him, that I regard him as one of the most original as well as sound philosophers of whom the eighteenth centurv has to boast. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 359 the external world is carried on, no philosopher seems ever to have been more completely aware ; and accordingly, he confines himself strictly, in all his researches concerning this intercourse, to an examination of the general laws by which it is regulated. There is, at the same time, a remarkable coincidence between some of his views and those of the other two writers. All of the three, while they profess the highest veneration for Locke, have abandoned his account of the origin of our ideas for that of Gassendi ; and by doing so have, with the best intentions, furnished arms against those principles which it was their com- mon aim to establish in the world. 1 It is much to be regretted, that by far the greater part of those French writers who have since speculated about the human mind, have acquired the whole of their knowledge of Locke's philosophy through this mistaken comment upon its fundamental principle. On this subject I have already exhausted all that I have to offer on the effect of Condillac's writings ; and I natter 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 universally received on the Continent as the doctrine of Locke, and which may justly be regarded as the sheet-anchor of those systems which are commonly 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 his account of the 1 Condillac's earliest work [which speculations of Condillac and of Bonnet, was published in 1746] appeared three in their fanciful hypothesis of an ani- years before the publication of Hartley's mated statue, to illustrate the progress Theory. It is entitled, " Essai sur T Orl- of the mind in acquiring its ideas through gine des Connoissances Humaines. Ou- the medium of the different senses. The vrage ou Von reduil a un seul principe hypothesis is plausible, and does honour tout ce qui concerne I'entendement hu- to the ingenuity of its authors ; but, in main." This seul principe is the asso- my opinion, it throws additional dark- ciation of ideas. The account which ness on the difficulties it was intended both authors give of the transformation to elucidate. At any rate, it is of too of sensations into ideas is substantially little moment to deserve particular no- the same. [* A still more curious co- tk-e here.] incidence may be remarked between the * Restored. Ed. 3GO 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." 1 Among such a people, speculations which are addressed to the power of reflection can never expect to acquire the same popularity with theories expressed in a metaphorical language, and constantly recalling to the fancy the impressions of the external senses. The state of society in France, accordingly, is singularly unfavourable to the inductive philosophy of the human mind ; and of this truth no proof more decisive can be produced, than the admiration with which the metaphysical writings of Condillac have been so long regarded. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that Condillac has, in many instances, been eminently successful, both in observing and describing the mental phenomena ; but, in such cases, he 1 " En France, on ne lit guere un mark, I am much afraid, is becoming onvrage que pour en parler." (AUe- daily more and more applicable to our mngne, torn. i. p. 292.) The same re- own island. METAPHYSICS DURING 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 little enhances their value) they have been instrumental in recommending 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 reflect 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, 1 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 Kousseau, 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 Kousseau, " 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." 2 " But," continues the same author, " when, by means ivhich 1 [* Dissertation on the Origin of which gives to Rousseau's remark that Language; annexed to the Theory of imposing plausibility, which, at first Moral Sentiments] sight, dazzles and perplexes the judg- a 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 att not possessed a natural language, is the difficulties 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 ant step towards their solution. * Restored. Ed. 362 ' DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. / cannot conceive., our new grammarians began to extend tlieir 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 Kousseau, " 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?'" 1 Of the various difficulties here enumerated, that mentioned by Eousseau, in the last sentence, was plainly considered by him as the greatest of all ; or rather as comprehending under it all the rest. But this difficulty arises merely from his own peculiar and paradoxical theory about the artificial origin of society ; a theory which needs no refutation, but the short and luminous aphorism of Montesquieu, that " man is born in society, and there he remains." The other difficulties touched upon by Kousseau, 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 1 Discours sur VOrigine et les Fondemens de ringdlii6 parmi les Hommcs. 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. 1 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." 2 1 The same theory has been extended of comment, the following reflections of to the art of writing ; but if t his art was one of the most learned prelates of the first taught to man by an express reve- English Church : " Man, we are told, lation from Heaven, what account can had a language from the beginning ; be given of its present state in the great for he conversed with God, and gave to empire of China ? Is the mode of every animal its particular name. But writing practised there of divine or of how came man by language ? He must human origin? either have had it from inspiration, [* As to oral language I am at a loss ready formed from his Creator, or have to conceive how the doctrine maintain- derived it by the exertion of those facul- ed by Dr. Magee and M. de Bonald can ties of the mind, which were implanted be reconciled with the Scripture account in him as a rational creature, from na- of the tower of Babel, or even with what tural and external objects with which we are told of the arbitrary names as- he was surrounded. Scripture is silent signed by Adam to the beasts of the on the means by which it was acquired, field and the fowls of the air.] We are not, therefore, warranted to 2 Principles of Moral and Political affirm, that it was received by inspira- Science, vol. i. p. 43. Edin. 1792. To tion, and there is no internal evidence this observation may be added, by way in language to lead us to such a suppo- * Restored. Ed. 364 DISSERTATION. PAKT SECOND. With respect to some of the difficulties pointed out by Rous- seau and his commentators, it may be here remarked in pass- ing, (and the observation is equally applicable to various passages in Mr. Smith's dissertation on the same subject,) that the diffi- culty of explaining the theory of any of our intellectual opera- tions affords no proof of any difficulty in applying that operation to its proper practical purpose ; nor is the difficulty of explain- ing the metaphysical nature of any part of speech a proof, that, in its first origin, it implied any extraordinary effort of intellec- tual capacity. How many metaphysical difficulties might be raised about the mathematical notion of a line ? And yet this notion is perfectly comprehended by every peasant, when he speaks of the distance between two places ; or of the length, breadth, or height of his cottage. In like manner, although it may be difficult to give a satisfactory account of the origin and import of such words as of or by, we ought not to conclude, that the invention of them implied any metaphysical knowledge in the individual who first employed them. 1 Their import, we eition. On this side, then, of the ques- of Antiquities, by Dr. Burgess, 2d edit, tion, we have nothing but uncertainty ; Oxford, 1782. Pp. 85, 86. but on a subject, the causes of which It is farther remarked very sagaci- are so remote, nothing is more conve- ously, and I think very decisively, by nient than to refer them to inspiration, the same author, that " the supposition and to recur to that easy and compre- of man having received a language hensive argument, ready formed from his Creator, is v , , actually inconsistent with the evidence A/; d tr&liiTi pov\n- , . " . . ., , . , . of the origan 01 our ideas, which exists that is, man enjoyed the great privilege in language. For, as the origin of our of speech, which distinguished him at ideas is to be traced in the words first,- and still continues to distinguish through which the ideas are conveyed, him as a rational creature, so eminently so the origin of language is referable to from the brute creation, without exert- the source from whence our (Jirst) ideas ing those reasoning faculties, by which are derived, namely, natural and exter- he was in other respects enabled to raise nal objects." Ibid. pp. 83, 84 himself so much above their level. In- 1 In this remark I had an eye to the spiration, then, seems to have been an following passage in Mr. Smith's disser- argument adopted and made necessary tation: " It is worth while to observe, by the difficulty of accounting for it that those prepositions, which, in modem otherwise ; and the name of inspiration languages, hold the place of the ancient r-arries with it an awfulncss, which for- cases, are, of all others, the most general, bids the. unhallowed approach of inqui- and abstract, and metaphysical ; and, of sitive discussion." Essay on the Study consequence, would probably be the last 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 this amazing fabric of language, which, when raised to its height, appears so much above what could be ascribed to any simultaneous effort of the most sublime and comprehensive abilities." 1 invented. Ask any man of common acuteness, what relation is expressed by the preposition above ? He will readily answer, that of superiority. By the preposition below ? He will as quickly reply, that of inferiority. But ask him what relation is expressed by the prepo- sition of? 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." 1 The following judicious reflections, with which M. Eaynouard concludes the introduction to his Elemens de la Lan- f/ue Romane, may serve to illustrate some of the above observations. The modification of an existing language is, I acknowledge, 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 of the other. " La langue Romune est peut-etre la seule a la formation de laquelle il soit permis de remonter ainsi, pour decouvrir et expliquer le secret de son industrieux mecanisme. . . . J'ose dire que 1'esprit philosophique, consulte sur le choix des moyens qui devraient epargner a 1'ignor- ance beaucoup d'etudes penibles et fas- tidieux, n'eut pas ete aussi heureux que 1'ignorance elle-meme ; il est vrai qu'elle avoit deux grands maitres ; la NECESSITK et le TEMS. " En considerant a quelle epoque d'ignorance et de barbaric s'est forme et perfectionne ce nouvel idiome, d'apres des principes indiques seulement par 1'analogie et 1'euphonie, on se dira peut- etre comme je me le suis dit ; I'homme porte en soi-meme les principes d'une logique naturelle, d'un instinct regula- teur, que nous admirons quelquefois dans les enfans. Oui, la Providence nous a dote de la faculte indestructible et des moyens ingenieux d'exprimer, de com- muniquer, d'eterniser par la parole, et par les signes permanens ou elle se re produit, cette pensee qui est 1'un de nos plus beaux attributs, et qui nous dis- tingue si eminemment et si avantageuse- ment dans 1'ordre de' la creation." 36G DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. It is, however, less in tracing the first rudiments of speech, than in some collateral inquiries concerning the genius of differ- ent languages, that Condillac's ingenuity appears to advantage. Some of his observations, in particular, on the connexion of natural signs with the growth of a systematical prosody, and on the imitative arts of the Greeks and Romans, as distin- guished from those of the moderns, are new and curious ; and are enlivened with a mixture of historical illustration, and of critical discussion, seldom to be met with among metaphysical writers. But through all his researches, the radical error may, more or less, be traced, which lies at the bottom of his system ; l and Siemens de la Grammaire de la Lan- gue Bomane avant Van 1000. Pp. 104, 105. A Paris, 1816. In the theoretical history of language, it is more than probahle, that some steps will remain to exercise the ingenuity of our latest posterity. Nor will this ap- pear surprising, when we consider how impossible it is for us to judge, from our own experience, of the intellectual pro- cesses which pass in the minds of savages. Some instincts, we know, possessed both by them and by infants, (that of imitation, for example, and the use of natural signs,) disappear in by far the greater number of individuals, almost entirely in the maturity of their reason. It does not seem at all impro- bable, that other instincts connected with the invention of speech, may be confined to that state of the intellectual powers which requires their guidance ; nor is it quite impossible, that some latent capacities of the understanding may be evolved by the pressure of neces- sity. The facility with which infants surmount so many grammatical and metaphysical difficulties, seems to me to add much weight to these conjectures. In tracing the first steps of the inven- tion of language, it ought never to be forgotten, that we undertake a task more similar than might at first be supposed, to that of tracing the first operations of the infant mind. In both cases, we are apt to attempt an explanation from rea- son alone, of what requires the co-opera- tion of very different principles. To trace the theoretical history of geome- try, in which we know for certain, that all the transitions have depended on reagcming alone, is a problem which has not yet been completely solved. Nor has even any satisfactory account been hitherto given of the experimental steps by which men were gradually led to the use of iron. And yet how simple are these problems, when compared with that relating to the origin and progress of language ! 1 A remarkable instance of this occurs in that part of Condillac's Cours d' Etude, where he treats of the art of writing: "Vous savez, Monseigneur, comment les memes noms out etc trans- portes des objets qui tombent sous les sens a ceux qui les echappent. Vous avez remarque, qu'il y en a qui sont en- core en usage dans 1'un ct 1'autre accep- tation, et qu'il y en a qui sont devenus les noms propres des choses, dont ils avoient d'abord etc les signes figures. " Les premiers, tel que le mouvement de 1'ame, son penchant, sa reflexion, METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 3(57 hence it is that, with all his skill as a writer, he never elevates the imagination, or touches the heart. That he wrote with the best intentions, we have satisfactory evidence ; and yet hardly a philosopher can be named, whose theories have had more in- fluence in misleading the opinions of his contemporaries. 1 In donncnt un corps a des choscs qui n'en ont pas. Les seconds, tels que la pen- see, la volonte, le desir, ne peignent plus rien, et laissent aux idees abstraites cettc spiritualite qui les derobe aux sens. Mais si le langage doit etre 1'image de nos pensees, on a perdu beaucoup, lorsqu' oubliant la premiere signification des mots, on a efface jusqu'aux traits qu'ils donnoient aux idees. Toutes les langues sont en cela 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 examen, 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 ; pensee and coyitatio. 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 js, 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 world. 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. 1 A late writer, (M. de Bonald,) whose philosophical opinions, in general, agree nearly 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 1'esprit philosophique du dernier siecle, Pinfluence que Voltaire a prise sur 1'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 a la raillerie et a la frivolite ; Rousseau les a rendus chagrins et me- contens. . . . Condillac a encore plus fausse 1'esprit de la nation, parce que sa doctrine etoit enseignee dans les pre- mieres etudes a des jeunes gens qui n'avoient encore lu ni Rousseau ni Voltaire, et que la maniere de raisonner et la direction philosophique de 1'esprit s'etendent a tout." Reclterches Phil. torn. i. pp. 187, 188. The following criticism on the sup- posed perspicuity of Condillac's style is so just and philosophical, that I cannot refrain from giving it a place here : "Condillac est, ou paroit etre, clair et methodique ; mais il faut prendre garde que la clarte des pensees, comme la transparence des objets physiques, peut tenir d'un defaut de profondeur, et que la methode dans les ecrits, qui suppose la patience de 1'esprit, n'en prouve pas toujours la justesse ; et moins encore la fecondite. II y a aussi une clarte de style en quelque sorte toute materielle, qui n'est pas incompatible avec 1'obscu- rite dans les idees. Rien de plus facile a entendre que les mots de sensations tramformees dont Condillac s'est servi, parce que ces mots ne parlent qu'a 1'imngination, qui se figure a volonte 3G8 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. France, he very early attained to a rank and authority not in- ferior to those which have been so long and so deservedly as- signed to Locke in England ; and even in this country, his works have been more generally read and admired, than those of any foreign metaphysician of an equally recent date. The very general sketches to which I am here obliged to confine myself, do not allow me to take notice of various 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 Buff on, 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 brutes. 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 transformations et des changemens. apperfus quo dans ses demonstrations : Mais cette transformation, appliquee aux La route de la verite semble quelquefois operations de 1'esprit, n'est qu'un mot s'ouvrir devant lui, mais retenu par la vide de sens ; et Condillac lui-meme circonspection naturelle a nn esprit sans auroit etc bien embarrasse d'en donner chaleur, et intimide par la faiblesse de une explication satisfaisante. Ce philo- son propre systeme, il n'ose s'y engager." sophe me paroit plus heureux dans ses Ibid. torn. i. pp. 33, 34. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 369 animal any deep or comprehensive knowledge, are far from degrading him to an insentient and unconscious machine. In his account of the process by which the use of our 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 perceptive organs ; and although there are various parts of it which will not bear the test of a rigorous examination, it is impossible to read it without sharing in that admiration, with which we are told the author himself always regarded this favourite effusion of his eloquence. Nor are these the only instances in which Buffon has dis- covered the powers of a metaphysician. His thoughts on probabilities (a subject widely removed from his favourite studies) afford 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. 1 In his observations, too, on the peculiar nature of mathematical evidence, he has struck into a train of the soundest thinking, in which he has been very generally followed by our later logicians. 2 Some particular expressions in the passage I refer to are exceptionable ; but his remarks on what he calls Vfrites de Definition are just and important ; nor do I remember any modern writer of an earlier date who has touched on the same argument. Plato, indeed, and after him Proclus, had called the definitions of geometry Hypotheses ; an expression which may be considered as in- volving the doctrine which Buffon and his successors have more fully unfolded. 1 See his Essai d'Arithm&iqve z See the First Discourse prefixed to Morale. his Natural History, towards the end. VOL. I. 2 A 370 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. What the opinions of Buffon were on those essential ques- tions, which were then in dispute among the French philoso- phers, his writings do not furnish the means of judging with certainty. In his theory of Organic Molecules, and of Internal Moulds, he has been accused of entertaining views not very different from those of the ancient atomists ; nor would it perhaps be easy to repel the charge, if we were not able to oppose to this wild and unintelligible hypothesis the noble and elevating strain, which in general so peculiarly characterizes his descriptions of nature. The eloquence of some of the finest passages in his works has manifestly been inspired by the same sentiment which dictated to one of his favourite authors the following just and pathetic reflection : " Le spectacle de la nature, si vivant, si anime pour ceux qui reconnoissent un Dieu, est mort aux yeux de 1'athee, et dans cette grande har- monie des etres ou tout parle de Dieu d'une voix si douce, il n'aperoit qu'un silence eternel." 1 I have already mentioned the strong bias towards material- ism which the authors of the Encylopfrdie derived from Condil- lac's comments upon Locke. These comments they seem to have received entirely upon credit, without ever being at pains to compare them with the original. Had D'Alembert exercised freely his own judgment, no person was more likely to have perceived their complete futility ; and, in fact, he has thrown out various observations which strike at their very root. Not- withstanding, however, these occasional glimpses of light, he 1 Rousseau. In a work by Herault told) is in the handwriting of Buffon's de Sechelles, (entitled Voyages a Mont- son, who describes his father as then bar, contenant des details ires interes- too weak to hold the pen. Melanges sans sur le caractere, la personne, et les extraits des Manuscrits de Madame ecrits de Buffon, Paris, 1801,) a very Necker. 3 vols., Paris, 1788. different idea of his religious creed is The sublime address to the Supreme given from that which I have ascribed Being, with which Buffon closes his to him ; but, in direct opposition to this reflections on the calamities of war, statement, we have a letter, dictated by seems to breathe the very soul of Fene- Buffon, on his death-bed, to Madame Ion. "Grand Dieu! dont la seule pre- Necker, in return for a present of her sence soutient la nature et maintient husband's book, On the Importance of 1'harmonie des loix de 1'univers," &c. Religions Opinions. The letter (we are &c. &c. 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 I'Esprit, 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, 1 the causes of the inferiority of the souls 1 In combating the philosophy of Hel- vetius, La Harpe (whose philosophical opinions seem, on many occasions, to have been not a little influenced by 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 former as the productive causes of the latter. (Cours de Litterature, tome xv. pp. 348, 349.) But that this is by no means reconcil- able with the 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 systeme que toutes nos con- noissances vicnnent des sens, rien n'est plus aise que de se faire une notion exacte des idces. Car elles ne sont que des sensations ou des portions extraites de quelque sensation pour etre consi- derees a part ; ce qui produit deux sortes d'idees, les sensibles et les ab- straites." (Traite des Systemes, chap, vi.) " Puisque nous avons vu que le souvenir n'est qu'une maniure de sentir, c'est une consequence, que les idces in- tellectuelles ne different pas essentielle- ment des sensations memes." (Traite des Sensations, chap. viii. 33.) Is not this precisely the doctrine and even the language of Helvetius ? In the same passage of the Lycee, from which the above quotation is taken from La Harpe, there is a sweeping judgment pronounced on the merits of Locke, which may serve as a specimen of the author's competency to decide on metaphysical questions : " Locke a prouve autant qu'il est possible a 1'hom- me, que 1'ame est une substance simple et indivisible, et par consequent inima- terielle. Cependant, il ajoute, qu'il n'oseroit affirmer que Dieu ne puisse douer la maticre de peusee. Condillac est de son avis sur le premier article, et le combat sur le second. Je suis en- tierement de 1'avis de Condillac, et tons les bons metaphysicians conviennent gue c'est la seule inexactitude qu'on pvlnse relever dans Vouvraye, de Loci-'?. 1 " Cours de Litterature, tonie xv. p. 149. 372 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. of brutes to those of men, are to be sought for in the difference between them with respect to bodily organization. In illustra- tion of this remark he reasons as follows : " 1. The feet of ah 1 quadrupeds terminate either in horn, as those of the ox and the deer ; or in nails, as those of the dog and the wolf; or in claws, as those of the lion and the cat. This peculiar organization of the feet of these animals deprives them not only of the sense of touch, considered as a channel of information with respect to external objects, but also of the dexterity requisite for the practice of the mechanical arts. " 2. The life of animals, in general, being of a shorter 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 armed and better clothed by nature than the human species, 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 surprise their prey. " 4. The lower animals compose a society that flies from man, who, by the assistance of weapons made by himself, is become formidable to the strongest amongst them. " 5. Man is the most prolific and versatile animal upon earth. He is born and lives in every climate ; while many of the other animals, as the lion, the elephant, and the rhinoceros, are found only in a certain latitude. And the more any species of animals capable of making observations is multiplied, the more ideas and the greater ingenuity is it likely to possess. " But some may ask, (continues Helvetius,) why monkeys, whose paws are nearly as dexterous as our hands, do not make a progress equal to that of man ? A variety of causes (lie observes) conspire to fix them in that state of inferiority in which we find them: 1. Men are more multiplied upon the earth. 2. Among the different species of monkeys, there are few whose strength can be compared with that of man ; and, accordingly, they form only a fugitive society before the human race. 3. Monkeys being frugivorotis, have fewer wants, and, METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 373 therefore, less invention than man. Their life is shorter. And, finally, the organical structure of their bodies keeping them, like children, in perpetual motion, even after their desires are satisfied, they are not susceptible of lassitude, (ennui?) which ought to be considered (as I shall prove afterwards) as one of the principles to which the human mind owes its improvement. " By combining (he adds) all these differences between the nature of man and of beast, we may understand why sensibility and memory, though faculties common to man and to the lower animals, are in the latter only sterile qualities." 1 The foregoing passage is translated literally from a note on one of the first paragraphs of the book De I' Esprit ; and in the sentence of the text to which the note refers, the author trium- phantly asks, " Who can doubt, that if the wrist of a man had been terminated by the hoof of a horse, the species would still have been wandering in the forest ?" Without attempting any examination of this shallow and miserable theory, I shall content myself with observing, that it is not peculiar to the philosophers of modern France. From the Memorabilia of Xenophon it appears, that it was cur- rent among the sophists of Greece ; and the answer given it by Socrates is as philosophical 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 they may be removed from one place to another ; but to man they have also given the use of the hand. A tongue hath been bestowed on every other animal ; but what animal, 1 It is not a little surprising that, in defect in the organs of speech, as suf- the above enumeration, Helvetius takes ficiently appears from those tribes which no notice of the want of language in are possessed of the power of articula- the lower animals ; a faculty without tion in no inconsiderable degree. It which, the multiplication of individuals plainly indicates, therefore, some defect could contribute nothing to the improve- in those higher principles which arc ment of the species. Nor is this want connected with the use of artificial of language in the brutes owing to any signs. 374 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. except man, hath the power of making his thoughts intelligible to others ? " Nor is it with respect to the body alone that the gods have shown themselves bountiful to man. Who seeth not that he is as it were a god in the midst of this visible creation ? So far doth he surpass all animals whatever in the endowments of his body and his mind. For if the body of the ox had been joined to the mind of man, the invention of the latter would have been of little avail, while unable to execute his purposes with facility. Nor would the human form have been of more use to the brute, so long as he remained destitute of understand- ing. But in thee, Aristodemus, hath been joined to a wonderful soul, a body no less wonderful ; and sayst thou, after this, the gods take no care of me ? What wouldst thou then more to convince thee of their care ?" 1 A very remarkable passage to the same purpose occurs in Galen's Treatise, De Usu Partium. " But as of all animals man is the wisest, so hands are well fitted for the purposes of a wise animal. For it is not because he had hands that he is therefore wiser than the rest, as Anaxagoras alleged ; but because he was wiser than the rest that he had therefore hands, as Aristotle has most wisely judged. Neither was it his hands, but his reason, which instructed man in the arts. The hands are only the organs by which the arts are practised." 2 The contrast, in point of elevation, between the tone of French philosophy, and that of the best heathen moralists, was long ago remarked by Addison ; and of this contrast it would be difficult to find a better illustration than the passages which have just been quoted. The disposition of ingenious men to pass suddenly from one extreme to another in matters of controversy, has, in no in- stance, been more strikingly exemplified than in the opposite theories concerning the nature of the brutes, which successively became fashionable in France during the last century. While the prevailing creed of French materialists leads to the rejec- 1 }frs. Sarah FieMing's Translation. z Galen, De Usu Port., 1. 1. c. 3. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 375 tion of every theory which professes to discriminate the rational mind from the animal principle of action, it is well known that, but a few years before, the disciples of Descartes allowed no one faculty to belong to man and brutes in common, and even went so far as to consider the latter in the light of mere machines. To this paradox the author was probably led, partly by his anxiety to elude the objection which the faculties of the lower animals have been supposed to present to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and partly by the difficulty of reconciling their sufferings with the Divine Goodness. Absurd as this idea may now appear, none of the tenets of Descartes were once adopted with more implicit faith by some of the profoundest thinkers in Europe. The great Pascal ad- mired it as the finest and most valuable article of the Cartesian system ; and of the deep impression it made on the mind of Malebranche, a most decisive proof was exhibited by himself in the presence of Fontenelle. " M. de Fontenelle contoit," says one of his intimate friends, 1 " qu'un jour etant alle voir Male- branche aux PP. de TOratoire de la Hue St. Honore, une grosse chienne de la maison, et qui etoit pleine, entra dans la salle ou ils se promenoient, vint caresser le P. Malebranche, et se rouler a ses pieds. Apres quelques mouvemens inutiles pour la chasser, le philosophe lui donna un grand coup de pied, qui fit jetter a la chienne un cri de douleur, et a M. de Fontenelle un cri de compassion. Eh quoi (lui dit froidement le P. Male- branche) ne scavez vous pas bien que cela ne se sent point ?" On this point Fontenelle, though a zealous Cartesian, had the good sense to dissent openly from his master, and even to express his approbation of the sarcastic remark of La Motte, que cette opinion sur les animaux &oit une d^bauche de raison- nement. Is not the same expression equally applicable to the opposite theory quoted from Helvetius ? 2 1 The Abbe Trublet in the Mercure dame de la Sabliere, (liv. x. Fable i.) de Jtiittet, 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- . 2 In La Fontaine's Discours a Ma- ment (in spite of the fetters of rhyme) 376 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. From those representations of human nature which tend to assimilate to each other the faculties of man and of the brutes, the transition to atheism is not very wide. In the present in- stance, both conclusions seem to be the necessary corollaries of the same fundamental maxim. For if all the sources of our knowledge are to be found in the external senses, how is it possible for the human mind to rise to a conception of the Supreme Being, or to that of any other truth either of natural or of revealed religion ? To this question Gassendi and Condillac, it cannot be doubted, Avere both able to return an answer, which seemed to themselves abundantly satisfactory. But how few of the mul- titude are competent to enter into these refined explanations ? And how much is it to be dreaded, that the majority will embrace, with the general principle, all the more obvious con- sequences which to their own gross conceptions it seems ne- cessarily to involve ? Something of the same sort may be remarked in the controversy about the freedom of the human will. Among the multitudes whom Leibnitz and Edwards have made converts to the scheme of necessity, how compara- tively inconsiderable is the number who have acquiesced in their subtle and ingenious attempts to reconcile this scheme with man's accountableness and moral agency ? Of the prevalence of atheism at Paris, among the higher classes, at the period of which we are now speaking, the Memoirs and Correspondence of the Baron cle Grimm afford the most unquestionable proofs. 1 His friend Diderot seems to is stated, not only with his usual grace, vanced age in 1760. (He was chiefly but with singular clearness and preci- known as the author of very indifferent sion ; and considering the period when translations of Tasso and Ariosto.) It he wrote, reflects much honour on his is now, however, universally admitted philosophical sagacity. that Mirabaud had no share whatever 1 The Si/steme de la Nature (the in the composition of the Sijsteme cle la boldest, if not the ablest, publication of Nature. It has been ascribed to vari- the Parisian atheists) appeared in 1770. ous authors; nor am I quite certain, It bore on the title-page the name of that, among those who are most com- Mirabaud, a respectable but not very petent to form a judgment upon this eminent writer, who, after long filling point, there is yet a perfect unanimity. the office of perpetual secretary to the In one of the latest works which has French Academy, died at a very ad- reached this country from France, (the 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. 1 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 have been misled by taking for granted, that to speak lightly of final causes is, of itself, sufficient proof of atheism. That this is a very rash as well as uncharitable conclusion, no other proof is necessary than the manner in which final causes are spoken of by Des- cartes himself, the great object of whose metaphysical writings Correspondance inedite de Galiani, 1818,) it seems to be assumed by the editors, as an acknowledged fact, that it proceeded from the pen of the Baron d'Holbach. The Abbe Galiani having remarked, in one of his letters to Ma- dame Epinay, that it appeared to him to come from the same hand with the Christianisme Devoile and the Militaire Philosophe, the editors remark in a note, " On pent rend re homage a la sagacite de 1'Abbe Galiani. Le Christianisme Devoile est en effet le premier ouvrage philosophique du Baron d'Holbach. C'est en vain que la Biographie Uni- verselle nous as-sure, d'apres le temoig- nage de Voltaire, que 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 Universette, notwithstanding the incor- rectness with which it is charged in the foregoing passage, is not unworthy of the reader's attention, as it contains some very remarkable marginal notes on the Christianisme Devoile, 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 Systeme de la Nature, and also a work entitled La Morale et La Legislation Univer- sette, vol. i. pp. 210,211. According to the same author, the 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 recognise his hand in all the finest passages " Quel est 1'homme de lettres qui ne reconnait facilement, et dans le livre de 1 'Esprit et dans le systeme de la Nature, toutes les belles pages qui sent, qui ne peuvent etre que de Diderot." Correspondance du Baron Grimm.] 1 And yet Diderot, in some of his lucid intervals, seems to have thought and felt very differently. See Note T T. 378 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. plainly was, to establish by demonstration the existence of God. The following vindication of this part of the Cartesian philosophy has been lately offered by a French divine, and it may be extended with equal justice to Buifon and many others of Descartes's successors : " Quelques auteurs, et particuliere- ment Leibnitz, ont critique cette partie de la doctrine de Des- cartes ; rnais nous la croyons irreprochable, si on veut bien Tentendre, et remarquer que Descartes ne parle que des Fins totales de Dieu. Sans doute, le soleil par exemple, et les etoiles, ont ete faits pour rhomme, dans ce sens, que Dieu, en les creant, a eu en vue Tutilite de rhomme ; et cette utilite a ete sa fin. Mais cette utilite a-t-elle ete Tunique fin de Dieu ? Croit-on qu'en lui attribuant d'autres fins, on aifoibli- roit la reconnoissance de Thornine, et I'obligation ou il est de louer et de benir Dieu dans toutes ses oeuvres ? Les auteurs de la vie spirituelle, les plus mystiques meme, et les plus accredites, ne Tont pas cru." M. 1'Abbe Emery, Editor of the Thoughts of Descartes upon Religion and Morals, Paris, 1811, p. 79. As to the unqualified charge of atheism, which has been brought by some French ecclesiastics against all of their countrymen that have presumed to differ from the tenets of the Catholic Church, it will be admitted, with large allowances, by every candid Presbyterian, when it is recollected that some- thing of the same illiberality formerly existed under the com- paratively enlightened establishment of England. In the pre- sent times, the following anecdote would appear incredible, if it did not rest on the unquestionable testimony of Dr. Jortin : " I heard Dr. B. say in a sermon, if any one denies the unin- terrupted succession of bishops, I shall not scruple to call him a downright atheist. This, when I was young (Jortin adds) was sound, orthodox, and fashionable doctrine." Tracts, vol. i. p. 436. 1 1 See Note U U. Athei Detecti, by a very learned Jesuit, Of the levity and extravagance with Father Hardouin: (see his Opera which such charges have sometimes Varia Posthuma, Amsterdam, 1733, in been brought forward, we have a re- fol.) where, among a number of other markable instance in a tract entitled names, re to be found those of Jan- METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 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. 1 senius, Descartes, Malebranche, Ar- phie UniverseUe, Articles Marshal, nauld, Nicole, and Pascal. Large addi- Lalande. tions, on grounds equally frivolous, have [* In the article Lalande, (subscribed been made in later times, to this list, by by the respectable name of Delambre,) authors who, having themselves made the following characteristical trait is profession of Atheism, were anxioiis, mentioned: "Dans ses dernieres annees, out of vanity, to swell the number of et des 1789, Lalande affectaitde manger their sect. Of this kind was a book avec delices des arraignees et des che- published at Paris, under some of the nilles. II s'en vantait comme d'un revolutionary governments, by Pierre trait philosophique."] Sylvain Marechal, entitled Dictionnaire * " Is there no danger that all this des Athe.es. Here we meet with the may raise somewhat like that levelling names of St. Chrysostom, St. Augustin, spirit, upon atheistical principles, which, Pascal, Bossuet, Fenelon, Bellarmin, in the last age, prevailed upon enthusi- Labruyere, Leibnitz, and many others astic ones ? Not to speak of the possi- not less unexpected. This book he is bility, that different sorts of people may said to have published at the suggestion unite in it upon these contrary princi- of the celebrated astronomer Lalande, pies." Sermon preached before the who afterwards published a supplement House of Lords, January 30, 1741. to the Dictionary, supplying the omis- As the fatal effects of both these ex- sions of the author. See the Biogra- tremes have, in the course of the two * Restored. Ed. 380 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. Nearly about the time that the Encyclopedic was undertaken, another set of philosophers, since known by the name of Econo- mists, formed themselves into an association for the purpose of enlightening the public on questions of political economy. The object of their studies seemed widely removed from all abstract discussion ; but they had, nevertheless, a metaphysical system of their own, which, if it had been brought forward with less en- thusiasm and exaggeration, might have been useful in counter- acting the gloomy ideas then so generally prevalent about the order of the universe. The whole of their theory proceeds on the supposition that the arrangements of nature are wise and benevolent, and that it is the business of the legislator to study and co-operate with her plans in all his own regulations. With this principle, another was combined, that of the indefinite im- provement of which the human mind and character are suscep- tible ; an improvement which was represented as a natural and necessary consequence of wise laws, and which was pointed out to legislators as the most important advantage to be gained from their institutions. These speculations, whatever opinion may be formed of their solidity, are certainly as remote as possible from any tendency to atheism, and still less do they partake of the spirit of that philosophy which would level man with the brute creation. With their practical tendency in a political view we are not at present concerned ; but it would be an unpardonable omission, after what has been just said of the metaphysical theories of the same period, not to mention the abstract principles involved in the Economical System, as a remarkable exception to the gen- eral observation. It may be questioned, too, if the authors of this system, by incorporating their ethical views with their poli- last centuries, been exemplified on so suddenly from one extreme to another, gigantic a scale in the two most civilized it is at least possible that the strong re- countries of Europe, it is to be hoped action produced by the spirit of impiety that mankind may in future derive some during the French Revolution may, in salutary admonitions from the experi- the first instance, impel the multitude ence of their predecessors. In the mean- to something approaching to the puri- timc, from that disposition common both tanical fanaticism and frenzy of the to the higher and lower orders to pass Cromwellian Commonwealth. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 381 tical disquisitions, did not take a more effectual step towards discountenancing the opinions to which they were opposed, than if they had attacked them in the way of direct argument. 1 On the metaphysical theories which issued from the French press during the latter half of the last century, I do not think it necessary for me to enlarge, after what I have so fully stated in some of my former publications. To enter into details with respect to particular works would be superfluous, as the remarks made upon any one of them are nearly applicable to them all. The excellent writings of M. Prevost and of M. Degerando, will, it is to be hoped, gradually introduce into France a sounder taste in this branch of philosophy. 2 At present, so far as I am acquainted with the state of what is called Ideologic in that country, it does not appear to me to furnish much matter either for the instruction or amusement of my readers. 1 For some other observations on the trop a I'homme machine, et Condillac est Ethical principles assumed in the Eco- modifie ou meme combattu sur quelques nomical System, see Elements of the points, par tous ceux qui s'en servent Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. ii. encore dans 1'enseignement philosophi- chap. iv. sect. 6, % 1, towards the end. que." Eecherches Philosopliiqites, &c., * Some symptoms of such a reforma- par M. de Bonald, torn. i. pp. 34, 35. tion are admitted already to exist, by an [f To the same author we are indebted author decidedly hostile to all philosophi- for the following anecdote : " Vous pre- cal systems. "Bacon, Locke, Condillac, tendez quepenser est sentir," disoit M. cherchoient dans nos sens 1'origine de le Comte de Segur, President de 1'In- nos idees ; Helvetius y a trouve nos idees stitut, repondant a M. Destutt Tracy elles-memes. Juyer, selon, ce philosophe, (1'ami de M. Cabanis et 1'analyste de son n'est outre chose que sentir .* Aujour- ouvrage) c'est la votre principe, et la d'hui les bons esprits, eclaires par les base de votre systeme. Mais un senti- evenemens sur la secrete tendance de ment qui resiste a tous les raisonne- toutes ces opinions, les ont soumises a mens ne consentira pas facilement a vous un examen plus severe. La transformer 1'accorder." (Ibid. p. 337.) The ob- tion des sensations en idees ne paroit jection to the definition is decisive, and plus qu'un mot vide de sens. On trouve is indeed the only one which Locke or que I'homme statue ressemble un pen Reid could have stated.] * I was somewhat surprised, in looking over very lately the Prineipia of Descartes, to find (what had formerly escaped me| that the mode of speaking objected to in the above paragraph may plead in its favour the authority of that philosopher : " Cogitationis nomine, intelligo ilia omnia, quae nobis consciix in nobis fiunt, quatenus eorum in nobis conscientia est : Atque ita non modo intelligere, Telle, imaginari, sed etiam sentire, idem est hie quod cogitare." (Princip. Phil. p. 2.) Dr. Reid, too, has said that " the sensation of colour is a sort of thought," [Inquiry, chap. vi. 4 ;) but no names, how great soever, can sanction so gross an abuse of language. After all, there is some difference between saying, that sensation is a sort of thought, and that thought is a sort of sensation, f Restored. Ed. 382 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. The works of Kousseau have, in general, too slight a con- nexion with metaphysical science, to come under review in this part of my discourse. But to his Emile, which has been re- garded as a supplement to Locke's Treatise on Education, some attention is justly due, on account of various original and sound suggestions on the management of the infant mind, which, among many extravagances, savouring strongly both of in- tellectual and moral insanity, may be gathered by a sober and discriminating inquirer. The estimate of the merits of this work, formed by Mr. Gray, appears to me so just and impar- tial, that I shall adopt it here without a comment. " I doubt/' says he, in a letter to a friend, " you have not yet read Kousseau's Emile. Everybody that has children should read it more than once ; for though it abounds with his usual glorious absurdity, though his general scheme of education be an impracticable chimera, yet there are a thousand lights struck out, a thousand important truths better expressed than ever they were before, that maybe of service to the wisest men. Particularly, I think he has observed children with more atten- tion, knows their meaning, and the working of their little pas- sions, better than any other writer. As to his religious discus- sions, which have alarmed the world, and engaged their thoughts more than any other parts of his book, I set them all at nought, and wish they had been omitted." Gray's Works by Mason, Letter 49. The most valuable additions made by French writers to the Philosophy of the Human Mind are to be found, not in their systematical treatises on metaphysics, but in those more popular compositions, which, professing to paint the prevailing manners of the times, touch occasionally on the varieties of intellectual character. In this most interesting and important study, which has been hitherto almost entirely neglected in Great Britain, 1 1 Many precious hints connected with have been expected from his habits of it may, however, he collected from the observation and extensive intercourse wiitings of Lord Bacon, and a few from with the world. The objects of Dr. those of Mr. Locke. It does not seem Reid's inquiries led him into a totally to have engaged the curiosity of Mr. different track. Hume in so great a degree as might Among German writers, Leibnitz has 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 1 and Duclos. 2 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 he 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 les Sciences; ou se montrent les differ- ences des Esprits, qui se trouvent parmi les hommes, et a quel genre de Science chacun est propre 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. 1 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. Soon after, he was attacked by the small-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 of his own unsophisticated reflections. Marmontel has given a most interest- ing picture of his social character: " En le lisant, je crois encore 1'entendre, et je ne sais si sa conversation n'avait pas rneme quelque chose de plus anime, 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 serenite inalterable derobait ses douleurs aux yeux de 1'amitie. Pour soutenir 1'adversite, on n'avoit besoin que de son exemple ; et temoin de 1'egalite 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 Funebre des Officiers qui sonl marts dans la Cruerre 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. a The work of Duclos, here referred 384 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. whom I have already very freely censured, that a variety of acute and refined observations on the different modifications of genius may be collected from the writings of Helvetius. The soundness of some of his distinctions may perhaps be ques- tioned; but even his attempts at classification may serve as useful guides to future observers, and may supply them with a convenient nomenclature, to which it is not always easy to find corresponding terms in other languages. As examples of this, it is sufficient to mention the following phrases : Esprit juste, Esprit borne, Esprit etendu, Esprit Jin, Esprit delie, Esprit de lumiere. The peculiar richness of the French tongue in such appropriate expressions, (a circumstance, by the way, w r hich not unfrequently leads foreigners to overrate the depth of a talkative Frenchman,) is itself a proof of the degree of attention which the ideas they are meant to convey have attracted in that coun- try among the higher and more cultivated classes. 1 The influence, however, of the philosophical spirit on the general habits of thinking among men of letters in France, was in no instance displayed to greater advantage, than in the numerous examples of theoretical or conjectural history, which appeared about the middle of last century. I have already mentioned the attempts of Condillac and others, to trace upon this plan the first steps of the human mind in the invention of language. The same sort of speculation has been applied with greater success to the mechanical and other necessary arts of civilized life ; 2 and still more ingeniously and happily to, has for its title, Considerations sur point of intellect. An observer of saga- les Mceurs de ce Siecle. Gibbon's opinion city equal to theirs might, I should of this work is, I think, not beyond its think, find a rich field of study in this merits : " L'ouvrage en general est bon. part of human nature, as well as in the Quelques chapitres (le rapport de 1'esprit other. et du caractere) me paroissent excel- 1 [* French Encyclopedic. On this lens." Extrait du Journal. subject consult La Harpe, torn. xv. I have said nothing of La Rochefou- p. 90, et seq.] cauld and La Bruyere, as their attention 2 Particularly by the President de was chiefly confined to manners, and to Goguet, in his learned work, entitled moral qualities. Yet many of their re- " De I' Oriyine des Lois, des Arts, et des marks show, that they had not wholly Sciences, et de leurs Progres chez les overlooked the diversities among men in Ancient Peoples." Paris, 1758. * Restored Ed. 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 D'Alembert. 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 present I shall only remark the common relation in which all such researches stand to the Philosophy of the Human Mind, and their common tendency to expand and to liberalize the views of those who are occupied in the more confined pursuits of the subordinate sciences. After what has been already said of the general tone of French philosophy, it will not appear surprising, that a system so mystical and spiritual as that of Leibnitz never struck its roots deeply in that country. A masterly outline of its 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 386 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. moral, (which accorded but too well with the philosophy pro- fessed by Grimm and Diderot,) have been long incorporated with the doctrines of the French materialists, and they have been lately adopted and sanctioned, in all their extent, by an author, the unrivalled splendour of whose mathematical genius may be justly suspected, in the case of some of his admirers, to throw a false lustre on the dark shades of his philosophical creed. 1 1 " Les evenemens actuals ont avee les precedens une liaison fondee sur le principe evident, qu'une chose ne peut pas comrnencer d'etre, sans une cause qui la produise. Get axiome, connu sous le nom de principe de la raison suffisante, s'etend aux actions meme que Ton juge indifferentes. La volonte la plus libre ne peut, sans un motif de- terminant, leur donner naissance ; car si, toutes les circonstances de deux posi- tions etant exactement semblables, elle agissoit dans 1'une et s'abstenoit d'agir dans 1'autre, son choix seroit un effet sans cause ; * elle seroit alors, dit Leib- nitz, le hazard aveugle des Epicuriens. L'opinion contraire est une illusion de 1'esprit qui perdant de vue les raisons fugitives du choix de la volonte dans les choses indifferentes, se persuade qu'elle s'est determinee d'elle meme et sans motifs. "Nous devons done envisager 1'etat present de 1'univers comme 1'effet de son etat anterieure, et comme la cause de celui qui va suivre. Une intelligence qui pour un instant donne connoitroit toutes les forces dont la nature est ani- mee, et la situation respective des etres qui la composent, si d'ailleurs elle etoit assez vaste pour soumettre ces donnees a Fanalyse, embrasseroit dans la meme formule, les mouvemens des plus grands corps de 1'univers et ceux du plus leger atome. Bien ne seroit incertain pour elle, et 1'avenir comme le passe, seroit present a ses yeux." Essai Philoso- phique sur les Probabilites, par Laplace. Is not this the veiy spirit of the Tlieodiccea of Leibnitz, and, when com- bined with the other reasonings in the Essay on Probabilities, the very essence of Spinozism ? This, indeed, is studiously kept by the author out of the reader's view ; and hence the. facility with which some of his propositions have been admitted by many of his mathematical disciples, who, it is highly probable, were not aware of the consequences which they necessarily involve. I cannot conclude this note without recurring to an observation ascribed in the above quotation from Laplace to Leibnitz, " that the blind chance of the Epicureans involves the supposition of an effect taking place without a cause." This, I apprehend, is a very incorrect statement of the philosophy taught by Lucretius, which nowhere gives the slightest countenance to such a suppo- sition. The distinguishing tenet of this sect was, that the order of the universe does not imply the existence of intelli- gent causes, but may be accounted for by the active powers belonging to the * The impropriety of this language was long ago pointed out by Mr. Hume. " They are still more frivolous who say, that every effect must have a cause, because it is implied in the very idea of effect. Every effect necessarily presupposes a cause; effect being a relative term, of which cause is the co-relative. The true state of the question is, whether every object, which begins to exist, must owe its existence to a cause ?" Treatise of Human Nature, vol. i. p. 1 47. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. 387 Notwithstanding, however, this important and unfortunate coincidence, no two systems can well be imagined more strongly contrasted on the whole, than the lofty metaphysics of Leib- nitz, and that degrading theory concerning the origin of our ideas, which has been fashionable in France since the time of Condillac. In proof of this, I have only to refer to the account of both, which has been already given. The same contrast, it would appear, still continues to exist between the favourite doctrines of the German and of the French schools. " In the French empiricism, (says a most impartial, as well as compe- tent judge, M. Ancillon,) the faculty of feeling, and the faculty of knowing, are one and the same. In the new philosophy of Germany, there is no faculty of knowing, but reason. In the former, taking our departure from individuals, we rise by degrees to ideas, to general notions, to principles. In the latter, beginning with what is most general, or rather with what is universal, we descend to individual existences, and to particular cases. In the one, what we see, what we touch, what we feel, are the only realities. In the other, nothing is real but what is invisible and purely intellectual." " Both these systems (continues M. Ancillon) result from the atoms of matter ; which active powers, jected, while shaken in the box. If I being exerted through an indefinitely am not mistaken, this Epicurean Theory long period of time, might produce, nay, approaches very nearly to the scheme, must have produced, exactly such a which it is the main object of the Essay combination of things, as that with on Probabilities to inculcate ; and, there- which we are surrounded. This, it is fore, it was not quite fair in Laplace to evident, does not call in question the object to the supposition of man's free necessity of a cause to produce every agency, as favouring those principles effect, but, on the contrary, virtually which he himself was labouring indirect- assumes the truth of that axiom. It ly to insinuate. only excludes from these causes the From a passage in Plato's Sophist, it attribute of intelligence. It is in the is very justly inferred by Mr. Gray, that, same way when I apply the words according to the common opinion then blind chance (hazard aveugle) to the entertained, " the creation of things 'throw of a die, I do not mean to was the work of blind unintelligent deny that I am ultimately the cause of matter ; whereas the contrary was the the particular event that is to take result of philosophical reflection and dis- place ; but only to intimate that I do quisition believed by a few people only." not here act as a designing cause, in (Gray's Works by Matthias, vol. ii. p consequence of my ignorance of the va- 414.) On the same subject, see Smith's rious accidents to which the die is sub- Posthumous Essays, p. 106. 388 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. exaggeration of a sound principle. They are both true and both false in part ; true in what they admit, false in what they reject. All our knowledge begins, or appears to begin, in sen- sation ; but it does not follow from this that it is all derived from sensation, or that sensation constitutes its whole amount. The proper and innate activity of the mind has a large share in the origin of our representations, our sentiments, our ideas. Keason involves principles which she does not borrow from without, which she owes only to herself, which the impressions of the senses call forth from their obscurity, but which, far from owing their origin to sensations, serve to appreciate them, to judge of them, to employ them as instruments. It would be rash, however, to conclude from hence, that there is no certainty but in reason, that reason alone can seize the mystery of exist- ences and the intimate nature of beings, and that experience is nothing but a vain appearance, destitute of every species of reality." 1 With this short and comprehensive estimate of the new German philosophy, pronounced by one of the most distin- guished members of the Berlin Academy, I might perhaps be pardoned for dismissing a subject with which I have, in some of my former publications, acknowledged myself (from my total ignorance of the German language) to be very imperfectly ac- 1 Melanges de Litterature et de Phi- scrvir de mediateur litteraire, ou d'in- losophie, par F. Ancillon, Preface, (a terprete philosophique entre les denx Paris, 1809.) The intimacy of M. An- nations." cillon's literary connexions both with In translating from M. Ancillon the France and with Germany, entitles his passage quoted in the text, I have ad- opinions on the respective merits of their hered as closely as possible to the words philosophical systems to peculiar weight. of the original ; although I cannot help If he anywhere discovers a partiality imagining that I could have rendered it for either, the modest account which he still more intelligible to the English gives of himself would lead us to expect reader by laying aside some of the pe- his leaning to be in favour of his coun- culiarities of his German phraseology, trymen. "Place entre la France et My chief reason for retaining these, was 1'Allemagne, appartenant a la premiere to add weight to the strictures which a par la langne dans laquelle je hasarde critic, so deeply tinctured with the Ger- d'ecrire, a la seconde par ma naissance, man habits of thinking and of writing, mes etudes, mes principes, mes affec- has offered on the most prominent faults tions, et j'ose le dire, par la couleur of the systems in which he had been de ma pensee, je desirerois pouvoir educated. METAPHYSICS DUEING 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 than I should otherwise have judged necessary or useful. SECT. VII. KANT AND OTHER METAPHYSICIANS OF THE NEW GERMAN SCHOOL. 1 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, 2 a man of little genius, ori- ginality, or taste, but whose extensive and various learning, seconded by a methodical head, 3 and by an incredible industry 1 My ignorance of German would have prevented me from saying any- thing of the philosophy of Kant, if the extraordinary pretensions with which it was at first brought forward in this island, 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 the 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 Born, but by con- sulting 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 Mundl tSensibilis atque Intelligibilis Forma et Prindpiis, which he printed as the subject of a public disputation, when he was candidate for a Professor- ship in the University of Kbnigsberg. 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 German literature, to sonre of the comments on this philosophy which have appeared in languages more generally understood in this country. * Born 1679 ; died 1754. 3 The display of method, however, so conspicuous in all the works of Wolfiun, will often be found to amount to little more than an awkward affectation of the 390 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. and perseverance, seems to have been peculiarly fitted to com- mand the admiration of his countrymen. 1 Wolfius, indeed, did not profess to follow implicitly the opinions of his master, and on some points laid claim to peculiar ideas of his own ; but the spirit of his philosophy is essentially the same with that of Leibnitz, 2 and the particulars in which he dissented from him phraseology and forms of mathematics, in sciences where they contribute nothing to the clearness of our ideas, or the cor- rectness of our reasonings. This affec- tation, which seems to have been well adapted to the taste of Germany at the time when he wrote, is now one of the chief causes of the neglect into which his writings have fallen. Some of them may still be usefully consulted as dic- tionaries, but to read them is impossible. In his own country the reputation of Wolfius is not yet at an end. In the preface to Kant's Critique of Pure Sea- SOH, he is called " Summus omnium ilogmaticorum Philosophus." (Kantii Opera ad Philosophiam Criticam, vol. i. Praef. Auctoris Posterior, p. xxxvi. La- tine vertit. Fred. Born. Lipsise, 1796.) And by one of Kant's best commentators his name is advantageously contrasted with that of David Hume : " Est autem scientifica methodus aut dogmatica, aut sceptica. Primi generis autorem cele- berrimum Wolfium, alterius Davidem Humium nominasse sat est." Exposi- tio Philos. Criticce. Autore Conrado Fri- derico a Schmidt-Phiseldek. Hafnise, 1796. To the other merits of Woltius it may be added, that he was one of the first who contributed to diffuse among his countrymen a taste for philosophical inquiries, by writing on scientific sub- jects in the German language. " Were all Baron Wolf's other merits disputed, there is one (says Michaelis) which must incontestably be allowed him, his having added a new degree of perfection to the German tongue, by applying it to philosophy." Dissertation on the Influence of Opinions on Language, &c. English Translation, p. 27. 1 [* " La philosophic (says Dege- rando) n'a point eu d'ecrivain plus fecond que Wolf. Ses ecrits Latins forment a eux seuls, 23 vols. 4to. Ceux en langue Allemaude sont presque aussi nombreux. On peut nieme assurer que Wolf a beaucoup trop ecrit, pour son propre avantage et pour celuides autres." Hist. Comp. torn. ii. pp. 115, 116.] s On the great question of Free Will, Wolfius adopted implicitly the principles of the TJieodiccea ; considering man merely in the light of a machine, but (with the author of that work) dignify- ing this machine by the epithet spiritual. This language, which is still very pre- valent among German philosophers, may be regarded as a relic of the doctrines of Leibnitz and of Wolfius ; and affords an additional proof of the difficulty of era- dicating errors sanctioned by illustrious and popular names. When the system of Pre-established Harmony was first introduced by Wol- fius into the University of Halle, it ex- cited an alarm which had very nearly been attended with fatal consequences to the professor. The following anec- dote on the subject is told by Euler : " Lorsque du temps du feu Eoi de Prusse, M. Wolf enseignoit a Halle Ic systeme de 1'Harmonie Pre-etablie, le Roi s'informa de cette doctrine, qui faisoit grand bruit alors ; et un courtisan repondit a sa Majestc, que tons les sol- METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 391 are too trifling to deserve any notice in the history of litera- ture. 1 The high reputation so long maintained by Wolfius 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 writings. 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. 2 dats, selon cette doctrine, n'etoient que des machines ; que quand il en deser- toit, c'etoit une suite necessaire de leur structure, et qu'on avoit tort par conse- quent de les punir, comme on 1'auroit si on punissoit une machine pour avoir produit tel ou tel mouvement. Le Roi se facha si fort sur ce rapport, qu'il donna ordre de chasser M. Wolf de Halle, sous peine d'etre pendu s'il s'y trouvoit au tout de 24 heures. Le phi- losophe se refugia alors a Marbourg, ou je lui ai parle peu de temps apres." (Lettres a une Princesse d'Allemagne, Lettre 84me.) We are informed by Condorcet, that some reparation was afterwards made for this injustice by Frederic the Great. " Le Eoi de Prusse, qui ne croit pas pourtant a 1'Harmonie Pre-etablie, s'est empresse de rendre justice a Wolf des le premier jour de son regne." 1 Among other novelties affected by Wolfius, was a new modification of the Theory of the Monads. A slight out- line of it, but quite sufficient, I should suppose, to gratify the curiosity of most readers, may be found in Euler's Letters to a German Princess. 8 To what was before remarked, of the opposition in matters of philosophy between the taste of the French and that of the Germans, I shall here add a short passage from an author intimately acquainted with the literature of both nations. " L'ecole Allemande reconnoit Leib- nitz pour chef. Son fameux disciple Wolf regna dans les universites pendant pres d'un derni siecle avec une autorite non contestee. On connoit en France cette philosophic par un grand nombre d'abreges dont quelques-uns sont faits par des auteurs qui seuls auroient suffi pour lui donner de la celebrite. " Malgre 1'appui de tous ces noms, jamais en France cette philosophic ne s'est soutenue meme quelques instans. La profondeur apparente des idees, Pair d'ensemble et de systeme, n'ont jamais pu y suppleer a ce qui a paru lui manquer pour en faire une doctrine solide et digne d'etre accueillie. Outre quelque defaut de clarte, qui probablement en a ecarte des esprits pour qui cette qualite de style et de la pensee est devenue un heureux besoin, la forme sous laquelle elle se presente a rebute bien des lecteurs. Quoiqu'aient pu faire les interpretes, il a toujours perce quelque chose de 1'ap- pareil incommode qui 1'entoure a son origine. Condillac tourne plus d'une fois en ridicule ces formes et ce jargon scientifique, et il s'applique a montrer qu'ils ne sont pas plus propres a satis- faire la raison que le gout. II est au mains certain, que le lecteur Fran^ais les repousse par instinct, et qu'il y trouve un obstacle tres difficile a surmonter." Reflexions sur les (Euvres Posthumcs d' Adorn Smith, par M. Provost de Ge- neve ; a Paris, 1794. 392 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. From the time of Wolfius till the philosophy of Kant began to attract general notice, I know of no German metaphysician whose speculations seem to have acquired much celebrity in the learned world. 1 Lambert 2 is perhaps the most illustrious name which occurs during this interval. As a mathematician and natural philosopher, his great merits are universally known and acknowleged, but the language in which his metaphysical and logical works were written, has confined their reputation within a comparatively narrow circle. I am sorry that I cannot speak of these from my own knowledge; but I have heard them mentioned in terms of the highest praise, by some very competent judges, to whose testimony I am disposed to give the greater credit, from the singular vein of originality which runs through all his mathematical and physical publications. 3 1 Madame de Stael mentions Lessing, Hemsterhuis, and Jacobi, as precursors of Kant in his philosophical career. She adds, however, that they had no School, since none of them attempted to found any system ; but they began the war against the doctrines of the Materialists. (Attemmjne, tome iii. p. 98.) I am not acquainted with the metaphysical works of any of the three. Those of Hemsterhuis, who wrote wholly in French, were, I understand, first pub- lished in a collected form at Paris, in 1792. He was son of the celebrated Greek scholar and critic, Tiberius Hem- sterhusius, Professor of Latin Literature at Leyden. 2 Born at Mulhausen in Alsace in 1728 ; died at Berlin in 1777. * The following particulars, with re- spect to Lambert's literary history, are extracted from a Memoir annexed by M. Prevost to his translation of Mr. Smith's Posthumous Works : " Get in- ge"nieux et puissant Lambert, dont les niathematiques, qui lui doivent beau- coup, ne purent epuiser les forces, et qui ne toucha aucun sujet de physique ou de philosophic rationelle, sans le couvrir de lurniere. Ses lettres cosmo- logiques, qu'il ecrivit par forme de de- lassement, sont pleines d'idees sublimes, entees sur la philosophic la plus saine et la plus savante tout-a-la-fois. II avoit aussi dresse sous le titre d'Architec- tonique im tableau des principes sur lesquels se fondent les connoissances humaines. Get ouvrage au jugement des homines les plus verses dans 1'etude de leur langue, n'est pas exempt d'ob- scurite". Elle peut tenir en partie d la nature du sujet. II est a regretter que sa logique, intitule Organon, ne soit traduite ni en Latin, ni en Franfais, ni je pense en aucun e langue. Un extrait bien fait de cet ouvrage, duquel on ecarteroit ce qui repugne au gout national, exciteroit 1'attention des philosophes, et la por- teroit sur une multitude d'objets qu'ils se sont accoutumes a regarder avec in- difference." (Prevost, tome ii. pp. 267, 268.) [* M. Prevost farther informs us, that an abridgment of the Arche- tectonik of Lambert was published by M. J. Trembley. I presume that this is the work referred to by Bonnet in the * Restored. Ed. METAPHYSICS DUKING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. 393 The Critique of Pure Reason (the most celebrated of Kant's metaphysical works) appeared in 1781. 1 The idea annexed to the title by the author, is thus explained by himself: " Criticam rationis purae non dico censuram librorum et Systematum, sed facultatis rationalis in universum, respectu cognitionum om- nium, ad quas, ab omni experientia libera, possit anniti, proinde dijuclicationem possibilitatis aut impossibilitatis metaphy sices in genere, constitutionemque turn fontium, turn ambitus atque compagis, turn vero terminorum illius, sed cuncta haec ex principiis." (Kantii Opera ad Philosophiam Criticam, vol. i. following passage of his Essai Analy- tique. " Ceux de mes lecteurs qui ne possedent pas la langue Allemande, trouveront un precis tres bien raisonn6 de la Theorie des Forces de M. Lam- bert dans un petit ouvrage public" en Fran9ais a La Haye en 1780, sous le titre d' Exposition de quelques points de la Doctrine des Principes de M. Lambert." Ess. Anal. chap, xiv.] In the article Lambert, inserted in the twenty-third volume of the Bio- graphie Universelle, (Paris, 1819,) the following account is given of Lambert's logic : " Wolf, d'apres quelques indica- tions de Leibnitz, avoit retire* de 1'oubli la syllogistique d'Aristote, science que les scholastiques avoient tellement avilie que ni Bacon ni Locke n 'avoient ose lui accorder un regard d'interct. II e*toit re- serv6 a Lambert de la montrer sous le plus beau jour et dans la plus riche parure. C'est ce qu'il a fait dans son Novum Organon, ouvrage qui est un des principaux titres de gloire de son auteur." From the writer of this article, (M. Servois,) we farther learn, that the Novum Ore/anon of Lambert was translated into Latin from the Ger- man original by a person of the name of Pfleiderer, 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'apres le conseil de Le Sage de Geneve, 1'ou- vrage fut traduit en Latin 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 ulterieur." 1 [* In a periodical work published in London, (Monthly Magazine for May 1805,) there is a short but interesting Memoir with respect to Kant's life and writings, from which it would appear that his family was originally from Scot- land. " He was born " (we are told) "in 1724, at Kb'nigsberg in Prussia. His father, John George Kant, though born at Memel, 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 Uhi- verselle. " Sa famille etait originaire d'Ecosse, circonstance assez curieuse si nous conside"rons que c'est aux ecrits de David Hume que nous devons le systeme de Kant."] Kant died in 1804. * Restored. Ed. 394 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. Prtefatio Auctoris Prior, pp. 11, 12.) To render this some- what more intelligible, I shall subjoin the comment of one of his intimate friends, 1 whose work, we are informed by Dr. Willich, had received the sanction of Kant himself. " The aim of Kant's Critique is no less than to lead Reason to the true knowledge of itself; to examine the titles upon which it founds the supposed possession of its metaphysical knowledge ; and by means of this examination, to mark the true limits, beyond which it cannot venture to speculate, without wander- ing into the empty region of pure fancy." The same author adds, " The whole Critique of Pure Reason is established upon this principle, that there is a free reason, independent of all experience and sensation." When the Critique of Pure Reason first came out, it does not seem to have attracted much notice, 2 but such has been its 1 Mr. John Scliulze, an eminent divine at Konigsberg, author of the Synopsis of the Critical Philosophy, translated by Dr. Willich, and inserted in his Ele- mentary View of Kanfs Worlcs. See pp. 42, 43. 2 " II se passa quelque tcms apres la premiere publication de la Critique de la Pure Raison, sans qu'on fit beaucoup d'attcntion a ce livre, et sans que la plupart de philosophes, passiones pour 1'eclectisme, soupconassent seulement la grande revolution que cet ouvrage et les productions suivantes de son auteur devoient opcrer dans la science." Buhle, Hist de la Phil. Mod. torn. vi. p. 573. Paris, 1816. As early, however, as the year 1783, the Philosophy of Kant appears to have been adopted in some of the German schools. The ingenious M. Trembler, in a memoir then read before the Aca- demy of Berlin, thus speaks of it: " La philosophic de Kant, qui, a la honte de Vesprit humain, paroit avoir acqnis tant dc faveur dans certaines ('coles." Essal sur tes Prejuges. Re- printed at Neufchatel in 1790. We are further told by Buhle, that the attention of the public to Kant's Critique of Pure Season was first at- tracted by an excellent analysis of the work, which appeared in the General Gazette of Literature, and by the Letters on Kanfs Philosophy, which Reinhold inserted in the German Mer- cury. (Buhle, torn. vi. p. 573.) Of this last philosopher, who appears, in the first instance, to have entered with enthusiasm into Kant's views, and who afterwards contributed much to open the eyes of his countrymen to the radical defects of his system, I shall have occa- sion to speak hereafter. Degerando, as well as Buhle, bestows high praise not only on his clearness, but on his elo- quence, as a writer in his own language. " II a traduit les oracles Kantiens dans une langue elegante, harmonieuse, et pure. . . . II a su exprimer avec un langage eloquent, des idees jusqu'alors inintelligibles," &c. (Histoire Corn- par ee, &c., torn. ii. p. 271.) That this praise is not undeserved I am very ready to believe, having lately had an oppor- tunity (through the kindness of my METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 395 subsequent success, that it may regarded, according to Madame de Stael, 1 " as having given the impulse to all that has been since done in Germany, both in literature and in philosophy." Attemagne, 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 Fredericus Gottlob Born, Reinhold's principal work, entitled Periculum Novce Theories Facultatis Representatives Hu mance. In point of perspicuity, lie 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. 1 The following quotation, from the advertisement prefixed to Madame de Stael's posthumous work, (Considera- tions sur la Revolution Francaise,} will at once account to my readers for the confidence with which I appeal to her historical statements on the subject of German philosophy. Her own know- ledge 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 the 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 accomplished 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. 1 except, of course, those mistakes into which she was betrayed by her admira- 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 majority 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 country which it could not otherwise have acquired. " Le travail des editeurs s'est borne uniquement a la revision des epreuves, et a la correction de ces legeres inexac- titudes de style, qui echappent a la vue dans le manuscrit le plus soigne. Co travail c'est fait sous les yeux de M. A. W. de Schlegel, dont la rare superior - ite & esprit et de savoir justifie la con- fiance avec laquelle Madame de Stael le consultoit dans tous ses travaux litter- aires, autant que son honorable carac- tere merite 1'estime et I'amitie qu'elle n'a pas cesse d'avoir pour lui pendant une liaison de treize annees." 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 popularity of her Alle- mayne 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 systems as those of Kant and of Fichte. 396 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. of Locke, ascribed all our ideas to our sensations ; l the other, that of Descartes and of Leibnitz, had for its chief objects to demonstrate the spirituality and activity of the soul, the free- dom of the will, 2 and, in short, the whole doctrines of the 1 That this is a very incorrect account of Locke's philosophy, has been already shown at great length ; but in this mis- take Madame de Stael has only followed Leibnitz, and a very large proportion of the German philosophers of the present day. " The philosophy of sensation," says Frederick Schlegel, " which was unconsciously bequeathed to the world by Bacon, and reduced to a methodical shape by Locke, first displayed in France the true immorality and destructive- ness of which it is the parent, and as- sumed the appearance of a perfect sys- tem of Atheism." (Lectures on tlte History of Literature, from the German of Fred. Schlegel. Edin. 1818, vol. ii. p. 22.) It is evident, that the system of Locke is here confounded with that of Condillac. May not the former be called the philosophy of reflection, with as great propriety as the philosophy of sensation ? 2 In considering Leibnitz as a parti- san of the freedom of the will, Madame de Stael has also followed the views of many German writers, who make no distinction between Materialists and Ne- cessitarians, imagining that to assert the spirituality of the soul, is to assert its free agency. On the inaccuracy of these conceptions it would be superflu- ous to enlarge, after what was formerly said in treating of the metaphysical opinions of Leibnitz. (Comp. p. 265.) In consequence of this misapprehen- sion, Madame de Stael, and many other late writers on the Continent, have been led to employ, with a very excep- tionable latitude, the word Idealist, to comprehend not only the advocates for the immateriality of the mind, but those also who maintain the Freedom of the Human Will. Between these two opin- ions, there is certainly no necessary connexion ; Leibnitz, and many other German metaphysicians, denying the latter with no less confidence than that with which they assert the former. In England, the word Idealist is most commonly restricted to such as (with Berkeley) reject the existence of a ma- terial world. Of late, its meaning has been sometimes extended (particularly since the publications of Reid) to all those who retain the theory of Des- cartes and Locke, concerning the im- mediate objects of our perceptions and thoughts, whether they admit or reject the consequences deduced from this theory by the Berkeleians. In the pre- sent state of the science, it would con- tribute much to the distinctness of our reasonings were it to be used in this last sense exclusively. There is another word to which Ma- dame de Stael and other writers on the German philosophy annex an idea pe- culiar to themselves ; I mean the word experimental or empirical. This epithet is often used by them to distinguish what they call the philosophy of Sen- sations, from that of Plato and of Leib- nitz. It is accordingly generally, if not always, employed by them in an un- favourable sense. In this country, on the contrary, the experimental or in- ductive philosophy of the human mind denotes those speculations concerning mind, which, rejecting all hypothetical theories, rest solely on phenomena for which we have the evidence of con- sciousness. It is applied to the philo- sophy of Reid, and to all that is truly valuable in the metaphysical works of Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. 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 worlds. The force of meditation and of sagacity, with which he marked these limits, had not perhaps any example among his predecessors." Allemagne, vol. iii. pp. 70, 72. The praise bestowed on this part of Kant's philosophy, by one of his own pupils, is not less warm than that of Madame de 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 German School. " Kant discovered that the intuitive faculty of man is a compound of very dissimilar ingredients ; or, in other words, that it consists of parts very different in their nature, each of which performs functions peculiar to itself ; namely, the sensi- tive faculty, and the understanding. , 1 . . . Leibnitz, indeed, Nor are the words, experimental and * [* In answer to the question, what empirical, by any means synonymous in is meant by the term understanding ? our language. The latter word is now we are told by Mr. Nitsch, that, ac- almost exclusively appropriated to the cording to Kant, " it is the faculty practice of Medicine ; and when so tin- which enables a man to perceive the derstood always implies a rash and un- agreement or disagreement of two ideas philosophical use of Experience. " The immediately, in distinction from reason, appellation Empiric," says the late Dr. which makes him perceive the same John Gregory, " is generally applied to agreement or disagreement of ideas only one who, from observing the effects of mediately, that is to say, by means of a remedy in one case of a disease, ap- comparing them with a third.' 1 Nitsch, plies it to all the various cases of that p. 40. distemper." The same remark may be To the English reader it is unneces- extended to the word Empirique in the sary to observe, that this account of the French language, which is very nearly understanding is an exact transcript of synonymous with Charlatan. In con- Locke's account of Intuition : which, sequence of this abuse of terms, the however, it may not be superfluous to epithet experimental, as well as empiri- add, has long been rejected by Locke's cal, is seldom applied by foreign writers most intelligent followers, as one of the to the philosophy of Locke, without weakest parts of his work. This has being intended to convey a censure. been shown in a most satisfactory nian- * Restored. Ed. 398 DISSERTATION. PAKT SECOND. had likewise remarked the distinction subsisting between the sensitive faculty and the understanding ; but he entirely overlooked the essential difference between their functions, and was of opinion that the faculties differed from one another only in degree. ... In the works of the English and French philosophers, we find this essential distinction between the sensitive and the intellectual faculties, and their combination towards producing one synthetical intuition, scarcely men- tioned. Locke only alludes to the accidental limitations of both faculties ; but to inquire into the essential difference between them does not at all occur to him. . . . This dis- tinction, then, between the sensitive and the intellectual facul- ties, forms an essential feature in the philosophy of Kant, and is, indeed, the basis upon which most of his subsequent in- quiries are established." Elements of the Grit. Phil, by A. F. M. Willich, M.D., pp. 68-70. It is a circumstance not easily explicable, that, in the fore- going historical sketch, no mention is made of the name of Cudworth, author of the treatise on Eternal and Immutable Morality ; a book which could scarcely fail to be known, before the period in question, to every German scholar, by the ad- mirable Latin version of it published by Dr. Mosheim. 1 In ucr by Reid, ill his Essays on the In- known to the scholars of Germany, but tellectual powers. Nor was Reid the that some of them have remarked the first (as he seems to have imagined) by identity of Jhe doctrines contained in it whom its unsoundness was exposed. with those of Kant. " Meiners, dans On looking over Locke's correspondence, son histoirc generale de 1'Ethique, nie I find a letter addressed to Mr. Moly- que le systeme moral de Cudworth soit neux by an Iiish bishop, in which the identique avec celui de Platon, et pre- most important of Reid's objections are tend au contraire, ' que les principes completely anticipated ; a coincidence considered comme appartcnans de la which I remark chiefly, as it affords a maniere la plus speciale a la morale de very strong presumption, that these ob- Kant, etaient enseignes il y a deja plu- jections are well founded.] sieurs generations par 1'ccole du philo- 1 The first edition of this translation sophe Anglais." (Hist, de la Pliil. was printed as early as 1732. From Moderne, torn. iii. p. 577.) In opposi- Buhle's History of Modern Philosophy, tion to this, Buhle states his own decid- (a work which did not fall into my hands ed conviction, " qu' aucune des idues de till long after this section was written,) Cudworth no se rapproche de celles de I find that Cudworth's Treatise of Im- Kant." (Ibid.) How far this convic- mutallc Morality is now not only well tion is well founded, the passage from METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 399 tliis treatise, Cuclworth is at much pains to illustrate the Pla- tonic doctrine concerning the difference between sensation and intellection ; asserting that " some ideas of the mind proceed not from outward sensible objects, but arise from the inward activity of the mind itself;" that "even simple corporeal things, passively perceived by sense, are known and understood only by the active power of the mind ;" and that, besides AladriiiiaTa and Qavrdv/juara, there must be Nor^iara or intel- ligible ideas, the source of which can be traced to the under- standing alone. 1 Cuclworth, quoted in 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 found in Kant, is un- deniable ; but it does not follow from this, that none of Kant's 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 philosophic morale de Price presente en effet une analogic frappante avec celle de Kant ;" and in another part of his work, he ex- presses himself thus on . the same sub- ject : " Le plus remarquable de tons les moralistes modernes de 1'Angleterre est, sans contredit, Eichard Price On remarque 1'analogie la plus frap- pante entre ses idees sur les bases de la moralite, et celles que la philosophic critique a fait naitrc en Allemagne, quoiqu'il ne soit cependant pas possi- ble d'elever le plus petit doute sur 1'entiere originalite de ces dernieres." (Tom. v. p. 303.) Is there any thing of importance in the system of Price, which is not borrowed from the Treatise of Immutable Morality? The 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 Buhle 's reflections on Cudworth's philosophy, we are told, that, according to him, " the will of God is only a simple blind power, acting mechanically or accidentally." (" Chez Cudworth la volonte memo en Dieu, n'est qu'un simple pouvoir aveugle, agissant mecaniquement ou acciden- tellement.") If this were true, Cud- worth ought to be ranked among the disciples, not of Plato, but of Spinoza. 1 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 Socratic School, as explained in the Thecetetus of Plato. They who are at all acquainted with Kant's Critique, will immediately re- cognise his phraseology in the passage quoted above. [* In the Philosophy of Kant the name ^Esthetic 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 pliceno- menon, which expresses the representa- tion of an object, as it appears to our senses. Willich, pp. 139, 170.] * Restored. Eil. 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 German metaphysician, both in point of perspicuity and of precision. A later writer, too, of our own country, (Dr. Price,) a zealous follower both of Plato and of Cudworth, afterwards resumed the same argument, in a work which appeared long before the Critique of Pure Reason; 1 and urged it with much force against those modern metaphysicians, who consider the senses as the sources of all our knowledge. At a period somewhat earlier, many very interesting quotations of a similar import had been produced by the learned Mr. Harris, from the later commentators of the Alexandrian School on the philosophy of Aristotle; and had been advantageously contrasted by him with the account given of the origin of our ideas, not only by Hobbes and Gassendi, but by many of the professed followers of Locke. If this part of the Kantian system, therefore, was new in Germany, it certainly could have no claim to the praise of originality, in the estimation of those at all acquainted with English literature. 2 1 See a review of the Principal of Cambridge, and of Joseph Glanvill, Questions and Difficulties relating to the author of Scepsis Scientifaa. Morals, by Richard Price, D.D. Lon- Cudworth's Treatise of Eternal and don, 1758. Immutable Morality, although it ap- 2 I have mentioned here only those pears, from intrinsic evidence, to have works of a modern date, which may be been composed during the lifetime of reasonably presumed to be still in ge- Hobbes, was not published till 1731, neral circulation among the learned. when the author's manuscript came But many very valuable illustrations of into the hands of his grandson, Francis the Platonic distinction between the Cudworth Masham, one of the Masters senses and the understanding, may be in Chancery. This work, therefore, collected from the English writers of the could not have been known to Leibnitz, seventeenth century. Among these it who died seventeen years before ; a cir- is sufficient to mention at present the cumstance which may help to account names of John Smith and Henry More for its having attracted so much less METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 401 In order, however, to strike at the root of what the Germans call the philosophy of sensation, it was necessary to trace, with some degree of systematical detail, the origin of our most im- portant simple notions ; and for this purpose it seemed reason- able to begin with an analytical view of those faculties and powers, to the exercise of which the development of these notions is necessarily subsequent. It is thus that the simple notions of time and motion presuppose the exercise of the faculty of memory ; and that the simple notions of truth, of belief, of doubt, and many others of the same kind, necessarily presuppose the exercise of the power of reasoning. I do not know that, in this anatomy of the mind, much progress has hitherto been made by the German metaphysicians. A great deal certainly has been accomplished by the late Dr. Eeid ; and something, perhaps, has been added to his labours by those of his successors. According to Kant himself, his metaphysical doctrines first occurred to him while employed in the examination of Mr. Hume's Theory of Causation. The train of thought by which he was led to them will be best stated in his own words ; for it is in this way alone that I can hope to escape the charge of misrepresentation from his followers. Some of his details would perhaps have been more intelligible to my readers, had attention in Germany than his Intellec- In the preface of Mosheim to his Latin tual System, which is repeatedly men- version of the Intellectual System, there tioned by Leibnitz in terms of the high- is a catalogue of Cudworth's unpublished est praise. remains, communicated to Mosheim by From an article in the Edinburgh Dr. Chandler, then Bishop of Durham, Review, (vol. xxvii. p. 191,) we learn Among these are two distinct works on that large unpublished manuscripts of the Controversy concerning Liberty and Dr. Cudworth are deposited in the Bri- Necessity, of each of which works Mo- tish Museum. It is much to be regretted, sheim has given us the general contents, (as the author of the article observes,) One of the chapters is entitled, "Answer that they should have been so long with- to the Objection against Liberty, pnlli held from the public. "The press of iminn." It is not probable that it con- the two Universities, (he adds,) would tains any thing very new or important ; be properly employed in works which a but it would certainly be worth while to commercial publisher could not prudently know the reply made by Cudworth to an undertake." May we not indulge a objection which both Leibnitz and La hope that this suggestion will, sooner Place have fixed upon as decisive of the or later, have its due effect? point in dispute. [Fee Note DDD. Ed.] VOL. I. 2 C 402 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. my plan allowed me to prefix to them a slight outline of Hume's philosophy. But this the general arrangement of my discourse rendered impossible ; nor can any material incon- venience result, in this instance, from the order which I have adopted, inasmuch as Hume's Theory of Causation, how new soever it may have appeared to Kant, is fundamentally the same with that of MaleLranche, and of a variety of other old writers, both French and English. " Since the Essays (says Kant) l of Locke and of Leibnitz, or rather since the origin of metaphysics, as far as their history extends, no circumstance has occurred, which might have been more decisive of the fate of this science than the attack made upon it by David Hume. 2 He proceeded upon a single but important idea in metaphysics, the connexion of cause and effect, and the concomitant notions of power and action. He challenged reason to answer him what title she had to imagine that anything may be so constituted as that, if it be given, something else is also thereby inferred ; for the idea of cause denotes this. He proved beyond contradiction, that it is im- possible for reason to think of such a connexion a priori, for it contains necessity; but it is not possible to perceive how, because something is, something else must necessarily be ; nor how the idea of such a connexion can be introduced a priori. " Hence, he concluded, that reason entirely deceives herself with this idea, and that she erroneously considers it as her own child, when it is only the spurious offspring of imagination, impregnated by experience ; a subjective necessity, arising from habit and the association of ideas, being thus substituted 1 See the Preface of Kant to one of the Latin translation. Elem. of Criti- his Treatises, entitled Prolegomena ad col Philosophy, by A. F. M. Willich, Metaphi/sicam quamque futuram qute M.D., p. 10, et seq. London, 1798. qua Scientia poterit prodire. I have availed myself in the text of the English s "Humius. Qui quidem nullam huic version of Dr. Willich, from the Ger- cognitionis parti lucem adfudit, sed ta- man original, which I have carefully men excitavit scintillam, de qua sane compared with the Latin version of lumen potuisset accendi, si ea incidisset Born. A few sentences, omitted by in fomitem, facile accipientem, cujus- Willich, I have thought it worth while que scintillalio diligenter alta fuerit et to quote, at the foot of the page, from aucta." METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 403 for an objective one derived from perception. . . . However hasty and unwarrantable Hume's conclusion might appear, yet it was founded upon investigation ; and this investigation well deserved that some of the philosophers of his time should have united to solve, more happily if possible, the problem in the sense in which he deli vered it : A complete reform of the science might have resulted from this solution. But it is a mortifying reflection, that his opponents, Reid, Beattie, Oswald, and lastly, Priestley himself, totally misunderstood the tendency of his problem. 1 The question was not, whether the idea of cause be in itself proper and indispensable to the illustration of all natural knowledge, for this Hume had never doubted ; but whether this idea be an object of thought through reasoning 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 expected an explanation. 2 " I freely own it was these suggestions of Hume's which first, many years ago, roused me from my dogmatical slumber, and gave to my inquiries quite a different direction in the field of speculative philosophy. I was far from being carried away by his conclusions, the fallacy of which chiefly arose from his not forming to himself an idea of the whole of his problem, but merely investigating a part of it, the solution of which was impossible without a comprehensive view of the whole. When we proceed on a well founded, though not thoroughly digested thought, we may expect, by patient and continued reflection, to prosecute it farther than the acute genius had done to whom 1 " Non potest sine certo quodam mo- ita negligerent, ut omnia in statu pris- lestise sensu percipi, quantopere ejus tino maneret, quasi nihil quidquam fac- adversarii, Eeidius, Oswaldus, Beattius, turn videretur." et tandem Priesthius, a scopo qusestionis z Although nothing can be more ui> aherrarent, et propterea quod ea semper just than these remarks, in the unquali- acciperent pro concessis, qua? ipse in fied form in which they are stated by dubium vocaret, contra vero cum vehe- Kant, it must, I think, be acknowledg- mentia, et maximam partem cum in- ed, that some grounds for them have genti immodestia ea probare gestirent, been furnished by occasional passages quse illi nunquam in mentem venisset which dropped from the pens of most dubitare, nutum ejus ad emendationem 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 effect is far from being the only one by which the understanding a priori thinks of the connexion of things ; 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 which nobody besides him had ever conceived, although every one makes use of these ideas, without asking himself upon what their objective validity is founded ; this deduction, I say, was the most difficult which could have been undertaken for the behoof of metaphysics ; and what was still more embarrassing, metaphysics could not here offer me the smallest assistance, because that deduction ought first to establish the possibility of a system of 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 Reason, both what is the sphere of its exertion, and what are its limits ; which was all that was required for erecting a system of metaphysics upon a proper and solid foundation." 1 1 [* The foregoing remarks and ex- independent of experience, and is con- tracts may enable my readers to enter sequently obtained by tbe exercise of more easily into the idea which led our rational faculties, unaided by any Kant to entitle his book the Critique of information derived from without. A Pure Reason. The fundamental prin- systematical exposition of these notions ciple on which he proceeds is, that and truths forms (according to him) there are various notions and truths, what is properly called the Science of the knowledge of which is altogether Metaphysics, f To that power of the * Restored. Eel. f [The object of metaphysics (according to D'Alembert) is precisely the reverse of this : " La metaphysique a pour but d'examiner la gdndration de nos ides, et de prouver qu'elles viennent toutes de nos sensations." (Elem. de Philos. p. 143, Melangas, vol. ir.l So diametrically opposite to each other are the logical views of German and of French philosophers.] METAPHYSICS DURING THE 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. Huine, by observing that the understanding is itself a source of new ideas, and that it is from this source that our notions of cause and effect are derived. " Our certainty (says Dr. Price) that every new event requires some cause, depends no more on experience than our certainty of any other the most obvious subject of intuition. In the idea of every change, is included that of its being an effect." 1 In the works of Dr. Eeid, many remarks of the same nature are to be found ; but, instead of quoting any of these, I shall produce a passage from a much older author, whose mode of thinking and writing may perhaps be more agreeable to the taste of Kant's countrymen than the simplicity and precision aimed at by the disciples of Locke. " That there are some ideas of the mind, (says Dr. 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 itself, is evi- dent in that there are, First, Ideas of such things as are neither affections of bodies, nor could be imprinted or conveyed by any local motions, nor can be pictured at all by the fancy in any sensible colours ; such as are the ideas of wisdom, folly, prudence, imprudence, knowledge, ignorance, verity, falsity, virtue, vice, honesty, dishonesty, justice, injustice, volition, cogitation, nay, of sense itself, which is a species of cogitation, and which is not perceptible by any sense ; and many other understanding, which enables us to form claims as exclusively her own. See Wil- notions and to pronounce judgments a lich, p. 38, et seq. See also the Preface priori, without any adventitious lights prefixed to a work entitled, Prolegomena furnished by experience, Kant gives the ad Metaphi/sicam quamque/uturam quce name of Pure Reason ; and the aim of qua Scientia poterit prodire. Kantii his Critique is to assist us in examin- Opera, ex versione Bornii. Lips. 1787. ing the titles which particular supposed Vol. ii. p. 5, et seq.] truths have to a place in this metaphy- ] Review of the Principal Questions sical system ; or, in other words, to ex- awl Difficulties in Morals, chap. i. sect, hibit the extent and to define the limits 2. The first edition of this book was of that province which Pure Reason printed in 1758. 406 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. such like notions as include something of cogitation in them, or refer to cogitative beings only; which ideas must needs spring from the active power and innate fecundity of the mind itself, 1 because the corporeal objects of sense can imprint no such things upon it. Secondly, In that there are many 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 tiling with another. Such as are CAUSE, EFFECT, means, end, order, proportion, similitude, dissimili- tude, equality, inequality, aptitude, inaptitude, symmetry, asym- metry, whole and part, genus and species, and the like." Immutable Morality, pp. 148, 149. It is not my business at present to inquire into the solidity of the doctrine here maintained. I would only wish to be informed what additions have been made by Kant to the reply given to Mr. Hume by our English philosophers, and to direct the attention of my readers to the close resemblance between this part of Kant's system, and the argument which Cudworth opposed to Hobbes and Gassendi considerably more than a cen- tury ago. 2 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 connect it with the foregoing extract, as an additional proof that there are, at least, some metaphysical points on which we need not search for instruction beyond our own island. " If there were no other perceptive power or faculty distinct from external sense, all our perceptions would be merely rela- tive, seeming, and fantastical, and not reach to the absolute and 1 This is precisely the language of has made to enumerate all the general the German School : " Les verites ne- ideas which are not derived from expe- cessaires," says Leibnitz, " sont le pro- rience, but arise out of the pure under- duit immediat de 1'activite interieure." standing, he may well lay claim to the Tom. i. p. 686 ; torn. ii. pp. 42, 325. praise of originality. On this sub- See Degerando, Hist. Comp. torn. ii. ject I shall only refer my readers to pp. 96. Note X X at the end of this Disser- - In the attempt, indeed, which Kant tation. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 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 superior to outward sense, and of a distinct nature from it, which is the power of knowing or understanding, that is, an active exertion from the mind itself ; and, therefore, has this grand eminence above sense, that it is no idiopathy, not a mere private, relative, seeming, and fantas- tical thing, but the comprehension of that which absolutely is and is not." 1 After enlarging on the distinction between the sensitive faculty and the understanding, Kant proceeds to investigate certain essential conditions, without which neither the sensitive faculty nor its objects are conceivable. These conditions are 1 Immutable Morality, p. 264, et seq. [* A great part of the controversy be- tween the Dogmatists and the Sceptics of Germany with respect to subjective and objective truths, resolves into the old Cartesian dispiite 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 perfect veracity of our Maker ; but in this argument it was early and justly objected to him that he reasoned in a circle. On the other hand, he gave much more countenance than he was aware of to the Sceptics, by re- presenting even necessary truths as <'ii- * Restored tirely dependent upon the Divine Will ; affirming that God, 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 Gassendi, he endeavoured to obviate the sceptical consequences which this doctrine seems to threaten ; but the evasion he had recourse to was so piti- ful, that Cudworth, forgetting 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- stantiation by the principles of his new philosophy." " As the poets feign (said Descartes) that the Fates were indeed fixed by Jupiter, but that, when they were fixed, he had obliged himself to the preserving of them ; so I do not think that the essences of things, and those mathematical truths which can be known of them, arc independent on God ; but I think, nevertheless, that because God so willed and so ordered, therefore they are immutable and eternal."] .-JvW. 408 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. time and space, which, in the language of Kant, are the forms of all phenomena. What his peculiar ideas are concerning their nature and attributes, my readers will find stated in his own words at the end of this Discourse, in an extract from one of his Latin publications. 1 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 the objective reality both of time and of space. The former he considers merely as a subjective condition, inseparably connected with the frame of the human mind, in consequence of which, it arranges sensible phenomena according to a certain law, in the order of succession. As to the latter, he asserts that it is no- thing objective or real, inasmuch as it is neither a substance, nor an accident, nor a relation ; that its existence, therefore, is only subjective and ideal, depending on a fixed law, inseparable from the frame of the human mind. In consequence of this law, we are led to conceive all external things as placed in space ; or, as Kant expresses it, we are led to consider space as the fundamental form of every external sensation. In selecting Kant's speculations concerning time and space as a specimen of his mode of writing, I was partly influenced by the consideration that it furnishes, at the same time, a re- markable example of the concatenation which exists between the most remote and seemingly the most unconnected parts of his system. Who could suppose that his opinions on these subjects, the most abstract and the most controverted of any in the whole compass of metaphysics, bore on the great practical question of the freedom of the Human Will ? The combina- tion appears, at first sight, so very extraordinary, that I have no doubt I shall gratify the curiosity of some of my readers by mentioning a few of the intermediate steps which, in this 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 he was anxious 1 Ser Xoto Y Y. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENT UK Y. 409 to offer no violence to the common language of the world on this point.) appears from his own explicit declarations in various parts of his works. " Voluntas libera (says he in one instance) eadern est cum voluntate legibus moralibus obnoxia." 1 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 words of one of his own pupils, to whom we are indebted for the first, and, I think, not the least intelli- gible, view of his principles, which has been published in our language. 2 " Professor Kant is decidedly of opinion, that although many strong and ingenious arguments have been brought forward in favour of the freedom of the will, they are yet very far from being decisive. Nor have they refuted the arguments urged by the Necessitarians, but by an appeal to mere feeling, which, on such a question, is of no avail. For this purpose, it is indis- pensably necessary to call to our 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- tradictory. In proof of this he observes, that although every human action, as an event in time, must have a cause, and so on ad infinitum ; yet it is certain, that the laws of cause and 1 See Bern's Latin Translation of writers who have attempted to introduce Kant's Works, relating to the Critical Kant's philosophy into England. It is Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 325, et seq. See called by Dr. Willich an excellent publi- also the Preface to vol. iii. cation, (Elements of the Critical Philo- 3 A General and Introductory View sophy, p. 62 :) and is pronounced by the of Professor Kant's Principles concern- author of the elaborate articles on that ing Man, the World, and the Deity, subject in the Encyclopaedia Londin- submitted to the consideration of the ensis to be a sterling worJc. " Though Learned, by F. A. Nitseh, late Lecturer at present very little known, I may ven- on the Latin Language and Mathema- ture," says this writer, "to predict that, tics in the Royal Frederician College at as time rolls on and prejudices moulder Kb'nigsberg, and pupil of Professor Kant. away, this work, like the Elements ofEu- London, 1796. did, will stand forth as a lasting monu- This small performance is spoken of ment of PUKE TRUTH." See Note Z Z. in terms highly favourable by the other ' Nitsch, &c. pp. 172, 173. 410 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. effect can have a place there only where time is, for the effect must be consequent on the cause. But neither time nor space are properties of things ; they are only the general forms under which man is allowed to view himself and the world. It 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." 1 In this manner Kant establishes the possibility of man's freedom ; and farther than this he does not conceive himself warranted to proceed on the principles of the critical philo- sophy. The first impression, certainly, which Ms 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 human will must stand or fall together, he exerts his ingenuity to show, that the metaphysical proof already brought of the possibility of free agency, joined to our own consciousness of a liberty of choice, affords evidence of the fact fully sufficient for the practical regulation of our conduct, although not amounting to what is represented as demon- stration in the Critique of Pure Reason? 1 Nitsch, &c. pp. 174, 175. tant qu'elle est determince par la loi 2 The account of this part of Kant's morale seule. Si Ton considere cette doctrine given by M. Buhle agrees in disposition comme phenoniene dans la substance with that of Mr. Nitscb : conscience ; c'est un evenement nature!, " Toute moralite des actions repose uni- elle obeit a la loi de la causalite. die re- finement sur la disposition practique, on pose sur ce que 1'homme a eprouvc au- METAPHYSICS DUKING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 411 It is impossible to combine together these two parts of the Kantian system, without being struck with the resemblance they bear to the deceitful sense of liberty to which Lord Kames had recourse, (in the first edition of his Essays on Morality and Natural Religion,} in order to reconcile our consciousness of free agency with the conclusions of the Necessitarians. In both cases, the reader is left in a state of most uncomfortable scepticism, not confined to this particular question, but extend- ing to every other subject which can give employment to the human faculties. 1 paravant dans le terns, et elle fait partie du caractere empirique de I'liomme. Mais on peat aussi la considerer comme uu acte de la liberte raisonnable : Alors elle n'est plus soumise a la loi de la eausalite ; elle est independante de la condition du temps, elle se rapporte a une cause intelligible, la liberte, et elle fait partie du caractere intelligible de 1'homme. On ne peut, a la verite, point acquerir la moindre connoissance des objets intelligibles ; mais la liberte n'est pas moins un fait de la conscience. Done les actions exterieures sont indif- ferentes pour la moralite de 1'homme. La bonte morale de l'homme consiste uniquement dans sa volonte moralement bonne, et celle-ci consiste en ce que la volonte soit determinee par la loi morale seule." Hist, de la PhilosopJdeModerne, par J. G. Buhle, torn. vi. pp. 504, 505. Very nearly to the same purpose is the following statement by the ingenious author of the article Leibnitz in the Biographic Universelle : " Comment accorder lefatum et la liberte, 1'imputa- tion morale et la dependance des etres finies ? Kant croit echapper a cet ecueil en ne soumettant a la loi de eausalite (au determinisme de Leibnitz) que le monde phenomenique, et en affranchis- sant de ce principe 1'ame comme nou- mene ou chose en soi, envisageant ainsi chaque action comme appartenant a un double serie a la fois ; a 1'ordre physique ou elle est enchainee a ce qui precede et a ce qui suit par les liens communs de la nature, et a 1'ordre morale, ou une determination produit un effet, sans que pour expliquer cette volition et son re- sultat, on soit renvoye a un etat ante- cedent." The author of the above passage is M. Staffer,* to whom we are indebted for the article Kant in the same work. For Kant's own view of the subject consult his Critique of Pure Reason, passim, particularly p. 99, et seq. of Born's Translation, vol. iii. 1 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 : quaeque natura, qua? non potest nisi sub idea libertatis agere, propter id ipsum, respectu practice, reipsa libera est ; hoc est, ad earn valent cunctse leges, cum libertate arctissiine conjunctse perinde, ac voluntas ejus etiam per se ipsam, et in philosophia theoretica probata, libera de- claretur." Kantii Opera, vol. ii. p. 326. This is also the creed professed by * [M. Maine de Biran ? At least among his remains we have, " Exposition de la Doctrine Philo- sophique de Leibnitz. Compose pour la BioyrapMe Umvenelle ;" and (hat article is attributed to him hy M. Cousin. Ed."] 412 DISSERTATION. PA LIT SECOND. In some respects, the functions ascribed by Kant to his prac- tical reason, are analogous to those ascribed to common sense in the writings of Beattie and Oswald. But his view of the subject is, on the whole, infinitely more exceptionable than theirs, inasmuch as it sanctions the supposition, that the 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 his book, " Nunquam aliud natura, aliud sapientia dicit," expresses, in a few significant words, the whole substance of his philosophy. It is to the same practical modification of reason that Kant appeals in favour of the existence of the Deity, and of a future state of retribution, both of which articles of belief he thinks derive the whole of their evidence from the moral nature of man. His system, therefore, as far as I am able to comprehend it, tends rather to represent these as useful credenda, than as 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 conundi-um, 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. 1 The pro- the Abbe Galiani, a much more danger- animal qui se croit libre, et ce seroit cms moralist than Kant, because he is une definition complete." Corresjxmd- always intelligible, and often extremely ancede VAbhp, OnHtfai, torn. 5. pp.339, lively and amusing. " L'homme est 340. A Paris, 1818. done libre, puisqu'il est intimement per l On the contrary, he declares expli- suade de 1'etre, et que cela vaut tout au- citly, (and I give him full credit for the taut que la liberte. Voila done le meca- sincerity of his words,) that he con- ninme de Vunivers explique clair comme sidered his Critique of Pure Season de I'eau de roclie." The same author as the only effectual antidote against the farther remarks, "La persuasion de la opposite extremes of scepticism and of liberte constitue I'e.ssenee de I'homme. superstition, as well as against various On pourroit meme dcfiiiir I'homme MR heretical doctrines which at present in- METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 413 bability is, that lie began with a serious wish to refute the doc- trines of Hume ; and that, in the progress of his inquiries, he met with obstacles of which he was not aware. It was to re- move these obstacles that he had recourse to practical reason ; an idea which has every appearance of being an after-thought, very remote from his views when he first undertook his work. This, too, would seem, from the following passage, (which I translate from Degerando,) to have been the opinion of one of Kant's ablest German commentators, M. Keinhold: "Practical Season (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 what some philosophers call an appeal to sentiment, founding belief on the necessity of act- ing. Whatever contempt Kant may aifect for popular systems of philosophy, this manner of considering the subject is not un- like the disposition of those who, feeling 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 support essential to their morals and their happiness." Hist. Comparee, vol. ii. pp. 243, 244. The extraordinary impression produced for a considerable time in Germany, by the Critique of Pure Reason, is very shrewdly, and I suspect justly, accounted for by the writer last quoted : " The system of Kant was well adapted to flatter the weaknesses of the human mind. Curiosity was excited, by see- ing paths opened which had never been trodden before. The love of mystery found a secret charm in the obscurity which enveloped the doctrine. The long and troublesome period of initiation was calculated to rouse the ambition of bold and adventurous spirits. Their love of singularity was gratified by the new nomenclature ; while their vanity exulted in the idea of being admitted into a privileged sect, exercising, and entitled feet the schools of philosophy. " Hac potest penetrare, tandemque etiam et igitur sola (Philosophia Critica) et ma- idealism! et scepticism!, qui magis terialismi, et fatalismi, et Atheismi, et scholis sunt pestiferi, radices ipsse pos- diffidentise profanae, et fanatismi, et su- sunt prsecidi." Kant, Prcef. Posterior, perstitionis, quorum virus ad universes 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 effect resulted from the universal change operated by Kant in his terms, in his classifications, in his methods, and in the enunciation of his problems. The 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 found 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 lie was come to overturn every thing which existed in philosophy, and to erect a new edifice on these immense ruins. The more decided and arrogant the terms were in which he announced his design, the more likely was it to succeed ; for the human mind submits more easily to an unlimited than to a partial faith, and yields itself up without reserve, rather than consent METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 415 to cavil about restrictions and conditions even in favour of its own independence." With these causes of Kant's success another seems to have powerfully conspired ; the indissoluble coherence and concate- nation of all the different parts of his philosophy. " It is on this concatenation (says M. Prevost) that the admiration of Kant's followers is chiefly founded." Grant only (tltey boast) the first principles of the Critical Philosophy, and you must grant the whole system. The passage quoted on this occasion by M. Prevost is so forcibly expressed, that I cannot do it justice in an English version : " Ab hinc enim capitibus fluere necesse est omnem philosophise critics rationis purae 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." 1 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 epheireral 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. 2 But there are many Semi-Kantians and Anti-Kantians, as well as partisans of other schemes built out of the ruins of the Kantian philosophy. 3 " In fine, (says a late author,) the Critique of Pure Reason, announced with pomp, received with fanaticism, disputed about with fury, after having accomplished the 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 1 See some very valuable strictures on phy is quoted from a work with which I Kant, in the learned and elegant sketch am unacquainted, Fred. Gottlob Bornii of the present state of philosophy, sub- De Scientia et Conjectura. joined to M. Prevost's French translation 2 On this subject, see Degerando, torn, of Mr. Smith's posthumous works. The ii. p. 333. Latin panegyric on the critical philoso- 3 See Degerando and De Bonald. 416 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. general disgust at all systematical creeds." 1 If this last effect has really resulted from it, (of which some doubts may perhaps be entertained,) it may be regarded as a favourable symptom of a sounder taste in matters of abstract science, than has ever yet prevailed in that country. 2 To these details, I have only to add a remark of Degerando's, which I Ifcive 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 us." [* I have myself had the pleasure to be 1 The words in the original are, " Tin degout generale de toute doctrine." But 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 Reclierches Philosophiques, par M. De Bonald, torn. i. pp. 43, 44. 1 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 Hutcheson, 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 with a regular system. Now, (he continues,) we deal much in essays, and unreasonably 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. &1. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 417 acquainted with some very ingenious as well as 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 have hitherto appeared, either in Latin, French, or our own language, to be a genuine exposition of Kant's real principles. 1 After all, the metaphysics of Kant is well entitled to atten- tion as an article of Philosophical History. If it has thrown no new light on the laws of the intellectual world, the un- bounded popularity which it enjoyed for some years in Ger- many has placed in a new and striking point of view one of the most extraordinary varieties of national character which Europe has exhibited in the eighteenth century; and, while it is kept in remembrance, will preserve to posterity a more perfect idea of the heads of its admirers than all the cranio- logical researches of Gall and Spurzheim. 2 ] 1 [A German philosopher, of the high- est rank in his own country, (Reinhold,) whose intimate acquaintance with the floctrines of Kant will not be disputed, has expressed himself on the subject of Kant's obscurity in terms not less strong than those employed by Degerando: " Querelarum omnium, hue usque de critica rationis prolatarum, maxime trita vulgarisque reprehendit in ea obscuri- tatem. Quse quidem qusestio ex iis quoque auditur, qui systema Kantianum se putant confutasse, et qui ob earn ipsam causam credere deberent, sese illud intellexisse. Nihilominus in copi- osis adversariis illius nullus hue usque prodiit, qui adsereret, se sensum illius ubivis percepisse, nullusque, quin certe sibi ipse fateri debeat, se multis in locis obscuritateni invincibilem iuvenisse. Plerisque ista obscuritas consequens ne- cessarium videtur apertarum pugnarum, quas in locis sibi perspicuis sese depre- hendisse arbitrantur ; cum e contrario novi systematis sectatores fontem istar- VOL. I. urn pugnarum in obscuritate ilia sese aperuisse existimant, qure sibi saltern haud invincibilis fuisse dicitur, ut diffi- cillime vinci earn potuisse fateantur. Responsiones illorum ad omnes, qusa hue usque prolatee sunt objectiones, perinde atque declarationes, quse Kan- tius ipse de nonnullis earum protulit, nihil quidquam aliud volunt, quam ut adversaries de sensu critices rationis prave intellecto meliora edoceant ; quo quidem profecto reprehensionem magis confitentur, quam deprecantur, librum, a tot viris subtilissimis aliasque judici- bus justis male intellectum, summa la- borare obscuritate oportere." See Rein- hold's Dissertation de fatis quce hue usque experta est Philosophia Kantiana, prefixed to his Periculum novae, Theo- rice Facuhatis Representative Hu- mance. Lipsiae, 1797.] 2 [Those who wish for further infor- mation on this subject may consult the several articles relative to it in the Journal den Sciences, or Magazin En- 2 D 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 countrymen the greatest number of proselytes. Of neither am I able to speak from my own knowledge ; nor can I annex any distinct idea to the accounts which are given of their opinions by others. Of Fichte's speculations about the philosophical import of the pronoun 1, (Qu'est-ce que le moi? 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 1 of Fichte has a creative power. It creates existence, and it creates science ; two things (by the way) which, according to him, are one and the same. Even my own existence, he tells me, commences only with the reflex act, by which I think of the pure and primitive ego. On this identity of the intelligent ego and the existing ego, (which Fichte expresses by the formula ego = ego,) all science ultimately rests. But on this part of his 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. 2 " In the history of beings there are (according to Fichte) three grand epochs ; the first belongs to the empire of chance ; the second is the reign of nature ; the third will be the epoch of the existence of God. For God does not exist yet ; he only manifests himself as preparing to exist. Nature tends to an apo- theosis, and may be regarded as a sort of divinity in the germ." 3 cyclopedique, Redige par A. L. Millin, * Hist. Comparee, &c. torn. ii. 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.] Encydopcedia Britannica. 1 In order to avoid the intolerable * Hist. Comparee, &c. torn. ii. p. 314. awkwardness of such a phrase as the I, The doctrine here ascribed to Fichte by I have substituted on this occasion the Degerando, although its unparalleled Jjatin 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 God/ an expression which, not without reason, gave general offence. His meaning was, that he intended to show how the idea of God arose and unfolded itself in the mind of man." 1 How far this apology is well founded, I am not competent to judge. The system of Schelling is, in the opinion of Degerando, but an extension of that of Fichte ; connecting with it a sort of Spinozism grafted on Idealism. In considering the primitive ego as the source of all reality as well as of all science, and in thus transporting the mind into an intellectual region, 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 new and very unexpected revolution is said to have taken place among about the correctness of the historian, afterwards inhabited them. Nor was is not altogether a novelty in the history this notion confined to the vulgar, and to of philosophy. It is, in point of fact, those poets who seem to have recorded nothing more than a return to those the vulgar theology. . . . The same gross conceptions of the mind in the notion of the spontaneous origin of the infancy of human reason, which Mr. world was embraced (as Aristotle tells Smith has so well described in the fol- us) by the early Pythagoreans. . . lowing passage : " In the first ages of Mind, and understanding, and conse- the world, the seeming incoherence of quently Deity, being the most perfect, the appearances of nature so confounded were necessarily, according to them, the mankind, that they despaired of dis- last productions of nature. For, in all covering in her operations any regular other things, what was most perfect, system. . . . Their gods, though they they observed, always came last : As in were apprehended to interpose upon plants and animals, it is not the seed some particular occasions, were so far that is most perfect, but the complete from being regarded as the creators of animal, with all its members in the one ; the world, that their origin was appre- and the complete plant, with all its hended to be posterior to that of the branches, leaves, flowers, and fruits, in world. The earth (according to Hesiod) the other." Smith's Post. Essays on was the first production of the chaos. Philosophical Subjects, pp. 106, 107. The heavens arose out of the earth, and 1 De I'Allemagne, torn. iii. p. 107. from both together all the gods who Loudres, 1813. 420 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. Schelliug's disciples ; many of them, originally educated in the Protestant faith, having thrown themselves into the bosom of the Catholic Church. 1 ..." 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 as the most poetical; " a thing not improbable among a people who have so strong a disposition to mingle together poetry and metaphysics in the same compositions. 2 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- faithful, 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 contemporaries. 3 1 See a paper by M. G. Schweig- SOTS, both Fichte and Schelling owed hauser in the London Monthly Magazine much of their reputation to the uncom- for 1804, p. 207. mon eloquence displayed in their aca- 2 " Aussi les Allemands rnelent ils demical lectures : " Cette doctrine trop souvent la Metaphysique a la sortait de la bouche de Fichte, revetu Poesie." (Allemagne, vol. iii. p. 133.) deces ornemensquidonnentlajeunesse, " Nothing (says Mr. Hume) is more la beaute, et la force au discours. On dangerous to reason than the flights of ne se lassait point en 1'ecoutant." imagination, and nothing has been the Of Schelling he expresses himself occasion of more mistakes among philo- thus : " Schelling, appele a 1'univer- sophers. Men of bright fancies may, in site de Wirzbourg, y attira par sa this respect, be compared to those reputation un concours nombreux d'au- angels whom the scripture represents as diteurs, qu'il enchainait a ses lecons par covering their eyes with their wings." la richesse de sa diction et par 1'etendue Treatise of Human Nature,vo\.i.p. 464. de ses connoissances. De la, il est 8 According to a French writer, who venu a Munich, ou je le revis en 1813. appears to have resided many years in On dit qu'il a embrasse la religion Ca- Germany, and who has enlivened a tholique." Essai sur les Siemens de short Essay on the Elements of Philo- la Philosophic, par G. Gley, Principal sophy with many curious historical de- au College d'Alencon. Paris, 1817, tails concerning Kant and his succes- pp. 138, 152. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 421 The space which I have allotted to Kant has so far exceeded what I intended he should occupy, that I must pass over the names of many of his countrymen much more worthy of public attention. In the account given by Degerando of the 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 asylum, while banished from the rest of Germany, there is a considerable number of metaphysical articles of the highest merit. 1 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 philosophy of language, [which are in an uncommon degree original and instructive.] I have great pleasure, also, in acknowledging the entertainment I have received, and the lights I have borrowed from the learned labours of Meiners and of Herder ; but none of these are so closely connected with the history of meta- physics as to justify me in entering into particular details with respect to them. I am ashamed to say that, in Great Britain, the only one of these names which has been much talked of is that of Kant ; a circumstance which, I trust, will apologize for the length to which the foregoing observations have ex- tended. 2 1 In a volume of this collection (for Academy of Berlin has had the merit to the year 1797) which happens to be bring their papers before the public, I now lying before me, [I cannot help could not omit this opportunity of re- pointing out two ingenious and interest- commending them to the attention of ing articles by M. Ancillon (le pere.) my readers. To a very important ob- The first of these is a Dialogue between servation made by MM. Prevost and Hume and Berkeley. The other is en- 1'Huillier, which has been the subject titled, Essai Ontologique sur VAme.] of some dispute, I am happy to avail The same volume contains three pro- myself of the same opportunity to ex- found and important Memoirs on Pro- press my unqualified assent. See pp. liabilities, by M. Prevost and M. 1'Huil- 15 and 31 of the Memoirs belonging to Her. None of these authors, I am the Classe de Philosophic /Speculative. aware, is of German origin, but as the * 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 Gerdil (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, 2 (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 Ie9ons a un Prince d'ltalie, Genovesi en donnait avec plus de succes a ses eleves Napolitainfl : il combinait le mieux qu'il mi etoit possible les theories de Leibnitz, pour lequel il eut tou- jours une prevention favorable, avec cells de Locke, qu'il ac- credita le premier en Italic." 3 Various other works of greater 1 His two first publications, which Diet. Hist, article Gerdil.) In the were directed against the philosophy of same article, a reference is made to a Locke, (if we may judge from their public discourse of the celebrated M. titles,) are not likely, in the present Mairan, of the Academy of Sciences, in times, to excite any curiosity. 1. Tlie which he pronounces the following Immateriality of 'tJie Soul Demonstrat- judgment on Gerdil's metaphysical ed against Mr. Locke, on the same powers : " Gerdil porte avec lui dans Principles on which this Philosopher tons ces discours un esprit geometrique, has Demonstrated the Existence and tJie qui munque trop souvent mix geometres Immateriality of God. Turin, 1747. memes." 2. Defence of the Opinion of Male- * Born 1712 ; died 1769- branche, on the Nature and Origin of 3 Revue Encyclopedique, ou Ana- our Ideas, against the examination of li/se Raisonnee des Productions les plus Mr. Locke. Turin, 1748. The only Remarqwibles dans la Litterature, les other works of Gerdil which 1 have seen Sciences, et les Arts. 1 vol. 3me liv- referred to are, A Dissertation on the raison, p. 515. Paris, Mars 1819. Incompatibility oftlie Principles of Des- (The writer of the article quoted in the cartes with tlwse of Spinoza; and A text is M. Sarpi, an Italian by birth, Refutation of some Principles main- who, after having distinguished himself tained in the Emile of Rousseau. by various publications in his own coun- Of this last performance, Rousseau is try, has now (if I am not mistaken) reported to have said, " Voila V unique fixed his residence at Paris. In his fi-rit jntlilie contre moi que j'ai trouvl own philosophical opinions, he seems to digne d'etre hi en entier." (Nouveau be a follower of Condillac's School, METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 423 or less celebrity, from Italian authors, seem to announce a growing taste in that part of Europe for these abstract re- searches. The names of Francisco Soave, of Biagioli, and of Mariano Grigli, 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. Re- 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 extraordinary man, otherwise he would scarcely have spoken filosofi delle altre nazioni, chi seppe ar- so highly as he has clone of the French ricchire di nuovi pregi la logica, la me- Ideologists : " L'Ideologie qui, d'apres tafisica, e la morale, fu il celebre Geno- sa denomination recente ponrrait etre vesi. Tuttoche mold fosscro stati i considered comme specialement due aiix filosofi che cercarono con sottili rifles- Francais, mais qui est aussi ancienne sioni, e giusti precetti d'ajutare la mente que la philosophic, puisqu'elle a pour a pensare ed a ragionare con esattezza oLjet la generation des idees et 1'analyse e verita, e Bacone, Malebranche, Loke, des facultes qui concourent a leur for- Wolfio, e molt' altri sembrassero avere mation, n'est pas etrangere aux Italiens, esaurito quanto v'era da scvivere su tale comme on ponrrait le croire.") arte, seppe nondimeno il Genovesi tro- Genovesi is considered by an his- varenuoveosservazioni, e nuovi avverti- torian of high reputation, as the refor- menti da preporre, e dare una logica piii mer of Italian philosophy. If the piena e compiuta, e pin utile non solo execution of his Treatise on Logic cor- allo studio dclla filosofia, e general- responds at all to the enlightened views mente ad ogni studio scientifico, ma with which the design seems to have eziandio alia condotta morale, ed alia been conceived, it cannot fail to be a civile societa." Dell 1 Origine, de Pro- work of much practical utility. " Ma gressi, e dello Stato attuale d'Ogni Let- chi puo veramente dirsi il riformatore teratura dell' Abate D. Giovanni An- dell" Italiana filosofia, chi la fece tosto dres. Tomo. xv. pp.260, 261. Venezia, conoscere, e respcttare da' piu dotti 1800. 424 DISSERTATION. PART 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 Galileo 1 dowmvards,) than in any other corner of the learned world. The sciences of ethics and of political economy, seem to be more suited to the taste of the modern Italians, than logic or metaphysics, properly so called. And in the two former branches of knowledge, they have certainly contributed much to the instruction and improvement of the eighteenth century. But on these subjects we are not yet prepared to enter. In the New World, the state of society and of manners has not hitherto been so favourable to abstract science as to pur- suits which come home directly to the business of human life. There is, however, one metaphysician of w T hom America has to boast, who, in logical acuteness and subtility, 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 this anxiety in sharpening his faculties, and in keeping his 1 See a most interesting account of teraire d'ltalic, torn. v. pp. 331, ft seq. Galileo's taste for poetry and polite a Paris, 1812. literature in Ginguene, Histoire Lit- METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 425 polemical vigilance constantly on the alert, may be traced in every step of his argument. 1 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 1 While this Dissertation was in the press, I received a new American pub- lication, entitled, " Transactions of the Historical and Literary Committee of the American Philosophical Society, held at Philadelphia, for Promoting Useful Knowledge" vol. i. Philadel- phia, 1819. From an advertisement prefixed to this volume, it appears that, at a meeting of this learned body in 1815, it was resolved, " That a new committee be added to those already established, to be denominated the Com- mittee of History, Moral Science, and General Literature." 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 ascertain, as much as possible, the structure and grammatical forms of the languages of the aboriginal nations of America. The Report of the corre- sponding secretary, (M. Dup'onceau,) dated January 1819, with respect to the progress then made in this investigation, is highly curious and interesting, and displays not only enlarged and philoso- phical views, but an intimate acquaint- ance with the philological researches of Adelung, Vater, Hmnboldt, and other German scholars. All this evinces an enlightened curiosity, and an extent of literary information, which could scarce- ly have been expected in these rising states for many years to come. The rapid progress 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 papers were, indeed, always distinguished by a strain of animated and vigorous eloquence ; but as most of them were composed on the spur of the occasion, their authors had little time to bestow on the niceties, or even upon the purity of diction. An attention to these is the slow offspring of learned leisure, and of the diligent study of the best models. This I presume was Gray's meaning, when he said, that " good writing not only required great parts, but the very best of those parts ;"* a maxim which, if true, would point out the state of the public taste with respect to style, as the surest test among any people of the general improvement which their intellectual powers have received ; and which, when applied to our Trans- atlantic brethren, would justify sanguine expectations of the attainments of the rising generation. * Note of Mason on a Letter of Gray's to Pr. Wharton, on the death of I)r. Middleton. 426 DISSERTATION. FAHT 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 Gassendi. 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." 1 That the Sanscrit did not grow up to the perfection which it now exhibits, from popular and casual modes of .speech, the un- 1 Letter from the Keverend David the Gospels, (dated Calcutta, September Brown, Provost of the College of Fort 1806, and published in some of the William, about the Sanscrit Edition nf Literary Journals of the day.) METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 427 exampled regularity of its forms seems almost to demonstrate ; and yet, should this supposition be rejected, to what other hypothesis shall we have recourse, which does not involve equal if not greater improbabilities ? The problem is well worthy of the attention of philosophical grammarians ; and the solution of it, whatever it may be, can scarcely fail to throw some new lights on the history of the human race, as well as on that of the human mind. [* " I have long harboured a suspicion that some, perhaps much, of the Indian science was derived from the Greeks of Bactriana." (Gibbon's Rom. Hist. vol. vii. 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 Grce- corum Bactriani, p. 165. 1 As this author is often quoted by Gibbon, it is not unlikely that he derived the hint from him. See Robertson's India, pp. 33, 34.] SECT. VIII. METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCOTLAND. IT now only remains for me to take a slight survey of the rise and progress of the Metaphysical Philosophy of Scotland ; and if, in treating of this, I should be somewhat more minute than in the former parts of this Historical Sketch, I flatter myself that allowances will be made for my anxiety to supply some chasms in the literary history of my country, which could * Restored. On Mr. Stewart's spe- indagat. Qua in re multum tribui con- ciliations touching the Sanscrit, see of jecturis, ipse vir olim doctissimus non this collection, vol. iv. Editor. negavit. Odiosum hoc est saepe suspi- cari inquit, attamen, ut mea opinio fert, 1 [The following account of Bayer's in tempore et loco necessarium atque Book is given by Klotzius in an epistle utile, ut enim in obscurissimis quaes- prefixed to Bayeri Opuscula ad His- tionibus prinium est, suspicari, ita, si toriam Antiquam, &c. Spectantia, Halse, nib.il proficiamus amplius, exstare et 1770: " Imprimis vero lectoribus per- cognosci suspiciones noslras convenit, suadere conatur, Indos a Grsecis nume- quibus fortasse aliis occasio prjebeatur, rorum nomina et niathematicas disci- ant hoc ipsum, aut novum, et diversum plinas accepisse, et vias, quibus Gtraeca? iter sibi muniendi, quo proximo ad vcri- artes cum Orientc communicate fuerint, tatcm pcrvcniatur."] 428 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. riot be so easily, nor perhaps so authentically, filled up by a younger hand. The Metaphysical Philosophy of Scotland, and, indeed, the literary taste in general, which so remarkably distinguished this country during the last century, may be dated from the lectures of Dr. Francis Hutcheson, in the University of Glasgow. Strong indications of the same speculative spirit may be traced in earlier writers ; l but it was from this period that Scotland, after a long slumber, began again to attract general notice in the republic of letters. 2 The writings of Dr. Hutcheson, however, are more closely connected with the history of Ethical than of Metaphysical 1 See Note B B B. * 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 che fiorirono nella Gran Bre- tagna a' tempi della Eegina Anna, non se ne 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'insinuo per tutto il paese colle istruzionc a viva voce, e con egregie opere date alle stampe, mi vivo genio per gli studii filosofici, e lite- rarii, e sparse qui fecondissimi semi, d'oncle vediamo nascere si felice fiutti, e si copiose." Discorso sopra le Vicende della 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 whom 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 upon this subject with his usual pre- cision. " L'ecole Ecossaise a en quel- que sorte pour fondateur Hutcheson, maitre et predecesseur de Smith. C'est ce philosophe qui lui a imprime son car- actere, et qui a commence a lui donner de 1'eclat." In a note upon this passage, the author observes, " C'est en ce seul sens qu'on peut donner un chef a une ecole de philosophic qui, comme on le verra, professe d'ailleurs la plus parfaite independance de 1'autorite." See the excellent reflections upon the posthu- mous works of Adam Smith, annexed by M. Prevost 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 Irlandese ;" 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 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 429 Science ; and I shall, accordingly, delay any remarks which I have to offer upon them till I enter upon that part of my sub- ject. There are, indeed, some very original and important metaphysical hints scattered over his works ; but it is chiefly as an ethical writer that he is known to the world, and that he is entitled to a place among the philosophers of the eighteenth century. 1 Among the contemporaries of Dr. Hutcheson, there was one Scottish metaphysician (Andrew Baxter, author of the Inquiry into tJte Nature of the Human /Soul) whose name it would be improper to pass over without some notice, after the splendid eulogy bestowed on his work by Warburton. " He who would see the justest and precisest notions of God and the soul may read this book, one of the most finished of the kind, in my humble opinion, that the present times, greatly advanced in true philosophy, have produced." 2 To this unqualified praise, I must confess, I do not think Baxter's Inquiry altogether entitled, although I readily acknow- ledge that it displays considerable ingenuity as well as learning. Some of the remarks on Berkeley's argument against the exist- ence of matter are acute and just, and, at the time when they were published, had the merit of novelty. 1 One of the chief objects of Hutche- mony, in which he pursued, with con- son's writings was to oppose the licen- siderable success, the path recently tious system of Mandeville ; a system struck out by Addison in his Essays on which was the natural offspring of some the Pleasures of the Imagination. These of Locke's reasonings against the exist- inquiries of Hutcheson, together with ence of innate practical principles. his Thoughts on Lauf/hter, although As a moralist, Hutcheson was a warm they may not be very highly prized for admirer of the ancients, and seems to their depth, bear everywhere the marks have been particularly smitten with that of an enlarged and cultivated mind, and, favourite doctrine of the Socratic school whatever may have been their effects which identifies the good with the beau- elsewhere, certainly contributed power- tifuJ. Hence he was led to follow much fully, in our Northern seats of learning, too closely the example of Shaftesbury, to introduce a taste for more liberal and in considering moral distinctions as elegant pursuits than could have been founded more on sentiment than on rea- expected so soon to succeed to the in- son, and to speak vaguely of virtue as tolerance, bigotry, and barbarism of the a sort of noble enthusiasm : but he was preceding century, led, at the same time, to connect with a See Warburton 's Divine Legation his ethical speculations some collateral of Moses demonstrated, p. 395 of the inquiries concerning Beauty and Har- first edition. 430 DISSERTATION. PABT SECOND. One of his distinguishing doctrines is, that the Deity [himself] is the immediate agent in producing the phenomena of the Material World ; hut that, in the Moral World, the case is different, a doctrine which, whatever may be thought of it in other respects, is undoubtedly a great improvement on that of Malebranche, which, by representing God as the only agent in the universe, was not less inconsistent than the scheme of Spinoza with the moral nature of Man. " The Deity (says Baxter) is not only at the head of Nature, but in every part of it. A chain of material causes betwixt the Deity and the effect produced, and much more a series of them, is such a 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." 1 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 immateriality, by [* the doctrine of the inertia of matter, which had recently attracted general attention, as one of the fundamental 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. 2 1 Appendix to the first part of the a Baxter was born at Old Aberdeen, Inquiry into the Nature of the Human in 1686 or 1687, and died at Whitting- SouJ, 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 Soul, but the METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 431 While Dr. Hutchcson's reputation as an author, and still more as an eloquent teacher, was at its zenith in Scotland, Mr. Hume began his literary career, by the publication of his Trea- tise of Human Nature. It appeared in 1739, but seems at that time to have attracted little or no attention from the public. According to the author himself, " never literary attempt was more unfortunate. It fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots." It forms, however, a very important link in this Historical Sketch, as it has contributed, either directly or 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. 1 second edition appeared in 1737, two considered that long before the publica- years before the publication of Mr. tion of his Essays, Mr. Hume had aban- Hume's Treatise of Human Nature. doned all his metaphysical researches. 1 A gentleman,* who lived in habits In proof of this, I shall quote a passage of great intimacy with Dr. Eeid towards from a letter of his to Sir Gilbert Elliot, the close of his life, and on whose accu- which, though without a date, seems racy I can fully depend, remembers to from its contents to have been written have heard him say repeatedly, that about 1750 or 1751. The passage is " Mr. Hume, in his Essays, appeared to interesting on another account, as it have forgotten his Metaphysics." Nor serves to shew how much Mr. Hume will this supposition be thought impro- undervalued the utility of mathematical bable, if, in addition to the subtle and learning, and consequently how little he fugitive nature of the subjects canvassed was aware of its importance as an organ in the Treatise of Human Nature, it be of physical discovery, and as the foun- * This gentleman was Mr. Stewart himself. In the proof there is nothing whatever printed cor- responding to this. But on the opposite blank leaf there appears the following written in pencil : "I remember that in conversation Dr. Reid used to say that in his Essays Mr. Hume appeared to have forgotten his Metaphysics. I do not remember whether, in his writings. Dr. Reid has expressed this opinion so sharply." Ed. 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 nature, and that, however wide any of them dation of some of the most necessary arts of civilized life. " I am sorry that our correspondence should lead us 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 ; hut still the other topics I must think more curious, important, entertaining, and useful, than any geo- metry that is deeper than Euclid." I have said that it is in Mr. Hume's earliest work that his metaphysical 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 volume of his Essays and Trea- tises, 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 Col- 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 negligences in his former reasoning, and some in the expression, are, he hopes, corrected. Yet several writers, who have honoured the author's philosophy with answers, have taken care to direct all their batteries against that juvenile work, which the author never acknowledged, and have affected to triumph in any advantage which they imagined they had obtained over it ; a practice very contrary to all rules of can- dour and fair dealing, and a strong in- stance of those polemical artifices which a bigoted zeal thinks itself authorized to employ. Henceforth, the author desires that the following pieces may alone be regarded as containing his philosophical sentiments and principles." After this declaration, it certainly would be highly uncandid to impute to Mr. Hume any philosophical sentiments or principles not to be found in his Phi- losophical Essays, as well as in his Treatise. But where is the unfairness of replying to any plausible arguments in the latter work, even although Mr. Hume may have omitted them in his subsequent publications ; more especially where these arguments supply any use- ful lights for illustrating his more popu- lar compositions ? The Treatise of Human Nature 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 systematical fonn in which they were originally cast. That Mr. Hume's remonstrance may be just with respect to some of his adversaries, I believe to be true ; but it is surely expressed in a tone more querulous and peevish than is justified by the 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 Philosophical Essays. " I believe the Philosophical Essays contain everything of consequence re- lating to the Understanding, which you would meet with in the Treatise; and I give you my advice against reading METAPHYSICS DUKING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 433 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 dependence 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 regard our tastes and sentiments, and politics consider men as united in society, and dependent on each other. . . . Here, then, is the only expedient from which we can hope for success in our philosophical researches, to leave the tedious lingering method which we have hitherto followed, and, instead of taking now and then a castle or village on the frontier, to march up directly to the capital or centre of these sciences, to human nature itself: which, being once masters of, we may everywhere else hope for an easy victory. From this station, we may extend our conquests over all those sciences which more intimately concern human life, and may afterwards 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 which can be decided with any certainty before we become acquainted with that science. In pretending, there- fore, to explain 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 upon which they can stand with any security. " And, as the science of man is the only solid foundation for the latter. By shortening and simpli- too precipitately. So vast an under- fying the questions, I really render them taking, planned before I was one and more complete. Addo dum minuo. The twenty, and composed before twenty- philosophical principles are the same in five, must necessarily be very defective, both ; but I was carried away by the I have repented my haste a hundred heat of youth and invention to publish and a hundred times." VOL. I. 2 E 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. "Pis 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, 1 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 body ; and although, from some of his casual expressions, it may be suspected that he conceived our intellectual operations to result from bodily organization, 2 he had yet much too large a share of good sense and sagacity to suppose, that, by studying the latter, it is possible for human ingenuity to throw any light upon the former. His works, accordingly, are perfectly free from those gratuitous and wild conjectures, which a few years afterwards were given to the world with so much confidence by Hartley and Bonnet. 3 And 1 " Mr. Locke, Lord Shaftesbury, Dr. thought." (2d edition, pp. 60, 61.) Mandeville, Mr. Hutcheson, Dr. Butler," But uo fair inference can be drawn from &c. this, as the expression is put into the * The only expression in his works I mouth of Philo the Sceptic ; whereas can recollect at present, that can give the author intimates that Cleanthes any reasonable countenance to such a speaks his own sentiments, suspicion, occurs in his Posthumous Dia- * [* The only exception to this re- logues, where he speaks of " that little mark that I can recollect in Mr. Hume's agitation of the brain which we call Treatise, occurs in vol. i. p. 3, et seq.] * Restored. Ed. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 435 in this respect his example has been of infinite use to his suc- cessors in this northern part of the island. Many absurd theories have, indeed, at different times been produced by our countrymen ; but I know of no part of Europe where such systems as those of Hartley and Bonnet have been so uniformly treated with the contempt they deserve as in Scotland. 1 Nor was it in this respect alone, that Mr. Hume's juvenile speculations contributed to forward the progress of our national literature. Among the many very exceptionable doctrines in- volved in them, there are various discussions, equally refined and solid, in which he has happily exemplified the application of metaphysical analysis to questions connected with taste, with the philosophy of jurisprudence, and with the theory of govern- ment. Of these discussions some afterwards appeared in a more popular form in his philosophical and literary Essays, and still retain a place in the latest editions of his works ; but others, not less curious, have been suppressed by the author, probably from an idea that they were too abstruse to interest the curiosity of ordinary readers. In some of these practical applications of metaphysical principles, we may perceive the germs of several inquiries which have since been successfully prosecuted by Mr. Hume's countrymen ; and among others, of those which gave birth to Lord Raines's Historical Law Tracts, and to his Elements of Criticism. The publication of Mr. Hume's Treatise was attended with another important effect in Scotland. He had cultivated the 1 In no part of Mr. Hume's metaphy- be presumed that the university of the sical writings is there the slightest re- capital was at least on a footing witli ference to either of these systems, al- any other in the kingdom, that of Glas- though he survived the date of their gow alone excepted, where Dr. Hutche- puhlication little less than thirty years. son had shot far a-head of all his con- [* Of the general state of Metaphy- temporaries. Of this plan a record sics and Ethics in Scotland, at the time (evidently communicated by Sir John when the Treatise on Human Nature Pringle himself) is preserved in tire appeared, some idea may be formed Scots Magazine for 17 ; and it ap- from the plan adopted by Sir John pears to me to be an object of sufficient Pringle, (who was then Professor of curiosity to justify me in giving a refer- Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh,) for his ence to it here.] academical course of lectures. It may * Restored. Kd. 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 Reid, Campbell, Gerard, and Beattie ; and of this fact it will not be easy to find a more satisfactory explanation, than in the critical eye with which they were led to canvass a work, equally distinguished by the depth of its reasonings, and by the 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 or imagine, or in general exercise any of our intellectual powers on things which are past, absent, or future. These ideas he considers as copies of our impressions, and the words which denote them as the only signs entitled to the attention of a philosopher ; every word professing to denote an idea, of which the corresponding impressions cannot be pointed out, being ipso facto unmeaning and illusory. The obvious re- sult of these principles is, that what Mr. Hume calls impressions, furnish, either immediately or mediately, the whole materials about which our thoughts can be employed ; a conclusion coinciding exactly with the account of the origin of our ideas borrowed by Gassendi from the ancient Epicureans. With this fundamental principle of the Gassendists, Mr. Plume combined the logical method recommended by their great antagonists the Cartesians, and (what seemed still more METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 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 doubts. On the contrary, he exposes the futility not only of the solutions proposed by Descartes himself, but of those suggested by Locke and others among his successors ; ending at last where Descartes began, in considering no one proposition as more certain, or even as more probable than another. That the proofs alleged by Descartes of the existence of the material world are quite inconclusive, had been already remarked by many. Nay, it had been 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 impossible. 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 against the existence of these he conceived to be impossible, inasmuch as they are the immediate subjects of consciousness. But to admit the existence of the thinking and 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 what 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 system. It is neither a scheme of Materialism, nor a scheme of Spiritualism ; for his reasonings strike equally at the root of both these theories. His aim is to establish a universal scepticism, and to produce in the reader a complete distrust in his own faculties. For this purpose he avails himself of the 438 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. data assumed by the most opposite sects, shifting his ground skilfully from one position to another, as best suits the scope of his present argument. With the single exception of Bayle, he has carried this sceptical mode of reasoning farther than any other modern philosopher. Cicero, who himself belonged nominally to the same school, seems to have thought, that the controversial habits imposed on the Academical sect by their profession of universal doubt, required a greater versatility of talent and fertility of invention, than were necessary for de- fending any particular system of tenets ; J 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- perience alone that can convince us, how much more difficult it is to make any real progress in the search after truth, than to acquire a talent for plausible disputation. 3 1 " Nam si singulas disciplinas perci- s See the passage quoted from Bayle, pere magnum est, quanto majus omnes ? in page 317 of this Dissertation. quod facere iis necesse est, quibus pro- * In the very interesting account, positum est, vcri reperiendi causa, et given by Dr. Holland, of Velara, a mo- contra omnes philosophos et pro omni- dern Greek physician, whom he met bus dicerc. Cujus rei tantae tamque with at Larissa in Thessaly, a few difficilis facultatem cousecutum esse me slight particulars are mentioned, which non profiteor : Secutum esse prae me let us completely into the character of fero." Cicero, De. Nat. Deor. 1. i. v. that ingenious person. " It appeared," [* Independently of the love of truth, says Dr. Holland, "that Velara had other considerations, it is probable, con- thought much on the various topics of tributed to confirm Cicero in his attach- Metaphysics and Morals, and his con- ment to a sect, which, by accustoming versation on these topics bore the same him to employ his ingenuity and elo- tone of satirical scepticism which was quence in defence of both sides of a apparent as the general feature of his disputed question, prepared him for the opinions. We spoke of the questions of exercise of the forensic talents, to which Materialism and Necessity, on both of he is chiefly indebted for his immortal which he declared an affirmative opi- faine. " Fateor, me, oratorem, si modo nion." (Holland's Travels in tlie sim, aut etiam quicunque sim, non ex Ionian Isles, &c. p. 275.) " I passed rhetorum officinis, seel ex Academiae this evening with Velara at his own spatiis extitisse." Orat. ad Brut, iii.] house, and sat with him till a late hour. * Itestored. Ed. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 439 That this spirit of sceptical argument has been carried to a most pernicious excess in modern Europe, as well as among the ancient Academics, will, I presume, be now very generally al- lowed ; but in the form in which it appears in Mr. Hume's Treatise, its mischievous tendency has been more than com- pensated by the importance of those results for which it has prepared the way. The principles which he assumes were sanctioned in common by Gassendi, by Descartes, and by Locke ; and from these, in most instances, he reasons with great logical accuracy and force. The conclusions to which he is thus led are often so extravagant and dangerous, that he ought to have regarded them as a proof of the unsoundness of his data ; but if he had not the merit of drawing this inference himself, he at least forced it so irresistibly on the observation of his successors, as to be entitled to share with them in the honour of their discoveries. Perhaps, indeed, it may be ques- tioned if the errors which he adopted from his predecessors would not have kept their ground till this day, had not his sagacity displayed so clearly the consequences which they ne- cessarily involve. It is in this sense that we must understand a compliment paid to him by the ablest of his adversaries, when he says, that " Mr. Hume's premises often do more than atone for his conclusions." l During part of the time our conversa- to provoke opposition. If any inference tion turned upon metaphysical topics, is to be drawn from the conversation of and chiefly on the old Pyrrhonic doc- such an individual, with respect to his trine of the non-existence of Matter. real creed, it is in favour of those opi- Velara, as usual, took the sceptical side nions which he controverts. These of the argument, in which he showed opinions, at least, we may confidently much ingenuity and great knowledge conclude to be agreeable to the general of the more eminent controversialists on belief of the country where he lives, this and other collateral subjects." l Mr. Hume himself (to whom Dr. (Ibid. p. 370.) We see here a lively Reid's Inquiry was communicated pre- picture of a character daily to be met vious to its publication, by their com- with in more polished and learned so- mon friend Dr. Blair) seems not to have cieties, disputing not for truth but for been dissatisfied with this apology for victory ; in the first conversation pro- some of his speculations. " I shall fessing himself a Materialist, and in only say, (he observes in a letter ad- the second denying the existence of dressed to the author,) that if you have Matter ; on both occasions taking up been able to clear up these abstruse and that ground where he was most likely important subjects, instead of being 440 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. The bias of Mr. Hume's mind to scepticism seems to have been much encouraged, and the success of his sceptical theories in the same proportion promoted, by the recent attempts of Descartes and his followers to demonstrate Self-evident Truths ; attempts which Mr. Hume clearly perceived to involve, in every instance, that sort of paralogism which logicians call reasoning in a circle. The weakness of these pretended de- monstrations is triumphantly exposed in the Treatise of Human Nature ; and it is not very wonderful that the author, in the first enthusiasm of his victory over his immediate prede- cessors, 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 fundamental laws of human belief; but (as Bacon remarks) it does not often happen to those who labour in the field of science, that the same person who sows the seed should reap the harvest. From that strong sceptical bias which led this most acute reasoner, on many important questions, to shift his controver- sial ground according to the humour of the moment, one favourable consequence has resulted that we are indebted to him for the most powerful antidotes we possess against some of the most poisonous errors of modern philosophy. I have already made a similar remark in speaking of the elaborate refutation of Spinozism by Bayle ; but the argument stated by Hume, in his Essay on the Idea of Necessary Connection, (though brought forward by the author with a very different view,) forms a still more valuable accession to metaphysical science, as it lays the axe to the very root from which Spinozism springs. The cardinal principle on which the whole of that 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. Eobertson, and Reid. morn strict review of my principles, l>y the author of this Dissertation, p. 417. METAPHYSICS DUKING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 441 system turns is, that all events, physical and moral, are neces- sarily linked together as causes and effects ; from which prin- ciple all the most alarming conclusions adopted by Spinoza follow as unavoidable and manifest corollaries. But, if it be true, as Mr. Hume contends, and as most philosophers now admit, that physical causes and effects are known to us merely as antecedents and consequents ; still more, if it be true that the word necessity., as employed in this discussion, is altogether unmeaning and insignificant, the whole system of Spinoza is nothing better than a rope of sand, and the very proposition which it professes to demonstrate is incomprehensible by our faculties. Mr. Hume's doctrine, in the unqualified form in which he states it, may lead to other consequences not less dangerous : but, if he had not the good fortune to conduct 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 Causation 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." 1 In illustration of this assertion, 1 Treatise of Human Nature, vol. i. which I have quoted in proof of this, in p. 144. Although Mr. Hume, however, the first volume of the Philosophy of the succeeded better than any of his prede- Human Mind, p. 542, et seq., fourth cessors, in calling the attention of philo- edition, and also in the second volume sophers to this discussion, his opinion on of the same work, p. 556, et seq., second the subject does not possess the merit, edition. Among these, I request the in point of originality, which was sup- attention of my readers more particu- posed to belong to it either by himself larly to a passage from a book entitled, or by his antagonists. See the passages The Procedure, Extent, and Limits of 442 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. he examines three different arguments which have been alleged as proofs of the proposition in question ; the first by Mr. Hobbes ; the second by Dr. Clarke ; and the third by Mr. Locke. And I think it will now be readily acknowledged by every competent judge, that his objections to all these pre- tended demonstrations are conclusive and unanswerable. When Mr. Hume, however, attempts to show that the pro- position in question is not intuitively certain, his argument appears to me to amount to nothing more than a logical quibble. Of this one would almost imagine that he was not insensible himself, from the short and slight manner in which he hurries over the discussion. " All certainty (he observes) arises from the comparison of ideas, and from the discovery of such relations as are unalterable, so long as the ideas continue the same. These relations are resemblance, proportions in quantity and number, degrees of any quality, and contrariety ; none of which are implied in this proposition, ivhatever has a beginning has also a cause of existence. That proposition, therefore, is not intuitively certain. At least, any one who would assert it to be intuitively certain, must deny these to be the only infallible relations, and must find some other relation of that kind to be implied in it, which it will be then time enough to examine." Upon this passage, it is sufficient for me to observe, that the whole force of the reasoning hinges on two assumptions, which are not only gratuitous, but false. 1st, That all certainty arises from the comparison of ideas. 2c%, That all the unalterable relations among our ideas are comprehended in his own arbi- trary enumeration ; Resemblance, proportions in quantity and number, degrees of any quality, and contrariety. When the correctness of these two premises shall be fully established, it will be time enough (to borrow Mr. Hume's own words) to examine the justness of his conclusion. the Human Understanding, published dence is truly wonderful, as it can two years before the Treatise of Human scarcely, by any possibility, be sup- Nature, and commonly ascribed to Dr. posed that this book was ever heard Browne, Bishop of Cork. The coinci- of by Mr. Hume. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 443 From this last reasoning, however, of Mr. Hume, it may be suspected, that he was aware of the vulnerable point against which his adversaries were most likely to direct their attacks. From the weakness, too, of the entrenchments which he has here thrown up for his own security, he seems to have been sensible, that it was not capable of a long or vigorous resistance. In the mean time, he betrays no want of confidence in his original position ; but repeating his asser- tion, that " we derive the opinion of the necessity of a cause to every new production, neither from demonstration nor from intuition," he boldly concludes, that " this opinion must neces- sarily arise from observation and experience." (Vol. i. p. 147.) Or, as he elsewhere expresses himself, "All our reasonings concerning causes and effects are derived from nothing but custom ; and, consequently, belief is more properly an act of the sensitive than of the cogitative part of our natures." Ibid. p. 321. The distinction here alluded to between the sensitive and the cogitative parts of our nature, (it may be proper to remind my readers,) makes a great figure in the works of Cudworth and of Kant. By the former it was avowedly borrowed from the philosophy of Plato. To the latter, it is not improbable, that it may have been suggested by this passage in Hume. Without disputing its justness or its importance, I may be permitted to express my doubts of the propriety of stating, so strongly as has frequently been done, the one of these parts of our nature in contrast with the other. Would it not be more philosophical, as well as more pleasing, to contemplate the beautiful harmony between them, and the gradual steps by which the mind is trained by the intimations of the former, for the deliberate conclusions of the latter ? If, for example, our conviction of the permanence of the laws of nature be not founded on any process of reasoning, (a proposition which Mr. Hume seems to have established with demonstrative evidence,) but be either the result of an instinctive principle of belief, or of the associa- tion of ideas, operating at a period when the light of reason has not yet dawned, what can be more delightful than to find 444 DISSEBTATION. PAKT SECOND. this suggestion of our sensitive frame, 1 verified by every step which our reason afterwards makes in the study of physical science; and confirmed with mathematical accuracy by the never-failing accordance of the phenomena of the heavens with the previous calculations of astronomers ! Does not this afford a satisfaction to the mind, similar to what it experiences, when we consider the adaptation of the instinct of suction, and of the organs of respiration, to the physical properties of the 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. 2 1 Upon cither of these suppositions, Mr. Hurne would, with equal propriety, have referred our anticipation of the future event to the sensitive part of our nature; and, in point of fact, the one supposition would have answered his purpose as well as the other. 8 It is but justice to Mr. Hume to re- mark, that, in his later publications, he has himself suggested this very idea as the best solution he could give of his own doubts. The following passage, which appears to me to be eminently philosophical and beautiful, I beg leave to recommend to the particular attention of Kant's disciples : " Here, then, is a kind of pre-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 commonly con- joined with it, all cur knowledge must have been limited to the narrow sphere of our memory and senses ; and we should never have been able to adjust means to ends, or employ our natural powers, either to the producing of good, or avoiding of evil. Those who delight in the discovery and contemplation of final causes have here ample subject to employ their wonder and admiration. " I shall add, for a further confirma- tion of the foregoing theory, that, as this operation of the mind, by which we in- fer like effects from like causes, and vice versa, is so essential to the subsistence of all human creatures, it is not probable that it could be trusted to the fallacious deductions of our reason, which is slow in its operations, appears not in any 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 ORDINARY WISDOM OF NATURE to secure so necessary an act of the mind by some instinct or mechanical tendency which may be infallible in its operations, may discover itself at the first 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, METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH 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 antagonists. I wish only to remark the important step which he made, in exposing the futility of the reasonings by which Hobbes, Clarke, and Locke, had attempted to demon- strate the metaphysical axiom, that " everything which begins to exist must have a cause ;" and the essential service which he rendered to true philosophy, by thus pointing out indirectly to his successors the only solid ground on which that principle is to be defended. It is to this argument of Hume's, according to Kant's own acknowledgment, that we owe the Critique of Pure Reason ; and to this we are also indebted for the far more luminous refutations of scepticism by Mr. Hume's own countrymen. In the course of Mr. Hume's very refined discussions on this subject, he is led to apply 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. 1 The only difference which seems to remain among so has she implanted in us an instinct who translates it, Doubtful Solution of which carries forward the thoughts in a Doubtful Doubts. But the essay con- correspondent course to that which she tains much sound and important mat- has established among external objects ; ter, and throws a strong light on some though we are ignorant of those powers of the chief difficulties which Mr. Hume and forces on which this regular course himself had started. Sufficient justice has and succession of objects totally de- not been done to it by his antagonists, pends." See, in the last editions of 1 The incidental reference made, by Mr. Hume's Philosophical Essays, pub- way of illustration, in the following pas- lished during his own lifetime, the two sage, to our instinctive conviction of the sections entitled Sceptical Doubts con- permanency of the laws of Nature, en- cerning the Operations of the Under- courages me to hope that, among candid standing; and Sceptical Solution oftliese and intelligent inquirers, it is now re- Doubts. The title of the latter of these ceived as an acknowledged fact in the sections has, not altogether without rea- Theory of the Human Mind, son, incurred the ridicule of Dr. Beattie, " The anxiety men have in all ages 44G DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. philosophers 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. 1 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 cus- 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 tlie permanency of the laws of nature which is the foundation of all our reasoning.' 1 '' A Letter to the Eiglit Hon. E. Peel, M.P.for the University of Oxford, by one of his Constituents. Second edition, p. 23. 1 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 from 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 necessarv 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 CENTUEY. 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. Keid 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 ideas. 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 which express what are commonly regarded as the most important objects of human knowledge. Of this number are the words cause and effect ; at least, in the sense in which they are commonly understood both by the vulgar and by philosophers. " One event (says he) follows another ; but we never observe any tie between them. They seem conjoined, but never connected. And as we can have no idea of anything 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 ap- 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. PART SECOND. Nature, 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, 1 some light is thrown on the circumstances which first led his mind into this train of sceptical speculation. As his narrative has every appearance of the most perfect truth and candour, and contains several passages which I doubt not will be very generally interesting to my readers, I shall give it a. place, together with some extracts from the correspondence to which it gave rise, in the Notes at the end of this Dissertation. 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 2 and in Germany, will be allowed to form an important 1 Sir Gilbert Elliot, Bart., grandfather their late philosophers, national welfare of the present Earl of Minto. The ori- is the ruling and central principle of ginals of the letters to which I refer are thought; a principle excellent and in Lord Minto's possession. praiseworthy in its due situation, but s A foreign writer of great name (M. quite unfitted for being ilie centre and Frederick Schlegel) seems to think that oracle of all knowledge and science." the influence of Mr. Hume's Treatise of From the connexion in which this last Human Nature on the Philosophy of sentence stands with the context, would England has been still more extensive not one imagine that the writer con- than I had conceived it to be. His opi- ceived the Wealth of Nations to be a nion on this point I transcribe as a sort new moral or metaphysical system, de- of literary curiosity : vised by Mr. Smith for the purpose of "Since the time of Hume, nothing counteracting Mr. Hume's scepticism ? more has been attempted in England I have read this translation of Mr. than to erect all sorts of bulwarks against Schlegel's lectures with much curiosity the practical influence of his destructive and interest, and flatter myself that we scepticism ; and to maintain, by various shall soon have English versions of the substitutes and aids, the pile of moral works of Kant, and of other German principle uncorrupted and entire. Not authors, from the pens of their English only with Adam Smith, but with all 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. 1 From the reply to this letter by Mr. Hume's very ingenious and accomplished correspondent, we learn that he had drawn from Mr. Hume's metaphysical discussions the only sound and philosophical inference : that the lameness of the proofs offered by Descartes and his successors, of some fundamental truths universally acknowledged by mankind, proceeded, not from any defect in the evidence of these truths, but, on the contrary, from their being self-evident, and consequently unsusceptible of de- monstration. We learn farther, that the same conclusion had been adopted, at this early period, by another of Mr. Hume's friends, Mr. Henry Home, who, under the name of Lord Kames, was afterwards so well known in the learned world. Those who are acquainted with the subsequent publications of this distinguished and most respectable author, will immediately 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. 2 suaded, is necessary, in this country, to style. . . . With all the abundance of bring down the philosophy of Germany his Italian elegance, what is the over- to its proper level. loaded and affected Roscoe when com- pared with Gibbon ? Coxe, although In treating of literary and historical master of a good and classical style, re- subjects, Mr. Schlegel seems to be more sembles Robertson in no respect so much in his element than when he ventures as in the superficialness of his re- to pronounce on philosophical questions. searches ; and the statesman Fox has But even in cases of the former descrip- nothing in common with Hume but the tion, some of his dashing judgments on bigotry of his party zeal." Such criti- English writers can be accounted for cisms may perhaps be applauded by a only by haste, caprice, or prejudice. German auditory, but in this country " The English themselves (we are told) they can injure the reputation of ncne are now pretty well convinced that Ro- but their author, bertson is a careless, superficial, and blundering historian : although they l See Note C C C. study his works, and are right in doing 2 I allude particularly to the unne- so, as models of pure composition, ex- cessary multiplication, in his philoso- tremely deserving of attention during phical arguments, of internal senses and the present declining state of English of instinctive principles. VOL. I. 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 Kames, was very nearly the same with that in which it was afterwards viewed by Reid, Oswald, and Beattie, all of whom have manifestly aimed, with greater or less precision, at the same logical doctrine which I have just alluded to. This, too, was the very ground on which Father Buffier had (even before the publication of the Treatise of Human Nature) made Ins 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. 1 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 1 Voltaire, in his catalogue of the illus- profited greatly by the same lights, if he trious writers who adorned the reign of had availed himself of their guidance, Louis XIV., is one of the very few in his inquiries concerning the human French authors who have spoken of understanding. " Du moins est il cer- Buffier with due respect : " II y a dans tain que pour ma part, je suis fort fache ses traites de metaphysique des mor- de ne connoitre que depuis tres peu de ceaux que Locke n'aurait pas desavoues, temps ces opinions du Pere Buffier ; si et c'est le seul jesuite qui ait mis une je les avais vues plutot enoncees quel- philosophie raisonnable dans ses ouv- que part, elles m'auraient epargne beau- rages." Another French philosopher, coup de peines i.-t dliesitations." " Je too, of a very different school, and cer- regrette beaucoup que Condillac, dans tainly not disposed to overrate the tal- ses profondes et sagaces meditations sur ents of Buffier, has, in a work published 1'intelligence humaine n'ait pas fait plus as lately as 1805, candidly acknow- d'attention aux idees du Pere Buffier," ledged the lights which he might have &c. &c. Elemens d' 'Ideologic, par M. derived from the labours of his prede- Destutt-Tracy, torn. iii. pp. 136, 137. cessor, if he had been acquainted with See Elements of the Philosophy of them at an earlier period of his studies. the Hitman Mind, vol. ii. pp. 88, 89, Condillac, he also observes, might have 2d edit. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENT UK Y. 451 in immediate connexion with the foregoing details. Opinions thus communicated in the confidence of friendly discussion, possess a value which seldom belongs to propositions hazarded in those public controversies where the love of victory is apt to mingle, more or less, in the most candid minds, with the love of truth. " Your notion of correcting subtlety by sentiment is cer- tainly very just with regard to morals, which depend upon sentiment: and in politics and natural philosophy, whatever conclusion is contrary to certain matters of fact, must certainly be wrong, and there must some error lie somewhere in the argument, whether we be able to shew it or not. But, in meta- physics or theology, I cannot see how either of these plain and obvious standards of truth can have place. Nothing there can correct bad reasoning but good reasoning ; and sophistry must be opposed by syllogism. 1 About seventy or eighty years ago, 2 I observe a principle like that which you advance prevailed very much in France, amongst some philosophers and beaux esprits. The occasion of it was this : The famous M. Nicole of the Port Royal, in his Perpetuite de la Foi, pushed the Protestants very hard upon the impossibility of the people's reaching a conviction of their religion by the way of private judgment, which required so many disquisitions, reasonings, researches, erudition, impartiality, and penetration, as not one of a hundred, even among men of education, is capable of. M. Claude and the Protestants answered him, not by solving his difficulties, (which seems impossible,) but by retorting them, (which is very easy.) They showed, that to reach the way of authority which the Catholics insist on, as long a train of acute reasoning, and as great erudition was requisite, as would be sufficient for a Protestant. We must first prove all the truths of natural religion, the foundation of morals, the divine autho- 1 May not sophistry be also opposed The word sentiment does not express, by appealing to the fundamental laws with sufficient precision, the test which of human belief; and, in some cases, by Mr. Hume's correspondent had mniii- appealing to facts for which we have festly in view, the evidence of our own consciousness? 2 This letter is dntc-1 IT.ol. 45'2 DISSERTATION. 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, Geneva, Rome, ancient and modern 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 founded on the most universal and determined scepticism. For more curiosity and research give a direct opposite turn from the same principles." On this careless effusion of Mr. Hume's pen, it would be unpardonable to offer any critical strictures. It cannot, 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 belief, of which it is the great object of the Treatise of Human Nature to undermine the authority. The reply of Mr. Hume, therefore, is evasive, and although strongly marked with the writer's ingenuity, does not bear upon the point in question. As to the distinction alleged by Mr. Hume between the criteria of truth in natural philosophy and in metaphysics, I trust it will now be pretty generally granted, that however well founded it may be when confined to the metaphysics of the schoolmen, it will by no means hold when extended to the inductive philosophy of the human mind. In this last science, no less than in natural philosophy, Mr. Hume's logical maxim may be laid down as a fundamental principle, that " whatever METAPHYSICS DURING THE 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, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature. For this purpose he applied to Mr. Henry Home, between whom and Dr. Butler some friendly letters appear to have passed before this period. " Your thoughts and mine (says Mr. Hume to his correspondent) agree with respect to Dr. Butler, and I would be glad to be introduced to him. I am at present castrating tny work, that is, cutting off its nobler parts ; that is, endeavouring it shall give as little offence as possible, before which I could not pretend to put it into the doctor's hands." 1 In another letter, he acknowledges Mr. Home's kindness in 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 truth in favour of a friend. I have called on the doctor, with a design of delivering your letter, but find he is at present in the country. I am a little anxious to have the doctor's opinion. My own I dare not trust to ; both because it concerns myself, and because it is so variable, that I know not how to fix it. Sometimes it elevates me above the clouds; at other times it depresses me with doubts and fears ; so that, whatever be my success, I cannot be entirely disappointed." Whether Mr. Hume ever enjoyed the satisfaction of a per- sonal interview with Dr. Butler, I have not heard. From a 1 For the rest of the letter, see Me- Kames, by Lord Woodhouselee, vol. i. moirs of the Life and Writings of Lord p. 84, ft seq. 454 DISSERTATION. TART 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." 1 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 success." 2 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 G-assendi 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, 1 Memoirs of the Life and Writings Memoirs lias inadvertently confounded of Lord Kames, vol. i. p. 92. this volume with the second part of that work, containing the Political Dis- 3 Ibid. 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 these Identity, at the end of Butler's Ana- METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 455 that he was not displeased to see the consequences of Locke's doctrine so very logically and forcibly pushed to their utmost limits, as the most effectual means of rousing the attention of the learned to a re-examination of this fundamental principle. That he was perfectly aware, before the publication of Mr. Hume's work, of the encouragement given to scepticism by the logical maxims then in vogue, is evident from the concluding paragraph of his short Essay on Personal Identity. Had it been published a few years later, nobody would have doubted, that it had been directly pointed at the general strain and spirit of Mr. Hume's philosophy. "But though we are thus certain, that we are the same agents or living beings now, which we were as far back as our remembrance reaches : yet it is asked, Whether we may not possibly be deceived in it ? And this question may be asked at the end of any demonstration whatever, because it is a ques- tion concerning the truth of perception by memory. And he who can doubt, whether perception by memory can in this case be depended on, may doubt also whether perception by deduc- tion and reasoning, which also includes memory, or indeed whether intuitive perception can. Here then we can go no farther. For it is ridiculous to attempt to prove the truth of those perceptions whose truth we can no otherwise prove than by other perceptions of exactly the same kind with them, and which there is just the same ground to suspect ; or to attempt to prove the truth of our faculties, which can no otherwise be proved, than by the use or means of those very suspected facul- ties themselves." * logy; and corn-pare the second paragraph sert, the author would not have em- with the remarks on this part of Locke's ployed, had it been written fifty years Essay by Dr. Price. Review of the later. Whoever takes the trouble to read Principal Questions and Difficulties re- the paragraph beginning with these lating to Morals, pp. 49, 50, 3d edit. words, " Thirdly, Every person is cou- Lond. 1787. scious," &c., will immediately perceive 1 I must not, however, be understood the truth of this remark. I mention it as giving unqualified praise to this Essay. as a proof of the change to the better, It is by no means free from the old which has taken place since Butler's scholastic jargon, and contains some time, in the mode of thinking and writ- reasoning which, 1 may confidently as- ing on Metaphysical questions. 456 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. It is, however, less as a speculative metaphysician, than as a philosophical inquirer into the principles of morals, that I have been induced to associate the name of Butler with that of Hume. And, on this account, it may be thought that it would have been better to delay what I have now said of him till I come to trace the progress of Ethical Science during the eighteenth century. To myself it seemed more natural and interesting to connect this historical or rather biographical digression, with the earliest notice I was to take of Mr. Hume as an author. The numerous and important hints on metaphysical questions which are scattered over Butler's works, are sufficient of 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, will 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 rny former publications. 1 It is enough to remark here, that its great object is to refute the Ideal Theory which was then in complete possession of the schools, and upon which Dr. Reid conceived that the whole of Mr. Hume's philosophy, as well as the whole of Berkeley's reasonings against the existence of matter, was founded. According to this theory we are taught, that "nothing is perceived but what is in the mind which perceives it ; that we do not really perceive things that are external, but only cer- tain images and pictures of them imprinted upon the mind, which are called impressions and ideas." " This doctrine, (says 1 Biographical Account of Reid. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 457 Dr. Reid on another occasion,) I once believed so firmly, 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 this principle ; but can find none, excepting the authority of philosophers." On the refutation of the ideal theory, contained in this and his other works, Dr. Reid himself was disposed to rest his chief merit as an author. The merit, (says he in a letter to Dr. James Gregory,) of what you are pleased to call my Philosophy, lies, I think, chiefly in having called in question the common theory of ideas or images of things in the mind being the only objects of thought; a theory founded on natural prejudices, and so universally received as to be interwoven with the structure of language. Yet were I to give you a detail of what led me to call in question this theory, after I had long held it as self- evident and unquestionable, you would think, as I do, that there was much of chance in the matter. The discovery was the birth of time, not of genius ; and Berkeley and Hume did more to bring it to light than the man that hit upon it. I think there is hardly anything that can be called mine in the philosophy of the mind, which does not follow with ease from the detection of this prejudice. " I must, therefore, beg of you, most earnestly, to make no contrast in my favour to the disparagement of my predecessors in the same pursuits. I can truly say of them, and shall always avow, what you are pleased to say of me, that, but for the assistance I have received from their writings, I never could have wrote or thought what I have done." 1 1 An ingenious and profound writer, Metaphysical System, has bestowed, in who, though intimately connected with the latest of his publications, the fol- Mr. Hume in habits of friendship, was lowing encomium on Dr. Reid's Philn- not blind to the vulnerable parts of his sophicaJ Works: 458 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. When I reflect on the stress thus laid by Dr. Keid 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 German 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. 1 Had these " The author of an Inquiry into the Mind, and of subsequent Essays on the Intellectual 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 stood 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 ideas 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 founded, 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. 1 I allude here more particularly to Dr. Priestley, who, in a work published in 1774, alleged, that when philosophers called ideas the images of extertial things, they are only to be understood as speaking figuratively ; and that Dr. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 459 reasonings been considered in the same light in Germany, it is quite impossible that the analogical language of Leibnitz, in which he speaks of the soul as a living mirror of the universe, could have been again revived ; a mode of speaking liable to every objection which Keid has urged against the ideal theory. Such, however, it would appear, is the fact. The word Repre- sentation (Vorstellung) is now the German substitute for Idea; nay, one of the most able works which Germany has produced since the commencement of its new philosophical era, is entitled Nova Theoria Facultatis Representatives Humance. In the same work, the author has prefixed, as a motto to the second book, in which he treats of " the Representative Fa- culty 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 arid reasonings, Reid has gravely argued against this metaphorical language, as if it were meant to convey a theory of perception. The same remark has been 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.) but the following short quotation from 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 senses, to be the external objects, and never enter- tain any suspicion, that the one are no- thing but representations 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 image or perception, and that the senses are only the inlets through which these images are con- veyed, without being able to produce any immediate intercourse between the mind and the object. The table which wo see seems to diminish as we remove farther from it ; but the real table, which exists independent of us, suffers no alteration. It was, therefore, no- thing but its image which was present to the mind. These are the obvious dictates of reason." Essay on the Aca- demical Philosophy. Is not this analogical theory of per- ception the principle on which the whole of Berkeley's reasonings against the existence of the material world, and of Hume's scepticism on the same sub- ject, are founded? The same analogy still continues to be sanctioned 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 : " Sicut in speculo ea quae videntur non sunt, sed eorum species ; ita qua9 intelligimus, ea sunt re ipsa extra nos, eorumque species in nobis. EST ENIM QUASI REKUM SPECULUM INTELLECTUS NOSTEE; CUT, NISI PER SENSUM REPRE- SENTENTUR RES, NIH1L 8CIT IPSE." (J. C. Scaliger, de Causis, L. L. cap. Ixvi.) Diversions ofPurle.y, vol. i. p. 35, 2cl edition. 460 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. hath no other immediate object but its own ideas (representa- 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 fruitful source of error and absurdity. 1 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 1 In censuring these metaphorical think, be doubted that the prevalence of terms, I am far from supposing that the such a phraseology must have a ten- learned writers who have employed dency to divert the attention from a just them have been all misled by the theo- view of the mental phenomena, and to retical opinions involved in their Ian- infuse into the mind of the young in- guage. Reinhold has been more parti- quirer very false conceptions of the cularly careful in guarding against such manner in which these phenomena a misapprehension. But it cannot, I ought to be studied. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 461 eminent antagonists. This coincidence one would have been disposed to consider as purely accidental, if Kant, by his petu- lant sneers at Keid, 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 own 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 different forms, of the same metaphysical controversies, which so often surprises and mortifies us in the history of literature, is an evil which will probably always continue, more or less, even in the most 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 that 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 which they are apt to be regarded by the multitude. And here I cannot refrain from remarking the injustice witL 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. 1 If this be granted, the way has, at least, been cleared and prepared for the labours of our posterity; and neither the cavils of the sceptic, nor the refutation of them by the sounder logician, can be pronounced to be useless to mankind. Nothing can be juster or more liberal than the following reflection of Reid : " I conceive the sceptical writers to be a set of men, whose business it is to pick holes in the fabric of knowledge wherever it is weak and faulty ; and when those places are properly repaired, the whole building becomes more firm and solid than it was formerly." Inquiry into the Human Mind. Dedication. 1 According to Dr. Priestley, the whom the most conspicuous and assuin- labours of these commentators on Locke ing is Dr. Reid, Professor of Moral Phi- have done more harm than good. " I losophy in the University of Glasgow." think Mr. Locke has been hasty in con- (Exam, of Reid, Beattie, and Oswald, eluding that there is some other source p. 5.) As to Mr. Hume, Dr. Priestley of our ideas besides the external senses ; says, " In my opinion, he has been very but the rest of his system appears to ably answered, again and again, upon me and others to be the corner-stone of more solid principles than those of this all just and rational knowledge of our- new common sense ; and I beg leave to selves." refer to the two first volumes of my " This solid foundation, however, has Institutes of Natural and Revealed lately been attempted to be overturned Rdigwn^ Examination of Reid, &c. by a set of pretended philosophers, of Preface, p. xxvii. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 463 There is, indeed, one point of view, in which it must be owned that Mr. Hume's Treatise has had an unfavourable effect (and more especially in Scotland) on the progress of Metaphysical Science. Had it not been for the zeal of some of his countrymen to oppose the sceptical conclusions, which they conceived it to be his aim to establish, much of that ingenuity which has been wasted in the refutation of his sophistry (or, to speak more correctly, in combating the 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 been expected from Mr. Hume himself, had his powerful and accomplished mind been more frequently turned to the study of some parts of our nature, (of those, for example, which are connected with the principles of criticism,) in examining which, the sceptical bias of his disposition would have had fewer opportunities of leading him astray ! In some fragments of this sort, which enliven and adorn his collection of Essays, one is at a loss whether more to admire the subtlety of his genius, or the solidity and good sense of his critical judgments. ISTor have these elegant applications of metaphysical pursuits been altogether overlooked by Mr. Hume's antagonists. The active and adventurous spirit of Lord Kames, here, as in many other instances, led the way to his countrymen; and, due allowances being made for the novelty and magnitude of his undertaking, with a success far greater than could have been reasonably anticipated. The Elements of Criticism, considered as the first systematical attempt to investigate the metaphysical principles of the fine arts, possesses, in spite of its numerous defects both in point of taste and of philosophy, infinite merits, and will ever be regarded as a literary wonder by those who know how small a portion of his time it was possible for the author to allot to the composition of it, amidst the imperious and multifarious duties of a most active and useful life. Campbell and Gerard, with a sounder philosophy, and Seattle, with 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 important, undoubtedly, is the new and pleasing avenue which it has opened to an analysis of the laws which regulate the intellectual phenomena ; and the interest which it has thus lent, in the estimation of men of the world, to inquiries which, not many years before, were seldom heard of, but within the walls of a university. Dr. Eeid's two volumes of Essays on the Intellectual and on the Active Powers of Man, (the former of which appeared in 1785, and the latter in 1788,) are the latest philosophical publications from Scotland of which I shall at present take notice. They are less highly finished, both in matter and in form, than his Inquiry into the Human Mind. They contain also some repetitions, to which, I am afraid, I must add a few trifling inconsistencies of expression, for which the advanced age of the author, who was then approaching to fourscore, claims every indulgence from a candid reader. Perhaps, too, it may be questioned, whether, in one or two instances, his zeal for an important conclusion has not led him to avail himself of some dubious reasonings, which might have been omitted without any prejudice to his general argument. " The value of these volumes, however, (as I have elsewhere remarked,) is inestimable to future adventurers in the same arduous inquiries, not only in consequence of the aids they furnish as a rough draught of the field to be examined, but by the example they exhibit of a method of investigation on such subjects, hitherto very imperfectly understood, even by those philosophers who call themselves the disciples of Locke. It is by the logical rigour of this method, so systematically pursued in all his researches, still more than by the importance of his particular conclusions, that he stands so conspicuously distinguished among those who have hitherto prosecuted analytically the study of man." 1 1 Kagraplacal Account of Reid. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 4(i5 His acquaintance with the metaphysical doctrines of his predecessors does not appear to have been very extensive ; with those of his own contemporaries it was remarkably defi- cient. I do riot recollect that he has anywhere mentioned the names either of Condillac or of D'Alembert. It is impossible not to regret this, not only as it has deprived us of his critical judgments on some celebrated theories, but as it has prevented him from enlivening his works with that variety of historical discussion so peculiarly agreeable in these abstract researches. On the other hand, Dr. Reid's limited range of metaphysical reading, by forcing him to draw the materials of his philoso- phical speculations 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 these, 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 apt to regard it also, in these abstruse disquisitions, as one of the surest marks of liberal and unfettered inquiry. 1 In comparing Dr. Eeid's publications at different periods of his life, it is interesting to observe his growing partiality for the aphoristical style. Some of his Essays on the Intellectual and Active Powers of Man are little more than a series of detached paragraphs, consisting of leading thoughts, of which the reader is left to trace the connexion by his own sagacity. To this aphoristical style it is not improbable that he was 1 [* Among the thoughts which Dr. he has the appearance of copying Locke Reid has been accused of borrowing in drawing the line between volition and from other writers, not a few have been desire, his apology is to be found in the forced on him by the disgusting revival perverse obstinacy with which Priestley in the present age of errors, which and others still persevere in confound- ought to have been considered as long ing two words so manifestly and so ago exploded. It is thus, that when essentially different in their meaning.] * Restored. Ed. VOL. I. 2 U 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 wTitten on the history of Metaphysics in Scotland, since the publication of Mr. Hume's Treatise, and at the same time recollect the laurels which, during the same period, have been won by Scottish authors, in every other department of literature and of science, I must acknowledge that, instead of being mortified at the slender amount of their contributions to the philosophy of the human mind, I am more disposed to wonder at their successful 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 Manual of Rational Logic, adapted to the present state of science and of society in Europe, is a desideratum which, it is to be hoped, will at no distant period be supplied. It is a work, certainly, of which the execution has been greatly facilitated by the philosophical 1 Boileau is said, by the younger cile d'un ouvrage en s'epargnant les Racine, to have made this remark in transitions." Memoire sur la Vie de speaking of La Bruyere : " II disoit que Jean Pacine. La Bruyere s'etoit epargne le plus diffi- METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH 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 been expected, the curiosity of our countrymen. Much, too, is still wanting to complete the theory of evidence. Campbell has touched upon it with his usual acuteness, but he has attempted nothing more than an illustration of a very few general principles. Nor has he turned his attention to the various illusions of the imagination, and of the passions, by which the judgment is liable to be warped in the estimates it forms of moral evidence in the common affairs of life. This is a most important inquiry, considering how often the lives and fortunes of men are subjected to the deci- sions of illiterate persons concerning circumstantial proofs ; and how much the success or failure of every individual in the con- duct of his private concerns turns on the sagacity or rashness with which he anticipates future contingencies. Since the time when Campbell wrote, an attempt has been made by Condorcet 1 and some other French writers, to apply a mathematical calcu- lus to moral and political truths ; but though much metaphysi- 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 be questioned, whether, in investigating truths of this sort, the intellectual powers can derive much aid from the employment of such an organ. To define accurately and distinctly the limits of its legitimate pro- vince, still remains a desideratum in this abstruse part of logic. Nearly connected with this subject are the metaphysical principles assumed in the mathematical Calculation of Proba- bilities ; 2 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 1 Essai sur V Application de I' Analyse a la, Probability des Decision* rendws a la pluralM des Voix. 1 [See Note E E E.] 468 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. escape the attention of the reader amid the variety of original and luminous discussions with which they are surrounded, would, in my humble apprehension, be one of the most 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 world. 1 I have mentioned but a few out of the innumerable topics which crowd upon me as fit objects of inquiry for the rising generation. 2 Nor have I been guided in my selection of these by any other consideration than their peculiar adaptation to the actual circumstances of the philosophical world. Should such men as Hume, Smith, and Reid again arise, their curiosity would, in all probability, be turned to some applications of metaphysical principles of a more popular and practical nature than those which chiefly engaged their 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 affairs. The most popular objection hitherto made to our Scottish metaphysicians is, that, in treating of human nature, they have overlooked altogether the corporeal part of our frame. From the contempt which they have uniformly expressed for all 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. Reid's inconsistency, for having somewhere acknow- 1 The paralogisms to which I allude nish new prohlems to human 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 2 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. 469 ledged, " in opposition to his systematical 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 Qualifications of a Physician, by the late learned and ingenious Dr. John Gregory. Among the different articles connected with the natural history of the human species, which he has there recommended to the 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 which Bacon called the doctrina de fcedere^) which are here pointed out as proper objects of philosophical curiosity ; 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 speculations of medical inquirers. Physiological theories concerning the functions of the nerves in producing the intellectual phenomena have pretty generally fallen into contempt : and, on the other hand, a large accession has been made to our stock of well authenticated facts, both with respect to the influence of body on mind, and of mind upon body. As examples of this, it is sufficient to mention the experimental inquiries instituted, in consequence of the pretended cures effected by means of Animal Magnetism and of Tractors ; to 470 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. which may be added, the philosophical spirit evinced in some late publications on Insanity. Another objection, not so entirely groundless, which has been made to the same school, is, that their mode of philosophizing has led to an unnecessary multiplication of our internal senses and instinctive determinations. For this error, I have elsewhere attempted to account and to apologize. 1 On the present occasion I shall only remark, that it is at least a safer error than the opposite extreme, so fashionable of late among our southern neighbours, of endeavouring to explain away, without any 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 wliite 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 ; 2 although in his 1 Biographical Memoirs, p. 472. a natural conscience ; that the love of s After relating, in the words of Vale- virtue and hatred of vice are instinctive, rius Maximus, the noted story of Gains or the perception of right or wrong in- Toranius, who betrayed his affectionate tuitive, (all of which are only different and excellent father to the triumvirate, ways of expressing the same opinion,) Dr. Paley thus proceeds : affirm that he would. " Now, the question is, whether, if this " They who deny the existence of a story were related to the wild boy caught moral sense, &c., affirm that he would some years ago in the woods of Hano- not. ver, or to a savage without experience " And upon this issue is joined." and without instruction, cut off in his Principles of Moral and Political Philo- infancy from all intercourse with his sophy, book i. chap. 5. species, and consequently under no pos- To those who are at all acquainted sible influence of example, authority, with the history of this dispute, it must education, sympathy, or habit ; whether, appear evident that the question is here I say, such a one would feel, upon the completely mis-stated ; and that, in the relation, any degree of that sentiment of whole of Dr. Paley's subsequent argu- disapprobation of Toranius's conduct ment on the subject, he combats a which we feel or not ? phantom of his own imagination. The " They who maintain the existence opinion which he ascribes to his antago- <>(' a moral sens' 3 , of innate maxims, of nists has been loudly and repeatedly METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 471 more advanced years, he amply atoned for this error of his youth, by the ingenuity and acuteness with which he combated the reasonings employed by some of his contemporaries, to invalidate the proofs afforded by the phenomena of instinct, of the existence of a designing and provident cause. In this part of his work, he has plainly in his eye the Zoonomia of Dr. Darwin, 1 where the same principles, of which Paley and others disavowed by all the most eminent mo- ralists who have disputed Locke's rea- sonings against innate practical princi- ples ; and is, indeed, so very obviously absurd, that it never could have been for a moment entertained by any person in his senses. Did it ever enter into the mind of the wildest theorist to imagine that the sense of seeing would enable a man brought up, from the moment of his birth, in utter darkness, to form a conception of light and colours? But would it not be equally rash to conclude from the ex- travagance of such a supposition, that the sense of seeing is not an original part of the human frame ? The above quotation from Paley forces me to remark, farther, that, in combat- ing the supposition of a moral sense, he has confounded together, as only differ- ent ways of expressing the same opinion, a variety of systems, which are regard- ed by all our best philosophers, not only as essentially distinct, but as in some measure standing in opposition to each other. The system of Hutcheson, for example, is identified with that of Cudworth. But although, in this in- stance, the author's logical discrimina- tion does not appear to much advan- tage, the sweeping censure thus bestow- ed on so many of our most celebrated ethical theories, has the merit of throw- ing a very strong light on that particu- lar view of the subject which it is the aim of his reasonings to establish, in contradiction to them all. 1 See his observations on Instinct. Section xvi. of the Zoonomia. [*Mr. Home Tooke, in his Diver- sions of Purley, has very ingeniously 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 without words, reason more accurately than those who only compare the ideas sug- gested by words ; a rare faculty, which distinguishes the writers of philosophy from those 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 muscles 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, as our muscles and bones constitute another part; and hence they may alike be termed natural or connate ; but neither of them can properly be termed instinc- tive; as the word instinct in its usual acceptation refers only to the actions of animals. " The reader (says Darwin) is entreated carefully to attend to this * Restored. Ed. 472 DISSERTATION. FART SECOND. had availed themselves to disprove the existence of instinct and 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 moment 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 darn ; that birds build their nest, and brood with so much patience upon their eggs ; that insects, which do not sit upon their eggs, deposit them in those particular 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." 1 In Dr. Paley's very able and convincing reasonings on these various points, he has undoubtedly approached nearer to the spirit of what has been ironically called Scottish philosophy, 2 definition of instinctive actions, lest by connate, they afford equally inanifesta- using the word instinct without adjoin- tions of design and wisdom in the Author ing any accurate idea to it, he may in- of their being ; inasmuch as, on both elude the natural desires of love and suppositions, they depend on causes hunger, and the natural sensations of either mediately or immediately sub- pain or pleasure under this general servient to the preservation of the crea- term." tures to which they belong. On both According to this explanation, the suppositions, there is an infallible pro- difference of opinion between Dr. Dar- vision and preparation made by the win and his opponents is chiefly verbal ; hand of nature, for the effect which she for whether we consider the actions of has in view.] animals commonly referred to instinct, ' Paley's Natural Theology, p. 324. as the immediate result of implanted a May I take the liberty of requesting determinations, or as the result of sen- the reader to compare a few pages of sntions and desires which are NOfufoior Dr. Paley's Section on Instinct, begin- METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 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 philosophy, 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. Paley's eyes to the dangerous tendency of Locke's argument against innate principles, when inculcated without due limitations. 1 ning " 1 am not ignorant of the theory which resolves instinct into sensation" &c., with some remarks made 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 which I have already hazarded some criticisms," &c. As both publications appeared about the same time, (in the year 1802,) the coincidence, in point of thought, must have been wholly accidental, and as such affords no slight presumption in favour of its soundness. [* Through the whole of Darwin's reasonings on this subject, there seems to me to run a strange inconsistency. 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 phenomena exhibited by some of their tribes, in the course of their periodical migrations. "It is probable," says he, " that these 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." (Vol. 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 parental instruction. This can be accounted for only by his puerile aversion to the word instinct, which prompts him always to search for a cause, implying either less or more sagacity, than that word is commonly understood to express.] . * When Dr. Paley published his Prin- ciples of Moral and Political Philoso- phy, he seems to have attached himself much too slavishly to the opinions of Bishop Law, to whom that 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 Locke's argument against innate principles, he has en- abled us to judge by his own explicit declaration : " I take implanted senses, instincts, appetites, passions, and affec- tions, &c., to be a remnant of the old philosophy, which used to call every- * Restored. Ed. 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 my review of the metaphysical pursuits of the eighteenth century. The long period which has since elapsed has been too much crowded with great political events to favour the growth of abstract science in any of its branches ; and of the little which appears to have been done, during this interval, in other parts of Europe, towards the advancement of true philosophy, the 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 measure verbal. " It will really," says for ; and therefore heartily wish, that he, " come to the same thing with re- they were in one sense all eradicated, gard to the moral attributes of God and which was undoubtedly the aim of that the nature of virtue and vice, whether great author last mentioned, (Mr. Locke,) the Deity has implanted these instincts as it was a natural consequence of his and affections in us, or has framed and first book." Law's Translation of Arch- disposed us in such a manner, has given bishop King, On tJie Origin of Evil, p. us such powers, and placed us in such 79, note. circumstances, that we must necessarily In justice, however, to Dr. Law, it acquire them.' 1 '' (Ibid.) But if Dr. must be observed, that he appears to Law was aware of this, why should he have been fully aware that the dispute and his followers have attached such in- about innate principles was in a great finite importance to the controversy? METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 475 Among these reflections, what chiefly strikes my own mind is the extraordinary change which has gradually and insensibly taken place, since the publication of Locke's Essay, in the 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. 1 This change can be accounted for only by a change in the philoso- phical pursuits 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 understanding ; to the successful exercise of its faculties and powers ; and to a knowledge of the great ends and purposes of our being. It may be regarded, therefore, as a palpable and incontrovertible proof of a corre- sponding progress of reason in this part of the world. On comparing together the multifarious studies now classed together under the title of Metaphysics, it will be found difficult 1 The following is the account of Me- [* How very different, and how much taphysics given by Hobbes : " There is more extensive, is the province now a certain Philosophia prima, on which assigned to metaphysical science ; a all other Philosophy ought to depend ; title under which is comprehended, not and consisteth principally in right limit- only the inductive philosophy of the ing of the significations of such appella- human mind, but all the subordinate tions, or names, as are of all others the branches of that study ; our logical in- most universal : which limitations serve quiries (for example) concerning the to avoid ambiguity and equivocation in conduct of the understanding ; our ethi- reasoning, and are commonly called De- cal inquiries concerning the theory of finitions ; such as are the Definitions of morals ; our philological inquiries con- Body, Time, Place, Matter, Form, Es- cerning universal grammar ; our critical sence, Subject, Substance, Accident, inquiries concerning the principles of Power, Act, Finite, Infinite, Quantity, rhetoric and of the fine arts. To these Quality, Motion, Action, Passion, and may be added those abstract specula- divers others, necessary to the explain- tions which relate to the objects of Ma- ing of a man's conceptions concerning thematics and of Physics, and an infinite the nature and generation of bodies. variety of other general disquisitions to The explication (that is, the settling of which these sciences have directed the the meaning) of which, and the like curiosity of the learned. As for the re- terms, is commonly in the schools called searches mentioned by Hobbes, they are Metaphysics." (Moral and Political no longer to be heard of, even within Works. Folio edit. Lond. 1750, p. 399.) the walls of our universities.] * Restored. F.d. 476 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. to trace any common circumstance 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 internal resources. Nor is this observation less appli- cable to speculations which relate to tilings external, than to such as are confined to the thinking and sentient principle within him. In carrying on his researches (for example) con- cerning hardness, softness, figure, and motion, he finds it not less necessary to retire within himself, than in studying the laws of imagination or memory. Indeed, in such cases the whole aim of his studies is to obtain a more precise definition of his ideas, and to ascertain the occasions on winch they are formed. From this account of the nature and object of metaphysical science, it may be reasonably expected that those with whom it is a favourite and habitual pursuit, should acquire a more than ordinary capacity of retiring, at pleasure, from the external to the internal world. They may be expected also to acquire a disposition to examine the origin of whatsoever combinations they may find established in the fancy, and a superiority to the casual associations which warp common understandings. Hence an accuracy and a subtlety in their distinctions on all subjects, and those peculiarities in their views which are characteristical of unbiassed and original thinking. But perhaps the most valuable fruit of their researches, is that scrupulous precision in the use of language, upon which, more than upon any one circumstance whatever, the logical accuracy of our reasonings, and the justness of our conclusions, essentially depend. Ac- cordingly it will be found, on a review of the history of the moral sciences, that the most important steps which have been METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 477 made in some of those apparently the most remote from meta- physical pursuits, (in the science, for example, of political eco- nomy,) have been made by men trained to the exercise of their intellectual powers by early habits of abstract meditation. To this fact Burke probably alluded when he remarked, that " by turning the soul inward on itself, its forces are 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 chase 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 three branches of knowledge, as ramifications from one common and most pernicious root. How often have Mr. Smith's reasonings in favour of the freedom of trade been ridi- culed as metaphysical and visionary ! Nay, but a few years have elapsed since this epithet (accompanied with the still more opprobrious terms of Atheistical and Democratical) was applied to the argument then urged against the morality and policy of 1 It furnishes no objection to these (sometimes, it must be owned, a very remarks, that some of our best treatises fallacious one) of depth and consist- on questions of political economy have ency. proceeded from men who were strangers Fontenelle remarks, that a single to metaphysical studies. It is enough great man is sufficient to accomplish a for my purpose if it be granted, that it change in the taste of his age, and that was by habits of metaphysical thinking the perspicuity and method for which that the minds of those authors were Descartes was indebted to his mathe- formed, by whom political economy was matical researches, were successfully first exalted to the dignity of a science. copied by many of his contemporaries To a great proportion even of the learned, who were ignorant of mathematics. A the rules of a sound logic are best taught similar observation will be found to ap- by examples ; and when a precise and ply, with still greater force, to the models well-defined phraseology is once intro- of metaphysical analysis and of logical duced, the speculations of the most or- discussion exhibited in the political dinary writers assume an appearance 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 modern 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 philosophical 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 diffusing a relish for the beautiful and the elegant ; not to mention its influence in correcting and fixing the public taste, by the precision and steadiness of the principles to which it appeals. 1 1 See some admirable remarks on this the lo of Plato. Edition of Gray, by subject by Gray, in his comments on Mathias. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 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, (notwithstanding the proverbial aversion of most of them to everything which savours of innovation,) what a change has been gradually accomplished since the beginning of the 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 Essay ; and, in a few seats of learning, by the studies of Bacon's Method of Inquiry, of the Principles of Philosophical Criticism, and of the Elements of Political Economy. In all this an approach has been made, or attempted, to what Locke so earnestly recommended to parents, " that their children's time should be spent in acquiring what may be useful to them when they come to be men." Many other circumstances, no doubt, have contributed their share in producing this 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? 1 In consequence of the operation of these causes, a sensible change has taken place in the style of English composition. 2 1 Under this head of education may judged of from an assertion of Condorcet, also be mentioned the practical improve- that two years spent under an able ments which, during the course of the teacher now carry the student beyond last century, have taken place in what the conclusions which limited the re- Lord Bacon calls the traditive part of searches of Leibnitz and of Newton. The logic. I allude here not only to the Essays lately published on this subject new arrangements in the Lancasterian by M. Lacroix (Essais sur VEnseigne- Schools, by which the diffusion of the ment en General, et sur celui des Ma- art of reading among the poorer classes thematiques en Particulier ; Paris, 1805) of the community is so wonderfully faci- contain many valuable suggestions ; litated and extended, but to those ad- and, beside their ulility to those who mirable elementary works which have are concerned in the task of instruc- opened a ready and speedy access to tion, may justly be considered as an ac- the more recondite truths of the severer cession to the Philosophy of the Human sciences. How much these have con- Mind. tributed to promote the progress of ma- s See some judicious remarks on this thematical knowledge in France may be subject, in Mr. Godwin's Inquirer, p. 480 DISSERTATION. PART SECON I >. 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, " the English language is now written with more grammatical propriety than by the hest of our ancestors ; and with a much higher degree of energy and vigour. The spirit of philosophy has infused itself into the structure of our sentences." He remarks farther, in favour of the present style of English composition, " that it at once satisfies the understanding and the ear." The union of these two excellencies certain- ly constitutes the perfection of writing. Johnson hoasts, and witli truth, in the concluding paper of the Rambler, that he had " added something to our lan- guage in the elegance of its construction, and something in the harmony of its cadence;" but what a sacrifice did he make to these objects, of conciseness, of simplicity, and of (what he has himself called) Genuine Anglicism. To 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 state, to be far superior to the French. Diderot, indeed, (a very high authority,) has, with much confidence, asserted the contrary ; and it is but fail- to let him speak for himself: " J'ajou- terois volontiers que la marche didac- tique et reglee a laquelle notre langue est assujettie la rend plus propre aux sciences ; et que par les tours et les inversions que le Grec, le Latin, 1'Ita- lien, 1'Anglois, se permettent, ces lan- gues sont plus avantageuses pour les lettres : Que nous pouvons mieux qu' aucun nut re pptiple faire parler 1'esprit ; et que le bon sens choisiroit la langue Fran9oise ; mais que 1'Imagination et les passions donneroient la preference aux langues anciennes et a celles de nos voisins: Qu'il faut parler Fra^ois dans la societe et dans les ecoles de Philoso- phic ; et Grec, Latin, Anglois, dans les chaires et sur le Theatre : Que notre langue seroit celle de la verite, si jamais elle revient sur la terre ; et que la Grecque, la Latine, et les autres se- roient les langues de la fable et du men- songe. Le Franfois est fait pour in- struire, eclairer, et convaincre ; le Grec, le Latin, 1'Italien, 1'Anglois, pour per- suader, emouvoir, et trornper ; parlez Grec, Latin, Italien an peuple, mais parlez Franfois an sage.'' (Uuvres de Diderot, 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 this 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 the gentlemen of the 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 a la philosophic METAPHYSICS DURING 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 durable materials are supplied to the present generation for transmitting their intellectual acquisitions to posterity ? But granting the truth of these reflections, it may still be asked, what is the amount of the discoveries brought to light by the metaphysical speculations of the eighteenth century ? Or rather, where are the principles to be found, of which it can be justly said, that they unite the suffrages, not of the whole, but even of the majority of our present philosophers ? The question has been lately put and urged, with no common 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 Europe, which at present pos- sesses libraries filled with philosophical works, and which reckons up almost as many philosophers as writers ; poor in the midst of so much riches, and uncertain, with the aid of all its guides, which road it should follow ; Europe, the centre and the focus of all the lights of the world, has yet its philosophy only in expectation." 1 In proof of this assertion, the author appeals to the Com- parative History of Philosophical Systems relative to the Principles of Human Knowledge, by M. Degerando ; and after a variety of acute strictures on the contradictory systems there described, sums up his argument in the following words : par cela seul qu'elle a puissament con- Royal contributed to establish in France courii a fixer notre langue, a lui donner a taste for just reasoning, simplicity of ce caractere de precision, de clarte, d'ex- style, and philosophical method." The actitudc, qui la rend si favorable aux improvement, in all these respects, of our operations de 1'esprit." Hist. Com- English writers, during the same period, paree, &c., torn. ii. p. 45. is, in my opinion, much more remarkable. Mr. Gibbon also has remarked, how 1 BecherchesPhilosophiques^Sic^f. 2. much " the learned Society of Port- Pans, 1818. VOL. I. 2 II 48-2 DISSERTATION. 1'ART SECOND. " Thus, the 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 philosophical researches ; and a demonstrated conviction of the impossibility of raising an edifice on a soil so void of consistency, 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 ? What 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 repeat the same ques- tions, vainly pursuing the same phantoms which the Greeks pursued two thousand years ago." 1 In reply to this bold attack on the evidence of the moral 1 HficJierches Philosorthiques, &c., pp. 58, 5y. Paris, 1818. On the other hand, may it not be asked, if the numher of philosophical systems be greater than that of the sects which at present divide the Christian Church? The allusion here made to Eossuet's celebrated History of the Variations, shows plainly that the simi- larity of the two cases had not been overlooked by the ingenious writer ; and that the only effectual remedy which, in his opinion, can be applied to either, is to subject once more the reason, both of philosophers and of divines, to the para- mount authority of an infallible guide. The conclusion is such as might have been expected from a good Catholic ; but I trust that, in this country, it is not likely to mislead many of my readers. Some recent conversions to Popery, however, which, in consequence of views similar to those of M. de Bonald, have taken place among the philosophers of Germany, afford a proof that, in the present political state of Europe, the danger of a temporary re- lapse into the superstitions of the Church of Rome, how slight soever, ought not to be regarded as altogether visionary. See Lectures on the History of Literature, by Frederick Schlegel, vol. ii. pp. 65, 88. 89, 175, and 187. English Translation, Edinburgh. [* It is observed by Dr. Mosheim, that " notwithstanding the boasted unity of faith in the Church of Rome, and its ostentatious pretensions to har- mony 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 Franciscans and the Dominicans con- 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 seminaries 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." Madaine's Translation, vol. iii. pp. 462, 4(53, 2d edition.] * Restored. Ed. METAPHYSICS DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 483 sciences, it may suffice to recall to our recollection the state of physical science not more than two centuries 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 modern chemistry. Whatever contradic- tions, therefore, may yet exist in our metaphysical doctrines, (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 perceived in political economy, and some other sciences to which, on a superficial view, they may seem to have a very remote relation ; and that the rise. of the sap in the tree of knowledge should be indicated by the germs at the extremities of the branches, before any visible change is discernible in the trunk. The sciences, whose improvement during the last century has been generally acknowledged, are those which are most open to common observation ; while the changes which have taken place in the state of metaphysics, have attracted the notice of the few alone who take a deep interest in these abstract pur- suits. The swelling of the buds, however, affords a sufficient proof that the roots are sound, and encourages the hope that the growth of the trunk, though more slow, will, in process of time, be equally conspicuous with that of the leaves and blossoms. 1 1 [* The analogy of which 1 have est la Physique, et les branches qui sor- availed myself in the above paragraph, tent du tronc sont toutes les autres was suggested to me by the following sciences, qui se reduisent a trois princi- passage in Descartes : " Ainsi, toute la pales, la Medecine, la Mecanique et le philosophic est comme un arbre, dont Morale : j'entends la plus haute et la les racines sont la Metaphysique, le tronc plus parfaite Morale, qui, prcstipposant * Kcstoi-ed. Ed. 484 DISSERTATION. PART SECOND. I shall close this part of ray Dissertation with remarking, that the practical influence of such speculations as those of Locke and of Bacon is to be traced only by comparing, on a large scale, the state of the human mind at distant periods. Both these philosophers appear to have been fully aware, (and I know of no philosopher before them of whom the same thing can be said,) that the progressive improvement of the species is to be expected less from the culture of the reasoning powers^ strictly so called, than from the prevention, in early life, of those artificial impressions and associations, by means of which, when once rivetted by habit, the strongest reason may be held in perpetual bondage. These impressions and associations may be likened to the slender threads which fastened Gulliver to the earth ; and they are to be overcome, not by a sudden 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, this process has been incessantly going on, all over the Christian world ; but it is chiefly in the course of the last century that the result has become visible to common observers. How many are the threads w y hich, even in Catholic countries, have been broken by the writings of Locke ! How manv still remain to be broken, before the mind of man v J can recover that moral liberty which, at some future period, it seems destined to enjoy ! une enticre connaissance des autres principale iitilite de la philosophic de- sciences, est le dernier degre de la pend de celles de ses parties qu'on ne sagesse. Or, comme ce n'est pas des pent apprendre que les dernieres." racines ni du tronc des arhres qii'on Preface des Principes de la Philo- cueille les fruits, mais seulement des sophie.] extreraites de leurs branches, ainsi la DISSERTATION. PART THIRD. DISSERTATION. PAET III. PROGRESS OF ETHICAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.* CONCLUDING CHAPTEE. A FRAGMENT. THE slight Historical Sketch 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. 1 It must * [This was designed (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 Re- cyclopaedia. Kinniel, Nov. 1816." suits. The manuscript from which this Editor.'] is printed was thus labelled by Mr. l " Du scin de la foodalite, qui etoit en 488 DISSERTATION. PART THIRD LAST CHAPTER ONLY. be remembered, 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 countries where reason and liberality have, for a time, been checked or repressed in their career, the effect has been produced by the influence of despotic power in depriving the people of the means of instruction in restraining the free communication of mutual lights 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- elle a toujours etc propageant une rc- pre que celui des republiques anciennes partition plus universelle de I'instruc- an developpement de la liberte et a celui tion, ajoutant au tresors des sciences, et de 1'esprit humain. sont cependant sor- malgre quelques vicissitudes momen- ties peu a peu Tabolition presque gen- tanees, ameiiorant nos idees sur la poli- erale de 1'Esclavage, et un tendance tique, sur la morale, et meme, quoiqu'on vers 1'egalite civile qui n'a cesse, qui ne en dise, sur la religion, qu'elle tend cesse d'agir, et que nous voyons marcher chaque jour, en depit d'une resistance a grands pas a son entier accomplissc- bien mal calculee a purger de ces im- ment. La raison publique, gagnant puretes dont la main de 1'homme ri'a toujours du terrein, a fait des progres que trop depare sa divine origine."- continuels, souvent lents, quelquefois Reflexions sur les Moyens proprea a interrompus, mais a la longue snrmont- Comsolider VOrdre Constitutional en ant tons les obstacles qui lui etoient op- France. Par M. Xavier de Sade. pos's, s:ms se detourner de sa marclic, Paris, 1822. ETHICS AND POLITICS DURING XVIII. CENTURY IN RESULT. 489 tive speculations concerning the history of the world. Of what consequence (it has been asked) 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 despair 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. 1 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 beginning to emerge from seeming confusion. In tracing the History of Astronomy, how delightful to see the Cycles and Epicycles of Ptolemy, which drew from Alphonsus his impious censure on the wisdom of the Creator, give way to the perfect arid sublime simplicity of the Copernican system ! A similar remark may be applied to the discoveries since made by Newton and his followers ; discoveries which fully justify what a late eminent writer has said 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 no 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 AA 7 orld ; and since the Reformation of Luther ? Has not the happiness of our species 1 Few, it is to be hoped, would be dis- " 1>m wear - v of the SUT1 > posed to close life with avowing the And wish the state of the world were now . , , . . . . undone." selfish and misanthropical sentiments n m v i ' j 1 ... Or, as Claudian has expressed the same which Shakespeare has with admirable ,ij a i, ]i ca i f ee lin- propriety put into the mouth of Mac- "Eversojuvat orbo mori ; solatia letho beta : Exitiura commune dabit." 490 DISSERTATION. PART THIRD LAST CKAlTEll ONLY". kept pace, in evciy country where despotism has not dried up or poisoned the springs of human 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 this island ? Is it possible, in the nature of things, that this extension should not, sooner or later, be effected ? Nay, is it possible, (noiv when all the regions of the globe are 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, Reap 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 POLITICS DURING XVIII. CENTURY IN RESULT. 491 between the diffusion 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 have, in all ages, been justly regarded as the chief stronghold of the Epicurean theology P 1 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 entirely 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 have attained, 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- 1 See Note F F F. 492 DISSERTATION. PART THIRD LAST CHAPTER ONLY. phical emperor,) as fellow-ivorkers with 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 effects of our own ignorance and blindness ; and the dissemination of truth and knowledge among all ranks of men as the only solid foundation 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 quality 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 perfectibility of the race, the thick cloud which at present hangs over the civilized world, affords no solid argument for despairing of its future destiny. In the course of those splenetic epistles which were pub- ETHICS AND POLITICS DURING 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 unsatisfactory and discouraging a nature, as affords of itself no inconsiderable presumption against its truth. 1 The same system is insinuated more or less directly in the writings of most of our modern 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, arid powerful advocates among very different de- scriptions of individuals. It is much to be regretted, that the greater part of those who have opposed 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 speculations on the same subject. The follow- ing outline of his philosophical and political 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'impcrfectiontant en morale qu'en et abandonner le vulgaire a 1'erreur, en physique est le caractere de ce globe tachant de le detourner des crimes qui que nous habitons ; c'est peine perdue derangent 1'ordre de la societe." See d'entreprendre de 1'eclairer, et souvent the whole passage, (Euv. Post. torn. ii. la commission est dangereuse pour ceux p. 66. See also the same vol., p. 71 ; f|iii s'en chaigeut. II faut se contenter also pp. 83, 84. d'etre sago pour soi, si on pent 1'etrc, 494 DISSERTATION. FART THIRD LAST CHAPTER ONLY. not only believed that it is possible, but he regarded a constant susceptibility of improvement 1 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 have 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 1 I have substituted this circumlocu- England, have frequently expressed tion instead of the word perfectibilite themselves, as if they conceived that which is employed in the original, be- man, both in his individual and political cause the latter word conveys very dif- capacity, was destined at last to attain ferent ideas to a French and to an to the actual perfection of his being, English ear. In the French language, an error into which some of them ap- it ought to be remarked, there is no pear to have been partly led by tho later verb corresponding to the English verb extravagances of (Jondorcet. The ridi- improve, but perfectionner ; nor any cule which has been lavished on this substantive but perfectionnement, by last supposition, has been justly merited which the word improvement can pos- by those who have given it any cotinte- sdbly be translated. When the French nance ; but it ought not to be extended writers, accordingly, represent a con- to such a writer as Turgot, and still slant perfectibility as one of the char- less to the older philosophers of France, acteristical qualities of our race, they by whom it has been used. I do not mean nothing more than this, that no know at what period it was first intro- limit can be set to the possible improve- duced, but it is at least as old as the pub- ment of society ; a proposition which lications of Buffon, of Rousseau, arid of no philosopher, whether English or Charles Bonnet, according to whom this French, has yet ventured to dispute. perfectibility is the characteristic which The writers, on the other hand, who essentially distinguishes man from tho have transplanted this doctrine into brutes. Sec Bonnet, torn. viii. p. 333. ETHICS AND POLITICS DURING XVIII. CENTUHY 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 disappear, 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 proportion as they shall become more enlightened. He was anxious, there- fore, that instead of attempting to graft the virtues of mankind on their prejudices, and to support them by enthusiasm or by exaggerated principles, philosophers would endeavour to con- vince mm, by addressing 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 be virtuous motives of action ; but if these sentiments were sincere, he considered them as respectable qualities of great and elevated minds, which it was proper to enlighten rather than to inflame. He dreaded always, that, if subjected to a severe and philosophical examination, they might be found to originate in pride or the desire of superiority ; that the love of liberty might some- times be, 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, by 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 did 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 enlightened 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 proportion 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 better 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 that understanding, which we may presume, from the experience of the past, is destined yet ETHICS AND POLITICS DURING XVII I. 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- pating 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 effectual 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 human affairs, and in that part of the universe with which we are connected/' 1 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 affairs, as may be sup- posed, by the most remote tendency, to inflame the passions of the multitude ; a caution more peculiarly 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 overthrow 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, who, 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. 2 1 [Turgot's Life, by Condorcet. Ed.] lution, the fact is more peculiarly rc- 8 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 truth on account of the errors with which it is liable to be blended, or for sacrificing at once all the hopes which both morality and religion encourage us to cherish, to a cold and comfortless system, equally fatal both to public and to private virtue. It is prudent, at least, as well as philosophical, before we embrace opinions so melancholy in their consequences, to consider what the arguments are which are generally urged in their defence. On this head it will not be necessary for me to insist long, as these arguments rest chiefly on the puerile supposition of an analogy between the natural and political body ; or on an empirical retrospect of the past history of mankind, unaccom- panied with any consideration of the important peculiarities which so advantageously distinguish the present times. The late celebrated Father Boscovich is the only person, as far as I know, who has attempted a direct proof 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 appearances are in favour of the opposite supposition. This reasoning of Boscovich deserves to be mentioned, as one of the most remarkable instances that can be produced, as a misapplication of mathematical theory to the business of human life. It occurs in his succinct but masterly commentary on the Latin poem of Benedictus Stay, De Systemate Mundi; and is surviving of the school of Turgot and the warnings they addressed to those in of Quesnai were, in the first instance, power, of the confusions in which they so zealously and systematically attached were likely to involve their country hy to the old monarchical constitution, that subjecting questions of such incalculable they exposed themselves, during the moment to the discussions of men so year 1788, to a very general odium, by little acquainted with the Theory of remonstrating loudly against the Con- Government and the principles of Poli- vocation of the States-General, and by tioal Economy. ETHICS AND POLITICS DURING XVIII. CENTURY IN RESULT. 499 introduced on occasion of some verses in which the poet seems 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 presages ; presages in which I am farther confirmed by some Geometrical considerations afterwards to be explained." 1 Accordingly, he has annexed to the poem an appendix, containing what he calls a Geometrical Prophecy; in which he assumes a straight line A B to express the times, and certain ordinates to express the corresponding states of knowledge ; the curve to which these ordinates belong, receding from the axis A B, or approaching to it, according as the lines denoting the states increase or di- minish. 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. 2 1 " At mihi coutra ad infausta, quse tonus protulit pertinentia ad analysin, multo frequentius accidunt, prona mens, ad geometriam, ad mechanicam, ad op- animo forruidinem incutit. . . . Quod ticam, ad astronomiam potissimum, qua: autem pertinet ad progressum in setate ipse, quse Leibnitius, quse universa Ber- mox subsecutura, est mihi indicium noulliorum familia in calculo infinitesi- quoddam a Geometria petitum, quod mali vel inveniendo, vel promo^endo itidem deteriora divinare jubeat ; de quo prodiderunt. Quam multa ea sunt, cu- in Supplemento." [Tom. i. p. 93, seq. jus ponderis, quantee utilitatis? At ea Ed.} omnia centum annorum circitur inter- * " Si superius decimum septimum vallo prodierunt, initio quidem plurima sseculum, et primes hujusce decimi oc- confertim, turn sensim pauciora : ab tavi annos consideremus quam multis, annis, jam triginta vix quidquam ad- quam praeclaris inventis fcecundum ex- jectum est. Aberratio luminis, et nuta- titit id omne tempus? Quod quidem tio axis accessit astronomise, dimensio, si cum hoc prsesenti tempore comparen- gradnum ad Telluris formam geogra- tur, patebit sane, eo nos jam devenisse, phise, mira electricorum phenomcnorum ut fere permanens quidem habeatur sta- series, causis tamen adhuc fere latenti- tus, nisi etiam regressus jam cceperit. bus, Physicse, et si qua alia sunt ejus- Qui enim progressus in iis, quse Carte- modi, quae sane cum prioribus illia sins in algebras potissimum applicatione tantis harum disciplinarum incrementis ad geometriam, Galilaeus ac Hugenius, comparari nullo modo possunt. An non in primis in optica, astronomia, mecha- igitur eo devenimus, ut incrementis de- nica, invenerunt ? Quid ea, quae New- crescentibus, brevi debeant decrements 500 DISSERTATION. PART THIRD LAST CHAPTER ONLY. To this reasoning of Boscovich it will not be expected that 1 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 differ- 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 Roman Empire in the West, has alluded 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. 1 succedere, ut curva ilia linea, qune ex- of retrogradation in particular regions, primit Lujus literature statum ac vices, but continually embracing a wider and iterum ad axem deflexa delabatur, ct wider circle of the inhabitants of the pnecepsruat?" [Tom. i. p. 353. Ed.] globe. He even goes so far as to repre- 1 In an eloquent and philosophical sent the establishment of this cardinal discourse pronounced before the Magis- truth as the proper aim of the Philoso- trates of Geneva, on the 20th of June phy of History. The object which I 1814, the author (M. Simon de de Sis- have in view at present is comparatively mondi) has attempted, with great inge- confined, extending no further than to nuity 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 ETHICS AND POLITICS DURING XVIII. CENTURY IN RESULT. 501 Nor let the following remarks be accused as savouring of what is now sarcastically called the Neiv Philosophy. They coincide entirely with the prophetic language of Scripture, 1 as well as with the views of a writer, whose sanguine predictions of invalidating his general argument. De la Philosophic de VHistoire, Dis- cours prononce devant les Magistrate et le Peuple de la Republitjue de Geneve, apres la Distribution Annue'le des Prix du College. Par J. C. L. Simonde de Sismondi. Londres, 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 richesse litteraire des Arabes que nous n'avons fait qu'eutrevoir, n'ex- iste plus dans aucun des pays ou les Arabes et les Mussulmans dominent. Ce n'est plus la qu'il faut cliercher ni la renommee de leurs grands hommes, ni leurs ecrits. Ce qui s'en est sauve est tout entier entre les mains de leurs en- nemis, dans les couvents de moines, ou les bibliotheqiies des rois de 1'Europe. Et cependant ces vastes contrees n'ont point etc conquises ; ce n'est point 1'et- ranger qui les a depouillees de leurs richesses, qui a aneanties leur population, qui a dctruit leurs lois, leurs mceurs, et leur esprit national. La poison etoit au-dedans d'elles, il s'est developpe par lui-meme, et il a tout aneanti. " Qui sait si, dans quelques siecles, cette meme Europe, ou le regne des Lettres et des Sciences est aujourd'hui transporte, qui brille d'un si grand ec- lat, qui juge si bien les temps passes, qui compare si bien le regne successif des litterateurs ct des mceurs antiques, ne sera pas deserte et sauvage comme les collines de la Mauritanie, les sables de 1'Egypte, ou les vallees de 1'Anatolie ? Qui sait si, dans un pays entierement neuf, peut-etre dans les hautes contrees d'ou decoule 1'Orenoque ou la fleuve des Amazons, peut-etre dans cette enceinte jusqu' a ce jour impenetrable des mon- tagnes de la Nouvelle Hollande, il ne se fonnera pas des peuples avec d'autres mceurs, d'autres langues, d'autres pen- sees, d'autres religions, des peuples qui renouvelleront encore une fois la race humaine, qui etudiront comme nous les temps passes, et qui, voyant avec etonnement que nous avons existe, que nous avons su ce qu'ils sauront, que nous avons cru comme eux a la duree et a la gloire, plaindront nos im- puissans efforts, et rappelleront les noms des Newton, des Eacine, des Tasse, comme exemples de cette vaine lutte de 1'homme pour atteindre une immorta- lite de renommee que la destinee lui refuse." De Litter, du Midi de VEu- rope, torn. i. pp. 76, 77 ; a Paris, 1813. 1 It may not be improper to observe here that this improvement in the con- dition of mankind is represented in the sacred writings, not as the consequence of such a miraculous interposition of Providence as was dreamed of by the Cromwellian 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 the 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. Multi pertransibunt et auc/ebitur Scien- tia. The same mistake is committed by Baillet in his Life of Descartes. See book ii. chap. 11, end of the chapter. (Part i. 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 surely (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 or THE OCEAN AND OF THE WORLD i the leisure wliere- with the civilized world abounds, and the inseparable quality that attends time itself, Avhich 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 Eeligion, 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, 1 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 Neio 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 thing may be said of the author of the above passage, when contrasted with the crowd of vulgar, or rather of courtly politicians. 1 To prevent any misapprehension ' ,,.,,. ., . . , Immensosque licet quoque spes extendere in head anord him an opportunity, which annos he appears to me to have managed with Temporis et sevos labentis temnere morsus 504 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 afford ; 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 commerce 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 mechanical 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 Maguis prsesertiro pro rebus ; nam levc queis est His immortal! de tempore ? Concitat istis Pondus, ferre queant aetatem baud denique Me quoque promisds, et mentem numine multam. Phoebus 8ed quas fata manent uostros ventura labures ? Tmplet, ct incessit; jam, quo feror, impetus Quantum revi mihi fas optare ? Quid augurer ire e?t. [Lib. ii. v. 92, stq.Eil.] auais El'HICS AND POLITICS DURING XVIII. CENTURY IN RESULT. 505 we commonly call diversities of genius. 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 political destiny of mankind. But the circumstance which constitutes the chief distinction between the division of labour in the mechanical 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 displayed, in the most remote nations and ages. Howjmany trains of sublime or of beautiful imagery have been kindled in the minds of our modern poets by sparks struck out by Homer or by Hesiod ! And, (not to speak of the mighty effects pro- duced on the Christian world by the truths which Eevelation 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- fucius, or to the familiar sayings which fell from the 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 sentiment. 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 present stock of knowledge have proceeded from men, who, while they were following the impulse of a merely speculative curiosity, were unconsciously 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 hint, 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 multiplicity of arts which contribute their share in furnishing the peasant with his coarse woollen coat, Avill be found to apply, in a far greater degree, to the homely furniture of his 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 lights in discovering and in familiarizing 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 insensibly 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 importance to human happiness, than to enlarge the boundaries 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 Keformation, cannot be disputed ; nor do I see how it coil be explained, but by the effect of a general diffusion of knowledge in gradually clearing truth from that admixture of error, which it had contracted from casual associations, fostered by an ambitious priesthood, during the long period of Gothic darkness. Of this progress, a very striking instance has occurred, in our own northern part of the island, in the rapidity with which ETHICS AND POLITICS DURING XVIII. CENTUEY IN RESULT. 507 the popular belief of witchcraft has vanished in the course of a very few years. 1 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 offence to a large proportion of very respectable individuals in this country, on account of its daring impiety ; 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. 2 1 In the year 1697, we meet with a warrant, issued hy the Privy Council of Scotland, to certain Commissioners to try twenty-four persons, male and female, suspected arid 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. 2 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 Judge Powel was a weak or a hard-hearted man ; but I do know, that in the Augustan age of English 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 Wenman at Hertford, who, in consequence perhaps of a controversy that arose upon her case, rather than from any interposition of Powel, was not executed ; and that f 1 f> spirit of unenlightened and intolerant bigotry. The active friends of truth 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 be ; 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 one 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 which are 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 furnished those who have monopolized the use of it, with additional resources for prolonging the reign of supersti- tion and darkness. The objections which 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 name. Such then are the effects of the press in accelerating the pro- gress and in promoting the diffusion of knowledge. But what is the tendency of these two circumstances with respect to the 51G DISSERTATION. PART THIRD LAST CHAPTER ONLY. tveUbeing of society ? It is to this test, that, in all our poli- 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 has 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 compensated by the decreasing 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 number of cultivated minds which there abound, like the trees in a thick and flourishing forest, prevent any single indi- vidual from rearing his head far above the rest. Where trade is in few hands, we meet with 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 degree 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 ETHICS AND POLITICS DURING XVIII. CENTURY IN RESULT. 517 various provincial towns of the kingdom, and publishing, from time to time, their united contributions ; and a multitude of female authors, in every department of learning and of taste, disputing the palm of excellence with the most celebrated of their countrymen. Amidst such a profusion of productions, there will, of course, be much to call forth and to justify the severity of criticism ; but the Philosopher will trace with pleasure, in the humblest attempts to instruct or to amuse the world, the progress of science and of philanthropy in widening the circle of their operation ; and even where he finds little to admire or to approve, will reflect with satisfaction, that the delights of study, and the activity of public spirit, are not con- fined to the walks of academical retirement, or to the great 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 without 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 supposed that any danger is to be apprehended from this quarter, in withdrawing men from active professions and imperious duties to the pursuits of literature and science. It is wisely ordered by Providence, in every age and in every state of society, that while a small number 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 presume) over all the other circumstances of his destiny ; and as it preserves invariably that balance of the sexes 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 wellbeing and stability of the political system depends. To vary these proportions by legislative arrangements is surely not, in any instance, the business of an enlightened 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 diffusion 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 clay must be devoted to relaxation and repose ; and, un- less some exercise or amusement be provided for the mind, these intervals of bodily rest will 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 painful. 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 languor of the savage, when his animal powers are unemployed ; 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 ETHICS AND POLITICS DURING XV11I. 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 happiness. 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 found, 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 be 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 scepticism 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 faith 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 520 DISSERTATION. PART THIRD LAST CHAPTER ONLY. sense that the word scepticism is now commonly understood, or in which I would be understood 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 vigour of intellect which result from a consciousness of the connexion between knoivledge and power, is a relapse towards the ignorance, the inefficiency, and the imbecility of childhood. With these apparent exceptions, I do not hesitate to repeat it as an incontrovertible proposition, that the discovery of philo- sophical truth) (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, without bringing any accession of good to com- pensate the uneasiness which it occasions, our daily experience is sufficient to demonstrate. But the general laws of nature, as far as they have yet been traced, appear all so wisely and beneficently ordered, as to entitle us to reject, on this very principle, every theory which 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 any one of the data on which we reason in natural philosophy. It is from this tendency of philosophical studies to cultivate habits of generalization, that their chief utility arises; accustom- ing those who pursue them to regard events, less in relation to their own immediate and partial concerns, than to the general interests of the human race ; and thus rendering them at once happier in themselves, and more likely to be extensively useful in the discharge of their social duties. Among the manifold obstacles which stand in the way of these encouraging prospects, none is nearly so formidable as the selfish and turbulent impatience of that unprincipled crowd, ETHICS AND POLITICS DURING XVIII. CENTURY IN RESULT. 521 who, during every short gleam of sunshine in the political 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 mankind, 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 impediments which ancient establish- ments and deep-rooted opinions may oppose to their progress. The calamitous events which in the first instance resulted from the French Kevolution, afford an awful and never to be for- gotten comment on the truth of this remark. These observations naturally lead me to take notice of the mischievous consequences which have, in many instances, been produced by the indiscriminate zeal of some modern philoso- phers 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- biassed judgment on all questions whatever. It appears to me that this doctrine has been carried to a length, equally inex- pedient in the practical result, and inconsistent with the prin- ciples of sound philosophy ; indeed, hardly less so, than if it were proposed that each individual should be abandoned to the exercise of his own ingenuity in re-inventing all the necessary and useful arts of life. For what is the provision made by nature to secure the progressive improvement of the species, but that every successive generation should build on the ex- perience and wisdom of the former ? And although, in this way, a mixture of error must be transmitted from one genera- tion to another, yet should parents and instructors refuse to in- culcate what appears to their private judgment to be conducive to the happiness of their offspring, from a distrust in the attain- ments of their own times, when compared with the possible dis- coveries of future ages, how would it be possible for mankind to advance either in knowledge or in morals ? In such an age, more especially as the present, we need not be apprehensive that the errors we communicate will be of long duration. The evil to be dreaded is not implicit credulity, 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 attempting to oppose, may be traced a looseness and want of system in the modern 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 eveiy 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 effects 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 enirn commenta delet dies, naturas judicia confirmat." 1 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, 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 1 [At this place Miss Stewart had in- -writing ceases ; the re>t i* in mine. sertcd ' Here mr father's own hand- Maria P. Stewart." Ed.] ETHICS AND POLITICS DURING 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 hand, 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 with 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 than we are able to correct what is hurtful or erroneous ; or, (as it is beautifully 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 past 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 scaffolding 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 ami majestic form. 524 DISSERTATION. PART THIRD LAST CHAPTEll ONLY. APPENDIX. As a supplement to the foregoing argument, it may not be improper to remark the illustration which it affords of Bacon's maxim that Knowledge is Power. It is indeed the only species of power which the people can exercise without the possibility of danger to themselves. Under all governments, even the most despotic, the superiority in point of physical force must belong to the multitude ; but, like the physical force of the brutes, it is easily held in subjection by the reason and art of higher and more cultivated minds. Vis consilii expers mole ruit suti. In proportion as public opinion becomes enlightened, the voice of the people 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 omnipotent. It is by truth alone that the multitude, who are otherwise united by a rope of sand, can be led to direct their common efforts to any useful object ; and hence the origin and foundation of that infallible secret of state policy, Divide et impera. Of the 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, were it not for the miserable vanity which misleads so many, both in philosophy and in politics, from the standards of those who are willing and able to lead them. Among the various remarkable effects which have already resulted from the general diffusion of light and liberality in the principal nations of Europe, none is more deserving of attention than the change which has taken place in the lan- guage employed by the rulers of mankind in addressing their subjects. " Nothing in the history of the world," said the late Emperor of the French, at the moment of his usurpation, " resembles the close of the eighteenth century ;" and the re- ETHICS AND POLITICS DURING XVIII. CENTURY IN RESULT. 525 flection which was everywhere applauded as at once just and profound, seemed to men of sanguine hopes to promise a government in harmony with the prevailing spirit and prin- ciples of the times. Had these expectations been realized, he would have saved himself the mortification (whatever might have been the issue of his personal fortunes) of having been the undisputed 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 Paris. 1 1 The public and solemn testimony which, on various occasions, has been borne, by those statesmen who are gen- erally supposed not to have been most favourable 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 conduct 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. The 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. " Lord 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 the proposition growing out of that Treaty, for granting the sum of 400,000. He should, therefore, merely move the re- solution to that effect, being ready to answer any subsequent 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 he 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 400,000 was to be paid by this coun- try, as a bonus to the Spanish nation. When we were evincing such a disposi- * This last paragraph, it may be observed, was written in Mr. Stewart's own hand, after March 1821, and before August 1822. The rest of the note was cut from the newspaper. .Etf. DISSERTATION. PART THIRD LAST CHAPTER ONLY. " Inhabitants of Paris! 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 Government, 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 believe, 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 destructive 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 difficulty on the distinct proposition before the House, to hazard a premature explana- tion on the complicated question of our commercial 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 indulgence ought, however, to be extended to that error, when it was recollected that for a succession of years those principles were cherished in this country in their fullest vigour, and how long we our- selves had been reaping the bitter fruits 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 code 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 embarrassed 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 his 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. \Ve should, however, ETHICS AND POLITICS DURING XVIII. CENTURY IN RESULT, 527 and tears. 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, with 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 affords 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 effect 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, to the commercial interests of the that restrictive system was as strictly country. He trusted they would be exercised between two parts of our own acted upon in the Councils of the na- empire, Great Britain and Ireland, as tion, as soon as was compatible with between this kingdom and any foreign the public expediency. What he had nation. principally complained of, in regard to " Mr. Lyttelton expressed his high Spain, was the capricious manner in satisfaction at the sound and enlight- which the change of duties without noti- ened views of the Noble Lord, and he fication was made." Morning Chroni- hailed their annunciation as propitious cle, 12th February 1818. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. THE chief purpose of these Notes and Illustrations, 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 trusting to the information of writers, who, in describing philosophical systems, profess to give merely the general results of their researches, unauthcnticated by particular references to the original sources, have long convinced me of the propriety, on such occasions, of bringing under the eye of the reader, the specific authorities on which my statements proceed. Without such a check, the most faithful historian is perpetually liable to the suspicion of accommodating 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, be useful in facilitating the labours of those who shall hereafter resume the same subject, on a scale 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 Thomas More, though towards the close of his life, he became " a persecutor even unto blood, defiling with cruelties those hands which were never polluted 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 religions and political, indirectly inculcated in his Utopia. In contempt for the 1 Burnet. VOL. I. 2 L 530 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART I. ignorance and profligacy of the monks, he was not surpassed by his correspondent ; and against various superstitions 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. But these were not the whole of his merits. His 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 farther 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 sjime 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 some 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 argument on this point may be found in Bayle, Article Castellan, Note Q. NOTE B, p. 30. The following short extract will serve to convey a general idea of Calvin's argu- ment upon the subject of usury. " Pecunia non parit pecuniam. Quid mare ? quid domus, ex cujus locatione pensionem percipio ? an ex tectis et parietibus argentum proprie nascitur ? Sed et terra producit, et mari advehitur quod pecuniam deinde producat, et habitationis 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 perceperit, 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, vacuam apud se habere a me acceptam cogitat. Non ergo ex pecunia ilia lucrum accedit, sed ex proventu. Illae igitur rationes subtiles quidem sunt, et speciem quandam habent, sed ubi propius expenduntur, reipsa concidunt. Nunc igitur conclude, judicandum de usuris esse, non ex particular! aliquo Scripturse loco, sed tantum ex jequitatis regula." Calviui Epistofa. NOTE C. 531 NOTE C, p. 43. The prevailing idea among Machiavel's contemporaries and immediate succes- sors certainly was, that the design of the Prince was hostile to the rights of man- kind ; and that the author was cither entirely unprincipled, or adapted his professed opinions to the varying circumstances of his own eventful life. The following are the words of Bodinus, born 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 mesconte, de dire que 1'estat popu- laire est le meilleur : l et neantmoins ayant oublie sa premiere opinion, il a tenu en un autre lieu, 2 que pour restituer ITtalie en sa liberte, il faut qu'il n'y ait qu'un Prince ; ct de fait, il s'est efforce de former un estat le plus tyrannique du monde ; et en autre lieu 3 il confesse, que 1'estat de Venise est le plus beau de tous, Icquel est une pure Aristocratic, s'il en fut onques : tellement qu'il ne scait a quoi se tenir." (De la RepuUique, liv. vi. chap. iv. Paris, 1576.) In the Latin version of the above passage, the author applies to Machiavel the phrase, Homo levissimus ac nequissimus. One of the earliest apologists for Machiavel was Albericus Gentilis, an Italian author, of whom some account will be given afterwards. His words are 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 instruct tyrants ; but, on the contrary, by disclosing their secrets to their oppressed subjects, to ex- pose them to public view, stripped of all their trappings." He 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 Legationibus, lib. iii. c. ix. Lond. 1585.) The same idea was afterwards adopted and zealously con- tended for by Wicquefort, the author of a noted book entitled the Ambassador ; and by many other writers of a later date. 4 Bayle, in his Dictionary, has stated ably and impartially the arguments on both sides of the question ; evidently lean- ing, however, very decidedly, in his own opinion, to that of Machiavel's 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 of 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 Discourses upon Livy. * See in particular Eousseau, Du Cuiitrat - Prince, book i. c. ix. Social, liv. iii. c. vi. 3 Discourses upon Livy. f>/>:2 NOTES AM* IMA'STKATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART [. men, and to their selfish 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 considering 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, Si jwpulns vuU decipi, decipiutiir* 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, ought 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 \\as regarded by Lord Bacon, whose opinion concerning it being, in one instance, somewhat ambiguously expressed, has been supposed by several writers of note (particularly Bayle and Mr. Iioscoe) to have coincided with that quoted above from Albericus Gentilis. To me it appears, that the very turn of the sentence appealed to on this occasion is rather disrespectful than otherwise to MachiaveVe character. " Est itaque quod gratias aganrus Machiavellio et kujumtOtK scriptoriJnis, qni a port e et indissiimilanter proferunt, quid homines facere soleant, non quid debeant." (De Any. Sclent, lib. vii. cap. ii.) The best comment, however, on these words. 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 mnlas artes attinet ; si quis Machiavellio se dederit in disciplinam ; qui praecipit," &c. &c. See the rest of the paragraph, (De Any. Kcit'nt. lib. viii. cap. ii.) See also a passage in book vii. chap, viii., beginning thus : '' An non et hoc verum est, juvenes multo minus Politico quam Eilticm auditores idoneos esse, antequam religione et doctrina de moribus et officiis plane imbuantur ; ne forte judicio depravati et corrupt!, in earn opinionem veniant, non esse reruni diflferentias morales veras et solidas, sed omnia ex utilitate. Sic enim Machia- vellio dicere placet, Quod si contigisset Ccesnrem bello superatum fuisse, OitiUna ipsoftiisset wlt'oslor,'' &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 apologists of Machiavel, by such high authorities as Bayle and the excellent biographer of Lorenzo de Medicis. It has been objected to me, that in the foregoing observations on the design of the Prince, I 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 1080. 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 disposition comedies is almost always mingled with gall, occur in the historical and even 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 Koine with an intention to divert that wise Pope from his design of making one of Nicholas Machiavel's 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 enjoy 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 from 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 my 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 thinkest 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-' lion here, that the letter in question is altogether of English fabrication ; and (as far as I can leam) is quite unknown on the Continent. It is reprinted at the end of the second volume of Farneworth's Translation of Machiavel's works, 1762, with the following statement prefixed to it. 1 " The following letter having 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 deatli 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 very 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 Machiavel to ZenoLius Buondel- montius, in vindication of himself and his writings. I believe it has been gener- ally understood to be a feigned thing, and has by some been given to Nevil, he who wrote, if I do not mistake, the Plato Hedivivus. But 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 letter began and ended) of this remarkable letter in the Marquis's handwriting, as I took it to be, compared with other papers of his. The person who intrusted me with these papers, and who I understood had given them to me, called them back out of my hands. This anecdote I com- municated to the late Speaker ; and, at his desire, wrote down the substance of what I have told you, in his book of the above edition. W. Gloucester." 2 i In a book published 1816, this letter is re- I'liilosojilii/ f Modern Jlislori/. Dublin, 181(5, forred to without any expression of doubt as to p. 17. its authenticity. .See Miller's Leclurei on the 2 In a letter from Warlmrton to the Reverend 534 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART I. From a memoir read before the French Institute in July 1814, by M. Daunou, 1 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 following par- ticulars cannot fail to be gratifying to many of my readers. " M. Ginguene continue son Histoire de la Litterature Italienne, et vient do eommuniquer & la classe 1'un des articles qui vont composer le septieme tome de cette histoire. C'est nn tableau de la vie et des ecrits de Nicolas Machiavel. La vie de cet ecrivain celebre est le veritable commentaire de ses livres ; et jusqu'ici ce commentaire etoit reste fort incomplet. Par exemple, on se bomait a dire, que la republique de Florence, dont il etoit le secretaire, 1'avoit charge de di versus missions politiques t\ la cour de France, a la cour de Rome, aupres du Due de Valentinois, aupres de 1'Empereur, au camp de Pise, &c. &c. M. Ginguene le suit 'annee par annec dans toutes ses legations, il en fait connoitre 1'objet et les princi- pales circonstances. Cette vie devient ainsi une partie essentielle de 1'histoire de Florence, et tient mcme a celle des puissances qui etoient alors en relation avec cette republique. On lit peu dans la collection des (Euvres de Machiavel, ses cor- respondances politiques, qui neanmoins offrent tons ces details et jettent un grand jour sur son caractere et sur ses intentions. Malheureusement, ce jour lui est pcu 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 decisivcs est une lettre qu'il ecrivit de la campagne ou il s'etoit retire apres la rentree des Medicis a Florence. II venoit d'etre destitue dc ses emplois ; implique dans une conspiration centre ces princes, il avoit etc incarcere, mis a la torture, et juge innocent, soit qu'il le fut en effet, soit que les tourmens n'eussent pu lui arracher 1'aveu de sa faute. 11 trace dans ce lettre le tableau de ses occupa- tions et de ses projets, des travaux et des distractions qui remplissent ses journees. Pour sortir d'uue position voisine de la misere, il sent la necessite de rentrer 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 a qui ce Pape avoit confie le gouvernement de Florence. Machiavel croit que son Traite ne peut rnanquer d'etre agreable et utile a un prince, et surtout a un nouveau prince. Qnelque terns apres, il fit en effet homage de ce livre, non a Julien, mais a Laurent II. Cette lettre, qui n'est connue en Italic, que depuis peu d'annees, etoit encore ignoree en France. M. Ginguene 1'a traduito : il pense qu'elle ne laisse aucunc incertitude sur le but et les intentions de Pauteur 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 M. Daunou's Report, I received nearly Mr. Birch, there is the following pasfuge ; "I tended translation was designed to prefix to an told you, I think, 1 had several of old Lord English edition of his works. A* I know nothing Wharton's papers. Amongst the rest is a niiinu- of the English edition of Machiavel, I v.-ish you script in his own handwriting, a pretended would make this out, and let me know." Illus- translation of a manuscript tpologetical epistle tralionsofthe Literary History of the Eiyhtet.nth of Machiavel's, to his friend Zenobio. It is a Century, intended as a sequel to the Literar.it wonderful line thing. There are the printer's Anecdotes by John Nichols, vol. ii. p. 88- marks on the manuscript, which makes me think it is printed. There is a postscript of Lord * Rapport sur les Traejiu' /If In C'lassf \Vhartr>n's t- it. hy which it appears this pre- il' II If lui re. &c- 1 Juillet, 1814. NOTE C. 535 the same information from the North of Italy. It cauuot be so well expressed as in the words of the svriter : " Pray tell Mr. Stewart that there is a very remarkable letter of Machiavel's lately published, written to a private friend at the very time he was engaged in the composition of the Prince, and not only fixing the date of that 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 describes, in a very lively manner, the life lie was leading when driven away from Florence. This particular letter may be read at the end of the last volume of Pignotti's Storia delta Toscana ; 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 Machiavel's Prince, where he calls it one of the ' latest of his publications.' The fact is, that the three great works were none of them published in his lifetime, nor for four years after his death. They appear to have been all written at the same period of his life, during the eight or ten years of leisure that were forced upon him ; and I believe it may be made out from the works themselves, that the Prince was composed and finished first of the three, then the Discourses, and last of all the History. 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 with no common interest, when it is known that it formed part of a letter from the late Francis Horner, written a very few weeks before his death. Independently of the satisfaction I feel in pre- serving a memorial of his kind attention to his friends, at a period when he was himself an object of such anxious solicitude to his country, I was eager to record the 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- miration of Machiavel's genius, combined with the most unqualified detestation of Machiavel's principles, had led him to study with peculiar care. The letter is dated Pisa, December 17, 1816- The united 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 learning, the depth and accuracy of his scientific attainments, the classical (perhaps somewhat severe) purity of his taste, and the truly philosophical cast of his whole mind, none had better opportunities than my- self to form a judgment, in the 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 virtues which shed over all his mental gifts a characteristical grace and a moral harmony, this is not the proper place to enlarge. Never certainly was more completely realized the ideal portrait so nobly imagined by the Roman poet: " A calm devo 536 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PAliT 1. tion to reason and justice, the sanctuary of the heart undefiled, and a breast glow- ing with inborn honour." Composituiu jus fasque animi, sauctosque reeessus Mentis, ct incoctum geueroso 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 do Filangieri. " On a cm, et 1'on croit peut-etre encore, que Montesquieu a parle le premier de 1'influence du climat. Cette opinion est une erreur. Avaut lui, le delicat et inge- nieux Fontenelle s'etoit 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, uu de ces voyageurs qui savent observer, a fait beaucoup de reflexions sur I'influence physique et moral des climats. L'Abbe Dubos a soutenu et developpe les pensees de Chardin ; et Bodin, qui peut-etre avoit lu dans Polybe que le climat determine les formes, la couleur, et les rnceurs des peoples, eu avoit dejii fait, cent eiuquante ans auparavant, la base de son systeme, dans son livre de la Kepublique, et dans sa Methode de 1'Histoire. Avant tous ces ecrivaius, I'inmiortel Hippocrate avoit traite fort au long cette inatiere dans son fameux ouvrage de I'air, des tati.t; et des lieux. L'auteur de 1 'Esprit des Lois, sans citer un seul de ces philosophes, etablit a son tour un systeme ; mais il ne lit qu'alterer les principes d'Hippocrate, et donner une plus grande extension aux idees de Dubos, de Chardiu, et de Bodin. II voulut faire croire au public qu'il avoit eu le premier quelques idees sur ce .sujet ; et le public Ten crut sursa parole." La Science de, la Leyidatiun, uucraye Iraduit de I'ltalien. Paris, 1786, torn. i. pp. 225, 226. The enumeration here given of writers whose works arc in everybody's hands, might have satisfied Filangieri, that, in giving his sanction to this old theory, Montesquieu had no wish to 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, De Leyibus, 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 surprising; that the name of Charrou 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. Sec De la Suijcsat', livre i. chap, xxxvii. NOTE E, p. 57. Innumerable instances of Luther's credulity and superstition are to be, found in a book entitled Martini Lutheri Colloquia Meimalia, &c., first published, accord- ing to Bayle, in 1571. The only copy of it which I have seen, is a translation from the German into the English tongue by Captain Henrie Bell. (London, 1652.) This work, in which are " gathered up the fragments of the divine discourses which Luther held at his table with Philip Melanchthon, and divers other learned men," bears to have been originally collected " out of his holy mouth" by Dr. Anthony Lauterbach, and to 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 Colloquiorum Mensalium minus quidem caut composite* et vulgato." (Bayle, article Luther, 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, in the words of the English translator, the substance of one of Luther's Divine Dis- courses, " concerning the devil and his works." " The devil," said Luther, " can transform himself into the shape of a man or a woman, and so deceiveth people ; insomuch that one thinketh he lieth by a right woman, and yet is no such matter ; for, as 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 fearful 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 children within the space of six weeks after their birth are lost, and other children, called supposititii, or changelings, laid in their places. Of the Saxons they were called Killer ops. " Eight years since," said Luther, " 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 Auhalt, if I were prince of that country, I would venture liomicidium thereon, and would throw it into the river Moldau. I admonished the people dwelling in that place devoutly to pray to God 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, Killcrop ! killcrop ! Then the child in the basket (which never before spoke one word) answered, Ho, ho. The devil in the water asked further, Whither art thou going ? The child in the basket said, I am going towards Hocklestadt to our loving mother, to be rocked. The man being much affrighted thereat, threw the child, with the basket, over the bridge into the water. Whereupon the two devils flew away together, and cried Ho, ho, ha, tumbling themselves over one another, and so vanished." Pp. 386, 387. With respect to Luther's Theological Disputes with the Devil, see the passages quoted by Bayle, Art. Luther, Note U. Facts of this sort, so recent in their date, and connected with the history of so great a character, are consolatory to those who, amid the follies and extravagancies 538 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. 1'AKT I. of their 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 have 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 he should make an end." No finer description of the per- fection of this art is to be found in any author, ancient or modern. The admiration of Jonson for Bacon (whom he appears to have known inti- mately 1 ) 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 it is but candid to conclude, from the posthumous praise lavished on him by Jonson and by Sir Kenelm Digby, 2 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, 3 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 great and good loved and honoured him." When it is considered, 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 from 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 feel a strong 1 Jousou is said to have translated into Latin : See his letters to M. de Ferra.it, printed at fireat part of the books De .!< ;;. .-, ;(/;'.< >- the end of Format's Opcm ,Va(/n what authority) as an undoubted fact. Es- 3 Lately published in the extract.-' from the fill i'ii ' .- .' Writings cf Pope. F>dleian Library. NOTE F. 539 inclination to dwell rather on the fair than on the dark side of the Chancellor'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 aliud quicquam natus, et ad res gerendas nescio quo fato contra genium suum abrcptus." De Aug. Scient. 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 law, she rather thought you could make show to the utmost of your knowledge, than that you were deep." " If it be asked," says Dr. Hurd, " 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 Dialogues. The following testimony to Bacon's legal knowledge, (pointed out to me by a learned friend,) is of somewhat more weight than Queen Elizabeth's judgment against it : " What might we not have expected," says Mr. Hargrave, after a high encomium on the powers displayed by Bacon in his " Reading on the Statute of Uses;" "what might we not have expected from the hands of such a master, if his vast mind had not so embraced within its compass the whole field of science as very much to detach him from professional studies !" It was probably owing in part to his court disgrace that so little notice was taken of Bacon, for some time after his death, by those English writers who availed themselves without any scruple 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 Power and Pro- vidence of God in the Government of the World, 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 from the words of Ovid, so happily applied by Hakewill to the " common error touching the golden age," " 1'iista juvcnt nlios, ego me nuuc denique natum Gratulor. r That the general design of the book, as well as many incidental observations contained 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, might have found a place along with the other great clerks there enume- rated : " I do not believe that all regions of the world, or all ages in the same .~>4() NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. 1'AKT I. region, afford wits always alike; but this I think, (neither is it my opinion alone, but of Scaliger, Vives, Buda-us, 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 as 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 Hakewill observes that, " if \ve 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 I 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; his genius was searching and inimitable ; and of this I need give no other proof than his style itself; which as, for the most part, it describes men's minds, as well as pic- tures do their bodies, so it did his above all men living. The course of it vigorous and majcstical ; 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 Hobbes's understanding 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 confidence and arrogance. Of the Royal Society (the Virtuosi, as he calls them, t/tttt meet at G'rcukum (.'ollrt/c; he writes thus: " < 'onveiiiaut, studia coiiferant, cxperimeiita faciant quantum 1 By the word casii, I presume' Sprat here tii.nary similes borrowed by commonplace means the native and spontaneous growth of writers from their predecessors. Ifacon's own fancy, in opposition to the traili- NOTEfc G i. 541 volunt, nisi ct principiis utaiitur ineis, niliil proficient." And elsewhere : "Ail eausas autem propter quas proficcrc no paullum quideni potuistis nee poteritis, aecednnt etiani alia, ut odium Hobbii, quia niniium libere scripserat de academiis vcritatem : Nam ex eo tempore irati physici et nuvtliematici veritatem ab eo venientem non recepturos se palam professi sunt." In his English publications, he indulges in a vein of coarse scurrility, of which his own words alone can convey any idea. " So go your ways," says he, addressing himself to Dr. Wallis and Dr. Seth Ward, two of the most eminent mathematicians then in England, "yon uncivil ecclesiastics, inhuman divines, de-doctors of morality, unasinous colleagues, egregious pair of Issachars, most wretched indices and vindices academiarum ; and remember Vespasian's law, that it is unlawful to give ill language first, but civil and lawful to return it." NOTE H, p. 83. With respect to the Leviathan, a very curious anecdote is mentioned by Lord 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 would publish such doctrines ; to which, after a discourse between jest and earnest, he said, ' The truth is, I have a mind to GO home.' " In another passage, the same writer expresses himself thus : " The review and conclusion of the Leviathan is, in truth, a sly address to Cromwell, that, being out of the kingdom, and so being neither conquered nor his subject, he might, by his return, submit to his government, and bo bound to obey it. This review and conclusion he 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 publishing such doctrines as, being diligently infused by such a master in the art of govern- ment, might secure the people of the kingdom (over whom he had no right to command) to acquiesce and submit to his brutal power." That there is no exaggeration or misrepresentation of facts in these passages, with the view of injuring the character of Hobbes, may be 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. Hobbes," he observes, " is a man of excellent parts; of great wit; of some reading; and of somewhat more thinking ; one who has spent many years in foreign parts and observations ; understands the learned as well as modern languages ; hath long had the repu- tation of a great philosopher and mathematician ; and in his age hath had con- versation with many worthy and extraordinary men. In a word, he is one of the most ancient acquaintance 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 upon as a man of probity, and of a life free from scandal." NOTE I, p. 117. It is not easy to conceive how Descartes reconciled, to his own satisfaction, his liequent use of the word substance, as applied to the mind, with his favourite 542 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART i. doctrine, that the essence of the mind consists in tliouaht. 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 tJiout/ht, in the course of the same argument, renders the absurdity still more glaring than it would otherwise have been. I have alluded, in the text, to the difference between the popular and the scholastic notion of substance. According to the latter, the word substance, cor- responds to the Greek word ovtria, 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 iliat which supports attributes, or which is subject to accidents. At a period when every person liberally educated was accustomed to this barbarous jargon, it might not appear altogether absurd to apply the term substance 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 Scriblerus, when he first heard it thus defined by his master Cornelius. 1 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 : " Substantise sunt aut cogitantes, aut non cogitantes ; cogitantes duas novimus, Deuin et mentem nostram. Duas etiam substantise, quae non cogitant, nobis notse sunt, spatium et corpus." Introd. ad Phil. 19. The Greek word eua'ta, (derived from the participle of ilpi) 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 thinking 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 that 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 branch 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. 2 Hence the impotent attempt to comprehend under some com- 1 " When he was told a substance was that in Locke's Essay. In this part of the work it is which was subject to citxidenls, then soldiers, commonly understood tliat Arbuthnot had the quoth Crambe, are the most substantial people principal share, in the world." Let me add, that, in the list of philosophical reformers, the authors of Martinus 2 [So far was this idea carried, at a very re- Scriblerus ought not to be overlooked. Their cent period, that as late as 1560, we read < f a happy ridicule of the scholastic Logic and Meta- public dispute held at Weimar between two physics is universally known ; but few are aware Lutheran divines, Flacius and Strigelius, on the of the acuteness and sagacity displayed in their following question : " Whether original sin is allusions to some of the most vulnerable passages to be placed in the class of substances or of or- NOTES I L. 543 mon name (such as that of substance) the heterogeneous existences of matter, of mind, and even of empty space ; and hence the endless disputes to which the last of these words has given rise in the Schools. In our own times, Kant and his followers seem to have thought that they had thrown a new and strong light on the nature of space, and also of time, when they introduced the \vordform (forms of the intellect) as a common term applicable to both. Is not this to revert to the scholastic folly 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 speak 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 tempus, si nemo quserat a me, scio ; si quis interroget, nescio." His idea evidently was, that although he annexed as clear and precise a notion to the word time as he 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 be explained. NOTE K, p. 117. " Les Meditations de Descartes parurent en 1641. C'etoit, de tons ses ouvrages, celui qu'il estimoit le plus. Ce qui caracterige surtout cet ouvrage, c'est qu'il contient sa farnetise demonstration de Dieu par 1'idee, demonstration si repetee de- puis, adoptee par les unes, et rejettee par les autres ; et qu'il est le premier ou la distinction de I' 'esprit et de la matiere soit parfaitement developpee, car avant Des- cartes on n'avoit encore bien approfondi les preuves philosophiques de la spiritualite de 1'ame." Eloye de Descartes, par M. Thomas. Note 20. If the remarks in the text be correct, the character! stical merits of Descartes' Meditations 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 borrowed from those of matter. Of this distinction, neither Thomas, nor Turgot, nor D'Alembert, nor Condorcet, seem 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- ritualite de I'dme, n'est pas une opinion qui ait besoin de preuves, mais le resultat simple et naturel d'un analyse exacte 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 important. NOTE L, p. 118. The 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- mus, quam integrum nostrse rationis usum haberemus, multis preejudiciis a veri cidents?" Which dispute, ludicrous as it may lasted, the progress of the Lutheran Reforma- now seem, appears from Mosheim to have spread tion. Mofhcim, translated by Maclaine, vol. i. so wide' a flame as to have retarded, while it pp. 43, 44.] . r >44 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS To DISSERTATION. PAKT I. cognitions avertimur, qnibus non aliter videnmr posse liberari, quam si semel iti vita, de iis omnibus studeamus dubitare, in quilnis vel minimam incertitudim's sns- picionem reperiemus. " Quin et ilia etiam, de quibus dubitabimus, utile erit habere pro falsis, ut tanto darius, quidnam certissimum et cognitu facillimum sit, inveniamus. " Itaquc ad serio philosophandum, veritatemque omnium re- ram cognoscibilium indagaiidam, primo omnia pray'udicia sunt deponenda ; sive accurate est cavendum, ne ullis ex opinionibus olim a nobis receptis fidem halteamus, nisi prius, iis ad novum examcn revocatis, veras esse comperiamus." Princ. Phil. Pars Primrt, Hi. Ixxv. Notwithstanding tbese and various other similar coincidences, it lias been asserted, with some confidence, that Descartes had never read the works of Bacon. " Quelques auteurs assurent qne Descartes n'avoit point In les ouvrages de Bacon ; et il nous dit lui-meme dans une de ses lettres, qu'il ne lut que fort tard les princi- paux ouvrages 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, qne 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 either 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 : " Qnoique Descartes se fut fait une route toute nouvelle, avant qne d'avoir janiais ou'i parler de ce grand homme, (Bacon,) ni de ses desseins, il paroit neanmoins que ses ecrits ne lui furent pas entierement inutiles. L'on voit en divers endroits de ses lettres qu'il ne 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 encc, \vliether the visible extension of 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 same place. Is not the extension we see coloured ; and is it possible for us, so much as in thought, to separate arid 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." l 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 outness 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 be 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 within themselves, whence the ideas of external and of internal ; of remote or of near ? 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 appears 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. NOTE 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, after all the improvements made by Malebranche, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, it may still be called tJte Cartesian system." Conclusion of the Inquiry into the Human Mind. The part of the Cartesian system here alluded to is the hypothesis, that the communication between the mind and external objects is carried on by means of ideas or images; not, indeed, transmitted from 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 absurdities of the old theory, by rejecting the unintelligible supposition of intentional species, and by substituting, instead of the word image, the more indefinite and ambiguous word idea. But there was another and very important step made by Descartes, in restricting the ideal Theory to the primary qualities of matter; its secondary qualities (of colour, sound, smell, taste, heat, and cold) having, according to him, no more resemblance to the sensations by means of which they are perceived, than arbitrary 1 Essay toward a ffeir Theory of Vision, p. 255. VOL. I. 2 M 546 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART I. sounds have to the things they denote, or the edge of a sword to the pain it may occasion. (Princ. Pars iv. gg 197, 198.) To this doctrine he frequently recurs in other parts of his works. Ill these modifications of the Aristotelian Theory of Perception, Locke ac- quiesced entirely; explicitly asserting, that "the ideas 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. When pressed by Gassendi to explain how images of extension and figure can exist in an unextended mind, Descartes expresses himself thus : " Quseris quomodo existimem in me subjecto inextenso recipi posse speciem ideamve corporis quod extensurn est. Eespondeo nullam speciem corpoream in mente recipi, sed puram intellectionem tarn rei corporese quam incorporeae fieri absque ulla specie cor- porea ; ad imaginationem vero, qua? non nisi de rebus corporeis esse potest, opus quidem esse specie quse sit verum corpus, et ad quam mens se applicet, sed non quae in mente recipiatur." Besponsio de us quce in sextam Meditationem objectu sunt, 4. In this 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 him to apply (mutatis mutandis) 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 imayes 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 language of Descartes. " Is not," says Newton, " the sensorium of animals the place where the sentient sub- 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 in 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." The distinction between primary and secondary qualities was afterwards rejected by Berkeley, in the course of his argument against the existence of matter ; but he continued to retain the language of Descartes concerning ideas, and to consider them as the immediate, or rather as the only objects of our thoughts, wherever the external senses are concerned. Mr. Hume'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 be received. It is certainly true, that the Cartesian system may be said to form the groundwork of Locke's Theory of Perception, as well as of the sceptical NOTE 0. f)47 conclusions deduced from it by Berkeley and Hume ; but it is not the less true, that it forms also the groundwork of all that has since been done towards the substitution, in place of this scepticism, of a 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 heresy of Nullibism. Of this heresy Dr. More represents Descartes as the chief author; and, at the same time, speaks of it as so completely extravagant, that lie 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 that pleasant wit, Renatus Descartes, who, by his jocular metaphysical medita- tions, has luxated and distorted the rational faculties of some otherwise sober and quick-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 Epist. Pars i. Ep. 66, et seq.) In a letter, too, addressed to M. Clerselier, five years after the death of Descartes, More expresses himself thus : " In neminem aptius quadrat, quam in divinum ilium virum, Horatianum illud, ' Qui nil molitur impte? " At the end of this letter, he subscribes himself, " Tibi Cartesianisque omnibus addictissimus, H. M." 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 a Nullibist, he valued himself not a little on having fixed the precise ubi 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 unextended 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." Whoever 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 from his Enchiridion Ethicum] were afterwards republished in Glanvill's book upon witchcraft ; a work (as I before mentioned) proceeding from the same pen with the Scepsis Scientiftca, one of the most acute and original productions of which English philosophy had then to boast. If some of the foregoing particulars should, at first sight, appear unworthy of 548 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART T. attention in a historical sketch of the progress of science, I must beg leave to remind my readers, that they belong to a history of still higher importance and dignity that of the progress of Eeason, 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 verbose 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- cele partout dans ses ouvrages ; et s'il n'avoit voulu etre ni geometre ni philosophe, il n'auroit tenu qu'a lui d'etre le plus bel esprit de son temps." Whatever 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 dry, concise, and severe. Its great merit lies in its singular precision 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' epistolary 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 best of Balzac's. " Je ne sfais s'il y a rien 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 modern 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, 1 I find the following sentence: "Mais 1'ex- perience dement ce systeme des idees innees, puisque la privation d'un sens em- porte avec elle la privation des idees attachees a ce sens, comme 1'a remarque 1'illustre auteur de VEssai Analytique sur les Facultes de VAme." What are we to understand by the remark here ascribed to Mr. Bonnet ? Does it mean nothing more than this, that to a person born blind no instruction can convey an idea of colours, nor to a person born 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 Enai sur les Prtjupft, &c. Neufchatel, 1790. NOTE R. 549 ideas on metaphysical 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 signs 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, all sets of signs 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 flirnsness 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." Didascalocophus, &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 powers 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 E, 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 Ttufurfttv rov Stan. 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 sphse- ram, cujus quasi centrum sit Pater _j Sura, substantias nempe simplices, quse a me monades ap- pellantur, et semel existentes semper perstant, JT^TO, "bixrixa. TS ??, id est, Deum et Animas, et harum potissimas mentes, producta a Deo simulacra divinitatis. . . . Porro quaevis mens, ut recte Plotinus, quendam in se raundum intelligibilem con- linet, imo mea sententia et hunc ipsum sensibilem sibi reprsesentat. . . . Sunt in nobis semina eorum, quse discimus, ideas nempe, et quse inde nascuntur, aeternse veritates. . . . Longe ergo prseferendas sunt Platonis notitice innatce, quas remi- niscentias nomine velavit, tabulae rasas Aristotelis et Lockii, aliorumque recentiorum, qui f%ar'al. &c. did not (with the Leibnitzians) conceive Nature, Bascovich, however, it is to be observed, ad- or the Author of Nature, as obeying an irre- mits the existence of the Law of Continuity in sistible necessity in observing or not observing the phenomena of Motion alone, ( 143,) and the Law of Continuity, rejects it altogether in things co-existent with VOL. I. 2 N 562 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART II. LAW, supposed to exteud to all the various branches of human knowledge, it is not altogether foreign to our present subject briefly to consider how far it is demon- stratively conclusive, in this simplest of all its possible applications. On the above argument, then, I would remark, 1. That the ideas both of rest and of motion, as well as the more general idea conveyed by the word state, all of them necessarily involve the idea of time or duration ; and, consequently, a body cannot be said to be in a state either of rest or of motion, at an indivisible instant. Whether the body be supposed (as in the case of motion) to change its place from one instant to another ; or to continue (as in that of rest) for an instant in the same place ; the idea of some finite portion of time will, on the slightest re- flection, be found to enter as an essential element into our conception of the phy- sical fact. 2. Although it certainly would imply a contradiction to suppose a body to be iu two different states at the same instant, there does not appear to be any inconsis- tency in asserting that an indivisible instant may form the limit between a state of rest and a state of motion. Suppose one half of this page to be painted white, and the other black, it might, I apprehend, be said with the most rigorous pro- priety, that the transition from the one colour to the other was made per saltum ; nor do I think it would be regarded as a valid objection to this phraseology, to represent it as one of its implied consequences, that the mathematical line which forms their common limit must at once be both black and white. 1 It seems to me quite impossible to elude the force of this reasoning, without having recourse to the existence of something intermediate between rest and motion, which does not partake of the nature of either. Is it conceivable that a body can exist in any state which does not fall under one or other of the two predicaments, rest or motion ? If this question should be answered in the negative, will it not follow that the transition from one of these states to the other must, of necessity, be made per saltum, and must consequently violate the supposed law of continuity ? Indeed, if such a law existed, how could a body at rest begin to move, or a body in motion come to a state of rest ? But farther, when it is said that " it is impossible for a body to have its state changed from motion to rest, or from rest to motion, without passing through all the intermediate degrees of velocity," what are we to understand by the interme- diate degrees of velocity between rest and motion ? Is not every velocity, how small soever, & finite velocity ; and does it not differ as essentially from a state of rest, as the velocity of light ? It is observed by Mr. Playfair, (Dissertation on the Progress of Mathematical mid Physical Science, Fart 5. sect, iii.), that Galileo was the first who maintained the existence of the law of continuity, and who made use of it as a principle in his 1 [* In reply to this remark, it has been urged is not iu poiut." (Edinburgh Magazine for Oc- by a late critic, that "the boundary between tober, 1821.) To myself, I acknowledge that the the two colours is a mathematical line, a mere analogy between the two cases appears to me conception, an abstract idea , whereas we are perfect. Is not an indlcitible instant of time a talking of a physical fact subjected to the cog- mere abstraction of the mind, as well as a ma- uizance of the senses ; and therefore the analogy tin iiadical line ?] * Restored, Ed. NOTE DD. 563 reasonings on the phenomena of motion. Mr. Playfuir, however, with his usual discrimination and correctness, 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 law, which could not by any possibility be violated in any of the phenomena of motion. 1 It was probably first suggested to him by the diagram which he employed to demon- strate, or rather to illustrate, the uniformly accelerated motion of falling bodies ; * and the numberless and beautiful exemplifications of the same law which occur in pure geometry, sufficiently account for the disposition which so many mathemati- cians 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 scep- ticism concerning the law of continuity, than in his Outlines of Natural Philosophy. In that work he pronounced the metaphysical argument, employed by Leibnitz to prove 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 saltug 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. Whether 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, Law of Continuity, occurs repeatedly in the course of the corre- spondence between Leibnitz and John Bernouilli, and appears to have been first used by Leibnitz himself. The following passage contains some interesting par- ticulars concerning the history of this law : " Lex Continuitatis, cum usque adeo sit rationi et naturae consentanea, et usum habeat tarn late patentem, mirum tameu est earn a nemine (quantum recorder) antea adhibitam fuisse. Mentionem ejus 1 [* A learned and ingenious writer has lately with Mersenne, to have been much puzzled with expressed himself to the same purpose with Galileo's reasonings concerning the descent of Leibnitz. " A body does not acquire its celerity falling bodies ; and in alluding to it, has, on in an instant. Nothing material can exist but different occasions, expressed himself with an what is finite ; and the beautiful law of conti- indecision and inconsistency of which few in- imation, by which changes are produced by stances occur in his works. (Vide Cartesii imperceptible shades, can never be violated." Epist. Pars it Epist. xxxiv. xxxv. xxxvii. xci.l (See a very valuable Essay by Mr. Leslie, On the His doubts on this point will appear less sur- Cuiutrtu-tion and Effect of Machines, in the prising, if compared with a passage in the article second volume of Dr. Brewster's edition of Fer- Mi'caiiiijtie in D'Alembert's EUment de Philo- guson's Lectures, p. 353.1 To myself, I own it sophie. " Tous les philosophes paroissent con- appears that the first clause of this sentence venir, que la Vitesse avec laquelle les corps qui leads to a conclusion directly opposite to what tombent commencent a se mouvoir est absolu- is here inferred in the second !] ment nulle," &c. &c. See his Melanges, torn. iv. 2 Descartes seems, from his correspondence pp. 219, 220. * Restored. Ed. 564 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART II. aliquam feceram olim in Novellis Reipublicae Literariae (Juillet, 1687, p. 744,) occa- sione collatiunculae cum Malebranchio, qni ideo meis considerationibus persuasus, suarn de legibns motns in Inquisitione Veritatis expositam doctrinam postea mu- tavit ; quod brevi libelb edito testetus est, in quo ingenue occasionem mntationis exponit. Sed tamen paullo promptior, quam par erat, fuit in novis legibus consti- tuendis in eodera libello, antequam mecum communicasset ; nee tantum in veri- tatem, sed etiara in illam ipsam Legem Continuitatis, etsi minus aperte, denuo tamen impegit ; quod nolni viro optimo objicere, ne viderer ejus existimationi de- trahere velle." Epist. Leibnit. ad Joh. Bernoulli, 1697. From one of Jobn Beniouilli's letters to Leibnitz, it would appear that he had himself a conviction of the truth of this law, before he had any communication with Leibnitz upon the subject. " Placet tuum criterium pro examinandis regulis mohrnm, quod le.gem continui- tatis vocas ; est enim per se evidens, et vehit a natura nobis inditum, quod evan- escente inaequalitate hypothesium, evanescere quoque debeant insequalitates even- tnnm. Hinc multoties non satis mirari potui, qui fieri potuerit, ut tarn incongruas, tarn absonas, et tarn manifeste inter se pugnantes regulas, excepta sola priina, potuerit condere Cartesius, vir alias summi ingenii. Mihi videtur vel ab infante falsitatem illarum palpari posse, eo quod ubique saltus ille, naturae adeo inimicus, manifesto nimis elucet.'' Epint. Bernouilli ad Leib. 1696. Vide Leibnitzii et Jo. Bernouilli Comm. Epist. 2 vols. 4to. Lausamue et Genevse, 1745. [* The reasoning of John Bernouilli in support of the Law of Continuity, strikes me as obviously inconsequential. " Tous ceux qui sont convaincns que tous les genres de quantite sont divisibles a 1'infini, auront-ils de la peine a divisor la plus insensible duree en un nombre infini de petites parties, et a y placer tous les degres possibles de vitesse, depuis le repos jusqu'a un mouvement determine." They who hold the infinite divisibility of extension would be the last, I should conceive, to admit the force of this argument. If the least conceivable mathematical line be, in idea, as much susceptible of an endless division as the diameter of the earth's orbit, does it not follow that the gap which separates an indivisible 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 intermediate between a point and a line, to assist the imagination in conceiving what is meant by "tous les degres pos- sibles de vitesse, depuis le, repos jusqu'a un mouvement determine?"] NOTE E E, p. 276. Mais il restoit encore la plus grande question, de ce que ces ames on ces formes deviennent par la mort de 1'animal, ou par la destruction de 1'individu de la sub- stance organise. Et c'est ce qui embarrasse le plus ; d'autant qu'il paroit pen raisonnable que les ames restent inutilement dans un chaos de matiere confuse. Cela ni'a fait juger enfin qu'il n'y avoit qu'un seul parti raisonuable a prendre ; et c'est celni de la conservation non seulement de Tame, mais encore de 1'animal meme, et de la machine organique ; quoique la destruction des parties grossieres 1'ait reduit a une petitesse qui n'echappe pas moins a nos sens quo celle ou il etoit avant que de naitre. Leib. Op. torn. ii. p. 51. . . Des personnes fort exactes aux experiences se sont deja apercues de notre * Restored. Ed. NOTE F F. 565 terns, 1 qu'on peut douter, si jaruais un animal tout a fait nouveau est produit, et si les animaux tout en vie ne sont deja en petit avaat la conception dans les sentences aussi bien que les plantes. Cette doctrine etant posee, il sera raisonnable de juger, que ce qui ne commence pas de vivre ne cesse pas de vivre non plus ; et que la niort, comme la generation, n'est que la transformation du meme animal qui est tantot augmente, et tantot diminue. Ibid. pp. 42, 43. . . . Et puisqti' ainsi il n'y a point de premiere naissance ni de generation en- tierement nouvelle de 1'animal, il s'ensuit qu'il n'y en aura point d'extinction finale, ni de mort entiere prise a la rigueur metaphysique ; et que, par consequent, au lieu de la transmigration des ames, il n'y a qu'une transformation d'un meme animal, selon que les organes sont plies differemment, et plus ou inoins developpes. Ibid. p. 52. Quant a la Metempsycose, je crois que 1'ordre ne Tadmet point ; il veut que tout soit explicable distinctement, et que rien ne se fosse par saut. Mais le passage de I'ame d'un corps dans 1'autre seroit un saut etrange et inexplicable. II se fait toujours dans 1'animal ce qui se fait presentement : C'est que le corps est dans uu changement continue!, comme un fleuve, et ce que nous appellons generation ou mort, n'est qu'un changement plus grand et plus prompt qu'a 1'ordinaire, tel que seroit le saut ou la cataracte d'une riviere. Mais ces sauts ne sont pas absolus et tels que je desaprouve ; comme seroit celui d'un corps qui iroit d'un lieu a un autre sans passer par le milieu. Et de tels sauts ne sont pas seulement defendus dans les mouvemens, mais encore dans tout ordre des chosee ou des verites. 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 habits of thinking formed in early life, amidst the hypothetical abstractions of pure geometry ; a prejudice (or idol of the mathematical den) to which the most import- ant errors of his philosophy might, without much difficulty, be traced. Or comme dans une ligiie de geometric il y a certains points distingues, qu'on appelle som- inets, points d'inflexion, points de rebroussement, ou autrement ; et comme il y en a des lignes qui en ont une infinite, c'est ainsi qu'il faut eoncevoir dans la vie d'un animal ou d'une personne les terns d'un changement extraordinaire, qui ne laissent pas d'etre dans la regie generate ; de meme que les points distingues dans lacourbe se peuvent determiner par sa nature general e ou son equation. On peut toujours dire d'un animal c'est tout comme id, ]& difference n'est que du plus ou moins. Tom. v. p. 18. NoTsFF, p. 282. The praise which I have bestowed on this Memoir renders it necessary for me to take some notice of a very exceptionable 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 Condillae and of Smith, it has, so far as I know, been universally acknowledged, that, if there be any one truth in the Theoretical History of Lan- guage, which we are entitled to assume as an incontrovertible fact, it is the direct 1 The experiments hero referred to are the observations of S\vainmerdam, Malpighi, and tieweuhoeck. 56G NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART II. contrary of the above proposition. Indeed, to assert that all proper names were at first appellatives, would appear to be nearly an absurdity of the same kind as to maintain, that classes of objects existed before individual objects had been brought into being. When Leibnitz, 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 languages, 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, afford 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 aversion of men to coin words out of unmeaning and arbitrary sounds ; and their eagemess 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. Hence metaphors, and other figures of speech ; and hence the various changes which words undergo, in the way of amplification, diminution, composition, and the other transformations .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 one'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 grammarian 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 arbitrary choice of those who first happened to employ them. It is to this first stage in the infancy of language that Mr. Smith's remarks obviously relate ; whereas the pro- position of Leibnitz, which gave occasion to this note, as obviously relates to its subsequent stages, when the language is beginning to assume somewhat of a re- gular form, by compositions and other modifications of the materials previously collected. From these slight hints it may be inferred, Isi, That the proposition of Leibnitz, although it may seem, from the very inaccurate and equivocal terms in which it is expressed, to stand in direct opposition to the doctrine of Smith, was really meant NOTES G G H H. 567 by the author to state a fact totally unconnected with the question under Smith's consideration, 'idly, That even in the sense in which it was understood by the author, it fails entirely, when extended to that first stage in the infancy of language, to which the introductory paragraphs in Mr. Smith's discourse are exclusively confined. NOTE G G, p. 285. " Je viens de recevoir une lettre d'un Prince Kegnant de 1'Empire, ou S. A. me marque avoir vu deux fois ce printems a la derniere foire de Leipsig, et examine avec soin un chien qui parle. Ce chien a prononce distinctement plus de trente mots, repondant meme assez a propos a son maitre : il a aussi prononce tout 1'alphabet excepte les lettres m, n, x." Leib. Opera, torn. 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 heard the dog. What follows is tran- scribed from a report of the Academy upon a letter from Leibnitz to the Abbe de St. Pierre, giving the details of this extraordinary occurrence. " Sans un garant tel que M. Leibnitz, temoin oculaire, nous n'aurions pas la hardiesse de rapporter, qu'aupres de Zeitz dans la Misnie, il y a un chien qui parle. C'est un chien de Paysan, d'une figure des plus communes, et de gran- deur mediocre. Un jeune enfant lui entendit pousser quelques sons qu'il crut vessembler a des mots Allemands, et sur cela se mit en tete de lui apprendre a parlor. Le maitre, qui n'avoit rien de mieux a faire, n'y epargna pas le terns ni ses peines, et heureusement le disciple avoit des dispositions qu'il eut ete difficile xle trouver dans un autre. Enfin, au bout de quelques annees, le chien scut pro- noncer environ une trentaine de mots : de ce nombre sont The, Gaffe, Chocolat, Assemblee, mots Fra^ois, qui ont passe dans 1'Allemand tels qu'ils sont. II est a remarquer, que le chien avoit bien trois ans quand il fut mis a 1'ecole. II ne parle que par echo, c'est a dire, apres que son maitre a prononce un mot ; et il semble, qu'il ne repete que par force et malgre lui, quoiqu'on ne le maltraite pas. Encore une fois, M. Leibnitz 1'a vu et entendu." (Expose d'une lettre de M. Leibnitz a 1'Abbe de St. Pierre sur un chien qui parle.) " Get expose de la lettre de M. Leibnitz se trouve dans 1'Histoire de 1' Academic des Sciences, annee 1706. Ce sont les Auteurs de 1'Histoire de 1'Academie qui parlent." Leib. Opera, vol. ii. p. 180, Part ii. May not all the circumstances of the above story be accounted for, by supposing the master of the dog to have possessed that peculiar species of imitative power which is called Ventriloquism? 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 before witnessed any exhibition of the same kind. NOTE H H, p. 285. When I speak in favourable terms of the Philosophical Spirit, I hope none of my readers will confound it with the spirit of that false philosophy, which, by unhinging every rational principle of belief, seldom fails to unite in the same characters the extremes of scepticism and of credulity. It is a very remarkable tact, that the same period of the eighteenth century, and the same part of Europe 568 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PAIIT II. which were most distinguished by the triumphs of Atheism and Materialism, were also distinguished by a greater number of visionaries and impostors than had ever appeared before, since the revival of letters. Nor were these foUies 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 satisfactory proofs 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 Mareschal 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 Mareschal de Riche- lieu) ekrit superstitieux, et qu'il croyoit aux predictions des astrologues et autres sottises de cet espece. Je 1'ai vu refusant a Versailles d'aller faire sa cour au fils aine de Louis XVI. en disant serieusement, qu'tt saroit que cet enfant n'titoit point destine au trone. Cette credulite superstitieuse, gcnerale pendant la ligue, etoit encore tres commune sous la regence lorsque le Due de Richelieu entra dans le monde ; par la plus bizarre des inconsequences, elle s'allioit tres bien avec la plus grande impiete, et la plupart des materialistes croyoient aux esprits; aujour- d'hui, ce genre de folie est tres rare ; mais beaucoup de gens, qui se moquent des astrologues, croient a des predictions d'une autre espece." Souvenirs et Portraits, par M. de Levis ; a Paris, 1813. Some extraordinary facts of the same kind are mentioned in the Memoirs of tJic Marquis de Bouille. According to him, Frederic the Great himself was not free from this sort of superstition. A similar remark is made by an ancient historian, with 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 Mercury, and the aspect of the Moon. It is singular enough that this vain credulity may often be discovered among the profane sceptics, who impiously doubt or deny the exist- ence of a Celestial Power." Gibbon, from Ammianus Marcellinus, Decline and Fall of the, Roman 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 hard! que Descartes, aussi subtil que Bayle, peut-ctre moins profond que Newton, et moins sage que Locke, mais seul universe! entre tous ces grands homines, paroit avoir embrasse le domaine de la raison dans toute son etendue, ct avoir contribue le plus a repandre cet esprit philosophique que fait aujourd'hui la gloire de notre siecle." Bailly, Eloge de Leibnitz. I have mentioned in the text only a part 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 the Chinese ; and on numberless other topics of subordinate importance. The philological discussions ancl etymological collections, which occupy so large a space . NOTE II. 569 among his works, would (even if he had produced nothing else) have been no in- considerable 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 pass over that of jurisprudence, 1 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 he ransacked, with an unexampled industry, 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. Mor- 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 darkness 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 so 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 different 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 Protogcea ; 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 Bailly, in his Kloye on Leibnitz, speaks of his characteristical originality, than where he him in terms of the most enthusiastic praise, as professes to treat of the law of nature. On a philosophical jurist, and as a man fitted to these occasions, how inferior does he appear to become the legislator of the human race. To Grotius, not to speak of Montesquieu and his me, I must own, it appears, that there is no disciples ! part of his writings in which he discovers less of 570 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART II. Thiffon with much respect ; and is considered by Cuvier as the groundwork of Buffon's own system on the same subject. In the connexion which I have now pointed out between the Historical, the Philological, and the Geological speculations of Leibnitz, Helvetius might have fancied that he saw a new exemplification of ike 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 survey those nobler inquiries which, sooner or later, will be equally interesting to every portion of the human race. 1 [* With this unparalleled range of knowledge treasured up in a mind peculiarly fond of combining the most remote affinities, it is not wonderful that Leibnitz should have conceived the idea of compiling an Encyclopedia. The groundwork of his undertaking was to be the Encyclopedia published in 1620 by Alstedius; & 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, i a fire, 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 progress of the human mind during the first half of the eighteenth century !] XOTE K K, p. 296. Of Locke's affectionate regard for Collins, notwithstanding the contrariety of their opinions on some questions of the highest moment, there exist many proofs in his letters, published by M. Des Maizeaux. In one of these, the following passage is remarkable. It is dated from Gates in Essex, 1703, about a year before Locke's death. " You complain of a great many defects ; and that very complaint is the highest recommendation I could desire to make me love and esteem you, and desire your friendship. And if I were now setting out in the world, I should think it my 1 In the above note. I have said nothing of Leib- Influence of Opinion* ore Laiuniage, and of nitz's project of a philosophical laDguage, found- Language on Opinion*, (which obtained the ed on an alphabet of Human Thoughts, as he prize from the Royal Society of Berlin in 1759,) has nowhere given us any hint of the principles there are some very acute and judicious reflec- on which he intended to proceed in its forma- tions on the impossibility of carrying into effect, tion, although he has frequently alluded to the with any advantage, such a project as these phi- practicability of such an invention in terms of losophers had in view. The author's argument extraordinary confidence. (For some remarks on this point seems to me decisive, in the pre- on these passages in his works, see Philosophy sent state of human knowledge ; but who can of Die Human Mind, vol. ii. p. 143, et teq.) pretend to fix a limit to the possible attain- In some of Leibnitz's expressions on this sub- merits of our posterity ! ject, there is a striking resemblance to those of [This Essay, which obtained the prize from Descartes in one of his letters. See the pre- the Royal Academy of Berlin, originally appear- liminary discourse prefixed to the Abb Emery's ed in German, but has been very well translated Pensetsde Descartes, p. 14, et teq. into French by an anonymous writer. The In the ingenious essay of MichaMis, On the translation was printed at Bremen in 1762.] * Restored. Ed. NOTE L L. 571 great happiness to have such a companion as yon, who had a true relish for truth ; would in earnest seek it with me ; from whom I might receive it undisguised ; and to whom I might communicate what I thought true freely. Believe it, my good friend, to love truth for truth's 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 anybody. What, then, is there wanting to make you equal to the best ; a friend for any one to be proud of?" .... The whole of Locke's letters to Collins are highly interesting and curious ; more particularly that which he desired to be delivered to him after his own death. From the general tenor of these letters, it may be inferred, that Collins had never let Locke fully into the secret of those pernicious opinions which he was afterwards at so much pains to disseminate. NOTE L L, p. 299. In addition to the account of Spinoza given in Baylc, some interesting particu- lars of his history may be learnt from a small volume, entitled La Vie de B. de Spinoza, tiree des ecrits de ce Fameux PMJosophe, et du temoignage de plusieiirs personnes dignes de foi, qni I'ont connu particulierement : par JEAN COLERUS, Ministre de VEylise Lutherienne de la Haye : 1706- 1 The book is evidently written by a man altogether unfit to appreciate the merits 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 perfect 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 the liberality of his friends. Jn conformity to the law, and to the customs of his ancestors, (which he adhered to, when he 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 he acquired so much dexterity, 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 character, and more particularly show how courteous and amiable he must have been in his intercourse with his inferiors. In a bill presented for payment after his death, he is styled by Abraham Reveling, his barber-surgeon, Benedict Spinoza of blessed memory ; and the same compliment is paid to him by the tradesman who furnished gloves to the mourners at his funeral. These particulars are the more deserving of notice, as thev rest on the authority of a very zealous member of the Lutheran communion [* a man certainly not of 1 The Life of Spinoza by Colevus, with some reprinted in the complete edition of Spinoza's other curious pieces on the same subject, is Works, published at Jena, in 1802. * Restored. Ed. 572 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS 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, the 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 liis 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." .... Ecdes. 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- vivial 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 so conspicuous in some of his writings ? His irreligious principles he is supposed to have adopted, in the first instance, from his Latin preceptor, Vander Ende, 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 Sadducees. (This is, I presume, the idea of Heineccius in the following passage : " Quamvis Spinoza Cartesii principia methodo mathematica demonstrata dederit ; Pantheismum tamen ille non ex Cartesio didicit, sed domi habuit, quos sequeretur." In proof of this, he refers to a book entitled Spinozismus in Judaismo, 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 seems to have been the love of fame. " It is owned," says Bayle, "that he had an extreme dosire to immortalize his name, and would have sacrificed his life to that glory, though he should have been torn to pieces by the mob." Art. Spinoza. NOTE MM. 573 NOTE M M, p. 307. Tn proof of the impossibility of Liberty, Collins argues thus : " A second reason to prove man a necessary agent is, because 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 something. And if nothing can produce something, then the world might have had 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 and atheistical. 1 " And as Liberty stands, and can only be grounded on the absurd principles of Epicurean atheism, so the Epicurean atheists, who were the most popular and most numerous sect of the atheists of antiquity, 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.' 1 '' Collins, p. 54. As to the above reasoning of Collins, it cannot be expected that I should, in the compass of a Note, " boult this matter to the bran." It is sufficient here to remark, that it derives all its plausibility from the unqualified terms in which the maxim (prill* avainev} has frequently been stated. " 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, &c., p. 30, 3d edition.) If this maxim be literally admitted without any explanation or restriction, it seems difficult to resist the 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 the 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 an 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 the 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, Collins'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 Lucretius : " Denique si semper motus connectitur omnis," &c. &c. Litcret. Lib. 2, v. 251. On the obscurity of this passage, and the inconsistencies involved in it, much 1 To the same purpose Edwards attempts to sense which refers every event to a cause) would show, that " the scheme of free-will (by afford- destroy the proof a posteriori for the being of ing an exception to that dictate of common God." 574 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART II. might be said ; but it is of more importance, on the present occasion, to remark its complete repugnance to the whole 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 autho- rity of Fatalism, than if he had left the argument altogether untouched. "Nee vero quisquam magis confirmare mihi videtur non modo fatum, verum etiam ne- cessitatem et vim omnium reruin, sustulisseque motus animi voluntaries, quam hie qui aliter obsistere fato fatetur se non potuisse nisi ad has commenticias decli- nationes confugisset." Liber de Fato, cap. 20. On the noted expression of Lucretius (fatis avolsa voluntas} some acute remarks 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 liberte humaine sur la declinaison des atomes. On demande si cette declinaison est necessaire, ou si elle est simple- ment accidcntelle. Necessaire, comment la liberte pent elle en etre le restiltat ? Accidentelle, par quoi est elle determined ? Mais on devrait bien plutot etre sur- pris, qu'il lui soit venu en idee de rendre 1'homme libre dans un systeme qui suppose un enchainement necessaire de causes et d'effets. C'etoit une recherche curieuse, que la raison qui a pu faire d'Epicure 1'Apotre de la Liberte"." For the theory which follows on this point, I must refer to the work in question. See Traduction Nouvelle de Lucrece, avec des Notes, par M. de la Grange, vol. i. pp. 218-220: a Paris, 1768. But whatever may have been the doctrines of some of the ancient Atheists about man's free-agency, it will not be denied, that in the History of MODERN Philo- sophy, the schemes of Atheism and of Necessity have been hitherto always con- nected together. Not that I would by any means be understood to say, that every Necessitarian must ipso facto be an Atheist, or even that any presumption is afforded by a man's attachment to the former sect, of his having the slightest bias in favour of the latter ; but only that every modern Atheist I have heard of has been a Necessitarian. I cannot help adding, that the most consistent Necessita- rians who have yet appeared, have been those who followed out their principles till they ended in Spitwzism, a doctrine which differs from Atheism more in words than in reality. In what Collins says of the Stoics in the above quotation, he plainly proceeds on the supposition that all Fatalists are of course Necessitarians, 1 and I 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 those 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 stronger and more explicit terms, than it is by Epictetus in 1 Collins states this more strongly in what he and consequently, they could not assert a true says of the Pharisees. " The Pharisees, who liberty when they asserted a liberty together were a religious sect, ascribed all things to fate with this fatality and wessitu of all things." or to God's appointment, and it was the first Collins. \\ .14. article of their creed, that Fate and God do all. NOTE MM. 575 the very first sentence of the Enchiridion. Indeed, the Stoics seem, 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 withstood the strong arguments against it, which the doctrine of the eternal decrees of God, and even that of the Divine prescience, appear at first sight to furnish. A remarkable instance of this occurs in St. Augustine, (distinguished in ecclesiastical history by the title of the Doctor of Grace,) who has asserted the liberty of the will in terms as explicit as those in which he has announced the theological dogmas with which it is most difficult to reconcile it. Nay, he has gone so far as to acknowledge the essential importance of this belief, as a motive to virtuous conduct. " Quocirca nullo modo cogirnur, aut retenta prsescientia Dei, tollere voluntatis arbitrium, aut retento voluntatis arbitrio, Deum, quod nefas est, negare prsescium futurorum, sed utrumque amplectimur, utrumque fideliter et veraciter confitemur : illud, ut bene credamus ; hoc ut 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 the will of his creatures, 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 passage he asserts, in the most unqualified terms, that God is the cause of all the actions which depend on the Free-will of Man ; and yet, that the Will is really free, he considers as a fact perfectly established by the evidence of consciousness. " Sed quemadmodum existentise divinae cognitio non debet liberi nostri arbitrii certitudinem tollere, quia illud in nobismet ipsis experimur et scn- timus ; ita neque liberi nostri arbitrii cognitio existentiam Dei apud nos dubiain facere debet. Independentia enim ilia quam experimur, atque in nobis persentis- cimus, et quae actionibus nostris laude vel vituperio dignis efficiendis sufficit, non pugnat cum dependentia alterius generis, secundum quam omnia Deo subjiciuntur." (Cartesii Epistolce, Epist. viii. ix. Pars i.) These letters form part of his corre- spondence 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 Life, 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 a free-agent. "The doctrine of Necessity," he also tells us, "lie first learned from Collins; 1 and * Restored. Ed. of the arguments in favour of Philosophical 1 We are elsewhere informed by Priestley, Liberty : though (he adds) I was much more that " it was in consequence of reading and confirmed in this principle by my acquaintance studying the Inquiry of Collins, he was first with Hartley's Theory of the Human Mind ; a convinced of the truth of the doctrine of Neces- work to which I owe much more than I am able wty, and was enabled to see the fallacy of most to express." Preface, &c. &c. p. xxvii. 576 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART II. was established in the belief of it by Hartley's Observations on Man." (Ibid. p. 19.) He farther mentions in another work, that " he was not a ready convert to the doctrine of Necessity, and that, like Dr. Hartley himself, he gave up his liberty with great reluctance." Preface to the Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity Illustrated, 2d edit. Birmingham, 1782, p. xxvii. These instances afford a proof, I do not say of the compatibility of man's free- agency with those schemes with which it seems most at variance, but of this com- patibility in the opinion of some of the profoimdest thinkers who have turned their 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 theological tenets, with which it may appear to ourselves impossible to reconcile it. As for the notion of liberty, for which Collins 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." (Hobbes's Works, p. 484, fol. ed.) The same definition has been adopted by Leibnitz, by Gravesande, by Edwards, by Bonnet, and by all our later Necessitarians. It cannot be better expressed than in the words of Gravesande : " Facultas faciendi quod libuerit, qucecunque fuerit voluntatls determination Introd. ad Philosoph. 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 modern metaphysicians ; coin- ciding exactly with the doctrines of those scholastic divines who contended for the Liberty of Spontaneity, in opposition to the Liberty of Indifference. It is, how- ever, to Hobbes that the partisans of this opinion are indebted for the happiest and most popular illustration of it that has yet been given. " I conceive," says he, " liberty to be rightly defined, The. absence of all the impediments to action that are not contained in the nature and intrinsical quality of the agent. As, for ex- ample, the water is said to descend freely, or to have liberty to descend by the channel of the river, because there is no impediment that way : but not across, because the banks are impediments. And, though water cannot ascend, yet men never say, it wants the liberty to ascend, but the faculty or power, because the impediment is in the nature of the v'ater, and intrinsical. So also we say, he that is tied wants the liberty to go, because the impediment is not in him, but in his hands ; whereas we say not so of him who is sick or lame, because the impediment is in himself." Treatise of Liberty and Necessity. According to Bonnet, " moral liberty is the power of the mind to obey without constraint the impulse of the motives which act upon it." This definition, which 1 " The doctrine of philosophical necessity," [* The question to which it relates is sub- says Priestley, " is in reality a modern thing, jected to the examination of every person capa- not older, I believe, than Mr. Hobbes. Of the ble of reflection ; and it is a question (according Calvinists, I believe Mr. Jonathan Edwards to to the acknowledgment of all parties) so deeply be the first." Illustrations of Philosoph i?al Ne- interesting to human happiness, that no person cetfi/y, p. 195. able to comprehend its import can be supposed Supposing this statement to be correct, does to have passed through life without forming not the very modern date of Hobbes's allege' 1 . some opinion concerning it. It would be strange discovery furnish a very strong presumption indeed, if Hobbes should have been the first to against it ? place A fact of this nature in its true light.] * Restored. Ed NOTE NN. 077 is obviously 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 effet sans cause, Bonnet definit la liberte morale le pou- voir de 1'anie de suivre sans contrainte Ics motifs dont elle eprouve 1'impulsion ; et resout ainsi les objections que Ton tire de la prevision de Dieu ; mais peut-etre aussi detournent-t-il 1'idee qu'on se fait d'ordinaire de la liberte. Malgre ces opi- nions que touchent au Materialisme et au Fatalisme, Bonnet fut tres religieux." Biographic Universelle, a Paris, 1812. Art. Bonnet. From tin's passage it appears, that the very ingenious writer was as completely aware as Clarke or Eeid of the un soundness of the definition of moral 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 liberty of spontaneity, was the same, though in a more disguised form, with that of fatalism. For a complete exposure of the futility of this definition of liberty, as the word is employed in the controversy about man's free-agency, I have only to refer to Dr. Clarke's remarks on Collins, and to Dr. Reid's Essays on the Active Poicers of Man. In this last work, the various meanings of this very ambiguous word are explained with great accuracy and clearness. The only two opinions Avhich, 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 Spontaneity, (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,) 1 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-will. The distinction between physical 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 he understood in this dispute) admits but of one interpretation. NoTENN, 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 effects of education (under which phrase they comprehend the moral effects of all the external cir- cumstances in which men are involuntarily placed) in forming the characters of individuals. 1 Both phrases are favourite expressions with Essay on Liberty and Necessity, in the last Lord Kames in his discussions on this sub- edition of his Essays on Morality and Natural ject. See in particular the Appendix to his Religion. VOL. I. 20 578 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART II. The plausibility of this argument (on which much stress has been laid by Priestley and others) arises entirely from the mixture of truth which it involves ; or, to express myself more correctly, from the evidence and importance of tliefact on which it proceeds, when that fact is stated with due limitations. That the influence of education, 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 he has expressed himself very strongly with respect to the extent of this influence ; and has more than once intimated his belief, that the great majority 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 Heaven 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 be 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 Locke's Treatise on Education, and other hooks 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 and 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 Association 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 modern 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 skilfully 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 here to throw out these hints, which will be found to apply equally to a large proportion of other theories started by modern 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 his own future volitions ; and if this knowledge infers a NOTE 00. 579 necessity of volition in the one case, how is it possible to avoid the same inference in the other ? NOTE 0, p. 309. A similar application of St. Paul's comparison of the potter is to be found both in Hobbes and in Collins. Also, in a note annexed by Cowley to his ode entitled Destiny ; an ode written (as we 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 we have for thinking the same of mankind, when we see them exercise so many and so different actions. It was of old said by Plautus, Dii nos quasi pitas homines lidbent, ' We are but tennis-balls for the gods to play withal, which they strike away at last, and still call for new ones ; and St. Paul says, ' We are but the clay in tJie hand of the potter.'' " For the comparison of the potter, alluded to by these different writers, see the Epistle to the Romans, chap. ix. verses 18, 19, 20, 21. Upon these verses the only comment which I have to offer is a remark of the apostle Peter, that " In the epistles of our beloved brother Paul are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest unto their own destruction.'' [* 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 verses 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 Cowley 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. The contrary, indeed, in the present instance, is obvious from the ode before us ; for while Cowley supposed the angels to_move, like chess-men, the inhabitants of this globe, Hobbes (along with Spinoza) plainly conceived that the angels themselves, and even that Being to which he impiously gave the name of God, 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, one would be tempted to consider the first stanzas of this ode in the light of a jeti * Restored. Ed. 580 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART II. d'esprit, introductory to the very cliaracteristical and interesting picture of him- self, with which the poem concludes. NOTE PP, p. 312. " Tout ce qui est doit etre, par cela mcme que cela est. Voila la seule bonne philosophic. Aussi longtemps que nous ne connaitrons pas cet univers, comme on dit dans 1'ecole, a priori, tout est necessite. La liberte est un mot vide de sens, comme vous allez voir dans la lettre de M. Diderot." Lettre de Grimm au Due de Saxe-Gotha. " C'est ici, mon cher, que je vais quitter le ton de predicateur pour prendre, si je peux, celtii de philosophe. Regardez-y de pres, et vous verrez que le mot liberte est un mot vide de sens ; qu'il n'y a point, et qu'il ne peut y avoir d'etres libres ; que nous ne sommes que ce qui convient a 1'ordre general, a 1'organisation, a 1'education, et a la chaine des evenemens. Voila ce qui dispose de nous invinci- blement. On ne conpoit non plus qu'un etre agisse sans motif, qu'un des bras d'une balance agisse sans 1'action d'un poids, et le motif nous est toujours exterieur, etranger, attache ou par une nature ou par une cause quelconque, qui n'est pas nous. Ce qui nous trompe, c'est la prodigieuse variete de nos actions, jointe a 1'habitude que nous avons prise tout en naissant, de confondre le volontaire avec le libre. Nous avons tant loue, tant repris, nous 1'avons etc tant de fois, que c'est un prejiige Hen vieux que celui de croire que nous et les autres voulons, agissons librement. Mais s'il n'y a point de liberte, il n'y a point d'action qui merite la louange ou le blame ; il n'y a ni vice, ni vertu, rien dont il faille recompenser ou chatier. Qu'est ce qui distingue done les hommes ? La bienfaisance ou la mal- faisance. Le malfaisant est un homme qu'il faut detruire et non punir ; la bieu- faisance est une bonne fortune, et non une vertu. Mais quoique 1'homme bien ou malfaisant nc soit pas libre, 1'homme n'en est pas moins un etre qu'on modifie ; c'est par cette raison qu'il faut detruire le malfaisant sur une place publique. De la les bons effets de 1'exemple, des discours, de 1'education, du plaisir, de la dou- leur, des grandeurs, de la misere, &c. ; de la un sorte de philosophic pleine de commiseration, qui attache fortement aux bons, qui n'irrite non plus contre le mechant, que contre un ouragan qui nous remplit les yeux de poussiere. II n'y a qu'une sorte de causes a proprement parler ; ce sont les causes physiques. II n'y a qu'une sorte de necessite, c'est la meme pour tous les etres. Voila ce qui me re- concilie avec le genre humain ; c'est pour cette raison que je vous exhortais a la philanthropic. Adoptez ces principes si vous les trouvez bons, ou montrez-moi qu'ils sont mauvais. Si vous les adoptez, ils vous reconcilieront aussi avec les autres et avec vous-meme ; vous ne vous saurez ni bon ni mauvais gre d'etre ce qui vous etes. Ne rien reprocher aux autres, ne se repentir de rien ; voila les pre- miers pas vers la sagesse. Ce qui est hors de la est prejuge, fausse philosophic." Correspondance Litteraire, Philosophique, et Critique, addressee au Due de Saxe-Gotha, par le Baron de Grimm et par Diderot. Premiere Partie, torn. i. pp. 300, 304, 305, 306. Londres, 1814. NOTE Q Q, p. 323. See in Bayle the three articles Luther, Knox, and Buchanan. The following passage concerning Knox may serve as a specimen of the others. It is quoted by NOTE R R. 581 Bayle from the Cosmographie Universelle of Thevet, a writer who 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 Medicis, 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 VIII. 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, 1 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- solute 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 Latin, 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 E, p. 335. 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, he has even 1 Thus Thevet (says Bayle) writes the name of Knox. 582 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART II. gone so far as to accuse Addison of misapprehending, or, at least, of mis-stating, Locke's doctrine concerning secondary qualities. But a comparison of Dr. Blair's own statement with that which he censures, Avill not turn out to the advantage of the learned critic ; and I willingly lay hold of this example, as the point at issue turns on one of the most refined questions of metaphysics. The words of Addison are these : " Things would make but a poor appearance to the eye, if we 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 are different from anything that exists 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 ?" After 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 us many of those ideas vltich are different from anything that exists in the objects? Xo one, sure, ever imagined that our ideas exist in the objects. Ideas, it is agreed on all hands, can exist nowhere but in the mind. What Mr. Locke's philosophy teaches, and what our author should have said, is, exciting in us many ideas of qualities ivhich are different from anything that exists in the objects." 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 really 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. They are in the bodies we denominate from them, only a power to produce these sensations in us. And what is sweet, blue, or warm 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. Eeid. But the repetition of Locke's inaccuracy (supposing Addison to have been really guilty of it) should not be 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 Locke, by keeping out of view 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 better, 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 Locke's meaning than the cor- respondent clause in its original si at P. The additional words ofqualitie* throw an NOTE KR. 583 obscurity over the whole proposition, which was before sufficiently precise and perspicuous. 1 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 visionary 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 ? 2 In short, our souls 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 enchanted hero 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 corners 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. 8 1 Another passage, afterwards quoted by Dr. Blair, might have satisfied him of the clearness and accuracy of Addison's ideas on the subject. " I have here supposed that my reader is ac- quainted with that great modern discovery, which is, at present, universally acknowledged by all the inquirers into Natural Philosophy ; namely, that light and colours, as apprehended by the imagination, are only ideas in the mind, and not qualities that have any existence in matter. As this is a truth which has been proved incontestably by many modern philoso- phers, if the English reader would see the notion explained at large, he may find it in the eighth book of Mr. Locke's Essay on Human Under- standing." I have already taken notice (Element of Vus Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. i. Note P.) of the extraordinary precision of the above statement, arising from the clause printed in Italics. By a strange slip of memory, I ascribed the merit of this very judicious qualification, not to Addison, but to Dr. Akenside, who tran- scribed it from the Spectator. The last quotation affords me also an oppor- tunity of remarking the'correctness of Addison's information about the history of this doctrine, which most English writers have conceived to be an original speculation of Locke's. From some of Addison's expressions, it is more than probable that he had derived his first knowledge of it from Malebranche. 2 On the supposition made in this sentence, the face of Nature, instead of presenting a " rough unsightly sketch," would, it is evident, become wholly invisible. But I need scarcely say, this does not render Mr. Addison's allusion less pertinent. 3 [* Ut sibi quivis Speret idem ; sudet multum, frustraque laboret Ausus idem." Dr. Blair objects to the clause, (the fantastic scene breaks up ;) remarking that " the expres- sion is lively, but not altogether justifiable." " An assembly, (he adds,) breaks up , a scene closes or disappears." To this criticism I cannot assent. One of the oldest and most genuine meanings of the verb break up, is to dissolve or vanish; nor do I know any word or phrase iu our language which could here be substituted in its place, without * Restored. Ed. 584 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. FART IT. The praise which I have bestowed on Addison as a commentator on this part of Locke's Essay, will not appear extravagant to those who may take the trouble to compare the conciseness and elegance of the foregoing extracts with the prolixity and homeliness of the author's text. (See Locke's Essay, book ii. chap. viii. sects. 17, 18.) It is sufficient to mention here, that his chief illustration is taken 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 Hamil- ton, Professor of Universal History in the University of Edinburgh. The Clavis Universalis of Arthur Collier, though little known in England, has been translated into German. It is published in a work entitled " Samhmg," (sic) &c. &c., literally, " A Collection of the most distinguished Authors who deny the existence of their own bodies, and of the whole material world ; containing the dialogues of Berkeley, between Hylas and Philonous, and Collier's Universal Key translated, with Illustrative Observations, and an Appendix, wherein the Existence of Body is demonstrated, by John Christopher Eschenbach, Professor of Philo- impairing the effect of the picture. It is a favourite expression of Bacon's in this very sense. " 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 iu nothing more visible than the sudden discharge or vanishing of a little cloud of breath or vapour from glass or any polished body ; for the mistiness scattereth and breakcth tip suddenly." And elsewhere, " But ere he came near it, the pillar and cross of light brake tip, and cast itself abroad, as it were, into a fir- mament of many stars." 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 far greater taste and judgment by the former than by the latter. The use of them is indeed hazardous to all who have been educated at a distance from the seat of government, and, accordingly, the best of our Scotch writers have thought it safer to lean to the opposite extreme. F6nelon has remarked something similar to this among the provincials of his own country. " On a tant de peur d'etre bas, qu'on est ordinaire tec et vague dans les expressions. Nous avons la-dessus une fausse polite'sse, semblable 3. celle de certains provinciaux qui se piquent de bel esprit, et qui croiraient s'abaisser en nommant les chores par leur nom." In applying, however, this very judicious observation, it ought not to be forgotten, that FfinSlon had from his youth moved exclusively in that privileged circle of society which gives law to speech ; and, of consequence, that in the selection of his idioms he might trust to his ear with a confidence which few of our south- ern neighbours (I least of all, except those purists whose taste has been formed within the sound of Bow-bell) are entitled to feel. How many of these, while they fancy they are rival- ling the easy and graceful Anglicism of Addison, unconsciously betray the secret of those early habits and inveterate associations which they are so anxious to conceal ! The passage of Addison which suggested this note, has been versified and expanded by Aken- side ; but there is a conciseness, simplicity, and freshness in the original, which it is impossible to preserve in any poetical version. " So fables tell ; Th' adventurous hero, bouml on hard exploiu, Beholds, with glad surprise, by secret spells Of some kind sage, the patron of his toils, A visionary paradise disclosed Amid the dubious wild j with streams and shades, And airy songs, th enchanted landscape smiles, Cheers his long labours and renews his frame." The reflection, however, of the philosophical poet, on the accession to the sum of our enjoy- ments, arising from this arbitrary adaptation of the human frame to the constitution of external objects, is, so far as I know, exclusively his own. " Not content With every food of life to nourish man, n.v kind illusions of the wondering sense, Thou mak'st all nature beaut) to his e> And music to his ear !"] NOTE T T. 585 sophy in Rostock." (Rostock, 1756, 8vo.) The remarks are numerous, and show much reading. The Appendix contains : 1. An exposition of the opinions of the Idealists, 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 he says, " a direct proof must not here be expected ; in regard to the fundamental principles of human nature this is seldom possible, or rather is absolutely impossible." He 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, lam a thinking being; of this I am certain from internal conviction ; I 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 I can have any representation (Vbrstellung, presentation) of self without the consciousness of being a thinking being. In the same manner, Eschenbach argues (right or wrong) that the feeling applies to the existence of body, 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 intervals, seems to have thought and felt very differently." The following passage (extracted from his Penseea Philosophiques) 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. " Convener qu'il y auroit de la folie a refuser a vos semblables la faculte de penser. Sans doute, mais que s'ensuit-il de la ? II s'ensuit, que si 1'univers, que dis-je 1'univers, si 1'aile d'un papillon m'offre des traces mille fois plus distinctes d'une intelligence que vous n'avez d'indices que votre semblable a la faculte de penser, il est mille fois plus fou de nier qu'il existe un Dieu, que de nier que votre semblable pense. Or, que cela soit ainsi, c'est a vos lumieres, c'est a votre conscience que j'en appelle. Avez-vous jamais remarque dans les raisonnemens, les actions, et la conduite de qtielque homme que ce soit, plus d'intelligence, d'ordre, de sagacite, de consequence, que dans le mecanisme d'un insecte ? La divinite n'est elle pas aussi clairement empreinte dans 1'ceil d'un ciron, que la faculte de penser dans les ecrits du grand Newton ? Quoi ! le monde forme prouverait moins d'intelligence, que le monde explique? Quelle assertion ! 1'intelligence d'un premier etre ne m'est pas mieux demontree par ses ouvrages, que la faculte de penser dans un philosophe par ses ecrits? Songez done que je ne vous objecte que 1'aile d'un papillon, quand je pourrais vous ecraser du poids de 1'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 586 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART II. argument which is indirectly hinted at in a late publication by a far more illus- trious author. " J'ouvre les cahiers d'un philosophe celebre, et je lis : ' Athees, je vous accorde que le mouvement est essentiel a la matiere ; qu'en concluez-vous ? que le monde rc'sulte du jet fortuit d'atomes? J'aimerois autant que vous me disiez que 1'Iliade d'Homere ou la Henriade de Voltaire est un resultat de jets fortuits de caracteres ?' Je me garderai bien de faire ce raisonuement a un athee. Cette coinparaison lui donneroit beau jeu. Selon les lois de 1'analyse des sorts, me diroit-il, je ne dois etre surpris qu'une chose arrive, lorsqu'elle est possible, et que la difficulte de I'evenement est compensee par la quantite des jets. II y a tel nonibre de coups dans lesquels je gagerois avec avantage d'amener cent mille six a la fois avec cent mille des. Quelle que rat la somme finie de caracteres avec laquelle on me proposeroit d'engendrer fortuitement 1'Iliade, il y a telle somme fiuie de jets qui me rendroit la proposition avantageuse ; mou avantage seroit meme infini, si la quantite de jets accordee etoit infinie. [*Vous voulez bien convenir avec moi, continueroit-il, que la matiere existe de toute eternite, et que le mouvement lui est essentiel. Pour repondre a cette faveur, je vais supposer avec vous que le monde n'a point de bornes, que la multitude des atonies est infinie, et que cet ordre qui nous t-tonne ne se dement nulle part. Or, de ces aveux reciproques, il ne s'ensuit autre chose, si non que la possibilite d'engendrer fortuitement 1'univers est tres petite, mais que la quantite de jets est infinie ; c'est-a-dire, que la difficulte de 1'evene- ment est plus que suffisamment compensee par la multitude des jets. Done si quelque chose doit repugner a la raison, c'est la supposition que la matiere s'etant mue de toute 1'eternite, et qu'ayant peut-etre dans la somme infinie de combinaisons possibles, un nombre infini d'arrangemens admirables, il ne se soit rencontre aucun de ces arrangemens admirables dans la multitude infinie de ceux qu'elle a pris suc- cessivement. Done 1'esprit doit etre plus etonne de la duree hypothetique du chaos, que de la naissance reelle de 1'univers."] Pensees Philoscqrfiiques, par Diderot, xxi. My chief reason for considering this as the genuine exposition of Diderot's own creed is, that he omits no opportunity of suggesting the same train of thinking ii> his other works. It may be distinctly traced in the following passage of his Tralte. du Beau, the substance of which he has also introduced in the article Beau of the Encyc'op&die. " Le beau n'est pas toujours 1'ouvrage d'une cause intelligente ; le mouvement ctablit souvent, soit dans un etre considere solitairement, soit entre plusieurs etres compares entr'eux, une multitude prodigieuse de rapports surpreuans. Les cabinets d'histoire naturelle en offrent un grand nombre d'exemples. Les rapports sont alors des resultats de combinaisons fortuites, du moins par rapport a nous. La nature imite en se jouant, dans cent occasions, les productions d'art ; et Ton pourroit demander, je ne dis pas si ce philosophe qui fut jete par une tempete sur les bords d'une He inconnue, avoit raison de se crier, a la vue de quelque figures de geometric ; ' Courage, mes amis, void des pas d'lwmmes ;' mais combien il faudroit remarquer de rapports dans un etre, pour avoir uue certitude complete qu'il est 1'ouvrage d'un artiste ] (en quelle occasion, un seul defaut de symmetric * UestoreJ. Ed. name of Soriles or Aceiftu? " Vitiosum sane," 1 Is not this precisely the sophistical mode of --ays Cicero, " et captiosum genus." Afml. jm/stionini: kuown amnn? Loprians by the Quint., lib. jr. xvL NOTE TT. 587 prouvcroit plus que toute somme donnee de rapports ;) comment sont entr'eux Ic temps de Faction de la cause fortuite, et les rapports observes dans les effets pro- duits ; et si (a 1'exception des ceuvres du Tout-Puissant) * il y a des cas ou le nombre des rapports ne puisse jamais etre compense 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 talcs of the genii, and the dreams of the Rosicrucians, may, 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 given system of opinions founded on the reasonableness or the unreasonableness of the tenets involved in it ; and would, of consequence, lead to the subversion of the whole frame of the human understanding. 2 Mr. Hume, in his Natural History of Eelicjion, (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 spirit of the foregoing reasoning, it is unnecessary to observe, that this parenthetical clause is nothing better than an ironical salm. If the argument proves anything, it leads to this general con- clu -ion, that the apparent order of the universe affords no evidence whatever of the existence of a designing cause. 2 The atheistical argument here quoted from Diderot is, at least, as old as the time of Epi- curus. Ordine se quseque, atque sagaci mrnte locarunt Nee quos quseque ilarent motus pepi^ere profecto ; Sed quia nmltiniodis, multis, mutata, per omne Kx infinite vexnntur percitu plagis, Omne genus motus, et costus experiunilo, Tandem deveniunt in taleia disposituvas, Qualibus li;v.'e rebus consistit suimnaereata. LUCRKT. lib. i. 1. 1020. And still more explicitly in the following lines : Nam cum respieias inimensi temporis omne Prseteritum spntium ; turn motus material Multimoili quam sint; facile hoc adcrederc possis, Semina sape in eodem, ut nunc sunt, ordine posta. Ibid. lib. iii. 1. 867. [* The whole of this reasoning (if it deserves that name) proceeds evidently on the suppo? i- tion that the atoms, or semina, considered by Epicurus as the Primordia Rerum, axejinite in their number ; and that this was also the idea of Diderot in the passage last quoted, appears from the concluding words, hi which lie speaks * Rest of the possibility of the number of rapports being compensated by the number of jets. If we suppose the number of atoms to be infinite, the whole of this Epicurean speculation falls at once to the ground. Dr. Bentley seems, in- deed, to have thought, that this last supposition involves a contradiction in terminia, inasmuch as it implies the possibility of an innumerable number or a stimlcss sum; but this cavil is, I think, obviated in a very satisfactory manner by Sir Isaac 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 a, finite universe presents, to my mind at least, as great a difficulty as that which staggered Dr. Bentley. 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 '1 I have said, that if we suppose the number of atoms to be infinite, the whole of this 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.the number of atoms is infinite. Lucret., lib. i. v. S57, et neq. Diderot also thinks, that he may safely make this concession, without weakening his argument : " Pour repondre a cette faveur je vais supposcr avec vous que le monde n'a point de bornes et qne la multitude, des aUmcs red. Kd. 588 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 seems more than probable, 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 conceivable systems, whether natural 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 Epicurus) 1 the result of the continued operation of the same blind causes ? or rather, must 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 origin 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 Conversation: a Paris, 1812. " Dans la societe du Baron d'Holbach, Diderot propose un jour de nommer un avocat de Dieu, et on choisit 1'Abbe Galiani. II s'assit et debuta ainsi : " Un jour a Naples, un homme de la Basilicate prit devant nous, six des dans un cornet, et paria d'amener rafle de six. Je dis cette chance etoit possible. II 1'amena sur le champ une seconde fois ; je dis la meme chose. II remit les des dans le cornet trois, quatre, cinq fois, et toujours rafle de six. Sangue di Bacco, m'ecriai-je, les des sont pipes; et ils 1'etoient. " Philosophes, quand je considere 1'ordre toujours renaissant de la nature, ses lois immuables, 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 'eerie : certes la nature est pipee!" 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. i Cie. de Nat. Dew. lib. i. xxiv. NOTE U U. 589 Whatever his own professed principles may have been, this theory of the loaded die appears evidently, from the repeated allusions to it in his familiar cor- respondence, to have produced a very deep impression on his mind. See Correspon- dance inedite de 1'Abbe Galiani, &c., vol. i. pp. 18, 42, 141, 142 : a 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 sceptical 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. Daunou observes, that Galiani is so celebrated for his Dialogues on the Corn 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 relations of life, by the grossest self-interest ; laughing at his own doctrine and those who think it profound, whereas, says he, " it is hollow, and there is nothing in it," yet foaming with rage against those who contradicted it, loading them with insults and calumnies, denouncing them as seditious, and seriously complaining that they are not sent to the 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 melange, cru, vert, dans toute sa force, dans toute son aprete." The inedited Correspondence of Abbe Ferd. Galiani with Madame d'Epinay, Baron d'Holbach, &c. (from the Journal des Savans, 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 this occurs in a letter to Dr. Warburton, occa- sioned by the publication of his View of Bolingbroke 's Philosophy. The letter, it must be owned, savours somewhat of the political religionist ; but how fortunate would it have been for France, if, during its late revolutionary governments, such sentiments as those here expressed by Montesquieu had been more generally pre- valent among his countrymen ! " Celui qui attaque la religion revelee n'attaque que la religion revelee ; mais celui qui attaque la religion naturelle attaque toutes les religions du monde. ... II n'est pas impossible d'attaquer une religion re- velee, parce qu'elle existe par des faits particuliers, et que les faits par leur nature * At the end of the volume, Mr. Stewart had inserted the following extract, written by a stranger- hand. Ed. 590 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART II. pen vent etre une matiere cle dispute ; mais il n'en est pas cle meme de la religion naturello ; elle est tiree de la nature de I'homme, dont on ne peut pas disputer encore. J : ajoute a ceci, quel peut-etre le motif d'attaquer la religion revelee en Angleterre ? On 1'y a tellement purge de tout prejuge destructeur qu'elle n'y petit faire de mal et qu'elle y peut faire, au contraire, une infinite de bicn. Je sais, qn'un homme en Espagne ou en Portugal que 1'on va bruler, ou qui craint d'etre brule, parce qu'il ne croit point de certains articles dependans ou non de la religion revelee, a un juste sujet de 1'attaquer, parce qu'il peut avoir quelque egperaaoe de pourvoir a sa defense naturelle : mais il n'en pas de meme en Angleterre, ou tout liomme qui attaque la religion revelee 1'attaque sans interet, et ou cet homme, quand il reussiroit, quand meme il auroit raison dans le fond, ne feroit que detruire une infinite de biens pratiques, pour etablir une verite purement speculative.'' For the whole letter, see the 4to edit, of Montesquieu's Works. Paris, 1788. Tome v. p. 391. Also Warburton's Works, by Kurd, 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 serve 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 open war against the principles maintained in the Systeme cle la Nature, it is remarked by Madame cle Stael, that two different epochs may be distinguished in his literary life ; the one, while his mind was warm from the philosophical lessons he had imbibed in England ; the other, after it be- came infected with those extravagant principles which, soon after his death, brought a temporary reproach on the name of Philosophy. As the observation is extended by the very ingenious writer to the French nation in general, and draws a line between two classes of authors who are frequently confounded together in this country, I shall transcribe it in her own words. "II me semble qu'on pourroit marqner dans le dix-hiutieme siecle, en France, deux epoques parfaitement distinctes, celle dans laquelle I'influence de 1' Angleterre s'est fait sentir, et celle ou les esprits se sont precipites dans la destruction : Alors les lumieres se sont changees en incendie, et la philosophic, magicienne irritee, a consume le palais oii elle avoit t-tale ses prodiges. " En politique, Montesquieu appartient a la premiere epoque, Kaynal a la se- conde ; en religion, les ecrits de Voltaire, qui avoit la tolerance pour but, sont inspires par 1'esprit de la premiere moitie du siecle ; mais sa miserable et vaniteuse irreligion a fletri la seconde." De V Allemagne, torn. iii. pp. 37, 38. Nothing, in truth, can be more striking than the contrast between the spirit of Voltaire's early and of his later productions. From the former may be quoted some of the sublimest sentiments anywhere to be found, both of religion and of morality. In some of the latter, he appears irrecoverably sunk in the abyss of fatalism. Ex- amples of both are so numerous, that one is at a loss in the selection. In making NOTEUU. 591 choice of the following, I am guided chiefly by the comparative shortness of the passages. " Consulte Zoroastre, et Minos, et Solon, Et le sage Socrate, et le grand Ciceron : Us ont adore" tons un maitre, un juge, un pere ; Ce systeme sublime a 1'homme est necessairo. C'est le sacre lien de la societe, Le premier fondement de la sainte equite ; Le frein du scelerat, 1'esperance du juste. Si les cieux, depouilles de leur empreinte auguste, Pouvoient cesser jamais de le manifester, Si Dieu n'existoit pas, il faudroit 1'inventer." l 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 the following exposition of the incon- sistencies of fatalism ? " Vois de la liberte cet ennemi mutin, Aveugle partisan d'un aveugle destin ; Entends comme il consulte, approuve, ou delibere, Entends de quel reproche il couvre un adversaire, Vois comment d'uu rival il cherche a se venger, Comme il punit son fils, et le veut corriger. II le croyoit done libre ? Ou'i, sans doute, et lui-meme Dement a chaque pas son funeste systeme. II mentoit a son cceur, en voulant expliquer Ce dogme absurde a croire, absurde a pratiquer. II reconnoit en lui le sentiment qu'il brave, II agit comme libre et parle comme esclave." 2 This very system, however, which Voltaire has here so severely reprobated, he lived to avow as the creed of his more advanced years. The words, indeed, are put into the mouth of a fictitious personage ; but it is plain that the writer meant to be understood as speaking his own sentiments. " Je vois une chaine immense, dont tout est chainon ; elle embrasse, elle serre aujourd'hui la nature," &c. &c. 1 A thought approaching very nearly to this Liberty of Man,- and the rest of the poem is in occurs in one of Tillotson's Sermons. " The the same strain. Yet so very imperfectly did being of God is so comfortable, so convenient, Voltaire even then understand the metaphysical so necessary to the felicity of mankind, that (as argument on this subject, that he prefixed to his Tully admirably says) Dii immortaltt ad itsum Discourse the following advertisement : " On hominumfabricatipenevicleantur. If God were entend par ce mot liberte 1 , le pouvoir de faire not a necessary being of himself, he might ce qu'on veut. II n'y a, et ne peut y avoir almost be said to be made for the use and d'autre liberte." It appears, therefore, that in benefit of Man." For some ingenious remarks maintaining the liberty of spontaneity, Voltaire on this quotation from Cicero, see Jortin's conceived himself to be combating the scheme Tractf, vol. i. p. 371. of Necessity; whereas this sort of liberty no Necessitarian or Fatalist was ever h;irdy enough 2 These ver?es form part of a Discourse on the to dispute. 592 NOTES AXD ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART II. " Je suis done ramene malgrc moi a cette ancienne idee, que je vois etre la base de tous les systemes, dans laquelle tous les philosophes retombent apres mille de- tours, et qui m'est demontre par toutes les actions des hommes, par les miennes, par tous les evenemens que j'ai lus, que j'ai vus, et aux-quelles j'ai eu part ; c'est le Fatalisme, c'est la Necessite dont je vous ai deja parle." Lettres de Memmim a Ciceron. See (Euvres de Voltaire, Melanges, tome iv. p. 358. 4to edit. Ge- neve, 1771. " En effet, (says Voltaire, in another of his pieces,) il seroit bien singulier que toute la nature, tous les astres, obeissent a des lois etemelles, et qu'il y eut un petit animal haut de cinq pieds, qui au mepris de ces lois put agir toujours comme il lui plairoit au seul gre de son caprice." .... To this passage Voltaire adds the following acknowledgment : " L'ig- norant qui pense ainsi n'a pas toujours pense de meme, 1 mais il est enfin contraint de se rendre." Le Philosoplie If/norant. Notwithstanding, however, this change in Voltaire's philosophical opinions, he continued to the last his zealous opposition to atheism. 2 But in what respects it is more pernicious than fatalism, it is not easy to discover. A reflection of La Harpe'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 objets de meditation etoient trop etrangers a 1'excessive vivacite de son esprit. Saisir fortement par 1'imagination les objets qu'elle ne doit montrer que d'un cote, c'est ce qui est du Pocte ; les embrasscr sous toutes les faces, c'est ce qui est du Philosophe, et Voltaire etoit trop exclusivement I'nn pour etre 1'autre. 1 ' Cours de Litterat. torn. xv. pp. 46, 47. A late author 3 has very justly reprobated that spiritual deification of nature which has been long fashionable among the French, and which, according to his own account, is at present not unfashionable in Germany. It is proper, however, to observe, that this mode of speaking has been used by two very different classes of writers ; by the one with an intention to keep as much as possible the Deity out of their view, while studying his works ; by the other, as a convenient and well understood metaphor, by means of which the frequent and irreverent mention of the name of God is avoided in philosophical arguments. It was with this last view, undoubtedly, that it was so often employed by Newton, and other English 1 In proof of this he refers to his Treatise of 1'avoue, fort au dessous d'un portier de coll?ge Metaphysics, written forty years before, for the et d'un bedeau de paroisse. Affennir que ni use of Madame du Chutelet. 1'oeil n'est fait pour voir, ni 1'oreille pour en- 2 See the Diet. Philosophiquf, Art. Atheisme. tendre, ni 1'estomac pour digerer, n'est ce pas See also the Strictures on the Systeme de la la la plus enorme absurditfi, la plus revoltante Nature in the Questions sur I' Encyclopedic , folie qui foit jamais tombfie dans 1'esprit hu- the very work from which the above quotation maine 1 Tout douteux que je suis, cette de- is taken. mence me parait evidente, et je le dis. [* The same work contains the following ob- " Pour moi je ne vois dans la nature comme serrations on Final Causes : dans les arts, que des cauees finales ; et je crois " Je sais bien que plusieurs philo-ophes, et un pommier fait pour porter des pommes, surtout Lucrece ont nie les causes finales; et je comme je vois un montre faite pour marquer sais que Lucrece, quoique peu chatie, est un tres 1'heure."] grand poete dans ses descriptions, et dans son 3 Frederick Schlegel. Lectures on the /listory morale; mais en philosophic il me parait, je of Literature, vol. ii. p. 169. Edinburgh, 1818. * Restored. Ed. NOTE XX. 593 philosophers of the same school. In general, when we find a writer speaking of the wise or of the benevolent 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 lias brought to light, have been first re- marked by inquirers 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 something 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 Manicheans. NOTE X X, p. 406. "In the attempt, indeed, ivhich Kant has made to enumerate the general ideas ivhich are not derived from experience, but arise out of the pure understanding, Kant may well lay claim to the praise of originality " The object of this problem is thus stated by his friend, Mr. Schulz, the author of the Synopsis formerly quoted. The following translation 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 themselves only mediately. "4. They lie in our understanding as pure notions a priori, at the foundation of all our knowledge. They 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 four 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. I. '2 Y 594 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART II. " Quantity, they are universal, particular, singular judgments. " Quality, they are affirmative, negative, infinite judgments. " Relation, they are categorical, hypothetical, disjunctive judgments. " Modality, they are problematical, assertory, 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 propositions : " 1. Idea temporis non oritur sed svppomtur a sensibus. 2. Idea temporis est singularis, non generalis. Tempus enim quodlibet non cogitatur, nisi tanquam pars unius ejusdem temporis immensi. 3. Idea itaque temporis est intuitus, et quoniam ante omnem senBationem concipitur, tanquam conditio respecturon in sensibilibus obviorum, est intuitus, non sensualis, sed purus. 4. Tempus est quantum continuum- et legum continui in mutationibus universi principium. 5. Tempus non est objectivum aliqiiid et reale, nee substantia, nee accidens, nee re- latio, sed snbjectiva conditio, per naturam mentis humanae necessaria, qurolibet sensibilia, certa lege sibi co-ordinandi, et intuitus purus. 6. Tempus est concep- tus verissimus, et, per omnia possibilia sensuum objecta, in infinitum patens, in- tuitivfe repraesentationis conditio. 7. Tempus itaque est principium formale mundi sensibilis absohite prim urn." With respect to Space, Kant states a series of similar propositions, ascribing to it very nearly the same metaphysical attributes as to Time, and running as far as possible a sort of parallel between them. "A. Conceptus spatii non abstmliitur a sensationibus externis. B. Conceptus spalii est singularis reprccsentatio omnia in se comprehendens, non sub se continens notio abstracta et communis. C. Con- ceptus spatii itaque est intuit u s purus ; cum sit conceptus singularis; sensationibus non conflatus, sed omnis sensationis extern* forma fundamentalis. D. Spatium non est aliquid objectivi et realis, nee substantia, nee accidens, nee relatio ; sed subjectivum et ideale, e natura mentis stabili lege proficiscens, veluti schema, omnia omnino externe sensa sibi co-ordinandi. E. Quanquam concepius spatii, ut objectivi alicujus et realis entis vel affectionis, sit imaginarius, nihilo tamcn secius respective ad sensibilia quajcunque, non solum est verissimus, sed et omnis verita- tis in sensualitate externa fuiulamentum." These propositions are extracted from a Dissertation written by Kant himself in the Latin language. 1 Their obscurity therefore, cannot be ascribed to any mis- apprehension on the part of a translator. It was on this account that I thought it better to quote them in his own unaltered words, than to avail myself of the cor- responding passage in Bern's Latin version of the Critique of Pure Season. To each of Kant's propositions concerning Time and Space I shall subjoin a short comment, following the same order in which these propositions are arranged above. 1. That the idea 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 obse7-ved ; and if nobody had ever observed it, the fact is so very obvious, 1 De Mundi Senribil's atque IntellifiibUis rindicando ; quam, exigentibus statutis Acade- forma et principiis. Dissertatio pro loco pro- micis, publice tuebitur Immanuel Kant. Re- fessionis Log. et Metaph. Oriinariae rite sibi giomonti, 1770. NOTE Y Y. 51 f 5 that the enunciation of it could not entitle the author to the praise of much in- genuity. Whether " this idea be supposed in all our sensations," or (as Kant ex- plains himself more clearly in his third proposition,) "be conceived by the 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 existence independent of the will of any being whatever. 2. On the second proposition I have nothing to remark. The following is the most intelligible translation of it that I can give. " The idea of Time is singular, not general ; 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, is 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 the 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. o. 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. 6. What is meant by calling Time a true conception, I do not profess to under- stand ; nor am I able to interpret the remainder of the sentence in any way but this, that we can find no limits to the range thus opened in our conceptions to the succession of sensible events. 7. The conclusion of the whole matter is, that Time is " absolutely the 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, the idea of Space is con- nate with the mind, or at least, that it is prior to any information received from the senses. [* Mr. Smith, from some passages in his Essay on the External Senses, appears to have had a notion somewhat similar. He repejitedly 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 theory, which supposes our first ideas of Space or Extension to be formed by abstracting this attribute from the other qualities of matter. The idea of Spa?e, however, in whatever manner formed, is manifestly * Restored. Ed. 596 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO DISSERTATION. PART II. accompanied with an irresistible conviction, that Space is necessarily existent, and that its annihilation is impossible ; nay, it appears to me to be also accompanied with an irresistible 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 universal scepticism. B. I can extract no meaning from this, but the nugatory proposition, that our conception of Space leads us to consider it as the place in which all things are com- prehended. C. " The conception of Space, therefore, is a pure intuition." This follows as a necessary corollary (according to Kant's own definition) from Prop. A. What is to be understood by the clause which asserts, that Space is the fundamental form of every external sensation, it is not easy to conjecture. Does it imply merely that the conception of Space is necessarily 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 ? D. That Space is neither a substance, nor an accident, nor a relation, may bo 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 be the idea of Kant ; and yet I cannot reconcile it with what he 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 extema fundamentum I") 1 Upon the whole, it appears to me, that, among these various propositions, there are some which are quite unintelligible ; that others assume, as first principles, doctrines which have been disputed by many of our most eminent philosophers ; that others, again, seem to aim at involving plain and obvious truths in darkness and mystery ; and that not one is expressed with simplicity and precision, which are the natural results of clear and accurate thinking. In considering time and space as the forms 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 propositions of Newton : " Ut ordo par- tium temporis est immutabilis, sic etiam ordo partium spatii. Moveantur hajc de locis suis, et movebuntur (ut ita dicam) de seipsis. Nam tempora et spatia sunt sni ipsorum et rerum omnium quasi loca. In tempore, quoad ordinem succes- 1 Mr. Nitsch has remarked this diffic-lty, mises. If there be no external space, it will and has attempted to remove it. " The most follow, that we are not authorized to assign ej- essential objection (he observes) to Kant's sys- tnuion to external things, but there will follow tern is, that it leads to scepticism ; because it no more," (p. 149.) Mr. Nitsch then proceeds maintains, that the figures in which we see the to obviate these objections ; but his reply is far external objects clothed are not inherent in from satisfactory, and is indeed not less appli- those objects, and that consequently space is cable to the doctrine of Berkeley than to that something irithin, and not without the mind," of Kant. This point, however, I do not mean (pp. 144, 14i.) " It may be further objected, to argue here. The concessions which Nitsch has (he adds, i that, if there be no external space, made are quite sufficient for my present purpose, there is also no external world. But this is They serve at least to satisfy my own mind, concluding by far too much from these pre- that I have not misrepresented Kant's meaning. NOTE YY. 597 in, sputio, quoad ordiiiem situs locantur universa. Do illorum e.ssentia est ut sint loca : et loca primaria mover! absurdum eat." I have quoted this passage, not from any desire of displaying the superiority of Newton over Kant, but chiefly to show how very nearly the powers of the former sink to the same level with those of the latter, when directed to inquiries un- fathomable by the human faculties. What abuse 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 ? l In the Principia of Newton, however, this incidental discussion is but a spot on the sun. [* The same thing may, in particular, be said of various pas- sages in the general scholium at the end ; amongst others of the following sen- tence : " Cum unaquseque spatii particula sit semper, et unumquodque dura- tionis indivisibilc momentum ubique, certe rerum omnium fabricator ac dominus, non erit nunquam, nusquam."] In the Critique of Pure Season, 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 homme de lettres (says M. Prevost) s'occupe en ce moment a faire connaitre en notre langue les principes de la philosophic Kantienne. Mais 1'entreprise est fort difficile, son langage est obscur ; et avant tout le lecteur Fran- fois demande une clarte parfaite. Telle est la difference des gouts et des habitudes intellectuelles des deux nations, que les ouvrages de Kant, qui out eu en Allemagnc un succes si prodigieux, ecrits en Fran9ais du meine style, n'auraieut, je crois, pas trouve de lecteurs. " La langue Allemande, forte de sa richesse et de ses tours hardis et varies, s'est accoutumee a supporter des violences qui effrayent une langue plus severe et plus defiante. Celle-ci repousserait des neologismes etranges, qui tantot se rapproclient du jargon de 1'ecole, tantot se rapportent a des conceptions particulieres, mcme bizarres. Elle fuit un langage fatiguant par son obscurite ; tel meme qu'il faut, de 1'aveu de ceux qui 1'emploient, une assez longue etude pour 1'entendre. " Si, malgre ces difficultes, je voulais anticiper sur les travaux entrepris par d'autres, et tracer 1'esquisse de cette nouvelle philosophie, j'insisterai surtout sur la distinction a faire entre ce qui lui est propre, et ce qu'elle s'est approprie. Cer- tainement il doit y avoir dans le genie de sou auteur de quoi justifier I'enthousiasme d'une nation eclairee et judicieuse, et les eloges de quelques savans profonds et ingenieux. Mais ces richesses naturelles, n'ont elles pas ete grossies impercep- tiblement d'autres richesses empruntees ? Et celles-ci ne font-elles point quelquc- fois le principal merite de cette doctrine qu'on admire ? Je m'expliquerais mieux par un excmple. " M. Kant, apres avoir distingue la sensibilite de 1'intelligence, observe que les notions de terns et d'espace sont comme les formes naturelles de la faculte" sensible de 1'ame ; que ces notions ne peuvent venir de 1'exterieur ; que ce sont des dispo- sitions primitives ; qu'en consequence de cette structure de 1'esprit humain, toute impression faite sur lui vient necessairement se loger a-la-fois dans 1'une et 1'autre 1 Was it not to avoid the palpable incongruity ble as the latter to time and space in common ; of this language that Kant was led to substitute or, to speak more correctly, being, from its ex- the word forms instead of placet ; the former treme vagueness, equally unmeaning when ap- \v, 7. PHILOSOPHY OF THE ACTIVE AND MORAL POAVERS. 2 vols. There will be prefixed Part II. of the OUTLINES OP MORAL PHILOSOPHY, 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 OUTLINES OP MORAL PHILOSOPHY, con- taining the Outline of the Political Philosophy, will be prefixed. 0. BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF SMITH, ROBERTSON, AND REID. Additions ; with Memoir of the Author by Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON, which will bo paced by itself, and may be prefixed to volume first. INDICES WILL BE ANNEXED. ~ \CJ52. THE LIBRARY ?ft UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. 20m-6,'62(C9211s4) t76 UC SOUTHERN REGIO AL LIBRARY FAC LITY A A 000007773 5