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P
NATH AN B. HY DI

THE WORKS
of
THomAs REID, D.D.
Now FULLY COLLECTED,
*
WITH SELECTIONS FROM HIS UNPUBLISHED LETTER.S."
***** **** ^ ---, %. J. wºes. f
& PREFACEs \ }
S--t". . . . .2.4
NOTES AND SUPPLEMENTARY DISSERTATIONS,
BY
SIR will IAM HAMILTON BART.,
ADVOCATE, MASTER OF ARTS (Oxford,) ETC. ;
of the Institute of FRANCE, THE LATIN society or JENA,
sº AND MANy other LiteFARY Bopies, FoReign AND BRitish ; &
prior Esson of Logic AND METAPitysics IN THE UNIVERSITY of EdinBurgii.
&
PREFIXED, . . . . .
- stEwART's . . .
Account of THE LIFE AND witHTINGs of REID ;
with NotEs By . . .
T H E E or roR.
COPIOUS INDICES SUBJOINED.
x-
SECOND EDITION.
ED IN B U R G H :
M A C L A CHL AN, S T E W ART, A ND CO. ; AND
LONDON: LONG MAN, B Row N, GREEN AND LONG MAN S.
M.DCCC, XI, IX,
o N E A R T H, T H E RE Is No T H IN G G R E A T B UT M A N ;
I N M A N, T H E R E IS NOT H IN G. G. R. E. A. T B U T M I N D.
TO
VICTOR COUSIN,
PEER OF FRANCE, LATE MINISTER OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION,
MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE, PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY,
ETC., ETC.,
THIS EDITION OF THE WORKS OF REID
.* IS DEDICATED :
NOT ONLY,
IN TOKEN OF THE EDITOR'S ADMIRATION
OF
THE FIRST PHILOSOPHER OF FRANCE,
BUT,
AS A TRIBUTE, DUE APPROPRIATELY AND PRE-EMINENTLY
TO
THE STATESMAN,
THROUGH WHOM
SCOTLAND HAS BEEN AGAIN UNITED INTELLECTUALLY
TO HER OLD POLITICAL ALLY,
AND
THE AUTHOR'S WRITINGS,
(THE BEST RESULT OF SCOTTISH SPECULATION,)
MADE THE BASIS OF ACADEMICAL INSTRUCTION IN PHILOSOPHY,
THROUGHOUT THE CENTRAL NATION OF EUROPE.
AD VERTISEMENT,
THE present issue (ending with page 914) contains the whole.
Works of Reid, hitherto published, with many of his writings, print-
ed or collected for the first time. The text has been collated, revised
and corrected; useful distinctions and supplements inserted; the
leading words and propositions marked out; the allusions indicated;
the quotations filled up. It contains also, the Foot-Notes of the Edi-
tor on the texts of Reid and Stewart, and a large proportion (in
length) of the Editor's Supplementary Dissertations. There remain
the sequel of these Dissertations, the General Preface, and the In-
dices;–all of which are either prepared, or their materials collected.
These (Deo volente) will be comprised in a concluding issue, and
title-pages for two volumes then given. The Notes and Disserta-
tions have insensibly increased to a size and importance far beyond
what was ever anticipated; but the book having been always destin-
ed primarily for academical use, the price of the whole will not ex-
ceed thirty shillings. Being stereotyped, what additions may be
made to any subsequent edition, will be published also apart.
It is proper to state:—that the Foot-notes were written, as the
texts passed through the press, in 1837 and 1838; that the Supple-
mentary Dissertations, to the end of D*, were written and stereotyped
in 1841 and 1842; the rest being added recently.
November 1846.
August 1849–Circumstances have prevented the completion of the
Work with this new issue.

I N T E R I M T A B L E
OF
C O R. R. E. C T I O N S A. N. D. IN S E R T I O N S.
Page 756, a, line 52, for Clanbergius read Claubergius,
... 765, a, ... 26, for them. read them.’
774, b, ... 21, for Quem read Quum. -
799, a, ... 7, n, for 786 read 768. -
813, b, ... 7, n, for Ruvius Murcia A'ead Ruvius, Murcia
820, b, ... 17, for latter read former.
901, b, ... 16, n, for through read though.
905, b, ... 17, for other; read other;”
What is not worth noticing in detail:—In Greek words (among other inaccuracies), the accent
and breathing are, in one or two places, over the first, instead of over the second vowel of an ini.
tial dipthong; in oxytones, the common practice of accentuation has been partially, and only par-
tially, superseded by the Reitzian; and in the minute type of the foot-motgs to Reid's text, the
resembling forms of g and g- have been repeatedly commuted.
C O N T E N T S.
* PAG1.
DEDICATION, © & * i
TABLE of Con TENTs, e ſº º t s iii
EDITOR'S PREFACE, e g & * XV
I) UGALD STEWART'S ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WERITINGS
OF THOMAS REID, D.D. §
Section I. From Dr Teid’s birth till the date of his latest publication, 3
II. Observations on the Spirit and scope of Dr Reid's philosophy, 11
III. Conclusion of the Warrative, * tº tº 29
Notes, e 35
R. E I D 'S
(I.- WRITINGS NOT INTENDED FOR PUBLICATION.)
I,ETTERS.
A.— To Drs Andrew and David Skene, 1764–1770, e te 39
B.—To Lord Kames, 1772–1782, * º Q. e 50
C.— To Dr James Gregory, 1783–1793, e 62
D.— To the Rev. Archibald Alison, 1790, © $º 89
E.— To Prof. Itobison, 1792, g g 89
F.— To David Hume, 1763, 91
(II. WRITINGS INTENDED AND PREPARED FOR PUBLICATION.)
A.—INQUIRY INTO THE HUMAN MIND.
DEDICATION,
SECTION I.
II.
III.
IV,
V.
WI.
VII.
VIII.
SECTION I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
95
CHAPTER I.—INTROLUCTION.
The Importance of the subject, and the Means of prosecuting it, 97
The Impediments to own knowledge of the mind, tº 98
The Present State of this part of philosophy. Of Des Cartes, Male-
branche, and Locke, º t * & 99
Apology for those philosophers, 101
Of Bishop Berkeley ; the “Treatise
of IIuman Nature” [by Hume;)
and of Scepticism, * § t 101
Of the “ Treatise of Human Nature,” g * I02
The system of all these authors is the same, and leads to Scepticism, 103
We ought not to despair of a better, * º 103
CHAPTER II.—OF SMELLING.
The Order of proceeding. Of the medium and organ of Snell, 104
The Sensation considered abstractly, tº e 105
Sensation and Itemembrance, natural principles of Belief, 105
Judgment and Belief in some cases precede Simple Apprehension, 106
Two Theories of the nature of Belief refuted. Conclusions from
what hath been said, º º g e 107
iv
CONTENTS.
SRCTION VI.
* * PAGE
Apology for metaphysical absurdities. Sensation without a sentient,
a consequence of the theory of Ideas. Consequences of this strange
- opinion, . e e g e 106
VII. The conception and belief of a sentient being or Mind, is suggested
by our constitution. The notion of Relations not always got by
- Comparing the related ideas, e & º Il O
VIII. There is a quality or virtue in bodies, which we call their Smell.
How this is connected in the imagination with the sensation, I 12
IX. That there is a principle in human nature, from which the motion
of this, as well as all other natural virtues or causes, is derived, 112
X. Whether in Sensation the mind is Active or Passive, I 14
CHAPTER III. Of TASTING, IIF
CHAPTER IV. —OF HE ARING,
SECTIon I. Varie'ſ of Sounds. Their place and distance learned by Custom,
without reasoning, g te tº wº I l (;
II. Of Natwral Language, I 7
CHAPTER. W.- OF TOUCH.
Section I. Of Heat and Cold, * º gº e 119
II. Of Hardness and Softness, Y.Y.9
III. Of Natural Signs, e * 121
IV. Of Hardness and other Primary Qualities, I23
V. Of Eatension, g tº 123
VI. Of Eatension, & tº I25
VII. Of the eaſistence of a Material World, tºp I26
VIII. Of the Systems of Philosophers concerning the Senses, 130
CHAPTER VI —OF SEEING.
SECTION I. The eacellence and dignity of this faculty, * º 132
II. Sight discovers almost nothing which the Blind may not compre-
hend. The reason of this, . * tº 133
III. Of the Visible Appearances of objects, * º 135
IV. That Colour is a quality of bodies, not a sensation of the mind, 137
V. An inference from the preceding, o ſº I38
VI. That none of our sensations are Resemblances of any of the quali-
ties of bodies, gº © sº e 140
VII. Of visible Figure and Eatension, & © © I42
VIII. Some Qweries concerning Visible Figure answered, 144
IX. Of the Geometry of Visibles, 147
X. Of the Parallel Motion of the eyes, 152
XI. Of our seeing objects Erect by inverted images, 153
XII. The same subject continued, e º 156
XIII. Of seeing objects Single with two eyes, 163
XIV. Of the laws of vision in Brute animals, 166
XV. Squinting considered hypothetically, 167
XVI. Facts relating to Squinting, ſº e I 72
XVII. Of the effect of Custom in seeing objects Single, #73
XVIII. Of Dr Porterfield’s account of single and double vision, |76
XIX. Of Dr Briggs's theory, and Sir Isaac Newton’s conjecture on this
subject, . e & g * I 78
XX. Of Perception in general, 182
CONTENTS. V’
w - PAGE
Section XXI. Of the Process of Nature ºn perception, . • * 186
XXII. Of the Signs by which we learn to perceive Distance from the eye, 188
XXIII. Of the Signs wsed in other acquired perceptions, e • 193
XXIV. Of the Analogy between Perception, and the credit: we give to
Human Testimony, e © & 194
CHAPTER VII.-ConcLUSION.
Containing Reflections won the opinions of Philosophers on this subject, 201
B.—ESSAYS ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF MAN.
DE DICATION, 215
PR EFACE, 216
ESSAY I.–PRELIMINARY.
CHA PTER I. Eacplication of Words, o 219
II. Principles taken for granted, 230
III. Of Hypotheses, g 234
IV. Of Analogy, º e - * 236
V. Of the proper means of Knowing the operations of the mind, 238
VI. Of the difficulty of Attending to the operations of our own minds, 240
VII. Division of the powers of the mind, º º 242
VIII. Of Social [and Solitary] operations of mind. 244
*- -ºsmºsº
ESSAY II.-OF THE POWERS W E 11 AVE B Y MEANS of our Ex TERNAL SENSEs.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
W.
WI.
VII.
VIII.
CHAPTER
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
XIX.
XX.
XXI.
XXII,
Of the Organs of Sense, º e 245
Of the Impressions on the organs, nerves, and brain, 247
Hypothesis concerning the Nerves and Brain, cº 248
False Conclusions drawn from the impressions before mentioned, 253
Of Perception, º -> o 258
What it is to Account for a Phaenomenon in Natwre, 260
Sentinents of Philosophers about the Perceptions of Eaſternal
objects; and first, of the theory of Father Malebranche, 262
Of the Common. Theory of Perception ; and of the sentiments of
the Peripatetics, and of Des Cartes, e & 267
The sentiments of Mr Locke, 275
The sentiments of Bishop Berkeley, º 280
Bishop Berkeley’s sentiments of the nature of Ideas, 287
The sentiments of Mr Hume, e 292
The sentiments of Anthony Arnauld, - 295
Reflections on the Common. Theory of Ideas 298
Account of the system of Leibnitz, ſº 306
Of Sensation, e * - º 310
Of the Objects of Perception; and first, of Primary and Second-
ary Qualities, º e e º 313
Of other objects of Perception, 319
Of Matter and of Space, º - 322
Of the Evidence of Sense, and of Belief in general, 326
Of the Improvem. nt of the Senses, * 330
Of the Fallacy of the Senses, s 334
b Jº
vi
CONTENTS.
CIIAPTER I.
ESSAY III.-OF MEMORy.
Things obvious and certain with regard to Memory,
II. Memory an original faculty,
III. Of Duration, º e
IV. Of Identity, . &
V
VI.
WII.
CHAPTER I.
II.
III.
IV.
CHAPTER I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI,
CHAPTER I.
II.
III.
IV.
VII.
VIII.
CHAPTER I.
II.
III.
IV.
£HAPTER I.
. Mr Locke’s account of the Origin, of own Ideas, and particularly
of the idea of Duration, * º
Mr Locke's account of our Personal Identity,
Theories concerning Memory, tº
ESSAY IV.—OF ConCEPTION.
Of Conception, or Simple Apprehension in general,
Theories concerning Conception, *
Mistakes concerning Conception, tº
Of the Train of Thought in the mind,
ESSAY W.—OF ABSTRACTION.
Of General Words, † e tº * >
Of General Conceptions, & iº tº
Of general conceptions formed by Analysing objects,
Of general conceptions formed by Combination, ſº
Observations concerning the Names given to owr general notions,'
Opinion of philosophers about Universals,
ESSAY WI.-OF JUDGMENT.
Of Judgment in general, . * ſº &
Of Common Sense, & e º &
Sentiments of philosophers concerning Judgment,
Of First Principles in general,
. The first principles of Contingent Truths. [On consciousness.]
VI. tº
First principles of Necessary Truths,
Opinions, ancient and modern, about First Principles,
Of Prejudices, the causes of error, e
ESSAY WII.-OF REASONING.
Of Reasoning in general, and of Demonstration, *
Whether Morality be capable of demonstration,
Of Probable Reasoning, . e §
Of Mr Hume's Scepticism with regard to Reason,
ESSAY WIII.-OF TASTE,
Of Taste in general, gº tº
Of the Objects of taste, and first of Wovelty,
Of Grandeur, * $ q
Of Beauty, te *
PA (; F
339
340
342
344
346
350
353
360
368
375
379
389
391
394
398
403
405
413
421
426
434
441
452
462
468
475
478
48I.
484
II,
III.
IV,
490
493
49.4
498
CONTENTS.
vii
40. ESSAYS ON THE ACTIVE POWERS OF THE HUMAN
INTRod UCTION,
CIIAPTER I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
W II.
CIIAPTER I.
II.
III.
IV.
CIIA PTER I.
. Of Instinct, e
. Of Habit,
CHAPTER I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
CIIAPT ER I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
WI.
VII.
VIII.
CHATTER I.
II.
MIND.
ESSAY I. —OF ACTIVE Pow BT IN GENERAL,
Of the Notion of Active Power,
The same swbject, - g &
Of My Locke's account of our Idea of Power,
Of My Hume's opinion of the Idea of Power,
Whether beings that have no Will nor Understanding may have
Active Powen P º te tº
Of the Efficient Causes of the phaenomena of nature,
Of the Eatent of Human Power, t
ESSAY II,_OF THE WILL.
Observations concerning the Will, * gº
Of the influence of Incitements and Motives upon the Will,
Of operations of mind which may be called Voluntary,
Corollaries, e tº *
s===º ºsmºs-smºs-sº
FSSAY III.—OF THE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION.
PART I.-OF THE MECHANICAL PRINCIPLES OF ACTION.
of the Principles of Action in general,
PART II.-OF Tire ANIMAT, Pitr NCIPLEs of ACTION.
Of Appetites,
Of Desires, * sº
Of Benevolent Affection in general
of the particular Benevolent Affections,
of Malevolent Affections, ſº
Of Passion, g
Of Disposition,
Of Opinion,
PART III.-OF THE RATIONAI, PRINCIPLES OF ACTION.
There are Itational Principles of action in man,
Of regard to own Good woon the Whole,
The Tendency of this Principle, *
Defects of this Principle, . º g
Of the notion of Duty, Rectitude, Moral Obligation,
Of the Sense of Duty, e º º
Of Moral Approbation and Disapprobation,
Observations concerning Conscience,
ESSAY IV.-OF THE LIBERTY of MoRAI, AGENTs.
The motions of Moral Liberty and Necessity stated,
Of the words, Cause and Effect, Action, and Active Power,
511
512
515
518
520
522
525
527
530
533
537
541
543
545
550
55}
554
558
(560
566
570
575
577
579
580
582
584
588
589
592
594
599
603
viii
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
IV.
V.
‘VI.
. VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
CHAPTER I.
SECTION
SECTION
SECTION
SECTION
xi.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI
vii.
Causes of the Ambiguity of those words º &
. Of the influence of Motives, ... • &
Liberty consistent with Government, º tº
First Argument for Liberty, - ©
Second Argwment, e e º e
Third Argument, - e •
Of Arguments for Necessity, º º .
The same subject, . ſº º ©
Of the Permission of Evil,
*
ESSAY W.—OF MoRALs.
Of the First Principles of Morals,
Of Systems of Morals, , e -
Of Systems of Natural Jurisprudence, e
Whether an action deserving Moral Approbation, must be done
with the Belief of its being Morally Good, º
Whether Justice be a Natural or an Artificial Virtue,
Of the nature and obligation of a Contract, º
That Moral Approbation implies a real Judgment,
D.—ACCOUNT OF ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI,
I.
II.
III.
IV.
W.
I.
CHAPTER I.—OF THE FIRST THREE TREAT1SEs.
Of the Author, © º g
Of the Porphyry’s Introduction,
Of the Categories, º e
Of the book Concerning Interpretation,
*---
CHAPTER II.--REMARKs.
On the Five Predicables, º e e
On the Ten Categories, and on Divisions in general,
On Distinctions, - - &
On Definitions, º
On the structure of Speech,
On Propositions, tº
*- -e
CHAPTER III.-Account of Tii E FIRST ANALYTICs.
Of the Conversion of Propositions,
Of the Figures and Modes of Pure Syllogisms,
Of the Invention [Discovery] of a Middle Term,
Of the remaining part of the First Book,
Of the Second Book of the First Analytics,
CHAPTER IV.—REMAR Rs.
Of the Conversion of Propositions, *J e
PAGE
605
608
613
616
620
622
624
629
632
637
640
643
646
651
662
670
681
683
683
(385
685
687
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
695
696
CONTENTS. . ix
" . PAGE
SECTION II. On Additions made to Aristotle's Theory, . & . . 697
III. On Ea'amples wsed to illustrate this Theory, & º 698,
IV. On the Demonstration of the Theory, g º 699
V. On this Theory considered as an Engine of Scienče, . . . 701
VI. On Modal Syllogisms, . e e º 702
VII. On Syllogisms that do not belong to Figure and Mode, e -704
CHAPTER W.—Account of TſIE REMAINING Books of THE ORGANON.
SECT to N I. Of the Last Analytics, gº * e ... • 705
II. Of the Topics, te * 9 * . . . 706
III. Of the book concerning Sophisms, o * . is tº - 707
CHAPTER WI.—REFLECTIONs on TIIE UTILITY of LoGIC, AND THE MEANs of
Its IMP Row EMENT. * e
SECTION I. Of the Utility of Logic, § & º º 708
II. Of the Improvement of Logic, & & ſº 711
E.—ESSAY ON QUANTITY.
[Occasion and grounds of the Discussion,] . e g e 715
Of the Newtonian Measure of Force, . e & * 717
Of the Leibnitzian Measure of Force, & & e º 718
Reflections on this Controversy, & & & & 719
F. ACCOUNT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASG.O.W. ,
INTRoDUCTION, e º & 721
I. History of the University before the Reformation, . e 721
II. Ancient Constitution, e ſº e & 722
III. History after the Reformation, * * # 727
IV. Modern Constitution, * * gº e 729
W. Donations, º e * tº e 730
VI. Present State, e e & gº {e 732
VII. Conclusion, e º g º 738
EDITOR'S SUPPLEMENTARY DISSERTATIONS.
(A)—ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE; OR, OUR PRIMARY
BELIEFS CONSIDERED AS THE ULTIMATE CRITERION OF TRUTH.
SECTION I. The Meaning of the Doctrine, and Purport of the Argument, of
Common Sense, * > e ſº 742
* II. The Conditions of the Legitimacy, and legitimate application, of
the argument, ge e tº 749
III. That it is one strictly Philosophical and scientific, * 751
IV. The Essential Characters by which our primary beliefs, or the
principles of Common Sense, are discriminated, & 754
V. The Nomenclature, that is, the various appellations by which these
have been designated, © © * tº 755
X CONTENTS.
PAGſ.
SECT to N VI. The Universality of the philosophy of Common Sense ; or its general
recognition, in reality and in name, shown by a chronological
series of Testimonies from the dawn of speculation to the pre-
Sent day, 770
(B.)—OF PRESENTATIVE AND REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLEDGE.
SECTION I. The distinction of Presentative, Intuitive or Immediate, and of
Representative or Mediate cognition ; with the various signift-
- cations of the term Object, its conjugates and correlatives, 80-4
Section II. Errors of Reid and other Philosophers, in reference to the preced-
ing distinctions, & * gº e SI?
smºº smºs ºsmºmºsºm-º:
(C.)—ON THE WARIOUS THEORIES OF EXTERNAL PERCEPTION.
Section I. Systematic Schemes, from different points of view, of the various
theories of the relation of Easternal Perception to its Object ;
and of the various systems of Philosophy founded thereon, 816
II. What is the character, in this respect, of Reid's doctrine of Percep-
tion ? * º * & tº 819
* mºmºmºsº
(D.)—DISTINCTION OF THE PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES
OF BODY.
SECTION I. Historically considered, ſº g º g S25
II. Critically considered. Three classes (Primary, Secundo-Primary,
and Secondary Qualities, ) established, . * 845
(D +.)—PERCEPTION PROPER AND SENSATION PROPER.
§
Section I. Principal momenta of the Editor's doctrine of Perception, (A) in
itself, and (B) in contrast to that of Reid, Stewart, Royer
Collard, and other philosophers of the Scottish School, 876
II. IIistorical notices in regard to the distinction of Perception proper
and Sensation proper, e c
sºme mºm-ºsmºs-ºs. ººmsºmºse
(D +*.) CONTRIBUTION TOWARDS A HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE
OF MENTAL SUGGESTION OR ASSOCIATION, 889
(D +++.)—OUTLINE OF A THEORY OF MENTAL REPRODUCTION,
SUGGESTION OR ASSOCIATION.
Section I. Laws of Mental Succession, as General.—(A.) Not of Reproduc-
tion proper, whiform.—(B.) Of Reproduction proper, not
wniform ; as possible ; as actual ; as direct, Abstract or
Primary law of Repetition; as indirect, Abstract or Primary
law of IRedintegration, Concrete or Secondary law of Pre-
ference, iº e e tº e 910
II. Laws of Mental Succession, as Special,—Of Reproduction :-(A.)
Abstract or Primary, modes of the laws of Repetition and
Redintegration, one or both ;-(B.) Concrete or Secondary,+
modes of the law of Preference. g tº
A C C O U N T
T H E L I FE AND W R IT IN GS
OF
TH O M A S REID, D. D., F. R. S. E.,
LATE PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGow.
IBY
DUGALD STEWART, Esq., F.R.SS. L. & E.,
PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.
R EAD AT DIFFERENT MEETINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH,
AND
PUBLISHED IN 1803.
A C CO UNT
OF
T H E LIFE AND W R IT IN GS
OF
THOMAS REID D.D.
*-*-
SECTION I.
FROM DR REID's BIRTH. TILL THE DATE OF
HIS LATEST PUBLICATION.
THE life of which I am now to present to
the Royal Society a short account, although
it fixes an era in the history of modern
philosophy, was uncommonly barren of
those incidents which furnish materials for
biography—strenuously devoted to truth,
to virtue, and to the best interests of man-
kind, but spent in the obscurity of a learned
retirement, remote from the pursuits of
ambition, and with little solicitude about
literary fame. After the agitation, however,
of the political convulsions which Europe
has witnessed for a course of years, the
simple record of such a life may derive an
interest even from its uniformity ; and,
when contrasted with the events of the
passing scene, may lead the thoughts to
some views of human nature on which it is
not ungrateful to repose.
Thomas Reid, D.D., late Professor of
Moral Philosophy in the University of Glas-
gow, was born, on the 26th Öf April 1710,
at Strachan, in Kincardineshire, a country
parish, situated about twenty miles from
Aberdeen, on the north side of the Gram-
pian mountains.
His father, the Rev. Lewis Reid, was
minister of this parish for fifty years. He
was a clergyman, according to his son's
account of him, respected by all who knew
him, for his piety, prudence, and benevo-
lence ; inheriting from his ancestors (most
of whom, from the time of the Protestant
establishment, had been ministers of the
Church of Scotland) that purity and sim-
plicity of manners which became his station;
and a love of letters, which, without attract-
ing the notice of the world, amused his
leisure and dignified his retirement.
For some generations before his time, a
propensity to literature, and to the learned
professions—a propensity which, when it
has once become characteristical of a race,
is peculiarly apt to be propagated by the
influence of early associations and habits—
may be traced in several individuals among
his kindred. One of his ancestors, James
Reid, was the first minister of Banchory-
Ternan after the Reformation, and trans-
mitted to four sons a predilection for those
studious habits which formed his own hap-
piness. He was himself a younger son of
Mr Reid of Pitfoddels, a gentleman of a very
ancient and respectable family in the county
of Aberdeen.
James Reid was succeeded as minister of
Banchory by his son Robert. Another
son, Thomas, rose to considerable distinc-
| tion, both as a philosopher and a poet; and
seems to have wanted neither ability nor
inclination to turn his attainments to the
best advantage. After travelling over
Europe, and maintaining, as was the cus-
tom of his age, public disputations in seve-
ral universities, he collected into a volume
the theses and dissertations which had been
the subjects of his literary contests ; and
also published some Latin poems, which
may be found in the collection entitled,
* Delitiae Poètarum Scotorum.” On his
return to his native country, he fixed his
residence in London, where he was ap-
pointed secretary in the Greek and Latin
tongues to King James I. of England,"
and lived in habits of intimacy with some
* Whose English works he, along with the.learned
Patrick Young, translated into Latin.-H.
B 2
4 ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
of the most distinguished characters of that
period. Little more, I believe, is known
of Thomas Reid's history, excepting that
he bequeathed to the Marischal College of
Aberdeen a curious collection of books and
manuscripts, with a fused for establishing a
salary to a libralian. *
Alexander Reid, the third son, was physi-
cian to King Charles I., and published
several books on surgery and medicine.
The fortune he acquired in the course of
his practice was considerable, and enabled
him (beside many legacies to his relations
and friends) to leave various lasting and
honourable memorials, both of his benevo-
lence and of his attachment to letters.
A fourth son, whose name was Adam,
translated into English Buchanan’s His-
tory of Scotland. Of this translation,
which was never published, there is a
manuscript copy in the possession of the
University of Glasgow.
A grandson of Robert, the eldest of these
sons, was the third minister of Banchory
after the Reformation, and was great-
grandfather of Thomas Reid, the subject of
this memoir."
The particulars hitherto mentioned, are
stated on the authority of some short
memorandums written by Dr Reid a few
weeks before his death. In consequence
of a suggestion of his friend, Dr Gregory,
he had resolved to amuse himself with col-
lecting such facts as his papers or memory
could supply, with respect to his life, and
the progress of his studies; but, unfortun-
ately, before he had fairly entered on the
subject, his design was interrupted by his
last illness. If he had lived to complete
it, I might have entertained hopes of pre-
senting to the public some details with
respect to the history of his opinions and
speculations on those important subjects to
which he dedicated his talents—the most
interesting of all articles in the biography
of a philosopher, and of which it is to be
lamented that so few authentic records are
to be found in the annals of letters. All
the information, however, which I have
derived from these notes, is exhausted in
the foregoing pages; and I must content
myself, in the continuation of my narrative,
with those indirect aids which tradition,
and the recollection of a few old acquaint-
ance, afford ; added to what I myself have
learned from Dr Reid's conversation, or col-
lected from a careful perusal of his writings.
His mother, Margaret Gregory, was a
daughter of David Gregory, Esq. of Kin-
nairdie, in Banffshire, elder brother of
James Gregory, the inventor of the reflect-
ing telescope, and the antagonist of Huy-
ghens. She was one of twenty-nine children;
the most remarkable of whom was David
Gregory, Savilian Professor of Astronomy
at Oxford, arºd an intimate friend of Sir
Isaac Newton. Two of her younger brothers
were at the same time Professors of Mathe-
matics—the one at St Andrew's, the other
at Edinburgh—and were the first persons
who taught the Newtonian philosophy in
our northern universities. The hereditary
worth and genius which have so long dis-
tinguished, and which still distinguish, the
descendants of this memorable family, are
well known to all who have turned their
attention to Scottish biography ; but it is
not known so generally, that, through the
female line, the same characteristical endow-
ments have been conspicuous in various
instances; and that to the other monuments
which illustrate the race of the Gregories,
is to be added the Philosophy of Reid.
With respect to the earlier part of Dr
Reid’s life, all that I have been able to
learn amounts to this :—That, after two
years spent at the parish school of ICincar-
dine, he was sent to Aberdeen, where he
had the advantage of prosecuting his class-
ical studies under an able and diligent
teacher ; that, about the age of twelve or
thirteen, he was entered as a student in
Marischal College ; and that his master in
philosophy for three years was Dr George
Turnbull, who afterwards attracted some
degree of notice as an author ; particularly
by a book entitled, “Principles of Moral
Philosophy ;” and by a voluminous treatise
(long ago forgotten) on “Ancient Paint-
ing.” The sessions of the College were,
at that time, very short, and the educa-
tion (according to Dr Reid's own account)
slight and superficial.
It does not appear, from the information
which I have received, that he gave any
early indications of future eminence. His
industry, however, and modesty, were con-
spicuous from his childhood ; and it was
foretold of him, by the parish schoolmaster,
who initiated him in the first principles o.
learning, “That he would turn out to be
a man of good and well-wearing parts;” a
prediction which touched, not unhappily,
on that capacity of “ patient thought”
which so peculiarly characterised his philo-
Sophical genius.
His residence at the University was pro-
longed beyond the usual term, in conse-
quence of his appointment to the office of
librarian, which had been endowed by one
of his ancestors about a century before.
The situation was acceptable to him, as it
afforded an opportunity of indulging his
passion for study, and united the charms
of a learned society with the quiet of an
academical retreat.
* Note A.
* Note B.
OF THOMAS REID, D.D. * 5
During this period, he formed an intimacy
with John Stewart, afterwards Professor of
Mathematics in Marischal College, and
author of “A Commentary on Newton's
Quadrature of Curves.” His predilection
for mathematical pursuits was confirmed
and strengthened by this connection. I have
often heard him mention it with much
pleasure, while he recollected the ardour
with which they both prosecuted these fas-
cinating studies, and the lights which they
imparted mutually to each other, in their
first perusal of the “Principia,” at a time
when a knowledge of the Newtonian dis-
coveries was only to be acquired in the
writings of their illustrious author.
In 1736, Dr Reid resigned his office of
librarian, and accompanied Mr Stewart on
an excursion to England. They visited
together London, Oxford, and Cambridge,
and were introduced to the acquaintance of
many persons of the first literary eminence.
His relation to Dr David Gregory procured
him a ready access to Martin Folkes, whose
house concentrated the most interesting
objects which the metropolis had to offer to
his curiosity. At Cambridge he saw Dr
Bentley, who delighted him with his learn-
ing, and amused him with his vanity; and
enjoyed repeatedly the conversation of the
blind mathematician, Saunderson—a pheno-
menon in the history of the human mind to
which he has referred more than once in
his philosophical speculations.
With the learned and amiable man who
was his companion in this journey, he main-
tained an uninterrupted friendship till 1766,
when Mr Stewart died of a malignant fever.
His death was accompanied with circum-
stances deeply afflicting to Dr Reid's sensi-
bility; the same disorder proving fatal to
his wife and daughter, both of whom were
buried with him in one grave.
In 1737, Dr Reid was presented, by the
King's College of Aberdeen, to the living of
New-Machar, in the same county ; but the
circumstances in which he entered on his
preferment were far from auspicious. The
intemperate zeal of one of his predecessors,
and an aversion to the law of patronage, had
so inflamed the minds of his parishioners
against him, that, in the first discharge of
his clerical functions, he had not only to en-
counter the most violent opposition, but was
exposed to personal danger. His unwearied
attention, however, to the duties of his
office, the mildness and forbearance of his
temper, and the active spirit of his humanity,
soon overcame all these prejudices; and,
not many years afterwards, when he was
called to a different situation, the same per-
sons who had suffered themselves to be so
far misled as to take a share in the outrages
against him, followed him, on his departure,
with their blessings and tears.
Dr Reid's popularity at New-Machar (as
I am informed by the respectable clergy-
man" who now holds that living) increased
greatly after his marriage, in 1740, with
Elizabeth, daughter of his uncle, Dr George
Reid, physician in London. The accom-
modating manners of this excellent woman,
and her good offices among the sick and
necessitous, are still remembered with gra-
titude, and so endeared the family to the
neighbourhood, that its removal was re-
garded as a general misfortune. The simple
and affecting language in which some old
men expressed themselves on this subject,
in conversing with the present minister,
deserves to be recorded :-‘‘We fought
against Dr Reid when he came, and would
have fought for him when he went away.”
In some notes relative to the earlier part
of his history, which have been kindly com-
municated to me by the Rev. Mr Davidson,
minister of Rayne, it is mentioned, as a
proof of his uncommon modesty and diffi-
dence, that, long after he became minister of
New-Machar, he was accustomed, from a
distrust in his own powers, to preach the
sermons of Dr Tillotson and of Dr Evans.
I have heard, also, through other channels,
that he had neglected the practice of com-
position to a more than ordinary degree in
the earlier part of His studies. The fact is
curious, when contrasted with that ease,
perspicuity, and purity of style, which he
afterwards attained. From some informa-
tion, however, which has been lately trans-
mitted to me by one of his nearest relations,
I have reason to believe that the number
of original discourses which he wrote while
a country clergyman, was not inconsider-
able.
The satisfaction of his own mind was
probably, at this period, a more powerful
incentive to his philosophical researches,
than the hope of being able to instruct the
world as an author. But, whatever his views
were, one thing is certain, that, during his
residence at New-Machar, the greater part
of his time was spent in the most intense
study; more particularly in a careful exami-
nation of the laws of external perception,
and of the other principles which form the
groundwork of human knowledge. His
chief relaxations were gardening and botany,
to both of which pursuits he retained his
attachment even in old age.
A paper which he published in the Phi-
losophical Transactions of the Royal Society
of London, for the year 1748, affords some
light with respect to the progress of his
speculations about this period. It is en-
titled, “An Essay on Quantity, occasioned
by reading a Treatise in which Simple and
Compound Ratios are applied to Virtue and
* The Rev. William Stronach.
6 ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
Merit ;” and shews plainly, by its contents,
that, although he had not yet entirely re-
linquished the favourite researches of his
youth, he was beginning to direct his thoughts
to other objects.
The treatise alluded to in the title of this
paper, was manifestly the “ Inquiry into
the Origin of our Ideas of Beauty and Vir-
tue ;” by Dr Hutcheson of Glasgow. Ac-
cording to this very ingenious writer, the
moment of public good produced by an indi-
vidual, depending partly on his benevolence,
and partly on his ability, the relation between
these different moral ideas may be expressed
in the technical form of algebraists, by say-
ing that the first is in the compound pro-
portion of the two others. Hence, Dr
Hutcheson infers, that “ the benevolence of
an agent (which in this system is synony-
mous with his moral merit) is proportional
to a fraction, having the moment of good
for the numerator, and the ability of the
agent for the denominator.” Various other
examples of a similar nature occur in the
same work; and are stated with a gravity
not altogether worthy of the author. It is
probable that they were intended merely as
illustrations of his general reasonings, not as
media of investigation for the discovery of
new conclusions; but they appeared to Dr
Reid to be an innovation which it was of
importance to resist, on account of the ten-
dency it might have (by confounding the
evidence of different branches of science) to
retard the progress of knowledge. The very
high reputation which Dr Hutcheson then
possessed in the universities of Scotland,
added to the recent attempts of Pitcairn and
Cheyne to apply mathematical reasoning to
medicine, would bestow, it is likely, an in-
terest on Dr Reid's Essay at the time of
its publication, which it can scarcely be
expected to possess at present. Many of
the observations, however, which it contains,
are acute and original; and all of them are
expressed with that clearness and precision
so conspicuous in his subsequent composi-
tions. The circumstance which renders a
subject susceptible of mathematical consider-
ation, is accurately stated ; and the proper
province of that science defined in such a
manner as sufficiently to expose the absur-
dity of those abuses of its technical phrase-
ology which were at that time prevalent.
From some passages in it, there is, I think,
ground for concluding that the author's
reading had not been very extensive pre-
yious to this period. The enumeration, in
particular, which he has given of the differ-
ent kinds of proper quantity, affords a proof
that he was not acquainted with the re-
fined yet sound disquisitions concerning the
nature of number and of proportion, which
had appeared, almost a century before, in
the “Miathematical Lectures” of Dr Bar-
row ; nor with the remarks on the same
subject introduced by Dr Clarke in one of
his controversial letters addressed to
Leibnitz.
In the same paper, Dr Reid takes occa-
sion to offer some reflections on the dispute
between the Newtonians and Leibnitzians,
concerning the measure of forces. The
fundamental idea on which these reflections
proceed, is just and important ; and it
leads to the correction of an error com-
mitted very generally by the partisans of
both opinions—that of mistaking a question
concerning the comparative advantages of
two definitions for a difference of statement
with respect to a physical fact. It must, I
think, be acknowledged, at the same time, .
that the whole merits of the controversy
are not here exhausted; and that the hon-
our of placing this very subtle and abstruse
question in a point of view calculated to
reconcile completely the contending parties,
was reserved for M. D’Alembert. To have
fallen short of the success which attended
the inquiries of that eminent man, on a
subject so congenial to his favourite habits
of study, will not reflect any discredit on the
powers of Dr Reid's mind, in the judgment
of those who are at all acquainted with the
history of this celebrated discussion.
In 1752, the professors of King's Col-
lege elected Dr Reid Professor of Philoso-
phy, in testimony of the high opinion they
had formed of his learning and abilities.
Of the particular plan which he followed
in his academical lectures, while he held
this office, I have not been able to obtain
any satisfactory account ; but the depart-
ment of science which was assigned to him
by the general system of education in that
university, was abundantly extensive ; com-
prehending Mathematics and Physics as
well as Logic and Ethics. A similar system
was pursued formerly in the other univer-
sities of Scotland; the same professor then
conducting his pupil through all those
branches of knowledge which are now ap-
propriated to different teachers. And where
he happened fortunately to possess those
various accomplishments which distin-
guished Dr Reid in so remarkable a degree,
it cannot be doubted that the unity and
comprehensiveness of method of which such
academical courses admitted, must neces-
Sarily have possessed important advantages
over that more minute subdivision of liter-
ary labour which has since been introduced.
But, as public establishments ought to adapt
themselves to what is ordinary, rather than
to what is possible, it is not surprising that
experience should have gradually suggested
an arrangement more suitable to the narrow
limits which commonly circumscribe human
genius.
Soon after Dr Reid's removal to Aber-
OF THOMAS REID, D.D. 3. 7
deen, he projected (in conjunction with his
friend Dr John Gregory) a literary society,
which subsisted for many years, and which
seems to have had the happiest effects in
awakening and directing that spirit of philo-
sophical research which has since reflected
so much lustre on the north of Scotland.
The meetings of this society were held
weekly; and afforded the members (beside
the advantages to be derived from a mutual
communication of their sentiments on the
common objects of their pursuit) an oppor-
tunity of subjecting their intended publica-
tions to the test of friendly criticism. The
number of valuable works which issued,
nearly about the same time, from individuals
connected with this institution—more par-
ticularly the writings of Reid, Gregory,
Campbell, Beattie, and Gerard—furnish the
best panegyric on the enlightened views of
those under whose direction it was originally
formed.
Among these works, the most original
and profound was unquestionably the “In-
quiry into the Human Mind,” published by
Dr Reid in 1764. The plan appears to have
been conceived, and the subject deeply medi-
tated, by the author long before ; but it is
doubtful whether his modesty would have
ever permitted him to present to the world
the fruits of his solitary studies, without the
encouragement which he received from the
general acquiescence of his associates in the
most important conclusions to which he had
been led. *~
From a passage in the dedication, it would
seem that the speculations which termi-
nated in these conclusions, had commenced
as early as the year 1739; at which period
the publication of Mr Hume’s “Treatise of
Human Nature,” induced him, for the first
time, (as he himself informs us,) “to call
in question the principles commonly received
with regard to the human understanding.”
In his “Essays on the Intellectual Powers,”
he acknowledges that, in his youth, he had,
without examination, admitted the esta-
blished opinions on which Mr Hume's sys-
tem of scepticism was raised; and that it
was the consequences which these opinions
seemed to involve, which roused his suspi-
cions concerning their truth. “If I may
presume,” says he, “to speak my own sen-
timents, I once believed the doctrine of Ideas
so firmly as to embrace the whole of Berke-
ley's system along with it ; till, finding other
consequences to follow from it, which gave
me more uneasiness than the want of a ma-
terial 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 P From that time to the pre-
sent, I have been candidly and impartiy,all
as I think, seeking for the evidence of this
principle ; but can find none, excepting the
authority of philosophers.”
In following the train of Dr Reid's re-
searches, this last extract merits attention,
as it contains an explicit avowal, on his
own part, that, at one period of his life, he
had been led, by Berkeley’s reasonings, to
abandon the belief of the existence of matter.
The avowal does honour to his candour,
and the fact reflects no discredit on his Saga-
city. The truth is, that this article of the
Berkleian system, however contrary to the
conclusions of a sounder philosophy, was
the error of no common mind. Considered
in contrast with that theory of materialism
which the excellent author was anxious to
supplant, it possessed important advantages,
not only in its tendency, but in its scientific
consistency ; and it afforded a proof, wher-
ever it met with a favourable reception, of
an understanding superior to those casual
associations which, in the apprehensions of
most men, blend indissolubly the pheno-
mena of thought with the objects of external
perception. . It is recorded as a saying of
M. Turgot, (whose philosophical opinions in
some important points approached very
nearly to those of Dr Reid,") that “he
who had never doubted of the existence of
matter, might be assured he had no turn for
metaphysical disquisitions.”
As the refutation of Mr Hume's sceptical
theory was the great and professed object of
Dr Reid's “Inquiry,” he was anxious, before
taking the field as a controversial writer, to
guard against the danger of misapprehend-
ing or misrepresenting the meaning of his
adversary, by submitting his reasonings to
Mr Hume's private examination. With
this view, he availed himself of the good
offices of Dr Blair, with whom both he and
Mr Hume had long lived in habits of friend-
ship. The communications which he at
first transmitted, consisted only of detached
parts of the work; and appear evidently,
from a correspondence which I have per-
used, to have conveyed a very imperfect
idea of his general system. In one of Mr
Hume's letters to Dr Blair, he betrays some
want of his usual good humour, in looking
forward to his new antagonist. “I wish,”
says he, “that the parsons would confine
themselves to their old occupation of worry-
ing one another, and leave philosophers to
argue with temper, moderation, and good
manners.” After Mr Hume, however, had
read the manuscript, he addressed himself
directly to the Author, in terms so candid
and liberal, that it would be unjust to his
memory to withhold from the public so
pleasing a memorial of his character :—
“By Dr Blair's means I have been
* See, in particular, the article “ Fxistence” in
the “Encyclopedie.”
S ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WVRITINGS
favoured with the perusal of your perform-
ance, which I have read with great pleasure
and attention. It is certainly very rare
that a piece so deeply philosophical is wrote
with so much spirit, and affords so much
entertainment to the reader; though I must
still regret the disadvantages under which I
read it, as I never had the whole perform-
ance at once before me, and could not be
able fully to compare one part with another.
To this reason, chiefly, I ascribe some
obscurities, which, in spite of your short
analysis or abstract, still seem to hang over
your system ; for I must do you the jus-
tice to own that, when I enter into your
ideas, no man appears to express himself
with greater perspicuity than you do—a
talent which, above all others, is requisite
in that species of literature which you have
cultivated. There are some objections
which I would willingly propose to the chap-
ter, “Of Sight,” did I not suspect that they
proceed from my not sufficiently under-
standing it ; and I am the more confirmed
in this suspicion, as Dr Blair tells me that
the former objections I made had been
derived chiefly from that cause. I shall,
therefore, forbear till the whole can be
before me, and shall not at present propose
any farther difficulties to your reasonings.
I shall only say that, if you have been able
to clear up these abstruse and important
subjects, instead of being mortified, I shall
be so vain as to pretend to a share of the
praise ; and shall think that my errors, by
having at least some coherence, had led you
to make a more strict review of my prin-
ciples, which were the common ones, and to
perceive their futility.
“As I was desirous to be of some use to
you, I kept a watchful eye all along over
your style ; but it is really so correct, and
so good English, that I found not anything
worth the remarking. There is only one
passage in this chapter, where you make
use of the phrase hinder to do, instead of
hinder fºom doing, which is the English
one ; but I could not find the passage when
I sought for it. You may judge how un-
exceptionable the whole appeared to me,
when I could remark so Small a blennish.
I beg my compliments to my friendly adver-
saries, Dr Campbell and Dr Gerard; and
also to Dr Gregory, whom I suspect to be
of the same disposition, though he has not
openly declared himself such.”
Of the particular doctrines contained in
Dr Reid’s “Inquiry,” I do not think it
necessary here to attempt any abstract ;
nor, indeed, do his speculations (conducted,
as they were, in strict conformity to the
rules of inductive philosophizing) afford a
subject for the same species of rapid out-
line which is so useful in facilitating the
study of a merely hypothetical theory.
Their great object was to record and to
classify the phenomena which the operations
of the human mind present to those who
reflect carefully on the subjects of their
consciousness ; and of such a history, it is
manifest that no abridgement could be
offered with advantage. Some reflections
on the peculiar plan adopted by the author,
and on the general scope of his researches
in this department of science, will after-
wards find a more convenient place, when I
shall have finished my account of his subse-
quent publications.
The idea of prosecuting the study of the
human mind, on a plan analagous to that
which had been so successfully adopted in
physics by the followers of Lord Bacon, if
not first conceived by Dr Reid, was, at least,
first carried successfully into execution in
his writings. An attempt had, long before,
been announced by Mr Hume, in the title-
page of his “Treatise of Human Nature,”
to introduce the experimental method of
reasoning into moral subjects; and some
admirable remarks are made in the intro-
duction to that work, on the errors into
which his predecessors had been betrayed
by the spirit of hypothesis ; and yet it is
now very generally admitted, that the whole
of his own system rests on a principle for
which there is no evidence but the authority
of philosophers; and it is certain that, in
no part of it has he aimed to investigate, by
a systematical analysis, those general prin-
ciples of our constitution which can alone
afford a synthetical explanation of its com-
plicated phenomena.
Ihave often been disposed to think that Mr
Hume's inattention to those rules of philoso-
phizing which it was his professed intention
to exemplify, was owing, in part, to some
indistinctness in his notions concerning their
import. It does not appear that, in the
earlier part of his studies, he had paid much
attention to the models of investigation ex-
hibited in the writings of Newton and of
his successors ; and that he was by no
means aware of the extraordinary merits of
Bacon as a philosopher, nor of the influence
which his writings have had on the subse-
quent progress of physical discovery, is
demonstrated by the cold and qualified
encomium which is bestowed on his genius
in one of the most elaborate passages of
the “History of England.”
In these respects, Dr Reid possessed
important advantages; familiarized, from
his early years, to those experimental
inquiries which, in the course of the two
last centuries, have exalted natural philo-
sophy to the dignity of a science, and
determined strongly, by the peculiar bent
of his genius, to connect every step in the
progress of discovery with the history of the
human mind. The influence of the general
OF THOMAS REID, D. D. 9
views opened in the “Novum Organon”
may be traced in almost every page of his
writings; and, indeed, the circumstance by
which these are so strongly and character-
istically distinguished, is, that they exhibit
the first systematical attempt to exemplify,
in the study of human nature, the same
plan of investigation which conducted
Newton to the properties of light, and to
the law of gravitation. It is from a steady
adherence to this plan, and not from the
superiority of his inventive powers, that he
claims to himself any merit as a philosopher;
and he seems even willing (with a modesty
approaching to a fault) to abandon the
praise of what is commonly called genius,
to the authors of the systems which he was
anxious to refute. “It is genius,” he ob-
serves in one passage, “ and not the want
of it, that adulterates philosophy, and fills
it with error and false theory. A creative
imagination disdains the mean offices of
digging for a foundation, of removing rub-
bish, and carrying materials: leaving these
servile employments to the drudges in
science, it plans a design, and raises a fa-
bric. Invention supplies materials where
they are wanting, and fancy adds colouring
and every befitting ornament. The work
pleases the eye, and wants nothing but
solidity and a good foundation. It seems
even to vie with the works of nature, till
some succeeding architect blows it into
ruins, and builds as goodly a fabric of his
own in its place.”
“Success in an inquiry of this kind,” he
observes farther, “it is not in human power
to command; but perhaps it is possible, by
caution and humility, to avoid error and
delusion. The labyrinth may be too intri-
cate, and the thread too fine, to be traced
through all its windings; but, if we stop
... where we can trace it no farther, and secure
the ground we have gained, there is no harm
done; a quicker eye may in time trace it
farther.”
The unassuming language with which
Dr Reid endeavours to remove the preju-
dices naturally excited by a new attempt to
philosophize on sounpromising, and hitherto
so ungrateful a subject, recalls to our recol-
lection those passages in which Lord Bacon
—filled as his own imagination was with the
future grandeur of the fabric founded by
his hand—bespeaks the indulgence of his
readers, for an enterprise apparently so
hopeless and presumptuous. The apology
he offers for himself, when compared with
the height to which the structure of physical
knowledge has since attained, may perhaps
have some effect in attracting a more gene-
ral attention to pursuits still more im-
mediately interesting to mankind; and, at
any rate, it forms the best comment on the
prophetic suggestions in which Dr Reid
occasionally indulges himself concerning the
future progress of moral speculation:—
“Si homines per tanta annorum spatia.
viam veram inveniendi et colendi scientias
tenuissent, nec tamen ulterius progredi po-
tuissent, audax procul dubio et temeraria
foret opinio, posse rem in ulterius provehi.
Quod si in via ipsa erratum sit, atque homi-
num operainiis consumpta in quibus minime
oportebat, sequitur ex eo, non in rebus
ipsis difficultatem oriri, quae potestatis nos-
traenon Sunt; sedin intellectu humano, ejus-
que usu et applicatione, quae res remedium
et medicinam suscipit.”—“De nobis ipsis
silemus: de re autem quae agitur, petimus;
Ut homines eam non opinionem, sed opus
esse cogitent; ac pro certo habeant, non
Sectae nos alicujus, aut placiti, Sed utilitatis
et amplitudinis humanae fundamenta moliri.
Praeterea, ut bene sperent ; neque Instau-
rationem nostram ut quiddam infinitum et
ultra mortale fingant, et animo concipiant;
quum revera, sit infiniti erroris finis et ter-
minus legitimus.”-f f
The impression produced on the minds of
speculative men, by the publication of Dr
Reid’s “Inquiry,” was fully as great as could
be expected from the nature of his under-
taking. It was a work neither addressed
to the multitude, nor level to their compre-
hension ; and the freedom with which it
canvassed opinions sanctioned by the highest
authorities, was ill calculated to conciliate
the favour of the learned. A few, however,
habituated, like the author, to the analytical
researches of the Newtonian school, soon
perceived the extent of his views, and re-
cognised in his pages the genuine spirit and
language of inductive investigation. Among
the members of this University, Mr Fergu-
son was the first to applaud Dr Reid's
success; warmly recommending to his pu-
pils a steady prosecution of the same plan,
as the only effectual method of ascertaining
the general principles of the human frame :
and illustrating, happily, by his own pro-
found and eloquent disquisitions, the appli-
cation of such studies to the conduct of the
understanding and to the great concerns of
life. I recollect, too, when I attended (about
the year 1771) the lectures of the late Mr
Russell, to have heard high encomiums on
the philosophy of Reid, in the course of
those comprehensive discussions concerning
the objects and the rules of experimental
science, with which he so agreeably diversi-
fied the particular doctrines of physics. Nor
must I omit this opportunity of paying a
tribute to the memory of my old friend, Mr
Stevenson, then Professor of Logic; whose
candid mind, at the age of seventy, gave a
welcome reception to a system subversive
of the theories which he had taught for
* Nov. Org. 94. # Instaur. Mag.—Præfat.
I0
ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WEITINGS
forty years; and whose zeal for the ad-
vancement of knowledge prompted him,
when his career was almost finished, to
undertake the laborious task of new-model-
ling that useful compilation of elementary
instruction to which a singular diffidence
of his own powers limited his literary exer-
tions.
It is with no common feelings of respect
and of gratitude, that I now recall the names
of those to whom I owe my first attach-
ment to these studies, and the happiness
of a liberal occupation superior to the more
aspiring aims of a servile ambition.
From the University of Glasgow, Dr
Reid’s “Inquiry” received a still mere
substantial testimony of approbation ; the
author having been invited, in 1763, by
that learned body, to the Professorship of
Moral Philosophy, then vacant by the
resignation of Mr Smith. The preferment
was, in many respects, advantageous ;
affording an income considerably greater
than he enjoyed at Aberdeen; and enabling
him to concentrate to his favourite objects,
that attention which had been hitherto dis-
tracted by the miscellaneous nature of his
academical engagements. It was not, how-
ever, without reluctance, that he consented
to tear himself from a spot where he had
so long been fastening his roots; and,
much as he loved the society in which he
passed the remainder of his days, I am
doubtful if, in his mind, it compensated the
sacrifice of earlier habits and connections.
Abstracting from the charm of local
attachment, the University of Glasgow, at
the time when Dr Reid was adopted as one
of its members, presented strong attrac-
tions to reconcile him to his change of
situation. Robert Simson, the great re-
storer of ancient geometry, was still alive ;
and, although far advanced in years, pre-
served unimpaired his ardour in study, his
relish for social relaxation, and his amusing
singularities of humour. Dr Moor com-
bined, with a gaiety and a levity foreign to
this climate, the profound attainments of a
scholar and of a mathematician. In Dr
Black, to whose fortunate genius a new
world of science had just opened, Reid
acknowledged an instructor and a guide;
and met a simplicity of manners congenial
to his own. The Wilsons (both father and
son) were formed to attach his heart by the
similarity of their scientific pursuits, and
an entire sympathy with his views and sen-
timents. Nor was he less delighted with
the good-humoured opposition which his
opinions never failed to encounter in the
acuteness of Millar—then in the vigour of
youthful genius, and warm from the lessons
of a different school. Dr Leechman, the
friend and biographer of Hutcheson, was
the official head of the College; and added
the weight of a venerable name to the repu-
tation of a community which he had once
adorned in a more active station.*
Animated by the zeal of such associates,
and by the busy scenes which his new resi-
dence presented in every department of
useful industry, Dr Reid entered on his
functions at Glasgow with an ardour not
common at the period of life which he had
now attained. . His researches concerning
the human mind, and the principles of
morals, which had occupied but an incon-
siderable space in the wide circle of science
allotted to him by his former office, were
extended and methodized in a course which
employed five hours every week, during six
months of the year ; the example of his
illustrious predecessor, and the prevailing
topics of conversation around him, occa-
sionally turned his thoughts to commercial
politics, and produced some ingenious essays
on different questions connected with trade,
which were communicated to a private
society of his academical friends; his early
passion for the mathematical sciences was
revived by the conversation of Simson,
Moor, and the Wilsons; and, at the age of
fifty-five, he attended the lectures of Black,
with a juvenile curiosity and enthusiasm.
As the substance of Dr Reid’s lectures at
Glasgow (at least of that part of them
which was most important and original)
has been since given to the public in a more
improved form, it is unnecessary for me to
enlarge on the plan which he followed in
the discharge of his official duties. I shall
therefore only observe, that, beside his spe-
culations on the intellectual and active
powers of man, and a system of practi-
cal ethics, his course comprehended some
general views with respect to natural juris-
prudence, and the fundamental principles of
politics. A few lectures on rhetoric, which
were read, at a separate hour, to a more
advanced class of students, formed a volun-
tary addition to the appropriate functions
of his office, to which it is probable he
was prompted, rather by a wish to supply
what was then a deficiency in the established
course of education, than by any predilec-
tion for a branch of study so foreign to his
ordinary pursuits.
The merits of Dr Reid as a public teacher
were derived chiefly from that rich fund of
original and instructive philosophy which is
to be found in his writings, and from his
unwearied assiduity in inculcating principles
which he conceived to be of essential import-
ance to human happiness. In his elocution
and mode of instruction, there was nothing
peculiarly attractive. He seldom, if ever,
indulged himself in the warmth of extem-
pore discourse ; nor was his manner of
* Note C.
OF THOMAS REID, D.D.
ll
reading calculated to increase the effect of
what he had committed to writing. Such,
however, was the simplicity and perspicuity
of his style, such the gravity and authority
of his character, and such the general in-
terest of his young hearers in the doctrines
which he taught, that, by the numerous
audiences to which his instructions were
addressed, he was heard uniformly with the
most silent and respectful attention. On
this subject, I speak from personal know-
ledge ; having had the good fortune, during
a considerable part of winter 1772, to be
one of his pupils.
It does not appear to me, from what I
am now able to recollect of the order which
he observed in treating the different parts
of his subject, that he had laid much stress
on systematical arrangement. It is pro-
bable that he availed himself of whatever
materials his private inquiries afforded, for
his academical compositions, without aiming
at the merit of combining them into a whole,
by a comprehensive and regular design—an
undertaking to which, if I am not mistaken,
the established forms of his university,
consecrated by long custom, would have
presented some obstacles. One thing is
certain, that neither he nor his immediate
predecessor ever published any general pro-
spectus of their respective plans, nor any
heads or outlines to assist their students in
tracing the trains of thought which suggested
their various transitions.
The interest, however, excited by such
details as these, even if it were in my power
to render them more full and satisfactory,
must necessarily be temporary and local;
and I, therefore, hasten to observations of
a more general nature, on the distinguishing
characteristics of Dr Reid's philosophical
genius, and on the spirit and scope of those
researches which he has bequeathed to
posterity concerning the phenomena and
laws of the human mind. In mentioning
his first performance on this subject, I have
already anticipated a few remarks which
are equally applicable to his subsequent
publications ; but the hints then suggested
were too slight to place in so strong a
light as I could wish the peculiarities of
that mode of investigation which it was the
great object of his writings to recommend
and to exemplify. His own anxiety to
neglect nothing that might contribute to its
farther illustration induced him, while his
health and faculties were yet entire, to
withdraw from his public labours, and to
devote himself, with an undivided attention,
to a task of more extensive and permanent
utility. It was in the year 1781 that he
carried this design into execution, at a
period of life (for he was then upwards of
seventy) when the infirmities of age might
be supposed to account sufficiently for his
retreat ; but when, in fact, neither the
vigour of his mind nor of his body seemed
to have suffered any injury from time. The
works which he published not many years
afterwards, afford a sufficient proof of the
assiduity with which he had availed himself
of his literary leisure—his “Essays on the
Intellectual Powers of Man” appearing in
1785, and those on the “Active Powers”
in 1788.
As these two performances are, both of
them, parts of one great work, to which his
“Inquiry into the Human Mind” may be
regarded as the introduction, I have re-
served for this place whatever critical reflec-
tions I have to offer on his merits as an
ăuthor; conceiving that they would be more
likely to produce their intended effect, when
presented at once in a connected form, than
if interspersed, according to a chronological
order, with the details of a biographical
narrative. .”
SECTION II.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE SPIRIT AND SCOPE OF
DR REID’s PHILOSOPHY.
I HAVE already observed that the dis-
tinguishing feature of Dr Reid's philosophy,
is the systematical steadiness with which
he has adhered in his inquiries, to that plan
of investigation which is delineated in the
“ Novum Organon,” and which has been so
happily exemplified in physics by Sir Isaac
Newton and his followers. To recommend
this plan as the only effectual method of
enlarging our knowledge of nature, was the
favourite aim of all his studies, and a topic
on which he thought he could not enlarge
too much, in conversing or corresponding
with his younger friends. In a letter to Dr
Gregory, which I have perused, he particu-
larly congratulates him upon his acquaint-
ance with Lord Bacon’s works; adding,
“I am very apt to measure a man’s under-
standing by the opinion he entertains of
that author.”
It were perhaps to be wished that he had
taken a little more pains to illustrate the
fundamental rules of that logic the value
of which he estimated so highly ; more
especially, to point out the modifications
with which it is applicable to the science of
mind. Many important hints, indeed, con-
nected with this subject, may be collected
from different parts of his writings; but I
am inclined to think that a more ample
discussion of it, in a preliminary dissertation,
might have thrown light on the scope of
many of his researches, and obviated some
of the most plausible objections which have
been stated to his conclusions.
I 2
ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
It is not, however, my intention at pre-
sent to attempt to supply a desideralwm of
so great a magnitude—an undertaking
which, I trust, will find a more convenient
place, in the farther prosecution of those
speculations with respect to the intellectual
powers which I have already submitted to
the public. The detached remarks which
follow, are offered merely as a supplement
to what I have stated concerning the nature
and object of this branch of study, in the
Introduction to the “ Philosophy of the
Human Mind.”
The influence of Bacon's genius on the
subsequent progress of physical discovery,
has been seldom fairly appreciated—by some
writers almost entirely overlooked, and by
others considered as the sole cause of the
reformation in science which has since taken
place. Of these two extremes, the latter
certainly is the least wide of the truth; for,
in the whole history of letters, no other
individual can be mentioned, whose exer-
tions have had so indisputable an effect in
forwarding the intellectual progress of man-
kind. On the other hand, it must be ac-
knowledged, that, before the era when Bacon
appeared, various philosophers in different
parts of Europe had struck into the right
path ; and it may perhaps be doubted
whether any one important rule with respect
to the true method of investigation be con-
tained in his works, of which no hint can
be traced in those of his predecessors. His
great merit lay in concentrating their feeble
and scattered lights; fixing the attention
of philosophers on the distinguishing cha-
racteristics of true and of false science, by
a felicity of illustration peculiar to himself,
seconded by the commanding powers of a
bold and figurative eloquence. The method
of investigation which he recommended had
been previously followed in every instance
in which any solid discovery had been made
with respect to the laws of nature; but it
had been followed accidentally and without
any regular, preconceived design ; and it
was reserved for him to reduce to rule and
method what others had effected, either
fortuitously, or from some momentary
glimpse of the truth. It is justly observed
by Dr Reid, that “the man who first dis-
covered that cold freezes water, and that
heat turns it into vapour, proceeded on the
same general principle by which Newton
discovered the law of gravitation and the
properties of light. His ‘ Regulae Philo-
sophandi' are maxims of commonsense, and
are practised every day in common life;
and he who philosophizes by other rules,
either concerning the material system or
concerning the mind, mistakes his aim.”
These remarks are not intended to detract
from the just glory of Bacon ; for they
apply to all those, without exception, who
*
have systematized the principles of any of
the arts. Indeed, they apply less forcibly
to him than to any other philosopher whose
studies have been directed to objects analo-
gous to his ; inasmuch as we know of no
art of which the rules have been reduced
successfully into a didactic form, when the
art itself was as much in infancy as expe-
rimental philosophy was when Bacon wrote.
Nor must it be supposed that the utility
was small of thus attempting to systematize
the accidental processes of unenlightened
ingenuity, and to give to the noblest exer-
tions of human reason, the same advan-
tages of scientific method which have
contributed so much to insure the success
of genius in pursuits of inferior importance.
The very philosophical motto which Rey-
molds has so happily prefixed to his
“Academical Discourses,” admits, on this
occasion, of a still more appropriate appli-
cation:—“Omnia fere quae praeceptis con-
tinentur ab ingeniosis hominibus fiunt; sed
casu quodam magis quam Scientia. Ideoque
doctrina et animadversio adhibenda est, ut
ea quae interdum sine ratione nobis occur-
runt, Semper in nostra protestate sint ; et
quoties res postulaverit, a nobis ex praepa-
rato adhibeantur.” -
But, although a few superior minds seem
to have been, in some measure, predisposed
for that revolution in science which Bacon
contributed so powerfully to accomplish,
the case was very different with the great
majority of those who were then most dis-
tinguished for learning and talents. His
views were plainly too advanced for the age
in which he lived ; and, that he was sen-
sible of this himself, appears from those
remarkable passages in which he styles
himself “the servant of posterity,” and
“ bequeaths his fame to future times.”
Hobbes, who, in his early youth, had
enjoyed his friendship, speaks, a consider-
able time after Bacon's death, of experi-
mental philosophy, in terms of contempt ;
influenced, probably, not a little by the
tendency he perceived in the inductive
method of inquiry, to undermine the found-
ations of that fabric of scepticism which it
was the great object of his labours to rear.
Nay, even during the course of the last
century, it has been less from Bacon’s own
speculations, than from the examples of
Sound investigation exhibited by a few emi-
nent men, who professed to follow him as
their guide, that the practical spirit of his
writings has been caught by the multitude
of physical experimentalists over Europe;
truth and good sense descending gradually,
in this as in other instances, by the force of
imitation and of early habit, from the
higher orders of intellect to the lower. In
Some parts of the Continent, more espe-
cially, the circulation of Bacon's philoso-
OF THOMAS REID, D.D. - 13
... phical works has been surprisingly slow.
It is doubtful whether Des Cartes himself
ever perused them ;" and, as late as the
year 1759, if we may credit Montucla, they
were very little known in France. The
introductory discourse prefixed by D'Alem-
bert to the “Encyclopedie,” first recom-
mended them, in that country, to general
attention.
The change which has taken place, dur-
ing the two last centuries, in the plan of
physical research, and the success which
has so remarkably attended it, could not
fail to suggest an idea, that something
analogous might probably be accomplished
at a future period, with respect to the
phenomena of the intellectual world. And,
accordingly, various hints of this kind may
be traced in different authors, since the
era of Newton's discoveries. A memorable
instance occurs in the prediction with which
that great man concludes his “Optics:”—
“That, if natural philosophy, in all its
parts, by pursuing the inductive method,
shall at length be perfected, the bounds of
moral philosophy will also be enlarged.”
Similar remarks may be found in other
publications; particularly in Mr Hume's
“Treatise of Human Nature,” where the
subject is enlarged on with much ingenuity.
As far, however, as I am able to judge, Dr
Reid was the first who conceived justly and
clearly the analogy between these two dif-
ferent branches of human knowledge; de-
fining, with precision, the distinct provinces
of observation and reflection,-- in furnish-
ing the data of all our reasonings concerning
matter and mind; and demonstrating the
necessity of a careful separation between the
phenomena which they respectively exhibit,
while we adhere to the same mode of philo-
sophizing in investigating the laws of both.
That so many philosophers should have
thus missed their aim, in prosecuting the
study of the human mind, will appear the
less surprising when we consider in how
many difficulties, peculiar to itself, this
* This is a mistake, which it is the more requisite
to correct, because Mr Stewart's authority in histori-
cal points is, in consequence of his habitual accuracy,
deservedly high. It is repeated, if I recollect aright,
in more articulate terms, in the “ Dissertation on the
Progress of Metaphysical Philosophy.” Des Cartes,
in three or four passages of his “Letters,” makes
honourable mention of Bacon and his method; his
works he seems not only to have perused but studied.
There is, however, no reason to suppose that Des Car-
tes was acquainted with the writings of his great
predecessor in the early part of his life; and his own
views in philosophy were probably not affected by
this influence. Mr Stewart, likewise, greatly under-
rates the influence of the Baconian writings in gene-
ral, previous to the recommendation of D'Alem-
bert. On this subject, the reader is referred to a
valuable paper by Professor Napier on the “Scope
and Influence of the Baconian Philosophy,” in the
Trañsactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.-H.
+ See a note on Reid's Sixth “Essay on the Intel-
lectual Powers,” chap. I., and of the original edition,
p. 517,-H
Science is involved. It is sufficient at
present to mention those which arise from
the metaphorical origin of all the words
which express the intellectual phenomena ;
from the subtle and fugitive nature of the
objects of our reasonings; from the habits
ôfinattention we acquire, in early life, to the
subjects of our consciousness;' and from the
prejudices which early impressions and asso-
ciations create to warp our opinions. It
must be remembered, too, that, in the
science of mind, (so imperfectly are its logi-
cal rules as yet understood () we have not
the same checks on the abuses of our rea-
soning powers which serve to guard us
against error in our other researches. In
physics, a speculative mistake is abandoned
when contradicted by facts which strike
the senses. In mathematics, an absurd or
inconsistent conclusion is admitted as a
demonstrative proof of a faulty hypothesis.
But, in those inquiries which relate to the
principles of human nature, the absurdities
and inconsistencies to which we are led by
almost all the systems hitherto proposed,’
instead of suggesting corrections and im-
provements on these systems, have too
frequently had the effect of producing
scepticism with respect to all of them alike.
How melancholy is the confession of
Hume !—“ The intense view of these
manifold contradictions and imperfections
in human reason, has so wrought upon me,
and heated my brain, that I am ready to
reject all belief and reasoning, and can
look upon no opinion even as more prob-
able or likely than another.”
Under these discouragements to this
branch of study, it affords us some comfort
to reflect on the great number of important
facts with respect to the mind, which are
scattered in the writings of philosophers.
As the subject of our inquiry here lies
within our own breast, a considerable mix-
ture of truth may be expected even in those
systems which are most erroneous; not
only because a number of men can scarcely
be long imposed on by a hypothesis which
is perfectly groundless, concerning the ob-
jects of their own consciousness, but because
it is generally by an alliance with truth,
and with the original principles of human
nature, that prejudices and associations
produce their effects. Perhaps it may even
be affirmed, that our progress in this re-
search depends less on the degree of our
industry and invention, than on our Saga-
city and good sense in separating old dis-
coveries from the errors which have been
blended with them ; and on that candid
and dispassionate temper that may prevent
us from being led astray by the love of
novelty, or the affectation of singularity.
In this respect, the science of mind pos-
sesses a very important advantage over
14
ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGs
that which relates to the laws of the mate-
rial world. The former has been culti-
vated with more or less success in all ages
and countries: the facts which serve as
the basis of the latter have, with a very few
exceptions, been collected during the course
of the two last centuries. An observation
similar to this is applied to systems of
ethics by Mr Smith, in his account of the
theory of Mandeville ; and the illustration
he gives of it may be extended with equal
propriety to the science of mind in general :
—“A system of natural philosophy,” he
remarks, “may appear very plausible, and
be, for a long time, very generally received
in the world, and yet have no foundation in
nature, nor any sort of resemblance to the
truth. But it is otherwise with systems of
moral philosophy. When a traveller gives
an account of some distant country, he may
impose upon our credulity the most ground-
less and absurd fictions as the most certain
matters of fact ; but when a person pretends
to inform us of what passesin our neighbour-
hood, and of the affairs of the very parish
we live in—though here, too, if we are so
careless as not to examine things with our
own eyes, he may deceive us in many re-
spects—yet the greatest falsehoods which
he imposes on us must bear some resem-
blance to the truth, and must even have a
considerable mixture of truth in them.”
These considerations demonstrate the es-
sential importance, in this branch of study,
of forming, at the commencement of our
inquiries, just notions of the criteria of true
and false science, and of the rules of philoso-
phical investigation. They demonstrate, at
the same time, that an attention to the rules
of philosophizing, as they are exemplified in
the physical researches of Newton and his fol-
lowers, although the best of all preparations
for an examination of themental phenomena,
is but one of the steps necessary to insure
our success. On an accurate comparison of
the two subjects, it might probably appear,
that, after this preliminary step has been
gained, the most arduous part of the process
still remains. One thing is certain, that it
is not from any defect in the power of ratio-
cination or deduction, that our speculative
errors chiefly arise — a fact of which we
have a decisive proof in the facility with
which most students may be taught the
mathematical and physical sciences, when
compared with the difficulty of leading their
minds to the truth, on questions of morals
and politics. -
... The logical rules which lay the foundation
of sound and useful conclusions concerning
the laws of this internal world, although
not altogether overlooked by Lord Bacon,
were plainly not the principal object of his
work ; and what he has written on the sub-
ject,consists chiefly of detached hints dropped
casually in the course of other speculations.
A comprehensive view of the sciences and
arts dependent on the philosophy of the
human mind, exhibiting the relations which
they bear to each other, and to the general
system of human knowledge, would form a
matural and useful introduction to the study
of these logical principles; but such a view
remains still a desideratum, after all the
advances made towards it by Bacon and
D'Alembert. Indeed, in the present im-
proved state of things, much is wanting to
complete and perfect that more simple part
of their intellectual map which relates to
the material universe. Of the inconsider-
able progress hitherto made towards a just
delineation of the method to be pursued in
studying the mental phenomena, no other
evidence is necessary than this, That the
sources of error and false judgment, so pe-
culiarly connected, in consequence of the
association of ideas, with studies in which
our best interests are immediately and deeply
concerned, have never yet been investigated
with such accuracy as to afford effectual
aid to the student, in his attempts to coun-
teract their influence. One of these sources
alone—that which arises from the imper-
fections of language—furnishes an exception
to the general remark. It attracted, fortu-
mately, the particular notice of Locke, whose
observations with respect to it, compose,
perhaps, the most valuable part of his philo-
sophical writings; and, since the time of
Condillac, the subject has been still more
deeply analyzed by others. Even on this
article, much yet remains to be done; but
enough has been already accomplished to
justify the profound aphorism in which Bacon
pointed it out to the attention of his follow-
ers :-" Credunt homines rationem suam
verbis imperare; sed fit etiam ut verba vim.
suam super rationem retorqueant.”
Into these logical discussions concerning
the means of advancing the philosophy of
human nature, Dr Reid has seldom entered;
and still more rarely has he indulged him-
self in tracing the numerous relations by
which this philosophy is connected with the
practical business of life. But he has done
what was still more essential at the time he
wrote: he has exemplified, with the happiest
success, that method of investigation by
which alone any solid progress can be made;
directing his inquiries to a subject which
forms a necessary groundworkfor the labours
of his successors—an analysis of the various
powers and principles belonging to our con-
stitution. Of the importance of this under-
taking, it is sufficient to observe, that it
- *
* This passage of Bacon forms the motto to a very
ingenious and philosophical dissertation, (lately pub-
lished by M. Prevost of Geneva,) entitled, “ Des
Signes envisagés relativement à leur Influence sur lu
Formation des Idées.” Paris, an 8.
OF THOMAS REID, D.D. 15
stands somewhat, although I confess not
altogether, in the same relation to the dif-
ferent branches of intellectual and moral
science, (such as grammar, rhetoric, logic,
ethics, natural theology, and politics,) in
which the anatomy of the human body
stands to the different branches of physio-
logy and pathology. And, as a course of
medical education naturally, or rather ne-
cessarily, begins with a general survey of
man's animal frame, so I apprehend that
the proper, or rather the essential prepara-
tion for those studies which regard our
nobler concerns, is an examination of the
principles which belong to man as an intel-
ligent, active, social, and moral being. Nor
does the importance of such an analysis rest
here ; it exerts an influence over all those
sciences and arts which are connected with
the material world ; and the philosophy of
Bacon itself, while it points out the road to
physical truth, is but a branch of the philo-
sophy of the human mind. --
The substance of these remarks is admir-
ably expressed by Mr Hume in the follow-
ing passage—allowances being made for a
few trifling peculiarities of expression, bor-
rowed from the theories which were pre-
valent at the time when he wrote:—“”Tis
evident that all the sciences have a relation,
greater or less, to human nature; and that,
however wide any of them may seem to run
from it, they still return back by one pass-
age or another. Pven 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 facul-
ties. It is impossible to tell what changes
and improvements we might make in these
sciences, were we thoroughly acquainted
with the extent and force of human under-
standing, and could explain the nature of
the ideas we employ, and of the operations
we perform in our reasonings.
“If, therefore, the sciences of mathe-
matics, natural philosophy, and natural
religion, have such a dependence on the
knowledge of man, what may be expected
in the other sciences, whose connection with
human nature is more close and intimate 2
The sole end of logic is to explain the prin-
ciples and operations of our reasoning
faculty, and the nature of our ideas; morals
and criticism regard our tastes and senti-
ments; and politics consider men as united
in Society and dependent on each other. In
these four sciences of logic, morals, criti-
cism, and politics, is comprehended almost
everything which it can any way import us
to be acquainted with, or which can tend
either to the improvement or ornament of
the human mind.
“Here, then, is the only expedient from
which we can hope for success in our philo-
sophical 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 every-
where else hope for an easy victory. From
this station, we may extend our conquests
overall those sciences which more intimately
concern human life, and may afterwards
proceed at leisure to discover more fully
those which are the objects of pure curiosity.
There is no question of importance whose
decision is not comprised in the science of
man ; and there is none which can be de-
cided with any certainty before we become
acquainted with that science.”
To prepare the way for the accomplish-
ment of the design so forcibly recommended
in the foregoing quotation—by exemplifying,
in an analysis of our most important intel-
lectual and active principles, the only method
of carrying it successfully into execution—
was the great object of Dr Reid in all his
various philosophical publications. In ex-
amining these principles, he had chiefly in
view a vindication of those fundamental laws
of belief which form the groundwork of
human knowledge, against the attacks made
on their authority in some modern systems
of scepticism ; leaving to his successors the
more agreeable task of applying the philo-
sophy of the mind to its practical uses. On
the analysis and classification of our powers,
which he has proposed, much room for im-
provement must have been left in so vast
an undertaking; but imperfections of this
kind do not necessarily affect the justness
of his conclusions, even where they may
Suggest to future inquirers the advantages
of a simpler arrangement, and a more de-
finite phraseology. Nor must it be forgotten
that, in consequence of the plan he has fol-
lowed, the mistakes which may be detected
in particular parts of his works imply no
such weakness in the fabric he has reared
as might have been justly apprehended, had
he presented a connected system founded
on gratuitous hypothesis, or on arbitrary
definitions. The detections, on the con-
trary, of his occasional errors, may be ex-
pected, from the invariable consistency and
harmony of truth, to throw new lights on
those parts of his work where his inquiries
bave been more successful; as the correc-
tion of a particular mistatement in an
authentic history is often found, by com-, .
pleting an imperfect link, or reconciling a Y
seeming contradiction, to dispel the doubts
which hung over the most faithful and
accurate details of the narrative.
In Dr Reid’s first performance, he con-
fined himself entirely to the five senses, and
the principles of our nature necessarily
I6
ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WEITINGS
connected with them ; reserving the further
prosecution of thesubject for afuture period.
At that time, indeed, he seems to have
thought, that a more comprehensive exami-
nation of the mind was an enterprise too
great for one individual. “The powers,”
he observes, “ of memory, of imagination,
of taste, of reasoning, of moral perception,
the will, the passions, the affections, and all
the active powers of the soul, present a
boundless field of philosophical disquisition,
which the author of this “Inquiry’ is far
from thinking himself able to explore with
accuracy. Many authors of ingenuity,
ancient and modern, have made incursions
into this vast territory, and have commu-
nicated useful observations ; but there is
reason to believe that those who have pre-
tended to give us a map of the whole, have
satisfied themselves with a very inaccurate
and incomplete survey. If Galileo had
attempted a complete system of natural
philosophy, he had probably done little
service to mankind ; but, by confining him-
self to what was within his comprehension.
he laid the foundation of a system of know-
ledge, which rises by degrees, and does
honour to the human understanding. New-
ton, building upon this foundation, and in
like manner, confining his inquiries to the
law of gravitation, and the properties of
light, performed wonders. If he had at-
tempted a great deal more, he had dome a
great deal less, and perhaps nothing at all.
Ambitious of following such great examples,
with unequal steps, alas! and unequal force,
we have attempted an inquiry into one little
corner only of the human mind; that cor-
ner which seems to be most exposed to
vulgar observation, and to be most easily
comprehended ; and yet, if we have deli-
neated it justly, it must be acknowledged
that the accounts heretofore given of it
were very lame, and wide of the truth.”
From these observations, when compared
with the magnitude of the work which the
author lived to execute, there is some
ground for supposing, that, in the progress
of his researches, he became more and more
sensible of the mutual connection and de-
pendence which exists among the conclu-
sions we form concerning the various prin-
ciples of human nature ; even concerning
those which seem, on a superficial view,
to have the most remote relation to each
other : and it was fortunate for the world,
that, in this respect, he was induced to ex-
tend his views so far beyond the limits of
his original design. His examination, in-
deed, of the powers of external perception,
and of the questions immediately connected
with them, bears marks of a still more
minute diligence and accuracy than appear
in some of his speculations concerning the
other parts of our frame; and what he has
written on the former subject, in his “ In-
quiry into the Human Mind,” is evidently
more highly finished, both in matter and
form, than the volumes which he published
in his more advanced years. The value,
however, of these is inestimable to future
adventurers in the same arduous under-
taking ; 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 under-
stood by philosophers. It is by the origin-
ality of this method, so systematically pur-
sued in all his researches, still more than
by the importance of his particular conclu-
sions, that he stands so conspicuously dis-
tinguished among those who have hitherto
prosecuted analytically the study of man.
I have heard it sometimes mentioned, as
a subject of regret, that the writers who
have applied themselves to this branch of
knowledge have, in general, aimed at a
great deal more than it was possible to ac-
complish ; extending their researches to
all the different parts of our constitution,
while a long life might be well employed in
examining and describing the phenomena
connected with any one particular faculty.
Dr Reid, in a passage already quoted from
his “Inquiry,” might have been supposed
to give some countenance to this opinion,
if his own subsequent labours did not so
strongly sanction the practice in question.
The truth, I apprehend, is, that such de-
tached researches concerning the human
mind can seldom be attempted with much
hope of success ; and that those who have
recommended them, have not attended suf-
ficiently to the circumstances which so re-
markably distinguish this study from that
which has for its object the philosophy of
the material world. A few remarks in
illustration of this proposition seem to me
to be necessary, in order to justify the rea-
sonableness of Dr Reid’s undertaking; and
they will be found to apply with still greater
force to the labours of such as may wish
to avail themselves of a similar analysis in
explaining the varieties of human genius
and character, or in developing the latent
capacities of the youthful mind.
One consideration of a more general
nature is, in the first place, worthy of
notice; that, in the infancy of every science,
the grand and fundamental desideratum is
a bold and comprehensive outline ; some-
what for the same reason that, in the cul-
tivation of an extensive country, forests
must be cleared and wildernesses reclaimed,
before the limits of private property are
fixed with accuracy ; and long before the
period when the divisions and subdivisions
of separate possessions give rise to the de-
tails of a curious and refined husbandry.
OF THOMAS REID, D, D.
17
The speculations of Lord Bacon embraced
all the objects of human knowledge. Those
of Newton and Boyle were confined to phy-
sics; but included an astonishing range of
the material universe. The labours of their
successors, in our own times, have been
employed with no less zeal in pursuing
those more particular, but equally abstruse
investigations, in which they were unable
to engage, for want of a sufficient stock
both of facts and of general principles; and
which did not perhaps interest their curio-
sity in any considerable degree.
If these observations are allowed to hold
to a certain extent with respect to all the
sciences, they apply in a more peculiar
manner to the subjects treated of in Dr
Reid's writings—subjects which are all
so intimately connected, that it may be
doubted if it be possible to investigate ały
one completely, without some general ac-
quaintance, at least, with the rest. Even
the theory of the understanding may re-
ceive important lights from an examination
of the active and the moral powers ; the
state of which, in the mind of every indivi-
dual, will be found to have a powerful in-
fluence on his intellectual character ;-
while, on the other hand, an accurate analy-
sis of the faculties of the understanding,
would probably go far to obviate the scep-
tical difficulties which have been started
concerning the origin of our moral ideas.
It appears to me, therefore, that, whatever
be the department of mental science that
we propose more particularly to cultivate,
it is necessary to begin with a survey of
human nature in all its various parts :
studying these parts, however, not so much
on their own account, as with a reference
to the applications of which our conclusions
are susceptible to our favourite purpose.
The researches of Dr Reid, when consid-
ered carefully in the relation which they bear
to each other, afford numberless illustra-
tions of the truth of this remark. His lead-
ing design was evidently to overthrow the
modern system of scepticism ; and, at every
successive step of his progress, new and
unexpected lights break in on his funda-
mental principles.
It is, however, chiefly in their practical
application to the conduct of the under-
standing, and the culture of the heart, that
such partial views are likely to be danger-
ous ; for here, they tend not only to mislead
our theoretical conclusions, but to counter-
act our improvement and happiness. Of
this I am so fully convinced, that the most
faulty theories of human nature, provided
only they embrace the whole of it, appear
to me less mischievous in their probable
effects than those more accurate and micro-
scopical researches which are habitually
confined to one particular corner of our
constitution. It is easy to conceive that,
where the attention is wholly engrossed
with the intellectual powers, the moral prim-
ciples will be in danger of running to waste;
and it is no less certain, on the other hand,
that, by confining our care to the moral
constitution alone, we may suffer the under-
standing to remain under the influence of
unhappy prejudices, and destitute of those
just and enlightened views without which
the worthiest dispositions are of little use,
either to ourselves or to society. An exclu-
sive attention to any one of the subordinate
parts of our frame—to the culture of taste,
for example, or of the argumentative powers,
or even to the refinement of our moral sen-
timents and feelings—must be attended with
a hazard proportionally greater.
“In forming the human character,” says
Bacon, in a passage which Lord Bolingbroke
has pronounced to be one of the finest and
deepestin his writings, “we must not proceed
as a statuary does in forming a statue, who
works sometimes on the face, sometimes on
the limbs, sometimes on the folds of the
drapery ; but we must proceed (and it is in
our power to proceed) as Nature does in
forming a flower, or any other of her pro-
ductions : she throws out altogether, and
at once, the whole system of being, and
the rudiments of all the parts. Rudimenſa
partium omnium simul parit et producil.”
, Of this passage, so strongly marked with
Bacon's capacious intellect, and so richly
adorned with his “philosophical fancy,” I
will not weaken the impression by any
comment ; and, indeed, to those who do
not intuitively perceive its evidence, no
comment would be useful.
In what I have hitherto said of Dr Reid's
speculations, I have confined myself to such
general views of the scope of his researches,
and of his mode of philosophizing, as seemed
most likely to facilitate the perusal of his
Works to those readers who have not been
much conversant with these abstract disqui-
sitions. A slight review of some of the more
important and fundamental objections which
have been proposed to his doctrines, may,
I hope, be useful as a farther preparation
for the same course of study.
Of these objections, the four following
appear to me to be chiefly entitled to atten-
tion :- *
1. That he has assumed gratuitously, in
all his reasonings, that theory concerning
the human soul which the scheme of
materialism calls in question.
2. That his views tend to damp the
ardour of philosophical curiosity, by stat-
ing as ultimate facts, phenomena which
* . In the foregoing paragraph, I have borrowed
(with a very trifling alteration) Lord Bolingbri ke's
words, in a beautiful paraphrase on Bacon's remark,
—See his “ Idea of a Patriot King.”
C
}8
ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
may be resolved into principles more simple
and general. * - e.
3. That, by an unnecessary multiplica-
tion of original or instinctive principles, he
has brought the science of mind into a state
more perplexed and unsatisfactory than
that in which it was left by Locke and his
SUlCCéSSOTS.
4. That his philosophy, by sanctioning
an appeal from the decisions of the learned
to the voice of the multitude, is unfavour-
able to a spirit of free inquiry, and lends
additional stability to popular errors.
1. With respect to Dr Reid's supposed
assumption of a doubtful hypothesis con-
cerning the nature of the thinking and
sentient principle, it is almost sufficient for
me to observe, that the charge is directed
against that very point of his philosophy in
which it is most completely invulnerable.
The circumstance which peculiarly charac-
terises the inductive science of mind is,
that it professes to abstain from all specu-
lations concerning its nature and essence ;
confining the attention entirely to pheno-
mena for which we have the evidence of
consciousness, and to the laws by which
these phenomena are regulated. In this
respect, it differs equally, in its scope,
from the pneumatological discussions of the
schools, and from the no less visionary
theories so loudly vaunted by the physio-
logical metaphysicians of more modern
times. Compared with the first, it differs
as the inquiries of the mechanical philoso-
phers concerning the laws of moving bodies
differ from the discussions of the ancient
sophists concerning the existence and the
nature of motion. Compared with the
other, the difference is analogous to what
exists between the conclusions of Newton
concerning the law of gravitation, and his
query concerning the invisible ether of
which he supposes it might possibly be
the effect. The facts which this inductive
science aims at ascertaining, rest on their
own proper evidence; an evidence uncon-
nected with all these hypotheses, and which
would not, in the smallest degree, be
affected, although the truth of any one of
them should be fully established. It is not,
therefore, on account of its inconsistency
with any favourite opinions of my own, that
I would oppose the disquisitions either of
scholastic pneumatology, or of physiological
metaphysics; but because I consider them
as an idle waste of time and genius on ques-
tions where our conclusions can neither be
verified nor overturned by an appeal to ex-
periment or observation. Sir Isaac New-
ton's query concerning the cause of gravi-
tation was certainly not inconsistent with
his own discoveries concerning its laws;
but what would have been the consequences
to the world, if he had indulged himself in
the prosecution of hypothet.ealtheories with
respect to the former, instead of directing
his astonishing powers to an investigation
of the latter 2
That the general spirit of Dr Reid's
philosophy is hostile to the conclusions
of the materialist, is indeed a fact. Not,
however, because his system rests on the
contrary hypothesis as a fundamental prin-
ciple, but because his inquiries have a
powerful tendency to wean the understand-
ing gradually from those obstinate associa-
tions and prejudices to which the common
mechanical theories of mind owe all their
plausibility. It is, in truth, much more
from such examples of sound research con-
cerning the laws of thought, than from
any direct metaphysical refutation, that a
change is to be expected in the opinions of
those who have been accustomed to con-
found together two classes of phenomena,
so completely and essentially different. But
this view of the subject does not belong to
the present argument.
It has been recommended of late, by a
medical author of great reputation, to those
who wish to study the human mind, to
begin with preparing themselves for the
task by the study of anatomy. I must con-
fess, I cannot perceive the advantages of
this order of investigation ; as the anatomy
of the body does not seem to me more likely
to throw light on the philosophy of the
mind, than an analysis of the mind to throw
light on the physiology of the body. To
ascertain, indeed, the general laws of their
connection from facts established by observ-
ation or experiment, is a reasonable and
most interesting object of philosophical
curiosity ; and in this inquiry, (which was
long ago proposed and recommended by
Lord Bacon,) a knowledge of the constitu-
tion both of mind and body is indispensably
requisite ; but even here, if we wish to pro-
ceed on firm ground, the two classes of facts
must be kept completely distinct ; so that
neither of them may be warped or distorted
in consequence of theories suggested by
their supposed , relations or analogies.*
Thus, in many of the phenomena connected
with custom and habit, there is ample scope
for investigating general laws, both with
respect to our mental and our corporeal
frame ; but what light do we derive from
such information concerning this part of
our constitution as is contained in the fol.
lowing sentence of Locke 2–8% Habits seem
to be but trains of motion in the animal
spirits, which, once set a-going, continue in
the same steps they had been used to,
which, by often treading, are worn into a
* “Elements of the Philosophy of the Human
Mind,” pp. l I, 12. 2d edit. -
OF THOMAS REID, D.D.
19
smooth path.” In like manner, the laws
which regulate the connection between the
mind and our external organs, in the case
of perception, have furnished a very fertile
subject of examination to some of the best
of our modern philosophers; but how im-
potent does the genius of Newton itself
appear, when it attempts to shoot the gulf
which separates the sensible world and the
sentient principle ! “Is not the sensorium
of animals,” he asks in one of his queries,
“the place where the sentient substance is
present, and to which the sensible species
of things are brought through the nerves
and brain, that they may be perceived by
the mind present in that place P”
It ought to be remembered, also, that this
inquiry, with respect to the laws regulating
the connection between our bodily organiz-
ation, and the phenomena subjected to our
own consciousness, is but one particular
department of the philosophy of the mind;
and that there still remains a wide, and,
indeed, boundless region, where all our data
must be obtained from our own mental
operations. In examining, for instance, the
powers of judgment and reasoning, let any
person of sound understanding, after perus-
ing the observations of Bacon on the differ-
ent classes of our prejudices, or those of
Locke on the abuse of words, turn his atten-
tion to the speculations of some of our con-
temporary theorists, and he will at once
perceive the distinction between the two
modes of investigation which I wish at pre-
sent to contrast. “Reasoning,” says one
of the most ingenious and original of these,
“ is that operation of the sensorium by
which we excite two or many tribes of ideas,
and then re-excite the ideas in which they
differ or correspond. If we determine this
difference, it is called Judgment; if we in
vain endeavour to determine it, it is called
Doubting; if we re-excite the ideas in which
they differ, it is called Distinguishing; if
were-excite those in which they correspond,
it is called Comparing.” In what accept-
ation the word idea is to be understood in
the foregoing passage, may be learned from
the following definition of the same author :
—“The word idea has various meanings in
the writers of metaphysic: it is here used
simply for those notions of external things
which our organs of sense bring us ac-
quainted with originally; and is defined a
contraction, or motion, or configuration, of
the fibres which constitute the immediate
organ of sense.”f Mr Hume, who was less
of a physiologist than Dr Darwin, has made
use of a language by no means so theoretical
and arbitrary, but still widely removed from
the simplicity and precision essentially neces-
*-* -- --
* “ Zoonomia,” vol. i. p. 181, 3d edit.
+ Ibid., vol. i. pp. 11, 12.
sary in studies where everything depends
on the cautious use of terms. “Belief,”
according to him, is “a lively idea related
to or associated with a present impression;
Memory is the faculty by which we repeat
our impressions, so as that they retain a
considerable degree of their first vivacity,
and are somewhat intermediate betwixt an
idea and an impression.”
According to the views of Dr Reid, the
terms which express the simple powers of
the mind, are considered as unsusceptible
of definition or explanation ; the words,
Feeling, for example, Knowledge, Will,
Doubt, Belief, being, in this respect, on the
same footing with the words, Green or
Scarlet, Sweet or Bitter. To the names of
these mental operations, all men annex
some notions, more or less distinct; and
the only way of conveying to them notions
more correct, is by teaching them to ex-
ercise their own powers of reflection. The
definitions quoted from Hume and Darwin,
even if they were more unexceptionable in
point of phraseology, would, for these rea-
sons, be unphilosophical, as attempts to
simplify what is incapable of analysis; but,
as they are actually stated, they not only
envelope truth in mystery, but lay a found-
ation, at the very outset, for an erroneous
theory. It is worth while to add, that, of
the two theories in question, that of Darwin,
how inferior soever, in the estimation of
competent judges, as a philosophical work,
is by far the best calculated to impose on
a very wide circle of readers, by the mix-
ture it exhibits of crude and visionary me-
taphysics, with those important facts and
conclusions which might be expected from
the talents and experience of such a writer,
in the present advanced state of medical
and physiological science. The questions
which have been hitherto confined to a few,
prepared for such discussions by habits of
philosophical study, are thus submitted to
the consideration, not only of the cultivated
and enlightened minds which adorn the
medical profession, but of the half-informed
multitude who follow the medical trade :
nor is it to be doubted, that many of these
will give the author credit, upon subjects of
which they feel themselves incompetent to
judge, for the same ability which he dis-
plays within their own professional sphere.
The hypothetical principles assumed by
Hume are intelligible to those only who are
familiarized to the language of the Schools;
and his ingenuity and elegance, captivating
as they are to men of taste and refinement,
possess slight attractions to the majority
of such as are most likely to be misled by
his conclusions.
After all, I do not apprehend that the
physiological theories concerning the mind,
which have made so much noise of late,
c 2
20
ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
will produce a very lasting impression.
The splendour of Dr Darwin’s accomplish-
ments could not fail to bestow a temporary
importance on whatever opinions were sanc-
tioned by his name ; as the chemical dis-
coveries which have immortalized that of
Priestley, have, for a while, recalled from
oblivion the reveries of Hartley. But, ab-
stracting from these accidental instances,
in which human reason seems to have held
a retrograde course, there has certainly been,
since the time of Des Cartes, a continual,
and, on the whole, a very remarkable ap-
proach to the inductive plan of studying
human nature. We may trace this in the
writings even of those who profess to con-
sider thought merely as an agitalion of the
brain—in the writings more particularly
of Hume and of Helvetius; both of whom,
although they may have occasionally ex-
preSBed themselves in an unguarded man-
ner concerning the nature of mind, have,
in their most useful and practical disquisi-
tions, been prevented, by their own good
sense, from blending any theory with re-
spect to the causes of the intellectual phe-
nomena with the history of facts, or the
investigation of general laws. The authors
who form the most conspicuous exceptions
to this gradual progress, consist chiefly of
men whose errors may be easily accounted
for, by the prejudices connected with their
circumscribed habits of observation and
inquiry : of physiologists, accustomed to
attend to that part alone of the human
frame which the knife of the anatomist
can lay open ; or of chemists, who enter on
the analysis of thought, fresh from the
decompositions of the laboratory—carrying
into the theory of mind itself (what Bacon
expressively calls) “ the smoke and tarnish
of the furnace.” Of the value of such pur-
suits, none can think more highly than
myself; but I must be allowed to observe,
that the most distinguished pre-eminence
in them does not necessarily imply a capa-
city of collected and abstracted reflection,
or an understanding superior to the preju-
dices of early association, and the illusions
of popular language. I will not go so far
as Cicero, when he ascribes to those who
possess these advantages, a more than
ordinary vigour of intellect :—“Magni est
ingenii revocare mentem a sensibus, et cogita-
tionem a consuetudime abducert.” I would
only claim for them the merit of patient
and cautious research ; and would exact
from their antagonists the same qualifica-
tions.”
In offering these remarks, I have no
wish to exalt any one branch of useful
knowledge at the expense of another, but
to combat prejudices equally fatal to the
* Note D.
progress of them all. With the same view,
I cannot help taking notice of a prevailing,
but very mistaken idea, that the formation
of a hypothetical system is a stronger proof
of inventive genius than the patient in-
vestigation of Nature in the way of induc-
tion. To form a system, appears to the
young and inexperienced understanding, a
species of creation ; to ascend slowly to
general conclusions, from the observation
and comparison of particular facts, is to
comment servilely on the works of another.
No opinion, Surely, can be more ground-
less. To fix on a few principles, or even
on a single principle, as the foundation of a
theory; and, by an artful statement of Sup-
posed facts, aided by a dexterous use of
language, to give a plausible explanation,
by means of it, of an immense number of
phenomena, is within the reach of most
men whose talents have been a little exer-
cised among the subtilties of the schools:
whereas, to follow Nature through all her
varieties with a quick yet an exact eye—
to record faithfully what she exhibits, and
to record nothing more—to trace, annidst
the diversity of her operations, the simple
and comprehensive laws by which they are
regulated, and sometimes to guess at the
beneficent purposes to which they are sub-
servient—may be safely pronounced to be
the highest effort of a created intelligence.
And, accordingly, the number of ingenious
theorists has, in every age, been great ;
that of sound philosophers has been won-
derfully small ;-or, rather, they are only
beginning now to have a glimpse of their
way, in consequence of the combined lights
furnished by their predecessors.
Des Cartes aimed at a complete system
of physics, deduced ā priori from the abstract
suggestions of his own reason ; Newton as-
pired no higher than at a faithful “inter-
pretation of Nature,” in a few of the more
general laws which she presents to our no-
tice: and yet the intellectual power displayed
in the voluminous writings of the former
vanishes into nothing when compared with
what we may trace in a single page of the
latter. On this occasion, a remark of Lord
Bacon appears singularly apposite—that
“Alexander and Caesar, though they acted
without the aid of magic or prodigy, per-
formed exploits that are truly greater than
what fable reports of King Arthur or Ama-
dis de Gaul.”
I shall only add farther on this head,
that the last observation holds more strictly
with respect to the philosophy of the human
mind, than any other branch of science;
for there is no subject whatever on which
it is so easy to form theories calculated to
impose on the multitude ; and none where
the discovery of truth is attended with so
many difficulties. One great cause of this
OF THOMAS REID, D. D.
2]
is, the analogical or theoretical terms em-
ployed in ordinary language to express every
thing relating either to our intellectual or
active powers; in consequence of which,
Specious explanations of the most mysteri-
ous phenomena may be given to superficial
inquirers; while, at the same time, the la-
bour of just investigation is increased to an
incalculable degree.
2. To allege that, in this circumscription
of the field of our inquiries concerning the
mind, there is any tendency to repress a
reasonable and philosophical curiosity, is a
charge no less unfounded than the former;
inasmuch as every physical inquiry concern-
ing the material world is circumscribed by
limits precisely analogous. In all our in-
vestigations, whatever their subject may be,
the business of philosophy is confined to a
reference of particular facts to other facts
more general; and our most successful re-
searches must at length terminate in some
law of nature, of which no explanation can
be given. In its application to Dr Reid’s
writings, this objection has, I think, been
more pointedly directed against his reason-
ings concerning the process of nature in
perception; a part of his writings which
(as it is of fundamental importance in his
general system) he has laboured with pecu-
liar care. The result is, indeed, by no means
flattering to the pride of those theorists who
profess to explain everything; for it amounts
to an acknowledgment that, after all the
lights which anatomy and physiology supply,
the information we obtain by means of our
senses, concerning the existence and the
qualities of matter, is no less incomprehen-
sible to our faculties than it appears to the
most illiterate peasant ; and that all we
have gained, is a more precise and complete
acquaintance with Some particulars in our
animal economy—highly interesting, indeed,
when regarded in their proper light, as ac-
cessions to our physical knowledge, but,
considered in connection with the philoso-
phy of the mind, affording only a more
accurate statement of the astonishing phe-
momena which we would vainly endeavour
to explain. This language has been charged,
but most unjustly and ignorantly, with mys-
ticism ; for the same charge may be brought,
with equal fairness, against all the most im-
portant discoveries in the sciences. It was,
in truth, the very objection urged against
Newton, when his adversaries contended,
that gravity was to be ranked with the occult
qualities of the schoolmen, till its mechanical
cause should be assigned ; and the answer
given to this objection, by Sir Isaac New-
ton's commentator, Mr Maclaurin, may be
literally applied, in the instance before us.
to the inductive philosophy of the human
mind :-
“The opponents of Newton, finding no-
thing to object to his observations and reason-
ings, pretended to find a resemblance between
his doctrines and the exploded tenets of the
scholastic philosophy. They triumphed
mightily in treating gravity as an occult
quality, because he did not pretend to de-
duce this principle fully from its cause. .
tº I know not that ever it was made
an objection to the circulation of the blood,
that there is no small difficulty in account-
ing for it mechanically. They, too, who
first extended gravity to air, vapour, and to
all bodies round the earth, had their praise;
though the cause of gravity was as obscure
as before ; or rather appeared more myste-
terious, after they had shewn that there
was no body found near the earth, exempt
from gravity, that might be supposed to be
its cause. Why, then, were his admirable
discoveries, by which this principle was ex-
tended over the universe, so ill relished-
by some philosophers ? The truth is, he
had, with great evidence, overthrown the
boasted schemes by which they pretended
to unravel all the mysteries of nature; and
the philosophy he introduced in place of
them, carrying with it a sincere confession
of our being far from a complete and perfect
knowledge of it, could not please those who
had been accustomed to imagine themselves
possessed of the eternal reasons and primary
causes of all things.
“It was, however, no new thing that
this philosophy should meet with opposition.
All the useful discoveries that were made in
former times, and particularly in the seven-
teenth century, had to struggle with the
prejudices of those who had accustomed
theniselves, not so much as to think but in
a certain systematic way; who could not be
prevailed on to abandon their favourite
schemes, while they were able to imagine
the least pretext for continuing the dispute.
Every art and talent was displayed to sup-
port their falling cause ; no aid seemed
foreign to them that could in any manner
annoy their adversary; and such often was
their obstinacy, that truth was able to make
little progress, till they were succeeded by
younger persons, who had not so strongly
imbibed their prejudices.”
These excellent observations are not the
less applicable to the subject now under
consideration, that the part of Dr Reid's
writings which suggested the quotation,
leads only to the correction of an inveterate
prejudice, not to any new general conclu-
sion. It is probable, indeed, (now that the
ideal theory has, in a great measure, dis-
appeared from our late metaphysical sys-
tems,) that those who have a pleasure in
detracting from the merits of their prede-
cessors, may be disposed to represent it as
an idle waste of labour and ingenuity to have
entered into a serious refutation of a hypo-
22.
ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
thesis at once gratuitous and inconceivable.
A different judgment, however, will be
formed by such as are acquainted with the
extensive influence which, from the ear-
liest accounts of science, this single preju-
dice has had in vitiating almost every
branch of the philosophy of the mind; and
who, at the same time, recollect the names
of the illustrious men by whom, in more
modern times, it has been adopted as an
incontrovertible principle. It is sufficient
for me to mention those of Berkeley, Hume,
Locke, Clarke, and Newton. To the two
first of these, it has served as the basis of
their sceptical conclusions, which seem, in-
deed, to follow from it as necessary conse-
quences; while the others repeatedly refer
to it in their reasonings, as one of those
facts concerning the mind of which it
would be equally superfluous to attempt a
proof or a refutation.
I have enlarged on this part of Dr
Reid’s writings the more fully, as he was
himself disposed, on all occasions, to rest
upon it his chief merit as an author. In
proof of this, I shall transcribe a few sen-
tences from a letter of his to Dr Gregory,
dated 20th August 1790:—
“It would be want of candour not to
own that I think there is some merit in
what you are pleased to call my Philoso-
phy; but I think it lies 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 uni-
versally 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 ear-
nestly, to make no contrast in my favour
to the disparagement of my predecessors
in the same pursuit. 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 writ-
ings, I never could have wrote or thought
what I have done.”
3. Somewhat connected with the last
objection, are the censures which have been
so frequently bestowed on Dr Reid, for an
unnecessary and unsystematical multiplica-
tion of original or instinctive principles.
In reply to these censures, I have little
to add to what I have remarked on the
same topic, in the “ Philosophy of the
Human Mind.” That the fault which is
thus ascribed to Dr Reid has been really
committed by some ingenious writers in
this part of the island, I most readily allow ;
nor will I take upon me to assert that he
has, in no instance, fallen into it himself.
Such instances, however, will be found, on
an accurate examination of his works, to
be comparatively few, and to bear a very
trifling proportion to those in which he has,
most successfully and decisively displayed
his acuteness in exposing the premature
and flimsy generalizations of his prede-
CeSSOPS.
A certain degree of leaning to that ex-
treme to which Dr Reid seems to have
inclined, was, at the time when he wrote,
much safer than the opposite bias. From
the earliest ages, the sciences in general,
and more particularly the science of the
human mind, have been vitiated by an
undue love of simplicity; and, in the course
of the last century, this disposition, after
having been long displayed in subtle theo-
ries concerning the active powers, or the
principles of human conduct, has been
directed to similar refinements with respect
to the faculties of the understanding, aud
the truths with which they are conversant.
Mr Hume himself has coincided so far with
the Hartleian school, as to represent the
“principle of union and cohesion among
our simple ideas as a kind of attraction, of
as universal application in the mental
world as in the natural ;” and Dr Hartley,
with a still more Sanguine imagination,
looked forward to an era “when future
generations shall put all kinds of evidences
and inquiries into mathematical forms;
reducing Aristotle's ten categories, and
Bishop Wilkin's forty summa genera, to
the head of quantity alone, so as to make
mathematics and logic, natural history and
civil history, natural philosophy and philo-
sophy of all other kinds, coincide, omni ea.
parte.”-i-
It is needless to remark the obvious ten-
dency of such premature generalizations,
to withdraw the attention from the study of
particular phenomena; while the effect of
Reid's mode of philosophizing, even in
those instances where it is carried to an ex-
cess, is to detain us, in this preliminary
step, a little longer than is absolutely ne-
cessary. The truth is, that, when the
phenomena are once ascertained, generaliz-
ation is here of comparatively little value,
and a task of far less difficulty than to
observe facts with precision, and to record
them with fairness.
s “Treatise of Human Nature,” vol. i. p. 30.
+ Hartley “On Man," p. 207, 4to edit, London,
1791.
OF THOMAS REID, D.D.
23
In no part of Dr Reid's writings, I am
inclined to think, could more plausible criti-
cisms be made on this ground, than in his
classification of our active principles: but,
even there, the facts are always placed
fully and distinctly before the reader. That
several of the benevolent affections which
he has stated as ultimate facts in our con-
stitution, might be analyzed into the same
general principle differently modified, ac-
cording to circumstances, there can, in my
opinion, be little doubt. This, however,
(as I have elsewhere observed,”) notwith-
standing the stress which has been some-
times laid upon it, is chiefly a question
of arrangement. Whether we suppose
these affections to be all ultimate facts, or
some of them to be resolvable into other
facts more general, they are equally to be
regarded as constituent parts of human
nature ; and, upon either supposition, we
have equal reason to admire the wisdom
with which that nature is adapted to the
situation in which it is placed. The laws
which regulate the acquired perceptions of
sight, are surely as much a part of our
frame as those which regulate any of our
original perceptions ; and, although they
require, for their developement, a certain
degree of experience and observation in
the individual, the uniformity of the result
shews that there is nothing arbitrary nor
accidental in their origin. In this point of
view, what can be more philosophical, as
well as beautiful, than the words of Mr
Ferguson, that “natural affection springs
up in the soul of the mother, as the milk
springs in her breast, to furnish nourish-
ment to her child !” “The effect is here
to the race,” as the same author has excel-
lently observed, “what the vital motion of
the heart is to the individual; too neces-
sary to the preservation of nature's works,
to be intrusted to the precarious will or
intention of those most nearly concerned.”-f
The question, indeed, concerning the
origin of our different affections, leads to
some curious analytical disquisitions; but
is of very subordinate importance to those
inquiries which relate to their laws, and
uses, and mutual references. In many
ethical systems, however, it seems to have
been considered as the most interesting
subject of disquisition which this wonder-
ful part of our frame presents.
In Dr Reid’s “Essays on the Intellec-
tual Powers of Man,” and in his “Inquiry
into the Human Mind,” I recollect little
• “ Outlines of Moral Philosophy,” pp. 79, 80,
2d edit. Edinburgh, 1801.
+ “Principles of Moral and Political Science,”
part I. chap. I. sect. 3. “Of the Principles of Society
in Human Nature.” The whole discussion unites, in
a singular degree, the soundest philosophy with the
most cloquent description.
that can justly incur a similar censure,
notwithstanding the ridicule which Dr
Priestley has attempted to throw on the
last of these performances, in his “Table
of Reid's Instinctive Principles.” To
examine all the articles enumerated in that
table, would require a greater latitude of
disquisition than the limits of this memoir
allow ; and, therefore, I shall confine my
observations to a few instances, where the
precipitancy of the general criticism seems
to me to admit of little dispute. In this
light I cannot help considering it, when
applied to those dispositions or determina-
tions of the mind to which Dr Reid has
given the names of the “Principle of
Credulity,” and the “Principle of Vera-
city.” How far these titles are happily
chosen, is a question of little moment ;
and on that point I am ready to make
every concession. I contend only for
what is essentially connected with the
objection which has given rise to these
remarks.
“That any man,” says Dr Priestley,
“should imagine that a peculiar instinctive
principle was necessary to explain our
giving credit to the relations of others,
appears to me, who have been used to see
things in a different light, very extraordi-
nary ; and yet this doctrine is advanced by
Dr Reid, and adopted by Dr Beattie. But
really,” he adds, “what the former says in
favour of it, is hardly deserving of the
slightest notice.”f
The passage quoted by Dr Priestley, in
justification of this very peremptory deci-
sion, is as follows:–“If credulity were the
effect of reasoning and experience, it must
grow up and gather strength in the same
proportion as reason and experience do.
But, if it is the gift of nature, it will be
the strongest in childhood, and limited and
restrained by experience ; and the most
superficial view of human life shews that
this last is the case, and not the first.”
To my own judgment, this argument of
Dr Reid's, when connected with the ex-
cellent illustrations which accompany it,
carries complete conviction; and I am con-
firmed in my opinion by finding, that Mr
Smith (a writer inferior to none in acute-
ness, and strongly disposed, by the peculiar
bent of his genius, to simplify, as far as
possible, the philosophy of human nature)
has, in the latest edition of his “ Theory
of Moral Sentiments,” acquiesced in this
very conclusion; urging in support of it
the same reasoning which Dr Priestley
affects to estimate so lightly. “There
seems to be in young children an instinctive
# Examination of Reid's “Inquiry,” &c. London
1774.
# Examination of Reid’s “ Inquiry,” &c., p. 82
24
ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE-AND WRITINGS
disposition to believe whatever they are
told. Nature seems to have judged it me-
cessary for their preservation that they
should, for some time at least, put implicit
confidence in those to whom the care of
their childhood, and of the earliest and
most necessary part of their education, is
intrusted. Their credulity, accordingly, is
excessive; and it requires long and much
experience of the falsehood of mankind to
reduce them to a reasonable degree of diffi-
dence and distrust.”* That Mr Smith’s
opinion also coincided with Dr Reid's, in
what he has stated concerning the principle
of veracity, appears evidently from the
remarks which immediately follow the pas-
sage just quoted. But I must not add to
the length of this memoir by unnecessary
citations.
Another instinctive principle mentioned
by Reid, is “our belief of the continuance
of the present course of nature.” “All our
knowledge of nature,” he observes, “be-
yond our original perceptions, is got by
experience, and consists in the interpreta-
tion of natural signs. The appearance of
the sign is followed by the belief of the
thing signified. Upon this principle of our
constitution, not only acquired perception,
but also inductive reasoning, and all rea-
soning from analogy, is grounded ; and,
therefore, for want of a better uame, we
shall beg leave to call it the inductive p in-
ciple. It is from the force of this principle
that we immediately assent to that axiom
upon which all our knowledge of nature is
built, that effects of the same kind must
have the same cause. Take away the
light of this inductive principle, and ex-
perience is as blind as a mole. She may
indeed feel what is present, and what im-
mediately touches her, but she sees nothing
that is either before or behind, upon the
right hand or upon the left, future or
past.”
On this doctrine, likewise, the same
critic has expressed himself with much
severity ; calling it “ a mere quibble ;”
and adding, “every step that I take among
this writer's sophisms, raises my astonish-
ment higher than before.” In this, how-
ever, as in many other instances, he has
been led to censure Dr Reid, not because
he was able to see farther than his antago-
nist, but because he did not sce quite so
far. Turgot, in an article inserted in the
French “Encyclopédie,” and Condorcet, in
a discourse prefixed to one of his mathe-
matical publications,t have, both of them,
stated the fact with a true philosophical
precision ; and, after doing so, have de-
* Smith’s “Theory,” last edit part VII, sect 1.
f." Essal sur l'application de l'analyse à la pro-
babilité des, decisions rendues a la pluralité des
vox " Paris, 1785.
duced from it an inference, not easy the
same in substance with that of Dr Reid,
but almost expressed in the same form of
words.
In these references, as well as in that
already made to Mr Smith’s “Theory,” I
would not be understood to lay any undue
stress on authority in a philosophical argu-
ment. I wish only—by contrasting the
modesty and caution resulting from habits
of profound thought, with that theoretical
intrepidity which a blindness to insuper-
able difficulties has a tendency to inspire—
to invite those whose prejudices against this
part of Reid’s system rest chiefly on the
great names to which they conceive it to
be hostile, to re-examine it with a little
more attention, before they pronounce
finally on its merits.
The prejudices which are apt to occur
against a mode of philosophizing so morti-
fying to scholastic arrogance, are encour-
aged greatly by that natural disposition, to
refer particular facts to general laws, which
is the foundation of all scientific arrange-
ment; a principle of the utmost importance
to our intellectual constitution, but which
requires the guidance of a sound and ex-
perienced understanding to accomplish the
purposes for which it was destined. They
are encouraged also, in no inconsiderable
degree, by the acknowledged success of
mathemat cians, in raising, on the basis of a
few simple daſa, the most magnificent, and,
at the same time, the most solid fabric of
science, of which human genius can boast.
The absurd references which logicians are
accustomed to make to Euclid's “Elements
of Geometry,” as a model which cannot be
too studiously copied, both in physics and
in morals, have contributed, in this as in a
variety of other instances, to mislead phi-
losophers from the study of facts, into the
false refinements of hypothetical theory.
On these misapplications of mathemati-
cal method to sciences which rest ulti-
mately on experiment and observation, I
shall take another opportunity of offering
some strictures. At present, it is suffi-
cient to remark the peculiar nature of the
truths about which pure or abstract mathe-
matics are conversant. As these truths
have all a necessary connection with each
other, (all of them resting ultimately on
those definitions or hypotheses which
are the principles of our reasoning,) the
beauty of the science cannot fail to increase
in proportion to the simplicity of the data,
compared with the incalculable variety of
consequences which they involve: and to
the simplifications and generalizations of
theory on such a subject, it is perhaps im-
possible to conceive any limit. How dif-
ferent is the case in those inquiries where
our first principles are not definitions but
OF THOMAS REID, D.D.
25
facts ; and wnere our business is not to
trace necessary connections, but the laws
which regulate the established order of the
universe !
In various attempts which have been
lately made, more especially on the Conti-
ment, towards a systematical exposition of
the elements of physics, the effects of the
mistake I am now censuring are extremely
remarkable. The happy use of mathema-
tical principles, exhibited in the writings
of Newton and his followers, having ren-
dered an extensive knowledge of them an
indispensable preparation for the study of
the mechanical philosophy, the early habits
of thought acquired in the former pursuit
are naturally transferred to the latter.
Hence the illogical and obscure manner in
which its elementary principles have fre-
quently been stated ; an attempt being
made to deduce, from the Smallest possible
number of data, the whole system of truths
which it comprehends. The analogy exist-
ing among some of the fundamental laws of
mechanics, bestows, in the opinion of the
multitude, an appearance of plausibility on
such attempts; and their obvious tendency
is to withdraw the attention from that unity
of design which it is the noblest employ-
ment of philosophy to illustrate, by dis-
guising it under the semblance of an eter-
mal and necessary order, similar to what
the mathematician delights to trace among
the mutual relations of quantities and
figures.
These slight hints may serve as a reply in
part to what Dr Priestley has suggested
with respect to the consequences likely to
follow, if the spirit of Reid’s philosophy
should be introduced into physics.” One
consequence would unquestionably be, a
careful separation between the principles
which we learn from experielice alone, and
those which are fairly resolvable, by ma-
thematical or physical reasoning, into other
facts still more general ; and, of course, a
correction of that false logic which, while
it throws an air of mystery over the plainest
and most undeniable facts, levels the study
of nature, in point of moral interest, with
the investigations of the geometer or of the
algebraist. &
It must not, however, be supposed, that,
in the present state of natural philosophy,
a false logic threatens the same dangerous
effects as in the philosophy of the mind.
It may retard somewhat the progress of the
student at his first outset ; or it may con-
found, in his apprehensions, the harmony
of systematical order with the consistency
and mutual dependency essential to a series
of mathematical theorems: but the funda-
mental truths of physics are now too well
* “Examination of Reid's Inquiry, p 10.
established, and the checks which it fur-
nishes against Sophistry are too numerous
and palpable, to admit the possibility of any
permanent error in our deductions. In the
philosophy of the mind, so difficult is the
acquisition of those habits of reflection
which can alone lead to a correct knowledge
of the intellectual phaenomena, that a faulty
hypothesis, if skilfully fortified by the im-
posing, though illusory strength of arbitrary
definitions and a systematical phraseology,
may maintain its ground for a succession
of ages.
It will not, I trust, be inferred from
anything I have here advanced, that I
mean to offer an apology for those who,
either in physics or morals, would pre-
Sumptuously state their own opinions with
respect to the laws of nature, as a bar
against future attempts to simplify and
generalize them still farther. To assert
that none of the mechanical explanations
yet given of gravitation are satisfactory,
and even to hint that ingenuity might be
more profitably employed than in the search
of such a theory, is something different from
a gratuitous assumption of ultimate facts in
physics; nor does it imply an obstinate de-
termination to resist legitimate evidence,
should some fortunate inquirer—contrary
to what seems probable at present—succeed
where the genius of Newton has failed. If
Dr Reid has gone farther than this in his
conclusions concerning the principles which
he calls original or instinctive, he has de-
parted from that guarded language in which
lie commonly expresses himself—for all that
it was of importance for him to conclude
was, that the theories of his predecessors
were, in these instances, exceptionable ;
and the doubts he may occasionally insinu-
ate, concerning the success of future adven-
turers, so far from betraying any overween-
ing confidence in his own understanding,
are an indirect tribute to the talents of those
from whose failure he draws an argument
against the possibility of their undertaking.
The same eagerness to simplify and to
generalize, which led Priestley to complain
of the number of Reid's instinctive prin-
ciples, has carried some later philosophers
a step farther. According to them, the
very word instinct is unplailosophical; and
everything, either in man or brute, which
has been hitherto referred to this mysteri-
ous source, may be easily accounted for by
experience or imitation. A few instances
in which this doctrine appears to have been
successfully verified, have been deemed
sufficient to establish it without any limit-
ation.
In a very original work, on which I have
already hazarded some criticisms, much in-
genuity has been employed in analyzing the
wonderful efforts which the human infant
26
ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WIRITINGS
is enabled to make for its own preservation
the moment after its introduction to the
light. Thus, it is observed that the fºlus,
while still in the uterus, learns to perform
the operation of swallowing; and also learns
to relieve itself, by a change of posture,
from the irksomeness of continued rest :
and, therefore, (if we admit these proposi-
tions,) we must conclude that some of the
actions which infants are vulgarly supposed
to perform in consequence of instincts coeval
with birth, are only a continuation of actions
to which they were determined at an earlier
period of their being. The remark is inge-
nious, and it may perhaps be just ; but it
does not prove that instinct is an unphiloso-
phical term ; nor does it render the opera-
tions of the infant less mysterious than they
seem to be on the common supposition.
How far soever the analysis, in such in-
stances, may be carried, we must at last
arrive at some phanomenon no less wonder-
ful than that we mean to explain : in other
words, we must still admit as an ultimate
fact, the existence of an original determina-
tion to a particular mode of action salutary
or necessary to the animal ; and all we
have accomplished is, to connect the origin
of this instinct with an earlier period in the
history of the human mind.
The same author has attempted to ac-
count, in a manner somewhat similar, for
the different degrees in which the young
of different animals are able, at the moment
of birth, to exert their bodily powers.
Thus, calves and chickens are able to walk
almost immediately ; while the human in-
fant, even in the most favourable situations,
is six or even twelve months old before he
can stand alone. For this Dr Darwin
assigns two causes. 1. That the young of
some animals come into the world in a more
complete state than that of others—the colt
and lamb, for example, enjoying, in this
respect, a striking advantage over the puppy
and the rabbit. 2. That the mode of walk-
ing of some animals, coincides more per-
fectly than that of others, with the previous
motions of the foetus in utero. The struggles
of all animals, he observes, in the womb,
must resemble their manner of swimming,
as by this kind of motion they can best
change their attitude in water. But the
swimming of the calf and of the chicken
resembles their ordinary movements on the
ground, which they have thus learned in
part to execute while concealed from our
observation ; whereas, the swimming of the
human infant differing totally from his
manner of walking, he has no opportunity
of acquiring the last of these arts till he is
exposed to our view. The theory is ex-
tremely plausible, and does honour to the
author's Sagacity; but it only places in a
new light that provident care which Nature
has taken of all her offspring in the infancy
of their existence. * .
Another instance may contribute towards
a more ample illustration of the same sub-
ject. A lamb, not many minutes after it
is dropped, proceeds to search for its nour-
ishment in that spot where alone it is to be
found; applying both its limbs and its eyes to
their respective offices. The peasant ob-
serves the fact, and gives the name of in-
stinct, or some corresponding term, to the
unknown principle by which the animal is
guided. On a more accurate examination
of circumstances, the philosopher finds
reason to conclude that it is by the sense
of smelling it is thus directed to its object.
In proof of this, among other curious facts,
the following has been quoted :—“On
dissecting,” says Galen, “a goat great
with young, I found a brisk embryon, and
having detached it from the matria, and
Snatching it away before it saw its dam, I
brought it into a room where there were
many vessels; some filled with wine, others
with oil, some with honey, others with
milk, or some other liquor; and in others
there were grains and fruits. We first ob-
served the young animal get upon its feet
and walk; then it shook itself, and after-
wards scratched its side with one of its
feet; them we saw it smelling to every one
of those things that were set in the room ;
and, when it had smelt to them all, it
drank up the milk.” Admitting this very
beautiful story to be true, (and, for my own
part, I am far from being disposed to ques-
tion its probability,) it only enables us to
state the fact with a little more precision,
in consequence of our having ascertained,
that it is to the sense of Smelling the in-
stinctive determination is attached. The
conclusion of the peasant is not here at
variance with that of the philosopher. It
differs only in this, that he expresses him-
self in those general terms which are suited
to his ignorance of the particular process
by which Nature, in this case, accomplishes
her end ; and, if he did otherwise, he
would be censurable for prejudging a ques-
tion of which he is incompetent to form an
accurate opinion.
The application of these illustrations to
some of Dr Reid's conclusions concerning
the instinctive principles of the human
mind, is, I flatter myself, sufficiently mani-
fest. They relate, indeed, to a subject
which differs, in various respects, from that
which has fallen under his more particular
consideration ; but the same rules of philo-
Sophizing will be found to apply equally to
both.
4. The criticisms which have been made
on what Dr Reid has written concerning
* Darwin, vol. i. pp. 195, 196.
OF THOMAS REID, D.D. 27
the intuitive truths which he distinguishes
by the title of “Principles of Common
Sense,” would require a more ample dis-
cussion than I can now bestow on them ;
not that the importance of these criticisms
(of such of them, at least, as I have happened
to meet with) demands a long or elaborate
refutation, but because the subject, accord-
ing to the view I wish to take of it, involves
some other questions of great moment and
difficulty, relative to the foundations of
human knowledge. Dr Priestley, the most
formidable of Dr Reid's antagonists, has
granted as much in favour of this doctrine
as it is worth while to contend for on the
present occasion. “Had these writers,”
he observes, with respect to Dr Reid and
his followers, “assumed, as the elements
of their CommonSense, certain truths which
are so plain that no man could doubt of
them, (without entering into the ground of
our assent to them,) their conduct would
have been liable to very little objection. All
that could have been said would have been,
that, without any necessity, they had made
an innovation in the received use of a term;
for no person ever denied that there are
self-evident truths, and that these must be
assumed as the foundation of all our reason-
ing. I never met with any person who did
not acknowledge this, or heard of any argu-
mentative treatise that did not go upon the
supposition of it.” After such an acknow-
ledgment, it is impossible to forbear asking,
(with Dr Campbell,) “What is the great
point which Dr Priestley would controvert 2
Is it, whether such self-evident truths shall
be denominated Principles of CommonSense,
or be distinguished by some other appella-
tion ?”+
That the doctrine in question has been,
in some publications, presented in a very
exceptionable form, I most readily allow ;
nor would I be understood to subscribe to
it implicitly, even as it appears in the works
of Dr Reid. It is but an act of justice to
him, however, to request that his opinions
may be judged of from his own works alone,
not from those of others who may have
happened to coincide with him in certain
tenets, or in certain modes of expression ;
and that, before any ridicule be attempted
on his conclusions concerning the authority
of Common Sense, his antagonists would
take the trouble to examine in what accept-
ation he has employed that phrase.
The truths which Dr Reid seems, in most
instances, disposed to refer to the judgment
of this tribunal, might, in my opinion, be
denominated more unexceptionably, “fun-
damental laws of human belief.” They
* “ Examination of Dr Reid's Inquiry,” &c. p.
| 19.
+ “ Philosophy of Rhetoric,” vol. i. p. lll ...—See
Note E.
have been called by a very ingenious fo-
reigner, (M. Trembley of Geneva,) but
certainly with a singular infelicity of lan-
guage, Préjugés Légitimes. Of this kind
are the following propositions:—“I am the
same person to-day that I was yesterday;”
“The material world has an existence in-
dependent of that of percipient beings;”
“There are other intelligent beings in the
universe beside myself;” “ The future
course of nature will resemble the past.”
Such truths no man but a philosopher ever
thinks of stating to himself in words; but
all our conduct and all our reasonings pro-
ceed on the supposition that they are admit-
ted. The belief of them is essential for the
preservation of our animal existence ; and
it is accordingly coeval with the first opera-
tions of the intellect.
One of the first writers who introduced
the phrase Common Sense into the tech-
nical or appropriate language of logic, was
Father Buffier, in a book entitled, “ Traité
des Premières Verités.” It has since been
adopted by several authors of note in this
country; particularly by Dr Reid, Dr. Os-
wald, and Dr Beattie ; by all of whom,
however, I am afraid, it must be confessed,
it has been occasionally employed without
a due attention to precision. The last of
these writers uses it” to denote that power
by which the mind perceives the truth of
any intuitive proposition ; whether it be an
axiom of abstract science ; or a statement
of some fact resting on the immediate inform-
ation of consciousness, of perception, or
of memory; or one of those fundamental
laws of belief which are implied in the ap-
plication of our faculties to the ordinary
business of life. The same extensive use
of the word may, I believe, be found in
the other authors just mentioned. But no
authority can justify such a laxity in the
employment of language in philosophical
discussions; for, if mathematical axioms be
(as they are, manifestly and indisputably)
a class of propositions essentially distinct
from the other kinds of intuitive truths
now described, why refer them all indis-
criminately to the same principle in our
constitution ? If this phrase, therefore, be
at all retained, precision requires that it
should be employed in a more limited ac-
ceptation; and, accordingly, in the works
under our consideration, it is appropriated
most frequently, though by no means uni-
formly, to that class of intuitive truths
which I have already called “fundamental
laws of belief.”+ When thus restricted,
it conveys a notion, unambiguous, at least,
* “Essay on Truth,” edition second, p. 40, et
seq.; also p. 166, et seq. &
# This seems to be nearly the meaning annexed to
the phrase, by the learned and acute author of “The
Philosophy of Rhetoric,” vol. i. p. 109, et seq.
28
ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
and definite ; and, consequently, the ques-
tion about its propriety or impropriety
turns entirely on the coincidence of this
definition with the meaning of the word as
employed in ordinary discourse. What-
ever objections, therefore, may be stated
to the expression as now defined, will
apply to it with additional force, when used
with the latitude which has been already
censured.
I have said that the question about the
propriety of the phrase Common Sense as
employed by philosophers, must be decided
by an appeal to general practice ; for,
although it be allowable, and even neces-
sary, for a philosopher to limit the accepta-
tion of words which are employed vaguely
in common discourse, it is always dangerous
to give to a word a scientific meaning
essentially distinct from that in which it is
usually understood. It has, at least, the
effect of misleading those who do not enter
deeply into the subject ; and of giving a
paradoxical appearance to doctrines which,
if expressed in more unexceptionable terms,
would be readily admitted.
It appears to me that this has actually
happened in the present instance. The
phrase Commou Sense, as it is generally
understood, is nearly synonymous with
mother-wit; denoting that degree of sagacity
(depending partly on original capacity, and
partly on personal experience and observa-
tion) which qualifies an individual for those
simple and essential occupations which all
men are called on to exercise habitually by
their common nature. In this acceptation,
it is opposed to those mental acquirements
which are derived from a regular education,
and from the study of books; and refers, not
to the speculative convictions of the under-
standing, but to that prudence and discretion
which are the foundation of successful con-
duct. Such is the idea which Pope annexes
to the word, when, speaking of good sense,
(which means only a more than ordinary
share of common sense,) he calls it—
“The gift of Heaven,
And, though no science, fairly worth the seven.”
To speak, accordingly, of appealing from
the conclusions of philosophy to common
sense, had the appearance, to title-page
readers, of appealing from the verdict of the
learned to the voice of the multitude ; or of
attempting to silence free discussion by a
reference to some arbitrary and undefinable
standard, distinct from any of the intel-
lectual powers hitherto enumerated by logi-
cians. Whatever countenance may be sup-
posed to have been given by some writers
to such an interpretation of this doctrine, I
may venture to assert that none is afforded
by the works of Dr Reid. The standard toº
which he appeals is neither the creed of a
particular sect, nor the inward light of
enthusiastic presumption, but that constitu-
tion of human nature without which all the
business of the world would immediately
cease ; and the substance of his argument
amounts merely to this, that those essential
laws of belief to which sceptics have
objected, when considered in connectiou
with our scientific reasonings, are implied in
every step we take as active beings; and if
called in question by any man in his prac-
tical concerns would expose him universally
to the charge of insanity.
In stating this important doctrine, it were
perhaps to be wished that the subject had
been treated with somewhat more of ana-
lytical accuracy; and it is certainly to be
regretted that a phrase should have been
employed, so well calculated by its ambiguity
to furnish a convenient handle to misre-
presentations; but, in the judgment of those
who have perused Dr Reid's writings with
an intelligent and candid attention, these
misrepresentations must recoil on their
authors ; while they who are really inter-
ested in the progress of useful science, will
be disposed rather to lend their aid in sup-
plying what is defective in his views than
to reject hastily a doctrine which aims, by
the developement of some logical principles
overlooked in the absurd systems which
have been borrowed from the schools, to win-
dicate the authority of truths intimately and
extensively connected with human happiness.
In the prosecution of my own speculations
on the human mind, I shall have occasion
to explain myself fully concerning this, as
well as various other questions connected
with the foundations of philosophical evi-
dence. The new doctrines and new phrase-
ology on that subject, which have lately
become fashionable among some metaphy-
sicians in Germany, and which, in my
opinion, have contributed not a little to
involve it in additional obscurity, are a
sufficient proof that this essential and funda-
mental article of logic is not as yet com-
pletely exhausted.
In order to bring the foregoing remarks
within some compass, I have found it
necessary to confine myself to such objec-
tions as strike at the root of Dr Reid’s
philosophy, without touching on any of his
opinions on particular topics, however im-
portant. I have been obliged also to com-
press what I have stated within narrower
limits than were perhaps consistent with
complete perspicuity ; and to reject many
illustrations which crowded upon me at
almost every step of my progress.
It may not, perhaps, be superfluous to
add, that, supposing some of these objections
to possess more force than I have ascribed
to them in my reply, it will not therefore
follow, that little advantage is to be derived
OF THOMAS REID, D.D.
29
from a careful perusal of the speculations
against which they are directed. Even they
who dissent the most widely from Dr Reid's
conclusions, can scarcely fail to admit, that,
as a writer, he exhibits a striking contrast
to the most successful of his predecessors,
in a logical precision and simplicity of
language—his statement of facts being
neither vitiated by physiological hypothesis,
nor obscured by scholastic mystery. Who.
ever has reflected on the infinite importance,
in such inquiries, of a skilful use of words
as the essential instrument of thought,
must be aware of the influence which his
works are likely to have on the future pro-
gress of science, were they to produce no
other effect than a general imitation of his
mode of reasoning, and of his guarded
phraseology. -
• It is not, indeed, every reader to whom
these inquiries are accessible ; for habits of
attention in general, and still more habits
of attention to the phanomena of thought,
require early and careful cultivation ; but
those who are capable of the exertion will
soon recognise, in Dr Reid's statements,
the faithful history of their own minds, and
will find their labours annply rewarded by
that satisfaction which always accompanies
the discovery of useful truth. They may
expect, also, to be rewarded by some intel-
lectual acquisitions not altogether useless in
their other studies. An author well quali-
fied to judge, from his own experience, of
whatever conduces to invigorate or to em-
bellish the understanding, has beautifully
remarked, that “by turning the soul inward
on itself, its forces are concentrated, and are
fitted for stronger and bolder flights of
science; and that, in such pursuits, whether
we take, or whether we lose the game, the
chase is certainly of service.” In this
respect, the philosophy of the mind (ab-
stracting entirely from that pre-eminence
which belongs to it in consequence of its
practical applications) may claim a distin-
guish"d rank among those preparatory dis-
ciplines which another writer, of no less
eminence, has happily compared to “the
crops which are raised, not for the sake of
the harvest, but to be ploughed in as a dress-
ing to the land.”-f
SECTION III.
CONCL Iſ SION OF THE N ARRATIVE.
THE three works to which the foregoing
remarks refer—together with the Essay on
Quantity, published in the “Philosophical
* Preface to Mr Burke’s “Essay on the Sublime
and Beautiful.”
+ Bishop Berkeley’s “Querist.”
Transactions of the Royal Society of Lon-
dom,” and a short but masterly Analysis
of Aristotle's Logic, which forms an ap-
pendix to the third volume of Lord Kames’
“Sketches”—comprehend the whole of Dr
Reid's publications.” The interval between
the dates of the first and last of these amounts
to no less than forty years, although he had
attained to the age of thirty-eight before he
ventured to appear as an author.
With the “Essays on the Active Powers
of Man,” he closed his literary career; but
he continued, notwithstanding, to prosecute
his studies with unabated ardour and activity.
The more modern improvements in chemis-
try attracted his particular notice ; and he
applied himself, with his wonted diligence
and success, to the study of its new doctrines
and new momenclature. He amused him-
self also, at times, in preparing, for a philo-
sophical society of which he was a member,
short essays on particular topics which
happened to interest his curiosity, and on
which he thought he might derive useful
hints from friendly discussion. The most
important of these were—“An Examination
of Priestley's Opinions concerning Matter
and Mind;” “Observations on the ‘Utopia’
of Sir Thomas More ;” and “Physiologi-
cal Reflections on Muscular Motion.” This
last essay appears to have been written in
the eighty-sixth year of his age, and was
read by the author to his associates, a few
months before his death. His “ thoughts
were led to the speculations it contains,”
(as he himself mentions in the conclusion,)
“by the experience of some of the effects
which old age produces on the muscular
motions.” “As they were occasioned,
therefore,” he adds, “by the infirmities of
age, they will, I hope, be heard with the
greater indulgence.”
Among the various occupations with
which he thus enlivened his retirement, the
mathematical pursuits of his earlier years
held a distinguished place. He delighted
to converse about them with his friends ;
and often exercised his skill in the investi-
gation of particular problems. His know-
ledge of ancient geometry had not probably
been, at any time, very extensive ; but he
had cultivated diligently those parts of
mathematical science which are Subservient
to the study of Sir Isaac Newton's works.
He had a predilection, more particularly,
for researches requiring the aid of arith-
metical calculation, in the practice of which
he possessed uncommon expertness and
address. I think I have sometimes ob-
served in him a slight and amiable vanity,
connected with this accomplishment.
* Reid's “History of the University of Glasgow,”
was published, after his death, in the “Statistical
Account of Scotland.” It is now, for the first time,
added to his other works.-H.
30
ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WEITINGS
The revival, at this period, of Dr Reid's
first scientific propensity, has often recalled
to me a favourite remark of Mr Smith's
—that of all the amusements of old age,
the most grateful and soothing is a renewal
of acquaintance with the favourite studies
and favourite authors of our youth ; a re-
mark which, in his own case, seemed to be
more particularly exemplified, while he was
re-perusing, with the enthusiasm of a stu-
dent, the tragic poets of ancient Greece.
I heard him, at least, repeat the observa-
tion more than once, while Sophocles or
Euripides lay open on his table.
In the case of Dr Reid, other motives
perhaps conspired with the influence of the
agreeable associations to which Mr Smith
probably alluded. His attention was always
fixed on the state of his intellectual facul-
ties; and for counteracting the effects of
time on these, mathematical studies seem
to be fitted in a peculiar degree. They are
fortunately, too, within the reach of many
individuals, after a decay of memory dis-
qualifies them for inquiries which involve
a multiplicity of details. Such detached
problems, more especially, as Dr Reid com-
monly selected for his consideration—pro-
blems where all the data are brought at once
under the eye, and where a connected train
of thinking is not to be carried on from
day to day—will be found, (as I have wit-
nessed with pleasure in several instances,)
by those who are capable of such a recrea-
tion, a valuable addition to the scanty re-
sources of a life protracted beyond the or-
dinary limit.
While he was thus enjoying an old age
happy in some respects beyond the usual
lot of humanity, his domestic comfort suf-
fered a deep and incurable wound by the
death of Mrs Reid. He had had the mis-
fortune, too, of surviving, for many years,
a numerous family of promising children :
four of whom (two sons and two daughters)
died after they attained to maturity. One
daughter only was left to him when he lost
his wife ; and of her affectionate good offices
he could not always avail himself, in con-
sequence of the attentions which her own
husband's infirmities required. Of this
lady, who is still alive, (the widow of
Patrick Carmichael, M. D.,") I shall have
occasion again to introduce the name, be-
fore I conclude this narrative.
gººms--8
# A learned and worthy physician, who, after a
long residence in Holland, where he practised medi-
cine, retired to Glasgow. He was a younger Son of
Professor Gerschom Carmichael, who published,
about the year 1720, an edition of Puffendorff, De
Officio H minis et Civis, and who is pronounced by
Dr Hutcheson, “by far the best commentator on
that book.” [Carmichael was Hutcheson's imme-
diate predecessor in the chair of Moral Philosophy in
the University of Glasgow, and may be regarded,
on good grounds, as the real founder of the Scottish
school of philosophy.—H.]
A short extract from a letter addressed
to myself by Dr Reid, not many weeks
after his wife's death, will, I am persuaded,
be acceptable to many, as an interesting
relic of the writer.
“By the loss of my bosom friend, with
whom I lived fifty-two years, I am brought
into a kind of new world, at a time of life
when old habits are not easily forgot, or new
ones acquired. But every world is God's
world, and I am thankful for the comforts
he has left me. Mrs Carmichael has now
the care of two old deaf men, and does every
thing in her power to please them ; and
both are very sensible of her goodness. I
have more health than, at my time of life,
I had any reason to expect. I walk about;
entertain myself with reading what I soon
forget; can converse with one person, if he
articulates distinctly, and is within ten
inches of my left ear; go to church, without
hearing one word of what is said. You
know I never had any pretensions to viva-
city, but I am still free from languor and
872,71,712.
“If you are weary of this detail, impute
it to the anxiety you express to know the
state of my health. I wish you may have
no more uneasiness at my age, being yours
most affectionately.”
About four years after this event, he
was prevailed on, by his friend and relation,
Dr Gregory, to pass a few weeks, during
the summer of 1796, at Edinburgh. He
was accompanied by Mrs Carmichael, who
lived with him in Dr Gregory's house ; a
situation which united under the same roof,
every advantage of medical care, of tender
attachment, and of philosophical inter-
course. As Dr Gregory's professional en-
gagements, however, necessarily interfered
much with his attentions to his guest, I
enjoyed more of Dr Reid's society than
might otherwise have fallen to my share.
T had the pleasure, accordingly, of spend-
ing some hours with him daily, and of
attending him in his walking excursions,
which frequently extended to the distance
of three or four miles. His faculties (ex-
cepting his memory, which was considerably
impaired) appeared as vigorous as ever;
and, although his deafness prevented him
from taking any share in general conversa-
tion, he was still able to enjoy the company
of a friend. Mr Playfair and myself were
both witnesses of the acuteness which he
displayed on one occasion, in detecting a
mistake, by no means obvious, in a manu-
script of his kinsman, David Gregory, on the
subject of “Prime and Ultimate Ratios.”
Nor had his temper suffered from the hand
of time, either in point of gentleness or of
gaiety. “Instead of repining at the en-
joyments of the young, he delighted in pro-
moting them ; and, after all the losses he
OF THOMAS REID, D.D.
3]
had sustained in his own family, he con-
tinued to treat children with such conde-
scension and benignity, that some very
young ones noticed the peculiar kindness
of his eye.” In apparent soundness and
activity of body, he resembled more a man
of sixty than of eighty-seven.
He returned to Glasgow in his usual
health and spirits; and continued, for some
weeks, to devote, as formerly, a regular por-
tion of his time to the exercise both of body
and of mind. It appears, from a letter of
Dr Cleghorn's to Dr Gregory, that he was
still able to work with his own hands in his
garden; and he was found by Dr Brown,
occupied in the solution of an algebraical
problem of considerable difficulty, in which,
after the labour of a day or two, he at last
Succeeded. It was in the course of the
same short interval, that he committed to
writing those particulars concerning his an-
cestors, which I have already mentioned.
This active and useful life was now, how-
ever, drawing to a conclusion. A violent
disorder attacked him about the end of
September ; but does not seem to have
occasioned much alarm to those about him,
till he was visited by Dr Cleghorn, who
Soon after communicated his apprehensions
in a letter to Dr Gregory. Among other
symptoms, he mentioned particularly “that
alteration of voice and features which,
though not easily described, is so well
known to all who have opportunities of
seeing life close.” Dr Reid's own opinion
of his case was probably the same with that
of his physician ; as he expressed to him on
his first visit his hope that he was “soon to
get his dismission.” After a severe struggle,
attended with repeated strokes of palsy, he
died on the 7th of October following. Dr
Gregory had the melancholy satisfaction of
visiting his venerable friend on his death-
bed, and of paying him this unavailing mark
of attachment before his powers of recol-
lection were entirely gone.
The only surviving descendant of Dr
Reid is Mrs Carmichael, a daughter worthy
in every respect of such a father—long the
chief comfort and support of his old age,
and his anxious nurse in his last moments...}
In point of bodily constitution, few men
have been more indebted to nature than Dr
Reid. His form was vigorous and athletic ;
and his muscular force (though he was
somewhat under the middle size) uncom-
monly great; advantages to which his habits
of temperance and exercise, and the un-
clouded serenity of his temper, did ample
justice. His countenance was strongly
expressive of deep and collected thought :
but, when brightened up by the face of a
friend, what chiefly caught the attention
was a look of good-will and of kindness. A
picture of him, for which he consented, at
the particular request of Dr Gregory, to sit
to Mr Raeburn, during his last visit to
Edinburgh, is generally and justly ranked
among the happiest performances of that
excellent artist. The medallion of Tassie,
also, for which he sat in the eighty-first
year of his age, presents a very perfect
resemblance.
I have little to add to what the foregoing
pages contain with respect to his character.
Its most prominent features were, intrepid
and inflexible rectitude, a pure and devoted
attachment to truth, and an entire com-
mand (acquired by the unwearied exertions
of a long life) over all his passions. Hence,
in those parts of his writings where his
Subject forces him to dispute the conclusions
of others, a scrupulous rejection of every
expression calculated to irritate those whom
he was anxious to convince ; and a spirit of
liberality and good-humour towards his
opponents, from which no asperity on their
part could provoke him for a moment to
deviate. The progress of useful knowledge,
more especially in what relates to human
nature and to human life, he believed to be
retarded rather than advanced by the in-
temperance of controversy ; and to be
secured most effectually when intrusted to
the slow but irresistible influence of sober
reasoning. That the argumentative talents
of the disputants might be improved by such
altercations, he was willing to allow ; but,
considered in their connection with the great
objects which all classes of writers profess
equally to have in view, he was convinced
“ that they have done more harm to the
practice, than they have done service to the
theory, of morality.’”
In private life, no man ever maintained,
more eminently or more uniformly, the
dignity of philosophy; combining with the
most amiable modesty and gentleness, the
noblest spirit of independence. The only
preferments which he ever enjoyed he owed
to the unsolicited favour of the two learned
bodies who successively adopted him into
their number ; and the respectable rank
which he supported in society was the well-
earned reward of his own academical la-
bours. The studies in which he delighted
were little calculated to draw on him the
patronage of the great; and he was un-
skilled in the art of courting advancement
by “fashioning his doctrines to the varying
hour.”
As a philosopher, his genius was more
* I have borrowed this sentence from a just and
elegant character of Dr Reid, which appeared, a few
days after his death, in one of the Glasgow journals.
I, had occasion frequently to verify the truth of the
observation during his visit to Edinburgh.
+ Note F.
* Preface to Pope’s “Essay on Man.”
32
ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
peculiarly characterised by a sound, cautious,
distinguishing judgment, by a singular
patience and perseverance of thought, and
by habits of the most fixed and concentrated
attention to his own mental operations;
endowments which, although not the most
splendid in the estimation of the multitude,
would seem entitled, from the history of
science, to rank among the rarest gifts of
the mind.
With these habits and powers, he united
(what does not always accompany them)
the curiosity of a naturalist, and the eye of
an observer ; and, accordingly, his inform-
ation about everything relating to physical
Science, and to the useful arts, was exten-
sive and accurate. His memory for his-
torical details was not so remarkable ; and
he used sometimes to regret the imperfect
degree in which he possessed this faculty.
I am inclined, however, to think, that, in
doing so, he underrated his natural advan-
tages; estimating the strength of memory,
as men commonly do, rather by the recol-
lection of particular facts, than by the pos-
session of those general conclusions, from a
subserviency to which such facts derive their
principal value.
Towards the close of life, indeed, his
memory was much less vigorous than the
other powers of his intellect ; in none of
which could I ever perceive any symptom
of decline. His ardour for knowledge, too,
remained unextinguished to the last ; and,
when cherished by the society of the young
and inquisitive, seemed even to increase
with his years. What is still more remark-
able, he retained, in extreme old age, all the
sympathetic tenderness and all the moral
sensibility of youth ; the liveliness of his
emotions, wherever the happiness of others
was concerned, forming an affecting con-
trast to his own unconquerable firmness
under the severest trials.
Nor was the sensibility which he retained
the selfish and sterile offspring of taste and
indolence. It was alive and active, wher-
ever he could command the means of re-
lieving the distresses or of adding to the
comforts of others ; and was often felt in its
effects, where he was unseen and unknown.
Among the various proofs of this which
have happened to fall under my own know-
ledge, I cannot help mentioning particularly
(upon the most unquestionable authority)
the secrecy with which he conveyed his
occasional benefactions to his former parish-
ioners at New-Machar, long after his esta:
blishment at Glasgow. One donation, in
particular, during the scarcity of 1782–
a donation which, notwithstanding all his
precautions, was distinctly traced to his
beneficence—might perhaps have been
thought disproportionate to his limited in-
come, had not his own simple and moderate
habits multiplied the resources of his
humanity.
His opinions on the most important sub-
jects are to be found in his works; and that
spirit of piety which animated every part
of his conduct forms the best comment on
their practical tendency. In the state in
which he found the philosophical world, he
believed that his talents could not be so
usefully employed as in combating the
schemes of those who aimed at the com-
plete subversion of religion, both natural
and revealed ; convinced, with Dr Clarke,
that, “as Christianity presupposes the
truth of Natural Religion, whatever tends
to discredit the latter must have a propor-
tionally greater effect in weakening the
authority of the former.” In his views of
both, he seems to have coincided nearly
with Bishop Butler, an author whom he
held in the highest estimation. A very-
careful abstract of the treatise entitled
“Analogy,” drawn up by Dr Reid, many
years ago, for his own use, still exists
among his manuscripts, ; and the short
“Dissertation on Virtue” which Butler has
annexed to that work, together with the
“Discourses on Human Nature” published
in his volume of Sermons, he used always
to recommend as the most satisfactory ac-
count that has yet appeared of the funda-
mental principles of Morals: nor could he
conceal his regret, that the profound philo-
sophy which these Discourses contain
should of late have been so generally sup-
planted in England by the speculations of
some other moralists, who, while they pro-
fess to idolize the memory of Locke,
“approve little or nothing in his writings,
but his errors.”-F
Deeply impressed, however, as he was
with his own principles, he possessed the
most perfect liberality towards all whom he
believed to be honestly and conscientiously
devoted to the search of truth. With one
very distinguished character, the late Lord
Kames, he lived in the most cordial and
affectionate friendship, notwithstanding the
avowed opposition of their sentiments on
some moral questions to which he attached
the greatest importance. Both of them,
however, were the friends of virtue and of
mankind; and both were able to temper the
warmth of free discussion with the for-
bearance and good humour founded on re-
ciprocal esteem. No two men, certainly,
ever exhibited a more striking contrast in
their conversation, or in their constitutional
tempers:—the one, slow and cautious in
* Collection of Papers which passed between Leib-
nitz and Clarke. See lyr Clarke’s Dedication.
# I have adopted here, the words which Dr Clarke
applied to some of Mr Locke's earlier followers.
They are still more applicable to many writers of the
present times See Clarke's First Reply to Leib-
l] iſ 2,
OF THOMAS REID, D.D.
33
his decisions, even on those topics which
he had most diligently studied; reserved
and silent in promiscuous Society; and re-
taining, after all his literary eminence, the
same simple and unassuming manners which
he brought from his country residence :
the other, lively, rapid, and communicative;
accustomed, by his professional pursuits,
to wield with address the weapons of con-
troversy, and not averse to a trial of his
powers on questions the most foreign to his
ordinary habits of inquiry. But these cha-
racteristical differences, while to their com-
mon friends they lent an additional charm
to the distinguishing merits of each, served
only to enliven their social intercourse, and
to cement their mutual attachment.
I recollect few, if any anecdotes of Dr
Reid, which appear to me calculated to
throw additional light on his character;
and I suspect strongly, that many of those
which are to be met with in biographical
publications are more likely to mislead
than to inform. A trifling incident, it is
true, may sometimes paint a peculiar fea-
ture better than the most elaborate descrip-
tion ; but a selection of incidents really
characteristical, presupposes, in the ob-
server, a rare capacity to discriminate and
to generalize; and where this capacity is
wanting, a biographer, with the most scru-
pulous attention to the veracity of his de-
tails, may yet convey a very false concep-
tion of the individual he would describe.
As, in the present instance, my subject
afforded no materials for such a choice, I
have attempted, to the best of my abilities,
(instead of retailing detached fragments of
conversations, or recording insulated and
unmeaning occurrences,) to communicate
to others the general impressions which Dr
Reid's character has left on my own mind.
In this attempt I am far from being confi-
dent that I have succeeded; but, how barren
soever I may have thus rendered my pages
in the estimation of those who consider
biography merely in the light of an amusing
tale, I have, at least, the satisfaction to
think, that my picture, though faint in the
colouring, does not present a distorted re-
semblance of the original.
The confidential correspondence of an
individual with his friends, affords to the
student of human nature, materials of far
greater authenticity and importance; more
particularly, the correspondence of a man
like Dr Reid, who will not be suspected by
those who knew him, of accommodating his
letters (as has been alleged of Cicero) to
the humours and principles of those whom
he addressed. I am far, at the same time,
from thinking that the correspondence of
Dr Reid would be generally interesting ;
or even that he excelled in this species of
writing : but few men, I sincerely believe,
who have written so much, have left be-
hind them such unblemished memorials of
their virtue.
At present, I shall only transcribe two
letters, which I select from a considerable
number now lying before me, as they seem
to accord, more than the others, with the
eneral design of this Memoir. The first
#. is dated January 13, 1779) is ad-
dressed to the Rev. William Gregory,
(now Rector of St Andrew's, Canterbury,)
then an undergraduate in Balliol College,
Oxford. It relates to a remarkable pecu-
liarity in Dr Reid’s physical temperament,
connected with the subject of dreaming ;
and is farther interesting as a genuine re-
cord of some particulars in his early habits,
in which it is easy to perceive the openings
of a superior mind.
“The fact which your brother the Doctor
desires to be informed of, was as you men-
tion it. As far as I remember the circum-
stances, they were as follow :—
“About the age of fourteen, I was, almost
every night, unhappy in my sleep, from
frightful dreams: sometimes hanging over
a dreadful precipice, and just ready to drop
down; sometimes pursued for my life, and
stopped by a wall, or by a sudden loss of
all strength ; sometimes ready to be de-
voured by a wild beast. How long I was
plagued with such dreams, I do not now
recollect. I believe it was for a year or
two at least ; and I think they had quite
left me before I was fifteen. In those days,
I was much given to what Mr Addison, in
one of his “Spectators,” calls castle-build-
ing ; and, in my evening solitary walk, which
was generally all the exercise I took, my
thoughts would hurry me into some active
scene, where I generally acquitted myself
much to my own satisfaction ; and in these
scenes of imagination I performed many a
gallant exploit. At the same time, in my
dreams I found myself the most arrant
coward that ever was. Not only my cour-
age, but my strength failed me in every
danger; and I often rose from my bed in
the morning in such a panic that it took
some time to get the better of it. I wished
very much to get free of these uneasy
dreams, which not only made me unhappy
in sleep, but often left a disagreeable m-
pression in my mind for some part of the
following day. I thought it was worth
trying whether it was possible to recollect
that it was all a dream, and that I was in
no real danger. I often went to sleep with
my mind as strongly impressed as I could
with this thought, that I never in my life-
time was in any real danger, and that every
fright I had was a dream. After many
fruitless endeavours to recollect this when
the danger appeared I effected it at 'ast,
and have often, when I was sliding over a
D
34
ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGs
precipice into the abyss, recollected that it
was all a dream, and boldly jumped down.
The effect of this commonly was, that I
immediately awoke. But I awoke calm
and intrepid, which I thought a great ac-
quisition. After this, my dreams were
never very uneasy ; and, in a short time, I
dreamed not at all.
“During all this time I was in perfect
health ; but whether my ceasing to dream
was the effect of the recollection above
mentioned, or of any change in the habit
of my body, which is usual about that
period of life, I cannot tell. I think it may
more probably be imputed to the last.
However, the fact was, that, for at least
forty years after, I dreamed none, to the
best of my remembrance ; and finding, from
the testimony of others, that this is some-
what uncommon, I have often, as soon as
I awoke, endeavoured to recollect, without
being able to recollect, anything that passed
in my sleep. For some years past, I can
sometimes recollect some kind of dreaming
thoughts, but so incoherent that I can
make nothing of them.
“The only distinct dream I ever had
since I was about sixteen, as far as I
remember, was about two years ago. I
had got my head blistered for a fall. A
plaster, which was put upon it after the
blister, pained me excessively for a whole
night. In the morning Islept a little, and
dreamed, very distinctly, that I had fallen
into the hands of a party of Indians, and
was scalped.
“I am apt to think that, as there is a
state of sleep, and a state wherein we are
awake, so there is an intermediate state,
which partakes of the other two. If a
man peremptorily resolves to rise at an
early hour for some interesting purpose, he
will of himself awake at that hour. A sick-
nurse gets the habit of sleeping in such a
manner that she hears the least whisper of
the sick person, and yet is refreshed by
this kind of half sleep. The same is the
case of a nurse who sleeps with a child in
her arms. I have slept on horseback, but
So as to preserve my balance ; and, if the
horse stumbled, I could make the exertion
necessary for saving me from a fall, as if I
was awake.
“I hope the sciences at your good uni-
versity are not in this state. Yet, from so
many learned men, so much at their ease,
one would expect something more than we
hear of.”
For the other letter, I am indebted to
one of Dr Reid's most intimate friends, to
whom it was addressed, in the year 1784,
on , occasion of the melancholy event to
which it alludes.
“I sympathize with you very sincerely
in the loss of a most amiable wife. I judge
of your feelings by the impression she made
upon my own heart, on a very short ac-
quaintance. But all the blessings of this
world are transient and uncertain ; and it
would be but a melancholy scene if there
were no prospect of another.
“I have often had occasion to admire
the resignation and fortitude of young per-
sons, even of the weaker sex, in the views
of death, when their imagination is filled
with all the gay prospects which the world
presents at that period. I have been wit-
ness to instances of this kind, which I
thought truly heroic, and I hear Mrs G.
gave a remarkable one.
“To see the soul increase in vigour and
wisdom, and in every amiable quality, when
health, and strength, and animal spirits
decay—when it is to be torn by violence
from all that filled the imagination and
flattered hope—is a spectacle truly grand
and instructive to the surviving. To think
that the soul perishes in that fatal moment
when it is purified by this fiery trial, and
fitted for the noblest exertions in another
state, is an opinion which I cannot help
looking down upon with contempt and dis-
dain. --
“In old people, there is no more merit in
leaving this world with perfect acquiescence
than in rising from a feast after one is full.
When I have before me the prospect of the
infirmities, the distresses, and the peevish-
ness of old age, and when I have already
received more than my share of the good
things of this life, it would be ridiculous
indeed to be anxious about prolonging it ;
but, when I was four-and-twenty, to have
had no anxiety for its continuance, would,
I think, have required a noble effort. Such
efforts in those that are called to make them
surely shall not lose their reward.”
I have now finished all that the limits of
my plan permit me to offer here as a tribute
to the memory of this excellent person. In
the details which I have stated, both with
respect to his private life and his scientific
pursuits, I have dwelt chiefly on such cir-
cumstances as appeared to me most likely
to interest the readers of his works, by
illustrating his character as a man, and his
views as an author. Of his merits as an
instructor of youth, I have said but little ;
partly from a wish to avoid unnecessary
diffuseness, but chiefly from my anxiety to
enlarge on those still more important la-
bours of which he has bequeathed the fruits
to future ages. And yet, had he left no
such monument to perpetuate his name,
the fidelity and zeal with which he dis-
charged, during so long a period, the obscure
but momentous duties of his official station
would, in the judgment of the wise and
good, bave ranked him in the first order of
OF THOMAS REID, I). D.
3.j
useful citizens. “ Nec enim is solus rei-
publicae prodest, qui candidatos extrahit, et
tuetur reos, et de pace belloque censet ; sed
qui juventutem exhortatur; qui, in tantá
bonorum praeceptorum inopiá, virtute in-
struit animos ; qui, ad pecuniam luxuri-
amgue cursu ruentes prensat ac retrahit, et,
si nihil aliud, certe moratur: in privato,
publicum negotium agit.”
In concluding this memoir, I trust. I
shall be pardoned, if, for once, I give way
to a personal feeling, while I express the
satisfaction with which I now close, finally,
my attempts as a biographer. Those which
I have already made, were imposed on me
by the irresistible calls of duty and attach-
ment ; and, feeble as they are, when com-
pared with the magnitude of subjects so
splendid and so various, they have en-
croached deeply on that small portion of
literary leisure which indispensable engage-
ments allow me to command. I cannot,
at the same time, be insensible to the grati-
fication of having endeavoured to associate,
in some degree, my name with three of the
greatest which have adorned this age—
* Seneca, “ De Tranquill. A n.” cap. 3,
happy, if, without deviating intentionally
from truth, I may have succeeded, however
imperfectly, in my wish to gratify at once
the curiosity of the public, and to soothe the
recollections of surviving friends. But I,
too, have designs and enterprises of my
own ; and the execution of these (which,
alas ! swell in magnitude, as the time for
their accomplishment hastens to a period)
claims, at length, an undivided attention.
Yet I should not look back on the past
with regret, if I could indulge the hope,
that the facts which it has been my province
to record—by displaying those fair rewards
of extensive usefulness, and of permanent
fame, which talents and industry, when
worthily directed, cannot fail to secure—
may contribute, in one single instance, to
foster the proud and virtuous independence
of genius; or, amidst the gloom of poverty
and solitude, to gild the distant prospect of
the unfriended scholar, whose laurels are
now slowly ipeling. in the unnoticed pri-
vacy of humble life.
* On Reid's doctrines Mr Stewart has also some
valuable observations in his “ Dissertation on the Pro-
gress of Metaphysical and Ethical Philosophy.”—H.
N O T
NoTE A.—Page 4.
IN the account given in the text of Dr
Reid's ancestors, I have followed scrupu-
lously the information contained in his own
memorandums. I have some suspicion,
however, that he has committed a mistake
with respect to the name of the translator
of Buchanan's History; which would ap-
pear, from the MS. in Glasgow College, to
have been, not Adam, but John. At the
same time, as this last statement rests on
an authority altogether unknown, (being
written in a hand different from the rest of
the MS.,t) there is a possibility that Dr
* If another edition of this Memoir should ever
be, called for, I must request that the printer may
adhere to the plan which I myself have thought
advisable to adopt in the distribution of my notes.
A mistake which has been committed in a late edi.
tion of my Life of Dr Robertson, where a long
Appendix is broken down into foot-notes, will suf
ficiently account for this request to those who have
seen that publication.
# It is to the following purport :—“The Historie
of Scotland, first written in the Latin tungue by
that famous and learned man, George Buchanan,
and afterwards translated into the Scottishe tungué
by John. Read, Esquyar, brother to James Réad,
person of Banchory:Ternan, whyle he lived. They
both.ly intered in the parish church of that towne,
seated not farre from the banke of the river of Dee,
expecting the general resurrection, and the glorious
appearing of Jesus Christ, there Redimer.” The date
|E S. *
Reid's account may be correct ; and, there-
fore, I have thought it advisable, in a matter
of so very trifling consequence, to adhere to
it in preference to the other.
The following particulars with respect to
Thomas Reid may, perhaps, be acceptable
to some of my readers. They are copied
from Dempster, a contemporary writer ;
whose details concerning his countrymen, it
must, however, be confessed, are not always
to be implicitly relied on :-
“Thomas Reidus, Aberdomensis, pueri-
tia, meae et infantilis otii Sub Thoma Car-
gillo collega, Lovaniiliterasinschola Lipsii"
seriö didicit, quas magno nomine in Ger-
mania docuit, carus Principibus. Londini
diu in comitatu humanissimi ac clarissimi
viri, Fulconis Grevilli, Regii Consiliarii
Interioris et Angliae Proquaestoris, egit:
tum ad amicitiam Regis, eodem Fulcone
deducente, evectus, inter Palatinos admis-
of the transcript is 12th December 1634. ... Accord-
ing to Calderwood's MS. History of the Church of
Scotland, John Read was “servitor and writer to
Mr George Buchanan.” But this is not likely.-H.
* This is doubtful; for Sir Robert Aytoun, in the
account he gives of Reid's studies, makes no mention
of so remarkable a circumstance. Dempster possibly
confused Thomas Reid with Reid's friend, Sir Thomas
Seghet, amother learned and wandering Scotchman,
and a favourite pupil of “the Prince of Latin Let-
ters.”—H
D 2
36
ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
sus, a literis Latinis Regi fuit. Scripsit
multa, ut est magnâ indole et variä erudi-
tione,” &c. “Ex aula se, nemine conscio,
nuper proripuit, dum illi omnia festinati
honoris augmenta singuli ominarentur, nec
quid deinde egerit aut quo locorum se con-
tulerit quisquam indicare potuit. Multi
suspicabantur, taedio aulae affectum, mon-
asticae quieti seipsum tradidisse, Sub an-
num 1618. Rumor postea fuit in aulam
rediise, et meritissimis honoribus redditum,
sed nunquam id consequetur quod virtus
promeretur.”—Hist. Ecclesiastica Gentis
Scoforum, lib. xvi. p. 576.
What was the judgment of Thomas
Reid's own times with respect to his genius,
and what their hopes of his posthumous
fame, may be collected from an elegy on
his death by his learned countryman [Sir]
Robert Aytoun. Already, before the lapse
of two hundred years, some apology, alas !
may be thought necessary for an attempt to
rescue his name from total oblivion.
Aytoun's elegy on Reid is referred to in
terms very flattering both to its author and
to its subject, by the editor of the collec-
tion entitled, “Poétarum Scotorum Musae
Sacrae.” + “ In obitum Thomae Rheidi
[Rhaedil epicedium extat elegantissimum
Roberti Aytoni, viri literis ac dignitate
clarissimi, in Delitiis Poètarum Scotorum,
ubi et ipsius quoque poèmata, paucula qui-
dem illa, Sed venusta, Sed elegantia, com-
parent.”f
The only works of Alexander Reid of
which I have heard are “Chirurgical Lec-
tures on Tumors and Ulcers,” London,
1635; and a “Treatise of the First Part
of Chirurgerie,” London, 1638. He appears
to have been the physician and friend of
the celebrated mathematician Thomas
Harriot, of whose interesting history so
little was known till the recent discovery of
his manuscripts by Mr Zach of Saxe-Gotha.
A remarkable instance of the careless or
capricious orthography formerly so common
in writing proper names, occurs in the dif-
ferent individuals to whom this note refers.
Sometimes the family name is written–
Reid ; on other occasions, Riede, Read,
Rhead, or Rhaid.
NoTE B.—Page 4.
Dr Turnbull’s work on moral philosophy
was published at London in 1740. As I
have only turned over a few pages, I can-
not say anything with respect to its merits.
The mottoes on the title-page are curious,
when considered in connection with those
inquiries which his pupil afterwards prose-
cuted with so much success ; and may,
perhaps, without his perceiving it, have had
some effect in suggesting to him that plan
of plailosophizing which he so systemati-
cally and so happily pursued :-
“If natural philosophy, in all its parts,
# The well-known William Lauder.—H.
# I add the following brief notices, which I chance
to have, in regard to this elegant scholar and acute
philosopher. From Sir Robert Aytoun's Elegy,
it appears, that, after finishing his studies in Scot-
land, Reid proceeded to France. There, however,
he did not tarry; for, as Scottish-plºilosophers, were
then in high academical repute, he soon received a
call to Germany :-
— ‘‘ attraxit Germania philtro
Et precis et pretii.”
In that country, he taught philosophy and humane
letters for several years with distinguished reputation,
in the universities of Leipsic and Rostoch.
* Palladis in castris multa hic cum laude merentem,
Ft victa de Barbarie sciolisque sophistis
Ducentem insignes ſama victrice triumphos
Lipsia detinuit longum. Quis credidit illic
Se rite admissum in Phoebi sacraria, Rhaedo
Non pandente fores? Quis per dumeta Lycaei
Ausus iter tentare, nisi duce et auspice Rhaedo 2
Nec tibi fama minor qua Ralthica littora spectat
Rostochium, paucis istic tibi plurimus annis
Crevit honos, nullo non admirante profundae
Doctrinae aggestos tot in uno pectore acervos,
Felicemgue viani fandi, quocungue liberet
Ore loqui, quocinquc habitu producere partus
Mentis, et examimes scriptis animare papyros.”
While in Germany, he wrote the following treat-
ises, which display great philosophical talent:—
“Thomae Rhaedi, Scoti, De Objecto Metaphysicae
IDissertatio contra Henningum Arnisaeum. Ros-
tochii : 1613.” 4to.
“Thomae Rhaedi, Scoti, Pervigilia Metaphysica
desideratissima. Rostochii: 1613.” 4to.
I have likewise seen referred to, a System of Logic
by him, published at Rostoch; but in what year I
know not. Though the date of the earliest of the
preceding treatises be 1613, it appears that he was
at Rostoch before 1611, and that he then had pub-
lished a dissertation against Arnisaeus; to which
this philosopher in that year replied in his “Vindi-
cia secundum veritatem pro Aristotele et sanioribus
quibusque philosophis contra Thomae Rhaedi, Scoti,
Dissertationem elemchticam de subjecto Metaphysices
et natura Entis, asserta ab Henningo Arnisao, Hal-
berstadiensi. Francofurti : 161 l.” 4to.
At what date Reid returned to England, or when
he was appointed Latin Secretary to King James,
does not appear. I find, however, from Smith's
Life of Patrick Young, who was associated with
him in the translation into Latin of James's English
works, and who succecded him as Secretary, that
Reid died in 1624. There is also to be ſound in the
same Life (see “Vitae quorundam eruditissimorum
virorum,” &c.) the fragment of a Dissertation by
Reid—“ Quod Regibus et Licitum et Decorum sit
Scribere.” A considerable number of Reid's poems
are to be found in the “ Delitiae Poétarum Scoto-
rum ;” and his paraphrase of the 104th Psalm,
which is not among these, was published during his
life, with high encomium, by William Barclay in his
“Judicium de Poetico duello Eglisemmii.” The
writings which he left were, however, only occa-
sional and fugitive pieces—only indications of what
he would have accomplished had an early death liot
frustrated his great designs.
“Et tu Rhaede jaces opera inter manca, minasque
Scriptorum ingentes, queis si suprema fuisset
Cum lima porrecta manus, nom ulla fuisset
Calliopes toto Sophiaeve illustrior albo
Quam quas Rhaedeum praferret pagina momen.
Nunc ceu rapta tuis superant tantummodo bustis
Paucula furtivas schediasmata fusa per horas,
Qualiacunque tamen sunt ha-c, haec ipsa revincent
Esse Caledoniis etiamnum lumen alumnis
Et genium, quo vel Scoti Subtilis acumen,
Vel poterunt dulces Buchanani aequare Camoenas.”
Mr Stewart (p. 3) is misinformed in stating that
Reid published any collection of his Dissertations.—
OF THOMAS
REID, D.D. 37
by pursuing this method, shall, at length,
be perfected, the bounds of moral philoso-
phy will also be enlarged.”
Newton's Optics.
“Account for moral as for natural things.”
Pope.
For the opinion of a very competent
judge, with respect to the merits of the
“ Treatise on Ancient Painting,” vide
Hogarth's Print, entitled “Beer-Lane.”
NotE C.—Page 10.
“ Dr Moor combined,” &c.—James
Moor, LL.D., author of a very ingenious
fragment on Greek grammar, and of other
philological essays. He was also distin-
guished by a profound acquaintance with
ancient geometry. Dr Simson, an excel-
lent judge of his merits, both in literature
and science, has somewhere honoured him
with the following encomium :—“ Tum in
Mathesi, tum in Graecis Literis multum et
feliciter versatus.”
“The Wilsons,” (both father and son,)
&c.—Alexander Wilson, M.D., and
Patrick Wilson, Esq., well known over
Europe by their “Observations on the
Solar Spots,” and many other valuable
IIle II) Oll’S.
NoTE D.—Page 20.
A writer of great talents (after having
reproached Dr Reid with “a gross igno-
rance, disgraceful to the university of which
he was a member”) boasts of the trifling
expense of time and thought which it had
cost himself to overturn his philosophy.
“Dr Oswald is pleased to pay me a com-
pliment in saying, that ‘I might employ
myself to more advantage to the public, by
pursuing other branches of science, than by
deciding rashly on a subject which he sees
I have not studied.” In return to this
compliment, I shall not affront him, by
telling him how very little of my time this
business has hitherto taken up. If he
alludes to my ea periments, I can assure
him that I have lost no time at all; for,
having been intent upon such as require
the use of a burning lens, I believe I have
not lost one hour of sunshine on this
account. And the public may, perhaps, be
informed, some time or other, of what I
have been doing in the sun, as well as in
the shade.”–LPriestley's] “ Examination
of Reid's Inquiry,” &c., p. 357. See also
pp. 101, 102 of the same work.
NoTE E.–Page 27.
The following strictures on Dr Priestley's
“Examination,” &c., are copied from a
very judicious note in Dr Campbell's “Phi-
losophy of Rhetoric,” vol i. p. 3.
“I shall only subjoin two remarks
on this book. The first is, that the author,
through the whole, confounds two things
totally distinct—certain associations of ideas,
and certain judgmentsimplying belief,which,
though in some, are not in all cases, and,
therefore not necessarily connected with
association. And if so, merely to account
for the association is in no case to account
for the belief with which it is attended.
Nay, admitting his plea, (p. 86,) that, by
the principle of association, not only the
ideas, but the concomitant belief may be
accounted for, even this does not invalidate
the doctrine he impugns; for, let it be
observed, that it is one thing to assign a
cause, which, from the mechanism of our
nature, has given rise to a particular tenet
of belief, and another thing to produce a
reason by which the understanding has
been convinced. Now, unless this be done
as to the principles in question, they must
be considered as primary truths in respect
of the understanding, which never deduced
them from other truths, and which is under
a necessity, in all her moral reasonings, of
founding upon them. In fact, to give any
other account of our conviction of them, is
to confirm, instead of confuting the doctrine,
that, in all argumentation, they must be
regarded as primary truths, or truths which
reason never inferred through any medium,
from other truths previously perceived.
My second remark is, that, though this exa-
miner has, from Dr Reid, given us a cata-
logue of first principles, which he deems
unworthy of the honourable place assigned
them, he has nowhere thought proper to
give us a list of those self-evident truths
which, by his own account, and in his own
express words, “ must be assumed as the
foundation of all our reasoning.” How
much light might have been thrown upon
the subject by the contrast ! Perhaps we
should have been enabled, on the compari-
son, to discover some distinctive characters
in his genuine axioms, which would have
preserved us from the danger of confound-
ing them with their spurious ones. No-
thing is more evident than that,in whatever
regards matter of fact, the mathematical
axioms will not answer. These are purely
fitted for evolving the abstract relations of
uantity. This he in effect owns himself,
p. 39.) It would have been obliging, then,
and would have greatly contributed to
shorten the controversy, if he had given us,
at least, a specimen of those self-evident
38 ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF DR REID.
principles which, in his estimation, are the
own plus ultra of moral reasoning.”
NotE F.—Page 31.
Dr Reid's father, the Rev. Lewis Reid,
married, for his second wife, Janet, daughter
of Mr Fraser of Phopachy, in the county
of Inverness. A daughter of this marriage
is still alive; the wife of the Rev. Alex-
ander Leslie, and the mother of the Rev.
James Leslie, ministers of Fordoun. To
the latter of these gentlemen, I am indebted
for the greater part of the information I
have been able to collect with respect to Dr
Reid, previous to his removal to Glasgow—
Mr Leslie's regard for the memory of his
uncle having prompted him, not only to
transmit to me such particulars as had
fallen under his own knowledge, but some
valuable letters on the same subject, which
he procured from his relations and friends
in the north.
For all the members of this most respect-
able family, Dr Reid entertained the
strongest sentiments of affection and regard.
During several years before his death, a
daughter of Mrs Leslie's was a constant
inmate of his house, and added much to the
happiness of his small domestic circle.
Another daughter of Mr Lewis Reid was
married to the Reverend John Rose, min-
ister of Udny. She died in 1793.—In
this connection Dr Reid was no less fortu-
nate than in the former ; and to Mr Rose
I am indebted for favours of the same kind
with those which I have already acknow-
ledged from Mr Leslie.
The widow of Mr Lewis Reid died in
1798, in the eighty-seventh year of her age;
having survived her step-son, Dr Reid,
more than a year.
The limits within which I was obliged to
confine my biographical details, prevented
me from availing myself of many interest-
ing circumstances which were communi-
cated to me through the authentic channels
which I have now mentioned. But I can-
not omit this opportunity of returning to
my different correspondents, my warmest
acknowledgments for the pleasure and
instruction which I received from their
letters.
Mr Jardine, also, the learned Professor
of Logic in the University of Glasgow---a
gentleman who, for many years, lived in
habits of the most confidential intimacy
with Dr Reid and his family---is entitled to
my best thanks for his obliging attention to
various queries which I took the liberty to
propose to him, concerning the history of
our common friend. * ,
* The preceding sheets were set before I was
favoured with the following it,tercºting notices in sup.
plement of Mr Stewart's account of Reid's Life, by
Dr Knight, Professor of Natural Philosophy in
Mlarischal College, Aberdeen ; and, in consequence,
it has been found impossible to distribute them in the
proper places —H.
P. 3. It is probable that Thomas Reid had been
educated at Marischal College, where the teaching of
classes commenced immediately on its foundatio in
1593. In Wood's “Fasti Oxon.' (third or Pliss's
edition, I. 394,) is the following entry :—
“ 1620, May 28, Thomas Reid, (Rhaedus,) M.A.
of Aberdene in Scotland. Incorporated. He had
before been a student of this Universitic, and pub-
lished this year “Paraphrasis Psalmi civ.” Londou :
1620. 8vo. And about the same time, ‘Epist, au
Episcopum Roffensem,” in 8vo.”
Both Secretary Reid and his brother Alexander,
the physician, seem to have died in rather early life
from some expressions in their wills.
Secretary Reid’s transcript of King James VI's.
“Treatise on the Revelations,” is preserved in
Marischal College library. It is interleaved, has the
royal arms on the cover, and on the margins several
alterations in the well known hand-writing of that
Imonarch. ~ *
In his will, dated 19th May 1624, he designs him.
self “Secretary to his Majesty for the Latin Tongue.”
In Devon's “ Issues of the Exchequer, being pay-
ments made in the reign of James I., from the origi-
nal Records in the ancient Poll office,” (published
1836,) is the following entry:-
“To Thomas Reed, Gentleman, the sum of
&26: 9:4, in reward for the travail, charges, and
expenses of himself and others, employed in writing
and translating the book of his Majesty's works out
of English into Latin, by his Majesty's special com-
mandment, and for other his Highness's services, in
the month of October 1617,” &c.
The original catalogue of his library, which he be-
queathed to Marischal College, “for the love I bear
to the town of New Aberdeen, and wishing the new
college and schools thereof should flourish,” is still
extant amongst the town’s records. He had pur-
chased in his travels some of the best editions of the
classics and commentators upon them, which were
then to be obtained.
His brother Alexander, M D , (Stewart, p. 4,) dicci
in London about 1634. In 1630, he intimated to the
magistrates of Aberdeen his having bequeathed his
books and MSS., and funds for bursaries to the col-
lege; and, in a letter to them, (4th Oct. 1633,) he
transmitted £1 10 sterling for the latter purpose.
From a paper, dated in 1736, in Dr Thomas Reid’s
hand-writing, it appears that he had an intention of
being served heir to his direct progenitor, Robert, the
brother and heir of Secretary Reid in 1624, in order
to enable him to institute a suit with the magistrates
of Aberdeen, about their management of the fund
left by his ancestor for the librarian's salary, which
fund had been greatly dilapidated by them since
1677. This was, however, rendered unnecessary by
a decision of the Court of Session, which deprived
them of the patronage of that office, and restored it to
the persons in whom the Secretary's will had vested
it.
Dr Reid appears from the College records, to have
been in Dr G. Turnbull’s class, (as Mr Stewart men-
tions p. 4,) studying under him three sessions, and
becoming A. M. in 1726. He chtered college in 1722,
and was in the first Greek class taught by Dr Thomas
Blackwell, afterwards Principal, and celebrated, at
the time, for his strenuous attempts to revive the
study of the Greek language in the northern parts of
Scotland.
Dr Reid had entered into this plan with cnſhu-
siasm ; for his pupil and colleague, the late Professor
William Ogilvie, used to relate that he had heard
him recite to his class, demonstrations of leuclid in
the original language. --
The sermon which was preached by Mr John Bis-
set, on the day of modcrating a call for Dr Reid, (to
the parish of Now-Machar, near Aberdeen,) p. 5,
attracted much attention, and continued to be long a
favourite with the opponents of patronage.
P. 6. Immediately on Dr Reid’s appointment to
the place of one of the Regents of King's College, he
prevailed on his colleagues to make great improve-
ments in thcir system of University education. The
Session was cytended from five to seven months,
[ 39 j
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
--
THE following correspondence consists of three consecutive series.
The first, for which I am indebted to my friend, Alexander Thomson, Esq., of Ban-
chory, extends from 1764 to 1770, and contains letters by Reid, during the first six years
after his removal to Glasgow, to Dr Andrew Skene, and his son, Dr David Skene,
physicians in Aberdeen. This correspondence was terminated, by the death of the father,
in 1767, and of the son, in 1771. Both were highly eminent in their profession;
but the latter, who hardly reached the age of forty, was one of the most zealous culti-
vators of the natural sciences in Scotland, and the valued correspondent of Linnaeus,
Pennant, Lord Kames, and other distinguished contemporaries. These letters afford
what was perhaps wanting to Mr Stewart's portraiture of Reid—they shew us the philo-
sopher in all the unaffected simplicity of his character, and as he appeared to his friends
in the familiar intercourse of ordinary life. -
The second series comprises the letters addressed to Lord Kames, as given in Lord
Woodhouselee's Memoirs of the Life and Writings of that ingenious philosopher. They
extend from 1772 to 1782, and are chiefly of scientific interest.
The third series contains a selection from Reid’s letters to his kinsman, the late Dr
James Gregory, Professor of the Practice of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh.
Dr Gregory is known, not only as a distinguished physician, but as one of the most
elegant scholars and vigorous thinkers of his time. He was indeed a remarkable member
even of a family in which, for two centuries, talent would almost seem to have been
entailed. To Dr Gregory and Mr Dugald Stewart, Reid appropriately dedicated his prin-
cipal work—the “Essays on the Intellectual Powers.” The correspondence, which is of
varied interest, extends from 1783, and was only terminated by Reid's death in 1796.
I owe my best thanks to John Gregory, Esq., for the flattering manner in which he
placed these valuable letters at my disposal; but my friend Dr Alison is not the only
other member of the family for whose kindness I have also to express my obligation.—H.
A.—LETTERS TO DRS ANDREW AND DAVID SKENE.
I.
TO D R ANDREW SKENE.
Glasgow, Nov. 14th, 1764.
DEAR SIR,--I have been for a long time
wishing for as much leisure as to write
you, if it was only to revive the memory
of the many happy hours which I have
enjoyed in your company, when, téte-à-
tête, we sat down to speak freely of men
and things, without reserve and without
malignity. The time slipt away so smoothly,
humanity class was added, on a higher scale than had
been taught previously; and the teaching of the ele-
ments of Latin, by the Professor of Humanity, dis-
continued; some of the small bursaries were united;
and an account of these alterations was given to the
public in a small tract, published in 1751. Dr Reid
was in favour of one professor teaching the whole, or
the greater part of the curriculum, and therefore did
nct follow the plan of confining the professors to
Separate Uranches, as had been done in Glasgow since
1727, and in Marischal College since 1753. The plan
of a seven months' session, after a trial of five years,
was abandoned. -
that I could often have wished to have
clipt its wings. I dare not now be guilty
of any such agreeable irregularities; for I
must launch forth in the morning, so as to
be at the College (which is a walk of eight
minutes) half an hour after seven, when I
speak for an hour, without interruption, to
an audience of about a hundred. At eleven
I examine for an hour upon my morning
prelection ; but my audience is little more
than a third part of what it was in the
morning. In a week or two, I must, for
three days in the week, have a second pre-
lection at twelve, upon a different subject,
where my audience will be made up of those
who hear me in the morning, but do not
attend at eleven. My hearers commonly
attend my class two years at least. The
first session they attend the morning pre-
lection, and the hour of examination at
eleven ; the second and subsequent years
they attend the two prelections, but not the
hour of examination. They pay fees for
the first two years, and then they are civés
40
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
of that class, and may attend gratis as many
years as they please. Many attend the
Moral Philosophy class four or five years :
so that I have many preachers and students
of divinity and law of considerable stand-
ing, before whom I stand in awe to speak
without more preparation than I have
leisure for. I have a great inclination to
attend some of the professors here—several
of whom are very eminent in their way;
but I cannot find leisure. Much time is
consumed in our college meetings about
business, of which we have commonly four
or five in the week. We have a literary
society once a-week, consisting of the
Masters and two or three more ; where
each of the members has a discourse once
in the session. The Professors of Hu-
manity, Greek, Logic, and Natural Philo-
sophy, have as many hours as I have, some
of them more. All the other professors,
except one, teach at least one hour a-day ;
and we are no less than fourteen in num-
ber. The hours of the different professors
are different so far as can be, that the same
student may attend two or three, or per-
haps more, at the same time. Near a third
part of our students are Irish. Thirty
came over lately in one ship, besides three
that went to Edinburgh. We have a good
many English, and some foreigners. Many
of the Irish, as well as Scotch, are poor,
and come up late, to save money; so that
we are not yet fully conveened, although I
have been teaching ever since the 10th of
October. Those who pretend to know,
say that the number of students this
year, when fully conveened, will amount
to 300.
The Masters live in good habits with one
another, and manage their political differ-
ences with outward decency and good man-
ners, although with a good deal of intrigue
and secret caballing when there is an elec-
tion. I have met with perfect civility from
them all. By this time, I am sure you have
enough of the College; for you know as much
as I can tell you of the fine houses of the
Masters, of the Astronomical Observatory,
of Robin Fowlis' collection of pictures and
painting college, of the foundery for types
and printing house; therefore, I will carry
you home to my own house, which lyes
among the middle of the weavers, like the
Back Wynd in Aberdeen. You go through
a long, dark, abominably nasty entry, which
leads you into a clean little close. You walk
up stairs to a meat little dining-room, and
find as many other little rooms as just
accommodate my family so scantily that my
apartment is a closet of six feet by eight or
nine off the dining-room. To balance these
little inconveniences, the house is new and
free of buggs; it has the best air and the
finest prospect in Glasgow; the privilege of
a large garden, very airy, to walk in, which
is not so nicely kept but one may use free-
dom with it. A five minutes' walk leads us
up a rocky precipice into a large park, partly
planted with firs and partly open, which
overlooks the town and all the country
round, and gives a view of the windings of
the Clyde for a great way. The ancient
cathedral stands at the foot of the rock,
half of its height below you, and half above
you ; and, indeed, it is a very magnificent
ile.
p When we came here, the street we live
in (which is called the Drygate) was infested
with the smallpox, which were very mortal.
Two families in our neighbourhood lost all
their children, being three each. Little
David was seized with the infection, and
had a very great eruption both in his face
and over his whole body, which you will
believe would discompose his mother.
Although my salary here be much the
same as at Aberdeen, yet, if the class does
not fall off, nor my health, so as to disable me
from teaching, I believe I shall be able to
live as easily as at Aberdeen, notwithstand-
ing the difference of the expense of living
at the two places. I have touched about
£70 of fees, and may possibly make out the
hundred this session.
And now, sir, after I have given you so
full an account of my own state, spiritual
and temporal, how goes it with you ? Are
George and Molly minding their business 2
I know Kate will mind hers. Is Dr David
littering up your house more and more with
all the birds of the air, the beasts of the
field, and the clods of the valley P Or has
Walker, the botanist, been carrying him
about to visit vegetable patients, while you
are left to drudge among the animal ones 2
Is your head steady, or is it sometimes
[turning] round 2 I have a thousand ques-
tions to ask about our [country] people, but
I ought rather to put them to those who
have more time to answer them. I was
very sorry to hear, by a letter from Lady
Forbes, of Hatton's misfortune, and am left
in doubt whether the next account shall be
of his death or recovery. -
The common people here have a gloon
in their countenance, which I am at a loss
whether to ascribe to their religion or to the
air and climate. There is certainly more
of religion among the common people in
this town than in Aberdeen ; and, although
it has a gloomy, enthusiastical cast, yet I
think it makes them tame and sober. I
have not heard either of a house or of a
head broke, of a pocket picked, or of any
flagrant crime, since I came here. I have
not heard any swearing in the streets, nor
seen a man drunk, (excepting, inter mos, one
Prof r,) since I came here. If this scroll
LETTERS TO DRS
A. AND D. SKENE. 4]
tire you, impute it to this, that to-morrow
is to be employed in choosing a Rector, and
I can sleep till ten o'clock, which I shall
not do again for six weeks; and believe me
to be, with sincere friendship and regard,
dear Sir, yours,
THOMAS REID.
II.
TO DR DAVID SIXENE.
DEAR SIR,-We had a Turin Professor
of Medicine here lately, whom I wished you
acquainted with : Count Carburi is his
name ; an Athenian born, but has been
most of his time in Italy.” He seems to be
a great connoisseur in natural history, and
has seen all the best collections in Europe.
The Emperor and King of France, as well
as many persons in Italy, he says, have
much more compleat collections of our
Scotch fossils than any we have in Britain.
I described to him our Bennachie porphyry;
but he says all that they call porphyry in
Italy, consists of Small dark-coloured grains,
in a grey ground, and has very much the
same appearance as many of our granites,
before it is polished. He wanted much to
know whether we had any authentic evi-
dence from Ireland, or anywhere else, of
wood that had been seen in the state of
wood, and afterwards petrified. He would
have gone over to Ireland on purpose, if we
could have given him ground to expect this.
He says M.M. Buffon and Daubenton are
both positive that no such thing was ever
known, and that all the petrified wood dug
up on various parts of the earth—of which
Carburi says he has two waggon-loads, found
in Piedmont—has been petrified before our
earth put on its present form ; and that
there is no evidence of any such petrifica-
tion now going on. I have a strong inclin-
ation to attend the chymical lecture here
next winter ; but am afraid I shall not
have time. I have had but very imperfect
hints of Dr Black's theory of fire. He has
a strong apprehension that the phlogistick
principle is so far from adding to the weight
of bodies, by being joyned to them, that it
diminishes it ; and, on the contrary, by
taking the phlogistick from any body, you
make it heavier. He brings many experi-
ments to prove this : the calcination of
metals, and the decomposition of sulphur,
you will easily guess to be among the num-
ber ; but he is very modest and cautious in
his conclusions, and wants to have them
amply confirmed before he asserts them
positively. I am told that Black's theory
is not known at Edinburgh. Chemistry
* This was Count Marco, not Count Marino, Car-
buri; born at Cephalonia, and, from 1759 to 1808,
Professor of Chemistry in Padua.—H.
seems to be the only branch of philosophy
that can be said to be in a progressive state
here, although other branches are neither
ill taught nor ill studied. As Black is got
into a good deal of practice, it is to be feared
that his chymical inquiries must go on slowly
and heavily in time to come. I never con-
sidered Dollond’s telescopes till I came
here. I think they open a new field in op-
ticks which may greatly enrich that part of
philosophy. The laws of the refraction of
light seem to be very different, in different
kinds both of glass and of native chrystal. I
have seen a prism of Brazil pebble, which
forms two distinct speculums in Sir I. New-
ton's experiment, each of them containing
all the primary colours. A German native
chrystal seemed to me to form four or five.
One composition of glass separates the
different colours much more than another
composition, even with the same degree of
refraction. Dollond has made a fortune by
his telescopes, nobody elseliaving attempted
to imitate them, and is now, I am told,
grown lazy. Nor is the theory of them
prosecuted as it ought. Dollond’s micro-
meter is likewise a very fine instrument,
although not built upon anything new in
opticks. We have one of them here fitted to
a reflecting telescope of about 18 inches,
by which one may take the apparent diame-
ter of the sun, or of any planet, within a
second of a degree.
I find a variety of things here to amuse
me in the literary world, and want nothing
so much as my old friends, whose place I
cannot expect, at my time of life, to sup-
ply. I think the common people here and
in the neighbourhood greatly inferior to
the common people with you. They are
Boeotian in their understandings, fanatical
in their religion, and clownish in their dress
and manners. The clergy encourage this
fanaticism too much, and find it the only
way to popularity. I often hear a gospel
here which you know nothing about ; for
you neither hear it from the pulpit, Ilor
will you find it in the bible.
What is your Philosophical Society" do-
ing 2 Still battling about D. Hume 2 or
have you time to look in 2 I hope your
papa holds out in his usual way. I beg to
be remembered to him most affectionately,
and to all the rest of your family. But I
believe you do not like to be charged with
compliments, otherwise I would desire of
you likewise to remember me respectfully
to Sir Archibald Grant, Sir Arthur and
Lady Forbes, and others of my country
# The Philosophical Society to which Reid here
aludes was founded by himself and his relative, ºr
John Gregory. It was vulgarly styled, the Wise
Claub. Dr Uavid Skene, who is called by Sir W.
F, rbes “a physician of genius and taste,” was one
of its original members. See Forbes’s “Life of Beat-
tie,” i. 35.-Fl. - -
42
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
acquaintance, when you have occasion to
see them. I should be glad, too, to hear
from you, when leisure, and opportunity, and
the epistolary humour all meet together.
My folks are all pretty well, and beg their
compliments to you and all yours.—I am,
dear Sir, most affectionately, yours,
THOMAS REII).
Glasgow, 13 July 1765,
being the first warm day we
have had since the month of
May.
III.
TO DR, DAVID SIKEN.E.
Glasgow, 20 Dec. 1765.
DEAR SIR,-Your commissions have
been lying by me some time, for want of a
proper conveyance. An Aberdeen carrier
promised to call for them, but disappointed
me ; I therefore sent the two thermometers
wrapt up in paper, and directed for you
by Mr. Menzies, merchant in the Narrow
Wynd, who was to set out from hence yes-
terday morning. One has a circular bore
in the small tube, the other an elliptical
one, and is on that account much fitter for
experiments. As there is a much greater
quantity of quicksilver in the circular one,
it may take four or five minutes to bring it
to the temperature of a fluid in which it
is immersed. For mice experiments, some
of the elliptical ones are made by Dr Wil-
son with the bulb of the small tube naked.
But these are so liable to accidents that
few choose them. The perspective machine
goes to Edinburgh to-morrow with Dr Trail,
who will send it to my sisters to be sent you
by the first proper opportunity. &
Mr Watt has made two small improve-
ments of the steam-engine. The first is in
the iron bars which support the fire. These
have always been made of solid iron, and
burn away so fast by the great heat, that the
expense of repairing them comes to be very
considerable. He uses hollow square bars
of plate iron, always kept full of water,
which communicates with a pretty large
reservoir, so that the bars can never be
heated above the degree of boyling water,
and may be kept far below that degree of
heat. The other improvement is to pre-
vent the waste of heat by the chimney pipe
of the furnace. It is evident that a very
large proportion of the heat of the fire
passes off in this way without being applied
to the water in the boyler. To prevent
this, he makes three small chimney pipes
of iron, which are made to pass through the
boyler. He is just now employed in setting
up an engine for the Carron Company with
these improvements.
erto.
--!
Since I saw C. Carburi, I have it upon
good authority that there are petrifying
springs in England which petrify things
put into them in a short time. And a
gentleman here expects, in a short time, a
petrified periwig from one of them.
Dr Black tells me that Cramer's fur-
naces, both for essaying and melting, as
you have them described in his “Ars Doci-
mastica,” are the best he knows. His are
of this kind, being made of plate iron,
lined with a coat of a lute, which is com-
posed of one-part clay and three-parts fire-
sand, which, he says, never cracks. He
has not examined the Fechel earth, but con-
jectures it to be a composition of the same
kind with Prussian blue. He has seen a
horse's head, which, by being long buried in
a clay which had some mixture of iron, had
in several places taken a fine blue tinge, or
rather was covered with a fine blue dust.
I have attended Dr Black's lectures hith-
His doctrine of latent heat is the
only thing I have yet heard that is alto-
gether new. And, indeed, I look upon it
as a very important discovery. As Mr
Ogilvie attended him and took notes, I
believe he can give you a fuller account of
it than I can. It gives a great deal of light
to the phaenomena of heat that appear in
mixture, solution, and evaporation; but, as
far as I see, it gives no light to those which
appear in animal heat, inflammation, and
friction. I wish this discovery may not
reach any person who may be so ungene-
rous as to make it public before the Dr
has time to publish it himself. If the ac-
count which Ogilvie can give you should
suggest any doubts, I will be glad to clear
them, so far as my knowledge of this doc-
trine reaches.—I am very glad to hear that
Dr Hope has a prospect of raising the true
rhubarb. I believe I forgot to tell you that I
wrapped up a head of what I take to be the
daucus sylvestris, in a piece of paper, and
put it in the box with the drawing machine.
It grows in great plenty in the fields here ;
but I never saw it with you. I have not
met with any botanists here.
Our College is considerably more crowded
than it was last session. My class, indeed,
is much the same as last year; but all the
rest are better. I believe the number of
our students, of one kind or another, may
be between four and five hundred. But the
College of Edinburgh is increased this year
much more than we are. The Moral
Philosophy class there, is more than double
ours. The Professor, Ferguson, is, indeed,
as far as I can judge, a man of a noble spirit,
of very elegant manners, and has a very
uncommon flow of eloquence. I hear he is
about to publish, I don’t know under what
title, a natural history of man : exhibiting
a view of him in the savage state, and in
LETTERS TO DRS
A. AND D. SKENE. 43
the several successive states of pasturage,
agriculture, and commerce.
Your friend, the Cte. de Lauraguais,
was very full of you when he was here, and
shewed an anxiety that your merit should
be known. I am told that he has wrote
manythings in the Memoirs of the Academy;
but I know nobody here that has read them.
Our College Library is ten or twelve years
behind in the Memoirs of the Royal Aca-
demy; and all that the Cte. has wrote must
fall within that period. He seems to have
attached himself so entirely to chemistry
as to have neglected every other branch of
knowledge. Carburi was more universal;
he gave attention chiefly to the progress of
manufactures and commerce, and to col-
lect books and specimens of natural or artifi-
cial things. - .
Our society is not so harmonious as I
wish. Schemes of interest, pushed by some
and opposed by others, are like to divide us
into parties, and, perhaps, engage us in:
law-suits." When you see Mr W. Ogilvie,
please make my compliments to him. I
received his letter, and will write him when
I can find leisure. I hope your papa is
quite recovered of his cold, and that all the
rest of the family are in good health. Pray,
make my best compliments to him. Mrs
Reid, Pegie, and I, have all had a severe cold
and cough. I have been keeping the house
these two days, in order to get the better of
it.---I am, dear Sir,
Yours most affectionately,
THOMAS REID.
Ended, Dec. 30.
Wishing you many happy years.
IV.
TO DR, ANDREW SEKENE,
DEAR SIR,--I have been sometimes apt
to impute it to laziness, and sometimes to
hurry of business, that I have been so long
without writing you. I am ashamed to
plead the last of these excuses when I con-
sider how many people there are of my
acquaintance that have a great deal more
to do than I have, and would think all my
business but idleness. Yet, I assure you,
I can rarely find an hour which I am at
liberty to dispose of as I please. The most
disagreeable thing in the teaching part is to
have a great number of stupid Irish teagues
who attend classes for two or three years
to qualify them for teaching schools, or
being dissenting teachers. I preach to
these as St Francis did to the fishes.-- I
* See above, p 40, A, below, pp. 46, A, and 47, B.
All theory and all experience prove, that the worst
and the most corrupt depositaries of academical pa-
tronage are a self.elective body of professors.-H.
4. Not St Francis, but St Antony (of Padua.)—[J.
don't know what pleasure he had in his
audience ; but I should have none in mine
if there was not in it a mixture of reason-
able creatures. I confess I think there is
a smaller proportion of these in my class
this year than was the last, although the
number of the whole is not less. I have
long been of the opinion, that, in a right con-
stituted college, there ought to be two Pro-
fessors for each class—one for the dunces,
and another for those who have parts.
The province of the former would not be
the most agreeable, but, perhaps, it would
require the greatest talents, and, therefore,
ought to be accounted the post of honour.
There is no part of my time more disagree-
ably spent than that which is spent in
College meetings, of which we have often
five or six in a week. And I should have
been attending one this moment if a bad
cold I have got had not furnished me with
an excuse. These meetings are become
more disagreeable by an evil spirit of party
that seems to put us in a ferment, and, I
am afraid, will produce bad consequences.
The temper of our northern colonies
makes our mercantile people here look very
grave. Several of them are going to Lon-
don about this matter, to attend the pro-
ceedings of Parliament. It is said that the
effects in those colonies belonging to this
town amount to above £400,000 sterling. .
The mercantile people are for suspending
the stamp-act, and redressing the grievances
of the colonists. Others consider their
conduct as an open rebellion, and an avowed
claim to independence, which ought to be
checked in the beginning. They say that,
for all their boasting, the colonists are a das-
tardly, pusillanimous race, and that a Bri-
tish fleet and army would soon reduce them
to such terms as would secure their future
dependence upon the mother country; that
this is the most proper time for doing so
when we are at peace with all our neigh-
bours. In what light the House of Com-
mons will view this matter, I don’t know,
but it seems to be one of the most import-
ant matters that have come before them.
I wish often an evening with you, such as
we have enjoyed in the days of former
times, to settle the important affairs of
State and Church, of Colleges and Corpora-
tions. I have found this the best expedient
to enable me to think of them without
melancholy and chagrin. And I think all
that a man has to do in the world is to
keep his temper and to do his duty.
Mrs Reid is tolerably well just now, but is
often ailing. She desires to be remembered
to you and all your family.— I am, dear Sir,
Yours most affectionately,
THOMAS REID.
Glasgow. Dec. 30, 1765.
44
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
V.
TO DR DAVID SIKEN.E.
Glasgow, 23 March 1766.
DEAR SIR,--I had yours of the 14th,
and this moment that of Thursday the 20,
with the inclosed, a letter from your papa
by Mr Duguid, with your circular thermo-
meter. I returned the thermometer, re-
paired by Mr Annan, who left this two days
ago, but was to be a week at Edinburgh in
his return. I shall remember Sir Archi-
bald Grant's commission, but must take
some time to think of it. What would you
think of Alex. Mearns in Gordon's Hospi-
tal? If you are not acquainted with him,
you may learn his qualities, and tell me
your sentiments. I shall likewise mind your
elliptical thermometer. Mr Stewart's" death
affects me deeply. A sincere friendship,
begun at twelve years of age, and continued
to my time of life without any interruption,
cannot but give you some pangs. You
know his worth, yet it was shaded ever
since you knew him by too great abstraction
from the world. The former part of his life
was more amiable and more social, but the
whole was of a piece in virtue, candour, and
humanity. I have often regretted that the
solicitude of providing for a numerous family,
and the labour of managing an estate and a
farm, should make a man in a great measure
unknown, whose virtue, integrity, and judg-
ment ought to have shone in a more exten-
sive sphere. His scholars could not but
observe and revere his virtues ; and I have
no doubt but great numbers of them have
reaped great improvement by him in matters
of higher importance than mathematical
knowledge. I have always regarded him as
my best tutor, though of the same age with
me. If the giddy part of my life was in any
degree spent innocently and virtuously, I
owe it to him more than to any human
creature; for I could not but be virtuous in
his company, and I could not be so happy
in any other. But I must leave this pleas-
ing melancholy subject. He is happy; and
I shall often be happy in the remembrance
of our friendship ; and I hope we shall meet
again.
There is no such thing as chymical fur-
naces made here for sale. They are made
of plate iron; and a white-iron-man manages
that material better than a blacksmith. But
you must direct them in everything, and be
still over the work.
I can give but an imperfect account of
* John Stuart, Professor of Mathematics in
Marischal College. This chair is in the presentation
of the Town Council of Aberdeen ; and on the va-
cancy, by Stuart's death, Dr Beid was appointed one
of the czaminators of candidates for the office.—H.
the doctrine of latent heat; but some hint
I shall give, trustingentirely to your honour
that you will be cautious not to make any
use of it that may endanger the discoverer
being defrauded of his property.
There is in every body a certain quantity
of heat, which makes a part of its form or
constitution, and which it never parts with
without losing or changing its form. This is
called the latent heat of that body. All or
most bodies have three different forms—
hardness, fluidity, and steam or vapour.
Take water, for an example, inits hardstate,
that of ice : we have no means of knowing
what latent heat it may contain; but in its
fluid state it has about 140° of latent heat
more than it had in the state of ice. This
heat is latent while the water is fluid; it
does not affect the thermometer, nor pro-
duce any other effect but that of making the
body fluid. In the very act of melting from
the state of ice to that of water, 140° of heat
is absorbed from the circumambient bodies
without making the water sensibly warmer
than the ice; and in the act of passing from
the state of water to that of ice, 140° of heat
which was latent in the water becomes sen-
sible, and must pass from the water to the
ambient bodies before it can wholly be con-
verted into ice. As there is no intermediate
state between water and ice, a very small part
of the water freezes at once ; and the latent
heat of that part being communicated to the
remaining water, the freezing even in the
coldest air goes on piecemeal, according as
the latent heat goes off first into the water
not yet frozen, and from that into the air or
ambient bodies.
Spermaceti, in passing from a solid to a
perfectly fluid form, requires about 150°
of heat, which becomes latent ; bees' wax
about 160°. But there is this remarkable
difference between these bodies—as well as
iron and some other metals on the one
hand, and water on the other—that the
former soften by degrees, so that there are
many intermediate degrees of softness be-
tween the hardest state which the body
takes by cold, and the state of perfect
fluidity; whereas in water there seems to
be no intermediate degree between perfect
ice and perfect water. Accordingly, in
spermaceti, bees' wax, and iron, the latent
heat is more or less, according to the de-
gree of softness; but in water it is always
the same. As water has about 140° of
latent heat more than ice, so steam has
about 800° of latent heat more than water;
hence, an ounce of steam, though it have
little more sensible heat than boyling water,
will heat the cold water that condenses it
almost as much as four ounces of boyling
water would do. I can only at present
give you an experiment or two of the many
by which this theory is confirmed. But
LETTERS TO DRS
A. ANT) I). SKENE. 45
first, it is proper to observe, that equal
(luantities of the same fluid of different
temperatures, being mixed, the tempera-
ture of the mixed fluid is always an arith-
metical mean between the temperatures of
the ingredients. Thus, if a pound of water
of 40° be mixed with a pound of 100°, the
mixed is found precisely 60°. This has been
tried in an infinite variety of cases, and
found to hold invariably, proper allowance
being made for the heat communicated to
the vessels, or drawn from them in the
operation.
Experiment l.—Two Florence flasks had
six ounces of water put into each. In one
it was made to freeze ; in the other brought
as near as possible to the freezing point
without freezing—that is, to about 33°.
Both were set to warm in a large warm
room. The unfrozen water soon came to
the temperature of the room ; but the frozen
water took eleven or twelve hours to dis-
solve, and for the greatest part of that time
was not sensibly heated. A calculation
was made upon the supposition that the
frozen water had as much heat communi-
cated to it every half hour as the unfrozen
water had the first half hour. The result
of this calculation was, that the frozen
water had absorbed 136° or 140° of heat in
melting, over and above that which affected
the thermometer.
Exp. 2.-Six ounces of ice of the tem-
perature of 32° had six ounces of boyling
water poured upon it. The ice melted im-
mediately, and the whole water was 52°
temperature.
Exp. 3.--From Musschenbroek, with a
little variation. When the air is ten degrees
below the freezing point, set a deep, narrow
beer-glass of water to freeze, and let it re-
main perfectly at rest, without the least
motion. The water will cool regularly
below 32° without freezing, even to 22°;
but, as soon as it is disturbed, a number of
icy spiculae are formed ; and in the same
moment the sensible heat rises to 32°, and
continues so till all is frozen.
I need not tell you, that by sensible heat
is meant that which diffuses itself to the
ambient bodies till all are brought to an
equilibrium. Of this the thermometer is
the measure. But latent heat adheres to
the body without any tendency to diffuse
itself to other bodies, unless they are able
to change the form of the body from vapour
to a fluid, or from a fluid to ice or hardness—
then the latent heat goes off to other bodies,
and becomes sensible. I hope you will un-
derstand me, though I have wrote in a great
hurry. Yet I cannot find that Cullen or
the Edinburgh people know anything of this
matter. I may give you more of the ex-
periments afterwards.
THOMAS REID.
VI.
TO D R D A VIID SIKEN.E.
Glasgow, 18th April [1766.)
DEAR SIR,---There is like to be a vacancy
in one of the medical professions of this col-
lege, by the removal of Joseph Black to
Edinburgh. I thought, when I heard of
Dr White's death, that there was very little
probability of our losing Dr Black by that
event ; because the Chymical Profession in
Edinburgh was that which was thought
fittest for Dr Black; and there was good
reason to think that Cullen would not give
up the Chemistry for the Theory of Medi-
cine---though he would very willingly ex-
change it for the Practice of Medicine.
But I was informed late yesternight, that
Dr Black is willing to accept of the Theory
of Medicine in Edinburgh, and that the
Council are certainly to present him. I
am very dubious whether his place here
would be worth your acceptance; but I am
sure it would be so much the interest of
this society to have such a man in it, (and
I need not say how agreeable it would be
to me,) that I beg leave to inform you of
what I know of the state of the matter,
that you may think of it, and let me know
your thoughts. The salary of Dr Black's
place, is £50 as Professor of the Theory and
Practice of Medicine; and the presentation
is in the Crown. Therecommendation of the
College would probably have great weight,
if unanimous; but I think there is no pro-
bability of an unanimous recommendation;
so that the Court interest must probably
determine it. Dr Black, and Dr Cullen be-
fore him, had £20 yearly from the College, for
teaching chemistry ; and the College have,
from time to time, allowed, I believe, above
36500 for a laboratory. The chemical class
this session might bring £50 or £60 of fees,
and the medical class from £20 to £30; so
that the whole salary andfees will be between
£140 and £160. At the same time, the
College can at any time withdraw the £20,
and give that and the chemical laboratory to
another; and it is not improbable that this
may be done if one be presented of whose
abilities in chemistry the College is not
satisfied. Dr Black, of late, had got a
great deal of practice in the medical way,
so as to leave him but little time for prose-
cuting his chemical discourses, and I think
you might expect the same after some time;
for he had no natural connection here : it
was his merit alone that brought him into
it; and he long resisted, instead of courting
it; so that it was in a manner forced upon
him. The other medical Professor has
anatomy and botany for his province ; he
has a good anatomical class; but he does
46
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
not teach botany at all, nor is, as I appre-
hend, qualified to teach it. All I have far-
ther to say is, that there is a great Spirit of
inquiry here among the young people. Lite-
rary merit is much regarded ; and I con-
ceive the opportunities a man has of improv-
ing himself are much greater than at Aber-
deen. The communication with Edinburgh
is easy. One goes in the stage-coach to Edin-
burgh before dinner; has all the afternoon
there; and returns to dinner at Glasgow
next day: so that, if you have any ambition
to getinto the College of Edinburgh, (which,
I think, you ought to have,) I conceive
Glasgow would be a good step. Now, sir,
if you incline this place, you must, without
delay, try your interest at Court, and get
the best recommendations you can to the
members of this College. The Principal and
Mr Clow are not engaged; they are the
only persons to whom I have made known,
or intend to make known, my writing to you.
Lord Findlater’s interest, I think, would
have weight with Trail and Williamson. I
am told of three candidates—Dr Stevenson,
in Glasgow; Dr Smith Carmichael, a young
doctor, presently at London; and one Dr
Stork, who was educated here. Each of
these, I apprehend, has interest with some
of the members, and depend upon them ; So
that we will probably be divided, and, con-
sequently, our recommendation, if any is
given, will have little weight at Court. If,
after due deliberation, you think it not worth
your while to stir in this matter for yourself,
will you be so good as communicate the state
of the case to Dr George Skene P^ He is the
man—that is, next to you—I would be fond
of for a colleague; and in this I think I am
determined more by the public good than
my private.
VII.
TO DR, ANDREW SIKEN.E.
DEAR SIR,--I cannot presently lay my
hand upon the last letter I had from you,
and I beg you will impute it to that and to
my bad memory if there was anything in it
I ought to answer. I have sent by the
bearer, Mr Duguid, merchant in Aberdeen,
an elliptical thermometer for Dr David,
which I could not find an opportunity of
sending till now. Mrs Reid was, this day,
at one in the afternoon, brought to bed of a
daughter, whom we have named Elizabeth,
and I hope is in a good way. . . . . .
We have had great canvassing here about
* A third Aberdonian physician of distinction, of
the name of Skene, but not a relation, at least not a
near relation, of the other two He was Professor of
Philosophy, Marischal ( ollege; an eminent scholar;
alid father of the late Solicitor-General. —II.
a Professor of the Theory and Practice of
Physic, to succeed Dr Jo. Black, although
all that we do is to recommend one to the
King, who has the presentation. Dr
Stevenson, a son of the late Dr Stevenson
in Edinburgh, who has by much the best
practice in this town and neighbourhood,
has obtained a recommendation from the
majority of the College, not without much
interest. The only objection to him was
his great practice, which it was thought
might tempt him to neglect regular teach-
ing. And, I believe, the majority would
have preferred to him any man of character
who had not such a temptation to neglect
the duties of his office. However, the
strongest assurances that he would not me-
glect the class—nay, that he would think
himself bound in honour to give up the
Profession if he could not keep up a class,
brought in a majority to sign a recom-
mendation in his favour; and, as he has a
strong interest at Court, and no rival, as
far as we know, it is thought he will be the
man. He declines teaching the chemistry
class, which is in the gift of the College,
and, I conceive, will be given to one of Dr
Black's scholars. My class will be over in
less than a month, and by that time I shall
be glad to have some respite. I hope to
have the pleasure of seeing my friends at
Aberdeen in the month of August, if not
Sooner. We have had a thronger College
this year than ever before. I had some
reason to think that I should not have so
good a class as last year, and was dis-
appointed, for it was somewhat better. I
expect a good one next winter, if I live so
long. The Irish, on whom we depend
much, have an ebb and flow, as many of
them come but one year in two. We have
been remarkably free from riots and dis-
orders among the students, and I did not
indeed expect that 350 young fellows could
have been kept quiet, for so many months,
with so little trouble. They commonly
attend so many classes of different profes-
Sors, from half-an-hour after seven in the
morning till eight at night, that they have
little time to do mischief.
You'll say to all this that cadgers are aye
speaking of crooksaddles. I think so they
ought ; besides, I have nothing else to say
to you, and I have had no time to think of
anything but my crooksaddles for seven
months past. When the session is over I
must rub up my mathematicks against the
month of August. There is one candidate
for your Profession of Mathematicks to go
from this College; and, if your College get a
better man or a better mathematician, they
will be very lucky. I am so sensible of the
honour the magistrates have done me in
naming me to be one of the examinators,
that I will not decline it, though, I confess,
LETTERS TO ORS A. AND D. SKENE.
47
I like the honour better than the office.--
I am, dear Sir,
Yours most affectionately,
THOMAS REID.
Glasgow, 8th May, 1766.
Half an hour after eleven at night.
VIII.
TO D R AND RE, WV SIRIENE.
tº dº ſº dº tº º When you are dis-
posed to laugh you may look into the in-
closed proposals from a physician here who
has been persecuting everybody with an
edition of Celsus, and now with an index to
him as large as the book. Another physi-
cian here is printing a History of Medicine,
and of all the arts and sciences from the
beginning to the present time, four vols.
8vo, price one guinea. He is not thought
mad, but whimsical. I have not the pro-
posals to send you, and I suppose I have
sent enough of this kind. We authors had
rather be known for madmen or fools than
pass our lives in obscurity. Stevenson's
presentation to the Profession of Medicine
here is not yet come, but is expected as cer-
tain. The College have appointed a Lec-
turer in Chemistry, and one in Materia
Medica, for next session. I think we might
have a college of medicine here if we had
an infirmary. I think our surgeons eclipse
our M.D’s. I do not hear much of the
last, if you except Black and Stevenson.
Our Professor of Anatomy is not an M.D.,
otherwise I would have excepted him also.
Have you ever tried the seeds of the daw-
cus sylvestris in nephritick cases P. It has
been much talked of of late. I never sa
it in the north, but it is pretty common in
the fields here. —I am, dear Sir,
Yours most affectionately,
- THOMAS REID,
Glasgow, 15th July 1766.
IX.
TO DR ANDREW SEKENE.
Glasgow College, Dec. 17, 1766.
I live now in the College, and
have no distance to walk to my class in
dark mornings, as I had before. I enjoy
this ease, though I am not sure whether
the necessity of walking up and down a
steep hill three or four times a-day, was not
of use. I have of late had a little of your
distemper, finding a giddiness in my head
when I lie down or rise, or turn myself in
my bed.
Our College is very well peopled this
session ; my public class is above three
score, besides the private class. Dr Smith
never had so many in one year. There is
nothing so uneasy to me here as our fac-
tions in the College, which seem to be
rather more inflamed than last session.
Will you take the trouble to ask of Dr
David, whether he knows of a bird called
a stankhen.” It is a water fowl, less than
a duck, with scolloped membranes at the
toes, but not close-footed, and has a crest
on the forehéad of the same kind of sub-
stance with a cock's comb, but white and flat.
It has a very fishy taste, and is found here
in the lochs. If he has mone of this kind,
I could send him one when I find a proper
occasion. I am, with entire affection and
regard, dear Sir, yours,
THoMAs REID.
X.
TO DR DAVID SIKENE.
Glasgow College, 25th Felly. 1767.
DEAR SIR,--I intend to send your stank-
hen along with the furnace, which was
ready long ago, and I suppose would have
been sent before now, but that Dr Irvine
was confined a long time by a megrim, and
was like to lose one eye by it ; but is now
pretty well recovered, and intends to send
your furnace this week.
Since the repeal of the stamp-act, trade,
which was languishing, has revived in this
place, and there is a great bustle and great
demand for money. We are now resolved
to have a canal from Carron to this place,
if the Parliament allows it. £40,000 was
subscribed last week by the merchants and
the Carron Company for this purpose ; and
commissioners are immediately going up
to London to apply for an act of Parlia-
ment. The freight upon this canal is not
to exceed twopence per ton for every mile ;
the land carriage is more than ten times as
much.
Our medical college has fallen off greatly
this session, most of the students of medi-
cine having followed Dr Black; however,
our two medical professors and two lec-
turers have each of them a class, and Irvine
expects a great many to attend him for
botany in summer. The natural and moral
philosophy classes are more numerous than
they have ever been ; but I expect a great
falling off, if I see another session. The
Lecturer in Chemistry has general approba-
tion. He chiefly follows Dr Black and
Stahl. There is a book of Stahl's, called
“Three Hundred Experiments,” which he
greatly admires, and very often quotes. ... I
was just now seeing your furnace along with
3. The Gallinula Chloropus.-H.
48 *
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
Irvine ; I think it a very decent piece of
furniture for a man of your profession, and
that no limb of the faculty should be without
one, accompanied with a proper apparatus
of retorts, cucurbits, &c. For my part, if
I could find a machine as proper for ana-
lyzing ideas, moral sentiments, and other
materials belonging to the fourth kingdom,
I believe I should find in my heart to be-
stow the money for it. I have the more
use for a machine of this kind, because my
alembick for performing these operations—
I mean my cranium—has been a little out
of order this winter, by a vertigo, which
has made my studies go on heavily, though
it has not hitherto interrupted my teaching.
I have found air and exercise, and a clean
stomach, the best remedies; but I cannot
command the two former as often as I could
wish. I am sensible that the air of a
crowded class is bad, and often thought of
carrying my class to the common hall ; but
I was afraid it might have been construed
as a piece of ostentation. I hope you
are carrying on your natural history, or
something else, in the Club, with a view to
make the world wiser. What is my Lord
Linnaeus doing 2 Are we ever to expect
his third volume upon the fossile kingdom
or not ? We are here so busie reading lec-
tures, that we have no time to write. . .
XI.
TO DR DAVID SIKEN.E.
Glasgow College, 14 Sep'. 1767.
DEAR SIR,--It gives me much surprise,
as well as affliction, to hear from my daughter
Patty, of the death of my dear friend, your
papa. Fifteen yearsagoit would have been no
surprise; but for some years back, I thought
there was great probability that his life and
usefulness might have had a longer period.
I can never, while I remember anything,
forget the many agreeable hours I have en-
joyed with him in that entire confidence
and friendship which give relish to life. I
never had a friend that shewed a more
hearty affection, or a more uniform dispo-
sition to be obliging and useful to me and
to my family. I had so many opportuni-
ties of observing his disinterested concern
to be useful in his profession to those from
whom he could expect no return, his sym-
pathy with the distressed, and his assiduity
In giving them his best assistance, that, if
I had had no personal friendship with him,
I could not but lament his death as a very
great and general loss to the place. It is
very uncommon to find a man that at any
time of life, much more at his, possessed
the active, the contemplative, and the social
disposition at once in so great vigour. I
sincerely sympathize with you ; and I beg
you will assure each of your brothers and
sisters of my sympathy; and that, besides
my personal regard to every one of them,
I hold myself to be under the strongest
obligation from gratitude and regard to the
memory of my deceased friend, if I can
ever be of the least use to any of them.
You are now, dear Sir, in the providence
of God, called to be a father as well as a
brother ; and I doubt not but you will ac-
quit yourself in that character as you have
done in the other. I need not say that Dr
Skene's death gave very great affliction to
Mrs Reid and to all my family ; they all
desire that you and all your family may be
assured of their respect and sympathy. . . .
Some days after I parted from you at
Edinburgh, I was called home to do the
last duty to my sweet little Bess, whom I
had left in perfect health some days after
her innoculation. Since that time I have
not been three miles from Glasgow, but
once at Hamilton with Mr Beattie. Hav-
ing my time at command, I was tempted
to fall to the tumbling over books, as we
have a vast number here which I had not
access to see at Aberdeen. But this is a
mare magnum, wherein one is tempted, by
hopes of discoveries, to make a tedious voy-
age, which seldom rewards his labour. I
have long ago found my memory to be like
a vessel that is full ; if you pour in more,
you lose as much as you gain ; and, on this
account, have a thousand times resolved to
give up all pretence to what is called learn-
ing, being satisfied that it is more profitable
| to ruminate on the little I have laid up,
than to add to the indigested heap. To
pour learning into a leaky vessel is indeed
a very childish and ridiculous imagination.
Yet, when a man has leisure, and is placed
among books that are new to him, it is
difficult to resist the temptation. I have
had little society, the college people being
out of town, and have almost lost the
faculty of speech by disuse. I blame my-
self for having corresponded so little with
my friends at Aberdeen.
I wished to try Linnaeus's experiment,
which you was so good as to communicate
to me. I waited for the heat of summer,
which never came till the first of August,
and then lasted but a few days. Not hav-
ing any of the fungus powder at hand, I put
a piece of fresh fungus which grew on rot-
ten wood in pure water. In a day or two
I found many animalcules diverting them-
selves in the water by diving and rising
again to the top. But, after three or four
days, the water turned muddy and stunk.
And, from all I could then observe, I should
rather have concluded that my animalcules
died and putrified, than that they were
transformed into young mushrooms. I see
LETTERS TO DRS A. AND D. SKENE.
a letter in The Edinburgh Courant of Wed-
nesday last on this subject. About twenty
hours ago, I put some Smutty oats in water;
but have not seen any animals in it
yet.
tobacco has been the reason of my observ-
ing a species of as nasty little animals. On
the above occasion, I spit in a bason of saw-
dust, which, when it comes to be drenched,
produces a vast number of animals, three
or four times as large as a louse, and not
very different in shape; but armed with four
or five rows of prickles like a hedgehog,
which seem to serve it as feet. Its motion
is very sluggish. It lies drenched in the
foresaid mass, which swarms with these
animals of all ages from top to bottom ;
whether they become winged at last I have
not discovered.
Dr Irvine was taken up a great part of
the summer with his botanical course; and,
since that was over, has been in the country.
I have gone over Sir James Stewart's great
book of political Oeconomy, wherein I think
there is a great deal of good materials, care-
lessly put together indeed ; but I think it
contains more sound principles concerning
commerce and police than any book we have
yet had. We had the favour of a visit from
Sir Archibald Grant. It gave me much
pleasure to see him retain his spirits and
vigor. I beg when you see him you will make
my best compliments to him. I beg to be
remembered to the Club, which I hope goes
on with spirit. I am, with great regard,
dear Sir, yours most affectionately,
.* THOMAS REID.
Be So good as to put the inclosed into
Sandie Leslie's shop.
XII.
TO DR DAVID SIKEN.E.
DEAR SIR,-You will easily guess that
my chief motive in writing you at this time,
is, by the benefit of your frank, to save the
postage of the two inclosed, of which I give
you the trouble. Perhaps I would have dis-
sembled this, if I had had anything to say. I
long to hear how Linnaeus’ experiment has
succeeded with you. For my own part, I
havefound nothing about it but what I wrote
you before. The chymists here are hunting
for something by which cambrick may be
stamped as it comes from the loom, so that
the stamps shall stand out all the operations
of boyling, bleaching, &c. The only thing
that is like to answer, I am told, is that solu-
tion of silver which is used to dyeivory black.
The act of Parliament anent cambrick re-
quires it to be stamped in the loom ; and, if
this stamp is not apparent after bleaching,
it is contraband. But the wisdom of the
A nasty custom I have of chewing |
nation has not thought fit to prescribe the
material to be used for that purpose; if no
such material is found, the act will be use-
less.
I passed eight days lately with Lord
Raims at Blair-Drummond. You were
very honourably mentioned. My Lord has
it much at heart to have a professor of
practical mechanicks established at Edin-
burgh, and wants only a proper person.
He is preparing a fourth edition of his
“Elements.” I have been labouring at
Barbara Celarent for three weeks by-
gone ;" and on Monday begin my own
course. I do not expect such a crop of
students as I had last year; but the Col-
lege in general promises pretty well. My
compliments to all your family ; and believe
me to be, with great affection, dear Sir,
Yours,
THOMAS REID.
Glasgow College, 31 Oct. 1767.
XIII.
‘I’O I) R DAVID SIKEN.E.
[July 1770.]
IDEAR SIR,-Having this opportunity, I
could not forbear asking how you do, and
what you are doing. I know you are giv-
ing feet to the lame, and eyes to the blind,
and healing the sick. I know you are
gathering heaps of fossils, vegetables, and
animals, and I hope among other fossils you
are gathering gold and silver; this is all very
right. I know, likewise, that you have been,
ever since you was in petticoats, mostavari-
ciously amassing knowledge. But is it all to
die with you, and to be buried in your grave?
This, my dear sir, ought not to be. Your
see we Scotch people will be blotting paper
though you should hold your hand: stultum
est peritura parcere charta. Can you find
no time, either when you are laid up in the
gout, or when the rest of the world is in
good health, to bequeath something to pos-
terity ? Think seriously of this, if you have
not done so already. Permit me, sir, to
offer you another counsell; for you know we
moralists know better how to give good
counsell than to take it. Is it not possible
for you to order things so as to take a jaunt
of six weeks or two months? I verily believe
there are things worth knowing here, much
more at Edinburgh, of which you cannot be
fully informed while you keep be-north Tay.
We have speculatists in medicine, in chem-
istry, in mechanics, in natural history, that
are worth being acquainted with, and that
# This alludes to his “ Analysis of Aristotle's lo-
gic,” which he was then preparing as an Appendix
to one of Lord Kames's “Sketches of the History of
Man "–H.
E
50
• CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
would be fond of your acquaintance. As
to myself, the immaterial world has swal-
lowed up all my thoughts since I came here;
but I meet with few that have travelled far
in that region, and am often left to pursue my
dreary way in a more solitary manner than
when we used to meet at the club. What is
Linnaeus doing? When you have leisure,
indulge me with the pleasure of knowing
that you have not forgot, dear Sir, your
affectionate friend,
THOMAS REID.
B.—LETTERS TO LORD KAMES.
I.
on THE DocTRINE of NECESSITY IN RELA-
TION TO MORALS,
Glasgow College, 3d Dec. 1772.
My LoRD,--I was very glad to under-
stand, by the letter you honoured me with
of November 9, that you got safe home,
after a long journey, in such dreadful rainy
weather. I got to Mr C–’s on horse-
back soon after you left me, where I was
in good warm quarters. -
The case you state is very proper, to dis-
cover how far we differ with respect to the
influence of the doctrine of necessity upon
morals.
A man in a mad fit of passion stabs his
best friend; immediately after, he condemns
himself; and, at last, is condemned by a
court of justice, although his passion was
no less irresistible than if he had been
pushed on by external violence.
My opinion of the case, my Lord, is this:
if the passion was really as irresistible as
you represent it, both in its beginning and
progress, the man is innocent in the sight
of God, who knows that he was driven as
by a whirlwind, and that, the moment he
was master of himself, he abhorred the
action as much as a good man ought to do.
At the same time, he reasonably may
condemn himself, and be condemned by
a court of justice.
He condemns himself, because, from his
very constitution, he has a conviction that
his passion was not irresistible. Every
man has this conviction as long as he be-
lieves himself not to be really mad, and
incapable of self-government. Even if he
is a fatalist in speculation, that will not
hinder this natural conviction when his
conscience smites him, any more than specu-
lative scepticism will hinder a man from
apprehension of danger when a cart runs
against him.
The court of justice condemns him for the
same reason, because they believe that his
passion was not irresistible. But, if it could
be proved that the man was really incapa-
ble of bridling his passion—that is, that he
was really mad—then the court of justice
ought not to punish him as a criminal, but
to confine him as a madman.
What is madness, my Lord 2 In my
opinion, it is such weakness in the power of
self-government, or such strength of pas-
sion, as deprives a man of the command of
himself. The madman has will and inten-
tion, but he has no power to restrain them.
If this madness continues so long as to be
capable of proof from the tenor of a man's .
actions, he is no subject of criminal law,
because he is not a free agent. If we sup-
pose real madness to continue but for a
moment, it makes a man incapable of a
crime, while it lasts, as if it had continued
for years. But a momentary madness can
have no effect to acquit a man in a court
of justice, because it cannot be proved. It
would not even hinder him from condemn-
ing himself, because he cannot know that
he was mad. -
In a word, if, by a mad fit of passion,
your Lordship means real madness, though
temporary, and not permanent, the man is
not criminal for what this fit of madness
produced. A court of justice would not
impute the action to him, if this could be
proved to be the case. But if, by a mad
fit of passion, you mean only a strong pas-
sion, which still leaves a man the power of
self-government, then he is accountable for
his conduct to God and man ; for every
good man—yea, every man that would avoid
the most heinous crimes—must at some
times do violence to very strong passions.
But hard would be our case indeed, if we
were required, either by God or man, to
resist irresistible passions.
You think that will and intention is suf-
ficient to make an action imputable, even
though that will be irresistibly determined.
I beg leave to dissent, for the following
TeaSOIAS : – º
1. An invincible error of the understanding,
of memory, of judgment, or of reasoning, is
not imputable, for this very reason, that it is
invincible: why, then, should an error of the
will beinputable, when it is supposed equally
invincible P God Almighty has given us
various powers of understanding and of will.
They are all equally his workmanship. Our
LETTERS TO LORD KAMEs.
51
understandings may deviate from truth, as
our wills may deviate from virtue. You
will allow that it would be unjust and tyran-
nical to punish a man for unavoidable devi-
ations from truth. Where, then, is the
justice of condemning and punishing him for
the deviations of another faculty, which are
equally unavoidable 2
You say we are not to judge of this mat-
ter by reasons, but by the moral sense.
Will you forgive me, my Lord, to put you
in mind of a saying of Mr Hobbes, that
when reason is against a man he will be
against reason. I hope reason and the
moral sense are so good friends as not to
differ upon any point. But, to be serious,
I agree with your Lordship, that it is the
moral sense that must judge of this point,
whether it be just to punish a man for doing
what it was not in his power not to do.
The very ideas or notions of just and un-
just are got by the moral sense ; as the
ideas of blue and red are got by the sense of
seeing. And as by the sense of seeing we de-
termine that this body is red, and that is blue;
So, by the moral sense, we determine this
action to be just, and that to be unjust. It is by
the moral sense that I determine, in general,
that it is unjust to require any duty of a man
which it is not in his power to perform. By
the Sanue moral sense, in a particular case, I
determine a man to be guilty, upon finding
that he did the deed voluntarily and with
intention, without making any inquiry about
his power.
determinations I take to be this:—that, in
the last case, I take for granted the man's
power, because the common sense of man-
kind dictates, that what a man did volun-
tarily and with intention, he had power not
to do:
2. A second reason of my dissent is,
That the guilt of a bad action is diminished
in proportion as it is more difficult to resist
the motive. Suppose a man entrusted with
a secret, the betraying of which to the ene-
my may ruin an army. If he discloses it
for a bribe, however great, he is a villain
and a traitor, and deserves a thousand
deaths. But, if he falls into the enemy's
hands, and the secret be wrested from him
by the rack, our sentiments are greatly
changed; we do not charge him with vil-
lany, but with weakness. We hardly at all
blame a woman in such a case, because we
conceive torture, or the fear of present
death, to be a motive hardly resistible by
the weaker sex.
As it is, therefore, the uniform judgment
of mankind, that, where the deed is the
Same, and the will and intention the same,
the degree of guilt must depend upon the
difficulty of resisting the motive, will it not
follow, that, when the motive is absolutely
irresistible, the guilt vanishes altogether ?
The way to reconcile these two
3. That this is the common sense of
mankind, appears further from the way in
which we treat madmen. They have will
and intention in what they do; and, there-
fore, if no more is necessary to constitute a
crime, they ought to be found guilty of
crimes. Yet no man conceives that they
can be at all subjects of criminal law. For
what reason P for this, in my opinion, that
they have not that power of self-command
which is necessary to make a man account-
able for his conduct.
You suppose, my Lord, a physical power
to forbear an action even when it is neces-
sary. But this I cannot grant. Indeed,
upon the system of free agency, I can easily
conceive a power which is not exerted ; but,
upon the system of necessity, there can be
no such thing—every power that acts by
necessity must be exerted.
I do indeed think, that a man may act
without a motive ; and that, when the mo-
tives to action lie all on one side, he may
act in contradiction to them. But I agree
with your Lordship, that all such actions
are capricious ; and I apprehend that, if
there were no actions of this kind, there
could be no such thing as caprice, nor any
word in language to signify it : for why
should every language have a word to sig-
nify a thing which never did nor can exist?
I agree also with your Lordship, that
there can be no merit in Šuch an action,
even if it is innocent. But if it is vicious,
it has the highest degree of demerit ; for it
it is sinning without any temptation, and
serving the devil without any wages. It
ought to be observed, however, that a vir-
tuous action can never becapricious; because
there is always a just and sufficient motive
to it. For, if I have no other motive, I
must at least have this, that is a worthy
action, and is my duty ; which, in reason,
ought to weigh down all motives that can
be put into the opposite scale. A capricious
action may be innocent, and then it is
folly ; or it may be vicious, and then it is
pure wickedness.
Liberty, like all other good gifts of God,
may be abused. As civil liberty may be
abused to licentiousness, so our natural
liberty may be abused to caprice, folly, and
vice. But the proper exercise of liberty is,
afterweighing duly the motives on both sides,
to be determined, not by the strongest mo-
tive, but by that which has most authority.
It is of great importance in this matter,
to distinguish between the authority of mo-
tives and their force. The part that is
decent, that is manly, that is virtuous, that
is noble, has always authority upon its side.
Every man feels this authority in his own
breast ; and there are few men so wicked
as not to yield to it when it has no antago-
mist.
E 2
52
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
But pleasure, interest, passion, sloth,
often muster a great force on the other side,
which, though it has no authority, has often
the greater power ; and a conflict arises
between these opposite parties. Every
man is conscious of this conflict in his own
breast, and is too often carried down by the
superior force of the party which he knows
to have no authority.
This is the conflict which Plato describes
between reason and appetite ; this is the
conflict which the New Testament describes
between the spirit and the flesh. The op-
posite parties, like Israel and Amalek, dis-
pute the victory in the plain. When the
self-determining power, like Moses upon
the mount, lifts up its hand and exerts
itself, then Israel prevails, and virtue is
triumphant; but when its hands hang down
and its vigour flags, then Amalek prevails.
I am, my dear Lord, most respectfully yours,
THo. REID.
II.
ON THE MATERIALISM OF PRIEST LEY AN ſ]
THE EGOISM OF FREN CH PHILOSOPHER.S.
1775.
* º . Dr Priestley, in his last
book, thinks that the power of perception,
as well as all the other powers that are
termed mental, is the result of such an
organical structure as that of the brain.
Consequently, says he, the whole man
becomes extinct at death, and we have no
hope of surviving the grave, but what is
derived from the light of Revelation. I
would be glad to know your Lordship's
opinion, whether, when my brain has lost
its original structure, and when, some hun-
dred years after, the same materials are
again fabricated so curiously as to become
an intelligent being, whether, I say, that
being will be me ; * or, if two or three such
beings should be formed out of my brain,
whether they will all be me, and conse-
quently all be one and the same intelligent
being.
This segms to me a great mystery, but
Priestley denies all mysteries. He thinks,
and rejoices in thinking so, that plants
have some degree of sensation. As to the
lower animals, they differ from us in degree
only, and not in kind. Only they have no
promise of a resurrection. If this be true,
why should not the King's advocate be
ordered to prosecute criminal brutes, and
* .9ur English I being of an ambiguous sound, it
Would be convenientin psychology, could we occasion-
ally employ ºne for a nominative, as the French do
their moi. But this not being the case, Reid is here,
as elsewhere in his letters, grammatically at fault.
you criminal judges to try them 2 You are
obliged to Dr Priestley for teaching you
one-half of your duty, of which you knew
nothing before. But I forgot that the
fault lies in the legislature, which has not
given you laws for this purpose. I hope, how-
ever, when any of them shall be brought to a
trial, that he will be allowed a jury of his peers.
I am not much surprised that your
Lordship has found little entertainment in
a late French writer on human nature."
From what I learn, they are all become
rank Epicureans. One would think that
French politesse might consort very well
with disinterested benevolence; but, if we
believe themselves, it is all grimace. It is
flattery, in order to be flattered; like that
of the horse, who when his neck itches,
Scratches his neighbour, that he may be
scratched by him again. I detest all sys-
tems that depreciate human nature. If it
be a delusion, that there is something in
the constitution of man that is venerable
and worthy of its author, let me live and
die in that delusion, rather than have my
eyes opened to see my species in a humi-
liating and disgusting light. Every good
man feels his indignation rise against those
who disparage his kindred or his country;
why should it not rise against those who
disparage his kind & Were it not that we
Sometimes see extremes meet, I should
think it very strange to see atheists and
high-shod divines contending as it were
who should most blacken and degrade human
nature. Yet I think the atheist acts the
more consistent part of the two : for surely
Such views of human nature tend more to
promote atheism, than to promote religion
and virtue. e -> º e e
III.
ON THE CONVERSION OF CLAY INTO
VEGETABLE MOULD.
October 1, 1775.
o The theory of agriculture is
a wide and deep ocean, wherein we soon go
beyond our depth.
I believe a lump of dry clay has much
the same degree of hardness, whether the
Weather be hot or cold. It seems to be
more affected by moisture or drought: and
to be harder in dry weather, and more
easily broken when a little moistened. But
there is a degree of wetness in clay which
makes it not break at all when struck or
pressed ; it is compressed and changes its
figure, but does not break.
Clayground, I think, ought to be ploughed
* Helvetius, De l'Esprit.—Lond Woodhouselee. .
Hardly; this work being them. nearly twenty years
old. Probably the work, “Sur l'Homme.”—H.
LETTERS TO LORD F AMES.
in the middle state between wetness and
dryness, for this reason : When too dry,
the plough cannot enter, or cannot make
handsome work. Those clods are torn
up, which require great labour and ex-
pense to break them. And unless they
are broken, the roots of vegetables cannot
enter into them. When too wet, the fur-
row, in being raised and laid over by the
plough, is very much compressed, but not
broken. The compression makes it much
harder when it dries, than it would have
been without that compression. But when
the ground is neither too wet nor too dry,
the furrow, in being raised and laid over
by the plough, breaks or cracks with in-
numerable crevices, which admit air and
moisture, and the roots of vegetables.
Clay, when exposed in small parts to
the air, and to alternate moisture and
drought, mellows into mould. Thus a clod
of clay, which is so hard in seed-time that
you may stand upon it without breaking it,
will be found in autumn of the colour of
mould, and so softened, that when you
press it with the foot it crumbles to pieces.
On some clays this change is produced in a
shorter time, in the same circumstances;
others are more refractory, and require
more time.
If wet clay is put into the fire uncom-
pressed, I am informed that it burns to
ashes, which make no bad manure.
But if the clay be wrought and compressed
when wet, and then dried, and then put
into the fire, it burns into brick, and with
a greater degree of heat, into a kind of
glass.
These, my Lord, are facts ; but to deduce
them from principles of attraction and re-
pulsion, is beyond the reach of my philo-
sophy: and I suspect there are many things
in agriculture, and many things in che-
mistry, that cannot be reduced to such
principles; though Sir Isaac Newton seems
to have thought otherwise.
Human knowledge is like the steps of a
ladder. The first step consists of particular
truths, discovered by observation or expe-
riment: the second collects these into more
general truths: the third into still more
general. But there are many such steps
before we come to the top ; that is, to the
most general truths. Ambitious of know-
ledge, and unconscious of our own weak-
ness, we would fain jump at once from the
lowest step to the highest ; but the conse-
quence of this is, that we tumble down,
and find that our labour must be begun
anew. Is not this a good picture of a phi-
losopher, my Lord 2 I think so truly ; and
I should be vain of it, if I were not afraid
that I have stolen it from Lord Bacon.
I am, &c.
THO. REID.
IV.
ON THE GENERATION OF PI, ANTS AND
ANIMALS.
No dale—but supposed 1775.
MY LORD,--I have some compunction for
having been so tardy in answering the letter
which your Lordship did me the honour to
write me of the 6th November, especially
as it suggests two very curious subjects of
correspondence. But, indeed, my vacant
time has been so much filled up with trifles
of College business, and with the frequent
calls of a more numerous class of students
than I ever had before, that there was no
room for anything that could admit of
delay.
You have expressed with great elegance
and strength the conjecture I hinted with
regard to the generation of plants.
I am indeed apt to conjecture, that both
plants and animals are at first organized
atoms, having all the parts of the animal
or plant, but so slender, and folded up in
such a manner, as to be reduced to a par-
ticle far beyond the reach of our senses, and
perhaps as Small as the constituent parts
of water.” The earth, the water, and the
air may, for anything I know, be full of
such organized atoms. They may be no
more liable to hurt or injury, than the con-
stituent elementary parts of water or air.
They may serve the purposes of common
matter until they are brought into that
situation which nature has provided for
their unfolding themselves. When brought
into their proper matrix or womb, perhaps
after some previous preparations, they are
commonly surrounded with some fluid
matter, in which they unfold and stretch
themselves out to a length and breadth
perhaps some thousand times greater than
they had when folded up in the atom.
They would now be visible to the naked
eye, were it not that their limbs and vessels
are so slender that they cannot be distin-
guished from the fluid in which they float.
All is equally transparent, and therefore
neither figure nor colour can be discerned,
although the object has a considerable bulk.
The foetus now has a fluid circulating in its
vessels; all the animal functions go on ; it
is nourished and grows ; and some parts,
first the heart, then the head, then the
* This o!,inion is similar to that of M. Bonnet.
See his “Considérations sur les Corps Organizes,”
and his “ Contemplation de la Nature ?' ſ ord
Woodhou ELee.—Reid's opinion has comparativ, ly
little resemblance to the involution theory of Bonnet:
it bears, however, a strong analogy to the Pansper-
mia of the Ionic philosophers, more especially as
modified by some of the recent physiological speru-
latists of Germany. This conjecture is curious, as
a solitary escapade of our cautious philosopher in
thic region of imagination.— H.
54
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
!
spine, by getting some colour, become
visible.
It is to be observed, that, from the time
that the heart first appears in the pellucid
liquor, until the time of birth, the animal
grows gradually and insensibly, as it does
after birth. But, before it is visible, it must
have increased in size many thousand times
in a few days. This does not look like
growth by nourishment, but like a sudden
unfolding of parts, which before were
wrapped up in a small atom.
I go along with your Lordship cordially,
till you come to the first formation of an
organized body. But there I hesitate.
“May there,” say you, “not be particles
of a certain kind endowed with a power to
form in conjunction an organized body ?”
Would your Lordship allow that certain
letters might be endowed with the power
of forming themselves into an “Iliad” or
“AEneid,” or even into a sensible discourse
in prose 2" I confess our faculties carry
us but a very little way in determining
what is possible and what is impossible,
and therefore we ought to be modest. But
I cannot help thinking that such a work
as the “Iliad,” and much more an animal
or vegetable body, must have been made by
express design and counsel employed for
that end. And an author whom I very
much respect, has taught me, “That we
form this conclusion, not by any process of
reasoning, but by mere perception and feel-
ing.”f And Ithink that conclusions formed
in this manner, are of all others most to
be trusted. It seems to me as easy to con-
trive a machine that should compose a
variety of epic poems and tragedies, as to
contrive laws of motion, by which unthink-
ing particles of matter should coalesce into
a variety of organized bodies.
“But,” says your Lordship, “ certainly
the Almighty has made none of his works
so imperfect as to stand in need of perpe-
tual miracles.” Can we, my Lord, shew,
by any good reason, that the Almighty
finished his work at a stroke, and has con-
tinued ever since an unactive spectator 2
Can we prove that this method is the best;
or that it is possible that the universe should
be well governed in this way ? I fear we
Cannot.
And, if his continued operation be neces-
sary or proper, it is no miracle, while it
is uniform, and according to fixed laws.
Though we should suppose the gravitation
of matter to be the immediate operation of
the Deity, it would be no miracle, while it
is constant and uniform ; but if in that case
it should cease for a moment, only by his
* This illustration is borrowed from Cicero. (“De
Natura Deorum,” l. ii c. 37.)–H
+ Lord Kames himself. “Essays on Morality,"
&c., Chapter “On thc Idea of Power.”
withholding his hand, this would be a mi-
racle.
That an animal or vegetable body is a
work of art, and requires a skilful workman,
I think we may conclude, without going
beyond our sphere. But when we would
determine how it is formed, we have no
data; and our most rational conjectures are
only reveries, and probably wide of the
mark. We travel back to the first origin
of things on the wings of fancy. We would
discover Nature in puris malwralibus, and
trace her first operations and gradual pro-
gress. But, alas ! we soon find ourselves
unequal to the task : and perhaps this is
an entertainment reserved for us in a future
State. -
As to what you say about earth or soil;
there seems, indeed, to be a repulsion of the
parts, when it is enriched by the air, or by
manure. And, in consequence of this, it
Swells and occupies more space. But, I
conceive, it gets an additional quantity of
matter, from the moisture and air which it
imbibes, and thereby increases both in bulk
and weight. I have been told that a dung-
hill made up of earth, dung, and lime,
trenched over two or three times, at proper
intervals, and then led out, will be found
to make more cart-loads than it received :
and I believe this to be true. If the earth
taken out of a pit does not fill it again, I
am apt to think there must have been va-
cuities in the earth at first, perhaps made
by the roots of plants that have decayed,
by moles, insects, or other causes.—I am,
my Lord, &c.
THo. REID.
V.
oN THE LAws of MOTION.—NEWTON's
AXIOMS AND DEFINITIONS.
Glasgow College, May 19, 1780.
My LoRD,--In order to understand the
preliminary part of Newton’s Principia, it
is necessary to attend to his general design,
both in his axioms and definitions.
First, As to his axioms: he sets down the
three laws of motion as axioms. But he
does not mean by this, that they are to be
held as self-evident truths ; nor does he in-
tend to prove them in what he says upon
them. They are incapable of demonstra-
tion, being matters of fact, which universally
obtain in the material world, and which had
before been observed by philosophers, and
verified by thousands of experiments by
Galileo, by Wren, Wallis, Huygens, and
Mariotte, to whom he refers for the proof
of them. Therefore, that he might not
actum agere, he lays them down as established
truths, saying some things upon them by
LETTERS TO
LORD KAMES. 55
way of illustration, and deducing some gene-
ral corollaries from them.
That this was his view, he expressly says
in the scholium following the axioms :
Hactenis principia tradidi, a Mathematicis
ºrecepta, et multiplici ea perientiff confirmata,
&c. The very same method he follows in
his optics, laying down as axioms what had
before been discovered in that science.
The axioms, or established principles in
the Principia, are three :—lst, Every body
perseveres in its present state, whether of
motion or rest, until it is made to change
that state by some force impressed upon it.
2d, The change of motion produced is al-
ways proportional to the force impressed,
and in the direction of that force. 37, All
action of bodies upon each other is mutual
or reciprocal, and in contrary directions;
that is, if the body A produces any motion
or change of motion in B ; by the reaction
of B, an equal change of motion, but in a
contrary direction, will be produced in A.
This holds in all action of bodies on each
other, whether by a stroke, by pressure, by
attraction, or by repulsion.
Perhaps, you will say these principles
ought not to be taken for granted, but to
be proved. True, my Lord, they ought to
be proved by a very copious induction of
experiments; and, if they are not proved,
the whole system of the Principia falls to
the ground; for it is all built upon them.
But Sir Isaac thought they were already
proved, and refers you to the authors by
whom. He never intended to prove them,
but to build upon them, as mathematicians
do upon the Eſemen/s (f Euclid.
Secondly, As to the definitions. They
are intended to give accuracy and precision
to the terms he uses, in reasoning from the
laws of motion. The definitions are accom-
modated to the laws of motion, and fitted so
as to express with precision all reasoning
grounded upon the laws of motion. And,
for this reason, even the definitions will
appear obscure, if one has not a distinct
conception of the laws of motion always be-
fore his eye.
Taking for granted the laws of motion,
therefore, he gives the name of vis insita, or
vis inertia, to that property of bodies,
whereby, according to the first and second
laws of motion, they persevere in their
state, and resist any change, either from
rest to motion, or from motion to rest,
or from one degree or direction of motion
to another.
This vis insita is exercised in every case
wherein one body is made to change its
state by the action of another body; and
the exertion of it may, in different respects,
be called both resistance and impetus.
The reluctance which the body A has to
change its state, which can be overcome
only by a force proportioned to that reluct-
ance, is resistance. The reaction of the
body A upon B, which, according to the
third law of motion, is equal to the action of
B upon A, and in a contrary direction, is
impetus.
Thus, in every change made in the state
of one body by another, there is mutual
resistance and mutual impetus. The one
never exists without the other. A body at
rest not only resists, but gives an impetus to
the body that strikes it. And a body in
motion coming against a body at rest, not
only gives an impetus to the body that was
at rest, but resists that change of its own
motion which is produced by the stroke.
Each gives an impetus to the other, and
exerts a resistance to the impetus it receives
from the other. --
This is the notion which Newton affixes
to the words—impetus and resistance ; and,
I think, it corresponds perfectly with the
third law of motion, but may appear dark if
that is not kept in view.
But, because this motion of resistance and
impetus differs somewhat from the vulgar
application of those words, in order to point
out the difference, he contrasts it with the
vulgar meaning in the words which your
Lordship quotes:—Vulgus resistentiam
quiescenſillus cl impelton movemeibustribuite
sed motus ct quies, ut vulgó concipiuntur,
respectu solo dislingwuntur, neque semper
were quicscunt quae vulgótanquam quiescentia
spectantur. He considers both resistance
and impetus as belonging to every body, in
every case in which it is made to change its
state, whether from rest to motion, or from
motion to rest. It resists the change of its
own state, and, by its reaction, gives an
impetus to the body that acts upon it. The
vulgar, having no notion, or no distinct
notion, of this reaction established by the
third law of motion, suit their language to
their conceptions. He suits his to the laws
of motion. -
A post, you say, resists, but has no im-
petus. This is true in the vulgar sense of
the word. But, in order to shew you that
his sense differs somewhat from the vulgar,
he would say, that the post has impetus in
his sense. And by this he means only, that
the post stops, or changes the motion of the
body that strikes it ; and, in producing this
change, exerts a force equal to that with
which it was struck, but in a contrary
direction. This is a necessary consequence
of the third law of motion. The vulgar
both speak and judge of motion and rest in
a body, by its situation with respect to some
other body, which, perhaps, from prejudice,
they conceive to be at rest. This makes
Newton say, “That motion and rest, as
commonly conceived, are distinguished by
relation ; nor are those bodies always really
56
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
at rest which are commonly conceived to
be at rest.”
Rest, when we speak of bodies, is opposed,
not to self-motion only, but to all change of
place. Absolute, or real rest, is opposed to
real motion; and relative rest---that is, rest
with relation to such a body that is supposed
at rest, is opposed to relative motion with
respect to the same body. But a body may
be relatively at rest, and, at the same time,
really in motion. Thus, a house rests upon
its foundation for ages ; but this rest is
relative with respect to the earth. For it
has gone round the earth's axis every day,
and round the sun every year.
The distinction your Lordship makes be-
tween moving and being moved, belongs not
to physics, but to metaphysics. In physics,
you may use the active or the passive verb
as you like best. The reason is, that in
physics we seek not the efficient causes of
phenomena, but only the rules or laws by
which they are regulated. We know, that
a body once put in motion, continues to
move, or, if you please, to be moved, until
some force is applied to stop or retard it.
But, whether this phenomenon is produced
by some real activity in the body itself, or
by the efficiency of some external cause ;
or whether it requires no efficiency at all to
continue in the state into which it is put, is,
perhaps, difficult to determine; and is a
question that belongs not to physics, but to
metaphysics.
Some divines and philosophers have
maintained, that the preservation of a
created being in existence, is a continued
act of creation ; and that annihilation is
nothing but the suspending that exertion of
the Creator by which the being was upheld
in existence.
Analogous to this, I think, is the opinion,
that the continuance of motion in a body
requires a continued exertion of that active
force which put it into the state of motion.
I am rather inclined to the contrary of both
these opinions, and disposed to think that
continuance of existence, and continuance
of motion in a body, requires no active
cause ; and that it is only a change of state,
and not a continuance of the present state,
that requires active power. But, I suspect,
both questions are rather beyond the reach
of the human faculties. However, they
belong not to the province of physics, but
to that of metaphysics.
I wish I may be intelligible, and that I
do not oppress your Lordship with the gar-
rulity of old age. I find myself, indeed,
growing old, and have no right to plead ex-
emption from the infirmities of that stage of
life. Por that reason, I have made choice
of an assistant in my office. Yesterday, the
college, at my desire, made choice of Mr
Archibald Arthur, preacher, to be my assist-
ant and successor.” I think I have done
good service to the college by this, and pro-
cured some leisure to myself, though with a
reduction of my finances. May your Lord-
ship live long and happy.--Yours, -
THo. TEID.
VI.
ON CONJECTURES AND HYPOTHESES IN PHI-
LOSOPHY. —CAUSE WHAT IN RELATION
TO PHYSICS. —DIFFERENT PROVINCES OF
PHYSICAL AND OF METAPHYSICAL SCIENCE.
16th December 1780.
MY LORD,-l. I am now to answer the
letter you honoured me with of 7th No-
vember. And, first, I disclaim what you
seem to impute to me—to wit, “the valuing
myself upon my ignorance of the cause of
gravity.” To confess ignorance when one
is conscious of it, I take to be a sign, not
of pride, but of humility, and of that can-
dour which becomes a philosopher ; and so
I meant it.
2. Your Lordship thinks, “That never
to trust to hypotheses and conjectures about
the works of God, and being persuaded that
they are more like to be false than true, is
a discouraging doctrine, and damps the
spirit of inquiry,” &c. Now, my Lord, I
have, ever since I was acquainted with
Bacon and Newton, thought that this doc-
trine is the very key to natural philosophy,
and the touchstone by which everything
that is legitimate and solid in that science,
is to be distinguished from what is spurious
and hollow ; and I can hardly think, that
we can differ in so capital a point, if we
understood each other's meaning.
3. I would discourage no man from con-
jecturing, only I wish him not to take his
conjectures for knowledge, or to expect that
others should do so. Conjecturing may be
a useful step even in natural philosophy.
Thus, attending to such a phenomenon, I
conjecture that it may be owing to such a
cause. This may lead me to make the ex-
periments or observations proper for dis-
covering whether that is really the cause or
not ; and if I can discover, either that it
is or is not, my knowledge is improved ;
and my conjecture was a step to that im-
* Mr Arthur, a man of learning, abilities, and
worth, filled the Chair of Moral Philosophy in the
University of Glasgow for fifteen years, with a repu-
tation which did not disappoint the hopes of his
respectable predecessor. A volume of “Discourses
on Theological and Literary Subjects,” which give a
very favourable idea of his talents, the justness of
his taste, and the rectitude of his moral and religious
principles, has been published, since his death, by
Professor Richardson of the same colloge—a gentle-
man distinguished in the literary world, and who has
done honour to the memory of his friend, by an inter-
esting sketch of his life and character, subjouncil to
these discourses.— Lon D. Woop HQUsſ. LEE.
LETTERS TO LORD EAMES.
57
provement. But, while I rest in my con-
jecture, my judgment remains in Suspense,
and all I can say is, it may be so, and it
may be otherwise.
4. A cause that is conjectured ought to
be such, that, if it really does exist, it will
produce the effect. If it have not this
quality, it hardly deserves the name of a
conjecture. Supposing it to have this
quality, the question remains—Whether
does it exist or hot ? And this, being a
question of fact, is to be tried by positive
evidence. Thus, Des Cartes conjectured,
that the planets are carried round the sun
in a vortex of subtile matter. The cause
here assigned is sufficient to produce the
effect. It may, therefore, be entitled to
the name of a conjecture. But where is
the evidence of the existence of such a vor-
tex 2 If there be no evidence for it, even
though there were none against it, it is a
conjecture only, and ought to have no
admittance into chaste natural philosophy.
5. All investigation of what we call the
causes of natural phenomena may be reduced
to this syllogism—If such a cause exists, it
will produce such a phenomenon: but that
cause does exist : Therefore, &c. The first
proposition is merely hypothetical. And a
man in his closet, without consulting nature,
may make a thousand such propositions,
and connect them into a system ; but this
is only a system of hypotheses, conjectures,
or theories ; and there cannot be one con-
clusion in natural philosophy drawn from it,
until he consults nature, and discovers
whether the causes he has conjectured
do really exist. As far as he can shew that
they do, he makes a real progress in the
knowledge of nature, and not a step further.
I hope in all this your Lordship will agree
with me. But it remains to be considered
how the second proposition of the syllogism
is to be proved—to wit, that such a cause
does really exist. Will nothing satisfy
lmere but demonstration ?
6. I am so far from thinking so, my Lord,
that I am persuaded we never can have
demonstration in this case. All that we
know of the material world, must be grounded
on the testimony of our senses. Our senses
testify particular facts only : from these we
collect, by induction, general facts, which
we call laws of nature, or natural causes.
Thus, ascending by a just and cautious in-
duction, from what is less to what is more
general, we discover, as far as we are able,
natural causes, or laws of nature. This is
the analytical part of natural philosophy.
The synthetical part takes for granted, as
principles, the causes discovered by induc-
tion, and from these explains or accounts
for the phenomena which result from them.
This analysis and synthesis make up the
whole theory of natural philosophy. The
practical part consists in applying the laws
of nature to produce effects useful in life.
7. From this view of natural philosophy,
which I have learned from Newton, your
Lordship will perceive that no man who
understands it will pretend to demon-
strate any of its principles. Nay, the most
certain and best established of them may,
for anything we know, admit of exceptions.
For instance, there is no principle in natu-
ral philosophy better established than the
universal gravitation of matter. But, can
this be demonstrated ? By no means.
What is the evidence of it, then P. It is
collected by induction, partly from our
daily experience, and from the experience
of all nations, in all ages, in all places of
earth, Sea, and air, which we can reach ;
and partly from the observations and expe-
riments of philosophers, which shew that
even air and smoke, and every body upon
which experiments have been made, gravi-
tate precisely in proportion to the quantity
of matter ; that the sea and earth gravitate
towards the moon, and the moon towards
them ; that the planets and comets gravi-
tate towards the sun, and towards one
another, and the Sun towards them. This
is the sum of evidence ; and it is as differ-
ent from demonstration, on the one hand,
as from conjecture on the other. It is the
same kind of evidence which we have, that
fire willburn and water drown, that bread will
nourish and arsenic poison, which, I think,
would not properly be called conjecture.
8. It is proper here to explain what is
meant by the cause of a phenomenon, when
that word is used in natural philosophy.
The word cause is so ambiguous, that I fear
many mistake its meaning, and take it to
mean the efficient cause, which I think it
never does in this science.
9. By the cause of a phenomenon, nothing
is meant but the law of nature, of which
that phenomenon is an instance, or a neces-
sary consequence. The cause of a body's
falling to the ground is its gravity. But
gravity is not an efficient cause, but a gene-
ral law, that obtains in nature, of which
law the fall of this body is a particular in-
stance. The cause why a body projected
moves in a parabola, is, that this motion is
the necessary consequence of the projectile
force and gravity united. But these are
not efficient causes; they are only laws of
nature. In natural philosophy, therefore,
we seek only the general laws, according to
which nature works, and these we call the
causes of what is done according to them.
But such laws cannot be the efficient cause
of anything. They are only the rule accord-
ing to which the efficient cause operates.
10. A natural philosopher may search
after the cause of a law of nature ; but
this means no more than searching for a
58
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
more general law, which includes that par-
ticular law, and perhaps many others under
it. This was all that Newton aimed at by
his ether. He thought it possible, that, if
there was such an ether, the gravitation of
bodies, the reflection and refraction of the
rays of light, and many other laws of nature,
might be the necessary consequences of the
elasticity and repelling force of the ether.
But, supposing this ether to exist, its elas-
ticity and repelling force must be considered
as a law of nature; and the efficient cause
of this elasticity would still have been latent
11. Efficient causes, properly so called,
are not within the sphere of natural philo-
sophy. Its business is, from particular
facts in the material world, to collect, by
just induction, the laws that are general,
and from these the more general, as far as
we can go. And when this is done, natural
philosophy has no more to do. It exhibits
to our view the grand machine of the mate-
rial world, analysed, as it were, and taken
to pieces, with the connexions and depend-
encies of its several parts, and the laws of
its several movements. It belongs to
another branch of philosophy to consider
whether this machine is the work of chance
or of design, and whether of good or of bad
design ; whether there is not an intelligent
first Mover who contrived the whole, and
gives motion to the whole, according to the
laws which the natural philosopher has dis-
covered, or, perhaps, according to laws
still more general, of which we can only
discover some branches; and whether he
does these things by his own hand, so to
speak, or employs subordinate efficient
causes to execute his purposes. These are
very noble and important inquiries, but they
do not belong to natural philosophy; nor
can we proceed in them in the way of ex-
periment and induction, the only instru-
ments the natural philosopher uses in his
researches.
12. Whether you call this branch of
philosophy Natural Theology or Meta-
physics, I care not ; but I think it ought
not to be confounded with Natural Philo-
sophy; and neither of them with Mathe-
matics. Let the mathematician demon-
strate the relation of abstract quantity; the
natural philosopher investigate the laws of
the material system by induction; and the
metaphysician, the final causes, and the
efficient causes of what we see and what
natural philosophy discovers in the world
we live in.
13. As to final causes, they stare us in
the face wherever we cast our eyes. I can
no more doubt whether the eye was made
for the purpose of seeing, and the ear of
hearing, than I can doubt of a mathema-
tical axiom ; yet the evidence is neither
mathematical demonstration, nor is it in-
duction. In a word, final causes, good final
causes, are seen plainly everywhere : in the
heavens and in the earth; in the constitu-
tion of every animal, and in our own consti-
tution of body and of mind; and they are
most worthy of observation, and have a
charm in them that delights the soul.
14. As to Efficient Causes, I am afraid
our faculties carry us but a very little way,
and almost only to general conclusions. I
hold it to be self-evident, that every pro-
duction, and every change in nature, must
have an efficient cause that has power
to produce the effect ; and that an effect
which has the most manifest marks of in-
telligence, wisdom, and goodness, must have
an intelligent, wise, and good efficient cause.
From these, and some such self-evident
truths, we may discover the principles of
natural theology, and that the Deity is the
first efficient cause of all nature. But how
far he operates in nature immediately, or
how far by the ministry of subordinate effi-
cient causes, to which he has given power
adequate to the task committed to them, I
am afraid our reason is not able to discover,
and we can do little else than conjecture.
We are led by nature to believe ourselves
to be the efficient causes of our own volun-
tary actions; and, from analogy, we judge
the same of other intelligent beings. But
with regard to the works of nature, I can-
not recollect a single instance wherein I can
Say, with any degree of assurance, that such
a thing is the efficient cause of such a phe-
nomenon of nature.
15. Malebranche, and many of the Car-
tesians, ascribed all to the immediate oper-
ation of the Deity, except the determinations
of the will of free agents. Leibnitz, and all
his followers, maintain, that God finished
his work at the creation, having endowed
every creature and every individual particle
of matter, with such internal powers as
necessarily produce all its actions, motions,
and changes, to the end of time. Others
have held, that various intelligent beings,
appointed by the Deity to their several
departments, are the efficient causes of the
various operations of nature. Others, that
there are beings endowed with power with-
out intelligence, which are the efficient
causes in nature's operations ; and they
have given them the name of Plastic
Powers, or Plastic Natures. A late author
of your Lordship's acquaintance," has given
it as ancient metaphysics, That everybody
in the universe is compounded of two sub-
stances united—to wit, an immaterial mind
or Soul, which, in the inanimate creation,
has the power of motion without thought ;
and of inert matter as the other part. The
celebrated Dr Priestley maintains, that
* Lord Monboddo.—H,
LETTERS TO LORD RAMES.
59
matter, properly organized, has not only the
power of motion, but of thought and intel-
ligence ; and that a man is only a piece of
matter properly organized.
16. Of all these systems about the effi-
cient causes of the phenomena of nature,
there is not one that, in my opinion, can be
either proved or refuted from the principles
of natural philosophy. They belong to
metaphysics, and affect not natural philo-
sophy, whether they be true or false. Some
of them, I think, may be refuted upon meta-
physical principles ; but, as to the others, I
can neither see such evidence for them or
against them as determines my belief.
They seem to me to be conjectures only
about matters where we have not evidence ;
and, therefore, I must confess my ignor-
3,Il Ce,
17. As to the point which gave occasion
to this long detail, Whether there is reason
to think that matter gravitates by an in-
herent power, and is the efficient cause of
its own gravitation, I say, first, This is a
metaphysical question, which concerns not
natural philosophy, and can neither be
proved nor refuted by any principle in that
science. Natural philosophy informs us,
that matter gravitates according to a certain
law; and it says no more. Whether mat-
ter be active or passive in gravitation, can-
not be determined by any experiment I can
think of. If it should be said that we ought
to conclude it to be active, because we per-
ceive no external cause of its gravitation,
this argument, I fear, will go too far. Be-
sides it is very weak, amounting only to
this : I do not perceive such a thing, there-
fore it does not exist.
18. I never could see good reason to
believe that matter has any active power at
all. And, indeed, if it were evident that it
has one, I think there could be no good reason
assigned for not allowing it oſhers. Your
Hordship speaks of the power of resisting
motion, and some others, as acknowledged
active powers inherent in matter. As to
the resistance to motion, and the continu-
ance in motion, I never could satisfy my-
self whether these are not the necessary
consequences of matter being inactive. If
they imply activity, that may lie in some
other cause.
19. I am not able to form any distinct
conception of active power but such as I find
in myself. I can only exert my active
power by will, which supposes thought. It
seems to me, that, if I was not conscious of
activity in myself, I could never, from things
I See about me, have had the conception or
idea of active power. I see a succession of
changes, but I see not the power, that is,
the efficient cause of them ; but, having got
the notion of active power, from the con-
sciousness of my own activity, and finding
it a first principle, that every production
requires active power, I can reason about
an active power of that kind I am acquainted
with—that is, such as supposes thought and
choice, and is exerted by will. But, if there
is anything in an unthinking inanimate being
that can be called active power, I know not
what it is, and cannot reason about it.
20. If you conceive that the activity of
matter is directed by thought and will in
matter, every particle of matter must know
the situation and distance of every other
particle within the planetary system ; but
this, I am apt to think, is not your Lord-
ship's opinion.
21. I must therefore conclude, that this
active power is guided in all its operations
by some intelligent Being, who knows both
the law of gravitation, and the distance and
situation of every particle of matter with
regard to every other particle, in all the
changes that happen in the material world.
I can only conceive two ways in which this
particle of matter can be guided, in all the
exertions of its active power, by an intelli-
gent Being. Either it was formed, in its
creation, upon a foreknowledge of all the
situations it shall ever be in with respect to
other particles, and had such an internal
structure given it, as necessarily produces,
in succession, all the motions, and tend-
encies to motion, it shall ever exert. This
would make every particle of matter a ma-
chine or automaton, and every particle of a
different structure from every other particle
in the universe. This is indeed the opinion
of Leibnitz; but I am not prejudiced against
it upon that account ; I only wished to know
whether your Lordship adopted it or not.
Another way, and the only other way, in
which I can conceive the active power of a
particle of matter, guided by an intelligent
Being, is by a continual influence exerted
according to its situation and the situation
of other particles. In this case, the particle
would be guided as a horse is by his rider ;
and I think it would be improper to ascribe
to it the power of gravitation. It has only
the power of obeying its guide. Whether
your Lordship chooses the first or the last
in this alternative, I should be glad to
know ; or whether you can think of a third
way better than either.
22. I will not add to the length of so
immoderately long a letter by criticising
upon the passages you quote from Newton.
I have a great regard for his judgment ; but
where he differs from me, I think him
wrong.
The idea of natural philosophy I have
given in this letter, I think I had from him.
If in scholia and queries he gives a range to
his thoughts, and sometimes enters the
regions of natural theology and metaphysics,
this I think is very allowable, and is not to
60
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
be considered a part of his physics, which
are contained in his propositions and corol-
laries. Even his queries and conjectures
are valuable ; but I think he never intended
that they should be taken for granted, but
made the subject of inquiry.
THo. REID.
VII.
LAWS OF MOTI() N – PRESSURE OF ELUIDS.
January 25, 1781.
My Lord, – To what cause is it owing
that I differ so much from your Lordship
in Physics, when we differ so little in Meta-
physics 2 I am at a loss to account for this
phenomenon. Whether is it owing to our
having different conceptions to the same
words 2—or, as I rather think it is, to
your being dissatisfied with the three gene-
ral laws of motion ? Without them. I know
not indeed how to reason in physics. Ar-
chimedes reasoned from them both in me-
chanics and hydrostatics. Galileo, Huy-
gens, Wren, Wallis, Mariotte, and many
others, reasoned from them, without ob-
serving that they did so.
I have not indeed any scruples about the
principles of hydrostatics. They seem to
me to be the necessary consequences of the
definition of a fluid, the three laws of motion,
and the law of gravitation ; and, therefore,
I cannot assent to your Lordship's reason-
ing, either about the pressure of fluids, or
about the suspension of the mercury in the
barometer.
As to the first, the experiments which shew
that fluids do, in fact, press undequaque,
are so numerous, and so well known to your
Lordship, that I apprehend it is not the fact
you question, but the cause. You think
that gravity is not the cause. Why? Be-
cause gravity gives to every part of the fluid
a tendency downwards only ; and what is
true of every part, is true of the whole :
therefore, the whole has no other tendency
but downward. This argument is specious,
but there is a fallacy in it. If the parts did
not act upon one another, and counteract
one another, the argument would be good;
but the parts are so connected, that one
cannot go down but another must go up,
and, therefore, that very gravity which
presses down one part presses up another:
so that every part is pressed down by its
own gravity, and pressed up, at the same
time, by the gravity of other parts; and
the contrary pressures being equal, it re-
mains at rest.
This may be illustrated by a balance
equilibrating by equal weights in both scales.
I say each arm of the balance is equally
pressed upwards and downwards at the same
time, and from that cause is at rest; although
the tendency of the weights, in each of the
scales, is downwards only. I prove it a pos-
teriori; because the arm of a balance being
moveable by the least force, if it was pressed
in one direction only, it would move in that
direction: but it does not move. I prove
it a priori; because the necessary effect of
pressing one arm down, is the pressing the
other up with the same force : therefore,
each arm is pressed down by the weight in
its own scale, and equally pressed up by the
weight in the other scale; and, being pressed
with equal force in contrary directions, it
remains at rest. J'our Lordship will easily
apply this reasoning to a fluid, every part of
which is as moveable as the balance is about
its fulcrum ; and no one part can move, but
an equal part must be moved in a contrary
direction. And I think it is impossible we
should differ in this, but in words.
Next, as to the barometer. You say the
mercury is kept up by the expansive power
of the air : but you say further, that it is
not kept up by the weight of the air. I
agree to the first, but not to the last. The
expansive power of the air is owing to its
being compressed ; and it is compressed by
the weight of the incumbent atmosphere.
Its expansive force is exactly equal to the
force that presses and condenses it ; and
that force is the weight of the air above it,
to the top of the atmosphere—so that the ex-
pansive force of the air is the causa proa'ima,
the weight of the atmosphere the causa
Temota of the suspension of the mercury.
Your Lordship knows the maxim, Causa
causa est causa causati. The barometer,
therefore, while it measures the expansive
force of the air which presses upon the
lower end of the tube, at the same time
measures the weight of the atmosphere,
which is the cause of that expansive force,
and exactly equal to it. If the air was not
pressed by the incumbent weight, it would
expand in boundless space, until it had no
more expansive force.
As to the observation in the postscript,
it is true, that the gravity of the air, while
it rests upon an unyielding bottom, will give
no motion to it ; but the mercury in the
lower end of the tube yields to the pressure
of the air upon it, until the weight of the
mercury is balanced by the pressure of the
&ll I’.
What your Lordship is pleased to call the
Opus Magnum, goes on, but more slowly
than I wish.-I am, most respectfully, my
Lord, yours,
THo. REID.
LETTERS TO LORD KAMES.
61.
VIII.
ON THIE ACCEI, ERATED MOTION OF FA L I, ING
|BODIES.
Glasgow College, Nov. 11, 1782.
My LoRD,-My hope that your Lordship
is in no worse state of health than when I
left you, and that the rest of the good family
are well, is confirmed by your continuing
your favourite speculations. I promised to
call upon you in the morning before I came
away. I sent in Samuel to see if you was
awake : he reported that you was sleeping
sound; and I could not find it in my heart
to disturb your repose.
When we say, that, in falling bodies, the
space gone through is as the square of the
velocity, it must be carefully observed that
the velocity meant in this proposition, is the
last velocity, which the body acquires only
the last moment of its fall: but the space
meant is the whole space gone through,
from the beginning of its fall to the end.
As this is the meaning of the proposition,
your Lordship will easily perceive, that the
velocity of the last moment must indeed
correspond to the space gone through in
that moment, but cannot correspond to the
Space gone through in any preceding moment,
with a less velocity; and, consequently, can-
not correspond to the whole space gone
through in the last and all preceding mo-
ments taken together. You say very justly,
that, whether the motion be equable or
accelerated, the space gone through in any
instant of time corresponds to the velocity
in that instant. But it does not follow from
this, that, in accelerated motion, the space
gone through in many succeeding instants
will correspond to the velocity of the last
instant. *
If any writer in physics has pretended to
demonstrate mathematically this proposi-
tion—that a body falling bygravity in vacuo,
goes through a space which is as the square
of its last velocity; he must be one who
writes without distinct conceptions, of which
kind we have not a few.
The proposition is not mathematical, but
physical. It admits not of demonstration,
as your Lordship justly observes, but of
proof by experiment, or reasoning grounded
on experiment. There is, however, a ma-
thematical proposition, which possibly an
inaccurate writer might confound with the
last mentioned. It is this—that a body
uniformly accelerated from a state of rest,
will go through a space which is as the
square of the last velocity. “This is an ab-
stract proposition, and has been mathema-
tically demonstrated ; and it may be made
a step in the proof of the physical proposi-
tion. But the proof must be completed by
shewing, that, in fact, bodies descending by
gravitation are uniformly accelerated. This
is sometimes shewn by a machine invented
by S'Gravesande, to measure the velocities
of falling bodies ; sometimes it is proved
by the experiments upon pendulums; and
sometimes we deduce it by reasoning from
the second law of motion, which we think
is grounded on universal experience. So
that the proof of the physical proposition
always rests ultimately upon experience, and
not solely upon mathematical demonstra-
tion.—I am, my Lord, respectfully yours,
THo. REID.
IX.
EXTRACT OF A LETTER TO MRS DRUMMOND,
AFTER THE DEATH OF HER II USBAND,
LoRD KAMES, IN 1782.
I accept, dear madam, the present you
sent me,” as a testimony of your regard,
and as a precious relic of a man whose
talents I admired and whose virtues I
honoured ; a man who honoured me with
a share of his conversation, and of his cor-
respondence, which is my pride, and which
gave me the best opportunity of knowing
his real worth.
I have lost in him one of the greatest
comforts of my life; but his remembrance
will always be dear to me, and demand my
best wishes and prayers for those whom he
has left behind him.
When time has abated your just grief
for the loss of such a husband, the recol-
lection of his eminent talents, and of his
public and domestic virtues, will pour balm
into the wound. Friends are not lost who
leave such a character bellind them, and
such an example to those who come after
them.
* A gold snuffbox.
62
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
C. LETTERS TO DR JAMES GREGORY.
I.
Glasgow College, April 7, 1783.
DEAR SIR,-By favour of Mr Patrick
Wilson, our Assistant Professor of Astro-
nomy, I send you two more numbers of my
lucubrations.” I am not sure when I can
send more, as I am not sure whether my
scribe may soon leave the College.
I shall be much obliged to you if you will
continue to favour me with your observa-
tions, though I have put off examining those
you have sent until the MSS. be returned,
which I expect about the end of this month,
along with Dug. Stewart's observations. I
have also sent the Genealogy of the Gre-
gories, which your brother left with me :
I suspected that it was more particular than
the copy I had, but I find they agree per-
fectly.
You will please deliver it to him, with
my compliments. The few days he was
here he payed his respects to all the Pro-
fessors and all his acquaintance, and they
are all very much pleased with his appear-
ance. If it please God to spare his life, I
hope he will do honour to his Alma Mater,
and to his friends. i.
I know not upon what authority the
Edinburgh and London news-writers have
given contradictory accounts of Dr Hun-
ter's settlements.: There is nothing cer-
tainly known here. I know that, six or
seven years ago, he made a settlemént very
favourable to this College. But whether
this is altered, or in what respect, I believe
nobody here knows. But we shall probably
know soon. He was surely a man that did
great honour to his country, and I doubt
not but his publick spirit, which I take to
have been great, will have disposed him to
leave his books, medals, and other literary
furniture—which he had collected at vast
expense, and with great industry—in such
i. y as that it may be useful to the pub-
1CK.
I beg you to make my best respects to
Mrs Gregory, and to all your family; and
I am, dear Sir,
Your most obedient Servant,
THo. REID.
* His “Essays on the Intellectual Powers.”—PI.
# This was the Rev. William Gregory, A. M. of
Balliol College, Oxford, afterwards Rector of St
Mary's, Bentham, and one of the Preachers of Can-
terbury Cathedral. He had studied at Glasgow pre-
viously to entering at Oxford.—H.
.# The celebrated Dr Wm. Hunter. He bequeathed
his anatomical preparations, library, and collection
of medals, to the University of Glasgow, and a sum
of money for the erection of a museum.-H.
| telian notions which then prevailed.
II.
Glasgow College, June 8, 1783.
DEAR SIR, -
e e © º e I cannot get
more copied of my papers till next winter,
and indeed have not much more ready.
This parcel goes to page 658. I believe
what you have got before may be one-half
or more of all I intend. The materials of
what is not yet ready for the copyer are
partly discourses read in our Literary So-
ciety, partly notes of my Lectures.
Your judgment of what you have seen
flatters me very much, and adds greatly to
my own opinion of it, though authors sel-
dom are deficient in a good opinion of their
own works.
I am at a loss to express my obligations
to you for the pains you have taken, and pro-
pose to take again upon it. I have carefully
laid up the observations you sent me, to be
considered when the copy they refer to is
returned, and I hope for the continuation of
them. The analogy between memory and
prescience is, I believe, a notion of my own.
But I shall be open to conviction on this
and every thing else we may differ about.
I have often thought of what you propose
—to give the History of the Ideal System :
and what I have to say against it, by itself,
and I am far from being positive that it
stands in the most proper place. Perhaps
it will be easier to judge of this when the
work is concluded. I have endeavoured to
put it in separate chapters, whose titles may
direct those who have no taste for it to pass
over them. But I hope to have your opi-
nion upon this point at more length when
we meet. I observe that Boyle and others,
who, at the Reformation of Natural Philo-
sophy, gave new light, found it necessary to
contrast their discoveries with the Aristo-
We
could now wish their works purged of the
controversial part; but, perhaps, it was pro-
per and necessary at the time they wrote,
when men's minds were full of the old sys-
tems, and prepossessed in its favour. What
I take to be the genuine philosophy of the
human mind, is in so low a state, and has
so many enemies, that, I apprehend those
who would make any improvement in it
must, for some time at least, build with one
hand, and hold a weapon with the other.
I shall be very glad to see you hore, and
will take it as a favour if you acquaint me
when you have fixed your time, that I may
be sure to be at home. I beg you wil.
LETTERS TO DR JAMES GREGORY
63
make my best compliments to Mrs Gregory,
whom I should be happy to see along with
you in good health, and to Mr D. Gordon,
if he is still with you, and to all your fa-
mily; and am, dear sir,
Yours most affectionately,
* Trio. REID.
III.
March 14, 1784.
DEAR SIR,--I send you now the remainder
of what I propose to print with respect to
the Intellectual Powers of the Mind. It
may, perhaps, be a year before what relates
to the Active Powers be ready, and, there-
fore, I think the former might be published
by itself, as it is very uncertain whether I
shall live to publish the latter.
I have enclosed, in the first of the three
papers now sent, the contents of the whole,
which you was so good as to write out as
far as it was carried last year. I think the
titlemaybe, Essays on the Intellectual Powers
of the Human Mind. It will easily divide
into eight essays, as you will see by the
contents; but with regard to this, as well
as whether the two parts may be published
separately, I wish to have your advice and
Mr Stuart's—(Sic.) Since you have been so
good as to take a concern in it, I apprehend
that the second Part—I mean what relates to
the Active Powers—will not be near so large
as the first. I wish to have the manuscript,
with your remarks and Mr Stuart's, (sic,)
about the end of April, if you can. Dr
Rose at Chiswick—who, you know, has all
along had a principal concern in The
Monthly Review—has made me a very kind
offer, that, if I please to send the MSS. to
him, he will both give me his remarks, and
treat with a bookseller about the sale of it.
I think this is an offer that I ought not to re-
fuse ; and I can have a good occasion of
sending it about the beginning of the month
of May, by his son, who is at this college.
I long to hear how Mrs Gregory has stood
this severe winter, and beg my most humble
respects to her, and to the Rev. Mr Wil-
liam, when you write him.
I send you on the other page an anecdote
respecting Sir I. Newton," which I do not
remember whether I ever happened to men-
tion to you in conversation. If his descent
be not clearly ascertained, (as I think it is
not in the books I have seen,) might it not
be worth while for the antiquarian branch
of your R. Society, to inquire if they
can find evidence to confirm the account
which he is said to have given of himself.
Sheriff Cross was very zealous about it,
• See Brewster's “Life of Newton,” and, infra,
Reid's letter to Mr Robison, at the end of his Cor-
i espondence.—H.
when death put a stop to his inquiries.—I
am, dear Sir, yours most respectfully,
THo. REID.
When I lived in Old Aberdeen, above
twenty years ago, I happened to be con-
versing over a pipe of tobacco, with a gen-
tleman of that country, who had been lately
at Edinburgh. He told me that he had
been often in company with Mr Hepburn
of Keith, with whom I had the honour of
Some acquaintance. He said that, speaking
of Sir Tsaac Newton, Mr Hepburn men-
tioned an anecdote, which he had from Mr
James Gregory, Professor of Mathematics
at Edinburgh, which was to this purpose:—
Mr Gregory being at London for some time
after he resigned the mathematical chair,
was often with Sir I. Newton. One day
Sir Isaac said to him, “Gregory, I believe
you don't know that I am connected with
Scotland.” “Pray, how, Sir Isaac P” said
Gregory. Sir Isaac said—“ He was told,
that his grandfather was a gentleman of
East Lothian ; that he came to London with
King James at his accession to the Crown
of England, and there spent his fortune, as
many more did at that time, by which his
son (Sir Isaac's father) was reduced to mean
circumstances.” To this Gregory bluntly
replied—“Newton, a gentleman in East
Lothian 2–I never heard of a gentleman of
East Lothian of that name.” Upon this
Sir Isaac said, that, being very young when
his father died, he had it only by tradition,
and it might be a mistake ; and imme-
diately turned the conversation to another
subject.
I confess I suspected that the gentleman
who was my author had given some colour-
ing to this story; and, therefore, I never
mentioned it for a good many years.
After I removed to Glasgow, I came to
be very intimately acquainted with Mr
Cross, the Sheriff of Lanerick, and one day
at his own house mentioned this story with-
out naming my author, of whom I expressed
some diffidence. The Sheriff immediately
took it up as a matter worth being inquired
into. He said he was well acquainted with
Mr Hepburn of Keith, (who was then
alive,) and that he would write him, to
know whether he ever heard Mr Gregory
Say that he had such a conversation with
Sir Isaac Newton. He said, he knew that
Mr Keith, the ambassador, was also inti-
mate with Mr Gregory, and that he would
write him to the same purpose. Some time
after, Mr Cross told me, that he had
answers from both the gentlemen above-
mentioned, and that both remembered to
have heard Mr Gregory mention the con-
versation between him and Sir Isaac New-
ton to the purpose above narrated ; and at
the same time acknowledged that they had
64
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
made no farther inquiry about the mat-
ter. -
Mr Cross, however, continued in the
inquiry; and, a short time before his death,
told me, that all he had learned was, that
there is, or was lately, a baronet's family
of the name of Newton in West-Lothian,
or Mid-Lothian, (I have forgot which ;)
that there is a tradition in that family that
Sir Isaac Newton wrote a letter to the old
knight that was, (I think Sir John New-
ton of Newton was his name,) desiring
to know what children, and particularly what
sons he had ; their age, and what profes-
sions they intended. That the old baronet
never deigned to return an answer to this
letter, which his family was sorry for, as
they thought Sir Isaac might have intended
to do something for them. -
IV.
DEAR SIR,-Happening to have gone into
the country a little way, your letter of 5th
June did not reach me in time to write you
before you set out upon your journey, which
I wish to be attended with much happiness
to the parties, and comfort to their friends.”
I was so stupid at first as to misunder-
stand the direction you gave me how to
write you.
and I hope have taken it right. I send you
the enclosed to Dr Rose, as you desire.
I have by me our friend D. Stewart's
“Discourse on the Ideas of Cause and
Effect,” &c.; and I have this day sent him
my remarks upon it. I am happy to find
his sentiments on that subject agree so
much with my own. I think it well wrote,
and hope it will be very useful.
Dr Rose will shew you the letter I wrote
to him along with the MSS., and one from
Mr Belli to me, which I enclosed in it :
these contain all the information I have to
give, and all the instructions I thought
necessary. I expect an answer from one
quarter, at least, before the work be cold from
the press. But the only answer that shall
ever have any reply from me must be one
who keeps good temper, and who observes
good manners, in the first place ; and next
one who, in my opinion, gives new light to
the subject. -
I wish you happy success in your own
affairs, and a safe return. If nothing hap-
pens of which you wish to acquaint me
sooner, I shall be glad to hear from you on
your return ; being, dear sir,
Most affectionately yours,
THU. REID.
Glasgow Coll. 1784.
* This alludes to the marriage of Dr Gregory's
eldest sister 10 the Hev. Archibald Alison. – H.
f The publisher —; i.
Now I see it is plain enough,
[The letter quoted above by Mr Stewart,
(p. 34) “ to one of Dr Reid’s most intimate
Jºriends,” was addressed to Dr James Gregory
on the death of his first wife, and should
properly here find its place.—H.]
V.
ON THE MEANING OF NOTION.
Glasgow College, December 31, 1784.
DEAR SIR,--I had the favour of yours by
Mr Tower, and take the opportunity of his
return to wish you many happy returns of
this season. •
I believe you and I cannot differ about
right or wrong motions, but in words.
The motions we have of real existences,
may with good reason be said to be right or
wrong, true or false ; but I think every
notion of this kind has a standard to which
| I believe my notion to agree; and as that
belief is true or false, so my notion of the
thing is true or false. For instance, if my
notion of the Devil includes horns and cloven
feet, I must believe these to be attributes
of the Devil, otherwise they would not be
included in my notion of him. If this be-
lief be wrong, I have a wrong notion of him;
and, as soon as I am convinced that this
belief is wrong, I leave out these attributes
in my notion of him.
I may have an abstract notion of a being
with horns and cloven feet, without apply-
ing it to any individual—then it is a simple
apprehension, and neither true nor false;
but it cannot be my notion of any indivi-
dual that exists, unless I believe that being
to have these attributes. I am therefore
still apt to think that true and false can only
with propriety be applied to notions which
include some belief; but whether my re-
mark on your use of the word notion be just
or not, I cannot presently say: you will
judge for yourself.
I thought to have seen D. Stewart here
about this time. When you see him, please
acquaint him that I have made my remarks
upon the performance he left with me. I
am extremely obliged to you and him for
correcting the sheets of my performance.
You leave me very little to do.
By the slowness of printing, I conjecture
that the book cannot be published next
Spring, and can only be ready for the spring
1786. I desired long ago to know of Mr
Bell whether he proposed to publish it in
one vol. or two ; but I have not had an
answer. I suspect it will be too thick for
one vol. and too thin for two. Perhaps if
the publication is delayed to 1786, I might
have my Essays on the Active Powers
ready, of which Mr Bell shall have the first
offer ; and I apprehend that, with this
LETTERS To DR JAMES GREGORY.
65
addition, there may be two sizeable 4tos in
the whole.—I am, dear Sir,
Yours most affectionately,
THo. REIL.
f VI.
DEAR SIR,--I send you enclosed what I
propose as the title-page of my essays, with
an epistle, which, I hope, you and Mr
Stewart will please to allow me to prefix to
them. . &
Whether your name should go first, on
account of your doctor's degree, or Mr
Stewart's, on account of his seniority as a
professor, I leave you to adjust between
yourselves."
As to the title-page, you and he may
alter what you think fit, and deliver it to
Mr Bell without farther communication
with me, as he intends immediately to ad-
vertise the book.
If you find anything in the epistle that
you would have altered or corrected, you
may please write me; but you need not
send back the copy, as I have a copy by me.
I know not how to express my obliga-
tions to you and Mr Stewart for the aid
you have given me.—I am, dear Sir, your
most obliged servant,
THo. REID.
May 2d, 1785,
Glasgow College.
You will give the epistle to the printers
when it is wanted. I send with this the
last part of the MS.
VII.
MEANINGS OF CAUSE-MOTIVE-L.A.W OF
NATURE.
June 14, 1785.
DEAR SIR,--I am extremely obliged to
you for your friendly consultation about my
health. For two days past, I have had
almost nothing of my ailment, which i
ascribe to some exercise I have taken, and
to a comfortable warmness in the air. I
resolve to try some short excursions, which
I can make either on foot or in a chaise.
If that do not produce the effect, I shall
fall to your prescriptions, which I think
very rational. I very probably may be at
home when you propose to be in Glasgow.
* In the MS, dedication of the “ Essays on the
Intellectual Powers,” Dr Gregory's name stands
before that of Mr Stewart. This order was, probably
by Dr Gregory himself, reversed. There are talso
some verbal improvements in the style of the dedica-
tion, as it stands printed, which, it is likely, were
introduced by Dr Gregory or Mr Stewart.—H.
+ The title sent was, “Essays on the Intellectual
Powers of the Human Mind,” or, “ Essays on the
Intellectual Powers of Man.” The latter was pre-
ferred.—H,
Your speculation to demonstrate, mathe-
matically, the difference between the rela-
tion of motive and action, and the relation of
cause and effect," is, indeed, so new to me,
that I cannot easily formajudgment about it.
I shall offer some of my thoughts on the sub-
ject of those two relations. Whether they be
favourable to your speculation, or unfavour-
able, I cannot immediately determine.
The word cause, is very ambiguous in all
languages. I have wrote a chapter lately
upon the causes of this ambiguity. The
words power, agent, effect, have a like am-
biguity; each different meaning of the first
mentioned word leading to a corresponding
meaning of the three last. A reason, an
end, an instrument, and even a motive, is
often called a cause. You certainly exclude
the last from what you call a cause.
Whether you exclude all the other meanings
which I thinkimproper meanings, I am not
SO SUITé.
In the strict and proper sense, I take an
efficient cause to be a being who had power
to produce the effect, and exerted that power
for that purpose.
Active power is a quality which can only
be in a substance that really exists, and is
endowed with that power. Power to pro-
duce an effect, supposes power not to pro-
duce it; otherwise it is not power but neces-
sity, which is incompatible with power
taken in a strict sense. The exertion of that
power, is agency, or efficiency. That every
event must have a cause in this proper sense,
I take to be self-evident.
I should have noticed that I am not able
to form a conception how power, in the strict
sense, can be exerted without will ; nor can
there be will without some degree of under-
standing. Therefore, nothing can be an
efficient cause, in the proper sense, but an
intelligent being.
I believe we get the first conception of
power, in the proper sense, from the con-
sciousness of our own exertions; and, as all
our power is éxerted by will, we cannot form
a conception how power can be exerted with-
out will. Hence the only notion we can
form of Almighty power in the Deity, is that
#This refers to Dr Gregory's ingenious “Essay on the
Difference between the Relation of Motive and Action,
and that of Cause and Effect in Physics; on physical
and mathematical principles.” This treatise, which
was published in 1792, had been previously commu-
nicated to various philosophical friends, and in par-
ticular to every Necessitarian of the author's ac-
quaintance, with the assurance that, if any error
could be pointed out in the reasoning—which, as
mathematical, could be examined with the utmost
rigour—the objection should either be completely
answered, or the essay itself suppressed. ...Only one
Necessitarian, however, allowed his objections to be
published; and these, with Dr Gregory's answers, are
to be found in the appendix to the essay. Dr Reid
was among the first to whom Dr Gregory com-
municated this work; and to Dr Reid, when pub-
lished, the “ Philosophical and Literary Essays"
were inscribed.—HI
F
66
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
he can do whatever he wills. A power to do
What he does not will, is words without a
meaning.
Matter cannot be the cause of anything;
it can only be an instrument in the hands of
a real cause. Thus, when a body has a cer-
tain force given it by impulse, it may com-
municate that force to another body, and
that to a third, and so on. But, when we
trace back this motion to its origin, it must
nave been given, not by matter, but by some
being which had in itself the power of be-
ginning motion—that is, by a proper efficient
cause of motion. &
It cannot be said that there is a constant
conjunction between a proper cause and the
effect ; for, though the effect cannot be,
without power to produce it, yet that power
may be, without being exerted, and power
which is not exerted produces no effect.
You will see, by what is said above,
what I take to be the strict and proper
meaning of the word cause, and the related
words, power, agent, &c. In this sense we
use it in reasoning concerning the being and
attributes of the Deity. In this sense we
ought to use it in the question about liberty
and necessity, and, I think, in all metaphy-
sical reasoning about causes and effects;
for when, in metaphysical reasoning, we de-
part from this sense, the word is so vague
that there can be no clear reasoning about
it. -
Suppose, now, that you take the word
cause in this strict sense ; its relation to its
effect is so self-evidently different from the
relation of a motive to an action, that I am
jealous of a mathematical demonstration of
a truth so self-evident. Nothing is more
difficult than to demonstrate what is self-
evident. A cause is a being which has a
real existence; a motive has no real exist-
ence, and, therefore, can have no active
power. It is a thing conceived, and not a
thing that exists; and, therefore, can neither
be active nor even passive. To say that a
motive really acts, is as absurd as to say
that a motive drinks my health, or that a
motive gives me a box on the ear.
In physics, the word cause has another
meaning, which, though I think it an im-
proper one, yet is distinct, and, therefore,
may be reasoned upon. When a phenome-
non is produced according to a certain law
of nature, we call the law of nature the cause
of that phenomenon ; and to the laws of
nature we accordingly ascribe power, agency,
efficiency. The whole business of physics
is to discover, by observation and experi-
ment, the laws of nature, and to apply them
to the solution of the phenomena: this we
call discovering the causes of things. But
this, however common, is an improper sense
of the word cause. -
A law of nature can no more be an agent
than can a motive. It is a thing conceived,
and not a thing that exists; and, therefore,
can neither act, nor be acted upon. A law
of nature is a purpose or resolution of the
author of nature, to act according to a cer-
tain rule—either immediately by himself or
by instruments that are under his direction.
There must be a real agent to produce the
phenomenon according to the law. A
malefactor is not hanged by the law, but
according to the law, by the executioner.
I suspect you use the word cause in this
sense for a law of nature, according to which
a phenomenon is produced. If so, it should
appear distinctly that you do so.
But is it not self-evident, that the reli-
tion between a law of nature and the event
which is produced according to it, is very
different from the relation between a motive
and the action to which it is a motive P Is
there any need of demonstration for this 2
or does it admit of demonstration ?
There is, indeed, a supposition upon which
the two relations would be very similar.
The Supposition is, that, by a law of nature,
the influence of motives upon actions is as
invariable as is the effect of impulse upon
matter; but to suppose this is to suppose
fatality and not to prove it. .
It is a question of fact, whether the in-
fluence of motives be fixed by laws of nature,
so that they shall always have the same
effect in the same circumstances. Upon
this, indeed, the question about liberty and
necessity hangs. But I have never seen
any proof that there are such laws of nature,
far less any proof that the strongest motive
always prevails. However much our late
fatalists have boasted of this principle as of
a law of nature, without ever telling us what
they mean by the strongest motive, I am
persuaded that, whenever they shall be
pleased to give us any measure of the
strength of motives distinct from their pre-
valence, it will appear, from experience,
that the strongest motive does not always
prevail. If no other test or measure of the
strength of motives can be found but their
prevailing, then this boasted principle will
be only an identical proposition, and signify
only that the strongest motive is the strong-
est motive, and the motive that prevails is
the motive that prevails—which proves
nothing.
May it not be objected to your reasoning,
that you apply the three laws of motion to
motives; but motives may be subject to
other laws of nature, no less invariable than
the laws of motion, though not the same.
Different parts of nature have different
laws, it may be said; and to apply the laws
of one part to another part, particularly to
apply the laws of inert matter to the phe-
momena of mind, may lead into great falla-
cies. I think, indeed, that your reasoning
LETTERS TO DR JAMES GREGORY.
67
proves, that, between the influence of mo-
tives upon a mind and the influence of
impulse upon a body, there is but a very
slight analogy, which fails in many in-
stances. -
I have wearied you and myself with a
long detail, I fear, little to the purpose; but
it was in my head, and so came out. I am
just setting out on a jaunt to Paisley, with
my wife, son-in-law, and daughter, to come
home at night. *
Yours most affectionately,
THo. REID.
VIII.
MEANING OF CA USE.
DEAR SIR,--I believe l have never an-
swered the letter you favoured me with of
Aug. 9, by Capt. Gallie. First, I obeyed
your commands in attending Mrs Siddons
twice, in “ Douglas,” and in “Venice Pre-
served.” I believe I should have had much
more pleasure if, on account of deafness, I
had not lost much of what she said, and had
been better acquainted with the plays. But
I believe she is really an admirable actress,
and deserves the admiration you express of
her.
You say, you fear we shall never agree
with respect to the notion of cause and
effect. I am at a loss to know wherein we
differ. I think we agree in this, that a
cause, in the proper and strict sense, (which,
Ithink, we may call the metaphysical sense,)
signifies a being or mind that has power
and will to produce the effect. But there
is another meaning of the word cause, which
is so well authorized by custom, that we
cannot always avoid using it, and I think
we may call it the physical sense ; as when
we say that heat is the cause that turns
water into vapour, and cold the cause that
freezes it into ice. A cause, in this sense,
means only something which, by the laws
of nature, the effect always follows. I
think natural philosophers, when they pre-
tend to shew the causes of natural phenom-
ena, always use the word in this last sense;
and the vulgar in common discourse very
often do the same.
The reason why I take no notice of neuter
verbs is, that I conceive they are used to
express an event, without any signification
of its having a cause or not. But I shall
be very glad to see your speculations upon
this subject when they are ready.
I had a letter from Dr Price lately,
thanking me for a copy of the Essays I
ordered to be presented to him, which he
, has read, and calls it a work of the first
value ; commends me particularly for treat-
ing his friend Dr Priestly so gently, who,
he says, had been unhappily led to use me
ill. e e e e . . . g
As you are so kind as to ask about my
distemper, I think it is almost quite gone,
So as to give me no uneasiness. I abstain
from fruit and malt liquor, and take a little
port wine, morning, noon, and night, not
above two bottles in a week when alone.
The more I walk, or ride, or even talk or
read audibly, I am the better.
When your time is fixed for coming here,
I shall be glad to know it.—I am, dear Sir,
Most affectionately yours,
THo. REID.
Glasgow, 23d Sept. 1785.
IX.
ON CAUSE AND EFFECT-MOTIVE AND ACTION,
[March 1786.]
DEAR SIR,--I hope your essay, along
with this, will come to your hand by the
carrier, and within the time you mention.
It would have been sent sooner if I had not
had a discourse to deliver before our Lite-
rary Society last Friday.
You give memost agreeable intelligence—
first, of Mrs Stewart's being so far recovered
of a dangerous illness, and then of my
friend William's promotion, who, I hope,
will wear the robe with decency and dignity.
Your essay I have read several times
with attention, and I think the reasoning
perfectly conclusive to prove that the rela-
tion between motives and actions is totally
of a different kind from that which physical
causes bear to their effects.
I agree with you that the hypothesis you
combat in this essay is more unreasonable
than that of constant conjunction. Not
because it is more reasonable to conceive a
constant conjunction between motives and
actions than an occasional one ; but be-
cause the first agrees better than the last
with the hypothesis of motives being physi-
cal causes of actions. Between a physical
cause and its effect, the conjunction must
be constant, unless in the case of a miracle,
or suspension of the laws of nature. What
D. Hume says of causes, in general, is very
just when applied to physical causes, that a
constant conjunction with the effect is essen-
tial to such causes, and implied in the very
conception of them.
The style of this essay is more simple
than that of the last, and, I think, on that
account, more proper for a philosophical
dissertation.
* I am proud of the approbation you ex-
press of the essays:" I have made some
+ On the Active Powers,—H.
F 2
68
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
corrections and additions, but such as I
hope will not make it necessary to write it
over again. But I wish, if I find health
and leisure, in summer, to add some essays
to go before that on liberty, in order to give
some farther elucidation to the principles
of morals, both theoretical and practical. I
expect your remarks and D. Stewart's upon
what is in hand. It will be no inconveni-
ence to wait for them two or three, or even
four months.-I am, dear Sir,
Yours most affectionately,
THo. REID.
Y.
DEAR SIR,--In answer to your queries,"
I know not precisely either the year of my
grandfather's death or his age. But all
that I have heard agrees very well with the
account you mention. He served appren-
tice to a merchant in Rotterdam or Camp-
vere, and, I believe, continued there till the
murder of his elder brother. After he came
home, he prosecuted the murderer, (son
and heir to "Viscount Frendritt, as I have
heard, though I find not the title among the
extinct or forfeited Peers,) who, being a
Roman Catholic, was protected by all the
interest of the Duke of York ; but was at
last condemned, but pardoned by the crown,
and soon after killed in a naval engage-
ment." Your g-grandfather was so much
younger than Kinairdy, as to be educated by
him. Kimairdy had no more sons professors
than the three you mention, who were all
professors before he died. David and James
were of the first marriage, and Charles of
the second. The two first were settled
before the Revolution—David as Professor
of Mathematics at Edinburgh, and, I Sup-
pose, immediately succeeded his uncle, and
James as a Professor of Philosophy at St
Andrews. I think I have a printed thesis of
James, published at St Andrews before the
Revolution, which is a compend of Newton-
ian philosophy, with some strictures against
the scholastic philosophy. With regard to
the ten categories in particular, he says
there neither are nor can be more than two
categories, viz. Data and Quaesita.f. I be-
lieve he was the first professor of philosophy
that taught the doctrines of Newton in a
Scotch university; for the Cartesian was
s The following may serve to explain the allusions
in these letters, and, in general, the connection of
Reid with the family of Gregory:--
The Reverend John Gregory of Drumoak, in the
county of Aberdeen, was the common ancestor of
two lines, both greatly distinguished for mathema-
tical and general ability. His wife was a daughter
of David Anderson of Finzaugh, cousin-german of
the celebrated analyst, Alexander Anderson, the
friend and follower of Vieta. By her, he had two
sons, David and James, progenitors of the several
lines. -
I. LINE.
The elder son, David Gregory of Kinairdy, in the
county of Aberdeen, was bred a merchant, and lived
the greater part of a long life in Holland. . He had
the singular fortune of seeing three sons Professors of
Mathematics at the same time in three British uni-
versities.
Of these sons, the eldest, David, (born 1666, died
1710,) though inferior to his uncle James in inventive
genius, was one of the most illustrious geometers and
eometrical authors of his time. In 1683, elected
°rofessor of Mathematics in the University of Edin-
burgh, he was, in 1691, by the influence of Newton,
nominated Savilian Professor of Astronomy in Ox-
ford. His son, David, who died 1767, was student,
canon, and dean of Christ Church, and Regius Pro-
fessor of Modern History in the same university.
The second of these sons, James, succeeded his
brother David as Professor of Mathematics in Edin-
burgh, and retired in favour of the celebrated Mac-
laurin, in 1725. -
The third son, Charles, was Professor of Mathema-
tics in St Andrews from 1707 to 1739, when he resigned
in favour of his son, David, who held the Chair until
his death in 1763.
Dr Reid's mother was a daughter of David Gre-
gory of Kinairdy, and sister of the three Mathema.
tical Professors,
II. LINE,
James, the younger son of the Rev. John Gregory,
was born in 1638, and died at the early age of thirty-
seven. He was Professor of Mathematics at St And-
rew's and Edinburgh ; inventor of the Reflecting or
Gregorian Telescope; author of several remarkable.
treatises on optics and geometry; and, altogether,
one of the most original mathematicians of his age.
His son, James, Professor of Medicine in King’s
College, Aberdeen, was father of a more celebrated
80})=
John, who was born 1724, and died 1773. He was
successively Professor of Philosophy and of Medicine
in King’s College, Aberdeen, and of the Practice of
Physic in the University of Edinburgh ; author of
the “Comparative View of the State and faculties of
Man and Animals,” of the “Lectures on the Duties
and Qualifications of a Physician,” of “Elements of
the Practice of Physic,” and of “A Father's Legacy
to his Daughters.” His eldest son (Dr Reid's cor-
respr ndent)—
James, was born 1753, and died 1821. He was
Professor of the Theory, afterwards of the Practice,
of Medicine, in the University of Edinburgh; and
author of Conspectus Medicinae Theoreticae,” of
“Philosophical and Literary Essays,” and of various
other works, distinguished by a talent which promises
still to be hereditary.
* The murder here alluded to was committed on
Alexander Gregory of Netherdeel, eldest son and
heir of the Rev. John Gregory, minister of Drumoak ;
and the person indicted for the crime, was James
(Crichton) Viscount Frendraught. The Books of
Adjournal (records of the Scottish Criminal Court)
detail the circumstances of the case. In 1664, Alex-
ander Gregory, who held, in security, , a part of
the estate of Frendraught, was decoyed by Francis
Crichton, the Viscount's uncle, to accompany him
to the house of Bognie, where that nobleman then
lodged. On the way he was assaulted by Crichton
and his servant; and, after he had surrendered his
arms, was wounded by them with swords and pistols,
and then carried a prisoner to Bognie. Here he was
watched during the night, among others, by the Vis-
count, whose servants, next day, early in a cold morn-
ing, threw him across a horse, his wounds undressed
and bleeding, and brought him to a lene cottage,
where he was left till found by his friends, who con-
veyed him to Aberdeen, where, after languishing for
a few days, he died. Mr Francis and his servant did
not compear. The relevancy of the libel against Lord
Frendraught was impugned, on the ground that the
crimes libelled being only statutory, and the pannel a
minor, they ought not to pass to an assize. But, though
the libel was found relevant, the proof seems to have
been defective; the jury, at least, ſound a verdict of ac.
quittal.—I am indebted for this information to Dun-
can Gregory and James Maidment, Esquires.—H.
+ This illustrates a statement in “ The Analysis
of Aristotle's Logic,” ch. ii. Sec. 2.-H.
LETTERS TO DR JAMES GREGORY.
69
the orthodox system at that time, and con-
tinued to be so till 1715. I asked him once
how he came to give up his place at St
Andrew's on the change of government,
and afterwards to take the mathematical
chair at Edinburgh. “Faith, nephew,” said
he, “I never minded politicks much ; but
my dearest companions in the college were
going out, and I did not like those that were
to keep their places; and I thought it better
to go out in good company, than to stay be-
hind with ill.” Ibelieve Kinairdy's mathe-
matical and medical knowledge was the
effect of his own study and reading. He
was much employed as a physician, not
only by the poor, but by the nobility and
gentry; but he took no fees; and, I conceive,
his younger brother and his sons had their
mathematical education chiefly from him.
He had a barometer, and had a correspon-
dence with some foreigners, particularly with
Mariotte, on barometrical observations. As
a barometer had never been heard of in his
country before, he was once in danger of
being brought to some trouble by the Pres-
bytery on account of it. In Queen Ann's
war, Kinairdy employed himself upon an
invention for improving the effect of fire-
arms, of which he at last completed a model,
and sent it to his son David at Oxford, that
he might take the opinion of Sir Isaac New-
ton about it. I have heard my mother say
that he was so sanguine upon this project,
that he intended to make a campaign in
Flanders himself, and prepared for it. But
it is said that Sir I. Newton persuaded the
suppression of the invention as destructive
of the human species, and that it was never
brought to light. I knew a clockmaker in
Aberdeen who made all the parts by Kin-
airdy's direction; but never saw them put
together, and could give no account of the
principles of it. Kinairdy carried his
family over to Holland, about the year
1715, as I believe, and, after some time,
returned to Aberdeen, and died soon after.
His widow was alive when I went first to
Aberdeen in April 1722; but old and bed-
rid. I never saw a more ladylike woman;
I was now and then called in to her room,
when she sat up in her bed, and enter-
tained with sweetmeats and grave advices.
Her daughters, that assisted her often, as
well as one who lived with her, treated her
as if she had been of a superior rank; and,
indeed, her appearance and manner com-
manded respect. I don’t believe that she
could ever descend so far from her dignity
and magnanimity as to scold. And the
reverence paid her by all her descendants
to the last period of her life, seems incon-
sistent with that character.
her children were zealous Presbyterians.
The first wife's children were rather Tories
and Episcooalians. I believe she had much
She and all
ado to keep up her authority with them
while they were in the family. David and
James, when prosecuting their studies at
Edinburgh, used to pass their vacations at
Kinairdy; and very often Dr Pitcairn, or
some other fellow-student came along with
them ; and, as the master of the family was
very much from home, it was not easy for a
stepmother to keep them to her rules. One
of her stepdaughters married a Mr Cuthbert,
of the family of Castlehill, a writer in Aber-
deen, and was the mother of David Cuth-
bert, who saved millions to the nation in
the war before last, by controling the
accounts of the commissaries in Germany.
Another daughter of the first marriage,
married a Mr Innes of Tilliefour. A
grandson of hers, Alexander Innes, was a
professor of philosophy in Marischal College,
Aberdeen. He had a great turn to natural
history and to medicine ; but died young.
My mother, Margaret Gregory, was the
oldest daughter of the second marriage.
Besides Charles, there was a George of the
second marriage, a merchant in Campvere,
and the father of David Gregory at Dun-
kirk, and of John Gregory at Campvere.
Your uncle, David Gregory, served an
apprenticeship to this George Gregory, and
married his widow after his death. Charles
told me that his brother George fell to the
study of mathematics in Holland, and wrote
him an account of his discoveries. But
Charles bid him mind his mercantile affairs;
for these things had been discovered already
by authors he was unacquainted with. The
only daughter of the second marriage, besides
my mother, who left issue, was Anne, the
youngest daughter, grandmother to James
Bartlet, banker in Edinburgh.
The story of the watch, to which, I sup-
pose, you allude, I have heard very often.
By the descendants of the first wife it was
imputed to the second wife ; but the de-
scendants of the second wife imputed it to
the first wife. The first time I was in
Dean Gregory's house at Oxford, he told
it very well to a large company of Oxonians.
He prefaced it by saying that his grand-
father had a termagant to his second wife :
but turning to me and another Scotch gen-
tleman that was with me, he said, “I beg
your pardon, gentlemen, for I don’t know
but one of you may be come of her.” I
answered that I believed I had heard the
story he was about to tell, and heard it
imputed to the first wife, of whom he was
come; but it was no matter which : I begged
he would proceed. To this he agreed, and
proceeded to the story of the watch.*
Another story, somewhat similar, is told
of Kinairdy. On some occasion his wife,
I know not which wife, insisted very per-
* Which is now forgotten in the family. -H,
70
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
emptorily that he should correct two of his
sons, which, it seems, he was not accus-
tomed to do; but the offence was such, that
nothing less would satisfy the wife. He
took them to a room where his saddle and
bridle hung, and shut the door. What
satisfaction he required for the fault I know
not; but, after the matter was compromised,
hetook the bridle, and lashed the said saddle
very unmercifully, and ordered the boys to
cry, which they did most pitifully. The
mother hearing the noise, thought her boys
would be killed, and wanted to interpose,
but the door was bolted. She was forced
to stand behind the door, and felt every
stroke more than either the saddle or the
boys, resolving never again to trust her
husband with the rod of correction.
I have found the printed thesis of James
Gregory, above mentioned; it is printed at
Edinburgh, 1690. It would seem that the
reform of St Andrew's University, after the
Revolution, was not overtaken at that time.
The students’ names who were to defend the
thesis at Salvator College, in St Andrew’s, on
such a day of June, are all mentioned, to the
number of twenty-one. Kinairdy was a
Scotch Episcopalian. He wrote memoirs
of his own times, which my father, who had
read them, told me were unfavourable to
the Covenant—the idol of the Presbyte-
rians at that time. These Memoirs were
in your father's possession, and I suppose
are in yours. You see, my dear sir, that
I have answered more than I was asked,
because I like to dwell upon the subject;
but you must not think nor say that my
grandmother was a scold ; she might have
strong passions, but no scold ever had her
dignity and magnanimity. She had a
brother, whom I knew well, who was very
like to her—Provost John Gordon. He
was long at the head of the magistracy in
Aberdeen; and had been a member of the
Scotch Parliament, and was one of the most
respected magistrates that ever was in that
city.—I ever am, dear Sir, yours,
THo. REID.
Aug. 24, 1787.
XI.
‘N THE ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND THEORY of
LANGUAGE,
DEAR SIR,--I have read your theory of
the moods of verbs" over and over, and
shall give you a few trifling remarks when
the MS. is returned, or sooner, if I see you
sooner. ... It is not yet sent to Dr Cleghorn,
but shall be this week. In the meantime,
having the opportunity of my good friend
Mr John Duguid, I send you some reveries
on the invention and progress of language.
The art of communicating our sentiments
by articulatesounds,is certainly, of all human
arts, the most ingenious, . and that which
has required most of thought, of abstraction,
and nice metaphysical discrimination. This
has led our friend L. M.” to think that it
must have been, at first, the work of philo-
sophers. I rather consider it as a huge and
complicated machine, which was very im-
perfect at first, but gradually received im-
provements from the judgmentandinvention
of all who used it in the course of many
ages. -
It is a machine which every man must
use, and which he finds of such utility and
importance, that, if he has any genius, be
has sufficient inducement to employ it in
making language more subservient to his
purpose.
In the natural talents of genius and in-
vention, there is no less difference among
Savages than among philosophers. One
Savage, in the use of natural signs, will shew
great Superiority to others in conveying his
sentiments distinctly and intelligibly; and
the same superiority he will shew in the use
of a rude language of articulate sounds—
Sometimes by giving a more easy or more
agreeable Sound to words that are in use;
sometimes by distinguishing, by some in-
flection or inversion, words or phrases that
were before ambiguous; sometimes by a
new metaphorical meaning ; and sometimes
by new words or new derivations, where
they were wanted.
So fond are ingenious men to invent such
improvements in language, and so prone the
multitude to adopt them, when they please
the public taste, that all languages are per-
petually changing, according to the beau-
tiful simile of Horace–Utsilvae foliis pronos
mutantwr in annos, &c. In a rude language
it is easy tomake improvements; and changes
that are found useful and important, though
invented by one man, will soon be adopted
by the multitude.
Thus the inventions of thousands of in-
genious men, in a succession of ages, all
employed upon this one machine, bring it
by insensible degrees to its perfection ; as
knowledge grows, language grows along
with it, till it arrive at that stately form
which we contemplate with admiration.
The steam engine was invented not much
more than a century ago ; but it has re-
ceived so many and so great improvements
in that short period, that, if the inventor
were to arise from the dead, and view it in
its improved state, he would hardly be able
to discern his own share of the invention,
* 8ubsequently printed in “ The Transactions of
the Royal Society of Edinburgh.”—H.
5 J,ord Monboddo.—H,
LETTERS TO DR. JAMES GREGORY. 7I
Language is like a tree, which. from a small
seed, grows imperceptibly, till the fowls of
the air lodge in its branches, and the beasts
of the earth rest under its shadow. The
seed of language is the natural signs of our
thoughts, which nature has taught all men
to use, and all men to understand. But its
growth is the effect of the united energy of
all who do or ever did use it. One man
pushes out a branch, another a leaf, one
Smooths a rough part, another lops off an
excrescence. Grammarians have, without
doubt, contributed much to its regularity
and beauty; and philosophers, by increasing
our knowledge, have added many a fair
branch to it ; but it would have been a tree
without the aid of either.
The rudest tribes of men soon find lan-
guage to express their confined wants and
desires; and the natural love of analogy
will produce much analogy even in the lan-
guage of Savages. We see that children of
two or three years old, having got a few
plurals, without being taught, form new
ones analogically, and often, in the pursuit
of analogy, break through the rules of
grammar.
A man born deaf, who has no opportunity
of conversing with other deaf men, has to
invent a language for himself, along with the
additional labour of teaching others to un-
derstand it. One who has had access to
know to what degree of perfection some
deaf men have carried their art of commu-
nicating their thoughts, will not think it
incredible that a nation flourishing in arts
and sciences should, in a course of ages, by
their united efforts, bring language to all
the perfection it has ever attained.
In speech, the true natural unit is a sen-
tence.* No man intends less when he
speaks; what is less than a compleat sen-
tence is not speech, but a part or parts of
speech ; to divide a sentence into parts
requires greater abstraction than to divide
the unit into fractions of a unit. It is,
therefore, extremely probable that men ex-
pressed sentences by one complex sound or
word, before they thought of dividing them
into parts, signified by different words. One
word signified, give me bread ; another, take
bread ; another, eat bread ; another, bake
bread. As all these sentences have some-
thing common in their meaning, the natu-
ral love of analogy would lead to some-
thing common in the word by which they
were expressed; and in the progress, of
language, that which was common in the
sound of all these sentences might be sepa-
rated from that which was proper to each ;
and, being thus separated, it becomes that
part of speech which we call a substantive
* This is an important truth, the ignorance of
which is seen in our perverted systems of Grammar,
logic, and Psycholºgy.—H.
noun, signifying bread, which substantive
will be fit to make a part of many other
Sentences. -
Thus the object, or accusative, may be,
as it were, cut out of the sentence, so as to
form a word by itself, though originally it
was only a part of a word.
Another set of sentences—such as, I lºve
Martha, You love Mary, John loves Matilda
—might lead men to separate what is com-
mon in the word by which each of these
three sentences is expressed, from what is
proper to each, and by that means to have
a word for the verb love.
To shew how all the parts of speech may
be cut out of words that signify whole sen-
tences, by separating that part of the sound
which is common to many sentences, from
that which is proper to each, would be more
tedious than difficult, and may easily be
conceived. By dividing the sound, the
mental abstraction is made easy, even to
rude men, who, without some aid of this
kind, would find it above their reach. Such
division facilitates greatly the use of lan-
guage, and, therefore, when once begun,
will go on.
That the parts of speech should be con-
ceived before speech was in use, and that
speech should at first be formed by putting
together parts of speech, which before had
got names, seems to me altogether incred-
ible ; no less incredible than if it should be
said that before men had the conception of
a body, they first formed the conception of
matter, then the conception of form, and,
putting these two together, they got the
conception of body, which is made up of
matter and form.
Perhaps, in the language of some Savages,
all the parts of speech have not yet been
separated into different words. Charlevoix
has given a very full account of some of the
Canadian languages. I quote him from
memory, having read his history of Canada,
I think, about forty years ago; but, as it
first led me into this speculation, I remem-
ber it the better. ..
He says, of one of their languages, (I
think that of the Hurons,) that in each of
their villages there is a public orator chosen,
who makes it the whole study of his life to
speak the language with propriety and force;
that the people are very nice judges of the
defects and excellencies of their orators ;
so that there are very few of them that can
perfectly please the public ear; that their
verbs have as many moods and tenses as
the Greek verbs have, and, besides this,
that the accusative or object always makes
a part of the verb. Thus, one verb signi-
fies to drink wine; another, to drink water ;
one, to kill a brother; another, to kill an ene-
my; so that the verb very often expresses
the whole sentence.
72
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
I believe, in all languages of nations
which we account civilized, the several parts
of speech have been separated from one an-
other, and are often expressed by words
proper to them. But in all of them, and in
Some more than in others, several parts of
speech are often combined in one word, not
from necessity, but for the sake of elegance
and beauty.
Thus, in the Latin and Greek verbs, be-
sides the radical signification of the verb,
its voice, mood, tense, person, and number
are all expressed in one word. In nouns,
both substantive and adjective, we have the
noun, together with its case, number, and
gender, in one word. Nor is this owing to
a want of words in those languages to ex-
press separately those accidents of verbs and
nouns. It seems rather to be a matter of
choice, to give greater beauty and strength
to the language. By this expedient, much
may be said in few words—and these, lofty
and sonorous words, with a beautiful variety
and harmony of termination, and great
power of inversion; which are qualities of
great importance in poetry and eloquence.
In language, as in many other things,
necessity, convenience, and long practice,
have, without the rules of art, produced
artifices, which the artist or the philosopher
has reason to admire, which, sitting in his
chair, he would never have been able to
invent, and which, now that they are in-
vented, he finds it very difficult to reduce
to principles of art.
I believe the principles of the art of lan-
guage are to be found in a just analysis of
the various species of sentences. Aristotle
and the logicians have analysed one species—
to wit, the proposition. To enumerate and
analyse the other species, must, I think, be
the foundation of a just theory of language.
—I am, dear Sir, yours affectionately,
- THo. REID.
Aug. 26, 1787.
YII.
[1788.]
DEAR SIR,--I received yours of Feb. 19,
and last evening received, by the fly, the
very acceptable present of the new edition
of your father's works, for which I heartily
thank you. I have read the Life, which I
think well wrote. I am much obliged to
the author” of it for the notice he has taken
of me; but I wish he had spared some
epithets, which I could not read to myself
without a blush ; I have exceptions to
some things in the narrative, but they
relate to unimportant circumstances. The
quotation from “Whiston's Memoirs” de-
lighted me, and does honour to Scotland.--
Perhaps it might have been added, that
James, the brother of David, was at that
time teaching the same doctrine, as a Pro-
fessor of Philosophy, in another Scotch
university. I have by me a thesis he
published in 1690, which is a compend of
the conclusions of Newton’s “Principia.”
I have always heard, by tradition, that D.
Gregory, the astronomer, was chosen to be
preceptor to the Duke of Gloucester, Queen
Ann's son ; but whether his entering upon
that office was prevented by his death, or
by the death of the young prince, I know
not. I have also heard that the Profession
of Modern History in Oxford was erected in
favour of his son, David, when he came
home from his travels." -
I am happy in the account you give me
of our friend, William. I hope he will
continue the race of the Gregories, if you
do not—which, however, I do not yet de-
spair of Our University has sent a petition
to the House of Commons, in favour of the
African slaves. I hope yours will not be
the last in this humane design ; and that
the Clergy of Scotland will likewise join in
it. I comfort my greyhairs with the thoughts
that the world is growing better, having long
resolved to resist the common sentiment of
old age, that it is always growing worse.
I am grown so deaf that I can only converse
with one person, and that when he speaks
into my left ear; but I hope to resist that
depression of spirits which commonly at-
tends that disorder. I can see people con-
versing together without any uneasiness ;
the only difficulty is, when a laugh is raised,
whether to laugh at one does not know what,
* Lord Woodhouselee.—H.
t It is of the following purport:-Speaking of Dr
David Gregory, when Professor of Mathematics at
Edinburgh, Whiston says—“ He had already caused
several of his scholars to keep acts, as we call them,
upon several branches of the Newtonian philosophy,
while we at Cambridge, poor wretches were ignomi-
niously studying the fictitious hypotheses of the Carte-
sian.”— Whiston’s Memoirs, p. 32. –There is in this,
however, no just ground of panegyric on Scotland.
In the intrusive system of the English universities,
where the tutor has illegally superseded the professor,
all change from one set of doctrines to a better, must
be the tardy and painful work of time and necessity.
The evolutions of a university are prompt and easy
where each department of its cyclopaedia is separately
taught by an able professor; whereas a university
which abandons-instruction, in all branches, to any
individual of a host of tutors—the majority of whom
assume the office of instructor for their own conve-
nience, though without the ability adequate to dis-
charge its duties—such a university must be content,
not only always to teach little, and that little, ill, but
to continue often for a long time to teach what
is elsewhere obsolete or exploded. Accordingly, in
Newton's own university, the Cartesian theories con-
tinued to be taught as the orthodox doctrine, after the
Newtonian physics had, in other universities, super-
seded the Cartesian. And why P Simply because, in
Cambridge, instruction was carried on by tutors; and
the majority of the Cambridge tutors, educated in the
old system, were unable or unwilling to qualify them-
Selves to become instructors in the new.-H.
* David Gregory, the son, was...certainly first Pro-
fessor in the chair of Modern History and Languages,
founded by George I.-H.
LETTERS To DR JAMES GREGORY.
73
or to be grave when other people laugh. I
am very glad to hear that Dug. Stewart
lectures in physicks so acceptably, but wish
his health be not affected by his being over-
wrought.—I am, dear Sir, very affection-
ately yours,
THo. REID.
XIII.
ON USURY.
ſº º e • - I am much
pleased with the tract you sent me on
usury." I think the reasoning unanswer-
able, and have long been of the author's
opinion, though I suspect that the general
principle, that bargains ought to be left to
the judgment of the parties, may admit of
some exceptions, when the buyers are the
many, the poor, and the simple—the sellers
few, rich, and cunning; the former may
need the aid of the magistrate to prevent
their being oppressed by the latter. It
seems to be upon this principle that por-
tage, freight, the hire of chairs and coaches,
and the price of bread, are regulated in most
great towns. But with regard to the loan
of money in a commercial state, the excep-
tion can have no place—the borrowers and
lenders are upon an equal footing, and each
may be left to take care of his own interest.
Nor do I see any good reason for the inter-
position of law in bargains about the loan
of money more than in bargains of any
other kind. I am least pleased with the
10th letter, wherein he accounts for the
infamy of usury. In one of the papers you
mention, (which I give you liberty to use
as you please,) I have attempted an account
of that phenomenon, which satisfies me more
than his account does.—I am, dear Sir,
Yours most affectionately,
THo. REID.
Glasgow, 5th Sept. 1788.
XIV.
CAUSE—PHYSICAL CAUSE—LAWS OF NATURE
—AGENT—POWER AND ACTIVITY.
MY DEAR SIR,-On Monday evening I
received your book, with the letter in-
closed. The book I shall peruse at leisure
with the eye of a critick; but, as it is proper
to acquaint you soon of my having received
it safe, I shall now answer your letter,
though perhaps in too much haste. Your
* * Letters On. Usury,” by Mr Jeremy Bentham,
addressed to George Wilson, Esq., (Dr Gregory's
friend,) and published.by Mr Wilson in 1787.-H.
+ The “ Philosophical and Literary. Essays,” or
rather their Introduction, which was in great part
printed several years before publication.-H.
intention of inscribing the book, if published,
to me, I account a very great honour dome
me; and, if you do not alter your mind,
would not be so self-denying as to decline
it ; but, as a real friend, I think you ought
to inscribe it to some man in power that
may be of use to you, though I hate dedi-
cations stuffed with flattery to great men.
Yet I know no reason why a man of your
time of life may not court the notice of a
great man by a dedication, as well as by a
visit. When I inscribed a book to you,
my situation was very different. I was past
all hopes and fears with regard to this
world; and, indeed, had Lord Kaimes been
alive, intended to have addressed it to him.
When he was dead, there was not a man
of his eminence that I had so much ac-
quaintance with as to justify such an address.
I therefore seriously wish you to spend a
Second thought upon this subject; and not
to suffer your friendship, of which I need
no new proof, to lead you to do an impru-
dent thing, and what the world would think
Such, or even perhaps construe as a con-
tempt put upon your great friends."
As to the two points wherein you and I
differ, after what you have said of them in
this letter, I am really uncertain whether
we differ about things or only about words.
You deny that of every change there must
be an efficient cause, in my sense—that is,
an intelligent agent, who by his power and
will effected the change. But I think you
grant that, when the change.is not effected
by Such an agent, it must have a physical
cause—that is, it must be the necessary
consequence of thenature and previous state
of things unintelligent and inactive.
I admit that, for anything I know to the
contrary, there may be such a nature and
state of things which have no proper ac-
tivity, as that certain events or changes
must necessarily follow. I admit that, in
such a case, that which is antecedent may
be called the physical cause, and what is
necessarily consequent, may be called the
effect of that cause.
I likewise admit, laws of nature may be
called (as they commonly are called) phy-
sical causes—in a sense indeed somewhat
different from the former—because laws of
nature effect nothing, but as far as they are
put to execution, either by Some agent, or
by some physical cause ; they being, how-
ever, our me plus ultra in natural philosophy,
which professes to shew us the causes of
natural things, and being, both in ancient
and modern times, called causes, they have
by prescription acquired a right to that
Ila,ID6,
I think also, and I believe you agree with
• It is needless to say that Dr Gregory did not
comply with this prudent advice. The “ Essays”
are dedicated to Reid.— H .
74
coRRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
me, that every physical cause must be the
work of some agent or efficient cause. Thus,
that a body put in motion continues to move
till it be stopped, is an effect which, for what
I know, may be owing to an inherent pro-
perty in matter; if this be so, this pro-
perty of matter is the physical cause of the
continuance of the motion; but the ultimate
efficient cause is the Being who gave this
property to matter.
If we suppose this continuance of motion
to be an arbitrary appointment of the
Deity, and call that appointment a law of
nature and a physical cause ; such a law of
nature requires a Being who has not only
enacted the law, but provided the means of
its being executed, either by some physical
cause, or by some agent acting by his order.
If we agree in these things, I see not
wherein we differ, but in words.
I agree with you that to confound the
notion of agent or efficient cause with that
of physical cause, has been a common error
of philosophers, from the days of Plato to
our own. I could wish that the same gene-
ral name of cause had not been given to
both, as if they were two species belonging
to the same genus. They differ toto generc.
For a physical cause is not an agent. It
does not act, but is acted upon, and is as
passive as its effect. You accordingly give
them different generical names, calling the
one the agent, and not the cause—the other
the cause, but not the agent.
I approve of your view in this ; but think
it too bold an innovation in language. In
all writing, preaching, and speaking, men
have been so much accustomed to call the
Deity the first cause of all things, that to
maintain that he is no cause at all, would
be too shocking. To say that the world
exists without a cause, would be accounted
Atheism, in spite of all explications that
could be given of it. Agency, efficiency,
operation, are so conjoymed in our concep-
tions with a cause, that an age would not be
sufficient to disjoyn them.
The words agent and action are not less
ambiguous than cause and causation ; they
are applied, by the most accurate thinkers
and speakers, to what you call physical
causes. So we say, one body acts upon
another, by a stroke, by pressure, by attrac-
tion or repulsion ; and in vain would one
attempt to abolish this language. We must
bear with the imperfections of language in
some degree ; we are not able to make it
so philosophical as we wish.
To remedy the ambiguity of cause and
agent as far as possible, without too bold
an innovation, I say that each of these
words has two meanings—a lax and popular
meaning, and a philosophical. In the po-
pular meaning, both are applied to what you
call a physical cause. In the strict or philo-
sophical meaning, both are applied onely to
what you call an agent—I, an efficient
cause. I choose to distinguish the philoso-
phical meaning of cause, by calling it an
efficient cause ; and to distinguish the
philosophical meaning of agent, by calling
it an agent in the strict and proper sense.
You distinguish the philosophical mean-
ing of these two ambiguous words from the
popular, by appropriating one to the philo-
sophical meaning, and the other to the
popular. Is not this the difference between
you and me 2
It is remarkable that the philosophical
meaning of those two words, and of the
others that depend upon them, must have
been the first, and the popular meaning a
corruption of the philosophical, introduced
by time, but so deeply rooted in the struc-
ture of all languages, that it is impossible
to eradicate it; for nothing external to us
could introduce into the human mind the
general notion of priority and constant con-
junction, but nothing farther.
Power and activity are first conceived
from being conscious of them in ourselves.
Conceiving of other beings from what we
know of ourselves, we first ascribe to them
such powers as we are conscious of in our-
selves. Experience, at least, informs us
that the things about us have not the same
powers that we have ; but language was
formed on a contrary supposition before
this discovery was made, and we must give
a new, and perhaps a very indistinct, mean-
ing to words which before had a clear and
distinct one. -
As to the other difference you mention
between you and me, I have quite forgot it.
But I think one can hardly be too cautious
of denying the bona fides of an antagonist
in a philosophical dispute. It is so bitter a
pill, that it cannot be swallowed without
being very well gilded and aromatized. I
cannot but agree with you that assent or
belief is not a voluntary act. Neither is
seeing when the eyes are open. One may
voluntarily shut his bodily eyes, and perhaps
the eye of his understanding. I confess
this is mala fides. But as light may be so
offensive that the bodily eye is shut involun-
tarily, may not something similar happen to
the eye of the understanding, when brought
to a light too offensive to some favourite
prejudice or passion, to be endured ?”
As soon as I have done with your book, I
shall execute your commission to Mr Ar-
thur.—I am, dear Sir, yours very sincerely,
THo. REID.
Thursday, July 30, 1789.
* This passage (“But I think”—“ be endured 2")
is quoted in the lintroduction to Dr Gregory's Essays,
p. 316.-H.
LETTERS TO DR
JAMES GREGORY. 75
XV.
ARISTOTELIC SPECIES OF CAUSES- ORIGIN OF
NOTIONS OF CAUSE AND POWER.—WHAT ES-
S}{NTIAL TO THE NATURE OF CAUSE—DIS-
TINCTION OF PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL
CAUSES.
Remarks on the Introduction.*
1. I humbly think you are too severe
against Aristotle and Plato, especially the
former. Two hundred years ago, it was
proper to pull him down from the high seat
he held; but now he is sufficiently humbled,
and I would not have him trampled upon.
I confess that his distinction of causes into
four kinds is not a division of a genus into its
species, but of an ambiguous word into its
different meanings, and that this is the case
with many of his divisions. But, in the in-
fancy of philosophy, this ought to be corrected
without severity. It was more inexcusable
in many philosophers and divines of the
scholastick ages to handle every subject in
one method, namely, by shewing its four
causes—Efficient, Material, Formal, and
Final. Avery learned divine, whose compend
was the text-book in the school where I was
taught, treating of the creation, when he
comes to the material cause, pronounces it
to be nihil. If Aristotle had treated of his
materia prima in this method, he must have
made the material cause to be the thing it-
self, and all the three other causes to be
nihil 5 for it had no form, no efficient, con-
sequently no end. But the absurdity of
making everything to have four causes, can-
not, I believe, be imputed to Aristotle.
2. You challenge him with a violation of
propriety in the Greek language.: I am dis-
posed to take it upon the authority of Aris-
totle, as a man who understood Greek better
than any modern, that the word &lroy was
sometimes used to signify the form, some-
times the matter of a thing. If these were
not popular meanings of the word, might
they not be philosophical, and perhaps to be
found only in the writings of philosophers,
which are now lost P But I cannot think
that Aristotle would have given these mean-
ings without authority; and I think it bold
in any modern to impute this to him.
3. You are likewise severeupon the rà is 3.]]
May it not be said that it is very like the sup-
posed principle of change, which, in pagexvii.,
you make the general meaning of the word
cause 2
4. You seem to think (end of page xxi.)
that there are different kinds of causes, each
* “Introduction to the Essay,” &c. printed in
part.—H.
H Wide “Essays,” Introduction, p. xvi. sq.-H.
! Ibidcm, p. xvii.-H. | 10idcm, p. xvii.-H.
having something specifick in its relation to
the effect.
I know not what the kinds are which you
have in your eye, and therefore speak in
the dark upon this point. I mean onely to
put you upon your guard that they be
really species of the same genus, that you
may not fall under the censure you have
passed upon Aristotle.
You will forgive my offering this caution,
because I apprehend that there is one ori-
ginal notion of cause grounded in human
nature, and that this is the notion on which
the maxim is grounded—that every change
or event must have a cause. This maxim is
so universally held, and forces itself upon
the judgment so strongly, that I think it
must be a first principle, or what you calla
law of human thought. And I think the
only distinct and true meaning of this maxim
is, that there must be something that had
power to produce the event, and did pro-
duce it. We are early conscious of some
power in ourselves to produce some events;
and our nature leads us to think that every
event is produced by a power similar to that
which we find in ourselves—that is, by will
and exertion: when a weight falls and hurts
a child, he is angry with it—he attributes
power and will to everything that seems to
act. , Language is formed upon these early
sentiments, and attributes action and power
to things that are afterwards discovered to
have neither will nor power. By this
means, the motion of action and causation is
gradually changed; what was essential to it
at first is left out, while the name remains:
and the term cause is applied to things which
we believe to be inanimate and passive.
I conceive that, from the original notion
or sentiment above described, all the dif-
ferent notions of cause have been derived,
by Some kind of analogy, or perhaps abuse;
and I know not but the rà ig & may compre-
hend them all, as well as any other general
name, as they are so heterogeneous.
A law plea is the cause of a litigation.
The motive that induces a great body of men
to act in concert, is the cause of a revolu-
tion in politicks. A law of nature is the
cause of a phenomenon in physicks, or,
perhaps, the cause is another phenomenon
which always goes before it. The cause of
the universe has been by some thought to
be necessity, by others chance, by others a
powerful intelligent being.
I think it is a good division in Aristotle,
that the same word may be applied to dif-
ferent things in three ways—univocally,
analogically, and equivocally. Univocally,
when the things are species of the same
genus ; analogically, when the things are
related by some similitude or analogy; equi--
vocally, when they have no relation but a
common name. When a word is analogi-
76
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
cally applied to different things, as, I be-
lieve, the word cause is, there must be an
original meaning from which the things
related to it have borrowed the name; and
it happens not unfrequently that the origi-
nal notion loses the name by disuse, while
the relatives monopolize it; as in the Eng-
lish words, deliberate, suspense, project,
and many others. -
The vulgar, in their notion even of the
physical cause of a phaenomenon, include
some conception of efficiency or productive
influence. So all the ancient philosophers
did. Itaque non sio causa intelligi debet,
wt quod cuique antecedat, idei causa sit, sed
quod efficienter antecedit—CICERO.
Modern philosophers know that we have
no ground to ascribe efficiency to natural
causes, or even necessary connection with
the effect. But we still call them causes,
including nothing under the name but pri-
ority and constant conjunction. Thus the
giving the name of causation to the relation
of connected events in physicks, is, in mo-
dern philosophers, a kind of abuse of the
name, because we know that the thing
most essential to causation in its proper
meaning—to wit, efficiency—is wanting.
Yet this does not hinder our notion of a
physical cause from being distinct and de-
terminate, though, I think, it cannot be
said to be of the same genus with an effi-
cient cause or agent. Even the great Bacon
seems to have thought that there is a latens
processus, as he calls it, by which natural
causes really produce their effects; and
that, in the progress of philosophy, this
might be discovered. But Newton, more
enlightened on this point, has taught us to
acquiesce in a law of nature, according to
which the effect is produced, as the utmost
that natural philosophy can reach, leaving
what can be known of the agent or efficient
cause to metaphysicks or natural theology.
This I look upon as one of the great dis-
coveries of Newton ; for I know of none
that went before him in it. It has new-
modelled our notion of physical causes, but,
at the same time, carried it farther from
what I take to be the original notion of
cause or agent.
If you have found, as you seem to say,
(page xxii.,) that the different relations of
things, which we call cause and effect, differ
only as species of the same genus, and have
found the general notion which comprehends
them all under it—this, indeed, is more
than I am able to do. Supposing it to be
done, I should think that the genus, being
an abstract notion, would be capable of a
just definition. Yet I do not find fault
with your declining to set out by giving
the definition; for I conceive you may,
with great propriety, pave the way to it by
a preliminary induction.
XVI.
ON CAUSE—OBJECTS OF GEOM ETRY-POW ER.
——AGENCY, &c.
[No date.]
My DEAR SIR,--I must thank you, in
the first place, for your attention to my in-
terest in writing to Dr Rose what you in-
formed me of in your answer to my last.
I received your three volumes" on Wed-
nesday evening, with the letter and plan of
the Essay. . e e º º ©
Volume First.
In the induction made to prove that men
have a motion of the relation of cause and
effect, this case ought to be particularly in the
view of the author, (as I take it to be the
case that really exists)—to wit, that cause
and effect, from the imperfection of langu-
age, signifie many different relations, and
yet, by those who write and think dis-
tinctly, will be used without ambiguity;
the things of which they are predicated ex-
plaining sufficiently what relation is meant.
This is the case of many words that have
various meanings really different, though,
perhaps, somewhat similar or analogous. It
is remarkably the case of prepositions. Yet
such words as prepositions are used with-
out ambiguity by those who think distinctly.
How many relations are expressed by the
preposition of 2––and yet, when it is put be-
tween two words, we are never at a loss
for its meaning. In Aristotle's days, a cause
meant four things—to wit, the Efficient,
the Form, the Matter, and the End. Yet,
when it was used by a good writer, it was
easy to see in which of these senses it was
meant. With us the word cause has lost
some of these four meanings, and has got
others to supply their places, and, perhaps,
has not, in one language, all the meanings
which it has in another. Perhaps, therefore,
it may be said, that all men have many no-
tions of cause and effect, and some men
more than others; the same observation
may, Ithink, be applied to the words Power,
Agent, and Activity.
To give you a hint of my notion of the
Word cause, I think it has one strict and
philosophical meaning which is a single re-
lation, and it has a lax and popular meaning
which includes many relations. The popu-
lar meaning I think I can express by a
definition. Causa est id, quo posito ponitur
* The MS. of the Essay itself. The Essay was
probably considerably modified before publication;
and I have been unable to attempt the task of discover-
ing how far, and to what pages of the published book,
the following remarks apply.—H.
LETTERS TO DR JAMES GREGORY.
77
Effectus, quo sublato tollitur. This, you
will easily see, includes many relations, and,
Ibelieve, includes all that in any language are
expressed by cause, thoughinsomelanguages
some of the relations included under the
definition may not be called causes, on ac-
count, perhaps, of their having some other
word appropriated to signify such relations.
In the strict philosophical sense, I take a
cause to be that which has the relation to
the effect which I have to my voluntary and
deliberate actions; for I take this notion of
a cause to be derived from the power I feel
in myself to produce certain effects. In
this sense, we say that the Deity is the
cause of the universe.
I think there is some ambiguity in your
use of the words The notion of a cause.
Through a considerable part of Vol. I. it
means barely a conception of the meaning
of the word cause ; then suddenly it means
Some opinion or judgment about the word
cause, or the thing meant by that word.
The last must be the meaning when you
speak of the notion of a cause being true or
false, being condemned or justified. The
bare conception of a cause, without any
opinion about it, can neither be true nor
false. It is true that notion often signifies
opinion; but when, in a train of discourse,
it has been put for simple conception, and
then immediately for opinion, the reader
is apt to overlook the change of signification,
or to think that the author means to impute
truth or falsehood to a bare conception,
without opinion.
The same thing I observe when you
speak of the notion of power, vol. II. p. 19.
Page 40, &c.—What is said about the
non-existence of the objects of geometry, I
think, is rather too strongly expressed. I
grant that they are things conceived without
regard to their existence; but they are pos-
sible modifications of things which we dayly
perceive by our senses. We perceive length,
breadth, and thickness: these attributes do
really exist. The objects of geometry are
modifications of one or more of these, accu-
rately conceived and defined.
Nor do I thinkit can be said, without great
exceptions, that the notions of the objects
of geometry are not common among man-
kind. The notions of a straight and a curve
line, of an angle, of a plain surface, and
others, are common; though, perhaps, in the
minds of the vulgar, not so accurately de-
fined as in those of geometers. The more
complex geometrical conceptions of cycloids
and other curves, are only artificial com-
positions of more simple notions which are
common to the vulgar. Hence, a man of
ordinary capacity finds no difficulty in under-
standing the definitions of Euclid. All the
difficulty lies in forming the habit by which
the name, and an accurate conception of its
meaning, are so associated, that the one
readily suggests the other. To form this
habit requires time, and in some persons
much more than in others.
Page 68.-You may use freedom with
Aristotle, because he won't feel it. But I
would not have you laugh at the restorer of
ancient metaphysicks" in publick while he
is alive. Why hurt a man who is not
hurting you ?
Page 70.-I thought the animal implume
bipes was Plato's definition, and I think I
quoted it as his ; but you may examine. I
think it is Diog. Laertius that says so ; but
I am not sure, nor have I the book here.--
What you say of definitions in natural
history, chemistry, and medicine, may per-
haps be taken by some persons as a disap-
probation of definitions in those sciences.
Would it not be proper to guard against
this misconstruction ? I think them very
useful to the present age, and that they
may be still more useful to future ages,
though you observe, very justly, that we can-
not reason from them as we do from mathe-
matical definitions. The most common
words may flow with the flux of time, and
have their meaning contracted, enlarged, or
altered. Definition seems to be the only
mean of fixing them to one meaning, or, at
least, of shewing what was the meaning when
that definition had authority.
Volume Second.
After what I have already said, you will
not be surprized to find me one of those
who think that the notions of Power and of
Agency or Activity, have a share in the rela-
tion of Cause and Effect. I take all the
three words to have a lax and popular
meaning, in which they are nearly related ;
and a strict and philosophical meaning, in
which also they have the same affinity.
In the strict sense, I agree with you
that power and agency are attributes of
mind onely; and I think that mind onely can
be a cause in the strict sense. This power,
indeed, may be where it is not exerted, and
So may be without agency or causation; but
there can be no agency or causation with-
out power to act, and to produce the effect.
As far as I can judge, to everything we
call a cause we ascribe power to produce
the effect. In intelligent causes, the power
may be without being exerted; so I have
power to run, when I sit still or walk. But
in inanimate causes, we conceive no power
but what is exerted ; and, therefore, mea-
sure the power of the cause by the effect
* Lord Monboddo.-H.
t See Laertius, L. vi. Seg. 40. The definition is
Plato's.-H.
78
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
which it actually produces. The power of
an acid to dissolve iron is measured by
what it actually dissolves.
We get the notion of active power, as
well as of cause and effect, as I think, from
what we feel in ourselves. We feel in our-
selves a power to move our limbs, and to
produce certain effects when we choose.
Hence, we get the notion of power, agency,
and causation, in the strict and philosophical
sense ; and this I take to be our first notion
of these three things.
If this be so, it is a curious problem in
human nature, how, in the progress of
life, we come by the lax notion of power,
agency, cause, and effect, and to ascribe
them to things that have no will nor intel-
ligence. I am apt to think, with the Abbé
Raynal, “that savages,” (I add children
as in the same predicament,) “ wherever
they see motion which they cannot account
for, there they suppose a soul.” Hence
they ascribe active power and causation to
sun, moon, and stars, rivers, fountains, Sea,
air, and earth ; these are ‘conceived to be
causes in the strict sense. In this period
of society, language is formed, its funda-
mental rules and forms established. Ac-
tive verbs are applied onely to things that
are believed to have power and activity in
the proper sense. Every part of nature
which moves, without our seeing any exter-
nal cause of its motion, is conceived to be a
cause in the strict sense, and, therefore, is
called so. At length, the more acute and
speculative few discover that some of those
things which the vulgar believe to be ani-
mated like themselves, are inanimate, and
have neither will nor understanding. These
discoveries grow and spread slowly in a
course of ages. In this slow progress, what
use must the wise men make of their dis-
coveries 2 Will they affirm that the sun
does not shine nor give heat, that the
Sea never rages, nor do the winds blow, nor
the earth bring forth grass and corn ? If
any bold spirit should maintain such para-
doxes, he would probably repent his teme-
rity. The wiser part will speak the com-
mon language, and suit it to their new no-
tions as well as they can ; just as philoso-
phers say with the vulgar, that the sun
rises and sets, and the moon changes. The
philosopher must put a meaning upon vul-
gar language that suits his peculiar tenets
as well as he can. And, even if all men
should become philosophers, their language
would still retain strong marks of the opi-
nions that prevailed when it was first made.
If we allow that active verbs were made to
express action, it seems to be a necessary
consequence, that all the languages we
know were made by men who believed
almost every part of nature, to be active,
and to have inherent power.
- Volume Third.
The philological discussion is new to me;
and it would require more time in my slow
way to make up my mind about it, than
you allow me. But the general principle—
that every distinction which is found in the
structure of a common language, is a real
distinction, and is perceivable by the com-
mon sense of mankind—this I hold for cer-
tain, and have made frequent use of it. I
wish it were more used than it has been ;
for I believe the whole system of metaphy-
sicks, or the far greater part, may be brought
out of it ; and, next to accurate reflexion
upon the operations of our own minds, I
know nothing that can give so much light
to the human faculties as a due considera-
tion of the structure of language.
From this principle, you prove to my
satisfaction that there is a real distinction
between the relation which a living agent
has to his action, and the relation between
an inanimate and the effect of which it is
the cause, mean, or instrument.
But I know no language in which the
word cause is confined to inanimate things,
though, perhaps, it may be more frequently
applied to them than to things that have
life and intelligence.
If I were convinced that it cannot be said,
in a plain, literal sense, that I am the cause
of my own actions, or that the Deity is the
cause of the universe—if I were convinced
that my actions, or the production of the
universe, are not effects, or that there must
be a cause of these effects distinct from the
agent, I should in this case agree to your
reasoning.
The rule of Latin syntax from which you
reason, seems, indeed, to suppose that all
causes are inanimate things, like means
and instruments; but I desiderate better
authority. I am not sure but power and
agency are as often ascribed to inanimate
things as causation. Thus we speak of the
powers of gravity, magnetism, mechanical
powers, and a hundred more. Yet there is
a kind of power and agency which you
acknowledge to belong only to mind.
Your system, if I comprehend it, (which,
indeed, I am dubious about,) seems to go
upon the supposition that power and agency
belong onely to mind, and that in language
causation never belongs to mind. If this
be so, you and I may, after all, differ only
about the meaning of words. What you
call an agent, and a being that has power,
that I call a cause with regard to every ex-
ertion of his power.
That which alone you call a cause, I
think is no cause at all in the strict sense of
the word ; but I acknowledge it is so in the
lax, and popular sense. . e º
LETTERS TO DR
JAMES GREGORY. 79
In these remarks I thought friendship
obliged me to lay aside all regard to friend-
ship, and even to indulge a spirit of severity
that seems opposite to it. I hope you will
make allowance for this. For, in reality,
I have such an opinion of your judgment
and taste, that I cannot help suspecting my
own where they differ.
XVII.
-\ N AMI BIGUITY OF HUMIE– MEANINGS OF
WILL AND VOLITION--POW’ER.
Motive—Sect J.
27. [Page 21, published work.]–It
does not appear to me, that the long pas-
_2 quoted from Mr Hume's reconciling
project, is so full of ambiguous expressions
and hypothetical doctrine, as it is said to
be ; though I think it is very clearly shewn
to be full of weak reasoning. I think he
does not confound a constant conjunction
with a necessary connection, but plainly dis-
tinguishes them ; affirming, that the first is
all the relation which, upon accurate reflec-
tion, we are able to perceive between cause
and effect ; but that mankind, by some pre-
judice, are led to think that cause and effect
have moreover a necessary connection;
when at the same time they acknowledge
onely a constant conjunction between motive
and action ; so far I see no obscurity or
ambiguity. The words constant conjunction
and 7uccessa, y connection, I think, are the
best that can be used to express the meaning
of each, and the difference between them.
At the same time, to suppose, without
assigning any reason for the supposition,
that the constant conjunction of cause and
£ffect leads men to believe a necessary con-
nection between them, but that the con-
stant conjunction between motive and action
has no such effect, appears to me very weak
and unphilosophical ; and this account of
the phenomenon of men's putting a differ-
ence between the relation of motive and
action, and the relation of cause and eſfect,
does not appear to me to deserve the epithet
you give it, of very ingenious.
The last part of the quotation, beginning
with—“Let any one define a cause without
comprehending,” &c.," I think has a distinct
meaning; but that meaning is so imperti-
nent to his purpose, and so contrary to his
principles, that I cannot help thinking that
he meant to say the very contrary of what
he says; and that the word without has slipt
into the sentence by an oversight of the
author or printer. For, does not he him-
self define a cause without comprehending,
as a part of the definition, a necessary con-
nection between the cause and the effect 2
Does he not maintain that we have no idea
of necessary connection ? He certainly
meant to say, that he would give up the
whole controversy, if any one could shew
that we have such an idea, and not to say
that he would give up the controversy, if
any one could give a definition of cause
without comprehending that idea. Were
I to comment upon this passage in the
Bentleian style, I would say dele without,
neo periculo. After all, how he should
think that the bulk of mankind have, without
reason, joyned the idea of necessary con-
nection to that of constant conjunction, in
the relation of cause and effect, when man-
kind have no such idea, I cannot account
for.
Of the Notion of Inst, winemt.
66, &c.—I am not pleased with the three
different meanings you put upon the word
volition, nor do I think it ambiguous. Will
is indeed an ambiguous word, being some-
times put for the faculty of willing ; some-
times for the act of that faculty, besides
other meanings. But volition always sig-
nifies the act of willing, and nothing else.
Willingness, I think, is opposed to unwil-
lingness or aversion. A man is willing to
do what he has no aversion to do, or what
he has some desire to do, though perhaps
he has not the opportunity ; and I think
this is never called volition.
Choice or preference, in the proper sense,
is an act of the understanding ; but some-
times it is improperly put for volition, or
the determination of the will in things where
there is no judgment or preference ; thus,
a man who owes me a shilling, lays down .
three or four equally good, and bids me take
which I choose. I take one without any
judgment or belief that there is any ground
of preference—this is merely an act of will
that is a volition.
An effort greater or less, I think, always
accompanics volition, but is not called vo-
lition. There may be a determination of
will to do something to-morrow or next
week. This, though it he properly an act
* The whole sentence is as follows:–It is from
Hume’s “Inquiry concerning the Human Under-
standing,” sect. viii. part I. prope finem, “Let any
onedefine a cause, without comprehending, as apart of
the definition, a necessary connection with its effect;
and let him,shew distinctly the origin of the idea, ex
pressed by the definition, and I shall readily give up
the whole controversy.”—Dr Reid, in his remarks
on this passage, would be right, did Hume mean
by necessary connection, a 7 eally necessary con-
nection, and not merely a feeling of necessity ºn
us, and that not a priort, but a po ten ion f-not the
offspring of knowledge, but of band habit. It is here
the part of the sceptic, not to disprove the subjective
phaenomenon of necessity, but to show that it is ille-
gitimate and objectively barren.—Il.
80
CORRESPONDENCE OF DIR. REID. H
of will, is not called volition, because it has
a proper name of its own—we call it a reso-
lution or purpose ; and here the effort is
suspended till the purpose is to be ex-
ecuted.
I apprehend that, in dreaming, the effort
accompanies volition, as well as when we
are awake ; but in most persons the effort
in dreaming produces little or no motion
in the body, as is the case in palsy. When
a hound dreams, we see a feeble attempt to
move his limbs and to bark, as if he had the
palsy. And a man dreaming that he cries
desperately for help, is often heard to make
a feeble attempt to cry.
Power.
16, &c.—I humbly think that my power
to ride or to walk, and the king's power to
call or to dissolve a parliament, are different
kinds, or rather different meanings of the
word power. In the former meaning, every-
thing depending upon my will is in my
power, and consequently my will itself; for,
if I had not power to will, I could have no
power to do what depends upon my will.
In the second meaning, power signifies a
right by the law or by the constitution,
according to that maxim of law, Nihil pos-
sum quod jure mom possum.
In another law sense, we say—It is part
of the king’s prerogative that he can do no
wrong. The meaning of this is not that he
has no legal right to do wrong, for this may
be said of the meanest of his subjects; but
it means that he cannot be accused or tried
for any wrong before any criminal judica-
ture. It is his prerogative, that he cannot
be called to account for any wrong.
71, &c.—The doctrine delivered from page
71 to 76, I suspect very much not to be
just. If it be true, it is surely important,
and would make many difficulties instantly
to vanish, which the bulk of philosophers
have laboured in vain to resolve, and the
wiser part have reckoned to be insolvable.
It is so new and so contrary to all that
philosophers have taught and believed since
the days of Aristotle, that it ought to be
proposed and supported with great modesty;
but, indeed, I cannot yet assent to it.
I have, for instance, the power of moving
my hand; all the activity I am conscious
of exerting, is volition and effort to move
the hand ; the motion must begin some-
where. Suppose it begins at the nerves,
and that its being continued till the hand
be moved, is all mechanism. The first
motion, however, cannot be mechanism.
It follows immediately upon my volition and
effort.
Nor do I know how my volition and
effort to move my hand, produces a certain
motion in the nerves. I am conscious that
in this there is something which I do not
comprehend, though I believe He that made
me comprehends it perfectly. If I be struck
with a palsy, that volition and effort which
before moved my hand, is now unable to do
it. Is this owing to an inability to produce
the first motion ? or is it owing to some de-
rangement of the machine of the body ? I
know not. Nay, I am uncertain whether I
be truly and properly the agent in the first
motion; for I can suppose, that, whenever ,
I will to move my hand, the Deity, or some
other agent, produces the first motion in my
body—which was the opinion of Male-
branche. This hypothesis agrees with all that
I am conscious of in the matter. I am like
a child turning the handle of a hand organ
—the turning of the handle answers to my
volition and effort. The music immediately
follows; but how it follows, the child knows
not. Were two or three ingenious children
to speculate upon the subject, who had never
seen nor heard of such a machine before,
perhaps one who had seen strange effects of
mechanism, might conjecture that the
handle, by means of machinery, produced
the music : another, like Malebranche,
might conjecture that a musician, concealed
in the machine, always played when the
handle was turned.
We know as little how our intellectual
operations are performed as how we move
our own body. I remember many things
past; but how I remember them I know
not. Some have attempted to account for
memory by a repository of ideas, or by traces
left in the brain of the ideas we had before.
Such accounts would appear ridiculous at
first sight, if we knew how the operation of
memory is performed. But, as we are
totally ignorant how we remember, such
weak hypotheses have been embraced by
Sensible men.
In these, and in innumerable cases that
might be mentioned, it seems to me to be
one thing to know that such a thing is, and
another to know how it is.
Perhaps you may have been led into the
mistake, if it be a mistake, by what you
say about definition in the note, p. 76. An
operation, or any other thing that is per-
fectly simple, cannot be defined—this is
true. Nor can it be explained by words to
a man who had not the conception of it be-
fore; for words can give us no new simple
conceptions, but such only as we had before,
and had annexed to such words. -
Thus, if a man born blind asks me what
a Scarlet colour is, the question, I think, is
not impertinent, or nugatory, or absurd; but
I can only answer him, that, though I know
perfectly what a scarlet colour is, it is im-
possible to give him a distinct conception of
it unless he saw. But, if he asks me how
LETTERS TO DR JAMES GREGOIRY.
81
my volition and effort moves my hand, I
not onely cannot satisfy him, but am con-
scious that I am ignorant myself. We both
know that there is a constant conjunction
between the volition and the motion, when
I am in health, but how they are connected
I know not, but should think myself much
wiser than I am, if I did know. For any-
thing I know, some other being may move
my hand as often as I will to move it. The
volition, I am conscious, is my act ; but I
am not conscious that the motion is so. I
onely learn from experience that it always fol-
lows the volition, when I am in sound health.
Activity.—Sect. 1.
P. 24, &c.—The distinction between the
two kinds of active verbs here marked, ap-
pears no less clearly when they are used in
the passive voice. To be known, to be be-
lieved, &c., imply nothing done to the things
known or believed. But to be wounded, to
be healed, implies something done to the
wounded or healed. A scholastick philoso-
pher would say that to be wounded, belongs
to the category of passion; but to be known.
belongs to none of the categories—being only
an easternal-denomination. Indeed, however
grammarians might confound those two
kinds of active verbs, the scholastick philo-
sophers very properly distinguished the acts
expressed by them. They called the acts
expressed by the first kind immanent acts,
and those expressed by the second kind,
transitive acts. Immanent acts of mind are
such as produce no change in the object.
Such are all acts of understanding, and even
some that may be called voluntary—such as
attention, deliberation, purpose.
Activity—Sect. 2.
P. 43.−If my memory does not deceive
me, Charlevoix, in his history of Canada,
says, that, in the Huron language, or in some
language of that country, there is but one
word for both the sexes of the human species,
which word has two genders, not a mascu-
line and feminine—for there is no such dis-
tinction of genders in the language—but a
a noble and an ignoble gender : the ignoble
gender signifies not a woman, though we
'improperly translate it so. It signifies a
coward, or a good-for-nothing creature of
either sex. A woman of distinguished
talents that create respect, is always of the
noble gender. I know not whether it be
owing to something of this kind in the
Gaelic language, that a Highlander, who
has gotonely a little broken English, modestly
takes the feminine gender to himself, and,
in place of Saying I did so, says, her own self
did so. ſº tº e {º & ſº
As to the mathematical reasoning on
motive, Section 2, to prove that the relation
of motive and agent is very different from
that of a physical cause to its effect, I think
it just and conclusive; and that it is a good
argument ad hominem, against the scheme
of Necessity held by Hume, Priestley, and
other modern advocates for Necessity, who
plainly make these two relations the same.
Mr Hume holds it for a maxim no less ap-
plicable to intelligent beings and their ac-
tions, than to physical causes and their
effects, that the cause is to be measured by
the effect. And from this maxim he infers,
or makes an Epicuream to infer, that we
have reason to ascribe to the Deity just as
much of wisdom, power, and goodness, as
appears in the constitution of things, and
IłO Ill Ore.
The reasoning in the paperson activity, to
shew that the relation between an agent and
his action is, in the structure of language, dis-
tinguished from the relation between a cause
and its effect, is, I think, perfectly just when
cause is taken in a certain sense ; but I am
not so clear that the word cause is never,
except metaphorically or figuratively, taken
in any other sense. You will see my senti-
ments about that word in two chapters of my
“Essay on the Liberty of Moral Agents,”
now in your hands. If I had seen your
papers before I wrote those two chapters,
perhaps I would have been more explicit.
However, they will save you and me the
trouble of repeating here what is there said.
I think, after all, the difference between
you and me is merely about the use of a
word; and that it amounts to this—whether
the word cause, and the corresponding words
in other languages, has, or has not, from the
beginning, been used to express, without a
figure, a being that produces the effect by
his will and power.
I see not how mankind could ever have
acquired the conception of a cause, or of
any relation, beyond a mere conjunction in
time and place between it and its effect, if
they were not conscious of active exertions
in themselves, by which effects are pro-
duced. This seems to me to be the origin
of the idea or conception of production.
In the grammar rule, causa, modus et
instrumentum, &c., the word cause is taken
in a limited sense, which is explained by
the words conjoymed with it. Nor do I see
that any part of the rule would be lost if
the word causa had been altogether left out.
Is not everything which you would call a
cause a mean or an instrument 2 May not
everything to which the rule applies be
called a mean or an instrument P But surely
many things are called causes that are
G
§ CORRESPONDENCE OF DIR REID.
neither means nor instruments, and to which
the rule does not apply.
You know that Aristotle, who surely
understood Greek, makes four kinds of
causes—the efficient, the matter, the form,
and the end. I think the grammar rule
applies to none of these ; for they are not
in Latin expressed by an oblative without
a preposition.
That nothing can happer, without a cause,
is a maxim found in Plato, in Cicero, and, I
believe, never brought into doubt till the
time of D. Hume. If this be not under-
stood of an efficient cause, it is not true of
any other kind of cause; nor can any reason
be given whyit should have been universally
received as an axiom. All other causes
suppose an efficient cause ; but it supposes
no other; and, therefore, in every enumer-
ation of causes, it is made the first ; and
the word cause, without any addition, is put
to signify an efficient cause ; as in that of
Cicero, (which I quote only from memory,)
“Itaque non est causa quod cuique ante-
cedit, sed quod cuique efficienter ante-
cedif.”
XVIII.
oN THE TERMs, PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY,
AND NECESSARIAN– ON DETERMINATION
BY STRONGEST MOTIVE-REPROACII OF
MALA FIDES-CONSCIOUSINESS OF LIBERTY
—ARGUMENTUM PIGRUM, &c.—IN A PATER
ENTITLED —
Remarks. *
PAGE 2.-‘‘ Philosophical Necessity.”—
This, I think, is an epithet given to the
doctrine of Necessity by Dr Priestley only;
and I do not see that he deserves to be fol-
lowed in it. The vulgar have, from the
beginning of the world, had the conception
of it as well as philosophers. Whether they
ground it upon the influence of the stars,
or the decrees of fate, or of the gods, or
upon the influence of motives, it is necessity
still. I have often found the illiterate vul-
gar have recourse to it to exculpate their
own faults, or those of their friends, when
no other excuse could be found. It lurks
in their minds as a last shift to alleviate the
pangs of guilt, or to soften their indignation
against those whom they love.- But it is not
admitted on other occasions. Dr Priestley
by this epithet no doubt wished it to pass
for a profound discovery of philosophy; but
* On the “Essay.” Somepages correspond to the
published work, others do not. The “Essay” was,
therefore, probably printed but in proof–H.
f, Thus Agamemnon :-Eyð 3’ obz ºrić, tº
AAA& Zeis zoº Moigc. 22) #egogorris 'Eetyvus.--
I know no claim it has to be called philoso-
phical.
In other places, you use another of Dr
Priestley's words—the Necessarians. I see
no reason for adding this word to our lan-
guage, when Fatalists might do as well.
Sometimes I think you call them the Philo-
sophers indefinitely. I don’t like this
neither. Fatalism was never so general
among philosophers, nor so peculiar to them,
as to justify it.
P. 27.—In my “ Essay on Liberty” I
have censured the defenders of Necessity for
grounding one of their chief arguments upon
this as a self-evident axiom, That the strong-
est motive always determines the agent, while
no one of them, as far as I know, has offered
to explain what is meant by the strongest
motive, or given any test by which we may
know which of two contrary motives is the
strongest; without which the axiom is an
identical proposition, or has no meaning at
all. I have offered two tests of the strength
of motives—according as they operate upon
the will immediately, or upon the under-
standing—and endeavoured to shew that the
maxim is not true according to either.
P. 72,-The want of sincerity or bona
fides, in a large body of men, respected and
respectable, is a very tender place, and can-
not be touched with too much delicacy.
Though you were sure of being able to de-
monstrate it, I am afraid it may be taken as
an insult, which even demonstration cannot
justify. Your not making the conclusion
general, for want of a sufficiently extensive
information, will not satisfy, because it seems
to extend the conclusion as far as your
observation has extended, and because the
reasons on which you ground your con-
clusion seem to extend it to all fatalists
who can draw a conclusion from premises.
If David Hume, or any other person, has
charged those who profess to believe men to
be free agents with insincerity, I think he
did wrong, and that I should do wrong in
following the example.
But, setting apart the consideration of
bienseance, I doubt of the truth of your
conclusion. If human reason were perfect,
I think you would be better founded ; but
we are such imperfect creatures, that I fear
we are not exempted from the possibility of
Swallowing contradictions. Could you not
prove with equal strength that all bad men
are infidels 2 Yet I believe this not to be
true.
In page 76, you speak of our having a
consciousness, of independent activity. I
think this cannot be said with strict pro-
priety. It is only the operations of our
own mind that we are conscious of Ac-
tivity is not an operation of mind; it is a
LETTERs To DR JAMES GREGORY.
33
power to act. We are conscious of our
volitions, but not of the cause of them.
I think, indeed, that we have an early
and a natural conviction that we have power
to will this or that ; that this conviction
precedes the exercise of reasoning ; that it
is implyed in all our deliberations, purposes,
promises, and voluntary actions: and I have
used this as an argument for liberty. But
I think this conviction is not properly called
consciousness.
I truly think that a fatalist who acted
agreeably to his belief, would sit still, like a
passenger in a ship, and suffer himself to be
carried on by the tide of fate; and that,
when he deliberates, resolves, promises, or
chuses, he acts inconsistently with his be-
lief. But such inconsistencies, I fear, are
to be found in life; and, if men be ever con-
vinced of them, it must be by soothing words
and soft arguments, which ludunt cir-
cum pracordia ; for the force of prejudice,
joyned with that of provocation, will shut
the door against all conviction.
I humbly think, therefore, that it will be
prudent and becoming to express less con-
fidence in your mathematical reasonings,
though I really believe them to be just upon
the hypothesis you combat. Fatalists will
think that, when you put the issue of the
controversy solely upon the experiments,
you treat them like children. No fatalist
will contend with you upon that footing,
nor take it well to be challenged to do so;
and I think you have a good plea with any
man who disputes the strength of your ma-
thematical reasoning, to prove that the
relation between motives and actions is
altogether of a different kind, and subject to
different laws from that between physical
causes and their effects.
XIX.
ON V ULGAR NOTION OF NECESSA.R.Y CONNEC-
TION.—INADVERTENCY OF HUME–REID's
REFUTATION OF IDEAs—REID's USE OF THE
WORD CAUSE — INERTIA, PASSIVITY, STATE,
OF MIND – AND SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS ON
THI, NECESSITARIAN CONTROVERSY—IN A
PAPER, ENTITLED
Remarks on the Essay.
Page 23.−I am apt to think even the
vulgar have the notion of necessary con-
nection, and that they perceive it in arith-
metical and mathematical axioms, though
they do not speculate about it; nor do they
perceive it between physical causes and
their effects. Does not every man of com-
mon sense perceive the ridiculousness of
that complaint to the gods, which one of
the heroes of the “Dunciad” makes—
** And am I now fourscore ?
Ah! why, ye gods, should two and two make four 2"
But is it not remarkable that Mr Hume,
after taking so much pains to prove that we
have no idea of necessary connection, should
impute to the bulk of mankind the opinion
of a necessary connection between physical
causes and their effects 2 Can they have
this opinion without an idea of necessary
connection ?
33.-The passage here quoted from Mr
Hume is, indeed, so extraordinary, that I
Suspect an error in printing, and that the
word without has been put in against his
intention, though I find it in my copy of his
essays, as well as in your quotation. For
how could a man who denies that we have
any idea of necessary connection, defy any
one to define a cause without comprehending
necessary connection? He might, consist-
ently with himself, have defied any one to
define a cause, comprehending in the defi-
nition necessary connection ; and at the
same time to shew distinctly the origin of
the idea expressed by the definition. How
could he pledge himself to give up the con-
troyersy on the condition of getting such a
definition, when, as you observe, he had
given two such definitions himself 2 If
there be no error of the press, we must
Say, Aligwando bonus dormitat Humius.*
34 and 35.-You observe justly and perti-
nently, that “the intelligible and consistent
use of a word shews that the speaker had
Some thought, notion, or idea, correspond-
ing to it.” Idea is here put for the mean-
ing of a word, which can neither be true nor
false, because it implies neither affirmation
nor negation. But in the same paragraph
it is supposed that this idea may be im-
proper, groundless, and to be given up.
This can onely be applied to idea, taken
in another sense—to wit, when it implies
Some affirmation or negation. I know this
ambiguity may befound in Locke and Hume;
but I think it ought to be avoided.
36.-“Or the philosophical doctrine of
ideas.” If, an hundred years after this, the
philosophical doctrine of ideas be as little
regarded as the Vortices of Des Cartes are
at this day, they may then be coupled in
the manner you here do. But at present,
though I am proud of your opinion, that
that doctrine must be given up, I think it
is expressed in a way too assuming with
regard to the publick.
40.-I know of no philosopher who makes
the word cause extend solely to the giving
of existence.
44. Dr Reid agrees with the author of
the Essay, that the word cause ought to be
* As publishcd.—H.
* See note at page 79.-H.
g G 2
84
UORRESPONDENCE OF DR REIT).
used in the most common sense." But
one sense may be the most common in
one science, and another in others. He
thinks that, in theology and in metaphysicks,
the most common sense is that of agent or
efficient cause; and for this he thinks he
has the authority of Des Cartes, Locke,
Dr Clarke, Bishop Butler, and many others.
In physicks, and in all its branches, medi-
cine, chymistry, agriculture, the mechani-
cal arts, &c., he thinks the most common
meaning of cause is Hume's notion of it—
to wit, something which goes before the
effect, and is conjoyned with it in the course of
nature. As this notion is vague and popular,
philosophers, when they would speak more
precisely of a cause in physicks, mean by
it some law of nature, of which the phaeno-
menon called the effect is a necessary
consequence. Therefore, in writings of
the former kind, he would think himself
warranted to use the word cause, without
addition in the first of these senses; and, if
he had occasion to use it in the last sense,
he would call it physical cause. In writings
of the last kind, he thinks it may, with pro-
priety, be used without addition in the last
sense; and if, in such writings, it be used
in the first sense, he would have it called
the efficient cause. But the additions of
efficient and physical, he does [not] conceive
as denoting two species of the same genus,
but as distinguishing two different meanings
of the same ambiguous word.
You have good reason to dispute the
maxim about causes, as laid down by Mr
Hume, in whatever sense he takes the word
cause. It is a maxim in natural theology,
universally admitted, that everything that
begins to exist must have a cause, meaning
an efficient cause ; and from this maxim we
easily deduce the existance of a Being who
neither had a cause nor a beginning of ex-
istance, but exists necessarily. Physicks,
in all its branches, is conversant about the
phenomena of nature, and their physical
causes; and I think it may be admitted as
a maxim that every phenomenon of nature
has a physical cause. But the actions of
men, or of other rational beings, are not
phenomena of nature, nor do they come
within the sphere of physicks. As little is
a beginning of existance a phenomenon of
nature.
Page 154.—“ Ea'pressly eacluding from
the meaning of the phrase,” &c., to the end of
the paragraph." My remark upon this para-
graph I think more important than any
other I have made on the Essay; and, there-
fore, I beg your attention to it.
Inertia of mind seems to be a very pro-
per name for a quality which, upon every
system of Necessity, must belong to the
mind. It is likewise very proper to explain
the meaning of that term when applied to
the mind.
But when you “expressly exclude from
the meaning of the phrase, the circumstance
of mind remaining or persevering in any
state into which it once gets,” I wish you
to consider very seriously whether this con-
cession benot more generous than just; and,
if it be not just, whether by making it, you
* This is in reference to what Dr Gregory says of
the meaning attached by Reid himself to the word
cause. The passage is as follows:– “As little could
he (Hume) have in view the meaning expressed in
the third query, in which meaning Dr Reid (I own
I think with too little regard to the common use and
application of the word cause) hath employed it in
arguing this question ; (* Essays on the Active
Powers, passim ;) as where he says, after admitting
that everything must have a cause, that, in the case
of voluntary actions, it is not the motive, but the
person, that is the cause of them. This meaning of
the term cause—to wit, a being having power (and
optional or discretionary power) to produce or not to
produce a certain change—is not only evidently dif-
ferent from Mr Hume's, but completely repugnant to
his whole system. We may therefore set it aside
too.”
It is necessary to quote the queries to which refer-
ence is made in the preceding passage. They are
these:—“It might reasonably be asked—(19) Is the
word cause employed in that general fourfold sense
mentioned by Aristotle, and applied equally to the
essence or form of a being, to the matter of it, to the
efficient or agent, and to the motive, or purpose, or
final cause ? Or (29) is it employed in its more
common and limited acceptation, as generally used in
physics, and, indeed, in popular discourse, as when we
say, “Heat is the cause of expansion,” excluding all
the other meanings of it, and particularly that of the
agent? Or (39) is it employed in that more limited
sense in which it hath been defined and used by
several philosophers, to denote exclusively the agent,
in contradistinction to the physical cause ? Or (4°)
is it used to express the vague notion insinuated by
Aristotle's ro tº ºv, comprehending all these already
mentioned, and many more ? For example—what the
parts are to the whole, what a right angle in a tri-
angle is to the proportion between the squares of the
sides of it, what the absence of a pilot is to a ship-
wreck, what the seed is to a plant, what a father is
to his son, what the removal of an opposing cause is
to any event or effect, &c, &c.”—H.
* The whole passage referred to is as follows:–
‘‘ I have occasion often to consider the supposed want
of any such attribute of mind [viz., Power] as this is
the fundamental principle of the doctrine of necessity.
And, for the sake of brevity, and the opposition to
what has been often termed Activity and Force of
Mind, I call it the Inertia of Mind; limiting, how-
ever, the signification of the phrase, to denote merely
the incapacity of acting optionally or discretionally
without motives, or in opposition to all motives, or
in any other way but just according to the motives
applied, and expressly excluding from the meaning
of the phrase the circumstance of mind remaining or
persevering in any state into which it once gets, as
body does in a state, either of rest or of uniform
progressive rectilinear motion, into which it is once
put. Such permanency of state does not appear to be
any part of the constitution of the human mind, with
respect to any of its operations. , Sensation of every
kind—memory, imagination, judgment, emotion, or
passion, volition, and involuntary effort—all appear
to be transient conditions, or attributes of mind;
which, of their own nature, independently of any
cause applied, pass away or come to an end. And
this I conceive to be one of the most general circum-
stances of distinction between mere state or condition,
which is predicable of mind as well as body, (as, for
example, madness, idiotism, vivacity, dulness, pecu.
liar genius, wisdom, knowledge, virtue, vice,) and
those things which are termed acts or operations of
mind or thought.”—H.
LETTERS TO DR, JAMES GREGORY.
85
do not much weaken the force of a great
part of your subsequent reasoning.
The justice of the concession is not evi-
dent to me. To be merely passive, and to
remain in the stale into which it is put, seem
to signify the same thing; as, on the other
hand, to be active, and to have power to
change its own state, have the same meaning.
If the mind be passive onely, all its changes
are phenomena of nature, and therefore be-
long to the science of physicks, and require
a physical cause, no less than does the
change of direction or of velocity in a moving
body.
Of all things that belong to the mind, its
acts and operations are the onely things
which have any analogy to motion in a body.
The same analogy there is between the
ceasing of any act or operation and the
ceasing of motion. If, therefore, from mere
inactivity, the body, once put in the state of
motion, continues or perseveres in that
state, why should not a mind, which is
equally inactive, being once put in the state
of action oroperation, continue in that state 2
You say, “ Such permanency of state
does not appear to be the constitution of
the mind in any of its operations.” I grant
this. But the question is not, “What really
is its constitution ?” but “What would be
its constitution if it were as inert and in-
active as body is ?” To admit this want of
permanency is to admit that the mind is
active in some degree, which is contrary to
the Supposition.
The reason why madness, idiotism, &c.,
are called states of mind, while its acts and
operations arenot," is because mankind have
always conceived the mind to be passive in
the former and active in the later. But on
the system of Necessity, this distinction has
no place. Both are equally states, onely
the first are not so frequently changed as
the last.
If the concession be just and consistent
with necessity, it must be granted, what-
ever be its consequences; but I apprehend
the consequences willdeeply affect your essay.
For, first, it contradicts what you have
said, page 336, and, perhaps, in Several
other places, that, “ according to Mr
Hume's doctrine, a living person, in relation
to motives and actions, is precisely in the
situation of an inanimate body in relation to
projection and gravity.” If an inanimate
body had not the quality of persevering in
its state of motion, the effect of projection
and gravity upon it would be very different
from what it is with that quality.
Secondly, by this concession, your reason-
ing from the laws of motion and their cor-
ollaries, is much weakened ; for those laws
* The term State has, more especially of late years,
and principally by Necessitarian philosophers, been
applied to all modifications of mind indifferently.—H.
and corollaries are founded on the supposi-
tion that bodies persevere in the state of
motion as well as of rest; and, therefore,
are not properly applied to a being which
has not that quality. Indeed, perseverance
in its state is so essential to inertia, that it
will be thought unjustifiable to apply that
name to what you acknowledge does not
persevere in its state. And you will,
perhaps, be charged with giving an invi-
dious epithet to the mind, which, by
your own acknowledgment, is not due, and
then reasoning from that epithet as if it
were due.
226.—In the style of physicks, to carry a
letter in the direction A B, and to carry a
letter from A to the point B, are different
things. Any line parallel to A B, is said
to be in the direction A B, though it can-
not lead to the point B. -
The case, therefore, here put, is, that the
porter is offered a guinea a-mile to carry a
letter from A to the point B, and half-a-
guinea a-mile to carry a letter, at the same
time, from. A to the point C. And both
motives must necessarely operate according
to their strength. I truely think it impos-
sible to say how the porter would act upon
these suppositions. He would be in an in-
extricable puzzle between contrary actions
and contrary wills.
One should think that the two motives
mentioned, would conjoyn their force in the
diagonal. But, by going in the diagonal,
he loses both the guineas and the half-
guineas; this is implied in the offer, and is
a motive not to go in the diagonal, as strong
as the two motives for going in it. By the
force of the two motives, he must will to go
in the diagonal ; by the force of the third,
he must will not to go in the diagonal.
You pretend to demonstrate that he
must go in the diagonal willingly. I think
it may be demonstrated, with equal force,
that he must will not to go in the diagonal.
I perceive no error in either demonstration;
and, if both demonstrations be good, what
must be the conclusion ? The conclusion
must be, that the supposition on which both
demonstrations are grounded must befalse—
I mean the Supposition that motives are the
physical causes of actions; for it is possible,
and often happens, that, from a false Sup-
position, two contradictory conclusions may
be drawn ; but, from a true Supposition, it
it impossible. -
I think it were better to omit the case
stated toward the end of this page," because
I think it hardly possible to conceive two
motives, which, being conjoyned, shall have
an analogy to a projectile and centripetal
force conjoyned; and your concession, that
* This has been done.--H,
86
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
the effect of a motive is not permanent,
adds to the difficulty. A projectile force
requires a cause to begin it, but it requires
no continuance of the cause—it continues
by the inertia of matter. A centripetal force
is the effect of a cause acting constantly;
and the effect of that cause must bear some
proportion to the time it acts. Diminish
the time, in infinitum, and the effect of a
centripetal force is diminished, in infinitum;
so that, in any one instant of time, it bears
no proportion to a projectile force ; and,
what makes the effect of a centripetal, in a
given time, to be capable of comparison with
a projectile, force, is, that the effects of the
centripetal force, during every instant of the
time, are accumulated by the inertia of mat-
ter, and all, as it were, brought into one
sum. Now, how can you conceive two
motives, which have a difference and a re-
lation to each other, corresponding to the
difference and the relation of these two kinds
of force P Both kinds of force suppose the
permanency of motion once acquired, and,
I think, cannot be distinctly conceived, or
their effects ascertained, without that sup-
position.
337.—Upon the scheme of Necessity,
considered in this section, it must be main-
tained, that there is some unknown cause
or causes of human actions, besides motives,
which sometimes opposemotives with greater
force, sometimes produce actions without
motives ; and, as there are no causes but
physical causes, all actions must be neces-
sary, whether produced by motives or by
other physical causes. This scheme of
Necessity appears, indeed, to me more
tenable than that of Hume and Priestley;
and I wonder that Mr Hume, who thought
that he had proved, beyond doubt, that we
have no conception of any cause but a physi-
cal cause, did not rest the doctrine of Neces-
sity upon that principle solely. Unknown
causes would have afforded him a retreat in
all attacks upon his system. That motives are
the sole causes of action, is onely an outwork
in the system of Necessity, and may be given
up, while it is maintained that every action
must have a physical cause ; for physical
causes of all human actions, whether they
be known or unknown, are equally inconsist-
ent with liberty.
342.—A physical cause, from its nature,
must be constant in its effects, when it exists,
and is applied to its proper object. But of un-
known causes, the existence and the applica-
tion may depend upon a concurrence of acci-
dents, which is not subject to calculation, or
even to rational conjecture. So that, I
apprehend, the existance of such causes can
never be demonstrated to be contrary to
matter of fact. Unknown causes, like oc-
cult qualities, suit every occasion, and can
never be contradicted by phaenomena; for,
as we cannot, a priori, determine what shall
be the effects of causes absolutely unknown;
So it is impossible to prove, of any effect
whatsoever, that it cannot be produced by
Some unknown physical cause or causes.
The defects of this system of Necessity, I
think, are these two :-first, it is a mere
arbitrary hypothesis, brought to prop a weak
side in the hypothesis of Necessity; and,
Secondly, it is grounded on the supposition
that every event must have a physical cause,
a supposition which demonstrably termin-
ates in an infinite series of physical causes,
every one of which is the effect of a physical
CallSe.
If the doctrine opposed in this 16th sec-
tion be as it is expressed, page 338—that,
though the connection of motive and action
is but occasional, the volitions and actions
of men are absolutely produced by motives
as physical causes—this doctrine I take to
be a contradiction in terms, and unworthy
of confutation. It maintains that men are
absolutely determined by motives, and yet
onely occasionally determined by motives—
which, if I understand it right, is a contra-
diction.
351. The case supposed in this page seems
perfectly similar to that of page 226; the
same reasoning is applied to both. Should
not the conclusion be the same in both 2
431.—Is there not some inaccuracy in the
reasoning in this and the next page 2 I take
X and Y to represent equal motives to action,
and V a motive to inaction, which equally
opposes both. If this be so, the motives to
the opposite action stand thus : X-V -H Z
on one side, and Y-V on the other. Then
there will be a preponderancy on the side
of X as long as X and its equal Y is greater
than V; and if X be withdrawn on one
side, and Y on the other, we shall have
—V -- Z opposed to —V. In this case, if Z
be equal to V, the motives to act and not
to act on the side of Z will be equal ; if Z
be less than V, the strongest motive will be
for inaction ; and if Z be greater than V,
there will be a preponderating motive to act
on the side of Z. º e e º
As to the style in general, the only fault
I find is, that it abounds too much in long
and complex sentences, which have so many
clauses, and so much meaning, that it is
difficult to carry it all from the beginning to
the end of the sentence. The reader’s un-
derstanding should have gentle exercise, but
not hard labour, to comprehend the author's
meaning. I dislike a style that is cut down
into what the ancients called commas of a
line or half a line. This, like water falling
drop by drop, disposes one to sleep. But I
think you rather go into the contrary ex-
treme. Your friend, Lord Bacon, says,
“A fluent and luxuriant speech becomes
youth well, but not age.” I believe he had
LETTERS TO DR JAMES GREGORY.
87
in his view a rhetorical speech, and not the
lene et temperatum dicendi genus, which,
in Cicero's judgment, best suits philosophy.
XX.
ON A NOVEL USE OF THE WORD MOTIVE-
CAUSALITY OF MOTIVES, &c.
1793.
DEAR SIR.—I received Mr Crombie's
Essay” on Friday the 11th, at night, and
have read it twice, though interrupted by
the removal of my family to the college.
If this be Mr Crombie's first essay in con-
troversy, I think he shews no mean talent,
and may in time become an able champion.
He has done me particular honour in
directing so great a part of the book against
me ; yet, though I read the work without
prejudice, my opinion is not changed in any
point of the controversy.
He has strengthened his defensive armour
by extending the meaning of the word mo-
tive. I understood a motive, when applied
to a human being, to be that for the sake of
which + he acts, and, therefore, that what he
inever was conscious of, can no more be a
motive to determine his will, than it can be
an argument to convince his judgment.
Now, I learn that any circumstance
arising from habit, or some mechanical in-
stinctive cause, may be a motive, though it
never entered into the thought of the agent.
From this reinforcement of motives, of
which we are unconscious, every volition
may be supplied with a motive, and even a
predominant one, when it is wanted.
Yet this addition to his defensive force
takes just as much from his offensive.
The chief argument for Necessity used
by D. Hume and Lord Kames is, that, from
experiance, it appears that men are always
determined by the strongest motive. This
argument admits of much embellishment by
a large and pleasant induction.
* Dr Crombie, the well-known author of the
‘‘ Gymnasium,” and other able works, published an
“Essay on Philosophical Necessity,” London, 1793,
in which Dr Gregory's reasoning is assailed with
much acrimony and considerable acuteness. It is
to this treatise that Reid's remarks apply. There
subscquently appeared, “ Letters from Dr James
Gregory of Edinburgh, in Defence of his Essay on the
Difference of the relation between Motive and Action,
and that of Cause and Effect in Physics; with Replies
by the Rev. Alexander Crombie, I, L.D.;” London,
1819. It is much to be regretted, that Dr Gregory
did not find leisure to complete lis “ Answer to
Mcssrs Crombie, Priestley, and Co.;” of which 512
pages have been printed, but are still unpublished.
f This is Aristotle's definition (r3 ºvexz oº) of end
or final cause; and, as a synonyme for end or final
ca'ase, the term motive had been long exclusively
cmployed. There are two schemes of Necessity–
the Necessi'ation by efficient–the Necessitation by
final causes. The former is brute or blind Fate; the
latter rational Determinism. Though their practical
* “sults be the same, they ought to be carefully dis-
ti guished in theory. — H. x *
After these two authors had exhausted
their eloquence upon it, Mr Crombie adds
his, from page 27 to 39. Now, if motives
we are unconscious of be the cause of many
actions, it will be impossible to prove from
experiance, that they are all caused by mo-
tives. For no experiment can be made
upon motives we are unconscious of. If,
on the contrary, all our actions are found
by experiance to proceed from motives
known or felt, there is no work left for the
unknown, nor any evidence of their exist-
ance. I apprehend; therefore, Mr Crombie
must either keep by the old meaning of
motive, or give up this argument for Neces-
sity taken from experiance.
But helays the main stress, as Dr Priestley
likewise has done, upon another argument.
It is, that a volition not determined by mo-
tives, is an uncaused effect, and therefore
an absurdity, a contradiction, and the greatest
of all absurdities.
I think, indeed, it is in vain to reason upon
the subject of Necessity pro or con, till this
point be determined; for, on the one side, to
what purpose isſit] to disprove by argument
a proposition that is absurd P. On the other
side, demonstration itself cannot prove that
to be true which is absurd.
If this be really an absurdity, Liberty must
be given up. And if the appearance of
absurdity be owing to false colouring, Ithink
every argument this author has used, when
weighed in the balance of reason, will be
found light.
I would, therefore, think it a prudent
Saving of time and labour, that controvertists
on both sides should lay aside every other
weapon, till the force of this be fairly tried.
Mr Crombie triumphs in it almost in every
page; and I think Dr Priestley urged it as
an apology for neglecting your essay, that
you pretended to demonstrate an absurdity.
It must, indeed, be granted, that even
the Deity cannot give a power to man,
which involves an absurdity. But if this
absurdity vanish, when seen in a just light,
then it will be time to examine the fact,
whether such a power is given to man or not.
Is a volition, undetermined by motives,
an uncaused effect, and therefore an ab-
surdity and a contradiction ?
I grant that an uncaused effect is a con-
tradiction in terms; for an effect is some-
thing effected, and what is effected implies
an efficient, as an action implies an agent.
To say an effect must have a cause, is
really an identical proposition, which carries
no information but of the meaning of a word.
To say that an event—that is, a thing which
began to exist—must have a cause, is not an
identical proposition, and might have been
as easily said. I know |nol reason why
Mr Crombie should stick by this impro-
priety, after it was censured in Dr Priestley,
88
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
but that impropriety in the use of terms
is an expedient either to cover an absurdity
where it really is, or to make that appear
absurd which is not so in reality.
I grant, then, that an effect uncaused is
a contradiction, and that an event uncaused
is an absurdity. The question that remains
is whether a volition, undetermined by mo-
tives, is an event uncaused. This I deny.
The cause of the volition is the man that
willed it. This Mr Crombie grants in
several places of his Essay—that the man is
the efficient cause of all his volitions. Is it
not strange, then, that, almost in every page,
he should affirm that a volition, undeter-
mined by motives, is an effect uncaused?
Is an efficient cause no cause ? or are two
causes necessary to every event P* Motives,
he thinks, are not the efficient but the physi-
cal cause of volitions, as gravity is of the
descent of a stone. Then, fair dealing
would have made him qualify the absurdity,
and, say that it is absurd that a volition
should be without a physical cause; but to
have pleaded the absurdity thus qualified,
would have been a manifest petitio principii.
I can see nothing in a physical cause but
a constant conjunction with the effect. Mr
Crombie calls it a necessary connection ;
but this no man sees in physical causes;
and, if every event must have a physical
cause, then every event must have been
repeated in conjunction with its cause from
eternity, for it could have no constant con-
junction when first produced.
The most shocking consequences of the
system of necessity are avowed by this au-
thor without shame. Moral evil is nothing
but as it tends to produce natural evil. A
man truely enlightened, ought to have no
remorse for the blackest crimes. I think
he might have added that the villain has
reason to glory in his crimes, as he suffers
for them without his fault, and for the com-
mon good. Among the arts of this author,
the following are often put in practice :-
1. To supply the defect of argument by
abuse. 2. What he thinks a consequence
of the system of Liberty he imputes to his
adversaries as their opinion, though they
deny it. 3. What is urged as a conse.
quence of Necessity, he considers as imputing
an opinion to those who hold Necessity, and
thinks it answer that they hold no such
opinion. 4. What is said to invalidate an
argument for Necessity, he considers as an
argument against Necessity; and thinks it
sufficient to shew that it does not answer a
purpose for which it never was intended, as
if what is a sufficient answer to an argument
for Necessity must be a conclusive argument
against Necessity. I believe, however, he
may claim the merit of adding the word
Libertarian to the English language, as
Priestley added that of Necessarian.—
Yours,
THO, REID."
XXI.
[The following Letter to Dr Gregory is
quoted by Mr Stewart in his “ Disserta-
tion on the Progress of Metaphysical and
Moral Science.” The dale is not given ;
and the original is not now eactant among
the letters of Reid in the hands of Dr
Gregory's family.—H.]
The merit of what you are pleased to call
my philosophy, lies, I think, chiefly, in hav-
ing 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 uni-
versally received as to be interwoven with
the structure of the 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, there-
fore, 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.
* This is no removal of the difficulty. Is the man
determined to volition, and to a certain kind of voli-
tion, or is he not ? If the former, necessitation is
not avoided; if the latter, the admitted absurdity
emerges. The schemes of Liberty and of Necessity are
contradictory of each other: they consequently ex-
clude any intermediate theory; and one or other
must be true. Yet the possibility of neither can be
conceived ; for each equally involvcs what is incom-
prehensible, if not what is absurd. But of this again,
* Besides the preceding papers on the question of
Liberty and Necessity, there are extant, Remarks
at considerable length by Reid, on three sets of Objec-
tions made by a distinguished natural philosopher to
Dr Gregory's Essay, in the years 1786, 1789, and
1790. These Remarks, though of much interest,
have been omitted: for they could not adequately be
understood apart from the relative Objections; and
these it was deemed improper to publish posthu-
mously, after their author had expressly refused to
allow them to be printed during his life.—There are
also omitted, as of minor importance, two other
papers on the same question ; the one containing,
* Remarks on the Objections to Dr Gregory's Essay,”
which were printed in the appendix to that Essay;
the other, “Remarks” on a pamphlet entitled “ lllus-
trations of Liberty and Necessity, in Answer to Dr
Gregory,” published in 1795.-H.
LETTERS TO THE REV. A. ALISON & PROFESSOR ROBISON. 89
D.—LETTER TO THE REV. ARCHIBALD ALISON.
The following letter was addressed, by Dr Reid, to the Rev. Archibald Alison,
(LL.B., Prebendary of Sarum, &c.,) on receiving a copy of his “Essays on the Nature
and Principles of Taste”—a work of great ingenuity and elegance, and the first systematic
attempt to explain the emotions of sublimity and beauty on the principles of association.
It was originally published in 1790. It is, perhaps, needless to remind the reader that
Mr Alison was brother-in-law of Dr Gregory.—H.
ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF TASTE.
DEAR SIR,--I received your very oblig-
ing letter of Jan. 10, with two copies of your
book, about the middle of last week. I ex-
pected a meeting of Faculty, to which Imight
present the book, and return you the thanks
of the society along with my own ; but we
have had no meeting since I received it.
In the meantime, I have read it with avidity
and with much pleasure ; and cannot longer
forbear to return you my cordial thanks for
this mark of your regard, and for the hand-
Some compliment you make me in the book.
I think your principles are just, and that
you have sufficiently justified them by a
great variety of illustrations, of which many
appear new to me, and important in them-
selves, as well as pertinent to the purpose
for which they are adduced.
That your doctrine concerning the sub-
lime and beautiful in objects of sense coin-
cides, in a great degree, with that of the
Platonic school, and with Shaftesbury and
Akenside among the moderns, I think may
justly be said. They believed intellec-
tual beauties to be the highest order, com-
pared with which the terrestrial hardly de-
serve the name. They taught beauty and
good to be one and the same thing. But
both Plato and those two, his admirers,
handle the subject of beauty rather with
the enthusiasm of poets or lovers, than with
the cool temper of philosophers. And it is
difficult to determine what allowance is to
be made, in what they have said, for the
hyperbolical language of enthusiasm.
The other two you mention, Dr Hutche-
son and Mr Spence, though both admirers
of Plato, do not appear to me either to have
perceived this doctrine in him, or to have
discovered it themselves. The first places
beauty in uniformity and variety, which,
when they are perceived, immediately affect
that internal sense which he calls the sense
of beauty. The other makes colour, form,
expression, and grace to be the four ingre-
dients of beauty in the female part of our
species, without being aware that the beauty
of colour, form, and grace is nothing but
expression, as well as what he calls by that
Ilā, D10.
On these grounds, I am proud to think
that I first, in clear and explicit terms, and
in the cool blood of a philosopher, main-
tained that all the beauty and sublimity of
objects of sense is derived from the expres-
sion they exhibit of things intellectual, which
alone have original beauty. J3ut in this I
may deceive myself, and cannot claim to be
held an impartial judge.
Though I don’t expect to live to see the
Second part of your work, I have no hesi-
tation in advising you to prosecute it; being
persuaded that criticism is reducible to prin-
ciples of philosophy, which may be more
fully unfolded than they have been, and
which will always be found friendly to the
best interests of mankind, as well as to
manly and rational entertainment.
Mrs Reid desires to present her best re-
spects to Mrs Alison, to which I beg you
to add mine, and to believe me to be your
much obliged and faithful servant,
- THo. REID.
Glasgow College,
3d Feb. 1790.
E.—LETTER, TO PROFESSOR, ROBISON.
There has been given above, (p. 63,) a letter by Dr Reid, in 1784, recording &l,
remarkable conversation between Sir Isaac Newton and Professor James Gregory,
relative to Sir Isaac's descent from the family of Newton of Newton, in the county
of East Lothian.
Some years thereafter, Mr Barron, a relation of Sir Isaac, seems
to have instituted inquiries in regard to the Scottish genealogy of the philosopher; in con-
90
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
sequence of which, the late Professor Robison of Edinburgh, aware, probably, of the
letter to Dr Gregory, was induced to apply to Dr Reid for a more particular account
of the conversation in question.
The following is Reid’s answer, as published in Sir
David Brewster’s “Life of Sir Isaac Newton.”—
DEAR SIR,--I am very glad to learn, by
yours of April 4, that a Mr Barron, a near
relation of Sir Isaac Newton, is anxious to
inquire into the descent of that great man,
as the family cannot trace it farther, with
any certainty, than his grandfather. I there-
fore, as you desire, send you a precise ac-
count of all I know ; and am glad to have
this opportunity, before I die, of putting
this information in hands that will make the
proper use of it, if it shall be found of any
llSe.
Several years before I left Aberdeen,
(which I did in 1764,) Mr Douglas of Fechel,
the father of Sylvester Douglas, now a bar-
rister at London, told me, that, having been
lately at Edinburgh, he was often in com-
pany of Mr Hepburn of Reith, agentleman
with whom I had some acquaintance, by his
lodging a night at my house at New Machar,
when he was in the rebel army in 1745.
That Mr Hepburn told him, that he had
heard Mr James Gregory, Professor of
Mathematics, Edinburgh, say, that, being
one day in familiar conversation with Sir
Isaac Newton at Ilondon, Sir Isaac said —
“Gregory, I believe you don't know that
I am a Scotchman.”—“Pray, how is that?”
said Gregory. Sir Isaac said, he was in-
formed that his grandfather (or great-grand-
father) was a gentleman of East (or West)
Lothian; that he went to London with
King James I. at his accession to the crown
of England; and that he attended the court,
in expectation, as many others did, until
he spent his fortune, by which means his
family was reduced to low circumstances.
At the time this was told me, Mr Gregory
was dead, otherwise I should have had his
own testimony ; for he was my mother's
brother. I likewise thought at that time,
that it had been certainly known that Sir
Isaac had been descended from an old
English family, as I think is said in his
eloge before the Academy of Sciences at
Paris; and therefore I never mentioned
what I had heard for many years, believing
that there must be some mistake in it.
Some years after I came to Glasgow,
I mentioned, (I believe for the first time,)
what I had heard to have been said by Mr
Hepburn, to Mr Cross, late sheriff of this
county, whom you will remember. Mr
Cross was moved by this account, and im-
mediately said—º I know Mr Hepburn very
well, and I know he was intimate with Mr
Gregory. I shall write him this same night,
to know whether he heard Mr Gregory say
so or not.” After some reflection, he added
—“I know that Mr Keith, the ambassador,
was also an intimate acquaintance of Mr
Gregory, and, as he is at present in Edin-
burgh, I shall likewise write to him this
night.”
The next time I waited on Mr Cross,
he told me that he had wrot. both to Mr.
Hepburn and Mr Keith, and had an
answer from both ; and that both of them
testified that they had several times heard
Mr James Gregory say, that Sir Isaac New-
ton told him what is above expressed, but
that neither they nor Mr Gregory, as far
as they knew, ever made any farther inquiry
into the matter. This appeared very strange
both to Mr Cross and me ; and he said he
would reproach them for their indifference,
and would make inquiry as soon as he was
able. - .
He lived but a short time after this; and,
in the last conversation I had with him
upon the subject, he said, that all he had
yet learned was, that there was a Sir John
Newton of Newton in one of the counties of
Lothian, (but I have forgot which,) some
of whose children were yet alive; that they
reported that their father, Sir John, had a
letter from Sir Isaac Newton, desiring to
know the state of his family; what children
he had, particularly what sons; and in what
way they were. The old knight never re-
turned an answer to this letter, thinking,
probably, that Sir Isaac was some upstart,
who wanted to claim a relation to his wor-
shipful house. This omission the children
regretted, conceiving that Sir Isaac might
have had a view of doing something for their
benefit.
After this, I mentioned occasionally in
conversation what I knew, hoping that these
facts might lead to some more certain dis-
covery ; but I found more coldness about
the matter than I thought it deserved. I
wrote an account of it to Dr Gregory, your
colleague, that he might impart it to any
member of the Antiquarian Society who he
judged might have had the curiosity to trace
the matter farther.
In the year 1787, my colleague, Mr
Patrick Wilson, Professor of Astronomy,
having been in London, told me, on his
return, that he had met accidentally with a
James Hutton, Esq. of Pimlico, Westmin-
ster, a near relation of Sir Isaac Newton,
to whom he mentioned what he had heard
from me with respect to Sir Isaac's descent,
and that I wished much to know something
decisive on the subject. Mr Hutton said,
if I pleased to write to him, he would give
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID,
91
me all the information he could give. I
wrote him, accordingly, and had a very
polite answer, dated at Bath, 25th Decem-
ther 1787, which is now before me. He
says, “I shall be glad, when I return to
London, if I can find, in some old notes of
my mother, anything that may fix the cer-
tainty of Sir Isaac's descent. If he spoke
so to Mr James Gregory, it is most cer-
tain he spoke truth. But Sir Isaac's
grandfather, not his great-grandfather,
must be the person who came from Scot-
land with King James I. If I find any
thing to the purpose, I will take care it
shall reach you.”
This is all I know of the matter; and
for the facts above mentioned, I pledge
my veracity. I am much obliged to you,
dear Sir, for the kind expressions of your
affection and esteem, which, I assure you,
are mutual on my part; and I sincerely
sympathise with you on your afflicting
state of health, which makes you consider
yourself as out of the world, and despair
of seeing me any more.
I have been long out of the world by
deafness and extreme old age. I hope,
however, if we should not meet again in
this world, that we shall meet and renew
our acquaintance in another. In the
meantime, I am, with great esteem, dear
Sir, yours affectionately,
THo. REID.
Glasgow College,
12th April 1792.
F.—LETTER TO DAVID HUME.
The following is in answer to the letter of Hume, given by Mr Stewart in his Ac-
count of Reid, (supra, p. 7, sq.) It is recently published, from the Hume papers,
by Mr Burton, in his very able life of the philosopher; and, though out of chrono-
logical order, (by the reprinting of a leaf,) it is here inserted.—H.
IN REFERENCE TO HIS OWN INQUIRY,
PRIOR TO ITS PUBLICATION.
King's College, [Aberdeen,J
18th March 1763.
SIR,-On Monday last, Mr John Far-
quhar brought me your letter of February
25th, enclosed in one from Dr Blair. I
thought myself very happy in having
the means of obtaining at second hand,
through the friendship of Dr Blair, your
opinion of my performance: and you have
been pleased to communicate it directly
in so polite and friendly a manner, as
merits great acknowledgments on my
part. Your keeping a watchful eye over
my style, with a view to be of use to
me, is an instance of candour and gene-
rosity to an antagonist, which would affect
me very sensibly, although I had no per-
sonal concern in it, and I shall always be
proud to show so amiable an example.
Your judgment of the style, indeed, gives
me great consolation, as I was very diffi-
dent of myself in regard to English, and
have been indebted to Drs Campbell and
Gerard for many corrections of that
kind.
In attempting to throw some new light
upon those abstruse subjects, I wish to
preserve the due mean betwixt confidence
and despair. But whether I have any
success in this attempt or not, I shall
always avow myself your disciple in me-
taphysics. I have learned more from
your writings in this kind, than from all
others put together. Your system appears
to me not only coherent in all its parts,
but likewise justly deduced from princi-
ples commonly received among philoso-
phers; principles which I never thought
of calling in question, until the conclu-
sions you draw from them in the Treatise
of Human Nature made me suspect them.
If these principles are solid, your system
must stand; and whether they are or not,
can better be judged after you have
brought to light the whole system that
grows out of them, than when the greater
part of it was wrapped up in clouds and
darkness. I agree with you, therefore,
that if this system shall ever be de-
molished, you have a just claim to a great
share of the praise, both because you have
made it a distinct and determined mark
to be aimed at, and have furnished pro-
per artillery for the purpose.”
* Kant makes a similar acknowledgment. “By
IIume,” he says, “I was first startled out of my
dogmatic slumber.” Thus EIume (as elsewhere
stated) is author, in a sort, of all our Subsequent
philosophy. For out of Reid and Rant, mediately
or immediately, all our subsequent philosophy is
evolved; and the doctrines of Kant and Reid aro
both avowedly recoils from the annihilating scep-
ticism of Iſume—both attempts to find for philo-
sophy deeper foundations than those which he
had so thoroughly subverted.—II,
92
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR REID.
When you have seen the whole of my
performance, I shall take it as a very
great favour to have your opinion upon
it, from which I make no doubt of re-
ceiving light, whether I receive correc-
tion or no. Your friendly adversaries
Drs Campbell and Gerard, as well as Dr
Gregory, return their compliments to you
respectfully. A little philosophical so-
ciety here, of which all the three are
members, is much indebted to you for its
entertainment. Your company would,
although we are all good Christians, be
more acceptable than that of St Athana-
sius; and since we cannot have you upon
the bench, you are brought oftener than
any other man to the bar, accused and
defended with great zeal, but without
bitterness. If you write no more in
morals, politics, or metaphysics, I am
afraid we shall be at a loss for subjects.
I am, respectfully, Sir, your most obliged,
humble servant,
THOMAS REID.
The following should have been inserted in the correspondence with Kames.
Kames’s objection to Dr Adam Smith's theory of Sympathy as the sole foundation of
our moral judgments, which appeared in the third edition of the “Essays on
Morality,” were, previously to publication, communicated to Dr Reid, who thus
expresses his opinion on the subject:-
“I have always thought Dr S
's system of sympathy wrong. It is indeed only
a refinement of the selfish system; and I think your arguments against it are solid.
But you have smitten with a friendly hand, which does not break the head; and
your compliment to the author I highly approve of.”—From Letter of 30th October
1778.
In this judgment of Smith, Reid and Kant are at one.
The latter condemns the
Ethic of Sympathy as a Eudaemonism, or rather Hedonism.—H.
In Hutton's Mathematical Dictionary, 1795, in the article, David Gregory,
there are given, “Some farther particulars of the families of Gregory and Ander-
son, communicated by Dr Thomas Reid,” &c., probably written in the year of
publication, or the preceding. As these notices contain nothing of any moment which
does not appear in the foregoing correspondence, it has been deemed unnecessary
to reprint them.—H.
*
*.
AN
INQUIR Y
1NTo
THE HUMAN MIND,
ON TIIE PRINCIPLES OF
COMMON SENSE.
By T H O M A S R E I D, D, D,
PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.
“The inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.”—Jon.
03. This Inquiry was first published in 1764, when Dr Reid was Professor of Philo-
sophy, in King's College, Aberdeen. Three subsequent editions were printed during the
author's lifetime—in 1765, 1769, and 1785. The text of the present impression is
taken from the last authentic edition—the fourth, or that of 1785, which professes to be
“ corrected;” collated, however, with the first, and any variations of importance
noticed.—H.
DEDICATION.
TO
c
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
JAMES, EARL OF FINDLATER AND SEAFIELD,”
CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVEIRSITY OF OLD ABERDEEN.
My LoRD,--Though I apprehend that
there are things new and of some import-
ance, in the following Inquiry, it is not
without timidity that I have consented to
the publication of it. The subject has been
canvassed by men of very great penetration
! and genius: for who does not acknowledge
Des Cartes, Malebranche, Locke, Berkeley,
and Hume, to be such P A view of the
human understanding, so different from that
which they have exhibited, will, no doubt,
be condemned by many, without examin-
ation, as proceeding from temerity and
Vanity. *.
But I hope the candid and discerning Few,
who are capable of attending to the opera-
tions of their own minds, will weigh delibe-
rately what is here advanced, before they
pass sentence upon it. To such I appeal,
as the only competent judges. If they dis-
approve, I am probably in the wrong, and
shall be ready to change my opinion upon
conviction. If they approve, the Many will
at last yield to their authority, as they always
do.
However contrary my notions are to those
of the writers I have mentioned, their spe-
culations have been of great use to me, and
seem even to point out the road which I
have taken : and your Lordship knows, that
the merit of useful discoveries is sometimes
not more justly due to those that have hit
upon them, than to others that have ripened
them, and brought them to the birth.
I acknowledge, my Lord, that I never
thought of calling in question the principles
commonly received with regard to the hu-
man understanding, until the “Treatise of
Human Nature” was published in the year
1739. The ingenious author of that treatise
upon the principles of Locke—who was no
# Th the first edition, “James Lord 1)0skfoord” –
his father being still alive.—H.
Sceptic—hath built a system of scepticism,
which leaves no ground to believe any one
thing rather than its contrary. His reason-
ing appeared to me to be just ; there was,
therefore, a necessity to call in question the
principles upon which it was founded, or to
admit the conclusion *
But can any ingenuous mind admit this
Sceptical system without reluctance 2 I
truly could not, my Lord ; for I am per-
Suaded, that absolute scepticism is not more
destructive of the faith of a Christian than
of the science of a philosopher, and of the
prudence of a man of common understand-
ing. I am persuaded, that the unjust live
by faith-i as well as the just ; that, if all
belief could be laid aside, piety, patriotism,
friendship, parental affection, and private
virtue, would appear as ridiculous as knight-
errantry; and that the pursuits of pleasure,
of ambition, and of avarice, must be
grounded upon belief, as well as those that
are honourable or virtuous.
The day-labourer toils at his work, in the
belief that he shall receive his wages at
might ; and, if he had not this belief, he
would not toil. We may venture to say,
that even the author of this sceptical
system wrote it in the belief that it
* “This doctrine of Ideas,” (says Dr’Reid, in a sub-
sequent work,) “I once believed so firmly, as to em-
brace the whole of Berkeley's system in consequence
of it; till, finding other consequences to follow from
it, which gave me more uneasiness than the want of
a material World, it came into my mind, more than
forty years ago, to put the question, What evidence
have I for this doctrine, that all the oljects of my
knowledge are ideas in my own mind?”—Essays on
the Intellectual Powers, Ess. II. ch. x. p. 162.
ln like manner, Kant informs us, that it was by
Hume's sceptical inferences, in regard to the causal
nexus, that he also “ was first roused from his dog-
（tic slumber.” See the “Prolegomena,” p. 13.-
F º
# See Note A at the end of the volume, in illustra-
tion of the principle, that the root of Knowledge is
• Belief.-H.
96
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
should be read and regarded. I hope he
wrote it in the belief also that it would be
useful to mankind; and, perhaps, it may
prove so at last. For I conceive the scep-
tical writers to be a set of men whose busi-
ness it is to pick holes in the fabric of
kilowledge wherever it is weak and faulty;
and, when these places are properly repaired,
the whole building becomes more firm and
solid than it was formerly.
For my own satisfaction, I entered into
a serious examination of the principles upon
which this sceptical system is built ; and
was not a little surprised to find, that it
leans with its whole weight upon a hypo-
thesis, which is ancient indeed, and hath
been very generally received by philoso-
phers, but of which I could find no solid
proof. The hypothesis I mean, is, That
nothing is perceived but what is in the
mind which perceives it : That we do not
really perceive things that are external, but
only certain images and pictures of them
imprinted upon the mind, which are called
impressions and ideas.
If this be true, supposing certain im-
pressions and ideas to exist in my mind," I
cannot, from their existence, infer the exist-
ence of anything else: my impressions and
ideas are the only existences of which I can
have any knowledge or conception ; and
they are such leeting and transitory beings,
that they can have no existence at all, any
longer than I am conscious of them. So
that, upon this hypothesis, the whole uni-
verse about me, bodies and spirits, sun,
moon, stars, and earth, friends and rela.
tions, all things without exception, which
I imagined to have a permanent existence,
whether I thought of them or not, vanish
at Once ;
* And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a track behind.”
I thought it unreasonable, my Lord, upon
the authority of philosophers, to admit a
hypothesis which, in my opinion, overturns
all philosophy, all religion and virtue, and
all common senset-and, finding that all the
Systems concerning the human understand-
ing which I was acquainted with, were built
upon this hypothesis, I resolved to inquire
into this subject anew, without regard to any
hypothesis.
What I now humbly present to your
Lordship, is the fruit of this inquiry, so far
only as it regards the five senses: in which
I claim no other merit than that of having
* In first edition, “ to exist, presently in my
mind.”. I may here, once for all, notice that pré.
sently, (in its original and proper sense, and as it is
frequently employed by Reid,) for now or at present,
has waxed obsolete in English. For above a century
and a half, it is only to be found in good English
writers in the secondary meaning of in a little while
—without delay.—H.
+ See Note: A at the end of the volume, in defence
and illustration of the term Common Sense.—H.
given great attention to the operations of my
own mind, and of having expressed, with all
the perspicuity I was able, what I conceive
every man, who gives the same attention,
will feel and perceive. The productions of
imagination require a genius which soars
above the common rank; but the treasures
of knowledge are commonly buried deep,
and may be reached by those drudges who
can dig with labour and patience, though
they have not wings to fly. The experi-
ments that were to be made in this investi-
gation Suited me, as they required no other
expense but that of time and attention,
which I could bestow. The leisure of an
academical life, disengaged from the pur-
suits of interest and ambition ; the duty of
my profession, which obliged me to give
prelections on these subjects to the youth ;
and an early inclination to speculations of
this kind, have enabled me, as I flatter my-
self, to give a more minute attention to the
subject of this inquiry, than has been given
before.
My thoughts upon this subject were, a
good many years ago, put together in an-
other form, for the use of my pupils, and
afterwards were submitted to the judgment
of a private philosophical society," of which
I have the honour to be a member. A
great part of this Inquiry was honoured
even by your Lordship's perusal. And
the encouragement which you, my Lord,
and others, whose friendship is my boast,
and whose judgment I reverence, were
pleased to give me, counterbalance my timi-
dity and diffidence, and determined me to
offer it to the public.
If it appears to your Lordship to justify
the common sense and reason of mankind,
against the sceptical subtilties which, in
this age, have endeavoured to put them out
of countenance—if it appears to throw any
new light upon one of the noblest parts of
the divine workmanship—your Lordship's
respect for the arts and sciences, and your
attention to everything which tends to the
improvement of them, as well as to every-
thing else that contributes to the felicity of
your country, leave me no room to doubt
of your favourable acceptance of this essay,
as the fruit of my industry in a profession+
wherein I was: accountable to your Lord-
ship; and as a testimony of the great esteem
and respect wherewith I have the honour
to be, e
My Lord,
Your Lordship's most obliged
And most devoted Servant,
THO. REID.S
* See above, p 41, b.— H. º
+ Reid, here and elsewhere, uses profession for chair
or professorship.—H.
f “Am”—first edition —H. -
In first edition this dedication is datcd—“ King's
College, Nov. 9, 1763,”—H.
AN
INQUIRY INTO THE HUMAN MIND.
CHAPTER. I.
INTRODUCTION.
Section I.
the IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT, AND THE
MEANS OF PROSECUTING IT,
THE fabric of the human mind is curious
and wonderful, as well as that of the human
body. The faculties of the one are with no
less wisdom adapted to their several ends
than the organs of the other. Nay, it is
reasonable to think, that, as the mind is a
nobler work and of a higher order than the
body, even more of the wisdom and skill o-
the divine Architect hath been employed in
its structure. It is, therefore, a subject
highly worthy of inquiry on its own account,
but still more worthy on account of the
extensive influence which the knowledge of
it hath over every other branch of science.
In the arts and sciences which have least
connection with the mind, its faculties are
the engines which we must employ ; and
the better we understand their nature and
use, their defects and disorders, the more
skilfully we shall apply them, and with the
greater success. But in the noblest arts,
the mind is also the subject" upon which
we operate. The painter, the poet, the actor,
the orator, the moralist, and the statesman,
attempt to operate upon the mind in differ-
ent ways, and for different ends ; and they
succeed according as they touch properly
the strings of the human frame. Nor can
# In philosophical language, it were to be wished
that the word subject should be reserved for the sub-
ject of inhesion—the materia in qua , and the term
plject exclusively applied to the subject of operation
—the materia circa quanz. If this be not done, the
grand distinction of subjective and objective, in phi-
losophy, is confounded. But if the employment of
Subject for Object is to be deprecated, the employ-
ment of Object for purpose or final cause, (in the
French and English languages,) is to be absolutely
condemned, as a recent and irrational confusion of
notions which should be carefully distinguished,—H.
their several artseverstand on a solid found-
ation, or rise to the dignity of science, until
they are built on the principles of the human
constitution.
Wise men now agree, or ought to agree,
in this, that there is but one way to the
knowledge of nature's works—the way of
observation and experiment. By our con-
stitution, we have a strong propensity to
trace particular facts and observations to
general rules, and to apply such general
rules to account for other effects, or to direct
us in the production of them. This proce-
dure of the understanding is familiar to
every human creature in the common affairs
of life, and it is the only one by which any
real discovery in philosophy can be made.
The man who first discovered that cold
freezes water, and that heat turns it into
vapour, proceeded on the same general prin-
ciples, and in the same method by which
Newton discovered the law of gravitation
and the properties of light. His regulae
ohilosophandi are maxims of common sense,
and are practised every day in common
life ; and he who philosophizes by other
rules, either concerning the material sys-
tem or concerning the mind, mistakes his
all ll.
Conjectures and theories" are the crea-
tures of men, and will always be found very
unlike the creatures of God. If we would
know the works of God, we must consult
themselves with attention and humility,
without daring to add anything of ours
to what they declare. A just interpretation
of nature is the only sound and orthodox
philosophy : whatever we add of our own,
is apocryphal, and of no authority.
All our curious theories of the formation
of the earth, of the generation of animals,
of the origin of natural and moral evil, so
far as they go beyond a just induction from
* Reid uses the terms, Theory, Hypothesis, and
Conjecture, as convertible, and always in an unfavour-
able acceptation. Herein there is a double inaccu-
racy. But of this again.—H.
H
98
O'H' THE HUMAN MIND.
facts, are vanity and folly, no less than the
Vortices of Des Cartes,” or the Archaeus
of Paracelsus. Perhaps the philosophy of
the mind hath been no less adulterated by
theories, than that of the material system.
The theory of Ideas is indeed very ancient,
and hath been very universally received;
but, as neither of these titles can give it
authenticity, they ought not to screen it from
a free and candid examination ; especially in
this age, when it hath produced a system of
Scepticism that seems to triumph over all
Science, and even over the dictates of com-
IIlOIl SCDSé.
All that we know of the body, is owing
# to anatomical dissection and observation,
; and it must be by an anatomy of the mind
that we can discover its powers and prin-
ciples.
Sºction II.
THE IMPEDIMIENTS TO OUR [KNOWLEDGE OF
TIIE MIND.
But it must be acknowledged, that this
kind of anatomy is much more difficult than
the other ; and, therefore, it needs not
seem strange that mankind have made
less progress in it. To attend accurately
to the operations of our minds, and make
them an object of thought, is no easy mat-
ter even to the contemplative, and to the
bulk of mankind is next to impossible.
An anatomist who hath happy opportu-
nities, may have access to examine with
his own eyes, and with equal accuracy,
bodies of all different ages, sexes, and
conditions; so that what is defective, ob-
Scure, or preternatural in one, may be
discerned clearly and in its most perfect
state in another. But the anatomist of the
mind cannot have the same advantage. It
is his own mind only that he can examine
with any degree of accuracy and distinct-
ness. This is the only subject he can look
into. He may, from outward signs, collect
the operations of other minds; but these
signs are for the most part ambiguous, and
must be interpreted by what he perceives
within himself.
So that, if a philosopher could delineate
to us, distinctly and methodically, all the
operations of the thinking principle within
him, which no man was ever able to do,
this would be only the anatomy of one par-
ticular subject ; which would be both defi-
cient and erroneous, if applied to human
nature in general. For a little reflection
.* No one deemed more lightly of his hypotheses
than Des Cartes himself He called them “ philosoph-
ical romances;” and thus anticipated Father Daniel,
who again anticipated Voltaire, in the saying—The
Pºiophy of Des Cartes is the Romance of Nature.
may satisfy us, that the difference of minds
is greater than that of any other beings
which we consider as of the same species.
Of the various powers and faculties we
possess, there are some which nature seems
both to have planted and reared, so as to
have left nothing to human industry. Such
are the powers which we have in common
with the brutes, and which are necessary
to the preservation of the individual, or the
continuance of the kind. There are other
powers, of which nature hath only planted
the seeds in our minds, but hath left the
rearing of them to human culture. It is by
the proper culture of these that we are cap-
able of all those improvements in intellcc-
tuals, in taste, and in morals, which exalt
and dignify human nature ; while, on the
other hand, the neglect or perversion of
them makes its degeneracy and corruption.
The two-legged animal that eats of na-
ture's dainties, what his taste or appetite
craves, and satisfies his thirst at the crystal
fountain, who propagates his kind as occa-
sion and lust prompt, repels injuries, and
takes alternate labour and repose, is, like a
tree in the forest, purely of nature's growth.
But this same savage hath within him the
Seeds of the logician, the man of taste and
breeding, the orator, the statesman, the man
of virtue, and the saint; which seeds, though
planted in his mind by nature, yet, through
want of culture and exercise, must lie for
ever buried, and be hardly perceivable by
himself or by others.
The lowest degree of social life will bring
to light some of those principles which lay
hid in the savage state ; and, according to
his training, and company, and manner of
life, some of them, either by their native
vigour, or by the force of culture, will thrive
and grow up to great perfection, others will
be strangely perverted from their natural
form, and others checked, or perhaps quite
eradicated.
This makes human nature so various and
multiform in the individuals that partake of
it, that, in point of morals and intellectual
endowments, it fills up all that gap which
we conceive to be between brutes and devils
below, and the celestial orders above ; and
such a prodigious diversity of minds must
make it extremely difficult to discover the
common principles of the species.
The language of philosophers, with re-
gard to the original faculties of the mind,
is so adapted to the prevailing system, that
it cannot fit any other; like a coat that fits
the man for whom it was made, and shews
him to advantage, which yet will sit very
awkward upon one of a different make,
although perhaps as handsome and as well
proportioned. It is hardly possible to make
any innovation in our philosophy concern-
ing the mind and its operations, without
INTRODUCTION. $ - Q9
using new words and plurases, or giving a
different meaning to those that are received
—a liberty which, even when necessary,
creates prejudice and misconstruction, and
which must wait the sanction of time to
authorize it ; for innovations in language,
like those in religion and government, are
always suspected and disliked by the many,
till use hath made them familiar, and pre-
Scription hath given them a title.
If the original perceptions and notions of
the mind were to make their appearance
single and unmixed, as we first received
them from the hand of nature, one accus-
tomed to reflection would have less difficulty
in tracing them ; but before we are capa-
ble of reflection, they are so mixed, com-
pounded, and decompounded, by habits,
associations, and abstractions, that it is
hard to know what they were originally.
The mind may, in this respect, be compared
to an apothecary or a chemist, whose mate-
rials indeed are furnished by nature ; but,
for the purposes of his art, he mixes, com-
pounds, dissolves, evaporates, and Sublimes
them, till they put on a quite different
appearance ; so that it is very difficult to
know what they were at first, and much
more to bring them back to their original
and natural ‘form. And this work of the
mind is not carried on by deliberate acts of
mature reason, which we might recollect,
but by means of instincts, habits, associa-
tions, and other principles, which operate
before we come to the use of reason; so
that it is extremely difficult for the mind
to return upon its own footsteps, and trace
back those operations which have employed
it since it first began to think and to act.
Could we obtain a distinct and full his-
tory of all that hath past in the mind of a
child, from the beginning of life and sensa-
tion, till it grows up to the use of reason—
how its infant faculties began to work, and
how they brought forth and ripened all the
various notions, opinions, aud sentiments
which we find in ourselves when we come
to be capable of reflection—this would be
a treasure of natural history, which would
probably give more light into the human
faculties, than all the systems of philoso-
phers about them since the beginning of
the world. But it is in vain to wish for
what nature has not put within the reach
of our power. Reflection, the only instru-
ment by which we can discern the powers
of the mind, comes too late to observe the
progress of nature, in raising them from
their infancy to perfection.
It must therefore require great caution,
and great application of mind, for a man
that is grown up in all the prejudices of
education, fashion, and philosophy, to
unravel his notions and opinions, till he
find out the simple and original principles
of his constitution, of which no account
can be given but the will of our Maker.
This may be truly called an analysis of the
human faculties; and, till this is performed,
it is in vain we expect any just system of
the mind—that is, an enumeration of the
Original powers and laws of our constitution,
and an explication from them of the various
phaenomena of human mature.
Success in an inquiry of this kind, it is
not in human power to command ; but, per-
haps, it is possible, by caution and humility,
to avoid error and delusion. The labyrinth
may be too intricate, and the thread too
fine, to be traced through all its windings;
but, if we stop where we can trace it no
farther, and secure the ground we have
gained, there is no harm done; a quicker
eye may in time trace it farther.
It is genius, and not the want of it, that
adulterates philosophy, and fills it with
error and false theory. A creative imagi-
nation disdains the mean offices of digging
for a foundation, of removing rubbish, and
carrying materials ; leaving these servile
employments to the drudges in science, it
plans a design, and raises a fabric. Inven-
tion supplies materials where they are
wanting, and fancy adds colouring and
every befitting ornament. The work
pleases the eye, and wants nothing but
Solidity and a good foundation. It seems
even to vie with the works of nature, till
Some succeeding architect blows it into
rubbish, and builds as goodly a fabric of
his own in its place. Happily for the pre-
sent age, the castle-builders employ them-
Selves more in romance than in philosophy.
That is undoubtedly their province, and
in those regions the offspring of fancy is
legitimate, but in philosophy it is all spu-
rious.*
Section III.
THE PRESENT STATE OF THIS PART OF PHILO-
SOPHY-OF DES CARTES, MALEBRANCHE,
AND LOCKE.
That our philosophy concerning the mind
and its faculties is but in a very low state,
may be reasonably conjectured even by
those who never have narrowly examined
it. Are there any principles, with regard
to the mind, settled with that perspicuity
and evidence which attends the principles
of mechanics, astronomy, and optics 2
These are really sciences built upon laws of
nature which universally obtain. What is
# The same doctrine of the incompatibility of crea-
tive imagination and philosophical talent, is held by
Hume and Kant. There is required, however, for
the metaphysician, not less imagination than for the
poet, though of a different kind; it may, in fact, the
doubted whether Homer or Aristotle possessed this
faculty in greater vigour.—H
H 2
100
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
discovered in them is no longer matter of
dispute : future ages may add to it; but,
till the course of nature be changed, what is
already established can never be overturned.
But when we turn our attention inward, and
consider the phaenomena of human thoughts,
opinions, and perceptions, and endeavour to
trace them to the general laws and the first
principles of our constitution, we are imme-
diately involved in darkness and perplexity;
and, if common sense, or the principles of
education, happen not to be stubborn, it is
odds but we end in absolute scepticism.
Des Cartes, finding nothing established in
this part of philosophy, in oftler to lay the
foundation of it deep, resolved not to believe
his own existence till he should be able to
give a good reason for it. He was, per-
haps, the first that took up such a resolu-
tion ; but, if he could indeed have effected
his purpose, and really become diffident of
his existence, his case would have been
deplorable, and without any remedy from
reason or philosophy. A man that dis-
believes his own existence, is surely as unfit
to be reasoned with as a man that believes
he is made of glass. There may be dis-
orders in the human frame that may pro-
duce such extravagancies, but they will never
be cured by reasoning. Des Cartes, in-
deed, would make us believe that he got out
of this delirium by this logical argument,
Cogito, ergo swim ; but it is evident he was
in his senses all the time, and never seri-
ously doubted of his existence ; for he takes
it for granted in this argument, and proves
nothing at all. I am thinking, says he—
therefore, I am. And is it not as good rea-
soning to say, I am sleeping—therefore, I
am 2 or, I am doing nothing—therefore, I
am P. If a body moves, it must exist, no
doubt ; but, if it is at rest, it must exist
likewise."
Perhaps Des Cartes meant not to assume
his own existence in this enthymeme, but
the existence of thought ; and to infer from
What the existence of a mind, or subject of
*hought. But why did he not prove the
existence of his thought P Consciousness,
it may be said, vouches that. But who
is voucher for consciousness 2 Can any
man prove that his consciousness may not
deceive him 2 No man can ; nor can we
give a better reason for trusting to it, than
that every man, while his mind is sound, is
determined, by the constitution of his na-
ture, to give implicit belief to it, and to
laugh at or pity the man who doubts its
testimony. And is not every man, in his
wits, as much determined to take his exist-
ence upon trust as his consciousness 2
The other proposition assumed in this
argument, That thought cannot be without
a mind or subject, is liable to the same
objection : not that it wants evidence, but
that its evidence is no clearer, nor more
immediate, than that of the proposition to
be proved by it. And, taking all these pro-
positions together—I think; I am con-
scious; Everything that thinks, exists; I
exist—would not every sober man form the
same opinion of the man who seriously
doubted any one of them 2 And if he was
his friend, would he not hope for his cure
from physic and good regimen, rather than
from metaphysic and logic 2
But supposing it proved, that my thought
and my consciousness must have a subject,
and consequently that I exist, how do I
know that all that train and succession of
thoughts which I remember belong to one
subject, and that the I" of this moment is
the very individual I of yesterday and of
times past 2
Des Cartes did not think proper to start
this doubt ; but Locke has done it; and, in
order to resolve it, gravely determines that
personal identity consists in consciousness—
that is, if you are conscious that you did
such a thing a twelvemonth ago, this con-
sciousness makes you to be the very person
that did it. Now, consciousness of what is
past can signify nothing else but the re-
membrance that I did it ; so that Locke's
principle must be, That identity consists in
remembrance ; and, consequently, a man
must lose his personal identity with regard
to everything he forgets.
Nor are these the only instances whereby
our philosophy concerning the mind appears
to be very fruitful in creating doubts, but
very unhappy in resolving them.
Des Cartes, Malebranche, and Locke,
have all employed their genius and skill to
prove the existence of a material world :
and with very bad success. Poor untaught
mortals believe undoubtedly that there is a
Sun, moon, and stars ; an earth, which we
inhabit ; country, friends, and relations,
which we enjoy ; land, houses, and move-
ables, which we possess. But philosophers,
pitying the credulity of the vulgar, resolve
to have no faith but what is founded upon
reason. They apply to philosophy to fur-
* The nature of the Cartesian Doubt and its solu-
tion is here misapprehended—how, will be shewn in
a trote upon the eighth chapter of the second “ Essay
>m the l n'ellectual Powers.”—
* In English, we cannot say the I, and the Not-1
so happily as the French le Moi, and le Non-Mof, or
even the. Germans das Ich, and das Nicht- Ich. The
ambiguity arising from the identity of sound between
the I and the eye, would of itself preclude the ordinary
employment of the former. The Ego and the Non-
Ego are the best terms we can use; and, as the ex-
pressions are scientific, it is perhaps no loss that their
technical precision is guarded by their non-vernacul-
arity.— H. -
+ Reason is here employed, by Reid, not as a
synonyme for Common Sense, (vojº, locus princi-
piorum,) and as he himself more correctly employs
it in his later works, but as equivalent to Reason-
ing, (31&yoto, discursus mentalis.) See Note A.—H.
INTRODUCTION.
101
mish them with reasons for the belief of
those things which all mankind have be-
lieved, without being able to give any rea-
son for it. And surely one would expect,
that, in matters of such importance, the
proof would not be difficult: but it is the
most difficult thing in the world. For these
three great men, with the best good will,
have not been able, from all the treasures
of philosophy, to draw one argument that
is fit to convince a man that can reason, of
the existence of any one thing without him.
Admired Philosophy daughter of light !
parent of wisdom and knowledge if thou
art she, Surely thou hast not yet arisen
upon the human mind, nor blessed us with
more of thy rays than are sufficient to shed
a darkness visible upon the human facul-
ties, and to disturb that repose and security
which happier mortals enjoy, who never
approached thine altar, nor felt thine in-
fluence 1 But if, indeed, thou hast not
power to dispel those clouds and phantoms
which thou hast discovered or created, with-
draw this penurious and malignant ray; I
despise Philosophy, and renounce its guid-
ance—let my soul dwell with Common
Sense.* ---
Section I V.
APOLOGY FOR THOSE PHII, OSOPHERS.
But, instead of despising the dawn of light,
we ought rather to hope for its increase :
instead of blaming the philosophers I have
mentioned for the defects and blemishes of
their system, we ought rather to honour
their memories, as the first discoverers of a
region in philosophy formerly unknown ;
and, however lame and imperfect the sys-
tem may be, they have opened the way to
future discoveries, and are justly entitled to
a great share in the merit of them. They
have removed an infinite deal of dust and
rubbish, collected in the ages of scholastic
Sophistry, which had obstructed the way.
They have put us in the right road—that
of experience and accurate reflection. They
have taught us to avoid the snares of am-
biguous and ill-defined words, and have
spoken and thought upon this subject with
a distinctness and perspicuity formerly un-
known. They have made many openings
that may lead to the discovery of truths
Which they did not reach, or to the detec-
tion of errors in which they were involun-
tarily entangled.
It may be observed, that the defects and
blemishes in the received philosophy con-
cerning the mind, which have most exposed
* Mr Stewart very justly censures the vagueness
and ambiguity of this passage. Eleme, vol. ii., ch. i.,
§ 3, p. 92, 8vo editions,—H.
it to the contempt and ridicule of sensible
men, have chiefly been owing to this—that
the votaries of this Philosophy, from a na-
tural prejudice in her favour, have endea-
voured to extend her jurisdiction beyond its
just limits, and to call to her bar the dictates
of Common Sense. But these decline this
jurisdiction; they disdain the trial of rea-
soning, and disown its authority; they
neither claim its aid, nor dread its attacks.
In this unequal contest betwixt Common
Sense and Philosophy, the latter will always
come off both with dishonour and loss; nor
can she ever thrive till this rivalship is
dropt, these encroachments given up, and
a cordial friendship restored : for, in reality,
Common Sense holds nothing of Philoso-
phy, nor needs her aid. But, on the other
hand, Philosophy (if I may be permitted to
change the metaphor) has no other root but
the principles of Common Sense ; it grows
out of them, and draws its nourishment from
them. Severed from this root, its honours
wither, its sap is dried up, it dies and rots.
The philosophers of the last age, whom I
have mentioned, did not attend to the pre-
serving this union and subordination so
carefully as the honour and interest of phi-
losophy required : but those of the present
have waged open war with Common Sense,
and hope to make a complete conquest of it
by the subtilties of Philosophy—an attempt
no less audacious and vain than that of the
giants to dethrone almighty Jove.
Section V.
of BISHOP BERKELEY-THE “TREATISE of
HUMAN NATURE”—AND OF SCEPTICISM.
The present age, I apprehend, has not pro-
duced two more acute or more practised in
this part of philosophy, than the Bishop of
Cloyne, and the author of the “Treatise of
Human Nature.” The first was no friend
to scepticism, but had that warm concern
for religious and moral principles which be-
came his order: yet the result of his inquiry
was a serious conviction that there is no
such thing as a material world—nothing in
nature but spirits and ideas; and that the
belief of material substances, and of abstract
ideas, are the chief causes of all our errors
in philosophy, and of all infidelity and heresy
in religion. His arguments are founded
upon the principles which were formerly
laid down by Des Cartes, Malebranche, and
Locke, and which have been very generally
received.
And the opinion of the ablest judges
seems to be, that they neither have been,
nor can be confuted ; and that he hath
proved by unanswerable arguments what no
man in his senses can believe.
102
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
The second proceeds upon the same prin-
ciples, but carries them to their full length ;
and, as the Bishop undid the whole material
world, this author, upon the same grounds,
undoes the world of spirits, and leaves no-
thing in nature but ideas and impressions,
without any subject on which they may be
impressed.
ſt seems to be a peculiar strain of humour
in this author, to set out in his introduction
by promising, with a grave face, no less than
a complete system of the sciences, upon a
foundation entirely new—to wit, that of hu-
man nature—when the intention of the
whole work is to shew, that there is neither
human nature nor science in the world. It
may perhaps be unreasonable to complain
of this conduct in an author who neither
believes his own existence nor that of his
reader; and therefore could not mean to
disappoint him, or to laugh at his credulity.
Yet I cannot imagine that the author of the
“Treatise of Human Nature” is so scep-
tical as to plead this apology. He believed,
against his principles, that he should be
read, and that he should retain his personal
identity, till he reaped the honour and repu-
tation justly due to his metaphysical acumen.
Indeed, he ingeniously acknowledges, that
it was only in solitude and retirement that
he could yield any assent to his own philo-
sophy; society, like day-light, dispelled the
darkness and fogs of scepticism, and made
him yield to the dominion of common sense.
Nor did I ever hear him charged with doing
anything, even in solitude, that argued
such a degree of scepticism as his principles
maintain. Surely if his friends apprehended
this, they would have the charity never to
leave him alone.
Pyrrho the Elean, the father of this phi-
losophy, seems to have carried it to greater
perfection than any of his successors: for,
if we may believe Antigonus the Carystian,
quoted by Diogenes Laertius, his life cor-
responded to his doctrine. And, therefore,
if a cart run against him, or a dog attacked
him, or if he came upon a precipice, he
would not stir a foot to avoid the danger,
giving no credit to his senses. But his at-
tendants, who, happily for him, were not so
great Sceptics, took care to keep him out of
harm's way ; so that he lived till he was
ninety years of age. Noris it to be doubted
but this author's friends would have been
equally careful to keep him from harm, if
ever his principles had taken too strong a
hold of him.
It is probable the “Treatise of Human
Nature” was not written in company; yet
it contains manifest indications that the
author every now and then relapsed into
the faith of the vulgar, and could hardly,
for half a dozen pages, keep up the secº-
tical character.
In like manner, the great Pyrrho lim-
self forgot his principles on some occasions;
and is said once to have been in such a
passion with his cook, who probably had not
roasted his dinner to his mind, that with
the spit in his hand, and the meat upon it,
he pursued him even into the market-
place."
It is abold philosophy that rejects, without
ceremony, principles which irresistibly go-
vern the belief and the conduct of all man-
kind in the common concerns of life; and
to which the philosopher himself must yield,
after he imagines he hath confuted them.
Such principles are older, and of more au-
thority, than Philosophy: she rests upon
them as her basis, not they upon her. If
she could overturn them, she must be buried
in their ruins ; but all the engines of philo-
Sophical subtilty are too weak for this pur-
pose ; and the attempt is no less ridiculous
than if a mechanic should contrive an aaris
in peritrochio to remove the earth out of
its place ; or if a mathematician should pre-
tend to demonstrate that things equal to
the same thing are not equal to one an-
other.
Zenoi endeavoured to demonstrate the
impossibility of motion; Hobbes, that there
was no difference between right and wrong ;
and this author, that no credit is to be given
to our senses, to our memory, or even to
demonstration. Such philosophy is justly
ridiculous, even to those who cannot detect
the fallacy of it. It can have no other tend-
ency, than to shew the acuteness of the
Sophist, at the expense of disgracing reason
and human nature, and making mankind
Yahoos.
Scetion Vſ.
OF THE “TREATISE of HUMAN NATURE.”
There are other prejudices against this
system of human nature, which, even upon
a general view, may make one diffident of
it. * -
Des Cartes, Hobbes, and this author.
have each of them given us a system of
human nature; an undertaking too vast for
any one man, how great soever his genius
and abilities may be. There must surely
be reason to apprehend, that many parts of
human nature never came under their
observation ; and that others have been
stretched and distorted, to fill up blanks,
and complete the system. Christopher
* Laertius, L. ix. Sog 68.-H. -
# Zeno of Elea. . There are fifteen Zenos known
in the history of Philosophy; of these, Laertius sig-
nalizes eight.—H. e
f The fallacy of Zeno's exposition of the contra-
dictions involved in our notion of motion, has not
yet been detected.—H.
INTRODUCTION.
103
Columbus, or Sebastian Cabot, might almost
as reasonably have undertaken to give us a
complete map of America.
There is a certain character and style in
Nature's works, which is never attained
in the most perfect imitation of them.
This seems to be wanting in the systems of .
human nature I have mentioned, and par-
ticularly in the last. One may see a pup-
pet make variety of motions and gesticula-
tions, which strike much at first view ; but
when it is accurately observed, and taken
to pieces, our admiration ceases: we com-
prehend the whole art of the maker. How
unlike is it to that which it represents
What a poor piece of work compared with
the body of a man, whose structure the
more we know, the more wonders we dis-
cover in it, and the more sensible we are of
our ignorance 1 Is the mechanism of the
mind so easily comprehended, when that of
the body is so difficult 2 Yet, by this sys-
tem, three laws of association, joined to a
few original feelings, explain the whole
mechanism of sense, imagination, memory,
belief, and of all the actions and passions of
the mind. Is this the man that Nature
made 2 I suspect it is not so easy to look
behind the scenes in Nature's work. This
is a puppet, surely, contrived by too bold an
apprentice of Nature, to mimic her work.
It shews tolerably by candle light; but,
brought into clear day, and taken to pieces,
it will appear to be a man made with mor-
tar and a trowel. The more we know of
other parts of nature, the more we like and
approve them. The little I know of the
planetary system ; of the earth which we
inhabit ; of minerals, vegetables, and ani-
mals; of my own body; and of the laws
which obtain in these parts of nature—opens
to my mind grand and beautiful scenes, and
contributes equally to my happiness and
power. But, when I look within, and con-
sider the mind itself, which makes me
capable of all these prospects and enjoy-
ments—if it is, indeed, what the “Treatise
of Human Nature” makes it—I find I have
been only in an enchanted castle, imposed
upon by spectres and apparitions. I blush
inwardly to think how I have been deluded;
I am ashamed of my frame, and can hardly
forbear expostulating with my destiny. Is
this thy pastime, O Nature, to put such
tricks upon a silly creature, and then to take
off the mask, and shew him how he hath
been befooled 2 If this is the philosophy of
human nature, my soul enter thou not into
her secrets It is surely the forbidder,
tree of knowledge; I no sooner taste of it,
than I perceive myself naked, and stript of
all things—yea, even of my very self. I
see myself, and the whole frame of nature,
shrink into fleeting ideas, which, like Epi-
curus's atoms, dance about in emptiness.
Section. I’I I.
THE SYSTEM OF ALL THESE AUTHORS IS THE
SAME, AND LEADS TO SCEPTICISM.
But what if these profound disquisitions
into the first principles of human nature,
do naturally and necessarily plunge a man
into this abyss of scepticism 2 May we not
reasonably judge so from what hath hap-
pened P Des Cartes no sooner began to
dig in this mine, than scepticism was ready
to break in upon him. He did what he
could to shut it out. Malebranche and
Locke, who dug deeper, found the difficulty
of keeping out this enemy still to increase;
but they laboured honestly in the design.
Then Berkeley, who carried on the work,
despairing of securing all, bethought him-
self of an expedient:—By giving up the
material world, which he thought might
be spared without loss, and even with ad-
vantage, he hoped, by an impregnable par-
tition, to secure the world of spirits. But,
alas ! the “Treatise of Human Nature”
wantonly sapped the foundation of this
partition, and drowned all in one universal
deluge.
These facts, which are undeniable, do,
indeed, give reason to apprehend that Des
Cartes’ system of the human understand-
ing, which I shall beg leave to call the ideal
system, and which, with some improvements
made by later writers, is now generally
received, hath some original defect ; that
this scepticism is inlaid in it, and reared
along with it ; and, therefore, that we must
lay it open to the foundation, and examine
the materials, before we can expect to raise
any solid and useful fabric of knowledge on
this subject.
ScClion, VH II.
WE OUGHT NOT TO DESPAIR OF A BETTER.
But is this to be despaired of, because
Des Cartes and his followers have failed 2
By no means. This pusillanimity would be
injurious to ourselves and injurious to truth.
Useful discoveries are sometimes indeed
the effect of superior genius, but more fre-
quently they are the birth of time and of
accidents. A travellerof good judgment may
mistake his way, and be unawares led into
a wrong track; and, while the road is fair
before him, he may go on without suspicion
and be followed by others; but, when it
ends in a coal-pit, it requires no great judg-
ment to know that he hath gone wrong,
nor perhaps to find out what misled him.
In the meantime, the unprosperous state
of this part of philosophy hath produced an
104
of THE HUMAN MIND.
effect, somewhat discouraging indeed to
any attempt of this nature, but an effect
which might be expected, and which time
only and better success can remedy. Sen-
sible men, who never will be sceptics in
matters of common life, are apt to treat
with sovereign contempt everything that
hath been said, or is to be said, upon this
subject. It is metaphysic, say they : who
minds it 2 Let scholastic sophisters en-
tangle themselves in their own cobwebs; I
am resolved to take my own existence, and
the existence of other things, upon trust;
and to believe that snow is cold, and
honey sweet, whatever they may say to
the contrary. He must either be a fool,
or want to make a fool of me, that would
reason me out of my reason and senses.
I confess I know not what a sceptic can
answer to this, nor by what good argument
he can plead even for a hearing ; for either
his reasoning is sophistry, and so deserves
contempt ; or there is no truth in human
faculties——and then why should we reason 2
If, therefore, a man find himself intangled
in these metaphysical toils, and can find no
other way to escape, let him bravely cut
the knot which he cannot loose, curse me-
taphysic, and dissuade every man from
meddling with it ; for, if I have been led
into bogs and quagmires by following an
ignis fatuus, what can I do better than to
warn others to beware of it 2 If philoso-
phy contradicts herself, befools her votaries,
and deprives them of every object worthy
to be pursued or enjoyed, let her be sent
back to the infernal regions from which she
must have had her original.
But is it absolutely certain that this fair
lady is of the party? Is it not possible
she may have been misrepresented P. Have
not men of genius in former ages often
made their own dreams to pass for her
oracles 2 Ought she then to be condemned
without any further hearing 2 This would
be unreasonable. I have found her in all
other matters an agreeable companion, a
faithful counsellor, a friend to common
Sense, and to the happiness of mankind.
This justly entitles her to my correspond-
ence and confidence, till I find infallible
proofs of her infidelity.
CHAPTER II.
OF SMIELLING.
Section I.
THE ORDER OF PROCEEDING—OF THE
MEDIUM AND ORGAN OF SM ELI.
IT is so difficult to unravel the operations
of the human understanding, and to reduce
them to their first principles, that we can-
not expect to succeed in the attempt, but
by beginning with the simplest, and pro-
ceeding by very cautious steps to the more
complex. The five external senses may,
for this reason, claim to be first considered
in an analysis of the human faculties.
And the same reason ought to determine
us to make a choice even among the senses,
and to give the precedence, not to the
noblest or most useful, but to the simplest,
and that whose objects are least in danger
of being mistaken for other things.
In this view, an analysis of our sensa-
tions may be carried on, perhaps with most
ease and distinctness, by taking them in
this order: Smelling, Tasting, Hearing,
Touch, and, last of all, Seeing.
Natural philosophy informs us, that all
animal and vegetable bodies, and probably
all or most other bodies, while exposed to
the air, are continually sending forth efflu-
via of vast subtilty, not only in their state
of life and growth, but in the states of fer-
mentation and putrefaction. These volatile
particles do probably repel each other, and
so scatter themselves in the air, until they
meet with other bodies to which they have
Some chemical affinity, and with which they
unite, and form new concretes. All the
Smell of plants, and of other bodies, is caused
by these volatile parts, and is smelled wher-
ever they are scattered in the air : and the
acuteness of Smell in some animals, shews
us, that these effluvia spread far, and must
be inconceivably subtile.
Whether, as some chemists conceive,
every species of bodies hath a spiritus rector,
a kind of soul, which causes the smell and
all the specific virtues of that body, and
which, being extremely volatile, flies about
in the air in quest of a proper receptacle, I
do not inquire. This, like most other
theories, is perhaps rather the product of
imagination than of just induction. But
that all bodies are smelled by means of
effluvia” which they emit, and which are
drawn into the nostrils along with the air,
there is no reason to doubt. So that there
is manifest appearance of design in placing
the organ of smell in the inside of that canal,
through which the air is continually passing
in inspiration and expiration.
Anatomy informs us, that the membrana
pituilaria, and the olfactory nerves, which
are distributed to the villous parts of this
membrane, are the organs destined by the
* It is wrong to say that “a body is smelled by
means of ºffluvia.” Nothing is smelt but the effluvia
themselves. They constitute the total object of per-
ception in smell; and in all the senses the only object
perceived, is that in immediate contact with the or-
gan. There is, in reality, no medium in any sense;
and, as Democritus long ago shrewdly observed, all
the senses are only modifications of touch.-H.
OF SMELLING.
10:5
wisdom of nature to this sense; so that
when a body emits no effluvia, or when they
do not enter into the nose, or when the
pituitary membrane or olfactory nerves are
rendered unfit to perform their office, it can-
not be smelled.
Yet, notwithstanding this, it is evident
that neither the organ of smell, nor the
medium, nor any motions we can conceive
excited in the membrane above mentioned,
, or in the nerve or animal spirits, do in the
least resemble the sensation of smelling;
nor could that sensation of itself ever have
led us to think of nerves, animal spirits, or
effluvia. -
Section II.
THE SENSATION CONSIDERED ABSTR, ACTLY.
Having premised these things with re-
gard to the medium and organ of this sense,
let us now attend carefully to what the mind
is conscious of when we Smell a rose or a
lily; and, since our language affords no
other name for this sensation, we shall call
it a smell or odour, carefully excluding from
the meaning of those names everything but
the sensation itself, at least till we have ex-
amined it. -
Suppose a person who never had this
sense before, to receive it all at once, and
to Smell a rose—can he perceive any simi-
litude or agreement between the Smell and
the rose ? or indeed between it and any
other object whatsoever ? Certainly he can-
not. He finds himself affected in a new
way, he knows not why or from what cause.
Like a man that feels some pain or pleasure
formerly unknown to him, he is conscious
that he is not the cause of it himself; but
cannot, from the nature of the thing, deter-
mine whether it is caused by body or spirit,
by something near, or by something at a
distance. It has no similitude to anything
else, so as to admit of a comparison ; and,
therefore, he can conclude nothing from it,
unless, perhaps, that there must be some
unknown cause of it.
It is evidently ridiculous to ascribe to it
figure, colour, extension, or any other
quality of bodies. He cannot give it a place,
any more than he can give a place to mel-
ancholy or joy : nor can he conceive it to
have any existence, but when it is smelled,
So that it appears to be a simple and original
affection or feeling of the mind, altogether
inexplicable and unaccountable. It is, in-
deed, impossible that it can be in any body :
it is a sensation, and a sensation can only
be in a sentient thing.
The various odours have each their dif-
ferent degrees of strength or weakness.
Most of them are agreeable or disagree-
*~
able; and frequently those that are agree-
able when weak, are disagreeable when
stronger. When we compare different
smells together, we can perceive very few
resemblances or contrarieties, or, indeed,
relations of any kind between them. They
are all so simple in themselves, and so dif-
ferent from each other, that it is hardly
possible to divide them into genera and
species. Most of the names we give them
are particular ; as the Smell of a rose, of a
jessamine, and the like. Yet there are
some general names—as sweet, Stinking,
musty, putrid, cadaverous, aromatic. Some
of them seem to refresh and animate the
mind, others to deaden and depress it.
Section III.
SENSATION AND REMEMBRANCE, NATURAL
PRINCIPLES OF BELIEF.
So far we have considered this sensation
abstractly. Let us next compare it with
other things to which it bears some relation.
And first I shall compare this sensation
with the remembrance, and the imagination
of it.
I can think of the smell of a rose when I
do not smell it; and it is possible that when
I think of it, there is neither rose nor smel)
anywhere existing. But when I smell it,
I am necessarily determined to believe that
the sensation really exists. This is common
to all sensations, that, as they cannot exist
but in being perceived, so they cannot be
perceived but they must exist. I could as
easily doubt of my own existence, as of the
existence of my sensations. Even those
profound philosophers who have endeavoured
to disprove their own existence, have yet
left their sensations to stand upon their
own bottom, stript of a subject, rather than
call in question the reality of their existence.
Here, then, a sensation, a smell for in-
stance, may be presented to the mind three
different ways: it may be smelled, it may
be remembered, it may be imagined or
thought of. In the first case, it is neces-
sarily accompanied with a belief of its pre-
sent existence ; in the second, it is neces-
sarily accompanied with a belief of its past
existence ; and in the last, it is not accom-
panied with belief at all," but is what the
logicians call a simple apprehension.
Why sensation should compel our belief
of the present existence of the thing, me-
mory a belief of its past existence, and
# This is not strictly correct. The imagination
of an object is necessarily accompanied with a belief
of the existence of the mental representation. Reid
uses the term existence for objective evistence only,
and takes no account of the possibility of a subjective
cristence.—H.
Y.
106
OF THE HUMAN MIND, -
imagination no belief at all, I believe no
philosopher can give a shadow of reason,
but that such is the nature of these opera-
tions: they are all simple and original, and
therefore inexplicable acts of the mind.
Suppose that once, and only once, I
Smelled a tuberose in a certain room, where
it grew in a pot, and gave a very grateful
perfume. Next day I relate what I saw
and smelled. When I attend as carefully
as I can to what passes in my mind in this
case, it appears evident that the verything
I saw yesterday, and the fragrance Ismelled,
are now the immediate objects of my mind,
when I remember it. Further, I can
imagine this pot and flower transported to
the room where I now sit, and yielding the
same perfume. Here likewise it appears,
that the individual thing which I saw and
smelled, is the object of my imagination.*
Philosophers indeed tell me, that the
immediate object of my memory and ima-
gination" in this case, is not the past sensa-
tion, but an idea of it, an image, phantasm,
or species,t of the odour I smelled: that
this idea now exists in my mind, or in my
sensorium ; and the mind, contemplating
this present idea, finds it a representation
of what is past, or of what may exist; and
accordingly calls it memory, or imagination.
This is the doctrine of the ideal philosophy;
which we shall not now examine, that we
may not interrupt the thread of the present
investigation. Upon the strictest atten-
tion, memory appears to me to have things
that are past, and not present ideas, for its
object. We shall afterwards examine this
system of ideas, and endeavour to make it
appear, that no solid proof has ever been
advanced of the existence of ideas; that
they are a mere fiction and hypothesis, con-
trived to solve the phaenomena of the hu-
man understanding ; that they do not at all
answer this end; and that this hypothesis
of ideas or images of things in the mind, or
in the sensorium, is the parent of those
many paradoxes. So shocking to common
sense, and of that scepticism which disgrace
our philosophy of the mind, and have
brought upon it the ridicule and contempt
of sensible Imen.
In the meantime, I beg leave to think,
with the vulgar, that, when I remember the
smell of the tuberose, that very sensation
which I had yesterday, and which has now
no more any existence, is the immediate
object of my memory; and when I imagine
it present, the sensation itself, and not any
idea of it,is the object of my imagination. But,
though the object of my sensation, memory,
and imagination, be in this case the same,
yet these acts or operations of the mind are
as different, and as easily distinguishable,
as Smell, taste, and Sound. I am conscious
of a difference in kind between sensation
and memory, and between both and imag-
ination. I find this also, that the sensation
compels my belief of the present existence
of the smell, and memory my belief of its
past existence. There is a smell, is the
immediate testimony of sense; there was a
Smell, is the immediate testimony of mem-
ory. If you ask me, why I believe that the
Smell exists, I can give no other reason,
nor shall ever be able to give any other,
than that I smell it. If you ask, why I
believe that it existed yesterday, I can give
no other reason but that I remember it.
Sensation and memory, therefore, are
simple, original, and perfectly distinct opera-
tions of the mind, and both of them are
original principles of belief. Imagination
is distinct from both, but is no principle of
belief. Sensation implies the present exist-
ence of its object, memory its past existence,
but imagination views its object naked, and
without any belief of its existence or non-
existence, and is therefore what the schools
call Simple Apprehension."
Scotton I JT.
JUDGMENT AND BELIEF IN SOMIE CASES I*}{ E-
CEDE SIMPLE APPREHENSION,
But here, again, the ideal system comes
in our way: it teaches us that the first
operation of the mind about its ideas, is
simple apprehension—that is, the bare
conception of a thing without any belief
about it : and that, after we have got
simple apprehensions, by comparing them
together, we perceive agreements or dis-
agreements between them ; and that this
perception of the agreement or disagreement
of ideas, is all that we call belief, judgment,
or knowledge. Now, this appears to me to
be all fiction, without any foundation in
nature; for it is acknowledged by all, that
Sensation must go before memory and im-
agination; and hence it necessarily follows,
that apprehension, acompanied with belief
and knowledge, must go before simple ap-
prehension, at least in the matters We are
now speaking of. So that here, instead of
* For an exposition of Reid's -error in regard to
the immediate object of Memory and Imagination, see
Note B at the end of the volume.—H.
# It will be observed, that IReid understands by
Id. a, Image, Phantasm, Species, &c. always a ter-
tium-quid numerically different both from the Object
existing and ſrom the Subject knowing. He had formed
no conception of a doctrine in which a representative
object is allowed, but only as a modification of the
mind itself. On the evil consequences of this error,
both on his own philosophy and on his criticism of
other opinions, see Note C at the end of the volume.
*
tº
* Simple Apprehension, in the language of the
Schools, has no reſerence to any exclusion of belief.
It was merely given to the conception of simple, in
contrast to the cognition of complex, terms.—H.
OF SMELLING.
107
saying that the belief or knowledge is got
by putting together and comparing the
simple apprehensions, we ought ratherto say
that the simple apprehension is performed
by resolving and analysing a natural and
original judgment. And it is with the
operations of the mind, in this case, as
with natural bodies, which are, indeed,
compounded of simple principles or ele-
ments. Nature does not exhibit these ele-
ments separate, to be compounded by us;
she exhibits them mixed and compounded
in concrete bodies, and it is only by art and
chemical analysis that they can be separated,
Section. V.
TWO THEORIES OF THE NATURE OF BELIEF
REFUTED — CONCLUSIONS FROM WHAT
HATH BJEEN SAID,
But what is this belief or knowledge
which accompanies sensation and memory 2
Every man knows what it is, but no man
can define it. Does any man pretend
to define sensation, or to define con-
sciousness P It is happy, indeed, that
no man does. And if no philosopher had
endeavoured to define and explain belief,
Some paradoxes in philosophy, more in-
credible than ever were brought forth by
the most abject superstition or the most
frantic enthusiasm, had never seen the light.
Of this kind surely is that modern discovery
of the ideal philosophy, that sensation, me-
mory, belief, and imagination, when they
have the same object, are only different
degrees of strength and vivacity in the
idea." Suppose the idea to be that of a
future state after death : one man believes
it firmly—this means no more than that he
hath a strong and lively idea of it; another
neither believes nor disbelieves—that is, he
has a weak and faint idea. Suppose, now, a
third person believes firmly that there is no
such thing, I am at a loss to know whether
his idea be faint or lively: if it is faint,
then there may be a firm belief where the
idea is faint; if the idea is lively, then the
belief of a future state and the belief of no
future state must be one and the same. The
Same arguments that are used to prove that
belief implies only a stronger idea of the
object than simple apprehension, might as
well be used to prove that love implies only
a stronger idea of the object than indiffer-
ence. And then what shall we say of
hatred, which must upon this hypothesis be
a degree of love, or a degree of indifference 2
If it should be said, that in love there is
something more than an idea—to wit, an
affection of the mind—may it not be said
* He refers to Hunne,— H.
with equal reason, that in belief there is
something more than an idea—to wit, an
assent or persuasion of the mind P
But perhaps it may be thought as ridicu-
lous to argue against this strange opinion,
as to maintain it. Indeed, if a man should
maintain that a circle, a square, and a
triangle differ only in magnitude, and not
in figure, I believe he would find nobody
disposed either to believe him or to argue
against him ; and yet I do not think it less
shocking to common sense, to maintain that
Sensation, memory, and imagination differ
only in degree, and not in kind. I know
it is said, that, in a delirium, or in dreaming,
men are apt to mistake one for the other.
But does it follow from this, that men who
are neither dreaming nor in a delirium
cannot distinguish them P But how does
a man know that he is not in a delirium ?
I cannot tell ; neither can I tell how a man
knows that he exists. But, if any man seri-
ously doubts whether he is in a delirium, I
think it highly probable that he is, and that
it is time to seek for a cure, which I am
persuaded he will not find in the whole
system of logic.
I mentioned before Locke's notion of
belief or knowledge ; he holds that it con-
sists in a perception of the agreement or
disagreement of ideas ; and this he values
himself upon as a very important discovery.
We shall have occasion afterwards to
examine more particularly this grand prin-
ciple of Locke’s philosophy, and to shew
that it is one of the main pillars of modern
Scepticism, although he had no intention to
make that use of it. At present let us only
consider how it agrees with the instances
of belief now under consideration ; and
whether it gives any light to them. I be-
lieve that the sensation I have exists ; and
that the sensation I remember does not
now exist, but did exist yesterday. Here,
according to Locke’s system, I compare the
idea of a sensation with the ideas of past
and present existence : at one time I per-
ceive that this idea agrees with that of pre-
sent existence, but disagrees with that of
past existence ; but, at another time, it
agrees with the idea of past existence, and
disagrees with that of present existence.
Truly these ideas seem to be very capri-
cious in their agreements and disagree-
ments. Besides, I cannot, for my heart,
conceive what is meant by either. I say
a sensation exists, and I think I understand
clearly what I mean. But you want to
make the thing clearer, and for that end
tell me, that there is an agreement between
the idea of that sensation and the idea of
existence. To speak freely, this conveys
to me no light, but darkness; I can con-
ceive no otherwise of it, than as an odd and
obscure circumlocution. I conclude, then,
J08
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
% that the belief which accompanies sensation
and memory, is a simple act of the mind,
which cannot be defined. It is, in this
respect, like seeing and hearing, which can
never be so defined as to be understood by
those who have not these faculties; and to
such as have them, no definition can make
these operations more clear than they are
already. In like manner, every man that
has any belief—and he must be a curiosity
that has none—knows perfectly what belief
is, but can never define or explain it. I
conclude, also, that sensation, memory, and
imagination, even where they have the
same object, are operations of a quite dif-
ferent nature, and perfectly distinguishable
by those who are sound and sober. A man
that is in danger of confounding them, is
indeed to be pitied; but whatever relief he
may find from another art, he can find none
from logic or metaphysic. I conclude fur-
ther, that it is no less a part of the human
constitution, to believe the present existence
of our sensations, and to believe the past
existence of what we remember, than it is
to believe that twice two make four. The
evidence of sense, the evidence of memory,
and the evidence of the necessary relations
of things, are all distinct and original kinds
of evidence, equally grounded on our consti-
tution : none of them depends upon, or can
be resolved into another. To reason against
any of these lºinds of evidence, is absurd ;
nay, to reason for them is absurd. They
are first principles; and such fall not with-
in the province of reason," but of common
SenSee
Section. VI.
APOLOGY FOR METAPHYSICAL AIBSURDITIES-
SENSATION WITHOUT A SENTIENT, A con-
SEQUENCE OF THE THEORY OF IDEAS–
CONSEQUENCES OF THIS STRANGE OPINION.
Having considered the relation which the
sensation of Smelling bears to the remem-
brance and imagination of it, I proceed to
consider what relation it bears to a mind,
or sentient principle. It is certain, no man
can conceive or believe smelling to exist
of itself, without a mind, or something that
has the power of smelling, of which it is
called a sensation, an operation, or feeling.
Yet, if any man should demand a proof,
that sensation cannot be without a mind or
sentient being, I confess that I can give
none ; and that to pretend to prove it, seems
to me almost as absurd as to deny it.
This might have been said without any
apology before the ‘’ Treatise of Human
Nature” appeared in the world. For till
* See Note + at p. 100, b – H.
that time, no man, as far as I know,
ever thought either of calling in question
that principle, or of giving a reason for his
belief of it. Whether thinking beings were
of an ethereal or igneous nature, whether
material or immaterial, was variously dis-
puted ; but that thinking is an operation of
some kind of being or other, was always
taken for granted, as a principle that could
not possibly admit of doubt. -
However, since the author above men-
tioned, who is undoubtedly one of the most
acute metaphysicians that this or any age
hath produced, hath treated it as a vulgar
prejudice, and maintained that the mind
is only a succession of ideas and impres-
sions without any subject; his opinion,
however contrary to the common appre-
hensions of mankind, deserves respect. I
beg therefore, once for all, that no offence
may be taken at charging this or other
metaphysical notions with absurdity, or
with being contrary to the common sense
of mankind. No disparagement is meant
to the understandings of the authors or
maintainers of such opinions. Indeed, they
commonly proceed, not from defect of under-
standing, but from an excess of refinement
the reasoning that leads to them often
gives new light to the subject, and shews
real genius and deep penetration in the
author; and the premises do more than
atone for the conclusion.
If there are certain principles, as I think
there are, which the constitution of our
nature leads us to believe, and which we
are under a necessity to take for granted
in the common concerns of life, without
being able to give a reason for them—these
are what we call the principles of common
sense ; and what is manifestly contrary to
them, is what we call absurd.
Indeed, if it is true, and to be received
as a principle of philosophy, that sensation
and thought may be without a thinking
being, it must be acknowledged to be the
most wonderful discovery that this or any
other age hath produced. The received
doctrine of ideas is the principle from which
it is deduced, and of which indeed it seems
to be a just and natural consequence. And
it is probable, that it would not have been
So late a discovery, but that it is so shock-
ing and repugnant to the common appre-
hensions of mankind, that it required an
uncommon degree of philosophical intre-
pidity to usher it into the world. It is a
fundamental principle of the ideal system,
that every object of thought must be an
impression or an idea—that is, a faint copy
of Some preceding impression. This is a
principle so commonly received, that the
author above mentioned, although his whole
system is built upon it, never offers the
least proof of it. It is upon this principle,
OF SMELLING.
109
as a fixed point, that he erects his meta-
physical engines, to overturn heaven and
earth, body and spirit. And, indeed, in
my apprehension, it is altogether sufficient
for the purpose. For, if impressions and
ideas are the only objects of thought, then
heaven and earth, and body and spirit,
and everything you please, must signify
only impressions and ideas, or they must
be words without any meaning. It seems,
therefore, that this notion, however strange,
is closely connected with the received doc-
trine of ideas, and we must either admit the
conclusion, or call in question the premises.
Ideas seem to have something in their
nature unfriendly to other existences. They
were first introduced into philosophy, in
the humble character of images or repre-
sentatives of things; and in this character
they seemed not only to be inoffensive, but
to serve admirably well for explaining the
operations of the human understanding.
But, since men began to reason clearly and
distinctly about them, they have by degrees
Supplanted their constituents, and under-
mined the existence of everything but
themselves. First, they discarded all se-
condary qualities of bodies ; and it was
found out by their means, that fire is not
hot, nor Snow cold, nor honey sweet; and,
in a word, that heat and cold, sound, colour,
taste, and Smell, are nothing but ideas or
impressions. Bishop Berkeley advanced
them a step higher, and found out, by just
reasoning from the same principles, that
extension, Solidity, space, figure, and body,
are ideas, and that there is nothing in nature
but ideas and spirits. But the triumph of
ideas was completed by the “Treatise of
Human Nature,” which discards spirits
also, and leaves ideas and impressions as the
sole existences in the universe. What if, at
last, having nothing else to contend with,
they should fall foul of one another, and
leave no existence in nature at all P This
would surely bring philosophy into danger ;
for what should we have left to talk or to
dispute about 2
However, hitherto these philosophers
acknowledge the existence of impressions
and ideas; they acknowledge certain laws
of attraction, or rules of precedence, accord-
ing to which, ideas and impressions range
themselves in various forms, and succeed
one another: but that they should belong
to a mind, as its proper goods and chattels,
this they have found to be a vulgar error.
These ideas are as free and independent as
the birds of the air, or as Epicurus's atoms
when they pursued their journey in the
vast inane. Shall we conceive them like
the films of things in the Epicurean system 2
Principio hoc dico, rerum simulacra vagari,
Multa modis multis, in cunctas undique parteis
Tenuia, quae facile inter fie junguntur in auris,
Qbvia cum v.cnnunt.—LUch.
Or do they rather resemble Aristotle's in-
telligible species, after they are shot forth
from the object, and before they have yet
struck upon the passive intellect P But why
should we seek to compare them with any-
thing, since there is nothing in nature but
themselves 2 They make the whole furni-
ture of the universe; starting into existence,
or out of it, without any cause ; combining
into parcels, which the vulgar call minds ;
and succeeding one another by fixed laws,
without time, place, or author of those laws.
Yet, after all, these self-existent and in-
dependent ideas look pitifully naked and
destitute, when left thus alone in the uni-
verse, and seem, upon the whole, to be in a
worse condition than they were before. Des
Cartes, Malebranche, and Locke, as they
made much use of ideas, treated them hand-
somely, and provided them in decent accom-
modation; lodging them either in the pineal
gland, or in the pure intellect, or even in
the divine mind. They moreover clothed
them with a commission, and made them
representatives of things, which gave them
some dignity and character. But the “Trea-
tise of Human Nature,” though no less
indebted to them, seems to have made but
a bad return, by bestowing upon them this
independent existence; since thereby they
are tunned out of house and home, and set
adrift in the world, without friend or con-
nection, without a rag to cover their naked-
ness; and who knows but the whole system
of ideas may perish by the indiscreet zeal
of their friends to exalt them 2
However this may be, it is certainly a
most amazing discovery that thought and
ideas may be without any thinking being
—a discovery big with consequences which
cannot easily be traced by those deluded
mortals who think and reason in the com-
mon track. We were always apt to ima-
gime, that thought supposed a thinker, and
love a lover, and treason a traitor : but
this, it seems, was all a mistake ; and it is
found out, that there may be treason with-
out a traitor, and love without a lover, laws
without a legislator, and punishment with-
out a sufferer, succession without time, and
motion without anything moved, or space
in which it may move : or if, in these cases,
ideas are the lover, the sufferer, the traitor,
it were to be wished that the author of this
discovery had farther condescended to ac-
quaint us whether ideas can converse to-
gether, and be under obligations of duty or
gratitude to each other; whether they can
make promises and enter into leagues and
covenants, and fulfil or break them, and be
punished for the breach. If one set of
ideas makes a covenant, another breaks it,
and a third is punished for it, there is rea-
son to think that justice is no natural virtue
in this system.
1 10
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
;
thinking being ;
It seemed very natural to think, that the
“Treatise of Human Nature” required an
author, and a very ingenious one too; but
now we learn that it is only a set of ideas
which came together and arranged them-
selves by certain associations and attractions.
After all, this curious system appears not
to be fitted to the present state of human
nature. How far it may suit some choice
spirits, who are refined from the dregs of
common sense, I cannot say. It is acknow-
ledged, I think, that even these can enter
into this system only in their most specula-
tive hours, when they soar so high in pur-
suit of those self-existent ideas as to lose
sight of all other things. But when they
condescend to mingle again with the human
race, and to converse with a friend, a com-
panion, or a fellow-citizen, the ideal system
vanishes; common sense, like an irresist-
ible torrent, carries them along; and, in
spite of all their reasoning and philosophy,
they believe their own existence, and the
existence of other things.
Indeed, it is happy they do so; for, if
they should carry their closet belief into
the world, the rest of mankind would con.
sider them as diseased, and send them to
an infirmary. Therefore, as Plato required
certain previous qualifications of those who
entered his school, I think it would be pru-
dent for the doctors of this ideal philosophy
to do the same, and to refuse admittance to
every man who is so weak as to imagine
that he ought to have the same belief in
Solitude and in company, or that his prin-
ciples ought to have any influence upon his
practice; for this plailosophy is like a hob-
by-horse, which a man in bad health may
ride in his closet, without hurting his repu-
tation ; but, if he should take him abroad
with him to church, or to the exchange, or
to the play-house, his heir would imme-
diately call a jury, and seize his estate.
Section VII.
TIIE CONCEPTION AND BELIEF OF A SENTIENT
Bſ2ING OR MIND IS SUGGESTED BY O U R.
CONSTITUTION.—THE NOTION OF RELA-
TIONS NOT ALWAYS GOT BY COMPARING
TIIP RELATED IDEAS.
Leaving this philosophy, therefore, to
those who have occasion for it, and can
use it discreetly as a chamber exercise, we
may still inquire how the rest of mankind,
and even the adepts themselves, except in
some solitary moments, have got so strong
and irresistible a belief, that thought must
have a subject, and be the act of some
how every man believes
himself to be something distinct from his
ideas and impressions—something which
continues the same identical self when all
his ideas and impressions are changed. It
is impossible to trace the origin of this
opinion in history ; for all languages
have it interwoven in their original con-
struction. All nations have always believed
it. The constitution of all laws and
governments, as well as the common trans-
actions of life, suppose it.
It is no less impossible for any man to
recollect when he himself came by this
notion; for, as far back as we can remem-
ber, we were already in possession of it,
and as fully persuaded of our own existence,
and the existence of other things, as that
one and one make two. It seems, there-
fore, that this opinion preceded all reason-
ing, and experience, and instruction ; and
this is the more probable, because we could
not get it by any of these means. It ap-
pears, then, to be an undeniable fact, that,
from thought or sensation, all mankind,
constantly and invariably, from the first
dawning of reflection, do infer a power or
faculty of thinking, and a permanent being
or mind to which that faculty belongs; and
that we as invariably ascribe all the various
kinds of sensation and thought we are con-
scious of, to one individual mind or self.
But by what rules of logic we make these
inferences, it is impossible to shew ; may,
it is impossible to shew how our sensations
and thoughts can give us the very notion
and conception either of a mind or of a
faculty. The faculty of smelling is some-
thing very different from the actual sensa-
tion of smelling ; for the faculty may
remain when we have no sensation. And
the mind is no less different from the
faculty ; for it continues the same indivi-
dual being when that faculty is lost. Yet
this sensation suggests to us both a faculty
and a mind; and not only suggests the
notion of them, but creates a belief of their
existence; although it is impossible to dis-
cover, by reason, any tie or connection
between one and the other.
What shall we say, then P. Either those
inferences which we draw from our sensa-
tions—namely, the existence of a mind,
and of powers or faculties belonging to it—
are prejudices of plailosophy or education,
mere fictions of the mind, which a wise
man should throw off as he does the belief
of fairies; or they are judgments of nature—
judgments not got by comparing ideas, and
perceiving agreements and disagreements,
but immediately inspired by our constitu-
tion.
If this last is the case, as I apprehend it
is, it will be impossible to shake off those
opinions, and we must yield to them at
last, though we struggle hard to get rid of
them. And if we could, by a determined
obstimacy, shake off the principles of our
OF SMELLING,
} | 1
nature, this is not to act the pliilosopher,
but the fool or the madman. It is incum-
bent upon those who think that these are
not natural principles, to shew, in the first
place, how we can otherwise get the notion
of a mind and its faculties; and then to
shew how we come to deceive ourselves
into the opinion that sensation cannot be
without a sentient being.
It is the received doctrine of philosophers,
that our notions of relations can only be
got by comparing the related ideas: but,
in the present case, there seems to be
an instance to the contrary. It is not by
having first the notions of mind and sensa-
tion, and then comparing them together,
that we perceive the one to have the rela-
tion of a subject or substratum, and the
other that of an act or operation : on the
contrary, one of the related things—to wit,
sensation—suggests to us both the correlate
and the relation.
I beg leave to make use of the word suff-
gestion, because I know not one more pro-
per, 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 principles of belief.
I shall endeavour to illustrate, by an
example, what I understand by this word.
We all know, that a certain kind of sound
suggests immediately to the mind, a coach
passing in the street; and not only pro-
duces the imagination, but the belief, that
a coach is passing. Yet there is here no
comparing of ideas, no perception of agree-
ments or disagreements, to produce this
belief: nor is there the least similitude be-
tween the sound we hear and the coach we
imagine and believe to be passing."
**
* “The word suggest” (says Mr Stewart, in rººfer-
ence to the preceding passage) “is much used by
Berkeley, in this appropriate and technical sense,
not only in his “ Theory of Vision,” but in his ‘Prin-
ciples of Human Knowledge,’ and in his Minute
Philosopher.” It expresses, indeed, the cardinal
principle on which his “Theory of Vision' hinges,
and is now so incorporated with some of our best
metaphysical speculations, that one cannot easily
conceive how the use of it was so long dispensed
With. Locke uses the word earciſe 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 question, with the same
force and precision.
“lt is remarkable, that Dr Reid should have thought
it incumbent on him to apologise for introducing
into philosophy a word so familiar to every person
conversant with Berkeley's works. ‘ I beg leave
to make use of the word suggestion, because,'
&C. te fe g * & e
“So far Dr Reid’s use of the word coincides ex-
actly 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
overlooked by Berkeley,) those which reult from
the original frame of the human mind.”— Disserta-
It is true that this suggestion is not
natural and original ; it is the result of ex-
perience and habit. But I think it appears,
from what hath been said, that there are
natural suggestions: particularly, that sens-
ation suggests the motion of present exist.
ence, and the belief that what we perceive
or feel does now exist; that memory sug-
gests the notion of past existence, and the
belief that what we remember did exist in
time past ; and that Óur sensations and
thoughts do also suggest the notion of a
mind, and the belief of its existence, and of
its relation to our thoughts. By a like
natural principle it is, that a beginning of
existence, or any change in nature, sug-
gests to us the notion of a cause, and com-
pels our belief of its existence. And, in
like manner, as shall be shewn when we
come to the sense of touch, certain sensa-
tions of touch, by the constitution of our
nature, suggest to us extension, solidity,
and motion, which are nowise like to
Sensations, although they have been hither-
to confounded with them.*
tion on the History of Metaphysical and Ethical
Science. P. 167. Second edition
Mr Stewart might have adduced, perhaps, a higher
and, certainly, a more proxima" e authority, in ſa-
vour, not merely of the term in general, but of
Reid's restricted employment of it, as an intimation
of what he and others have designated the Common
Sense of mankind. The following sentence of Ter-
tullian contains a singular anticipation, lioth of the
philosophy and of the philosophical phraseology of
our author. Speaking of the universal belief of
the soul's immortality :-‘‘ Natura pleraque sugger-
wntur, quasi de publico senszt quo animam Deus di-
tare dignatus est.”—DE ANIMA, c. 2.
Some strictures on Reid's employment of the term
suggestion may be seen in the “Versuche” of Tetems,
I., p. 508, sqq.—H. * .
* This last statement is not historically correct.
But, waving this, there may be adduced, in illustra-
tion of the two last paragraphs, the following
remarkable passage from St Augustine:—“A U.
Recte fortasse exist imas. Sed responde obsecro,
utruin omne quod per visum cognoscimus, videa-
mus. Ev. Ita credo. A U. Credis etiam omne quod
videndo cognoscimus, per visum nos cognoscere ?
W. Et hoc credo. A U. Cur ergo plerumque fumum
Solum videndo, ignem subter laterecognoscimus quem
non videmus 2 EV. Verum dicis. Et jam non puto
mos videre quicquid per visum cognoscimus: possu.
mus enim, ut docuisti, aliud videndo allud cognoscerc
quod visus non attigerit. A U. Quid, illud quod per
visum sentimus, possumusne non videre? Ev. Nullo
modo. A U. Aliud est ergo sentire, altwd cognoscere,
F. W. Omnimo alºud, mam sentimus fumum quem wide-
mus, et ea eo ignem quem non videmus, subesse cog.
moscimus. At . Bene intelligis. Sed vides certe cum
hoc accidit, corpus nostrum, id est oculos, nihil pati
ex igne, sed ex fumo quem solum vident. Etenin
videre sentire, et seuture pati esse, iam supra con-
sensinus. E. V. Teneo, & assentior. A U. Cum ergo
per passionem corporis non latet aliquid animam, non
continuo sensus vocatur unus de quinque memoratis,
sed cum ipsa passio non latet: namgue ille ignis non
visus, nec auditus, nec olfactus, mec gustatus, nec
tactus a nobis, non tamen latet animam ſumo viso
Et cum hoc non latere non vocetur sensus, quia ex
igne corpus nihil est passum, vocatur tamen cognitio
7)cy sensunz, quia ex passione corporis quamvis alia,
id est ex alterius rei visione, conjectatum est atque
compertum. Ev. Intelligo, et optime video istud
congruere ac favere illi definitioni tuate, quam ut
mean milli deſendendam dedisti : nam it a memini
esse abs te sensum definitum, cum animam non latet
quod patitur corpus, Itaque illud quod furnus vide:ºr,
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
Section VIII.
THERE IS A QUALITY OR VIRTUE IN BODIEs,
WHICH WE CALL THEIR SMELL–HOW
THIS IS CONNECTED IN THE IMAGINATION
WITH THE SENSATION.
We have considered smell as signifying
a sensation, feeling, or impression upon the
mind; and in this sense, it can only be in
a mind, or sentient being: but it is evident
that mankind give the name of smell much
more frequently to something which they
conceive to be external, and to be a quality
of body: they understand something by it
which does not at all infer a mind; and
have not the least difficulty in conceiving
the air perfumed with aromatic odours in
the deserts of Arabia, or in some uninhab-
ited island, where the human foot never
trod. Every sensible day-labourer hath as
clear a notion of this, and as full a convic-
tion of the possibility of it, as he hath of
his own existence; and can no more doubt
of the one than of the other.
Suppose that such a man meets with a
modern philosopher, and wants to be in-
formed what smell in plants is. The phi-
losopher tells him, that there is no smell in
plants, nor in anything but in the mind;
that it is impossible there can be smell but
in a mind; and that all this hath been
demonstrated by modern philosohy. The
plain man will, no doubt, be apt to think
him merry : but, if he finds that he is
serious, his next conclusion will be that he
is mad; or that philosophy, like magic,
puts men into a new world, and gives them
different faculties from common men. And
thus philosophy and common sense are set
at variance. But who is to blame for it 2
In my opinion the philosopher is to blame.
For if he means by smell, what the rest of
mankind most commonly mean, he is cer-
tainly mad. But if he puts a different
meaning upon the word, without observing
it bimself, or giving warning to others,
he abuses language and disgraces philo-
sophy, without doing any service to truth :
tas if a man should exchange the meaning
of the words daughter and cow, and then
endeavour to prove to his plain neighbour,
that his cow is his daughter, and his
daughter his cow.
I believe there is not much more wisdom
in many of those paradoxes of the ideal
philosophy, which to plain sensible men
appear to be palpable absurdities, but with
the adepts pass for profound discoveries. I
SenStºrm UOCamus ; passi sunt emim ew?n oculi videndo
qui sunt corporis partes et corpora ; ignem autem er
quo nihil corpus est passum, quamvis cognitus fuerit,
sensum non vocamus.-DE QUANTITATE ANIMAE, c.
XXIV. § 45 —H.
resolve, for my own part, always to pay a
great regard to the dictates of common
sense, and not to depart from them without
absolute necessity ; and, therefore, I am
apt to think that there is really something
in the rose or lily, which is by the vulgar
called smell, and which continues to exist
when it is not smelled : and shall proceed
to inquire what this is ; how we come by
the notion of it; and what relation this
quality or virtue of Smell hath to the sens-
ation which we have been obliged to call
by the same name, for want of another.
Let us therefore suppose, as before, a
person beginning to exercise the sense of
Smelling; a little experience will discover
to him, that the nose is the organ of this
sense, and that the air, or something in the
air, is a medium of it. And finding, by
farther experience, that, when a rose is near,
he has a certain sensation, when it is
removed, the sensation is gone, he finds a
connection in nature betwixt the rose and
and this sensation. The rose is considered
as a cause, occasion, or antecedent of the
sensation ; the sensation as an effect or
consequence of the presence of the rose;
they are associated in the mind, and con-
stantly found conjoined in the imagination.
But here it deserves our notice, that,
although the sensation may seem more
closely related to the mind its subject, or
to the nose its organ, yet neither of these
connections operate so powerfully upon the
imagination as its connection with the rose
its concomitant. The reason of this seems
to be, that its connection with the mind is
more general, and noway distinguisheth it
from other smells, or even from tastes,
Sounds, and other kinds of sensations. The
relation it hath to the organ is likewise
general, and doth not distinguish it from
other smells; but the connection it hath
with the rose is special and constant; by
which means they become almost insepar-
able in the imagination, in like manner as
thunder and lightning, freezing and cold.
Section IX.
THAT THIERIE IS A PRINCIPLE IN HUMAN
NATURE, FROM WHICH THE NOTION OF
TIIlS, AS WELL AS ALL OTHER NATURAL
VIRTUES OR CAUSES, IS DERIVED.
In order to illustrate further how we
come to conceive a quality or virtue in the
rose which we call smell, and what this
Smell is, it is proper to observe, that the
mind begins very early to thirst after prin-
ciples which may direct it in the exertion
of its powers. The smell of a rose is a
certain affection or feeling of the mind;
and, as it is not constant. but comes and
OF SMELLING.
113
goes, we want to know when and where we
may expect it; and are uneasy till we find
something which, being present, brings this
feeling along with it, and, being removed,
removes it. This, when found, we call the
cause of it; not in a strict and philosophical
sense, as if the feeling were really effected
or produced by that cause, but in a popular
Sense ; for the mind is satisfied if there is
a constant conjunction between them ; and
such causes are in reality nothing else but
laws of nature. Having found the smell
thus constantly conjoined with the rose, the
mind is at rest, without inquiring whether
this conjunction is owing to a real efficiency
or not ; that being a philosophical inquiry,
which does not concern human life. But
every discovery of such a constant conjunc-
tion is of real importance in life, and makes
a strong impression upon the mind.
Soardently do we desire to find everything
that happens within our observation thus
connected with something else as its cause or
occasion, that we are apt to fancy connec-
tions upon the slightest grounds; and this
weakness is most remarkable in the ignor-
ant, who know least of the real connections
established in nature. A man meets with
an unlucky accident on a certain day of the
year, and, knowing no other cause of his
misfortune, he is apt to conceive something
unlucky in that day of the calendar; and,
if he finds the same connection hold a second
time, is strongly confirmed in his supersti-
tion. I remember, many years ago, a white
ox was brought into this country, of so
enormous a size that people came many
miles to see him. There happened, some
months after, an uncommon fatality among
women in child-bearing. Two such uncom-
mon events, following one another, gave a
suspicion of their connection, and occasioned
a common opinion among the country-
people that the white ox was the cause of
this fatality. '
However silly and ridiculous this opinion
was, it sprung from the same root in human
nature on which all natural philosophy
grows—namely, an eager desire to find out
connections in things, and a natural, ori-
ginal, and unaccountable propensity to be-
lieve that the connections which we have
observed in time past will continue in time
to come. Omens, portents, good and bad
luck, palmistry, astrology, all the numer-
ous arts of divination and of interpreting
dreams, false hypotheses and systems, and
true principles in the philosophy of nature,
are all built upon the same foundation in
the human constitution, and are distin-
guished only according as we conclude
rashly from too few instances, or cautiously
from a sufficient induction.
As it is experience only that discovers
these connections between natural causes
and their effects; without inquiring further,
we attribute to the cause some vague and
indistinct notion of power or virtue to pro-
duce the effect. And, in many cases, the
purposes of life do not make it necessary to
give distinct names to the cause and the
effect. Whence it happens, that, being
closely connected in the imagination, al-
though very unlike to each other, one name
serves for both ; and, in common discourse,
is most frequently applied to that which, of
the two, is most the object of our attention.
This occasions an ambiguity in many words,
which, having the same causes in all lan-
guages, is common to all, and is apt to be
overlooked even by philosophers. Some
instances will serve both to illustrate and
confirm what we have said.
Magnetism signifies both the tendency of
:
the iron towards the magnet, and the power
of the magnet to produce that tendency;
and, if it was asked, whether it is a quality
of the iron or of the magnet, one would per-
haps be puzzled at first ; but a little atten-
tion would discover, that we conceive a
power or virtue in the magnet as the cause,
and a motion in the iron as the effect; and,
although these are things quite unlike, they
are so united in the imagination, that we
give the common name of magnetism to
both. The same thing may be said of gra-
vitation, which sometimes signifies the tend-
ency of bodies towards the earth, sometimes
the attractive power of the earth, which we
conceive as the cause of that tendency. We
may observe the same ambiguity in some of
Sir Isaac Newton’s definitions; and that
even in words of his own making. In three
of his definitions, he explains very distinctly
what he understands by the absolute quan-
tity, what by the accelerative quantity, and
what by the motive quantity, of a centri-
petal force. In the first of these three
definitions, centripetal force is put for the
cause, which we conceive to be some power
or virtue in the centre or central body; in
the two last, the same word is put for the
effect of this cause, in producing velocity,
or in producing motion towards that
Centre.
Heat signifies a sensation, and cold a
contrary one; but heat likewise signifies a
quality or state of bodies, which hath no
contrary, but different degrees. When a
man feels the same water hot to one hand
and cold to the other, this gives him occa-
sion to distinguish between the feeling and
the heat of the body; and, although he
knows that the sensations are contrary, he
does not imagine that the body can have
contrary qualities at the same time. And
when he finds a different taste in the same
body in sickness and in health, he is easily
convinced, that the quality in the body
called taste is the same as before, although
I
l 14
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
the sensations he has from it are perhaps
opposite.
The vulgar are commonly charged by
philosophers, with the absurdity of imagin-
ing the smell in the rose to be something
like to the sensation of Smelling ; but I
think unjustly ; for they neither give the
same epithets to both, nor do they reason
in the same manner from them. What is
smell in the rose ? It is a quality or vir-
tue of the rose, or of something proceeding
from it, which we perceive by the sense of
smelling ; and this is all we know of the
matter. But what is Smelling 2 It is an
act of the mind, but is never imagined to
be a quality of the mind. Again, the sens-
ation of smelling is conceived to infer neces-
sarily a mind or sentient being; but smell
in the rose infers no such thing. We say,
this body smells sweet, that stinks; but we
do not say, this mind smells sweet and that
stinks. Therefore, smell in the rose, and
the sensation which it causes, are not con-
ceived, even by the vulgar, to be things of
the same kind, although they have the same
Ila, Iſle.
From what hath been said, we may learn
that the smell of a rose signifies two
things: First, a sensation, which can have
no existence but when it is perceived, and
can only be in a sentient being or mind;
Secondly, it signifies some power, quality,
or virtue, in the rose, or in effluvia proceed-
ing from it, which hath a permanent exist-
ence, independent of the mind, and which,
by the constitution of nature, produces
the sensation in us. By the original con-
stitution of our mature, we are both led to
believe that there is a permanent cause of
the sensation, and prompted to seek after
it; and experience determines us to place
it in the rose. The names of all Smells,
tastes, sounds, as well as heat and cold,
have a like ambiguity in all languages ;
but it deserves our attention, that these
names are but rarely, in common language,
used to signify the sensations; for the most
part, they signify the external qualities
which are indicated by the sensations—the
cause of which phaenomenon. It take to be
this. Our sensations have very different
degrees of strength. Some of them are so
quick and lively as to give us a great deal
either of pleasure or of uneasiness. When
this is the case, we are compelled to attend
to the sensation itself, and to make it an
object of thought and discourse ; we give it
a name, which signifies nothing but the
sensation ; and in this case we readily
acknowledge, that the thing meant by that
name is in the mind only, and not in any-
thing external. Such are the various kinds
of pain, sickness, and the sensations of
hunger and other appetites. But, where
the sensation is not so interesting as to re-
quire to be made an object of thought, our
constitution leads us to consider it as a
sign of something external, which hath a
constant conjunction with it; and, having
found what it indicates, we give a name to
that : the sensation, having no proper
name, falls in as an accessory to the thing
signified by it, and is confounded under the
same name. So that the name may, in-
deed, be applied to the sensation, but most
properly and commonly is applied to the
thing indicated by that sensation. The
Sensations of Smell, taste, sound, and colour,
are of infinitely more importance as signs
or indications, than they are upon their own
account ; like the words of a language,
wherein we do not attend to the sound but
to the scnse.
Section X.
WHETHER IN SENSATION THE MIND IS ACTIVE
OR PASSIVE P
There is one inquiry remains, Whether,
in smelling, and in other sensations, the
mind is active or passive 2 This possibly
may seem to be a question about words, or,
at least, of very small importance ; how-
ever, if it leads us to attend more accu-
rately to the operations of our minds than
we are accustomed to do, it is, upon that
very account, not altogether unprofitable.
I think the opinion of modern philosophers
is, that in sensation the mind is altogether
passive." And this undoubtedly is so far
true, that we cannot raise any sensation in
our minds by willing it; and, on the other
hand, it seems hardly possible to avoid
having the sensation when the object is
presented. Yet it seems likewise to be
true, that, in proportion as the attention is
more or less turned to a sensation or
diverted from it, that sensation is more or
less perceived and remembered. Every
one knows that very intense pain may be
diverted by a surprise, or by anything that
entirely occupies the mind. When we are
engaged in earnest conversation, the clock
may strike by us without being heard; at
least, we remember not, the next moment,
that we did hear it. The noise and tumult
of a great trading city is not heard by
them who have lived in it all their days;
but it stuns those strangers who have
lived in the peaceful retirement of the
country. Whether, therefore, there can
be any sensation where the mind is purely
passive, I will not say ; but I think we are
conscious of having given some attention
to every sensation which we remember,
though ever so recent.
* This is far too absolutely stated.-H.
OF TASTING.
| | 5
No doubt, where the impulse is strong
and uncommon, it is as difficult to withhold
attention as it is to forbear crying out in
racking pain, or starting in a sudden fright.
But how far both might be attained by
strong resolution and practice, is not easy,
to determine. So that, although the Peri-
patetics had no good reason to suppose an
active and a passive intellect, since atten:
tion may be well enough accounted an act
of the will, yet I think they came nearer
to the truth, in holding the mind to be in
sensation partly passive and partly active,
than the moderns, in affirming it to be
purely passive. Sensation, imagination,
memory, and judgment, have, by the vulgar
in all ages, been considered as acts of the
mind. The manner in which they are ex-
pressed in all languages, shews this. When
the mind is much employed in them, we
say it is very active; whereas, if they were
impressions only, as the ideal philosophy
would lead us to conceive, we ought, in such;
a case, rather to say, that the mind is very*
passive ; for, I suppose, no man would
attribute great activity to the paper I write
upon, because it receives variety of cha-
racterS.
The relation which the sensation of smell
bears to the memory and imagination of it,
and to a mind or subject, is common to all
our sensations, and, indeed, to all the oper-
ations of the mind: the relation it bears to
the will is common to it with all the powers
ofunderstanding; and the relation it bears to
that quality or virtue of bodies which it in-
dicates, is common to it with the sensa-
tions of taste, hearing, colour, heat, and
cold—so that what hath been said of this
sense, may easily be applied to several of
our senses, and to other operations of the
mind; and this, I hope, will apologize for
our insisting so long upon it. -
CHAPTER III.
OF TASTING.
A GREAT part of what hath been said of
the sense of Smelling, is so easily applied
to those of tasting and hearing, that we
shall leave the application entirely to the
reader's judgment, and save ourselves the
trouble of a tedious repetition.
It is probable that everything that affects
the taste is, in some degree, soluble in the
saliva. It is not conceivable how anything
should enter readily, and of its own accord,
as it were, into the pores of the tongue,
palate, and fauces, unless it had some
chemical affinity to that liquor with which
these pores are always replete. It is, there.
fore, an admirable contrivance of nature,
that the organs of taste should always be
moist with a liquor which is so universal a
menstruum, and which deserves to be ex-
amined more than it hath been hitherto,
both in that capacity, and as a medical
unguent. Nature teaches dogs, and other
animals, to use it in this last way ; and its
subserviency both to taste and digestion
shews its efficacy in the former.
It is with manifest design and propriety,
that the organ of this sense guards the
entrance of the alimentary canal, as that of
Smell the entrance of the canal for respira-
tion. And from these organs being placed in
such manner that everything that enters into
the stomach must undergo the scrutiny of
both senses, it is plain that they were intended
by nature to distinguish wholesome food
from that which is noxious. The brutes
have no other means of choosing their food;
nor would mankind, in the savage state.
And it is very probable that the smell and
‘taste, noway vitiated by luxury or bad
habits, would rarely, if ever, lead us to a
wrong choice of food among the produc-
tions of nature ; although the artificial
compositions of a refined and luxurious
cookery, or of chemistry and pharmacy,
may often impose upon both, and produce
things agreeable to the taste and smell,
which are noxious to health. And it is
probable that both smell and taste are
vitiated, and rendered less fit to perform
their natural offices, by the unnatural kind
of life men commonly lead in society.
These senses are likewise of great use to
distinguish bodies that cannot be distin-
guished by our other senses, and to discern
the changes which the same body under-
goes, which, in many cases, are sooner per-
ceived by taste and smell than by any other
means. How many things are there in the
market, the eating-house, and the tavern,
as well as in the apothecary and chemist's
shops, which are known to be what they
are given out to be, and are perceived to be
good or bad in their kind, only by taste
or smell? And how far our judgment of
things, by means of our senses, might be
improved by accurate attention to the small
differences of taste and smell, and other
Sensible qualities, is not easy to determine.
Sir Isaac Newton, by a noble effort of his
great genius, attempted, from the colour
of opaque bodies, to discover the magnitude
of the minute pellucid parts of which they
are compounded : and who knows what
new lights natural philosophy may yet re-
ceive from other secondary qualities duly
examined ?
Some tastes and smells stimulate the
Inerves and raise the spirits: but such am
artificial elevation of the spirits is, by the
laws of nature, followed by a depression,
which can only be relieved by time, or by
the repeated use of the like stimulus. By
I 2
116
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
the use of such things we create an appe-
tite for them, which very much resembles,
and hath all the force of a natural one. It
is in this manner that men acquire an ap-
petite for snuff, tobacco, strong liquors,
laudanum, and the like.
Nature, indeed, seems studiously to have
Set bounds to the pleasures and pains we
have by these two senses, and to have con-
fined them within very narrow limits, that
we might not place any part of our happi-
ness in them; there being hardly any
smell or taste so disagreeable that use will
not make it tolerable, and at last perhaps
agreeable, nor any so agreeable as not to
lose its relish by constant use. Neither is
there any pleasure or pain of these senses
which is not introduced or followed by
some degree of its contrary, which nearly
balances it ; so that we may here apply
the beautiful allegory of the divine So-
crates—that, although pleasure and pain
are contrary in their nature, and their faces
look different ways, yet Jupiter hath tied
them so together that he that lays hold of
the one draws the other along with it.
As there is a great variety of smells,
seemingly simple and uncompounded, not
only altogether unlike, but some of them
contrary to others, and as the same thing
may be said of tastes, it would seem that
one taste is not less different from another
than it is from a smell: and therefore it
may be a question, how all smells come
to be considered as one genus, and all
tastes as another ? What is the generical
distinction ? Is it only that the nose is the
organ of the one and the palate of the
other ? or, abstracting from the organ, is
there not in the sensations themselves
Something common to smells, and some-
thing else common to tastes, whereby the
one is distinguished from the other ? It
seems most probable that the latter is the
case; and that, under the appearance of
the greatest simplicity, there is still in
these sensations something of composition.
If one considers the matter abstractly, it
would seem that a number of sensations,
or, indeed, of any other individual things,
which are perfectly simple and uncom-
pounded, are incapable of being reduced
into genera and species ; because individuals
which belong to a species must have some-
thing peculiar to each, by which they are
distinguished, and something common to
the whole species. And the same may be
said of species which belong to one genus.
And, whether this does not imply some kind
of composition, we shall leave to metaphy-
sicians to determine. -
The sensations both of smell and taste do
undoubtedly admit of an immense variety
of modifications, which no language can
express. If a man was to examine five
hundred different wines, he would hardly
find two of them that had precisely the
same taste. The same thing holds in cheese,
and in many other things. Yet, of five
hundred different tastes in cheese or wine,
we can hardly describe twenty, so as to give
a distinct notion of them to one who had
not tasted them.
Dr Nehemiah Grew, a most judicious
and laborious naturalist, in a discourse read
before the Royal Society, anno 1675, bath
endeavoured to shew that there are at least
sixteen different simple tastes, which he
enumerates." How many compounded
ones may be made out of all the various
combinations of two, three, four, or more
of these simple ones, they who are ac-
quainted with the theory of combinations
will easily perceive. All these have va-
rious degrees of intenseness and weakness.
Many of them have other varieties; in some
the taste is more quickly perceived upon
the application of the sapid body, in others
more slowly—in some the sensation is more
permanent, in others more transient—in
Some it seems to undulate or return after
certain intervals, in others it is constant;
the various parts of the organ—as the lips,
the tip of the tongue, the root of the tongue,
the fawces, the uvula, and the throat–are
some of them chiefly affected by one sapid
body, and others by another. All these,
and other varieties of tastes, that accurate
writer illustrates by a number of examples.
Nor is it to be doubted, but smells, if exa-
mined with the same accuracy, would appear
to have as great variety.
CHAPTER IV.
OF HEARING,
Section I.
v.ARIETY OF SOUNDS—THEIR PLACE AND
DISTANCE LEARNED BY CUSTOM, WITHOUT
REASONING.
Sounds have probably no less variety of
modifications, than either tastes or odours.
For, first, sounds differ in tone. The ear
is capable of perceiving four or five hun-
dred variations of tone in Sound, and pro-
bably as many different degrees of strength;
by combining these, we have above twenty
thousand simple sounds that differ either
in tone or strength, supposing every tone
to be perfect. But it is to be observed,
that to make a perfect tone, a great many
* Plato and Galen reckon seven, Aristotle and
Theophrastus eight species of simple tastes. Among
the moderns, (as I recollect,) these are estimated at
ten, by Boerhaavc and Linnaeus ; by Haller, at
twelve.-H.
OF HEARING.
117
undulations of elastic air are required,
which must all be of equal duration and
extent, and follow one another with perfect
regularity ; and each undulation must be
made up of the advance and recoil of in-
numerable particles of elastic air, whose
motions are all uniform in direction, force,
and time. Hence we may easily conceive
a prodigious variety in the same tone, aris-
ing from irregularities of it, occasioned by
the constitution, figure, situation, or man-
ner of striking the sonorous body; from
the constitution of the elastic medium,
or its being disturbed by other motions;
and from the constitution of the ear itself,
upon which the impression is made.
A flute, a violin, a hautboy, and a French
horn, may all sound the same tone, and be
easily distinguishable. Nay, if twenty
human voices sound the same note, and
with equal strength, there will still be some
difference. The same voice, while it re-
tains its proper distinctions, may yet be
varied many ways, by sickness or health,
youth or age, leanness or fatness, good or
bad humour. The same words spoken by
foreigners and natives—nay, by persons of
different provinces of the same nation—may
be distinguished.
Such an immense variety of sensations
of smell, taste, and sound, Surely was not
given us in vain. They are signs by which
we know and distinguish things without
us; and it was fit that the variety of the
signs should, in some degree, correspond
with the variety of the things signified by
them.
It seems to be by custom that we learn
to distinguish both the place of things, and
their nature, by means of their sound.
That such a noise is in the street, such
another in the room above me; that this
is a knock at my door, that a person walk-
ing up stairs—is probably learnt by expe-
rience. I remember, that once lying a-
bed, and having been put into a fright, I
heard my own heart beat; but I took it
to be one knocking at the door, and arose
and opened the door oftener than once,
before I discovered that the sound was in
my own breast. It is probable, that, pre-
vious to all experience, we should as little
know whether a sound came from the
right or left, from above or below, from
a great or a small distance, as we should
know whether it was the sound of a drum,
or a bell, or a cart. Nature is frugal in
her operations, and will not be at the ex-
pense of a particular instinct, to give us
that knowledge which experience will soon
produce, by means of a general principle of
human nature. º
For a little experience, by the constitu-
tion of human nature, ties together, not
only in our imagination, but in our belief,
those things which were in their nature un-
connected. When I hear a certain sound,
I conclude immediately, without reasoning,
that a coach passes by. There are no pre-
mises from which this conclusionisinferred
by any rules of logic. It is the effect of a
principle of our nature, common to us with
the brutes.
Although it is by hearing that we are
capable of the perceptions of harmony and
melody, and of all the charms of music,
yet it would seem that these require a
higher faculty, which we call a musical ear.
This seems to be in very different degrees,
in those who have the bare faculty of hear-
ing equally perfect; and, therefore, ought
not to be classed with the external senses,
but in a higher order.
Section II.
OF NATURAL LANGUAGE.
One of the noblest purposes of sound un-
doubtedly is language, without which man-
kind would hardly be able to attain any
degree of improvement above the brutes.
Language is commonly considered as purely
an invention of men, who by nature are
no less mute than the brutes; but, having
a superior degree of invention and reason,
have been able to contrive artificial signs
of their thoughts and purposes, and to es-
tablish them by common consent. But the
origin of language deserves to be more care-
fully inquired into, not only as this inquiry
may be of importance for the improvement
of language, but as it is related to the pre-
sent subject, and tends to lay open some
of the first principles of human nature. I
shall, therefore, offer some thoughts upon
this subject.
By language I understand all those signs
which mankind use in order to communi-
cate to others their thoughts and intentions,
their purposes and desires. And such
signs may be conceived to be of two kinds:
First, such as have no meaning but what
is affixed to them by compact or agreement
among those who use them—these are ar-
tificial signs; Secondly, such as, previous
to all compact or agreement, have a mean-
ing which every man understands by the
principles of his nature. Language, so far
as it consists of artificial signs, may be called,
artificial ; so far as it consists of natural
signs, I call it matural. .
Having premised these definitions, I
think it is demonstrable, that, if mankind
had not a natural language, they could
never have invented an artificial one by
their reason and ingenuity. For all arti-
ficial language supposes some compact or
agreement to affix a certain meaning to
j
ſ
H 18
of THE HUMAN MIND.
certain signs ; therefore, there must be
compacts or agreements before the use of
artificial signs; but there can be no com-
pact or agreement without signs, nor with-
out language ; and, therefore, there must
be a natural language before any artificial
language can be invented : which was to
be demonstrated.
Had language in general been a human
invention, as much as writing or printing,
we should find whole nations as mute as
the brutes. Indeed, even the brutes have
some natural signs by which they express
their own thoughts, affections, and desires,
and understand those of others. A chick,
as soon as hatched, understands the differ-
ent sounds whereby its dam calls it to food,
or gives the alarm of danger. A dog or a
horse understands, by nature, when the
human voice caresses, and when it threatens
him. But brutes, as far as we know, have
no notion of contracts or covenants, or of
moral obligation to perform them. If na-
ture had given them these notions, she
would probably have given them natural
signs to express them. And where nature
has denied these notions, it is as impossible
to acquire them by art, as it is for a blind
man to acquire the notion of colours. Some
brutes are sensible of honour or disgrace;
they have resentment and gratitude ; but
none of them, as far as we know, can make
a promise or plight their faith, having no
such notions from their constitution. And
if mankind had not these notions by nature,
and natural signs to express them by, with
all their wit and ingenuity they could never
have invented language.
The elements of this natural language
of mankind, or the signs that are maturally
expressive of our thoughts, may, I think,
be reduced to these three kinds: modula-
tions of the voice, gestures, and features.
By means of these, two savages who have
no common artificial language, can converse
together ; can communicate their thoughts
in some tolerable manner; can ask and
refuse, affirm and deny, threaten and sup-
plicate ; can traffic, enter into covenants,
and plight their faith. This might be con-
firmed by historical facts of undoubted
credit, if it were necessary.
Mankind having thus a common language
by nature, though a scanty one, adapted
only to the necessities of nature, there is
no great ingenuity required in improving
it by the addition of artificial signs, to
supply the deficiency of the natural. These
artificial signs must multiply with the arts
of life, and the improvements of knowledge.
The articulations of the voice seem to be,
of all signs, the most proper for artificial
language; and as mankind have universally
used them for that purpose, we may reason-
ably judge that nature intended them for it,
But nature probably does not intend that
we should lay aside the use of the natural
signs; it is enough that we supply their
defects by artificial ones. A man that rides
always in a chariot, by degrees loses the
use of his legs; and one who uses artificial
signs only, loses both the knowledge and
use of the natural. Dumb people retain
much more of the matural language than
others, because necessity obliges them to
use it. And for the same reason, savages
have much more of it than civilized nations.
It is by natural signs chiefly that we give
force and energy to language; and the less
language has of them, it is the less ex-
pressive and persuasive. Thus, writing is
less expressive than reading, and reading
less expressive than speaking without book;
speaking without the proper and natural
modulations, force, and variations of the
voice, is a frigid and dead language, com-
pared with that which is attended with
them ; it is still more expressive when we
add the language of the eyes and features;
and is then only in its perfect and natural
state, and attended with its proper energy,
when to all these we superadd the force of
action.
Where speech is natural, it will be an
exercise, not of the voice and lungs only,
but of all the muscles of the body; like
that of dumb people and savages, whose
language, as it has more of nature, is more
expressive, and is more easily learned.
Is it not pity that the refinements of a
civilized life, instead of supplying the de-
fects of natural language, should root it
out and plant in its stead dull and lifeless
articulations of unmeaning sounds, or the
Scrawling of insignificant characters ? The
perfection of language is commonly thought
to be, to express human thoughts and sen-
timents distinctly by these dull signs; but
if this is the perfection of artificiallanguage,
it is Surely the corruption of the natural.
Artificial signs signify, but they do not
express; they speak to the understanding,
as algebraical characters may do, but the
passions, the affections, and the will, hear
them not : these continue dormant and
inactive, till we speak to them in the lam-
guage of nature, to which they are all atten-
tion and obedience. e
It were easy to shew, that the fine arts
of the musician, the painter, the actor, aud
the orator, so far as they are expressive—
although the knowledge of them requires
in us a delicate taste, a nice judgment, and
much study and practice—yet they are
nothing else but the language of nature,
which we brought into the world with us,
but have unlearned by disuse, and so find
the greatest difficulty in recovering it.
Abolish the use of articulate sounds and
writing among mankind for a century,
OF TOUCH.
119
and every man would be a painter, an
actor, and an orator. We mean not to
affirm that such an expedient is practica-
ble; or, if it were, that the advantage
would counterbalance the loss; but that,
as men are led by nature and necessity to
converse together, they will use every mean
in their power to make themselves under-
stood; and where they cannot do this by
artificial signs, they will do it, as far as
possible, by natural ones: and he that
understands perfectly the use of natural
signs, must be the best judge in all the ex-
pressive arts.
CHAPTER V.
OF TOUCH.
Section I.
of HEAT AND cold.
THE Senses which we have hitherto con-
sidered, are very simple and uniform, each
of them exhibiting only one kind of sensa-
tion, and thereby indicating only one quality
of bodies. By the ear we perceive sounds,
and nothing else; by the palate, tastes;
and by the nose, odours. These qualities
are all likewise of one order, being all
secondary qualities; whereas, by touch we
perceive not one quality only, but many,
and those of very different kinds." The
chief of them are heat and cold, hardness
and softness, roughness and smoothness,
figure, solidity, motion, and extension.
We shall consider these in order.
As to heat and cold, it will easily be
allowed that they are secondary qualities,
of the same order with smell, taste, and
Sound. And, therefore, what hath been
already said of smell, is easily applicable to
them ; that is, that the words heat and cold
have each of them two significations; they
sometimes signify certain sensations of the
mind, which can have no existence when
when they are not felt, nor can exist any-
where but in a mind or sentient being ; but
more frequently they signify a quality in
bodies, which, by the laws of nature, occa-
sions the sensations of heat and cold in us—
a quality which, though connected by cus-
tom so closely with the sensation, that we
cannot, without difficulty, separate them,
yet hath not the least resemblance to it,
* It has been very commonly held, by philosophers,
both in ancient and modern times, that the division
of the senses into five, is altogether inadequate; and
psychologists, though not at one in regard to the dis-
tribution, are now generally agreed, that under Touch
—or Feeling, in the.strictest signification of the term
—are comprised perceptions which are, at least, as
well entitled to be opposed in species, as those of Taste
and Smell — H,
and may continue to exist when there is no
sensation at all.
The sensations of heat and cold are per-
fectly known ; for they neither are, nor can
be, anything else than what we feel them
to be ; but the qualities in bodies which we
call heat and cold, are unknown. They are
only conceived by us, as unknown causes or
occasions of the sensations to which we give
the same names. But, though common
Sense says nothing of the nature of these
qualities, it plainly dictates the existence of
them ; and to deny that there can be heat
and cold when they are not felt, is an ab-
Surdity too gross to merit confutation. For
what could be more absurd, than to say,
that the thermometer cannot rise or fall,
unless Some person be present, or that the
coast of Guinea would be as cold as Nova
Zembla, if it had no inhabitants 2
It is the business of philosophers to in-
vestigate, by proper experiments and in-
duction, what heat and cold are in bodies.
And whether they make heat a particular
element diffused through nature, and ac-
cumulated in the heated body, or whether
they make it a certain vibration of the
parts of the heated body; whether they de-
termine that heat and cold are contrary
qualities, as the sensations undoubtedly are
contrary, or that heat only is a quality,
and cold its privation: these questions are
within the province of philosophy; for com-
mon sense says nothing on the one side or
the other.
But, whatever be the nature of that
quality in bodies which we call heat, we
certainly know this, that it cannot in the
least resemble the sensation of heat. It is
no less absurd to suppose a likeness be-
tween the sensation and the quality, than
it would be to suppose that the pain of
the gout resembles a square or a triangle.
The simplest man that hath common sense,
does not imagine the sensation of heat, or
anything that resembles that sensation, to
be in the fire. He only imagines that
there is something in the fire which makes
him and other sentient beings feel heat.
Yet, as the name of heat, in common lan-
guage, more frequently and more properly
signifies this unknown something in the
fire, than the sensation occasioned by it,
he justly laughs at the philosopher who
denies that there is any heat in the fire,
and thinks that he speaks contrary to com-
IIlOll SCDSee
Section II.
Ol' HARD NESS AND SOFTNESS.
Let us next consider hardness and soft-
ness; by which words we always under-
120
of THE HUMAN MIND.
stand real properties or qualities of bodies
of which we have a distinct conception.
When the parts of a body adhere so firmly
that it cannot easily be made to change its
figure, we call it hard; when its parts are
easily displaced, we call it soft. This is the
notion which all mankind have of hardness
and softness; they are neither sensations,
nor like any sensation; they were real
qualities before they were perceived by
touch, and continue to be so when they are
not perceived; for if any man will affirm
that diamonds were not hard till they were
handled, who would reason with him P
There is, no doubt, a sensation by which
we perceive a body to be hard or soft. This
sensation of hardness may easily be had, by
pressing one's hand against the table, and
attending to the feeling that ensues, setting
aside, as much as possible, all thought of the
table and its qualities, or of any external
thing. But it is one thing to have the sens-
ation, and another to attend to it, and make
it a distinct object of reflection. The first
is very easy; the last, in most cases, ex-
tremely difficult.
We are so accustomed to use the sensa-
tion as a sign, and to passimmediately to the
hardness signified, that, as far as appears, it
was IIever made an object of thought, either
by the vulgar or by philosophers; nor has it a
namein any language. There is no sensation
more distinct, or more frequent ; yet it is
never attended to, but passes through the
mind instantaneously, and serves only to
introduce that quality in bodies, which, by a
law of our constitution, it suggests.
There are, indeed, some cases, wherein
it is no difficult matter to attend to the sens-
ation occasioned by the hardness of a body;
for instance, when it is so violent as to occa-
sion considerable pain : then nature calls
upon us to attend to it, and then we acknow-
ledge that it is a mere sensation, and can
only be in a sentient being. If a man runs
his head with violence against a pillar, I
appeal to him whether the pain he feels re-
sembles the hardness of the stone, or if he
can conceive anything like what he feels to
be in an inanimate piece of matter.
The attention of the mind is here entirely
turned towards the painful feeling; and, to
speak in the common language of mankind,
he feels nothing in the stone, but feels a
violent pain in his head. It is quite other-
wise when he leans his head gently against
the pillar; for then he will tell you that he
feels nothing in his head, but feels hardness
in the stone. Hath he not a sensation in
this case as well as in the other ? Un-
doubtedly he hath ; but it is a sensation
which nature intended only as a sign of
something in the stone; and, accordingly,
he instantly fixes his attention upon the
thing signified; and cannot, without great
difficulty, attend so much to the sensation
as to be persuaded that there is any such
thing distinct from the hardness it signifies.
But, however difficult it may be to attend
to this fugitive sensation, to stop its rapid
progress, and to disjoin it from the external
quality of hardness, in whose shadow it is
apt immediately to hide itself; this is what
a philosopher by pains and practice must
attain, otherwise it will be impossible for
him to reason justly upon this subject, or
even to understand what is here advanced.
For the last appeal, in subjects of this na-
ture, must be to what a man feels and per-
ceives in his own mind.
It is indeed strange that a sensation
which we have every time, we feel a body
hard, and which, consequently, we can com-
mand as often and continue as long as we
please, a sensation as distinct and determi-
nate as any other, should yet be so much
unknown as never to have been made an
object of thought and reflection, nor to
have been honoured with a name in any
language; that philosophers, as well as the
vulgar, should have entirely overlooked it,
or confounded it with that quality of bo-
dies which we call hardness, to which it
hath not the least similitude. May we not
hence conclude, that the knowledge of the
human faculties is but in its infancy 2–
that we have not yet learned to attend to
those operations of the mind, of which we
are conscious every hour of our lives 2–
that there are habits of inattention ac-
quired very early, which are as hard to be
Overcome as other habits P For I think it
is probable, that the novelty of this sensa-
tion will procure some attention to it in
children at first ; but, being in nowise inte-
resting in itself, as soon as it becomes
familiar, it is overlooked, and the attention
turned solely to that which it signifies.
Thus, when one is learning a language, he
attends to the sounds ; but when he is mas-
ter of it, he attends only to the sense of
what he would express. If this is the case,
we must become as little children again, if
We will be plilosophers; we must over-
come this habit of inattention which has
been gathering strength ever since we
began to think—a habit, the usefulness of
which, in common life, atones for the dif-
ficulty it creates to the philosopher in dis-
covering the first principles of the human
mind.
The firm cohesion of the parts of a body,
is no more like that sensation by which I
perceive it to be hard, than the vibration of
a Sonorous body is like the sound I hear :
nor can I possibly perceive, by my reason,
any connection between the one and the
other. No man can give a reason, why the
vibration of a body might not have given
the sensation of smelling, and the effluvia
OF TOUCH.
121
*
of bodies affected our hearing, if it had so
pleased our Maker. In like manner, no
man can give a reason why the sensations
of smell, or taste, or sound, might not have
indicated hardness, as well as that sensa- |
tion which, by our constitution, does indi- |
Indeed, no man can conceive any |
Sensation to resemble any known quality of |
cate it.
bodies. Nor can any man shew, by any
good argument, that all our sensations
might not have been as they are, though no
body, nor quality of body, had ever existed.
Here, then, is a phaenomenon of human
nature, which comes to be resolved. Hard-
ness of bodies is a thing that we conceive
as distinctly, and believe as firmly, as any-
thing in nature. We have no way of com-
ing at this conception and belief, but by
means of a certain sensation of touch, to
which hardness hath not the least simili-
tude ; nor can we, by any rules of rea-
Soning, infer the one from the other. The
question is, How we come by this conception
and belief ?
First, as to the conception : Shall we
call it an idea of sensation, or of reflection ?
The last will not be affirmed; and as little
can the first, unless we will call that an
idea of sensation which hath no resem-
blance to any sensation. So that the
origin of this idea of hardness, one of the
most common and most distinct we have,
is not to be found in all our systems of the
mind: not even in those which have so
copiously endeavoured to deduce all our
notions from sensation and reflection.
But, secondly, supposing we have got the
conception of hardness, how come we by
the belief of it 2 Is it self-evident, from
comparing the ideas, that such a sensation
could not be felt, unless such a quality of
bodies existed 2 No. Can it be proved by
probable or certain arguments 2 No; it
cannot. Have we got this belief, then, by
tradition, by education, or by experience 2
No ; it is not got in any of these ways.
Shall we then throw off this belief as hav-
ing no foundation in reason 2 Alas! it is
not in our power; it triumphs over reason,
and laughs at all the arguments of a philoso-
bher. Even the author of the “Treatise
of Human Nature,” though he saw no rea-
son for this belief, but many against it, could
hardly, conquer it in his speculative and
solitary moments; at other times, he fairly
yielded to it, and confesses that he found
himself under a necessity to do so.
What shall we say, then, of this concep-
tion, and this belief, which are so unac-
countable and untractable 2 I see nothing
left, but to conclude, that, by an original
principle of eur constitution, a certain sens-
ation of touch both suggests to the mind
the conception of hardness, and creates the
belief of it: or, in other words, that this sons-
ation is a natural sign of hardness. And
this I shall endeavour more fully to explain.
Section III.
OF NATURAL SIGNS.
As in artificial signs there is often
neither similitude between the sign and
thirig signified, nor any connection that
arises necessarily from the nature of the
things, so it is also in natural signs. The
word gold has no similitude to the substance
signified by it; nor is it in its own nature
more fit to signify this than any other sub-
stance ; yet, by habit and custom, it sug-
gests this and no other. In like manner,
a sensation of touch suggests hardness,
although it hath neither similitude to hard-
ness, nor, as far as we can perceive, any
necessary connection with it. The differ-
: ence betwixt these two signs lies only in
this—that, in the first, the suggestion is the
effect of habit and custom ; in the second,
it is not the effect of habit, but of the ori-
ginal constitution of our minds.
It appears evident from what hath been
said on the subject of language, that there
are natural signs as well as artificial ; and
particularly, that the thoughts, purposes,
and dispositions of the mind, have their
natural signs in the features of the face, the
modulation of the voice, and the motion
i and attitude of the body: that, without a
imatural knowledge of the connection between
these signs and the things signified by them,
language could never have been invented
and established among men: and, that the
; fine arts are all founded upon this connec-
| tion, which we may call the natural language
ºf mankind. It is now proper to observe,
that there are different orders of natural
signs, and to point out the different classes
into which they may be distinguished, that
we may more distinctly conceive the rela-
tion between our sensations and the things
they suggest, and what we mean by calling
sensations signs of external things.
The first class of natural signs compre-
hends those whose connection with the
thing signified is established by nature, but
discovered only by experience. The whole
of genuine philosophy consists in discover-
ing such connections, and reducing them
to general rules. The great Lord Verulam
had a perfect comprehension of this, when
he called it an interpretation of nature. No
man ever more distinctly understood or
happily expressed the nature and founda-
tion of the philosophic art. What is all we
know of mechanics, astronomy, and optics,
but connections established by nature, and
discovered by experience or observation,
and consequences deduced from them P
122
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
All the knowledge we have in agriculture,
gardening, chemistry, and medicine, is built
upon the same foundation. And if ever
our philosophy concerning the human mind
is carried so far as to deserve the name of
science, which ought never to be despaired
of, it must be by observing facts, reducing
them to general rules, and drawing just con-
clusions from them. What we commonly
call natural causes might, with more pro-
priety, be called natural signs, and what we
call effects, the things signified. The causes
have no proper efficiency or casuality, as far
as we know ; and all we can certainly affirm
is, that nature hath established a constant
conjunction between them and the things
called their effects; and hath given to man-
kind a disposition to observe those con-
nections, to confide in their continuance, and
to make use of them for the improvement
of our knowledge, and increase of our power.
A second class is that wherein the con-
nection between the sign and thing signi-
fied, is not only established by nature, but
discovered to us by a natural principle,
without reasoning or experience. Of this
kind are the natural signs of human
thoughts, purposes, and desires, which
have been already mentioned as the natural
language of mankind. An infant may be
put into a fright by an angry countenance,
and soothed again by smiles and blandish-
ments. A child that has a good musical
ear, may be put to sleep or to dance, may be
made merry or sorrowful, by the modula-
tion of musical sounds. The principles of
all the fine arts, and of what we call a fine
taste, may be resolved into connections of
this kind. A fine taste may be improved
by reasoning and experience ; but if the
first principles of it were not planted in our
minds by nature, it could never be ac-
quired. Nay, we have already made it
appear, that a great part of this knowledge
which we have by nature, is lost by the
disuse of natural signs, and the substitution
of artificial in their place.
A third class of natural signs compre-
hends those which, though we never before
had any notion or conception of the thing
signified, do suggest it, or conjure it up,
as it were, by a natural kind of magic, and
at Once give us a conception and create a
belief of it. I shewed formerly, that our
sensations suggest to us a sentient being or
mind to which they belong—a being which
hath a permanent existence, although the
sensations are transient and of short dura-
tion—a being which is still the same, while
its sensations and other operations are
varied ten thousand ways—a being which
hath the same relation to all that infinite
variety of thoughts, purposes, actions,
affections, enjoyments, and sufferings, which
we are conscious of, or can remember. The
conception of a nuind is neither an idea of
sensation nor of reflection ; for it is neither
like any of our sensations, nor like any-
thing we are conscious of The first con-
ception of it, as well as the belief of it, and
of the common relation it bears to all that we
are conscious of, or remember, is suggested to
every thinking being, we do not know how.
The notion of hardness in bodies, as well
as the belief of it, are got in a similar
manner; being, by an original principle of
our nature, annexed to that sensation
which we have when we feel a hard body.
And so naturally and necessarily does the
sensation convey the notion and belief of
hardness, that hitherto they have been
confounded by the most acute inquirers
into the principles of human nature, al-
though they appear, upon accurate reflec-
tion, not only to be different things, but as
unlike as pain is to the point of a sword.
It may be observed, that, as the first
class of natural signs I have mentioned is
the foundation of true philosophy, and the
second the foundation of the fine arts, or
of taste—so the last is the foundation of
common sense—a part of human nature
which hath never been explained."
I take it for granted, that the notion of
hardness, and the belief of it, is first got
by means of that particular sensation
which, as far back as we can remember,
does invariably suggest it; and that, if we
had never had such a feeling, we should
never have had any notion of hardness. I
think it is evident, that we cannot, by
reasoning from our sensations, collect the
existence of bodies at all, far less any of
their qualities. This hath been proved by
unanswerable arguments by the Bishop of
Cloyne, and by the author of the “Treatise
of Human Nature.” It appears as evi-
dent that this connection between our sens-
ations and the conception and belief of
external existences cannot be produced by
habit, experience, education, or any prin-
ciple of human nature that hath been
admitted by philosophers. At the same
time, it is a fact that such sensations are
invariably connected with the conception
and belief of external existences. Hence,
by all rules of just reasoning, we must con-
clude, that this connection is the effect of
our constitution, and ought to be considered
as an original principle of human nature,
till we find some more general principle
into which it may be resolved.--
* See Stewart's “Elements of the Philosophy
of the Human Mind.” Vol. II., chap. i., § 3, last
note.—H.
+ This whole doctrine of natural signs, on which his
philosophy is in a great measure established, was bor-
rowed by Reid, in principle, and even in expression,
from Berkeley. Compare “ Minute Philosopher, '
Dial. IV., §§ 7, 11, 12 ; “ New Theory of Vision,”
§§ 144, 147; “Theory of Vision Vindicated,” $$ 38
-- tax -
OF TOUCH.
123
Section I W.-
of HARDNESS, AND OTHER PRIMARY
QUALITIES.
Further, I observe that hardness is a
quality, of which we have as clear and
distinct a conception as of anything what-
soever. The cohesion of the parts of a
body with more or less force, is perfectly
understood, though its cause is not ; we
know what it is, as well as how it affects
the touch. It is, therefore, a quality of a
quite different order from those secondary
qualities we have already taken notice of,
whereof we know no more naturally than
that they are adapted to raise certain sens-
ations in us. If hardness were a quality
of the same kind, it would be a proper in-
quiry for philosophers, what hardness in
bodies is ? and we should have had various
hypotheses about it, as well as about co-
lour and heat. But it is evident that any
such hypothesis would be ridiculous. If
any man should say, that hardness in bo-
dies is a certain vibration of their parts, or
that it is certain effluvia emitted by them
which affect our touch in the manner we
feel—such hypotheses would shock com-
mon sense ; because we all know that, if
the parts of a body adhere strongly, it is
hard, although it should neither emit efflu-
via nor vibrate. Yet, at the same time,
no man can say, but that effluvia, or the
vibration of the parts of a body, might
have affected our touch, in the same man-
ner that hardness now does, if it had so
pleased the Author of our nature ; and, if
either of these hypotheses is applied to ex-
plain a secondary quality—such as Smell,
or taste, or sound, or colour, or heat—there
appears no manifest absurdity in the Sup-
position. -
The distinction betwixt primary and Se-
condary qualities hath had several revolu-
tions. Democritus and Epicurus, and their
followers, maintained it. Aristotle and the
Peripatetics abolished it. Des Cartes,
Malebranche, and Locke, revived it, and
were thought to have put it in a very clear
light. But Bishop Berkeley again dis-
carded this distinction, by such proofs as
must be convincing to those that hold
the received doctrine of ideas.” Yet,
after all, there appears to be a real found-
ation for it in the principles of our na-
ture.
What hath been said of hardness, is so
easily applicable, not only to its opposite,
softness, but likewise to roughness and
Smoothness, to figure and motion, that we
may be excused from making the applica-
tion, which would only be a repetition of
what hath been said. All these, by means
of certain corresponding sensations of touch,
are presented to the mind as real external
qualities; the conception and the belief of
them are invariably connected with the
corresponding sensations, by an original
principle of human nature. Their sensa-
tions have no name in any language; they
have not only been overlooked by the vul-
gar, but by philosophers; or, if they have
been at all taken notice of, they have been
confounded with the external qualities which
they suggest. r
Section V.
OF EXTENSION.
It is further to be observed, that hard-
mess and softness, roughness and Smooth-
ness, figure and motion, do all suppose ex-
tension, and cannot be conceived without
it ; yet, I think it must, on the other hand,
be allowed that, if we had never felt any
thing hard or soft, rough or smooth, figured
or moved, we should never have had a con-
ception of extension;* so that, as there is
good ground to believe that the notion of
extension could not be prior to that of other
primary qualities, so it is certain that it
could not be posterior to the notion of any
of them, being necessarily implied in them
all.--
Extension, therefore, seems to be a qua-
lity suggested to us, by the very same sens-
ations which suggest the other qualities
above mentioned. When I grasp a ball in
my hand, I perceive it at once hard,
figured, and extended. The feeling is very
simple, and hath not the least resemblance
to any quality of body. Yet it suggests to
us three primary qualities perfectly dis-
tinct from one another, as well as from the
Sensation which indicates them. When
I move my hand along the table, the feel-
ing is so simple that I find it difficult to
distinguish it into things of different na-
tures; yet, it immediatey suggests hardness,
Smoothness, extension, and motion—things
s On this distinction of Primary and Secondary
Oualities, see “Essays on the lutellectual Powers,”
2ssay II., chap. 17, and Notc D, at the end of
the volume.-H.
* According to Reid, Extension (Space) is a no-
tion a posteriori, the result of experience. Accord-
ing to Kant, it is a priori; experience only affording
the occasions required by the mind to exert the acts,
of which the intuition of space is a condition. To the
former it is thus a contingent: to the latter, a neces-
sary mental possession.—H.
# In this paragraph, to say nothing of others in
the “Inquiry,” Reid, evidently excludes sight as a
sense, through which the notion of extension or space,
cnters into the mind. In his later work, the “Es-
says on the Intellectual Powers,” he, however, ºx-
pressly allows that function to sight and touch, and
to those senses alone. See lºssay I l., chap, 19, p.
262, quarto ed ion, —H. _*
124
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
of very different natures, and all of them
as distinctly understood as the feeling which
suggests them.
We are commonly told by philosophers,
that we get the idea of extension by feeling
along the extremities of a body, as if there
was no manner of difficulty in the matter.
I have sought, with great pains, I confess,
to find out how this idea can be got by feel-
ing; but I have sought in vain. Yet it is
one of the clearest and most distinct notions
we have; nor is there anything whatsoever
about which the human understanding can
carry on so many long and demonstrative
trains of reasoning."
The notion of extension is so familiar
to us from infancy, and so constantly ob-
truded by everything we see and feel, that
we are apt to think it obvious how it comes
into the mind ; but upon a narrower ex-
amination we shall find it utterly inexpli-
cable. It is true we have feelings of touch,
which every moment present extension
to the mind ; but how they come to do
so, is the question ; for those feelings do
no more resemble extension, than they re-
semble justice or courage—nor can the
existence of extended things be inferred
from those feelings by any rules of reason.
ing; so that the feelings we have by touch,
can neither explain how we get the notion,
nor how we come by the belief of extended
things.
What hath imposed upon philosophers
in this matter is, that the feelings of touch,
which suggest primary qualities, have no
names, nor are they ever reflected upon.
They pass through the mind instantane-
ously, and serve only to introduce the no-
tion and belief of external things, which,
by our constitution, are connected with
them. They are natural signs, and the
mind immediately passes to the thing Sig-
mified, without making the least reflection
upon the sign, or observing that there was |
any such thing. Hence it hath always been
taken for granted, that the ideas of exten-
sion, figure, and motion, are ideas of sensa-
tion, which enter into the mind by the sense
of touch, in the same manner as the Sensa-
tions of sound and smell do by the ear and
nose. The sensations of touch are so con-
nected, by our constitution, with the notions
of extension, figure, and motion, that phi-
losophers have mistaken the one for the
* All the attempts that have, subsequently to
Rei'i, been made, to analyse the notion of Space into
the experience of sense, have failed, equally as those
before.him.—H. *
# It has not “always been taken for granted, that the
ideas of Extension, Figure, and Motion, are ideas of
sensation.” Even a distinguished predecessor of Reid,
in his Chair at Glasgow, denied this doctrine of the
sensual school, to which he generally adhered. I would
not Uesupposed to suspect Reid of the slightest disin-
genuousness, but he has certainly here and elsewhere
been anticipated by Hutcheson, in some of the most
important principles, no less than in sofme of the
weaker positions of his philosophy. I-quote, without
retrenchment, the following note from Hutcheson's
'' 1.58ay on the Passions,” though only part of it is .
strictly relative to the assertion in the text:—“lt is
not easy to divide distinctly our several sensations
into classes. The division of our External Senses into
the five common classes, seems very imperfect. Some
sonsations, received without any previous idea, can
either be reduced to none of them—such as the sens-
ations of Hunger, Thirst, Weariness, Sickness; or
if we reduce them to the sense of Feeling, they are
perceptions as different from the other ideas of Touch
—such as Cold, Heat, Hardness, Softness—as the ideas
of taste or smell. Others have hinted at an external
sense, different from all of these.” [This allusion has
puzzled our Scottish psychologists." Hutcheson evi-
dently refers to the sixth sense, or sense of venereal tit-
illation, proposed by the elder Scaliger, and approved
of by Bacon, Buffon, Voltaire, &c.] “The following
general account may possibly be useful. (19)—That
certain motions raised in our bodies are, by a general
law, constituted the occasi n of perceptions fºr the
mind. (29) These perceptions never come entirely
alone, but have some other perception joined with
them. Thus every sensation is accompanied with
the falea of Duration, and yet duration is not a.sens-
able idea, since it also accompanies ideas of inter-
nal consciousness or reflection : so the idea of
Number may accompany any sensible ideas, and yet
may also accompany any other ideas, as well as exter-
mal sensations. Brutes, when several objects are
before them, have probably all the proper ideas of
sight which we have, without the idea of number.
(39) Some ideas are found accompanying the most
different sensations, which yet are not to be perceived
Sºparately from some.sensible quality. Such are Ex-
tension, Figure, Motion, and Rest, which accompany
the ideas of Sight or Colours, and yet may be per-
ceived without them, as in the ideas of Touch, at lea.t
if we move our organs along the parts of the body
touched. Extension, Figure, Motion, or Rest, seem
therefore to be more properly called ideas accom-
panying the sensations of Sight and Touch, than the
sensations of either of these senses ; , since they
can be received sometimes without the ideas of
Colour, and sometimes without those of Touching,
though never without the one or the other. The
perceptions which are purely sensible, received each
by its proper sense, are Tastes, Smells, Colours,
Sound, Cold, Heat, &c. The universal concomitant
idcas which may attend any idea whatsoever, are
Duration and Number. The ideas which accompany
the most different sensations, are Extension, Figure,
Motion, and Rest. These all arise without an-gy pre-
vious ideas assembled or compared—the concomitant
ideas are reputed images of something caternal ’’—
Sect I., Art. l. The reader may likewise consult the
same author's “Synopsis Metaphysicae,” Part. l I.,
cap. i., § 3
But here I may observe, in the first place, that the
statement made in the preceding quotation, (and still
more articulately in the “Synopsis,”) that Duration
or Time is the inseparable concomitant both of sense
and reflection, had been also made by Aristotle and
many other philosophers; and it is indeed curious
how lºng philosophers were on the verge of enun-
ciating the great doctrine first proclaimed by Kant
—that 'Time is a fundamental conditioni, torm, or
category of thought. In the second place, I may no-
tice that Hutcheson is not entitled to the praise
accorded him by Stewart and Royer Collard for his ori-
ginality in “the-fine and important observation that
Eartension, Figure, Motton, and Rest, are rather
ideas accompanying the perceptions of touch and
vision, than perceptions of these senscs, pro;erly so
called.” In this, he seems only to have, with others,
repeated Aristotle, who, in his treatise on the
Soul, (Book II., Ch. 6, Text 64, and Book III. Ch.
l, Text 135,) calis Motion and Rest, Magºttrede, (Ex-
tension,) Figure, and Number, (Hutcheson's very
list,) the comºtion concomitants (&zoxovſisyrcz zczi
29ty&) of sight and touch, and expressly denies
them to be impressions of scnse—the sense having
no passive affection from these qualities. To these
five common concomitants, some of the schoolmen
added, also, (but out of Arist otle,) Placc, Distaract',
I’osition, aniu Contin it ify. — 1 J.
OF TOUCH.
125
other, and never have been able to discern
that they were not only distinct things, but
altogether unlike. However, if we will
reason distinctly upon this subject, we ought
to give names to those feelings of touch ;
We must accustom ourselves to attend to
them, and to reflect upon them, that we
may be able to disjoin them from, and to
compare them with, the qualities signified
or suggested by them.
The habit of doing this is not to be at-
tained without pains and practice; and till |
a man hath acquired this habit, it will be
impossible for him to think distinctly, or to
judge right, upon this subject.
Let a man press his hand against the
table—he feels it hard. But what is the mean-
ing of this?—The meaning undoubtedly
is, that he hath a certain feeling of touch,
from which he concludes, without any rea-
soning, or comparing ideas, that there is
Something external really existing, whose
parts stick so firmly together, that they can-
not be displaced without considerable force.
There is here a feeling, and a conclu-
sion drawn from it, or some way suggested
by it. In order to compare these, we
must view them separately, and then con-
sider by what tie they are connected, and
wherein they resemble one another. The
hardness of the table is the conclusion, the
feeling is the medium by which we are led
to that conclusion. Let a man attend dis-
tinctly to this medium, and to the conclu-
sion, and he will perceive them to be as
unlike as any two things in nature. The
one is a sensation of the mind, which can
have no existence but in a sentient being:
nor can it exist one moment longer than it
is felt ; the other is in the table, and we
conclude, without any difficulty, that it was
in the table before it was felt, and continues
after the feeling is over. The one implies
Ilo kind of extension, nor parts, nor cohe-
sion ; the other implies all these. Both,
indeed, admit of degrees, and the feeling,
beyond a certain degree, is a species of
pain ; but adamantine hardness does not
imply the least pain.
And as the feeling hath no similitude to
hardness, so neither can our reason per-
ceive the least tie or connection between
them ; nor will the logician ever be able to
shew a reason why we should conclude
hardness from this feeling, rather than soft-
ness, or any other quality whatsoever. But,
in reality, all mankind are led by their con-
stitution to conclude hardness from this
feeling.
The sensation of heat, and the Sensation
we have by pressing a hard body, are equally
feelings; nor can we, by reasoning, draw
any conclusion from the one but what may
be drawn from the other : but, by our con-
stitution, we conclude from the first an ob-
scure or occult quality, of which we have
only this relative conception, that it is
Something adapted to raise in us the sensa-
tion of heat ; from the second, we conclude
a quality of which we have a clear and dis-
tinct conception—to wit, the hardness of the
body.
Section. VI.
OF EXTENSION.
To put this matter in another light, it
may be proper to try, whether from sensa-
tion alone we can collect any notion of ex-
tension, figure, motion, and space.* I take
it for granted, that a blind man hath the
Same notions of extension, figure, and mo-
tion, as a man that sees ; that Dr Saunder-
son had the same notion of a come, a cylin-
der, and a sphere, and of the motions and
distances of the heavenly bodies, as Sir Isaac
Newton.--
As sight, therefore, is not necessary for
our acquiring those notions, we shall leave
it out altogether in our inquiry into the
first origin of them; and shall suppose a
blind man, by some strange distemper, to
have lost all the experience, and habits,
and notions he had got by touch ; not to
have the least conception of the existence,
figure, dimensions, or extension, either of
his own body, or of any other; but to have
all his knowledge of external things to ac-
quire anew, by means of sensation, and the
power of reason, which we suppose to re-
main entire.
We shall, first, suppose his body fixed
immovably in one place, and that he can
only have the feelings of touch, by the
application of other bodies to it. Suppose
him first to be pricked with a pin–this
will, no doubt, give a smart sensation : he
feels pain; but what can he infer from it?
Nothing, Surely, with regard to the existence
or figure of a pin. He can infer nothing
from this species of pain, which he may not
as well infer from the gout or sciatica.
Common sense may lead him to think that
this pain has a cause; but whether this
cause is body or spirit, extended or unex-
tended, figured or not figured, he cannot
possibly, from any principles he is supposed
to have, form the least conjecture. Hav-
ing had formerly no notion of body or of
extension, the prick of a pin can give him
Il OD10.
Suppose, next, a body not pointed, but
* Why are Extension and Space distinguished as
co-ordinate, and thus oddly sundered ?–H.
+ The observations of Platner, on a-person born
blind, would prove, however, that sight, not touch, is
the sense by which we principally obtain our know-
ledge of Figure, and our empirical knowledge of
Space. Saunderson, at any rate, was not born blind.
126
OF THE HUMAN MINI).
blunt, is applied to his body with a force
gradually increased until it bruises him.
What has he got by this, but another sens-
ation or train of sensations, from which
he is able to conclude as little as from the
former ? A scirrhous tumour in any in-
ward part of the body, by pressing upon
the adjacent parts, may give the same kind
of sensation as the pressure of an external
body, without conveying any notion but
that of pain, which, surely, hath no resem-
blance to extension.
Suppose, thirdly, that the body applied
to him touches a larger or a lesser part of
his body. Can this give him any notion
of its extension or dimensions 2 To me it
seems impossible that it should, unless he
had some previous notion of the dimen-
sions and figure of his own body, to serve
him as a measure.” When my two hands
touch the extremities of a body, if I know
them to be a foot asunder, I easily col-
lect that the body is a foot long ; and, if I-
know them to be five feet asunder, that it
is five feet long; but, if I know not what
the distance of my hands is, I cannot know
the length of the object they grasp ; and,
if I have no previous motion of hands at
all, or of distance between them, I can
never get that notion by their being touched.
Suppose, again, that a body is drawn
along his hands or face, while they are at
rest. Can this give him any notion of
space or motion ? It no doubt gives a new
feeling ; but how it should convey a motion
of space or motion to one who had none
before, I cannot conceive. The blood moves
along the arteries andveins, and this motion,
when violent, is felt: but I imagine no man,
by this feeling, could get the conception of
space or motion, if he had it not before.
Such a motion may give a certain succes-
sion of feelings, as the colic may do ; but no
feelings, nor any combination of feelings,
can ever resemble space or motion.
Let us next suppose, that he makes some
instinctive effort to move his head or his
hand; but that no motion follows, either
on account of external resistance, or of
palsy. Can this effort convey the notion
of space and motion to one who never had it
before ? Surely it cannot.
Tlast of all, let us suppose that he moves
a limb by instinct, without having had any
previous notion of space or motion. He
has here a new sensation, which accom-
panies the flexure of joints, and the swelling
of muscles. But how this sensation can
convey into his mind the idea of space and
motion, is still altogether mysterious and
unintelligible. The motions of the heart
and lungs are all performed by the con-
traction of muscles, yet give no conception
of space or motion. An embryo in the
womb has many such motions, and probably
the feelings that accompany them, without
any idea of space or motion.
Upon the whole, it appears that our
philosophers have imposed upon themselves
and upon us, in pretending to deduce from
sensation the first origin of our motions of
external existences, of space, motion, and
extension," and all the primary qualities of
body—that is, the qualities whereof we
have the most clear and distinct conception.
These qualities do not at all tally with any
system of the human faculties that hath
been advanced. They have no resemblance
to any Sensation, or to any operation of our
minds ; and, therefore, they cannot be
ideas either of sensation or of reflection.
The very conception of them is irreconcil-
able to the principles of all our philosophic
systems of the understanding. The belief
of them is no less so.
Section. WII.
OF THE EXISTENCE OF A MATERIAL WORLD.
It is beyond our power to say when, or
in what order, we came by our motions of
these qualities. When we trace the opera-
tions of our minds as far back as memory
and reflection can carry us, we find them
already in possession of our imagination and
belief, and quite familiar to the mind : but
how they came first into its acquaintance,
or what has given them so strong a hold of
our belief, and what regard they deserve,
are, no doubt, very important questions in
the philosophy of human nature.
Shall we, with the Bishop of Cloyne,
serve them with a quo warranto, and have
them tried at the bar of philosophy, upon
the statute of the ideal system 2 Indeed,
in this trial they seem to have come off
very pitifully ; for, although they had very
able counsel, learned in the law—viz., Des
Cartes, Malebranche, and Locke, who said
everything they could for their clients—the
* Nay, the recent observations of Weber establish
the curious fact, that the same extent will not appear
the same to the touch at different parts of the body.
*
º
* That the notion of Space is a necessary condition
of thought, and that, as such, it is impossible to de-
rive it from experience, has been cogently demon-
strated by Kant. But that we may not, through
Sense, have empirically an immediate perception of
something ertended, I have yet seen no valid reason
to doubt. Thera priori Conception does not exclude
thea posteriori Perception ; and this latter cannot be
rejected without belying the evidence of consciousness,
which assures us that we are immediately cognizaut,
not only of a Self but of a Not-Self, not only of mind
but of matter : and matter cannot be immediately
known—that is, known as existing—except as 'some-
thing extended. In this, however, I venture a step
beyond Reid and Stewart, no less than beyond Kant ;
though I am convinced that the philosophy of the
two former tended to . this conclusion, which is, in
fact, that of the common sense of mankind.—H.
OF TOUCH.
127
Bishop of Cloyne, believing them to be
aiders and abetters of heresy and Schism,
prosecuted them with great vigour, fully
answered all that had been pleaded in their
defence, and silenced their ablest advocates,
who seem, for half a century past, to decline
the argument, and to trust to the favour of
the jury rather than to the strength of
their pleadings.
Thus, the wisdom of philosophy is set in
opposition to the common sense of mankind.
The first pretends to demonstrate, a priori,
that there can be no such thing as a mate-
rial world; that sun, moon, stars, and earth,
vegetable and animal bodies, are, and can
be nothing else, but sensations in the mind,
or images of those sensations in the memory
and imagination; that, like pain and joy,
they can have no existence when they are
not thought of. The last can conceive no
otherwise of this opinion, than as a kind of
metaphysical lunacy, and concludes that too
much learning is apt to make men mad;
and that the man who seriously entertains
thisbelief, though in other respects he maybe
a very good nuan, as a man may be who be-
lieves that he is made of glass; yet, Surely
he hath a soft place in his understanding,
and hath been hurt by much thinking.
This opposition betwixt philosophy and
common sense, is apt to have a very un-
happy influence upon the philosopher him-
self. He sees human nature in an odd,
unamiable, and mortifying light. He con-
'siders himself, and the rest of his species,
as born under a necessity of believing ten
thousand absurdities and contradictions,
and endowed with such a pittance of reason
as is just sufficient to make this unhappy
discovery: and this is all the fruit of his
profound speculations. Such notions of
human nature tend to slacken every nerve of
the Soul, to put every noble purpose and seri-
timent out of countenance, and spread a me-
lancholy gloom over the whole face of things.
If this is wisdom, let me be deluded with
the vulgar. I find something within me
that recoils against it, and inspires more
reverent sentiments of the numan kind, and
of the universal administration. Common
Sense and Reason* have both one author;
that Almighty Author in all whose other
works we observe a consistency, uniformity,
and beauty which charm and delight the
understanding: there must, therefore, be
some order and consistency in the human
faculties, as well as in other parts of his
workmanship. A man that thinks rever-
ently of his own kind, and esteems true
wisdom and philosophy, will not be fond,
nay, will be very suspicious, of such strange
* The reader will again notice this and the other
instances which follow, of the inaccuracy of Reid’s
language in his earlier work, constituting, as differ-
ent, Røason and Common Sensc.—H.
and paradoxical opinions. If they are false,
they disgrace philosophy; and, if they are
true, they degrade the human species, and
make us justly ashamed of our frame.
To what purpose is it for philosophy to
decide against common sense in this or any
other matter P The belief of a material
world is older, and of more authority, than
any principles of philosophy. It declines the
tribunal of reason," and laughs at all the
artillery of the logician. It retains its
Sovereign authority in spite of all the edicts
of philosophy, and reason itself must stoop
to its orders. Even those philosophers who
have disowned the authority of our notions
of an external material world, confess that
they find themselves under a necessity of
submitting to their power.
Methinks, therefore, it were better to
make a virtue of necessity; and, since we
cannot get rid of the vulgar notion and be-
lief of an external world, to reconcile our
reason to it as well as we can ; for, if Rea-
Son" should stomach and fret ever so much
at this yoke, she cannot throw it off; if she
will not be the servant of Common Sense,
she must be her slave.
In order, therefore, to reconcile Reason
to Common Sense" in this matter, I beg
leave to offer to the consideration of philo-
Sophers these two observations. First,
That, in all this debate about the existence
of a material world, it hath been taken for
granted on both sides, that this same
material world, if any such there be, must
be the express image of our sensations ;
that we can have no conception of any
material thing which is not like some sens-
ation in our minds; and particularly that
the sensations of touch are images of exten-
Sion, hardness, figure, and motion. Every
argument brought against the existence of
a material world, either by the Bishop of
Cloyne, or by the author of the “Treatise
of Human Nature,” supposeth this. If
this is true, their arguments are conclusive
and unanswerable ; but, on the other hand,
if it is not true, there is no shadow of argu-
ment left. Have those philosophers, then,
given any solid proof of this hypothesis,
upon which the whole weight of so strange
a system rests. No. They have not so
much as attempted to do it. But, because
ancient and modern philosophers have
agreed in this opinion, they have taken it
for granted. But let us, as becomes
philosophers, lay aside authority ; we
need not, surely, consult Aristotle or
Locke, to know whether pain be like
the point of a sword. I have as clear a
conception of extension, hardness, and
motion, as I have of the point of a sword;
and, with some pains and practice, I can
form as clear a notion of the other sensa-
* See last note.-H.
128
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
tions of touch as I have of pain. When I
do so, and compare them together, it ap-
pears to me clear as daylight, that the for-
mer are not of kinto the latter, nor resemble
them in any one feature. They are as
unlike, yea as certainly and manifestly un-
like, as pain is to the point of a sword. . It
may be true, that those sensations first
introduced the material world to our ac-
quaintance; it may be true, that it seldom
or never appears without their company;
but, for all that, they are as unlike as the
passion of anger is to those features of the
countenance which attend it.
So that, in the sentence those philoso-
phers have passed against the material
world, there is an error personae. Their
proof touches not matter, or any of its qua-
lities; but strikes directly against an idol
of their own imagination, a material world
made of ideas and sensations, which never
had, nor can have an existence.
Secondly, The very existence of our con-
ceptions of extension, figure, and motion,
since they are neither ideas of sensation nor
reflection, overturns the whole ideal system,
by which the material world hath been tried
and condemned ;* so that there hath been
likewise in this sentence an error juris.
It is a very fine and a just observation of
Locke, that, as no human art can create a
single particle of matter, and the whole ex-
tent of our power over the material world
consists in compounding, combining, and
disjoining the matter made to our hands;
so, in the world of thought, the materials
are all made by nature, and can only be
variously combined and disjoined by us.
So that it is impossible for reason or preju-
dice, true or false philosophy, to produce
one simple notion or conception, which is
not the work of nature, and the result of
our constitution. The conception of exten-
sion, motion, and the other attributes of
matter, cannot be the effect of error or pre-
judice ; it must be the work of nature.
And the power or faculty by which we
acquire those conceptions, must be some-
thing different from any power of the hu-
man mind that hath been explained, since
it is neither sensation nor reflection.
This I would, therefore, humbly propose,
as an ea perimentum crucis, by which the
ideal system must stand or fall; and it
brings the matter to a short issue: Exten-
Sion, figure, motion, may, any one, or all
of them, be taken for the subject of this
experiment. Either they are ideas of sens-
ation, or they are not. If any one of
them can be shewn to be an idea of sensa-
tion, or to have the least resemblance to
any sensation, I lay my hand upon my
mouth, and give up all pretence to recon-
cile reason to common sense in this matter,
and must suffer the ideal scepticism to
triumph. But if, on the other hand, they
are not ideas of sensation, nor like to any
sensation, then the ideal system is a rope
of sand, and all the laboured arguments of
the sceptical philosophy against a material
world, and against the existence of every
thing but impressions and ideas, proceed
upon a false hypothesis."
* It only overturns that Idealism founded on the
clumsy hypothesis of ideas being something different,
both, from the reality they represent, and from the
mind contemplating their representation, and which,
also, derives all such ideas from without. This doc.
trine may subvert the laealism of Berkeley, but it
even, supplies a basis for an Idealism like that of
Fichte. See the following note.-H.
* Nothing is easier than to shew, that, so far from
refuting Idealism, this doctrine affords it the best of
all possible foundations. If Idealism, indeed, supposed
the existence of ideas as tertia quaedam, distinct at
once from the material object and the immaterial
subject, these intermediate entities being likewise
held to originate immediately or mediately in sense—
if this hypothesis, I say, were requisite, to Idealism,
then would Reid’s criticism of that doctrine be a com-
plete and final confutation. But as this criticism
did not contemplate, so it does not confute that sim-
pler and more refined Idealism, which views.in ideas
only modifications of the mind itself; and which, in
place of sensualizing intellect, intellectualizes sense.
On the contrary, Heid, (and herein he is followed by
Mr Stewart,) in the doctrine now maintained, asserts
the very positions on which this scheme of Idealism
establishes its conclusions. An Egoistical Idealism is
established, on the doctrine, that all our knowledge
is merely subjective, or of the mind itself; that the
Ego has no immediate cognizance of a Non-Ego as
existing, but that the Non-Ego is only represented to
us in a modification of the self-conscious Ego. This
doctrine being admitted, the Idealist has only to shew
that the supposition of a Non-Ego, or external world
really existent, is a groundless and unnecessary
assumption; for, while the law of parcimony "pro-
hibits the multiplication of substances.or causes be-
yond what the phaenomena require, we have mani-
festly no right to postulate for the Non-Ego the dig-
nity of an independent substance beyond the Ego,
seeing that this Non-Ego is, ea hypothesi, known to
us, consequently exists for us, only as a phanomenon
of the Ego.—Now, the doctrinc of our Scottish philo-
Sophers is, in "act, the very groundwork on which
the Egoistical Idealism reposes. That doctrine not
only maintains our sensations of the secondary qua-
lities to be the mere effects of certain unknown
causes, of which we are consequently entitled to
affirm nothing, but that we have no direct and imme-
diate perception of extension and the other primary
qualities of matter. To limit ourselves to extension,
(or space,) which figure and motion (the two other
qualities proposed by Reid for the experiment) sup-
pose, it is evident that if extension be not immediately
perceived as externally existing, extended objects
cannot be immediately perceived as realities out,
and independent, of the percipient subject; for, if we
were capable of sučh a perception of such objects, we
should necessarily be also capable of a perception of
this, the one essential attribute of their existence.
But, on the doctrine ºf our Scottish philosophers,
Extension is a notion.suggested on occasion of sens-
ations supposed to bedctermined by certain unknown
causes ; which unknown causes are again supposed
to be existences independent of the mind, and ex-
tended—their complement, in fact, constituting the
external world. All our knowledge of the Non-Ego
is thus merely ideal and mediate; we have no
knowledge of any really objective reality, except
through a subjective representation, or notion ; in
other words, we are only immediately cognizant of
certain modes of our own minds, and, in and through
them, mediately warned of the phaenomena of the
material universe. In all essential respects, this doc-
trine of Reid and Stewart is identical with Kant's ;
except that the German philosopher, in holding space
OF TOUCH.
129
If our philosophy concerning the mind
be so lame with regard to the origin of our
motions of the clearest, most simple, and
most familiar objects of thought, and the
powers from which they are derived, can
we expect that it should be more perfect in
the account it gives of the origin of our
opinions and belief ? We have seen already
Some instances of its imperfection in this
respect: and, perhaps, that same nature
which hath given us the power to conceive
things altogether unlike to any of our sens-
ations, or to any operation of our minds,
hath likewise provided for our belief of
them, by some part of our constitution
hitherto not explained.
Bishop Berkeley hath proved, beyond
the possibility of reply, that we cannot by
reasoning infer the existence of matter from
our sensations; and the author of the
“Treatise of Human Nature” hath proved
no less clearly, that we cannot by reasoning
infer the existence of our own or other
minds from our sensations. But are we to
admit nothing but what can be proved by
reasoning 2 Then we must be sceptics in-
deed, and believe nothing at all. The
author of the “Treatise of Human Na-
ture” appears to me to be but a half-sceptic.
He hath not followed his principles so far as
they lead him ; but, after having, with un-
paralleled intrepidity and success, combated
vulgar prejudices, when he had but one
blow to strike, his courage fails him, he
fairly lays down his arms, and yields him-
self a captive to the most common of all
vulgar prejudices—I mean the belief of the
existence of his own impressions and ideas.”
I beg, therefore, to have the honour of
making an addition to the sceptical system,
without which I conceive it cannot hang
together. I affirm, that the belief of the
existence of impressions and ideas, is as lit-
tle Supported by reason, as that of the exist-
ence of minds and bodies. No man ever
did or could offer any reason for this belief.
to be a necessary form of our conceptions of external
things, prudently declined asserting that these un-
known things are, fºr themselves, extended.
Now, the doctrine of Kant has been rigorously
proved by Jacobi and Fichte to be, in its legitimate
issue, a doctrine of absolute Idealism; and the de-
monstrations which the philosopher of Koenigsberg
has given of the existence of an external world, have
been long admitted, even by his disciples themselves,
to be inconclusive. But our Scottish philosophers
appeal to an argument which the German philoso-
pher overtly rejected—the argument, as it is called,
from common sense. In their hands, however, this
argument is unavailing; for, if it be good against the
conclusions of the Idealist, it is good against the pre-
mises which they afford him. The common sense of
mankind only assures us of the existence of an ex-
ternal and extended world, in assuring us that we
are conscious, not merely of the phaenomena of mind
in relation to matter, but of the phaenomena of mat-
ter in relation to mind—in other words, that we are
immediately percipient of extended things.
Reid himself seems to have become obscurely aware
of this condition ; and, though he never retracted his
doctrine concerning the mere suggestion of eartems?,72,
we find, in his “ Essays on the Intellectual Powers,”
assertions in regard to the immediate perception of
external things, which would tend to shew that
his later views were more in unison with the ne-
cessary convictions of mankind. But of this again.
* . There is in this and the two following para-
graphs a confusion and inaccuracy which it is re-
quisite to notice.—There is no scepticism possible
touching the facts of consciousness in themselves.
We cannot doubt that the phaenomena of conscious-
ness are real, in so far as we are conscious of them.
I cannot doubt, for example, that I am actually
conscious of a certain feeling of fragrance, and of
Certain perceptions of colour, figure, &c. when I see
and smell a rose. Of the reality of these, as expe-
rienced, I cannot doubt, because they are facts of
consciousness; and of consciousness I cannot doubt,
because such doubt being itself an act of conscious.
ness, would contradict, and, consequently, annihi-
late itself. But of all beyond the mere phaenomena
of which we are conscious, we may—without fear of
self-contradiction at least—doubt. I may, for in-
stance, doubt whether the rose I see and Smell has
any existence beyond a phanomenal existence in
my consciousness. I cannot doubt that I am con-
Scious of it as something different from self, but whe-
ther it have, indeed, any reality beyond my mind—
whether the not-self be not in truth only self—that
I may philosophically question. In like manner, I
am conscious of the memory of a certain past event.
Of the contents of this memory, as a phaenomenon
given in consciousness, scepticism is impossible. But
I may by possibility demur to the reality of all be-
yond these contents and the sphere of present con-
SC10UlSI, CSS.
In Reid's strictures upon Hume, he confounds
two opposite things. . He reproaches that philosopher
with inconsequence, in holding to “ the belief of the
existence of his own impressions and ideas.” Now,
if, by the easistence of impressions and faeas, Reid
meant their existence as mere phaenomena of con-
Sciousness, his criticism is inept; for a disbelief of
their existence, as such phanomena, would have
been a suicidal act in the sceptic. If, again, he
meant by impressions and ideas the hypothesis of
representative entities different from the mind and
its modifieations; in that case the objection is
equally invalid. Hume was a sceptic; that is, he
accep'ed the premises afforded him by the dogmatist,
and carried these premises to their legitimate con-
sequences. To blame Hume, therefore, for not having
doubted of his borrowed principles, is to blame the
sceptic for not performing a part altogether incon-
sistent with his vocation. . But, in point of fact,
the hypothesis of such entities is of no value to the
idealist or sceptic. Impressions and ideas, viewed as
mental modes, would have answered Hume's pur-
pose not a whit worse than impressions and ideas
viewed as objects, but not as affections of mind.
The most consistent scheme of idealism known in
the history of philosophy is that of Fichte ; and
Fichte's idealism is founded on a basis which ex-
cludes that crude hypothesis of ideas on which alone
Reid imagined any doctrine of Idealism could pos-
sibly be established. And is the acknowledged result
of the Fichtean dogmatism less a nihilism than the
scepticism of Hume? “ The sum total,” says Fichte,
“is this :—There is absolutely nothing permanent
either without me or within me, but only an un-
ceasing change. I know absolutely nothing of any
cxistence, not even of my own. I myself know
nothing, and am nothing. Images (Bilder) there
are : they constitute, all that apparently exists, and
what they know of themselves is after the manner
of images; images that pass and vanish without
there being aught to witness their transition; that
consist in fact of the images of images, withouf sig-
nificance and without an aim. I myself am one of
these images; nay, I am not even thus much, but
only a confused image of images. All reality is con-
verted into a marvellous dream, without a life to
dream of, and without a mind to dream; into a
dream made up only of a dream of itself. Percep-
tion is a dream; thought—the source of all the ex-
istence and all the reality which I imagine to myself
of my existence, of my power, of my destination—
is the dream of that dream.”—H
HQ
..] 30
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
Des Cartes took it for granted, that he
thought, and had sensations and ideas; so
have all his followers done. Even the hero
of scepticism hath yielded this point, I crave
leave to say, weakly and imprudently. I
say so, because I am persuaded that there
is no principle of his philosophy that obliged
him to make this concession. And what is
there in impressions and ideas so formid-
able, that this all-conquering philosophy,
after triumphing over every other existence,
should pay homage to them 2 Besides, the
concession is dangerous: for belief is of
such a nature, that, if you leave any root,
it will spread; and you may more easily
pull it up altogether, than say, Hitherto
shalt thou go and no further: the existence
of impressions and ideas"I give up to thee;
but see thou pretend to nothing more. A
thorough and consistent sceptic will never,
therefore, yield this point ; and while he
holds it, you can never oblige him to yield
anything else.
To such a sceptic I have nothing to say;
but of the semi-sceptics, I should beg to
know, why they believe the existence of
their impressions and ideas. The true
reason I take to be, because they cannot
help it; and the same reason will lead them
to believe many other things.
All reasoning must be from first prin-
ciples; and for first principles no other
reason can be given but this, that, by the
constitution of our nature, we are under
a necessity of assenting to them. Such
principles are parts of our constitution, no
less than the power of thinking : reason
can neither make nor destroy them; nor
can it do anything without them : it is like
a telescope, which may help a man to see ||
farther, who hath eyes; but, without eyes,
a telescope shews nothing at all. A ma-
thematician cannot prove the truth of his
axioms, nor can he prove anything, unless
he takes them for granted. We cannot
prove the existence of our minds, nor even
of our thoughts and sensations. A histo-
rian, or a witness, can prove nothing, unless
it is taken for granted that the memory
and senses may be trusted. A natural
philosopher can prove nothing, unless it is
taken for granted that the course of nature
is steady and uniform.
. How or when I got such first principles,
upon which I build all my reasoning, I
know not ; for I had them before I can
remember: but I am sure they are parts
of my constitution, and that I cannot throw
them off. That our thoughts and sensa-
tions must have a subject, which we call
ourself, is not therefore an opinion got by
reasoning, but a natural principle. That
our sensations of touch indicate something
external, extended, figured, hard or soft,
is not a deduction of reason, but a natural
principle.
The belief of it, and the very
conception of it, are equally parts of our
constitution. If we are deceived in it, we
are deceived by Him that made us, and
there is no remedy.”
I do not mean to affirm, that the sensa-
tions of touch do, from the very first, sug-
gest the same notions of body and its qua-
lities which they do when we are grown
up. Perhaps Nature is frugal in this, as
in her other operations. The passion of
love, with all its concomitant sentiments
and desires, is naturally suggested by the
perception of beauty in the other sex; yet
the same perception does not suggest the
tender passion till a certain period of life.
A blow given to an infant, raises grief and
lamentation ; but when he grows up, it as
naturally stirs resentment, and prompts him
to resistance. Perhaps a child in the womb,
or for some short period of its existence, is
merely a sentient being; the faculties by
which it perceives an external world, by
which it reflects on its own thoughts, and
existence, and relation to other things, as
well as its reasoning and moral faculties,
unfold themselves by degrees; so that it is
inspired with the various principles of com-
mon sense, as with the passions of love and
resentment, when it has occasion for them.
4°
Section VIII.
OF THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHERS CONCERN-
ING THE SENSEs.T
All the systems of philosophers about our
senses and their objects have split upon
this rock, of not distinguishing properly
* The philosophers who have most loudly appealed
to the veracity of God, and the natural conviction of
mankind, in refutation of certain obnoxious conclu-
sions, have too often silently contradicted that vera-
city and those convictions, when opposed to certain
favourite opinions. But it is evident that such autho-
rity is either good for all, or good for nothing. Our
natural consciousness assures us (and the fact of that
assurance is admitted by philosophers of all opinions)
that we have an immediate knowledge of the very
things themselves of an external and extended world;
and, on the ground of this knowledge alone, is the belief
of mankind founded, that such a world really exists.
Reid ought, therefore, either to have given up his
doctrine of the mere suggestion of extension, &c., as
subjective notions, on the occasion of sensation, or
not to appeal to the Divine veracity, and the common
sense of mankind, in favour of conclusions of which
that doctrine subverts the foundation. In this in-
consistency, Reid has, however, besides Des Cartes,
many distinguished copartners.-H.
+ On this subject, see “Essays on the Intellectual
Powers,” Essay II., chap. 7-15, and the notes there-
on. It is perhaps proper to recall to the reader’s-at-
tention, that, by the Ideal Theory, Reid always
understands the ruder form of the doctrine, which
holds that ideas are entities, different both from the
external object and from the percipient mind, and
that he had no conception of the finer form of that
doctrine, which holds that all that we are conscious
of in perception, (of course also in imagination,) is
only a modification of the mind itself—See Note
C.—H.
*
OF TOUCH.
J31
sensations which can have no existence but
when they are felt, from the things sug-
gested by them. Aristotle—with as dis-
tinguishing a head as ever applied to philoso-
phical disquisitions—confounds these two ;
and makes every sensation to be the form,
without the matter, of the thing perceived
by it. As the impression of a seal upon
wax has the form of the seal but nothing of
the matter of it, so he conceived our sensa-
tions to be impressions upon the mind, which
bear the image, likeness, or form of the
external thing perceived, without the mat-
ter of it. Colour, sound, and smell, as well
as extension, figure, and hardness, are,
according to him, various forms of matter :
our sensations are the same forms im-
printed on the mind, a "d perceived in its
own intellect. It is evident from this, that
Aristotle made no distinction between prim-
ary and secondary qualities of bodies, al-
though that distinction was made by De-
mocritus, Epicurus, and others of the an-
cients."
Des Cartes, Malebranche, and Locke,
revived the distinction between primary and
Secondary qualities; but they made the
Secondary qualities mere sensations, and
the primary ones resemblances of our sens-
ations. They maintained that colour,
sound, and heat, are not anything in bodies,
but sensations of the mind ; at the same
time, they acknowledged some particular
texture or modification of the body to be
the cause or occasion of those sensations ;
but to this modification they gave no name.
Whereas, by the vulgar, the names of col-
our, heat, and sound, are but rarely applied
to the sensations, and most commonly to
those unknown causes of them, as hath been
already explained. The constitution of our
nature leads us rather to attend to the things
signified by the sensation than to the Sensa-
tion itself, and to give a name to the former
rather than to the latter. Thus we see,
that, with regard to secondary qualities,
these philosophers thought with the vulgar,
and with common sense. Their paradoxes
were only an abuse of words; for when
they maintain, as an important modern
discovery, that there is no heat in the fire,
they mean no more, than that the fire does
fiot feel heat, which every one knew before.
With regard to primary qualities, these
philosophers erred more grossly. They
indéed believed the existence of those qua-
lities; but they did not at all attend to
the sensations that suggest them, which,
having no names, have been as little con-
sidered as if they had no existence. They
were aware that figure, extension, and
* On this last, see Aristotle. De Anima, L. III.,
c. 1, and Metaph. L. III. c. 5.-The Aristotelic dis-
tinction of first and second qualities was of another
kind.—H. See Note D, p. 829 b.
hardness, are perceived by means of sens-
ations of touch; whence they rashly con-
cluded, that these sensations must be images
and resemblances of figure, extension, and
hardness.
The received hypothesis of ideas natur-
ally led them to this conclusion : and indeed
cannot consist with any other; for, accord-
ing to that hypothesis, external things
must be perceived by means of images of
them in the mind ; and what can those
images of external things in the mind be, but
the sensations by which we perceive them 2
This, however, was to draw a conclusion
from a hypothesis against fact. We need
not have recourse to any hypothesis to
know what our sensations are, or what
they are like. By a proper degree of re-
flection and attention we may understand
them perfectly, and be as certain that they
are not like any quality of body, as we can
be, that the toothache is not like a triangle.
How a sensation should instantly make us
conceive and believe the existence of an
external thing altogether unlike to it, I do
not pretend to know ; and when I say that
the one suggests the other, I mean not to
explain the manner of their connection,
but to express a fact, which every one may
be conscious of—namely, that, by a law of
our nature, such a conception and belief
constantly and immediately follow the sens-
ation.
Bishop Berkeley gave new light to this
subject, by shewing, that the qualities of
an inanimate thing, such as matter is con-
ceived to be, cannot resemble any sensa-
tion ; that it is impossible to conceive any-
thing like the sensations of our minds, but
the sensations of other minds. Every one
that attends properly to his sensations must
assent to this; yet it had escaped all the
philosophers that came before Berkeley;
it had escaped even the ingenious Locke,
who had so much practised reflection on
the operations of his own mind. So diffi-
cult it is to attend properly even to our
own feelings. They are so accustomed to
pass through the mind unobserved, and
instantly to make way for that which na-
ture intended them to signify, that it is
extremely difficult to stop, and survey
them ; and when we think we have ac-
quired this power, perhaps the mind still
fluctuates between the sensation and its
associated quality, so that they mix to-
gether, and present something to the ima-
gination that is compounded of both. Thus,
in a globe or cylinder, whose opposite sides
are quite unlike in colour, if you turn it
slowly, the colours are perfectly distinguish-
able, and their dissimilitude is manifest :
but if it is turned fast, they lose their dis-
tinction, and seem to be of one and the same
colour. -
K 2
132
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
No succession can be more quick than
that of tangible qualities to the sensations
with which nature has associated them :
but when one has once acquired the art
of making them separate and distinct ob-
jects of thought, he will then clearly per-
ceive that the maxim of Bishop Berkeley,
above-mentioned, is self-evident ; and that
the features of the face are not more un-
like to a passion of the mind which they
indicate, than the sensations of touch are
to the primary qualities of body.
But let us observe what use the Bishop
makes of this important discovery. Why,
he concludes, that we can have no con-
ception of an inanimate substance, such as
matter is conceived to be, or of any of its
qualities; and that there is the strongest
ground to believe that there is no existence
in nature but minds, sensations, and ideas:
if there is any other kind of existences, it
must be what we neither have nor can
have any conception of. But how does
this follow 2 Why, thus: We can have
no conception of anything but what resem-
bles some sensation or idea in our minds ;
but the sensations and ideas in our minds
can resemble nothing but the sensations
and ideas in other minds; therefore, the
conclusion is evident. This argument, we
see, leans upon two propositions. The last
of them the ingenious author hath, indeed,
made evident to all that understand his
reasoning, and can attend to their own
sensations: but the first proposition he
never attempts to prove ; it is taken from
the doctrine of ideas, which hath been so
universally received by philosophers, that
it was thought to need no proof. "
We may here again observe, that this
acute writerargues from a hypothesis against
fact, and against the common sense of man-
kind. That we can have no conception of
anything, unless there is some impression,
sensation, or idea, in our minds which re-
sembles it, is indeed an opinion which hath
been very generally received among philo-
sophers ; but it is neither Self-evident, nor
hath it been clearly proved; and therefore
it hath been more reasonable to call in
question this doctrine of philosophers, than
to discard the material world, and by that
means expose philosophy to the ridicule of
all men who will not offer up common
sense as a sacrifice to metaphysics.
We ought, however, to do this justice
both to the Bishop of Cloyne and to the
author of the “Treatise of Human Nature,”
to acknowledge, that their conclusions are
justly drawn from the doctrine of ideas,
which has been so universally received.
On the other hand, from the character of
Bishop Berkeley, and of his predecessors,
Des Cartes, Locke, and Malebranche, we
may venture to say, that, if they had seen
,”
all the consequences of this doctrine, as
clearly as the author before mentioned did,
they would have suspected it vehemently,
and examined it more carefully than they
appear to have done.
The theory of ideas, like. the Trojan
horse, had a specious appearance both of
innocence and beauty ; but if those philo-
sophers had known that it carried in its
belly death and destruction to all science
and common sense, they would not have
broken down their walls to give it admit-
tance.
That we have clear and distinct con-
ceptions of extension, figure, motion, and
other attributes of body, which are neither
sensations, nor like any sensation, is a fact
of which we may be as certain as that we
have sensations. And that all mankind
have a fixed belief of an external material
world—a belief which is neither got by rea-
soning nor education, and a belief which
we cannot shake off, even when we seem
to have strong arguments against it and
no shadow of argument for it—is likewise a
fact, for which we have all the evidence
that the nature of the thing admits. These
facts are phaenomena of human nature,
from which we may justly argue against
any hypothesis, however generally received.
But to argue from a hypothesis against
facts, is contrary to the rules of true philo-
sophy.
CHAPTER VI.
OF SEEING.
Section I.
THE EXCELLENCE AND DIGNITY OF THIS
FACULTY.
THE advances made in the knowledge of
optics in the last age and in the present,
and chiefly the discoveries of Sir Isaac
Newton, do honour, not to philosophy only,
but to human nature. Such discoveries
ought for ever to put to shame the ignoble
attempts of our modern sceptics to depre-
ciate the human understanding, and to dis-
pirit men in the search of truth, by repre-
senting the human faculties as fit for no-
thing but to lead us into absurdities and
contradictions.
Of the faculties called the five senses,
sight is without doubt the noblest. The
rays of light, which minister to this sense,
and of which, without it, we could never
have had the least conception, are the
most wonderful and astonishing part of
the inanimate creation. We must be satis-
fied of this, if we consider their extreme
minuteness ; their inconceivable velocity ;
OF SEEING.
133
the regular variety of colours which they
exhibit; the invariable laws according
to which they are acted upon by other
bodies, in their reflections, inflections, and
refractions, without the least change of
their original properties; and the facility
with which they pervade bodies of great
density and of the closest texture, without
resistance, without crowding or disturbing
one another, without giving the least sensi-
ble impulse to the lightest bodies.
The structure of the eye, and of all its ap-
purtenances, the admirable contrivances of
nature for performing all its various exter-
mal and internal motions, and the variety
in the eyes of different animals, suited to
their several natures and ways of life,
clearly demonstrate this organ to be a mas-
terpiece of Nature's work. And he must
be very ignorant of what hath been dis-
covered about it, or have a very strange
cast of understanding, who can seriously
doubt whether or not the rays of light
and the eye were made for one another,
with consummate wisdom, and perfect skill
in optics.
If we shall suppose an order of beings,
endued with every human faculty but that
of sight, how incredible would it appear to
such beings, accustomed only to the slow
informations of touch, that, by the addition
of an organ, consisting of a ball and socket
of an inch diameter, they might be enabled,
in an instant of time, without changing
their place, to perceive the disposition of a
whole army or the order of a battle, the
figure of a magnificent palace or all the
variety of a landscape If a man were by
feeling to find out the figure of the peak of
Teneriffe, or even of St Peter's Church at
Rome, it would be the work of a lifetime."
It would appear still more incredible to
such beings as we have supposed, if they
were informed of the discoveries which
may be made by this little organ in
things far beyond the reach of any other
sense : that by means of it we can find
our way in the pathless ocean ; that we
can traverse the globe of the earth, deter-
mine its figure and dimensions, and deli-
neate every region of it ;—yea, that we
can measure the planetary orbs, and make
discoveries in the sphere of the fixed stars.
Would it not appear still more astonish-
ing to such beings, if they should be farther
informed, that, by means of this same organ,
we can perceive the tempers and disposi-
tions, the passions and affections, of our
fellow-creatures, even when they want most
to conceal them 2–that, when the tongue
* The thing would be impossible. Lct any one
try by touch to ascertain the figure of a room, with
which he is previously unacquainted, and not alto-
gether of the usual shape, and he will find that
touch will afford him Uut slender aid.—H.
is taught most artfully to lie and dissemble,
the hypocrisy should appear in the counte-
nance to a discerning eye P-and that, by
this organ, we can often perceive what is
straight and what is crooked in the mind as
well as in the body ? How many myste-
rious things must a blind man believe, if he
will give credit to the relations of those
that see P Surely he needs as strong a
faith as is required of a good Christian.
It is not therefore without reason that
the faculty of seeing is looked upon, not
only as more noble than the other senses,
but as having something in it of a nature
superior to sensation. The evidence of
reason is called seeing, not feeling, smelling,
or tasting. Yea, we are wont to express
the manner of the Divine knowledge by see-
ing, as that kind of knowledge which is
most perfect in us.
Section II.
SIGHT DIscovers ALMosT NOTHING which
THE BLIND MAY NOT COMPREHEND–THE
REASON OF THIS. -
Notwithstanding what hath been said of
the dignity and superior mature of this
faculty, it is worthy of our observation, that
there is very little of the knowledge ac-
quired by sight, that may not be communi-
cated to a man born blind. One who never
saw the light, may be learned and knowing
in every science, even in optics; and may
make discoveries in every branch of philo-
sophy. He may understand as much as
another man, not only of the order, dis-
tances, and motions of the heavenly bodies;
but of the nature of light, and of the laws
of the reflection and refraction of its rays.
He may understand distinctly how those
laws produce the phaenomena of the rain-
bow, the prism, the camera obscura, and
the magic lanthorn, and all the powers of
the microscope and telescope. This is a
fact sufficiently attested by experience.
In order to perceive the reason of it, we
must distinguish the appearance that objects
make to the eye, from the things suggested
by that appearance : and again, in the visi-
ble appearance of objects, we must dis-
tinguish the appearance of colour from
the appearance of extension, figure, and
motion. First, then, as to the visible
appearance of the figure, and motion, and
extension of bodies, I conceive that a man
born blind may have a distinct notion, if
Inot of the verythings, at least of something
extremely like to them. May not a blind
man be made to conceive that a body mov-
ing directly from the eye, or directly to-
wards it, may appear to be at rest ? and
that the same motion may appear quicker
J34 .
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
or slower, according as it is nearer to the
eye or farther off, more direct or more ob-
lique 2 May he not be made to conceive,
that a plain surface, in a certain position,
may appear as a straight line, and vary
its visible figure, as its position, or the posi-
tion of the eye, is varied ?—that a circle
seen obliquely will appear an ellipse; and
a Square, a rhombus, or an oblong rec-
tangle P Dr Saunderson understood the
projection of the sphere, and the common
rules of perspective; and if he did, he
must have understood all that I have men-
tioned. If there were any doubt of Dr
Saunderson's understanding these things, I
could mention my having heard him say in
conversation, that he found great difficulty
in understanding Dr Halley’s demonstra-
tion of that proposition, that the angles
made by the circles of the sphere, are equal
to the angles made by their representatives
in the stereographic projection; but, said
he, when I laid aside that demonstration,
and considered the proposition in my own
way, I saw clearly that it must be true.
Another gentleman, of undoubted credit
and judgment in these matters, who had
part in this conversation, remembers it
distinctly. w
As to the appearance of colour, a blind
man must be more at a loss; because he
hath no perception that resembles it. Yet
he may, by a kind of analogy, in part sup-
ply this defect. To those who see, a scar-
let colour signifies an unknown quality
in bodies, that makes to the eye an ap-
pearance which they are well acquainted
with and have often observed—to a blind
man, it signifies an unknown quality, that
makes to the eye an appearance which he
is unacquainted with. But he can conceive
the eye to be variously affected by differ-
ent colours, as the nose is by different
smells, or the ear by different sounds.
Thus he can conceive scarlet to differ from
blue, as the sound of a trumpet does
from that of a drum ; or as the smell of
an orange differs from that of an apple.
It is impossible to know whether a scarlet
colour has the same appearance to me
which it hath to another man ; and, if the
appearances of it to different persons dif-
fered as much as colour does from sound,
they might never be able to discover this
difference. Hence, it appears obvious,
that a blind man might talk long about
colours distinctly and pertinently; and, if
you were to examine him in the dark about
the nature, composition, and beauty of them,
he might be able to answer, so as not to
betray his defect.
We have seen how far a blind man may
go in the knowledge of the appearances
which things make to the eye. As to the
things which are suggested by them or
inferred from them, although he could
never discover them of himself, yet he may
understand them perfectly by the inform-
ation of others. And everything of this
kind that enters into our minds by the eye,
may enter into his by the ear. Thus, for
instance, he could never, if left to the di-
rection of his own faculties, have dreamed
of any such thing as light; but he can be
informed of everything we know about
it. He can conceive, as distinctly as we,
the minuteness and velocity of its rays,
their various degrees of refrangibility and
reflexibility, and all the magical powers
and virtues of that wonderful element.
He could never of himself have found out,
that there are such bodies as the sun,
moon, and stars; but he may be informed
of all the noble discoveries of astrono-
mers about their motions, and the laws
of nature by which they are regulated.
Thus, it appears, that there is very little
knowledge got by the eye, which may not
be communicated by language to those who
have no eyes.
If we should suppose that it were as
uncommon for men to see as it is to be
born blind, would not the few who had
this rare gift appear as prophets and in-
spired teachers to the many ? We conceive
inspiration to give a man no new faculty,
but to communicate to him, in a new way,
and by extraordinary means, what the fa-
culties common to mankind can apprehend,
and what he can communicate to others
by ordinary means. On the supposition
we have made, sight would appear to the
blind very similar to this ; for the few who
had this gift, could communicate the know-
ledge, acquired by it to those who had it
not. They could not, indeed, convey to
the blind any distinct notion of the manner
in which they acquired this knowledge. A
ball and socket would seem, to a blind
man, in this case, as improper an instru-
ment for acquiring such a variety and ex-
tent of knowledge, as a dream or a vision.
The manner in which a man who sees,
discerns so many things by means of the
eye, is as unintelligible to the blind, as the
manner in which a man may be inspired
with knowledge by the Almighty, is to
us. Ought the blind man, therefore, with-
out examination, to treat all pretences to
the gift of seeing as imposture ? Might he
not, if he were candid and tractable, find
reasonable evidence of the reality of this
gift in others, and draw great advantages
from it to himself 2
The distinction we have made between
the visible appearances of the objects of
sight, and things suggested by them, is ne-
cessary to give us a just motion of the in-
tention of nature in giving us eyes. If we
attend duly to the operation of our mind
OF SEEING.
135
in the use of this faculty, we shall perceive
that the visible appearance of objects is
hardly ever regarded by us. It is not at
all made an object of thought or reflec-
tion, but serves only as a sign to introduce
to the mind something else, which may be
distinctly conceived by those who neversaw.
Thus, the visible appearance of things in
my room varies almost every hour, accord-
ing as the day is clear or cloudy, as the sun
is in the east, or south, or west, and as my
eye is in one part of the room or in an-
other; but I never think of these variations,
otherwise than as signs of morning, noon,
or night, of a clear or cloudy sky. A book
or a chair has a different appearance to the
eye, in every different distance and posi-
tion ; yet we conceive it to be still the
same; and, overlooking the appearance, we
immediately conceive the real figure, dis-
tance, and position of the body, of which
its visible or perspective appearance is a
sign and indication.
When I see a man at the distance of ten.
yards, and afterwards see him at the dis-
tance of a hundred yards, his visible ap-
pearance, in its length, breadth, and all its
linear proportions, is ten times less in the
last case than it is in the first ; yet I do not
conceive him one inch diminished by this
diminution of his visible figure. Nay, I
do not in the least attend to this diminution,
even when I draw from it the conclusion
of his being at a greater distance. For such
is the subtilty of the mind's operation in
this case, that we draw the conclusion, with-
out perceiving that ever the premises en-
tered into the mind. A thousand such in-
stances might be produced, in order to shew
that the visible appearances of objects are
intended by nature only as signs or indica-
tions; and that the mind passes instantly
to the things signified, without making the
least reflection upon the sign, or even per-
ceiving that there is any such thing. It is
in a way somewhat similar, that the sounds
of a language, after it is become familiar,
are overlooked, and we attend only to the
things signified by them.
It is therefore a just and important ob-
servation of the Bishop of Cloyne, That
the visible appearance of objects is a kind
of language used by nature, to inform us
of their distance, magnitude, and figure.
And this observation hath been very happily
applied by that ingenious writer, to the
solution of somephaenomena in optics, which
had before perplexed the greatest masters
in that Science. The same observation is
further improved by thejudicious Dr Smith,
in his Optics, for explaining the apparent
figure of the heavens, and the apparent
distances and magnitudes of objects seen
with glasses, or by the naked eye.
Avoiding as much as possible the repe-
tition of what hath been said by these ex-
cellent writers, we shall avail ourselves of
the distinction between the signs that nature
useth in this visual language, and the things
signified by them ; and in what remains to
be said of sight, shall first make some ob-
Servations upon the signs.
Section III.
OF THE VISIBLE APPEARANCES OF OBJECTS.
In this section we must speak of things
which are never made the object of re-
flection, though almost every moment pre-
sented to the mind. Nature intended them
only for signs; and in the whole course
of life they are put to no other use. The
mind has acquired a confirmed and invet-
erate habit of inattention to them ; for
they no sooner appear, than quick as light-
ning the thing signified succeeds, and en.
grosses all our regard. They have no
name in language ; and, although we are
conscious of them when they pass through
the mind, yet their passage is so quick
and so familiar, that it is absolutely un-
heeded; nor do they leave any footsteps
of themselves, either in the memory or
imagination. That this is the case with
regard to the sensations of touch, hath been
shewn in the last chapter; and it holds
no less with regard to the visible appear-
ances of objects.
I cannot therefore entertain the hope of
being intelligible to those readers who have
not, by pains and practice, acquired the
habit of distinguishing the appearance of
objects to the eye, from the judgment which
we form by sight of their colour, distance,
magnitude, and figure. The only profes-
sion in life wherein it is necessary to make
this distinction, is that of painting. The
painter hath occasion for an abstraction,
with regard to visible objects, somewhat
similar to that which we here require : and
this indeed is the most difficult part of his
art. For it is evident, that, if he could fix
in his imagination the visible appearance of
objects, without confounding it with the
things signified by that appearance, it
would be as easy for him to paint from the
life, and to give every figure its proper
shading and relief, and its perspective pro-
portions, as it is to paint from a copy. Per-
spective, shading, giving relief, and colour-
ing, are nothing else but copying the ap-
pearance which things make to the eye.
We may therefore borrow some light on
the subject of visible appearance from thisart.
Let one look upon any familiar object,
such as a book, at different distances and
in different positions : is he not able to
affirm, upon the testimony of his sight, that
136
of THE HUMAN MIND. *
it is the same book, the same object, whether
seen at the distance of one foot or of ten,
whether in one position or another ; that
the colour is the same, the dimensions the
same, and the figure the same, as far as
the eye can judge 2 This surely must be
acknowledged. The same individual object
is presented to the mind, only placed at
different distances and in different posi-
tions. Let me ask, in the next place,
Whether this object has the same appear-
ance to the eye in these different distances 2
Infallibly it hath not. For,
First, However certain our judgment
may be that the colour is the same, it is as
certain that it hath not the same appear-
ance at different distances. There is a
certain degradation of the colour, and a
certain confusion and indistinctness of the
minute parts, which is the natural conse-
quence of the removal of the object to a
greater distance. Those that are not
painters, or critics in painting, overlook
this; and cannot easily be persuaded, that
the colour of the same object hath a dif-
ferent appearance at the distance of one
foot and of ten, in the shade and in the
light. But the masters in painting know
how, by the degradation of the colour and
the confusion of the minute parts, figures
which are upon the same canvass, and at
the same distance from the eye, may be
made to represent objects which are at the
most unequal distances. They know how
to make the objects appear to be of the
same colour, by making their pictures
really of different colours, according to
their distances or shades.
Secondly, Every one who is acquainted
with the rules of perspective, knows that
the appearance of the figure of the book
must väry in every different position : yet
if you ask a man that has no notion of
perspective, whether the figure of it does
not appear to his eye to be the same in all
its different positions 2 he can with a good
conscience affirm that it does. He hath
learned to make allowance for the variety
of visible figure arising from the difference
of position, and to draw the proper con-
clusions from it. But he draws these con-
clusions so readily and habitually, as to lose
sight of the premises: and therefore where
he hath made the same conclusion, he con-
ceives the visible appearance must have
been the same.
Thirdly, Let us consider the apparent
magnitude or dimensions of the book.
Whether I view it at the distance of one
foot or of ten feet; it seems to be about
seven inches long, five broad, and one
thick.
very nearly by the eye, and I judge them
to be the same at both distances. But
yet it is certain, that, at the distance of
I can judge of these dimensions
one foot, its visible length and breadth is
about ten times as great as at the distance
of ten feet; and consequently its surface is
about a hundred times as great. This great
change of apparent magnitude is altogether
overlooked, and every man is apt to im-
agine, that it appears to the eye of the
same size at both distances. Further, when
I look at the book, it seems plainly to have
three dimensions, of length, breadth, and
thickness: but it is certain that the visible
appearance hath no more than two, and
can be exactly represented upon a canvass
which hath only length and breadth.
In the last place, does not every man, by
sight, perceive the distance of the book
from his eye 2 Can he not affirm with
certainty, that in one case it is not above
one foot distant, that in another it is ten ?
Nevertheless, it appears certain, that dis-
tance from the eye is no immediate object
of sight. There are certain things in the
visible appearance, which are signs of dis-
tance from the eye, and from which, as we
shall afterwards shew, we learn by experi-
ence to judge of that distance within cer-
tain limits; but it seems beyond doubt,
that a man born blind, and suddenly made
to see, could form no judgment at first of
the distance of the objects which he saw.
The young man couched by Cheselden
thought, at first, that everything he saw
touched his eye," and learned only by ex-
perience to judge of the distance of visible
objects.
I have entered into this long detail, in
order to shew that the visible appearance
of an object is extremely different from the
notion of it which experience teaches us to
form by sight; and to enable the reader to
attend to the visible appearance of colour,
figure, and extension, in visible things,
which is no common object of thought, but
must be carefully attended to by those who
would enter into the philosophy of this
sense, or would comprehend what shall be
said upon it. To a man newly made to
see, the visible appearance of objects would
be the same as to us; but he would see
nothing at all of their real dimensions, as
we do. He could form no conjecture, by
means of his sight only, how many inches
or feet they were in length, breadth, or
thickness. He could perceive little or no-
thing of their real figure ; nor could he dis-
cern that this was a cube, that a sphere ;
that this was a cone, and that a cylinder.--
* Still they appeared external to the eye.-H.
+ This is a misinterpretation of Cheselden, on
whose authority this statement is made ; though it
must be confessed that the mode in which the case of
the young man, couched by that distinguished sur-
geon, is reportfa, doos not merit all the eulogia
that have been lavished on it. It is at once imper-
fect and indistinct. Thus, on the point in questions
Cheselden says:– “He (the patient) knew not the
shape of anything, nor any one thing from another,
OF SEEING.
137
His eye could not inform him that this
object was near, and that more remote.
The habit of a man or of a woman, which
appeared to us of one uniform colour, vari-
ously folded and shaded, would present to
his eye neither fold or shade, but variety of
colour. In a word, his eyes, though ever
so perfect, would at first give him almost no
information of things without him. They
would indeed present the same appearances
to him as they do to us, and speak the same
language; but to him it is an unknown
language ; and, therefore, he would attend
only to the signs, without knowing the sig-
nification of them, whereas to us it is a lan-
guage perfectly familiar ; and, therefore,
we take no notice of the signs, but attend
only to the thing signified by them.
Section I V.
THAT COLOUR IS A QUALITY of BoDIES, NOT
A SENSATION OF THE MIND.
By colour, all men, who have not been
tutored by modern philosophy, understand,
not a sensation of the mind, which can have
no existence when it is not perceived, but a
quality or modification of bodies, which
continues to be the same whether it is seen
or not. The scarlet-rose which is before
me, is still a scarlet-rose when I shut my
however different in shape or magnitude; but, upon
being told what things were, whose form he before
knew from feeling, he would carefully observe, that
he might know them again ; but, having too many
objects to learn at once, he forgot many of them,
and (as he said) at first he learned to know, and again
forgot a thousand things in a day. One particular
only, though it may appear trifling, I will. relate:
Having often forgot which was the cat and which
the dog, he was ashamed to ask; but, catching the
cat, which he knew by feeling, he was observed to
look at her steadfastly, and then, setting her down,
said, “So, puss I shall know you another time.’”
Here, when Cheselden says, “ that his patient,
when recently couched, knew not the shape of any
thing, nor any one thing from another,” &c., this
cannot mean that he saw no difference between
objects of different shapes and sizes; for, if this inter-
pretation were adopted, the rest of the statement
becomes nonsense. If he had been altogether inca-
bable of apprehending differences, it could not be
said that, “being told what things were whose form
he before knew from feeling, he would carefully
observe, that he might know them again;” for ob-
servation supposes the power of discrimination, and,
in particular, the anecdote of the dog and cat would
be inconceivable on that hypothesis. It is plain that
Cheselden only meant to say, that the things which
the patient could previously distinguish and deno-
minate by touch, he could not now identify and refer
to their appellations by sight. And this is what we
might, a priori, be assured of. A sphere and a cube
would certainly make different impressions on him;
but it is probable that he could not assign to each its
name, though, in this particular case, there is good
ground for holding that the slightest consideration
would enable a person, previously acquainted with
these figures, and aware that the one was a cube
and the other a sphere, to connect them with his
anterior experience, and to discriminate them by
name.—See Philos. Trans., 1728, mw, 402.-H.
eyes, and was so at midnight when no eye
saw it. The colour remains when the
appearance ceases; it remains the same
when the appearance changes. For when
I view this scarlet-rose through a pair of
green spectacles, the appearance is changed;
but I do not conceive the colour of the rose
changed. To a person in the jaundice, it
has still another appearance; but he is
easily convinced that the change is in his
eye, and not in the colour of the object.
Every different degree of light makes it
have a different appearance, and total dark-
ness takes away all appearance, but makes
not the least change in the colour of the
body. We may, by a variety of optical
experiments, change the appearance of
figure and magnitude in a body, as well as
that of colour; we may make one body
appear to be ten. But all men believe,
that, as a multiplying glass does not really
produce ten guineas out of one, nor a mi-
croscope turn a guinea into a ten-pound
piece, so neither does a coloured glass
change the real colour of the object seen
through it, when it changes the appearance
of that colour.
The common language of mankind shews
evidently, that we ought to distinguish be-
tween the colour of a body, which is con-
ceived to be a fixed and permanent quality
in the body, and the appearance of that
colour to the eye, which may be varied a
thousand ways, by a variation of the light,
of the medium, or of the eye itself. The
permanent colour of the body is the cause
which, by the mediation of various kinds or
degrees of light, and of various transparent
bodies interposed, produces all this variety
of appearances. When a coloured body is
presented, there is a certain apparition to
the eye, or to the mind, which we have
called the appearance of colour. Mr Locke
calls it an idea ; and, indeed, it may be
called so with the greatest propriety. This
idea can have no existence but when it is
perceived. It is a kind of thought, and can
only be the act of a percipient or thinking
being. By the constitution of our nature,
we are led to conceive this idea as a sign of
something external, and are impatient till
we learn its meaning. A thousand experi-
ments for this purpose are made every day
by children, even before they come to the
use of reason. They look at things, they
handle them, they put them in various po-
sitions, at different distances, and in differ-
ent lights. The ideas of sight, by these
means, come to be associated with, and
readily to suggest, things external, and al-
together unlike them. In particular, that
idea which we have called the appearance
of colour, suggests the conception and belief
of some unknown quality in the body which
occasions the idea ; and it is to this quality,
138
OF THE HUMAN MIND
and not to the idea, that we give the name the reason of this may be, that the appear-
of colour.” The various colours, although
in their nature equally unknown, are easily
distinguished when we think or speak of
them, by being associated with the ideas
which they excite. In like manner, gravity,
magnetism, and electricity, although all
unknown qualities, are distinguished by
their different effects. As we grow up, the
mind acquires a habit of passing so rapidly
from the ideas of sight to the external
things suggested by them, that the ideas are
not in the least attended to, nor have they
names given them in common language.
When we think or speak of any parti-
cular colour, however simple the notion may
seem to be which is presented to the imagin-
ation, it is really in some sort compounded.
It involves an unknown cause and a known
effect. The name of colour belongs indeed
to the cause only, and not to the effect.
But, as the cause is unknown, we can form no
distinct conception of it but by its relation to
the known effect; and, therefore, both goto-
gether in the imagination, and are so closely
united, that they are mistaken for one simple
object of thought.” When I would conceive
those colours of bodies which we call scarlet
and blue—if I conceived them only as un-
known qualities, I could perceive no distinc-
tion between the one and the other. I must,
therefore, for the sake of distinction, join to
each of them, in my imagination, some
effect or some relation that is peculiar; and
the most obvious distinction is, the appear-
ance which one and the other makes to the
eye. Hence the appearance is, in the imagin-
ation, so closely united with the quality
called a scarlet-colour, that they are apt to
be mistaken for one and the same thing,
although they are in reality so different and
so unlike, that one is an idea in the mind,
the other is a quality of body.
I conclude, then, that colour is not a
sensation, but a secondary quality of bodies,
in the sense we have already explained;
that it is a certain power or virtue in bodies,
that in fair daylight exhibits to the eye an
appearance which is very familiar to us,
although it hath no name. Colour differs
from other secondary qualities in this, that,
whereas the name of the quality is sometimes
given to the sensation which indicates it, and
is occasioned by it, we never, as far as I can
judge, give the name of colour to the sens-
ation, but to the quality only.; Perhaps
+++ It is justly observed by Mr Stewart, that
these passages seem inconsistent with each other.
If in the perception of colour, the sensation and
the quality “ be so closely united as to be mis-
taken for one simple object of thought,” does it not
obviously follow, that it is to this compounded notion
the name of colour must in general be given 2 On
the other hand, when it is said that the name of
coiou?" is nº ver given to the sensation, but to the
quality only, does not this imply, that every time
the word is pronounced, the quality is scparatcd from
ances of the same colour are so various and
changeable, according to the different mo-
difications of the light, of the medium, and
of the eye, that language could not afford
names for them. And, indeed, they are so
little interesting, that they are never at-
tended to, but serve only as signs to in-
troduce the things signified by them.
Nor ought it to appear incredible, that
appearances so frequent and so familiar
should have no names, nor be made ob-
jects of thought ; since we have before
shewn that this is true of many sensations of
touch, which are no less frequent nor less
familiar. -
Section V.
AN INFERENCE FROM THE PRECEDING.
From what hath been said about colour,
we may infer two things. The first is, that
one of the most remarkable paradoxes of
modern philosophy, which hath been uni-
versally esteemed as a great discovery, is,
in reality, when examined to the bottom,
nothing else but an abuse of words. The
paradox I mean is, That colour is not a
quality of bodies, but only an idea in the
mind. We have shewn, that the word
colour, as used by the vulgar, cannot signify
an idea in the mind, but a permanent
quality of body. We have shewn, that
there is really a permanent quality of body,
to which the common use of this word ex-
actly agrees. Can any stronger proof be
desired, that this quality is that to which
the vulgar give the name of colour 2 If it
should be said, that this quality, to which
we give the name of colour, is unknown to
the vulgar, and, therefore, can have no
name among them, I answer, it is, indeed,
Rnown only by its effects—that is, by Its
exciting a certain idea in us; but are there
not numberless qualities of bodies which
are known only by their effects, to which,
notwithstanding, we find it necessary to
give names 2 Medicine alone might fur-
mish us with a hundred instances of this
kind. Do not the words astringent, marcotic,
epispastic, caustic, and innumerable others,
signify qualities of bodies, which are known
only by their effects upon animal bodies 2
Why, then, should not the vulgar give a
name to a quality, whose effects are every
moment perceived by their eyes P. We
Have all the reason, therefore, that the
nature of the thing admits, to think that "
the vulgar apply the name of colour to that
quality of bodies which excites in us what
the sensation, even in the imagination of the vul.
gar P-H.
OF SEEING.
139
the philosophers call the idea of colour.
And that that there is such a quality in
bodies, all philosophers allow, who allow that
there is any such thing as body. Philo-
sophers have thought fit to leave that
quality of bodies which the vulgar call
colour, without a name, and to give the
name of colour to the idea or appearance,
to which, as we have shewn, the vulgar
give no name, because they never make it
an object of thought or reflection. Hence
it appears, that, when philosophers affirm
that colour is not in bodies, but in the
mind, and the vulgar affirm that colour is
not in the mind, but is a quality of bodies,
there is no difference between them about
things, but only about the meaning of a
word.
The vulgar have undoubted right to give
names to things which they are daily con-
versant about ; and philosophers seem
justly chargeable with an abuse of language,
when they change the meaning of a com-
mon word, without giving warning.
If it is a good rule, to think with philo-
sophers and speak with the vulgar, it must
be right to speak with the vulgar when we
think with them, and not to shock them by
philosophical paradoxes, which, when put
into common language, express only the
common sense of mankind.
If you ask a man that is no philosopher,
what colour is, or what makes one body
appear white, another scarlet, he can-
not tell. He leaves that inquiry to philo-
sophers, and can embrace any hypothesis
about it, except that of our modern philo-
sophers, who affirm that colour is not in
body, but only in the mind.
Nothing appears more shocking to his
apprehension, than that visible objects
should have no colour, and that colour
should be in that which he conceives to be
invisible. Yet this strange paradox is not
only universally received, but considered as
one of the noblest discoveries of modern
philosophy. The ingenious Addison, in
the Spectator, No. 413, speaks thus of it:—
“I have here supposed that my reader is
acquaiñted with that great modern discovery,
which is at present universally acknow-
ledged 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 incon-
testably by many modern philosophers, and
is, indeed, one of the finest speculations in
that science, if the English reader would see
the notion explained at large, he may find it
in the eighth chapter of the second book of
Locke's ‘Essay on Human Understanding.’”
Mr Locke and Mr Addison are writers
who have descrved so well of mankind, that
one must feel some uneasiness in differing
from them, and would wish to ascribe all
the merit that is due to a discovery upon
which they put so high a value. And, in-
deed, it is just to acknowledge that Locke,
and other modern philosophers, on the sub-
ject of secondary qualities, have the merit
of distinguishing more accurately than those
that went before them, between the sensa-
tion in the mind, and that constitution or
quality of bodies which gives occasion to
the sensation. They have shewn clearly
that these two things are not only distinct,
but altogether unlike : that there is no
similitude between the effluvia of an odo-
rous body and the sensation of Smell, or
between the vibrations of a sounding body
and the sensation of sound: that there can
be no resemblance between the feeling of
heat, and the constitution of the heated
body which occasions it; or between the
appearance which a coloured body makes to .
the eye, and the texture of the body which
causes that appearance. -
Nor was the merit small of distinguishing
these things accurately; because, however
different and unlike in their nature, they
have been always so associated in the ima-
gination, as to coalesce, as it were, into one
two-faced form, which, from its amphibious
nature, could not justly be appropriated
either to body or mind; and, until it was
properly distinguished into its different con-
stituent parts, it was impossible to assign to
either their just shares in it. None of the
ancient philosophers had made this distinc-
tion.* The followers of Democritus and
Epicurus conceived the forms of heat, and
sound, and colour, to be in the mind only;
but that our senses fallaciously represented
them as being in bodies. The Peripatetics
imagined that those forms are really in
bodies; and that the images of them are
conveyed to the mind by our senses. F
The one system made the senses natur-
ally fallacious and deceitful ; the other
made the qualities of body to resemble the
sensations of the mind. Nor was it possible
to find a third, without making the distinc-
tion we have mentioned; by which, indeed,
the errors of both these ancient systems are
avoided, and we are not left under the hard
necessity of believing, either, on the one
hand, that our sensations are like to the
qualities of body, or, on the other, that
God hath given us one faculty to deceive us,
and another to detect the cheat.
* This is inaccurate. The distinction was known
to the ancient philosophers ; and Democritus was
generally allowed to be its author. This Reid himselſ
elsewhere indeed admits.-(See above, p. 123; a ; and
p. 131, a )—H.
+ These statements concerning both classes of
philosophers are vague and incorrect. The latter,
in general, only allowed species for two senses, Sight
and Hearing ; few admitted them in Feeling; and
some rejected them altogether.-H.
140
OF THE HUMAN MIND. *
We desire, therefore, with pleasure, to
do justice to the doctrine of Locke, and
other modern philosophers, with regard to
colour and other secondary qualities, and
to ascribe to it its due merit, while we beg
leave to censure the language in which
they have expressed their doctrine. When
they had explained and established the dis-
tinction between the appearance which co-
lour makes to the eye, and the modifica-
tion of the coloured body which, by the
laws of nature, causes that appearance,
the question was, whether to give the
name of colour to the cause or to the ef-
fect 2 By giving it, as they have done, to
the effect, they set philosophy apparently
in opposition to common sense, and expose
it to the ridicule of the vulgar. But had
they given the name of colour to the cause,
as they ought to have done, they must
then have affirmed, with the vulgar, that
colour is a quality of bodies ; and that
there is neither colour nor anything like
it in the mind. Their language, as well
as their sentiments, would have been per-
fectly agreeable to the common apprehen-
sions of mankind, and true Philosophy would
have joined hands with Common Sense.
As Locke was no enemy to common sense,
it may be presumed, that, in this instance,
as in some others, he was seduced by some
received hypothesis; and that this was ac-
tually the case, will appear in the following
section.
Section. VI.
THAT NUNE OF OUR SENSATIONS AIEE RE-
SEMBLANCES OF ANY OF THE QUALITIES
OF BODIES.
A second inference is, that, although co-
lour is really a quality of body, yet it is
not represented to the mind by an idea or
sensation that resembles it; on the con-
trary, it is suggested by an idea which does
not in the least resemble it. And this in-
ference is applicable, not to colour only, but
to all the qualities of body which we have
examined.
It deserves to be remarked, that, in the
analysis we have hitherto given of the ope-
rations of the five senses, and of the quali-
ties of bodies discovered by them, no in-
stance hath occurred, either of any sensation
which resembles any quality of body, or of
any quality of body whose image or resem-
blance is conveyed to the mind by means of
the senses.
There is no phaenomenon in nature more
unaccountable than the intercourse that is
carried on between the mind and the ex-
ternal world—there is no phaenomenon
which philosophical spirits have shewn
greater avidity to pry into, and to resolve.
It is agreed by all, that this intercourse is
carried on by means of the senses; and
this satisfies the vulgar curiosity, but not
the philosophic. Philosophers must have
some system, some hypothesis, that shews
the manner in which our senses make us
acquainted with external things. All the
fertility of human invention seems to have
produced only one hypothesis for this pur-
pose, which, therefore, hath been univer-
sally received; and that is, that the mind,
like a mirror, receives the images of things
from without, by means of the senses; so
that their usemust be to convey these images
into the mind."
Whether to these images of external
things in the mind, we give the name of
sensible forms, or sensible species, with the
Peripatetics, or the name of ideas of sensa-
tion, with Locke ; or whether, with later
philosophers, we distinguish sensations,
which are immediately conveyed by the
senses, from ideas of sensation, which are
faint copies of our sensations retained in
the memory and imagination;t these are
only differences about words. The hypo-
thesis I have mentioned is common to all
these different systems.
The necessary and allowed consequence
of this hypothesis is, that no material thing,
nor any quality of material things, can be
conceived by us, or made an object of
thought, until its image is conveyed to the
mind by means of the senses. We shall
examine this hypothesis particularly after-
wards, and at this time only observe, that,
in consequence of it, one would naturally
expect, that to every quality and attribute
of body we know or can conceive, there
should be a sensation corresponding, which
is the image and resemblance of that qua-
lity; and that the sensations which have
no similitude or resemblance to body, or to
any of its qualities, should give us no con-
ception of a material world, or of anything
belonging to it. These things might be ex-
pected as the natural consequences of the
hypothesis we have mentioned. e -
Now, we have considered, in this and
the preceding chapters, Extension, Figure,
Solidity, Motion, Hardness, Roughness, as
well as Colour, Heat, and Cold, Sound,
Taste, and Smell. We have endeavoured
to shew that our nature and constitution
lead us to conceive these as qualities of
body, as all mankind have always con-
s This is incorrect, especially, as it asserts that
the one universal hypothesis of philosophy was, that
“ the mind receives the images of things from with-
out,” meaning by these images, immediate or repre-
sentative objects, different from the modifications of
the thinking subject itself.-H.
# He refers to Hume;, Aristotle, however, and
Hobbes, badpreviously called Imagination a decay.
ing sense.-H.
OF SEEING.
141
ceived them to be. We have likewise exa-
mined with great attention the various
sensations we have by means of the five
senses, and are not able to find among
them all one single" image of body, or of
any of its qualities. From whence, then,
come those images of body and of its qua-
lities into the mind P Let philosophers re-
solve this question. All I can say is, that
they come not by the senses. I am sure
that, by proper attention and care, I may
know my sensations, and be able to affirm
with certainty what they resemble, and what
they do not resemble. I have examined
them one by one, and compared them with
matter and its qualities; and I cannot find
one of them that confesses a resembling
feature.
A truth So evident as this—that our sens-
ations are not images of matter, or of any
of its qualities—ought not to yield to a hy-
pothesis such as that above-mentioned, how-
ever ancient, or however universally re-
ceived by philosophers; nor can there be
any amicable union between the two. This
will appear by some reflections upon the
spirit of the ancient and modern philosophy
concerning sensation.
During the reign of the Peripatetic phi-
losophy, our sensations were not minutely
or accurately examined. The attention
of philosophers, as well as of the vulgar,
was turned to the things signified by them :
therefore, in consequence of the common
hypothesis, it was taken for granted, that
all the sensations we have from external
things, are the forms or images of these
external things. And thus the truth we
have mentioned yielded entirely to the hypo-
thesis, and was altogether suppressed by it.
Des Cartes gave a noble example of
turning our attention inward, and scruti-
nizing our sensations; and this example
hath been very worthily followed by mo-
dern philosophers, particularly by Male-
branche, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. The
effect of this scrutiny hath been, a gradual
discovery of the truth above-mentioned—to
wit, the dissimilitude between the sensa-
tions of our minds, and the qualities or
attributes of an insentient inert substance,
such as we conceive matter to be. But
this valuable and useful discovery, in its
different stages, hath still been unhappily
united to the ancient hypothesis—and from
this inauspicious match of opinions, so
unfriendly and discordant in their natures,
have arisen those monsters of paradox and
scepticism with which the modern philoso-
phy is too justly chargeable.
Locke saw clearly, and proved incon-
testably, that the sensations we have by
taste, smell, and hearing, as well as the
sensations of colour, heat, and cold, are
not resemblances of anything in bodies;
and in this he agrees with Des Cartes and
Malebranche. Joining this opinion with
the hypothesis, it follows necessarily, that
three senses of the five are cut off from
giving us any intelligence of the material
world, as being altogether inept for that
office. Smell, and taste, and sound, as well
as colour and heat, can have no more rela-
tion to body, than anger or gratitude; nor
ought the former to be called qualities of
body, whether primary or secondary, any
IFor it was matural
and obvious to argue thus from that hypo-
thesis: If heat, and colour, and sound
are real qualities of body, the sensations
by which we perceive them must be re-
Semblances of those qualities; but these
sensations are not resemblances; there-
fore, those are not real qualities of body.
We see, then, that Locke, having found
that the ideas of secondary qualities are no
resemblances, was compelled, by a hypo-
thesis common to all philosophers, to deny
that they are real qualities of body. It
is more difficult to assign a reason why,
after this, he should call them secondary
qualities ; for this name, if I mistake not,
was of his invention." Surely he did not
mean that they were secondary qualities of
the mind; and I do not see with what pro-
priety, or even by what tolerable license,
he could call them secondary qualities of
body, after finding that they were no qua-
lities of body at all. In this, he seems to
have Sacrificed to Common Sense, and to
have been led by her authority even in
opposition to his hypothesis. The same
sovereign mistress of our opinions that led
this philosopher to call those things second-
ary qualities of body, which, according to his
principles and reasonings, were no qualities
of body at all, hath led, not the vulgar of
all ages only, but philosophers also, and
even the disciples of Locke, to believe them
to be real qualities of body—she hath led
them to investigate, by experiments, the
nature of colour, and sound, and heat, in
bodies. Nor hath this investigation been
fruitless, as it must have been if there had
been no such thing in bodies; on the con-
trary, it hath produced very noble and
useful discoveries, which make a very con-
siderable part of natural philosophy. If,
then, natural philosophy be not a dream,
there is something in bodies which we call
colour, and heat, and sound. And if this
be so, the hypothesis from which the con-
* 0ne single—a common but faulty pleonasm.—H.
more than the latter.
• The terms First and Second, or Primary and
Secondary qualities, were no more an invention of
Locke than the distinction which he applied them to
denote. The terms First and Second Qualities,
as I have noticed, in the Aristotelian philosophy,
marked out, however, a different distribution of
qualities than that in question.-H.
142
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
trary is concluded, must be false: for the
argument, leading to a false conclusion,
recoils against the hypothesis from which
it was drawn, and thus directs its force
backward. If the qualities of body were
known to us only by sensations that resem-
ble them, then colour, and sound, and
heat could be no qualities of body ; but
these are real qualities of body; and, there-
fore, the qualities of body are not known
only by means of sensations that resemble
them. *.
But to proceed. What Locke had proved
with regard to the sensations we have by
smell, taste, and hearing, Bishop Berkeley
proved no less unanswerably with regard
to all our other sensations; * to wit, that
none of them can in the least resemble the
qualities of a lifeless and insentient being,
such as matter is conceived to be. Mr
Hume hath confirmed this by his authority
and reasoning. This opinion surely looks
with a very malign aspect upon the old hypo-
thesis ; yet that hypothesis hath still been
retained, and conjoined with it. And what
a brood of monsters hath this produced
The first-born of this union, and, per-
haps, the most harmless, was, That the
Secondary qualities of body were mere sens-
ations of the mind. To pass by Male-
branche's motion of seeing all things in the
ideas of the divine mind,+ as a foreigner,
never naturalized in this island ; the next
was Berkeley's system, That extension,
and figure, and hardness, and motion—that
land, and Sea, and houses, and our own
bodies, as well as those of our wives, and
children, and friends—are nothing but ideas
of the mind: and that there is nothing
existing in nature, but minds and ideas.
The progeny that followed, is still more
frightful; so that it is surprising, that one
could be found who had the courage to act
the midwife, to rear it up, and to usher it
into the world. No causes nor effects; no
Substances, material or spiritual; no evi-
dence, even in mathematical demonstration;
no liberty nor active power; nothing exist-
ing in nature, but impressions and ideas
following each other, without time, place,
or subject. Surely no age ever produced
such a system of opinions, justly deduced
with great acuteness, perspicuity, and ele-
gance, from a principle universally received.
* Bayle, before Berkeley, shewed that the reason-
ing of Malebranche against the external reality of
the secondary qualities, when carried to its legitimate
issue, subverted also that of the primary.—H.
+ Malebranche, it should be observed, distin-
guished more precisely than Des Cartes, or any pre-
vious philosopher, primary from secondary quali-
ties; and perception (idée) from sensation (senti-
ment.) He regarded the sensation of the secondary
qualities as the mere subjective feeling which the
human mind had of its own affections; but the per-
ception of the primary he considered as an objective
intuition it obtained of these, as represented in the
divine mind – H.
The hypothesis we have mentioned is the
father of them all. The dissimilitude of
oursensations and feelingstoexternal things,
is the innocent mother of most of them.
As it happens sometimes, in an arith-
metical operation, that two errors balance
one another, so that the conclusion is little
or nothing affected by them ; but when one
of them is corrected, and the other left, we
are led farther from the truth than by both
together: So it seems to have happened in
the Peripatetic philosophy of sensation,
compared with the modern. The Peripa-
tetics adopted two errors; but the last
served as a corrective to the first, and ren-
dered it mild and gentle; so that their
System had no tendency to scepticism.
The moderns have retained the first of those
errors, but have gradually detected and
corrected the last. The consequence hath
been, that the light we have struck out hath
created darkness, and scepticism hath ad-
vanced hand in hand with knowledge,
spreading its melancholy gloom, first over
the material world, and at last over the
whole face of nature. Such a phaenomenon
as this, is apt to stagger even the lovers of
light and knowledge, while its cause is latent;
but, when that is detected, it may give hopes.
that this darkness shall not be everlasting,
but that it shall be succeeded by a more
permanent light.
Section VII.
OF VISIBLE FIGURE AND EXTENSION.
Although there is no resemblance, nor,
as far as we know, any necessary connec-
tion, between that quality in a body which
we call its colour, and the appearance which
that colour makes to the eye, it is quite
otherwise with regard to its figure and mag-
nitude. There is certainly a resemblance,
and a necessary connection, between the
visible figure and magnitude of a body, and
its real figure and magnitude ; no man can
give a reason why a scarlet colour affects
the eye in the manner it does; no man can
be sure that it affects his eye in the same
manner as it affects the eye of another,
and that it has the same appearance to him
as it has to anotherman;–but we can assign
a reason why a circle placed obliquely to
the eye, should appear in the form of an
ellipse. The visible figure, magnitude, and
position may, by mathematical reasoning,
be deduced from the real; and it may be
demonstrated, that every eye that sees dis-
tinctly and perfectly, must, in the same
situation, see it under this form, and no
other. Nay, we may venture to affirm,
that a man born blind, if he were instructed
in mathematics, would be able to determine
OF SEEING.
| 43
the visible figure of a body, when its real
figure, distance, and position, are given.
Dr Saunderson understood the projection
of the sphere, and perspective. Now, I
require no more knowledge in a blind man,
in order to his being able to determine the
visible figure of bodies, than that he can
project the outline of a given body, upon
the surface of a hollow sphere, whose centre
is in the eye. This projection is the visible
figure he wants : for it is the same figure
with that which is projected upon the
-tunica retina in vision.
A blind man can conceive lines drawn
from every point of the object to the centre
of the eye, making angles. He can con-
ceive that the length of the object will
appear greater or less, in proportion to the
angle which it subtends at the eye; and
that, in like manner, the breadth, and in
general the distance, of any one point of the
object from any other point, will appear
greater or less, in proportion to the angles
which those distances subtend. He cau
easily be made to conceive, that the visible
appearance has no thickness, any more than
a projection of the sphere, or a perspective
draught. He may be informed, that the
eye, until it is aided by experience, does
not represent one object as nearer or more
remote than another. Indeed, he would
probably conjecture this of himself, and be
apt to think that the rays of light must
make the same impression upon the eye,
whether they come from a greater or a less
distance.
These are all the principles which we
suppose our blind mathematician to have ;
and these he may certainly acquire by in-
formation and reflection. It is no less
certain, that, from these principles, having
given the real figure and magnitude of a
body, and its position and distance with
regard to the eye, he can find out its visible
figure and magnitude. He can demonstrate
in general, from these principles, that the
visible figure of all bodies will be the same
with that of their projection upon the sur-
face of a hollow sphere, when the eye is
placed in the centre. And he can demon-
strate that their visible magnitude will be
greater or less, according as their projec-
tion occupies a greater or less part of the
surface of this sphere.
To set this matter in another light, let
us distinguish betwixt the position of objects
with regard to the eye, and their distance
from it. Objects that lie in the same right
line drawn from the centre of the eye, have
the same position, however different their
distances from the eye may be: but objects
which lie in different right lines drawn from
the ere's centre, have a different position ;
and this difference of position is greater or
less in proportion to the angle made at the
eye by the right lines mentioned. Having
thus defined what we mean by the position
of objects with regard to the eye, it is evi-
dent that, as the real figure of a body con-
sists in the situation of its several parts
with regard to one another, so its visible
figure consists in the position of its several
parts with regard to the eye ; and, as he
that hath a distinct conception of the situ-
ation of the parts of the body with regard
to one another, must have a distinct con-
ception of its real figure; so he that con-
ceives distinctly the position of its several
parts with regard to the eye, must have a
distinct conception of its visible figure.
Now, there is nothing, surely, to hinder a
blind man from conceiving the position of
the several parts of a body with regard to
the eye, any more than from conceiving
their situation with regard to one another ;
and, therefore, I conclude, that a blind man
may attain a distinct conception of the vis-
ible figure of bodies.*
Although we think the arguments that
have been offered are sufficient to prove
that a blind man may conceive the visible
extension and figure of bodies; yet, in order
to remove some prejudices against this truth,
it will be of use to compare the notion which
a blind mathematician might form to him-
self of visible figure, with that which is pre-
sented to the eye in vision, and to observe
wherein they differ.
First, Visible figure is never presented to
the eye but in conjunction with colour:
and, although there be no connection be-
tween them from the nature of the things,
yet, having so invariably kept company to-
gether, we are hardly able to disjoin them
even in our imagination. What mightily
increases this difficulty is, that we have
never been accustomed to make visible
figure an object of thought. It is only used
as a sign, and, having served this purpose,
passes away, without leaving a trace behind.
The drawer or designer, whose business it
is to hunt this fugitive form, and to take a
copy of it, finds how difficult his task is,
after many years’ labour and practice.
Happy I if at last he can acquire the art of
arresting it in his imagination, until he can
delineate it. For then it is evident that
he must be able to draw as accurately from
the life as from a copy. But how few
of the professed masters of designing are
ever able to arrive at this degree of perfec-
tion I It is no wonder, then, that we should
find so great difficulty in conceiving this
form apart from its constant associate,
# The most accurate observations of the blind
from birth evince, however, that their conceptiºns
of figure are extremely limited.—H-
+ In other words, that wºmertended colour can be
perceived—can be imagined. Of this paradox (which
is also adopted by Mr Stewart) in the scquel,-H.
144
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
when it is so difficult to conceive it at all.
But our blind man's notion of visible
figure will not be associated with colour, of
which he hath no conception, but it will,
perhaps, be associated with hardness or
smoothness, with which he is acquainted by
touch. These different associations are apt
to impose upon us, and to make things
seem different, which, in reality, are the
SalT16,
Secondly, The blind man forms the no-
tion of visible figure to himself, by thought,
and by mathematical reasoning from prin-
ciples; whereas, the man that sees, has it
presented to his eye at once, without any
labour, without any reasoning, by a kind of
inspiration. A man may form to himself
the notion of a parabola, or a cycloid, from
the mathematical definition of those figures,
although he had never seen them drawn or
delineated. Another, who knows nothing
of the mathematical definition of the figures,
may see them delineated on paper, or feel
them cut out in wood. Each may have a
distinct conception of the figures, one by
mathematical reasoning, the other by sense.
Now, the blind man forms his notion of
visible figure in the same manner as the
first of these formed his notion of a para-
bola or a cycloid, which he never saw.
Thirdly, Visible figure leads the man
that sees, directly to the conception of the
real figure, of which it is a sign. But the
blind man’s thoughts move in a contrary
direction. For he must first know the real
figure, distance, and situation of the body,
and from thence he slowly traces out the
visible figure by mathematical reasoning.
Nor does his nature lead him to conceive
this visible figure as a sign; it is a creature
of his own reason and imagination.
Section VIII.
SOME QUERIES CONCERNING VISIBLE FIGURE
ANSWERED.
It may be asked, What kind of thing is
this visible figure ? Is it a Sensation, or
an Idea 2 If it is an idea, from what sensa-
tion is it copied ? These questions may
seem trivial or impertinent to one who does
not know that there is a tribunal of inqui-
sition erected by certain modern philoso-
phers, before which everything in nature
must answer. The articles of inquisition
are few indeed, but very dreadful in their
consequences. They are only these : Is
the prisoner an Impression or an Idea 2
If an idea, from what impression copied ?
Now, if it appears that the prisoner is
neither an impression, nor an idea copied
from some impression, immediately, with-
out being allowed to offer anything in
length, breadth, and thickness.
arrest of judgment, he is sentenced to pass
out of existence, and to be, in all time to
come, an empty unmeaning Sound, or the
ghost of a departed entity.”
Before this dreadful tribunal, cause and
effect, time and place, matter and spirit,
have been tried and cast: how then shall
such a poor flimsy form as visible figure
stand before it 2 . It must even plead guilty,
and confess that it is neither an impression
nor an idea. For, alas ! it is notorious,
that it is extended in length and breadth;
it may be long or short, broad or narrow,
triangular, quadrangular, or circular; and,
therefore, unless ideas and impressions are
extended and figured, it cannot belong to
that category.
If it should still be asked, To what cate-
gory of beings does visible figure then be-
long 2 I can only, in answer, give some
tokens, by which those who are better ac-
quainted with the categories, may chance
to find its place. It is, as we have said,
the position of the several parts of a figured
body with regard to the eye. The dif-
ferent positions of the several parts of the
body with regard to the eye, when put to-
gether, make a real figure, which is truly
extended in length and breadth, and which
represents a figure that is extended in
In like
manner, a projection of the sphere is a real
figure, and hath length and breadth, but
represents the sphere, which hath three
dimensions. A projection of the sphere,
or a perspective view of a palace, is a re-
presentative in the very same sense as visi-
ble figure is ; and wherever they have their
lodgings in the categories, this will be found
to dwell next door to them.
It may farther be asked, Whether there
be any sensation proper to visible figure, by
which it is suggested in vision ?—or by
what means it is presented to the mind 2+
* “Where Entity and Quiddity,
The ghosts of defunct bodies, fly.”
HUDIBRAS.–H.
+ “In Dr Reid’s “Inquiry,’” (says Mr Stewart, in
one of his last works, in reference to the following
reasoning,) “he has introduced a discussion con-
cerning the perception of visible figure, which has
puzzled me since the first time (more than forty years
ago) that I read his work. The discussion relates to
the question, ' Whether there be any sensation proper
to visible figure, by which it is suggested in vision ?”
The result of the argument is, that our eye might
have becn so framed as to suggest the figure of the
object, without suggesting colour or any other quali-
ty; and, of consequence, there seems to be no sensa-
tion appropriated to visible figure; this quality being
suggested immediately by the material impression
upon the organ, of which impression we are not
conscious."—Inquiry, &c. chap. vi. § 8. To my
apprehension, nothing can appear more manifest
than this, that, if there had been no variety in our
sensations of colour, and, still more, if we had had no
sensation of colour whatsoever, the organ of sight
could have given us no information, either with re-
spect to figures or to distances : and, of consequence,
would have been as useless to us, as if we had been
afflicted, from the moment of our birth, with a gutta .
serena.”—Dissertation, &c., p. 66, note ; 2d ed.
OF SEEING.
145
This is a question of some importance, in
order to our having a distinct notion of the
faculty of seeing : and to give all the light
to it we can, it is necessary to compare this
sense with other senses, and to make Some
suppositions, by which we may be enabled
to distinguish things that are apt to be con-
founded, although they are totally dif-
ferent.
There are three of our senses which give
us intelligence of things at a distance:*
Smell, hearing, and sight. In Smelling and
in hearing, we have a sensation or impres-
sion upon the mind, which, by our consti-
tution, we conceive to be a sign of some-
thing external: but the position of this
external thing, with regard to the organ of
sense, is not presented to the mind along
with the sensation. When I hear the
sound of a coach, I could not, previous to
experience, determine whether the sounding
body was above or below, to the right hand
or to the left. So that the sensation.sug-
gests to me some external object as the
cause or occasion of it; but it suggests not
the position of that object, whether it lies
in this direction or in that. The same
thing may be said with regard to smelling.
But the case is quite different with regard
to seeing. When I see an object, the ap-
pearance which the colour of it makes, may
be called the sensation, which suggests to
me some external thing as its cause ; but
it suggests likewise the individual direction
and position of this cause with regard to
the eye. I know it is precisely in such a
a direction, and in no other. At the same
time, I am not conscious of anything that
can be called sensation, but the sensation of
colour. The position of the coloured thing
is no sensation; but it is by the laws of my
constitution presented to the mind along
with the colour, without any additional
sensation.
Let us suppose that the eye were so con-
stituted that the rays coming from any one
point of the object were not, as they are in
our eyes, collected in one point of the
ºretina, but diffused over the whole : it is
evident to those who understand the struc-
ture of the eye, that such an eye as we have
supposed, would shew the colour of a body
as our eyes do, but that it would neither
shew figure nor position. The operation
of such an eye would be precisely similar
to that of hearing and smell; it would give
no perception of figure or extension, but
merely of colour. Nor is the supposition
we have made altogether imaginary: for it
is nearly the case of most people who have
cataracts, whose crystalline, as Mr Chesel-
den observes, does not altogether exclude
the rays of light, but diffuses them over the
ºreting, so that such persons see things as
one does through a glass of broken gelly:
they perceive the colour, but nothing of
the figure or magnitude of objects.”
Again, if we should suppose that smell
and sound were conveyed in right lines from
the objects, and that every sensation of
hearing and smell suggested the precise
direction or position of its object; in this
case, the operations of hearing and smelling
would be similar to that of seeing: we
should smell and hear the figure of objects,
in the same sense as now we see it; and
every Smell and sound would be associated
with some figure in the imagination, as
colour is in our present state.-f
The questions concerning the mutual dependence
of colour on extension, and of extension and figure
on colour, in perception and imagination, cannot be
dismissed in a foot-note. I shall endeavour, in Note
E, to shew that we can neither see nor imagine
colour apart from extension, nor extension and figure
apart from colour.—H.
* Properly speaking, no sense gives us a knowledge
of aught but what is in immediate contact with its
:*: tiºn else is something over and above percep-
1011. – He
* Reid, as remarked by Mr Fearn, misinterprets
Cheselden in founding on the expressions of this
report, a proof of his own paradox, that-colour can
possibly be an object of vision, apart from extension.
There is no ground in that report for such an
inference; for it contains absolutely nothing to in-
validate, and much to support the doctrine—that,
though sensations of colour may be experienced
through the medium of an imperfect cataract, while
the figures of external objects are intercepted or
broken down ; yet that, in these sensations, colour
being diffused over the retina, must appear to us
extended, and of an extension limited by the bound-
aries of that sensitive membrane itself. The relative
passage of Cheselden is as follows:–" Though we
say of the gentleman couched between thirteen and
fourteen years of age, that he was blind, as we do
of all people who have ripe cataracts. yet they are
never so blind from that cause, but they can discern
day from night, and for the most part in a strong
light distinguish black, white, and scarlet ; but the
light by which these perceptions are made, being let
in obliquely through the aqueous humour, or the
anterior surface of the crystalline, by which the rays
cannot be brought into a focus upon the retina, they
can discern in no other manner than a sound eye can
through a glass of broken jelly, where a great variety
of surfaces so differently refract the light, that the
several distinct pencils of rays cannot be collected by
the eye into their proper foci, wherefore the shape of
an olject in such a case cannot be at all discerned,
though the colour may. And thus it was with this
young gentleman, who, though he knew these colours
asunder in a good light, yet, when he saw them after
he was couched, the faint ideas he had of them before,
were not sufficient for him to know them by after-
wards, and therefore he did not think them the
same which he had before known by those names.”—
There are also several statements in the report which
shew that the patient was, on the recovery of distinct
vision, perfectly familiar with differences of visible
magnitude. See Note E.-H.
+ To render this supposition possible, we must
not only change the objective, but also the subjective
conditions of smell and hearing; for, with our or-
gans of these senses, and our nervous system in ge-
neral, constituted as they are at present, the resul”
would not be as assumed, even were the olfactory
effluvia and audible vibrations conveyed in right
lines.from bodies to the nose and ear But to sup-
pose both subjective and objective conditions changed
is to suppose new qualities and nºw senses altogether;
an hypothesis which would hardly serve the purpose
of an illustration, a motiori.
A similar hypothesis and illustration is to be
found in Condillac's “Traité des Sensations;” but,
L.
H 46
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
We have reason to believe, that the rays
of light make some impression upon the
Tetina ; but we are not conscious of this
impression ; nor have anatomists or philo-
sophers been able to discover the mature and
effects of it; whether it produces a vibra-
tion in the nerve, or the motion of some
subtile fluid contained in the nerve, or some-
thing different from either, to which we
cannot give a name. Whatever it is, we
shall callit the material impression ; remem-
bering carefully, that it is not an impression
upon the mind, but upon the body; and
that it is no sensation, nor can resemble
sensation, any more than figure or motion
can resemble thought. Now, this material
impression, made upon a particular point of
the relina, by the laws of our constitution,
suggests two things to the mind—namely,
the colour and the position of some exter-
nal object. No man can give a reason why
the same material impression might not
have suggested sound, or Smell, or either
of these, along with the position of the object.
That it should suggest colour and position,
and nothing else, we can resolve only into
our constitution, or the will of our Maker.
And since there is no necessary connection
between these two things suggested by this
material impression, it might, if it had so
pleased our Creator, have suggested one of
them without the other. Let us suppose,
therefore, since it plainly appears to be
possible, that our eyes had been so framed
as to suggest to us the position of the object,
without suggesting colour, or any other
quality: What is the consequence of this
supposition ? It is evidently this, that the
person endued with such an eye, would per-
ceive the visible figure of bodies, without
having any sensation or impression made
upon his mind. The figure he perceives is
altogether external ; and therefore cannot
be called an impression upon the mind,
without the grossest abuse of language. If
it should be said, that it is impossible to
perceive a figure, unless there be some im-
pression of it upon the mind, I beg leave
not to admit the impossibility of this without
some proof: and I can find none. Neither
can I conceive what is meant by an impres-
sion of figure upon the mind. I can conceive
an impression of figure upon wax, or upon
any body that is fit to receive it ; but an
impression of it upon the mind, is to me
quite unintelligible; and, although I form
the most distinct conception of the figure, I
cannot, upon the strictest examination, find
any impression of it upon my mind.
If we suppose, last of all, that the eye
hath the power restored of perceiving colour,
às Mr Stewart observes, though thus anticipated,
there is no ground for thinking that Reid was
at all acquainted with the writings of the French phi-
losopher.—H. -
I apprehend that it will be allowed, that
now it perceives figure in the very same
manner as before, with this difference only,
that colour is always joined with it.
In answer, therefore, to the question pro-
posed, there seems to be no sensation that
is appropriated to visible figure, or whose
office it is to suggest it. It seems to be
suggested immediately by the material im-
pression upon the organ, of which we are
not conscious : and why may not a material
impression upon the retina suggest visible
figure, as well as the material impression
made upon the hand, when we grasp a ball,
suggests real figure ? In the one case, one
and the same material impression, suggests
both colour and visible figure; and in the
other case, one and the same material im-
pression suggests hardness, heat, or cold,
and real figure, all at the same time.
We shall conclude this section with an-
other question upon this subject. Since the
visible figure of bodies is a real and exter-
nal object to the eye, as their tangible figure
is to the touch, it may be asked, Whence
arises the difficulty of attending to the first,
and the facility of attending to the last 2 It
is certain that the first is more frequently
presented to the eye, than the last is to the
touch ; the first is as distinct and deter-
minate an object as the last, and seems in
its own nature as proper for speculation.
Yet so little hath it been attended to, that
it never had a name in any language, until
Bishop Berkeley gave it that which we have
used after his example, to distinguish it
from the figure which is the object of touch.
The difficulty of attending to the visible
figure of bodies, and making it an object of
thought, appears so similar to that which
we find in attending to our sensations, that
both have probably like causes. Nature
intended the visible figure as a sign of the
tangible figure and situation of bodies, and
hath taught us, by a kind of instinct, to put
it always to this use. Hence it happens,
that the mind passes over it with a rapid
motion, to attend to the things signified by
it. It is as unnatural to the mind to stop
at the visible figure, and attend to it, as it
is to a spherical body to stop upon an in-
clined plane. There is an inward principle,
which constantly carries it forward, and
which cannot be overcome but by a contrary
force. s r
There are other external things which
nature intended for signs; and we find
this common to them all, that the mind is
disposed to overlook them, and to attend
only to the things signified by them. Thus
there are certain modifications of the hu-
man face, which are natural signs of the
present disposition of the mind. Every
man understands the meaning of these signs,
but not one of a hundred ever attended to
OF SEEING,
147
the signs themselves, or knows anything
about them. Hence you may find many
an excellent practical physiognomist who
knows nothing of the proportions of a face,
nor can delineate or describe the expression
of any one passion.
An excellent painter or statuary can
tell, Ilot only what are the proportions of a
good face, but what changes every passion
makes in it. This, however, is one of the
chief mysteries of his art, to the acquisition
of which infinite labour and attention, as well
as a happy genius, are required; but when
he puts his art in practice, and happily ex-
presses a passion by its proper signs, every
one understands the meaning of these signs,
without art, and without reflection.
What has been said of painting, might
easily be applied to all the fine arts. The
difficulty in them all consists in knowing
and attending to those natural signs where-
of every man understands the meaning.
We pass from the sign to the thing sig-
nified, with ease, and by natural impulse;
but to go backward from the thing signi-
fied to the sign, is a work of labour and
difficulty. Visible figure, therefore, being
intended by nature to be a sign, we pass on
immediately to the thing signified, and can-
not easily return to give any attention to
the sign.
Nothing shews more clearly our indis-
position to attend to visible figure and vi-
sible extension than this—that, although
mathematical reasoning is no less appli-
cable to them, than to tangible figure and
extension, yet they have entirely escaped
the notice of mathematicians. While that
figure and that extension which are objects
of touch, have been tortured ten thousand
ways for twenty centuries, and a very
noble system of science has been drawn
out of them, not a single proposition do
we find with regard to the figure and ex-
tension which are the immediate objects of
sight ! e
When the geometrician draws a diagram
with the most perfect accuracy—when he
keeps his eye fixed upon it, while he goes
through a long process of reasoning, and
demonstrates the relations of the several
parts of his figure—he does not consider
that the visible figure presented to his eye,
is only the representative of a tangible figure,
upon which all his attention is fixed; he
does not consider that these two figures
have really different properties; and that,
what he demonstrates to be true of the one,
is not true of the other.
This, perhaps, will seem so great a para-
dox, even to mathematicians, as to require
demonstration before it can be believed.
Nor is the demonstration at all difficult, if
the reader will have patience to enter but ||
of visible figure, which we shall call the
geomelry of visibles.
Seclion IX.
OF THE GEOMETRY OF VISIBI,ES. *
In this geometry, the definitions of a point;
of a line, whether straight or curve; of an
angle, whether acute, or right, or obtuse ;
and of a circle—are the same as in common
geometry. The mathematical reader will
easily enter into the whole mystery of this
geometry, if he attends duly to these few
evident principles.
1. Supposing the eye placed in the centre
of a sphere, every great circle of the sphere
will have the same appearance to the eye
as if it was a straight line; for the curva-
ture of the circle being turned directly to-
ward the eye, is not perceived by it. And,
for the same reason, any line which is drawn
in the plane of a great circle of the sphere,
whether it be in reality straight or curve,
will appear straight to the eye.
2. Every visible right line will appear to
coincide with some great circle of the
sphere; and the circumference of that great
circle, even when it is produced until it
returns into itself, will appear to be a con-
tinuation of the same visible right line, all
the parts of it being visibly in directum.
For the eye, perceiving only the position of
objects with regard to itself, and not their
distance, will see those points in the same
visible place which have the same position
with regard to the eye, how different soever
their distances from it may be. Now, since
a plane passing through the eye and a given
visible right line, will be the plane of some
great circle of the sphere, every point of the
visible right line will have the same position
as some point of the great circle ; therefore,
they will both have the same visible place,
and coincide to the eye; and the whole
circumference of the great circle, continued
even until it returns into itself, will appear
to be a continuation of the same visible
right line.
Hence it follows—
3. That every visible right line, when it
is continued in directum, as far as it may be
continued, will be represented by a great
circle of a sphere, in whose centre the eye
is placed. It follows—
4. That the visible angle comprehended
under two visible right lines, is equal to the
spherical angle comprehended under the
two great circles which are the representa-
tives of these visible lines. For, since the
visible lines appear to coincide with the
a little into the mathematical consideration
* How does this differ from a doctrine of Perspec.
tive 2–At any ate. the notion is Berkeley's. Com-
pare “New Theory of Vision,” § 153—J59.—H.
I, 2
*
} 48
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
great circles, the visible angle compre-
hended under the former must be equal to
the visible angle comprehended under the
latter. But the visible angle comprehended
under the two great circles, when seen from
the centre, is of the same magnitude with
the spherical angle which they really com-
prehend, as mathematicians know ; there-
fore, the visible angle made by any two
visible lines is equal to the spherical angle
made by the two great circles of the sphere
which are their representatives.
5. Hence it is evident, that every visible
right-lined triangle will coincide in all its
parts with some spherical triangle. The
sides of the one will appear equal to the
sides of the other, and the angles of the
one to the angles of the other, each to each ;
and, therefore, the whole of the one triangle
will appear equal to the whole of the other.
In a word, to the eye they will be one and
the same, and have the same mathematical
properties. The properties, therefore, of
visible right-lined triangles are not the same
with the properties of plain triangles, but
are the same with those of spherical tri-
angles.
6. Every lesser circle of the sphere will
appear a circle to the eye, placed, as we
have supposed all along, in the centre of
the sphere ; and, on the other hand, every
visible circle will appear to coincide with
some lesser circle of the sphere.
7. Moreover, the whole surface of the
sphere will represent the whole of visible
space ; for, since every visible point coin-
cides with some point of the surface of the
sphere, and bas the same visible place, it
follows, that all the parts of the spherical
surface taken together, will represent all
possible visible places—that is, the whole of
visible space. And from this it follows, in
the last place—
8. That every visible figure will be repre-
sented by that part of the surface of the
sphere on which it might be projected, the
eye being in the centre. And every such
visible figure will bear the same ratio to the
whole of visible space, as the part of the
spherical surface which represents it, bears
to the whole spherical surface.
The mathematical reader, I hope, will
enter into these principles with perfect
facility, and will as easily perceive that the
following propositions with regard to visible
figure and space, which we offer only as a
specimen, may be mathematically demon-
strated from them, and are not less true nor
less evident than the propositions of Euclid,
with regard to tangible figures.
P, op. 1. Every rightline being produced,
will at last return into itself.
2. A right line, returning into itself, is
the longest possible right line; and all other
right lines bear a finite ratio to it.
3. A right line returning into itself,
divides the whole of visible space into two
equal parts, which will both be compre-
hended under this right line.
4. The whole of visible space bears a
finite ratio to any part of it.
5. Any two right lines being produced,
will meet in two points, and mutually
bisect each other
6. If two lines be parallel—that is, every
where equally distant from each other—
they cannot both be straight.
7. Any right line being given, a point
may be found, which is at the same dis-
tance from all the points of the given right
line.
8. A circle may be parallel to a right
line—that is, may be equally distant from
it in all its parts.
9. Right-lined triangles that are similar,
are also equal.
10. Of every right-lined triangle, the
three arges taken together, are greater
than two right angles.
11. The angles of a right-lined triangle,
may all be right angles, or all obtuse angles.
12. Unequal circles are not as the
squares of their diameters, nor are their
circumferences in the ratio of their dia-
meters.
This small specimen of the geometry of
visibles, is intended to lead the reader to a
clear and distinct conception of the figure
and extension which is presented to the
mind by vision ; and to demonstrate the
truth of what we have affirmed above—
namely, that those figures and that exten-
sion which are the immediate objects of
sight, are not the figures and the extension
about which common geometry is employed;
that the geometrician, while he looks at his
diagram, and demonstrates a proposition,
hath a figure presented to his eye, which is
only a sign and representative of a tangible
figure; that he gives not the least attem-
tion to the first, but attends only to the
last ; and that these two figures have differ-
ent properties, so that what he demon-
strates of the one, is not true of the
other.
It deserves, however, to be remarked,
that, as a small part of a spherical surface
differs not sensibly from a plain surface,
so a small part of visible extension differs
very little from that extension in length
and breadth, which is the object of touch.
And it is likewise to be observed, that the
human eye is so formed, that an object
which is seen distinctly and at one view,
can occupy but a small part of visible space;
for we never see distinctly what is at a
considerable distance from the axis of the
eye; and, therefore, when we would see a
large object at one view, the eye must be
at so great a distance, that the object
OF SEEING.
149
occupies but a small part of visible space.
From these two observations, it follows,
that plain figures which are seen at one
view, when their planes are not oblique, but
direct to the eye, differ little from the
visible figures which they present to the
eye. The several lines in the tangible
figure, have very nearly the same propor-
tion to each other as in the visible ; and
the angles of the one are very nearly, al-
though not strictly and mathematically,
equal to those of the other. Although,
therefore, we have found many instances
of natural signs which have no similitude
to the things signified, this is not the case
with regard to visible figure. It hath, in
all cases, such a similitude to the thing
signified by it, as a plan or profile hath to that
which it represents; and, in some cases, the
sign and thing signified have to all sense the
same figure and the same proportions. If
we could find a being endued with sight
only, without any other external sense,
and capable of reflecting and reasoning
upon what he sees, the notions and phi-
losophical speculations of such a being,
might assist us in the difficult task of
distinguishing the perceptions which we
have purely by sight, from those which de-
rive their origin from other senses. Let
us suppose such a being, and conceive,
as well as we can, what notion he would
have of visible objects, and what conclu-
sions he would deduce from them. We
must not conceive him disposed by his con-
stitution, as we are, to consider the visi-
ble appearance as a sign of something else :
it is no sign to him, because there is no-
thing signified by it; and, therefore, we must
suppose him as much disposed to attend to
the visible figure and extension of bodies,
as we are disposed to attend to their tangi-
ble figure and extension.
If various figures were presented to his
sense, he might, without doubt, as they
grow familiar, compare them together, and
perceive wherein they agree, and wherein
they differ. He might perceive visible ob-
jects to have length and breadth, but could
have no notion of a third dimension, any
more than we can have of a fourth.* All
visible objects would appear to be termi-
nated by lines, straight or curve ; and ob-
jects terminated by the same visible lines,
would occupy the same place, and fill the
same part of visible space. It would not
be possible for him to conceive one object
to be behind another, or one to be nearer,
another more distant.
To us, who conceive three dimensions, a
line may be conceived straight ; or it may
be conceived incurvated in one dimension,
* This proceeds upon the supposition that our no-
tion of space is merely empirical.—H.
and straight in another; or, lastly, it may
be incurvated in two dimensions. Suppose
a line to be drawn upwards and downwards,
its length makes one dimension, which we
shall call upwards and downwards ; and
there are two dimensions remaining, accord-
ing to which it may be straight or curve.
It may be bent to the right or to the left ;
and, if it has no bending either to right or
left, it is straight in this dimension. But
supposing it straight in this dimension of
right and left, there is still another dimen-
sion remaining, in which, it may be curve;
for it may be bent backwards or forwards.
When we conceive a tangible straight line,
we exclude curvature in either of these two
dimensions: and as what is conceived to be
excluded, must be conceived, as well as
what is conceived to be included, it follows
that all the three dimensions enter into our
conception of a straight line. Its length
is one dimension, its straightness in two
other dimensions is included, or curvature
in these two dimensions excluded, in the
conception of it.
The being we have supposed, having no
conception of more than two dimensions, of
which the length of a line is one, cannot
possibly conceive it either straight or curve
in more than one dimension ; so that, in his
conception of a right line, curvature to the
right hand or left is excluded ; but curva-
ture backwards or forwards cannot be ex-
cluded, because he neither hath, nor can
have any conception of such curvature.
Hence we see the reason that a line, which
is straight to the eye, may return into itself;
for its being straight to the eye, implies only
straightness in one dimension; and a line
which is straight in one dimension may,
notwithstanding, be curvein another dimen-
sion, and so may return into itself.
To us, who conceive three dimensions, a
surface is that which hath length and
breadth, excluding thickness; and a surface
may be either plain in this third dimension,
or it may be incurvated: so that the notion
of a third dimension enters into our concep-
tion of a surface ; for it is only by means
of this third dimension that we can dis-
tinguish surfaces into plain and curve sur-
faces; and neither one nor the other can
be conceived without conceiving a third
dimension.
The being we have supposed, having no
conception of a third dimension, his visible
figures have length and breadth indeed ;
but thickness is neither included nor ex-
cluded, being a thing of which he has no
conception. And, therefore, visible figures,
although they have length and breadth, as
surfaces have, yet they are neither plain
surfaces nor curve surfaces. For a curve
surface implies curvature in a third dimen-
Sion, and a plain surface implies the want
} 50
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
of curvature in a third dimension ; and
such a being can conceive neither of these,
because he has no conception of a third
dimension. Moreover, although he hath a
distinct conception of the inclination of two
lines which make an angle, yet he can
neither conceive a plain angle nor a spher-
ical angle. Even his notion of a point is
somewhat less determined than ours. In
the notion of a point, we exclude length,
breadth, and thickness; he excludes length
and breadth, but cannot either exclude or
include thickness, because he hath no con-
ception of it.
Having thus settled the notions which
such a being as we have supposed might
form of mathematical points, lines, angles,
and figures, it is easy to see, that, by com-
paring these together, and reasoning about
them, he might discover their relations, and
form geometrical conclusions built upon
self-evident principles. He might likewise,
without doubt, have the same notions of
numbers as we have, and form a system of
arithmetic. It is not material to say in
what order he might proceed in such dis-
coveries, or how much time and pains he
might employ about them, but what such
a being, by reason and ingenuity, without
any materials of sensation but those of
sight only, might discover. * *
As it is more difficult to attend to a de-
tail of possibilities than of facts, even of
slender authority, I shall beg leave to give
an extract from the travels of Johannes
Rudolphus Anepigraphus, a Rosicrucian
philosopher, who having, by deep study of
the occult sciences, acquired the art of
transporting himself to various sublunary re-
gions, and of conversing with various orders
of intelligences, in the course of his adven-
tures became acquainted with an order of
beings exactly such as I have supposed.
How they communicate their sentiments
to one another, and by what means he be-
came acquainted with their language, and
was initiated into their philosophy, as well
as of many other particulars, which might
have gratified the curiosity of his readers,
and, perhaps, added credibility to his rela-
tion, he hath not thought fit to inform us;
these being matters proper for adepts only
to know.
His account of their philosophy is as fol-
lows : —
“The Idomenians,” saith he, “are many
of them very ingenious, and much given to
contemplation. In arithmetic, geometry,
metaphysics, and physics, they have most
elaborate systems. In the two latter, in-
deed, they have had many disputes carried
on with great subtilty, and are divided in-
to various sects ; yet in the two former
there hath been no less unanimity than
among the human species. Their princi-
ples relating to numbers and arithmetic,
making allowance for their notation, differ
in nothing from ours—but their geometry
differs very considerably.” -
As our author's account of the geometry
of the Idomenians agrees in everything
with the geometry of visibles, of which, we
have already given a specimen, we shall
pass over it. He goes on thus:—“Colour,
extension, and figure, are conceived to be
the essential properties of body. A very
considerable sect maintains, that colour is
the essence of body. If there had been no
colour, say they, there had been no percep-
tion or sensation. Colour is all that we
perceive, or can conceive, that is peculiar
to body; extension and figure being modes
common to body and to empty space. And
if we should suppose a body to be annihi-
lated, colour is the only thing in it that can
be annihilated ; for its place, and conse-
quently the figure and extension of that
place, must remain, and cannot be imagined
not to exist. These philosophers hold space
to be the place of all bodies, immoveable and
indestructible, without figure, and similar
in all its parts, incapable of increase or di-
minution, yet not unmeasurable; for every
the least part of space bears a finite ratio to
the whole. So that with them the whole
extent of space is the common and natural
measure of everything that hath length and
breadth ; and the magnitude of every body
and of every figure is expressed by its being
such a part of the universe. In like manner,
the common and natural measure of length
is an infinite right line, which, as hath been
before observed, returns into itself, and hath
no limits, but bears a finite ratio to every
other line. .
“As to their natural philosophy, it is
now acknowledged by the wisest of them to
have been for many ages in a very low
state. The philosophers observing, that
body can differ from another only in colour,
figure, or magnitude, it was taken for
ranted, that all their particular qualities
must arise from the various combinations
of these their essential attributes; and,
therefore, it was looked upon as the end of
natural philosophy, to shew how the various
combinations of these three qualities in dif-
ferent bodies produced all the phaenomena
of nature. It were endless to enumerate
the various systems that were invented with
this view, and the disputes that were car-
ried on for ages; the followers of every
system exposing the weak sides of other
systems, and palliating those of their own,
with great art.
“At last, some free and facetious spirits,
wearied with eternal disputation, and the
labour of patching and propping weak sys-
tems, began to complain of the subtilty of
nature ; of the infinite changes that bodies
OF SEEING.
..] 5 l
undergo in figure, colour, and magnitude :
and of the difficulty of accounting for these
appearances—making this a pretence for
giving up all inquiries into the causes of
things, as vain and fruitless.
“These wits had ample matter of mirth
and ridicule in the systems of philosophers;
and, finding it an easier task to pull down
than to build or support, and that every
sect furnished them with arms and auxi-
liaries to destroy another, they began to
spread mightily, and went on with great
success. Thus philosophy gave way to scop-
ticism and irony, and those systems which
had been the work of ages, and the admira-
tion of the learned, became the jest of the
vulgar: for even the vulgar readily took
part in the triumph over a kind of learning
which they had long suspected, because it
produced nothing but wrangling and alter-
cation. The wits, having now acquired great
reputation, and being flushed with success,
began to think their triumph incomplete,
until every pretence to knowledge was over-
turned; and accordingly began their attacks
upon arithmetic, geometry, and even upon
the common notions of untaught Idomen-
ians. So difficult it hath always been,” says
our author, “for great conquerors to know
where to stop. -
“In the meantime, natural philosophy
began to rise from its ashes, under the
direction of a person of great genius, who is
looked upon as having had something in him
above Idomenian nature. He observed,
that the Idomenian faculties were certainly
intended for contemplation, and that the
works of nature were a nobler subject to
exercise them upon, than the follies of sys-
tems, or the errors of the learned ; and
being sensible of the difficulty of finding out
the causes of natural things, he proposed,
by accurate observation of the phaenomena
of nature, to find out the rules according to
which they happen, without inquiring into
the causes of those rules. In this he made
considerable progress himself, and planned
out much work for his followers, who call
themselves inductive philosophers. The
sceptics look with envy upon this rising
sect, as eclipsing their reputation, and
threatening to limit their empire ; but they
are at a loss on what hand to attack it.
The vulgar begin to reverence it as pro-
ducing useful discoveries.
“It is to be observed, that every Idome-
nian firmly believes, that two or more bo-
dies may exist in the same place. For this
they have the testimony of sense, and they
can no more doubt of it, than they can
doubt whether they have any perception at
all. They often see two bodies meet and
coincide in the same place, and separate
again, without having undergone any
change in their sensible qualities by this
penetration. When two bodies meet, and
occupy the same place, commonly one only
appears in that place, and the other disap-
pears. That which continues to appear is
Said to overcome, the other to be over-
come.”
To this quality of bodies they gave a
name, which our author tells us hath no
Word answering to it in any human lan-
guage. And, therefore, after making a
long apology, which I omit, he begs leave
to call it the overcoming quality of bodies.
He assures us, that “the speculations which
had been raised about this single quality of
bodies, and the hypotheses contrived to ac-
count for it, were sufficient to fill many
volumes. Nor have there been fewer hy-
potheses invented by their philosophers, to
account for the changes of magnitude and
figure; which, in most bodies that move,
they perceive to be in a continual fluctua-
ation. The founder of the inductive sect,
believing it to be above the reach of Ido-
menian faculties, to discover the real causes
of these phaenomena, applied himself to
find from observation, by what laws they
àre connected together ; and discovered
many mathematical ratios and relations con-
cerning the motions, magnitudes, figures,
and overcoming quality of bodies, which
constant experience confirms. But the op-
posers of this sect choose rather to content
themselves with feigned causes of these
phaenomena, than to acknowledge the real
laws whereby they are governed, which
humble their pride, by being confessedly
unaccountable.”
Thus far Johannes Rudolphus Anepigra-
phus. Whether this Anepigraphus be the
same who is recorded among the Greek
alchemistical writers not yet published, by
Porrichius, Fabricius, and others,” I do
not pretend to determine. The identity of
their name, and the similitude of their
studies, although no slight arguments, yet
are not absolutely conclusive. Nor will I
take upon me to judge of the narrative of
this learned traveller, by the easternal marks
of his credibility; I shall confine myself to
those which the critics call internal. It
would even be of small importance to in-
quire, whether the Idomenians have a real,
or only an ideal existence ; since this is
disputed among the learned with regard to
things with which we are more nearly con-
nected. The important question is, whe-
ther the account above given, is a just ac-
count of their geometry and philosophy 2
We have all the faculties which they
* This is true; the name is not imaginary.
“Amepigraphus the Philosopher” is the reputed author
of several chemical treatises in Greek, which have not
as yet been deemed worthy of publication. See
Du Cange, “ Gloss. med. et inf., Graecitatis,” voce
IIotarºz, and Reinesii, “ War. I.ectt " L. l I. c. 5,
— H. -
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
havé, with the addition of others which
they have not ; we may, therefore, form
some judgment of their philosophy and ge-
ometry, by separating from all others, the
perceptions we have by sight and reasoning
upon them. As far as I am able to judge
in this way, after a careful examination, their
geometry must be such as Anepigraphus
hath described. Nor does his account of
their philosophy appear to contain any evi-
dent marks of imposture ; although here,
no doubt, proper allowance is to be made
for liberties which travellers take, as well as
for involuntary mistakes which they are apt
to fall into.
Section X.
OF THE PARALLEL MOTION OF THE EYES.
Having explained, as distinctly as we
can, visible figure, and shewn its connection
with the things signified by it, it will be
proper next to consider some phaenomena
of the eyes, and of vision, which have com-
monly been referred to custom, to anato-
mical or to mechanical causes; but which,
as I conceive, must be resolved into origi-
nal powers and principles of the human mind;
and, therefore, belong properly to the sub-
ject of this inquiry.
The first is the parallel motion of the
eyes; by which, when one eye is turned
to the right or to the left, upwards or down-
wards, or straight forwards, the other
always goes along with it in the same direc-
tion. We see plainly, when both eyes are
open, that they are always turned the same
way, as if both were acted upon by the same
motive force; and if one eye is shut, and the
hand laid upon it, while the other turns
various ways, we feel the eye that is shut
turn at the same time, and that whether
we will or not. What makes this phaeno-
menon surprising is, that it is acknowledged,
by all anatomists, that the muscles which
move the two eyes, and the nerves which
serve these muscles, are entirely distinct
and unconnected. It would be thought
very surprising and unaccountable to see a
man, who, from his birth, never moved
one arm, without moving the other pre-
cisely in the same manner, so as to keep
them always parallel—yet it would not be
more difficult to find the physical cause of
such motion of the arms, than it is to find
the cause of the parallel motion of the eyes,
which is perfectly similar.
The only cause that hath been assigned
of this parallel motion of the eyes, is cus-
tom. We find by experience, it is said,
when we begin to look at objects, that, in
order to have distinct vision, it is necessary
to turn both eyes the same way; therefore,
we soon acquire the habit of doing it con-
stantly, and by degrees lose the power of
doing otherwise.
This account of the matter seems to be
insufficient; because habits are not got at
once; it takes time to acquire and to con-
firm them ; and if this motion of the eyes
were got by habit, we should see children,
when they are born, turn their eyes different
ways, and move one without the other, as
they do their hands or legs. I know some
have affirmed that they are apt to do so.
But I have never found it true from my
own observation, although I have taken
pains to make observations of this kind, and
have had good opportunities. I have
likewise consulted experienced Imidwives,
mothers, and nurses, and found them agree,
that they had never observed distortions
of this kind in the eyes of children, but
when they had reason to suspect convul-
Sions, or some preternatural cause.
It seems, therefore, to be extremely pro-
bable, that, previous to custom, there is
Something in the constitution, some natural
instinct, which directs us to move both eyes
always the same way."
We know not how the mind acts upon
the body, nor by what power the muscles
are contracted and relaxed—but we see
that, in Some of the voluntary, as well as
in some of the involuntary motions, this
power is so directed, that Imany muscles
which have no material tie or connection,--
act in concert, each of them being taught
to play its part in exact time and measure.
Nor doth a company of expert players in
a theatrical performance, or of excellent
musicians in a concert, or of good dancers
in a country dance, with more regularity
and order, conspire and contribute their
several parts, to produce one uniform effect,
than a number of muscles do, in many of
the animal functions, and in many volun-
tary actions. Yet we see such actions no
less skilfully and regularly performed in
children, and in those who know not that
they have such muscles, than in the most
skilful anatomist and physiologist.
Who taught all the muscles that are
concerned in sucking, in swallowing our
food, in breathing, and in the several na-
tural expulsions, to act their part in such
regular order and exact measure ? It was
not custom surely. It was that same power-
ful and wise Being who made the fabric of
the human body, and fixed the laws by
which the mind operates upon every part
* The parallel movement, like other reciprocities
of the two eyes, can be explained physiologically,
by the mutual relation of their nerves, without re-
curring to any higher or more mysterious principle.—
H.
f This is not correct. Muscles which have cor-
relative motions are now either known or admitted
to have correlative nerves —FI. * *
OF SEEING,
153
of it, so that they may answer the pur-
poses intended by them. And when we
see, in so many other instances, a system
of unconnected muscles" conspiring so won-
derfully in their several functions, without
the aid of habit, it needs not be thought
strange, that the muscles of the eyes should,
without this aid, conspire to give that di-
rection to the eyes, without which they
could not answe; their end.
We see a like conspiring action in the
muscles which contract the pupils of the
two eyes; and in those muscles, whatever
they be, by which the conformation of the
eyes is varied according to the distance of
objects.
It ought, however, to be observed, that,
although it appears to be by natural in-
stinct that both eyes are always turned
the same way, there is still some latitude
left for custom. -
What we have said of the parallel motion
of the eyes, is not to be understood so strictly
as if nature directed us to keep their axes
always precisely and mathematically par-
allel to each other. Indeed, although they
are always nearly parallel, they hardly ever
are exactly so. When we look at an ob-
ject, the axes of the eyes meet in that
object: and, therefore, make an angle, which
is always small, but will be greater or less,
according as the object is nearer or more
remote. Nature hath very wisely left us
the power of varying the parallelism of our
eyes a little, so that we can direct them to
the same point, whether remote or near.
This, no doubt, is learned by custom; and
accordingly we see, that it is a long time
before children get this habit in perfection.
This power of varying the parallelism of
the eyes is naturally no more than is suffi-
cient for the purpose intended by it ; but
by much practice and straining, it may be
increased. Accordingly, we see, that some
have acquired the power of distorting their
eyes into unnatural directions, as others
have acquired the power of distorting their
bodies into unnatural postures.
Those who have lost the sight of an eye,
commonly lose what they had got by custom,
in the direction of their eyes, but retain
what they had by nature ; that is, although
their eyes turn and move always together,
yet, when they look upon an object, the
blind eye will often have a very small devia-
tion from it; which is not perceived by a
slight observer, but may be discerned by
one accustomed to make exact observations
in these matters.
Section XI.
OF OUR SEEING OBJECTS ERECT BY INVERTED
IMAGES.
Another phaenomenon which hath per-
plexed philosophers, is, our seeing objects
erect, when it is well known that their
images or pictures upon the tunica retina
of the eye are inverted.
The Sagacious Kepler first made the
noble discovery, that distinct but inverted
pictures of visible objects are formed upon
the retina by the rays of light coming from
the object. The same great philosopher
demonstrated, from the principles of optics,
how these pictures are formed—to wit,
That the rays coming from any one point
of the object, and falling upon the various
parts of the pupil, are, by the cornea and
crystalline, refracted so as to meet again
in one point of the relina, and there paint
the colour of that point of the object from
which they come. As the rays from dif-
ferent points of the object cross each other
before they come to the retina, the picture
they form must be inverted ; the upper
part of the object being painted upon the
lower part of the retina, the right side of
the object upon the left of the retina, and
so of the other parts.”
This philosopher thought that we see
objects erect by means of these inverted
pictures, for this reason, that, as the rays
from different points of the object cross
each other before they fall upon the relina,
we conclude that the impulse which we feel
upon the lower part of the retina comes
from above, and that the impulse which
we feel upon the higher part comes from
below.
Des Cartes afterwards gave the same
Solution of this phaenomenon, and illustrated
it by the judgment which we form of the
position of objects which we feel with our
arms crossed, or with two-sticks that cross
each other. .*
But we cannot acquiesce in this solution.
First, Because it supposes our seeing things
erect, to be a deduction of reason, drawn from
certain premises: whereas it seems to be an
immediate perception. And, Secondly, Be-
cause the premises from which all mankind
are supposed to draw this conclusion, never
entered into the minds of the far greater
part, but are absolutely unknown to them.
We have no feeling or perception of the
pictures upon the retina, and as little surely
* Sce the preceding note.
* This inverted picture is seen if we take the eye
of an ox, for example, and cut away the posterior
part of the sclerotica and choroid; but, without this
preparation, it is apparent in the eyes of albino ani-
mals, of the owl, &c., in which the hard coat and
choroid are semi-diaphanous.-H. -
l 54
OF THE HUMAN MIND
of the position of them. In order to see
objects erect, according to the principles
of Kepler or Des. Cartes, we must previ-
ously know that the rays of light come
from the object to the eye in straight lines;
we must know that the rays from different
points of the object cross one another
before they form the pictures upon the
'retina; and, lastly, we must know that these
pictures are really inverted. Now, although
all these things are true, and known to
philosophers, yet they are absolutely un-
known to the far greatest part of mankind :
nor is it possible that they who are abso-
lutely ignorant of them, should reason from
them, and build conclusions upon them.
Since, therefore, visible objects appear erect
to the ignorant as well as to the learned,
this cannot be a conclusion drawn from
premises which never entered into the minds
of the ignorant. We have indeed had oc-
casion to observe many instances of con-
clusions drawn, either by means of original
principles, or by habit, from premises which
pass through the mind very quickly, and
which are never made the objects of re-
flection ; but surely no man will conceive
it possible to draw conclusions from pre-
mises which never entered into the mind at
all.
Bishop Berkeley having justly rejected
this solution, gives one founded upon his
own principles ; wherein he is followed by
the judicious Dr Smith, in his “ Optics;”
and this we shall next explain and examine.
That ingenious writer conceives the ideas
of sight to be altogether unlike those of
touch. And, since the notions we have of
an object by these different senses have no
similitude, we can learn only by experience
how one sense will be affected, by what, in
a certain manner, affects the other. Figure,
position, and even number, in tangible
objects, are ideas of touch ; and, although
there is no similitude between these and
the ideas of sight, yet we learn by expe-
rience, that a triangle affects the sight in
such a manner, and that a square affects it
in such another manner—hence we judge
that which affects it in the first manner, to
be a triangle, and that which affects it in
the second, to be a square. In the same
way, finding, from experience, that an object
in an erect position affects the eye in one
manner, and the same object in an inverted
position affects it in another, we learn to
judge, by the manner in which the eye is
affected, whether the object is erect or in-
verted. In a word, visible ideas, according
to this author, are signs of the tangible ;
and the mind passeth from the sign to the
- thing signified, not by means of any simi-
litude between the one and other, nor by
any matural principle, but by having found
them constantly conjoined in experience, as
the sounds of a language are with the things
they signify : so that, if the images upon
the retina had been always erect, they
would have shewn the objects erect, in the
manner as they do now that they are in-
verted—nay, if the visible idea which we
now have from an inverted object, had been
associated from the beginning with the erect
position of that object, it would have signi-
fied an erect position, as readily as it now
signifies an inverted one. And, if the vis-
ible appearance of two shillings had been
found connected from the beginning with
the tangible idea of one shilling, that ap-
pearance would as naturally and readily
have signified the unity of the object as now
it signifies its duplicity.
This opinion is, undoubtedly, very inge-
nious ; and, if it is just, serves to resolve
not only the phaenomenon now under con-
sideration, but likewise that which we shall
next consider--our seeing objects single
with two eyes.
It is evident that, in this solution, it is
supposed that we do not originally, and
previous to acquired habits, see things
either erect or inverted, of one figure or
another, single or double; but learn, from
experience, to judge of their tangible posi-
tion, figure, and number, by certain visible
SI CI].S.
"indeed, it must be acknowledged to be
extremely difficult to distinguish the imme-
diate and natural objects of sight, from
the conclusions which we have been ac-
customed from infancy to draw from them.
Bishop Berkeley was the first that attempted
to distinguish the one from the other, and
to trace out the boundary that divides them.
And if, in doing so, he hath gone a little to
the right hand or to the left, this might be
expected in a subject altogether new, and
of the greatest subtilty. The nature of
vision hath received great light from this
distinction ; and many phaenomena in
optics, which before appeared altogether
unaccountable, have been clearly and dis-
tinctly resolved by it. It is natural, and
almost unavoidable, to one who hath made
an important discovery in philosophy, to
carry it a little beyond its sphere, and to
apply it to the resolution of phaenomera
which do not fall within its province. Even
the great Newton, when he had discovered
the universal law of gravitation, aid ob-
served how many of the phaenomena of
nature depend upon this, and other laws of
attraction and repulsion, could not help ex-
pressing his conjecture, that all the phaeno-
mena of the material world depend upon
attracting and repelling forces in the par-
ticles of matter. And I suspect that the
ingenious Bishop of Cloyne, having found
so many phaenomena of vision reducible to
the constant association of the ideas of sight
OF SEEING.
155.
and touch, carried this principle a little be-
yond its just limits.
In order to judge as well as we can
whether it is so, let us suppose such a blind
man as Dr Saunderson, having all the
knowledge and abilities which a blind man
may have, suddenly made to see perfectly.
Let us suppose him kept from all opportu-
nities of associating his ideas of sight with
those of touch, until the former become a
little familiar ; and the first surprise, occa-
sioned by objects so new, being abated, he
has time to canvass them, and to compare
them, in his mind, with the notions which
he formerly had by touch ; and, in particu-
lar, to compare, in his mind, that visible
extension which his eyes present, with the
extension in length and breadth with which
he was before acquainted.
We have endeavoured to prove, that a
blind man may form a notion of the visible
extension and figure of bodies, from the
relation which it bears to their tangible
extension and figure. Much more, when this
visible extension and figure are presented
to his eye, will he be able to compare them
with tangible extension and figure, and to
perceive that the one has length and breadth
as well as the other ; that the one may be
bounded by lines, either straight or curve,
as well as the other. And, therefore, he
will perceive that there may be visible as
well as tangible circles, triangles, quadri-
1ateral and multilateral figures. And, al-
though the visible figure is coloured, and
the tangible is not, they may, notwithstand-
ing, have the same figure; as two objects
of touch may have the same figure, although
one is hot and the other cold.
We have demonstrated, that the proper-
ties of visible figures differ from those of
the plain figures which they represent ; but
it was observed, at the same time, that
when the object is so small as to be seen
distinctly at one view, and is placed directly
before the eye, the difference between the
visible and the tangible figure is too small
to be perceived by the senses. Thus, it is
true, that, of every visible triangle, the
three angles are greater than two right
angles; whereas, in a plain triangle, the
three angles are equal to two right angles;
but when the visible triangle is small, its
three angles will be so nearly equal to two
right angles, that the sense cannot discern
the difference. In like manner, the circum-
ferences of unequal visible circles are not,
but those of plain circles are, in the ratio of
their diameters; yet, in small visible circles,
the circumferences are very nearly in the
ratio of their diameters; and the diameter
bears the same ratio to the circumference,
as in a plain circle, very nearly.
Hence it appears, that small visible
figures (and such only can be seen distinctly
at one view) have not only a resemblance
to the plain tangible figures which have the
name name, but are to all sense the same :
so that, if Dr Saunderson had been made to
see, and had attentively viewed the figures
of the first book of Euclid, he might, by
thought and consideration, without touching
them, have found out that they were the
very figures he was before so well ac-
quainted with by touch.
When plain figures are seen obliquely,
their visible figure differs more from the
tangible ; and the representation which is
made to the eye, of solid figures, is still
more imperfect; because visible extension
hath not three, but two dimensions only.
Yet, as it cannot be said that an exact pic-
ture of a man hath no resemblance of the
man, or that a perspective view of a house
hath no resemblance of the house, so it
cannot be said, with any propriety, that the
visible figure of a man or of a house hath
no resemblance of the objects which they
represent. . - - -
Bishop Berkeley therefore proceeds upon
a capital mistake, in supposing that there is
moresemblance betwixt the extension, figure,
and position which we see, and that which
we perceive by touch.
We may further observe, that Bishop
Berkeley's system, with regard to material
things, must have made him see this ques-
tion, of the erect appearance of objects, in
avery differentlight from that in whichitap-
pears to those who do not adopt his system.
In his theory of vision, he seems indeed
to allow, that there is an external material
world : but he believed that this external
world is tangible only, and not visible; and
that the visible world, the proper object of
sight, is not external, but in the mind. If
this is supposed, he that affirms that he
sees things erect and not inverted, affirms
that there is a top and a bottom, a right
and a left in the mind. Now, I confess I
am not so well acquainted with the topo-
graphy of the mind, as to be able to affix
a meaning to these words when applied
to it.
We shall therefore allow, that, if visible
objects were not external, but existed only
in the mind, they could have no figure, or
position, or extension ; and that it would be
absurd to affirm, that they are seen either
erect or inverted, or that there is any re-
semblance between them and the objects of
touch. But when we propose the question,
why objects are seen erect and not in-
verted, we take it for granted, that we are
not in Bishop Berkeley's ideal world, but
in that world which men who yield to the
dictates of common sense, believe them-
selves to inhabit. We take it for granted,
that the objects both of sight and touch,
are external, and have a certain figure, and
156
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
a certain position with regard to one another,
and with regard to our bodies, whether we
perceive it or not. -
When I hold my walking-cane upright
in my hand, and look at it, I take it for
granted that I see and handle the same
individual object. When I say that I feel
it erect, my meaning is, that I feel the
head directed from the horizon, and the
point directed towards it ; and when I say
that I see it erect, I mean that I see it with
the head directed from the horizon, and
the point towards it. I conceive the hori-
zon as a fixed object both of sight and touch,
with relation to which, objects are said to
be high or low, erect or inverted ; and when
the question is asked, why I see the ob-
ject erect, and not inverted, it is the same
as if you should ask, why I see it in that
position which it really hath, or why the
eye shews the real position of objects, and
doth not shew them in an inverted posi-
tion, as they are seen by a common astro-
nomical telescope, or as their pictures are
seen upon the retina of an eye when it is
dissected.
Section XII.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. \
It is impossible to give a satisfactory an-
swer to this question, otherwise than by
pointing out the laws of nature which take
place in vision; for by these the phaeno-
mena of vision must be regulated.
Therefore, I answer, First, That, by a
law of nature, the rays of light proceed from
every point of the object to the pupil of
the eye, in straight lines; Secondly, That,
by the laws of nature, the rays coming
from any one point of the object to the va-
rious parts of the pupil, are so refracted as
to meet again in one point of the retina;
and the rays from different points of the
object, first crossing each other,” and then
proceeding to as many different points of
the retina, form an inverted picture of the
object.
So far the principles of optics carry
us; and experience further assures us, that,
if there is no such picture upon the retina,
there is no vision ; and that such as the
picture on the retina is, such is the appear-
ance of the object, in colour and figure,
distinctness or indistinctness, brightness or
faintness.
It is evident, therefore, that the pictures
upon the retina are, by the laws of nature,
a mean of vision; but in what way they
accomplish their end, we are totally igno-
rant. Philosophers conceive, that the im-
pression made on the retina by the rays of
light, is communicated to the optic nerve,
and by the optic nerve conveyed to some
part of the brain, by them called the senso-
rium; and that the impression thus conveyed
to the sensorium is immediately perceived.
by the mind, which is supposed to reside
there. But we know nothing of the seat of
the soul : and we are so far from perceiving
immediately what is transacted in the brain,
that of all parts of the human body we know
least about it. It is indeed very probable,
that the optic nerve is an instrument of
vision no less necessary than the relina ;
and that some impression is made upon it,
by means of the pictures on the retina.
But of what kind this impressionis, we know
nothing.
There is not the least probability that
there is any picture or image of the ob-
ject either in the optic nerve or brain.
The pictures on the retina are formed by
the rays of light; and, whether we suppose,
with some, that their impulse upon the re-
tima causes some vibration of the fibres of
the optic nerve, or, with others, that it
gives motion to some subtile fluid contained
in the nerve, neither that vibration nor
this motion can resemble the visible ob-
ject which is presented to the mind. . Nor
is there any probability that the mind per-
ceives the pictures upon the relina. These
pictures are no more objects of our percep-
tion, than the brain is, or the optic nerve.
No man ever saw the pictures in his own
eye, nor indeed the pictures in the eye
of another, until it was taken out of the
head and duly prepared.
It is very strange, that philosophers, of
all ages, should have agreed in this notion,
that the images of external objects are con-
veyed by the organs of sense to the brain,
and are there perceived by the mind."
Nothing can be more unphilosophical. For,
First, This notion hath no foundation in fact
and observation. Of all the organs of
Sense, the eye only, as far as we can disco-
ver, forms any kind of image of its object;
and the images formed by the eye are not
in the brain, but only in the bottom of the
eye ; nor are they at all perceived or felt
by the mind. + Secondly, It is as difficult
* It is marvellous how widely both naturnl philo-
sophers and physiologists are at variance with regard
to the point of the exe at which the rays cross each
Qther. Some place this point in the cornea—some
in the region of the pupil—some in the centre of the
crystalline—and some in the vitreous humour.
Recent experiments, instituted for the purpose of
determining its locality, and still unknown in this
country, place it behind the crystalline lens. This
is fºund to be at once the crossing point, both of the
rays of light and of the line of visible direction, and
the turning point on which the eye rolls.-H.
* This statement in its unqualified universality is
altogether erroneous.-H.
+. This would require a second eye behind the
retina; which eye would also see the images bent,
OF SEEING.
157
to conceive how the mind perceives images
in the brain, as how it perceives things
more distant. If any man will shew how
the mind may perceive images in the brain,
I will undertake to shew how it may per-
ceive the most distant objects; for, if we
give eyes to the mind, to perceive what is
transacted at home in its dark chamber,
why may we not make these eyes a little
longer-sighted ? and then we shall have no
occasion for that unphilosophical fiction of
images in the brain. In a word, the man-
ner and mechanism of the mind's percep-
tion is quite beyond our comprehension;
and this way of explaining it, by images in
the brain, seems to be founded upon very
gross notions of the mind and its opera-
tions ; as if the supposed images in the
brain, by a kind of contact, formed similar
impressions or images of objects upon the
mind, of which impressions it is supposed to
be conscious.
We have endeavoured to shew, through-
out the course of this inquiry, that the im-
pressions made upon the mind by means of
the five senses, have not the least resem-
blance to the objects of sense ; and, there-
fore, as we see no shadow of evidence that
there are any such images in the brain, so
we see no purpose, in philosophy, that the
Supposition of them can answer. Since the
picture upon the relina, therefore, is neither
itself seen by the mind, nor produces any
impression upon the brain or sensorium,
which is seen by the mind, nor makes any
impression upon the mind that resembles
the object, it may still be asked, How this
picture upon the retina causes vision ?
Before we answer this question, it is pro-
per to observe, that, in the operations of the
mind, as well as in those of bodies, we must
often be satisfied with knowing that cer-
tain things are connected, and invariably
follow one another, without being able to
discover the chain that goes between them.
It is to such connections that we give the
name of laws of nature ; and when we say
that one thing produces another by a law
of nature, this signifies no more, but that
one thing, which we call in popular lan-
guage the cause, is constantly and invari-
ably followed by another, which we call the
effect; and that we know not how they are
connected. Thus, we see it is a fact, that
bodies gravitate towards bodies; and that
this gravitation is regulated by certain
mathematical proportions, according to the
distances of the bodies from each other,
and their quantities of matter. Being un-
able to discover the cause of this gravita-
tion, and presuming that it is the immediate
operation, either of the Author of nature,
as they are pictured on the concavity of that mem-
brane.—H.
or of Some subordinate cause, which we
have not hitherto been able to reach, we
call it a law of nature. If any philoso-
pher should hereafter be so happy as to
discover the cause of gravitation, this can
only be done by discovering some more
general law of nature, of which the gravi-
tation of bodies is a necessary consequence.
In every chain of natural causes, the highest
link is a primary law of nature, and the
highest link which we can trace, by just
induction, is either this primary law of
nature, or a necessary consequence of it.
To trace out the laws of nature, by induc-
tion from the phaenomena of nature, is all
that true philosophy aims at, and all that it
can ever reach.
There are laws of nature by which the
operations of the mind are regulated, there
are also laws of nature that govern the
material system; and, as the latter are the
ultimate conclusions which the human
faculties can reach in the philosophy of
bodies, so the former are the ultimate con-
clusions we can reach in the philosophy of
minds.
To return, therefore, to the question
above proposed, we may see, from what
hath been just now observed, that it
amounts to this—By what law of nature is
a picture upon the retina the mean or
occasion of my seeing an external object of
the same figure and colour in a contrary
position, and in a certain direction from the
eye P
It will, without doubt, be allowed that
I see the whole object in the same manner
and by the same law by which I see any
one point of it. Now, I know it to be a
fact, that, in direct vision, I see every point
of the object in the direction of the right line
that passeth from the centre of the eye to
that point of the object. And I know,
likewise, from optics, that the ray of
light that comes to the centre of my
eye, passes on to the relina in the same
direction. Hence, it appears to be a fact,
that every point of the olject is seen in the
direction of a right line passing from the
picture of that point on the retina, through
the centre of the eye. As this is a fact that
holds universally and invariably, it must
either be a law of nature, or the necessary
consequence of some more general law of
nature; and, according to the just rules of
philosophising, we may hold it for a law of
nature, until some more general law be
discovered, whereof it is a necessary conse-
quence—which, I suspect, can never be
done."
# A confirmation of this doctrine is drawn from
the cases of Cheselden and others, in which no men-
tal inversion of the objects is noticed, and which, had
it occurred, is tou remarkable a phaenomenon to have
been overlooked. It is, indeed, generally asserted that
158
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
Thus, we see that the phaenomena of
vision lead us by the hand to a law of na-
ture, or a law of our constitution, of which
law, our seeing objects erect by inverted
images, is a necessary consequence. For
it necessarily follows, from the law we have
mentioned, that the object whose picture is
lowest on the retina must be seen in the
highest direction from the eye; and that
the object whose picture is on the right of
the retina must be seen on the left ; so
that, if the pictures had been erect in the
retina, we should have seen the object.in-
verted. My chief intention in handling
this question, was to point out this law of
nature, which, as it is a part of the consti-
tution of the human mind, belongs properly
to the subject of this inquiry. For this
reason, I shall make some farther remarks
upon it, after doing justice to the ingenious
Dr Porterfield, who, long ago, in the
“Medical Essays,” or, more lately, in his
“Treatise of the Eye,” pointed out," as a
primary law of our nature, That a visible
object appears in the direction of a right
line perpendicular to , the retina at that
point where its image is painted. If lines
drawn from the centre of the eye to all
parts of the retina be perpendicular to it, as
they must be very nearly, this coincides
with the law we have mentioned, and is the
same in other words. In order, therefore,
that we may have a more distinct notion
of this law of our constitution, we may
observe— *
1. That we can give no reason why the
ºretina is, of all parts of the body, the only
one on which pictures made by the rays of
light cause vision; and, therefore, we must
resolve this solely into a law of our consti-
tution. We may form such pictures by
means of optical glasses, upon the hand, or
upon any other part of the body; but they
are not felt, nor do they produce anything
like vision. A picture upon the retina is as
little felt as one upon the hand; but it pro-
duces vision, for no other reason that we
know, but because it is destined by the
wisdom of nature to this purpose. The
vibrations of the air strike upon the eye,
the palate, and the olfactory membrane,
with the same force as upon the membrani
tympani of the ear. The impression they
make upon the last produces the sensation
of Sound ; but their impression upon any of
the former produces no sensation at all.
This may be extended to all the senses,
whereof each hath its peculiar laws, accord-
ing to which the impressions made upon the
organ of that sense, produce sensations or
perceptions in the mind, that cannot be
produced by impressions made upon any
other organ. t
2. We may observe, that the laws of per-
ception, by the different senses, are very
different, not only in respect of the nature
of the objects perceived by them, but like-
wise in respect of the motices they give us
of the distance and situation of the object.
In all of them the object is conceived- to
be external, and to have real existence, in-
dependent of our perception: but in one,
the distance, figure, and situation of the
object, are all presented to the mind; in
another, the figure and situation, but not
the distance; and in others, neither figure,
situation, nor distance. In vain do we at-
tempt to account for these varieties in the
manner of perception by the different
such inversion has never been observed in any
patient, surgically restored to sight. I am aware,
however, of one case of an opposite purport. lt is
mentioned, on his own observation, by a very intelli-
gent philosopher and physician, Professor Leiden-
frost of Duisburg; and, as his rare work—“Confessio
quid putet per Experientiam didicisse de Mente
Humana,” 1793–is altogether unknown in this
country, I shall extract from it the whole passage:–
“ Hae imagines formantur in organo, non in
cerebro.—Mutantur et pervertuntur ab organo laeso,
etiamsi illaesum maneat cerebrum. Non eas con-
natas habemus, sed exercitio continuato eas formare
discimus. Elegans exemplum habemus in evangelio
Marc. 8. cf. loh. 9. Vir adultus a nativitate coecus,
et potentia miraculosa sancti servatoris subito curatus
primo actu visionis utens distinguere non poterat,
utrumne staturae, quas videbat, homines essent, an
arbores. Sine dubio jam ante curationem sciverat ex
relatione aliorum, et ex manuum suarum experientia,
tam hominis quam stipitis arboreae staturas esse
erectas, at ulteriori exercitio fuerit opus ad utrum-
que distinguendum. Aliquid simile aliquando in
juvene propter cataractam congenitam coeco mihi
observare licuit. Hic ex paupercula familia rustica
ortus, statim post partum utramgue pupillam habuit
obscuratam ; probabiliter membrana pupillaris crassa
et Opaca erat. Pro incurabili habitus nullam cura-
tionem habutt. Sanus excrevit, sed plane coecus;
omni lumine orbus, in scholas missus lepidi ingenii
signa dedit. Anno aetatis circiter decimo septimo,
neScio ex qua causa gravissima ophthalmia corriptur
cum tumore palpebrarum et acerbo dolore. In hoc
statu aliqualis medicatio adhibita est. Observarunt
parentes lucem ab ed fugi, a luce dolores crescere.
Post aliquot hebdomades febris et ophthalmia de-
Crescunt; cum summo ejus stupore aliqualem luminis
usuram nanciscitur. Ornitto scribere plures memora-
biles hujus visionis conditiones, nam ab eo tempore
frequenter, et semper admirans, eum conspexi. Hoc
unum, quod ad rem facit, addo; imagines in oculo
or(as penitus ei novas fuisse. Ab initio non patieba-
tur Sibi persuaderi, reliquos homines erectos incedere,
putabat hominum capita sui 1psius pedibus esse ob-
versa. Similiter arbores et objecta omnia ratione sui
inversa esse. Colorum diversitate vehementer dolec-
tabatur, quorum nullum conceptum habuerat. Nam
quamdiu coecus erat, si quid de rubro aut alio colore
audiwerat, id comparaverat cum sensationibus gustus.
Rubrum sibi praesentaveratesse aliquid quasi dulce,
nigrum cum amarore comparaverat. Successive sibi
imagines has formabat, et dijudicabat, ut reliqui ho-
m mes. In hoc homine nullae imagines visivae prae
extiterunt, neque in organo, neque in cerebro, cujus
nu la passio atit mutatio facta érat. Aliquot annis
P98t, bic juvenis, non sine meo dolore, phthisicus mo-
riebatur.”—P. 54.
* Porterfield did not first point this out; on the con-
trary, it was a common, if not the common doctrine
at the time he wrote. See below, the first note of
§ xviii.-H. --
+ The common sense of mankind assures us that
the object of sense, is not merely conceived to be ex-
termal, but perceived in its externality ; that we know
the Non-Ego, not merely mediately, by a representa-
tion in the Ego, but immediately, as existing, though
only as existing in relation to our organs.—H.
OF SEEING
159
senses, from principles of anatomy or na-
tural philosophy. They must at last be
resolved into the will of our Maker, who
intended that our powers of perception
should have certain limits, and adapted the
organs of perception, and the laws of na-
ture by which they operate, to his wise pur-
poses. s
When we hear an unusual sound, the
sensation indeed is in the mind, but we
know that there is something external that
produced this sound. At the same time, our
hearing does not inform us whether the
sounding body is near or at a distance, in
this direction or that ; and therefore we look
round to discover it.
If any new phaenomenon appears in the
heavens, we see exactly its colour, its ap-
parent place, magnitude, and figure ; but
we see not its distance. It may be in the
atmosphere, it may be among the planets,
or it may be in the sphere of the fixed stars,
for anything the eye can determine.
The testimony of the sense of touch
reaches only to objects that are contiguous
to the organ, but, with regard to them, is
more precise and determinate. When we
feel a body with our hand, we know the
figure, distance, and position of it, as well
as whether it is rough or smooth, hard or
soft, hot or cold. -
The sensations of touch, of Seeing, and
hearing, are all in the mind, and can have
no existence but when they are perceived.
How do they all constantly and invariably
suggest the conception and belief of external
objects, which exist whether they are per-
ceived or not ? No philosopher can give
any other answer to this, but that such is
the constitution of our nature. How do we
know that the object of touch is at the
finger's end, and nowhere else 2–that the
object of sight is in such a direction from
the eye, and in no other, but may be at any
distance f*— and that the object of hearing
may be at any distance,” and in any direc-
tion ? Not by custom surely—not by rea-
soning, or comparing ideas—but by the con-
stitution of our nature. How do we per-
ceive visible objects in the direction of right
lines perpendicular to that part of the retina
on which the rays strike, while we do not
perceive the objects of hearing in lines per-
pendicular to the membrana tympani upon
which the vibrations of the air strike 2 Be-
cause such are the laws of our nature. How
do we know the parts of our bodies affected
by particular pains 2 Not by experience
or by reasoning, but by the constitution of
nature. The sensation of pain is, no doubt,
in the mind, and cannot be said to have any
relation, from its own natuie, to any part
of the body ; but this sensation, by our con-
stitution, gives a perception of some parti-
cular part of the body, whose disorder causes
the uneasy sensation. If it were not so, a
man who never before felt either the gout
or the toothache, when he is first seized with
the gout in his toe, might mistake it for
the toothache.
Every sense, therefore, hath its peculiar
laws and limits, by the constitution of our
nature ; and one of the laws of sight is, that
we always see an object in the direction of
a right line, passing from its image on the
retina through the centre of the eye.
3. Perhaps some readers will imagine
that it is easier, and will answer the pur-
pose as well, to conceive a law of nature,
by which we shall always see objects in
the place in which they are, and in their
true position, without having recourse to
images on the retina, or to the optical centre
of the eye. -
To this I answer, that nothing can be a
law of nature which is contrary to fact.
The laws of nature are the most general
facts we can discover in the operations of
nature. Like other facts, they are not to
be hit upon by a happy conjecture, but
justly deduced from observation ; like other
general facts, they are not to be drawn from
a few particulars, but from a copious, pa-
tient, and cautious induction. That we see
things always in their true place and posi-
tion, is not fact ; and therefore it can be no
law of nature. In a plain mirror, I See
myself, and other things, in places very
different from those they really occupy."
And so it happens in every instance where-
in the rays coming from the object are
either reflected or refracted before falling
upon the eye. Those who know anything
of optics, know that, in all such cases, the
object is seen in the direction of a line
passing from the centre of the eye, to the
point where the rays were last reflected
or refracted ; and that upon this all the
powers of the telescope and microscope
depend.
Shall we say, then, that it is a law of
nature, that the object is seen in the direc-
tion which the rays have when they fall
on the eye, or rather in the direction con-
trary to that of the rays when they fall
upon the eye 2 No. This is not true;
and therefore it is no law of nature. Tor
the rays, from any one point of the object,
come to all parts of the pupil; and there-
fore must have different directions : but we
see the object only in one of these direc-
tions—to wit, in the direction of the rays
that come to the centre of the eye. And
this holds true, even when the rays that
should pass through the centre are stopped,
* It has been previously noticed, that in no sense
does the mind perceive any distant or mediate ob-
ject.—H.
* This is a very inaccurate statement. In a
mirror 1 do not sec myself, &c.—H. -
} 60
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
and the object is seen by rays that pass at a
distance from the centre." -
Perhaps it may still be imagined, that,
although we are not made so as to see ob-
jects always in their true place, nor so as to
see them precisely in the direction of the
rays when they fall upon the cornea ; yet
we may be so made as to see the object
in the direction which the rays have when
they fall upon the retina, after they have un-
dergone all their refractions in the eye—
that is, in the direction in which the rays
pass from the crystalline to the retina. But
neither is this true; and consequently it is
no law of our constitution. In order to
see that it is not true, we must conceive all
the rays that pass from the crystalline to
one point of the retina, as forming a small
cone, whose base is upon the back of the
crystalline, and whose vertex is a point of
the retina. It is evident that the rays which
form the picture in this point, have various
directions, even after they pass the crystal-
line : yet the object is seen only in one of
these directions—to wit, in the direction of
the rays that come from the centre of the
eye. Nor is this owing to any particular
virtue in the central rays, or in the centre
itself; for the central rays may be stopped.
When they are stopped, the image will be
formed upon the same point of the relina as
before, by rays that are not central, nor have
the same direction which the central rays
had: and in this case the object is seen in the
same direction as before, although there
are now no rays coming in that direction."
From this induction we conclude, That
our seeing an object in that particular di-
rection in which we do see it, is not owing to
any law of nature by which we are made to
see it in the direction of the rays, either be-
fore their refractions in the eye, or after,
but to a law of our nature, by which we
see the object in the direction of the right
line that passeth from the picture of the
object upon the retina to the centre of the
eye.--
The facts upon which I ground this in-
duction, are taken from some curious ex.
periments of Scheiner, in his “Fundamen-
tum Opticum,” quoted by Dr Porterfield,
and confirmed by his experience. I have
also repeated these experiments, and found
them to answer. As they are easily made,
and tend to illustrate and confirm the law
of nature I have mentioned, I shall recite
them as briefly and distinctly as I can.
Ea'periment 1. Let a very small object,
such as the head of a pin, well illuminated,
be fixed at such a distance from the eye as
to be beyond the nearest limit and within
the farthest limit of distinct vision. For a
young eye, not near-sighted, the object may
be placed at the distance of eighteen inches.
Let the eye be kept steadily in one place, and
take a distinct view of the object. We
know, from the principles of optics, that
the rays from any one point of this object,
whether they pass through the centre of the
eye, or at any distance from the centre
which the breadth of the pupil will permit,
do all unite again in one point of the retina.
We know, also, that these rays have differ-
ent directions, both before they fall upon
the eye, and after they pass through the
crystalline.
Now, we can see the object by any one
Small parcel of these rays, excluding the
rest, by looking through a small pin-hole in
a card. Moving this pin-hole over the
various parts of the pupil, we can see the
object, first by the rays that pass above the
centre of the eye, then by the central rays,
then by the rays that pass below the centre,
and in like manner by the rays that pass on
the right and left of the centre. Thus, we
view this object, successively, by rays that
are central, and by rays that are not central;
by rays that have different directions, and
are variously inclined to each other, both
when they fall upon the cornea, and when
they fall upon the retina; but always by
rays which fall upon the same point of the
ºretina. And what is the event P It is this—
that the object is seen in the same individual
direction, whether seen by all these rays to-
gether, or by any one parcel of them.
Ea'periment 2. Let the object above
mentioned be now placed within the nearest
limit of distinct vision—that is, for an eye
that is not near-sighted, at the distance of
* But still we always see in the direction of a line
made up of the directions of all the rays of the pencil,
and this line necessarily coincides with the direction
of the central ray, even where that ray itself is inter-
cepted; for the central line would still be the me-
dium of all the lines of the various divergent or con-
vergent rays in the pencil – H. -
# It is incorrect to say that “we see the object,”
(meaning the thing from which the rays come
by emanation or reflection, but which is unknown
and incognizable by sight,) and so forth. It would
be more correct to describe vision—a perception, by
which we take immediate cognizance of light in re-
lation to our organ—that is, as diffused and figured
upon the retina, undcr various modifications of de-
gree and kind, (brightness and colour,)—and likewise
as falling on it in a particular direction. The image
on the retina is not itself an object of visual percep-
tion. It is only to be regarded as the complement of
those points, or of that sensitive surface, on which
the rays impinge, and with which they enter into re-
lation. The total object of visual perception is thus
neither the rays in themselves, nor the organ in it.
self, but the rays and the living organ in reciprocity:
this organ is not, however, to be viewed as merely
the retina, but as the whole tract of nervous fibre
pertaining to the sense. In an act of vision, so
also in the other sensitive acts, I am thus con-
scious, (the word should not be restricted to self-
consciousness,) or immediately cognizant, not only
of the affections of self, but of the phaenomena of
something different from self, both, however, always
in relation to each other. According, as in differ-
ent senses, the swbjective or the objective element
preponderates, we have s ausation or perception, the
secondary or the p, imary qualities of matter ; dis-
tinctions which are thus identificq and carried up
into a general law. But of this again.-H.
OF SEEING.
I6]
four or five inches. We know that, in this
case, the rays coming from one point of the
object do not meet in one point of the retina,
but spread over a small circular spot of it;
the central rays occupying the centre of this
circle, the rays that pass above the centre
occupying the upper part of the circular spot,
and so of the rest. And we know that the
object is, in this case, seen confused; every
point of it being seen, not in one, but in
various directions. To remedy this confu-
sion, we look at the object through the pin-
hole, and, while we move the pin-hole over
the various parts of the pupil, the object
does not keep its place, but seems to move in
a contrary direction.
It is here to be observed, that, when the
pin-hole is carried upwards over the pupil,
the picture of the object is carried upwards
upon the retina, and the object, at the same
time, seems to move downwards, so as to be
always in the right line, passing from the
picture through the centre of the eye. It is
likewise to be observed, that the rays which
form the upper and the lower pictures upon
the retina do not cross each other, as in or-
dinary vision; yet, still, the higher picture
shews the object lower, and the lower pic-
ture shews the object higher, in the same
manner as when the rays cross each other.
Whence we may observe, by the way, that
this phaenomenon of our seeing objects in a
position contrary to that of their pictures
upon the retina, does not depend upon the
crossing of the rays, as Kepler and Des
Cartes conceived.
Eaperiment 3. Other things remaining
as in the last experiment, make three pin-
holes in a straight line, so near that the rays
coming from the object through all the holes
may enter the pupil at the same time. In
this case, we have a very curious phaenome-
non; for the object is seen triple with one
eye. And if you make more holes within
the breadth of the pupil, you will See as many
objects as there are holes. However, we
shall suppose them only three—one on the
right, one in the middle, and one on the left;
in which case you see three objects standing
in a line from right to left.
It is here to be observed, that there are
three pictures on the retina ; that on the
left being formed by the rays which pass
on the left of the eye's centre, the middle
picture being formed by the central rays,
and the right-hand picture by the rays
which pass on the right of the eye's centre.
It is farther to be observed, that the object
which appears on the right, is not that
which is seen through the hole on the right,
but that which is seen through the hole on
the left; and, in like manner, the left-
hand object is seen through the hole on
the right, as is easily proved by covering
the holes successively : so that, whatever
is the direction of the rays which form the
right-hand and left-hand pictures, still the
right-hand picture shews a left-hand object,
and the left-hand picture shews a right-
hand object.
Ea'periment 4. It is easy to see how the
two last experiments may be varied, by
placing the object beyond the farthest limit
of distinct vision. In order to make this
experiment, I looked at a candle at the dis-
tance of ten feet, and put the eye of my
spectacles behind the card, that the rays
from the same point of the object might
meet and cross each other, before they
reached the retina. In this case, as in the
former, the candle was seen triple through
the three pin-holes; but the candle on the
right was seen through the hole on the
right; and, on the contrary, the left-hand
candle was seen through the hole on the
left. In this experiment it is evident,
from the principles of optics, that the rays
forming the Several pictures on the retina
cross each other a little before they reach
the retina ; and, therefore, the left-hand
picture is formed by the rays which pass
through the hole on the right: so that the
position of the pictures is contrary to that
of the holes by which they are formed; and,
therefore, is also contrary to that of their
objects—as we have found it to be in the
former experiments.
These experiments exhibit several un-
common phaenomena, that regard the appa-
rent place, and the direction of visible
objects from the eye ; phaenomena that
seem to be most contrary to the common
rules of vision. When we look at the same
time through three holes that are in a right
line, and at certain distances from each
other, we expect that the objects seen
through them should really be, and should
appear to be, at a distance from each other.
Yet, by the first experiment, we may,
through three such holes, see the same
object, and the same point of that object ;
and through all the three it appears in the
same individual place and direction.
When the rays of light come from the
object in right lines to the eye, without
any reflection, inflection, or refraction, we
expect that the object should appear in its
real and proper direction from the eye :
and so it commonly does. But in the
second, third, and fourth experiments, we
see the object in a direction which is not
its true and real direction from the eye,
although the rays come from the object to
the eye, without any inflection, reflection,
or refraction.
When both the object and the eye are
fixed without the least motion, and the
medium unchanged, we expect that the
object should appear to rest, and keep the
same place. Yet, in the second and fourth
NI
162
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
experiments, when both the eye and the ob-
ject are at rest, and the medium unchanged,
we make the object appear to move upwards
or downwards, or in any direction we please.
When we look, at the same time and
with the same eye, through holes that stand
in a line from right to left, we expect
that the object seen through the left-
hand hole should appear on the left, and the
object seen through the right-hand hole
should appear on the right. Yet, in the third
experiment, we find the direct contrary.
Although many instances occur in see-
ing the same object double with two eyes,
we always expect that it should appear
single when seen only by one eye. Yet, in
the second and fourth experiments, we have
instances wherein the same object may
appear double, triple, or quadruple to one
eye, without the help of a polyhedron or
multiplying glass.
All these extraordinary phaenomena, re-
garding the direction of visible objects from
the eye, as well as those that are common
and ordinary, lead us to that law of nature
which I have mentioned, and are the neces-
Sary consequences of it. And, as there is
no probability that we shall ever be able to
give a reason why pictures upon the retina
make us see external objects, any more
than pictures upon the hand or upon the
cheek; or, that we shall ever be able to
give a reason, why we see the object in the
direction of a lilie passing from its picture
through the centre of the eye, rather than
in any other direction—I am, therefore, apt
to look upon this law as a primary law of
our constitution.
To prevent being misunderstood, I beg
the reader to observe, that I do not mean
to affirm that the picture upon the retina
will make us see an object in the direction
mentioned, or in any direction, unless the
optic nerve, and the other more immediate
instruments of vision, be sound, and per-
form their function. We know not well
what is the office of the optic nerve, nor in
what manner it performs that office ; but
that it hath some part in the faculty of see-
ing, seems to be certain; because, in an
amnaurosis, which is believed to be a disorder
of the optic nerve, the pictures on the retina
are clear and distinct, and yet there is no
VISIOII.
We know still less of the use and func-
tion of the choroid membrane; but it seems
likewise to be necessary to vision: for it is
well known, that pictures upon that part of
the retina where it is not covered by the
choroid—I mean at the entrance of the
optic nerve–produce no vision, any more
than a picture upon the hand." We ac-
.* Reid here adopts the theory of Mariotte, who first
discovered the curious fact of this local insensibility,
knowledge, therefore, that the retina is not
the last and most immediate instrument of
the mind in vision. There are other mate-
rial organs, whose operation is necessary to
seeing, even after the pictures upon the
retina are formed. If ever we come to
know the structure and use of the choroid
membrane, the optic nerve, and the brain,
and what impressions are made upon them
by means of the pictures on the retina,
some more links of the chain may be brought
within our view, and a more general law
of vision discovered ; but, while we know
so little of the nature and office of these
more immediate instruments of vision, it
seems to be impossible to trace its laws be-
yond the pictures upon the retina.
Neither do I pretend to say, that there
may not be diseases of the eye, or accidents,
which may occasion our seeing objects in a
direction somewhat different from that men-
tioned above. I shall beg leave to mention
one instance of this kind that concerns my-
self.
In May 1761, being occupied in making
an exact meridian, in order to observe the
transit of Venus, I rashly directed to the
Sun, by my right eye, the cross hairs of a
Small telescope. I had often done the like
in my younger days with impunity; but I
Suffered by it at last, which I mention as a .
warning to others.
I soon observed a remarkable dimness in
that eye ; and for many weeks, when I was
in the dark, or shut my eyes, there ap-
peared before the right eye a lucid spot,
which trembled much like the image of the
Sun seen by reflection from water. This
appearance grew fainter, and less frequent,
by degrees; so that now there are seldom
any remains of it. But some other very
Sensible effects of this hurt still remain.
For, First, The sight of the right eye con-
tinues to be more dim than that of the left.
Secondly, The nearest limit of distinct
vision is more remote in the right eye than
in the other ; although, before the time
mentioned, they were equal in both these
respects, as I had found by many trials.
But, thirdly, what I chiefly intended to
mention is, That a straight line, in some
circumstances, appears to the right eye to
have a curvature in it. Thus, when I look
upon a music book, and, shutting my left
eye, direct the right to a point of the mid-
and who ingeniously employed it in support of his
opinion, that the choroid, not the retina, is the
proximate organ in vision. But not only is the ab-
sence of the choroid not to be viewed as the cause of
this phaenomenon ; it is not even to be attributed to
the entrance of the optic nerve. For it is proved
that the impassive portion of the retina does not
occupy above a third part of the disc, corresponding
to the circumference of that nerve ; and the conjec-
ture of Rudolphi seems probable, that the insensi-
bility is limited to the spot where the arteria centralis
enters.—H.
OF SEEING,
| 63
dle line of the five which compose the staff
of music, the middle line appears dim, in-
deed, at the point to which the eye is di-
rected, but straight; at the same time, the
two lines above it, and the two below it,
appear to be bent outwards, and to be more
distant from each other and from the middle
line, than at other parts of the staff, to
which the eye is not directed. Fourthly,
Although I have repeated this experiment
times innumerable, within these sixteen
months, I do not find that custom and ex-
perience takes away this appearance of cur-
vature in straight lines. Lastly, This ap-
pearance of curvature is perceptible when
I look with the right eye only, but not when
I look with both eyes; yet I see better
with both eyes together, than even with
the left eye alone.
I have related this fact minutely as it is,
without regard to any hypothesis; because
I think such uncommon facts deserve to be
recorded. I shall leave it to others to con-
jecture the cause of this appearance. To
me it seems most probable, that a small
part of the retina towards the centre is
shrunk, and that thereby the contiguous
parts are drawn nearer to the centre, and
to one another, than they were before ; and
that objects, whose images fall on these
parts, appear at that distance from each
other which corresponds, not to the interval
of the parts in their present preternatural
contraction, but to their interval in their
natural and sound state.
Section XIII.
OF SEEING OBJECTS SINGLE WITH TWO EYES.
Another phaenomenon of vision which
deserves attention, is our seeing objects
single with two eyes.” There are two pic-
# The opinions relative to single vision with two
eyes, may, I think, be reduced to two supreme classes.
The one attempts to shew that there is no difficulty
to be solved ; the other attempts to solve the difficulty
which is admitted.—Under the former class, there
are, as I recollect, three hypotheses. The first sup-
poses that we see only with one eye—that man is in
reality a Cyclops; the second supposes that the two
impressions are not, in fact, made at the same instant
in both eyes, and, consequently, that two simulta-
neous impressions are not conveyed to the brain and
mind; the tº ird supposes that, although a separate
impression be made on each retina, yet that these
several impressions are, as it were, fused into one
before they reach the common sensory, in conse-
quence of a union of the optic nerves.—The hypo-
theses of the latter class which, I think, may also be
reduced to three, all admit that there are simultaneous
impressions on the two retinae, and that these im-
pressions are separately conveyed to the termination
of the organic apparatus; but still hold that, in the
mind, there is determined ouly a single perception.
One opinion allows the perception to have been origi-
nally twofold, and saves the phaenomenon, by suppos-
ing that it became single through the influence of cus-
tom and association. Another explains it more sub-
jectively, by an ultimate and inexplicable law of our
tures of the object, one on each retina,
and each picture by itself makes us see an
object in a certain direction from the eye;
yet both together commonly make us see
only one object. All the accounts or solu-
tions of this phaenomenon given by anato-
mists and philosophers seem to be unsatisfac-
tory. I shall pass over the opinions of Galen,
of Gassendus, of Baptista Porta, and of Ro-
hault. The reader may see these examined
and refuted by Dr Porterfield. I shall ex-
amine Dr Porterfield's own opinion, Bishop
Berkeley's, and some others. But it will be
necessary first to ascertain the facts : for, if
we mistake the phaenomena of single and
double vision, it is ten to one but this mis-
take will lead us wrong in assigning the
causes. This likewise we ought carefully to
attend to, which is acknowledged in theory
by all who have any true judgment or just
taste in inquiries of this nature, but is very
often overlooked in practice—namely, that,
in the solution of natural phaenomena, all
the length that the human faculties can
carry us, is only this, that, from particular
phaenomena, we may, by induction, trace
out general phaenomena, of which all the
particular ones are necessary consequences.
And when we have arrived at the most
general phaenomena we can reach, there
we must stop. If it is asked, Why such a
body gravitates towards the earth 2 all the
answer that can be given is, Because all
bodies gravitate towards the earth. This
is resolving a particular phaenomenon into
a general one. If it should again be asked,
Why do all bodies gravitate towards the
earth 2 we can give no other solution of this
phaenomenon, but that all bodies whatso-
ever gravitate towards each other. This
is resolving a general phaenomenon into a
more general one. If it should be asked,
Why all bodies gravitate to one another ? we
cannot tell; but, if we could tell, it could
only be by resolving this universal gravita-
tion of bodies into some other phaenomenon
still more general, and of which the gravi-
tation of all bodies is a particular instance.
The most general phaenomena, we can reach,
are what we call laws of malure ; so that the
laws of nature are nothing else but the most
general facts relating to the operations of
nature, which include a great many parti-
cular facts under them. And if, in any case,
we should give the name of a law of nature
to a general phaenomenon, which human
industry shall afterwards trace to one more
general, there is no great harm done. The
most general assumes the name of a law of
nature when it is discovered, and the less
general is contained and comprehended in
it. Having premised these things, we pro-
ceed to consider the phaenomena of single
constitution ; and the last, more objectively, on some
intelligible principle of optics.-H.
M 2
164
OF THE HUMAN MINE),
and double vision, in order to discover some
general principle to which they all lead, and
of which they are the necessary conse-
quences. If we can discover any such
general principle, it must either be a law of
nature, or the necessary consequence of
some law of nature ; and its authority will
be equal whether it is the first or the last.
1. We find that, when the eyes are sound
and perfect, and the axes of both directed
to one point, an object placed in that point is
seen single—and here we observe, that in
this case the two pictures which shew the
object single, are in the centres of the
retina. When two pictures of a small
object are formed upon points of the retina,
if they shew the object single, we shall, for
the sake of perspicuity, call such two points
of the retina, corresponding points ; and
where the object is seen double, we shall
call the points of the retina on which the
pictures are formed, points that do not cor-
respond.” Now, in this first phaenomenon,
it is evident, that the two centres of the
zelina are corresponding points. .
2. Supposing the same things as in the
last phaenomenon, other objects at the same
distance from the eyes as that to which
their axes are directed, do also appear
single. Thus, if I direct my eyes to a
candle placed at the distance of ten feet,
and, while I look at this candle, another
stands at the same distance from my eyes,
within the field of vision, I can, while I
look at the first candle, attend to the ap-
pearance which the second makes to the
eye; and I find that in this case it always
appears single.
that the pictures of the second candle do
not fall upon the centres of the retinae, but
they both fall upon the same side of the
centres—that is, both to the right, or both
to the left; and both are at the same dis-
tance from the centres. This might easily
be demonstrated from the principles of
optics. Hence it appears, that in this
second phaenomenon of single vision, the
corresponding points are points of the two
ºretinae, which are similarly situate with
respect to the two centres, being both upon
the same side of the centre, and at the same
distance from it. It appears likewise, from
this phaenomenon, that every point in one
ºretina corresponds with that which is simi-
larly situate in the other.
* It is to be noticed that Reid uses the terms, cor-
responding points in a sense opposite to that of
Smith, and some optical writers; they use it anatomż-
cally, he physiologically. Two points are anatomi-
cally correspondent, when on opposite sides of the
body they severall v hold the same relation to the
centre. J. Mueller, and other recent physiologists,
employ these terms in the same signification as Reid.
An argument a prior, has been employed against
the doctrine here maintained, on the ground that
the congruent points in the opposite eyes are not
anatomically corresponding points.-H.
It is here to be observed,
3. Supposing still the same things, ob-
jects which are much nearer to the eyes, or
much more distant from them, than that
to which the two eyes are directed, appear
double. Thus, if the candle is placed at
the distance of ten feet, and I hold my finger
at arms-length between my eyes and the call-
dle—when I look at the candle, I see my fin-
ger double; and when I look at my finger,
1 see the candle double ; and the same thing
happens with regard to all other objects at
like distances which fall within the sphere
of vision. In this phaenomenon, it is evi-
dent to those who understand the prin-
ciples of optics, that the pictures of the ob-
jects which are seen double, do not fall upon
points of the retinae which are similarly sit-
uate, but that the pictures of the objects
seen single do fall upon points similarly
situate. Whence we infer, that, as the points
of the two retinae, which are similarly situate
with regard to the centres, do correspond,
so those which are dissimilarly situate do
not correspond. .
4. It is to be observed, that, although, in
such cases as are mentioned in the last
phaenomenon, we have been accustomed
from infancy to see objects double which
we know to be single; yet custom, and ex-
perience of the unity of the object, never
take away this appearance of duplicity.
5. It may, however, be remarked that
the custom of attending to visible appear-
ances has a considerable effect, and makes
the phaenomenon of double vision to be more
or less observed and remembered. Thus
you may find a man that can say, with a
good conscience, that he never saw things
double all his life; yet this very man, put
in the situation above mentioned, with his
finger between him and the candle, and de-
sired to attend to the appearance of the
object which he does not look at, will, upon
the first trial, see the candle double, when
he looks at his finger; and his finger double,
when he looks at the candle. Does he now
see otherwise than he saw before ? No,
Surely; but he now attends to what he
never attended to before. The same double
appearance of an object hath been a thou-
sand times presented to his eye before now,
but he did not attend to it; and so it is as
little an object of his reflection and memory,
as if it had never happened.
When we look at an object, the circum-
jacent objects may be seen at the same
time, although more obscurely and indis-
tinctly: for the eye hath a considerable
field of vision, which it takes in at once.
But we attend only to the object we look at.
The other objects which fall within the field
of vision, are not attended to ; and therefore
are as if they were not seen. If any of
them draws our attention, it naturally draws
the eyes at the same time : for, in the com-
OF SEEING.
165
mon course of life, the eyes always follow
the attention : or if at any time, in a revery,
they are separated from it, we hardly at
that time see what is directly before us.
Hence we may see the reason why the man
we are speaking of thinks that he never
before saw an object double. When he
looks at any object, he sees it single, and
takes no notice of other visible objects at
that time, whether they appear single or
double. If any of them draws his attention,
it draws his eyes at the same time; and, as
Soon as the eyes are turned towards it, it
appears single. But, in order to see things
double—at least, in order to have any reflec-
tion or remembrance that he did so—it is
necessary that he should look at one object,
and at the same time attend to the ſaint
appearance of other objects which are within
the field of vision. This is a practice which
perhaps he never used, nor attempted; and
therefore he does not recollect that ever he
saw an object double. But when he is put
upon giving this attention, he immediately
sees objects double, in the same manner, and
with the very same circumstances, as they
who have been accustomed, for the greatest
part of their lives, to give this attention.
There are many phaenomena of a similar
mature, which shew that the mind may not
attend to, and thereby, in some sort, not
perceive objects that strike the senses. I
had occasion to mention several instances
of this in the second chapter ; and I have
been assured, by persons of the best skill in
music, that, in hearing a tune upon the
harpsichord, when they give attention to
the treble, they do not hear the bass; and
when they attend to the bass, they do not
perceive the air of the treble. Some per-
Sons are so near-sighted, that, in reading,
they hold the book to one eye, while the
other is directed to other objects. Such
persons acquire the habit of attending, in
this case, to the objects of one eye, while
they give no attention to those of the other.
6. It is observable, that, in all cases
wherein we see an object double, the two
appearances have a certain position with
regard to one another, and a certain appar-
ent or angular distance. This apparent
distance is greater or less in different cir-
cumstances; but, in the same circumstances,
it is always the same, not only to the same,
but to different persons.
Thus, in the experiment above mentioned,
if twenty different persons, who see perfectly
with both eyes, shall place their finger and
the candle at the distances above expressed,
and hold their heads upright, looking at the
finger, they will see two candles, one on the
right, another on the left. That which is
seen on the right, is seen by the right eye,
and that which is seen on the left, by the
left eye; and they will see them at the same
apparent distance from each other. If,
again, they look at the candle, they will
see two fingers, one on the right, and the
other on the left ; and all will see them at
the same apparent distance; the finger
towards the left being seen by the right eye,
and the other by the left. If the head is
laid horizontally to one side, other circum-
stances remaining the same, one appearance
of the object seen double, will be directly
above the other. In a word, vary the cir-
cumstances as you please, and the appear-
ances are varied to all the spectators in one
and the same manner.
7. Having made many experiments in
order to ascertain the apparent distance of
the two appearances of an object seen double,
I have found that in all cases this apparent
distance is proportioned to the distance be-
tween the point of the reſima, where the
picture is made in one eye, and the point
which is situated similarly to that on which
the picture is made on the other eye; so
that, as the apparent distance of two objects
Seen with one eye, is proportioned to the
arch of the retina; which lies between their
pictures, in like manner, when an object is
seen double with the two eyes, the apparent
distance of the two appearances is propor-
tioned to the arch of either relina, which
lies between the picture in that retina, and
the point corresponding to that of the pic-
ture in the other relina.
8. As, in certain circumstances, we in-
variably see one object appear double, so,
in others, we as invariably see two objects
unite into one, and, in appearance, lose
their duplicity. This is evident in the ap-
pearance of the binocular telescope. And
the same thing happens when any two simi-
lar tubes are applied to the two eyes in a
parallel direction ; for, in this case, we see
only one tube. And if two shillings are
placed at the extremities of the two tubes,
one exactly in the axis of one eye, and the
other in the axis of the other eye, we shall
see but one shilling. If two pieces of coin,
or other bodies, of different colour, and of
different figure be properly placed in the
two axes of the eyes, and at the extremi-
ties of the tubes, we shall see both the
bodies in one and the same place, each as
it were spread over the other, without hid-
ing it; and the colour will be that which is
compounded of the two colours."
* This last statement is incorrect; it misrepresents,
if it does not reverse, the observation of Du Tour.
But, though Reid's assertion be inaccurate, there is
great difference (probably from the different consti-
tution of their organs) in the phaenomenon, as re-
ported by various observers. None, seemingly,
(the reverse of what Reid says,) in looking, e.g.,
with one eye through a blue, and with the other
through a yellow glass, experience a comple-
mentary sensation of green. But some see both
colours at once; some only one colour- a colour,
however, which co, responds neither to yellow nor to
blue, and, at the same time, is not gleen. In my
166
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
9. From these phaenomena, and from all
the trials I have been able to make, it ap-
pears evidently, that, in perfect human eyes,
the centres of the two retinae correspond and
harmonize wth one another, and that every
other point in one retina doth correspond
and harmonize with the point which is
similarly situate in the other; in such man-
ner, that pictures falling on the corre-
sponding points of the two retinae, shew
only one object, even when there are really
two ; and pictures falling upon points of
the retinae which do not correspond, shew
us two visible appearances, although there
be but one object : so that pictures, upon
corresponding points of the two retinae, pre-
sent the same appearance to the mind as
if they had both fallen upon the same point
of one retina ; and pictures upon points of
the two retinae, which do not correspond,
present to the mind the same apparent
distance and position of two objects, as if
one of those pictures was carried to the
point corresponding to it in the other relina.
This relation and sympathy between cor-
responding points of the two retinae, I do
not advance as an hypothesis, but as a
general fact or phaenomenon of vision. All
the phaenomena before mentioned, of single
or double vision, lead to it, and are neces-
sary consequences of it. It holds true in-
variably in all perfect human eyes, as far
as I am able to collect from innumerable
trials of various kinds made upon my own
eyes, and many made by others at my de-
sire. Most of the hypotheses that have
been contrived to resolve the phaenomena
of single and double vision, suppose this
general fact, while their authors were not
aware of it. Sir Isaac Newton, who was
too judicious a philosopher, and too accu-
rate an observer, to have offered even a
conjecture which did not tally with the facts
that had fallen under his observation, pro-
poses a query with respect to the cause of
it—“Optics,” Query, 15. The judicious
Dr Smith, in his “Optics,” Book 1, § 137,
hath confirmed the truth of this general
phaenomenon from his own experience, not
only as to the apparent unity of objects
whose pictures fall upon the corresponding
points of the relinae, but also as to the ap-
parent distance of the two appearances of
the same object when seen double.”
This general phaenomenon appears, there-
fore, to be founded upon a very full induc-
tion, which is all the evidence we can have
for a fact of this nature. Before we make
an end of this subject, it will be proper to
inquire, First, Whether those animals whose
eyes have an adverse position in their heads,
and look contrary ways, have such, corre-
sponding points in their retinae 2 Secondly,
What is the position of the corresponding
points in imperfect human eyes—I mean in
those that squint P And, in the last place,
Whether this harmony of the correspond-
ing points in the retina, be natural and
original, or the effect of custom 2 And, if
it is original, Whether it can be accounted
for by any of the laws of nature already
discovered ? or whether it is itself to be
looked upon as a law of nature, and a part
of the human constitution ?
Section X I V.
OF THE LAWS OF VISION IN BR.UTE ANIMAI.S.
It is the intention of nature,in giving eyes
to animals, that they may perceive the
situation of visible objects, or the direction
in which they are placed—it is probable,
therefore, that, in ordinary cases, every
animal, whether it has many eyes or few,
whether of one structure or of another, sees
objects single, and in their true and proper
direction. And, since there is a prodigious
variety in the structure, the motions, and
the number of eyes in different animals and
insects, it is probable that the laws by
which vision is regulated, are not the same
in all, but various, adapted to the eyes which
nature hath given them.
Mankind naturally turn their eyes al-
ways the same way, so that the axes of the
two eyes meet in one point. They natur-
ally attend to, or look at that object only
which is placed in the point where the axes
meet. And whether the object be more or
less distant, the configuration of the eye is
adapted to the distance of the object, so as
to form a distinct picture of it.
When we use our eyes in this natural
way, the two pictures of the object we look
at are formed upon the centres of the two
retinae; and the two pictures of any con-
tiguous object are formed upon the points
of the retina, which are similarly situate
with regard to the centres. Therefore, in
order to our seeing objects single, and in
their proper direction, with two eyes, it is
own eye, I can see either of these phaenomena,
under certain conditions, at will. Johanues Mueller,
Weber, Volkmann, and Heermann, are the most
recent observers. I may also notice, that the
congruence between the corresponding points (in
Reid's sense) of the two retinae, s admitted for the
perception of figure, but not for the sensations of
light and colour.—H. -
* It might be proper here to say something of the
strictures of Dr Wells on Reid’s doctrine of single
vision; but, as the matter is, after all, of no high
psychological.importance, while the whole theory of
the form of the Horopter is, in consequence of
Mueller's observations, anew under discussion, I shall
only reſer the reader who is curious in such points,
to the following recent publications:—J. Mueller,
“ Zur Vergleichenden Physiologie des Gesichtssin-
nes,” &c., 1826.-Volkmann, “Neue Beytraege zur
Physiologie des Gesichtssinnes,” 1836.-Heermann,
| sºdie Bildung der Gesichtsvorstellungen,” &c.,
35 —
O F SEEING,
167
sufficient that we be so constituted, that
objects whose pictures are formed upon
the centres of the two retina, or upon
points similarly situate with regard to these
centres, shall be seen in the same visi-
ble place. And this is the constitution
which nature hath actually given to human
eyes.
When we distort our eyes from their
parallel direction, which is an unnatural
motion, but may be learned by practice; or
when we direct the axes of the two eyes to
one point, and at the same time direct our
attention to some visible object much nearer
or much more distant than that point, which
is also unnatural, yet may be learned : in
these cases, and in these only, we see one
object double, or two objects confounded in
one. In these cases, the two pictures of
the same object are formed upon points of
the retinae which are not similarly situate,
and so the object is seen double ; or the
two pictures of different objects are formed
upon points of the retinae which are simi-
larly situate, and so the two objects are
seen confounded in one place.
Thus it appears, that the laws of vision
in the human constitution are wisely adapted
to the natural use of human eyes, but not
to that use of them which is unnatural.
See objects truly when we use our eyes in
the natural way; but have false appearances
presented to us when we use them in a way
that is unnatural. We may reasonably
think that the case is the same with other
animals. But is it not unreasonable to
think, that those animals which naturally
turn one eye towards one object, and another
eye towards another object, must thereby
have such false appearances presented to
them, as we have when we do so against
nature ?
Many animals have their eyes by nature
placed adverse and immoveable, the axes
of the two eyes being always directed to
opposite points. Do objects painted on the
centres of the two retinae appear to such
animals as they do to human eyes, in one
and the same visible place 2 I think it is
highly probable that they do not ; and that
they appear, as they really are, in opposite
places.
If we judge from analogy in this case,
it will lead us to think that there is a certain
correspondence between points of the two
Tetinae in such animals, but of a different
kind from that which we have found in
human eyes. The centre of one retina will
correspond with the centre of the other,
in such manner that the objects whose
pictures are formed upon these correspond-
ing points, shall appear not to be in the
same place, as in human eyes, but in op-
posite places. And in the same manner
will the superior part of one retina corre-
We
spond with the inferior part of the other,
and the anterior part of one with the pos-
terior part of the other.
Some animals, by nature, turn their eyes
with equal facility, either the same way or
different ways, as we turn our hands and
arms. Have such animals corresponding
points in their retinae, and points which do
not correspond, as the human kind has 2
I think it is probable that they have not ;
because such a constitution in them could
serve no other purpose but to exhibit false
appearances.
If we judge from analogy, it will lead us
to think, that, as such animals move their
eyes in a manner similar to that in which
we move our arms, they have an immediate
and natural perception of the direction they
give to their eyes, as we have of the direc-
tion we give to our arms; and perceive the
situation of visible objects by their eyes, in
a manner similar to that in which we per-
ceive the situation of tangible objects with
our hands.
We cannot teach brute animals to use
their eyes in any other way than in that
which nature hath taught them ; nor can
we teach them to communicate to us the
appearances which visible objects make to
them, either in ordinary or in extraordinary
cases. We have not, therefore, the same
means of discovering the laws of vision in
them, as in our own kind, but must satisfy
ourselves with probable conjectures; and
what we have said upon this subject, is
chiefly intended to shew, that animals to
which nature hath given eyes differing in
their number, in their position, and in
their natural motions, may very probably
be subjected to different laws of vision,
adapted to the peculiarities of their organs
of vision.
Section X P.
SQUINTING CONSIDERED HYPOTHETICALLY.
Whether there be corresponding points
in the retinae of those who have an invo-
luntary Squint P and, if there are, Whether
they be situate in the same manner as in
those who have no squint P are not ques-
tions of mere curiosity. They are of real
importance to the physician who attempts
the cure of a squint, and to the patient who
submits to the cure. After so much has
been said of the strabismus, or squint, both
by medical and by optical writers, one might
expect to find abundance of facts for deter-
mining these questions. Yet, I confess, I
have been disappointed in this expectation,
after taking some pains both to make ob-
servations, and to collect those which have
been made by others.
l68
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
Nor will this appear very strange, if we
consider, that to make the observations.
which are necessary for determining these
questions, knowledge of the principles of
optics, and of the laws of vision, must
concur with opportunities rarely to be met
with.
Of those who squint, the far greater
part have no distinct vision with one eye."
When this is the case, it is impossible,
and indeed of no importance, to determine
the situation of the corresponding points.
When both eyes are good, they commonly
differ so much in their direction, that the
same object cannot be seen by both at the
same time ; and, in this case, it will be
very difficult to determine the situation
of the corresponding points; for such per-
sons will probably attend only to the ob-
jects of one eye, and the objects of the other
will be as little regarded as if they were not
S620Il.
We have before observed, that, when we
look at a near object, and attend to it, we
do not perceive the double appearances of
more distant objects, even when they are
in the same direction, and are presented
to the eye at the same time. It is probable
that a squinting person, when he attends to
the objects of one eye, will, in like manner,
have his attention totally diverted from the
objects of the other; and that he will per-
ceive them as little as we perceive the
double appearances of objects when we use
our eyes in the natural way. Such a per-
son, therefore, unless he is so much a phi-
losopher as to have acquired the habit of
attending very accurately to the visible ap-
pearances of objects, and even of objects
which he does not look at, will not be able
to give any light to the questions now under
consideration.
It is very probable that hares, rabbits,
birds, and fishes, whose eyes are fixed in
an adverse position, have the natural fa-
culty of attending at the same time to vi-
sible objects placed in different, and even
in contrary directions ; because, without
this faculty, they could not have those ad-
vantages from the contrary direction of
their eyes, which nature seems to have in-
tended. But it is not probable that those
who squint have any such natural faculty ;
because we find no such faculty in the rest
of the species. We naturally attend to ob-
jects placed in the point where the axes of
the two eyes meet, and to them only. To
give attention to an object in a different di-
rection is unnatural, and not to be learned
without pains and practice.
* On this imperſection of vision is rested the
theory of Squinting, proposed by Buffon, and now
generally adopted. The defective eye is turned aside,
because, if it were directed to the object, together
with the perfect one, a confused impression would
be produced.—H.
enterS.
A very convincing proof of this may be
drawn from a fact now well known to phi-
losophers: when one eye is shut, there is
a certain space within the field of vision,
where we can see nothing at all—the space
which is directly opposed to that part of the
bottom of the eye where the optic nerve
This defect of sight, in one part
of the eye, is common to all human eyes,
and hath been so from the beginning of the
world ; yet it was never known, until the
sagacity of the Abbé Mariotte discovered
it in the last century. And now when it is
known, it cannot be perceived, but by means
of some particular experiments, which re-
quire care and attention to make them
succeed.
What is the reason that so remarkable
a defect of sight, common to all mankind,
was so long unknown, and is now perceived
with so much difficulty P It is surely this—
That the defect is at some distance from
the axis of the eye, and consequently in a
part of the field of vision to which we never
attend naturally, and to which we cannot
attend at all, without the aid of some par-
ticular circumstances.
From what we have said, it appears,
that, to determine the situation of the cor-
responding points in the eyes of those who
squint, is impossible, if they do not see dis-
tinctly with both eyes; and that it will be
very difficult, unless the two eyes differ so
little in their direction, that the same object
may be seen with both at the same time.
Such patients I apprehend are rare ; at
least there are very few of them with whom
I have had the fortune to meet : and there-
fore, for the assistance of those who may
have happier opportunities, and inclination
to make the proper use of them, we shall con-
sider the case of squinting, hypothetically,
pointing out the proper articles of inquiry,
the observations that are wanted, and the
conclusions that may be drawn from them.
1. It ought to be inquired, Whether the
squinting person sees equally well with
both eyes f and, if there be a defect in one,
the nature and degree of that defect ought
to be remarked. The experiments by which
this may be done, are so obvious, that I
need not mention them. But I would ad-
vise the observer to make the proper ex-
periments, and not to rely upon the testi-
mony of the patient; because I have found
many instances, both of persons that squint-
ed, and others who were found, upon trial,
to have a great defect in the sight of one
eye, although they were never aware of it
before. In all the following articles, it is
supposed that the patient sees with both
eyes so well as to be able to read with
either, when the other is covered.
2. It ought to be inquired, Whether,
when one eye is covered, the other is turned
OF SEEING.
169
directly to the object 2 This ought to be
tried in both eyes successively. By this
observation, as a touchstone, we may try
the hypothesis concerning squinting, in-
vented by M. de la Hire, and adopted by
Boerhaave, and many others of the medical
faculty.
The hypothesis is, That, in one eye of
a squinting person, the greatest sensibility
and the most distinct vision is not, as in
other men, in the centre of the retina, but
upon one side of the centre; and that he
turns the axis of this eye aside from the
object, in order that the picture of the object
may fall upon the most sensible part of the
'retina, and thereby give the most distinct
vision. If this is the cause of squinting,
the squinting eye will be turned aside from
the object, when the other eye is covered,
as well as when it is not.
A trial so easy to be made, never was
made for more than forty years; but the
hypothesis was very generally received—
so prone are men to invent hypotheses,
and so backward to examine them by facts.
At last, Dr Jurin having made the trial,
found that persons who squint turn the
axis of the squinting eye directly to the
object, when the other eye is covered. This
fact is confirmed by Dr Porterfield; and I
have found it verified in all the instances
that have fallen under my observation.
3. It ought to be inquired, Whether the
axes of the two eyes follow one another, so
as to have always the same inclination, or
make the same angle, when the person
looks to the right or to the left, upward or
downward, or straight forward. By this
observation we may judge whether a squint
is owing to any defect in the muscles which
move the eye, as some have supposed. In
the following articles, we suppose that the
inclination of the axes of the eyes is found
to be always the same.
4. It ought to be inquired, Whether the
person that squints sees an object single or
double 2
If he sees the object double, and if the
two appearances have an angular distance,
equal to the angle which the axes of his
eyes make with each other, it may be con-
cluded that he hath corresponding points in
the retinae of his eyes, and that they have
the same situation as in those who have no
squint. If the two appearances should
have an angular distance which is always
the same, but manifestly greater or less
than the angle contained under the optic
axes, this would indicate corresponding
points in the retina, whose situation is not
the same as in those who have no Squint :
but it is difficult to judge accurately of the
angle which the optic axes make.
A squint.too small to be perceived, may
occasion double vision of objects : for, if we
speak strictly, every person squints more
or less, whose optic axes do not meet ex-
actly in the object which he looks at. Thus,
if a man can only bring the axes of his
eyes to be parallel, but cannot make them
converge in the least, he must have a small
squint in looking at near objects, and will
see them double, while he sees very distant
objects single. Again, if the optic axes
always converge, so as to meet eight or ten
feet before the face at farthest, such a per-
son will see near objects single; but when
he looks at very distant objects, he will
Squint a little, and see them double.
An instance of this kind is related by
Aguilonius in his “Optics,” who says, that
he had seen a young man to whom near
objects appeared single, but distant objects
appeared double.
Dr Briggs, in his “ Nova Visionis Theo-
ria,” having collected from authors several
instances of double vision, quotes this from
Aguilonius, as the most wonderful and un-
accountable of all, insomuch that he sus-
pects some imposition on the part of the
young man : but to those who understand
the laws by which single and double vision
are regulated, it appears to be the natural
effect of a very small squint."
Double vision may always be owing to a
Small squint, when the two appearances
are seen at a small angular distance.
although no squint was observed : and I do
not remember any instances of double
vision recorded by authors, wherein any
account is given of the angular distance of
the appearances.
In almost all the instances of double
vision, there is reason to suspect a squint
or distortion of the eyes, from the concomi-
tant circumstances, which we find to be
one or other of the following—the approach
of death or of a deliquium, excessive drink-
ing or other intemperance, violent headache,
blistering the head, smoking tobacco, blows
or wounds in the head. In all these cases,
it is reasonable to suspect a distortion of
the eyes, either from spasm, or paralysis in
the muscles that move them. But, although
it be probable that there is always a squint
greater or less where there is double vision,
yet it is certain that there is not double
vision always where there is a squint. I
know no instance of double vision that con-
tinued for life, or even for a great number of
years. We shall therefore suppose, in the
following articles, that the squinting person
sees objects single.
5. The next inquiry, then, ought to be,
Whether the object is seen with both eyes
at the same time, or only with the eye
* It is observed by Purkinje and Volkmann, that
short-sighted persons, under certain conditions, see
distant objects double. Is the case of Aguilonius
more than an example of this P-- H.
170
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
whose axis is directed to it 2 It hath been
taken for granted, by the writers upon the
strabismus, before Dr Jurin, that those who
squint-commonly see objects single with
both eyes at the same time ; but I know
not one fact advanced by any writer which
proves it. Dr Jurin is of a contrary opi-
nion; and, as it is of consequence, so it is
very easy, to determine this point, in parti-
cular instances, by this obvious experiment.
While the person that squints looks steadily
at an object, let the observer carefully re-
mark the direction of both his eyes, and
observe their motions; and let an opaque
body be interposed between the object and
the two eyes successively. If the patient,
notwithstanding this interposition, and with-
out changing the direction of his eyes, con-
tinues to see the object all the time, it may
be concluded that he saw it with both eyes
at once. But, if the interposition of the
body between one eye and the object makes
it disappear, then we may be certain that it
was seen by that eye only. In the two
following articles, we shall suppose the first
to happen, according to the common hypo-
thesis.
6. Upon this supposition, it ought to be
inquired, Whether the patient sees an ob-
ject double in those circumstances wherein
it appears double to them who have no
Squint P Let him, for instance, place a
candle at the distance of ten feet ; and
holding his finger at arm's-length between
him and the candle, let him observe, when
he looks at the candle, whether he sees his
finger with both eyes, and whether he sees
it single or double; and when he looks at
his finger, let him observe whether he sees
the candle with both eyes, and whether
single or double.
By this observation, it may be deter-
mined, whether to this patient, the phaeno-
mena of double as well as of single vision
are the same as to them who have no squint.
If they are not the same—if he sees objects
single with two eyes, not only in the cases
wherein they appear single, but in those
also wherein they appear double to other
men—the conclusion to be drawn from this
supposition is, that his single vision does not
arise from corresponding points in the re-
tima of his eyes; and that the laws of vision
are not the same in him as in the rest of
mankind. -
7. If, on the other hand, he sees objects
double in those cases wherein they appear
double to others, the conclusion must be,
that he hath corresponding points in the
vetinae of his eyes, but unnaturally situate.
And their situation may be thus determined.
When he looks at an object, having the
axis of one eye directed to it, and the axis
of the other turned aside from it, let us
suppose a right line to pass from the object
through the centre of the diverging eye.
We shall, for the sake of perspicuity, call
this right line, the natural awis, ºf the eye;
and it will make an angle with the real
axis, greater or less, according as his squint
is greater or less. We shall also call that
point of the retina in which the natural
axis cuts it, the matural centre of the retina ;
which will be more or less distant from the
real centre, according as the Squint is
greater or less.
Having premised these definitions, it will
be evident to those who understand the
principles of optics, that in this person the
natural centre of one relina corresponds
with the real centre of the other, in the
very same manner as the two real centres
correspond in perfect eyes; and that the
points similarly situate with regard to the
real centre in one relina, and the natural
centre in the other, do likewise correspond,
in the very same manner as the points si-
milarly situate with regard to the two real
centres correspond in perfect eyes.
If it is true, as has been commonly af-
firmed, that one who squints sees an object
with both eyes at the same time, and yet
sees it single, the squint will most probably
be such as we have described in this article.
And we may further conclude, that, if a
person affected with such a squint as we
have supposed, could be brought to the
habit of looking straight, his sight would
thereby be greatly hurt : for he would
then see everything double which he saw
with both eyes at the same time ; and ob-
jects distant from one another would appear
to be confounded together. His eyes are
made for squinting, as Inuch as those of
other men are made for looking straight;
and his sight would be no less injured by
looking straight, than that of another man
by squinting. He can never see perfectly
when he does not squint, unless the corre-
sponding points of his eyes should by custom
change their place ; but how small the pro-
bability of this is will appear in the 17th
section.
Those of the medical faculty who attempt
the cure of a squint, would do well to con-
sider whether it is attended with such symp-
toms as are above described. If it is, the
cure would be worse than the malady: for,
every one will readily acknowledge that it
is better to put up with the deformity of a
Squint, than to purchase the cure by the
loss of perfect and distinct vision.
8. We shall now return to Dr Jurin's
hypothesis, and suppose that our patient,
when he saw objects single notwithstanding
his squint, was found, upon trial, to have
seen them only with one eye.
We would advise such a patient to en-
deavour, by repeated efforts, to lessen his
squint, and to bring the axes of his eyes
OF SEEING.
171
nearer to a parallel direction. We have
naturally the power of making small varia-
tions in the inclination of the optic axes;,
and this power may be greatly increased by
CXerC1SG.
In the ordinary and natural use of our
eyes, we can direct their axes to a fixed
star; in this case they must be parallel:
We can direct them also to an object six
inches distant from the eye; and in this
case the axes must make an angle of fif-
teen or twenty degrees. We see young
people in their frolics learn to squint, mak-
ing their eyes either converge or diverge,
when they will, to a very considerable de-
gree. Why should it be more difficult for
a squinting person to learn to look straight
when he pleases 2 If once, by an effort of
his will, he can but lessen his squint, fre-
quent practice will make it easy to lessen
it, and will daily increase his power. So
that, if he begins this practice in youth, and
perseveres in it, he may probably, after
Some time, learn to direct both his eyes to
one object.
When he hath acquired this power, it
will be no difficult matter to determine, by
proper observations, whether the centres of
the retinae, and other points similarly situate
with regard to the centres, correspond, as
in other men.
9. Let us now suppose that he finds this
to be the case ; and that he sees an object
single with both eyes, when the axes of
both are directed to it. It will then concern
him to acquire the habit of looking straight,
as he hath got the power, because he will
thereby not only remove a deformity, but
improve his sight; and I conceive this ha-
bit, like all others, may be got by frequent
exercise. He may practise before a mirror
when alone, and in company he ought to have
those about him who will observe and ad-
monish him when he squints.
10. What is supposed in the 9th article
is not merely imaginary; it is really the
case of some squinting persons, as will
appear in the next section. Therefore, it
ought further to be inquired, How it comes
to pass that such a person sees an object
which he looks at, only with one eye, when
both are open 2 In order to answer this
question, it may be observed, first, Whether,
when he looks at an object, the diverging
eye is not drawn so close to the nose, that it
can have no distinct images 2 Gr, secondly,
whether the pupil of the diverging eye is not
covered wholly, or in part, by the upper eye-
lid 2 Dr Jurin observed instances of these
cases in persons that squinted, and assigns
them as causes of their seeing the object
only with one eye. Thirdly, it may be
observed, whether the diverging eye is not
So directed, that the picture of the object
falls upon that part of the retina where the
optic nerve enters, and where there is no
vision ? This will probably happen in a
squint wherein the axes of the eyes converge
So as to meet about six inches before the
In OSC.
11. In the last place, it ought to be
inquired, Whether such a person hath any
distinct vision at all with the diverging
eye, at the time he is looking at an object
with the other ?
It may seem very improbable that he
should be able to read with the diverging
eye when the other is covered, and yet, when
both are open, have no distinct vision with
it at all. But this, perhaps, will not appear
so improbable if the following considerations
are duly attended to.
Let us suppose that one who saw per-
fectly, gets, by a blow on the head, or some
other accident, a permanent and involun-
tary squint. According to the laws of vi-
sion, he will see objects double, and will see
objects distant from one another confounded
together ; but, such vision being very dis-
agreeable, as well as inconvenient, he will
do everything in his power to remedy it.
For alleviating such distresses, nature often
teaches men wonderful expedients, which
the sagacity of a philosopher would be un-
able to discover. Every accidental motion,
every direction or conformation of his eyes,
which lessens the evil, will be agreeable ;
it will be repeated until it be learned to
perfection, and become habitual, even with-
out thought or design. Now, in this case,
what disturbs the sight of one eye is the
sight of the other; and all the disagreeable
appearances in vision would cease if the
light of one eye was extinct. The sight of
one eye will become more distinct and
more agreeable, in the same proportion as
that of the other becomes faint and in-
distinct. It may, therefore, be expected,
that every habit will, by degrees, be ac-
quired which tends to destroy distinct vi-
sion in one eye while it is preserved in the
other. These habits will be greatly facili-
tated if one eye was at first better than the
other; for, in that case, the best eye will
always be directed to the object which he
intends to look at, and every habit will be
acquired which tends to hinder his seeing
it at all, or seeing it distinctly by the other
at the same time.
I shall mention one or two habits that
may probably be acquired in such a case ;
perhaps there are others which we cannot
so easily conjecture. First, By a small in-
crease or diminution of his squint, he may
bring it to correspond with one or other of
the cases mentioned in the last article,
Secondly, The diverging eye may be brought
to such a conformation as to be extremely
short-sighted, and consequently to have no
distinct vision of objects at a distance, I
172
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
knew this to be the case of one person that
squinted ; but cannot say whether the
short-sightedness of the diverging eye was
original, or acquired by habit.
We see, therefore, that one who squints,
and originally saw objects double by reason
of that squint, may acquire such habits
that, when he looks at an object, he shall
see it only with one eye; nay, he may ac-
quire such habits that, when he looks at an
object with his best eye, he shall have no
distinct vision with the other at all. Whether
this is really the case—being unable to de-
termine in the instances that have fallen
under my observation—I shall leave to fu-
ture inquiry. f
I have endeavoured, in the foregoing
articles, to delineate such a process as is
proper in observing the phaenomena of
squinting. I know well by experience, that
this process appears more easy in theory,
than it will be found to be in practice ;
and that, in order to carry it on with success,
some qualifications of mind are necessary
in the patient, which are not always to be
met with. But, if those who have proper
opportunities and inclination to observe
such phaenomena, attend duly to this pro-
cess, they may be able to furnish facts less
vague and uninstructive than those we meet
with, even in authors of reputation. By
such facts, vain theories may be exploded,
and our knowledge of the laws of nature,
which regard the noblest of our senses,
enlarged.
Section X VI.
FACTS RELATING TO SQUINTING.
Having considered the phaenomena of
squinting, hypothetically, and their connec-
tion with corresponding points in the re-
tinae, I shall. now mention the facts I have
had occasion to observe myself, or have
met with in authors, that can give any light
to this subject.
Having examined above twenty persons
that squinted, I found in all of them a de-
fect in the sight of one eye. Four only
had so much of distinct vision in the weak
eye, as to be able to read with it, when the
other was covered. The rest saw nothing
at all distinctly with one eye.
Dr Porterfield says, that this is generally
the case of people that squint : and I sus-
pect it is so more generally than is com-
monly imagined. Dr Jurin, in a very
judicious dissertation upon Squinting,
printed in Dr Smith’s “Optics,” observes,
that those who squint, and see with both
eyes, never see the same object with both
at the same time; that, when one eye is
directed straight forward to an object, the
other is drawn so close to the nose that the
object cannot at all be seen by it, the
images being too oblique and too indistinct
to affect the eye. In some squinting per-
sons, he observed the diverging eye drawn
under the upper eyelid, while the other
was directed to the object. From these
observations, he concludes that “the eye is
thus distorted, not for the sake of seeing
better with it, but rather to avoid seeing at
all with it as much as possible.” From all
the observations he had made, he was satis-
fied that there is nothing peculiar in the
structure of a squinting eye; that the fault
is only in its wrong direction; and that
this wrong direction is got by habit. There-
fore, he proposes that method of cure which
we have described in the eighth and ninth
articles of the last section. He tells us,
that he had attempted a cure, after this
method, upon a young gentleman, with
promising hopes of success ; but was in-
terrupted by his falling ill of the small-
pox, of which he died.
It were to be wished that Dr Jurin had
acquainted us whether he ever brought the
young man to direct the axes of both eyes
to the same object, and whether, in that
case, he saw the object single, and saw it
with both eyes; and that he had likewise
acquainted us, whether he saw objects
double when his squint was diminished.
But as to these facts he is silent.
I wished long for an opportunity of trying
Dr Jurin's method of curing a squint, with-
out finding one ; having always, upon ex-
amination, discovered so great a defect in
the sight of one eye of the patient as dis-
couraged the attempt.
But I have lately found three young
gentlemen, with whom I am hopeful this
method may have success, if they have
patience and perseverance in using it. Two
of them are brothers, and, before I had
access to examine them, had been practis-
ing this method by the direction of their
tutor, with such success that the elder looks
straight when he is upon his guard: the
younger can direct both his eyes to one
object; but they soon return to their usual
Squint.
A third young gentleman, who had never
heard of this method before, by a few days
practice, was able to direct both his eyes to
one object, but could not keep them long in
that direction. All the three agree in this,
that, when both eyes are directed to one ob-
ject, they see it and the adjacent objects
single; but, when they squint, they see
objects sometimes single and sometimes
double. I observed of all the three, that
when they squinted most—that is, in the
way they had been accustomed to—the axes
of their eyes converged so as to meet five
or six inches before the nose. It is pro-
OF SEEING.
173
bable that, in this case, the picture of the
object in the diverging eye, must fall upon
that part of the retina where the optic
nerve enters; and, therefore, the object
could not be seen by that eye.
All the three have some defect in the
sight of one eye, which none of them knew
until I put them upon making trials; and
when they squint, the best eye is always
directed to the object, and the weak eye is
that which diverges from it. But when the
best eye is covered, the weak eye is turned
directly to the object. Whether this defect
of sight in one eye, be the effect of its hav-
ing been long disused, as it must have been
when they squinted ; or whether some ori-
ginal defect in one eye might be the occasion
of their squinting, time may discover. The
two brothers have found the sight of the
weak eye improved by using to read with it
while the other is covered. The elder can
read an ordinary print with the weak eye;
the other, as well as the third gentleman,
can only read a large print with the weak
eye. I have met with one other person
only who Squinted, and yet could read a
large print with the weak eye. He is a
young man, whose eyes are both tender and
weak-sighted, but the left much weaker than
the right. When he looks at any object,
he always directs the right eye to it, and
then the left is turned towards the nose so
much that it is impossible for him to see
the same object with both eyes at the same
time. When the right eye is covered, he
turns the left directly to the object ; but he
sees it indistinctly, and as if it had a mist
about it.
I made several experiments, some of them
in the company and with the assistance of
an ingenious physician, in order to discover
whether objects that were in the axes of the
two eyes, were seen in one place confounded
together, as in those who have no involun-
tary squint. The object placed in the axis
of the weak eye was a lighted candle, at the
distance of eight or ten feet. Before the
other eye was placed a printed book, at such
a distance as that he could read upon it.
He said, that while he read upon the book,
he saw the candle but very faintly. And
from what we could learn, these two objects
did not appearin one place, but had all that
angular distance in appearance which they
had in reality."
If this was really the case, the conclusion
to be drawn from it is, that the correspond-
ing points in his eyes are not situate in the
same manner as in other men ; and that, if
he could be brought to direct both eyes to
one object, he would see it double. But,
considering that the young man had never
been accustomed to observations of this
+ See Wells—(“Two Essays,” &c., p. 26.)—H.
kind, and that the sight of one eye was so
imperfect, I do not pretend to draw this
conclusion with certainty from this single
instance.
All that can be inferred from these facts
is, that, of four persons who squint, three
appear to have nothing preternatural in the
structure of their eyes. The centres of their.
*etinae, and the points similarly situate with
regard to the centres, do certainly corre-
spond in the same manner as in other men—
so that, if they can be brought to the habit
of directing their eyes right to an object,
they will not only remove a deformity, but
improve their sight. With regard to the
fourth, the case is dubious, with some pro-
bability of a deviation from the usual course
of nature in the situation of the correspond-
ing points of his eyes.
Section X VII.
OF THE EFFECT OF CUSTOM IN SEEING CIA.JECTS
SINGLE,
It appears from the phaenomena of single
and double vision, recited in § 13, that
our seeing an object single with two eyes,
depends upon these two things:—First,
Upon that mutual correspondence of certain
points of the retina which we have often
described ; Secondly, Upon the two eyes
being directed to the object so accurately
that the two images of it fall upon corre-
sponding points. These two things must
concur in order to our seeing an object
single with two eyes; and, as far as they
depend upon custom, so far only can single
vision depend upon custom.
With regard to the second—that is, the
accurate direction of both eyes to the ob-
ject—I think it must be acknowledged
that this is only learned by custom. Na-
ture hath wisely ordained the eyes to move
in such manner that their axes shall
always be nearly parallel; but hath left it
in our power to vary their inclination a
little, according to the distance of the ob-
ject we look at. Without this power,
objects would appear single at one parti-
cular distance only; and, at distances much
less or much greater, would always appear
double. The wisdom of nature is conspi-
cuous in giving us this power, and no less
conspicuous in making the extent of it ex-
actly adequate to the end.
The parallelism of the eyes, in general,
is therefore the work of nature ; but that
precise and accurate direction, which must
be varied according to the distance of the
object, is the effect of custom. The power
which nature hath left us of varying the
inclination of the optic axes a little, is
turned into a habit of giving them always
174
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
that inclination which is adapted to the
distance of the object.
But it may be asked, What gives rise to
this habit 2 The only answer that can be
given to this question is, that it is found
necessary to perfect and distinct vision. A
man who hath lost the sight of one eye,
very often loses the habit of directing it
exactly to the object he looks at, because
that habit is no longer of use to him. And
if he should recover the sight of his eye,
he would recover this habit, by finding it
useful. No part of the human constitution
is more admirable than that whereby we
acquire habits which are found useful, with-
out any design or intention. Children
must see imperfectly at first ; but, by using
their eyes, they learn to use them in the
best manner, and acquire, without intend-
ing it, the habits necessary for that pur-
pose. Every man becomes most expert in
that kind of vision which is most useful to
him in his particular profession and man-
ner of life. A miniature painter, or an
engraver, sees very near objects better than
a sailor; but the sailor sees very distant
objects much better than they. A person
that is short-sighted, in looking at distant
objects, gets the habit of contracting the
aperture of his eyes, by almost closing his
eyelids. Why? For no other reason,
but because this makes him see the object
more distinct. In like manner, the reason
why every man acquires the habit of direct-
ing both eyes accurately to the object, must
be, because thereby he sees it more per-
fectly and distinctly.
It remains to be considered, whether that
correspondence between certain points of
the relinae, which is likewise necessary to
single vision, be the effect of custom, or an
original property of human eyes.
A strong argument for its being an ori-
ginal property, may be drawn from the
habit, just now mentioned, of directing the
eyes accurately to an object. This habit
is got by our finding it necessary to perfect
and distinct vision. But why is it neces-
sary P. For no other reason but this, be-
cause thereby the two images of the object
falling upon corresponding points, the eyes
assist each other in vision, and the object
is seen better by both together, than it
could be by one ; but when the eyes are not
accurately directed, the two images of an
object fall upon points that do not corre-
spond, whereby the sight of one eye disturbs
the sight of the other, and the object is-
seen more indistinctly with both eyes than
it would be with one. Whence it is rea-
sonable to conclude, that this correspond-
ence of certain points of the retinae, is prior
to the habits we acquire in vision, and con-
sequently is natural and original. We have
all acquired the habit of directing our eyes
!
always in a particular manner, which causes
single vision. Now, if nature hath ordained
that we should have single vision only, when
our eyes are thus directed, there is an ob-
vious reason why all mankind should agree
in the habit of directing them in this manner.
But, if single vision is the effect of custom,
any other habit of directing the eyes would
have answered the purpose ; and no account
can be given why this particular habit should
be so universal; and it must appear very
strange, that no one instance hath been
found of a person who had acquired the
habit of seeing objects single with both eyes,
while they were directed in any other man-
ner.” \ -
The judicious Dr Smith, in his excellent
system of optics, maintains the contrary
opinion, and offers some reasonings and
facts in proof of it. He agrees with Bishop
Berkeley'ſ in attributing it entirely to cus-
tom, that we see objects single with two eyes,
as well as that we see objects erect by in-
verted images. Having considered Bishop
Berkeley's reasonings in the 11th section,
we shall now beg leave to make some
remarks on what Dr Smith hath said upon
this subject, with the respect due to an
author to whom the world owes, not only
many valuable discoveries of his own, but
those of the brightest mathematical genius
of this age, which, with great labour, he
generously redeemed from oblivion.
He observes, that the question, Why we
see objects single with two eyes 2 is of the
same sort with this, Why we hear sounds
single with two ears ?—and that the same
answer must serve both. The inference
intended to be drawn from this observation
is, that, as the second of these phaenomena
is the effect of custom, so likewise is the
first.
Now, I humbly conceive that the ques-
tions are not so much of the same sort,
that the same answer must serve for
both ; and, moreover, that our hearing
single with two ears, is not the effect of
Custom.
* This objection did not escape Dr Smith himself;
but Reid seems to have overlooked his answer.
“When we view,” he says, “an object steadily, we
have acquired a habit of directing the optic axes to
the point in view ; because its pictures, falling upon
the middle points of the retinas, are then distincter
than if they fell upon any other places; and, since
the pictures of the whole object are equal to one
another, and are both inverted with respect to the
optic axes, it follows that the picturcs of any col-
lateral point are painted upon corresponding points of
the retinas.”
This answer is rendered more plausible from the
subsequent anatomical discovery of Soemmering.
He found that, in that part of the retina which lies
at the axis of the eye, thcre is, in man, and in other
animals of acute vision, an opening, real or appar-
ent, (foramen centrale,) the dimensions of which
are such that the images of distincter vision would
seem to be enclosed within it.—H.
+ This is an inadvertency. Berkeley hazards no
Suc' opinion in any of his works.—H.
OF SEEING.
I75
Two or more visible objects, although
perfectly similar, and seen at the very same
time, may be distinguished by their visible
places; but two sounds perfectly similar,
and heard at the same time, cannot be dis-
tinguished ; for, from the nature of sound,
the sensations they occasion must coalesce
into one, and lose all distinction. If, there-
fore, it is asked, Why we hear sounds single
with two ears ? I answer, Not from custom;
but because two sounds which are perfectly
like and synchronous, have nothing by
which they can be distinguished. But will
this answer fit the other question ? I think
not.
The object makes an appearance to each
eye, as the Sound makes an impression upon
each ear : so far the two senses agree. But
the visible appearances may be distin-
guished by place, when perfectly like in other
respects ; the sounds cannot be thus dis-
tinguished : and herein the two senses dif-
fer. Indeed, if the two appearances have
the same visible place, they are, in that
case, as incapable of distinction as the sounds
were, and we see the object single. But
when they have not the same visible place,
they are perfectly distinguishable, and we
see the object double. We see the object
single only, when the eyes are directed in
one particular manner; while there are many
other ways of directing them within the
sphere of our power, by which we see the
object double.
Dr Smith justly attributes to custom that
well-known fallacy in feeling, whereby a
button pressed with two opposite sides of
two contiguous fingers laid across, is felt
double. I agree with him, that the cause
of this appearance is, that those opposite.
sides of the fingers have never been used
to feel the same object, but two different
objects, at the same time. And I beg leave
to add, that, as custom produces this phae-
nomenon, so a contrary custom destroys it;
for, if a man frequently accustoms himself
to feel the button with his fingers across, it
will at last be felt single; as I have found
by experience.
It may be taken for a general rule, that
things which are produced by custom, may
be undone or changed by disuse, or by a
contrary custom. On the other hand, it
is a strong argument, that an effect is not
owing to custom, but to the constitution
of nature, when a contrary custom, long
continued, is found neither to change nor
weaken it. I take this to be the best rule
by which we can determine the question
presently” under consideration. I shall,
therefore, mention two facts brought by
Dr Smith, to prove that the corresponding
points of the relinae have been changed by
* See note i at p. 96, a.-H.
custom ; and then I shall mention some
facts tending to prove, that there are cor-
responding points of the retinae of the eyes
originally, and that custom produces no
change in them.
“One fact is related upon the authority
of Martin Folkes, Esq., who was informed
by Dr Hepburn of Lynn, that the Rev. Mr
Foster of Clinchwharton, in that neighbour.
hood, having been blind for some years of a
gutta serena, was restored to sight by sali-
vation; and that, upon his first beginning
to see, all objects appeared to him double ;
but afterwards, the two appearances ap-
proaching by degrees, he came at last to
See single, and as distinctly as he did before
he was blind.”
Upon this case, I observe, First, That it
does not prove any change of the corre-
sponding points of the eyes, unless we sup-
pose, what is not affirmed, that Mr Foster
directed his eyes to the object at first, when
he saw double, with the same accuracy, and
in the same manner, that he did afterwards,
when he saw single. Secondly, If we should
suppose this, no account can be given, why
at first the two appearances should be seen
at one certain angular distance rather than
another; or why this angular distance should
gradually decrease, until at last the appear-
ances coincided. How could this effect be
produced by custom P But, Thirdly, Every
circumstance of this case may be accounted
for on the supposition that Mr Foster had
corresponding points in the retinae of his
eyes from the time he began to see, and that
custom made no change with regard to them.
We need only further suppose, what is
common in such cases, that, by some years'
blindness, he had lost the habit of directing
his eyes accurately to an object, and that he
gradually recovered this habit when he came
to See.
The second fact mentioned by Dr Smith,
is taken from Mr Cheselden’s “Anatomy,”
and is this:—“A gentleman who, from a
blow on the head, had one eye distorted,
found every object appear double; but, by de-
grees, the most familiar ones became single;
and, in time, all objects became so, without
any amendment of the distortion.”
I observe here, that it is not said that
the two appearances gradually approached,
and at last united, without any amendment
of the distortion. This would indeed have
been a decisive proof of a change in the
corresponding points of the retinae, and yet
of such a change as could not be accounted
for from custom. But this is not said; and,
if it had been observed, a circumstance so
remarkable would have been mentioned by
Mr Cheselden, as it was in the other case
by Dr Hepburn. We may, therefore, take
it for granted, that one of the appearances
vanished by degrees, without approaching to
176
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
the other. And this I conceive might hap-
pen several ways. First, The sight of the
distorted eye might gradually decay by the
hurt.; so the appearances presented by that
eye would gradually vanish. Secondly, A
small and unperceived change in the man-
ner of directing the eyes, might occasion
his not seeing the object with the dis-
torted eye, as appears from $ 15, Art. 10.
Thirdly, By acquiring the habit of direct-
ing one and the same eye always to the ob-
ject, the faint and oblique appearance pre-
sented by the other eye, might be so little
attended to when it became familiar, as not
to be perceived. One of these causes, or
more of them concurring, might produce
the effect mentioned, without any change of
the corresponding points of the eyes.
For these reasons, the facts mentioned
by Dr Smith, although curious, seem not
to be decisive.
The following facts ought to be put in
the opposite scale. First, in the famous
case of the young gentleman couched by Mr
Cheselden, after having had cataracts on
both eyes until he was [above] thirteen years
of age, it appears that he saw objects single
from the time he began to see with both
eyes. Mr Cheselden’s words are, “And
now, being lately couched of his other eye,
he says, that objects, at first, appeared
large to this eye, but not so large as they
did at first to the other ; and, looking upon
the same object with both eyes, he thought
it looked about twice as large as with the
first couched eye only, but not double, that
we can anywise discover.”
Secondly, The three young gentlemen
mentioned in the last section, who had
squinted, as far as I know, from infancy,
as soon as they learned to direct both eyes to
an object, saw it single. In these four cases,
it appears evident that the centres of the
ºretinae corresponded originally, and before
custom could produce any such effect ; for
Mr Cheselden's young gentleman had never
been accustomed to see at all before he was
couched ; and the other three had never
been accustomed to direct the axes of both
eyes to the object.
Thirdly, from the facts recited in § 13,
it appears, that, from the time we are
capable of observing the phaenomena of
single and double vision, custom makes no
change in them.
I have amused myself with such observ-
ations for more than thirty years; and in
every case wherein I saw the object double
at first, I see it so to this day, notwith-
standing the constant experience of its being
single. In other cases, where I know there
are two objects, there appears only one,
after thousands of experiments.
Let a man look at a familiar object
through a polyhedron, or multiplying-glass,
every hour of his life, the number of visible
appearances will be the same at last as at
first ; nor does any number of experiments,
or length of time, make the least change.
Effects produced by habit, must vary
according as the acts by which the habit is
acquired are more or less frequent ; but
the phaenomena of single and double vision
are so invariable and uniform in all men,
are so exactly regulated by mathematical
rules, that I think we have good reason to
conclude that they are not the effect of cus-
tom, but of fixed and immutable laws of
nature.
Section XVIII.
of DR Port ERFIELD's ACCOUNT OF SINGLE
AND DOUBLE VISION.
Bishop Berkeley and Dr Smith seem to
attribute too much to custom in vision, Dr
Porterfield too little.
This ingenious writer thinks, that, by an
original law of our nature, antecedent to
custom and experience, we perceive visible
objects in their true place, not only as to
their direction, but likewise as to their dis-
tance from the eye ; and, therefore, he
accounts for our seeing objects single, with
two eyes, in this manner. Having the
faculty of perceiving the object, with each
eye in its true place, we must perceive it
with both eyes in the same place; and,
consequently, must perceive it single.
He is aware that this principle, although
it accounts for our seeing objects single
with two eyes, yet does not at all account
for our seeing objects double; and, whereas
other writers on this subject take it to be a
sufficient cause for double vision that we
have two eyes, and only find it difficult to
assign a cause for single vision, on the
contrary, Dr Porterfield’s principle throws
all the difficulty on the other side.
Therefore, in order to account for the
pliaenomena of double vision, he advances
another principle, without signifying whe-
ther he conceives it to be an original law of
our nature, or the effect of custom. It is,
That our natural perception of the distance
of objects from the eye, is not extended to
all the objects that fall within the field of
vision, but limited to that which we directly
look at ; and that the circumjacent objects,
whatever be their real distance, are seen at
the same distance with the object we look
at ; as if they were all in the surface of a
sphere, whereof the eye is the centre.
Thus, single vision is accounted for by
our seeing the true distance of an object
which we look at ; and double vision, by a
false appearance of distance in objects
which we do not directly look at.
OF SEEING.
177
We agree with this learned and inge-
nious author, that it is by a natural and
original principle that we see visible objects
in a certain direction from the eye, and
honour him as the author of this discovery :"
but we cannot assent to either of those
principles by which he explains single and
double vision—for the following reasons:—
1. Our having a natural and original
perception of the distance of objects from
the eye, appears contrary to a well-attested
fact: for the young gentleman couched by
Mr Cheselden imagined, at first, that what-
ever he saw touched his eye, as what he
felt touched his hand.--
2. The perception we have of the distance
of objects from the eye, whether it be from
nature or custom, is not so accurate and
determinate as is necessary to produce sin-
gle vision. A mistake of the twentieth or
thirtieth part of the distance of a small
object, such as a pin, ought, according to
Dr Porterfield's hypothesis, to make it ap-
pear double. Very few can judge of the
distance of a visible object with such
accuracy. Yet we never find double vision
produced by mistaking the distance of the
object. There are many cases in vision,
even with the naked eye, wherein we mis-
take the distance of an object by one half
or more; why do we see such objects single 2
When I move my spectacles from my eyes
toward a small object, two or three feet dis-
tant, the object seems to approach, so as to
be seen at last at about half its real distance;
but it is seen single at that apparent distance,
* To this honour Porterfield has no title. The law
of the lize of visible direction, was a common theory
long before the publication of his writings; for it was
maintained by Kepler, Gassendi, Scheiner, Rohault,
Regis, Du Hamel, Mariotte, De Chales, Musschen.
broek, Molyneux, &c. &c., and many of these main-
tained that this law was an original principle or in-
stitution of our nature.—H
tº We must be careful not, like Reid and, philo-
sophers in general, to confound the perceptions of
mere externality or outness, and the knowledge we
have of distance, through the eye. The former may
be, and probably is, natural ; while the latter, in a
great but unappretiable measure, is acquired. In the
case of Chesel den—that in which the blindness pre-
vious to the recovery of sight was most perfect, and,
therefore, the m is t instructive upon record—the
patient, though he had little or no perception of
distance, i.e. of the degree of externality, had still
a perception of that externality absolutely. The
objects, he said, seemed to “touch his eyes, as what
he felt did his skin;” but they did not appear to him
as if in his eyes, far less as a mere affection of the or-
gan. This, however, is erroneously assumed by Mr
Fearn. This natural perception of Outness, which
is the foundation of our acquired knowledge of dis-
tance, seems given us in the natural perception we
have of the direction of the rays of light.
In like manner, we must not confound, as is com-
monly done, the fact of the eye affording us a per-
ception of eatension and plain figure, or outline,
in the perception of colours, and the tact of its being
the vehicle of intimations in regard to the compa-
rative magnitude and cubical forms of the objects
from which these rays proceed. The one is a know-
Wedge by sense—natural, immediate, and infallible ;
the other, like that of distance, is, by inference, ac.
quired, mediate, and at best always insecure.—H.
as well as when we see it with the naked
eye at its real distance. And when we look
at an object with a binocular telescope, pro-
perly fitted to the eyes, we see it single,
while it appears fifteen or twenty times
nearer than it is. There are then few cases
wherein the distance of an object from the
eye is seen so accurately as is necessary for
single vision, upon this hypothesis: this
seems to be a conclusive argument against
the account given of single vision. We find,
likewise, that false judgments or fallacious
appearances of the distance of an object, do
not produce double vision : this seems to
be a conclusive argument against the account
given of double vision.
3. The perception we have of the linear
distance of objects seems to be wholly the
effect of experience. This, I think, hath
been proved by Bishop Berkeley and by
Dr Smith ; and when we come to point out
the means of judging of distance by sight,
it will appear that they are all furnished by
experience.
4. Supposing that, by a law of our nature,
the distance of objects from the eye were
perceived most accurately, as well as their
direction, it will not follow that we must
see the object single. Let us consider what
means such a law of nature would furnish
for resolving the question, Whether the
objects of the two eyes are in one and the
same place, and consequently are not two,
but one 2
Suppose, then, two right lines, one drawn
from the centre of one eye to its object, the
other drawn, in like manner, from the centre
of the other eye to its object. This law of
nature gives us the direction or position of
each of these right lines, and the length of
each ; and this is all. that it gives. These
are geometrical data, and we may learn from
geometry what is determined by their means.
Is it, then, determined by these data, Whe-
ther the two right lines terminate in one
and the same point, or not ? No, truly.
In order to determine this, we must have
three other data. We must know whether
the two right lines are in one plane ; we
must know what angle they make ; and we
must know the distance between the centres
of the eyes. And when these things are
known, we must apply the rules of trigono-
metry, before we can resolve the question,
Whether the objects of the two eyes are in
one and the same place; and, consequently,
whether they are two or one 2
5. That false appearance of distance into
which double vision is resolved, cannot be
the effect of custom, for constant experience
contradicts it. Neither hath it the features
of a law of nature, because it does not
answer any good purpose, nor, indeed, any
purpose at all, but to deceive us. But why
should we seek for arguments, in a question
N
178
OF THE HUMAN MILNE).
concerning what appears to us, or does not
appear 2 The question is, At what distance
do the objects now in my eye appear 2 Do
they all appear at one distance, as if placed
in the concave surface of a sphere, the eye
being in the centre P Every man, surely,
may know this with certainty; and, if he
will but give attention to the testimony of
his eyes, needs not ask a philosopher how
visible objects appear to him. Now, it is
very true, that, if I look up to a star in the
heavens, the other stars that appear at the
same time, do appear in this manner: yet
this phaenomenon does not favour Dr Por-
terfield's hypothesis ; for the stars and
heavenly bodies do not appear at their true
distances when we look directly to them,
anymore than when they are seen obliquely:
and if this phaenomenon be an argument for
Dr Porterfield's second principle, it must
destroy the first.
The true cause of this phaenomenon will
be given afterwards; therefore, setting it
aside for the present, let us put another
case. I sit in my room, and direct my
eyes to the door, which appears to be
about sixteen feet distant : at the same
time, I see many other objects faintly and
obliquely—the floor, floor-cloth, the table
which I write upon, papers, standish,
candle, &c. Now, do all these objects ap-
pear at the same distance of sixteen feet 2
Upon the closest attention, I find they do
InOt.
Section XI.Y.
of DR BRIGGS's THEORY, AND SIR ISAAC
NEWTON's conjFCTURE ON THIS sub-
JECT, .
I am afraid the reader, as well as the
writer, is already tired of the subject of
single and double vision. The multitude
of theories advanced by authors of great
name, and the multitude of facts, observed
without sufficient skill in optics, or related
without attention to the most material and
decisive circumstances, have equally contri-
buted to perplex it.
In order to bring it to some issue, I have,
in the 13th section, given a more full
and regular deduction than had been given
heretofore, of the phaenomena of single and
double vision, in those whose sight is per-
fect ; and have traced them up to one ge-
neral principle, which appears to be a law
of vision in human eyes that are perfect and
in their natural state.
In the 14th section, I have made it ap-
pear, that this law of vision, although ex-
cellently adapted to the fabric of human
eyes, cannot answer the purposes of vision
in some other animals; and therefore, very
probably, is not common to all animals.
The purpose of the 15th and 16th sections
is, to inquire, Whether there be any de-
viation from this law of vision in those
who squint P−a question which is of real
importance in the medical art, as well as
in the philosophy of vision; but which,
after all that hath been observed and
written on the subject, seems not to be
ripe for a determination, for want of pro-
per observations. Those who have had
skill to make proper observations, have
wanted opportunities; and those who have
had opportunities, have wanted skill or
attention... I have therefore thought it
worth while to give a distinct account of
the observations necessary for the deter-
mination of this question, and what con-
clusions may be drawn from the facts ob-
Served. I have likewise collected, and set
in one view, the most conclusive facts that
have occurred in authors, or have fallen
under my own observation. -
It must be confessed that, these facts,
when applied to the question in hand, make
a very poor figure ; and the gentlemen of
the medical faculty are called upon, for the
honour of their profession, and for the bene-
fit of mankind, to add to them.
All the medical, and all the optical writers.
upon the strabismus that I have met with,
except Dr Jurin, either affirm, or take it
for granted, that squinting persons see the
object with both eyes, and yet see it single.
Dr Jurin affirms that squinting persons
never see the object with both eyes; and
that, if they did, they would see it double.
If the common opinion be true, the cure of
a squint would be as pernicious to the sight
of the patient, as the causing of a perma-
ment squint would be to one who naturally
had no squint; and, therefore, no physi-
cian ought to attempt such a cure, no
patient ought to submit to it. But, if Dr
Jurin's opinion be true, most young people
that squint may cure themselves, by taking
Some pains ; and may not only remove the
deformity, but, at the same time, improve
their sight. If the common opinion be
true, the centres, and other points of the two
'relinae, in Squinting persons, do not corre-
spond, as in other men, and Nature, in them,
deviates from her common rule. But, if
Dr Jurin's opinion be true, there is reason
to think that the same general law of vision
which we have found in perfect human eyes,
extends also to those which squint.
It is impossible to determine, by reason-
ing, which of these opinions is true; or
whether one may not be found true in some
patients, and the other in others. Here,
experience and observation are our only
guides; and a deduction of instances is the
only rational argument. It might, there-
fore, have been exoected, that the patrons
OF SEEING.
179
of the contrary opinions should have given
instances in support of them that are clear
and indisputable ; but I have not found one
such instance on either side of the question,
in all the authors I have met with. I have
given three instances from my own observ-
ation, in confirmation of Dr Jurin’s opinion,
which admit of no doubt ; and one which
leans rather to the other opinion, but is
dubious. And here I must leave the matter
to further observation.
In the 17th section, I have endeavoured to
shew that the correspondence and [or] sym-
pathy of certain points of the two retinae,
into which we have resolved all the phaeno-
mena of single and double vision, is not, as
Dr Smith conceived, the effect of custom,
nor can [it] be changed by custom, but is a
natural and original property of human
eyes; and, in the last section, that it is not
owing to an original and natural perception
of the true distance of objects from the eye,
as Dr Porterfield imagined. After this re-
capitulation, which is intended to relieve the
attention of the reader, shall we enter into
more theories upon this subject 2
That of Dr Briggs—first published in
English, in the “Philosophical Transac-
tions,” afterwards in Latin, under the title
of “Nova Visionis Theoria,” with a prefa-
tory epistle of Sir Isaac Newton to the
author—amounts to this, That the fibres of
the optic nerves, passing from correspond-
ing points of the retinae to the thalami ner-
vorum opticorum, having the same length,
the same tension, and a similar situation,
will have the same tone; and, therefore,
their vibrations, excited by the impression
of the rays of light, will be like unisons in
music, and will present one and the same
image to the mind: but the fibres passing
from parts of the retinae which do not cor-
respond, having different tensions and tones,
will have discordant vibrations; and, there-
fore, present different images to the mind.
I shall not enter upon a particular exam-
ination of this theory. It is enough to ob-
serve, in general, that it is a system of con-
jectures concerning things of which we are
entirely ignorant ; and that all such theories
in philosophy deserve rather to be laughed
at, than to be seriously refuted.
From the first dawn of philosophy to this
day, it hath been believed that the optic
nerves are intended to carry the images of
visible objects from the bottom of the eye to
the mind; and that the nerves belonging to
the organs of the other senses have a like
office.” But how do we know this 2 . We
conjecture it; and, taking this conjecture
for a truth, we consider how the nerves may
best answer this purpose. The system of
the nerves, for many ages, was taken to be a
hydraulic engine, consisting of a bundle of
pipes, which carried to and fro a liquor called
animal spirits. About the time of Dr
Briggs, it was thought rather to be a stringed
instrument, composed of vibrating chords,
each of which had its proper tension and
tone. But some, with as great probability,
conceived it to be a wind instrument, which
played its part by the vibrations of an elastic
aether in the nervous fibrils.
These, I think, are all the engines into
which the nervous system hath been moulded
by philosophers, for conveying the images
of sensible things from the organ to the
sensorium. And, for all that we know of
the matter, every man may freely choose
which he thinks fittest for the purpose; for,
from fact and experiment, no one of them
can claim preference to another. Indeed,
they all seem so unhandy engines for carry-
ing images, that a man would be tempted to
invent a new one.
Since, therefore, a blind man may guess
as well in the dark as one that sees, I beg
leave to offer another conjecture touching
the nervous system, which, I hope, will
answer the purpose as well as those we have
mentioned, and which recommends itself by
its simplicity. Why may not the optic
nerves, for instance, be made up of empty
tubes, opening their mouths wide enough to
receive the rays of light which form the
image upon the retinae, and gently convey-
ing them safe, and in their proper order, to
the very seat of the soul, until they flash in
her face? . It is easy for an ingenious phi-
losopher to fit the caliber of these empty
tubes to the diameter of the particles of
light, so as they shall receive no grosser
kind of matter ; and, if these rays should be
in danger of mistaking their way, an expe-
dient may also be found to prevent this ;
for it requires no more than to bestow upon
the tubes of the nervous system a peristal-
tic motion, like that of the alimentary tube.
It is a peculiar advantage of this hypo-
thesis, that, although all philosophers be-
lieve that the species or images of things
are conveyed by the nerves to the soul, yet
none of their hypotheses shew how this
may be done. For how can the images of
sound, taste, Smell, colour, figure, and all
sensible qualities, be made out of the vibra-
tions of musical chords, or the undulations
of animal spirits, or of aether 2 We ought
not to suppose means inadequate to the
end. Is it not as philosophical, and more
intelligible, to conceive, that, as the stomach
receives its food, so the soul receives her
images by a kind of nervous deglutition ?
I might add, that we need only continue
this peristaltic motion of the nervous tubes
* This statement is far too unqualified.—H.
from the sensorium to the extremities of the
nerves that serve the muscles, in order to
account for muscular motion. - *
N 2
180
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
Thus Nature will be consonant to her-
self; and, as sensation will be the convey-
ance of the ideal aliment to the mind, so
muscular motion will be the expulsion of
the recrementitious part of it. For who
can deny, that the images of things con-
veyed by sensation, may, after due con-
coction, become fit to be thrown off by
muscular motion ? I only give hints of
these things to the ingenious, hoping that in
time this hypothesis may be wrought up into
a system as trulyphilosophical as that of ani-
mal spirits, or the vibration of nervous fibres.
To be serious : In the operations of na-
ture, I hold the theories of a philosopher,
which are unsupported by fact, in the same
estimation with the dreams of a man asleep,
or the ravings of a madman. We laugh at
the Indian philosopher, who, to account
for the support of the earth, contrived the
hypothesis of a huge elephant, and, to
support the elephant, a huge tortoise.
If we will candidly confess the truth, we
know as little of the operation of the nerves,
as he did of the manner in which the earth
is supported.; and our hypotheses about
animal spirits, or about the tension and
vibrations of the nerves, are as like to be
true, as his about the support of the earth.
His elephant was a hypothesis, and our
hypotheses are elephants. Every theory
in philosophy, which is built on pure con-
jecture, is an elephant; and every theory
that is supported partly by fact, and partly
by conjecture, is like Nebuchadnezzar's
image, whose feet were partly of iron and
partly of clay.
The great Newton first gave an example
to philosophers, which always ought to be,
but rarely hath been followed, by distin-
guishing his conjectures from his conclu-
sions, and putting the former by themselves,
in the modest form of queries. This is fair
and legal; but all other philosophical traf-
fic in conjecture ought to be held contra-
band and illicit. Indeed, his conjectures
have commonly more foundation in fact,
and more verisimilitude, than the dogma-
tical theories of most other philosophers;
and, therefore, we ought not to omit that
which he hath offered concerning the cause
of our seeing objects single with two eyes,
in the 15th query annexed to his “Optics.”
“Are not the species of objects seen
with both eyes, united where the optic
nerves meet before they come into the brain,
the fibres on the right side of both nerves
uniting there, and after union going thence
into the brain in the nerve which is on the
right side of the head, and the fibres on the
left side of both nerves uniting in the same
place, and after union going into the brain
in the nerve which is on the left side of the
head, and these two nerves meeting in the
brain in such a manner that their fibres
make but one entire species or picture, half
of which on the right side of the sensorium
comes from the right side of both eyes
through the right side of both optic nerves,
to the place where the nerves meet, and
from thence on the right side of the head
into the brain, and the other half on the
left side of the sensorium comes, in like
manner, from the left side of both eyes?
For the optic nerves of such animals as
look the same way with both eyes (as men,
dogs, sheep, oxen, &c.) meet before they
come into the brain ; but the optic nerves
of such animals as do not look the same
way with both eyes (as of fishes, and of the
chameleon) do not meet, if I am rightly in-
formed.”
I beg leave to distinguish this query into
two, which are of very different natures;
one being purely anatomical, the other re-
lating to the carrying species or pictures of
visible objects to the sensorium.
The first question is, Whether the fibres
coming from corresponding points of the
two retinae do not unite at the place where
the optic nerves meet, and continue united
from thence to the brain ; so that the right
optic nerve, after the meeting of the two
nerves, is composed of the fibres coming
from the right side of both retinae, and the
left, of the fibres coming from the left side
of both retinae 2
This is undoubtedly a curious and rational
question; because, if we could find ground
from amatomy to answer it in the affirm-
ative, it would lead us a step forward in
discovering the cause of the correspondence
and sympathy which there is between cer-
tain points of the two relinae. For, although
we know not what is the particular function
of the optic nerves, yet it is probable that
some impression made upon them, and
communicated along their fibres, is neces-
sary to vision; and, whatever be the nature
of this impression, if two fibres are united
into one, an impression made upon one of
them, or upon both, may probably produce
the same effect. Anatomists think it a
sufficient account of a sympathy between
two parts of the body, when they are served
by branches of the same nerve ; we should;
therefore, look upon it as an important dis-
covery in anatomy, if it were found that the
same nerve sent branches to the corre-
sponding points of the retina.
But hath any such discovery been made 2
No, not so much as in one subject, as far as
I can learn ; but, in several subjects, the
contrary seems to have been discovered.
Dr Porterfield hath given us two cases at
length from Vesalius, and one from Caesal-
pinus, wherein the optic nerves, after touch-
ing one another as usual, appeared to be
reflected back to the same side whence
they came, without any mixture of their
OF SEEING.
18)
.*
fibres. Each of these persons had lost an
eye some time before his death, and the
optic nerve belonging to that eye was
shrunk, so that it could be distinguished
from the other at the place where they met.
Another case, which the same author gives
from Vesalius, is still more remarkable;
for in it the optic nerves did not touch at
all ; and yet, upon inquiry, those who were
most familiar with the person in his life-
time, declared that he never complained of
any defect of sight, or of his seeing objects
double. Diemerbroeck tells us, that Aqua-
pendens [ab Aquapendente] and Valverda
likewise affirm, that they have met with
subjects wherein the optic nerves did not
touch."
As these observations were made before
Sir Isaac Newton put this query, it is un-
eertain whether he was ignorant of them,
or whether he suspected some inaccu-
racy in them, and desired that the matter
might be more carefully examined. But,
from the following passage of the most
accurate Winslow, it does not appear that
later observations have been more favour-
able to his conjecture. “The union of
these (optic) nerves, by the small curva-
tures of their corrºwa, is very difficult to be
unfolded in human bodies. This union is
commonly found to be very close; but, in
some subjects, it seems to be no more than
a strong adhesion—in others, to be partly
made by an intersection or crossing of fibres.
They have been found quite separate; and,
in other subjects, one of them has been
found to be very much altered both in size
and colour through its whole passage, the
other remaining in its natural state.”
When we consider this conjecture of Sir
fsaac Newton by itself, it appears more
ingenious, and to have more verisimilitude,
than anything that has been offered upon
the subject; and we admire the caution
and modesty of the author, in proposing it
only as a subject of inquiry: but when we
compare it with the observations of anato-
mists which contradict it,t we are naturally
led to this reflection, That, if we trust to
the conjectures of men of the greatest
genius in the operations of nature, we have
only the chance of going wrong in an inge-
Ill OllS IIla,]] D6F. -
The second part of the query is, Whether
the two species of objects from the two eyes
are not, at the place where the optic nerves
meet, united into one species or picture,
half of which is carried thence to the sen-
sorium in the right optic nerve, and the
other half in the left P and whether these
two halves are not so put together again at
the sensorium, as to make one species or
picture ?
Here it seems matural to put the previous
question, What reason have we to believe
that pictures of objects are at all carried to
the sensorium, either by the optic nerves,
or by any other nerves 2 Is it not possible
that this great philosopher, as well as many
of a lower form, having been led into this
opinion at first by education, may have con-
tinued in it, because he never thought of
calling it in question ? I confess this was
my own case for a considerable part of my
life. But since I was led by accident to
think seriously what reason I had to believe
it, I could find none at all. It seems to be
a mere hypothesis, as much as the Indian
philosopher's elephant. I am not conscious
of any pictures of external objects in my
sensorium, any more than in my stomach :
the things which I perceive by my senses,
appear to be external, and not in any part
of the brain; and my sensations, properly
so called, have no resemblance of external
objects.
The conclusion from all that hath been
said, in no less than seven 'sections, upon
our seeing objects single with two eyes,
is this—That, by an original property
of human eyes, objects painted upon the
centres of the two relima, or upon points
similarly situate with regard to the centres,
appear in the same visible place ; that the
most plausible attempts to account for this
property of the eyes, have been unsuccess-
ful; and, therefore, that it must be either
a primary law of our constitution, or the
consequence of some more general law,
which is not yet discovered.
We have now finished what we intended
to say, both of the visible appearances of
things to the eye, and of the laws of our
constitution by which those appearances
* See Meckel’s “Pathologische Anatomie;” I., p.
399.-H 4.
+ Anatomists are now nearly agreed, that, in the
normal state, there is a partial. decustation of the
human optic nerve. Soemmering, Treviranus, Ru-
dolphi, Johannes Mueller, Langenbeck, Magendie,
Mayo, &c., are paramount authority for the fact. I
do not know whether the observation has been made,
that the degree of decussation in different animals is
exactly in the inverse ratio of what we might have
been led, at first sight, theoretically to anticipate. In
proportion as the convergence is complete—i.e.,
where the axis of the field of vision of the several eyes
coincides with the axis of the field of vision common
to both, as in men and apes—there we find the de-
cussation most partial and obscure; whereas, in the
lower animals, in proportion as we find the fields of
the two eyes exclusive of each other, and where, conse-
quently, the necessity of bringing the two organs into
unison might seem abolished, there, however, we find
the crossing of the optic fibres complete. In fishes,
accordingly, it is distinct and isolated; in birds, it takes
more the appearance of an interlacement; in the
mammalia, that of a fusion of substance. A second
consideration, however, reconciles theory and observ-
ation. Somé, however, as Woolaston, make the
parallel motion of the eyes to be dependent on the
connection of the optic nerves ; and, besides experi-
ments, there are variºus pathological cases in favour
of. Magendie's opinion, that the fifth pair are the
nerves on, which the energies of sight, hearing.
smell, and taste are proximately and principally de.
pendent.—H. w *
182
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
are exhibited. But it was observed, in the
beginning of this chapter, that the visible
appearances of objects serve only as signs
of their distance, magnitude, figure, and
other tangible qualities. The visible ap-
pearance is that which is presented to the
mind by nature, according to those laws of
our constitution which have been explained.
But the thing signified by that appearance,
is that which is presented to the mind by
Custom.
When one speaks to us in a language
that is familiar, we hear certain sounds,
and this is all the effect that his discourse
has upon us by nature ; but by custom we
understand the meaning of these sounds;
and, therefore, we fix our attention, not
upon the sounds, but upon the things sig-
nified by them. In like manner, we see
only the visible appearance of objects by
nature ; but we learn by custom to inter-
pret these appearances, and to understand
their meaning. And when this visual
language is learned, and becomes familiar,
we attend only to the things signified ; and
cannot, without great difficulty, attend to
the signs by which they are presented. The
mind passes from one to the other so
rapidly and so familiarly, that no trace of
the sign is left in the memory, and we seem
immediately, and without the intervention
of any sign, to perceive the thing sig-
nified.
When I look at the apple-tree which
stands before my-window, I perceive, at the
first glance, its distance and magnitude, the
roughness of its trunk, the disposition of
its branches, the figure of its leaves and
fruit. I seem to perceive all these things
immediately. The visible appearance which
presented them all to the mind, has entirely
escaped me; I cannot, without great diffi-
culty, and painful abstraction, attend to it,
even when it stands before me. Yet it is
certain that this visible appearance only
is presented to my eye by nature, and that
I learned by custom to collect all the rest
from it. If I had never seen before now,
I should not perceive either the distance or
tangible figure of the tree; and it would
have required the practice of seeing for
many months, to change that original per-
ception which nature gave me by my eyes,
into that which I now have by custom.
The objects which we see naturally and
originally, as hath been before observed,
have length and breadth, but no thickness
nor distance from the eye. Custom, by a
kind of legerdemain, withdraws gradually
these original and proper objects of sight,
and substitutes in their place objects of
touch, which have length, breadth, and
thickness, and a determinate distance from
the eye. By what means this change is
brought about, and what principles of the
human mind concur in it, we are next to
inquire.
Section XX.
OF PERCEPTION IN GENERAL.
Sensation, and the perception+ of exter-
mal objects by the senses, though very dif-
ferent in their nature, have commonly been
considered as one and the same thing.:
The purposes of common life do not make
it necessary to distinguish them, and the
received opinions of philosophers tend ra-
ther to confound them ; but, without at-
tending carefully to this distinction, it is
impossible to have any just conception of
the operations of our senses. The most
simple operations of the mind, admit not of
a logical definition : all we can do is to de-
Scribe them, so as to lead those who are
conscious of them in themselves, to attend
to them, and reflect upon them ; and it is
often very difficult to describe them so as to
answer this intention.
The same mode of expression is used to
denote Sensation and perception; and, there-
fore, we are apt to look upon them as things
of the same nature. Thus, I feel a pain;
I see a tree : the first denoteth a sensation,
the last a perception. The grammatical
analysis of both expressions is the same :
* Nothing in the compass of inductive reasoning
appears more satisfactory than Perkeley's demon-
stration of the necessity and manner of our learn-
ing, by a slow process of observation and comparison
alone, the connection between the perceptions of
vision and touch, and, in general, all that relates to.
the distance and real magnitude of external things,
But, although the same necessity seems in theory
equally incumbent on the lower animals as on man,
yet this theory is provokingly—and that by the most
manifest experience—found totally at fault with ra-
gard to them ; for we find that all the animals who
possess at birth the power of regulated motion (and
these are those only through whom the truth of the
theory can be brought to the test of a decisive ex-
periment) possess also from birth the whole appre-
hension of distance, &c., which they are ever known
to exhibit. The solution of this difference, by a
resort to instinct, is unsatisfactory; for instinct is,
in fact, an occult principle— a kind of natural rev: 1-
ation—and the hypothesis of instinct, therefore, only
a confession of our ignorance; and, at the same time,
if instinct be allowed in the lower animals, how
can we determin? whether and how far instinct
may not in like manner operate to the same result
in man 2–1 have discovered, and, by a wide induc-
tion, established, that the power of regulated mo-
tion at birth is, in all animals, governed by the de-
velopement, at that period, of the cerebellum, in pro:
portion to the brain proper. Is this law to be exte ded
to the faculty of determining distances, &c., by sight 2
—H.
t On the distinction of Sensation proper, from
Perception proper, see “ Essays on the Intellectual
Powers,” Essay II., chap. 16, and Note D.3% Itoid
himself, especially in this work, has not been always
rigid in observing their discrimination.—H.
f Not only are they different, but—what has escaped
our philosophers—the law of their manifestation
is, that, while both are co-existent, each is always in
the inverse ratio of the other. Perception is the objec-
tive, sºation the subjective, element. This by the
way.— tºl.
OF SEE [NG.
183
for both consist of an active verb and an
object. But, if we attend to the things sig-
nified by these expressions, we shall find
that, in the first, the distinction between the
act and the object is not real but gramma-
tical ; in the second, the distinction is not
only grammatical but real.
The form of the expression, I feel pain,
might seem to imply that the feeling is
something distinct from the pain felt ; yet,
in reality, there is no distinction. As
thinking a thought is an expression which
could signify no more than thinking, so
feeling a pain signifies no more than being
pained. What we have said of pain is ap-
licable to every other mere sensation. It
is difficult to give instances, very few of
our sensations having names; and, where
they have, the name being common to the
sensation, and to something else which is
associated with it. But, when we attend
to the sensation by itself, and separate it
from other things which are conjoined
with it in the imagination, it appears to
be something which can have no existence
but in a sentient mind, no distinction
from the act of the mind by which it is
felt.
Perception, as we here understand it,
hath always an object distinct from the act
by which it is perceived; an object which
may exist whether it be perceived or not.
I perceive a tree that grows before my win-
dow ; there is here an object which is per-
ceived, and an act of the mind by which it
is perceived ; and these two are not only
distinguishable, but they are extremely un-
like in their natures. The object is made
up of a trunk, branches, and leaves; but
the act of the mind by which it is per-
ceived hath neither trunk, branches, nor
leaves. I am conscious of this act of my
mind, and I can reflect upon it ; but it is
too simple to admit of an analysis, and I
cannot find proper words to describe it. I
find nothing that resembles it so much as
the remembrance of the tree, or the ima-
gination of it. Yet both these differ essen-
tially from perception; they differ likewise
one from another. It is in vain that a
philosopher assures me, that the imagina-
tion of the tree, the remembrance of it, and
the perception of it, are all one, and differ
only in degree of vivacity. I know the
contrary; for I am as well acquainted with
all the three as I am with the apartments
of my own house. I know this also, that
the perception of an object implies both a
conception of its form, and a belief of its
present existence.* I lºnow, moreover, that
# It is to be observed that Reid himself does not
discriminate perception and imagination by any
cssential difference. According to him, perception
is only the conception (imagination) of an object, ac:
companied with a belief of its present existence; and
even this last distinction, a mere “faith without
this belief is not the effect of argumentation
and reasoning; it is the immediate effect of
my constitution. *
I am aware that this belief which I have
in perception stands exposed to the strongest
batteries of scepticism. But they make Ilo
great impression upon it. The sceptic asks
me, Why do you believe the existence of
the external object which you perceive 2
This belief, sir, is none of my manufacture ;
it came from the mint of Nature ; it bears
her image and superscription; and, if it is
not right, the fault is not mine : I even took
it upon trust, and without suspicion. Tea-
son, says the sceptic, is the only judge of
truth, and you ought to throw off every opi-
nion and every belief that is not grounded
on reason. Why, sir, should I believe the
faculty of reason more than that of percep-
tion ?—they came both out of the same shop,
and were made by the same artist ; and if
he puts one piece of false ware into my
hands, what should hinder him from put-
ting another ?" •
Perhaps the sceptic will agree to distrust
reason, rather than give any credit to per-
ception. For, says he, since, by your own
concession, the object which you perceive,
and that act of your mind by which you
perceive it, are quite different things, the
one may exist without the other ; and, as
the object may exist without being per-
ceived, so the perception may exist without
an object. There is nothing so shameful
in a philosopher as to be deceived and de-
luded ; and, therefore, you ought to resolve
firmly to withhold assent, and to throw off
this belief of external objects, which may be
all delusion. For my part, I will never
attempt to throw it off; and, although the
sober part of mankind will not be very
anxious to know my reasons, yet, if they
can be of use to any sceptic, they are
these :-
First, because it is not in my power: why,
then, should I make a vain attempt 2 It
would be agreeable to fly to the moon, and
to make a visit to Jupiter and Saturn; but,
when I know that Nature has bound me
down by the law of gravitation to this planet
which I inhabit, I rest contented, and quietly
knowledge,” is surrendered by Mr Stewart. . Now,
as conception (imagination) is only immediately cog-
misant of the ego, so must perception on this doctrine
be a knowledge purely subjective. Perception must
be wholly different in kind from Conception, if we are
to possess a faculty informing us of the existence and
qualities of an external world ; and, unless we are
possessed of such a faculty, we shall never be compe-
tent to vindicate more than an ideal reality to the
objects of our cognitions.—H.
* This argument would be good in favour of our
belief, that we are really percipient of a non-ego :
it is not good in favour of our belief that a non-ego
really exists, our perception of its real existence
being abandoned. . Mankind have the latter belief
only as they have the former; and, if we are deceived
by our Nature touching the one, it is absurd to ap-
peal to her veracity in proof of the other.—H. -
184
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
suffer myself to be carried along in its orbit.
My belief is carried along by perception, as
irresistibly as my body by the earth. And
the greatest sceptic will find himself to be
in the same condition. He may struggle
hard to disbelieve the informations of his
senses, as a man does to swim against a tor-
rent ; but, ah it is in vain. It is in vain
that he strains every nerve, and wrestles
with nature, and with every object that
strikes upon his senses. For, after all,
when his strength is spent in the fruitless
attempt, he will be carried down the tor-
rent with the common herd of believers.
Secondly, I think it would not be pru-
dent to throw off this belief, if it were in
my power. If Nature intended to deceive
me, and impose upon me by false appear-
ances, and I, by my great cunning and pro-
found logic, have discovered the imposture,
prudence would dictate to me, in this case,
even to put up [with] this indignity done
me, as quietly as I could, and not to call
her an impostor to her face, lest she should
be even with me in another way. For
what do I gain by resenting this injury P
You ought at least not to believe what she
says. This indeed seems reasonable, if
she intends to impose upon me. But what
is the consequence 2 I resolve not to be-
lieve my senses. I break my nose against
a post that comes in my way; I step into
a dirty kennel ; and, after twenty such
wise and rational actions, I am taken up
and clapped into a mad-house. Now, I con-
fess I would rather make one of the credu-
lous fools whom Nature imposes upon, than
of those wise and rational philosophers
- who resolve to withhold assent at all this
expense. If a man pretends to be a scep-
tic with regard to the informations of
sense, and yet prudently keeps out of harm's
way as other men do, he must excuse my
suspicion, that he either acts the hypocrite,
or imposes upon himself. For, if the scale
of his belief were so evenly poised as to
lean no more to one side than to the con-
trary, it is impossible that his actions could be
directed by any rules of common prudence."
Thirdly, Although the two reasons al-
ready mentioned are perhaps two more than
enough, I shall offer a third. I gave im-
plicit belief to the informations of Nature
by my senses, for a considerable part of my
life, before I had learned so much logic as
to be able to start a doubt concerning them.
And now, when I reflect upon what is past,
I do not find that I have been imposed upon
by this belief. I find that without it I must
have perished by a thousand accidents. I
find that without it I should have been no
wiser now than when I was born. I should
*
not even have been able to acquire that
logic which suggests these sceptical doubts
with regard to my senses. Therefore, I
consider this instinctive belief as one of the
best gifts of Nature. I thank the Author of
my being, who bestowed it upon me before
the eyes of my reason were opened, and
still bestows it upon me, to be my guide
where reason leaves me in the dark. And
now I yield to the direction of my senses,
not from instinct only, but from confidence
and trust in a faithful and beneficent Moni-
tor, grounded upon the experience of his
paternal care and goodness. -
In all this, I deal with the Author of my
being, no otherwise than I thought it reason-
able to deal with my parents and tutors. I
believed by instinct whatever they told me, .
long before I had the idea of a lie, or thought
of the possibility of their deceiving me.
Afterwards, upon reflection, I found they
had acted like fair and honest people, who
wished me well. I found that, if I had not
believed what they told me, before I could
give a reason of my belief, I had to this day
been little better than a changeling. And
although this natural credulity hath some-
times occasioned my being imposed upon
by deceivers, yet it hath been of infinite
advantage to me upon the whole; therefore,
I consider it as another good gift of Nature.
And I continue to give that credit, from
reflection, to those of whose integrity and
veracity I have had experience, which be-
fore I gave from instinct.
There is a much greater similitude than
is commonly imagined, between the testi-
mony of nature given by our senses, and
the testimony of men given by language.
The credit we give to both is at first the
effect of instinct" only. When we grow
up, and begin to reason about them, the
credit given to human testimony is re-
strained and weakened, by the experience
we have of deceit. But the credit given to
the testimony of our senses, is established
and confirmed by the uniformity and con-
stancy of the laws of nature.
Our perceptions are of two kinds: some
are matural and original ; others acquired,
and the fruit of experience. When I per-
ceive that this is the taste of cyder, that of
, brandy ; that this is the smell of an apple,
that of an orange ; that this is the noise of
thunder, that the ringing of bells; this the
sound of a coach passing, that the voice of
such a friend : these perceptions, and others
of the same kind, are not original—they are
acquired. But the perception which I have,
by touch, of the hardness and softness of
bodies, of their extension, figure, and mo-
tion, is not acquired—it is original.
* This is not a fair consequence of Idealism; there.
fore, it is not a reductio ad absurdum,-H.
+ On the propriety of the term “instinct,” sce in
Note A.—H.
OF SEEING.
185
In all our senses, the acquired percep-
tions are many more than the original,
especially in sight. By this sense we per-
ceive originally the visible figure and colour
of bodies only, and their visible place :*
but we learn to perceive by the eye, almost
everything which we can perceive by
touch. The original perceptions of this
sense serve only as signs to introduce the
acquired.
The signs by which objects are presented
to us in perception, are the language of
Nature to man; and as, in many respects,
it hath great affinity with the language of
man to man, so particularly in this, that
both are partly natural and original, partly
acquired by custom. Our original or
natural perceptions are analogous to the
natural language of man to man, of which
we took notice in the fourth chapter; and
our acquired perceptions are analogous to
artificial language, which, in our mother-
tongue, is got very much in the same man-
ner with our acquired perceptions—as we
shall afterwards more fully explain.
Not only men, but children, idiots, and
brutes, acquire by habit many perceptions
which they had not originally. Almost
every employment in life hath perceptions
of this kind that are peculiar to it. The
shepherd knows every sheep of his flock, as
we do our acquaintance, and can pick them
out of another flock one by one. The
butcher knows by sight the weight and
quality of his beeves and sheep before they
are killed. The farmer perceives by his
eye, very nearly, the quantity of hay in a
rick, or of corn in a heap. The sailor sees
the burthen, the built, and the distance of
a ship at Sea, while she is a great way off.
Every man accustomed to writing, distin-
guishes his acquaintance by their hand-
writing, as he does by their faces. And
the painter distinguishes, in the works of his
art, the style of all the great masters. In
a word, acquired perception is very different
in different persons, according to the divers-
ity of objects about which they are em-
ployed, and the application they bestow in
observing them.
Perception ought not only to be distin-
guished from sensation, but likewise from
that knowledge of the objects of sense
which is got by reasoning. There is no
reasoning in perception, as hath been ob-
served. The belief which is implied in it,
is the effect of instinct. But there are
many things, with regard to sensible ob-
jects, which we can infer from what we
perceive ; and such conclusions of reason
ought to be distinguished from what is
merely perceived. When I look at the
* In this passage Reid admits Figure and Place
(consequently, Extension) to be original perceptions
of vision. See above, p. 123, b. . note #.—H.
really of a spherical figure.
moon, I perceive her to be sometimes cir-
cular, sometimes horned, and sometimes
gibbous. This is simple perception, and is
the same in the philosopher and in the
clown : but from these various appearances
of her enlightened part, I infer that she is
This conclu-
sion is not obtained by simple perception,
but by reasoning. Simple perception has
the same relation to the conclusions of rea-
son drawn from our perceptions, as the
axioms in mathematics have to the pro-
positions. I cannot demonstrate that two
quantities which are equal to the same
quantity, are equal to each other ; neither
can I demonstrate that the tree which
I perceive, exists. But, by the constitution
of my nature, my belief is irresistibly car-
ried along by my apprehension of the
axiom ; and, by the constitution of my
nature, my belief is no less irresistibly car-
ried along by my perception of the tree.
All reasoning is from principles. The first
principles of mathematical reasoning are
mathematical axioms and definitions; and
the first principles of all our reasoning
about existences, are our perceptions. The
first principles of every kind of reasoning
are given us by Nature, and are of equal
authority with the faculty of reason itself,
which is also the gift of Nature. The con-
clusions of reason are all built upon first
principles, and can have no other founda-
tion. Most justly, therefore, do such prin-
ciples disdain to be tried by reason, and
laugh at all the artillery of the logician,
when it is directed against them.
When a long train of reasoning is neces-
Sary in demonstrating a mathematical pro-
position, it is easily distinguished from an
axiom ; and they seem to be things of a very
different nature. But there are some pro-
positions which lie so near to axioms, that
it is difficult to say whether they ought to
be held as axioms, or demonstrated as pro-
positions. The same thing holds with
regard to perception, and the conclusions
drawn from it. Some of these conclusions
follow our perceptions so easily, and are so
immediately connected with them, that it
is difficult to fix the limit which divides the
one from the other.
Perception, whether original or acquired,
implies no exercise of reason ; and is com-
mon to men, children, idiots, and brutes.
The more obvious conclusions drawn from
our perceptions, by reason, make what we
call common whderstanding ; by which men
conduct themselves in the common affairs
of life, and by which they are distinguished
from idiots. The more remote conclusions
which are drawn from our perceptions, by
reason, make what we commonly call science
in the various parts of nature, whether in
agriculture, medicine, mechanics, or in any
186
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
part of natural philosophy. When I see a
garden in good order, containing a great
variety of things of the best kinds, and in
the most flourishing condition, I immedi-
ately conclude from these signs the skill
and industry of the gardener. A farmer,
when he rises in the morning, and perceives
that the neighbouring brook overflows his
field, concludes that a great deal of rain
hath fallen in the night. Perceiving his
fence broken, and his corn trodden down,
he concludes that some of his own or his
neighbours' cattle have broke loose. Per-
ceiving that his stable-door is broke open,
and some of his horses gone, he concludes
that a thief has carried them off. He traces
the prints of his horses' feet in the soft
ground, and by them discovers which road
the thief hath taken. These are instances
of common understanding, which dwells so
near to perception that it is difficult to trace
the line which divides the one from the other.
In like manner. the science of nature dwells
so near to common understanding that we
cannot discern where the latter ends and the
former begins. I perceive that bodies lighter
than water swim in water, and that those
which are heavier sink. Hence I conclude,
that, if a body remains wherever it is put
under water, whether at the top or bottom,
it is precisely of the same weight with water.
If it will rest only when part of it is above
water, it is lighter than water. And the
greater the part above water is, compared
with the whole, the lighter is the body. If
it had no gravity at all, it would make no
impression upon the water, but stand wholly
above it. Thus, every man, by common
understanding, has a rule by which he
judges of the specific gravity of bodies
which swim in water : and a step or two
more leads him into the science of hydro-
statics.
All that we know of nature, or of exist-
ences, may be compared to a tree, which
hath its root, trunk, and branches. In this
tree of knowledge, perception is the root,
common understanding is the trunk, and
the sciences are the branches.
Section _XXI.
O F THE PROCESS OF NATURE IN PERCEPTION.
Although there is no reasoning in per-
ception, yet there are certain means and
instruments, which, by the appointment of
nature, must intervene between the object
and our perception of it ; and, by these,
our perceptions are limited and regulated.
First, If the object is not in contact with
the organ of sense, there must be some
medium which passes between them. Thus,
in vision, the rays of light; in hearing, the
vibrations of elastic air; in smelling, the
effluvia of the bodysmelled—must pass from
the object to the organ ; otherwise we have
no perception." Secondly, There must be
some action or impression upon the organ
of sense, either by the immediate applica-
tion of the object, or by the medium that
goes between them. Thirdly, The nerves
which go from the brain to the organ must
receive some impression by means of that
which was made upon the organ; and, pro-
bably, by means of the nerves, some im-
pression must be made upon the brain.
Fourthly, The impression made upon the
organ, nerves, and brain, is followed by a
Sensation. And, last of all, This sensation
is followed by the perception of the object.-f
Thus, our perception of objects is the re-
sult of a train of operations; some of which
affect the body only, others affect the mind.
We know very little of the nature of some
of these operations; we know not at all how
they are connected together, or in what way
they contribute to that perception which is
the result of the whole; but, by the laws of
our constitution, we perceive objects in this,
and in no other way.
There may be other beings who can per-
ceive external objects without rays of light,
or vibrations of air, or effluvia of bodies—
without impressions on bodily organs, or
even without sensations; but we are so
framed by the Author of Nature, that, even
when we are surrounded by external objects,
we may perceive none of them. Our faculty
of perceiving an object lies dormant, until
it is roused and stimulated by a certain
corresponding Sensation. Nor is this sens-
ation always at hand to perform its office;
for it enters into the mind only in conse-
quence of a certain corresponding impres-
sion made on the organ of sense by the ob-
ject.
Let us trace this correspondence of im-
pressions, Sensations, and perceptions, as
far as we can—beginning with that which
is first in order, the impression made upon
the bodily organ. But, alas! we know not
of what nature these impressions are, far
less how they excite sensations in the mind.
We know that one body may act upon
another by pressure, by percussion, by at-
traction, by repulsion, and, probably, in
many other ways which we neither know
nor have names to express. But in which
of these ways objects, when perceived by
us, act upon the organs of sense, these
organs upon the nerves, and the nerves
per is a false assumption.
* The only object of perception is the immediate
object. The distant reality— he mediate object, or
object simply of Reid and other philosophers—is un-
known to the perception of sense, and only reached
by reasoning.—H.
+ That sensation proper precedes perception pro-
They are simultaneous
elements of the same indivisible cnergy.-H.
*
.* OF SEEING.
187
upon the brain, we know not. Can any
man tell me how, in vision, the rays of light
act upon the retina, how the retina acts
upon the optic nerve, and how the optic
Inerve acts upon the brain 2 No man can.
When I feel the pain of the gout in my
toe, I know that there is some unusual im-
ression made upon that part of my body.
ut of what kind is it 2 Are the small
vessels distended with some redundant
elastic, or unelastic fluid f Are the fibres
unusually stretched 2 Are they torn
asunder by force, or gnawed and corroded
by Some acrid humour 2 I can answer
none of these questions. All that I feel is
pain, which is not an impression upon the
body, but upon the mind; and all that I
perceive by this sensation is, that some dis-
temper in my toe occasions this pain. But,
as I know not the natural temper and tex-
ture of my toe when it is at ease, I know as
little what change or disorder of its parts
occasions this uneasy sensation. In like
manner, in every other sensation, there is,
without doubt, some impression made upon
the organ of sense; but an impression of
which we know not the nature. It is too
subtile to be discovered by our senses, and
we may make a thousand conjectures with-
out coming near the truth. If we under-
stood the structure of our organs of sense
so minutely as to discover what effects are
produced upon them by external objects,
this knowledge would contribute nothing to
our perception of the object; for they per-
ceive as distinctly who know least about the
manner Öf perception, as the greatest adepts.
It is necessary that the impression be made
upon our organs, but not that it be known.
Nature carries on this part of the process
of perception, without our consciousness or
CODCUll"I'êIl Cé.
But we cannot be unconscious of the next
step in this process—the sensation of the
mind, which always immediately follows the
impression made upon the body. It is
essential to a sensation to be felt, and it can
be nothing more than we feel it to be. If
we can only acquire the habit of attending
to our sensations, we may know them per-
fectly. But how are the sensations of the
mind produced by impressions upon the
body ? TOf this we are absolutely ignorant,
having no means of knowing how the body
acts upon the mind, or the mind upon the
body. When we consider the nature and
attributes of both, they seem to be so differ-
ent, and so unlike, that we can find no handle
by which the one may lay hold of the other.
There is a deep and a dark gulf between
them, which our understanding cannot pass;
and the manner of their correspondence and
intercourse is absolutely unknown.
Experience teaches us, that certain im-
pressions upon the body are constantly fol-
lowed by certain sensations of the mind;
and that, on the other hand, certain deter-
minations of the mind are constantly fol-
lowed by certain motions in the body; but
we see not the chain that ties these things
together. Who knows but their connection
may be arbitrary, and owing to the will of
our Maker P Perhaps the same sensations
might have been connected with other im-
pressions, or other bodily organs. Perhaps
we might have-been so made as to taste with
our fingers, to Smell with our ears, and to
hear by the nose. Perhaps we might have
been so made as to have all the sensations
and perceptions which we have, without any
impression made upon our bodily organs at
all.
However these things may be, if Nature
had given us nothing more than impressions
made upon the body, and sensations in our
minds corresponding to them, we should, in
that case, have been merely sentient, but not
percipient beings. We should never have
been able to form a conception of any ex-
ternal object, far less a belief of its exist-
ence. Our Sensations have no resemblance
to external objects; nor can we discover,
by our reason, any necessary connection
between the existence of the former, and
that of the latter.
We might, perhaps, have been made of
such a constitution as to have our present
perceptions connected with other sensations.
We might, perhaps, have had the percep-
tion of external objects, without either im-
pressions upon the organs of Sense, or sens-
ations. Or, lastly, The perceptions we have,
might have been immediately connected
with the impressions upon our organs, with-
out any intervention of sensations. This
last seems really to be the case in one in-
stance—to wit, in our perception of the
visible figure of bodies, as was observed in
the eighth section of this chapter.
The process of Nature, in perception by
the Senses, may, therefore, be conceived as a
Rind of drama, wherein some things are per-
formed behind the scenes, others are repre-
sented to the mind in different scenes, one
succeeding another. The impression made
by the object upon the organ, either by im-
mediate contact or by some intervening
medium, as well as the impression made
upon the nerves and brain, is performed
behind the scenes, and the mind sees nothing
of it. But every such impression, by the
laws of the drama, is followed by a sensa-
tion, which is the first scene exhibited to
the mind ; and this scene is quickly suc-
ceeded" by another, which is the percep-
tion of the object.
In this drama, Nature is the actor, we
are the spectators. We know nothing of
* See the preceding note.—H.
188
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
the machinery by means of which every
different impression upon the organ, nerves,
and brain, exhibits its corresponding sens-
ation; or of the machinery by means of
which each sensation exhibits its corre-
sponding perception. We are inspired with
the sensation, and we are inspired with the
corresponding perception, by means un-
known." And, because the mind passes
immediately from the sensation to that con-
ception and belief of the object which we
have in perception, in the same manner as
it passes from signs to the things signified
by them, we have, therefore, called our
sensations signs of eaſternal objects ; finding
no word more proper to express the func-
tion which Nature hath assigned them in
perception, and the relation which they
bear to their corresponding objects.
There is no necessity of a resemblance
between the sign and the thing signified ;
and indeed no sensation can resemble any
external object. But there are two things
necessary to our knowing things by means
of signs. First, That a real connection
between the sign and thing signified be
established, either by the course of nature,
or by the will and appointment of men.
When they are connected by the course of
nature, it is a natural sign ; when by hu-
man appointment, it is an artificial sign.
Thus, smoke is a natural sign of fire ; cer-
tain features are natural signs of anger :
but our words, whether expressed by arti-
culate sounds or by writing, are artificial
signs of our thoughts and purposes.
Another requisite to our knowing things
by signs is, that the appearance of the sign
to the mind, be followed by the conception
and belief of the thing signified. Without
this, the sign is not understoodorinterpreted;
and, therefore, is no sign to us, however
fit in its own nature for that purpose.
Now, there are three ways in which the
mind passes from the appearance of a natu-
ral sign to the conception and belief of the
thing signified–-by original principles of
our constitution, by custom, and by reason-
2ng.
Our original perceptions are got in the
first of these ways, our acquired percep-
tions in the second, and all that reason dis-
covers of the course of nature, in the third.
In the first of these ways, Nature, by means
of the sensations of touch, informs us of the
hardness and softness of bodies; of their
extension, figure, and motion ; and of that
space in which they move and are placed—
as hath been already explained in the fifth
chapter of this inquiry. And, in the second
of these ways, she informs us, by means of
our eyes, of almost all the same things
* , Qn perception as a revelation—“a miraculous
revelation”—see Jacobi's “David Hume.”—H.
|
which originally we could perceive only by
touch.
In order, therefore, to understand more
particularly how we learn to perceive so
many things by the eye, which originally
could be perceived only by touch, it will be
proper, First, To point out the signs by
which those things are exhibited to the eye,
and their connection with the things signi-
fied by them ; and, Secondly, To consider
how the experience of this connection pro-
duces that habit by which the mind, with-
out any reasoning or reflection, passes from
the sign to the conception and belief of the
thing signified.
Of all the acquired perceptions which we
have by sight, the most remarkable is the
perception of the distance of objects from
the eye; we shall, therefore, particularly
consider the signs by which this perception
is exhibited, and only make some general
remarks with regard to the signs which are
used in other acquired perceptions.
Section XXII.
OF THE SIGNS BY WHICH WE LEARN TO
PERCEIVE DISTANCE FROM THE EYE.
It was before observed in general, that
the original perceptions of sight are signs
which serve to introduce those that are
acquired; but this is not to be understood
as if no other signs were employed for that
purpose. There are several motions of the
eyes, which, in order to distinct vision,
must be varied, according as the object is
more or less distant; and such motions be-
ing by habit connected with the correspond-
ing distances of the object, become signs of
those distances.” These motions were at
first voluntary and unconfined ; but, as the
intention of nature was to produce perfect
and distinct vision by their means, we soon
learn by experience to regulate them accord-
ing to that intention only, without the least
reflection.
A ship requires a different trim for every
variation of the direction and strength of
the wind; and, if we may be allowed to
borrow that word, the eyes require a differ-
ent trim for every degree of light, and for
every variation of the distance of the object,
while it is within certain limits. The eyes
are trimmed for a particular object, by con-
tracting certain muscles and relaxing others; "
as the ship is trimmed for a particular wind
by drawing certain ropes and slackening
others. The sailor learns the trim of his
ship, as we learn the trim of our eyes, by
experience. A ship, although the noblest
machine that human art can boast, is far
• See above, p. 182, note *.-H.
OF SEEING.
189
inferior to the eye in this respect, that it
requires art and ingenuity to navigate her ;
and a sailor must know what ropes he must
pull, and what he must slacken, to fit her
to a particular wind; but with such superior
wisdom is the fabric of the eye, and the
principles of its motion contrived, that it
requires no art nor ingenuity to see by it.
Even that part of vision which is got by
experience, is attained by idiots. We need
not know what muscles we are to contract,
and what we are to relax, in order to fit
the eye to a particular distance of the object.
But, although we are not conscious of the
motions we perform, in order to fit the eyes
to the distance of the object, we are con-
scious of the effort employed in producing
these motions; and probably have some
sensation which accompanies them, to which
we give as little attention as to other sensa-
tions. And thus, an effort consciously ex-
erted, or a sensation consequent upon that
effort, comes to be conjoined with the dis-
tance of the object which gave occasion to
it, and by this conjunction becomes a sign
of that distance. Some instances of this
will appear in considering the means or
signs by which we learn to see the distance
of objects from the eye. In the enumera-
tion of these, we agree with Dr Porterfield,
notwithstanding that distance from the eye,
in his opinion, is perceived originally, but,
in our opinion, by experience only.
In general, when a near object affects the
eye in one manner, and the same object,
placed at a greater distance, affects it in a
different manner, these various affections
of the eye become signs of the correspond-
ing distances. The means of perceiving
distance by the eye will therefore be ex-
plained by shewing in what various ways
objects affect the eye differently, according
to their proximity or distance.
1. It is well known, that, to see objects
distinctly at various distances, the form of
the eye must undergo some change : and
nature hath given us the power of adapting
it to near objects, by the contraction of
certain muscles, and to distant objects by
the contraction of other muscles. As to
the manner in which this is done, and the
muscular parts employed, anatomists do not
altogether agree. The ingenious Dr Jurin,
in his excellent essay on distinct and indis-
tinct vision, seems to have given the most
probable account of this matter; and to him
I refer the reader.”
But, whatever be the manner in which
this change of the form of the eye is ef-
fected, it is certain that young people have
commonly the power of adapting their eyes
*The mode in which the eye is accommodated to its
various perceptions, is a subject which has obtained
much attention from the more recent physiologists.-
H.
Y
to all distances of the object, from six or
Seven inclues, to fifteen or sixteen feet; so
as to have perfect and distinct vision at any
distance within these limits. From this it
follows, that the effort we consciously em-
ploy to adapt the eye to any particular dis-
tance of objects within these limits, will be
connected and associated with that dis-
tance, and will become-a sign of it. When
the object is removed beyond the farthest
limit of distinct vision, it will be seen in-
distinctly; but, more or less so, according
as its distance is greater or less; so that
the degrees of indistinctness of the object
may become the signs of distances consi-
derably beyond the farthest limit of distinct
WIS10D.
If we had no other mean but this, of per-
ceiving distance of visible objects, the most
distant would not appear to be above twenty
or thirty feet from the eye, and the tops of
houses and trees would seem to touch the
clouds; for, in that case, the signs of all
greater distances being the same, they have
the same signification, and give the same
perception of distance.
But it is of more importance to observe,
that, because the nearest limit of distinct
vision in the time of youth, when we learn
to perceive distance by the eye, is about
six or seven inches, no object seen dis-
tinctly ever appears to be nearer than six
or seven inches from the eye. We can,
by art, make a small object appear dis-
tinct, when it is in reality not above half
an inch from the eye; either by using a
single microscope, or by looking through
a small pin-hole in a card. When, by
either of these means, an object is made
to appear distinct, however small its dis-
tance is in reality, it seems to be removed
at least to the distance of six or seven
inches—that is, within the limits of distinct
vision.
This observation is the more important,
because it affords the only reason we can
give why an object is magnified either by a
single microscope, or by being seen through
a pin-hole ; and the only mean by which
we can ascertain the degree in which the
object will be magnified by either. Thus,
if the object is really half an inch distant
from the eye, and appears to be seven inches
distant, its diameter will seem to be enlarged
in the same proportion as its distance—that
is, fourteen times.
2. In order to direct both eyes to an
object, the optic axes must have a greater
or less inclination, according as the object
is nearer or more distant. And, although
we are not conscious of this inclination,
yet we are conscious of the effort employed
in it. By this mean we perceive small
distances more accurately than we could
do by the conformation of the eye only.
190
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
And, therefore, we find, that those who have
lost the sight of one eye are apt, even
within arm's-length, to make mistakes in
the distance of objects, which are easily
avoided by those who see with both eyes.
Such mistakes are often discovered in Snuff-
ing a candle, in threading a needle, or in
filling a tea-cup.”
When a picture is seen with both eyes,
and at no great distance, the representation
appears not so natural as when it is seen
only with one. The intention of painting
being to deceive the eye, and to make things
appear at different distances which in reality
are upon the same piece of canvass, this
deception is not so easily put upon both
eyes as upon one ; because we perceive the
distance of visible objects more exactly and
determinately with two eyes than with one.
If the shading and relief be executed in the
best manner, the picture may have almost
the same appearance to one eye as the
objects themselves would have; but it cannot
have the same appearance to both. This is
Inot the fault of the artist, but an unavoid-
able imperfection in the art. And it is
owing to what we just now observed, that
the perception we have of the distance of
objects by one eye is more uncertain, and
more liable to deception, than that which
we have by both.
The great impediment, and I think the
only invincible impediment, to that agree-
able deception of the eye which the painter
aims at, is the perception which we have of
the distance of visible objects from the eye,
partly by means of the conformation of the
eye, but chiefly by means of the inclination
of the optic axes. If this perception could
be removed, I see no reason why a picture
might not be made so perfect as to deceive
the eye in reality, and to be mistaken for
the original object. Therefore, in order to
judge of the merit of a picture, we ought,
as much as possible, to exclude these two
means of perceiving the distance of the
several parts of it.
In order to remove this perception of dis-
tance, the connoisseurs in painting use a
method which is very proper. They look
at the picture with one eye, through a tube
which excludes the view of all other objects.
By this method, the principal mean whereby
we perceive the distance of the object—to
wit, the inclination of the optic axes—is en-
tirely excluded. I would humbly propose,
as an improvement of this method of view-
ing pictures, that the aperture of the tube
next to the eye should be very small. If it is
as Small as a pin-hole, so much the better,
providing there be light enough to see the
picture clearly. The reason of this proposal
* The same remark is made by many optical wri-
ters, old and new.—H.
is, that, when we look at an object through
a small aperture, it will be seen distinctly,
whether the conformation of the eye be
adapted to its distance or not ; and we have
no mean left to judge of the distance, but
the light and colouring, which are in the
painter's power. If, therefore, the artist
performs his part properly, the picture will
by this method affect the eye in the same
manner that the object represented would
do ; which is the perfection of this art.
Although this second mean of perceiving
the distance of visible objects be more de-
terminate and exact than the first, yet it
hath its limits, beyond which it can be of
no use. For when the optic axes directed
to an object are so nearly parallel that, in
directing them to an object yet more distant,
we are not conscious of any new effort, nor
have any different sensation, there our per-
ception of distance stops; and, as all more
distant objects affect the eye in the same
manner, we perceive them to be at the
same distance. This is the reason why the
Sun, moon, planets, and fixed stars, when
seen not mear the horizon, appear to be all
at the same distance, as if they touched the
concave surface of a great sphere. The
surface of this celestial sphere is at that
distance beyond which all objects affect
the eye in the same manner. Why this
celestial vault appears more distant towards
the horizon, than towards the zenith, will
afterwards appear.
3. The colours of objects, according as
they are more distant, become more faint
and languid, and are tinged more with the
azure of the intervening atmosphere : to
this we may add, that their minute parts
become more indistinct, and their outline
less accurately defined. It is by these
means chiefly, that painters can represent
objects at very different distances, upon the
same canvass. And the diminution of the
magnitude of an object would not have the
effect of making it appear to be at a great
distance, without this degradation of colour,
and indistinctness of the outline, and of the
minute parts. If a painter should make a
human figure ten times less than other
human figures that are in the same piece,
having the colours as bright, and the out-
line and minute parts as accurately defined,
it would not have the appearance of a man
at a great distance, but of a pigmy or Lilli-
putian.
When an object hath a known variety of
colours, its distance is more clearly indi-
cated by the gradual dilution of the colours
into one another, than - when it is of one
uniform colour. In the steeple which
stands before me at a small distance, the
joinings of the stones are clearly percepti-
ble; the grey colour of the stone, and the
white cement are distinctly limited : when
. OF SEEING.
19]
I see it at a greater distance, the joinings
of the stones are less distinct, and the colours
of the stone and of the cement begin to
dilute into one another : at a distance still
greater, the joinings disappear altogether,
and the variety of colour vanishes.
In an apple-tree which stands at the dis-
tance of about twelve feet, covered with
flowers, I can perceive the figure and the
colour of the leaves and petals; pieces of
branches, some larger, others Smaller, peep-
ing through the intervals of the leaves—
some of them enlightened by the sun's rays,
others shaded ; and some openings of the
sky are perceived through the whole. When
I gradually remove from this tree, the ap-
pearance, even as to colour, changes every
minute. First, the smaller parts, then the
larger, are gradually confounded and mixed.
The colours of leaves, petals, branches,
and sky, are gradually diluted into each
other, and the colour of the whole becomes
more and more uniform. This change of
appearance, corresponding to the several dis-
tances, marks the distance more exactly than
if the whole object had been of one colour.
Dr Smith, in his “Optics,” gives us a very
curious observation made by Bishop Berke-
ley, in his travels through Italy and Sicily.
He observed, That, in those countries,
cities and palaces seen at a great distance
appeared nearer to him by several miles
than they really were : and he very judi-
ciously imputed it to this cause, That the
purity of the Italian and Sicilian air, gave
to very distant objects that degree of
brightness and distinctness which, in the
grosser air of his own country, was to be
seen only in those that are near. The
purity of the Italian air hath been assigned
as the reason why the Italian painters
commonly give a more lively colour to the
sky than the Flemish. Ought they not,
for the same reason, to give less degrad-
ation of the colours, and less indistinct-
ness of the minute parts, in the representa-
tion of very distant objects 2
It is very certain that, as in air uncom-
monly pure, we are apt to think visible
objects nearer and less than they really
are, so, in air uncommonly foggy, we are
apt to think them more distant and larger
than the truth. Walking by the sea-side
in a thick fog, I See an object which seems
to me to be a man on horseback, and at
the distance of about half a mile. My com-
panion, who has better eyes, or is more
accustomed to see such objects in such cir-
cumstances, assures me that it is a sea-
gull, and not a man on horseback. Upon
a second view, I immediately assent to his
opinion ; and now it appears to me to be a
sea-gull, and at the distance only of seventy
or eighty yards. The mistake made on this
occasion, and the correction of it, are both
So Sudden, that we are at a loss whether
to call them by the name of judgmen', or
by that of simple perception.
It is not worth while to dispute about
names ; but it is evident that my belief,
both first and last, was produced rather by
signs than by arguments, and that the
mind proceeded to the conclusion in both
cases by habit, and not by ratiocination.
And the process of the mind seems to have
been this—First, Not knowing, or not
minding, the effect of a foggy air on the vis-
ible appearance of objects, the object seems
to me to have that degradation of colour,
and that indistinctness of the outline, which
objects have at the distance of half a mile ;
therefore, from the visible appearance as a
sign, I immediately proceed to the belief
that the object is half a mile distant.
Then, this distance, together with the vis-
ible magnitude, signify to me the real
magnitude, which, supposing the distance
to be half a mile, must be equal to that
of a man on horseback; and the figure,
considering the indistinctness of the outline,
agrees with that of a man on horseback.
Thus the deception is brought about. But
when I am assured that it is a sea-gull, the
real magnitude of a sea-gull, together with
the visible magnitude presented to the eye,
immediately suggest the distance, which,
in this case, cannot be above seventy or
eighty yards: the indistinctness of the
figure likewise suggests the fogginess of the
air as its cause ; and now the whole chain
of signs, and things signified, seems stronger
and better connected than it was before ;
the half mile vanishes to eighty yards;
the man on horseback dwindles to a sea-
gull; I get a new perception, and wonder
how I got the former, or what is become of
it ; for it is now so entirely gone, that I
cannot recover it. -
It ought to be observed that, in order to
produce such deceptions from the clearness
or fogginess of the air, it must be uncom-
monly clear or uncommonly foggy ; for we
learn, from experience, to make allowance
for that variety of constitutions of the air
which we have been accustomed to observe,
and of which we are aware. Bishop
Berkeley therefore committed a mistake,
when he attributed the large appearance of
the horizontal moon to the faintness of her
light, occasioned by its passing through a
larger tract of atmosphere :* for we are so
much accustomed to see the moon in all
degrees of faintness and brightness, from
the greatest to the least, that we learn to
make allowance for it; and do not imagine
her magnitude increased by the faintness of
her appearance. Besides, it is certain that
the horizontal moon seen through a tube
* This explanation was not original to Berkeley.—H,
192
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
which cuts off the view of the interjacent
ground, and of all terrestrial objects, loses
all that unusual appearance of magnitude.
4. We frequently perceive the distance
of objects, by means of intervening or con-
tiguous objects, whose distance or magni-
#. is otherwise known. When I perceive
certain fields or tracts of ground to lie be-
tween me and an object, it is evident that
these may become signs of its distance.
And although we have no particular in-
formation of the dimensions of such fields
or tracts, yet their similitude to others which
we know, suggests their dimensions.
We are so much accustomed to measure
with our eye the ground which we travel,
and to compare the judgments of distances
formed by sight, with our experience or in-
formation, that we learn by degrees, in this
way, to form a more accurate judgment of
the distance of terrestrial objects, than we
could do by any of the means before men-
tioned. An object placed upon the top of
a high building, appears much less than
when placed upon the ground, at the same
distance. When it stands upon the ground,
the intervening tract of ground serves as a
sign of its distance ; and the distance, to-
gether with the visible magnitude, serves
as a sign of its real magnitude. But when
the object is placed on high, this sign of its
distance is taken away : the remaining
signs lead us to place it at a less distance;
and this less distance, together with the
visible magnitude, becomes a sign of a less
real magnitude.
The two first means we have mentioned,
would never of themselves make a visible
object appear above a hundred and fifty,
or two hundred feet, distant ; because, be-
yond that there is no sensible change, either
of the conformation of the eyes, or of the
inclination of their axes. The third mean
is but a vague and undeterminate sign,
when applied to distances above two or three
hundred feet, unless we know the real colour
and figure of the object ; and the fifth
mean, to be afterwards mentioned, can
only be applied to objects which are fami-
liar, or whose real magnitude is known.
Hence it follows, that, when unknown ob-
jects, upon or near the surface of the earth,
are perceived to be at the distance of some
miles, it is always by this fourth mean that
we are led to that conclusion.
Dr Smith hath observed, very justly, that
the known distance of the terrestrial objects
which terminate our view, makes that part
of the sky which is towards the horizon
appear more distant than that which is to-
wards the zenith. Hence it comes to pass,
that the apparent figure of the sky is not
that of a hemisphere, but rather a less seg-
ment of a sphere. And, hence, likewise,
it comes to pass, that the diameter of the
sun or moon, or the distance between two
fixed stars, seen contiguous to a hill, or to
any distant terrestrial object, appears much
greater than when no such object strikes
the eye at the same time.
These observations have been sufficiently
explained and confirmed by Dr Smith. I
beg leave to add, that, when the visible
horizon is terminated by very distant ob-
jects, the celestial vault seems to be en-
larged in all its dimensions. When I view
it from a confined street or lane, it bears
Some proportion to the buildings that sur-
round me ; but, when I view it from a large
plain, terminated on all hands by hills which
rise one above another to the distance of
twenty miles from the eye, methinks I see
a new heaven, whose magnificence declares
the greatness of its Author, and puts every
human edifice out of countenance; for now
the lofty spires and the gorgeous palaces
shrink into nothing before it, and bear no
more proportion to the celestial dome than
their makers bear to its Maker.
5. There remains another mean by which
we perceive the distance of visible objects—
and that is, the diminution of their visible
or apparent magnitude. By experience, I
know what figure a man, or any other known
object, makes to my eye at the distance of
ten feet—I perceive the gradual and pro-
portional diminution of this visible figure, at
the distance of twenty, forty, a hundred
feet, and at greater distances, until it vanish
altogether. Hence a certain visible magni-
tude of a known object becomes the sign of
a certain determinate distance, and carries
along with it the conception and belief of
that distance.
In this process of the mind, the sign is
not a sensation ; it is an original percep-
tion. We perceive the visible figure and
visible magnitude of the object, by the ori-
ginal powers of vision; but the visible figure
is used only as a sign of the real figure, and
the visible magnitude is used only as a sign
either of the distance, or of the real magni-
tude, of the object ; and, therefore, these
original perceptions, like other mere signs,
pass through the mind without any atten-
tion or reflection.
This last mean of perceiving the dis-
tance of known objects, serves to explain
Some very remarkable phaenomena in op-
tics, which would otherwise appear very
mysterious. When we view objects of
known dimensions through optical glasses,
there is no other mean left of determining
their distance, but this fifth. Hence it
follows, that known objects seen through
glasses, must seem to be brought nearer, in
proportion to the magnifying power of the
glass, or to be removed to a greater distance,
in proportion to the diminishing power of
the glass.
OF SEEING.
193
If a man who had never before seen ob-
jects through a telescope, were told that
the telescope, which he is about to use, mag-
nifies the diameter of the object ten times;
when he looks through this telescope at a
man six feet high, what would he expect
to see P Surely he would very maturally
expect to see a giant sixty feet high. But
he sees no such thing. The man appears
no more than six feet high, and conse-
quently no bigger than he really is ; but he
appears ten times nearer than he is. The
telescope indeed magnifies the image of
this man upon the retina ten times in dia-
meter, and must, therefore, magnify his
visible figure in the same proportion ; and,
as we have been accustomed to see him of
this visible magnitude when he was ten
times nearer than he is presently,” and in
no other case, this visible magnitude, there-
fore, suggests the conception and belief of
that distance of the object with which it
hath been always connected. We have
been accustomed to conceive this amplifi-
cation of the visible figure of a known ob-
ject, only as the effect or sign of its being
brought nearer : and we have annexed a
certain determinate distance to every de-
gree of visible magnitude of the object ;
and, therefore, any particular degree of vi-
sible magnitude, whether seen by the naked
eye or by glasses, brings along with it the
conception and belief of the distance which
corresponds to it. This is the reason
why a telescope seems not to magnify known
objects, but to bring them nearer to the
eye.
When we look through a pin-hole, or a
single microscope, at an object which is
half an inch from the eye, the picture of
the object upon the retina is not enlarged,
but only rendered distinct ; neither is the
visible figure enlarged : yet the object ap-
pears to the eye twelve or fourteen times
more distant, and as many times larger in
diameter, than it really is. Such a tele-
scope as we have mentioned amplifies the
image on the relina, and the visible figure
of the object, ten times in diameter, and yet
makes it seem no bigger, but only ten times
nearer. These appearances had been long
observed by the writers on optics; they tor-
tured their invention to find the causes of
them from optical principles; but in vain :
they must be resolved into habits of percep-
tion, which are acquired by custom, but
are apt to be mistaken for original percep-
tions. The Bishop of Cloyne first furnished
the world with the proper key for opening
up these mysterious appearances; but he
made considerable mistakes in the applica-
tion of it. Dr Smith, in his elaborate and ju-
dicious treatise of “Optics,” hath applied it
* See note + p. 96, a.-H.
to the apparent distance of objects seen with
glasses, and to the apparent figure of the
heavens, with such happy success, that there
can be no more doubt about the causes of
these phaenomena.
Section XXIII.
OF THE SIGNS USED IN OTHER ACQUIRED PER-
CEPTIONS.
The distance of objects from the eye is
the most important lesson in vision. Many
others are easily learned in consequence of
it. The distance of the object, joined with
its visible magnitude, is a sign of its real
magnitude : and the distance of the several
parts of an object, joined with its visible
figure, becomes a sign of its real figure.
Thus, when I look at a globe which stands
before me, by the original powers of sight
I perceive only something of a circular
form, variously coloured. The visible figure
hath no distance from the eye, no convexity,
nor hath it three dimensions; even its length
and breadth are incapable of being mea-
Sured by inches, feet, or other linear mea-
Sures. But, when I have learned to per-
ceive the distance of every part of this
object from the eye, this perception gives it
convexity, and a spherical figure; and adds
a third dimension to that which had but
two before. The distance of the whole
object makes me likewise perceive the real
magnitude ; for, being accustomed to ob-
serve how an inch or a foot of length affects
the eye at that distance, I plainly perceive
by my eye the linear dimensions of the
globe, and can affirm with certainty that
its diameter is about one foot and three
inches.
It was shewn in the 7th section of
this chapter that the visible figure of a
body may, by mathematical reasoning, be
inferred from its real figure, distance, and
position, with ragard to the eye: in like
manner, we may, by mathematical reason-
ing, from the visible figure, together with
the distance of the several parts of it from
the eye, infer the real figure and position.
But this last inference is not commonly
made by mathematical reasoning, nor, in-
deed, by reasoning of any kind, but by cus-
tom. -
The original appearance which the colou
of an object makes to the eye, is a sensa-
tion for which we have no name, because
it is used merely as a sign, and is never made
an object of attention in common life : but
this appearance, according to the different
circumstances, signifies various things. If
a piece of cloth, of one uniform colour, is
laid so that part of it is in the sun, and part
in the shade, the appearance of colour; in
O
194
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
these different parts, is very different : yet
we perceive the colour to be the same ; we
interpret the variety of appearance as a
sign of light and shade, and not as a sign
of real difference in colour. But, if the
eye could be so far deceived as not to per-
ceive the difference of light in the two
parts of the cloth, we should, in that case,
interpret the variety of appearance to signify
a variety of colour in the parts of the cloth.
Again, if we suppose a piece of cloth
placed as before, but having the shaded part
so much brighter in the colour that it gives
the same appearance to the eye as the more
enlightened part, the sameness of appear-
ance will here be interpreted to signify a
variety of colour, because we shall make
allowance for the effect of light and shade.
When the real colour of an object is
known, the appearance of it indicates, in
some circumstances, the degree of light
or shade ; in others, the colour of the cir-
cumambient bodies, whose rays are reflected
by it; and, in other circumstances, it indi-
cates the distance or proximity of the ob-
ject—as was observed in the last section;
and by means of these, many other things
are suggested to the mind. Thus, an un-
usual appearance in the colour of familiar
objects may be the diagnostic of a disease
in the spectator. The appearance of things
in my room may indicate sunshine or cloudy
weather, the earth covered with snow or
blackened with rain. It hath been ob-
served, that the colour of the sky, in a
piece of painting, may indicate the country
of the painter, because the Italian sky is
really of a different colour from the Flemish.
It was already observed, that the original
and acquired perceptions which we have
by our senses, are the language of nature
to man, which, in many respects, hath a
great affinity to human languages. The
instances which we have given of acquired
perceptions, suggest this affinity—that, as,
in human languages, ambiguities are often
found, so this language of nature in our ac-
quired perceptions is not exempted from
them. We have seen, in vision particu-
larly, that the same appearance to the eye,
may, in different circumstances, indicate
different things. Therefore, when the cir-
cumstances are unknown upon which the
interpretation of the signs depends, their
meaning must be ambiguous; and when the
circumstances are mistaken, the meaning
of the signs must also be mistaken.
This is the case in all the phaenomena
which we call fallacies of the senses ; and
particularly in those which are called
Jallacies in vision. The appearance of
things to the eye always corresponds to the
fixed laws of Nature ; therefore, if we speak
properly, there is no fallacy in the senses.
Nature always speaketh the same language,
and useth the same signs in the same cir-
cumstances : but we sometimes mistake
the meaning of the signs, either through
ignorance of the laws of Nature, or through
ignorance of the circumstances which attend
the signs.”
To a man unacquainted with the prin-
ciples of optics, almost every experiment
that is made with the prism, with the magic
lanthorn, with the telescope, with the mi-
croscope, seems to produce some fallacy in
vision. Even the appearance of a common
mirror, to one altogether unacquainted with
the effects of it, would seem most remark-
ably fallacious. For how can a man be
more imposed upon, than in seeing that
before him which is really behind him 2
How can he be more imposed upon, than
in being made to see himself several yards
removed from himself? Yet children,
even before they can speak their mother-
tongue, learn not to be deceived by these
appearances. These, as well as all the
other surprising appearances produced by
optical glasses, are a part of the visual lan-
guage, and, to those who understand the
laws of Nature concerning light and colours,
are in mowise fallacious, but have a dis-
tinct and true meaning.
Seclion XXI P.
OF THE ANALOGY BETWEEN PRRCEPTION
AND THE CREDIT WIE GIVE TO HUMAN
TESTIMONY.t
The objects of human knowledge are in-
numerable ; but the channels by which it
is conveyed to the mind are few. Among
these, the perception of external things by
our senses, and the informations which we
receive upon human testimony, are not the
least considerable ; and so remarkable is
the analogy between these two, and the
analogy between the principles of the mind
which are subservient to the one and those
which are subservient to the other, that,
without further apology, we shall consider
them together.
In the testimony of Nature given by the
senses, as well as in human testimony given
by language, things are signified to us by
signs : and in one as well as the other, the
mind, either by original principles or by
custom, passes from the sign to the concep-
tion and belief of the things signified.
We have distinguished our perceptions
* Tl, is is the doctrine of Aristotle ; who holds
that the senses never deceive us in relation to their
proper objects.—H.
f Compare Mr Stewart's “ Elements,” vol. I.,
ch. ii., § 4, p. 247. Second edition. Campbell
“ On Miracles,” Part I., § 1. Smith’s “Theory of
Moral Sentiment,” vol II., p. 382. Sixth edition.—
H.
OF SEEING.
195
into original and acquired; and language,
into natural and artificial. Between
acquired perception and artificial language,
there is a great analogy; but still a greater
between original perception and natural
language.
The signs in original perception are sens-
ations, of which Nature hath given us a great
variety, suited to the variety of the things
signified by them. Nature hath established
a real connection between the signs and the
things signified; and Nature hath also taught
us the interpretation of the signs—so that,
previous to experience, the sign suggests
the thing signified, and create the belief of
it.
The signs in natural language are features
of the face, gestures of the body, and modul-
lations of the voice ; the variety of which is
suited to the variety of the things signified
by them. Nature hath established a real
connection between these signs, and the
thoughts and dispositions of the mind which
are signified by them ; and Nature hath
taught us the interpretation of these signs;
so that, previous to experience, the signs
suggest the thing signified, and create the
belief of it.
A man in company, without doing good
or evil, without uttering an articulate sound,
may behave himself gracefully, civilly,
politely; or, on the contrary, meanly,
rudely, and impertinently. We see the
dispositions of his mind by their matural
signs in his countenance and behaviour, in
the same manner as we perceive the figure
and other qualities of bodies by the sensa-
, tions which nature hath connected with
them.
The signs in the natural language of the
human countenance and behaviour, as well
as the signs in our original perceptions,
have the same signification in all climates
and in all nations ; and the skill of inter-
preting them is not acquired, but innate.
In acquired perception, the signs are
either sensations, or things which we per-
ceive by means of sensations. The con-
nection between the sign and the thing sig-
nified, is established by nature; and we
discover this connection by experience;
but not without the aid of our original per-
ceptions, or of those which we have already
acquired. After this connection is dis-
covered, the sign, in like manner as in
original perception, always suggests the
things signified, and creates the belief of
it.
In artificial language, the signs are arti-
culate sounds, whose connection with the
things signified by them, is established by
the will of men ; and, in learning our
mother tongue, we discover this connection
by experience ; but not without the aid of
natural language, or of what we had before
attained of artificial language. And, after
this connection is discovered, the sign, as
in matural language, always suggests the
thing signified, and creates the belief of it.
Our original perceptions are few, com-
pared with the acquired ; but, without the
former, we could not possibly attain the
latter. In like manner, natural language
is scanty, compared with artificial; but,
without the former, we could not possibly
attain the latter.
Our original perceptions, as well as the
natural language of human features and
gestures, must be resolved into particular
principles of the human constitution. Thus,
it is by one particular principle of our con-
stitution that certain features express anger;
and, by another particular principle, that
certain features express benevolence. It is,
in like manner, by one particular principle
of our constitution that a certain sensation
signifies hardness in the body which I
handle; and it is by another particular
principle that a certain sensation signifies
motion in that body.
But our acquired perceptions, and the
information we receive by means of arti-
ficial language, must be resolved into gene-
ral principles of the human constitution.
When a painter perceives that this picture
is the work of Raphael, that the work of
Titian; a jeweller, that this is a true dia-
mond, that a counterfeit ; a sailor, that this
is a ship of five hundred ton, that of four
hundred ; these different acquired percep-
tions are produced by the same general
principles of the human mind, which have
a different operation in the same person
according as they are variously applied, and
in different persons according to the divers-
ity of their education and manner of life.
In like manner, when certain articulate
sounds convey to my mind the knowledge of
the battle of Pharsalia, and others, the
knowledge of the battle of Boltowa—when a
Frenchman and an Englishman receive the
same information by different articulate
sounds—the signs used in these different
cases, produce the knowledge and belief of
the things signified, by means of the same
general principles of the human constitu-
tion.
Now, if we compare the general prin-
ciples of our constitution, which fit us for
receiving information from our fellow-crea-
tures by language, with the general prin-
ciples which fit us for acquiring the per-
ception of things by our senses, we shall
find them to be very similar in their nature
and manner of operation.
When we begin to learn our mother-
tongue, we perceive, by the help of natural
language, that they who speak to us use
certain sounds to express certain things
we imitate the same sounds when we would
O 2
196
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
express the same things; and find that we
are understood.
But here a difficulty occurs which merits
our attention, because the solution of it
ieads to some original principles of the hu-
man mind, which are of great importance,
and of very extensive influence. We know
by experience that men have used such
words to express such things; but all ex-
perience is of the past, and can, of itself,
give no notion or belief of what is future.
How come we, then, to believe, and to rely
upon it with assurance, that men, who have
it in their power to do otherwise, will con-
tinue to use the same words when they
think the same things 2 Whence comes
this knowledge and belief—this foresight, we
ought rather to call it—of the future and
voluntary actions of our fellow-creatures 2
Have they promised that they will never
imposeuponus by equivocation or falsehood?
No, they have not. And, if they had, this
would not solve the difficulty; for such
promise must be expressed by words or by
other signs; and, before we can rely upon
it, we must be assured that they put the
usual meaning upon the signs which express
that promise. No man of common sense
ever thought of taking a man's own word
for his honesty; and it is evident that we
take his veracity for granted when we lay
any stress upon his word or promise. I
might add, that this reliance upon-the de-
clarations and testimony of men is found
in children long before they know what a
promise is.
There is, therefore, in the human mind
an early anticipation, neither derived from
experience, nor from reason, nor from any
compact or promise, that our fellow-crea-
tures will use the same signs in language,
when they have the same sentiments.
This is, in reality, a kind of prescience
of human actions; and it seems to me to
be an original frinciple of the human con-
stitution, without which we should be in-
capable of language, and consequently in-
capable of instruction.
The wise and beneficent Author of Na-
ture, who intended that we should be social
creatures, and that we should receive the
greatest and most important part of our
knowledge by the information of others,
hath, for these purposes, implanted in our
natures two principles that tally with each
other.
The first of these principles is, a pro-
pensity to speak truth, and to use the signs
of language so as to convey our real sen-
timents. This principle has a powerful
operation, even in the greatest liars; for
where they lie once, they speak truth a
hundred times. Truth is always uppermost,
and is the natural issue of the mind. It
requires no art or training, no inducement
or temptation, but only that we yield to a
natural impulse. Lying, on the contrary,
is doing violence to our nature ; and is
never practised, even by the worst men,
without some temptation. Speaking truth
is like using our natural food, which we
would do from appetite, although it an-
swered no end ; but lying is like taking
physic, which is nauseous to the taste, and
which no man takes but for some end which
he cannot otherwise attain. ~,
If it should be objected, That men may
be influenced by moral or political consider-
ations to speak truth, and, therefore, that
their doing so is no proof of such an origi-
mal principle as we have mentioned—I
answer, First, That moral or political con-
siderations can have no influence until we
arrive at years of understanding and reflec-
tion ; and it is certain, from experience,
that children keep to truth invariably, be-
fore they are capable of being influenced by
such considerations. Secondly, When we
are influenced by moral or political con-
siderations, we must be conscious of that
influence, and capable of perceiving it upon
reflection. Now, when I reflect upon my
actions most attentively, I am not conscious
that, in speaking truth, I am influenced on
ordinary occasions by any motive, moral or
political. I find that truth is always at the
door of my lips, and goes forth sponta-
neously, if not held back. It requires
neither good nor bad intention to bring it
forth, but only that I be artless and unde-
signing. There may indeed be temptations
to falsehood, which would be too strong for
the natural principle of veracity, unaided
by principles of honour or virtue ; but
where there is no such temptation, we speak
truth by instinct—and this instinct is the
principle I have been explaining.
By this instinct, a real connection is
formed between our words and our thoughts,
and thereby the former become fit to be
signs of the latter, which they could not
otherwise be. And although this connec-
tion is broken in every instance of lying
and equivocation, yet these instances being
comparatively few, the authority of human
testimony is only weakened by them, but
not destroyed.
Another original principle implanted in
us by the Supreme Being, is a disposition
to confide in the veracity of others, and to
believe what they tell us. This is the
counterpart to the former ; and, as that
may be called the principle of veracity, we
shall, for want of a more proper name, call
this the principle of credulity. It is un-
limited in children, until they meet with
instances of deceit and falsehood; and it
retains a very considerable degree of strength
through life.
If Nature had left the mind of the speaker
OF SEEING.
197
in aequilibrio, without any inclination to
the side of truth more than to that of false-
hood, children would lie as often as they
speak truth, until reason was so far ripened
as to suggest the imprudence of lying, or
conscience, as to suggest its immorality.
And if Nature had left the mind of the
hearer in aequilibrio, without any inclina-
tion to the side of belief more than to that
of disbelief, we should take no man's word
until we had positive evidence that he
spoke truth. His testimony would, in this
case, have no Inore authority than his
dreams; which may be true or false, but
no man is disposed to believe them, on this
account, that they were dreamed. It is
evident that, in the matter of testimony,
the balance of human judgment is by nature
inclined to the side of belief; and turns to
that side of itself, when there is nothing
put into the opposite scale. If it was not
So, no proposition that is uttered in dis-
course would be believed, until it was
examined and tried by reason ; and most
men would be unable to find reasons for
believing the thousandth part of what is
told them. Such distrust and incredulity
would deprive us of the greatest benefits of
society, and place us in a worse condition
than that of Savages.
Children, on this supposition, would be
absolutely incredulous, and, therefore, ab-
solutely incapable of instruction : those who
had little knowledge of human life, and of
the manners and characters of men, would
be in the next degree incredulous: and the
most credulous men would be those of
greatest experience, and of the deepest
penetration; because, in many cases, they
would be able to find good reasons for
believing testimony, which the weak and
the ignorant could not discover.
In a word, if credulity were the effect of
reasoning and experience, it must grow up
and gather strength, in the same proportion
as reason and experience do. But, if it is
the gift of Nature, it will be strongest in
childhood, and limited and restrained by
experience ; and the most superficial view
of human life shews, that the last is really
the case, and not the first.*
It is the intention of Nature, that we
should be carried in arms before we are able
to walk upon our legs; and it is likewise
the intention of Nature, that our belief
should be guided by the authority and rea-
son of others, before it can be guided by
our own reason. The weakness of the in-
fant, and the natural affection of the mother,
plainly indicate the former ; and the natural
credulity of youth, and authority of age, as
plainly indicate the latter. The infant, by
* See, contra, Priestley’s “Examinatio "," p. 86.
** Brown’s Lect.” lect, lxxxiv. -
proper nursing and care, acquires strength
to walk without support. Reason hath
likewise her infancy, when she must be
carried in arms: then she leans entirely
upon authority, by natural instinct, as if
she was conscious of her own weakness;
and, without this support, she becomes ver-
tiginous. When brought to maturity by
proper culture, she begins to feel her own
strength, and leans less upon the reason of
others; she learns to suspect testimony in
Some cases, and to disbelieve it in others ;
and sets bounds to that authority to which
she was at first entirely subject. But still,
to the end of life, she finds a necessity of
borrowing light from testimony, where she
has none within herself, and of leaning,
in some degree, upon the reason of others,
where she is conscious of her own imbe.
cility. -
And as, in many instances, Reason, even
in her maturity, borrows aid from testi-
mony, so in others she mutually gives aid
to it, and strengthens its authority. For,
as we find good reason to reject testimony in
Some cases, so in others we find good reason
to rely upon it with perfect security, in our
most important concerns. The character,
the number, and the disinterestedness of
witnesses, the impossibility of collusion, and
the incredibility of their concurring in their
testimony without collusion, may give an
irresistible strength to testimony, compared
to which its native and intrinsic authority
is very inconsiderable.
Having now considered the general prin-
ciples of the human mind which fit us for
receiving information from our fellow-crea-
tures, by the means of language, let us next
consider the general principles which fit us
for receiving the information of Nature by
our acquired perceptions.
It is undeniable, and indeed is acknow-
ledged by all, that when we have found two
things to have been constantly conjoined in
the course of nature, the appearance of one
of them is immediately followed by the con-
ception and belief of the other. The for-
mer becomes a natural sign of the latter;
and the knowledge of their constant conjunc-
tion in time past, whether got by experience
or otherwise, is sufficient to make us rely
with assurance upon the continuance of that
conjunction.
This process of the human mind is so
familiar that we never think of inquiring
into the principles upon which it is founded.
We are apt to conceive it as a self-evident
truth, that what is to come must be similar
to what is past. Thus, if a certain degree
of cold freezes water to-day, and has been
known to do so in all time past, we have
no doubt but the same degree of cold will
freeze water to-morrow, or a year hence.
That this is a truth which all men believe as
198
OF THE HUMAN MIND,
soon as they understand it, I readily admit;
but the question is, Whence does its evi-
dence arise ? Not from comparing the
ideas, surely. For, when I compare the
idea of cold with that of water hardened
into a transparent solid body, I can per-
ceive no connection between them : no man
can shew the one to be the necessary effect
of the other ; no man can give a shadow of
reason why Nature hath conjoined them.
But do we not learn their conjunction from
experience 2 True : experience informs
us that they have been conjoined in time
past ; but no man ever had any experience
of what is future : and this is the very
question to be resolved, How we come to
believe that the future will be like the
past 3 Hath the Author of nature pro-
mised this P. Or were we admitted to his
council, when he established the present
laws of nature, and determined the time
of their continuance. No, surely. In-
deed, if we believe that there is a wise and
good Author of nature, we may see a good
reason why he should continue the same
laws of nature, and the same connections
of things, for a long time : because, if he
did otherwise, we could learn nothing from
what is past, and all our experience would
be of no use to us. But, though this. con-
sideration, when we come to the use of rea-
son, may confirm our belief of the contin-
uance of the present course of nature, it
is certain that it did not give rise to this
belief; for children and idiots have this be-
lief as soon as they know that fire will burn
them. It must, therefore, be the effect of
instinct, not of reason.*
The wise Author of our nature intended,
that a great and necessary part of our know-
ledge should be derived from experience,
before we are capable of reasoning, and he
hath provided means perfectly adequate to
thisintention. For, First, He governs nature
by fixed laws, so that we find innumerable
connections of things which continue from
age to age. Without this stability of the
course of nature, there could be no experi-
ence; or, it would be a false guide, and lead
us into error and mischief. If there were
not a principke of veracity in the human
mind, men's words would not be signs of
their thoughts: and if there were no regu-
larity in the course of nature, no one thing
could be a natural sign of another. Se-
condly, He hath implanted in human minds
an original principle by which we believe
and expect the continuance of the course of
nature, and the continuance of those connec-
* Compare Stewart’s “Elements,” vol. I., chap.
iv, $ 5, p. 205, sixth edition; “Philosophical Essays,”
p. 74, sqq., fourth edition; Royer Collard, in Jouf.
froy's “Oeuvres de Reid,” t. IV., p. 279, * ; with
Priestley’s “Examination,” p. 86, sqq. merely
refer to works relative to Reid's doctrine,—H.
tions which we have observed in time past.
It is by this general principle of our nature,
that, when two things have been found con-
nected in time past, the appearance of the
one produces the belief of the other.
I think the ingenious author of the “Trea-
tise of Human Nature” first observed, That
our belief of the continuance of the laws of
nature cannot be founded either upon know-
ledge or probability: but, far from conceiv-
ing it to be an original principle of the
mind, he endeavours to account for it from
his favourite hypothesis, That belief is no-
thing but a certain degree of vivacity in
the idea of the thing believed. I made a
remark upon this curious hypothesis in the
Second chapter, and shall now make an-
other.
The belief which we have in perception,
is a belief of the present existence of the
object; that which we have in memory, is
a belief of its past existence ; the belief of
which we are now speaking is a belief of its
future existence ; and in imagination there
is no belief at all. Now, I would gladly
know of this author, how one degree of
vivacity fixes the existence of the object to
the present moment; another carries it
back to time past ; a third, taking a con-
trary direction, carries it into futurity; and
a fourth carries it out of existence aſto-
gether. Suppose, for instance, that I see
the sun rising out of the sea : I remember
to have seen him rise yesterday; I believe
he will rise to-morrow near the same place;
I can likewise imagine him rising in that
place, without any belief at all. Now, ac-
cording to this sceptical hypothesis, this
perception, this memory, this foreknow-
ledge, and this imagination, are all the same
idea, diversified only by different degrees of
vivacity. The perception of the sun rising
is the most lively idea; the memory of his
rising yesterday is the same idea a little
more faint; the belief of his rising to-mor-
row is the same idea, yet fainter; and the
imagination of his rising is still the same
idea, but faintest of all. One is apt to
think, that this idea might gradually pass
through all possible degrees of vivacity with-
out stirring out of its place. But, if we
think so, we deceive ourselves; for no sooner
does it begin to grow languid than it moves
backward into time past. Supposing this
to be granted, we expect, at least, that, as
it moves backward by the decay of its
vivacity, the more that vivacity decays it
will go back the farthor, until it remove
quite out of sight. But here we are de-
ceived again ; for there is a certain pe-
riod of this declining vivacity, when, as
if it had met an elastic obstacle in its mo-
tion backward, it suddenly rebounds from
the past to the future, without taking the
present in its way. And now, having got
OF SEEING.
199
into the regions of futurity, we are apt to
think that it has room enough to spend all
its remaining vigour: but still we are de-
ceived ; for, by another sprightly bound, it
mounts up into the airy region of imagina-
tion. So that ideas, in the gradual declen-
sion of their vivacity, seem to imitate the
inflection of verbs in grammar. They be-
gin with the present, and proceed in order
to the preterite, the future, and the inde-
finite. This article of the sceptical creed is
indeed so full of mystery, on whatever side
we view it, that they who hold that creed
are very injuriously charged with incre-
dulity; for, to me, it appears to require as
much faith as that of St Athanasius.
However, we agree with the author of
the “Treatise of Human Nature,” in this,
That our belief of the continuance of nature's
laws is not derived from reason. It is
an instinctive prescience of the operations
of nature, very like to that prescience of
human actions which makes us rely upon
the testimony of our fellow-creatures ; and
as, without the latter, we should be incapa-
ble of receiving information from men by
language, so, without the former, we should
be incapable of receiving the information of
nature by means of experience.
All our knowledge of nature beyond our
original perceptions, is got by experience,
and consists in the interpretation of natural
signs. The constancy of nature's laws
connects the sign with the thing signified ;
and, by the natural principle just now ex-
plained, we rely upon the continuance of
the connections which experience hath dis-
covered; and thus the appearance of the
sign is followed by the belief of the thing
signified.
Upon this principle of our constitution,
not only acquired perception, but all induc-
tive reasoning, and all our reasoning from
analogy, is grounded ; and, therefore, for
want of another name, we shall beg leave
to call it the inductive principle. It is from
the force of this principle that we imme-
diately assent to that axiom upon which all
our knowledge of nature is built, That
effects of the same kind must have the
same cause ; for effects and causes, in the
operations of nature, mean nothing but
signs and the things signified by them. We
perceive no proper causality or efficiency in
any natural cause ; but only a connection
established by the course of nature between
it and what is called its effect. Anteced-
ently to all reasoning, we have, by our con-
stitution, an anticipation that there is a
fixed and steady course of nature : and we
have an eager desire to discover this course
of nature. We attend to every conjunction
of things which presents itself, and expect
the continuance of that conjunction. And,
when such a conjunction has been often
one will always follow the other.
observed, we conceive the things to be
naturally connected, and the appearance of
one, without any reasoning or reflection,
carries along with it the belief of the other.
If any reader should imagine that the
inductive principle may be resolved into
what philosophers usually call the associ-
ation of ideas, let him observe, that, by
this principle, natural signs are not asso-
ciated with the idea only, but with the be-
lief of the things signified. Now, this can
with no propriety be called an association
of ideas, unless ideas and belief be one and
the same thing. A child has found the
prick of a pin conjoined with pain; hence
he believes, and knows, that these things
are naturally connected; he knows that the
If any
man will call this only an association of ideas,
I dispute not about words, but I think he
speaks very improperly. For, if we express
it in plain English, it is a prescience that
things which he hath found conjoined in
time past, will be conjoined in time to
come. And this prescience is not the effect
of reasoning, but of an original principle of
human nature, which I have called the
finductive principle.”
This principle, like that of credulity, is
unlimited in infancy, and gradually re-
strained and regulated as we grow up. It
leads us often into mistakes; but is of in-
finite advantage upon the whole. By it, the
child once burnt shuns the fire ; by it, he
likewise runs away from the surgeon by
whom he was inoculated. It is better that
he should do the last, than that he should
not do the first. -
But the mistakes we are led into by these
two natural principles, are of a different
kind. Men sometimes lead us into mis-
takes, when we perfectly understand their
language, by speaking lies. But Nature
never misleads us in this way : her lan-
guage is always true; and it is only by
misinterpreting it that we fall into error.
There must be many accidental conjunc-
tions of things, as well as natural connec-
tions ; and the former are apt to be mis-
taken for the latter. Thus, in the instance
above mentioned, the child connected the
pain of inoculation with the surgeon;
whereas it was really connected with the
incision only. Philosophers, and men of
Science, are not exempted from such mis-
takes ; indeed, all false reasoning in philo-
sophy is owing to them ; it is drawn from
experience and analogy, as well as just rea-
soning, otherwise it could have no verisimili-
tude ; but the one is an unskilful and rash,
* This oljection to the solution, on the ground of
association, is unsound. It is generally admitted that
the term “Association of Ideas” is inadequate ; the
law of association extending not only to Ideas, but
to all our montal modifications.—H.
200
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
the other a just and legitimate interpreta-
tion of natural signs. If a child, or a man
of common understanding, were put to
interpret a book of science, written in his
mother-tongue, how many blunders and
mistakes would he be apt to fall into ? Yet
he knows as much of this language as is
necessary for his manner of life.
The language of Nature is the universal
study; and the students are of different
classes. Brutes, idiots, and children em-
ploy themselves in this study, and owe to it
all their acquired perceptions. Men of com-
mon understanding make a greater pro-
gress, and learn, by a small degree of
reflection, many things of which children
are ignorant.
Philosophers fill up the highest form in
this school, and are critics in the language
of nature. All these different classes have
one teacher—Experience, enlightened by
the inductive principle. Take away the
light of this inductive principle, and Ex-
perience is as blind as a mole : she may,
indeed, feel what is present, and what im-
mediately touches her; but she sees nothing
that is either before or behind, upon the
right hand or upon the left, future or past.
The rules of inductive reasoning, or of a
just interpretation of Nature, as well as the
fallacies by which we are apt to misinter-
pret her language, have been, with wonder-
ful sagacity, delineated by the great genius
of Lord Bacon : so that his “ Novum
Crganum” may justly be called “A Gram-
mar of the Language of Nature.” It adds
greatly to the merit of this work, and atones
for its defects, that, at the time it was
written, the world had not seen any tole-
rable model of inductive reasoning," from
which the rules of it might be copied. The
arts of poetry and eloquence were grown up
to perfection when Aristotle described them;
but the art of interpreting Nature was
yet in embryo when Bacon delineated its
manly features and proportions. Aristotle
drew his rules from the best models of
those arts that have yet appeared; but the
best models of inductive reasoning that
have yet appeared, which I take to be the
third book of the “Principia,” and the
“Optics,” of Newton, were drawn from
Bacon's rules. . The purpose of all those
rules, is to teach us to distinguish seeming
or apparent connections of things, in the
course of mature, from such as are real.
They that are unskilful in inductive
reasoning, are more apt to fall into error
in their reasonings from the phaenomena of
mature than in their acquired perceptions ;
because we often reason from a few in-
stances, and thereby are apt to mistake acci-
dental conjunctions of things for natural
* Yet Galileo was anterior to Bacon.-H.
connections: but that habit of passing,
without reasoning, from the sign to the
thing signified, which constitutes acquired
perception, must be learned by many in-
stances or experiments ; and the number of
experiments serves to disjoin those things
which have been accidentally conjoined,
as well as to confirm our belief of natural
connections.
From the time that children begin to use
their hands, Nature directs them to handle
everything over and over, to look at it
while they handle it, and to put it in va-
rious positions, and at various distances
from the eye. We are apt to excuse this
as a childish diversion, because they must.
be doing something, and have not reason
to entertain themselves in a more manly
way. But, if we think more justly, we
shall find, that they are engaged in the
most serious and important study; and, if
they had all the reason of a philosopher,
they could not be more properly employed.
For it is this childish employment that
enables them to make the proper use of
their eyes. They are thereby every day
acquiring habits of perception, which are
of greater importance than anything we
can teach them. The original perceptions
which Nature gave them are few, and in-
sufficient for the purposes of life ; and,
therefore, she made them capable of ac-
quiring many more perceptions by habit.
And, to complete her work, she hath given.
them an unwearied assiduity in applying to
the exercises by which those perceptions are
acquired.
This is the education which Nature gives
to her children. And, since we have fallen
upon this subject, we may add, that another
part of Nature’s education is, That, by the
course of things, children must often exert
all their muscular force, and employ all
their ingenuity, in order to gratify their
curiosity, and Satisfy their little appetites.
What they desire is only to be obtained
at the expense of labour and patience, and
many disappointments. By the exercise
of body and mind necessary for satisfying.
their desires, they acquire agility, strength,
and dexterity in their motions, as well as
health and vigour to their constitutions ;
they learn patience and perseverance ;
they learn to bear pain without dejection,
and disappointment without despondence.
The education of Nature is most perfect in
Savages, who have no other tutor ; and we
See that, in the quickness of all their senses,
in the agility of their motions, in the hardi-
ness of their constitutions, and in the
strength of their minds to bear hunger,
thirst, pain, and disappointment, they com-
monly far exceed the civilized. A most
ingenious writer, on this account, seems to
prefer the savage life to that of society.
CONCLUSION.
20 I
But the education of Nature could never
of itself produce a Rousseau. It is the
intention of Nature that human educa-
tion should be joined to her institution, in
order to form the man. And she hath
fitted us for human education, by the natural
principles of imitation and credulity, which
discover themselves almost in infancy, as
well as by others which are of later growth.
When the education which we receive
from men, does not give scope to the educa-
tion of Nature, it is wrong directed ; it tends
to hurt our faculties of perception, and to
enervate both the body and mind. Nature
hath her way of rearing men, as she hath
of curing their diseases. The art of medi-
cine is to follow Nature, to imitate and to
assist her in the cure of diseases; and the
art of education is to follow Nature, to
assist and to imitate her in her way of
rearing men. The ancient inhabitants of
the Baleares followed Nature in the man-
ner of teaching their children to be good
archers, when they hung their dinner aloft
by a thread, and left the younkers to bring
it down by their skill in archery.
The education of Nature, without any
more human care than is necessary to pre-
serve life, makes a perfect Savage. Human
education, joined to that of Nature, may
make a good citizen, a skilful artisan, or a
well-bred man ; but reason and reflection
must superadd their tutory, in order to
produce a Rousseau, a Bacon, or a Newton.
Notwithstanding the innumerable errors
committed in human education, there is
hardly any education so bad as to be worse
than none. And I apprehend that, if even
Rousseau were to choose whether to educate
a son among the French, the Italians, the
Chinese, or among the Eskimaux, he would
not give the preference to the last.
When Reason is properly employed, she
will confirm the documents of Nature, which
are always true and wholesome ; she will
distinguish, in the documents of human
education, the good from the bad, rejecting
the last with modesty, and adhering to the
first with reverence.
Most men continue all their days to be
just what Nature and human education
made them. Their manners, their opinions,
their virtues, and their vices, are all got by
habit, imitation, and instruction ; and rea-
son has little or no share in forming them.
CHAPTER VII.
Conclusion.
CONTAINING REFLECTIONS UPON THE OF INIONS
OF PHILOSOPHERS ON THIS SUBJECT.
THERE are two ways in which men may
form their notions and opinions concerning
the mind, and concerning its powers and oper.
ations. The first is the only way that leads
to truth; but it is narrow and rugged, and
few have entered upon it. The second is
broad and Smooth, and hath been much
beaten, not only by the vulgar, but even by
philosophers; it is sufficient for common
life, and is well adapted to the purposes of the
poet and orator : but, in philosophical dis-
quisitions concerning the mind, it leads to
error and delusion.
..We may call the first of these ways, the
way of reflection. When the operations of
the mind are exerted, we are conscious of
them ; and it is in our power to attend to
them, and to reflect upon them, until they
become familiar objects of thought. This
is the only way in which we can form just
and accurate notions of those operations.
But this attention and reflection is so diffi-
cult to man, surrounded on all hands by
external objects which constantly solicit his
attention, that it has been very little prac-
tised, even by philosophers. In the course
of this inquiry, we have had many occa-
sions to shew how little attention hath been
given to the most familiar operations of the
SCI1SGS.
The second, and the most common way,
in which men form their opinions concern-
ing the mind and its operations, we may
call the way of analogy. There is nothing
in the course of nature so singular, but we
can find Some resemblance, or at least some
analogy, between it and other things with
which we are acquainted. The mind na-
turally delights in hunting after Such analo-
gies, and attends to them with pleasure.
From them, poetry and wit derive a great
part of their charms; and eloquence, not a
little of its persuasive force.
Besides the pleasure we receive from
analogies, they are of very considerable use,
both to facilitate the conception of things,
when they are not easily apprehended with-
out such a handle, and to lead us to probable
conjectures about their nature and qualities,
when we want the means of more direct
and immediate knowledge. When I con-
sider that the planet Jupiter, in like manner
as the earth, rolls round his own axis, and
revolves round the sum, and that he is en-
lightened by several secondary planets, as
the earth is enlightened by the moon, I am
apt to conjecture, from analogy, that, as the
earth by these means is fitted to be the
habitation of various orders of animals, so
the planet Jupiter is, by the like means,
fitted for the same purpose : and, having no
argument more direct and conclusive to de-
termine me in this point, I yield, to this
analogical reasoning, a degree of assent
proportioned to its strength. When I
observe that the potato plant very much
202
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
resembles the solanum in its flower and
fructification, and am informed that the
last is poisonous, I am apt from analogy
to have some suspicion of the former : but,
in this case, I have access to more direct
and certain evidence; and, therefore, ought
not to trust to analogy, which would lead
me into an error.
Arguments from analogy are always at
hand, and grow up spontaneously in a
fruitful imagination; while arguments that
are more direct and more conclusive
often require painful attention and appli-
cation: and therefore mankind in gene-
ral have been very much disposed to trust
to the former. If one attentively examines
the systems of the ancient philosophers,
either concerning the material world, or
concerning the mind, he will find them to
be built solely upon the foundation of ana-
logy. Lord Bacon first delineated the
strict and severe method of induction ; since
his time, it has been applied with very happy
successin some parts of natural philosophy—
and hardly in anything else. But there is
no subject in which mankind are so much
disposed to trust to the analogical way of
thinking and reasoning, as in what concerns
the mind and its operations ; because, to
form clear and distinct notions of those
operations in the direct and proper way,
and to reason about them, requires a habit
of attentive reflection, of which few are
capable, and which, even by those few,
cannot be attained without much pains and
labour.
Every man is apt to form his notions of
things difficult to be apprehended, or less
familiar, from their analogy to things which
are more familiar. Thus, if a man bred to
the seafaring life, and accustomed to think
and talk only of matters relating to naviga-
tion, enters into discourse upon any other
subject, it is well known that the language
and the notions proper to his own profes-
sion are infused into every subject, and all
things are measured by the rules of naviga-
tion; and, if he should take it into his head
to philosophize concerning the faculties of
the mind, it cannot be doubted but he would
draw his notions from the fabric of his ship,
and would find in the mind, sails, masts,
rudder, and compass."
Sensible objects, of one kind or other, do
no less occupy and engross the rest of man-
kind, than things relating to navigation the
seafaring man. For a considerable part of
life, we can think of nothing but the objects
of sense; and, to attend to objects of an-
other nature, so as to form clear and dis-
tinct notions of them, is no easy matter,
even after we come to years of reflection.
* See “...Essays on the Intellectual Powers,” Ess.
Vl., ch. viii., Nos. 2 and 6.-H.
The condition of mankind, therefore, affords
good reason to apprehend that their lan-
guage, and their common notions concern-
ing the mind and its operations, will be ana-
logical, and derived from the objects of
sease ; and that these analogies will be apt
to impose upon philosophers, as well as
upon the vulgar, and to lead them to ma-
terialize the mind and its faculties: and
experience abundantly confirms the truth
of this. .*
How generally men of all nations, and in
all ages of the world, have conceived the
Soul, or thinking principle in man, to be
some subtile matter, like breath or wind,
the names given to it almost in all languages
sufficiently testify.” We have words which
are proper, and not analogical, to express
the various ways in which we perceive ex-
ternal objects by the senses—such as feel-
ing, sight, taste ; but we are often obliged
to use these words analogically, to express
other powers of the mind which are of a
very different nature. And the powers
which imply some degree of reflection, have
generally no names but such as are analo-
gical. The objects of thought are said to
be in the mind—to be apprehended, com-
prehended, conceived, imagined, retained,
weighed, ruminated.*
It does not appear that the notions of
the ancient philosophers, with regard to the
nature of the soul, were much more re-
fined than those of the vulgar, or that they
were formed in any other way. We shall
distinguish the philosophy that regards our
subject into the old and the new. The old
reached down to Des Cartes, who gave it a
fatal blow, of which it has been gradually
expiring ever since, and is now almost ex-
tinct. Des Cartes is the father of the new
philosophy that relates to this subject; but
it hath been gradually improving since his
time, upon the principles laid down by him.
The old philosophy seems to have been
purely analogical; the new is more derived
from reflection, but still with a very con-
siderable mixture of the old analogical no-
tions.
Because the objects of sense consist of
maller and form, the ancient philosophers
conceived everything to belong to one of
these, or to be made up of both. Some,
therefore, thought that the soul is a parti.
cular kind of subtile matter, separable from
our gross bodies; others thought that it is
only a particular form of the body, and in-
Separable from it.-- For there seem to have
* The examples that might be given of these,
Would, I find, exceed the limits of a foot-note.—H.
# It would, however, be a very erroneous assump-
tion to hold, that those who viewed the soul as a form
inseparable from the body, denied the existence, a 'd
the independent existence, of any mental principle
after the dissolution of the material organism. Thus,
Aristotle defines the soul, the Form or Entelechy of an
CONCLUSION.
203
been some among the ancients, as well as
among the moderns, who conceived that a
certain structure or organization of the
body, is all that is necessary to rendef
it sensible and intelligent." The different
powers of the mind were, accordingly, by
the last sect of philosophers, conceived to
belong to different parts of the body—as the
heart, the brain, the liver, the stomach, the
blood. +
They who thought that the soul is a sub-
tile matter, separable from the body, dis-
puted to which of the four elements it be-
longs—whether to earth, water, air, or fire.
Of the three last, each had its particular
advocates...}. But some were of opinion,
that it partakes of all the elements; that it
must have something in its composition
similar to everything we perceive ; and
that we perceive earth by the earthly part;
water, by the watery part; and fire, by
the fiery part of the soul.S. Some philoso-
phers, not satisfied with determining of
what kind of matter the soul is made, in-
quired likewise into its figure, which they
determined to be spherical, that it might
be the more fit for motion.]] The most
spiritual and sublime notion concerning the
nature of the soul, to be met with among
the ancient philosophers, I conceive to be
that of the Platonists, who held that it is
made of that celestial and incorruptible
matter of which the fixed stars were made,
and, therefore, has a natural tendency to
rejoin its proper element."] I am at a loss
to say, in which of these classes of philoso-
phers Aristotle ought to be placed." He
defines the soul to be, The first #y rexéz sta,
of a matural body which has potential life.
I beg to be excused from translating the
Greek word, because I know not the mean-
ing of it...ff e
The notions of the ancient philosophers
with regard to the operations of the mind,
particularly with regard to perception and
ideas, seem likewise to have been formed
by the same kind of analogy.
Plato, of the writers that are extant,
first introduced the word idea into philoso-
phy; but his doctrine upon this subject
had somewhat peculiar. He agreed with
the rest of the ancient philosophers in this—
that all things consist of matter and form;
and that the matter of which all things
were made, existed from eternity, without
organized body; and yet he, hypothetically at least,
admits that Ngg, or Intelligence, is adventitious to this
animated organism, and, therefore, possibly, and even
probably, separable from it, and immortal. The term
sozzl in this instance is not adequate to the Intellec-
tual Ego.—H.
* Thus Parmenides:—
'Q's 2& 3 &2&sº #24, 28&ots &#xãov aroxviračzz-
ºrówy,
T2; wºos &yſleárola, aragès-nzey' rú 2&g &%to
'Es-iv. 3rte Øgověst Az:Aéay gºals &vſkáºroug-i.
So likewise Dicaearchus, Galen, and otherg.—H.
f This, is altogether erroneous. Those philoso-
phers who assigned different seats or organs for dif.
ferent parts or functions of the soul, did not therefore
admit the absolute dependence of the soul upon the
body. I'or instance, the Pythagoreans and the I’la.
tonists.—H.
f Aristotle observes that earth was the only ele-
ment which had found no advocate. This he means
only of earth by itself—for, in combination with one
or"more of the others, it was by many philosophers
allowed to be a constituent of soul. Of these last,
water had its champion in Hippo ; air, in Anaxi-
menes and Diogenes, with whom are sometimes
enumerated Anaximander, Anaxagoras, Archelaus,
AEmesidemus, &c.; fire, in Democritus and Leucip-
pus, perhaps in Hipparchus and Heraclitus.-H.
§ Empedocles; and Plato, as interpreted by Aris-
totle.—H.
|| Democritus and Leucippus held the soul, as
an igneous principle, to consist of spherical atoms.
"I See the “ Timaeus” of Plato. Plotinus, and
the lower Platonists in general, held the human Soul
to be an emanation from the Anima Mundi. Aristo-
tle seems to have favoured an opinion correspondent
to Plato's Even the sentient or animal soul, in-
separable as it is from body, he maintained to be
higher than any sublunary element, and supposed it
to be “analogous to the element of the stars.”—De
Generatione Animalium, L. II., c. 2.-H.
# This is the former of the two definitions which
Aristotle gives of the human soul, in the second
book of his treatise, “IIse) puzºg.” In the latter, he
defines it a posteriori fröm its phaenomena—that by
which we live, feel or perceive, [will,1 move, and
zznderstand : —a definition which has been generally
adopted by philosophers, and, though more complete.
is in substance that of Reid himself. “By the mind
of a man,” (says Reid,) “we understand that in him
which thinks, remembers, reasons, wills.”—lºss AYs
oN THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS, Essay I., chap. i.
# Though Cicero misapprehended, and Hermo-
laus Barbarus raised the Devil to expound it, this,
Aristotelic term is by no means of a very arduous in-
terpretation. It is not, however, here the place to
explain the contents of this celebrated definition.—
f “ For her [.. he soul's] true form how can my spark
discern,
Which, dum by nature, art did never clear?
When the great wits, of whom all skill we learn,
Are ignorant both what she is, and where.
“One thinks the soul is air; another, fire;
Another, blood, diffus’d about the heart;
Another saith, the elements conspire,
And to her essence each doth lend a part.
“ Musicians think our souls are harmonies;
Physicians hold that they complexions be;
Epicures make them swarms of atomies,
Which do by chance into our bodies flee.
“ Some think one gen'ral soul fills every brain,
As the bright sun sheds light in every star;
While others think the name of soul is vain,
And that we only well-mixt bodies are.
“ In judgment of her substance as they vary,
So vary they in judgment of her seat;
For some her chair up to the brain do carry,
Some thrust it down into the stomach's heat.
“Some place it in the root of life, the healt;
Some in the liver fountain of the veins;
Some say, she's all in all, and all in ev’ry part;
Some that she's not contain'd, but all contains.
“Thus these great clerks but little wisdom shew,
While with their doctrines they at hazard play;
Tossing their light opinions to and fro,
To mock the lewd, as learn'd in this as they.
“For no craz’d brain could ever yet propound,
Touching the soul, so vain and fond a thought,
But some mong these masters have been found,
Which, in their schools, the self-same thing have
taught.”
SIR Jon N DAvi Es,— H.
204
OF THE HUMAN MINID.
form : but he likewise believed that there
are etermal forms of all possible things
which exist, without matter; and to these
eternal and immaterial forms he gave the
name of ideas ; maintaining that they are
the only object of true knowledge. It is of
no great moment to us, whether he bor-
rowed these notions from Parmenides, or
whether they were the issue of his own
creative imagination. The latter Platonists
seem to have improved upon them, in con-
ceiving those ideas, or eternal forms of things,
to exist, not of themselves, but in the di-
vine mind,” and to be the models and pat-
terms according to which all things were
made :-
“Then liv'd the Fternal One ; then, deep retir’d
. In his unfathom'd essence, view’d at large
The uncreated images of things.”
To these Platonic notions, that of Male-
branche is very nearly allied. This author
seems, more than any other, to have been
aware of the difficulties attending the com-
mon hypothesis concerning ideast—to wit,
That ideas of all objects of thought are in
the human mind; and, therefore, in order
to avoid those difficulties, makes the ideas
which are the immediate objects of human
thought, to be the ideas of things in the
Divine mind, who, being intimately present
to every human mind, may discover his
ideas to it, as far as pleaseth him.
The Platonists and Malebranche ex-
cepted,: all other philosophers, as far as I
know, have conceived that there are ideas or
images of every object of thought in the
human mind, or, at least, in some part of
the brain, where the mind is supposed to
have its residence.
Aristotle had no good affection to the
word idea, and seldom or never uses it but
in refuting Plato's notions about ideas. He
thought that matter may exist without form;
but that forms cannot exist without matter.
But, at the same time, he taught, That
there can be no sensation, no imagination,
nor intellection, without forms, phantasms,
or species in the mind; and that things
sensible are perceived by sensible species,
and things intelligible by intelligible
species." His followers taught, more ex-
plicitly, that those sensible and intelligible
species are sent forth by the objects, and
make their impressions upon the passive
intellect; and that the active intellect per-
ceives them in the passive intellect. And
this seems to have been the common opinion
while the Peripatetic philosophy retained
its authority.
The Epicurean doctrine, as explained by
Lucretius, though widely different from the
Peripatetic in many things, is almost the
same in this. He affirms, that slender
films or ghosts (tenuia rerum simulacra) are
still going off from all things, and flying
about ; and that these, being extremely
subtile, easily penetrate our gross bodies,
and, striking upon the mind, cause thought
and imagination. †
After the Peripatetic system had reigned
above a thousand years in the schools of
Europe, almost without a rival, it sunk be-
fore that of Des Cartes; the perspicuity
of whose writings and motions, contrasted
with the obscurity of Aristotle and his com-
mentators, created a strong prejudice in
favour of this new philosophy. The cha-
racteristic of Plato's genius was sublimity,
that of Aristotle's, subtilty; but Des Cartes
far excelled both in perspicuity, and be-
queathed this spirit to his successors. 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, after all
the improvements made by Malebranche,
Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, may still be
called the Cartesian system : we shall, there-
fore, make some remarks upon its spirit
and tendency in general, and upon its doc-
trine concerning ideas in particular.
1. It may be observed, That the method
which Des Cartes pursued, naturally led
him to attend more to the operations of the
mind by accurate reflection, and to trust
less to analogical reasoning upon this sub-
* Whether Plato viewed Ideas as existences in-
dependent of the divine mind, is a contested point;
though, upon the whole, it appears more probable
that he did not. It is, however, admitted, on all
hands, to be his doctrine, that Ideas were the patterns
according to which the Deity fashioned the phaenome-
mal or ectypal world –H
+ lt should be carefully observed that the term
Idea, previous to the time of Des Cartes, was used
exclusively, or all but exclusively, in its Platonic
signification. By Des Cartes, and other contem-
porary philosophers, it was first extended to denote
our representations in general. Many curious
blunders have arisen in consequence of an ignorance
of this. I may notice, by the way, that a confusion
of ideas in the Platonic with ideas in the Cartesian
sense has here led Reid into the error of assimilating
the hypothesis of Plato and the hypothesis of Male-
branchc in regard to our vision in the divine mind.
The Platonic theory of Perception, in fact, bears a
closer analogy to the Cartesian and Leibnitzian doc-
trines than to that of Malebranche. See notes on the
“Essays on the Intellectual Powers.” Ess, II., ch.
iv. or vii., and Note (R.-H.
f The Platonists are no exception ; for they allowed
the human mind to have potentially within it the
forms or lepresentations for all possible objects of per-
ception ; each representation being, by the spontaneity
of mind itself, elicitcd into consciousness on occasion
of its corresponding object coming within the sphere
of Sense. But of this again.—H
* The doctrine of Aristotle on this subject, admits
of an interpretation far more philosophical than that
given to it by most of his followers. But of this
again.—H.
f The &rošščica, ºbox2 rörol, &c. of Demo-
critus and Epicurus differed from the £132, or species
of the later Peripatetics, in this—that the former
were confessedly substantive and corporeal, while
the latter, as mere accidents, shrewdly puzzled their
advocates, to say how they were separable from a
subject, and whether they were material, immaterial,
or somehow intermediate between body and spirit.
{
CONCLUSION.
205
ject, than any philosopher had done before
him. Intending to build a system upon a
new foundation, he began with a resolution
to admit nothing but what was abso-
lutely certain and evident. He supposed
that his senses, his memory, his reason,
and every other faculty to which we trust
in common life, might be fallacious; and
resolved to disbelieve everything, until he
was compelled by irresistible evidence to
yield assent.
In this method of proceeding, what ap-
peared to him, first of all, certain and
evident, was, That he thought—that he
doubted—that he deliberated. In a word,
the operations of his own mind, of which
he was conscious, must be real, and no de-
lusion ; and, though all his other faculties
should deceive him, his consciousness could
not.” This, therefore, he looked upon as
the first of all truths. This was the first
firm ground upon which he set his foot,
after being tossed in the ocean of scepticism;
and he resolved to build all knowledge up-
on it, without seeking after any more first
principles.
As every other truth, therefore, and par-
ticularly the existence of the objects of
sense, was to be deduced by a train of strict
argumentation from what he knew by con-
sciousness, he was naturally led to give
attention to the operations of which he was
conscious, without borrowing his notions of
them from external things.
It was not in the way of analogy, but
of attentive reflection, that he was led to
observe, That thought, volition, remem-
brance, and the other attributes of the
mind, are altogether unlike to extension,
to figure, and to all the attributes of body;
that we have no reason, therefore, to con-
ceive thinking substances to have any re-
Semblance to extended substances; and
that, as the attributes of the thinking sub-
stance are things of which we are conscious,
We may have a more certain and immediate
knowledge of them by reflection, than we
can bave of external objects by our senses.
These observations, as far as I know,
were first made by Des Cartes; and they
are of more importance, and throw more
light upon the subject, than all that had
been said upon it before. They ought to
make us diffident and jealous of every
notion concerning the mind and its oper-
ations, which is drawn from sensible ob-
jects in the way of analogy, and to make
us rely only upon aqcurate reflection, as
the source of all real knowledge upon this
subject.
2. I observe that, as the Peripatetic
'*
system has a tendency to materialize the
mind and its operations, so the Cartesian
has a tendency to spiritualize body and its
qualities. One error, common to both
systems, leads to the first of these extremes
in the way of analogy, and to the last in
the way of reflection. The error I mean
is, That we can know nothing about body,
or its qualities, but as far as we have sens-
ations which resemble those qualities. Both
systems agreed in this ; but, according to
their different methods of reasoning, they
drew very different conclusions from it; the
Peripatetic drawing his notions of sensa-
tion from the qualities of body ; the Car-
tesian, on the contrary, drawing his notions
of the qualities of body from his sensa-
tions. -
The Peripatetic, taking it for granted
that bodies and their qualities do really
exist, and are such as we commonly take
them to be, inferred from them the nature
of his sensations, and reasoned in this man-
ner:—Our sensations, are the impressions
which sensible objects make upon the mind,
and may be compared to the impression of
a Seal upon wax : the impression is the
image or form of the seal, without the mat-
ter of it ; in like manner, every sensation
is the image or form of some sensible qua-
lity of the object. This is the reasoning of
Aristotle: and it has an evident tendency
to materialize the mind and its sensations.
The Cartesian, on the contrary, thinks
that the existence of body, or of any of
its qualities, is not to be taken as a first
principle; and that we ought to admit no-
thing concerning it, but what, by just rea-
Soning, can be deduced from our sensations;
and he knows that, by reflection, we can
form clear and distinct notions of our sensa-
tions, without borrowing our notions of
them by analogy from the objects of sense.
The Cartesians, therefore, beginning to give
attention to their sensations, first discovered
that the sensations corresponding to second-
ary qualities, cannot resemble any quality
of body. Hence, Des Cartes and Locke
inferred, that sound, taste, smell, colour,
heat, and cold, which the vulgar took to
be qualities of body, were not qualities of
body, but mere sensations of the mind.”
* Des Cartes did not commit Reid's error of mak-
ing consciousness a co-ordinate and special faculty.
* Des Cartes and Locke made no such inference.
They only maintained (as Reid himself states) that
sound, taste, &c., as sensations in us, have no re-
semblance to any quality in bodies. If the names,
therefore, of sound, taste, &c., were to be employed
univocally—i.e., to denote always things the same or
similar—in that case they argued that these terms, if
properly significant of the sensations, could not be
properly applied to the relative qualities in external
things. This is distinctly stated both by Tºes Cartes
and Locke. But Des Cartes and the Cartesians ob-
serve that the terms in question are equivocally
used; being commonly applied both to that in things
which occasions the sensation in us, and to that
sensation itself. Nay, the Cartesians, to avoid the
ambiguity, distinguished the two relatives by differ.
206
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
Afterwards, the ingenious Berkeley, con-
sidering more attentively the nature of sens-
ation in general, discovered and demon-
strated, that no sensation whatever could
possibly resemble any quality of an insen-
tient being, such as body is supposed to be;
and hence he inferred, very justly, that
there is the same reason to hold extension,
figure, and all the primary qualities, to be
mere sensations, as there is to hold the
secondary qualities to be mere sensations.
Thus, by just reasoning upon the Cartesian
principles, matter was stripped of all its
qualities; the new system, by a kind of me-
taphysical sublimation, converted all the qua-
lities of matter into sensations, and spiritu-
alized body, as the old had materialized
spirit.
The way to avoid both these extremes, is
to admit the existence of what we see and
feel as a first principle, as well as the exist-
ence of things whereof we are conscious;
and to take our motions of the qualities of
body, from the testimony of our senses,
with the Peripatetics; and our notions of
our sensations, from the testimony of con-
sciousness, with the Cartesians.
3. I observe, That the modern scepticism
is the natural issue of the new system ; and
that, although it did not bring forth this
monster until the year 1739,” it may be
said to have carried it in its womb from
the beginning. -
The old system admitted all the princi-
ples of common sense as first principles,
without requiring any proof of them ; and,
therefore, though its reasoning was com-
monly vague, analogical, and dark, yet it
was built upon a broad foundation, and had
no tendency to scepticism. We do not
find that any Peripatetic thought it incum-
bent upon him to prove the existence of a
material world ;+ but every writer upon
the Cartesian system attempted this, until
Berkeley clearly demonstrated the futility
of their arguments; and thence concluded
ent names. To take colour, for example: they
called colour, as a sensation in the mind, formal
colour; colour, as a quality in bodies capable of
roducing the sensation, primitive or radical colour.
hey had likewise another distinction of lessim.
portance—that of seconda y or derivative colour;
meaning thereby that which the coloured bodies
impress upon the external medium Thus, again,
primitive or radical sound was the property of a body
to determine a certain agitation in the air or other
medium; seco'dary or derivative sound, that agital
tion in the medium itself; formal sound, the sensa-
tion occasioned by the impression made by the radical
sound mediately, and by the derivative immediately,
ºpom the organ of hearing. There is thus no dif.
ference between Reid and the Cartesians, except
that the doctrine which he censures is in fact more
Precise and explicit than his own.— H.
* When Hume's “Treatise of Human Nature”
appeared.--H. -
ºf This is not correct; but the reason why Idealism
9id not prevail in the schools of the middle ages is
* * it appears to me, merely theological. But on
this curious question I cannot now touch.-H.
that there was no such thing as a material
world ; and that the belief of it ought to be
rejected as a vulgar error.
The new system admits only one of the
principles of common sense as a first prin-
ciple ; and pretends, by strict argumenta-
tion, to deduce all the rest from it. That
our thoughts, our sensations, and every
thing of which we are conscious, hath a
real existence, is admitted in this system
as a first principle ; but everything else
must be made evident by the light of rea-.
son. Reason must rear the whole fabric of
knowledge upon this single principle of
consciousness.
There is a disposition in human nature
to reduce things to as few principles as
possible ;" and this, without doubt, adds to
the beauty of a system, if the principles
are able to support what rests upon them.
The mathematicians glory, very justly, in
having raised so noble and magnificent a
system of science, upon the foundation of
a few axioms and definitions. This love
of simplicity, and of reducing things to few
principles, hath produced many a false
system ; but there never was any system
in which it appears so remarkably as that
of Des Cartes.” His whole system con-
cerning matter and spirit is built upon
one axiom, expressed in one word, cogito.
Upon the foundation of conscious thought,
with ideas for his materials, he builds his
system of the human understanding, and
attempts to account for all its phaenomena:
and having, as he imagined, from his con-
sciousness, proved the existence of matter ;
upon the existence of matter, and of a cer-
tain quantity of motion originally impressed
upon it, he builds his system of the material
world, and attempts to account for all its
phaenomena.
These principles, with regard to the ma-
terial system, have been found insufficient;
and it has been made evident that, besides
matter and motion, we must admit gravita-
tion, cohesion, corpuscular attraction, mag-
netism, and other centripetal and centri-
fugal forces, by which the particles of
matter attract and repel each other. New-
ton, having discovered this, and demon-
strated that these principles cannot be
resolved into matter and motion, was led,
by analogy and the love of simplicity, to
conjecture, but with a modesty and caution
peculiar to him, that all the phaenomena of
the material world depended upon attract-
ing and repelling forces in the particles of
matter. But we may now venture to say,
that this conjecture fell short of the mark.
For, even in the unorganized kingdom, the
* See “Essays on the Intellectual Powers," p.656,
Sqq 4to edition.—H.
f We must except, however, before Reid, among
others, the system of Spinoza, and, since Reid, those
of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, &c.—H.
CONCLUSION.
207
powers by which salts, crystals, spars, and
many other bodies, concrete into regular
forms, can never be accounted for by at-
tracting and repelling forces in the particles
of matter. And in the vegetable and ani-
mal kingdoms, there are strong indications
of powers of a different nature from all the
powers of unorganized bodies. We see,
then, that, although, in the structure of the
material world, there is, without doubt, all the
beautiful simplicity consistent with the pur-
poses for which it was made, it is not so
simple as the great Des Cartes determined
it to be ; nay, it is not so simple as the
greater Newton modestly conjectured it to
be. Both were misled by analogy, and
the love of simplicity. One had been
much conversant about extension, figure,
and motion; the other had enlarged his
views to attracting and repelling forces;
and both formed their notions of the un-
known parts of nature, from those with
which they were acquainted, as the shepherd
Tityrus formed his notion of the city of
Rome from his country village :—
“ Urbem quam dicunt Roman, Meliboee, putavi
Stultus ego, huic nostrae similem, quo sape solemus
Pastores ovium teneros depellere foetus.
Sic canibus catulos siuniles, sic matribus hapdos
Nôram : sic parvis componere magna solebam.”
This is a just picture of the analogical way
of thinking.
But to come to the system of Des Cartes,
concerning the human understanding. It
was built, as we have observed, upon con-
sciousness as its sole foundation, and with
ideas" as its materials; and all his fol-
lowers have built upon the same foundation
and with the same materials. They acknow-
ledge that Nature hath given us various
simple ideas. These are analogous to the
matter of Des Cartes's physical system.
They acknowledge, likewise, a natural
power, by which ideas are compounded, dis-
joined, associated, compared. This is
analogous to the original quantity of motion
in Des Cartes's physical system. From
these principles, they attempt to explain the
phaenomena of the human understanding,
just as in the physical system the phaeno-
mena of nature were to be explained by
matter and motion. It must, indeed, be
acknowledged, that there is great simpli-
city in this system, as well as in the other.
There is such a similitude between the two,
as may be expected between children of
the same father ; but, as the one has been
found to be the child of Des Cartes, and
not of Nature, there is ground to think
that the other is so likewise.
That the natural issue of this system is
scepticism with regard to everything ex-
cept the existence of our ideas, and of their
necessary relations, which appear upon com-
paring them, is evident; for ideas, being the
only objects of thought, and having no ex-
istence but when we are conscious of them,
it necessarily follows that there is no object
of our thought which can have a continued
and permanent existence. Body and spirit,
cause and effect, time and space, to which
we were wont to ascribe an existence inde-
pendent of our thought, are all turned out
of existence by this short dilemma. Either
these things are ideas of sensation or re-
flection, or they are not : if they are ideas
of sensation or reflection, they can have no
existence but when we are conscious of
them ; if they are not ideas of sensation or
reflection, they are words without any
meaning." *3
Neither Des Cartes nor Locke perceived
this consequence of their system concerning
ideas. Bishop Berkeley was the first who
discovered it. And what followed upon
this discovery P Why, with regard to the
material world, and with regard to space
and time, he admits the consequence, That
these things are mere ideas, and have no
existence but in our minds; but with regard
to the existence of spirits or minds, he does
not admit the consequence ; and, if he had
admitted it, he must have been an absolute
sceptic. But how does he evade this con-
sequence with regard to the existence of
spirits 2 The expedient which the good
Bishop uses on this occasion is very re-
markable, and shews his great aversion to
scepticism. He maintains that we have
no ideas of spirits; and that we can think,
and speak, and reason about them, and
about their attributes, without having any
ideas of them. If this is so, my Lord, what
should hinder us from thinking and reason-
ing about bodies, and their qualities, with-
out having ideas of them 2 The Bishop
either did not think of this question, or did
not think fit to give any answer to it. How-
ever, we may observe, that, in order to avoid
scepticism, he fairly starts out of the Car-
tesian system, without giving any reason
why he did so in this instance, and in no
other. This, indeed, is the only instance of
a deviation from Cartesian principles which
I have met with in the successors of Des
Cartes; and it seems to have been only a
sudden start, occasioned by the terror of
scepticism ; for, in all other things, Berke-
ley’s system is founded upon Cartesian
principles. •
Thus we see that Des Cartes and Locke
take the road that leads to scepticism, with-
out knowing the end of it; but they stop
* There is no valid ground for supposing that
Des Cartes meant by ideas aught but modifications
of the mind itself. That the majority of the Cartes-
ians did not, is certain. The case is, however, differ-
ent with regard to Malebranche and Berkeley. But
of this again.—H.
* This dilemma applies to the sensualism of Locke,
but not to the rationalism of Des Cartes.—H.
208
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
short for want of light to carry them farther.
Berkeley, frighted at the appearance of the
dreadful abyss, starts aside, and avoids it.
But the author of the “Treatise of Human
Nature,” more daring and intrepid, without
turning aside to the right hand or to the
left, like Virgil's Alecto, shoots directly
into the gulf:
** Hic specus horrendum, et savi spiracula Ditis
Monstrantur: ruptoque ingens Acheronte Vorago
Pestiferas aperit fauces.”
4. We may observe, That the account
given by the new system, of that furniture
of the human understanding which is the
gift of Nature, and not the acquisition of our
own reasoning faculty, is extremely lame
and imperfect.”
The natural furniture of the human un-
derstanding is of two kinds: First, The
motions or simple apprehensions which we
have of things; and, secondly, The judg-
7ments or the belief which we have concern-
ing them. As to our notions, the new sys-
tem reduces them to two classes—ideas of
sensation, and ideas of reflection : the first
are conceived to be copies of our sensations,
retained in the memory or imagination ;
the second, to be copies of the operations of
our minds whereof we are conscious, in like
manner retained in the memory or imagin-
ation : and we are taught that these two
comprehend all the materials about which
the human understanding is, or can be em-
ployed. As to our judgment of things, or
the belief which we have concerning them,
the new system allows no part of it to be the
gift of nature, but holds it to be the acquisi-
tion of reason, and to be got by comparing
our ideas, and perceiving their agreements
or disagreements. Now I take this account,
both of our notions, and of our judgments
or belief, to be extremely imperfect; and I
shall briefly point out some of its capital
defects.
The division of our notions into ideas of
Sensation,t and ideas of reflection, is con-
trary to all rules of logic ; because the
second member of the division includes the
first. For, can we form clear and just
notions of our sensations any other way
than by reflection ? Surely we cannot.
Sensation is an operation of the mind of
which we are conscious ; and we get the
motion of sensation by reflecting upon that
which we are conscious of. In like manner,
doubting and believing are operations of the
mind whereof we are conscious ; and we
get the notion of them by reflecting upon
what we are conscious of. The ideas of
sensation, therefore, are ideas of reflection,
as much as the ideas of doubting, or be-
lieving, or any other ideas whatsoever.”
But, to pass over the inaccuracy of this
division, it is extremely incomplete. For,
since sensation is an operation of the mind,
as well as all the other things of which we
form our notions by reflection, when it is
asserted that all our notions are either
ideas of sensation or ideas of reflection, the
plain English of this is, That mankind
neither do nor can think of anything but
of the operations of their own minds. No-
thing can be more contrary to truth, or
more contrary to the experience of man-
kind. I know that Locke, while he main-
tained this doctrine, believed the notions
which we have of body and of its qualities,
and the motions which we have of motion
and of space, to be ideas of sensation. But
why did he believe this f Because he
believed those notions to be nothing else
but images of our sensations. If, there-
fore, the notions of body and its qualities,
of motion and space, be not images of our
sensations, will it not follow that those
notions are not ideas of sensation ? Most
certainly.--
* . The following summary refers principally to
Locke.—H.
+ It must be remembered that under Sensation
Locke and others included Perception proper and
Sensation proper.—H.
* I do not see how this criticism on Locke’s divi-
sion can be defended, or even excused. It is perfectly
evident that Reid here confounds the proper ideas of
sensation—that is, the ideas of the qualities of matter,
about which sensation (perception) is conversant—
with the idea of sensation itself—that is, the idea of
this faculty as an attribute of mind, and which is the
olject of a reflex consciousness. Nor would it be
competent to maintain that Locke, allowing no im-
mediate knowledge of aught but of mind and its
contents, consequently reduces all our faculties to
sclf-consciousness, and thus abolishes the distinction
of sensation (perception) and reflection, as separate
faculties, the one conversant with the qualities of
the external world, the other with the qualities of
the internal. For, in the first place, it would still
be logically competent, on the hypothesis that all
our knowledge is exclusively of self, to divide the
ideas we possessed, into classes, according as these
were given as representations of the non-ego by the
ego, or as phaenomena of the ego itself. In the se-
cond place, Reid’s criticism does not admit of this
excuse. But, in the third, if the defence were valid
in itself, and here available, the philosophy of Reid
himself would be obnoxious to a similar criticism. For
he makes perception (consequently the olject known
in perception) an object of consciousness; but con-
sciousness, in his view, is only of the phaenomena of
mind itself—all consciousness is to him sclf-con-
sciousness. Thus, his “erception, as contained under
his consciousness, is only cognisant of the ego. With
all this, however, Reid distinguishes perception and
consciousness as special and co-ordinate faculties;
perception being conversant about the qualities of
matter, as suggested—that is, as represented in the
percipient su'ject—consciousness as conversant about
perception and the other attributes of mind itself.
—With the preceding observations, the reader may
compare Priestley’s “Examination,” p 38, and
Stewart's “Philosophical Essays,” Note N–H.
+ I may here notice—what I shall hereafter more
fully advert to—that Reid's criticism of Locke, here
and elsewhere, proceeds upon the implication that
the English philosopher attached the same restricted
meaning to the term Sensation that he did himself.
But this is not the case. Locke employed Sensation
to denote both the idea and the sentiment of the
Cartesians—both the perception and the sensation
of Reid. To confound this distinction was, indeed,
wrong; but this is a separate and special ground of
censure, and, in a general criticism of Locke's doc-
CON CLUSION.
209
There is no doctrine in the new system
which more directly leads to scepticism
than this. And the author of the “Trea-
tise of Human Nature” knew very well
how to use it for that purpose; for, if you
maintain that there is any such existence
as body or spirit, time or place, cause or
effect, he immediately catches you between
the horns of this dilemma; your notions of
these existences are either ideas of sensa-
tion, or ideas of reflection: if of sensation,
from what sensation are they copied ? if of
reflection, from what operation of the mind
are they copied ?
It is indeed to be wished that those who
have written much about sensation, and
about the other operations of the mind, had
likewise thought and reflected much, and
with great care, upon those operations; but
is it not very strange that they will not
allow it to be possible for mankind to think
of anything else 2
The account which this system gives of
our judgment and belief concerning things,
is as far from the truth as the account
it gives of our motions or simple appre-
hensions. It represents our senses as hav-
ing no other office but that of furnishing
the mind with notions or simple appre-
hensions of things; and makes our judg-
ment and belief concerning those things to
be acquired by comparing our notions to-
gether, and perceiving their agreements or
disagreements.
We have shewn, on the contrary, that
every operation of the senses, in its very
mature, implies judgment or belief, as well
as simple apprehension. Thus, when I feel
the pain of the gout in my toe, I have not
only a notion of pain, but a belief of its
existence, and a belief of some disorder in
my toe which occasions it ; and this belief
is not produced by comparing ideas, and
perceiving their agreements and disagree-
ments; it is included in the very nature of
the sensation. When I pe; ceive a tree
before me, my faculty of seeing gives me
not only a notion or simple apprehension of
the tree, but a belief of its existence, and
of its figure, distance, and magnitude ; and
this judgment or belief is not got by com-
paring ideas, it is included in the very na-
ture of the perception. We have taken
notice of , several original principles of
belief in the course of this inquiry; and
when other faculties of the mind are exa-
mined, we shall find more, which have not
occurred in the examination of the five
SenSeS. s
Such original and natural judgments are,
therefore, a part of that furniture which
Nature hath given to the human under-
standing. They are the inspiration of the
Almighty, no less than our motions or simple
apprehensions. They serve to direct us in
the common affairs of life, where our rea-
soning faculty would leave us in the dark.
They are a part of our constitution; and all
the discoveries of our reason are grounded
upon them. They make up what is called
the common sense of mankind ; * and, what
is manifestly contrary to any of those first
principles, is what we call absurd. The
strength of them is good sense, which is
often found in those who are not acute in
reasoning. A remarkable deviation from
them, arising from a disorder in the con-
stitution, is what we call lunacy ; as when
a man believes that he is made of glass.
When a man suffers himself to be reasoned
out of the principles of common sense, by
metaphysical arguments, we may call this
metaphysical lunacy ; which differs from
the other species of the distemper in this,
that it is not continued, but intermittent :
it is apt to seize the patient in solitary and
speculative moments : but, when he enters
into society, Common Sense recovers her
authority. F A clear explication and emu-
meration of the principles of common sense,
is one of the chief desiderata in logic. We
have only considered such of them as oc-
curred in the examination of the five
SCI1SeS. -
5. The last observation that I shall make
upon the new system, is, that, although it
professes to set out in the way of reflection,
and not of analogy, it hath retained some
of the old analogical notions concerning the
trine, the fact that he did sočonfound perception pro-
per and sensation proper, should always be taken into
account. But, waving this, what is gained by the
distinction in Reid's hands? In his doctrine, space,
motion, &c., as perceived, are only conceptions, only
modifications of self, suggested, in some unknown
way, on occasion of the impression made on the sense:
consequently, in the one doctrine as in the other,
what is known is nothing beyond the affections of
the thinking subject.itself; and this is the only basis
required by the idealist and sceptic for the foundation
of their systems.—H.
* See Note A – H.
t No one admits this more promptly than the
sceptic himself. See Hume’s “Treatise of Human
Nature,” Book I., Part iv., 7, and “ Enquiry
Concerning Human Understanding,” 12, Part II.
“Nature,” says he in the latter, “is always too strong
for principle ; and, though a Pyrrhonian may throw
himself or others into a momentary amazement and
confusion by his profound reasonings, the first and
most trivial event in life will put to flight all his
doubts and scruples, and leave him the same in every
point of action and speculation with the philosophers
of every other sect, or with those who never con-
cerned themselves in any philosophical researches.
When he awakes from his dream, he will be the first
to join in the laugh against himself, and to confess
that all his cbjections are mere amusement, and can
have no other tendency than to shew the whimsical
condition of mankind, who must act, and reason,
and believe, though they are not able, by their most
diligent enquiry, to satisty themselves concerning the
foundation of the operations, or to remove the objec-
tions which may be raised against them " -
“ La Nature confond les Pyrrhoniens,” (says
Pascal,) “‘ et la Raison comfond les Dogmatistes.”
How can philosophy be realized ? is thus the grand
question.—H. -
P
|
210
OF THE HUMAN MIND.
operations of the mind; particularly, that
things which do not now exist in the mind
itself, cºn only be perceived, remembered,
or imagined, by means of ideas or images"
of them in the mind, which are the imme-
diate objects of perception, remembrance,
and imagination. This doctrine appears
evidently to be borrowed from the old sys-
tem; which taught that external things
make impressions upon the mind, like the
impressions of a seal upon wax; that it is
by means of those impressions that we per-
ceive, remember, or imagine them ; and
that those impressions must resemble the
things from which they are taken. When
we form our notions of the operations of the
mind by analogy, this way of conceiving
them seems to be very natural, and offers
itself to our thoughts; for, as everything
which is felt must make some impression
upon the body, we are apt to think that
everything which is understood must make
some impression upon the mind.
From such analogical reasoning, this
opinion of the existence of ideas or images
of things in the mind, seems to have taken
its rise, and to have been so universally
received among philosophers. It was ob-
sarved already, that Berkeley, in one in-
stance, apostatizes from this principle of
the new system, by affirming that we have
no ideas of spirits, and that we can think of
them immediately, without ideas. But I
know not whether in this he has had any
followers. There is some difference, like-
wise, among modern philosophers with re-
gard to the ideas or images by which we
perceive, remember, or imagine sensible
things. For, though all agree in the exist-
ence of such images,t they differ about their
place ; some placing them in a particular
part of the brain, where the soulis thought to
have her residence, and others placing them
in the mind itself. Des Cartes held the first
of these opinions;: to which Newton seems
likewise to have inclined ; for he proposes
this query in his “Optics:”—“Annon sen-
sorium animalium est locus cui substantia
sentiens adest, et in quem sensibiles rerum
species per nervos et cerebrum deferuntur,
ut ibi praesentes a presente sentiri pos-
sint P” But Locke seems to place the ideas
of sensible things in the mind;" and that
Berkeley, and the author of the “Treatise
of Human Nature,” were of the same
opinion, is evident. The last makes a very
curious application of this doctrine, by en-
deavouring to prove from it, That the mind
either is no substance, or that it is an ex-
tended and divisible substance; because the
ideas of extension cannot be in a subject
which is indivisible and unextended.
I confess I think his reasoning in this,
as in most cases, is clear and strong. For
whether the idea of extension be only
another name for extension itself, as Ber-
keley and this author assert ; or whether
the idea of extension be an image and resem-
blance of extension, as Locke conceived;
I appeal to any man of common sense,
whether extension, or any image of exten-
Sion, can be in an unextended and indi-
visible subject. But while I agree with
him in his reasoning, I would make a differ-
ent application of it. He takes it for grant-
ed, that there are ideas of extension in the
mind; and thence infers, that, if it is at all
a substance, it must be an extended and
divisible substance. On the contrary, I
take it for granted, upon the testimony of
common sense, that my mind is a substance
—that is, a permanent subject of thought ;
and my reason convinces me that it is an
unextended and indivisible substance; and
hence I infer that there cannot be in it
anything that resembles extension. If this
reasoning had occurred to Berkeley, it
would probably have led him to acknow-
ledge that we may think and reason con-
cerning bodies, without having ideas of them
in the mind, as well as concerning spirits.
I intended to have examined more par-
ticularly and fully this doctrine of the ex-
istence of ideas or images of things in the
mind; and likewise another doctrine, which
is founded upon it—to wit, That judgment
or belief is nothing but a perception of the
agreement or disagreement of our ideas;
but, having already shewn, through the
course of this inquiry, that the operations
of the mind which we have examined, give
no countenance to either of these doctrines,
and in manythings contradict them, I have
thought it proper to drop this part of my
design. It may be executed with more
advantage, if it is at all necessary, after in-
quiring into some other powers of the human
understanding.
* That is, by representativ entities diff rent from
the modes of the mind itself. This doctrine, I have
already.noticed, is attributed by Reid too universally
to philosophºrs; and is also a comparatively unim-
portant circumstance in reference to the Idealist and
Sceptic. See Note C.—H.
+ Ste last note. Berkeley did hold the hypothesis
of Ideas as understood by Reid.—H.
f An unqualified error, arising from not under-
standing the ambiguous language of Des Cartes;
who calls, by the common name.of Ideas, both the
organic motions in the brain, of which the mind, in
his doctrine, necessarily knows nothing, and the re-
presentations in the mind itself, hyperphysically de-
termined on occasion of those motions, and of which
alone the mind is cognizant. But of this under the
“k'ssays on the Intellectual Powers.”—H,
* Locke's opinion on this point is as obscure and
doubtful as that of Des Cartes is clear and certain.
But Reid is probably right.—H
+ I do not recollect seeing any argument raised in
favour of materialism, from the fact, that, space or
ertension is, a notion necessary to the mind; and yet
it might, with some show of plausibility, be main-
tained, that extension is a necessary form of thought,
because the thinking principle is itself extented – H.
CONCLUSION.
2] ]
Although we have examined only the five
senses, and the principles of the human
mind which are employed about them, or
such as have fallen in our way in the course
of this examination, we shall leave the
further prosecution of this inquiry to future
deliberation. The powers of memory, of
imagination, of taste, of reasoning, of moral
perception, the will, the passions, the affec-
tions, and all the active powers of the soul,
present a vast and boundless field of philo-
Sophical disquisition, which the author of
this inquiry is far from thinking himself
able to survey with accuracy. Many authors
of ingenuity, ancient and modern, have
made excursions into this vast territory,
and have communicated useful observations:
but there is reason to believe that those
who have pretended to give us a map of the
whole, have satisfied themselves with a very
inaccurate and incomplete survey. If Ga-
lileo had attempted a complete system of
? -
natural philosophy, he had, probably, done
little service to mankind: but by confining
himself to what was within his comprehen-
sion, he laid the foundation of a system of
knowledge, which rises by degrees, and
does honour to the human understanding.
Newton, building upon this foundation, and,
in like manner, confining his inquiries to
the law of gravitation and the properties of
light, performed wonders. If he had at-
tempted a great deal more, he had done a
great deal less, and perhaps nothing at all.
Ambitious of following such great examples,
with unequal steps, alas ! and unequal
force, we have attempted an inquiry only
into one little corner of the human mind—
that corner which seems to be most exposed
to vulgar observation, and to be most easily
comprehended; and yet, if we have deline-
ated it justly, it must be acknowledged that
the accounts heretofore given of it were
very lame, and wide of the truth.
E S S A. Y. S
oN THE
INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF MAN.
By THOMAS REID, D.D., F.R.S.E.,
PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GI, ASGOVV.
“Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts 2°–JoB.
tº This impression of the “Essays on the Intellectual Powers,” is made from the
only authentic edition—that of 1785, in 4to. For the convenience of reference the pages
of that edition are distinguished in the present; and by these pages I shall always, in
the notes, prospectively, quote. They will be found marked both in the text and on the
lower margin.—H.
**
D E D I CAT I O N.
TO
MR DUGALD STEWART,
LATELY PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS, Now PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILosophy,
A NU . *.
DR JAMES GREGORY,
PROFESSOR OF THE THEORY OF PEIYSIC
IN THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH.”
My DEAR FRIENds,--I know not to
whom I can address these Essays with
more propriety than to you; not only on
account of a friendship begun in early life
on your part, though in old age on mine,
and in one of you I may say hereditary ;
nor yet on account of that correspondence
in our literary pursuits and amusements,
which has always given me so great plea-
sure ; but because, if these Essays have
any merit, you have a considerable share
in it, having not only encouraged me to hope
that [iv.] they may be useful, but favoured
me with your observations on every part of
them, both before they were sent to the
press, and while they were under it.
I have availed myself of your observa-
tions, so as to correct many faults that
might otherwise have escaped me; and I
have a very grateful sense of your friend-
ship, in giving this aid to one who stood
much in need of it; having no shame, but
imuch pleasure, in being instructed by those
who formerly were my pupils, as one of you
WaS.
It would be ingratitude to a man whose
memory I most highly respect, not to men-
tion my obligations to the late Lord Kames,
for the concern he was pleased to take in
this Work. Having seen a small part of
it, he urged me to carry it on ; took acount
of my progress from time to time ; revised
it more than once, as far as it was carried,
before his death ; and gave me his observa-
tions on it, both with respect to the matter
and the expression. On some points we
• See above, in “Correspondence,” p. 65, a.-H.
differed in opinion, and debated them
keenly, both in conversation and by many
letters, without any abatement of his affec-
tion, or of his zeal for the work's being
carried on and published : for he had too
much liberality of mind not to allow to [v.]
others the same liberty in judging which he
claimed to himself.
It is difficult to say whether that worthy
man was more eminent in active life or
in speculation. Very rare, Surely, have
been the instances where the talents for
both were united in so eminent a degree.
IIis genius and industry, in many differ-
ent branches of literature, will, by his
works, be known to posterity : his private
virtues and public spirit, his assiduity,
through a long and laborious life, in many
honourable public offices with which he was
entrusted, and his zeal to encourage and
promote everything that tended to the
improvement of his country in laws, litera-
ture, commerce, manufactures, and agricul-
ture, are best known to his friends and
contemporaries.
The favourable opinion which he, and
you my friends, were pleased to express
of this work, has been my chief encourage-
ment to lay it before the public ; and per-
haps, without that encouragement, it had
never seen the light: for I have always
found, that, without social intercourse, even
a favourite speculation languishes; and
that we cannot help thinking the better of our
own opinions [vi.] when they are approved
by those whom we esteem good judges.
You know that the substance of these
Essays was delivered annually, for more
[iii.-vi.T
216
PREFACE.
than twenty years, in Lectures to a large
body of the more advanced students in this
University, and for several years before, in
another University. Those who heard me
with attention, of whom I presume there
are some hundreds alive, will recognise the
doctrine which they heard, some of them
thirty years ago, delivered to them more
diffusely, and with the repetitions and illus-
trations proper for such audiences.
I am afraid, indeed, that the more intel-
ligent reader, who is conversant in such
abstract subjects, may think that there are
repetitions still left, which might be spared.
Such, I hope, will consider, that what to
P R E F
HUMAN knowledge may be reduced to
two general heads, according as it relates
to body or to mind; to things material or
to things intellectual.”
The whole system of bodies in the uni-
verse, of which we know but a very small
part, may be called the Material World;
the whole system of minds, from the infinite
Creator to the Imeanest creature endowed
with thought, may be called the Intellectual
World. These are the two great kingdoms
of naturet that fall within our notice;
and about the one, or the other, or things
pertaining to them, every art, every science,
and every human thought is employed ; nor
can the boldest flight of imagination carry
us beyond their limits.
Manythings there are, indeed, regarding
the nature and the structure both of body
and of mind, which our faculties éannot
reach ; many difficulties which the ablest
philosopher cannot resolve: but of other
* See Stewart’s “Life and Writings of Reid,”
supra, p. 14 ; and his “ lºlements,” vol. I., introduc-
tion ; Jouffroy, in the preface to his “ Oeuvres de
Reid,” t. i., pp. 23-53. This important Preface will
soon be made generally accessible.to the British pub-
lic by a highly competent translator.—H.
+ The term Nature is used sometimes in a wider,
sometimes in a narrower extension. When employed
in its most extensive meaning, it embraces the two
worlds of mind and matter. When employed in its
more restricted signification, it is a synonyme for the
latter only, and is then used in contradistinction to
the former. In the Greek philosophy, the word
Cácri; was gencral in its meaning ; and the great
branch of philosophy styled “physical or physiolo-
gical,” included under it not only the sciences of
matter, but also those of mind. With us, the term
Nature is more vaguely extensive than the terms,
physics, physical, physiology, physiological, or even
tnan the adjective natural ; whereas, in the philo- .
sophy of Germany, Natzar, and its correlatives,
whether of Greek or Latin derivation, are, in general,
expressive of the world of matter in contrast to the
world of intelligence.— H.
[vii-2]
9
one reader is a superfluous repetition, to
the greater part, less conversant in such
subjects, may be very useful. If this apo-
logy be deemed insufficient, and be thought
to be the dictate of laziness, I claim some
indulgence even for that laziness, at my
period of life. [vii.]
You who are in the prime of life, with
the vigour which it inspires, will, I hope,
make more happy advances in this or in any
other branch of science to which your talents
may be applied. *
THo. REID.
Glasgow College, June 1, 1785. -
A C E.
natures, if any other there be, we have no
knowledge, no conception at all.
That everything that exists must be either
corporeal or incorporeal is evident. But
it is not so evident that everything [2] that
exists must either be corporeal or endowed
with thought. Whether there be in the
universe beings which are neither extended,
solid, and inert, like body, nor active and
intelligent, like mind, seems to be beyond
the reach of our knowledge. There appears
to be a vast interval between body and
mind; and whether there be any interme-
diate mature that connects them together,
we know not.
We have no reason to ascribe intelli-
gence, or even sensation, to plants; yet
there appears in them an active force and
energy, which cannot be the result of any
arrangement or combination of inert matter.
The same thing may be said of those powers
by which animals are nourished and grow,
by which matter gravitates, by which mag-
Inetical and electrical bodies attract and
repel each other, and by which the parts of
Solid bodies cohere.
Some have conjectured that the phaeno-
mena of the material world which require
active force, are produced by the continual
operation of intelligent beings: others have
conjectured that there may be in the uni-
verse, beings that are active, without in-
telligence, which, as a kind of incorporeal
machinery, contrived by the Supreme wis-
dóm, perform their destined task without
any knowledge or intention." But, laying
aside conjecture, and all pretences to deter-
mine in things beyond our reach, we must
* Like the tripods of Vulcan—
"Oggo. 31 &vrégoro, 0:Toy 3vorcefoºt' &2&vo.-Fl.
PREFACE.
217
rest in this, that body and mind are the
only kinds of being of which we can have
any knowledge, or can form any concep-
tion. If there are other kinds, they are
not discoverable by the faculties which God
hath given us; and, with regard to us, are
as if they were not. [3]
As, therefore, all our knowledge is con-
fined to body and mind, or things belonging
to them, there are two great branches of
philosophy, one relating to body, the other
to mind. The properties of body, and the
laws that obtain in the material system, are
the objects of natural philosophy, as that
word is now used. The branch which
treats of the nature and operations of minds
has, by some, been called Pneumatology."
And to the one or the other of these branches,
the principles of all the sciences belong.
What variety there may be of minds or
thinking beings, throughout this vast uni-
verse, we cannot pretend to say. We dwell
in a little corner of God’s dominion, dis-
joined from the rest of it. The globe which
we inhabit is but one of seven planets that
encircle our sun. What various orders of
beings may inhabit the other six, their
secondaries, and the comets belonging to
our system, and how many other Suns may
be encircled with like systems, are things
altogether hid from us. Although human
reason and industry have discovered, with
great accuracy, the order and distances of
the planets, and the laws of their motion,
we have no means of corresponding with
them. That they may be the habitation of
animated beings, is very probable; but of
the nature or powers of their inhabitants,
we are perfectly ignorant. Every man is
conscious of a thinking principle, or mind,
in himself; and we have sufficient evidence
of a like principle in other men. The
actions of brute animals shew that they
have some thinking principle, though of a
nature far inferior to the human mind. And
everything about us may convince us of the
existence of a supreme mind, the Maker and
Governor of the universe. These are all
the minds of which reason can give us any
certain knowledge. [4]
The mind of man is the noblest work of
God which reason discovers to us, and,
therefore, on account of its dignity, deserves
our study.T It must, indeed, be acknow-
ledged, that, although it is of all objects the
nearest to us, and seems the most within
our reach, it is very difficult to attend to
its operations so as to form a distinct notion
* Now properly superseded by the term Psychol-
ogy; to which no competent objection can be made,
and which affords us—what the various clumsy peri-
phrases in use do not—a convenient adjective, psycho-
logical.-H. e
# “ On earth,” says a forgotten philosopher,
“ there is nothing great but Man; in man there is
nothing great but Mind.”—H.
of them ; and on that account there is no
branch of knowledge in which the ingenious
and speculative have fallen into so great
errors, and even absurdities. These errors
and absurdities have given rise to a general
prejudice against all inquiries of this nature.
Because ingenious men have, for many
ages, given different and contradictory
accounts of the powers of the mind, it is
concluded that all speculations concerning
them are chimerical and visionary.
But whatever effect this prejudice may
have with superficial thinkers, the judicious
will not be apt to be carried away with it.
About-two hundred years ago, the opinions
of men in natural philosophy were as various
and as contradictory as they are now con-
cerning the powers of the mind. Galileo,
Torricelli, Kepler, Bacon, and Newton,
had the same discouragement in their
attempts to throw light upon the material
system, as we have with regard to the in-
tellectual. If they had been deterred by
such prejudices, we should never have
reaped the benefit of their discoveries,
which do honour to human nature, and will
make their names immortal. The motto
which Lord Bacon prefixed to some of his
writings was worthy of his genius, Inveniam
viam awł faciam.*
There is a natural order in the progress
of the sciences, and good reasons may be
assigned why the philosophy of body should
[5] be elder sister to that of mind, and of a
quicker growth ; but the last hath the prin-
ciple of life no less than the first, and will
grow up, though slowly, to maturity. The
remains of ancient philosophy upon this
subject, are venerable ruins, carrying the
marks of genius and industry, sufficient to
inflame, but not to satisfy our curiosity. In
later ages, Des Cartes was the first that
pointed out the road we ought to take in
those dark regions. Malebranche, Arnauld,
Locke, Berkeley, Buffier, Hutcheson,
Butler, Hume, Price, Lord Kames, have
laboured to make discoveries—nor have they
laboured in vain; for, however different
and contrary their conclusions are, how-
ever sceptical some of them, they have all
given new light, and cleared the way to those
who shall come after them.
We ought never to despair of human
genius, but rather to hope that, in time,
it may produce a system of the powers and
operations of the human mind, no less cer-
tain than those of optics or astronomy.
This is the more devoutly to be wished,
that a distinct knowledge of the powers of
the mind would undoubtedly give great light
to many other branches of science. ... Mr
Hume hath justly observed, that “all the
• See Mr Stewart's “Philosophical Essays,” Pre-
liminary Dissentation, ch. ii
[3—5]
218
PR.EFACE.
sciences have a relation to human nature;
and, however wide any of them may seem
to run from it, they still return back by one
passage or another. This is the centre and
capital of the sciences," which, being once
masters of, we may easily extend our con-
quests everywhere.”
The faculties of our minds are the tools
and engines we must use in every disquisi-
tion; and the better we understand their [6]
nature and force, the more successfully we
shall be able to apply them. Mr Locke
gives this account of the occasion of his
entering upon his essay concerning human
understanding:—“ Five or six friends,”
says he, “meeting at my chamber, and dis-
coursing on a subject very remote from
this, found themselves quickly at a stand
by the difficulties that rose on every side.
After we had for a while puzzled ourselves,
without coming any nearer to a resolution
of those doubts that 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 neces-
sary to examine our own abilities, and see
what objects our understandings were fitted
or not fitted to deal with. This I proposed
to the company, who all readily assented;
and thereupon it was agreed that this should
be our first enquiry.” If this be commonly
the cause of perplexity in those disquisi-
tions which have least relation to the mind,
it must be so much more in those that have
an immediate connection with it.
The sciences may be distinguished into
two classes, according as they pertain to the
material or to the intellectual world. The
various parts of natural philosophy, the
mechanical arts, chemistry, medicine, and
agriculture, belong to the first ; but, to the
last, belong grammar, logic, rhetoric, na-
.* Hume probably had the saying of Polybius in
his eye, who calls History the mother city (unreſºro.
Mug ) of Philosophy.—H.
[6, 7]
tural theology, morals, jurisprudence, law.
politics, and the fine arts. The know-
ledge of the human mind is the root from
which these grow, and draw their nourish-
ment.” Whether, therefore, we consider
the dignity of this subject, or its subser-
viency to science in general, and to the
noblest branches of science in particular, it
highly deserves to be cultivated. [7]
A very elegant writer, on the sublime and
beautiful,t concludes his account of the
passions thus:–“ The variety of the pas-
sions is great, and worthy, in every branch
of that variety, of the most diligent inves-
tigation. The more accurately we search
into the human mind, the stronger traces
we everywhere find of His wisdom who made
it. If a discourse on the use of the parts of
the body may be considered as a hymn to
the Creator, it the use of the passions,
which are the organs of the mind, cannot
be barren of praise to Him, nor unproductive
to ourselves of that noble and uncommon
union of science and admiration, which a
contemplation of the works of infinite Wis-
dom alone can afford to a rational mind;
whilst referring to Him whatever we find of
right, or good, or fair, in ourselves, dis-
covering His strength and wisdom evenin our
own weakness and imperfection, honouring
them where we discover them clearly, and
adoring their profundity where we are lost
in our search, we may be inquisitive with-
out impertinence, and elevated without
pride; we may be admitted, if I may dare
to say so, into the counsels of the Almighty,
by a consideration of his works. This ele-
vation of the mind ought to be the principal
end of all our studies, which, if they do not
in some measure effect, they are of very
little service to us.”
# It is justly observed by M. Jouffroy, that the
..] division here enounced is not in principle identical
with that previºusly propounded.-H.
+ Burke.—H.
it Galeu is referred to.-H.
E S S A YS
ſ)N THE
INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF MAN.
ESSAY I.
P. R. E L I M I N A R Y.
CHAPTER. I.
£NPLICATION OF WORDS.
THERE is no greater impediment to the
advancement of knowledge than the ambi-
guity of words. To this chiefly it is owing
that we find sects and parties in most
branches of science; and disputes which
are carried on from age to age, without being
brought to an issue.
Sophistry has been more effectually ex-
cluded from mathematics and natural
philosophy than from other sciences. In
mathematics it had no place from the begin-
ining; mathematicians having had the wis-
dom to define accurately the terms they use,
and to lay down, as axioms, the first prin-
ciples on which their reasoning is grounded.
Accordingly, we find no parties amongma-
thematicians, and hardly any disputes." [10]
In natural philosophy, there was no less
sophistry, no less dispute and uncertainty,
than in other sciences, until, about a cen-
tury and a half ago, this science began to be
built upon the foundation of clear defini-
tions and self-evident axioms. Since that
time, the science, as if watered with the
‘lew of Heaven, hath grown apace; dis-
‘putes have ceased, truth hath prevailed,
and the Science hath received greater in-
crease-in two centuries than in two thous-
and years before.
It were to be wished that this method,
which hath been so successful in those
branches of science, were attempted in
others; for definitions and axioms are the
foundations of all science. But that defini-
tions may not be sought where no defini-
tion can be given, nor logical definitions be
attempted where the subject does not admit
of them, it may be proper to lay down some
general principles concerning definition, for
the sake of those who are less conversant
in this branch of logic.
When one undertakes to explain any art
or science, he will have occasion to use
many words that are common to all who
use the same language, and some that are
peculiar to that art or science. Words of
the last kind are called terms of the art, and
ought to be distinctly explained, that their
meaning may be understood.
A definition" is nothing else but an ex-
plication of the meaning of a word, by words
whose meaning is already known. Hence
it is evident that every word cannot be
defined; for the definition must consist of
words; and there could be no definition, if
there were not words previously understood
without definition. Common words, there-
fore, ought to be used in their common
acceptation ; and, when they have different
acceptations in common language, these,
when it is necessary, ought to be distin-
guished. But they require no definition.
It is sufficient to define words that are un-
common, or that are used in an uncommon
meaning.
It may farther be observed, that there
are many words, which, though they may
need explication, cannot be logically defined.
A [ll] logical definition—that is, a strict and
proper definition—must express the kind
[genus] of the thing defined, and the spe-
cific difference by which the species defined
is distinguished from every other species
belonging to that kind. It is natural to the
mind of man to class things under various
kinds, and again to subdivide every kind
into its various species. A species may
often be subdivided into subordinate species,
and then it is considered as a kind.
From what has been said of logical defi-
nition, it is evident, that no word can be
logically defined which does not denote a
. . It was not the superior wisdom of mathema-
ticians, but the simple and palpable character of their
object-matter, which determined the difference.—H.
* In what follows, there is a confusion of defini-
tions verbal and real, which should have been Caxe-
fully distinguished,—H.
[9–11]
220
[Essay I.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
species; because such things only can have
a specific difference ; and a specific differ-
ence is essential to a logical definition.
On this account there can be no logical
definition of individual things, such as
London or Paris. Individuals are distin-
guished either by proper names, or by acci-
dental circumstances of time or place ; but
they have no specific difference; and, there-
fore, though they may be known by pro-
per names, or may be described by circum-
stances or relations, they cannot be defined."
It is no less evident that the most general
words cannot be logically defined, because
there is not a more general term, of which
they are a species.
Nay, we cannot define every species of
things, because it happens sometimes that
we have not words to express the specific
difference. Thus, a scarlet colour is, no
doubt, a species of colour ; but how shall
we express the specific difference by which
scarlet is distinguished from green or blue 2
The difference of them is immediately per-
ceived by the eye; but we have not words
to express it. These things we are taught
by logic.
Without having recourse to the prin-
ciples of logic, we may easily be satisfied
that words cannot be defined, which signify
things perfectly simple, and void of all com-
position. This observation, I think, was
first made by Des Cartes, and afterwards
more fully illustrated by Locke. And,
however obvious it appears to be, many in-
stances may be given of great philosophers
who have perplexed [12] and darkened the
subjects they have treated, by not knowing,
or not attending to it.
When men attempt to define things which
cannot be defined, their definitions will
always be either obscure or false. It was
one of the capital defects of Aristotle's phi-
losophy, that he pretended to define the
simplest things, which neither can be, nor
need to be defined—such as time and mo-
tion.: Among modern philosophers, I
know mone that has abused definition so
much as Carolus [Christianus] Wolfius, the
famous German philosopher, who, in a
work on the human mind, called “Psycho-
logia Empirica,” consisting of many hun-
dred propositions, fortified by demon-
strations, with a proportional accompani-
ment of definitions, corollaries, and scholia,
has given so many definitions of things
which cannot be defined, and so many de-
monstrations of things self-evident, that
the greatest part of the work consists of
tautology, and ringing changes upon
words. *
There is no subject in which there is
more frequent occasion to use words tha.
cannot be logically defined, than in treating
of the powers and operations of the mind.
The simplest operations of our minds must
all be expressed by words of this kind. No
man can explain, by a logical definition,
what it is to think, to apprehend, to believe,
to will, to desire. Every man who under-
stands the language, has some notion of the
meaning of those words; and every man
who is capable of reflection may, by attend-
ing to the operations of his own mind,
which are signified by them, form a clear
and distinct notion of them ; but they can-
not be logically defined. y
Since, therefore, it is often impossible to
define words which we must use on this
subject, we must as much as possible use
common words, in their common accepta-
tion, pointing out their various senses where
they are ambiguous ; and, when we are
obliged to use words less common, we must
endeavour to explain them [13] as well as
we can, without affecting to give logical de-
finitions, when the nature of the thing does
not allow it.
The following observations on the mean-
ing of certain words are intended to supply,
as far as we can, the want of definitions, by
preventing ambiguity or obscurity in the
use of them.
1. By the mind of a man, we understand
that in him which thinks, remembers, rea-
sons, wills. The essence both of body and
of mind is unknown to us. We know cer-
tain properties of the first, and certain oper-
ations of the last, and by these only we can
define or describe them. We define body
to be that which is extended, solid, move-
able, divisible. In like manner, we define
mind to be that which thinks. We are con-
cious that we think, and that we have a
variety of thoughts of different kinds—such
as seeing, hearing, remembering, delibe-
rating, resolving, loving, hating, and many
* . It is well said by the old logicians, Omnis in-
tuitiva notitia est definitio; —that is, a view of the
thing ttself is its best definition. And this is true,
both of the objects of sense, and of the objects of self.
consciousness.-H.
# This is incorrect. Des Cartes has little, and
Locke no title to praise for this observation. It had
been made by Aristotle, and after him by many
others; while, subsequent to Des Cartes, and pre-
vious to Locke, Pascal and the Port-Royal Logicians,
to Say nothing of a paper of Leibnitz, in 1684, had re.
duced it to a matter of commonplace. In this instance,
Locke can, indeed, be proved a borrower. Mr Stewart
(“Philosophical Essays,” Note A) is wrong in think-
ing that, after Des Cartes, Lord Stair is the earliest
philosopher by whom this logical principle was
enounced ; for Stair, as a writer, is subsequent to
the authors adduced.--H.
f There is not a little, however, to be said in vin-
dication of Aristotle's definitions. Leibnitz is not
the only modern philosopher who has applauded that
of Motion, which requires, however, some illus-
tration of the special significance of its terms.-H.
ſ12, 18] &
* This judgment is mot false; but it is exaggerated
f This corresponds to Aristotle's second definition
of the soul, or that a posteriori. Wide supra, p. 208
a, note *.-H.
CHAP. I.]
22]
EXPLICATION OF WORDS.
other kinds of thought—all which we are
taught by nature to attribute to one internal
principle ; and this principle of thought we
call the mind or soul of a man.
2. By the operations" of the mind, we un-
derstand every mode of thinking of which
we are conscious.
It deserves our notice, that the various
modes of thinking have always, and in all
languages, as far as we know, been called
by the name of operations of the mind, or
by names of the same import. To body
we ascribe various properties, but not oper-
ations, properly so called : it is extended,
divisible, moveable, inert ; it continues in
any state in which it is put ; every change
of its state is the effect of some force im-
pressed upon it, and is exactly proportional
to the force impressed, and in the precise
direction of that force. These are the ge-
neral properties of matter, and these are
not operations; on the contrary, they all
imply its being a dead, inactive thing,
which moves only as it is moved, and acts
only by being acted upon. + [14]
But the mind is, from its very nature, a
living and active being. Everything we
know of it implies life and active energy;
and the reason why all its modes of thinking
are called its operations, is, that in all, or in
most of them, it is not merely passive, as
body is, but is really and properly active.
In all ages, and in all languages, ancient
and modern, the various modes of thinking
have been expressed by words of active
signification, such as seeing, hearing, reason-
ing, willing, and the like. It seems, there-
fore, to be the natural judgment of man-
kind, that the mind is active in its various
ways of thinking : and, for this reason, they
are called its operations, and are expressed
by active verbs.
It may be made a question, What regard
is to be paid to this natural judgment 2
May it not be a vulgar error P Philosophers
who think so have, no doubt, a right to be
heard. But, until it is proved that the
mind is not active in thinking, but merely
passive, the common language with regard
to its operations ought to be used, and ought
not to give place to a phraseology invented
by philosophers, which implies its being
merely passive.
3. The words power and faculty, which
are often used in speaking of the mind,
need little explication. Every operation
supposes a power in the being that oper-
rates; for to suppose anything to operate,
which has no power to operate, is mani-
festly absurd. But, on the other hand,
there is no absurdity in supposing a bein
to have power to operate, when it does .
operate. Thus I may have power to walk,
when I sit ; or to speak, when I am silent.
Every operation, therefore, implies power;
but the power does not imply the operation.
The faculties of the mind, and its powers,
are often used as synonymous expressions.
But, as most synonymes have some minute
distinction that deserves notice, I apprehend
that the word faculty [15] is most properly
applied to those powers of the mind which
are original and natural, and which make a
part of the constitution of the mind. There
are other powers, which are acquired by
use, exercise, or study, which are not called
faculties, bºt habils. There must be some-
thing in the constitution of the mind neces-
sary to our being able to acquire habits—
and this is commonly called capacity.”
4. We frequently meet with a distinction
in writers upon this subject, between things
in the mind, and things eaternal to the mind.
The powers, faculties, and operations of the
mind, are things in the mind. Everything
is said to be in the mind, of which the mind
is the subject. It is self-evident that there
are some things which cannot exist without
a subject to which they belong, and of which
they are attributes. Thus, colour must be
in something coloured ; figure in something
1 figured; thought can only be in something
that thinks; wisdom and virtue cannot exist
but in some being that is wise and virtuous.
When, therefore, we speak of things in the
mind, we understand by this, things of which
the mind is the subject. Excepting the
mind itself, and things in the mind, all other
things are said to be external. It ought
therefore to be remembered, that this dis-
tinction between things in the mind and
things external, is not meant to signify the
place of the things we speak of, but their
subject.-F
There is a figurative sense in which things
are said to be in the mind, which it is suf-
ficient barely to mention. We say such a
thing was not in my mind; meaning no more
than that I had not the least thought of it.
By a figure, we put the thing for the thought
* Operation, Act, Energy, are nearly convertible
terms; and are opposed to Faculty, (of which anon,)
as the actual to the potential.—H.
+ “ Materiae datum est cogi, sed cogere Menti.”
ANIL1US.—H.
* These terms properly stand in the following re.
lations :-Powers are active and passive, 72atural
and acquired. Powers, natural ar.d active, are called
Faculties: Powers, natural and passive, Capacities
or Receptivities : Powers acquired are Habits, and
habit is used both in an active and in a passive.sense:
the Power, again, of acquiring a habit, is called a
Disposition.—On the meaning of the term Power, see
further, under the first Essay on the Active Powers,
chap. iii., p 23.-H
+ Subject and Object are correlative terms. The
former is properly id in guo : the latter, id circa
quod. Hence, in psychological language, the swbject,
absolutely, is the mind that knows or thinks—t e.,
the mind considered as the subject of knowledge or
thought; the object, that which is known, Orthought
about. The adjectives subjective and objective are
convenient, if not indispensable, expressions.—H.
[14, 15]
222
[ESSAY 1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
of it. In this sense external things are in
the mind as often as they are the objects of
our thought.
5. Thinking is a very general word, which
includes all the operations of our minds, and
is so well understood as to need no defi-
nition.” [16] -
To perceive, to remember, to be conscious,
and to conceive or imagine, are words com-
mon to philosophers and to the vulgar.
They signify different operations of the
mind, which are distinguished in all lan-
guages, and by all men that think. I shall
endeavour to use them in their most com-
mon and proper acceptation, and I think
they are hardly capable of strict definition.
But, as some philosophers, in treating of the
mind, have taken the liberty to use them
very improperly, so as to corrupt the Eng-
lish language, and to confound things
which the common understanding of man-
kind hath always led them to distinguish,
I shall make someobservations on the mean-
ing of them, that may prevent ambiguity
or confusion in the use of them.
6. First, We are never said to perceive
things, of the existence of which we have
not a full conviction. I may conceive or
imagine a mountain of gold, or a winged
horse ; but no man says that he perceives
such a creature of imagination. Thus per-
ception is distinguished from conception or
imagination. Secondly, Perception is ap-
plied only to external objects, not to those
that are in the mind itself. When I am
pained, I do not say that I perceive pain,
but that I feel it, or that I am conscious of
it. Thus, perception is distinguished from
consciousness. Thirdly, The immediate
object of perception must be something pre-
sent, and not what is past. We may re-
member what is past, but do not perceive
it. I may say, I perceive such a person
has had the Small-pox; but this phrase is
figurative, although the figure is so familiar
that it is not observed. The meaning of it
is, that I perceive the pits in his face, which
are certain signs of his having had the small
pox. We say we perceive the thing signi-
fied, when we only perceive the sign. But
when the word perception is used properly,
and without any figure, it is never applied
to things past. And thus it is distinguished
from remembrance.
In a word, perception is most properly
applied to the evidence which we have of
external objects by our senses. But, as
this is a [17] very clear and cogent kind of
evidence, the word is often applied by ana-
logy to the evidence of reason or of testi-
• Though t and thinking are used in a more, and in
a less, restricted signification. In the former mean.
ing they are limited to the discursive energies alone;
in helºe, tl:ey are co-extensive with conscious-
I] eS8.—l-l.
[16–18 l
mony, when it is clear and cogent. The
perception of external objects by our senses,
is an operation of the mind of a peculiar
nature, and ought to have a name appro-
priated to it. It has so in all languages.
And, in English, I know no word more
proper to express this act of the mind than
perception. . . Seeing, hearing, smelling,
tasting, and touching or feeling, are words
that express the operations proper to each
sense; perceiving expresses that which is
common to them all.
The observations made on this word
would have been unnecessary, if it had not
been so much abused in philosophical
writings upon the mind ; for, in other writ-
ings, it has no obscurity. Although this
abuse is not chargeable on Mr Hume only,
yet I think he has carried it to the highest
pitch. The first sentence of his “Treatise
of Human Nature” runs thus:—“All the
perceptions of the human mind resolve
themselves into two distinct heads, which
I shall call impressions and ideas.” He
adds, a little after, that, under the nan e
of impressions, he comprehends all our
sensations, passions, and emotions. Here
we learn that our passions and emotions
are perceptions. I believe, no English
writer before him ever gave the name of a
perception to any passion or emotion.
When a man is angry, we must say that he
has the perception of anger. When he is
in love, that he has the perception of love.
He speaks often of the perceptions of me-
mory, and of the perceptions of imagina-
tion ; and he might as well speak of the
hearing of sight, or of the smelling of touch ;
for, Surely, hearing is not more different
from sight, or smelling from touch, than
perceiving is from remembering or imagin-
Ing.
7. Consciousness is a word used by
philosophers, to signify that immediate
knowledge which we have of our present
thoughts and purposes, and, in general, of
all the present operations of our minds.
Whence we may observe, that conscious-
ness is only of things present. To apply
consciousness to things past, which some-
times [18] is done in popular discourse, is to
confound consciousness with memory; and
all such confusion of words ought to be
avoided in philosophical discourse. It is
likewise to be observed, that consciousness
* In the Cartesian and Lockian philosophies, the
term Perception was used almost convertibly with
Consciousness : whatever we could be said to be
conscious of, that we could be said to perceive, And
there is nothing in the etymology of the word, or in
its use by ancient writers, that renders this unexclu-
sive application of it abusive. In the Leibnitzlan
philosophy, perception and appen crption were dis-
tinguished in a peculiar manner—of which again.
Reid is right in his own restriction of the term; but
he is not warranted in blaming Hume for having used
it in the wider signification of his predecessors.-H.
CHAP. I.]
223
EXPLICATION OF WORDS.
is only of things in the mind, and not of
external things. It is improper to say, I
am conscious of the table which is before
me. I perceive it, I see it; but do not say
I am conscious of it. As that consciousness
by which we have a knowledge of the opera-
tions of our own minds, is a different power
from that by which we perceive external
objects, and as these different powers have
different names in our language, and, I
believe, in all languages, a philosopher
ought carefully to preserve this distinction,
and never to confound things so different in
their nature."
8. Conceiving, imagining, and appre-
hending, are commonly used as synony-
mous in our language, and signify the same
thing which the logicians call simple appre-
hension. This is an operation of the mind
different from all those we have mentioned.
Whatever we perceive, whatever we re-
member, whatever we are conscious of, we
have a full persuasion or conviction of its
existence. But we may conceive or imagine
what has no existence, and what we firmly
believe to have no existence. What never
had an existence cannot be remembered ;
what has no existence at present cannot
be the object of perception or of conscious-
ness; but what never had, nor has any
existence, may be conceived. Every man
knows that it is as easy to conceive a winged
horse, oracentaur, as it is to conceive a horse
or a man. Let it be observed, therefore, that
to conceive, to imagine, to apprehend, when
taken in the proper sense, signify an act of
the mind which implies no belief or judg-
ment at all.-H. It is an act of the mind by
which nothing is affirmed or denied, and
which, therefore, can neither be true nor
false.
But there is another and a very different
meaning of those words, so common and so
well authorized in language that it cannot
easily be avoided ; and on that account
we ought to be the more on our guard, that
we be not misled by the ambiguity. Po-
Aiteness and [19] good-breeding lead men, on
most occasions, to express their opinions
with modesty, especially when they differ
from others whom they ought to respect.
Therefore, when we would express our
opinion modestly, instead of saying, “This
is myopinion,” or, “This is my judgment,”
which has the air of dogmaticalness, we say,
“I conceive it to be thus—I imagine, or ap-
prehend it to be thus;” which is understood
as a modest declaration of our judgment.
In like manner, when anything is said which
wetake to be impossible, we say, “We can-
- - -
* Reid's degradation of Consciousness into a
special faculty, (in which he seems to follow Hut-
cheson, in opposition to other philosophers,) is, in
every point of view, obnoxious to every possible ob-
jection. Sce note H. —H
# Except of its own ideal reality.--H.
not conceive it;”
believe it.
Thus we see that the words conceive, .
fimagine, apprehend, have two meanings,
and are used to express two operations of
the mind, which ought never to be con-
founded. Sometimes they express simple
apprehension, which implies no judgment
at all; sometimes they express judgment or
opinion. This ambiguity ought to be at-
tended to, that we may not impose upon
ourselves or others in the use of them. The
ambiguity is indeed remedied, in a great
measure, by their construction. When
they are used to express simple apprehen-
sion, they are followed by a noun in the
accusalive case, which signifies the object
conceived; but, when they are used to ex-
press opinion or judgment, they are com-
monly followed by a verb, in the infinitive
mood. “I conceive an Egyptian pyramid.”
This implies no judgment. “I conceive
the Egyptian pyramids to be the most an-
cient monuments of human art.” This
implies judgment. When the words are
used in the last sense, the thing conceived
must be a proposition, because judgment
cannot be expressed but by a proposition.
When they are used in the first sense, the
thing conceived may be no proposition, but
a simple term only—as a pyramid, an obe-
lisk. Yet it may be observed, that even a
proposition may be simply apprehended,
without forming any judgment of its truth
or falsehood: for it is one thing to conceive
the meaning of a proposition ; it is another
thing to judge it to be true or false. [20]
Although the distinction between simple
apprehension, and every degree of assent or
judgment, be perfectly evident to every Iman
who reflects attentively on what passes in
his own mind—although it is very neces-
sary, in treating of the powers of the mind,
to attend carefully to this distinction—yet,
in the affairs of common life, it is seldom
necessary to observe it accurately. On
this account we shall find, in all common
languages, the words which express one of
those operations frequently applied to the
other. To think, to suppose, to imagine,
to conceive, to apprehend, are the words we
use to express simple apprehension; but
they are all frequently used to express
judgment. Their ambiguity seldom occa-
sions any inconvenience in the common
affairs of life, for which language is framed.
But it has perplexed philosophers, in treat-
ing of the operations of the mind, and will
always perplex them, if they do not attend
accurately to the different meanings which
are put upon those words on different oc-
casions.
9. Most of the operations of the mind,
from their very nature, must have objects
to which they are directed, and about which
meaning that we cannot
T19, 207
224
[ESSAY 1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
they are employed. He that perceives,
must perceive something; and that which
he perceives is called the object of his per-
ception.
object of perception, is impossible. The
mind that perceives, the object perceived,
wnd the operation of perceiving that object,
are distinct things, and are distinguished in
the structure of all languages. In this
sentence, “..I see, or perceive the moon,”
I is the person or mind, the active verb
see denotes the operation of that mind, and
the moon dénotes the object. What we
have said of perceiving, is equally applicable
to most operations of the mind. Such opera-
tions are, in all languages, expressed by
active transitive verbs; and we know that,
in all languages, such verbs require a thing
or person, which is the agent, and a noun
following in an oblique case, which is the
object. Whence it is evident, that all
mankind, both those who have contrived
language, and those who use it with under-
standing, have distinguished these three
things as different—to wit, the operations of
the mind, which [21] are expressed by active
verbs; the mind itself, which is the nomin-
ative to those verbs; and the object, which
is, in the oblique case, governed by them.
It would have been unnecessary to ex-
plain so obvious a distinction, if some sys-.
tems of philosophy had not confounded it.
Mr Hume's system, in particular, confounds
all distinction between the operations of the
mind and their objects. When he speaks
of the ideas of memory, the ideas of imagin-
ation, and the ideas of sense, it is often im-
possible, from the tenor of his discourse, to
know whether, by those ideas, he means
the operations of the mind, or the objects
about which they are employed. And,
indeed, according to his system, there is
no distinction between the one and the
other.
A philosopher is, no doubt, entitled to
examine even those distinctions that are to
be found in the structure of all languages;
and, if he is able to shew that there is no
foundation for them in the nature of the
things distinguished—if he can point out
Some prejudice common to mankind which
has led them to distinguish things that are
not really different—in that case, such a
distinction may be imputed to a vulgar
error, which ought to be corrected in philo-
sophy. But when, in his first setting out,
he takes it for granted, without proof, that
distinctions found in the structure of all
languages, have no foundation in nature,
this, surely, is too fastidious a way of
treating the common sense of mankind.
When we come to be instructed by philo-
sophers, we must bring the old light of
common sense along with us, and by it
judge of the new light which the philo-
[21 23]
To perceive, without having any
sopher communicates to us. But when we
are required to put out the old light alto-
gether, that we may follow the new, we
have reason to be on our guard. There
may be distinctions that have a real foun-
dation, and which may be necessary in
philosophy, which are not made in common
language, because not necessary in the com-
mon business of life. But I believe [22] no
instance will be found of a distinction made
in all languages, which has not a just found-
ation in nature.
10. The word idea" occurs so frequently
in modern philosophical writings upon the
mind, and is so ambiguous in its meaning,
that it is necessary to make some observa-
tions upon it. There are chiefly two mean-
ings of this word in modern authors—a
popular and a philosophical. -
First, In popular language, idea signi-
fies the same thing as conception, appre-
hension, notion. To have an idea of any-
thing, is to conceive it. To have a distinct
idea, is to conceive it distinctly. To have
no idea of it, is not to conceive it at all.
It was before observed, that concéiving or
apprehending has always been considered
by all men as an act or operation of the
mind, and, on that account, has been ex-
pressed in all languages by an active verb.
When, therefore, we use the phrase of
having ideas, in the popular sense, we
ought to attend to this, that it signifies
precisely the same thing which we com-
monly express by the active verbs, conceiv-
ing or apprehending. -
When the word idea is taken in this po-
pular sense, no man can possibly doubt
whether he has ideas. For he that doubts
must think, and to think is to have ideas.
Sometimes, in popular language, a man's
ideas signify his opinions. The ideas of
Aristotle, or of Epicurus, signify the
opinions of these philosophers. What was
formerly said of the words imagine, conceive,
apprehend, that they are sometimes used
to express judgment, is no less true of the
word idea. This signification of the word
seems indeed more common in the French
language than in English. But it is found
in this sense in good English authors, and
even in Mr Locke.
Thus we see, that
having ideas, taken in the popular sense,
has precisely the same meaning with conceiv-
ing, imagining, apprehending, and has like-
wise [23] the same ambiguity. It may, there-
fore, be doubted, whether the introduction of
this word into popular discourse, to signify the
operation of conceiving or apprehending,
was at all necessary. For, first, We have,
as has been shewn, several words which are
either originally English, or have been long
naturalized, that express the same thing ;
* On the history of the term Idea, see Note G.—H.
on AP. I.]
225
EXPLICATION OF WORDS.
why, therefore, should we adopt a Greek
word, in place of these, any more than a
French or a German word 2 Besides, the
words of our own language are less ambi-
guous. For the word idea has, for many
ages, been used by philosophers as a term
of art ; and in the different systems of phi-
losophers means very different things.
Secondly, According to the philosophi-
cal meaning of the word idea, it does not
signify that act of the mind which we call
thought or conception, but some object of
thought. Ideas, according to Mr Locke,
(whose very frequent use of this word has
probably been the occasion of its being
adopted into common language,) “ are
nothing but the immediate objects of the
mind in thinking.” But of those objects of
thought called ideas, different sects of phi-
losophers have given a very different ac-
count. Bruckerus, a learned German, wrote
a whole book, giving the history of ideas.
The most ancient system we have con-
cerning ideas, is that which is explained in
several dialogues of Plato, and which many
ancient, as well as modern writers, have
ascribed to Plato, as the inventor. But it is
certain that Plato had his doctrine upon
this subject, as well as the name idea, from
the school of Pythagoras. We have still
extant, a tract of Timaeus, the Locrian, a
Pythagorean philosopher, concerning the
soul of the world, in which we find the sub-
stance of Plato's doctrine concerning ideas.”
They were held to be eternal, uncreated,
and immutable forms, or models, according
to which the Deity made every species of
things that exists, of an eternal matter.
Those philosophers held, that there are
three first principles of all things: First,
An eternal matter, of which all things were
made ; Secondly, Eternal and immaterial
forms, orideas, according to which they were
made; and, [24] Thirdly, An efficient cause,
the Deity who made them.t. The mind of
man, in order to its being fitted for the con-
templation of these eternal ideas, must un-
dergo a certain purification, and be weaned
from sensible things. The eternal ideas are
the only object of science; because the ob-
jects of sense, being in a perpetual flux, there
can be no real knowledge with regard to them.
The philosophers of the Alexandrian
school, commonly called the latter Plato-
mists, made some change upon the system of
the ancient Platonists with respect to the
eternal ideas. They held them not to be a
principle distinct from the Deity, but to be
the conceptions of things in the divine un-
derstanding; the natures and essences of all
things being perfectly known to him from
eternity.
Itought to be observed that the Pythago-
reans, and the Platonists, whether elder or
latter, made the eternal'ideas to be objects
of science only, and of abstract contempla-
tion, not the objects of sense.” And in
this, the ancient system of eternal ideas
differs from the modern one of Father Ma-
lebranche. He held, in common with other
modern philosophers, that no external
thing is perceived by us immediately, but
only by ideas. But he thought that the
ideas, by which we perceive an external
world, are the ideas of the Deity himself,
in whose mind the ideas of all things, past,
present, and future, must have been from
eternity; for the Deity being intimately
present to our minds at all times, may dis-
cover to us as much of his ideas as he sees
proper, according to certain established
laws of nature ; and in his ideas, as in a
mirror, we perceive whatever we do per-
ceive of the external world.
Thus we have three systems, which main-
tain that the ideas which are the imme-
diate objects of human knowledge, are
eternal and immutable, and existed before
the things which they represent. There
are other systems, according to which the
ideas which are the immediate objects of
all our thoughts, are posterior to the things
which they represent, and derived from
them. We shall [25) give some account of
these ; but, as they have gradually sprung
out of the ancient Peripatetic system, it is
necessary to begin with some account of it.
Aristotle taught that all the objects of
our thought enter at first by the senses;
and, since the sense cannot receive external
material objects themselves, it receives their
species—that is, their images or forms,
without the matter; as wax receives the form
of the seal without any of the matter of it.
These images or forms, impressed upon the
Senses, are called sensible species, and are
the objects only of the sensitive part of the
mind; but, by various internal powers, they
are retained, refined, and spiritualized, so as
to become objects of memory and imagina-
tion, and, at last, of pure intellection.
When they are objects of memory and of
imagination, they get the name of phantasms.
When, by farther refinement, and being
stripped of their particularities, they become
objects of science, they are called intelli-
gible species : so that every immediate
* Reid, in common with our philosophers in general,
had no knowledge of the Platonic theory of sensible
perception; and yet the gºostic forms, the cognitive
oreasons of the Platonists, held a far more proximate
relation to ideas in the modern acceptation, than the
Platonic ideas themselves. These, in fact, as to all
that, relates to the doctrine of perception and ima-

* The whole series of Pythagorean treatises and
fragments in the Doric dialect, in which the doc-
trines and phraseology of Plato' and Aristotle are so
marvellously anticipated, are now proved to be com-
paratively recent forgeries. Of these, the treatise
under the name of Timaeus, is one.-H.
# See above, p. 204, a, note *-H.
gination, may be thrown wholly out of account. See
below, under p. 116.-H.
[24, 25]
Q
226
[ESSAY R.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
object, whether of sense, of memory, of
imagination, or of reasoning, must be some
phantasm or species in the mind itself."
The followers of Aristotle, especially the
schoolmen, made great additions to this
theory, which the author himself mentions
very briefly, and with an appearance of
reserve. They entered into large disquisi-
tions with regard to the sensible species:
what kind of things they are ; how they
are sent forth by the object, and enter by
the organs of the senses; how they are
preserved and refined by various agents,
called internal senses, concerning the num-
ber and offices of which they had many
controversies. But we shall not enter into
a detail of these matters.
The reason of giving this brief account of
the theory of the Peripatetics, with regard to
the immediate objects of our thoughts, is,
because the doctrine of medern philoso-
phers concerning ideas is built upon it. Mr
Ilocke, who uses this word so very fre-
quently, tellsus, that hemeans thesame thing
by it as is commonly [26] meant by species
or phantasm. Gassendi, from whom Locke
borrowed more than from any other author,
says the same. The words species and
phantasm, are terms of art in the Peripa-
tetic system, and the meaning of them is to
be learned from it.t
The theory of Democritus and Epicurus,
on this subject, was not very unlike to that
of the Peripateties. They held that all
bodies continually send forth slender films
or spectres from their surface, of such
extreme subtilty that they easily penetrate
our gross bodies, or enter by the organs of
sense, and stamp their image upon the
mind. The sensible species of Aristotle
were mere forms without matter. The
spectres of Epicurus were composed of a
very subtile matter.
Modern philosophers, as well as the Peri-
patetics and Epicureans of old, have con-
ceived that external objects cannot be the
immediate objects of our thought ; that
there must be some image of them in the
mind itself, in which, as in a mirror, they
are seen. And the name idea, in the philo-
sophical sense of it, is given to those inter-
nal and immediate objects of our thoughts.
The external thing is the remote or mediate
object; but the idea, or image of that object
in the mind, is the immediate object, without
which we could have no perception, no re-
membrance, no conception of the mediate
object."
When, therefore, in common language,
we speak of having an idea of anything, we
Imean no more by that expression, but
thinking of it. The vulgar allow that this
expression implies a mind that thinks, an
act of that mind which we call thinking,
and an object about which we think. But,
besides these three, the philosopher con-
ceives that there is a fourth—to wit, the
idea, which is the immediate object. The
idea is in the mind itself, and can have no
existence but in a mind that thinks; but the
remote or mediate object may be something
external, as the sun or moon; it may be
Something past or future; it may be some-
thing which never existed. [27} This is
the philosophical meaning of the word idea ;
and we may observe that this meaning of
that word is built upon a philosophical
opinion : for, if philosophers had not be-
lieved that there are such immediate objects
of all our thoughts in the mind, they would
never have used the word idea to express
them. -
I shall only add, on this article, that, al-
though I may have occasion to use the word
idea in this philosophical sense in explaining
the opinions of others, I shall have no occa-
sion to use it in expressing my own, because
I believe ideas, taken in this sense, to be
a mere fiction of philosophers. And, in the
popular meaning of the word, there is the
less occasion to use it, because the English
words thought, motion, apprehension, answer
the purpose as well as the Greek word
idea ; with this advantage, that they are
less ambiguous. There is, indeed, a mean-
ing of the word idea, which I think most
agreeable to its use in ancient philosophy,
and which I would willingly adopt, if use,
the arbiter of language, did permit. But
this will come to be explained afterwards.
11. The word impression is used by Mr
Hume, in speaking of the operations of the
mind, almost as often as the word idea is
by Mr Locke. What the latter calls ideas,
the former divides into two classes; one of
which he calls impressions, the other ideas.
I shall make some observations upon Mr
Hume's explication of that word, and then
consider the proper meaning of it in the
English language.
“We may divide,” (says Mr Hume,
“Essays,” vol. II., p. 18,t) “all the percep-
tions of the human mind into two classes
or species, which are distinguished by their
* This is a tolerable account of the 'doctrine
vulgarly attributed to Aristotle.—H.
+. If by this it be meant that the terms of species
and phantasm, as occasionally employed by Gassendi
and Locke, are used by them in the common mean-
ing attached to them in the Schools, Reid is wrong.
Gassendi, no more than Des Cartes, in adopting
these terms of the Peripatetics, adopted them in
their Peripatetic signification. Both these philoso-
phers are explicit in declaring the contrary ; and
what these terms as employed by them denote, they
have clearly stated. Locke is less precise.— H.
* On Reid’s ambiguous employment of the ex-
pressions mediate and immediate object, see Note
B; and, on his confusion of the two hypotheses of
representation, Note C – H.
t “ Enquiry concerning Human Understanding,”
§ 2. The quotation has been filled up by the origi-
mal.--H.
[26, 27]
*
cHAP. I.]
227
EXPLICATION OF WORDS.
different degrees of force and vivacity. The
less lively and forcible are commonly deno-
minated THoughTs or IDEAs. The other
species want a name in our language, and
in most others; [I suppose because it was
not requisite for any but philosophical pur-
poses to rank them under a general term
or appellation.] Let us, therefore, use a
little freedom, and call them IMPRESSIONs:
[employing that word in a sense somewhat
different from the usual.] By the term
impression, then, I mean all our more lively
perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel,
or love, or hate, or desire, or will. [And
impressions are distinguished from] ideas
[which] are the [28] less lively perceptions,
of which we are conscious, when we reflect on
any of those sensations or movements above
mentioned.”
This is the explication Mr Hume hath
given in his “Essays” of the term impres-
sions, when applied to the mind; and his
explication of it, in his “Treatise of Human
Nº" is to the same purpose. [Vol. I.
p. 11.
Disputes about words belong rather to
grammarians than to philosophers; but
philosophers ought not to escape censure
when they corrupt a language, by using
words in a way which the purity of the lam-
guage will not admit. I find fault with Mr
Hume's phraseology in the words I have
quoted—
First, Because he gives the name of per-
ceptions to every operation of the mind.
Love is a perception, hatred a perception ;
desire is a perception, will is a perception;
and, by the same rule, a doubt, a question,
a command, is a perception. This is an
intolerable abuse of language, which no phi-
losopher has authority to introduce."
Secondly, When Mr Hume says, that we
may divide all the perceptions of the human
mind into two classes or species, which are
distinguished by their degrees of force and
.vivacity, the manner of expression is loose
and unphilosophical. To differ in species
is one thing; to differ in degree is an-
other. Things which differ in degree only
must be of the same species. It is a
maxim of common sense, admitted by all
men, that greater and less do not make
a change of species. The same man
may differ in the degree of his force and
vivacity, in the morning and at night, in
health and in sickness ; but this is so far
from making him a different species, that
it does not so much as make him a dif-
ferent individual. To say, therefore, that
two different classes, or species of percep-
* Hume did not introduce it. The term Percep-
tion was so used by Des-Cartes and many others; and,
as desires, feelings, &c. exist only as known, so are they
all, in a certain sense, cognitions (perceptions.)- H.
+ “ Magis et minus non variant speciem.”—H.
tions, are distinguished by the degrees of
their force and vivacity, is to confound a
difference of degree with a difference of
species, which every man of understanding
knows how to distinguish.” [29]
Thiſ dly, We may observe, that this
author, having given the general name of
perception to all the operations of the
mind,+ and distinguished them into two
classes or species, which differ only in de-
gree of force and vivacity, tells us, that he
gives the name of impressions to all our
more lively perceptions—to wit, when we
hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or
desire, or will. There is great confusion
in this account of the meaning of the word
impression. When I see, this is an im-
pression. But why has not the author
told us whether he gives the name of im-
pression to the object seen, or to that act of
my mind by which I see it 2 When I see
the full moon, the full moon is one thing,
my perceiving it is another thing. Which
of these two things does he call an impres-
sion ? We are left to guess this ; nor does
all that this author writes about impressions
clear this point. Everything he says tends
to darken it, and to lead us to think that the
full moon which I see, and my seeing it, are
not two things, but one and the same thing.:
The same observation may be applied to
every other instance the author gives to
illustrate the meaning of the word impres-
sion. “ When we hear, when we feel,
when we love, when we hate, when we de-
sire, when we will.” In all these acts of
the mind there must be an object, which is
heard, or felt, or loved, or hated, or desired,
or willed. Thus, for instance, I love my
country. This, says Mr Hume, is an im-
pression. But what is the impression ? Is it
my country, or is it the affection Ibear to it?
I ask the philosopher this question ; but I
find no answer to it. And when I read all
* This objection reaches far more extensively than
to Hume ; in fact, to all who do not allow an imme-
diate knowledge or consciousness of the mon-ego in
perception. Where are the philosophers who io 2–
Aristotle and Hobbes call imagination a dying sense;
and Des Cartes is equally explicit.-H.
t As others previously had done.-H.
# This objection is easily answered. The thing,
(Hume would say,) as wnknown, as wnperceived, as
beyond the sphere of my consciousness, is to me as
zero; to that, therefore, I could not refer, As per-
ceived, as known, it must be within the sphere of my
consciousness; but, as philosophers concur in main;
taining that I can only be conscious of my mind and
its contents, the object, as perceived, must be either
a mode of, or something contained within my mind,
and to that internal object, as perceived, 1 give the
name of impression.—Nor can the act of perceptiºn
(he would add) be really distinguished from the ob.
ject perceived. Both are only, relatives, mutually
Constituent of the same indivisible relation of know-
ledge; and to that relation and these relatives I give
the name of impression, precisely as, in. different,
points of view, the term perception is applied to the
mind perceiving, to the object perceived, and to the
act of which these are the inseparable constituents,
This likewise has reference to what follows.-H.
[28, 29]
Q 2
228
[ESSAY 3.
ON. THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
that he has written on this subject, I find
this word impression sometimes used to sig-
nify an operation of the mind, sometimes
the object of the operation; but, for the
most part, it is a vague and indetermined
word that signifies both.
I know not whether it may be considered
as an apology for such abuse of words, in an
author who understood the language so well,
and used it with so great propriety in writ-
ing on other subjects, [30] that Mr Hume's
system, with regard to the mind, required a
language of a different structure from the
common : or, if expressed in plain English,
would have been too shocking to the com-
mon sense of mankind. To give an instance
or two of this. If a man receives a present
on which he puts a high value, if he see
and handle it, and put it in his pocket, this,
says Mr Hume, is an impression. If the
man only dream that he received such a
present, this is an idea. Wherein lies the
difference between this impression and this
idea—between the dream and the reality ?
They are different classes or species, says
Mr Hume : so far all men will agree with
him. But he adds, that they are distinguished
only by different degrees of force and viva-
city. Here he insinuates a tenet of his
own, in contradiction to the commonsense
of mankind. Common sense convinces every
man, that a lively dream is no nearer to a
reality than a faint one; and that, if a man
should dream that he had all the wealth of
Croesus, it would not put one farthing in
his pocket. It is impossible to fabricate ar-
guments against such undeniable principles,
without confounding the meaning of words.
In like manner, if a man would persuade
me that the moon which I see, and my see-
ing it, are not two things, but one and the
Same thing, he will answer his purpose less
by arguing this point in plain English, than
by confounding the two under one name—
Such as that of an impression. For such is
the power of words, that, if we can be
brought to the habit of calling two things
that are connected by the same name, we are
the more easily led to believe them to be
one and the same thing. -
Let us next consider the proper meaning
of the word impression” in English, that we
may see how far it is fit to express either
the operations of the mind or their objects.
When a figure is stamped upon a body by
pressure, that figure is called an impression,
as the impression of a seal on wax, of [31]
printing-types, or of a copperplate on paper.
This seems now to be the literal sense of
the word; the effect borrowing its name
from the cause. But, by metaphor or ana-
logy, like most other words, its meaning is
extended, so as to signify any change pro-
* See below, under p. 338.—H.
duced in a body by the operation of some
external cause. A blow of the hand makes
no impression on a stone wall; but a bat-
tery of cannon may. The moon raises a
tide in the ocean, but makes no impression
on rivers and lakes.
When we speak of making an impression
on the mind, the word is carried still farther
from its literal meaning ; use, however,
which is the arbiter of language, authorizes
this application of it—as when we say that
admonition and reproof make little impres-
sion on those who are confirmed in bad
habits. The same discourse delivered in
one way makes a strong impression on the
hearers; delivered in another way, it makes
no impression at all.
It may be observed that, in such ex-
amples, an impression made on the mind
always implies some change of purpose or
will ; some new habit produced, or some
former habit weakened; some passion raised
or allayed. When such changes are pro-
duced by persuasion, example, or any ex-
ternal cause, we say that such causes make
an impression upon the mind; but, when
things are seen, or heard, or apprehended,
without producing any passion or emotion,
we say that they make no impression.
In the most extensive sense, an impres-
sion is a change produced in some passive
subject by the operation of an external
cause. If we suppose an active being to
produce any change in itself by its own
active power, this is never called an im-
pression. It is the act or operation of
the being itself, not an impression upon it.
From this it appears, that to give the name
of an impression to any effect produced in
the mind, is to suppose that the mind does
not act at all in the production of that effect.
If seeing, hearing, desiring, willing, be
operations of the mind, they cannot be im-
pressions. If [32] they be impressions, they
cannot be operations of the mind. In the
structure of all languages, they are con-
sidered as acts or operations of the mind it-
self, and the names given them imply this.
To call them impressions, therefore, is to
trespass against the structure, not of a par-
ticular language only, but of all languages.”
If the word impression be an improper
word to signify the operations of the mind,
it is at least as improper to signify their
objects; for would any man be thought to
speak with propriety, who should say that
the Sun is an impression, that the earth and
the sea are impressions?
It is commonly believed, and taken for
granted, that every language, if it be suffi-
ciently copious in words, is equally fit to
express all opinions, whether they be true
• But see Scaliger, “De Subtilitate," Exerc. 298,
[30–32T
CELAP. I.]
229
EXPLICATION OF WORDS.
or false. I apprehend, however, that there
is an exception to this general rule, which
deserves our notice. There are certain
common opinions of mankind, upon which
the structure and grammar of all languages
are founded. While these opinions are
common to all men, there will be a great
similarity in all languages that are to be
found on the face of the earth. Such a
similarity there really is; for we find in all
languages the same parts of speech, the
distinction of nouns and verbs, the distinc-
tion of nouns into adjective and substan-
tive, of verbs into active and passive. In
verbs we find like tenses, moods, persons,
and numbers. There are general rules of
grammar, the same in all languages. This
similarity of structure in all languages,
shews an uniformity among men in those
opinions upon which the structure of lan-
guage is founded.
If, for instance, we should suppose that
there was a nation who believed that the
things which we call attributes might exist
without a subject, there would be in their
language no distinction between adjectives
and substantives, nor would it be a rule
with them that an adjective has no mean-
ing, unless when joined to a substantive.
If there was any nation who did not dis-
tinguish between [33] acting and being acted
upon, there would in their language be no
distinction between active and passive
verbs ; nor would it be a rule that the
active verb must have an agent in the
nominative case, but that, in the passive
verb, the agent must be in an oblique case.
Thestructure of all languages is grounded
upon common motions, which Mr Hume's
philosophy opposes, and endeavours to
overturn. This, no doubt, led him to warp
the common language into a conformity with
his principles; but we ought not to imitate
him in this, until we are satisfied that his
principles are built on a solid foundation.
12. Sensation is a name given by philo-
sophers to an act of mind, which may be
distinguished from all others by this, that
it hath no object distinct from the act itself.”
Pain of every kind is an uneasy sensation.
When I am pained, I cannot say that the
pain I feel is one thing, and that my feeling
it is another thing. They are one and the
same thing, and cannot be disjoined, even
in imagination. Pain, when it is not felt,
has no existence. It can be neither greater
nor less in degree or duration, nor anything
else in kind than it is felt to be. It cannot
exist by itself, nor in any subject but in a
sentient being. No quality of an inanimate
* But sensation, in the language of philosophers,
has been generally employed to denote the whole pro-
cess of sensitive,cognition, including both perception
-proper and sensation proper. On this distinction,
see below, Essay II., ch. xvi., and Note D.”—H.
insentient being can have the least resem-
blance to it.
What we have said of pain may be
applied to every other sensation. Some of
them are agreeable, others uneasy, in
various degrees. These being objects of
desire or aversion, have some attention
given to them ; but many are indifferent,
and so little attended to that they have no
name in any language.
Most operations of the mind that have
names in common language, are complex
in their nature, and made up of various
ingredients, or more simple acts ; which,
though conjoined in our constitution, must
be disjoined by abstraction, in order to our
having a distinct and scientific notion of the
complex operation. [34] In such operations,
Sensation, for the most part, makes an in-
gredient. Those who do not attend to the
complex nature of such operations, are apt
to resolve them into some one of the simple
acts of which they are compounded, over-
looking the others. And from this cause
many disputes have been raised, and many
errors have been occasioned with regard to
the nature of such operations.
The perception of external objects is
accompanied with some sensation corre-
sponding to the object perceived, and such
Sensations have, in many cases, in all lan-
guages, the same name with the external
object which they always accompany. The
difficulty of disjoining, by abstraction, things
thus constantly conjoined in the course of
nature, and things which have one and the
same name in all languages, has likewise
been frequently an occasion of errors in the
philosophy of the mind. To avoid such
errors, nothing is of more importance than
to have a distinct notion of that simple
act of the mind which we call sensation, and
which we have endeavoured to describe.
By this means, we shall find it more easy to
distinguish it from every external object that
it accompanies, and from every other act of
the mind that may be conjoined with it.
For this purpose, it is likewise of import-
ance that the name of sensation should, in
philosophical writings, be appropriated to
signify this simple act of the mind, without
including anything more in its signification,
or being applied to other purposes.
I shall add an observation concerning the
word feeling. This word has two meanings.
First, it signifies the perceptions we have of
external objects, by the sense of touch.
When we speak of feeling a body to be hard
or soft, rough or smooth, hot or cold, to
feel these things is to perceive them by
touch. They are external things, and that
act of the mind by which we feel them is
easily distinguished from the objects felt.
Secondly, the word feeling is used to signify
the same thing as sensation, which we have
[38, 34]
230
[ESSAY Y.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
just now explained ; and, in this sense, it
has no object; the feeling and the thing
felt are one and the same. [35]
Perhaps betwixt feeling, taken in this
last sense, and sensation, there may be this
small difference, that sensation is most com-
monly used to signify those feelings which
we have by our external senses and bodily
appetites, and all our bodily pains and
pleasures. But there are feelings of a
nobler nature accompanying our affections,
our moral judgments, and our determina-
tions in matters of taste, to which the word
sensation is less properly applied.
I have premised these observations on
the meaning of certain words that frequently
occur in treating of this subject, for two
reasons : First, That I may be the better
understood when Iuse them; and, Secondly,
That those who would make any progress
in this branch of Science, may accustom
themselves to attend very carefully to the
meaning of words that are used in it. They
may be assured of this, that the ambiguity
of words, and the vague and improper appli-
cation of them, have thrown more darkness
upon this subject than the subtilty and
intricacy of things.
When we use common words, we ought
to use them in the sense in which they are
most commonly used by the best and purest
writers in the language; and, when we have
occasion to enlarge or restrict the meaning
of a common word, or give it more precision
than it has in common language, the reader
ought to have warning of this, otherwise we
shall impose upon ourselves and upon him.
A very respcctable writer has given a
good example of this kind, by explaining,
in an Appendix to his “Elements of Criti-
cism,” the terms he has occasion to use.
In that Appendix, most of the words are
explained on which I have been making
observations; and the explication I have
given, I think, agrees, for the most part,
with his.
Other words that need explication, shall
Be explained as they occur. [36]
CHAPTER II.
PRINCIPLES TAIKEN FOR GRANTED.
Asthere are words common to philosophers
and to the vulgar, which need no explica-
tion, so there are principles common to both,
which need no proof, and which do not
admit of direct proof.
One who applies to any branch of science,
must be come to years of understanding,
and, consequently, must have exercised his
reason, and the other powers of his mind,
in various ways. He must have formed
various opinions and principles, by which he
conducts himself in the affairs of life. Of
those principles, some are common to all
men, being evident in themselves, and so
necessary in the conduct of life that a man
cannot live and act according to the rules
of common prudence without them.
All men that have common understand-
ing, agree in such principles; and consider
a man as lunatic or destitute of common
sense, who denies or calls thema in question.
Thus, if any man were found of so strange
a turn as not to believe his own eyes, to
put no trust in his senses, nor have the
least regard to their testimony, would any
man think it worth while to reason gravely
with such a person, and, by argument, to
convince him of his error P Surely no wise
man would. For, before men can reason
together, they must agree in first principles;
and it is impossible to reason with a man
who has no principles in common with you.
There are, therefore, common principles,
which are the foundation of all reasoning
and of all science. Such common principles
seldom admit of direct proof, nor do they
need it. Men need not to be taught them ;
for they are such as all men of [37] com-
mon understanding know; or such, at least,
as they give a ready assent to, as soon as
they are proposed and understood.
Such principles, when we have occasion
to use them in science, are called aarioms.
And, although it be not absolutely neces-
sary, yet it may be of great use, to point
out the principles or axioms on which a
science is grounded. -
Thus, mathematicians, before they prove
any of the propositions of mathematics, lay
down certain axioms, or common princi-
ples, upon which they build their reason-
ings. And although those axioms be truths
which every man knew before—such as,
That the whole is greater than a part, That
equal quantities added to equal quantities
make equal sums; yet, when we see no-
thing assumed in the proof of mathematical
propositions, but such self-evident axioms,
the propositions appear more certain, and
leave no room for doubt or dispute.
In all other sciences, as well as in mathe-
matics, it will be found that there are a
few common principles, upon which all the
reasonings in that science are grounded,
and into which they may be resolved. If
these were pointed out and considered, we
should be betterableto judge whatstress may
be laid upon the conclusions in that science.
If the principles be certain, the conclusions
justly drawn from them must be certain.
If the principles be only probable, the con-
clusions can only be probable. If the prin-
ciples be false, dubious, or obscure, the
superstructure that is built upon them
must partake of the weakness of the found-
ation,
[35–37]
ch AP. II.
231
PRINCIPLES TAKEN FOR GRANTED.
Sir Isaac Newton, the greatest of na-
tural philosophers, has given an example
well worthy of imitation, by laying down
the common principles or axioms, on which
the reasonings in natural philosophy are
built. Before this was done, the reason-
ings of philosophers in that science were
as vague and uncertain as they are in
most others. Nothing was fixed ; all was
dispute and controversy; [38] but, by
this happy expedient, a solid foundation
is laid in that Science, and a noble Super-
structure is raised upon it, about which
there is now no more dispute or con-
troversy among men of knowledge, than
there is about the conclusions of mathe-
matics.
It may, however be observed, that the
first principles of natural philosophy are of
a quite different nature from mathematical
axioms: they have not the same kind of
evidence, nor are they necessary truths, as
mathematical axioms are. They are such as
these : That similar effects proceed from the
same or similar causes ; That we ought to
admit of no other causes of natural effects,
but such as are true, and sufficient to ac-
count for the effects. These are principles
which, though they have not the same kind of
evidēnce that mathematical axioms have ;
yet have such evidence that every man of
common understanding readily assents to
them, and finds it absolutely necessary to
conduct his actions and opinions by them,
in the ordinary affairs of life.
Though it has not been usual, yet I con-
ceive it may be useful, to point out some of
those things which I shall take for granted,
as first principles, in treating of the mind
and its faculties. There is the more oc-
casion for this ; because very ingenious
men, such as Des Cartes, Malebranche,
Arnauld, Locke, and many others, have
lost much labour, by not distinguishing
things which require proof, from things
which, though they may admit of illustra-
tration, yet, being self-evident, do not admit
of proof. When men attempt to deduce
such self-evident principles from others
more evident, they always fall into incon-
clusive reasoning; and the consequence of
this has been, that others, such as Berkeley
and Hume, finding the arguments brought
to prove such first principles to be weak
and inconclusive, have been tempted first
to doubt of them, and afterwards to deny
them.
It is so irksome to reason with those who
deny first principles, that wise men com-
monly decline it. Yet it is not impossible,
that [39] what is only a vulgar prejudice
may be mistaken for a first principle. Nor
is it impossible that what is really a first
principle may, by the enchantment of words,
have such a mist thrown about it, as to
hide its evidence, and to make a man of
candour doubt of it. Such cases happen
more frequently, perhaps, in this science.
than in any other; but they are not alto-
gether without remedy. There are ways
by which the evidence of first principles
may be made more apparent when they are
brought into dispute; but they require to
be handled in a way peculiar to themselves.
Their evidence is not demonstrative, but
intuitive. They require not proof, but to
be placed in a proper point of view. This
will be shewn more fully in its proper place,
and applied to those very principles which
we now assume. In the meantime, when
they are proposed as first principles, the
reader is put on his guard, and warned to
consider whether they have a just claim to
that character.
1. First, then, I shall take it for granted,
that I think, that I remember, that I rea-
son, and, in general, that I really perform
all those operations of mind of which I am
conscious.
The operations of our minds are attended
with consciousness; and this consciousness
is the evidence, the only evidence, which
we have or can have of their existence. If
a man should take it into his head to think
or to say that his consciousness may de-
ceive him, and to require proof that it can-
not, I know of no proof that can be given
him ; he must be left to himself, as a man
that denies first principles, without which
there can be no reasoning. Every man
finds himself under a necessity of believing
what consciousness testifies, and everything
that hath this testimony is to be taken as a
first principle."
2. As by consciousness we know cer-
tainly the existence of our present thoughts
and passions; so we know the past by re-
membrance.t. And, when they are re-
cent, and the remembrance of them fresh,
[40] the knowledge of them, from such
distinct remembrance, is, in its certainty
and evidence, next to that of conscious-
110.SS.
3. But it is to be observed that we are
conscious of many things to which we give
little or no attention. We can hardly at-
tend to several things at the same time;
and our attention is commonly employed
about that which is the object of our
thought, and rarely about the thought it-
self. Thus, when a man is angry, his
• To doubt that we are conscious of this or that,
is impossible. For the doubt must at least postulate
itself; but the doubt is only a datum of conscious-
ness; therefore, in postulating its Uwn reality, it ad-
mits, the truth of consciousness, and consequently
annihilates itself. See below, p. 579. On Con-
sciousness, in the history of psychology, see Note H.
+ Remembrance cannot be taken out of Con-
sciousness. See Note H.- H
[38–40T
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
| ESSAY 1.
attention is turned to the injury done him,
or the injurious person; and he gives very
little attention to the passion of anger, al-
though he is conscious of it. It is in our
power, however, when we come to the
years of understanding, to give attention to
our own thoughts and passions, and the va-
rious operations of our minds. And, when
we make these the objects of our atten-
tion, either while they are present or
when they are recent and fresh in our me-
mory, this act of the mind is called reflec-
tion.
We take it for granted, therefore, that,
by attentive reflection, a man may have a
clear and certain knowledge of the opera-
tions of his own mind; a knowledge no less
clear and certain than that which he has
of an external object when it is set before
his eyes.
This reflection is a kind of intuition, it
gives a like conviction with regard to in-
ternal objects, or things in the mind, as
the faculty of seeing gives with regard to
objects of sight. A man must, therefore,
be convinced beyond possibility of doubt,
of everything with regard to the opera-
tions of his own mind, which he clearly
and distinctly discerns by attentive reflec-
tion."
4. I take it for granted that all the
thoughts I am conscious of, or remember,
are the thoughts of one and the same
thinking principle, which I call myself, or
my mind. Every man has an immediate
and irresistible conviction, not only of his
present existence, but of his continued
existence and identity, as far back as he
can remember. If any man should think
fit to demand [41] a proof that the thoughts
he is successively conscious of, belong to
one and the same thinking principle—if
he should demand a proof that he is the
same person to-day as he was yesterday, or
a year ago—I know no proof that can be
given him ; he must be left to himself,
either as a man that is lunatic, or as one
who denies first principles, and is not to be
reasoned with.
Every man of a sound mind, finds him-
self under a necessity of believing his own
identity, and continued existence. The
conviction of this is immediate and irresist-
able; and, if he should lose this conviction,
it would be a certain proof of insanity,
which is not to be remedied by reasoning.
5. I take it for granted, that there are
some things which cannot exist by them-
selves, but must be in something else to
which they belong, as qualities, or attributes.
Thus, motion cannot exist, but in some-
* See infra, pp. 60, 105, 581, where a similar, and
pp. 324,516, where a different extension is given to
Reflection. On Attention and Reflection, in the
history of psychology, see Note I.-H. |
thing that is moved. And to suppose that
there can be motion while everything is at
rest, is a gross and palpable absurdity. In
like manner, hardness and softness, sweet-
ness and bitterness, are things which cannot
exist by themselves; they are qualities of
something which is hard or soft, sweet or
bitter. ... That thing, whatever it be, of
which they are qualities, is called their sub-
ject; and such qualities necessarily suppose
a subject.
. Things which may exist by themselves,
and do not necessarily suppose the exist-
ence of anything else, are called substances :
and, with relation to the qualities or attri-
butes that belong to them, they are called
the subjects of such qualities or attributes.
All the things which we immediately per-
ceive by our senses, and all the things we
are conscious of, are things which must be
in something else, as their subject. Thus,
by my senses, I perceive figure, colour,
hardness, softness, motion, resistance, and
such [42] like things. But these are qualities,
and must necessarily be in something that
is figured, coloured, hard or soft, that
moves, or resists. It is not to these qua-
lities, but to that which is the subject of
them, that we give the name of body. If
any man should think fit to deny that these
things are qualities, or that they require any
subject, I leave him to enjoy his opinion as
a man who denies first principles, and is
not fit to be reasoned with. If he has
common understanding, he will find that he
cannot converse half an hour without say-
ing things which imply the contrary of what
he professes to believe.
In like manner, the things I am conscious
of, such as thought, reasoning, desire, ne-
cessarily suppose something that thinks,
that reasons, that desires. We do not give
the name of mind to thought, reason, or
desire ; but to that being which thinks,
which reasons, and which desires.
That every act or operation, therefore,
supposes an agent, that every quality sup-
poses a subject, are things which I do not
attempt to prove, but take for granted.
Every man of common understanding dis-
cerns this immediately, and cannot enter-
tain the least doubt of it. In all languages,
we find certain words which, by gramma-
rians, are called adjectives. Such words
denote attributes, and every adjective must
have a substantive to which it belongs—
that is, every attribute must have a subject.
In all languages, we find active verbs which
denote some action or operation ; and it
is a fundamental rule in the grammar of all
languages, that such a verb supposes a per-
son—that is, in other words, that every
action, must have an agent. We take it,
therefore, as a first principle, that goodness,
wisdom, and virtue, can only be in some
[41, 42.]
CHAP. II.]
233
PRINCIPLES TAKEN FOR GRANTED.
being that is good, wise, and virtuous;
that thinking supposes a being that thinks;
and that every operation we are conscious
of supposes an agent that operates, which
we call mind.
6. I take it for granted, that, in most
operations of the mind, there [43] must be an
object distinct from the operation itself. I
cannot see, without seeing something. To
see without having any object of sight is
absurd. I cannot remember, without re-
membering something. The thing remem-
bered is past, while the remembrance of it
is present; and, therefore, the operation
and the object of it must be distinct things.
The operations of our mind are denoted, in
all languages, by active transitive verbs,
which, from their construction in grammar,
require not only a person or agent, but
likewise an object of the operation. Thus,
the verb know, denotes an operation of
mind. From the general structure of lan-
guage, this verb requires a person—I know,
you know, or he knows; but it requires no
less a noun in the accusative case, denoting
the thing known; for he that knows must
know something ; and, to know, without
having any object of knowledge, is an ab-
surdity too gross to admit of reasoning.”
7. We ought likewise to take for granted,
as first principles, things wherein we find
an universal agreement, among the learned
and unlearned, in the different nations and
ages of the world.- A consent of ages and
nations, of the learned and vulgar, ought,
at least, to have great authority, unless we
can shew some prejudice as universal as
that consent is, which might be the cause
of it. Truth is one, but error is infinite.
There are many truths so obvious to
the human faculties, that it may be ex-
pected that men should universally agree in
them. And this is actually found to be
the case with regard to many truths, against
which we find no dissent, unless perhaps
that of a few sceptical philosophers, who
may justly be suspected, in such cases, to
differ from the rest of mankind, through
pride, obstinacy, or Some favourite passion.
Where there is such universal consent
in things not deep nor intricate, but which
lie, as it were, on the surface, there is the
greatest presumption that can be, that it is
the natural result of the human faculties;
and it must have great authority with every
sober [44] mind that loves truth. Major
enim pars eo fere deferri solet quo a natura
deducitur.—CIC. de Off. I. 41.
Perhaps it may be thought that it is
impossible to collect the opinions of all men
upon any point whatsoever ; and, there-
fore, that this maxim can be of no use.
But there are many cases wherein it is
* See Note B.-H.
+ See Note A.—H.
otherwise. Who can doubt, for instance,
whether mankind have, in all ages, believed
the existence of a material world, and that
those things which they see and handle are
real, and not mere illusions and appari-
tions 2 Who can doubt whether mankind
have universally believed that everything
that begins to exist, and every change that
happens in nature, must have a cause ?
Who can doubt whether mankind have
been universally persuaded that there is a
right and a wrong in human conduct 2–
some things which, in certain circumstan-
ces, they ought to do, and other things
which they ought not to do 2 The univers-
ality of these opinions, and of many such
that might be named, is sufficiently evi-
dent, from the whole tenor of men's con-
duct, as far as our acquaintance reaches,
and from the records of history, in all
ages and nations, that are transmitted to
UlS.
There are other opinions that appear to
be universal, from what is common in the
structure of all languages, ancient and mo-
dern, polished and barbarous. Language is
the express image and picture of human
thoughts; and, from the picture, we mayoften
draw very certain conclusions with regard
to the original. We find in all languages the
same parts of speech—nouns substantive
and adjective, verbs active and passive,
varied according to the tenses of past, pre-
sent, and future ; we find adverbs, preposi-
tions, and conjunctions. There are general
rules of syntax common to all languages.
This uniformity in the structure of lan-
guage shews a certain degree of uniformity
in those notions upon which the structure of
language is grounded.
We find, in the structure of all lan-
guages, the distinction of [45] acting and
being acted upon, the distinction of action
and agent, of quality and subject, and many
others of the like kind ; which shews that
these distinctions are founded in the uni-
versal sense of mankind. We shall have
frequent occasion to argue from the sense
of mankind expressed in the structure of
language; and therefore it was proper
here to take notice of the force of argu-
ments drawn from this topic.
8. I need hardly say that I shall also
take for granted such facts as are attested
to the conviction of all sober and reasonable
men, either by our senses, by memory, or
by human testimony. Although some wri-
ters on this subject have disputed the
authority of the senses, of memory, and of
every human faculty, yet we find that such
persons, in the conduct of life, in pursuing
their ends, or in avoiding dangers, pay the
same regard to the authority of their senses
and other faculties, as the rest of mankind.
By this they give us just ground to doubt of
ſ 43–45
234
[ESSAY i.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
their candour in their professions of scep-
ticism.
This, indeed, has always been the fate of
the few that have professed scepticism, that,
when they have done what they can to
discredit their senses, they find themselves,
after all, under a necessity of trusting to
them. Mr Hume has been so candid as to
acknowledge this; and it is no less true of
, those who have not shewn the same can-
dour; for I never heard that any sceptic
run his head against a post, or stepped into
a kennel, because he did not believe his
eyes.
Upon the whole, I acknowledge that we
ought to be cautious that we do not adopt
opinions as first principles which are not
entitled to that character. But there is
surely the least danger of men's being im-
posed upon in this way, when such prin-
ciples openly lay claim to the character, and
are thereby fairly exposed to the examina-
tion of those who may dispute their au-
thority. We do not pretend that those
things that are laid down as first principles
may not be examined, and that we ought
not to [46] have our ears open to what
may be pleaded against their being admit-
ted as such. Let us deal with them as an
upright judge does with a witness who has
a fair character. He pays a regard to the
testimony of such a witness while his cha-
racter is unimpeached; but, if it can be
shewn that he is suborned, or that he is
influenced by malice or partial favour, his
testimony loses all its credit, and is justly
rejected.
CHAPTER III.
OF HYPOTHESES.
EveRx branch of human knowledge hath
its proper principles, its proper foundation
and method of reasoning; and, if we en-
deavour to build it upon any other found-
ation, it will never stand firm and stable.
Thus, the historian builds upon testimony,
and rarely indulges conjecture; the anti-
quarian mixes conjecture with testimony,
and the former often makes the larger
ingredient; the mathematician pays not the
least regard either to testimony or conjec-
ture, but deduces everything, by demon-
strative reasoning, from his definitions and
axioms. Indeed, whatever is built upon
conjecture, is improperly called science ;
for conjecture may beget opinion, but can-
not produce knowledge. Natural philoso-
phy must be built upon the phaenomena of
the material system, discovered by observ-
ation and experiment.
When men first began to philosophize–
that is, to carry their thoughts beyond the
objects of sense, and to inquire into the
causes of things, and the secret operations
of nature—it was very natural for them to
indulge conjecture; nor was it to be ex-
pected that, in many ages, they should dis-
cover the proper and scientific way of pro-
ceeding in philosophical disquisitions. Ac-
cordingly, we find that the most ancient
systems in every branch of philosophy were
nothing but the conjectures of men famous
for their wisdom, whose fame gave author-
ity to their opinions. Thus, in early ages,
[47] wise men conjectured that this earth
is a vast plain, surrounded on all hands
by a boundless ocean ; that, from this ocean,
the Sun, moon, and stars emerge at their
rising, and plunge into it again at their
setting.
With regard to the mind, men in their
rudest state are apt to conjecture that the
principle of life in a man is his breath ; be-
cause the most obvious distinction between
a living and a dead man is, that the one
breathes, and the other does not. To this
it is owing that, in ancient languages, the
word which denotes the soul, is that which
properly signifies breath or air.
As men advance in knowledge, their first
conjectures appear silly and childish, and
give place to others, which tally better with
later observations and discoveries. Thus
one system of philosophy succeeds another,
without any claim to superior merit, but
this—that it is a more ingenious system of
conjectures, and accounts better for com-
mon appearances.
To omit many ancient systems of this
kind, Des Cartes, about the middle of the
last century, dissatisfied with the materia
prima, the substantial forms, and the occult
qualities of the Peripatetics, conjectured
boldly, that the heavenly bodies of our sys-
tem are carried round by a vortex or whirl-
pool of subtile matter, just as straws and
chaff are carried round in a tub of water.
He conjectured, that the soul is seated in a
small gland in the brain, called the pineal
gland; that there, as in her chamber of
presence, she receives intelligence of every-
thing that affects the senses, by means of a
subtile fluid contained in the nerves, called
the animal spirits; and that she dispatches
these animal spirits, as her messengers, to
put in motion the several muscles of the
body, as there is occasion." By such con-
# It is not, however, to be supposed that Des Cartes
allowed the soul to be seated by local presence in any
part of the body; for the smallest point of body is
still extended, and mind is absolutely simple and in-
capable of occupying place. The pineal gland, in the
Cartesian doctrine, is only analogically called the seat
of the soul, inasmuch as this is viewed as the cen-
tral point of the corporeal organism; but while
through this point the mind and body are mutually
connected, that connection is not one of a mere
physical dépendence, as they do not operate on each
by direct and natural causation.-H. -
- [46, 47.]
chAP. III.]
235
OF HYPOTHESES.
jectures as these, Des Cartes could account
for every phaenomenon in nature, in such a
plausible manner as gave satisfaction to a
great part of the learned world for more
than half a century. [48]
Such conjectures in philosophical matters
have commonly got the name of hypotheses,
or theories." And the invention of a hypo-
thesis, founded on some slight probabilities,
which accounts for many appearances of
nature, has been considered as the highest
attainment of a philosopher. If the hypo-
thesis hangs well together, is embellished
by a lively imagination, and serves to ac-
count for common appearances, it is con-
sidered by many as having all the qualities
that should recommend it to our belief,
and all that ought to be required in a philo-
Sophical system.
There is such proneness in men of génius
to invent hypotheses, and in others to
acquiesce in them, as the utmost which the
human faculties can attain in philosophy,
that it is of the last consequence to the pro-
gress of real knowledge, that men should
have a clear and distinct understanding of
the nature of hypotheses in philosophy, and
of the regard that is due to them.
Although some conjectures may have a
considerable degree of probability, yet it is
evidently in the nature of conjecture to be
uncertain. In every case the assent ought
to be proportioned to the evidence; for to
believe firmly what has but a small degree
of probability, is a manifest abuse of our
understanding. Now, though we may, in
many cases, form very probable conjectures
concerning the works of men, every conjec-
ture we can form with regard to the works
of God has as little probability as the con-
jectures of a child with regard to the works
of a man.
The wisdom of God exceeds that of the
wisest man, more than his wisdom exceeds
that of a child. If a child were to conjec-
ture how an army is to be formed in the
day of battle—how a city is to be fortified,
or a state governed—what chance has he
to guess right P As little chance has the
wisest man when he pretends to conjecture
how the planets move in their courses, how
the sea ebbs and flows, and how our minds
act upon our bodies. [49]
If a thousand of the greatest wits that
ever the world produced were, without any
previous knowledge in anatomy, to sit down
and contrive how, and by what internal
organs, the various functions of the human
body are carried on, how the blood is made
to circulate and the limbs to move, they
would not, in a thousand years, hit upon any-
thing like the truth. -
Of all the discoveries that have been
* See above, note #, p. 97, b.—H.
made concerning the inward structure of
the human body, never one was made by
conjecture. Accurate observations of ana-
tomists have brought to light innumerable
artifices of Nature in the contrivance of this
machine of the human body, which we can-
not but admire as excellently adapted to
their several purposes. But the most saga-
cious physiologist never dreamed of them
till they were discovered. On the other
hand, innumerable conjectures, formed in
different ages, with regard to the structure
of the body, have been confuted by obser-
vation, and none ever confirmed.
What we have said of the internal struc-
ture of the human body, may be said, with
justice, of every other part of the works of
God, wherein any real discovery has been
made. Such discoveries have always been
made by patient observation, by accurate
experiments, or by conclusions drawn by
strict reasoning from observations and ex-
periments; and such discoveries have always
tended to refute, but not to confirm, the
theories and hypotheses which ingenious
men have invented.
As this is a fact confirmed by the history
of philosophy in all past ages, it ought to
have taught men, long ago, to treat with
just contempt hypotheses in every branch
of philosophy, and to despair of ever ad-
vancing real knowledge in that way. The
Indian philosopher, being at a loss to know
how the earth was supported, invented the
hypothesis of a huge elephant; and this
elephant he supposed to stand upon the
back of a huge tortoise. This hypothesis,
however ridiculous it appears to us, might
seem very reasonable [50] to other Indians,
who knew no more than the inventor of it;
and the same will be the fate of all hypo-
theses invented by men to account for the
works of God. They may have a decent
and plausible appearance to those who are
not more knowing than the inventor; but,
when men come to be more enlightened,
they will always appear ridiculous and
childish.
This has been the case with regard to
hypotheses that have been revered by the
most enlightened part of mankind for hun-
dreds of years; and it will always be the
case to the end of the world. For, until
the wisdom of men bear some proportion to
the wisdom of God, their attempts to find
out the structure of his works, by the force
of their wit and genius, will be vain.
The finest productions of human art are
immensely short of the meanest works of
Nature. The nicest artist cannot make a
feather or the leaf of a tree. Human
workmanship will never bear a comparison
with divine. Conjectures and hypotheses
are the invention and the workmanship of
men, and must bear proportion to the capa-
[48–50] -
236
[ESSAY I.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
city and skill of the inventor; :and, there-
fore, will always be very unlike to the
works of God, which it is the business of
philosophy to discover.
The world has been so long befooled by
hypotheses in all parts of philosophy, that
it is of the utmost consequence to every
man who would make any progress in real
knowledge, to treat them with just con-
tempt, as the reveries of vain and fanciful
men,whose pride makes them conceive them-
selves able to unfold the mysteries of nature
by the force of their genius. A learned man,
in an epistle to Des Cartes, has the follow-
ing observation, which very much deserved
the attention of that philosopher, and of all
that come after him :—“When men, sit-
ting in their closet, and consulting only
their books, attempt disquisitions into nature,
they may, indeed, tell how they would have
made the world, if God had given them that
in commission; that is, they may describe
[51] chimeras, which correspond with the
imbecility of their own minds, no less than
the admirable beauty of the universe cor-
responds with the infinite perfection of its
Creator ; but without an understanding
truly divine, they can never form such an
idea to themselves as the Deity had in
creating things.” -
Let us, therefore, lay down this as a
fundamental principle in our inquiries into
the structure of the mind and its opera-
tions—that no regard is due to the conjec-
tures or hypotheses of philosophers, how-
ever ancient, however generally received.
Let us accustom ourselves to try every
opinion by the touchstone of fact and ex-
perience. What can fairly be deduced
from facts duly observed or sufficiently at-
tested, is genuine and pure; it is the voice
of God, and no fiction of human imagina-
tion.
The first rule of philosophising laid down
by the great Newton, is this :—Causas re-
rum naturalium, non plures admittà debere,
quam quae et vera sint, et earum phaeno
menis earplicandis sufficiant. “No more
causes, nor any other causes of natural
effects, ought to be admitted, but such as
are both true, and are sufficient for ex-
plaining their appearances.” This is a golden
rule ; it is the true and proper test, by
which what is sound and solid in philoso-
phy may be distinguished from what is hol-
low and vain.”
If a philosopher, therefore, pretends to
shew us the cause of any natural effect,
whether relating to matter or to mind, let
us first consider whether there is sufficient
& For this rule we are not indebted to Newton.
It is only the old law of parcimony, and that ambigu-
ously expressed. For, in their plain meaning, the
words “et vera sint” are redundant; or what follows is
redundant, and the whole rule a barren truism.—H.
evidence that the cause he assigns does
really exist. If there is not, reject it with
disdain, as a fiction which ought to have no
place in genuine philosophy. If the cause
assigned really exists, consider, in the next
place, whether the effect it is brought to
explain necessarily follows from it. Un-
less it has these two conditions, it is good
for nothing. -
When Newton had shewn the admirable
effects of gravitation in our planetary sys-
tem, he must have felt a strong desire to
know [52] its cause. He could have in-
vented a hypothesis for this purpose, as
many had done before him. But his phi-
losophy was of another complexion. Let
us hear what he says : Rationem hartim
gravitatis proprietatum ex phaenomenis m0n
potwi deducere, et hypotheses mon fingo.
Quicquid enim ea.phanomenis non deduci-
tur hypothesis vocanda est. Et hypotheses,
seu metaphysicae, sew physicae, sew qualita-
tum occullarum, sew mechanicae, in philoso-
phia eaperimentali locum non habent.
CHAPTER IV.
OF ANALOGY.
IT is natural to men to judge of things
less known, by some similitude they ob-
serve, or think they observe, between them
and things more familiar or better known.
In many cases, we have no better way of
judging. And, where the things compared
have really a great similitude in their na-
ture, when there is reason to think that they
are subject to the same laws, there may be
a considerable degree of probability in con-
clusions drawn from analogy.
Thus, we may observe a very great si-
militude between this earth which we in-
habit, and the other planets, Saturn, Ju-
piter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury. They
all revolve round the Sun, as the earth
does, although at different distances and
in different periods. They borrow all their
light from the sun, as the earth does.
Several of them are known to revolve round
their axis like the earth, and, by that
means, must have a like succession of day
and night. Some of them have moons,
that serve to give them light in the absence
of the sun, as our moon does to us. They
are all, in their motions, subject to the
same law of gravitation, as the earth is.
From all this similitude, it is not unrea-
sonable to think, that those planets may,
like our earth, be the habitation of va-
rious [53] orders of living creatures. There
is some probability in this conclusion from
analogy.
In medicine, physicians must, for the
most part, be directed in their prescriptions
L51–53]
CHAP. IV.]
237
OF ANALOGY.
by analogy. The constitution of one human
body is so like to that of another that it is
reasonable to think that what is the cause
of health or sickness to one, may have the
same effect upon another. And this ge-
nerally is found true, though not without
some exceptions.
In politics we reason, for the most part,
from analogy. The constitution of human
nature is so similar in different societies or
commonwealths, that the causes of peace
and war, of tranquillity and sedition, of
riches and poverty, of improvement and
degeneracy, are much the same in all.
Analogical reasoning, therefore, is not,
in all cases, to be rejected. It may afford
a greater or a less degree of probability,
according as the things compared are more
or less similar in their nature. But it
ought to be observed, that, as this kind of
reasoning can afford only probable evidence
at best ; so, unless great caution be used,
we are apt to be led into error by it. For
men are naturally disposed to conceive a
greater similitude in things than there
really is.
To give an instance of this: Anatomists,
in ancient ages, seldom dissected human
bodies; but very often the bodies of those
quadrupeds whose internal structure was
thought to approach nearest to that of the
human body. Modern anatomists have
discovered many mistakes the ancients
were led into, by their conceiving a greater
similitude between the structure of men
and of some beasts than there is in reality.
By this, and many other instances that
might be given, it appears that conclusions
built on analogy stand on a slippery founda-
tion ; and that we ought never to rest upon
evidence of this kind, when we can have
more direct evidence. [54]
I know no author who has made a more
just and a more happy use of this mode of
reasoning than Pishop Butler, in his “Ana-
logy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to
the Constitution and Course of Nature.”
In that excellent work the author does not
ground any of the truths of religion upon
analogy, as their proper evidence. He
only makes use of analogy to answer objec-
tions against them. When objections are
made against the truths of religion, which
may be made with equal strength against
what we know to be true in the course
of nature, such objections can have no
weight.
Analogical reasoning, therefore, may be
of excellent use in answering objections
against truths which have other evidence.
It may likewise give a greater or a less
degree of probability in cases where we can
find no other evidence. But all arguments,
drawn from analogy, are still the weaker,
the greater disparity there is between the
things compared ; and, therefore, must be
weakest of all when we compare body with
mind, because there are no two things in
nature more unlike.
There is no subject in which men have
always been so prome to form their notions
by analogies of this kind, as in what re-
lates to the mind. We form an early ac-
quaintance with material things by means
of our senses, and are bred up in a con-
stant familiarity with them. Hence we
are apt to measure all things by them ; and
to ascribe to things most remote from mat-
ter, the qualities that belong to material
things. It is for this reason, that man-
kind have, in all ages, been so prone to
conceive the mind itself to be some sub-
tile kind of matter : that they have been
disposed to ascribe human figure and hu-
man organs, not only to angels, but even
to the Deity. Though we are conscious of
the operations of our own minds when they
are exerted, and are capable of attending
to them, so as to form a distinct notion of
them, this is so difficult a work to men
whose attention is constantly solicited by
external objects, that we give them names
from things that are familiar, and which
[55] are conceived to have some similitude
to them ; and the notions we form of them
are no less analogical than the names we
give them. Almost all the words by which
we express the operations of the mind, are
borrowed from material objects. To un-
derstand, to conceive, to imagine, to com-
prehend, to deliberate, to infer, and many
others, are words of this kind ; so that the
very language of mankind, with regard to
the operations of our minds, is analogical.
Because bodies are affected only by con-
tact and pressure, we are apt to conceive
that what is an immediate object of thought,
and affects the mind, must be in contact
with it, and make some impression upon
it. When we imagine anything, the very
word leads us to think that there must be
Some image in the mind of the thing con-
ceived. It is evident that these notions
are drawn from some similitude conceived
between body and mind, and between the
properties of body and the operations of
mind.
To illustrate more fully that analogical
reasoning from a supposed similitude of
mind to body, which I conceive to be the
most fruitful source of error with regard to
the operations of our minds, I shall give an
instance of it.
When a man is urged by contrary motives
—those on one hand inciting him to do some
action, those on the other to forbear it—he
deliberates about it, and at last resolves to
do it, or not to do it. The contrary motives
are here compared to the weights in the
opposite scales of a balance ; and there is
ſ34. 55]
238
[ESSAY 1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
not, perhaps, any instance that can be
named of a more striking analogy between
body and mind. Hence the phrases of
weighing motives, of deliberating upon
actions, are common to all languages.
From this analogy, Some philosophers
draw very important conclusions. They
say, that, as the balance cannot incline to
one side more than the other when the
opposite weights are equal, so a man Can-
not possibly determine himself if the motives
on both hands are equal; and, as the bal-
ance must necessarily turn to that side [56]
which has most weight, so the man must
necessarily be determined to that hand
where the motive is strongest. And on
this foundation some of the schoolmen"
maintained that, if a hungry ass were
placed between two bundles of hay equally
inviting, the beast must standstill and starve
to death, being unable to turn to either,
because there are equal motives $o both.
This is an instance of that analogical rea-
soning which I conceive ought never to be
trusted; for the analogy between a balance
and a man deliberating, though one of the
strongest that can be found between matter
and mind, is too weak to support any argu-
ment. A piece of dead inactive matter,
and an active intelligent being, are things
very unlike; and, because the one would
remain at rest in a certain case, it does not
follow that the other would be inactive in a
case somewhat similar. The argument is
no better than this—That, because a dead
animal moves only as it is pushed, and, if
pushed with equal force in contrary direc-
tions, must remain at rest; therefore, the
same thing must happen to a living animal;
for, surely, the similitude between a dead
animal and a living, is as great as that
between a balance and a man.
The conclusion I would draw from all
that has been said on analogy, is, that, in
our inquiries concerning the mind and its
operations, we ought never to trust to rea-
sonings drawn from some supposed simili-
tude of body to mind; and that we ought
to be very much upon our guard that we
be not imposed upon by those analogical
terms and phrases, by which the operations
of the mind are expressed in all languages.
[57]
CHAPTER. W.
OF THE PROPER MEANS OF IRNOWING THE
OPERATIONS OF THE MIND.
SINCE we ought to pay no regard to hypo-
theses, and to be very suspicious of analo-
gical reasoning, it may be asked, From what
source must the knowledge of the mind
and its faculties be drawn 2
I answer, the chief and proper source of
this branch of knowledge is accurate reflec-
tion upon the operations of our own minds.
Of this source we shall speak more fully,
after making some remarks upon two others
that may be subservient to it. The first of
them is attention to the structure of lan-
guage.
The language of mankind is expressive of
their thoughts, and of the various opera-
tions of their minds. The various opera-
tions of the understanding, will, and pas-
sions, which are common to mankind, have
various forms of speech corresponding to
them in all languages, which are the signs
of them, and by which they are expressed:
And a due attention to the signs may, in
many cases, give considerable light to the
things signified by them. - •
There are in all languages modes of
speech, by which men signify their judg-
ment, or give their testimony; by which
they accept or refuse ; by which they ask
information or advice; by which they com-
mand, or threaten, or supplicate; by which
they plight their faith in promises or con-
tracts. If such operations were not com-
mon to mankind, we should not find in all
languages forms of speech, by which they
are expressed. -
All languages, indeed, have their imper-
fections—they can never be adequate to all
the varieties of human thought; and there-
fore things may be really distinct in their
nature, and capable of being distinguished
by the human mind, which are not distin-
guished [58] in common language. We can
only expect, in the structure of languages,
those distinctions which all mankind in the
common business of life have occasion to
make.
There may be peculiarities in a particular
language, of the causes of which we are
ignorant, and from which, therefore, we can
draw no conclusion. But whatever we find
common to all languages, must have a com-
mon cause; must be owing to some com-
mon notion or sentiment of the human
mind.
We gave some examples of this before,
and shall here add another. All languages
have a plural number in many of their
nouns; from which we may infer that all
men have notions, not of individual things
* This illustration is specially associated with
Joannes Buridanus, a celebrated Nominalist of the
14th century, and one-of the acutest reasoners on the
great question of moral liberty. The supposition
of the ass, &c., is not, however, as I have ascertained,
to be found in his writings. Perhaps it was orally
advanced tn disputation, or in lecturing, as an ex-
ample in illustration of his Determinism ; perhaps it
was employed by his opponents as an instance to
reduce that doctrine to absurdity. With this latter
view, a similar refutation of the principles of our
modern Fatalists was, as we have seen, ingeniously
essayed by Reid's friend and kinsman, Dr James
Gregory.—H.
[56–58]
on AP. v.]
239
OPERATIONS OF THE MIND.
only, but of attributes, or things which are
common to many individuals; for no indi-
vidual can have a plural number.
Another source of information in this
subject, is a due attention to the course of
human actions and conduct. The actions
of men are effects; their sentiments, their
passions, and their affections, are the causes
of those effects; and we may, in many cases,
form a judgment of the cause from the
effect.
The behaviour of parents towards their
children gives sufficient evidence even to
those who never had children, that the
parental affection is common to mankind.
It is easy to see, from the general conduct
of men, what are the natural objects of their
esteem, their admiration, their love, their
approbation, their resentment, and of all
their other original dispositions. It is
obvious, from the conduct of men in all
ages, that man is by his nature a social
animal; that he delights to associate with
his species; to converse, and to exchange
good offices with them.
Not only the actions, but even the opi-
nions of men may sometimes give light
into the frame of the human mind. The
opinions of men may be considered as the
effects of their intellectual powers, [59] as
their actions are the effects of their active
principles. Even the prejudices and errors
of mankind, when they are general, must
have some cause no less general; the dis-
covery of which will throw some light upon
the frame of the human understanding.
I conceive this to be the principal use of
the history of philosophy. When we trace
the history of the various philosophical opin-
ions that have sprung up among thinking
men, we are led into a labyrinth of fanciful
opinions, contradictions, and absurdities,
intermixed with some truths; yet we may
sometimes find a clue to lead us through the
several windings of this labyrinth. We may
find that point of view which presented
things to the author of the system, in the
light in which they appeared to him. This
will often give a consistency to things seem-
ingly contradictory, and some degree of
probability to those that appeared most
fanciful. *
The history of philosophy, considered as
a map of the intellectual operations of men
of genius, must always be entertaining, and
may sometimes give us views of the human
understanding, which could not easily be had
any other way.
I return to what I mentioned as the main
source of information on this subject—at-
tentive reflection upon the operations of our
own minds.
All the notions we have of mind and of
its operations, are, by Mr Locke, called
ideas of reflection." A man may have as
distinct notions of remembrance, of judg-
ment, of will, of desire, as he has of any
object whatever. Such notions, as Mr
Locke justly observes, are got by the power
of reflection. But what is this power of
reflection ? “It is,” says the same author,
“ that power by which the mind turns its
view inward, and observes its own actions
and operations.” He observes elsewhere,
“That the understanding, like the eye,
whilst it makes us see and perceive all [60]
other things, takes no notice of itself; and
that it requires art and pains to set it at a
distance, and make it its own object.”
Cicero hath expressed this sentiment most
beautifully. Tusc. I. 28.
This power of the understanding to make
its own operations its object, to attend to
them, and examine them on all sides, is the
power of reflection, by which alone we can
have any distinct notion of the powers of our
own or of other minds.
This reflection ought to be distinguished
from consciousness, with which it is too
often confounded, even by Mr Locke. All
men are conscious of the operations of their
own minds, at all times, while they are
awake; but there are few who reflect upon
them, or make them objects of thought,
From infancy, till we come to the years
of understanding, we are employed solely
about external objects. And, although the
mind is conscious of its operations, it does
not attend to them ; its attention is turned
solely to the external objects, about which
those operations are employed. Thus, when
a man is angry, he is conscious of his pas-
sion; but his attention is turned to the
person who offended him, and the circum-
stances of the offence, while the passion of
anger is not in the least the object of his
attention.
I conceive this is sufficient to shew the
difference between consciousness of the
operations of our minds, and reflection upon
them ; and to shew that we may have the
former without any degree of the latter.
The difference between consciousness and
reflection, is like to the difference between
a superficial view of an object which pre-
sents itself to the eye while we are engaged
about something else, and that attentive
examination which we give to an object
when we are wholly employed in surveying
it. Attention is a voluntary act; it re-
quires an active exertion to begin and to
continue it, and it may be continued as
long as we will; but consciousness [61] is
* “ Evory error,” says Bossuet, “ is a truth
abused.”— H
* Locke is not (as Reid seems to think, and as Mr.
Stewart expressly says) the first who introduced Re.
flection either as a psychological term, or a psycholo.
gical principle. See Note I.-H.
[59–61 |
240
[Essay 1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
involuntary and of no continuance, changing
with every thought. -
The power of reflection upon the oper-
ations of their own minds, does not appear
at all in children. Men must be come to
some ripeness of understanding before they
are capable of it. Of all the powers of the
human mind, it seems to be the last that
unfolds itself. Most men seem incapable of
acquiring it in any considerable degree.
Like all our other powers, it is greatly im-
proved by exercise ; and until a man has
got the habit of attending to the operations
of his own mind, he can never have clear
and distinct motions of them, nor form any
steady judgment concerning them. His
opinions must be borrowed from others, his
notions confused and indistinct, and he may
easily be led to swallow very gross absurd-
ities. To acquire this habit, is a work of
time and labour, even in those who begin it
early, and whose natural talents are toler-
ably fitted for it ; but the difficulty will be
daily diminishing, and the advantage of it
is great. They will, thereby, be enabled to
think with precision and accuracy on every
subject, especially on those subjects that
are more abstract. They will be able to
judge for themselves in many important
points, wherein others must blindly follow a
leader.
CHAPTER VI.
OF THE DIFFICULTY OF ATTENDING TO THE
OPERATIONS OF OUR OWN MINDS.
THE difficulty of attending to our mental
operations, ought to be well understood, and
justly estimated, by those who would make
any progress in this science; that they may
neither, on the one hand, expect success
without pains and application of thought;
nor, on the other, be discouraged, by con-
ceiving that the obstacles that lie in the way
are insuperable, and that there is no cer-
tainty to be attained in it. I shall, there-
fore, endeavour to point [62] out the causes
of this difficulty, and the effects that have
arisen from it, that we may be able to form
a true judgment of both.
1. The number and quick succession of
the operations of the mind, make it difficult
to give due attention to them. It is well
known that, if a great number of objects be
presented in quick succession, even to the
eye, they are confounded in the memory
and imagination. We retain a confused
notion of the whole, and a more confused
one of the several parts, especially if they
are objects to which we have never before
given particular attention. No succession
can be more quick than that of thought.
The mind is busy while we are awake, con-
tinually passing from one thought and one
operation to another. The scene is con-
stantly shifting. Every man will be sen-
sible of this, who tries but for one minute
to keep the same thought in his imagination,
without addition or variation. He will find
it impossible to keep the scene of his imagin-
ation fixed. Other objects will intrude,
without being called, and all he can do is to
reject these intruders as quickly as possible
and return to his principal object. -
2. In this exercise, we go contrary to
habits which have been early acquired, and
confirmed by long unvaried practice. From
infancy, we are accustomed to attend to
objects of sense, and to them only; and,
when sensible objects have got such strong
hold of the attention by confirmed habit, it
is not easy to dispossess them. When we
grow up, a variety of external objects
solicits our attention, excites our curiosity,
engages our affections, or touches our pas-
sions; and the constant round of employ-
ment, about external objects, draws off the
mind from attending to itself; so that
nothing is more just than the observation
of Mr Locke, before mentioned, “That the
understanding, like the eye, while it sur-
veys all the objects around it, commonly
takes no notice of itself.”
3. The operations of the mind, from their
very nature, lead the mind to give its atten-
tion to some other object. Our Sensations,
[63] as will be shewn afterwards, are natu-
ral signs, and turn our attention to the things
signified by them ; so much that most of
them, and "those the most frequent and
familiar, have no name in any language. In
perception, memory, judgment, imagination,
and reasoning, there is an object distinct
from the operation itself; and, while we are
led by a strong impulse to attend to the
object, the operation escapes our notice.
Our passions, affections, and all our active
powers, have, in like manner, their objects
which engross our attention, and divert it
from the passion itself.
4. To this we may add a just observation
made by Mr Hume, That, when the mind
is agitated by any passion, as soon as we
turn our attention from the object to the
passion itself, the passion subsides or van-
ishes, and, by that means, escapes our
inquiry. This, indeed, is common to almost
every operation of the mind. When it is
exerted, we are conscious of it; but then
we do not attend to the operation, but to
its object. When the mind is drawn off
from the object to attend to its own opera-
tion, that operation ceases, and escapes our.
notice. -
5. As it is not sufficient to the discovery
of mathematical truths, that a man be able
to attend to mathematical figures, as it is
necessary that he should have the ability to
[62, 63]
chap, v1.1
OPERATIONS
OF THE MIND. 24l
distinguish accurately things that differ,
and to discern clearly the various relations
of the quantities he compares—an ability
which, though much greater in those who
have the force of genius than in others,
yet, even in them, requires exercise and
habit to bring it to maturity—So, in order
to discover the truth in what relates to the
operations of the mind, it is not enough that
a man be able to give attention to them :
he must have the ability to distinguish ac-
curately their minute differences; to resolve
and analyse complex operations into their
simple ingredients; to unfold the ambiguity
of words, which in this science is greater
than in any other, and to give them the same
accuracy and precision that mathematical
terms have ; for, indeed, the same precision
in the use of words, the same cool attention
to [64] the minute differences of things,
the same talent for abstraction and analys-
ing, which fit a man for the study of math-
ematics, are no less necessary in this. But
there is this great difference between the two
sciences—that the objects of mathematics
being things external to the mind, it is
much more easy to attend to them, and fix
them steadily in the imagination.
The difficulty attending our inquiries
into the powers of the mind, serves to
account for some events respecting this
branch of philosophy, which deserve to be
mentioned.
While most branches of science have,
either in ancient or in modern times, been
highly cultivated, and brought to a con-
siderable degree of perfection, this remains,
to this day, in a very low state, and, as it
were, in its infancy.
Every science invented by men must
have its beginning and its progress ; and,
from various causes, it may happen that
one science shall be brought to a great
degree of maturity, while another is yet in
its infancy. The maturity of a science may
be judged of by this—When it contains a
system of principles, and conclusions drawn
from them, which are so firmly established
that, among thinking and intelligent men,
there remains no doubt or dispute about
them ; so that those who come after may
raise the superstructure higher, but shall
never be able to overturn what is already
built, in order to begin on a new founda-
tion.
Geometry seems to have been in its in-
fancy about the time of Thales and Pytha-
goras; because many of the elementary
propositions, on which the whole science is
built, are ascribed to them as the inventors.
Euclid's “Elements,” which were written
some ages after Pythagoras, exhibit a sys-
tem of geometry which deserves the name
of a science; and, though great additions
have been made by Apollonius, Archi-
medes, Pappus, and others among the an-
cients, and still greater by the moderns;
yet what [65] was laid down in Euclid's
“Elements” was never set aside. It re-
mains as the firm foundation of all future
Superstructures in that science. -
Natural philosophy remained in its in-
fant state near two thousand years after
geometry had attained to its manly form :
for natural philosophy seems not to have
been built on a stable foundation, nor carried
to any degree of maturity, till the last cen-
tury. The system of Des Cartes, which was
all hypothesis, prevailed in the most enlight-
ened part of Europe till towards the end of
last century. Sir Isaac Newton has the
merit of giving the form of a science to this
branch of philosophy; and it need not ap-
pear surprising, if the philosophy of the
human mind should be a century or two
later in being brought to maturity.
It has received great accessions from the
labours of several modern authors ; and
perhaps wants little more to entitle it to the
name of a science, but to be purged of cer-
tain hypotheses, which have imposed on
some of the most acute writers on this sub-
ject, and led them into downright scepticism.
What the ancients have delivered to us
concerning the mind and its operations, is
almost entirely drawn, not from accurate
reflection, but from some conceived analogy
between body and mind. And, although
the modern authors I formerly named have
given more attention to the operations of
their own minds, and by that means have
made important discoveries, yet, by re-
taining some of the ancient analogical no-
tions, their discoveries have been less use-
ful than they might have been, and have
led to scepticism.
It may happen in Science, as in building,
that an error in the foundation shall weaken
the whole; and the farther the building is
carried on, this weakness shall become the
more apparent and the more threatening.
Something of this kind seems to have hap-
pened in our systems concerning the mind.
The accession they [66] have received by
modern discoveries, though very importantin
itself, has thrown darkness and obscurity
upon the whole, and has led men rather to
scepticism than to knowledge. This must
be owing to some fundamental errors that
have not been observed ; and when these
are corrected, it is to be hoped that the im-
provements that have been made will have
their due effect.
The last effect I observe of the difficulty
of inquiries into the powers of the mind, is,
that there is no other part of human know-
ledge in which ingenious authors have been
so apt to run into strange paradoxes, and
even into gross absurdities.
When we find philosophers maintaining
[64–66]
- R
942
[ESSAY 1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
that there is no heat in the fire, nor colour
in the rainbow ;” when we find the gravest
philosophers, from Des Cartes down to
Bishop Berkeley, mustering up arguments
to prove the existence of a material world,
and unable to find any that will bear ex-
amination ; when we find Bishop Berkeley
and Mr Hume, the acutest metaphysicians
of the age, maintaining that there is no such
thing as matter in the universe—that Sun,
moon, and stars, the earth which we inhabit,
our own bodies, and those of our friends, are
only ideas in our minds, and have no exist-
ence but in thought; when we find the
last maintaining that there is neither body
nor mind—nothing in nature but ideas and
impressions, without any substance on which
they are impressed—that there is no cer-
tainty, nor indeed probability, even in ma-
thematical axioms: I say, when we consider
such extravagancies of many of the most
acute writers on this subject, we may be apt
to think the whole to be only a dream of
fanciful men, who have entangled them-
selves in cobwebs spun out of their own
brain. But we ought to consider that the
more closely and ingeniously men reason
fróm false principles, the more absurdities
they will be led into ; and when such absur-
dities help to bring to light the false prin-
ciples from which they are drawn, they may
be the more easily forgiven. [67]
CHAPTER VII.
DIVISION OF THE POWERS OF THE MIND.
THE powers of the mind are so many, so
various, and so connected and complicated
in most of its operations, that there never
has been any division of them proposed
which is not liable to considerable objec-
tions. We shall, therefore, take that gene-
ral division which is the most common, into
the powers of wriderstanding and those of
will.i. Under the will we comprehend our
active powers, and all that lead to action,
or influence the mind to act—such as appe-
tites, passions, affections. The understand-
ing comprehends our contemplative powers;
by which we perceive objects; by which
we conceive or remember them; by which
we analyse or compound them; and by which
we judge and reason concerning them.
* A merely verbal dispute. See before, p. 205, b,
note.—H.
t It would be out of place to enter on the exten-
sive field of history and discussion relative to the
distribution of our mental powers. It is sufficient
to say, that the vulgar division of the faculties,
adopted by Reid, into those of the Understanding
and those of the Will, is to be traced to the classifi.
cation, taken in the Aristotelic school, of the powers
1 11 to #. or cognitive, and orectic, or appetent.
On this the reader may consult the admirable intro-
duction of Philoponus—or rather of Ammonius Her-
mite-to the books of Aristotle upon the Soul,—H.
some degree.
Although this general division may be of
use in order to our proceeding more metho-
dically in our subject, we are not to under-
stand it as if, in those operations which are
ascribed to the understanding, there were
no exertion of will or activity, or as if the
understanding were not employed in the
operations ascribed to the will ; for I con-
ceive there is no operation of the under-
standing wherein the mind is not active in
We have some command
over our thoughts, and can attend to this
or to that, of many objects which present
themselves to our senses, to our memory,
or to our imagination. . We can survey an
object on this side or that, superficially or
accurately, for a longer or a shorter time;
so that our contemplative powers are under
the guidance and direction of the active ;
and the former never pursue their object
without being led and directed, urged or
restrained by the latter ; and because the
understanding is always more or less di-
rected by the will, mankind have ascribed
some degree of activity to [68] the mind in
its intellectual operations, as well as in those
which belong to the will, and have ex-
pressed them by active verbs, such as see-
ing, hearing, judging, reasoning, and the
like.
And as the mind exerts some degree of
activity even in the operations of under-
standing, so it is certain that there can be
no act of will which is not accompanied
with some act of understanding. The will
must have an object, and that object must
be apprehended or conceived in the under-
standing. It is, therefore, to be remem-
bered, that, in most, if not all operations of
the mind, both faculties concur ; and we
range the operation under that faculty which
hath the largest share in it."
The intellectual powers are commonly
divided into simple apprehension, judgment,
and reasoning. As this division has in
its favour the authority of antiquity, and of
a very general reception, it would be im-
proper to set it aside without giving any
reason: I shall, therefore, explain it briefly,
and give the reasons why I choose to follow
another.
• It should be always remembered that the various
mental energies are all only possible in and through
each other; and that our psychological analyses do not
suppose any real distinction of the operations which
we discriminate by different names. Thought and
volition can no more be exerted apart, than the sides
and angles of a square can exist separately from each
other.—H.
+ This is a singular misapprehension. The divi-
sion in question, I make bold to say, never was
proposed by any philosopher as a psychological dis-
tribution of the cognitive faculties in general : , on
the contrary, it is only a logical distribution of that
section of the cognitive faculties which we, denomi-
nate discursive, as those alone which are proximately
concerned in the process of reasoning—or thought, in
its strictest signification.—H.
[67, 68]
chap. vii.] DIVISION OF THE POWERS OF THE MIND.
243
It may be observed that, without appre-
hension of the objects concerning which
we judge, there can be no judgment; as
little can there be reasoning without both
apprehension and judgment: these three
operations, therefore, are not independent
of each other. The second includes the
first, and the third includes both the first
and second ; but the first may be exer-
cised without either of the other two." It
is on that account called simple apprehen-
sion ; that is, apprehension unaccompanied
with any judgment about the object appre-
hended. This simple apprehension of an
object is, in common language, called having
a notion, or having a conception of the ob-
ject, and by late authors is called having
an idea of it. In speaking, it is expressed
by a word, or by a part of a proposition,
without that composition and structure
which makes a complete sentence; as a
man, a man of fortune. Such words, taken
by themselves, signify simple apprehen-
sions. They neither affirm nor [69] deny;
they imply no judgment or opinion of the
thing signified by them ; and, therefore,
cannot be said to be either true or false.
The second operation in this division is
judgment ; in which, say the philosophers,
there must be two objects of thought com-
pared, and some agreement or disagree-
ment, or, in general, some relation discerned
between them ; in consequence of which,
there is an opinion or belief of that relation
which we discern. This operation is ex-
pressed in speech by a proposition, in which
some relation between the things compared
is affirmed or denied : as when we say, All
men are fallible.
Truth and falsehood are qualities which
belong to judgment only; or to proposi-
tions by which judgment is expressed.
Every judgment, every opinion, and every
proposition, is either true or false. But
words which neither affirm nor deny any-
thing, can have neither of those qualities;
and the same may be said of simple appre-
hensions, which are signified by such words.
The third operation is reasoning ; in
which, from two or more judgments, we
draw a conclusion.
This division of our intellectual powers
corresponds perfectly with the account com-
monly given by philosophers, of the suc-
cessive steps by which the mind proceeds
in the acquisition of its knowledge ; which
are these three: First, By the senses, or
by other means, it is furnished with various
* This is not correct. Apprehension is as impos.
sible without judgment, as judgment is impossible
without apprehension. The apprehension of a thing
or notion, is only realized in the mental affirmation
that the concept ideally exists, and this affirmation is
a judgment. In fact, all consciousness supposes a
łº, as all consciousness gupposes a discrimina-
(iOI), sº-H. -
simple apprehensions, notions, or ideas.
These are the materials which nature gives
it to work upon ; and from the simple ideas
it is furnished with by nature, it forms
various others more complex. Secondly,
By comparing its ideas, and by perceiving
their agreements and disagreements, it
forms its judgments. And, Lastly, From
two or more judgments, it deduces con-
clusions of reasoning.
Now, if all our knowledge is got by a
procedure of this kind, [70] certainly the
threefold division of the powers of under-
standing, into simple apprehension, judg-
ment, and reasoning, is the most natural
and the most proper that can be devised.
This theory and that division are so closely
connected that it is difficult to judge which
of them has given rise to the other; and
they must stand or fall together. But, if
all our knowledge is not got by a process
of this kind—if there are other avenues
of knowledge besides the comparing our
ideas, and perceiving their agreements and
disagreements—it is probable that there may
be operations of the understanding which
cannot be properly reduced under any of
the three that have been explained. -
Let us consider some of the most familiar
operations of our minds, and see to which
of the three they belong. I begin with
consciousness. I know that I think, and
this of all knowledge is the most certain.
Is that operation of my mind which gives
me this certain knowledge, to be called
simple apprehension ? No, surely. Simple
apprehension neither affirms nor denies.
It will not be said that it is by reason-
ing that I know that I think. It re-
mains, therefore, that it must be by judg-
ment—that is, according to the account
given of judgment, by comparing two ideas,
and perceiving the agreement between
them. But what are the ideas compared P
They must be the idea of myself, and the
idea of thought, for they are the terms of
the proposition I think. According to this
account, then, first, I have the idea of my-
self and the idea of thought; then, by com-
paring these two ideas, I perceive that I
think.
Let any man who is capable of reflection
judge for himself, whether it is by an opera-
tion of this kind that he comes to be con-
vinced that he thinks 2 To me it appears
evident, that the conviction I have that I
think, is not got in this way; and, therefore,
I conclude, either that consciousness is not
judgment, or that judgment is not rightly
defined to be the perception of some agree-
ment or disagreement between two ideas.
The perception of an object by my
senses is another operation of [71] the
understanding. 1 would know whether it
be simple apprehension, or judgment, or
[69–71]
R 2
244
[Essay 1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
reasoning. It is not simple apprehension,
because I am persuaded of the existence of
the object as much as I could be by demon-
stration. It is not judgment, if by judg-
ment be meant the comparing ideas, and
perceiving their agreements or disagree-
ments. It is not reasoning, because those
who cannot reason can perceive.
I find the same difficulty in classing me-
mory under any of the operations men-
tioned.
. There is not a more fruitful source of
error in this branch of philosophy, than
divisions of things which are taken to be
complete when they are not really so.
make a perfect division of any class of
things, a man ought to have the whole
under his view at once. But the greatest
capacity very often is not sufficient for
this. Something is left out which did not
come under the philosopher's view when
he made his division : and to suit this to
the division, it must be made what nature
never made it. This has been so common
a fault of philosophers, that one who would
avoid error ought to be suspicious of divi-
sions, though long received, and of great
authority, especially when they are grounded
on a theory that may be called in question.
In a subject imperfectly known, we ought
not to pretend to perfect divisions, but to
leave room for such additions or alterations
as a more perfect view of the subject may
afterwards suggest.
I shall not, therefore, attempt a com-
plete enumeration of the powers of the hu-
man understanding. I shall only mention
those which I propose to explain; and they
are the following:—
1st, The powers we have by means of
our external senses. 2dly, Memory. 3dly,
Conception. 4thly, The powers of resolv-
ing and analysing complex objects, and
compounding those that are more simple.
5thly, Judging. 6thly, Reasoning. 7thly,
Taste. 8thly, Moral Perception;” and, last
of all, Consciousness. [72]
CHAPTER VIII.
of social opBRATIONs of MIND.
THERE is another division of the powers
of the mind, which, though it has been,
ought not to be overlooked by writers on
this subject, because it has a real founda-
tion in nature. Some operations of our
minds, from their very nature, are social,
others are solitary.
To
By the first, I understand such operations
as necessarily suppose an intercourse with
some other intelligent being. A man may
understand and will; he may apprehend,
and judge, and reason, though he should
know of no intelligent being in the universe
besides himself. But, when he asks inform-
ation, or receives sit ; when he bears tes-
timony, or receives the testimony of an-
other; when he asks a favour, or accepts
one ; when he gives a command to his ser-
vant, or receives one from a superior; when
he plights his faith in a promise or con-
tract—these are acts of social intercourse
between intelligent beings, and can have no
place in solitude. They suppose under-
standing and will; but they suppose some-
thing more, which is neither understanding
nor will; that is, society with other intelli-
gent beings. They may be called intellec-
tual, because they can only be in intellectual
beings; but they are neither simple appre-
hension, nor judgment, nor reasoning, nor are
they any combination of these operations.
To ask a question, is as simple an opera-
tion as to judge or to reason ; yet it is
neither judgment nor reasoning, nor simple
apprehension, nor is it any composition of
these. Testimony is neither simple appre-
hension, nor judgment, nor reasoning. The
same may be said of a promise, or of a con-
tract. These acts of mind are perfectly
understood by every man of common under-
standing ; but, when philosophers attempt
to bring them within the pale of their divi-
sions, by analysing them, they find inex-
plicable mysteries, [73] and even contradic-
tions, in them. One may see an instance
of this, of many that might be mentioned,
in Mr Hume's “Enquiry concerning the
Principles of Morals,” S 3, part 2, note,
near the end.
The attempts of philosophers to reduce
the social operations under the common
philosophical divisions, resemble very much
the attempts of some philosophers to re-
duce all our social affections to certain
modifications of self-love. The Author of
our being intended us to be social beings,
and has, for that end, given us social intel-
lectual powers, as well as social affections."
Both are original parts of our constitution,
and the exertions of both no less natural
than the exertions of those powers that are
solitary and selfish.
Our social intellectual operations, as well
as our social affections, appear very early
in life, before we are capable of reasoning;
yet both suppose a conviction of the exist-
ence of other intelligent beings. When a
child asks a question of his nurse, this act
* Moral Perception is treated under the Active
Powers, in Essay V. –FI.
f Consciousness obtains only an incidental consi-
deration, under Judgment. in the Fifth Chapter of
the Sixth Essay.—H.
* “ Man,” says Aristotle, “ is, by nature, more
political than any bee or ant.” And, in another
work, “Man is the sweetest thing to man”—&v6:4-
arº, #31s-ov &v0gaaros.-H.
| 72, 73.
CHAP. VIII.]
245
OF SOCIAL OPERATIONS OF MIND.
of his mind supposes not only a desire to
know what he asks; it supposes, likewise,
a conviction that the nurse is an intelligent
being, to whom he can communicate his
thoughts, and who can communicate her
thoughts to him. How he came by this
conviction so early, is a question of Some
importance in the knowledge of the human
mind, and, therefore, worthy of the con-
sideration of philosophers. But they seem
to have given no attention, either to this
early conviction, or to those operations of
mind which suppose it. Of this we shall
have occasion to treat afterwards.
All languages are fitted to express the
social as well as the solitary operations of
the mind. It may indeed be affirmed, that,
to express the former, is the primary and
direct intention of language. A man who
had no intercourse with any other intelli-
gent being, would never think of language.
He would be as mute as the beasts of the
field; even more so, because they have
some degree of social intercourse with one
another, and some of them [74] with man.
When language is once learned, it may be
useful even in our solitary meditations; and
by clothing our thoughts with words, we
may have a firmer hold of them. But
this was not its first intention ; and the
structure of every language shews that it is
not intended solely for this purpose.
In every language, a question, a com-
mand, a promise, which are social acts, can
be expressed as easily and as properly as
judgment, which is a solitary act. The ex-
pression of the last has been honoured with
a particular name ; it is called a proposition;
it has been an object of great attention to
philosophers; it has been analysed into its
very elements of subject predicate, and co-
pula. All the various modifications of these,
and of propositions which are compounded of
them, have been anxiously examined in
many voluminous tracts. The expression
of a question, of a command, or of a pro-
mise, is as capable of being analysed as a
proposition is ; but we do not find that this
has been attempted; we have not so much
as given them a name different from the
operations which they express.
Why have speculative men laboured so
anxiously to analyse our solitary operations,
and given so little attention to the social
I know no other reason but this, that, in
the divisions that have been made of the
mind's operations, the social have been
omitted, and thereby thrown behind the
curtain.
In all languages, the second person of
verbs, the pronoun of the second person, and
the vocative case in nouns, are appropriated
to the expression of social operations of mind,
and could never have had place in language
but for this purpose : nor is it a good
argument against this observation, that, by
a rhetorical figure, we sometimes address
persons that are absent, or even inanimated
beings, in the second person. For it ought
to be remembered, that all figurative ways
of using words or phrases suppose a natural
and literal meaning of them." [75]
* What, throughout this chapter, is implied, ought
to have been explicitly stated—that language is natu-
ral to man; and consequently the faculty of speech
ought to have been enumerated among the mental
powers.—H.
ESSAY
II.
OF THE POWERS WE HAVE BY MEANS OF OUR
EXTERNAL SENSES.
CHAPTER I.
OF THE ORGANS OF SENSE.
Of all the operations of our minds, the
perception of external objects is the most
familiar. The senses come to maturity
even in infancy, when other powers have
not yet sprung up. They are common to
us with brute animals, and furnish us with
the objects about which our other powers
are the most frequently employed. We
find it easy to attend to their operations;
and, because they are familiar, the names
which properly belong to them are applied
to other powers which are thought to re-
semble them. For these reasons, they claim
to be first considered.
The perception of external objects is one
main link of that mysterious chain which
connects the material world with the intel-
lectual. We shall find many things in this
operation unaccountable; sufficient to con-
vince us that we know but little of our own
frame ; and that a perfect comprehension
of our mental powers, and of the manner of
their operation, is beyond the reach of our
understanding.
In perception, there are impressions upon
the organs of sense, the nerves, and brain,
[74, 75]
246
[Essay II,
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
which, by the laws of our nature, are fol-
lowed by certain operations of mind. These
two things are apt to be confounded ; but
ought most carefully to be distinguished.
Some philosophers, without good reason,
have concluded, that the [76] impressions
made on the body are the proper efficient
cause of perception. Others, with as little
reason, have concluded that impressions are
made on the mind similar to those made on
the body. From these mistakes many others
have arisen. The wrong notions men have
rashly taken up with regard to the senses,
have led to wrong notions with regard to
other powers which are conceived to resemble
them. Many important powers of mind
have, especially of late, been called internal
senses, from a supposed resemblance to the
external—such as, the sense of beauty, the
sense of harmony, the moral sense." And
it is to be apprehended that errors, with
regard to the external, have, from analogy,
led to similar errors with regard to the
internal ; it is, therefore, of some conse-
quence, even with regard to other branches
of our subject, to have just notions concern-
ing the external senses.
In order to this, we shall begin with some
observations on the organs of sense, and on
the impressions which in perception are
made upon them, and upon the nerves and
brain.
We perceive no external object but by
means of certain bodily organs which God
has given us for that purpose. The Su-
preme Being who made us, and placed us
in this world, hath given us such powers of
mind as he saw to be suited to our state
and rank in his creation. He has given us
the power of perceiving many objects around
us—the sun, moon, and stars, the earth and
sea, and a variety of animals, vegetables,
and inanimate bodies. But our power of
perceiving these objects is limited in various
ways, and particularly in this—that, with-
out the organs of the several senses, we
perceive no external object. We cannot
Bee without eyes, nor hear without ears; it
is not only necessary that we should have
these organs, but that they should be in a
sound and natural state. There are many
disorders of the eye that cause total blind-
mess ; others that impair the powers of vi-
sion, without destroying it altogether: and
the same may be said of the organs of all
the other senses. [77]
All this is so well known from experience,
that it needs no proof; but it ought to be
observed, that we know it from experience
only. We can give no reason for it, but
that such is the will of our Maker. No
man can shew it to be impossible to the
Supreme Being to have given us the power of
perceiving external objects without such or-
gans.” We have reason to believe that, when
we put off these bodies and all the organs
belonging to them, our perceptive powers
shall rather be improved than destroyed or
impaired. We have reason to believe that
the Supreme Being perceives everything in
a much more perfect manner than we do,
without bodily organs. We have reason to
believe that there are other created beings
endowed with powers of perception more
perfect and more extensive than ours, with-
out any such organs as we find necessary.
We ought not, therefore, to conclude,
that such bodily organs are, in their own
nature, necessary to perception; but rather
that, by the will of God, our power of per-
ceiving external objects is limited and cir-
cumscribed by our organs of sense; so that
we perceive objects in a certain manner,
and in certain circumstances, and in no
other.-f -
If a man was shut up in a dark room, so
that he could see nothing but through one
Small hole in the shutter of a window,
would he conclude that the hole was the
cause of his seeing, and that it is impos-
sible to see any other way ? Perhaps, if he
had never in his life seen but in this way,
he might be apt to think so; but the con-
clusion is rash and groundless. He sees,
because God has given him the power of
seeing ; and he sees only through this small
hole, because his power of seeing is circum-
scribed by impediments on all other hands.
Another necessary caution in this matter
is, that we ought not to confound the or-
gans of perception with the being that per-
ceives. Perception must be the act of some
being that perceives. The eye [78] is not
that which sees; it is only the organ by which
we see.f. The ear is not that which hears,
but the organ by which we hear; and so of
the rest.S *
A man cannot see the satellites of Jupiter
but by a telescope. Does he conclude from
this, that it is the telescope that sees those
stars ? By no means—such a conclusion
would be absurd. It is no less absurd to
* He refers to Hutchegon.-H.
* However astonishing, it is now proved beyond
all rational doubt, that, in certain abnormal states
of the nervous organism, perceptions are possible,
through other than the ordinary channels of the
senses.--H
+ The doctrine of Plato and of many other phi-
logophers. Reid ought, however, to have said,
limited to, instead of “ by our organs of sense :” for,
if the body be viewed as the prison of the soul, the
senses must be viewed at least as partial outlets.—
H
f A 300.xuāy, obz 320xxpeois, says Plato, followed
by a host of philosophers, comparing the senses to
windows of the mind.—H. *
§ “ The mind sees,” says Epicharmus—“the mind
hears, all else is deaf and blind”—a saying alluded to
as proverbial by Aristotle, in a passage to the same
effect, which cannot adequately be translated :-
Xaeloſivo, ºrth:0; 31&véſzzº. 220érie &vºiránzow
révoy ºzºu, £º efºrral rº, N 3 c 3 & #, z o. i , ; c.
& z o. 6 & 1. 'l'his has escaped the commentators.-H.
See p. 878, n. ſt 6–78]
cii AP. II.]
247
OF IMPRESSIONS ON THE ORGANS, &c.
conclude that it is the eye that sees, or
the ear that hears. The telescope is an
artificial organ of sight, but it sees not.
The eye is a natural organ of sight, by
which we see ; but the natural organ sees
as little as the artificial. -
The eye is a machine most admirably
contrived for refracting the rays of light,
and forming a distinct picture of objects
upon the retina ; but it sees neither the
object nor the picture. It can form the
picture after it is taken out of the head;
but no vision ensues. Even when it is in
its proper place, and perfectly sound, it is
well known that an obstruction in the optic
nerve takes away vision, though the eye
has performed all that belongs to it.
If anything more were necessary to be
said on a point so evident, we might ob-
serve that, if the faculty of seeing were in
the eye, that of hearing in the ear, and so
of the other senses, the necessary conse-
quence of this would be, that the thinking
principle, which I call myself, is not one,
but many. But this is contrary to the ir-
resistible conviction of every man. When
I say I See, I hear, I feel, I remember,
this implies that it is one and the same self
that performs all these operations; and, as
it would be absurd to say that my memory,
another man's imagination, and a third
man's reason, may make one individual
intelligent being, it would be equally ab-
surd to say that one piece of matter see-
ing, another hearing, and a third feeling,
may make one and the same percipient
being.
These sentiments are not new ; they have
occurred to thinking men from early ages.
Cicero, in his “Tusculan Questions,” Book
I., chap. 20, has expressed them very dis-
tinctly. Those who choose may consult the
passage." [79]
CHAPTER II.
of THE IMPRESSIONS ON THE ORGANs, NERVEs,
AND BRAINS.
A SECOND law of our nature regarding
perception is, that we perceive no object,
unless some impression is made upon the
organ of sense, either by the immediate
applicalion of the object, or by some medium
which passes between the object and the
Organ.
In two of our senses—to wit, touch and
taste—there must be an immediate applica-
tion of the object to the organ. In the
other three, the object is perceived at a dis-
tance, but still by means of a medium, by
• Cicero says nothing on this head that had not
been said before him by the Greek philosophers.—H.
which some impression is made upon the
organ." t -
The effluvia of bodies drawn into the
nostrils with the breath, are the medium of
smell; the undulations of the air are the
medium of hearing ; and the rays of light
passing from visible objects to the eye, are
the medium of sight. We see no object,
unless rays of light come from it to the eye.
We hear not the sound of any body, unless
the vibrations of some elastic medium, oc-
casioned by the tremulous motion of the
Sounding body, reach our ear. We per-
ceive no Smell, unless the effluvia of the
Smelling body enter into the nostrils. We
perceive no taste, unless the sapid body be
applied to the tongue, or some part of the
organ of taste. Nor do we perceive any
tangible quality of a body, unless it touch
the hands, or some part of our bodies.
These are facts known from experience
to hold universally and invariably, both in
men and brutes. By this law of our na-
ture, our powers of perceiving external ob-
jects, are farther limited and circumscribed.
Nor can we give any other reason for this,
than [80] that it is the will of our Maker, who
knows best what powers, and what degrees
of them, are suited to our state. We were
Once in a state, I mean in the womb, wherein
our powers of perception were more limited
than in the present, and, in a future state,
they may be more enlarged.
It is likewise a law of our nature, that,
in order to our perceiving objects, the im-
pressions made upon the organs of sense
must be communicated to the nerves, and
by them to the brain. This is perfectly
known to those who know anything of ana-
tomy.
The nerves are fine cords, which pass
from the brain, or from the spinal marrow,
which is a production of the brain, to all
parts of the body, dividing into smaller
branches as they proceed, until at last they
escape our eyesight : and it is found by
experience, that all the voluntary and in-
voluntary motions of the body are performed
by their means. When the nerves that
serve any limb, are cut, or tied hard, we
have then no more power to move that limb
than if it was no part of the body.
As there are nerves that serve the mus-
cular motions, so there are others that serve
the several senses; and as without the for-
mer we cannot move a limb, so without the
latter we can have no perception.
*
* This distinction of a mediate and immediate ob-
ject, or of an object and a medium, in perception, is
inaccurate, and a source of sad confusion. We per-
ceive, and can perceive, nothing but what is in rela-
tion to the organ, and nothing is in relation to the
organ that is not present to it. All the senses are, in
fact, modifications of touch, as Democritus of old
taught. We reach the distant reality, not by sense,
not by perception, but by inference. Reid, how .
ever, in this only follows his predecessors —H.
[79, 80]
248
[Essay II.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
This train of machinery the wisdom of
God has made necessary to our perceiving
objects. Various parts of the body concur
to it, and each has its own function. First,
The object, either immediately, or by some
medium, must make an impression on the
organ. The organ serves only as a medium
by which an impression is made on the
nerve ; and the nerve serves as a medium
to make an impression upon the brain.
Here the material part ends ; at least we
can trace it no farther; the rest is all in-
tellectual." -
The proof of these impressions upon the
nerves and brain in [8]] perception is this,
that, from many observations and experi-
ments, it is found that, when the organ of
any sense is perfectly sound, and has the
impression made upon it by the object ever
so strongly, yet, if the nerve which serves
that organ be cut or tied hard, there is no
perception ; and it is well known that dis-
orders in the brain deprive us of the power
of perception when both the organ and its
nerve are sound.
There is, therefore, sufficient reason to
conclude that, in perception, the object pro-
duces some change in the organ ; that the
organ produces some change upon the
nerve; and that the nerve produces some
change in the brain. And we give the
name of an impression to those changes,
because we have not a name more proper to
express, in a general manner, any change
produced in a body, by an external cause,
without specifying the nature of that
change. Whether it be pressure, or at-
traction, or repulsion, or vibration, or some-
thing unknown, for which we have no
name, still it may be called an impression.
But, with regard to the particular kind of
this change or impression, philosophers
have never been able to discover anything
at all.
But, whatever be the nature of those im-
pressions upon the organs, nerves, and
brain, we perceive nothing without them.
Experience informs that it is so ; but we
cannot give a reason why it is so. In the
constitution of man, perception, by fixed
laws of nature, is connected with those im-
pressions ; but we can discover no neces-
sary connection. The Supreme Being has
seen fit to limit our power of perception; so
that we perceive not without such impres-
sions; and this is all we know of the
matter.
This, however, we have reason to con-
* There can be no doubt that the whole organism
of the sense, from periphery to centre, must co-operate
simultaneously in perception ; but there is no rea-
son to place the mind at the central extremity alone,
and to hold that not only a certain series of organic
changes, but a sensation, must precede the mental
cognition. This is mere hypothesis, and opposed to
the testimony of consciousness.—H.
clude ingeneral—that, as the impressions on
the organs, nerves, and brain, correspond
exactly to the nature and conditions of the
objects by which they are made, so our
perceptions and sensations correspond to
those impressions, and vary in kind, and in
degree, as they vary. [82] Without this exact
correspondence, the information we receive
by our senses would not only be imperfect,
as it undoubtedly is, but would be fallacious,
which we have no reason to think it is.
CHAPTER III.
HYPOTHESES CONCERNING THE NERVES AND
BRAIN.
WE are informed by anatomists, that, al-
though the two coats which inclose a nerve,
and which it derives from the coats of the
brain, are tough and elastic, yet the nerve
itself has a very small degree of consistence,
being almost like marrow. It has, how-
ever, a fibrous texture, and may be divided
and subdivided, till its fibres escape our
senses; and, as we know so very little about
the texture of the nerves, there is great
room left for those who choose to indulge
themselves in conjecture.
The ancients conjectured that the ner-
vous fibres are fine tubes, filled with a very
subtile spirit, or vapour, which they called
animal spirits ; that the brain is a gland,
by which the animal spirits are secreted
from the finer part of the blood, and their
continual waste repaired ; and that it is by
these animal spirits that the nerves perform
their functions. Des Cartes has shewn
how, by these animal spirits, going and re-
turning in the nerves, muscular motion,
perception, memory, and imagination, are
effected. All this he has described as dis-
tinctly as if he had been an eye-witness of
all those operations. But it happens that
the tubular structure of the nerves was
never perceived by the human eye, nor
shewn by the nicest injections; and all that
has been said about animal spirits, through
more than fifteen centuries, is mere con-
jecture. -
Dr Briggs, who was Sir Isaac Newton's
master in anatomy, was the first, as far as
I know, who advanced a new system
concerning [83] the nerves." He conceived
them to be solid filaments of prodigious
• Briggs was not the first. The Jesuit, Hono-
ratus Fabry, had before him denied the old hypother
sis of spirits ; and the new hypothesis of cerebral
fibres, and fibrils, by which he explains the phaeno-
mena of sense, imagination and memory, is not only
the first, but perhaps the most ingenious of the class
that has been proposed. . Yet the very name of Fabry
is wholly unnoticed by those historians of philosophy
who do not deem it sui erflucus to dwell on the tire.
some reveries of Briggs, Hartley, and Bonnet.—H.
[81–83]
onar. Inj HYPOTHESES CONCERNING THE NERVES, &c.
249
tenuity; and this opinion, as it accords bet-
ter with observation, seems to have been
more generally received since his time. As
to the manner of performing their office,
Dr Briggs thought that, like musical cords,
they have vibrations differing according to
their length and tension. They seem, how-
ever, very unfit for this purpose, on account
of their want of tenacity, their moisture,
and being through their whole length in
contact with moist substances ; so that, al-
though Dr Briggs wrote a book upon this
system, called Nova Visionis Theoria, it
seems not to have been much followed.
Sir Isaac Newton, in all his philosophical
writings, took great care to distinguish his
doctrines, which he pretended to prove by
just induction, from his conjectures, which
were to stand or fall according as future
experiments and observations should esta-
blish or refute them. His conjectures he
has put in the form of queries, that they
might not be received as truths, but be
inquired into, and determined according to
the evidence to be found for or against
them. Those who mistake his queries for
a part of his doctrine, do him great injus-
tice, and degrade him to the rank of the
common herd of philosophers, who have in
all ages adulterated philosophy, by mixing
conjecture with truth, and their own fancies
with the oracles of Nature. Among other
queries, this truly great philosopher pro-
posed this, Whether there may not be an
elastic medium, or aether, immensely more
rare than air, which pervades all bodies,
and which is the cause of gravitation ; of
the refraction and reflection of the rays of
light; of the transmission of heat, through
spaces void of air; and of many other phae-
momena 2 In the 23d query subjoined to his
“Optics,” he puts this question with regard
to the impressions made on the nerves and
brain in perception, Whether vision is
effected chiefly by the vibrations of this
medium, excited in the bottom of the eye
by the rays of light, and propagated along
the solid, pellucid, and uniform capillaments
of the optic nerve 2 And whether hearing
is effected [84] by the vibrations of this or
Some other medium, excited by the tremor
of the air in the auditory nerves, and pro-
pagated along the solid, pellucid, and uni-
form capillaments of those nerves 2 And
so with regard to the other senses.
What Newton only proposed as a matter
to be inquired into, Dr Hartley conceived
to have such evidence, that, in his “Ob-
servations on Man,” he has deduced, in a
mathematical form, a very ample system
concerning the faculties of the mind, from
the doctrine of vibrations, joined with that
of association.
His notion of the vibrations excited in
the nerves, is expressed in Propositions 4
and 5 of the first part of his “Observa-
tions on Man.” “Prop. 4. External objects
impressed on the senses occasion, first in
the nerves on which they are impressed,
and then in the brain, vibrations of the
Small, and, as one may say, infinitesimal
medullary particles. Prop. 5. The vibra-
tions mentioned in the last proposition are
excited, propagated, and kept up, partly by
the aether—that is, by a very subtile elastic
fluid ; partly by the uniformity, continuity,
softness, and active powers of the medullary
Substance of the brain, spinal marrow, and
nerves.”
The modesty and diffidence with which
Dr Hartley offers his system to the world—
by desiring his reader “to expect nothing
but hints and conjectures in difficult and
obscure matters, and a short detail of the
principal reasons and evidences in those
that are clear ; by acknowledging, that he
shall not be able to execute, with any ac-
curacy, the proper method of philosophising,
recommended and followed by Sir Isaac
Newton; and that he will attempt a sketch
only for the benefit of future enquirers”—
seem to forbid any criticism upon it. One
cannot, without reluctance, criticise what is
proposed in such a manner, and with so
good intention ; yet, as the tendency of this
system of vibrations is to make all the oper-
ations of the mind mere mechanism, depend-
ent [85] on the laws of matter and motion,
and, as it has been held forth by its vota-
ries, as in a manner demonstrated, I shall
make some remarks on that part of the sys-
tem which relates to the impressions made
on the nerves and brain in perception.
It may be observed, in general, that Dr
Hartley’s work consists of a chain of pro-
positions, with their proofs and corollaries,
digested in good order, and in a scientific
form. A great part of them, however, are,
as he candidly acknowledges, conjectures
and hints only ; yet these are mixed with
the propositions legitimately proved, with-
out any distinction. Corollaries are drawn
from them, and other propositions grounded
upon them, which, all taken together, make
up a system. A system of this kind re-
sembles a chain, of which some links are
abundantly strong, others very weak. The
strength of the chain is determined by that
of the weakest links; for, if they give way,
the whole falls to pieces, and the weight
supported by it falls to the ground.
Philosophy has been, in all ages, adul-
terated by hypotheses; that is, by systems
built partly on facts, and much upon con-
jecture. It is pity that a man of Dr Hart-
ley's knowledge and candour should have
followed the multitude in this fallacious
tract, after expressing his approbation of
the proper method of philosophising, pointed
out by Bacon and Newton. The last con-
[84, 85]
250
[ESSAY 11.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
sidered it as a reproach when his system
was called his hypothesis; and says, with
disdain of such imputation, Hypotheses mon
fingo. And it is very strange that Dr
Hartley should not only follow such a me-
thod of philosophising himself, but that he
should direct others in their inquiries to
follow it. So he does in Proposition 87,
Part I., where he deduces rules for the
ascertainment of truth, from the rule of
false, in arithmetic, and from the art of
decyphering; and in other places.
As to the vibrations and vibratiuncles,
whether of an elastic aether, or of the in-
finitesimal particles of the brain and nerves,
there [86] may be such things for what we
know ; and men may rationally inquire
whether they can find any evidence of their
existence; but, while we have no proof of
their existence, to apply them to the solu-
tion of phaenomena, and to build a system
upon them, is what I conceive we call build-
ing a castle in the air.
When men pretend to account for any
of the operations of Nature, the causes
assigned by them ought, as Sir Isaac New-
ton has taught us, to have two conditions,
otherwise they are good for nothing. First,
They ought to be true, to have a real exist-
ence, and not to be barely conjectured to
exist, without proof. Secondly, They ought
to be sufficient to produce the effect.
As to the existence of vibratory motions
in the medullary substance of the nerves
and brain, the evidence produced is this :
First, It is observed that the sensations of
seeing and hearing, and some sensations of
touch, have some short duration and con-
tinuance. Secondly, Though there be no
direct evidence that the sensations of taste
and Smell, and the greater part of these of
touch, have the like continuance, yet, says
the author, analogy would incline one to
believe that they must resemble the sensa-
tions of sight and hearing in this particular.
Thirdly, The continuance of all our sensa-
tions being thus established, it follows, that
external objects impress vibratory motions
on the medullary substance of the nerves
and brain ; because no motion, besides a
vibratory one, can reside in any part for a
moment of time.
This is the chain of proof, in which the
first link is strong, being confirmed by ex-
perience ; the second is very weak; and the
third still weaker. For other kinds of mo-
tion, besides that of vibration, may have
some continuance—such as rotation, bending
or unbending of a spring, and perhaps others
which we are unacquainted with ; nor do
we know whether it is motion that is pro-
duced in the nerves—it may be pressure,
attraction, repulsion, or something we do
not know. This, indeed, is the common
refuge of all hypotheses, [87] that we know
no other way in which the phaenomena may
be produced, and, therefore, they must be
produced in this way. There is, therefore,
no proof of vibrations in the infinitesimal
particles of the brain and nerves.
It may be thought that the existence of
an elastic vibrating aether stands on a firmer
foundation, having the authority of Sir
Isaac Newton. But it ought to be observed
that, although this great man had formed
conjectures about this aether near fifty
years before he died, and had it in his eye
during that long space as a subject of in-
quiry, yet it does not appear that he ever
found any convincing proof of its existence,
but considered it to the last as a question
whether there be such an aether or not.
In the premonition to the reader, prefixed
to the second edition of his “Optics,”
anno 1717, he expresses himself thus with
regard to it :—“Lest any one should think
that I place gravity among the essential
properties of bodies, I have subjoined one
question concerning its cause ; a question,
I say, for I do not hold it as a thing estab-
lished.” If, therefore, we regard the
authority of Sir Isaac Newton, we ought
to hold the existence of such an aether as a
matter not established by proof, but to be
examined into by experiments; and I have
never heard that, since his time, any new
evidence has been found of its existence.
“But,” says Dr Hartley, “ supposing
the existence of the aether, and of its pro-
perties, to be destitute of all direct evidence,
still, if it serves to account for a great
variety of phaenomena, it will have an in-
direct evidence in its favour by this means.”
There never was an hypothesis invented by
an ingenious man which has not this evi-
dence in its favour. The vortices of Des
Cartes, the sylphs and gnomes of Mr Pope,
serve to account for a great variety of
phaenomena.
When a man has, with labour and in-
genuity, wrought up an hypothesis into a
System, he contracts a fondness for it,
which is apt [88] to warp the best judgment.
This, I humbly think, appears remarkably
in Dr Hartley. In his preface, he declares
his approbation of the method of philoso-
phising recommended and followed by Sir
Isaac Newton ; but, having first deviated
from this method in his practice, he is
brought at last to justify this deviation in
theory, and to bring arguments in defence
of a method diametrically opposite to it.
“We admit,” says he, “the key of a cypher
to be a true one when it explains the cypher
completely.” I answer, To find the key
requires an understanding equal or supe-
rior to that which made the cypher. This
instance, therefore, will then be in point,
when he who attempts to decypher the
works of Nature by an hypothesis, has an
[86–88)
chap. m.] HYPOTHESES CONCERNING THE NERVES, &c.
251
understanding equal or superior to that
which made them. The votaries of hypo-
theses have often been challenged to shew
one useful discovery in the works of Nature
that was ever made in that way. If in-
stances of this kind could be produced, we
ought to conclude that Lord Bacon and
Sir Isaac Newton have done great disser-
vice to philosophy by what they have said
against hypotheses. But, if no such in-
stance can be produced, we must conclude,
with those great men, that every system
which pretends to account for the phaeno-
mena of Nature by hypotheses or conjecture,
is spurious and illegitimate, and serves only
to flatter the pride of man with a vain con-
ceit of knowledge which he has not attained.
The author tells us, “that any hypo-
thesis that has so much plausibility as to
explain a considerable number of facts, helps
us to digest these facts in proper order, to
bring new ones to light, and to make ea'-
perimenta crucis for the sake of future
inquirers.”
Let hypotheses be put to any of these
uses as far as they can serve. Let them
suggest experiments, or direct our inquiries;
but let just induction alone govern our
belief.
“The rule of false affords an obvious and
strong instance of the possibilityof being led,
with precision and certainty, to a [89] true
conclusion from a false position. And it is
of the very essence of algebra to proceed in
the way of supposition.”
This is true; but, when brought to jus-
tify the accounting for natural phaenomena
by hypotheses, is foreign to the purpose.
When an unknown number, or any un-
known quantity, is sought, which must have
certain conditions, it may be found in a
scientific manner by the rule of false, or
by an algebraical analysis; and, when
found, may be synthetically demonstrated
to be the number or the quantity sought,
by its answering all the conditions required.
But it is one thing to find a quantity which
shall have certain conditions; it is a very
different thing to find out the laws by which
it pleases God to govern the world and
produce the phaenomena which fall under
our observation. And we can then only
allow some weight to this argument in favour
of hypotheses, when it can be shewn that
the cause of any one phaenomenon in nature
has been, or can be found, as an unknown
quantity is, by the rule of false, or by alge-
braical analysis. This, I apprehend, will
never be, till the aera arrives, which Dr
Hartley seems to foretell, “When future
generations shall put all kinds of evidences
and enquiries into mathematical forms;
and, as it were, reduce Aristotle's ten Ca-
tegories, and Bishop Wilkin's forty Summa
Genera to the head of quantity alone, so as
to make mathematics and logic, natural
history and civil history, natural philoso-
phy and philosophy of all other kinds,
coincide omni ea parte.”
Since Sir Isaac Newton laid down the
rules of philosophising in our inquiries into
the works of Nature, many philosophers
have deviated from them in practice; per-
haps few have paid that regard to them
which they deserve. But they have met
with very general approbation, as being
founded in reason, and pointing out the
only path to the knowledge of Nature's
works. Dr Hartley is the only author I
have met with who reasons against them,
and has taken pains to find out arguments
in defence of the exploded method of hy-
pothesis. [90]
Another condition which Sir Isaac New-
ton requires in the causes of natural things
assigned by philosophers, is, that they be
sufficient to account for the phaenomena.
Vibrations, and vibratiuncles of the me-
dullary substance of the nerves and brain,
are assigned by Dr Hartley to account for
all our sensations and ideas, and, in a word,
for all the operations of our minds. Let
us consider very briefly how far they are
sufficient for that purpose.
It would be injustice to this author to
conceive him a materialist. He proposes
his sentiments with great candour, and they
ought not to be carried beyond what his
words express. He thinks it a consequence
of his theory, that matter, if it can be
endued with the most simple kinds of sens-
ation, might arrive at all that intelligence
of which the human mind is possessed.
He thinks that his theory overturns all
the arguments that are usually brought for
the immateriality of the soul, from the
subtilty of the internal senses, and of the
rational faculty ; but he does not take upon
him to determine whether matter can be
endued with sensation or no. He even
acknowledges that matter and motion,
however subtilly divided and reasoned upon,
yield nothing more than matter and motion
still ; and therefore he would not be any
way interpreted so as to oppose the imma-
teriality of the 'soul. -
It would, therefore, be unreasonable to
require that his theory of vibrations should,
in the proper sense, account for our sensa-
tions. It would, indeed, be ridiculous in
any man to pretend that thought of any kind
must necessarily result from motion, or
that vibrations in the nerves must neces-
sarily produce thought, any more than the
vibrations of a pendulum. Dr Hartley
disclaims this way of thinking, and there-
fore it ought not to be imputed to him.
All that he pretends is, that, in the human
constitution, there is a certain connection
between vibrations in the medullary sub-
[89, 90] -
252
[Essay iſ,
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
stance of the nerves and brain, and the
thoughts of the mind; so that the last de-
pend entirely upon the first, and every kind
of thought [91] in the mind arises in conse-
quence of a corresponding vibration, or
vibratiuncle in the nerves and brain. Our
sensations arise from vibrations, and our
ideas from vibratiuncles, or miniature vibra-
tions; and he comprehends, under these
two words of sensations and ideas, all the
operations of the mind. -
But how can we expect any proof of the
connection between vibrations and thought,
when the existence of such vibrations was
never proved 2 The proof of their connec-
tion cannot be stronger than the proof of
their existence; for, as the author acknow-
ledges that we cannot infer the existence
of the thoughts from the existence of the
vibrations, it is no less evident that we can-
not infer the existence of vibrations from
the existence of our thoughts. The exist-
ence of both must be known before we can
know their connection. As to the exist-
ence of our thoughts, we have the evidence
of consciousness, a kind of evidence that
never was called in question. But as to
the existence of vibrations in the medullary
substance of the nerves and brain, no proof
has yet been brought.
All, therefore, we have to expect from
this hypothesis, is, that in vibrations, con-
sidered abstractly, there should be a variety
in kind and degree, which tallies so exactly
with the varieties of the thoughts they are to
account for, as may lead us to suspect some
connection between the one and the other.
If the divisions and subdivisions of thought
be found to run parallel with the divisions
and subdivisions of vibrations, this would
give that kind of plausibility to the hypo-
thesis of their counection, which we com-
monly expect even in a mere hypothesis;
but we do not find even this.
For, to omit all those thoughts and oper-
ations which the author comprehends under
the name of ideas, and which he thinks are
connected with vibratiuncles; to omit the
perception of external objects, which he
comprehends under the name of sensations ;
to omit the sensations, properly so called,
which accompany our passions [92], and
affections, and to confine ourselves to the
sensations which we have by means of our
external senses, we can perceive no corre-
spondence between the variety we find in
their kinds and degrees, and that which may
be supposed in vibrations.
We have five senses, whose sensations
differ totally in kind. By each of these,
excepting perhaps that of hearing, we have
a variety of sensations, which differ specific-
ally, and not in degree only. How many
tastes and smells are there which are spe-
fiea'ly different, each of them capable of all
degrees of strength and weakness P Heat
and cold, roughness and Smoothness, hard-
ness and softness, pain and pleasure, are
sensations of touch that differ in kind, and
each has an endless variety of degrees.
Sounds have the qualities of acute and
grave, loud and low, with all different de-
grees of each. The varieties of colour are
many more than we have names to express.
How shall we find varieties in vibrations
corresponding to all this variety of sensa-
tions which we have by our five senses
only 2
I know two qualities of vibrations in an
uniform elastic medium, and I know no
more. They may be quick or slow in vari-
ous degrees, and they may be strong or
weak in various degrees; but I cannot find
any division of our sensations that will make
them tally with those divisions of vibra-
tions. If we had no other sensations but
those of hearing, the theory would answer
well; for sounds are either acute or grave,
which may answer to quick or slow vibra-
tions; or they are loud or low, which an-
swer to strong or weak vibrations. But
then we have no variety of vibrations cor-
responding to the immense variety of sens-
ations which we have by sight, Smell, taste,
and touch.
Dr Hartley has endeavoured to find out
other two qualities of vibrations; to wit,
that they may primarily affect one part of
the brain or another, and that they may
vary in their direction according as they
enter by different external nerves; but these
[93] seem to be added to make a number;
for, as far as we know, vibrations in an
uniform elastic substance spread over the
whole, and in all directions. However,
that we may be liberal, we shall grant him
four different kinds of vibrations, each of
them having as many degrees as he pleases.
Can he, or any man, reduce all our sensa-
tions to four kinds P. We have five senses,
and by each of them a variety of sensations,
more than sufficient to exhaust all the
varieties we are able to conceive in vibra-
_tions.
Dr Hartley, indeed, was sensible of the
difficulty of finding vibrations to suit all the
variety of our sensations. His extensive
knowledge of physiology and pathology
could yield him but a feeble aid; and, there-
fore, he is often reduced to the necessity of
heaping supposition upon supposition, con-
jecture upon conjecture, to give some credi-
bility to his hypothesis; and, in seeking out
vibrations which may correspond with the
sensations of one sense, he seems to forget
that those must be omitted which have been
appropriated to another.
Philosophers have accounted in some de-
gree for our various sensations of sound by
the vibrations of elastic air; but it is to be
s - [91–93
CHAP. Iv.]
253
FALSE CONCLUSIONS, &c.
observed, first, That we know that such vi-
brations do really exist; and, secondly, That
they tally exactly with the most remarkable
phaenomena of sound. We cannot, indeed,
shew how any vibration should produce the
sensation of sound. This must be resolved
into the will of God, or into some cause
altogether unknown. But we know that,
as the vibration is strong or weak, the
sound is loud or low ; we know that, as the
vibration is quick or slow, the sound is
acute or grave. We can point out that
relation of synchronous vibrations which
produces harmony or discord, and that
relation of successive vibrations which pro-
duces melody; and all this is not conjec-
tured, but proved by a sufficient induction.
This account of sounds, therefore, is philo-
Sophical : although, perhaps, there may be
many things relating to sound that we can-
not account for, and of which the causes
remain latent. The connections described
[94] in this branch of philosophy are the
work of God, and not the fancy of men.
If anything similar to this could be shewn
in accounting for all our sensations by
vibrations in the medullary substance of the
nerves and brain, it would deserve a place
in Sound philosophy; but, when we are told
of vibrations in a substance which no man
could ever prove to have vibrations, or to
be capable of them ; when such imaginary
vibrations are brought to account for all our
sensations, though we can perceive no cor-
respondence in their variety of kind and
degree to the variety of sensations—the con-
nections described in such a system are the
creatures of human imagination, not the
work of God.
The rays of light make an impression
upon the optic nerves ; but they make none
upon the auditory or olfactory. The vibra-
tions of the air make an impression upon
the auditory nerves; but none upon the
optic or the olfactory. The effluvia of
bodies make an impression upon the olfac-
tory nerves; but make none upon the optic
or auditory. No man has been able to give
a shadow of reason for this. While this is
the case, is it not better to confess our
ignorance of the nature of those impressions
made upon the nerves and brain in percep-
tion, than to flatter our pride with the con-
ceit of knowledge which we have not, and
to adulterate philosophy with the spurious
brood of hypotheses 2"
CHAPTER IV.
FALSE CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM THE
IMPRESSIONS BEFORE MENTIONED.
SoME philosophers among the ancients,
as well as among the moderns, imagined
that man is nothing but a piece of matter,
so curiously organized that the impressions
of external objects produce in it sensation,
perception, remembrance, and all the other
operations [95] we are conscious of.” This
foolish opinion could only take its rise from
observing the constant connection which
the Author of Nature hath established be-
tween certain impressions made upon our
senses and our perception of the objects by
which the impression is made ; from which
they weakly inferred that those impressions
Were the proper efficient causes of the cor-
responding perception.
But no reasoning is more fallacious than
this—that, because two things are always
conjoined, therefore one must be the cause
of the other. Day and night have been
joined in a constant succession since the
beginning of the world; but who is so foolish
as to conclude from this that day is the
cause of night, or night the cause of the
following day 2 There is indeed nothing
more ridiculous than to imagine that any
motion or modification of matter should pro-
duce thought.
If one should tell of a telescope so exactly
made as to have the power of seeing ; of a
whispering gallery that had the power of
hearing; of a cabinet so nicely framed as to
have the power of memory; or of a machine
So delicate as to feel pain when it was
touched—such absurdities are so shocking to
common sense that they would not find belief
even among Savages; yet it is the same
absurdity to think that the impressions of
external objects upon the machine of our
bodies can be the real efficient cause of
thought and perception.
Passing this, therefore, as a notion too
absurd to admit of reasoning, another con-
clusion very generally made by philoso-
phers is, that, in perception, an impression
is made upon the mind as well as upon the
organ, nerves, and brain. Aristotle, as
was before observed, thought that the form
or image of the object perceived, enters by
* Reid appears to have been unacquainted with
the works and theory of Bonnet.—With our author’s
strictures on the physiological hypotheses, the reader
may compare those of Tetens, in his “ Versuche.”
and of Stewart in his “Philosophical Essays.”—H.
* The Stoics are reprehended for such a doctrine
by Boethius:—
** Quondam porticus attulit
Obscuros nimium senes,
Qui sensus et imagines
E corporibus extimis
Credant mentibus imprimi,
Ut quondam celeri stylo
Mosest aequore paginae
Quae nullas habeat notas,
Pressas figere literas.” &c.
The tabula rasa remounts, however, to Aristotle
—indeed to Plato—as an illustration.—H.
[94, 95]
254
[ESSAY II.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
the organ of sense, and strikes upon the
mind." Mr Hume gives the name of im-
pressions to all our perceptions, to all our
sensations, and even to the objects which
we perceive. Mr Locke affirms very posi-
tively, that the ideas of external objects are
produced [96] in our minds by impulse,
“ that being the only way we can conceive
bodies to operate in.” It ought, however, to
be observed, in justice to Mr Locke, that he
retracted this notion in his first letter to the
Bishop of Worcester, and promised, in the
next edition of his Essay, to have that pas-
sage rectified; but, either from forgetful-
ness in the author, or negligence in the
printer, the passage remains in all the sub-
sequent editions I have seen.
There is no prejudice more natural to
man than to conceive of the mind as hav-
ing some similitude to body in its opera-
tions. Hence men have been prone to
imagine that, as bodies are put in motion
by some impulse or impression made upon
them by contiguous bodies, so the mind is
made to think and to perceive by some im-
pression made upon it, or some impulse
given to it by contiguous objects. If we
have such a notion of the mind as Homer
had of his gods—who might be bruised or
wounded with swords and spears—we may
then understand what is meant by impres-
sions made upon it by a body; but, if we
conceive the mind to be immaterial—of
which I think we have very strong proofs—
we shall find it difficult to affix a meaning
to impressions made upon it.
There is a figurative meaning of impres-
sions on the mind which is well authorized,
and of which we took notice in the observa.
tions made on that word; but this meaning
applies only to objects that are interesting.
To say that an object which I see with per-
fect indifference makes an impression upon
my mind, is not, as I apprehend, good
English. If philosophers mean no more
but that I see the object, why should they
invent an improper phrase to express what
every man knows how to express in plain
English 2
But it is evident, from the manner in
which this phrase is used by modern philo-
sophers, that they mean, not barely to ex-
press by it my perceiving an object, but to
explain the manner of perception. They
think that the object perceived acts upon
the mind in some way similar to that in
which one body, acts upon another, by
making [97] an impression upon it. The
impression upon the mind is conceived to
be something wherein the mind is alto-
gether passive, and has some effect pro-
* A mere metaphor in Aristotle. (See Notes K.
and M.) . At any rate, the impression was Supposed
to be made on the animated sensory, and not on the
intellect.—H.
duced in it by the object. But this is a
hypothesis which contradicts the common
sense of mankind, and which ought not to
be admitted without proof.
When I look upon the wall of my room,
the wall does not act at all, nor is capable
of acting ; the perceiving it is an act or
operation in me. That this is the common
apprehension of mankind with regard to
perception, is evident from the manner of
expressing it in all languages.
The vulgar give themselves no trouble
how they perceive objects—they express
what they are conscious of, and they express
it with propriety; but philosophers have an
avidity to know how we perceive objects;
and, conceiving some similitude between a
body that is put in motion, and a mind that
is made to perceive, they are led to think
that, as the body must receive some impulse
to make it move, so the mind must receive
Some impulse or impression to make it per-
ceive. This analogy seems to be confirmed,
by observing that we perceive objects only
when they make some impression upon the
organs of sense, and upon the nerves and
brain; but it ought to be observed, that
such is the nature of body that it cannot
change its state, but by some force impressed
upon it. This is not the nature of mind.
All that we know about it shews it to be in
its nature living and active, and to have
the power of perception in its constitution,
but still within those limits to which it is
confined by the laws of Nature.
It appears, therefore, that this phrase of
the mind's having impressions made upon
it by corporeal objects in perception, is
either a phrase without any distinct mean-
ing, and contrary to the propriety of the
English language, or it is grounded upon
an hypothesis which is destitute of proof.
On that account, though we grant that in
perception there is an impression made
upon the organ of [98] sense, and upon the
nerves and brain, we do not admit that
the object makes any impression upon the
mind. g
There is another conclusion drawn from
the impressions made upon the brain in
perception, which I conceive to have no
solid foundation, though it has been adopted
very generally by philosophers. It is, that,
by the impressions made on the brain,
images are formed of the object perceived ;
and that the mind, being seated in the brain
as its chamber of presence, immediately
perceives those images only, and has no
perception of the external object but by
them. This notion of our perceiving ex-
ternal objects, not immediately, but in cer-
tain images or species of them conveyed by
the senses, seems to be the most ancient
philosophical hypothesis we have on the
subject of perception, and to have with
[96–98]
CHAP. IV.]
255.
FALSE CONCLUSIONS, &c.
small variations retained its authority to
this day.
Aristotle, as was before observed, main-
tained, that the species, images, or forms
of external objects, coming from the object,
are impressed on the mind. The followers
of Democritus and Epicurus held the same
thing, with regard to slender films of sub-
tile matter coming from the object, that
Aristotle did with regard to his immaterial
species or forms.
Aristotle thought every object of human
understanding enters at first by the senses;”
and that the notions got by them are by
the powers of the mind refined and spirit-
ualized, so as at last to become objects of
the most sublime and abstracted Sciences.
Plato, on the other hand, had a very mean
opinion of all the knowledge we get by the
senses. He thought it did not deserve the
name of knowledge, and could not be the
foundation of science; because the objects
of sense are individuals only, and are in a
constant fluctuation. All science, according
to him, must be employed about those
eternal and immutable ideas which existed
before the objects of sense, and are not liable
to any change. In this there was an essen-
tial difference between the systems of these
two philosophers. [99] The notion of eter-
nal and immutable ideas, which Plato bor-
rowed from the Pythagorean school, was
totally rejected by Aristotle, who held it as
a maxim, that there is nothing in the intel-
lect, which was not at first in the senses.
But, notwithstanding this great difference
in those two ancient systems, they might
both agree as to the manner in which we
perceive objects by our senses: and that
they did so, I think, is probable ; because
Aristotle, as far as I know, neither takes
notice of any difference between himself
and his master upon this point, nor lays
claim to his theory of the manner of our
perceiving objects as his own invention.
It is still more probable, from the hints
which Plato gives in the seventh book of his
Republic, concerning the manner in which
we perceive the objects of sense; which he
comparesto persons in a deep and dark cave,
who see not external objects themselves but
only their shadows, by a light let into the
cave through a small opening. +
It seems, therefore, probable that the Py-
thagoreans and Platonists agreed with the
Peripatetics in this general theory of per-
ception—to wit, that the objects of sense
are perceived only by certain images, or
shadows of them, let into the mind, as into
a camera obscura."
The notions of the ancients were very
various with regard to the seat of the soul
Since it has been discovered, by the im-
provements in anatomy, that the nerves
are the instruments of perception, and of
the sensations accompanying it, and that
the nerves ultimately terminate in the
brain, it has been the general opinion of
philosophers that the brain is the seat of
the soul; and that she perceives the images
that are brought there, and external things,
only by means of them.
Des Cartes, observing that the pineal
gland is the only part of the brain that is
single, all the other parts being double,;
and thinking that the soul must have one
seat, was determined by this [100] to make
that gland the soul's habitation, to which,
by means of the animal spirits, intelligence
is brought of all objects that affect the
senses. S
Others have not thought proper to con-
fine the habitation of the soul to the pineal
gland, but to the brain in general, or to
some part of it, which they call the sen-
sorium. Even the great Newton favoured
this opinion, though he proposes it only as
a query, with that modesty which dis-
tinguished him no less than his great genius.
“Is not,” says he, “the sensorium of animals
the place where the sentient substance 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 P And is
there not an incorporeal, living, intelligent,
and omnipresent Being, who, in infinite
space, as if it were in his sensorium, inti-
mately perceives things themselves, and
comprehends them perfectly, as being pre-
sent to them ; of which things, that prin-
ciple in us, which perceives and thinks,
discerns only, in its little sensorium, the
images brought to it through the organs of
the senses P”||
His great friend Dr Samuel Clarke
adopted the same sentiment with more con-
fidence. In his papers to Leibnitz, we
find the following passages: “Without
being present to the images of the things
perceived, it (the soul) could not possibly
perceive them. A living substance can
only there perceive where it is present,
either to the things themselves, (as the
omnipresent God is to the whole universe.)
* This is a very doubtful point, and has accord-
ingly divided his followers. Texts can be quoted to
prove, on the one side, that Aristotle derived all our
notions, a posteriori, from the experience of sense;
and, on the other, that he viewed sense only as afford-
ing to intellect the condition requisite for it to be-
come actually conscious of the native and necessary
notions it, a priori, virtually possessed.-H.
+ Reid' wholly mistakes the meaning of Plato's
simile of the cave. See below, under p. 116.-H.
* An error. See below, under p. 116.-H.
+ That is, since the time of Erasistratus and Galen.
f Which is not the case. The Hypophysis, the
Vermiform process, &c., are not less single than the
Conarium.—H. -
§ See above, p. 234, b, note *.-H.
| Before Reid, these crude conjectures of Newton
were justly censured by Genovesi, and others— II.
[99, 100]
256
[ESSAY 11,
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
or to the images of things, (as the soul of
man is in its proper sensory.) Nothing
can any more act, or be acted upon, where
it is not present, than it can be where it is
not. We are sure the soul cannot perceive
what it is not present to, because nothing
can act, or be acted upon, where it is not.”
Mr Locke expresses himself so upon
this point, that, for the [101] most part,
one would imagine that he thought that
the ideas, or images of things, which he be-
lieved to be the immediate objects of per-
ception, are impressions upon the mind it-
self; yet, in some passages, he rather
places them in the brain, and makes them
to be perceived by the mind there present.
“There are some ideas,” says he, “which
have admittance only through one sense ;
and, if the organs or the nerves, which are
the conduits to convey them from without
to their audience in the brain, the mind's
presence room, if I may so call it, are so
disordered as not to perform their function,
they have no postern to be admitted by.
“There seems to be a constant decay of
all our ideas, even of those that are struck
deepest. The pictures drawn in our minds
are laid in fading colours. Whether the
temper of the brain makes this difference,
that in some it retains the characters drawn
on it like marble, in others like freestone,
and in others little better than sand, I shall
not enquire.”
From these passages of Mr Locke, and
others of a like nature, it is plain that he
thought that there are images of external
objects conveyed to the brain. But whether
he thought with Des Cartest and Newton,
that the images in the brain are perceived
by the mind there present, or that they are
imprinted on the mind itself, is not so evi-
dent.
Now, with regard to this hypothesis,
there are three things that deserve to be
considered, because the hypothesis leans
upon them ; and, if any one of them fail, it
must fall to the ground. The first is, That
the soul has its seat, or, as Mr Locke calls
it, its presence room in the brain. The
second, That there are images formed in
the brain of all the objects of sense. The
third, That the mind or soul perceives these
images in the brain; and that it perceives
not external objects immediately, but only
tºº them by means of those images.
102
As to the first point—that the soul has its
* No great stress should be laid on such figurative
passages as indications of the real opinion of Locke,
Which, on this point, it is not easy to discover. See
ote O.-H.
t Des Cartes is perhaps an erratum for Dr Clarke.
If not, the opinion of Des Cartes is misrepresented;
fºr he denied to the mind all consciousness or immel
diate knowledge of matter and its modifications.
But of this again, See Noto N.—H,
seat in the brain—this, Surely, is not so well
established as that we can safely build
other principles upon it. There have been
various opinions and much disputation about
the place of spirits: whether they have a
place P and, if they have, how they occupy
that place P. After men had fought in the
dark about those points for ages, the wiser
part seem to have left off disputing about
them, as matters beyond the reach of the
‘human faculties.
As to the second point—that images of all
the objects of sense areformed in the brain—
we may venture to affirm that there is no
proof nor probability of this, with regard to
any of the objects of sense; and that, with
regard to the greater part of them, it is
words without any meaning."
We have not the least evidence that the
image of any external object is formed in
the brain. The brain has been dissected
times innumerable by the nicest ama-
tomists ; every part of it examined by the
naked eye, and with the help of microscopes;
but no vestige of an image of any external
object was ever found. The brain seems
to be the most improper substance that can
beinagined for receiving or retaining images,
being a soft, moist, medullary substance.
But how are these images formed 2 or
whence do they come 2 Says Mr Locke, the
organs of sense and nerves convey them from
without. This is just the Aristotelian
hypothesis of sensible species, which modern
philosophers have been at great pains to
refute, and which must be acknowledged to
be one of the most unintelligible parts of
the Peripatetic system. Those who con-
sider species of colour, figure, sound, and
Smell, coming from the object, and entering
by the organs of sense, as a part of the
scholastic jargon long ago discarded from
sound philosophy, ought to have discarded
images in the brain along with them.
There never was a shadow of argument
brought by any author, to shew that an
[103] image of any external object ever
entered by any of the organs of sense.
That external objects make some impres-
sion on the organs of sense, and by them on
the nerves and brain, is granted ; but that
those impressions resemble the objects
they are made by, so as that they may be
called images of the objects, is most impro-
bable. Every hypothesis that has been
contrived, shews that there can be no such
resemblance ; for neither the motions of
animal spirits, nor the vibrations of elastic
chords, or of elastic aether, or of the infinites-
* It'would be rash to assume that, because a phi-
losopher uses the term image, or impression, or idea,
and places what it denotes in the brain, that he
therefore means that the mind was cognizant of such
corporeal affection, as of its object, either in percep-
tion or imagination. See Note K.—H.
| 101–103]
CHAP. Iv.]
257
FALSE CONCLUSIONS, &c.
imal particles of the nerves, can be sup-
posed to resemble the objects by which
they are excited. . ."
We know that, in vision, an image of the
visible object is formed in the bottom of the
eye by the rays of light. But we know,
also, that this image cannot be conveyed to
the brain, because the optic nerve, and all
the parts that surround it, are opaque and
impervious to the rays of light; and there
is no other organ of sense in which any
image of the object is formed.
It is farther to be observed, that, with
regard to some objects of sense, we may
understand what is meant by an image of
them imprinted on the brain; but, with
regard to most objects of sense, the phrase
is absolutely unintelligible, and conveys no
meaning at all. As to objects of sight, I
understand what is meant by an image of
their figure in the brain. But how shall we
conceive an image of their colour where there
is absolute darkness 2 And as to all other
objects of sense, except figure and colour,
I am unable to conceive what is meant by an
image of them. Let any man say what he
means by an image of heat and cold, an image
of hardness or softness, an image of sound,
or smell, or taste. The word image, when
applied to these objects of sense, has abso-
lutely no meaning. Upon what a weak
foundation, then, does this hypothesis stand,
when it supposes that images of all the
objects of sense are imprinted on the brain,
being conveyed thither by the conduits of the
organs and nerves 1* [104]
The third point in this hypothesis is,
That the mind perceives the images in the
brain, and external objects only by means
of them. This is as improbable as that
there are such images to be perceived. If
our powers of perception be not altogether
fallacious, the objects we perceive are not
in our brain, but without us.t. We are so
far from perceiving images in the brain,
that we do not perceive our brain at all;
nor would any man ever have known that
he had a brain, if anatomy had not dis-
covered, by dissection, that the brain is a
constituent part of the human body.
To sum up what has been said with re-
gard to the organs of perception, and the
impressions made upon our nerves and
brain. It is a law of our nature, estab-
lished by the will of the Supreme Being,
that we perceive no external object but by
means of the organs given us for that pur-
pose. But these organs do not perceive.
The eye is the organ of sight, but it sees
not. A telescope is an artificial organ of
sight. The eye is a natural organ of sight,
but it sees as little as the telescope. We
know how the eye forms a picture of the
visible object upon the retina ; but how this
picture makes us see the object we know
not ; and if experience had not informed us
that such a picture is necessary to vision,
we should never have known it. We can
give no reason why the picture on the re-
tina should be followed by vision, while a
like picture on any other part of the body
produces nothing like vision.
It is likewise a law of our nature, that we
perceive not external objects, unless certain
impressions be made by the object upon the
organ, and by means of the organ upon the
nerves and brain. But of the nature of
those impressions we are perfectly ignorant;
and though they are conjoined with percep-
tion by the will of our Maker, yet it does
not appear that they have any necessary con-
nection with it in their own nature, far less
that they can be the proper efficient cause
of it. [105] We perceive, because God has
given us the power of perceiving, and not
because we have impressions from objects.
We perceive nothing without those impres-
sions, because our Maker has limjºed and
circumscribed our powers of º, by
Such laws of Nature as to his wisdom seemed
meet, and such as suited our rank in his
creation.*
# These objections to the hypothesis in question,
have been frequently urged both in ancient and in
modern times. See Note K.—H.
f If this be taken literally and by itself, then, ac-
cording to Reid, perception is not an immanent cog-
nition; extension and figure are, in that act, not
merely suggested conceptions; and, as we are perci-
picnt of the non-ego, and, conscious of the perceptionſ,
we are therefore conscious of the non-ego. But see
Note C.-H. -
* The doctrine of Reid and Stewart, in regard to
our perception of external things, bears a close ana-
logy to the Cartesian scheme of divine assistance, or
of occasional causes. It seems, however, to coincide
most completely with the opinion of Ruardus Andala,
a Dutch Cartesian, who attempted to reconcile the
theory of assistance with that of physical influence.
“Statuo,” he says, “nos clarissimam et distinctissimama
hujus operation is et unionis posse habere ideam, si
modo, quod omnino facere oportet, ad Deum, caus-
Sam ejus primam et liberam ascendamus, et ab ejus
beneplacito admirandum hunc effectum derivennus.
Nos possumus huic vel illi motui e. gr. campanae,
sic et hederae suspensae, literis scriptis, verbis quibus-
cunque pronunciatis, aliisque signis, varias ideas
alligare, ita, ut per visum, vel auditum in mente ex-
citentur variae ideae, perceptiones et sensationes:
annon hinc clare et facile intelligimus, Deum crea-
torem mentis et corporis potuisse instituere et ordi-
rare, ut per varios in corpore motus variae in mente
excitentur ideae et perceptiones; et vicissim, ut per
varias mentis volitiones, varii in corpore excitentur
ct producantur motus 2 Hinc et pro varia alter-
utrius partis dispositione altera pars variis modis
affici potest. Hoc autem a Deo ita ordinatum et
effectum esse, a posteriori, continua, certissima et
clarissima experientia docet. Testes irrefragabiles
omnique exceptione majores reciproci hujus com-
mercii, operationis mentis in corpus, et corporis in
mentem, nec non communionis status, Sunt sensus
omnes tum eartermi, tum interni ; ut et Omnes et
singulae et continua actiones mentis in corpus, de
quibus modo fuit actum, Si quis vero a proprieta-
tibus mentis ad proprietates corporis progredi velit,
aut ex natura diversissimarum harum substantiarum
deduceremotum in corpore, & perceptiones in mente,
aut hos effectus ut necessario ConneXOS Spectare ;
nae is frustra erit, nihil intelliget, perversissime phi-
[104, 105]
S
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
[ESSAY II.
CHAPTER. W.
OF PERCEPTION.
IN speaking of the impressions made on
our organs in perception, we build upon
facts borrowed from anatomy and physio-
logy, for which we have the testimony of
our senses. But, being now to speak of
perception itself, which is solely an act of
the mind, we must appeal to another
authority. The operations of our minds
are known, not by sense, but by conscious-
ness, the authority of which is as certain
and as irresistible as that of sense.
In order, however, to our having a distinct
notion of any of the operations of our own
minds, it is not enough that we be conscious
of them; for all men have this consciousness.
It is farther necessary that we attend to them
while they are exerted, and reflect upon them
with care, while they are recent and fresh
in our memory. It is necessary that, by
employing ourselves frequently in this way,
we get the habit of this attention and reflec-
tion ; and, therefore, for the proof of facts
which I shall have occasion to mention upon
this subject, I can only appeal to the reader's
own thoughts, whether such facts are not
agreeable to what he is conscious of in his
own mind. [106]
If, therefore, we attend to that act of
our mind which we call the perception of an
external object of sense, we shall find in it
these three things:—First, Some con-
ception or notion of the object perceived ;
Secondly, A strong and irresistible convic-
tion and belief of its present existence ; and,
Thirdly, That this conviction and belief are
immediate, and not the effect of reasoning."
First, It is impossible to perceive an
object without having some notion or con-
ception of that which we perceive. We
may, indeed, conceive an object which we
do not perceive ; but, when we perceive the
object, we must have some conception of it
at the same time ; and we have commonly
a more clear and steady notion of the object
while we perceive it, than we have from
memory-or imagination when it is not per-
ceived. Yet, even in perception, the notion
which our senses give of the object may be
more or less clear, more or less distinct, in
all possible degrees.
Thus we see more distinctly an object at
a small than at a great distance. An object
at a great distance is seen more distinctly in
a clear than in a foggy day. An object
seen indistinctly with the naked eye, on
account of its smallnéss, may be seen dis-
tinctly with a microscope. The objects in
- this room will be seen by a person in the
room less and less distinctly as the light of
the day fails; they pass through all the
various degrees of distinctness according to
the degrees of the light, and, at last, in
total darkness they are not seen at all.
What has been said of the objects of sight
is so easily applied to the objects of the
other senses, that the application may be
left to the reader.
In a matter so obvious to every person
capable of reflection, it is necessary only
farther to observe, that the notion which
we get of an object, merely by our external
sense, ought not to be confounded with that
more scientific notion which a man, come to
the years of understanding, may have of the
same object, by attending to its various
attributes, or to its various parts, and their
relation to each other, and to the whole.
[107] Thus, the notion which a child has of
a jack for roasting meat, will be acknowledged
to be very different from that of a man who
understands its construction, and perceives
the relation of the parts to one another, and
to the whole. The child sees the jack and
every part of it as well as the man. The
child, therefore, has all the notion of it
which sight gives ; whatever there is more
in the notion which the man forms of it,
must be derived from other powers of the
mind, which may afterwards be explained.
This observation is made here only that we
may not confound the operations of differ-
ent powers of the mind, which by being
always conjoined after we grow up to under-
standing, areapt to pass for one and the same.
Secondly, In perception we not only have
a notion more or less distinct of the object
perceived, but also an irresistible conviction
and belief of its existence. This is always
the case when we are certain that we per-
ceive it. There may be a perception so
faint and indistinct as to leave us in doubt,
whether we perceive the object or not.
Thus, when a star begins to twinkle as the
light of the sun withdraws, one may, for a
short time, think he sees it without being
certain, until the perception acquire some
strength and steadiness. When a ship just
begins to appear in the utmost verge of the
horizon, we may at first be dubious whether
we perceive it or not ; but when the percep-
tion is in any degree clear and steady, there
remains no doubt of its reality ; and when
the reality of the perception is ascertained,
the existence of the object perceived can no
longer be doubted."
losophabitur nullaingue hujus rei ideam habere po-
terit. Sivero ad Deum Creatorem adscendamus,
eumque vere agnoscamus, nihil hic erit obscuri,
hunc effectum clarissime intelligemus, et quidem per
caussam ejus primam ; quae perfectissima demum
est Scientia.”— H.
* See above, p. 183, a, note *; p. 128, b, note *;
and Note C.—H.
* In this paragraph there is a confusion of tha
which is perceived and that which is inferred fro
the perception.—H.
T106, 107;
|








































fºLAP. v.]
259
of PERCEPTION.
By the laws of all nations, in the most
solemn judicial trials, wherein men's for-
tunes and lives are at stake, the sentence
passes according to the testimony of eye or
ear witnesses of good credit. An upright
judge will give a fair hearing to every objec-
.tion that can be made to the integrity of a
witness, and allow it to be possible that he
may be corrupted; but no judge will ever
suppose that witnesses may be imposed upon
by trusting to their eyes and ears. And if
a sceptical counsel should plead against the
testimony of the witnesses, that they had
.no other evidence for what they [108] de-
clared but the testimony of their eyes and
ears, and that we ought not to put so much
faith in our senses as to deprive men of life
or fortune upon their testimony, surely no
upright judge would admit a plea of this
kind. I believe no counsel, however scep-
tical, ever dared to offer such an argument;
and, if it was offered, it would be rejected
with disdain.
Can any stronger proof be given that it
is the universal judgment of mankind that
the evidence of sense is a kind of evidence
which we may securely rest upon in the
most momentous concerns of mankind ;
that it is a kind of evidence against which
we ought not to admit any reasoning; and,
therefore, that to reason either for or against
it is an insult to common sense ?
The whole conduct of mankind in the
daily occurrences of life, as well as the so-
lemn procedure of judicatories in the trial
of causes civil and criminal, demonstrates
...this. I know only of two exceptions that
may be offered against this being the uni-
versal belief of mankind.
The first exception is that of some luna-
tics who have been persuaded of things that
seem to contradict the clear testimony of
their senses. It is said there have been
lunatics and hypochondriacal persons, who
seriously believed themselves to be made of
glass; and, in consequence of this, lived in
continual terror of having their brittle frame
shivered into pieces. *
All I have to say to this is, that our
minds, in our present state, are, as well as
our bodies, liable to strange disorders; and,
as we do not judge of the natural constitu-
tion of the body from the disorders or dis-
eases to which it is subject from accidents,
So neither ought we to judge of the natural
powers of the mind from its disorders, but
from its sound state. It is natural to man,
and common to the species, to have two
hands and two feet; yet I have seen a man,
and a very ingenious one, who was born
without either hands or feet. [109] It is
natural to man to have faculties superior to
those of brutes ; yet we see some indivi-
duals whose faculties are not equal to those
of many brutes; and the wisest man may,
by various accidents, be reduced to this
state. General rules that regard those
whose intellects are sound are not over-
thrown by instances of men whose intellects
are hurt by any constitutional or accidental
disorder.
The other exception that may be made
to the principle we have laid down is that
of some philosophers who have maintained
that the testimony of sense is fallacious,
and therefore ought never to be trusted.
Perhaps it might be a sufficient answer to
this to say, that there is nothing so absurd
which some philosophers have not main-
tained." It is one thing to profess a doc-
trine of this kind, another seriously to be-
lieve it, and to be governed by it in the
conduct of life. It is evident that a man
who did not believe his senses could not
keep out of harm's way an hour of his life ;
yet, in all the history of philosophy, we
never read of any sceptic that ever stepped
into fire or water because he did not believe
his senses, or that shewed in the conduct of
life less trust in his senses than other men
have.† This gives us just ground to appre-
hend that philosophy was never able to
conquer that natural belief which men have
in their senses; and that all their subtile
reasonings against this belief were never
able to persuade themselves.
It appears, therefore, that the clear and
distinct testimony of our senses carries
irresistible conviction along with it to every
man in his right judgment.
I observed, Thirdly, That this conviction
is not only irresistible, but it is immediate;
that is, it is not by a train of reasoning
and argumentation that we come to be
convinced of the existence of what we
perceive ; we ask no argument for the
existence of the object, but that we per-
ceive it ; perception commands our belief
upon its own authority, and disdains to
rest its authority upon any reasoning what-
soever.j: [110
The conviction of a truth may be irre-
sistible, and yet not immediate. Thus, my
conviction that the three angles of every
plain triangle are equal to two right angles,
is irresistible, but it is not immediate ; I
am convinced of it by demonstrative rea-
soning. There are other truths in mathe-
matics of which we have not only an irre-
sistible but an immediate conviction. Such
are the axioms. Our belief of the axioms
in mathematics is not grounded upon argu-
* A saying of Varro.—H.
f All this we read, however, in Laërtius, of Pyrrho;
and on the authority of Antigonus Carystius, the
great sceptic's contemporary. Whether we are to
believe the narrative is another question.— H.
f If Reid holds that in perception we have only a
conception of the Non-E-o in the Ego, this belief is
either not the reflex of a cognition, but a blind faith,
or it is mediate, as held by Stewart.—Ph: os. Aºss. ii.
C. 2.—H. ---
[108–110]
S 2
: 260
[ESSAY II,
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
ment—arguments are grounded upon them;
but their evidence is discerned immediately
by the human understanding.
It is, no doubt, one thing to have an
immediate conviction of a self-evident
axiom ; it is another thing to have an im-
‘mediate conviction of the existence of what
we see; but the conviction is equally imme-
diate and equally irresistible in both cases.
. No man thinks of seeking a reason to believe
what he sees ; and, before we are capable of
reasoning, we put no less confidence in our
senses than after. The rudest Savage is as
fully convinced of what he sees, and hears,
and feels, as the most expert logician. The
constitution of our understanding deter-
mines us to hold the truth of a mathematical
axiom as a first principle, from which other
truths may be deduced, but it is deduced
from none; and the constitution of our
power of perception determines us to hold
the existence of what we distinctly perceive
as a first principle, from which other truths
may be deduced ; but it is deduced from
none. What has been said of the irresis-
tible and immediate belief of the existence
of objects distinctly perceived, I mean only
to affirm with regard to persons so far ad-
vanced in understanding as to distinguish
objects of mere imagination from things
which have a real existence. Every man
knows that he may have a notion of Don
Quixote, or of Garagantua, without any
belief that such persons ever existed; and
that of Julius Caesar and Oliver Crom-
well, he has not only a notion, but a belief
that they did really exist. [111] But
whether children, from the time that they
begin to use their senses, make a distinction
between things which are only conceived or
imagined, and things which really exist,
may be doubted. Until we are able to
make this distinction, we cannot properly
be said to believe or to disbelieve the
existence of anything. The belief of the
existence of anything seems to suppose a
notion of existence—a notion too abstract,
perhaps, to enter into the mind of an in-
fant. I speak of the power of perception
in those that are adult and of a sound
mind, who believe that there are some
things which do really exist; and that there
are many things conceived by themselves,
and by others, which have no existence.
That such persons do invariably ascribe
existence to everything which they distinctly
perceive, without seeking reasons or argu-
ments for doing so, is perfectly evident from
the whole tenor of human life.
The account I have given of our percep-
tion of external objects, is intended as a
faithful delineation of what every man, come
to years of understanding, and capable of
giving attention to what passes in his own
mind, may feel in himself. In what man-
ner the notion of external objects, and the
immediate belief of their existence, is pro-
duced by means of our senses, I am not
able to shew, and I do not pretend to shew.
If the power of perceiving external objects
in certain circumstances, be a part of the
original constitution of the human mind,
all attempts to account for it will be vain.
No other account can be given of the con-
stitution of things, but the will of Him that
made them. As we can give no reason why
matter is extended and inert, why the mind
thinks and is conscious of its thoughts, but
the will of Him who made both ; so I sus-
pect we can give no other reason why, in
certain circumstances, we perceive external
objects, and in others do not."
The Supreme Being intended that we
should have such knowledge of the material
objects that surround us, as is necessary in
order to our supplying the wants of nature,
and avoiding the dangers to which we are
constantly exposed; and he has admirably
tted our powers of perception to this
purpose. [112] If the intelligence we have
of external objects were to be got by
reasoning only, the greatest part of men
would be destitute of it; for the greatest
part of men hardly ever learn to reason ;
and in infancy and childhood no man can
reason: Therefore, as this intelligence of
the objects that surround us, and from
which we may receive so much benefit or
harm, is equally necessary to children and
to men, to the ignorant and to the learned,
God in his wisdom conveys it to us in a
way that puts all upon a level. The inform-
ation of the senses is as perfect, and gives
as full conviction to the most ignorant as to
the most learned.
CHAPTER VI.
WHAT IT IS TO ACCOUNT FOR A PHAENOMENON
IN NATURE. -
AN object placed at a proper distance,
and in a good light, while the eyes are shut,
is not perceived at all ; but no sooner do
we open our eyes upon it than we have, as
it were by inspiration, a certain knowledge
of its existence, of its colour, figure, and
distance. This is a fact which every one
knows. The vulgar are satisfied with know-
ing the fact, and give themselves no trouble
about the cause of it : . but a philosopher is
impatient to know how this event is pro-
duced, to account for it, or assign its cause.
This avidity to know the causes of things
is the parent of all philosophy, true and
false. Men of speculation place a great
part of their happiness in such knowledge.
* See above, p. 128, b, note #, and p. 130, b, note *;
also Note A.—H.
[111, 112]
CHAP. VI.]
PHAENOMENON. 261.
AOCOUNT OF A
Felix qui potwit rerum cognoscere causas,
has always been a sentiment of human
nature. But, as in the pursuit of other
kinds of happiness men often mistake the
road, so in none have they more frequently
done it than in the philosophical pursuit of
the causes of things. [113]
It is a dictate of common sense, that the
causes we assign of appearances ought to
be real, and not fictions of human imagina-
tion. It is likewise self-evident, that such
causes ought to be adequate to the effects
that are conceived to be produced by them.
That those who are less accustomed to
inquiries into the causes of natural appear-
ances, may the better understand what it
is to shew the cause of such appearances,
or to account for them, I shall borrow a
plain instance of a phaenomenon or appear-
ance, of which a full and satisfactory ac-
count has been given. The phaenomenon
is this : That a stone, or any heavy body,
falling from a height, continually increases
its velocity as it descends ; so that, if it
acquire a certain velocity in one second of
time, it will have twice that velocity at the
end of two seconds, thrice at the end of
three seconds, and so on in proportion to
the time. This accelerated velocity in a
stone falling maust have been observed from
the beginning of the world; but the first
person, as far as we know, who accounted
for it in a proper and philosophical manner,
was the famous Galileo, after innumer-
able false and fictitious accounts had been
given of it.
He observed, that bodies once put in
motion continue that motion with the same
velocity, and in the same direction, until
they be stopped or retarded, or have the
direction of their motion altered, by some
force impressed upon them. This property
of bodies is called their inertia, or inac-
tivity; for it implies no more than that
bodies cannot of themselves change their
state from rest to motion, or from motion
to rest. He observed also, that gravity acts
constantly and equally upon a body, and
therefore will give equal degrees of velocity
to a body in equal times. From these
principles, which are known from experi-
ence to be fixed laws of nature, Galileo
shewed that heavy bodies must descend
with a velocity uniformly accelerated, as
by experience they are found to do. [114]
For if the body by its gravitation ac-
quire a certain velocity at the end of one
second, it would, though its gravitation
should cease that moment, continue to go on
with that velocity ; but its gravitation con-
tinues, and will in another second give it an
additional velocity, equal to that which it gave
in the first ; so that the whole velocity at
the end of two seconds, will be twice as great
as at the end of one. In like manner, this
velocity being continued through the third
second, and having the same addition by
gravitation as in any of the preceding, the
whole velocity at the end of the third second
will be thrice as great as at the end of the
first, and so on continually.
We may here observe, that the causes
assigned of this phaenomenon are two: First,
That bodies once put in motion retain their
velocity and their direction, untilitischanged
by some force impressed upon them. Se-
condly, That the weight or gravitation of a
body is always the same. These are laws
of Nature, confirmed by universal experi-
ence, and therefore are not feigned but true
causes. Then, they are precisely adequate
to the effect ascribed to them; they must
necessarily produce that very motion in
descending bodies which we find to take
place ; and neither more nor less. The
account, therefore, given of this phaenom-
non, is just and philosophical ; no other
will ever be required or admitted by those
who understand this.
It ought likewise to be observed, that
the causes assigned of this phaenomenon,
are things of which we can assign no cause.
Why bodies once put in motion continue to
move—why bodies constantly gravitate to-
wards the earth with the same force—no
man has been able to shew : these are facts
confirmed by universal experience, and
they must no doubt have a cause ; but their
cause is unknown, and we call them laws
of Nature, because we know no cause of
them, but the will of the Supreme Being.
But may we not attempt to find the cause
of gravitation, and of other phaenomena,
which we call Jaws of Nature ? No doubt
wennay. [115] We know not the limit which
has been set to human knowledge, and our
knowledge of the works of God can never
be carried too far. But, supposing gravita-
tion to be accounted for, by an aethereal
elastic medium, for instance, this can only be
done, first, by proving the existence and the
elasticity of this medium ; and, secondly,
by shewing that this medium must neces-
sarily produce that gravitation which bodies
are known to have. Until this be done,
gravitation is not accounted for, nor is
its cause known ; and when this is done,
the elasticity of this medium will be consi-
dered as a law of nature whose cause is
unknown. The chain of natural causes has,
not unfitly, been compared to a chain hang-
ing down from heaven : a link that is dis-
covered supports the links below it, but it
must itself be supported; and that which
supports it must be supported, until we
come to the first link, which is supported
by the throne of the Almighty. Every na-
tural cause must have a cause, until we
ascend to the first cause, which is uncaused,
and operates not by necessity but by will.
T113–115]
262
TEssay 11.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
By what has been said in this chapter,
those who are but little acquainted with
philosophical inquiries, may see what is
meant by accounting for a phaenomenon,
or shewing its cause, which ought to be well
understood, in order to judge of the theories
by which philosophers have attempted to
account for our perception of external ob-
jects by the senses.
CHAPTER VII.
SENTIMENTs" of PHILOSOPHERS ABOUT THE
PERCEPTION OF ExtERNAL OBJECTS ; AND,
FIRST, OF THE THEORY OF FATHER MALE-
BRANCHE. f.
How the correspondence is carried on
between the thinking principle withinus, and
the material world without us, has always
been found a very difficult problem to those
philosophers who think themselves obliged
to account for every phaenomenon in nature.
[116] Many philosophers, ancient and
modern, have employed their invention to
discover how we are made to perceive ex-
ternal objects by our senses; and there
appears to be a very great uniformity in
their sentiments in the main, notwithstand-
ing their variations in particular points.
Plato illustrates our manner of perceiving
the objects of sense, in this manner. He
supposes a dark subterraneous cave, in
which men lie bound in such a manner
that they can direct their eyes only to one
part of the cave : far behind, there is a
light, some rays of which come over a wall
to that part of the cave which is before the
eyes of our prisoners. A number of per-
sons, variously employed, pass between
them and the light, whose shadows are seen
by the prisoners, but not the persons them-
selves. .*
In this manner, that philosopher con-
ceived that, by our senses, we perceive the
shadows of things only, and not things
themselves. He seems to have borrowed
his notions on this subject, from the Pytha-
goreans, and they very probably from Py-
thagoras himself. If we make allowance
for Plato's allegorical genius, his sentiments
on this subject, correspond very well with
* Sentiment, as here and elsewhere employed by
Reid, in the Hmeaning of opinion, (sententia,) is not
to be imitated. There are, undoubtedly, precedents
to be found for such usage in English writers; and, in
the French and Italian languages, this is one of the
ordinary signfications of the word.— H.
i It is not easy to conceive by what principle the
order of the history of opinions touching Perception,
contained in the nine following chapters, is deter.
mined. It is not chronological, and it is not systematic.
Qf these theories, there is a very able survey, by M.
Royer Collard, among the fragments of his lectures,
in the third volume of Jouffroy's “Oeuvres de Reid.”
That distinguished philosopher has, however, placed
too great a reliance upon the accuracy of Reid.—H.
those of his scholar, Aristotle, and of the
Peripatetics. The silädows of Plato may
very well represent the species and phan-
tasms of the Peripatetic school, and the
ideas and impressions of modern philo-
sophers."
* This interpretation of the meaning of Plato's
comparison of the cave exhibits a curious mistake,
in which Reid is followed by Mr Stewart and many
others, and which, it is remarkable, has never yet
been detected. In the similitude in question, (which
will be found in the seventh book of the Republic,)
Plato is supposed to intend an illustration of the
mode in which the shadows or vicarious images of
external things are admitted into the mind—to
typify, in short, an hypothesis of sensitive perception.
On this supposition, the identity of the Platonic,
Pythagorean, and Peripatetic theories of this pro-
cess is inferred. Nothing can, however, be more
groundless than the supposition ; nothing more erro-
neous than the inference. By his cave, images, and
shadows, Plato meant simply to illustrate the grand
principle of his philosophy—that the Sensible or Ec-
typal world, (phaenomenal, transitory, y1) w8øsvov, Šy
zczi pº. #y,) stands to the Noetic or Archetypal, (sub-
stantial, permanent, 3, rag ºv,) in the same relation
of comparative unreality, in which the shadows of the
images of sensible existences themselves, stand to the
things of which they are the dim and distant adum-
brations. In the language of an illustrious poet—
“An nescis, quaecunque heic Sunt, quae hac nocte
teguntur,
Crmnia res prorsus veras non esse, sed umbras,
Aut specula, unde ad nos aliena elucet imago P
Terra quidem, et maria alta, atque his circumfluus
aer,
Et quae consistunt exiis, haec omnia tenueis
Sunt umbrae, humanos quae tanquam somnia quae-
dam
Pertingunt animos, fallaci et imagine ludunt,
Nunquam eadeum, fluxu semper variata perenni.
Sol autem, Lunaeque globus, fulgentiaque astra
Caetera, sint quamvis meliori praedita vita,
F't donata aºvo immortali, haec ipsa tamen Sunt
AEterni specula, in quae animus, qui est inde profec.
tus,
Inspiciens, patriae quodam quasi tactus amore,
Ardescit. Verum quoniam heic non perstal et ultra
Nescio quid scquitur secum, tacitusque requirit,
Nosse licet circum haec ipsum consistere verum,
Non finem : sed enim esse aliud quid, cujus imago
Splendet in iis, quod per se ipsum est, et principium
€SSG
Omnibus aeternum, ante omnem numerumque diem-
que;
In quo alium Solem atque aliam splendescere Ilu-
Ilal ()
Adspicias, aliosque orbes, alia astra manere,
Terramgue, fluviosque afios, atque aera, et ignem,
Et memora, atque aliis errare animalia silvis.”
And as the comparison is misunderstood, so no-
thing can be conceived more adverse to the doctrine
of Plato than the theory it is supposed to elucidate.
Plotinus, indeed, formally refutes, as contrary to the
Platonic, the very hypothesis thus atti ibuted to his
master. (Enn. IV., l. vi., cc. l., 3.) The doctrine of
the Platonists on this point has been almost wholly
neglected; and the author almong them whose work
contains its most articulate developement has been
so completely overlooked, both by scholars and phi-
losophers, that his work is of the rarest, while even
his name is mentioned in no history of philosophy.
It is here sufficient to state, that the gºoxaz, the
Aévol ovos-120), the forms representative of external
things, and corresponding to the species sensiles ex-
pressa of the schoolmen, were not held by the Plato-
nists to be derived from without. Prior to the act of
perception, they have a latent but real existence in
the soul; and, by the impassive energy of the mind
itself, are elicited into consciousness, on occasion of the
impression (2? vagiš, réflossºgo.gis) made on the exter-
nal organ, and of the viral form (§orizöy tºog), in con-
sequence thereof, sublimated in the animal life. The
verses of Boethius, which have been so frequently
mni understood, contain an accurate statement of the
Platonic theory of perception. After refuting the
| 116.
CHAP. VII.]
263
SENTIMIENTS ABOUT PERCEPTION.
Two thousand years after Plato, Mr
Locke, who studied, the operations of the
human mind so mach, and with so great
success, represents our manner of perceiving
external objects, by a similitude very much
resembling that of the cave. “Methinks,”
says he, “the understanding is not much
unlike a closet wholly shut from light, with
only some little opening left, to let in exter-
nal visible resemblances or ideas of things
without. Would the pictures coming into
such a dark room but stay there, and lie so
orderly as to be found upon occasion, it
would very much resemble the under-
standing of a man, in reference to all objects
of sight, and the ideas of them.” [117]
Plato's subterranean cave, and Mr Locke's
dark closet, may be applied with ease to all
the systems of perception that have been
invented : for they all suppose that we
perceive not external objects immediately,
and that the immediate objects of percep-
tion are only certain shadows of the ex-
termal objects. Those shadows or images,
which we immediately perceive, were by
the ancients called species, forms, pham-
tasms. Since the time of Des Cartes, they
have commonly been called ideas, and by
Mr Hume, impressions. But all philoso-
phers, from Plato to Mr Hume, agree in
this, That we do not perceive external ob-
jects immediately, and that the immediate
object of perception must be some image
present to the mind.” So far there ap-
Stoical doctrine of the passivity of mind in this pro-
cess, he proceeds:—
“Mens est efficiens magis
Longe causa potentior,
Quam quae materiae modo
lmpressas patitur notas.
Praecedit tamen excitans
Ac vires animi movens
Pivo in corpore passio,
Cum vel lux oculos ferit,
Vel vox auribus instrepit:
Tum mentis vigor ercitus
6) was intus species tenet,
Ad motus similes vocans,
Notis applicat exteris,
Introrsumque reconditis
Formis miscet imagines.”
I cannot now do more than indicate the contrast
of this doctrine to the Peripatetic (I do not say Aris-
totelian) theory, and its approximation to the Carte-
sian and Leibnitzian hypotheses; which, however,
both stiennpt to explain, what the Platonic did not.—
how the mind, ea hypothesi, above all physical in-
Jivence, is determined, on the presence of the un-
known reality within the sphere of sense, to call into
consciousness the representation through which that
reality is made known to us. I may add, that not
merely the Platonists, but some of the older Peripa-
tetics held that the soul virtually contained within it-
self representative forms, which were only excited
by the cxternal reality; as Theophrastus and The-
mistius, to say nothing of the Platomizing Porphyry,
Simplicius and Ammonius Hermiae ; and the same
opinion, adopted probably from the latter, by his
pupil, the Arabian Adelandus, subsequently be-
came even the common doctrine of the 'Moorish
Aristotelians.
I shall afterwards have occasion to notice that
Bacon has also wrested Plato's similitude of the cave
from its genuine signification —H. -
* This is not correct. There were philosophers
pears an unanimity, rarely to be found among
philosophers on such abstruse points."
If it should be asked, Whether, accord-
ing to the opinion of philosophers, we per-
ceive the images or ideas only, and infer the
existence and qualities of the external ob-
ject from what we perceive in the image ;
or, whether we really perceive the external
object as well as its image 2–the answer
to this question is not quite obvious.-F
On the one hand, philosophers, if we ex-
cept Berkeley and Hume, believe the ex-
istence of external objects of sense, and call
them objects of perception, though not im-
mediate objects. But what they mean by
a mediate object of perception I do not find
clearly explained : whether they suit their
language to popular opinion, and mean that
we perceive external objects in that figura-
tive sense in which we say that we perceive
an absent friend when we look on his pic-
ture; or whether they mean that, really,
and without a figure, we perceive both the
external object and its idea in the mind.
If the last be their meaning, it would follow
that, in every instance of perception, there
is a double object perceived : [l 18] that
I perceive, for instance, one sun in the
heavens, and another in my own mind.:
But I do not find that they affirm this ;
and, as it contradicts the experience of all
mankind, I will not impute it to them.
It seems, therefore, that their opinion is,
That we do not really perceive the external
object, but the internal only; and that, when
they speak of perceiving external objects,
they mean it only in a popular or in a figur-
ative sense, as above explained. Several
reasons lead me to think this to be the
opinion of philosophers, beside what is
mentioned above. First, If we do really
perceive the external object itself, there
seems to be no necessity, no use, for an
image of it. Secondly, Since the time of
Des Cartes, philosophers have very gene-
rally thought that the existence of external
objects of sense requires proof, and can only
be proved from the existence of their ideas.
Thirdly, The way in which philosophers
speak of ideas, seems to imply that they
are the only objects of perception.
who held a purer and preciser doctrine of immediate
perception than Reid himself contemplated.—H.
* Reid himself, like the philosophers in general,
really holds, that we do not perceive external things
immediately, if he does not allow us a consciousness
of the non-ego. It matters not whether the external
reality be represented in a tertium quid, or in a no-
dification of the mind itself; in eit er case, it is not
known in itself, but in something numerically dif-
ferent.-H. -
+ Nothing can be clearer than would be this answer.
—In perception, the external reality, (the mediate
object,) is only known to us in and through the imm-
mediate object, i. e., the representation of which we
are conscious. As existing, and beyond the sphere of
consciousness, the external reality is unknown.--''.
f “Et solem geminum et duplices se ostendere
Thebas!”—H,
[117, 118]
264
[ESSAY II:
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
Having endeavoured to explain what is
common to philosophers in accounting for
our perception of external objects, we shall
give some detail of their differences.
The ideas by which we perceive external
objects, are said by some to be the ideas of
the Deity; but it has been more generally
thought, that every man’s ideas are proper
to himself, and are either in his mind, or
in his sensorium, where the mind is imine-
diately present. The first is the theory of
Malebranche; the second we shall call the
common theory.
With regard to that of Malebranche, it
seems to have some affinity with the Pla-
tonic notion of ideas,” but is not the same.
Plato believed that there are three eternal
first principles, from which all things have
their origin—matter, ideas, and an efficient
cause. Matter is that of which all things
are made, which, by all the ancient philo-
sophers, was conceived to be eternal. [119]
Ideas are forms without matter of every
kind of things which can exist; which forms
were also conceived by Plato to be eternal
and immutable, and to be the models or
patterns by which the efficient cause—that
is, the Deity—formed every part of this
universe. These ideas were conceived to
be the sole objects of science, and indeed
of all true knowledge. While we are im-
prisoned in the body, we are prone to give
attention to the objects of sense only ; but
these being individual things, and in a con-
stant fluctuation, being indeed shadows
rather than realities, cannot be the object
of real knowledge. All science is employed
not about individual things, but about
things universal and abstract from matter.
Truth is eternal and immutable, and there-
fore must have for its object eternal and
immutable ideas; these we are capable of
contemplating in some degree even in our
present state, but not without a certain
purification of mind, and abstraction from
the objects of sense. Such, as far as I am
able to comprehend, were the sublime
notions of Plato, and probably of Pytha-
goras.
The philosophers of the Alexandrian
school, commonly called the latter Plato-
mists, seem to have adopted the same sys-
tem; but with this difference, that they
made the eternal ideas not to be a principle
distinct from the Deity, but to be in the
divine intellect, as the objects of those con-
ceptions which the divine mind must, from
all eternity, have had, not only of every-
* The Platonic theory of Ideas has nothing to do
with a doctrine of sensitive perception ; and its intro-
duction into the question is only pregnant with con-
fusion ; while, in regard to sensitive perception, the
peculiar hypothesis of Malebranche, is in fact not only
not similar to, but much farther removed from, the
Platonic than the common Cartesian theory, and
the Leibnitzian.—H. -
y
thing which he has made, but of every pos-
sible existence, and of all the relations of
things." By a proper purification and
abstraction from the Gbjects of sense, we
may be in some measure united to the
Deity, and, in the etermal light, be enabled
to discern the most sublime intellectual
truths. -
These Platonie notions, grafted upon
Christianity, probably gave rise to the
sect called Mystics, which, though in its
spirit and principles extremely opposite to
the Peripatetic, yet was never extinguished,
but subsists to this day. [120]
Many of the Fathers of the Christian
church have a tincture of the tenets of the
Alexandrian school; among others, St
Augustine. But it does not appear, as far
as I know, that either Plato, or the latter
Platonists, or St Augustine, or the Mystics,
thought that we perceive the objects of
sense in the divine ideas. They had too
mean a notion of our perception of sensible
objects to ascribe to it so high an origin.
This theory, therefore, of our perceiving
the objects of sense in the ideas of the
Deity, I take to be the invention of Father
Malebranche himself. He, indeed, brings
many passages of St Augustine to counte-
nance it, and seems very desirous to have
that Father of his party. But in those
passages, though the Father speaks in a
very high strain of God's being the light of
our minds, of our being illuminated imme-
diately by the eternal light, and uses other
similar expressions; yet he seems to apply
those expressions only to our illumination
in moral and divine things, and not to the
perception of objects by the senses. Mr
Bayle imagines that some traces of this
opinion of Malebranche are to be found in
Amelius the Platonist, and even in Demo-
critus; but his authorities seem to be
strained.-- -
Malebranche, with a very penetrating
genius, entered into a more minute examin-
ation of the powers of the human mind,
than any one before him. He had the advan-
tage of the diseoveries made by Des Cartes,
whom he followed without slavish attach-
Inhent.
He lays it down as a principle admitted
by all philosophers, and which could not
be called in question, that we do not per-
ceive external objects immediately, but by
means of images or ideas of them present
to the mind. “I suppose,” says he, “that
* And this, though Aristotle asserts the contrary,
was perhaps also the doctrine of Plato.—H.
f The theory of Malebranche has been vainly
sought for in the Bible, the Platonists, and the Fathers.
It is, in fact, more clearly enounced in Homer than
in any of these graver sources. -
Tºlos, yºg véog #5-ly &ruz0ovíay &v06&ray,
Olov ºr’?,226 &zao", ºrºe &v32%, re 083, re.
But for anticipations, see Note P.—H.
[119, 120]
A
chap. vii.] SENTIMENTS ABOUT
EXTERNAL OBJECTS. 265
every one will grant that we perceive not
the objects that are without us immediately,
and of themselves." We see the sun, the
stars, and an infinity of objects without us;
and it is not at all likely that the soul sal-
lies out of the body, and, as it were, takes a
walk through the heavens, to contemplate
all those objects. [121] She sees them not,
therefore, by themselves; and the imme-
diate object of the mind, when it sees the
sun, for example, is not the sun, but some-
thing which is intimately united to the
Soul; and it is that which I call an idea.
So that by the word idea, I understand
nothing else here but that which is the im-
mediate object, or nearest to the mind,
when we perceive+ any object.f. It ought
to be carefully observed, that, in order to
the mind's perceiving any object, it is abso-
lutely necessary that the idea of that ob-
Ject be actually present to it. Of this it
is not possible to doubt. . . . . . .
The things which the soul perceives are of
two kinds. They are either in the soul, or
they are without the soul. Those that are
in the soul are its own thoughts—that is to
Say, all its different modifications. [For
by these words—thought, manner of think-
ing, or modification of the soul, I under-
stand in general whatever cannot be in the
mind without the mind perceiving it, as its
proper sensations, its imaginations, its pure
intellections, or simply its conceptions, its
passions even, and its natural inclina-
tions.]S The soul has no need of ideas for
perceiving these things. But with regard
to things without the soul, we cannot per-
ceive them but by means of ideas.”“I
Having laid this foundation, as a prin-
ciple common to all philosophers, and which
admits of no doubt, he proceeds to enume-
rate all the possible ways by which the ideas
of sensible objects may be presented to the
mind: Either, first, they come from the
bodies which we perceive;"* or, secondly, the
soul has the power of producing them in it-
self;t- or, thirdly, they are produced by the
Deity, either in our creation, or occasionally,
as there is use for them;" or, fourthly, the
soul has in itself virtually and eminently, as
the schools speak, all the perfections which
it perceives in bodies;f or, fifthly, the soul
is united with a Being possessed of all per-
fection, who has in himself the ideas of all
created things.
This he takes to be a complete enumera-
tions of all the possible ways in which the
ideas of external objects may be presented
to our minds. He employs a whole chapter
upon each; refuting the four first, and con-
firming the last by various arguments.
The Deity, being always present to our
minds in a more intimate manner than any
other being, may, upon occasion of the im-
pressions made on our bodies, discover to us,
as far as he thinks proper, and according
to fixed laws, his own ideas of the object;
and thus we see all things in God, or in the
divine ideas.it [122]
However visionary this system may ap-
pear on a superficial view, yet, when we
consider that he agreed with the whole tribe
of philosophers in conceiving ideas to be the
immediate objects of perception, and that
he found insuperable difficulties, and even
absurdities, in every other hypothesis con-
cerning them, it will not appear so wonder-
ful that a man of very great genius should
fall into this ; and, probably, it pleased
so devout a man the more, that it sets, in
the most striking light, our dependence upon
God, and his continual presence with us.
IHe distinguished, more accurately than
any philosopher had done before, the objects
which we perceive from the sensations in
our own minds, which, by the laws of
Nature, always accompany the perception
of the object. As in many things, so par-
ticularly in this, he has great merit. For
this, I apprehend, is a key that opens the
way to a right understanding, both of our
external senses and of other powers of the
mind. The vulgar confound sensation with
other powers of the mind, and with their
objects, because the purposes of life do not
make a distinction necessary. The con-
founding of these in common language, has
led philosophers, in one period, to make
those things external which really are sens-
ations in our own minds; and, in another
period, running, as is usual, into the con-
• Rather in or by themselves (par eur mémea.)
+ That is, in the language of philosophers before
Reid, “ where we have the apprehensive cognition
or consciousness of any object.”—H.
f In this definition, all philosophers concur. Des
Cartes, Locke, &c., give it in almost the same terms.
I have inserted this sentence, omitted by Reid,
from the original, in order to shew in how exten-
sive a meaning the term thought was used in the
Cartesian school. See Cartesii Princ., P.I., § 9.—H.
| Hence the distinction precisely taken by Male-
branche of Idea (idée) and Feeling, (sentinent,) cor-
responding in principle to our Perception of the
primary, and our Sensation of the secondary qualities.
T De la Recherche de la Verité. Liv. III., Partie
ii., ch. 1.-H.
** The common Peripatetic doctrine, &c —H.
++. Malebranche refers, I presume, to the opinions
of certain Cartesians. See Gassendi Opera, iii. p 321.
* Opinious analogous to the second or third, were
held by the Platonists, by some of the Greek, and
by many of the Arabian Aristotelians. See above, p.
262, note * –H
+ Something similar to this is hazarded by Des
Cartes in his Third “Meditation,” which it is likely
that Malebranche had in his eye—H.
t It should have been noticed that the Malebranch-
ian philosophy is fundamentally Cartesian, and that,
after De la Forge and Geulinx, the doctrine of
Divine Assistance, implicitly maintained by Des
Cartes, was most ably developed by Malebranche, to
whom it owes, indeed, a principal share of its cels
brity.-H.
[131, 122]
266
[Essay iſ:
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
trary extreme, to make everything almost
to be a sensation or feeling in our minds.
It is obvious that the system of Male-
branche leaves no evidence of the existence
of a material world, from what we perceive
by our senses; for the divine ideas, which
are the objects immediately perceived, were
the same before the world was created.
Malebranche was too acute not to discern
this consequence of his system, and too can-
did not to acknowledge it. [123] He fairly
owns it, and endeavours to make advantage
of it, resting the complete evidence we have
of the existence of matter upon the author-
ity of revelation. He shews that the argu-
ments brought by Des Cartes to prove the
existence of a material world, though as
good as any that reason could furnish, are
not perfectly conclusive ; and, though he
acknowledges with Des Cartes that we feel
a strong propensity to believe the existence
of a material world, yet he thinks this is
not sufficient ; and that to yield to such
propensities without evidence, is to expose
ourselves to perpetual delusion. He thinks,
therefore, that the only convincing evidence
we have of the existence of a material world
is, that we are assured by revelation that
God created the heavens and the earth,
and that the Word was made flesh. He is
sensible of the ridicule to which so strange
an opinion may expose him among those
who are guided by prejudice; but, for the
salve of truth, he is willing to bear it. But
no author, not even Bishop Berkeley, hath
shewn more clearly, that, either upon his
own system, or upon the common principles
of philosophers with regard to ideas, we
have no evidence left, either from reason
or from our senses, of the existence of a
material world. It is no more than justice
to Father Malebranche, to acknowledgethat
Bishop Berkeley’s arguments are to be
found in him in their whole force.
Mr Norris, an English divine, espoused
the system of Malebranche, in his “Essay
towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intel-
lectual World,” published in two volumes
8°, anno 1701. This author has made a
feeble effort to supply a defect which is to
be found not in Malebranche only, but in
almost all the authors who have treated of
ideas—I mean, to prove their existence.*
He has employed a whole chapter to prove
that material things cannot be an immediate
object of perception. His arguments are
these : Ist, They are without the mind, and,
therefore there can be no union between the
object and the perception. 2dly, They are
disproportioned to the mind, and removed
* This is incorrect. In almost every system of
the Aristotelico-scholastic philosophy, the attempt is
made to prove the existence of Species; nor is Reid’s
assention true even of ideas in the Cartesian philoso-
phy. In fact, Norris's arguments are all old and
commonplace.—H.
from it by the whole diameter of being.
3dly, Because, if material objects were
immediate objects of perception, there could
be no physical science; things necessary
and immutable being the only objects of
science. [124] 4thly, If material things were
perceived by themselves, they would be a
true light to our minds, as being the intel-
ligible form of our understandings, and con-
sequently perfective of them, and, indeed,
superior to them.
Malebranche's system was adopted by
many devout people in France of both
sexes; but it seems to have had no great
currency in other countries. Mr Locke
wrote a small tract against it, which is
found among his posthumous works:" but,
whether it was written in haste, or after
the vigour of his understanding was im-
paired by age, there is less of strength and
solidity in it than in most of his writings.
The most formidable antagonist Male-
branche met with was in his own country—
Antony Arnauld, doctor of the Sorbonne,
and one of the acutest writers the Jansenists
have to boast of, though that sect has pro-
duced many. Malebranche was a Jesuit,
and the antipathy between the Jesuits and
Jansenists left him no room to expect
quarter from his learned antagonist. Those
who choose to see this system attacked on
the one hand, and defended on the other,
with subtilty of argument and elegance of
expression; and on the part of Arnauld
with much wit and humour, may find satis-
faction by reading Malebranche’s “Enquiry
after Truth;” Arnauld's book “Of True and
False Ideas;” Malebranche's “Defence;”
and some subsequent replies and defences.
In controversies of this kind, the assailant
commonly has the advantage, if they are
not unequally matched; for it is easier to
overturn all the theories of philosophers
upon this subject, than to defend any one
of them. Mr Bayle makes a very just re-
mark upon this controversy—that the argu-
ments of Mr Arnauld against the system of
Malebranche, were often unanswerable, but
* In answer to J.ocke’s “ Examination of P. Male-
branche's Opinion,” Leibnitz wrote “Remarks,”
which are to be found among his posthumous works,
published by Raspe.—H. -
+ Malebranche was not a Jesuit, but a Priest of the
Oratory; and so little was he either a favourer or
favourite of the Jesuits, that, by the Pere de Valois,
he was accused of heresy, by the Pere Hardouin, of
Atheism. The endeavours of the Jesuits in France to
prohibit the introduction of every form of the Carte-
sian doctrine into the public seminaries of education,
are well known. Malebranche and Arnauld were
therefore not opposed as Jesuit and Jansenist, and it
should likewise be remembered that they were both
Cartesians.—H.
f Independently of his principal hypothesis alto-
gether, the works of Malebranche deserve the most
attentive study, both on account of the many ad-
mirable thoughts and observations with which they
abound, and because they are among the few con-
summate models of philosºphical eloquence.—H.
[123, 124]
chap. viii.) OF THE THEORY OF PERCEPTION, &c.
267.
they were capable of being retorted against
his own system ; and his ingenious antag-
onist knew well how to use this defence. [125]
CHAPTER VIII.
OF THE COMMON THEORY OF PERCEPTION,
AND OF THE SENTIIMIENTS OF THE PERIPA-
TETICS, AND OF DES CARTES.
THIS theory, in general, is, that we per-
ceive external objects only by certain images
which are in our minds, or in the sensorium
to which the mind is immediately present.
Philosophers in different ages have differed
both in the names they have given to those
images, and in their notions concerning
them. It would be a laborious task to
enumerate all their variations, and per-
haps would not requite the labour. I shall
only give a sketch of the principal dif-
ferences with regard to their names and
their nature.
By Aristotle and the Peripatetics, the
images presented to our senses were called
sensible species or forms ; those presented
to the memory or imagination were called
phantasms : and those presented to the
intellect were called intelligible species ;
and they thought that there can be no
perception, no imagination, no intellection,
without species or phantasms,” What the
ancient philosophers called species, sensible
and intelligible, and phantasms, in later
times, and especially since the time of Des
Cartes, came to be called by the common
name of ideas. The Cartesians divided
our ideas into three classes—those of sensa-
tion, of imagination, and of pure intellection.
Of the objects of sensation and imagination,
they thought the images are in the brain;:
but of objects that are incorporeal the
images are in the understanding or pure
intellect.
Mr Locke, taking the word idea in the
same sense as Des Cartes had done before
him, to signify whatever is meant by phan-
tasm, notion, or species, divides ideas into
those of sensation, and those of reflection ;
meaning by the first, the ideas of all corpo-
real objects, whether perceived, remem-
bered, or imagined; by the second, the
ideas of the powers and operations of our
minds. [126] What Mr Locke calls ideas,
Mr Hume divides into two distinct kinds,
impressions and ideas. The difference be-
twixt these, he says, consists in the degrees
of force and liveliness with which they strike
upon the mind. Under impressions he com-
prehends all our sensations, passions, and
* See Note M.–H.
t Not merely §: but only since the time of
Des Cartes, See Note G.-H.
f Incorrect. See Note N.—H.
emotions, as they make their first appear-
ance in the Soul. By ideas, he means the
faint images of these in thinking and rea-
Soning.
Dr Hartley gives the same meaning to
ideas as Mr Hume does, and what Mr
Hume calls impressions he calls sensations;
conceiving our sensations to be occasioned
by vibrations of the infinitesimal particles
of the brain, and ideas by miniature vibra-
tions or vibratiuncles. Such differences
we find among philosophers, with regard to
the name of those internal images of objects
of sense which they hold to be the imme-
diate objects of perception.*
We shall next give a short detail of the
sentiments of the Peripatetics and Carte-
sians, of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, con-
cerning them.
Aristotle seems to have thought that the
Soul consists of two parts, or rather that
we have two souls—the animal and the ra-
tional ; or, as he calls them, the soul and
the intellect. To the first, belong the
senses, memory, and imagination ; to the
last, judgment, opinion, belief, and reason-
ing. The first we have in common with
brute animals; the last is peculiar to man.
The animal soul he held to be a certain
form of the body, which is inseparable from
it, and perishes at death. To this soul the
senses belong ; and he defines a sense to be
that which is capable of receiving the sensi-
ble forms or species of objects, without any
of the matter of them ; as wax receives the
form of the seal without any of the matter
of it. The forms of sound, of colour, of
+ Reid, I may observe in generaſ, does not dis-
tinguish, as it especially behowed him to do, between
what were held by philosophers to be the proximate
causes of our mental representations, and these
representations themselves as the objects of cognition
—i.e., between what are known in the schools as
the species imp' essa, and the species expressar. The
former, to which the name of species, image, idea,
was often given, in common with the latter, was held
on all hands to be unknown to consciousness, and
generally supposed to be merely certain occult motions
in the organism. The latter, the result determined
by the former, is the ments] representation, and
the immediate or proper object in perception. Great
confusion, to those who do 1, ot bear this distinction in
mind, is, however, the consequence of the verbal
ambiguity; and Reid's misrepresentations of the
doctrine of the philosophers ig, in a great measure, to
be traced to this source.—H. -
+ This not correct. Instead of two, the animal and
rational, Aristotle gave to the soul three generic
functions, the vegetable, the animal or sensual, and
the orational ; but whether he supposes these to
constitute three concentric potences, three separate
parts, or three distinct souls, has divided his disciples.
He also defines the soul in general, and not, as Reid
supposcs, the mere ‘animal soul,” to be the form or
#vºrs Aézelaz of the body.—(De ºniºma l., ii. c. 1.) In-
tellect (vg) he however thought was inorganic; but
there is some ground for believing that he did not
view this as personal, but harbuured an opinion
which, under various modifications, many of his fol
lowers also held, that the active intellect was com-
mon to all men, immortal and divine, Kıveſ 2&g ro,
arc.wºrc to #y Żuły (lºſovº Aózov 8 &ex?, Öv Aéros &XX& ra
zgºrrow. Tí owy &y zeertov ×ociéris-àºza, i, ºroi, aražy
(; o; ; – H.
[125, 126]
268
[ESSAY II.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
taste, and of other sensible qualities, are,
in manner, received by the senses." [127]
It seems to be a necessary consequence
of Aristotle's doctrine, that bodies are con-
stantly sending forth, in all directions, as
many different kinds of forms without
matter as they have different sensible qua-
lities; for the forms of colour must enter
Yºy the eye, the forms of sound by the ear,
and so of the other senses. This, accord-
ingly, was maintained by the followers of
Aristotle, though not, as far as I know,
expressly mentioned by himself, t . They
disputed concerning the nature of those
forms of species, whethers they were real
beings or nonentities; and some held
them to be of an intermediate nature be-
tween the two. The whole doctrine of the
Peripatetics and schoolmen concerning
forms, substantial and accidental, and con-
cerning the transmission of sensible species
from objects of sense to the mind, if it be
at all intelligible, is so far above my com-
prehension that I should perhaps do it in-
justice, by entering into it more minutely.
Malebranche, in his “ Recherche de la
Verité,” has employed a chapter to shew
that material objects do not send forth
sensible species of their several sensible
qualities.
The great revolution which Des Cartes
produced in philosophy, was the effect of a
superiority of genius, aided by the circum-
stances of the times. Men had, for more
than a thousand years, looked up to Ari-
stotle as an oracle in philosophy. His
authority was the test of truth. The small
remains of the Platonic system were con-
fined to a few mystics, whose principles and
manner of life drew little attention. The
feeble attempts of Ramus, and of some
others, to make improvements in the sys-
tem, had little effect. The Peripatetic
doctrines were so interwoven with the whole
system of scholastic theology, that to dissent
from Aristotle was to alarm the Church.
The most useful and intelligible parts,
even of Aristotle's writings, were neglected,
and philosophy was become an art of speak-
ing learnedly, and disputing subtilely, with-
out producing any invention of use in human
life. It was fruitful of words, but barren
of works, and admirably contrived for
drawing a veil over human ignorance, and
putting a stop to the progress of knowledge,
by filling men with a conceit that they
knew everything. [128] It was very fruitful
also in controversies; but, for the most part,
they were controversies about words, or
about things of no moment, or things above
the reach of the human faculties. And the
issue of them was what might be expected—
that the contending parties fought, without
gaining or losing an inch of ground, till they
were weary of the dispute, or their atten-
tion was called off to some other subject.*
Such was the philosophy of the schools of
Europe, during many ages of darkness and
barbarism that succeeded the decline of the
Roman empire; so that there was great
need of a reformation in philosophy as well
as in religion. The light began to dawn at
last ; a spirit of inquiry sprang up, and
men got the courage to doubt of the dogmas
of Aristotle, as well as of the decrees of
Popes. The most important step in the
reformation of religion, was to destroy
the claim of infallibility, which hindered
men from using their judgment in matters
of religion; and the most important step in
thereformation of philosophy, was to destroy
the authority of which Aristotle had so long
had peaceable possession. The last had
been attempted by Lord Bacon and others,
with no less zeal than the first by Luther
and Calvin.
Des Cartes knew well the defects of the
prevailing system, which had begun to lose
its authority. His genius enabled him, and
his spirit prompted him, to attempt a new
one. He had applied much to the mathe-
matical Sciences, and had made considerable
improvement in them. He wished to in-
troduce that perspicuity and evidence into
other branches of philosophy which he
found in them.
Being sensible how apt we are to be led
astray by prejudices of education, he thought
the only way to avoid error was to resolve
to doubt of everything, and hold everything
to be uncertain, even those things which
he had been taught to hold as most certain,
until he had such clear and cogent evidence
as compelled his assent. [129]
In this state of universal doubt, that
which first appeared to him to be clear and
certain, was his own existence. Of this he
was certain, because he was conscious that he
thought, that he reasoned, and that he
doubted. He used this argument, there-
fore, to prove his own existence, Cogito,
ergo sum. This he conceived to be the first
of all truths, the foundation-stone upon
which the whole fabric of human knowledge
• See Note M.–H.
+ Nor is there valid ground for supposing that such
an opinion was even implicitly held by the Stagirite.
It was also explicitly repudiated by many of his fol-
lowers. See Note M.–H.
f The question in the schools, between those who
admitted species, was not, whether species, in gene-
ral, were real beings or nonentities (which would
have been, did they exist or not,) but whether sen-
s: le species were material, immaterial, or of a
nature between body and spirit—a problem, it must
b - allowed, sufficiently futile, but not, like the other,
self. contradictory.—H.
* This is the vulgar opinion in regard to the
Scholastic philosophy. The few are, however, now
aware that the human mind, though partially, was
never more powerfully developed than during the
middle ages.-H.
[127–129]
*.
cil AP. VIII.]
269
OF THE THEORY OF PERCEPTION, &c.
is built, and on which it must rest." And,
as Archimedes thought that, if he had one
fixed point to rest his engines upon, he
could move the earth ; so Des Cartes,
charmed with the discovery of one certain
principle, by which he emerged from the
state of universal doubt, believed that this
principle alone would be a sufficient found-
ation on which he might build the whole
system of Science. He seems, therefore, to
have taken no great trouble to examine
whether there might not be other first prin-
ciples, which, on account of their own light
and evidence, ought to be admitted by
every man of sound judgment.-H. The love
of simplicity so natural to the mind of man,
led him to apply the whole force of his mind
to raise the fabric of knowledge upon this
one principle, rather than seek a broader
foundation.
Accordingly, he does not admit the evi-
dence of sense to be a first principle, as he
does that of consciousness. The argu-
ments of the ancient sceptics here occurred
to him, that our senses often deceive us,
and therefore ought never to be trusted on
their own authority: that, in sleep, we often
seem to see and hear things which we are
convinced to have had no existence. But
that which chiefly led Des Cartes to think
that he ought not to trust to his senses,
without proof of their veracity, was, that he
took it for granted, as all philosophers had
done before him, that he did not perceive
external objects themselves, but certain
images of them in his own mind, called
ideas. He was certain, by consciousness,
that he had the ideas of sun and moon,
earth and sea ; but how could he be assured
that there really existed external objects
like to these ideas ºf [130]
Hitherto he was uncertain of everything
but of his own existence, and the existence
of the operations and ideas of his own mind.
Some of his disciples, it is said, remained at
this stage of his system, and got the name
of Egoists.S They could not find evidence
in the subsequent stages of his progress.
But Des Cartes resolved not to stop here;
he endeavoured to prove, by a new argu-
ment, drawn from his idea of a Deity, the
existence of an infinitely perfect Being, who
made him and all his faculties. . From the
perfection of this Being, he inferred that he
could be no deceiver; and therefore con-
cluded that his senses, and the other facul-
ties he found in himself, are not fallacious,
but may be trusted, when a proper use is
made of them.
The system of Des Cartes is, with great
perspicuity and acuteness, explained by
himself in his writings, which ought to be
consulted by those who would understand it.
The merit of Des Cartes cannot be easily
conceived by those who have not some
notion of the Peripatetic system, in which
he was educated. To throw off the preju-
dices of education, and to create a system of
nature, totally different from that which
had subdued the understanding of mankind,
and kept it in subjection for so many cen-
turies, required an uncommon force of mind.
The world which Des Cartes exhibits to
our view, is not only in its structure very
different from that of the Peripatetics, but
is, as we may say, composed of different
materials.
In the old system, everything was, by a
kind of metaphysical sublimation, resolved
into principles So mysterious that it may be
a question whether they were words with-
out meaning, or were notions too refined for
human understanding.
All that we observe in nature is, accord-
ing to Aristotle, a constant succession of
the operations of generation and corruption.
[13]] The principles of generation are mat-
ter and form. The principle of corruption is
privation. All natural things are produced
or generated by the union of matter and
form ; matter being, as it were, the mother,
and form the father. As to matter, or the
first matter, as it is called, it is neither
substance nor accident; it has no quality
or property; it is nothing actually, but
everything potentially. It has so strong
an appetite for form, that it is no sooner
divested of one form than it is clothed with
another, and is equally susceptible of all
forms successively. It has no nature, but
only the capacity of having any one.
This is the account which the Peripate-
tics give of the first matter. The other
principle of generation is for m, act, perfec-
tion; for these three words signify the same
thing. But we must not conceive form to
consist in the figure, size, arrangement, or
motion of the parts of matter. These, in-
deed, are accidental forms, by which things
*
* ()n the Cartesian doubt, see Note R.—H.
f This cannot justly be affirmed of Des Cal tes.
..—H
: On this point it is probable that Des Cartes and
Reid are at one. See Notes C and N.—H... .
I am doubtful about the existence of this sup-
posed sect of Egoists. . . The Chevalier Ramsay,
above a century ago, incidentally speaks of this doc-
trine as an offshoot of Spinozism, and under the
name of Egomisone. But I'ather Buffier, about the
same time, and, be it noted, in a work published some
ten years before Hume's “Treatise of Human Na-
ture,” talks of it, on hearsay, as the speculation of a
Scotch philosopher:—“Un écrivain Ecossois a publié,
dit on, un ouvrage pour prouver qu'il n’avoit aucune
évidence de l’existence d’aucun étre que de lui; et
encore de lui, en tant qu’esprit; n'aiant aucune de-
monstration véritable de l’éxistence d’aucun corps.”
—Elemens de Metaphysique, $ 61. Now, we know
that there is no such work. am aware, however,
that there is some discussion on this point in the
“ Memoirs de Trevoux,” anno 1713, p. 922; to which
however, I must refer the reader, as I have not that
journal at hand.—But more of this below, under
p 187,-Hl.
[130, 181]
270
[ESSAY II.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
artificial are formed : but every production
of Nature has a substantial form," which,
joined to matter, makes it to be what it is.
The substantial form is a kind of informing
soul, which gives the thing its specific na-
ture, and all its qualities, powers, and
activity. Thus the substantial form of
heavy bodies, is that which makes them
descend; of light bodies, that which makes
them ascend. The substantial form of
gold, is that which gives it its ductility, its
fusibility, its weight, its colour, and all its
qualities; and the same is to be understood of
every natural production. A change in the
accidental form of any body, is alteration
only ; but a change in the substantial form
is generation and corruption : it is corrup-
tion with respect to the substantial form, of
which the body is deprived; it is genera-
tion with respect to the substantial form
that succeeds. Thus, when a horse dies
and turns to dust, the philosophical account
of the phaenomenon is this:—A certain por-
tion of the materia prima, which was joined
to the substantial form of a horse, is de-
prived of it by privation, and in the same
instant is invested with the substantial form
of earth. [132] As every substance must
have a substantial form, there are some of
those forms inanimate, some vegetative,
some animal, and some rational. The three
former kinds can only subsist in matter;
..but the last, according to the schoolmen, is
immediately created by God, and infused
into the body, making one substance with
it, while they are united; yet capable of
being disjoined from the body, and of sub-
sisting by itself.
Such are the principles of natural things in
the Peripatetic system. It retains so much
of the ancient Pythagorean doctrine, that
we cannot ascribe the invention of it solely
to Aristotle, although he, no doubt, made
considerable alterations in it. The first
-matter was probably the same in both sys-
tems, and was in both held to be eternal.
They differed more about form. The Py-
thagoreans and Platonists held forms or
ideas, as they called them, to be eternal,
immutable, and self-existent. Aristotle
maintained that they were not eternal, nor
self-existent. On the other hand, he did
not allow them to be produced, but educed
from matter; yet he held them not to be
actually in the matter from which they are
educed, but potentially only. Dut these
two systems differed less from one another,
than that of Des Cartes did from both.
In the world of Des Cartes we meet with
two kinds of beings only—to wit, body and
mind; the first the object of our senses,
the other of consciousness; both of them
things of which we have a distinct appre-
hension, if the human mind be capable of
distinct apprehension at all. To the first,
no qualities are ascribed but extension,
figure, and motion; to the last, nothing but
thought, and its various modifications, of
which we are conscious.” He could ob-
serve no common attribute, no resembling
feature, in the attributes of body and mind,
and therefore concluded them to be distinct
substances, and totally of a different nature;
and that body, from its very nature, is in-
animate and inert, incapable of any kind of
thought or sensation, or of producing any
change or alteration in itself. [133]
Des Cartes must be allowed the honour
of being the first who drew a distinct line
between the material and intellectual world,
which, in all the old systems, were so
blended together that it was impossible to
say where the one ends and the other be-
gins. How much this distinction hath
contributed to the improvements of modern
times, in the philosophy both of body and
of mind, is not easy to say.
One obvious consequence of this distinc-
tion was, that accurate reflection on the
operations of our own mind is the only way
to make any progress in the knowledge of
it. Malebranche, Locke, Berkeley, and
Hume, were taught this lesson by Des
Cartes; and to it we owe their most va-
luable discoveries in this branch of philo-
sophy. The analogical way of reasoning
concerning the powers of the mind from the
properties of body, which is the source of
almost all the errors on this subject, and
which is so natural to the bulk of mankind,
was as contrary to the principles of Des
Cartes, as it was agreeable to the princi-
ples of the old philosophy. We may there-
fore truly say, that, in that part of philoso-
phy which relates to the mind, Des Cartes
laid the foundation, and put us into that
tract which all wise men now acknowledge
to be the only one in which we can expect
| SucCGSS.
With regard to physics, or the philosophy
of body, if Des Cartes had not the merit of
leading men into the right tract, we must
allow him that of bringing them out of a
wrong one.. The Peripatetics, by assigning
to every species of body a particular sub-
stantial form, which produces, in an un-
known manner, all the effects we observe
in it, put a stop to all improvement in this
branch of philosophy. Gravity and levity,
fluidity and hardness, heat and cold, were
qualities arising from the substantial form
of the bodies to which they belonged. Gen-
* It is not, however, to be supposed that the
scholastic doctrine of Substantial Forms receives any
countenance from the authority of Aristotle, if we
lay aside his language touching the soul.—H.
* In the Cartesian language, the term thought in- -
cluded all of which we arc conscious.-H.
+ This assertion is true in general ; but some in-
dividual c : :eptions might be taken.—H.
[132, 133]
chAP. viii.] OF THE THEORY OF PERCEPTION, &c. 271
eration and corruption, substantial forms
and occult qualities, were always at hand,
to resolve every phaenomenon. This phi-
losophy, therefore, instead of accounting
for any of the phaenomena of Nature, con-
trived only to give learned names to their
unknown causes, and fed men with the husks
of barbarous terms, instead of the fruit of
real knowledge. [134]
By the spreading of the Cartesian system,
materia prima, substantial forms, and oc-
cult qualities, with all the jargon of the
Aristotelian physics, fell into utter disgrace,
and were never mentioned by the followers
of the new system, but as a subject of ridi-
cule. Men became sensible that their un-
derstanding had been hoodwinked by those
hard terms. They were now accustomed
to explain the phaenomena of nature, by
the figure, size, and motion of the particles
of matter, things perfectly level to human
understanding, and could relish nothing in
philosophy that was dark and unintelligible.
Aristotle, after a reign of more than a
thousand years, was now exposed as an
object of derision even to the vulgar, arrayed
in the mock majesty of his substantial forms
and occult qualities. The ladies became
fond of a philosophy which was easilylearned,
and required no words too harsh for their
delicate organs. Queens and princesses,
the most distinguished personages of the
age, courted the conversation of Des Cartes,
and became adepts in his philosophy. Wit-
ness Christina, Queen of Sweden, and
Elizabeth, daughter of Frederick, King of
Bohemia, the mother of our Royal Family.
The last, though very young when Des
Cartes wrote his “ Principia,” he declares
to be the only person he knew, who per-
fectly understood not only all his philoso-
phical writings, but the most abstruse of
his mathematical works.
That men should rush with violence from
one extreme, without going more or less
into the contrary extreme, is not to be ex-
pected from the weakness of human nature.
Des Cartes and his followers were not ex-
empted from this weakness; they thought
that extension, figure, and motion, were
sufficient to resolve all the phaenomena of
the material system. . To admit other qua-
lities, whose cause is unknown, was to
return to Egypt, from which they had been
so happily delivered. [135] -
When Sir Isaac Newton’s doctrine of
gravitation was published, the great objec-
tion to it, which hindered its general recep-
tion in Europe for half a century, was, that
gravitation seemed to be an occult quality,
as it could not be accounted for by exten-
sion, figure, and motion, the known attri-
butes of body. They who defended him
found it difficult to answer this objection to
the satisfaction of those who had been
initiated in the principles of the Cartesian
system. But, by degrees, men came to
be sensible that, in revolting from Ari-
stotle, the Cartesians had gone into the oppo-
site extreme ; experience convinced them
that there are qualities in the material
world, whose existence is certain though
their cause be occult. To acknowledge this,
is only a candid confession of human ignor-
ance, than which there is nothing more be-
coming a philosopher.
As all that we can know of the mind must
be derived from a careful observation of its
operations in ourselves ; so all that we can
know of the material system must be derived
from what can be discovered by our senses.
Des Cartes was not ignorant of this; nor
was his system so unfriendly to observation
and experiment as the old system was.”
He made many experiments, and called
earnestly upon all lovers of truth to aid him
in this way ; but, believing that all the
phaenomena of the material world are the
result of extension, figure, and motion, and
that the Deity always combines these, so as
to produce the phaenomena in the simplest
manner possible, he thought that, from a
few experiments, he might be able to dis-
cover the simplest way in which the obvious
phaenomena of nature can be produced by
matter and motion only; and that this must
be the way in which they are actually pro-
duced. His conjectures were ingenious, upon
the principles he had adopted ; but they are
found to be so far from the truth, that they
ought for ever to discourage philosophers
from trusting to conjecture in the operations
of nature. [l36]
The vortices or whirlpools of subtile
matter by which Des Cartes endeavoured
to account for the phaenomena of the ma-
terial world, are now found to be fictions,
no less than the sensible species of Ari-
stotle.-- -
It was reserved for Sir Isaac Newton to
point out clearly the road to the knowledge
of nature's works. Taught by Lord Bacon
to despise hypotheses as the fictions of hu-
man fancy, he laid it down as a rule of
philosophising, that no causes of natural
things ought to be assigned but such as can
be proved to have a real existence. He
saw that all the length men can go in ac-
counting for phaenomena, is to discover the
laws of nature according to which they are
produced; and, therefore, that the true
method of philosophising is this : From
real facts, ascertained by observation and,
experiment, to collect by just induction the
# Th.it is, the Aristotelic. But Aristotle himself
was as declared an advocate of experiment as any
philosopher; and it is not to be imputed to him that
his authority had subsequently the effect of imped-
ing, by being held to supersede, observation.—H.
+ Read “ the sensible species of the schoolmen.”
See Note M.–H. -
[134–136]
272
[Essay II.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
laws of Nature, and to apply the laws so
discovered, to account for the phaenomena
of Nature.
Thus, the natural philosopher has the
rules of his art fixed with no less precision
than the mathematician, and may be no less
certain when he keeps within them, and
when he deviates from them. And, though
the evidence of a law of nature from induc-
tion is not demonstrative, it is the only kind
of evidence on which all the most import-
ant affairs of human life must rest.
Pursuing this road without deviation,
Newton discovered the laws of our planet-
ary system, and of the rays of light ; and
gave the first and the noblest examples of
that chaste induction which Lord Bacon
could only delineate in theory.
How strange is it that the human mind
should have wandered for so many ages,
without falling into this tract How much
more strange, that, after it has been clearly
discovered, and a happy progress made in it,
many choose rather to wander in the fairy
regions of hypothesis [137]
To return to Des Cartes's notions of the
manner of our perceiving external objects,
from which a concern to do justice to the
merit of that great reformer in philosophy
has led me to digress, he took it for granted,
as the old philosophers had done, that what
we immediately perceive must be either in
the mind itself, or in the brain, to which
the mind is immediately present. The im-
pressions made upon our organs, nerves,
and brain could be nothing, according to
his philosophy, but various modifications of
extension, figure, and motion. There could
be nothing in the brain like sound or colour,
taste or smell, heat or cold ; these are sens-
ations in the mind, which, by the laws of
the union of soul and body, are raised on
occasion of certain traces in the brain ; and
although he gives the name of ideas to those
traces in the brain, he does not think it
necessary that they should be perfectly
like to the things which they represent,
any more than that words or signs should
resemble the things they signify. But,
says he, that we may follow the received,
opinion as far as is possible, we may allow
a slight resemblance. Thus we know that
a print in a book may represent houses,
temples, and groves; and so far is it from
being necessary that the print should be
perfectly like the thing it represents, that
its perfection often requires the contrary:
for a circle must often be represented by an
ellipse, a square by a rhombus," and so of
other things."
* But be it observed that Des Cartes did not allow,
far less hold, that the mind had any cognizance of
these organic motions—of these material ideas They
were merely the antecedents, established by the law of
union, of the mental idea; which mental idea was no-
º
The perceptions of sense, he thought, are
to be referred solely to the union of soul
and body. . They commonly exhibit to us
only what may hurt or profit our bodies;
and rarely, and by accident only, exhibit
things as they are in themselves. It is by
observing this, that we must learn to throw
off the prejudices of sense, and to attend
with our intellect to the ideas which are by
nature implanted in it. By this means we
shall understand that the nature of matter
does not consist in those things that affect
our senses, such as colour, or Smell, or taste;
but only in this, that it is something ex-
tended in length, breadth, and depth. [138]
The writings of Des Cartes have, in ge- .
neral, a remarkable degree of perspicuity;
and he undoubtedly intended that, in this
particular, his philosophy should be a per-
fect contrast to that of Aristotle; yet, in
what he has said, in different parts of his
writings, of our perceptions of external
objects, there seems to be some obscurity,
and even inconsistency; whether owing to
his having had different opinions on the sub-
ject at different times, or to the difficulty he
found in it, I will not pretend to say.
There are two points, in particular,
wherein I cannot reconcile him to himself:
the first, regarding the place of the ideas
or images of external objects, which are the
immediate objects of perception; the second.
with regard to the veracity of our external
SenSeS.
As to the first, he sometimes places the
ideas of material objects in the brain, not
only when they are perceived, but when
they are remembered or imagined; and
this has always been held to be the Car-
tesian doctrine;" yet he sometimes says,
that we are not to conceive the images or
traces in the brain to be perceived, as if
there were eyes in the brain; these traces
are only occasions on which, by the laws of
the union of soul and body, ideas are ex-
cited in the mind; and, therefore, it is not
necessary that there should be an exact
resemblance between the traces and the
things represented by them, any more than
...that words or signs should be exactly like
the things signified by them.--
These two opinions, I think, cannot be
reconciled. For, if the images or traces in
the brain are perceived, they must be the
thing more than a modification of the mind itself.-
* But not in Reid's exclusive sense of the word
Idea.—H.
t The non-negation, in this instance, of all re-
semblance between the material Ideas, or organic
motions in the brain, and the external reality, is one
of the occasional instances of Des Cartes's reticence of
his subordinate doctrines, in order to avoid all useless
tilting against prevalent opinions. Another is his
º giving to these motions the name of Spe-
CzęS.- tº -
# Which, in Des Cartes' doctrine, they are not.—H.
[137, 138]
ouar, vin.] of THE THEORY OF PERCEPTION, &c. 273
objects of perception, and not the occasions
of it only. On the other hand, if they are
only the occasions of our perceiving, they
are not perceived at all. Des Cartes seems
to have hesitated between the two opinions,
or to have passed from the one to the
other." Mr Locke seems, in like manner,
to have wavered between the two ; some-
times representing the ideas of material
things as being in the brain, but more fre-
quently as in the mind itself. : [139]
.Neither Des Cartes nor Mr Locke could,
consistently with themselves, attribute any
other qualities to images in the brain but
extension, figure, and motion ; for as to
those qualities which Mr Locke distin-
guished by the name of secondary qualities,
both philosophers believed them not to be-
long to body at all,+ and, therefore, could
not ascribe them to images in the brain.S
Sir Isaac Newton and Dr Samuel Clarke
uniformly speak of the species or images of
material things as being in that part of the
brain called the sensorium, and perceived
by the mind there present; but the former
speaks of this point only incidentally, and
with his usual modesty, in the form of a
Query.|| Malebranche is perfectly clear and
unambiguous in this matter. According to
his system, the images or traces in the
brain are not perceived at all—they are
only occasions upon which, by the laws of
Nature, certain sensations are felt by us,
and certain of the divine ideas discovered to
our minds.
The second point on which Des Cartes
seems to waver, is with regard to the credit
that is due to the testimony of our senses.
Sometimes, from the perfection of the
Deity, and his being no deceiver, he infers
that our senses and our other faculties can-
not be fallacious; and since we seem clearly
to perceive that the idea of matter comes
to us from things external, which it per-
fectly resembles, therefore we must con-
clude that there really exists something
extended in length, breadth, and depth,
having all the properties which we clearly
perceive to belong to an extended thing.
At other times, we find Des Cartes and
his followers making frequent complaints,
• Des Cartes had only one opinion on the point
The difficulty which perplexes Reid arose from his
want of a systematic comprehension of the Cartesian
philosophy, and his being unaware that, by Ideas,
Des Cartes designated two very different things—viz.,
the proximate bodily antecedent, and the mental
consequent.—H. . . . . .
+ Locke's opinion, if he had a precise one on the
matter, it is impossible to ascertain. See Note O.-
H
f See above, p. 205, note * —H. -
§ Yet Locké expressly denies them to be modifica-
tions of mind See Note O.-H.
| Reid is correct in all he hese says of Newton and
Clarke; it is indeed virtually admitted by Clarke
himself, in his controversy with Leibnitz. Compare
Leibnitii Opera, II., p. 161, and p. 182.-H.
as all the ancient philosophers did, of the
fallacies of sense. He warns us to throw
off its prejudices, and to attend only with
our intellect, to the ideas implanted there.
By this means we may perceive, that the
nature of matter does not consist in hard-
ness, colour, weight, or any of those things
that affect our senses, but in this only, that
it is something extended in length, breadth,
and depth. [140] The senses, he says,
are only relative to our present state ; they
exhibit things only as they tend to profit
or to hurt us, and rarely, and by accident
only, as they are in themselves." -
It was probably owing to an aversion to
admit anything into philosophy, of which
we have not a clear and distinct concep-
tion, that Des Cartes was led to deny that
there is any substance of matter distinct from
those qualities of it which we perceive.--
We say that matter is something extended,
figured, moveable. Extension, figure, mo-
bility, therefore, are not matter, but quali-
ties, belonging to this something, which
we call matter. Des Cartes could riot
relish this obscure something, which is sup-
posed to be the subject or substratum of
those qualities; and, therefore, maintained
that extension is the very essence of mat-
ter. But, as we must ascribe extension to
space as well as to matter, he found him-
self under a necessity of holding that space
and matter are the same thing, and differ
only in our way of conceiving them ; so
that, wherever there is space there is mat-
ter, and no void left in the universe. The
necessary consequence of this is, that the
material world has no bounds nor limits.
He did not, however, choose to call it in-
finite, but indefinite.
It was probably owing to the same cause
that Des Cartes made the essence of the
soul to consist in thought. He would not
allow it to be an unknown something that
has the power of thinking ; it cannot, there-
fore, be without thought ; and, as he con-
ceived that there can be no thought with-
out ideas, the soul must have had ideas in
its first formation, which, of consequence,
are innate.:
The sentiments of those who came after
Des Cartes, with regard to the nature of
body and mind, have been various. Many
have maintained that body is only a collec-
tion of qualities to which we give one
* But see “Principia,” $ 66, sqq.-H.
f See Stewart's “Elements,” I., Note A ; Royer
Collard's Fragment, Vll I.—H.
f 'I he doctrine of Des Cartes, in relation to Inmate
Ideas, has been very generally misunderstood ; and
by no one more than by Locke. What it really
amounted to, is clearly stated in his strictures on
the Program of Regius. Justice has latterly been
done him, among others, by Mr Stewart, in his “ Dis-
sertation,” and by M. Läromiguiere, in his “Cours.''
See also the old controversy of De Vries with Röell
on this point —H. -
[139, 140]
'I'
274
[Ess AY II.
'ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
name; and that the notion of a subject of
inhesion, to which those qualities belong,
is only a fiction of the mind." [14]]
Some have even maintained that the Soul
is only a succession of related ideas, with-
out any subject of inhesion. It appears,
by what has been said, how far these no-
tions are allied to the Cartesian system.
The triumph of the Cartesian system
over that of Aristotle, is one of the most
remarkable revolutions in the history of phi-
losophy, and has led me to dwell longer
upon it than the present subject perhaps
required. The authority of Aristotle was
now no more. That reverence for hard
words and dark notions, by which men's
understanding had been strangled in early
years, was turned into contempt, and every-
thing suspected which was not clearly and
distinctly understood. . This is the spirit of
the Cartesian philosophy, and is a more
important acquisition to mankind than any
of its particular tenets; and for exerting
this spirit so zealously, and spreading it so
successfully, Des Cartes deserves immortal
honour.
It is to be observed, however, that Des
Cartes rejected a part only of the ancient
theory, concerning the perception of ex-
ternal objects by the senses, and that he
adopted the other part. That theory may
be divided into two parts : The first, that
images, species, or forms of external objects,
come from the object, and enter by the
avenues of the senses to the mind; the
second part is, That the external object
itself is not perceived, but only the species
or image of it in the mind. The first part
Des Cartes and his followers rejected, and
refuted by solid arguments; but the second
part, neither he nor his followers have
thought of calling in question ; being per-
suaded that it is only a representative
image in the mind of the external object
that we perceive, and not the object itself.
And this image, which the Peripatetics
called a species, he calls an idea, changing
the name only, while he admits the thing.: |
[142] ..
It seems strange that the great pains
which this philosopher took to throw off the
prejudices of education, to dismiss all his
former opinions, and to assent to nothing,
till he found evidence that compelled his
assent, should not have led him to doubt of
this opinion of the ancient philosophy. It
is evidently a philosophical opinion; for the
vulgar undoubtedly believe that it is the
* As locke, (but he is not consistent,) Law,
Green, Watts, and others. See Cousin, “ Cours de
Philosophie,” I ome II., Legon xviii.-H.
f Hume.—H
f Des Cartes and Reid coincide in doctrine, if
Reid holds that we know the extended and exter-
nal object only, by a conception or subjective modifi-
tion of the percipient mind. See Notes N and C.-H.
external object which we immediately per-
ceive, and not a representative image of it
only. It is for this reason that they look
upon it as perfect lunacy to call in question
the existence of external objects."
It seems to be admitted as a first prin-
ciple, by the learned and the unlearned, that
what is really perceived must exist, and that
to perceive what does not exist is impossible.
So far the unlearned man and the philoso-
pher agree. The unlearned man says—I
perceive the external object, and I perceive
it to exist. Nothing can be more absurd
than to doubt of it. The Peripatetic says—
What I perceive is the very identical form
of the object, which came immediately from
the object, and makes an impression upon
my mind, as a Seal does upon wax; and,
therefore, I can have no doubt of the ex-
istence of an object whose form I perceive.--
But what says the Cartesian P I perceive
not, says he, the external object itself. So
far he agrees with the Peripatetic, and differs
from the unlearned man. But I perceive
an image, or form, or idea, in my own
mind, or in my brain. I am certain of the
existence of the idea, because I imme-
diately perceive it.-i But how this idea is
formed, or what it represents, is not self-
evident; and therefore I must find argu-
ments by which, from the existence of the
idea which I perceive, I can infer the ex-
istence of an external object which it re-
presents. *
As I take this to be a just view of the
principles of the unlearned man, of the Peri-
patetic, and of the Cartesian, so I think
they all reason consequentially from their
Several principles : that the Cartesian has
Strong grounds to doubt of the existence of
external objects; the Peripatetic very little
ground of doubt; and the unlearned [143]
man none at all : and that the difference of
their situation arises from this—that the un-
learned man has no hypothesis; the Peri-
patetic leans upon an hypothesis; and the
Cartesian upon one half of that hypothesis.
Des Cartes, according to the spirit of his
own philosophy, ought to have doubted of
both parts of the Peripatetic hypothesis, or to
have given his reasons why he adopted one
part, as well as why he rejected the other
* This is one of the passages which favour the
opinion, that Reid did suppose the non-ego to be
known in itself as existing, and not only in and
through the ego; for mankind in general believe
that the extended reality, as perceived, is something
more than a mere internal representation by the
mind, suggested in consequence of the impression
made by an unknown something on the sense. See
Note C.—H.
+ The Peripatetic and the Cartesian held that the
species or idea was an object of consciousness. If
Reid understood the language he uses, he must hold:
that the external and extended reality is an object of
consciousness. But this does not quadrate with his
doctrine, that we only know extension and figure by
a suggested conception in the mind. See Note C.— H.
[141–143]
chap. x.] OF THE SENTIMENTS OF MR LOCKE.
275
part; especially, since the unlearned, who
have the faculty of perceiving objects by
their senses in no less perfection than
philosophers, and should, therefore, know,
as well as they, what it is they perceive,
have been unanimous in this, that the
objects they perceive are not ideas in their
own minds, but things external. It might
have been expected that a philosopher who
was so cautious as not to take his own ex-
istence for granted without proof, would not
have taken it for granted without proof,
that everything he perceived was only ideas
in his own mind.
But, if Des Cartes made a rash step in
this, as I apprehend he did, he ought not
to bear the blame alone. His successors
have still continued in the same track, and,
after his example, have adopted one part of
the ancient theory—to wit, that the objects
we immediately perceive are ideas only. All
their systems are built on this foundation.
CHAPTER IX.
OF THE SENTIAIENTS OF MIR LOCKE.
THE reputation which Locke’s “Essay on
Human Understanding” had at home from
the beginning, and which it has gradually
acquired abroad, is a sufficient testimony of
its merit. [144] There is, perhaps, no
book of the metaphysical kind that has been
so generally read by those who understand
the language, or that is more adapted to
teach men to think with precision,” and to
inspire them with that candour and love of
truth which is the genuine spirit of philo-
sophy. He gave, I believe, the first ex-
ample in the English language of writing
on such abstract subjects, with a remarkable
degree of simplicity and perspicuity; and
in this he has been happily imitated by
others that came after him. No author
hath more successfully pointed out the
danger of ambiguous words, and the im-
portance of having distinct and determin-
ate notions in judging and reasoning. His
observations on the various powers of the
human understanding, on the use and abuse
of words, and on the extent and limits of
human knowledge, are drawn from atten-
tive reflection on the operations of his own
mind, the true source of all real knowledge
on these subjects; and shew an uncommon
degree of penetration and judgment. But
he needs no panegyric of mine, and I men-
tion these things, only that, when I have
occasion to differ from him, I may not be
thought insensible of the merit of an author
whom I highly respect, and to whom I owe
* + To praise Locke for precision, is rather too
much – H. . . - -
my first lights in those studies, as well as
my attachment to them.
He sets out in his essay with a full con-
viction, common to him with other philo-
sophers, that ideas in the mind are the
objects of all our thoughts in every opera-
tion of the understanding. This leads him
to use the word idea" so very frequently,
beyond what was usual in the English
language, that he thought it necessary, in
his introduction, to make this apology:—
“It being that term,” says he, “which, I
I think, serves best to stand for whatsoever
is the object of understanding when a man
thinks, I have used it to express whatever
is meant by phantasm, notion, species, or
whatever it is which the mind can be em-
ployed about in thinking; and I could not
avoid frequently using it. I presume it
will be granted me, that there are such
ideas in men's minds ; every man is con-
scious of them in himself, and men’s words
and actions will satisfy him that they are in
others.” [145] -
Speaking of the reality of our knowledge,
he says, “It is evident the mind knows not
things immediately, but only by the inter-
vention of the ideas it has of them. Our
knowledge, therefore, is real, only so far as
there is a conformity between our ideas and
the reality of things. But what shall be
here the criterion ? How shall the mind,
when it perceives nothing but its own ideas,
know that they agree with things them-
selves 2 This, though it seems not to want
difficulty, yet, I think, there be two sorts
of ideas that we may be assured agree with
things.”
We see that Mr Locke was aware, no
less than Des Cartes, that the doctrine o'
ideas made it necessary, and at the same
time difficult, to prove the existence of 3.
material world witheut us; because the
mind, according to that doctrine, perceives
nothing but a world of ideas in itself. Not
only Des Cartes, but Malebranche, Arnauld,
and Norris, had perceived this difficulty,
and attempted to remove it with little suc-
cess. Mr Locke attempts the same thing ;
but his arguments are feeble. He even
seems to be conscious of this; for he con-
cludes his reasoning with this observation
—“That we have evidence sufficient to
direct us in attaining the good and avoiding
the evil, caused by external objects, and
that this is the important concern we have
in being made acquainted with them.” This,'
indeed, is saying no more than will be
granted by those who deny the existence of
a material world. , - * *
As there is no material difference between
* Locke may be said to have first naturalized. *he
wºrd in Fnglish philosophical language, in its Cal re-
sian extension.—H. * -
Ll 14, 145]
T 2
276
[Essay II.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
Locke and Des Cartes with regard to the
perception of objects by the senses, there
is the less occasion, in this place, to take
notice of all their differences in other points.
They differed about the origin of our ideas.
Des Cartes thought some of them were
innate; the other maintained that there
are no innate ideas, and that they are all
derived from two sources—to wit, sensalion
and reflection ; meaning, by sensation, the
operations of our exterial senses ; and, by
reflection, that attention which we are
capable of giving to the operations of our
own minds. [146]
They differed with regard to the essence
both of matter and of mind : the British
philosopher holding that the real essence of
both is beyond the reach of human know.
ledge ; the other conceiving that the very
essence of mind consists in thought, and
that of matter in extension, by which he
made matter and spacenotto differin reality,
and no part of space to be void of matter.
Mr Locke explained, more distinctly than
had been done before, the operations of the
mind in classing the various objects of
thought, and reducing them to genera and
species. He was the first, I think, who
distinguished in substances what he calls
the nominal essence—which is only the
notion we form of a genus or species, and
which we express by a definition—from the
real essence or internal constitution of the
thing, which makes it to be what it is."
Without this distinction, the subtile dis-
putes which tortured the schoolmen for so
many ages, in the controversy between the
nominalists and realists, could never be
brought to an issue. He shews distinctly
how we form abstract and general motions,
and the use and necessity of them in rea-
soning. And as (according to the received
principles of philosophers) every notion of
our mind must have for its object an idea
in the mind itself, t he thinks that we form
abstract ideas by leaving out of the idea of
an individual everything wherein it differs
from other individuals of the same species
or genus; and that this power of forming
abstract ideas, is that which chiefly dis-
tinguishes us from brute animals, in whom
he could see no evidence of any abstract
ideas.
Since the time of Des Cartes, philoso-
phers have differed much with regard to the
share they ascribe to the mind itself, in the
fabrication of those representative beings
called ideas, and the manner in which this
work is carried on.
...A
* Locke has no originality in this respect.—H.
i Notion is here used for the apprehension of the
idea, or representative reality, which Reid supposed
that all philosophers viewed as something more than
the mere act of knowledge, considered in relation to
what was, through it, known or represented.—H.
‘Of the authors I have met with, Dr
Robert Hook is the most explicit. He was
one of the most ingenious and active mem-
bers of the Royal Society of London at its
first institution ; and frequently read lec-
tures to the Society, which were published
among his posthumous works. [147] In his
“Lectures upon Light,” $ 7, he makes
ideas to be material substances; and thinks
that the brain is furnished with a proper
kind of matter for fabricating the ideas of
each sense. The ideas of sight, he thinks,
are formed of a kind of matter resembling
the Bononian stone, or some kind of phos-
phorus; that the ideas of sound are formed
of some matter resembling the chords or
glasses which take a sound from the vibra-
tions of the air; and so of the rest.
The soul, he thinks, may fabricate some
hundreds of those ideas in a day; and that,
as they are formed, they are pushed farther
off from the centre of the brain where the
soul resides. By this means they make a con-
tinued chain of ideas, coyled up in the brain;
the first end of which is farthest removed
from the centre or seat of the soul, and the
other end is always at the centre, being the
last idea formed, which is always present
the moment when considered ; and, there-
fore, according as there is a greater number
of ideas between the present sensation or
thought in the centre and any other, the
soul is apprehensive of a larger portion of
time interposed.
Mr Locke has not entered into so minute
a detail of this manufacture of ideas ; but he
ascribes to the mind a very considerable
hand in forming its own ideas. With re-
gard to our sensations, the mind is passive,
“ they being produced in us, only by dif-
ferent degrees and modes of motion in our
animal spirits, variously agitated by ex-
ternal objects.” These, however, cease to
be as soon as they cease to be perceived;
but, by the faculties of memory and imagin-
ation, “the mind has an ability, when it
wills, to revive them again, and, as it were,
to paint them anew upon itself, though
some with more, some with less difficulty.”
As to the ideas of reflection, he ascribes
them to no other cause but to that attention
which the mind is capable of giving to its
own operations. These, therefore, are
formed by the mind itself. [148] He ascribes
likewise to the mind the power of com-
pounding its simple ideas into complex ones
of various forms; of repeating them, and
adding the repetitions together; of dividing
and classing them ; of comparing them,
and, from that comparison, of forming the
ideas of their relation ; nay, of forming a
general idea of a species or genus, by taking
from the idea of an individual everything
by which it is distinguished from other in-
dividuals of the kind, till at last it becomes
[146–148]
CHAP. IX.]
277
OF THE SENTIMENTS OF ME LOCKE.
an abstract general idea, common to all the
individuals of the kind.
These, I think, are the powers which Mr
Locke ascribes to the mind itself in the
fabrication of its ideas. Bishop Berkeley,
as we shall see afterwards, abridged them
considerably, and Mr Hume much more.
The ideas we have of the various quali-
ties of bodies are not all, as Mr Locke
thinks, of the same kind. Some of them
are images or resemblances of what is really
in the body; others are not. There are
certain qualities inseparable from matter;
such as extension, solidity, figure, mobility.
Our ideas of these are real resemblances of
the qualities in the body : and these he
calls primary qualities. But colour, sound,
taste, Smell, heat, and cold, he calls second-
ary qualities, and thinks that they are
only powers in bodies of producing cer-
tain sensations in us ; which sensations
have nothing resembling them, though they
are commonly thought to be exact resem-
blances of something in the body. “Thus,”
says he, “the idea of heat or light, which
we receive, by our eye or touch, from the
sun, are commonly thought real qualities
existing in the Sun, and something more
than mere powers in it.”
The names of primary and secondary
qualities were, I believe, first used by Mr
Locke ; but the distinction which they ex-
press, was well understood by Des Cartes,
and is explained by him in his “Principia,”
Part I., § 69, 70, 71. [149] --
Although no author has more merit than
Mr Locke, in pointing out the ambiguity of
words, and resolving, by that means, many
knotty questions, which had tortured the
wits of the schoolmen, yet, I apprehend,
he has been sometimes misled by the ambi-
guity of the word idea, which he uses so
often almost in every page of his essay.
In the explication given of this word, we
took notice of two meanings given to it—a
popular and a philosophical. In the popu-
lar meaning, to have an idea of anything,
signifies nothing more than to think of it.
Although the operations of the mind are
most properly and naturally, and indeed
most commonly in all vulgar languages, ex-
pressed by active verbs, there is another
way of expressing them, less common, but
equally well understood. To think of a
thing, and to have a thought of it; to be-
lieve a thing, and to have a belief of it; to
see a thing, and have a sight of it ; to con-
ceive a thing, and to have a conception,
notion, or idea of it—are phrases perfectly
synonymous. In these phrases, the thought
means nothing but the act of thinking; the
belief, the act of believing ; and the con-
ception, notion, or idea, the act of conceiv-
ing. To have a clear and distinct idea is,
in this sense, nothing else but to conceive
the thing clearly and distinctly. When the
word idea is taken in this popular sense,
there can be no doubt of our having ideas in
our minds. To think without ideas would
be to think without thought, which is a
manifest contradiction.* -**
But there is another meaning of the word
idea peculiar to philosophers, and grounded
upon a plilosophical theory, which the vul-
gar never think of Philosophers, ancient
and modern, have maintained that the
operations of the mind, like the tools of an
artificer, can only be employed upon objects
that are present in the mind, or in the
brain, where the mind is supposed to reside.
[150] Therefore, objects that are distant in
time or place must have a representative in
the mind, or in the brain—some image or
picture of them, which is the object that the
mind contemplates. This representative
image was, in the old philosophy, called a
species or phantasm. Since the time of
Des Cartes, it has more commonly been
called an idea; and every thought is con-
ceived to have an idea of its object. As
this has been a common opinion among
philosophers, as far back as we can trace phi-
losophy, it is the less to be wondered at that
they should be apt to confound the opera-
tion of the mind in thinking with the idea
or object of thought, which is supposed to
be its inseparable concomitant.*
If we pay any regard to the common
Sense of mankind, thought and the object
of thought are different things, and ought
to be distinguished. It is true, thought
cannot be without an object—for every
man who thinks must think of something ;
but the object he thinks of is one thing, his
thought of that object is another thing.
They are distinguished in all languages, even
by the vulgar; and many things may be
affirmed of thought—that is, of the opera-
tion of the mind in thinking—which cannot,
without error, and even absurdity, be af-
firmed of the object of that operation.*
From this, I think, it is evident that, if
the word idea, in a work where it occurs in
every paragraph, is used without any inti-
mation of the ambiguity of the word, some-
times to signify thought, or the operation
of the mind in thinking, sometimes to sig-
nify those internal objects of thought which
philosophers suppose, this must occasion
confusion in the thoughts both of the au-
thor and of the readers. I take this to be
the greatest blemish in the “Essay on Hu-
man Understanding.” I apprehend this is
the true source of several paradoxical opin-
ions in that excellent work, which I shall
have occasion to take notice of.
Here it is very natural to ask, Whether
it was Mr Locke's opinion, that ideas are
* See: Note C.-H.
T149, 150]
278
[ESSAY 11.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
the only objects of thought 2 or, Whether
it is not possible for meſi to think of things
which are not ideas in the mind 2" [15]]
To this question it is not easy to give a
direct answer. On the one hand, he says
often, in distinct and studied expressions,
that the term idea stands for whatever is
the object of the understanding when a man
thinks, or whatever it is which the mind
can be employed about in thinking : that
the mind perceives nothing but its own
ideas: that all knowledge consists in the
perception of the agreement or disagree-
ment of our ideas: that we can have no
knowledge farther than we have ideas.
These, and many other expressions of the
like import, evidently imply that every
object of thought must be an idea, and can
be nothing else.
On the other hand, I am persuaded that
Mr Locke would have acknowledged that
we may think of Alexander the Great, or
of the planet Jupiter, and of numberless
things which he would have owned are not
ideas in the mind, but objects which exist
independent of the mind that thinks of .
them.--
How shall we reconcile the two parts of
this apparent contradiction ? All I am able
to say, upon Mr Locke's principles, to recon-
cile them, is this, That we cannot think of
Alexander, or of the planet Jupiter, unless
we have in our minds an idea—that is, an
image or picture of those objects. The
idea of Alexander is an image, or picture,
or representation of that hero in my mind;
and this idea is the immediate object of my
thought when I think of Alexander. That
this was Locke's opinion, and that it has
been generally the opinion of philosophers;
there can be no doubt.
But, instead of giving light to the ques-
tion proposed, it seems to involve it in
greater darkness.
When I think of Alexander, I am told
there is an image or idea of Alexander in
my mind, which is the immediate object of
this thought. The necessary consequence
of this seems to be, that there are two ob-
jects of this thought—the idea, which is in
the mind, and the person represented by that
idea ; the first, the immediate object of the
thought, the last, the object of the same
thought, but not the immediate object.
[152] This is a hard saying; for it makes
every thought of things external to have a
double object. Every man is conscious of
his thoughts, and yet, upon attentive reflec-
tion, he perceives no such duplicity in the
object he thinks about. Sometimes men
See objects double, but they always know
when they do so; and I know of no philo-
sopher who has expressly owned this dupli-
city in the object of thought, though it fol-
lows necessarily from maintaining that, in
the same thought, there is one object that
is immediate and in the mind itself, and
another object which is not immediate, and
which is not in the mind."
Besides this, it seems very hard, or rather
impossible, to understand what is meant by
an object of thought that is not an imme-
diate object of thought. A body in motion
may move another that was at rest, by the
medium of a third body that is interposed.
This is easily understood ; but we are unable
to conceive any medium interposed between
a mind and the thought of that mind; and,
to think of any object by a medium, seems
to be words without any meaning. There
is a sense in which a thing may be said to
be perceived by a medium. Thus any kind
of sign may be said to be the medium by
which I perceive or understand the thing
signified. The sign by custom, or compact,
or perhaps by nature, introduces the thought
of the thing signified. But here the thing
signified, when it is introduced to the
thought, is an object of thought no less
immediate than the sign was before. And
there are here two objects of thought, one
succeeding another, which we have shewn
is not the case with respect to an idea, and
the object it represents.
* It is to be remembered that Reid means, by
Ideas, representative entities different from the cog.
nitive modifications of the mind itself—H.
f On the confusion of this and the four subsequent
paragraphs, see Note C.— Whatever is the immediate
object of thought, of that we are necessarily conscious.
But of Alexander, for example, as existing, we are
necessarily not conscious. Alexander, as existing,
cannot, therefore, possibly be an immediate object of
thought; consequently, if we can be said to think of
Alexander at all, we can only be said to think of him
mediately, in and through a representation of which
We are conscious ; and that representation is the im-
mediate object of thought. It makes no difference
whether this immediate object be viewed as a tertium
quid, distinct from the existing reality and from the
conscious mind; or whether as a mere modality of
the conscious mind itself—as the mere act of thought
considered in its relation to something beyond the
sphere of consciousness. In neither case, can we be
said (be it in the imagination of a possible or the
recollection of a past existence) to know a thing as
existing—that is, immediately ; and, therefore, if in
these operations we be said to know aught out the
mind at all, we can only be said to know it me-
diately—in other words, as a mediate object.
whole perplexity arises from the ambiguity of the
term object, that term being used both for the exter-
nal reality of which we are here not conscious, and
cannot therefore know in itself, and for the mental
representation which we know in itself, but which is
known only as relative to the other. Reid chooses to
abolish the former signification, on the supposition
that it only applies to a representative entity differ-
ent from the act of thought. In this supposition,
however, he is wrong; nor does he obtain an imme-
diate knowledge, even in perception, by merely deny-
the crude hypothesis of representation.—H.
*
The ,
* That is, if by object was meant the same thing,
when the term is applied to the external reality,
and to its mental representation. Even under the
Scholastic theory of repeesentation, it was generally
maintained that the species itself is not an object of
perception, but the external reality through it ; a
mode of speaking justly reprehended by the acuter
schoolmen. But in this respect Reid is equally to
blame. See Note C.-H.
[151 52]
CHAP. IX.]
279
OF THE SENTIMENTS OF MR LOCKE.
I apprehend, therefore, that, if philoso-
phers will maintain that ideas in the mind
are the only immediate objects of thought,
they will be forced to grant that they are the
sole objects of thought, and that it is im-
possible for men to think of anything else.
[153] Yet, surely, Mr Locke believed that
we can think of many things that are not
ideas in the mind ; but he seems not to have
perceived, that the maintaining that ideas
in the mind are the only immediate objects
of thought, must necessarily draw this con-
sequence along with it.
The consequence, however, was seen by
Bishop Berkeley and Mr Hume, who rather
chose to admit the consequence than to give
up the principle from which it follows.
Perhaps it was unfortunate for Mr Locke
that he used the word idea, so very fre-
quently as to make it very difficult to give
the attention necessary to put it always to
the same meaning. And it appears evident
that, in many places, he means nothing
more by it but the notion or conception we
have of any object of thought; that is, the
act of the mind in conceiving it, and not the
object conceived.*
In explaining this word, he says that he
uses it for whatever is meant by phantasm,
notion, species. Here are three synonymes
to the word idea. The first and last are
very proper to express the philosophical
meaning of the word, being terms of art in
the Peripatetic philosophy, and signifying
images of external things in the mind,
which, according to that philosophy, are
objects of thought. But the word notion is
a word in common language, whose meaning
agrees exactly with the popular meaning of
* When we contemplate a triangle, we may consider
it either as a complement of three sides or of three
angles; not that the three sides and the three angles
are possible except through each other, but because
we may in thought view the figure—qua triangle,
in reality one and indivisible—in different relations.
In like manner, we may consider a representative act
of knowledge in two relations— 19, as an act represen-
tative of something, and, 2° as an act cognitive of
that representation, although, in truth, these are both
only one indivisible energy—the representation only
existing as known, the cognition being only possible in
a representation. Thus, e.g., in the imagination of
a Centaur—the Centaur represented is the Centaur
known, the Centaur known is the Centaur repre-
sen" ed. It is one act under two relations—a relation
to the subject knowing—a relation to the object re-
presented. But to a cognitive act considered in these
several relations we may give either different names,
or we may confound them under one, or we may do
both ; and this is actually done; some words express- |
ing only one relation, others both or either, and
others properly the one but abusively also the other.
Thus Idea properly denotes an act of thought con-
sidered in relation to an external something beyond
the sphere of consciousness—a representation; but
some philosophers, as Locke, abuse it to comprehend
the thought also, viewed as cognitive of this represen-
tation. Again, perception, notion, conception, &c.
(concept is, unfortunately, obsolete) comprehend
both, or may be used to denote either of the rela-
tions; and it is only by the context that we can ever
vaguely discover in which application they are in-
tº nded. This is unfortunate; but so it is.-H.
the word idea, but not with the philosophi-
cal.
When these two different meanings of
the word idea are confounded in a studied
explication of it, there is little reason to
expect that they should be carefully dis-
tinguished in the frequent use of it. There
are many passages in the Essay in which,
to make them intelligible, the word idea
must be taken in one of those senses, and
many others in which it must be taken in
the other. It seems probable that the
author, not attending to this ambiguity of
the word, used it in the one sense or the
other, as the subject-matter required; and
the far greater part of his readers have done
the same. [154]
There is a third sense, in which he uses
the word not unfrequently, to signify objects
of thought that are not in the mind, but
external. Of this he seems to be sensible,
and somewhere makes an apology for it.
When he affirms, as he does in innumerable
places, that all human knowledge consists
in the perception of the agreement or dis-
agreement of our ideas, it is impossible to
put a meaning upon this, consistent with
his principles, unless he means by ideas
every object of human thought, whether
mediate or immediate ; everything, in a
word, that can be signified by the subject,
or predicate of a proposition.
Thus, we see that the word idea has three
different meanings in the essay; and the
authorseems to have useditsometimesin one,
sometimes in another, without being aware
of any change in the meaning. The reader
slides easily into the same fallacy, that
meaning occurring most readily to his mind
which gives the best sense to what he reads.
I have met with persons professing no slight
acquaintance with the “Essay on Human
Understanding,” who maintained that the
word idea, wherever it occurs, means
nothing more than thought ; and that,
where he speaks of ideas as images in the
mind, and as objects of thought, he is not
to be understood as speaking properly, but
figuratively or analogically. And, indeed,
I apprehend that it would be no small
advantage to many passages in the book,
if they could admit of this interpretation.
It is not the fault of this philosopher
alone to have given too little attention to
the distinction between the operations of
the mind and the objects of those opera-
tions. Although this distinction be familiar
to the vulgar, and found in the structure of
all languages, philosophers, when they speak
of ideas, often confound [155] the two to-
gether ; and their theory concerning ideas
has led them to do so; for ideas, being
supposed to be a shadowy kind of beings,
intermediate between the thought and the
object of thought, sometimes seem to coa-
[153–155]
280
LESSAY ri
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
lesce with the thought, sometimes with the
object of thought, and sometimes to have a
distinct existenice of their own. -
The same philosophical theory of ideas
has led philosophers to confound the differ-
ent operations of the understanding, and
to call them all by the name of perception.*
Mr Locke, though not free from this fault,
is not so often chargeable with it as some
who came after him. The vulgar give the
name of perception to that immediate know-
ledge of external objects which we have by
our external senses. This is its proper
meaning in our language, though sometimes
it may be applied to other things metaphori-
cally or analogically. When I think of
anything that does not exist, as of the
republic of Oceana, I do not perceive it—I
only conceive or imagine it.S When I
think of what happened to me yesterday, I
do not perceive but remember it.|| When
I am pained with the gout, it is not proper
to Say I perceive the pain ; I feel it, or am
conscious of it: it is not an object of per-
ception, but of sensation and of conscious-
ness." So far, the vulgar distinguish very
properly the different operations of the
mind, and never confound the names of
things so different in their nature. But
the theory of ideas leads philosophers to
conceive all those operations to be of one
nature, and to give them one name. They
are all, according to that theory, the per-
ception of ideas in the mind. Perceiving,
remembering, imagining, being conscious,
are all perceiving ideas in the mind, and
are called perceptions. Hence it is that
philosophers speak of the perceptions of
memory, and the perceptions of imagina-
tion. They make sensation to be a percep-
tion; and everything we perceive by our
senses to be an idea of Sensation. Some-
times they say that they are conscious of
the ideas in their own minds, sometimes
that they perceive them.” [156]
However improbable it may appear that
philosophers who have taken pains to study
the operations of their own minds, should
express them less properly and less dis-
tinctly than the vulgar, it seems really to be
the case; and the only account that can be
given of this strange phaenomenon, I take
to be this: that the vulgar seek no theory
to account for the operations of their minds;
they know that they see, and hear, and re-
member, and imagine; and those who think
distinctly will express these operations dis-
tinctly, as their consciousness represents
them to the mind ; but philosophers think
they ought to know not only that there are
such operations, but how they are per-
formed ; how they see, and hear, and re-
member, and imagine; and, having invented
a theory to explain these operations, by
ideas or images in the mind, they suit their
expressions to their theory ; and, as a false
comment throws a cloud upon the text, so
a false theory darkens the phaenomena
which it attempts to explain.
We shall examine this theory afterwards.
Here I would only observe that, if it is not
true, it may be expected that it should lead
ingenious men who adopt it to confound the
operations of the mind with their objects,
and with one another, even where the com-
mon language of the unlearned clearly dis-
tinguishes them. One that trusts to a false
guide is in greater danger of being led
astray, than he who trusts his own eyes,
though he should be but indifferently ac-
quainted with the road.
CHAPTER X.
OF THE SENTIMENTS OF BISHOP BERKELEY.
GEORGE BERKELEY, afterwards Bishop
of Cloyne, published his “New Theory of
Vision,” in 1709; his “Treatise concern-
ing the Principles of Human Knowledge,” in
1710; and his “Dialogues between Hylas
and Philonous,” in 1713; being then a Fel-
low of Trinity College, Dublin. [157] He is
acknowledged universally to have great
merit, as an excellent writer, and a very
acute and clear reasoner on the most ab-
stract subjects, not to speak of his virtues
as a man, which were very conspicuous:
yet the doctrine chiefly held forth in the
treatises above mentioned, especially in the
* No more than by calling them all by the name
of Cognitions, or Acts of Consciouness. There was
no reason, either from etymology or usage, why per-
ception should not signify the energy of immediately
apprehending, in general; and until Reid limited the
Word to our apprehension of an external world, it
was, in fact, employed by philosophers, as tanta-
mount to an act of consciousness. We were in need
of a word to express our sensitive cognitions as dis-
tinct from our sensitive feelings, (for the term sens-
ation involved both,) and, therefore, Reid’s restric-
tion, though contrary to all precedent, may be ad-
mitted; but his criticism of other philosophers for
their employment of the term, in a wider meaning,
is wholly groundless.-H.
# But not exclusively.— H.
f This is not correct —H.
§ And why P Simply because we do not, by such
an act, know, or apprehend such an object to exist;
we merely represent it. But perception was only
used for such an apprehension. We could say, how-
ever, that we perceived (as we could say that we were
conscious of) the republic of Oceana, as imagined
by us, after Harrington.—H.
| And this, for the same reason. What is remem-
bered is not and can not be immediately known ;
nought but the present mental representation is so
known ; , and this we could properly say that we
perceived.—H.
T Because the feeling of pain, though only possible
through consciousness, is not an act of knowledge.
But it could be properly said, 1 perceive a feeling of
aim. At any rate, the expression I perceive a pain,
is as correct as 1 a ºn conscious of a j ann.-H.
* The connection of the wider signification of the
term perception, with the more complex theory of
representation, has no foundation—H.
onap. x.] OF THE SENTIMENTS OF BISHOP BERKELEy.
281
two last, has generally been thought so very
absurd, that few can be brought to think
that he either believed it himself, or that
he seriously meant to persuade others of its
truth.
He maintains, and thinks he has demon-
strated, by a variety of arguments, ground-
ed on principles of philosophy universally
received, that there is no such thing as
matter in the universe; that sun and moon,
earth and Sea, our own bodies, and those of
our friends, are nothing but ideas in the
minds of those who think of them, and that
they have no existence when they are not
the objects of thought ; that all that is in
the universe may be reduced to two cate-
gories—to wit, minds, and ideas in the
'mind.
But, however absurd this doctrine might
appear to the unlearned, who consider the
existence of the objects of sense as the
most evident of all truths, and what no man
in his senses can doubt, the philosophers
who had been accustomed to consider ideas
as the immediate objects of all thought, had
no title to view this doctrine of Berkeley in
so unfavourable a light.
They were taught by Des Cartes, and by
all that came after him, that the existence
of the objects of sense is not self-evident,
but requires to be proved by arguments;
and, although Des Cartes, and many others,
had laboured to find arguments for this
purpose, there did not appear to be that
force and clearness in them which might
have been expected in a matter of such im-
portance. Mr Norris had declared that,
after all the arguments that had been
offered, the existence of an external world
is only probable, but by no means certain.
[158] Malebranchethoughtit rested upon the
authority of revelation, and that the argu-
ments drawn from reason were not perfectly
conclusive. Others thought that the argu-
ment from revelation was a mere sophism,
because revelation comes to us by our
senses, and must rest upon their authority.
Thus we see that the new philosophy
had been making gradualapproachestowards
Berkeley's opinion ; and, whatever others
might do, the philosophers had no title to
look upon it as absurd, or unworthy of a
fair examination. Several authors attempt-
ed to answer his arguments, but with little
success, and others acknowledged that they
could neither answer them nor assent to
them. It is probable the Bishop made but
few converts to his doctrine ; but it is cer-
tain he made some ; and that he himself
continued, to the end of his life, firmly per-
suaded, not only of its truth,” but of its
& Berkeley's confidence in his idealism was, how-
ever, nothing to Fichte's. This philosopher, in one
of his controversial treatises, imprecates everlasting
damnation on himself not only should he retract, but
great importance for the improvement of
human knowledge, and especially for the
defence of religion. Dial. Pref. “If the
principles which I here endeavour to pro-
pagate, are admitted for true, the conse-
quences which I think evidently flow from
thence are, that atheism and scepticism
will be utterly destroyed, many intricate
points made plain, great difficulties solved,
several useless parts of science retrenched,
speculation referred to practice, and men
reduced from paradoxes to common sense.”
In the “Theory of Vision,” he goes no
farther than to assert that the objects of
sight are nothing but ideas in the mind,
granting, or at least not denying, that there
is a tangible world, which is really external,
and which exists whether we perceive it or
not. Whether thereason of this was,that his
system had not, at that time, wholly opened
to his own mind, or whether he thought it
prudent to let it enter into the minds of his
readers by degrees, I cannot say. I think
he insinuates the last as the reason, in the
“Principles of Human Knowledge.” [159]
The “Theory of Vision,” however, taken
by itself, and without relation to the main
branch of his system, contains very important
discoveries, and marks of great genius. He
distinguishes more accurately than any that
went before him, between the immediate
objects of sight, and those of the other
senses which are early associated with them.
He shews that distance, of itself and imme-
diately, is not seen ; but that we learn to
judge of it by certain sensations and per-
ceptions which are connected with it. This
is a very important observation; and, I
believe, was first made by this author."
It gives much new light to the operations
of our senses, and serves to account for
many phaenomena in optics, of which the
greatest adepts in that science had always
either given a false account, or acknow-
ledged that they could give none at all.
We may observe, by the way, that the
ingenious author seems not to have attended
to a distinction by which his general asser-
tion ought to have been limited. It is true
that the distance of an object from the eye is
not immediately seen ; but there is a certain
kind of distance of one object from another
which we see immediately. The author
acknowledges that there is a visible exten-
Sion, and visible figures, which are proper
objects of sight ; there must therefore be a
visible distance. Astronomers call it an-
gular distance ; and, although they measure
should he even waver in regard to any one principle
of his doctrine; a doctrine, the speculative result of
which left him, as he confesses, without even a cer.
tainty of his own existence. (See above, p. 129,
note *.). It is Varro who speaks of the creduld
philosophorum natio : but this is to be credulous
even in incredulity.—H.
* This last statement is inaccurate.—H.
ſl 58, 159]
282
[ESSAY II.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL Powers.
|
it by the angle, which is made by two lines
drawn from the eye to the two distant ob-
jects, yet it is immediately perceived by
sight, even by those who never thought of
that angle.
He led the way in shewing how we learn
to perceive the distance of an object from
the eye, though this speculation was carried
farther by others who came after him. He
made the distinction between that extension
and figure which we perceive by sight only,
and that which we perceive by touch ; call-
ing the first, visible, the last, tangible ex-
tension and figure. He shewed, likewise,
that tangible extension, and not visible, is
the object of geometry, although mathema-
ticians commonly use visible diagrams in
their demonstrations.” [160]
The notion of extension and figure which
we get from sight only, and that which we
get from touch, have been so constantly
conjoined from our infancy in all the judg-
ments we form of the objects of sense,
that it required great abilities to distin-
guish them accurately, and to assign to
each sense what truly belongs to it; “so
difficult a thing it is,” as Berkeley justly
observes, “to dissolve an union so early
begun, and confirmed by so long a habit.”
This point he has laboured, through the
whole of the essay on vision, with that
uncommon penetration and judgment which
he possessed, and with as great success as
could be expected in a first attempt upon
So abstruse a subject. *
He concludes this essay, by shewing, in
no less than seven sections, the notions
which an intelligent being, endowed with
sight, without the sense of touch, might
form of the objects of sense. This specu-
lation, to shallow thinkers, may appear to
be egregious trifling. To Bishop Ber-
keley it appeared in another light, and will
do so to those who are capable of entering
into it, and who know the importance of it,
in solving many of the phaenomena of vision.
He seems, indeed, to have exerted more
force of genius in this than in the main
branch of his system.
In the new philosophy, the pillars by
which the existence of a material world was
supported, were so feeble that it did not
re 1uire the force of a Samson to bring them
down ; and in this we have not so much
reason to admire the strength of Berkeley's
genius, as his boldness in publishing to the
world an opinion which the unlearned would
be apt to interpret as the sign of a crazy
intellect. A man who was firmly persuaded
of the doctrine universally received by phi-
losophers concerning ideas, if he could but
take courage to call in question the exist-
ence of a material world, would easily find
unanswerable arguments in that doctrine.
[161]. “Some truths there are,” says Berke-
ley, “ so near and obvious to the mind, that
a man need only open his eyes to see them.
Such,” he adds, “I take this important one
to be, that all the choir of heaven, and fur-
niture of the earth—in a word, all those
bodies which compose the mighty frame
of the world—have not any subsistence
without a mind.” Princ. § 6.
The principle from which this important
conclusion is obviously deduced, is laid down
in the first sentence of his principles of
knowledge, as evident; and, indeed, it has
always been acknowledged by philosophers.
“It is evident,” says he, “to any one who
takes a survey of the objects of human
knowledge, that they are either ideas ac-
tually imprinted on the senses, or else such
as are perceived, by attending to the pas-
sions and operations of the mind; or, lastly,
ideas formed by help of memory and imagin-
ation, either compounding, dividing, or
barely representing those originally per-
ceived in the foresaid ways.”
This is the foundation on which the whole
system rests. If this be true, then, indeed,
the existence of a material world must be
a dream that has imposed upon all mankind
from the beginning of the world.
The foundation on which such a fabric
rests ought to be very solid and well esta-
blished; yet Berkeley says nothing more for
it than that it is evident. If he means that
it is self-evident, this indeed might be a
good reason for not offering any direct argu-
ment in proof of it. But I apprehend this
cannot justly be said. Self-evident propo-
sitions are those which appear evident to
every man of sound understanding who ap-
prehends the meaning of them distinctly,
and attends to them without prejudice. Can
this be said of this proposition, That all the
objects of our knowledge are ideas in our
I believe that, to any man
* Properly speak ng, it is neither tangible nor
visible extension which is the object of geometry,
but intelligible, pure, or a priori extension —H.
+ This, I have no doubt, is in allusion to Priestley.
That writer had, not very courteously, said, in his
“Examination of Reid's Inquiry” “ I do not re-
member to have seen a more egregious piece of so-
!emn trifling than the chapter which our author calls
the “Geometry of Visibles,” and his account of the
“Idomenians,’ as he terms thºse imaginary beings who
nad no ideas of substance but from sight.”—In a note
upon that chapter of “The linquiry,” I stated that
the thought of a Geometry of Visibles was original to
Rt rkeley, and I had then no recollection of Reid’s
acknowledgment in the present paragraph.-H.
own minds 2"
* To the laealist, it is of perfect indifference whether
this proposition, in Reid’s sense of the expression
Ideas, be admitted, or whether it be held that we are
conscious of nothing but of the modifications of our
own minds. J'or, on the supposition that we can
know the non-ego only in and through the ego, it
follows, (since we can know nothing immediately of
which we are not conscious, and it being allowed
that we are conscious only of mind,) that it is con-
tradictory to suppose aught, as known, (i.e., any ob-
ject of knowledge.) to be known otherwise than as a
phaenomenon of mind.—H. *. .
[160, 161]
chap. x.) OF THE SENTIMENTS OF BISHOP BERKELEY.
283
uninstructed in philosophy, this proposition
will appear very improbable, if not absurd.
[162] However scanty his knowledge may
be, he considers the Sun and moon, the earth
and sea, as objects of it; and it will be difficult
to persuade him that those objects of his
knowledge are ideas in his own mind, and
have no existence when he does not think
of them. If I may presume to speak my
own sentiments, I once believed this doc-
trine of ideas so firmly as to embrace the
whole of Berkeley’s system in consequence
of it; till, finding other consequences to
follow from it, which gave me more unea-
siness than the want of a material world,
it came into my mind, more than forty
years ago, to put the question, What evi-
dence have I for this doctrine, that all the
objects of my knowledge are ideas in my
own mind 2 From that time to the pre-
sent 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.
We shall have occasion to examine its
evidence afterwards. I would at present
only observe, that all the arguments brought
by Berkeley against the existence of a ma-.
terial world are grounded upon it; and that
he has not attempted to give any evidence
for it, but takes it for granted, as other
philosophers had done before him.
But, supposing this principle to be true,
Berkeley’s system is impregnable. No
demonstration can be more evident than
his reasoning from it. Whatever is per-
ceived is an idea, and an idea can only
exist in a mind. It has no existence when
it is not perceived; nor can there be any-
thing like an idea, but an idea.
So sensible he was that it required no
laborious reasoning to deduce his system
from the principle laid down, that he was
afraid of being thought needlessly prolix in
handling the subject, and makes an apology
for it. Princ. § 22. “To what purpose
is it,” says he, “to dilate upon that which
may be demonstrated, with the utmost evi-
dence, in a line or two, to any one who is
capable of the least reflection?” [163] But,
though his demonstration might have been
comprehended in a line or two, he very pru-
dently thought that an opinion which the
world would be apt to look upon as a mon-
ster of absurdity, would not be able to make
its way at once, even by the force of a naked
demonstration. He observes, justly, Dial.
2, “That, though a demonstration be never
so well grounded and fairly proposed, yet
if there is, withal, a strain of prejudice, or
a wrong bias on the understanding, can it
be expected to perceive clearly, and adhere
firmly to the truth 2 No ; there is need of
time and pains ; the attention must be
awakened and detained, by a frequent re-
petition of the same thing, placed often in
the same, often in different lights.”
It was, therefore, necessary to dwell
upon it, and turnit on all sides, till it became
familiar; to consider all its consequences,
and to obviate every prejudice and pre-
possession that might hinder its admittance.
It was even a matter of some difficulty to
fit it to common language, so far as to
enable men to speak and reason about it
intelligibly. Those who have entered se-
riously into Berkeley’s system, have found,
after all the assistance which his writings
give, that time and practice are necessary
to acquire the habit of speaking and think-
ing distinctly upon it.
Berkeley foresaw the opposition that
would be made to his system, from two
different quarters: first, from the philos-
ophers; and, secondly, from the vulgar,
who are led by the plain dictates of nature.
The first he had the courage to oppose
openly and avowedly; the second, he
dreaded much more, and, therefore, takes
a great deal of pains, and, I think, uses
Some art, to court into his party. This
is particularly observable in his “Dia-
logues.” He sets out with a declaration,
Dial. 1, “That, of late, he had quitted
several of the sublime notions he had got
in the schools of the philosophers, for vul-
gar opinions,” and assures Hylas, his fel-
low-dialogist, “That, since this revolt from
metaphysical notions to the plain dictates
of nature and common sense, he found his
understanding strangely enlightened; so
that he could now easily comprehend a great
many things, which before were all mys-
tery and riddle.” [164] Pref. to Dial. “If
his principles are admitted for true, men
will be reduced from paradoxes to common
sense.” At the same time, he acknowledges,
“That they carry with them a great opposi-
tion to the prejudices of philosophers, which
have so far prevailed against the common
sense and natural notions of mankind.”
When Hylas objects to him, Dial. 3,
“You can never persuade me, Philonous,
that the denying of matter or corporeal
substance is not repugnant to the universal
sense of mankind”—he answers, “I wish
both our opinions were fairly stated, and
submitted to the judgment of men who had
plain common sense, without the prejudices
of a learned education. Let me be repre-
sented as one who trusts his senses, who
thinks he knows the things he sees and
feels, and entertains no doubt of their ex-
istence.—If by material substance is meant
only sensible body, that which is seen and
felt, (and the umphilosophical part of the
world, I dare say, mean no more,) then I
am more certain of matter’s existence than
you or any other philosopher pretend to be.
If there be anything which makes the
284
[Essay II.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
generality of mankind averse from the
notions I espouse, it is a misapprehension
that I deny the reality of sensible things:
but, as it is you who are guilty of that, and
not I, it follows, that, in truth, their aversion
is against your notions, and not mine. I
am content to appeal to the common sense
of the world for the truth of my notion. I
am of a vulgar cast, simple enough to
believe my senses, and to leave things as I
find them. I cannot, for my life, help
thinking that snow is white and fire hot.”
When Hylas is at last entirely converted,
he observes to Philonous, “After all, the
controversy about matter, in the strict
acceptation of it, lies altogether between
you and the philosophers, whose principles,
I acknowledge, are not near so natural, or
so agreeable to the common sense of man-
kind, and Holy Scripture, as yours.” [165]
Philonous observes, in the end, “That he
does not pretend to be a setter up of new
notions; his endeavours tend only to unite,
and to place in a clearer light, that truth
which was before shared between the vul-
gar and the philosophers; the former being
of opinion, that those things they im-
mediately perceive are the real things; and
the latter, that the things immediately
perceived, are ideas which exist only in the
mind ; which two things put together do,
in effect, constitute the substance of what
he advances.” And he concludes by ob-
serving, “That those principles which at
first view lead to scepticism, pursued to a
certain point, bring men back to common
sense.” -
These passages shew sufficiently the
author's concern to reconcile his system to
the plain dictates of nature and common
sense, while he expresses no concern to
reconcile it to the received doctrines of
philosophers. He is fond to take part with
the vulgar against the philosophers, and to
vindicate common sense against their inno-
vations. What pity is it that he did not
carry this suspicion of the doctrine of philo-
sophers so far as to doubt of that philoso-
phical tenet on which his whole system is
built—to wit, that the things immediately
perceived by the senses are ideas which
exist only in the mind
After all, it seems no easy matter to make
the vulgar opinion and that of Berkeley to
meet. And, to accomplish this, he seems
to me to draw each out of its line towards
the other, not without some straining.
The vulgar opinion he reduces to this,
that the very things which we perceive by
our senses do really exist. This he grants;”
for these things, says he, are ideas in our
minds, or complexions of ideas, to which
we give one name, and consider as one
thing; these are the immediate objects of
sense, and these do really exist. As to the
notion that those things have an absolute
external existence, independent of being
perceived by any mind, he thinks [166] that
this is no notion of the vulgar, but a refine-
ment of philosophers ; and that the notion of
material substance, as a substratum, or Sup-
port of that collection of sensible qualities
to which we give the name of an apple or a
melon, is likewise an invention of philoso-
phers, and is not found with the vulgar till
they are instructed by philosophers. The
substance not being an object of sense, the
vulgar never think of it; or, if they are
taught the use of the word, they mean no
more by it but that collection of sensible
qualities which they, from finding them con-
joined in nature, have been accustomed to
call by one name, and to consider as one
thing.
Thus he draws the vulgar opinion near
to his own ; and, that he may meet it half
way, he acknowledges that material things
have a real existence out of the mind of
this or that person ; but the question, says
he, between the materialist and me, is,
Whether they have an absolute existence
distinct from their being perceived by God,
and exterior to all minds 2 This, indeed,
he says, some heathens and philosophers
have affirmed ; but whoever entertains no-
tions of the Deity, suitable to the Holy
Scripture, will be of another opinion.
But here an objection occurs, which it
required all his ingenuity to answer. It is
this : The ideas in my mind cannot be the
same with the ideas of any other mind;
therefore, if the objects I perceive be only
ideas, it is impossible that the objects I per-
ceive can exist anywhere, when I do not
perceive them ; and it is impossible that
two or more minds can perceive the same
object.
To this Berkeley answers, that this ob-
jection presses no less the opinion of the
materialist philosopher than his. But the
difficulty is to make his opinion coincide
with the notions of the vulgar, who are
firmly persuaded that the very identical
objects which they perceive, continue to
exist when they do not perceive them ; and
who are no less firmly persuaded that, when
ten men look at the sun or the moon, they
all see the same individual object.” [167]
Toreconcile this repugnancy, he observes,
Dial. 3—" That, if the term same be taken
in the vulgar acceptation, it is certain (and
not at all repugnant to the principles he
maintains) that different persons may per-
ceive the same thing; or the same thing or
* This is one of the passages that may be brought
prºve that Reid did allow to the ego an immediate
a d real knowledge of the non-ego.-H.
b 2
idea exist in different minds. Words are
e Sce the last note.-H.
L165–167]
chap. x.] OF THE SENTIMENTS OF BISHOP BERKELEY.
285
of arbitrary imposition ; and, since men are
used to apply the wºrd same, where no dis-
tinction or variety is perceived, and he does
not pretend to alter their perceptions, it
follows that, as men have said before,
several saw the same thing, so they may,
upon like occasions, still continue to use the
same phrase, without any deviation, either
from propriety of language, or the truth of
things; but, if the term same be used in the
acceptation of philosophers, who pretend to
an abstracted motion of identity, then,
according to their sundry definitions of this
term, (for it is not yet agreed wherein that
philosophic identity consists,) it may or
may not be possible for divers persons to
perceive the same thing ; but whether phi-
losophers shall think fit to call a thing the
same or no is, I conceive, of Small import-
ance. Men may dispute about identity and
diversity, without any real difference in
their thoughts and opinions, abstracted from
names.”
Upon the whole, I apprehend that Berk-
eley has carried this attempt to reconcile
his system to the vulgar opinion farther
than reason supports him ; and he was no
doubt tempted to do so, from a just appre-
hension that, in a controversy of this kind,
the common sense of mankind is the most
formidable antagonist.
Berkeley has employed much pains and
ingenuity to shew that his system, if re-
ceived and believed, would not be attended
with those bad consequences in the conduct
of life, which superficial thinkers may be apt
to impute to it. His system does not take
away or make any alteration upon our plea-
sures or our pains : our sensations, whether
agreeable or disagreable, are the same upon
his system as upon any other. These are real
things, and the only things that interest us.
[168] They are produced in us according to
certain laws of nature, by which our con-
duct will be directed in attaining the one,
and avoiding the other ; and it is of no
moment to us, whether they are produced
immediately by the operation of some power-
ful intelligent being upon our minds; or
by the mediation of some inanimate being
which we call matter.
The evidence of an all-governing mind,
so far from being weakened, seems to appear
even in a more striking light upon his
hypothesis, than upon the common one.
The powers which inanimate matter is sup-
posed to possess, have always been the
stronghold of atheists, to which they had
recourse in defence of their system. This
fortress of atheism must be most effectually
overturned, if there is no such thing as
matter in the universe. In all this the
Bishop reasons justly and acutely. But
there is one uncomfortable consequence of
his system, which he seems not to have at-
tended to, and from which it will be found
difficult, if at all possible, to guard it. -
The consequence I mean is this—that,
although it leaves us sufficient evidence of a
Supreme intelligent mind, it seems to take
away all the evidence we have of other
intelligent beings like ourselves. What I
call a father, a brother, or a friend, is only
a parcel of ideas in my own mind; and, being
ideasin my mind, they cannot possibly have
that relation to another mind which they have
to mine, any more than the pain felt by me
can be the individual pain felt by another. I
can find no principle in Berkeley's system,
which affords me even probable ground to
conclude that there are other intelligent
beings, like myself, in the relations of father,
brother, friend, or fellow-citizen. I am left
alone, as the only creature of God in the
universe, in that forlorn state of egoism
into which it is said some of the disciples of
Des Cartes were brought by his philo-
sophy.” [169]
Of all the opinions that have ever been
advanced by philosophers, this of Bishop
Berkeley, that there is no material world,
seems the strangest, and the most apt to
bring philosophy into ridicule with plain
men who are guided by the dictates of nature
and common sense. And, it will not, I ap-
prehend, be improper to trace this progeny
of the doctrine of ideas from its origin, and
to observe its gradual progress, tillitacquired
such strength that a pious and learned
bishop had the boldness to usher it into the
world, as demonstrable from the principles
of philosophy universally received, and as
an admirable expedient for the advance-
ment of knowledge and for the defence of
religion.
During the reign of the Peripatetic phi-
losophy, men were little disposed to doubt,
and much to dogmatize. The existence of
the objects of sense was held as a first prin-
ciple ; and the received doctrine was, that
the sensible species or idea is the very form
of the external object, just separated from
the matter of it, and sent into the mind that
perceives it ; so that we find no appearance
of scepticism about the existence of mat-
ter under that philosophy. T
Des Cartes taught men to doubt even of
those things that had been taken for first
principles. He rejected # the doctrine of
* In which the soul, like the unhappy Dido—
“ sempergue relinqui
Sola sibi, semper longam incomitata videtur
Ire viam.”—H. -
+ This is not the case. It could easily be shewn
that, in the schools of the middle ages, the arguments
in favour of Idealism were fully understood ; and
they would certainly have obtained numerous parti-
sans, had it not been seen that such a philosophical
opinion involved a theological heresy touching the
eucharist. This was even recognised by St Augus-
tine.—H.
f Aſter many of the Peripatetics themselves--H.
[168, 1697
286
[ESSAY 11.
oN THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
species or ideas coming from objects; but
still maintained that what we immediately
perceive, is not the external object, but an
idea or image of it in our mind. This led
some of his disciples into Egoism, and to dis-
believe the existence of every creature in the
universe but themselves and their own ideas.”
But Des Cartes himself—either from
dread of the censure of the church, which
he took great care not to provoke; or to shun
the ridicule of the world, which might have
crushed his system at once, as it did that of
the Egoists;* or, perhaps, from inward
conviction—was resolved to support the ex-
istence of matter. To do this consistently
with his principles, he found himself obliged
to have recourse to arguments that are far-
fetched, and not very cogent. Sometimes
he argues that our senses are given us by
God, who is no deceiver; and, therefore,
we ought to believe their testimony. [170]
But this argumentis weak; because, accord-
ing to his principles, our senses testify no
more but that we have certain ideas: and,
if we draw conclusions from this testimony,
which the premises will not support, we
deceive ourselves. To give more force to
this weak argument, he sometimes adds,
that we have by nature a strong propensity
to believe that there is an external world
corresponding to our ideas.”f
Malebranche thought that this strong
propensity is not a sufficient reason for be-
lieving the existence of matter; and that it
is to be received as an article of faith, not
certainly discoverable by reason. He is
aware that faith comes by hearing; and that
it may be said that prophets, apostles, and
miracles are only ideas in our minds. But
to this he answers, that, though these things
are only ideas, yet faith turns them into
realities ; and this answer, he hopes, will
satisfy those who are not too morose.
It may perhaps seem strange that Locke,
who wrote so much about ideas, should not
see those consequences which Berkeley
thought so obviously deducible from that
doctrine. Mr. Locke surely was not willing
that the doctrine of ideas should be thought
to be loaded with such consequences. He
acknowledges that the existence of a mate-
rial World is not to be received as a first
principle—nor is it demonstrable; but he
offers the best arguments for it he can ; and
supplies the weakness of his arguments by
this observation—that we have such evi-
Is; sº above, p. 269, note $; and below, under p.
f We are only by nature led to believe in the exist-
enge of an outer world, because we are by nature led
to believe that we have an immediate knowledge of
it as existing. Now, Des Cartes and the philosophers
in general (is Reid an exception ?) hold that we are
deluded in the latter belief; and yet they argue, on
the ºthº, of the former, that an exernal world
6X 1stS – H.
dence as is sufficient to direct us in pur-
suing the good and avºiding the ill we may
receive from external things, beyond which
we have no concern.
There is, indeed, a single passage in
Locke’s essay, which may lead one to con-
jecture that he had a glimpse of that sys-
tem which Berkeley afterwards advanced,
but thought proper to suppress it within his
own breast. [171] The passage is in Book
4, c. 10, where, having proved the existence
of an eternal intelligent mind, he comes
to answer those who conceive that matter
also must be eternal, because we cannot
conceive how it could be made out of
nothing ; and having observed that the
creation of mind requires no less power than
the creation of matter, he adds what fol-
lows:– “Nay, possibly, if we could eman-
cipate ourselves from vulgar notions, and
raise our thoughts, as far as they would
reach, to a closer contemplation of things,
we might be able to aim at some dim and
seeming conception, how matter might at
first be made and begin to exist, by the
power of that eternal first Being; but to
give beginning and being to a spirit, would
be found a more inconceivable effect of om-
nipotent power. But this being what would
perhaps lead us too far from the notions on
which the philosophy now in the world is
built, it would not be pardonable to deviate
So far from them, or to inquire, so far as
grammar itself would authorize, if the com-
mon settled opinion opposes it; especially
in this place, where the received doctrine
serves well enough to our present purpose.”
It appears from this passage—First, That
Mr Locke had some system in his mind,
perhaps not fully digested, to which we
might be led, by raising our thoughts to a
closer contemplation of things, and emanci-
pating them from vulgar notions ; Secondly,
That this system would lead so far from the
notions on which the philosophy now in the
world is built, that he thought proper to
keep it within his own breast; Thirdly,
That it might be doubted whether this sys-
tem differed so far from the common settled
opinion in reality, as it seemed to do in
words; Fourthly, By this system, we might
possibly be enabled to aim at some dim and
seeming conception how matter might at
first be made and begin to exist; but it
would give no aid in conceiving how a
spirit might be made. These are the cha-
racteristics of that system which Mr Locke
had in his mind, and thought it prudent to
suppress. May they not lead to a probable
conjecture, that it was the same, or some-
thing similar to that of Bishop Berkeley P
* , Mr Stewart plausibly supposes that this passage
contains rather an anticipation of Boscovich's Theory
of Matter, than of Berkeley's Theory of Idealism.
Philosophical Essays, p. 61. But see note F.—H.
[170, 171]
chap. x.) OF THE SENTIMENTS OF BISHOP BERKELEY.
287
According to Berkeley's system, God's creat-
ing the material world at such a time, means
no more but that he decreed from that time,
to produce ideas in the minds of finite spirits,
in that order and according to those rules
which we call the laws of Nature. [172]
This, indeed, removes all difficulty, in con-
ceiving how matter was created ; and
Berkeley does not fail to take notice of the
advantage of his system on that account.
But his system gives no aid in conceiving
how a spirit may be made. It appears,
therefore, that every particular Mr Locke
has hinted, with regard to that system which
he had in his mind, but thought it prudent
to suppress, tallies exactly with the system
of Berkeley. If we add to this, that
Berkeley's system follows from Mr Locke's,
by very obvious consequence, it seems rea-
sonable to conjecture, from the passage now
quoted, that he was not unaware of that
consequence, but left it to those who should
come after him to carry his principles their
full length, when they should by time be
better established, and able to bear the shock
of their opposition to vulgar notions. Mr
Norris, in his “Essay towards the Theory
of the Ideal or Intelligible World,” pub-
lished in 1701, observes, that the material
world is not an object of sense; because
sensation is within us, and has no object.
Its existence, therefore, he says, is a collec-
tion of reason, and not a very evident one.
From this detail we may learn that the
doctrine of ideas, as it was new-modelled
by Des Cartes, looked with an unfriendly
aspect upon the material world; and, al-
though philosophers were very unwilling to
give up either, they found it a very difficult
task to reconcile them to each other. In
this state of things, Berkeley, I think, is
reputed the first who had the daring reso-
lution to give up the material world alto-
gether, as a sacrifice to the received phi-
losophy of ideas.
But we ought not, in this historical sketch,
to omit an author of far inferior name,
Arthur Collier, Rector of Langford Magna,
near Sarum. He published a book in 1713,
which he calls “Clavis Universalis ; or, a
New Inquiry after Truth ; being a demon-
stration of the non-existence or impossibility
of an external world.” His arguments are the
same in substance with Berkeley's; and he
appears to understand the whole strength of
his cause. [173] Though he is not deficient
in metaphysical acuteness, his style is dis-
agreeable, being full of conceits, of new-
coined words, scholastic terms, and per-
plexed sentences. He appears to be well
acquainted with Des Cartes, Malebranche,
and Norris, as well as with Aristotle and
the schoolmen. But, what is very strange,
it does not appear that he had ever heard
of Locke's Essay, which had been pub-
*
lished twenty-four years, or of Berkeley's
“Principles of Knowledge,” which had
been published three years.
He says he had been ten years firmly
convinced of the non-existence of an ex-
ternal world, before he ventured to publish
his book. He is far from thinking, as Ber-
keley does, that the vulgar are of his opi-
nion. If his book should make any con-
verts to his system, (of which he expresses
little hope, though he has supported it by
nine demonstrations,) he takes pains to
shew that his disciples, notwithstanding
their opinion, may, with the unenlightened,
speak of material things in the common
style. He himself had scruples of con-
science about this for some time; and, if
he had not got over them, he must have
shut his lips for ever ; but he considered
that God himself has used this style in
speaking to men in the Holy Scripture, and
has thereby sanctified it to all the faithful;
and that to the pure all things are pure.
He thinks his opinion may be of great
use, especially in religion; and applies it,
in particular, to put an end to the con-
troversy about Christ's presence in the
Sacrament.
I have taken the liberty to give this
short account of Collier's book, because I
believe it is rare, and little known. I have
only seen one copy of it, which is in the
University library of Glasgow." [174]
CHAPTER XI
BISHoP BERKELEy's SENTIMENTS OF THE
NATURE OF IDEAS,
I PAss over the sentiments of Bishop
Berkeley, with respect to abstract ideas,
and with respect to space and time, as
things which may more properly be consi-
dered in another place. But I must take
notice of one part of his system, wherein he
* This work, though of extreme rarity, and long
absolutely unknown to the philosophers of this coun-
try, had excited, from the first, the attention of the
Gcrman metaphysicians. A long analysis of it was
given in the “Acta Eruditorum ;” it is found quoted
by Bilfinger, and other Lebnitzians; and was sub-
sequently translated into German, with controver-
sial notes by Professor Eschenbach of Rostock, in his
“Collection of the principal writers who deny the
Reality of their own Body and of the whole Corporcal
World,” 1756. The late learned Dr Parr had long
the intention of publishing the work of Collier along
with some other rare metaphysical treatises. He did
not, however, accomplish his purpose; which in-
volved, likewise, an introductory disquisition by him-
self; but a complete impression of the “Clavis Univer-
salis” and four other tracts, was found, after his
death; and this having been purchased by Mr 1.um-
ley, has, by him, been recently published, under the
title—“ Metaphysical Tracts, by English Philoso-
phers of the Eighteenth Century,” &c. London:
1837. A very small edition of the “Clavis” had been
printed in Edinburgh, by private subscription, in the
previous year. A Life of Collier has likewise ru-
cently appeared.-H.
[172–174]
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
..[Essay II.
seems to have deviated from the common
opinion about ideas. -
Though he sets out in his principles of
knowledge, by telling us that it is evident
the objects of human knowledge are ideas,
and builds his whole system upon this prin-
ciple; yet, in the progress of it, he finds
that there are certain objects of human
knowledge that are not ideas, but things
which have a permanent existence. The
objects of knowledge, of which we have no
ideas, are our own minds, and their various
operations, other finite minds, and the
Supreme Mind. The reason why there
can be no ideas of spirits and their opera-
tions, the author informs us is this, That
ideas are passive, inert, unthinking beings;"
they cannot, therefore, be the image or
likeness of things that have thought, and
will, and active power ; we have notions of
minds, and of their operations, but not
ideas. We know what we mean by think-
ing, willing, and perceiving ; we can rea-
son about beings endowed with those
powers, but we have no ideas of them. A
spirit or mind is the only substance or
support wherein the unthinking beings or .
ideas can exist ; but that this substance
which supports or perceives ideas, should
itself be an idea, or like an idea, is evidently
absurd.
He observes, farther, Princip. sect. 142,
that “all relations, including an act of the
mind, we cannot properly be said to have
an idea, but rather a notion of the relations
or habitudes between things. [175] But
if, in the modern way, the word idea is
extended to spirits, and relations, and acts,
this is, after all, an affair of verbal con-
cern ; yet it conduces to clearness and pro-
priety, that we distinguish things very dif-
ferent by different names.”
This is an important part of Berkeley's
system, and deserves attention. We are
led by it to divide the objects of human
knowledge into two kinds. The first is ideas,
which we have by our five senses; they
have no existence when they are not per-
ceived, and exist only in the minds of those
who perceive them. The second kind of
objects comprehends spirits, their acts, and
the relations and habitudes of things. Of
these we have notions, but no ideas. No
idea can represent them, or have any simi-
litude to them : yet we understand what
they mean, and we can speak with under-
standing, and reason about them, without
ideas.
This account of ideas is very different
from that which Locke has given. In his
system, we have no knowledge where we
have no ideas. Every thought must have
* Berkeley is one of the philosophers who rea'ly
-held the doctrine of ideas, erroneously, by Reid, at-
tributed to all.– H.
the Deity.” -
an idea for its immediate object. In Ber-
keley's, the most important objects are
known without ideas. In Locke's system,
there are two sources of our ideas, sensa-
tion and reflection. In Berkeley's, sensa-
tion is the only source, because of the objects
of reflection there can be no ideas. We
know them without ideas. Locke divides
our ideas into those of substances, modes,
and relations. In Berkeley’s system, there
are no ideas of substances, or of relations;
but notions only. And even in the class of
modes, the operations of our own minds
are things of which we have distinct notions;
but no ideas. *~
We ought to do the justice to Malebranche
to acknowledge that, in this point, as well
as in many others, his system comes nearer
to Berkeley's than the latter seems willing
to own. That author tells us that there
are four different ways in which we come
to the knowledge of things. To know things
by their ideas, is only one of the four. [176]
He affirms that we have no idea of our
own mind, or any of its modifications: that
we know these things by consciousness,
without ideas. Whether these two acute
philosophers foresaw the consequences that
may be drawn from the system of ideas,
takenin its full extent, and which were after-
wards drawn by Mr Hume, I cannot pre-
tend to say. If they did, their regard to
religion was too great to permit them to ad-
mit those consequences, or the principles
with which they were necessarily connected.
However this may be, if there be so many
things that may be apprehended and known
without ideas, this very naturally suggests
a scruple with regard to those that are left:
for it may be said, If we can apprehend
and reason about the world of spirits, with-
out ideas, Is it not possible that we may
apprehend and reason about a material
world, without ideas 2 If consciousness
and reflection furnish us with notions of
spirits and of their attributes, without ideas,
may not our senses furnish us with notions
of bodies and their attributes, without ideas?
Berkeley foresaw this objection to his
system, and puts it in the mouth of Hylas,
in the following words:—Dial. 3, Hylas.
“If you can conceive the mind of God,
without having an idea of it, why may not
I be allowed to conceive the existence of
matter, notwithstanding that I have no idea
of it P’’ The answer of Philonous is—
“You neither perceive matter objectively,
as you do an inactive being or idea, nor
know it, as you do yourself, by a reflex act,
neither do you immediately apprehend it by
similitude of the one or the other, nor yet
collect it by reasoning from that which you
know immediately ; all which makes the
case of matter widely different from that of
ſ175, 176T
chap. xi.] BISHOP BERKELEY'S SENTIMENTS OF IDEAS.
289
Though Hylas declares himself satisfied
with this answer, I confess I am not : be-
cause, if I may trust the faculties that God
Has given me, I do perceive matter objec-
tively—that is, something which is extended
and solid, which may be measured and
weighed, is the immediate object of my touch
and sight." [177] And this object I take to
be matter, and not an idea. And, though I
have been taught by philosophers, that what
I immediately touch is an idea, and not
matter; yet I have never been able to dis-
cover this by the most accurate attention
to my own perceptions.
It were to be wished that this ingenious
author had explained what he means by
ideas, as distinguished from notions. The
word notion, being a word in common lan-
guage, is well understood. All men mean
by it, the conception, the apprehension, or
thought which we have of any object of
thought. A notion, therefore, is an act
of the mind conceiving or thinking of some
object. The object of thought may be
either something that is in the mind, or
something that is not in the mind. It may
be something that has no existence, or
Something that did, or does, or shall exist.
But the notion which I have of that ob-
ject, is an act of my mind which really
exists while I think of the object; but has
no existence when I do not think of it.
The word idea, in popular language, has
precisely the same meaning as the word
notion. But philosophers have another
meaning to the word idea ; and what that
meaning is, I think, is very difficult to say.
The whole of Bishop Berkeley's system
depends upon the distinction between no-
tions and ideas; and, therefore, it is worth
while to find, if we are able, what those
things are which he calls ideas, as distin-
guished from notions.
For this purpose, we may observe, that
he takes notice of two kinds of ideas—the
ideas of sense, and the ideas of imagina-
tion. “The ideas imprinted on the senses
by the Author of Nature,” he says, “are
called real things; and those excited in the
imagination, being less regular, vivid, and
-constant, are more properly termed ideas,
-or images of things, which they copy and
represent. [178] But then our sensations,
be they never so vivid and distinct, are
nevertheless ideas ; that is, they exist in
the mind, or are perceived by it as truly
as the ideas of its own framing. The ideas
of sense are allowed to have more reality
-in them—that is, to be more strong, or-
derly, and coherent—than the creatures of
the mind. They are also less dependent
on the spirit, or thinking substance which
perceives them, in that they are excited by
the will of another and more powerful
spirit; yet still they are ideas; and cer-
tainly no idea, whether faint or strong, can
exist, otherwise than in a mind perceiving
it.” Principles, § 33.
From this passage we see that, by the
ideas of sense, the author means sensa-
tions;" and this, indeed, is evident from
many other passages, of which I shall men-
tion a few.—Principles, S 5. “Light and
colours, heat and cold, extension and figure—
in a word, the things we see and feel—what
are they but so many sensations, notions,
ideas, or impressions on the sense 2–and is
it possible to separate, even in thought,
any of these from perception ? For my
part, I might as easily divide a thing from
itself.” $ 18. “As for our senses, by
them we have the knowledge only of our
sensations, ideas, or those things that are
immediately perceived by sense, call them
what you will ;-but they do not inform us
that things exist without the mind, or un-
perceived, like to those which are per-
ceived.” S 25. “All our ideas, sensa-
tions, or the things which we perceive, by
whatever names they may be distinguished,
are visibly inactive; there is nothing of
power or agency included in them.”
This, therefore, appears certain—that,
by the ideas of sense, the author meant the
sensations we have by means of our senses.
I have endeavoured to explain the meaning
of the word sensation, Essay I., chap. 1,
[p. 229, and refer to the explication there
given of it, which appears to me to be per-
fectly agreeable to the sense in which Bishop
Berkeley uses it."
As there can be no notion or thought
but in a thinking being; so there can be
no sensation but in a sentient being. [179]
It is the act or feeling of a sentient being ;
its very essence consists in its being felt.
Nothing can resemble a sensation, but a
similar sensation in the same or in Some
other mind. To think that any quality in
a thing that is inanimate can resemble a
sensation, is a great absurdity. In all this,
I cannot but agree perfectly with Bishop
Berkeley; and I think his notions of sensa-
* Does Reid mean to surrender his doctrine, that
perception is a conception—that extension and figure
care not known by sense, but are notions suggested on
, the occasion of sensation ? If he does not, his lan-
guage in the text is inaccurate.-H.
* How it can be, asserted that by ideas of Sense
Berkeley meant only what Reid did by sensations,
I cannot comprehend. That the former used ideas
of sense and sensations as convertible expressions, is
true. But then Berkeley’s sensation was equivalent
to Reid's sensation plus his perception. This is mani-
fest even by the passages adduced in the text. In
that from S v. of the “Principles,” Berkeley ex-
pressly calls extension and figure sensations. But
it is a fundamental principle of Reid's philosophy,
not only that neither extension nor figure, but that
none of the primary qualities, are sensations. To
make a single, quotation—“The primary qualities,”
he says, “ are neither sensations, nor are they the
resemblances oſ sensations.”—I'vra, p. 238.-H.
| 17,7–179]
U
200
LESSAY If.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
tion much more distinct and accurate than
Locke's, who thought that the primary
qualities of body are resemblances of our
sensations," but that the secondary are not,
That we have many sensations by means
of our external senses, there can be no
doubt ; and, if he is pleased to call those
ideas, there ought to be no dispute about
the meaning of a word. But, says Bishop
Berkeley, by our senses, we have the know-
ledge.only of our sensations or ideas, call
them which you will. I allow him to call
them which he will ; but I would have the
word only in this sentence to be well weighed,
because a great deal-depends upon it.
For, if it be true that, by our senses, we
have the knowledge of our sensations only,
then his system must be admitted, and the
existence of a material world must begiven
up as a dream. No demonstration can be
more invincible than this. If we have any
knowledge of a material world, it must be
by the senses : but, by the senses, we have
no knowledge but of our sensations only ;
and our sensations have no resemblance of
anything that can be in a material world.T
The only proposition in this demonstration
which admits of doubt is, that, by our senses,
we have the knowledge of our sensations
only, and of nothing else. If there are ob-
jects of the senses which are not sensations,
his arguments do not touch them: they may
be things which do not exist in the mind, as
all sensations do; they may be things of which,
by our senses, we have notions, though no
ideas; just as, by consciousness and reflection,
we have notions of spirits and of their oper-
ations, without ideas or sensations.: [180]
Shall we say, then, that, by our senses,
we have the knowledge of our sensations
only ; and that they give us no notion of
anything but of our sensations 2 Perhaps
this has been the doctrine of philosophers,
and not of Bishop Berkeley alone, otherwise
he would have supported it by arguments.
Mr Locke calls all the notions we have by
our senses, ideas of sensation ; and in this
has been very generally followed. Hence
it seems a very natural inference, that ideas
* Here again we have a criticism which proceeds
on the erroneous implication, that Locke meant by
sensation what Keid himself did. If for sensation
we substitute perception, (and by sensation Locke
denoted both sensation proper and perception proper,)
there remains nothing to censure; for Reid main-
tains that “our senses give us a direct and a distinct
notion of the primary qualities, and inform us what
they are in themselves * (infra, p. 237;) which is only
Locke's mºaning in other words. The same observa-
tion applies to many of the following passages —H.
# See the last note.-H.
t But, unless that be admitted, which the natural
conviction of mankind certifies, that we have an
immediate perception—a consciousness—of external
and extended existences, it makes no difference, in
regal d to the conclusion of the idealist, whether
'what we are conscious of in perception be supposed
an entity in the mind, (an idea in Reid s meaning,)
or a modification of the mind, (a notion or concep-
tion.) See above, p. 128, notes #.-H.
of sensation are sensations. But philoso-
phers may err: let us hear the dictates of
common sense upon this point.
Suppose I am pricked with a pin, I ask,
Is the pain I feel, a sensation ? Undoubtedly
it is. There can be nothing that resembles
pain in any inanimate being. But I ask
again, Is the pin a sensation ? To this
question I find myself under a necessity of
answering, that the pin is not a sensation,
nor can have the least resemblance to any
sensation. The pin has length and thick-
mess, and figure and weight. A sensation
can have none of those qualities. I am not
more certain that the pain I feel is a sensa-
tion, than that the pin is not a sensation;
yet the pin is an object of sense ; and I am
as certain that I perceive its figure and
hardness by my senses, as that I feel pain
when pricked by it." -
Having said so much of the ideas of sense
in Berkeley’s system, we are next to con-
sider the account he gives of the ideas of
imagination. Of these he says, Principles,
§ 28—“I find I can excite ideas in my
mind at pleasure, and vary and shift the
scene as oft as I think fit. It is no more
than willing; and straightway this or that idea
arises in my fancy ; and by the same power
it is obliterated, and makes way for another.
This making and unmaking of ideas, doth
very properly denominate the mind active.
Thus much is certain, and grounded on
experience. Our sensations,” he says, “are
called real things; the ideas of imagination
are more properly termed ideas, or images
of things;” + that is, as I apprehend, they
are the images of our sensations. [181]
It might surely be expected that we should
be well acquainted with the ideas of imagin-
ation, as they are of our making ; yet, after
all the Bishop has said about them, I am
at a loss to know what they are.
• I would observe, in the first place, with
regard to these ideas of imagination—that
they are not sensations; for surely sensation
is the work of the senses, and not of imagin-
ation; and, though pain be a sensation, the
thought of pain, when I am not pained, is
no sensation. -
I observe, in the second place—that I can
find no distinction between ideas of imagin-
ation and notions, which the author says
are not ideas. I can easily distinguish be-
* This illustration is taken from Dos Cartes. In
this paragraph, the term sensation is again not used
in the extension given to it by the philosophers, in
question.—H.
+ Berkeley's real words are—“ The ideas imprint-
ed.on the Senses by the Author of Nature are called
real things, and those excited in the Imagination
being less regular, vivid and constant, are more pro-
perly termed ideas or images of things, which they
copy and represent. But then our Sensations, be they
never so vivid aud, dist nct, are nevertheless ideas—
that is, they exis: in the mind, or are perceived by
it, as truly as the ideas of its own framing.” Sect.
Xxxiii.-Fl.
ſ 180, 181]
chap. xi.) BISHOP BERKELEY'S SENTIMENTS OF IDEAs.
29]
tween a motion and a sensation. It is one
thing to say, I have the sensation of pain.
It is another thing to say, I have a notion of
pain. The last expression signifies no more
than that I understand what is meant by the
word pain. The first signifies that I really
feel pain. But I can find no distinction
between the motion of pain and the imagin-
ation of it, or indeed between the notion
of anything else, and the imagination of it.
I can, therefore, give no account of the
distinction which Berkeley makes between
ideas of imagination and notions, which, he
says, are not ideas. They seem to me per-
fectly to coincide.*
He seems, indeed, to say, that the ideas
of imagination differ not in kind from those
of the senses, but only in the degree of their
regularity, vivacity, and constancy. “They
are,” says he, “less regular, vivid, and con-
stant.” This doctrine was afterwards greed-
ily embraced by Mr Hume, and makes a
main pillar of his system ; but it cannot be
reconciled to common sense, to which Bishop
Berkeley professes a great regard. For,
according to this doctrine, if we compare the
state of a man racked with the gout, with
his state when, being at perfect ease, he
relates what he has suffered, the difference
of these two states is only this—that, in the
last, the pain is less regular, vivid, and con-
stant, than in the first. [182] We cannot
possibly assent to this. Every man knows
that he can relate the pain he suffered, not
only without pain, but with pleasure; and
that to suffer pain, and to think of it, are
things which totally differ in kind, and not
in degree only.--
We see, therefore, upon the whole, that,
according to this system, of the most im-
portant objects of knowledge—that is, of
spirits, of their operations, and of the rela-
tions of things—we have no ideas at all;"
we have notions of them, but not ideas; the
ideas we have are those of sense, and those
of imagination. The first are the sensa-
tions we have by means of our senses, whose
existence no man can deny, because he is
conscious of them ; and whose nature hath
been explained by this author with great
accuracy. As to the ideas of imagination,
he hath left us much in the dark. He makes
them images of our sensations; though,
according to his own doctrine, nothing can
resemble a sensation but a sensation.-- He
seems to, think that they differ from sensa-
tions only in the degree of their regularity,
vivacity, and constancy. But this cannot
be reconciled to the experience of mankind;
and, besides this mark, which cannot be
admitted, he hath given us no other mark
by which they may be distinguished from
notions. Nay, it may be observed, that the
very reason he gives why we can have no
ideas of the acts of the mind about its ideas,
nor of the relations of things, is applicable
to what he calls ideas of imagination.
Principles, § 142. “We may not, I think,
strictly be said to have an idea of an active
being, or of an action, although we may be
said to have a notion of them. I have some
knowledge or notion of my mind, and its
acts about ideas, in as much as I know or
understand what is meant by these words.
[I will not say that the terms Idea and
Notion may not be used convertibly, if the
world will have it so. But yet it conduces to
clearness and propriety that we distinguish
things very different by different names.]
It is also to be remarked, that all relations
including an act of the mind, we cannot so
properly be said to have an idea, but rather
a motion of the relations and habitudes be-
tween things.” From this it follows, that our
imaginations are not properly ideas, but no-
tions, because they include an act of the mind. .
[183] For he tells us, in a passage already
quoted, that they are creatures of the mind,
of its own framing, and that it makes and
unmakes them as it thinks fit, and from this
is properly denominated active. If it be a
good reason why we have not ideas, but
notions only of relations, because they in-
clude an act of the mind, the same reason
must lead us to conclude, that our imagina-
tions are notions and Ilot ideas, since they
are made and unmade by the mind as it
thinks fit : and, from this, it is properly de-
nominated active.:
* Yet the distinction of ideas, strictly so called, and
motions, is one of the most common and important in
the philosophy of mind. • Nor do we owe it, as has baen
asserted, to Berkeley. It was virtually taken by Des
Cartes and the Cartesians, in their discrimination of
ideas of imagination and ide sºof intelligence; it was
in terms vindicated against Locke, by Serjeant, Stil-
lingfleet, a Norris, Z. Mayne, Bishop Brown, and
others; Bonnet signalized it; and, under the con-
trast of Amschauntmgen and Begriffe, it has long been
an established and classical discrimination with the
philosophers of Germany. Nay, Reid himself sug-
gests it in the distinction he requires between ima-
gination and conception, a distinction which he unfor-
tunately did not, carry out, and which Mr Stewart
still more unhappily again perverted. See below, p.
371. The terms motion. and conception. (or more cor-
rectly. concept in this: sense, ) should be reserved
to express what we comprehend but cannot picture
in imagination, such as, a relation, a general term,
&c. The word idea, as one prostituted to all mean-
ings, it were perhaps better altogether to discard.
As for the representations of imagination, or phan-
tasy, I would employ the terms image orphantasm, it
being distinctly understood? that these terms are ap-
plied to denote the re-presentations, not of our visible
perceptions merely, as the terms taken literally would
indicate, but of our sensible perceptions in general.—
i There is here a confusion between pain considered
as a feeling, and as the cognition of a feeling, to
which the philosophers would object. – H.
.* That is, no images of them in ine phantasy. Reid
himself would not say that such could be imaginted.—
f Berkeley does not say so in the meaning 'Sup-
posed.—H. g
f Imagination is an ambiguous word; it means
either the act of imagining, or the product—i.e., the
image imagined. Of the folner, Bekeley held, we
can form a motion, but not an idea, in the sense he
[182, 183]
• U 2
292
[Essay II.
, ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
When so much has been written, and so
many disputes raised about ideas, it were
desirable that we knew what they are, and
to what category or class of beings they be-
long. In this we might expect satisfaction
in the writings of Bishop Berkeley, if any-
where, considering his known accuracy and
precision in the use of words; and it is for
this reason that I have taken so much pains
to find out what he took them to be.
After all, if I understand what he calls the
ideas of sense, they are the sensations which
we have by means of our five senses; but
they are, he says, less properly termed ideas.
I understand, likewise, what he calls
notions; but they, says he, are very differ-
ent from ideas, though, in the modern way,
often called by that name.
The ideas of imagination remain, which
are most properly termed ideas, as he says;
and, with regard to these, I am still very
much in the dark. When I imagine a lion
or an elephant, the lion or elephant is the
object imagined. The act of the mind, in
conceiving that object, is the notion, the
conception, or imagination of the object. If
besides the object, and the act of the mind
about it, there be something called the idea
of the object, I know not what it is.”
If we consult other authors who have
treated of ideas, we shall find as little satis-
faction with regard to the meaning of this
philosophical term. [184] The vulgar
have adopted it; but they only mean by
it the notion or conception we have of any
object, especially our more abstract or gen-
eral notions. When it is thus put to sig-
nify the operation of the mind about objects,
whether in conceiving, remembering, or
perceiving, it is well understood. But phi-
losophers will have ideas to be the objects
of the mind's operations, and not the oper-
-ations themselves. There is, indeed, great
variety of objects of thought. We can
think of minds, and of their operations; of
bodies, and of their qualities and relations.
If ideas are not comprehended under any of
these classes, I am at a loss to comprehend
what they are. -
In ancient philosophy, ideas were said to
be immaterial forms, which, according to
one system, existed from all eternity; and,
according to another, are sent forth from
the objects whose form they are.-- In mo-
dern philosophy, they are things in the
mind, which are the immediate objects of
all our thoughts, and which have no exist-
ence when we do not think of them. They
are called the images, the resemblances, the
representatives of external objects of sense;
yet they have neither colour, nor smell, nor
figure, nor motion, nor any sensible quality.
I revere the authority of philosophers, espes
cially where they are so unanimous; but
until I can comprehend what they mean by
ideas, I must thinkandspeak with the vulgar.
In sensation, properly so called, I can
distinguish two things—the mind, or sen-
tient being, and the sensation. Whether
the last is to be called a feeling or an oper-
ation, I dispute not ; but it has no object
distinct from the sensation itself. If in
sensation there be a third thing, called an
idea, I know not what it is. -
In perception, in remembrance, and in
conception, or imagination, I distinguish
three things—the mind that operates, the
operation of the mind, and the object of that
operation." [185] That the object per-
ceived is one thing, and the perception of
that object another, I am as certain as I
can be of anything. The same may be
said of conception, of remembrance, of love
and hatred, of desire and aversion. In all
these, the act of the mind about its object is
one thing, the object is another thing.
There must be an object, real or imaginary,
distinct from the operation of the mind
about it.-F Now, if in these operations the
idea be a fourth thing different from the
three I have mentioned, I know not what it
is, nor have been able to learn from all that
has been written about ideas. And if the
doctrine of philosophers about ideas con-
founds any two of these things which I have
mentioned as distinct—if, for example, it
confounds the object perceived with the
perception of that object, and represents
them as one and the same thing—such doc-
trine is altogether repugnant to all that I am
able to discover of the operations of my own
mind; and it is repugnant to the common
sense of mankind, expressed in the strue-
ture of all languages.
CHAPTER XII.
OF THE SENTIMENTS OF MI& HUME.
Two volumes of the “Treatise of Human
Nature” were published in 1739, and the
third in 1740. The doctrine contained in
this Treatise was published anew in a more
popular form in Mr Hume's “Philosophical
Essays,” of which there have been various
editions. What other authors, from the
uses the term; whereas, of the latter, we can form
º idea by merely repeating the imaginatory act.—
* Qn Reid's misconception on this point, see Note
f Nothing by the name of idea was sent off from
objects in the ancient philosophy.—H.
* See Note B.-H. -
+ If there be an imaginary object distinct from the
act of imagination, where does it exist? It cannot
be external to the mind—for, ea hypothesi, it is ima-
ginary; and, if in the mind itself, distinct from the act
of imagination—why, what is this but the very crudest
doctrine of species 9 For Reid's puzzle, see Note B.
- H. '
[184, 185]
CHAP. XII.]
OF THE SENTIMIENTS OF MR HUME. 293
time of Des Cartes, had called ideas, this
author distinguishes into two kinds—to wit,
impressions and ideas; comprehending under
the first, all our sensations, passions, and
emotions ; and under the last, the faint
images of these, when we remember or
imagine them. [186]
He sets out with this, as a principle that
needed no proof, and of which therefore he
offers none—that all the perceptions of the
human mind resolve themselves into these
two kinds, impressions and ideas.
As this proposition is the foundation upon
which the whole of Mr Hume's system
rests, and from which it is raised with great
acuteness indeed, and ingenuity, it were to
be wished that he had told us upon what
authority this fundamental proposition rests.
But we are left to guess, whether it is held
forth as a first principle, which has its
evidence in itself; or whether it is to be
received upon the authority of philosophers.
Mr Locke had taught us, that all the
Immediate objects of human knowledge are
ideas in the mind. Bishop Berkeley, pro-
ceeding upon this foundation, demonstrated,
very easily, that there is no material world.
And he thought that, for the purposes
both of philosophy and religion, we should
find no loss, but great benefit, in the want
of it. But the Bishop, as became his order,
was unwilling to give up the world of spirits.
He saw very well, that ideas are as unfit to
represent spirits as they are to represent
bodies. Perhaps he saw that, if we per-
ceive only the ideas of spirits, we shall find
the same difficulty in inferring their real
existence from the existence of their ideas, as
we find in inferring the existence of matter
from the idea of it ; and, therefore, while he
gives up the material world in favour of the
system of ideas, he gives up one-half of that
system in favour of the world of spirits; and
maintains that we can, without ideas, think,
and speak, and reason, intelligibly about
spirits, and what belongs to them.
Mr Hume shews no such partiality in
favour of the world of spirits. He adopts
the theory of ideas in its full extent; and,
in consequence, shews that there is neither
matter nor mind in the universe; nothing
but impressions and ideas. What we call
a body, is only a bundle of sensations; and
what we call the mind is only a bundle of
thoughts, passions, and emotions, without
any subject. [187)
Some ages hence, it will perhaps be
looked upon as a curious anecdote, that
two philosophers of the eighteenth century,
of very distinguished rank, were led, by a
philosophical hypothesis, one, to disbelieve
the existence of matter, and the other, to
disbelieve the existence both of matter and
of mind. Such an anecdote may not be
u; instructive, if it prove a warning to
philosophers to beware of hypotheses, espe-
cially when they lead to conclusions which
contradict the principles upon which all men
of common sense must act in common life.
The Egoists," whom we mentioned be-
fore, were left far behind by Mr Hume :
for they believed their own existence, and
perhaps also the existence of a Deity. But
Mr Hume's system does not even leave him
a self to claim the property of his impres-
sions and ideas.
A system of consequences, however ab-
surd, acutely and justly drawn from a few
principles, in very abstract matters, is of
real utility in science, and may be made
subservient to real knowledge. This merit
Mr Hume's metaphysical writings have in
a great degree.
We had occasion before to observe, that,
since the time of Des Cartes, philosophers,
in treating of the powers of the mind, have,
in many instances, confounded things which
the common sense of mankind has always
led them to distinguish, and which have
different names in all languages. Thus, in
the perception of an external object, all
languages distinguish three things—the
mind that perceives, the operation of that
mind, which is called perception, and the
o/ject perceived. + Nothing appears more
evident to a mind untutored by philosophy,
than that these three are distinct things,
which, though related, ought never to be
confounded. [188] The structure of all
languages supposes this distinction, and is
built upon it. Philosophers have intro-
duced a fourth thing in this process, which
they call the idea of the object, which is
supposed to be an image, or representative
of the object, and is said to be the imme-
diate object. The vulgar know nothing
about this idea ; it is a creature of philo-
sophy, introduced to account for and explain
themanner of our perceiving external objects.
* , l n supplement to note § at p 269, supra, in re-
gard to the pretended sect of Egoists, there is to be
added the following notices, which I did not recol-
lect till after that note was set:—
Wolf, (Psychologia Rationalis, $38,) after dividing
Idealists into Egoists and Pluralists, says, inter alia, of
the former —“ Fuit paucis abhinc annis assecla
quidam Malebranchii, Parisiis, qui Egoismum pro-
fessus est (quod mirum mihi videtur) asseclas et ipse
nactus est.” In his Vernºwenſtige Gedanken von Gott,
&c., c. 1, § 2, he also mentions this allerseltsamste
Secte. There is also an oration by Christopher
Matthaeus Pfaff, the Chancellor of Tuebingen— .
“De Egoismo, mova philosophica haeresi,” in 1722–
which I have not seen.—Thus, what I formerly ha-
zarded, is still farther confirmed. All is vague and
contradictory hearsay in regard to the Egoists. The
French place them in Scotland; the Scotch in Hol-
land; the Germans in France; and they are variously
stated as the immedia:e disciples of Des Cartes,
Malebranche, Spinoza. There is certainly no reason
why an Egoistical Idealism should not have been
explicitly promulgated before Fichte, (whose doctrine,
however, is not the same;) but I have, as yet, seen
no satisfactory grounds on which it can be shewn
that this had actually been done. — H.
+ See Notes B and C.—H.
(186–188]
294
TESSAY 11.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
It is pleasant to observe that, while philo-
sophers, for more than a century, have been
labouring, by means of ideas, to explain
perception and the other operations of the
mind, those ideas have by degrees usurped
the place of perception, object, and even of
the mind itself, and have supplanted those
very things they were brought to explain.
Des Cartes reduced all the operations of the
understanding to perception ; and what can
be more natural to those who believe that
they are only different modes of perceiving
ideas in our own minds P. Locke confounds
ideas sometimes with the perception of an
external object, sometimes with the external
object itself. In Berkeley’s system, the idea
is the only object, and yet is often con-
founded with the perception of it. But, in
Hume's, the idea or the impression, which
is only a more lively idea, is mind, percep-
tion, and object, all in one : so that, by the
term perception, in Mr Hume's system, we
must understand the mind itself, all its
operations, both of understanding and will,
and all the objects of these operations. Per-
ception taken in this sense he divides into
our more lively perceptions, which he calls
impressions,” and the less lively, which he
calls ideas. To prevent repetition, I must
here refer the reader to some remarks made
upon this division, Essay I. chap. 1, in the
explication there given of the words, per-
ceive, object, impression. [pp. 222, 223,226.]
Philosophers have differed very much
with regard to the origin of our ideas, or
the sources whence they are derived. The
Peripatetics held that all knowledge is de-
rived originally from the senses ;-F and this
ancient doctrine seems to be revived by
some late French philosophers, and by Dr
Hartley and Dr Priestley among the Brit-
ish. [189] Des Cartes maintained, that
many of our ideas are innate. Locke op-
posed the doctrine of innate ideas with
much zeal, and employs the whole first
book of his Essay against it. But he ad-
mits two different sources of ideas. the
operations of our external senses, which he
calls sensation, by which we get all our
ideas of body, and its attributes; and re-
flection upon the operations of our minds, by
which we get the ideas of everything be-
* Mr Stewart (Elem. III. Addenda to vol I. p.
43) seems to think that the word impression was
first introduced as a technical term, into the philo-
sophy of mind, by Hume. This is not altogether
correct. For, besides the instances which Mr Stewart
himself adduces, of the illustration attempted, of the
phaenomena of memory from the analogy of an im-
'press and a tº ace, words corresponding to impression
were among the ancients familiarly applied to the pro-
cesses cf. external perception, imagination, &c., in the
Atomistic, the Platonic, the Aristotelian, and the
Stoical philosophies; while, among modern psycholo-
gists, (as Des Cartes and Gassendi,) the term was like-
wise in common use — H.
f This is an incorrect, at least a too unqualified,
slatement.—H.
longing to the mind. The main design of
the second book of Locke’s “Essay,” is to
shew, that all our simple ideas, without
exception, are derived from the one or the
other, or both of these sources. In doing
this, the author is led into some paradoxes,
although, in general, he is not fond of para-
doxes: And had he foreseen all the con-
sequences that may be drawn from his ac-
count of the origin of our ideas, he would
probably have examined it more carefully."
Mr Hume adopts Locke's account of the
origin of our ideas; and from that principle
infers, that we have no idea of substance,
corporeal or spiritual, no idea of power, no
other idea of a cause, but that it is something
antecedent, and constantly conjoined to that
which we call its effect ; and, in a word,
that we can have no idea of anything but
our Sensations, and the operations of mind
we are conscious of.
This author leaves no power to the mind
in framing its ideas and impressions; and,
no wonder, since he holds that we have no
idea of power; and the mind is nothing but
that succession of impressions and ideas of
which we are intimately conscious.
He thinks, therefore, that our impressions
arise from unknown causes, and that the
impressions are the causes of their corre-
sponding ideas. By this he means no more
but that they always go before the ideas;
for this is all that is necessary to constitute
the relation of cause and effect. [190]
As to the order and succession of our
ideas, he holds it to be determined by three
laws of attraction or association, which he
takes to be original properties of the ideas,
by which they attract, as it were, or asso-
ciate themselves with other ideas which
either resemble them, or which have been
contiguous to them in time and place, or to
which they have the relations of cause and
effect.
We may here observe, by the way, that
the last of these three laws seems to be in-
cluded in the second, since causation, ac-
cording to him, implies no more than con-
tiguity in time and place.--
* At any rate, according to I.ocke, all our know-
ledge is a derivation from eacperience.—H.
f, Mr Hume says—“I do not find that any philo-
Sopher has attempted to enumerate or class all the
principles of Association; a subject, however, that
seems to me very worthy of curiosity. To me there
appears to be only three principles of connection
among ideas: Resemblance—Contiguity in time or
place–Cause and Effect.”—Essays, vol. ii., p. 24.—
Aristotle, and, after him, many other philosophers,
had, however, done this, and with even greater success
than Hume himself. Aristotle's reduction is to the
four following heads —Proximity in time—Conti.
guity in place—Resemblance—Contrast. This is
more correct than Hume's ; for Hume's second head
ought to be divided into two; while our connecting
any particular events in the relation of cause and
effect, is itself the result of their observed proximity
in time and contiguity in place; nay, to custom and
this enſpirical connection (as observed by Reid) does
[189, 190]
chap. xiii.] OF THE SENTIMENTS OF ANTHONY ARNAULD. 295
It is not my design at present to shew’
how Mr Hume, upon the principles he has
borrowed from Locke and Berkeley, has,
with great acuteness, reared a system of
absolute scepticism, which leaves no rational
ground to believe any one proposition,
rather than its contrary : my intention in
this place being only to give a detail of the
sentiments of philosophers concerning ideas
since they became an object of speculation,
and concerning the manner of our perceiv-
ing external objects by their means.
CHAPTER XIII.
QF THE SENTIMENTS OF ANTHONY ARNAULD.
IN this sketch of the opinions of philoso-
phers concerning ideas, we must not omit
Anthony Arnauld, doctor of the Sorbonne,
who, in the year 1683, published his book
“Of True and False Ideas,” in opposition
to the system of Malebranche before men-
tioned. It is only about ten years since I
could find this book, and I believe it is
rare." [191]
Though Arnauld wrote before Locke,
Berkeley, and Hume, I have reserved to
the last place some account of his senti-
ments, because it seems difficult to deter-
mine whether he adopted the common theory
of ideas, or whether he is singular in reject-
ing it altogether as a fiction of philoso-
phers.
The controversy between Malebranche
and Arnauld necessarily led them to con-
sider what kind of things ideas are—a point
upon which other philosophers had very
generally been silent. Both of them pro-
fessed the doctrine universally received :
that we perceive not material things imme-
diately—that it is their ideas that are the
immediate objects of our thought—and that
it is in the idea of everything that we per-
ceive its properties.
It is necessary to premise that both
these authors use the word perception, as
Des Cartes had done before them, to sig-
nify every operation of the understand-
ing.: “ To think, to know, to perceive, are
the same thing,” says Mr Arnauld, chap.
v. def. 2. It is likewise to be observed,
that the various operations of the mind are
by both called modifications of the mind.
Perhaps they were led into this phrase by
the Cartesian doctrine, that the essence of
the mind consists in thinking, as that of
body consists in extension. I apprehend,
Hume himself endeavour to reduce the principle of
Causality altogether.—H. See Notes D* and Dºś.
* The treatises of Arnauld in his controversy with
Malebranche, are to be found in the thirty-eighth
volume of his collected works in 4to.—H.
f Every apprehensive, or strictly cognitive opera.
tion of the understanding.—H.
therefore, that, when they make sensation,
perception, memory, and imagination, to
be various modifications of the mind, they
mean no more but that these are things
which can only exist in the mind as their
subject. We express the same thing, by
calling them various modes of thinking, or
various operations of the mind."
The things which the mind perceives,
says Malebranche, are of two kinds. They
are either in the mind itself, or they are
external to it. The things in the mind,
are all its different modifications, its sensa-
tions, its imaginations, its pure intellec-
tions, its passions and affections. These
are immediately perceived ; we are con-
scious of them, and have no need of ideas
to represent them to us. [192] -
Things external to the mind, are either
corporeal or spiritual. With regard to the
last, he thinks it possible that, in another
state, spirits may be an immediate object
of our understandings, and so be perceived
without ideas; that there may be such an
union of spirits as that they may imme-
diately perceive each other, and communi-
cate their thoughts mutually, without signs
and without ideas. -
But, leaving this as a problematical point,
he holds it to be undeniable, that material
things cannot be perceived immediately,
but only by the mediation of ideas. He
thought it likewise undeniable, that the idea
must be immediately present to the mind,
that it must touch the soul as it were, and
modify its perception of the object.
From these principles we must neces-
sarily conclude, either that the idea is
some modification of the human mind, or
that it must be an idea in the Divine
Mind, which is always intimately present
with our minds. The matter being brought
to this alternative, Malebranche considers
first all the possible ways such a modifica-
tion may be produced in our mind as that
we call an idea of a material object, taking
it for granted always, that it must be an
object perceived, and something different
from the act of the mind in perceiving it.
He finds insuperable objections against
every hypothesis of such ideas being pro-
duced in our minds; and therefore con-
cludes, that the immediate objects of per-
ception are the ideas of the Divine Mind.
Against this system Arnauld wrote his
book “Of True and False Ideas.” He
does not object to the alternative men-
tioned by Malebranche : but he maintains,
that ideas are modifications of our minds.
And, finding no other modification of the
* Modes, or modifications of mind, in the Cartesian
school, mean merely what some recent philosophers
express by states of mind and include ..both the
active and passive phaenomena of the conscious sub-
ject he terms were used by Des Cartes as well as
by his disciples.—H. -
ſt 91, 192]
296
[ESSAY 11.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
human mind which can be called the idea
of an , external object, he says it is only
another word for perception. Chap. v., def.
3. [193] “I take the idea of an object,
and the perception of an object, to be the
same thing. I do not say whether there
may be other things to which the name of
idea may be given. But it is certain that
there are ideas taken in this sense, and that
these ideas are either attributes or modifi-
Cations of our minds.”"
This, I think, indeed, was to attack the
system of Malebranche upon its weak side,
and where, at the same time, an attack was
least expected. Philosophers had been so
unanimous in maintaining that we do not
perceive external objects immediately, Ł
but by certain representative images of
them called ideas, it that Malebranche
might well think his system secure upon
that quarter, and that the only question to
be determined was, in what subject those
ideas are placed, whether in the human or
in the divine mind 2
But, says Mr Arnauld, those ideas are
mere chimeras—fictions of philosophers;
there are no such beings in nature; and,
therefore, it is to no purpose to inquire
whether they are in the divine or in the hu-
man mind. The only true and real ideas
are our perceptions, whichS are acknow-
ledged by all philosophers, and by Male-
branche himself, to be acts or modifications
of our own minds. He does not say that
the fictitious ideas were a fiction of Male-
branche. He acknowledges that they had
been very generally maintained by the
scholastic philosophers, and points out,
very judiciously, the prejudices that had
led them into the belief of such ideas.
Of all the powers of our mind, the
* Arnauld did not allow that perceptions and
ideas are really or numerically distinguished—i e., as
one thing from another thing; not even that ti.ey
are modally distinguished—i.e., as a thing trom its
mode. He maintained that they are really identical,
and only rationally discriminated as viewed in dif.
ferent relations; the indivisible mental modification
being called a perception, by reference to the mind or
thinking subject—an idea, by reference to the mediate
object or thing thought. Arnauld everywhere avows
that he denies ideas only as existences distinct from
the act itself of perception.—See Oeuvres, t. xxxviii.
pp. 187, 198, 199, 389.-H.
# Arnauld does not assert against Malebranche,
“ that we perceive extermal objects immediately"—that
is, in themselves, and as existing. He was too accu-
rate for this. . By an immediate cognition, Reid
means merely the negation of the intermediation of
any third thing between the reality perceived and
the percipient mind.— H.
f Idea was not the word by which representative
images, distinct from the percipient act, had been
commonly called ; nor were philosophers at all unani-
mous in the admission of such vicarious objects.-
See Notes G, L, M, N, O, &c.—H.
§ That is, Perceptions, (the cognitive acts,) but not
Ideas, (the immediate objects of those acts.) The latter
were not acknowledged by Malebranche and all phi-
losophers to be mere acts or modifications of our own
YY11 l) (18.-H.
| But by a different name.--H,
external senses are thought to be the
best understood, and their objects are the
most familiar. Hence we measure other
powers by them, and transfer to other
powers the language which properly be-
longs to them. The objects of sense must
be present to the sense, or within its
sphere, in order to their being perceived.
Hence, by analogy, we are led to say of
everything when we think of it, that it is
present to the mind, or in the mind. [194]
But this presence is metaphorical, or ama-
logical only ; and Arnauld calls it objec-
tive presence, to distinguish it from that
local presence which is required in objects
that are perceived by sense. But both
being called by the same name, they are
confounded together, and those things that
belong only to real or local presence, are
attributed to the metaphorical.
We are likewise accustomed to see objects
by their images in a mirror, or in water;
and hence are led, by analogy, to think that
objects may be presented to the memory or
imagination in some similar manner, by
images, which philosopher have called ideas.
By such prejudices and analogies, Arnauld
conceives, men have been led to believe that
the objects of memory and imagination
must be presented to the mind by images
or ideas ; and the philosophers have been
more carried away by these prejudices than
even the vulgar, because the use made of
this theory was to explain and account for
the various operations of the mind—a matter
in which the vulgar take no concern.
He thinks, however, that Des Cartes had
got the better of these prejudices, and that
he uses the word idea as signifying the same
thing with perception," and is, therefore,
surprised that a disciple of Des Cartes, and
one who was so great an admirer of him as
Malebranche was, should be carried away
by them. It is strange, indeed, that the
two most eminent disciples of Des Cartes
and his contemporaries should differ so
essentially with regard to his doctrine con.
cerning ideas.-f *
I shall not attempt to give the reader an
account of the continuation of this contro-
yersy between those two acute philosophers,
in the subsequent defences and replies; be:
cause I have not access to see them. After
much reasoning, and some animosity, each
* I am convinced that in this interpretation of Des
Cartes' doctrine, Arnauld is right; for Dos Cartes
defines mental ideas—those, to wit, of which we are
Conscious—to be “Cogitationes prout sumt tanquam
imagines—that is, thoughts considered in their repre-
sentative capacity; nor is there any passage to be found
in the writings of this philosopher, which, if properly
understood, warrants the conclusión, that, by ideas in
the mind, he meant aught distinct from the cognitive
act. The double use of the term idea by Des Cartes
has, however, led Reid and others into a miscon.
ception on this point. See Note N.-H.
f Reid's own doctrine is far more ambiguous.-H.
[193, 194]
chap. xiii.] OF THE SENTIMENTS OF ANTHONY ARNAULD.
297
continued in his own opinion, and left his
antagonist where he found him. [195]
Malebranche’s opinion of our seeing all
things in God, soon died away of itself; and
Arnauld's notion of ideas seems to have
been less regarded than it deserved, by the
philosophers that came after him ; * per-
'..haps for this reason, among others, that it
seemed to be, in some sort, given up by
himself, in his attempting to reconcile it to
the common doctrine concerning ideas.
From the account I have given, one
would be apt to conclude that Arnauld
totally denied the existence of ideas, in the
philosophical sense of that word, and that
he adopted the notion of the vulgar, who
acknowledge no object of perception but the
external object. But he seems very un-
willing to deviate so far from the common
track, and, what he had given up with one
hand, he takes back with the other.
For, first, Having defined ideas to be the
same thing with perceptions, he adds this
qualification to his definition :-‘‘I do not
here consider whether there are other things
that may be called ideas; but it is certain
there are ideas taken in this sense.-- I
believe, indeed, there is no philosopher who
does not, on some occasions, use the word
idea in this popular sense.
Secondly, He supports this popular sense
of the word by the authority of Des Cartes,
who, in his demonstration of the existence
of God, from the idea of him in our minds,
defines an idea thus:—“By the word ideo,
I understand that form of any thought, by
the immediate perception of which I am
conscious of that thought ; so that I can ex-
press nothing by words, with understanding,
without being certain that there is in my mind
the idea of that which is expressed by the
words.” This definition seems, indeed, to
be of the same import with that which is
given by Arnauld. But Des Cartes adds
a qualification to it, which Arnauld, in
quoting it, omits ; and which shews that
Des Cartes meant to limit his definition to
the idea then treated of—that is, to the idea
of the Deity.; and that there are other ideas
to which this definition does not apply. {196]
For he adds:—“And thus I give the name .
of idea, not solely to the images painted in
the phantasy ; nay, in this place, I do not
at all give the name of ideas to those
images, in so far as they are painted in the
corporeal phantasy that is in some part of
the brain, but only in so far as they inform
the mind, turning its attention to that part
of the brain.”
Thirdly, Arnauld has employed the whole
of his sixth chapter, to shew that these ways
of Speaking, common among philosophers—
to wit, that we perceive not things imme-
diately ; that it is their ideas that are the
immediate objects of our thoughts; that it is
in the idea of everything that we percoive its
properties—are not to be rejected, but are
true when rightly understood. He labours
to reconcile these expressions to his own
definition of ideas, by observing, that every
perception and every thought is necessarily
conscious of itself, and reflects upon itself;
and that, by this consciousness and reflec-
tion, it is its own immediate object. Whence
he infers, that the idea—that is, the percep-
tion—is the immediate object of perception.
This looks like a weak attempt to recon-
cile two inconsistent doctrines by one who
wishes to hold both. It is true, that con-
sciousness always goes along with percep-
tion; but they are different operations of
the mind, and they have their different
objects. Consciousness is not perception,
nor is the object of consciousness the object
of perception.: The same may be said of
* The opinion of Arnauld in regard to the nature
of ideas, was by no means overlooked by subsequent
philosophers. It is found fully detailed in almost
every systematic course or compend of philosophy,
which appeared for a long time after its first promul-
gation, and in many, of these it is the doctrine re-
commended as the true. Arnauld's was indced the
opinion which latterly prevailed in the Cartesian
School. From this it passed into other schools. Leib-
nitz, like Arnauld, regarded laeas, Notions, Repre-
sentations, as mere modifications of the mind, (what
by his disciples, were called material. ideas, like the
cerebral ideus of Des Cartes, are out of the question,)
and no cruder opinion than this has ever subse-
quently found a footing in any of the German
systems.
“I don’t know,” says Mr Stewart, “ of any author
who, prior to Dr Reid, has expressed himself on this
subject with so much justness and precision as Father
Buffier, in the following passage of his Treatise on
* First Truths:’—
“ . If we confine ourselves to what is intelligible in
our observations on ideas, we will say, they are no-
thing, but mere modifications of the mind as a think-
ing being. They are called ideas with regard to the
object represented; and perceptions with regard to
the faculty representing. It is manifest that our
ideas, considered in this sense, are not more distin-
guished than motion, is from a body moved,”—(P.
311, English Translation.)”—Flem. iii. Add. to vol. i.
... 10
In this passage, Buffier only repeats the doctrine of
Arnauld, in Arnauld's own words.
Dr Thomas Brown, on the other hand, has en-
deavoured to shew that this doctrine, (which he
identifies with Reid's,) had been long the catholic
opinion ; and that Reid, in his attack on the laeal
system, only refuted what had been already almost
universally exploded. In this attº mpt he is, how-
ever, singularly unfortunate; for, with the excep-
tion of Crousaz, all the examples he adduces to
evince the prevalence of Arnauld's doctrine are only
so many mistakes, so many instances, in fact, which
might be alleged in confirmation of the very opposite
conclusion, See Edinburgh Review, vol. lii., p. 181-
196. – H.
+ Sce following note.—H.
* Des Cartes here refers to ſhe other meaning which
he gives to the term idea—that is, to denote the
material motion, the organic affection of the brain,
of which the mind is not conscious. On Reid’s mis-
apprehension of the Cartesian doctrine touching this
matter, see Note N.—H.
+ Arnauld's attempt is neither weak nor inconsist-
ent. He had, in fact, a clearer view of the condi-
tions of the problem than Reid himself, who has, in
fact, confound; d two opposite doctrines. See Note C.
f On Reid's error in reducing consciousness to a
special faculty, see Note H.-H.
[195, 196]
298
LESSAY II.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
every operation of mind that has an object.
Thus, injury is the object of resentment.
When I resent an injury, I am conscious
of my resentment—that is, my resentment
is the immediate and the only object of my
consciousness; but it would be absurd to
infer from this, that my resentment is the
immediate object of my resentment. [197]
Upon the whole, if Arnauld—in conse-
quence of his doctrine, that ideas, taken
—had rejected boldly the doctrine of Des
Cartes, as well as of the other philosophers,
concerning those fictitious beings, and all
the ways of speaking that imply their ex-
istence, I should have thought him more
consistent with himself, and his doctrine
concerning ideas maore rational and more
intelligible than that of any other author of
my acquaintance who has treated of the
subject."
CHAPTER XIV.
REFLECTIONS ON THE COMMON THEORY OF
IDEAS.
AFTER so long a detail of the sentiments
of philosophers, ancient and modern, con-
cerning ideas, it may seem presumptuous
to call in question their existence. But no
philosophical opinion, however ancient,
however generally received, ought to rest
upon authority. There is no presumption
in requiring evidence for it, or in regulat-
ing our belief by the evidence we can find.
To prevent mistakes, the reader must
again be reminded, that if by ideas are
meant only the acts or operations of our
minds in perceiving, remembering, or ima-
gining objects, I am far from calling in
question the existence of those acts; we
are conscious of them every day and every
hour of life ; and I believe no man of a
sound mind ever doubted of the real exist-
ence of the operations of mind, of which he
is conscious. Nor is it to be doubted that,
by the faculties which God has given us,
we can conceive things that are absent, as
well as perceive those that are within the
reach of our senses; and that such concep-
tions may be more or less distinct, and
more or less lively and strong.
We have
reason to ascribe to the all-knowing and
all-perfect Being distinct conceptions of all
things existent and possible, and of all their
relations; and if these conceptions are called
his eternal ideas, there ought to be no dis-
pute among philosophers about a word.
[198] The ideas, of whose existence I
require the proof, are not the operations of
| any mind, but supposed objects of those
for representative images of external ob- ||
jects, are a mere fiction of the philosophers'
operations. They are not perception, re-
membrance, or conception, but things that
are said to be perceived, or remembered, or
imagined.
Nor do I dispute the existence of what
the vulgar call the objects of perception.
These, by all who acknowledge their exist-
ence, are called real things, not ideas. But
philosophers maintain that, besides these,
there are immediate objects of perception
in the mind itself: that, for instance, we
do not see the sun immediately, but an
idea ; or, as Mr Hume calls it, an impres-
sion in our own minds. This idea is said
to be the image, the resemblance, the re-
presentative of the Sun, if there be a sun.
It is from the existence of the idea that we
must infer the existence of the sun. But
the idea, being immediately perceived, there
can be no doubt, as philosophers think, of
its existence. -
In like manner, when I remember, or
when I imagine anything, all men acknow-
ledge that there must be something that is
remembered, or that is imagined; that is,
some object of those operations. The
object remembered must be something that.
did exist in time past: the object imagined
may be something that never existed."
But, say the philosophers, besides these
objects which all men acknowledge, there
is a more immediate object which really
exists in the mind at the same time we
remember or imagine. This object is an
idea or image of the thing remembered or
imagined. -
The first reflection I would make on this
philosophical opinion is, that it is directly
contrary to the universal sense of men who
have not been instructed in philosophy.
When we see the Sun or moon, we have no
doubt that the very objects which we im-
mediately see are very far distant from us,
and from one another. We have not the
least doubt that this is the Sun and moon
which God created some thousands of years
ago, and which have continued to perform
their revolutions in the heavens ever since.
[199] But how are we astonished when
the philosopher informs us that we are mis-
taken in all this; that the sun and moon
which we see are not, as we imagine, many
miles distant from us, and from each other,
* Reid s discontent with Arnauld's opinion—an
opinion which is stated with great perspicuity by its
author—may be used as an argum nt to shew that his
own doctrine is, however ambiguous, that of intui-
tive or immediate perception. (See Note C.) Arnauld's
theory is identical with the finer form of representa-
tive or mediate perception, and the difficulties of that
doctrine were not overlooked by his great antagonist,
Arnauld well objected that, when we see a horse, ac-
cording to Malebranche, what we see is in reality
God himself; but Malebranche well rejoined, that,
when we sce a horse, according to Arnauld, what we
see is, in reality, only a modification of ourselves.— H.
* See Note B.-H.
[197–199]
chap. xiv.] REFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY OF IDEAs.
299
but that they are in our own mind; that
they had no existence before we saw them,
and will have none when we cease to per-
ceive and to think of them ; because the
objects we perceive are only ideas in our
own minds, which can have no existence a
moment longer than we think of them : *
If a plaii, man, uninstructed in philoso-
phy, has faith to receive these mysteries,
how great must be his astonishment He
is brought into a new world, where every-
thing he sees, tastes, or touches, is an idea
—a fleeting kind of being which he can con-
jure into existence, or can annihilate in the
twinkling of an eye.
After his mind is somewhat composed, it
will be natural for him to ask his philoso-
phical instructor, Pray, sir, are there then
no substantial and permanent beings called
the Sun and moon, which continue to exist
whether we think of them or not ?
Here the philosophers differ. Mr Locke,
and those that were before him, will answer
to this question, that it is very true there
are substantial and permanent beings called
the sun and moon ; but they never appear
to us in their own person, but by their re-
presentatives, the ideas in our own minds,
and we know nothing of them but what we
can gather from those ideas.
Bishop Berkeley and Mr Hume would
give a different answer to the question pro-
posed. They would assure the querist that
it is a vulgar error, a mere prejudice of the
ignorant and unlearned, to think that there
are any permanent and substantial beings
called the sun and moon; that the heavenly
bodies, our own bodies, and all bodies what-
Soever, are nothing but ideas in our minds;
and that there can be nothing like the ideas
of one mind, but the ideas of another mind.
[200] There is nothing in nature but
minds and ideas, says the Bishop;-nay,
says Mr Hume, there is nothing in nature
but ideas only; for what we call a mind is
nothing but a train of ideas connected by
certain relations between themselves.
In this representation of the theory of
ideas, there is nothing exaggerated or mis-
represented, was far as I am able to judge;
and Surely nothing farther is necessary to
shew that, to the uninstructed in philoso-
phy, it must appear extravagant and vision-
ary, and most contrary to the dictates of
common understanding. -
There is the less need of any farther
proof of this, that it is very amply acknow-
a Whether Reid himself do not virtually hold this
last opinion, see Note C. At any rate, it is very in-
correct to say that the sum, moon, &c., are, or can be,
perceived...by us as existent, and in their real dis-
tance in the heavens ; all that we can be cognisant
of (supposing that we are immediately percipient of
the non-ego) is the rays of light emanating from them,
and-in contact and relation with our organ of sight.
ledged by Mr Hume in his Essay on the
Academical or Sceptical Philosophy. “It
seems evident,” says he, “that men are car-
ried, by a natural instinct or prepossession,
to repose faith in their senses; and that,
without any reasoning, or even almost be-
fore the use of reason, we always suppose an
external universe, which depends not on
our perception, but would exist though we
and every sensible creature were absent or
annihilated. Even the animal creation are
governed by a like opinion, and preserve this
belief of external objects in all their thoughts,
designs, and actions.”
“It seems also evident that, whenāmen
follow this blind and powerful instinct of
nature, they always suppose the very im-
ages presented by the senses to be the ex-
ternal objects, and never entertain any
suspicion that the one are nothing but re-
presentations of the other. This very table
which we see white, and feel hard, is be-
lieved to exist independent of our percep-
tion, and to be something external to the
mind which perceives it ; our presence be-
stows not being upon it; our absence anni-
hilates it not : it preserves its existence
uniform and entire, independent of the situ-
ation of intelligent beings who perceive or
contemplate it. [201]
“But this universal and primary notion
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 received, without being ever
able to produce any immediate intercourse
between the mind and the object.”
It is therefore acknowledged by this phi-
losopher, to be a natural instinct or pre-
possession, an universal and primary opinion
of all men, a primary instinct of nature, that
the objects which we immediately perceive
by our senses, are not images in our minds,
but external objects, and that their exist-
ence is independent of us and our percep-
tion. -
In this acknowledgment, Mr Hume in-
deed seems to me more generous, and even
more ingenuous than Bishop Berkeley, who
would persuade us that his opiniou does
not oppose the vulgar opinion, but only that
of the philosophers; and that the external
existence of a material world is a philoso-
phical hypothesis, and not the natural dic-
tate of our perceptive powers. The Bishop
shews a timidity of engaging such an adver-
sary, as a primary and universal opinion of
all men. He is rather fond to court its pa-
tronage. But the philosopher intrepidly gives
a defiance to this,antagonist, and seems to
glory in a conflict that was worthy of his arm.
Optat aprum aut fulvum descendere monte
leonem. After all, I suspect that a philo-
[200, 2011
300
LESSAY 11,
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
sopher who wages war with this adversary,
will find himself in the same condition as a
mathematician who should undertake to
demonstrate that there is no truth in the
axioms of mathematics. -
A second reflection upon this subject is—
that the authors who have treated of ideas,
have generally taken their existence for
..granted, as a thing that could not be called
in question ; and such arguments as they
have mentioned incidentally, in order to
prove it, seem too weak to support the con-
clusion. [202]
Mr Locke, in the introduction to his
Essay, tells us, that he uses the word idea
to signify whatever is the immediate object
of thought; and then adds, “I presume it
will be easily granted me that there are
such ideas in men's minds; every one is
conscious of them in himself; and men’s
words and actions will satisfy him that they
are in others.” I am indeed conscious of
perceiving, remembering, imagining; but
that the objects of these operations are
images in my mind, I am not conscious.
I am satisfied, by men's words and actions,
that they often perceive the same objects
which I perceive, which could not be, if
those objects were ideas in their own minds.
Mr Norris is the only author I have met
; with, who professedly puts the question,
* Whether material things can be perceived
by us immediately 2 He has offered four
arguments to shew that they cannot. First,
“Material objects are without the mind,
and therefore there can be no union between
the object and the percipient.” Answer,
This argument is lame, until it is shewn to
be necessary that in perception there should
be a union between the object and the per-
cipient. Second, “ Material objects are
disproportioned to the mind, and removed
from it by the whole diameter of Being.”
This argument I cannot answer, because I
do not understand it." Third, “Because,
* This confession would, of itself, prove how super-
ficially Reid was versed in the literature of philo-
sophy. Norris's.second argument is only the state-
ment of a principle generally assumed by philosophers
—that the relation of knowledge infers a correspond-
ence of nature between the subject knowing, and the
object known. 'This principle has, perhaps, exerted
a more extensive influence on speculation than any
other; and yet it has not been proved, and is incapable
of proof–nay, is contradicted by the evidence of
consciousness itself. To trace the influence of this
assumption would be, in fact, in a certain sort, to
write the history of philosophy; for, though this in-
fluence has never yet been historically develºped, it
would be easy to shew that the belief, explicit
or implicit, that what knows and what is imme-
diately known must be of an analogous nature, lics
at the root of almost every theory of cognition, from
the very earliest to the very latest speculations. In
the more ancient philosophy of Greece, three philo-
sophers (Anaxagoras, Heraclitus, and Alcmaeon) are
found, who professed the opposite doctrine—that the
condition of knowledge lies in the contrariety, in the
natural antithesis, of subject and object. Aristotle,
likewise, in his treatise On the Soul, expressly con-
demns the prevalent opinion, that the similar is only
if material objects were immediate objects
of perception, there could be no physical
science—things necessary and immuable
being the only object of science.” Answer,
Although things necessary and immutable
be not the immediate objects of perception,
they may be immediate objects of other
powers of the mind. Fourth, “If material
things were perceived by themselves, they
would be a true light to our minds, as being
the intelligible form of our understandings,
and consequently perfective of them, and
indeed superior to them.” If I comprehend
anything of this mysterious argument, it
follows from it, that the Deity perceives
nothing at all, because nothing can be supe-
rior to his understanding, or perfective of
it. [203]
There is an argument which is hinted
at by Malebranche, and by several other
authors, which deserves to be more seriously
considered. As I find it most clearly ex-
pressed and most fully urged by Dr Samuel
Clarke, I shall give it in his words, in his
second reply to Leibnitz, S.4. “The soul,
without being present to the images of the
things perceived, could not possibly perceive
them. A living substance can only there
perceive, where it is present, either to the
cognisable by the similar; but, in his Nicomachian
Ethics, he reverts to the doctrine which, in the for-
mer work, he had rejected. With these exceptions,
no principle, since the time of Empedocles, by whom
it seems first to have been explicitly announced, has
been more universally received, than this—that the
ºrelation of knowledge infers an amalogy of caristence.
This analogy may be of two degrees. What knows,
and what is known, may be either similar or the
same , and, it the principle itself lie admitted, the
latter alternative is the more philosophical. Without
entering on details, I may here notice some of the
more remarkable results of this principle, in both its
degrees. The general principle, not, indeed, exclu-
sively, but mainly, determined the admission of a
representative perception, by disallowing the possibil-
ity of any consciousness, or immediate knowledge of
matter, by a nature so different from it as mind;
and, in its two degrees, it determined the various hy-
potheses, by which it was attempted to explain the
possibility of a representative or mediate perception
of the external world. To this principle, in its
lower potence—that what knows must be similar in
nature to what is immediately known—we owe the
intentional species of the Aristotelians, and the ideas
of Malebranche and Berkeley. I'rom this principle,
in its higher potence—that what knows must be
identical in nature with what is immediately known
—there flow the gmostic reasons of the Platonists, the
pre-earisting forms or species of Theophrastus and The.
mistius, of Adelandus and Avicenna, the (mental)
ideas of I)cs Cartes and Arnauld, the representations,
sensual ideas, &c. of Leibnitz and Wolf, the phaeno-
7mena of Kant, the states of Brown, and (shall we
say ?) the vacillating doc'rine of perception held by
Reid himself. Mediately, this principle was the
origin of many other famous theories:—of the hier-
archical gradation of souls or faculties of the Aristo-
telians; of the vehicular media of the Platonists;
of the hypotheses of a common intellect of Alex.
ander, Themistius, Averroes, Cajetanus, and Zabar-
ella ; of the vision in the deity of Malebranche; and of
the Cartesian and Leibnitzian doctrines of assistance
and pre-established harmony. Finally, to this prin-
ciple is to be ascribed the refusal of the evidence of con-
Sciousness to the primary fact, the duality of its per-
ception ; and the unitarian schemes of Absolute lclen-
tity, Materialism, and Idealism, are the results.-H.
[202, 203]
chap. xiv.] REFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY OF IDEAs.
301
things themselves, (as the omnipresent God
is to the whole universe,) or to the images
of things, as the soul is in its proper senso-
7°ium.”
| Sir Isaac Newton expresses the same
sentiment, but with his usual reserve, in a
query only.
The ingenious Dr Porterfield, in his Essay
concerniug the motions of our eyes, adopts
this opinion with more confidence. His
words are: “How body acts upon mind,
or mind upon body, I know not ; but this I
am very certain of, that nothing can act, or
be acted upon, where it is not ; and there-
fore our mind can never perceive anything
but its own proper modifications, and the
various states of the sensorium, to which it
is present: So that it is not the external
sun and moon which are in the heavens,
which our mind perceives, but only their
image or representation impressed upon the
sensorium. How the soul of a seeing man
sees these images, or how it receives those
ideas, from such agitations in the sensorium,
I know not ; but I am sure it can never
perceive the external bodies themselves, to
which it is not present.”
These, indeed, are great authorities: but,
in matters of philosophy, we must not be
guided by authority, but by reason. Dr
Clarke, in the place cited, mentions slightly,
as the reason of his opinion, that “nothing
can any more act, or be acted upon when
it is not present, than it can be where it is
not.” [204] And again, in his third
reply to Leibnitz, S 11—"We are sure the
soul cannot perceive what it is not present
to, because nothing can act, or be acted
upon, where it is not.” The same reason
we see is urged by Dr Porterfield.
That nothing can act immediately where
it is not, I think must be admitted : for I
agree with Sir Isaac Newton, that power
without substance is inconceivable. It is a
consequence of this, that nothing can be
acted upon immediately where the agent is
not present: let this, therefore be granted.
To make the reasoning conclusive, it is
farther necessary, that, when we perceive
objects, either they act upon us, or we act
upon them. This does not appear self-evi-
dent, nor have I ever met with any proof
of it. I shall briefly offer the reasons why I
think it ought not to be admitted.
When we say that one being acts upon
another, we mean that some power or force
is exerted by the agent, which produces, or
has a tendency to produce, a change in the
thing acted upon. If this be the meaning
of the phrase, as I conceive it is, there
appears no reason for asserting that, in
perception, either the object acts upon the
mind, or the mind upon the object.
An object, in being perceived, does not
act at all. I perceive the walls of the room
where I sit; but they are perfectly inactive,
and therefore act not upon the mind. To
be perceived, is what logicians call an ex- .
ternal denomination, which implies neither
action nor quality in the object perceived.*
Nor could men ever have gone into this
notion, that perception is owing to some
action of the object upon the mind, were
it not that we are so prone to form our
notions of the mind from some similitude
we conceive between it and body. Thought
in the mind is conceived to have some
analogy to motion in a body : and, as a body
is put in motion, by being acted upon by
Some other body; so we are apt to think the
mind is made to perceive, by some impulse
it receives from the object. But reasonings,
drawn from such analogies, ought never to
be trusted. [205] They are, indeed, the
cause.of most of our errors with regard to
the mind. And we might as well conclude,
that minds may be measured by feet and
inches, or weighed by ounces and drachms,
because bodies have those properties.-f
I See as little reason, in the second place,
to believe that in perception the mind acts
upon the object. To perceive an object is
one thing, to act upon it is another; nor is
the last at all included in the first. To say
that I act upon the wall by looking at it, is
an abuse of language, and has no meaning.
Logicians distinguish two kinds of opera-
tions of mind: the first kind produces no
effect without the mind; the last does.
The first they call immanent acts, the se-
cond transitive. All intellectual operations
belong to the first class ; they produce no
effect upon any external object. But, with-
out having recourse to logical distinctions,
every man of common sense knows, that to
* This passage, among others that follow, afford
the foundation of an argument, to prove that l{eid
is not original in his doctrine of Perception ; but
that it was borrowed from the speculations of cert in
older philosophers, of which he was aware. See
Note S.—H.
+ This reasoning, which is not original to Reld,
(see Note S,) is not clearly or precisely expressed.
In asserting that “an object, in being perceived, does
not act at all,” our author cannot mean that, it does
not act upon the organ of sense; for this would not
only be absurd in itself, but in contradiction to his
own doctrine—“ it being,” he says, “a law of our
nature that we perceive not external objects un-
less certain impressions be made on the merves and
brain.” The assertion—“I perceive the walls of the
room where I sit, but they are perfectly inactive,
and, therefore, act not on the mind,” is equally in-
correct in statement. The walls of the: room, strictly
so called, assuredly do not act on the mind, or on the
eye; but the walls of the room, in this sens , are, in
fact, no object of (visual) perception, at all. What
we see in this instance, and what we loosely call the
walls of the room, is only the light reflected from
their surface in its relation to the organ of sight—i. e.,
colour; but it cannot be affirmed that the rays of
light do not act on and affect the retina, optic nerve,
and brain. What Aristotle distinguished as the
concommitants of scnsation—as cætension, motion,
position, &c.—are, indeed. perceived without any
relative passion of the sense. But, whatever may
be Reid’s meaning, it is, at best, vague and inexpli-
cit.—H.
[204, 205]
302
[ESSAY 1 r.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
think of an object, and to act upon it, are
very different things.
As we have, therefore, no evidence that,
in perception, the mind acts upon the object,
or the object upon the mind, but strong rea-
sons to the contrary, Dr Clarke's argument
against our perceiving external objects im-
mediately falls to the ground.
This notion, that, in perception, the object
must be contiguous to the percipient, seems,
with many other prejudices, to be borrowed
from analogy. In all the external senses,
there must, as has been before observed, be
some impression made upon the organ of
sense by the object, or by something coming
from the object. An impression supposes
contiguity. Hence we are led by analogy
to conceive something similar in the opera-
tions of the mind. Many philosophers re-
solve almost every operation of mind into
impressions and feelings, words manifestly
borrowed from the sense of touch. And it
is very natural to conceive contiguity neces-
sary between that which makes the impres-
sion, and that which receives it ; between
that which feels, and that which is felt. [206]
And though no philosopher will now pre-
tend to justify such analogical reasoning as
this, yet it has a powerful influence upon
the judgment, while we contemplate the
operations of our minds, only as they ap-
pear through the deceitful medium of such
analogical motions and expressions."
When we lay aside those analogies, and
reflect attentively upon our perception of
the objects of sense, we must acknowledge
that, though we are conscious of perceiving
objects, we are altogether ignorant how it
is brought about ; and know as little how
we perceive objects as how we were made.
And, if we should admit an image in the
mind, or contiguous to it, we know as
little how perception may be produced by
this image as by the most distant object.
Why, therefore, should we be led, by a
theory which is neither grounded on evi-
dence, nor, if admitted, can explain any one
phenomenon of perception, to reject the
natural and immediate dictates of those
perceptive powers, to which, in the conduct
of life, we find a necessity of yielding im-
plicit submission ?
There remains only one other argument
that I have been able to find urged against
our perceiving external objects immediately.
It is proposed by Mr Hume, who, in the
essay already quoted, after acknowledging
that it is an universal and primary opi-
nion of all men, that we perceive external
* It is self-cvident that, if a thing is to be an ob-
ject immediately known, it must be known as it
exists. Now, a body must exist in some definite
part of space—in a certain place; it cannot, thcre-
fore, be immediately known as eacisting, except it be
known in its place. But this supposes the mind to
be immediately present to it in space.—H.
objects immediately, subjoins what fol-
lows:—
“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 received, without being ever
able to produce any immediate intercourse
between the mind and the object. The
table, which we see, seems to diminish as
we remove farther from it : but the real
table, which exists independent of us, suf-
fers no alteration. [207] It was, therefore,
nothing but its image which was present to
the mind. These are the obvious dictates of
reason; and noman who reflects ever doubted
that the existences which we consider, when
we say this house, and that tree, are nothing
but perceptions in the mind, and fleeting
copies and representations of other exist-
ences, which remain uniform and independ-
ent. So far, then, we are necessitated, by
reasoning, to depart from the primary in-
stincts of nature, and to embrace a new
system with regard to the evidence of our
senses.”
We have here a remarkable conflict be-
tween two contradictory opinions, wherein
all mankind are engaged. On the one side
stand all the vulgar, who are unpractised in
philosophical reseaches, and guided by the
uncorrupted primary instincts of nature.
On the other side stand all the philoso-
phers, ancient and modern ; every man,
without exception, who reflects. In this
division, to my great humiliation, I find
myself classed with the vulgar.
The passage now quoted is all I have
found in Mr Hume's writings upon this
point : and, indeed, there is more reason-
ing in it than I have found in any other
author ; I shall, therefore, examine it min-
utely.
First, He tells us, that “this universal
and primary opinion of all men is soon
destroyed by the slightest philosophy, which
teaches us that nothing can ever be pre-
sent to the mind but an image or percep-
tion.” -
The phrase of being present to the mind
has some obscurity; but I conceive he
means being an immediate object of thought;
an immediate object, for instance, of per-
ception, of memory, or of imagination. If
this be the meaning, (and it is the only
pertinent one I can think of,) there is no
more in this passage but an assertion of the
proposition to be proved, and an assertion
that philosophy teaches it. If this be so,
I beg leave to dissent from philosophy till
she gives me reason for what she teaches.
[208] For, though common sense and my
external senses demand my assent to their
[206–208]
cºar. xiv.] REFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY OF IDEAs.
3(3
dictates upon their own authority, yet phi-
losophy is not entitled to this privilege.
But, that I may not dissent from so grave
a personage without giving a reason, I give
this as the reason of my dissent :—I Sce
the sun when he shines; I remember the
battle of Culloden ;” and neither of these
objects is an image or perception.
He tells us, in the next place, “That the
senses are only the inlets through which
these images are received.” -
I know that Aristotle and the schoolmen
taught that images or species flow from ob-
jects, and are let in by the senses, and strike
upon the mind; but this has been so effectu-
ally refuted by Des Cartes, by Malebranche,
and many others, that nobody now pretends
to defend it. Reasonable men consider it
as one of the most unintelligible and un-
meaning parts of the ancient system. To
what cause is it owing that modern philo-
sophers are so prone to fall back into this
hypothesis, as if they really believed it 2
For, of this proneness I could give many
instances besides this of Mr Hume ; and I
take the cause to be, that images in the
mind, and images let in by the senses, are
so nearly allied, and so strictly connected,
that they must stand or fall together. The
old system consistently maintained both :
but the new system has rejected the doc-
trine of images let in by the senses, hold-
ing, nevertheless, that there are images in
the mind; and, having made this unnatural
divorce of two doctrines which ought not
to be put asunder, that which they have
retained often leads them back involum-
tarily to that which they have rejected.
Mr Hume surely did not seriously be-
lieve that an image of sound is let in by the
ear, an image of smell by the nose, an
image of hardness and softness, of solidity
and resistance, by the touch. For, besides
the absurdity of the thing, which has often
been shewn, Mr Hume, and all modern
philosophers, maintain that theimages which,
are the immediate objects of perception
have no existence when they are not per-
ceived ; whereas, if they were let in by the
senses, they must be, before they are per-
ceived, and have a separate existence. [209]
He tell us, farther, that philosophy teaches
that the senses are unable to produce any
immediate intercourse between the mind
and the object. Here, I still require the
reasons that philosophy gives for this ; for,
to my apprehension, I immediately per-
ceive external objects, and this, I conceive
is the immediate intercourse here meant.
Hitherto I see nothing that can be called
* The sun can be no immediate object of conscious-
ess in perception, but only certain rays in connec-
tion with the eye. The battle of Culloden can be no
immediate object of consciousness in recollection, but
only a certain representation by the mind itself—H,
or so many diameters of the earth.
an argument. Perhaps it was intended
only for illustration. The argument, the
only argument, follows:– - -
The table which we see, seems to dimin-
ish as we remove farther from it ; but the
real table, which exists independent of us
suffers no alteration. It was, therefore,
nothing but its image which was presented
to the mind. These are the obvious dic-
tates of reason.
To judge of the strength of this argu-
ment, it is necessary to attend to a distinc-
tion which is familiar to those who are con-
Versant in the mathematical sciences—I
mean the distinction between real and ap-
parent magnitude. The real magnitude of
a line is measured by some known measure
of length—as inches, feet, or miles : the
real magnitude of a surface or solid, by
known measures of surface or of capacity.
This magnitude is an object of touch only,
and not of sight ; nor could we even have
had any conception of it, without the sense
of touch ; and Bishop Berkeley, on that
account, calls it langible magnitude.”
Apparent magnitude is measured by the
angle which an object subtends at the eye.
Supposing two right lines drawn from the
eye to the extremities of the object making
an angle, of which the object is the sub-
tense, the apparent magnitude is measured
by this angle. [210] This apparent mag-
nitude is an object of sight, and not of
touch. Bishop Berkeley calls it visible
nagnitude.
If it is asked what is the apparent mag-
nitude of the sun's diameter, the answer
is, that it is about thirty-one minutes of a
degree. But, if it is asked what is the
real magnitude of the sun's diameter, the
answer must be, so many thousand miles,
From
which it is evident that real magnitude, and
apparent magnitude, are things of a different
nature, though the name of magnitude is
given to both. The first has three dimen-
sions, the last only two ; the first is mea-
sured by a line, the last by an angle.
From what has been said, it is evident
that the real magnitude of a body must
continue unchanged, while the body is
unchanged. This we grant. But is it
likewise evident, that the apparent mag-
* The doctrine of Reid—that real magnitude or
cxtension is the object of touch, and of touch alone-
is altogether untenable. For, in the first place, Imag-
nitudé appears greater or less in proportion to the
different size of the tactile organ in different subjects;
thus, an apple is larger to the hand of a child than to
the hand of an adult. Touch, therefore, can, at best,
afford a knowledge of the relation of magnitudes, in
proportion to the organ of this or that individual.
łºut, in the scCond place, even in the same individual,
the same object appears greater or less, according as
it is touched by one part of the body or by another.
On this subject, see Weber’s “Annotationes do
Pulsu, Resorptione, Auditu et Tactu ;” I.eipsic,
1834.—H, * •
[209, 210]
304
[ESSAY II
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
nitude must continue the same while the
body is unchanged P. So far otherwise,
that every man who knows anything of
mathematics can easily demonstrate, that
the same individual object, remaining in
the same place, and unchanged, must neces-
sarily vary in its apparent magnitude, ac-
cording as the point from which it is seen
is more or less distant; and that its appa-
rent length or breadth will be nearly in a
reciprocal proportion to the distance of the
spectator. This is as certain as the princi-
ples of geometry.*
. . We must likewise attend to this—that,
. ... though the real magnitude of a body is not
originally an object of sight, but of touch,
yet we learn by experience to judge of the
real magnitude in many cases by sight.
We learn by experience to judge of the
distance of a body from the eye within cer-
tain limits; and, from its distance and ap-
parent magnitude taken together, we learn
to judge of its real magnitude. [2] 1]
And this kind of judgment, by being
repeated every hour and almost every
minute of our lives, becomes, when we are
grown up, so ready and so habitual, that it
Very much resembles the original perceptions
of our senses, and may not improperly be
called acquired, perception.
Whether we call it judgment or acquired
perception is a verbal difference. But it is
evident that, by means of it, we often dis-
cover by one sense things which are pro-
perly and naturally the objects of another.
..Thus I can say, without impropriety, I hear
a drum, I hear a great bell, or I hear a
Small bell; though it is certain that the
figure or size of the sounding body is not
originally an object of hearing. In like
manner, we learn by experience how a
body of such a real magnitude and at such
a distance appears to the eye. But neither
its real magnitude, nor its distance from
the eye, are properly objects of sight, any
more than the form of a drum or the size
of a bell, are properly objects of hearing.
If these things be considered, it will ap-
pear that Mr Hume's argument hath no
force to support his conclusion—nay, that it
leads to a contrary conclusion. The argu-
ment is this: the table we see seems to di-
minish as we remove farther from it; that
is, its apparent magnitude is diminished;
but the real table suffers no alteration—to
wit, in its real magnitude; therefore, it is
* The whole confusion and difficulty in this mat-
ter arises from not determining what is the true object
in visual.perception. This is not any distant thing,
but merely the rays of light in immediate relation to
the organ. . We therefore, see a different object at
every movement, by which a different complement
of rays is reflected to the eye. The things from which
these rays are reflected are not, in truth, perceived at
all; aſid to conceive them as objects of perception is
therefore erroneous, and productive of error.-H.
not the real table we see. I admit both the
premises in this syllogism, but I deny the
conclusion. The syllogism has what the
logicians call two middle terms: apparent
Imagnitude is the middle term in the first
premise ; real magnitude in the second.
Therefore, according to the rules of logic,
the conclusion is not justly drawn from the
premises; but, laying aside the rules of
logic, let us examine it by the light of com-
In ODI Sel] See
Let us suppose, for a moment, that it is
the real table we, see: Must not this real
table seem to diminish as we remove farther
from it 2 It is demonstrable that it must.
How then can this apparent diminution be an
argument that it is not the real table? [212]
When that which must happen to the real
table, as we remove farther from it, does
actually happen to the table we see, it is ab-
surd to conclude from this, that it is not the
real table we see.” It is evident, therefore,
that this ingenious author has imposed upon
himself by confounding real magnitude with
apparent magnitude, and that his argument
is a mere sophism.
I observed that Mr Hume's argument
not only has no strength to support his con-
clusion, but that it leads to the contrary con-
clusion—to wit, that it is the real table we
see ;" for this plain reason, that the table
we see has precisely that apparent magni-
tude which it is demonstrable the real table
must have when placed at that distance.
This argument is made much stronger by
considering that the real table may be placed
successively at a thousand different dis-
tances, and, in every distance, in a thousand
different positions; and it can be deter-
mined demonstratively, by the rules of
geometry and perspective, what must be its
apparent magnitude and apparent figure, in
each of those distances and positions. Let
the table be placed successively in as many
of those different distances and different po-
sitions as you will, or in them all ; open
your eyes and you shall see a table pre-
cisely of that apparent magnitude, and that
apparent figure, which the real table must
have in that distance and in that position.
Is not this a strong argument that it is the
real table you see 2*
In a word, the appearance of a visible
object is infinitely diversified, according to
its distance and position. The visible ap-
pearances are innumerable, when we con-
fine ourselves to one object, and they are
multiplied according to the variety of ob-
jects. Those appearances have been mat-
ter of speculation to ingenious men, at least
since the time of Euclid. They have ac-
counted for all this variety, on the suppo-
sition that the objects we see are external,
* See last note.—H.
[211, 212]
cmAp. xiv.] REFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY OF IDEAS,
305
and not in the mind itself. [213] The rules
they have demonstrated about the various
projections of the sphere, about the appear-
ances of the planets in their progressions,
stations, and retrogradations, and all the
rules of perspective, are built on the suppo-
g sition that the objects of sight are external.
They can each of them be tried in thousands
of instances. In many arts and professions,
innumerable trials are daily made ; nor
were they ever found to fail in a single in-
stance. Shall we say that a false supposi-
tion, invented by the rude vulgar, has been
so lucky in solving an infinite number of
phaenomena of nature ? This, surely, would
be a greater prodigy than philosophy ever
exhibited : add to this, that, upon the con-
trary hypothesis—to wit, that the objects of
sight are internal—no account can be given
of any one of those appearances, nor any
physical cause assigned why a visible object
should, in any one case, have one apparent
figure and magnitude rather than another.
Thus, I have considered every argument
I have found advanced to prove the exist-
ence of ideas, or images of external things,
in the mind; and, if no better arguments can
be found, I cannot help thinking that the
whole history of philosophy has never fur-
nished an instance of an opinion so unani-
Amously entertained by philosophers upon so
slight grounds.
A third reflection I would make upon
this subject is, that philosophers, notwith-
standing their unanimity as to the existence
of ideas," hardly agree in any one thing
else concerning them. If ideas be not a
mere fiction, they must be, of all objects of
human knowledge, the things we have best
access to know, and to be acquainted with ;
yet there is nothing about which men differ
so much. -
Some have held them to be self-existent,
others to be in the Divine mind, others in
our own minds, and others in the brain or
sensorium. I considered the hypothesis of
images in the brain, in the fourth chapter
of this essay. As to images in the mind, if
anything more is meant by the image of an
object in the mind than the thought of that
object, I know not what it means. [214]
The distinct conception of an object may,
in a metaphorical or analogical sense, be
called an image of it in the mind. But this
image is only the conception of the object,
and not the object conceived. It is an act
of the mind, and not the object of that act.f.
Some philosophers will have our ideas, or
a part of them, to be innate ; others will
have them all to be adventitious : some de-
rive them from the senses alone ; others
from sensation and reflection : Some think
* This unanimity did, not cxist.— H.
f See Notes B and C.-H.
they are fabricated by the mind itself;
others that they are produced by externa
objects; others that they are the immediate
operation of the Deity; others say, that
impressions are the causes of ideas, and
that the causes of impressions are unknown :
Some think that we have ideas only of ma-
terial objects, but none of minds, of their
operations, or of the relations of things;
others will have the immediate object of
every thought to be'an idea : some think
we have abstract ideas, and that by this
chiefly we are distinguished from the brutes;
others maintain an abstract idea to be an
absurdity, and that there can be no such
thing: with some they are the immediate ob-
jects of thought, with others the only objects.
A fourth reflection is, that ideas do not
make any of the operations of the mind to
be better understood, although it was pro-
bably with that view that they have been
first invented, and afterwards so generally
received.
We are at a loss to know how we per.
ceive distant objects; how we remember
things past; how we imagine things that
have no existence. Ideas in the mind seem
to account for all these operations: they are
all by the means of ideas reduced to one
operation—to a kind of feeling, or imme-
diate perception of things present and in
contact with the percipient ; and feeling is
an operation so familiar that we think it
needs no explication, but may serve to ex-
plain other operations. [215]
But this feeling, or immediate percep-
tion, is as difficult to be comprehended as
the things which we pretend to explain by
it. Two things may be in contact without
any feeling or perception; there must
therefore be in the percipient a power to
feel or to perceive. How this power is pro-
duced, and how it operates, is quite beyond
the reach of our knowledge. As little can
we know whether this power must be limited
to things present, and in contact with us.
Nor can any man pretend to prove that the
Being who gave us the power to perceive
things present, may not give us the power
to perceive things that are distant," to re-
member things past, and to conceive things
that never existed.
Some philosophers have endeavoured to
make all our senses to be only different
modifications of touch ;+ a theory which
serves only to confound things that are dif-
ferent, and to perplex and darken things
that are clear. The theory of ideas resembles
this, by reducing all the operations of the
# An immediate ºption of things distant, is a
contradiction in terms.-H.
t If an immediate perception be supposed, it can
only be rationally supposed of objects as in contact
with the organs of sense. But, in this case, all the
senses would, as Democritus held, be, in a certain
sort, only modifications of touch.—H. -
[213–215]
X.
306
[ESSAY Ir.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
º
human understanding to the perception of
ideas in our own minds. This power of
perceiving ideas is as inexplicable as any of
the powers explained by it : and the con-
tiguity of the object contributes nothing at
all to make it better understood ; because
there appears no connection between con-
tiguity and perception, but what is grounded
on prejudices drawn from some imagined
similitude between mind and body, and
from the supposition that, in perception,
the object acts upon the mind, or the mind
upon the object. We have seen how this
theory has led philosophers to confound
those operations of mind, which experience
teaches all men to be different, and teaches
them to distinguish in common language ;
and that it has led them to invent a lan-
guage inconsistent with the principles upon
which all language is grounded.
The last reflection I shall make upon this
theory, is—that the natural and necessary
consequences of it furnish a just prejudice
against it to every man who pays a due re-
gard to the common sense of mankind. [216]
Not to mention that it led the Pytha-
goreans and Plato to imagine that we see
only the shadows of external things, and
not the things themselves,” and that it gave
rise to the Peripatetic doctrine of sensible
species, one of the greatest absurdities of
that ancient system, let us only consider the
fruits it has produced since it was new-
modelled by Des Cartes. That great re-
former in philosophy saw the absurdity of
the doctrine of ideas coming from external
objects, and refuted it effectually, after it
had been received by philosophers for'thou-
sands of years; but he still retained ideas
in the brain and in the mind.t. Upon this
foundation all our modern systems of the
powers of the mind are built. And the tot-
tering state of those fabrics, though built
by skilful hands, may give a strong suspicion
of the unsoundness of the foundation.
It was this theory of ideas that led Des
Cartes, and those that followed him, to think
it necessary to prove, by philosophical argu-
ments, the existence of material objects.
And who does not see that philosophy must
make a very ridiculous figure in the eyes of
sensible men, while it is employed in muster-
ing up metaphysical arguments, to prove
that there is a sun and a moon, an earth and
a sea 2 Yet we find these truly great men,
Des Cartes, Malebranche, Arnauld, and
Locke, seriously employing themselves in
this argument.: -
Surely their principles led them to think
* See above, p. 262. col. b, note +–.H
f See Note N.—H.
# If Reid do not allow that we are immediately
cognitive or conscious of the non-ego, his own doc-
trine of: perception differs not from that of other
philosophers in the necessity for this proof.-H.
that all men, from the beginning of the
world, believed the existence of these things
upon insufficient grounds, and to think that
they would be able to place upon a more
rational foundation this universal belief of
mankind. But the misfortune is, that all
the laboured arguments they have advanced,
to prove the existence of those things we
see and feel, are mere sophisms : Not one
of them will bear examination.
I might mention several paradoxes, which
Mr Locke, though by no means fond of para-
doxes, was led into by this theory of ideas.
[217] Such as, that the secondary qualitics
of body are no qualities of body at all, but
sensations of the mind: That the primary
qualities of body are resemblances of our
sensations: That we have no notion of dur-
ation, but from the succession of ideas in
our minds: That personal identity consists
in consciousness; so that the same indivi-
dual thinking being may make two or three
different persons, and several different think-
ing beings make one person : That judg-
ment is nothing but a perception of the
agreement or disagreement of our ideas.
Most of these paradoxes I shall have oc-
casion to examine.
However, all these consequences of the
doctrine of ideas were tolerable, compared
with those which came afterwards to be dis-
covered by Berkeley and Hume —That
there is no material world : No abstract
ideas or notions: That the mind is only a
train of related impressions and ideas, with-
out any subject on which they may be im-
pressed: That there is neither space nor
time, body nor mind, but impressions and
ideas only : And, to sum up all, That there
is no probability, even in demonstration it-
self, nor any one proposition more probable
than its contrary.
These are the noble fruits which have
grown upon this theory of ideas, since it
began to be cultivated by skilful hands. It
is no wonder that sensible men should be
disgusted at philosophy, when such wild
and shocking paradoxes pass under its name.
However, as these paradoxes have, with
great acuteness and ingenuity, been deduced
by just reasoning from the theory of ideas,
they must at last bring this advantage, that
positions so shocking to the common sense
of mankind, and so contrary to the decisions
of all our intellectual powers, will open men's
eyes, and break the force of the prejudice
which hath held them entangled in that
theory. [218]
CHAPTER XV.
ACCOUNT OF THE SYSTEM OF LEIBNITZ.
THERE is yet another system concerning
perception, of which I shall give some ac-
[216–218]
chap. xv.] ACCOUNT OF THE SYSTEM OF LEIBNITZ.
307
count, because of the fame of its author. It
is the invention of the famous German phi-
losopher Leibnitz, who, while he lived, held
the first rank among the Germans in all
parts of philosophy, as well as in mathe-
matics, in jurisprudence, in the knowledge
of antiquities, and in every branch both of
science and of literature. He was highly
respected by emperors, and by many kings
and princes, who bestowed upon him singu-
lar marks of their esteem. He was a par-
ticular favourite of our Queen Caroline,
consort of George II., with whom he con-
tinued his correspondence by letters, after
she came to the crown of Britain, till his
death.
The famous controversy between him and
the British mathematicians, whether he or
Sir Isaac Newton was the inventor of that
noble improvement in mathematics, Čalled
by Newton, the method of fluvions, and by
Leibnitz the differential method, engaged
the attention of the mathematicians in
Europe for several years. He had likewise
a controversy with the learned and judicious
Dr Samuel Clarke, about several points of
the Newtonian philosophy which he dis-
approved. The papers which gave occasion
to this controversy, with all the replies and
rejoinders, had the honour to be transmitted
from the one party to the other, through
the hands of Queen Caroline, and were
afterwards published.
His authority, in all matters of philoso-
phy, is still so great in most parts of Ger-
many, that they are considered as bold
spirits, and a kind of heretics, who dissent
from him in anything. [219] Carolus"
Wolfius, the most voluminous writer in
philosophy of this age, is considered as the
great interpreter and advocate of the Leib-
nitzian system, and reveres as an oracle
whatever has dropped from the pen of
Leibnitz. This author proposed two great
works upon the mind. The first, which I
have seen, he published with the title of
“Psychologia Empirica, seu Experiment-
alis.”f The other was to have the title of
“Psychologia Rationalis ;” and to it he
refers for his explication of the theory of
Leibnitz with regard to the mind. But
whether it was published I have not learn-
ed.:
I must, therefore, take the short account
I am to give of this system from the writ-
ings of Leibnitz himself, without the light
which his interpreter Wolfius may have
thrown upon it. t
Leibnitz conceived the whole universe,
+ His name was Christian.—H.
+ This title is incorrect. It is “Psychologia Em-
pirica methodo scientifica pertractata,” &c. The
work appeared in 1732.-H.
t It was published in 1734. Such careless ignorance
of the most distinguished works on the subject of an
author's speculations, is peculiarly British.—H.
bodies as well as minds, to be made up
of monads—that is, simple substances, each
of which is, by the Creator, in the begin-
ning of its existence, endowed with certain
active and perceptive powers. A monad,
therefore, is an active substance, simple,
without parts or figure, which has within
itself the power to produce all the changes
it undergoes from the beginning of its ex-
istence to eternity. The changes which
the monad undergoes, of what kind soever,
though they may seem to us the effect of
causes operating from without, yet they
are only the gradual and successive evolu-
tions of its own internal powers, which
would have produced all the same changes
and motions, although there had been no
other being in the universe.
Every human soul is a monad joined to
an organized body, which organized body
consists of an infinite number of monads,
each having some degree of active and of .
perceptive power in itself. But the whole
machine of the body has a relation to that
monad which we call the soul, which is, as
it were, the centre of the whole. [220]
As the universe is completely filled with
monads, without any chasm or void, and
thereby every body acts upon every other
body, according to its vicinity or distance,
and is mutually reacted upon by every other
body, it follows, says Leibnitz, that every
monad is a kind of living mirror, which re-
flects the whole universe, according to its
point of view, and represents the whole
more or less distinctly.
I cannot undertake to reconcile this part
of the system with what was before men-
tioned—to wit, that every change in a
monad is the evolution of its own original
powers, and would have happened though
no other substance had been created. But,
to proceed.
There are different orders of monads,
some higher and others lower. The higher
orders he calls dominant ; such is the hu-
man soul. The monads that compose the
organized bodies of men, animals, and plants,
are of a lower order, and subservient to the
dominant monads. But every monad, of
whatever order, is a complete substance in
itself—indivisible, having no parts; inde-
structible, because, having no parts, it can-
not perish by any kind of decomposition;
it can only perish by annihilation, and we
have no reason to believe that God will ever
annihilate any of the beings which he has
Imade. -
The monads of a lower order may, by a
regular evolution of their powers, rise to a
higher order. They may successively be
joined to organized bodies, of various forms
and different degrees of perception ; but
they never die, nor cease to be in some de-
gree active and percipient.
[219, 220].
x 2
303
[ESSAY II,
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
This philosopher makes a distinction be-
tween perception and what he calls apper-
ception. The first is common to all monads,
the last proper to the higher orders, among
which are human souls. [221]
By apperception he understands that de-
gree of perception which reflects, as it were,
upon itself; by which we are conscious of
our own existence, and conscious of our
perceptions; by which we can reflect upon
the operations of our own minds, and can
comprehend abstract truths. The mind, in
many operations, he thinks, particularly in
sleep, and in many actions common to us
with the brutes, has not this apperception,
although it is still filled with a multitude of
obscure and indistinct perceptions, of which
we are not conscious.
He conceives that our bodies and minds
are united in such a manner that neither
has any physical influence upon the other.
Each performs all its operations by its own
internal springs and powers; yet the oper-
ations of one correspond exactly with those
of the other, by a pre-established harmony;
just as one clock may be so adjusted as to
keep time with another, although each has
its own moving power, and neither receives
any part of its motion from the other.
So that, according to this system, all our
perceptions of external objects would be the
same, though external things had never
existed ; our perception of them would con-
tinue, although, by the power of God, they
should this moment be annihilated. We
do not perceive external things because they
exist, but because the soul was originally so
constituted as to produce in itself all its
successive changes, and all its successive
perceptions, independently of the external
objects.
Every perception or apperception, every
operation, in a word, of the soul, is a neces-
sary consequence of the state of it imme-
diately preceding that operation; and this
state is the necessary consequence of the
state preceding it ; and so backwards, until
you come to its first formation and consti-
tution, which produces, successively and
by necessary consequence, all its succes-
sive states to the end of its existence;
[222] so that, in this respect, the soul, and
every monad, may be compared to a watch
wound up, which, having the spring of its
motion in itself, by the gradual evolution of
its own spring, produces all the successive
motions we observe in it.
In this account of Leibnitz's system con-
cerning monads and the pre-established
harmony, I have kept, as nearly as I could,
to his own expressions, in his “New System
of the Nature and Communication of Sub-
stances, and of the Union of Soul and
Body;” and in the several illustrations of
that new system which he afterwards pub-
y
lished; and in his “Principles of Nature
and Grace founded in Reason.” I shall
now make a few remarks upon this system.
1. To pass over the irresistible necessity
of all human actions, which makes a part of
this system, that will be considered in an-
other place, I observe, first, that the dis-
tinction made between perception and ap-
perception is obscure and unphilosophical.
As far as we can discover, every operation
of our mind is attended with consciousness,
and particularly that which we call the per-
ception of external objects; and to speak of
a perception of which we are not conscious,
is to speak without any meaning.
As consciousness is the only power by
which we discern the operations of our own
minds, or can form any notion of them, an
operation of mind of which we are not con-
Scious, is, we know not what ; and to call
such an operation by the name of perception,
is an abuse of language. No man can per-
ceive an object without being conscious that
he perceives it. No man can think without
being conscious that he thinks. What men
are not conscious of, cannot therefore, with-
out impropriety, be called either perception
or thought of any kind. And, if we will
Suppose operations of mind of which we are
not conscious, and give a name to such
creatures of our imagination, that name
must signify what we know nothing about."
[223]
2. To suppose bodies organized or un-
organized, to be made up of indivisible
monads which have no parts, is contrary to
all that we know of body. It is essential
to a body to have parts ; and every part of
a body is a body, and has parts also. No
number of parts, without extension or figure,
not even an infinite number, if we may use
that expression, can, by being put together,
make a whole that has extension and figure,
which all bodies have.
3. It is contrary to all that we know of
bodies, to ascribe to the monads, of which
they are supposed to be compounded, per-
ception and active force. If a philosopher
thinks proper to say, that a clod of earth
both perceives and has active force, let him
bring his proofs. But he ought not to
expect that men who have understanding
will so far give it up as to receive without
proof whatever his imagination may sug-
gest.
4. This system overturns all authority of
our senses, and leaves not the least ground
to believe the existence of the objects of
* The language in which Leibnitz expresses his
doctrine of latent modifications of mind, which,
though out of consciousness, manifest their existence
in their effects, is objectionable; the doctrine itself is
not only true but of the very highest importance in
psychology, although it has never- yet been appreci-
ated or even understood by any writer on philosophy
in this island.—H.
[221–223]
of Ap. xv.] ACCOUNT OF THE SYSTEM OF LEIBNITZ.
309
sense, or the existence of anything which
depends upon the authority of our senses;
for our perception of objects, according to
this system, has no dependence upon any-
thing external, and would be the same as it
is, supposing external objects had never
existed, or that they were from this moment
annihilated.
It is remarkable that Leibnitz's system,
that of Malebranche, and the common sys-
tem of ideas or images of external objects
in the mind, do all agree in overturning all
the authority of our senses; and this one
thing, as long as men retain their senses,
will always make all these systems truly
ridiculous.
5. The last observation I shall make
upon this system, which, indeed, is equally
applicable to all the systems of Perception
1 have mentioned, is, that it is all hypo-
thesis, made up of conjectures and suppo-
sitions, without proof. The Peripatetics
supposed sensible species to be sent forth
by the objects of sense. The moderns sup-
pose ideas in the brain or in the mind. [224]
Malebranche supposed that we perceive
the ideas of the Divine mind. Leibnitz
supposed monads and a pre-established har-
mony; and these monads being creatures
of his own making, be is at liberty to give
them what properties and powers his fancy
may suggest. In like manner, the Indian
philosopher supposed that the earth is sup-
ported by a huge elephant, and that the
elephant stands on the back of a huge tor-
toise.”
Such suppositions, while there is no proof
of them offered, are nothing but the fictions
of human fancy; and we ought no more
to believe them, than we believe Homer's
fictions of Apollo's silver bow, or Minerva's
shield, or Venus's girdle. Such fictions in
poetry are agreezole to the rules of art :
they are intended to please, not to convince.
But the philoscºphers would have us to
believe their fictions, though tile 2:count
they give of the phenomena of naï ire has
commonly no more probability eman the
account that Homer gives of the plague in
the Grecian camp, from Apollo taking his
station on a neighbouring mountain, and
from his silver bow letting fly his swift
arrows into the camp.
Men then only begin to have a true taste
in philosophy, when they have learned to
hold hypotheses in just contempt ; and to
consider them as the reveries of speculative
men, which will never have any similitude
to the works of God.
* It is a disputed point whether Leibnitz were
serious in his monadology and pre established har-
mony.—H.
[224–226)
The Supreme Being has given us some
intelligence of his works, by what our senses
inform us of external things, and by what
our consciousness and reflection inform us
concerning the operations of our own minds.
Whatever can be inferred from these com-
mon informations, by just and sound reason-
ing, is true and legitimate philosophy: but
what we add to this from conjecture is all
sy urious and illegitimate. [225]
After this long account of the theories
advanced by philosophers, to account for
our perception of external objects, I hope
it will appear, that neither Aristotle's theory
of sensible species, nor Malebranche's of
our seeing things in God, nor the common
theory of our perceiving ideas in our own
minds, nor Leibnitz's theory of monads
and a pre-established harmony, give any
satisfying account of this power of the mind,
or make it more intelligible than it is
without their aid. They are conjectures,
and, if they were true, would solve no diffi-
culty, but raise many new ones. It is,
therefore, more agreeable to good sense
and to sound philosophy, to rest satisfied
with what our consciousness and attentive
reflection discover to us of the nature of
perception, than, by inventing hypotheses,
to attempt to explain things which are
above the reach of human understanding.
I believe no man is able to explain how we
perceive external objects, any more than
how we are conscious of those that are
internal. Perception, consciousness, me-
mory, and imagination, are all original and
simple powers of the mind, and parts of its
constitution. For this reason, though I
have endeavoured to shew that the theories
of philosophers on this subject are ill
grounded and insufficient, I do not attempt
to substitute any other theory in their
place.
Every man feels that perception gives
him an invincible belief of the existence of
that which he perceives; and that this
belief is not the effect of reasoning, but
the immediate consequence of perception."
When philosophers have wearied them-
selves and their readers with their specula-
tions upon this subject, they can neither
strengthen this belief, nor weaken it ; nor
can they shew how it is produced. It puts
the philosopher and the peasant upon a
level; and neither of them can give any
other reason for believing his senses, than
that he finds it impossible for him to do
otherwise. [226]
* In an immediate perception of external things,
the belief of their existence would not be a conse-
quence of the perception, but be involved in the per-
ception itself.-H.
310
[ESSAY II.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
CHAPTER XVI.
OF SENSATION.
HAviNG finished what I intend, with
regard to that act of mind which we call
the perception of an external object, I
proceed to consider another, which, by our
constitution, is conjoined with perception,
and not with perception only, but with
many other acts of our minds; and that is
sensation. To prevent repetition, I must
refer the reader to the explication of this
word given in Essay I., chap. i.
Almost all our perceptions have corre-
sponding sensations which constantly ac-
company them, and, on that account, are
very apt to be confounded with them.
Neither ought we to expect that the sens-
ation, and its corresponding perception,
should be distinguished in common lan-
guage, because the purposes of common
life do not require it. Language is made
to serve the purposes of ordinary conversa-
tion ; and we have no reason to expect that
it should make distinctions that are not of
common use. Hence it happens, that a
quality perceived, and the sensation cor-
responding to that perception, often go under
the same name.
This makes the names of most of our
sensations ambiguous, and this ambiguity
hath very much perplexed philosophers. It
will be necessary to give some instances, to
illustrate the distinction between our sens-
ations and the objects of perception.
When I smell a rose, there is in this
operation both sensation and perception.
The agreeable odour I feel, considered by
itself, without relation to any external ob-
ject, is merely a sensation. [227] It affects
the mind in a certain way; and this affection
of the mind may be conceived, without a
thought of the rose, or any other object.
This sensation can be nothing else than it
is felt to be. Its very essence consists in
being felt ; and, when it is not felt, it is not.
There is no difference between the sensa-
tion and the feeling of it—they are one and
the same thing. It is for this reason that
we before observed that, in sensation, there
is no object distinct from that act of the
mind by which it is felt—and this holds
true with regard to all sensations.
Let us next attend to the perception
which we have in smelling a rose. Percep-
tion has always an external object; and the
object of my perception, in this case, is that
quality in the rose which I discern by the
sense of smell. Observing that the agree-
able sensation is raised when the rose is
near, and ceases when it is removed, I am
led, by my nature, to conclude some quality
to be in the rose, which is the cause of this
sensation. This quality in the rose is the
object perceived; and that act of my mind
by which I have the conviction and belief
of this quality, is what in this case I call
perception."
But it is here to be observed, that the
sensation I feel, and the quality in the rose
which I perceive, are both called by the
same name. The smell of a rose is the
name given to both : so that this name hath
two meanings; and the distisguishing its
different meanings removes all perplexity,
and enables us to give clear and distinct
answers to questions about which pliloso-
phers have held much dispute.t.
Thus, if it is asked, whether the smell
be in the rose, or in the mind that feels it,
the answer is obvious : That there are two
different things signified by the smell of a
rose ; one of which is in the mind, and can
be in nothing but in a sentient being; the
other is truly and properly in the rose. The
sensation which I feel is in my mind. The
mind is the sentient being; and, as the rose
is insentient, there can be no sensation, nor
anything resembling sensation in it. [228]
But this sensation in my mind is occasioned
by a certain quality in the rose, which is
called by the same name with the sensation,
not on account of any similitude, but be-
cause of their constant concomitancy.
All the names we have for Smells, tastes,
sounds, and for the various degrees of heat
and cold, have a like ambiguity; and what
has been said of the smell of a rose may be
applied to them. They signify both a sens-
ation, and a quality perceived by means of
that sensation. The first is the sign, the
last the thing signified. As both are con-
joined by mature, and as the purposes of
common life do not require them to be dis-
joined in our thoughts, they are both ex-
pressed by the same name: and this am-
biguity is to be found in all languages, be-
cause the reason of it extends to all.
The same ambiguity is found in the
names of such diseases as are indicated by
a particular painful sensation : Such as the
toothache, the headache. The toothache
* This paragraph appears to be an explicit disa-
vowal of the doctrine of an intuitive or immediate
perception. , If, from a certain sensible feeling, or
sensation, (which is itself cognitive of no object,) I am
only determined by my nature to conclude that there
is some external quality which is the cause of this
sensation, and if this quality, thus only known as an
inference from its effect, be the object perceived, then
is perception not an act immediately cognitive of
any existing object, and the object perceived is, in
tºº, except as an imaginary something, whknown.
+ ln reference to this and the following paragraphs,
I may observe that the distinction of subjective and
objective qualities here vaguely attempted, had been
already precisely accomplished by Aristotle, in his
discrimination of ro,027122) rolórza's; (qualitatespati-
biles,) and r&0% (passiones). In regard to the Car-
tesian distinction, which is equally precise, but of
which likewise Reid is unaware, see above, p. 205,
Col. b, note *.-El
[227, 228]
CHAP. xvi.]
31||
OF SENSATION.
signifies a painful sensation, which can only
be in a sentient being ; but it signifies also
a disorder in the body, which has no simili-
tude to a sensation, but is naturally con-
nected with it.
Pressing my hand with force against the
table, I feel pain, and I feel the table to be
hard. The pain is a sensation of the mind,
and there is nothing that resembles it in
the table. The hardness is in the table,
nor is there anything resembling it in the
mind. Feeling is applied to both ; but in
a different sense; being a word common to
the act of Sensation, and to that of perceiv-
ing by the sense of touch.
I touch the table gently with my hand,
and I feel it to be smooth, hard, and cold.
These are qualities of the table perceived by
touch ; but I perceive them by means of a
sensation which indicates them. This sens-
ation not being painful, I commonly give no
attention to it. [229] It carries my thought
immediately to the thing signified by it, and
is itself forgot, as if it had never been. But,
by repeating it, and turning my attention
to it, and abstracting my thought from the
thing signified by it, I find it to be merely
a sensation, and that it has no similitude to
the hardness, Smoothness, or coldness of
the table, which are signified by it.
It is indeed difficult, at first, to disjoin
things in our attention which have always
been conjoined, and to make that an object
of reflection which never was so before ;
but some pains and practice will overcome
this difficulty in those who have got the
habit of reflecting on the operations of their
own minds.
Although the present subject leads us
only to consider the sensations which we
have by means of our external senses, yet
it will serve to illustrate what has been said,
and, I apprehend, is of importance in itself,
to observe, that many operations of mind,
to which we give one name, and which we
always consider as one thing, are complex
in their nature, and made up of several
more simple ingredients; and of these ingre-
dients sensation very often makes one. Of
this we shall give some instances.
The appetite of hunger includes an un-
easy sensation, and a desire of food. Sens-
ation and desire are different acts of mind.
The last, from its nature, must have an
object ; the first has no object. These two
ingredients may always be separated in
thought—perhaps they sometimes are, in
reality; but hunger includes both.
Benevolence towards our fellow-creatures
includes an agreeable feeling; but it includes
also a desire of the happiness of others.
The ancients commonly called it desire.
Many moderns chuse rather to call it a feel-
ing. Both are right: and they only err who
exclude either of the ingredients. [230]
Whether these two ingredients are neces-
sarily connected, is, perhaps, difficult for us
to determine, there being many necessary
connections which we do not perceive to be
necessary ; but we can disjoin them in
thought. They are different acts of the
mind.
An uneasy feeling, and a desire, are, in
like manner, the ingredients of malevolent
affections; such as malice, envy, revenge.
The passion of fear includes an uneasy
sensation or feeling, and an opinion of
danger; and hope is made up of the con-
trary ingredients. When we hear of a
heroic action, the sentiment which it raises
in our mind, is made up of various ingre-
dients. There is in it an agreeable feeling,
a benevolent affection to the person, and a
judgment or opinion of his merit.
If we thus analyse the various operations
of our minds, we shall find that many of
them which we consider as perfectly simple,
because we have been accustomed to call
them by one name, are compounded of more
simple ingredients; and that sensation, or
feeling, which is only a more refined kind
of sensation, makes one ingredient, not.
only in the perception of external objects,
but in most operations of the mind.
A small degree of reflection may satisfy
us that the number and variety of our sens-
ations and feelings is prodigious; for, to
omit all those which accompany our appe-
tites, passions, and affections, our moral
sentingents and sentiments of taste, even
our external senses, furnish a great variety
of sensations, differing in kind, and almost
in every kind an endless variety of degrees.
Every variety we discern, with regard to
taste, smell, sound, colour, heat, and cold,
and in the tangible qualities of bodies, is
indicated by a sensation corresponding to
it. -
The most general and the most import-
ant division of our sensations and feelings,
is into the agreeable, the disagreeable, and
the indifferent. Everything we call plea-
sure, happiness, or enjoyment, on the one
hand; and, on the other, everything we
call misery, pain, or uneasiness, is sensa-
tion or feeling ; for no man can for the pre-
sent be more happy or more miserable than
he feels himself to be. [231] He cannot
be deceived with regard to the enjoyment
or suffering of the present moment.
But I apprehend that, besides the sens-
ations that are either agreeable or disagree-
able, there is still a greater number that
are indifferent." To these we give so fittle
attention, that they have no name, and are
immediately forgot, as if they had never
been ; and it requires attention to the ope-
* This is a point in dispute among philosophers.
... II. -
[229–231].
312.
[ESSAY 11.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
rations of our minds to be convinced of their
existence.
For this end we may observe, that, to a
good ear, every human voice is distinguish-
able from all others. Some voices are plea-
sant, some disagreeable ; but the far greater
part can neither be said to be one nor the
other. The same thing may be said of
other sounds, and no less of tastes, Smells,
and colours ; and, if we consider that our
senses are in continual exercise while we are
awake, that some sensation attends every
object they present to us, and that familiar
objects seldom raise any emotion, pleasant
or painful, we shall see reason, besides the
agreeable and disagreeable, to admit a third
class of sensations that may be called in-
different.
The sensations that are indifferent, are
far from being useless. They serve as
signs to distinguish things that differ; and
the information we have concerning things
external, comes by their means. Thus, if
a man had no ear to receive pleasure from
the harmony or melody of sounds, he would
still find the sense of hearing of great
utility. Though sounds give him neithel
pleasure nor pain of themselves, they would
give him much useful information ; and the
like may be said of the sensations we have
by all the other senses. [232]
As to the sensations and feelings that are
agreeable or disagreeable, they differ much
not only in degree, but in kind and in dig-
nity. Some belong to the animal part of
our nature, and are common to us with the
brutes; others belong to the rational and
moral part. The first are more properly
called sensations ; the last, feelings. The
French word sentiment is common to both.*
The intention of nature in them is for the
most part obvious, and well deserving our
notice. It has been beautifully illustrated
by a very elegant French writer," in his
“Theorie des Sentiments Agreables.”
The Author of Nature, in the distribution
of agreeable and painful feelings, hath
wisely and benevolently consulted the good
of the human species, and hath even shewn
us, by the same means, what tenor of con-
duct we ought to hold. For, first, The
... painful sensations of the animal kind are
admonitions to avoid what would hurt us ;
and the agreeable sensations of this kind
invite us to those actions that are necessary
to the preservation of the individual or of .
the kind. Secondly, By the same means,
nature invites us to moderate bodily exer-
cise, and admonishes us to avoid idleness
and inactivity on the one hand, and exces-
sive. labour and fatigue on the other.
• Some French philosophers, since Reid, have
attempted the distinction of sentiment and sensation.
H.
+ Levesque de Pouilly.—H.
Thirdly, The moderate exercise of all our
rational powers gives pleasure. Fourthly,
Every species of beauty is beheld with
pleasure, and every species of deformity
with disgust ; and we shall find all that we
call beautiful, to be something estimable or
useful in itself, or a sign of something that
is estimable or useful. Fifthly, The bene-
volent affections are all accompanied with
an agreeable feeling, the malevolent with
the contrary. And, siathly, The highest,
the noblest, and most durable pleasure is
that of doing well, and acting the part that
becomes us ; and the most bitter and pain-
ful sentiment, the anguish and remorse of
a guilty conscience. These observations,
with regard to the economy of nature in
the distribution of our painful and agree-
able sensations and feelings, are illustrated
by the author last mentioned, so elegantly
and judiciously, that I shall not attempt to
Say anything upon them after him. [233]
I shall conclude this chapter by observ-
ing that, as the confounding our sensations
with that perception of external objects
which is constantly conjoined with them,
has been the occasion of most of the errors
and false theories of philosophers with re-
gard to the senses; so the distinguishing
these operations seems to me to be the key
that leads to a right understanding of both.
Sensation, taken by itself, implies neither
the conception nor belief of any external
object. It supposes a sentient being, and
a certain manner in which that being is
affected ; but it supposes no more. Per-
ception implies an immediate conviction
and belief of something external—some-
thing different both from the mind that
perceives, and from the act of perception.
Things so different in their nature ought
to be distinguished; but, by our constitu-
tion, they are always united. Every dif-
ferent perception is conjoined with a sensa-
tion that is proper to it. The one is the
sign, the other the thing signified. They
coalesce in our imagination. They are sig-
nified by one name, and are considered as
one simple operation. The purposes of life
do not require them to be distinguished.
It is the philosopher alone who has occa-
sion to distinguish them, when he would
analyse the operation compounded of them.
But he has no suspicion that there is any
composition in it; and to discover this re-
quires a degree of reflection which has been
tôo little practised even by philosophers.
In the old philosophy, sensation and per-
ception were perfectly confounded. The
sensible species coming from the object, and
impressed upon the mind, was the whole;
and you might call it sensation or percep-
tion as you pleased.”
* This is not correct; for, in the distinction of the
[232, 233]
CHAP. xvii.]
3.13
OF THE OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION,
Des Cartes and Locke, attending more.
to the operations of their own minds, say,
that the sensations by which we have notice
of secondary qualities have no resemblance
to anything that pertains to body; but they
did not see that this might, with equal justice,
be applied to the primary qualities. [234]
Mr Locke maintains, that the sensations we
have from primary qualities are resem-
blances of those qualities. This shews how
grossly the most ingenious men may err
with regard to the operations of their minds.
It must, indeed, be acknowledged, that it is
much easier to have a distinct notion of the
sensations that belong to secondary than
of those that belong to the primary quali-
ties." The reason of this will appear in
the next chapter.
But, had Mr Locke attended with suffi.
cient accuracy to the sensations—t which he
was every day and every hour receiving
from primary qualities, he would have seen
that they can as little resemble any quality
of an inanimated being as pain can resemble
a cube or a circle.
What had escaped this ingenious philo-
sopher, was clearly discerned by Bishop
Berkeley. He had a just notion of sensa-
tions, and saw that it was impossible that
anything in an insentient being could re-
semble them ; a thing so evident in itself,
that it seems wonderful that it should have
been so long unknown.
But let us attend to the consequence of
this discovery. Philosophers, as well as the
vulgar, had been accustomed to comprehend
both sensation and perception under one
name, and to consider them as one uncom-
pounded operation. Philosophers, even
more than the vulgar, gave the name of
sensation to the whole operation of the
senses; and all the notions we have of ma-
terial things were called ideas of sensation.
This led Bishop Berkeley to take one in-
gredient of a complex operation for the
whole; and, having clearly discovered the
nature of sensation, taking it for granted
that all that the senses present to the mind
is sensation, which can have no resemblance
to anything material, he concluded that
there is no material world. [235]
If the senses furnished us with no mate-
rials of thought but sensations, his conclu-
sion must be just ; for no sensation can give
us the conception of material things, far less
any argument to prove their existence. But,
if it is true that by our senses we have not
only a variety of sensations, but likewise a
conception and an immediate natural con->
viction of external objects, he reasons from
a false supposition, and his arguments fall
to the ground."
CHAPTER, XVII.
of THE objFCTs of PERCEPTION ; AND, FIRST,
OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES.
The objects of perception are the various
qualities of bodies. Intending to treat of
these only in general, and chiefly with a view
to explain the notions which our senses
give us of them, I begin with the distinction
between primary and secondary qualities.
These were distinguished very early. The
Peripatetic system confounded them, and
left no difference. The distinction was again
revived by Des Cartes and Locke, and a
second time abolished by Berkeley and
Hume. If the real foundation of this dis-
tinction can be pointed out, it will enable us
to account for the various revolutions in the
sentiments of philosophers concerning it.
Every one knows that extension, divisi-
bility, figure, motion, solidity, hardness,
softness, and fluidity, were by Mr Locke
called primary qualities of body; and that
Sound, colour, taste, Smell, and heat or cold,
were called secondary qualities. Is there a
just foundation for this distinction ? Is
there anything common to the primary .
which belongs not to the secondary 2 And
what is it 2
I answer, That there appears to me to be
a real foundation for the distinction ; and it
is this—that our senses give us a direct and
a distinct notion of the primary qualities,
and inform us what they are in themselves.--
But of the secondary qualities, our senses
give us only a relative and obscure notion.
[236] They inform us only, that they are
qualities that affect us in a certain manner
—that is, produce in us a certain sensation ;
but as to what they are in themselves, our
senses leave us in the dark.
species impressa and species earpressa, the distinc-
tion of sensation and perception could be perceived ;
but, in point of fact, many even of the Aristotelians,
who admitted species at all, allowed them only in one
or two of the senses. See Notes D + and M.–H.
* The reader will observe that Reid says, “ dis-
tinct motion of the sensations that belong to the se-
condary qualities,” and not distinct notion of the
secondary qualities themselves.—H.
# Here again the reader will observe that the term
1S *ſons, and not motions, of the primary quali-
tles.—H.
* On this whole distinction, see Note D. ºr .-H.
t By the expression, “what they are in themselves,”
in reference to the primary qualitics, and of “rela-
tive ovotion,” in reference to the secondary, Reid
cannot mean that the former are known to us abso-
lutely and in themselves—that is, out of relation to our
cognitive faculties; for he elsewhere admits that all
our knowledge is relative. Farther, if “our senst's
give us a direct and distinct motion of the primary
qualities, and inſorim vs what they are in themselves,”
these qualities, as known, must resemble, or be iden-
tical with, these qualities as cristing.—H.
f The distinctions of perception and sensation, and
of primary aud secondary qualities, may be reduced
to one higher princ ple. Knowledge is partly object-
ive, partly subjective, both these elements are essen-
tial to every cognition, but in every cognition they
are always in the inverse ratio of each other. Now
[234–236]
3.14
[ESSAY II.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
Every man capable of reflection may
easily satisfy himself that he has a perfectly
clear and distinct notion of extension, divisi-
bility, figure, and motion. The solidity of
a body means no more but that it excludes
other bodies from occupying the same place
at the same time. Hardness, softness, and
fluidity are different degrees of cohesion in
the parts of a body. It is fluid when it has
no sensible cohesion; soft, when the cohe-
sion is weak ; and hard, when it is strong.
Of the cause of this cohesion we are ignor-
ant, but the thing itself we understand per-
fectly, being immediately informed of it by
the sense of touch. It is evident, therefore,
that of the primary qualities we have a clear
and distinct notion ; we know what they
are, though we may be ignorant of their
CallSGS, -
I observed, farther, that the notion we
have of primary qualities is direct, and not
relative only. A relative notion of a thing,
is, strictly speaking, no notion of the thing
at all, but only of some relation which it
bears to something else.
Thus, gravity sometimes signifies the tend-
ency of bodies towards the earth ; some-
times it signifies the cause of that tendency.
When it means the first, I have a direct
and distinct notion of gravity; I see it, and
feel it, and know perfectly what it is ; but
this tendency must have a cause. We give
the same name to the cause; and that cause
has been an object of thought and of specu-
lation. Now, what notion have we of this
cause when we think and reason about it 2
It is evident we think of it as an unknown
cause, of a known effect. This is a relative
Inotion ; and it must be obscure, because it
gives us no conception of what the thing is,
but of what relation it bears to something
else. Every relation which a thing un-
known bears to something that is known,
may give a relative notion of it; and there
are many objects of thought and of dis-
course of which our faculties can give no
better than a relative notion. [237]
Having premised these things to explain
what is meant by a relative notion, it is evi-
dent that our notion of primary qualities is
not of this kind; we know what they are,
and not barely what relation they bear to
something else.
It is otherwise with secondary qualities.
If you ask me, what is that quality of mo-
dification in a rose which I call its smell, I
am at a loss to answer directly. Upon re-
flection, I find, that I have a distinct notion
of the sensation which it produces in my
mind. But there can be nothing like to
this sensation in the rose, because it is in-
in perception and the primary qualities, the objective
ele.nent preponderates, whereas the subjective ele-
Fuent preponderates in sensation and the secondary
Qualities. See Notes D and D + ...—H
sentient. The quality in the rose is some-
thing which occasions the sensation in me;
but what that something is, I know not.
My senses give me no information upon
this point. The only notion, therefore, my
senses give is this—that Smell in the rose is
an unknown quality or modification, which
is the cause or occasion of a sensation which
I know well. The relation which this un-
known quality bears to the sensation with
which nature hath connected it, is all I learn
from the sense of smelling ; but this is
evidently a relative notion. The same rea-
soning will apply to every secondary quality.
Thus, I think it appears that there is a
real foundation for the distinction of pri-
mary from secondary qualities; and that
they are distinguished by this—that of the
primary we have by our senses a direct and
distinct notion ; but of the secondary only
a relative notion, which must, because it is
only relative, be obscure ; they are con-
ceived only as the unknown causes or occa-
sions of certain sensations with which we
are well acquainted.
The account I have given of this distinc-
tion is founded upon no hypothesis. [238]
Whether our notions of primary qualities
are direct and distinct, those of the se-
condary relative and obscure, is a matter
of fact, of which every man may have cer-
tain knowledge by attentive reflection upon
them. To this reflection I appeal, as the
proper test of what has been advanced, and
proceed to make some reflections on this
subject.
1. The primary qualities areneither sens-
ations, nor are they resemblances of sens-
ations. This appears to me self-evident.
I have a clear and distinct notion of each of
the primary qualities. I have a clear and
distinct notion of Sensation. I can com-
pare the one with the other ; and, when I
do so, I am not able to discern a resembling
feature. Sensation is the act or the feeling
. (I dispute not which) of a sentient being.
; Figure, divisibility, solidity, are neither
'acts nor feelings. Sensation supposes a
sentient being as its subject ; for a sensa-
tion that is not felt by some sentient being,
is an absurdity. Figure and divisibility
supposes a subject that is figured and divi-
sible, but not a subject that is sentient.
2. We have no reason to think that any
of the secondary qualities resemble any sens-
ation. The absurdity of this notion has
been clearly shewn by Des Cartes, Locke,
and many modern philosophers. It was a
tenet of the ancient philosophy, and is still
by many imputed to the vulgar, but only as
a vulgar error. It is too evident to need
'proof, that the vibrations of a sounding
body do not resemble the sensation of sound,
nor the effluvia of an odorous body the Sens-
ation of smell.
[237,238]
CHAP. XVII.]
315
OF THE OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION.
3. The distinctness of our notions of pri-
mary qualities prevents all questions and
disputes about their nature. There are no
different opinions about the nature of ex-
tension, figure, or motion, or the nature of
any primary quality. Their nature is man-
ifest to our senses, and cannot be unknown
to any man, or mistaken by him, though
their causes may admit of dispute. [239]
The primary qualities are the object of
the mathematical sciences; and the dis-
tinctness of our notions of them enables
us to reason demonstratively about them to
a great extent. Their various modifications
are precisely defined in the imagination, and
thereby capable of being compared, and their
relations determined with precision and cer-
tainty. •
It is not so with secondary qualities.
Their nature not being manifest to the sense,
may be a subject of dispute. Our feeling
informs us that the fire is hot ; but it does
not inform us what that heat of the fire is.
But does it not appear a contradiction, to
say we know that the fire is hot, but we
know not what that heat is 2 I answer,
there is the same appearance of contradic-
tion in many things that must be granted.
We know that wine has an inebriating qua-
lity ; but we know not what that quality is.
It is true, indeed, that, if we had not some
notion of what is meant by the heat of fire,
and by an inebriating quality, we could
affirm nothing of either with understand-
ing. We have a notion of both ; but it-is
only a relative notion.
are the causes of certain known effects.
4. The nature of secondary qualities is a
proper subject of philosophical disquisition;
and in this philosophy has made some pro-
gress. It has been discovered, that the
sensation of smell is occasioned by the
effluvia of bodies; that of sound by their
vibration. The disposition of bodies to re-
flect a particular kind of light, occasions the
sensation of colour. Very curious dis-
coveries have been made of the nature of
heat, and an ample field of discovery in
these subjects remains.
5. We may see why the sensations be-
longing to secondary qualities are an object
of our attention, while those which belong
to the primary are not.
The first are not only signs of the ob-
ject perceived, but they bear a capital part
in the notion we form of it. [240] We
conceive it only as that which occasions such
a Sensation, and therefore cannot reflect
upon it without thinking of the sensation
which it occasions: we have no other mark
whereby to distinguish it. The thought of
a secondary quality, therefore, always car-
ries us back to the sensation which it pro-
duces. We give the same name to both,
and are apt to confound them together.
We know that they,
But, having a clear and distinct conception
of primary qualities, we have no need, when
we think of them, to recall their sensations.
When a primary quality is perceived, the
sensation immediately leads our thought to
the quality signified by it, and is itself for-
got. We have no occasion afterwards to
reflect upon it ; and so we come to be as
little acquainted with it as if we had never
felt it. This is the case with the sensations
of all primary qualities, when they are not
So painful or pleasant as to draw our atten-
tion. •,
When a man moves his hand rudely
against a pointed hard body, he feels pain,
and may easily be persuaded that this pain
is a sensation, and that there is nothing
resembling it in the hard body; at the same
time, he perceives the body to be hard and
pointed, and he knows that these qualities
belong to the body only. In this case, it is
easy to distinguish what he feels from what
he perceives.
Let him again touch the pointed body
gently, so as to give him no pain ; and now
you can hardly persuade him that he feels
anything but the figure and hardness of the
body : so difficult it is to attend to the sens-
ations belonging to primary qualities, when
they are neither pleasant nor painful. They
carry the thought to the external object,
and immediately disappear and are forgot.
Nature intended them only as signs; and
when they have served that purpose they
vanish.
We are now to consider the opinions
both of the vulgar and of philosophers upon
this subject. [241] As to the former, it
is not to be expected that they should make
distinctions which have no connection with
the common affairs of life; they do not,
therefore, distinguish the primary from the
secondary qualities, but speak of both as
being equally qualities of the external ob-
ject. Of the primary qualities they have a
distinct notion, as they are immediately and
distinctly, perceived by the senses; of the
Secondary, their notions, as I apprehend,
are confused and indistinct, rather than
erroneous. A secondary quality is the
unknown cause or occasion of a well-known
effect; and the same Iſame is common to
the cause and the effect. Now, to dis-
tinguish clearly the different ingredients of a
complex notion, and, at the same time, the
different meanings of an ambiguous word,
is the work of a philosopher; and is not
to be expected of the vulgar, when their
occasions do not require it.
I grant, therefore, that the notion which
the vulgar have of secondary qualities, is
indistinct and inaccurate. But there seems
to be a contradiction between the vulgar
and the philosopher upon this subject, and
each charges the other with a gross ab-
ſ239–24 IT
316 ON THE
LESSAY II.
INTELLECTUAL POWERS. *
surdity. The vulgar say, that fire is hot,
and snow cold, and sugar Sweet; and that
to deny this is a gross absurdity, and con-
tradicts the testimony of our senses. The
philosopher says, that heat, and cold, and
sweetness, are nothing but sensations in
our minds; and it is absurd to conceive
that these sensations are in the fire, or in
the snow, or in the sugar.
I believe this contradiction, between the
vulgar and the philosopher, is more apparent
than real ; and that it is owing to an abuse
of language on the part of the philosopher,
and to indistinct notions on the part of the
vulgar. The philosopher says, there is no
heat in the fire, meaning that the fire has
not the sensation of heat. His meaning is
just ; and the vulgar will agree with him,
as soon as they understand his meaning:
But his language is improper; for there is
really a quality in the fire, of which the
proper name is heat; and the name of heat
is given to this quality, both by philosophers
and by the vulgar, much morefrequently than
to the sensation of heat. [242] This speech
of the philosopher, therefore, is meant by
him in one sense; it is taken by the vulgar
in another sense. In the sense in which
they take it, it is indeed absurd, and so
they hold it to be. In the sense in which
he means it, it is true; and the vulgar, as
Soon as they are made to understand that
sense, will acknowledge it to be true. They
know, as well as the philosopher, that the
fire does not feel heat: and this is all that
he means by saying there is no heat in the
fire. *
In the opinions of philosophers about
primary and secondary qualities, there have
been, as was before observed, several revo-
lutions. They were distinguished, long be-
fore the days of Aristotle, by the sect called
Atomists: among whom Democritus made
a capital figure. In those times, the name
of quality was applied only to those we call
Secondary qualities; the primary, being con-
sidered as essential to matter, were not
called qualities. # That the atoms, which
they held to be the first principles of things,
were extended, solid, figured, and movable,
there was no doubt; but the question was,
whether they had smell, taste, and colour 2
or, as it was commonly expressed, whether
they had qualities 2 The Atomists main-
tained, that they had not ; that the quali-
ties were not in bodies, but were something
resulting from the operation of bodies upon
our senses.S
It would seem that, when men began to
speculate upon this subject, the primary
qualities appeared so clear and manifest
that they could entertain no doubt of their
existence wherever matter existed ; but the
Secondary so obscure that they were at a
loss where to place them. They used this
comparison : as fire, which is neither in the
flint nor in the steel, is produced by their
collision, so those qualities, though not in
bodies, are produced by their impulse upon
our senses. [243] -
This doctrine was opposed by Aristotle."
He believed taste and colour to be substan-
tial forms of bodies, and that their species,
as well as those of figure and motion, are
received by the senses.--
In believing that what we commonly
call taste and colour, is something really
inherent in body, and does not depend upon .
its being tasted and seen, he followed nature.
But, in believing that our sensations of
taste and colour are the forms or species of
those qualities received by the senses, he
followed his own theory, which was an ab-
surd fiction.<f Des Cartes not only shewed
the absurdity of sensible species received by
the senses, but gave a more just and more
intelligible account of secondary qualities
than had been given before. Mr Locke
followed him, and bestowed much pains
upon this subject. He was the first, I
think, that gave them the name of secondary
qualities, f which has been very generally
adopted. He distinguished the sensation
from the quality in the body, which is the
cause or occasion of that sensation, and
shewed that there neither is nor can be any
similitude between them.S
By this account, the senses are acquitted
of putting any fallacy upon us; the sensation
is real, and no fallacy ; the quality in the
body, which is the cause or occasion of this
sensation, is likewise real, though the nature
of it is not manifest to our senses. If we
impose upon ourselves, by confounding the
sensation with the quality that occasions
it, this is owing to rash judgment or weak
understanding, but not to any false testi-
mony of our senses.
This account of secondary qualities I take
* All this ambiguity was understood and articu.
sately explai ed by former philosophers. See above,
notes at pp. 205 and 310, and Note D.— H.
+ See Note D.—H.
f The Atomists derived the qualitative attributes
of things from the quantitative – H.
§ Still Democritus suppose I certain real or ob-
jective causes fyr the subject, we differences of our
sensations Thus, in the different forms, positions,
and relations of atoms, he sought the ground of
difference of tastes, colours, heat and cold, &c. See
Theophrastus De Sensu, $ 65.-Aristotle De Anima,
iii. 2.-Galen De Elementis—Simplicius in Phys.
Attscult. libros, f. 119, b.—H.
* Aristotle admitted that the doctrine in question
was true, of colour, taste, &c., as 22+' #vágytic,y, but
not ºof them as zczz3. 30yozºoty. See De Anima
iii. 2.-H. -
f This is not really Aristotle's doctrine.—H.
t Locke only gave a new meaning to old terms.
The first and second or the primary and secondary
qualities of Aristotle, denoted a distinction similar
to, but not identical with, that in question— H.
§ He distinguished nothing which had not been
more precisely discriminated by Aristotle and the
Cartesians.—H, -
[242, 243]
CHAP. xv.11.]
317
OF THE OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION.
to be very just ; and if Mr Locke had
stopped here, he would have left the matter
very clear.
introduce the theory of ideas, to explain the
distinction between primary and secondary
qualities, and by that means, as I think,
perplexed and darkened it.
When philosophers speak about ideas, we
are often at a loss to know what they mean
by them, and may be apt to suspect that
they are mere fictions, that have no exist-
ence. [244] They have told us, that, by the
ideas which we have immediately from our
senses, they mean our sensations.” These,
indeed, are real things, and not fictions.
We may, by accurate attention to them,
know perfectly their nature ; and, if philo-
sophers would keep by this meaning of the
word idea, when applied to the objects of
sense, they would at least be more intelli-
gible. Let us hear how Mr Locke explains
the nature of those ideas, when applied to
primary and secondary qualities, Book 2,
chap 8, § 7, tenth edition. “To discover
the nature of our ideas the better, and to
discourse of them intelligibly, it will be con-
venient to distinguish them, as they are
ideas, or perceptions in our minds, and as
they are modifications of matter in the bodies
that cause such perceptions in us, that so
we may not think (as perhaps usually is
done) that they are exactly the images and
resemblances of something inherent in the
subject; most of those of sensation being,
in the mind, no more the likeness of some-
thing existing without us, than the names
that stand for them are the likeness of our
ideas, which yet, upon hearing, they are apt
to excite in us.”
This way of distinguishing a thing, first,
as what it is ; and, secondly, as what it is
not, is, I apprehend, a very extraordinary
way of discovering its nature.t. And if ideas
are ideas or perceptions in our minds, and,
at the same time, the modifications of mat-
ter in the bodies that cause such percep-
tions in us, it will be no easy matter to
discourse of them intelligibly.
The discovery of the nature of ideas is
carried on in the next section, in a manner
no less extraordinary. “Whatsoever the
mind perceives in itself, or is the immediate
object of perception, thought, or under-
standing, that I call idea ; and the power
to produce any idea in our mind, I call
quality of the subject wherein that power
is. Thus, a snowball having the power to
produce in us the ideas of white, cold, and
round—the powers to produce those ideas
But he thought it necessary to:
in us, as they are in the snowball, I call
qualities ; and, as they are sensations, or
perceptions in our understandings, I call
them ideas ; which ideas, if I speak of
them sometimes as in the things themselves,
I would be understood to mean those quali-
ties in the objects which produce them in
us.” [245]
These are the distinctions which Mr
Locke thought convenient, in order to dis-
cover the nature of our ideas of the quali-
ties of matter the better, and to discourse
of them intelligibly. I believe it will be
difficult to find two other paragraphs in the
essay so unintelligible. Whether this is to be
imputed to the intractable nature of ideas,
or to an oscitancy of the author, with which
he is very rarely chargeable, I leave the
reader to judge. There are, indeed, seve-
ral other passages in the same chapter, in
which a like obscurity appears; but I do
not chuse to dwell upon them. The con-
clusion drawn by him from the whole is,
that primary and secondary qualities are
distinguished by this, that the ideas of the
former are resemblances or copies of them,
but the ideas of the other are not resem-
blances of them. Upon this doctrine, I beg
leave to make two observations.
First, Taking it for granted that, by the
ideas of primary and secondary qualities,
he means the sensations" they excite in us,
I observe that it appears strange, that a
sensation should be the idea of a quality in
body, to which it is acknowledged to bear
no resemblance. If the sensation of Sound
be the idea of that vibration of the sound-
ing body which occasions it, a surfeit may,
for the same reason, be the idea of a feast.
A second observation is, that, when Mr.
Locke affirms, that the ideas of primary
qualities—that is, the sensations" they raise
in us—are resemblances of those qualities,
he seems neither to have given due atten-
tion to those sensations, nor to the nature
of sensation in general. [246]
Let a man press his hand against a hard
body, and let him attend to the sensation
he feels, excluding from his thought every
thing external, even the body that is the
cause of his feeling. This abstraction, in-
deed, is difficult, and seems to have been
little, if at all practised. But it is not im-
possible, and it is evidently the only way to
understand the nature of the Sensation. A
due attention to this sensation will satisfy
s The Cartesians, particularly Malebranche, dis.
tinguished the Idea and the Feeling (semtiment, sensa-
tio.J Of the primary qualities in their doctrine we
have Ideas; of the secondary, only Feelings.—H.
† This and some of the following strictures on
Locke are rather hypercritical.-H.
* Here, as formerly, (vide supra, notes at pp. 208,
290, &c.,). Reid will insist on giving a more limited
meaning to the term Sensation than Locke did, and
on criticising him by that imposed meaning. The
Sensation of Locke was equivalent to the Sensation
and Perception of Reid. It is to be observed that
Locke did not, like the Cartesians, distinguish the
Idea (corresponding to Reid's Perception) from the
Feeling (sentiment, sens.tio) corresponding to Reid's
Sensation.-H.
244-246]
3].8
[ESSAY II
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
my hand against it.
him that it is no more like hardness in a
body than the sensation of sound is like
vibration in the sounding body.
I know of no ideas but my conceptions;
and my idea of hardness in a body, is the
conception of such a cohesion of its parts
as requires great force to displace them. I
have both the conception and belief of this
quality in the body, at the same time that
I have the sensation of pain, by pressing
The sensation and
perception are closely conjoined by my
constitution; but I am sure they have no
similitude ; I know no reason why the one
should be called the idea of the other, which
does not lead us to call every natural effect
the idea of its cause.
Neither did Mr Locke give due attention
to the nature of sensation in general, when
he affirmed that the ideas of primary qua-
lities—that is, the sensations* excited
by them—are resemblances of those quali-
ties.
That there can be nothing like sensation
in an insentient being, or like thought in
an unthinking being, is self-evident, and
has been shewn, to the conviction of all
men that think, by Bishop Berkeley; yet
this was unknown to Mr Locke. It is an
humbling consideration, that, in subjects of
this kind, self-evident truths may be hid
from the eyes of the most ingenious men.
But we have, withal, this consolation, that,
when once discovered, they shine by their
own light: and that light can no more be
put out. [247]
Upon the whole, Mr Locke, in making
secondary qualities to be powers in bodies
to excite certain sensations in us, has given
a just and distinct analysis of what our
senses discover concerning them ; but, in
applying the theory of ideas to them and
to the primary qualities, he has been led to
say things that darken the subject, and that
will not bear examination. †
Bishop Berkeley having adopted the sen-
timents common to philosophers, concern-
ing the ideas we have by our senses—to wit,
that they areallsensations—saw more clearly
the necessary consequence of this doctrine;
which is, that there is no material world—
no qualities primary or secondary — and,
consequently, no foundation for any dis-
tinction between them.: He exposed the
absurdity of a resemblance between our
}
sensations and any quality, primary, or
secondary, of a substance that is supposed
to be insentient. Indeed, if it is granted
that the senses have no other office but to
furnish us with sensations, it will be found
impossible to make any distinction between
primary and secondary qualities, or even to
maintain the existence of a material world.
From the account I have given of the
various revolutions in the opinions of philo-
sophers about primary and secondary qua-
lities, I think it appears that all the dark-
ness and intricacy that thinking men have
found in this subject, and the errors they
thave fallen into, have been owing to the
difficulty of distinguishing clearly sensa-
tion from perception—what we feel from
what we perceive.
The external senses have a double pro-
vince—to make us feel, and to make us
perceive. They furnish us with a variety
of sensations, some pleasant, others painful,
and others indifferent ; at the same time,
they give us a conception and an invincible
belief of the existence of external objects.
This conception of external objects is the
work of nature. The belief of their exist-
ence, which our senses give, is the work of
nature; so likewise is the sensation that
accompanies it. This conception and be-
lief which nature produces by means of the
senses, we call perception." [248] The
feeling which goes along with the percep-
tion, we call sensation. The perception and
its corresponding sensation are produced at
the same time. In our experience we never
find them disjoined. Hence, we are led to
consider them as one thing, to give them
one name, and to confound their different
attributes. It becomes very difficult to
separate them in thought, to attend to each
by itself, and to attribute nothing to it
which belongs to the other.
To do this, requires a degree of attention
to what passes in our own minds, and a
talent of distinguishing things that differ,
which is not to be expected in the vulgar,
and is even rarely found in philosophers;
so that the progress made in a just analysis
of the operations of our senses has been
very slow. The hypothesis of ideas, so
generally adopted, hath, as I apprehend,
greatly retarded this progress, and we might
hope for a quicker advance, if philosophers
could so far humble themselves as to be-
lieve that, in every bránch of the philosophy
of nature, the productions of human fancy
and conjecture will be found to be dross;
and that the only pure metal that will en-
dure the test, is what is discovered by
patient observation and chaste induction.
* No ; not Sensations in Reid's meaning; but Per-
cepts—the immediate objects we are conscious of in
the cognitions of sense.—H.
1 The Cartesians did not apply the term ideas to
Our sensations of the secondary qualities.—H.
f See above, p. 142, note *. The mere distinction
of primary and secondary qualities, of perception and
sensation, is of no importance against Idealism, if the
primary qualities as immediately perceived. (i. e. as
known to consciousness,) be only, conceptions, no-
§: ºollections of mind itself. See following
Ote.--H.
* If the conception, like the belief, be subjective
in perception, we have no refuge. from Idealism in
this doctrine. See above, the notes at pp. 128-130,
183, &c., and Note: C.—H.
[247, 248]
chap. xviii.] OF OTHER OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION.
319
CHIAPTER XVIII.
UF OTHER, OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION.
BESIDEs primary and secondary qualities
of bodies, there are many other immediate
objects of perception. Without pretending
to a complete enumeration, I think they
mostly fall under one or other of the follow-
ing, classes. 1st, Certain states or condi-
tions of our own bodies. 2d, Mechanical
powers or forces. 3d, Chemical powers.
4th, Medical powers of virtues. 5th, Vege-
table and animal powers. [249]
That we perceive certain disorders in our
own bodies by means of uneasy sensations,
which nature hath conjoined with them, will
not be disputed. Of this kind are toothache,
headache, gout, and every distemper and
hurt which we feel. The notions which
our sense gives of these, have a strong
analogy to our notions of secondary qualities.
Both are similarly compounded, and may
be similarly resolved, and they give light to
each other.
In the toothache, for instance, there is,
first, a painful feeling ; and, secondly, a
conception and belief of some disorder in
the tooth, which is believed to be the cause
of the uneasy feeling." The first of these
is a sensation, the second is perception ;
for it includes a conception and belief of an
external object. But these two things,
though of different natures, are so con-
stantly conjoined in our experience and in
our imagination, that we consider them as
one. We give the same name to both ; for
the toothache is the proper name of the
pain we feel ; and it is the proper name of
the disorder in the tooth which causes that
pain. If it should be made a question
whether the toothache be in the mind that
“eels it, or in the tooth that is affected,
much might be said on both sides, while it
is not observed that the word has two mean-
ings.t. But a little reflection satisfies us,
that the pain is in the mind, and the dis-
order in the tooth. If some philosopher
should pretend to have made the discovery
that the toothache, the gout, the headache,
are only sensations in the mind, and that
it is a vulgar error to conceive that they
are distempers of the body, he might defend
his system in the same manner as those
who affirm that there is no sound, nor
colour, nor taste in bodies, defend that para-
dox. But both these systems, like most
paradoxes, will be found to be only an abus2
of words.
We say that we fecl the toothache, not
that we perceive it. On the other hand, we
say that we perceive the colour of a body,
not that we feel it. Can any reason be given
for this difference of phraseology 2 [250]
In answer to this question, I apprehend
that, both when we feel the toothache and
when we see a coloured body, there is sensa-
tion and perception conjoined. But, in the
toothache, the sensation being very painful,
engrosses the attention ; and therefore we
speak of it as if it were felt only, and not
perceived : whereas, in seeing a coloured
body, the sensation is indifferent, and draws
no attention. The quality in the body,
which we call its colour, is the only object
of attention ; and therefore we speak of it
as if it were perceived and not felt. Though
all philosophers agree that, in seeing colour
there is sensation, it is not easy to persuade
the vulgar that, in seeing a coloured body,
when the light is not too strong nor the
eye inflamed, they have any sensation or
feeling at all.
There are some sensations, which, though
they are very often felt, are never attended
to, nor reflected upon. We have no con-
ception of them ; and, therefore, in language
there is neither any name for them, nor
any form of speech that supposes their
existence. Such are the sensations of colour,
and of all primary qualities; and, therefore,
those qualities are said to be perceived, but
not to be felt. Taste and smell, and heat
and cold, have sensations that are often
agreeable or disagreeable, in such a degree
as to draw our attention ; and they are
sometimes said to be felt, and sometimes to
be perceived. When disorders of the body
occasion very acute pain, the uneasy sensa-
ation engrosses the attention, and they are
said to be felt, not to be perceived."
There is another question relating to
phraseology, which this subject suggests.
A man says, he feels pain in such a parti-
cular part of his body; in his toe for in-
stance. Now, reason assures us that pain
being a sensation, can only be in the sen-
tient being, as its subject—that is, in the
mind. And, though philosophers have dis-
puted much about the place of the mind;
yet none of them ever placed it in the toe.-f
* There is no such perception, properly so called.
The cognition is merely an inference from the
feeling; and its-object, at least, only, some hypothe-
tical representation of a really ignotum quid. Here
the subjective element preponderates so greatly as
almost to extinguish the objective.—!!.
+ This is not correct. See above, p. 205, col. b
note *, and Note D.—H.
* As already repeatedly observed, the objective
element (perception) and the subjective element
(feeling, sensation) are always in the inverse ratio
of each othcr. This is a law of which Reid and the
philosophers were not aware.—H.
f Not in the toe. e.vclusively. But, both in ancient
and modern times, the opinion has been held that
the mind has as much a local presence in the toe as in
the head. The doctrine, indecd, long generally main-
tained was, that, in relation to the body, the soulis all
in the whole, and all in every part. On the question of
the seat of the soul, which has been marvellously
perplexed, I cannot enter. I shall only say, in gene-
ral, that the first condition of the possibility of an
[249, 250]
320
[Essay 1:.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
What shall we say then in this case ? Do
our senses really deceive us, and make us
believe a thing which our reason determines
to be impossible 2 [251] I answer, first,
That, when a man says he has pain in his toe,
he is perfectly understood, both by himself
and those who hear him. This is all that
he intends. He really feels what he and
all men call a pain in the toe ; and there is
no deception in the matter. Whether,
therefore, there be any impropriety in the
phrase or not, is of no consequence in com-
mon life. It answers all the ends of speech,
both to the speaker and the hearers.
In all languages there are phrases which
have a distinct meaning; while, at the
same time, there may be something in the
structure of them that disagrees with the
analogy of grammar or with the principles
of philosophy. And the reason is, because
language is not made either by gramma-
rians or philosophers. Thus, we speak of
feeling pain, as if pain was something dis-
tinct from the feeling of it. We speak of
pain coming and going, and removing from
one place to another. Such phrases are
meant by those who use them in a sense
that is neither obscure nor false. But the
philosopher puts them into his alembic,
reduces them to their first principles, draws
out of them a sense that was never meant,
and so imagines that he has discovered an
error of the vulgar.
I observe, secondly, That, when we con-
sider the sensation of pain by itself, with-
out any respect to its cause, we cannot say
with propriety, that the toe is either the
place or the subject of it. But it ought to
be remembered, that, when we speak of pain
in the toe, the sensation is combined in our
thought, with the cause of it, which really is
in the toe. The cause and the effect are
combined in one complex notion, and the
same name serves for both. It is the busi-
ness of the philosopher to analyse this com-
plex notion, and to give different names to
its different ingredients. He gives the
name of pain to the sensation only, and the
name of disorder to the unknown cause of
it. Then it is evident that the disorder
only is in the toe, and that it would be an
error to think that the pain is in it." But
we ought not to ascribe this error to the
vulgar, who never made the distinction, and
who, under the name of pain, comprehend
both the sensation and its cause.-- (252]
doctrine of common sense.
immediate, intuitive, or real perception of external
things, which our consciousness assures that we pos-
sess, is the immediate connection of the cognitive
rinciple with every part of the corporeal organism.—
* Only if the toe be considered as a mere material
mass, and apart from an animating principle.—H.
f That the pain is where it is felt is, however, the
We only feel in as much
as we have a body and a soul; we only feel pain in
the toe in as much as we have such a member, and in
Cases sometimes happen, which give
occasion even to the vulgar to distinguish
the painful sensation from the disorder
which is the cause of it. A man who has had
his leg cut off, many years after feels pain
in a toe of that leg. The toe has now no
existence; and he perceives easily, that the
toe can neither be the place nor the subject
of the pain which he feels; yet it is the
same feeling he used to have from a hurt
in the toe ; and, if he did not know that his
leg was cut off, it would give him the same
immediate conviction of some hurt or dis-
order in the toe. * -
The same phenomenon may lead the
philosopher, in all cases, to distinguish sens-
ation from perception. We say, that the
man had a deceitful feeling, when he felt a
pain in his toe after the leg was cut off;
and we have a true meaning in saying so.
But, if we will speak accurately, our sensa-
tions cannot be deceitful; they must be
what we feel them to be, and can be no-
thing else. Where, then, lies the deceit P I
answer, it lies not in the sensation, which
is real, but in the seeming perception he
had of a disorder in his toe. This percep-
tion, which Nature had conjoined with the
Sensation, was, in this instance, fallacious.
The same reasoning may be applied to
every phenomenon that can, with propriety,
be called a deception of sense. As when
one who has the jaundice sees a body
yellow, which is really white ;+ or when a
man sees an object double, because his
eyes are not both directed to it: in these,
and other like cases, the sensations we have
are real, and the deception is only in the
perception which nature has annexed to
them.
Nature has connected our perception of
external objects with certain sensations.
If the sensation is produced, the corre-
sponding perception follows even when there
is no object, and in that case is apt to
deceive us. [253] In like manner, nature
has connected our sensations with certain
impressions that are made upon the nerves
and brain; and, when the impression is
made, from whatever cause, the corre-
sponding sensation and perception imme-
diately follow. Thus, in the man who feels
pain in his toe after the leg is cut off, the
nerve that went to the toe, part of which was
cut off with the leg, had the same impres-
sion made upon the remaining part, which,
in the natural state of his body, was caused
as much as the mind, or sentient principle, pervades
it. We just as much feel in the toe as we think in
in the head. If (but only if) the latter be a vitium
subreptionis, as Kant thinks, so is the former.—H.
* This illustration is Des Cartes'. If correct, it
only shews that the connection of mind with organ-
ization extends from the centre to the circumference
of the nervous system, and is not limited to any
part.—H.
f The man does not see the white body at alk— H.
[251–253]
chap. xviii.] OF OTHER OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION.
321
by a hurt in the toe : and immediately this
impression is followed by the sensation and
perception which nature connected with it."
In like manner, if the same impressions
which are made at present upon my optic
nerves by the objects before me, could be
made in the dark, I apprehend that I
should have the same sensations and see
the same objects which I now see. The im-
pressions and sensations would in such a case
be real, and the perception only fallacious.*
Let us next consider the notions which
our senses give us of those attributes of
bodies called powers. This is the more
necessary, because power seems to imply
Some activity; yet we consider body as a
dead inactive thing, which does not act, but
may be acted upon.
Of the mechanical powers ascribed to
bodies, that which is called their vis insita
or inertia, may first be considered. By
this is meant, no more than that bodies
never change their state of themselves,
either from rest to motion, or from motion
to rest, or from one degree of velocity or
one direction to another. In order to
produce any such change, there must be
Some force impressed upon them; and the
change produced is precisely proportioned
to the force impressed, and in the direction
of that force.
That all bodies have this property, is a
matter of fact, which we learn from daily
observation, as well as from the most accu-
rate experiments... [254] Now, it seems
plain, that this does not imply any activity
in body, but rather the contrary. A power
in body to change its state, would much
rather imply activity than its continuing in
the same state : so that, although this
property of bodies is called their vis insita,
or vis inertia, it implies no proper activity.
If we consider, next, the power of gravity,
it is a fact that all the bodies of our pla-
netary system gravitate towards each other.
This has been fully proved by the great
Newton. But this gravitation is not con-
ceived by that philosopher to be a power
inherent in bodies, which they exert of
themselves, but a force impressed upon
them, to which they must necessarily yield.
Whether this force be impressed by some
subtile aether, or whether it be impressed by
the power of the Supreme Being, or of some
subordinate spiritual being, we do not know;
but all sound natural philosophy, particu-
larly that of Newton, supposes it to be an
- impressed force, and not inherent in bodies.--
So that, when bodies gravitate, they do
2–
* This is a doctrine which cannot be reconciled
with that of an intuitive or objective perception.
All here is subjective.—H. -
# That all activity supposes an immaterial or spi-
orilual agent, is an ancient doctrine. It is, however,
only an hypothesis.-H. -
not properly act, but are acted upon : they
only yield to an impression that is made
upon them. It is common in language to
express, by active verbs, many changes in
things wherein they are merely passive :
and this way of speaking is used chiefly
when the cause of the change is not obvious
to sense. Thus we say that a ship Sails,
when every man of common sense knows
that she has no inherent power of motion,
and is only driven by wind and tide. In
like manner, when we say that the planets
gravitate towards the Sun, we mean no more
but that, by some unknown power, they are
drawn or impelled in that direction.
What has been said of the power of gra-
vitation may be applied to other mechanical
powers, such as cohesion, magnetism, elec-
thicity; and no less to chemical and medical
powers. By all these, certain effects are
produced, upon the application of one body
to another. [255] Our senses discover the
effect; but the power is latent. We know
there must be a cause of the effect, and we
form a relative notion of it from its effect; and
very often the same name is used to signify
the unknown cause, and the known effect.
We ascribe to vegetables the powers of
drawing nourishment, growing and multi-
plying their kind. Here likewise the effect
is manifest, but the cause is latent to sense.
These powers, therefore, as well as all the
other powers we ascribe to bodies, are un-
known causes of certain known effects. It
is the business of philosophy to investigate
the nature of those powers as far as we are
able ; but our senses leave us in the dark.
We may observe a great similarity in the
notions which our senses give us of second-
ary qualities, of the disorders we feelin our
own bodies, and of the various powers of
bodies which we have enumerated. They
are all obscure and relative notions, being
a conception of Some unknown cause of a
known effect. Their names are, for the
most part, common to the effect and to
its cause ; and they are a proper subject
of philosophical disquisition. They might,
therefore, I think, not improperly be called
occult qualities.
This name, indeed, is fallen into disgrace
since the time of Des Cartes. It is said to
have been used by the Peripatetics to cloak
their ignorance, and to stop all inquiry into
the nature of those qualities called occult.
Be it so. Let those answer for this abuse
of the word who were guilty of it. To call a
thing occult, if we attend to the meaning
of the word, is rather modestly to confess
ignorance, than to cloak it. It is to point
it out as a proper subject for the investiga-
tion of philosophers, whose proper business
it is to better the condition of humanity, by
discovering what was before hid from human
knowledge. [256.]
[254–256.]
- Y
322
[ESSAY II.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
Were I therefore to make a division of
the qualities of bodies as they appear to our
senses, I would divide them first into those
that are manifest and those that are occult.
The manifest qualities are those which Mr
Locke calls primary ; such as Extension,
Figure, Divisibility, Motion, Hardness,
Softness, Fluidity. The nature of these is
manifest even to sense ; and the business of
the philosopher with regard to them, is not
to find out their nature, which is well known,
but to discover the effects produced by their
various combinations; and, with regard to
those of them which are not essential to
matter, to discover their causes as far as
he is able.
The second class consists of occult quali-
ties, which may be subdivided into various
kinds : as, first, the secondary qualities;
secondly, the disorders we feel in our own
bodies; and, thirdly, all the qualities which
we call powers of bodies, whether mechani-
cal, chemical, medical, animal, or vegetable;
or if there be any other powers not compre-
hended under these heads. Of all these the
existence is manifest to sense, but the nature
is occult ; and here the philosopher has an
ample field.
What is necessary for the conduct of our
animal life, the bountiful Author of Nature
hath made manifest to all men. But there
are many other choice secrets of Nature,
the discovery of which enlarges the power
and exalts the state of man. These are left
to be discovered by the proper use of our
rational powers. They are hid, not that
they may be always concealed from human
knowledge, but that we may be excited to
search for them. This is the proper busi-
ness of a philosopher, and it is the glory of
a man, and the best reward of his labour,
to discover what Nature has thus con-
cealed. [257]
CHAPTER XIX.
OF MATTER AND OF SPACE.
THE objects of sense we have hitherto
considered are qualities. But qualities must
have a subject. We give the names of
matler, material substance, and body, to the
subject of sensible qualities; and it may be
asked what this matter is.
I perceive in a billiard ball, figure, colour,
and motion ; but the ball is not figure, nor
is it colour, nor motion, nor all these taken
together ; it is something that has figure,
and colour, and motion. This is a dictate
of nature, and the belief of all mankind.
As to the nature of this something, I am
afraid we can give little account of it, but
that it has the qualities which our senses
discover.
But how do we know that they are qua-
lities, and cannot exist without a subject 2
I confess I cannot explain how we know
that they cannot exist without a subject,
any more than I can explain how we know
that they exist. We have the information
of nature for their existence ; and I think
we have the information of nature that they
are qualities.
The belief that figure, motion, and colour
are qualities, and require a subject, must
either be a judgment of nature, or it must
be discovered by reason, or it must be a
prejudice that has no just foundation. There
are philosophers who maintain that it is a
mere prejudice; that a body is nothing but
a collection of what we call sensible quali-
ties; and that they neither have nor need
any subject. This is the opinion of Bishop
Berkeley and Mr Hume; and they were
led to it by finding that they had not in
their minds any idea of substance. [258]
It could neither be an idea of sensation nor
of reflection.
But to me nothing seems more absurd
than that there should be extension without
anything extended, or motion without any-
thing moved ; yet I cannot give reasons for
my opinion, because it seems to me self-
evident, and an immediate dictate of my
nature.
And that it is the belief of all mankind,
appears in the structure of all languages;
in which we find adjective nouns used to
express sensible qualities. It is well known
that every adjective in language must belong
to Some substantive expressed or under-
stood—that is, every quality must belong
to Some subject.
Sensible qualities make so great a part of
the furniture of our minds, their kinds are
So many, and their number so great, that,
if prejudice, and not nature, teach us to
ascribe them all to a subject, it must have
a great work to perform, which cannot be
accomplished in a short time, nor carried
on to the same pitch in every individual.
We should find not individuals only, but
nations and ages, differing from each other
in the progress which this prejudice had
made in their sentiments; but we find no
Such difference among men. What one man
accounts a quality, all men do, and ever did.
It seems, therefore, to be a judgment of
nature, that the things immediately per-
ceived are qualities, which must belong to
a subject ; and all the information that our
senses give us about this subject, is, that
it is that to which such qualities belong.
From this it is evident, that our notion of
body or matter, as distinguished from its
qualities, is a relative notion;" and I am
* That is—our notion of absolute body is relative.
This is incorrectly expressed. We can know, we can
[257, 258]
GII AP. XIX.]
323
OF MATTER AND OF SPACE.
afraid it must always be obscure until men
have other faculties. [259]
The philosopher, in this, seems to have
no advantage above the vulgar; for, as
they perceive colour, and figure, and motion
by their senses as well he does, and both
are equally certain that there is a subject
of those qualities, so the notions which
both have of this subject are equally ob-
scure. When the philosopher calls it a
substratum, and a subject of inhesion, those
learned words convey no meaning but what
every man understands and expresses, by
saying, in common language, that it is a
thing extended, and solid, and movable.
The relation which sensible qualities bear
to their subject—that is, to body—is not,
however, so dark but that it is easily dis-
tinguished from all other relations. Every
man can distinguish it from the relation
of an effect to its cause; of a mean to its
end; or of a sign to the thing signified by
it. .
I think it requires some ripeness of un-
derstanding to distinguish the qualities of a
body from the body. Perhaps this dis-
tinction is not made by brutes, nor by in-
fants; and if any one thinks that this dis-
tinction is not made by our senses, but by
some other power of the mind, I will not
dispute this point, provided it be granted
that men, when their faculties are ripe,
have a natural conviction that sensible qua-
lities cannot exist by themselves without
some subject to which they belong.
I think, indeed, that some of the determ-
lmations we form concerning matter can-
not be deduced solely from the testimony
of sense, but must be referred to some other
SOUll'Ce.
There seems to be nothing more evident
than that all bodies must consist of parts;
and that every part of a body is a body, and
a distinct being, which may exist without the
other parts; and yet I apprehend this con-
clusion is not deduced solely from the testi-
mony of sense: for, besides that it is a
necessary truth, and, therefore, no object
of sense,” there is a limit beyond which we
cannot perceive any division of a body.
The parts become too small to be perceived
by Our Senses; but we cannot believe that
it becomes then incapable of being farther
divided, or that such division would make
it not to be a body. [260]
We carry on the division and subdivision
in our thought far beyond the reach of our
senses, and we can find no end to it; nay,
I think we plainly discern that there can
be no limit beyond which the division can-
not.be carried.
For, if there be any limit to this division,
one of two things must necessarily happen:
either we have come by division to a body
which is extended, but has no parts, and is
absolutely indivisible ; or this body is divi-
sible, but, as soon as it is divided, it becomes
no body. Both these positions seem to me
absurd, and one or the other is the neces-
sary consequence of supposing a limit to the
divisibility of matter.
On the other hand, if it is admitted that
the divisibility of matter has no limit, it
will follow that no body can be called one
individual substance. You may as well
call it two, or twenty, or two hundred. For,
when it is divided into parts, every part is
a being or substance distinct from all the
other parts, and was so even before the di-
vision. Any one part may continue to
exist, though all the other parts were an-
nihilated.
There is, indeed, a principle long re-
ceived as an axiom in metaphysics, which
I cannot reconcile to the divisibility of mat-
ter; it is, that every being is one, omne ens
est unum. By which, I suppose, is meant,
that everything that exists must either be
one indivisible being, or composed of a de-
terminate number of indivisible beings.
Thus, an army may be divided into regi-
ments, a regiment into companies, and a
company into men. But here the division
has its limit; for you cannot divide a man
without destroying him, because he is an
individual; and everything, according to
this axiom, must be an individual, or made
up of individuals. [261 | -
That this axiom will hold with regard to
an army, and with regard to many other
things, must be granted; but I require the
evidence of its being applicable to all beings
whatsoever.
Leibnitz, conceiving that all beings must
have this metaphysical unity, was by this
led to maintain that matter, and, indeed,
the whole universe, is made up of monads—
that is, simple and indivisible substances.
Perhaps, the same apprehension might
lead Boscovich into his hypothesis, which
seems much more ingenious—to wit, that
conceive, only what is relative. Uur knowledge of
qualities or phanomcma is necessarily relative; for
these exist only as they exist in relation to own facul-
ties. The knowledge, or even the conception, of a
substance in itself, and apart from any qualities in
relation to, and therefore cognisable or conceivable
by, our minds, involves a contradiction. Of such we
can form only a megative notion ; that is, we can
merely conceive it as inconceivable. But to call this ne-
gative motion a relative motion, is wrong ; 19, because
all our (positive) notions are relative; and 2°, because
this is itself a negative notion—i.e., no notion at all—
simply because there is no relation. The same im-
proper application of the term relative was also made
by Reid when speaking of the secondary qualities.—H.
* It is creditable to Reid that he perceived that
the quality of necessity is the criterion which distin-
guishes native from adventitious notions or judg-
ments. He did not, however, always make the proper
use of it. Leibnitz has the honour of first explicitly
enouncing this criterion, and Kant of first fully ap-
plying it to the phaënomena. In none has Kant been
more successful than in this under consideration.—
[259–261]
Y 2
324
[ESSAY 11.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
matter is composed of a definite number of
umathematical points, endowed with certain
powers of attraction and repulsion.
The divisibility of matter without any
limit, seems to me more tenable than either
of these hypotheses; nor do I lay much
stress upon the metaphysical axiom, con-
sidering its origin. Metaphysicians thought
proper to make the attributes common to
all beings the subject of a science. . It
must be a matter of some difficulty to find
out such attributes ; and, after racking
their invention, they have specified three—
to wit, Unity, Verity, and Goodness; and
these, I suppose, have been invented to
make a number, rather than from any clear
evidence of their being universal.
There are other determinations concern-
ing matter, which, I think, are not solely
founded upon the testimony of sense ; such
as, that it is impossible that two bodies
should occupy the same place at the same
time; or that the same body should be in
different places at the same time; or that
a body can be moved from one place to
another, without passing through the inter-
mediate places, either in a straight course,
or by some circuit. These appear to be
necessary truths, and therefore cannot be
conclusions of our senses; for our senses
testify only what is, and not what must ne-
cessarily be." [262]
We are next to consider our notion of
Space. It may be observed that, although
space be not perceived by any of our senses
when all matter is removed, yet, when we
perceive any of the primary qualities, space
presents itself as a necessary concomitant ;+
for there can neither be extension nor mo-
tion, nor figure nor division, nor cohesion
of parts, without space.
There are only two of our senses by which
the notion of space enters into the mind—
to wit, touch and sight. If we suppose a
man to have neither of these senses, I do
not see how he could ever have any concep-
tion of space,; Supposing him to have
both, until he sees or feels other objects,
he can have no notion of space. It has
neither colour nor figure to make it an
object of sight: it has no tangible quality
to make it an object of touch. But other
objects of sight and touch carry the notion
of space along with them ; and not the
notion only, but the belief of it; for a body
could not exist if there was no space to con-
tain it. It could not move if there was
no space. Its situation, its distance, and
every relation it has to other bodies, suppose
space.
But, though the notion of space seems
not to enter, at first, into the mind, until it
is introduced by the proper objects of sense,
yet, being once introduced, it remains in
our conception and belief, though the objects
which introduced it be removed. We see
no absurdity in supposing a body to be an-
nihilated; but the space that contained it
remains; and, to suppose that annihilated,
Seems to be absurd. It is so much allied
to nothing or emptiness, that it seems in-
capable of annihilation or of creation.*
Space not only retains a firm hold of our
belief, even when we suppose all the objects
that introduced it to be annihilated, but it
Swells to immensity. We can set no limits
to it, either of extent or of duration. Hence
We call it immense, eternal, immovable,
and indestructible. But it is only an im-
mense, eternal, immovable, and indestruc-
tible void or emptiness. Perhaps we may
apply to it what the Peripatetics said of
their first matter, that, whatever it is, it is
potentially only, not actually. [263]
When we consider parts of space that
have measure and figure, there is nothing
we understand better, nothing about which
we can reason so clearly, and to so great
extent. Extension and figure are circum-
scribed parts of space, and are the object of
geometry, a Science in which human reason
has the most ample field, and can go deeper,
and with more certainty, than in any other.
But, when we attempt to comprehend the
whole of space, and to trace it to its origin,
we lose ourselves in the search. The pro-
found speculations of ingenious men upon
this subject differ so widely as may lead
us to suspect that the line of human under-
standing is too short to reach the bottom
of it.
Bishop Berkeley, I think, was the first
who observed that the extension, figure, and
Space, of which we speak in common lan-
guage, and of which geometry treats, are
originally perceived by the sense of touch
only ; but that there is a notion of exten-
sion, figure, and space, which may be got
by sight, without any aid from touch. To
distinguish these, he calls the first tangible
extension, tangible figure, and tangible
space. The last he calls visible.
As I think this distinction very import-
ant in the philosophy of our senses, I shall
adopt the names used by the inventor to
express it ; remembering what has been
already observed—that space, whether tan-
gible or visible, is not so properly an object
of sense, as a necessary concomitant of the
objects both of sight and touch.
* See last note.-H.
f See above, p. 124, note +.—H.
# Vide supra, p. 123, col. b, notes *, + ; and p.
126, col. b, note *.-H.
* His doctrine of space is an example of Reid's
imperfect application of the criterion of necessity.
See p. 123, note f. It seemingly required but little to
rise to Kant's view of the conception of space, as an
a priori or native form of thought.—H.
f See above, p. 124, note +.-H.
* [262, 263]
CHAP. XIX.]
OF MATTER AND OF SPACE. 325
The reader may likewise be pleased to
attend to this, that, when I use the names of
tangible and visible space, I do not mean to
adopt Bishop Berkeley's opinion, so far as
to think that they are really different things,
and altogether unlike. I take them to be
different conceptions of the same thing;
the one very partial, and the other more
complete; but both distinct and just, as far
as they reach. [264]
Thus, when I see a spire at a very great
distance, it seems like the point of a bodkin;
there appears no vane at the top, no angles.
But, when I view the same object at a small
distance, I see a huge pyramid of several
angles, with a vane on the top. Neither
of these appearances is fallacious. Each of
them is what it ought to be, and what it
must be, from such an object seen at such
different distances. These different appear-
ances of the same object may serve to illus-
trate the different conceptions of space,
according as they are drawn from the in-
formation of sight alone, or as they are
drawn from the additional information of
touch.
Our sight alone, unaided by touch, gives
a very partial notion of space, but yet a
distinct one. When it is considered accord-
ing to this partial notion, I call it visible
space. The sense of touch gives a much
more complete notion of space; and, when
it is considered according to this notion, I
call it tangible space. Perhaps there may
be intelligent beings of a higher order, whose
conceptions of space are much more com-
plete than those we have from both senses.
Another sense added to those of sight and
touch, might, for what I know, give us con-
ceptions of space as different from those we
can now attain as tangible space is from
visible, and might resolve many knotty
points concerning it, which, from the imper-
fection of our faculties, we cannot, by any
labour, untie.
Berkeley acknowledges that there is an
exact correspondence between the visible
figure and magnitude of objects, and the
tangible; and that every modification of
the one has a modification of the other cor-
responding. He acknowledges, likewise,
that Nature has established such a con-
nection between the visible figure and mag-
nitude of an object, and the tangible, that
we learn by experience to know the tan-
gible figure and magnitude from the visible.
And, having been accustomed to do so from
infancy, we get the habit of doing it with
such facility and quickness that we think
we see the tangible figure, magnitude, and
distance of bodies, when, in reality, we only
collect those tangible qualities from the
corresponding visible qualities, which are
natural signs of them. [265]
The correspondence and connection which
Berkeley shews to be between the visible
figure and magnitude of objects, and their
tangible figure and magnitude, is in some
respects very similar to that which we have
observed between our sensations and the
primary qualities with which they are con-
nected. No sooner is the sensation felt,
than immediately we have the conception
and belief of the corresponding quality.
We give no attention to the sensation; it
has not a name; and it is difficult to per-
suade us that there was any such thing.
In like manner, no sooner is the visible
figure and magnitude of an object seen, than
immediately we have the conception and
belief of the corresponding tangible figure
and magnitude. We give no attention to
the visible figure and magnitude. It is
immediately forgot, as if it had never been
perceived; and it has no name in common
language ; and, indeed, until Berkeley
pointed it out as a subject of speculation,
and gave it a name, it had none among
philosophers, excepting in one instance,
relating to the heavenly bodies, which are
beyond the reach of touch. With regard
to them, what Berkeley calls visible magni-
tude was, by astronomers, cased apparent
magnitude. -
There is surely an apparent magnitude,
and an apparent figure of terrestrial objects,
as well as of celestial ; and this is what
Berkeley calls their visible figure and mag-
nitude. But this was never made an object
of thought among philosophers, until that
author, gave it a name, and observed the
correspondence and connection between it
and tangible magnitude and figure, and how
the mind gets the habit of passing so in-
stantaneously from the visible figure as a
sign to the tangible figure as the thing
signified by it, that the first is perfectly
forgot as if it had never been perceived.
[266]
Visible figure, extension, and space, may
be made a subject of mathematical specula-
tion as well as the tangible. In the visible,
we find two dimensions only ; in the tan-
gible, three. In the one, magnitude is mea-
sured by angles; in the other, by lines.
Every part of visible space bears some pro-
portion to the whole; but tangible space
being immense, any part of it bears no pro-
portion to the whole.
Such differences in their properties led
Bishop Berkeley to think that visible and
tangible magnitude and figure are things
totally different and dissimilar, and cannot
both belong to the same object.
And upon this dissimilitude is grounded
one of the strongest arguments by which his
system is supported. For it may be said,
if there be external objects which haye a
real extension and figure, it must be either
tangible extension and figure, or visible, or
[264—266]
326
- [Essay II.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL Powers.
&
As
both." The last appears absurd ; nor was
it ever maintained by any man, that the
same object has two kinds of extension and
figure totally dissimilar. There is then only
one of the two really in the object ; and the
other must be ideal. But no reason can be
assigned why the perceptions of one sense
should be real, while those of another are
only ideal; and he who is persuaded that
the objects of sight are ideas only, has
equal reason to believe so of the objects of
touch.
This argument, however, loses all its
force, if it be true, as was formerly hinted,
that visible figure and extension are only a
partial conception, and the tangible figure
and extension a more complete conception
of that figure and extension which is really
in the object. [267]
It has been proved very fully by Bishop
Berkeley, that sight alone, without any aid
from the informations of touch, gives us no
perception, nor even conception of the dis-
tance of any object from the eye. But he
was not aware that this very principle over-
turns the argument for his system, taken
from the difference between visible and
tangible extension and figure. For, Sup-
posing external objects to exist, and to have
that tangible extension and figure which we
perceive, it follows demonstrably, from the
principle now mentioned, that their visible
extension and figure must be just what we
see it to be.
The rules of perspective, and of the pro-
jection of the sphere, which is a branch of
perspective, are demonstrable. They sup-
pose the existence of external objects, which
have a tangible extension and figure ; and,
upon that supposition, they demonstrate
what must be the visible extension and figure
of such objects, when placed in such a posi-
tion and at such a distance. -
Hence, it is evident that the visible figure
and extension of objects is so far from being
incompatible with the tangible, that the first
is a necessary consequence from the last in
beings that see as we do. The correspond-
ence between them is not arbitrary, like that
between words and the thing they signify, as
Berkeley thought; but it results necessarily
from the nature of the two senses; and this
correspondence being always found in ex-
perience to be exactly what the rules of per-
spective shew that it ought to be if the senses
give true information, is an argument of the
truth of both.
* Or meither. And this omitted supposition is the
true. For neither sight nor touch give us full and
accurate information in regard to the real extension
and figure of objects. See above p. 126, notes *;
and p. 303, col. b, note *.-H.
f if tangible figure and extension be only “a more
complete conception,” &c., it cannot be a cognition
of real figure and extension.—H. &
2
CHAPTER, XX.
OF THE EVIDENCE OF SENSE, AND OF BELIEF
IN GIENERAL,
THE intention of nature in the powers
which we call the external senses, is evident.
They are intended to give us that informa-
tion of external objects which the Supreme
Being saw to be proper for us in our pre-
sent state; and they give to all mankind
the information necessary for life, without
reasoning, without any art or investigation
on our part. [268]
The most uninstructed peasant has as
distinct a conception and as firm a belief
of the immediate objects of his senses, as
the greatest philosopher ; and with this he
rests satisfied, giving himself no concern
how he came by this conception and belief.
But the philosopher is impatient to know
how his conception of external objects, and
his belief of their existence, is produced.
This, I am afraid, is hid in impenetrable
darkness. But where there is no know-
ledge, there is the more room for conjecture,
and of this, philosophers have always been
very liberal.
The dark eave and shadows of Plato," the
species of Aristotle, the films of Epicurus,
and the ideas and impressions of modern
philosophers, £are the productions of human
fancy, successively invented to satisfy the
eager desire of knowing how we perceive
external objects ; but they are all deficient
in the two essential characters of a true and
; philosophical account of the phaenomenon :
for we neither have any evidence of their
existence, nor, if they did exist, can it be
shewn how they would produce perception.
It was before observed, that there are
two ingredients in this operation of percep-
tion : first, the conception or notion of the
object ; and, secondly, the belief of its pre-
sent existence. Both are unaccountable.
That we can assign no adequate cause of
our first conceptions of things, I think, is
now acknowledged by the most enlightened
philosophers. We know that such is our
constitution, that in certain circumstances
we have certain conceptions; but how they
are produced we know no more than how
we ourselves were produced. [269]
When we have got the conception of ex-
ternal objects by our senses, we can ana-
lyse them in our thought into their sim-
ple ingredients; and we can compound
those ingredients into various new forms,
which the senses never presented. But it is
* See p. 262, col. b, note *.-H.
f See Note M.–H.
# 13y ideas, as repeatedly noticed, Reid under-
stands always certain representative entities distinct
from the knowing mind.
[267. 269]
CHAP. xx.]
327
OF THE EVIDENCE OF SENSE, &c.
beyond the power of human imagination to
form any conception, whose simple ingre-
dients have not been furnished by nature in a
manner unaccountable to our understanding.
We have an immediate conception of the
operations of our own minds, joined with a
a belief of their existence ; and this we call
consciousness." But this is only giving a
name to this source of our knowledge. It
is not a discovery of its cause. In like man-
ner, we have, by our external senses, a
conception of external objects, joined with a
belief of their existence; and this we call
perception. But this is only giving a name
to another source of our knowledge, without
discovering its cause.
We know that, when certain impressions
are made upon our organs, nerves, and
brain, certain corresponding sensations are
felt, and certain objects are both conceived
and believed to exist. But in this train
of operations nature works in the dark.
We can neither discover the cause of any
one of them, nor any necessary connection
of one with another ; and, whether they
are connected by any necessary tie, or only
conjoined in our constitution by the will of
heaven, we know not.--
That any kind of impression upon a body
should be the efficient cause of Sensation, ap-
pears very absurd. Nor can we perceive
any necessary connection between sensation
and the conception and belief of an external
object. For anything wa can discover, we
might have been so framed as to have all
the sensations we now have by our senses,
without any impressions upon our organs,
and without any conception of any external
object. For anything we know, we might
have been so made as to perceive external
objects, without any impressions on bodily
organs, and without any of those sensa-
tions which invariably accompany percep-
tion in our present frame. [270]
If our conception of external objects be
unaccountable, the conviction and belief of
their existence, which we get by our senses,
is no less so.:
Belief, assent, conviction, are words'
which I do not think admit of logical defin-
ition, because the operation of mind sig-
nified by them is perfectly simple, and of
its own kind. Nor do they need to be de-
fined, because they are common words, and
well understood.
Belief must have an object. For he
that believes must believe something; and
that which he believes, is called the object
of his belief. Of this object of his belief,
he must have some conception, clear or ob-
scure; for, although there may be the most
clear and distinct conception of an object
without any belief of its existence, there
can be no belief without conception.”
Belief is always expressed in language by
a proposition, wherein something is affirmed
or denied. This is the form of speech
which in all languages is appropriated to
that purpose, and without belief there could
be neither affirmationnor denial, nor should
we have any form of words to express
either. Belief admits of all degrees, from
the slightest suspicion to the fullest assur-
ance. These things are so evident to
every man that reflects, that it would be
abusing the reader's patience to dwell upon
them.
I proceed to observe that there are many
operations of mind in which, when we
analyse them as far as we are able, we find
belief to be an essential ingredient. A man
cannot be conscious of his own thoughts,
without believing that he thinks. He can-
not perceive an object of sense, without be-
lieving that it exists.T. He cannot distinctly
remember a past event, without believing
that it did exist. Belief therefore is an
ingredient in consciousness, in perception,
and in remembrance. [271]
Not only in most of our intellectual oper-
ations, but in many of the active princi-
ples of the human mind, belief enters as an
ingredient. Joy and sorrow, hope and
fear, imply a belief of good or ill, either pre-
sent or in expectation. Esteem, gratitude,
pity, and resentment, imply a belief of cer-
tain qualities in their objects. In every
action that is done for an end, there must
be a belief of its tendency to that end. So
large a share has belief in our intellectual
* Here consciousness is made to consist in concep-
tion. But, as Reid could hardly mean that con-
sciousness conceives (i. e., represents) the operations
about which it is conversant, and is not intuitively
cognigant of them, it would seem that he occasionally
employs conception for knowledge. This is of im-
portance in explaining favourably Reid’s use of the
word Conception in relation to Perception. But then,
how vague and vacillating is his language l–H.
# See p. 257, col, b, note *.-H.
# If an immediate knowledge of external things—
that is, a consciousness of the qualities of the 220m-
ego—be admitted, the belief of their existence follows
of course. On this supposition, therefore, such a
belief would not be unaccountable; for it would be
accounted for by the fact of the knowledge in which
it would necessarily be contained. Our belief, in this
case, of the existence of external objects, would not
be more inexplicable than our belief that 2+2 = 4.
In both cases it would be sufficient to say, we believe
because we know; for belief is only unaccountable
when it is not the consequent or concomitant of
knowledge. By this, however, I do not, of course,
mean to say that knowledge is not in itself marvel-
lous and unaccountable. This statement of Reid
again favours the opinion that his doctrine of percep-
tion is not really immediate.—H.
* Is conception here equivalent to knowledge or to
thought 9–H.
+ 'Mr Stewart (Elem. J., ch. iii., p. 146, and Essays,
II., ch. ii., p. 79, sq.) proposes a supplement to this
doctrine of Reid, in order to explain why we believe
in the existence of the qualities of external objects
when they are not the objects of our perception.
This belief he holds to be the result of carperience, in
combination with an original principle of our consti-
tution, whereby we are determined to believe in the
permanence of the laws of malwre.—H.
[270, 271]
328
[ESSAY Ir.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL Powers.
operations, in our active principles, and in
our actions themselves, that, as faith in
things divine is represented as the main
spring in the life of a Christian, so belief in
general is the main spring in the life of a man.
That men often believe what there is no
just ground to believe, and thereby are led
into hurtful errors, is too evident to be
denied. And, on the other hand, that there
are just grounds of belief can as little be
doubted by any man who is not a perfect
sceptic.
We give the name of evidence to what-
ever is a ground of belief. To believe with-
out evidence is a weakness which every
man is concerned to avoid, and which every
man wishes to avoid. Nor is it in a man's
power to believe anything longer than he
thinks he has evidence.
What this evidence is, is more easily felt
than described. Those who never reflected
upon its nature, feel its influence in govern-
ing their belief. It is the business of the
logician to explain its nature, and to dis-
tinguish its various kinds and degrees; but
every man of understanding can judge of it,
and commonly judges right, when the evi-
dence is fairly laid before him, and his
mind is free from prejudice. A man who
knows nothing of the theory of vision may
have a good eye; and a man who never
speculated about evidence in the abstract
may have a good judgment. [272]
The common occasions of life lead us to
distinguish evidence into different kinds, to
which we give names that are well under-
stood ; such as the evidence of sense, the
evidence of memory, the evidence of con-
sciousness, the evidence of testimony, the
evidence of axioms, the evidence of reason-
ing. All men of common understanding
agree that each of these kinds of evidence
may afford just ground of belief, and they
agree very generally in the circumstances
that strengthen or weaken them.
Philosophers have endeavoured, by ana-
łysing the different sorts of evidence, to
ind out some common nature wherein they
all agree, and thereby to reduce them all
to one. This was the aim of the school-
inen in their intricate disputes about the
criterion of truth. Des Cartes placed this
criterion of truth in clear and distinct per-
ception, and laid it down as a maxim, that
whatever we clearly and distinctly perceive
to be true, is true; but it is difficult to
know what he understands by clear and
distinct perception in this maxim. Mr
Locke placed it in a perception of the agree-
ment or disagreement of our ideas, which
perception is immediate in intuitive know-
ledge, and by the intervention of other ideas
I Il Tea,SOIllingº,
I confess that, although I have, as I
f'iink, a distinct notion of the different
kinds of evidence above-mentioned, and,
perhaps, of some others, which it is unne-
cessary here to enumerate, yet I am not
able to find any common nature to which
they may all be reduced. They seem to
me to agree only in this, that they are all
fitted by Nature to produce belief in the
A human mind, some of them in the highest.
degree, which we call certainty, others in
various degrees according to circumstances.
I shall take it for granted that the evi-
dence of sense, when the proper circum-
stances concur, is good evidence, and a just
ground of belief. My intention in this
place is only to compare it with the other
kinds that have been mentioned, that we
may judge whether it be reducible to any of
them, or of a nature peculiar to itself. [273]
First, It seems to be quite different from
the evidence of reasoning. All good evi-
dence is commonly called reasonable evi-
dence, and very justly, because it ought to
govern our belief as reasonable creatures.
And, according to this meaning, I think the
evidence of sense no less reasonable than
that of demonstration.” If Nature give
us information of things that concern us,
by other means than by reasoning, reason
itself will direct us to receive that inform-
ation with thankfulness, and to make the
best use of it.
But, when we speak of the evidence of
reasoning as a particular kind of evidence,
it means the evidence of propositions that
are inferred by reasoning, from propositions
already known and believed. T Thus, the
evidence of the fifth proposition of the
first book of Euclid's Elements consists in
this, That it is shewn to be the necessary
consequence of the axioms, and of the pre-
ceding propositions. In all reasoning, there
must be one or more premises, and a con-
clusion drawn from them. And the pre-
mises are called the reason why we must
believe the conclusion which we see to fol-
low from them.
That the evidence of sense is of a differ-
ent kind, needs little proof. No man seeks
a reason for believing what he sees or feels;
and, if he did, it would be difficult to find
one. But, though he can give no reason
for believing his senses, his belief remains
as firm as if it were grounded on demon-
stration.
Many eminent philosophers, thinking it
unreasonable to believe when they could not
shew a reason, have laboured to furnish us
with reasons for believing our senses; but
their reasons are very insufficient, and
will not bear examination. Other philoso-
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272,378
CHAP. xx.]
329
OF THE EVIDENCE OF SENSE, &c.
phers have shewn very clearly the fallacy
of these reasons, and have, as they imagine,
discovered invincible reasons against this be-
lief; but they have never been able either
to shake it in themselves, or to convince
others. [274] The statesman continues to
plod, the soldier to fight, and the merchant
to export and import, without being in the
least moved by the demonstrations that
have been offered of the non-existence of
those things about which they are so seri-
ously employed. And a man may as Soon,
by reasoning, pull the moon out of her orbit,
as destroy the belief of the objects of sense.
Shall we say, then, that the evidence
of sense is the same with that of axioms,
or self-evident truths 2 I answer, First,
That, all modern philosophers seem to agree
that the existence of the objects of sense
is not self-evident, because some of them
have endeavoured to prove it by subtle rea-
soning, others to refute it. Neither of
these can consider it as self-evident.
Secondly, I would observe that the word
aviom is taken by philosophers in such a
sense as that the existence of the objects
of sense cannot, with propriety, be called
an axiom. They give the name of axiom
only to self-evident truths, that are neces-
sary, and are not limited to time and place,
but must be true at all times and in all
places. The truths attested by our senses
are not of this kind; they are contingent,
and limited to time and place.
Thus, that one is the half of two, is an
axiom. It is equally true at all times and
in all places. We perceive, by attending
to the proposition itself, that it cannot but
be true; and, therefore, it is called an eter-
nal, necessary, and immutable truth. That
there is at present a chair on my right hand,
and another on my left, is a truth attested
by my senses; but it is not necessary, nor
eternal, nor immutable. It may not be
true next minute ; and, therefore, to call it
an axiom would, I apprehend, be to deviate
from the common use of the word. [275]
Thirdly, If the word axiom be put to
signify every truth which is known imme-
diately, without being deduced from any
antecedent truth, then the existence of the
objects of sense may be called an axiom ;
for my senses give me as immediate con-
viction of what they testify, as my under-
standing gives of what is commonly called
an axiom.
There is, no doubt, an analogy between
the evidence of sense and the evidence of
testimony. Hence, we find, in all lan-
guages, the analogical expressions of the
testimony of sense, of giving credit to our
senses, and the like. But there is a real
difference between the two, as well as a
similitude. In believing upon testimony,
we rely upon the authority of a person who
testifies ; but we have no such authority for
believing our senses.
Shall we say, then, that this belief is the
inspiration of the Almighty 2 I think this
may be said in a good sense ; for I take it
to be the immediate effect of our constitu-
tion, which is the work of the Almighty.
But, if inspiration be understood to imply
a persuasion of its coming from God, our
belief of the objects of sense is not inspira-
tion; for a man would believe his senses
though he had no notion of a Deity. He
who is persuaded that he is the workman-
ship of God, and that it is a part of his
constitution to believe his senses, may
think that a good reason to confirm his
belief. But he had the belief before he could
give this or any other reason for it.
If we compare the evidence of sense with
that of memory, we find a great resem-
blance, but still some difference. I remem-
ber distinctly to have dined yesterday with
such a company. What is the meaning of
this 2 It is, that I have a distinct con-
ception and firm belief of this past event;
not by reasoning, not by testimony, but
immediately from my constitution. And I
give the name of memory to that part of
my constitution by which I have this kind
of conviction of past events. [276] -
I see a chair on my right hand. What
is the meaning of this 2 It is, that I have,
by my constitution, a distinct conception
and firm belief of the present existence of
the chair in such a place and in such a
position; and I give the name of seeing to
that part of my constitution by which I
have this immediate conviction. The two
operations agree in the immediate convic-
tion which they give. They agree in this
also, that the things believed are not
necessary, but contingent, and limited to
time and place. But they differ in two
respects :-First, That memory has some-
thing for its object that did exist in time
past; but the object of sight, and of all the
Senses, must be something which exists at
present;-and, Secondly, That I see by my
eyes, and only when they are directed to
the object, and when it is illuminated. But
my memory is not limited by any bodily
organ that I know, nor by light and dark-
ness, though it has its limitations of another
kind:*
These differences are obvious to all men,
and very reasonably lead them to consider
seeing and remembering as operations spe-
cifically different. But the nature of the
evidence they give, has a great resemblance.
* There is a more important difference than these
omitted. In memory, we cannot possibly be con-
scious or immediately cognisant of any object beyond
the modifications of the ego itself. In perception, (if
an ammediate perception be allowed,) we must be
conscious, or immediately cognisant, of some phano-
menon of the non-ego.—H. -
[274–276]
330
[ESSAY II.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
A like difference and a like resemblance 1
there is between the evidence of sense and
that of consciousness, which I leave the
reader to trace.
As to the opinion that evidence consists
in a perception of the agreement or dis-
agreement of ideas, we may have occasion
to consider it more particularly in another
place. Here I only observe, that, when
taken in the most favourable sense, it may
be applied with propriety to the evidence of
reasoning, and to the evidence of some
axioms. But I cannot see how, in any
sense, it can be applied to the evidence of
consciousness, to the evidence of memory,
or to that of the senses.
When I compare the different kinds of
evidence above-mentioned, I confess, after
all, that the evidence of reasoning, and that
of some necessary and self-evident truths,
seems to be the least mysterious and the
most perfectly comprehended; and there-
fore I do not think it strange that philoso-
phers should have endeavoured to reduce all
kinds of evidence to these. [277]
When I See a proposition to be self-evi-
dent and necessary, and that the subject is
plainly included in the predicate, there seems
to be nothing more that I can desire in order
to understand why I believe it. And when
I See a consequence that necessarily follows
from one or more self-evident propositions, I
want nothing more with regard to my belief
of that consequence. The light of truth so
fills my mind in these cases, that I can
neither conceive nor desire anything more
Satisfying.
On the other hand, when I remember dis-
tinctly a past event, or see an object before
my eyes, this commands my belief no less
than an axiom. But when, as a philosopher,
I reflect upon this belief, and want to trace it
to its origin, I am not able to resolve it into
necessary and self-evident axioms, or con-
clusions that are necessarily consequent
upon them. ..I seem to want that evidence
which I can best comprehend, and which
gives perfect satisfaction to an inquisitive
mind; yet it is ridiculous to doubt; and I
find it is not in my power. An attempt to
throw off this belief is like an attempt to fly,
equally ridiculous and impracticable.
To a philosopher, who has been accus-
tomed to think that the treasure of his know-
ledge is the acquisition of that reasoning
power of which he boasts, it is no doubt
humiliating to find that his reason can lay no
claim to the greater part of it. .
By his reason, he can discover certain
abstract and necessary relations of things;
but his knowledge of what really exists, or
did exist, comes by another channel, which
is open to those who cannot reason. He is
led to it in the dark, and knows not how he
came by it. [278]
It is no wonder that the pride of philo-
sophy should lead some to invent vain
theories in order to account for this know-
ledge; and others, who see this to be im-
practicable, to spurn at a knowledge they
cannot account for, and vainly attempt to
throw it off as a reproach to their under-
standing. But the wise and the humble
will receive it as the gift of Heaven, and
endeavour to make the best use of it.
CHAPTER, XXI.
OF THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE SENSES.
Our senses may be considered in two
views: first, As they afford us agreeable
Sensations, or subject us to such as are dis-
agreeable; and, secondly, As they give us
information of things that concern us.
In the first view, they neither require nor
admit of improvement. Both the painful
and the agreeable sensations of our external
senses are given by nature for certain ends;
and they are given in that degree which is
the most proper for their end. By dimin-
ishing or increasing them, we should not
Imend, but mar the work of Nature.
Bodily pains are indications of some dis-
order or hurt of the body, and admonitions
to use the best means in our power to pre-
vent or remove their causes. As far as this
can be dome by temperance, exercise, regi-
men, or the skill of the physician, every man
hath sufficient inducement to do it.
When pain cannot be prevented or re-
moved, it is greatly alleviated by patience
and fortitude of mind. While the mind is
Superior to pain, the man is not unhappy,
though he may be exercised. It leaves no
sting behind it, but rather matter of triumph
and agreeable reflection, when borne pro-
perly, and in a good cause. [279] The
Canadians have taught us that even Savages
may acquire a Superiority to the most ex-
cruciating pains; and, in every region of
the earth, instances will be found, where a
sense of duty, of honour, or even of worldly
interest, have triumphed over it.
It is evident that nature intended for man,
in his present state, a life of labour and
toil, wherein he may be occasionally exposed
to pain and danger ; and the happiest man
is not he who has felt least of those evils,
but he whose mind is fitted to bear them by
real magnanimity.
Our active and perceptive powers are
improved and perfected by use and exercise.
This is the constitution of nature. But,
with regard to the agreeable and disagree-
able sensations we have by our senses, the
very contrary is an established constitution
of nature—the frequent repetition of them
weakens their force. Sensations at first very
[277–279]
chap. xxi.] OF THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE SENSES.
331
disagreeable, by use become tolerable, and
at last perfectly indifferent. And those that
are at first very agreeable, by frequent re-
petition become insipid, and at last, per-
haps, give disgust. Nature has set limits
to the pleasures of sense, which we cannot
pass ; and all studied gratifications of them,
as it is mean and unworthy of a man, so it
is foolish and fruitless.
The man who, in eating and drinking,
and in other gratifications of sense, obeys
the calls of Nature, without affecting deli-
cacies and refinements, has all the enjoy-
ment that the senses can afford. If one
could, by a soft and luxurious life, acquire
a more delicate sensibility to pleasure, it
must be at the expense of a like sensibility
to pain, from which he can never promise
exemption, and at the expense of cherishing
many diseases which produce pain.
The improvement of our external senses,
as they are the means of giving us informa-
tion, is a subject more worthy of our atten-
tion; for, although they are not the noblest
and most exalted powers of our nature, yet
they are not the least useful. [280] All
that we know, or can know, of the material
world, must be grounded upon their inform-
ation ; and the philosopher, as well as the
day-labourer, must be indebted to them for
the largest part of his knowledge.
Some of our perceptions by the senses
may be called original, because they require
no previous experience or learning ; but
the far greatest part is acquired, and the
fruit of experience.
Three of our senses—to wit, smell, taste,
and hearing—originally give us only certain
Sensations, and a conviction that these sensa-
tions are occasioned by some external object.
We give a name to that quality of the ob-
ject by which it is fitted to produce such a
sensation, and connect that quality with the
object, and with its other qualities.
Thus we learn, that a certain sensation
of smell is produced by a rose; and that
quality in the rose, by which it is fitted to
produce this sensation, we call the smell of
the rose. Here it is evident that the sensa-
tion is original. The perception that the
rose has that quality which we call its
Smell, is acquired. In like manner, we
learn all those qualities in bodies which we
call their smell, their taste, their sound.
These are all secondary qualities, and we
give the same name to them which we give
to the sensations they produce; not from
any similitude between the sensation and
the quality of the same name, but because
the quality is signified to us by the sensation
as its sign, and because our senses give us
no other knowledge of the quality but that
it is fit to produce such a sensation.
By the other two senses, we have much
more ample information. By sight, we
learn to distinguish objects by their colour,
in the same manner as by their sound,
taste, and smell. By this sense, we perceive
visible objects to have extension in two
dimensions, to have visible figure and
magnitude, and a certain angular distance
from one another. These, I conceive, are
the original perceptions of sight." [281]
By touch, we not only perceive the tem-
perature of bodies as to heat and cold, ºf
which are secondary qualities, but we per-
ceive originally their three dimensions, their
tangible figure and magnitude, their linear
distance from one another, their hardness,
softness, or fluidity. These qualities we
originally perceive by touch only; but, by
experience, we learn to perceive all or most
of them by sight.
We learn to perceive, by one sense, what
originally could have been perceived only
by another, by finding a connection between
the objects of the different senses. Hence
the original perceptions, or the sensations
of one sense become signs of whatever has
always been found connected with them ;
and from the sign, the mind passes imme-
diately to the conception and belief of the
thing signified. And, although the connec-
tion in the mind between the sign and the
thing signified by it, be the effect of custom,
this custom becomes a second nature, and
it is difficult to distinguish it from the ori-
ginal power of perception.
Thus, if a sphere of one uniform colour
be set before me, I perceive evidently by my
eye its spherical figure and its three dimen-
sions. All the world will acknowledge
that, by sight only, without touching it, I'
may be certain that it is a sphere ; yet it :
is no less certain that, by the original power
of sight, I could not perceive it to be a
sphere, and to have three dimensions. The
eye originally could only perceive two di-
mensions, and a gradual variation of colour
on the different sides of the object.
It is experience that teaches me that the
variation of colour is an effect of spherical
convexity, and of the distribution of light
and shade. But so rapid is the progress of
the thought, from the effect to the cause,
that we attend only to the last, and can
hardly be persuaded that we do not imme-
diately see the three dimensions of the
sphere. [282]
Nay, it may be observed, that, in this
case, the acquired perception in a manner
effaces the original one; for the sphere is
seen to be of one uniform colour, though
originally there would have appeared a
gradual variation of colour. But that ap-
* See above, p. 123, col. b, note f, and p. 185, Col. 3,
note *.
# Whether heat, cold, &c., be objects of touch or
of a different sense, it is not here the place to inquire.
[280–282]
332.
[ESSAY 11.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
parent variation we learn to interpret as
the effect of light and shade falling upon a
sphere of one uniform colour.
A sphere may be painted upon a plane,
so exactly, as to be taken for a real sphere
when the eye is at a proper distance and
in the proper point of view. We say in
this case, that the eye is deceived, that the
appearance is fallacious. But there is no
fallacy in the original perception, but only
in that which is acquired by custom. The
variation of colour, exhibited to the eye by
the painter's art, is the same which nature
exhibits by the different degrees of light
falling upon the convex surface of a sphere.
In perception, whether original or ac-
quired, there is something which may be
called the sign, and something which is
signified to us, or brought to our knowledge
by that sign.
In original perception, the signs are the
various sensations which are produced by
the impressions made upon our organs. The
things signified, are the objects perceived
in consequence of those sensations, by the
original constitution of our nature.
Thus, when I grasp an ivory ball in my
hand, I have a certain sensation of touch.
Although this sensation be in the mind and
have no similitude to anything material,
yet, by the laws of my constitution, it is
immediately followed by the conception
and belief, that there is in my hand a hard
Smooth body of a spherical figure, and about
an inch and a half in diameter. This belief
is grounded neither upon reasoning, nor
upon experience ; it is the immediate effect
of my constitution, and this I call original
perception.” [283]
In acquired perception, the sign may be
either a sensation, or something originally
9erceived. The thing signified, is something
which, by experience, has been found con-
nected with that sign.
Thus, when the ivory ball is placed be-
fore my eye, I perceive by sight what I
before perceived by touch, that the ball is
smooth, spherical, of such a diameter, and
at such a distance from the eye; and to
this is added the perception of its colour.
All these things I perceive by sight, dis-
tinctly and with certainty. Yet it is cer-
tain from principles of philosophy, that, if I
had not been accustomed to compare the
informations of sight with those of touch,
I should not have perceived these things
by sight. I should have perceived a circu-
lar object, having its colour gradually more
faint towards the shaded side. But I should
not have perceived it to have three dimen-
sions, to be spherical, to be of such a linear
magnitude, and at such a distance from the
eye. That these last mentioned are not
original perceptions of sight, but acquired
by experience, is sufficiently evident from
the principles of optics, and from the art of
painters, in painting objects of three dimen-
sions, upon a plane which has only two.
And it has been put beyond all doubt, by
observations recorded of several persons,
who having, by cataracts in their eyes,
been deprived of sight from their infancy,
have been couched and made to see, after
they came to years of understanding."
Those who have had their eyesight from
infancy, acquire such perceptions so early
that they cannot recollect the time when
they had them not, and therefore make no
distinction between them and their original
perceptions; nor can they be easily per-
suaded that there is any just foundation
for such a distinction. [284] In all lan-
guages men speak with equal assurance of
their seeing objects to be spherical or cubi-
cal, as of their feeling them to be so ; mor
do they ever dream that these perceptions
of sight were not as early and original as
the perceptions they have of the same ob-
jects by touch.
This power which we acquire of perceiv-
ing things by our senses, which originally
we should not have perceived, is not the
effect of any reasoning on our part : it is
the result of our constitution, and of the
situations in which we happen to be placed.
We are so made that, when two things
are found to be conjoined in certain circum-
stances, we are prone to believe that they
are connected by nature, and will always be
found together in like circumstances. The
belief which we are led into in such cases is
not the effect of reasoning, nor does it arise
from intuitive evidence in the thing believed;
it is, as I apprehend, the immediate effect of
our constitution. Accordingly, it is strongest
in infancy, before our reasoning power
appears—before we are capable of draw-
ing a conclusion from premises. A child
who has once burnt his finger in a candle,
from that single instance connects the pain
of burning with putting his finger in the
candle, and believes that these two things
must go together. It is obvious that this
part of our constitution is of very great use
before we come to the use of reason, and
guards us from a thousand mischiefs, which,
without it, we would rush into ; it may
sometimes lead us into error, but the good
effects of it far overbalance the ill.
It is, no doubt, the perfection of a rational
being to have no belief but what is grounded
on intuitive evidence, or on just reasoning:
but man, I apprehend, is not such a being;
nor is it the intention of nature that he
should be such a being, in every period of
his existence. We corne into the world
*—
* See above, p. 111, etcalibi...—H.
* See above, p. 136, note f, and p. 182, note *.-H.
[283, 284.j
OhAP. xxi.] OF THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE SENSES.
333
without the exercise of reason ; we are
merely animal before we are rational crea-
tures; and it is necessary for our preserva-
tion, that we should believe many things be-
fore we can reason. How then is our belief
to be regulated before we have reason to
regulate it 2 [285] Has nature left it to be
regulated by chance 2 By no means. It is
regulated by certain principles, which are
parts of our constitution; whether they
ought to be called animal principles, or in-
stinctive principles, or what name we give
to them, is of small moment; but they are
certainly different from the faculty of rea-
Son : they do the office of reason while it is
in its infancy, and must, as it were, be car-
ried in a nurse's arms, and they are leading-
strings to it in its gradual progress.
From what has been said, I think it ap-
pears that our original powers of perceiving
objects by our senses receive great improve-
ment by use and habit ; and without this
improvement, would be altogether insuf-
ficient for the purposes of life. The daily
occurrences of life not only add to our stock
of knowledge, but give additional percep-
tive powers to our senses; and time gives
us the use of our eyes and ears, as well as
of our hands and legs.
This is the greatest and most important
improvement of our external senses. It is
to be found in all men come to years of un-
derstanding, but it is various in different
persons according to their different occupa-
tions, and the different circumstances in
which they are placed. Every artist re-
quires an eye as well as a hand in his own
profession ; his eye becomes skilled in per-
ceiving, no less than his hand in executing,
what belongs to his employment.
Besides this improvement of our senses,
which nature produces without our inten-
tion, there are various ways in which they
may be improved, or their defects re-
medied by art. As, first, by a due care of
the organs of sense, that they be in a sound
and natural state. This belongs to the de-
partment of the medical faculty.
Secondly, By accurate attention to the
objects of sense. The effects of such atten-
tion in improving our senses, appear in every
art. The artist, by giving more attention
to certain objects than others do, by that
means perceives many things in those ob-
jects which others do not. [286] Those
who happen to be deprived of one sense,
frequently supply that defect in a great de-
gree, by giving more accurate attention to
the objects of the senses they have. The
blind have often been known to acquire un-
common acuteness in distinguishing things
by feeling and hearing ; and the deaf are
uncommonly quickin reading men's thoughts
in their countenance.
A third way in which our senses admit of
improvement, is, by additional organs, or in-
struments contrived by art. By the inven-
tion of optical glasses, and the gradual im-
provement of them, the natural power of
vision is wonderfully improved, and a vast
addition made to the stock of knowledge
which we acquire by the eye. By speaking-
trumpets and ear-trumpets some improve-
ment has been made in the sense of hearing.
Whether by similar inventions the other
senses may be improved, seems uncertain.
A fourth method by which the informa-
tion got by our senses may be improved, is,
by discovering the connection which nature
hath established between the sensible quali-
ties of objects, and their morelatent qualities.
By the sensible qualities of bodies, I un-
derstand those that are perceived immedi-
ately by the senses, such as their colour,
figure, feeling, sound, taste, Smell. The
various modifications and various combin-
ations of these, are innumerable; so that
there are hardly two individual bodies in
Nature that may not be distinguished by
their sensible qualities.
The latent qualities are such as are not
immediately discovered by our senses; but
discovered sometimes by accident, some-
times by experiment or observation. The
most important part of our knowledge of
bodies is the knowledge of the latent qua-
lities of the several species, by which they
are adapted to certain purposes, either for
food, or medicine, or agriculture, or for the
materials or utensils of Some art or manu-
facture. [287]
I am taught that certain species of bodies
have certain latent qualities; but how shall
I know that this individual is of such a
species 2 This must be known by the sen-
sible qualities which characterise the species.
I must know that this is bread, and that
wine, before I eat the one or drink the
other. I must know that this is rhubarb,
and that opium, before I use the one or the
other for medicine.
It is one branch of human knowledge to
know the names of the various species of
natural and artificial bodies, and to know
the sensible qualities by which they are
ascertained to be of such a species, and by
which they are distinguished from one an-
other. It is another branch of knowledge
to know the latent qualities of the several
species, and the uses to which they are
subservient.
The man who possesses both these
branches is informed, by his senses, of in-
numerable things of real moment which are
hid from those who possess only one, or
neither. This is an improvement in the
information got by our senses, which must
keep pace with the improvements made in
natural history, in natural philosophy, and
in the arts.
[285-287)
334
[Essay II.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
It would be an improvement still higher
if we were able to discover any connection
between the sensible qualities of bodies and
their latent qualities, without knowing the
species, or what may have been discovered
with regard to it.
Some philosophers, of the first rate, have
made attempts towards this noble improve-
ment, not without promising hopes of suc-
cess. Thus, the celebrated Linnaeus has
attempted to point out certain sensible qua-
lities by which a plant may very probably
be concluded to be poisonous without know-
ing its name or species. He has given se-
veral other instances, wherein certain medi-
cal and economical virtues of plants are
indicated by their external appearances.
Sir Isaac Newton hath attempted to shew
that, from the colours of bodies, we may
form a probable conjecture of the size of
their constituent parts, by which the rays
of light are reflected. [288]
No man can pretend to set limits to the
discoveries that may be made by human
genius and industry, of such connections
between the latent and the sensible quali-
ties of bodies. A wide field here opens to
our view, whose boundaries no man can
ascertain, of improvements that may here-
after be made in the information conveyed
to us by our senses.
CHAIPTER XXII.
OF THE FALLACY OF THE SENSES.
CoMPLAINTs of the fallacy of the senses
have been very common in ancient and in
modern times, especially among the philo-
sophers. And, if we should take for granted
all that they have said on this subject, the
natural conclusion from it might seem to
be, that the senses are given to us by some
malignant demon on purpose to delude us,
rather than that they are formed by the
wise and beneficent Author of Nature, to
give us true information of things necessary
to our preservation and happiness.
The whole sect of atomists among the
ancients, led by Democritus, and afterwards
by Epicurus, maintained that all the quali-
ties of bodies which the moderns call se-
condary qualities—to wit, Smell, taste, Sound,
colour, heat, and cold—are mere illusions of
sense, and have no real existence.* Plato
maintained that we can attain no real know-
ledge of material things; and that eternal
and immutable ideas are the only objects of |
real knowledge. The academics and scep-
tics anxiously sought for arguments to
prove the fallaciousness of our senses, in
order to support their favourite doctrine,
* Not Gorrectly stated. See above, p. 316, note $.
The Epicureans denied the fallacy of Sense.—H.
that even in things that seem most evident,
we ought to withhold assent. [289]
Among the Peripatetics we find frequent
complaints that the senses often deceive us,
and that their testimony is to be suspected,
when it is not confirmed by reason, by which
the errors of sense may be corrected. This
complaint they supported by many com-
monplace instances: such as, the crooked
appearance of an oar in water; objects being
magnified, and their distance mistaken, in
a fog; the Sun and moon appearing about
a foot or two in diameter, while they are
really thousands of miles; a square tower
being taken at a distance to be round. These,
and many similar appearances, they thought
to be sufficiently accounted for from the
fallacy of the senses : and thus the fallacy
of the senses was used as a decent cover to
conceal their ignorance of the real causes of
such phaenomena, and served the same pur-
pose as their occult qualities and substantial
forms. *
Des Cartes and his followers joined in
the same complaint. Antony le Grand, a
philosopher of that sect, in the first chapter
of his Logic, expresses the sentiments of
the sect as follows: “Since all our senses are
fallacious, and we are frequently deceived
by them, common reason advises that we
should not put too much trust-in them, nay,
that we should suspect falsehood in every-
thing they represent; for it is imprudence
and temerity to trust to those who have but
oncedeceivedus; and, if they err at any time,
they may be believed always to err. They
are given by nature for this purpose only
to warn us of what is useful and what is
hurtful to us. The order of Nature is per-
verted when we put them to any other
use, and apply them for the knowledge of
truth.”
When we consider that the active part
of mankind, in all ages from the beginning
of the world, have rested their most import-
ant concerns upon the testimony of sense,
it will be very difficult to reconcile their
conduct with the speculative opinion So
generally entertained of the fallaciousness
of the senses. [290] And it seems to be
a very unfavourable account of the work-
manship of the Supreme Being, to think
that he has given us one faculty to deceive
us—to wit, our senses; and another faculty
—to wit, our reason—to detect the fallacy.
It deserves, therefore, to be considered,
$.
whether the fallaciousness of our senses be
inot a common error, which men have been
led into, from a desire to conceal their igno-
rance, or to apologize for their mistakes.
There are two powers which we owe to
* A very inaccurate representation of the Peripa-
tetic doctrine touching this matter. In fact, the Ari-
stotelian doctrine, and that of Reid himself, are
almost the same.-H.
[288–290]
oh AP, xxi.1.] OF THE FALLACY OF THE SENSES.
335
our external senses—sensation, and the per-
ception of external objects.
It is impossible that there can be any
fallacy in Sensation : for we are conscious of
all our sensations, and they can neither be
any other in their nature, nor greater or
less in their degree than we feel them. It
is impossible that a man should be in pain,
When he does not feel pain; and when hé
feels pain, it is impossible that his pain
should not be real, and in its degree what
it is felt to be ; and the same thing may be
said of every sensation whatsoever. An
agreeable or an uneasy sensation may be
forgot when it is past, but when it is pre-
sent, it can be nothing but what we feel.
If, therefore, there be any fallacy in our
senses, it must be in the perception of ex-
termal objects, which we shall next con-
sider.
And here I grant that we can conceive
powers of perceiving external objects more
perfect than ours, which, possibly, beings of a
higher order may enjoy. We can perceive
external objects only by means of bodily or-
gans ; and these are liable to various dis-
orders, which sometimes affect our powers
of perception. The nerves and brain, which
are interior organs of perception, are like-
wise liable to disorders, as every part of the
human frame is. [29]]
The imagination, the memory, the judging
and reasoning powers, are all liable to be
hurt, or even destroyed, by disorders of the
body, as well as our powers of perception;
but we do not on this account call them
fallacious.
Our Senses, our memory, and our reason,
are all limited and imperfect—this is the
lot of humanity : but they are such as the
Author of our being,saw to be best fitted
for usin our present state. Superior natures
may have intellectual powers which we have
not, or such as we have, in a more perfect
degree, and less liable to accidental disor-
ders; but we have no reason to think that
God has given fallacious powers to any of
his creatures: this would be to think dis-
honourably of our Maker, and would lay a
foundation for universal scepticism.
The appearances commonly imputed to
the fallacy of the senses are many and of
different kinds; but I think they may be
reduced to the four following classes.
First, Many things called deceptions of
the senses are only conclusions rashly drawn
from the testimony of the senses. In these
cases the testimony of the senses is true,
but we rashly draw a conclusion from it,
which does not necessarily follow. We are
disposed to impute our errors rather to false
information than to inconclusive reasoning,
and to blame our senses for the wrong con-
clusions we draw from their testimony.
Thus, when a man has taken a counter-
feit guinea for a true one, he says his senses
deceived him ; but he lays the blame where
it ought not to be laid : for we may ask him,
Did your senses give a false testimony of
the colour, or of the figure, or of the im-
pression ? No. But this is all that they
testified, and this they testified truly : From
these premises you concluded that it was a
true guinea, but this conclusion does not
follow ; you erred, therefore, not by relying
upon the testimony of sense, but by judging
rashly from its testimony. [292] Not only
are your senses innocent of this error, but
it is only by their information that it can be
discovered. If you consult them properly,
they will inform you that what you took for
a guinea is base metal, or is deficient in
weight, and this can only be known by the
testimony of sense.
I remember to have met with a man who
thought the argument used by Protestants
against the Popish doctrine of transubstan-
tiation, from the testimony of our senses,
inconclusive; because, said he, instances
may begiven where several of our senses may
deceive us : How do we know then that
there may not be cases wherein they all
deceive us, and no sense is left to detect the
fallacy 2 I begged of him to know an in-
stance wherein several of our senses deceive
us. I take, said he, a piece of soft turf; I
cut it into the shape of an apple; with the
essence of apples, I give it the smell of an
apple ; and with paint, I can give it the skin
and colour of an apple. Here then is a body,
which, if you judge by your eye, by your
touch, or by your Smell, is an apple.
To this I would answer, that no one of
our senses deceives us in this case. My
sight and touch testify that it has the shape
ard colour of an apple: this is true. The
sense of smelling testifies that it has the
Smell of an apple: this is likewise true, and
is no deception. Where then lies the de-
ception ? It is evident it lies in this—that
because this body has some qualities belong-
ing to an apple I conclude that it is an apple.
This is a fallacy, not of the senses, but of
inconclusive reasoning.
Many false judgments that are accounted
deceptions of sense, arise from our mistaking
relative motion for real or absolute motion.
These can be no deceptions of sense, because
by our senses we perceive only the relative
motions of bodies; and it is by reasoning
that we infer the real from therelative which
we perceive. A littlexeflection may satisfy
us of this. [293]
It was before observed, that we perceive
extension to be one sensible quality of
bodies, and thence are necessarily led to
conceive space, though space be of itself
no object of sense. When a body is re-
moved out of its place, the space which it
filled remains empty till it is filled by some
[291–293]
336
[ESSAY II.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
other body, and would remain if it should
never be filled. Before any body existed, the
space which bodies now occupy was empty
space, capable of receiving bodies; for no
body can exist where there is no space to
contain it. There is space therefore where-
ever bodies exist, or can exist.
Hence it is evident that space can have
no limits. It is no less evident that it is
immovable. Bodies placed in it are mov-
able, but the place where they were cannot
be moved ; and we can as easily conceive a
thing to be moved from itself, as one part
of space brought nearer to or removed
farther from another.
The space, therefore, which is unlimited
and immovable, is called by philosophers
absolute space. Absolute or real motion is
a change of place in absolute space.
Our senses do not testify the absolute
motion or absolute rest of any body. When
one body removes from another, this may
be discerned by the senses; but whether
any body keeps the same part of absolute
space, we do not perceive by our senses.
When one body seems to remove from an-
other, we can infer with certainty that there
is absolute motion, but whether in the one
or the other, or partly in both, is not dis-
cerned by sense.
Of all the prejudices which philosophy
contradicts, I believe there is none so general
as that the earth keeps its place unmoved.
This opinion seems to be universal, till it
is corrected by instruction or by philoso-
phical speculation. Those who have any
tincture of education are not now in danger
of being held by it, but they find at first a
reluctance to believe that there are anti-
podes; that the earth is spherical, and turns
round its axis every day, and round the sun
every year : they can recollect the time
when reason struggled with prejudice upon
these points, and prevailed at length, but
not without some effort. [294]
The cause of a prejudice so very general
is not unworthy of investigation. But that
is not our present business. It is sufficient
to observe, that it cannot justly be called a
fallacy of sense; because our senses testify
only the change of situation of one body in
relation to other bodies, and not its change
of situation in absolute space. It is only
the relative motion of bodies that we per-
ceive, and that we perceive truly. It is
the province of reason and philosophy, from
the relative motions which we perceive, to
collect the real and absolute motions which
produce them.
All motion must be estimated from some
point or place which is supposed to be at
rest. We perceive not the points of abso-
lute space, from which real and absolute
motion must be reckoned ; And there are
obvious reasons that lead mankind in the
state of ignorance, to make the earth the
fixed place from which they may estimate
the various motions they perceive. The
custom of doing this from infancy, and of
using constantly a language which supposes
the earth to be at rest, may perhaps be the
cause of the general prejudice in favour of
this opinion.
Thus it appears that, if we distinguish
accurately between what our senses really
and naturally testify, and the conclusions
which we draw from their testimony by
reasoning, we shall find many of the errors,
called fallacies of the senses, to be no fal-
lacy of the senses, but rash judgments,
which are not to be imputed to our senses.
Secondly, Another class of errors imputed
to the fallacy of the senses, are those which
we are liable to in our acquired perceptions.
Acquired perception is not properly the
testimony of those senses which God hath
given us, but a conclusion drawn from what
the senses testify. [295] In our past ex-
perience, we have found certain things con-
joined with what our senses testify. We
are led by our constitution to expect this
conjunction in time to come ; and when
we have often found it in our experience to
happen, we acquire a firm belief that the
things which we have found thus conjoined,
are connected in nature, and that one is a
sign of the other. The appearance of the
sign immediately produces the belief of its
usual attendant, and we think we perceive
the one as well as the other.
That such conclusions are formed even
in infancy, no man can doubt : nor is it less
certain that they are confounded with the
natural and immediate perceptions of sense,
and in all languages are called by the same
name. We are therefore authorized by
language to call them perception, and must
often do so, or speak unintelligibly. But
philosophy teaches us, in this, as in many
other instances, to distinguish things which
the vulgar confound. I have therefore
given the name of acquired perception to
such conclusions, to distinguish them from
what is naturally, originally, and imme-
diately testified by our senses. Whether
this acquired perception is to be resolved
into some process of reasoning, of which
we have lost the remembrance, as some
philosophers think, or whether it results
from some part of our constitution distinct
from reason, as I rather believe, does not
concern the present subject. If the first
of these opinions be true, the errors of ac-
quired perception will fall under the first
class before mentioned. If not, it makes
a distinct class by itself. But whether the
one or the other be true, it must be
observed that the errors of acquired per-
ception are not properly fallacies of our
SCIOSess
[294, 295T
CHAP. XXII.]
337
OF THE FALLACY OF THE SENSES.
Thus, when a globe is set before me, I
perceive by my eyes that it has three di-
mensions and a spherical figure. To say
that this is not perception, would be to
reject the authority of custom in the use of
words, which no wise man will do : but
that it is not the testimony of my sense of
Beeing, every philosopher knows. I see
only a circular form, having the light and
colour distributed in a certain way over it.
[296] But, being accustomed to observe
this distribution of light and colour only in
a spherical body, I immediately, from what
I see, believe the object to be spherical, and
say that I see or perceive it to be spherical.
When a painter, by an exact imitation of
that distribution of light and colour which
I have been accustomed to see only in a
real sphere, deceives me, so as to make me
take that to be a real sphere which is only a
painted one, the testimony of my eye is true
—the colour and visible figure of the object
is truly what I see it to be : the error lies
in the conclusion drawn from what I see—
to wit, that the object has three dimensions
and a spherical figure. The conclusion is
false in this case; but, whatever be the
origin of this conclusion, it is not properly
the testimony of sense.
To this class we must refer the judg-
ments we are apt to form of the distance
and magnitude of the heavenly bodies, and
of terrestrial objects seen on high. The
mistakes we make of the magnitude and
distance of objects seen through optical
glasses, or through an atmosphere uncom-
monly clear or uncommonly foggy, belong
likewise to this class.
The errors we are led into in acquired
perception are very rarely hurtful to us in
the conduct of life; they are gradually cor-
rected by a more enlarged experience, and
a more perfect knowledge of the laws of
Nature: and the general laws of our con-
stitution, by which we are sometimes led
into them, are of the greatest utility.
We come into the world ignorant of
everything, and by our ignorance exposed
to many dangers and to many mistakes. The
regular train of causes and effects, which
divine wisdom has established, and which
directs every step of our conduct in advanced
life, is unknown, until it is gradually dis-
covered by experience. [297] .
We must learn much from experience
before we can reason, and therefore must be
liable to many errors. Indeed, I apprehend,
that, in the first part of life, reason would do
us much more hurt than good. Were we
sensible of our condition in that period, and
capable of reflecting upon it, we snould be
like a man in the dark, surrounded with
dangers, where every step he takes, may be
into a pit. Reason would direct him to sit
down, and wait till he could see about him.
In like manner, if we suppose an infant
endowed with reason, it would direct him
to do nothing, till he knew what could be
done with safety. This he can only know
by experiment, and experiments are danger-
ous. Reason directs, that experiments that
are full of danger should not be made with-
out a very urgent cause. It would there-
fore make the infant unhappy, and hinder
his improvement by experience.
Nature has followed another plan. The
child, unapprehensive of danger, is led by
instinct to exert all his active powers, to
try everything without the cautious admo-
nitions of reason, and to believe everything
that is told him. Sometimes he suffers by
his rashness what reason would have pre-
vented: but his suffering proves a salutary
discipline, and makes him for the future
avoid the cause of it. Sometimes he is
imposed upon by his credulity; but it is of
infinite benefit to him upon the whole. His
activity and credulity are more useful qua-
lities and better instructors than reason
would be ; they teach him more in a day
than reason would do in a year; they furnish
a stock of materials for reason to work upon;
they make him easy and happy in a period
of his existence when reason could only
serve to suggest a thousand tormenting
anxieties and fears: and he acts agreeably
to the constitution and intention of nature
even when he does and believes what reason
would not justify. So that the wisdom and
goodness of the Author of nature is no less
conspicuous in withholding the exercise of
our reason in this period, than in bestowing
it when we are ripe for it. [298]
A third class of errors, ascribed to the
fallacy of the senses, proceeds from igno-
rance of the laws of nature.
The laws of nature (I mean not moral
but physical laws) are learned, either from
our own experience, or the experience of
others, who have had occasion to observe
the course of nature.
"Ignorance of those laws, or inattention
to them, is apt to occasion false judgments
with regard to the objects of sense, especial-
ly those of hearing and of sight; which
false judgments are often, without good
reason, called fallacies of sense. -
Sounds affect the ear differently, accord-
ing as the sounding body is before or behind
us, on the right hand or on the left, near or
at a great distance. We learn, by the
manner in which the sound affects the ear,
on what hand we are to look for the sound-
ing body; and in most cases we judge right.
But we are sometimes deceived by echoes,
or by whispering galleries, or speaking
trumpets, which return the sound, or alter
its direction, or convey it to a distance with-
out diminution. -
The deception is still greater, because
[296–298]
Z
338
LESSAY II,
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
more uncommon, which is said to be pro-
duced by Gastriloquists—that is, persons
who have acquired the art of modifying
their voice, so that it shall affect the ear of the
hearers, as if it came from another person,
or from the clouds, or from under the earth.
I never had the fortune to be acquainted
with any of these artists, and therefore can-
not say to what degree of perfection the art
may have been carried. . .
I apprehend it to be only such an im-
perfect imitation as may deceive those who
are inattentive, or under a panic. For, if
it could be carried to perfection, a Gastrilo-
quist would be as dangerous a man in So-
ciety as was the shepherd Gyges,” who, by
turning a ring upon his finger, could make
himself invisible, and, by that means, from
being the king's shepherd, became King of
Lydia. [299] -
If the Gastriloquists have all been to
good men to use their talent to the detri-
ment of others, it might at least be expected
that some of them should apply it to their
own advantage. If it could be brought to
any considerable degree of perfection, it
seems to be as proper an engine for draw-
ing money by the exhibition of it, as leger-
demain or rope-dancing. But I have never
heard of any exhibition of this kind, and
therefore am apt to think that it is too
coarse an imitation to bear exhibition, even
to the vulgar.
Some are said to have the art of imitat-
ing the voice of another so exactly that in
the dark they might be taken for the person
whose voice they imitate. I am apt to
think that this art also, in the relations
made of it, is magnified beyond the truth, as
wonderful relations are apt to be, and that
an attentive ear would be able to distinguish
the copy from the original.
It is indeed a wonderful instance of the
accuracy as well as of the truth of our senses,
in things that are of real use in life, that we
are able to distinguish all our acquaintance
by their countenance, by their voice, and
by their handwriting, when, at the same
time, we are often unable to say by what
minute difference the distinction is made ;
and that we are so very rarely deceived in
matters of this kind, when we give proper
attention to the informations of sense.
However, if any case should happen, in
which sounds produced by different causes
are not distinguishable by the ear, this may
prove that our senses are imperfect, but not
that they are fallacious. The ear may not
be able to draw the just conclusion, but it
is only our ignorance of the laws of sound
that leads us to a wrong conclusion. [300]
Deceptions of sight, arising from igno-
* See Cicero, De Officiis. The story told by Hero-
dotus is different.-H.
rance of the laws of nature, are more numer-
ous and more remarkable than those of
hearing.
The rays of light, which are the means
of seeing, pass in right lines from the object
to the eye, when they meet with no obstruc-
tion ; and we are by nature led to conceive
the visible object to be in the direction of
the rays that come to the eye. But the
rays may be reflected, refracted, or inflected
in their passage from the object to the eye,
according to certain fixed laws of nature,
by which means their direction may be
changed, and consequently the apparent
place, figure, or magnitude of the object.
Thus, a child seeing himself in a mirror,
thinks he sees another child behind the
mirror, that imitates all his motions. But
even a child soon gets the better of this de-
ception, and knows that he sees himself only.
All the deceptions made by telescopes,
microscopes, camera obscuras, magic lan-
thorns, are of the same kind, though not so
familiar to the vulgar. The ignorant may
be deceived by them ; but to those who are
acquainted with the principles of optics,
they give just and true information; and the
laws of nature by which they are produced,
are of infinite benefit to mankind.
There remains another class of errors,
commonly called deceptions of sense, and
the only one, as I apprehend, to which that
name can be given with propriety : I mean
such as proceed from some disorder or pre-
ternatural state, either of the external organ
or of the nerves and brain, which are in-
ternal organs of perception.
In a delirium or in madness, perception,
memory, imagination, and our reasoning
powers, are strangely disordered and con-
founded. There are likewise disorders which
affect some of our senses, while others are
sound. Thus, a man may feel pain in his
toes after the leg is cut off. He may feel a
littleball doubleby crossing his fingers. [30ll
He may see an object double, by not direct-
both eyes properly to it. By pressing the
ball of his eye, he may see colours that are
not real. By the jaundice in his eyes, he
may mistake colours. These are more
properly deceptions of sense than any of the
classes before mentioned.
We must acknowledge it to be the lot of
human nature, that all the human faculties
are liable, by accidental causes, to be hurt
and unfitted for their natural functions,
either wholly or in part : but as this imper-
fection is common to them all, it gives no
just ground for accounting any of them
fallacious.
Upon the whole, it seems to have been a
common error of philosophers to account
the senses fallacious. And to this error
they have added another—that one use of
reason is to detect the fallacies of sense.
[299–301]
CHAP. xxII.]
339
OF THE FALLACY OF THE SENSES.
It appears, I think, from what has been
said, that there is no more reason to account
our senses fallacious, than our reason, our
memory, or any other faculty of judging
which nature hath given us. They are all
limited and imperfect; but wisely suited to
the present condition of man. We are
liable to error and wrong judgment in the
use of them all ; but as little in the inform-
ations of sense as in the deductions of
reasoning. And the errors we fall into with
regard to objects of sense are not corrected
by reason, but by more accurate attention
to the informations we may receive by our
senses themselves. e
. Perhaps the pride of philosophers may
have given occasion to this error. Reason
is the faculty wherein they assume a Supe-
riority to the unlearned. The informations
of sense are common to the philosopher and
to the most illiterate : they put all men
upon a level; and therefore are apt to be
undervalued. We must, however, be be-
holden to the informations of sense for the
greatest and most interesting part of our
knowledge. [302] The wisdom of nature
has made the most useful things most com-
mon, and they ought not to be despised on
that account. Nature likewise forces our
belief in those informations, and all the
attempts of philosophy to weaken it are
fruitless and vain.
I add only one observation to what has
been said upon this subject. It is, that there
seems to be a contradiction between what
philosophers teach concerning ideas, and
their doctrine of the fallaciousness of the
senses. We are taught that the office of
the senses is only to give us the ideas of
external objects. If this be so, there can
be no fallacy in the senses. Ideas can
neither be true nor false. If the senses
testify nothing, they cannot give false testi-
mony. If they are not judging faculties, no
judgment can be imputed to them, whether
false or true. There is, therefore, a contra-
diction between the common doctrine con-
cerning ideas and that of the fallaciousness
of the senses. Both may be false, as Ibelieve
they are, but both cannot be true. [303]
E S S A Y I I I.
OF MEMORY.
CHAPTER. I.
TH INGS OBVIOUS AND CERTAIN WITH REGARD
TO MEMORY.
IN the gradual progress of man, from
infancy to maturity, there is a certain order
in which his faculties are unfolded, and this
seems to be the best order we can follow in
treating of them.
The external senses appear first ; me-
mory soon follows—which we are now to
consider.
It is by memory that we have an imme-
diate knowledge of things past." The
senses give us information of things only as
they exist in the present moment; and this
information, if it were not preserved by
memory, would vanish instantly, and leave
us as ignorant as if it had never been.
Memory must have an object. Every
man who remembers must remember some-
# An immediate knowledge of a past thing is a con-
tradiction. For we can only know a thing imme-
diately, if we know it in itself, or as existing ; but
what is past cannot be known in itself, for it is non-
existent.—H.
thing, and that which he remembers is
called the object of his remembrance. In
this, memory agrees with perception, but
differs from sensation, which has no object
but the feeling itself.” [304]
Every man can distinguish the thing re-
membered from the remembrance of it.
We may remember anything which we have
seen, or heard, or known, or done, or suf-
fered; but the remembrance of it is a par-
ticular act of the mind which now exists,
and of which we are conscious. To con-
found these two is an absurdity, which a
thinking man could not be led into, but by
some false hypothesis which binders him
from reflecting upon the thing which he
would explain by it. - -
In memory we do not find such a train
of operations connected by our constitution
as in perception. When we perceive an
object by our senses, there is, first, some
impression made by the object upon the
organ of sense, either immediately, or by
means of some medium. By this, an im-
+ But have we only such a mediate knowledge of
the real object in perception, as we have of the real
object in memory? On Reid's error, touching the
object of memory, see, in general, Note B.-H.
[302–304]
Z, 2
340
[Essay III:
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
pression is made upon the nerves and brain,
in consequence of which we feel some sensa-
tion; and that sensation is attended by that
conception and belief of the external object
which we call perception. These opera-
tions are so connected in our constitution,
that it is difficult to disjoin them in our con-
ceptions, and to attend to each without con-
founding it with the others. But, in the
operations of memory, we are free from this
embarrassment; they are easily distin-
guished from all other acts of the mind, and
the names which denote them are frce from
all ambiguity.
The object of memory, or thing remem-
bered, must be something that is past ; as
the object of perception and of conscious-
ness must be something which is present.
..What now is, cannot be an object of
memory; neither can that which is past
and gone be an object of perception or of
consciousness.
Memory is always accompanied with the
belief of that which we remember, as per-
ception is accompanied with the belief of
that which we perceive, and consciousness
with the belief of that whereof we are con-
scious. Perhaps in infancy, or in a disorder
of mind, things remembered may be con-
founded with those which are merely ima-
gined ; but in mature years, and in a sound
state of mind, every man feels that he must
believe what he distinctly remembers,
though he can give no other reason of his
belief, but that he remembers the thing dis-
tinctly ; whereas, when he merely imagines
a thing ever so distinctly, he has no belief
of it upon that account. [305]
This belief, which we have from distinct
memory, we account real knowledge, no
less certain than if it was grounded on de-
monstration; no man in his wits calls it in
question, or will hear any argument against
it.* The testimony of witnesses in causes
of life and death depends upon it, and all
the knowledge of mankind of past events is
built on this foundation.
. There are cases in which a man’s me-
mory is less distinct and determinate, and
where he is ready to allow that it may have
failed him ; but this does not in the least
weaken its credit, when it is perfectly dis-
tinct.
Memory implies a conception and belief
of past duration; for it is impossible that a
man should remember a thing distinctly,
without believing some interval of duration,
more or less, to have passed between the
time it happened, and the present moment ;
and I think it is impossible to shew how |
we could acquire a notion of duration if we
had no memory. Things remembered
must be things formerly perceived or
* But see below, p. 362.-H. .
known. I remember the transit of Venus
over the sun in the year 1769. I, must
therefore have perceived it at the time it
happened, otherwise I could not now re-
member it. Our first acquaintance with
any object of thought cannot be by remem-
brance. Memory can only produce a con-
tinuance or renewal of a former acquaint-
ance with the thing remembered.
The remembrance of a past event is ne-
cessarily accompanied with the conviction
of our own existence at the time the event
happened. I cannot remember a thing
that happened a year ago, without a con-
viction as strong as memory can give, that
I, the same identical person who now re-
member that event, did then exist. [306]
What I have hitherto said concerning
memory, I consider as principles which ap-
pear obvious and certain to every man who
will take the pains to reflect upon the oper-
ations of his own mind. They are facts of
which every man must judge by what he
feels; and they admit of no other proof
but an appeal to every man's own reflec-
tion. I shall therefore take them for
granted in what follows, and shall, first,
draw some conclusions from them, and
then examine the theories of philoso-
phers concerning memory, and concerning
duration, and our personal identity, of
which we acquire the knowledge by me-
mory.
CHAPTER II.
MEMORY AN ORIGINAL FACULTY.
FIRST, I think it appears, that memory
is an original faculty, given us by the
Author of our being, of which we can give
Ino account, but that we are so made.
The knowledge which I have of things
past, by my memory, seems to me as unac-
countable as an immediate knowledge
would be of things to come ;" and I can
give no reason why I should have the one
and not the other, but that such is the will
of my Maker. I find in my mind a distinct
conception, and a firm belief of a series of
past events; but how this is produced I
know not. I call it memory, but this is
only giving a name to it—it is not an ac-
count of its cause. I believe most firmly,
what I distinctly remember ; but I can
* An immediate knowledge of things to come, is
equally a contradiction as an immediate knowledge of
things past. See the first note of last page. But if,
as Reid himself allows, memory depend upon cer-
tain enduring affections of the brain, determined by
past cognition, it seems a strange assertion, on this
as on other accounts, that the possibility of a know-
ledge of the future is not more inconceivable than
of a knowledge of the past. Maupertuis, however,
has advanced a similar doctrine; and some, also, of
the advocates of animal magnetism.—H.
[305, 306]
on AP. II.]
341
MEMORY AN ORIGINAL FACULTY.
give no reason of this belief. It is the in-
spiration of the Almighty that gives me
this understanding.” [307]
When I believe the truth of a mathema-
tical axiom, or of a mathematical proposi-
tion, I see that it must be so: every man
who has the same conception of it sees the
same. There is a necessary and an evident
connection between the subject and the pre-
dicate of the proposition ; and I have all
the evidence to support my belief which I
can possibly conceive. ... ,
When I believe that I washed my hands
and face this morning, there appears no me-
cessity in the truth of this proposition. It
might be, or it might not be. A man may
distinctly conceive it without believing it at
all. How then do I come to believe it? I
remember it distinctly. This is all I can
say. This remembrance is an act of my
mind. Is it impossible that this act should
be, if the event had not happened 2 I con-
fess I do not see any necessary connection
between the one and the other. If any man
can shew such a necessary connection, then
I think that belief which we have of what
we remember will be fairly accounted for ;
but, if this cannot be done, that belief is un-
accountable, and we can say no more but
that it is the result of our constitution.
Perhaps it may be said, that the ex-
perience we have had of the fidelity of me-
mory is a good reason for relying upon its
testimony. I deny not that this may be a
reason to those who have had this expe-
rience, and who reflect upon it. . But I be-
lieve there are few who ever thought of this
reason, or who found any need of it. It
must be some very rare occasion that leads
a man to have recourse to it ; and in those
who have done so, the testimony of memory
was believed before the experience of its
fidelity, and that belief could not be caused
by the experience which came after it.
We know some abstract truths, by com-
paring the terms of the proposition which
expresses them, and perceiving some ne-
cessary relation or agreement between them.
It is thus I know that two and three make
five ; that the diameters of a circle are all
equal. [308] Mr Locke having discovered
this source of knowledge, too rashly con-
cluded that all human knowledge might be
derived from it; and in this he has been
followed very generally—by Mr Hume in
particular. e
But I apprehend that our knowledge of
the existence of things contingent can never
be traced to this source. I know that such
a thing exists, or did exist. This know-
ledge cannot be derived from the perception
of a necessary agreement between existence
* “The inspiration of the Almighty giveth them
understanding.”—Jop.–H. *#
|
beyond our skill to explain.
and the thing that exists, because there is
no such necessary agreement; and there-
fore no such agreement can be perceived
either immediately or by a chain of reason-
ing. The thing does not exist necessarily,
but by the will and power of him that made
it; and there is no contradiction follows from
supposing it not to exist. -
Whence Ithink it follows, that our know-
ledge of the existence of our own thoughts,
of the existence of all the material objects
about us, and of all past contingencies,
must be derived, not from a perception of
necessary relations or agreements, but from
Some other source. -
Our Maker has provided other means for
giving us the knowledge of these things—
means which perfectly answer their end,
and produce the effect intended by them.
But in what manner they do this, is, I fear,
We know our
own thoughts, and the operations of our
minds, by a power which we call conscious-
ness: but this is only giving a name to this
part of our frame. It does not explain its
fabric, nor how it produces in us an irre-
sistible conviction of its informations. We
perceive material objects and their sensible
qualities by our senses; but how they give
us this information, and how they produce
our belief in it, we know not. We know
many past events by memory; but how it
gives this information, I believe, is inex-
plicable. -
It is well known what subtile disputes
were held through all the scholastic ages,
and are still carried on about the prescience
of the Deity. [309] Aristotle had taught
that there can be no certain foreknowledge
of things contingent; and in this he has
been very generally followed, upon no other
grounds, as I apprehend, but that we can-
not conceive how such things should be
foreknown, and therefore conclude it to be
impossible. Hence has arisen an opposi-
tion and supposed inconsistency between
divine prescience and human liberty. Some
have given up the first in favour of the last,
and others have given up the last in order
to support the first. -
It is remarkable that these disputants
have never apprehended that there is any
difficulty in reconciling with liberty the
knowledge of what is past, but only of what
is future. It is prescience only, and not
memory, that is supposed to be hostile to
liberty, and hardly reconcileable to it.
Yet I believe the difficulty is perfectly
equal in the one case and in the other. I
admit, that we cannot account for prescience
of the actions of a free agent. But I main-
tain that we can as little account for me •
mory of the past actions of a free agent,
| If any man thinks he can prove that the
actions of a free agent cannot be foreknown,
[307–309]
342
[ESSAY III.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
he will find the same arguments of equal
force to prove that the past actions of a free
agent cannot be remembered." It is true,
that what is past did certainly exist. It is
no less true that what is future will cer-
tainly exist. I know no reasoning from the
constitution of the agent, or from his cir-
cumstances, that has not equal strength,
whether it be applied to his past or to his
future actions. The past was, but now is
not. The future will be, but now is not.
The present is equally connected or un-
connected with both. -
The only reason why men have appre-
hended so great disparity in cases so per-
fectly like, I take to be this, That the faculty
of memory in ourselves convinces us from
fact, that it is not impossible that an in-
telligent being, even a finite being, should
have certain knowledge of past actions of
free agents, without tracing them from any-
thing necessarily connected with them.
[310] But having no prescience in our-
selves corresponding to our memory of what
is past, we find great difficulty in admitting
it to be possible even in the Supreme
Being.
A faculty which we possess in some de-
gree, we easily admit that the Supreme
Being may possessin a more perfect degree;
but a faculty which has nothing corre-
sponding to it in our constitution, we will
hardly allow to be possible. We are so
constituted as to have an intuitive know-
ledge of many things past; but we have no
intuitive knowledge of the future.-H. We
might perhaps have been so constituted as
to have an intuitive knowledge of the future;
but not of the past; nor would this consti-
tution have been more unaccountable than
the present, though it might be much more
inconvenient. Had this been our consti-
tution, we should have found no difficulty
in admitting that the Deity may know all
things future, but very much in admitting
his knowledge of things that are past.
Our original faculties are all unaccount-
able. Of these memory is one. He only
who made them, comprehends fully how they
are made, and how they produce in us not
only a conception, but a firm belief and
assurance of things which it concerns us to
know. - - -
CHAPTER III.
or duration.
FROM the principles laid down in the
first chapter of this Essay, I think it appears
that our notion of duration, as well as our
belief of it, is got by the faculty of memory."
It is essential to everything remembered
that it be something which is past; and we
cannot conceive a thing to be past, without
conceiving some duration, more or less, be-
tween it and the present. [31,1] As soon
therefore as we remember anything, we
must have both a notion and a “belief of
duration. It is necessarily suggested by
every operation of our memory ; and to that
faculty it ought to be ascribed. This is,
therefore, a proper place to consider what
is known concerning it. - -
Duration, Extension, and Number, are
the measures of all things subject to men-
Suration. When we apply them to finite
things which are measured by them, they
seem of all things to be the most distinctly
conceived, and most within the reach of
human understanding.
Extension having three dimensions, has
an endless variety of modifications, capable
of being accurately defined ; and their
various relations furnish the human mind
with its most ample field of demonstrative
reasoning. Duration having only one di-
mension, has fewer modifications; but these
are clearly understood—and their relations
admit of measure, proportion, and demon-
strative reasoning. - -
Number is called discrete quantity, be-
cause it is compounded of units, which are
all equal and similar, and it can only be
divided into units. This is true, in some
sense, even of fractions of unity, to which
we now commonly give the name of num-
ber. For, in every fractional number, the
unit is supposed to be subdivided into a
certain number of equal parts, which are
the units of that denomination, and the
fractions of that denomination are only di-
visible into units of the same denomination.
Duration and extension are not discrete,
but continued quantity. They consist of
parts perfectly similar, but divisible without
end.
In order to aid our conception of the mag-
nitude and proportions of the various inter-
vals of duration, we find it necessary to give
a name to some known portion of it, such
as an hour, a day, a year. These we con-
sider as units, and, by the number of them
contained in a larger interval, we form a
distinct conception of its magnitude. [312}
A similar expedient we findnecessary to give
* Reid thus apparently makes Time an empirical
* This is a marvellous doctrine. The difficulty in
the two cases is not the same. The past, as past,
whether it has been the action of a free agent or not,
is now necessary, and, though we may be unable to
understand how it can be remembered, the supposi-
tion of-its remembrance involves no contradiction.
On the contrary, the future action of a free agent is
car hypothesi not a necessary event. But an event
cannot be now certainly foreseen, except it is now
certainly to be ; and to say that what is certainly to be
is not necessalyily to be, seems a contradiction.-H.
t If by intuitive be meant immediate, such a know-
ledge is impossible.in either case; for we can know
neither the past nor the future-in themselves, but
only in the present—that is, mediately,– H.
or gondralized notion.—H. -
[310–312]
CHAP. III.]
343
OF DURATION.
us a distinct conception of the magnitudes
and proportions of things extended. Thus,
number is found necessary, as a common
measure of extension and duration. But
this perhaps is owing to the weakness of our
understanding. It has even been disco-
vered, by the sagacity of mathematicians,
that this expedient does not in all cases
answer its intention. For there are pro-
portions of continued quantity, which can-
not be perfectly expressed by numbers;
such as that between the diagonal and side
of a square, and many others.
The parts of duration have to other parts
of it the relations of prior and posterior,
and to the present they have the relations
of past and future. The motion of past is
immediately suggested by memory, as has
been before observed. And when we have
got the notions of present and past, and of
prior and posterior, we can from these
frame a notion of the future; for the future
is that which is posterior to the present.
Nearness and distance are relations equally
applicable to time and to place. Distance in
time, and distance in place, are things so
different in their nature and so like in their
relation, that it is difficult to determine
whether the name of distance is applied to
both in the same, or an anological sense.
The extension of bodies which we per-
ceive by our senses, leads us necessarily to
the conception and belief of a space which
remains immoveable when the body is re-
moved. And the duration of events which
we remember leads us necessarily to the
conception and belief of a duration which
would have gone on uniformly though the
event had never happened."
Without space there can be nothing that
is extended. And without time there
can be nothing that hath duration. This I
think undeniable ; and yet we find that ex-
tension and duration are not more clear and
intelligible than space and time are dark and
difficult objects of contemplation. [313]
As there must be space wherever any-
thing extended does or can exist, and time
* If Space and Time be necessary generalizations
from experience, this is contrary to Reid's own doc-
trine, that experience can give us no mecessary know-
ledge. If, again, they be necessary” and original
motions, the account of their origin here given, is in-
correct. It: should have been said that experience is
not the source of their existence, but only the Occa-
sion, of their manifestation. On this subject, see,
wnstar omnium, Cousin on Locke, in his “Cours
de Philosophie,”, (t., ii., Legons 17, and 18.) This
admirable work has been well translated into Eng-
lish, by an American. philosopher, Mr. Henry; but
tho'eloquence and precision of the author can only
be properly appreciated by those who study the work
in the original language. The reader may, however,
consult likewise Stewart's “Philosophical Essays.”
(Essay ii., chap. 2,) and Royer Collard's ‘‘ Frag-
ments,” (ix. and x.). These authors, from their more
limited acquaintance with the speculations of the Ger-
man philosophers, are, however, less on a level with
the problem.—H. -
when there is or can be anything that has
duration, we can set no bounds to either,
even in our imagination. They defy all
limitation. The one swells in our concep-
tion to immensity, the other to eternity.
An etermity past is an object which we
cannot comprehend ; but a beginning of
time, unless we take it in a figurative sense,
is a contradiction. By a common figure of
speech, we give the name of time to those
motions and revolutions by which we mea-
sure it, such as days and years. We can
conceive a beginning of these sensible mea-
sures of time, and say that there was a time
when they were not, a time undistinguished
by any motion or change ; but to say that
there was a time before all time, is a con-
tradiction.
All limited duration is comprehended in
time, and all limited extension in space.
These, in their capacious womb, contain all
finite existences, but are contained by none.
Created things have their particular place
in space, and their particular place in time ;
but time is everywhere, and spaceatalitimes.
They embrace each the other, and have that
mysterious union which the Schoolmen con-
ceived between soul and body. The whole
of each is in every part of the other.
We are at a loss to what category or class
of things we ought to refer them. They
are not beings, but rather the receptacles
of every created being, without which it
could not have had the possibility of exist-
ence. Philosophers have endeavoured to
reduce all the objects of human thought to
these three classes, of substances, modes,
and relations. To which of them shall we
refer time, space, and number, the most
common objects of thought 2, 1314]_
Sir Isaac Newton thought that the Deity,
by existing everywhere and at all times,
constitutes time and space, immensity and
eternity. This probably suggested to his
great friend, Dr Clarke, what he calls the
argument a priori for the existence of an
immense and eternal Being. Space and
time, he thought, are only abstract or par-
tial conceptions of an immensity and eter-
nity which forces itself upon our belief.
And as immensity and eternity are not
substances, they must be the attributes of a
Being who is necessarily immense, and
eternal. These 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 human under-
standing, I am unable to determine.
The schoolmen made eternity to be a
nunc stams—that is, a moment of time that
stands still. . This was to put a spoke into
the wheel of time, and might give satisfac-
tion to those who are to be satisfied by
words without meaning. But I can a
[318, 314||
344
[ESSAy III. .
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
easily believe a circle to be a square as.
time to stand still.
Such paradoxes and riddles, if I may so
call them, men are involuntarily led into
when they reason about time and space,
and attempt to comprehend their nature.
They are probably things of which the hu-
man faculties give an imperfect and inade-
quate conception. Hence difficulties arise
which we in vain attempt to overcome, and
doubts which we are unable to resolve.
Perhaps some faculty which we possess not,
is necessary to remove the darkness which
hangs over them, and makes us so apt to
bewilder ourselves when we reason about
them. [315]
CHIAPTER IV.
OF IDENTITY.
THE conviction which every man has of
his Identity, as far back as his memory
reaches, needs no aid of philosophy to
strengthen it; and no philosophy can weaken
it, without first producing some degree of
insanity. - -
The philosopher, however, may very
properly consider this conviction as a phae-
momenon of human nature worthy of his
attention. If he can discover its cause, an
addition is made to his stock of knowledge.
If not, it must be held as a part of our ori-
ginal constitution, or an effect of that con-
stitution produced in a manner unknown
to us. -
We may observe, first of all, that this con-
viction is indispensably necessary to all ex-
ercise of reason. The operations of reason,
whether in action or in speculation, are
made up of successive parts. The antece-
dent are the foundation of the consequent,
and, without the conviction that the ante-
cedent have been seen or done by me, I
could have no reason to proceed to the con-
sequent, in any speculation, or in any
active project whatever.
There can be no memory of what is past
without the conviction that we existed at
the time remembered. There may be good
arguments to convince me that I existed
before the earliest thing I can remember;
but to suppose that my memory reaches a
moment farther back than my belief and
conviction of my existence, is a contradic-
tion.
The moment a man loses this conviction,
as if he had drunk the water of Lethe, past
things are done away; and, in his own
belief, he then begins to exist. [316]
Whatever was thought, or said, or done,
or suffered before that period, may belong
to Some other person ; but he can never
impute it to himself, or take any subse-
quent step that supposes it to be his do-
Ing. .
From this it is evident that we must
have the conviction of our own continued
existence and identity, as soon as we are
capable of thinking or doing anything, on
account of what we have thought, or done,
or suffered before ; that is, as soon as we
are reasonable creatures.
That we may form as distinct a notion as
we are able of this phenomenon of the human
mind, it is proper to consider what is meant
by identity in general, what by our own
personal identity, and how we are led into
that invincible belief and conviction which
every man has of his own personal identity,
as far as his memory reaches.
Identity in general, I take to be a rela-
tion between a thing which is known to
exist at one time, and a thing which is
known to have existed at another time.*
If you ask whether they are one and the
same, or two different things, every man of
common sense understands the meaning of
your question perfectly. Whence we may
infer with certainty, that every man of
common sense has a clear and distinct no-
tion of identity.
If you ask a definition of identity, I con-
fess I can give none; it is too simple a no-
tion to admit of logical definition. I can
say it is a relation ; but I cannot find words
to express the specific difference between
this and other relations, though I am in no
danger of confounding it with any other.
I can say that diversity is a contrary rela-
tion, and that similitude and dissimilitude
are another couple of contrary relations,
which every man easily distinguishes in his
conception from identity and diversity.
[317]
I see evidently that identity supposes
an uninterrupted continuance of existence.
That which hath ceased to exist, cannot be
the same with that which afterwards begins
to exist ; for this would be to suppose a
being to exist after it ceased to exist, and
to have had existence before it was produced,
which are manifest contradictions. Con-
tinued uninterrupted existence is therefore
necessarily implied in identity. -
Hence we may infer that identity cannot,
in its proper sense, be applied to our pains,
our pleasures, our thoughts, or any opera-
tion of our minds. The pain felt this day
is not the same individual pain which I felt
yesterday, though they may be similar in
kind and degree, and have the same cause.
The same may be said of every feeling and
of every operation of mind : they are all
* Identity is a relation between our cognitions of
a thing, and not between...things themselves. It
would, therefore, have been better in this sentence to
have said, “a relation: Ue:ween a thing as known to
exist at one time, and a thing as known to exist at
another.time,”— II,
[315–317]
CIIAP. Iv.]
345
OF IDENTITY.
Buccessive in their nature, like time itself,
no two moments of which can be the same
moment. - -
It is otherwise with the parts of absolute
Space. They always are, and were, and
will be the same. So far, I think, we pro-
ceed upon clear ground in fixing the notion
of identity in general.
It is, perhaps, more difficult to ascertain
with precision the meaning of Personality;
but it is not necessary in the present sub-
ject : it is sufficient for our purpose to
observe, that all mankind place their per-
sonality in something that cannot be divided,
or consist of parts. A part of a person is
a manifest absurdity.
When a man loses his estate, his health,
his strength, he is still the same person,
and has lost nothing of his personality. If
he has a leg or an arm cut off, he is the
same person he was before. The amputated
member is no part of his person, otherwise
it would have a right to a part of his
estate, and be liable for a part of his en-
gagements; it would be entitled to a share of
his merit and demerit—which is manifestly
absurd. A person is something indivisible,
and is what Leibnitz calls a monad. [318]
My personal identity, therefore, implies
the continued existence of that indivisible
thing which I call myself. : Whatever this
self may be, it is something which thinks,
and deliberates, and resolves, and acts, and
suffers. I am not thought, I am not action,
I am not feeling; I am something that
thinks, and acts, and suffers. My thoughts,
and actions, and feelings, change every
moment—they have no continued, but a
successive existence; but that self or I, to
which they belong, is permanent, and has the
same relation to all the succeeding thoughts,
actions, and feelings, which I call mine.
Such are the notions that I have of my
personal identity. But perhaps it may be
said, this may all be fancy without reality.
How do you know P—what evidence have
you, that there is such a permanent self
which has a claim to all the thoughts,
actions, and feelings, which you call yours ?
To this I answer, that the proper evi-
dence I have of all this is remembrance. I
remember that, twenty years ago, Iconversed
with such a person ; I remember several
things that passed in that conversation;
my memory testifies not only that this was
done, but that it was done by me who now
remember it. If it was done by me, I must
have existed at that time, and continued to
exist from that time to the present: if the
identical person whom I call myself, had
not a part in that conversation, my memory
is fallacious—it gives a distinct and positive
testimony of what is not true. Every man
in his senses believes what he distinctly
remembers, and everything he remembers
convinces him that he existed at the time
remembered.
Although memory gives the most irre-
sistible evidence of my being the identical
person that did such a thing, at such a time,
I may have other good evidence of things
which befel me, and which I do not remem-
ber: I know who bare me and suckled me,
but I do not remember these events. [319]
It may here be observed, (though the
observation would have been unnecessary if
some great philosophers had not contra-
dicted it,) that it is not my remembering
any action of mine that makes me to be
the person who did it. This remembrance
makes me to know assuredly that I did it;
but I might have done it though I did not
remember it. That relation to me, which
is expressed by saying that I did it, would
be the same though I had not the least re-
membrance of it. To say that my remem-
bering that I did such a thing, or, as some
choose to express it, my being conscious
that I did it, makes me to have done it,
appears to me as great an absurdity as it
would be to say, that my belief that the
world was created made it to be created.
When we pass judgment on the identity
of other persons besides ourselves, we pro-
ceed upon other grounds, and determine
from a variety of circumstances, which
sometimes produce the firmest assurance,
and sometimes leave room for doubt. The
identity of persons has often furnished mat-
ter of serious litigation before tribunals of
justice. But no man of a sound mind ever
doubted of his own identity, as far as he
distinctly remembered.
The identity of a person' is a perfect
identity; wherever it is real, it admits of no
degrees; and it is impossible that a person
should be in part the same, and in part
different ; because a person is a monad, and
is not divisible into parts. The evidence of
identity in other persons besides ourselves
does indeed admit of all degrees, from what
we account certainty to the least degree of
probability. But still it is true that the
same person is perfectly the same, and can-
not be so in part, or in some degree only.
For this cause, I have first considered
personal identity, as that which is perfect
in its kind, and the natural measure of that
which is imperfect. [320]
We probably at first derive our motion of
identity from that natural conviction which
every man has from the dawn of reason of
his own identity and continued existence.
The operations of our minds are all succes-
sive, and have no continued existence. But
the thinking being has a continued exist-
ence ; and we have an invincible belief that
it remains the same when all its thoughts
and operations change.
Our judgments of the identity of objects
ſ318–320]
346
[ESSAY III. -
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
of sense seem to be formed much upon the
same grounds as our judgments of the
identity of other persons besides ourselves.
Wherever we observe great similarity,
we are apt to presume identity, if no reason
appears to the contrary. Two objects ever
so like, when they are perceived at the same
time, cannot be the same ; but, if they are
presented to our senses at different times,
we are apt to think them the same, merely
from their similarity.
Whether this be a natural prejudice, or
from whatever cause it proceeds, it cer-
tainly appears in children from infancy;
and, when we grow up, it is confirmed in
most instances by experience ; for we rarely
find two individuals of the same species that
are not distinguishable by obvious differ-
CilC6S. -
A man challenges a thief whom he finds
in possession of his horse or his watch, only
on similarity. When the watchmaker
swears that he sold this watch to such a
person, his testimony is grounded on simi-
larity. The testimony of witnesses to the
identity of a person is commonly grounded
on no other evidence.
Thus it appears that the evidence we
have of our own identity, as far back as we
remember, is totally of a different kind from
the evidence we have of the identity of other
persons, or of objects of sense. The first
is grounded on memory, and gives un-
doubted certainty. The last is grounded on
similarity, and on other circumstances,
which in many cases are not so decisive as
to leave no room for doubt. [321]
It may likewise be observed, that the
identity of objects of sense is never perfect.
All bodies, as they consist of innumerable
parts that may be disjoined from them by
a great variety of causes, are subject to
continual changes of their substance, in-
creasing, diminishing, changing insensibly.
When such alterations are gradual, because
language could not afford a different name
for every different state of such a change-
able being, it retains the same name, and
is considered as the same thing. Thus
we say of an old regiment that it did such a
thing a century ago, though there now is not
a man alive who then belonged to it. We say
a tree is the same in the seed-bed and in the
forest. A ship of war, which has successively
changed her anchors, her tackle, her sails,
her masts, herplanks, and her timbers, while
she keeps the same name, is the same. .
The identity, therefore, which we ascribe
to bodies, whether natural or artificial, is
not perfect identity; it is rather some-
thing which, for the conveniency of speech,
we call identity. It admits of a great
change of the subject, providing the change
be gradual, sometimes even of a total
change. And the changes which in com-
mon language are made consistent with
identity, differ from those that are thought
to destroy it, not in kind, but in number
and degree. It has no fixed nature whel,
applied to bodies ; and questions about the
identity of a body are very often questions
about words. But identity, when applied
to persons, has no ambiguity, and admits
not of degrees, or of more and less. It is
the foundation of all rights and obligations,
and of all accountablendss; and the motion
of it is fixed and precise. [322]
CHAPTER. W.
MR LOCKE's ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN OF OUR
IDEAS, AND PARTICULARLY OF THE IDEA
OF DURATION,
It was a very laudable attempt of Mr
Locke “to inquire into the original of those
ideas, notions, or whatever you please to
call them, which a man observes, and is
conscious to himself he has in his mind,
and the ways whereby the understanding
comes to be furnished with them.” No
man was better qualified for this investi-
gation ; and I believe no man ever en-
gaged in it with a more sincere love of
truth. -
His success, though great, would, I ap-
prehend, have been greater, if he had not
too early formed a system or hypothesis
upon this subject, without all the caution
and patient induction, which is necessary
in drawing general conclusions from facts.
The sum of his doctrine I take to be
this—“That all our ideas or notions may
be reduced to two classes, the simple and
the complex: That the simple are purely
the work of Nature, the understanding
being merely passive in receiving them :
That they are all suggested by two powers
of the mind—to wit, Sensation and Reflec-
tion ; * and that they are the materials of
all our knowledge. That the other class of
complex ideas are formed by the under-
standing itself, which, being once stored
with simple ideas of sensation and reflec-
tion, has the power to repeat, to compare,
and to combine them, even to an almost
infinite variety, and so can make at pleasure
new complex ideas: but that is not in the
power of the most exalted wit, or enlarged
* That Locke did not (as even Mr Stewart sup-
poses) introduce Reflection, either name or thing,
into the philosophy of mind, see Note I. Nor
was he even the first explicitly to enunciate Sense
and Reflection as the two sources of our knowledge;
for I can shew that this had been done in a far more
philosophical manner by some of the schoolmen;
Reflection with them not being merely, as with
Locke, a source of adventitious, empirical, or a pos-
teriori knowledge, but the mean by which we dis-
close also the native, pure, or a prior cognitions
which the intellect itself contains.—H.
ſ321, 322]
chap. v.] LOCKE's ACCOUNT OF THE IDEA OF DURATION. 847
understanding, by any quickness or variety
of thought, to invent or frame one new
simple idea in the mind, not taken in by
the two ways before-mentioned. [323] That,
as our power over the material world reaches
only to the compounding, dividing, and
putting together, in various forms, the
matter which God has made, but reaches
not to the production or annihilation of a
single atom; so we may compound, com-
pare, and abstract the original and simple
ideas which Nature has given us; but are
unable to fashion in our understanding any
simple idea, not received in by our senses
from external objects, or by reflection from
the operations of our own mind about them.”
This account of the origin of all our ideas
is adopted by Bishop Berkeley and Mr
Hume ; but some very ingenious philoso-
phers, who have a high esteem of Locke's
Essay, are dissatisfied with it. .
Dr Hutcheson of Glasgow, in his “ In-
quiry into the Ideas of Beauty and Virtue,”
lias endeavoured to shew that these are
original and simple ideas, furnished by
original powers, which he calls the sense of
beauty and the moral sense.
Dr Price, in his “Review of the Principal
Questions and Difficulties in Morals,” has
observed, very justly, that, if we take the
words sensation and reflection, as Mr Locke
has defined them in the beginning of his
excellent Essay, it will be impossible to
derive some of the most important of our
ideas from them ; and that, by the under-
standing—that, is by our judging and reason-
ing power—we are furnished with many
simple and original notions.
Mr Locke says that, by reflection, he
would be understood to mean “the notice
which the mind takes of its own operations,
and the manner of them.” This, I think, we
commonly call consciousness; from which,
indeed, we derive all the notions we have
of the operations of our own minds; and he
often speaks of the operations of our own
minds, as the only objects of reflection.
When reflection is taken in this confined
sense, to say that all our ideas are ideas
either of sensation or reflection, is to say
that everything we can conceive is either
Some object of sense or some operation of
our own minds, which is far from being
true. [324]
But the word reflection is commonly used
in a much more extensive sense; it is ap-
pſied to many operations of the mind, with
more propriety than to that of conscious-
mess. We reflect, when we remember, or
call to mind what is past, and survey it
with attention. We reflect, when we define,
when we distinguish, when we judge, when
we reason, whether about things material
or intellectual.
When reflection is taken in this sense,
which is more common, and therefore more
proper" than the sense which Mr Locke
has put upon it, it may be justly said to be.
the only source of all our distinct and ac-
curate notions of things. For, although our
first notions of material things are got by
the external senses, and our first notions of
the operations of our own minds by con-
sciousness, these first notions are neither
simple nor clear. Our senses and our con-
sciousness are continually shifting from one
object to another ; their operations are tran-
sient and momentary, and leave no distinct
notion of their objects, until they are re-
called by memory, examined with attention,
and compared with other things.
This reflection is not one power of the
mind; it comprehends many; such as re-
collection, attention, distinguishing, com-
paring, judging. By these powers our minds
are furnished not only with many simple
and original notions, but with all our notions,
which are accurate and well defined, and
which alone are the proper materials of
reasoning. Many of these are neither no-
tions of the objects of sense, nor of the
operations of our own minds, and therefore
neither ideas of sensation, nor of reflection,
in the sense that Mr Locke gives to reflec-
tion. But, if any one chooses to call them
ideas of reflection, taking the word in the
more common and proper sense, I have no
objection. [325]
Mr Locke seems to me to have used the
word reflection sometimes in that limited
sense which he has given to it in the defi-
nition before mentioned, and sometimes to
have fallen unawares into the common sense
of the word ; and by this ambiguity his ac-
count of the origin of our ideas is darkened
and perplexed. -
Having premised these things in general
of Mr Locke's theory of the origin of our
ideas or notions, I proceed to some observ-
ations on his account of the idea of dura-
tion.
“Reflection,” he says, “upon the train of
ideas, which appear one after another in our
minds, is that which furnishes us with the
idea of succession; and the distance between
any two parts of that succession, is that we
call duration.”
If it be meant that the idea of succession
is prior to that of duration, either in time
or in the order of nature, this, I think, is
impossible, because succession, as Dr Price
justly observes, presupposes duration, and
can in no sense be prior to it; and there-
* This is not correct; and the employment of
Reflection in another meaning than that of iris-pop”
arpá; ;&vré—the reflex knowledge or consciousness
which the mind has of its own affections—is wholly a
secondary and less proper signification. See Note I.
I may again notice, that Reid vacillates in the mean-
ing he gives to the term Reflection. Compare above,
p. 232, note %, and below, under p. 516.-H. -
[323–325]
348
[ESSAY III
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
fore it would be more proper to derive the
idea of succession from that of duration.
But how do we get the idea of succession ?
It is, says he, by reflecting upon the train
of ideas which appear one after another in
our minds. - , º
Reflecting upon the train of ideas can be
nothing butrememberingit, and giving atten-
tion to what our memory testifies concern-
ing it; for, if we did not remember it, we
could not have a thought about it. So that
it is evident that this reflection includes
remembrance, without which there could be
no reflection on what is past, and conse-
quently no idea of succession. [326]
It may here be observed, that, if we speak
strictly and philosophically, no kind of suc-
cession can be an object either of the senses
or of consciousness; because the operations
of both are confined to the present point of
time, and there can be no succession in a
point of time; and on that account the mo-
tion of a body, which is a successive change
of place, could not be observed by the senses
alone without the aid of memory.
As this observation seems to contradict
the common sense and common language of
mankind, when they affirm that they see a
body move, and hold motion to be an object
of the senses, it is proper to take notice, that
this contradiction between the philosopher
and the vulgar is apparent only, and not
real. It arises from this, that philosophers
and the vulgar differ in the meaning they
put upon what is called the present time,
and are thereby led to make a different limit
between sense and memory.
Philosophers give the name of the pre-
sent to that indivisible point of time, which
divides the future from the past : but the
vulgar find it more convenient in the affairs
of life, to give the name of present to a por-
tion of time, which extends more or less,
according to circumstances, into the past or
the future. Hence we say; the present
hour, the present year, the present century,
though one point only of these periods can
be present in the philosophical sense.
It has been observed by grammarians,
that the present tense in verbs is not con-
fined to an indivisible point of time, but is
so far extended as to have a beginning, a
middle, and an end; and that, in the most
copious and accurate languages, these dif-
ferent parts of the present are distinguished
by different forms of the verb. .
As the purposes of conversation make it
convenient to extend what is called the pre-
sent, the same reason leads men to extend
the province of sense, and to carry its limit
as far back as they carry the present. Thus
a man may say, I saw such a person just
now : it would be ridiculous to find fault
with this way of speaking, because it is
authorized by custom, and has a distinct
meaning. [327] But, if we speak philoso-
phically, the senses do not testify what we
Saw, but only what we see ; what I saw
last moment I consider as the testimony of
sense, though it is now only the testimony
of memory.
There is no necessity in common life of
dividing accurately the provinces of sense
and of memory; and, therefore, we assign to
sense, not an indivisible point of time, but
that Small portion of time which we call the
present, which has a beginning, a middle,
and an end. . .
Hence, it is easy to see that, though, in
common language, we speak with perfect
propriety and truth, when we say that we
See a body move, and that motion is an ob-
ject of sense, yet when, as philosophers, we
distinguish accurately the province of sense
from that of memory, we can no more see
what is past, though but a moment ago,
than we can remember what is present ; so
that, speaking philosophically, it is only by
the aid of memory that we discern motion,
or any succession whatsoever. We see the
present place of the body ; we remember
the successive advance it made to that
place : the first can then only give us a
conception of motion when joined to the last.
Having considered the account given by
Mr. Locke, of the idea of succession, we
shall next consider how, from the idea of
Succession, he derives the idea of duration.
“The distance,” he says, “between any
parts of that succession, or between, the
appearance of any two ideas in our minds,
is that we call duration.”
To conceive this the more distinctly, let
us call the distance between an idea and
that which immediately succeeds it, one ele-
ment of duration ; the distance between an
idea, and the second that succeeds it, two
elements, and so on : if ten such elements
make duration, then one must make dura-
tion, otherwise duration must be made up of
parts that have no duration, which is im-
possible. [328] -
For, suppose a succession of as many
ideas as you please, if none of these ideas
have duration, nor any interval of duration
be between one and another, then it is
perfectly evident there can be no interval
of duration between the first and the last,
how great Soever their number be. I con-
clude, therefore, that there must be dura-
tion in every single interval or element of
which the whole duration is made up.
Nothing indeed, is more certain, than that
every elementary part of duration must
have duration, as every elementary part of
extension must have extension.
Now, it must be observed that, in these
elements of duration, or single intervals of
Successive ideas, there is no succession of
ideas ; yet we must conceive them to have
- - [326–328]
*
cuAP. v.] LOCKES ACCOUNT OF
THE IDEA OF DURATION. 34)
duration; whence we may conclude with
certainty, that there is a conception of du-
ration, where there is no succession of ideas
in the mind.
We may measure duration by the suc-
cession of thoughts in the mind, as we mea-
sure length by inches or feet; but the notion
or idea of duration must be antecedent to
the mensuration of it, as the notion of
length is antecedent to its being measured.
Mr Locke draws some conclusions from
his account of the idea of duration, which
may serve as a touchstone to discover how
far it is genuine. One is, that, if it were
possible for a waking man to keep only one
idea in his mind without variation, or the
succession of others, he would have no per-
ception of duration at all; and the moment
he began to have this idea, would seem to
have no distance from the moment he
ceased to have it.
Now, that one idea should seem to have
no duration, and that amultiplication of that
mo, duration should seem to have duration,
appears to me as impossible as that the
multiplication of nothing should produce
something. [329] -
Another conclusion which the author
draws from this theory is, that the same
period of duration appears long to us when
the succession of ideas in our mind is quick,
and short when the succession is slow.
There can be no doubt but the same
length of duration appears in some circum-
stances much longer than in others; the
time appears long when a man is impatient
under any pain or distress, or when he is
eager in the expectation of some happiness.
On the other hand, when he is pleased and
happy in agreeable conversation, or delighted
with a variety of agreeable objects that
strike his senses or his imagination, time
flies away, and appears short.
According to Mr Locke’s theory, in the
first of these cases, the succession of ideas
is very quick, and in the last very slow. I
am rather inclined to think that the very
eontrary is the truth. When a man is racked
with pain, or with expectation, he can
hardly think of anything but his distress ;
and the more his mind is occupied by that
sole object, the longer the time appears.
On the other hand, when he is entertained
with cheerful music, with lively conversa-
tion, and brisk sallies of wit, there seems
to be the quickest succession of ideas, but
the time appears shortest.
I have heard a military officer, a man of
candour and observation, say, that the time
he was engaged in hot action always ap-
peared to him much shorter than it really
was. Yet I think it cannot be supposed
that the succession of ideas was then slower
than usual." -
If the idea of duration were got merely
by the succession of ideas in our minds,
that succession must, to ourselves, appear
equally quick at all times, because the only
measure of duration is the number of suc-
ceeding ideas; but I believe every man
capable of reflection will be sensible, that
at one time his thoughts come slowly and
heavily, and at another time have a much
quicker and livelier motion. [330]
I know of no ideas or notions that have
a better claim to be accounted simple and
original than those of Space and Time. It
is essential both to space and time to be
made up of parts; but every part is similar
to the whole, and of the same nature. Dif-
ferent parts of space, as it has three dimen-
sions, may differ both in figure and in mag-
nitude ; but time having only one dimen-
sion, its parts can differ only in magnitude;
and, as it is one of the simplest objects of
thought, the conception of it must be purely
the effect of our constitution, and given us
by some original power of the mind.
The sense of seeing, by itself, gives us
the conception and belief of only two dimen-
sions of extension, but the sense of touch
discovers three ; and reason, from the con-
templation of finite extended things, leads
us necessarily to the belief of an immensity
that contains them." In like manner, me-
mory gives us the conception and belief of
finite intervals of duration. From the con-
templation of these, reason leads us neces-
sarily to the belief of an eternity, which
comprehends all things that have a begin-
ning and end.” Our conceptions, both of
space and time, are probably partial and
inadequate,t and, therefore, we are apt to
lose ourselves, and to be embarrassed in
our reasonings about them.
Our understanding is no less puzzled
when we consider the minutest parts of
time and space than when we consider the
whole. We are forced to acknowledge
that in their nature they are divisible with-
out end or limit ; but there are limits be-
yond which our faculties can divide neither
the one nor the other.
It may be determined by experiment,
what is the least angle under which an
object may be discerned by the eye, and
what is the least interval of duration that
may be discerned by the ear. I believe
these may be different in different persons:
But surely there is a limit which no
man can exceed: and what our faculties
can no longer divide is still divisible in it-
* In travelling, the time.seems very short, while
passing; very long in retrospect.
vious.-H. -
* See above, p. 343, note *.—H.
f They are not probably but necessarily partial
and inadequate. For we are unable positively to
conceive Time or Space, either as infinite, (i. e.,
without limits,) or as not infinite (i. e., as limited.)
The cause is ob-
[329, 330]
350
[Essay III.
oN THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
self, and, by beings of superior perfection,
may be divided into thousands of parts.
[331]
I have reason to believe, that a good eye
in the prime of life may see an object under
an angle not exceeding half a minute of a
degree, and I believe there are some human
eyes still more perfect. But even this de-
gree of perfection will appear great, if we
consider how small a part of the retina of
the eye it must be which subtends an angle
of half a minute.
Supposing the distance between the centre
of the eye and the retina to be six or seven
tenths of an inch, the subtense of an angle
of half a minute to that radius, or the
breadth of the image of an object seen under
that angle, will not be above the ten thou-
sandth part of an inch. This shews such
a wonderful degree of accuracy in the re-
fracting power of a good eye, that a pencil
of rays coming from one point of the object
shall meet in one point of the retina, so as
not to deviate from that point the ten
thousandth part of an inch. It shews,
likewise, that such a motion of an object as
makes its image on the retina to move the
ten thousandth part of, an inch, is discern-
ible by the mind.
In order to judge to what degree of ac-
curacy we can measure short intervals of
time, it may be observed that one who has
given attention to the motion of a Second
pendulum, will be able to beat seconds for
a minute with a very small error. When
he continues this exercise long, as for five
or ten minutes, he is apt to err, more even
than in proportion to the time—for this
reason, as I apprehend, that it is difficult to
attend long to the moments as they pass,
without wandering after some other object
of thought.
I have found, by some experiments, that
a man may beat seconds for one minute,
without erring above one second in the
whole sixty; and I doubt not but by long
practice he might do it stillmore accurately.
From this I think it follows, that the six-
tieth part of a second of time is discernible
bv the human mind. [332]
CHAPTER VI.
of MR LOCKE’s ACCOUNT OF OUR PERSONAL
IDENTITY.
IN a long chapter upon Identity and
Diversity, Mr Locke has made many in-
genious and just observations, and some
which I think cannot be defended. I shall
only take notice of the account he gives of
our own Personal Identity. His doctrine
upon this subject has been censured by
Bishop Butler, in a short essay subjoined to
his “Analogy,” with whose sentiments I
perfectly agree.
Identity, as was observed, Chap. IV. of
this Essay, supposes the continued existence
of the being of which it is affirmed, and
therefore can be applied only to things which
have a continued existence. While any
being continues to exist, it is the same being:
but two beings which have a different be-
ginning or a different ending of their exist-
ence, cannot possibly be the same. To this
I think Mr Locke agrees.
He observes, very justly, that to know
what is meant by the same person, we must
consider what the word person stands for ;
and he defines a person to be an intelligent
being, endowed with reason and with con-
sciousness, which last he thinks inseparable
from thought. -
From this definition of a person, it must
necessarily follow, that, while the intelligent
being continues to exist and to be intelli-
gent, it must be the same person. To say
that the intelligent being is the person, and
yet that the person ceases to exist, while
the intelligent being continues, or that the
person continues while the intelligent being
ceases to exist, is to my apprehension a
manifest contradiction. [333]
One would think that the definition of a
person should perfectly ascertain the nature
of personal identity, or wherein it consists,
though it might still be a question how we
come to know and be assured of our per-
sonal identity.
Mr Locke tells us, however, “ that per-
sonal identity—that is, the Sameness of a
rational being—consists in consciousness
alone, and, as far as this consciousness can
be extended backwards to any past action
or thought, so far reaches the identity of
that person. So that, whatever hath the
consciousness of present and past actions,
is the same person to whom they belong.”
* See Essay, (Book ii. ch. 27, § 9.) The passage
given as a quotation in the text, is the sum of
Locke's doctrine, but not exactly in his words. Long
before Butler, to whom the merit is usually ascribed,
Lºcke's doctrine of Personal Identity had been
attacked and refuted. This was done even by his
earliest critic, John Sergeant, whose words, as he
is...an author wholly unknown to all historians of phi-
losophy, and his works of the rarest, I shall quote.
He thus argues:—“The former distinction forelaid,
he (Locke) proceeds to make personal identity in man
to consist in the consciousness that we arc the Same
thinking thing in different times and, places. He
proves it, because consciousness is inseparable from
thinking, and, as it seems to him, essential to it.
Perhaps he may have had second thoughts, since he
writ his 19th Chapter, where, $ 4, he thought it
probable that Thinking is but the action, and not the
essence of the soul. His reason here is—' Because
'tis impossible for any to perceive, without perceiving
that he does perceive,” which I have shewn above to
be so far from impossible, that the contrary is such.
But, to speak to the point: Consciousness of any
action or other accident we have now, or have had,
is nothing but our knowledge that it belonged to us;
and, since we both agree that we have no innate
knowledges, it follows, that all, both actual and habi-
tual knowledges, which we have, are acquired or ac-
[331–333]
chap. vi. LOCKE'S ACCOUNT OF OUR PERSONAL IDENTITY. 351
This doctrine hath some strange conse-
quences, which the author was aware of,
Such as, that, if the same consciousness can
be transferred from one intelligent being to
another, which he thinks we cannot shew
to be impossible, then two or twenty intel-
ligent beings may be the same person. And
if the intelligent being may lose the con-
Sciousness of the actions done by him, which
surely is possible, then he is not the person
that did those actions; so that one intelli-
gent being may be two or twenty different
persons, if he shall so often lose the con-
sciousness of his former'actions.
There is another consequence of this
doctrine, which follows no less necessarily,
though Mr Locke probably did not see it.
It is, that a man may be, and at the same
time not be, the person that did a particular
action. 3.
Suppose a brave officer to have been
flogged when a boy at school, for robbing
an orchard, to have taken a standard from
the enemy in his first campaign, and to have
been made a general in advanced life : Sup-
pose also, which must be admitted to be
possible, that, when he took the standard,
he was conscious of his having been flogged
at school, and that when made a general he
was conscious of his taking the standard,
but had absolutely lost the consciousness of
his flogging. [334]
These things being supposed, it follows,
from Mr Locke's doctrine, that he who was
flogged at school is the same person who
took the standard, and that he who took the
standard is the same person who was made
a general. Whence it follows, if there be
any truth in logic, that the general is the
same person with him who was flogged
at school. But the general’s consciousness
does not reach so far back as his flogging—
therefore, according to Mr Locke's doctrine,
he is not the person who was flogged.
Therefore, the general is, and at the same
time is not the same person with him who
was flogged at school.”
Leaving the consequences of this doctrine
to those who have leisure to trace them, we
may observe, with regard to the doctrine
itself— -
First, That Mr Locke attributes to con-
sciousness the conviction we have of our
past actions, as if a man may now be con-
scious of what he did twenty years ago.
It is impossible to understand the meaning
of this, unless by consciousness be meant
memory, the only faculty by which wenave an
immediate knowledge of our past actions.-f
Sometimes, in popular discourse, a man
says he is conscious that he did such a
thing, meaning that he distinctly remembers
that he did it. It is unnecessary, in com-
mon discourse, to fix accurately the limits
between consciousness and memory. This
was formerly shewn to be the case with re-
gard to sense and memory ; and, therefore,
distinct remembrance is sometimes called
sense, sometimes consciousness, without
any inconvenience.
But this ought to be avoided in philoso-
phy, otherwise we confound the different
powers of the mind, and ascribe to one what
really belongs to another. If a man can be
conscious of what he did twenty years or
twenty minutes ago, there is no use for
memory, nor ought we to allow that there
is any such faculty. [335] The faculties of
consciousness and memory are chiefly dis-
tinguished by this, that the first is an im-
mediate knowledge of the present, the second
an immediate knowledge of the past.j:
When, therefore, Mr Locke's notion of
cidental to the subject or knower. Wherefores the
mam, or that thing, which, is to be the knower, must
have had individuality, or personality, from other
principles, antecedently to this knowledge, called
comsciousness: and, comScquemtly, he will retain his
identity, or continue the same man, or (which is
equivalent) the same person, as long as he has those
individuating principles. What those principles are
which constitute this man, or this knowing indivi-
duum, I have shewn above, $ $ 6, 7. It being then
most evident, that a man must be the same, ere he can
know on be conscious that he is the same, all his
laborious descants and extravagant consequences
which are built upon this supposition, that conscious-
ness individuates the person, can need no farther
refutation.”
The same objection was also made by Leibnitz in
his strictures on 1.ocke's Essay. Inter alia, he says–
“Pour ce quiest du soi il sera bon de le distinguer
de l'apparence du soi et de la consciosite. Le soi fait
l'identité reelle et physique, et l'apparence du soi,
accompagnée de laverité, yjoint l'identité personelle.
Ainsi ne voulant point dire, que l'identité personelle
nes'étend pas plus loin que le souvenir, je dirois encore
moins que le soi ou l'identité physique en dépend.
L'identité reele et personelle seprouve le plus certain-
inent qu'il se peut en matière de fait, par la réflexion
présente etimmediate; ellese prouve suffisament pour
l'ordinaire par notre souvenir d’intervalle ou par le
temeignage conspirant des autres. Mais si Dieu
changeoit extraordinairment l'identité reele, la per-
sonelle demeuroit, pouryu que l’homme conservät
les apparences d'identité, tant les internes, (c’estºa
dire de la conscience,) que les externes, comme celles
qui consistent dans ce qui paroit aux autres. Ailisi
la conscience n'est pas le seul, moyeni de constituer
l'identité personelle, et le rapport d'autrui, ou mème
d'autres marqūes y peuvent suppléer. Mais ily a dela
difficulté, s'il se trouve contradiction entre ces diver-
ses apparences. La conscience se peuttaire comme
dans l'oubli; mais.si elle disoit bien clairment des
choses, qui fussent contraines aux autres apparences,
on seroit embarassé dans la decision et comme sus-
pendſ, quelques ſois entre deux, possibilités, celle de
i’érreur du notre souvenir et celle de quelque decep-
tion dans les apparences externes.”
For the best criticism of Locke's doctrine of Perso-
mal Identity, I may, however, refer the reader to M.
Cousin’s “Cow’s de Philosophie,” t. ii., Legon xviii.,
p. 190-198.— H.
* Compare Buffier's “Traité desprémieres Véritez,”
(Remarques sur Locke, § 565,) who makes a similar
criticism.—H.
... + Locke, it. will be remembered, does not, like
Reid, view consciousness as a co-ordinate faculty with
memory; but under consciousness he properly com:
prehends the various faculties as so many special
modifications.—H.
# As already frequently stated, an immediate
knowledge of the past is contradictory. This ob-
servation I cannot again repeat. See Note B.-Fl.
[334, 335]
352
LESSAY III.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
personal identity is properly expressed, it is
that personal identity consists in distinct
remembrance ; for, even in the popular
sense, to say that I am conscious of a past
action, means nothing else than that I dis-
tinctly remember that I did it.
Secondly, It may be observed, that, in
this doctrine, not only is consciousness con-
founded with memory, but, which is still
more strange, personal identity is confounded
with the evidence which we have of our
personal identity.
It is very true that my remembrance
that I did such a thing is the evidence I
have that I am the identical person who did
it. And this, I am apt to think, Mr Locke
meant. But, to say that my remembrance
that I did such a thing, or my conscious-
ness, makes me the person who did it, is, in
my apprehension, an absurdity too gross to
be entertained by any man who attends to
the meaning of it; for it is to attribute to
memory or consciousness, a strange magi-
cal power of producing its object, though
that object must have existed before the
memory or consciousness which produced it.
Consciousness is the testimony of one
faculty; memory is the testimony of another
faculty. And, to say that the testimony is
the cause of the thing testified, this surely
is absurd, if anything be, and could not
have been said by Mr Locke, if he had not
confounded the testimony with the thing
testified. -
When a horse that was stolen is found
and claimed by the owner, the only evidence
he can have, or that a judge or witnesses
can have that this is the very identical horse
which was his property, is similitude. [336]
But would it not be ridiculous from this to
infer that the identity of a horse consists in
similitude only 2 The only evidence I have
that I am the identical person who did such
actions is, that I remember distinctly I did
them; or, as Mr Locke expresses it, I am
conscious I did them. To infer from this,
that personal identity consists in conscious-
ness, is an argument which, if it had any
force, would prove the identity of a stolen
horse to consist solely in similitude.
Thirdly, Is it not strange that the same-
ness or identity of a person should consist
in a thing which is continually changing,
and is not any two minutes the same 2
Our consciousness, our memory, and
every operation of the mind, are still flow-
ing, like the water of a river, or like time
itself. The consciousness I have this
moment can no more be the same conscious-
ness I had last moment, than this moment
can be the last moment. Identity can only
be affirmed of things which have a continued
existence. Consciousness, and every kind
of thought, is transient and momentary, and
has no continued existence; and, there-
fore, if personal identity consisted in con-
sciousness, it would certainly follow that no
man is the 5ame person any two moments
of his life; and, as the right and justice of
reward and punishment is founded on per-
sonal identity, no man could be responsible
for his actions. -
But, though I take this to be the una-
voidable consequence of Mr Locke's doc-
trine , concerning personal identity, and
though some persons may have liked the
doctrine the better on this account, I am
far from imputing anything of this kind to
Mr Locke. He was too good a man not to
have rejected with abhorrence a doctrine
which he believed to draw this consequence
after it. [337]
Fourthly, There are Imany expressions
used by Mr Locke, in speaking of personal
identity, which, to me, are altogether unin-
telligible, unless we suppose that he con-
founded that sameness or identity which we
ascribe to an individual, with the identity
which, incommon discourse, is often ascribed
to many individuals of the same species,
When we say that pain and pleasure,
consciousness and memory, are the same in
all men, this sameness can only mean simi-
larity, or sameness of kind ; but, that the
pain of one man can be the same individual
pain with that of another man, is no less
impossible than that one man should be
another man; the pain felt by me yester-
day can no more be the pain I feel to-day,
than yesterday can be this day; and the
same thing may be said of every passion
and of every operation of the mind. The
same kind or species of operation may be
in different men, or in the same man at
different times; but it is impossible that the
same individual operation should be in dif-
ferent men, or in the same man at different
times.
When Mr Locke, therefore, speaks of “the
same consciousness being continued through
a succession of different substances ;” when
he speaks of “repeating the idea of a past
action, with the same consciousness we had
of it at the first,” and of “the same con-
sciousness extending to actions past and to
come”—these expressions are to me unin-
telligible, unless he means not the same in-
dividual consciousness, but a consciousness
that is similar, or of the same kind.
If our personal identity consists in con-
sciousness, as this consciousness cannot be
the same individually any two moments,
but only of the same kind, it would follow
that we are not for any two moments the
same individual persons, but the same kind
of persons.
As our consciousness sometimes ceases
to exist, as in Sound sleep, our personal
identity must cease with it. Mr Locke
allows, that the same thing cannot have
[336, 337]
GHAP. VII.]
353
THEORIES CONCERNING MEMORY,
two beginnings of existence ; so that our
identity would be irrecoverably gone every
time we cease to think, if it was but for a
a moment.* [338]
CHAPTER VII.
THEORIES CONCERNING MEMORY.
, THE common theory of ideas—that is,
of images in the brain or in the mind, of
all the objects of thought—has been very
generally applied to account for the facul-
ties of memory and imagination, as well as
that of perception by the senses.
The sentiments of the Peripatetics are
expressed by Alexander Aphrodisiensis,
one of the earliest Greek commentators on
Aristotle, in these words, as they are trans-
lated by Mr Harris in his “ Hermes:”—
“Now, what Phancy or Imagination is, we
may explain as follows:—We may conceive
to beformed within us, from the operations of
our senses about sensible objects, some Im-
pression, as it were, or Picture, in our origi-
nal Sensorium, being a relict of that motion
caused within us by the external object; a
relict which, when the external object is
no longer present, remains, and is still
preserved, being, as it were, its Image,
and which, by being thus preserved, be-
comes the cause of our having Memory.
Now, such a sort of relict, and, as it were,
impression, they call Phancy or Imagina-
tion.”" -
Another passage from Alcinous Of the
Doctrines of Plato, chap. 4, shews the agree-
ment of the ancient Platonists and Peripa-
tetics in this theory :—“When the form or
type of things is imprinted on the mind by
the organs of the senses, and so imprinted
as not to be deleted by time, but preserved
firm and lasting, its preservation is called
Memory.” [339]
Upon this principle, Aristotle imputes the
shortness of memory in children to this
cause—that their brain is too moist and soft
to retain impressions made upon it: and
the defect of memory in old men he imputes,
on the contrary, to the hardness and rigidity
of the brain, which hinders its receiving
any durable impression. †
This ancient theory of the cause of
memory is defective in two respects : First,
If the cause assigned did really exist, it by
no means accounts for the phaenomenon 5
and, secondly, There is no evidence, nor
even probability, that that cause exists.
It is probable that in perception some
impression is made upon the brain as well
as upon the organ and nerves, because all
the nerves terminate in the brain, and be-
cause disorders and hurts of the brain are
found to affect our powers of perception
when the external organ and nerve are
found; but we are totally ignorant of the
nature of this impression upon the brain :
it can have no resemblance to the object
perceived, nor does it in any degree ac-
count for that sensation and perception
which are consequent upon it. These things
have been argued in the second Essay, and
shall now be taken for granted, to prevent
repetition.
If the impression upon the brain be insuf-
ficient to account for the perception of ob-
jects that are present, it can as little account
for the memory of those that are past.
So that, if it were certain that the im-
pressions made on the brain in perception
remain as long as there is any memory of
the object, all that could be inferred from
this, is, that, by the laws of Nature, there
is a connection established between that im-
pression, and the rememberance of that
object. But how the impression contributes
* It is here proper to insert Reid's remarks on
Personal Identity, as published by Lord Kames, in
his “Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural
Religion,” (third edition, p. 204.) These, perhaps,
might have more appropriately found their place in
the Correspondence of our Author.
“To return to our subject,” says his Lordship,
* Mr Locke, writing on personal identity, has fallen
stort of his usual accuracy. He inadvertently jumbles
together the identity that is na ure's work, with
our knowledge of it. Nay, he expresses himself some-
times as if identity had no other foundation than
that knowledge. I am favoured by 1)r Reid with the
following thoughts on personal identity:—
“‘All men agree that personality is indivisible ; a
part of a person is an absurdity. A man who loses
his estate, his health, an arm, or a leg, continues stil
to be the same person. My personal identity, therefore,
is the continued existence of that indivisible thing
which I call myself. I am not thought; l am not
action ; I am not feeling; but I think, and act, and
feel. Thoughts, actions, feelings, change every
moment; but self, to which they belong, is perman-
ent. If it be asked how I know that it is permanent,
the answer is, that I know it from memory. Every.
thing I remember to have seen, or heard, or done, or
suffered, convinces me that I existed at the time
remembered. But, though it is from memory that I
have the knowledge of my personal identity, yet per-
sonal identity must exist in nature, independent of
memory; otherwise, I should only be the same per-
son as far as my memory serves me ; and what would
become of my existence during the intervals wherein
my memory has failed me? My rememberance of any
of my actions does not make me to be the person who
did the action, but only makes me know that I was
the person who did it. And yet it was Mr Locke's
opinion, that my remembrance of an action is what
makes me to be the person who did it; a pregnant
instarce that even men of the greatest genius may
sometimes fall into an absurdity. Is it not an obvious
corollary, from Mr Locke's opinion, that he never
was born ? He could not remember his birth ; and,
therefore, was not the person born at such a place
and at such a time.’”— H.
* The inference founded on these passages, is alto-
gether erroneous. See Note K.—H. -
+ In this whole statement Reid is wrong. In the
first place, Aristotle did not impute the defect of
memory in children and old persons to any const tu-
tion of the Brain ; for, in his doctrine, the Heart,
and not the Brain, is the primary sensorium in which,
the impression is made. In the second place, the
term impression (rººro;), is used by Aristotle in an
analogical, not in a literal signification. See Note K.
[338, 339]
‘2 A
354
[ESSAY III.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
to this remembrance, we should be quite
ignorant ; it being impossible to discover
how thought of any kind should be pro-
duced, by an impression on the brain, or
upon any part of the body. [340]
To say that this impression is memory, is
absurd, if understood literally. If it is only
meant that it is the cause of memory, it
ought to be shewn how it produces this
effect, otherwise memory remains as unac-
countable as before.
If a philosopher should undertake to ac-
count for the force of gunpowder in the
discharge of a musket, and then tell us
gravely that the cause of this phaenomenon
is the drawing of the trigger, we should not
be much wiser by this account. As little
are we instructed in the cause of memory,
by being told that it is caused by a certain
impression on the brain. For, supposing
that impression on the brain were as neces-
sary to memory as the drawing of the trigger
is to the discharge of the musket, we are
still as ignorant as we were how memory is
produced; so that, if the cause of memory,
assigned by this theory, did really exist, it
does not in any degree account for memory.
Another defect in this theory is, that
there is no evidence nor probability that
the cause assigned does exist; that is, that
the impression made upon the brain in per-
ception remains after the object is removed.
That impression, whatever be its nature,
is caused by the impression made by the
object upon the organ of sense, and upon
the nerve. Philosophers suppose, without
any evidence, that, when the object is re-
moyed, and the impression upon the organ
and nerve ceases, the impression upon the
brain continues, and is permanent ; that is,
that, when the cause is removed, the effect
continues. The brain surely does not ap-
pear more fitted to retain an impression
than the organ and nerve.
But, granting that the impression upon
the brain continues after its cause is re-
moved, its effects ought to continue while
it continues ; that is, the sensation and
perception should be as permanent as the
impression upon the brain, which is sup-
posed to be their cause. But here again
the philosopher makes a second supposition,
with as little evidence, but of a contrary
nature—to wit, that, while the cause re-
mains, the effect ceases. [34]]
If this should be granted also, a third
must be made—That the same cause which
at first produced sensation and perception,
does afterwards produce memory—an opera-
tion essentially different, both from sensa-
tion and perception.
A fourth supposition must be made—
That this cause, though it be permanent,
does not produce its effect at all times; it
must be like an inscription which is some-
times covered with rubbish, and on other
occasions made legible ; for the memory of
things is often interrupted for a long time,
and circumstances bring to our recollection
what had been long forgot. After all, many
things are remembered which were never
perceived by the senses, being no objects of
sense, and therefore which could make no
impression upon the brain by means of the
Sell SGS.
Thus, when philosophers have piled one
supposition upon another, as the giants piled
the mountains in order to scale the heavens,
all is to no purpose—memory remains unac.
countable ; and we know as little how we
remember things past, as how we are con-
scious of the present.
But here it is proper to observe, that,
although impressions upon the brain give
no aid in accounting for memory, yet it is
very probable that, in the human frame;
memory is dependent on some proper state
or temperament of the brain.” -
Although the furniture of our memory
bears no resemblance to any temperament
of brain whatsoever, as indeed it is impos-
sible it should, yet nature may have sub-
jected us to this law, that a certain consti-
tution or state of the brain is necessary to
memory. That this is really the case,
many well-known facts lead us to con-
clude. [342]
It is possible that, by accurate observa-
tion, the proper means may be discovered
of preserving that temperament of the brain
which is favourable to memory, and of
remedying the disorders of that tempera-
ment. This would be a very noble im-
provement of the medical art. But, if it
should ever be attained, it would give no
aid to understand how one state of the brain
assists memory, and another hurts it.
I know certainly, that the impression
made upon my hand by the prick of a pin
occasions acute pain. But can any philo-
sopher shew how this cause produces the
effect 2 The nature of the impression is
here perfectly known; but it gives no help
to understand how that impression affects
the mind ; and, if we knew as distinctly that
state of the brain which causes memory,
we should still be as ignorant as before how
that state contributes to memory. We
might have been so constituted, for anything
that I know, that the prick of a pin in the
hand, instead of causing pain, should cause
remembrance ; nor would that constitution
be more unaccountable than the present.
The body and mind operate on each other,
* Nothing more was meant by the philosopher in
question, than that memory is, as Reid himself ad-
mits, dependent on a certain state of the brain, and
on some unknown effect determined in it, to which
they gave the metaphorical name—impression, trace,
type, &c.—H.
[340–342 |
CHAP. VII.]
355
THEORIES CONCERNING MEMORY.
according to fixed laws of nature ; and it is
the business of a philosopher to discover
those laws by observation and experiment:
but, when he has discovered them, he must
rest in them as facts whose cause is in-
scrutable to the human understanding.
Mr Locke, and those who have followed
him, speak with more reserve than the
ancients,” and only incidentally, of impres-
sions on the brain as the cause of memory,
and impute it rather to our retaining in our
minds the ideas got either by sensation or
reflection.
This, Mr Locke says, may be done two
ways—“First, By keeping the idea for some
time actually in view, which is called con-
templation ; Secondly, By the power to re-
vive again in our minds those ideas which,
after imprinting, have disappeared, or have
been, as it were, laid out of sight; and this
is memory, which is, as it were, the store-
house of our ideas.” [343]
To explain this more distinctly, he imme-
diately adds the following observation :-
“But our ideas being nothing but actual
perceptions in the mind, which cease to be
anything when there is no perception of
them, this laying up of our ideas in the
repository of the memory signifies no more
but this, that the mind has a power, in
many cases, to revive perceptions which it
once had, with this additional perception
annexed to them, that it has had them
before; and in this sense it is, that our ideas
are said to be in our memories, when indeed
they are actually nowhere; but only there
is an ability in the mind, when it will, to
revive them again, and, as it were, paint
them anew upon itself, though some with
more, some with less difficulty, some more
lively, and others more obscurely.”
In this account of memory, the repeated
use of the phrase, as it were, leads one to
judge that it is partly figurative; we must
therefore endeavour to distinguish the figu-
rative part from the philosophical. The
first, being addressed to the imagination,
exhibits a picture of memory, which, to
have its effect, must be viewed at a proper
distance and from a particular point of
view. The second, being addressed to the
understanding, ought to bear a near inspec-
tion and a critical examination.
The analogy between memory and a re-
pository, and between remembering and
retaining, is obvious, and is to be found in
all languages, it being very natural to ex-
press the operations of the mind by images
taken from things material. But, in phi-
losophy we ought to draw aside the veil of
imagery, and to view them naked.
When, therefore, memory is said to be a
repository or storehouse of ideas, where they
.* This is hardly correct. See Note K.—H.
are laid up when not perceived, and again
brought forth as there is occasion, I take
this to be popular and rhetorical. [344]
For the author tells us, that when they are
not perceived, they are nothing, and no-
where, and therefore can neither be laid up
in a repository, nor drawn out of it.
But we are told, “That this laying up of
our ideas in the repository of the memory
signifies no more than this, that the mind
has a power to revive perceptions, which it
once had, with this additional perception
annexed to them, that it has had them
before.” This, I think, must be understood
literally and philosophically.
But it seems to me as difficult to revive
things that have ceased to be anything, as
to lay them up in a repository, or to bring
them out of it. When a thing is once
annihilated, the same thing cannot be again
produced, though another thing similar to
it may. Mr Locke, in another place,
acknowledges that the same thing cannot
have two beginnings of existence ; and that
things that have different beginnings are
not the same, but diverse. From this it
follows, that an ability to revive our ideas
or perceptions, after they have ceased to be,
can signify no more but an ability to create
new ideas or perceptions similar to those we
had before.
They are said “to be revived, with this
additional perception, that we have had them
before.” This surely would be a fallacious
perception, since they could not have two
beginnings of existence : nor could we be-
lieve them to have two beginnings of exist-
ence. We can only believe that we had
formerly ideas or perceptions very like to
them, though not identically the same. But
whether we perceive them to be the same,
or only like to those we had before, this
perception, one would think, supposes a
remembrance of those we had before, other-
wise the similitude or identity could not be
perceived.
Another phrase is used to explain this
reviving' of our perceptions—“The mind,
as it were, paints them anew upon itself.”
[345] There may be something figurative
in this ; but, making due allowance for that,
it must imply that the mind, which paints
the things that have ceased to exist, must
have the memory of what they were, since
every painter must have a copy either before
his eye, or in his imagination and memory.
These remarks upon Mr Locke's account
of memory are intended to shew that his
system of ideas gives no light to this faculty,
but rather tends to darken it ; as little does
it make us understand how we remember,
and by that means have the certain know-
ledge of things past.
Every man knows what memory is, and
has a distinct motion of it. But when Mr
[343-345]
2 A 2
356
[ESSAY 111.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
Locke speaks of a power to revive in the
mind those ideas which, after imprinting,
have disappeared, or have been, as it were,
laid out of sight, one would hardly know
this to be memory, if he had not told us.
There are other things which it seems to
resemble at least as much. I see before
me the picture of a friend. I shut my eyes,
or turn them another way, and the picture
disappears, or is, as it were, laid out of sight.
I have a power to turn my eyes again to-
wards the picture, and immediately the per-
ception is revived. But is this memory P
No surely; yet it answers the definition as
well as memory itself can do."
We may observe, that the word percep-
tion is used by Mr Locke in too indefinite
a way, as well as the word idea.
Perception, in the chapter upon that sub-
ject, is said to be the first faculty of the
mind exercised about our ideas. Here we
are told that ideas are nothing but percep-
tions. Yet, I apprehend, it would sound
oddly to say, that perception is the first
faculty of the mind exercised about percep-
tion ; and still more strangely to say, that
ideas are the first faculty of the mind ex-
ercised about our ideas. But why should
not ideas be a faculty as well as perception,
if both are the same P+ [346]
Memory is said to be a power to revive
our perceptions. Will it not follow from
this, that everything that can be remem-
bered is a perception? If this be so, it will
be difficult to find anything in nature but
perceptions.#
Our ideas, we are told, are nothing but
actual perceptions; but, in many places of
the Essay, ideas are said to be the objects
of perception, and that the mind, in all its
thoughts and reasonings, has no other im-
mediate object which it does or can con-
template but its own ideas. Does it not
appear from.this, either that Mr Locke neld
the operations of the mind to be the same
thing with the objects of those operations,S
or that he used the word idea, sometimes in
one sense and sometimes in another, with-
out any intimation, and probably without
any apprehension of its ambiguity ? It is
an article of Mr Hume's philosophy, that
there is no distinction between the opera-
tions of the mind and their objects.S. But
I see no reason to impute this opinion to
Mr Locke. I rather think that, notwith-
• * To some of the preceding strictures on Locke's
account of memory, excuses might competently be
pleaded.— H. -
f This critirls an only shews the propriety of the
distinction of perception and percept. Locke and
other.philosophers use the word perception, 18, for
the act or faculty of perceiving; 29, for that which is
perceived—the idea in their doctrine; and 3°, for
cither or both indifferently.—H.
# See above p. 222, b, note *; p. 280, a note*.—H.
... §: The term object being then, used tor the imme-
diº object—viz., that of which we are conscious.
standing his great judgment and candour,
his understanding was entangled by the
ambiguity of the word idea, and that most
of the imperfections of his Essay are owing
to that cause.
Mr Hume saw farther into the conse-
quences of the common system concerning
ideas than any author had done before him.
He saw the absurdity of making every object
of thought double, and splitting it into a
remote object, which has a separate and
permanent existence, and an immediate
object, called an idea or impression, which
is an image of the former, and has no ex-
istence, but when we are conscious of it.
According to this system, we have no in-
tercourse with the external world, but by
means of the internal world of ideas, which
represents the other to the mind.
He saw it was necessary to reject one
of these worlds as a fiction, and the question
was, Which should be rejected 2–whether
all mankind, learned and unlearned, had
feigned the existence of the external world
without good reason ; or whether philoso-
phers had feigned the internal world of ideas,
in order to account for the intercourse of
the mind with the external 2 [347] Mr
Hume adopted the first of these opinions,
and employed his reason and eloquence in
support of it.
Bishop Berkeley had gone so far in the
same track as to reject the material world
as fictitious; but it was left to Mr Hume
to complete the system. -
According to his system, therefore, im-
pressions and ideas in his own mind are
the only things a man can know or can
conceive. Nor are these ideas representa-
tives, as they were in the old system.
There is nothing else in nature, or, at least,
within the reach of our faculties, to be re-
presented. What the vulgar call the per-
ception of an external object, is nothing but
a strong impression upon the mind. What
we call the remembrance of a past event,
is nothing but a present impression or idea,
weaker than the former. And what we call
imagination, is still a present idea, but
weaker than that of memory.
That I may not do him injustice, these
are his words in his “Treatise of Human
Nature,” [vol. I.] page 193.
“We find by experience that, when any
impression has been present with the mind,
it again makes its appearance there as an
idea ; and this it may do after two different
ways, either when in its new appearance it
retains a considerable degree of its first
vivacity and is somewhat intermediate be-
twixt an impression and an idea, or when it
entirely loses that vivacity, and is a perfect
idea. The faculty by which we repeat our
impressions in the first manner, is called
the memory, and the other the imagination.”
[346, 347]
GHAP. VII.
357
THEORIES CONCERNING MEMORY.
Upon this account of memory and imagi-
nation, I shall make some remarks. [348]
First, I wish to know what we are here
to understand by experience 2 It is said,
we find all this by experience ; and I con-
ceive nothing can be meant by this expe-
rience but memory—not that memory
which our author defines, but memory in
the common acceptation of the word. Ac-
cording to vulgar apprehension, memory is
an immediate knowledge of something past.
Our author does not admit that there is
any such knowledge in the human mind.
He maintains that memory is nothing but
a present idea or impression. But, in de-
fining what he takes memory to be, he takes
for granted that kind of memory which he
rejects. For, can we find by experience,
that an impression, after its first appearance
to the mind, makes a second and a third, with
different degrees of strength and vivacity,
if we have not so distinct a remembrance of
its first appearance as enables us to know
it upon its second and third, notwithstand-
ing that, in the interval, it has undergone
a very considerable change 2"
All experience supposes memory; and
there can be no such thing as experience,
without trusting to our own memory, or
that of others. So that it appears, from
Mr Hume's account of this matter, that he
found himself to have that kind of memory
which he acknowledges and defines, by ex-
ercising that kind which he rejects.
Secondly, What is it we find by expe-
rience or memory P. It is, “That, when an
impression has been present with the mind,
it again makes its appearance there as an
idea, and that after two different ways.”
If experience informs us of this, it cer-
tainly deceives us; for the thing is impos-
sible, and the author shews it to be so.
Impressions and ideas are fleeting, perish-
able things, which have no existence but
when we are conscious of them. If an im-
pression could make a second and a third
appearance to the mind, it must have a
continued existence during the interval of
these appearances, which Mr Hume ac-
knowledges to be a gross absurdity. [349]
It seems, then, that we find, by experience,
a thing which is impossible. We are im-
posed upon by our experience, and made to
believe contradictions.
Perhaps it may be said, that these dif-
ferent appearances of the impression are not
to be understood literally, but figuratively;
that the impression is personified, and made
to appear at different times and in different
habits, when no more is meant but that an
impression appears at one time; afterwards
a thing of a middle nature, between an im-
pression and an idea, which we call memory;
- * See Note B-H.
and, last of all, a perfect idea, which we call
imagination : that this figurative meaning
agrees best with the last sentence of the
period, where we are told that memory and
imagination are faculties, whereby we repeat
our impresions in a more or less lively
manner. To repeat an impression is a figur-
ative way of speaking, which signifies making
a new impression similar to the former.
If, to avoid the absurdity implied in the
literal meaning, we understand the philo-
sopher in this figurative one, then his defini-
tions of memory and imagination, when
stripped of the figurative dress, will amount
to this, That memory is the faculty of
making a weak impression, and imagination
the faculty of making an impression still
weaker, after a corresponding strong one.
These definitions of memory and imagina-
tion labour under two defects: First, That
they convey no notion of the thing defined ;
and, Secondly, That they may be applied to .
things of a quite different nature from those
that are defined. -
When we are said to have a faculty of
making a weak impression after a corre-
sponding strong one, it would not be easy
to conjecture that this faculty is memory.
Suppose a man strikes his head smartly
against the wall, this is an impression;
now, he has a faculty by which he can
repeat this impression with less force, so
as not to hurt him : this, by Mr Hume's
account, must be memory. [350] He
has a faculty by which he can just touch
the wall with his head, so that the impres-
sion entirely loses its vivacity. This surely
must be imagination; at least, it comes as
near to the definition given of it by Mr
Hume as anything I can conceive.
Thirdly, We may observe, that, when we
are told that we have a faculty of repeating
our impressions in a more or less lively
manner, this implies that we are the effi-
cient causes of our ideas of memory and
imagination; but this contradicts what the
author says a little before, where he proves,
by what he calls a convincing argument,
that impressions are the cause of their cor-
responding ideas. The argument that proves
this had need, indeed, to be very con-
vincing ; whether we make the idea to be
a second appearance of the impression, or a
new impression similar to the former.
If the first be true, then the impression
is the cause of itself. If the second then
the impression, after it is gone and has no
existence, produces the idea. Such are the
mysteries of Mr Hume's philosophy.
It may be observed, that the common
system, that ideas are the only immediate
objects of thought, leads to scepticism with
regard to memory, as well as with regard to
the objects of sense, whether those ideas
are placed in the mind or in the brain.
[348–350]
3:58
[Essay 111.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
Ideas aré said to be things internal and
present, which have no existence but during
the moment they are in the mind. The
objects of sense are things external, which
have a continued existence. When it is
maintained that all that we immediately
perceive is only ideas or phantasms, how
can we, from the existence of those phan-
tasms, conclude the existence of an externa!
world corresponding to them 2
This difficult question seems not to have
occurred to the Peripatetics." Des Cartes
saw the difficulty, and endeavoured to find
out arguments by which, from the existence
of our phantasms or ideas, we might infer
the existence of external objects. [351] The
same course was followed by Malebranche,
Arnauld, and Locke; but Berkeley and
Hume easily refuted all their arguments,
and demonstrated that there is no strength
in them.
The same difficulty with regard to mem-
ory naturally arises from the system of
ideas; and the only reason why it was not
observed by philosophers, is, because they
give less attention to the memory than to
the senses; for, since ideas are things pre-
sent, how can we, from our having a certain
idea plesently in our mind, conclude that an
event really happened ten or twenty years
ago, corresponding to it 2
There is the same need of arguments to
prove, that the ideas of memory are pictures
of things that really did happen, as that the
ideas of sense are pictures of external objects
which now exist. In both cases, it will be
impossible to find any argument that has
real weight. So that this hypothesis leads
us to absolute scepticism, with regard to
those things which we most distinctly re-
member, no less than with regard to the
external objects of sense.
It does not appear to have occurred either
to Locke or to Berkeley, that their system
has the same tendency to overturn the tes-
timony of memory as the testimony of the
Sen SeS. -
Mr Hume saw farther than both, and
found this consequence of the system of
ideas perfectly corresponding to his aim of
establishing universal scepticism. His sys-
stem is therefore more consistent than
theirs, and the conclusions agree better with
the premises.
Put, if we should grant to Mr Hume that
our ideas of memory afford no just ground
to believe the past existence of things which
we remember, it may still be asked, How it
* This is not correct. See above, p. 285, note f.
To that note I. may add, that no orthodox Catholic
could be an Idealist. lt was only the doctril:e of
transsutstantiation that prevented Malebranche from
pre-occupying the theory of Berkeley and Collier,
which was in fact his own, with the transcendent
reality of a material world left out, as a Protestant
hors d'oeuvre. This, it is curious, has nover been
observed. Sec Note P, - H.
comes to pass that perception and memory
are accompanied with belief, while bare ima-
gination is not 2 Though this belief cau-
not be justified upon his system, it ought to
be accounted for as a phaenomenon of hu-
man mature. [352] -
This he has done, by giving us a new
theory of belief in general ; a theory which
suits very well with that of ideas, and seems
to be a natural consequence of it, and which,
at the same time, reconciles all the belief
that we find in human nature to perfect
scepticism.
What, then, is this belief ? It must
either be an idea, or some modification of
an idea ; we conceive many things which we
do not believe. The idea of an object is
the same whether we believe it to exist, or
barely conceive it. The belief adds no new
idea to the conception ; it is, therefore, no-
thing but a modification of the idea of the
thing believed, or a different manner of
conceiving it. Hear himself:—
“All the perceptions of the mind are of
two kinds, impressions and ideas, which
differ from each other only in their different
degrees of force and vivacity. Our ideas
are copied from our impressions, and repre-
sent them in all their parts. When you
would vary the idea of a particular object,
you can only increase or diminish its force
and vivacity. If you make any other change
upon it, it represents a different object or
impression. The case is the same as in
colours. A particular shade of any colour
may acquire a new degree of liveliness or
brightness, without any other variation ;
but, when you produce any other variation,
it is no longer the same shade or colour. So
that, as belief does nothing but vary the
manner in which we conceive any object, it
can only bestow on our ideas an additional
force and vivacity. An opinion, therefore,
or belief, may be most accurately defined a
lively idea, related to or associated with a
present impression.”
This theory of belief is very fruitful of
consequences, which Mr Hume traces with
his usual acuteness, and brings into the
service of his system. [353] A great part
of his system, indeed, is built upon it ; and
it is of itself sufficient to prove what he
calls his hypothesis, “ that belief is more
properly an act of the sensitive than of
the cogitative part of our natures.”
It is very difficult to examine this ac-
count of belief with the same gravity with
which it is proposed. It puts one in
mind of the ingenious account given by
Martinus Scriblerus of the power of syllo-
gism, by making the major the male, and
the minor the female, which, being coupled
by the middle term, generate the conclusion.
There is surely no science in which men of
great parts and ingenuity have fallen into
[351–353
CHAP. VII.]
359.
THEORIES CONCERNING MEMORY.
such gross absurdities as in treating of the
powers of the mind. I cannot help think-
ing that never anything more absurd was
gravely maintained by any philosopher,
than this account of the nature of belief,
and of the distinction of perception, memory,
and imagination.
The belief of a proposition is an opera-
tion of mind of which every man is con-
scious, and what it is he understands per-
fectly, though, on account of its simplicity,
he cannot give a logical definition of it. If
he compares it with strength or vivacity of
his ideas, or with any modification of ideas,
they are so far from appearing to be one
and the same, that they have not the least
similitude.
That a strong belief and a weak belief
differ only in degree, I can easily compre-
hend ; but that belief and no belief should
differ only in degree, no man can believe
who understands what he speaks. For this
is, in reality, to say that something and
nothing differ only in degree ; or, that
nothing is a degree of something.
Every proposition that may be the ob-
ject of belief, has a contrary proposition
that may be the object of a contrary belief.
The ideas of both, according to Mr Hume,
are the same, and differ only in degrees of
vivacity—that is, contraries differ only in
degree; and so pleasure may be a degree
of pain, and hatred a degree of love. [354]
But it is to no purpose to trace the absurd-
ities that follow from this doctrine, for none
of them can be more absurd than the doc-
trine itself.
Every man knows perfectly what it is to
see an object with his eyes, what it is to
remember a past event, and what it is to
conceive a thing which has no existence.
That these are quite different operations of
his mind, he is as certain as that sound
differs from colour, and both from taste ;
and I can as easily believe that sound, and
colour, and taste differ only in degree, as
that seeing, and remembering, and imagin-
ing, differ only in degree.
Mr Hume, in the third volume of his
“Treatise of Human Nature,” is sensible
that his theory of belief is liable to strong
objections, and seems, in some measure, to
retraet it; but in what measure, it is not
easy to say. He seems still to think that
belief is only a modification of the idea ;
but that vivacity is not a proper term to
express that modification. Instead of it,
he uses some analogical phrases, to explain
that modification, such as “apprehending
the idea more strongly, or taking faster
hold of it.” t
There is nothing more meritorious in a
philosopher than to retract an error upon
conviction ; but, in this instance, I hum-
bly apprehend Mr Hume claims that merit
upon too slight a ground. Tor I cannot
perceive that the apprehending an idea
more strongly, or taking faster hold of it,
expresses any other modification of the idea.
than what was before expressed by its
strength and vivacity, or even that it ex-
presses the same modification more pro-
perly. Whatever modification of the idea
he makes belief to be, whether its vivacity,
or some other without a name, to make
perception, memory, and imagination to be
the different degrees of that modification,
is chargeable with the absurdities we have
mentioned. - -
Before we leave this subject of memory,
it is proper to take notice of a distinction
which Aristotle makes between memory
and reminiscence, because the distinction
has a real foundation in nature, though in
our language, I think, we do not distinguish
them by different names. [355]
Memory is a kind of habit which is not
always in exercise with regard to things we
remember, but is ready to suggest them
when there is occasion. The most perfect
degree of this habit is, when the thing pre-
sents itself to our remembrance spontane-
ously, and without labour, as often as there
is occasion. A second degree is, when the
thing is forgot for a longer or shorter time,
even when there is occasion to remember
it ; yet, at last, some incident brings it to
mind without any search. A third degree
is, when we cast about and search for what
we would remember, and so at last find it
out. It is this last, I think, which Ari-
stotle calls reminiscence, as distinguished
from memory. -
Reminiscence, therefore, includes a will
to recollect something past, and a search for
it. But here a difficulty occurs. It may
be said, that what we will to remember we
must conceive, as there can be no will with-
out a conception of the thing willed. A
will to remlielmber a thing, therefore, seems
to imply that we remember it already, and
have no occasion to search for it. But this
difficulty is easily removed. When we will
to remember a thing, we must remember
something relating to it, which gives us a
relative conception of it; but we may, at
the same time, have no conception what the
thing is, but only what relation it bears to
Something else. Thus, I remember that a
friend charged me with a commission to be
executed at such a place ; but I have forgot
what the commission was. By applying
my thought to what I remember concerning
it, that it was given by such a person, upon
such an occasion, in consequence of such a
conversation, I am led, in a train of thought,
to the very thing I had forgot, and recol-
lect distinctly what the commission was.
[356]
Aristotle says, that brutes have not re-
1354–356T -
360
[Essay Iv.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
miniscence;” and this I think is probable;
but, says he, they have memory. It cannot,
indeed, be doubted but they have something
very like to it, and, in some instances, in a
very great degree. A dog knows his master
after long absence. A horse will trace back
a road he has once gone, as accurately as a
man; and this is the more strange, that the
train of thought which he had in going must
be reversed in his return. It is very like
to some prodigious memories we read of,
where a person, upon hearing an hundred
names or unconnected words pronounced,
can begin at the last, and go backwards to
the first, without losing or misplacing one.
Brutes certainly may learn much from ex-
perience, which seems to imply memory.
Yet, I see no reason to think that brutes
measure time as men do, by days, months,
or years ; or that they have any distinct
knowledge of the interval between things
which they remember, or of their distance
from the present moment If we could not
record transactions according to their dates,
human memory would be something very
different from what it is, and, perhaps, re-
semble more the memory of brutes. [357]
ESSAY IV.
OF CONCEPTION.
CHAPTER I.
of CONCEPTION, or SIMPLE APPREHENSION IN
G|ENERAL.
Conceiving, imagining,t apprehending, wh-
derstanding, having a notion of a thing, are
common words, used to express that opera-
tion of the understanding which the logi-
cians call simple apprehension. The having
an idea of a thing, is, in common language,
used in the same sense, chiefly, I think,
since Mr Locke's time.:
Logicians define Simple Apprehension to
be the bare conception of a thing without
any judgment or belief about it. If this
were intended for a strictly logical definition,
it might be a just objection to it, that con-
ception and apprehension are only synony-
mous words ; and that we may as well
define conception by apprehension, as appre-
hension by conception; but it ought to be
remembered that the most simple operations
of the mind cannot be logically defined. To
have a distinct notion of them, we must
attend to them as we feel them in our own
minds. He that would have a distinct
notion of a scarlet colour, will never attain
it by a definition; he must set it before his
eye, attend to it, compare it with the colours
that come nearest to it, and observe the
specific difference, which he will in vain
attempt to define.” [358]
Every man is conscious that he can con-
ceive a thousand things, of which he believes
nothing at all—as a horse with wings, a
mountain of gold ; but, although concep-
tion may be without any degree of belief,
even the smallest belief cannot be without
conception. He that believes must have
Some conception of what he believes.
Without attempting a definition of this
operation of the mind, I shall endeavour to
explain some of its properties; consider the
theories about it ; and take notice of some
mistakes of philosophers concerning it.
1. It may be observed that conception
enters as an ingredient in every operation
of the mind. Our senses cannot give us the
belief of any object, without giving some
conception of it at the same time. No man
can either remember or reason about things
of which he hath no conception. When
we will to exert any of our active powers,
there must be some conception of what we
will to do. There can be no desire nor
aversion, love nor hatred, without some con-
ception of the object. We cannot feel pain
without conceiving it, though we can con-
ceive it without feeling it. These things
are self-evident.
In every operation of the mind, there-
* This is a question which may be differently an-
Fwered, according as we attribute a different meaning
to the terms employed.—H.
f Imagining should not be confounded with Com-
ceiving, &c.; though some philosophers, as Gassendi,
have not attended to the distinction. The words
Conception, Comcept, Notion, should be limited to the
thought of what cannot be represented in the imagin-
ation, as, the thought suggested by a general term.
The Leibnitzians call this symbolical in contrast to
intuitive knowledge. This is the sense in which
conceptio-and conceptus have been usually and cor-
rectly employed. TMr Stewart, on the other hand,
arbitrarily limits Conception to the reproduction, in
Imagination, of an object of sense as actually per-
ceived. See Elements, vol. I., ch. iii. I cannot
enter on a general criticism of Reid's nomenclature,
though I may say something more of this in the
sequel. See below, under pp. 371,482.—H.
... f Iº this country should be added. Locke only
introduced into English philosophy the term idea in
its Cartesian universality. Prior to him, the word
was only used with us in its Platonic signification.
Befºre Des Cartes, David Buchanan, a Scotch philo.
sopher, who sojourned in France, had, however, em-
ployed Idea in an equal latitude. See Note G. H.
* We do not define the Fpecific difference, but we
define by it.—H.
[357, 353]
CHAP. I.]
361
OF SIMPLE APPREHENSION IN GENERAL.
fore, in everything we call thought, there
must be conception. When we analyse the
various operations either of the understand-
ing or of the will, we shall always find this
at the bottom, like the caput mortuum of
the chemists, or the materia prima of the
Peripatetics; but, though there is no opera-
tion of mind without conception, yet it may
be found naked, detached from all others,
and then it is called simple apprehension, or
the bare conception of a thing.
As all the operations of our mind are ex-
pressed by language, every one knows that
it is one thing to understand what is said,
to conceive or apprehend its meaning,
whether it be a word, a sentence, or a dis-
course ; it is another thing to judge of it,
to assent or dissent, to be persuaded or
moved. The first is simple apprehension,
and may be without the last ; but the last
cannot be without the first. ... [359]
2. In bare conception there can neither
be truth nor falsehood, because it neither
affirms nor denies. Every judgment, and
every proposition by which judgment is
expressed, must be true or false; and the
qualities of true and false, in their proper
sense, can belong to nothing but to judg-
ments, or to propositions which express
judgment. In the bare conception of a
thing there is no judgment, opinion, or be-
lief included, and therefore it cannot be
either true or false.
But it may be said, Is there anything
more certain than that men may have true
or false conceptions, true or false appre-
hensions, of things 2 I answer, that such
ways of speaking are indeed so common,
and so well authorized by custom, the arbiter
of language, that it would be presumption
to censure them. It is hardly possible to
avoid using them. But we ought to be
upon our guard that we be not misled by
them, to confound things which, though
often expressed by the same words, are
really different. We must therefore re-
member what was before observed, Essay I.
chap. l—that all the words by which we
signify the bare conception of a thing, are
likewise used to signify our opinions, when
we wish to express them with modesty and
diffidence. And we shall always find, that,
when we speak of true or false conceptions,
we mean true or false opinions. An opinion,
though ever so wavering, or ever so mo-
destly expressed, must be either true or
false ; but a bare conception, which ex-
presses no opinion or judgment, can be
neither.
If we analyse those speeches in which
men attribute truth or falsehood to our
conceptions of things, we shall find in every
case, that there is some opinion or judgment
implied in what they call conception. [360]
A child conceives the moon to be flat, and a
foot or two broad—that is, this is his opinion:
and, when we say it is a false motion or a
false conception, we mean that it is a false
opinion. He conceives the city of London
to be like his country village—that is, he
believes it to be so, till he is better instructed.
He conceives a lion to have horns; that is,
he believes that the animal which men call
a lion, has horns. Such opinions language
authorizes us to call conceptions; and they
may be true or false. But bare conception,
or what the logicians call simple apprehen-
sion, implies no opinion, however slight,
and therefore can neither be true nor false.
What Mr Locke says of ideas (by which
word he very often means nothing but con-
ceptions) is very just, when the word idea
is so understood. Book II., chap. xxxii., § 1.
“Though truth and falsehood belong in
propriety of speech only to propositions, yet
ideas are often termed true or false (as
what words are there that are not used with
great latitude, and with some deviation
from their strict and proper signification ?)
though I think that when ideas, themselves
are termed true or false, there is still some
secret or tacit proposition, which is the
foundation of that denomination: as we shall
see, if we examine the particular occasions
wherein they come to be called true or false;
in all which we shall find some kind of
affirmation or negation, which is the reason
of that denomination ; for our ideas, being
nothing but bare appearances, or perceptions
in our minds, cannot properly and simply
in themselves be said to be true or false, no
more than a simple name of anything can
be said to be true or false.”
It may be here observed, by the way, that,
in this passage, as in many others, Mr
Locke uses the word perception, as well as
the word idea, to signify what I call con-
ception, or simple apprehension. And in
his chapter upon perception, Book II., chap.
ix., he uses it in the same sense. Percep-
tion, he says, “as it is the first faculty of
the mind, exercised about our ideas, so it
is the first and simplest idea we have from
reflection, and is by some called thinking
in general. [36]] It seems to be that
which puts the distinction betwixt the ani-
mal kingdom and the inferior parts of nat, re.
It is the first operation of all our faculties,
and the inlet of all knowledge into our
minds.”
Mr Locke has followed the example given
by Des Cartes, Gassendi, and other Carte-
sians,” in giving the name of perception to
the bare conception of things: and he has
been followed in this by Bishop Berkeley,
* Gassendi', as not a Cartesian, but an Amti-Car
tesian, though he adopted several points in his phi-
losophy from Des Cartes—for example, the employ-
ment of the term Idea not in its Platonic limitation,
[359–361]
362
[Essay I \",
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
Mr Hume, and many late philosophers,
when they treat of ideas. They have pro-
bably been led into this impropriety, by the
common doctrine concerning ideas, which
teaches us, that conception, perception by
the senses, and memory, are only different
ways of perceiving ideas in our own minds."
If that theory be well founded, it will in-
deed be very difficult to find any specific
distinction between conception;and percep-
tion.-i But there is reason to distrust any
philosophical theory when it leads men to
corrupt language, and to confound, under
one name, operations of the mind which
common sense and common language teach
them to distinguish.
I grant that there are some states of the
mind, wherein a man may confound his
conceptions with what he perceives or re-
members, and mistake the one for the other;
as in the delirium of a fever, in some cases
of lunacy and of madness, in dreaming, and
perhaps in some momentary transports of
devotion, or of other strong emotions, which
cloud his intellectual faculties, and, for a
time, carry a man out of himself, as we
usually express it.
Even in a sober and sound state of mind,
the memory of a thing may be so very weak
that we may be in doubt whether we only
dreamed or imagined it.
It may be doubted whether children,
when their imagination first begins to work,
can distinguish what they barely conceive
from what they remember. [362] I have
been told, by a man of knowledge and ob-
servation, that one of his sons, when he
began to speak, very often told lies with
great assurance, without any intention, as
far as appeared, or any consciousness of
guilt. From which the father concluded,
that it is natural to some children to lie.
I am rather inclined to think that the child
had no intention to deceive, but mistook the
rovings of his own fancy"for things which
he remembered.: This, however, I take
to be very uncommon, after children can
communicate their sentiments by language,
though perhaps not so in a more early
period.
Granting all this, if any man will affirm
that they whose intellectual faculties are
sound, and sober, and ripe, cannot with
certainty distinguish what they perceive or
remember, from what they barely conceive,
when those operations have any degree of
strength and distinctness, he may enjoy his
* But see above, p. 280, a, note + et alibi...—H.
f Yet Reid himself defines Perception, a Concep-
tion (imagination) accompanied with a belief in the
existence of its object ; and Mr Stewart reduces the
specific difference, at best only a concomitant, to an
accidental circumstance, in holding that our im-
aginations are themselves conjoined with a tempo-
rary belief in their objective reality.—H.
? But compare above, p. 340, col. a.—H.
opinion ; I know not how to reason with
him. Why should philosophers confound
those operations in treating of ideas, when
they would be ashamed to do it on other
occasions 2 To distinguish the various
powers of our minds, a certain degree of
understanding is necessary. And if some,
through a defect of understanding, natural
or accidental, or from unripeness of under-
standing, may be apt to confound different
powers, will it follow that others cannot
clearly distinguish them 2
To return from this digression—into which
the abuse of the word perception, by philo-
sophers, has led me—it appears evident that
the bare conception of an object, which
includes no opinion or judgment, can neither
be true nor false. Those qualities, in their
proper sense, are altogether inapplicable to
this operation of the mind.
3. Of all the analogies between the opera-
tions of body and those of the mind, there
is none so strong and so obvious to all man-
kind as that which there is between paint-
ing, or other plastic arts, and the power of
conceiving objects in the mind. Hence, in
all languages, the words by which this power
of the mind and its various mcdifications
are expressed, are analogical, and borrowed
from those arts. [363] We consider this
power of the mind as a plastic power, by
which we form to ourselves images of the
objects of thought.
In vain should we attempt to avoid this
analogical language, for we have no other
language upon the subject; yet it is danger-
ous, and apt to mislead. All analogical and
figurative words have a double meaning ;
and, if we are not very much upon our
guard, we slide insensibly from the bor-
rowed and figurative meaning into the pri-
mitive. We are prone to carry the parallel
between the things compared farther than it
will hold, and thus very maturally to fall
into error.
To avoid this as far as possible in the pre-
sent subject, it is proper to attend to the
dissimilitude between conceiving a thing in
the mind, and painting it to the eye, as well
as to their similitude. The similitude strikes
and gives pleasure. The dissimilitude we
are less disposed to observe; but the philo-
sopher ought to attend to it, and to carry it
always in mind, in his reasonings on this
subject, as a monitor, to warn him against
the errors into which the analogical lan-
guage is apt to draw him.
When a man paints, there is some work
done, which remains when his hand is taken
off, and continues to exist though he should
think no more of it. Every stroke of his
pencil produces an effect, and this effect is
different from his action in making it; for
it remains and continues to exist when the
action ceases. The action of painting is
[862, 633]
CHAP. I.]
OF SIMPLE APPREHENSION IN GENERAL. 363
one thing; the picture produced is another
thing. The first is the cause, the second is
the effect.
Let us next consider what is done when
he only conceives this picture. He must
have conceived it before he painted it; for
this is a maxim universally admitted, that
every work of art must first be conceived in
the mind of the operator. What is this
conception ? It is an act of the mind, a kind
of thought. This cannot be denied. [364]
But does it produce any effect besides the
act itself? Surely common sense answers
this question in the negative ; for every
Dne knows that it is one thing to conceive,
another thing to bring forth into effect. It
is one thing to project, another to execute.
A man may think for a long time what he
is to do, and after all do nothing. Con-
ceiving, as well as projecting or resolving,
are what the schoolmen called immament acts
of the mind, which produce nothing beyond
themselves. But painting is a transitive
act, which produces an effect distinct from
the operation, and this effect is the picture.
Let this, therefore, be always remembered,
that what is commonly called the image of
a thing in the mind, is no more than the
act or operation of the mind in conceiving
it.
That this is the common sense of men
who are untutored by philosophy, appears
from their language. If one ignorant of the
language should ask, What is meant by
conceiving a thing 2 we should very natur-
ally answer, that it is having an image of
it in the mind—and perhaps we could not
explain the word better. This shews that
conception, and the image of a thing in the
mind, are synonymous expressions. The
image in the mind, therefore, is not the
object of conception, nor is it any effect
produced by conception as a cause. It is
conception itself. That very mode of think-
ing which we call conception, is by another
name called an image in the mind.”
Nothing more readily gives the concep-
tion of a thing than the seeing an image of
it Hence, by a figure common in language,
conception is called an image of the thing
conceived. But to shew that it is not a
real but a metaphorical image, it is called
an image in the mind. We know nothing
that is properly in the mind but thought ;
and, when anything else is said to be in the
mind, the expression must be figurative,
and signify some kind of thought. [365]
I know that philosophers very unani-
mously maintain, that in conception there
* We ought, however, to distinguish Imagimation
and Image, Conception and Comcept. Imagination
and Conception ought to be employed in speaking of
the mental modification, one and indivisible, con-
sidered as an act; image and Concept, in speaking
of it, considercq as a product or immediate object.—
H
is a real image in the mind, which is the
immediate object of conception, and distinct
from the act of conceiving it. I beg the
reader's indulgence to defer what may be
said for or against this philosophical opinion
to the next chapter; intending in this only
to explain what appears to me to belong to
this operation of mind, without considering
the theories about it. I think it appears,
from what has been said, that the common
language of those who have not imbibed any
philosophical opinion upon this subject,
authorizes us to understand the conception
of a thing, and an image of it in the mind,
not as two different things, but as two dif-
ferent expressions, to signify one and the
same thing ; and I wish to use common
words in their common acceptation.
4. Taking along with us what is said in
the last article, to guard us against the se-
duction of the analogical language used on
this subject, we may observe a very strong
analogy, not only between conceiving and
painting in general, but between the dif-
ferent kinds of our conceptions, and the
different works of the painter. He either
makes fancy pictures, or he copies from the
painting of others, or he paints from the
life ; that is, from real objects of art or
nature which he has seen. I think our
conceptions admit of a division very similar.
First, There are conceptions which may
be called fancy pictures. They are com.
monly called creatures of fancy, or of im-
agination. They are not the copies of any
original that exists, but are originals them-
selves. Such was the conception which
Swift formed of the island of Laputa, and
of the country of the Lilliputians; Cer-
vantes of Don Quixote and his Squire ;
Harrington of the Government of Oceana ;
and Sir Thomas More of that of Utopia.
We can give names to such creatures of
imagination, conceive them distinctly, and
reason consequentially concerning them,
though they never had an existence. They
were conceived by their creators, and may
be conceived by others, but they never
existed. We do not ascribe the qualitics
of true or false to them, because they are
not accompanied with any belief, nor do they
imply any affirmation or negation. [366]
Setting aside those creatures of imagina-
tion, there are other conceptions, which
may be called copies, because they have an
original or archetype to which they refer,
and with which they are believed to agree ;
and we call them true or false conceptions,
according as they agree or disagree with
the standard to which they are referred.
These are of two kinds, which have different
standards or originals.
The first kind is analogous to pictures
taken from the life. We have conceptions
of individual things that really exist, such
[364–366]
364
Lessay v.
ON THE INT ELLECTUAL POWERS.
as the city of London, or the government
of Venice. Here the things conceived are
the originals; and our conceptions are called
true when they agree with the thing con-
ceived. Thus, my conception of the city of
London is true, when I conceive it to be
what it really is.
Individual things which really exist,
being the creatures of God, (though some
of them may receive their outward form
from man,) he only who made them knows
their whole nature ; we know them but in
part, and therefore our conceptions of them
must in all cases be imperfect and inade-
quate ; yet they may be true and just, as
far as they reach.
The second kind is analogous to the copies
which the painter makes from pictures done
before. Such I think are the conceptions
we have of what the ancients called univer-
sals; that is, of things which belong or may
belong to many individuals. These are
kinds and species of things ; such as man
or elephant, which are species of substances;
wisdom or courage, which are species of
qualities; equality or similitude, which are
species of relations." It may be asked—
From what original are these conceptions
formed P And when are they said to be
true or false 2 [367]
It appears to me, that the original from
which they are copied—that is, the thing
conceived—is the conception or meaning
which other men, who understand the
language, affix to the same words.
Things are parcelled into kinds and sorts,
not by nature, but by men. The individual
things we are connected with, are so many,
that to give a proper name to every indi-
vidual would be impossible. We could
never attain the knowledge of them that is
necessary, nor converse and reason about
them, without sorting them according to
ther different attributes. Those that agree
in certain attributes are thrown into one
parcel, and have a general name given
them, which belongs equally to every indi-
vidual in that parcel. This common name
must therefore signify those attributes
which have been observed to be common
to every individual in that parcel, and no-
thing else.
That such general words may answer
their intention, all that is necessary is, that
those who use them should affix the same
meaning or notion — that is, the same con-
ception to them. The common meaning is
the standard by which such conceptions are
formed, and they are said to be true or
* Of all such we can have no adequate imagination.
A universal, when represented in imagination, is no
longer adequate, no longer a universal. We, cannot
h rve an image of Horse, but only of some individual
of that species We may, however, have a motion or
conception of it. See below, p. 48°.-H.
false according as they agree or disagree
with it. Thus, my conception of felony is
true and just, when it agrees with the
meaning of that word in the laws relating
to it, and in authors who understand the
law. The meaning of the word is the
thing conceived ; and that meaning is the
conception affixed to it by those who best
understand the language.
An individual is expressed in language
either by a proper name, or by a general
word joined to such circumstances as dis-
tinguish that individual from all others; if
it is unknown, it may, when an object of
sense, and within reach, be pointed out to
the senses; when beyond the reach of the
senses, it may be ascertained by a descrip-
tion, which, though very imperfect, may be
true, and sufficient to distinguish it from
every other individual. Hence it is, that,
in speaking of individuals, we are very little
in danger of mistaking the object, or tak-
ing one individual for another. [368]
Yet, as was before observed, our concep-
tion of them is always inadequate and lame.
They are the creatures of God, and there
are many things belonging to them which
we know not, and which cannot be deduced
by reasoning from what we know. They
have a real essence, or constitution of
nature, from which all their qualities flow ;
but this essence our faculties do not com-
prehend. They are therefore incapable of
definition ; for a definition ought to com-
prehend the whole nature or essence of the
thing defined.
Thus, Westminster Bridge is an indi-
vidual object; though I had never seen
or heard of it before, if I am only made
to conceive that it is a bridge from West-
minster over the Thames, this concep-
tion, however imperfect, is true, and is
sufficient to make me distinguish it, when
it is mentioned, from every other object
that exists. The architect may have an
adequate conception of its structure, which
is the work of man ; but of the materials,
which are the work of God, no man has an
adequate conception; and, therefore, though
the object may be described, it cannot be
defined.
Universals are always expressed by gene-
ral words; and all the words of language,
excepting proper names, are general words;
they are the signs of general concep-
tions, or of some circumstance relating
to them. These general conceptions are
formed for the purpose of language and
reasoning ; and the object from which they
are taken, and to which they are intended
to agree, is the conception which other men
join to the same words; they may, there-
fore, be adequate, and perfectly agree with
the thing conceived. This implies no more
than that men who speak the same language
[367, 368]
c11AP. I.]
365
OF SIMPLE APPREHENSION IN GENERAL.
may perfectly agree in the meaning of
many general words.
Thus mathematicians have conceived
what they call a plane triangle. They
have defined it accurately; and, when I
conceive it to be a plane surface, bounded
by three right lines, I have both a true and
an adequate conception of it. [369] There
is nothing belonging to a plane triangle
which is not comprehended in this conception
of it, or deducible from it by just reasoning.
This definition expresses the whole essence
of the thing defined, as every just definition
ought to do; but this essence is only what
Mr Locke very properly calls a nominal
essence; it is a general conception formed
by the mind, and joined to a general word
as its sign.
If all the general words of a language had
a precise meaning, and were perfectly un-
derstood, as mathematical terms are, all
verbal disputes would be at an end, and
men would never seem to differ in opinion,
but when they differ in reality; but this is
far from being the case. The meaning of
most general words is not learned, like that
of mathematical terms, by an accurate
definition, but by the experience we happen
to have, by hearing them used in conversa-
tion. From such experience, we collect
their meaning by a kind of induction; and,
as this induction is, for the most part, lame
and imperfect, it happens that different per-
sons join different conceptions to the same
general word; and, though we intend to
give them the meaning which use, the
arbiter of language, has put upon them,
this is difficult to find, and apt to be mis-
taken, even by the candid and attentive.
Hence, in innumerable disputes, men do not
really differ in their judgments, but in the
way of expressing them.
Our conceptions, therefore, appear to be
of three kinds. They are either the concep-
tions of individual things, the creatures of
God; or they are conceptions of the mean-
ing of general words ; or they are the crea-
tures of our own imagination : and these
different kinds have different properties,
which we have endeavoured to describe.
5. Our conception of things may be strong
and lively, or it may be faint and languid in
all degrees. These are qualities which pro-
perly belong to our conceptions, though we
have no names for them but such as are
analogical. Every man is conscious of such
a difference in his conceptions, and finds his
lively conceptions most agreeable, when the
object is not of such a nature as to give
pain. 1370]
Those who have lively conceptions, com-
monly express them in a lively manner—
that is, in such a manner as to raise lively
conceptions and emotions in others. Such
persons are the most agreeable companions
in conversation, and the lmost aeceptable in
their writings.
The liveliness of our conceptions proceeds
from different causes. Some objects, from
their own nature, or from accidental asso-
ciations, are apt to raise strong emotions in
the mind. Joy and hope, ambition, zeal,
and resentment, tend to enliven our con-
ceptions; disappointment, disgrace, grief,
and envy, tend rather to flatten them. Men
of keen passions are commonly lively and
agreeable in conversation ; and dispassion-
ate men often make dull companions. There
is in some men a natural strengthaand vigour
of mind which gives strength to their con-
ceptions on all subjects, and in all the occa-
sional variations of temper.
It seems easier to form a lively concep-
tion of objects that are familiar, than of
those that are not; our conceptions of visible
objects are commonly the most lively, when
other circumstances are equal. Hence.
poets not only delight in the description of
visible objects, but find means, by meta-
phor, analogy, and allusion, to clothe every
object they describe with visible qualities.
The lively conception of these makes the
object appear, as it were, before our eyes.
Lord Kames, in his Elements of Criticism,
has shewn of what importance it is in
works of taste, to give to objects described,
what he calls ideal presence." To produce
this in the mind, is, indeed, the capital aim
of poetical and rhetorical description. It
carries the man, as it were, out of himself,
and makes him a spectator of the scene
described. This ideal presence seems to me,
to be nothing else but a lively conception of
the appearance which the object would make
if really present to the eye. [371]
Abstract and general conceptions are
never lively, though they may be distinct;
and, therefore, however necessary in philo-
sophy, seldom enter into poetical descrip-
tion without being particularised or clothed
in some visible dress.--
It may be observed, however, that our
conceptions of visible objects become more
lively by giving them motion, and more
still by giving them life and intellectual
qualities. Hence, in poetry, the whole crea-
tion is animated, and endowed with sense
and reflection.
Imagination, when it is distinguished
from conception, seems to me to signify
one species of conception—to wit, the con-
* The 'Eycz
pa
etc., "Trorárworls, ‘Pozvrozorío, "Oxpts,
3. z
Eiðoxoaroſłcz,
H
isiones, of the ancient Rhetorici.ins.—
f They thus cease to be aught abstract and general,
and become merely individual representations. In
precise language, they are no longer vožºcocºroz, but
goevgrocarpºra: ; no longer Begriffe, but Anschauungen ;
no longer motions or concepts, but images. The wori
& 6 gricularised" ought to have been individualised
[369–871]
366
[ESSAY 1 v.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
ception of visible objects." Thus, in a
mathematical proposition, I imagine the
figure, and I conceive the demonstration;
it would not, I think, be improper to say,
I conceive both ; but it would not be so
proper to say, I imagine the demonstration.
6. Our conceptions of things may be clear,
distinct, and steady; or they may be ob-
scure, indistinct, and wavering. The live-
liness of our conceptions gives pleasure,
but it is their distinctness and steadiness
that enables us to judge right, and to
express our sentiments with perspicuity.
If we inquire into the cause, why, among
persons speaking or writing on the same
subject, we find in one so much darkness,
in another so much perspicuity, I believe
the chief cause will be found to be, that
one had a distinct and steady concep-
tion of what he said and wrote, and the
other had not. Men generally find means
to express distinctly what they have con-
ceived distinctly. Horace observes, that
proper words spontaneously follow distinct
conceptions—“Verbaque provisam rem non
invita sequwntur.” But it is impossible
that a man should distinctly express what
he has not distinctly conceived. [372]
We are commonly taught that perspicuity
depends upon a proper choice of words, a
proper structure of sentences, and a proper
order in the whole composition. All this
is very true ; but it supposes distinctness in
our conceptions, without which there can
be neither propriety in our words, nor in
the structure of our sentences, nor in our
method.
Nay, l apprehend that indistinct con-
ceptions of things are, for the most part,
the cause, not only of obscurity in writing
and speaking, but of error in judging.
Must not they who conceive things in the
same manner form the same judgment of
their agreements and disagreements 2 Is
it possible for two persons to differ with
regard to the conclusion of a syllogism who
have the same conception of the premises 2
Some persons find it difficult to enter
into a mathematical demonstration. I be-
lieve we shall always find the reason to be,
that they do not distinctly apprehend it.
A man cannot be convinced by what he
does not understand. On the other hand,
I think a man cannot understand a de-
monstration without seeing the force of it.
I speak of such demonstrations as those
of Euclid, where every step is set down, and
nothing left to be supplied by the reader.
* It is to be regretted that Reid did not more fully
develope the distinction of Imagination and Concep-
tion, on which he here and elsewhere inadequately
touches. Imagination is not, though in conformity
to the etymology of the term, to be limited to the
representation of visible objects. See below, under
p. 482. Neither ought the term conceive to be used
in the extensive sense of understand.-H.
Sometimes one who has got through the
first four books of Euclid's “Elements,”
and sees the force of the demonstrations,
finds difficulty in the fifth. What is the
reason of this 2 You may find, by a little
conversation with him, that he has not a
clear and steady conception of ratios, and
of the terms relating to them. When the
terms used in the fifth book have become
familiar, and readily excite in his mind a
clear and steady conception of their mean-
ing, you may venture to affirm that he will
be able to understand the demonstrations
of that book, and to see the force of them.
[373] -
If this be really the case, as it seems to
be, it leads us to think that men are very
much upon a level with regard to mere
judgment, when we take that faculty apart
from the apprehension or conception of the
things about which we judge ; so that a
sound judgment seems to be the inseparable
companion of a clear and steady apprehen-
sion. And we ought not to consider these
two as talents, of which the one may fall to
the lot of one man, and the other to the lot
of another, but as talents which always go
together.
It may, however, be observed, that some
of our conceptions may be more subservient
to reasoning than others which are equally
clear and distinct. It was before observed,
that some of our conceptions are of indi-
vidual things, others of things general and
abstract. It may happen that a man who
has very clear conceptions of things in-
dividually, is not so happy in those of
things general and abstract. And this I
take to be the reason why we find men
who have good judgment in matters of
common life, and perhaps good talents for
poetical or rhetorical composition, who find
it very difficult to enter into abstract reas-
onlng.
That I may not appear singular in put-
ting men so much upon a level in point of
mere judgment, I beg leave to support this
opinion by the authority of two very think
ing men, Des Cartes and Cicero. The
former, in his dissertation on Method, ex-
presses himself to this purpose:—“Nothing
is so equally distributed among men as
judgment." Wherefore, it seems reasonable
to believe, that the power of distinguishing
what is true from what is false, (which we
properly call judgment or right reason,) is
by nature equal in all men ; and therefore
that the diversity of our opinions does not
arise from one person being endowed with
a greater power of reason than another, but
only from this, that we do not lead our
*, ** Judgment,” bona mens, in the authentic
I ſatin translation. I cannot, at the moment, lay
hands on my copy of the French original; but, if I
recollect aright, it is there le bon.scns.—H.
[372,373]
CHAP. I.]
367
OF SIMPLE APPREHENSION IN GENERAL.
thought in the same track, nor attend to
the same things.”
Cicero, in his third book “De Oratore,”
makes this observation—“It is wonderful
when the learned and unlearned differ so
much in art, how little they differ in judg-
ment. For art being derived from Nature,
is good for nothing, unless it move and
delight Nature.” [374]
From what has been said in this article,
it follows, that it is so far in our power to
Write and speak perspicuously, and to reason
justly, as it is in our power to form clear
and distinct conceptions of the subject on
which we speak or reason. And, though
Nature hath put a wide difference between
one man and another in this respect, yet
that it is in a very considerable degree in
our power to have clear and distinct appre-
hensions of things about which we think
and reason, cannot be doubted.
7. It has been observed by many authors,
that, when we barely conceive any object,
the ingredients of that conception must
either be things with which we were before
acquainted by some other original power of
the mind, or they must be parts or attri-
butes of such things. Thus, a man cannot
conceive colours if he never saw, nor sounds
if he never heard. If a man had not a con-
Science, he could not conceive what is meant
by moral obligation, or by right and wrong
in conduct.
Fancy may combine things that never
were combined in reality. It may enlarge
or diminish, multiply or divide, compound
and fashion the objects which nature pre-
sents; but it cannot, by the utmost effort
of that creative power which we ascribe to
it, bring any one simple ingredient into its
productions which Nature has not framed
and brought to our knowledge by some
other faculty.
This Mr Locke has expressed as beauti-
fully as justly. The dominion of man, in
this little world of his own understanding,
is much the same as in the great world of
visible things; wherein his power, however
managed by art and skill, reaches no farther
than to compound and divide the materials
that are made to his hand, but can do no-
thing towards making the least particle of
matter, or destroying one atom that is
already in being. [375] The same inability
will every one find in himself, to fashion in his
understanding any simple idea not received
by the powers which God has given him.
I think all philosophers agree in this senti-
ment. Mr Hume, indeed, after acknow-
ledging the truth of the principle in general,
mentions what he thinks a single exception
to it—That a man, who had seen all the
shades of a particular colour except one,
might frame in his mind a conception of
that shade which he never saw.
I think
this is not an exception ; because a parti-
cular shade of a colour differs not specifically,
but only in degree, from other shades of the
same colour.
It is proper to observe, that our most
simple conceptions are not those which
nature immediately presents to us. When
we come to years of understanding, we have
the power of analysing the objects of nature,
of distinguishing their several attributes
and relations, of conceiving them one by
one, and of giving a name to each, whose
meaning extends only to that single attri-
bute or relation: and thus our most simple
conceptions are not those of any object in
nature, but of some single attribute or rela-
tion of such objects.
Thus, nature presents to our senses
bodies that are extended in three dimensions,
and Solid. By analysing the motion we have
of body from our senses, we form to our-
Selves the conceptions of extension, solidity,
space, a point, a line, a surface—all which
are more simple conceptions than that of a
body. But they are the elements, as it
were, of which our conception of a body is
made up, and into which it may be analysed.
This power of analysing objects we propose
to consider particularly in another place.
It is only mentioned here, that what is said
in this article may not be understood so as
to be inconsistent with it. [376]
8. Though our conceptions must be con-
fined to the ingredients mentioned in the
last article, we are unconfined with regard
to the arrangement of those ingredients.
Here we may pick and choose, and form
an endless variety of combinations and com-
positions, which we call creatures of the
imagination. These may be clearly con-
ceived, though they never existed : and,
indeed, everything that is made, must have
been conceived before it was made. Every
work of human art, and every plan of con-
duct, whether in public or in private life,
must have been conceived before it was
brought to execution. And we cannot avoid
thinking, that the Almighty, before he
created the universe by his power, had a
distinct conception of the whole and of every
part, and saw it to be good, and agreeable
to his intention. -
It is the business of man, as a rational
creature, to employ this unlimited power of
conception, for planning his conduct and
enlarging his knowledge. It seems to be
peculiar to beings endowed with reason to
act by a preconceived plan. Brute animals
seem either to want this power, or to have
it in a very low degree. They are moved
by instinct, habit, appetite, or natural affec-
tion, according as these principles are stirred
by the present occasion. But I see no
reason to think that they can propose to
themselves a connected plan of life, or form
[374–376]
368
[ESSAY 1 v.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
general rules of conduct, Indeed, we see
that many of the human species, to whom
‘God has given this power, make little use
of it. They act without a plan, as the pas-
sion or appetite which is strongest at the
time leads them.
9. The last property I shall mention of
this faculty, is that which essentially dis-
tinguishes it from every other power of the
mind; and it is, that it is not employed
solely about things which have existence.
I can conceive a winged horse or a centaur,
‘as easily and as distinctly as I can conceive
a man whom I have seen. Nor does this
distinct conception incline my judgment in
the least to the belief that a winged horse
or a centaur ever existed. [377]
It is not so with the other operations of
our minds. They are employed about real
existences, and carry with them the belief
of their objects. When I feel pain, I am
compelled to believe that the pain that I
feel has a real existence. When I perceive
any external object, my belief of the real
existence of the object is irresistible. When
I distinctly remember any event, though
that event may not now exist, I can have
no doubt but it did exist. That conscious-
'ness which we have of the operations of
our own minds, implies a belief of the real
existence of those operations.
Thus we see, that the powers of sensa-
tion, of perception, of memory, and of con-
sciousness, are all employed solely about
objects that do exist, or have existed. But
conception is often employed about objects
that neither do, nor did, nor will exist. This
is the very nature of this faculty, that its
object, though distinctly conceived, may
have no existence. Such an object we call
a creature of imagination; but this creature
never was created.
That we may not impose upon ourselves
in this matter, we must distinguish between
that act or operation of the mind, which we
call conceiving an object, and the object
which we conceive. . When we conceive
anything, there is a real act or operation of
the mind. Of this we are conscious, and
can have no doubt of its existence. But
every such act must have an object ;" for he
that conceives must conceive something.
Suppose he conceives a centaur, he may
have a distinct conception of this object,
though no centaur ever existed.
I am afraid that, to those who are unac-
quainted with the doctrine of philosophers
upon this subject, I shall appear in a very
ridiculous light, for insisting upon a point
so very evident as that men may barely
conceiverthings that never existed. They
will hardly believe that any man in his wits
ever doubted of it. Indeed, I know no
truth more evident to the common sense and
to the experience of mankind. But, if the
authority of philosophy, ancient and modern,
opposes it, as I think it does, I wish not
to treat that authority so fastidiously as not
to attend patiently to what may be said in
support of it. [378]
CHAPTER II.
THEORIES CONCERNING CONCEPTION.
The theory of ideas has been applied to
the conception of objects, as well as to per-
ception and memory. Perhaps it will be
irksome to the reader, as it is to the writer,
to return to that subject, after so much has
been said upon it ; but its application to the
conception of objects, which could not pro-
perly have been introduced before, gives a
more comprehensive view of it, and of the
prejudices which have led philosophers so
unanimously into it.
There are two prejudices which seem to
me to have given rise to the theory of ideas
in all the various forms in which it has ap-
peared in the course of above two thousand
years; and, though they have no support
from the natural dictates of our faculties,
or from attentive reflection upon their oper-
ations, they are prejudices which those who
speculate upon this subject are very apt to
be led into by analogy. - -
The first is—That, in all the operations of
the understanding, there must be some in-
mediate intercourse between the mind and
its object, so that the one may act upon the
other. The second, That, in all the opera-
tions of understanding, there must be an
object of thought, which really exists while
we think of it; or, as some philosophers
have expressed it, that which is not cannot
be intelligible. - -
Had philosophers perceived that these are
prejudices grounded only upon analogical
reasoning, we had never heard of ideas in
the philosophical sense of that word. [379]
The first of these principles has led philo-
sophers to think that, as the external
objects of sense are too remote to act upon
the mind immediately, there must be some
image or shadow of them that is present to
the mind, and is the immediate object of
perception. That there is such an imme-
diate object of perception, distinct from
the external object, has been very unani-
mously held by philosophers, though they
have differed much about the name, the
* See beluw, p. 390, and Note P.-H.
* The reader will hear in mind what has been
already said of the limited meaning attached by
Reid to the term Idea, viz., something in, or present
to the mind, but not a mere modification of the
mind—and his error in supposing that all philosophers
admitted this crude hypothesis. See Notes B, C, L,
M, N, O, P, &c.—H
[377–379]
CHAP. II.]
369
THEORIES CONCERN ING CONCEPTION.
nature, and the origin of those immediate
objects.
We have considered what has been said in
the support of this principle, Essay II. chap.
14, to which the reader is referred, to
prevent repetition.
I shall only add to what is there said,
That there appears no shadow of reason
why the mind must have an object imme-
diately present to it in its intellectual oper-
ations, any more than in its affections and
passions. Philosophers have not said that
ideas are the immediate objects of love or
resentment, of esteem or disapprobation.
It is, I think, acknowledged, that persons
and not ideas, are the immediate objects of
those affections; persons, who are as far
from being immediately present to the mind
as other external objects, and, sometimes,
persons who have now no existence, in this
world at least, and who can neither act
upon the mind, nor be acted upon by it.
The second principle, which I conceive
to be likewise a prejudice of philosophers,
grounded upon analogy, is now to be
considered.
It contradicts directly what was laid down
in the last article of the preceding chapter
—to wit, that we may have a distinct con-
ception of things which never existed. This
is undoubtedly the common belief of those
who have not been instructed in philosophy;
and they will think it as ridiculous to defend
it by reasoning, as to oppose it. [380]
The philosopher says, Though there
may be a remote object which does not ex-
ist, there must be an immediate object
which really exists; for that which is not,
cannot be an object of thought. The idea
must be perceived by the mind, and, if it
does not exist there, there can be no per-
ception of it, no operation of the mind
about it."
This principle deserves the more to be
examined, because the other before men-
tioned depends upon it ; for, although the
last may be true, even if the first was false,
yet, if the last be not true, neither can the
first. If we can conceive objects which
have no existence, it follows that there may
be objects of thought which neither act upon
the mind, nor are acted upon by it ; because
that which has no existence can neither act
nor be acted upon.
It is by these principles that philosophers
have been led to think that, in every act of
memory and of conception, as well as of
perception, there are two objects—the
one, the immediate object, the idea, the
species, the form ; the other, the mediate
or external object. The vulgar know only
* In relation to this and what follows, see above,
}; 292, b, note f ; p. 278, a, note f ; and Note B.
of one object, which, in perception, is some-
thing external that exists; in memory,
Something that did exist ; and, in concep-
tion, may be something that never existed.*
But the immediate object of the philo-
Sophers, the idea, is said to exist, and to be
perceived in all these operations.
These principles have not only led philo-
sophers to split objects into two, where
others can find but one, but likewise have
led them to reduce the three operations now
mentioned to one, making memory and con-
ception, as well as perception, to be the per-
ception of ideas. But nothing appears more
evident to the vulgar, than that what is
only remembered, or only conceived, is not
perceived ; and, to speak of the perceptions
of memory, appears to them as absurd as
to speak of the hearing of sight. [38]]
In a word, these two principles carry us
into the whole philosophical theory of ideas,
and furnish every argument that ever was
used for their existence. If they are true,
that system must be admitted with all its
consequences. If they are only prejudices,
grounded upon analogical reasoning, the
whole system must fall to the ground with
them.
It is, therefore, of importance to trace
those principles, as far as we are able, to
their origin, and to see, if possible, whether
they have any just foundation in reason, or
whether they are rash conclusions, drawn
from a supposed analogy between matter
and mind. -
The unlearned, who are guided by the
dictates of nature, and express what they
are conscious of concerning the operations
of their own mind, believe that the object
which they distinctly perceive certainly
exists; that the object which they distinctly
remember certainly did exist, but now may
not ; but as to things that are barely con-
ceived, they know that they can conceive a
thousand things that never existed, and that
the bare conception of a thing does not so
much as afford a presumption of its exist-
ence. They give themselves no trouble to
know how these operations are performed, or
to account for them from general principles.
But philosophers, who wish to discover
the causes of things, and to account for
these operations of mind, observing that in
other operations there must be not only an
agent, but something to act upon, have
been led by analogy to conclude that it
must be so in the operations of the mind.
The relation between the mind and its
conceptions bears a very strong and obvious
analogy to the relation between a man and
his work. Every scheme he forms, every
discovery he makes by his reasoning powers,
is very properly called the work of his mind.
These works of the mind are sometimes
# See references in preceding note.—H.
[380,381T
2 B
370
[ESSAY Iv.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
great and important works, and draw the
attention and admiration of men. [382]
It is the province of the philosopher to
consider how such works of the mind are
produced, and of what materials they are
composed. He calls the materials ideas.
There must therefore be ideas, which the
mind can arrange and form into a regular
structure. Everything that is produced,
must be produced of something; and from
nothing, nothing can be produced.
Some such reasoning as this seems to me
to have given the first rise to the philoso-
phical notions of ideas. Those notions were
formed into a system by the Pythagoreans,
two thousand years ago; and this system
was adopted by Plato, and embellished with
all the powers of a fine and lofty imagina-
tion. I shall, in compliance with custom,
call it the Platonic system of ideas, though
in reality it was the invention of the Pytha-
gorean school."
The most arduous question which em-
ployed the wits of men in the infancy of
the Grecian philosophy was—What was the
origin of the world?—from what principles
and causes did it proceed? To this ques-
tion very different answers were given in
the different schools. Most of them appear
to us very ridiculous. The Pythagoreans,
however, judged, very rationally, from the
order and beauty of the universe, that it.
must be the workmanship of an eternal, in-
telligent, and good being : and therefore
they concluded the Deity to be one first
principle or cause of the universe.
But they conceived there must be more.
The universe must be made of something.
Every workman must have materials to
work upon. That the world should be made
out of nothing seemed to them absurd, be-
cause everything that is made must be made
of something. -
Nullam reme nihilo gignidivinitus unquam.—LUcR.
De nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse reverti.—PEus.
This maxim never was brought into doubt:
even in Cicero’s time it continued to be
held by all philosophers. [383] What
natural philosopher (says that author in his
second book of Divination) ever asserted
that anything could take its rise from
nothing, or be reduced to nothing P Be-
cause men must have materials to work
upon, they concluded it must be so with
the Deity. This was reasoning from analogy.
From this it followed, that an eternal
uncreated matter was another first prin-
ciple of the universe. But this matter they
believed had no form nor quality. It was
.* Ideas in the Platonic, and Ideas in the modern
signification, hold, as I have already shewn, little
or no analogy to each other. See above, p. 204, a,
notes + f ; p. 225, b, note *; p. 262, b, note 4.—H. | H
the same with the materia prima or first
matter of Aristotle, who borrowed this part
of his philosophy from his predecessors.
To us it seems more rational to think
that the Deity created matter with its qua-
lities, than that the matter of the universe
should be eternal and self-existent, But
so strong was the prejudice of the ancient
philosophers against what we call creation,
that they rather chose to have recourse to
this eternal and unintelligible matter, that
the Deity might have materials to work
upon.
The same analogy which led them to
think that there must be an eternal matter of
which the world was made, led them also
to conclude that there must be an eternal
pattern or model according to which it was
made. Works of design and art must be
distinctly conceived before they are made.
The Deity, as an intelligent Being, about
to execute a work of perfect beauty and
regularity, must have had a distinct con-
ception of his work before it was made.
This appears very rational.
But this conception, being the work of
the Divine intellect, something must have
existed as its object. This could only be
ideas, which are the proper and immediate
object of intellect. [384]
From this investigation of the principles
or causes of the universe, those philoso-
phers concluded them to be three in number
—to wit, an eternal matter as the material
cause, eternal ideas as the model or exem-
plary cause, and an eternal intelligent mind
as the efficient cause.
As to the nature of those eternal ideas,
the philosophers of that sect ascribed to
them the most magnificent attributes.
They were immutable and uncreated ;" the
object of the Divine intellect before the
world was made ; and the only object of
intellect and of science to all intelligent
beings. As far as intellect is superior to
sense, so far are ideas superior to all the
objects of sense. The objects of sense
being in a constant flux, cannot properly
be said to exist. Ideas are the things
which have a real and permanent exist-
ence. They are as various as the species of
things, there being one idea of every spe-
cies, but none of individuals. The idea is
the essence of the species, and existed be-
fore any of the species was made. It is
entire in every individual of the species,
without being either divided or multiplied.
In our present state, we have but an
imperfect conception of the eternal ideas;
but it is the highest felicity and perfection
of men to be able to contemplate them.
* Whether, in the Platonic system, Ideas are, or
are not, independent of the Deity, I have already
Stated, is, and always has been, a weavata quastio.--
[382–384]
cuAP. II.]
371
THEORIES CONCERNING CONCEPTION.
While we are in this prison of the body,
sense, as a dead weight, bears us down
from the contemplation of the intellectual
objects; and it is only by a due purifica-
tion of the Soul, and abstraction from sense,
that the intellectual eye is opened, and that
we are enabled to mount upon the wings of
intellect to the celestial world of ideas.
Such was the most ancient system con-
cerning ideas, of which we have any account.
And, lowever different from the modern,
it appears to be built upon the prejudices
we have mentioned—to wit, that in every
operation there must be something to work
upon ; and that even in conception there
must be an object which really exists.
[385]
For, if those ancient philosophers had
thought it possible that the Deity could
operate without materials in the formation
of the world, and that he could conceive
the plan of it without a model, they could
have seen no reason to make matter and
ideas eternal and necessarily existent prin-
ciples, as well as the Deity himself.
Whether they believed that the ideas
were not only eternal, , but eternally, and
without a cause, arranged in that beautiful
and perfect order which they ascribe to this
intelligible world of ideas, I cannot say :
but this seems to be a necessary conse-
quence of the system : for, if the Deity
could not conceive the plan of the world
which he made, without a model which
really existed, that model could not be his
work, nor contrived by his wisdom; for, if
he made it, he must have conceived it
before it was made ; it must therefore have
existed in all its beauty and order inde-
pendent of the Deity; and this I think
they acknowledged, by making the model
and the matter of this world, first princi-
ples, no less than the Deity.
If the Platonic system be thus understood,
(and I do not see how it can hang together
otherwise,) it leads to two consequences
that are unfavourable to it.
First, Nothing is left to the Maker of
this world but the skill to work after a
model. The model had all the perfection
and beauty that appears in the copy, and
the Deity had only to copy after a pattern
that existed independent of him. Indeed,
the copy, if we believe those philosophers,
falls very far short of the original ; but this
they seem to have ascribed to the refracto-
riness of matter of which it was made.
Secondly, If the world of ideas, without
being the work of a perfectly wise and good
intelligent being, could have so much beauty
and perfection, how can we infer from the
beauty and order of this world, which is
but an imperfect copy of the other, that it
must have been made by a perfectly wise
and good being 2 [386] The force of this
reasoning, from the beauty and order of the
universe, to its being the work of a wise
being, which appears invincible to every
candid mind, and appeared so to those
ancient philosophers, is entirely destroyed
by the supposition of the existence of a
world of ideas, of greater perfection and
beauty, which never was made. Or, if the
reasoning be good, it will apply to the world
of ideas, which must, of consequence, have
been made by a wise and good intelligent
being, and must have been conceived before
it was made.
It may farther be observed, that all that
is mysterious and unintelligible in the Pla-
tonic ideas, arises from attributing existence
to them. Take away this one attribute, all
the rest, however pompously expressed,
are easily admitted and understood.
What is a Platonic idea, P. It is the
essence of a species. It is the exemplar, the
model, according to which all the individuals
of that species are made. It is entire in
every individual of the species, without be-
ing multiplied or divided. It was an object
of the divine intellect from eternity, and is an
object of contemplation and of science to
every intelligent being. It is eternal, im-
mutable, and uncreated ; and, to crown all,
it not only exists, but has a more real and
permanent existence than anything that
ever God made.
Take this description altogether, and it
would require an OEdipus to unriddle it.
But take away the last part of it, and no-
thing is more easy. It is easy to find five
hundred things which answer to every
article in the description except the last.
Take, for an instance, the nature of a
circle, as it is defined by Euclid—an object
which every intelligent being may conceive
distinctly, though no circle had ever existed;
it is the exemplar, the model, according to
which all the individual figures of that
species that ever existed were made ; for
they are all made according to the nature of a
circle. [387] It is entire in every individual
of the species, without being multiplied or
divided. For every circle is an entire
circle ; and all circles, in as far as they are
circles, have one and the same nature. It
was an object of the divine intellect from
all eternity, and may be an object of con-
templation and of science to every intelli-
gent being. It is the essence of a species,
and, like all other essences, it is eternal,
immutable, and uncreated. This means
no more but that a circle always was a
circle, and can never be anything but a
circle. It is the necessity of the thing,
and not any act of creating power, that
makes a circle to be a circle.
The nature of every species, whether of
substance, of quality, or of relation, and in
general everything which the ancients called
{385–387] -
2 B 2
372
[ESSAY IV.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERs.
an universal, answers to the description of
a Platonic idea, if in that description you
leave out the attribute of existence.
If we believe that no species of things
could be conceived by the Almighty with-
out a model that really existed, we must go
back to the Platonic system, however mys-
terious. But, if it be true that the Deity
could have a distinct conception of things
which did not exist, and that other intelligent
beings may conceive objects which do not
exist, the system has no better foundation
than this prejudice, that the operations of
mind must be like those of the body.
Aristotle rejected the ideas of his master
Plato as visionary; but he retained the
prejudices that gave rise to them, and there-
fore substituted something in their place,
but under a different name,” and of a dif-
ferent origin.
He called the objects of intellect, intelli-
gible species; those of the memory and
imagination, phantasms; and those of the
senses, sensible species. This change of the
name" was indeed very small ; for the Greek
word of Aristotle [iſ?os] which we translate
species or form, is so near to the Greek
word idea, both in its sound and significa-
tion, that, from their etymology, it would
not be easy to give them different meanings.
[388] Both arederived from the Greek word
which signifies to see, and both may signify a
vision or appearance to the eye. Cicero, who
understood Greek well, often translates the
Greek word idea by the Latin word visio.
But both words being used as terms of art—
one in the Platonic system, the other in the
Peripatetic—the Latin writers generally
borrowed the Greek word idea to express the
Platonic motion, and translated Aristotle's
word, by the words species or forma ; and in
this they have been followed in the modern
languages."
Those forms or species were called intelli-
gible, to distinguish them from sensible
species, which Aristotle held to be the imme-
diate objects of sense. -
He thought that the sensible species come
from the external object, and defined a sense
to be that which has the capacity to receive
the form of sensible things without the mat-
ter; as wax receives the form of a seal with-
out any of the matter of it. In like manner,
he thought that the intellect receives the
forms of things intelligible; and he callsit'
the place of forms.
* Heid seems not aware that Plato, and Aristotle
in relation to Plato, employed the terms fºo; and
iðéo, almost as convertible. In fact, the latter usually
'combats the ideal theory of the former by the name
of #30s —e.g., rö. Eºn.xzigá-o, regerío'ºro. 7&8 #st.
M. Cousin, in a learned and ingenious paper of his
“ Nouveaux, Fragments,” has endeavoured to shew
that Plato did not apply the two terms indifferently;
and the same has been attempted by Richter. But
so many exceptions must be admitted, that, appa-
rently, no determinate rule can be established.— 1.
*...
I take it to have been the opinion of Aris-
totle, that the intelligible forms in the hu-
'man intellect are derived from the sensible
by abstraction, and other operations of the
mind itself. As to the intelligible forms in
the divine intelleet, they must have had
another origin; but I do not remember that
he gives any opinion about them. He cer-
tainly maintained, however, that there is no
intellection without intelligible species;"
no memory or imagination without phan-
tasms; no perception without sensible
species. Treating of memory, he proposes
a d'fficulty, and endeavours to resolve it—
how a phantasm, that is a present object in
the mind, should represent a thing that is
past. [389]
Thus, I think, it appears that the Per-
ipatetic system of species and phantasms,
as well as the Platonic system of ideas, is
grounded upon this principle, that in every
kind of thought there must be some object
that really exists; in every operation of the
mind, something to work upon. Whether
this immediate object be called an idea with
Plato, for a phantasm or species with Aris-
totle—whether it be eternal and uncreated,
or produced by the impressions of external
objects—is of no consequence in the pre-
sent argument. In both systems, it was
thought impossible that the Deity could
make the world without matter to work
upon ; in both, it was thought impossible
that an intelligent Being could conceive
anything that did not exist, but by means
of a model that really existed.
The philosophers of the Alexandrian
school, commonly called the latter Plato-
nists, conceived the eternal ideas of things
to be in the Divine intellect, and thereby
avoided the absurdity of making them a
principle distinct from and independent of
the Deity; but still they held them to exist
really in the Divine mind as the objects of
conception, and as the patterns and arche-
types of things that are made.
Modern philosophers, still persuaded that
of every thought there must be an imme-
diate object that really exists, have not
deemed it necessary to distinguish by dif-
ferent names the immediate objects of in-
tellect, of imagination, and of the senses,
but have given the common name of idea
to them all. *
Whether these ideas be in the sensorium,
or in the mind, or partly in the one and
partly in the other ; whether they exist
when they are not perceived, or only when
* There is , even less reason to attribute such a
theory to Aristotle in relation to the intellect than
in relation to sense and imagination. See even his
oldest commentator, the Aphrodisian, IIsgrºvzºs,
f. 139, a. In fact, the greater number of those Peri-
patetics who admitted species in this crude form fö
the latter, rejected them for the former, H. -
t See above, p. 262, b, note +.-H. .
F388, 3897
cHAP. II.]
373
THEORIES CONCERNING CONCEPTION.
they are perceived; whether they are the
workmanship of the Deity or of the mind
itself, or of external natural causes—with
regard to these points, different authors
seem to have different opinions, and the
same author sometimes to waver or be
diffident ; but as to their existence, there
seems to be great unanimity.” [390]
So much is this opinion fixed in the
minds of philosophers, that I doubt not but
it will appear to most a very strange para-
dox, or rather a contradiction, that men
should think without ideas.
That it has the appearance of a contra-
diction, I confess. But this appearance
arises from the ambiguity of the word idea.
If the idea of a thing means only the thought
of it, or the operation of the mind in think-
ing about it, which is the most common
meaning of the word, to think without ideas,
is to think without thought, which is un-
doubtedly a contradiction.
But an idea, according to the definition
given of it by philosophers, is not thought,
but an object of thought, which really exists
and is perceived. Now, whether is it a
contradiction to say, that a man may think
of an object that does not exist P
I acknowledge that a man cannot per-
ceive an object that does not exist; nor can
he remember an object that did not exist;
but there appears to me no contradiction in
his conceiving an object that neither does
nor ever did exist.
Let us take an example. I conceive a
centaur. This conception is an operation
of the mind, of which I am conscious, and
to which I can attend. The sole object of it
is a centaur, an animal which, I believe,
never existed. I can see no contradiction
in this.--
The philosopher says, I cannot conceive
a centaur without having an idea of it in
my mind. I am at a loss to understand
what he means. He surely does not mean
that I cannot conceive it without conceiving
it. This would make me no wiser. What
then is this idea 9 Is it an animal, half
horse and half man P No. Then I am
certain it is not the thing I conceive. Per-
haps he will say, that the idea is an image
of the animal, and is the immediate object
of my conception, and that the animal is
the mediate or remote object.: [391]
To this I answer—First, I am certain
there are not two objects of this conception,
but one only ; and that one is as immediate
an object of my conception as any can be.
Secondly, This one object which I con-
ceive, is not the image of an animal—it is
an animal. I know what it is to conceive
an image of an animal, and what it is to
conceive an animal; and I can distinguish
the one of these from the other without
any danger of mistake. The thing I con-
ceive is a body of a certain figure and
colour, having life and spontaneous motion.
The philosopher says, that the idea is an
image of the animal; but that it has neither
body, nor colour, nor life, nor spontaneous
motion. This I am not able to comprehend.
Thirdly, I wish to know how this idea
comes to be an object of my thought, when
I cannot even conceive what it means;
and, if I did conceive it, this would be no
evidence of its existence, any more than
my conception of a centaur is of its exist-
ence. Philosophers sometimes say that we
perceive ideas, sometimes that we are con-
scious of them. I can have no doubt of
the existence of anything which I either
perceive or of which I am conscious ;" but
I cannot find that I either perceive ideas
or am conscious of them.
Perception and consciousness are very
different operations, and it is strange that
philosophers have never determined by
which of them ideas are discerned. + This
is as if a man should positively affirm that
he perceived an object ; but whether by his
eyes, or his ears, or his touch, he could not
S&W,
§ut may not a man who conceives a
centaur say, that he has a distinct image of
it in his mind? I think he may. And if he
means by this way of speaking what the
vulgar mean, who never heard of the phi-
losophical theory of ideas, I find no fault
with it. [392] By a distinct image in the
mind, the vulgar mean a distinct concep-
tion ; and it is natural to call it so, on
account of the analogy between an image of
a thing and the conception of it. On ac-
count of this analogy, obvious to all man-
kind, this operation is called imagination,
and an image in the mind is only a peri-
phrasis for imagination. But to infer from
this that there is really an image in the
mind, distinct from the operation of con-
ceiving the object, is to be misled by an
analogical expression ; as if, from the
phrases of deliberating and balancing things
in the mind, we should infer that there is
really a balance existing in the mind for
weighing motives and arguments.
The analogical words and phrases used
in all languages to express conception, do,
no doubt, facilitate their being taken in a
literal sense. But, if we only attend care-
* This, as already once and again stated, is not
correct.-H.
# See above, p. 292, b, note F, and Note B.-H.
# On this, and the subsequent reasoning in the
present chapter, see Note B.-H. -
* This is not the case, unless it be admitted that
we are conscious of what we perceive—in other words,
immediately cognitive of the non-ego.-H... .
+ But the philosophers did not, like Reid, make
Consciousness one special faculty, and Perception
another; nor did they and Reid.mean by Perception
the same thing.—H. - .
[390–392]
374
LESSAY Iv.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
fully to what we are conscious of in this
operation, we shall find no more reason to
think that images do really exist in our
minds, than that balances and other me-
chanical engines do.
We know of nothing that is in the mind
but by consciousness, and we are conscious
of nothing but various modes of thinking;
such as understanding, willing, affection,
passion, doing, suffering. If philosophers
choose to give the name of an idea to any
mode of thinking of which we are conscious,
I have no objection to the name, but that
it introduces a foreign word into our lan-
guage without necessity, and a word that is
very ambiguous, and apt to mislead. But,
if they give that name to images in the
mind, which are not thought, but only
objects of thought, I can see no reason to
think that there are such things in nature.
If they be, their existence and their nature
must be more evident than anything else,
because we know nothing but by their
means. I may add, that, if they be, we
can know nothing besides them. For, from
the existence of images, we can never, by
any just reasoning, infer the existence of
anything else, unless perhaps the existence
of an intelligent Author of them. In this,
Bishop Berkeley reasoned right. [393]
In every work of design, the work must
be conceived before it is executed—that is,
before it exists. If a model, consisting of
ideas, must exist in the mind, as the ob-
ject of this conception, that model is a work
of design no less than the other, of which
it is the model; and therefore, as a work of
design, it must have been conceived before
it existed. In every work of design, there-
fore, the conception must go before the
existence. This argument we applied be-
fore to the Platonic system of eternal and
immutable ideas, and it may be applied with
equal force to all the systems of ideas.
If now it should be asked, What is the
idea of a circle 2 I answer, It is the con-
ception of a circle. What is the immediate
object of this conception ? The immediate
and the only object of it is a circle. But
where is this circle 2 It is nowhere. If
it was an individual, and had a real ex-
istence, it must have a place; but, being an
universal, it has no existence, and therefore
no place. Is it not in the mind of him that
conceives it 2 The conception of it is in
the mind, being an act of the mind; and in
common language, a thing being in the
mind, is a figurative expression, signify-
ing that the thing is conceived or remem-
bered.
It may be asked, Whether this concep-
tion is an image or resemblance of a circle 2
I answer, I have already accounted for its
being, in a figurative sense, called the image
of a circle in the mind. If the question is
meant in the literal sense, we must observe,
that the word conception has two meanings.
Properly it signifies that operation of the
mind which we have been endeavouring to
explain; but sometimes it is put for the
object of conception, or thing conceived.
Now, if the question be understood in the
last of these senses, the object of this con-
ception is not an image or resemblance of
a circle; for it is a circle, and nothing can
be an image of itself. [394]
If the question be – Whether the opera-
tion of mind in conceiving a circle be an
image or resemblance of a circle 2 I think
it is not ; and that no two things can be
more perfectly unlike, than a species of
thought and a species of figure. Nor is it
more strange that conception should have
no resemblance to the object conceived,
than that desire should have no resem-
blance to the object desired, or resentment
to the object of resentment. -
I can likewise conceive an individual
object that really exists, such as St Paul's
Church in London. I have an idea of it;
that is, I conceive it. The immediate
object of this conception is four hundred
miles distant ; and I have no reason to think
that it acts upon me, or that I act upon it ;
but I can think of it notwithstanding. I
can think of the first year or the last year
of the Julian period.
If, after all, it should le thought that
images in the mind serve to account for this
faculty of conceiving things most distant in
time and place, and even things which do
not exist, which otherwise would be alto-
gether inconceivable ; to this I answer,
that accounts of things, grounded upon
conjecture, have been the bane of true
philosophy in all ages. Experience may
satisfy us that it is an hundred times more
probable that they are false than that they
are true. -
This account of the faculty of conception,
by images in the mind or in the brain,
will deserve the regard of those who have
a true taste in philosophy, when it is proved
by solid arguments–First, That there are
images in the mind, or in the brain, of the
things we conceive. Secondly, That there
is a faculty in the mind of perceiving such
images. Thirdly, That the perception of
such images produces the conception of
things most distant, and even of things that
have no existence. And, fourthly, That
the perception of individual images in the
mind, or in the brain, gives us the concep-
tion of universals, which are the attributes
of many individuals. [395] Until this is
done, the theory of images existing in the
mind or in the brain, ought to be placed in.
the same category with the sensible species,
materia prima of Aristotle, and the vortices;
of Des Cartes.
ſ393-395i
|
f
GHAP. III.]
375.
MISTAKES CONCERNING CONCEPTION.
CHAPTER III.
MISTAKES CONCERNING CONCEPTION.
l. WRITERs on logic, after the example
of Aristotle, divide the operations of the
understanding into three : Simple Appre-
hension, (which is another word for Con-
ception,) Judgment, and Reasoning. They
teach us, that reasoning is expressed by a
syllogism, judgment by a proposition, and
simple apprehension by a term only—that
is, by one or more words which do not
make a full proposition, but only the sub-
ject or predicate of a proposition. If, by
this they mean, as I think they do, that a
proposition, or even a syllogism, may not
be simply apprehended," I believe this is a
mistake. -
In all judgment and in all reasoning,
conception is included. We can neither
judge of a proposition, nor reason about it,
unless we conceive or apprehend it. We
may distinctly conceive a proposition, with-
out judging of it at all. We may have no
evidence on one side or the other ; we may
have no concern whether it be true or false.
In these cases we commonly form no judg-
ment about it, though we perfectly under-
stand its meaning. +
A man may discourse, or plead, or write,
for other ends than to find the truth. His
learning, and wit, and invention may be
employed, while his judgment is not at all,
or very little. When it is not truth, but
some other end he pursues, judgment would
be an impediment, unless for discovering
the means of attaining his end ; and, there-
fore, it is laid aside, or employed solely for
that purpose. [396]
The business of an orator is said to be,
to find out what is fit to persuade. This a
man may do with much ingenuity, who
never took the trouble to examine whether
it ought to persuade or not. Let it not be
thought, therefore, that a man judges of
the truth of every proposition he utters, or
hears uttered. In our commerce with the
world, judgment is not the talent that bears
the greatest price ; and, therefore, those who
are not sincere lovers of truth, lay up this
talent where it rusts and corrupts, while
they carry others to market, for which
there is greater demand.
2. The division commonly made by logi-
It
\
cians, of simple ºpprehension, into Sensation,
Imagination, and Pure Intellection, seems
to me very improper in several respects.
First, Under the word sensation, they
include not only what is properly so called,
but the perception of external objects by
the senses. These are very different opera-
tions of the mind; and, although they are
commonly conjoined by nature, ought to be
carefully distinguished by philosophers.
Secondly, Neithersensation nor the percep-
tion of external objects, is simple apprehen-
sion. Both include judgment and belief, which
are excluded from simple apprehension.*
Thirdly, They distinguish imagination
from pure intellection by this, that, in
imagination, the image is in the brain ;t in
pure intellection, it is in the intellect. This
is to ground a distinction upon an hypo-
thesis. We have no evidence that there
are images either in the brain or in the in-
telleet. [397] -
I take imagination, in its most proper
sense, to signify a lively conception of
objects of sight.: This is a talent of im-
portance to poets and orators, and deserves
a proper name, on account of its connection
with those arts. According to this strict
meaning of the word, imagination is dis-
tinguished from conception as a part from
the whole. We conceive the objects of the
other senses, but it is not so proper to say
that we imagine them. We conceive judg-
ment, reasoning, propositions, and argu-
ments ; but it is rather improper to say
that we imagine these things. -
This distinction between imagination and
conception, may be illustrated by an ex-
ample, which Des Cartes uses to illus-
trate the distinction between imagination
and pure intellection. We can imagine a
triangle or a square so clearly as to
distinguish them from every other figure.
But we cannot imagine a figure of a thou-
sand equal sides and angles so clearly. The
best eye, by looking at it, could not distin-
guish it from every figure of more or fewer
sides. And that conception of its appear-
ance to the eye, which we properly call im-
agination, cannot be more distinct than the
appearance itself; yet we can conceive a
figure of a thousand sides, and even can
demonstrate the properties which distinguish
it from all figures of more or fewer sides.
It is not by the eye, but by a superior fa-
culty, that we form the notion of a great
* Does Reid here mean, by apprehending simply,
apprehending in one simple and indivisible act 2–H.
# There is no conception possible without a judg-
ment affirming its (ideal) existence. There is no
consciousness, in fact, possible without judgment,
See above, p. 243, a, note *. It is to be observed,
that Reid uses conception in the course of this chap-
ter as convertible with winderstanding or comprehen-
sion ; and, therefore, as we shall see, in a vagttcror
mrre extensive meaning than the philosophers whose
opinion he controverts.—H.
* Sec the last note.— H.
f But not the image, of which the mind is con-
scious. By image or idea in the brain, species im-
pressa, &c., was meant only the unknown corporeal
antecedent of the known mental consequent, the
image, or idea in the mind, the species expressa, &c.
Reid here refers principally to the Cartesian doctrine.
i.e ºve, p. 366, a, note *; and, below, unde.
p. 482.— H.
[396, 397]
376
[Essa Y I Y.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
ſ
number, such as a thousandº And a distinct
1. otion of this number of sides not being to
be got by the eye, it is not imagined, but
it is distinctly conceived, and easily distin-
guished from every other number."
3. Simple apprehension is commonly re-
presented as the first operation of the
understanding; and judgment, as being a
composition or combination of simple appre-
hensions.
This mistake has probably arisen from the
taking sensation, and the perception of
objects by the senses, to be nothing but
simple apprehension. They are, very pro-
bably, the first operations of the mind; but
they are not simple apprehensions."f [398]
It is generally allowed, that we cannot
conceive sounds if we have never heard,
nor colours if we have never seen ; and the
same thing may be said of the objects of
the other senses. In like manner, we must
have judged or reasoned before we have
the conception or simple apprehension of
judgment and of reasoning,
Simple apprehension, therefore, though
it be the simplest, is riot the first operation
of the understanding ; and, instead of Say-
ing that the more complex operations of
the mind are formed by compounding sim-
ple apprehensions, we ought rather to say,
that simple apprehensions are got by ana-
lysing more complex operations.
A similar mistake, which is carried
through the whole of Mr Locke's Essay,
may be here mentioned. It is, that our
simplest ideas or conceptions are got im-
mediately by the senses, or by conscious-
mess, and the coinplex afterwards formed
by compounding them. I apprehend it is
far otherwise.
Nature presents no object to the senses,
or to consciousness, that is not complex.
Thus, by our senses we perceive bodies of
various kinds; but every body is a com-
plex object ; it has length, breadth, and
thickness; it has figure, and colour, and
various other sensible qualities, which are
blended together in the same subject; and
I apprehend that brute animals, who have
the same senses that we have, cannot sepa-
rate the different qualities belonging to the
same subject, and have only a complex
and confused notion of the whole. Such
also would be our motions of the objects of
sense, if we had not superior powers of
understanding, by which we can analyse
the complex object, abstract every parti-
cular attribute from the rest, and form a
distinct conception of it.
So that it is not by the senses imme-
diately, but rather by the powers of ana-
lysing and abstraction, that we get the most
simple and the most distinct notions even
of the objects of sense. This will be more
fully explained in another place. [399]
4. There remains another mistake con-
cerning conception, which deserves to be
noticed. It is—That our conception of
things is a test of their possibility, so that,
what we can distinctly conceive, we may
conclude to be possible ; and of what is im-
possible, we can have no conception.
This opinion has been held by philoso-
phers for more than an hundred years,
without contradiction or dissent, as far as Î
lºnow ; and, if it be an error, it may be of
Some use to inquire into its origin, and the
causes that it has been so generally re-
ceived as a maxim whose truth could not
be brought into doubt.
One of the fruitless questions agitated
among the scholastic philosophers in the
dark ages" was—What is the criterion of
truth 2 as if men could have any other way
to distinguish truth from error, but by the
right use of that power of judging which
God has given them.
Des Cartes endeavoured to put an end to
this controversy, by making it a fundamen-
tal principle in his system, that whatever
we clearly and distinctly perceive, is true.--
To understand this principle of Des
Cartes, it must be observed, that he gave
the name of perception to every power of
the human understanding ; and in explain-
ing this very maxim, he tells us that sense,
imagination, and pure intellection, are only
different modes of perceiving, and, so the
maxim was understood by all his followers.j:
The learned Dr Cudworth seems also to
have adopted this principle :-‘‘The cri-
terion of true knowledge, says he, is only
to be looked for in our knowledge and con-
ceptions themselves: for the entity of all
theoretical truth is nothing else but clear
intelligibility, and whatever is clearly con-
ceived is an entity and a truth ; but that
which is false, divine power itself cannot
make it to be clearly and distinctly under-
stood. [400] A falsehood can never be
clearly conceived or apprehended to be
true.”—“ Eternal and Immutable Mora-
lity,” p. 172, &c.
This Cartesian maxim seems to me to
have led the way to that now under con-
sideration, which seems to have been adopted
as the proper correction of the former.
When the authority of Des Cartes declined,
men began to seetthat we may clearly and
distinctly conceive what is not true, but
* See above, p. 366, a, note *.-Fl.
t. They are not simple apprehensions, in one sense
—that is, the objects are uot incomposite. But this
was not the meaning in which the expression was used
by the Logicians.—H.
* This was more a question with the Greek philo-
sophers than with the schoolmen.—H.
f In this he proposed nothing new. -H.
# That is, in Des Cartes' signification of the word,
different modes of being conscious. See above.— H.
[398–100]
CHAP. III.]
377
MISTAKES CONCERNING CONCEPTION.
thought, that our conception, though not in
all cases a test of truth, might be a test of
possibility.” -
This indeed seems to be a necessary con-
sequence of the received doctrine of ideas ;
it being evident that there can be no dis-
tinct image, either in the mind or anywhere
else, of that which is impossible.- The
ambiguity of the word conceive, which we
observed, Essay I. chap. 1, and the com-
mon phraseology of saying we cannot con-
ceive such a thing, when we would signify
that we think it impossible, might likewise
contribute to the reception of this doctrine.
But, whatever was the origin of this
opinion, it seems to prevail universally,
and to be received as a maxim.
“The bare having an idea of the propo-
sition proves the thing not to be impossible ;
for of an impossible proposition there can
be no idea.”—DR SAMUEL CLARKE.
“Of that which neither does nor can
exist we can have no idea.”—LORD BOLING-
BROKE.
“The measure of impossibility to us is
inconceivableness, that of which we can
have no idea, but that reflecting upon it, it
appears to be nothing, we pronounce to be
impossible.”—ABERNETHY. [401]
“In every idea is implied the possibility
of the existence of its object, nothing being
clearer than that there can be no idea of
an impossibility, or conception of what can-
not exist.”—Dr PRICE.
“Impossibile est cujus nullam notionem
formare possumus; possibile e contra, cui
aliqua respondet notio.”—Wolf II ONTOLO-
G.I.A.--
“It is an established maxim in metaphy-
sics, that whatever the mind conceives, in-
cludes the idea of possible existence, or, in
other words, that nothing we imagine is
absolutely impossible.”—D. HUME.
It were easy to muster up many other
respectable authorities for this maxim, and
I have never found one that called it in
question. -
If the maxim be true in the extent which
the famous Wolfius has given it in the pas-
Sage above quoted, we shall have a short
road to the determination of every question
about the possibility or impossibility of
things. We need only look into our own
breast, and that, like the Urim and
Thummim, will give an infallible answer.
If we can conceive the thing, it is possible;
if not, it is impossible. And, Surely, every
man may know whether he can conceive
what is affirmed or not.
Other philosophers have been, satisfied
with one half of the maxim of Wolfius.
They say, that whatever we can conceive is
possible; but they do not say that whatever
we cannot conceive is impossible.
I cannot help thinking even this to be a
mistake, which philosophers have been un-
warily led into, from the causes before men-
tioned. My reasons are these :—[402] .
1. Whatever is said to be possible or im-
possible, is expressed by a proposition.
Now, what is it to conceive a proposition ?
I think it is no more than to understand
distinctly its meaning.” I know no more
* That is, of logical possibility—the absence of con-
tradiction.—H.
+ This is rather a strained inference.—H.
f These are not exactly Wolf's expressions. See
“Ontologig,” $3,102, 103; “Philosophia Rationalis,”
§ 522, 528. The same doctrine is held by Tschirn-
‘hausen and others. In so far, however, as it is said
that inconceivability is the criterion of impossibility,
it is...manifestly erroneous. Of many contradictories,
we are able to conceive neither; but, by the law of
thought, called that of Excluded Middle, one of two
contradictories must be admitted—must be true.
‘For example, we can neither conceive, on the one
hand, an ultimate minimum of space or of time; nor
can we, on the other, conceive their infinite divisibi-
lity. In like manner, we cannot conceive the abso-
lute commencement of time, or the utmost Iimit of
space, and are yet equally unable to conceive them
without any commencement or limit. The absurdity
that would result from the assertion, that all that is
inconceivable is impossible, is thus obvious; and so
far Reid’s criticism is just, though not new.-H.
* In this sense of the word Conception, I make
bold to say that there is no philosopher who ever
held an opinion different from that of our author.
The whole dispute arises from Reid giving a wider
signification to this term than that which it has
generally received. In his view, it has two mean-
ings; in that of the philosophers whom he attacks,
it has only one. To illustrate this, take the proposi-
tion—a circle is square. Here we easily whderstand
the meaning of the affirmation, because what is neces-
Sary to an act of judgment is merely that the subject
and predicate should be brought into a wnity of orela-
tion. A judgment is therefore possible, even where
the two terms are contradictory. But the philosophers
never expressed, by the term conception, this under-
standing of the purport of a proposition. What they
meant by conception was not the wivity of relation,
but the ‘wnity of representation ; and this unity of
representation they made the criterion of logical pos-
sibility. To take the example already given : they
did not say a circle may possibly be square, because
we can understand the meaning of the proposition,
a circle is square; but, on the contrary, they said it
is impossible that a circle can be square, and the pro-
position affirming this is necessarily false, because we
cannot, in consciousness, bring to a wnity of repre-
Sentation the repugnant notions, circle and square—
that is, conceive the notion of square circle. Iteid's
mistake in this matter is so palpable that it is not
more surprising that he should have committed it,
than that so many should not only have followed him
in the opinion, but even have lauded it as the refuta-
tion of an important error. To shew how com-
pletely Reid mistook the philosophers, it will be suf-
ficient to quote a passage from Wolf's vernacular
Logic, which I take from the English translation,
(one, by the by, of the few tolerable versions we have
of German philosophical works,) published in 1770:—
“It is carefully to be observed, that we have not
always the motion of the thing present to us, or in
view, when we speak or think of it ; but are satisfied
when we imagine we sufficiently understand what we
speak, if we think we recollect that we have had, at
another time, the notion which is to be joined to this
or the other word;’ and thus we represent to our-
selves, as at a distance only, or obscurely, the thing
denoted by the term.
** Hence, it usually happens that, when we combine
words together, to each of which, apart, a meaning
or notion answers, we imagine we understand what
we utter, though that which is denoted by such com.
bined words be impossible, and consequently can
have no meaning. For that which is impossible is
[401, 402]
378
[ESSAY 1 v.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
that can be meant by simple apprehension
or conception, when applied to a proposi-
tion. The axiom, therefore, amounts to
this :—Every proposition, of which you un-
derstand the meaning distinctly, is possible.
I am persuaded that I understand as dis-
tinctly the meaning of this proposition, Amy
two sides of a triangle are together equal
to the third, as of this—Any two sides of a
triangle are together greater than, the third ;
yet the first of these is impossible.
Perhaps it will be said, that, though you
understand the meaning of the impossible
proposition, you cannot suppose or conceive
it to be true.
Here we are to examine the meaning of
the phrases of supposing and conceiving a
proposition to be true. I can certainly sup-
pose it to be true, because I can draw con-
sequences from it which I find to be impos-
sible, as well as the proposition itself.
If, by conceiving it to be true, be meant
giving some degree of assent to it, how-
ever Small, this, I confess, I cannot do.
But will it be said that every proposition to
which I can give any degree of assent, is
possible 2 This contradicts experience, and,
therefore, the maxim cannot be true in
this sense.
Sometimes, when we say that we cannot
conceive a thing to be true, we mean by that
expression, that we judge it to be impossible.
In this sense I cannot, indeed, conceive
it to be true, that two sides of a triangle
are equal to the third. I judge it to be
impossible. If, them, we understand, in
this sense, that maxim, that nothing we can
conceive is impossible, the meaning will
be, that nothing is impossible which we
judge to be possible. But does it not often
happen, that what one man judges to be
possible, another man judges to be impos-
sible P The maxim, therefore, is not true
in this sense. [403]
I am not able to find any other meaning
of conceiving a proposition, or of conceiving
*t to be true, besides these I have men-
tioned. I know nothing that can be meant
by having the idea of a proposition, but
nothing at all, and of nothing there can be no idea.
For instance, we have a notion of gold, as also of
iron. But it is impossible that iron can at the same
time he gold, consequently, neither can we have any
notion of iron-gold ; and yet we understand what
people mean when they mention iron-gold.
“In the instance alleged, it certainly strikes every
one, at first, that the expression iron-gold is an empty
sound; but yet there area thousand instances in which
it does not so easily strike. For example, when I
say a rectilineal two-lined figure, a figure contained
under two right lines, I am equally well understood
as when I say, a right-lined triangle, a figure con-
tained under three right lines. And it should seem
we had a distinct notion of both figures. However,
as we shew in Geometry that two right lines can
never contain space, it is also impossible to form a
notion of a rectilineal two-lined figure; and conse-
qºly that expression is an empty sound."—P. 55.
cºme e
either the understanding its meaning, or
the judging of its truth. I can understand
a proposition that is false or impossible, as
well as one that is true or possible; and I
find that men have contradictory judgments
about what is possible or impossible, as well
as about other things. In what sense then
can it be said, that the having an idea of a
proposition gives certain evidence that it is
possible 2
If it be said, that the idea of a proposition
is an image of it in the mind, I think indeed
there cannot be a distinct image, either in
the mind or elsewhere, of that which is
impossible; but what is meant by the image
of a proposition I am not able to compre-
hend, and I shall be glad to be informed.
2. Every proposition that is necessarily
true stands opposed to a contradictory pro-
position that is impossible ; and he that
conceives one conceives both. Thus a man
who believes that two and three necessarily
make five, must believe it to be impossible
that two and three should not make five.
He conceives both propositions when he
believes one. Every proposition carries its
contradictory in its bosom, and both are
conceived at the same time. “It is con-
fessed,” says Mr Hume, “that, in all cases
where we dissent from any person, we con-
ceive both sides of the question ; but we
can believe only one.” From this, it cer-
tainly follows, that, when we dissent from
any person about a necessary proposition,
we conceive one that is imposible ; yet I
know no philosopher who has made so
much use of the maxim, that whatever we
conceive is possible, as Mr Hume. A great
part of his peculiar tenets is built upon it;
and, if it is true, they must be true. But
he did not perceive that, in the passage
inow quoted, the truth of which is evident,
; he contradicts it himself. [404]
3. Mathematicians have, in many cases,
proved some things to be possible, and
others to be impossible, which, without
demonstration, would not have been be-
lieved. Yet I have never found that any
mathematician has attempted to prove a
thing to be possible, because it can be con-
ceived; or impossible, because it cannot be
conceived.* Why is not this maxim applied
to determine whether it is possible to square
the circle 2 a point about which very emi-
nent mathematicians have differed. It is
easy to conceive that, in the infinite series
of numbers, and intermediate fractions,
Some one number, integral or fractional,
may bear the same ratio to another, as the
side of a square bears to its diagonal ;+ yet,
* All geometry is, in fact, founded on our intui-
tions of space—that is, in common language, on our
conceptions of space and its relations.—H.
f We are able to conceive nothing infinite; and we
may suppose, but we cannot conceive, represent, or
imagine, the possibility in question.—H.
[403, 404]
chap. iv.] OF THE TRAIN OF THOUGHT IN THE MIND.
379
however conceivable this may be, it may be
demonstrated to be impossible.
4. Mathematicians often require us to
conceive things that are impossible, in order
to prove them to be so. This is the case in
all their demonstrations ad absurdum.
Conceive, says Euclid, a right line drawn
from one point of the circumference of a
circle to another, to fall without the circle :"
. I conceive this—I reason from it, until I
come to a consequence that is manifestly
absurd ; and from thence conclude that the
thing which I conceived is impossible.
Having said so much to shew that our
power of conceiving a proposition is no
criterion of its possibility or impossibility, I
shall add a few observations on the extent
of our knowledge of this kind.
l. There are many propositions which,
by the faculties God has given us, we judge
to be necessary, as well as true. All
mathematical propositions are of this kind,
and many others. The contradictories of
such propositions must be impossible. Our
knowledge, therefore, of what is impossible,
must, at least, be as extensive as our know-
ledge of necessary truth.
2. By our senses, by memory, by testi-
mony, and by other means, we know many
things to be true which do not appear to be
necessary. But whatever is true is pos-
sible. Our knowledge, therefore, of what is
possible must, at least, extend as far as our
knowledge of truth. [405]
3. If a man pretends to determine the
possibility or impossibility of things beyond
these limits, let him bring proof. I do not
say that no such proof can be brought. It
has been brought in many cases, particu-
larly in mathematics. But I say that his
being able to conceive a thing, is no proof
that it is possible."f Mathematics afford
many instances of impossibilities in the
nature of things, which no man would have
believed if they had not been strictly de-
monstrated. Perhaps, if we were able to
reason demonstratively in other subjects, to
as great extent as in mathematics, we might
find many things to be impossible, which
we conclude without hesitation, to be pos-
sible. .
It is possible, you say, that God might
have made an universe of sensible and ra-
tional creatures, into which neither natural
nor moral evil should ever enter. It may
be so, for what I know. But how do you
know that it is possible 2 That you can
conceive it, I grant; but this is no proof.
I cannot admit, as an argument, or even as
a pressing difficulty, what is grounded on .
the supposition that such a thing is possible,
when there is no good evidence that it is
possible, and, for anything we know, it may,
in the nature of things, be impossible.
CHAPTER IV.
OF THE TRAIN OF THOUGHT IN THE MIND.
EveRY man is conscious of a succession
of thoughts which pass in his mind while he
is awake, even when they are not excited
by external objects. [406]
The mind, on this account, may be com-
pared to liquor in the state of fermentation.
When it is not in this state, being once at
rest, it remains at rest, until it is moved by
some external impulse. Büt, in the state
of fermentation, it has some cause of motion
in itself, which, even when there is no im-
pulse from without, suffers it not to be at
rest a moment, but produces a constant
motion and ebullition, while it continues to
ferment. • -
There is surely no similitude between
motion and thought; but there is an analogy,
so obvious to all men, that the same words
are often applied to both ; and many modi-
fications of thought have no name but such
as is borrowed from the modifications of
motion. Many thoughts are excited by the
senses. The causes or occasions of these
may be considered as external. But, when
such external causes do not operate upon
us, we continue to think from some internal
cause. From the constitution of the mind
itself there is a constant ebullition of thought,
a constant intestine motion; not only of
thoughts barely speculative, but of senti-
ments, passions, and affections, which attend
them. -
This continued succession of thought has,
by modern philosophers, been called the
imagination." I think it was formerly called
the fancy, or the phantasy.- If the old
name be laid aside, it were to be wished
that it had got a name less ambiguous than
that of imagination, a name which had two
or three meanings besides. -
It is often called the train of ideas. This
may lead one to think that it is a train of
bare conceptions; but this would surely be
a mistake. It is made up of many other
operations of mind, as well as of concep-
tions, or ideas.
*
* Euclid does not require us to conceive or imagine
any such impossibility. The proposition to which
Reid must refer, is the second of the third Book of
the Elements.-H.
+ Not, certainly, that it is really possible, but that
it is problematically possible—i. e., involves no con-
tradiction—violates no law of thought. This latter
is that possibility alone in question.-H. -
3. By some only, and that improperly.—H.
# The Latin Imaginatio, with its modifications in
the vulgar languages, was employed both in ancient
and modern times to express what the Greeks wieno- .
minated £cey'ro.orſo. Phantasy, of which Phansy or
Fancy is a corruption, and now employed in a more
limited sense, was a common name for Imagination
with the old English writers.-H. -
[405, 406]
380
[ESSAY III,
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERs
Memory, judgment, reasoning, passions,
affections, and purposes—in a word, every
operation of the mind, excepting those of
sense—is exerted occasionally in this train
of thought, and has its share as an ingre-
dient: so that we must take the word idea
in a very extensive sense, if we make the
train of our thoughts to be only a train of
ideas. [407] -
To pass from the name, and consider the
thing, we may observe, that the trains of
thought in the mind are of two kinds: they
are either such as flow spontaneously, like
water from a fountain, without any exer-
tion of a governing principle to arrange
them ; or they are regulated and directed
by an active effort of the mind, with some
view and intention.
Before we consider these in their order,
it is proper to premise that these two kinds,
however distinct in their nature, are for
the most part mixed, in persons awake and
come to years of understanding.
On the one hand, we are rarely so vacant
of all project and design, as to let our
thoughts take their own course, without
the least check or direction. Or if, at any
time, we should be in this state, some object
will present itself, which is too interesting
not to engage the attention and rouse the
active or contemplative powers that were
at rest. T
On the other hand, when a man is giving
the most intense application to any specula-
tion, or to any scheme of conduct, when he
wills to exclude every thought that is fo-
reign to his present purpose, such thoughts
will often impertinently intrude upon him,
in spite of his endeavours to the contrary,
and occupy, by a kind of violence, some
part of the time destined to another pur-
pose. One man may have the command
of his thoughts more than another man,
and the same man more at one time than
at another. But, I apprehend, in the best
trained mind, the thoughts will sometimes
be restive, sometimes capricious and self-
willed, when we wish to have them most
under command. [408] -
It has been observed very justly, that
we must not ascribe to the mind the power
of calling up any thought at pleasure, be-
cause such a call or volition supposes that
thought to be already in the mind; for,
otherwise, how should it be the object of
volition ? As this must be granted on the
one hand, so it is no less certain, on the
other, that a man has a considerable power
in regulating and disposing his own thoughts.
Of this every man is conscious, and I can
.no more doubt of it than I can doubt whether
. I think at all.
We seem to treat the thoughts that pre-
sent themselves to the fancy in crowds, as
a great man treats those that attend his
levee. They are all ambitious of his at-
tention: he goes round the circle, bestow-
ing a bow upon one, a smile upon another;
asks a short question of a third ; while a
fourth is honoured with a particular con-
ference; and the greater part have no par-
ticular mark of attention, but go as they
came. It is true, he can give no mark of
his attention to those who were not there,
but he has a sufficient number for making
a choice and distinction.
In like manner, a number of thoughts
present themselves to the fancy spontane-
ously ; but, if we pay no attention to them,
nor hold any conference with them, they
pass with the crowd, and are immediately
forgot, as if they had never appeared. But
those to which we think proper to pay at-
tention, may be stopped, examined, and
arranged, for any particular purpose we
have in view.
It may likewise be observed, that a train
of thought, which was at first composed by
application and judgment, when it has
been often repeated, and becomes familiar,
will present itself spontaneously. Thus,
when a man has composed an air in music,
so as to please his own ear, after he has
played or sung it often, the notes will
arrange themselves in just order, and it
requires no effort to regulate their succes-
sion. [409]
Thus we see that the fancy is made up
of trains of thinking—some of which are
Spontaneous, others studied and regulated,
and the greater part' are mixed of both
kinds, and take their denomination from that
which is most prevalent ; and that a train
of thought which at first was studied and
composed, may, by habit, present itself
spontaneously. Having premised these
things, let us return to those trains of
thought which are spontaneous, which must
be first in the order of nature.
When the work of the day is over, and a
man lies down to relax his body and mind,
he cannot cease from thinking, though he
desires it. Something occurs to his fancy;
that is followed by another thing; and so his
thoughts are carried on from one object to
another, until sleep closes the scene.
In this operation" of the mind, it is not
faculty only that is employed; there are
many that join together in its production.
Sometimes the transactions of the day are
brought upon the stage, and acted over
again, as it were, upon this theatre of the
imagination. In this case, memory Surely
acts the most considerable part, since the
scenes exhibited are not fictions, butrealities,
which we remember; yet, in this case, the
# The word process might be here preferable.
Operation would denote that the mind is active in
associating the train of thought.—H.
[407-409]
on Ap, iv.] OF THE TRAIN OF THOUGHT IN THE MIND.
381
memory does not act alone, other powers are
employed, and attend upon their proper
objects. The transactions remembered will
be more or less interesting ; and we cannot
then review our own conduct, nor that of
others, without passing some judgment upon
it. This we approve, that we disapprove.
This elevates, that humbles and depresses
us. Persons that are not absolutely indif-
ferent to us, can hardly appear, even to the
imagination, without some friendly or un-
friendly emotion. We judge and reason
about things as well as persons in such
reveries. We remember what a man said
and did; from this we pass to his designs
and to his general character, and frame
Some hypothesis to make the whole con-
sistent. Such trains of thought we may
call historical. [410]
There are others which we may call ro-
mantic, in which the plot is formed by the
creative power of fancy, without any regard
to what did or will happen. In these also,
the powers of judgment, taste, moral senti-
ment, as well as the passions and affections,
come in and take a share in the execu-
tion.
In these scenes, the man himself com-
monly acts a very distinguished part, and
seldom does anything which he cannot ap-
prove. Here the miser will be generous,
the coward brave, and the knave honest.
Mr Addison, in the “Spectator,” calls this
play of the fancy, castle-building.
The young politician, who has turned his
thoughts to the affairs of government, be-
comes, in his imagination, a minister of
state. He examines every spring and wheel
of the machine of government with the
nicest eye and the most exact judgment.
He finds a proper remedy for every disorder
of the commonwealth, quickens trade and
manufactures by salutary laws, encourages
arts and Sciences, and makes the nation
happy at home and respected abroad. He
feels the reward of his good administration,
in that self-approbation which attends it,
and is happy in acquiring, by his wise and
patriotic conduct, the blessings of the present
age, and the praises of those that are to
COD10.
It is probable that, upon the stage of
imagination, more great exploits have been
performed in every age than have been
upon the stage of life from the beginning of
the world. An innate desire of self-appro-
bation is undoubtedly a part of the human
constitution. It is a powerful spur to
worthy conduct, and is intended as such by
the Author of our being. A man cannot
be easy or happy, unless this desire be in
some measure gratified. While he con-
ceives himself worthless and base, he can
relish no enjoyment. The humiliating,
mortifying sentiment must be removed, and
this natural desire of self-approbation will
either produce a noble effort to acquire real.
worth, which is its proper direction, or it
will lead into some of those arts of self-
deceit, which create a false opinion of
worth. [411]
A castle-builder, in the fictitious scenes
of his fancy, will figure, not according to his
real character, but according to the highest
opinion he has been able to form of himself,
and perhaps far beyond that opinion. For,
in those imaginary conflicts, the passions
easily yield to reason, and a man exerts the
noblest efforts of virtue and magnanimity,
with the same ease as, in his dreams, he
flies through the air or plunges to the bots
tom of the ocean. - -
The romantic scenes of fancy are most
commonly the occupation of young minds,
not yet so deeply engaged in life as to have
their thoughts taken up by its real cares
and business.
Those active powers of the mind, which
are most luxuriant by constitution, or have
been most cherished by education, im-
patient to exert themselves, hurry the
thought into scenes that give them play ;
and the boy commences in imagination,
according to the bent of his mind, a general
or a statesman, a poet or an orator.
When the fair ones become castle-build-
ers, they use different materials; and, while
the young soldier is carried into the field of
Mars, where he pierces the thickest squad-
rons of the enemy, despising death in all
its forms, the gay and lovely nymph, whose
heart has never felt the tender passion, is
transported into a brilliant assembly, where
she draws the attention of every eye, and
makes an impression on the noblest heart.
But no sooner has Cupid’s arrow found
its way into her own heart, than the whole
scenery, of her imagination is changed.
Balls and assemblies have now no charms.
Woods and groves, the flowery bank and
the crystal fountain, are the scenes she
frequents in imagination. She becomes an
Arcadian shepherdess, feeding her flock
beside that of her Strephon, and wants no
more to complete her happiness. [412]
In a few years the love-sick maid is
transformed into the solicitous mother. Her
Smiling offspring play around her. She
views them with a parent's eye. Her ima-
gination immediately raises them to man-
hood, and brings them forth upon the stage
of life. One son makes a figure in the
army, another shines at the bar ; her
daughters are happily disposed of in mar-
riage, and bring new alliances to the family.
Her children’s children rise up before her,
and venerate her grey hairs.
Thus the spontaneous sallies of fancy are
as various as the cares and fears, the de-
sires and hopes, of man. - -
[410–412]
382
[ESSAY Iv.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas,
Gaudia, discursus: -
These fill up the scenes of fancy, as well
as the page of the satirist. Whatever
possesses the heart makes occasional ex-
cursions into the imagination, and acts such
scenes upon that theatre as are agreeable
to the prevailing passion. The man of
traffic, who has committed a rich cargo to
the inconstant ocean, follows it in his
thought, and, according as his hopes or his
fears prevail, he is haunted with storms,
and rocks, and shipwreck; or he makes a
happy and a lucrative voyage, and, before
his vessel has lost sight of land, he has dis-
posed of the profit which she is to bring at
her return.
The poet is carried into the Elysian fields,
where he converses with the ghosts of
Homerand Orpheus. The philosopher makes
a tour through the planetary system, or
goes down to the centre of the earth, and
examines its various strata. In the devout
man likewise, the great objects that possess
his heart often play in his imagination :
sometimes he is transported to the regions
of the blessed, from whence he looks down
with pity upon the folly and the pageantry
of human life; or he prostrates himself
before the throne of the Most High with
devout veneration ; or he converses with
celestial spirits about the natural and moral
kingdom of God, which he now sees only
by a faint light, but hopes hereafter to view
with a steadier and brighter ray. [413]
In persons come to maturity, there is,
even in these spontaneous sallies of fancy,
some arrangement of thought ; and I con-
ceive that it will be readily allowed, that'in
those who have the greatest stock of know-
ledge, and the best natural parts, even the
spontaneous movements of fancy will be
the most regular and connected. They
have an order, connection, and unity, by
which they are no less distinguished from
the dreams of one asleep, or the ravings of
one delirious on the one hand, than from
the finished productions of art on the other.
How is this regular arrangement brought
about 2 It has all the marks of judgment
and reason, yet it seems to go before judg-
ment, and to spring forth spontaneously.
Shall we believe with Leibnitz, that the
mind was originally formed like a watch
wound up; and that all its thoughts, pur-
poses, passions, and actions, are effected
by the gradual evolution of the original
spring of the machine, and succeed each
other in order, as necessarily as the motions
and pulsations of a watch 2 -
If a child of three or four years were put
to account for the phaenomena of a watch,
he would conceive that there is a little man
within the watch, or some other little animal,
that beats continually, and produces the
motion. Whether the hypothesis of this
young philosopher, in turning the watch-
spring into a man, or that of the German
philosopher, in turning a man into a watch-
spring, be the most rational, seems hard to
determine.”
To account for the regularity of our first
thoughts, from motions of animal spirits,
vibrations of nerves, attractions of ideas, or
from any other, unthinking cause, whether
mechanical or contingent, seems equally
irrational. [414]
If we be not able to distinguish the
strongest marks of thought and design from
the effects of mechanism or contingency, the
consequence will be very melancholy; for
it must necessarily follow, that we have no
evidence of thought in any of our fellow
men—may, that we have no evidence of
thought or design in the structure and go-
vernment of the universe. If a good period
or sentence was ever produced without
having had any judgment previously em-
ployed about it, why not an Iliad or AEmeid?
They differ only in less and more ; and we
should do injustice to the philosopher of
Laputa, in laughing at his project of making
poems by the turning of a wheel, if a con-
currence of unthinking causes may produce
a rational train of thought.
It is, therefore, in itself highly probable
to say no more, that whatsoever is regular
and rational in a train of thought, which
presents itself spontaneously to a man's
fancy, without ally'study, is a copy of what
had been before composed by his own ra-
tional powers, or those of some other person.
We certainly judge so in similar cases.
Thus, in a book I find a train of thinking,
which has the marks of knowledge and
judgment. I ask how it was produced 2 It
is printed in a book. This does not satisfy
me, because the book has no knowledge nor
reason. I am told that a printer printed
it, and a compositor set the types. Neither
does this satisfy me. These causes, per-
haps, knew very little of the subject. There
must be a prior cause of the composition.
It was printed from a manuscript. True,
But the manuscript is as ignorant as the
printed book. The manuscript was written
or dictated by a man of knowledge and
judgment. This, and this only, will satisfy
a man of common understanding ; and it
appears to him extremely ridiculous to be-
lieve that such a train of thinking could
originally be produced by any cause that
neither reasons nor thinks. [415]
Whether such a train of thinking be
printed in a book, or printed, so to speak,
in his mind, and issue spontaneously from
his fancy, it must have been composed with
* The theory of our mental associations owes much
to the philosophers of the Leibnitzian school.—H.
[413–415]
chap. Iv.] OF THE TRAIN OF THOUGHT IN THE MIND.
383
judgment by himself, or by some other
rational being.
This, I think, will be confirmed by tracing
the progress of the human fancy as far
back as we are able.
We have not the means of knowing how
the fancy is employed in infants. Their
time is divided between the employment of
their senses and sound sleep : so that there
is little time left for imagination, and the
materials it has to work upon are probably
very scanty. A few days after they are
born, sometimes a few hours, we see them
Smile in their sleep. But what they smile
at is not easy to guess ; for they do not
Smile at anything they see, when awake,
for some months after they are born. It
is likewise common to see them move their
lips in sleep, as if they were sucking.
These things seem to discover some
working of the imagination; but there is
no reason to think that there is any regular
train of thought in the mind of infants.
By a regular train of thought, I mean
that which has a beginning, a middle, and
an end, an arrangement of its parts, ac-
cording to some rule, or with some inten-
tion. . Thus, the conception of a design,
and of the means of executing it ; the con-
ception of a whole, and the number and
order of the parts. These are instances of
the most simple trains of thought that can
be called regular.
Man has undoubtedly a power (whether
we call it taste or judgment is not of any
consequence in the present argument)
whereby he distinguishes between a com-
position and a heap of materials; between
a house, for instance, and a heap of stones;
between a sentence and a heap of words;
between a picture and a heap of colours.
[416] It does not appear to me that chil-
dren have any regular trains of thought
until this power begins to operate. Those
who are born such idiots as never to shew
any signs of this power, shew as little any
signs of regularity of thought. It seems,
therefore, that this power is connected with
all regular trains of thought, and may be
the cause of them. -
Such trains of thought discover them-
selves in children about two years of age.
They can then give attention to the opera-
tions of older children in making their
little houses, and ships, and other such
things, in imitation of the works of men.
They are then capable of understanding a
little of language, which shews both a
regular train of thinking, and some degree
of abstraction. I think we may perceive a
distinction between the faculties of children
of two or three years of age, and those of
the most sagacious brutes. They can then
perceive design and regularity in the works
of others, especially of older children; their
little minds are fired with the discovery;
they are eager to imitate it, and never at
rest till they can exhibit something of the
same kind.
When a child first learns by imitation
to do something that requires design, how
does he exult | Pythagoras was not more
happy in the discovery of his famous theo-
rem. He seems then first to reflect upon
himself, and to swell with self-esteem. His
eyes sparkle. He is impatient to shew his
performance to all about him, and thinks
himself entitled to their applause. He is
applauded by all, and feels the same emo-
tion from this applause, as a Roman Con-
Sul did from a triumph. He has now a
consciousness of some worth in himself. He
assumes a Superiority over those who are
not so wise, and pays respect to those who
are wiser than himself. He attempts
Something else, and is every day reaping
new laurels. -
As children grow up, they are delighted
with tales, with childish games, with designs
and stratagems. Everything of this kind
stores the fancy with a new regular train of
thought, which becomes familiar by repeti-
tion, so that one part draws the whole after
it in the imagination. [417]
The imagination of a child, like the hand
of a painter, is long employed in copying
the works of others, before it attempts any
invention of its own. - .
The power of invention is not yet brought
forth ; but it is coming forward, and, like
the bud of a tree, is ready to burst its
integuments, when some accident aids its
eruption.
There is no power of the understanding
that gives so much pleasure to the owner,
as that of invention, whether it be employed
in mechanics, in science, in the conduct of
life, in poetry, in wit, or in the fine arts.
One who is conscious of it, acquires thereby
a worth and importance in his own eye
which he had not before. He looks upon
himself as one who formerly lived upon the
bounty and gratuity of others, but who has
now acquired some property of his own.
When this power begins to be felt in the
young mind, it has the grace of novelty
added to its other charms, and, like the
youngest child of the family, is caressed
beyond all the rest. .
We may be sure, herefore, that, as soon
as children are conscious of this power,
they will exercise it in such ways as are
suited to their age, and to the objects they
are employed about. This gives rise to
innumerable new associations, and regular
trains of thought, which make the deeper
impression upon the mind, as they are its
exclusive property. •
I am aware that the power of invention
is distributed among men more unequally
[416, 4,17]
384
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS. [Essay iv.
than almost any other.
produce anything that is interesting to man-
kind we call it genius; a talent which is the
lot of very few. But there is, perhaps, a
lower kind or lower degree of invention that
is more common. However this may be, it
must be allowed that the power of invention
in those who have it, will produce many
new regular trains of thought ; and these
being expressed in works of art, in writing,
or ifi discourse, will be copied by others.
[418]
Thus, I conceive the minds of children,
as soon as they have judgment to distin-
guish what is regular, orderly, and connected,
from a mere medley of thought, are fur-
nished with regular trains of thinking by
these means.
First and chiefly, by copying what they
See in the works and in the discourse of
others. Man is the most imitative of all
animals; he not only imitates with inten-
tion, and purposely, what he thinks has any
grace or beauty, but even without intention,
he is led, by a kind of instinct, which it is
difficult to resist, into the modes of speaking,
thinking, and acting, which he has been ac-
'customed to see in his early years. The
more children see of what is regular and
beautiful in what is presented to them, the
more they are led to observe and to imitate
it. -
This is the chief part of their stock, and
descends to them by a kind of tradition
from those who came before them ; and we
shall find that the fancy of most men is
furnished from those they have conversed
with, as well as their religion, language,
and manners.
Secondly, By the additions or innovations
that are properly their own, these will be
greater or less, in proportion to their study
and invention ; but in the bulk of mankind
are not very considerable.
Every profession and every rank in life,
has a manner of thinking, and turn of fancy
that is proper to it; by which it is character-
ised in comedies and works of humour.
‘The bulk of men of the same nation, of the
same rank, and of the same occupation, are
cast as, it were, in the same mould. This
mould itself changes gradually, but slowly,
by new inventions, by intercourse with
strangers, or by other accidents.” [419]
. The condition of man requires a longer
infancy and youth than that of other ani-
mals; for this reason, among others, that
almost every station in civil society requires
a multitude of regular trains of thought, to
. . “* Non ad rationem sed ad similitudinem compo-
nimur,” says Seneca; and Schiller— sº,
“ Man—he is aye an imitative creature,
. . And he who is the foremost leads the flock.”
. There would be no end of quotations to the same
º, oftect.—H. ‘.
When it is able to
be not only acquired, but to be made so
familiar by frequent repetition, as to pre-
sent themselves spontaneously when there
is occasion for them.
The imagination even of men of good
parts never serves them readily but in
things wherein it has been much exercised.
A minister of state holds a conference with
a foreign ambassador with no greater emo-
tion than a professor in a college prelects to
his audience. The imagination of each
presents to him what the occasion requires
to be said, and how. , Let them change
places, and both would find themselves at a
loss. -
The habits which the human mind is
capable of acquiring by exercise are won-
derful in many instances; in none more
wonderful than in that versatility of imagin-
ation which a well-bred man acquires by
being much exercised in the various scenes
of life. In the morning he visits a friend
in affliction. Here his imagination brings
forth from its store every topic of consola-
tion ; everything that is agreeable to the
laws of friendship and sympathy, and no-
thing that is not so. From thence he drives
to the minister's levee, where imagination
readily suggests what is proper to be said
or replied to every man, and in what man-
ner, according to the degree of acquaint-
ance or familiarity, of rank or dependence,
of opposition or concurrence of interests, of
confidence or distrust, that is between them.
Nor does all this employment hinder him
from carrying on some design with much
artifice, and endeavouring to penetrate into
the views of others through the closest dis-
guises. From the levee he goes to the
House of Commons, and speaks upon the
affairs of the nation ; from thence to a ball
or assembly, and entertains the ladies. His
imagination puts on the friend, the courtier,
the patriot, the fine gentleman, with more
ease than we put off one suit and put on
another. [420] -
This is the effect of training and exer-
cise. For a man of equal parts and know-
ledge, but unaccustomed to those scenes of
public life, is quite disconcerted when first
brought into them. His thoughts are put
to flight, and he cannot rally them.
There are feats of imagination to be
learned by application and practice, as won-
derful as the feats of balancers and rope-
dancers, and often as useless.
When a man can make a hundred verses
standing on one foot, or play three or four
games at chess at the same time without
seeing the board, it is probable he hath
spent his life in acquiring such a feat. How-
ever, such unusual phaenomena shew what
habits of imagination may be acquired.
When such habits are acquired and per-
fected, they are exercised without any labo-
- [418–420.j

caap. iv.] OF THE TRAIN OF THOUGHT IN THE MIND.
385.
rious effort ; like the habit of playing upon
an instrument of music. There are innu-
merable motions of the fingers upon the
stops or keys, which must be directed in
one particular train or succession. There
is only one arrangement of those motions
that is right, while there are ten thousand
that are wrong, and would spoil the music.
The musician thinks not in the least of the
arrangement of those motions; he has a dis-
tinct idea of the tune, and wills to play it.
The motions of the fingers arrange them-
selves so as to answer his intention.
In like manner, when a man speaks upon a
subject with which he is acquainted, there is
a certain arrangement of his thoughts and
words necessary to make his discourse sen-
sible, pertinent, and grammatical. In every
sentence there are more rules of grammar,
logic, and rhetoric, that may be transgressed,
than there are words and letters. He
speaks without thinking of any of those
rules, and yet observes them all, as if they
were all in his eye. [421]
This is a habit so similar to that of a
player on an instrument, that I think both
must be got in the same way—that is, by
much practice, and the power of habit.
When a man speaks well and methodi-
cally upon a subject without study and with
perfect ease, I believe we may take it for
granted that his thoughts run in a beaten
track. There is a mould in his mind—
which has been formed by much practice, or
by study—for this very subject, or for some
other so similar and analogous that his
discourse falls into this mould with ease,
and takes its form from it.
Hitherto we have considered the opera-
tions of fancy that are either spontaneous,
or, at least, require no laborious effort to
guide and direct them, and have endeav-
oured to account for that degree of regu-
larity and arrangement which is found even
in them. The natural powers of judgment
and invention, the pleasure that always
attends the exercise of those powers, the
means we have of improving them by imi-
tation of others, and the effect of practice
and habits, seem to me sufficiently to
account for this phaenomenon, without sup-
posing any unaccountable attractions of ideas
by which they arrange themselves.
But we are able to direct our thoughts in
a certain course, so as to perform a destined
task.
Every work of art has its model framed
in the imagination. Here the “Iliad” of
Homer, the “ Republic” of Plato, the
“ Principia” of Newton, were fabricated.
Shall we believe that those works took the
form in which they now appear of them-
selves P-that the sentiments, the manners,
and the passions arranged themselves at
once in the mind of Homer, so as to form
the “ Iliad P’’
Was there no more effort
in the composition than there is in telling a
well-known tale, or singing a favourite
song 2 This cannot be believed. [422]
Granting that some happy thought first
suggested the design of singing the wrath of
Achilles, yet, surely, it was a matter of
judgment and choice where the narration
should begin and where it should end.
Granting that the fertility of the poet's
imagination suggested a variety of rich ma-
terials, was not judgment necessary to select
what was proper, to reject what was im-
proper, to arrange the materials into a just
composition, and to adapt them to each
other, and to the design of the whole P
No man can believe that Homer's ideas,
merely by certain sympathies and antipa-
thies, by certain attractions and repulsions
inherent in their natures, arranged them-
selves according to the most perfect rules of
epic poetry; and Newton's, according to
the rules of mathematical composition.
I should sooner believe that the poet,
after he invoked his muse, did nothing at
all but listen to the song of the goddess.
Poets, indeed, and other artists, must make
their works appear natural; but nature is
the perfection of art, and there can be no
just imitation of nature without art. When
the building is finished, the rubbish, the
scaffolds, the tools and engines are carried
out of sight; but we know it could not have
been reared without them.
The train of thinking, therefore, is capable
of being guided and directed, much in the
same manner as the horse we ride. The
horse has his strength, his agility, and his
mettle in himself; he has been taught cer-
tain movements, and many useful habits,
that make him more subservient to our
purposes and obedient to our will ; but to
accomplish a journey, he must be directed
by the rider.
In like manner, fancy has its original
powers, which are very different in different
persons; it has likewise more regular mo-
tions, to which it has been trained by along
course of discipline and exercise, and by
which it may, extempore, and without much
effort, produce things that have a consid:
erable degree of beauty, regularity, and
design. [423]
But the most perfect works of design are
never extemporary. Our first thoughts are
reviewed; we place them at a proper dis
tance; examine every part, and take a
complex view of the whole. By our criti-
cal faculties, we perceive this part to be
redundant, that deficient; here is a Want
of nerves, there a want of delicacy this is
obscure, that too diffuse. Things are mar:
shalled anew, according to a second and
more deliberate judgment; what was defi-
cient, is supplied; what was dislocated, is
[421–423]
2 U.
386’
[Essay rv,
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
put in joint ; redundances are lopped off,
and the whole polished.
Though poets, of all artists, make the
highest claim to inspiration; yet, if we be-
lieve Horace, a competent judge, no pro-
duction in that art can have merit which
has not cost such labour as this in the
birth.
** WOS O !
Pompilius sanguis, carmen reprehendite quod non
Multa dies, et multa litura coercuit, atque
Porfectum decies non castigavit ad unguem.”
The conclusion I would draw from all
that has been said upon this subject is,
That everything that is regular in that
train of thought which we call fancy or
imagination, from the little designs and
reveries of children to the grandest pro-
ductions of human genius, was originally
the offspring of judgment or taste, applied
with some effort greater or less. What
one person composed with art and judg-
ment, is imitated by another with great
ease: What a man himself at first com-
posed with pains, becomes by habit so
familiar as to offer itself spontaneously to
his fancy afterwards. But nothing that is
regular was ever at first conceived without
design, attention, and care. [424]
I shall now make a few reflections upon a
theory which has been applied to account
for this successive train of thought in the
mind. It was hinted by Mr Hobbes, but
has drawn more attention since it was dis-
tinctly explained by Mr Hume.
That author" thinks that the train of
thought in the mind is owing to a kind of
attraction which ideas have for other ideas
that bear certain relations to them. He
thinks the complex ideas—which are the
common subjects of our thoughts and rea-
soning—are owing to the same cause. The
relations which produce this attraction of
ideas, he thinks, are these three only—to
wit, causation, contiguity in time or place,
and similitude. He asserts that these are
the only general principles that unite ideas.
And having, in another place, occasion to
take notice of contrariety as a principle of
connection among ideas, in order to recon-
cile this to his system, he tells us gravely,
that contrariety may perhaps be considered
as a mixture of causation and resemblance.
That ideas which have any of these three
relations do mutually attract each other, so
that one of them being presented to the
fancy, the other is drawn along with it—
this he seems to think an original property
of the mind, or rather of the ideas, and
ºtherefore inexplicable.--
First, I observe, with regard to this
theory, that, although it is true that the
thought of any object is apt to lead us to
the thought of its cause or effect, of things
contiguous to it in time or place, or of
things resembling it, yet this enumeration
of the relations of things which are apt to
lead us from one object to another, is very
inaccurate.
The enumeration is too large upon his
own principles; but it is by far too scanty in
reality. Causation, according to his philo-
sophy, implies nothing more than a con-
stant conjunction observed between the
cause and the effect, and, therefore, conti-
guity must include causation, and his three
principles of attraction are reduced to two.
[425]
But when we take all the three, the enu-
meration is, in reality, very incomplete.
Every relation of things has a tendency,
more or less, to lead the thought, in a
thinking mind, from one to the other ; and
not only every relation, but every kind of
contrariety and opposition. What Mr
Hume says—that contrariety may perhaps
be considered as a mixture “ of causation
and resemblance”—I can as little compro-
hend as if he had said that figure may per-
haps be considered as a mixture of colour
and sound.
Our thoughts pass easily from the end
to the means; from any truth to the evi-
dence on which it is founded, the conse-
quences that may be drawn from it, or the
use that may be made of it. From a part
we are easily led to think of the whole, from
a subject to its qualities, or from things
related to the relation. Such transitions in
thinking must have been made thousands
of times by every man who thinks and
reasons, and thereby become, as it were,
beaten tracks for the imagination.
Not only the relations of objects to each
other influence our train of thinking, but
the relation they bear to the present tem-
per and disposition of the mind; their re-
lation to the habits we have acquired,
whether moral or intellectual ; to the com-
pany we have kept, and to the business in
which we have been chiefly employed. The
same event will suggest very different re-
flections to different persons, and to the
same person at different times, according
as he is in good or bad humour, as he is
lively or dull, angry or pleased, melancholy
or cheerful. - -
Lord Kames, in his “Elements of Criti-
cism,” and Dr Gerard, in his “ Essay on
Genius,” have given a much fuller and
juster enumeration of the causes that in-
fluence our train of thinking, and I have -
* He should have said this author, for Hume is
referred to.-H. -
f See above, p. 294, b, note t. The history of the
doctrine of Association has never yet been at all
adequately developed. Some of the most remark-
able speculations on this matter are wholly unknown.
Of these I can, at present, say nothing.—H. See
Notes D # *, D # * *. [424, 425]
crlap. Iv.] OF THE TRAIN OF THOUGHT IN THE MIND.
387
nothing to add to what they have said on
this subject.
Secondly, Let us consider how far this
attraction of ideas must be resolved into
original qualities of human nature. [426]
I believe the original principles of the
mind, of which we can give no account but
that such is our constitution, are more in
number than is commonly thought. But
we ought not to multiply them without
necessity. -
That trains of thinking, which, by fre-
quent repetition, have become familiar,
should spontaneously offer themselves to
our fancy, seems to require no other origi-
mal quality but the power of habit.*
In all rational thinking, and in all rational
discourse, whether serious or facetious, the
thought must have some relation to what
went before. Every man, therefore, from
the dawn of reason, must have been accus-
tomed to a train of related objects. These
please the understanding, and, by custom,
become like beaten tracks which invite the
traveller.
As far as it is in our power to give a
direction to our thoughts, which it is un-
doubtedly in a great degree, they will be
directed by the active principles common
to men—by our appetites, our passions, our
affections, our reason, and conscience. And
that the trains of thinking in our minds are
chiefly governed by these, according as one
or another prevails at the time, every man
will find in his experience.
If the mind is at any time vacant from
every passion and desire, there are still
Some objects that are more acceptable to
us than others. The facetious man is
pleased with surprising similitudes or con-
trasts ; the philosopher with the relations
of things that are subservient to reasoning;
the merchant with what tends to profit;
and the politician with what may mend the
State.
A good writer of comedy or romance can
feign a train of thinking for any of the per-
sons of his fable, which appears very natu-
ral, and is approved by the best judges.
Now, what is it that entitles such a fiction
to approbation ? Is it that the author has
given a nice attention to the relations of
causation, contiguity, and similitude in the
ideas P. [427] This surely is the least
part of its merit. But the chief part con-
sists in this, that it corresponds perfectly
with the general character, the rank, the
habits, the present situation and passions of
the person. If this be a just way of judging
in criticism, it follows necessarily, that the
circumstances last mentioned have the chief
influence in suggesting our trains of thought.
* We can as well explain Habit by Association,
as Association by Habit.--H.
It cannot be denied, that the state of the
body has an influence upon our imagination,
according as a man is sober or drunk, as
he is fatigued or refreshed. Crudities and
indigestion are said to give uneasy dreams,
and have probably a like effect upon the
waking thoughts. Opium gives to some
persons pleasing dreams and pleasing im-
aginations when awake, and to others such
as are horrible and distressing.
These influences of the body upon the
mind can only be known by experience, and
I believe we can give no account of them.
Nor can we, perhaps, give any reason why
we must think without ceasing while we are
awake. I believe we are likewise origi-
nally disposed, in imagination, to pass from
any one object of thought to others that are
contiguous to it in time or place. This, I
think, may be observed in brutes and in
idiots, as well as in children, before any
habit can be acquired that might account
for it. The sight of an object is apt to
suggest to the imagination what has been
seen or felt in conjunction with it, even
when the memory of that conjunction is
gone.
Such conjunctions of things influence not
only the imagination, but the belief and the
passions, especially in children and in
brutes; and perhaps all that we call memory
in brutes is something of this kind. -
They expect events in the same order and
succession in which they happened before ;
and by this expectation, their actions and
passions, as well as their thoughts, are re-
gulated. [428] A horse takes fright at
the place where some object frighted him
before. We are apt to conclude from this
that he remembers the former accident.
But perhaps there is only an association.
formed in his mind between the place and
the passion of fear, without any distinct
remembrance. -
Mr Locke has given us a very good
chapter upon the association of ideas; and
by the examples he has given to illustrate
this doctrine, I think it appears that very
strong associations may beformed at once—
not of ideas to ideas only, but of ideas to
passions and emotions; and that strong as-
Sociations are never formed at once, but
when accompanied by some strong passion .
or emotion. I believe this must be resolved
into the constitution of our nature.
Mr Hume's opinion—that the complex
ideas, which are the common objects of
discourse and reasoning, are formed by those
original attractions of ideas to which he
ascribes the train of thoughts in the mind—
will come under consideration in another
place. e
To put an end to our remarks upon this
theory of Mr Hume, I think he has real
merit in bringing this curious subject under
[426–428]
2 C 2
388
[ESSAY 1 v.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
the view of philosophers, and carrying it a
certain length. But I see nothing in this
the ºry that should hinder us to conclude,
that everything in the trains of our thought,
which bears the marks of judgment and
reason, has been the product of judgment
and reason previously exercised, either by
the person himself, at that or some former
time, or by some other person. The at-
traction of ideas will be the same in a man's
second thoughts upon any subject as in his
first. Or, if some change in his circum-
stances, or in the objects about him, should
make any change in the attractions of his
ideas, it is an equal chance whether the
second be better than the first, or whether
they be worse. But it is certain that
every man of judgment and taste will, upon
a review, correct that train of thought which
first presented itself. If the attractions of
ideas are the sole causes of the regular
arrangement of thought in the fancy, there
is no use for judgment or taste in any com-
position, nor indeed any room for their
operation. [429] -
There are other reflections, of a more
practical mature and of higher importance,
to which this subject leads.
I believe it will be allowed by every man,
that our happiness or misery in life, that
our improvement in any art or science which
we profess, and that our improvement in
real virtue and goodness, depend in a very
great degree on the train of thinking that
occupies the mind both in our vacant and
in our more serious hours. As far, there-
fore, as the direction of our thoughts is in
our power, (and that it is so in a great
measure, cannot be doubted) it is of the last
importance to give them that direction which
is most subservient to those valuable pur-
poses.
What employment can he have worthy
of a man, whose imagination is occupied
only about things low and base, and grovels
in a narrow field of mean, unanimating, and
uninteresting objects, insensible to those
finer and more delicate sentiments, and
blind to those more enlarged and nobler
views which elevate the soul, and make it
conscious of its dignity.
How different from him whose imagina-
tion, like an eagle in her flight, takes a wide
prospect, and observes whatever it presents,
that is new or beautiful, grand or important;
whose rapid wing varies the scene every
moment, carrying him sometimes’ through
the fairy regions of wit and fancy, some-
agreeable emotions of taste.
times through the more regular and sober
walks of science and philosophyl
The various objects which he surveys,
according to their different degrees of beauty
and dignity, raise in him the lively and
Illustrious
human characters, as they pass in review,
clothed with their moral qualities, touch his
heart still more deeply. They not only
awaken the sense of beauty, but excite the
Sentiment of approbation, and kindle the
glow of virtue.
While he views what is truly great and
glorious in human conduct, his soul catches
the divine flame, and burns with desire to
emulate what it admires. [430]
The human imagination is an ample
theatre, upon which everything in human
life, good or bad, great or mean, laudable
or base, is acted.
In children, and in some frivolous minds,
it is a mere toy-shop. And in some, who
exercise their memory without their judg-
ment, its furniture is made up of old scraps
of knowledge, that are thread-bare and
WOrn Out.
In some, this theatre is often occupied by
ghastly superstition, with all her train of
Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimaras dire.
Sometimes it is haunted with all the infernal
demons, and made the forge of plots, and
rapine, and murder. Here everything that
is black and detestable is first contrived, and
a thousand wicked designs conceived that
are never executed. Here, too, the furies
act their part, taking a severe though secret
vengeance upontheself-condemned criminal.
How happy is that mind in which the light
of real knowledge dispels the phantoms of
superstition ; in which the belief and rever-
ence of a perfect all-governing mind casts
out all fear but the fear of acting wrong;
in which serenity and cheerfulness, inno-
cence, humanity, and candour, guard the im-
agination against the entrance of every un-
hallowed intruder, and invite more.amiable
and worthier guests to dwell !
There shall the Muses, the Graces, and
the Virtues fix their abode ; for everything
that is great and worthy in human conduct
must have been conceived in the imagina-
tion before it was brought into act. And
many great and good designs have been
formed there, which, for want of power and
opportunity, have proved abortive.
The man whose imagination is occupied
by these guests, must be wise ; he must be
good ; and he must be happy. [431]
[429–431]
CHAP. I.]
389
OF GENERAL WORDS.
ES S A. Y. V.
of ABSTRACTION.
CHAPTER. I.
OF GENERAL WORDS,
THE words we use in language are either
general words or proper names. Proper
names are intended to signify one individual
only. Such are the names of men, king-
doms, provinces, cities, rivers, and of every
other creature of God, or work of man,
which we choose to distinguish from all
others of the kind, by a name appropriated
to it. All the other words of language are
general words, not appropriated to signify
any one individual thing, but equally related
to many.
Under general words, therefore, I com-
prehend not only those which logicians call
general terms—that is, such general words
as may make the subject or the predicate
of a proposition, but likewise their auxiliaries
or accessories, as the learned Mr Harris
calls them ; such as prepositions, conjunc-
tions, articles, which are&all general words,
though they cannot properly be called gene-
ral terms.
In every language, rude or polished,
general words make the greatest part, and
proper names the least. Grammarians
have reduced all words to eight or nine
classes, which are called parts of speech.
Of these there is only one—to wit, that of
nouns—wherein proper names are found.
[432] All pronouns, verbs, participles, ad-
verbs, articles, prepositions, conjunctions, and
interjections, are general words. Of nowns,
all adjectives are general words, and the
greater part of substantives. Every sub-
stantive that has a plural number, is a gene-
ral word; for no proper name can have a
plural number, because it signifies only one
individual. In all the fifteen books of
Euclid's Elements, there is not one word
that is not general; and the same may be
said of many large volumes.
At the same time, it must be acknowledged,
that all the objects we perceive are individ-
uals. Every object of sense, of memory,
or of consciousness, is an individual object.
All the good things we enjoy or desire, and
all the evils we feel or fear, must come from
individuals; and I think we may venture to
say, that every creature which God has made,
in the heavens above, or in the earth be-
neath, or in the waters under the earth, is
an individual."
How comes it to pass, then, that, in all
languages, general words make the greatest
part of the language, and proper names but
a very small and inconsiderable part of it.
This seemingly strange phaenomenon may,
I think, be easily accounted for by the fol-
lowing observations :—
First, Though there be a few individuals
that are obvious to the notice of all men,
and, therefore, have proper names in all
languages—such as the sun and moon, the
earth and sea—yet the greatest part of the
things to which we think fit to give proper
names, are local ; known perhaps to a vil-
lage or to a neighbourhood, but unknown to
the greater part of those who speak the
same language, and to all the rest of man-
kind. The names of such things being con-
fined to a corner, and having no names
answering to them in other languages, are
not accounted a part of the language, any
more than the customs of a particular ham-
let are accounted part of the law of the
nation. [433]
For this reason, there are but few proper
names that belong to a language. It is
next to be considered why there must be
many general words in every language.
Secondly, It may be observed, that every
individual object that falls within our view
has various attributes; and it is by them
that it becomes useful or hurtful to us.
We know not the essence of any individual
object; all the knowledge we can attain of
it, is the knowledge of its attributes—its
quantity, its various qualities, its various
relations to other things, its place, its
situation, and motions. It is by such attri- .
butes of things only that we can communi-
cate our knowledge of them to others. By
their attributes, our hopes or fears for them
are regulated; and it is only by attention
to their attributes that we can make them
Subservient to our ends; and therefore we
give names to such attributes.
Now, all attributes must, from their
nature, be expressed by general words, and
are so expressed in all languages. In the
ancient philosophy, attributes in general
were called by two names which express
* This Boethius, has well expressed :-‘‘ Omne quod
cst, Co quod est, singulare cºt.”— H.
[432, 433]
390
[ESSAY y ,
ON THE IN TELLECTUAL Powers.
their nature. They were called universals,
because they might belong equally to many
individuals, and are not confined to one.
They were also called predicables, because
whatever is predicated, that is, affirmed or
denied of one subject, may be of more, and
therefore is an universal, and expressed by
a general word. A predicable therefore
siguifies the same thing as an attribute, with
this difference only, that the first is Latin,
the last English.*. The attributes we find
either in the creatures of God or in the
works of men, are common to many indi- .
duals. We either find it to be so, or pre-
sume it may be so, and give them the same
name in every subject to which they belong.
There are not only attributes belonging
to individual subjects, but there are likewise
attributes of attributes, which may be called
secondary attributes. Most attributes are
capable of different degrees and different
modifications, which must be expressed by
general words. [434] *
Thus it is an attribute of many bodies to
pe moved; but motion may be in an endless
variety of directions. It may be quick or
slow, rectilineal or curvilineal ; it may be
equable, or accelerated, or retarded.
As all attributes, therefore, whether pri-
mary or secondary, are expressed by general
words, it (ollows that, in every proposition
we express in language, what is affirmed or
denied of the subject of the proposition must
be expressed by general words: and that
the subject of the proposition may often be
a general word, will appear from the next
observation.
Thirdly, The same faculties by which we
distinguish the different attributes belong-
ing to the same subject, and give names
to them, enable us likewise to observe,
that many subjects agree in certain attri-
butes while they differ in others. By this
means we are enabled to reduce individuals
which aré infinite, to a limited number of
classes, which are called kinds and sorts :
and, in the scholastic language, genera and
species.
Observing many individuals to agree in
certain attributes, we refer them all to one
class, and give a name to the class. This
name comprehends in its signification not
one attribute only, but all the attributes
which distinguish that class; and by affirm-
ing this name of any individual, we affirm
it to have all the attributes which charac-
terise the class : thus men, dogs, horses,
elephants, are so many different classes of
animals. In like manner we marshal other
substances, vegetable and inanimate, into
classes. wº
* They are both Latin, or both English. The only
difference is, that the one is of technical, the other
of popular application, and that the former expresses
as pot-1}tial What the latter toes as actual.–Fl.
Nor is it only substances that we thus
form into classes. We do the same with
regard to qualities, relations, actions, affec-
tions, passions, and all other things.
When a class is very large, it is divided
into subordinate classes in the same man-
ner. [435] The higher class is called a
genus or kind: the lower a species or sort
of the higher. Sometimes a species is still .
subdivided into subordinate species; and
this subdivision is carried on as far as is
found convenient for the purpose of language,
or for the improvement of knowledge.
In this distribution of things into genera
and species, it is evident that the name of
the species comprehends more attributes
than the name of the genus. The species
comprehends all that is in the genus, and
those attributes likewise which distinguish
that species from others belonging to the
same genus ; and the more subdivisions we
make, the names of the lower become still
the more comprehensive in their significa-
tion, but the less extensive in their appli-
cation to individuals.
Hence it is an axiom in logic—that the
more eatensive any general term is, it is the
less comprehensive ; and, on the contrary,
the more comprehensive, the less eartensive.
Thus, in the following series of subordinate
general terms—Animal—Man—French-
man—Parisian, every subsequent term com-
prehends in its signification all that is in
the preceding, and something more; and
every antecedent term extends to more
individuals than the subsequent.
Such divisions and subdivisions of things
into genera and species with general names,
are not confined to the learned and polished
languages; they are found in those of the
rudest tribes of mankind. From which we
learn, that the invention and the use of
general words, both to signify the attributes
of things, and to signify the genera and
species of things, is not a subtile-invention
of philosophers, but an operation which all
men perform by the light of common sense.
Philosophers may speculate about this ope-
ration, and reduce it to canons and aphor-
isms; but men of common understanding,
without knowing anything of the philosophy
of it, can put it in practice, in like manner
as they can see objects, and make good use
of their eyes, although they know nothing
of the structure of the eye, or of the theory
of vision. [436]
Every genus, and every species of things,
may be either the subject or the predicate
of a proposition—may, of innumerable pro-
positions; for every attribute common to .
the genus or species may be affirmed of it;
and the genus may be affirmed of every
Species, and both genus and species of every
individual to which it extends.
Thus, of man it may be affirmed, that he
[434–436]
CHAP. II.] OF GENERAL
CONCEPTIONS. 391
is an animal made up of body and mind;
that he is of few days, and full of trouble;
that he is capable of various improvements
in arts, in knowledge; and in virtue. In a
word, everything common to the species
may be affirmed of man; and of all such
propositions, which are innumerable, man
is the subject. -
Again, of every nation and tribe, and of
every individual of the human race that is,
or was, or shall be, it may be affirmed that
they are men. In all such propositions,
which are innumerable, man is the predi-
cate of the proposition.
We observed above an extension and a
comprehension in general terms; and that,
in any subdivision of things, the name of
the lowest species is most comprehensive,
and that of the highest genus most exten-
sive. I would now observe, that, by means
of such general terms, there is also an ex-
tension and comprehension of propositions,
which is one of the noblest powers of lan-
guage, and fits it for expressing, with great
ease and expedition, the highest attainments
in knowledge, of which the human under-
. standing is capable.
When the predicate is a genus or a species,
the proposition is more or less comprehen-
sive, according as the predicate is. Thus,
when I say that this seal is gold, by this
single proposition I affirm of it all the pro-
perties which that metal is known to have.
When I say of any man that he is a
mathematician, this appellation compre-
hends all the attributes that belong to
him as an animal, as a man, and as one
who has studied mathematics. When I
say that the orbit of the planet Mercury
is an ellipsis, I thereby affirm of that
orbit all the properties which Apollonius
and other geometricians have discovered,
or may discover, of that species of figure.
[437] * -
Again, when the subject of a proposition
is a genus or a species, the proposition is
more or less extensive, according as the
subject is. Thus, when I am taught that
the three angles of a plane triangle are
equal to two right angles, this properly ex-
tends to every species of plane triangle, and
to every individual plane triangle that did,
-or does, or can exist.
It is by means of such extensive and
comprehensive propositions, that human
lºnowledge is condensed, as it were, into a
size adapted to the capacity of the human
mind, with great addition to its beauty,
and without any diminution of its distinct-
ºness and perspicuity.
s General propositions in science may be
compared to the seed of a plant, which,
according to some philosophers, has not
only the whole future plant inclösed within
it, but the seeds of that plant, and the plants
that shall spring from them through all
future generations.
But the similitude falls short in this re-
spect, that time and accidents, not in our
power, must concur to disclose the contents
of the seed, and bring them into our view ;
whereas the contents of a general proposi-
tion may be brought forth, ripened, and
exposed to view at our pleasure, and in an
instant. “
Thus the wisdom of ages, and the most
sublime theorems of science, may be laid
up, like an Iliad in a nut-shell, and trans-
mitted to future generations. And this
noble purpose of language can only be ac-
complished by means of general words
annexed to the divisions and subdivisions of
things. [438]
What has been said in this chapter, I
think, is sufficient to shew that there can be
no language, not so much as a single pro-
position, without general words; that they
must make the greatest part of every lan-
guage; and that it is by them only that
language is fitted to express, with wonder-
ful ease and expedition, all the treasures
of human wisdom and knowledge.
CHAPTER II.
OF GENERAL CONCEPTIONS,
As general words are so necessary in
language, it is natural to conclude that there
must be general conceptions, of which they
are the signs.
Words are empty sounds when they do
not signify the thoughts of the speaker;
and it is only from their signification that
they are denominated general. Every word
that is spoken, considered merely as a Sound,
is an individual sound. And it can only be
called a general word, because that which it
signifies is general. Now, that which it
signifies, is conceived by the mind both of
the speaker and hearer, if the word have a
distinct meaning, and be distinctly under-
stood. It is, therefore, impossible that
words can have a general signification, un-
less there be conceptions in the mind of
the speaker and of the hearer, of things
that are general. It is to such that I give
the name of general conceptions; and it
ought to be observed, that they take this
denomination, not from the act of the mind
in conceiving, which is an individual act,
but from the object or thing conceived,
which is general.
We are, therefore, here to consider
whether we have such general conceptions,
and how they are formed. [439]
To begin with the conceptions expressed
by general terms—that is, by such general
words as may be the subject or the predi-
[437-439] • *
392.
[ESSAY v. w
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
cate of a proposition. They are either
attributes of things, or they are genera or
species of things.
It is evident, with respect to all the indi-
viduals we are acquainted with that we have
a more clear and distinct conception of their
attributes than of the subject to which those |
attributes belong.
Take, for instance, any individual body
we have access to know—what conception do
we form of it 2 Every man may know this
from his consciousness. He will find that
he conceives it as a thing that has length,
breadth, and thickness, such a figure and
such a colour; that it is hard, or soft, or
fluid ; that it has such qualities, and is fit
for such purposes. If it is a vegetable, he
may know where it grew, what is the form
of its leaves, and flower, and seed. If an
animal, what are its natural instincts, its
manner of life, and of rearing its young.
Of these attributes, belonging to this indi-
vidual and numberless others, he may
surely have a distinct conception; and he
will find words in language by which he can
clearly and distinctly express each of them.
If we consider, in like manner, the con-
ception we form of any individual person of
our acquaintance, we shall find it to be made
up of various attributes, which we ascribe to
him ; such as, that he is the son of such a
man, the brother of such another ; that he
has such an employment or office; has such
a fortune; that he is tall or short, well or
ill made, comely or ill favoured, young or
old, married or unmarried; to this we may
add his temper, his character, his abilities,
and perhaps some anecdotes of his history.
Such is the conception we form of indi-
vidual persons of our acquaintance. By
such attributes we describe them to those
who know them not ; and by such attri-
butes historians give us a conception of the
personages of former times. Nor is it pos-
sible to do it in any other way. [440]
All the distinct knowledge we have or
can attain of any individual is the know-
ledge of its attributes; for we know not
the essence of any individual. This seems
to be beyond the reach of the human facul-
ties.
Now, every attribute is what the ancients
called an universal. It is, or may be, com-
mon to various individuals. There is no
attribute belonging to any creature of God
which may not belong to others; and, on
this account, attributes, in all languages, are
expressed by general words.
It appears, likewise, from every man's
experience, that he may have as clear and
distinct a conception of such attributes as
we have named, and of innumerable others,
as he can have of any individual to which
they belong.
Indeed, the attributes of individuals is all
that we distinctly conceive about them. It
is true, we conceive a subject to which the
attributes belong; but of this subject, when
its attributes are set aside, we have but an
obscure and relative" conception, whether it
be body or mind.
This was before observed with regard to
bodies, Essay II. chap. 19, [p. 322] to
which we refer ; and it is no less evident
with regard to minds. What is it we call a
mind P. It is a thinking, intelligent, active
being. Granting that thinking, intelli-
gence, and activity, are attributes of mind,
I want to know what the thing or being is
to which these attributes belong 2 To this
question I can find no satisfying answer.
The attributes of mind, and particularly its
operations, we know clearly ; but of the
thing itself we have only an obscure no-
tion. [44]]
Nature teaches us that thinking and
reasoning are attributes, which cannot exist
without a subject; but of that subject Ibe-
lieve the best notion we can form implies
little more than that it is the subject of such
attributes.
Whether other created beings may have
the knowledge of the real essence of created
things, so as to be able to deduce their at-
tributes from their essence and constitution,
or whether this be the prerogative of him
who made them, we cannot tell; but it is
a knowledge which seems to be quite be-
yond the reach of the human faculties.
We know the essence of a triangle, and
from that essence can deduce its properties.
It is an universal, and might have been
conceived by the human mind though no
individual triangle had ever existed. It has
only what Mr Locke calls a nominal essence,
which is expressed in its definition. But
everything that exists has a real essence,
which is above our comprehension ; and,
therefore, we cannot deduce its properties
or attributes from its nature, as we do in
the triangle. We must take a contrary
road in the knowledge of God’s works, and
Satisfy ourselves with their attributes as
facts, and with the general conviction that
there is a subject to which those attributes
belong.
Enough, I think, has been said, to shew,
not only that we may have clear and dis-
tinct conceptions of attributes, but that
they are the only things, with regard to
individuals, of which we have a clear and
distinct conception.
The other class of general terms are those
that signify the genera and species into
which we divide and subdivide things. And,
if we be able to form distinct conceptions of
attributes, it cannot surely be denied that
we may have distinct conceptions of genera
* See above, p. 322, note.-H.
[440, 441]
CHAP. II.]
393
OF GENERAL CONCEPTIONS.
and species; because they are only collec-
tions of attributes which we conceive to
exist in a subject, and to which we give a
general name. [442] If the attributes
comprehended under that general name be
distinctly conceived, the thing meant by the
name must be distinctly conceived. And
the name may justly be attributed to every
individual which has those attributes.
Thus, I conceive distinctly what it is to
have wings, to be covered with feathers, to
lay eggs. Suppose then that we give the
name of bird to every animal that has these
three attributes. Here undoubtedly my
conception of a bird is as distinct as my
notion of the attributes which are common
to this species: and, if this be admitted to
be the definition of a bird, there is nothing
I conceive more distinctly. If I had never
seen a bird, and can but be made to under-
stand the definition, I can easily apply it to
every individual of the species, without
danger of mistake.
When things are divided and subdivided
by men of science, and names given to the
genera and species, those names are defined.
Thus, the genera and species of plants, and
of other natural bodies, are accurately de-
fined by the writers in the various branches
of natural history; so that, to all future
generations, the definition will convey a dis-
tinct notion of the genus or species defined.
There are, without doubt, many words
signifying genera and species of things,
which have a meaning somewhat vague and
indistinct ; so that those who speak the
same language do not always use them in
the same sense. But, if we attend to the
cause of this indistinctness, we shall find
that it is not owing to their being general
terms, but to this, that there is no defini-
tion of them that has authority. Their
meaning, therefore, has not been learned
by a definition, but by a kind of induction,
by observing to what individuals they are
applied by those who understand the lan-
guage. We learn by habit to use them as
we see others do, even when we have not a
precise meaning annexed to them. Aman
may know that to certain individuals they
may be applied with propriety; but whether
they can be applied to certain other indivi-
duals, he may be uncertain, either from
want of good authorities, or from having
contrary authorities, which leave him in
doubt. [443]
Thus, a man may know that, when he
applies the name of beast to a lion or a
tiger, and the name of bird to an eagle or
a turkey, he speaks properly. But whether
a bat be a bird or a beast, he may be uncer-
tain. If there was any accurate definition
of a beast and of a bird, that was of suffi-
cient authority, he could be at no loss.
It is said to have been sometimes a mat-
ter of dispute, with regard to a monstrous
birth of a woman, whether it was a man or
not. Although this be, in reality, a ques-
tion about the meaning of a word, it may
be of importance, on account of the privi-
leges which laws have annexed to the human
character. To make such laws perfectly
precise, the definition of a man would be
necessary, which I believe legislators have
seldom or never thought fit to give. It is,
indeed, very difficult to fix a definition of
SO common a word; and the cases wherein
it would be of any use so rarely occur, that
perhaps it may be better, when they do
occur, to leave them to the determination
of a judge or of a jury, than to give a defi-
nition, which might be attended with un-
foreseen consequences.
A genus or species, being a collection of
attributes conceived to exist in one subject,
a definition is the only way to prevent any
addition or diminution of its ingredients in
the conception of different persons; and
when there is no definition that can be
appealed to as a standard, the name will
hardly retain the most perfect precision in
its signification.
From what has been said, ſ conceive it
is evident that the words which signify
genera and species of things have often as
precise and definite a signification as any
words whatsoever ; and that, when it is
otherwise, their want of precision is not
owing to their being general words, but to
other causes. [444]
Having shewn that we may have a per-
fectly clear and distinct conception of the
meaning of general terms, we may, I think,
take it for granted, that the same may be
said of other general words, such as prepo-
sitions, conjunctions, articles. My design
at present being only to shew that we have
general conceptions no less clear and dis-
tinct than those of individuals, it is sufficient
for this purpose, if this appears with regard
to the conceptions expressed by general
terms. To conceive the meaning of a
general word, and to conceive that which it
signifies, is the same thing. We conceive
distinctly the meaning of general terms,
therefore we conceive distinctly that which
they signify. But such terms do not sig-
nify any individual, but what is common to
many individuals; therefore, we have a
distinct conception of things common to
many individuals—that is, we have distinct
general conceptions.
We must here beware of the ambiguity
of the word conception, which sometimes
signifies the act of the mind in conceiving,
sometimes the thing conceived, which is the
object of that act.* If the word be taken
—º
**This last should be called Concept, which was a
term in use with the old English philosophers.- H.
[442—444]
394
[ESSAY v.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
in the first sense, I acknowledge that every
act of the mind is an individual act; the
universality, therefore, is not in the act of
the mind, but in the object or thing con-
ceived. The thing conceived is an attri-
bute common to many subjects, or it is a
genus or species common to many indivi-
duals.
Suppose I conceive a triangle—that is, a
plain figure, terminated by three right
lines. He that understands this definition
distinctly, has a distinct conception of a
triangle. But a triangle is not an indivi-
dual; it is a species. The act of my under-
standing in conceiving it is an individual
act, and has a real existence ; but the thing
conceived is general, and cannot exist with-
out other attributes, which are not included
in the definition. [445]
Every triangle that really exists must
have a certain length of sides and measure
of angles; it must have place and time.
But the definition of a triangle includes
neither existence nor any of those attri-
butes; and, therefore, they are not included
in the conception of a triangle, which can-
not be accurate if it comprehend more than
the definition.
Thus, I think, it appears to be evident,
that we have general conceptions that are
clear and distinct, both of attributes of
things, and of genera and species of things.
CHAPTER III.
OF GENERAL CONCEPTIONS FORMED BY
ANALYSING OBJECTS.
WE are next to consider the operations
of the understanding, by which we are
enabled to form general conceptions.
These appear to me to be three :—First,
The resolving or analysing a subject into
its known attributes, and giving a name to
each attribute, which name shall signify
that attribute, and nothing more.
Secondly, The observing one or more
such attributes to be common to many sub-
jects. The first is by philosophers called
abstraction ; the second may be called
generalising ; but both are commonly in-
cluded under the name of abstraction.
It is difficult to say which of them goes
first, or whether they are not so closely
connected that neither can claim the prece-
dence. For, on the one hand, to perceive an
agreement between two or more objects in
the same attribute, seems to require no-
thing more than to compare them together.
[446] A savage, upon seeing snow and
chalk, would find no difficulty in perceiv-
ing that they have the same colour. Yet,
on the other hand, it seems impossible that
he should observe this agreement without
abstraction—that is, distinguishing in his
conception the colour, wherein those two
objects agree, from the other qualities
wherein they disagree.
It seems, therefore, that we cannot
generalise without some degree of abstrac-
tion ; but I apprehend we may abstract
without generalising. For what hinders
me from attending to the whiteness of the
paper before me, without applying that
colour to any other object. The whiteness
of this individual object is an abstract con-
ception, but not a general one, while applied
to one individual only. These two opera-
tions, however, are subservient to each
other ; for the more attributes we observe
and distinguish in any one individual, the
more agreements we shall discover between
it and other individuals.
A third operation of the understanding,
by which we form abstract conceptions, is
the combining into one whole a certain
number of those attributes of which we
have formed abstract notions, and giving a
name to that combination. It is thus we
form abstract notions of the genera and
species of things. These three operations
we shall consider in order.
With regard to abstraction, strictly so
called, I can perceive nothing in it that is
difficult either to be understood or practised.
What can be more easy than to distinguish
the different attributes which we know to
belong to a subject 2 In a man, for in-
stance, to distinguish his size, his com-
plexion, his age, his fortune, his birth, his
profession, and twenty other things that
belong to him. To think and speak of
these things with understanding, is surely
within the reach of every man endowed
with the human faculties. [447] .
There may be distinctions that require
nice discernment, or an acquaintance with
the subject that is not common. Thus, a
critic in painting may discern the style of
Raphael or Titian, when another man
could not. A lawyer may be acquainted
with many distinctions in crimes, and con-
tracts, and actions, which never occurred
to a man who has not studied law. One
man may excel another in the talent of dis-
tinguishing, as he may in memory or in
reasoning; but there is a certain degree of
this talent, without which a man would
have no title to be considered as a reason-
able creature.
It ought likewise to be observed, that
attributes may, with perfect ease, be dis-
tinguished and disjoined in our conception,
which cannot be actually separated in the
subject. Thus, in a body, I can distinguish
its solidity from its extension, and its weight
from both. In extension I can distinguish
length, breadth, and thickness; yet none of
these can be separated from the body, or
[445–447]
GHAP. III.] CONCEPTIONS FORMED BY ANALYSING OBJECTS. 395
from one another. There may be attri-
butes belonging to a subject, and inseparable
from it, of which we have no knowledge,
and consequently no conception; but this
does not hinder our conceiving distinctly
those of its attributes which we know.
Thus, all the properties of a circle are
inseparable from the nature of a circle,
and may be demonstrated from its defini-
tion; yet a man may have a perfectly
distinct notion of a circle, who knows very
few of those properties of it which mathe-
maticians have demonstrated ; and a circle
probably has many properties which no
mathematician ever dreamed of.
It is therefore certain that attributes,
which in their nature are absolutely inse-
parable from their subject and from one
another, may be disjoined in our conception;
one cannot exist without the other, but one
can be conceived without the other.
Having considered abstraction, strictly
so called, let us next consider the operation
of generalising, which is nothing but the
observing one or more attributes to be
common to many subjects. [448]
If any man can doubt whether there be
attributes that are really common to many
individuals, let him consider whether there
be not many men that are above six feet
high, and many below it; whether there
be not many men that are rich, and many
more that are poor; whether there be not
many that were born in Britain, and many
that were born in France. To multiply
instances of this kind, would be to affront the
reader's understanding. It is certain, there-
fore, that there are innumerable attributes
that are really common to many individuals;
and if this be what the schoolmen called
wniversale a parte rei, we may affirm with
certainty. that there are such universals.
There are some attributes expressed by
general words, of which this may seem more
doubtful. Such are the qualities which are
inherent in their several subjects. It may
be said that every subject hath its own
qualities, and that which is the quality of
one subject cannot be the quality of another
subject. Thus the whiteness of the sheet
of paper upon which I write, cannot be the
whiteness of another sheet, though both are
called white. The weight of one guinea is
not the weight of another guinea, though
both are said to have the same weight.
To this I answer, that the whiteness of
this sheet is one thing, whiteness is another;
the conceptions signified by these two forms
of speech are as different as the expressions.
. The first signifies an individual quality
really existing, and is not a general con-
. ception, though it be an abstract one : the
second signifies a general conception, which
implies no existence, but may be predicated
of everything that is white, and in the
same sense. On this account, if one should
Say that the whiteness of this sheet is the
whiteness of another sheet, every man per-
ceives this to be absurd ; but when he says
both sheets are white, this is true and per-
fectly understood. The conception of white-
ness implies no existence ; it would remain
the same though everything in the universe
that is white were annihilated. [449]
It appears, therefore, that the general
names of qualities, as well as of other at-
tributes, are applicable to many individuals
in the same sense, which cannot be if there
be not general conceptions signified by such
IM&LIIlêS.
If it should be asked, how early, or at
what period of life men begintoform general
conceptions P I answer, As soon as a child
can say, with understanding, that he has
two brothers or two sisters—as soon as he
can use the plural number—he must have
general conceptions; for no individual can
have a plural number.
As there are not two individuals in nature
that agree in everything, so there are very
few that do not agree in some things. We
take pleasure from very early years in ob-
serving such agreements. One great branch
of what we call wit, which, when innocent,
gives pleasure to every good-natured man,
consists in discovering unexpected agree-
ments in things. The author of Hudibras
could discern a property common to the
morning and a boiled lobster—that both
turn from black to red. Swift could see
something common to wit and an old cheese.
Such unexpected agreements may shew wit:
but there are innumerable agreements of
things which cannot escape the notice of
the lowest understanding; such as agree-
ments in colour, magnitude, figure, features,
time, place, age, and so forth. These agree-
ments are the foundation of so many com-
mon attributes, which are found in the
rudest languages.
The ancient philosophers called these
universals, or predicables, and endeavoured
to reduce them to five classes—to wit,
Genus, Species, Specific Difference, Pro-
perties, and Accidents. Perhaps there may
be more classes of universals or attributes—
for enumerations, so very general, are sel-
dom complete : but every attribute, common
to several individuals, may be expressed by
a general term, which is the sign of a
general conception. [450]
How prome men are to form general con-
ceptions we may see from the use of meta-
phor, and of the other figures of speech
grounded on similitude. Similitude is no-
thing else than an agreement of the objects
compared in one or more attributes, and
if there be no attribute common to both,
there can be no similitude.
The similitudes and analogies between
[448–450]
396
DESSAY v.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
the various objects that nature presents to
us, are infinite and inexhaustible. They
not only please, when displayed by the poet
or wit in works of taste, but they are highly
useful in the ordinary communication of our
thoughts and sentiments by language. In
the rude languages of barbarous nations,
similitudes and analogies supply the want of
proper words to express men's sentiments,
so much that in such languages there is
hardly a sentence without a metaphor; and,
if we examine the most copious and polished
languages, we shall, find that a great pro-
portion of the words and phrases which are
accounted the most proper, may be said to
be the progeny of metaphor.
As foreigners, who settle in a nation as
their home, come at last to be incorporated
and lose the denomination of foreigners, so
words and phrases, at first borrowed and
figurative, by long use become denizens in
the language, and lose the denomination of
figures of speech. When we speak of the
extent of knowledge, the steadiness of virtue,
the tenderness of affection, the perspicuity
of expression, no man conceives these to be
metaphorical expressions; they are as pro-
per as any in the language : yet it appears
upon the very face of them, that they
must have been metaphorical in those who
used them first ; and that it is by use and
prescription that they have lost the deno-
mination of figurative, and acquired a right
to be considered as proper words. This
observation will be found to extend to a
great part, perhaps the greatest part of the
words of the most perfect languages. Some-
times the name of an individual is given to
a general conception, and thereby the in-
dividual in a manner generalised; as when
the Jew Shylock, in Shakespeare, says—
“A Daniel cóme to judgment ; yea, a
Daniel !” In this speech, “a Daniel” is
an attribute, or an universal. The character
of Daniel, as a man of singular wisdom,
is abstracted from his person, and considered
as capable of being attributed to other per-
sons. [45]]
Upon the whole, these two operations of
abstracting and generalising appear com-
mon to all men that have understanding.
The practice of them is, and must be, fami-
liar to every man that uses language; but
it is one thing to practise them, and another
to explain how they are performed ; as it is
One thing to see, another to explain how we
see. The first is the province of all men,
and is the natural and easy operation of the
faculties which God hath given us. The
second is the province of philosophers, and,
though a matter of no great difficulty in it-
self, has been much perplexed by the ambi-
guity of words, and still more by the
hypotheses of philosophers.
Thus, when I consider a billiard ball,
its colour is one attribute, which I signify
by calling it white ; its figure is another.
which is signified by calling it spherical,
the firm cohesion of its parts is signified by
calling it hard; its recoiling, when it strikes
a hard body, is signified by its being called
elastic ; its origin, as being part of the tooth
of an elephant, is signified by calling it
ivory; and its use by calling it a billiard ball.
The words by which each of those attri-
butes is signified, have one distinct meaning,
and in this meaning are applicable to many
individuals. They signify not any indivi-
dual thing, but attributes common to many
individuals; nor is it beyond the capacity
of a child to understand them perfectly, and
to apply them properly to every individual
in which they are found. -
As it is by analysing a complex object
into its several attributes that we acquire
our simplest abstract conceptions, it may be
proper to compare this analysis with that
which a chemist makes of a compounded
body into the ingredients which enter into
its composition; for, although there be such
an analogy between these two operations,
that we give to both the name of analysis
or resolution, there is, at the same time, so
great a dissimilitude in some respects, that
we may be led into error, by applying to one
what belongs to the other. [452]
It is obvious that the chemical analysis
is an operation of the hand upon matter,
by various material instruments. The an-
alysis we are now explaining, is purely an
operation of the understanding, which re-
quires no material instrument, nor produces
any change upon any external thing; we
shall, therefore, call it the intellectual or
mental analysis.
In the chemical analysis, the compound
body itself is the subject analysed. A sub-
ject so imperfectly known that it may be
compounded of various ingredients, when
to our senses it appears perfectly simple;”
and even when we are able to analyse it
into the different ingredients of which it is
composed, we know not how or why the
combination of those ingredients produces
such a body.
Thus, pure sea-salt is a body, to appear-
ance as simple as any in nature. Every the
least particle of it, discernible by our senses,
is perfectly similar to every other particle in
all its qualities. The nicest taste, the quick-
est eye, can discern no mark of its being
made up of different ingredients; yet, by
the chemical art, it can be analysed into an
acid and an alkali, and can be again pro-
duced by the combination of those two in-
gredients. But how this combination pro-
duces sea-salt, no man has been able to dis-
cover. The ingredients are both as unlike
* Something seems wanting in this clause.—H.
[451, 452]
chap. III.] CONCEPTIONS FORMED BY ANALYSING OBJECTs 397
the compound as any bodies we know. No
man could have guessed, before the thing
was known, that sea-salt is compounded of
those two ingredients ; no man could have
guessed that the union of those two ingre-
dients should produce such a compound as
sea-salt. Such, in many cases, are the
phaenomena of the chemical analysis of a
compound body. [453]
If we consider the intellectual analysis of
an object, it is evident that nothing of this
kind can happen; because the thing ana-
lysed is not an external object imperfectly
known ; it is a conception of the mind it-
self. And, to suppose that there can be
anything in a conception that is not con-
ceived, is a contradiction.
The reason of observing this difference
between those two kinds of analysis is, that
Some philosophers, in order to support their
systems, have maintained that a complex
idea may have the appearance of the most
perfect simplicity, and retain no similitude
of any of the simple ideas of which it is
compounded ; just as a white colour may
appear perfectly simple, and retain no
similitude to any of the seven primary
colours of which it is compounded; or as a
chemical composition may appear perfectly
simple, and retain no similitude to any of
the ingredients.
From whichthose philosophers have drawn
this important conclusion, that a cluster of
the ideas of sense, properly combined, may
make the idea of a mind; and that all the
ideas which Mr Locke calls ideas of re-
flection, are only compositions of the ideas
which we have by our five senses. From
this the transition is easy, that, if a proper
composition of the ideas of matter may
make the idea of a mind, then a proper
composition of matter itself may make a
mind, and that man is only a piece of
matter curiously formed.
In this curious system, the whole fabric
rests upon this foundation, that a complex
idea, which is made up of various simple
ideas, may appear to be perfectly simple,
and to have no marks of composition, be-
cause a compound body may appear to our
senses to be perfectly simple.
Upon this fundamental proposition of
this system I beg leave to make two re-
marks. [454]
1. Supposing it to be true, it affirms only
what may be. We are, indeed, in most
cases very imperfect judges of what may
be. But this we know, that, were we ever
So certain that a thing may be, this is no
good reason for believing that it really is.
A may-be is a mere hypothesis, which may
furnish matter of investigation, but is not
entitled to the least degree of belief. The
transition from what may be to what really
is, is familiar and easy to those who have a
predilection for a hypothesis; but to a man
who seeks truth without prejudice or pre-
possession, it is a very wide and difficult
step, and he will never pass from the one
to the other, without evidence not only that
the thing may be, but that it really is.
2. As far as I am able to judge, this,
which it is said may be, cannot be. That
a complex idea should be made up of simple
ideas; so that to a ripe understanding re-
flecting upon that idea, there should be no
appearance of composition, nothing similar
to the simple ideas of which it is com-
pounded, seems to me to involve a contra-
diction. The idea is a conception of the
mind. If anything more than this is meant
by the idea, I know not what it is ; and I
wish both to know what it is, and to have
proof of its existence. Now, that there
should be anything in the conception of an
object which is not conceived, appears to
me as manifest a contradiction as that
there should be an existence which does
liot exist, or that a thing should be con-
ceived and not conceived at the same time.
But, say these philosophers, a white
colour is produced by the composition of
the primary colours, and yet has no resem-
blance to any of them. I grant it. But
what can be inferred from this with regard
to the composition of ideas 2 To bring this
argument home to the point, they must
Say, that because a white colour is com-
pounded of the primary colours, therefore
the idea of a white colour is compounded of
the ideas of the primary colours. This
reasoning, if it was admitted, would lead
to innumerable absurdities. An opaque
fluid may be compounded of two or more
pellucid fluids. Hence, we might infer,
with equal force, that the idea of an opaque
fluid may be compounded of the idea of two
or more pellucid fluids. [455]
Nature's way of compounding bodies,
and our way of compounding ideas, are so
different in many respects, that we cannot
reason from the one to the other, unless it
can be found that ideas are combined by
fermentations and elective attractions, and
may be analysed in a furnace by the force
of fire and of menstruums. Until this dis-
covery be made, we must hold those to be
simple ideas, which, upon the most atten-
tive reflection, have no appearance of com-
position; and those only to be the ingre-
dients of complex ideas, which, by attentive
reflection, can be perceived to be contained
in them.
If the idea of mind and its operations,
may be compounded of the ideas of matter
and its qualities, why may not the idea of
matter be compounded of the ideas of
mind 2 There is the same evidence for the
last may-be as for the first. And why may
not the idea of sound be compounded of the
[458–455]
398
[Essay V. ,
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
ideas of colour; or the idea of colour of
those of sound 2 Why may not the idea of
wisdom be compounded of ideas of folly ;
or the idea of truth of ideas of absurdity ?
But we leave these mysterious may-bes to
them that have faith to receive them.
CHAPTER IV.
OF GENERAL CONCEPTIONS FORMED BY COM-
BINATION.
As, by an intellectual analysis of objects,
we form general conceptions of single attri-
butes, (which, of all conceptions that enter
into the human mind, are the most simple,)
so, by combining several of these into one
parcel, and giving a name to that combina-
tion, we form general conceptions that may
be very complex, and, at the same time,
very distinct. [456]
Thus, one who, by analysing extended
objects, has got the simple notions of a
point, a line, straight or curve, an angle, a
surface, a solid, can easily conceive a plain
surface, terminated by four equal straight
lines, meeting in four points at right angles.
To this species of figure he gives the name
of a sºuare. In like manner, he can con-
ceive a solid terminated by six equal squares,
and give it the name of a cube. A square,
a cube, and every name of mathematical
figure, is a general term, expressing a com-
plex general conception, made by a certain
combination of the simple elements into
which we analyse extended bodies.
Every mathematical figure is accurately
defined, by enumerating the simple ele-
ments of which it is formed, and the man-
ner of their combination. The definition
contains the whole essence of it. And
every property that belongs to it may be
deduced by demonstrative reasoning from
its definition. It is not a thing that
exists, for then it would be an individual;
but it is a thing that is conceived without
regard to existence.
A farm, a manor, a parish, a county, a
kingdom, are complex general conceptions,
formed by various combinations and modi-
fications of inhabited territory, under cer-
tain forms of government.
Different combinations of military men
form the notions of a company, a regiment,
an army.
The several crimes which are the objects
of criminal law, such as theft, murder,
robbery, piracy, what are they but certain
combinations of human actions and inten-
tions, which are accurately defined in
criminal law, and which it is found con-
venient to comprehend under one name,
and consider as one thing 2
When we observe that nature, in her
animal, vegetable, and inanimate produc-
tions, has formed many individuals that
agree in many of their qualities and attri-
butes, we are led by natural instinct to
expect their agreement in other qualities,
which we have not had occasion to perceive.
[457] Thus, a child who has once burnt.
his finger, by putting it in the flame of one
candle, expects the same event if he puts it
in the flame of another candle, or in any
flame, and is thereby led to think that the
quality of burning belongs to all flame.
This instinctive induction is not justified
by the rules of logic, and it sometimes leads
men into harmless mistakes, which expe-
rience may afterwards correct ; but it pre-
serves us from destruction in innumerable
dangers to which we are exposed.
The reason of taking notice of this prin-
ciple in human nature in this place is, that
the distribution of the productions of na-
ture into genera and species becomes, on
account of this principle, more generally
useful.
The physician expects that the rhubarb
which has never yet been tried will have
like medical virtues with that which he has
prescribed on former occasions. Two par-
cels of rhubarb agree in certain sensible
qualities, from which agreement they are
both called by the same general name
*hubarb. . Therefore it is expected that
they will agree in their medical virtues.
And, as experience has discovered certain
virtues in one parcel, or in many parcels,
We presume, without experience, that the
same virtues belong to all parcels of rhubarb
that shall be used.
If a traveller meets a horse, an ox, or a
sheep, which he never saw before, he is
under no apprehension, believing these ani-
mals to be of a species that is tame and in-
offensive. But he dreads a lion or a tiger,
because they are of a fierce and ravenous
Species.
We are capable of receiving innumerable
advantages, and are exposed to innumer-
able dangers, from the various productions
of nature, animal, vegetable, and inanimate.
The life of man, if an hundred times longer
than it is, would be insufficient to learn
from experience the useful and hurtful qua-
lities of every individual production of na-
ture taken singly. [458]
The Author of Nature hath made pro-
vision for our attaining that knowledge of
his works which is necessary for our subsist-
ence and preservation, partly by the consti-
tution of the productions of nature, and partly
by the constitution of the human mind.
For, first, In the productions of nature,
great Inumbers of individuals are made so
like to one another, both in their obvious
and in their more occult qualities, that we
are not only enabled, but invited, as it were,
[456–4587
on AP. Iv.] CONCEPTIONS FORMED BY COMBINATION.
399
to reduce them into classes, and to give a
general name to a class; a name which is
common to every individual of the class,
because it comprehends in its signification
those qualities or attributes only that are
common to all the individuals of that class.
Secondly, The human mind is so framed,
that, from the agreement of individuals in
the more obvious qualities by which we
reduce them into one class, we are naturally
led to expect that they will be found to
agree in their more latent qualities—and in
this we are seldom disappointed.
We have, therefore, a strong and rational
inducement, both to distribute matural sub-
stances into classes, genera and species,
under general names, and to do this with all
the accuracy and distinctness we are able.
For the more accurate our divisions are
made, and the more distinctly the several
species are defined, the more securely we
may rely that the qualities we find in one or
in a few individuals will be found in all of
the same species.
Every species of natural substances which
has a name in language, is an attribute of
many individuals, and is itself a combination
of more simple attributes, which we observe
to be common to those individuals. [459]
We shall find a great part of the words
of every language—nay, I apprehend, the
far greater part—to signify combinations of
more simple general conceptions, which
men have found proper to be bound up, as
it were, in one parcel, by being designed by
Olle Ila,DOle.
Some general conceptions there are, which
may more properly be called compositions
or works than mere combinations. Thus,
one may conceive a machine which never
existed. He may conceive an air in music,
a poem, a plan of architecture, a plan of
government, a plan of conduct in public or
in private life, a sentence, a discourse, a
treatise. Such compositions are things
conceived in the mind of the author, not
individuals that really exist; and the same
general conception which the author had,
may be communicated to others by language.
Thus, the “Oceana” of Harrington was
conceived in the mind of its author. The
materials of which it is composed are things
conceived, not things that existed. His
Senate, his popular assembly, his magis-
trates, his elections, are all conceptions of
his mind, and the whole is one complex
conception. And the same may be said of
every work of the human understanding.
Very different from these are the works
of God, which we behold. They are works
of creative power, not of understanding
only. They have a real existence. Our
best conceptions of them are partial and
imperfect. But of the works of the human
understanding our conception may be per-
feet and complete. They are nothing but
what the author conceived, and what he can
express by language, so as to convey his
conception perfectly to men like himself.
Although such works are indeed complex
general conceptions, they do not so properly
belong to our present subject. They are
more the objects of judgment and of taste,
than of bare conception or simple appre-
hension. [460]
To return, therefore, to those complex
conceptions which are formed merely by
combining those that are more simple.
Nature has given us the power of combin-
ing such simple attributes, and such a num-
ber of them as we find proper; and of
giving one name to that combination, and
considering it as one object of thought.
The simple attributes of things, which
fall under our observation, are not so nume-
rous but that they may all have names in a
copious language. But to give names to
all the combinations that can be made of
two, three, or more of them, would be im-
possible. The most copious languages have
names but for a very small part.
It may likewise be observed, that the
combinations that have names are nearly,
though not perfectly, the same in the dif-
ferent languages of civilized nations that
have intercourse with one another. Hence
it is, that the Lexicographer, for the most
part, can give words in one language answer-
ing perfectly, or very nearly, to those of
another; and what is written in a simple
style in one language, can be translated al-
most word for word into another."
From these observations we may con-
clude that there are either certain common
principles of human nature, or certain com-
mon occurrences of human life, which dis-
pose men, out of an infinite number that
might be formed, to form certain combina-
tions rather than others.
Mr Hume, in order to account for this
phaenomenon, has recourse to what he calls
the associating qualities of ideas; to wit,
causation, contiguity in time and place, and
similitude. He conceives—“That one of
the most remarkable effects of those associa-
ting qualities, is the complex ideas which
are the common subjects of our thoughts.
That this also is the cause why languages
So nearly correspond to one another; Nature
in a manner pointing out to every one those
ideas which are most proper to be united
into a complex one.” [461]
I agree with this ingenious author, that
Nature in a manner points out those simple
ideas which are most proper to be united
into a complex one : but Nature does this,
not solely or chiefly by the relations between
the simple ideas of contiguity, causation,
* This is only strictly true of the words relative to
objects of sense.—H. -
[459–461]
400
[ESSAY v.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS. .
causation, and resemblance ; but rather by
the fitness of the combinations we make, to
aid our own conceptions, and to convey
them to others by language easily and
agreeably.
The end and use of language, without
regard to the associating qualities of ideas,
will lead men that have common under-
standing to form such complex notions as
are proper for expressing their wants, their
thoughts, and their desires: and in every
language we shall find these to be the com-
plex notions that have names.
In the rudest state of society, men must
have occasion to form the general notions of
man, woman, father, mother, son, daughter,
sister, brother, neighbour, friend, enemy,
and many others, to express the common
relations of one person to another.
If they are employed in hunting, they
must have general terms to express the
various implements and operations of the
chase. Their houses and clothing, however
simple, will furnish another set of general
terms, to express the materials, the work-
manship, and the excellencies and defects
of those fabrics. If they sail upon rivers
or upon the sea, this will give occasion to a
great number of general terms, which other-
wise would never have occurred to their
thoughts. -
The same thing may be said of agricul-
ture, of pasturage, of every art they prac-
tise, and of every branch of knowledge they
attain. The necessity of general terms for
communicating our sentiments is obvious ;
and the invention of them, as far as we find
them necessary, requires no other talent
but that degree of understanding which is
common to men. [462] -
The notions of debtor and creditor, of
profit and loss, of account, balance, stock
on hand, and many others, are owing to
commerce. The motions of latitude, longi-
tude, course, distance, run, and those of
ships, and of their various parts, furniture,
and operations, are owing to navigation.
The anatomist must have names for the
various similar and dissimilar parts of the
human body, and words to express their
figure, position, structure, and use. The
physician must have names for the various
diseases of the body, their causes, symp-
toms, and means of cure.
The like may be said of the grammarian,
the logician, the critic, the rhetorician, the
moralist, the naturalist, the mechanic, and
every man that professes any art or science.
When any discovery is made in art or in
nature, which requires new combinations and
new words to express it properly, the in-
vention of these is easy to those who have
a distinct notion of the thingtobe expressed;
and such words will readily be adopted, and
receive the public sanction.
If, on the other hand, any man of emi-
mence, through vanity or want of judgment,
should invent new words, to express com-
binations that have neither beauty nor
utility, or which may as well be expressed
in the current language, his authority may
give them currency for a time with servile
imitators or blind admirers; but the judi-
cious will laugh at them, and they will soon
lose their credit. So true was the observa-
tion made by Pomponius Marcellus, an
ancient grammarian, to Tiberius Caesar :—
“You, Caesar, have power to make a man
a denizen of Rome, but not to make a word
a denizen of the Roman language.”
Among nations that are civilized, and
have intercourse with one another, the most
necessary and useful arts will be common ;
the important parts of human knowledge
will be common; their several languages
will be fitted to it, and consequently to one
another. [463]
New inventions of general use give an
easy birth to new complex notions and new
names, which spread as far as the inven-
tion does. How many new complex notions
have been formed, and names for them
invented in the languages of Europe, by the
modern inventions of printing, of gun-
powder, of the mariner's compass, of opti-
cal glasses 2 The simple ideas combined
in those complex notions, and the associat-
ing qualities of those ideas, are very an-
cient; but they never produced those com-
plex notions until there was use for them.
What is peculiar to a nation in its cus-
toms, manners, or laws, will give occasion
to complex notions and words peculiar to
the language of that nation. Hence it is
easy to see why an impeachment, and an
attainder, in the English language, and
ostracism in the Greek language, have not
names answering to them in other lan-
guages. -
I apprehend, therefore, that it is utility,
and not the associating qualities of the ideas,
that has led men to form only certain com-
binations, and to give names to them in
language, while they neglect an infinite
number that might be formed.
The common occurrences of life, in the
intercourse of men, and in their occupa-
tions, give occasion to many complex no-
tions. We see an individual occurrence,
which draws our attention more or less,
and may be a subject of conversation.
Other occurrences, similar to this in many
respects, have been observed, or may be
expected. It is convenient that we should
be able to speak of what is common to
them all, leaving out the unimportant cir-
* * * Tu, Caesar, civitatem dare potes hominibus,
verbis non potes.” See :Suetonius De Illust. Gram-
mat., c. 22.-H. -
[462,463]
case, wi CoNCEPTIONS FORMED BY COMBINATION.
401
cumstances of time, place, and persons.
This we can do with great ease, by giving
a name to what is common to all those
individual occurrences. Such a name is a
great aid to language, because it compre:
hends, in one word, a great number of
simple notions, which it would be very
tedious to express in detail. [464]
Thus, men have formed the complex
notions of eating, drinking, sleeping, walk-
ing, riding, running, buying, selling, plough-
ing, sowing, a dance, a feast, war, a battle,
victory, triumph ; and others, without
number. -
Such things must frequently be the sub-
ject of conversation; and, if we had not a
more compendious way of expressing them
than by a detail of all the simple notions
they comprehend, we should lose the benefit
of speech. .
The different talents, dispositions, and
habits of men in society, being interesting
to those who have to do with them, will in
every language have general names—such
as wise, foolish, knowing, ignorant, plain,
cunning. In every operative art, the tools,
instruments, materials, the work produced,
and the various excellencies and defects of
these, must have general names.
The various relations of persons, and of
things which cannot escape the observation
of men in society, lead us to many complex
general motions; such as father, brother,
friend, enemy, master, servant, property,
theft, rebellion. -
The terms of art in the sciences make
another class of general names of complex
notions; as in mathematics, axiom, defini-
tion, problem, theorem, demonstration.
I do not attempt a complete enumeration
even of the classes of complex general con-
ceptions. Those I have named as a speci-
men, I think, are mostly comprehended
under what Mr Locke calls mixed modes
and relations; which, he justly observes,
have names given them in language, in
preference to innumerable others that might
be formed; for this reason only, that they
are useful for the purpose of communicat-
ing our thoughts by language. [465]
In all the languages of mankind, not only
the writings and discourses of the learned,
but the conversation of the vulgar, is almost
entirely made up of general words, which
are the signs of general conceptions, either
simple or complex. And in every language,
we find the terms signifying complex no-
tions to be such, and only such, as the use
of language requires.
There remains a very large class of com-
plex general terms, on which I shall make
Some observations; I mean those by which
we name the species, genera, and tribes of
natural substances. *
It is utility, indeed, that leads us to give
general names to the various species of na-
tural substances; but, in combining the
attributes which are included under the
specific name, we are more aided and di-
rected by nature than in forming other com-
binations of mixed modes and relations. In
the last, the ingredients are brought to-
gether in the occurrences of life, or in the
actions or thoughts of men. But, in the
first, the ingredients are united by nature in
many individual substances which God has
made. We form a general notion of those
attributes wherein many individuals agree.
We give a specific name to this combina-
tion, which name is common to all sub-
stances having those attributes, which
either do or may exist. The specific name
comprehends neither more nor fewer attri-
butes than we find proper to put into its
definition. It comprehends not time, nor
place, nor even existence, although there
can be no individual without these.
This work of the understanding is abso-
lutely necessary for speaking intelligibly of
the productions of mature, and for reaping
the benefits we receive, and avoiding the
dangers we are exposed to from them. The
individuals are so many, that to give a
"proper name to each would be beyond the
power of language. If a good or bad qua-
lity was observed in an individual, of how
small use would this be, if there was not a
species in which the same quality might be
expected [466]
Without some general knowledge of the
qualities of natural substances, human life
could not be preserved. And there can be
no general knowledge of this kind without
reducing them to species under specific
names. For this reason, among the rudest
nations, we find names for fire, water, earth,
air, mountains, fountains, rivers; for the
kinds of vegetables they use ; of animals
they hunt or tame, or that are found useful
or hurtful.
Each of those names signifies in general
a substance having a certain combination of
attributes. The name, therefore, must be
common to all substances in which those
attributes are found.
Such general names of substances being
found in all vulgar languages, before philo-
sophers began to make accurate divisions
and less obvious distinctions, it is not to be
expected that their meaning should be more
precise than is necessary for the common
purposes of life.
As the knowledge of nature advances,
more species of natural substances are
observed, and their useful qualities dis-
covered. In order that this important part
of human knowledge may be communicated,
and handed down to future generations, it
is not sufficient that the species have names.
Such is the fluctuating state of languag”,
['64–466]
2 D
402
TESSAY v
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
that a general name will not always retain
the same precise signification, unless it have
a definition in which men are disposed to
acquiesce.
There was undoubtedly a great fund of
natural knowledge among the Greeks and
Romans in the time of Pliny. There is a
great fund in his Natural History; but
much of it is lost to us—for this reason
among others, that we know not what
species of substance he means by such a
Ila DOC.
Nothing could have prevented this loss
but an accurate definition of the name, by
which the species might have been distin-
guished from all others as long as that name
and its definition remained. [467]
To prevent such loss in future times,
modern philosophers have very laudably
attempted to give names and accurate defin-
itions of all the known species of sub-
stances wherewith the bountiful Creator
hath enriched our globe.
This is necessary, in order to form a
copious and distinct language concerning
them, and, consequently, to facilitate our
knowledge of them, and to convey it to
future generations.
Every species that is known to exist
ought to have a name ; and that name
ought to be defined by such attributes as
serve best to distinguish the species from
all others.
Nature invites to this work, by having
formed things so as to make it both easy
and important.
For, first, We perceive numbers of indi-
vidual substances so like in their obvious
qualities, that the most unimproved tribes
of men consider them as of one species, and
give them one common name.
Secondly, The more latent qualities of
substances are generally the same in all
the individuals of a species; so that what,
by observation or experiment, is found in
a few individuals of a species, is presumed
and commonly found to belong to the
whole. By this we are enabled, from par-
ticular facts, to draw general conclusions.
This kind of induction is, indeed, the mas-
ter-key to the knowledge of Nature, without
which we could form no general conclu-
sions in that branch of philosophy.
And, thirdly, By the very constitution
of our nature, we are led, without reason-
ing, to ascribe to the whole species what
we have found to belong to the individuals.
It is thus we come to know that fire burns
and water drowns; that bodies gravitate
and bread nourishes. [468]
The species of two of the kingdoms of
Natüre—to wit, the animal and the vege-
table—seem to be fixed by Nature, by the
power they have of producing their like.
And, in these, men, in all ages and nations,
have accounted the parent and the progeny
of the same species. The differences among
Naturalists, with regard to the species of
these two kingdoms, are very inconsider-
able, and may be occasioned by the changes
produced by soil, climate, and culture, and
Sometimes by monstrous productions, which
are comparatively rare.
In the inanimate kingdom we have not
the same means of dividing things into
species, and, therefore, the limits of species
seem to be more arbitrary. But, from the
progress already made, there is ground to
hope that, even in this kingdom, as the
knowledge of it advances, the various
species may be so well distinguished and
defined as to answer every valuable pur-
pose.
When the species are so numerous as to
burden the memory, it is greatly assisted
by distributing them into genera, the genera
into tribes, the tribes into orders, and the
orders into classes.
Such a regular distribution of natural
substances, by divisions and subdivisions,
has got the name of a system.
It is not a system of truths, but a system
of general terms, with their definitions;
and it is not only a great help to memory,
but facilitates very much the definition of
the terms. For the definition of the genus
is common to all the species of that genus,
and so is understood in the definition of
each species, without the trouble of repeti-
tion. In like manner, the definition of a
tribe is understood in the definition of every
genus, and every species of that tribe; and
the same may be said of every superior
division. [469]
The effect of such a systematical distri-
bution of the productions of Nature is seen
in our systems of Zoology, botany, and min-
eralogy; in which a species is commonly
defined accurately in a line or two, which,
without the systematical arrangement, could
hardly be defined in a page.
With regard to the utility of systems of
this kind, men have gone into contrary ex-
tremes ; some have treated them with con-
tempt, as a mere dictionary of words;
others, perhaps, rest in such systems as all
that is worth knowing in the works of
Nature.
On the one hand, it is not the intention
of such systems to communicate all that is
known of the natural productions which
they describe. The properties most fit for
defining and distinguishing the several
species, are not always those that are most
useful to be known. To discover and to
communicate the uses of natural substances
in life and in the arts, is, no doubt, that
part of the business of a naturalist which is
the most important ; and the systematical
arrangement of them is chiefly to be valued
[467–469T
CHAP. v.]
OF NAMES GIVEN ‘TO
GENERAL NOTIONS. 403
for its subserviency to this end. This every
judicious naturalist will grant.
But, on the other hand, the labour is not
to be despised, by which the road to an use-
ful and important branch of knowledge is
made easy in all time to come; especially
when this labour requires both extensive
knowledge and great abilities.
The talent of arranging properly and
defining accurately, is so rare, and at the
same time so useful, that it may very justly
be considered as a proof of real genius, and
as entitled to a high degree of praise. There
is an intrinsic beauty in arrangement, which
captivates the mind, and gives pleasure,
even abstracting from its utility ; as in most
other things, so in this particularly, Nature
has joined beauty with utility. The arrange-
ment of an army in the day of battle is a
grand spectacle. The same men crowded
in a fair, have no such effect. It is not
more strange, therefore, that some men
spend their days in studying systems of
Nature, than that other men employ their
lives in the study of languages. The most
important end of those systems, Surely, is
to form a copious and an unambiguous lan-
guage concerning the productions of Nature,
by which every useful discovery concerning
them may be communicated to the present,
and transmitted to all future generations,
without danger of mistake. [470]
General terms, especially such as are
complex in their signification, will never
keep one precise meaning, without accurate
definition; and accurate definitions of such
terms can in no way be formed so easily and
advantageously as by reducing the things
they signify into a regular system.
Very eminent men in the medical profes-
sion, in order to remove all ambiguity in
the names of diseases, and to advance the
healing art, have, of late, attempted to re-
duce into a systematical order the diseases
of the human body, and to give distinct
names and accurate definitions of the seve-
ral species, genera, orders, and classes, into
which they distribute them; and I appre-
hend that, in every art and science, where
the terms of the art have any ambiguity
that obstructs its progress, this method will
be found the easiest and most successful for
the remedy of that evil.
It were even to be wished that the gene-
ral terms which we find in common lan-
guage, as well as those of the arts and
Sciences, could be reduced to a systematical
arrangement, and defined so as that they
might be free from ambiguity; but, per-
haps, the obstacles to this are insurmount-
able.' I know no man who has attempted it
but Bishop Wilkins in his Essay towards a
real character and a philosophicallanguage."
* In this attempt Wilkins was preceded by our
The attempt was grand, and worthy of a
man of genius.
The formation of such systems, therefore,
of the various productions of Nature, in-
stead of being despised, ought to be ranked
among the valuable improvements of modern
ages, and to be the more esteemed that its
utility reaches to the most distant future
times, and, like the invention of writing,
serves to embalm a most important branch
of human knowledge, and to preserve it from
being corrupted or lost. [47]]
CHAPTER V.
OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE NAMES GIVEN
TO OluR GENERAL NOTIONS.
HAVING now explained, as well as I am
able, those operations of the mind by which
we analyse the objects which nature pre-
sents to our observation, into their simple
attributes, giving a general name to each, and
by which we combine any number of such
attributes into one whole, and give a general
name to that combination, I shall offer some
observations relating to our general notions,
whether simple or complex.
I apprehend that the names given to
them by modern philosophers, have contri-
buted to darken our speculations about them,
and to render them difficult and abstruse.
We call them general notions, concep-
tions, ideas. The words notion and con-
ception, in their proper and most common
sense, signify the act or operation of the
mind in conceiving an object. In a figura-
tive sense, they are sometimes put for the
object conceived. And I think they are
rarely, if ever, used in this figurative sense,
except when we speak of what we call
general notions or general conceptions. The
word idea, as it is used in modern times,
has the same ambiguity.
Now, it is only in the last of these senses,
and not in the first, that we can be said to
have general notions or conceptions. The
generality is in the object conceived, and
not in the act of the mind by which it is
conceived. Every act of the mind is an in-
dividual act, which does or did exist. [472]
But we have power to conceive things which
neither do nor ever did exist. We have
power to conceive attributes without regard
to their existence. The conception of such
an attribute is a real and individual act of
the mind; but the attribute conceived is
common to many individuals that do or may
exist. We are too apt to confound an ob-
ject of conception with the conception of
countryman Dalgarno; and from Dalgarno it is
highly probable that Wilkins borrowed the idea,
But even Dalgarno was not the first who conceived
the project.—H.
[470-472]
2 D 2
404
LESSAY v.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
that object. But the danger of doing this
must be much greater when the object of
conception is called a conception. -
The Peripatetics gave to such objects of
conception the names of universals, and of
predicables. Those names had no ambi-
guity, and I think were much more fit to
express what was meant by them than the
Ina, IneS WG UlSG.
It is for this reason that I have so often
used the word attribute, which has the same
meaning with predicable. And, for the same
reason, I have thought it necessary repeat-
edly to warn the reader, that when, in com-
pliance with custom, I speak of general
notions or general conceptions, I always
mean things conceived, and not the act of
the mind in conceiving them.
The Pythagoreans and Platonists gave
the name of ideas to such general objects of
conception, and to nothing else. As we
borrowed the word idea from them, so that
it is now familiar in all the languages of
Europe, I think it would have been happy
if we had also borrowed their meaning, and
had used it only to signify what they meant
by it. I apprehend we want an unambigu-
ous word to distinguish things barely con-
ceived from things that exist. If the word
idea was used for this purpose only, it would
be restored to its original meaning, and
Supply that want.
We may surely agree with the Platonists
in the meaning of the word idea, without
adopting their theory concerning ideas. We
need not believe, with them, that ideas are
eternal and self-existent, and that they
have a more real existence than the things
we see and feel. [473]
They were led to give existence to ideas,
from the common prejudice that everything
which is an object of conception must
really exist; and, having once given exist-
ence to ideas, the rest of their mysterious
System about ideas followed of course ; for
things merely conceived have neither be-
ginning nor end, time nor place; they are
subject to no change ; they are the patterns
and exemplars according to which the
Deity made everything that he made; for
the work must be conceived by the artificer
before it is made.
These are undeniable attributes of the
ideas of Plato; and, if we add to them that
of real existence, we have the whole myste-
rious system of Platonic ideas. Take away
the attribute of existence, and suppose
them not to be things that exist, but
things that are barely conceived, and all
the mystery is removed; all that remains
is level to the human understanding.
The word essence came to be much used
among the schoolmen, and what the Pla-
tonists called the idea of a species, they
called its essence. The word essentia is
said to have been made by Cicero ; but
even his authority could not give it cur-
rency, until long after his time. It came
at last to be used, and the schoolmen fell
into much the same opinions concerning
essences, as the Platonists held concerning
ideas. The essences of things were held to
be uncreated, eternal, and immutable.
Mr Locke distinguishes two kinds of
essence, the real and the nominal. By the
real essence, he means the constitution of
an individual, which makes it to be what it
is. This essence must begin and end with
the individual to which it belongs. It is
not, therefore, a Platonic idea. But what
Mr Locke calls the nominal essence, is the
constitution of a species, or that which
makes an individual to be of such a species;
and this is nothing but that combination of
attributes which is signified by the name of
the species, and which we conceive withou
regard to existence. [474] -
The essence of a species, therefore, is
what the Platonists called the idea of the
species.
If the word idea be restricted to the
meaning which it bore among the Plato-
nists and Pythagoreans, manythings which
Mr Locke has said with regard to ideas
will be just and true, and others will not.
It will be true that most words (in-
deed all general words) are the signs of
ideas ; but proper names are not : they
signify individual things, and not ideas. It
will be true not only that there are general
and abstract ideas, but that all ideas are
general and abstract. It will be so far
from the truth, that all our simple ideas
are got immediately, either from sensation
or from consciousness, that no simple
idea is got by either, without the co-opera-
tion of other powers. The objects of sense,
of memory, and of consciousness, are not
ideas but individuals; they must be anal-
ysed by the understanding into their simple
ingredients, before we can have simple
ideas; and those simple ideas must be
again combined by the understanding, in
distinct parcels, with names annexed, in
order to give us complex ideas. It will be
probable not only that brutes have no ab-
stract ideas, but that they have no ideas at all.
I shall only add that the learned author
of the origin and progress of language, and,
perhaps, his learned friend, Mr Harris, are
the only modern authors I have met with
who restrict the word idea to this meaning.
Their acquaintance with ancient philosophy
led them to this. What pity is it that a
word which, in ancient philosophy, had a
distinct meaning, and which, if kept to
that meaning, would have been a real ac-
quisition to our language, should be used
by the moderns in so vague and ambiguous
a manner, that it is more apt to perplex
[473, 474]
CHAP. vi.]
405
OPINIONS ABOUT UNIVERSALs.
and darken our speculations, than to convey
useful knowledge
From all that has been said about ab-
stract and general conceptions, I think we
may draw the following conclusions con-
cerning them. [475]
First, That it is by abstraction that the
mind is furnished with all its most simple
and most distinct notions. The simplest
objects of sense appear both complex and
indistinct, until by abstraction they are
analysed into their more simple elements;
and the same may be said of the objects of
memory and of consciousness.
Secondly, Our most distinct complex
notions are those that are formed by com-
pounding the simple notions got by abstrac-
tion.
Thirdly, Without the powers of abstract-
ing and generalising, it would be impossible
to reduce things into any order and method,
by dividing them into genera and species.
Fourthly, Without those powers there
could be no definition ; for definition can
only be applied to universals, and no indi-
vidual can be defined.
Fifthly, Without abstract and general
notions there can neither be reasoning nor
language.
Sixthly, As brute animals shew no signs
of being able to distinguish the various
attributes of the same subject; of being
able to class things into genera and species;
to define, to reason, or to communicate
their thoughts by artificial signs, as men
do—I must think, with Mr Locke, that they
have not the powers of abstracting and
generalising, and that, in this particular,
nature has made a specific difference be-
tween them and the human species.
CHAPTER VI.
OPINIONS OF PHILOSOPHERS ABOUT
UNIVERSALS.
IN the ancient philosophy, the doctrine of
universals—that is, of things which we ex-
press by general terms—makes agreat figure.
The ideas of the Pythagoreans and Pla-
tonists, of which so much has been already
said, were universals. [476] All science is
employed about universals as its object. It
was thought that there can be no science,
unless its object be something real and
immutable ; and therefore those who paid
homage to truth and science, maintained
that ideas or universals have a real and
immutable existence.
The sceptics, on the contrary, (for there
were sceptical philosophers in those early
days,) maintained that all things are mu-
table and in a perpetual fluctuation; and,
from this principle, inferred that there is
no science, no truth ; that all is uncertain
opinion. -
Plato, and his masters of the Pythagorean
School, yielded this with regard to objects
of sense, and acknowledged that there could
be no science or certain knowledge con-
cerning them. But they held that there
are objects of intellect of a superior order
and nature, which are permanent and im-
mutable. These are ideas, or universal
natures, of which the objects of sense are
only the images and shadows. -
To these ideas they ascribed, as I have
already observed, the most magnificent
attributes. Of man, of a rose, of a circle,
and of every species of things, they believed
that there is one idea or form, which ex-
isted from eternity, before any individual of
the species was formed ; that this idea is
the exemplar or pattern, according to which
the Deity formed the individuals of the
species; that every individual of the species
participates of this idea, which constitutes
its essence ; and that this idea is likewise
an object of the human intellect, when, by
due abstraction, we discern it to be one in
all the individuals of the species.
Thus the idea of every species, though
one and immutable, might be considered in
three different views or respects: first, As
having an eternal existence before there
was any individual of the species; secondly,
As existing in every individual of that spe-
cies, without division or multiplication, and
making the essence of the species; and,
thirdly, Asan object of intellect and of science
in man. [477] -
Such I take to be the doctrine of Plato,
as far as I am able to comprehend it. His
disciple Aristotle rejected the first of these
views of ideas as visionary, but differed
little from his master with regard to the
two last. He did not admit the existence
of universal natures antecedent to the ex-
istence of individuals : but he held that
every individual consists of matter and
form; that the form (which I take to be
what Plato calls the idea) is common to all
the individuals of the species; and that the
human intellect is fitted to receive the forms
of things as objects of contemplation. Such
profound speculations about the nature of
universals, we find even in the first ages of
philosophy." I wish I could make them
more intelligible to myself and to the reader.
The division of universals into five
classes—to wit, genus, species, specific
difference, properties, and accidents—is
likewise very ancient, and I conceive was
borrowed by the Peripatetics from the
Pythagorean school.--
* Different philosophers have maintained that
Aristotle was a Realist, a Conceptualist, and a No-
minalist, in the strictest sense.—H. -
+ This proceeds on the supposition that the sup-
posititious Pythagorean treatises are genuine.—H.
[475-477]
406
[Essay v.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
Porphyry has given us a very distinct
treatise upon these, as an introduction to
Aristotle's categories. But he has omitted
the intricate metaphysical questions that
were agitated about their nature: such as,
whether genera and species do really exist
in nature, or whether they are only con-
ceptions of the human mind. If they exist
in nature, whether they are corporeal or
incorporeal ; and whether they are inherent
in the objects of sense, or disjoined from
them. These questions, he tells us, for
brevity's sake, he omits, because they are
very profound, and require accurate discus-
sion. It is probable that these questions
exercised the wits of the philosophers till
about the twelfth century. [478]
About that time, Roscelinus or Rusce-
linus, the master of the famous Abelard,
introduced a new doctrine—that there is
nothing universal but words or names.
For this, and other heresies, he was much
persecuted. However, by his eloquence
and abilities, and those of his disciple Abe-
lard, the doctrine spread, and those who
followed it were called Nominalists." His
antagonists, who held that there are things
that are really universal, were called Realists.
The scholastic philosophers, from the be-
ginning of the twelfth century, were divided
into these two sects. Some few took a
middle road between the contending parties.
That universality which the Realists held
to be in things themselves, Nominalists in
names only, they held to be neither in things
nor in names only, but in our conceptions.
On this account they were called Concep-
tualists: but, being exposed to the batteries
of both the opposite parties, they made no
great figure.--
When the sect of Nominalists was like
to expire, it received new life and spirit
from Occam, the disciple of Scotus, in the
fourteenth century. Then the dispute about
universals, a parte rei, was revived with
the greatest animosity in the schools of
Britain, France, and Germany, and carried
on, not by arguments only, but by bitter
reproaches, blows, and bloody affrays, until
the doctrines of Luther and the other Re-
formers turned the attention of the learned
world to more important subjects.
After the revival of learning, Mr Hobbes
adopted the opinion of the Nominalists.:
* Abelard was not a Nominalist like Roscelinus;
but held a doctrine, intermediate between absoluté
Nominalism and Realism, corresponding to the
opinion since called Conceptualism. A flood of light
has been thrown upon Abelard's doctrines, by M.
Cousin's introduction to his recent publication of
º unedited works of that illustrious thinker.—
# The later Nominalists, of the school of Occam,
were really Conceptualists in our sense of the term.
—H.
... t. Hobbes is justly said by Leibnitz to have been
Žpsis Nominalibus nomination. They were really
Conceptualists.--Fl.
“ Human Nature,” chap 5, § 6–% It is
plain, therefore,” says he, “that there is no-
thing universal but names.” And in his
“Leviathan,” part i chap 4, “There being
nothing universal but names, proper names
bring to mind one thing only ; universals
recall any one of many.”
Mr Locke, according to the division be-
fore mentioned, I think, may be accounted
a Conceptualist. He does not maintain
that there are things that are universal;
but that we have general or universal ideas
which we form by abstraction ; and this
power of forming abstract and general ideas,
he conceives to be that which makes the
chief distinction in point of understanding,
between men and brutes. [479]
Mr Locke's doctrine about abstraction
has been combated by two very powerful
antagonists, Bishop Berkeley and Mr Hume,
who have taken up the opinion of the Nom-
inalists. . The former thinks, “That the
opinion that the mind hath a power of form-
ing abstract ideas or notions of things, has
had a chief part in rendering speculation
intricate and perplexed, and has occasioned
innumerable errors and difficulties in almost
all parts of knowledge.” That “abstract
ideas are like a fine and subtile net, which
has miserably perplexed and entangled the
minds of men, with this peculiar circum-
stance, that by how much the finer and
more curious was the wit of any man, by
so much the deeper was he like to be en-
Snared, and faster held therein.” That,
“among all the false principles that have
obtained in the world, there is none hath a
more wide influence over the thoughts of
speculative men, than this of abstract gene-
ral ideas.”
The good bishop, therefore, in twenty-
four pages of the introduction to his “Prin-
ciples of Human Knowledge,” encounters
this principle with a zeal proportioned to
his apprehension of its malignant and ex-
tensive influence.
That the zeal of the sceptical philosopher
against abstract ideas was almost equal, to
that of the bishop, appears from his words,
“Treatise of Human Nature,” Book I.
part i. § 7:—“A very material question
has been started concerning abstract or
general ideas—whether they be general or
particular, in the mind's conception of them.
A great philosopher” (he means Dr Berke-
ley) “has disputed the received opinion in
this particular, and has asserted that all
general ideas are nothing but particular ones
annexed to a certain term, which gives them
a more extensive signification, and makes
them recall, upon occasion, other individuals
which are similar to them. As I look upon
this to be one of the greatest and most
valuable discoveries that have been made
of late years in the republic of letters, I
[478,479]
clj AP. VI.]
407
OPINIONS ABOUT UNIVERSALS.
shall here endeavour to confirm it by Some
arguments, which, I hope, will put it beyond
all doubt and controversy.” [480]
I shall make an end of this subject, with
some reflections on what has been said upon
it by these two eminent philosophers.
1. First, I apprehend that we cannot,
with propriety, be said to have abstract and
general ideas, either in the popular or in the
philosophical sense of that word. In the
popular sense, an idea is a thought; it is
the act of the mind in thinking, or in con-
ceiving any object. This act of the mind
is always an individual act, and, therefore,
there can be no general idea in this sense.
In the philosophical sense, an idea is an
image in the mind, or in the brain, which,
in Mr Locke's system, is the immediate ob-
ject of thought; in the system of Berkeley
and Hume, the only object of thought. I
believe there are no ideas of this kind, and,
therefore, no abstract general ideas. In-
deed, if there were really such images in
the mind or in the brain, they could not
be general, because everything that really
exists is an individual. Universals are
neither acts of the mind, nor images in the
mind.
As, therefore, there are no general ideas
in either of the senses in which the word
idea is used by the moderns, Berkeley and
Hume have, in this question, an advantage
over Mr Locke; and their arguments against
him are good ad hominem. They saw
farther than he did into the just conse-
quences of the hypothesis concerning ideas,
which was common to them and to him ;
and they reasoned justly from this hypo-
thesis when they concluded from it, that
there is neither a material world, nor any
such power in the human mind as that of
abstraction. [481]
A triangle, in general, or any other uni-
versal, might be called an idea by a Plato-
nist ; but, in the style of modern philo-
sophy, it is not an idea, nor do we ever
ascribe to ideas the properties of triangles.
It is never said of any idea, that it has
three sides and three angles. We do not
speak of equilateral, isosceles, or scalene
ideas, nor of right-angled, acute-angled, or
obtuse-angled ideas. And, if these attri-
butes do not belong to ideas, it follows,
necessarily, that a triangle is not an idea.
The same reasoning may be applied to
every other universal.
Ideas are said to have a real existence in
the mind, at least while we think of them ;
but universals have no real existence.
When we ascribe existence to them, it is
not an existence in time or place, but exist-
ence in some individual subject; and this
existence means no more but that they are
truly attributes of such a subject. Their
existence is nothing but predicability, or the
capacity of being attributed to a subject.
The name of predicables, which was given
them in ancient philosophy, is that which
most properly expresses their nature.
2. I think it must be granted, in the
second place, that universals cannot be the
objects of imagination, when we take that
word in its strict and proper sense, “I
find,” says Berkeley, “I have a faculty of
imagining or representing to myself the
ideas of those particular things I have per-
ceived, and of variously compounding and
dividing them. I can imagine a man with
two heads, or the upper parts of a man
joined to the body of a horse. I can imagine
the hand, the eye, the nose, each by itself,
abstracted or separated from the rest of the
body. But then, whatever hand or eye I
imagine, it must have some particular shape
or colour. Likewise, the idea of a man that
I frame to myself must be either of a white,
or a black, or a tawny ; a straight or a
crooked ; a tall, or a low, or a middle-sized
man.”
I believe every man will find in himself
what this ingenious author found—that he
cannot imagine a man without colour, or
stature, or shape. [482]
Imagination, as we before observed, pro-
perly signifies a conception of the appear-
ance an object would make to the eye if
actually seen." An universal is not an
object of any external sense, and therefore
cannot be imagined ; but it may be dis-
tinctly conceived. When Mr Pope says,
“The proper study of mankind is man,” I
conceive his meaning distinctly, though I
neither imagine a black or a white, a
crooked or a straight man. The distinction
between conception and imagination is real,
though it be too often overlooked, and the
words taken to be synonimous. I can con-
ceive a thing that is impossible,” but I
cannot distinctly imagine a thing that is
impossible. I can conceive a proposition or
a demonstration, but I cannot imagine
either. I can conceive understanding and
will, virtue and vice, and other attributes of
mind, but I cannot imagine them. In like
manner, I can distinctly conceive uni-
versals, but I cannot imagine them.:
As to the manner how we conceive uni-
versals, I confess my ignorance. I know
not how I hear, or see, or remember, and
as little do I know how I conceive things
that have no existence. In all our original
* See above, p. 366, a, note.—H.
f See above, p. 377, b, note.—H. & e-
# Imagination and Conception are distinguished,
but the latter ought not to be used in the vague and
extensive signification of Reid. The discrimination
in question is best made in the German language of
philosophy, where the terms Begriffè (Conceptions)
are strongly contrasted with Anschauungen (Intui-
tions), Bilden (Images), &c. See above, p. 360, a, note
# ; p. 365, b, note f. The reader may compare
Stewart’s “Elements,” I. p. 196.-H.
[480–482]
408
[ESSAY v.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
faculties, the fabric and manner of operation
is, I apprehend, beyond our comprehension,
and perhaps is perfectly understood by him
only who made them.
But we ought not to deny a fact of which
we are conscious, though we know not how
it is brought about. And I think we may
be certain that universals are not conceived
by means of images of them in our minds,
because there can be no image of an uni-
versal.
3. It seems to me, that on this question
Mr Locke and his two antagonists have
divided the truth between them. He saw
very clearly, that the power of forming ab-
stract and general conceptions is one of the
most distinguishing powers of the human
mind, and puts a specific difference between
man and the brute creation. But he did
not see that this power is perfectly irrecon-
cileable to his doctrine concerning ideas.
[483]
His opponents saw this inconsistency;
but, instead of rejecting the hypothesis of
ideas, they explain away the power of ab-
straction, and leave no specific distinction
between the human understanding and that
of brutes. -
4. Berkeley," in his reasoning against
abstract general ideas, seems unwillingly
or unwarily to grant all that is necessary
to support abstract and general concep-
tions.
“A man,” he says, “may consider a
figure merely as triangular, without attend-
ing to the particular qualities of the angles,
or relations of the sides. So far he may
abstract. But this will never prove that
he can frame an abstract general inconsist-
ent idea of a triangle.”
If a man may consider a figure merely
as triangular, he must have some concep-
tion of this object of his consideration; for
no man can consider a thing which he does
not conceive. He has a conception, there-
fore, of a triangular figure, merely as such.
I know no more that is meant by an abstract
general conception of a triangle.
He that considers a figure merely as tri-
angular, must understand what is meant by
the word triangular. If, to the conception
he joins to this word, he adds any particu-
lar quality of angles or relation of sides, he
misunderstands it, and does not consider
the figure merely as triangular. Whence,
I think, it is evident, that he who considers
a figure merely as triangular must have the
conception of a triangle, abstracting from
any quality of angles or relation of sides.
The Bishop, in like manner, grants,
“That we may consider Peter so far forth
as man, or so far forth as animal, without
* On Reid's criticism of Berkeley, see Stewart,
(Elements, II, p. 110, sq.)—H.
framing the forementioned abstract idea, in
as much as all that is perceived is not
considered.” It may here be observed,
that he who considers Peter so far forth as
man, or so far forth as animál, must con-
ceive the meaning of those abstract general
words man and animal, and he who con-
ceives the meaning of them has an abstract
general conception. [484]
From these concessions, one would be
apt to conclude that the Bishop thinks.that
we can abstract, but that we cannot frame
abstract ideas; and in this I should agree
with him. But I cannot reconcile his con-
cessions with the general principle he lays
down before. “To be plain,” says he, “I
deny that I can abstract one from another,
or conceive separately those qualities which
it is impossible should exist so separated.”
This appears to me inconsistent with the
concessions above mentioned, and incon-
sistent with experience. &
If we can consider a figure merely as
triangular, without attending to the parti-
cular quality of the angles or relation of the
sides, this, I think, is conceiving separately
things which cannot exist so separated:
for Surely a triangle cannot exist without
a particular quality of angles and relation
of sides. And it is well known, from ex-
perience, that a man may have a distinct
conception of a triangle, without having
any conception or knowledge of many of
the properties without which a triangle
cannot exist. -
Let us next consider the Bishop's notion
of generalising." He does not absolutely
deny that there are general ideas, but only
that there are abstract general ideas. “An
idea,” he says, “which, considered in it-
self, is particular, becomes general, by be-
ing made to represent or stand for all other
particular ideas of the same sort. To make
this plain by an example : Suppose a geo-
metrician is demonstrating the method of
cutting a line in two equal parts. He
draws, for instance, a black line, of an inch
in length. This, which is in itself a parti-
cular line, is, nevertheless, with regard to
its signification, general; since, as it is
there used, it represents all particular lines
whatsoever; so that what is demonstrated
of it, is demonstrated of all lines, or, in
other words, of a line in general. And as
that particular line becomes general by be-
ing made a sign, so the name line, which,
taken absolutely, is particular, by being a
sign, is made general.” [485]
Here I observe, that when a particular
idea is made a sign to represent and stand
for all of a sort, this supposes a distinction
of things into sorts or species. To be of a
sort implies having those attributes which
* See Stewart, (Elements, II p. 125.)—H.
[483-485]
CHAP. VI.]
409
OPINIONS ABOUT UNIVERSALS.
characterise the sort, and are common to
all the individuals that belong to it. There
cannot, therefore, be a sort without general
attributes, nor can there be any conception
of a sort without a conception of those
general attributes which distinguish it. The
conception of a sort, therefore, is an ab-
stract general conception.
The particular idea cannot surely be made
a sign of a thing of which we have no con-
ception. I do not say that you must have
an idea of the sort, but Surely you ought
to understand or conceive what it means,
when you make a particular idea a repre-
sentative of it; otherwise your particular
idea represents, you know not what.
When I demonstrate any general pro-
perty of a triangle, such as, that the three
angles are equal to two right angles, I must
understand or conceive distinctly what is
common to all triangles. I must distinguish
the common attributes of all triangles from
those wherein particular triangles may differ.
And, if I conceive distinctly what is common
to all triangles, without confounding it with
what is not so, this is to form a general con-
ception of a triangle. And without this, it
is impossible to know that the demonstra-
tion extends to all triangles.
The Bishop takes particular notice of this
argument, and makes this answer to it :—
“Though the idea I have in view, whilst
I make the demonstration, be, for instance,
that of an isosceles rectangular triangle,
whose sides are of a determinate length, I
may nevertheless be certain that it extends
to all other rectilinear triangles, of what
sort or bigness soever; and that because
neither the right angle, nor the equality or
determinate length of the sides, are at all
concerned in the demonstration.” [486]
But, if he do not, in the idea, he has in
view, clearly distinguish what is common
to all triangles from what is not, it would
be impossible to discern whether something
that is not common be concerned in the
demonstration or not. In order, therefore,
to perceive that the demonstration extends
to all triangles, it is necessary to have a
distinct conception of what is common to
all triangles, excluding from that concep-
tion all that is not common. And this is
all I understand by an abstract general
conception of a triangle.
Berkeley catches an advantage to his side
of the question, from what Mr. Locke ex-
presses (too strongly indeed) of the difficulty
of framing abstract general ideas, and the
pains and skill necessary for that purpose.
From which the Bishop infers, that a thing
so difficult cannot be necessary for com-
munication by language, which is so easy
and familiar to all sorts of men.
There may be some abstract and general
conceptions that are difficult, or even be-
yond the reach of persons of weak under-
standing; but there are innumerable which
are not beyond the reach of children. It
is impossible to learn language without
acquiring general conceptions; for there
cannot be a single sentence without them.
I believe the forming these, and being able
to articulate the sounds of language, make
up the whole difficulty that children find in
learning language at first.
But this difficulty, we see, they are able
to overcome so early as not to remember
the pains it cost them. They have the
strongest inducement to exert all their
labour and skill, in order to understand
and to be understood; and they no doubt
do so. [487]
The labour of forming abstract motions, is
the labour of learning to speak, and to
understand what is spoken. As the words
of every language, excepting a few proper
names, are general words, the minds of
children are furnished with general con-
ceptions, in proportion as they learn the
meaning of general words. I believe most
men have hardly any general notions but
those which are expressed by the general
words they hear and use in conversation.
The meaning of some of these is learned
by a definition, which at once conveys a
distinct and accurate general conception.
The meaning of other general words we
collect, by a kind of induction, from the
way in which we see them used on various
occasions by those who understand the
language. Of these our conception is often
less distinct, and in different persons is
perhaps not perfectly the same.
“Is it not a hard thing,” says the Bishop,
“ that a couple of children cannot prate to-
gether of their sugar-plumbs and rattles,
and the rest of their little trinkets, till they
have first tacked together numberless in-
consistencies, and so formed in their minds
abstract general ideas, and annexed them
to every common name they make use of 2*
However hard a thing it may be, it is an
evident truth, that a couple of children,
even about their sugar-plumbs and their
rattles, cannot prate so as to understand
and be understood, until they have learned
to conceive the meaning of many general
words—and this, I think, is to have general
conceptions.
5. Having considered the sentiments of
Bishop Berkeley on this subject, let us
next attend to those of Mr Hume, as they
are expressed Part I. S. 7, “Treatise of
Human Nature.” He agrees perfectly
with the Bishop, “That all general ideas
are nothing but particular ones annexed to
a certain term, which gives them a more
extensive signification, and makes them
recall, upon occasion, otherindividuals which
are similar to them. [488] A particular
[486–488]
410
[ESSAY v.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
idea becomes general, by being annexed to
a general term; that is, to a term, which,
from a customary conjunction, has a rela-
tion to many other particular ideas, and
readily recalls them in the imagination.
Abstract ideas are therefore in themselves
individual,however they may become general
in their representation. The image in the
mind is only that of a particular object,
though the application of it in our reason-
ing be the same as if it was universal.”
Although Mr Hume looks upon this to
be one of the greatest and most valuable
discoveries that has been made of late years
in the republic of letters, it appears to be
no other than the opinion of the nominal-
ists, about which so much dispute was
held from the beginning of the twelfth
century down to the Reformation, and
which was afterwards supported by Mr
Hobbes. I shall briefly consider the argu-
ments by which Mr Hume hopes to have
put it beyond all doubt and controversy.
First, He endeavours to prove, by three
arguments, that it is utterly impossible to
conceive any quantity or quality, without
forming a precise notion of its degrees:
This is indeed a great undertaking ; but,
if he could prove it, it is not sufficient for
his purpose—for two reasons.
First, Because there are many attributes
of things, besides quantity and quality; and
it is incumbent upon him to prove that it
is impossible to conceive any attribute,
without forming a precise notion of its
degree. Each of the ten categories of
Aristotle is a genus, and may be an attri-
bute. And, if he should prove of two of
them—to wit, quantity and quality—that
there can be no general conception of them ;
there remain eight behind, of which this
must be proved. [489]
The other reason is, because, though it
were impossible to conceive any quantity
or quality, without forming a precise notion
of its degree, it does not follow that it is
impossible to have a general conception
even of quantity and quality. The con-
ception of a pound troy is the conception
of a quantity, and of the precise degree of
that quantity; but it is an abstract general
conception notwithstanding, because it may
be the attribute of many individual bodies,
and of many kinds of bodies. He ought,
therefore, to have proved that we cannot
conceive quantity or quality, or any other
attribute, without joining it inseparably to
some individual subject.
This remains to be proved, which will be
found no easy matter. For instance, I
conceive what is meant by a Japanese as
distinctly as what is meant by an English-
man or a Frenchman. It is true, a Japan-
ese is neither quantity nor quality, but it
is an attribute common to every individual
of a populous nation. I never saw an in-
dividual of that nation ; and, if I can trust
my consciousness, the general term does
not lead me to imagine one individual of
the sort as a representative of all others.
Though Mr Hume, therefore, undertakes
much, yet, if he could prove all he under-
takes to prove, it would by no means be
sufficient to shew that we have no abstract
general conceptions.
Passing this, let us attend to his argu-
•ments for proving this extraordinary posi-
tion, that it is impossible to conceive any
quantity or quality, without forming a pre-
cise notion of its degree.
The first argument is, that it is impossi-
ble to distinguish things that are not ac-
tually separable. “The precise length of
a line is not different or distinguishable
from the line.” [490]
I have before endeavoured to shew, that
things inseparable in their nature may be
distinguished in our conception. And we
need go no farther to be convinced of this,
than the instance here brought to prove
the contrary. The precise length of a line,
he says, is not distinguishable from the
line. When I say, This is a line, I say and
mean one thing. When I say, It is a line
of three inches, I say and mean another
thing. If this be not to distinguish the
precise length of the line from the line, I
know not what it is to distinguish.
Second argument.-‘‘ Every object of
sense—that is, every impression—is an in-
dividual, having its determinate degrees of
quantity and quality. But whatever is
true of the impression is true of the idea,
as they differ in nothing but their strength
and vivacity.”
The conclusion in this argument is, in-
deed, justly drawn from the premises. If
it be true that ideas differ in nothing from
objects of sense, but in strength and viva-
city, as it must be granted that all the ob-
jects of sense are individuals, it will cer-
tainly follow that all ideas are individuals.
Granting, therefore, the justness of this
conclusion, I beg leave to draw two other
conclusions from the same premises, which
will follow no less necessarily.
First, If ideas differ from the objects of
sense only in strength and vivacity, it will
follow, that the idea of a lion is a lion of
less strength and vivacity. And hence may
arise a very important question, Whether
the idea of a lion may not tear in pieces,
and devour the ideas of sheep, oxen, and
horses, and even of men, women, and
children P
Secondly, If ideas differ only in strength
and vivacity from the objects of sense, it
will follow that objects merely conceived,
are not ideas; for such objects differ from
the objects of sense in respects of a very
[489, 490]
CHAP. VI.]
411
OPINIONS ABOUT UNIVERSALs.
different nature from strength and vivacity.
[491] Every object of sense must have a
real existence, and time and place. But
things merely conceived may neither have
existence, nor time nor place; and, there-
fore, though there should be no abstract
ideas, it does not follow that things abstract
and general may not be conceived.
The third argument is this:—“It is a
principle generally received in philosophy,
that everything in nature is individual; and
that it is utterly absurd to suppose a tri-
angle really existent which has no precise
proportion of sides and angles. If this,
therefore, be absurd in fact and reality, it
must be absurd in idea, since nothing of
which we can form a clear and distinct
idea is absurd or impossible.”
I acknowledge it to be impossible that a
triangle should really exist which has no
precise proportion of sides and angles; and
impossible that any being should exist
which is not an individual being ; for, I
think, a being and an individual being
mean the same thing : but that there can
be no attributes common to many indivi-
duals I do not acknowledge. Thus, to
many figures that really exist it may be
common that they are triangles ; and to
many bodies that exist it may be common
that they are fluid. Triangle and fluid are
not beings, they are attributes of beings.
As to the principle here assumed, that
nothing of which we can form a clear and
distinct idea is absurd or impossible, I refer
to what was said upon it, chap. 3, Essay
IV. It is evident that, in every mathema-
tical demonstration, ad absurdum, of which
kind almost one-half of mathematics con-
sists, we are required to suppose, and, con-
sequently, to conceive, a thing that is im-
possible. From that supposition we reason,
until we come to a conclusion that is not
only impossible but absurd. From this we
infer that the proposition supposed at first
is impossible, and, therefore, that its con-
tradictory is true. [492]
As this is the nature of all demonstra-
tions, ad absurdum, it is evident, (I do not
say that we can have a clear and distinct
idea,) but that we can clearly and distinctly
conceive things impossible.
The rest of Mr Hume’s discourse upon
this subject is employed in explaining how
an individual idea, annexed to a general
term, may serve all the purposes in reason-
ing which have been ascribed to abstract
general ideas,
“When we have found a resemblance
among several objects that often occur to
us, we apply the same name to all of them,
whatever differences we may observe in the
degrees of their quantity and quality, and
whatever other differences may appear
among them. After we have acquired a
custom of this kind, the hearing of that
name revives the idea of one of these ob-
jects, and makes the imagination conceive
it, with all its circumstances and propor-
tions.” But, along with this idea, there is
a readiness to survey any other of the indi-
viduals to which the name belongs, and to
observe that no conclusion be formed con-
trary to any of them. If any such conclu-
sion is formed, those individual ideas which
contradict it immediately crowd in upon us,
and make us perceive the falsehood of the
proposition. If the mind suggests not al-
ways these ideas upon occasion, it proceeds
from some imperfection in its faculties;
and such a one as is often the source of
false reasoning and sophistry.
This is, in substance, the way in which
he accounts for what he calls “ the fore-
going paradox, that some ideas are parti-
cular in their nature, but general in their
representation.” Upon this account I shall
make some remarks. [493]
1. He allows that we find a resemblance
among several objects, and such a resem-
blance as leads us to apply the same name
to all of them. This concession is suffi-
cient to shew that we have general concep-
tions. There can be no resemblance in
objects that have no common attribute;
and, if there be attributes belonging in com-
mon to several objects, and in man a fa- -
culty to observe and conceive these, and to
give names to them, this is to have general
conceptions. --> *
I believe, indeed, we may have an indis-
tinct perception of resemblance without
knowing wherein it lies. Thus, I may see
a resemblance between one face and an-
other, when I cannot distinctly say in what
feature they resemble ; but, by analysing
the two faces, and comparing feature with
feature, I may form a distinct notion of
that which is common to both. A painter,
being accustomed to an analysis of this kind,
would have formed a distinct notion of this
resemblance at first sight; to another man
it may require some attention.
There is, therefore, an indistinct notion
of resemblance when we compare the objects
only in gross: and this I believe brute ani-
mals may have. There is also a distinct
notion of resemblance when we analyse the
objects into their different attributes, and
perceive them to agree in some while they
differ in others. It is in this case only that
we give a name to the attributes wherein 4
they agree, which must be a common name,
because the thing signified by it is common.
Thus, when I compare cubes of different
matter, I perceive them to have this attri-
bute in common, that they are compre-
hended under six equal squares, and this
attribute only is signified by applying the
name of cube to them all. When I com-
[491–493]
412
[ESSAY v.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
pare clean linen with snow, I perceive them
to agree in colour; and when I apply the
name of white to both, this name signifies
neither snow nor clean linen, but the attri-
bute which is common to both.
2. The author says, that when we have
found a resemblance among several objects,
we apply the same name to all of them.
[494]
It must here be observed, that there are
two kinds of names which the author seems
to confound, though they are very different
in nature, and in the power they have in
language. There are proper names, and
there are common names or appellatives.
The first are the names of individuals. The
same proper name is never applied to
several individuals on account of their simi-
litude, because the very intention of a pro-
per name is to distinguish one individual
from all others; and hence it is a maxim
in grammar that proper names have no
plural number. A proper name signifies
nothing but the individual whose name it
is ; and, when we apply it to the individual,
we neither affirm nor deny anything con-
cerning him.
A common name or appellative is not the
name of any individual, but a general term,
, signifying something that is or may be
common to several individuals. Common
4 names, therefore, signify common attri-
butes. Thus, when I apply the name of
Son or brother to several persons, this sig-
nifies and affirms that this attribute is
common to all of them.
From this, it is evident that the apply-
ing the same name to several individuals
on account of their resemblance, can, in
consistence with grammar and common
sense, mean nothing else than the express-
ing, by a general term, something that is
common to those individuals, and which,
therefore, may be truly affirmed of them all.
3. The author says, “It is certain that
we form the idea of individuals whenever
we use any general term. The word raises
up an individual idea, and makes the ima-
gination conceive it, with all its particular
circumstances and proportions.”
This fact he takes a great deal of pains to
account for, from the effect of custom.
[495]
But the fact should be ascertained before
we take pains to account for it. I can see
no reason to believe the fact ; and I think
a farmer can talk of his sheep and his black
cattle, without conceiving, in his imagina-
tion, one individual, with all its circum-
stances and proportions. If this be true,
the whole of his theory of general ideas falls
to the ground. To me it appears, that
when a general term is well understood, it is
only by accident if it suggest some indi-
vidual of the kind; but this effect is by no
means constant.
I understand perfectly what mathemati-
cians call a line of the fifth order; yet I
never conceived in my imagination any one
of the kind in all its circumstances and pro-
portions. Sir Isaac Newton first formed a
distinct general conception of lines of the
third order; and afterwards, by great labour
and deep penetration, found out and de-
scribed the particular species comprehended
under that general term. According to Mr
Hume's theory, he must first have been
acquainted with the particulars, and then
have learned by custom to apply one
general name to all of them.
The author observes, “ That the idea of
an equilateral triangle of an inch perpen-
dicular, may serve us in talking of a figure,
a rectilinear figure, a regular figure, a tri-
angle, and an equilateral triangle.”
I answer, the man that uses these general
terms either understands their meaning,
or he does not. If he does not understand
their meaning, all his talk about them will
be found only without sense, and the par-
ticular idea mentioned cannot enable him
to speak of them with understanding. If
he understands the meaning of the general
terms, he will find no use for the particular
idea.
4. He tells us gravely, “That in a globe
of white marble the figure and the colour
are undistinguishable, and are in effect the
same.” [496] How foolish have mankind
been to give different names, in all ages
andin all languages, to things undistinguish-
able, and in effect the same 2 Henceforth,
in all books of science and of entertainment,
we may substitute figure for colour, and
colour for figure. By this we shall make
numberless curious discoveries, without
danger of error." [497]
* The whole controversy of Nominalism and Con-
ceptualism is founded on the armbiguity of the terms
employed. The opposite parties are substantially at
one. Had our British philosophers been aware of
the Leibnitzian distinction of Intuitive and Symbolt-
cal knowledge ; and had we, like the Germans,
different terms, like Begriff and Anschauung, to de.
noto different kinds of thought, there would have
been as little difference of opinion in regard to the
nature of general notions in this country as in the
Empire. With us, Idea, Notion, Conception, &c.
are confounded, or applied by different philosophers
in different senses. I must put the reader on his
guard against Dr Thomas Brown's speculations on
this subject. His own doctrine of universals, in so
far as it is poculiar, is self-contradictory; and nothing
can be more erroneous than his statement of the doc-
trine held by others, especially by the Nominalists.
[494–497]
CHAP, I.T
413
OF JUDGMENT IN GENERAL.
ESSAY WI.
OF JUDGMENT
CHAPTER. I.
OF JUDGMENT IN GENERAL.
JUDGING is an operation of the mind so
familiar to every man who hath understand-
ing, and its name is so common and so well
understood, that it needs no definition.
As it is impossible by a definition to give
a notion of colour to a man who never saw
colours; so it is impossible by any defini-
tion to give a distinct notion of judgment to
a man who has not often judged, and who
is not capable of reflecting attentively upon
this act of his mind. The best use of a de-
finition is to prompt him to that reflection;
and without it the best definition will be apt
to mislead him.
The definition commonly given of judg-
ment, by the more ancient writers in logic,
was, that it is an act of the mind, whereby
one-thing is affirmed or denied of another.
I believe this is as good a definition of it as
can be given. Why I prefer it to some
later definitions, will afterwards appear.
Without pretending to give any other, I
shall make two remarks upon it, and then
offer some general observations on this
subject. [498] - - -
1. It is true that it is by affirmation or
denial that we express our judgments; but
there may be judgment which is not ex-
pressed. It is a solitary act of the mind,
and the expression of it by affirmation or
denial is not at all essential to it. It may
be tacit, and not expressed. Nay, it is
well known that men may judge contrary
to what they affirm or deny ; the definition
therefore must be understood of mental af-
firmation or denial, which indeed is only
another name for judgment. .
2. Affirmation and denial is very ‘often
the expression of testimony, which is a dif-
ferent act of the mind, and ought to be
distinguished from judgment.
A judge asks of a witness what he knows
of such a matter to which he was an eye
or ear-witness. He answers, by affirming
or denying something. But his answer
does not express his judgment; it is his
testimony. Again, I ask a man his opinion
in a matter of science or of criticism. His
answer is not testimony; it is the expres-
sion of his judgment.
Testimony is a social act, and it is essen
tial to it to be expressed by words or signs.
A tacit testimony is a contradiction : but
there is no contradiction in a tacit judgment;
it is complete without being expressed.
In testimony a man pledges his veracity
for what he affirms ; so that a false testi-
mony is a lie : but a wrong judgment is not
a lie; it is only an error.
I believe, in all languages, testimony and
judgment are expressed by the same form
of speech. A proposition affirmative or
negative, with a verb in what is called the
indicative mood, expresses both. To dis-
tinguish them by the form of speech, it
would be necessary that verbs should have
two indicative moods, one for testimony,
and another to express judgment. [499]
I know not that this is found in any lan-
guage. And the reason is—not surely that
the vulgar cannot distinguish the two, for
every man knows the difference between a
lie and an error of judgment—but that, from
the matter and circumstances, we can easily
see whether a man intends to give his tes-
timony, or barely to express his judgment.
Although men must have judged in many
cases before tribunals of justice were
erected, yet it is very probable that there
were tribunals before men began to specu-
late about judgment, and that the word may
be borrowed from the practice of tribunals.
As a judge, after taking the proper evidence,
passes sentence in a cause, and that sent-
ence is called his judgment, so the mind,
with regard to whatever is true or false,
passes sentence, or determines according to
the evidence that appears. Some kinds of
evidence leave no room for doubt. Sent-
ence is passed immediately, without seek-
ing or hearing any contrary evidence,
because the thing is certain and notorious.
In other cases, there is room for weighing
evidence on both sides, before sentence is
passed. The analogy between a tribunal
of justice, and this inward tribunal of the
mind, is too obvious to escape the notice of
any man who ever appeared before a judge.
And it is probable that the word judgment,
as well as many other words we use in speak-
ing of this operation of mind, are grounded
on this analogy.
Having premised these things, that it
may be clearly understood what I mean by
iudgment, I proceed to make some general
observations concerning it.
[498, 499]
414
[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
First, Judgment is an act of the mind,
specifically different from simple apprehen-
sion, or the bare conception of a thing."
It would be unnecessary to observe this, if
some philosophers had not been led by their
theories to a contrary opinion. [500]
Although there can be no judgment with-
out a conception of the things about which
we judge, yet conception may be without any
judgment."f Judgment can be expressed
by a proposition only, and a proposition is
a complete sentence; but simple apprehen-
sion may be expressed by a word or words,
which make no complete sentence. When
simple apprehension is employed about a
proposition, every man knows that it is one
thing to apprehend a proposition—that is,
to conceive what it means—but it is quite
another thing to judge it to be true or false.
It is self-evident that every judgment
must be either true or false ; but simple
apprehension, or conception, can neither be
true nor false, as was shewn before.
One judgment may be contradictory to
another; and it is impossible for a man to
have two judgments at the same time, which
he perceives to be contradictory. But con-
tradictory propositions may be conceived:
at the same time without any difficulty.
That the sun is greater than the earth, and
that the Sun is not greater than the earth,
are contradictory propositions. He that
apprehends the meaning of one, apprehends
the meaning of both. But it is impossible
for him to judge both to be true at the same
time. . He knows that, if the one is true,
the other must be false. For these reasons,
I hold it to be certain that judgment and
simple apprehension are acts of the mind
specifically different.
Secondly, There are notions or ideas that
ought to be referred to the faculty of judg-
ment as their source; because, if we had
not that faculty, they could not enter into
our minds; and to those that have that
faculty, and are capable of reflecting upon
its operations, they are obvious and familiar.
Among these we may reckon the notion
of judgment itself; the notions of a propos-
ition—of its subject, predicate, and copula;
of affirmation and negation, of true and
false; of knowledge, belief, disbelief, opi-
nion, assent, evidence. From no source
could we acquire these notions, but from
reflecting upon our judgments. Relations
of things make one great class of our notions
or ideas; and we cannot have the idea of
any relation without some exercise of judg-
ment, as will appear afterwards. [561]
Thirdly, In persons come to years of
... + which, however, implies a judgment affirming
"º: º existential judgment.-H.
ee last hote, and above, p. 243, a, note k &
375, a, note fºh. - x P , a, note *, and p
# See above, p. 377, b, note.—H
understanding, judgment necessarily accom-
panies all sensation, perception by the
senses, consciousness, and memory, but not
conception." -
I restrict this to persons come to the years
of understanding, because it may be a ques-
tion, whether infants, in the first period of
life, have any judgment or belief at all."
The same question may be put with regard
to brutes and some idiots. This question
is foreign to the present subject ; and I say
nothing here about it, but speak only of
persons who have the exercise of judg-
ment.
In them it is evident that a man who
feels pain, judges and believes that he is
really pained. The man who perceives an
object, believes that it exists, and is what
he distinctly perceives it to be ; nor is it in
his power to avoid such judgment. And
the like may be said of memory, and of
consciousness. Whether judgment ought
to be called a necessary concomitant of
these operations, or rather a part or in-
gredient of them, I do not dispute ; but it
is certain that all of them are accompanied
with a determination that something is
true or false, and a consequent belief. If
this determination be not judgment, it is
an operation that has got no name; for it
is not simple apprehension, neither is it
reasoning; it is a mental affirmation or
negation ; it may be expressed by a propo-
sition affirmative or negative, and it is
accompanied with the firmest belief. These
are the characteristics of judgment; and I
must call it judgment, till I can find another
Iname to it.
The judgments we form are either of
things necessary, or of things contingent.
That three times three is nine, that the
whole is greater than a part, are judg-
ments about things necessary. [502] Our
assent to such necessary propositions is not
grounded upon any operation of sense, of
memory, or of consciousness, nor does it
require their concurrence ; it is unaccom-
panied by any other operation but that of
conception, which must accompany all judg-
ment; we may therefore call this judgment
of things necessary pure judgment. Our
judgment of things contingent must always
rest upon some other operation of the mind,
such as sense, or memory, or consciousness,
or credit in testimony, which is itself
grounded upon sense. -
That I now write upon a table covered
with green cloth, is a contingent event,
which I judge to be most undoubtedly true.
My judgment is grounded upon my percep-
tion, and is a necessary concomitant or in-
gredient of my perception. That I dined
* In so far as there can be Consciousness, there
must be Judgment.—H.
[500–502]
chap. 1.]
415
OF JUDGMENT ] N GENERAL.
with such a company yesterday, I judge to
be true, because I remember it ; and my
judgment necessarily goes along with this
remembrance, or makes a part of it.
There are many forms of speech in com-
mon language which shew that the senses,
memory and consciousness, are considered
as judging faculties. We say that a man
judges of colours by his eye, of sounds by
his ear. We speak of the evidence of sense,
the evidence of memory, the evidence of
consciousness, Evidence is the ground of
judgment; and when we see evidence, it is
impossible not to judge.
When we speak of seeing or remember-
ing anything, we, indeed, hardly ever add
that we judge it to be true. But the rea-
son of this appears to be, that such an
addition would be mere superfluity of
speech, because every one knows that
what I see or remember, I must judge to
be true, and cannot do otherwise.
And, for the same reason, in speaking of
anything that is self-evident or strictly de-
monstrated, we do not say that we judge
it to be true. This would be superfluity
of speech, because every man knows thºt we
must judge that to be true which we hold
self-evident or demonstrated. [503]
When you say you saw such a thing, or
that you distinctly remember it, or when
you say of any proposition that it is self-
evident, or strictly demonstrated, it would
be ridiculous after this to ask whether you
judge it to be true ; nor would it be less
ridiculous in you to inform us that you do.
It would be a superfluity of speech of the
same kind as if, not content with saying
that you saw such an object, you should
add that you saw it with your eyes.
There is, therefore, good reason why, in
speaking or writing, judgment should not
be expressly mentioned, when all men know
it to be necessarily implied ; that is, when
there can be no doubt. In such cases, we
barely mention the evidence. But when
the evidence mentioned leaves room for
doubt, then, without any superfluity or tau-
tology, we say we judge the thing to be so,
because this is not implied in what was said
before. A woman with child never says,
that, going such a journey, she carried her
child along with her. We know that, while
it is in her womb, she must carry it along
with her. There are some operations of
mind that may be said to carry judgment
in their womb, and can no more leave it
behind them than the pregnant woman can
leave her child. Therefore, in speaking of
such operations, it is not expressed.
Perhaps this manner of speaking may
have led philosophers into the opinion that,
in perception by the senses, in memory,
and in consciousness, there is no judgment
at all. Because it is not mentioned in
speaking of these faculties, they conclude
that it does not accompany them; that they
are only different modes of simple appre-
hension, or of acquiring ideas; and that it
is no part of their office to judge. [504]
I apprehend the same cause has led Mr
Locke into a notion of judgment which I
take to be peculiar to him. He thinks that
the mind has two faculties conversant about
truth and falsehood. First, knowledge;
and, secondly, judgment. In the first, the
perception of the agreement or disagree-
ment of the ideas is certain. In the second,
it is not certain, but probable only.
According to this notion of judgment, it
is not by judgment that I perceive that two
and three make five ; it is by the faculty of
knowledge. I apprehend there can be no
knowledge without judgment, though there
may be judgment without that certainty
which we commonly call knowledge.
Mr Locke, in another place of his Essay,
tells us, “That the notice we have by our
senses of the existence of things without us,
though not altogether so certain as our in-
tuitive knowledge, or the deductions of our
reason about abstract ideas, yet is an as-
Surance that deserves the name of know-
ledge.” I think, by this account of it, and
by his definitions before given of knowledge
and judgment, it deserves as well the name
of judgment.
That I may avoid disputes about the
meaning of words, I wish the reader to un-
derstand, that I give the name of judgment
to every determination of the mind con-
cerning what is true or what is false. This,
I think, is what logicians, from the days of
Aristotle, have called judgment. Whether
it be called one faculty, as I think it has
always been, or whether a philosopher
chooses to split it into two, seems not very
material. And, if it be granted that, by our
Senses, our memory, and consciousness, we
not only have ideas or simple apprehen-
Sions, but form determinations concerning
what is true and what is false—whether
these determinations ought to be called
knowledge or judgment, is of small moment.
[505]
The judgments grounded upon the evi-
dence of sense, of memory, and of conscious-
ness, put all men upon a level. The phi-
losopher, with regard to these, has no pre-
rogative above the illiterate, or even above
the Savage.
Their reliance upon the testimony of
these faculties is as firm and as well
grounded as his. His superiority is in
judgments of another kind—in judgments
about things abstract and necessary. And
he is unwilling to give the name of judg-
ment to that wherein the most ignorant
and unimproved of the species are his
equals.
[503–505]
416
ſessay v.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
But philosophers have never been able
to give any definition of judgment which
does not apply to the determinations of
our senses, our memory, and conscious-
ness, nor any definition of simple appre-
hension which can comprehend those deter-
minations.
Our judgments of this kind are purely
the gift of Nature, nor do they admit of
improvement by culture. The memory of
one man may be more tenacious than that
of another; but both rely with equal assur-
ance upon what they distinctly remember.
One man's sight may be more acute, or his
feeling more delicate, than that of another;
but both give equal credit to the distinct
testimony of their sight and touch. , ,
And, as we have this belief by the con-
stitution of our nature, without any effort
of our own, so no effort of ours can over-
turn it.
The sceptic may perhaps persuade him-
self, in general, that he has no ground to
believe his senses or his memory: but, in
particular cases that are interesting, his
disbelief vanishes, and he finds himself
under a necessity of believing both. [506]
These judgments may, in the strictest
sense, be called judgments of nature. Na-
ture has subjected us to them, whether we
will or not. They are neither got, nor can
they be lost by any use or abuse of our
faculties; and it is evidently necessary for
our preservation that it should be so. For,
if belief in our senses and in our memory
were to be learned by culture, the race of
men would perish before they learned this
lesson. It is necessary to all men for their
being and preservation, and therefore is
unconditionally given to all men by the
Author of Nature.
I acknowledge that, if we were to rest
in those judgments of Nature of which we
now speak, without building others upon
them, they would not entitle us to the deno-
mination of reasonable beings. But yet
they ought not to be despised, for they are
the foundation upon which the grand super-
structure of human knowledge must be
raised. And, as in other superstructures
the foundation is commonly overlooked, so
it has been in this. The more sublime
attainments of the human mind have at-
tracted the attention of philosophers, while
they have bestowed but a careless glance
upon the humble foundation on which the
whole fabric rests.
A fourth observation is, that some exer-
cise of judgment is necessary in the forma-
tion of all abstract and general conceptions,
whether more simple or more complex; in
dividing, in defining, and, in general, in
forming all clear and distinct conceptions
of things, which are the only fit materials
of reasoning.
These operations are allied to each other,
and therefore I bring them under one ob-
servation. They are more allied to our
rational nature than those mentioned in the
last observation, and therefore are consi-
dered by themselves. .
That I may not be mistaken, it may be
observed that I do not say that abstract
notions, or other accurate notions of things,
after they have been formed, cannot be
barely conceived without any exercise of
judgment about them. I doubt not that
they may : but what I say is, that, in their
formation in the mind at first, there must
be some exercise of judgment. [507]
It is impossible to distinguish the different
attributes belonging to the same subject,
without judging that they are really different
and distinguishable, and that they have that
relation to the subject which logicians ex-
press, by saying that they may be predicated
of it. We cannot generalise, without judg-
ing that the same attribute does or may be-
long to many individuals. It has been
shewn that our simplest general notions
are formed by these two operations of dis-
tinguishing and generalising ; judgment
therefore is exercised informing the simplest
general notions.
In those that are more complex, and
which have been shewn to be formed by
combining the more simple, there is another
act of the judgment required; for such
combinations are not made at random, but
for an end; and judgment is employed in
fitting them to that end. We form complex
general notions for conveniency of arrang-
ing our thoughts in discourse and reasoning ;
and, therefore, of an infinite number of com-
binations that might be formed, we choose
only those that are useful and necessary.
That judgment must be employed in
dividing as well as in distinguishing, ap-
pears evident. It is one thing to divide a
subject properly, another to cut it in pieces.
Hoc non-est dividere, sed frangere rem, said
Cicero, when he censured an improper
division of Epicurus. Reason has discovered
rules of division, which have been known
to logicians more than two thousand years.
There are rules likewise of definition of
no less antiquity and authority. A man
may no doubt divide or define properly with-
out attending to the rules, or even without
knowing them. But this can only be when
he has judgment to perceive that to be right
in a particular case, which the rule de-
termines to be right in all cases.
I add in general, that, without some de-
gree of judgment, we can form no accurate
and distinct notions of things; so that one
province of judgment is, to aid us in form-
ing clear and distinct conceptions of things,
which are the only fit materials for reason-
ing. [508]
&d [506–508]
CHAP. I.]
417
OF JUDGMIENT IN GENERAL.
This will probably appear to be a paradox
to philosophers, who have always considered
the formation of ideas of every kind as be-
longing to simple apprehension; and that
the sole province of judgment is to put them
together in affirmative or negative proposi-
tions; and therefore it requires some con-
firmation.
First, I think it necessarily follows, from
what has been already said in this observa-
tion. For if, without some degree of judg-
ment, a man can neither distinguish, nor
divide, nor define, nor form any general
notion, simple or complex, he surely, with-
out some degree of judgment, cannot have
in his mind the materials necessary to
reasoning.
There cannot be any proposition in lan-
guage which does not involve some general
conception. The proposition, that I exist,
which Des Cartes thought the first of all
truths, and the foundation of all knowledge,
cannot be conceived without the conception
of existence, one of the most abstract general
conceptions. A man cannot believe his own
existence, or the existence of anything he
sees, or remembers, until he has so much
judgment as to distinguish things that really
exist from things which are only conceived.
He sees a man six feet high ; he conceives
a man sixty feet high : he judges the first
object to exist, because he sees it ; the
second he does not judge to exist, because
he only conceives it. Now, I would ask,
Whether he can attribute existence to the
first object, and not to the second, without
knowing what existence means ? It is im-
possible.
How early the notion of existence enters
into the mind, I cannot determine; but it
must certainly be in the mind as soon as
we can affirm of anything, with understand-
ing, that it exists. [509]
In every other proposition, the predicate,
at least, must be a general notion—a pre-
dicable and an universal being one and the
same. Besides this, every proposition either
affirms or denies. And no man can have
a distinct conception of a proposition, who
does not understand distinctly the meaning
of affirming or denying. But these are very
general conceptions, and, as was before
observed, are derived from judgment, as
their source and origin.
I am sensible that a strong objection may
be made to this reasoning, and that it may
seem to lead to an absurdity or a contra-
diction. It may be said, that every judg-
ment is a mental affirmation or negation.
If, therefore, some previous exercise of
judgment be necessary to understand what
is meant by affirmation or negation, the
exercise of judgment must go before any
judgment which is absurd.
* In like manner, every judgment may be
expressed by a proposition, and a proposi-
tion must be conceived before we can judge
of it. If, therefore, we cannot conceive the
meaning of a proposition without a previous
exercise of judgment, it follows that judg-
ment must be previous to the conception of
any proposition, and at the same time that
the conception of a proposition must be pre-
vious to all judgment, which is a contra-
diction.
The reader may please to observe, that
I have limited what I have said to distinct
conception, and some degree of judgment;
and it is by this means I hope to avoid this
labyrinth of absurdity and contradiction.
The faculties of conception and judgment
have an infancy and a maturity as man has.
What I have said is limited to their mature
state. I believe in their infant state they
are very weak and indistinct; and that, by
imperceptible degrees, they grow to ma-
turity, each giving aid to the other, and
receiving aid from it. But which of them
first began this friendly intercourse, is be-
yond my ability to determine. It is like
the question concerning the bird and the
egg. [510]
In the present state of things, it is true
that every bird comes from an egg, and
every egg from a bird; and each may be
said to be previous to the other. But, if
we go back to the origin of things, there
must have been some bird that did not
come from any egg, or some egg that did
not come from any bird.
In like manner, in the mature state of
man, distinct conception of a proposition
supposes some previous exercise of judg-
ment, and distinct judgment supposes dis-
tinct conception. Each may truly be said
to come from the other, as the bird from
the egg, and the egg from the bird. But,
if we trace back this succession to its origin
—that is, to the first proposition that was
ever conceived by the man, and the first
judgment he ever formed—I determine no-
thing about them, nor do I know in what
order, or how, they were produced, any
more than how the bones grow in the
womb of her that is with child.
The first exercise of these faculties of
conception and judgment is hid, like the
sources of the Nile, in an unknown region.
The necessity of some degree of judg-
ment to clear and distinct conceptions of
things, may, I think, be illustrated by this
similitude.
An artist, suppose a carpenter, cannot
work in his art without tools, and these
tools must be made by art. The exercise
of the art, therefore, is necessary to make
the tools, and the tools are necessary to the
exercise of the art. There is the same
appearance of contradiction, as in what I
have advanced concerning the necessity of
[509, 510]
2 E
418
[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
some degree of judgment, in order to form
clear and distinct conceptions of things.
These are the tools we must use in judging
and in reasoning, and without them must
make very bungling work; yet these tools
cannot be made without some exercise of
judgment. [5] l]
The necessity of some degree of judg-
ment in forming accurate and distinct no-
tions of things will farther appear, if we
consider attentively what notions we can
form, without any aid of judgment, of the
objects of sense, of the operations of our
own minds, or of the relations of things.
To begin with the objects of sense. It
is acknowledged, on all hands, that the first
notions we have of sensible objects are got
by the external senses only, and probably
before judgment is brought forth; but these
first notions are neither simple, nor are
they accurate and distinct : they are gross
and indistinct, and, like the chaos, a rudis
indigestaque moles. Before we can have
any distinct notion of this mass, it must be
analysed ; the heterogeneous parts must be
separated in our conception, and the simple
elements, which before lay hid in the com-
mon mass, must first be distinguished, and
then put together into one whole.
In this way it is that we form distinct
notions even of the objects of sense; but
this process of analysis and composition, by
habit, becomes so easy, and is performed
so readily, that we are apt to overlook it,
and to impute the distinct notion we have
formed of the object to the senses alone ;
and this we are the more prone to do
because, when once we have distinguished
the sensible qualities of the object from
one another, the sense gives testimony to
each of them. sº
You perceive, for instance, an object
white, round, and a foot in diameter. I
grant that you perceive all these attributes
of the object by sense; but, if you had not
been able to distinguish the colour from
the figure, and both from the magnitude,
your senses would only have given you one
complex and confused notion of all these
mingled together.
A man who is able to say with under-
standing, or to determine in his own mind,
that this object is white, must have distin-
guished whiteness from other attributes.
If he has not made this distinction, he does
not understand what he says. [512]
Suppose a cube of brass to be presented
at the same time to a child of a year old
and to a man. The regularity of the figure
will attract the attention of both. Both
have the senses of sight and of touch in
equal perfection ; and, therefore, if any-
thing be discovered in this object by the
man, which cannot be discovered by the
child, it must be owing, not to the senses,
**
•
but to some other faculty which the child
has not yet attained.
First, then, the man can easily distin-
guish the body from the surface which
terminates it ; this the child cannot do.
Secondly, The man can perceive that this
surface is made up of six planes of the same
figure and magnitude ; the child cannot
discover this. . Thirdly, The man perceives
that each of these planes has four equal
sides and four equal angles; and that the
opposite sides of each plane and the oppo-
site planes are parallel.
It will surely be allowed, that a man of
ordinary judgment may observe all this in
a cube which he makes an object of con-
templation, and takes time to consider ;
that he may give the name of a square to
a plane terminated by four equal sides and
four equal angles; and the name of a cube
to a solid terminated by six equal squares:
all this is nothing else but analysing the
figure of the object presented to his senses
into its simplest elements, and again com-
pounding it of those elements.
By this analysis and composition two
effects are produced. First, From the one
complex object which his senses presented,
though one of the most simple the senses
can present, he educes many simple and
distinct notions of right lines, angles, plain
surface, Solid, equality, parallelism; notions
which the child has not yet faculties to
attain. Secondly, When he considers the
cube as compounded of these elements, put
together in a certain order, he has then,
and not before, a distinct and scientific
notion of a cube. The child neither con-
ceives those elements, nor in what order
they must be put together in order to make
a cube ; and, therefore, has no accurate
notion of a cube which can make it a sub-
ject of reasoning. [513]
Whence I think we may conclude, that
the notion which we have from the senses
alone, even of the simplest objects of sense,
is indistinct and incapable of being either
described or reasoned upon, until it is ana-
lysed into its simple elements, and con-
sidered as compounded of those elements.
If we should apply this reasoning to more
complex objects of sense, the conclusion
would be still more evident. A dog may be
taught to turn a jack, but he can never be
taught to have a distinct notion of a jack.
He sees every part as well as a man ; but
the relation of the parts to one another
and to the whole, he has not judgment to
comprehend.
A distinct notion of an object, even of
sense, is never got in an instant ; but the
sense performs its office in an instant. Time
is not required to see it better, but to analyse
it, to distinguish the different parts, and their.
relation to one another and to the whole.
- [511–513]
CHAP. I.]
419
OF JUDGMENT IN GENERAL.
Hence it is that, when any vehement
passion or emotion hinders the cool applica-
tion of judgment, we get no distinct notion
of an object, even though the sense be long
directed to it. A man who is put into a
panic, by thinking he sees a ghost, may
stare at it long without having any distinct
notion of it; it is his understanding, and
not his sense, that is disturbed by his horror.
If he can lay that aside, judgment immedi-
ately enters upon its office, and examines
the length and breadth, the colour, and
figure, and distance of the object. Of these,
while his panic lasted, he had no distinct
notion, though his eyes were open all the
time.
When the eye of sense is open, but that
of judgment shut by a panic, or any violent
emotion that engrosses the mind, we see
things confusedly, and probably much in the
Same manner that brutes and perfect idiots
; and infants before the use of judgment.
514]
There are, therefore, notions of the objects
of sense which are gross and indistinct, and
there are others that are distinct and scienti-
fic. The former may be got from the senses
alone, but the latter cannot be obtained with-
out some degree of judgment.
The clear and accurate notions which
geometry presents to us of a point, a right
line, an angle, a square, a circle, of ratios
direct and inverse, and others of that kind,
can find no admittance into a mind that has
not some degree of judgment. They are
not properly ideas of the senses, nor are
they got by compounding ideas of the
senses, but by analysing the ideas or no-
tions we get by the senses into their simplest
elements, and again combining these ele-
ments into various accurate and elegant
forms, which the senses never did nor can
exhibit.
Had Mr Hume attended duly to this, it
ought to have prevented a verybold attempt,
which he has prosecuted through fourteen
pages of his “Treatise of Human Nature,”
to prove that geometry is founded upon ideas
that are not exact, and axioms that are not
precisely true.
A mathematician might be tempted to
think that the man who seriously under-
takes this has no great acquaintance with
geometry; but I apprehend it is to be im-
puted to another cause, to a zeal for his own
system. We see that even men of genius
may be drawn into strange paradoxes, by
an attachment to a favourite idol of the
understanding, when it demands so costly a
sacrifice.
We Protestants think that the devotees
of the Roman Church pay no small tribute
to her authority when they renounce their
five senses in obedience to her decrees. Mr
Hume's devotion to his system carries him
§
even to trample upon mathematical demon-
stration. [515]
The fundamental articles of his system
are, that all the perceptions of the human
mind are either impressions or ideas, and
that ideas are only faint copies of impres-
sions. The idea of a right line, therefore, is
only a faint copy of some line that has been
seen, or felt by touch ; and the faint copy
cannot be more perfect than the original.
Now of such right lines, it is evident that
the axioms of geometry are not precisely
true ; for two lines that are straight to our
sight or touch may include a space, or they
may meet in more points than one. If,
therefore, we cannot form any notion of a
straight line more accurate than that which
we have from the senses of sight and touch,
geometry has no solid foundation. If, on
the other hand, the geometrical axioms are
precisely true, the idea of a right line is not
copied from any impression of sight or touch,
but must have a different origin and a more
perfect standard.
As the geometrician, by reflecting only
upon the extension and figure of matter,
forms a set of notions more accurate and
Scientific than any which the senses exhi-
bit, so the natural philosopher, reflecting
upon other attributes of matter, forms
another set, such as those of density, quan-
tity of matter, velocity, momentum, fluidity,
elasticity, centres of gravity, and of oscilla-
tion. These notions are accurate and
Scientific ; but they cannot enter into a
mind that has not some degree of judg-
ment, nor can we make them intelligible to
children, until they have some ripeness of
understanding.
In navigation, the notions of latitude,
longitude, course, leeway, cannot be made
intelligible to children ; and so it is with
regard to the terms of every science, and
of every art about which we can reason.
They have had their five senses as perfect
as men for years before they are capable
of distinguishing, comparing, and perceiv-
ing the relations of things, so as to be able
to form such notions. They acquire the
intellectual powers by a slow progress, and
by imperceptible degrees; and by means
of them, learn to form distinct and accurate
notions of things, which the senses could
never have imparted. [516]
Having said so much of the notions we
get from the senses alone of the objects of
sense, let us next consider what notions we
can have from consciousness alone of the
operations of our minds.
Mr Locke very properly calls conscious-
ness an internal sense. It gives the like
immediatel:nowledge of things in the mind—
that is, of our own thoughts and feelings—
as the senses give us of things external.
There is this difference, however, that an
| 514–516]
2 E 2
420
[ESSAY-v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
external object may be at rest, and the
Sense may be employed about it for some
time. But the objects of consciousness
are never at rest: the stream of thought
flows like a river, without stopping a mo-
ment ; the whole train of thought passes in
succession under the eye of consciousness,
which is always employed about the present.
But is it consciousness that analyses com-
plex operations, distinguishes their different
ingredients, and combines them in distinct
parcels under general names 2 This surely
is not the work of consciousness, nor can it
be performed without reflection," recollect-
ing and judging of what we were conscious
of, and distinctly remember. This reflec-
tion does not appear in children. Of all
the powers of the mind, it seems to be of
the latest growth, whereas consciousness is
coeval with the earliest. F
Consciousness, being a kind of internal
sense, can no more give us distinct and
accurate notions of the operations of our
minds, than the external senses can give
of external objects. Reflection upon the
operations of our minds is the same kind of
operation with that by which we form dis-
tinct notions of external objects. They
differ not in their nature, but in this only,
that one is employed about external, and
the other about internal objects; and both
may, with equal propriety, be called reflec-
tion. [517]
Mr Locke has restricted the word reflec-
* See above, p. 282, a, note 3.-H.
f See above, p. 239, b.—As a corollary of this truth,
Mr Stewart makes the following observations, in
which he is supported by every competent authority
in education. The two northern universities have
long withdrawn themselves from the reproach of
placing Physics last in their curriculum of arts. In
that of Edinburgh, no order is prescribed; but in St
Andrew's and Glasgow, the class of Physics still stands
after those of Mental Philosophy. This absurdity is,
it is to be observed, altogether of a modern intro.
duction. For, when our Scottish universities were
founded, and long after, the philosophy of mind was
taught by the Professor of Physics. “I apprehend,”
says Mr Stewart, “ that the study of the mind should
form the last branch of the education of youth ; an
order which nature herself seems to point out, by
what I have already remarked with respect to the
developement of our faculties. After the under-
standing is well stored with particular facts, and
has been conversant with particular scientific pur-
suits, it will be enabled to speculate concerning its
own powers with additional advantage, and will run
no hazard in indulging too far in such inquiries.
Nothing can be more absurd, on this as well as on
many other accounts, than the common practice
which is followed in our universities, [in some only, I
of beginning a course of philosophical education with
the study of Logic. If this order were completely re-
versed; and if the study of Logic were delayed till
after the mind of the student was well stored with
particular facts in Physics, in Chemistry, in Natural
and Civil History, his attention might be led with
the most important advantage, and without any dan-
ger to his power of observation, to an examination
of his own faculties, which, besides opening to him
a new and pleasing field of speculation, would enable
him to form an estimate of his own powers, of the
acquisitions he has made, of the habits he has formed,
and of the farther improvements of which his mind
is susceptible.”—H.
tion to that which is employed about the
operations of our minds, without any
authority, as I think, from custom, the
arbiter of language. For, Surely, I may
reflect upon what I have seen or heard, as
well as upon what I have thought.” The
word, in its proper and common meaning,
is equally applicable to objects of sense,
and to objects of consciousness. He has
likewise confounded reflection with con-
Sciousness, and seems not to have been
aware that they are different powers, and
appear at very different periods of life.:
If that eminent philosopher had been
aware of these mistakes about the meaning
of the word reflection, he would, I think,
have seen that, as it is by reflection upon
the operations of our own minds that we
can form any distinct and accurate notions
of them, and not by consciousness without
reflection, so it is by reflection upon the
objects of sense, and not by the senses
without reflection, that we can form dis-
tinct notions of them. Reflection upon any-
thing, whether external or internal, makes
it an object of our intellectual powers, by
which we survey it on all sides, and form
Such judgments about it as appear to be
just and true.
I proposed, in the third place, to consi-
der our notions of the relations of things:
and here I think, that, without judg-
ment, we cannot have any notion of rela-
tions.
There are two ways in which we get the
notion of relations. The first is, by com-
paring the related objects, when we have
before had the conception of both. By this
comparison, we perceive the relation, either
immediately, or by a process of reasoning.
That my foot is longer than my finger, I
perceive immediately; and that three is
the half of six. This immediate perception
is immediate and intuitive judgment. That
the angles at the base of an isosceles triangle
are equal, I perceive by a process of reason-
ing, in which it will be acknowledged there
is judgment.
Another way in which we get the notion
of relations (which seems not to have occur-
red to Mr Locke) is, when, by attention to
one of the related objects, we perceive or
judge that it must, from its nature, have a
certain relation to something else, which
before, perhaps, we never thought of ; and
thus our attention to one of the related ob-
* See note before last, and note at p. 347, b.—H.
f Mr Stewart makes a curious mistatement of the
meaning attached by Reid to the word Reflection, if
this passage and others are taken into account.—See
IElements, I. p. 106, note f.—H.
; , f Consciousness and Reflection cannot be analysed
into different powers. Reflection is only, in Locke's
, meaning of the word, (and this is the more correct,)
“Consciousness, concentrated by an act of Will on the
‘phaenomena of mind—i. e., internal Attention ; in
}. what is it but Attention, in general P-H.
[517]
CHAP. II.]
42]
OF COMMON SENSE.
jects produces the notion of a correlate, and
of a certain relation between them. [518]
Thus, when I attend to colour, figure,
weight, I cannot help judging these to be
qualities which cannot exist without a sub-
ject ; that is, something which is coloured,
figured, heavy. If I had not perceived such
things to be qualities, I should never have
had any notion of their subject, or of their
relation to it.
By attending to the operations of think-
ing, memory, reasoning, we perceive or
judge that there must be something which
thinks, remembers, and reasons, which we
call the mind. When we attend to any
change that happens in Nature, judgment
informs us that there must be a cause of
this change, which had power to produce
it; and thus we get the notions of cause
and effect, and of the relation between
them. When we attend to body, we per-
ceive that it cannot exist without space;
hence we get the notion of space, (which is
neither an object of sense nor of conscious-
ness,) and of the relation which bodies
have to a certain portion of unlimited space,
as their place.
I apprehend, therefore, that all our no-
tions of relations may more properly be
ascribed to judgment as their source and
origin, than to any other power of the
mind. We must first perceive relations
by our judgment, before we can conceive
them without judging of them; as we must
first perceive colours by sight, before we
can conceive them without seeing them. I
think Mr Locke, when he comes to speak
of the ideas of relations, does not say that
they are ideas of sensation or reflection,
but only that they terminate in, and are
concerned about, ideas of sensation or re-
flection. [519]
The notions of unity and number are so
abstract, that it is impossible they should
enter into the mind until it has some degree
of judgment. We see with what difficulty,
and how slowly, children learn to use, with
understanding, the names even of small
numbers, and how they exult in this acqui-
sition when they have attained it. Every
number is conceived by the relation which
it bears to unity, or to known combinations
of units; and upon that account, as well
as on account of its abstract nature, all
distinct notions of it require some degree
of judgment.
In its proper place, I shall have occasion
to shew that judgment is an ingredient in
all determinations of taste, in all moral
determinations, and in many of our pas-
sions and affections. So that this opera-
tion, after we come to have any exercise of
judgment, mixes with most of the operations
of our minds, and, in analysing them, cannot
be overlooked without confusion and error.
CHAPTER II.
OF COMMON SENSE."
TIIE word sense, in common language,
seems to have a different meaning from that
which it has in the writings of philosophers;
and those different meanings are apt to be
confounded, and to occasion embarrassment
and error.
Not to go back to ancient philosophy upon
this point, modern philosophers consider
Sense as a power that has nothing to do with
judgment. Sense they consider as the power
by which we receive certain ideas or im-
pressions from objects; and judgment as
the power by which we compare those
ideas, and perceive their necessary agree-
ments and disagreements. [520]
The external senses give us the idea of
colour, figure, Sound, and other qualities of
body, primary or secondary. Mr Locke
gave the name of an internal sense to con-
sciousness, because by it we have the ideas
of thought, memory, reasoning, and other
operations of our own minds. Dr Hutche-
son of Glasgow, conceiving that we have
simple and original ideas which cannot be
imputed either to the external senses or to
consciousness, introduced other internal
Senses; such as the sense of harmony, the
sense of beauty, and the moral sense.
Ancient philosophers also spake of internal
Senses, of which memory was accounted one.
But all these senses, whether external or
internal, have been represented by philo-
sophers as the means of furnishing our
minds with ideas, without including any
kind of judgment. Dr Hutcheson defines
a Sense to be a determination of the mind
to receive any idea from the presence of an
object independent on our will.
“By this term (sense) philosophers, in
general, have denominated those faculties
in consequence of which we are liable to
feelings relative to ourselves only, and from
which they have not pretended to draw any
conclusions concerning the nature of things;
whereas truth is not relative, but absolute
and real.—(Dr Priestly’s “Examination of
Dr Reid,” &c., p. 123.)
On the contrary, in common language,
sense always implies judgment. A man of
sense is a man of judgment. Good sense
is good judgment. Nonsense is what is
evidently contrary to right judgment. Com-
mon sense is that degree of judgment which
is common to men with whom we can con-
verse and transact business.
Seeing and hearing, by philosophers, are
called senses, because we have ideas by
* On Common Sense, name and thing, see Note A.
H.
[518–520T
422
[ESSAY vſ.
oN THE INTELLECTUAL POWERs.
them ; by the vulgar they are called senses,
because we judge by them. ... We judge of
colours by the eye; of sounds by the ear;
of beauty and deformity by taste ; of right
and wrong in conduct, by our moral sense
or conscience. [521]
Sometimes philosophers, who represent
it as the sole province of sense to furnish
us with ideas, fall unawares into the popu-
lar opinion that they are judging faculties.
Thus Locke, Book IV. chap. 2:—“And of
this, (that the quality or accident of colour
doth really exist, and hath a being without
me,) the greatest assurance I can possibly
have, and to which my faculties can attain,
is the testimony of my eyes, which are the
proper and sole judges of this thing.”
This popular meaning of the word sense
is not peculiar to the English language.
The corresponding words in Greek, Latin,
and, I believe, in all the European languages,
have the same latitude. The Latin words
sentire, sententia, sensa,” sensus, from the
last of which the English word sense is
borrowed, express judgment or opinion, and
are applied indifferently to objects of exter-
mal sense, of taste, of morals, and of the
understanding.
I cannot pretend to assign the reason why
a word, which is no term of art, which is
familiar in common conversation, should
have so different a meaning in philosophical
writings. I shall only observe, that the
philosophical meaning corresponds perfectly
with the account which Mr Locke and other
modern philosophers give of judgment. For,
if the sole province of the senses, external
and internal, be to furnish the mind with
the ideas about which we judge and reason,
it seems to be a natural consequence, that
the sole province of judgment should be to
compare those ideas, and to perceive their
necessary relations. -
These two opinions seem to be so con-
nected, that one may have been the cause
of the other. I apprehend, however, that,
if both be true, there is no room left for any
knowledge or judgment, either of the real
existence of contingent things, or of their
contingent relations.
To return to the popular meaning of the
word sense. I believe it would be much
more difficult to find good authors who never
use it in that meaning, than to find such
as do. [522]
We may take Mr Pope as good authority
for the meaning of an English word. He
uses it often, and, in his “Epistle to the
Earl of Burlington,” has made a little de-
scant upon it.
* What does sensa mean 2 Is it an erratum, or
does he refer to sensa, once only, I believe, employed
by Cicero, and interpreted by Nonius Marcellus, as
“quae sentiuntur !"—H.
“ Oft have you hinted to your brother Peer,
A certain truth, which many buy too dear:
Something there is more needful than expense,
And something previous ev'n to taste—’tis sense.
Good sense, which only is the gift-of heaven,
And, though no science, fairly worth the seven;
A light which in yourself you must perceive,
Jones and Le Notre have it not to give.”
This inward light or sense is given by
heaven to different persons in different de-
grees. There is a certain degree of it which
is necessary to our being subjects of law and
government, capable of managing our own
affairs, and answerable for our conduct
towards others : this is called common
sense, because it is common to all men with
whom we can transact business, or call to
account for their conduct.
The laws of all civilised nations distin-
guish those who have this gift of heaven,
from those who have it not. The last may
have rights which ought not to be violated,
but, having no understanding in themselves
to direct their actions, the laws appoint them
to be guided by the understanding of others.
It is easily discerned by its effects in men’s
actions, in their speeches, and even in their
looks; and when it is made a question
whether a man has this natural gift or not,
a judge or a jury, upon a short conversation
with him, can, for the most part, determine
the question with great assurance.
* The same degree of understanding which
makes a man capable of acting with com-
mon prudence in the conduct of life, makes
him capable of discovering what is true and
what is false in matters that are self-evident,
and which he distinctly apprehends. [523]
All knowledge, and all science, must be
built upon principles that are self-evident ;
and of such principles every man who has
common sense is a competent judge, when
he conceives them distinctly. Hence it is,
that disputes very often terminate in an
appeal to conimon sense.
While the parties agree in the first prin-
ciples on which their arguments are ground-
ed, there is room for reasoning ; but when
one denies what to the other appears too
evident to need or to admit of proof, rea-
soning seems to be at an end; an appeal is
made to common sense, agd each party is
left to enjoy his own opinion.
There seems to be no remedy for this,
nor any way left to discuss such appeals,
unless the decisions of common sense can
be brought into a code in which all reason-
able men shall acquiesce. This, indeed, if
it be possible, would be very desirable, and
would supply a desideratum in logic ; and
why should it be thought impossible that
reasonable men should agree in things that
are self-evident 2
All that is intended in this chapter is to
explain the meaning of common sense, that
it may not be treated, as it has been by
some, as a new principle, or as a word with-
[521-523]
CHAP. II.]
of COMMON SENSE. 423
out any meaning. I have endeavoured to
shew that sense, in its most common, and
therefore its most proper meaning, signifies
judgment, though philosophers often use it
in another meaning. From this it is natural
to think that common sense should mean
common judgment; and so it really does.
What the precise limits are which divide
common judgment from what is beyond it
on the one hand, and from what falls short
of it on the other, may be difficult to de-
termine ; and men may agree in the mean-
ing of the word who have different opinions
about those limits, or who even never
thought of fixing them. This is as intel-
ligible as, that all Englishmen should mean
the same thing by the county of York,
though perhaps not a hundredth part of
them can point out its precise limits. [524]
Indeed, it seems to me, that common
sense is as unambiguous a word and as well
understood as the county of York. We
finditin innumerable places in good writers;
we hear it on innumerable occasions in con-
versation; and, as far as I am able to judge,
always in the same meaning. And this is
probably the reason why it is so seldom
defined or explained.
Dr Johnson, in the authorities he gives,
to shew that the word sense signifies under-
standing, Soundness of faculties, strength of
natural reason, quotes Dr Bentley for what
may be called a definition of common sense,
though probably not intended for that pur-
pose, but mentioned accidentally : “God
hath endowed mankind with power and
abilities, which we call natural light and
reason, and common sense.”
It is true that common sense is a popular
and not a scholastic word; and by most of
those who have treated systematically of
the powers of the understanding, it is only
occasionally mentioned, as it is by other
writers. But I recollect two philosophical
writers, who are exceptions to this remark.
One is Buffier, who treated largely of com-
mon sense, as a principle of knowledge,
above fifty years ago. The other is Bishop
Berkeley, who, I think, has laid as much
stress upon common sense, in opposition to
the doctrines of philosophers, as any philo-
sopher that has come after him. If the
reader chooses to look back to Essay II.
chap. 10, he will be satisfied of this, from
the quotations there made for another pur-
pose, which it is unnecessary here to repeat.
Men rarely ask what common sense is ;
because every man believes himself pos-
sessed of it, and would take it for an imput-
ation upon his understanding to be thought
unacquainted with it. Yet I remember
two very eminent authors who have put
this question; and it is not improper to hear
their sentiments upon a subjectso frequently
mentioned, and so rarely canvassed. [525]
It is well known that Lord Shaftesbury
gave to one of his Treatises the title of
“Sensus Communis; an Essay on the
Freedom of Wit and Humour, in a Letter
to a Friend;” in which he puts his friend in
mind of a free conversation with some of
their friends on the subjects of morality.
and religion. Amidst the different opinions
started and maintained with great life and
ingenuity, one or other would, every now and
then, take the liberty to appeal to common
sense. Every one allowed the appeal; no
one would offer to call the authority of the
court in question, till a gentleman whose
good understanding was never yet brought
in doubt, desired the company, very gravely,
that they would tell him what common
SCI1S6 WaS.
“If,” said he, “ by the word sense, we
were to understand opinion and judgment,
and by the word common, the generality or
any considerable part of mankind, it would
be hard to discover where the subject of
common sense could lie ; for that which
was according to the sense of one part of
mankind, was against the sense of another.
And if the majority were to determine com-
mon sense, it would change as often as
men changed. That in religion, common
Sense was as hard to determine as catholic
or orthodow. What to one was absurdity,
to another was demonstration. -
“In policy, if plain British or Dutch
sense were right, Turkish and French must
certainly be wrong. And as mere non-
sense as passive obedience seemed, we
found it to be the common sense of a great
party amongst ourselves, a greater party
in Europe, and perhaps the greatest part
of all the world besides. As for morals,
the difference was still wider ; for even the
philosophers could never agree in one and
the same system. And some even of our
most admired modern philosophers had
fairly told us that virtue and vice had no
other law or measure than mere fashion and
vogue.” [526] - -
This is the substance of the gentleman's
speech, which, I apprehend, explains the
meaning of the word perfectly, and contains
all that has been said or can be said against
the authority of common sense, and the
propriety of appeals to it.
As there is no mention of any answer
immediately made to this speech, we might
be apt to conclude that the noble author
adopted the sentiments of the intelligent
gentleman whose speech he recites. But
the contrary is manifest, from the title of
Sensus Communis given to his Essay, from
his frequent use of the word, and from the
whole tenor of the Essay. -
The author appears to have a double in-
tention in that Essay, corresponding to the
double title prefixed to it. One intention
[524–526]
424
[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL Powers.
is, to justify the use of wit, humour, and
ridicule, in discussing among friends the
gravest subjects. “I can very well sup-
pose,” says he, “men may be frighted
out of their wits; but I have no apprehen-
sion they should be laughed out of them.
I can hardly imagine that, in a pleasant
way, they should ever be talked out of their
love for society, or reasoned out of humanity
and common sense.”
The other intention, signified by the title
Sensus Communis, is carried on hand in
hand with the first, and is to shew that
common sense is not so vague and uncertain
a thing as it is represented to be in the
sceptical speech before recited. “I will
try,” says he, “what certain knowledge or
assurance of things may be recovered in
that very way, (to wit, of humour,) by
which all certainty, you thought, was lost,
and an endless scepticism introduced.” [527]
He gives some criticisms upon the word
sensus communis in Juvenal, Horace, and
Seneca ; and, after shewing, in a facetious
way throughout the treatise, that the fun-
damental principles of morals, of politics, of
criticism, and of every branch of knowledge,
are the dictates of common sense, he sums
up the whole in these words:—“That some
moral and philosophical truths there are
So evident in themselves that it would be
easier to imagine half mankind run mad,
and joined precisely in the same species of
folly, than to admit anything as truth
which should be advanced against such
natural knowledge, fundamental reason,
and common sense.” And, on taking leave,
he adds:–“And now, my friend, should
you find I had moralised in any tolerable
manner, according to common sense, and
without canting, I should be satisfied with
my performance.”
Another eminent writer who has put the
question what common sense is, is Fenelon,
the famous Archbishop of Cambray.
That ingenious and pious author, having
had an early prepossession in favour of the
Cartesian philosophy, made an attempt to
establish, on a sure foundation, the meta- .
physical arguments which Des Cartes had
invented to prove the being of the Deity.
For this purpose, he begins with the Carte-
sian doubt. He proceeds to find out the
truth of his own existence, and then to ex-
amine wherein the evidence and certainty
of this and other such primary truths con-
sisted. This, according to Cartesian prin-
ciples, he places in the clearness and dis-
tinctness of the ideas. On the contrary,
he places the absurdity of the contrary pro-
positions, in their being repugnant to his
clear and distinct ideas.
To illustrate this, he gives various ex-
amples of questions manifestly absurd and
ridiculous, which cvery man of common
understanding would, at first sight, perceive
to be so ; and then goes on to this purpose.
“What is it that makes these questions
ridiculous 2 Wherein does this ridicule
precisely consist P It will, perhaps, be
replied, that it consists in this, that they
shock common sense. But what is this
Same common sense ? It is not the first
notions that all men have equally of the
same things. [528] This common sense,
which is always and in all places the same ;
which prevents inquiry; which makes in-
quiry in some cases ridiculous; which, in-
stead of inquiring, makes a man laugh
whether he will or not ; which puts it out
of a man’s power to doubt: this sense,
which only waits to be consulted—which
shews itself at the first glance, and imme-
diately discovers the evidence or the absurd-
ity of a question—is not this the same that
I call my ideas 2
“Behold, then, those ideas or general
notions, which it is not in my power either
to contradict or examine, and by which I
examine and decide in every case, insomuch
that I laugh instead of answering, as often
as anything is proposed to me, which is evi-
dently contrary to what these immutable
ideas represent.”
I shall only observe upon this passage,
that the interpretation it gives of Des
Cartes’ criterion of truth, whether just or
not, is the most intelligible and the most
favourable I have met with.
I beg leave to mention one passage from
Cicero, and to add two or three from late
writers, which shew that this word is not
become obsolete, nor has changed its
meaning.
“De Oratore,” lib. 3.-‘‘ Omnes enim
tacito quodam sensu, sine ulla arte aut
ratione, in artibus ac rationibus, recta ac
prava dijudicant. Idque cum faciant in
picturis, et in signis, et in aliis operibus, ad
quorum intelligentiam a natural minus hab-
ent instrumenti, tum multo ostendunt magis
in verborum, numerorum, vocumque judi-
cio ; quod ea sint in communibus infixa
Sensibus; neque earum rerum quemguam
funditus natura voluit expertem.”
“ Hume’s “Essays and Treatises,” vol.
I. p. 5.-“But a philosopher who proposes
Only to represent the common sense of
mankind in more beautiful and more engag-
ing colours, if by accident he commits a
mistake, goes no farther, but, renewing his
appeal to common sense, and the natural
Sentiments of the mind, returns into the
right path, and secures himself from any
dangerous illusion.” [529]
Hume’s “Enquiry concerning the Prin-
ciples of Morals,” p. 2.-‘‘ Those who have
refused the reality of moral distinctions may
be ranked among the disingenuous dis-
putants. The only way of converting an
[527–529]
CHAP. II.]
425
oF COMMON SENSE.
antagonist of this kind is to leave him to
himself: for, finding that nobody keeps up
the controversy with him, it is probable he
will at last, of himself, from mere weariness,
come over to the side of common sense and
reason.”
Priestley's “ Institutes,” Preliminary
Essay, vol. i. p. 27—“Because common
sense is a sufficient guard against many
errors in religion, it seems to have been
taken for granted that that common sense
is a sufficient instructor also, whereas in
fact, without positive instruction, men would
naturally have been mere savages with
respect to religion; as, without similar in-
struction, they would be savages with re-
spect to the arts of life and the sciences.
Common sense can only be compared to a
judge; but what can a judge do without
evidence and proper materials from which
to form a judgment P” -
Priestley’s “Examination of Dr Reid,”
&c. page 127.-“ But should we, out of
complaisance, admit that what has hitherto
been called judgment may be called sense,
it is making too free with the established
signification of words to call it common
sense, which, in common acceptation, has
long been appropriated to a very different
thing—viz., to that capacity for judging of
common things that persons of middling
capacities are capable of.” Page 129.-“I
should, therefore, expect that, if a man was
So totally deprived of common sense as not
to be able to distinguish truth from false-
hood in one case, he would be equally in-
capable of distinguishing it in another.”
[530]
From this cloud of testimonies, to which
hundreds might be added, I apprehend,
that whatever censure is thrown upon those
who have spoke of common sense as a prin-
ciple of knowledge, or who have appealed to
it in matters that are self-evident, will fall
light, when there are so many to share in
it. Indeed, the authority of this tribunal
is too sacred and venerable, and has pre-
scription too long in its favour to be now
wisely called in question. Those who are
disposed to do so, may remember the shrewd
saying of Mr Hobbes—“When reason is
against a man, a man will be against rea-
Son.” This is equally applicable to com-
II].OI) SCDS0,
From the account I nave given of the
meaning of this term, it is easy to judge
both of the proper use and of the abuse
of it.
It is absurd to conceive that there can be
any opposition between reason and com-
mon sense.” It is indeed the first-born of
Reason ; and, as they are commonly joined
* See above, p. 100, b, note f ; and Mr Stewart's
“Elements,” II. p. 92.-H.
together in speech and in writing, they are
inseparable in their nature.
We ascribe to reason two offices, or two
degrees. The first is to judge of things
Self-evident; the second to draw conclusions
that are not self-evident from those that
are. The first of these is the province, and
the sole province, of common sense; and,
therefore, it coincides with reason in its
whole extent, and is only another name for
one branch or one degree of reason. Per-
haps it may be said, Why then should you
give it a particular name, since it is acknow-
ledged to be only a degree of reason 2 It
would be a sufficient answer to this, Why
do you abolish a name which is to be found
in the language of all civilized nations, and
has acquired a right by prescription ? Such
an attempt is equally foolish and ineffectual.
Every wise man will be apt to think that
a name which is found in all languages as
far back as we can trace them, is not with-
out some use. [53]]
But there is an obvious reason why this
degree of reason should have a name ap-
propriated to it ; and that is, that, in the
greatest part of mankind, no other degree of
reason is to be found. It is this degree
that entitles them to the denomination of
reasonable creatures. It is this degree of
reason, and this only, that makes a man
capable of managing his own affairs, and
answerable for his conduct towards others.
There is therefore the best reason why it
should have a name appropriated to it.
These two degrees of reason differ in
other respects, which would be sufficient to
entitle them to distinct names.
The first is purely the gift of Heaven.
And where Heaven has not given it, no
education can supply the want. The se-
cond is learned by practice and rules, when
the first is not wanting. A man who has
common sense may be taught to reason.
But, if he has not that gift, no teaching will
make him able either to judge of first prin-
ciples or to reason from them.
I have only this farther to observe, that
the province of common sense is more ex-
tensive in refutation than in confirmation.
A conclusion drawn by a train of just rea-
soning from true principles cannot possibly
contradict any decision of common sense,
because truth will always be consistent
with itself. Neither can such a conclu-
sion receive any confirmation from com-
mon sense, because it is not within its juris-
diction.
But it is possible that, by setting out
from false principles, or by an error in
reasoning, a man may be led to a conclu-
sion that contradicts the decisions of com-
mon sense. In this case, the conclusion
is within the jurisdiction of common sense,
though the reasoning on which it was
[530, 531]
426
[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
grounded be not ; and a man of common
sense may fairly reject the conclusion with-
out being able to shew the error of the rea-
soning that led to it. [532]
, Thus, if a mathematician, by a process
of intricate demonstration, in which some
false step was made, should be brought to
this conclusion, that two quantities, which
are both equal to a third, are not equal to
each other, a man of common sense, with-
out pretending to be a judge of the demon-
stration, is well entitled to reject the con-
clusion, and to pronounce it absurd.
CHAPTER III.
SENTIMENTS OF PHILOSOPHIERS CONCER NING
JUDGMENT.
A DIFFERENCE about the meaning of a
word ought not to occasion disputes among
philosophers ; but it is often very proper to
take notice of such differences, in order to
prevent verbal disputes. There are, in-
deed, no words in language more liable to
ambiguity than those by which we express
the operations of the mind; and the most
candid and judicious may sometimes be led
into different opinions about their precise
meaning.
I hinted before what I take to be a pecu-
liarity in Mr Locke with regard to the
Tmeaning of the word judgment, and men-
tioned what, I apprehend, may have led
him into it. But let us hear himself, Essay,
book iv. chap. 14 :—“The faculty which
God has given to man to supply the want
of clear and certain knowledge, where that
cannot be had, is judgment ; whereby the
mind takes its ideas to agree or disagree ;
or, which is the same, any proposition to
be true or false, without perceiving a de-
monstrative evidence in the proofs. Thus
the mind has two faculties conversant about
truth and falsehood. First, Knowledge,
whereby it certainly perceives, and is un-
doubtedly satisfied of, the agreement or
disagreement of any ideas. Secondly,
Judgment, which is the putting ideas to-
gether, or separating them from one an-
other in the mind, when their certain agree-
ment or disagreement is not perceived, but
presumed to be so.” [533]
ICnowledge, I think, sometimes signifies
things known ; sometimes that act of the
mind by which we know them. And in like
manner opinion sometimes signifies things
believed ; sometimes the act of the mind
by which we believe them. But judgment
is the faculty which is exercised in both
these acts of the mind. In knowledge, we
judge without doubting ; in opinion, with
some mixture of doubt. But I know no
authority, besides that of Mr Locke, for
<>
calling knowledge a faculty, any more than
for calling opinion a faculty.
Neither do I think that knowledge is
confined within the narrow limits which
Mr Locke assigns to it; because the far
greatest part of what all men call human
knowledge, is in things which neither ad-
mit of intuitive nor of demonstrative proof.
I have all along used the word judgment
in a more extended sense than Mr Locke
does in the passage above-mentioned. I
understand by it that operation of mind by
which we determine, concerning anything
that may be expressed by a proposition,
whether it be true or false. Every propo-
sition is either true or false ; so is every
judgment. A proposition may be simply
conceived without judging of it. But when
there is not only a conception of the pro-
position, but a mental affirmation or nega-
tion, an assent or dissent of the understand-
ing, whether weak or strong, that is judg-
ment.
I think that, since the days of Aristotle,
logicians have taken the word in that sense,
and other writers, for the most part,
though there are other meanings, which
there is no danger of confounding with this.
[534]
We may take the authority of Dr Isaac
Watts, as a logician, as a man who under-
stood English, and who had a just esteem
of Mr Locke's Essay. Logic. Introd. page
5–“ Judgment is that operation of the
mind, wherein we join two or more ideas
together by one affirmation or negation ;
that is, we either affirm or deny this to be
that. So: this tree is high ; that horse is not
swift ; the mind of man is a thinking being ;
mere matter has no thought belonging to it;
God is just; good men are often miserable in
this world : a righteous governor will make
a difference betwixt the evil and the good;
which sentences are the effect of judgment,
and are called propositions.” And, Part II.
chap. ii. S 9—“The evidence of sense is,
when we frame a proposition according to
the dictate of any of our senses. So we
judge that grass is green ; that a trumpet
gives a pleasant sound; that fire burns wood;
water is soft ; and iron hard.”
In this meaning, judgment extends to
every kind of evidence, probable or certain
and to every degree of assent or dissent.
It extends to all knowledge as well as to all
opinion; with this difference only, that in
knowledge it is more firm and steady, like
a house founded upon a rock. In opinion
it stands upon a weaker foundation, and is
more liable to be shaken and overturned.
These differences about the meaning of
words are not mentioned as if truth was on
one side and error on the other, but as an
apology for deviating, in this instance, from
the phraseology of Mr Locke, which is, for
[532–534]
CHAP. III.]
427
SENTIMENTS CONCERNING JUDGMENT.
the most part, accurate and distinct; and
because attention to the different meanings
that are put upon words by different authors,
is the best way to prevent our mistaking
verbal differences for real differences of
opinion. - -
The common theory concerning ideas
naturally leads to a theory concerning
judgment, which may be a proper test of its
truth ; for, as they are necessarily con-
nected, they must stand or fall together.
Their connection is thus expressed by Mr
Locke, Book IV. chap. 1–" Since the
mind, in all its thoughts and reasonings,
hath no other immediate object but its own
ideas, which it alone does or can con-
template, it is evident that our knowledge is
only conversant about them. Knowledge
then seems to me to be nothing but the
perception of the connection and agreement,
or disagreement and repugnancy, of any of
our ideas. In this alone it consists.” [535.]
There can only be one objection to the
justice of this inference; and that is, that
the antecedent proposition from which it is
inferred seems to have some ambiguity;
for, in the first clause of that proposition,
the mind is said to have no other immediate
object but its own ideas; in the second,
that it has no other object at all ; that it
does or can contemplate ideas alone."
If the word immediate in the first clause
be a mere expletive, and be not intended to
limit the generality of the proposition, then
the two clauses will be perfectly consistent,
the second being only a repetition or expli-
cation of the first ; and the inference that
our knowledge is only conversant about
ideas will be perfectly just and logical.
But, if the word immediate in the first
clause be intended to limit the general pro-
position, and to imply that the mind has
other objects besides its own ideas, though
no other immediate objects, then it will not
be true that it does or can contemplate ideas
alone; nor will the inference be justly
drawn that our knowledge is only conversant
about ideas.
Mr Locke must either have meant his
antecedent proposition, without any limita-
tion by the word immediate, or he must
have meant to limit it by that word, and to
signify that there are objects of the mind
which are not ideas.
The first of these suppositions appears to
me most probable, for several reasons.
[536] - -
First, Because, when he purposely de-
fines the word idea, in the introduction to
the Essay, he says it is whatsoever is the
* In reference to the polemic that follows, see, for
a solution, what has been said above in regard to the
ambiguity of the term object, and Note B. In regard
to the doctrine of Ideas, as held by the philosophers,
see above, and Note C, &c.—H.
object of the understanding when a man
thinks, or whatever the mind can be em-
ployed about in thinking. Here there is no
room left for objects of the mind that are
not ideas. The same definition is often
repeated throughout the Essay. Some-
times, indeed, the word immediate is added,
as in the passage now under consideration ;
but there is no intimation made that it ought
to be understood when it is not expressed.
Now, if it had really been his opinion that
there are objects of thought which are not
ideas, this definition, which is the ground-
work of the whole Essay, would have been
very improper, and apt to mislead his
reader.
Secondly, He has never attempted to
shew how there can be objects of thought
which are not immediate objects; and,
indeed, this seems impossible. For, what-
ever the object be, the man either thinks of
it, or he does not. There is no medium
between these. If he thinks of it, it is an
immediate object of thought while he thinks
of it. If he does not think of it, it is no
object of thought at all. Every object of
thought, therefore, is an immediate object
of thought, and the word immediate, joined
to objects of thought, seems to be a mere
expletive.
Thirdly, Though Malebranche and Bishop
Berkeley believed that we have no ideas of
minds, or of the operations of minds, and
that we may think and reason about them
without ideas, this was not the opinion of
Mr Locke. He thought that there are
ideas of minds, and of their operations, as
well as of the objects of sense; that the
mind perceives nothing but its own ideas,
and that all words are the signs of ideas.
A fourth reason is, That to suppose that
he intended to limit the antecedent proposi-
tion by the word immediate, is to impute to
him a blunder in reasoning, which I do not
think Mr Locke could have committed ;
for what can be a more glaring paralogism
than to infer that, since ideas are partly,
though not solely, the objects of thought, it
is evident that all our knowledge is only
conversant about them. If, on the con-
trary, he meant that ideas are the only ob-
jects of thought, then the conclusion drawn
is perfectly just and obvious; and he might
very well say, that, since it is ideas only that
the mind does or can contemplate, it is evi-
dent that our knowledge is only conversant
about them. [537]
As to the conclusion itself, I have only
to observe, that, though he extends it only to
what he calls knowledge, and not to what
he calls judgment, there is the same reason
for extending it to both.
It is true of judgment, as well as of
knowledge, that it can only be conversant
about objects of the mind, or about things
[535–537]
428
[Essay VI.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
which the mind can contemplate. Judg-
ment, as well as knowledge, supposes the
conception of the object about which we
judge; and to judge of objects that never
were nor can be objects of the mind, is evi-
dently impossible.
This, therefore, we may take for granted,
that, if knowledge be conversant about ideas
only, because there is no other object of the
mind, it must be no less certain that judg-
ment is conversant about ideas only, for
the same reason.
Mr Locke adds, as the result of his rea-
soning, “ Knowledge, then, seems to me to
be nothing but the perception of the con-
nection and agreement, or disagreement
and repugnancy, of any of our ideas. In
this alone it consists.”
This is a very important point, not only
on its own account, but on account of its
necessary connection with his system con-
cerning ideas, which is such as that both
must stand or fall together; for, if there is
any part of human knowledge which does
not consist in the perception of the agree-
ment or disagreement of ideas, it must fol-
low that there are objects of thought and
of contemplation which are not ideas.
[538]
This point, therefore, deserves to be care-
fully examined. With this view, let us
first attend to its meaning, which, I think,
can hardly be mistaken, though it may
need some explication.
Every point of knowledge, and every
judgment, is expressed by a proposition,
wherein something is affirmed or denied of
the subject of the proposition.
By perceiving the connection or agree-
ment of two ideas, I conceive, is meant per-
ceiving the truth of an affirmative proposi-
tion, of which the subject and predicate are
ideas. In like manner, by perceiving the
disagreement and repugnancy of any two
ideas, I conceive is meant perceiving the
truth of a negative proposition, of which
both subject and predicate are ideas. This
I take to be the only meaning the words
can bear, and it is confirmed by what Mr
Locke says in a passage already quoted in
this chapter, that “the mind, taking its
ideas to agree or disagree, is the same as
taking any proposition to be true or false.”
Therefore, if the definition of knowledge
given by Mr Locke be a just one, the sub-
ject, as well as the predicate of every pro-
position, by which any point of knowledge
is expressed, must be an idea, and can be
nothing else; and the same must hold of
every proposition by which judgment is
expressed, as has been shewn above.
Having ascertained the meaning of this
definition of human knowledge, we are
next to consider how far it is just.
First, I would observe that, if the word
idea be taken in the meaning which it had
at first among the Pythagoreans and Pla-
tonists, and if by knowledge be meant only
abstract and general knowledge, (which I
believe Mr Locke had chiefly in his view,)
I think the proposition is true, that such
knowledge consists solely in perceiving the
truth of propositions whose subject and
predicate are ideas. [539]
By ideas here I mean things conceived
abstractly, without regard to their existence.
We commonly call them abstract notions,
abstract conceptions, abstract ideas—the
Peripatetics called them universals; and
the Platonists, who knew no other ideas,
called them ideas without addition.
Such ideas are both subject and predicate
in every proposition which expresses ab-
stract knowledge.
The whole body of pure mathematics is
an abstract science ; and in every mathe-
matical proposition, both subject and pre-
dicate are ideas, in the senseabove explained.
Thus, when I say the side of a square is not
commensurable to its diagonal—in this
proposition the side and the diagonal of a
square are the subjects, (for, being a rela-
tive proposition, it must have two subjects.)
A square, its side, and its diagonal, are
ideas, or universals; they are not indivi-
duals, but things predicable of many indi-
viduals. Existence is not included in their
definition, nor in the conception we form of
them. The predicate of the proposition is
commensurable, which must be an univer-
sal, as the predicate of every proposition is
so. In other branches of knowledge, many
abstract truths may be found, but, for the
most part, mixed with others that are not
abstract.
I add, that I apprehend that what is strictly
called demonstrative evidence, is to be found
in abstract knowledge only. This was the
opinion of Aristotle, of Plato, and, I think,
of all the ancient philosophers; and I be-
lieve in this they judged right. It is true,
we often meet with demonstration in astro-
mony, in mechanics, and in other branches
of natural philosophy; but, I believe, we
shall always find that such demonstrations
are grounded upon principles of supposi-
tions, which have neither intuitive nor
demonstrative evidence. [540]
Thus, when we demonstrate that the
path of a projectile in vacuo is a parabola,
we suppose that it is acted upon with the
same force and in the same direction
through its whole path by gravity. This is
not intuitively known, nor is it demon-
strable; and, in the demonstration, we rea-
son from the laws of motion, which are
principles not capable of demonstration,
but grounded on a different kind of evidence.
Ideas, in the sense above explained, are
creatures of the mind; they are fabricated
[538–540.]
CHAP. III.]
429
SENTIMENT'S CONCERNING JUDGMENT.
by its rational powers; we know their
nature and their essence—for they are
nothing more than they are conceived to
be;—and, because they are perfectly known,
we can reason about them with the highest
degree of evidence.
And, as they are not things that exist,
but things conceived, they neither have
place nor time, nor are they liable to
change.
When we say that they are in the mind,
this can mean no more but that they are
conceived by the mind, or that they are
objects of thought. The act of conceiving
them is, no doubt, in the mind; the things
conceived have no place, because they have
not existence. Thus, a circle, considered
abstractly, is said figuratively to be in the
mind of him that conceives it; but in no
other sense than the city of London or the
kingdom of France is said to be in his
mind when he thinks of those objects.
Place and time belong to finite things that
exist, but not to things that are barely con-
ceived. They may be objects of concep-
tion to intelligent beings in every place and
at all times. Hence the Pythagoreans and
Platonists were led to think that they are
eternal and omnipresent. If they had ex-
istence, they must be so; for they have no
relation to any one place or time, which
they have not to every place and to every
time.
The natural prejudice of mankind, that
what we conceive must have existence, led
those ancient philosophers to attribute ex-
istence to ideas; and by this they were led
into all the extravagant and mysterious
parts of their system. When it is purged
of these, I apprehend it to be the only in-
telligible and rational system concerning
ideas. [54]]
I agree with them, therefore, that ideas
are immutably the same in all times and
places ; for this means no more but that a
circle is always a circle, and a square always
a square.
I agree with them that ideas are the pat-
terns or exemplars by which everything
was made that had a beginning : for an
intelligent artificer must conceive his work
before it is made ; he makes it according to
that conception; and the thing conceived,
before it exists, can only be an idea.
I agree with them that every species of
things, considered abstractly, is an idea;
and that the idea of the species is in every
individual of the species, without division
or multiplication. This, indeed, is expressed
somewhat mysteriously, according to the
manner of the sect; but it may easily be
explained.
Every idea is an attribute; and it is a
common way of speaking to say, that the
attribute is in every subject of which it may
truly be affirmed. Thus, to be above fifty
gears of age is an attribute or idea. This
attribute may be in, or affirmed of, fifty
different individuals, and be the same in
all, without division or multiplication.
I think that not only every species, but
every genus, higher or lower, and every
attribute considered abstractly, is an idea.
These are things conceived without regard to
existence ; they are universals, and, there-
fore, ideas, according to the ancient mean-
ing of that word. [542]
It is true that, after the Platonists en-
tered into disputes with the Peripatetics, in
order to defend the existence of eternal
ideas, they found it prudent to contract the
line of defence, and maintained only that
there is an idea of every species of natural
things, but not of the genera, nor of things
artificial. They were unwilling to multiply
beings beyond what was necessary; but
in this, I think, they departed from the
genuine principles of their system.
The definition of a species is nothing
but the definition of the genus, with the
addition of a specific difference; and the
division of things into species is the work
of the mind, as well as their division into
genera and classes. A species, a genus, an
order, a class, is only a combination of at-
tributes made by the mind, and called by
one name. There is, therefore, the same
reason for giving the name of idea to every
attribute, and to every species and genus,
whether higher or lower : these are only
more complex attributes, or combinations
of the more simple. And, though it might
be improper, without necessity, to multiply
beings which they believed to have a real
existence, yet, had they seen that ideas
are not things that exist, but things that
are conceived, they would have appre-
hended no danger nor expense from their
number. \
Simple attributes, species and genera,
lower or higher, are all things conceived
without regard to existence ; they are uni-
versals; they are expressed by general
words; and have an equal title to be called
by the name of ideas.
I likewise agree with those ancient phi-
losophers that ideas are the object, and the
sole object, of science, strictly so called—
that is, of demonstrative reasoning.
And, as ideas are immutable, so their
agreements and disagreements, and all their
relations and attributes, are immutable.
All mathematical truths are immutably
true. Like the ideas about which they are
conversant, they have no relation to time
or place, no dependence upon existence or
change. That the angles of a plane tri-
angle are equal to two right angles always
was, and always will be, true, though no
triangle had ever existed. [543]
[541–543]
430
[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS
The same may be said of all abstract
truths: on that account they have often
been called eternal truths; and, for the
same reason, the Pythagoreans ascribed
etermity to the ideas about which they are
conversant. They may very properly be
called necessary truths; because it is im-
possible they should not be true at all times
and in all places.
Such is the nature of all truth that can
be discovered, by perceiving the agreements
and disagreements of ideas, when we take
that word in its primitive sense. And that
Mr Locke, in his definition of knowledge,
had chiefly in his view abstract truths, we
may be led to think from the examples he
gives to illustrate it.
But there is another great class of truths,
which are not abstract and necessary, and,
therefore, cannot be perceived in the agree-
ments and disagreements of ideas. These
are all the truths we know concerning the
real existence of things—the truth of our
own existence—of the existence of other
things, inanimate, animal, and rational, and
of their various attributes and relations.
These truths may be called contingent
truths. I except only the existence and
attributes of the Supreme Being, which is
the only necessary truth I know regarding
existence.
All other beings that exist depend for
their existence, and all that belongs to it,
upon the will and power of the first cause ;
therefore, neither their existence, nor their
nature, nor anything that befalls them, is
necessary, but contingent.
But, although the existence of the Deity
be necessary, I apprehend we can only de-
duce it from contingent truths. The only
arguments for the existence of a Deity
which I am able to comprehend, are ground-
ed upon the knowledge of my own existence,
and the existence of other finite beings.
But these are contingent truths. [544]
I believe, therefore, that by perceiving
agreements and disagreements of ideas, no
contingent truth whatsoever can be known,
nor the real existence of anything, not even
our own existence, nor the existence of a
Deity, which is a necessary truth. Thus I
have endeavoured to shew what knowledge
may, and what cannot be attained, by per-
ceiving the agreements and disagreements
of ideas, when we take that word in its
primitive sense.
We are, in the newt place, to consider,
whether knowledge consists in perceiving the
agreement or disagreement of ideas, taking
ideas in any of the senses in which the word
is used by Mr Locke and other modern
philosophers.
1. Very often the word idea is used so,
that to have the idea of anything is a peri-
phrasis for conceiving it. In this sense, an
idea is not an object of thought, it is thought
itself. It is the act of the mind by which
we conceive any object. And it is evident
that this could not be the meaning which
Mr Locke had in view in his definition of
knowledge.
2. A second meaning of the word idea is
that which Mr Locke gives in the intro-
duction to his Essay, when he is making an
apology for the frequent use of it:—“It be-
ing that term, I think, which serves best to
stand for whatsoever is the object of the
understanding when a man thinks, or what-
ever it is which a man can be employed
about in thinking.”
By this definition, indeed, everything that
can be the object of thought is an idea.
The objects of our thoughts may, I think,
be reduced to two classes.
The first class comprehends all those
objects which we not only can think of, but
which we believe to have a real existence :
such as the Creator of all things, and all
his creatures that fall within our notice.
[545] I can think of the sun and moon,
the earth and sea, and of the various animal,
vegetable, and inanimate productions with
which it hath pleased the bountiful Creator
to enrich our globe. I can think of myself,
of my friends and acquaintance. I think
of the author of the Essay with high esteem.
These, and such as these, are objects of the
understanding which we believe to have real
existence.
A second class of objects of the under-
standing which a man may be employed
about in thinking, are things which we either
believe never to have existed, or which we
think of without regard to their existence.
Thus, I can think of Don Quixote, of
the Island of Laputa, of Oceana, and of
Utopia, which I believe never to have ex-
isted. Every attribute, every species, and
every genus of things, considered abstractly,
without any regard to their existence or
non-existence, may be an object of the
understanding.
To this second class of objects of the
understanding, the name of idea does very
properly belong, according to the primitive
sense of the word, and I have already con-
sidered what knowledge does and what
does not consist in perceiving the agree-
ments and disagreements of such ideas.
But, if we take the word idea in so ex-
tensive a sense as to comprehend, not only
the second, but also the first class of objects
of the understanding, it will undoubtedly
be true that all knowledge consists in per-
ceiving the agreements and disagreements
of ideas: for it is impossible that there can
be any knowledge, any judgment, any
opinion, true or false, which is not employed
about the objects of the understanding:
But whatsoever is an object of the under-
[544, 545]
cHAP. III.]
431
SENTIMENT'S CONCERNING JUDGMENT.
standing is an idea, according to this second
meaning of the word.
Yet I am persuaded that Mr Locke, in
his definition of knowledge, did not mean
that the word idea should extend to all those
things which we commonly consider as ob-
jects of the understanding. [546]
Though Bishop Berkeley believed that
sun, moon, and stars, and all material things,
are ideas, and nothing but ideas, Mr Locke
nowhere professes this opinion. He be-
lieved that we have ideas of bodies, but not
that bodies are ideas. In like manner, he
believed that we have ideas of minds, but
not that minds are ideas. When he in-
quired so carefully into the origin of all our
ideas, he did not surely mean to find the
origin of whatsoever may be the object of
the understanding, nor to resolve the origin
of everything that may be an object of
understanding into sensation and reflec-
tion.
3. Setting aside, therefore, the two mean-
ings of the word idea, before mentioned, as
meanings which Mr Locke could not have
in his view in the definition he gives of
knowledge, the only meaning that could be
intended in this place is that which I before
called the philosophical meaning of the
word idea, which hath a reference to the
theory commonly received about the manner
in which the mind perceives external objects,
and in which it remembers and conceives
objects that are not present to it. It is a very
ancient opinion, and has been very generally
received among philosophers, that we can-
not perceive or think of such objects im-
mediately, but by the medium of certain
images or representatives of them really
existing in the mind at the time.
To those images the ancients gave the
name of species and phantasms. Modern
philosophers have given them the name of
ideas, “’Tis evident,” says Mr Locke,
book iv., chap. 4, “the mind knows not things
immediately, but only by the intervention
of the ideas it has of them.” And in the
same paragraph he puts this question :
“How shall the mind, when it perceives
nothing but its own ideas, know that they
agree with things themselves?” [547]
This theory I have already considered,
in treating of perception, of memory, and
of conception. The reader will there find
the reasons that lead me to think that it
has no solid foundation in reason, or in
attentive reflection upon those operations
of our minds; that it contradicts the im-
mediate dictates of our natural faculties,
which are of -higher authority than any
theory; that it has taken its rise from the
same prejudices which led all the ancient
philosophers to think that the Deity could
not make this world without some eternal
matter to work upon, and which led the
Pythagoreans and Platonists to think that
he could not conceive the plan of the world
he was to make without eternal ideas really
existing as patterns to work by ; and that
this theory, when its necessary consequences
are fairly pursued, leads to absolute scep-
ticism, though those consequences were not
seen by most of the philosophers who have
adopted it.
I have no intention to repeat what has
before been said upon those points; but
only, taking ideas in this sense, to make
some observations upon the definition which
Mr Locke gives of knowledge.
First, If all knowledge consists in per.
ceiving the agreements and disagreements
of ideas—that is, of representative images of
things existing in the mind—it obviously
follows that, if there be no such ideas, there
can be no knowledge. So that, if there
should be found good reason for giving up
this philosophical hypothesis, all knowledge
must go along with it.
I hope, however, it is not so : and that,
though this hypothesis, like many others,
should totter and fall to the ground, know-
ledge will continue to stand firm upon a
more permanent basis. [548]
The cycles and epicycles of the ancient
astronomers were for a thousand years
thought absolutely necessary to explain
the motions of the heavenly bodies. Yet
now, when all men believe them to have
been mere fictions, astronomy has not fallen
with them, but stands upon a more rational
foundation than before. Ideas, or images
of things existing in the mind, have, for a
longer time, been thought necessary for
explaining the operations of the understand-
ing. If they should likewise at last be
found to be fictions, human knowledge and
judgment would suffer nothing by being
disengaged from an unwieldy hypothesis.
Mr Locke surely did not look upon the ex-
istence of ideas as a philosophical hypo-
thesis. He thought that we are conscious
of their existence, otherwise he would not
have made the existence of all our know-
ledge to depend upon the existence of ideas.
Secondly, Supposing this hypothesis to
be true, I agree with Mr Locke that it is
an evident and necessary consequence that
our knowledge can be conversant about
ideas only, and must consist in perceiving
their attributes and relations. For nothing
can be more evident than this, that all
knowledge, and all judgment and opinion,
must be about things which are or may be
immediate objects of our thought. What
cannot be the object of thought, or the
object of the mind in thinking, cannot be
the object of knowledge or of opinion.
Everything we can know of any object,
must be either some attribute of the object,
or some relation it bears to some other
[546–548]
432
[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
object or objects. By the agreements and
disagreements of objects, I apprehend Mr
Locke intended to express both their attri-
butes and their relations. If ideas then be
the only objects of thought, the consequence
is necessary, that they must be the only
objects of knowledge, and all knowledge
must consist in perceiving their agreements
and disagreements—that is, their attributes
and relations.
The use I would make of this conse-
quence, is to shew that the hypothesis must
be false, from which it necessarily follows.
For if we have any knowledge of things
that are not ideas, it will follow no less
evidently, that ideas are not the only objects
of our thoughts. [549]
Mr Locke has pointed out the extent and
limits of human knowledge, in his fourth
book, with more accuracy and judgment
than any philosopher had done before; but
he has not confined it to the agreements
and disagreements of ideas. And I cannot
help thinking that a great part of that book
is an evident refutation of the principles
laid down in the beginning of it.
Mr Locke did not believe that he himself
was an idea ; that his friends and acquaint-
ance were ideas; that the Supreme Being,
to speak with reverence, is an idea ; or
that the sun and moon, the earth and the
sea, and other external objects of sense, are
ideas. He believed that he had some cer-
tain knowledge of all those objects. His
lºnowledge, therefore, did not consist solely
in perceiving the agreements and disagree-
ments of his ideas; for, Surely, to perceive
the existence, the attributes, and relations
of things, which are not ideas, is not to per-
ceive the agreements and disagreements of
ideas. And, if things which are not ideas be
objects of knowledge, they must be objects of
thought. On the contrary, if ideas be the
only objects of thought, there can be no
knowledge, either of our own existence, or
of the existence of external objects, or of
the existence of a Deity.
This consequence, as far as concerns the
existence of external objects of sense, was
afterwards deduced from the theory of ideas
by Bishop Berkeley with the clearest evi-
dence ; and that author chose rather to
adopt the consequence than to reject the
theory on which it was grounded. But,
with regard to the existence of our own
minds, of other minds, and of a Supreme
Mind, the Bishop, that he might avoid the
consequence, rejected a part of the theory,
and maintained that we can think of minds,
of their attributes and relations, without
ideas. [550]
Mr Hume saw very clearly the conse-
quences of this theory, and adopted them
in his speculative moments; but candidly
acknowledges that, in the common busi-
ness of life, he found himself under a neces-
sity of believing with the vulgar. His
“Treatise of Human Nature” is the only
system to which the theory of ideas leads;
and, in my apprehension, is, in all its parts,
the necessary consequence of that theory.
Mr Locke, however, did not see all the
consequences of that theory; he adopted it
without doubt or examination, carried along
by the stream of philosophers that went
before him; and his judgment and good
sense have led him to say many things, and
to believe many things, that cannot be, re-
conciled to it. *
He not only believed his own existence,
the existence of external things, and the
existence of a Deity ; but he has shewn
very justly how we come by the knowledge
of these existences.
It might here be expected that he should
have pointed out the agreements and dis-
agreements of ideas from which these exist-
ences are deduced; but this is impossible,
and he has not even attempted it.
Our own existence, he observes, we know
intuitively; but this intuition is not a percep-
tion of the agreement or disagreement of
ideas; for the subject of the proposition, I
eatist, is not an idea, but a person.
The knowledge of external objects of
Sense, he observes, we can have only by sensa-.
tion. This sensation he afterwards expresses
more clearly by the testimony of our senses,
which are the proper and sole judges of this
thing; whose testimony is the greatest assur-
ance we can possibly have, and to which
owr faculties can attain. This is perfectly
agreeable to the common sense of mankind,
and is perfectly understood by those who
never heard of the theory of ideas, Our
senses testify immediately the existence,
and many of the attributes and relations of
external material beings; and, by our con-
stitution, we rely with assurance upon their
testimony, without seeking a reason for
doing so. This assurance, Mr Locke ac-
knowledges, deserves the name of know-
ledge. But those external things are not
ideas, nor are their attributes and relations
the agreements and disagreements of ideas,
but the agreements and disagreements of
things which are not ideas. [551]
To reconcile this to the theory of ideas,
Mr Locke says, That it is the actual receiv-
$ng of ideas from without that gives ws notice
of the existence of those easternal things.
This, if understood literally, would lead
us back to the doctrine of Aristotle, that
our ideas or species come from without
from the external objects, and are the image
or form of those objects. But Mr Locke,
I believe, meant no more by it, but that
our ideas of sense must have a cause, and
that we are not the cause of them our-
selves.
[549–551]
chap. III.]
433
SENTIMENTS CONCERNING JUDGMENT.
Bishop Berkeley acknowledges all this,
and shews very clearly that it does not
afford the least shadow of reason for the
belief of any material object—nay, that
there can be nothing external that has any
resemblance to our ideas but the ideas of
other minds.
It is evident, therefore, that the agree-
ments and disagreements of ideas can give
us no knowledge of the existence of any
material thing. If any knowledge can be
attained of things which are not ideas, that
knowledge is a perception of agreements
and disagreements : not of ideas, but of
things that are not ideas.
As to the existence of a deity, though
Mr Locke was aware that Des Cartes, and
many after him, had attempted to prove it
merely from the agreements and disagree-
ments of ideas; yet “he thought it an
ill way of establishing that truth, and si-
lencing Atheists, to lay the whole stress of so
important a point upon that sole founda-
tion.” And, therefore, he proves this
point, with great strength and solidity, from
our own existence, and the existence of the
sensible parts of the universe. [552] By
memory, Mr Locke says, we have the
knowledge of the past existence of several
things. But all conception of past exist-
ence, as well as of external existence, is
irreconcileable to the theory of ideas; be-
cause it supposes that there may be imme-
diate objects of thought, which are not ideas
presently existing in the mind.
I conclude, therefore, that, if we have
any knowledge of our own existence, or of
the existence of what we see about us, or of
the existence of a Supreme Being, or if
we have any knowledge of things past by
memory, that knowledge cannot consist in
perceiving the agreements and disagree-
ments of ideas.
This conclusion, indeed, is evident of
itself. For, if knowledge consists solely in
the perception of the agº, disagree-
ment of ideas, there can be ne-kāowledge of
any proposition, which does not express
some agreement or disagreement of ideas;
consequently, there can be no knowledge of
any proposition, which expresses either the
existence, or the attributes or relations of
things, which are not ideas. If, therefore,
the theory of ideas be true, there can be no
knowledge of anything but of ideas. And,
on the other hand, if we have any know-
ledge of anything besides ideas, that theory
must be false.
There can be no knowledge, no judgment
or opinion about things which are not im-
mediate objects of thought. This I take to
be self-evident. If, therefore, ideas be the
only immediate objects of thought, they
must be the only things in nature of which
we can have any knowledge, and about
which we can have any judgment or
oplnion.
This necessary consequence of the com-
mon doctrine of ideas Mr Hume saw, and
has made evident in his “Treatise of
Human Nature;” but the use he made of
it was not to overturn the theory with which
it is necessarily connected, but to overturn
all knowledge, and to leave no ground to
believe anything whatsoever. If Mr Locke
had seen this consequence, there is reason
to think that he would have made another
use of it. [553]
That a man of Mr Locke's judgment and
penetration did not perceive a consequence
so evident, seems indeed very strange; and
I know no other account that can be given of
it but this—that the ambiguity of the word
idea has misled him in this, as in several
other instances. Having at first defined
ideas to be whatsoever is the object of the
understanding when we think, he takes it
very often in that unlimited sense; and so
everything that can be an object of thought
is an idea. At other times, he uses the
word to signify certain representative images
of things in the mind, which philosophers
have supposed to be immediate objects of
thought. At other times, things conceived
abstractly, without regard to their exist-
ence, are called ideas. Philosophy is much
indebted to Mr Locke for his observations
on the abuse of words. It is pity he did
not apply these observations to the word
idea, the ambiguity and abuse of which has
very much hurt his excellent Essay.
There are some other opinions of philo-
sophers concerning judgment, of which I
think it unnecessary to say much.
Mr Hume sometimes adopts Mr Locke's
opinion, that it is the perception of the
agreement or disagreement of our ideas;
Sometimes he maintains that judgment and
reasoning resolve themselves into concep-
tion, and are nothing but particular ways
of conceiving objects; and he says, that an
opinion or belief may most accurately be
defined, a lively idea related to or associated
with a present impression.—Treatise of Hu-
man Nature, vol. I. page 172.
I have endeavoured before, in the first
chapter of this Essay, to shew that judgment
is an operation of mind specifically distinct
from the bare conception of an object. Ihave
also considered his notion of belief, intreating
of the theories concerning memory. [554]
Dr Hartley says—“That assent and dis-
sent must come under the notion of ideas,
being only those very complex internal
feelings which adhere by association to such
clusters of words as are called propositions
in general, or affirmations and negations in
particular.”
This, if I understand its meaning, agrees
with the opinion of Mr Hume, above men-
ſ 552–554]
2 F
434
[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
tioned, and has therefore been before con-
sidered.
Dr Priestly has given another definition
of judgment:—“It is nothing more than
the perception of the universal concurrence,
or the perfect coincidence of two ideas; or
the want of that concurrence or coinci-
dence.” This, I think, coincides with Mr
Locke's definition, and therefore has been
already considered.
There are many particulars which deserve
to be known, and which might very properly
be considered in this Essay on judgment ;
concerning the various kinds of propositions
by which our judgments are expressed;
their subjects and predicates; their con-
versions and oppositions: but as these are
to be found in every system of logic, from
Aristotle down to the present age, I think
it unnecessary to swell this Essay with the
repetition of what has been said so often.
The remarks which have occurred to me
upon what is commonly said on these points,
as well as upon the art of syllogism ; the
utility of the school logic, and the improve-
^ ments that may be made in it, may be found
in a “Short Account of Aristotle's Logic,
with Remarks,” which Lord Kames has
honoured with a place in his “Sketches of
the History of Man.” [555]
CHAPTER IV.
OF FIRST PRINCIPLES IN GENERAL.
ONE of the most important distinctions of
our judgments is, that some of them are
intuitive, others grounded on argument.
It is not in our power to judge as we
will. The judgment is carried along neces-
sarily by the evidence, real or seeming,
which appears to us at the time. But, in
propositions that are submitted to our
judgment, there is this great difference—
some are of such a nature that a man of
ripe understanding may apprehend them
distinctly, and perfectly understand their
meaning, without finding himself under any
necessity of believing them to be true or
false, probable or improbable. The judg-
ment remains in suspense, until it is in-
clined to one side or another by reasons or
arguments. .*
But there are other propositions which
are no sooner understood than they are be-
lieved. The judgment follows the appre-
hension of them necessarily, and both are
..equally the work of nature, and the result
of our original powers. There is no search-
ing for evidence, no weighing of arguments;
the proposition is not deduced or inferred
from another ; it has the light of truth in
itself, and has no occasion to borrow it
from another. f
Propositions of the last kind, when they
are used in matters of science, have com-
monly been called airioms ; and on what-
ever occasion they are used, are called first
principles, principles of common sense, com-
mon motions, self-evident truths. Cicero
calls them natura judicia, judicia communi-
bus hominum sensibus infira. Lord Shaftes-
bury expresses them by the words, natural
knowledge, fundamental reason, and common
sense. [556] -
What has been said, I think, is sufficient
to distinguish first principles, or intuitive
judgments, from those which may be as-
cribed to the power of reasoning; nor is it
a just objection against this distinction, that
there may be some judgments concerning
which we may be dubious to which class
they ought to be referred. There is a real
distinction between persons within the
house, and those that are without ; yet it
may be dubious to which the man belongs
that stands upon the threshold.
The power of reasoning—that is, of draw-
ing a conclusion from a chain of premises—
may with some propriety be called an art.
“All reasoning,” says Mr Locke, “is
search and casting about, and requires
pains and application.” It resembles the
power of walking, which is acquired by use
and exercise. Nature prompts to it, and
has given the power of acquiring it; but
must be aided by frequent exercise before
we are able to walk. After repeated efforts,
much stumbling, and many falls, we learn
to walk ; and it is in a similar manner that
We learn to reason.
But the power of judging in self-evident
propositions, which are clearly understood,
may be compared to the power of swallow-
ing our food. It is purely natural, and there-
fore common to the learned and the un-
learned, to the trained and the untrained.
It requires ripeness of understanding, and
freedom from prejudice, but nothing else.
I take it for granted that there are self-
evident principles. Nobody, I think, de-
nies it. And if any man were so sceptical
as to deny that there is any proposition
that is self-evident, I see not how it would
be possible to convince him by reasoning.
But yet there seems to be great difference
of opinions among philosophers about first
principles. What one takes to be self-evi-
dent, another labours to prove by argu-
ments, and a third denies altogether. [557]
Thus, before the time of Des Cartes, it
was taken for a first principle, that there is
a Sun and a moon, an earth and sea, which
really exist, whether we think of them or
not. Des Cartes thought that the exist-
ence of those things ought to be proved by
argument ; and in this he has been follow-
ed by Malebranche, Arnauld, and Locke.
| They have all laboured to prove, by very
[555–557T
CHAP. Iv.]
435
OF FIRST PRINCIPLES IN GENERAL.
weak reasoning, the existence of external
objects of sense; and Berkeley and Hume,
sensible of the weakness of their arguments,
have been led to deny their existence alto-
gether. -
The ancient philosophers granted, that
all knowledge must be grounded on first
principles, and that there is no reasoning
without them. The Peripatetic philosophy
was redundant rather than deficient in first
principles. Perhaps the abuse of them in
that ancient system may have brought
them into discredit in modern times; for,
as the best things may be abused, so that
abuse is apt to give a disgust to the thing
itself; and as one extreme often leads into
the opposite, this seems to have been the
case in the respect paid to first principles
in ancient and modern times.
Des Cartes thought one principle, express-
ed in one word, cogito, a sufficient foundation
for his whole system, and asked no more.
Mr Locke seems to think first principles
of very small use. Knowledge consisting,
according to him, in the perception of the
agreement or disagreement of our ideas;
when we have clear ideas, and are able to
compare them together, we may always fa-
bricate first principles as often as we have
occasion for them. Such differences we find
among philosophers about first principles.
It is likewise a question of some moment,
whether the differences among men about
first principles can be brought to any issue 2
When in disputes one man maintains that
to be a first principle which another denies,
commonly both parties appeal to common
sense, and so the matter rests. Now, is
there no way of discussing this appeal 2 Is
there no mark or criterion, whereby first
principles that are truly such, may be dis-
tinguished from those that assume the cha-
racter without a just title 2 I shall humbly
offer in the following propositions what
appears to me to be agreeable to truth in
these matters, always ready to change my
opinion upon conviction. [558]
1. First; I hold it to be certain, and even
demonstrable, that all knowledge got by
reasoning must be built upon first princi-
ples.”
This is as certain as that every house
must have a foundation. The power of
reasoning, in this respéct, resembles the
mechanical powers or engines; it must
have a fixed point to rest upon, otherwise
it spends its force in the air, and produces
no effect.
When we examine, in the way of ana-
lysis, the evidence of any proposition, either
we find it self-evident, or it rests upon one
or more propositions that support it. The
same thing may be said of the propositions
* So Aristotle, pluries.—H.
that support it, and of those that support
them, as far back as we can go. But we
cannot go back in this track to infinity.
Where then must this analysis stop 2 It
is evident that it must stop only when we
come to propositions which support all that
are built upon them, but are themselves
supported by none—that is, to self-evident
propositions.
Let us again consider a synthetical proof of
any kind, where we begin with the premises,
and pursue a train of consequences, until we
come to the last conclusion or thing to be
proved. Here we must begin, either with
self-evident propositions or with such as have
been already proved. When the last is the
case, the proof of the propositions, thus as-
Sumed, is a part of our proof; and the
proof is deficient without it. Suppose then
the deficiency supplied, and the proof com-
pleted, is it not evident that it must set out
with self-evident propositions, and that the
whole evidence must rest upon them 2 So
that it appears to be demonstrable that,
without first principles, analytical reasoning
could have no end, and synthetical reason-
ing could have no beginning; and that
every conclusion got by reasoning must
rest with its whole weight upon first princi-
ples, as the building does upon its founda-
tion. [559] e
2. A second proposition is, That some
first principles yield conclusions that are
certain, others such as are probable, in va-
rious degrees, from the highest probability
to the lowest.
In just reasoning, the strength or weak-
ness of the conclusion will always corre-
-spond to that of the principles on which it is
grounded. -
In a matter of testimony, it is self-evi-
dent that the testimony of two is better
than that of one, supposing them equal in
character, and in their means of knowledge;
yet the simple testimony may be true, and
that which is preferred to it may be false.
When an experiment has succeeded in
Several trials, and the circumstances have
been marked with care, there is a self-evi-
dent probability of its succeeding in a new
trial; but there is no certainty. The pro-
bability, in some cases, is much greater
than in others; because, in some cases, it
is much easier to observe all the circum-
stances that may have influence upon the
event than in others. And it is possible
that, after many experiments made with
care, our expectation may be frustrated in
a succeeding one, by the variation of some
circumstance that has not, or perhaps
could not be observed. .
Sir Isaac Newton has laid it down as a
first principle in natural philosophy, that a
property which has been found in all bodies
upon which we have had access to make
[558, 559]
2 F 2
436
[Essay v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
experiments, and which has always been
found in its quantity to be in exact propor-
to the quantity of matter in every body, is
to be held as an universal property of mat-
ter. [560]
This principle, as far as I know, has
never been called in question. The evi-
dence we have, that all matter is divisible,
movable, solid, and inert, is resolvable
into this principle ; and, if it be not true,
we cannot have any rational conviction that
all matter has those properties. From the
same principle that great man has shewn
that we have reason to conclude that all
bodies gravitate towards each other.
This principle, however, has not that
kind of evidence which mathematical axioms
have. It is not a necessary truth, whose
contrary is impossible ; nor did Sir Isaac
ever conceive it to be such. And, if it
should ever be found, by just experiments,
that there is any part in the composition of
some bodies which has not gravity, the
fact, if duly ascertained, must be admitted
as an exception to the general law of gra-
vitation.
In games of chance, it is a first principle
that every side of a die has an equal chance
to be turned up; and that, in a lottery,
every ticket has an equal chance of being
drawn out. From such first principles as
these, which are the best we can have in
such matters, we may deduce, by demon-
strative reasoning, the precise degree of
probability of every event in such games.
But the principles of all this accurate
and profound reasoning can never yield a
certain conclusion, it being impossible to
supply a defect in the first principles by any
accuracy in the reasoning that is grounded
upon them. As water, by its gravity, can
rise no higher in its course than the foun-
tain, however artfully it be conducted; so
no conclusion of reasoning can have a
greater degree of evidence than the first
principles from which it is drawn.
From these instances, it is evident that,
as there are some first principles that yield
conclusions of absolute certainty, so there
are others that can only yield probable con-
clusions ; and that the lowest degree of
probability must be grounded on first prin-
ciples as well as absolute certainty."
[561] -
3. A third proposition is, That it would
contribute greatly to the stability of human
knowledge, and consequently to the im-
provement of it, if the first principles upon
which the various parts of it are grounded
Were pointed out and ascertained.
We have ground to think so, both from
facts, and from the nature of the thing.
There are two branches of human know-
* Compare Stewart's “Elements,” ii. p. 38–H.
ledge in which this method has been followed
—to wit, mathematics and natural philoso-
phy; in mathematics, as far back as we have
books. It is in this science only, that, for
more than two thousand years since it be-
gan to be cultivated, we find no sects, no
contrary systems, and hardly any disputes;
or, if there have been disputes, they have
ended as soon as the animosity of par-
ties subsided, and have never been again
revived. The science, once firmly esta-
blished upon the foundation of a few axioms
and definitions, as upon a rock, has grown
from age so age, so as to become the loftiest
and the most solid fabric that human rea-
son can boast.*
Natural philosophy, till less than two
hundred years ago, remained in the same
fluctuating state with the other sciences.
Every new system pulled up the old by
the roots. The system-builders, indeed,
were always willing to accept of the aid
of first principles, when they were of their
side ; but, finding them insufficient to sup-
port the fabric which their imagination had
raised, they were only brought in as auxi-
liaries, and so intermixed with conjectures,
and with lame inductions, that their sys-
tems were like Nebuchadnezzar's image,
whose feet were partly of iron and partly
of clay.
Lord Bacon first delineated the only so-
lid foundation on which natural philoso-
phy can be built; and Sir Isaac Newton
reduced the principles laid down by Bacon
into three or four axioms, which he calls
'regulae philosophandi. From these, toge-
ther with the phenomena observed by the
senses, which he likewise lays down as
first principles, he deduces, by strict rea-
Soning, the propositions contained in the
third book of his “Principia,” and in his
“Optics;” and by this means has raised a
fabric in those two branches of natural
philosophy, which is not liable to be shaken
by doubtful disputation, but stands im-
movable upon the basis of self-evident
principles. [562]
This fabric has been carried on by the
accession of new discoveries; but is no
more subject to revolutions.
The disputes about materia prima, sub-
stantial forms, Nature's abhorring a va-
cuum, and bodies having no gravitation
in their proper place, are now no more.
The builders in this work are not put to the
necessity of holding a weapon in one hand
while they build with the other ; their
whole employment is to carry on the work.
Yet it seems to be very probable, that, if
natural philosophy had not been reared upon
this solid foundation of self-evident princi-
ples, it would have been to this day a field
* See Stewart's “Elements,” ii. p. 43.-H.
[560, 562]
chap. iv.]
437
OF FIRST PRINCIPLES IN GENERAL.
of battle, wherein every inch of ground
would have been disputed, and nothing fixed
and determined.
I acknowledge that mathematics and na-
tural philosophy, especially the former,
have this advantage of most other sciences,
that it is less difficult to form distinct and
determinate conceptions of the objects
about which they are employed; but, as
this difficulty is not insuperable, it affords
a good reason, indeed, why other sciences
should have a longer infancy; but no rea-
son at all why they may not at last arrive
at maturity, by the same steps as those of
quicker growth.
The facts I have mentioned may there-
fore lead us to conclude, that, if in other
branches of philosophy the first principles
were laid down, as has been done in ma-
thematics and natural philosophy, and the
subsequent conclusions grounded upon them,
this would make it much more easy to dis-
tinguish what is solid and well supported
from the vain fictions of human fancy. [563]
But, laying aside facts, the nature of the
thing leads to the same conclusion.
For, when any system is grounded upon
first principles, and deduced regularly from
them, we have a thread to lead us through
the labyrinth. The judgment has a distinct
and determinate object. The heterogeneous
parts being separated, can be examined each
by itself.
The whole system is reduced to axioms,
definitions, and deductions. These are ma-
terials of very different nature, and to be
measured by a very different standard; and
it is much more easy to judge of each, taken
by itself, than to judge of a mass wherein
they are kneaded together without distinc-
tion. Let us consider how we judge of each
of them.
First, As to definitions, the matter is very
easy. They relate only to words, and differ-
ences about them may produce different
ways of speaking, but can never produce
different ways of thinking, while every man
keeps to his own definitions.
But, as there is not a more plentiful source
of fallacies in reasoning than men's using
the same word sometimes in one sense and
at other times in another, the best means
of preventing such fallacies, or of detecting
them when they are committed, is defi-
nitions of words as accurate as can be
given.
Secondly, As to deductions drawn from
principles granted on both sides, I do not
see how they can long be a matter of dis-
pute among men who are not blinded by
prejudice or partiality; for the rules of
reasoning by which inferences may be drawn
from premises have been for two thousand
years fixed with great unanimity. No man
pretends to dispute the rules of reasoning
laid down by Aristotle and repeated by
every writer in dialectics. [564]
And we may observe by the way, that
the reason why logicians have been so una-
nimous in determining the rules of reason-
ing, from Aristotle down to this day, seems
to be, that they were by that great genius
raised, in a scientific manner, from a few
definitions and axioms. It may farther be
observed, that, when men differ about a
deduction, whether it follows from certain
premises, this I think is always owing to
their differing about some first principle.
I shall explain this by an example.
Suppose that, from a thing having begun
to exist, one man infers that it must have
had a cause ; another man does not admit
the inference. Here it is evident, that the
first takes it for a self-evident principle, that
everything which begins to exist must have
a cause. The other does not allow this to
be self-evident. Let them settle this point,
and the dispute will be at an end.
Thus, I think, it appears, that, in matters
of Science, if the terms be properly explained,
the first principles upon which the reason-
ing is grounded be laid down and exposed
to examination, and the conclusions re-
gularly deduced from them, it might be
expected that men of candour and capacity,
who love truth, and have patience to ex-
amine things coolly, might come to unani-
mity with regard to the force of the deduc-
tions, and that their differences might be
reduced to those they may have about first
principles.
4. A fourth proposition is, That Nature
hath not left us destitute of means whereby
the candid and honest part of mankind may
be brought to unanimity when they happen
to differ about first principles. [565]
When men differ about things that are
taken to be first principles or self-evident
truths, reasoning seems to be at an end.
Each party appeals to common sense. When
one man’s common sense gives one deter-
mination, another man’s a contrary deter-
mination, there seems to be no remedy but
to leave every man to enjoy his own opinion.
This is a common observation, and, I be-
lieve, a just one, if it be rightly understood.
It is in vain to reason with a man who
denies the first principles on which the rea-
soning is grounded. Thus, it would be in
vain to attempt the proof of a proposition
in Euclid to a man who denies the axioms.
Indeed, we ought never to reason with men
who deny first principles from obstinacy
and unwillingness to yield to reason.
But is it not possible, that men who really
love truth, and are open to conviction, may
differ about first principles 2
I think it is possible, and that it cannot,
without great want of charity, be denied to
be possible.
[563–565]
433
[ESSAY v1.
oN THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
When this happens, every man who be-
lieves that there is a real distinction between
truth and error, and that the faculties which
God has given us are not in their nature
fallacious, must be convinced that there is
a defect or a perversion of judgment on
the one side or the other.
A man of candour and humility will, in
such a case, very naturally suspect his own
judgment. So far as to be desirous to enter
into a serious examination, even of what
he has long held as a first principle. He
will think it not impossible, that, although
his heart be upright, hisjudgment may have
been perverted, by education, by authority,
by party zeal, or by some other of the com-
mon causes of error, from the influence of
which neither parts nor integrity exempt
the human understanding. [566]
In such a state of mind, so amiable, and
so becoming every good man, has Nature
left him destitute of any rational means by
which he may be enabled, either to correct
his judgment if it be wrong, or to confirm
it if it be right 2
I hope it is not so. I hope that, by the
means which nature has furnished, con-
troversies about first principles may be
brought to an issue, and that the real lovers
of truth may come to unanimity with regard
to them.
It is true that, in other controversies,
the process by which the truth of a propo-
sition is discovered, or its falsehood detected,
is, by shewing its necessary connection with
first principles, or its repugnancy to them
It is true, likewise, that, when the contro-
versy is, whether a preposition be itself a
first principle, this process cannot be ap.
plied. The truth, therefore, in controversies
of this kind, labours under a peculiar dis-
advantage. But it has advantantages of
another kind to compensate this.
1. For, in the first place, in such con-
troversies, every man is a competent judge;
and therefore it is difficult to impose upon
mankind.
To judge of first principles, requires no
more than a sound mind free from preju-
dice, and a distinct conception of the question.
The learned and the unlearned, the phi-
losopher and the day-labourer, are upon a
level, and will pass the same judgment,
when they are not misled by some bias, or
taught to renounce their understanding
from some mistaken religious principle.
In matters beyond the reach of common
understanding, the many are led by the
few, and willingly yield to their authority.
But, in matters of common sense, the few
must yield to the many, when local and
temporary prejudices are removed. No
man is now moved by the subtle arguments
of Zeno against motion, though, perhaps, he
knows not how to answer them. §
The ancient sceptical system furnishes a
remarkable instance of this truth. That
system, of which Pyrrho? was reputed the
father, was carried down, through a succes-
sion of ages, by very able and acute philo-
sophers, who taught men to believe nothing
at all, and esteemed it the highest pitch of
human wisdom to withhold assent from
every proposition whatsoever. It was sup-
ported with very great subtilty and learning,
as we see from the writings of Sextus Eul-
piricus, the only author of that sect whose
writings have come down to our age. The
assault of the sceptics against all science
seems to have been managed with more art
and address than the defence of the dog-
matists.
Yet, as this system was an insult upon the
common sense of mankind, it died away of
itself; and it would be in vain to attempt
to revive it. The modern scepticism is very
different from the ancient, otherwise it would
not have been allowed a hearing; and, when
it has lost the grace of novelty, it will die
away also, though it should never be refuted.
The modern scepticism, I mean that of
Mr Hume, is built upon principles which
were very generally maintained by philo-
sophers, though they did not see that they
led to scepticism. Mr Hume, by tracing,
with great acuteness and, ingenuity, the con-
sequences of principles commonly received,
has shewn that they overturn all knowledge,
and at last overturn themselves, and leave
the mind in perfect suspense.
2. Secondly, We may observe that opin-
ions which contradict first principles, are
distinguished, from other errors, by this :—
That they are not only false but absurd;
and, to discountenance absurdity, Nature
hath given us a particular emotion—to wit,
that of ridicule—which seems intended for
this very purpose of putting out of counte-
nance what is absurd, either in opinion or
practice. [568]
This weapon, when properly applied, cuts
with as keen an edge as argument. Nature
hath furnished us with the first to expose
absurdity; as with the last to refute error.
Both are well fitted for their several offices,
and are equally friendly to truth when pro-
perly used.
Both may be abused to serve the cause
of error; but the same degree of judgment
which serves to detect the abuse of argu-
ment in false reasoning, serves to detect the
abuse of ridicule when it is wrong directed.
Some have, from nature, a happier talent
for ridicule than others ; and the same
thing holds with regard to the talent of
reasoning. Indeed, I conceive there is
hardly any absurdity, which, when touched
with the pencil of a Lucian, a Swift, or a
Voltaire, would not be put out of counte-
nance, when there is not some religious
[566–568]
chap. Iv.]
439
OF FIRST PRINCIPLES IN GENERAL.
panic, or very powerful prejudice, to blind
the understanding.
But it must be acknowledged that the
emotion of ridicule, even when most natu-
ral, may be stifled by an emotion of a con-
- trary nature, and cannot operate till that
is removed.
Thus, if the notion of sanctity is annexed
to an object, it is no longer a laughable
matter; and this visor must be pulled off
before it appears ridiculous. Hence we
See, that notions which appear most ridicu-
lous to all who consider them coolly and in-
differently, have no such appearance to
those who never thought of them but under
the impression of religious awe and dread.
Even where religion is not concerned,
the novelty of an opinion to those who are
too fond of novelties ; the gravity and
Solemnity with which it is introduced ; the
opinion we have entertained of the author;
its apparent connection with principles
already embraced, or subserviency to in-
terests which we have at heart; and, above
all, its being fixed in our minds at that time
of life when we receive implicitly what we
are taught—may cover its absurdity, and
fascinate the understanding for a time.
[569]
But, if ever we are able to view it naked,
and stripped of those adventitious circum-
stances from which it borrowed its import-
ance and authority, the natural emotion of
ridicule will exert its force. An absurdity
can be entertained by men of sense no longer
than it wears a mask. When any man is
found who has the skill or the boldness to
pull off the mask, it can no longer bear the
light ; it slinks into dark corners for a while,
and then is no more heard of, but as an ob-
ject of ridicule.
Thus I conceive, that first principles,
which are really the dictates of common
sense, and directly opposed to absurdities
in opinion, will always, from the constitu-
tion of human nature, support themselves,
and gain rather than lose ground among
mankind.
3. Thirdly, It may be observed, that, al-
though it is contrary to the nature of first
principles to admit of direct or apodictical
proof; yet there are certain ways of reason-
ing even about them, by which those that
are just and solid may be confirmed, and
those that are false may be detected. It
may here be proper to mention some of the
topics from which we may reason in matters
of this kind.
First, It is a good argument ad hominem,
if it can be shewn that a first principle
which a man rejects, stands upon the same
footing with others which he admits: for,
when this is the case, he must be guilty of
an inconsistency who holds the one and
rejects the other.
Thus the faculties of consciousness, of
memory, of external sense, and of reason,
are all equally the gifts of nature. No good
reason can be assigned for receiving the
testimony of one of them, which is not of
equal force with regard to the others. The
greatest sceptics admit the testimony of
consciousness, and allow that what it testi-
fies is to be held as a first principle. If,
therefore, they reject the immediate testi,
mony of sense or of memory, they are
guilty of an inconsistency. [570]
Secondly, A first principle may admit of
a proof ad absurdum.
In this kind of proof, which is very com-
mon in mathematics, we suppose the con-
tradictory proposition to be true. We trace
the consequences of that supposition in a
train of reasoning ; and, if we find any of
its necessary consequences to be manifestly
absurd, we conclude the supposition from
which it followed to be false ; and, there-
fore its contradictory to be true.
There is hardly any proposition, especially
of those that may claim the character of
first principles, that stands alone and un-
connected. It draws many others along
with it in a chain that cannot be broken.
He that takes it up must bear the burden
of all its consequences; and, if that is too
heavy for him to bear, he must not pretend
to take it up.
Thirdly, I conceive that the consent of
ages and nations, of the learned and un-
learned, ought to have great authority with
regard to first principles, where every man
is a competent judge.
Our ordinary conduct in life is built upon
first principles, as well as our speculations
in philosophy; and every motive to action
supposes some belief. When we find a
general agreement among men, in principles
that concern human life, this must have
great authority with every sober mind that
loves truth.
It is pleasant to observe the fruitless
pains which Bishop Berkeley takes to shew
that his system of the non-existence of a
material world did not contradict the Senti-
ments of the vulgar, but those only of the
philosophers.
With good reason he dreaded more to
oppose the authority of vulgar opinion in a
matter of this kind, than all the schools of
philosophers. [57]]
Here, perhaps, it will be said, What has
authority to do in matters of opinion ? Is
truth to be determined by most votes ? Or
is authority to be again raised out of its
grave to tyrannise over mankind 2
I am aware that, in this age, an advo-
cate for authority has a very unfavourable
plea ; but I wish to give no more to author-
ity than is its due.
Most justly do we honour the names of
[569–571]
440
[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
those benefactors to mankind who have con-
tributed more or less to break the yoke of
that authority which deprives men of the
natural, the unalienable right of judging
for themselves; but, while we indulge a
just animosity against this authority, and
against all who would subject us to its
tyranny, let us remember how common the
folly is, of going from one faulty extreme
into the opposite.
Authority, though a very tyrannical mis-
tress to private judgment, may yet, on some
occasions, be a useful handmaid. This is
all she is entitled to, and this is all I plead
in her behalf.
The justice of this plea will appear by
putting a case in a science, in which, of all
sciences, authority is acknowledged to have
least weight.
Suppose a mathematician has made a
discovery in that science which he thinks
important; that he has put his demonstra-
tion in just order ; and, after examining it
with an attentive eye, has found no flaw in
it, I would ask, Will there not be still in
his breast some diffidence, some jealousy,
lest the ardour of invention may have made
him overlook some false step 2 This must
be granted. [572]
He commits his demonstration to the ex-
amination of a mathematical friend, whom
he esteems a competent judge, and waits
with impatience the issue of his judgment.
Here I would ask again, Whether the verdict
of his friend, according as it is favourable
or unfavourable, will not greatly increase or
diminish his confidence in his own judgment?
Most certainly it will, and it ought.
If the judgment of his friend agree with
his own, especially if it be confirmed by two
or three able judges, he rests secure of his
discovery without farther examination; but,
if it be unfavourable, he is brought back
into a kind of suspense, until the part that
is suspected undergoes a new and a more
rigorous examination.
I hope what is supposed in this case is
agreeable to nature, and to the experience
of candid and modest men on such occa-
sions; yet here we see a man's judgment,
even in a mathematical demonstration, con-
scious of some feebleness in itself, seeking
the aid of authority to support it, greatly
strengthened by that authority, and hardly
able to stand erect against it, without some
new aid.
Society in judgment, of those who are
esteemed fair and competent judges, has
effects very similar to those of civil society:
it gives strength and courage to every indi-
vidual; it removes that timidity which is
as naturally the companion of solitary judg-
ment, as of a solitary man in the state of
nature. .
Let us judge for ourselves, therefore; but
let us not disdain to take that aid from the
authority of other competent judges, which
a mathematician thinks it necessary to take
in that science which, of all sciences, has
least to do with authority.
In a matter of common sense, every man
is no less a competent judge than a mathe-
matician is in a mathematical demonstra-
tion ; and there must be a great presump-
tion that the judgment of mankind, in such
a matter, is the natural issue of those facul-
ties which God hath given them. Such a .
judgment can be erroneous only when there
is some cause of the error, as general as the
error is. When this can be shewn to be the
case, I acknowledge it ought to have its due
weight. But, to suppose a general devia-
tion from truth among mankind in things
self-evident, of which no cause can be
assigned, is highly unreasonable. [573]
Perhaps it may be thought impossible
to collect the general opinion of men upon
any point whatsoever; and, therefore, that
this authority can serve us in no stead in
examining first principles. But I appre-
hend that, in many cases, this is neither
impossible nor difficult.
Who can doubt whether men have uni-
versally believed the existence of a mate-
rial world 2 Who can doubt whether men
have universally believed that every change
that happens in nature must have a cause 2
Who can doubt whether men have uni-
versally believed, that there is a right and
a wrong in human conduct; some things
that merit blame, and others that are en-
titled to approbation ?
The universality of these opinions, and
of many such that might be named, is suf-
ficiently evident, from the whole tenor of
human conduct, as far as our acquaintance.
reaches, and from the history of all ages
and nations of which we have any records.
There are other opinions that appear to
be universal, from what is common in the
structure of all languages.
Language is the express image and pic-
ture of human thoughts; and from the
picture we may draw some certain conclu-
sions concerning the original.
We find in all languages the same parts
of speech; we find nouns, substantive and
adjective; verbs, active and passive, in
their various tenses, numbers, and moods.
Some rules of syntax are the same in all
languages.
Now, what is common in the structure
of languages, indicates an uniformity of
opinion in those things upon which that
structure is grounded. [574]
The distinction between substances, and
the qualities belonging to them ; between
thought and the being that thinks; be-
tween thought and the objects of thought :
is to be found in the structure of all lan-
[572–574]
chap. v.] FIRST PRINCIPLES OF CONTINGENT TRUTHS.
44]
guages. And, therefore, systems of philo-
sophy, which abolish those distinctions, wage
war with the common sense of mankind.
We are apt to imagine that those who
formed languages were no metaphysicians;
but the first principles of all sciences are
the dictates of common sense, and lie open
to all men; and every man who has con-
sidered the structure of language in a phi-
losophical light, will find infallible proofs that
those who have framed it, and those who
use it with understanding have the power
of making accurate distinctions, and of form-
ing general conceptions, as well as philoso-
phers. Nature has given those powers to
all men, and they can use them when occa-
sions require it, but they leave it to the
philosophers to give names to them, and to
descant upon their nature. In like manner,
nature has given eyes to all men, and they
can make good use of them; but the struc-
ture of the eye, and the theory of vision, is
the business of philosophers.
Fourthly, Opinions that appear so early
in the minds of men that they cannot be
the effect of education or of false reason-
ing, have a good claim to be considered as
first principles. Thus, the belief we have,
that the persons about us are living and in-
telligent beings, is a belief for which, per-
haps, we can give some reason, when we
are able to reason; but we had this belief
before we could reason, and before we could
learn it by instruction. It seems, there-
fore, to be an immediate effect of our con-
stitution.
The last topic I shall mention is, when
an opinion is so necessary in the conduct of
life, that, without the belief of it, a man
must be led into a thousand absurdities in
practice, such an opinion, when we can
give no other reason for it, may safely be
taken for a first principle. [575]
Thus I have endeavoured to shew, that,
although first principles are not capable of
direct proof, yet differences, that may hap-
pen with regard to them among men of
candour, are not without remedy; that
Nature has not left us destitute of means
by which we may discover errors of this
kind; and that there are ways of reason-
ing, with regard to first principles, by which
those that are truly such may be distin-
guished from vulgar errors or prejudices.
CHAPTER. W.
THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF CONTINGENT
TRUTHS.
“SURELY,” says Bishop Berkeley, “it is
a work well deserving our pains to make
a strict inquiry concerning the first princi-
ples of knowledge; to sift and examine
them on all sides.” What was said in the
last chapter is intended both to shew the
importance of this inquiry, and to make it
more easy.
But, in order that such an inquiry may be
actually made, it is necessary that the first
principles of knowledge be distinguished
from other truths, and presented to view,
that they may be sifted and examined on
all sides. In order to this end, I shall
attempt a detail of those I take to be such,
and of the reasons why I think them entitled
to that character. [576]
If the enumeration should appear to some
redundant, to others deficient, and to others
both—if things which I conceive to be first
principles, should to others appear to be
vulgar errors, or to be truths which derive
their evidence from other truths, and there-
fore not first principles—in these things
every man must judge for himself. I shall
rejoice to see an enumeration more perfect
in any or in all of those respects; being
persuaded that the agreement of men of
judgment and candour in first principles
would be of no less consequence to the ad-
vancement of knowledge in general, than
the agreement of mathematicians in the
axioms of geometry has been to the ad-
vancement of that science.
The truths that fall within the compass
of human knowledge, whether they be self-
evident, or deduced from those that are
Self-evident, may be reduced to two classes.
They are either necessary and immutable
truths, whose contrary is impossible; or
they are contingent and mutable, depend-
ing upon some effect of will and power,
which had a beginning, and may have an
end.
That a cone is the third part of a cylin-
der of the same base and the same altitude,
is a necessary truth. It depends not upon
the will and power of any being. It is im-
mutably true, and the contrary impossible.
That the Sun is the centre about which the
earth, and the other planets of our system,
perform their revolutions, is a truth; but
it is not a necessary truth. It depends
upon the power and will of that Being who
made the sun and all the planets, and who
gave them those motions that seemed best
to him.
If all truths were necessary truths, there
would be no occasion for different tenses in
the verbs by which they are expressed.
What is true in the present time, would be
true in the past and future; and there
would be no change or variation of anything
in Iſature.
We use the present tense in expressing
necessary truths; but it is only because
there is no flexion of the verb which in-
cludes all times. When I say that three
is the half of six, I use the present tense
[575, 576]
442
[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
only ; but I mean to express not only what
now is, but what always was, and always will
be ; and so every proposition is to be under-
stood by which we mean to express a neces-
sary truth. Contingent truths are of an-
other nature. As they are mutable, they
may be true at one time, and not at an-
other ; and, therefore, the expression of
them must include some point or period of
time. [577]
If language had been a contrivance of
philosophers, they would probably have
given some flexion to the indicative mood
of verbs, which extended to all times past,
present, and future; for such a flexion only
would be fit to express necessary proposi-
tions, which have no relation to time. But
there is no language, as far as I know, in
which such a flexion of verbs is to be found.
Because the thoughts and discourse of men
are seldom employed about necessary truths,
but commonly about such as are contin-
,gent, languages are fitted to express the
last rather than the first.
The distinction commonly made between
abstract truths, and those that express mat-
ters of fact, or real existences, coincides in
a great measure, but not altogether, with
that between necessary and contingent
truths. The necessary truths that fall
within our knowledge are, for the most part,
abstract truths. We must except the ex-
istence and nature of the Supreme Being,
which is necessary. Other existences are
the effects of will and power. They had a
beginning, and are mutable. Their nature
is such as the Supreme Being was pleased
to give them. Their attributes and rela-
tions must depend upon the nature God has
given them, the powers with which he has
endowed them, and the situation in which
he hath placed them.
The conclusions deduced by reasoning
from first principles, will commonly be ne-
cessary or contingent, according as the
principles are from which they are drawn.
. On the one hand, I take it to be certain,
that whatever can, by just reasoning, be
inferred from a principle that is necessary,
must be a necessary truth, and that no
contingent truth can be inferred from prin-
ciples that are necessary." [578]
Thus, as the axioms in mathematics are
all necessary truths, so are all the conclu-
sions drawn from them ; that is, the whole
body of that science. But from no mathe-
matical truth can we deduce the existence
of anything; not even of the objects of the
SCleIlCe. *
On the other hand, I apprehend there
are very few cases in which we can, from
principles that are contingent, deduce truths
that are necessary. I can only recollect
one instance of this kind—namely—that,
from the existence of things contingent and
mutable, we can infer the existence of an
immutable and eternal cause of them.
As the minds of men are occupied much
more about truths that are contingent than
about those that are necessary, I shall first
endeavour to point out the principles of the
former kind.
1. First, then, I hold, as a first principle,
the existence of everything of which I am
conscious.
Consciousness is an operation of the
understanding of its own kind, and cannot
be logically defined. The objects of it are
our present pains, our pleasures, our hopes,
our fears, our desires, our doubts, our
thoughts of every kind ; in a word, all the
passions, and all the actions and operations
of our own minds, while they are present.
We may remember them when they are
past; but we are conscious of them only
while they are present.
When a man is conscious of pain, he is
certain of its existence; when he is con-
scious that he doubts or believes, he is
certain of the existence of those operations.
But the irresistible conviction he has of
the reality of those operations is not the
effect of reasoning; it is immediate and
intuitive. The existence therefore of those .
passions and operations of our minds, of
which we are conscious, is a first principle,
which nature requires us to believe upon
her authority. [579]
If I am asked to prove that I cannot be
deceived by consciousness—to prove that it
is not a fallacious sense—I can find no proof.
I cannot find any antecedent truth from
which it is deduced, or upon which its evi-
dence depends. It seems to disdain any
such derived authority, and to claim my
assent in its own right. -
If any man could be found so frantic as
to deny that he thinks, while he is conscious
of it, I may wonder, I may laugh, or I may
pity him, but I cannot reason the matter
with him. We have no common principles
from which we may reason, and therefore
can never join issue in an argument.
This, I think, is the only principle of
common sense that has never directly been
called in question." It seems to be so firmly
rooted in the minds of men, as to retain its
authority with the greatest sceptics. Mr
Hume, after annihilating body and mind,
time and space, action and causation, and
even his own mind, acknowledges the reality
of the thoughts, sensations, and passions of
which he is conscious.
* See Stewart's “ Elements," ii. p. 38.
* It could not possibly be called in question. For,
in doubting the fact of his consciousness, the sceptic
must at least affirm the fact of his doubt; but to
affirm a doubt is to affirm the consciousness of it;
the doubt would, therefore, be self-contradictory—
i. e., annihilate itself—H.
cHAP. v.] FIRST PRINCIPLES OF CONTINGENT TRUTHS.
443
No philosopher has attempted, by any
hypothesis, to account for this consciousness
of our own thoughts, and the certain know-
ledge of their real existence which accom-
panies it. By this they seem to acknow-
ledge that this at least is an original power
of the mind; a power by which we not only
have ideas, but original judgments, and the
knowledge of real existence.
I cannot reconcile this immediate know-
ledge of the operations of our own minds
with Mr Locke's theory, that all know-
ledge consists in perceiving the agreement
and disagreement of ideas. What are the
ideas, from whose comparison the knowledge
of our own thoughts results 2 Or what are
the agreements or disagreements which con-
Vince a man that he is in pain when he
feels it 2 [580]
Neither can I reconcile it with Mr Hume's
theory, that to believe the existence of any-
thing, is nothing else than to have a strong
and lively conception of it; or, at most,
that belief is only some modification of the
idea which is the object of belief. For, not
to mention that propositions, not ideas, are
the object of belief, in all that variety of
thoughts and passions of which we are con-
scious we believe the existence of the weak
as well as of the strong, the faint as well as
the lively. No modification of the opera-
tions of our minds disposes us to the least
doubt of their real existence.
As, therefore, the real existence of our
thoughts, and of all the operations and feel-
ings of our own minds, is believed by all
men—as we find ourselves incapable of
doubting it, and as incapable of offering any
proof of it—it may justly be considered as a
first principle, or dictate of common sense.
But, although this principle rests upon
no other, a very considerable and import-
ant branch of human knowledge rests upon
it.
For from this source of consciousness is
derived all that we know, and indeed all
that we can know, of the structure and of
the powers of our own minds; from which
we may conclude, that there is no branch
of knowledge that stands upon a firmer
foundation ; for surely no kind of evidence
can go beyond that of consciousness.
How does it come to pass, then, that in
this branch of knowledge there are so many
and so contrary systems ? So many subtile
controversies that are never brought to an
issue 2 and so little fixed and determined ?
Is it possible that philosophers should differ
most where they have the surest means of
agreement—where everything is built upon
a species of evidence which all men ac-
hº in, and hold to be the most certain P
581
#. strange phaenomenon may, I think,
be accounted for, if we distinguish between
consciousness and reflection, which are often
improperly confounded.”
The first is common to all men at all
times ; but is insufficient of itself to give us
clear and distinct notions of the opera-
tions of which we are conscious, and of
their mutual relations and minute distinc-
tions. The second—to wit, attentive reflec-
tion upon those operations, making them
objects of thought, surveying them atten-
tively, and examining them on all sides—is
So far from being common to all men, that it
is the lot of very few. The greatest part
of men, either through want of capacity, or
from other causes, never reflect attentively
upon the operations of their own minds.
The habit of this reflection, even in those
whom nature has fitted for it, is not to be at-
tained without much pains and practice.
We can know nothing of the immediate
objects of sight, but by the testimony of our
eyes; and I apprehend that, if mankind
had found as great difficulty in giving at-
tention to the objects of sight, as they find
in attentive reflection upon the operations
of their own minds, our knowledge of the
first might have been in as backward a state
as our knowledge of the last.
But this darkness will not last for ever.
Light will arise upon this benighted part of
the intellectual globe. When any man is
So happy as to delineate the powers of the
human mind as they really are in nature,
men that are free from prejudice, and cap-
able of reflection, will recognise their own
features in the picture; and then the wonder
will be, how things so obvious could be so
long wrapped up in mystery and darkness;
how men could be carried away by false
theories and conjectures, when the truth
was to be found in their own breasts if they
had but attended to it.
2. Another first principle, I think, is,
That the thoughts of which I am conscious,
are the thoughts of a being which I call
MYSELF, my MIND, my PERSON. [582]
The thoughts and feelings of which we are
conscious are continually changing, and the
thought of this moment is not the thought
of the last ; but something which I call my-
self, remains under this change of thought.
This self has the same relation to all the
successive thoughts I am conscious of they
are all my thoughts; and every thought
which is not my thought, must be the
thought of some other person.
If any-man asks a proof of this, I confess
I can give none; there is an evidence in the
proposition itself which I am unable to re-
sist. Shall I think that thought can stand
by itself without a thinking being 2 or that
ideas can feel pleasure or pain P My nature
dictates to me that it is impossible.
+ Compare above, pp. 239, b, 258, a.-H.
[580–582]
444
[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
And that nature has dictated the same to
all men, appears from the structure of all
languages : for in all languages men have
expressed thinking, reasoning, willing, lov-
ing, hating, by personal verbs, which, from
their nature, require a person who thinks,
reasons, wills, loves, or hates. From which
it appears, that men have been taught by
nature to believe that thought requires a
thinker, reason a reasoner, and love a lover.
Here we must leave Mr Hume, who con-
ceives it to be a vulgar error, that, besides
the thoughts we are conscious of, there is a
mind which is the subject of those thoughts.
If the mind be anything else than impres-
sions and ideas, it must be a word without
a meaning. The mind, therefore, accord-
ing to this philosopher, is a word which
signifies a bundle of perceptions; or, when
he defines it more accurately—“It is that
succession of related ideas and impressions,
of which we have an intimate memory and
consciousness.”
I am, therefore, that succession of related
ideas and impressions of which I have the
intimate memory and consciousness.
But who is the I that has this memory
and consciousness of a succession of ideas
and impressions? Why, it is nothing but
that succession itself. [583]
Hence, I learn, that this succession of
ideas and impressions intimately remembers,
and is conscious of itself. I would wish to
be farther instructed, whether the impres-
sions remember and are conscious of the
ideas, or the ideas remember and are con-
scious of the impressions, or if both remem-
ber and are conscious of both 2 and whether
the ideas remember those that come after
them, as well as those that were before them?
These are questions naturally arising from
this system, that have not yet been explained.
This, however, is clear, that this succes-
sion of ideas and impressions, not only re-
members and is conscious, but that it judges,
reasons, affirms, denies—nay, that it eats
and drinks, and is sometimes merry and
Sometimes sad.
If these things can be ascribed to a suc-
cession of ideas and impressions, in a con-
sistency with common sense, I should be
very glad to know what is nonsense.
The scholastic philosophers have been
wittily ridiculed, by representing them as
disputing upon this question—Numchimaera
bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secun-
das intentiones 2 and I believe the wit of
man cannot invent a more ridiculous ques-
tion. But, if Mr Hume's philosophy be
admitted, this question deserves to be
treated more gravely : for if, as we learn
from this philosophy, a succession of ideas
and impressions may eat, and drink, and
be merry, I see no good reason why a
chimera, which, if not the same, is of kin to
an idea, may not chew the cud upon that
kind of food which the schoolmen call second
intentions.”
3. Another first principle I take to be—
That, those things did really happen which I
distinctly remember. [584]
This has one of the surest marks of a first
principle ; for no man ever pretended to
prove it, and yet no man in his wits calls it
in question : the testimony of memory, like
that of consciousness, is immediate ; it
claims our assent upon its own authority.-f
Suppose that a learned counsel, in defence
of a client against the concurring testimony
of witnesses of credit, should insist upon a
new topic to invalidate the testimony.
“Admitting,” says he, “the integrity of
the witnesses, and that they distinctly re-
member what they have given in evidence—
it does not follow that the prisoner is guilty.
It has never been proved that the most
distinct memory may not be fallacious.
Shew me any necessary connection between
that act of the mind which we call memory,
and the past existence of the event remem-
bered. No man has ever offered a shadow
of argument to prove such a connection ;
yet this is one link of the chain of proof
against the prisoner ; and, if it have no
strength, the whole proof falls to the ground:
until this, therefore, be made evident—until
it can be proved that we may safely rest
upon the testimony of memory for the truth
of past events—no judge or jury can justly
take away the life of a citizen upon so
doubtful a point.”
I believe we may take it for granted, that
this argument from a learned counsel would
have no other effect upon the judge or jury,
than to convince them that he was dis-
ordered in his judgment. Counsel is allowed
to plead everything for a client that is fit to
persuade or to move ; yet I believe no
counsel ever had the boldness to plead this
topic. And for what reason 2 For no other
reason, Surely, but because it is absurd.
Now, what is absurd at the bar, is so in the
philosopher's chair. What would be ridi-
culous, if delivered to a jury of honest sen-
sible citizens, is no less so when delivered
gravely in a philosophical dissertation.
Mr Hume has not, as far as I remember,
directly called in question the testimony of
* All this criticism of Hume proceeds upon the
erroneous hypothesis that he was a Dogmatist. He
was a Sceptic—that is, he accepted the principles as-
serted by the prevalent Dogmatism; and only shewed
that such and such conclusions were, on these ‘prin-
ciples, inevitable. The absurdity was not Hume's, but
Locke's. This is the kind of criticism, however,
with which Hume is generally assailed.—H.
+ The datum of Memory does not stand upon...the
same ground as the datum of simple Consciousness.
In so far as memory, is consciousness, it cannot be
denied We cannot, without contradiction, deny the
fact of memory as a present consciousness; but we
may, without contradiction, suppose that the past
given therein, is only an illusion of the present.— F).
[583, 584]
chap. v.] FIRST PRINCIPLES OF CONTINGENT TRUTHS.
445
memory; but he has laid down the premises
by which its authority is overturned, leav-
ing it to his reader to draw the conclu-
sión. [585]
He labours to shew that the belief or
assent which always attends the memory
and senses is nothing but the vivacity of
those perceptions which they present. He
shews very clearly, that this vivacity gives
no ground to believe the existence of ex-
ternal objects. And it is obvious that it
can give as little ground to believe the past
existence of the objects of memory.
Indeed the theory concerning ideas, so
generally received by philosophers, destroys
all the authority of memory, as well as the
authority of the senses. Des Cartes, Ma-
lebranche, and Locke, were aware that this
theory made it necessary for them to find
out arguments to prove the existence of ex-
ternal objects, which the vulgar believe
upon the bare authority of their senses;
but those philosophers were not aware that
this theory made it equally necessary for
them to find arguments to prove the exist-
ence of things past, which we remember,
and to support the authority of memory.
All the arguments they advanced to Sup-
port the authority of our senses, were easily
refuted by Bishop Berkeley and Mr Hume,
being indeed very weak and inconclusive.
And it would have been as, easy to answer
every argument they could have brought,
consistent with their theory, to support the
authority of memory.
For, according to that theory, the im-
mediate object of memory, as well as of
every other operation of the understanding,
is an idea present in the mind. And, from
the present existence of this idea of me-
mory I am left to infer, by reasoning, that,
six months or six years ago, there did ex-
ist an object similar to, this idea. [586]
But what is there in the idea that can
lead me to this conclusion ? What mark
does it bear of the date of its archetype 2
Or what evidence have I that it had an
archetype, and that it is not the first of its
kind 2
Perhaps it will be said, that this idea or
image in the mind must have had a cause.
I admit that, if there is such an image in
the mind, it must have had a cause, and a
cause able to produce the effect; but what
can we infer from its having a cause ? Does
it follow that the effect is a type, an image,
a copy of its cause 2 Then it will follow,
that a picture is an image of the painter,
and a coach of the coachmaker.
A past event may be known by reasoning;
but that is not remembering it. When I
remember a thing distinctly, I disdain
equally to hear reasons for it or against it.
And so I think does every man in his
SeſlSCS,
4. Another first principle is, Our own per-
sonal identity and continued caristence, as
far back as we remember anything distinctly.
This we know immediately, and not
by reasoning. It seems, indeed, to be a
part of the testimony of memory. Every-
thing we remember has such a relation to
ourselves as to imply necessarily our ex-
istence at the time remembered. And
there cannot be a more palpable absurdity
than that a man should remember what
happened before he existed. He must
therefore have existed as far back as he re-
members anything distinctly, if his memory
be not fallacious. This principle, there-
fore, is so connected with the last mention-
ed, that it may be doubtful whether both
ought not to be included in one. Let
every one judge of this as he sees reason.
The proper notion of identity, and the sen-
timents of Mr Locke on this subject, have
been considered before, under the head of
Memory. [587]
5. Another first principle is, That those
things do really earnst which we distinctly
perceive by our senses, and are what we
perceive them to be.
It is too evident to need proof, that all
men are by nature led to give implicit faith
to the distinct testimony of their senses,
long before they are capable of any bias
from prejudices of education or of philo-
Sophy.
How came we at first to know that there
are certain beings about us whom we call
father, and mother, and sisters, and bro-
thers, and nurse ? Was it not by the
testimony of our senses 2 How did these
persons convey to us any information or
instruction ? Was it not by means of our
Senses 2
It is evident we can have no communi-
cation, no correspondence or society with
any created being, but by means of our
senses. And, until we rely upon their testi-
mony, we must consider ourselves as being
alone in the universe, without any fellow-
creature, living or inanimate, and be left to
converse with our own thoughts.
Bishop Berkeley surely did not duly con-
sider that it is by means of the material
world that we have any correspondence
with thinking beings, or any knowledge of
their existence; and that, by depriving us
of the material world, he deprived us, at
the same time, of family, friends, country,
and every human creature; of every object
of affection, esteem, or concern, except our-
selves.
The good Bishop surely never intended
this. He was too warm a friend, too zeal-
ous a patriot, and too good a Christian, to
be capable of such a thought. He was not
aware of the consequences of his system,
and therefore they ought not to be imputed
[585–587]
446
[Essay v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
to him ; but we must impute them to the
system itself. It stifles every generous and
social principle. [588]
When I consider myself as speaking to
men who hear me, and can judge of what
I say, I feel that respect which is due to
such an audience. I feel an enjoyment in
a reciprocal communication of sentiments
with candid and ingenious friends; and my
soul blesses the Author of my being, who
has made me capable of this manly and
rational entertainment.
But the Bishop shews me, that this is
all a dream ; that I see not a human face ;
that all the objects I see, and hear, and
handle, are only the ideas of my own mind;
ideas are my only companions. Cold com-
pany, indeed! Every social affection freezes
at the thought ! -
But, my Lord Bishop, are there no minds
left in the universe but my own 2
Yes, indeed; it is only the material
world that is annihilated; everything else
remains as it was.
This seems to promise some comfort in
my forlorn solitude. But do I see those
minds 2 No. Do I see their ideas P No.
Nor do they see me or my ideas. They
are, then, no more to me than the inhabit-
ants of Solomon’s isles, or of the moon ;
and my melancholy solitude returns. Every
social tie is broken, and every social affec-
tion is stifled. tº
This dismal system, which, if it could be
believed, would deprive men of every social
comfort, a very good Bishop, by strict and
accurate reasoning, deduced from the prin-
ciples commonly received by philosophers
concerning ideas. The fault is not in the
reasoning, but in the principles from which
it is drawn.
All the arguments urged by Berkeley and
Hume, against the existence of a material
world, are grounded upon this principle—
that we do not perceive external objects
themselves, but certain images or ideas in
our own minds." But this is no dictate of
common sense, but directly contrary to the
sense of all who have not been taught it by
philosophy. [589]
We have before examined the reasons
given by philosophers to prove that ideas,
and not external objects, are the immediate
objects of perception, and the instances
given to prove the senses fallacious. With-
out repeating what has before been said
upon those points, we shall only here ob-
serve, that, if external objects be perceived
immediately, we have the same reason to
...* Idealism, as already noticed, rests equally well,
if not better, on the hypothesis that what we perceive
(9r are conscious of in perception) is only a modifica-
tion of mind, as on the hypothesis that, in perception,
We are conscious of a representative, entity distinct
from mind as from the external reality.—H.
believe their existence as philosophers have
to believe the existence of ideas, while they
hold them to be the immediate objects of
perception.*
6. Another first principle, I think, is,
That we have some degree of power over
our actions, and the determinations of our
will. .
All power must be derived from the
fountain of power, and of every good gift.
Upon His good pleasure its continuance de-
pends, and it is always subject to his con-
trol.
Beings to whom God has given any de-
gree of power, and understanding to direct
them to the proper use of it, must be ac-
countable to their Maker. But those who
are intrusted with no power can have no
account to make ; for all good conduct con-
sists in the right use of power; all bad
conduct in the abuse of it.
To call to account a being who never was
intrusted with any degree of power, is an
absurdity no less than it would be to call
to account an inanimate being. We are
sure, therefore, if we have any account to
make to the Author of our being, that we
must have some degree of power, which,
as far as it is properly used, entitles us to
his approbation ; and, when abused, renders
us obnoxious to his displeasure. [590]
It is not easy to say in what way we first
get the notion or idea of power. It is
neither an object of sense nor of conscious-
ness. We see events, one succeeding an-
other; but we see not the power by which
they are produced. We are conscious of
the operations of our minds; but power is
not an operation of mind. If we had no
notions but such as are furnished by the
external senses, and by consciousness, it
seems to be impossible that we should ever
have any conception of power. Accord-
ingly, Mr Hume, who has reasoned the
most accurately upon this hypothesis, denies
that we have any idea of power, and clearly
refutes the account given by Mr Locke of
the origin of this idea.
But it is in vain to reason from a hypo-
thesis against a fact, the truth of which
every man may see by attending to his own
thoughts. It is evident that all men, very
early in life, not only have an idea of power,
but a conviction that they have some de-
gree of it in themselves; for this conviction
is necessarily implied in many operations
of mind, which are familiar to every man,
and without which no man can act the part
of a reasonable being.
First, It is implied in every act of voli-
tion. “Wolition, it is plain,” says Mr
Locke, “ is an act of the mind, knowingly
* Philosophers admitted that we are conscious of
these: does Reid admit this of external objects?—H.
[588–590]
chap. v.] FIRST PRINCIPLES OF
CONTINGENT TRUTHS. 447
exerting that dominion which it takes itself
to have over any part of the man, by em-
ploying it in, or withholding it from any
particular action.” Every volition, there-
fore, implies a conviction of power to do the
action willed. A man may desire to make
a visit to the moon, or to the planet Jupi-
ter; but nothing but insanity could make
him will to do so. And, if even insanity
produced this effect, it must be by making
him think it to be in his power.
Secondly, This conviction is implied in
all deliberation ; for no man in his wits de-
liberates whether he shall do what he be-
lieves not to be in his power. Thirdly,
The same conviction is implied in every
resolution or purpose formed in consequence
of deliberation. A man may as well form
a resolution to pull the moon out of her
sphere, as to do the most insignificant action
which he believes not to be in his power.
The same thing may be said of every pro-
mise or contract wherein a man plights his
faith; for he is not an honest man who
promises what he does not believe he has
power to perform. [591]
As these operations imply a belief of
some degree of power in ourselves; so there
are others equally common and familiar,
which imply a like belief with regard to
others.
When we impute to a man any action or
omission, as a ground of approbation or of
blame, we must believe he had power to do
otherwise. The same is implied in all
advice, exhortation, command, and rebuke,
and in every case in which we rely upon his
fidelity in performing any engagement or
executing any trust.
It is not more evident that mankind have
a conviction of the existence of a material
world, than that they have the conviction
of some degree of power in themselves and
in others; every one over his own actions,
and the determinations of his will—a con-
viction so early, so general, and so inter-
woven with the whole of human conduct,
that it must be the natural effect of our
constitution, and intended by the Author of
our being to guide our actions.
It resembles our conviction of the ex-
istence of a material world in this respect
also, that even those who reject it in specu-
lation, find themselves under a necessity of
being governed by it in their practice; and
thus it will always happen when philosophy
contradicts first principles.
7. Another first principle is—That the
natural facullies, by which we distinguish
truth from error, are not fallacious. If any
man should demand a proof of this, it is
impossible to satisfy him. For, suppose it
should be mathematically demonstrated,
this would signify nothing in this case ;
because, to judge of a demonstration, a man
must trust his faculties, and take for granted
the very thing in question. [592]
If a man’s honesty were called in ques-
tion, it would be ridiculous to refer it to the
man's own word, whether he be honest or
not. The same absurdity there is in at-
tempting to prove, by any kind of reasoning,
probable or demonstrative, that our reason
is not fallacious, since the very point in
question is, whether reasoning may be
trusted.
If a sceptic should build his scepticism.
upon this foundation, that all our reasoning
and judging powers are fallacious in their
nature, or should resolve at least to with-
hold assent until it be proved that they are
not, it would be impossible by argument
to beat him out of this stronghold; and he
must even be left to enjoy his scepticism.
Des Cartes certainly made a false step in
this matter, for having suggested this doubt
among others—that whatever evidence he
might have from his consciousness, his
senses, his memory, or his reason, yet
possibly some malignant being had given
him those faculties on purpose to impose
upon him; and, therefore, that they are not
to be trusted without a proper voucher.
To remove this doubt, he endeavours to
prove the being of a Deity who is no de-
ceiver; whence he concludes, that the facul-
ties he had given him are true and worthy
to be trusted.
It is strange that so acute a reasoner did
not perceive that in this reasoning there is
evidently a begging of the question.
For, if our faculties be fallacious, why
may they not deceive us in this reasoning as
well as in others ? And, if they are not to
be trusted in this instance without a voucher,
why not in others ? [593] *
Every kind of reasoning for the veracity
of our faculties, amounts to no more than
taking their own testimony for their vera-
city; and this we must do implicitly, until
God give us new faculties to sit in judg-
ment upon the old ; and the reason why
Des Cartes satisfied himself with so weak
an argument for the truth of his faculties,
most probably was, that he never seriously
doubted of it.
If any truth can be said to be prior to all
others in the order of nature, this seems
to have the best claim.; because, in every
instance of assent, whether upon intuitive,
demonstrative, or probable evidence, the
truth of our faculties is taken for granted,
and is, as it were, one of the premises on
which our assent is grounded."
How then come we to be assured of this
+ There is a presumption in favour of the veracity
of the primary data of consciousness. This can only
be rebutted by shewing that these facts are contradic-
tory. Scepticism attempts to shew this on the prin-
ciples which Dogmatism postulates.—H.
[591-593]
(148
LESSAY VI.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
fundamental truth on which all others rest ?
Perhaps evidence, as in many other respects
it resembles light, so in this also—that, as
light, which is the discoverer of all visible
objects, discovers itself at the same time,
so evidence, which is the voucher for all
truth, vouches for itself at the same time.
This, however, is certain, that such is
the constitution of the human mind, that
evidence discerned by us, forces a corre-
sponding degree of assent. , And a man
who perfectly understood a just syllogism,
without believing that the conclusion follows
from the premises, would be a greater mon-
ster than a man born without hands or
feet.
We are born under a necessity of trust-
ing to our reasoning and judging powers;
and a real belief of their being fallacious
cannot be maintained for any considerable
time by the greatest sceptic, because it is
doing violence to our constitution. It is
like a man’s walking upon his hands, a feat
which some men upon occasion can exhibit;
but no man ever made a long journey in
this manner. Cease to admire his dexte-
rity, and he will, like other men, betake
himself to his legs. [594]
We may here take notice of a property
of the principle under consideration, that
seems to be common to it with many other
first principles, and which can hardly be
found in any principle that is built solely
upon reasoning ; and that is, that in most
men it produces its effect without ever being
attended to, or made an object of thought.
No man ever thinks of this principle, unless
when he considersthe grounds of scepticism;
yet it invariably governs his opinions.
when a man in the common course of
life gives credit to the testimony of his
senses, his memory, or his reason, he does
not put the question to himself, whether
these faculties may deceive him ; yet the
trust he reposes in them supposes an inward
conviction, that, in that instance at least,
they do not deceive him.
It is another property of this and of many
first principles, that they force assentin par-
ticular instances, more powerfully than
when they are turned into a general propo-
sition. Many sceptics have denied every
general principle of science, excepting per-
haps the existence of our present thoughts;
yet these men reason, and refute, and prove,
they assent and dissent in particular cases.
They use reasoning to overturn all reason-
ing, and judge that they ought to have no
judgment, and see clearly that they are
blind. Many have in general maintained
that the senses are fallacious, yet there
never was found a man so sceptical as not
to trust his senses in particular instances
when his safety required it; and it may be
observed of those who have professed scep-
ticism, that their scepticism lies in generals,
while in particulars they are no less dog-
matical than others.
8. Another first principle relating to ex-
istence, is, That there is life and intelligence
in our fellow-men with whom we converse.
As soon as children are capable of asking
a question, or of answering a question, as
soon as they shew the signs of love, of re-
sentment, or of any other affection, they
must be convinced that those with whom
they have this intercourse are intelligent
beings. [595] .*
It is evident they are capable of such in-
tercourse long before they can reason.
Every one knows that there is a social in-
tercourse between the nurse and the child
before it is a year old. It can, at that age,
understand many things that are said to it.
It can by signs ask and refuse, threaten
and supplicate. It clings to its nurse in
danger, enters into her grief and joy, is hap-
py in her soothing and caresses, and un-
happy in her displeasure. That these
things cannot be without a conviction in
the child that the nurse is an intelligent
being, I think must be granted.
Now, I would ask how a child of a year
old comes by this conviction ? Not by rea-
Soning Surely, for children do not reason at
that age. Nor is it by external senses, for
life and intelligence are not objects of the
external senses.
By what means, or upon what occasions,
Nature first gives this information to the
infant mind, is not easy to determine. We
are not capable of reflecting upon our own
thoughts at that period of life; and before
we attain this capacity, we have quite for-
got how or on what occasion we first had
this belief; we perceive it in those who are
born blind, and in others who are born
deaf; and therefore Nature has not con-
nected it solely either with any object of
sight, or with any object of hearing. When
We grow up to the years of reason and re-
flection, this belief remains. No man thinks
of asking himself what reason he has to be-
lieve that his neighbour is a living creature.
He would be not a little surprised iſ another
person should ask him so absurd a ques-
tion ; and perhaps could not give any rea-
son which would not equally prove a watch
or a puppet to be a living creature.
But, though you should satisfy him of the
weakness of the reasons he gives for his be-
lief, you cannot make him in the least
doubtful. This belief stands upon another
foundation than that of reasoning ; and
therefore, whether a man can give good
reasons for it or not, it is not in his power
to shake it off. [596]
Setting aside this natural conviction, I
believe the best reason we can give, to
prove that other men are living and intelli-
[594–596]
chap. v.] FIRST PRINCIPLES OF CONTINGENT TRUTHS.
449
gent, is, that their words and actions indi-
cate like powers of understanding as we
are conscious of in ourselves. The very
same argument applied to the works of na-
ture, leads us to conclude that there is an
intelligent Author of nature, and appears
equally strong and obvious in the last case
as in the first ; so that it may be doubted
whether men, by the mere exercise of rea-
soning, might not as soon discover the ex-
istence of a Deity, as that other men have
life and intelligence.
The knowledge of the last is absolutely
necessary to our receiving any improve-
ment by means of instruction and example;
and, without these means of improvement,
there is no ground to think that we should
ever be able to acquire the use of our rea-
soning powers. This knowledge, therefore,
must be antecedent to reasoning, and there-
fore must be a first principle.
It cannot be said that the judgments we
form concerning life and intelligence in
other beings are at first free from error.
But the errors of children in this matter
lie on the safe side; they are prone to at-
tribute intelligence to things inanimate.
These errors are of Small consequence, and
are gradually corrected by experience and
ripe judgment. But the belief of life and
intelligence in other men, is absolutely ne-
cessary for us before we are capable of
reasoning ; and therefore the Author of
our being hath given us this belief antece-
dently to all reasoning.
9. Another first principle I take to be,
That:certain features of the countenance,
sounds of the voice, and gestures of the body,
indicate certain thoughts and dispositions of
mind. [597]
That many operations of the mind have
their natural signs in the countenance, voice,
and gesture, I suppose every man will ad-
mit. Omnis enim motus animi, says Cicero,
suum quemdam habet a natura vultum, et
vocem et, gestum. The only question is,
whether we understand the signification of
those signs, by the constitution of our na-
ture, by a kind of natural perception simi-
lar to the perceptions of sense; or whether
we gradually learn the signification of such
signs from experience, as we learn that
smoke is a sign of fire, or that the freezing
of water is a sign of cold 2 I take the first
to be the truth.
It seems to me incredible, that the no-
tions men have of the expression of features,
voice, and gesture, are entirely the fruit of
experience. Children, almost assoon as born,
may be frighted, and thrown into fits by a
threatening or angry tone of voice. I knew
a man who could make an infant cry, by
whistling a melancholy tune in the same
or in the next room ; and again, by alter-
ing his key, and the strain of his music,
could make the child leap and dance for
Joy., . e
It is not by experience surely that we
learn the expression of music ; for its opera-
tion is commonly strongest the first time we
hear it: One air expresses mirth and festi-
vity—so that, when we hear it, it is with
difficulty we can forbear to dance; another
is sorrowful and solemn. One inspires with
tenderness and love; another with rage and
fury.
** Hear how Timotheus varied lays surprise,
And bid alternate passions fall and rise;
While at each change, the son of Lybian Jove
Now burns with glory, and then melts with love.
Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow,
Now sighs steak, out, and tears begin to flow.
Persians and Greeks, like turns of Nature, found,
And the world’s victor stood subdu’d by sound.”
It is not necessary that a man have studied
either music or the passions, in order to his
feeling these effects. The most ignorant
and unimproved, to whom Nature has given
a good ear, feel them as strongly as the
most knowing. [598]
The countenance and gesture have an
expression no less strong and natural than
the voice. The first time one sees a stern
and fierce look, a contracted brow, and a
menacing posture, he concludes that the
person is inflamed with anger. Shall we
say, that, previous to experience, the most
hostile countenance has as agreeable an
appearance as the most gentle and benign 2
This surely would contradict all experience;
for we know that an angry countenance
will fright a child in the cradle. Who has
not observed that children, very early, are
able to distinguish what is said to them in
jest from what is said in earnest, by the
tone of the voice, and the features of the
face 2 They judge by these natural signs,
even when they seem to contradict the arti-
ficial.
If it were by experience that we learn
the meaning of features, and sound, and
gesture, it might be expected that we should
recollect the time when we first learned
those lessons, or, at least, some of such a
multitude.
Those who give attention to the opera-
tions of children, can easily discover the
time when they have their earliest notices
from experience—such as that flame will
burn, or that knives will cut. But no
man is able to recollect in himself, or to
observe in others, the time when the expres-
sion of the face, voice, and gesture, were
learned.
Nay, I apprehend that it is impossible
that this should be learned from experi-
€0C6,
When we see the sign, and see the thing
signified always conjoined with it, expe-
rience may be the instructor, and teach us
how that sign is to be interpreted. But
[597, 598]
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[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS. –
how shall experience instruct us when we
see the sign only, when the thing signified
is invisible 2 Now, this is the case here :
the thoughts and passions of the mind, as
well as the mind itself, are invisible, and
therefore their connection with any sensible
sign cannot be first discovered by expe-
perience; there must be some earlier source
of this knowledge. [599] .
Nature seems to have given to men a
faculty or sense, by which this connection
is perceived. And the operation of this
sense is very analogous to that of the ex-
ternal senses. -
When I grasp an ivory ball in my hand,
I feel a certain sensation of touch. In the
sensation there is nothing external, nothing
corporeal. The sensation is neither round
nor hard; it is an act of feeling of the
mind, from which I cannot, by reasoning,
infer the existence of any body. But, by
the constitution of my nature, the sensation
carries along with it the conception and be-
lief of a round hard body really existing in
my hand.
In like manner, when I see the features
of an expressive face, I see only figure and
colour variously modified. But, by the
constitution of my nature, the visible ob-
ject brings along with it the conception
and belief of a certain passion or sentiment
in the mind of the person.
In the former case, a sensation of touch
is the sign, and the hardness and roundness
of the body I grasp is signified by that sen-
sation. In the latter case, the features of
the person is the sign, and the passion or
sentiment is signified by it.
The power of natural signs, to signify
the sentiments and passions of the mind, is
seen in the signs of dumb persons, who can
make themselves to be understood in a con-
siderable degree, even by those who are
wholly inexperienced in that language.
It is seen in the traffic which has been fre-
quently carried on between people that have
no common acquired language. They can
buy and sell, and ask and refuse, and shew a
friendly or hostile disposition by natural
signs. [600]
It was seen still more in the actors
among the ancients who performed the
gesticulation upon the stage, while others
recited the words. To such a pitch was
this art carried, that we are told Cicero
and Roscius used to contend whether the
orator could express anything by words,
which the actor could not express in dumb
show by gesticulation; and whether the
same sentence or thought could not be act-
ed in all the variety of ways in which the
orator could express it in words.
But the most surprising exhibition of
this kind, was that of the pantomimes
among the Romans, who acted plays, or
doing so.
scenes of plays, without any recitation, and
yet could be perfectly understood. .
And here it deserves our notice, that, al-
though it required much study and practice
in the pantomimes to excel in their art,
yet it required neither study nor practice in
the spectators to understand them. It was
a natural language, and therefore under-
stood by all men, whether Romans, Greeks,
or barbarians, by the learned and the un-
learned.
Lucian relates, that a king, whose domi-
nions bordered upon the Euxine Sea, hap-
pening to be at Rome in the reign of Nero,
and having seen a pantomime act, begged
him of Nero, that he might use him in his
intercourse with all the nations in his
neighbourhood; for, said he, I am obliged
to employ I don’t know how many inter-
preters, in order to keep a correspondence
with neighbours who speak many languages,
and do not understand mine; but this fel-
low will make them all understand him.
For these reasons, I conceive, it must be
granted, not only that there is a connection
established by Nature between certain signs
in the countenance, voice, and gesture, and
the thoughts and passions of the mind; but
also, that, by our constitution, we under-
stand the meaning of those signs, and from
the sign conclude the existence of the thing
signified. [601]
10. Another first principle appears to
me to be—That there is a certain regard
due to human testimony in matters of fact,
and cwent to human authority in matters of
opinion.
Before we are capable of reasoning about
testimony or authority, there are many
things which it concerns us to know, for
which we can have no other evidence. The
wise Author of nature hath planted in the
human mind a propensity to rely upon this
evidence before we can give a reason for
This, indeed, puts our judgment
almost entirely in the power of those who
are about us in the first period of life; but
this is necessary both to our preservation
and to our improvement. If children were
so framed as to pay no regard to testimony
or to authority, they must, in the literal
sense, perish for lack of knowledge. It is
not more necessary that they should be fed
before they can feed themselves, than that
they should be instructed in many things
before they can discover them by their own
judgment.
But, when our faculties ripen, we find
reason to check that propensity to yield to
testimony and to authority, which was so
necessary and so natural in the first period
of life. We learn to reason about the re-
gard due to them, and see it to be a childish
weakness to lay more stress upon them than
than reason justifies. Yet, I believe, to
[599–601||
caap. v.] FIRST PRINCIPLES OF
CONTINGENT TRUTHS. 45ſ
the end of life, most men are more apt to go
into this extreme than into the contrary;
and the natural propensity still retains some
force.
The natural principles, by which our
judgments and opinions are regulated before
we come to the use of reason, seem to be no
less necessary to such a being as man, than
those natural instincts which the Author of
nature hath given us to regulate our actions
during that period. [602]
11. There are many events depending
upon the will of man, in which there is a
self-evident probability, greater or less, ac-
cording to circumstances.
There may be in some individuals such a
degree of frenzy and madness, that no
man can say what they may or may not do.
Such persons we find it necessary to put
under restraint, that as far as possible they
may be kept from doing harm to themselves
or to others. They are not considered as
reasonable creatures, or members of Society.
But, as to men who have a sound mind, we
depend upon a certain degree of regularity
in their conduct; and could put a thousand
different cases, wherein we could venture,
ten to one, that they will act in Such a way,
and not in the contrary.
If we had no confidence in our fellow-men
that they will act such a part in such cir-
cumstances, it would be impossible to live
in society with them. For that which
makes men capable of living in Society, and
uniting in a political body under government,
is, that their actions will always be regu-
lated, in a great measure, by the common
principles of human nature.
It may always be expected that they
will regard their own interest and reputa-
tion, and that of their families and friends;
that they will repel injuries, and have some
sense of good offices; and that they will
have some regard to truth and justice, so
far at least as not to swerve from them
without temptation.
It is upon such principles as these, that
all political reasoning is grounded. Such
reasoning is never demonstrative ; but it
may have a very great degree of probability,
especially when applied to great bodies of
men. [603]
12. The last principle of contingent truths.
I mention is, That, in the phaenomena of
nature, what is to be, will probably be like
to what has been in similar circumstances.”
We must have this conviction as soon as
we are capable of learning anything from
experience; for all experience is grounded
upon a belief that the future will be like
the past. Take away this principle, and
the experience of an hundred years makes
us no wiser with regard to what is to
COLT162,
This is one of those principles which,
when we grow up and observe the course of
nature, we can confirm by reasoning. We
perceive that Nature is governed by fixed
laws, and that, if it were not so, there could
be no such thing as prudence in human
conduct ; there would be no fitness in any
means to promote an end ; and what, on
one occasion, promoted it, might as pro-
bably, on another occasion, obstruct it.
But the principle is necessary for us be-
fore we are able to discover it by reasoning,
and therefore is made a part of our consti-
tution, and produces its effects before the
use of reason.
This principle remains in all its force
when we come to the use of reason; but
we learn to be more cautious in the appli-
cation of it. We observe more carefully
the circumstances on which the past event
depended, and learn to distinguish them
from those which were accidentally con-
joined with it.
In order to this, a number of experi-
ments, varied in their circumstances, is
often necessary. Sometimes a single ex-
periment is thought sufficient to establish a
general conclusion. Thus, when it was
once found, that, in a certain degree of cold,
quicksilver became a hard and malleable
metal, there was good reason to think that
the same degree of cold will always produce
this effect to the end of the world. [604]
I need hardly mention, that the whole
fabric of natural philosophy is built upon
this principle, and, if it be taken away,
must tumble down to the foundation.
Therefore the great Newton lays it down
as an axiom, or as one of his laws of philo-
Sophising, in these words, Effectuum matur-
aliwm ejusdem generis easdem esse causas.
This is what every man assents to, as soon
as he understands it, and no man asks a
reason for it. It has, therefore, the most
genuine marks of a first principle.
It is very remarkable, that, although all
our expectation of what is to happen in the
course of nature is derived from the belief
of this principle, yet no man thinks of ask-
ing what is the ground of this belief.
Mr Hume, I think, was the first” who
put this question; and he has shewn clearly
and invincibly, that it is neither grounded
upon reasoning, nor has that kind of intui-
tive evidence which mathematical axioms
have. It is not a necessary truth.
He has endeavoured to account for it
upon his own principles. It is not my
business, at present, to examine the account
he has given of this universal belief of man-
* Compare above, “Inquiry,” c. vi. §24. , 8tewart's
“ Elements”, i. p. 205. “ Philosophical Essays,”
p. 74, sq.-H.
* Hume was not the first : but on the various
opinions touching the ground of this expectancy, I
cannot touch.—H.
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[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
kind; because, whether his account of it be
just or not, (and I think it is not,) yet, as
this belief is universal among mankind, and
is not grounded upon any antecedent rea-
soning, but upon the constitution of the
mind itself, it must be acknowledged to be
a first principle, in the sense in which I
use that word.
I do not at all affirm, that those I have
mentioned are all the first principles from
which we may reason concerning contingent
truths. Such enumerations, even when
made after much reflection, are seldom per-
fect. [605]
CHAPTER WI.
FIRST PRINCIPLES OF NECESSARY TRUTHS.
ABOUT most of the first principles of ne-
cessary truths there has been no dispute,
and therefore it is the less necessary to
dwell upon them. It will be sufficient to
divide them into different classes; to men-
tion some, by way of specimen, in each
class ; and to make some remarks on those
of which the truth has been called in ques-
tion.
They may, I think, most properly be
divided according to the sciences to which
they belong.
1. There are some first principles that
may be called grammatical, such as, That
every adjective in a sentence must belong to
some substantive earpressed or understood ;
That every complete sentence must have a
overb.
Those who have attended to the struc-
ture of language, and formed distinct no-
tions of the nature and use of the various
parts of speech, perceive, without reasoning,
that these, and many other such principles,
are necessarily true.
2. There are logical axioms: such as,
That any conteature of words which does not
make a proposition, is neither true nor false ;
That every proposition is either true or
false ; , That no proposition can be both true
and false at the same time ; That reasoning
in a circle proves nothing ; That whatever
nay be truly affirmed of a genus, may be
truly affirmed of all the species, and all the
individuals belonging to that genus. [606]
3. Everyone knows there are mathematical
axioms.” Mathematicians have, from the
days of Euclid, very wisely laid down the
axioms or first principles on which they
reason. And the effect which this appears
to have had upon the stability and happy
progress of this science, gives no small en-
couragement to attempt to lay the founda-
tion of other sciences in a similar manner,
as far as we are able.
* See Stewart’s “Elements," ii. p. 38, sq.--H.
Mr Hume hath discovered, as he appre-
hends, a weak side, even in mathematical
axioms; and thinks that it is not strictly
true, for instance, that two right lines can
cut one another in one point only.
The principle he reasons from is, That
every simple idea is a copy of a preceding
impression ; and therefore in its precision
and accuracy, can never go beyond its ori-
ginal. From which he reasons in this man-
ner: No man ever saw or felt a line so
straight that it might not cut another,
equally straight, in two or more points.
Therefore, there can be no idea of such a
line.
The ideas that are most essential to geo-
metry—such as those of equality, of a
straight line, and of a square surface, are far,
he says, from being distinct and deter-
minate; and the definitions destroy the
pretended demonstrations. Thus, mathe-
matical demonstration is found to be a rope
of sand.
I agree with this acute author, that, if
we could form no notion of points, lines, and
surfaces, more accurate than those we see
and handle, there could be no mathematical
demonstration.
But every man that has understanding,
by analysing, by abstracting, and compound-
ing the rude materials exhibited by his
senses, can fabricate, in his own mind,
those elegant and accurate forms of mathe-
matical lines, surfaces, and solids. [607]
If a man finds himself incapable of form-
ing a precise and determinate notion of the
figure which mathematicians call a cube,
he not only is no mathematician, but is in-
capable of being one. But, if he has a pre-
cise and determinate notion of that figure,
he must perceive that it is terminated by six
mathematical surfaces, perfectly square and
perfectly equal. He must perceive that
these surfaces are terminated by twelve
mathematical lines, perfectly straight and
perfectly equal, and that those lines are ter-
minated by eight mathematical points.
When a man is conscious of having these
conceptions distinct and determinate, as
every mathematician is, it is in vain to bring
metaphysical arguments to convince him
that they are not distinct. You may as well
bring arguments to convince a man racked
with pain that he feels no pain.
Every theory that is inconsistent with our
having accurate notions of mathematical
lines, surfaces, and solids, must be false.
Therefore it follows, that they are not copies
of our impressions.
The Medicean Venus is not a copy of the
block of marble from which it was made.
It is true, that the elegant statue was
formed out of the rude block, and that, too,
by a manual operation, which, in a literal
sense, we may call abstraction. Mathe-
[605–607]
chap. vi.] FIRST PRINCIPLES OF NECESSARY TRUTHs.
453
matical notions are formed in the under-
standing by an abstraction of another kind,
out of the rude perceptions of our senses.
As the truths of natural philosophy are
not necessary truths, but contingent, de-
pending upon the will of the Maker of the
world, the principles from which they are
deduced must be of the same nature, and,
therefore, belong not to this class. [608]
4. I think there are axioms, even in
matters of taste. Notwithstanding the
variety found among men, in taste, there
are, I apprehend, some common principles,
even in matters of this kind. I never heard
of any man who thought it a beauty in a
human face to want a nose, or an eye, or to
have the mouth on one side. How many
ages have passed since the days of Homerſ
Yet, in this long tract of ages, there never
was found a man who took Thersites for a
beauty.
The fine arts are very properly called the
arts of taste, because the principles of both
are the same; and, in the fine arts, we find
no less agreement among those who practise
them than among other artists.
No work of taste can be either relished
or understood by those who do not agree
with the author in the principles of taste.
Homer and Virgil, and Shakspeare and
Milton, had the same taste; and all men
who have been acquainted with their writ-
ings, and agree in the admiration of them,
must have the same taste. .
The fundamental rules of poetry and
music, and painting, and dramatic action and
eloquence, have been always the same, and
will be so to the end of the world.
The variety we find among men in matters
of taste, is easily accounted for, consistently
with what we have advanced.
There is a taste that is acquired, and a
taste that is natural. This holds with re-
spect both to the external sense of taste and
the internal. Habit and fashion have a
powerful influence upon both.
Of tastes that are natural, there are some
that may be called rational, others that are
merely animal.
Children are delighted with brilliant and
gaudy colours, with romping and noisy
mirth, with feats of agility, strength, or
cunning ; and Savages have much the same
taste as children. [609]
But there are tastes that are more intel-
lectual. It is the dictate of our rational na-
ture, that love and admiration are misplaced
when thereis no intrinsic worth in the object.
In those operations of taste which are ra-
tional, we judge of the real worth and ex-
cellence of the object, and our love or
admiration is guided by that judgment. In
such operations there is judgment as well
as feeling, and the feeling depends upon
the judgment we form of the object.
I do not maintain that taste, so far as it
is acquired, or so far as it is merely animal,
can be reduced to principles. But, as far
as it is founded on judgment, it certainly may.
The virtues, the graces, the muses, have
a beauty that is intrinsic. It lies not in
the feelings of the spectator, but in the
real excellence of the object. If we do not
perceive their beauty, it is owing to the de-
fect or to the perversion of our faculties.
And, as there is an original beauty in cer-
tain moral and intellectual qualities, so
there is a borrowed and derived beauty
in the natural signs and expressions of
such qualities.
The features of the human face, the mo-
dulations of the voice, and the proportions,
attitudes, and gesture of the body, are all
natural expressions of good or bad quali-
ties of the person, and derive a beauty or
a deformity from the qualities which they
express.
Works of art express some quality of
the artist, and often derive an additional
beauty from their utility or fitness for their
end.
Of such things there are some that
ought to please, and others that ought to
displease. If they do not, it is owing to
some defect in the spectator. But what
has real excellence will always please
those who have a correct judgment and a
sound heart. [610]
The sum of what has been said upon
this subject is, that, setting aside the
tastes which men acquire by habit and
fashion, there is a natural taste, which is
partly animal, and partly rational. With
regard to the first, all we can say is,
that the Author of nature, for wise rea-
Sons, has formed us so as to receive plea-
sure from the contemplation of certain
objects, and disgust from others, before
we are capable of perceiving any real ex-
cellence in one or defect in the other.
But that taste which we may call ration-
al, is that part of our constitution by
which we are made to receive pleasure
from the contemplation of what we con-
ceive to be excellent in its kind, the plea-
sure being annexed to this judgment, and
regulated by it. This taste may be true
or false, according as it is founded on a
true or false judgment. And, if it may be
true or false, it must have first principles.
5. There are also first principles in mo-
rals.
That an unjust action has more demerit
than an ungenerous one : That a generous
action has more merit than a merely just
one : That no man ought to be blamed for
what it was not in his power to hinder : That
we ought not to do to others what we would
think wr.just or wmfair to be done to us in
like circumstances. These are moral axioms,
[608–610]
454.
[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
and many others might be named which ap-
pear to me to have no less evidence than
those of amathematics.
Some perhaps may think that our de-
terminations, either in matters of taste or
in morals, ought not to be accounted ne-
cessary truths: That they are grounded
upon the constitution of that faculty which
we call taste, and of that which we call
the moral sense or conscience; which fa-
culties might have been so constituted as
to have given determinations different, or
even contrary to those they now give :
That, as there is nothing sweet or bitter
in itself, but according as it agrees or dis-
agrees with the external sense called taste ;
so there is nothing beautiful or ugly in it-
self, but according as it agrees or dis-
agrees with the internal sense, which we
also call taste; and nothing morally good
or ill in itself, but according as it agrees
or disagrees with our moral sense. [6ll]
This indeed is a system, with regard to
morals and taste, which hath been supported
in modern times by great authorities. And
if this system be true, the consequence
must be, that there can be no principles,
either of taste or of morals, that are neces-
sary truths. For, according to this system,
all our determinations, both with regard to
matters of taste, and with regard to morals,
are reduced to matters of fact—I mean to
such as these, that by our constitution we
have on such occasions certain agreeable
feelings, and on other occasions certain dis-
agreeable feelings.
But I cannot help being of a contrary
opinion, being persuaded that a man who
determined that polite behaviour has great
deformity, and that there is great beauty
in rudeness and ill-breeding, would judge
wrong, whatever his feelings were.
In like manner, I cannot help thinking
that a man who determined that there is
more moral worth in cruelty, perfidy, and
injustice, than in generosity, justice, pru-
dence, and temperance, would judge wrong,
whatever his constitution was.
And, if it be true that there is judgment
in our determinations of taste and of morals,
it must be granted that what is true or
false in morals, or in matters of taste, is
Inecessarily so. For this reason, I have
ranked the first principles of morals and of
taste under the class of necessary truths.
6. The last class of first principles I shall
mention, we may call metaphysical.
I shall particularly consider three of these,
because they have been called in question
by Mr Hume. [612]
The first is, That the qualities which we
perceive by owr senses must have a subject,
which we call body, and that the thoughts
we are conscious of must have a subject,
which we call mind.
It is not more evident that two and two
make four, than it is that figure cannot
exist, unless there be something that is
figured, nor motion without something that
is moved. I not only perceive figure and
motion, but I perceive them to be qualities.
They have a necessary relation to some-
thing in which they exist as their subject.
The difficulty which some philosophers have
found in admitting this, is entirely owing to
the theory of ideas. A subject of the sen-
sible qualities which we perceive by our
senses, is not an idea either of sensation or
of consciousness; therefore say they, we
have no such idea. Or, in the style of Mr
Hume, from what impression is the idea of
substance derived P. It is not a copy of any
impression; therefore there is no such idea.
The distinction between sensible quali-
ties, and the substance to which they belong,
and between thought and the mind that
thinks, is not the invention of philosophers;
it is found in the structure of all languages,
and therefore must be common to all men
who speak with understanding. And I
believe no man, however sceptical he may
be in speculation, can talk on the common
affairs of life for half an hour, without say-
ing things that imply his belief of the reality
of these distinctions.
Mr Locke acknowledges, “That we can-
not conceive how simple ideas of sensible
qualities should subsist alone ; and there-
fore we suppose them to exist in, and to be
supported by, some common subject.” In
his Essay, indeed, some of his expressions
seem to leave it dubious whether this belief,
that sensible qualities must have a subject,
be a true judgment or a vulgar prejudice.
[613] But in his first letter to the Bishop
of Worcester, he removes this doubt, and
quotes many passages of his Essay, to shew
that he neither denied nor doubted of the
existence of substances, both thinking and
material ; and that he believed their ex-
istence on the same ground the Bishop
did—to wit, “ on the repugnancy to our
conceptions, that modes and accidents should
subsist by themselves.” He offers no proof
of this repugnancy ; nor, I think, can any
proof of it be given, because it is a first
principle. -
It were to be wished that Mr Locke, who
inquired so accurately and so laudably into
the origin, certainty, and extent of human
knowledge, had turned his attention more
particularly to the origin of these two
opinions which he firmly believed ; to wit,
that sensible qualities must have a subject
which we call body, and that thought must
have a subject which we call mind. A due
attention to these two opinions which go-
vern the belief of all men, even of sceptics
in the practice of life, would probably have
led him to perceive, that sensation and
[611-613]
chap. vi.] FIRST PRINCIPLES OF NECESSARY TRUTHS.
455
consciousness are not the only sources of
human knowledge; and that there are prin-
•ciples of belief in humali nature, of which
we can give no other account but that they
necessarily result from the constitution of
our faculties ; and that, if it were in our
power to throw off their influence upon our
practice and conduct, we could neither
Speak nor act like reasonable men.
We cannot give a reason why we believe
even our sensations to be real and not fal-
lacious ; why we believe what we are con-
scious of ; why we trust any of our natural
faculties. We say, it must be so, it cannot
be otherwise. This expresses only a strong
belief, which is indeed the voice of nature,
and which therefore in vain we attempt to
resist. But if, in spite of nature, we resolve
to go deeper, and not to trust our faculties,
without a reason to shew that they cannot
be fallacious, I am afraid, that, seeking to
become wise, and to be as gods, we shall
become foolish, and, being unsatisfied with
the lot of humanity, we shall throw off com-
II] Oil SellSe.
The second metaphysical principle I men-
tion is—That whatever begins to exist, must
have a cause which produced it." [614]
Philosophy is indebted to Mr Hume in
this respect among others, that, by calling
in question many of the first principles of
human knowledge, he hath put speculative
men upon inquiring more carefully than was
done before into the nature of the evidence
upon which they rest. Truth can never
suffer by a fair inquiry; it can bear to be
seen naked and in the fullest light; and the
strictest examination will always turn out
in the issue to its advantage. I believe Mr
Hume was the first who ever called in
question whether things that begin to exist
must have a cause. .
With regard to this point, we must hold
one of these three things, either that it is
an opinion for which we have no evidence,
and which men have foolishly taken up
without ground ; or, secondly, That it is
capable of direct proof by argument ; or,
thirdly, That it is self-evident, and needs no
proof, but ought to be received as an axiom,
which cannot, by reasonable men, be called
in question. -
The first of these suppositions would put
an end to all philosophy, to all religion, to
all reasoning that would carry us beyond
the objects of sense, and to all prudence in
the conduct of life.
As to the second supposition, that this
principle may be proved by direct reason-
ing, I am afraid we shall find the proof
extremely difficult, if not altogether im-
possible. .
I know only of three or four arguments
* See below, “Essays on the Active Towers," p. 30,
Sq.—H. .
that have been urged by philosophers, in the
way of abstract reasoning, to prove that
things which begin to exist must have a cause.
One is offered by Mr Hobbes, another
by Dr Samuel Clarke, another by Mr Locke.
Mr Hume, in his “Treatise of Human
Nature,” has examined them all;” and, in
my opinion, has shewn that they take for
granted the thing to be proved ; a kind of
false reasoning, which men are very apt to
fall into when they attempt to prove what
is self-evident. [615]
It has been thought, that, although this
principle does not admit of proof from
abstract reasoning, it may be proved from
experience, and may be justly drawn by
induction, from instances that fall within
Our observation. -
I conceive this method of proof will leave
us in great uncertainty, for these three
TeaSODS :
1st, Because the proposition to be proved
is not a contingent but a necessary proposi-
tion. It is not that things which begin to
exist commonly have a cause, or even that
they always in fact have a cause ; but that
they must have a cause, and cannot begin
to exist without a cause.
Propositions of this kind, from their
nature, are incapable of proof by induction.
Experience informs us only of what is or
has been, not of what must be ; and the
conclusion must be of the same nature with
the premises.-f
For this reason, no mathematical propo-
sition can be proved by induction. Though
it should be found by experience in a thou-
Sand cases, that the area of a plane triangle
is equal to the rectangle under the altitude
and half the base, this would not prove that
it must be so in all cases, and cannot be
otherwise; which is what the mathematician
affirms...}.
In like manner, though we had the most
ample experimental proof that things which
have begun to exist had a cause, this would
not prove that they must have a cause.
Experience may shew us what is the esta-
blished course of nature, but can never shew
what connections of things are in their
nature necessary. &
2dly, General maxims, grounded on ex-
perience, have only a degree of probability
proportioned to the extent of our experience,
and ought always to be understood so as to
leave room for exceptions, if future expe-
rience shall discever any such. [616]
The law of gravitation has as full a proof
from experience and induction as any prin-
ciple can be supposed to have. Yet, if any
philosopher should, by clear experiment,
* Vol. i. p. 144-146.-H.
# See below, p. 627; and “ Active Powers,” p. 31,
and al-ove, p. 323, a, note *.—H.
+ So Aristotle.—H.
[614-616 |
456
[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
shew that there is a kind of matter in some
bodies which does not gravitate, the law
of gravitation ought to be limited by that
exception. -
Now, it is evident that men have never
considered the principle of the necessity of
causes, as a truth of this kind which may
admit of limitation or exception ; and there-
fore it has not been received upon this kind
of evidence. +
3dly, I do not see that experience could
satisfy us that every change in nature act-
ually has a cause. -
In the far greatest part of the changes in
nature that fall within our observation, the
causes are unknown; and, therefore, from
experience, we cannot know whether they
have causes or not. -
Causation is not an object of sense. The
only experience we can have of it, is in the
consciousness we have of exerting some
power in ordering our thoughts and actions.
But this experience is surely too narrow a
foundation for a general conclusion, that
all things that have had or shall have a be-
ginning, must have a cause.
For these reasons, this principle cannot
be drawn from experiance, any more than
from abstract reasoning.
The third supposition is—That it is to be
admitted as a first or self-evident principle.
Two reasons may be urged for this. .
1. The universal consent of mankind, not
of philosophers only, but of the rude and un-
learned vulgar.
Mr Hume, as far as I know, was the first
that ever expressed any doubt of this prin-
ciple.* And when we consider that he has re-
jected every principle of human knowledge,
excepting that of consciousness, and has not
even spared the axioms of mathematics,
his authority is of small weight. [617]
Indeed, with regard to first principles,
there is no reason why the opinion of a
philosopher should have more authority
than that of another man of common sense,
who has been accustomed to judge in such
cases. The illiterate vulgar are competent
judges; and the philosopher has no preroga-
tive in matters of this kind; but he is more
liable than they to be misled by a favourite
system, especially if it is his own.
Setting aside the authority of Mr Hume,
what has philosophy been employed in
since men first began to philosophise, but
in the investigation of the causes of things P
This it has always professed, when we trace
it to its cradle. It never entered into any
man's thought, before the philosopher we
have mentioned, to put the previous ques-
tion, whether things have a cause or not ?
Had it been thought possible that they
might not, it may be presumed that, in the
variety of absurd and contradictory causes
assigned, some one would have had recourse
to this hypothesis.
They could conceive the world to arise
from an egg, from a struggle between love
and strife, between moisture and drought,
between heat and cold; but they never Sup-
posed that it had no cause. We know not
any athe;stic sect that ever had recourse
to this topic, though by it, they might have
evaded every argument that could be
brought against them, and answered all
objections to their system.
But rather than adopt such an absurdity,
they contrived some imaginary cause—such
as chance, a concourse of atoms, or neces-
sity—as the cause of the universe. [618]
The accounts which philosophers have
given of particular phaenomena, as well as
of the universe in general, proceed upon
the same principle. That every phaeno-
menon must have a cause, was always taken
for granted. Nil turpius physico, says
Cicero, quam fieri sine causa quicquam
dicere. Though an Academic, he was dog-
matical in this. And Plato, the father of
the Academy, was no less so. “ II&vri
2&é &öðvøroy zogis &ltſov ºverly izéry : it is impos-
sible that anything should have its origin
without a cause.”—TIMEUs.
I believe Mr Hume was the first who
ever held the contrary.” This, indeed, he
avows, and assumes the honour of the dis-
covery. “It is,” says he, “a maxim in .
philosophy, that whatever begins to exist,
must have a cause of existence. This is
commonly taken for granted in all reason-
ings, without any proof given or demanded.
It is supposed to be founded on intuition,
and to be one of those maxims which,
though they may be denied with the lips,
it is impossible for men in their hearts
really to doubt of. But, if we examine
this maxim by the idea of knowledge above
explained, we shall discover in it no mark
of such intuitive certainty.” The meaning
of this seems to be, that it did not suit with
his theory of intuitive certainty, and, there-
fore, he excludes it from that privilege.
The vulgar adhere to this maxim as
firmly and universally as the philosophers.
Their superstitions have the same origin
as the systems of philosophers—to wit, a
desire to know the causes of things. Felia:
qui potwit rerum cognoscere causas, is the
universal sense of men ; but to say that
anything can happen without a cause, shocks
the common sense of a Savage.
This universal belief of mankind is easily
accounted for, if we allow that the neces-
sity of a cause of every event is obvious to
the rational powers of a man. But it is
impossible to account for it otherwise. It
* Hume was not the first.— H.
* See last note.—H.
[617, 618]
chap v1.] FIRST PRINCIPLES OF NECESSARY TRUTHS.
4.57
cannot be ascribed to education, to systems
of philosophy, or to priestcraft. One
would think that a philosopher who takes
it to be a general delusion or prejudice,
would endeavour to shew from what causes
in human nature such a general error may
take its rise. But I forget that Mr Hume
might answer upon his own principles, that
since things may happen without a cause—
this error and delusion of men may be uni-
versal without any cause. [619]
2. A second reason why I conceive this
to be a first principle, is, That mankind not
only assent to it in speculation, but that the
practice of life is grounded upon it in the
most important matters, even in cases where
experience leaves us doubtful; and it is
impossible to act with common prudence if
we set it aside. - .
In great families, there are so many bad
things done by a certain personage, called
Nobody, that it is proverbial that there is
a Nobody about every house who does a
great deal of mischief ; and even where
there is the exactest inspection and govern-
ment, many events will happen of which no
other author can be found; so that, if we
trust merely to experience in this matter, No-
body will be found to be a very active person,
and to have no inconsiderable share in the
management of affairs. But whatever coun-
tenance this system may have from experi-
ence, it is too shocking to common sense to
impose upon the most ignorant. A child
knows that, when his top, or any of his play-
things, are taken away, it must be done by
Somebody. Perhaps it would not be diffi-
cult to persuade him that it was done by
some invisible being, but that it should be
done by nobody he cannot believe.
Suppose a man’s house to be broke open,
his money and jewels taken away. Such
things have happened times innumerable
without any apparent cause ; and were he
only to reason from experience in such a
case, how must he behave 2 He must put
in one scale the instances wherein a cause
was found of such an event, and in the other
scale the instances where no cause was
found, and the preponderant scale must
determine whether it be most probable that
there was a cause of this event, or that
there was none. Would any man of com-
mon understanding have recourse to such
anexpedient todirect hisjudgment? [620]
Suppose a man to be found dead on the
highway, his skull fractured, his body
pierced with deadly wounds, his watch and
money carried-off. The coroner's jury sits
upon the body; and the question is put,
What was the cause of this man's death 2–
was it accident, or felo de se, or murder by
persons unknown P Let us suppose an
adept in Mr Hume's philosophy to make
one of the jury, and that he insists upon the
previous question, whether there was any
cause of the event, and whether it happened
without a cause. -
Surely, upon Mr Hume's principles, a
great deal might be said upon this point;
and, if the matter is to be determined by
past experience, it is dubious on which side
the weight of argument might stand. But
we may venture to say, that, if Mr Hume
had been of such a jury, he would have laid
aside his philosophical principles, and acted
according to the dictates of common pru-
dence. -
Many passages might be produced, even
in Mr Hume's philosophical writings, in
which he, unawares, betrays the same in-
ward conviction of the necessity of causes
which is common to other men. I shall
mention only one, in the “Treatise of Hu.
man Nature,” and in that part of it where
he combats this very principle :-‘‘As to
those impressions,” says he, “which arise
from the senses, their ultimate cause is, in
my opinion, perfectly inexplicable by hu-
man reason ; and it will always be impos-
sible to decide with certainty whether they
arise immediately from the object, or are
produced by the creative power of the mind,
or are derived from the Author of our
being.” -
Among these alternatives, he never
thought of their not arising from any
cause." [621]
The arguments which Mr Hume offers to
prove that this is not a self-evident prin-
ciple, are three. First, That all certainty
arises from a comparison of ideas, and a
discovery of their unalterable relations,
none of which relations imply this proposi-
tion, That whatever has a beginning must
have a cause of existence. This theory of
certainty has been examined before.
The second argument is, That whatever
we can conceive is possible. This has like-
wise been examined.
The third argument is, That what we call
a cause, is only something antecedent to,
and always conjoined with, the effect. This
is also one of Mr Hume's peculiar doctrines,
which we may have occasion to consider
afterwards. It is sufficient here to observe,
that we may learn from it that night is the
cause of day, and day the cause of night:
for no two things have more constantly
followed each other since the beginning of
the world.
The [third and] last metaphysical prin-
ciple I mention, which is opposed by the
same author, is, That design and intelli-
gence in the cause may be inferred, with
certainly, from marks or signs of it in the
effect.
* See above, p. 444, note *. It is the triumph of
scepticism to shew that speculation and practice are
irreconcilable.—H. -
[619–621]
458
[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
Intelligence, design, and skill, are not
objects of the external senses, nor can we
be conscious of them in any person but our-
selves. Even in ourselves, we cannot, with
propriety, be said to be conscious of the
natural or acquired talents we possess. We
are conscious only of the operations of mind
in which they are exerted. Indeed, a man
comes to know his own mental abilities,
just as he knows another man's, by the
effects they produce, when there is occasion
to put them to exercise.
A man's wisdom is known to us only by
the signs of it in his conduct; his eloquence
by the signs of it in his speech. In the same
manner, we judge of his virtue, of his forti-
tude, and of all his talents and virtues. [622]
Yet it is to be observed, that we judge of
men's talents with as little doubt or hesita-
tion as we judge of the immediate objects
of sense.
One person, we are sure, is a perfect
idiot; another, who feigns idiocy to screen
himself from punishment, is found, upon
trial, to have the understanding of a man,
and to be accountable for his conduct. We
perceive one man to be open, another cun-
ning; one to be ignorant, another very
knowing ; one to be slow of understanding,
another quick. Every man forms such
judgments of those he converses with ; and
the common affairs of life depend upon such
judgments. We can as little avoid them as
we can avoid seeing what is before our eyes.
From this it appears, that it is no less a
part of the human constitution, to judge of
men's characters, and of their intellectual
powers, from the signs of them in their
actions and discourse, than to judge of cor-
poreal objects by our senses; that such
judgments are common to the whole human
race that are endowed with understanding;
and that they are absolutely necessary in
the conduct of life.
Now, every judgment of this kind we
form, is only a particular application of the
general principle, that intelligence, wisdom,
and other mental qualities in the cause,
may be inferred from their marks or signs
in the effect. --
The actions and discourses of men are
effects, of which the actors and speakers
are the causes. The effects are perceived
by our Senses; but the causes are behind
the scene. We only conclude their exist-
ence and their degrees from our observa-
tion of the effects.
From wise conduct, we infer wisdom in
the cause ; from brave actions, we infer
courage; and so in other cases. [623]
This inference is made with perfect secu-
rity by all men. We cannot avoid it ; it
is necessary in the ordinary conduct of
life ; it has therefore the strongest marks of
being a first principle.
Perhaps some may think that this prin-
ciple may be learned either by reasoning or
by experience, and ºtherefore that there is
no ground to think it a first principle.
If it can be shewn to be got by reasoning,
by all, or the greater part of those who are
governed by it, I shall very, readily ac-
knowledge that it ought not to be esteemed
a first principle. But I apprehend the con-
trary appears from very convincing argu-
Yment.S. -
First, The principle is too universal to
be the effect of reasoning. It is common
to philosophers and to the vulgar; to the
learned and to the most illiterate ; to the
civilized and to the Savage. And of those
who are governed by it, not one in ten
thousand can give a reason for it.
Secondly, We find philosophers, ancient
and modern, who can reason excellently in
subjects that admit of reasoning, when they
have occasion to defend this principle, not
offering reasons for it, , or any medium of
proof, but appealing to the common sense
of mankind; mentioning particular instan-
ces, to make the absurdity of the contrary
opinion more apparent, and sometimes
using the weapons of wit and ridicule, which
are very proper weapons for refuting ab-
surdities, but altogether improper in points
that are to be determined by reasoning.
To confirm this observation, I shall quote
two authors, an ancient and a modern, who
have more expressly undertaken the defence
of this principle than any others I remem-
ber to have met with, and whose good
sense and ability to reason, where reasoning
is proper, will not be doubted. [624]
The first is Cicero, whose words, (l, b, l.
cap. 13. De Divinatione,) may be thus
translated.
“Can anything done by chance have all
the marks of design P Four dice may by
chance turn up four aces; but do you think
that four hundred dice, thrown by chance,
will turn up four hundred aces 2 Colours
thrown upon canvas without design may
have some similitude to a human face; but
do you think they might make as beautiful
a picture as that of the Coan Venus P. A
hog turning up the ground with his nose
may make something of the form of the let-
ter A ; but do you think that a hog might
describe on the ground the Andromache of
Ennius 2 Carneadès imagined that, in the
stone quarries at Chios, he found, in a stone
that was split, a representation of the head
of a little Pan, or sylvan deity. I believe he
might find a figure not unlike; but surely not
such a one as you would say had been formed
by an excellent sculptor like Scopas. For
so, verily, the case is, that chance never
perfectly imitates design.” Thus Cicero."
* See also Cicero “I)e Natura Deorum,”, l. ii. c.
[622-624]
chap. vi.) FIRST PRINCIPLES OF
NECESSARY TRUTHS.
459
Now, in all this discourse, I see very
good sense, and what is apt to convince
every unprejudiced mind; but I see not in
the whole a single step of reasoning. It is
barely an appeal to every man’s common
SenSG,
• Let us next see how the same point is
handled by the excellent Archbishop Tillot-
son, (1st Sermon, vol. i.) -
“For I appeal to any man of reason,
whether anything can be more unreasonable
than obstinately to impute an effect to chance
which carries in the face of it all the argu-
ments and characters of design P Was ever
any considerable work, in which there was
required a great variety of parts, and an
orderly and regular adjustment of these
parts, done by chance P Will chance fit
means to ends, and that in ten thousand
instances, and not fail in any one 2 [625]
How often might a man, after he had jumbled
a set of letters in a bag, fling them out upon
the ground before they would fall into an
exact poem, yea, or so much as make a
good discourse in prose P And may not a
little book be as easily made as this great
volume of the world 2 How long might a
Iman sprinkle colours upon canvass with a
careless hand, before they would make the
exact picture of a man 2 And is a man
easier made by chance than his picture ?
How long might twenty thousand blind men,
which should be sent out from the remote
parts of England, wander up and down be-
fore they would all meet upon Salisbury
plains, andfall into rank and file in the exact
order of an army 2 And yet this is much
more easy to be imagined than how the
innumerable blind parts of matter should
rendezvous themselves into a word. A man
that sees Henry VII.'s chapel at West-
minster might, with as good reason, main-
tain, (yea, and much better, considering the
vast difference between that little structure
and the huge fabric of the world,) that it
was never contrived or built by any man,
but that the stones did by chance grow into
those curious figures into which we see them
tollave been cut and graven; and that, upon
a time, (as tales usually begin,) the mate-
rials of that building—the stone, mortar,
timber, iron, lead, and glass—happily met
together, and very fortunately ranged them-
selves into that delicate order in which we
see them now, so close compacted that it
must be a very great chance that parts them
again. What would the world think of a
man that should advance such an opinion
as this, and write a book for it 2 If they
would do him right, they ought to look upon
him as mad. But yet he might maintain
this opinion with a little more reason than .
any man can have to say that the world was
made by chance, or that the first men grew
out of the earth, as plants do now ; for, can
anything be more ridiculous and against all
reason, than to ascribe the production of
men to the first fruitfulness of the earth,
without so much as one instance or experi-
ment in any age or history to countenance.
so monstrous a supposition ? The thing is
at first sight so gross and palpable, that no
discourse about it can make it more appa-
rent. And yet these shameful beggars of
principles, who give this precarious account
of the original of things, assurne to them-
selves to be the men of reason, the great
wits of the world, the only cautious and wary
persons, who hate to be imposed upon, that
must have convincing evidence for every-
thing, and can admit nothing without a clear
demonstration for it. [626]
In this passage, the excellent author takes
what I conceive to be the proper method of
refuting an absurdity, by exposing it in dif-
ferent lights, in which every man of common
understanding conceives it to be ridiculous.
And, although there is much good sense, as
well as wit, in the passage I have quoted, I
cannot find one medium of proof in the
whole.
I have met with one or two respectable
authors who draw an argument from the
doctrine of chances, to shew how impro-
bable it is that a regular arrangement of
parts should be the effect of chance, or that
it should not be the effect of design.
I do not object to this reasoning; but I
would observe that the doctrine of chances
is a branch of mathematics little more than
an hundred years old. But the conclusion
drawn from it has been held by all men from
the beginning of the world. It cannot,
therefore, be thought that men have been
led to this conclusion by that reasoning.
Indeed, it may be doubted whether the first
principle upon which all the mathematical
reasoning about chances is grounded, is
more self-evident than this conclusion drawn
from it, or whether it is not a partieular
instance of that general conclusion.
We are next to consider whether we may
not learn this truth from experience, That
effects which have all the marks and tokens
of design, must proceed from a designing
cause. L627]
I apprehend that we cannot learn this
truth from experience for two reasons.
First, Because it is a necessary truth,
not a contingent one. It agrees with the
experience of mankind since the beginning
of the world, that the area of a triangle is
equal to half the rectangle under its base
and perpendicular. It agrees no less with
experience, that the Sun rises in the east
and sets in the west. So far as experience
goes, these truths are upon an equal footing.
But every man perceives this distinction
between them—that the first is a necessary
truth, and that it is impossible it should not
[625–627]
460
[Essay v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
be true; but the last is not necessary, but
contingent, depending upon the will of Him
who made the world. As we cannot learn
from experience that twice three must ne-
cessarily make six, so neither can we learn
from experience that certain effects must
proceed from a designing and intelligent
cause. Experience informs us only of what
has been, but never of what must be.”
Secondly, It may be observed, that ex-
perience can shew a connection between a
sign and the thing signified by it, in those
cases only where both the sign and thing
signified are perceived and have always
been perceived in conjunction. But, if there
be any case where the sign only is per-
ceived, experience can never shew its con-
nection with the thing signified. Thus, for
example, thought is a sign of a thinking
principle or mind. But how do we know
that thought cannot be without a mind 2 If
any man should say that he knows this by
experience, he deceives himself. It is im-
possible he can have any experience of this;
because, though we have an immediate
knowledge of the existence of thought in
ourselves by consciousness, yet we have no
immediate knowledge of a mind. The mind
is not an immediate object either of sense
or of consciousness. We may, therefore,
justly conclude, that the necessary con-
nection between thought and a mind, or
thinking being, is not learned from expe-
rience. [628]
The same reasoning may be applied to
the connection between a work excellently
fitted for some purpose, and design in the
author or cause of that work. One of these
—to wit, the work—may be an immediate
object of perception. But the design and
purpose of the author cannot be an imme-
diate object of perception; and, therefore,
experience can never inform us of any con-
nection between the one and the other, far
less of a necessary connection.
Thus, I think, it appears, that the prin-
ciple we have been considering—to wit,
that from certain signs or indications in the
effect, we may infer that there must have
been intelligence, wisdom, or other intel-
lectual or moral qualities in the cause, is a
principle which we get, neither by reason-
ing nor by experience ; and, therefore, if it
be a true principle, it must be a first prin-
ciple. There is in the human understand-
ing a light, by which we see immediately
the evidence of it, when there is occasion
to apply it.
Of how great importance this principle
is in common life, we have already observed.
And I need hardly mention its importance
in natural theology.
The clear marks and signatures of wis-
* See above p. 615; and “ Active Powers,” p. 31.-H.
dom, power, and goodness, in the consti-
tution and government of the world, is, of
all arguments that have been advanced for
the being and providence of the Deity, that
which in all ages has made the strongest
impression upon candid and thinking minds;
an argument, which has this peculiar ad-
vantage, that it gathers strength as human
knowledge advances, and is more convincing
at present than it was some centuries ago.
King Alphonsus might say, that he could
contrive a better planetary system than that
which astronomers held in his day." That
system was not the work of God, but the
fiction of men. [629]
But since the true system of the sun,
moon, and planets, has been discovered, no
man, however atheistically disposed, has
pretended to shew how a better could be
contrived.
When we attend to the marks of good
contrivance which appear in the works of
God, every discovery we make in the con-
stitution of the material or intellectual
system becomes a hymn of praise to the
great Creator and Governor of the world.
And a man who is possessed of the genuine
spirit of philosophy will think it impiety to
contaminate the divine workmanship, by
mixing it with those fictions of human fancy,
called theories and hypotheses, which will
always bear the signatures of human folly,
no less than the other does of divine wis-
dom.
I know of no person who ever called in
question the principle now under our consi-
deration, when it is applied to the actions
and discourses of men. For this would be to
deny that we have any means of discerning
a wise man from an idiot, or a man that is
illiterate in the highest degree from a man
of knowledge and learning, which no man
has the effrontery to deny.
But, in all ages, those who have been
unfriendly to the principles of religion, have
made attempts to weaken the force of the
argument for the existence and perfec-
tions of the Deity, which is founded on this
principle. That argument has got the name
of the argument from final causes; and as
the meaning of this name is well understood,
we shall use it.
The argument from final causes, when re-
duced to a syllogism, has these two premises:
—First, That design and intelligence in the
cause, may, with certainty, be inferred from
marks or signs of it in the effect. This is
the principle we have been considering, and
: * Alphonso X. of Castile. He flourished in the
thirteenth century—a great mathematician and as-
tronomer. To him we owe the Alphonsine Tables.
His saying was not so pious and philosophical as Reid
states; but that, “Had he been present with God
at the creation, he could have supplied some useful
hiuts towards the better ordering of the universe.”
[628, 629]
chap. vi.] FIRST PRINCIPLES OF NECESSARY TRUTHS.
461
we may call it the major proposition of the
argument. The second, which we call the
minor proposition, is, That there are in fact
the clearest marks of design and wisdom in
the works of nature ; and the conclusion is,
That the works of nature are the effects
of a wise and intelligent Cause. One must
either assent to the conclusion, or deny one
or other of the premises. [630]
Those among the ancients who denied a
God or a Providence, seem to me to have
yielded the major proposition, and to have
denied the minor ; conceiving that there
are not in the constitution of things such
marks of wise contrivance as are sufficient
to put the conclusion beyond doubt. This,
I think, we may learn, from the reasoning
of Cotta the academic, in the third book of
Cicero, of the Nature of the Gods.
The gradual advancement made in the
knowledge of nature, hath put this opinion
quite out of countenance.
When the structure of the human body
was much less known than it is now, the
famous Galen saw such evident marks of
wise contrivance in it, that, though he had
been educated an Epicurean, he renounced
that system, and wrote his book of the use
of the parts of the human body, on purpose
to convince others of what appeared so clear
to himself, that it was impossible that such
admirable contrivance should be the effect
of chance. -
Those, therefore, of later times, who are
dissatisfied with this argument from final
causes, have quitted the stronghold of the
ancient atheists, which had become un-
tenable, and have chosen rather to make a
defence against the major proposition.
Des Cartes seems to have led the way in
this, though he was no atheist. But, having
invented some new arguments for the being
of God, he was, perhaps, led to disparage
those that had been used before, that he
might bring more credit to his own. Or
perhaps he was offended with the Peripa-
tetics, because they often mixed final causes
with physical, in order to account for the
phaenomena of nature. [631]
He maintained, therefore, that physical
causes only should be assigned for phaeno-
mena; that the philosopher has nothing to
do with final causes; and that it is pre-
sumption in us to pretend to determine for
what end any work of nature is framed.
Some of those who were great admirers of
Des Cartes, and followed him in many
points, differed from him in this, particu-
larly Dr Henry More and the pious Arch-
bishop Fenelon : but others, after the ex-
ample of Des Cartes, have shewn a contempt
of all reasoning from final causes. Among
these, I think, we may reckon Maupertuis
and Buffon. But the most direct attack
has been made upon this principle by Mr
Hume, who puts an argument in the mouth
of an Epicurean, on which he seems to lay
great stress.
The argument is, That the universe is a
singular effect, and, therefore, we can draw
no conclusion from it, whether it may have
been made by wisdom or not."
If I understand the force of this argu-
ment, it amounts to this, That, if we had
been accustomed to see worlds produced,
Some by wisdom and others without it, and
had observed that such a world as this
which we inhabit was always the effect of
wisdom, we might then, from past experi-
ence, conclude that this world was made
by wisdom; but, having no such experi-
ence, we have no means of forming any
conclusion about it.
That this is the strength of the argument
appears, because, if the marks of wisdom
seen in one world be no evidence of wisdom,
the like marks seen in ten thousand will
give as little evidence, unless, in time past,
we perceived wisdom itself cot.joined with
the tokens of it; and, from their perceived
conjunction in time past, conclude that, al-
though, in the present world, we see only
one of the two, the other must accompany
it. [632]
Whence it appears that this reasoning of
Mr Hume is built on the supposition that
our inferring design from the strongest
marks of it, is entirely owing to our past
experience of having always found these
two things conjoined. But I hope I have
made it evident that this is not the case.
And, indeed, it is evident that, according
to this reasoning, we can have no evidence
of mind or design in any of our fellow-
IOleIl.
How do I know that any man of my ac-
quaintance has understanding 2 I never
saw his understanding. I see only cer-
tain effects, which my judgment leads
me to conclude to be marks and tokens
of it.
But, says the sceptical philosopher, you
can conclude nothing from these tokens, un-
less past experience has informed you that
such tokens are always joined with under-
standing. Alas ! sir, it is impossible I can
ever have this experience. The understand-
ing of another man is no immediate object
of sight, or of any other faculty which God
hath given me; and unless I can conclude
its existence from tokens that are visible, I
have no evidence that there is understand-
ing in any man.
It seems, then, that the man who main-
tains that there is no force in the argument
from final causes, must, if he will be con-
sistent, see no evidence of the existence of
any intelligent being but himself.
* See Stewart’s “Elements,” ii. p. 579.—H.
[630–632]
462
[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
CHAPTER VII.
OPINIONS, ANCIENT AND MODERN, ABOUT
FIRST PRINCIPLES.
I KNow no writer who has treated ex-
pressly of first principles before Aristotle;
but it is probable that, in the ancient Py-
thagorean school, from which both Plato
and Aristotle borrowed much, this subject
had not been left untouched. [633]
Before the time of Aristotle, considerable
progress had been made in the mathema-
tical sciences, particularly in geometry.
The discovery of the forty-seventh pro-
position of the first book of Euclid, and of
the five regular solids, is, by antiquity,
ascribed to Pythagoras himself; and it is
impossible he could have made those dis-
coveries without knowing many other pro-
positions in mathematics. Aristotle, men-
tions the incommensurability of the diagonal
of a square to its side, and gives a hint of
the manner in which it was demonstrated.
"We find likewise some of the axioms of
geometry mentioned by Aristotle as axioms,
and as indemonstrable principles of mathe-
matical reasoning. - -
It is probable, therefore, that, before the
time of Aristotle, there were elementary
treatises of geometry, which are now lost;
and that in them the axioms were distin-
guished from the propositions which require
| roof. - -
To suppose that so perfect a system as
that of Euclid’s “Elements” was produced
by one man, without any preceding model
or materials, would be to suppose Euclid
more than a man. We ascribe to him as
much as the weakness of human under-
standing will permit, if we suppose that the
inventions in geometry, which had been
made in a tract of preceding ages, were by
him not only carried much farther, but
digested into so admirable a system that
his work obscured all that went before it,
and made them be forgot and lost.
Perhaps, in like manner, the writings of
Aristotle with regard to first principles, and
with regard to many other abstract subjects,
may have occasioned the loss of what had
been written upon those subjects by more
ancient philosophers. [634]
Whatever may be in this, in his second
book upon demonstration, he has treated
very fully of first principles; and, though he
has not attempted any enumeration of them,
he shews very clearly that all demonstra-
tion must be built upon truths which are
evident of themselves, but cannot be de-
monstrated. His whole doctrine of syllo-
gisms is grounded upon a few axioms, from
which he endeavours to demonstrate the
rules of syllogism in a mathematical way;
and in his topics he points out many of the
first principles of probable reasoning.
As long as the philosophy of Aristotle
prevailed, it was held as a fixed point, that
all proof must be drawn from principles
already known and granted.
We must observe, however, that, in that
philosophy, manythings were assumed as
first principles, which have no just claim
to that character : Such as, that the earth
is at rest; that nature abhors a vacuum ;
that there is no change in the heavens above
the sphere of the moon; that the heavenly
bodies move in circles, that being the most
perfect figure; that bodies do not gravitate
in their proper place ; and many others.
The Peripatetic philosophy, therefore,
instead of being deficient in first principles,
was redundant; instead of rejecting those
that are truly such, it adopted, as first
principles, many vulgar prejudices and rash
, judgments: and this seems in general to
have been the spirit of ancient philosophy."
It is true, there were among the ancients
sceptical philosophers, who professed to have
no principles, and held it to be the greatest
virtue in a philosopher to withhold assent,
and keep his judgment in a perfect equil -
brium between contradictory opinions. But,
though this sect was defended by some per-
Sons of great erudition and acuteness, it died
of itself, and the dogmatic philosophy of
Aristotle obtained a complete triumph over
it. [635]
What Mr Hume says of those who are
sceptical with regard to moral distinctions
seems to have had its accomplishment in
the ancient sect of Sceptics. “The only
way,” says he, “ of converting antagonists
of this kind is to leave them to themselves;
for, finding that nobody keeps up the con-
troversy with them, it is probable they will
at last of themselves, from mere weariness,
come over to the side of common sense and
reason.”
Setting aside this small sect of the Scep-
tics, which was extinct many ages before the
authority of Aristotle declined, I know of
no opposition made to first principles among
the ancients. The disposition was, as has
been observed, not to oppose, but to mul-
tiply them beyond measure.
Men have always been prone, when they
leave one extreme, to run into the opposite;
and this spirit, in the ancient philosophy, to
multiply first principles beyond reason, was
a strong presage that, when the authority
of the Peripatetic system was at an end,
* The Peripatetic philosophy did not assume any
such principles as original and self-evident ; but pro-
fessed to establish them all upon induction and gene-
ralization. In practice its induction of instances
might be imperfect, and its generalization from par-
ticulars rash ; but in theory, at least, it was correct.
[633–635)
CHAP. VII.]
463
OPINIONS ABOUT FIRST PRINCIPLES.
the next reigning system would diminish
their number beyond reason.
This, accordingly, happened in that great
revolution of the philosophical republic
brought about by Des Cartes. That truly
great reformer in philosophy, cautious to
àvoid the snare in which Aristotle was
taken, of admitting things as first principles
too rashly, resolved to doubt of everything,
and to withhold his assent, until it was forced
by the clearest evidence.*
Thus Des Cartes brought himself into
that very state of suspense which the an-
cient Sceptics recommended as the highest
perfection of a wise man, and the only road
to tranquillity of mind. But he did not
remain long in this state ; his doubt did
not arise from despair of finding the truth,
but from caution, that he might not be im-
posed upon, and embrace a cloud instead of
a goddess. [636]
His very doubting convinced him of his
own existence; for that which does not exist
can neither doubt, nor believe, nor reason.
Thus he emerged from universal scepti-
cism by this short enthymeme, Cogito, ergo
Sºlū)??,
This enthymeme consists of an antece-
dent proposition, I think, and a conclusion
drawn from it, therefore I eatist.
If it should be asked how Des Cartes
came to be certain of the antecedent proposi-
tion, it is evident that for this he trusted to
the testimony of consciousness. He was con-
'scious that he thought, and needed no other
argument.
So that the first principle which he adopts
in this famous enthymeme is this, That those
doubts, and thoughts, and reasonings, of
which he was conscious, did certainly exist,
and that his consciousness put their exist-
ence beyond all doubt.
It might have been objected to this first
principle of Des Cartes, How do you know
that your consciousness cannot deceive you?
You have supposed that all you see, and
hear, and handle, may be an illusion. Why,
therefore, should the power of conscious-
ness have this prerogative, to be believed
implicitly, when all our other powers are
supposed fallacious 2 -
To this objection I know no other answer
that can be made but that we find it im-
possible to doubt of things of which we are
conscious. The constitution of our nature
forces this belief upon us irresistibly.
This is true, and is sufficient to justify
Des Cartes in assuming, as a first principle,
the existence of thought, of which he was
conscious. [637]
He ought, however, to have gone farther
in this track, and to have considered whe-
ther there may not be other first principles
* On the Cartesian doubt, see Note R.—H.
which ought to be adopted for the same
reason. But he did not see this to be ne-
cessary, conceiving that, upon this one first
principle, he could support the whole fabric
of human knowledge.
To proceed to the conclusion of Des
Cartes's enthymeme. From the existence
of his thought he infers his own existence.
Here he assumes another first principle,
not a contingent, but a necessary one; to
wit, that, where there is thought, there
must be a thinking being or mind.
Having thus established his own exist-
ence, he proceeds to prove the existence of
a Supreme and infinitely perfect Being;
and, from the perfection of the Deity, he
infers that his senses, his memory, and the
other faculties which God had given him,
are not fallacious.
Whereas other men, from the beginning
of the world, had taken for granted, as a first
principle, the truth and reality of what they
perceive by their senses, and from thence
inferred the existence of a Supreme Author
and Maker of the world, Des Cartes took
a contrary course, conceiving that the tes-
timony of our senses, and of all our facul-
ties, excepting that of consciousness, ought
not to be taken for granted, but to be
proved by argument.
Perhaps some may think that Des Car-
tes meant only to admit no other first prin-
ciple of contingent truths besides that of
consciousness; but that he allowed the axi-
oms of mathematics, and of other necessary
truths, to be received without proof. [638]
But I apprehend this was not his inten-
tion ; for the truth of mathematical axioms
must depend upon the truth of the faculty
by which we judge of them. If the faculty
be fallacious, we may be deceived by trust-
ing to it. Therefore, as he supposes that
all our faculties, excepting consciousness,
may be fallacious, and attempts to prove
by argument that they are not, it follows
that, according to his principles, even ma-
thematical axioms require proof. Neither
did he allow that there are any necessary
truths, but maintained, that the truths
which are commonly so called, depend up-
on the will of God. And we find his fol-
lowers, who may be supposed to under-
stand his principles, agree in maintaining,
that the knowledge of our own existence is
the first and fundamental principle from
which all knowledge must be deduced by
one who proceeds regularly in philosophy.
There is, no doubt, a beauty in raising a
large fabric of knowledge upon a few first
principles. The stately fabric of mathema-
tical knowledge, raised upon the foundation
of a few axioms and definitions, charms
every beholder. Des Cartes, who was well
acquainted with this beauty in the mathe-
matical sciences, seems to have been am ..
[636 638]
464
[ESSAY VI.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
bitious to give the same beautiful simplicity
to his system of philosophy; and therefore
sought only one first principle as the founda-
tion of all our knowledge, at least of con-
tingent truths.
And so far has his authority prevailed,
that those who came after him have
almost universally followed him in this
track. This, therefore, may be considered
as the spirit of modern philosophy, to allow
of no first principles of contingent truths
but this one, that the thoughts and opera-
tions of our own minds, of which we are
conscious, are self-evidently real and true ;
but that everything else that is contingent
is to be proved by argument.
The existence of a material world, and
of what we perceive by our senses, is not
self-evident, according to this philosophy.
Des Cartes founded it upon this argument,
that God, who hath given us our senses,
and all our faculties, is no deceiver, and
therefore they are not fallacious. [639]
I endeavoured to shew that, if it be not
admitted as a first principle, that our facul-
ties are not fallacious, nothing else can be
admitted; and that it is impossible to prove
this by argument, unless God should give us
new faculties to sit in judgment upon the old.
Father Malebranche agreed with Des
Cartes, that the existence of a material
world requires proof; but, being dissatisfied
with Des Cartes's argument from the per-
fection of the Deity, thought that the only
Solid proof is from divine revelation.
Arnauld, who was engaged in controversy
with Malebranche, approves of his anta-
gonist in offering an argument to prove the
existence of the material world, but objects
to the solidity of his argument, and offers
other arguments of his own.
Mr Norris, a great admirer of Des Cartes
and of Malebranche, seems to have thought
all the arguments offered by them and by
Arnauld to be weak, and confesses that we
have, at best, only probable evidence of the
existence of the material world.
Mr Locke acknowledges that the evidence
we have of this point is neither intuitive
nor demonstrative ; yet he thinks it may
be called knowledge, and distinguishes it
by the name of sensitive knowledge; and,
as the ground of this sensitive knowledge,
he offers some weak arguments, which would
rather tempt one to doubt than to believe.
At last, Bishop Berkeley and Arthur
Collier, without any knowledge of each
other, as far as appears by their writings,
undertook to prove, that there neither is
nor can be a material world. The excel-
lent style and elegant composition of the
former have made his writings to be known
and read, and this system to be attributed
to him only, as if Collier had never ex-
isted. [640]
Both, indeed, owe so much to Male-
branche, that, if we take out of his system
the peculiarities of our seeing all things in
God, and our learning the existence of an
external world from divine revelation, what
remains is just the system of Bishop Berke-
ley. I make this observation, by the way,
in justice to a foreign author, to whom
British authors seem not to have allowed
all that is due."
Mr Hume hath adopted Bishop Berke-
ley's arguments against the existence of
matter, and thinks them unanswerable.
We may observe, that this great meta-
physician, though in general he declares in
favour of universal scepticism, and there-
fore may seem to have no first principles at
all, yet, with Des Cartes, he always acknow-
ledges the reality of those thoughts and
operations of mind of which we are con-
Scious.T. So that he yields the antecedent
of Des Cartes's enthymeme cogito, but
denies the conclusion ergo sum, the mind
being, according to him, nothing but that
train of impressions and ideas of which we
are COllSC]OllS.
Thus, we see that the modern philosophy,
of which Des Cartes may justly be ac-
counted the founder, being built upon the
ruins of the Peripatetic, has a spirit quite
opposite, and runs into a contrary extreme.
The Peripatetic not only adopted as first
principles those which mankind have always
rested upon in their most important trans-
actions, but, along with them, many vulgar
prejudices; so that this system was founded
upon a wide bottom, but in many parts
unsound. The modern system has nar-
rowed the foundation so much, that every
Superstructure raised upon it appears top-
heavy.
From the single principle of the exist-
ence of our own thoughts, very little, if any
thing, can be deduced by just reasoning,
especially if we suppose that all our other
faculties may be fallacious. -
Accordingly, we find that Mr Hume was
not the first that was led into scepticism by
the want of first principles. For, soon after
Des Cartes, there arose a sect in France
called Egoists, who maintained that we
have no evidence of the existence of any-
thing but ourselves.f. [641]
Whether these egoists, like Mr Hume,
* If I rocollect aright, (I write this note at a dis-
tance from books,) Locke explicitly anticipates the
Berkeleian idealism in his “. Examination of Father
Malebranche's Opinion.” This was also done by
Bayle. In fact, Malebranche, and many others be.
fore him, would inevitably have become Idealists,
had they not been Catholics. But an Idealist, as I
have already observed, no consistent Catholic could
be. See above, p. 285, note f, and p. 358, note *.
f See above, p. 442, b, note.—H.
f See above p. 269, a, note ; and p. 293, b, note
[639-641]
CHAP. v11.]
465
OPINIONS ABOUT FIRST PRINCIPLES.
believed themselves to be nothing but a train
of ideas and impressions, or to have a more
permanent existence, I have not learned,
having never seen any of their writings; nor
do I know whether any of this sect did write
in support of their principles. One would
think they who did not believe that there
Was any person to read, could have little
inducement to write, unless they were
prompted by that inward monitor which
Persius makes to be the source of genius
and the teacher of arts. There can be no
doubt, however, of the existence of such a
sect, as they are mentioned by many
authors, and refuted by some, particularly
by Buffier, in his treatise of first principles.
Those Egoists and Mr Hume seem to
me to have reasoned more consequentially
from Des Cartes’ principle than he did him-
self; and, indeed, I cannot help thinking,
that all who have followed Des Cartes’
method, of requiring proof by argument of
everything except the existence of their
own thoughts, have escaped the abyss of
scepticism by the help of weak reasoning
and strong faith more than by any other
means. And they seem to me to act more
consistently, who, having rejected the first
principles on which belief must be grounded,
have no belief, than they, who, like the
others, rejecting first principles, must yet
have a system of belief, without any solid
foundation on which it may stand.
The philosophers I have hitherto men-
tioned, after the time of Des Cartes, have
all followed his method, in resting upon the
truth of their own thoughts as a first
principle, but requiring arguments for the
proof of every other truth of a contingent
nature; but none of them, excepting Mr
Locke, has expressly treated of first princi-
ples, or given any opinion of their utility or
inutility. We only collect their opinion
from their following Des Cartes in requir-
ing proof, or pretending to offer proof of
the existence of a material world, which
surely ought to be received as a first princi-
ple, if anything be, beyond what we are
conscious of [642]
I proceed, therefore, to consider what
Mr Locke has said on the subject of first
principles or maxims.
I have not the least doubt of this author's
candour in what he somewhere says, that
his essay was mostly spun out of his own
thoughts. Yet, it is certain, that, in many
of the notions which we are wont to ascribe
to him, others were before him, particularly
Des Cartes, Gassendi, and Hobbes. Nor
is it at all to be thought strange, that inge-
nious men, when they are got into the
same track, should hit upon the same
things.
But, in the definition which he gives of
knowledge in general, and in his notions
concerning axioms or first principles, I
know none that went before him, though
he has been very generally followed in both.
His definition of knowledge, that it con-
sists solely in the perception of the agree-
ment or disagreement of our ideas, has been
already considered. But supposing it to be
just, still it would be true, that some agree-
ments and disagreements of ideas must be
immediately perceived ; and such agree-
ments or disagreements, when they are
expressed by affirmative or negative propo-
sitions, are first principles, because their
truth is immediately discerned as soon as
they are understood.
This, I think, is granted by Mr Locke,
book 4, chap. 2. “There is a part of our
knowledge,” says he, “which we may call
intuitive. In this the mind is at no pains
of proving or examining, but perceives the
truth as the eye does light, only by being
directed toward it. And this kind of know-
ledge is the clearest and most certain that
human frailty is capable of. This part of
knowledge is irresistible, and, like bright
sunshine, forces itself immediately to be
perceived, as soon as ever the mind turns
its view that way.” [643]
He farther observes—“That this intui-
tive knowledge is necessary to connect all
the steps of a demonstration.”
From this, I think, it necessarily follows,
that, in every branch of knowledge, we
must make use of truths that are intuitively
known, in order to deduce from them such
as require proof.
But I cannot reconcile this with what he
says, S 8, of the same chapter:—“ The
necessity of this intuitive knowledge in every
step of scientifical or demonstrative reason-
ing gave occasion, I imagine, to that mis-
taken axiom, that all reasoning was ea prae-
cognitis et praeconcessis, which, how far it is
mistaken, I shall have occasion to shew
more at large, when I come to consider
propositions, and particularly those proposi-
tions which are called maxims, and to shew
that it is by a mistake that they are sup-
posed to be the foundation of all our know-
ledge and reasonings.”
1 have carefully considered the chapter
on maxims, which Mr Locke here refers to ;
and, though one would expect, from the
quotation last made, that it should run con-
trary to what I have before delivered con-
cerning first principles, I find only two or
three sentences in it, and those chiefly inci-
dental, to which I do not assent; and I am
always happy in agreeing with a philoso-
pher whom I so highly respect.
He endeavours to shew that axioms or
intuitive truths are not innate.t
* See Stewºrt’s “Elements,” ii. p. 49.-H.
# He does more. He attempts to shew that they
are all generalizations from experience; whereas ex-
[642, 643]
2 H
466
[ESSAY v1.
. ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
To this I agree. I maintain only, that
when the understanding is ripe, and when
we distinctly apprehend such truths, we
immediately assent to them. [644]
- He observes, that self-evidence is not
peculiar to those propositions which pass
under the name of axioms, and have the
dignity of axioms ascribed to them.
I grant that there are innumerable self-
evident propositions, which have neither
dignity nor utility, and, therefore, deserve
not the name of axioms, as that name is
commonly understood to imply not only
self-evidence, but some degree of dignity or
utility. That a man is a man, and that a
man is not a horse, are self-evident propo-
sitions; but they are, as Mr Locke very
justly calls them, trifling propositions. Til-
lotson very wittily says of such propositions,
that they are so surfeited with truth, that
they are good for nothing ; and as they de-
serve not the name of axioms, so neither
do they deserve the name of knowledge.
He observes, that such trifling self-evi-
dent propositions as we have named are not
derived from axioms, and therefore that all
our knowledge is not derived from axioms.
I grant that they are not derived from
axioms, because they are themselves self-
evident. But it is an abuse of words to call
them knowledge, as it is, to call them
axioms; for no man can be said to be the
wiser or more knowing for having millions of
them in store.
He observes, that the particular propo-
sitions contained under a general axiom are
no less self-evident than the general axiom,
and that they are sooner known and under-
stood. Thus, it is as evident that my hand
is less than my body, as that a part is less
than the whole ; and I know the truth of
the particular proposition sooner than that
of the general.
This is true. A man cannot perceive the
truth of a general axiom, such as, that a
part is less than the whole, until he has the
general notions of a part and a whole formed
in his mind ; and, before he has these
general notions, he may perceive that his
hand is less than his body. [645]
A great part of this chapter on maxims
is levelled against a notion, which, it seems,
some have entertained, that all our know-
ledge is derived from these two maxims—
to wit, whatever is, is ; and it is impossible
jor the same thing to be, and not to be.”
This I take to be a ridiculous notion,
justly deserving the treatment which Mr
perience only affords the occasions on which the
native (not innate) or a priori cognitions, virtually
possessed by the mind, actually manifest their exist-
ence.—H.
* These are called, the principle of Identity, and the
principle of Contradiction, or, more properly, Non-
contradiction.—H.
Locke has given it, if it at all merited his
notice. These are identical propositions;
they are trifling, and surfeited with truth.
No knowledge can be derived from them.
Having mentioned how far I agree with
Mr Locke concerning maxims or first prin-
ciples, I shall next take notice of two or
three things, wherein I cannot agree with
him.
In the seventh section of this chapter, he
says, That, concerning the real existence of
all other beings, besides ourselves and a
first cause, there are no maxims.
I have endeavoured to shew that there
are maxims, or first principles, with regard
to other existences. Mr Locke acknowledges
that we have a knowledge of such existences,
which, he says, is neither intuitive nor de-
monstrative, and which, therefore, he calls
sensitive knowledge. It is demonstrable,
and was long ago demonstrated by Aristotle,
that every proposition to which we give a
rational assent, must either have its evi-
dence in itself, or derive it from some ante-
cedent proposition. And the same thing
may be said of the antecedent proposition.
As, therefore, we cannot go back to ante-
cedent propositions without end, the evi-
dence must at last rest upon propositions,
one or more, which have their evidence in
themselves—that is, upon first principles.
As to the evidence of our own existence,
and of the existence of a first cause, Mr
Locke does not say whether it rests upon
first principles or not. But it is manifest,
from what he has said upon both, that it
does. [646]
With regard to our own existence, says
he, we perceive it so plainly and so cer-
tainly that it neither needs nor is capable
of any proof. This is as much as to say
that our own existence is a first principle ;
for it is applying to this truth the very
definition of a first principle.
He adds, that, if I doubt, that very doubt
makes me perceive my own existence, and
will not suffer me to doubt of that. If I
feel pain, I have as certain perception of
my existence as of the pain I feel.
Here we have two first principles plainly
implied—First, That my feeling pain, or
being conscious of pain, is a certain evidence
of the real existence of that pain; and,
secondly, That pain cannot exist without a
mind or being that is pained. That these
are first principles, and incapable of proof,
Mr Locke acknowledges. And it is certain,
that, if they are not true, we can have no
evidence of our own existence ; for, if we
may feel pain when no pain really exists, or
if pain may exist without any being that is
pained, then it is certain that our feeling .
pain can give us no evidence of our ex-
istence.
Thus, it appears that the evidence of our
- [644–646]
of{AP. VII.]
467
OPINIONS ABOUT FIRST PRINCIPLES.
own existence, according to the view that
Mr Locke gives of it, is grounded upon two
of those first principles which we had occa-
sion to mention.
If we consider the argument he has given
for the existence of a first intelligent cause,
it is no less evident that it is grounded upon
other two of them. The first, That what
begins to exist must have a cause of its ex-
istence; and the second, That an unintelli-
gent and unthinking being cannot be the
cause of beings that are thinking and in-
telligent. Upon these two principles, he
argues, very convincingly, for the existence
of a first intelligent cause of things. And,
if these principles are not true, we can have
no proof of the existence of a first cause,
either from our own existence, or from the
existence of other things that fall within our
view. [647]
Another thing advanced by Mr Locke
upon this subject is, that no science is or
hath been built upon maxims.
Surely Mr Locke was not ignorant of
geometry, which hath been built upon
maxims prefixed to the elements, as far back
as we are able to trace it." But, though
they had not been prefixed, which was a
matter of utility rather than necessity, yet
it must be granted that every demonstra-
tion in geometry is grounded either upon
propositions formerly demonstrated, or upon
self-evident principles.
Mr Locke farther says, that maxims are
not of use to help men forward in the ad-
vancement of the sciences, or new dis-
coveries of yet unknown truths; that New-
ton, in the discoveries he has made in his
never-enough-to-be-admired book, has not
been assisted by the general maxims—what-
ever is, is ; or, the whole is greater than a
part; or the like.
I answer, the first of these is, as was be-
fore observed, an identical trifling proposi-
tion, of no use in mathematics, or in any
other science. The second is often used by
Newton, and by all mathematicians, and
many demonstrations rest upon it. In
general, Newton, as well as all other mathe-
maticians, grounds his demonstrations of
mathematical propositions upon the axioms
laid down by Euclid, or upon propositions
which have been before demonstrated by
help of those axioms. [648]
But it deserves to be particularly observed,
that Newton, intending, in the third book of
his “Principia,” to give a more scientific
form to the physical part of astronomy,
which he had at first composed in a popular
form, thought proper to follow the example
of Euclid, and to lay down first, in what he
* Compare Stewart’s “Elements,” ii. pp. 38, 43,
196. On this subject, “satius est silere quam parum
dicere.”— H
calls “ Regula Philosophandi,” and in his
“Phaenomena,” the first principles which he
assumes in his reasoning.
Nothing, therefore, could have been more.
unluckily adduced by Mr Locke to support
his aversion to first principles, than the ex-
ample of Sir Isaac Newton, who, by laying
down the first principles upon which he rea-
sons in those parts of natural philosophy
which he cultivated, has given a stability to
that science which it never had before, and
which it will retain to the end of the world.
I am now to give some account of a philo-
sopher, who wrote expressly on the subject
of first principles, after Mr Locke.
Pere Buffier, a French Jesuit, first pub-
lished his “ Traité des premiers Veritez, et
de la Source de nos Jugements,” in 8vo, if
I mistake not, in the year 1724. It was
afterwards published in folio, as a part of
his “Cours des. Sciences.” Paris, 1732.
He defines first principles to be proposi-
tions so clear that they can neither be
proved nor combated by those that are more
clear.
The first source of first principles he men-
tions, is, that intimate conviction which
every man has of his own existence, and of
what passes in his own mind. Some philo-
sophers, he observes, admitted these as first
principles, who were unwilling to admit any
others; and he shews the strange conse-
quences that follow from this system.
A second source of first principles he
makes to be common sense ; which, he ob-
serves, philosophers have not been wont to
consider. He defines it to be the disposi-
tion which Nature has planted in all men,
or the far greater part, which leads them,
when they come to the use of reason, to form
a common and uniform judgment upon
objects which are not objects of conscious-
ness, nor are founded on any antecedent
judgment. [649]
He mentions, not as a full enumeration,
but as a specimen, the following principles
of common sense. --
1. That there are other beings and other
men in the universe, besides myself.
2. That there is in them something that
is called truth, wisdom, prudence; and that
these things are not purely arbitrary.
3. That there is something in me which
I call intelligence, and something which is
not that intelligence, which I call my body;
and that these things have different pro-
perties.
4. That all men are not in a conspiracy
to deceive me and impose upon my cre-
dulity.
5. That what has not intelligence cannot
produce the effects of intelligence, nor can
pieces of matter thrown together by chance
form any regular work, such as a clock or
watch.
[647–649]
2 FI 2
468
[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
He explains very particularly the several
parts of his definition of common sense,
and shews how the dictates of common
sense may be distinguished from common
prejudices; and then enters into a particular
consideration of the primary truths that
concern being in general ; the truths that
concern thinking beings; those that concern
body; and those on which the various
branches of human knowledge are grounded.
* I shall not enter into a detail of his sen-
timents on these subjects. I think there is
more which I take to be original in this
treatise than in most books of the meta-
physical kind I have met with ; that many
of his notions are solid; and that others,
which I cannot altogether approve, are
ingenious. [650]
The other writers I have mentioned,
after Des Cartes, may, I think, without
impropriety, be called Cartesians. For,
though they differ from Des Cartes in some
things, and contradict him in others, yet
they set-out from the same principles, and
follow the same method, admitting no other
first principle with regard to the existence
of things but their own existence, and the
existence of those operations of mind of
which they are conscious, and requiring
that the existence of a material world, and
the existence of other men and things,
should be proved by argument.
This method of philosophising is common
to Des Cartes, Malebranche, Arnauld,
Locke, Norris, Collier, Berkeley, and Hume;
and, as it was introduced by Des Cartes, I
call it the Cartesian system, and those who
follow it Cartesians, not intending any dis-
respect by this term, but to signify a parti-
cular method of philosophising common to
them all, and begun by Des Cartes.
Some of these have gone the utmost
length in scepticism, leaving no existence
in nature but that of ideas and impressions.
Some have endeavoured to throw off the
belief of a material world only, and to leave
us ideas and spirits. All of them have
fallen into very gross paradoxes, which can
never sit easy upon the human understand-
ing, and which, though adopted in the
closet, men find themselves under a ne-
cessity of throwing off and disclaiming when
they enter into society.
Indeed, in my judgment, those who have
reasoned most acutely and consequentially
upon this system, are they that have gone
deepest into scepticism. -
Father Buffier, however, is no Cartesian
in this sense. He seems to have perceived
the defects of the Cartesian system while
it was in the meridian of its glory, and to
have been aware that a ridiculous scepticism
is the natural issue of it, and therefore
nobly attempted to lay a broader founda-
tion for human knowledge, and has the
honour of being the first, as far as I know,
after Aristotle, who has given the world a
just treatise upon first principles. [651]
Some late writers, particularly Dr Os-
wald, Dr Beattie, and Dr Campbell, have
been led into a way of thinking somewhat
similar to that of Buffier ; the two former,
as I have reason to believe, without any in- .
tercourse with one another, or any know-
ledge of what Buffier had wrote on the sub-
ject. Indeed, a man who thinks, and who
is acquainted with the philosophy of Mr
Hume, will very naturally be led to appre-
hend, that, to support the fabric of human
knowledge, some other principles are neces-
sary than those of Des Cartes and Mr
Locke. Buffier must be acknowledged to
have the merit of having discovered this,
before the consequences of the Cartesian
system were so fully displayed as they have
been by Mr Hume. But I am apt to think
that the man who does not see this now,
must have but a superficial knowledge of
these subjects."
The three writers above mentioned have
my high esteem and affection as men; but
I intend to say nothing of them as writers
upon this subject, that I may not incur the
censure of partiality. Two of them have
been joined so closely with me in the anim-
adversions of a celebrated writer, F that
we may be thought too near of kin to give
our testimony of one another.
CHAPTER VIII.
OF PREJUDICES, THE CAUSEs of ERROR.
OUR intellectual powers are wisely fitted
by the Author of our nature for the disco-
very of truth, as far as suits our present
state. Error is not their natural issue, any
more than disease is of the natural structure
of the body. Yet, as we are liable to vari-
ous diseases of body from accidental causes,
external and internal; so we are, from like
causes, liable to wrong judgments. [652]
Medical writers have endeavoured to enu-
merate the diseases of the body, and to re-
duce them to a system, under the name of
noSology; and it were to be wished that we
had also a nosology of the human under-
standing.
When we know a disorder of the body,
we are often at a loss to find the proper
remedy ; but in most cases the disorders of
the understanding point out their remedies
so plainly, that he who knows the one must
know the other.
Many authors have furnished useful ma-
terials for this purpose, and some have en-
deavoured to reduce them to a system. I
+ Pricstley.—H.
| 650–652}
* See Note A.—H.
chap. viii.] OF PREJUDICES, THE CAUSES OF ERROR.
469
like best the general division given of them
by Lord Bacon, in his fifth book “De Aug-
mentis Scientiarum,” and more fully treated
in his “ Novum Organum.” He divides
them into four classes—idola tribus, idola
specus, idola fori, and idola theatri. The
names are perhaps fanciful ; but I think
the division judicious, like most of the pro-
ductions of that wonderful genius. And as
this division was first made by him, he may
be indulged the privilege of giving names
to its several members.
I propose in this chapter to explain the
several members of this division, according
to the meaning of the author, and to give
instances of each, without confining myself
to those which Lord Bacon has given, and
without pretending to a complete enumera-
tion.
Toevery bias of the understanding, by which
a man may be misled in judging, or drawn
into error, Lord Bacon gives the name of
an idol. The understanding, in its natural
and best state, pays its homage to truth
only. The causes of error are considered
by him as so many false deities, who receive
the homage which is due only to truth.
[653]
A. The first class are the idola tribus.
These are such as beset the whole human
species ; so that every man is in danger
from them. They arise from principles of
the human constitution, which are highly
useful and necessary in our present state;
but, by their excess or defect, or wrong
direction, may lead us into error.
As the active principles of the human
frame are wisely contrived by the Author
of our being for the direction of our ac-
tions, and yet, without proper regulation
and restraint, are apt to lead us wrong, so
it is also with regard to those parts of our
constitution that have influence upon our
opinions. Of this we may take the follow-
ing instances:—
1. First,-Men are prone to be led too
much by authority in their opinions.
In the first part of life, we have no other
guide ; and, without a disposition to receive
implicitly what we are taught, we should
be incapable of instruction, and incapable
of improvement.
When judgment is ripe, there are many
things in which we are incompetent judges.
In such matters, it is most reasonable to
rely upon the judgment of those whom we
believe to be competent and disinterested.
The highest court of judicature in the
nation relies upon the authority of lawyers
and physicians in matters belonging to
their respective professions.
Even in matters which we have access
to know, authority always will have, and
ought to have, more or less weight, in pro-
portion to the evidence on which our own
judgment rests, and the opinion we have of
the judgment and candour of those who
differ from us, or agree with us The
modest man, conscious of his own fal-
libility in judging, is in danger of giving
too much to authority; the arrogant of
giving too little... [654]
In all matters belonging to our cog-
nizance, every man must be determined by
his own final judgment, otherwise he does
not act the part of a rational being.
Authority may add weight to one scale;
but the man holds the balance, and judges
what weight he ought to allow to authority.
If a man should even claim infallibility,
we must judge of his title to that preroga-
tive. If a man pretend to be an ambassa-
dor from heaven, we must judge of his
credentials. No claim can deprive us of
this right, or excuse us for neglecting to
exercise it.
As, therefore, our regard to authority
may be either too great or too small, the
bias of human nature seems to lean to the
first of these extremes ; and I believe it is
good for men in general that it should do so.
When this bias concurs with an indiffer.
ence about truth, its operation will be the
more powerful.
The love of truth is natural to man, and
strong in every well-disposed mind. But
it may be overborne by party zeal, by
vanity, by the desire of victory, or even by
laziness. When it is superior to these, it
is a manly virtue, and requires the exer-
cise of industry, fortitude, self-denial, can-
dour, and openness to conviction.
As there are persons in the world of so
mean and abject a spirit that they rather
choose to owe their subsistence to the
charity of others, than by industry to ac-
quire some property of their own ; so there
are many more who may be called mere
beggars with regard to their opinions.
Through laziness and indifference about
truth, they leave to others the drudgery of
digging for this commodity ; they can have
enough at second hand to serve their occa-
sions. Their concern is not to know what
is true, but what is said and thought on
such subjects; and their understanding,
like their clothes, is cut according to the
fashion. [655]
This distemper of the understanding has
taken so deep root in a great part of man-
kind, that it can hardly be said that they
use their own judgment in things that do
not concern their temporal interest. Nor is
it peculiar to the ignorant; it infects all
ranks. We may guess their opinions when
we know where they were born, of what
parents, how educated, and what company
they have kept. These circumstances de-
termine their opinions in religion, in politics,
and in philosophy.
[653–655]
470
[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
2. A second general prejudice arises from
a disposition to measure things less known
and less familiar, by those that are better
known and m0re familiar.
This is the foundation of analogical rea-
soning, to which we have a great proneness
by nature, and to it indeed we owe a great
part of our knowledge. It would be absurd
to lay aside this kind of reasoningaltogether,
and it is difficult to judge how far we may
venture upon it. The bias of human nature
is to judge from too slight analogies.
The objects of sense engross our thoughts
In the first part of life, and are most fami-
liar through the whole of it. Hence, in all
ages men have been prone to attribute the
human figure and human passions and frail-
ties to superior intelligences, and even to
the Supreme Being.
There is a disposition in men to mate-
rialize everything, if I may be allowed the
expression ; that is, to apply the notions we
have of material objects to things of another
nature. Thought is considered as analogous
to motion in a body; and as bodies are put
in motion by impulses, and by impressions
made upon them by contiguous objects, we
are apt to conclude that the mind is made
to think by impressions made upon it, and
that there must be some kind of contiguity
between it and the objects of thought.
Hence the theories of ideas and impressions
have so generally prevailed. [656]
Because the most perfect works of human
artists are made after a model, and of ma-
terials that before existed, the ancient phi-
losophers universally believed that the world
was made of a pre-existent uncreated matter;
and many of them, that there were eternal
and uncreated models of every species of
things which God made.
The mistakes in common life, which are
owing to this prejudice, are innumerable,
and cannot escape the slightest observation.
Men judge of other men by themselves, or
by the small circle of their acquaintance.
The selfish man thinks all pretences to be-
nevolence and public spirit to be mere
hypocrisy or self-deceit. The generous and
open-hearted believe fair pretences too
easily, and are apt to think men better than
they really are. The abandoned and pro-
fligate can hardly be persuaded that there
is any such thing as real virtue in the world.
The rustic forms his notions of the man-
ners and characters of men from those of
his country village, and is easily duped when
he comes into a great city.
It is commonly taken for granted, that
this narrow way of judging of men is to be
cured only by an extensive intercourse with
men of different ranks, professions, and
nations ; and that the man whose acquaint-
ance has been confined within a narrow
circle, must have many prejudices and nar-
row notions, which a more extensive inter-
course would have.cured.
3. Men are often led into error by the
love of simplicity, which disposes us to re-
duce things to few principles, and to con-
ceive a greater simplicity in malwre than
there really is." [657]
To love simplicity, and to be pleased with
it wherever we find it, is no imperfection,
but the contrary. It is the result of good
taste. We cannot but be pleased to ob-
serve, that all the changes of motion pro-
duced by the collision of bodies, hard, soft,
or elastic, are reducible to three simple
laws of motion, which the industry of phi-
losophers has discovered.
When we consider what a prodigious
variety of effects depend upon the law of
gravitation; how many phaenomena in the
earth, sea, and air, which, in all preceding
ages, had tortured the wits of philosophers,
and occasioned a thousand vain theories,
are shewn to be the necessary consequences
of this one law ; how the whole system of
Sun, moon, planets, primary and secondary;
and comets, are kept in order by it, and
their seeming irregularities accounted for
and reduced to accurate measure—the sim-
plicity of the cause, and the beauty and
variety of the effects, must give pleasure to
every contemplative mind. By this noble
discovery, we are taken, as it were, behind
the scene in this great drama of nature,
and made to behold some part of the art of
the divine Author of this system, which,
before this discovery, eye had not seen, nor
ear heard, nor had it entered into the heart
of man to conceive.
There is, without doubt, in every work
of nature, all the beautiful simplicity that is
consistent with the end for which it was
made. But, if we hope to discover how
nature brings about its ends, merely from
this principle, that it operates in the simplest
and best way, we deceive ourselves, and
forget that the wisdom of nature is more
above the wisdom of man, than man's wis-
dom is above that of a child. -
If a child should sit down to contrive how
a city is to be fortified, or an army arranged
in the day of battle, he would, no doubt,
conjecture what, to his understanding, ap-
peared the simplest and best way. But
could he ever hit upon the true way ? No
surely. When he learns from fact how
these effects are produced, he will then see
how foolish his childish conjectures were.
[658]
We may learn something of the way in
which nature operates from fact and ob-
servation; but, if we conclude that it ope-
rates in such a manner, only because to Our

* See “ Inquiry,” ch. vii. § 3, above, p. 206, Sqq
li.
[656–658]
*
cHAP. viii.] OF PREJUDICES, THE CAUSES OF ERROR.
471
understanding that appears to be the best
and simplest manner, we shall always go
wrong.
It was believed, for many ages, that all
the variety of concrete bodies we find on
this globe is reducible to four elements, of
which they are compounded, and into which
they may be resolved. It was the simpli-
city of this theory, and not any evidence
from fact, that made it to be so generally
received ; for the more it is examined, we
find the less ground to believe it.
The Pythagoreans and Platonists were
carried farther by the same love of sim-
plicity. Pythagoras, by his skill in mathe-
matics, discovered, that there can be no
more than five regular solid figures, ter-
minated by plain surfaces, which are all
similar and equal; to wit, the tetrahedron,
the cube, the octahedron, the dodecahedron,
and the eicosihedron. As nature works in
the most simple and regular way, he thought
that all the elementary bodies must have
one or other of those regular figures ; and
that the discovery of the properties and
relations of the regular solids would be a
key to open the mysteries of nature.
This notion of the Pythagoreans and
Platonists has undoubtedly great beauty
and simplicity. Accordingly it prevailed,
at least, to the time of Euclid. He was
a Platonic philosopher, and is said to have
wrote all the books of his “ Elements” in
order to discover the properties and rela-
tions of the five regular solids. This ancient
tradition of the intention of Euclid in writing
his “Elements,” is countenanced by the
work itself. For the last books of the
“Elements” treat of the regular solids, and
all the preceding are subservient to the
last. [659]
So that this most ancient mathematical
work, which, for its admirable composition,
has served as a model to all succeeding
writers in mathematics, seems, like the two
first books of Newton’s “Principia,” to
have been intended by its author to exhibit
the mathematical principles of natural phi-
sophy.
It was long believed, that all the qualities
of bodies," and all their medical virtues,
were reducible to four—moisture and dry-
ness, heat and cold; and that there are
only four temperaments of the human body—
the sanguine, the melancholy, the bilious,
and the phlegmatic. The chemical system,
of reducing all bodies to salt, sulphur, and
mercury, was of the same kind. For how
many ages did men believe, that the division
of all the objects of thought into ten cate-
gories, and of all that can be affirmed or
denied of anything, into five universals or
predicables, were perfect enumerations 2
#TOnly the qualitates prima of the ſeripatetics.-
H
The evidence from reason that could be
produced for those systems was next to no-
thing, and bore no proportion to the ground
they gained in the belief of men; but they
were simple and regular, and reduced things
to a few principles; and this supplied their
want of evidence.
Of all the systems we know, that of Des
Cartes was most remarkable for its sim-
plicity." Upon one proposition, I think,
he builds the whole fabric of human know-
ledge. And from mere matter, with a
certain quantity of motion given it at first,
he accounts for all the phaenomena of the
material world.
The physical part of this system was
mere hypothesis. It had nothing to re-
commend it but its simplicity; yet it had
force enough to overtürn the system of
Aristotle, after that system had prevailed
for more than a thousand years,
The principle of gravitation, and other
attracting and repelling forces, after Sir
Isaac Newton had given the strongest evi-
dence of their real existence in nature, were
rejected by the greatest part of Europe for
half a century, because they could not be
accounted for by matter and motion. So
much were men enamoured with the sim.
plicity of the Cartesian system. [660]
Nay, I apprehend, it was this love of
simplicity, more than real evidence, that led
Newton himself to say, in the preface to his
“Principia,” speaking of the phaenomena
of the material world—“Nam multa me
movent ut nonnihil suspicer, ea omnia, ex
viribus quibusdam pendere posse, quibus
corporum particulae, per causas nondum
cognitas, vel in se mutuo impelluntur, et
Secundum figuras regulares cohaerent, vel
ab invicem fugantur et recedunt.” For
certainly we have no evidence from fact,
that all the phaenomena of the material
world are produced by attracting or repell-
ing forces.
With his usual modesty, he proposes it
only as a slight suspicion ; and the ground
of this suspicion could only be, that he saw
that many of the phaenomena of nature de-
pended upon causes of this kind ; and there-
fore was disposed, from the simplicity of
nature, to think that all do.
When a real cause is discovered, the
same love of simplicity leads men to attri-
bute effects to it which are beyond its pro-
VIII Ce,
A medicine that is found to be of great
use in one distemper, commonly has its
virtues multiplied, till it becomes a panacea.
Those who have lived long, can recollect
many instances of this. In other branches
of knowledge, the same thing often happens.
When the attention of men is turned to any
* See above, p. 206, b, note f.— H.
[639, 660)
472
[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
particular cause, by discovering it to have
remarkable effects, they are in great danger
of extending its influence, upon slight evi-
dence, to things with which it has no con-
nection. Such prejudices arise from the
natural desire of simplifying natural causes,
and of accounting for many phaenomena
from the same principle. [661]
4. One of the most copious sources of
error in philosophy is the misapplication of
our noblest intellectual power to purposes for
which it is incompetent.
Of all the intellectual powers of man,
that of invention bears the highest price.
It resembles most the power of creation,
and is honoured with that name.
We admire the man who shews a supe-
riority in the talent of finding the means of
accomplishing an end; who can, by a happy
combination, produce an effect, or make a
discovery beyond the reach of other men ;
who can draw important conclusions from
circumstances that commonly pass unob-
served ; who judges with the greatest Saga-
city of the designs of other men, and the
consequences of his own actions. To this
superiority of understanding we give the
name of genius, and look up with admira-
tion to everything that bears the marks of it. .
Yet this power, so highly valuable in it-
self, and so useful in the conduct of life,
may be misapplied; and men of genius, in
all ages, have been prone to apply it to pur-
poses for which it is altogether incompe-
tent.
The works of men and the works of
Nature are not of the same order. The
force of genius may enable a man perfectly
to comprehend the former, and see them to
the bottom. What is contrived and exe-.
cuted by one man may be perfectly under-
stood by another man. With great proba-
bility, he may from a part conjecture the
whole, or from the effects may conjecture
the causes; because they are effects of a
wisdom not superior to his own. [662]
But the works of Nature are contrived
and executed by a wisdom and power in-
finitely superior to that of man ; and when
men attempt, by the force of genius, to dis-
cover the causes of the phaenomena of Na-
ture, they have only the chance of going
wrong more ingeniously. Their conjectures
may appear very probable to beings no
wiser than themselves; but they have no
chance to hit the truth. They are like the
conjectures of a child how a ship of war is
built, and how it is managed at sea.
Let the man of genius try to make an
animal, even the meanest; to make a plant,
or even a single leaf of a plant, or a feather
of a bird; he will find that all his wisdom
and Sagacity can bear no comparison with
the wisdom of Nature, nor his power with
the power of Nature. -
The experience of all ages shews how
prone ingenious men have been to invent
hypotheses to explain the phaenomena of
Nature; how fond, by a kind of anticipa-
tion, to discover her secrets. Instead of a
slow and gradual ascent in the scale of na-
tural causes, by a just and copious induc-
tion, they would shorten the work, and, by
a flight of genius, get to the top at once.
This gratifies the pride of human under-
standing ; but it is an attempt beyond our
force, like that of Phaeton to guide the
chariot of the sun.
When a man has laid out all his inge-
nuity in fabricating a system, he views it
with the eye of a parent ; he strains phae-
nomena to make them tally with it, and
make it look like the work of Nature.
The slow and patient method of induc-
tion, the only way to attain any knowledge
of Nature’s work, was little understood
until it was delineated by Lord Bacon, and
has been little followed since. It humbles
the pride of man, and puts him constantly in
mind that his most ingenious conjectures
with regard to the works of God are pitiful
and childish. [663]
There is no room here for the favourite
talent of invention. In the humble method
of information, from the great volume of
Nature we must receive all our knowledge
of Nature. Whatever is beyond a just in-
terpretation of that volume is the work of
man; and the work of God ought not to be
contaminated by any mixture with it.
To a man of genius, self-denial is a diffi-
cult lesson in philosophy as well as in reli-
gion. To bring his fine imaginations and
most ingenious conjectures to the fiery trial
of experiment and induction, by which the
greater part, if not the whole, will be
found to be dross, is a humiliating task.
This is to condemn him to dig in a mine,
when he would fly with the wings of an
eagle.
In all the fine arts, whose end is to
please, genius is deservedly supreme. In
the conduct of human affairs, it often does
wonders; but in all inquiries into the con-
stitution of Nature, it must act a subor-
dinate part, ill-suited to the superiority it
boasts. It may combine, but it must not
fabricate. It may collect evidence, but
must not supply the want of it by conjec-
ture. It may display its powers by putting
Nature to the question in well-contrived
experiments, but it must add nothing to her
allSWerS.
5. In avoiding one eatreme, men are very
apt to rush into the opposite.
Thus, in rude ages, men, unaccustomed
to search for natural causes, ascribe every
uncommon appearance to the immediate
interposition of invisible beings; but when
philosophy has discovered natural causes of
[661–663]
cuAe viii.] OF PREJUDICES, THE CAUSES OF ERROR.
473
many events, which, in the days of ignor-
ance, were ascribed to the immediate opera-
tion of gods or daemons, they are apt to
think that all the phaenomena of Nature
may be accounted for in the same way, and
that there is no need of an invisible Maker
and Governor of the world. [664]
Rude men are, at first, disposed to ascribe
intelligence and active power to everything
they see move or undergo any change.
“Savages,” says the Abbé Raymal, “where-
ever they see motion which they cannot
account for, there they suppose a soul.”
When they come to be convinced of the
folly of this extreme, they are apt to run
into the opposite, and to think that every
thing moves only as it is moved, and acts
as it is acted upon.
Thus, from the extreme of superstition,
the transition is easy to that of atheism ;
and from the extreme of ascribing activity
to every part of Nature, to that of exclud-
ing it altogether, and making even the deter-
minations of intelligent beings, the links of
one fatal chain, or the wheels of one great
machine. -
The abuse of occult qualities in the Peri-
patetic philosophy led Des Cartes and his
followers to reject all occult qualities, to
pretend to explain all the phaenomena of
Nature by mere matter and motion, and
even to fix disgrace upon the name of occult
quality.
6. Men's judgments are often perverted
by their affections and passions. This is
so commonly observed, and so universally
acknowledged, that it needs no proof nor
illustration.
B. The second class of idols in Lord
Bacon's division are the idola specus.
These are prejudices which have their
origin, not from the constitution of human
mature, but from something peculiar to the
individual.
As in a cave objects vary in their appear-
ance according to the form of the cave and
the manner in which it receives the light,
Lord Bacon conceives the mind of every
man to resemble a cave, which has its par-
ticular form, and its particular manner of
being enlightened; and, from these circum-
stances, often gives false colours and a delu-
sive appearance to objects seen in it." [665]
For this reason he gives the name of idola
specus to those prejudices which arise from
the particular way in which a man has been
trained, from his being addicted to some
particular profession, or from something
particular in the turn of his mind.
A man whose thoughts have been con-
fined to a certain track by his profession or
manner of life, is very apt to judge wrong
when he ventures out of that track. He is
apt to draw everything within the sphere of
his profession, and to judge by its maxims
of things that have no relation to it.
The mere mathematician is apt to apply
measure and calculation to things which do
not admit of it. Direct and inverse ratios
have been applied by an ingenious author to
measure human affections, and the moral
worth of actions. An eminent mathemati-
cian” attempted to ascertain by calculation
the ratio in which the evidence of facts
must decrease in the course, of time, and
fixed the period when the evidence of the
facts on which Christianity is founded shall
become evanescent, and when in conse-
quence no faith shall be found on the earth.
I have seen a philosophical dissertation,
published by a very good mathematician,
wherein, in opposition to the ancient divi-
sion of things into ten categories, he main-
tains that there are no more, and can be no
more than two categories, to wit, data and
quasita.i.
The ancient chemists were wont to ex-
plain all the mysteries of Nature, and even
of religion, by Salt, sulphur, and mercury.
Mr Locke, I think, mentions an eminent
musician, who believed that God created
the world in six days, and rested the se-
venth, because there are but seven notes in
music. I knew one of that profession, who
thought that there could be only three parts
in harmony—to wit, bass, tenor, and treble
—because there are but three persons in the
Trinity. [666]
The learned and ingenious Dr Henry
More having very elaborately and methodi-
cally compiled his “ Enchiridium Metaphy-
sicum,” and “ Enchiridium Ethicum,”
found all the divisions and subdivisions of
both to be allegorically taught in the first
chapter of Genesis. Thus even very inge-
nious men are apt to make a ridiculous
figure, by drawing into the track in which
their thoughts have long run, things alto-
gether foreign to it.: -
Different persons, either from temper or
from education, have different tendencies of
understanding, which, by their excess, are
unfavourable to sound judgment.
Some have an undue admiration of anti-
quity, and contempt of whatever is modern ;
others go as far into the contrary extreme.
It may be judged, that the former are per-
* If Bacon took his simile of the cave.from Plato,
he has perverted it from its proper meaning; for, in
the Platonic signification, the idola specus should
denote the prejudices, of the species, and not of the
individual—that is, express what Bacon denominates
by idola tribus.-Fl.
* Craig.—H.
+ Reid refers to his uncle, James Gregory, Prof s-
sor of Mathematics in St Andrew’s and Edinburgh.
'See above, p. 68, b. .—H.
+ “ Musicians think our souls are harmonies;
Physicians hold that they complexions be
Epicures make them swarms of atomies, -
Which do by chance into the body floe.
Sir John Davies, in the first and second lincs, al-
ludes to Aristoxenus and (\alen.-H.
[664–666]
47 ſ
[ESSAY v1.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
sons who value themselves upon their ac-
quaintance with ancient authors, and the
latter such as have little knowledge of this
kind.
Some are afraid to venture a step out of the
beaten track, and think it safest to go with
the multitude ; others are fond of singulari-
ties, and of everything that has the air of
paradox.
Some are desultory and changeable in
their opinions; others unduly tenacious.
Most men have a predilection for the tenets
of their sect or party, and still more for
their own inventions.
C. The idola, fori are the fallacies arising
from the imperfections and the abuse of lam-
guage, which is an instrument of thought
as well as of the communication of our
thoughts. [667]
Whether it be the effect of constitution
or of habit, I will not take upon me to de-
termine ; but, from one or both of these
causes, it happens that no man can pursue
a train of thought or reasoning without the
use of language. Words are the signs of
our thoughts; and the sign is so associated
with the thing signified, that the last can
hardly present itself to the imagination,
without drawing the other along with it.
A man who would compose in any lan-
guage must think in that language. If he
thinks in one language what he would ex-
press in another, he thereby doubles his
labour; and, after all, his expressions will
have more the air of a translation than of
an original.
This shews that our thoughts take their
colour in some degree from the language
we use; and that, although language ought
always to be subservient to thought, yet
thought must be, at some times and in some
degree, subservient to language.
As a servant that is extremely useful and
necessary to his master, by degrees acquires
an authority over him, so that the master
must often yield to the servant, such is the
case with regard to language. Its inten-
tion is to be a servant to the understanding;
but it is so useful and so necessary that we
cannot avoid being sometimes led by it when
it ought to follow. We cannot shake off
this impediment—we must drag it along
with us; and, therefore, must direct our
course, and regulate our pace, as it permits.
Language must have many imperfections
when applied to philosophy, because it was
not made for that use. In the early periods
of society, rude and ignorant men use cer-
tain forms of speech, to express their wants,
their desires, and their transactions with
one another. Their language can reach no
farther than their speculations and notions;
and, if their notions be vague and ill-defined,
the words by which they express them must
be so likewise.
It was a grand and noble project of
Bishop Wilkins” to invent a philosophical
language, which should be free from the
imperfections of vulgar languages. Whether
this attempt will ever succeed, so far as to
be generally useful, I shall not pretend to
determine. The great pains taken by that
excellent man in this design have hitherto
produced no effect. Very few have ever
entered minutely into his views; far less
have his philosophical language and his real
character been brought into use. [668]
He founds his philosophical language and
real character upon a systematical division
and subdivision of all the things which may
be expressed by language; and, instead of
the ancient division into ten categories, has
made forty categories, or swmma genera.
But whether this division, though made by
a very comprehensive mind, will always suit
the various systems that may be introduced,
and all the real improvements that may be
made in human knowledge, may be doubted.
The difficulty is still greater in the sub-
divisions; so that it is to be feared that
this noble attempt of a great genius will
prove abortive, until philosophers have the
same opinions and the same systems in the
various branches of human knowledge.
There is more reason to hope that the
languages used by philosophers may be
gradually improved in copiousness and in
distinctness; and that improvements in
knowledge and in language may go hand in
hand and facilitate each other. But I fear
the imperfections of language can never be
perfectly remedied while our knowledge is
imperfect.
However this may be, it is evident that
the imperfections of language, and much
more the abuse of it, are the occasion of
many errors; and that in many disputes
which have engaged learned men, the differ-
ence has been partly, and in some wholly,
about the meaning of words.
Mr Locke found it necessary to employ a
fourth part of his “Essay on Human Un-
derstanding” - about words, their various
kinds, their imperfection and abuse, and
the remedies of both ; and has made many
observations upon these subjects well worthy
of attentive perusal. [669]
D. The fourth class of prejudices are the
idola theatri, by which are meant prejudices
arising from the systems or sects in which
we have been trained, or which we have
adopted.
A false system once fixed in the mind,
becomes, as it were, the medium through
which we see objects: they receive a tinc-
ture from it, and appear of another colour
than when seen by a pure light. &
Upon the same subject, a Platonist, a
* See above, p. 403, note.-H. 7
[667–669 |
chap. viii.] OF PREJUDICES, THE CAUSES OF ERROR.
475
Peripatetic, and an Epicurean, will think
differently, not only in matters connected
with his peculiar tenets, but even in things
remote from them.
A judicious history of the different sects
of philosophers, and the different methods of
philosophising, which have obtained among
mankind, would be of no small use to direct
men in the search of truth. In such a
history, what would be of the greatest mo-
ment is not so much a minute detail of the
dogmata of each sect, as a just delineation
of the spirit of the sect, and of that point
of view in which things appeared to its
founder. This was perfectly understood,
and, as far as concerns the theories of mo-
rals, is executed with great judgment and
candour by Dr Smith in his theory of moral
sentiments.
As there are certain temperaments of the
body that dispose a man more to one class
of diseases than to another, and, on the
other hand, diseases of that kind, when they
happen by accident, are apt to induce the
temperament that is suited to them—there
is something analogous to this in the dis-
eases of the understanding. [670]
A certain complexion of understanding
may dispose a man to one system of opinions
more than to another ; and, on the other
hand, a system of opinions, fixed in the mind
by education or otherwise, gives that com-
plexion to the understanding which is suited
to them. ge *
It were to be wished, that the different
systems that have prevailed could be classed
according to their spirit, as well as named
from their founders. Lord Bacon has dis-
tinguished false philosophy into the Sophis-
tical, the empirical, and the superstitious,
and has made judicious observations upon
each of these kinds. But I apprehend this sub-
ject deserves to be treated more fully by such
a hand, if such a hand can be found. [671]
E, SS AY V II.
- OF REASONING.
CHAPTER. I.
of REASONING IN GENERAL, AND OF
DEMONSTRATION,
THE power of reasoning is very nearly
allied to that of judging; and it is of little
consequence in the common affairs of life
to distinguish them nicely. On this account,
the same name is often given to both. We
include both under the name of reason."
The assent we give to a proposition is called
judgment, whether the proposition be self-
evident, or derive its evidence by reasoning
from other propositions.
Yet there is a distinction between rea-
soning and judging. Reasoning is the pro-
cess by which we pass from one judgment
to another, which is the consequence of it.
Accordingly our judgments are distinguished
into intuitive, which are not grounded upon
any preceding judgment, and discursive,
which are deduced from Some preceding
judgment by reasoning.
In all reasoning, therefore, there must be
a proposition inferred, and one or more from
which it is inferred. And this power of
inferring, or drawing a conclusion, is only
another name for reasoning; the proposi-
tion inferred being called the conclusion,
Tº see Stewart's “ Elements,” ii. p. 12. —H.
and the proposition or propositions from
which it is inferred, the premises. [672]
Reasoning may consist of many steps:
the first conclusion being a premise to a
second, that to a third, and so on, till we
come to the last conclusion. A process
consisting of many steps of this kind, is so
easily distinguished from judgment, that it
is never called by that name. But when
there is only a single step to the conclusion,
the distinction is less obvious, and the pro-
cess is sometimes called judgment, some-
times reasoning. -
It is not strange that, in common dis-
course, judgment and reasoning should not
be very nicely distinguished, since they are
in some cases confounded even by logicians.
We are taught in logic, that judgment is
expressed by one proposition, but that rea-
soning requires two or three. But so
various are the modes of speech, that what
in one mode is expressed by two or three
propositions, may, in another mode, be ex-
pressed by one. Thus I may say, God is
good ; therefore good men shall be happy.
This is reasoning, of that kind which logi-
cians call an enthymeme, consisting of an
antecedent proposition, and a conclusion
drawn from it." But this reasoning may
* The enthymeline is a mere abbreviation of expres-
sion; in the mental process there is no ellipsis. By
Ł670–672.] -
476
[ESSAY v11.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
be expressed by one proposition, thus:–
Because God is good, good men shall be
happy. This is what they call a causal
proposition, and therefore expresses judg-
ment; yet the enthymeme, which is reason-
ing, expresses no more.
Reasoning, as well as judgment, must be
true or false : both are grounded upon evi-
dence which may be probable or demonstra-
tive, and both are accompanied with assent
or belief. [673]
The power of reasoning is justly accounted
one of the prerogatives of human nature;
because by it many important truths have
been and may be discovered, which with-
out it would be beyond our reach ; yet it
seems to be only a kind of crutch to a
limited understanding. We can conceive
an understanding, Superior to human, to
which that truth appears intuitively, which
we can only discover by reasoning. For
this cause, though we must ascribe judg-
ment to the Almighty, we do not ascribe
reasoning to him, because it implies some
defect or limitation of understanding. Even
among men, to use reasoning in things that
are self-evident, is trifling ; like a man
going upon crutches when he can walk
upon his legs.
What reasoning is, can be understood
only by a man who has reasoned, and who
is capable of reflecting upon this operation
of his own mind. We can define it only by
synonymous words or phrases, such as in-
ferring, drawing a conclusion, and the like.
The very notion of reasoning, therefore, can
enter into the mind by no other channel
than that of reflecting upon the operation
of reasoning in our own minds; and the
notions of premises and conclusion, of a
syllogism and all its constituent parts, of
an enthymeme, Sorites, demonstration, pa-
ralogism, and many others, have the same
Origin.
. It is nature, undoubtedly, that gives us
the capacity of reasoning. When this is
wanting, no art nor education can supply it.
But this capacity may be dormant through
life, like the seed of a plant, which, for want
of heat and moisture, never vegetates. This
is probably the case of some savages.
Although the capacity be purely the gift
of nature, and probably given in very dif-
ferent degrees to different persons; yet the
power of reasoning seems to be got by habit,
as much as the power of walking or running.
Its first exertions we are not able to reco-
lect in ourselves, or clearly to discern in
others. They are very feeble, and need to
be led by example, and supported by autho-
rity. By degrees it acquires strength,
chiefly by means of imitation and exer.
cise. [674] .*
enthymeme, Aristotle also meant Something very dif-
ferent from what is vulgarly supposed.-H.
| standing which we call genius.
The exercise of reasoning on various sub-
jects not only strengthens the faculty, but
furnishes the mind with a store of materials.
Every train of reasoning, which is familiar,
becomes a beaten track in the way to many
others. It removes many obstacles which
lay in our way, and Smooths many roads
which we may have occasion to travel in
future disquisitions.
... When men of equal natural parts apply
their reasoning power to any subject, the
man who has reasoned much on the same
or on similar subjects, has a like advantage
over him who has not, as the mechanic
who has store of tools for his work, has of
him who has his tools to make, or even to
invent.
In a train of reasoning, the evidence of
every step, where nothing is left to be sup-
plied by the reader or hearer, must be im-
mediately discernible to every man of ripe
understanding who has a distinct compre-
hension of the premises and conclusion, and
who compares them together. To be able
to comprehend, in one view, a combination
of steps of this kind, is more difficult, and
seems to require a superior natural ability.
In all, it may be much improved by habit.
But the highest talent in reasoning is the
invention of proofs; by which, truths re-
mote from the premises are brought to light.
In all works of understanding, invention
has the highest praise : it requires an ex-
tensive view of what relates to the subject,
and a quickness in discerning those affinities
and relations which may be subservient to
the purpose.
In all invention there must be some end
in view : and Sagacity in finding out the
road that leads to this end, is, I think, what
we call invention. In this chiefly, as I ap-
prehend, and in clear and distinct concep-
tions, consists that superiority of under-
[675]
In every chain of reasoning, the evidence
of the last conclusion can be no greater than
that of the weakest link of the chain, what-
ever may be the strength of the rest.
The most remarkable distinction of rea-
sonings is, that some are probable, others
demonstrative.
In every step of demonstrative reason-
ing, the inference is necessary, and we per-
ceive it to be impossible that the conclusion
should not follow from the premises. In
probable reasoning, the connection between
the premises and the conclusion is not neces-
sary, nor do we perceive it to be impossible
that the first should be true while the last
is false.
Hence, demonstrative reasoning has no
degrees, nor can one demonstration be
stronger than another, though, in relation
to our faculties, one may be more easily
comprehended than another. Every de.
[678-675]
chap. 1.] OF REASONING, AND OF DEMONSTRATION.
477
monstration gives equal strength to the con-
º and leaves no possibility of its being
&ISG.
It was, I think, the opinion of all the
ancients, that demonstrative reasoning can
be applied only to truths that are necessary,
and liot to those that are contingent. In
this, I believe, they judged right. Of all
created things, the existence, the attributes,
and, consequently, the relations resulting
from those attributes, are contingent. They
depend upon the will and power of Him who
made them. These are matters of fact, and
admit not of demonstration.
The field of demonstrative reasoning,
therefore, is the various relations of things
abstract, that is, of things which we con-
ceive, without regard to their existence.
Of these, as they are conceived by the mind,
and are nothing but what they are conceived
to be, we may have a clear and adequate
comprehension. Their relations and attri-
butes are necessary and immutable. They
are the things to which the Pythagoreans
and Platonists gave the name of ideas. I
would beg leave to borrow this meaning of
the word idea from those ancient philoso-
phers, and then I must agree with them,
that ideas are the only objects about which
we can reason demonstratively. [676]
There are many even of our ideas about
which we can carry on no considerable train
of reasoning. Though they be ever so well
defined and perfectly comprehended, yet
their agreements and disagreements are few,
and these are discerned at once. We may
go a step or two in forming a conclusion
with regard to such objects, but can go no
farther. There are others, about which we
may, by a long train of demonstrative rea-
soning, arrive at conclusions very remote
and unexpected.
The reasonings I have met with that can
be called strictly demonstrative, may, I
think, be reduced to two classes. They are
either metaphysical, or they are mathe-
matical. º
In metaphysical reasoning, the process is
always short. The conclusion is but a step
or two, seldom more, from the first principle
or axiom on which it is grounded, and the
different conclusions depend not one upon
another.
It is otherwise in mathematical reason-
ing. Here the field has no limits. One
proposition leads on to another, that to a
third, and so on without end.
If it should be asked, why demonstrative
reasoning has so wide a field in mathema-
tics, while, in other abstract subjects, it is
confined within very narrow limits, I con-
ceive this is chiefly owing to the nature of
quantity, the object of mathematics.
Every quantity, as it has magnitude, and
is divisible into parts without end, so, in
respect of its magnitude, it has a certain
ratio to every quantity of the kind. The
ratios of quantities are innumerable, such
as, a half, a third, a tenth, double, triple.
[677] All the powers of number are in-
sufficient to express the variety of ratios.
For there are innumerable ratios which
cannot be perfectly expressed by numbers,
such as, the ratio of the side to the diagonal
of a square, or of the circumference of a circle
to the diameter. Of this infinite variety of
ratios, every one may be clearly conceived
and distinctly expressed, so as to be in no
danger of being mistaken for any other.
Extended quantities, such as lines, sur-
faces, solids, besides the variety of relations
they have in respect of magnitude, have no
less variety in respect of figure; and every
mathematical figure may be accurately
defined, so as to distinguish it from all
others.
There is nothing of this kind in other
objects of abstract reasoning. Some of
them have various degrees; but these are
not capable of measure, nor can be said to
have an assignable ratio to others of the
kind. They are either simple, or com-
pounded of a few indivisible parts; and
therefore, if we may be allowed the expres-
sion, can touch only in few points. But
mathematical quantities being made up of
parts without number, can touch in innu-
merable points, and be compared in innu-
merable different ways.
There have been attempts made to mea-
sure the merit of actions by the ratios of
the affections and principles of action from
which they proceed. This may perhaps,
in the way of analogy, serve to illustrate
what was before known ; but I do not think
any truth can be discovered in this way.
There are, no doubt, degrees of benevolence,
self-love, and other affections; but, when
we apply ratios to them, I apprehend we
have no distinct meaning.
Some demonstrations are called direct,
others indirect. The first kind leads directly
to the conclusion to be proved. Of the
indirect, some are called demonstrations ad
absurdum. In these, the proposition con-
tradictory to that which is to be proved is
demonstrated to be false, or to lead to an
absurdity; whence it follows, that its con-
tradictory—that is, the proposition to be
proved—is true. This inference is grounded
upon an axiom in logic, that of two contra-
dictory propositions, if one be false, the
other must be true." [678]
Another kind of indirect demonstration
proceeds by enumerating all the supposi-
tions that can possibly be made concerning
the proposition to be proved, and then
* This is called the principle of Excluded Middle—
viz., between two contradictories.—H
[676–678]
478
LESSAY VII.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
demonstrating that all of them, excepting
that which is to be proved, are false; whence
it follows, that the excepted supposition is
true. Thus, one line is proved to be equal
to another, by proving first that it cannot be
greater, and then that it cannot be less : for
it must be either greater, or less, or equal;
and two of these suppositions being demon-
strated to be false, the third must be true.
All these kinds of demonstration are used
in mathematics, and perhaps some others.
They have all equal strength. The direct
demonstration is preferred where it can be
had, for this reason only, as I apprehend,
because it is the shortest road to the con-
clusion. The nature of the evidence, and
its strength, is the same in all : only we
are conducted to it by different roads.
CHAPTER II.
WHETHER MORALITY BE CAPABLE OF
- DEMONSTRATION. .
WHAT has been said of demonstrative
reasoning, may help us to judge of an opi-
nion of Mr Locke, advanced in several places
of his Essay—to wit, “That morality is
capable of demonstration as well as mathe-
matics.”
In book III., chap. 11, having observed
that mixed modes, especially those belong-
ing to morality, being such combinations of
ideas as the mind puts together of its own
choice, the signification of their names
may be perfectly and exactly defined, he
adds—[679] -
Sect. 16. “ Upon this ground it is that I
am bold to think that morality is capable of
demonstration as well as mathematics; since
the precise real essence of the things moral
words stand for may be perfectly known,
and so the congruity or incongruity of the
things themselves be certainly discovered,
in which consists perfect knowledge. Nor
let any one object, That the names of sub-
stances are often to be made use of in mo-
rality, as well as those of modes, from
which will arise obscurity; for, as to sub-
stances, when concerned in moral dis-
courses, their divers natures are not so
much inquired into as supposed: v. g. When
we say that man is subject to law, we mean
nothing by man but a corporeal rational
creature: what the real essence or other
qualities of that creature are, in this case,
is no way considered.”
Again, in book IV., ch. iii., § 18:-“The
idea of a Supreme Being, whose workman-
ship we are, and the idea of ourselves, being
such as are clear in us, would, I suppose,
if duly considered and pursued, afford such
foundation of our duty and rules of action
as might place morality among the sciences
capable of demonstration. The relation of
other modes may certainly be perceived, as
well as those of number and extension ; and
I cannot see why they should not be cap-
able of demonstration, if due methods were
thought on to examine or pursue their
agreement or disagreement.”
He afterwards gives, as instances, two
propositions, as moral propositions of which
we may be as certain as of any in mathe-
matics; and considers at large what may
have given the advantage to the ideas of
quantity, and made them be thought more
capable of certainty and demonstration.[680]
Again, in the 12th chapter of the same
book, S 7, 8:—“This, I think, I may say,
that, if other ideas that are the real as wéll
as nominal essences of their several species
were pursued in the way familiar to mathe-
maticians, they would carry our thoughts
farther, and with greater evidence and
clearness, than possibly we are apt to ima-
gine. This gave me the confidence to
advance that conjecture which I suggest,
chap iii.—viz., That morality is capable of
demonstration as well as mathematics.”
From these passages, it appears that this
opinion was not a transient thought, but
what he had revolved in his mind on dif-
ferent occasions. He offers his reasons for
it, illustrates it by examples, and considers
at length the causes that have led men to
think mathematics more capable of demon-
stration than the principles of morals.
Some of his learned correspondents, par-
ticularly his friend Mr Molyneux, urged
and importuned him to compose a system
of morals according to the idea he had ad-
vanced in his Essay; and, in his answer to
these solicitations, he only pleads other oc-
cupations, without suggesting any change of
his opinion, or any great difficulty in the
execution of what was desired.
The reason he gives for this opinion is
ingenious; and his regard for virtue, the
highest prerogative of the human species,
made him fond of an opinion which seemed
to be favourable to virtue. and to have a
just foundation in reason. -
We need not, however, be afraid that the
interest of virtue may suffer by a free and
candid examination of this question, or in-
deed of any question whatever. For the
interests of truth and of virtue can never
be found in opposition. Darkness and error
may befriend vice, but can never be favour-
able to virtue. [681]
Those philosophers who think that our
determinations in morals are not real judg-
ments—that right and wrong in human con-
duct are only certain feelings or sensations
in the person who contemplates the action
—must reject Mr Locke's opinion without
examination. For, if the principles of mo-
rals be not a matter of judgment, but of
[679–681T
CHAP. II.] WHETHER MORALITY BE DEMONSTRABLE.
479
feeling only, there can be no demonstration
of them ; nor can any other reason be given
for them, but that men are so constituted
by the Author of their being as to contem-
plate with pleasure the actions we call vir-
tuous, and with disgust those we call vicious.
It is not, therefore, to be expected that
the philosophers of this class should think
this opinion of Mr Locke worthy of ex-
amination, since it is founded upon what
they think a false hypothesis. But if our
determinations in morality be real judg-
ments, and, like all other judgments, be
either true or false, it is not unimportant
to understand upon what kind of evidence
those judgments rest. - *
The argument offered by Mr Locke,
to shew that morality is capable of demon-
stration, is, “That the precise real essence
of the things moral words stand for, may be
perfectly known, and so the congruity or
incongruity of the things themselves be
perfectly discovered, in which consists per-
fect knowledge.”
It is true, that the field of demonstration
is the various relations of things conceived
abstractly, of which we may have perfect
and adequate conceptions. And Mr Locke,
taking all the things which moral words
stand for to be of this kind, concluded that
morality is as capable of demonstration as
mathematics.
I acknowledge that the names of the
virtues and vices, of right and obligation,
of liberty and property, stand for things
abstract, which may be accurately defined,
or, at least, conceived as distinctly and
adequately as mathematical quantities. And
thence, indeed, it follows, that their mutual
relations may be perceived as clearly and
certainly as mathematical truths. [682]
Of this Mr Locke gives two pertinent
examples. The first—“Where there is no
property, there is no injustice, is,” says he,
“a proposition as certain as any demon-
stration in Euclid.”
When injustice is defined to be a viola-
tion of property, it is as necessary a truth,
that there can be no injustice where there
is no property, as that you cannot take
from a man that which he has not.
The second example is, “ That no
government allows absolute liberty.” This
is a truth no less certain and necessary.
Such abstract truths I would call meta-
physical rather than moral. We give the
name of mathematical to truths that ex-
press the relations of quantities considered
abstractly; all other abstract truths may
be called metaphysical. But if those men-
tioned by Mr Locke are to be called moral
truths, I agree with him that there are
many such that are necessarily true, and
that have all the evidence that mathemati-
cal truths can have.
It ought, however, to be remembered,
that, as was before observed, the relations
of things abstract, perceivable by us, ex-
cepting those of mathematical quantities,
are few, and, for the most part, immediately
discerned, so as not to require that train
of reasoning which we call demonstration.
Their evidence resembles more that of
mathematical axioms than mathematical
propositions.
This appears in the two propositions
given as examples by Mr Locke. The first
follows immediately from the definition of
injustice; the second from the definition of
government. Their evidence may more
properly be called intuitive than demon-
strative. And this I apprehend to be the
case, or nearly the case, of all abstract
truths that are not mathematical, for the
reason given in the last chapter. [683]
The propositions which I think are pro-
perly called moral, are those that affirm
some moral obligation to be, or not to be
incumbent on one or more individual per-
sons. To such propositions, Mr Locke's
reasoning does not apply, because the sub-
jects of the proposition are not things whose
real essence may be perfectly known. They
are the creatures of God; their obligation
results from the constitution which God
hath given them, and the circumstances
in which he hath placed them. That an
individual hath such a constitution, and is
placed in such circumstances, is not an
abstract and necessary, but a contingent
truth. It is a matter of fact, and, there-
fore, not capable of demonstrative evidence,
which belongs only to necessary truths.
The evidence which every man hath of
his own existence, though it be irresistible,
is not demonstrative. And the same thing
may be said of the evidence which every
man hath, that he is a moral agent, and
under certain moral obligations. In like
manner, the evidence we have of the exist-
ence of other men, is not demonstrative;
nor is the evidence we have of their being
endowed with those faculties which make
them moral and accountable agents.
If man had not the faculty given him by
God of perceiving certain things in conduct
to be right, and others to be wrong, and of
perceiving his obligation to do what is right,
and not to do what is wrong, he would not
be a moral and accountable being.
If man be endowed with such a faculty,
there must be some things which, by this
faculty, are immediately discerned to be
right, and others to be wrong ; and, there-
fore, there must be in morals, as in other
sciences, first principles which do not de-
rive their evidence from any antecedent
principles, but may be said to be intuitively
discerned.
Moral truths, therefore, may be divided
T682,.683]
480
[ESSAY v II.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
into two classes—to wit, such as are self-
evident to every man whose understanding
and moral faculty are ripe, and such as are
deduced by reasoning from those that are
self-evident. If the first be not discerned
without reasoning, the last never can be so
by any reasoning. [684]
If any man could say, with sincerity, that
he is conscious of no obligation to consult
his own present and future happiness ; to
be faithful to his engagements; to obey his
Maker; to injure no man ; I know not
what reasoning, either probable or demon-
strative, I could use to convince him of any
moral duty. As you cannot reason in
mathematics with a man who denies the
axioms, as little can you reason with a man
in morals who denies the first principles of
morals. The man who does not, by the light
of his own mind, perceive some things in
conduct to be right, and others to be wrong,
is as incapable of reasoning about morals
as a blind man is about colours. Such a
man, if any such man ever was, would be
no moral agent, nor capable of any moral
obligation.
Some first principles of morals must be
immediately discerned, otherwise we have
no foundation on which others can rest, or
from which we can reason.
Every man knows certainly, that, what he
approves in other men, he ought to do in
like circumstances, and that he ought not to
do what he condemns in other men. Every
man knows that he ought, with candour, to
use the best means of knowing his duty.
To every man who has a conscience, these
things are self-evident. They are imme-
diate dictates of our moral faculty, which is
a part of the human constitution; and every
man condemns himself, whether he will or
not, when he knowingly acts contrary to
them. The evidence of these fundamental
principles of morals, and of others that
might be named, appears, therefore, to me
to be intuitive rather than demonstrative.
The man who acts according to the dic-
tates of his conscience, and takes due pains
to be rightly informed of his duty, is a per-
fect man with regard to morals, and merits
no blame, whatever may be the imperfec-
tions or errors of his understanding. He
who knowingly acts contrary to them, is
conscious of guilt, and self-condemned.
Every particular action that falls evidently
within the fundamental rules of morals, is
evidently his duty; and it requires no rea-
soning to convince him that it is so. [685]
Thus, I think it appears, that every man
of common understanding knows certainly,
and without reasoning, the ultimate ends
he ought to pursue, and that reasoning is
necessary only to discover the most proper
means of attaining them ; and in this, in-
deed, a good man may often be in doubt.
Thus, a magistrate knows that it is his
duty to promote the good of the community
which hath intrusted him with authority;
and to offer to prove this to him by reason.
ing, would be to affront him. But whether
such a scheme of conduct in his office, or
another, may best serve that end, he may
in many cases be doubtful. I believe, in
such cases, he can very rarely have demon-
strative evidence. His conscience deter-
mines the end he ought to pursue, and he
has intuitive evidence that his end is good;
but prudence must determine the means
of attaining that end ; and prudence can
very rarely use demonstrative reasoning,
but must rest in what appears most proba-
ble.
I apprehend, that, in every kind of duty
we owe to God or man, the case is similar—
that is, that the obligation of the most
general rules of duty is self-evident; that
the application of those rules to particular
actions is often no less evident ; and that,
when it is not evident, but requires reason-
ing, that reasoning can very rarely be of
the demonstrative, but must be of the pro-
bable kind. Sometimes it depends upon
the temper, and talents, and circumstances
of the man himself; sometimes upon the
character and circumstances of others;
sometimes upon both ; and these are things
which admit not of demonstration. [686] .
Every man is bound to employ the talents
which God hath given him to the best pur-
pose : but if, through accidents which he
could not foresee, or ignorance which was
invincible, they be less usefully employed
than they might have been, this will not be
imputed to him by his righteous Judge.
It is a common and a just observation,
that the man of virtue plays a surer game
in order to obtain his end than the man of
the world. It is not, however, because he
reasons better concerning the means of
attaining his end ; for the children of this
world are often wiser in their generation
than the children of light. But the reason
of the observation is, that involuntary
errors, unforeseen accidents, and invincible
ignorance, which affect deeply all the con-
cerns of the present world, have no effect
upon virtue or its reward.
In the common occurrences of life, a man
of integrity, who hath exercised his moral
faculty in judging what is right and what
is wrong, sees his duty without reasoning,
as he sees the highway. The cases that
require reasoning are few, compared with
those that require none ; and a man may
be very honest and virtuous who cannot
reason, and who knows not what demon-
stration means.
The power of reasoning, in those that
have it, may be abused in morals, as in
other matters. To a man who uses it with
[684–686]
chap. III.]
48]
OF PROBABLE REASONINC.
an upright heart, and a single eye to find
what is his duty, it will be of great use ;
but when it is used to justify what a man
has a strong inclination to do, it will only
serve to deceive himself and others. When
a man can reason, his passions will reason,
and they are the most cunning sophists we
meet with.
If the rules of virtue were left to be dis-
covered by demonstrative reasoning, or by
reasoning of any kind, sad would be the
condition of the far greater part of men,
who have not the means of cultivating the
power of reasoning. As virtue is the busi-
ness of all men, the first principles of it are
written in their hearts, in characters so
legible that no man can pretend ignorance
of them, or of his obligation to practise
them. [687]
Some knowledge of duty and of moral
obligation is necessary to all men. With-
out it they could not be moral and account-
able creatures, nor capable of being mem-
bers of civil society. It may, therefore,
be presumed that Nature has put this
knowledge within the reach of all men.
Reasoning and demonstration are weapons
which the greatest part of mankind never
was able to wield. The knowledge that is
necessary to all, must be attainable by all.
We see it is so in what pertains to the
natural life of man.
Some knowledge of things that are useful
and things that are hurtful, is so necessary
to all men, that without it the species would
soon perish. But it is not by reasoning
that this knowledge is got, far less by de-
monstrative reasoning. It is by our senses,
by memory, by experience, by information ;
means of knowledge that are open to all
men, and put the learned and the unlearned,
those who can reason and those who can-
not, upon a level. -
It may, therefore, be expected, from the
analogy of nature, that such a knowledge
of morals as is necessary to all men should
be had by means more suited to the abili-
ties of all men than demonstrative reason-
ing is.
This, I apprehend, is in fact the case.
When men's faculties are ripe, the first
principles of morals, into which all moral
reasoning may be resolved, are perceived
intuitively, and in a manner more analogous
to the perceptions of sense than to the con-
clusions of demonstrative reasoning. [688
Upon the whole, I agree with Mr Locke,
that propositions expressing the congruities
and incongruities of things abstract, which
moral words stand for, may have all the
evidence of mathematical truths. But this
is not peculiar to things which moral words
stand for. It is common to abstract pro-
positions of every kind. For instance, you
cannot take from a man what he has not.
A man cannot be bound and perfectly free
at the same time. I think no man will
call these moral truths; but they are neces-
sary truths, and as evident as any in mathe-
matics. Indeed, they are very nearly allied
to the two which Mr Locke gives as in-
stances of moral propositions capable of
demonstration. Of such abstract proposi-
tions, I think it may more properly be said
that.they have the evidence of mathemati-
cal axioms, than that they are capable of
demonstration. -
There are propositions of another kind,
which alone deserve the name of moral pro-
positions. They are such as affirm some-
thing to be the duty of persons that really
exist. These are not abstract propositions;
and, therefore, Mr Locke's reasoning does
not apply to them. The truth of all such
propositions depends upon the constitution
and circumstances of the persons to whom
they are applied.
Of such propositions, there are some that
are self-evident to every man that has a
conscience ; and these are the principles
from which all moral reasoning must be
drawn. They may be called the axioms of
morals. But our reasoning from these
axioms to any duty that is not self-evident
can very rarely be demonstrative. Nor is this
any detriment to the cause of virtue, because
to act against what appears most probable
in a matter of duty, is as real a trespass
against the first principles of morality, as
to act against demonstration; and, because
he who has but one talent in reasoning, and
makes the proper use of it, shall be ac-
cepted, as well as he to whom God has
given tem. [689] -
CHAPTER III.
OF PROBABLE REASONING.
THE field of demonstration, as has been
observed, is necessary truth : the field of
probable reasoning is contingent truth—not
what necessarily must be at all times, but
what is, or was, or shall be.
No contingent truth is capable of strict
demonstration; but necessary truths may
sometimes have probable evidence.
Dr Wallis discovered many important
mathematical truths, by that kind of induc-
tion which draws a general conclusion from
particular premises. This is not strict de-
monstration, but, in some cases, gives as
full conviction as demonstration itself; and
a man may be certain, that a truth is de-
monstrable before it ever has been demon-
strated. In other cases, a mathematical
proposition may have such probable evi-
dence from induction or analogy as en-
courages the mathematician to investigate
[687–689]
2 I
482
[ESSAY v11.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
its demonstration. But still the reasoning,
proper to mathematical and other necessary
truths, is demonstration; and that which is
proper to contingent truths, is probable
reasoning. Q
These two kinds of reasoning differ in
other respects. In demonstrative reason-
ing, one argument is as good as a thousand.
One demonstration may be more elegant
than another; it may be more easily com-
prehended, or it may be more subservient
to some purpose beyond the present. On
any of these ‘accounts it may deserve a
preference: but then it is sufficient by it-
self; it needs no aid from another ; it can
receive none. To add more demonstrations
of the same conclusion, would be a kind of
tautology in reasoning ; because one de-
monstration, clearly comprehended, gives
all the evidence we are capable of receiv-
ing. [690]
The strength of probable reasoning, for
the most part, depends not upon any one
argument, but upon many, which unite
their force, and lead to the same conclusion.
Any one of them by itself would be insuf-
ficient to convince ; but the whole taken
together may have a force that is irresistible,
so that to desire more evidence would be
absurd. Would any man seek new argu-
ments to prove that there were such persons
as King Charles I. or Oliver Cromwell ?
Such evidence may be compared to a rope
made up of many slender filaments twisted
together. The rope has strength more
than sufficient to bear the stress laid upon
it, though no one of the filaments of which
it is composed would be sufficient for that
purpose. -
It is a common observation, that it is
unreasonable to require demonstration for
things which do not admit of it. It is no
less unreasonable to require reasoning of
any kind for things which are known with-
out reasoning. All reasoning must be
grounded upon truths which are known
without reasoning. In every branch of real
knowledge there must be first principles
whose truth is known intuitively, without
reasoning, either probable or demonstrative.
They are not grounded on reasoning, but
all reasoning is grounded on them. It has
been shewn, that there are first principles
of necessary truths, and first principles of
contingent truths. Demonstrative reason-
ing is grounded upon the former, and pro-
bable reasoning upon the latter.
That we may not be embarrassed by the
ambiguity of words, it is proper to observe,
that there is a popular meaning of probable
evidence, which ought not to be confounded
with the philosophical meaning, above ex-
plained. [691]
In common language, probable evidence
is considered as an inferior degree of evi-
dence, and is opposed to certainty: so that
what is certain is more than probable, and
what is only probable is not certain. Phi-
losophers consider probable evidence, not
as a degree, but as a species of evidence,
which is opposed, not to certainty, but to
another species of evidence, called demon-
stration.
Demonstrative evidence has no degrees;
but probable evidence, taken in the philo-
Sophical sense, has all degrees, from the
very least to the greatest, which we call
certainty.
That there is such a city as Rome, I am
as certain as cf any proposition in Euclid;
but the evidence is not demonstrative, but
of that kind which philosophers call pro-
bable. Yet, in common language, it would
Sound oddly to say, it is probable there is
Such a city as Rome, because it would
imply some degree of doubt or uncertainty.
Taking probable evidence, therefore, in
the philosophical sense, as it is opposed to
demonstrative, it may have any degrees of
evidence, from the least to the greatest.
I think, in most cases, we measure the
degrees of evidence by the effect they have
upon a sound understanding, when com-
prehended clearly and without prejudice.
Every degree of evidence perceived by the
mind, produces a proportioned degree of
assent or belief. The judgment may be in
perfect suspense between two contradictory
opinions, when there is no evidence for
either, or equal evidence for both. The
least preponderancy on one side inclines the
judgment in proportion. Belief is mixed
with doubt, more or less, until we come
to the highest degree of evidence, when
all doubt vanishes, and the belief is firm
and immovable. This degree of evidence,
the highest the human faculties can attain,
we call certainty. [692]
Probable evidence not only differs in kind
from demonstrative, but is itself of different
kinds. The chief of these I shall mention,
without pretending to make a complete
enumeration.
The first kind is that of human testimony,
upon which the greatest part of human
knowledge is built.
The faith of history depends upon it, as
well as the judgment of solemn tribunals,
with regard to men's acquired rights, and
with regard to their guilt or innocence,
when they are charged with crimes. A
great part of the business of the judge, of
counsel at the bar, of the historian, the
critic, and the antiquarian, is to canvass
and weigh this kind of evidence; and no
man can act with common prudence in the
ordinary occurrences of life, who has not
some competent judgment of it.
The belief we give to testimony, in many
cases, is not solely grounded upon the vera-
[690–692]
citAP. II:..]
43.3
OF PROBABLE REASONING.
city of the testifer. In a single testimony,
we consider the motives a man might have
to falsify. If there be no appearance of
any such motive, much more if there be
motives on the other side, his testimony has
weight independent of his moral character.
If the testimony be circumstantial, we con-
sider how far the circumstances agree to-
gether, and with things that are known.
It is so very difficult to fabricate a story
which cannot be detected by a judicious
examination of the circumstances, that it
acquires evidence by being able to bear
such a trial. There is an art in detecting
false evidence in judicial proceedings, well
known to able judges and barristers; so
that I believe few false witnesses leave the
bar without suspicion of their guilt.
When there is an agreement of many
witnesses, in a great variety of circum-
stances, without the possibility of a previous
concert, the evidence may be equal to that
of demonstration. [693]
A second kind of probable evidence, is
the authority of those who are good judges
of the point in question. The supreme
court of judicature of the British nation, is
often determined by the opinion of lawyers
in a point of law, of physicians in a point of
medicine, and of other artists, in what re-
lates to their several professions. And, in
the common affairs of life, we frequently
rely upon the judgment of others, in points
of which we are not proper judges our-
selves.
A third kind of probable evidence, is that
by which we recognise the identity of things
and persons of our acquaintance. That two
swords, two horses, or two persons, may be
so perfectly alike as not to be distinguish-
able by those to whom they are best known,
cannot be shewn to be impossible. But we
learn either from nature, or from experience,
that it never happens; or so very rarely,
that a person or thing, well known to us, is
immediately recognised without any doubt,
when we perceive the marks or signs by
which we were in use to distinguish it from
all other individuals of the kind.
This evidence we rely upon in the most
important affairs of life; and, by this evi-
dence, the identity, both of things and of
persons, is determined in courts of judica-
ture.
A fourth kind of probable evidence, is
that which we have of men's future actions
and conduct, from the general principles of
action in man, or from our knowledge of the
individuals. • *
Notwithstanding the folly and vice that
are to be found among men, there is a certain
degree of prudence and probity which we
rely upon in every man that is not insane.
If it were not so, no man would be safe in
the company of another, and there could be
no society among mankind. If nien were
as much disposed to hurt as to do good, to
lie as to speak truth, they could not live to-
gether ; they would keep at as great dis-
tange from one another as possible, and the
race would soon perish. [694]
We expect that men will take some care
of themselves, of their family, friends, and
reputation; that they will not injure others
without some temptation ; that they will
have some gratitude for good offices, and
Some resentment of injuries. -
Such maxims with regard to human con-
duct, are the foundation of all political rea-
soning, and of common prudence in the con-
duct of life. Hardly can a man form any
project in public or in private life, which
does not depend upon the conduct of other
men, as well as his own, and which does not
go upon the supposition that men will act
such a part in such circumstances. This
evidence may be probable in a very high
degree ; but can never be demonstrative.
The best concerted project may fail, and
wise counsels may be frustrated, because
Some individual acted a part which it would
have been against all reason to expect.
Another kind of probable evidence, the
counterpart of the last, is that by which we
collect men's characters and designs from
their actions, speech, and other external
signs.
We see not men's hearts, nor the prin-
ciples by which they are actuated ; but
there are external signs of their principles
and dispositions, which, though not certain,
may sometimes be more trusted than their
professions; and it is from external signs
that we must draw all the knowledge we
can attain of men's characters.
The next kind of probable evidence I
mention, is that which mathematicians call
the probability of chances.
We attribute some events to chance, be
cause we know only the remote cause which
must produce some one event of a num-
ber ; but know not the more immediate
cause which determines a particular event
of that number in preference to the others.
[695]
I think all the chances about which werea-
son in mathematics are of this kind. Thus,
in throwing a just die upon a table, we say
it is an equal chance which of the six sides
shall be turned up ; because neither the
person who throws, nor the bystanders,
know the precise measure of force and di-
rection necessary to turn up any one side
rather than another. There are here, there-
fore six events, one of which must happen ;
and as all are supposed to have equal pro-
bability, the probability of any one side
being turned up, the ace, for instance, is as
one to the remaining number, five.
The probability of turning up two aces
\693–695]
2 I 2
484
[ESSAY VII.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
with two dice is as one to thirty-five; because
here there are thirty-six events, each of
which has equal probability.
Upon such principles as these, the doc-
trine of chances has furnished a field of de-
monstrative reasoning of great extent, al-
though the events about which this reason-
ing is employed be not necesssary, but con-
tingent, and be not certain, but probable.
This may seem to contradict a principle
before advanced, that contingent truths are
not capable of demonstration ; but it does
not : for, in the mathematical reasonings
about chance, the conclusion demonstrated,
is not, that such an event shall happen, but
that the probability of its happening bears
such a ratio to the probability of its failing;
and this conclusion is necessary upon the
suppositions on which it is grounded.
The last kind of probable evidence I shall
mention, is that by which the known laws
of Nature have been discovered, and the
effects which have been produced by them
in former ages, or which may be expected
in time to come.
The laws of Nature are the rules by which
the Supreme Being governs the world. We
deduce them only from facts that fall within
our own observation, or are properly attested
by those who have observed them. [696]
The knowledge of some of the laws of
nature is necessary to all men in the con-
duct of life. These are soon discovered
even by Savages. They know that fire
burns, that water drowns, that bodies gra-
vitate towards the earth. They know that
day and night, summer and winter, regu-
larly succeed each other. As far back as
their experience and information reach;
they know that these have happened regu-
larly ; and, upon this ground, they are led,
by the constitution of human nature, to ex-
pect that they will happen in time to come,
in like circumstances.
The knowledge which the philosopher
attains of the laws of Nature differs from
that of the vulgar, not in the first principles
on which it is grounded, but in its extent
and accuracy. He collects with care the
phaenomena that lead to the same conclu-
sion, and compares them with those that
seem to contradict or to limit it. He ob-
serves the circumstances on which every
phaenomenon depends, and distinguishes
them carefully from those that are accident-
ally conjoined with it. He puts natural
bodies in various situations, and applies
them to one another in various ways, on
purpose to observe the effect; and thus ac-
quires from his senses a more extensive
knowledge of the course of Nature in a short
time, than could be collected by casual ob-
servation in many ages.
But what is the result of his laborious
researches P. It is, that, as far as he has
been able to observe, such things have
always happened in such circumstances, and
such bodies have always been found to have
such properties. These are matters of fact,
attested by sense, memory, and testimony,
just as the few facts which the vulgar know
are attested to them.
And what conclusions does the philoso.
pher draw from the facts he has collected 2
They are, that like events have happened
in former times in like circumstances, and
will happen in time to come ; and these con-
clusions are built on the very same ground
on which the simple rustic concludes that
the sun will rise to-morrow. [697]
Facts reduced to general rules, and the
consequences of those general rules, are all
that we really know of the material world.
And the evidence that such general rules
have no exceptions, as well as the evidence
that they will be the same in time to come
as they have been in time past, can never
be demonstrative. It is only that species
of evidence which philosophers call probable.
General rules may have exceptions or limit-
ations which no man ever had occasion to
observe. The laws of nature may be changed
by him who established them. But we are
led by our constitution to rely upon their
continuance with as little doubt as if it was
demonstrable. -
I pretend not to have made a complete
enumeration of all the kinds of probable
evidence; but those I have mentioned are
sufficient to shew, that the far greatest part,
and the most interesting part of our know-
ledge, must rest upon evidence of this kind;
and that many things are certain for which
we have only that kind of evidence which
philosophers call probable.
CHAPTER IV.
of MR HUME's SCEPTICISM WITH REGARD To
REASON.
IN the “Treatise of Human Nature,”
book I. part iv. § 1, the author undertakes
to prove two points:—First, That all that
is called human knowledge (meaning de-
monstrative knowledge) is only probability;
and, secondly, That this probability, when
duly examined, evanishes by degrees, and
leaves at last no evidence at all: so that,
in the issue, there is no ground to believe
any one proposition rather than its contrary;
and “all those are certainly fools who reason
or believe anything.” [698]
According to this account, reason, that
boasted prerogative of man, and the light of
his mind, is an ignis futuus, which misleads
the wandering traveller, and leaves him at
last in absolute darkness.
How "unhappy is the condition of man,
- [696–698]
chap. Iv.] OF MR HUME'S SCEPTICISM ABOUT REASON.
485
born under a necessity of believing contra-
dićtions, and of trusting to a guide who con-
fesses herself to be a false one !
It is some comfort, that this doctrine can
never be seriously adopted by any man in
his senses. And after this author had
shewn that “all the rules of logic require a
total extinction of all belief and evidence,”
he himself, and all men that are not insane,
must have believed many things, and yielded
assent to the evidence which he had ex-
tinguished.
This, indeed, he is so candid as to acknow-
‘ledge. “He finds himself absolutely and
necessarily determined, to live and talk and
act like other people in the common affairs
of life. And since, reason is incapable of
dispelling these clouds, most fortunately it
happens, that nature herself suffices to that
purpose, and cures him of this philosophical
melancholy and delirium.” See S 7.
This was surely a very kind and friendly
interposition of nature; for the effects of
this philosophical delirium, if carried into
life, must have been very melancholy.
But what pity is it, that nature, (what-
ever is meant by that personage,) so kind
in curing this delirium, should be so cruel
as to cause it. Doth the same fountain
send forth sweet waters and bitter ? Is it
not more probable, that, if the cure was the
work of nature, the disease came from
another hand, and was the work of the
philosopher ? [699]
To pretend to prove by reasoning that
there is no force in reason, does indeed look
like a philosophical delirium. It is like a
man's pretending to see clearly, that he
himself and all other men are blind.
A common symptom of delirium is, to
think that all other men are fools or mad.
This appears to have been the case of our
author, who concluded, “That all those are
certainly fools who reason or believe any-
thing.”
Whatever was the cause of this delirium,
it must be granted that, if it was real and
not feigned, it was not to be cured by rea-
soning; for what can be more absurd than
to attempt to convince a man by reasoning
who disowns the authority of reason. It
was, therefore, very fortunate that Nature
found other means of curing it.
It may, however, not be improper to
inquire, whether, as the author thinks, it
was produced by a just application of the
rules of logic, or, as others may be apt to
think, by the misapplication and abuse of
them.
First, Because we are fallible, the author
infers that all knowledge degenerates into
probability.
That man, and probably every created
being, is fallible; and that a fallible being
cannot have that perfect comprehension
and assurance of truth which an infallible
being has—I think ought to be granted. It
becomes a fallible being to be modest, open
to new light, and sensible that, by some
false bias, or by rash judging, he may be
misled. If this be called a degree of scep-
ticism, I cannot help approving of it, being
persuaded that the man who makes the best
use he can of the faculties which God has
given him, without thinking them more per-
fect than they really are, may have all the
belief that is necessary in the conduct of
life, and all that is necessary to his accept-
ance with his Maker. [700] -
It is granted, then, that human judg-
ments ought always to be formed with an
humble sense of our fallibility in judging.
This is all that can be inferred by the
rules of logic from our being fallible. And
if this be all that is meant by our know-
ledge degenerating into probability, I know
no person of a different opinion.
But it may be observed, that the author
here uses the word probability in a sense
for which I know no authority but his own.
Philosophers understand probability as op-
posed to demonstration ; the vulgar as
opposed to certainty; but this author un-
derstands it as opposed to infallibility, which
no man claims.
One who believes himself to be fallible
may still hold it to be certain that two and
two make four, and that two contradictory
propositions cannot both be true. He may
believe some things to be probable only,
and other things to be demonstrable, with-
out making any pretence to infallibility.
If we use words in their proper meaning,
it is impossible that demonstration should
degenerate into probability from the imper-
fection of our faculties. Our judgment can-
not change the nature of the things about
which we judge. What is really demon-
stration, will still be so, whatever judgment
we form concerning it. It may, likewise,
be observed, that, when we mistake that for
demonstration which really is not, the con-
sequence of this mistake is, not that de-
monstration degenerates into probability,
but that what we took to be demonstration
is no proof at all; for one false step in a
demonstration destroys the whole, but can-
not turn it into another kind of proof.
[701]
Upon the whole, then, this first conclu-
sion of our author, That the fallibility of
human judgment turns all knowledge into
probability, if understood literally, is absurd;
but, if it be only a figure of speech, and
means no more but that, in all our judg-
ments, we ought to be sensible of our falli-
bility, and ought to hold our opinions with
that modesty that becomes fallible crea-
tures—which I take to be what the author
meant—this, I think, nobody denies, nor
[699-701]
486
[Essay VII
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
was it necessary to enter into a laborious
proof of it.
One is never in greater danger of trans-
gressing against the rules of logic than in
attempting to prove what needs no proof.
Of this we have an instance in this very
case; for the author begins his proof, that
all human judgments are fallible, with af-
firming that some are infallible.
“ In all demonstrative sciences,” says
he, “the rules are certain and infallible;
but when we apply them, our fallible and
uncertain faculties are very apt to depart
from them, and fall into error.”
He had forgot, surely, that the rules of
demonstrative sciences are discovered by
our fallible and uncertain faculties, and
have no authority but that of human judg-
ment. If they be infallible, some human
judgments are infallible; and there are many
in various branches of human knowledge
which have as good a claim to infallibility
as the rules of the demonstrative Sciences.
We have reason here to find fault with
our author for not being sceptical enough,
as well as for a mistake in reasoning, when
he claims infallibility to certain decisions of
the human faculties, in order to prove that
all their decisions are fallible.
The second point which he attempts to
prove is, That this probability, when duly
examined, suffers a continual diminution,
and at last a total extinction.
The obvious consequence of this is, that
no fallible being can have good reason to
believe anything at all ; but let us hear the
proof. [702]
“In every judgment, we ought to cor-
rect the first judgment derived from the
nature of the object, by another judgment
derived from the nature of the understand-
ing. Beside the original uncertainty inher-
ent in the subject, there arises another,
derived from the weakness of the faculty
which judges. Having adjusted these two
uncertainties together, we are obliged, by
our reason, to add a new uncertainty, de-
rived from the possibility of error in the
estimation we make of the truth and fidelity
of our faculties. This is a doubt of which,
if we would closely pursue our reasoning,
we cannot avoid giving a decision. But
this decision, though it should be favour-
able to our preceding judgment, being
founded only on probability, must weaken
still farther our first evidence. The third
uncertainty must, in like manner be criti-
cised by a fourth, and so on without end.
“Now, as every one of these uncertainties
takes away a part of the original evidence,
it must at last be reduced to nothing. Let
our first belief be ever so strong, it must in-
fallihly perish, by passing through so many
examinations, each of which carries off
somewhat of its force and vigour. No finite
object can subsist under a decrease repeated
in infinitum.
“When I reflect on the natural fallibil-
ity of my judgment, I have less confidence
in my opinions than when I only consider
the objects concerning which I reason. And
when I proceed still farther, to turn the scru-
tiny against every successive estimation I
make of my faculties, all the rules of logic
require a continual diminution, and at last
a total extinction of belief and evidence.”
This is the author's—Achillean argument
against the evidence of reason, from which
he concludes, that a man who would govern
his belief by reason must believe nothing at
'all, and that belief is an act, not of the co-
gitative, but of the sensitive part of our
nature. [703]
If there be any such thing as motion,
(said an ancient Sceptic,”) the swift-footed
Achilles could never overtake an old man
in a journey. For, suppose the old man to
set out a thousand paces before Achilles,
and that, while Achilles has travelled the
thousand paces, the old man has gone five
hundred ; when Achilles has gone the five
hundred, the old man has gone two hun-
dred and fifty ; and when Achilles has
gone the two hundred and fifty, the old
man is still one hundred and twenty-five
before him. Repeat these estimations in
infinitum, and you will still find the old man
foremost ; therefore Achilles can never
overtake him ; therefore there can be no
such thing as motion. -
The reasoning of the modern Sceptic
against reason is equally ingenious, and
equally convincing. Indeed, they have a
great similarity.
If we trace the journey of Achilles two
thousand paces, we shall find the very
point where the old man is overtaken. But
this short journey, by dividing it into an
infinite number of stages, with correspond-
ing estimations, is made to appear infinite.
In like manner, our author, subjecting
every judgment to an infinite number of
successive probable estimations, reduces
the evidence to nothing.
To return then to the argument of the
modern Sceptic. I examine the proof of a
theorem of Euclid. It appears to me to be
strict demonstration. But I may have
overlooked some fallacy; therefore I ex-
amine it again and again, but can find no
flaw in it. I find all that have examined
it agree with me. I have now that evidence
of the truth of the proposition which I and
all men call demonstration, and that belief
of it which we call certainty. [704]
Here my sceptical friend interposes, and
assures me, that the rules of logic reduce
* Zeno Elcates. He is improperly called, simpli-
citer, Sceptic.—H. -
| 702–704]
chap. Iv.] OF MR HUME'S SCEPTICISM ABOUT REASON.
487
this demonstration to no evidence at all.
I am willing to hear what step in it he thinks
fallacious, and why. He makes no objec-
tion to any part of the demonstration, but
pleads my fallibility in judging. I have
made the proper allowance for this already,
by being open to conviction. But, says he,
there are two uncertainties, the first inherent
in the subject, which I have already shewn
to have only probable evidence ; the second
arising from the weakness of the faculty
that judges. I answer, it is the weakness of
the faculty only that reduces this demonstra-
tion to what you call probability. You
must not therefore make it a second uncer-
tainty; for it is the same with the first.
To take credit twice in an account for
the same article is not agreeable to the
rules of logic. Hitherto, therefore, there
is but one uncertainty—to wit, my fallibility
in judging. -
But, says my friend, you are obliged by
reason to add a new uncertainty, derived
from the possibility of error in the estima-
tion you make of the truth and fidelity of
your faculties. I answer—
This estimation is ambiguously ex-
pressed; it may either mean an estimation
of my liableness to err by the misapplica-
tion and abuse of my faculties; or it may
mean an estimation of my liableness to err
by conceiving my faculties to be true and
faithful, while they may be false and falla-
cious in themselves, even when applied in
the best manner. I shall consider this
estimation in each of these senses.
If the first be the estimation meant, it is
true that reason directs us, as fallible crea-
tures, to carry along with us, in all our
judgments, a sense of our fallibility. It is
true also, that we are in greater danger of
erring in some cases, and less in others;
and that this danger of erring may, accord-
ing to the circumstances of the case, admit
of an estimation, which we ought likewise
to carry along with us in every judgment
we form. [705]
When a demonstration is short and plain;
when the point to be proved does not
touch our interest or our passions ; when
the faculty of judging, in such cases, has
acquired strength by much exercise—thereis
less danger of erring ; when the contrary
circumstances take place, there is more.
In the present case, every circumstance
is favourable to the judgment I have formed.
There cannot be less danger of erring in
any case, excepting, perhaps, when I judge
of a self-evident axiom.
The Sceptic farther urges, that this deci-
sion, though favourable to my first judg-
ment, being founded only on probability,
must still weaken the evidence of that judg-
ment.
IHere I cannot help being of a quite con-
trary opinion ; nor can I imagine how anº
ingenious author could impose upon himself
so grossly; for surely he did not intend to
impose upon his reader.
After repeated examination of a propo-
sition of Euclid, I judge it to be strictly
demonstrated ; this is my first judgment.
But, as I am liable to err from various
causes, I consider how far I may have been
misled by any of these causes in this judg-
ment. My decision upon this second point
is favourable to my first judgment, and
therefore, as I apprehend, must strengthen
it. To say that this decision, because it is
only probable, must weaken the first evi-
dence, seems to me contrary to all rules of
logic, and to common sense.
The first judgment may be compared to
the testimony of a credible witness; the
Second, after a scrutiny into the character
of the witness, wipes off every objection
that can be made to it, and therefore surely
must confirm and not weaken his testi-
mony. [706]
But let us suppose, that, in another case,
I examine my first judgment upon Some
point, and find that it was attended with
unfavourable circumstances, what, in rea-
son, and according to the rules of logic,
ought to be the effect of this discovery 2
The effect surely will be, and ought to
be, to make me less confident in my first
judgment, until I examine the point anew
in more favourable circumstances. If it
be a matter of importance, I return to
weigh the evidence of my first judgment.
If it was precipitate before, it must now be
deliberate in every point. If, at first, I
was in passion, I must now be cool. If I
had an interest in the decision, I must
place the interest on the other side.
It is evident that this review of the sub-
ject may confirm my first judgment, not-
withstanding the suspicious circumstances
that attended it. Though the judge was
biassed or corrupted, it does not follow that
the sentence was unjust. The rectitude of
the decision does not depend upon the cha-
racter of the judge, but upon the nature of
the case. From that only, it must be deter-
mined whether the decision be just. The
circumstances that rendered it suspicious
are mere presumptions, which have no force
against direct evidence.
Thus, I have considered the effect of this
estimation of our liableness to err in our
first judgment, and have allowed to it all
the effect that reason and the rules of logic
permit. In the case I first supposed, and
in every case where we can discover no
cause of error, it affords a presumption in
favour of the first judgment. In other
cases, it may afford a presumption against
it. But the rules of logic require, that we
should not judge by presumptions, where
[705, 706)
488
[ESSAY VII.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
we have direct evidence. The effect of an
unfavourable presumption should only be,
to make us examine the evidence with the
greater care. [707] .
The sceptic urges, in the last place, that
this estimation must be subjected to another
estimation, that to another, and so on, in in-
finilum ; and as every new estimation takes
away from the evidence of the first judg-
ment, it must at last be totally annihilated.
I answer, first, It has been shewn above,
that the first estimation, supposing it un-
favourable, can only afford a presumption
against the first judgment; the second,
upon the same supposition, will be only the
presumption of a presumption; and the
third, the presumption that there is a pre-
sumption of a presumption. This infinite
series of presumptions resembles an infinite
series of quantities, decreasing in geome-
trical proportion, which amounts only to a
finite sum. The infinite series of stages of
Achilles'sjourney after the old man, amounts
only to two thousand paces; nor can this
infinite series of presumptions outweigh one
solid argument in favour of the first judg-
ment, supposing them all to be unfavour-
able to it.
Secondly, I have shewn, that the estima-
tion of our first judgment may strengthen
it ; and the same thing may be said of all the
subsequent estimations. It would, there-
fore, be as reasonable to conclude, that the
first judgment will be brought to infallible
certainty when this series of estimations is
wholly in its favour, as that its evidence
will be brought to nothing by such a series
supposed to be wholly unfavourable to it.
But, in reality, one serious and cool re-
examination of the evidence by which our
first judgment is supported, has, and in
reason ought to have more forcetostrengthen
or weaken it, than an infinite series of such
estimations as our author requires.
Thirdly, I know no reason nor rule in
logic, that requires that such a series of
estimations should follow every particular
judgment. [708]
A wise man, who has practised reasoning,
knows that he is fallible, and carries this
conviction along with him in every judg-
ment he forms. He knows likewise that
he is more liable to err in some cases than
in others. He has a scale in his mind, by
which he estimates his liableness to err, and
by this he regulates the degree of his assent
in his first judgment upon any point.
The author's reasoning supposes, that a
man, when he forms his first judgment,
conceives himself to be infallible; that by a
second and subsequent judgment, he dis-
covers that he is not infallible ; and that by
a third judgment, subsequent to the second,
he estimates his liableness to err in such a
case as the present.
If the man proceedin this order, I grant,
that his second judgment will, with good
reason, bring down the first from supposed
infallibility to fallibility; and that his third
judgment will, in some degree, either
strengthen or weaken the first, as it is cor-
rected by the second. -
But every man of understanding proceeds
in a contrary order. When about to judge
in any particular point, he knows aiready
that he is not infallible. He knows what
are the cases in which he is most or least
liable to err. The conviction of these things
is always present to his mind, and influences
the degree of his assent in his first judg-
ment, as far as to him appears reasonable.
If he should afterwards find reason to
suspect his first judgment, and desires to
have all the satisfaction his faculties can
give, reason will direct him not to form
such a series of estimations upon estima-
tions, as this author requires, but to examine
the evidence of his first judgment carefully
and coolly; and this review may very reason-
ably, according to its result, eitherstrengthen
or weaken, or totally overturn his first
judgment. [709] .
This infinite series of estimations, there-
fore, is not the method that reason directs,
in order to form our judgment in any case.
It is introduced without necessity, without
any use but to puzzle the understanding,
and to make us think, that to judge, even
in the simplest and plainest cases, is a mat-
ter of insurmountable difficulty and endless
labour; just as the ancient Sceptic, to make
a journey of two thousand paces appear
endless, divided it into an infinite number
of stages.
But we observed, that the estimation
which our author requires, may admit of
another meaning, which, indeed, is more
agreeable to the expression, but inconsist-
ent with what he advanced before.
By the possibility of error in the estima-
tion of the truth and fidelity of our faculties,
may be meant, that we may err by esteem-
ing our faculties true and faithful, while they
may be false and fallacious, even when used
according to the rules of reason and logic.
If this be meant, I answer, first, That
the truth and fidelity of our faculty of judg-
ing is, and must be taken for granted in
every judgment and in every estimation.
If the sceptic can seriously doubt of the
truth and fidelity of his faculty of judging
when properly used, and suspend his judg-
ment upon that point till he finds proof, his
scepticism admits of no cure by reasoning,
and he must even continue in it until he
have new faculties given him, which shall
have authority to sit in judgment upon the
old. Nor is there any need of an endless
succession of doubts upon this subject; for
the first puts an end to all judgment and
[707–709]
chap. Iv.) OF MR HUME'S SCEPTICISM ABOUT REASON.
489
reasoning, and to the possibility of convic-
tion by that means. The sceptic has here
got possession of a stronghold, which is im-
pregnable to reasoning, and we must leave
him in possession of it till Nature, by other
means, Imakes him give it up. [710]
Secondly, I observe, that this ground of
scepticism, from the supposed infidelity of
our faculties, contradicts what the author
before advanced in this very argument—to
wit, that “the rules of the demonstrative
sciences are certain and infallible, and that
truth is the natural effect of reason, and
that error arises from the irruption of other
causes.”
But, perhaps, he made these concessions
unwarily. He is, therefore, at liberty to
retract them, and to rest his scepticism upon
this sole foundation, That no reasoning can
prove the truth and fidelity of our faculties.
Here he stands upon firm ground; for it is
evident that every argument offered to
prove the truth and fidelity of our faculties,
takes for granted the thing in question, and
is, therefore, that kind of sophism which
logicians call petitio principii.
All we would ask of this kind of sceptic
ls, that he would be uniform and consistent,
and that his practice in life do not belie his
profession of scepticism, with regard to the
fidelity of his faculties; for the want of faith,
as well as faith itself, is best shewn by
works. If a sceptic avoid the fire as much
as those who believe it dangerous to go
into it, we can hardly avoid thinking his
Scepticism to be feigned, and not real.
Our author, indeed, was aware, that
neither his scepticism nor that of any other
person, was able to endure this trial, and,
therefore, enters a caveat against it.
“Neither I,” says he, “nor any other per-
son was ever sincerely and constantly of
that opinion. Nature, by an absolute and
uncontrollable necessity, has determined us
to judge, as well as to breathe and feel. My
intention, therefore,” says he, “in display-
ing so carefully the arguments of that fan-
tastic sect, is only to make the reader sen-
sible of the truth of my hypothesis, that all
our reasonings concerning causes and effects,
are derived from nothing but custom, and
that belief is more properly an act of the
[710–713]
sensitive than of the cogitative part of our
nature.” [711] $
We have before considered the first part
of this hypothesis, Whether our reasoning
about causes be derived only from custom 3
The other part of the author's hypothesis
here mentioned is darkly expressed, though
the expression seems to be studied, as it is
put in Italics. It cannot, surely, mean
that belief is not an act of thinking. It is
not, therefore, the power of thinking that
he calls the cogitative part of our nature.
Neither can it be the power of judging, for
all belief implies judgment; and to believe
a proposition means the same thing as to
judge it to be true. It seems, therefore, to
be the power of reasoning that he calls the
cogitative part of our nature.
If this be the meaning, I agree to it in
part. The belief of first principles is not
an act of the reasoning power; for all rea-
Soming must be grounded upon them. We
judge them to be true, and believe them
without reasoning. But why this power of
judging of first principles should be called
the sensitive part of our nature, I do not
understand.
As our belief of first principles is an act
of pure judgment without reasoning ; so
our belief of the conclusions drawn by rea-
soning from first principles, may, I think, be
called an act of the reasoning faculty.
[712]
Upon the whole, I see only two conclu-
sions that can be fairly drawn from this
profound and intricate reasoning against
reason. The first is, That we are fallible
in all our judgments and in all our reason-
ings. The second, That the truth and
fidelity of our faculties can never be proved
by reasoning ; and, therefore, our belief of
it cannot be founded on reasoning. If the
last be what the author calls his hypothesis,
I subscribe to it, and think it not an hypo-
thesis, but a manifest truth; though I con-
ceive it to be very improperly expressed, by
saying that belief is more properly an act
of the sensitive than of the cogitative part
of our nature." [713]
* In the preceding strictures, the Scepticisagain
too often assailed a a Dogmatist. See above, p. 444
In Ote *.—H.
490
[ESSAY v1.11.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
E S S A Y VIII.
OF TASTE.
CHAPTER I.
OF TASTE IN GENERAL,
THAT power of the mind by which we
are capable of discerning and relishing the
beauties of Nature, and whatever is excel-
lent in the fine arts, is called taste.
The external sense of taste, by which we
distinguish and relish the various kinds of
food, has given occasion to a metaphorical
application of its name to this internal
power of the mind, by which we perceive
what is beautiful and what is deformed or
defective in the various objects that we
contemplate.
Like the taste of the palate, it relishes
some things, is disgusted with others; with
regard to many, is indifferent or dubious;
and is considerably inflaenced by habit, by
associations, and by opinion. These obvious
analogies between external and internal
taste, have led men, in all ages, and in
all or most polished languages," to give the
name of the external sense to this power of
discerning what is beautiful with pleasure,
and what is ugly and faulty in its kind with
disgust. [714]
In treating of this as an intellectual
power of the mind, I intend only to make
some observations, first on its nature, and
then on its objects.
1. In the external sense of taste, we are
led by reason and reflection to distinguish
between the agreeable sensation we feel, and
the quality in the object which occasions it.
Both have the same name, and on that ac-
count are apt to be confounded by the vulgar,
and even by philosophers. The sensation
I feel when I taste any sapid body is in my
mind; but there is a real quality in the
body which is the cause of this sensation.
These two things have the same name in
language, not from any similitude in their
nature, but because the one is the sign of
the other, and because there is little occa-
sion in common life to distinguish them.
This was fully explained in treating of the
Secondary qualities of bodies. The reason
of taking notice of it now is, that the in-
ternal power of taste bears a great analogy
in this respect to the external.
When a beautiful object is before us, we
may distinguish the agreeable emotion it
produces in us, from the quality of the ob-
ject which causes that emotion. When I
hear an air in music that pleases me, I say,
it is fine, it is excellent. This excellence is
not in me; it is in the music. But the
pleasure it gives is not in the music ; it is
in me. Perhaps I cannot say what it is in
the tune that pleases my ear, as I cannot
say what it is in a sapid body that pleases my
palate ; but there is a quality in the sapid
body which pleases my palate, and I call it
a delicious taste; and there is a quality in
the tune that pleases my taste, and I call it
a fine or an excellent air.
This ought the rather to be observed,
because it is become a fashion among mo-
dern philosophers, to resolve all our percep-
tions into mere feelings or sensations in the
person that perceives, without anything
corresponding to those feelings in the ex-
ternal object. [715] According to those
philosophers, there is no heat in the fire,
no taste in a sapid body ; the taste and the
heat being only in the person that feels
them." In like manner, there is no beauty
in any object whatsoever; it is only a sens-
ation or feeling in the person that per-
ceives it.
The language and the common sense of
mankind contradict this theory. Even those
who hold it, find themselves obliged to use
a language that contradicts it. I had occa-
sion to shew, that there is no solid founda-
tion for it when applied to the secondary
qualities of body; and the same arguments
shew equally, that it has no solid foundation
when applied to the beauty of objects, or to
any of those qualities that are perceived by
a good taste.
But, though some of the qualities that
please a good taste resemble the secondary
qualities of body, and therefore may be
called occult qualities, as we only feel their
effect, and have no more knowledge of the
cause, but that it is somcthing which is
adapted by nature to produce that effect—
this is not always the case.
Our judgment of beauty is in many cases
more enlightened. A work of art may
appear beautiful to the most ignorant, even
to a child. It pleases, but he knows not
* This is hardly correct.—H.
+ But see, above, p. 205, b, note *, and p. 310, b,
note +.—H.
[714, 715]
CHAP. I.]
49]
OF TASTE IN GENERAL.
why. To one who understands it perfectly,
and perceives how every part is fitted with
exact judgment to its end, the beauty is not
mysterious; it is perfectly comprehended :
and he knows wherein it consists, as well
as how it affects him.
2. We may observe, that, though all the
tastes, we perceive by the palate are either
agreeable or disagreeable, or indifferent ;
yet, among those that are agreeable, there
is great diversity, not in degree only, but in
kind. And, as we have not generical names
for all the different kinds of taste, we dis-
tinguish them by the bodies in which they
are found. [716]
In like manner, all the objects of our
internal taste are either beautiful, or dis-
agreeable, or indifferent; yet of beauty there
is a great diversity, not only of degree, but
of kind. The beauty of a demonstration,
the beauty of a poem, the beauty of a palace,
the beauty of a piece of music, the beauty
of a fine won;an, and many more that might
be named, are different kinds of beauty :
and we have no names to distinguish them
but the names of the different objects to
which they belong. *
As there is such diversity in the kinds of
beauty as well as in the degrees, we need
not think it strange that philosophers have
gone into different systems in analysing it,
and enumerating its simple ingredients.
They have made many just observations on
the subject; but, from the love of simplicity,
have reduced it to fewer principles than the
nature of the thing will permit, having had
in their eye some particular kinds of beauty,
while they overlooked others.
There are moral beauties as well as na-
tural ; beauties in the objects of sense, and
in intellectual objects ; in the works of men,
and in the works of God; in things inani-
mate, in brute animals, and in rational
beings; in the constitution of the body of
man, and in the constitution of his mind.
There is no real excellence which has not
its beauty to a discerning eye, when placed
in a proper point of view ; and it is as diffi-
cult to enumerate the ingredients of beauty
as the ingredients of real excellence.
3. Thetaste of the palate may be accounted
most just and perfect, when we relish the
things that are fit for the nourishment of
the body, and are disgusted with things of
a’eontrary nature. The manifest intention
of nature in giving us this sense, is, that
we may discern what it is fit for us to eat
and to drink, and what it is not. Brute
animals are directed in the choice of their
food merely by their taste. [717] Led by
this guide, they choose the food that nature
intended for them, and seldom make mis-
takes, unless they be pinched by hunger, or
deceived by artificial compositions. In in-
fants likewise the taste is commonly sound
and uncorrupted, and of the simple produc-
tions of nature they relish the things that
are most wholesome.
In like manner, our internal taste ought
to be accounted most just and perfect, when
we are pleased with things that are most
excellent in their kind, and displeased with
the contrary. The intention of nature is
no less evident in this internal taste than
in the external. Every excellence has a
real beauty and charm that makes it an
agreeable object to those who have the
faculty of discerning its beauty; and this ;
faculty is what we call a good taste.
A man who, by any disorder in his mental
powers, or by bad habits, has contracted a
relish for what has no real excellence, or
what is deformed and defective, has a de-
praved taste, like one who finds a more
agreeable relish in ashes or cinders than in
the most wholesome food. As we must ac-
knowledge the taste of the palate to be de-
praved in this case, there is the same reason
to think the taste of the mind depraved in
the other.
There is therefore a just and rational
taste, and there is a depraved and corrupted
taste. For it is too evident, that, by bad
education, bad habits, and wrong associa-
tions, men may acquire a relish for nasti-
ness, for rudeness, and ill-breeding, and for
many other deformities. To say that such
a taste is not vitiated, is no less absurd than
to say, that the sickly girl who delights in
eating charcoal and tobacco-pipes, has as
just and natural a taste as when she is in
perfect health.
4. The force of custom, of fancy, and of
casual associations, is very great both upon
the external and internal taste. An Eski-
maux can regale himself with a draught of
whale-oil, and a Canadian can feast upon a
dog. A Kamschatkadale lives upon putrid
fish, and is sometimes reduced to eat the
bark of trees. The taste of rum, or of green
tea, is at first as nauseous as that of ipeca-
cuan, to some persons, who may be brought
by use to relish what they once found so
disagreeable. [718]
When we see such varieties in the taste
of the palate produced by custom and as-
Sociations, and some, perhaps, by constitu-
tion, we may be the less surprised that the
same causes should produce like varieties
in the taste of beauty ; that the African
should esteem thick lips and a flat nose ;
that other nations should draw out their
ears, till they hang over their shoulders;
that in one nation ladies should paint their
faces, and in another should make them
shine with grease.
5. Those who conceive that there is no
standard in nature by which taste may be
regulated, and that the common proverb,
“That there ought to be no dispute about
|
[716–718 J
492
[Essay VIII,
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
taste,” is to be taken in the utmost latitude,
go upon slender and insufficient ground.
The same arguments might be used with
equal force against any standard of truth.
Whole nations by the force of prejudice
are brought to believe the grossest absurdi-
ties; and why should it be thought that the
taste is less capable of being perverted than
the judgment 2 It must indeed be acknow-
ledged, that men differ more in the faculty
of taste than in what we commonly call
judgment; and therefore it may be expected
that they should be more liable to have their
taste corrupted in matters of beauty and
deformity, than their judgment in matters
of truth and error.
If we make due allowance for this, we
shall see that it is as easy to account for
the variety of tastes, though there be in
nature a standard of true beauty, and con-
sequently of good taste, as it is to account
for the variety and contrariety of opinions,
though there be in mature a standard of
of truth, and, consequently, of right judg-
ment. [719] .
6. Nay, if we speak accurately and
strictly, we shall find that, in every opera-
tion of taste, there is judgment implied.
When a man pronounces a poem or a
palace to be beautiful, he affirms something
of that poem or that palace ; and every
affirmation or denial expresses judgment.
For we cannot better define judgment, than
by saying that it is an affirmation or denial
of one thing concerning another. I had
occasion to shew, when treating of judg-
ment, that it is implied in every perception
of our external senses. There is an imme-
diate conviction and belief of the existence
of the quality perceived, whether it be
colour, or sound, or figure ; and the same
thing holds in the perception of beauty or
deformity.
If it be said that the perception of beauty
is merely a feeling in the mind that per-
ceives, without any belief of excellence in
the object, the necessary consequence of
this opinion is, that when I say Virgil's
“Georgics” is a beautiful poem, I mean not
to say anything of the poem, but only some-
thing concerning myself and my feelings.
Why should I use a language that expresses
the contrary of what I mean 2 -
My language, according to the necessary
rules of construction, can bear no other
meaning but this, that there is something
in the poem, and not in me, which I call
beauty. Even those who hold beauty to
be merely a feeling in the person that per-
ceives it, find themselves under a necessity
of expressing themselves as if beauty were
solely a quality of the object, and not of
the percipient.
No reason can be given why all man-
kindshould express themselves thus, but that
they believe what they say. ſit is there-
fore contrary to the universal sense of
mankind, expressed by their language, that
beauty is not really in the object, but is
merely a feeling in the person who is said
to perceive it. Philosophers should be very
cautious in opposing the common sense.
of mankind ; for, when they do, they rarely
miss going wrong. [720]
Our judgment of beauty is not indeed a
dry and unaffecting judgment, like that, of
|a mathematical or metaphysical truth. By
the constitution of our nature, it is accom-
panied with an agreeble feeling or emotion,
for which we have no other name but the
sense of beauty. This sense of beauty, like
the perceptions of our other senses, implies
not only a feeling, but an opinion of some
quality in the object which occasions that
feeling.
In objects that please the taste, we always
judge that there is some real excellence,
some superiority to those that do not
please. In some cases, that superior ex-
cellence is distinctly perceived, and can
be pointed out ; in other cases, we have
only a general motion of some excellence
which we cannot describe. Beauties of the
former kind may be compared to the
primary qualities perceived by the external
senses ; those of the latter kind, to the
secondary.
# 7. Beauty or deformity in an object, re-
šults from its nature or structure. To per-
beive the beauty, therefore, we must per-
seeive the nature or structure from which it
results. In this the internal sense differs
from the external. Our external senses
may discover qualities which do not depend
upon any antecedent perception. Thus, I
can hear the sound of a bell, though I never
perceived anything else belonging to it.
But it is impossible to perceive the beauty
of an object without perceiving the object,
or, at least, conceiving it. On this account,
Dr Hutcheson called the senses of beauty
and harmony reflex or secondary senses;
because the beauty cannot be perceived
junless the object be perceived by some other
ipower of the mind. Thus, the sense of
'harmony and melody in sounds supposes
the external sense of hearing, and is a kind
of secondary to it. A man born deaf-me:
be a good judge of beauties of another kind,
but can have no notion of melody or har-
mony. The like may be said of beau-
ties in colouring and in figure, which can
never be perceived without the senses by
which colour and figure are perceived.
[721]
[719–721]
CHAP. II.]
493
OF NOVELTY.
CHAPTER II.
of THE OBJECTs of TASTE ; AND, FIRST, of
NOVELTY.
A PHILOSOPHICAL analysis of the objects
of taste is like applying the anatomical knife
to a fine face. The design of the philoso-
pher, as well as of the anatomist, is not to
gratify taste, but to improve knowledge.
The reader ought to be aware of this, that
he may not entertain an expectation in
which he will be disappointed.
By the objects of taste, I mean those
qualities or attributes of things which are,
by Nature, adapted to please a good taste.
Mr Addison, and Dr Akenside after him,
have reduced them to three—to wit, novelly,
grandeur, and beauty. This division is
sufficient for all I intend to say upon the
subject, and therefore I shall adopt it—
observing only, that beauty is often taken
in so extensive a sense as to comprehend
all the objects of taste ; yet all the authors
I have met with, who have given a division
of the objects of taste, make beauty one
species. *,
I take the reason of this to be, that we
have specific names for some of the quali-
ties that please the taste, but not for all;
and therefore all those fall under the gene-
ral name of beauty, for which there is no
specific name in the division.
There are, indeed, so many species of
beauty, that it would be as difficult to emu-
merate them perfectly, as to enumerate all
the tastes we perceive by the palate. Nor
does there appear to me sufficient reason
for making, as some very ingenious authors
have done, as many different internal senses
as there are different species of beauty or
deformity. [722]
The division of our external senses is
taken from the organs of perception, and
not from the qualities perceived. We have
not the same means of dividing the inter-
mal; because, though some kinds of beauty
belong only to objects of the eye, and others
to objects of the ear, there are many which
we cannot refer to any bodily organ; and
therefore I conceive every division that has
been made of our internal senses to be in
some degree arbitrary. They may be made
more or fewer, according as we have dis-
tinct names for the various kinds of beauty
and deformity; and I suspect the most
copious languages have not names for them
all.
Novelty is not properly a quality of the
thing to which we attribute it, far less is
it a sensation in the mind to which it is
new ; it is a relation which the thing has
to the knowledge of the person.
new to one man, may not be so to another;
What is
what is new this moment, may be familiar
to the same person some time hence. When
an object is first brought to our know-
ledge, it is new, whether it be agreeable
or Inot.
It is evident, therefore, with regard to
novelty, (whatever may be said of other
objects of taste,) that it is not merely a
Sensation in the mind of him to whom the
thing is new ; it is a real relation which
the thing has to his knowledge at that
time.
But we are so constituted, that what is
new to us commonly gives pleasure upon
that account, if it be not in itself disagree-
able. It rouses our attention, and occa-
sions an agreeable exertion of our facul-
ties.
The pleasure we receive from novelty in
objects has so great influence in human
life, that it well deserves the attention of
philosophers; and severalingenious authors
—particularly Dr Gerard, in his “Essay on
Taste”—have, I think, successfully account-
ed for it, from the principles of the human
constitution. [723]
We can perhaps conceive a being so
made, that his happiness consists in a con-
tinuance of the same unvaried sensations or
feelings, without any active exertion on his
part. Whether this be possible or not, it
is evident that man is not such a being ;
his good consists in the vigorous exertion
of his active and intellective powers upon
their proper objects ; he is made for action
and progress, and cannot be happy without
it ; his enjoyments seem to be given by
Nature, not so much for their own sake, as
to encourage the exercise of his various
powers. That tranquillity of soul in which
Some place human happiness, is not a dead
rest, but a regular progressive motion.
Such is the constitution of man by the
appointment of Nature. This constitution
is perhaps a part of the imperfection of our
nature ; but it is wisely adapted. to our
state, which is not intended to be stationary,
but progressive. The eye is not satiated
with seeing, nor the ear with hearing ;
something is always wanted. Desire and
hope never cease, but remain to spur us on
to something yet to be acquired; and, if
they could cease, human happiness must
end with them. That our desire and hope
be properly directed, is our part; that they
can never be extinguished, is the work of
Nature.
It is this that makes human life so busy
a scene. Man must be doing something,
good or bad, trifling or important; and he
must vary the employment of his facul-
ties, or their exercise will become languid,
and the pleasure that attends it sicken of
COUll'SC.
The notions of enjoyment, and of activity,
[722, 723]
494 ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS. [Essay viii.
considered abstractly, are rio doubt very
different, and we cannot perceive a necessary
connection between them. But, in our con-
stitution, they are so connected by the
wisdom of Nature, that they must go hand
in hand ; and the first must be led and
supported by the last. [724]
An object at first, perhaps, gave much
pleasure, while attention was directed to it
with vigour. But attention cannot be long
confined to one unvaried object, nor can it
be carried round in the same narrow circle.
Curiosity is a capital principle in the human
constitution, and its food must be what is
in some respect new. What is said of the
Athenians may, in some degree, be applied
to all mankind, That their time is spent
in hearing, or telling, or doing some new
thing.
Into this part of the human constitution,
I think, we may resolve the plcasure we
have from novelty in objects.
Curiosity is commonly strongest in child-
ren and in young persons, and accordingly
novelty pleases them most. In all ages, in
proportion as novelty gratifies curiosity, and
occasions a vigorous exertion of any of our
mental powers in attending to the new ob-
ject, in the same proportion it gives plea-
sure. In advanced life, the indolent and
inactive have the strongest passion for news,
as a relief from a painful vacuity of thought.
But the pleasure derived from new objects,
in many cases, is not owing solely or chiefly
to their being new, but to some other cir-
cumstance that gives them value. The new
fashion in dress, furniture, equipage, and
other accommodations of life, gives plea-
sure, not so much, as I apprehend, because
it is new, as because it is a sign of rank,
and distinguishes a man from the vulgar.
In some things novelty is due, and the
want of it a real imperfection. Thus, if an
author adds to the number of books with
which the public is already overloaded, we
expect from him something new ; and, if he
says nothing but what has been said before
in as agreeable a manner, we are justly
disgusted. [725]
When novelty is altogether separated
from the conception of worth and utility, it
makes but a slight impression upon a truly
correct taste. Every discovery in nature,
in the arts, and in the sciences, has a real
value, and gives a rational pleasure to a
good taste. But things that have nothing
to recommend them but novelty, are fit
only to entertain children, or those who are
distressed from a vacuity of thought. This
quality of objects may therefore be com-
pared to the cypher in arithmetic, which
adds greatly to the value of significant
figures; but, when put by itself, signifies
nothing at all. --
CHAPTER III.
OF GRAND EUR.
THE qualities which please the taste are
not more various in themselves than are
the emotions and feelings with which they
affect our minds.
Things new and uncommon affect us with
a pleasing surprise, which rouses and invi-
gorates our attention to the object. But
this emotion soon flags, if there is nothing
but novelty to give it continuance, and
leaves no effect upon the mind.
The emotion raised by grand objects is
awful, Solemn, and serious.
Of all objects of contemplation, the Su-
preme Being, is the most grand. His
eternity, his immensity, his irresistible power,
his infinite knowledge and unerring wisdom,
his inflexible justice and rectitude, his su-
preme government, conducting all the
movements of this vast universe to the no-
blest ends and in the wisest manner—are
objects which fill the utmost capacity of the
Soul, and reach far beyondits comprehension.
The emotion which this grandest of all
objects raises in the human mind, is what
we call devotion ; a serious recollected tem-
per, which inspires magnanimity, and dis-
poses to the most heroic acts of virtue. [726]
The emotion produced by other objects
which may be called grand, though in an
inferior degree, is, in its nature and in its
effects, similar to that of devotion. It dis-
poses to seriousness, elevates the mind
above its usual state, to a kind of enthusi-
asm, and inspires magnanimity, and a con-
tempt of what is mean.
Such, I conceive, is the emotion which
the contemplation of grand objects raises in
us. We are next to consider what this
grandeur in objects is.
To me it seems to be nothing else but
such a degree of excellence, in one kind or
another, as merits our admiration.
There are some attributes of mind which
have a real and intrinsic excellence, com-
pared with their contraries, and which, in
every degree, are the natural objects of
esteem, but, in an uncommon degree, are ob-
jects of admiration. We put a value upon
them because they are intrinsically valuable
and excellent.
The spirit of modern philosophy would
indeed lead us to think, that the worth and
value we put upon things is only a sensation
in our minds, and not anything inherent in
the object; and that we might have been so
constituted as to put the highest value upon
the things which we now despise, and to
despise the qualities which we now highly
eSteem.
[724–726]
CHAP. III.]
495
OF GRANDEU ſt.
It gives me pleasure to observe, that Dr
Price, in his “Review of the Questions
concerning Morals,” strenuously opposes
this opinion, as well as that which resolves
moral right and wrong into a sensation in
the mind of the spectator. That judicious
author saw the consequences which these
opinions draw after them, and has traced
them to their source—to wit, the account
given by Mr Locke, and adopted by the gen-
erality of modern philosophers, of the ori-
gin of all our ideas, which account he shews
to be very defective. [727]
This proneness to resolve everything into
feelings and sensations, is an extreme into
which we have been led by the desire of
avoiding an opposite extreme, as common
in the ancient philosophy.
At first, me are prone by nature and by
habit to give all their attention to things
external. Their notions of the mind, and
its operations, are formed from some analogy
they bear to objects of sense ; and an ex-
ternal existence is ascribed to things which
are only conceptions or feelings of the
mind.
This spirit prevailed much in the philo-
sophy both of Plato and of Aristotle, and
produced the mysterious motions of eternal
and self-existent ideas, of materia prima, of
substantial forms, and others of the like
nature.
From the time of Des Cartes, philosophy
took a contrary turn. That great man dis-
covered, that many things supposed to have
an external existence, were only conceptions
or feelings of the mind. This track has
been pursued by his successors to such an
extreme as to resolve everything into sens-
ations, feelings, and ideas in the mind, and
to leave nothing external at all. -
The Peripatetics thought that heat and
cold which we feel to be qualities of external
objects. The moderns make heat and cold
to be sensations only, and allow no real
quality of body to be called by that name :
and the same judgment they have formed
with regard to all secondary qualities.
So far Des Cartes and Mr Locke went.
Their successors being put into this track
of converting into feelings things that were
believed to have an externalexistence, found
that extension, solidity, figure, and all the
primary qualities of body, are sensations or
feelings of the mind ; and that the material
world is a phaenomenon only, and has no
existence but in our mind. [728]
It was then a very natural progress to con-
ceive, that beauty, harmony, and grandeur,
the objects of taste, as well as right and
wrong, the objects of the moral faculty, are
nothing but feelings of the mind.
Those who are acquainted with the
writings of modern philosophers, can easily
trace this doctrine of feelings, from Des
Cartes down to Mr Hume, who put the
finishing stroke to it, by making truth and
error to be feelings of the mind, and belief
to be an operation of the sensitive part of
our nature.
To return to our subject, if we hearken
to the dictates of common sense, we must be
convinced that there is real excellence in
some things, whatever our feelings or our
constitution be. *
It depends no doubt upon our constitu.
tion, whether we do or do not perceive ex-
cellence where it really is : but the object
has its excellence from its own constitution,
and not from ours.
The common judgment of mankind in this
matter sufficiently appears in the language
of all nations, which uniformly ascribes ex-
cellence, grandeur, and beauty to the object,
and not to the mind that perceives it. And
I believe in this, as in most other things,
we shall find the common judgment of man-
kind and true philosophy not to be at va-
I’la Il Ce.
Is not power in its nature more excel-
lent than weakness; knowledge than igno-
rance ; wisdom than folly ; fortitude than
pusillanimity ?
Is there no intrinsic excellence in self-
command, in generosity, in public spirit 2
Is not friendship a better affection of mind
than hatred, a noble emulation than envy P
[729]
Let us suppose, if possible, a being so
constituted as to have a high respect for
ignorance, weakness, and folly; to venerate
cowardice, malice, and envy, and to hold
the contrary qualities in contempt; to have
an esteem for lying and falsehood ; and to
love most those who imposed upon him,
and used him worst. Could we believe
such a constitution to be anything else than
madness and delirium ? It is impossible.
We can as easily conceive a constitution,
by which one should perceive two and three
to make fifteen, or a part to be greater than
the whole.
Every one who attends to the operations
of his own mind will find it to be certainly
true, as it is the common belief of mankind,
that esteem is led by opinion, and that every
person draws our esteem, as far only as he
appears either to reason or fancy to be
amiable and worthy.
There is therefore a real intrinsic excel-
lence in some qualities of mind, as in power,
knowledge, wisdom, virtue, magnanimity.
These, in every degree, merit esteem; but
in an uncommon degree they merit admir-
ation ; and that which merits admiration
we call grand.
In the contemplation of uncommon ex-
cellence, the mind feels a noble enthusiasm,
which disposes it to the imitation of what it
admires.
[727–729]
496
[ESSAY VIII,
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
When we contemplate the character of
Cato—his greatness of soul, his superiority
to pleasure, to toil, and to danger; his ar-
derit zeal for the liberty of his country;
when we see him standing unmoved in mis-
fortunes, the last pillar of the liberty of
Rome, and falling nobly in his country's
ruin–who would not wish to be Cato rather
than Caesar in all his triumph 2 [730]
Such a spectacle of a great soul strug-
gling with misfortune, Seneca thought not
unworthy of the attention of Jupiter him-
self, “Ecce spectaculum Deo dignum, ad
quod respiciat Jupiter Suo operi intentus,
vir fortis cum mala fortuna compositus.”
As the Deity is, of all objects of thought,
the most grand, the descriptions given in
holy writ of his attributes and works, even
when clothed in simple expression, are
acknowledged to be sublime. The expres-
sion of Moses, “And God said, Let there
be light, and there was light,” has not
escaped the notice of Longinus, a Heathen
critic, as an example of the sublime.
What we call sublime in description, or
in speech of any kind, is a proper expres-
sion of the admiration and enthusiasm which
the subject produces in the mind of the
speaker. If this admiration and enthu-
siasm appears to be just, it carries the
hearer along with it involuntarily, and by
a kind of violence rather than by cool con-
viction : for no passions are so infectious as
those which hold of enthusiasm.
But, on the other hand, if the passion of
the speaker appears to be in no degree jus-
tified by the subject or the occasion, it pro-
duces in the judicious hearer no other emo-
tion but ridicule and contempt.
The true sublime cannot be produced
solely by art in the composition; it must
take its rise from grandeur in the subject,
and a corresponding emotion raised in the
mind of the speaker. A proper exhibition
of these, though it should be artless, is
irresistible, like fire thrown into the midst
of combustible matter. [73]]
When we contemplate the earth, the sea,
the planetary system, the universe, these
are vast objects; it requires a stretch of
imagination to grasp them in our minds.
But they appear truly grand, and merit the
highest admiration, when we consider them
as the work of God, who, in the simple ||
style of scripture, stretched out the heavens,
and laid the foundation of the earth; or, in
the poetical language of Milton–
** In his hand
He took the galden compasses, prepar'd
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe
This universe and all created thin:gs.
One foot he centr'd, and the other turu'd
‘Round thro’ the vast profundity obscure;
* Better translated—“ Be thore light, and light
there was "–FI.
And said, Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds,
This be thy just circumference, O world.” .
When we contemplate the world of Epi-
curus, and conceive the universe to be a
fortuitous jumble of atoms, there is nothing
grand in this idea. The clashing of atoms
by blind chance has nothing in it fit to raise
our conceptions, or to elevate the mind.
But the regular structure of a vast system
of beings, produced by creating power, and
governed by the best laws which perfect
wisdom and goodness could contrive, is a
spectacle which elevates the understanding,
and fills the soul with devout admiration.
A great work is a work of great power,
great wisdom, and great goodness, well con-
trived for some important end. But power,
wisdom, and goodness, are properly the at-
tributes of mind only. They are ascribed to
the work figuratively, but are really inherent
in the author: and by the same figure, the
grandeur is ascribed to the work, but is
properly inherent in the mind that made it.
Some figures of speech are so natural and
so common in all languages, that we are led
to think them literal and proper expressions.
Thus an action is called brave, virtuous,
generous ; but it is evident, that valour,
virtue, generosity, are the attributes of per-
sons only, and not of actions. In the action
considered abstractly, there is neither val-
our, nor virtue, nor generosity. The same
action done from a different motive may
deserve none of those epithets. [732] The
change in this case is not in the action, but
in the agent; yet, in all languages, generosity
and other moral qualities are ascribed to
actions. By a figure, we assign to the effect
a quality which is inherent only in the
Call SG2.
By the same figure, we ascribe to a work
that grandeur which properly is inherent in
the mind of the author.
When we consider the “ Iliad” as the
work of the poet, its sublimity was really
in the mind of Homer. He conceived
great characters, great actions, and great
events, in a manner suitable to their nature,
and with those emotions which they are
naturally fitted to produce ; and he conveys
his conceptions and his emotions by the
most proper signs. The grandeur of his
thoughts is reflected to our eye by his work,
and, therefore, it is justly called a grand
work.
When we consider the things presented
to our mind in the “Iliad” without regard
to the poet, the grandeur is properly in
Hector and Achilles, and the other great
personages, human and divine, brought
upon the stage.
Next to the Deity and his works, we ad-
mire great talents and heroic virtue in men,
whether represented in history or in fiction.
The virtues of Cato, Aristides, Socrates,
[730–732]
CHAP. III.]
497
. OF GRANDEUR,
Marcus Aurelius, are truly grand. Extra-
ordinary talents and genius, whether in
poets, orators, philosophers, or lawgivers, are
objects of admiration, and therefore grand.
We find writers of taste seized with a kind
of enthusiasm in the description of such
personages.
What a grand idea does Virgil give of the
power of eloquence, when he compares the
tempest of the sea, suddenly calmed by the
command of Neptune, to a furious sedition
in a great city, quelled at once by a man of
authority and eloquence. [733]
“Sic ait, ac dicto citius tumida aºquora placat :
Ac veluti magno in populo, si forte coorta est
Seditio, savitgue animis ignobile vulgus ;
Jamgue faces et saxa volant, furor arma ministrat;
Tum pietate gravem, et meritis, si forte virum quem
Conspexere, silent, arrectisque auribus adstant.
Ille regit dictis animos, et pectora mulcet.
Sic cunctus pelagi cecidit fragor.”
The wonderful genius of Sir Isaac New-
ton, and his sagacity in discovering the laws
of Nature, is admirably expressed in that
short but sublime epitaph by Pope :-
“Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said, Let Newton be—and all was light.”
Hitherto we have found grandeur only in
qualities of mind; but, it may be asked, Is
there no real grandeur in material objects 2
It will, perhaps, appear extravagant to
deny that there is ; yet it deserves to be
considered, whether all the grandeur we
ascribe to objects of sense be not derived
from something intellectual, of which they
are the effects or signs, or to which they bear
some relation or analogy. -
Besides the relations of effect and cause,
of sign and thing signified, there are innu-
merable similitudes and analogies between
things of very different nature, which lead
us to connect them in our imagination, and
to ascribe to the one what properly belongs
to the other.
Every metaphor in language is an instance
of this ; and it must be remembered, that a
very great part of language, which we now
account proper, was originally metaphorical;
for the metaphorical meaning becomes the
proper, as soon as it becomes the most
usual ; much more, when that which was at
first the proper meaning falls into disuse.
[734]
The poverty of language, no doubt, con-
tributes in part to the use of metaphor;
and, therefore, we find the most barren and
uncultivated languages the most metaphori-
cal. But the most copious language may
be called barren, compared with the fertility
of human conceptions, and can never, with-
out the use of figures, keep pace with the
variety of their delicate modifications.
But another cause of the use of metaphor
is, that we find pleasure in discovering rela-
tions, similitudes, analogies, and even con-
trasts, that are not obvious to every eye.
All figurative speech presents something of
this kind ; and the beauty of poetical lan-
guage seems to be derived in a great mea-
sure from this source.
Of all figurative language, that is the most
common, the most natural, and the most
agreeable, which either gives a body, if we
may so speak, to things intellectual, and
clothes them with visible qualities; or which,
on the other hand, gives intellectual qualities
to the objects of sense.
To beings of more exalted faculties, intel-
lectual objects may, perhaps, appear to most
advantage in their naked simplicity. But
we can hardly conceive them but by means
of some analogy they bear to the objects of
sense. The names we give them are almost
all metaphorical or analogical.
Thus, the names of grand and sublime, as
well as their opposites, mean and low, are
evidently borrowed from the dimensions of
body; yet, it must be acknowledged, that
many things are truly grand and sublime,
to which we cannot ascribe the dimensions
of height and extension. *
Some analogy there is, without doubt, be-
tween greatness of dimension, which is an
object of external sense, and that grandeur
which is an object of taste. On account of
this analogy, the last borrows its name from
the first ; and, the name being common,
leads us to conceive that there is something
common in the nature of the things. [735]
But we shall find many qualities of mind,
denoted by names taken from some quality
of body to which they have some analogy,
without anything common in their nature.
Sweetness and austerity, simplicity and
duplicity, rectitude and crookedness, are
names common to certain qualities of mind,
and to qualities of body to which they have
some analogy; yet he would err greatly who
ascribed to a body that sweetness or that
simplicity which are the qualities of mind.
In like manner, greatness and meanness
are names common to qualities perceived
by the external sense, and to qualities
perceived by taste ; yet he may be in an
error, who ascribes to the objects of sense
that greatness or that meanness which is
only an object of taste.
As intellectual objects are made more
level to our apprehension by giving them a
visible form ; so the objects of sense are
dignified and made more august, by ascrib-
ing to them intellectual qualities which have
some analogy to those they really possess.
The sea rages, the sky lowers, the meadows
smile, the rivulets murmur, the breezes
whisper, the soil is grateful or ungrateful—
such expressions are so familiar in common
language, that they are scarcely accounted
poetical or figurative; but they give a kind
of dignity to inanimate objects, and make
our conception of them more agreeable.
733–735]
2 K
498
[ESSAY W III.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.

When we consider matter as an inert,
extended, divisible, and movable substance,
there seems to be nothing in these qualities
which we can callgrand; and when we ascribe
grandeur to any portion of matter, however
modified, may it not borrow this quality
from something intellectual, of which it is
the effect, or sign, or instrument, or to
which it bears some analogy 2 or, perhaps,
because it produces in the mind an emotion
that has some resemblance to that admira-
tion which truly grand objects raise [736]
A very elegant writer on the sublime and
beautiful," makes everything grand or sub-
lime that is terrible. Might he not be led
to this by the similarity between dread and
admiration ? Both are grave and Solemn
passions; both make a strong impression
upon the mind ; and both are very infec-
tious. But they differ specifically, in this
respect, that admiration supposes some un-
common excellence in its object, which
dread does not. We may admire what we
see no reason to dread; and we may dread
what we do not admire. In dread, there is
nothing of that enthusiasm which maturally
accompanies admiration, and is a chief in-
gredient of the emotion raised by what is
truly grand or sublime.
Upon the whole, I humbly apprehend
that true grandeur is such a degree of ex-
cellence as is fit to raise an enthusiastical
admiration; that this grandeur is found,
originally and properly, in qualities of mind;
that it is discerned, in objects of sense, only
by reflection, as the light we perceive in the
moon and planets is truly the light of the
sun ; and that those who look for grandeur
in mere matter, seek the living among the
dead.
If this be a mistake, it ought, at least, to
be granted, that the grandeur which we
perceive in qualities of mind, ought to have
a different name from that which belongs
properly to the objects of sense, as they are
very different in their nature, and produce
very different emotions in the mind of the
spectator. [737]
CHAPTER IV.
OF BEAUTY.
BEAUTY is found in things so various
and so very different in nature, that it is
difficult to say wherein it consists, or what
there can be common to all the objects in
which it is, found.
Of the objects of sense, we find beauty in
colour, in Sound, in form, in motion. There
are beauties of speech, and beauties of
thought ; beauties in the arts, and in the
* Burke.—H.
sciences; beauties in actions, in affections,
and in characters.
In things so different and so unlike is
there any quality, the same in all, which we
may call by the name of beauty 2 What
can it be that is common to the thought of
a mind and the form of a piece of matter,
to an abstract theorem and a stroke of wit 2
I am indeed unable to conceive any qua-
lity in all the different things that are called
beautiful, that is the same in them all.
There seems to be no identity, nor even
similarity, between the beauty of a theorem
and the beauty of a piece of music, though
both may be beautiful. The kinds of beauty
seem to be as various as the objects to which
it is ascribed.
But why should things so different be
called by the same name 2 This cannot be
without a reason. If there be nothing com-
mon in the things themselves, they must
have some common relation to us, or to
something else, which leads us to give them
the same name. [738] •. * *
All the objects we call beautiful agree in
two things, which seem to concur in our
sense of beauty. First, When they are
perceived, or even imagined, they produce
a certain agreeable emotion or feeling in the
mind; and, secondly, This agreeable emotion
is accompanied with an opinion, or belief of
their having some perfection or excellence
belonging to them.
‘’Whether the pleasure we feel in contem-
plating beautiful objects may have any ne-
cessary connection with the belief of their
excellence, or whether that pleasure be con-
joined with this belief, by the good pleasure
i only of our Maker, I will not determine.
The reader may see Dr Price's sentiments
upon this subject, which merit considera-
tion, in the second chapter of his “ Review
of the Questions concerning Morals.”
Though we may be able to conceive these
two ingredients of our sense of beauty dis-
joined, this affords no evidence that they
have no necessary connection. It has in-
deed been maintained, that whatever we can
conceive, is possible : but I endeavoured,
in treating of conception, to shew, that this
opinion, though very common, is a mistake.
There may be, and probably are, many
necessary connections of things in nature,
which we are too dim-sighted to discover. .
The emotion produced by beautiful ob-
jects is gay and pleasant. It sweetens and
humanises the temper, is friendly to every
benevolent affection, and tends to allay
Sullen, and angry passions. It enlivens the
mind, and disposes it to other agreeable
emotions, such as those of love, hope, and
joy. It gives a value to the object, ab-
stracted from its utility.
In things that may be possessed as pro-
perty, beauty greatly enhances the price. -
[736–738]
CHAP 1 v.]
499
OF BEAUTY.
A beautiful dog or horse, a beautiful coach
or house, a beautiful picture or prospect, is
Yalued bºlts owner and by others, not only
for its ut ly, but for its beauty. T139]
If the autiful object be a person, his
Company hd conversation are, on that ac-
count, thmore agreeable, and we are dis-
Posed to Wve and esteem him. Even in a
Perfect.stanger, it is a powerful recom-
nºndation, and disposes us to favour and
think Well)f him, if of our own sex, and
still In Ole.} of the other.
& C Ther, is nothing,” says Mr. Addison,
that makes its way more directly to the soul
than beaty, which immediately diffuses a
Secret satiſfaction and complacence through
the imagnation, and gives a finishing to
anything that is great and uncommon.
The very first discovery of it strikes the
mind with an inward joy, and spreads a
cheerfulness and delight through all its
faculties.” ~ .
"As W. ascribe beauty, not only to per-
sons, but to inanimate things, we give the
Thame of ove Órliking to the emotion, which
beauty, in both these kinds of objects,
produces . It is evident, however, that
liking to a person is a very different affec-
tion of hind from liking to an inanimate
thing . The first always implies benevo-
lence; but what is inanimate cannot be the
object. benevolence. The two affections,
me is: different, have a resemblance in
spects ; and, on account of that
\lance, have the same name. And
, is beauty, in these two different kinds
of ºets, though it has one name, may be
2S diºcrent in its nature as the emotions
which if produces in us.
... - Besides the agreeable emotion which
beautiful objects produce in the mind of
the sp?ctator, they produce also an opinion
- gment of some perfection or excel-
lenc'ſ in the object. This I take to be a
Sºgºſhd ingredient in our sense of beauty,
hough it seems not to be admitted by
modern philosophers. [740]
The ingenious Dr Hutcheson, who per-
eived some of the defects of Mr Locke's
ystem, and made very important improve-
ments upon it, seems to have been carried
away by it, in his notion of beauty. . In
his “Inquiry concerning Beauty,” $ 1,
“Let it be observed,” says he, “that in the
following papers, the word beauty is taken
for the idea raised in us, and the sense of
beauty for our power of receiving that idea.”
And again—“Only let it be observed, that,
* ... by absolute or original beauty, is not under-
stood any quality supposed to be in the
# object which should, of itself, be beautiful,
§ without relation to any mind which per-
i. it : for beauty, like other names of
iſ sensible ideas, properly denotes the per-
§ception of some mind; so cold, hot, sweet,
bitter, denote the sensations in our minds,
to which, perhaps, there is no resemblance
in the objects which excite these ideas in
us; however, we generally imagine other-
wise. Were there no mind, with a sense
of beauty, to contemplate objects, I see not
how they could be called beautiful,”
There is no doubt an analogy) between
the external senses of touch and taste, and
the internal sense of beauty. This analogy
led Dr Hutcheson, and other modern phi-
losophers, to apply to beauty what Des
Cartes and Locke had taught concerning
the secondary qualities perceived by the
external senses. ;
Mr Locke's doctrine concerning the se-
condary qualities of body, is not so much
an error in judgment as an abuse of wº
He distinguished very properly between
the sensations we have of heat and cold,
and that quality or structure in the body
which is adapted by Nature to produce
those sensations in us. He observed very
justly, that there can be no similitude bê-
tween one of these and the other. They
have the relation of an effect to its cause,
but no similitude. This was a very just
and proper correction of the doctrine of the
Peripatetics, who taught, that all our sens-
ations are the very form and image of the
quality in the object by which they are
produced. [74] ]
What remained to be determined was,
whether the words, heat and cold, in com-
mon language, signify the sensations we
feel, or the qualities of the object which
are the cause of these sensations. Mr
Locke made heat and cold to signify only
the sensations we feel, and not the qualities
which are the cause of them. And in this,
I apprehend, lay his mistake. For it is
evident, from the use of language, that hot
and cold, sweet and bitter, are attributes of
external objects, and not of the person who
perceives them. Hence, it appears a mon-
strous paradox to say, there is no heat in
the fire, no sweetness in sugar; but, when
explained according to Mr Locke's meaning,
it is only, like most other paradoxes, an
abuse of words.” -
The sense of beauty may be analysed in
a manner very similar to the sense of sweet-
mess. It is an agreeable feeling or emotion,
accompanied with an opinion or judgment
of some excellence in the object, which is
fitted by Nature to produce that feeling.
The feeling is, no doubt, in the mind,
and so also is the judgment we form of the
object: but this judgment, like all others,
If it be a true judg-
ment, there is some real excellence in the
And the use of all languages shews
that the name of beauty belongs to this ex-
must be true or false.
object.
* See above, p. 205, b, note *.-H.












..[739–741]
2 K 2
500
[ssay V j II .
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS
cellence of the object, and not to the feel-
ings of the spectator.
To say that there is, in reality, no beauty
in those objects in which all men perceive
beauty, is to attribute to man fallacious
senses. But we have no ground to think
so disrespectfully of the Author of our
being ; the faculties he hath given us are
not fallacious; nor is that beauty which
he hath ; so liberally diffused over all the
works of his hands, a mere fancy in us, but
a real excellence in his works, which express
the perfection of their Divine Author.
We have reason to believe, not only that
the beauties we see in nature are real, and
not fanciful, but that there are thousands
which our faculties are too dull to perceive.
Wº see many beauties, both of human and
divine art, which the brute animals are in-
capable of perceiving ; and superior beings
may excel us as far in their discernment of
truſe beauty as we excel the brutes. [742]
The man who is skilled in painting or
Aftatuary sees more of the beauty of a fine
... ' picture or statue than a common specta-
tor. The same thing holds in all the fine
arts. The most perfect works of art have
a beauty that strikes even the rude and ig-
norant; but they see only a small part of
that beauty which is seen in such works by
those who understand them perfectly, and
can produce them.
This may be applied, with no less justice,
to the works of Nature. They have a
beauty that strikes even the ignorant and
inattentive. But the more we discover of
their structure, of their mutual relations,
and of the laws by which they are governed,
the greater beauty, and the more delightful
marks of art, wisdom, and goodness, we
discern.
Thus the expert anatomist sees number-
less beautiful contrivances in the structure
of the human body, which are unknown to
the ignorant.
Although the vulgar eye sees much beauty
in the face of the heavens, and in the various
motions and changes of the heavenly bodies,
the expert astronomer, who knows their
order and distances, their periods, the orbits
they describe in the vast regions of space,
and the simple and beautiful laws by which
their motions are governed, and all the
appearances of their stations, progressions,
and retrogradations, their eclipses, occulta-
tions, and transits are produced—sees a
beauty, order, and harmony reign through
the whole planetary system, which delights
the mind. The eclipses of the sun and
moon, and the blazing tails of comets,
which strike terror into barbarous nations,
furnish the most pleasing entertainment to
his eye, and a feast to his understanding.
[743]
In every part of Nature's works, there
are numberless beauties, which, ºn account
of our ignorance, we are unable P. Perceive:
Superior beings may see more th We 3 but
He only who made them, and, on a re-
view, pronounced them all to be ſery good,
can see all their beauty.
Our determinations with regiºd to the
beauty of objects, may, I think be distin-
guished into two kinds; the firſt we may
call instinctive, the other rationa-
Some objects strike us at oncº, and ap-
pear beautiful at first sight, withèt any re-
flection, without our being able to say why
we call them beautiful, or being aſle to spe-
cify any perfection which justifies ºur judg-
ment. Something of this kind thºre seems
to be in brute animals, and in children
before the use of reason ; nor des it end
with infancy, but continues through life.
In the plumage of birds and of bitterflies, ,
in the colours and form of flowers, f shells,
and of many other objects, we peºcelve a
beauty that delights ; but cannot gay what
it is in the object that should produce that
emotion. - º
The beauty of the object may in such
cases be called an occult quality. We know
well how it affects our senses; but what it
is in itself we know not. But this, as well
as other occult qualities, is a prope' ºbject
of philosophical disquisition; and, by higate-
ful examination of the objects to wility, we
ture hath given this amiable quiº
may perhaps discover some real exei
in the object, or, at least, some vº
purpose that is served by the effect;
it produces upon us. - º
This instinctive sense of beauty, in fifter-
ent species of animals, may differ as much
as the external sense of taste, and iſ, each
species be adapted to its manner of life. By
this perhaps the various tribes are\led to
associate with their kind, to dwell almong
certain objects rather than others, and to
construct their habitation in a particº
manner. [744]
There seem likewise to be varieties in
the sense of beauty in the individuals of the
same species, by which they are directed in
the choice of a mate, and in the love and
care of their offspring.
“We see,” says Mr Addison, “that
every different species of sensible creatures
has its different notions of beauty, and that
each of them is most affected with the
beauties of its own kind. This is nowhere
more remarkable than in birds of the same
shape and proportion, where we often see A.
the mate determined in his courtship by the ,
single grain or tincture of a feather, and
never discovering any charms but in the
colour of its own species.” #
- i. {}
“ Scit thalamo servare fidem, sanctasque veretur i
Connubii leges; non illum in pectore candor |
Sollicitat niveus ; neque pravum accendit amo-
rel]] -
**
tºl]
• A'
[Nºs.
#3: .
|
*
t
[742-744],








CHAP. V.]
501
OF BEAUTY.
Splendida lanugo, vel homesta in vertice Crista;
Purpuréusve mitor pennarum; ast agnina late
Foeminea explorat cautus, maculasque requirit
Cogmatas, paribusque interlita cºrpora guttis:
Ni faceret, pictis sylvam circum undique mons-
tris
Confusam aspiceres vulgo, partusque biformes,
Et genus ambiguum, et veneris monumenta inc-
ſandae.
“ Hinc merula in nigro se oblectat nigra marito;
Hinc socium lasciva petit philomela canorum,
Agnoscitaue pares sonitus; hinc noctua tetram
Canitiem alarum, et glaucos miratur ocellos.
Nempe sibi semper constat, crescitaue quotannis
Lucida progenies, castos confessa parentes :
Vere novo exultat, plumasque decora juventus
Explicat ad solem, patriisque coloribus ardet.”
In the human kind there are varieties in
the taste of beauty, of which we can no
more assign a reason than of the variety of
their features, though it is easy to perceive
that very important ends are answered by
both. These varieties are most observable
in the judgments we form of the features of
the other sex; and in this the intention of
nature is most apparent. [745]
As far as our determinations of the com-
parative beauty of objects are instinctive,
they are no subject of reasoning or of criti-
cism ; they are purely the gift of nature,
and we have no standard by which they may
be measured.
But there are judgments of beauty that
may be called rational, being grounded on
some agreeable quality of the object which is
distinctly conceived, and may be specified.
This distinction between a rational judg-
mont of beauty and that which is instinc-
tive, may be illustrated by an instance.
In a heap of pebbles, one that is remark-
able for brilliancy of colour and regularity
of figure, will be picked out of the heap by a
child. He perceives a beauty in it, puts a
value upon it, and is fond of the property of
it. For this preference, no reason can be
given, but that children are, by their con-
titution, fond of brilliant colours, and of
regular figures.
Suppose again that an expert mechanic
views a well constructed machine. He sees
all its parts to be made of the fittest mate-
rials, and of the most proper form ; no-
thing superfluous, nothing deficient ; every
part adapted to its use, and the whole fitted
in the most perfect manner to the end for
which it is intended. He pronounces it to
be a beautiful machine. He views it with
the same agreeable emotion as the child
viewed the pebble ; but he can give a reason
for his judgment, and point out the particu-
lar perfections of the object on which it is
grounded. [746] -
Although the instinctive and the rational
sense of beauty may be perfectly distin-
guished in speculation, yet, in passing judg-
iment upon particular objects, they are of en
so mixed and confounded, that it is difficult
to assign to each its own province. Nay, it
may often happen, that a judgment of the
beauty of an object, which was at first
merely instinctive, shall afterwards become
rational, when we discover some latent per-
ſection of which that beauty in the object is
a Sign.
As the sense of beauty may be distin-
guished into instinctive and rational ; so I
think beauty itself may be distinguished into
original and derived.
As some objects shine by their own light,
and many more by light that is borrowed
and reflected ; so I conceive the lustre of
beauty in some objects is inherent and
original, and in many others is borrowed
and reflected.
There is nothing more common in the
sentiments of all mankind, and in the lan-
guage of all nations, than what may be
called a communication of attributes; that
is, transferring an attribute, from the sub-
ject to which it properly belongs, to some
related or resembling subject. -
The various objects which nature pre-
sents to our view, even those that are most
different in kind, have innumerable simili-
tudes, relations, and analogies, which we
contemplate with pleasure, and which lead
us naturally to borrow words and attributes
from one object to express what belongs to
another. The greatest part of every lan-
guage under heaven is made up of words
borrowed from one thing, and applied to
something supposed to have some relation
or analogy to their first signification. [747]
The attributes of body we ascribe to mind,
and the attributes of mind to material ob-
jects. To inanimate things we ascribe life,
and even intellectual and moral qualities.
And, although the qualities that are thus
made common belong to one of the subjects
in the proper sense, and to the other meta-
phorically, these different senses are often
so mixed in our imagination, as to produce
the same sentiment with regard to both.
It is therefore matural, and agreeable to
the strain of human sentiments and of
human language, that in many cases the
beauty which originally and properly is in
the thing signified, should be transferred
to the sign ; that which is in the cause to
the effect ; that which is in the end to the
means; and that which is in the agent to
the instrument.
If what was said in the last chapter of
the distinction between the grandeur which
we ascribe to qualities of mind, and that
which we ascribe to material objects, be
well founded, this distinction of the beauty
of objects will easily be admitted as per-
fectly analagous to it. I shall therefore
only illustrate it by an example. *
There is nothing in the exterior of a man
more lovely and more attractive than per-
fect good breeding. But what is this good
[745-747]
502
[Essay W’ I I L.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
breeding 2 It consists of all the external
signs of due respect to our superiors, con-
descension to our inferiors, politeness to all
with whom we converse or have to do,
joined in the fair sex with that delicacy of
outward behaviour which becomes them.
And how comes it to have such charms in
the eyes of all mankind; for this reason
only, as I apprehend, that it is a natural
sign of that temper, and those affections
and sentiments with regard to others, and
with regard to ourselves, which are in
themselves truly amiable and beautiful.
This is the original, of which good breed-
ing is the picture; and it is the beauty of
the original that is reflected to our sense
by the picture. The beauty of good breed-
ing, therefore, is not originally in the ex-
ternal behaviour in which it consists, but is
derived from the qualities of mind which it
expresses. And though there may be good
breeding without the amiable qualities of
mind, its beauty is still derived from what
it naturally expresses. [748]
Having explained these distinctions of
our sense of beauty into instinctive and
rational, and of beauty itself into original
and derived, I would now proceed to give
a general view of those qualities in objects,
to which we may justly and rationally
ascribe beauty, whether original or derived.
But here some embarrassment arises
from the vague meaning of the word beauty,
which I had occasion before to observe.
Sometimes it is extended, so as to include
everything that pleases a good taste, and
so comprehends grandeur and novelty, as
well as what in a more restricted sense is
called beauty. At other times, it is even
by good writers confined to the objects of
sight, when they are either seen, or remem-
bered, or imagined. Yet it is admitted by
all men, that there are beauties in music ;
that there is beauty as well as sublimity in
composition, both in verse and in prose ;
that there is beauty in characters, in affec-
tions, and in actions. These are not ob-
jects of sight ; and a man may be a good
judge of beauty of various kinds, who has
not the faculty of sight.
To give a determinate meaning to a word
so variously extended and restricted, I
know no better way than what is suggested
by the common division of the objects of
taste into novelty, grandeur, and beauty.
Novelty, it is plain, is no quality of the
new object, but merely a relation which it
has to the knowledge of the person to whom
it is new. Therefore, if this general divi-
sion be just, every quality in an object that
pleases a good taste, must, in one degree
or another, have either grandeur or beauty.
It may still be difficult to fix the precise
limit betwixt grandeur and beauty ; but
they must together comprehend everything
fitted by its nature to please a good taste—
that is, every real perfection and excellence
in the objects we contemplate. [749]
In a poem, in a picture, in a piece of
music, it is real excellence that pleases a
good taste. In a person, every perfection
of the mind, moral or intellectual, and every
perfection of the body, gives pleasure to the
spectator, as well as to the owner, when
there is no envy nor malignity to destroy
that pleasure.
It is, therefore, in the scale of perfection
and real excellence that we must look for
what is either grand or beautiful in objects.
What is the proper object of admiration is
grand, and what is the proper object of love
and esteem is beautiful.
This, I think, is the only notion of beauty
that corresponds with the division of the
objects of taste which has been generally
received by philosophers. And this cori-
nection of beauty with real perfection, was
a capital doctrine of the Socratic school.
It is often ascribed to Socrates, in the dia-
logues of Plato and of Xenophon.
We may, therefore, take a view, first, of
those qualities of mind to which we may
justly and rationally ascribe beauty, and
then of the beauty we perceive in the objects
of sense. We shall find, if I mistake not,
that, in the first, original beauty is to be
found, and that the beauties of the second
class are derived from some relation they
bear to mind, as the signs or expressions
of some amiable mental quality, or as the
effects of design, art, and wise contrivance.
As grandeur naturally produces admira-
tion, beauty naturally produces love. We
may, therefore, justly ascribe beauty to those
qualities which are the natural objects of
love and kind affection.
Of this kind chiefly are some of the moral
virtues, which, in a peculiar manner, con-
stitute a lovely character. Innocence, gen-
tleness, condescension, humanity, natural
affection, public spirit, and the whole train
of the soft and gentle virtues: these qualities
are amiable from their very nature, and on
account of their intrinsic worth. [750]
There are other virtues that raise admira-
tion, and are, therefore, grand; such as
magnanimity, fortitude, self-command, su-
periority to pain and labour, superiority to
pleasure, and to the smiles of Fortune as
well as to her frowns.
These awful virtues constitute what is
most grand in the human character; the
gentle virtues, what is most beautiful and
lovely. As they are virtues, they draw the
approbation of our moral faculty ; as they
are becoming and amiable, they affect our
sense of beauty.
Next to the amiable moral virtues, there
are many intellectual talents which have an .
intrinsic value, and draw our love and esteem
[743–750)
cii AP. IV.]
503
OF BEAUTY.
to those who possess them. Such are,
knowledge, good sense, wit, humour, cheer-
fulness, good taste, excellence in any of the
fine arts, in eloquence, in dramatic action;
and, we may add, excellence in every art of
peace or war that is useful in society.
There are likewise talents which we refer
to the body, which have an original beauty
and comeliness; such as health, strength,
and agility, the usual attendants of youth ;
skill in bodily exercises, and skill in the
mechanic arts. These are real perfections
of the man, as they increase his power, and
render the body a fit instrument for the
mind.
I apprehend, therefore, that it is in the
moral and intellectual perfections of mind,
and in its active powers, that beauty origin-
ally dwells ; and that from this as the foun-
tain, all the beauty which we perceive in
the visible world is derived. [75]]
This, I think, was the opinion of the
ancient philosophers before-named ; and it
has been adopted by Lord Shaftesbury and
Dr Akenside among the moderns.
** Mind, mind alone, bear witness, earth and heav'n
The living fountains in itself contains
Of beauteous and sublime. Here hand in hand
Sit paramount the graces. Here enthron'd,
Celestial Venus, with divinest airs,
Invites the soul to never-fading, joy.”—Akenside.
But neither mind, nor any of its qualities
or powers, is an immediate object of per-
ception to man. We are, indeed, imme-
diately conscious of the operations of our
own mind ; and every degree of perfection
in them gives the purest pleasure, with a
proportional degree of self-esteem, so flat-
tering to self-love, that the great difficulty
is to keep it within just bounds, so that we
may not think of ourselves above what we
ought to think.
Other minds we perceive only through
the medium of material objects, on which
their signatures are impressed. It is
through this medium that we perceive life,
activity, wisdom, and every moral and in-
tellectual quality in other beings. The
signs of those qualities are immediately
perceived by the senses ; by them the qua-
lities themselves are reflected to our under-
standing ; and we are very apt to attribute
to the sign the beauty or the grandeur
which is properly and originally in the
things signified. * *
The invisible Creator, the Fountain of
all perfection, hath stamped upon all his
works signatures of his divine wisdom,
power, and benignity, which are visible to
all men. The works of men in science, in
the arts of taste, and in the mechanical
arts, bear the signatures of those qualities
of mind which were employed in their pro-
duction. Their external behaviour and
conduct in life expresses the good or bad
qualities of their mind. [752]
In every species of animals, we perceive
by visible signs their instincts, their appe-
tites, their affections, their sagacity. Even
in the inanimate world, there are many
things analogous to the qualities of mind;
so that there is hardly auything belonging
to mind which may not be represented by
images taken from the objects of sense ;
and, on the other hand, every object of
sense is beautified, by borrowing attire from
the attributes of mind.
Thus, the beauties of mind, though invi-
sible in themselves, are perceived in the
objects of sense, on which their image is
impressed.
If we consider, on the other hand, the
qualities in sensible objects to which we
ascribe beauty, I apprehend we shall find
in all of them some relation to mind, and
the greatest in those that are most beau-
tiful.
When we consider inanimate matter
abstractly, as a substance endowed with
the qualities of extension, solidity, divisi-
bility, and mobility, there seems to be
nothing in these qualities that affects our
sense of beauty. But when we contem-
plate the globe which we inhabit, as fitted
by its form, by its motions, and by its fur-
niture, for the habitation and support of an
infinity of various orders of living creatures,
from the lowest reptile up to man, we have
a glorious spectacle indeed with which
the grandest and the most beautiful struc-
tures of human art can bear no compa-
rison.
The only perfection of dead matter is its
being, by its various forms and qualities,
so admirably fitted for the purposes of ani-
mal life, and chiefly that of man. It fur-
nishes the materials of every art that tends
to the support or the embellishment of
human life. By the Supreme Artist, it is
organized in the various tribes of the veget-
able kingdom, and endowed with a kind of
life; a work which human art cannot imi-
tate, nor human understanding compre-
hend. [753]
In the bodies and various organs of the
animal tribes, there is a composition of
matter still more wonderful and more mys-
terious, though we see it to be admirably
adapted to the purposes and manner of life
of every species. But in every form, unor-
ganized, vegetable, or animal, it derives its
beauty from the purposes to which it is
subservient, or from the signs of wisdom
or of other mental qualities which it ex-
hibits.
The qualities of inanimate matter, in
which we perceive beauty, are—sound,
colour, form, and motion ; the first an ob-
ject of hearing, the other three of sight ;
which we may consider in order.
In a single note, sounded by a very fine
[751–753]
504
[ESSAY V111.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
voice, there is a beauty which we do not
perceive in the same note, sounded by a bad
voice or an imperfect instrument. I need
not attempt to enumerate the perfections
in a single note, which give beauty to it.
Some of them have names in the science of
music, and there perhaps are others which
have no names. But I think it will be
allowed, that every quality which gives
beauty to a single note, is a sign of some
perfection, either in the organ, whether it
be the human voice or an instrument, or in
the execution. The beauty of the sound
is both the sign and the effect of this per-
fection; and the perfection of the cause is
the only reason we can assign for the beauty
of the effect.
In a composition of sounds, or a piece of
music, the beauty is either in the harmony,
the melody, or the expression. The beauty
of expression must be derived, either from
the beauty of the thing expressed, or from
the art and skill employed in expressing it
properly.
In harmony, the very names of concord
and discord are metaphorical, and suppose
some analogy between the relations of sound,
to which they are figuratively applied, and
the relations of minds and affections, which
they originally and properly signify, [754]
As far as I can judge by my ear, when
two or more persons, of a good voice and
ear, converse together in amity and friend-
ship, the tones of their different voices are
concordant, but become discordant when
they give vent to angry passions; so that,
without hearing what is said, one may know
by the tones of the different voices, whether
they quarrel or converse amicably. This,
indeed, is not so easily perceived in those
who have been taught, by good-breeding,
to suppress angry tones of voiee, even when
they are angry, as in the lowest rank, who
express their angry passions without any
restraint.
When discord arises occasionally in con-
versation, but soon terminates in perfect
amity, we receive more pleasure than from
perfect unanimity. In like manner, in the
harmony of music, discordant sounds are
occasionally introduced, but it is always in
order to give a relish to the most perfect
concord that follows.
Whether these analogies, between the
harmony of a piece of music, and harmony
in the intercourse of minds, be merely fanci-
ful, or have any real foundation in fact, I
submit to those who have a nicer ear, and
have applied it to observations of this kind.
If they have any just foundation, as they
seem to me to have, they serve to account
for the metaphorical application of the
names of concord and discord to the rela-
tions of sounds; to account for the pleasure
we have from harmony in music ; and to
shew, that the beauty of harmony is derived
from the relation it has to agreeable affec-
tions of mind.
With regard to melody. I leave it to the
adepts in the science of music, to determine
whether music, composed according to the
established rules of harmony and melody,
can be altogether void of expression; and
whether music that has no expression can
have any beauty. To me it seems, that
every strain in melody that is agreeable, is
an imitation of the tones of the human
voice in the expression of some sentiment
or passion, or an imitation of some other ob-
ject in nature; and that music, as well as
poetry, is an imitative art. [755]
The sense of beauty in the colours, and
in the motions of inanimate objects, is, I
believe, in some cases instinctive. We see
that children and Savages are pleased with
brilliant colours and sprightly motions. In
persons of an improved and rational taste,
there are many sources from which colours
and motions may derive their beauty. They,
as well as the forms of objects, admit of
regularity and variety. The motions pro-
duced by machinery, indicate the perfection
or imperfection of the mechanism, and may
be better or worse adapted to their end, and
from that derive their beauty or deformity:
The colours of natural objects, are com-
monly signs of some good or bad quality in
the object ; or they may suggest to the
imagination something agreeable or dis-
agreeable.
In dress and furniture, fashion has a con-
siderable influence on the preference we give
to one colour above another.
A number of clouds of different and ever-
changing hue, seen on the ground of a serene
azure sky, at the going down of the sun,
present to the eye of every man a glorious
spectacle. It is hard to say, whether we
should call it grand or beautiful. It is both
in a high degree. Clouds towering above
clouds, variously tinged, according as they
approach nearer to the direct rays of the
sun, enlarge our conceptions of the regions
above us. They give us a view of the fur-
niture of those regions, which, in an un-
clouded air, seem to be a perfect void; but
are now Seen to contain the stores of wind
and rain, bound up for the present, but to
be poured down upon the earth in due sea-
Son. Even the simple rustic does not look
upon this beautiful sky, merely as a show
to please the eye, but as a happy omen of
fine weather to come.
The proper arrangement of colour, and of
light and shade, is one of the chief beauties
of painting ; but this beauty is greatest,
when that arrangement gives the most dis-
tinct, the most natural, and the most agree-
able image of that which the painter intend-
ed to represent. [756]
CHAP, IV.]
505
OF BEAUT Y.
-----"
If we consider, in the last place, the
beauty of form or figure in inanimate ob-
jects, this, according to Dr Hutcheson, re-
sults from regularity, mixed with variety.
Here, it ought to be observed, that regu-
larity, in all cases, expresses design and
art: for nothing regular was ever the work
of chance ; and where regularity is joined
with variety, it expresses design more
strongly. Besides, it has been justly ob-
served, that regular figures are more easily
and more perfectly comprehended by the
mind than the irregular, of which we can
never form an adequate conception.
Although straight lines and plain surfaces
have a beauty from their regularity, they
admit of no variety, and, therefore, are
beauties of the lowest order. Curve lines
and surfaces admit of infinite variety, joined
with every degree of regularity; and, there-
fore, in many cases, excel in beauty those
that are straight. + -
But the beauty arising from regularity
and variety, must always yield to that which
arises from the fitness of the form for the
end intended. In everything made for an
end, the form must be adapted to that end ;
and everything in the form that suits the
end, is a beauty ; everything that unfits it
for its end,-is-a-deformity.
The forms of a pillar, of a sword, and of
a balance are very different. Each may
have great beauty ; but that beauty is de-
rived from the fitness of the form and of
the matter for the purpose intended. [757]
Were we to consider the form of the earth
itself, and the various furniture it contains,
of the inauinate kind ; its distribution into
land and Sea, mountains and valleys, rivers
and springs of water, the variety of soils
that cover its surface, and of mineral and
metallic substances laid up within it, the air
that surrounds it, the vicissitudes of day
and night, and of the seasons; the beauty
of all these, which indeed is superlative,
consists in this, that they bear the most
lively and striking impression of the wisdom
and goodness of their Author, in contriving
them so admirably for the use of man, and
of their other inhabitants.
The beauties of the vegetable kingdom
are far Superior to those of inanimate mat-
ter, in any form which human art can give
it. Hence, in all ages, men have been fond
to adorn their persons and their habitations
with the vegetable productions of nature.
The beauties of the field, of the forest,
and of the flower-garden, strike a child long
before he can reason. He is delighted with
what he sees; but he knows not why. This
is instinct, but it is not confined to child-
hood; it continues through all the stages of
life. It leads the florist, the botanist, the
philosopher, to examine and compare the
objects which Nature, by this powerful in-
stinct, recommends to his attention. By
degrees, he becomes a critic in beauties of
this kind, and can give a reason why he
prefers one to another. In every species,
he sees the greatest beauty in the plants or
flowers that are most perfect in their kind—
which have neither suffered from unkindly
soil nor inclement weather ; which have not
been robbed of their nourishment by other
plants, nor hurt by any accident. When he
examines the internal structure of those
productions of Nature, and traces them
from their embryo state in the seed to their
maturity, he sees a thousand beautiful con-
trivances of Nature, which feast his under-
standing more than their external form
delighted his eye.
Thus, every beauty in the vegetable
creation, of which he has formed any ra-
tional judgment, expresses some perfection
in the object, or some wise contrivance in
its Author. [758]
In the animal kingdom, we perceive still
greater beauties than in the vegetable. Here
we observe life, and sense, and activity,
various instincts and affections, and, in
many cases, great Sagacity. These are
attributes of mind, and have an original
beauty.
As we allow to brute animals a thinking
principle or mind, though far inferior to
that which is in man ; and as, in many of
their intellectual and active powers, they
very much resemble the human species,
their actions, their motions, and even their
looks, derive a beauty from the powers of
thought which they express.
There is a wonderful variety in their
manner of life; and we find the powers they
possess, their outward form, and their in-
ward structure, exactly adapted to it. In
every species, the more perfectly any indi-
vidual is fitted for its end and manner of
life, the greater is its beauty.
In a race-horse, everything that expresses
agility, ardour, and emulation, gives beauty
to the animal. In a pointer, acuteness of
scent, eagerness on the game, and tractable-
ness, are the beauties of the species. A
sheep derives its beauty from the fineness
and quantity of its fleece ; and in the wild
animals, every beauty is a sign of their
perfection in their kind.
It is an observation of the celebrated
Linnaeus, that, in the vegetable kingdom,
the poisonous plants have commonly a lurid
and disagreeable appearance to the eye, of
which he gives many instances. I appre-
hend the observation may be extended to
the animal kingdom, in which we commonly
see something shocking to the eye in the
noxious and poisonous amimals.
The beauties which anatomists and play-
siologists describe in the internal structure
of the various tribes of animals; in the
[757, 758]
506
[Essay v1.11.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
organs of Sense, of nutrition, and of motion,
are expressive of wise design and contriv-
ance, in fitting them for the various kinds
of life for which they are intended. [759]
Thus, I think, it appears that the beauty
which we perceive in the inferior animals,
is expressive, either of such perfections as
their several natures may receive, or ex-
pressive of wise design in Him who made
them, and that their beauty is derived from
the perfections which it expresses.
But of all the objects of sense, the most
striking and attractive beauty is perceived
in the human species, and particularly in
the fair sex.
Milton represents Satan himself, in sur-
veying the furniture of this globe, as struck
with the beauty of the first happy pair.
“Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall,
Godlike erect! with native honour clad
In naked majesty, seem'd lords of all.
And worthy seem’d, for in th’ ir looks divine,
The image of their glorious Maker, shone
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure;
Severe, but in true filial freedom plac'd,
Whence true authority in man : though both
Not equal, as their s. x not equal seem’d,
For contemplation he, and valour form'd,
For softness she, and sweet attractive gr, ce.”
In this well-known passage of Milton,
we see that this great poet derives the
beauty of the first pair in Paradise from
those expressions of moral and intellectual
qualities which appeared in their outward
form and demeanour.
The most minute and systematical ac-
count of beauty in the human species, and
particularly in the fair sex, I have met
with, is in “Crito; or, a Dialogue on
Beauty,” said to be written by the author
of “Polymetis,” and republished by Dods-
ley in his collection of fugitive pieces.
[760]
I shall borrow from that author some
observations, which, I think, tend to shew
that the beauty of the human body is
derived from the signs it exhibits of some
perfection of the mind or person.
All that can be called beauty in the
human species may be reduced to these
four heads: colour, form, expression, and
grace. The two former may be called the
body, the two latter the soul of beauty.
The beauty of colour is not owing solely
to the natural liveliness of flesh-colour and
red, nor to the much greater charms they
receive from being properly blended toge-
ther; but is also owing, in some degree, to
the idea they carry with them of good
health, without which all beauty grows
languid and less engaging, and with which
it always recovers an additional strength
and lustre. This is supported by the autho-
rity of Cicero. Venustas set pulchritudo
corporis secerni mon potest a valetudime.
* Spence, under the name of Sir Harry cau-
tnont – H.
Here I observe, that, as the colour of the
body is very different in different climates,
every nation preferring the colour of its
climate, and as, among us, one man prefers
a fair beauty, another a brunette, without
being able to give any reason for this pre-
ference; this diversity of taste has no stand-
ard in the common principles of human
nature, but must arise from something that
is different in different nations, and in dif-
ferent individuals of the same nation.
I observed before, that fashion, habit,
associations, and perhaps some peculiarity
of constitution, may have great influence
upon this internal sense, as well as upon
the external. Setting aside the judgments
arising from such causes, there seems to
remain nothing that, according to the com-
mon judgment of mankind, can be called
beauty in the colour of the species, but
what expresses perfect health and liveli-
ness, and in the fair sex softness and deli-
cacy; and nothing that can be called deform-
ity but what indicates disease and decline.
And if this be so, it follows, that the beauty
of colour is derived from the perfections
which it expresses. This, however, of all
the ingredients of beauty, is the least. [76]]
The next in order is form, or proportion
of parts. The most beautiful form, as the
author thinks, is that which indicates deli-
cacy and softness in the fair sex, and in the
male either strength or agility. The beau-
ty of form, therefore, lies all in expression.
The third ingredient, which has more
power than either colour or form, he calls
expression, and observes, that it is only the
expression of the tender and kind passions
that gives beauty; that all the cruel and
unkind ones add to deformity; and that, on
this account, good nature may very justly
be said to be the best feature, even in the
finest face. Modesty, sensibility, and
sweetness, blended together, so as either
to enliven or to correct each other, give al-
most as much attraction as the passions are
capable of adding to a very pretty face.
It is owing, says the author, to the great
force of pleasingness which attends all the
kinder passions, that lovers not only seem,
but really are, more beautiful to each other
than they are to the rest of the world ; be-
cause, when they are together, the most pleas-
ing passions are more frequently exerted in
each of their faces than they are in either
before the rest of the world. There is then,
as a French author very well expresses it,
a Soul upon their countenances, which does
not appear when they are absent from one
another, or even in company that lays a re-
straint upon their features. -
There is a great difference in the same
face, according as the person is in a better
or a worse humour, or more or less lively.
The best complexion, the finest features,
[759–761] –
CHAP. IV.]
507
OF BEAUT Y.
and the exactest shape, without anything
of the mind expressed in the face, is insipid
and unmoving. The finest eyes in the
world, with an excess of malice or rage in
them, will grow shocking. The passions
can give beauty without the assistance of
colour or form, and take it away where
these have united most strongly to give it ;
and therefore this part of beauty is greatly
superior to the other two. [762]
The last and noblest part of beauty is
grace, which the author thinks undefin-
able.
Nothing causes love so generally and ir-
resistibly as grace. Therefore, in the my-
thology of the Greeks and . Romans, the
Graces were the constant attendants of
Venus the goddess of love. Grace is like
the cestus of the same goddess, which was
supposed to comprehend everything that
was winning and engaging, and to create
love by a secret and inexplicable force, like
that of some magical charm.
- . There are two kinds of grace—the majes-
tic and the familiar ; the first more com-
manding, the last more delightful and en-
gaging. The Grecian painters and sculp-
tors used to express the former most strongly
in the looks and attitudes of their Miner-
vas, and the latter in those of Venus. This
distinction is marked in the description of
the personages of Virtue and Pleasure in
the ancient fable of the Choice of Hercules.
* Graceful, but each with different grace they move,
This striking sacred awe, that softer winning love.”
In the persons of Adam and Eve in Pa-
radise, Milton has made the same distinc-
tion—
“. For contemplation he, and valour formed,
For softness she, and sweet attractive grace.” [763]
Though grace be so difficult to be defined,
there are two things that hold universally
with relation to it. First, There is no
grace without motion ; some genteel or
pleasing motion, either of the whole body
or of Some limb, or at least some feature.
Hence, in the face, grâce appears only on
those features that are movable, and change
with the various emotions and sentiments
of the mind, such as the eyes and eye-
brows, the mouth and parts adjacent.
When Venus appeared to her son AEneas
in disguise, and, after some conversation
with him, retired, it was by the grace of
her motion in retiring that he discovered
her he to truly a goddess.
“ Dixit, et a vertens rosea cervice refulsit,
Ambrosiaeque coma divinum vertice odore m
Spiravere; pedes vestis defluxit ad imos;
Et vera incessu patuit dea. Ille, ubi matrem
Agnovit,” &c.
A second oliServation is, That there can
be no grace with impropriety, or that no-
thing can be graceful that is not adapted to
the character and situation of the person.
From these observations, which appear
to me to be just, we may, I think, conclude,
that grace, as far as it is visible, consists of
those motions, either of the whole body, or
of a part or feature, which express the most
perfect propriety of conduct and sentiment
in an amiable character.
Those motions must be different in dif-
ferent characters; they must vary with
every variation of emotion and sentiment :
they may express either dignity or respect,
confidence or reserve, love or just resent-
ment, esteem or indignation, zeal or indif-
ference. Every passion, sentiment, or emo-
tion, that in its nature and degree is just
and proper, and corresponds perfectly with
the character of the person, and with the oc-
casion, is what may we call the soul of grace.
The body or visible part consists of those
emotions and features which give the true
and unaffected expression of this soul. [764]
Thus, I think, all the ingredients of
human beauty, as they are enumerated and
described by this ingenious author, termi-
nate in expression : they either express
some perfection of the body, as a part of the
man, and an instrument of the mind, or
Some amiable quality or attribute of the
mind itself.
It cannot, indeed, he denied, that the
expression of a fine countenance may be
unnaturally disjoined from the amiable qua-
lities which it naturally expresses: ut we
presume the contrary till we have clear evi-
dence ; and even then we pay homage to
the expression, as we do to the throne when
it happens to be unworthily filled.
Whether what I have offered to shew,
that all the beauty of the objects of sense
is borrowed, and derived from the beauties
of mind which it expresses or siggests to
the imagination, be well-founded or not, I
hope this terrestrial Venus will not be
deemed less worthy of the homage which
has always been paid to her, by being con-
ceived more nearly allied to the celestial
than she has commonly been represented.
To make an end of this subject, tas'e
seems to be progressive as man is. Child-
ren, when refreshed by sleep, and at ease
from pain and hunger, are disposed to at-
tend to the objects about them ; they are
pleased with brilliant colours, gaudy orna-
ments, regular forms, cheerful counte-
nances, noisy mirth and glee. Such is
the taste of childhood, which we must con-
clude to be given for wise purposes. A
great part of the happiness of that period
of life is derived from it; and, therefore, it
ought to be indulged. It leads them to
attend to objects which they may afterwards
find worthy of their attention. It puts them
upon exerting their infant faculties of body
and mind, which, by such exertions, are
daily strengthened and improved. [765]
As they advance in years and in under-
[726–765.]
508
[ESSAY V111.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
standing, other beauties attract their atten-
tion, which, by their novelty or superiority,
throw a shade upon those they formerly ad-
mired. They delight in feats of agility,
strength, and art; they love those that ex-
cel in them, and strive to equal them. In
the tales and fables they hear, they begin to
discern beauties of mind. Some characters
and actions appear lovely, others give dis-
gust. The intellectual and moral powers
begin to open, and, if cherished by favour-
able circumstances, advance gradually in
strength, till they arrive at that degree
of perfection to which human nature, in its
present state, is limited.
In our progress from infancy to maturity,
our faculties open in a regular order ap-
pointed by Nature; the meanest first, those
of more dignity in succession, until the mo-
ral and rational powers finish the man.
Every faculty furnishes new notions, brings
new beauties into view, and enlarges the
province of taste; so that we may say,
there is a taste of childhood, a taste of
youth, and a manly taste. Each is beau-
tiful in its season ; but not so much so,
when carried beyond its season. Not that
the man ought to dislike the things that
please the child or the youth, but to put
less value upon them, compared with other
beauties, with which he ought to be ac-
quainted.
Our moral and rational powers justly
claim dominion over the whole man. Even
taste is not exempted from their authority;
it must be subject to that authority in
every case wherein we pretend to reason or
dispute about matters of taste; it is the voice
of reason that our love or our admiration
ought to be proportioned to the merit of the
object. When it is not grounded on real
worth, it must be the effect of constitution,
or of some habit, or casual association. A
fond mother may see a beauty in her dar-
ling child, or a fond author in his work, to
which the rest of the world are blind. In
such cases, the affection is pre-engaged,
and, as it were, bribes the judgment, to
make the object worthy of that affection.
For the mind cannot be easy in putting a
value upon an object beyond what it con-
ceives to be due. When affection is not
carried away by some matural or acquired
bias, it naturally is and ought to be led by
the judgment. [766]
As, in the division which I have followed
of our intellectual powers, I mentioned
Moral Perception and Consciousness, the
reader may expect that some reason should
be given, why they are not treated of in
this place.
As to Consciousness, what I think neces-
sary to be said upon it has been already
said, Essay vi., chap. 5. As to the faculty
of moral perception, it is indeed a most im-
portant part of human understanding, and
well worthy of the most attentive considera-
tion, since without it we could have no con-
ception of right and wrong, of duty and
moral obligation, and since the first princi-
ples of morals, upon which all moral rea-
soning must be grounded, are its immediate
dictates ; but, as it is an active as well as
an intellectual power, and has an immediate
relation to the other active powers of the
mind, I apprehend that it is proper to defer
the consideration of it till these be explained.
[766]
Es SAY S
ON THE
A CTIVE POW E R S OF MAN.
By THOMAS REID, D.D., F.R.S.E.,
PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPH Y IN THE UNIVERSITY OF (; I, ASG () W.
“ Fle hath showed thee, O Man, what is good.”—M ic & 11.
(3 The only authentic edition of the “Essays on the Active Powers” is that of 1788,
in 4to ; and from that edition the present is taken. The pages of the original impression
are here also marked, and by them all prospective references made.—H.
INTRODUCTION.
THE division of the faculties of the hu-
man mind into Understanding and PVill” is
very ancient, and has been very generally
adopted ; the former comprehending all
our Speculative, the latter all our Active
powers.--
It is evidently the intention of our Ma-
ker, that man should be an active and not
merely a speculative being. For this pur-
pose, certain active powers have been given
\lim, limited indeed in many respects, but
suited to his rank and place in the crea-
tion. -
Our business is to manage these powers,
by proposing to ourselves the best ends,
planning the most proper system of con-
duct that is in our power, and executing it
with industry and zeal. This is true wis-
dom; this is the very intention of our
being.
Everything virtuous and praiseworthy
must lie in the right use of our power ;
everything vicious and blameable in the
abuse of it. What is not within the sphere
* See above, p. 242, a, note +.
The division of the powers into those of the Un-
derstanding and those of the Will, is very objection-
able. It is, as I have before observed, taken from the
Peripatetic distinction of these into gnostic or cogni-
tive, and Orectic or appetent : but the original division
is far preſerable to the borrowed; fºr, in the first
place, the term Understanding usually and properly
denotes only a part—the higher part—of the cognitive
faculties, and is then exclusive of sense, imagination,
Imemory, &c., which it is now intended to include.
In the second place, the term Will is also usually
and properly limited to our higher appetencies, or
rational determinations, as opposed to our lower ap-
petencies, or irrational desires, which last, however,
it is here employed to comprehend. In the third
place, both the original and borrowed divisions are
improper, inasmuch as they either exclude or impro-
perly include a third great class of mental phaëno-
mena—the phaenomena of Feeling.—H.
f The distribution of our powers into Speculative
and Active, is also very objectionable. Independently
of the objection common to it with that into the
powers of the understanding and the powers of the
will—that the Feelings are excluded or improperly
included—it is liable to objections poculiar to itself.
In the first place, Speculation, or Theory, is a certain
kind or certain application of knowledge; therefore,
Speculation is not a proper term by which to denoté
the cognitive operations in general. In the second
place, Speculation and knowledge are not opposed to
action, but to practice or doing, or, as it is best ex-
pressed in German, das Handeln. Speculative powers
Qught not, therefore, to have been opposed to active.
In the third place, the distinction of active powers is
in itself vicious, because it does not distinguish, or
distinguishes wrongly. Active is opposed to inactive,
but it is not here intended to be said, that the cogni.
tive powers are inactive; but merely that the action
of the powers of appetency is different in kind from
the action of the powers of knowledge. The term
active does not, therefore, express what was meant,
or rather does express what was not meant. It is to
be observed, however, that the English language is
very defective in terms requisite to denote the dis-
tinctions in question.—H.
of our power cannot be imputed to us either
for blame or praise. These are self-evi-
dent truths, to which every unprejudiced
mind yields an immediate and invincible
assent. [2]
Knowledge derives its value from this,
that it enlarges our power, and directs us
in the application of it. For, in the right
employment of our active power consists all
the honour, dignity, and worth, of a man,
and, in the abuse and perversion of it, all
vice, corruption, and depravity.
We are distinguished from the brute ani-
mals, not less by our active than by our
speculative powers.
The brutes are stimulated to various ac-
tions by their instincts, by their appetites,
by their passions. But they seem to be
necessarily determined by the strongest im-
pulse, without any capacity of self-govern-
ment. Therefore we do not blame them
for what they do ; nor have we any reason
to think that they blame themselves. They
may be trained up by discipline, but cannot
be governed by law. There is no evidence
that they have the conception of a law, or
of its obligation.
Man is capable of acting from motives of
a higher nature. He perceives a dignity and
worth in one course of conduct, a demerit
and turpitude in another, which brutes
have not the capacity to discern.
He perceives it to be his duty to act the
worthy and the honourable part, whether
his appetites and passions incite him to it
or to the contrary. When he sacrifices
the gratification of the strongest appetites
or passions to duty, this is so far from di-
minishing the merit of his conduct, that it
greatly increases it, and affords, upon re-
flection, an inward satisfaction and triumph,
of which brute-animals are not susceptible.
When he acts a contrary part, he has a
consciousness of demerit, to which they are
no less strangers. [3]
Since, therefore, the active powers of
man make so important a part of his con-
stitution, and distinguish him so eminently
from his fellow-animals, they deserve no
less to be the subject of philosophical dis-
quisition than his intellectual powers.
A just knowledge of our powers, whether
intellectual or active, is so far of real im-
portance to us, as it aids us in the exer-
cise of them. And every man must ac-
knowledge, that to act properly is much
more valuable than to think justly or rea-
son acutely. [4]

[1–4]
E S S A YS
A CTI W E POW E R S () F M A. N.
E S S A Y I.
OF ACTIVE POWER IN GENERAL.
CHAPTER. I.
OF THE NOTION OF ACTIVE POWER.
To consider gravely what is meant by
Active Power, may seem altogether unne-
cessary, and to be mere trifling. It is not
a term of art, but a common word in our
language, used every day in discourse, even
by the vulgar. We find words of the same
meaning in all other languages; and there
is no reason to think that it is not perfectly
understood by all men who understand the
English language.
I believe all this is true, and that an
attempt to explain a word so well under-
stood, and to shew that it has a meaning,
requires an apology.
The apology is, That this term, so well
understood by the vulgar, has been darkened
by philosophers, who, in this as in many
other instances, have found great difficul-
ties about a thing which, to the rest of man-
kind, seems perfectly clear.
This has been the more easily effected,
because Power is a thing so much of its own
kind, and so simple in its nature, as not to
admit of a logical definition. [6]
It is well known that there are many
things perfectly understood, and of which
we have clear and distinct conceptions,
which cannot be logically defined. No man
ever attempted to define magnitude ; yet
there is no word whose meaning is more
distinctly or more generally understood.
We cannot givealogical definition of thought,
of duration, of number, or of motion.
When men attempt to define such things,
they give no light. They may give a synony-
mous word or phrase, but it will proba-
bly be a worse for a better. If they will
define, the definition will either be grounded
upon a hypothesis, or it will darken the
subject rather than throw light upon it.
The Aristotelian definition of motion—that
it is “ Actus entis in potentia, qualentus in
potentia,” has been justly censured by mo-
dern philosophers;* yet I think it is matched
by what a celebrated modern philosopher
has given us, as the most accurate definition
of belief—to wit, “That it is a lively idea
related to or associated with a present im-
pression.” (“Treatise of Human Nature,”
vol. i. p. 172.) “Memory,” according to
the same philosopher, “is the faculty by
which we repeat our impressions, so as that
they retain a considerable degree of their
first vivacity, and are somewhat interme- .
diate betwixt an idea and an impression.”
Euclid, if his editors have not done him
injustice, has attempted to define a right
line, to define unity, ratio, and number.
But these definitions are good for nothing.
We may indeed suspect them not to be
Euclid's ; because they are never once
quoted in the Elements, and are of no use.
I shall not therefore attempt to define
Active Power, that I may not be liable to
the same censure ; but shall offer some ob-
servations that may lead us to attend to the
conception we have of it in our own minds.
I. Power is not an object of any of our
external senses, nor even an object of con-
sciousness.f. [7]
That it is not seen, nor heard, nortouched,
nor tasted, nor smelt, needs no proof. That
we are not conscious of it, in the proper
sense of that word, will be no less evident,
if we reflect, that consciousness is that
power of the mind by which it has an im-
mediate knowledge of its own operations.
Power is not an operation of the mind, and
therefore no object of consciousness. In-
deed, every operation of the mind is the
exertion of some power of the mind; but
* Whether justly, may be disputed.—H. -
f Inasmuch as by consciousness, Reid means our
immediate internal ea perience, he is right.—H.
[5–7]
LessAy 1. –chAP. I.] OF THE NOT ION OF ACTIVE POWER. 513
we are conscious of the operation only—the
power lies behind the scene; and, though
we may justly infer the power from the
operation, it must be remembered, that
inferring is not the province of conscious-
ness, but of reason.
I acknowledge, therefore, that our having
any conception or idea of power is repug-
nant to Mr Locke's theory, that all our
simple ideas are got either by the external
senses, or by consciousness. Both cannot
be true. Mr Hume perceived this repug-
nancy, and consistently maintained, that
we have no idea of power. Mr Locke did
not perceive it. If he had, it might have
led him to suspect his theory ; for when
theory is repugnant to fact, it is easy to
see which ought to yield. I am conscious
that I have a conception or idea" of power;
but, strictly speaking, I am not conscious
that I have power.
I shall have occasion to shew, that we
have very early, from our constitution, a
conviction or belief of some degree of active
power in ourselves. This belief, however,
is not consciousness—for we may be deceived
in it ; but the testimony of consciousness
can never deceive. Thus, a man who is
struck with a palsy in the night, commonly
knows not that he has lost the power of
speech till he attempts to speak: he knows
Aot whether he can move his hands and
arms till he makes the trial ; and if, with-
out making trial, he consults his conscious-
ness ever so attentively, it will give him no
information whether he has lost these powers,
or still retains them. [8]
From this we must conclude, that the
powers we have are not an object of con-
sciousness, though it would be foolish to
censure this way of speaking in popular
discourse, which requires not accurate at-
tention to the different provinces of our
various faculties. The testimony of con-
sciousness is always unerring, nor was it
ever called in question by the greatest
sceptics, ancient or modern.
2. A second observation is—That, as there
are some things of which we have a direct,
and others of which we have only a rela-
tive, F conception; Power belongs to the
latter class. *
As this distinction is overlooked by most
writers in logic, I shall beg leave to illus-
trate it a little, and then shall apply it to
the present subject.
Of some things, we know what they are
in themselves: our conception of such
things I call direct. Of other things, we
# It would have been better if Reid had abstained
from the term idea in this relation, or indeed alto-
gether. The word notion would be here preferable.—H.
+ The word relative is here again improperly used.
s not all our knowledge relative 2 It would be better
to say direct and indirect, or immediate and mediate.
See above, p. 322, note *.—H
know not what they are in themselves, but
only that they have certain properties or
attributes, or certain relations to other
things: of these our conception is only
Yelative.*
To illustrate this by some examples:–
In the university library, I call for the
book, press L, shelf 10, No. 10; the library-
keeper must have such a conception of the
book I want as to be able to distinguish it
from ten thousand that are under his care.
But what conception does he form of it
from my words 2 They inform him neither
of the author, nor the subject, nor the lan-
guage, nor the size, nor the binding, but
only of its mark and place. His concep-
tion of it is merely relative to these circum-
stances ; yet this relative notion enables
him to distinguish it from every other book
in the library.
There are other relative notions that are
not taken from accidental relations, as in
the example just now mentioned, but from
* or attributes essential to the thing.
9]
Of this kind are our notions both of body
and mind. . What is body ? It is, say
philosophers, that which is extended, solid,
and divisible. Says the querist, I do not
ask what the properties of body are, but
what is the thing itself; let me first know
directly what body is, and then consider
its properties 2 To this demand, I am
afraid the querist will meet with no satisfac-
tory answer; because our notion of body is
We
know that it is something extended, solid,
and divisible, and we know no more.
Again, if it should be asked, What is
mind P. It is that which thinks. I ask
not what it does, or what its operations are,
but what it is. To this I can find no
answer ; our notion of mind being not
direct, but relative to its operations, as our
notion of body is relative to its qualities.
There are even many of the qualities of
body, of which we have only a relative con-
ception. What is heat in a body ? It is
a quality which affects the sense of touch
in a certain way. If you want to know,
not how it affects the sense of touch, but
what it is in itself—this, I confess, I know
not. My conception of it is not direct, but
relative to the effect it has upon bodies.
The notions we have of all those qualities
which Mr Locke calls secondary, and of
those he calls powers of bodies—such as the
power of the magnet to attract iron, or of
fire to burn wood—are relative.
Having given examples of things of which
our conception is only relative, it may be
proper to mention some of which it is direct.
Of this kind, are all the primary qualities of
not direct but relative to its qualities.
* See preceding note.—H.








8, 9]
2 L
5}4
[ESSAY 1.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
body—figure, extension, solidity, hardness,
fluidity, and the like. Of these we have a
direct and immediate knowledge from our
senses. To this elass belong also all the
operations of mind of which we are con-
scious. I know what thought is, what
memory, what a purpose, what a promise.
[10
ºr. are some things of which we can
have both a direct and a relative conception.
I can directly conceive ten thousand men,
or ten thousand pounds, because both are
objects of sense, and may be seen. But,
whether I see such an object, or directly
conceive it, my notion of it is indistinct : it
is only that of a great multitude of men,
or of a great heap of money ; and a small
addition or diminution makes no perceptible
change in the notion I form in this way.
But I can form a relative notion of the
same number of men or of pounds, by at-
tending to the relations which this number
has to other numbers, greater or less. Then
I perceive that the relative notion is distinct
and scientific ; for the addition of a single
man, or a single pound, or even of a penny,
is easily perceived.
In like manner, I can form a direct notion
of a polygon of a thousand equal sides and
equal angles. This direct notion cannot be
more distinct, when conceived in the mind,
than that which I get by sight, when the
object is before me ; and I find it so indis-
tinct, that it has the same appearance to my
eye, or to my direct conception, as a poly-
gon of a thousand and one, or of nine hund-
red and ninety-nine sides. But, when I
form a relative conception of it, by attend-
ing to the relation it bears to polygons of a
greater or less number of sides, my notion
of it becomes distinct and scientific, and I
can demonstrate the properties by which it
is distinguished from all other polygons."
From these instances, it appears that our
relative eonceptions of things are not always
less distinct, nor less fit materials for accu-
rate reasoning than those that are direct;
and that the contrary may happen in a
remarkable degree.
Our conception of power is relative to its
exertions or effects. Power is one thing;
its exertion is another thing. It is true,
there can be no exertion without power;
but there may be power that is not exerted.
Thus, a man may have power to speak
when he is silent ; he may have power to
rise and walk when he sits still. [11]
But, though it be one thing to speak, and
another to have the power of speaking, I
apprehend we conceive of the power as
something which has a certain relation to
the effect. And of every power we form
* This example of the Polygon is taken from Des
Cartes or Arnauld.-H. -
our notion by the effect which it is able to
produce.
3. It is evident that Power is a quality,
and cannot exist without a subject to which
it belongs. -
That power may exist without any being
or subject to which that power may be at-
tributed, is an absurdity, shocking to every
man of common understanding.
It is a quality which may be varied, not
only in degree, but also in kind; and we
distinguish both the kinds and degrees by
the effects which they are able to pro-
duce.
Thus a power to fly, and a power to rea-
son, are different kinds of power, their
effects being different in kind. But a power
to carry one hundred weight, and a power
to carry two hundred, are different degrees
of the same kind.
4. We cannot conclude the want of power
from its not being exerted ; nor from the
exertion of a less degree of power, can we
conclude that there is no greater degree in
the subject. Thus, though a man on a
particular occasion said nothing, we cannot
conclude from that circumstance, that he
had not the power of speech ; nor from a
man’s carrying ten pound weight, can we
conclude that he had not power to carry
twenty.
5. There are some qualities that have a
contrary, others that have not : Power is a
Quality of the latter kind.
Vice is contrary to virtue, misery to
happiness, hatred to love, negation to affirm-
ation ; but there is no contrary to power.
Weakness or impotence are defects or pri-
hº of power, but not eontraries to it.
12
If what has been said of power be easily
understood, and readily assented to, by ail
who understand our language, as I believe
it is, we may from this justly conclude, That
we have a distinct notion of power, and may
reason about it with understanding, though
we can give no logical definition of it.
If power were a thing of which we have
no idea, as some philosophers have taken
much pains to prove—that is, if power were
a word without any meaning—we could
neither affirm nor deny anything concerning
it with understanding. We should have
equal reason to say that it is a substance,
as that it is a quality; that it does not admit
of degrees as that it does. If the under-
standing immediately assents to one of these
assertions, and revolts from the contrary,
we may conclude with certainty, that we
put some meaning upon the word power—
that is, that we have some idea of it. And
it is chiefly for the sake of this conclusion,
that I have enumerated so many obviou
things concerning it.
The term active power is used, I conceive,











CHAP. II.]
5 it;
OF THE NOTION OF ACTiVE POWER.
to distinguish it from speculative powers."
As all languages distinguish action from
speculation, the same distinction is applied
to the powers by which they are produced.
The powers of seeing, hearing, remembering,
distinguishing, judging, reasoning, are spe-
culative powers; the power of executing any
work of art or labour is active power.
There are many things related to power,
in such a manner that we can have no no-
tion of them if we have none of power. [13]
The exertion of active power we call
action ; + and, as every action produces some
change, so every change must be caused by
Some exertion, or by the cessation of some
exertion of power. That which produces
a change by the exertion of its power we
call the cause of that change ; and the
change produced, the effect of that cause.
. When one being, by its active power,
produces any change upon another, the last
is said to be passive, or to be acted upon.
Thus we see that action and passion, cause
and effect, exertion and operation, have
such a relation to active power, that, if it
be understood, they are understood of con-
sequence; but if power be a word without
any meaning, all those words which are re-
lated to it, must be words without any mean-
ing. They are, however, common words in
our language; and equivalent words have
always been common in all languages.
It would be very strange indeed, if man-
kind had always used these words so fami-
liarly, without perceiving that they had no
meaning ; and that this discovery should
have been first made by a philosopher of
the present age.
With equal reason it might be maintain-
ed, that though there are words in all lan-
guages to express sight, and words to sig-
nify the various colours which are objects
of sight; yet that all mankind, from the
beginning of the world, had been blind, and
never had an idea of sight or of colour. But
there are no absurdities so gross as those
which philosophers have advanced con-
cerning ideas,
CHAPTER II.
THE SAM E SURJECT.
THERE are, I believe, no abstract no-
tions, that are to be found more early, or
more universally, in the minds of men, than
those of acting and being acted upon. Every
child that understands the distinction be-
* No : from passive P wer. See above, p. 51),
note f, and below, p. 23, note *—H.
t Also operation and cnergy (ś, the being in
work.) Energy is often ignorantly used in English
for force. In Latin, functio, functio mumeris, cor-
responds to operation or performance; with us frºmc-
tion denotes something to be performed.—H.
ing acted upon.
tween striking and being struck, must have
the conception of action and passion. [14]
We find accordingly, that there is no lan-
guage so imperfect but that it has active
and passive verbs and participles ; the one
signifying some kind of action; the other be-
This distinction enters
into the original contexture of all lan-
guages.
Active verbs have a form and construc-
tion proper to themselves; passive verbs a
different form and a different construction.
In all languages, the nominative to an ac-
tive verb is the agent ; the thing acted up-
on is put in an oblique case. In passive
verbs, the thing acted upon is the nomina-
tive, and the agent, if expressed, must be
in an oblique case ; as in this example—
Raphael drew the Cartoons ; the Cartoons
were drawn by Raphael. -
Every distinction which we find in the
structure of all languages, must have been
familiar to those who framed the languages
at first, and to all who speak them with
understanding.
It may be objected to this argument,
taken from the structure of language, in the
use of active and passive verbs, that active
verbs are not always used to demote an ac-
tion, nor is the nominative before an ac-
tive verb, conceived in all cases to be an
agent, in the strict sense of that word ; that
there are many passive verbs which have an
active signification, and active verbs which
have a passive. From these facts, it may be
thought a just conclusion, that, in contriv-
ing the different forms of active and passive
verbs, and their different construction, men
have not been governed by a regard to any
distinction between action and passion, but
by chance, or some accidental cause. [15]
In answer to this objection, the fact on
which it is founded must be admitted ; but
I think the conclusion not justly drawn
from it, for the following reasons:— -
1. It seems contrary to reason to attri.
bute to chance or accident what is subject
to rules, even though there may be excep-
tions to the rule. The exceptions may, in
such a case, be attributed to accident, but
the rule cannot. There is perhaps hardly
anything in language so general as not to
admit of exceptions. It cannot be denied
to be a general rule, that verbs and parti-
ciples have an active and a passive voice ;
and, as this is a general rule, not in one
language only, but in all the languages we
are acquainted with, it shews evidently that
men, in the earliest stages, and in all periods
of society, have distinguished action from.
passion. - -
2. It is to be observed, that the forms of
language are often applied to purposes dif-
ferent from those for which they were ori
ginally intended. The varieties of a lan-
[13–15]
- 2 L 2
516
[Essay 1.
. ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
guage, even the most perfect, can never be
made equal to all the variety of human
conceptions. The forms and modifications
of language must be confined within certain
limits, that they may not exceed the capa-
city of human memory. Therefore, in all
languages, there must be a kind of frugality
used, to make one form of expression serve ||
periods wherein languages are formed, men
are but poorly furnished for carrying on
many different purposes, like Sir Hudibras'
dagger, which, though made to stab or
break a head, was put to many other uses.
Many examples might be produced of this
frugality in language. Thus, the Latins
and Greeks had five or six cases of nouns,
to express the various relations that one
thing could bear to another." The geni-
tive case must have been at first intended
to express some one capital relation, such
as that of possession or of property ; but it
would be very difficult to enumerate all the
relations which, in the progress of language,
it was used to express. The same observ-
ation may be applied to other cases of
nouns. [16]
The slightest similitude or analogy is
thought sufficient to justify the extension
of a form of speech beyond its proper mean-
ing, whenever the language does not afford
a more proper form. In the moods of
verbs, a few of those which occur most fre-
quently are distinguished by different forms,
and these are made to supply all the forms
that are wanting. The same observation
may be applied to what is called the voices
of verbs. An active and a passive are the
capital ones; some languages have more,
but no language so many as to answer to
all the variations of human thought. We
cannot always coin new ones, and there-
fore must use some one or other of those
that are to be found in the language,
though at first intended for another pur-
pose.
3. A third observation in answer to the
objection is, that we can point out a cause
of the frequent misapplication of active
verbs, to things which have no proper acti-
vity—a cause which extends to the greater
part of such misapplications, and which
confirms the account I have given of the
proper intention of active and passive
verbs.
As there is no principle that appears to
be more universally acknowledged by man-
kind, from the first dawn of reason, than
that every change we observe in nature
must have a cause ; so this is no sooner
perceived, than there arises in the human
mind a strong desire to know the causes of
those changes that fall within our observa-
. * The Sanscrit, if I recollect, has ten. Thus, while
in Latin the relations of with, from, by, &c., are con-
fusedly denoted by one form of inflection, called the
ablative; in Sanscrit, these different relations are
distinctly pointed out by different cases.—H
tion. Felia qui potwit rerum cognoscere
causas, is the voice of nature in all men.
Nor is there anything that more early
distinguishes the rational from the brute
creation, than this avidity to know the
causes of things, of which I see no sign in
brute-animals. [17]
It must surely be admitted, that, in those
this investigation with success. We see
that the experience of thousands of years is
necessary to bring men into the right track
in this investigation, if indeed they can yet
be said to be brought into it. What innu-
merable errors rude ages must fall into
with regard to causes, from impatience to
judge, and inability to judge right, we may
conjecture from reason, and may see from
experience; from which I think it is evi-
dent, that, supposing active verbs to have
been originally intended to express what is
properly called action, and their nomina-
tives to express the agent ; yet, in the rude
and barbarous state wherein languages are
formed, there must be innumerable misap-
plications of such verbs and nominatives,
and many things spoken of as active which
have no real activity. -
To this we may add, that it is a general
prejudice of our early years, and of rude
nations, when we perceive anything to be
changed, and do not perceive any other
thing which we can believe to be the cause
of that change, to impute it to the thing
itself, and conceive it to be active and ani-
mated, so far as to have the power of pro-
ducing that change in itself. Hence, to a
child, or to a savage, all nature seems to be
animated; the sea, the earth, the air, the
sun, moon, and stars, rivers, fountains and
groves, are conceived to be active and ani-
mated beings. As this is a sentiment.
natural to man in his rude state, it has, on
that account, even in polished nations, the
verisimilitude that is required in poetical
fiction and fable, and makes personification
one of the most agreeable figures in poetry
and eloquence."
The origin of this prejudice probably is,
that we judge of other things by ourselves,
and therefore are disposed to ascribe to them
that life and activity which we know to be
in ourselves.
A little girl ascribes to her doll the pas-
sions and sentiments she feels in herself.
Even brutes seem to have something of this
nature. A young cat, when she sees any
brisk motion in a feather or a straw, is
prompted, by natural instinct, to hunt it as
she would hunt a mouse. [18] º
Whatever be the origin of this prejudice
* See Schiller’s “ Die Götter Griechenlands," and
Wordsworth passim.—H. -
[16–187.
chap. II.]
517
OF THE NOTION OF ACTIVE POWER.
in mankind, it has a powerful influence upon
language, and leads men, in the structure
of language, to ascribe action to many things
that are merely passive; because, when such
forms of speech were invented, those things
were really believed to be active. Thus we
say, the wind blows, the sea rages, the Sun
rises and sets, bodies gravitate and move.
When experience discovers that these
things are altogether inactive, it is easy to
correct our opinion about them ; but it is
not so easy to alter the established forms
of language. The most perfect and the
most polished languages are like old furni-
ture, which is never perfectly suited to the
present taste, but retains something of the
fashion of the times when it was made.
Thus, though all men of knowledge be-
lieve that the succession of day and might
is owing to the rotation of the earth round
its axis, and not to any diurnal motion of
the heavens, yet we find ourselves under a
necessity of speaking in the old style, of
the sun's rising and going down, and coming
to the meridian. And this style is used,
not only in conversing with the vulgar, but
when men of knowledge converse with one
another. And if we should suppose the
vulgar to be at last so far enlightened as to
have the same belief with the learned, of
the cause of day and night, the same style
would still be used.
From this instance we may learn, that
the language of mankind may furnish good
evidence of opinions which have been early
and universally entertained, and that the
forms contrived for expressing such opinions,
may remain in use after the opinions which
gave rise to them have been greatly changed.
l3
t º verbs appear plainly to have been
first contrived to express action. They are
still in general applied to this purpose.
And though we find many instances of the
application of active verbs to things which
we now believe not to be active, this ought
to be ascribed to men's having once had
the belief that those things are active, and
perhaps, in some cases, to this, that forms
of expression are commonly extended, in
course of time, beyond their original inten-
tion, either from analogy, or because more
proper forms for the purpose are not found
in language.
Even the misapplication of this notion of
action and active power shews that there is
such a notion in the human mind, and shews
the necessity there is in philosophy of dis-
tinguishing the proper application of these
words, from the vague and improper appli-
cation of them, founded on common lan-
guage or on popular prejudice.
Another argument to shew that all men
have a notion or idea of active power is,
that there are many operations of mind com-
mon to all men who have reason, and neces-
sary in the ordinary conduct of life, which
imply a belief of active power in ourselves
and in others.
All our volitions and efforts to act, all
our deliberations, our purposes and promises,
imply a belief of active power in ourselves;
our counsels, exhortations, and commands,
imply a belief of active power in those to
whom they are addressed.
If a man should make an effort to fly to
the moon—if he should even deliberate
about it, or resolve to do it—we should con-
clude him to be a lunatic; and even lunacy
would not account for his conduct, unless it
made him believe the thing to be in his
power.
If a man promises to pay me a sum of
money to-morrow, without believing that it
will then be in his power, he is not an
honest man; and, if I did not believe that
it will then be in his power, I should have
no dependence on his promise. [20]
All our power is, without doubt, derived
from the Author of our being, and, as he
gave it freely, he may take it away when he
will. No man can be certain of the con-
tinuance of any of his powers of body or
mind for a moment; and, therefore, in
every promise, there is a condition under-
stood—to wit, if we live, if we retain that
health of body and soundness of mind which
is necessary to the performance, and if
nothing happen, in the providence of God,
which puts it out of our power. The rudest
Savages are taught by nature to admit these
conditions in all promises, whether they be
expressed or not ; and no man is charged
with breach of promise, when he fails through
the failure of these conditions.
It is evident, therefore, that, without the
belief of some active power, no honest man
would make a promise, no wise man would
trust to a promise ; and it is no less evident
that the belief of active power, in ourselves
or in others, implies an idea or notion of
active power.
The same reasoning may be applied to
every instance wherein we give counsel to
others, wherein we persuade or command.
As long, therefore, as mankind are beings
who can deliberate and resolve and will, as
long as they can give counsel, and exhort,
and command, they must believe the exist-
ence of active power in themselves and in
others, and, therefore, must have a motion
or idea of active power. -
It might farther be observed, that power
is the proper and immediate object of ambi-
tion, one of the most universal passions of
the human mind, and that which makes the
greatest figure in the history of all ages.
Whether Mr Hume, in defence of his sys-
tem, would maintain that there is no such
passion in mankind as ambition, or that
[19, 20 J
518
ſ FSSAY 1.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
ambition is not a vehement desire of power,
or that men may have a vehement desire of
power, without having any idea of power, I
will not pretend to divine. [21]
I cannot help repeating my apology for
insisting so long in the refutation of so great
an absurdity. It is a capital doctrine in a
late celebrated system of human nature,
that we have no idea of power, not even in
the Deity; that we are not able to discover
a single instance of it, either in body or
spirit, either in superior or inferior natures;
and that we deceive ourselves when we im-
agine that we are possessed of any idea of
this kind.
To support this important doctrine, and
the outworks that are raised in its defence,
a great part of the first volume of the “Trea-
tise of Human Nature” is employed. That
system abounds with conclusions the most
absurd that ever were advanced by any
philosopher, deduced with great acuteness
and ingenuity from principles commonly re-
ceived by philosophers. To reject such
conclusions as unworthy of a hearing, would
be disrespectful to the ingenious author;
and to refute them is difficult, and appears
ridiculous.
It is difficult, because we can hardly find
principles to reason from more evident than
those we wish to prove ; and it appears
ridiculous, because, as this author justly
observes, next to the ridicule of denying an
evident truth, is that of taking much pains
to prove it.
Protestants complain, with justice, of the
hardship put upon them by Roman Ca-
tholics, in requiring them to prove that
bread and wine is not flesh and blood.*
They have, however, submitted to this
hardship for the sake of truth. I think it
is no less hard to be put to prove that men
have an idea of power.
What convinces myself that I have an
idea of power is, that I am conscious that
I know what I mean by that word, and,
while I have this consciousness, I disdain
equally to hear arguments for or against
my having such an idea. But, if we would
convince those, who, being led away by
prejudice or by authority, deny that they
have any such idea, we must condescend to
use such arguments as the subject will af-
ford, and such as we should use with a man
who should deny that mankind have any
idea of magnitude or of equality. [22]
The arguments I have adduced are taken
* The Catholics require nothing of the kind.
They admit that physically the bread and wine are
bread and wine; and only contend that, hyperphysi-
cally, in a spiritual, mysterious, and inconceivable
sense, they are really flesh and blood. Those, there-
fore, who think of disproving the doctrine of transub-
stantiation, by proving that in the eucharist bread and
wine remain physically breads and wine, are, guilty of
the idle sophism called mutatio clemchi.-H.
from these five topics:–1. That there are
many things that we can affirm or deny con-
cerning power, with understanding. 2. That
there are, in all languages, words signifying,
not only power, but signifying many other
things that imply power, such as action
and passion, cause and effect, energy, ope-
ration, and others. 3. That, in the struc-
ture of all languages, there is an active and
passive form in verbs and participles, and a
different construction adapted to these
forms, of which diversity no account can
be given, but that it has been intended to
distinguish action from passion. 4. That
there are many operations of the human
mind familiar to every man come to the
use of reason, and necessary in the ordinary
conduct of life, which imply a conviction of
Some degree of power in ourselves and in
others. 5. That the desire of power is one
of the strongest passions of human nature.
CHAPTER III.
OF MR LOCKE's ACCOUNT OF oup. IDEA of
POW Eſt.
THIS author, having refuted the Carte-
sian doctrine of innate ideas, took up, per-
haps too rashly, an opinion that all our
simple ideas are got, either by Sensation or
by Reflection—that is, by our external
senses, or by consciousness of the opera-
tions of our own minds.
Throughout the whole of his “Essay,” he
shews a fatherly affection to this opinion,
and often strains very hard to reduce our
simple ideas to one of those sources, or
both. Of this several instances might be
given, in his account of our idea of substance,
of duration, of personal identity. Omitting
these as foreign to the present subject, I
shall only take notice of the account he
gives of our idea of power. [23]
The sum of it is, that observing, by our
senses, various changes in objects, we col-
lect the possibility in one object to be chan-
ged, and in another a possibility of making
that change, and so come by that idea
which we call power.
Thus we say the fire has a power to melt
gold, and gold has power to be melted ;
the first he calls active, the second passive
power.
He thinks, however, that we have the
most distinct notion of active power, by
attending to the power which we ourselves
exert, in giving motion to our bodies when
at rest, or in directing our thoughts to this
or the other object as we will. And this
way of forming the idea of power he attri-
butes to reflection, as he refers the former
to sensation.
On this account of the origin of our idea
[21–23]
cIIAP, III.]
519
MR LOCKE's ACCOUNT OF POWER.
of power, I would beg leave to make two
remarks, with the respect that is most justly
due to so great a philosopher and so good
& Iſlall.
1. Whereas he distinguishes power into
active and passive, I conceive passive power
is no power at all. He means by it, the
possibility of being changed. To call this
power, seems to be a misapplication of the
word. I do not remember to have met
with the phrase passive power in any other
good author. Mr Locke seems to have
been unlucky in inventing it; and it de-
serves not to be retained in our language."
24
[ * he was unwarily led into it, as
an opposite to active power. But I con-
ceive we call certain powers active, to dis-
tinguish them from other powers that are
called speculative.† As all mankind distin-
guish action from speculation, it is very
proper to distinguish the powers by which
those different operations are performed
into active and speculative. Mr Locke,
indeed, acknowledges that active power is
more properly called power; but I see no
propriety at all in passive power ; it is a
powerless power, and a contradiction in
terms.
2. I would observe, that Mr Loeke Seemas
to have imposed upon himself, in attempt-
ing to reconcile this account of the idea of
power to his favourite doctrine, that all our
simple ideas are ideas of sensation, or of
reflection.
. There are two steps, according to his
account, which the mind takes informing this
idea of power: first, It observes changes in
things; and, secondly, From these changes
it infers a cause of them, and a power to
produce them.
If both these steps are operations of the
external senses, or of consciousness, then
the idea of power may be called an idea of
sensation, or of reflection. But, if either
of those steps requires the co-operation of
other powers of the mind, it will follow,
that the idea of power cannot be got by
sensation, nor by reflection, nor by both
together.” Let us, therefore, consider each
of these steps by itself.
First, We observe various changes in
things. And Mr Locke takes it for granted,
that changes in external things are observed
by our senses, and that changes in our
thoughts are observed by consciousness.
I grant that it may be said, that changes
in things are observed by our senses, when
we do not mean to exclude every other
faculty from a share in this operation. And
it would be ridiculous to censure the phrase,
t; it is so used in popular discourse.
25
#. it is necessary to Mr Locke's pur-
pose, that changes in external things should
be observed by the senses alone, excluding
every other faculty; because every faculty
that is necessary in order to observe the
change, will claim a share in the origin of
the idea of power.
Now, it is evident, that memory is no
less necessary than the senses, in order to
our observing changes in external things,
and therefore the idea of power, derived
from the changes observed, may as justly
be ascribed to memory as to the senses.
Every change supposes two states of the
thing changed. Both these states may be
past; one of them at least must be past :
and one only can be present. By our senses
we may observe the present state of the
thing ; but memory must supply us with
the past; and, unless we remember the past
state, we can perceive no change.
The same observation may be applied to
consciousness. The truth, therefore, is,
that, by the senses alone, without memory,
or by consciousness alone, without memory,
no change can be observed. Every idea,
therefore, that is derived from observing
changes in things, must have its origin,
partly from memory, and not from the
senses alone, nor from consciousness alone,
nor from both together.--
The second step made by the mind in
forming this idea of power is this :—From
the changes observed we collect a cause of
those changes, and a power to produce
them.
Here one might ask Mr Locke, whether
it is by our senses that we draw this con-
clusion, or is it by consciousness 2 Is rea-
soning the province of the senses, or is it
* This paragraph is erroneous in almost all its state-
ments. Locke did not invent the phrase passive
power. The distinction of 36Voºls roº arously (3. Éyee-
2ntizº) potentia activa, and 89,2pzis roß rézzéiv
(?, rc.0%tiz}) potentia passiva, was established, if
not invented, by Aristotle; and, subsequently to him,
it became one not only common but classical. So
far, therefore, is the phrase passive power from being
not to be met with in any other good author, it is
to be found in almost every metaphysical system
whatever before Locke. Reid understands by Power
merely Active Power, Efficacy, Force, Vis; and in
this exclusive sense, Passive Power is certainly ‘‘ a
contradiction in terms.” But this is not the mean-
ing attached to it by philosophers in general. The
Greek language, I may observe, affords a fine illus-
tration of the contrast and correlation of power active
and power passwe in its adjectives ending in Tuzos
and ºrog. It has also others to express power in
action, and power that must of necessity be exerted.
H - -
f See last note, and note *, at p. 515.-H. .
* Locke does not exclude the co-operation of other
faculties. Sensation and Reflection are, in his philo-
sophy, the exclusive sources, and not the exclusive
claborators of our notions. The only question is, do
all our notions spring from experience? H.
f Mr Locke did not, like Reid, contradistinguish
consciousness and memory, as two separate and spe-
cial faculties; but memory he properly regarded as a
mere modification of consciousness. The same may
be said in regard to our reasoning power in what
follows.-H. . . . . -
[24, 25]
520
[ESSAY 1.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
the province of consciousness P. If the
senses can draw one conclusion from pre-
mises, they may draw five hundred, and
demonstrate the whole elements of Euclid.
[26] .
Thus, I think, it appears, that the ac-
count which Mr Locke himself gives of the
origin of our idea of power, cannot be re-
conciled to his favourite doctrine—That all
our simple ideas have their origin from
sensation or reflection; and that, in attempt-
ing to derive the idea of power from these
two sources only, he unawares brings in our
memory, and our reasoning power, for a
share in its origin.
CHAPTER IV.
OF MR HUME's OPINION OF THE IDEA OF
POWER,
THIS very ingenious author adopts the
principle of Mr Locke before mentioned—
That all our simple ideas are derived either
from sensation or reflection. This he seems
to understand even in a stricter sense than
Mr Locke did. For he will have all our
simple ideas to be copies of preceding im-
pressions, either of our external senses or
of consciousness. “After the most accu-
rate examination,” says he, “ of which I
am capable, I venture to affirm, that the
rule here holds without any exception, and
that every simple idea has a simple impres-
sion which resembles it, and every simple
impresssion a correspondent idea. Every
one may satisfy himself in this point, by
running over as many as he pleases.”
I observe here, by the way, that this
conclusion is formed by the author rashly
and unphilosophically. For it is a conclu-
sion that admits of no proof but by induc-
tion; and it is upon this ground that he
himself founds it. The induction cannot
be perfect till every simple idea that can
enter into the human mind be examined,
and be shewn to be copied from a resembling
impression of sense or of consciousness. No
man can pretend to have made this examin-
‘ation of all our simple ideas without ex-
ception ; and, therefore, no man can, con-
sistently with the rules of philosophising,
assure us, that this conclusion holds with-
out any exception. [27]
The author professes, in his title page, to
introduce into moral subjects, the experi-
mental method of reasoning. This was a
very laudable attempt ; but he ought to
have known that it is a rule in the experi-
mental method of reasoning—That conclu-
sions established by induction ought never
to exclude exceptions, if any such should
afterwards appear from observation or ex-
periment. Sir Isaac Newton, speaking of
such conclusions, says, “Et si quando in
experiundo postea reperiatur aliquid, quod
a parte contraria faciat; tum demum, non
sine istis exceptionibus affirmetur conclusio
opportebit.” “But,” says our author, “I
will venture to affirm that the rule here.
holds without any exception.”
Accordingly, throughout the whole trea.
tise, this general rule is considered as of
sufficient authority, in itself, to exclude,
even from a hearing, everything that appears
to be an exception to it. This is contrary
to the fundamental principles of the experi-
mental method of reasoning, and, therefore,
may be called rash and unphilosophical.
Having thus established this general
principle, the author does great execution
by it among our ideas. He finds, that we
have no idea of substance, material or
spiritual ; that body and mind are only cer-
tain trains of related impressions and ideas;
that we have no idea of space or duration,
and no idea of power, active or intellectual,
[28 -
#. Locke used his principle of sensation
and reflection with greater moderation and
mercy. Being unwilling to thrust the ideas
we have mentioned into the limbo of non-
existence, he stretches sensation and reflec-
tion to the very utmost, in order to receive
these ideas within the pale; and draws
them into it, as it were, by violence.
But this author, instead of shewing them
any favour, seems fond to get rid of them.
Of the ideas mentioned, it is only that of
power that concerns our present subject.
And, with regard to this, the author boldly
affirms, “That we never have any idea of
Power; that we deceive ourselves when we
imagine we are possessed of any idea of this
kind.”
He begins with observing, “That the
terms efficacy, agency, power, force, energy,
are all nearly synonymous ; and, therefore,
it is an absurdity to employ any of them in
defining the rest. By this observation,”
says he, “we reject at once all the vulgar
definitions which philosophers have given
of power and efficacy.”
Surely this author was not ignorant that
there are many things of which we have a
clear and distinct conception, which are so
simple in their nature, that they cannot be
defined any other way than by synonymous
words. It is true that this is not a logical
definition; but that there is, as he affirms,
an absurdity in using it, when no better can
be had, I cannot perceive.
He might here have applied to power and
efficacy, what he says, in another place, of
pride and humility. “The passions of
pride and humility,” he says, “being simple
and uniform impressions, it is impossible we
can ever give a just definition of them. As
the words are of general use, and the things
t [26–28]
CHAP. Iv.]
521
MR HUME'S OPINION OF POWER.
they represent the most common of any,
every one, of himself, will be able to form a
just notion of them without danger of
mistake.” [29]
He mentions Mr Locke's account of the
idea of Power—that, observing various
changes in things, we conclude that there
must be somewhere a power capable of
producing them, and so arrive at last, by
this reasoning, at the idea of Power and
Efficacy:
“But,” says he, “to be satisfied that this
explication is more popular than philoso-
phical, we need but reflect on two very
obvious principles: first, That Reason alone
can never give rise to any original idea ; *
and, secondly, That Reason, as distinguished
jrom Earperience, can never make us con-
clude that a cause, or productive quality, is
absolutely requisite to every beginning of
existence.”-f
Before we consider the two principles
which our author opposes to the popular
opinion of Mr Locke, I observe—
First, That there are some popular opi-
nions, which, on that very account, deserve
more regard from philosophers than this
author is willing to bestow.
That things cannot begin to exist, nor
undergo any change, without a cause that
hath power to produce that change, is in-
deed so popular an opinion that, I believe,
this author is the first of mankind that ever
called it in question. It is so popular that
there is not a man of common prudence
who does not act from this opinion, and
rely upon it every day of his life. And
any man who should conduct himself by
the contrary opinion, would soon be con-
fined as insane, and continue in that state
till a sufficient cause was found for his
enlargement. [30]
Such a popular opinion as this stands
upon a higher authority than that of phi-
losophy; and philosophy must strike sail
to it, if she would not render herself con-
temptible to every man of common under-
standing,
For though, in matters of deep specula-
tion, the multitude must be guided by phi-
losophers, yet, in things that are within the
reach of every man's understanding, and
upon which the whole conduct of human
life turns, the philosopher must follow the
‘multitude, or make himself perfectly ridi-
culous. -
Secondly, I observe, that whether this
popular opinion be true or false, it follows,
from men's having this opinion, that they
have an idea of power. A false opinion
about power, no less than a true, implies
an idea of power; for how can men have
any opinion, true or false, about a thing of
which they have no idea 2
The first of the very obvious principles
which the author opposes to Mr Locke's
account of the idea of power, is—that Rea-
son alone can never give rise to any original
ădea.
This appears to me so far from being a
very obvious principle, that the contrary is
very obvious.
Is it not our reasoning faculty that gives
rise to the idea of reasoning itself P* As
our idea of sight takes its rise from our be-
ing endowed with that faculty, so does our
idea of reasoning. Do not the ideas of
demonstration, of probability, our ideas of
a syllogism, of major, minor and conclu-
Sion, of an enthy meme, dilemma, Sorites,
and all the various modes of reasoning, take
their rise from the faculty of reason 2 Or
is it possible that a being, not endowed with
the faculty of reasoning, should have these
ideas 2 This principle, therefore, is so far
from being obviously true, that it appears
to be obviously false. [31]
The second obvious principle is, That
Reason, as distinguished from Earperience,
can never make us conclude, that a cause, or
productive quality, is absolutely requisite to
every beginning of earistence.
In some “Essays on the Intellectual
Powers of Man,” I had occasion to treat
of this principle,_That every change in
nature must have a cause ; and, to pre-
vent repetition, I beg leave to refer the
reader to what is said upon this subject,
Essay vi, Chap. 6. I endeavoured to
shew that it is a first principle, evident
to all men come to years of understand-
ing. Besides its having been universally
received, without the least doubt, from
the beginning of the world, it has this
sure mark of a first principle, that the
belief of it is absolutely necessary in the
ordinary affairs of life, and, without it,
no man could act with common prudence,
or avoid the imputation of insanity. Yet
a philosopher, who acted upon the firm
belief of it every day of his life, thinks fit,
in his closet, to call it in question.
He insinuates here that we may know
it from ea perience. [?] I endeavoured to
| shew, that we do not learn it from expe-
* In other words—there are no native or a priori
notions in the intellect; all are illumediate or mediate
educts from experience.—H.
f in other words, that we cannot, on the Princi-
ple of Contradiction, shew, that for everything which
begins to be, a cause must have been.-H.
rience, for two reasons.
First—Because it is a necessary truth,
and has always been received as a necessary
truth. Eaperience gives no information of
what is necessary, or of what must be...+
We may know from experience, what is,
* Mr Hume says, “ reason alone."--H.
f See above, pp. 323, a ; 455, b; 460, a ; and notes.
See also note T.-H.
[29-31T
522
[Essay 1.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
or what was, and from that may proba-
bly conclude what shall be in like circum-
stances; but, with regard to what must
necessarily be, experience is perfectly silent.
Thus we know, by unvaried experience,
from the beginning of the world, that the
sun and stars rise in the east and set in
the west. But no man believes, that it
could not possibly have been otherwise,
or that it did not depend upon the will
and power of Him who made the world,
whether the earth should revolve to the
east or to the west. [32]
In like manner, if we had experience,
ever so constant, that every change in na-
ture we have observed, actually had a cause,
this might afford ground to believe, that,
for the future, it shall be so ; but no ground
at all to believe that it must be so, and
cannot be otherwise.
Another reason to shew that this princi-
ple is not learned from experience is—That
eaperience does not shew w8 a cause ºf one
in a hundred of those changes which we
observe, and therefore can never teach us
that there must be a cause of all.
Of all the paradoxes this author has ad-
vanced, there is not one more shocking to
the human understanding than this, That
things may begin to exist without a cause."
This would put an end to all speculation,
as well as to all the business of life. The
employment of speculative men, since the
beginning of the world, has been to inves-
tigate the causes of things. What pity is
it, they never thought of putting the pre-
vious question, Whether things have a
cause or not ? This question has at last
been started ; and what is there so ridi-
culous as not to be maintained by some plai-
losopher ?
Enough has been said upon it, and more,
I think, than it deserves. But, being about
to treat of the active powers of the human
mind, I thought it improper to take no no-
tice of what has been said by so celebrated
a Philosopher, to shew that there is not, in
the human mind, any idea of power.-i [33]
CHAPTER, W.
WHETHER BEINGS THAT IHAVE NO WILL
NOR, UNDERSTANDING MAY HAVE ACTIVE
POW ER,
THAT active power is an attribute, which
cannot exist but in some being possessed of
that power, and the subject of that attri-
bute, I take for granted as a self-evident
truth. Whether there can be active power
* This is not Hume's assertion ; but that, on the
psychological doctrine generally admitted, we have no
valid assurance that they may not.— H.
f On Brown's criticism of Reid, see Note Q.-H.
in a subject which has no thought, no un-
derstanding, no will, is not so evident.
The ambiguity of the words power, cause,
agen/, and of all the words related to these,
tends to perplex this question. The weak-
ness of human understanding, which gives
us only an indirect and relative conception of
power, contributes to darken our reasoning,
and should make us cautious and modest in
our determinations.
We can derive little light in this matter
from the events which we observe in the
course of nature. We perceive changes
innumerable in things without us. We
know that those changes must be produced
by the active power of some agent; but we
neither perceive the agent nor the power,
but the change only. Whether the things
be active, or merely passive, is not easily dis-
covered. And though it may be an object
of curiosity to the speculative few, it does
not greatly concern the many.
To know the event and the circumstances
that attended it, and to know in what cir-
cumstances like events may be expected,
may be of consequence in the conduct of
life ; but to know the real efficient, whether
it be matter or mind, whether of a supe-
# or inferior order, concerns us little.
34]
Thus it is with regard to all the effects
we ascribe to nature.
Nature is the name we give to the effi-
cient cause of innumerable effects which
fall daily under our observation. But, if it
be asked what nature is—whether the first
universal cause or a subordinate one, whe-
ther one or many, whether intelligent or
unintelligent—upon these points we find
various conjectures and theories, but no
Solid ground upon which we can rest. And
I apprehend the wisest men are they who
are sensible that they know nothing of the
Imatter.
From the course of events in the natural
world, we have sufficient reason to conclude
the existence of an eternal intelligent First
Cause. But whether He acts immediately
in the production of those events, or by
subordinate intelligent agents, or by in-
struments that are unintelligent, and what
the number, the nature, and the different
offices, of those agents or instruments may
be—these I apprehend to be mysteries
placed beyond the limits of human know-
ledge. We see an established order in the
succession of natural events, but we see
not the bond that connects them together.
Since we derive so little light, with re-
gard to efficient causes and their active
power, from attention to the natural world,
let us next attend to the moral, I mean to
human actions and conduct. -
Mr Locke observes very justly, “That,
from the observation of the operation of
[32–34]
chap. v.] OF BEINGS THAT HAVE NO UNDERSTANDING.
523,
bodies by our senses, we have but a very im-
perfect obscure idea of active power, since
they afford us not any idea in themselves
of the power to begin any action, either of
motion or thought.” He adds, “That we
find in ourselves a power to begin or for-
bear, continue or end, several actions of
our minds and motions of our bodies, barely
by a thought or preference of the mind, or-
dering, or, as it were, commanding the do-
ing or not doing such a particular action.
This power which the mind has thus to
order the consideration of any idea, or the
forbearing to consider it, or to prefer the
motion of any part of the body to its rest,
and vice versä, in any particular instance,
is that which we call the will. The actual
exercise of that power, by directing any
particular action, or its forbearance, is that
which we call volition or willing.” [35].
According to Mr Locke, therefore, the
only clear motion or idea we have of active
power, is taken from the power which we
find in ourselves to give certain motions to
our bodies, or a certain direction to our
thoughts; and this power in ourselves can
be brought into action only by willing or
volition.
From this, I think, it follows, that, if we
had not will, and that degree of understand-
ing which will necessarily implies, we could
exert no active power, and, consequently,
could have none; for power that cannot be
exerted is no power. It follows, also, that
the active power, of which only we can
have any distinct conception, can be only in
beings that have understanding and will.
Power to produce any effect, implies
power not to produce it. We can conceive
no way in which power may be determined
to one of these rather than the other, in a
being that has no will.
Whatever is the effect of active power,
must be something that is contingent. Con-
tingent existence is that which depended
upon the power and will of its cause. Op-
posed to this, is necessary existence, which
we ascribe to the Supreme Being, because
his existence is not owing to the power of
any being. The same distinction there is be-
tween contingent and necessary truth. [36]
That the planets of our system go round
the sun from west to east, is a contingent
truth ; because it depended upon the power
and will of Him who made the planetary
system, and gave motion to it. That a
circle and a right line can cut one another
only in two points, is a truth which depends
upon no power nor will, and, therefore, is
called necessary and immutable. Contin-
gency, therefore, has a relation to active
power, as all active power is exerted in con-
tingent events, and as such events can
have no existence but by the exertion of
active power.
When I observe a plant growing from
its seed to maturity, I know that there must
be a cause that has power to produce this
effect. But I see neither the cause nor the
manner of its operation.
But, in certain motions of my body and
directions of my thought, I know not only
that there must be a cause that has power
to produce these effects, but that I am that
cause ; and I am conscious of what I do
in order to the production of them.
From the consciousness of our own acti.
vity, seems to be derived not only the
clearest, but the only conception we can
form of activity, or the exertion of active
power.”
As I am unable to form a notion of any
intellectual power different in kind from
those I possess, the same holds with respect
to active power. If all men had been blind,
we should have had no conception of the
power of seeing, nor any name for it in
language. If man had not the powers of
abstraction and reasoning, we could not have
had any conception of these operations. In
like manner, if he had not some degree of
active power, and if he were not conscious
of the exertion of it in his voluntary actions,
it is probable he could have no conception
of activity, or of active power. [37]
A train of events following one another
ever so regularly, could never lead us to
the notion of a cause, if we had not, from
our constitution, a conviction of the neces-
sity of a cause to every event.
And of the manner in which a cause may
exert its active power, we can have no con-
ception, but from consciousness of the
manner in which our own active power is
exerted.
With regard to the operations of nature,
it is sufficient for us to know, that, what-
ever the agents may be, whatever the man-
ner of their operation or the extent of their
power, they depend upon the First Cause,
and are under his control ; and this indeed
is all that we know ; beyond this we are
left in darkness. But, in what regards
human actions, we have a more immediate
CON Cel’In.
It is of the highest importance to us, as
moral and accountable creatures, to know
what actions are in our own power, because
it is for these only that we can be account-
able to our Maker, or to our fellow-men in
society; by these only we can merit praise
or blame ; in these only all our prudence,
wisdom, and virtue must be employed; and,
therefore, with regard to them, the wise
Author of nature has not left us in the
dark.
* From this consciousness, many philosophers have,
after Locke, endeavoured to deduce our whole notion
of Causality. The ablest developement of this theory
is that of M. Maine de Biran ; the ablest refutation
of it that of his ſriend and editor, M. Cousin.—H. .
[35–37]
524
[ESSAY 1.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
Every man is led by nature to attribute
to himself the free determinations of his
own will, and to believe those events to be
in his power which depend upon his will.
On the other hand, it is self-evident, that
nothing is in our power that is not subject
to our will.
We grow from childhood to manhood,
we digest our food, our blood circulates, our
heart and arteries beat, we are sometimes
sick and sometimes in health ; all these
things must be done by the power of some
agent ; but they are not done by our power.
How do we know this 2 Because they are
not subject to our will. This is the infal-
lible criterion by which we distinguish what
is our doing from what is not ; what is in
our power from what is not. [38]
Human power, therefore, can only be
exerted by will, and we are unable to con-
ceive any active power to be exerted with-
out will. Every man knows infallibly that
what is done by his conscious will and in-
tention, is to be imputed to him, as the
agent or cause ; and that whatever is done
without his will and intention, cannot be
imputed to him with truth.
We judge of the actions and conduct of
other men by the same rule as we judge of
our own. In morals, it is self-evident that
no man can be the object either of approba-
tion or of blame for what he did not. But
how shall we know whether it is his doing
or not ? If the action depended upon his
will, and if he intended and willed it, it is
his action in the judgment of all mankind.
But if it was done without his knowledge,
or without his will and intention, it is as
certain that he did it not, and that it ought
not to be imputed to him as the agent.
When there is any doubt to whom a par-
ticular action ought to be imputed, the
doubt arises only from our ignorance of
facts ; when the facts relating to it are
known, no man of understanding has any
doubt to whom the action ought to be im-
puted.
The general rules of imputation are self-
evident. They have been the same in all
ages, and among all civilized nations. No
man blames another for being black or fair,
for having a fever or the falling sickness;
, because these things are believed not to be
in his power; and they are believed not to
be in his power, because they depend not
upon his will. We can never conceive that
a man’s duty goes beyond his power, or that
his power goes beyond what depends upon
his will. [39]
Reason leads us to ascribe unlimited
power to the Supreme Being. But what
do we mean by unlimited power P It is
power to do whatsoever he wills. To sup-
pose him to do what he does not will to do,
is absurd. -
The only distinct conception I can form
of active power is, that it is an attribute in
a being by which he can do certain things
if he wills. This, after all, is only a rela-
tive conception. It is relative to the effect,
and to the will of producing it. Take away
these, and the conception vanishes. They
are the handles by which the mind takes
hold of it. When they are taken away, our
hold is gone. The same is the case with
regard to other relative conceptions. Thus
Velocity is a real state of a body, about which
philosophers reason with the force of de-
monstration ; but our conception of it is
relative to space and time. What is velo-
city in a body ? It is a state in which it
passes through a certain space in a certain
time. Space and time are very different
from velocity ; but we cannot conceive it
but by its relation to them. The effect
produced, and the will to produce it, are
things different from active power, but we
can have no conception of it, but by its re-
lation to them.
Whether the conception of an efficient
cause, and of real activity, could ever have
entered into the mind of man, if we had
not had the experience of activity in our-
selves, I am not able to determine with cer-
tainty. The origin of many of our concep-
tions, and even of many of our judgments,
is not so easily traced as philosophers have
generally conceived. No man can recol-
lect the time when he first got the concep-
tion of an efficient cause, or the time when
he first got the belief that an efficient cause
is necessary to every change in nature. [40]
The conception of an efficient cause may
very probably be derived from the expe-
rience we have had in very early life of our
own power to produce certain effects. But
the belief, that no event can happen without
an efficient cause, cannot be derived from
experience. We may learn from experience
what is, or what was, but no experience
can teach us what necessarily must be."
In like manner, we probably derive the
conception of pain from the experience we
have had of it in ourselves; but our belief
that pain can only exist in a being that hath
life, cannot be got by experience, because
it is a necessary truth ; and no necessary
truth can have its attestation from expe-
I’le]]CC,
If it be so that the conception of an effi-
cient cause enters into the mind, only from
the early conviction we have that we are
the efficients of our own voluntary actions,
(which I think is most probable,) the notion
of efficiency will be reduced to this, That
it is a relation between the cause and the
effect, similar to that which is between us
and our voluntary actions. This is surely
* Seeabove, pp.323, a ; 455, b; 460, as 521, b, and
notes. See also Note T.-H.
[38–40.]
$
525
CHAP. VI.]
OF THE PHAENOMENA OF NATURE.
the most distinct notion, and, I think,
the only notion we can form of real effi-
ciency.
Now it is evident, that, to constitute the
relation between me and my action, my con-
ception of the action, and will to do it, are
essential. For what I never conceived nor
willed, I never did.
If any man, therefore, affirms, that a
being may be the efficient cause of an action,
and have power to produce it, which that
being can neither conceive nor will, he
speaks a language which I do not under-
stand. If he has a meaning, his notion of
power and efficiency must be essentially
different from mine; and, until he conveys
his notion of efficiency to my understand-
ing, I can no more assent to his opinion
than if he should affirm that a being with-
out life may feel pain. [4]]
It seems, therefore, to me most probable,
that such beings only as have some degree
of understanding and will, can possess ac-
tive power ; and that inanimate beings must
be merely passive, and have no real activity.
Nothing we perceive without us affords any
good ground for ascribing active power to
any inanimate being ; and everything we
can discover in our own constitution, leads
us to think that active power cannot be ex-
erted without will and intelligence.
CHAPTER VI.
OF THE EFFICIENT CAUSES OF THE PHAENO-
MENA OF NATURE.
IF active power, in its proper meaning,
requires a subject endowed with will and in-
telligence, what shall we say of those active
powers which philosophers teach us to
ascribe to matter—the powers of corpuscu-
lar attraction, magnetism, electricity, gra-
vitation, and others ? Is it not universally
allowed, that heavy bodies descend to the
earth by the power of gravity; that, by the
same power, the moon, and all the planets
and comets, are retained in their orbits 2
Have the most eminent natural philosophers
been imposing upon us, and giving us words
instead of real causes 2
In answer to this, I apprehend, that the
principles of natural philosophy have, in
modern times, been built upon a foundation
that cannot be shaken, and that they can be
called in question only by those who do not
understand the evidence on which they stand.
But the ambiguity of the words cause,
agency, active power, and the other words
related to these, has led many to understand
them, when used in matural philosophy, in
a wrong sense, and in a sense which is
neither necessary for establishing the true
principles of natural philosophy, mor was
ever meant by the most enlightened in that
science. . [42] -
To be convinced of this, we may observe
that those very philosophers who attribute
to matter the power of gravitation, and
other active powers, teach us, at the same
time, that matter is a substance altogether
inert, and merely passive; that gravitation,
and the other attractive or repulsive powers
which they ascribe to it, are not inherent
in its nature, but impressed upon it by
Some external cause, which they do not pre-
tend to know or to explain. Now, when
we find wise men ascribing action and active
power to a substance which they expressly
teach us to consider as merely passive and
acted upon by some unknown cause, we
must conclude that the action and active
power ascribed to it are not to be understood
strictly, but in some popular sense.
It ought likewise to be observed, that
although philosophers, for the sake of being
understood, must speak the language of the
vulgar—as when they say, the sun rises and
sets, and goes through all the signs of the
zodiac-yet they often think differently from
the vulgar. Let us hear what the greatest
of natural philosophers says, in the eighth
definition prefixed to his “Principia :”—
“Vocesautem attractionis, impulsus, vel pro-
pensionis cujuscunque in centrum, indiffer-
enter et pro se mutuo promiscue usurpo ;
has voces non physice Sed mathematice con-
siderando. Unde caveat lector, ne per
hujus modi voces cogitet me speciem vel
modum actionis, causamve aut rationem
physicam, alicubi definire ; vel centris (quae
sunt puncta mathematica) vires vere et
physice tribuere, si forte centra trahere,
aut vires centrorum esse, dixero.” -
In all languages, action is attributed to
many things which all men of common un-
derstanding believe to be merely passive.
Thus, we say the wind blows, the rivers
flow, the sea rages, the fire burns, bodies
move, and impel other bodies. [43]
Every object which undergoes any change
must be either active or passive in that
change. This is self-evident to all men
from the first dawn of reason ; and, there-
fore, the change is always expressed in
language, either by an active or a passive
verb. Nor do I know any verb, expressive
of a change, which does not imply either
action or passion. The thing either changes,
or it is changed. But it is remarkable in
language, that when an external cause of
the change is not obvious, the change is
always imputed to the thing changed, as if
it were animated, and had active power to
produce the change in itself. So we say,
the moon changes, the sun rises and goes
down.
Thus active verbs are very often applied,
and active power imputed to things, which
[41–43]
526
[ESSAY 1.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
a little advance in knowledge and experience
teaches us to be merely passive. This
property, common to all languages, I en-
deavoured to account for in the second
chapter of this Essay, to which the reader
is referred.
A like irregularity may be observed in
the use of the word signifying cause, in all
languages, and of the words related to it.
Our knowledge of causes is very scanty
in the most advanced state of society, much
more is it so in that early period in which
language is formed. A strong desire to
know the causes of things, is common to all
men in every state; but the experience of
all ages shews, that this keen appetite,
rather than go empty, will feed upon the
husks of real knowledge where the fruit can-
not be found.
While we are very much in the dark with
regard to the real agents or causes which
produce the phaenomena of nature, and
have, at the same time, an avidity to know
them, ingenious men frame conjectures,
which those of weaker understanding take
for truth. The fare is coarse, but appetite
makes it go down. [44]
Thus, in a very ancient system, love and
strife were made the causes of things. *
Plato made the causes of things to be mat-
ter, ideas, and an efficient architect; Aris-
totle, matter, form, and privation ; Des
Cartes thought matter, and a certain quan-
tity of motion given it by the Almighty at
first, to be all that is necessary to make the
material world ; Leibnitz conceived the
whole universe, even the material part of it,
to be made up of monades, each of which is
active and intelligent, and produces in itself,
by its own active power, all the changes it
undergoes from the beginning of its existence
to eternity.
In common language, we give the name
of a cause to a reason, a motive, an end, to
any circumstance which is connected with
the effect, and goes before it.
Aristotle, and the schoolmen after him,
distinguished four kinds of causes—the Ef-
ficient, the Material, the Formal, and the
Final. This, like many of Aristotle's dis-
tinctions, is only a distinction of the various
meanings of an ambiguous word ; for the
Efficient, the Matter, the Form, and the End,
have nothing common in their nature, by
which they may be accounted species of the
same genus ; + but the Greek word which
we translate cause, had these four different
meanings in Aristotle's days, and we have
added other meanings.: We do not indeed
call the matter or the form of a thing its
cause ; but we have final causes, instru-
* The system of Empedocles.—H.
t They all have this in common—that each is an
antecedent, which not being, the consequent, called
the oſſect, would not be.—H.
: See above, p. 75; below, Essay IV. cc 2, 3.-H.
mental causes, occasional causes, and I
know not how many others.
Thus the word cause has been so hack-
neyed, and made to have so many different
meanings in the writings of philosophers,
and in the discourse of the vulgar, that its
original and proper meaning is lost in the
crowd. [45
With regard to the phaenomena of nature,
the important end of knowing their causes,
besides gratifying our curiosity, is, that we
may know when to expect them, or how to
bring them about. This is very often of
real importance in life; and this purpose is
served by knowing what, by the course of
nature, goes before them and is connected
with them ; and this, therefore, we call the
cause of such a phaenomenon. --
If a magnet be brought near to a mariner's
compass, the needle, which was before at
rest, immediately begins to move, and bends
its course towards the magnet, or perhaps
the contrary way. If an unlearned sailor
is asked the cause of this motion of the
needle, he is at no loss for an answer. He
tells you it is the magnet ; and the proof is
clear; for, remove the magnet, and the ef-
fect ceases; bring it near, and the effect is
again produced. It is, therefore, evident
to sense, that the magnet is the cause of
this effect.
A Cartesian philosopher enters deeper
into the cause of this phaenomenon. He
observes, that the magnet does not touch
the needle, and therefore can give it no im-
pulse. He pities the ignorance of the sailor.
The effect is produced, says he, by magne-
tic effluvia, or subtile matter, which passes
from the magnet to the needle, and forces
it from its place. He can even shew you,
in a figure, where these magnetic effluvia
issue from the magnet, what round they
take, and what way they return home again.
And thus he thinks he comprehends per-
fectly how, and by what cause, the motion
of the needle is produced. -
A Newtonian philosopher inquires what
proof can be offered for the existence of
magnetic effluvia, and can find none. He
therefore holds it as a fiction, a hypothesis ;
and he has learned that hypotheses ought to
have no place in the philosophy of nature.
He confesses his ignorance of the real cause
of this motion, and thinks that his busi.
ness, as a philosopher, is only to find from
experiment the laws by which it is regu-
lated in all cases. [46]
These three persons differ much in their
Sentiments with regard to the real cause of
this phaenomenon ; and the man who knows
most is he who is sensible that he knows
nothing of the matter. Yet all the three
speak the same language, and acknowledge
that the cause of this motion is the attract-
ive or repulsive power of the magnet.
[44–46]
OFI AP. v11.]
527
OF THE EXTENT OF HUMAN POWER.
What has been said of this, may be ap-
plied to every phaenomenon that falls with-
in the compass of natural philosophy. We
deceive ourselves if we conceive that we
can point out the real efficient cause of any
one of them.
The grandest discovery ever made in na-
tural philosophy, was that of the law of
gravitation, which opens such a view of our
planetary system that it looks like some-
thing divine. But the author of this disco-
very was perfectly aware, that he discovered
no real cause, but only the law or rule,
according to which the unknown cause ope-
rates.
Natural philosophers, who think accu-
rately, have a precise meaning to the terms
they use in the science; and, when they
pretend to shew the cause of any phaenome-
nom of nature, they mean by the cause, a
law of nature of which that phaenomenon
is a necessary consequence.
The whole object of natural philosophy,
as Newton expressly teaches, is reducible
to these two heads: first, by just induction
from experiment and observation, to disco-
ver the laws of nature; and then, to apply
those laws to the solution of the phaenome-
na of nature. This was all that this great
philosopher attempted, and all that he
thought attainable. And this indeed he at-
tained in a great measure, with regard to
the motions of our planetary system, and
with regard to the rays of light. [47]
But supposing that all the phaenomena
that fall within the reach of our senses, were
accounted for from general laws of nature,
justly deduced from experience—that is,
supposing natural philosophy brought to its
utmost perfection—it does not discover the
efficient cause of any one phaenomenon in
nature.
The laws of nature are the rules accord-
ing to which the effects are produced; but
there must be a cause which operates ac-
cording to these rules. The rules of navi-
gation never navigated a ship; the rules
of architecture never built a house.
Natural philosophers, by great attention
to the course of nature, have discovered
many of her laws, and have very happily
applied them to account for many phaeno-
mena; but they have never discovered the
efficient cause of any one phaenomenon;
nor do those who have distinct notions of
the principles of the science make any such
pretence.
TJpon the theatre of nature we see innu-
merable effects, which require an agent
endowed with active power; but the agent
is behind the scene. Whether it be the
Supreme Cause alone, or a subordinate
cause or causes ; and if subordinate causes
be employed by the Almighty, what their
nature, their number, and their different
offices may be—are things hid, for wise
reasons without doubt, from the human
CYC.
y It is only in human actions, that may be
imputed for praise or blame, that it is neces-
sary for us to know who is the agent; and
in this, nature has given us all the light
that is necessary for our conduct. [48]
CHAPTER VII.
O F THE EXTENT OF HUMAN POWER.
EveRY thing laudable and praiseworthy
in man, must consist in the proper exercise
of that power which is given him by his
Maker. This is the talent which he is
required to occupy, and of which he must
give an account to Him who committed it
to his trust. -
To some persons more power is given
than to others; and to the same person,
more at one time and less at another. Its
existence, its extent, and its continuance,
depend solely upon the pleasure of the
Almighty; but every man that is account-
able must have more or less of it. For, to
call a person to account, to approve or dis-
approve of his conduct, who had no power
to do good or ill, is absurd. No axiom of
Euclid appears more evident than this.
As power is a valuable gift, to under-
rate it is ingratitude to the giver; to over-
rate it, begets pride and presumption, and
leads to unsuccessful attempts. It is there-
fore, in every man, a point of wisdom to
make a just estimate of his own power.
Quid ferre recusent, quid valeant humeri.
We can only speak of the power of man
in general ; and as our notion of power is
relative to its effects, we can estimate its
extent only by the effects which it is able
to produce.
It would be wrong to estimate the extent
of human power by the effects which it has
actually produced. For every man had
power to do many things which he did not,
and not to do many things which he did ;
otherwise he could not be an object either
of approbation or of disapprobation to any
rational being. [49]
The effects of human power are either
immediate, or they are more remote.
The immediate effects, I think, are re-
ducible to two heads. We can give certain
motions to our own bodies ; and we can
give a certain;direction to our own thoughts.
Whatever we can do beyond this, must
be done by one of these means, or both.
We can produce no motion in any body
in the universe, but by moving first our own
body as an instrument. Nor can we pro-
duce thought in any other person, but by
thought and motion in ourselves.
[47–49]
528
[ESSAY 1.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
Our power to move our own body, is not
only limited in its extent, but in its nature
is subject to mechanical laws. It may be
compared to a spring endowed with the
power of contracting or expanding itself,
but which cannot contract without drawing
equally at both ends, nor expand without
pushing equally at both ends; so that every
action of the spring is always accompanied
with an equal reaction in a contrary direc-
tion.
We can conceive a man to have power
to move his whole body in any direction,
without the aid of any other body, or a
power to move one part of his body without
the aid of any other part. But philosophy
teaches us that man has no such power.
If he carries his whole, body in any di-
rection with a certain quantity of motion,
this he can do only by pushing the earth,
or some other body, with an equal quantity
of motion in the contrary direction. If he
but stretch out his arm in one direction,
the rest of his body is pushed with an equal
quantity of motion in the contrary direc-
tion. [50]
This is the case with regard to all animal
and voluntary motions, which come within
the reach of our senses. They are per-
formed by the contraction of certain mus-
cles; and a muscle, when it is contracted,
draws equally at both ends. As to the
motions antecedent to the contraction of
the muscle, and consequent upon the voli-
tion of the animal, we know nothing, and
can say nothing about them.
We know not even how those immediate
effects of our power are produced by our
willing them. We perceive not any ne-
cessary connection between the volition and
exertion on our part, and the motion of our
body that follows them.
Anatomists inform us, that every volun-
tary motion of the body is performed by the
contraction of certain muscles, and that the
muscles are contracted by some influence
derived from the nerves. But, without
thinking in the least, either of muscles or
nerves, we will only the external effect,
and the internal machinery, without our
call, immediately produces that effect.
This is one of the wonders of our frame,
which we have reason to admire; but to
account for it, is beyond the reach of our
understanding. -
That there is an established harmony
between our willing certain motions of our
bodies, and the operation of the nerves and
muscles which produces those motions, is a
fact known by experience. This volition is
an act of the mind. But whether this act
of the mind have any physical effect upon
the nerves and muscles; or whether it be
only an occasion of their being acted upon
by some other efficient, according to the
established laws of nature, is hid from us. .
So dark is our conception of our own power
when we trace it to its origin. [51]
We have good reason to believe, that
matter had its origin from mind, as well as
all its motions; but how, or in what man-
ner, it is moved by mind, we know as little
as how it was created.
It is possible, therefore, for anything we
know, that what we call the immediate ef-
fects of our power, may not be so in the
strictest sense. Between the will to pro-
duce the effect, and the production of it,
there may be agents or instruments of which
we are ignorant.
This may leave some doubt, whether we
be, in the strictest sense, the efficient cause
of the voluntary motions of our own body.
But it can produce no doubt with regard to
the moral estimation of our actions.
The man who knows that such an event
depends upon his will, and who deliberately
wills to produce it, is, in the strictest moral
sense, the cause of the event; and it is
justly imputed to him, whatever physical
causes may have concurred in its produc-
tion.
Thus, he who maliciously intends to
shoot his neighbour dead, and voluntarily
does it, is undoubtedly the cause of his
death, though he did no more to occasion
it than draw the trigger of the gun. He
neither gave to the ball its velocity, nor to
the powder its expansive force, nor to the
flint and steel the power to strike fire;
but he knew that what he did must be fol-
lowed by the man's death, and did it with
that intention ; and therefore he is justly
chargeable with the murder. [52]
Philosophers may therefore dispute inno-
cently, whether we be the proper efficient
causes of the voluntary motions of our own
body; or whether we be only, as Malebranche
thinks, the occasional causes. The determin-
ation of this question, if it can be deter-
mined, can have no effect on human conduct.
The other branch of what is immediately
in our power, is to give a certain direction
to our own thoughts. This, as well as the
first branch, is limited in various ways. It
is greater in some persons than in others,
and in the same person is very different,
according to the health of his body and the
state of his mind. But that men, when
free from disease of body and of mind, have a
considerable degree of power of this kind,
and that it may be greatly increased by
practice and habit, is sufficiently evident
from experience, and from the natural con-
viction of all mankind.
Were we to examine minutely into the
connection between our volitions, and the
direction of our thoughts which obeys these
volitions—were we to consider how we are
able to give attention to an object for a cer-
[50–52]
on AP. VIII.]
529
OF THE EXTENT OF HUMAN POWER.
tain time, and turn our attention to another
when we choose, we might perhaps find it
difficult to determine whether the mind it-
self be the sole efficient cause of the volum-
tary changes in the direction of our thoughts,
or whether it requires the aid of other effi-
cient causes.
I see no good reason why the dispute
about efficient and occasional causes, may
not be applied to the power of directing our
thoughts, as well as to the power of moving
our bodies. In both cases, I apprehend,
the dispute is endless, and, if it could be
brought to an issue, would be fruitless.
Nothing appears more evident to our rea-
son, than that there must be an efficient
cause of every change that happens in na-
ture. But when I attempt to comprehend
the manner in which an efficient cause ope-
rates, either upon body or upon mind, there
is a darkness which my faculties are not
able to penetrate. [53]
However small the immediate effects of
human power seem to be, its more remote
effects are very considerable.
In this respect, the power of man may
be compared to the Nile, the Ganges, and
other great rivers, which make a figure up-
on the globe of the earth, and, traversing
vast regions, bring sometimes great benefit,
at other times great mischief, to many na-
tions: yet, when we trace those rivers to
their source, we find them to rise from in-
considerable fountains and rills.
The command of a mighty prince, what
is it but the sound of his breath, modified
by his organs of speech P But it may have
great consequences : it may raise armies,
equip fleets, and spread war and desolation
over a great part of the earth.
The meanest of mankind has considerable
power to do good, and more to hurt him-
self and others.
From this I think we may conclude, that,
although the degeneracy of mankind be
great, and justly to be lamented, yet men,
in general, are more disposed to employ
their power in doing good, than in doing
hurt, to their fellow-men. The last is much
more in their power than the first ; and, if
they were as much disposed to it, human
society could not subsist, and the species
must soon perish from the earth.
We may first consider the effects which
may be produced by human power upon
the material system.
It is confined indeed to the planet which
we inhabit ; we cannot remove to another;
nor can we produce any change in the an-
nual or diurnal motions of our own. [54]
But, by human power, great changes may
be made upon the face of the earth ; and
those treasures of metals and minerals that
are stored up in its bowels, may be disco-
vered and brought forth.
The Supreme Being could, no doubt, have
made the earth to supply the wants of man,
without any cultivation by human labour.
Many inferior animals, who neither plant,
nor sow, nor spin, are provided for by the
bounty of Heaven. But this is not the
case with man.
He has active powers and ingenuity given
him, by which he can do much for supply-
ing his wants; and his labour is made me-
cessary for that purpose.
His wants are more than those of any
other animal that inhabits this globe; and
his resources are proportioned to them,
and put within the sphere of his power.
The earth is left by nature in such a state
as to require cultivation for the accommo-
dation of man.
It is capable of cultivation, in most places,
to such a degree, that, by human labour,
it may afford subsistence to an hundred
times the number of men it could in its
natural state.
Every tribe of men, in every climate,
must labour for their subsistence and ac-
commodation ; and their supply is more or
less comfortable, in proportion to the labour
properly employed for that purpose.
It is evidently the intention of Nature,
that man should be laborious, and that he
should exert his powers of body and mind
for his own, and for the common, good.
And, by his power properly applied, he
may make great improvement upon the fer-
tility of the earth, and a great addition to
his own accommodation and comfortable
state. [55] -
By clearing, tilling, and manuring the
ground, by planting and sowing, by build-
ing cities and harbours, draining marshes
and lakes, making rivers navigable, and
joining them by canals, by manufacturing
the rude materials which the earth, duly
cultivated, produces in abundance, by the
mutual exchange of commodities and of
labour, he may make the barren wilderness
the habitation of rich and populous states.
If we compare the city of Venice, the
province of Holland, the empire of China,
with those places of the earth which never
felt the hand of industry, we may form some
conception of the extent of human power
upon the material system, in changing the
face of the earth, and furnishing the accom-
modations of human life.
But, in order to produce those happy
changes, man himself must be improved.
His animal faculties are sufficient for the
preservation of the species; they grow up
of themselves, like the trees of the forest,
which require only the force of nature and
the influences of Heaven.
His rational and moral faculties, like the
earth itself, are rude and barren by nature,
but capable of a high degree of culture ; and
[53–55]
2 MI
530
[Essay IJo
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
this culture he must receive from parents,
from instructors, from those with whom he
lives in society, joined with his own in-
dustry.
If we consider the changes that may be
produced by man upon his own mind, and
upon the minds of others, they appear to be
great. [56]
Upon his own mind he may make great
improvement, in acquiring the treasures of
useful knowledge, the habits of skillin arts,
the habits of wisdom, prudence, self-com-
mand, and every other virtue. . It is the
constitution of nature, that such qualities
as exalt and dignify human nature are to
be acquired by proper exertions; and, by
a contrary conduct, such qualities as debase
it below the condition of brutes.
Even upon the minds of others, great
effects may be produced by means within
the compass of human power ; by means of
good education, of proper instruction, of
persuasion, of good example, and by the
discipline of laws and government.
That these have often had great and good
effects on the civilization and improvement
of individuals and of nations, cannot be
doubted. But what happy effects they
might have, if applied universally with the
skill and address that is within the reach
of human wisdom and power, is not easily
conceived, or to what pitch the happiness
of human society, and the improvement of
the species, might be carried.
What a noble, what a divine employment
of human power is here assigned us ! How
ought it to rouse the ambition of parents,
of instructors, of lawgivers, of magistrates,
of every man in his station, to contribute
his part towards the accomplishment of so
glorious an end 1
The power of man over his own and
other minds, when we trace it to its
origin, is involved in darkness, no less
than his power to move his own and other
bodies.
How far we are properly efficient causes,
how far occasional causes, I cannot pre-
tend to determine. [57]
We know that habit produces great
changes in the mind ; but how it does so,
we know not. We know that example has
a powerful, and, in the early period of life,
almost an irresistible effect ; but we know
not how it produces this effect. The com-
munication of thought, sentiment, and pas-
Sion, from one mind to another, has some-
thing in it as mysterious as the communi-
cation of motion from one body to another.
We perceive one event to follow another,
according to established laws of nature, and
we are accustomed to call the first the
cause, and the last the effect, without know-
ing what is the bond that unites them. In
order to produce a certain event, we use
means which, by laws of nature, are con-
nected with that event; and we call our-
selves the cause of that event, though other
efficient causes may have had the chief
hand in its production.
Upon the whole, human power, in its
existence, in its extent, and in its exertions
is entirely dependent upon God, and upon
the laws of nature which he has established.
This ought to banish pride and arrogance'
from the most mighty of the sons of men.
At the same time, that degree of power
which we have received from the bounty of
Heaven, is one of the noblest gifts of God
to man; of which we ought not to be in-
sensible, that we may not be ungrateful,
and that we may be excited to make the
proper use of it.
The extent of human power is perfectly
Suited to the state of man, as a state of
improvement and discipline. It is sufficient
to animate us to the noblest exertions. By
the proper exercise of this gift of God,
human nature, in individuals and in Societies,
may be exalted to a high degree of dignity
and felicity, and the earth become a para-
dise. On the contrary, its perversion and
abuse is the cause of most of the evils that
afflict human life. [59]
E S S AY II.
OF THE WILL.
CHAPTER. I.
OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE WILL.
EveRY man is conscious of a power to
determine, in things which he conceives to
depend upon his determination. To this
power we give the name of Will; and, as it
is usual, in the operations of the mind, to
give the same name to the power and to
the act of that power, the term will is often
put to signify the act of determining, which
more properly is called volition.
Wolition, therefore, signifies the act of
[56–59]
CHAP. I.]
OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE WILL. 53]
willing and determining, and Will is put
indifferently to signify either the power of
willing or the act.
But the term will has very often, espe-
cially in the writings of philosophers, a more
extensive meaning, which we must care-
fully distinguish from that which we have
now given. -
In the general division of our faculties
into Understanding and Will, our passions,
appetites, and affections are comprehended
under the will ; and so it is made to signify,
not only our determination to act or not to
act, but every motive and incitement to
action. [60]
It is this, probably, that has led some
philosophers to represent desire, aversion,
hope, fear, joy, Sorrow, all our appetites,
passions, and affections, as different modi-
fications of the will," which, I think, tends
to confound things which are very different
in their nature.
The advice given to a man, and his de-
termination consequent to that advice, are
things so different in their nature, that it
would be improper to call them modifica-
tions of one and the same thing. In like
manner, the motives to action, and the de-
termination to act or not to act, are things
that have no common nature, and, there-
fore, ought not to be confounded under one
name, or represented as different modifica-
tions of the same thing.
For this reason, in speaking of the will
in this Essay, I do not comprehend under
that term any of the incitements or motives
which may have an influence upon our de-
terminations, but solely the determination
itself, and the power to determine.
Mr Locke has considered this operation
of the mind more attentively, and dis-
tinguished it more accurately, than some
very ingenious authors who wrote after him.
He defines volition to be, “An act of the
mind knowingly exerting that dominion it
takes itself to have over any part of the man,
by employing it in, or withholding it from
any particular action.”
It may more briefly be defined—The de-
termination of the mind to do, or not to do,
something which we conceive to be in our
power. foil
If this were given as a strictly logical de-
finition, it would be liable to this objection,
that the determination of the mind is only
another term for volition. But it ought to
be observed, that the most simple acts of
the mind do not admit of a logical defini-
tion. The way to form a clear motion of
them is, to reflect attentively upon them as
we feel them in ourselves. Without this
reflection, no definition can give us a distinct
conception of them.
* See following note.—H.
For this reason, rather than siſt any de-
finition of the will, I shall make some ob-
servations upon it, which may lead us to re-
flect upon it, and to distinguish it from other
acts of mind, which, from the ambiguity of
words, are apt to be confounded with it.
First, Every act of will must have an
object. He that wills must will something ;
and that which he wills is called the object
of his volition. As a man cannot think
without thinking of something, nor remem-
ber without remembering something, so
neither can he will without willing some-
thing. Every act of will, therefore, must
have an object; and the person who wills
must have some conception, more or less
distinct, of what he wills.
By this, things done voluntarily are dis-
tinguished from things done merely from
instinct, or merely from habit.
A healthy child, some hours after its birth,
feels the sensation of hunger, and, if applied
to the breast, sucks and swallows its food
very perfectly. We have no reason to
think, that, before it ever sucked, it has
any conception of that complex operation,
or how it is performed. It cannot, there-
fore, with propriety, be said that it wills to
suck. [62]
Numberless instances might be given of
things done by animals without any previous
conception of what they are to do, without
the intention of doing it. They act by some
inward blind impulse, of which the efficient
cause is hid from us ; and, though there is
an end evidently intended by the action,
this intention is not in the animal, but in
its Maker.
Other things are done by habit, which
cannot properly be called voluntary. We
shut our eyes several times every minute
while we are awake ; no man is conscious
of willing this every time he does it.
A second observation is, That the imme-
diate object of will must be some action of
OUIT OWI).
By this, will is distinguished from two
acts of the mind, which sometimes takes its
name, and thereby are apt to be confounded
with it. These are desire and command.
The distinction between will and desire,
has been well explained by Mr Locke ; yet
many later writers have overlooked it, and
have represented desire as a modification of
will, * -
Desire and will agree in this, that both
must have an object, of which we must
have some conception ; and, therefore, both
must be accompanied with some degree of
understanding. But they differ in several
things.
* Rather— Will as a modification of Desire. This
has been done, since Reid, (to say nothing of others,)
also by Dr Thomas Brown, in whose scheme there
is thus virtually abolished all rational freedom, all
responsible agency, all moral distinctions.—H.
[60–62]
2 M 2
532
[Essay 11.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
The object of desire may be anything
which appetite, passion, or affection leads
us to pursue; it may be any event which
we think good for us, or for those to whom
we are well affected. I may desire meat,
or drink, or ease from pain ; but, to Say
that I will meat, or will drink, or will ease
from pain, is not English. There is, there-
fore, a distinction in common language be-
tween desire and will. And the distinction
is, That what we will must be an action,
and our own action ; what we desire may
not be our own action ; it may be no
action at all. [63]
A man desires that his children may be
happy, and that they may behave well.
Their being happy is no action at all; their
behaving well is not his action but theirs.
With regard to our own actions, we may
desire what we do not will, and will what
we do not desire; nay, what we have a
great aversion to.
A man a-thirst has a strong desire to
drink, but, for some particular reason, he
determines not to gratify his desire. A
judge, from a regard to justice, and to the
duty of his office, dooms a criminal to die,
while, from humanity or particular affec-
tion, he desires that he should live. A man,
for health, may take a nauseous draught,
for which he has no desire, but a great aver-
sion. Desire, therefore, even when its
object is some action of our own, is only an
incitement to will, but it is not volition.
The determination of the mind may be, not
to do what we desire to do. But, as desire
is often accompanied by will, we are apt to
overlook the distinction between them.
The command of a person is sometimes
called his will, sometimes his desire ; but,
when these words are used properly, they
signify three different acts of the mind.
The immediate object of will is some
action of our own ; the object of a command
is some action of another person over
whom we claim authority; the object of
desire may be no action at all.
In giving a command, all these acts con-
cur ; and, as they go together, it is not un-
common in language to give to one the name
which properly belongs to another.
A command being a voluntary action,
there must be a will to give the command.
Some desire is commonly the motive to that
act of will, and the command is the effect
of it. [64]
Perhaps it may be thought that a com-
mand is only a desire expressed by language,
that the thing commanded should be done.
But it is not so. For a desire may be ex-
pressed by language when there is no com-
mand; and there may possibly be a com-
mand, without any desire that the thing
commanded should be done. There have
been instances of tyrants who have laid
grievous commands upon their subjects, in
order to reap the penalty of their disobe-
dience, or to furnish a pretence for their
punishment.
We might farther observe, that a com-
mand is a social act of the mind. It can
have no existence but by a communication
of thought to some intelligent being; and
therefore implies a belief that there is such
a being, and that we can communicate our
thoughts to him.
Desire and will are solitary acts, which
do not imply any such communication or
belief.
The immediate object of volition, there-
fore, must be some action, and our own
action.
A third observation is, That the object of
our volition must be something which we
believe to be in our power, and to depend
upon our will.
A man may desire to make a visit to the
moon, or to the planet Jupiter, but he can-
not will or determine to do it : because he
knows it is not in his power. If an insane
person should make an attempt, his insanity
must first make him believe it to be in his
power. [65]
A man in his sleep may be struck with a
palsy, which deprives him of the power of
speech; when he awakes, he attempts to
speak, not knowing that he has lost the
power. But when he knows by experience
that the power is gone, he ceases to make
the effort.
The same man, knowing that some per-
sons have recovered the power of speech
after they had lost it by a paralytical stroke,
may now and then make an effort. In this
effort, however, there is not properly a will
to speak, but a will to try whether he can
speak or not.
In like manner, a man may exert his
strength to raise a weight which is too
heavy for him. But he always does this,
either from the belief that he can raise the
weight, or for a trial whether he can or
not. It is evident, therefore, that what we
will must be believed to be in our power,
and to depend upon our will.
The neart observation is, That when we
will to do a thing immediately, the volition
is accompanied with an effort to execute
that which we willed.
If a man wills to raise a great weight
from the ground by the strength of his arm,
he makes an effort for that purpose pro-
portioned to the weight he determines to
raise. A great weight requires a great
effort; a small weight a less effort. We
say, indeed, that to raise a very small body
requires no effort at all. But this, I appre-
hend, must be understood either as a figura-
tive way of speaking, by which things very
small are accounted as nothing; or it is
[63–65]
cHAP. II.]
533
INFLUENCES OF MOTIVES UPON THE WILL.
owing to our giving no attention to very
small efforts, and therefore having no name
for them. [66]
Great efforts, whether of body or mind,
are attended with difficulty, and, when long
continued, produce lassitude, which requires
that they should be intermitted. This leads
us to reflect upon them, and to give them a
name. The name effort is commonly ap-
propriated to them; and those that are
made with ease, and leave no sensible effect,
pass without observation and without a
name, though they be of the same kind,
and differ only in degree from those to which
the name is given.
This effort we are conscious of, if we will
but give attention to it; and there is no-
thing in which we are in a more strict sense
active.
The last observation is, That in all deter-
minations of the mind that are of any im-
portance, there must be something in the
preceding state of the mind that disposes or
inclines us to that determination.
If the mind were always in a state of
perfect indifference, without any incitement,
motive, or reason, to act, or not to act, to
act one way rather than another, our active
power, having no end to pursue, no rule to
direct its exertions, would be given in vain.
We should either be altogether inactive,
and never will to do anything, or our voli-
tions would be perfectly unmeaning and
futile, being neither wise nor foolish, vir-
tuous nor vicious.
We have reason therefore to think, that,
to every being to whom God hath given any
degree of active power, he hath also given
some principles of action, for the direction
of that power to the end for which it was
intended.
It is evident that, in the constitution of
man, there are various principles of action
suited to our state and situation. A parti-
cular consideration of these is the subject
of the next essay ; in this we are only to
consider them in general, with a view to
examine the relation they bear to volition,
and how it is influenced by them. [67]
CHAPTER II.
OF THE INFLUENCE OF INCITEMYSNTS AND
MOTIVES UPON THE WILL,
WE come into the world ignorant of every
thing, yet we must do many things in order
to our subsistence and well-being. A new-
born child may be carried in arms, and kept
warm by his nurse; but he must suck and
swallow his food for himself. And this must
be done before he has any conception of
sucking or swallowing, or of the manner in
which they are to be performed. He is led
by nature to do these actions without know-
ing for what end, or what he is about. This
we call instinct.
In many cases there is no time for volun-
tary determination. The motions must go
on so rapidly that the conception and voli-
tion of every movement cannot keep pace
with them. In some cases of this kind,
instinct, in others habit, comes in to our
aid. .
When a man stumbles and loses his ba-
lance, the motion necessary to prevent his
fall would come too late, if it were the con-
sequence of thinking what is fit to be done,
and making a voluntary effort for that pur-
pose. He does this instinctively.
When a man beats a drum or plays a
tune, he has not time to direct every parti-
cular beat or stop by a voluntary deter-
mination ; but the habit which may be ac-
quired by exercise answers the purpose as
well.
By instinct, therefore, and by habit, we
do many things without any exercise either
of judgment or will.
In other actions the will is exerted, but
without judgment. [68]
Suppose a man to know that, in order to
live, he must eat. What shall he eat 2
How much P And how often ? His reason
can answer none of these questions; and
therefore can give no direction how he
should determine. Here, again, nature, as
an indulgent parent, supplies the defects of
his reason; giving him appetite, which
shews him when he is to eat, how often,
and how much ; and taste, which informs
him what he is and what he is not to eat.
And by these principles he is much better
directed than he could be without them, by
all the knowledge he can acquire.
As the Author of nature has given us
some principles of action to supply the
defects of our knowledge, he has given
others to supply the defects of our wisdom
and virtue.
The natural desires, affections, and pas-
sions, which are common to the wise and
to the foolish, to the virtuous and to the
vicious, and even to the more sagacious
brutes, serve very often to direct the course
of human actions. By these principles men
may perform the most laborious duties of
life, without any regard to duty; and do
what is proper to be dome, without regard
to propriety; like a vessel that is carried on
in her proper course by a prosperous gale,
without the skill or judgment of those that
are aboard.
Appetite, affection, or passion, give an
impulse to a certain action. In this im-
pulse there is no judgment implied. It
may be weak or strong ; we can even con-
ceive it irresistible. In the case of Imad-
ness it is so. Madmen have their appe-
[66–68]
534
[Essay II.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
tites and passions; but they want the power
of self-government; and therefore we do
not impute their actions to the man, but to
the disease.
In actions that proceed from appetite or
passion, we are passive in part, and only in
part active. They are therefore partly
imputed to the passion ; and if it is Sup-
posed to be irresistible, we do not impute
them to the man at all. [69]
Even an American savage judges in this
manner: When in a fit of drunkenness he
kills his friend—as soon as he comes to
himself, he is very sorry for what he has
done; but pleads that drink, and not he,
was the cause.
We conceive brute animals to have no
superior principle to control their appetites
and passions. On this account, their ac-
tions are not subject to law. Men are in a
like state in infancy, in madness, and in
the delirium of a fever. They have appe-
tites and passions, but they want that which
makes them moral agents, accountable for
their conduct, and objects of moral appro-
bation or of blame.
In some cases, a stronger impulse of ap-
petite or passion may oppose a weaker.
Here also there may be determination and
action without judgment.
Suppose a soldier ordered to mount a
breach, and certain of present death if he
retreats, this man needs not courage to go
on—fear is sufficient. The certainty of pre-
sent death if he retreats, is an overbalance
to the probability of being killed if he goes
on. The man is pushed by contrary forces,
and it requires neither judgment nor ex-
ertion to yield to the strongest.
A hungry dog acts by the same principle,
if meat is set before him with a threatening
to beat him if he touch it. Hunger pushes
him forward, fear pushes him back with
more force, and the strongest force prevails.
Thus we see, that, in many even of our
voluntary actions, we may act from the
impulse of appetite, affection, or passion,
without any exercise of judgment, and
much in the same manner as brute animals
seem to act. [70]
Sometimes, however, there is a calm in
the mind from the gales of passion or ap-
petite, and the man is left to work his way,
in the voyage of life, without those im-
pulses which they give. Then he calmly
weighs goods and evils, which are at too
great a distance to excite any passion. He
judges what is best upon the whole, without
feeling any bias drawing him to one side.
He judges for himself as he would do for
another in his situation; and the determin-
ation is wholly imputable to the man, and
not in any degree to his passion.
. Every man come to years of understand-
ing, who has given any attention to his own
conduct, and to that of others, has, in his
mind, a scale or measure of goods and evils,
more or less exact. He makes an estimate
of the value of health, of reputation, of
riches, of pleasure, of virtue, of self-appro-
bation, and of the approbation of his Maker.
These things, and their contraries, have a
comparative importance in his cool and de-
liberate judgment.
When a man considers whether health
ought to be preferred to bodily strength,
fame to riches ; whether a good conscience
and the approbation of his Maker, to every-
thing that can come in competition with it;
this appears to me to be an exercise of
judgment, and not any impulse of passion
or appetite.
Everything worthy of pursuit, must be
so, either intrinsically, and upon its own ac-
count, or as the means of procuring some-
thing that is intrinsically valuable. That
it is by judgment that we discern the fitness
of means for attaining an end, is self-evi-
dent; and in this, I think, all philosophers
agree. But that it is the office of judgment
to appreciate the value of an end, or the
preference due to one end above another, is
not granted by some philosophers. [71]
In determining what is good or ill, and,
of different goods, which is best, they think
we must be guided, not by judgment, but
by some natural or acquired taste, which
makes us relish one thing and dislike an-
other.
Thus, if one man prefers cheese to lob-
sters, another lobsters to cheese, it is
vain, say they, to apply judgment to deter-
mine which is right. In like manner, if
one man prefers pleasure to virtue, another
virtue to pleasure, this is a matter of taste,
judgment has nothing to do in it. This
seems to be the opinion of Some philoso-
phers.
I cannot help being of a contrary opin-
ion. . I think we may form a judgment,
both in the question about cheese and lob-
sters, and in the more important question
about pleasure and virtue.
When one man feels a more agreeable
relish in cheese, another in lobsters, this, I
grant, requires no judgment ; it depends
only upon the constitution of the palate.
But, if we would determine which of the
two has the best taste, I think the question
must be determined by judgment; and that,
with a small share of this faculty, we may
give a very certain determination—to wit,
that the two tastes are equally good, and
that both of the parties do equally well, in
preferring what suits their palate and their
stomach.
Nay, I apprehend, that the two persons
who differ in their tastes will, notwithstand-
ing that difference, agree perfectly in their
judgment, that both tastes are upon a foot-
[69–71]
char. II.] INFLUENCE OF MOTIVES UPON THE WILL.
535
ing of equality, and that neither has a just
claim to preference. [72]
Thus it appears, that, in this instance,
the office of taste is very different from that
of judgment; and that men, who differ
most in taste, may agree perfectly in their
judgment, even with respect to the tastes
wherein they differ.
To make the other case parallel with this,
it must be supposed that the man of plea-
sure and the man of virtue agree in their
judgment, and that neither sees any reason
to prefer the one course of life to the
other.
If this be supposed, I shall grant that
neither of these persons has reason to con-
demn the other.
to his taste, in matters which his best judg-
ment determines to be perfectly indiffer-
ent.
But it is to be observed, that this suppo-
sition cannot have place, when we speak of
men, or indeed of moral agents. The man
who is incapable of perceiving the obliga-
tion of virtue when he uses his best judg-
ment, is a man in name, but not in reality.
He is incapable either of virtue or vice,
and is not a moral agent.
Even the man of pleasure, when his judg-
ment is unbiassed, sees that there are cer-
tain things which a man ought not to do,
though he should have a taste for them. If
a thief breaks into his house and carries off
his goods, he is perfectly convinced that he
did wrong, and deserves punishment, al-
though he had as strong a relish for the
goods as he himself has for the pleasures he
pursues.
It is evident that mankind, in all ages,
have conceived two parts in the human con-
stitution that may have influence upon our
voluntary actions. These we call by the
general names of passion and reason ; and
we shall find, in all languages, names that
are equivalent. [73]
Under the former, we comprehend vari-
ous principles of action, similar to those we
observe in brute-animals, and in men who
have not the use of reason. Appetites,
affections, passions, are the names by which
they are denominated ; and these names are
not so accurately distinguished in common
language, but that they are used somewhat
promiscuously. This, however, is common
to them all, that they draw a man toward
a certain object, without any farther view,
by a kind of violence; a violence which,
indeed, may be resisted, if the man is mas-
ter of himself, but cannot be resisted with-
out a struggle.
Cicero's phrase for expressing their in-
fluence is—“Hominemhuc etillucrapiunt.”
Dr Hutcheson uses a similar phrase—“Qui-
bus agitatur mens et bruto quodam impetu
fertur.” There is no exercise of reason or
Each chooses according
judgment necessary in order to feel their
influence.
With regard to this part of the human
constitution, I see no difference between
the vulgar and philosophers.
As to the other part of our constitution,
which is commonly called reason, as opposed
to passion, there have been very subtile
disputes among modern philosophers, whe-
ther it ought to be called reason, or be not
rather some internal sense or taste.
Whether it ought to be called reason, or
by what other name, I do not here inquire,
but what kind of influence it has upon our
voluntary actions.
As to this point, I think all men must
allow that this is the manly part of our con-
stitution, the other the brute part. This
operates in a calm and dispassionate man-
ner; a manner so like to judgment or rea-
Son, that even those who do not allow it to
be called by that name, endeavour to account
for its having always had the name; be-
cause, in the manner of its operation, it has
a similitude to reason. [74]
As the similitude between this principle
and reason has led mankind to give it that
name, so the dissimilitude between it and
passion has led them to set the two in oppo-
sition. They have considered this cool
principle as having an influence upon our
actions so different from passion, that what
a man does coolly and deliberately, without
passion, is imputed solely to the man, whe-
ther it have merit or demerit; whereas,
what he does from passion is imputed in
part to the passion. If the passion be com-
ceived to be irresistible, the action is im-
puted solely to it, and not at all to the man.
If he had power to resist, and ought to
have resisted, we blame him for not doing
his duty ; but, in proportion to the violence
of the passion, the fault is alleviated.
By this cool principle, we judge what
ends are most worthy to be pursued, how
far every appetite and passion may be in-
dulged, and when it ought to be resisted.
It directs us, not only to resist the im-
pulse of passion when it would lead us
wrong, but to avoid the occasions of inflam-
ing it; like Cyrus, who refused to see the
beautiful captive princess. In this he acted
the part both of a wise and a good man;
firm in the love of virtue, and, at the same
time, conscious of the weakness of human
nature, and unwilling to put it to too severe
a trial. In this case, the youth of Cyrus,
the incomparable beauty of his captive, and
every circumstance which tended to inflame
his desire, exalts the merit of his conduct
in resisting it.
It is in such actions that the superiority
of human nature appears, and the specific
difference between it and that of brutes. In
them we may observe one passion combating
[72–74]
536
[ESSAY II.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
another, and the strongest prevailing; but
we perceive no calm principle in their con-
stitution, that is superior to every, passion,
and able to give law to it. [75]
The difference between these two parts of
our constitution, may be farther illustrated
by an instance or two wherein passion pre-
vails.
If a man, upon great provocation, strike
another, when he ought to keep the peace,
he blames himself for what he did, and ac-
knowledges that he ought not to have
yielded to his passion. Every other per-
son agrees with his sober judgment. They
think he did wrong in yielding to his passion,
when he might and ought to have resisted
its impulse. If they thought it impossible
to bear the provocation, they would not
blame him at all ; but, believing that it was
in his power, and was his duty, they impute
to him some degree of blame, acknowledg-
ing, at the same time, that it is alleviated
in proportion to the provocation ; so that
the trespass is imputed partly to the man
and partly to the passion. But, if a man
deliberately conceives a design of mischief
against his neighbour, contrives the means,
and executes it, the action admits of no al-
1eviation, it is perfectly voluntary, and he
bears the whole guilt of the evil intended
and done.
If a man, by the agony of the rack, is
made to disclose a secret of importance with
which he is entrusted, we pity him more than
we blame him. We consider, that such is
the weakness of human nature, that the
resolution, even of a good man, might be
overcome by such a trial. But, if he have
strength of mind, which even the agony of
the rack could not subdue, we admires his
fortitude as truly heroical. [76]
Thus, I think, it appears that the common
sense of men (which, in matters of common
life, ought to have great authority) has led
them to distinguish two parts in the human
constitution, which have influence upon our
voluntary determinations. There is an
irrational part, common to us with brute
animals, consisting of appetites, affections,
and passions; and there is a cool and
rational part. The first, in many cases,
gives a strong impulse, but without judg-
ment and without authority. The second
is always accompanied with authority. All
wisdom and virtue consist in following its
dictates; all vice and folly in disobeying
them. We may resist the impulses of ap-
petite and passion, not only without regret,
but with self-applause and triumph ; but
the calls of reason and duty can never be
resisted without remorseand self-condemna-
tion.
The ancient philosophers agreed with the
vulgar, in making this distinction of the
principles of action. The irrational part,
the Greeks called égº. Cicero calls it ap-
petitus, taking that word in an extensive
sense, so as to include every propensity to
action which is not grounded on judg-
ment.
The other principle the Greeks called yo5;
[and Aéyos'] ; Plato calls it the #yspaoyuzöv. or
leading principle. “Duplew enim. est vis
animorum alque natura.” Says Cicero, “una
pars in appetittſ posita . est, quae est égº,
Graece, qua, hominem huc et illuc rapiit 5
altera in ratione, quae docet, et explanat,
quid faciendum fugiemdumve sit ; ita fit, ut
*atio praisit, appetitus obtemperet.”—[De
Off. L. I. c. 28.]
The reason of explaining this distinction
here is, that these two principles influence
the will in different ways. Their influence
differs, not in degree only, but in kind.
This difference we feel, though it may be
difficult to find words to express it. We
may, perhaps, more easily form a notion of
it by a similitude. [77]
It is one thing to push a man from one
part of the room to another ; it is a thing
of a very different nature to use arguments
to persuade him to leave his place and go to
another. He may yield to the force which
pushes him, without any exercise of his
rational faculties; nay, he must yield to it,
if he do not oppose an equal or a greater
force. His liberty is impaired in some
degree; and, if he has not power sufficient
to oppose, his liberty is quite taken away,
and the motion cannot be imputed to him
at all. The influence of appetite or passion
seems to me to be very like to this. If the
passion be supposed irresistible, we impute
the action to it solely, and not to the man.
If he had power to resist, but yields after a
struggle, we impute the action partly to the
man, and partly to the passion.
If we attend to the other case, when the
man is only urged by arguments to leave
his place, this resembles the operation of
the cool or rational principle. It is evident
that, whether he yields to the arguments or
not, the determination is wholly his own
act, and is entirely to be imputed to him.
Arguments, whatever be the degree of their
strength, diminish not a man’s liberty :
they may produce a cool conviction of what
we ought to do, and they can do no more.
But appetite and passion give an impulse to
act, and impair liberty, in proportion to their
strength.
With most men, the impulse of passion
is more effectual than bare conviction ; and,
on this account, orators, who would per-
suade, find it necessary to address the pas-
sions, as well as to convince the understand-
ing; and, in all systems of rhetoric, these
two have been considered as different in-
tentions of the orator, and to be accomplished
by different means. [78]
[75–78]
CHAP. III.]
537
OF VOLUNTARY OPERATIONS.
CHAPTER III.
OF OPERATIONS OF MIND WHICH MAY BE
CAL LED VOLUNTARY.
THE faculties of Understanding and Will,
are easily distinguished in thought, but very
rarely, if ever, disjoined in operation.
In most, perhaps in all the operations of
mind for which we have names in language,
both faculties are employed, and we are
both intellective and active.
Whether it be possible that intelligence
may exist without some degree of activity,
or impossible, is, perhaps, beyond the reach
of our faculties to determine; but, I appre-
hend, that, in fact, they are always con-
joined in the operations of our minds.
It is probable, I think, that there is some
degree of activity in those operations which
werefer to the understanding; accordingly,
they have always, and in all languages,
been expressed by active verbs; as, I see,
I hear, I remember, I apprehend, I judge,
I reason. And it is certain that every act
of will must be accompanied by some oper-
ation of the understanding; for he that
wills must apprehend what he wills, and
apprehension belongs to the understanding.
The operations I am to consider in this
chapter, I think, have commonly been re-
ferred to the understanding; but we shall
find that the will has so great a share in
them, that they may, with propriety, be
called voluntary. They are these three,
Attention, Deliberation, and Fiased Purpose,
or Resolution. [79]
1. Attention may be given to any object,
either of sense or of intellect, in order to
form a distinct notion of it, or to discover
its nature, its attributes, or its relations.
And so great is the effect of attention, that,
without it, it is impossible to acquire or
retain a distinct notion of any object of
thought.
If a man hear a discourse without atten-
tion, what does he carry away with him P
If he see St Peter’s or the Vatican without
attention, what account can he give of it 2
While two persons are engaged in interest-
ing discourse, the clock strikes within their
hearing, to which they give no attention—
what is the consequence 2 The next
minute they know not whether the clock
struck or not. Yet their ears were not
shut. The usual impression was made
upon the organ of hearing, and upon the
auditory nerve and brain ; but from inat-
tention the sound either was not perceived,
or passed in the twinkling of an eye, with-
out leaving the least vestige in the memory.
A man sees not what is before his eyes
when his mind is occupied about another
object. In the tumult of a battle a man
may be shot through the body without
knowing anything of the matter, till he dis-
cover it by the loss of blood or of strength.
The most acute sensation of pain may be
deadened, if the attention can be vigorously
directed to another object. A gentleman
of my acquaintance, in the agony of a fit of
the gout, used to call for the chess-board.
As he was fond of that game, he acknow-
ledged that, as the game advanced and drew
his attention, the sense of pain abated, and
the time seemed much shorter.
Archimedes, it is said, being intent upon
a mathematical proposition, when Syracuse
was taken by the Romans, knew not the
calamity of the city, till a Roman soldier
broke in upon his retirement, and gave him
a deadly wound ; on which he lamented
only that he had lost a fine demonstra-
tion. [80]
It is needless to multiply instances to
shew, that when one faculty of the mind is
intensely engaged about any object, the
other faculties are laid, as it were, fast
asleep.
It may be farther observed, that, if there
be anything that can be called genius in
matters of mere judgment and reasoning,
it seems to consist chiefly in being able to
give that attention to the subject which
keeps it steady in the mind, till we can
survey it accurately on all sides.
There is a talent of imagination, which
bounds from earth to heaven, and from
heaven to earth in a moment. This may
be favourable to wit and imagery; but the
powers of judging and reasoning depend
chiefly upon keeping the mind to a clear
and steady view of the subject.
Sir Isaac Newton, to one who compli-
mented him upon the force of genius which
had made such improvements in mathe-
matics and natural philosophy, is said to
have made this reply, which was both mo-
dest and judicious, That if he had made
any improvements in those sciences, it was
owing more to patient attention than to any
other talent.
Whatever be the effects which attention
may produce, (and I apprehend they are
far beyond what is commonly believed,) it
is for the most part in our power.
Every man knows that he can turn his
attention to this subject or to that, for a
longer or a shorter time, and with more or
less intenseness, as he pleases. It is a
* act, and depends upon his will.
81]
But what was before observed of the
will in general, is applicable to this parti-
cular exertion of it, That the mind is rarely
in a state of indifference, left to turn its
attention to the object which to reason ap-
pears most deserving of it. There is, for
the most part, a bias to Some particular
[79–81]
538
[ESSAY 11.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
object, more than to any other; and this
not from any judgment of its deserving our
attention more, but from some impulse or
propensity, grounded on nature or habit.
It is well known that things new and un-
common, things.grand, and things that are
beautiful, draw our attention, not in pro-
portion to the interest we have, or think we
have in them, but in a much greater pro-
portion.
Whatever moves our passions or affec-
tions, draws our attention, very often, more
than we wish. -
You desire a man not to think of an un-
fortunate event which torments him. It
admits of no remedy. The thought of it
answers no purpose but to keep the wound
bleeding. He is perfectly convinced of all
you say. He knows that he would not
feel the affliction, if he could only not think
of it; yet he hardly thinks of anything
else. Strange when happiness and misery
stand before him, and depend upon his
choice, he chooses misery, and rejects hap-
piness with his eyes openl
Yet he wishes to be happy, as all men
do. How shall we reconcile this contra-
diction between his judgment and his con-
duct 2
The account of it seems to me to be
this : The afflicting event draws his atten-
tion so strongly, by a natural and blind
force, that he either hath not the power, or
hath not the vigour of mind to resist its
impulse, though he knows that to yield to
* is misery, without any good to balance it.
82]
Acute bodily pain draws our attention,
and makes it very difficult to attend to any
thing else, even when attention to the pain
serves no other purpose but to aggravate it
tenfold.
The man who played a game at chess in
the agony of the gout, to engage his atten-
tion to another object, acted the reason-
able part, and consulted his real happi-
ness; but it required a great effort to give
that attention to his game which was ne-
cessary to produce the effect intended by
it.
Even when there is no particular object
that draws away our attention, there is a
desultoriness of thought in man, and in
Some more than in others, which makes it
very-difficult to give that fixed attention to
important objects which reason requires.
. It appears, I think, from what has been
said, that the attention we give to objects
is for the most part voluntary; that a great
part of wisdom and virtue consists in giving
a proper direction to our attention ; and
that, however reasonable this appears to
the judgment of every man, yet, in some
cases, it requires an effort of self-command
no less than the most heroic virtues.
2. Another operation that may be called
voluntary, is Deliberation about what we
are to do or to forbear.
Every man knows that it is in his power
to deliberate or not to deliberate about any
part of his conduct ; to deliberate for a
shorter or a longer time, more carelessly or
more seriously : and, when he has reason
to suspect that his affection may bias his
judgment, he may either honestly use the
best means in his power to form an impar-
tial judgment, or he may yield to-his bias,
and only seek arguments to justify what
inclination leads him to do. In all these
points, he determines, he wills the right or
the wrong. [83] *
The general rules of deliberation are
perfectly evident to reason, when we con-
sider them abstractly. They are axioms in
morals.
We ought not to deliberate in cases that
are perfectly clear. No man deliberates
whether he ought to choose happiness or
misery. No honest man deliberates whether
he shall steal his neighbour's property.
When the case is not clear, when it is of
importance, and when there is time for
deliberation, we ought to deliberate with
more or less care, in proportion to the im-
portance of the action. In deliberation we
ought to weigh things in an even balance,
and to allow to every consideration the
weight which, in sober judgment, we think
it ought to have, and no more. This is to
deliberate impartially. Our deliberation
should be brought to an issue in due time,
so that we may not lose the opportunity of
acting while we deliberate. -
The axioms of Euclid do not appear to
me to have a greater degree of self-evidence
than these rules of deliberation. And as
far as a man acts according to them, his
heart approves of him, and he has confi-
dence of the approbation of the Searcher of
Hearts.
But though the manner in which we
ought to deliberate be evident to reason, it
is not always easy to follow it. Our appe-
tites, our affection and passions, oppose all
deliberation, but that which is employed in
finding the means of their gratification.
Avarice may lead to deliberate upon the
ways of making money, but it does not
distinguish between the honest and the dis-
honest.
We ought surely to deliberate how far
every appetite and passion may be in-
dulged, and what limits should be set to it.
But our appetites and passions push us on
to the attainment of their objects, in the
shortest road, and without delay. [84]
Thus it happens, that, if we yield to their
impulse, we shall often transgress those
rules of deliberation which reason approves.
In this conflict between the dictates of
[82–84]
CuAP. III.]
539
OF VOLUNTARY OPERATIONS.
reason, and the blind impulse of passion,
we must voluntarily determine. When we
take part with our reason, though in oppo-
sition to passion, we approve of our own
conduct.
What we call a fault of ignorance, is
always owing to the want of due delibera-
tion. When we do not take due pains to
be rightly informed, there is a fault, not
indeed in acting according to the light we
have, but in not using the proper means
to get light. For if we judge wrong, after
using the proper means of information,
there is no fault in acting according to that
wrong judgment ; the error is invincible.
The natural consequence of deliberation
on any part of our conduct, is a determina-
tion how we shall act ; and if it is not
brought to this issue it is lost labour.
There are two cases in which a deter-
mination may take place—when the oppor-
tunity of putting it in execution is present,
and when it is at a distance.
When the opportunity is present, the
determination to act is immediately fol-
lowed by the action. Thus, if a man de-
termine to rise and walk, he immediately
does it, unless he is hindered by force, or
has lost the power of walking. And if he
sit still when he has power to walk, we
conclude infallibly that he has not deter-
mined or willed to walk immediately.
Our determination or will to act, is not
always the result of deliberation, it may be
the effect of some passion or appetite, with-
out any judgment interposed. And when
judgment is interposed, we may determine
and act either according to that judgment
or contrary to it. [85]
When a man sits down hungry to dine,
he eats from appetite, very often without
exercising his judgment at all; nature in-
vites, and he obeys the call, as the ox, or
the horse, or as an infant does.
When we converse with persons whom
we love or respect, we say and do civil
things merely from affection or from re-
spect. They flow spontaneously from the
heart, without requiring any judgment. In
such cases we act as brute-animals do, or
as children before the use of reason. We
feel an impulse in our nature, and we yield
to it.
When a man eats merely from appetite,
he does not consider the pleasure of eating,
or its tendency to health. These considera-
tions are not in his thoughts. But we can
suppose a man who eats with a view to en-
joy the pleasure of eating. Such a man rea-
sons and judges. He will take care to use the
proper means of procuring an appetite. He
will be a critic in tastes, and make nice dis-
criminations. This man uses his rational
faculties even in eating. And however
contemptible this application of them may
be, it is an exercise of which, I apprehend,
brute-animals are not capable.
In like manner, a man may say or do ci-
vil things to another, not from affection,
but in order to serve some end by it, or be-
cause he thinks it his duty.
To act with a view to some distant inte-
rest, or to act from a sense of duty, seems
to be proper to man as a reasonable being :
but to act merely from passion, from appe-
tite, or from affection, is common to him
with the brute-animals. In the last case
there is no judgment required, but in the
first there is. [86]
To act against what one judges to be for
his real good, upon the whole, is folly. To
act against what he judges to be his duty,
is immorality. It cannot be denied that
there are too many instances of both in hu-
man life. Video meliora proboque, deteriora
sequor, is neither an impossible nor an un-
frequent case.
While a man does what he really thinks
wisest and best to be dome, the more his
appetites, his affections, and passions draw
him the contrary way, the more he ap-
proves of his own conduct, and the more
he is entitled to the approbation of every
rational being.
3. The third operation of mind I men-
tioned, which may be called voluntary, is,
a Fiated Purpose or Resolution with regard
to our future conduct.
This naturally takes place, when any ac-
tion, or course of action, about which we
have deliberated, is not immediately to be
executed, the occasion of acting being at
Some distance.
A fixed purpose to do, some time hence,
something which we believe shall then be
in our power, is strictly and properly a de-
termination of will, no less than a deter-
mination to do it instantly. Every defini-
tion of volition agrees to it. Whether the
opportunity of doing what we have deter-
mined to do be present or at some distance,
is an accidental circumstance which does
not affect the nature of the determination,
and no good reason can be assigned why it
should not be called volition in the one case,
as well as in the other. A purpose or re-
solution, therefore, is truly and properly an
act of will. -
Our purposes are of two kinds. We
may call the one particular, the other gene-
'ral. By a particular purpose, I mean that
which has for its object an individual action,
limited to one time and place; by a general
purpose, that of a course or train of action,
intended for some general end, or regulated
by some general rule. [87]
Thus, I may purpose to go to London
next winter. When the time comes, I exe-
cute my purpose, if I continue of the same
mind; and the purpose, when executed, is
[85–87]
540
LESSAY II.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
no more. Thus it is with every particular
purpose. tº
A general purpose may continue for life;
and, after many particular actions have been
done in consequence of it, may remain and
regulate future actions.
Thus, a young man proposes to follow
the profession of law, of medicine, or of
theology. This general purpose directs the
course of his reading and study. It directs
him in the choice of his company and com-
panions, and even of his diversions. It de-
termines his travels and the place of his
abode. It has influence upon his dress and
manners, and a considerable effect in form-
ing his character.
There are other fixed purposes which
have a still greater effect in forming the
character. I mean such as regard our mo-
ral conduct. * -
Suppose a man to have exercised his in-
tellectual and moral faculties, so far as to
have distinct notions of justice and injus-
tice, and of the consequences of both, and,
after due deliberation, to have formed a fixed
purpose to adhere inflexibly to justice, and
never to handle the wages of iniquity.
Is not this the man whom we should call
a just man P. We consider the moral virtues
as inherent in the mind of a good man, even
when there is no opportunity of exercising
them. And what is it in the mind which
we can call the virtue of justice, when it is
not exercised ? It can be nothing but a
fixed purpose, or determination, to act ac-
cording to the rules of justice, when there is
opportunity. [88]
The Roman law defined justice, A steady
and perpetual will to give to every man his
due. When the opportunity of doing jus-
tice is not present, this can mean nothing
else thana steady purpose, which is very pro-
perly called will. Such a purpose, if it
is steady, will infallibly produce just con-
duct; for every known transgression of jus-
tice demonstrates.a change of purpose, at
least for that time.
What has been said of justice, may be so
easily applied, to every other moral virtue,
that it is unnecessary to give instances.
They are all fixed purposes of acting ac-
cording to a certain rule."
* Mr Stewart, (“ Philosophy of the Active and
Moral Powers,” ii. p. 446,) in adopting this doctrine
says—“Agreeably to this view of the subject, the
ancient Pythagoreans defined virtue to be 'E:15
row 380yros, the oldest definition of virtue of which
we have any account, and one of the most un-
exceptionable which is yet to be found in any system
of philosophy.” The definition to which Mr Stewart
refers-& &gerö, äs rís Évºri ră şāoyros—is that un-
der, the name of Theages. The treatise attributed
to this philosopher is, however, like the other Py-
thagorean treatises, spurious. The definition in
question, with the whole moral system of its pretended
author, is an elegant epitome of Aristotle, who, on
the faith of these forgeries, has been commonly
By this, the virtues may be easily dis-
tinguished, in thought at least, from natural
affections that bear the same name. Thus,
benevolence is a capital virtue, which,
though not so necessary to the being of so-
ciety, is entitled to a higher degree of appro-
bation than even justice. But there is a
natural affection of benevolence, common
to good and bad men, to the virtuous and
to the vicious. How shall these be distin-
guished P
In practice, indeed, we cannot distinguish
them in other men, and with difficulty in
ourselves ; but, in theory, nothing is more
easy. The virtue of benevolence is a fixed
purpose or resolution to do good when we
have opportunity, from a conviction that it
is right, and is our duty. The affection of
benevolence.is a propensity to do good, from
natural constitution or habit, without regard
to rectitude or duty. ..
There are good tempers and bad, which
are a part of the constitution of the man,
and are really involuntary, though they of.
ten lead to voluntary actions. A good na-
tural temper is not virtue, nor is a bad one
vice. Hard would it be indeed to think,
that a man should be born under a decree
of reprobation, because he has the misfor-
tune of a bad natural temper. [89]
The physiognomist saw, in the features
of Socrates, the signatures of many bad
dispositions, which that good man acknow-
ledged he felt within him ; but the triumph
of his virtue was the greater in having con-
quered them.
In men who have no fixed rules of con-
duct, no self-government, the natural temper
is variable by numberless accidents. The
man who is full of affection and benevolence
this hour, when a cross accident happens
to ruffle him, or perhaps when an easterly
wind blows, feels a strange revolution in
his temper. The kind and benevolent
affections give place to the jealous and
malignant, which are as readily indulged in
their turn, and for the same reason, because
he feels a propensity to indulge them.
We may observe, that men who have
exercised their rational powers, are generally
governed in their opinions by fixed prin-
ciples of belief; and men who have made
the greatest advance in self-government,
are governed, in their practice, by general
fixed purposes. Without the former, there
would be no steadiness and consistence in
our belief; nor without the latter, in our
conduct.
When a man is come to years of under-
standing, from his education, from his com-
pany, or from his study, he forms to him-
self a set of general principles, a creed, which
viewed as himself the plagiarist. Ethics, I may ob-
serve, are thus well denominated Dcontology.—H.
[88, 89]
(; H A P. Iv.]
54]
COROLLARIES.
governs his judgment in particular points
that occur.
If new evidence is laid before him which
tends to overthrow any of his received
principles, it requires in him a great degree
of candour and love of truth, to give it an
impartial examination, and to form a new
judgment. Most men, when they are fixed
in their principles, upon what they account
sufficient evidence, can hardly be drawn
º a new and serious examination of them.
90
%, get a habit of believing them, which
is strengthened by repeated acts, and re-
mains immoveable, even when the evidence
upon which their belief was at first grounded,
is forgot.
It is this that makes conversions, either
from religious or political principles, so
difficult.
A mere prejudice of education sticks fast,
as a proposition of Euclid does with a man
who hath long ago forgot the proof. Both
indeed are upon a similar footing. We rest
in both, because we have long done so, and
think we received them at first upon good
evidence, though that evidence be quite
forgot.
When we know a man’s principles, we
judge by them, rather than by the degree
of his understanding, how he will deter-
mine in any point which is connected with
them.
Thus, the judgment of most men who
judge for themselves is governed by fixed
principles; and I apprehend that the con-
duct of most men who have any self-govern-
ment, and any consistency of conduct, is
governed by fixed purposes.
A man of breeding may, in his natural
temper, be proud, passionate, revengeful,
and in his morals a very bad man; yet, in
good company, he can stifle every passion
that is inconsistent with good breeding, and
be humane, modest, complaisant, even to
those whom in his heart he despises or
hates. Why is this man, who can com-
mand all his passions before company, a
slave to them in private 2 The reason is
plain : He has a fixed resolution to be a
man of breeding, but hath no such resolu-
tion to be a man of virtue. He hath com-
bated his most violent passions a thousand
times before he became master of them in
company. The same resolution and per-
Severance would have given him the com-
mand of them when alone. [91]
A fixed resolution retains its influence
upon the conduct, even when the motives
to it are not in view, in the same manner
as a fixed principle retains its influence
upon the belief, when the evidence of it is
forgot. The former may be called a habit
of the will, the latter a habit of the wrider-
standing. By such habits chiefly, men are
governed in their opinions and in their
practice.
A man who has no general fixed pur-
poses, may be said, as Pope says of most
women, (I hope unjustly,) to have no cha-
racter at all. He will be honest or dis-
honest, benevolent or malicious, compas-
sionate or cruel, as the tide of his passions
and affections drives him. This, however,
I believe, is the case of but a few in ad-
vanced life, and these, with regard to con-
duct, the weakest and most contemptible of
the species.
A man of some constancy may change
his general purposes once or twice in life,
seldom more. From the pursuit of pleasure
in early life, he may change to that of am-
bition, and from ambition to avarice. But
every man who uses his reason in the con-
duct of life, will have some end, to which
he gives a preference above all others. To
this he steers his course; his projects and
his actions will be regulated by it. With-
out this, there would be no consistency in his
conduct. He would be like a ship in the
ocean, which is bound to no port, under no
government, but left to the mercy of winds
and tides.
We observed before, that there are moral
rules respecting the attention we ought to
give to objects, and respecting our delibe-
rations, which are no less evident than
mathematical axioms. The same thing
may be observed with respect to our fixed
purposes, whether particular or general.
[92
} it not self-evident, that, after due de-
liberation, we ought to resolve upon that
conduct, or that course of conduct, which,
to our sober judgment, appears to be best
and most approvable 2–that we ought to
be firm and steady in adhering to such re-
solutions, while we are persuaded that they
are right; but open to conviction, and ready
to change our course, when we have good
evidence that it is wrong 2
Fickleness, inconstancy, facility, on the
one hand, wilfulness, inflexibility, and ob-
stinacy, on the other, are moral qualities,
respecting our purposes, which every one
sees to be wrong. A manly firmness,
grounded upon rational conviction, is the
proper mean which every man approves
and reveres.
CHAPTER IV.
COROLLARIES.
FROM what has been said concerning the
will, it appears—
First, That as some acts of the will are
transient and momentary, so others are per-
manent, and may continue for a long time,
[90–92]
542
[ESSAY II.
ON THE ACTIVE Powers.
or even through the whole course of our
rational life.
When I will to stretch out my hand,
that will is at an end as soon as the action
is done. It is an act of the will which be-
gins and ends in a moment. But when I
will to attend to a mathematical proposi-
tion, to examine the demonstration, and the
consequences that may be drawn from it,
this will may continue for hours. It must
continue as long as my attention continues;
for no man attends to a mathematical pro-
position longer than he wills.
The same thing may be said of delibera-
tion, with regard, either to any point of
conduct, or with regard to any general
course of conduct. We will to deliberate
as long as we do deliberate ; and that may
be for days or for weeks. [93]
A purpose or resolution, which we have
shewn to be an act of the will, may con-
tinue for a great part of life, or for the
whole, after we are of age to form a resolu-
tion.
Thus, a merchant may resolve, that, after
he has made such a fortune by traffic, he
will give it up, and retire to a country
life. He may continue this resolution for
thirty or forty years, and execute it at last :
but he continues it no longer than he wills,
for he may at any time change his resolu-
tion.
There are therefore acts of the will which
are not transient and momentary, which
may continue long, and grow into a habit.
This deserves the more to be observed, be-
cause a very eminent philosopher has ad-
vanced a contrary principle—to wit, That
all the acts of the will are transient and
momentary ; and from that principle has
drawn very important conclusions, with
regard to what constitutes the moral cha-
racter of man.
A second corollary is—That nothing in a
man, wherein the will is not concerned, can
justly be accounted either virtuous or im-
moral.
That no blame can be imputed to a man
for what is altogether involuntary, is so
evident in itself, that no arguments can
make it more evident. The practice of all
criminal courts, in all enlightened nations,
is founded upon it.
If it should be thought an objection to
this maxim, that, by the laws of all nations,
children often suffer for the crimes of parents,
in which they had no hand, the answer is
easy. [94]
For, first, Such is the connection between
parents and children, that the punishment
of a parent must hurt his children whether
the law will or not. If a man is fined, or
imprisoned—if he loses life, or limb, or
estate, or reputation, by the hand of justice—
his children suffer by necessary consequence.
Secondly, When laws intend to appoint any
punishment of innocent children for the
father’s crime, such laws are either unjust,
or they are to be considered as acts of police,
and not of jurisprudence, and are intended
as an expedient to deter parents more ef-
fectually from the commission of the crime.
The innocent children, in this case, are
sacrificed to the public good, in like manner
as, to prevent the spreading of the plague,
the sound are shut up with the infected in
a house or ship that has the infection.
By the law of England, if a man is killed
by an ox goring him, or a cart running over
him, though there be no fault or neglect in
the owner, the ox or the cart is a deodand,
and is confiscated to the church. The
legislature surely did not intend to punish
the ox as a criminal, far less the cart.
The intention evidently was, to inspire the
people with a sacred regard to the life of
Illa, Il.
When the Parliament of Paris, with a
similar intention, ordained the house in
which Ravilliac was born, to be razed to the
ground, and never to be rebuilt, it would be
great weakness to conclude, that the wise
judicature intended to punish the house.
If any judicature should, in any instance,
find a man guilty, and an object of punish-
ment, for what they allowed to be altogether
involuntary, all the world would condemn
them as men who knew nothing of the first
t; most fundamental rules of justice.
95 4.
* endeavoured to shew, that, in our
attention to objects, in order to form a right
judgment of them ; in our deliberation
about particular actions, or about general
rules of conduct ; in our purposes and reso-
lutions, as well as in the execution of them,
the will has a principal share. If any man
could be found, who, in the whole course of
his life, had given due attention to things
that concern him, had deliberated duly and
impartially about his conduct, had formed
his resolutions, and executed them accord-
ing to his best judgment and capacity, Surely
such a man might hold up his face before
God and man, and plead innocence. He
must be acquitted by the impartial Judge,
whatever his natural temper was, whatever
his passions and affections, as far as they
were involuntary.
A third corollary is, That all virtuous
habits, when we distinguish them from vir-
tuous actions, consist in fixed purposes of
acting according to the rules of virtue, as
often as we have opportunity.
We can conceive in a man a greater or a
less degree of steadiness to his purposes or
resolutions; but that the general tenor of
his conduct should be contrary to them, is
impossible.
The man who has a determined resolu-
[93–95]
CHAP. Iv.] :
543
OF THE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION.
tion to do his duty in every instance, and
who adheres steadily to his resolution, is a
perfect man. The man who has a deter-
mined purpose of carrying on a course of
action which he knows to be wrong, is a
hardened offender. Between these extremes
there are many intermediate degrees of
virtue and vice.
[96]
E S S A Y III.
OF THE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION.
PART I.
OF THE MECHANICAL PRINCIPLES
OF ACTION.
CHAPTER I.
OF THE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION IN GENERAL.
IN the strict philosophical sense, nothing
can be called the action of a man, but what
he previously conceived and willed or de-
termined to do. . In morals we commonly
employ the word in this sense, and never
impute anything to a man as his doing, in
which his will was not interposed. But when
moral imputation is not concerned, we call
many things actions of the man, which he
neither previously conceived nor willed.
Hence the actions of men have been dis-
tinguished into three classes—the voluntary,
the involuntary, and the mixed. By the
last are meant such actions as are under
the command of the will, but are commonly
fºrmed without any interposition of
WII 1.
... We cannot avoid using the word action
in this popular sense, without deviating too
much from the common use of language;
and it is in this sense we use it when we
inquire into the principles* of action in the
human mind.
By principles" of action, I understand
everything that incites us to act. [98]
If there were no incitements to action,
active power would be given us in vain.
Having no motive to direct our active ex-
ertions, the mind would, in all cases, be in
a state of perfect indifference, to do this or
that, or nothing at all. The active power
would either not be exerted at all, or its ex-
ºrtions would be perfectly unmeaning and
frivolous, neither wise nor foolish, neither
good nor bad. To every action that is of
the smallest importance, there must be
Some incitement, some motive, some rea-
SOD1.
* It would have been better to have here substi-
tuted another word (as Cause) for the ambiguous
term principle.—H.
It is therefore a most important part of
the philosophy of the human mind, to have
a distinct and just view of the various prin-
ciples of action, which the Author of our
being hath planted in our nature, to ar-
range them properly, and to assign to every
one its rank. - º
By this it is, that we may discover the
end of our being, and the part which is as-
signed us upon the theatre of life. In this
part of the human constitution, the noblest
work of God that falls within our notice,
we may discern most clearly the character
of Him who made us, and how he would
have us to employ that active power which
he hath given us.
I cannot, without great diffidence, enter
upon this subject, observing that almost
every author of reputation, who has given
attention to it, has a system of his own ;
and that no man has been so happy as to
give general satisfaction to those who came
after him.
There is a branch of knowledge much
valued, and very justly, which we call know-
ledge of the world, knowledge of mankind,
knowledge of human nature. This, I think,
consists in knowing from what principles
men generally act; and it is commonly the
fruit of natural sagacity joined with expe-
rience. [99]
A man of sagacity, who has had occasion
to deal in interesting matters, with a great
variety of persons of different age, sex, rank,
and profession, learns to judge what may
be expected from men in given circum-
stances; and how they may be most effec-
tually induced to act the part which he de-
sires. To know this is of so great import-
ance to men in active life, that it is called
knowing men, and knowing human nature.
This knowledge may be of considerable
use to a man who would speculate upon the
subject we have proposed, but is not, by it-
self, sufficient for that purpose.
The man of the world conjectures, per-
haps with great probability, how a man .
will act in certain given circumstances; and
this is all he wants to know. To enter in-
to a detail of the various principles which
influence the actions of men, to give them
[96–99]
544
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [Essay III.—PART 1.
distinct names, to define them, and to as-
certain their different provinces, is the busi-
ness of a philosopher, and not of a man of the
world; and, indeed, it is a matter attended
with great difficulty from various causes.
First, On account of the great number of
active principles that influence the actions
of men. -
Man has, not without reason, been called
an epitome of the universe. His body, by
which his mind is greatly affected, being a
part of the material system, is subject to
all the laws of inanimate matter. During
some part of his existence, his state is very
like that of a vegetable. He rises, by im-
perceptible degrees, to the animal, and, at
last, to the rational life, and has the princi-
ples that belong to all.
Another cause of the difficulty of tracing
the various principles of action in man, is,
That the same action, Ilay, the same course
and train of action may proceed from very
different principles. [100]
Men who are fond of a hypothesis, com-
monly seek no other proof of its truth, but
that it serves to account for the appear-
ances which it is brought to explain. This
is a very slippery kind of proof in every
part of philosophy, and never to be trusted ;
but, least of all, when the appearances to be
accounted for are human actions.
Most actions proceed from a variety of
principles concurring in their direction ;
and according as we are disposed to judge
favourably or unfavourably of the person,
or of human nature in general, we impute
them wholly to the best, or wholly to the
worst, overlooking others which had no
small share in them.
The principles from which men act can
be discovered only in these two ways—by
attention to the conduct of other men, or
by attention to our own conduct, and to
what we feel in ourselves. There is much un-
certainty in the former, and much difficulty
in the latter.
Men differ much in their characters; and
we can observe the conduct of a few only
of the species. Men differ not only from
other men, but from themselves at different
times, and on different occasions; accord-
ing as they are in the company of their su-
periors, inferiors, or equals; according as
they are in the eye of strangers, or of their
familiars only, or in the view of no human
eye; according as they are in good or bad
fortune, or in good or bad humour. We see
but a small part of the actions of our most
familiar acquaintance ; and what we see
may lead us to a probable conjecture, but
can give no certain knowledge of the prin-
ciples from which they act.
A man may, no doubt, know with cer-
tainty the principles from which he himself
acts, because he is conscious of them. But
this knowledge requires an attentive reflec-
tion upon the operations of his own mind,
which is very rarely to be found. It is per-
haps more easy to find a man who has formed
a just motion of the character of man in gen-
eral, or of those of his familiar acquaint-
ance, than one who has a just notion of his
own character. [101]
Most men, through pride and self-flattery,
are apt to think themselves better than they
really are ; and some, perhaps from melan-
choly, or from false principles of religion,
are led to think themselves worse than
they really are.
It requires, therefore, a very accurate
and impartial examination of a man's own
heart, to be able to form a distinct notion
of the various principles which influence his
conduct. That this is a matter of great
difficulty, we may judge from the very dif-
ferent and contradictory systems of philoso-
phers upon this subject, from the earliest
ages to this day.
During the age of Greek philosopny, the
Platonist, the Peripatetic, the Stoic, the
Epicurean, had each his own system. In
the dark ages, the Schoolmen and the
Mystics had systems diametrically opposite;
and, since the revival of learning, no con-
troversy hath been more keenly agitated,
especially among British philosophers, than
that about the principles of action in the
human constitution.
They have determined, to the satisfaction
of the learned, the forces by which the
planets and comets traverse the boundless
regions of space; but have not been able to
determine, with any degree of unanimity,
the forces which every man is conscious of
in himself, and by which his conduct is
directed.
Some admit no principle but self-love;
others resolve all into love of the pleasures
of sense, variously modified by the associa-
tion of ideas; others admit disinterested
benevolence along with self-love ; others
reduce all to reason and passion ; others to
passion alone ; nor is there less variety
about the number and distribution of the
passions. [102]
The names we give to the various prin-
ciples of action, have so little precision,
even in the best and purest writers in every
language, that, on this account, there is no
small difficulty in giving them names, and
arranging them properly.
The words appetite, passion, affection, in-
terest, reason, cannot be said to have one
definite signification. They are taken some-
times in a larger, and sometimes in a more
limited sense. The same principle is some-
times called by one of those names, some-
times by another ; and principles of a very
different nature are often called by the same
Ilal]16.
[100–102]
CHAP. II.]
545
INSTINCT.
To remedy this confusion of names, it
might, perhaps, seem proper to invent new
ones. But there are so few entitled to this
privilege, that I shall not lay claim to it ;
but shall endeavour to class the various
principles of human action as distinctly as
I am able, and to point out their specific
differences; giving them such names as may
deviate from the common use of the words
as little as possible. * ~~
There are some principles of action which
require no attention, no deliberation, no will.
These, for distinction’s sake, we shall call
mechanical. Another class we may call
animal, as they seem common to man with
other animals. A third class we may call
rational, being proper to man as a rational
creature.” [103]
CHAPTER II.
INSTINCT.
THE mechanical principles of action may,
I think, be reduced to two species—instincts
and habits.
By Instinct, I mean a natural blind im-
pulse to certain actions, without having any
end in view, without deliberation, and very
often without any conception of what we
do. .
Thus, a man breathes while he is alive,
by the alternate contraction and relaxation
of certain muscles, by which the chest, and
of consequence the lungs, are contracted
and dilated. There is no reason to think
that an infant new-born knows that breath-
ing is necessary to life in its new state, that
he knows how it must be performed, or even
that he has any thought or conception of
that operation; yet he breathes, as soon as
he is born, with perfect regularity, as if he
had been taught, and got the habit by long
practice.
By the same kind of principle, a new-
born child, when its stomach is emptied,
and nature has brought milk into the mo-
ther's breast, sucks and swallows its food as
perfectly as if it knew the principles of that
operation, and had got the habit of working
according to them.
Sucking and swallowing are very complex
operations. Anatomists describe about
thirty pairs of muscles that must be em-
ployed in every draught. Of those muscles,
every one must be served by its proper
nerve, and can make no exertion but by some
influence communicated by the nerve. The
exertion of all those muscles and nerves is
not simultaneous. They must succeed each
+ On this classification.of Reid, see Mr Stewart's
strictures, in his “ Philosophy of the Active Powers,”
i. pp. 12, 22. The division I would prefer, is differ-
ent from that of either philosopher.—H.
other in a certain order, and their order is
# less necessary than the exertion itself.
104] * -
This regular train of operations is carried
on according to the nicest rules of art, by
the infant, who has neither art, nor science,
nor experience, nor habit. *
That the infant feels the uneasy sensation
of hunger, I admit ; and that it sucks no
longer than till this sensation be removed.
But who informed it that this uneasy sensa-
tion might be removed, or by what means ?
That it knows nothing of this is evident ;
for it will as readily suck a finger, or a bit
of stick, as the nipple.
By a like principle it is, that infants cry
when they are pained or hurt; that they are
afraid when left alone, especially in the dark;
that they start when in danger of falling;
that they are terrified by an angry counte-
mance, or an angry tone of voice, and are
Soothed and comforted by a placid counte-
nance, and by soft and gentle tones of voice.
In the animals we are best acquainted
with, and which we look upon as the more
perfect of the brute creation, we see much
the same instincts as in the human kind, or
very similar ones, suited to the particular
state and manner of life of the animal.
Besides these, there are in brute animals
instincts peculiar to each tribe, by which
they are fitted for defence, for offence, or
for providing for themselves, and for their
offspring.
It is not more certain that nature hath
furnished various animals with various
weapons of offence and defence, than that
the same nature hath taught them how to
use them : the bull and the ram to butt,
the horse to kick, the dog to bite, the lion
to use his paws, the boar his tusks, the
serpent his fangs, and the bee and wasp
their sting. [105]
The manufactures of animals, if we may
call them by that name, present us with a
wonderful variety of instincts, belonging to
particular species, whether of the social or
of the solitary kind; the nests of birds, so
similar in their situation and architecture
in the same kind, so various in different
kinds; the webs of spiders, and of other
spinning animals; the ball of the silkworm ;
the nests of ants and other mining animals;
the combs of wasps, hornets, and bees; the
dams and houses of beavers.
The instinct of animals is one of the most
delightful and instructive parts of a most
pleasant study, that of natural history; and
deserves to be more cultivated than it has
yet been. º
Every manufacturing art among men
was invented by some man, improved by
others, and brought to perfection by time
and experience. Men learn to work in it
by long practice, which produces a habit.
[103–105]
2 N
546.
[ESSAY 111–PART 1.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
The arts of men vary in every age and in
every nation, and are found only in those
who have been taught them. -
The manufactures of animals differ from
those of men in many striking particulars.
No animal of the species can claim the
invention. No animal ever introduced any
new improvement, or any variation from the
former practice. Every one of the species
has equal skill from the beginning, with-
out teaching, without experience or habit.
Every one has its art by a kind of inspira-
tion. I do not mean that it is inspired with
the principles or rules of the art, but with
the ability and inclination of working in it
to perfection, without any knowledge of its
principles, rules, or end. [106]
The more Sagacious animals may be
taught to do many things which they do
not by instinct. What they are taught to
do, they do with more or less skill, accord-
ing to their sagacity and their training.
But, in their own arts, they need no teach-
ing nor training, nor is the art ever in-
proved or lost. Bees gather their honey
and their wax, they fabricate their combs,
and rear their young at this day, neither
better nor worse than they did when Virgil
So Sweetly sung their works.
The work of every animal is indeed like
the works of nature, perfect in its kind, and
can bear the most critical examination of
the mechanic or the mathematician. One
example from the animal last mentioned,
may serve to illustrate this.
Bees, it is well known, construct their
combs with small cells on both sides, fit both
for holding their store of honey, and for
rearing their young. There are only three
possible figures of the cells, which can make
them all equal and similar, without any
useless interstices. These are the equi-
lateral triangle, the square, and the regular
hexagon.
It is well known to mathematicians, that
there is not a fourth way possible, in which
a plane may be cut into little spaces that
shall be equal, similar and regular, without
leaving any interstices. Of the three, the
hexagon is the most proper, both for con-
yeniency and strength. Bees, as if they
knew this, make their cells regular hexa-
gons.
As the combs have cells on both sides,
the cells may either be exactly opposite,
having partition against partition, or the
bottom of a cell may rest upon the parti-
tions between the cells on the other side,
which will serve as a buttress to strengthen
it. The last way is best for strength; ac-
cordingly, the bottom of each cell rests
against the point where three partitions
meet on the other side, which gives it all
the strength possible. [107]
The bottom of a cell may either be one
plane perpendicular to the side-partitions, or
it may be composed of several planes, meet-
ing in a solid angle in the middle point. It
is only in one of these two ways, that all
the cells can be similar without losing room.
And, for the same intention, the planes of
which the bottom is composed, if there be
more than one, must be three in number,
and neither more nor fewer.
It has been demonstrated, that, by mak-
ing the bottoms of the cells to consist of
three planes meeting in a point, there is a
saving of material and labour no way in-
considerable. The bees, as if acquainted
with these principles of solid geometry, fol-
low them most accurately ; the bottom of
each cell being composed of three planes,
which make obtuse angles with the side-
partitions, and with one another, and meet
in a point in the middle of the bottom ; the
three angles of this bottom being supported
by three partitions on the other side of the
comb, and the point of it by the common
intersection of those three partitions.
One instance more of the mathematical
skill displayed in the structure of a honey-
comb, deserves to be mentioned. -
It is a curious mathematical problem, at
what precise angle the three planes which
compose the bottom of a cell ought to meet,
in order to make the greatest possible sav-
ing, or the least expense, of material and
labour.
This is one of those problems, belonging
to the higher parts of mathematics, which
are called problems of maarina and minima.
It has been resolved by some mathemati-
cians, particularly by the ingenious Mr
Maclaurin, by a fluxionary calculation,
which is to be found in the “Transactions
of the Royal Society of London.” He has
determined precisely the angle required;
and he found, by the most exact mensura-
tion the subject could admit, that it is the
very angle, in which the three planes in the
bottom of the cell of a honey-comb do ac-
tually meet. [108] . .
Shall we ask here, who taught the bee
the properties of solids, and to resolve prob-
lems of maa'ima and minima 2 If a honey-
comb were a work of human art, every man
of common sense would conclude, without
hesitation, that he who invented the con-
struction must have understood the prin-
ciples on which it is constructed.
We need not say that bees know none of
these things. They work most geometri-
cally, without any knowledge of geometry;
somewhat like a child, who, by turning the
handle of an organ, makes good music, with-
out any knowledge of music.
The art is not in the child, but in him
who made the organ. In like manner,
when a bee makes its comb so geometrically,
the geometry is not in the bee, but in that
[106–108]
CHAP. II.]
547
INSTINCT,
great Geometrician who made the bee, and
made all things in number, weight, and
measure.”
To return to instincts in man ; those are
most remarkable which appear in infancy,
when we are ignorant of everything neces-
sary to our preservation, and therefore must
perish, if we had not an invisible guide, who
leads us blindfold in the way we should
take, if we had eyes to see it.
Besides the instincts which appear only
in infancy, and are intended to supply the
want of understanding in that early period,
there are many which continue through life,
and which supply the defects of our intel-
lectual powers in every period. Of these
we may observe three classes.
First, There are many things necessary
to be done for our preservation, which, even
when we will to do, we know not the means
by which they must be done. [109]
A man knows that he must swallow his
food before it can nourish him. But this
action requires the co-operation of many
nerves and muscles, of which he knows no-
thing ; and if it were to be directed solely
by his understanding and will, he would
starve before he learned how to perform it.
Here instinct comes in to his aid. He
needs do no more than will to swallow. All
the requisite motions of nerves and mus-
cles immediately take place in their proper
order, without his knowing or willing any-
thing about them.
If we ask here, whose will do these nerves
and muscles obey 2 Not his, surely, to
whom they belong. He knows neither
their names, nor nature, nor office; he
never thought of them. They are moved
by some impulse, of which the cause is un-
known, without any thought, will, or inten-
tion on his part—that is, they are moved
instinctively.
This is the case, in some degree, in every
voluntary motion of our body. Thus, I
will to stretch out my arm. The effect im-
mediately follows. But we know that the
arm is stretched out by the contraction of
certain muscles; and that the muscles are
contracted by the influence of the nerves.
I know nothing, I think nothing, either of
nerves or muscles, when I stretch out my
arm : yet this nervous influence, and this
contraction of the muscles, uncalled by me,
immediately prºduce the effect which I
willed. This is as if a weight were to be
raised, which can be raised only by a com-
plication of levers, pullies, and other me-
chanical powers, that are behind the cur-
tain, and altogether unknown to me. I
will to raise the weight ; and no sooner is
this volition exerted, than the machinery
* “ Omnia in mensura, et numero, et pondere dis-
posuisti.”—(Wisdom of Solomon). I forget how it is
rendered in our ſinglish version.—H. -
behind the curtain falls to work and raises
the weight. [110]
If such a case should happen, we would
conclude that there is some person behind
the curtain who knew my will, and put the
machine in motion to execute it.
The case of my willing to stretch out my
arm, or to swallow my food, has evidently
a great similarity to this. But who it is
that stands behind the curtain, and sets the
internal machinery a-going, is hid from us:
so strangely and wonderfully are we made.
This, however, is evident, that those in-
ternal motions are not willed nor intended
by us, and therefore are instinctive.
A second case in which we have need of
instinct, even in advanced life, is, When
the action must be so frequently repeated,
that to intend and will it every time it is
done, would occupy too much of our thought,
and leave no room for other necessary em-
ployments of the mind. -
We must breathe often every minute
whether awake or asleep. We must often
close the eye-lids, in order to preserve the
lustre of the eye. If these things required
particular attention and volition every time
they are done, they would occupy all our
thought. Nature, therefore, gives an im-
pulse to do them as often as is necessary,
without any thought at all. They consume
no time, they give not the least interrup-
tion to any exercise of the mind; because
they are done by ins' inct.
A third case, in which we need the aid of
instinct, is, When the action must be done
so suddenly that there is no time to think
and determine. When a man loses his
balance, either on foot or on horseback, he
makes an instantaneous effort to recover it
by instinct. The effort would be in vain,
if it waited the determination of reason and
will. [III]
When anything threatens our eyes, we
wink hard, by instinct, and can hardly
avoid doing sé, even when we know that
the stroke is aimed in jest, and that we are
perfectly safe from danger. I have seen
this tried upon a wager, which a man was
to gain if he could keep his eyes open, while
another aimed a stroke at them. in jest.
The difficulty of doing this shews that there
may be a struggle between instinct and
will ; and that it is not easy to resist the
impulse of instinct, even by a strong reso-
lution not to yield to it. -
Thus the merciful Author of our nature
hath adapted our instincts to the defects
and to the weakness of our understanding.
In infancy we are ignorant of everything;
yet many things must be done by us for
our preservation: These are done by in-
stinct. When we grow up there are many
motions of our limbs and bodies necessary,
which can be performed only by a curious
[109–111]
- 2 N 2
548
IESSAY III.-PART 1.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
and complex internal machinery—a ma-
chinery of which the bulk of mankind are
totally ignorant, and which the most skilful
anatomist knows but imperfectly. All this
machinery is set a-going by instinct. We
need only to will the external motion, and
all the internal motions, previously neces-
sary to the effect, take place of themselves,
without our will or command.
Some actions must be so often repeated,
through the whole of life, that, if they re-
quired attention and will, we should be able
to do nothing else: These go on regularly
by instinct.
Our preservation from danger often re-
quires such sudden exertions, that there is
no time to think and to determine : Ac-
cordingly we make such exertions by instinct.
Another thing in the nature of man,
which I take to be partly, though not wholly,
instinctive, is his proneness to imitation.
[112]
Aristotle observed, long ago, that man is
an imitative animal. He is so in more
respects than one. He is disposed to imi-
tate what he approves. In all arts men
learn more and more agreeably, by example
than by rules. Imitation by the chissel, by
the pencil, by description prosaic and poet-
ical, and by action and gesture, have been
favourite and elegant entertainments of the
whole species. In all these cases, however,
the imitation is intended and willed, and
therefore cannot be said to be instinctive.
But I apprehend that human nature
disposes us to the imitation of those among
whom we live, when we neither desire nor
will it.
Let an Englishman, of middle age, take
up his residence in Edinburgh or Glasgow ;
although he has not the least intention to
use the Scots dialect, but a firm resolution
to preserve his own pure and unmixed, he
will find it very difficult to make good his
intention. He will, in a course of years,
fall insensibly, and without intention, into
the tone and accent, and even into the words
and phrases of those he converses with ;
and nothing can preserve him from this,
but a strong disgust to every Scotticism,
which perhaps may overcome the natural
instinct.
It is commonly thought that children
often learn to stammer by imitation ; yet I
believe no person ever desired or willed to
learn that quality.
I apprehend that instinctive imitation has
no small influence in forming the peculia-
rities of provincial dialects, the peculiarities
of voice, gesture, and manner which we
see in Some families, the manners peculiar
to different ranks and different professions;
and perhaps even in forming national cha-
racters, and the human character in gen-
eral. [113]
The instances that history furnishes of
wild men, brought up from early years,
without the society of any of their own spe-
cies, are so few, that we cannot build con-
clusions upon them with great certainty.
But all I have heard of agreed in this, that
the wild man gave but very slender indica-
tions of the rational faculties; and, with
regard to his mind, was hardly distin-
guishable from the more sagacious of the
brutes. t
There is a considerable part of the lowest
rank in every nation, of whom it cannot be
said that any pains have been taken by
themselves, or by others, to cultivate their
understanding, or to form their manners;
yet we see an immense difference between
them and the wild man.
This difference is wholly the effect of
Society; and, I think, it is in a great mea-
Sure, though not wholly, the effect of unde-
signed and instinctive imitation.
Perhaps not only our actions, but even
our judgment and belief, is, in some cases,
guided by instinct—that is, by a natural and
blind impulse.
When we consider man as a rational
creature, it may seem right that he should
have no belief but what is grounded upon
evidence, probable or demonstrative ; and
it is, I think, commonly taken for granted,
that it is always evidence, real or apparent,
that determines our belief.
If this be so, the consequence is, that, in
no case, can there be any belief, till we
find evidence, or, at least, what to our judg-
ment appears to be evidence. I suspect it
is not so ; but that, on the contrary, before
we grow up to the full use of our rational
faculties, we do believe, and must believe,
# things without any evidence at all.
1I4] - z
The faculties which we have in common
with brute-animals, are of earlier growth
than reason. We are irrational animals
for a considerable time before we can pro-
perly be called rational. The operations
of reason spring up by imperceptible de-
grees ; nor is it possible for us to trace
accurately the order in which they rise.
The power of reflection, by which only we
could trace the progress of our growing
faculties, comes too late to answer that
end. Some operations of brute-animals
1ook so like reason that they are not easily
distinguished from it. Whether brutes
have anything that can properly be called
belief, I cannot say; but their actions shew
something that looks very like it.
If there be any instinctive belief in man,
it is probably of the same kind with that
which we ascribe to brutes, and may be
specifically different from that rational be-
lief which is grounded on evidence; but
that there is something in man which we
[112–114]
GHAP. II.]
549
INSTINCT.
call belief, which is not grounded on evi-
dence, I think, must be granted.
[10] We need to be informed of many
things before we are capable of discerning
the evidence on which they rest. Were
our belief to be withheld till we are capable,
in any degree, of weighing evidence, we
should lose all the benefit of that instruc-
tion and information, without which we
could never attain the use of our rational
faculties.
Man would never acquire the use of rea-
son if he were not brought up in the society
of reasonable creatures. The benefit he
receives from society is derived partly from
imitation of what he sees others do, partly
from the instruction and information they
communicate to him, without which he
could neither be preserved from destruc-
tion, nor acquire the use of his rational
powers.
Children have a thousand things to learn,
and they learn many things every day;
more than will be easily believed by those
who have never given attention to their
progress. [115]
Oportet discentem, credere is a common
adage. Children have everything to learn;
and, in order to learn, they must believe
their instructors. They need a greater
stock of faith from infancy to twelve or
fourteen, than ever after. But how shall
they get this stock so necessary to them P
If their faith depend upon evidence, the
stock of evidence, real or apparent, must
bear proportion to their faith. But such,
in reality, is their situation, that when their
faith must be greatest, the evidence is least.
They believe a thousand things before they
ever spend a thought upon evidence. Na-
ture supplies the want of evidence, and
gives them an instinctive kind of faith with-
out evidence. * -
They believe implicitly whatever they
are told, and receive with assurance the
testimony of every one, without ever think-
ing of a reason why they should do so.
A parent or a master might command
them to believe, but in vain, for belief is
not in our power ; but, in the first part of
life, it is governed by mere testimony in
matters of fact, and by mere authority in
all other matters, no less than by evidence
in riper years.
It is not the words of the testifier, but
his belief, that produces this belief in a
child : for children soon learn to distinguish
what is said in jest, from what is said in
good earnest. What appears to them to
be said in jest, produces no belief. They
glory in shewing that they are not to be
imposed on. When the signs of belief in
the speaker are ambiguous, it is pleasant to
observe with what sagacity they pry into
his features, to discern whether he really
believes what he says, or only counterfeits
belief. As soon as this point is determined,
their belief is regulated by his. If he be
doubtful, they are doubtful; if he be as-
sured, they are also assured. [116]
It is well known what a deep impression
religious principles, zealously inculcated,
make upon the minds of children. The
absurdities of ghosts and hobgoblins, early
impressed, have been known to stick so
fast, even in enlightened minds, as to baffle
all rational conviction.
When we grow up to the use of reason,
testimony, attended with certain circum-
stances, or even authority, may afford a
rational ground of belief; but with children,
without any regard to circumstances, either
of them operates like demonstration. And
as they seek no reason, nor can give any
reason, for this regard to testimony and to
authority, it is the effect of a natural im-
pulse, and may be called instinct.
[29] Another instance of belief which
appears to be instinctive, is that which
children shew evenin infancy, That an event
which they have observed in certain circum-
stances, will happen again in like circum-
stances. A child of half a year old, who
has once burned his finger by putting it in
the candle, will not put it there again. And
if you make a shew of putting it in the
candle by force, you see the most manifest
signs that he believes he shall meet with
the same calamity.
Mr Hume hath shewn very clearly, that
this belief is not the effect either of Reason
or Experience. He endeavours to account
for it by the Association of Ideas. Though
I am not satisfied with his account of this
phaenomenon, I shall not now examine it;
because it is sufficient for the present argu-
ment, that this belief is not grounded on
evidence, real or apparent, which I think
he clearly proves.
A person who has lived so long in the
world as to observe that nature is governed
by fixed laws, may have some rational
ground to expect similar events in similar
circumstances; but this cannot be the case
of the child. His belief, therefore, is not
grounded on evidence. . It is the result of
his constitution. [117]
Nor is it the less so, though it should arise
from the association of ideas. For what is
called the association of ideas is a law of
nature in our constitution ; which produces
its effects without any operation of reason
on our part, and in a manner of which we
are entirely ignorant.” -
* See Stewart's “Philosophy of the Active Powers,”
ii. p. 34). Reid is not, however, the first who re-
solved the credulity of children into an original
principle. See above, pp. 196, 197.-H.
* See above, pp. 197–201.-H.
[115–117]
550
[Essay III.-PART 1.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
**
CHAPTER III.
OF HABIT.
HABIT differs from Instinct, not in its
nature, but in its origin; the latter being
natural, the former acquired. Both operate
without will or intention, without thought,
and therefore may be called mechanical prin-
ciples.
Habit is commonly defined, A facility of
doing a thing, acquired by having done it
frequently. This definition is sufficient for
habits of art; but the habits which may,
with propriety, be called principles of action,
must give more than a facility, they must
give an inclination or impulse to do the
action ; and that, in many cases, habits
have this force, cannot be doubted.
How many awkward habits, by frequent-
ing improper company, are childrent apt to
learn, in their address, motion, looks, ges-
ture, and pronunciation. They acquire
such habits commonly from an undesigned
and instinctive imitation, before they can
judge of what is proper and becoming.
When they are a little advanced in
understanding, they may easily be con-
vinced that such a thing is unbecoming, they
may resolve to forbear it, but when the
habit is formed, such a general resolution
is not of itself sufficient ; for the habit will
operate without intention ; and particular
attention is necessary, on every occasion,
to resist its impulse, until it be undone by
the habit of opposing it. [118]
It is owing to the force of habits, early
acquired by imitation, that a man who has
grown up to manhood in the lowest rank of
life, if fortune raise him to a higher rank,
very rarely acquires the air and manners of
a gentleman. -
When to that instinctive imitation which
I spoke of before, we join the force of habit,
it is easy to see, that these mechanical
principles have no small share in forming
the manners and character of most men.
The difficulty of overcoming vicious habits
has, in all ages, been a common topic of
theologians and moralists; and we see too
many sad examples to permit us to doubt of
it.
There are good habits, in a moral sense,
as well as bad; and it is certain, that the
stated and regular performance of what we
approve, not only makes it easy, but makes
us uneasy in the omission of it. This is
the case, even when the action derives all
its goodness from the opinion of the per-
former. A good illiterate Roman Catholic
does not sleep sound if he goes to bed with-
out telling his beads, and repeating prayers
which he does not understand.
Aristotle makes Wisdom, Prudence, Good
Sense,” Science, and Art, as well as the
moral virtues and vices, to be habits. If
| he meant no more, by giving this name to
| all those intellectual and moral qualities,
than that they are all strengthened and con-
firmed by repeated acts, this is undoubtedly
true. I take the word in a less extensive
sense, when I consider habits as principles
of action. I conceive it to be a part of our
constitution, that what we have been ac-
customed to do, we acquire, not only a
facility, but a proneness to do on like occa-
sions; so that it requires a particular will
and effort to forbear it, but to do it, requires
very often no will at all. We are carried
by habit as by a stream in swimming, if we
make no resistance. [l 19]
Every art furnishes examples both of
the power of habits and of their utility; no
one more than the most common of all arts,
the art of speaking. -
Articulate language is spoken, not by
nature, but by art. It is no easy matter to
children to learn the simple sounds of lan-
guage ; I mean; to learn to pronounce the
vowels and consonants. It would be much
more difficult, if they were not led by
instinct to imitate the sounds they hear;
for the difficulty is vastly greater of teach-
ing the deaf to pronounce the letters and
words, though experience shews that can
be done. -
What is it that makes this pronunciation
so easy at last which was so difficult at first 2
It is habit.
But from what cause does it happen, that
a good speaker no sooner conceives what he
would express, than the letters, syllables,
and words arrange themselves according to
innumerable rules of speech, while he never
thinks of these rules P. He means to ex-
press certain sentiments; in order to do
this properly, a selection must be made of
the materials, out of many thousands. He
makes this selection without any expense
of time or thought. The materials selected
must be arranged in a particular order,
according to innumerable rules of gram-
mar, logic, and rhetoric, and accompanied
with a particular tone and emphasis. He
does all this as it were by inspiration, with-
out thinking of any of these rules, and
without breaking one of them. [120]
This art, if it were not more common,
would appear more wonderful than that
a man should dance blindfold amidst a
thousand burning ploughshares, without
being burnt; yet all this may be done by
habit. -
It appears evident, that as, without in-
stinct, the infant could not live to become
* Noüs is here ill translated by Good Sense. It cor-
responds rather to what Reid and others have called
Common Sense, being the faculty of primary truths—
locus principiorum.—H,
[118–120]
CHAP. III.]
551
UF HABIT.
a man, so, without habit, man would re-
main an infant through life, and would be
as helpless, as unhandy, as speechless, and
as much a child in understanding at three-
score as at three.
I see no reason to think that we shall.
ever be able to assign the physical cause,
either of instinct, or of the power of habit."
Both seem to be parts of our original
constitution. Their end and use is evi-
dent ; but we can assign no cause of them,
but the will of Him who made us.
With regard to instinct, which is a na-
tural propensity, this will perhaps be easily
granted; but it is no less true with regard
to that power and inclination which we ac-
quire by habit.
No man can shew a reason why our do-
ing a thing frequently should produce either
facility or inclination to do it.
The fact is so notorious, and so con-
stantly in our eye, that we are apt to think
no reason should be sought for it, any more
than why the sun shines. But there must
be a cause of the sun's shining, and there
must be a cause of the power of habit.
We see nothing analogous to it in inami-
mate matter, or in things made by human
art. A clock or a watch, a waggon or a
plough, by the custom of going, does not
learn to go better, or require less moving
force. The earth does not increase in fer-
tility by the custom of bearing crops. [12]]
It is said, that trees and other vegetables,
by growing long in an unkindly soil or
climate, sometimes acquire qualities by
which they can bear its inclemency with
less hurt. This, in the vegetable kingdom,
has some resemblance to the power of habit;
but, in inanimate matter, I know nothing
that resembles it.
A stone loses nothing of its weight by
being long supported, or made to move up-
ward. A body, by being tossed about ever
So long, or ever so violently, loses nothing
of its inertia, nor acquires the least dispo-
sition to change its state.
PART II.
OF ANIMIAL PRINCIPL ES OF ACTION,
CHAPTER, I
O F AP PETITES.
HAVING discoursed of the mechanical
principles of action, I proceed to consider
those I called animal."
They are such as operate upon the will
and intention, but do not suppose any exer-
cise of judgment or reason ; and are most
of them to be found in some brute animals,
as well as in man.
In this class, the first kind I shall call
Appelites, taking that word in a stricter
sense than it is sometimes taken, even by
good writers. [122]
The word appetite is sometimes limited,
so as to signify only the desire of food when
we hunger; sometimes it is extended so as
to signify any strong desire, whatever be its
object. Without pretending to censure
any use of the word which custom hath
authorized, I beg leave to limit it to a par-
ticular class of desires, which are dis-
tinguished from all others by the following
marks:–
First, Every appetite is accompanied
with an uneasy sensation proper to it,
which is strong or weak, in proportion to
the desire we have of the object. Secondly,
Appetites are not constant, but periodical,
being sated by their objects for a time, and
returning after certain periods. Such is
the nature of those principles of action, to
which I beg leave, in this essay, to appro-
priate the name of appetites. Those that
are chiefly observable in man, as well as in
most other animals, are Hunger, Thirst, and
Lust.
If we attend to the appetite of Hunger,
we shall find in it two ingredients, an uneasy
Sensation and a desire to eat. The desire
keeps pace with the sensation, and ceases
when it ceases. When a man is sated with
eating, both the uneasy sensation and the
desire to eat cease for a time, and return
after a certain inverval. So it is with other
appetites.
In infants, for some time after they come
into the world, the uneasy sensation of
hunger is probably the whole. We cannot
* Mr Stewart has made an ingenious attempt to
explain sundry of the phaenomena referred to the oc-
cult principle of habit, in his chapter cn Attention,
in the first volume of his “ Elements of the Philo-
sophy of the Human Mind.” It is to be regretted
that he had not studied (he even treats it as incon-
ceivable) the Leibnitzian doctrine of what has not
well been denominated, obscure perceptions, or ideas—
that is, acts and affections of mind, which, manifest-
ing their existence in their effects, are themselves out
of consciousness or apperception. The fact of such
latent mental modifications, is now established be-
yond all rational doubt; and on the supposition of
their reality, we are able to solve various psycholo-
gical phaenomena otherwise inexplicable. Among
these are many of those attributed to Habit.—H.
* It is observed by Mr Stewart, in reference to the
undue latitude with which, in this part of his work,
Reid has employed, among others, the term Animal,
that, in consequence of this, he has been led to rank
among our animal principles of action, (that is,
among the active principles common to man with the
brutes,) not only the desire of knowledge, and the
desire of esteem, but pity to the distressed, patriot-
isin, and other benevolent affections.—H.
[121, 122]
552
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [Essay III.—PART II.
suppose in them, before experience, any
conception of eating, nor, consequently, any
desire of it. They are led by mere instinct
to suck when they feel the sensation of
hunger. But when experience has con-
nected, in their imagination, the uneasy
sensation with the means of removing it,
the desire of the last comes to be so asso-
ciated with the first, that they remain
through life inseparable. And we give the
name of hunger to the principle that is
made up of both. [123]
That the appetite of hunger includes the
two ingredients I have mentioned will not,
I apprehend, be questioned. I take notice
of it the rather because we may, if I mis-
take not, find a similar composition in other
principles of action. Thayare made up of dif-
ferent ingredients, and may be analyzed into
the parts that enter into their composition.
If one philosopher should maintain that
hunger is an uneasy sensation, another,
that it is a desire to eat, they seem to differ
widely ; for a desire and a sensation are
very different things, and have no simili-
tude. But they are both in the right ; for
hunger includes both an uneasy sensation
and a desire to eat.
Although there has been no such dispute
among philosophers as we have supposed
with regard to hunger, yet there have been
similar disputes with regard to other princi-
ples of action; and it deserves to be con-
sidered whether they may not be termi-
nated in a similar manner.
The ends for which our natural appetites
are given, are too evident to escape the ob-
servation of any man of the least reflection.
Two of those I named are intended for the
preservation of the individual, and the
third for the continuance of the species.
The reason of mankind would be alto-
gether insufficient for these ends, without
the direction and call of appetite.
Though a man knew that his life must be
supported by eating, reason could not direct
him when to eat, or what ; how much, or
how often. In all these things, appetite is
a much better guide than our reason.
Were reason only to direct us in this mat-
ter, its calm voice would often be drowned
in the hurry of business, or the charms of
amusement. But the voice of appetite
rises gradually, and, at last, becomes loud
enough to call off our attention from any
other employment. [124] -
Every man must be convinced that,
without our appetites, even supposing man
kind inspired with all the knowledge re-
quisite for answering their ends, the race of
men must have perished long ago ; but, by
their means, the race is continued from one
generation to another, whether men be
savage or civilized, knowing or ignorant,
virtuous or vicious.
By the same means, every tribe of brute
animals, from the whale that ranges the
ocean to the least microscopic insect, has
been continued from the beginning of the
world to this day; nor has good evidence
been found, that any one species which God
made has perished.
Nature has given to every animal, not
only an appetite for its food, but taste and
smell, by which it distinguishes the food
proper for it.
It is pleasant to see a caterpillar, which
nature intended to live upon the leaf of one
species of plant, travel over a hundred
leaves of other kinds without tasting one,
till it comes to that which is its natural
food, which it immediately falls on, and de-
vours greedily.
Most caterpillars feed only upon the leaf
of one species of plant, and nature suits the
season of their production to the food that
is intended to nourish them. Many insects
and animals have a greater variety of food;
but, of all animals, man has the greatest
variety, being able to subsist upon almost
every kind of vegetable or animal food, from
the bark of trees to the oil of whales. [125]
I believe our natural appetites may be
made more violent by excessive indulgence,
and that, on the other hand, they may be
weakened by starving. The first is often
theeffect of a pernicious luxury, the last may
sometimes be the effect of want, sometimes
of superstition. I apprehend that nature
has given to our appetites that degree of
strength which is most proper for us; and
that whatever alters their natural tone,
either in excess or in defect, does not mend
the work of nature, but may mar and per-
vert it.
A man may eat from appetite only. So
the brutes commonly do. He may eat to
please his taste when he has no call of ap-
petite. I believe a brute may do this also.
He may eat for the sake of health, when
neither appetite nor taste invites. This, as
far as I am able to judge, brutes never do.
From so many different principles, and
from many more, the same action may be
done ; and this may be said of most human
actions. From this, it appears that very
different and contrary theories may serve to
account for the actions of men. The causes
assigned may be sufficient to produce the
effect, and yet not be the true causes.
To act merely from appetite, is neither
good nor ill in a moral view. It is neither
an object of praise nor of blame. No man
claims any praise because he eats when he
is hungry, or rests when he is weary. On
the other hand, he is no object of blame, if
he obeys the call of appetite when there is
no reason to hinder him. In this he acts
agreeably to his nature.
From this, we may observe, that the de-
[123–125]
eh AP, 1.]
553
OF APPETITES.
finition of virtuous actions given by the
ancient Stoics, and adopted by Some modern
authors, is imperfect. They defined virtu-
ous actions to be such as are according to
mature. What is done according to the an-
imal part of our nature, which is common
to us with the brute animals, is in itself
neither virtuous nor vicious, but perfectly
indifferent. Then only it becomes vicious,
when it is done in opposition to some prin-
ciple of superior importance and authority.
And it may be virtuous, if done for some
important or worthy end. [126]
Appetites, considered in themselves, are
neither social principles of action, nor selfish.
They cannot be called social, because they
imply no concern for the good of others.
Nor can they justly be called selfish, though
they be commonly referred to that class.
An appetite draws us to a certain object,
without regard to its being good for us, or
ill. There is no self-love implied in it any
more than benevolence. We see that, in
many cases, appetite may lead a man to
what he knows will be to his hurt. To call
this acting from self-love, is to pervert the
meaning of words. It is evident that, in
every case of this kind, self-love is sacrificed
to appetite.
There are some principles of the human
frame very like to our appetites, though they
do not commonly get that name.
Men are made for labour either of body
or mind. Yet excessive labour hurts the
powers of both. To prevent this hurt,
nature hath given to men, and other ani-
mals, an uneasy sensation, which always
attends excessive labour, and which we call
fatigwe, weariness, lassitude. This uneasy
sensation is conjoined with the desire of rest,
or intermission of our labour; and thus na-
ture calls ustorest when we are weary, in the
same manner as to eat when we are hungry.
In both cases, there is a desire of a cer-
tain object, and an uneasy sensation accom-
panying that desire. In both cases, the de-
sire is satiated by its object, and returns
after certain intervals. In this only they
differ, that in the appetites first mentioned,
the uneasy sensation arises at intervals with-
out action, and leads to a certain action. In
weariness, the uneasy sensation arises from
action too long continued, and leads to rest.
[127]
But nature intended that we should be
active, and we need some principle to incite
us to action when we happen not to be in-
vited by any appetite or passion.
For this end, when strength and spirits
are recruited by rest, nature has made total
inaction as uneasy as excessive labour.
We may call this the principle of activity.
It is most conspicuous in children, who can-
not be supposed to know how useful and
mecessary it is for their improvement to be
constantly employed. Their constant acti-
vity, therefore, appears not to proceed from
their having some end constantly in view,
but rather from this, that they desire to be
always doing something, and feel uneasiness
in total inaction.
Noris this principle confined to childhood;
it has great effects in advanced life.
When a man has neither hope, nor fear,
nor desire, nor project, nor employment of
body or mind, one might be apt to think him
the happiest mortal upon earth, having no-
thing to do but to enjoy himself; but we
find him, in fact, the most unhappy.
He is more weary of inaction than ever
he was of excessive labour; he is weary of
the world and of his own existence ; and is
moremiserablethan the sailor wrestling with
a storm, or the soldier mounting a breach.
This dismal state is commonly the lot of
the man who has neither exercise of body
nor employment of mind; for the mind, like
water, corrupts and putrifies by stagnation,
but, by running, purifies and refines."
Besides the appetites which nature hath
given us for useful and necessary purposes,
we may create appetites which nature never
gave. [128]
The frequent use of things which stimu-
late the nervous system, produces a lan-
guor when their effect is gone off, and a
desire to repeat them. By this means, a
desire of a certain object is created, accom-
panied by an uneasy sensation. Both are
removed for a time by the object desired;
but they return after a certain interval.
This differs from natural appetite only in
being acquired by custom. Such are the
appetites which some men acquire for the use
of tobacco, for opiates, and for intoxicating
liquors.
These are commonly called habits, and
justly. But there are different kinds of
habits, even of the active sort, which ought
to be distinguished. Some habits produce
only a facility of doing a thing, without any
inclination to do it. All arts are habits of
this kind; but they cannot be called prin-
ciples of action. Other habits produce a
proneness to do an action, without thought
or intention. These we considered before
as mechanical principles of action. There
are other habits which produce a desire of a
certain object, and an uneasy sensation till
it is obtained. It is this last kind only that
I call acquired appetites.
As it is best to preserve our natural appe-
tites in that tone and degree of strength
which mature gives them, so we ought to
beware of acquiring appetites which nature
never gave. They are always useless, and
very often hurtful.
* The true theory of Pleasure and Pain affords a
solution of this and of many other psychological
phaenomena.— H. - -
[126–128]
554
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [essay in raw it.
Although, as was before observed, there
be neither virtue nor vice in acting from
appetite, there may be much of either in
the management of our appetites. [129]
When appetite is opposed by some prin-
ciple drawing a contrary way, there must
be a determination of the will, which shall
prevail, and this determination may be, in
a moral Sense, right or wrong.
Appetite, even in a brute-animal, may
be restrained by a stronger principle op-
posed to it. A dog, when he is hungry and
has meat set before him, may be kept from
touching it by the fear of immediate punish-
ment. In this case his fear operates more
strongly than his desire.
Do we attribute any virtue to the dog on
this account P I think not. Nor should we
*--. ,
ing force. This requires no exertion, no
self-government, but passively to yield to
the strongest impulse. This, I think,
brutes always do ; therefore we attribute
to them neither virtue nor vice. We con-
sider them as being neither objects of mo-
ral approbation, nor disapprobation.
But it may happen that, when appetite
draws one way, it may be opposed, not by
any appetite or passion, but by some cool
principle of action, which has authority
without any impulsive force—for example,
by some interest which is too distant to
raise any passion or emotion, or by some
consideration of decency or of duty.
In cases of this kind, the man is con-
vinced that he ought not to yield to appetite,
yet there is not an equal or a greater im-
pulse to oppose it. There are circum-
stances, indeed, that convince the judgment;
but these are not sufficient to determine
the will against a strong appetite, without
self-government. [130] *
I apprehend that brute-animals have no
power of self-government. From their con-
stitution, they must be led by the appetite
or passion which is strongest for the time.
On this account, they have, in all ages,
and among all nations, been thought inca-
pable of being governed by laws, though
some of them may be subjects of disci-
pline.
The same would be the condition of man,
if he had no power to restrain appetite but
by a stronger contrary appetite or passion.
It would be to no purpose to préscribe laws
to him for the government of his actions.
You might as well forbid the wind to blow,
as forbid him to follow whatever happens
to give the strongest present impulse.
Every one knows that when appetite
draws one way, duty, decency, or even in-
terest, may draw the contrary way; and
that appetite may give a stronger impulse
than any one of these, or even all of them
conjoined. Yet it is certain, that, in every
case of this kind, appetite ought to yield to
any of these principles when it stands op-
posed to them. It is in such cases that
self-government is necessary. -
The man who suffers himself to be led by
appetite to do what he knows, he ought not
to do, has an immediate and matural con-
viction that he did wrong, and might have
done otherwise ; and therefore he condemns
himself, and confesses that he yielded to an
appetite which ought to have been under
his command.
Thus it appears, that, though our natural
appetites have in themselves neither virtue
nor vice, though the acting merely from ap-
petite, when there is no principle of greater
authority to oppose it, be a matter indiffer-
ent ; yet there may be a great deal of vir-
tue or of vice in the management of our
appetites; and that the power of self-govern-
#. is necessary for their regulation.
13] ]
CHAPTER II.
OF DESIRIES.
ANOTHER class of animal principles of
action in man, I shall, for want of a better
specific name, call desires.
They are distinguished from appetites by
this : That there is not an uneasy sensa-
tion proper to each, and always accompany-
ing it ; and that they are not periodical,
but constant, not being sated with their ob-
jects for a time, as appetites are.
The desires I have in view, are chiefly
these three—the desire of power, the de-
sire of esteem, and the desire of knowledge.
We may, I think, perceive some degree
of these principles in brute-animals of the
more Sagacious kind ; but in man they are
much more conspicuous, and have a larger
sphere. -
In a herd of black cattle, there is a rank
and subordination. When a stranger is in-
troduced into the herd, he must fight every
one till his rank is settled. Then he yields
to the stronger and assumes authority over
the weaker. The case is much the same
in the crew of a ship of war.
As soon as men associate together, the
desire of superiority discovers itself. In
barbarous tribes, as well as among the gre-
garious kinds of animals, rank is determined
by strength, courage, swiftness, or such
other qualities. Among civilized nations,
many things of a different kind give power
and rank—places in government, titles of
honour, riches, wisdom, eloquence, virtue,
and even the reputation of these. All these
are either different species of power, or
means of acquiring it; and when they are
[129–1317
CHAP. II.]
555
OF DESIRES.
sought for that end, must be considered as
instances of the desire of power. [132]
The desire of esteem is not peculiar to
man. A dog exults in the approbation and
applause of his master, and is humbled by
his displeasure. But in man this desire is
much more conspicuous, and operates in a
thousand different ways.
Hence it is that so very few are proof
against flattery, when it is not very gross.
We wish to be well in the opinion of
others, and therefore are prone to inter-
pret in our own favour, the signs of their
good opinion, even when they are ambi-
guous.
There are few injuries that are not
more easy to be borne than contempt.
We cannot always avoid seeing, in the
conduct of others, things that move con-
tempt ; but, in all polite circles, the signs
of it must be suppressed, otherwise men
could not converse together.
As there is no quality, common to good
and bad men, more esteemed than courage,
nor anything in a man more the object
of contempt than cowardice, hence every
man desires to be thought a man of cou-
rage; and the reputation of cowardice is
worse than death. How many have died
to avoid being thought cowards 2 How
many, for the same reason, have done
what made them unhappy to the end of
their lives.
I believe many a tragical event, if traced
to its source in human nature, might be
referred to the desire of esteem, or the
dread of contempt. [133]
In brute animals there is so little that
can be called knowledge, that the desire of
it can make no considerable figure in them.
Yet I have seen a cat, when brought into
a new habitation, examine with care every
corner of it, and anxious to know every
lurking place, and the avenues to it. And
I believe the same thing may be observed
in many other species, especially in those
that are liable to be hunted by man or by
other animals.
But the desire of knowledge in the human
species, is a principle that cannot escape
our observation. -
The curiosity of children is the principle
that occupies most of their time while they
are awake. What they can handle they
examine on all sides, and often break in
pieces, in order to discover what is within.
When men grow up, their curiosity does
not cease, but is employed upon other ob-
jects. Novelty is considered as one great
source of the pleasures of taste, and indeed
is necessary, in one degree or other, to give
a relish to them all.
When we speak of the desire of know-
ledge as a principle of action in man, we
must not confine it to the pursuits of the
philosopher, or of the literary man. The
desire of knowledge discovers itself, in one
person, by an avidity to know the scandal
of the village, and who makes love, and to
whom ; in another, to know the economy
of the next family ; in another, to know
what the post brings; and, in another, to
trace the path of a new comet.
When men shew an anxiety, and take
pains to know what is of no moment, and
can be of no use to themselves or to others,
this is trifling, and vain curiosity. It is a
culpable weakness and folly; but still it is
the wrong direction of a natural principle,
and shews the force of that principle more
than when it is directed to matters worthy
to be known. [134]
I think it unnecessary to use arguments
to shew that the desires of power, of esteem,
and of knowledge, are natural principles in
the constitution of man. Those who are
not convinced of this by reflecting upon
their own feelings and sentiments, will not
easily be convinced by arguments.
Power, esteem, and knowledge, are so
useful for many purposes, that it is easy to
resolve the desire of them into other prin-
ciples. Those who do so must maintain,
that we never desire these objects for their
own sakes, but as means only of procuring
pleasure, or something which is a natural
object of desire. This, indeed, was the
doctrine of Epicurus : and it has had its
votaries in modern times. But it has been
observed, that men desire posthumous fame,
which can procure no pleasure.
Epicurus himself, though he believed that
he should have no existence after death,
was so desirous to be remembered with
esteem, that, by his last will, he appointed
his heirs to commemorate his birth annually,
and to give a monthly feast to his disciples,
upon the twentieth day of the moon. What
pleasure could this give to Epicurus when
he had no existence 2 On this account,
Cicero justly observes, that his doctrine was
refuted by his own practice.
Innumerable instances occur in life, of
men who sacrifice ease, pleasure, and every-
thing else, to the lust of power, of fame,
or even of knowledge. It is absurd to sup-
pose that men should sacrifice the end to
what they desire only as the means of pro-
moting that end. [135]
The natural desires I have mentioned
are, in themselves, neither virtuous nor
vicious. They are parts of our constitu-
tion, and ought to be regulated and re-
strained, when they stand in competition
with more important principles. But to
eradicate them, if it were possible, (and I
believe it is not,) would only be like cutting
off a leg or an arm—that is, making our-
Selves other creatures than God has made
ll.S.
[132–135]
556
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [Essay 111.—PART II.
They cannot, with propriety, be called
selfish principles, though they have com-
monly been accounted such.
When power is desired for its own sake,
and not as the means in order to obtain
something else, this desire is neither selfish
nor social. When a man desires power as
the means of doing good to others, this is
benevolence. When he desires it only as
the means of promoting his own good, this
is self-love. But when he desires it for its
own sake, this only can properly be called
the desire of power; and it implies neither
self-love nor benevolence. The same thing
may be applied to the desires of esteem and
of knowledge.
The wise intention of nature in giving us
these desires, is no less evident than in
giving our natural appetites.
Without the natural appetites, reason, as
was before observed, would be insufficient,
either for the preservation of the individual
or the continuation of the species; and
without the natural desires we have men-
tioned, human virtue would be insufficient
to influence mankind to a tolerable conduct
in Society.
To these natural desires, common to good
and to bad men, it is owing, that a man,
who has little or no regard to virtue, may
notwithstanding be a good member of so-
ciety. It is true, indeed, that perfect virtue,
joined with perfect knowledge, would make
both our appetites and desires unnecessary
incumbrances of our nature ; but, as human
knowledge and human virtue are both very
imperfect, these appetites and desires are
tºº supplements to our imperfections.
136
Society, among men, could not subsist
without a certain degree of that regularity
of conduct which virtue prescribes. To
this regularity of conduct, men who have
no virtue are induced by a regard to cha-
racter, sometimes by a regard to interest.
Even in those who are not destitute of
virtue, a regard to character is often an
useful auxiliary to it, when both principles
concur in their direction.
The pursuits of power, of fame, and of
knowledge, require a self-command no less
than virtue does. In our behaviour towards
our fellow-creatures, they generally lead to
that very conduct which virtue requires.
I say generally, for this, no doubt, admits
of exceptions, especially in the case of am-
bition, or the desire of power.
The evils which ambition has produced
in the world are a common topic of declam-
ation. But it ought to be observed that,
where it has led to one action hurtful to
Society, it has led to ten thousand that are
beneficial to it. And we justly look upon
the want of ambition as one of the most
unfavourable symptoms in a man's temper.
The desires of esteem and of knowledge
are highly useful to society, as well as the
desire of power, and, at the same time, are
less dangerous in their excesses.
Although actions proceeding merely from
the love of power, of reputation, or of know-
ledge, cannot be accounted virtuous, or be
entitled to moral approbation; yet we allow
them to be manly, ingenuous, and suited to
the dignity of human nature; and, there-
fore, they are entitled to a degree of esti-
mation stiperior to those which proceed
from mere appetite. [137]
Alexander the Great deserved that epi-
thet in the early part of his life, when ease
and pleasure, and every appetite, were sac-
rificed to the love of glory and power. But
when we view him conquered by oriental
luxury, and using his power to gratify his
passions and appetites, he sinks in our
esteem, and seems to forfeit the title which
he had acquired.
Sardanapalus, who is said to have pur-
sued pleasure as eagerly as Alexander pur-
sued glory, never obtained from mankind
the appellation of the Great.
Appetite is the principle of most of the
actions of brutes, and we account it brutal
in a man to employ himself chiefly in the
gratification of his appetites. The desires
of power, of esteem, and of knowledge, are
capital parts in the constitution of man; and
the actions proceeding from them, though not
properly virtuous, are human and manly;
and they claim a just superiority over those
that proceed from appetite. This, I think,
is the universal and unbiassed judgment of
mankind. Upon what ground this judg-
ment is founded may deserve to be consi-
dered in its proper place.
The desires we have mentioned are not
only highly useful in society, and in their
nature more noble than our appetites—they
are likewise the most proper engines that
can be used in the education and discipline
of men.
In training brute-animals to such habits
as they are capable of, the fear of punish-
ment is the chief instrument to be used.
But, in training men of ingenuous disposi-
tion, ambition to excel, and the love of
esteem, are much nobler and more power-
ful engines, by which they may be led to
tº conduct. and trained to good habits.
138]
To this we may add, that the desires we
have mentioned are very friendly to real
virtue, and make it more easy to be ac-
quired.
A man that is not quite abandoned must
behave so in society as to preserve some
degree of reputation. This every man
desires to do, and the greater part actually
do it. In order to this, he must acquire
the habit of restraining his appetites and
*... * | 136–138]
an AP. II.]
557
OF DESIRES.
passions within the bounds which common
decency requires, and so as to make himself
a tolerable member of society, if not an use-
ful and agreeable one.
It cannot be doubted that many, from a
regard to character and to the opinion of
others, are led to make themselves both
useful and agreeable members of society, in
whom a sense of duty has but a small in-
fluence.
Thus men, living in Society, especially in
polished society, are tamed and civilized by
the principles that are common to good and
bad men. They are taught to bring their
appetites and passions under due restraint
before the eyes of men, which makes it
more easy to bring them under the rein of
virtue.
As a horse that is broken is more easily
managed than an unbroken colt, so the man
who has undergone the discipline of society
is more tractable, and is in an excellent
state of preparation for the discipline of
virtue ; and that self-command, which is
necessary in the race of ambition and honour,
is an attainment of no Small importance in
the course of virtue. [139]
For this reason, I apprehend, they err
very grossly who conceive the life of a her-
mit to be favourable to a course of virtue.
The hermit, no doubt, is free from some
temptations to vice, but he is deprived of
many strong inducements to self-govern-
ment, as well as of every opportunity of
exercising the social virtues."
A very ingenious authori has resolved
our moral sentiments respecting the virtues
of self-government, into a regard to the opin-
ion of men. This, I think, is giving a great
deal too much to the love of esteem, and
putting the shadow of virtue in place of the
Substance; but that a regard to the opinion
of others is, in most instances of our exter-
nal behaviour, a great inducement to good
conduct, cannot be doubted. For, whatever
men may practice themselves, they will al-
ways approve of that in others which they
think right.
It was before observed, that, besides the
appetites which nature has given us, we
may acquire appetites which, by indulgence,
become as importunate as the natural. The
same thing may be applied to desires.
One of the most remarkable acquired de-
sires is that of money, which, in commer-
cial states, will be found in most men, in
one degree or other, and, in some men,
swallows up every other desire, appetite,
and passion.
The desire of money can then only be ac-
counted a principle of action, when it is de-
sired for its own sake, and not merely as
the means of procuring something else.
It is evident that there is in misers such
a desire of money; and, I suppose, no man
will say that it is natural, or a part of our
original constitution. It seems to be the
effect of habit. [140]
In commercial nations, money is an in-
strument by which almost everything may
be procured that is desired. Being useful
for many different purposes as the means,
some men lose sight of the end, and termi-
nate their desire upon the means. Money
is also a species of power, putting a man in
condition to do many things which he could
not do without it ; and power is a natural
object of desire, even when it is not exer-
cised.
In like manner, a man may acquire the
desire of a title of honour, of an equipage,
of an estate.
Although our natural desires are highly
beneficial to society, and even aiding to vir-
tue, yet acquired desires are not only use-
less, but hurtful and even disgraceful.
No man is ashamed to own that he loves
power, that he loves esteem, that he loves
knowledge, for their own sake. There may
be an excess in the love of these things,
which is a blemish ; but there is a degree
of it which is natural, and is no blemish.
To love money, titles, or equipage, on any
other account than as they are useful or or-
namental, is allowed by all to be weakness
and folly.
The natural desires I have been consi-
dering, though they cannot be called social
principles of action in the common sense of
that word, since it is not their object to
procure any good or benefit to others, yet
they have such a relation to society as to
shew most evidently the intention of Nature
to be, that man should live in Society.
The desire of knowledge is not more na-
tural than is the desire of communicating
our knowledge." Even power would be
less valued if there were no opportunity of
shewing it to others. It derives half its
value from that circumstance. And as to
the desire of esteem, it can have no possible
gratification but in society. [14]]
These parts of our constitution, therefore,
are evidently intended for social life; and
it is not more evident that birds were made
for flying and fishes for swimming, than
that man, endowed with a natural desire of
power, of esteem, and of knowledge, is made,
not for the savage and solitary state, but
for living in society. T
3: The solitary (says Aristotle) is either a god or a
beast.— H. -
f Adam Smith.-H.
* Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter.
Persivs, after Lucilius.-H.
f On this subject, what has been best said has
been said by Aristotle. See his Politics, Book
I'lrst.—H.
[139–141]
5
5
8
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [Essay III.--PART II.
CHAPTER III.
OF BENEVOLENT AFFECTION IN GENERAL.
WE have seen how, by iustinct and ha-
bit—a kind of mechanical principles—man,
without any expense of thought, without de-
liberation or will, is led to many actions, ne-
cessary for his preservation and well-being,
which, without those principles, all his skill
and wisdom would not have been able to ac-
complish.
It may perhaps be thought, that his deli-
berate and voluntary actions are to be guided
by his reason. --
But it ought to be observed, that he is a
voluntary agent long before he has the use
of reason. Reason and virtue, the prero-
gatives of man, are of the latest growth.
They come to maturity by slow degrees, and
are too weak, in the greater part of the spe-
cies, to secure the preservation of individu-
als and of communities, and to produce
that varied scene of human life in which
they are to be exercised and improved.
Therefore, the wise Author of our being
hath implanted in human nature many in-
ferior principles of action, which, with little
or no aid of reason or virtue, preserve the
species, and produce the various exertions,
and the various changes and revolutions
which we observe upon the theatre of life.
i 142]
In this busy scene, reason and virtue
have access to act their parts, and do often
produce great and good effects; but whe-
ther they interpose or not, there are actors
of an inferior order that will carry on the
play, and produce a variety of events, good
or bad.
Reason, if it were perfect, would lead
men to use the proper means of preserving
their own lives, and continuing their kind.
But the Author of our being hath not
thought fit to leave this task to reason alone,
otherwise the race would long ago have
been extinct. He hath given us, in com-
mon with other animals, appetites, by which
those important purposes are secured, whe-
ther men be wise or foolish, virtuous or vi-
cious.
Reason, if it were perfect, would lead
men neither to lose the benefit of their ac-
tive powers by inactivity, nor to overstrain
them by excessive labour. But Nature hath
given a powerful assistant to reason, by
making inactivity a grievous punishment
to itself; and by annexing the pain of las-
situde to excessive labour.
Reason, if it were perfect, would lead us
to desire power, knowledge, and the esteem
and affection of our fellow-men, as means
of promoting our own happiness, and of be-
ing useful to others. Here again, Nature,
to supply the defects of reason, hath given
us a strong matural desire of those objects,
which leads us to pursue them without re-
gard to their utility. -
These principles we have already consi-
dered ; and, we may observe, that all of
them have things, not persons, for their ob-
ject. They neither imply any good nor ill
affection towards any other person, nor even
towards ourselves. They cannot, therefore,
with propriety, be called either selfish or so-
cial. But there are various principles of
action in man, which have persons for their
immediate object, and imply, in their very
nature, our being well or ill affected to some
person, or, at least, to some animated be-
ing. [143]
Such principles, I shall call by the gen-
eral name of affections, whether they dis-
pose us to do good or hurt to others.
Perhaps, in giving them this general
name, I extend the meaning of the word
affection beyondits common use in discourse.
Indeed, our language seems in this to have
departed a little from analogy; for we use
the verb affect, and the participle affected,
in an indifferent sense, so that they may be
joined either with good or ill. A man may
be said to be ill affected towards another
man, or well affected. But the word affec-
tion, which, according to analogy, ought to
have the same latitude of signification with
that from which it is derived, and, there-
fore, ought to be applicable to ill affections
as well as to good, seems, by custom, to be
limited to good affections. When we speak
of having affection for any person, it is al-
ways understood to be a benevolent affec-
tion. -
Malevolent principles—such as anger,
resentment, envy—are not commonly called
affections, but rather passions.
. I take the reason of this to be, that the
malevolent affections are almost always ac-
companied with that perturbation of mind
which we properly call passion ; and this
passion, being the most conspicuous ingre-
dient, gives its name to the whole.
Even love, when it goes beyond a certain
degree, is called a passion. But it gets not
that name when it is so moderate as not to
discompose a man's mind, nor deprive him
in any measure of the government of him-
self. [144]
As we give the name of passion, even to
benevolent affection when it is so vehement
as to discompose the mind, so, I think,
without trespassing much against propriety
of words, we may give the name of affection
even to malevolent principles, when unat-
tended with that disturbance of mind which
commonly, though not always, goes along
with them, and which has made them get
the name of passions.
The principles which lead us immediately
[142–144]
chAP. III.T OF BENEVOLENT AFFECTION IN GENERAL,
559
to desire the good of others, and those that
lead us to desire their hurt, agree in this,
that persons, and not things, are their im-
mediate object. Both imply our being some
way affected towards the person. They
ought, therefore, to have some common
name to express what is common in their
nature ; and I know no name more proper
for this than affection.
Taking affection, therefore, in this exten-
sive sense, our affections are very naturally
divided into benevolent and malevolent,
according as they imply our being well or
ill affected towards their object.
There are some things common to all
benevolent affections, others wherein they
differ.
They differ both in the feeling or sensa-
tion, which is an ingredient in all of them,
and in the objects to which they are directed.
They all agree in two things—to wit,
That the feeling which accompanies them is
agreeable; and, That they imply a desire of
good and happiness to their object.
The affection we bear to a parent, to a
child, to a benefactor, to a person in dis-
tress, to a mistress, differ not more in their
object, than in the feelings they produce
in the mind. We have not names to ex-
press the differences of these feelings, but
every man is conscious of a difference. Yet,
with all this difference, they agree in being
agreeable feelings. [145]
I know no exception to this rule, if we
distinguish, as we ought, the feeling which
naturally and necessarily attends the kind
affection, from those which accidentally, in
certain circumstances, it may produce.
The parental affection is an agreeable
feeling ; but it makes the misfortune or mis-
behaviour of a child give a deeper wound to
the mind. Pity is an agreeable feeling, yet
distress, which we are not able to relieve,
may give a painful sympathy. Love to one
of the other sex is an agreeable feeling ;
but, where it does not meet with a proper
return, it may give the most pungent dis-
treSS. *
The joy and comfort of human life con-
sist in the reciprocal exercise of kind affec-
tions, and without them life would be
undesirable.
It has been observed by Lord Shaftesbury,
and by many other judicious moralists, That
even the epicure and the debauchee, who
are thought to place all their happiness in
the gratifications of sense, and to pursue
these as their only object, can find no relish
in solitary indulgences of this kind, but in
those only that are mixed with social inter-
course, and a reciprocal exchange of kind
affections.
Cicero has observed that the word convi-
vium, which in Latin signifies a feast, is
not borrowed from eating or from drinking,
but from that social intercourse which,
being the chief part of such an entertain-
ment, gives the name to the whole.
Mutual kind affections are undoubtedly
the balm of life, and of all the enjoyments
common to good and bad men, are the chief.
If a man had no person whom he loved or
esteemed, no person who loved or esteemed
him, how wretched must his condition be l
Surely a man capable of reflection would
choose to pass out of existence, rather than
to live in such a state. [146]
It has been, by the poets, represented as
the state of some bloody and barbarous
tyrants; but poets are allowed to paint a
little beyond the life. Atreus is represented
as Saying Oderint dum metuant—“I care
not for their hatred, provided they dread my
power.” I believe there never was a man
so disposed towards all mankind. The
most odious tyrant that ever was, will have
his favourites, whose affection he endeavours
to deserve or to bribe, and to whom he bears
some good wili.
We may, therefore, lay it down as a priu-
ciple, that all benevolent affections are, in
their nature, agreeable ; and that, next to
a good conscience, to which they are al-
ways friendly, and never can be adverse,
they make the capital part of human hap-
plness.
Another ingredient essential to every
benevolent affection, and from which it takes
the name, is a desire of the good and happi-
ness of the object.
The object of benevolent affection, there-
fore, must be some being capable of happi-
mess. When we speak of affection to a
house, or to any inanimate thing, the word
has a different meaning; for that which has
no capacity of enjoyment or of suffering,
may be an object of liking or disgust, but
cannot possibly be an object either of bene-
volent or malevolent affection.
A thing may be desired either on its own
account, or as the means in order to some-
thing else. That only can properly be
called an object of desire, which is desired
upon its own account; and it is only such
desires that I call principles of action. When
anything is desired as the means only, there
must be an end for which it is desired; and
the desire of the end is, in this case, the
principle of action. The means are desired
only as they tend to that end; and, if dif-
ferent, or even contrary means, tended to
the same end, they would be equally de-
sired. [147]
On this account, I consider those affec-
tions only as benevolent, where the good of
the object is desired ultimately, and not
as the means only, in order to something
else.
To say that we desire the good of others,
only in order to procure some pleasure or
[145–147]
560.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [Essay III.—PART II.
good to ourselves, is to say that there is no
benevolent affection in human nature.
This, indeed, has been the opinion of some
philosophers, both in ancient and in later
times. I intend not to examine this opinion
in this place, conceiving it proper to give
that view of the principles of action in man,
which appears to me to be just, before I
examine the systems wherein they have
been mistaken or misrepresented.
I observe only at present, that it appears
as unreasonable to resolve all our benevo-
lent affections into self-love, as it would
be to resolve hunger and thirst into self-
love.
These appetites are necessary for the
preservation of the individual. Benevolent
affections are no less necessary for the pre-
servation of Society among men, without
which man would become an easy prey to
the beasts of the field.
We are placed in this world by the Author
of our being, surrounded with many objects
that are necessary or useful to us, and with
many that may hurt us. We are led, not
by reason and self-love only, but by many
instincts, and appetites, and natural desires,
to ſº the former and to avoid the latter.
[148 g
But of all the things of this world, man
may be the most useful or the most hurtful
to man. Every man is in the power of
every man with whom he lives. Every
man has power to do much good to his
fellow-men, and to do more hurt.
We cannot live without the society of
men ; and it would be impossible to live in
society, if men were not disposed to do
much of that good to men, and but little
of that hurt, which it is in their power to
do.
But how shall this end, so necessary to
the existence of human Society, and conse-
quently to the existence of the human spe-
cies, be accomplished 2 -
If we judge from analogy, we must con-
clude that in this, as in other parts of our
conduct, our rational principles are aided
by principles of an inferior order, similar to
those by which many brute animals live in
Society with their species; and that, by
means of such principles, that degree of re-
gularity is observed, which we find in all
societies of men, whether wise or foolish,
virtuous or vicious. -
The benevolent affections planted in
human nature, appear therefore no less
necessary for the preservation of the human
species, than the appetites of hunger and
thirst.
UHAPTER IV.
of THE PARTICULAR BENEVOLENT AFFEC-
TIONS.
HAVING premised these things in general
concerning benevolent affections, I shall
now attempt some enumeration of them.
[149]
1. The first I mention is, that of parents
and children, and other near relations."
This we commonly call natural affection.
Every language has a name for it. It is
common to us with most of the brute-ani-
mals ; and is variously modified in differ-
ent animals, according as it is more or less
necessary for the preservation of the spe-
C16S, • *
Many of the insect tribe need no other
care of parents, than that the eggs be laid
in a proper place, where they shall have
neither too little nor too much heat, and
where the animal, as soon as it is hatched,
shall find its natural food. This care the
parent takes, and no more.
In other tribes, the young must be lodged
in some secret place, where they cannot be
easily discovered by their enemies. They
must be cherished by the warmth of the
parent’s body. They must be suckled, and
fed at first with tender food; attended in
their excursions, and guarded from danger,
till they have learned, by experience, and by
the example of their parents, to provide for
their own subsistence and safety. With
what assiduity and tender affection this is
done by the parents, in every species that
requires it, is well known.
The eggs of the feathered tribe are com-
monly hatched by incubation of the dam,
who leaves off at once her sprightly motions
and migrations, and confines herself to her
solitary and painful task, cheered by the
song of her mate upon a neighbouringbough,
and sometimes fed by him, sometimes re-
lieved in her incubation, while she gathers
a scanty meal, and with the greatest dispatch
returns to her post. [150]
The young birds of many species are so
very tender and delicate, that man, with all
his wisdom and experience, would not be
able to rear one to maturity. . But the
parents, without any experience, know per-
fectly how to rear sometimes a dozen or
more at one brood, and to give every one
its portion in due season. They know the
food best suited to their delicate constitu-
tion, which is sometimes afforded by nature,
sometimes must be cooked and half digested
in the stomach of the parent.
In some animals, nature hath furnished
the female with a kind of second womb, into
+ XTogy?.-H.
[148–150]
chap. Iv.] OF PARTICULAR BENEVOLENT AFFECTIONS.
561
which the young retire occasionally, for
food, warmth, and the conveniency of being
carried about with the mother.
It would be endless to recount all the
various ways in which the parental affection
is expressed by brute-animals.
He must, in my apprehension, have a
very strange complexion of understanding,
who can Survey the various ways in which
the young of the various species are reared,
without wonder, without pious admiration
of that manifold wisdom which hath so
skilfully fitted means to ends, in such an
infinite variety of ways.
In all the brute-animals we are ac-
quainted with, the end of the parental affec-
tion is completely answered in a short time;
and then it ceases as if it had never been.
The infancy of man is longer and more
helpless than that of any other animal. The
parental affection is necessary for many
years; it is highly useful through life; and
therefore it terminates only with life. It
extends to children's children, without any
diminution of its force.
How common is it to see a young woman,
in the gayest period of life, who has spent
her days in mirth, and her nights in pro-
found sleep, without solicitude or care, all
at once transformed into the careful, the
solicitous, the watchful nurse of her dear
infant: doing nothing by day but gazing
upon it, and serving it in the meanest
offices; by night, depriving herself of sound
sleep for months, that it may lie safe in her
arms. Forgetful of herself, her whole care
is centred in this little object. [I5]]
Such a sudden transformation of her
whole habits, and occupation, and turn of
mind, if we did not see it every day, would
appear a more wonderful metamorphosis
than any that Ovid has described.
This, however, is the work of nature,
and not the effect of reason and reflection.
For we see it in the good and in the bad,
in the most thoughtless as well as in the
thoughtful.
Nature has assigned different depart-
ments to the father and mother in rearing
their offspring. This may be seen in many
brute animals; and that it is so in the hu-
man species, was long ago observed by So-
crates, and most beautifully illustrated by
him, as we learn from Xenophon's CEcono-
micks. The parental affection in the dif-
ferent sexes is exactly adapted to the office
assigned to each. The father would make
an awkward nurse to a new-born child, and
the mother too indulgent a guardian. But
both act with propriety and grace in their
proper sphere.
It is very remarkable that, when the
office of rearing a child is transferred from
the parent to another person, nature seems
to transfer the affection along with the
office. A wet nurse, or even a dry nurse,
has commonly the same affection for her
nursling as if she had borne it. The fact is
so well known that nothing needs be said to
confirm it ; and it seems to be the work of
nature.
Our affections are not immediately in our
power, as our outward actions are. Nature
has directed them to certain objects. We
may do kind offices without affection; but
we cannot create an affection which nature
has not given. [152]
Reason might teach a man that lis
children are particularly committed to his
care by the providence of God, and, on that
account, that he ought to attend to them as
his particular charge; but reason could not
teach him to love them more than other child-
ren of equal merit, or to be more afflicted
for their misfortunes or misbehaviour.
It is evident, therefore, that that peculiar
sensibility of affection, with regard to his
own children, is not the effect of reasoning
or reflection, but the effect of that constitu-
tion which nature has given him.
There are some affections which we may
call rational, because they are grounded
upon an opinion of merit in the object. The
parental affection is not of this kind. . For,
though a man's affection to his child may
be increased by merit, and diminished by
demerit, I think no man will say, that it
took its rise from an opinion of merit. It is
not opinion that creates the affection, but
affection often creates opinion. It is apt
to pervert the judgment, and create an
opinion of merit where there is none.
The absolute necessity of this parental
affection, in order to the continuance of the
human species, is so apparent that there is
no need of arguments to prove it. The
rearing of a child from its birth to maturity
requires so much time and care, and such
infinite attentions, that, if it were to be done
merely from considerations of reason and
duty, and were not sweetened by affection
in parents, nurses, and guardians, there is
reason to doubt whether one child in ter.
thousand would ever be reared. [153]
Beside the absolute necessity of this part
of the human constitution to the preserva-
tion of the species, its utility is very great,
for tempering the giddiness and impetuosity
of youth, and improving its knowledge by
the prudence and experience of age, for en-
couraging industry and frugality, in the
parents, in order to provide for their child-
ren, for the solace and support of parents
under the infirmities of old age ; not to
mention that it probably gave rise to the
first civil governments.
It does not appear that the parental, and
other family affections, are, in general,
either too strong or too weak for answer-
ing their end, If they were too weak,
[151–153]
2 O
562
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [Essay III.-PART II.
parents would be most apt to err on the
side of undue severity ; if too strong, of
undue indulgence. As they are in fact, I
believe no man can say that the errors are
more general on one side than on the other.
When these affections are exerted ac-
cording to their intention, under the direc-
tion of wisdom and prudence, the eco-
nomy of such a family is a most delightful
spectacle, and furnishes the most agreeable
and affecting subject to the pencil of the
painter, and to the pen of the orator and
poet. -
2. The newt benevolent affection I men-
tion, is Gratitude to Benefactors.
That good offices are, by the very con-
stitution of our nature, apt to produce good
will towards the benefactor, in good and
bad men, in the savage and in the civilized,
cannot surely be denied by any one in the
least acquainted with human nature.
The danger of perverting a man's judg-
ment by good deeds, where he ought to
have no bias, is so well known that it is
dishonourable in judges, in witnesses, in
electors to offices of trust, to accept of
them ; and, in all civilized nations, they
are, in such cases, prohibited, as the means
of corruption. [154]
Those who would corrupt the sentence
of a judge, the testimony of a witness, or
the vote of an elector, know well, that they
must not make a bargain, or stipulate what
is to be done in return. This would shock
every man who has the least pretension to
morals. If the person can only be pre-
vailed upon to accept the good office, as a
testimony of pure and disinterested friend-
ship, it is icft to work upon his gratitude.
He finds himself under a kind of moral
obligation to consider the cause of his bene-
factor and friend in the most favourable
light. He finds it easier to justify his con-
duct to himself, by favouring the interest
of his benefactor, than by opposing it.
Thus the principle of gratitude is sup-
posed, even in the nature of a bribe. Bad
men know how to make this natural prin-
ciple the most effectual means of corrup-
tion. The very best things may be turned
to a bad use. But the natural tendency
of this principle, and the intention of nature
in planting it in the human breast, are,
evidently to promote good-will among men,
and to give to good offices the power of
multiplying their kind, like seed sown in
the earth, which brings a return, with in-
CreaSC.
Whether there be, or be not, in the
more Sagacious brutes, something that may
be called gratitude, I will not dispute. We
must allow this important difference be-
tween their gratitude and that of the human
kind, that, in the last, the mind of the bene-
factor is chiefly regarded, in the first, the
external action only. A brute-animal will
be as kindly affected to him who feeds it in
order to kill and eat it, as to him who does
it from affection.
A man may be justly entitled to our gra-
titude, for an office that is useful, though
it be, at the same time, disagreeable ; and
not only for doing, but for forbearing what
he had a right to do. Among men, it is
not every beneficial office that claims our
gratitude, but such only as are not due to
us in justice. [155] A favour alone gives
a claim to gratitude; and a favour must be
something more than justice requires. It
does not appear that brutes have any con-
ception of justice. They can neither dis-
tinguish hurt from injury, nor a favour
from a good office that is due.
3. A third natural benevolent affection
is Pity and Compassion towards the Dis-
tressed.
Of all persons, those in distress stand
most in need of our good offices. And, for
that reason, the Author of nature hath
planted in the breast of every human crea-
ture a powerful advocate to plead their
CallSC.
In man, and in some other animals, there
are signs of distress, which nature hath
both taught them to use, and taught all
men to understand without any interpreter.
These natural signs are more eloquent than
language ; they move our hearts, and pro-
duce a sympathy, and a desire to give re-
lief.
There are few hearts so hard, but great
distress will conquer their anger, their in-
dignation, and every malevolent affection.
We sympathise even with the traitor and
with the assassin, when we see him led to
execution. It is only self-preservation and
the public good, that makes us reluctantly
assent to his being cut off from among
IſiGI1.
The practice of the Canadian nations
towards their prisoners would tempt one
to think that they have been able to root
out the principle of compassion from their
nature. But this, I apprehend, would be
a rash conclusion. It is only a part of the
prisoners of war that they devote to a
cruel death. This gratifies the revenge of
the women and children who have lost their
husbands and fathers in the war. The
other prisoners are kindly used, and adopted
as brethren. [156]
Compassion with bodily pain is no doubt
weakened among these savages, because
they are trained from their infancy to be
superior to death, and to every degree of
pain ; and he is thought unworthy of the
name of a man, who cannot defy his tor-
mentors, and sing his death-song in the
midst of the most cruel tortures. He who
can do this, is honoured as a brave man,
-- [154–1567
chap. Iv.] OF PARTICULAR BENEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 563
though an enemy. But he must perish in
the experiment.
A Canadian has the most perfect con-
tempt for every man who thinks pain an
intolerable evil. And nothing is so apt to
stifle compassion as contempt, and an ap-
prehension that the evil suffered is nothing
but what ought to be manfully borne.
It must also be observed, that savages
set no bounds to their revenge. Those who
find no protection in laws and government
Inever think themselves safe, but in the
destruction of their enemy. And one of
the chief advantages of civil government is,
that it tempers the cruel passion of re-
venge, and opens the heart to compassion
with every human wo.
It seems to be false religion only, that is
able to check the tear of compassion.
We are told, that, in Portugal and Spain,
a man condemned to be burned as an ob-
stinate heretic, meets with no compassion,
even from the multitude. It is true, they
are taught to look upon him as an enemy to
God, and doomed to hell-fire. But should
not this very circumstance move compas-
sion ? Surely it would, if they were not
taught that, in this case, it is a crime to
shew compassion, or even to feel it.
4. A fourth benevolent affection is, Esteem
of the Wise and the "Good. [157]
The worst men cannot avoid feeling this
in some degree. Esteem, veneration, de-
votion, are different degrees of the same
affection. The perfection of wisdom, power,
and goodness, which belongs only to the
Almighty, is the object of the last.
It may be a doubt whether this principle
of esteem, as well as that of gratitude, ought
to be ranked in the order of animal prin-
ciples, or if they ought not rather to be
placed in a higher order." They are cer-
tainly more allied to the rational nature
than the others that have been named ;
nor is it evident that there is anything in
brute animals that deserves the same name.
There is indeed a subordination in a herd
of cattle, and in a flock of sheep, which, I
believe, is determined by strength and
courage, as it is among savage tribes of
Inen. I have been informed that, in a
pack of hounds, a stanch hound acquires a
degree of esteem in the pack; so that, when
the dogs are wandering in quest of the scent,
if he opens, the pack immediately closes in
with him, when they would not regard the
opening of a dog of no reputation. This is
something like a respect to wisdom.
But I have placed esteem of the wise and
good in the order of animal principles, not
from any persuasion that it is to be found
in brute-animals, but because, I think, it
appears in the most unimproved and in the
* See above, p 551, b, note %.—H.
most degenerate part of our species, even in
those in whom we hardly perceive any ex-
ertion, either of reason or virtue.
I will not, however, dispute with any
man who thinks that it deserves a more
honourable name than that of an animal
principle. It is of small importance what
name we give it, if we are satisfied that
that there is such a principle in the human
constitution. [158]
5. Friendship is another benevolent
affection.
Of this we have some instances famous in
history—few indeed, but sufficient to shew
that human nature is susceptible of that
extraordinary attachment, sympathy, and
affection, to one or a few persons, which the
ancients thought alone worthy of the name
of friendship.
The Epicureans found it very difficult to
reconcile the existence of friendship to the
principles of their sect. They were not so
bold as to deny its existence. They even
boasted that there had been more attach-
ments of that kind between Epicureans than
in any other sect. But the difficulty was,
to account for real friendship upon Epicu-
rean principles. They went into different
hypotheses upon this point, three of which
are explained by Torquatus the Epicurean,
in Cicero's book, “De Finibus.”
Cicero, in his reply to Torquatus, ex-
amines all the three, and shews them all
to be either inconsistent with the nature of
true friendship, or inconsistent with the
fundamental principles of the Epicurean
Sect.
As to the friendship which the Epicu-
reans boasted of among those of their sect,
Cicero does not question the fact, but ob-
serves that, as there are many whose prac-
tice is worse than their principles, so there
are some whose principles are worse than
their practice, and that the bad principles
of these Epicureans were overcome by the
goodness of their nature. -
6. Among the benevolent affections, the
passion of Love between the Sewes cannot be
overlooked.
Although it is commonly the theme of
poéts, it is not unworthy of the pen of the
philosopher, as it is a most important part
of the human constitution. [159] -
It is no doubt made up of various in-
gredients, as many other principles of action
are ; but it certainly cannot exist without a
very strong benevolent affection towards
its object, in whom it finds, or conceives,
everything that is amiable and excellent, and
even something more than human. I con-
sider it here only as a henevolent affection
natural to man. And that it is So, no man
can doubt who ever felt its force.
It is evidently intended by nature to
direct a man in the choice of a mate, with
[157–159]
2 (; 2
564
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [Essay III.-PART II.
whom he desires to live, and to rear an off-
spring.
It has effectually secured this end in all
ages, and in every state of society.
The passion of love, and the parental
affection, are counterparts to each other ;
and when they are conducted with pru-
dence, and meet with a proper return, are
the source of all domestic felicity, the
greatest, next to that of a good conscience,
which this world affords.
As, in the present state of things, pain
often dwells near to pleasure, and Sorrow
to joy, it needs not be thought strange
that a passion, fitted and intended by nature
to yield the greatest worldly felicity, should,
by being ill-regulated or wrong directed,
prove the occasion of the most pungent
distress.
But its joys and its griefs, its different
modifications in the different sexes, and its
influence upon the character of both, though
very important subjects, are fitter to be
sung than said; and I leave them to those
who have slept upon the two-topped Par-
nassus. [160]
7. The last benevolent affection I shall
mention is, what we commonly call Public
Spirit, that is, an affection to any community
to which we belong.
If there be any man quite destitute of
this affection, he must be as great a monster
as a man born with two heads. Its effects
are manifest in the whole of human life,
and in the history of all nations.
The situation of a great part of mankind,
indeed, is such, that their thoughts and
views must be confined within a very nar-
row sphere, and be very much engrossed
by their private concerns. With regard to
an extensive public, such as a state or
nation, they are like a drop to the ocean,
so that they have rarely an opportunity of
acting with a view to it.
In many, whose actions may affect the
public, and whose rank and station lead
them to think of it, private passions may be
an overmatch for public spirit. All that can
be inferred from this is, that their public
spirit is weak, not that it does not exist.
If a man wishes well to the public, and
is ready to do good to it rather than hurt,
when it costs him nothing, he has some
affection to it, though it may be scandalously
weak in degree.
I believe every man has it in one degree
or another. What man is there who does
not resent satirical reflections upon his
country, or upon any community of which
he is a member 2
Whether the affection be to a college or
to a cloister, to a clan or to a profession,
to a party or to a nation, it is public spirit.
These affections differ, not in kind, but in
the extent of their object. [16]]
The object extends as our connections
extend ; and a sense of the connection car-
ries the affection along with it to every
community to which we can apply the pro-
nouns we and ow?'. -
“Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace,
His country next, and then all human race.”—Pope.
Even in the misanthrope, this affection
is not extinguished. It is overpowered by
the apprehension he has of the worthless-
ness, the baseness, and the ingratitude of
mankind. Convince him that there is any
amiable quality in the species, and imme-
diately his philanthropy revives, and rejoices
to find an object on which it can exert it-
self.
Public spirit has this in common with
every subordinate principle of action—that,
when it is not under the government of
reason and virtue, it may produce much
evil as well as good. Yet, where there is
least of reason and virtue to regulate it, its
good far overbalances its ill.
It sometimes kindles or inflames animo-
sities between communities or contending
parties, and makes them treat each other
with little regard to justice. It kindles
wars between nations, and makes them
destroy one another for trifling causes. But,
without it, society could not subsist, and
every community would be a rope of sand.
When under the direction of reason and
virtue, it is the very image of God in the
soul. It diffuses its benign influence as far
as its power extends, and participates in the
happiness of God, and of the whole creation.
These are the benevolent affections which
appear to me to be parts of the human con-
stitution. [162]
If any one thinks the enumeration in-
complete, and that there are matural bene-
volent affections, which are not included
under any of those that have been named,
I shall very readily listen to such a cor-
rection, being sensible that such enumera-
tions are very often incomplete.
If others should think that any, or all,
the affections I have named, are acquired
by education, or by habits and associations
grounded on self-love, and are not original
parts of our constitution; this is a point
upon which, indeed, there has been much
Subtile disputation in ancient and modern
times, and which, I believe, must be de-
termined from what a man, by careful re-
flection, may feel in himself, rather than
from what he observes in others. But I
decline entering into this dispute, till I
shall have explained that primciple of action
which we commonly call self-love.
I shall conclude this subject with some
reflections upon the benevolent affections.
The first is, That all of them, in as far
as they are benevolent, in which view only
I consider them, agree very much in the
[160–162]
chap. Iv.] OF PARTICULAR BENEVOLENT AFFECTIONS.
565.
conduct they dispose us to, with regard to
their objects.
They dispose us to do them good as far
as we have power and opportunity; to wish
them well, when we can do them no good ;
to judge favourably, and often partially, of
them ; to sympathise with them in their
afflictions and calamities; and to rejoice
with them in their happiness and good
fortune.
It is impossible that there can be bene-
volent affection without sympathy both
with the good and bad fortune of the object;
and it appears to be impossible that there
can be sympathy without benevolent affec-
tion. Men do not sympathise with one
whom they hate ; nor even with one to
whose good or ill they are perfectly indif-
ferent. [163]
We may sympathise with a perfect
stranger, or even with an enemy whom we
See in distress; but this is the effect of
pity; and, if we did not pity him, we should
not sympathise with him. -
I take notice of this the rather, because
a very ingenious author," in his “Theory
of Moral Sentiments,” gives a very differ-
ent account of the origin of Sympathy. It
appears to me to be the effect of benevolent
affection, and to be inseparable from it.
A second reflection is, That the constitu-
tion of our nature very powerfully invites
us to cherish and cultivate in our minds the
benevolent affections.
The agreeable feeling which always at-
tends them as a present reward, appears to
be intended by nature for this purpose.
Benevolence, from its nature, composes
the mind, warms the heart, enlivens the
whole frame, and brightens every feature of
the countenance. It may justly be said to
be medicinal both to soul and body. We
are bound to it by duty ; we are invited to
it by interest; and because both these cords
are often feeble, we have matural kind affec-
tions to aid them in their operation, and
supply their defects; and these affections
are joined with a manly pleasure in their
exertion.
A third reflection is, That the natural
benevolent affections furnish the most irre-
sistible proof that the Author of our nature
intended that we should live in society, and
do good to our fellow-men as we have oppor-
tunity; since this great and important part
of the human constitution has a manifest
relation to Society, and can have no exer-
cise nor use in a solitary state,
The last reflection is, That the different
principles of action have different degrees
of dignity, and rise one above another in
our estimation, when we make them objects
of contemplation. [164]
* Adam Smith.-H.
We ascribe no dignity to instincts or to
habits. They lead us only to admire the
wisdom of the Creator, in adapting them so
perfectly to the manner of life of the dif-
ferent animals in which they are found.
Much the same may be said of appetites:
They serve rather for use than ornament.
The desires of knowledge, of power, and
of esteem, rise higher in our estimation,
and we consider them as giving dignity and
ornament to man. The actions proceeding
from them, though not properly virtuous,
are manly and respectable, and claim a just
superiority over those that proceed merely
from appetite. This, I think, is the uni-
form judgment of mankind.
If we apply the same kind of judgment
to our benevolent affections, they appear
not only manly and respectable, but amiable
in a high degree.
They are amiable even in brute animals.
We love the meekness of the lamb, the
gentleness of the dove, the affection of a dog
to his master. We cannot, without pleasure,
observe the timid ewe, who never shewed
the least degree of courage in her own de-
fence, become valiant and intrepid in de-
fence of her lamb, and boldly assault those
enemies, the very sight of whom was wont
to put her to flight.
How pleasant is it to see the family eco-
nomy of a pair of little birds in rearing their
tender offspring ; the conjugal affection and
fidelity of the parents; their cheerful toil
and industry in providing food to their
family; their sagacity in concealing their
habitation ; the arts they use, often at the
peril of their own lives, to decoy hawks, and
other enemies, from their dwellingplace;
and the affliction they feel when some un-
lucky boy has robbed them of the dear
pledges of their affection, and frustrated
all their hopes of their rising family P
[165]
If kind affection be amiable in brutes,
it is not less so in our own species. Even
the external signs of it have a powerful
charm.
Every one knows that a person of ac-
complished good breeding charms every
one he converses with. And what is this
good breeding 2 If we analyze it, we shall
find it to be made up of looks, gestures, and
speeches, which are the natural signs of
benevolence and good affection. He who
has got the habit of using these signs with
propriety, and without meanness, is a well-
bred and a polite man. -
What is that beauty in the features of
the face, particularly of the fair sex, which
all men love and admire 2 I believe it con-
sists chiefly in the features which indicate
good affections. Every indication of meek-
ness, gentleness, and benignity, is a beauty.
On the contrary, every feature that indi-
[163–165]
566
[ESSAY III.-- PART II.
ON THE ACT IV is POWERS.
cates pride, passion, envy, and malignity,
is a deformity." -
Kind affections, therefore, are amiable in
brutes. Even the signs and shadows of
them are highly attractive in our own spe-
cies. Indeed they are the joy and the com-
fort of human life, not to good men only,
but even to the vicious and dissolute.
Without society, and the intercourse of
kind affection, man is a gloomy, melancholy,
and joyless being. His mind oppressed
with cares and fears, he cannot enjoy the
balm of sound sleep : in constant dread
of impending danger, he starts at the rust-
ling of a leaf. His ears are continually
upon the stretch, and every zephyr brings
Some sound that alarms him.
When he enters into society, and feels
security in the good affection of friends and
neighbours, it is then only that his fear
vanishes, and his mind is at ease. His
courage is raised, his understanding is
enlightened, and his heart dilates with joy.
[166]
Human Society may be compared to a
heap of embers, which when placed asunder,
can retain neither their light nor heat,
amidst the surrounding elements; but, when
brought together, they mutually give heat
and light to each other; the flame breaks
forth, and not only defends itself, but sub-
dues everything around it.
The Security, the happiness, and the
strength of human society, spring solely
from the reciprocal benevolent affections of
its members.
The benevolent affections, though they be
all honourable and lovely, are not all equally
so. There is a subordination among them ;
and the honour we pay to them generally
corresponds to the extent of their object.
The good husband, the good father, the
good friend, the good neighbour, we honour
as a good man, worthy of our love and af-
fection. But the man in whom these more
private affections are swallowed up in zeal
for the good of his country and of man-
kind, who goes about doing good, and seeks
opportunities of being useful to his species,
we revere as more than a good man—as a
hero, as a good angel.
CHAPTER V.
OF MALEVOLENT AFFECTION.
ARE there, in the constitution of man,
any affections that may be called malevo-
lent * What are they? and what is their
use and end ? [167]
To me there seem to be two which we
may call by that name. They are Emula-
tion and Resentment. These I take to be
parts of the human constitution, given us
by our Maker for good ends, and, when
properly directed and regulated, of excel-
lent use. But, as their excess or abuse, to
which human nature is very prone, is the
source and spring of all the malevolence
that is to be found among men, it is on that
account I call them malevolent.
If any man thinks that they deserve a
softer name—since they may be exercised,
according to the intention of nature, with-
out malevolence—to this I have no objec-
tion. -
[1..] By Emulation, I mean a desire of
superiority to our rivals in any pursuit,
accompanied with an uneasiness at being
surpassed.*
Human life has justly been compared to
a race. The prize is superiority in one
kind or another. But the species or forms
(if I may use the expression) of superiority
among men are infinitely diversified.
There is no man so contemptible in his
own eyes as to hinder him from entering
the lists in one form or another ; and he
will always find competitors to rival him in
his own way.
We see emulation among brute-animals.
Dogs and horses contend each with his
kind in the race. Many animals of the
gregarious kind contend for superiority in
their flock or herd, and shew manifest signs
of jealousy when others pretend to rival
them.
The emulation of the brute-animals is
mostly confined to swiftness, or strength,
or favour with their females. But the emu-
lation of the human kind has a much wider
field. . [168]
In every profession, and in every accom-
plishment of body or mind, real or imagin-
ary, there are rivalships. Literary men rival
one another in literary abilities ; artists, in
their several arts; the fair sex, in their
beauty and attractions, and in the respect
paid them by the other sex.
In every political society, from a petty
corporation up to the national administra-
tion, there is a rivalship for power and in-
fluence.
Men have a natural desire of power, with-
out respect to the power of others. This
we call Ambition. But the desire of supe-
riority, either in power, or in anything we
think worthy of estimation, has a respect
to rivals, and is what we properly call emw-
lation.
* Hence, on this principle of association, some
philosophers would exclusively explain the sentiment
of "he Beautiful. See above, p. 89.— H.
* Reid has not properly distinguished Emulation
from Envy. See, among others, Aristotle’s “Rheto-
ric,” Book Second, in the chapterºgn those affections;
Butler, Sermon I. “On, Human Nature;” Stewart's
“Philosophy of the Active Powers,” I. p. 66, sq.; and
other authors quoted by him--. H.
[166–168] .
CHAP. V.]
567
OF MALEVO LENT AFFECT ON.
The stronger the desire is, the more
pungent will be the uneasiness of being
found behind, and the mind will be the
more hurt by this humiliating view.
Emulation has a manifest tendency to
improvement. Without it life would stag-
nate, and the discoveries of art and genius
would be at a stand. This principle pro-
duces a constant fermentation in society,
by which, though dregs may be produced,
the better part is purified and exalted to a
perfection which it could not otherwise
attain.
We have not sufficient data for a com-
parison of the good and bad effects which
this principle actually produces in society;
but there is ground to think of this, as of
other natural principles, that the good over-
balances the ill. As far as it is under the
dominion of reason and virtue, its effects
are always good; when left to be guided by
º and folly, they are often very bad.
| 169
Reason directs us to strive for supe-
riority only in things that have real excel-
lence, otherwise we spend our labour for
that which profiteth not. To value our-
selves for superiority in things that have
no real worth, or none compared with what
they cost, is to be vain of our own folly ;
and to be uneasy at the superiority of
others in such things, is no less ridiculous.
Reason directs us to strive for superiority
only in things in our power, and attainable
by our exertion, otherwise we shall be like
the frog in the fable, who swelled herself
till she burst, in order to equal the ox in
magnitude. .
To check all desire of things not attain-
able, and every uneasy thought in the
want of them, is an obvious dictate of pru-
dence, as well as of virtue and religion.
If emulation be regulated by such maxims
of reason, and all undue partiality to our-
selves be laid aside, it will be a powerful
principle of our improvement, without hurt
to any other person. It will give strength
to the nerves and vigour to the mind in
every noble and manly pursuit.
But dismal are its effects, when it is not
under the direction of reason and virtue.
It has often the most malignant influence
on men's opinions, on their affections, and
on their actions.
It is an old observation, that affection
follows opinion ; and it is undoubtedly true
in many cases. A man cannot be grateful
without the opinion of a favour done him.
. He cannot have deliberate resentment with-
out the opinion of an injury; nor esteem
without the opinion of some estimable
quality; nor compassion.without the opi-
nion of suffering.
But it is no less true, that opinion some-
times follows affection—not that it it ought,
but that it actually does so, by giving a false
bias to our judgment. We are apt to be
partial to our friends, and still more to
ourselves. [170]
Hence the desire of Superiority leads men
to put an undue estimation upon those
things wherein they excel, or think they
excel. And by this means, pride may feed
itself upon the very dregs of human nature.
The same desire of superiority may lead
men to undervalue those things wherein
they either despair of excelling, or care not
to make the exertion necessary for that
end. “The grapes are sour,” said the
fox, when he saw them beyond his reach.
The same principle leads men to detract
from the merit of others, and to impute their
brightest actions to mean or bad motives.
He who runs a race feels uneasiness at
Seeing another outstrip him. This is uncor-
rupted nature, and the work of God within
him. But this uneasiness may produce either
of two very different effects. It may incite
him to make more vigorous exertions, and to
strain every nerve togetbefore his rival. This
is fair and honest emulation. This is the
effect it is intended to produce. But, if he
has not fairness and candour of heart, he will
look with an evil eye upon his competitor,
and will endeavour to trip him, or to throw
a stumblingblock in his way. This is pure
envy, the most malignant passion that can
lodge in the human breast; which devours,
as its natural food, the fame and the happi-
ness of those who are most deserving of our
esteem. *
If there be in some men, a proneness to
detract from the character, even of persons
unknown or indifferent, in others an avidity
to hear and to propagate scandal, to what
principle in human nature must we ascribe
these qualities 2 The failings of others
Surely add nothing to our worth, nor are
they, in themselves, a pleasant subject of
thought or of discourse. But they flatter
pride, by giving an opinion of our supe-
riority to those from whom we detract.
[171]
Is it not possible that the same desire of
Superiority may have some secret influence
upon those who love to display their elo-
quence in declaiming upon the corruption of
human nature, and the wickedness, fraud,and
insincerity of mankind in general 2 It ought
always to be taken for granted, that the de-
claimer is an exception to the general rule,
otherwise he would rather choose, even for
his own sake, to draw a veil over the naked-
ness of his species: But, hoping that his
audience will be so civil as not to include
him in the black description, he rises supe-
rior by the depression of the species, and
* la this paragraph Reid makes the distinction
between Euvy and Emulation, which, in the other
parts of the chapter, he has not kept in view.—H.
[169–171]
568
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [Essay 111.—PART 11.
stands alone, like Noah in the antediluvian
world. This looks like envy against the
human race.
It would be endless, and noways agree-
able, to enumerate all the evils and all the
vices which passion and folly beget upon
emulation. Here, as in most cases, the
corruption of the best things is the worst,
In brute-animals, emulation has little mat-
ter to work upon, and its effects, good or
bad, are few. It may produce battles of
cocks and battles of bulls, and little else
that is observable. But in mankind, it has
an infinity of matter to work upon, and its
good or bad effects, according as it is well
or ill regulated and directed, multiply in
proportion.
The conclusion to be drawn from what
has been said upon this principle is, that
emulation, as far as it is a part of our con-
stitution, is highly useful and important in
Society; that in the wise and good, it pro-
duces the best effects without any harm ;
but in the foolish and vicious, it is the par-
ent of a great part of the evils of life, and
of the most malignant vices that stain human
nature. [172]
[2.] We are next to consider Resentment.
Nature disposes us, when we are hurt, to
resist and retaliate. Besides the bodily
pain occasioned by the hurt, the mind is
ruffled, and a desire raised to retaliate upon
the author of the hurt or injury. This, in
general, is what we call anger or resent-
772.6776.
A very important distinction is made by
Bishop Butler between sudden resentment,
which is a blind impulse arising from our
constitution, and that which is deliberate.
The first may be raised by hurt of any
kind; but the last can only be raised by
injury real or conceived.
The same distinction is made by Lord
Kames in his “ Elements of Criticism.”
What Butler calls sudden, he calls insting-
tive.
We have not, in common language, dif-
ferent names for these different kinds of re-
sentment ; but the distinction is very neces-
sary, in order to our having just notions of
this part of the human constitution. It
corresponds perfectly with the distinction I
have made between the animal and rational
principles of action. For this sudden or
instinctive resentment, is an animal prin-
ciple common to us with brute-animals.
But that resentment which the authors I
have named call deliberate, must fall under
the class of rational principles.
It is to be observed, however, that, by
referring it to that class, I do not mean,
that it is always kept within the bounds
that reason prescribes, but only that it is
Prºper to man as a reasonable being, cap-
able, by his rational faculties, of distinguish-
ing between hurt and injury; a distinction
which no brute-animal can make.
Both these kinds of resentment are raised,
whether the hurt or injury be done to our-
selves, or to those we are interested in. [173]
Wherever there is any benevolent affec-
tion towards others, we resent their wrongs
in proportion to the strength of our affec-
tion. Pity and sympathy with the sufferer
produce resentment against the author of
the suffering, as naturally as concern for
ourselves produces resentment of our own
wrongs. -
I shall first consider that resentment
which I call animal, which Butler calls
sudden, and Lord Kames instinctive.
In every animal to which nature hath
given the power of hurting its enemy, we
See an endeavour to retaliate the ill that is
done to it. Even a mouse will bite when
it cannot run away.
Perhaps there may be some animals to
whom nature hath given no offensive weapon.
To such, anger and resentment would be of
no use ; and I believe we shall find that
they never shew any sign of it. But there
are few of this kind. -
Some of the more sagacious animals can
be provoked to fierce anger, and retain it
long. Many of them shew great animosity
in defending their young, who hardly shew
any in defending themselves. Others resist
every assault made upon the flock or herd
to which they belong. Bees defend their
hive, wild beasts their den, and birds their
nest.
This sudden resentment operates in a
similar manner in men and in brutes, and
appears to be given by nature to both for
the same end—namely, for defence, even in .
cases where there is no time for deliberation.
It may be compared to that natural instinct
by which a man, who has lost his balance
and begins to fall, makes a sudden and
violent effort to recover himself, without
any intention or deliberation. [174]
In such efforts, men often exert a degree
of muscular strength beyond what they are
able to exert by a calm determination of the
will, and thereby save themselves from
many a dangerous fall.
By a like violent and sudden impulse,
nature prompts us to repel hurt upon the
cause of it, whether it be man or beast.
The instinct before mentioned is solely de-
fensive, and is prompted by fear. This sud-
den resentment is offensive, and is prompted
by anger, but with a view to defence.
Man, in his present state, is surrounded
with so many dangers from his own species,
from brute-animals, from everything around
him, that he has need of some defensive
armour that shall always be ready in the
moment of danger. His reason is of great
use for this purpose, when there is time to
[172–174]
CHAP. v.]
569
OF MALEVOLENT AFFECTION.
apply it.
would be done before reason could think of
the means of preventing it.
The wisdom of nature hath provided two
means to supply this defect of our reason.
One of these is the instinct” before men-
tioned, by which the body, upon the appear-
ance of danger, is instantly, and without
thought or intention, put in that posture
which is proper for preventing the danger,
or lessening it.
our eyes are threatened; we bend the body
to avoid a stroke; we make a sudden effort
to recover our balance, when in danger of
falling. By such means we are guarded
from many dangers which our reason would
come too late to prevent.
But, as offensive arms are often the surest
means of defence, by deterring the enemy
from an assault, nature hath also provided
man, and other animals, with this kind of
defence, by that sudden resentment of which
We now speak, which outruns the quickest
determinations of reason, and takes fire in
an instant, threatening the enemy with re-
taliation. [175]
The first of these principles operates upon
the defender only ; but this operates both
upon the defender and the assailant, inspir-
ing the former with courage and animosity,
and striking terror into the latter. It pro-
claims to all assailants, what our ancient
Scottish kings did upon their coins, by the
emblem of a thistle, with this motto, Nemo
ºne impume lacesset. By this, in innumerable
cases, men and beasts are deterred from do-
ing hurt, and others thereby secured from
suffering it.
But, as resentment supposes an object on
whom we may retaliate, how comes it to
pass, that in brutes, very often, and some-
times in our own species, we see it wreaked
upon inanimate things, which are incapable
of suffering by it 2
Perhaps it might be a sufficient answer
to this question—That nature acts by gen-
eral laws, which, in some particular cases,
may go beyond or fall short of their inten-
tion, though they be ever so well adapted
to it in general.
But I confess it seems to me impossible
that there should be resentment against a
thing which at that very moment is con-
* See Mr Stewart, in “Philosophical Essays,” Note
(I), who censures Reid for applying the term instinct
to an acquired dexterity. Reid may be defended,
however, on the ground that, though in man there
may be prima facie reason on which to explain the
motions in question as the results of practice, that
this is not, at least in a great measure, the case. We
see many of the brutes performing these actions from
the moment of birth in full perfection ; those, to wit,
as I have ascertained, who have the cerebellum pro-
portionally to the brain proper, then fully developed;
and it is only with the proportional developement of
this part of the encephalos, that children obtain the
full command of their limbs, the complete power of
regulated movement.--H.
But, in many cases, the mischief
Thus, we wink hard when
sidered as inanimate, and consequently in-
capable either of intending hurt, or of being
punished. For what can be more absurd
than to be angry with the knife for cutting
me, or with the weight for falling upon my
toes 2 There must, therefore, I conceive,
be some momentary motion or conception
that the object of our resentment is capable
of punishment ; and, if it be natural, before
reflection, to be angry with things inanimate,
it seems to be a necessary consequence, that
it is natural to think that they have life and
feeling.
Several phaenomena in human nature lead
us to conjecture that, in the earliest period
of life, we are apt to think every object
about us to be animated. Judging of them
by ourselves, we ascribe to them the feelings
we are conscious of in ourselves. So we
See a little girl judges of her doll and of her
playthings. And so we see rude nations
judge of the heavenly bodies, of the elements,
and of the sea, rivers, and fountains. [176]
If this be so, it ought not to be said, that
by reason and experience, we learn to ascribe
life and intelligence to things which we be-
fore considered as imanimate. It ought
rather to be said–That by reason and ex-
perience we learn that certain things are
inanimate, to which at first we ascribed life
and intelligence.
If this be true, it is less surprising that,
before reflection, we should for a moment
relapse into this prejudice of our early years,
and treat things as if they had life, which
we once believed to have it.
It does not much affect our present argu-
ment, whether this be or be not the cause
why a dog pursues and gnashes at the stone
that hurt him ; and why a man, in a passion
for losing at play, sometimes wreaks his
vengeance on the cards or dice.
It is not strange that a blind animal im-
pulse should sometimes lose its proper di-
rection. In brutes this has no bad conse-
quence ; in men the least ray of reflection
corrects it, and shews its absurdity.
It is sufficiently evident, upon the whole,
that this sudden or animal resentment, is
intended by nature for our defence. It pre-
vents mischief by the fear of punishment.
It is a kind of penal statute, promulgated
by nature, the execution of which is com-
mitted to the sufferer.
It may be expected, indeed, that one who
judges in his own cause, will be disposed to
seek more than an equitable redress. But
this disposition is checked by the resent-
ment of the other party. [177]
Yet, in the state of nature, injuries once
begun will often be reciprocated between
the parties, until mortal enmity is produced,
and each party thinks himself safe only in
the destruction of his enemy. * * *
This right of redressing and punishing
[175—177]
570
[Essay III.-PART II.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
our own wrongs, so apt to be abused, is one
of those natural rights which, in political
Society, is given up to the laws, and to the
civil magistrate ; and this, indeed, is one of
the capital advantages we reap from the
political union, that the evils arising from
ungoverned resentment are in a great degree
prevented.
Although deliberate resentment does not
properly belong to the class of animal prin-
ciples; yet, as both have the same name,
and are distinguished only by philosophers,
and as in real life they are commonly inter-
mixed, . I shall here make some remarks
upon it.
A small degree of reason and reflection
teaches a man that injury only, and not
mere hurt, is a just object of resentment to
a rational creature. A man may suffer
grievously by the hand of another, not only
without injury, but with the most friendly
intention ; as in the case of a painful chir-
urgical operation. Every man of common
sense sees, that to resent such suffering, is
not the part of a man, but of a brute.
Mr Locke mentions a gentleman who,
having been cured of madness by a very
harsh and offensive operation, with great
sense of gratitude, owned the cure as the
greatest obligation he could have received,
but could never bear the sight of the oper-
ator, because it brought back the idea of
that agony which he had endured from his
hands. [178]
In this case, we see distinctly the opera-
tion both of the animal and of the rational
principle. The first produced an aversion
to the operator, which reason was not able
to overcome ; and probably in a weak mind,
might have produced lasting resentment
and hatred. But, in this gentleman, reason
So far prevailed as to make him sensible
that gratitude, and not resentment, was
due.
Suffering may give a bias to the judg-
ment, and make us apprehend injury where
no injury is done. But, I think, without
an apprehension of injury, there can be no
deliberate resentment.
Hence, among enlightened nations, hostile
armies fight without anger or resentment.
The vanquished are not treated as offenders,
but as brave men who have fought for their
country unsuccessfully, and who are en-
titled to every office of humanity consistent
with the safety of the conquerors.
If we analyze that deliberate resentment
which is proper to rational creatures, we
shall find that, though it agrees with that
which is merely animal in some respects, it
differs in others. Both are accompanied
with an uneasy sensation, which disturbs
the peace of the mind. Both prompt us to
seek redress of our sufferings, and security
from harm. But, in deliberate resentment,
there must be an opinion of injury done or
intended. And an opinion of injury implies
an idea of justice, and consequently a moral
faculty. -
The very motion of an injury is, that it is
less than we may justly claim ; as, on the
contrary, the notion of a favour is, that it is
more than we can justly claim. Whence,
it is evident, that justice is the standard by
which both a favour and an injury are to be
weighed and estimated. Their very nature
and definition consist in their exceeding or
falling short of this standard. No man,
therefore, can have the idea either of a
favour or of an injury, who has not the idea
of justice. [179]
That very idea of justice which enters
into cool and deliberate resentment, tends
to restrain its excesses. For, as there is
injustice in doing an injury, so there is in-
justice in punishing it beyond measure.
To a man of candour and reflection, con-
sciousness of the frailty of human nature,
and that he has often stood in need of for-
giveness himself, the pleasure of renewing
good understanding after it has been in-
terrupted, the inward approbation of a
generous and forgiving disposition, and even
the irksomeness and uneasiness of a mind
ruffled by resentment, plead strongly against
its excesses.
Upon the whole, when we consider, That,
on the one hand, every benevolent affection
is pleasant in its nature, is health to the
soul, and a cordial to the spirits; That
nature has made even the outward expres-
sion of benevolent affections in the counte-
nance, pleasant to every beholder, and the
chief ingredient of beauty in the human face
divine ; That, on the other hand, every
malevolent affection, not only in its faulty
excesses, but in its moderate degrees, is
vexation and disquiet to the mind, and even
gives deformity to the countenance—it is
evident that, by these signals, nature loudly
admonishes us to use the former as our
daily bread, both for health and pleasure,
but to consider the latter as a nauseous
medicine, which is never to be taken with-
out necessity; and even then in no greater
quantity than the necessity requires. [180]
CHAPTER WI.
OF PASSION.
BEFor E I proceed to consider the rational
principles of action, it is proper to observe
that there are some things belonging to the
mind, which have great influence upon
human conduct, by exciting or allaying,
inflaming or cooling the animal principles
we have mentioned.
Three of this kind deserve particular con-
[178–180]
CHAP. VI.]
57]
OF PASSION.
sideration. I shall call them by the names
of Passion, Disposition, and Opinion.
The meaning of the word Passion is not
precisely ascertained, either in common
discourse, or in the writings of philosophers.
I think it is commonly put to signify
some agitation of mind, which is opposed
to that state of tranquillity and composure
in which a man is most master of himself.
The word ar&00s, which answers to it in
the Greek language, is, by Cicero, rendered
by the word perturbalio.
It has always been conceived to bear
analogy to a storm at Sea," or to a tempest
in the air.t. It does not therefore signify
anything in the mind that is constant and
permanent, but something that is occa-
sional, and has a limited duration, like a
storm or tempest.
Passion commonly produces sensible effects
even upon the body. It changes the voice,
the features, and the gesture. The external
signs of passion have, in Some cases, a great
resemblance to those of madness; in others,
to those of melancholy. It gives often a
degree of muscular force and agility to the
body, far beyond what it possesses in calm
moments. [181]
The effects of passion upon the mind are
not less remarkable. It turns the thoughts
involuntarily to the objects related to it,
so that a man can hardly think of any-
thing else. It gives often a strange bias
to the judgment, making a man quick-
sighted in everything that tends to inflame
his passion, and to justify it, but blind to
everything that tends to moderate and
allay it. Like a magic lanthorn, it raises
up spectres and apparitions that have no
reality, and throws false colours upon every
object. It can turn deformity into beauty,
viče into virtue, and virtue into vice.
The sentiments of a man under its in-
fluence will appear absurd and ridiculous,
not only to other men, but even to himself,
when the storm is spent and is succeeded
by a calm. Passion often gives a violent
impulse to the will, and makes a man do
what he knows he shall repent as long as
he lives.
That such are the effects of passion, I
think all men agree. They have been
described in lively colours by poets, ora-
tors, and moralists, in all ages." But men
have given more attention to the effects of
passion than to its nature; and, while they
have copiously and elegantly described the
former, they have not precisely defined the
latter.
The controversy between the ancient
Peripatetics and the Stoics, with regard to
the passions, was probably owing to their
affixing different meanings to the word.
The one sect maintained that the passions
are good and useful parts of our constitu-
tion, while they are held under the govern-
ment of reason. The other sect, con-
ceiving that nothing is to be called passion
which does not, in some degree, cloud and
darken the understanding, considered all
passion as hostile to reason, and therefore
maintained that, in the wise man, passion
should have no existence, but be utterly
exterminated. [182]
If both sects had agreed about the defini-
tion of passion, they would probably have
had no difference. But while one con-
sidered passion only as the cause of those
bad effects which it often produces, and
the other considered it as fitted by nature
to produce good effects, while it is under
Subjection to reason, it does not appear
that what one sect justified, was the same
thing which the other condemned. Both
allowed that no dictate of passion ought to
be followed in opposition to reason. Their
difference therefore was verbal more than
real, and was owing to their giving different
meanings to the same word. -
The precise meaning of this word seems
not to be more clearly ascertained among
modern philosophers.
Mr Hume gives the name of passion to
every principle of action in the human
mind; and, in consequence of this, main-
tains that every man is and ought to be
led by his passions, and that the use of
reason is to be subservient to the passions.
Dr Hutcheson, considering all the prin-
ciples of action as so many determinations
* “. Saºpe .mihi humanae meditanti incommoda
vitae,
Spcsque leves, trepidosque metus, vanosque labores,
Gaudiaque instabili semper fucata sereno,
Non secus ac navis lato jactata profundo,
Quam venti, violensque aestus, canuscue magister
In diversa trahunt,” &c.—BUCH ANANUs.
Montaigne alludes to these Verses in the tenth
chapter of his third book, but without naming his
master. He has thus puzzled his commentators.
—H.
** Nubibus atris
Condita nullum
Fundere possunt
Sideralumen.
8i mare volvens
Turbidus Auster
Misceat a stum,
Vitrea dudum,
Parque Seremis
Unda diebus,
Mox resoluto
Sordida coeno
Visibus obstat.
Tu quoque si vis
Lumine claro
Cernere verum,
Tramite recto
Carpere callem ;
Gaudia pelle,
Pelle timorem,
Spengue fugato,
ec dolor adsit.
Nubila mens est,
Vinctaque fraenis
Haec ubi regnant.— Boe rul Us.--Fl.
* See particularly Aristotle's delineation of the
Passions in the second book of his “ Rhctoric.”—Pl.
[181, 182]
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [Essay III.-PART II.
or motions of the will, divides them into
the calm and the twrbulent. The turbulent,
he says, are our appetites and our passions.
Of the passions, as well as of the calm
determinations, he says, that “ some are
benevolent, others are selfish ; that anger,
envy, indignation, and some others, may be
either selfish or benevolent, according as
they arise from some opposition to our own
interests, or to those of our friends, or per-
sons beloved or esteemed.”
It appears, therefore, that this excellent
author gives the name of passions, not to
every principle of action, but to some, and
to those only when they are turbulent and
vehement, not when they are calm and
deliberate. [183]
Our natural desires and affections may
be so calm as to leave room for reflection,
so that we find no difficulty in deliber-
ating coolly, whether, in such a particular
instance, they ought to be gratified or not.
On other occasions, they may be so im-
portunate as to make deliberation very dif-
ficult, urging us, by a kind of violence, to
their immediate gratification.
Thus, a man may be sensible of an in-
jury without being inflamed. He judges
coolly of the injury, and of the proper means
of redress. This is resentment without
passion. It leaves to the man the entire
command of himself.
On another occasion, the same principle
of resentment rises into a flame. His blood
boils within him ; his looks, his voice, and
his gesture are changed; he can think of
nothing but immediate revenge, and feels a
strong impulse, without regard to conse-
quences, to say and do things which his
cool reason cannot justify. This is the
passion of resentment.
What has been said of resentment may
easily be applied to other natural desires
and affections. When they are so calm as
neither to produce any sensible effects upon
the body, nor to darken the understanding
and weaken the power of self-command,
they are not called passions. But the same
principle, when it becomes so violent as to
produce these effects upon the body and
upon the mind, is a passion, or, as Cicero
very properly calls it, a perturbation.
It is evident, that this meaning of the
word passion accords much better with its
common use in language, than that which
Mr Hume gives it. [184] -
When he says, that men ought to be
governed by their passions only, and that
the use of reason is to be subservient to
the passions, this, at first hearing, appears
a shocking paradox, repugnant to good
morals and to common sense ; but, like
most other paradoxes, when explained ac-
cording to his meaning, it is nothing but an
abuse of words.
For, if we give the name of passion to
every principle of action, in every degree,
and give the name of reason solely to the
power of discerning the fitness of means to
ends, it will be true that the use of reason
is to be subservient to the passions.
As I wish to use words as agreeably as
possible to their common use in language,”
I shall, by the word passion mean, not any
principle of action distinct from those de-
sires, and affections before explained, but
such a degree of vehemence in them, or in
any of them, as is apt to produce those
effects upon the body or upon the mind
which have been above described.
Our appetites, even when vehement, are
not, I think, very commonly called passions;
yet they are capable of being inflamed to
rage, and in that case their effects are very
similar to those of the passions; and what
is said of one may be applied to both.
Having explained what I mean by pas-
sions, I think it unnecessary to enter into
any enumeration of them, since they differ,
not in kind, but rather in degree, from the
| principles already enumerated.
The common division of the passions into
desire and aversion, hope and fear, joy and
grief, has been mentioned almost by every
author who has treated of them, and needs
no explication. But we may observe, that
these are ingredients or modifications, not
of the passions only, but of every principle
of action, animal and rational. [185]
All of them imply the desire of some
object; and the desire of an object cannot
be without aversion to its contrary; and,
according as the object is present or absent,
desire and aversion will be variously modi-
fied into joy or grief, hope or fear. It is
evident that desire and aversion, joy and
grief, hope and fear, may be either calm
and sedate, or vehement and passionate.
Passing these, therefore, as common to
all principles of action, whether calm or
vehement, I shall only make some observa-
tions on passion in general, which tend to
shew its influence on human conduct.
First, It is passion that makes us liable
to strong temptations. Indeed, if we had
no passions, we should hardly be under any
temptation to wrong conduct. For, when
we view things calmly, and free from any
of the false colours which passion throws
upon them, we can hardly fail to see the
right and the wrong, and to see that the
first is more eligible than the last.
I believe a cool and deliberate preference
of ill to good is never the first step into vice.
“When the woman saw that the tree
was good for food, and that it was pleasant
to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to
* It is not in all languages that Reid's limitation of
the term passion to the more vehement affections,
will find a warrant. — [].
[183–185]
CHAP. VI.]
573
OF PASSION.
make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof
and did eat, and gave also to her husband
with her, and he did eat ; and the eyes of
them both were opened.” Inflamed desire
had blinded the eyes of their understand-
ing. [186]
“Fixed on the fruit she gaz'd, which to behold
Might tempt alone; and in her ears the sound
Yet rung of his persuasive words, impregn'd
With reason to her seeming, and with truth.
Fair to the eye, inviting to the taste,
Of virtue to make wise—what hinders, then,
To reach, and feed at once both body and mind?”
Miłł007.
Thus our first parents were tempted to
disobey their Maker, and all their posterity
are liable to temptation from the same
cause. Passion, or violent appetite, first
blinds the understanding, and then perverts
the will.
It is passion, therefore, and the vehement
motions of appetite, that make us liable,
in our present state, to strong temptations
to deviate from our duty. This is the lot
of human mature in the present period of
our existence.
Human virtue must gather strength by
struggle and effort. As infants, before they
can walk without stumbling, must be ex-
posed to many a fall and bruise; as wrest-
lers acquire their strength and agility by
many a combat and violent exertion ; so it
is in the noblest powers of human nature,
as well as the meanest, and even in virtue
itself.
It is not only made manifest by tempta-
tion and trial, but by these means it ac-
quires its strength and vigour.
Men must acquire patience by suffering,
and fortitude by being exposed to danger,
and every other virtue by situatious that
put it to trial and exercise.
This, for anything we know, may be ne-
cessary in the nature of things. It is cer-
tainly a law of nature with regard to man.
[1871
Whether there may be orders of intelli-
gent and moral creatures who never were
subject to any temptation, nor had their
virtue put to any trial, we cannot without
presumption determine. But it is evident
that this neither is, nor ever was the lot of
man, not even in the state of innocence,
Sad, indeed, would be the condition of
man, if the temptations to which, by the
constitution of his nature, and by his cir-
cumstances, he is liable, were irresistible.
Such a state would not at all be a state of
trial and discipline. -.
Our condition here is such that, on the
one hand, passion often tempts and solicits
us to do wrong ; on the other hand, reason
and conscience oppose the dictates of pas-
sion. The flesh lusteth against the spirit,
and the spirit against the flesh. And upon
the issue of this conflict, the character of
the man and his fate depend.
If reason be victorious, his virtue is
strengthened ; he has the inward satisfac-
tion of having fought a good fight in behalf
of his duty, and the peace of his mind is
preserved.
If, on the other hand, passion prevail
against the sense of duty, the man is con-
scious of having done what he ought not
and might not have done. His own heart
condemns him, and he is guilty to himself.
This conflict between the passions of our
animal nature and the calm dictates of rea-
son and conscience, is not a theory invented
to solve the phaenomena of human conduct ;
it is a fact, of which every man who attends
to his own conduct is conscious.
In the most ancient philosophy of which
we have any account—I mean that of the
Pythagorean school”—the mind of man was
compared to a state or commonwealth, iu
which there are various powers, some that
ought to govern and others that ought to
be subordinate. [188]
The good of the whole, which is the sn-
preme law in this, as in every common-
wealth, requires that this subordination be
preserved, and that the governing powers
have always the ascendant over the appe-
tites and passions. All wise and good con-
duct consists in this ; all folly and vice in the
prevalence of passion over the dictates of
l'CaSOIl.
This philosophy was adopted by Plato;
and it is so agreeable to what every man
feels in himself, that it must always prevail
with men who think without bias to a
system.
The governing powers, of which these
ancient philosophers speak, are the same
which I call the rational principles of action,
and which I shall have occasion to explain.
I only mention them here, because, with-
out a regard to them, the influence of the
passions, and their rank in our constitution,
cannot be distinctly understood.
A second observation is, That the impulse
of passion is not always to what is bad, but
very often to what is good, and what our
reason approves. There are some passions,
as Dr Hutcheson observes, that are bene-
volent, as well as others that are selfish.
The affections of resentment and emula-
tion, with those that spring from them,
from their very nature, disturb and disquiet
the mind, though they be not carried beyond
the bounds which reason prescribes; and
therefore they are commonly called passions,
even in their moderate degrees. From a
similar cause, the benevolent affections,
which are placid in their nature, and are
# Of the Pythagorean school and its particular
doctrines, we know very little with any certainty.
The articulate accounts we have from the lower
Platonists are recent and fabulous, and the treatises
under the names of the Pythagorean philosophers
themselves, spurious.—H.
[186–188]
574
[ESSAY III.-PART II.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
rarely carried beyond the bounds of reason,
are very seldom called passions. We do
not give the name of passion to benevo-
lence, gratitude, or friendship. Yet we
must except from this general rule, love
between the sexes, which, as it commonly
discomposes the mind, and is not easily kept
within reasonable bounds, is always called
a passion. [189]
All our natural desires and affections are
good and necessary parts of our constitu-
tion ; and passion, being only a certain de-
gree of vehemence in these, its natural tend-
ency is to good, and it is by accident that it
leads us wrong.
Passion is very properly said to be blind.
It looks not beyond the present gratifica-
tion. It belongs to reason to attend to the
accidental circumstances which may some-
times make that gratification improper or
hurtful. When there is no impropriety
in it, much more when it is our duty, pas-
sion aids reason, and gives additional force
to its dictates. -
Sympathy with the distressed may bring
them a charitable relief, when a calm sense of
duty would be too weak to produce the effect.
Objects, either good or ill, conceived to
be very distant, when they are considered
coolly, have not that influence upon men
which in reason they ought to have. Ima-
gination, like the eye, diminisheth its objects
in proportion to their distance. The pas-
sions of hope and fear must be raised, in
order to give such objects their due magni-
tude in the imagination, and their due in-
fluence upon our conduct.
The dread of disgrace and of the civil
magistrate, and the apprehension of future
punishment, prevent many crimes, which
bad men, without these restraints, would
commit, and contribute greatly to the peace
and good order of society. [190]
There is no bad action which some pas-
sion may not prevent; nor is there any
external good action, of which some passion
may not be the main spring; and it is very
probable that even the passions of men, upon
the whole, do more good to society than hurt.
The ill that is done draws our attention
more, and is imputed solely to human pas-
sions. The good may have better motives,
and charity leads us to think that it has ;
but, as we see not the heart, it is impossible
to determine what share men's passions
may have in its production.
The last observation is—That, if we dis-
tinguish, in the effects of our passions,
those which are altogether involuntary and
without the sphere of our power, from the
effects which may be prevented by an ex-
ertion, perhaps a great exertion, of self-
government; we shall find the first to be
good and highly useful, and the last only
to be bad.
Not to speak of the effects of moderate
passions upon the health of the body, to
which some agitation of this kind seems to
be no less useful than storms and tempests
to the salubrity of the air; every passion
naturally draws our attention to its object,
and interests us in it.
The mind of man is naturally desultory,
and when it has no interesting object in
view, roves from one to another, without
fixing its attention upon any one. A tran-
sient and careless glance is all that we be-
stow upon objects in which we take no
concern. It requires a strong degree of
curiosity, or Some more important passion,
to give us that interest in an object which
is necessary to our giving attention to it.
And, without attention, we can form no
i. and stable judgment of any object.
191]
Take away the passions, and it is not
easy to say how great a part of mankind
would resemble those frivolous mortals,
who never had a thought that engaged
them in good earnest.
It is not mere judgment or intellectual
ability that enables a man to excel in any
art or science. He must have a love and
admiration of it bordering upon enthusiasm,
or a passionate desire of the fame, or of
some other advantage to be got by that
excellence. Without this, he would not
undergo the labour and fatigue of his facul-
ties, which it requires. So that, I think,
we may with justice allow no small merit
to the passions, even in the discoveries and
improvements of the arts and sciences.
If the passions for fame and distinction
were extinguished, it would be difficult to
find men ready to undertake the cares and
toils of government; and few perhaps would
make the exertion necessary to raise them-
selves above the ignoble vulgar. -
The involuntary signs of the passions
and dispositions of the mind, in the voice,
features, and action, are a part of the human
constitution which deserves admiration.
The signification of those signs is known to
all men by nature, and previous to all expe-
rience.
They are so many openings into the Souls
of our fellow-men, by which their senti-
ments become visible to the eye. They are
a natural language common to mankind,
without which it would have been impos-
sible to have invented any artificial lan-
guage. -
It is from the natural signs of the pas-
sions and dispositions of the mind that the
human form derives its beauty; that paint-
ing, poetry, and music derive their expres-
sion ; that eloquence derives its greatest
force, and conversation its greatest charm.
[192] - a - - •
The passions, when kept within their
[189–192]
GHAP. VII.]
575
OF DISPOSITION.
proper bounds, give life and vigour to the
whole man. Without them man would be
a slug. We see what polish and anima-
tion the passion of love, when honourable
and not unsuccessful, gives to both sexes.
The passion for military glory raises the
brave commander, in the day of battle, far
above himself, making his countenance to
shifle, and his eyes to sparkle. The glory
of old England warms the heart even of the
British tar, and makes him despise every
danger.
As to the bad effects of passion, it must
be acknowledged that it often gives a strong
impulse to what is bad, and what a man
condemns himself for, as soon as it is done.
But he must be conscious that the impulse,
though strong, was not irresistible, other-
wise he could not condemn himself.
We allow that a sudden and violent pas-
sion, into which a man is surprised, alle-
viates a bad action; but, if it was irresist-
ible, it would not only alleviate, but totally
exculpate, which it never does, either in the
judgment of the man himself, or of others.
To sum up all, passion furnishes a very
strong instance of the truth of the common
maxim, “That the corruption of the best
things is worst.”
CHAPTER VII.
OF DISPOSITION.
By Disposition I mean a state of mind
which, while it lasts, gives a tendency, or
proneness, to be moved by certain animal
principles, rather than by others; while,
at another time, another state of mind, in
the same person, may give the ascendant
to other animal principles. [193]
It was before observed, that it is a pro-
perty of our appetites to be periodical,
ceasing for a time, when sated by their
objects, and returning regularly after cer-
tain periods.
Even those principles which are not peri-
odical, have their ebbs and flows occasion-
ally, according to the present disposition of
the mind.
Among some of the principles of action,
there is a natural affinity, so that one of the
tribe naturally disposes to those which are
allied to it.
Such an affinity has been observed by
many good authors to be among all the
benevolent affections. The exercise of one
benevolent affection gives a proneness to the
exercise of others.
There is a certain placid and agreeable
tone of mind which is common to them all,
which seems to be the bond of that connec-
tion and affinity they have with one another.
The malevolent affections have also an
affinity, and mutually dispose to each other,
by means, perhaps, of that disagreeable
feeling common to them all, which makes
the mind Sore and uneasy.
As far as we can trace the causes of the
different dispositions of the mind, they seem
to be in Some cases owing to those associat-
ing powers of the principles of action which
have a natural affinity, and are prone to
keep company with one another; sometimes
to accidents of good or bad fortune; and
Sometimes, no doubt, the state of the body
may have influence upon the disposition of
the mind.
At one time, the state of the mind, like a
serene unclouded sky, shews everything in
the most agreeable light. Then a man is
prome to benevolence, compassion, and
every kind affection ; unsuspicious, not
easily provoked. [194]
The poets have observed that men have
their mollia tempora fandi,” when they are
averse from saying or doing a harsh thing;
and artful men watch these occasions, and
know how to improve them to promote their
ends.
This disposition, I think, we commonly
call good humour ; of which, in the fair sex,
Mr Pope says—
** Good humour only teaches charms to last,
Still makes new conquests, and maintains the past.”
There is no disposition more comfortable
to the person himself, or more agreeable to
others, than good humour. It is to the
mind, what good health is to the body, put-
ting a man in the capacity of enjoying
everything that is agreeable in life, and of
using every faculty without clog or impedi-
ment. It disposes to contentment with our
lot, to benevolence to all men, to sympathy
with the distressed. It presents every
object in the most favourable light, and dis-
poses us to avoid giving or taking offence. .
This happy disposition seems to be the
natural fruit of a good conscience, and a
firm belief that the world is under a wise
and benevolent administration; and, when
it springs from this root, it is an habitual
sentiment of piety.
Good humour is likewise apt to be pro-
duced by happy success, or unexpected good
fortune. Joy and hope are favourable to
it; vexation and disappointment are un-
favourable.
The only danger of this disposition seems
to be—That, if we are not upon our guard,
it may degenerate into levity, and indispose
us to a proper degree of caution, and of at-
* Corruptio optimi pessima. From Aristotle;
who uses it when speaking of pure monarchy—a
form of polity which may either be the best or the
worst.— H.
* Mollissima famdi Tempora.—Virgilius.
Sola viri molles aditus et tempora moras, ID.—H.
[193, 194]
576
[ESSAY III.-PART II.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
tention to the future consequences of our
actions. [195]
There is a disposition opposite to good
humour which we call bad humour, of which
the tendency is directly contrary, and there-
fore its influence is as malignant as that of
the other is salutary.
Bad humour alone is sufficient to make
a man unhappy; it tinges every object with
its own dismal colour; and, like a part that
is galled, is hurt by everything that touches
it. It takes offence where none was meant,
and disposes to discontent, jealousy, envy,
and, in general, to malevolence.
Another couple of opposite dispositions
are elation of mind, on the one hand, and
depression, on the other.
These contrary dispositions are both of
an ambiguous nature: their influence may
be good or bad, according as they are
grounded on true or false opinion, and ac-
cording as they are regulated.
That elation of mind which arises from a
just sense of the dignity of our nature, and
of the powers and faculties with which God
hath endowed us, is true magnanimity, and
disposes a man to the noblest virtues, and
the most heroic actions and enterprises.
There is also an elation of mind, which
arises from a consciousness of our worth
and integrity, such as Job felt, when he
said—“Till I die, I will not remove my
integrity from me. My righteousness I
hold fast, and will not let it go; my heart
shall not reproach me while I live.” This
may be called the pride of virtue; but it is
a noble pride. It makes a man disdain to
do what is base or mean. This is the true
sense of honour. [196]
But there is an elation of mind arising
from a vain opinion of our having talents,
or worth, which we have not; or from put-
ting an undue value upon any of our endow-
ments of mind, body, or fortune. This is
pride, the parent of many odious vices;
such as arrogance, undue contempt of others,
Self-partiality, and vicious self-love.
The opposite disposition to elation of
mind, is depression, which also has good or
bad effects, according as it is grounded upon
true or false opinion.
A just sense of the weakness and imper-
fections of human nature, and of our own
personal faults and defects, is true humility.
It is, not to think of ourselves above what we
ought to think—a most salutary and amiable
disposition, of great price in the sight of
God and man. Nor is it inconsistent with
real magnanimity and greatness of soul.
They may dwell together with great advan-
tage and ornament to both, and be faithful
monitors against the extremes to which each
has the greatest tendeney.
But there is a depression of mind which
is the opposite to magnanimity, which de-
bilitates the springs of action, and freezes
every sentiment that should lead to any
noble exertion or enterprise.
Suppose a man to have no belief of a
good administration of the world, no con-
ception of the dignity of virtue, no hope of
happiness in another state. Suppose him,
at the same time, in a state of extreme
poverty and dependence, and that he has
no higher aim than to supply his bodily
wants, or to minister to the pleasure, or
flatter the pride of some being as worthless
as himself. Is not the soul of such a man
depressed as much as his body or his for-
tune 2 And, if fortune should smile upon
him while he retains the same sentiments
he is only the slave of fortune. His mind
is depressed to the state of a brute; and his
human faculties serve only to make him
feel that depression. [197]
Depression of mind may be owing to
melancholy, a distemper of mind which
proceeds from the state of the body, which
throws a dismal gloom upon every object
of thought, cuts all the sinews of action, and
often gives rise to strange and absurd
opinions in religion, or in other interesting
matters. Yet, where there is real worth
at bottom, same rays of it will break forth
even in this depressed state of mind.
A remarkable instance of this was ex-
hibited in Mr Simon Brown, a dissenting
clergymen in England, who, by melancholy,
was led into the belief that his rational soul
had gradually decayed within him, and at
last was totally extinct. From this belief
he gave up his ministerial function, and
would not even join with others in any act
of worship, conceiving it to be a profana-
tion to worship God without a soul.
In this dismal state of mind, he wrote
an excellent defence of the Christian reli-
gion, against Tindal’s “Christianity as old
as the Creation.” To the book he pre-
fixed an epistle dedicatory to Queen Caro-
line, wherein he mentions—“That he was
Once a man; but, by the immediate hand of
God, for his sins, his very thinking sub-
stance has, for more than seven years, been
continually wasting away, till it is wholly
perished out of him, if it be not utterly
come to nothing.” And, having heard of
her Majesty's eminent piety, he begs the
aid of her prayers.
The book was published after his death
without the dedication, which, however,
having been preserved in manuscript, was
afterwards printed in the “Adventurer,”
No. 88. [198]
Thus, this good man, when he believed
that he had no soul, shewed a most gene-
rous and disinterested concern for those
who had souls.
As depression of mind may produce
strange opinions, especially in the case of
ſig6–198]
CHAP. VIII.]
577
OF OPINION.
melancholy, so our opinions may have a
very considerable influence, either to ele-
vate or to depress the mind, even where
there is no melancholy.
Suppose, on one hand, a man who be-
lieves that he is destined to an eternal
existence; that He who made and who
governs the world, maketh account of him,
and hath furnished him with the means of
attaining a high degree of perfection and
glory. With this man, compare, on the
other hand, the man who believes nothing
at all, or who believes that his existence is
only the play of atoms, and that, after he
hath been tossed about by blind fortune
for a few years, he shall again return to
nothing. Can it be doubted, that the
former opinion leads to elevation and great-
ness of mind, the latter to meanness and
depression ?
CHAPTER VIII.
OF OPINION.
WHEN we come to explain the rational
principles of action, it will appear that
Opinion is an essential ingredient in them.
Here we are only to consider its influence
upon the animal principles.
I have ranked in that class cannot, I think,
exist in the human mind without it.
Gratitude supposes the opinion of a
favour done or intended ; resentment the
opinion of an injury; esteem the opinion
of merit; the passion of love supposes the
opinion of uncommon merit and perfection
in its object. [199]
Although natural affection to parents,
children, and near relations is not grounded
on the opinion of their merit, it is much
increased by that consideration. So is
every benevolent affection. On the con-
trary, real malevolence can hardly exist
without the opinion of demerit in the ob-
ject.
There is no natural desire or aversion
which may not be restrained by opinion.
Thus, if a man were a-thirst, and had a
strong desire to drink, the opinion that
there was poison in the cup would make him
forbear.
It is evident that hope and fear, which
every natural desire or affection may create,
depend upon the opinion of future good or
ill.
Thus it appears, that our passions, our
dispositions, and our opinions, have great
influence upon our animal principles, to
strengthen or weaken, to excite or restrain
them ; and, by that means, have great
influence upon human actions and charac-
ters.
That brute-animals have both passions
Some of those
the nature of man.
and dispositions similar, in many respects,
to those of men, cannot be doubted. Whe-
ther they have opinions is not so clear. 'I
think they have not, in the proper sense of
the word. But, waving all dispute upon
this point, it will be granted that opinion in
men has a much wider field than in brutes.
No man will say that they have systems of
theology, morals, jurisprudence, or politics;
or that they can reason from the laws of
nature, in mechanics, medicine, or agricul-
ture.
They feel the evils or enjoyments that
are present ; probably they imagine those
which experience has associated with what
they feel. But they can take no large pros-
pect either of the past or of the future, nor
see through a train of censequences. [200]
A dog may be deterred from eating what
is before him by the fear of immediate
punishment, which he has felt on like occa-
sions; but he is never deterred by the con:
sideration of health, or of any distant good.
I have been credibly informed, that a
monkey, having once been intoxicated with
strong drink, in consequence of which it
burnt its foot in the fire, and had a severe
fit of sickness, could never after be induced
to drink anything but pure water. I be-
lieve this is the utmost pitch which the
faculties of brutes can reach.
From the influence of opinion upon the
conduct of mankind, we may learn that it is
one of the chief instruments to be used in
the discipline and government of men.
All men, in the early part of life, must be
under the discipline and government of pa-
rents and tutors, Men who live in society
must be under the government of laws and
magistrates through life. The government
of men is undoubtedly one of the noblest
exertions of human power. And it is of
great importance that those who have any
share, either in domestic or civil govern-
ment, should know the nature of mam, and
how he is to be trained and governed.
Of all instruments of government, opinion
is the Sweetest, and the most agreeable to
Obedience that flows
from opinion is real freedom, which every
man desires. That which is extorted by
fear of punishment is slavery, a yoke which
is always galling, and which every man will
shake off when it is in his power.
The opinions of the bulk of mankind have
always been, and will always be, what they
are taught by those whom they esteem to
be wise and good ; and, therefore, in a con-
siderable degree, are in the power of those
who govern them. [201]
Man, uncorrupted by bad habits and bad
opinions, is of all animals the most tract-
able ; corrupted by these, he is of all ani-
mals the most untractable.
I apprehend, therefore, that, if ever civil
[199–201j
2 P
578
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [Essay III.-PART II.
government shall be brought to perfection,
it must be the principal care of the state to
make good citizens by proper education, and
proper instruction and discipline."
The most useful part of medicine is that
which strengthens the constitution, and pre-
vents diseases by good regimen ; the rest
is somewhat like propping a ruinous fabric
at great expense, and to little purpose. The
art of government is the medicine of the
mind, and the most useful part of it is that
which prevents crimes and bad habits, and
trains men to virtue and good habits by
proper education and discipline.
The end of government is to make the
society happy, which can only be done by
making it good and virtuous.
That men in general will be good or bad
members of society, according to the edu-
cation and discipline by which they have
been trained, experience may convince us.
The present age has made great advances
in the art of training men to military duty.
It will not be said that those who enter
into that service are more tractable than
their fellow-subjects of other professions.
And I know not why it should be thought
impossible to train men to equal perfec-
tion in the other duties of good citizens.
[202]
What an immense difference is there, for
the purpose of war, between an army pro-
perly trained, and a militia hastily drawn
out of the multitude 2 What should hinder
us from thinking that, for every purpose of
civil government, there may be a like dif-
ference between a civil society properly
trained to virtue, good habits, and right
sentiments, and those civil societies which
we now behold 2 . But I fear I shall be
thought to digress from my subject into
Utopian speculation.
To make an end of what I have to say
upon the animal principles of action, we
may take a complex view of their effect in
life, by supposing a being actuated by prin-
ciples of no higher order, to have no con-
science or sense of duty, only let us allow
him that superiority of understanding and
that power of self-government which man
actually has. Let us speculate a little upon
this imaginary being, and consider what
* It is not creditable to the people of Great Britain
that we are about the last nation of Europe, if not
to recognise this principle, at least to carry it into
effect. But the spirit of manufactures, which views
human beings only in relation to production, and
aims exclusively at obtaining them for ins' ruments
at the cheapest rate, is diametrically opposed to the
spirit of education; in as much as education views
the citizen as a subject of intellectual improvement,
and, without making him a better instrument, makes
him one more costly. Aristotle has signalized this
antagonism, which has been overlooked by recent po-
litical speculators. But, in ancient times, the pros-
prity of a state was placed in the moral and intel-
ectual dignity of its citizens; in modern times, in
their material riches.—H.
conduct and tenor of action might be ex-
pected from him.
It is evident he would be a very different
animal from a brute, and, perhaps, not very
different, in appearance, from what a great
part of mankind is. .
He would be capable of considering the
distant consequences of his actions, and of
restraining or indulging his appetites, de-
sires, and affections, from the consideration
of distant good or evil.
He would be capable of choosing some
main end of his life, and planning such a
rule of conduct as appeared most subser-
vient to it. Of this we have reason to think
no brute is capable.
We can, perhaps, conceive such a balance
of the animal principles of action as, with
very little self-government, might make a
man to be a good member of Society, a good
companion, and to have many amiable qua-
lities. [203]
The balance of our animal principles, I
think, constitutes what we call a man’s
natural temper ; which may be good or
bad, without regard to his virtue.
A man in whom the benevolent affec-
tions, the desire of esteem and good humour,
are naturally prevalent, who is of a calm
and dispassionate nature, who has the good
fortune to live with good men and associate
with good companions, may behave pro-
perly with little effort.
His natural temper leads him, in most
cases, to do what virtue requires. And if
She happens not to be exposed to those try-
ing situations in which virtue crosses the
natural bent of his temper, he has no great
temptation to act amiss. - .
But, perhaps, a happy natural temper,
joined with such a happy situation, is more
ideal than real, though, no doubt, some men
make nearer approaches to it than others.
The temper and the situation of men is
commonly such that the animal principles
alone, without self-government, would never
produce any regular and consistent train
of conduct. -
. One principle crosses another. Without
self-government, that which is strongest
at the time will prevail. And that which
is weakest at one time may, from passion,
from a change of disposition or of fortune,
become strongest at another time. 3.
Every natural appetite, desire, and affec-
tion, has its own present gratification only
in view. A man, therefore, who has no
other leader than these, would be like a
ship in the ocean without hands, which
cannot be said to be destined to any port.
He would have no character at all, but be
benevolent or spiteful, pleasant or morose,
honest or dishonest, as the present wind of
passion or tide of humour moved him.
[204]
[202-204]
C11AP. VIII.]
RATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 579
Every man who pursues an end, be it
good or bad, must be active when he is dis-
posed to be indolent ; he must rein every
passion and appetite that would lead him
out of his road.
Mortification and self-denial are found
not in the path of virtue only—they are
common to every road that leads to an end,
be it ambition, or avarice, or even pleasure
itself. Every man who maintains a uni-
form and consistent character, must sweat
and toil, and often struggle with his pre-
sent inclination.
Yet those who steadily pursue some end
in life, though they must often restrain their
strongest desires, and practise much self-
denial, have, upon the whole, more enjoy-
ment than those who have no end at all,
but to gratify the present prevailing in-
clination.
A dog that is made for the chase cannot
enjoy the happiness of a dog without that
exercise. Keep him within doors, feed him
with the most delicious fare, give him all
the pleasures his nature is capable of, he
soon becomes a dull, torpid, unhappy ani-
mal. No enjoyment can supply the want
of that employment which nature has made
his chief good. Let him hunt, and neither
pain, nor hunger, nor fatigue seem to be
evils. Deprived of this exercise, he can
relish nothing. Life itself becomes burden-
SOInne.
It is no disparagement to the human
kind to say, that man, as well as the dog,
is made for hunting, and cannot be happy
but in some vigorous pursuit. He has, in-
deed, nobler game to pursue than the dog ;
but he must have some pursuit, otherwise
life stagnates, all the faculties are benumbed,
the spirits flag, and his existence becomes
an unsupportable burden.
Even the mere foxhunter, who has no
higher pursuit than his dogs, has more en-
joyment than he who has no pursuit at all.
Pſe has an end in view, and this invigorates
his spirits, makes him despise pleasure ;"
and bear cold, hunger, and fatigue, as if
they were no evils. [205]
“Manet sub Jove frigido
Venator, tenerae conjugis immemor,
Seu visa est catulis cerva fidelibus,
Seu rupit teretes Marsus aper plagas.”f
* Despise one pleasure for the sake of a higher.
In fact, all pleasure is the reflex or concomitant of
energy—spontaneous and unimpeded energy. This
has been best developed by Aristotle.-H.
f Horace.
[205, 206]
PART III.
OF THE RATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF
ACTION.
CHAPTER I.
THERE ARE RATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF ACTION
IN MAN.
MECHANICAL principles of action produce
their effect without any will or intention on
our part. We may, by a voluntary effort,
hinder the effect; but, if it be not hindered
by will and effort, it is produced without
them.
Animal principles of action require in-
tention and will in their operation, but not
judgment. They are, by ancient moralists,
very properly called cacaº cupidines, blind
desires.
Having treated of these two classes, I
proceed to the third—the Rational principles
of action in man; which have that name,
because they can have no existence in be-
ings not endowed with reason, and, in all
their exertions, require, not only intention
and will, but judgment or reason. [206]
That talent which we call Reason," by
which men that are adult and of a sound
mind are distinguished from brutes, idiots,
and infants, has, in all ages, among the
learned and unlearned, been conceived to
have two offices—to regulate our belief, and
to regulate owr actions and conduct.
Whatever we believe, we think agree-
able to reason, and, on that account, yield
our assent to it. Whatever we disbelieve,
we think contrary to reason, and, on that
account, dissent from it. Reason, there-
fore, is allowed to be the principle by which
our belief and opinions ought to be regulated.
But reason has been no less universally
conceived to be a principle by which our
actions ought to be regulated.
To act reasonably, is a phrase no less
common in all languages, than to judge
reasonably. We immediately approve of a
man's conduct, when it appears that he had
good reason for what he did. ...And every
action we disapprove, we think unreason-
able, or contrary to reason.
A way of speaking so universal among
men, common to the learned and the un-
learned in all nations and in all languages,
must have a meaning. To suppose it to
be words without meaning, is to treat, with
undue contempt, the common sense of man-
kind.
Supposing this phrase to have a meaning,
* Reason is here used for intelligence in general.—
2 p 2
580
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [Essay m-rant III
we may consider in what way reason may
serve to regulate human conduct, so that
some actions of men are to be denominated
reasonable, and others unreasonable.
I take it for granted, that there can be
no exercise of Reason without Judgment,
nor, on the other hand, any judgment of
things, abstract and general, without some
degree of reason. [207]
… If, therefore, there be any principles of
action in the human constitution, which, in
their nature, necessarily imply such judg-
ment, they are the principles which we may
call rational, to distinguish them from ani-
mal principles, which imply desire and will,
but not judgment. -
Every deliberate human action must be
done either as the means, or as an end ; as
the means to some end, to which it is subserv-
ient, or as an end, for its own sake, and
without regard to anything beyond it.
That it is a part of the office of reason to
determine what are the proper means to
any end which we desire, no man ever de-
nied. But some philosophers, particularly
Mr Hume, think that it is no part of the
office of reason to determine the ends we
ought to pursue, or the preference due to
one end above another. This, he thinks,
is not the office of reason, but of taste or
feeling.
If this be so, reason cannot, with any pro-
priety, be called a principle of action. Its
office can only be to minister to the princi-
ples of action, by discovering the means of
their gratification. Accordingly, Mr Hume
maintains, that reason is no principle of ac-
tion ; but that it is, and ought to be, the
servant of the passions.
I shall endeavour to shew that, among
the various ends of human actions, there
are some, of which, without reason, we
could not even form a conception; and that,
as soon as they are conceived, a regard to
them is, by our constitution, not only a
principle of action, but a leading and go-
verning principle, to which all our animal
principles are subordinate, and to which
they ought to be subject. [208]
These I shall call rational principles; be-
cause they can exist only in beings endowed
with reason, and because, to act from these
principles, is what has always been meant
by acting according to reason.
The ends of human actions I have in
view, are two—to wit, What is good for ws
*pon the whole, and, What appears to be
our duly. They are very strictly connected,
lead to the same course of conduct, and co-
operate with each other; and, on that ac-
count, have commonly been comprehended
under one name—that of reason. But, as
they may be disjoined, and are really dis-
tinct principles of action, I shall consider
them separately.
CHAPTER II.
OF REGARD TO OUR, GOOD ON THE WHOI, E.
IT will not be denied that man, when he
comes to years of understanding, is led, by
his rational nature, to form the conception
of what is good for him upon the whole.
How early in life this general notion of
good enters into the mind, I cannot pre-
tend to determine. It is one of the most
general and abstract notions we form.
Whatever makes a man more happy or
more perfect, is good, and is an object of
desire as soon as we are capable of forming
the conception of it. The contrary is ill,
and is an object of aversion.
In the first part of life, we have many
enjoyments of various kinds ; but very si-
milar to those of brute-animals. [209]
They consist in the exercise of our senses
and powers of motion, the gratification of
our appetites, and the exertions of our kind
affections. These are chequered with many
evils of pain, and fear, and disappointment,
and sympathy with the sufferings of others.
But the goods and evils of this period of
life are of short duration, and soon forgot.
The mind, being regardless of the past, and
unconcerned about the future, we have
then no other measure of good but the pre-
sent desire ; no other measure of evil but
the present aversion.
Every animal desire has some particular
and present object, and looks not beyond
that object to its consequences, or to the
connections it may have with other things.
The present object, which is most at-
tractive, or excites the strongest desire, de-
termines the choice, whatever be its con-
sequences. The present evil that presses
most, is avoided, though it should be the
road to a greater good to come, or the only
way to escape a greater evil. . This is the
way in which brutes act, and the way in
which men must act, till they come to the
use of reason.
As we grow up to understanding, we ex-
tend our view both forward and backward.
We reflect upon what is past, and, by the
lamp of experience, discern what will pro-
bably happen in time to come. We find
that many things which we eagerly desired,
were too dearly purchased, and that things
grievous for the present, like nauseous me-
dicines, may be salutary in the issue.
We learn to observe the connexions of
things, and the consequences of our actions :
and, taking an extended view of our exist-
ence, past, present, and future, we correct
our first notions of good and ill, and form
the conception of what is good or ill upon
the whole; which must be estimated, not
from the present feeling, or from the pre-
[207–209]
chap. II.] OF REGARD TO OUR GOOD ON THE WHOLE.
58]
sent animal desire or aversion, but from a
due consideration of its consequences, cer-
tain or probable, during the whole of our
existence. [210]
That which, taken with all its discover-
able connections and consequences, brings
more good than ill, I call good upon the
whole.
That brute-animals have any conception
of this good, I see no reason to believe.
And it is evident that man cannot have the
conception of it, till reason is so far ad-
vanced that he can seriously reflect upon
the past, and take a prospect of the future
part of his existence.
It appears, therefore, that the very con-
ception of what is good or ill for us upon
the whole, is the offspring of reason, and
can be only in beings endowed with reason.
And if this conception give rise to any
principle of action in man, which he had
not before, that principle may very proper-
ly be called a rational principle of action.
I pretend not in this to say anything
that is new, but what reason suggested to
those who first turned their attention to
the philosophy of morals. I beg leave to
quote one passage from Cicero, in his first
book of “Offices;” wherein, with his usual
eloquence, he expresses the substance of
what I have said. And there is good rea-
son to think that Cicero borrowed it from
Panaetius, a Greek philosopher whose books
of “Offices” are lost.
“Sed inter hominem et belluam hoc
maxime interest, quod haec tantum, quan-
tum sensu movetur, ad id Solum, quod adest
quodgue praesens est se accommodat, pau-
lulum admodum sentiens praeteritum aut
futurum. Homo autem quoniam rationis
est particeps, per quam consequentia cer-
nit, causas rerum videt, earumque progres-
sus et quasi antecessiones non ignorat, si-
militudines comparat, et rebus praesenti-
bus adjungit atque annectit futuras; facile
totius vitae cursum videt, ad eamque de-
gendam praeparat res necessarias.” [21]]
I observe, in the meat place—That as soon
as we have the conception of what is good
or ill for us upon the whole, we are led, by
our constitution, to seek the good and avoid
the ill; and this becomes not only a prin-
ciple of action, but a leading or governing
principle, to which all our animal principles
ought to be subordinate.
I am very apt to think, with Dr Price,
that, in intelligent beings, the desire of what
is good, and aversion to what is ill, is necess
sarily connected with the intelligent nature;
and that it is a contradiction to suppose
such a being to have the motion of good
without the desire of it, or the notion of ill
without aversion to it. Perhaps there may
be other necessary connections between un-
derstanding and the best principles of action, |
which our faculties are too weak to discern.
That they are necessarily connected in him
who is perfect in understanding, we have
good reason to believe. -
To prefer a greater good, though distant,
to a less that is present; to choose a pre-
sent evil, in order to avoid a greater evil,
or to obtain a greater good, is, in the judg-
ment of all men, wise and reasonable con-
duct; and, when a man acts the contrary
part, all men will acknowledge that he acts
foolishly and unreasonably. Nor will it be
denied, that, in innumerable cases in com-
mon life, our animal principles draw us one
way, while a regard to what is good on the
whole, draws us the contrary way. Thus
the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the
spirit against the flesh, and these two are
contrary. That in every conflict of this
kind the rational principle ought to prevail,
and the animal to be subordinate, is too
evident to need, or to admit of proof. [212]
Thus, I think, it appears, that, to pursue
what is good upon the whole, and to avoid
what is ill upon the whole, is a rational prin-
ciple of action grounded upon our constitu-
tion as reasonable creatures.
It appears that it is not without just cause,
that this principle of action has in all ages
been called reason, in opposition to our
animal principles, which in common lan.
guage are called by the general name of the
passions.
The first not only operates in a calm and
cool manner, like reason, but implies real
judgment in all its operations. The second—
to wit, the passions—are blind desires of
some particular object, without any judg-
ment or consideration, whether it be good
for us upon the whole, or ill.
It appears also, that the fundamental
maxim of prudence, and of all good morals—
That the passions ought, in all cases, to be
under the dominion of reason—is not only
self-evident, when rightly understood, but
is expressed according to the common use
and propriety of language.
The contrary maxim maintained by Mr
Hume, can only be defended by a gross and
palpable abuse of words. For, in order to
defend it, he must include under the pas-
sions that very principle which has always,
in all languages, been called reason, and
never was, in any language, called a passion.
And from the meaning of the word reason
he must exclude the most important part
of it, by which we are able to discern and
to pursue what appears to be good upon the
whole. And thus, including the most im-
portant part of reason under passion, and
making the least important part of reason
to be the whole, he defends his favourite
paradox, That reason is, and ought to be,
the servant of the passions. [2]3]
To judge of what is true or false in specu-
[210–213]
582.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [Essay III.-PAnt III;
lative points, is the office of speculative
reason ; and to judge of what is good or ill
for us upon the whole, is the office of prac-
tical reason. Of true and false there are
no degrees; but of good and ill there are
many degrees, and many kinds; and men
are very apt to form erroneous opinions
concerning them ; misled by their passions,
by the authority of the multitude, and by
other causes.
Wise men, in all ages, have reckoned it
a chief point of wisdom, to make a right
estimate of the goods and evils of life.
They have laboured to discover the errors
of the multitude on this important point,
and to warn others against them.
The ancient moralists, though divided
into sects, all agreed in this—That opinion
has a mighty influence upon what we com-
monly account the goods and ills of life, to
alleviate or to aggravate them.
The Stoics carried this so far, as to con-
clude that they all depend on opinion. II&vrz
"TréAz-pis was a favourite maxim with them.
We see, indeed, that the same station or
condition of life, which makes one man
happy, makes another miserable, and to a
third is perfectly indifferent. We see men
miserable through life, from vain fears and
anxious desires, grounded solely upon wrong
opinions. We see men wear themselves
out with toilsome days, and sleepless nights,
in pursuit of some object which they never
attain; or which, when attained, gives little
satisfaction, perhaps real disgust.
The evils of life, which every man must
feel, have a very different effect upon dif-
ferent men. What sinks one into despair
and absolute misery, rouses the virtue and
magnanimity of another, who bears it as
the lot of humanity, and as the discipline of
a wise and merciful Father in heaven. He
rises superior to adversity, and is made
Wiser and better by it, and, consequently,
happier. [214]
It is therefore of the last importance, in
the conduct of life, to have just opinions
with respect to good and evil; and, surely,
it is the province of reason to correct wrong
opiuions, and to lead us into those that are
just and true.
It is true, indeed, that men's passions and
appetites too often draw them to act con-
trary to their cool judgment and opinion of
what is best for them. Video meliora pro-
bºgue, deteriora sequor, is the case in every
wilful deviation from our true interest and
our duty. -
When this is the case, the man is self-
condemned ; he sees that he acted the part
of a brute when he ought to have acted the
part of a man. He is convinced that
reason ought to have restrained his passion,
and not to have given the rein to it.
When he feels the bad effects of his con-
duct, he imputes them to himself, and would
be stung with remorse for his folly, though
he had no account to make to a superior
Being. He has sinned against himself, and
brought upon his own head the punishment
which his folly deserved. :
From this we may see that this rational
principle of a regard to our good upon the
whole, gives us the conception of a right
and a wrong in human conduct, at least of
a wise and a foolish. It produces a kind of
self-approbation, when the passions and
appetites are kept in their due subjection to
it; and a kind of remorse and compunction
when it yields to them. [215] -
In these respects, this principle is so
similar to the moral principle, or Conscience,
and so interwoven with it, that both are
commonly comprehended under the name
of Reason. This similarity led many of the
ancient philosophers, and some among the
moderns, to resolve conscience, or a sense
of duty, entirely into a regard to what is
good for us upon the whole.
That they are distinct principles of action,
though both lead to the same conduct in.
life, I shall have occasion to shew when I
come to treat of conscience.
CHAPTER III.
THE TEN DENCY OF THIS PRINCPLE.
IT has been the opinion of the wisest
men, in all ages, that this principle, of a
regard to our good upon the whole, in a
man duly enlightened, leads to the practice
of every virtue.
This was acknowledged, even by Epi-
curus; and the best moralists among the
ancients derived all the virtues from this
principle. For, among them, the whole of
morals was reduced to this question ? What
is the greatest good 2 or, What course of
conduct is best for us upon the whoſe 3
In order to resolve this question, they
divided goods into three classes: the goods
of the body—the goods of fortune or ea-
termal goods—and the goods of the mind,
meaning, by the last, wisdom and virtue.
Comparing these different classes of goods,
they shewed, with convincing evidence, that
the goods of the mind are, in many respects,
superior to those of the body and of for-
tune, not only as they have more dignity,
are more durable, and less exposed to the
strokes of fortune, but chiefly as they are
the only goods in our power, and which
depend wholly on our conduct. [216]
Epicurus himself maintained, that the
wise man may be happy in the tranquillity
of his mind, even when racked with pain
and struggling with adversity. -
They observed very justly, that the goods
- [214–216]
CHAP. III.]
THE TENDENCY OF THIS PRINCIPLE. 583
of fortune, and even those of the body, de-
pend much on opinion; and that, when our
opinion of them is duly corrected by reason,
we shall find them of small value in them.
selves.
How can he be happy who places his
happiness in things which it is not in his
power to attain, or in things from which,
when attained, a fit of sickness, or a stroké
of fortune, may tear him asunder 2
The value we put upon things, and our
uneasiness in the want of them, depend
upon the strength of our desires; correct
the desire, and the uneasiness ceases.
The fear of the evils of body and of for-
tune, is often a greater evil than the things
we fear. As the wise man moderates his
desires by temperance, so, to real or ima-
ginary dangers, he opposes the shield of
fortitude and magnanimity, which raises
him above himself, and makes him happy
and triumphant in those moments wherein |
others are most miserable.
These oracles of reason led the Stoics so
far as to maintain—That all desires and
fears, with regard to things not in our
power, ought to be totally eradicated; that
virtue is the only good; that what we call
the goods of the body and of fortune, are
really things indifferent, which may, accord-
ing to circumstances, prove good or ill, and,
therefore, have no intrinsic goodness in
themselves; that our sole business ought
to be, to act our part well, and to do what
is right, without the least concern about
things, not in our power, which we ought,
with perfect acquiescence, to leave to the
care of Him who governs the world. [217]
This noble and elevated conception of
human wisdom and duty was taught by
Socrates, free from the extravagancies
which the Stoics afterwards joined with it.
We see it in the “Alcibiades” of Plato,"
from which Juvenal hath taken it in his
tenth satire, and adorned it with the graces
of poetry. -
“Omnibus in terris qua sunt a Gadibus usque [1]
Auroram et Gangen, pauci dignoscere possunt
Vera bona atque illis multurm diversa, remota
Erroris nebula. Quid enim ratione timemus
Monstro, quod ipse tibi possis dare: semita certe
Tranquilla per virtutem patet unica vitae.
Nullum numen abest si sit prudentia; nos te
Nos facimus, Fortuna, Deam, coeloque locamus.”
Even Horace, in his serious moments,
falls into this system. [218]
“Nil admirari, prope res est una, Numici,
Solaque quae possit facere et servare beatum.”
We cannot but admire the Stoical system
of morals, even when we think that, in
some points, it went beyond the pitch of
human nature. The virtue, the temperance,
the fortitude, and magnanimity of some
who sincerely embraced it, amidst all the
flattery of sovereign power and the luxury
of a court, will be everlasting monuments
to the honour of that system, and to the
honour of human nature.
That a due regard to what is best for us
upon the whole, in an enlightened mind,
leads to the practice of every virtue, may
be argued from considering what we think
best for those for whom we have the
strongest affection, and whose good we
tender as our own. In judging for our-
selves, our passions and appetites are apt to
bias our judgment ; but when we judge for
others, this bias is removed, and we judge
impartially. -
What is it, then, that a wise man would
wish as the greatest good to a brother, a
son, or a friend ?
Is it that he may spend his life in a con-
stant round of the pleasures of sense, and
fare sumptuously every day ?
No, surely ; we wish him to be a man of
real virtue and worth. We may wish for
him an honourable station in life ; but only
with this condition, that he acquit himself
honourably in it, and acquire just reputa-
tion, by being useful to his country and to
mankind. We would a thousand times
rather wish him honourably to undergo the
labours of Hercules, than to dissolve in
pleasure with Sardanapalus. [219]
Such would be the wish of every man of
understanding for the friend whom he loves
as his own soul. Such things, therefore,
he judges to be best for him upon the whole;
and if he judges otherwise for himself, it is
only because his judgment is perverted by
animal passions and desires.
The sum of what has been said in these
three chapters amounts to this:—
There is a principle of action in men that
are adult and of a sound mind, which, in
all ages, has been called reason, and set in
opposition to the animal principles which
we call the passions. The ultimate object”
of this principle is what we judge to be
good upon the whole. This is not the ob-
ject" of any of our animal principles; they
being all directed to particular objects,
Aut cupimus P Quid tam dextro pede concipis utte
Conatus non poeniteat votique peracti P
Nil ergo optabunt homines P Si consilium vis, [346]
Permittes ipsis expendere numinibus, quid
Conveniat nobis rebusque sit utile nostris.
Nam pro jucundis aptissima quaeque dabunt D.I.
Carior est illis homo quam sibi. Nos animorum
Impulsu, et caeca magnaque cupidine ducti,
Conjugium petimus partumque uxoris; at illis
Notum, qui pueri qualisque futura sit uxor.
Oraudum est, ut sit meus sana in corpore Sano.]
'ortem posce animum, mortis terrore caren'em,
Qui spatium vitae extremum inter munera poliat
Natura”, qui ferre queat quoscunque labores,
Nesciatirasci, cupiat nihil, et potiores
Herculis a rumnas credat savosque labores
Et Venere, et coenis, et plumis, Sardanapali.
* The Second Alcibiades: which is not Plato's; as
can be shewn on grounds apart from its inferiority
to the genuine works of that philosopher.— . .
* The word object should not be used for aim or end,
but exclusively for the materia circa quam.-H.. -
[217–219]
584
ON THE ACTIVE l'OWERS. [Essay III.—PART III.
without any comparison with others, or
any consideration of their being good or ill
upon the whole.
What is good upon the whole cannot even
be conceived without the exercise of rea-
son, and therefore cannot be an object" to
beings that have not some degree of rea-
SOD1,
As soon as we have the conception of
this object,” we are led, by our constitu-
tion, to desire and pursue it. It justly
claims a preference to all-objects of pursuit
that can come in competition with it. In
preferring it to any gratification that op-
poses it, or in submitting to any pain or
mortification which it requires, we act ac-
cording to reason; and every such action is
accompanied with self-approbation and the
approbation of mankind. The contrary ac-
tions are accompanied with shame and self-
condemnation in the agent, and with con-
tempt in the spectator, as foolish and un-
reasonable. [220]
The right application of this principle to
our conduct requires an extensive prospect
of human life, and a correct judgment and
estimate of its goods and evils, with re-
spect to their intrinsic worth and dignity,
their constancy and duration, and their at-
tainableness. He must be a wise man in-
deed, if any such man there be, who can
perceive, in every instance, or even in every
important instance, what is best for him
upon the whole, if he have no other rule to
direct his conduct.
However, according to the best judgment
which wise men have been able to form,
this principle leads to the practice of every
virtue. It leads directly to the virtues of
Prudence, Temperance, and Fortitude.
And, when we consider ourselves as social
creatures, whose happiness or misery is very
much connected with that of our fellow-
men ; when we consider that there are
many benevolent affections planted in our
constitution, whose exertions make a capi-
tal part of our good and enjoyment : from
these considerations, this principle leads us
also, though more indirectly, to the prac-
tice of justice, humanity, and all the social
virtues.
It is true, that a regard to our own good
cannot, of itself, produce any benevolent
affection. But, if such affections be a part
of our constitution, and if the exercise of
them make a capital part of our happiness,
a regard to our own good ought to lead us
to cultivate and exercise them, as every be-
nevolent affection makes the good of others
to be our own. [221]
+ See the last note,
CHAPTER IV.
Defects of this PRINCIPLE.
HIAvLNG explained the nature of this
principle of action, and shewn in general
the tenor of conduct to which it leads, I
shall conclude what relates to it, by point-
ing out some of its defects, if it be supposed,
as it has been by some philosophers, to be
the only regulating principle of human
conduct.
Upon that supposition, it would neither
be a sufficiently plain rule of conduct, nor
would it raise the human character to that
degree of perfection of which it is capable,
nor would it yield so much real happiness
as when it is joined with another rational
principle of action—to wit, a disinterested
regard to duty.
First, I apprehend the greater part of
mankind can never attain such extensive
views of human life, and so correct a judg-
ment of good and ill, as the right applica-
tion of this principle requires.
The authority of the poet before quoted,"
is of weight in this point. “Pauci dignos-
cere possunt vera bona, remotá erroris
nebulá.” The ignorance of the bulk of
mankind concurs with the strength of their
passions to lead them into error in this most
important point.
Every man, in his calm moments, wishes
to know what is best for him on the whole,
and to do it. But the difficulty of discover-
ing it clearly, amidst such variety of opinions
and the importunity of present desires,
tempt men to give over the search, and to
yield to the present inclination. [222]
Though philosophers and moralists have
taken much laudable pains to correct the
errors of mankind in this great point, their
instructions are known to few ; they have
little influence upon the greater part of
those to whom they are known, and some-
times little even upon the philosopher
himself.
Speculative discoveries gradually spread
from the knowing to the ignorant, and dif-
fuse themselves over all ; so that, with re-
gard to them, the world, it may be hoped,
will still be growing wiser. But the errors
of men, with regard to what is truly good
or ill, after being discovered and refuted in
every age, are still prevalent.
Men stand in need of a sharper monitor
to their duty than a dubious view of distant
good. There is reason to believe, that a
present Sense of duty has, in many cases,
a stronger influence than the apprehension
of distant good would have of itself. And
it cannot be doubted, that a sense of guilt
and demerit is a more pungent reprover
* Juvenal.-H.
[220–222]
CHAP. Iv.]
585
DEFECTS.6)F THIS PRINCIPLE.
than the bare apprehension of having mis-
taken our true interest.
The brave soldier, in exposing himself to
danger and death, is animated, not by a
cold computation of the good and the ill, but
by a noble and elevated sense of military
duty.
A philosopher shews, by a copious and
just induction, what is our real good, and
what our ill. But this kind of reasoning is
not easily apprehended by the bulk of men.
It has too little force upon their minds to
resist the sophistry of the passions. They
are apt to think that, if such rules be good
in the general, they may admit of particu-
lar exceptions, and that what is good for
the greater part, may, to some persons, on
account of particular circumstances, be ill.
Thus, I apprehend, that, if we had no
plainer rule to direct our conduct in life
than a regard to our greatest good, the
greatest part of mankind would be fatally
misled, even by ignorance of the road to it.
[223]
Secondly, Though a steady pursuit of our
own real good may, in an enlightened mind,
produce a kind of virtue which is entitled
to some degree of approbation, yet it can
never produce the noblest kind of virtue
which claims our highest love and esteem.
We account him a wise man who is wise
for himself; and, if he prosecutes this end
through difficulties and temptations that lie
in his way, his character is far superior to
that of the man who, having the same end
in view, is continually starting out of the
road to it from an attachment to his appe-
tites and passions, and doing every day
what he knows he shall heartily repent.
Yet, after all, this wise man, whose
thoughts and cares are all centred ulti-
mately in himself, who indulges even his
social affections only with a view to his own
good, is not the man whom we cordially love
and esteem.
Like a cunning merchant, he carries his
goods to the best market, and watches every
opportunity of putting them off to the best
account. He does well and wisely. But
it is for himself. We owe him nothing upon
this account. Even when he does good to
others, he means only to serve himself; and,
therefore, has no just claim to their grati-
tude or affection.
This surely, if it be virtue, is not the
noblest kind, but a low and mercenary spe-
cies of it. It can neither give a noble ele-
vation to the mind that possesses it, nor
attract the esteem and love of others. [224]
Our cordial love and esteem is due only
to the man whose soul is not contracted
within itself, but embraces a more exten-
sive object : who loves virtue, not for her
dowry only, but for her own sake: whose
benevolence is not selfish, but generous and
disinterested : who, forgetful of himself, has
the common good at heart, not as the means
only, but as the end: who abhors what is
base, though he were to be a gainer by it;
and loves that which is right, although he
should suffer by it.
Such a man we esteem the perfect man,
compared with whom he who has no other
aim but good to himself is a mean and des-
picable character. -
Disinterested goodness and rectitude is
the glory of the Divine Nature, without
which he might be an object of fear or hope,
but not of true devotion. And it is the
image of this divine attribute in the human
character that is the glory of man.
To serve God and be useful to mankind,
without any concern about our own good
and happiness, is, I believe, beyond the
pitch of human nature. But to serve God
and be useful to men, merely to obtain
good to ourselves, or to avoid ill, is servility,
and not that liberal service which true de-
votion and real virtue require.
Thirdly, Though one might be apt to
think that he has the best chance for hap-
piness who has no other end of his deliber-
ate actions but his own good, yet a little
consideration may satisfy us of the con-
trary.
A concern for our own good is not a prin-
ciple that, of itself, gives any enjoyment.
On the contrary, it is apt to fill the mind
with fear, and care, and anxiety. And
these concomitants of this principle often
give pain and uneasiness, that overbalance
the good they have in view. [225]
We may here compare, in point of pre-
sent happiness, two imaginary characters :
The first, of the man who has no other ulti-
mate end of his deliberate actions but his
own good; and who has no regard to virtue
or duty, but as the means to that end.
The second character is that of the man
who is not indifferent with regard to his
own good, but has another ultimate end
perfectly consistent with it—to wit, a dis-
interested love of virtue, for its own sake,
or a regard to duty as an end.
Comparing these two characters in point
of happiness, that we may give all possible
advantage to the selfish principle, we shall
suppose the man who is actuated solely by
| it, to be so far enlightened as to see it his
interest to live soberly, righteously, and
godly in the world, and that he follows the
same course of conduct from the motive of
his own good only, which the other does,
in a great measure, or in Some measure,
from a sense of duty and rectitude
We put the case so as that the difference
between these two persons may be, not in
what they do, but in the motive from which
they do it; and, I think, there can be no
doubt that he who acts from the noblest
[223–225]
586
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [Essay III.-PART 111.
and most generous motive, will have most
happiness in his conduct.
The one labours only for hire, without
any love to the work. The other loves the
work, and thinks it the noblest and most
honourable he can be employed in. To
the first, the mortification and self-denial
which the course of virtue requires, is a
grievous task, which he submits to only
through necessity. To the other it is vic-
tory and triumph, in the most honourable
warfare. [226] -
It ought farther to be considered—That
although wise men have concluded that
virtue is the only road to happiness, this
conclusion is founded chiefly upon the
natural respect men have for virtue, and
the good or happiness that is intrinsic to it
and arises from the love of it. If we sup-
pose a man, as we now do, altogether des-
titute of this principle, who considered
virtue ºnly as the means to another end,
there is no reason to think that he would
ever take it to be the road to happiness,
but would wander for ever seeking this
object, where it is not to be found.
The road of duty is so plain that the
man who seeks it with an upright heart
cannot greatly err from it. But the road
to happiness, if that be supposed the only
end our nature leads us to pursue, would
be found dark and intricate, full of snares
and dangers, and therefore not to be trodden
without fear, and care, and perplexity.
The happy man, therefore, is not he
whose happiness is his only care, but he
who, with perfect resignation, leaves the
care of his happiness to him who made
him, while he pursues with ardour the road
of his duty.
This gives an elevation to his mind,
which is real happiness. Instead of care,
and fear, and anxiety, and disappointment,
it brings joy and triumph. It gives a relish
to every good we enjoy, and brings good
out of evil.
And as no man can be indifferent about
his happiness, the good man has the con-
solation to know that he consults his hap-
piness most effectually when, without any
painful anxiety about future events, he does
his duty.
Thus, I think, it appears–That, although
a regard to our good upon the whole, be a
rational principle in man, yet if it be sup-
posed the only regulating principle of our
conduct, it would be a more uncertain rule,
it would give far less perfection to the
human character, and far less happiness,
than when joined with another rational prin-
ciple—to wit, a regard to duty. [227]
CHAPTER V.
OF THE NOTION OF DUTY, RECTITUDE, MoRAL
OBLIGATION.
A BEING endowed with the animal prin-
ciples of action only, may be capable of
being trained to certain purposes by dis-
cipline, as we see many brute-animals are,
but would be altogether incapable of being
governed by law. -
The subject of law must have the con-
ception of a general rule of conduct, which,
without some degree of reason, he cannot
have. He must likewise have a sufficient
inducement to obey the law, even when his
strongest animal desires draw him the con-
trary way.
This inducement may be a sense of in-
terest, or a sense of duty, or both concur-
ring. -
These are the only principles I am able
to conceive, which can reasonably induce a
man to regulate all his actions according to
a certain general rule or law. They may
therefore be justly called the rational prin-
ciples of action, since they can have no
place but in a being endowed with reason,
and since it is by them only that man is
capable either of political or of moral go-
Vernment.
Without them human life would be like
a ship at sea without hands, left to be
carried by winds and tides as they happen.
It belongs to the rational part of our nature
to intend a certain port, as the end of the
voyage of life ; to take the advantage of
winds and tides when they are favourable,
and to bear up against them when they are
unfavourable. [228]
A sense of interest may induce us to do
this, when a suitable reward is set before
us. But there is a nobler principle in the
constitution of man, which, in many cases,
gives a clearer and more certain rule of
conduct, than a regard merely to interest
would give, and a principle, without which
man would not be a moral agent. .
A man is prudent when he consults his
real interest; but he cannot be virtuous, if
he has no regard to duty.
I proceed now to consider this regard
to Duty as a rational principle of action
in man, and as that principle alone by
which he is capable either of virtue or
WICe, * . .”
I shall first offer some observations with
regard to the general notion of duty, and
its contrary, or of right and wrong in human
conduct, and then consider, how we come to
judge and determine certain things in hu-
man conduct to be right, and others to be
wrong.
With regard to the notion or conception
[226–228]
CHAP. V.]
537
. OF THE NOTION OF DUTY, &c.
of Duty, I take it to be too simple to admit
of a logical definition.
We can define it only by synonymous
words or phrases, or by its properties and
necessary concomitants, as when we say
that it is what we ought to do—what is fair
and homest—what is approvable—what every
man professes to be the rule of his conduct—
what all men praise—and, what is in itself
laudable, though no man should praise it.
I observe, in the meat place, That the
notion of duty cannot be resolved into that
of interest, or what is most for our happi-
ness. [229]
Every man may be satisfied of this who
attends to his own conceptions, and the
language of all mankind shews it. When
I say, This is my interest, I mean one thing;
when I say, It is my duty, I mean another
thing. And, though the same course of
action, when rightly understood, may be
both my duty and my interest, the concep-
tions are very different. Both are reason-
able motives to action, but quite distinct in
their nature.
I presume it will be granted, that, in every
man of real worth, there is a principle of
honour, a regard to what is honourable or
dishonourable, very distinct from a regard
to his interest. It is folly in a man to dis-
regard his interest, but to do what is dis-
honourable, is baseness. The first may
move our pity, or, in Some cases, our con-
tempt; but the last provokes our indigna-
tion. .
As these two principles are different in
their nature, and not resolvable into one,
so the principle of honour is evidently supe-
rior in dignity to that of interest.
No man would allow him to be a man of
honour who should plead his interest to
justify what he acknowledged to be dis-
honourable; but to sacrifice interest to
honour never costs a blush.
It likewise will be allowed by every man
of honour, that this principle is not to be
resolved into a regard to our reputation
among men, otherwise the man of honour
would not deserve to be trusted in the dark,
He would have no aversion to lie, or cheat,
or play the coward, when he had no dread
of being discovered. [230]
I take it for granted, therefore, that every
man of real honour feels an abborrence of
certain actions, because they are in them-
selves base, and feels an obligation to cer-
tain other actions, because they are in them-
selves what honour requires, and this in-
dependently of any consideration of interest
or reputation. -
This is an immediate moral obligation.
This principle of honour, which is acknow-
ledged by all men who pretend to character,
is only another name for what we call a
regard to duty, to rectitude, to propriety of
conduct." It is a moral obligation which
obliges a man to do certain things because
they are right, and not to do other things
because they are wrong.
Ask the man of honour why he thinks
himself obliged to pay a debt of honour 2
The very question shocks him. To sup-
pose that he needs any other inducement to
do it but the principle of honour, is to sup-
pose that he has no honour, no worth, and
deserves no esteem.
There is, therefore, a principle in man,
which, when he acts according to it, gives
him a consciousness of worth, and, when he
acts contrary to it, a sense of demerit.
From the varieties of education, of fashion,
of prejudices, and of habits, men may dif-
fer much in opinion with regard to the ex-
tent of this principle, and of what it com-
mands and forbids; but the motion of it, as
far as it is carried, is the same in all. It
is that which gives a man real worth, and
is the object of moral approbation. [231]
Men of rank call it honowº, and too often
confine it to certain virtues that are thought
most essential to their rank. The vulgar
call it honesty, probity, virtue, conscience.
Philosophers have given it the names of
the moral sense, the moral faculty, rectitude.
The universality of this principle in men
that are grown up to years of understand-
ing and reflection, is evident. The words
that express it, the names of the virtues
which it commands, and of the vices which
it forbids, the ought and ought not which
express its dictates, make an essential part
of every language. The natural affections
of respect to worthy characters, of resent-
ment of injuries, of gratitude for favours,
of indignation against the worthless, are
parts of the human constitution which Sup-
pose a right and a wrong in conduct. Many
transactions that are found necessary in
the rudest societies go upon the same Sup-
position. In all testimony, in all promises,
and in all contracts, there is necessarily im-
plied a moral obligation on one party, and
a trust in the other, grounded upon this
obligation.
The variety of opinions among men in
points of morality, is not greater, but, as I
apprehend, much less than in speculative
points; and this variety is as easily ac-
counted for, from the common causes of
error, in the one case as in the other; so
that it is not more evident, that there is a
real distinction between true and false, in
matters of speculation, than that there is a
real distinction between right and wrong in
human conduct.
Mr Hume's authority, if there were any
need of it, is of weight in this matter, be-
* This would be true were the term Honour used
in English in the same latitude as the Latin term
Homcstum.— H. s
[229-231]
588.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [Essay III.-PART III.
cause he was not wont to go rashly into
vulgar opinions. g
“Those,” says he, “who have denied
the reality of moral distinctions, may be
ranked among the disingenuous disputants”
(who really do not believe the opinions they
defend, but engage in the controversy, from
affectation, from a spirit of opposition, or
from a desire of shewing wit and ingenuity
superior to the rest of mankind); “nor is it
conceivable, that any human creature could
ever seriously believe that all characters
and actions were alike entitled to the regard
and affection of every one. [232]
“Let a man’s insensibility be ever so
great, he must often be touched with the
images of RIGHT and WRONG ; and let his pre-
judices be ever so obstinate, he must observe
that others are susceptible of like impres-
sions. The only way, therefore, of con-
vincing an antagonist of this kind, is to leave
him to himself. For, finding that nobody
keeps up the controversy with him, it is
probable he will at last, of himself, from
mere weariness, come over to the side of
common sense and reason.” [Principles ºf
Morals, S I.]
What we call right and honourable in
human conduct, was, by therancients, called
homestum, r3 xxxây [22A3v acci 2x200v, and zoºxo
x&yo,0oy]; of which Tully says, “Quod vere
dicinus, etiamsi a nullo laudetur, natura
esse laudabile.” [De Officiis, L. I. c. iv.)
All the ancient sects, except the Epi-
cureans, distinguished the honestum from
the wtile, as we distinguish what is a man’s
duty from what is his interest.
The word officium, zac%zoy, extended both
to the honestum and the utile ; so that every
reasonable action, proceeding either from a
sense of duty or a sense of interest, was
called officium." It is defined by Cicero to
be—“Id quod cur factum sit ratio proba-
bilis reddi potest.” We commonly render
it by the word duty, but it is more extensive;
for the word duty, in the English language,
I think, is commonly applied only to what
the ancients called homestum.: Cicero, and
Panaetius before him, treating of offices,
first point out those that are grounded upon
the honestum, and next those that are
grounded upon the utile.
The most ancient philosophical system
concerning the principles of action in the
human mind, and, I think, the most agree-
able to nature, is that which we find in
some fragments of the ancient Pythago-
* The Stoics divided 220%zoy (officium) into
zo, réé0aºzo. (recle factum—absolutum, sive perfec.
tum, officium), and 2.20%zoy £2.Écow (commune, sive
medium, officium.)— H.
t This definition does not apply to zo.9%zov or offi.
cium, in general, but only to 20.6%zoy pºorov. officium
commune. See Cicero De Officiis, L. J. e. iii. – H.
# That is, it is limited to the zo, tºg(logo, or perfec
{wºm officium.—H.
reans," and which is adopted by Plato, and
explained in some of his dialogues. [233]
According to this system, there is a lead-
ing principle in the soul, which, like the
supreme power in a commonwealth, has
authority and right to govern. This lead-
ing principle they called Reason. It is that
which distinguishes men that are adult from
brutes, idiots, and infants. The inferior
principles, which are under the authority of
the leading principle, are our passions and
appetites, which we have in common with
the brutes. -
Cicero adopts this system, and expresses
it well in few words. “Duplex enim est
vis animorum atque maturae. Una pars in
appetitu posita est, quae est égº, graece,
quae hominem huc et illuc rapit; altera in
ratione, quae docet, et explanat quid facien-
dum fugiendumve sit. Ita fit ut ratio
praesit appetitus obtemperet.”—[De Offi-
ctis, L. I. c. 28. I *
This division of our active principles can
hardly, indeed, be accounted a discovery of
philosophy, because it has been common to
the unlearned in all ages of the world, and
seems to be dictated by the common sense
of mankind.
What I would now observe concerning
this common division of our active powers,
is, that the leading principle, which is called
Reason, comprehends both a regard to what
is right and honourable, and a regard to
our happiness upon the whole.
Although these be really two distinct
principles of action, it is rery natural to
comprehend them under one name, because
both are leading principles, both suppose
the use of Reason, and, when rightly under-
stood, both lead to the same course of life.
They are like two fountains, whose streams
unite and run in the same channel.
When a man, on one occasion, consults
his real happiness in things not inconsistent
with his duty, though in opposition to the
Solicitation of appetite or passion; and
when, on another occasion, without any
selfish consideration, he does what is right
and honourable, because it is so—in both
these cases, he acts reasonably ; every man
approves of his conduct, and calls it reason-
able, or according to reason. [234]
So that, when we speak of reason as a
principle of action in man, it includes a re-
gard both to the honeslum and to the utile.
Both are combined under one name ; and,
accordingly, the dictates of both, in the
Latin tongue, were combined under the
name officium, and in the Greek under
225%izoy. -
If we examine the abstract notion of
* Which are, however, all spurious, and written
long subsequently to Plato. The moral system of
these fragments is also principally accommodated to
that of Aristotle.--H.
| 232.284T
3HAP. VI.]
589
OF THE SENSE OF DUTY.
Duty, or Moral Obligation, it appears to be
neither any real quality of the action con-
sidered by itself, nor of the agent con-
sidered without respect to the action, but a
certain relation between the one and the
other.
When we say a man ought to do such a
thing, the ought, which expresses the moral
obligation, has a respect, on the one hand,
to the person who ought ; and, on the other,
to the action which he ought to do. Those
two correlates are essential to every moral
obligation ; take away either, and it has no
existenice. So that, if we seek the place of
moral obligation among the categories, it
belongs to the category of relation.*
There are many relations of things, of
which we have the most distinct conception,
without being able to define them logically.
Equality and proportion are relations be-
tween quantities, which every man under-
stands, but no man can define.
Moral obligation is a relation of its own
kind, which every man understands, but is,
perhaps, too simple to admit of logical de-
finition. Like all other relations, it may be
changed or annihilated by a change in any
of the two related things—I mean the agent
or the action. [235]
Perhaps it may not be improper to point
out briefly the circumstances, both in the
action and in the agent, which are neces-
sary to constitute moral obligation. The
universal agreement of men in these, shews
that they have one and the same notion of it.
With regard to the action, it must be a
voluntary action, or prestation of the per-
son obliged, and not of another. There
can be no moral obligation upon a man to
be six feet high. Nor can I be under a
moral obligation that another person should
do such a thing. His actions must be im-
puted to himself, and mine only to me,
either for praise or blame.
I need hardly mention, that a person can
be under a moral obligation, only to things
within the sphere of his natural power.
As to the party obliged, it is evident
there can be no moral obligation upon an
inanimate thing. To speak of moral obli-
gation upon a stone or a tree is ridiculous,
because it contradicts every man's notion
of moral obligation.
The person obliged must have under-
standing and will, and some degree of active
faculty of understanding, but the means of
knowing his obligation. An invincible
ignorance of this destroysallmoral obligation.
The opinion of the agent in doing the
bear to the external senses.
have just notions of the office of the exter-
nal senses, the analogy is very evident, and
I see no reason to take offence, as some
have done, at the name of the moral sense."
action gives it its moral denomination. If
he does a materially good action, without
any belief of its being good, but from some
other principle, it is no good action in him.
And if he does it with the belief of its being
ill, it is ill in him. [236]
Thus, if a man should give to his neigh-
bour a potion which he really believes will
poison him, but which, in the event, proves
Salutary, and does much good; in moral
estimation, he is a poisoner, and not a bene-
factor.
These qualifications of the action and of
the agent, in moral obligation, are self-
evident; and the agreement of all men in
them shews that all men have the same
notion, and a distinct motion of moral obli-
gation. -
CHAPTER VI.
of the sesse of duty.
WE are next to consider, how we learn
to judge and determine, that this is right,
and that is wrong. -
The abstract notion of moral good and
ill would be of no use to direct our life, if
we had not the power of applying it to par-
ticular actions, and determining what is
morally good, and what is morally ill.
Some philosophers, with whom I agree,
ascribe this to an original power or faculty
in man, which they call the Moral Sense,
the Moral Faculty, Conscience. Others think
that our moral sentiments may be account-
ed for without supposing any original sense
or faculty appropriated to that purpose, and
go into very different systems to account
for them.
I am not, at present, to take any notice
of those systems, because the opinion first
mentioned seems to me to be the truth ; to
wit, That, by an original power of the mind,
when we come to years of understanding
and reflection, we not only have the notions
of right and wrong in conduct, but perceive
certain things to be right, and others to be
wrong. [237]
The name of the Moral Sense, though
more frequently given to Conscience since
Lord Shaftesbury and Dr Hutcheson wrote,
is not new.
a phrasenot unfrequent among the ancients;
neither is the sense of duly, among us.
power. He must not only have the natural |
The sensus recti et homesti, is
It has got this name of sense, no doubt,
from some analogy which it is conceived to.
And, if we
*The ancients rightly founded the zoºxy or homestum
on the ºrgémoy or decorum; that is, they considered an
action to be virtuous which was performed in har- |
mony with the relations necessary and accidental of
the agent.—H. -
ion the term Sense for Intelligence, see Note A.
[235–237]
590
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [Essay III.—PART III.
The offence taken at this name seems to
be owing to this, That philosophers have
degraded the senses too much, and deprived
them of the most important part of their
office. -
We are taught, that, by the senses, we
have only certain ideas which we could not
have otherwise. They are represented as
powers by which we have sensations and
ideas, not as powers by which we judge.
. This notion of the senses I take to be
very lame, and to contradict what nature and
accurate reflection teach concerning them.
A man who has totally lost the sense of
seeing, may retain very distinct notions of
the various colours; but he cannot judge of
colours, because he has lost the sense by
which alone he could judge. By my eyes
I not only have the ideas of a square and a
circle, but I perceive this surface to be a
square, that to be a circle. [238]
By my ear, I not only have the idea of
sounds, loud and soft, acute and grave, but
I immediately perceive and judge this sound
to be loud, that to be soft, this to be acute,
that to be grave. Two or more synchron-
ous sounds I perceive to be concordant,
others to be discordant.
These are judgments of the senses.”
They have always been called and accounted
such, by those whose minds are not tinc-
tured by philosophical theories. They are
the immediate testimony of nature by our
senses ; and we are so constituted by
nature, that we must receive their testi-
mony, for no other reason but because it is
given by our senses. -
In vain do sceptics endeavour to over-
turn this evidence by metaphysical reason-
ing. Though we should not be able to
answer their arguments, we believe our
senses still, and rest our most important
concerns upon their testimony.
If this be a just notion of our external
senses, as I conceive it is, our moral faculty
may, I think, without impropriety, be called
the Moral Sense.
In its dignity it is, without doubt, far su-
perior to every other power of the mind; .
but there is this analogy between it and the
external senses, That, as by them we have
not only the original conceptions of the
Various qualities of bodies, but the original
judgment that this body has such a quality,
that such another; so by our moral faculty,
we have both the original conceptions of
* Rather, these are judgments, of which the mate-
via's and the condition are afforded by sense. It is,
no doubt, true that there can be no sensitive percep.
tion without judgment, because there can, in fact, be
no consciousness without judgment. Hut it is not
more reasonable to identify sense with judgment, be-
cause the former cannot exist without an act of
the latter, than it would be to identify the sides
and angles of a mathematical figure, because sides
and angles cannot exist apart from each other.—H. .
right and wrong in conduct, of merit and
demerit, and the original judgments that
this conduct is right, that is wrong; that
this character has worth, that demerit.
The testimony of our moral faculty, like
that of the external senses, is the testimony
of nature, and we have the same reason to
rely upon it. [239]
The truthsimmediately testified by the ex-
ternal senses are the first principles from
which we reason, with regard to the material
world, and from which all our knowledge
of it is deduced.
The truths immediately testified by our
moral faculty, are the first principles of all
moral reasoning, from which all our know-
ledge of our duty must be deduced.
By moral reasoning, I understand all
reasoning that is brought to prove that such
conduct is right, and deserving of moral
approbation; or that it is wrong; or that it
is indifferent, and, in itself, neither morally
good nor ill.
I think, all we can properly call moral
judgments, are reducible to one or other of
these, as all human actions, considered in
a moral view, are either good, or bad, or
indifferent. -
I know the term moral reasoning is often
used by good writers in a more extensive
sense ; but, as the reasoning I now speak
of is of a peculiar kind, distinct from all
others, and, therefore, ought to have a dis-
tinct name, I take the liberty to limit the
name of moral reasoning to this kind.
Let it be understood, therefore, that in
the reasoning I call moral, the conclusion
always is, That something in the conduct
of moral agents is good or bad, in a greater
or a less degree, or indifferent. -
All reasoning must be grounded on first
principles. This holds in moral reasoning,
as in all other kinds. There must, there-
fore, be in morals, as in all other sciences,
first or self-evident principles, on which all
moral reasoning is grounded, and on which
it ultimately rests. From such self-evident
principles, conclusions may be drawn syn-
thetically with regard to the moral conduct
of life; and particular duties or virtues
may be traced back to such principles, ama-
lytically. But, without such principles, we
can no more establish any conclusion in
morals, than we can build a castle in the
air, without any foundation. [240]
An example or two will serve to illustrate
this.
It is a first principle in morals, That we
ought not to do to another what we should
think wrong to be done to us in like cir-
cumstances. If a man is not capable of
perceiving this in his cool moments, when
he reflects seriously, he is not a moral
agent, nor is he capable of being convinced
of it by reasoning.
[238–240]
CHAP. VI.]
591.
ON THE SENSE OF DUTY.
From what topic can you reason with
such a man P You may possibly convince
him by reasoning, that it is his interest to
observe this rule; but this is not to convince
him that it is his duty. To reason about
justice with a man who sees nothing to be
just or unjust, or about benevolence with
a man who sees nothing in benevolence
preferable to malice, is like reasoning with
a blind man about colour, or with a deaf
man about sound.
It is a question in morals that admits of
reasoning, Whether, by the law of nature,
a man ought to have only one wife 2
We reason upon this question, by bal-
ancing the advantages and disadvantages to
the family, and to society in general, that are
naturally consequent both upon monogamy
and polygamy. And, if it can be shewn
that the advantages are greatly upon the
side of monogamy, we think the point is
determined.
But, if a man does not perceive that he
ought to regard the good of society, and the
good of his wife and children, the reasoning
can have no effect upon him, because he
denies the first principle upon which it is
grounded.
. Suppose, again, that we reason for mono-
gamy from the intention of nature, dis-
covered by the proportion of males and of
females that are born—a proportion which
corresponds perfectly with monogamy, but
by no means with polygamy—this argu-
ment can have no weight with a man
who does not perceive that he ought to
have a regard to the intention of nature.
[241]
Thus we shall find that all moral reason-
ings rest upon one or more first principles
of morals, whose truth is immediately per-
ceived without reasoning, by all men come
to years of understanding.
And this indeed is common to every
branch of human knowledge that deserves
the name of science. There must be first
principles proper to that science, by which
the whole superstructure is supported.
The first principles of all the sciences,
must be the immediate dictates of our na-
tural faculties; nor is it possible that we
should have any other evidence of their
truth. And in different sciences the facul-
ties which dictate their first principles are
very different.
Thus, in astronomy and in optics, in
which such wonderful discoveries have been
made, that the unlearned can hardly be-
lieve them to be within the reach of human
capacity, the first principles are phaenome-
na attested solely by that little organ the
human eye. If we disbelieve its report,
the whole of those two noble fabrics of Sci-
ence, falls to pieces like the visions of the
night.
The principles of music all depend upon
the testimony of the ear. The principles
of natural philosophy, upon the facts at-
tested by the senses. The principles of
mathematics, upon the necessary relations
of quantities considered abstractly—such
as, That equal quantities added to equal
quantities make equal sums, and the like :
which necessary relations are immediately
perceived by the understanding. [242.]
The science of politics borrows its prin-
ciples from what we know by experience of
the character and conduct of man. We
consider not what he ought to be, but what
he is, and thence conclude what part he
will act in different situations and circum-
stances. From such principles we reason
concerning the causes and effects of differ-
ent forms of government, laws, customs,
and manners. If man were either a more
perfect or a more imperfect, a better or a
worse, creature than he is, politics would
be a different science from what it is.
The first principles of morals are theim-
mediate dictates of the moral faculty. They
shew us, not what man is, but what he
ought to be. Whatever is immediately
perceived to be just, honest, and honour-
able, in human conduct, carries moral ob-
ligation along with it, and the contrary car-
ries demerit and blame ; and, from those
moral obligations that are immediately per-
ceived, all other moral obligations must be
deduced by reasoning.
He that will judge of the colour of an
object, must consult his eyes, in a good
light, when there is no medium or contigu-
ous objects that may give it a false tinge.
But in vain will he consult every other fa-
culty in this matter.
In like manner, he that will judge of the
first principles of morals, must consult his
conscience, or moral faculty, when he is
calm and dispassionate, unbiassed by inter-
est, affection, or fashion. [243]
As we rely upon the clear and distinct
testimony of our eyes, concerning the colours
and figures of the bodies about us, we have
the same reason to rely with security upon
the clear and unbiassed testimony of our
conscience, with regard to what we ought
and ought not to do. In many cases mo-
ral worth and demerit are discerned no less
clearly by the last of those natural faculties,
than figure and colour by the first.
The faculties which nature hath given
us, are the only engines we can use to find
out the truth. We cannot indeed prove
that those faculties are not fallacious, un-
less God should give us new faculties to sit
in judgment upon the old. But we are born
under a necessity of trusting them.
Everyman in his senses believes his eyes,
his ears, and his other senses. He believes
his consciousness with respect to his own
[241–243]
592
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [Essay III.-PART III.
thoughts and purposes; his 'memory, with
regard to what is past; his understanding,
with regard to abstract relations of things;
and his taste, with regard to what is elegant
and beautiful. And he has the same rea-
son, and, indeed, is under the same neces-
sity of believing the clear and unbiassed
dictates of his conscience, with regard to
what is honourable and what is base.
The sum of what has been said in this
chapter is, That, by an original power of
the mind, which we call conscience, or the
moral faculty, we have the conceptions of
right and wrong in human conduct, of merit
and demerit, of duty and moral obligation,
and our other moral conceptions; and that,
by the same faculty, we perceive some things
in human conduct to be right, and others
to be wrong; that the first principles of
morals are the dictates of this faculty ; and
that we have the same reason to rely upon
those dictates, as upon the determinations
of our senses, or of our other natural fa-
culties.” [244]
CHAPTER VII.
OF MORAI, APPROBATION AND
DISAPPRO.B.ATION.
OUR moral judgments are not like those
we form in speculative matters, dry and
unaffecting, but, from their nature, are
necessarily accompanied with affections and
feelings; which we are now to consider.
It was before observed, that every human
action, considered in a moral view, appears
to us, good, or bad, or indifferent. When
we judge the action to be indifferent, neither
good nor bad, though this be a moral judg-
ment, it produces no affection nor feeling,
any more than our judgments in specula-
tive matters.
But we approve of good actions, and dis-
approve of bad; and this approbation and
disapprobation, when we analyse it, ap-
pears to include, not only a moral judgment
of the action, but some affection, favourable
or unfavourable, towards the agent, and
some feeling in ourselves.
Nothing is more evident than this, That
moral worth, even in a stranger, with whom
we have not the least connection, never
fails to produce some degree of esteem mixed
with good will. .
The esteem which we have for a man on
account of his moral worth, is different
from that which is grounded upon his in-
tellectual accomplishments, his birth, for-
tune, and connection with us.
.* This theory is virtually the same as that which
founds morality on intelligence. The Practical Rea-
son of Kant is not essentially different from the Moral
Sense, the Moral Faculty of Reid and Stewart.—H.
Moral worth, when it is not set off by
eminent abilities and external advantages,
is like a diamond in the mine, which is
rough and unpolished, and perhaps crusted
over with some baser material that takes
away its lustre. [245] -
But, when it is attended with these ad-
vantages, it is like a diamond cut, polished,
and set. Then its lustre attracts every
eye. Yet these things, which add so much
to its appearance, add but little to its real
value. -
We must farther observe, that esteem
and benevolent regard, not only accompany
real worth by the constitution of our nature,
but are perceived to be really and properly
due to it; and that, on the contrary, un-
worthy conduct really merits dislike and in-
dignation.
There is no judgment of the heart of man
more clear, or more irresistible, than this,
That esteem and regard are really due to
good conduct, and the contrary to base and
unworthy conduct. Nor can we conceive a
greater depravity in the heart of man, than
it would be to see and acknowledge worth
without feeling any respect to it; or to see
and acknowledge the highest worthlessness
without any degree of dislike and indigma-
tion. -
The esteem that is due to worthy con- .
duct, is not lessened when a man is con-
scious of it in himself. Nor can he help
having some esteem for himself, when he
is conscious of those qualities for which he
most highly esteems others.
Self esteem, grounded upon external ad-
vantages, or the gifts of fortune, is pride.
When it is grounded upon a vain conceit of
inward worth which we do not possess, it
is arrogance and self-deceit. But when a
man, without thinking of himself more
highly than he ought to think, is conscious
of that integrity of heart and uprightness
of conduct which he most highly esteems
in others, and values himself duly upon this
account, this, perhaps, may be called the
pride of virtue; but it is not a vicious pride.
It is a noble and magnanimous disposition,
without which there can be no steady vir-
tue.” [246] -
A man who has a character with himself,
which he values, will disdain to act in a
manner unworthy of it. The language of
his heart will be like that of Job—“My
righteousness I hold fast, and will not let
it go ; my heart shall not reproach me
while I live.”
A good man owes much to his character
with the world, and will be concerned to
vindicate it from unjust imputations. But
he owes much more to his character with
* See the fine portraiture of the Magnanimous
Man, in Aristotle's “ Nicomachian Ethics.”—H.
[244–246]
cHAP. vii.]
593
OF MORAL APPROBATION, &c.
himself. For, if his heart condemns him
not, he has confidence towards God ; and he
can more easily bear the lash of tongues
than the reproach of his own mind.
The sense of honour, so much spoken of,
and so often misapplied, is nothing else,
when rightly understood, but the disdain
which a man of worth feels to do a dis-
hourable action, though it should never be
known nor suspected.
A good man will have a much greater
abhorrence against doing a bad action,
than even against having it unjustly im-
puted to him. The last may give a wound
to his reputation, but the first gives a wound
to his conscience, which is more difficult to
heal, and more painful to endure.
Let us, on the other hand, consider how
we are affected by disapprobation, either of
the conduct of others, or of our own.
Everything we disapprove in the conduct
of a man lessens him in our esteem. There
are, indeed, brilliant faults, which, having
a mixture of good and ill in them, may have
a very different aspect, according to the
side on which we view them. [247]
In such faults of our friends, and much
more of ourselves, we are disposed to view
them on the best side, and on the contrary
side in those to whom we are ill affected.
This partiality, in taking things by the
best or by the worst handle, is the chief
cause of wrong judgment with regard to
the character of others, and of self-deceit
with regard to our own.
But when we take complex actions to
pieces, and view every part by itself, ill
conduct of every kind lessens our esteem
of a man, as much as good conduct increases
it. It is apt to turn love into indifference,
indifference into contempt, and contempt
into aversion and abhorrence.
When a man is conscious of immoral
conduct in himself, it lessens his self-esteem.
It depresses and humbles his spirit, and
makes his countenance to fall. He could
even punish himself for his misbehaviour,
if that could wipe out the stain. There
is a sense of dishonour and worthlessness
arising from guilt, as well as a sense of
honour and worth arising from worthy con-
duct. And this is the case, even if a man
could conceal his guilt from all the world.
We are next to consider the agreeable or
uneasy feelings, in the breast of the spec-
tator or judge, which naturally accompany
moral approbation and disapprobation.
There is no affection that is not accom-
panied with some agreeable or uneasy emo-
tion. It has often been observed, that all
the benevolent affections give pleasure, and
the contrary ones pain, in one degree or
another. [248]
When we contemplate a noble character,
though but in ancient history, or even in
fiction; like a beautiful object, it gives a
lively and pleasant emotion to the spirits.
It warms the heart, and invigorates the
whole frame. Like the beams of the sun,
it enlivens the face of nature, and diffuses
heat and light all around.
We feel a sympathy with every noble and
worthy character that is represented to us.
We rejoice in his prosperity, we are afflicted
in his distress. We even catch some sparks
of that celestial fire that animated his con-
duct, and feel the glow of his virtue and
magnanimity.
This sympathy is the necessary effect of
our judgment of his conduct, and of the
approbation and esteem due to it ; for real
sympathy is always the effect of some bene-
volent affection, such as esteem, love, pity,
or humanity.
When the person whom we approve is
connected with us by acquaintance, friend-
ship, or blood, the pleasure we derive from
his conduct is greatly increased. We claim
Some property in his worth, and are apt to
value ourselves on account of it. This
shews a stronger degree of sympathy, which
gathers strength from every social tie.
But the highest pleasure of all is, when
we are conscious of good conduct in our-
selves. This, in sacred scripture, is called
the testimony of a good conscience ; and it is
represented, not only in the sacred writings,
but in the writings of all moralists, of every
age and sect, as the purest, the most noble
and valuable of all human enjoyments.
Surely, were we to place the chief hap-
piness of this life (a thing that has been so
much sought after) in any one kind of
enjoyment, that which arises from the con-
sciousness of integrity, and a uniform en-
deavour to act the best part in our station,
would most justly claim the preference to
all other enjoyments the human mind is
capable of, on account of its dignity, the
intenseness of the happiness it affords, its
stability and duration, its being in our power,
and its being proof against all accidents of
time and fortune. [249] *
On the other hand, the view of a vicious
character, like that of an ugly and deformed
object, is disagreeable. It gives disgust
and abhorrence.
If the unworthy person be nearly con-
nected with us, we have a very painful
sympathy indeed. We blush even for the
smaller faults of those we are connected
with, and feel ourselves, as it were, dis-
honoured by their ill conduct.
But, when there is a high degree of de-
pravity in any person connected with us,
we are deeply humbled and depressed by
it. The sympathetic feeling has some re-
semblance to that of guilt, though it be
free from all guilt. We are ashamed to
see our acquaintance; we would, if possible,
[247–249]
GTM
X, Q
594
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [Essay III.--PART III.
disclaim all connection with the guilty per-
son. We wish to tear him from our hearts,
and to blot him out of our remembrance.
Time, however, alleviates those sympa-
thetic sorrows which arise from bad beha-
viour in our friends and connections, if we
are conscious that we had no share in their
guilt.
The wisdom of God, in the constitution
of our nature, hath intended that this sym-
pathetic distress should interest us the more
deeply in the good behaviour, as well as in
the good fortune of our friends; and that
thereby friendship, relation, and every social
tie, should be aiding to virtue, and unfa-
vourable to vice.
. How common is it, even in vigious pa-
rents, to be deeply afflicted when their
children go into these courses in which,
perhaps, they have gone before them, and,
by their example, shewn them the way.
[250] -
If bad conduct in those in whom we are
interested be uneasy and painful, it is so
much more when we are conscious of it in
ourselves. This uneasy feeling has a name
in all languages. We call it remorse.
It has been described in such frightful
colours, by writers sacred and profane, by
writers of every age and of every persua-
sion, even by Epicureans, that I will not
attempt the description of it.
It is on account of the uneasiness of this
feeling that bad men take so much pains to
get rid of it, and to hide, even from their
own eyes, as much as possible, the pravity
of their conduct, Hence arise all the arts
of self-deceit, by which men varnish their
crimes, or endeavour to wash out the stain
of guilt. Hence the various methods of
expiation which superstition has invented,
to solace the conscience of the criminal,
and give some cooling to his parched breast.
Hence also arise, very often, the efforts of
men of bad hearts to excel in some amiable
quality, which may be a kind of counter-
poise to their vices, both in the opinion of
of others and in their own.
For no man can bear the thought of be-
ing absolutely destitute of all worth. The
consciousness of this would make him detest
himself, hate the light of the sun, and fly,
if possible, out of existence. -
I have now endeavoured to delineate the
natural operations of that principle of action
in man which we call the Moral Sense, the
Moral Faculty, Conscience. We know no-
thing of our natural faculties, but by their
operations within us. Of their operations
in our own mºnds we are conscious, and we
see the signs of their operations in the minds
of others. Of this faculty, the operations
appear to be, the judging ultimately of what
is right, what is wrong, and what is indif-
ferent in the conduct of moral agents; the
approbation of good conduct, and disappro-
bation of bad, in consequence of that judg-
ment; and the agreeable emotions which
attend obedience, and disagreeable, which
attend disobedience to its dictates. [251]
The Supreme Being, who has given us
eyes to discern what may be useful and
what hurtful to our matural life, hath also
given us this light within, to direct our mo-
ral conduct.
Moral conduct is the business of every
man ; and therefore the knowledge of it
ought to be within the reach of all.
Epicurus reasoned acutely and justly to
shew, that a regard to our present happi-
ness should induce us to the practice of
temperance, justice, and humanity. But
the bulk of mankind cannot follow long
trains of reasoning. The loud voice of the
passions drowns the calm and still voice of
reasoning.
Conscience, commands and forbids with
more authority, and in the most common
and most important points of conduct, with-
out the labour of reasoning. Its voice is
heard by every man, and cannot be disre-
garded with impunity.
The sense of guilt makes a man at var-
iance with himself. He sees that he is
what he ought not to be. He has fallen
from the dignity of his nature, and has sold
his real worth for a thing of no value. He
is conscious of demerit, and cannot avoid
the dread of meeting with its reward.
On the other hand, he who pays a sa-
cred regard to the dictates of his conscience,
cannot fail of a present reward, and a re-
ward proportioned to the exertion required
in doing his duty. [252] .
The man who, in opposition to strong
temptation, by a noble effort, maintains his
integrity, is the happiest man on earth.
The more severe his conflict has been, the
greater is his triumph. The consciousness
of inward worth gives strength to his heart,
and makes his countenance to shine. Tem-
pests may beat and floods roar, but he
stands firm as a rock in the joy of a good
conscience, and confidence of divine appro-
bation. -
To this I shall only add, what every
man’s conscience dictates, That he who
does his duty from the conviction that it is
right and honourable, and what he ought
to do, acts from a nobler principle, and with
more inward satisfaction, than he who is
bribed to do it merely from the considera-
tion of a reward present or future.
CHAPTER VIII.
oBSERVATIONS concERNING CONSCIENCE,
I shall now conclude this essay with
- |250–252]
chAP. viii.] OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING CONSCIENCE.
595
t
some observations, concerning this power
of the mind which we call Conscience, by
which its nature may be better under-
stood. - -
The first is, That, like allour other powers,
it comes to maturity by insensible degrees,
and may be much aided in its strength and
vigour by proper culture. -
All the human faculties have their in-
fancy and their state of maturity. [253]
The faculties which we have in common
with the brutes, appear first, and have the
quickest growth. In the first period of
life, children are not capable of distinguish-
ing right from wrong in human conduct ;
neither are they capable of abstract reason-
ing in matters of science. Their judgment
of moral conduct, as well as their judgment
of truth, advances by insensible degrees,
like the corn and the grass.
In vegetables, first the blade or the leaf
appears, then the flower, and last of all the
fruit, the noblest production of the three,
and that for which the others were produced.
These succeed one another in a regular
older. They require moisture, and heat,
and air, and shelter to bring them to matu-
rity, and may be much improved by culture.
According to the variations of soil, season,
and culture, some plants are brought to
much greater perfection than others of the
same species. But no variation of culture,
or season, or soil, can make grapes grow
from thorns, or figs from thistles.
We may observe a similar progress in the
faculties of the mind: for there is a wonder-
ful analogy among all the works of God,
from the least even to the greatest.
The faculties of man unfold themselves
in a certain order, appointed by the great
Creator. In their gradual progress, they
may be greatly assisted or retarded, im-
proved or corrupted, by education, instruc-
tion, example, exercise, and by the Society
and conversation of men, which, like soil
and culture in plants, may produce great
changes to the better or to the worse.
But these means can never produce any
new faculties, nor any other than were
originally planted in the mind by the Author
of nature. And what is common to the
whole species, in all the varieties of instruc-
tion and education, of improvement and
degeneracy, is the work of God, and not the
operation of second causes. [254]
| Such we may justly account conscience,
or the faculty of distinguishing right con-
duct from wrong ; since it appears, and in
all nations and ages, has appeared, in men
that are come to maturity.
The seeds, as it were, of moral discern-
ment are planted in the mind by him that
made us. They grow up in their proper
season, and are at first tender and delicate,
and easily warped. Their progress depends
or other sciences 2
very much upon their being duly cultivated
and properly exercised. -
It is so with the power of reasoning,
which all acknowledge to be one of the most
eminent natural faculties of man. It ap-
pears not in infancy. It springs up, by in-
sensible degrees, as we grow to maturity.
But its strength and vigour depend so much
upon its being duly cultivated and exercised,
that we see many individuals, nay, many
nations, in which it is hardly to be per-
ceived.
Our intellectual discernment is not so
strong and vigorous by nature as to secure
us from errors in speculation. On the con-
trary, we see a great part of mankind, in
every age, sunk in gross ignorance of things
that are obvious to the more enlightened,
and fettered by errors and false notions,
which the human understanding, duly im-
proved, easily throws off.
It would be extremely absurd, from the
errors and ignorance of mankind, to con-
clude that there is no such thing as truth ;
or that man has not a natural faculty of
discerning it, and distinguishing it from
€rror. . -
In like manner, our moral discernment
of what we ought, and what we ought not
to do, is not so strong and vigorous by nature
as to secure us from very gross mistakcs
with regard to our duty. [255] -
In matters of conduct, as well as in mat-
ters of speculation, we are liable to be misled
by prejudices of education, or by wrong in-
struction. But, in matters of conduct, we
are also very liable to have our judgment
warped by our appetites and passions, by
fashion, and by the contagion of evil ex-
ample. -
We must not therefore think, because man
has the natural power of discerning what is
right and what is wrong, that he has no
need of instruction ; that this power has no
need of cultivation and improvement; that
he may safely rely upon the suggestions of
his mind, or upon opinions he has got, he
knows not how.
What should we think of a man who,
because he has by nature the power of
moving all his limbs should therefore con-
clude that he needs not be taught to dance,
or to fence, to ride, or to swim 2 All these
exercises are performed by that power of
moving our limbs which we have by nature ;
but they will be performed very awkwardly
and imperfectly by those who have not been
trained to them, and practised in them.
What should we think of the man who,
because he has the power by nature of dis-
tinguishing what is true from what is false,
should conclude that he has no need to be
taught mathematics, or natural philosophy,
It is by the natural
power of human understanding that every-
[253–255]
2 Q 2
596
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [Essay III.-PART III.
thing in those sciences has been discovered,
and that the truths they contain are dis-
cerned. But the understanding, left to
itself, without the aid of instruction, training,
habit, and exercise, would make very small
progress, as every one sees, in persons un-
instructed in those matters.
Our natural power of discerning between
right and wrong, needs the aid of instruc.
tion, education, exercise, and habit, as well
as our other natural powers. [256.]
There are persons who, as the Scripture
speaks, have, by reason of use, their senses
exercised to discern both good and evil; by
that means, they have a much quicker,
clearer, and more certain judgment in
morals than others.
The man who neglects the means of im-
provement in the knowledge of his duty,
may do very bad things, while he follows
the light of his mind. And, though he be
not culpable for acting according to his
judgment, he may be very culpable for not
using the means of having his judgment
better informed.
It may be observed, That there are
truths, both speculative and moral, which a
man left to himself would never discover;
yet, when they are fairly laid before him,
he owns and adopts them, not barely upon
the authority of his teacher, but upon their
own intrinsic evidence, and perhaps won-
ders that he could be so blind as not to see
them before.
Like a man whose son has been long
abroad, and supposed dead. After many
years, the son returns, and is not known by
his father. He would never find that this
is his son. But, when he discovers himself,
the father soon finds, by many circum-
stances, that this is his son who was lost,
and can be no other person.
Truth has an affinity with the human
understanding, which error hath not. And
right principles of conduct have an affinity
with a candid mind, which wrong principles
have not. When they are set before it in
a just light, a well disposed mind recognises
this affinity, feels their authority, and per-
ceives them to be genuine. It was this, I
apprehend, that led Plato to conceive that
the knowledge we acquire in the present
state, is only reminiscence of what, in a
formerstate, we were acquainted with. [257]
A man born and brought up in a savage
nation, may be taught to pursue injury with
unrelenting malice, to the destruction of
his enemy. Perhaps when he does so, his
heart does not condemn him.
Yet, if he be fair and candid, and, when
the tumult of passion is over, have the vir-
tues of clemency, generosity, and forgive-
ness laid before him, as they were taught
and exemplified by the divine Author of our
religion, he will see that it is more noble
) to overcome himself, and subdue a savage
passion, than to destroy his enemy. He
will see, that, “to make a friend of an enemy,
and to overcome evil with good, is the
greatest of all victories, and gives a manly
and a rational delight, with which the brutish
passion of revenge deserves not to be com-
pared. He will see that hitherto he acted
like a man to his friends, but like a brute
to his enemies; now he knows how to make
his whole character consistent, and one
part of it to harmonize with another.
He must indeed be a great stranger to
his own heart, and to the state of human
nature, who does not see that he has need
of all the aid which his situation affords.him,
in order to know how he ought to act in
many cases that occur.
A second observation is, That Conscience
is peculiar to man. We see not a vestige
of it in brute animals. It is one of those
prerogatives by which we are raised above
them. !
Brute animals have many faculties in
common with us. They see, and hear, and
taste, and smell, and feel. They have their
pleasures and pains. They have various
instincts and appetites. They have an
affection for their offspring, and some of
them for their herd or flock. Dogs have a
wonderful attachment to their masters, and
f. manifest signs of sympathy with them.
258] -
We see, in brute animals, anger and
emulation, pride and shame. Some of them
are capable of being trained, by habit, and
by rewards and punishments, to many things
useful to man.
All this must be granted; and, if our per-
ception of what we ought, and what we
ought not to do, could be resolved into any
of these principles, or into any combination
of them, it would follow, that some brutes
are moral agents, and accountable for their
conduct.
But common sense revolts against this
conclusion. A man who seriously charged
a brute with a crime, would be laughed at.
They may do actions hurtful to themselves,
or to man. They may have qualities, or
acquire habits, that lead to such actions;
and this is all we mean when we call them
vicious. But they cannot be immoral; nor
can they be virtuous. They are not capable
of self-government; and, when they act
according to the passion or habit which is
strongest at the time, they act according to
the nature that God has given them, and
no more can be required of them.
They cannot lay down a rule to them-
selves, which they are not to transgress,
though prompted by appetite, or ruffled by
passion. We see no reason to think that
they can form the conception of a general
rule, or of obligation to adhere to it.
[256–258]
chap. viii.] OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING CONSCIENCE.
597
They have no conception of a promise or
contract; nor can you enter into any treaty
with them. They can neither affirm nor
deny, nor resolve, nor plight their faith.
If nature had made them capable of these
operations, we should see the signs of them
in their motions and gestures.
The most sagacious brutes never in-
vented a language, nor learned the use of
one before invented. They never formed
a plan of government, nor transmitted in-
ventions to their posterity. [259] -
These things, and many others that are
obvious to common observation, shew that
there is just reason why mankind have
always considered the brute-creation as
destitute of the noblest faculties with which
God hath endowed man, and particularly
of that faculty which makes us moral and
accountable beings.
The meat [third] observation is—That
Conscience is evidently intended by nature
to be the immediate guide and director of
our conduct, after we arrive at the years of
understanding.
There are many things which, from their
nature and structure, shew intuitively the
end for which they were made.
A man who knows the structure of a
watch or clock, can have no doubt in con-
cluding that it was made to measure time.
And he that knows the structure of the eye,
and the properties of light, can have as
little doubt whether it was made that we
might see by it.
In the fabric of the body, the intention
of the several parts is, in many instances,
so evident as to leave no possibility of
doubt. Who can doubt whether the muscles
were intended to move the parts in which
they are inserted 2 Whether the bones
were intended to give strength and support
to the body; and some of them to guard
the parts which they inclose ?
When we attend to the structure of the
mind, the intention of its various original
powers is no less evident. Is it not evident
that the external senses are given, that we
may discern those qualities of bodies which
may be useful or hurtful to us?—Memory,
that we may retain the knowledge we have
acquired—judgment and understanding, that
we may distinguish what is true from what
is false P [260]
The natural appetites of hunger and
thirst ; the natural affections of parents to
their offspring, and of relations to each
other; the natural docility and credulity of
children ; the affections of pity and sym-
pathy with the distressed; the attachment
we feel to neighbours, to acquaintance,
and to the laws and constitution of our
country—these are parts of our constitu-
tion, which plainly point out their end, so
that he must be blind, or very inattentive,
who does not perceive it. Even the pas-
sions of anger and resentment appear very
plainly to be a kind of defensive armour,
given by our Maker to guard us against
injuries, and to deter the injurious.
Thus it holds generally with regard both
to the intellectual and active powers of man,
that the intention for which they are given
is written in legible characters upon the
face of them. . -
Nor is this the case of any of them more
evidently than of conscience. Its intention
is manifestly implied in its office; which is,
to shew us what is good, what bad, and
what indifferent in human conduct.
It judges of every action before it is dome.
For we can rarely act so precipitately but
we have the consciousness that what we
are about to do is right, or wrong, or in-
different. Like the bodily eye, it naturally
looks forward, though its attention may be
turned back to the past.
To conceive, as some seem to have done,
that its office is only to reflect on past
actions, and to approve or disapprove, is, as
if a man should conceive that the office of
his eyes is only to look back upon the road
he has travelled, and to see whether it be
clean or dirty ; a mistake which no man
can make who has made the proper use of
his eyes. [261]
Conscience prescribes measures to every
appetite, affection, and passion, and says to
every other principle of action—So far thou
mayest go, but no farther.
We may indeed transgress its dictates,
but we cannot transgress them with inno-
cence, nor even with impunity.
We condemn ourselves, or, in the lan-
guage of scripture, our heart condemns w8,
whenever we go beyond the rules of right
and wrong which conscience prescribes.
Other principles of action may have more
strength, but this only has authority. Its
sentence makes us guilty to ourselves, and
guilty in the eyes of our Maker, whatever
other principle may be set in opposition
to it.
It is evident, therefore, that this principle
has, from its mature, an authority to direct
and determine with regard to our conduct;
to judge, to acquit, or to condemn, and even
to punish ; an authority which belongs to
no other principle of the human mind.
It is the candle of the Lord set up within
us, to guide our steps. Other principles
may urge and impel, but this only authorizes.
Other principles ought to be controlled by
this ; this may be, but never ought to be
controlled by any other, and never can be
with innocence.
The authority of conscience over the cither
active principles of the mind, I do not con-
sider as a point that requires proof by grgu-
ment, but as self-evident. For it ir; plies
259–261]
598
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. Tessay m.–PART III.
no more than this—That in all cases a man
ought to do his duty. He only who does
in all cases what he ought to do, is the per-
fect man. [262]
Of this perfection in the human nature,
the Stoics formed the idea, and held it forth
in their writings, as the goal to which the
race of life ought to be directed. Their
wise man was one in whom a regard to the
honestum swallowed up every other principle
of action.
The wise man of the Stoics, like the per-
fect orator of the rhetoricians, was an ideal
character, and was, in some respects, carried
beyond nature; yet it was perhaps the most
perfect model of virtue that ever was ex-
hibited to the heathen world ; and some of
those who copied after it, were ornaments
to human nature.
The [fourth and last observation is—
That the Moral Faculty or Conscience is
both an Active and an Intellectual power
of the mind.
It is an active power, as every truly vir-
tuous action must be more or less influenced
by it. Other principles may concur with
it, and lead the same way ; but no action
can be called morally good, in which a re-
gard to what is right, has not some influence.
Thus, a man who has no regard to justice,
may pay his just debt, from no other mo-
tive but that he may not be thrown into
prison. In this action there is no virtue at
all.
The moral principle, in particular cases,
may be opposed by any of our animal prin-
eipies. Passion or appetite may urge to
what we know to be wrong. In every in-
stance of this kind, the moral principle ought
to prevail, and the more difficult its con-
quest is, it is the more glorious.
In some cases, a regard to what is right
may be the sole motive, without the con-
currence or opposition of any other principle
of action ; as when a judge or an arbiter
determines a plea between two different per-
sons, solely from a regard to justice. [263]
Thus we see that conscience, as an active
principle, sometimes concurs with other
active principles, sometimes opposes them,
and sometimes is the sole principle of
action.
I endeavoured before to shew, that a
regard to our own good upon the whole is
not only a rational principle of action, but
a leading principle, to which all our animal
principles are subordinate. As these are,
therefore, two regulating or leading prin-
ciples in the constitution of man—a regard
to what is best for us upon the whole, and
a regard to duty—it may be asked, Which
of these ought to yield if they happen to
interfere?
Some well-meaning persons have main-
tained—That all regard to ourselves and to
our own happiness ought to be extinguished;
that we should love virtue for its own sake
only, even though it were to be accom-
panied with eternal misery.
This seems to have been the extrava-
gance of some Mystics, which perhaps they
were led into in opposition to a contrary
extreme of the schoolmen of the middle
ages, who made the desire of good to our-
selves to be the sole motive to action, and
virtue to be approvable only on account of
its present or future reward. -
Juster views of human nature will teach
us to avoid both these extremes. -
On the one hand, the disinterested love
of virtue is undoubtedly the noblest prin-
ciple in human nature, and ought never to
stoop to any other. [204]
On the other hand, there is no active
principle which God” hath planted in our
nature that is vicious in itself, or that
ought to be eradicated, even if it were in
our power. -
They are all useful and necessary in our
present state. The perfection of human
nature consists, not in extinguishing, but
in restraining them within their proper
bounds, and keeping them in due subordina-
tion to the governing principles.
As to the supposition of an opposition
between the two governing principles—that
is, between a regard to our happiness upon
the whole, and a regard to duty—this sup-
position is merely imaginary. There can
be no such opposition.
While the world is under a wise and
benevolent administration, it is impossible
that any man should, in the issue, be a loser
by doing his duty. Every man, therefore,
who believes in God, while he is careful to
do his duty, may safely leave the care of
his happiness to Him who made him. He
is conscious that he consults the last most
effectually by attending to the first.
Indeed, if we suppose a man to be an
atheist in his belief, and, at the same time,
by wrong judgment, to believe that virtue
is contrary to his happiness upon the whole,
this case, as Lord Shaftesbury justly ob-
serves, is without remedy, It will be im-
possible for the man to act so as not to
contradict a leading principle of his nature.
He must either sacrifice his happiness to
virtue, or virtue to happiness ; and is re-
duced to this miserable dilemma, whether
it be best to be a fool or a knave.
This shews the strong connection between
morality and the principles of natural re-
ligion ; as the last only can secure a man
from the possibility of an apprehension,
that | may play the fool by doing his duty.
265 - . .
[ Hence, even Lord Shaftesbury, in his
gravest work, concludes, That virtue with-
out piety is incomplete. Without piety, it
{262. 265]
chap. vin.] OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING CONSCIENCE.
599
loses its brightest example, its noblest ob-
ject, and its firmest support.
I conclude with observing, That con-
science, or the moral faculty, is likewise an
wntellectual power. -
By it solely we have the original concep-
tions or ideas of right and wrong in human
conduct. And of right and wrong there are
Ilot only many different degrees, but many
different species. Justice and injustice,
gratitude and ingratitude, benevolence and
malice, prudence and folly, magnanimity
and meanness, decency and indecency, are
various moral forms, all comprehended un-
der the general notion of right and wrong
in conduct, all of them objects of moral
approbation or disapprobation, in a greater
or a less degree.
The conception of these, as moral quali-
ties, we have by our moral faculty; and by
the same faculty, when we compare them
together, we perceive various moral rela-
tions among them. Thus, we perceive that
justice is entitled to a small degree of praise,
but injustice to a high degree of blame;
and the same may be said of gratitude and
its contrary. When justice and gratitude
interfere, gratitude must give place to jus-
tice, and unmerited beneficénce must give
place to both.
Many such relations between the various
moral qualities compared together, are im-
mediately discerned by our moral faculty.
A man needs only to consult his own heart
to be convinced of them. [266]
All our reasonings in morals, in natural
jurisprudence, in the law of nations, as well
as our reasonings about the duties of natu-
ral religion, and about the moral govern-
ment of the Deity, must be grounded upon
the dictates of our moral faculty, as first
principles. . : .
As this faculty, therefore, furnishes the
human mind with many of its original con-
ceptions or ideas, as well as with the first
principles of many important branches of
human knowledge, it may justly be ac-
counted an intellectual as well as an active
power of the mind. [267]
ESSAY IV.
OF THE LIBERTY OF MORAL AGENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE NOTIONS of MoRAL LIBERTY AND
NECESSITY STATED.
By the Liberty of a Moral Agent, I un-
derstand, a power over the determinations of
his own Will."
If, in any action, he had power to will
what he did, or not to will it, in that action
he is free. But if, in every voluntary ac-
tion, the determination of his will be the
necessary consequence of something invo-
luntary in the state of his mind, or of some.
thing in his external circumstances, he is
not free; he has not what I call the Liberty
of a Moral Agent, but is subject to Neces-
sity. - . -
This Liberty supposes the agent to have
Understanding and Will ; for the determin-
ations of the will are the sole object about
which this power is employed ; and there
can be no will without such a degree of
understanding, at least, as gives the con-
ception of that which we will. -
The liberty of a moral agent implies, not
only a conception of what he wills, but some
degree of practical judgment or reason.
[268]
* That is to say, Moral Liberty does not merely
consistin the power of doing what we will, but (though
Reid, p. 271, infra, seems to deny it) in the power of
twilling what we will. For a Power over the determ-
inations of our Will supposes an act of Will that
our Will should determine so and so ; for we can
only freely exert power through a rational determin-
ation or Volition. This definition of Liberty is right.
But then question upon question remains (and this
ad infinitum)—Have we a power (a will) over such
anterior will ?—and until this question be definitively
answered, which it never can, we must be zºnable to
conceive the possibility of the fact qf Liberty. But,
though inconceivable, this fact is not therefore false.
For there are many contradictories (and, of contradic-
tories, one must, and ome only can, be true) of which
we are equally unable to conceive the possibility of
either. The philosophy, therefore, which I profess,
annihilates the theoretical problem – How is the
scheme of Liberty, or the scheme of Necessity, to
be rendered comprehensible?—by shewing that both
schemes, are equally inconceivable; but it estab-
lishes Liberty practically as a fact, by shewing that it
is either itself an immediate datum, or is involved in
rn immediate datum, of consciousness. But this by
the way. See p. 743 m, 911 b.
I may notice that, amoug many others, the Plato-
nic definition of Liberty corresponds to that by Reid;
'EA830sºov, to &gzoy ozárov : and the same condition of
self-government is likewise supp sed in the various
expressions for Liberty—to hytzavtzov—ro èg' ºwn
—ro &üreşovator—sui potestas—swijuris, &c.— 1. '
|266–268]
600
[ESSAY Iv.
on THE ACTIVE Powers.
For, if he has not the judgment to dis-
cern one determination to be preferable to
another, either in itself or for some purpose
which he intends, what can be the use of a
power to determine P. His determinations
must be made perfectly in the dark, with-
out reason, motive, or end. They can
neither be right nor wrong, wise nor fool-
ish. Whatever the consequences may be,
they cannot be imputed to the agent, who
had not the capacity of foreseeing them, or
of perceiving any reason for acting other-
wise than he did.
We may, perhaps, be able to conceive a
being endowed with power over the deter-
minations of his will, without any light in
his mind to direct that power to some end.
But such power would be given in vain.
No exercise of it could be either blamed or
approved. As nature gives no power in
vain, I see no ground to ascribe a power
over the determinations of the will to any
being who has no judgment to apply it to
the direction of his conduct, no discernment
of what he ought or ought not to do.
For that reason, in this Essay, I speak
only of the Liberty of Moral Agents, who
are capable of acting well or ill, wisely or
foolishly, and this, for distinction’s sake, I
shall call Moral Liberty.
What kind or what degree of liberty be-
longs to brute animals, or to our own spe-
cies, before any use of reason, I do not
know. We acknowledge that they have
not the power of self-government. Such
of their actions as may be called voluntary
seem to be invariably determined by the
passion, or appetite, or affection, or habit,
which is strongest at the time.
This seems to be the law of their consti-
tution, to which they yield, as the inani-
mate creation does, without any conception
of the law, or any intention of obedience.
[269]
But of civil or moral government, which
are addressed to the rational powers, and
require a conception of the law and an in-
tentional obedience, they are, in the judg-
ment of all mankind, incapable. Nor do I
see what end could be served by giving
them a power over the determinations of
their own will, unless to make them intract-
able by discipline, which we see they are
not.
The effect of moral liberty is, That it is
in lhe power of the agent to do well or ill.
This power, like every other gift of God,
may be abused. The right use of this gift
of God is to do well and wisely, as far as his
best judgment can direct him, and thereby
merit esteem and approbation. The abuse
of it is to act contrary to what he knows or
suspects to be his duty and his wisdom, and
thereby justly merit disapprobation and
blame.
By Necessity, I understand the want of
that moral liberty which I have above de-
fined.
If there can be a better and a worse in
actions on the system of Necessity, let us
suppose a man necessarily determined in all
cases to will and to do what is best to be
done, he would surely be innocent and
inculpable. But, as far as I am able to
judge, he would not be entitled to the esteem
and moral approbation of those who knew
and believed this necessity. What was, by
an ancient author, said of Cato, might, in-
deed, be said of him : He was good because
he could not be otherwise." But this say-
ing, if understood literally and strictly, is
not the praise of Cato, but of his constitu-
tion, which was no more the work of Cato
than his existence. F ... •
On the other hand, if a man be neces-
Sarily determined to do ill, this case seems
to me to move pity, but not disapprobation.
He was ill, because he could not be other
wise. Who can blame him 2 Necessity
has no law. [270]
If he knows that he acted under this ne-
cessity, has he not just ground to exculpate
himself? The blame, if there be any, is
not in him, but in his constitution. If he
be charged by his Maker with doing wrong,
may he not expostulate with him, and say—
Why hast thou made me thus * I may be
sacrificed at thy pleasure, for the common
good, like a man that has the plague, but
not for ill desert ; for thou knowest that
what I am charged with is thy work, and
not mine.
Such are my notions of moral liberty and
necessity, and of the consequences insepar-
ably connected with both the one and the
other.
This moral liberty a man may have,
though it do not extend to all his actions,
or even to all his voluntary actions. He
does many things by instinct, many things
by the force of habit, without any thought
at all, and consequently without will. In
the first part of life, he has not the power
of self-government anymore than the brutes.
That power over the determinations of his
own will, which belongs to him in ripe years,
is limited, as all his powers are ; and it is,
perhaps, beyond the reach of his under-
standing to define its limits with precision.
We can only say, in general, that it ex-
* The ancient author is Paterculus, (L. II. c. 35.)
His words are:– “ Homo virtuti simillimus, et per
omnia ingenio diis quam hominibus propior; qū
nwnquam recte fecit, wt facere videretur, sed quia
aliter facere non poterat, cui id solum visum est
rationem habere, quod haberet justițiam ; quique
omnibus humanis vitiis immunis, semper fortunam
in sua potestate habuit.”—H. --
+ But, in the same sense, God is necessarily good ;
for, if he became, or could become, evil, he would 1:0
longer be God. As Euripides hath it—
Ef 8eof ri 33%;aty airzgow otz thriv 8:0}. H.
[269,210]
CHAP. I.]
60 !
THE NOTIONS OF MORAL LIBERTY, &c.
tends to every action for which he is ac-
countable.
This power is given by his Maker, and at
his pleasure whose gift it is it may be en-
larged or diminished, continued or with-
drawn. No power in the creature can be
independent of the Creator. His hook is
in its nose; he can give it line as far as he
sees fit, and, when he pleases, can restrain
it, or turn it whithersoever he will. Let
this be always understood when we as-
cribe liberty to man, or to any created being.
Supposing it therefore to be true, That
nan is a free agent, it may be true, at the
same time, that his liberty may be impaired
or lost, by disorder of body or mind, as in
mélancholy, or in madness; it may be im-
paired or lost by vicious habits; it may, in
particular cases, be restrained by divine
interposition. [271]
We call man a free agent in the same
way as we call him a reasonable agent.
many things he is not guided by reason,
but by principles similar to those of the
brutes. His reason is weak at best. It is
liable to be impaired or lost, by his own
fault, or by other means. In like manner,
he may be a free agent, though his freedom
of action may have many similar limita-
tions.
The liberty I have described has been
represented by some philosophers as incon-
ceivable, and as involving an absurdity.
“Liberty, they say, consists only in a
power to act as we will ; and it is impossible
to conceive in any being a greater liberty
than this. Hence it follows, that liberty
does not extend to the determinations of
the will, but only to the actions consequent
to its determination, and depending upon
the will. To say that we have power to
will such an action, is to say, that we may
will it, if we will. This supposes the will
to be determined by a prior will ; and, for
the same reason, that will must be deter-
mined by a will prior to it, and so on in an
infinite series of wills, which is absurd. To
act freely, therefore, can mean nothing more
than to act voluntarily; and this is all the
liberty that can be conceived in man, or in
any being.” - -
This reasoning—first, I think, advanced by
Hobbes"—has been very generally adopted
by the defenders of necessity. It is grounded
upon a definition of liberty totally different
from that which I have given, and there-
fore does not apply to moral liberty, as
above defined.
In
But it is said that this is the only liberty
that is possible, that is conceivable, that
does not involve an absurdity. [272]
It is strange, indeed, if the word Liberty
has no meaning but this one. I shall men-
tion three, all very common. The objection
applies to one of them, but to neither of
the other two.
Liberty is sometimes opposed to external
force or confinement of the body. Some-
times it is opposed to obligation by law, or
by lawful authority. Sometimes it is op-
posed to necessity.
1. It is opposed to confinement of the
body by superior force. So we say a pri-
soner is set at liberty when his fetters are
knocked off, and he is discharged from con-
finement. This is the liberty defined in
the objection ; and I grant that this liberty
extends not to the will, neither does the
confinement, because the will cannot be
confined by external force."
2. Liberty is opposed to obligation by law,
or lawful authority. This liberty is a right
to act one way or another, in things which
the law has neither commanded nor forbid-
den; and this liberty is meant when we speak
of a man’s natural liberty, his civil liberty,
his Christian liberty. It is evident that this
liberty, as well as the obligation opposed to
it, extends to the will : For it is the will to
obey that makes obedience; the will to
transgress that makes a transgression of
the law. Without will there can be neither
obedience nor transgression. Law supposes
a power to obey or to transgress; it does
not take away this power, but proposes the
motives of duty and of interest, leaving the
power to yield to them, or to take the con-
sequence of transgression.-f
3. Liberty is opposed to Necessity, and
in this sense it extends to the determina-
tions of the will only, and not to what is
consequent to the will.i. [273]
* To Hobbes is generally ascribed the honour of first
renouncing the modern doctrine of Determinism, in
contradistinction to the ancient doctrine of Fatalism ;
but most erroneously. Hobbes was not the author of
this scheme of Neeessity, nor is this scheme of Neces-
sity itself modern.—H. -
f But how does that definition avoid this ab-
surdity ? See above, p. 599, note. — H. -
* This is called the Liberty from Coaction or Vio-
lence—the Liberty of Spontaneity--Spontaneity—ºrd
‘Ezościow. In the present question, this species of
liberty ought to be thrown altogether out of account :
it is admitted by all parties; is common equally to
brutes and men ; is not a peculiar quality of the
will ; and is, in fact, essential to it, for the will
cannot possibly be forced. The greatest spontaneity
is, in fact, the greatest necessity. Thus, a hungry
horse, who turns of necessity to food, is said, on this
definition of liberty, to do so with freedom, because
he does so spontaneously; and, in general, the desire
of happiness, which is the most necessary tendency,
will, on this application of the term, be the most free.
I may observe, that, among others, the definition
of liberty, given by the celebrated advocate of moral
freedom, Dr Samuel Clarke, is, in reality, only that
of the liberty of Spontaneity—viz., “The power of self-
motion or action, which, in all animate agents, is
spontaneity, is, in moral or rational agents, what
we properly call liberty.” (Fifth Reply to Leibnitz,
§ $ i.—xx, and First Answer to the Gentleman ofCam-
bridge.) This self motion, absolutely considered, is
itself necessary. See below, note on p. 289. .
f With this description of liberty also, the present
question has no concern.-- H.
# This is variously denominated the Liberty from
[271–273]
602
[Essay Iv.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
In every voluntary action, the determin-
ation of the will is the first part of the
action, upon which alone the moral estima-
tion of it depends. It has been made a
question among philosophers, Whether, in
every instance, this determination be the me-
cessary consequence of the constitutiºn of the
person, and the circumstances in which he
is placed ; or whether he had not power, in
many cases, to determine this way or that *
This has, by some, been called the philo-
sophical notion of liberty and necessity; but
it is by no means peculiar to philosophers.
The lowest of the vulgar have, in all ages,
been prone to have recourse to this necessity,
to exculpate themselves or their friends in
what they do wrong, though, in the general
tenor of their conduct, they act upon the
contrary principle.”
Whether this notion of moral liberty be
conceivable or not, every man must judge
for himself. To me there appears no dif-
ficulty in conceiving it.t I consider the
determination of the will as an effect. This
effect must have a cause which had power
to produce it; and the cause must be either
the person himself, whose will it is, or some
other being. The first is as easily conceived
as the last. If the person was the cause
of that determination of his own will, he
was free in that action,i and it is justly
Necessity—Moral Liberty—Philosophical Liberty—
Fssential Liberty—Formal Liberty—Liberty of Indif.
ference—Liberty of Opposition, &c. The terms Aëre-
£oãotoy, Abroagºyfox, Arbitrium, Liberum Arbi-
trium. Free Will, though properly limited to the Li-
‘berty from Necessity, have not always been applied
so as to discriminate it from the Liberty of Spon-
taneity.—H.
* So Agamemnon :--
"Eyð 3' oºz &friðs shºt,
'AAA& Zºº; 22} Morgo. 22. %26oporris 'Egivvåg.
This is a favourite topic with Lucian.—H.
+ To conceive a free act, is to conceive an act
which, being a cause, is not itself an effect ; in other
words, to conceive an absolute commencement. But
is such by us conceivable 2–H.
it Only if he were not determined to that determ-
ination. But is the person an original undetermined
cause of the determination of his will ? If he be not,
then is he not a free agent, and the scheme of Neces-
sity is admitted . lf he be, in the first place, it is im-
possible to conceive the possibility of this ; and, in
the second, if the fact, though inconceivable, be al-
lowed, it is impossible to see how a cause, whdeterm-
Żmed by any motive, can be a rational, moral, and
accountable, cause. There is no conceivable medium
between Fatalism & Caswalism; & the contradictory
schemes of Liberty and Necessity themselves are in.
conceivable. For, as we cannot compass in thought
an undetermined cause—an absolute commencement—
the fundamental hypothesis of the one; so we can as
little think an infimite series of determined causes—of
relative commencements—the fundamental hypothesis
of the other. The champions of the opposite doctrines
are thus at once resist less in assault, and impotent in
defence. Each is hewn down, and appears to die under
the home-thrusts of his adversary; but each again
recovers life from the very death of his antagonist,
and, to borrow a simile, both are like the heroes in
Valhalla, ready in a moment to amuse themselves
anew in the same bloodless and interiminable con-
flict. The doctrine of Mo al Liberty cannot be made
conceivable, for we can only conceive the determined
and the relative. As already stated, all that can be
done, is to shew—1°, That, for the fact of Liberty,
imputed to him, whether it be good or bad.
But, if another being was the cause of this
determination, either by producing it im-
mediately, or by means and instruments
under his direction, then the determination
is the act and deed of that being, and is
solely imputable to him.
But it is said—“That nothing is in our
power but what depends upon the will, and
therefore, the will itself cannot be in our
power.” - -
I answer—That this is a fallacy arising
from taking a common saying in a sense
which it never was intended to convey, and
in a sense contrary to what it necessarily
implies. [274]
In common life, when men speak of what
is, or is not, in a man's power, they attend
only to the external and visible effects,
which only can be perceived, and which
only can affect them. Of these, it is true
that nothing is in a man’s power but what
depends upon his will, and this is all that
is meant by this common saying.
But this is so far from excluding his will
from being in his power, that it necessarily
implies it. For to say that what depends
upon the will is in a man's power, but the
will is not in his power, is to say that the
end is in his power, but the means necessary
to that end are not in his power, which is a
contradiction."
In many propositions which we express
universally, there is an exception neces-
sarily implied, and, therefore, always under-
stood. Thus, when we say that all things
depend upon God, God himself is necessarily
excepted. In like manner, when we say,
that all that is in our power depends upon
the will, the will itself is necessarily ex-
cepted: for, if the will be not, nothing else
can be in our power. Every effect must be
in the power of its cause. The determina-
tion of the will is an effect, and, therefore,
must be in the power of its cause, whether
that cause be the agent himself, or some
other being. - -
From what has been said in this chapter,
I hope the notion of moral liberty will be
distinctly understood, and that it appears
that this notion is neither inconceivable,
mor involves any absurdity or contradic-
tion. [275]
we have, immediately or mediately, the evidence of
consciousness; and, 29, That there are, among the
phaenomena of mind, many facts which we must ad-
mit as actual, but of whose possibility we are wholly
unable to form any notion. I may merely observe,
that the fact of Motion can be shewn to be impossible,
on grounds not less strong than those on which it is
attempted to disprove the fact of Laberty ; to say
nothing of many contradictories, neither of which
can be thought, but one of which must, on the
laws of Contradiction and Excluded Middle, neces-
sarily be. This philosophy—the Philosophy of the
Conditioned—has not, however, either in itself, or in
relation to its consequences, as yet been deve-
loped.—H.
* See above p. 599, notc.—H.
| 274, 275]
diſap. 11.T OF THE WORDS CAUSE AND EFFECT, &c.
603
CHAPTER II.
of THE WORDS CAUSE AND EFFECT, ACTION,
AND ACTIVE POWER.
THE writings upon Liberty and Necessity
have been much darkened by the ambigu-
ity of the words used in reasoning upon that
subject. The words cause and effect, ac-
tion and active power, liberty and necessity,
are related to each other : The meaning of
one determines the meaning of the rest.
When we attempt to define them, we can
only do it by synonymous words which need
definition as much. There is a strict sense
in which those words must be used, if we
speak and reason clearly about moral liber-
ty ; but to keep to this strict sense is diffi-
cult, because, in all languages, they have, by
custom, got a great latitude of significa-
tion.
As we cannot reason about moral liberty
without using those ambiguous words, it is
proper to point out, as distinctly as possible,
their proper and original meaning in which
they ought to be understood in treating of
this subject, and to shew from what causes
they have become so ambiguous in all lan-
guages as to darkon and embarrass our
reasonings upon it.
Everything that begins to exist, must
have a cause of its existence, which had
power to give it existence. And everything
that undergoes any change, must have some
cause of that change.
That meither eaſistence, nor any mode of
existence, can begin without an efficient
cause, is a principle that appears very early
in the mind of man ; and it is so universal,
and so firmly rooted in human nature, that
the most determined scepticism cannot era-
dicate it. [276]
It is upon this principle that we ground
the rational belief of a deity. But that is
not the only use to which we apply it.
Every man's conduct is governed by it,
every day, and almost every hour, of his
life. And if it were possible for any man
to root out this principle from his mind, he
must give up everything that is called com-
mon prudence, and be fit only to be con-
fined as insane. -
From this principle it follows, That every-
thing which wndergoes any change, must either
be the efficient cause of that change in itself,
or it must be changed by some other being.
In the first case, it is said to have active
power, and to act in producing that change.
In the second case, it is merely passive, or
is acted upon, and the active power is in that
being only which produces the change.
The name of a cause and of an agent, is
properly given to that being only, which, by
its active power, produces some change in
itself, or in some other being. The change,
whether it be of thought, of will, or of mo-
tion, is the effect. Active power, therefore,
is a quality in the cause, which enables it to
produce the effect. And the exertion of
that active power in producing the effect, is
called action, agency, efficiency. -
In order to the production of any effect,
there must be in the cause, not only power,
but the evertion of that power; for power
that is not exerted produces no effect.
All that is necessary to the production of
any effect, is power in an efficient cause to
produce the effect, and the exertion of that
power ; for it is a contradiction to say, that
the cause has power to produce the effect,
and exerts that power, and yet the effect is
not produced. The effect cannot be in his
power unless all the means necessary to its
production be in his power. [277]
It is no less a contradiction to say, that
a cause has power to produce a certain ef-
fect, but that he cannot exert that power ;
for power which cannot be exerted is no
power, and is a contradiction in terms.
To prevent mistake, it is proper to ob-
serve, That a being may have a power at
one time which it has not at another. It
may commonly have a power, which, at a
particular time, it has not. Thus, a man
may commonly have power to walk or to
run ; but he has not this power when asleep,
or when he is confined by superior force.
In common language, he may be said to
have a power which he cannot then exert.
But this popular expression means only
that he commonly has this power, and will
have it when the cause is removed which at
present deprives him of it; for, when we
speak strictly and philosophically, it is a
contradiction to say that he has this power,
at that moment when he is deprived of it.
These, I think, are necessary consequen-
ces from the principle first mentioned—
That every change which happens in na-
ture must have an efficient cause which had
power to produce it. -
Another principle, which appears very
early in the mind of man, is, That we are
efficient causes in our deliberate and volun-
tury actions.
We are conscious of making an exertion,
sometimes with difficulty, in order to pro-
duce certain effects. An exertion made de-
liberately and voluntarily, in order to prº-
duce an effect, implies a conviction that the
effect is in our power. No man can deli-
berately attempt what he does not believe
to be in his power. The language of all
mankind, and their ordinary conduct in life,
demonstrate that they have a conviction of
some active power in themselves to produce
certain motions in their own and in other bo-
dies, and to regulate and direct their own
thoughts. This conviction we have so
[276, 277]
604
LESSAY Iv.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
early in life, that we have no remembrance
when, or in what way, we acquired it. [278]
That such a conviction is at first the ne-
cessary result of our constitution, and that
it can never be entirely obliterated, is, I
think, acknowledged by one of the most zeal-
ous defenders of Necessity.” “Free Dis-
cussion, &c.,” p 298. “Such are the in-
fluences to which all mankind, without dis-
tinction, are exposed that they necessarily
refer actions (I mean refer them ultimately)
first of all to themselves and others; and it
is a long time before they begin to consider
themselves and others as instruments in
the hand of a superior agent. Consequently,
the associations which refer actions to them-
selves get so confirmed that they are never
entirely obliterated ; and therefore the com-
mon language, and the common feelings, of
mankind, will be adapted to the first, the lim-
ited and imperfect, or rather erroneous,
view of things.”
It is very probable that the very concep-
tion or idea of active power, and of efficient
causes, is derived from our voluntary ex-
ertions in producing effects; and that, if we
were not conscious of such exertion, we
should have no conception at all of a cause,
or of active power, and consequently no
conviction of the necessity of a cause of
every change which we observe in nature.--
It is certain that we can conceive no kind
of active power but what is similar or
analogous to that which we attribute to
ourselves; that is, a power which is exerted
by will and with understanding. Our no-
tion, even of Almighty power, is derived
from the notion of human power, by re-
moving from the former those imperfections
and limitations to which the latter is sub-
jected. [279]
It may be difficult to explain the origin
of our conceptions and belief concerning ef-
ficient causes and active power. The com-
mon theory, that all our ideas are ideas of
Sensation or Reflection, and that all our be-
lief is a perception of the agreement or the
disagreement of those ideas, appears to be
repugnant, both to the idea of an efficient
cause, and to the belief of its necessity.
An attachment to that theory has led
some philosophers to deny that we have
any conception of an efficient cause, or of
active power, because efficiency and active
power are not ideas, either of sensation or
Tº Priestley—H.
t If this were the case, our notion of causality
would be of an empirical derivation, and without the
quality of universality and necessity. This doctrine
is also at variance with the account given of the no.
tion above, (p. 455, sq. et alibi,) where it is viewed
as an original and native principle. See p. 323, and
note *. It is true, however, that the consciousness of
our own efficiency illuminates the dark notion of
antsality, founded, as I conceive, in our impotence
to conceive the possibility of an absolute commence-
ment, and raises it from the vague and negative into
the precise and positive motion of power.—H.
reflection. They maintain, therefore, that
a Cause is only something prior to the effect,
and constantly conjoined with it. This is
Mr Hume's motion of a cause, and seems
to be adopted by Dr Priestley," who says,
“That a cause cannot be defined to be any
thing, but such previous circumstances as
are constantly followed by a certain effect,
the constancy of the result making us con-
clude that there must be a sufficient reason,
in the nature of the things, why it should
be produced in those circumstances.”
[Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity, p. 11.]
But theory ought to stoop to fact, and
not fact to theory. Every man who under-
stands the language knows that neither
priority, nor constant conjunction, nor both
taken together, imply efficiency. Every
man, free from prejudice, must assent to
what Cicero has said : Itaque non sic causa
intelligi debet, wi quod cuique antecedat, id
é causa sil, sed quod cuique efficienter ante-
cedat. [De Fato, c. 15.]
The very dispute, whether we have the
conception of an efficient cause, shews that
We have. For, though men may dispute
about things which have no existence, they
cannot dispute about things of which they
have no conception. [280]
What has been said in this chapter is in-
tended to shew—That the conception of
causes, of action and of active power, in
the strict and proper sense of these words,
is found in the minds of all men very early,
even in the dawn of their rational life. It
is therefore probable, that, in all languages,
the words by which these conceptions were
expressed were at first distinct and unam-
biguous, yet it is certain that, among the
most enlightened nations, these words areap-
plied to so many things of different natures,
and used in so vague a manner, that it is
very difficult to reason about them distinctly.
This phaenomenon, at first view, seems
Very unaccountable. But a little reflection
may satisfy us, that it is a natural conse-
quence of the slow and gradual progress of
human knowledge.
And since the ambiguity of these words
has so great influence upon our reasoning
about moral liberty, and furnishes the
Strongest objections against it, it is not
foreign to our subject to shew whence it
arises. When - we know the causes that
have produced this ambiguity, we shall be
less in danger of being misled by it, and
the proper and strict meaning of the words
will more evidently appear. [281]
* The same doctrine has found an advocate in Dr
Thomas Brown. In this theory, the phanomenon to
be saved is silently or in effect evacuated of its
principal quality—the quality of Necessity; for the
real problem is to explain how it is that we cannot
but think that all which begins to be has not an ab-
solute but only a relative commencement. These
philosophers do not anatomize but truncatc.—H.
[279-281]
chap. In..] OF THE AMBIGUITY OF THOSE WORDS.
605
CHAPTER III.
CAUSES OF THE AMBIGUITY OF THOSE WORDS.
WHEN we turn our attention to external
objects, and begin to exercise our rational
faculties about them, we find that there are
some motions and changes in them, which
we have power to produce, and that they
have many which must have some other
cause. Either the objects must have life
and active power, as we have, or they must
be moved or changed by something that
has life and active power, as external objects
are moved by us.
Our first thoughts seem to be, That the
objects in which we perceive such motion
have understanding and active power as we
have.
“Savages,” says the Abbé Raynal,
“ wherever they see motion which they can-
not account for, there they suppose a soul.”
All men may be considered as Savages in
this respect, until they are capable of in-
struction, and of using their faculties in a
more perfect manner than Savages do.
The rational conversations of birds and
beasts in AEsop’s “Fables” do not shock
the belief of children. They have that pro-
bability in them which we require in an
epic poem. Poets give us a great deal of
pleasure, by clothing every object with in-
tellectual and moral attributes, in metaphor
and in other figures. May not the pleasure
which we take in this poetical language,
arise, in part, from its correspondence with
our earliest sentiments P [282]
However this may be, the Abbe Raynal's
observation is sufficiently confirmed, both
from fact, and from the structure of all
languages. -
Rude nations do really believe Sun, moon,
and stars, earth, sea, and air, fountains and
lakes, to have understanding and active
power. To pay homage to them and im-
plore their favour, is a kind of idolatry
natural to Savages.
All languages carry in their structure the
marks of their being formed when this be-
lief prevailed. The distinction of verbs and
participles into active and passive, which is
found in all languages, must have been
originally intended to distinguish what is
really active from what is merely passive :
and, in all languages, we find active verbs
applied to those objects, in which, accord-
ing to the Abbé Raynal's observation,
Savages suppose a soul.
Thus we say, the sun rises and sets, and
comes to the meridian ; the moon changes ;
the sea ebbs and flows; the winds blow.
Languages were formed by men who be-
lieved these objects to have life and active
power in themselves. It was therefore
proper and natural to express their motions
and changes by active verbs.
There is no surer way of tracing the
sentiments of nations before they have re-
cords, than by the structure of their lan-
guage, which, notwithstanding the changes
produced in it by time, will always retain
some signatures of the thoughts of those by
whom it was invented. When we find the
same sentiments indicated in the structure of
all languages, those sentiments must have
been common to the human species when
languages were invented. [283]
When a few of superior intellectual abili-
ties find leisure for speculation, they begin
to philosophize, and soon discover that
many of those objects which, at first, they
believed to be intelligent and active, are
really lifeless and passive. This is a very
important discovery. It elevates the mind,
emancipates from many vulgar Supersti-
tions, and invites to farther discoveries of
the same kind.
As philosophy advances, life and activity
in natural objects retires, and leaves them
dead and inactive. Instead of moving
voluntarily, we find them to be moved neces-
sarily ; instead of acting, we find them to
be acted upon ; and nature appears as one
great machine, where one wheel is turned
by another, that by a third; and how far
this necessary succession may reach, the
philosopher does not know.
The weakness of human reason makes
men prone, when they leave one extreme,
to rush into the opposite ; and thus philo-
sophy, even in its infancy, may lead men
from idolatry and polytheism into atheism,
and from ascribing active power to inani-
mate beings, to conclude all things to be
carried on by necessity.
Whatever origin we ascribe to the doc-
trimes of atheism and of fatal necessity, it
is certain that both may be traced almost
as far back as philosophy; and both appear
to be the opposites of the earliest sentiments
of men.
It must have been by the observation and
reasoning of the speculative few, that those
objects were discovered to be inanimate and
inactive, to which the many ascribed life
and activity. But while the few are con-
vinced of this, they must speak the language
of the many, in order to be understood. So
we see that, when the Ptolemaic system of
astronomy, which agrees with vulgar preju-
dice and with vulgar language, has been
universally rejected by philosophers, they
continue to use the phraseology that is
grounded upon it, not only in speaking to
the vulgar, but in speaking to one another.
They say, The Sun rises and sets, and moves
annually through all the signs of the zodiac,
while they believe that he never leaves his
place. [284]
[282–284]
606
[ESSAY Iv.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
In like manner, those active verbs and par-
ticiples which were applied to the inanimate
objects of nature, when they were believed
to be really active, continue to be applied to
them after they are discovered to be passive.
The forms of language, once established
by custom, are not so easily changed as
the notions on which they were originally
founded. While the sounds remain, their
signification is gradually enlarged or altered.
This is sometimes found, even in those
sciences in which the signification of words
is the most accurate and precise. Thus, in
arithmetic, the word number among the
ancients, always signified so many units ;
and it would have been absurd to apply it
either to unity or to any part of an unit ;
but now we call unity, or any part of unity,
a number. With them, multiplication al-
ways increased a number, and division
diminished it; but we speak of multiplying
by a fraction, which diminishes, and of
dividing by a fraction, which increases the
number. We speak of dividing or multi-
plying by unity, which neither diminishes
nor increases a number. These forms of
expression, in the ancient language, would
have been absurd.
By such changes in the meaning of words,
the language of every civilized nation re-
sembles old furniture new-modelled, in
which many things are put to uses for
which they were not originally intended, and
for which they are not perfectly fitted.
This is one great cause of the imperfec-
tion of language, and it appears very re-
markably in those verbs and participles
which are active in their form, but are fre-
quently used so as to have nothing active in
their signification. [285].
Hence we are authorized by custom to
ascribe action and active power to things
which we believe to be passive. The pro-
per and original signification of every word,
which at first signified action and causation,
is buried and lost under that vague mean-
ing which custom has affixed to it.
That there is a real distinction, and per-
fect opposition, between acting and being
acted upon, every man may be satisfied
who is capable of reflection. And that this
distinction is perceived by all men as soon
as they begin to reason, appears by the
distinction between active and passive verbs,
which is original in all languages, though,
from the causes that have been mentioned,
they come to be confounded in the progress
of human improvement.
Another way in which philosophy has
contributed very much to the ambiguity of
the words under our consideration, deserves
to be mentioned.
The first step into natural philosophy,
and what hath commonly been considered
as its ultimate end, is the investigation of
the causes of the phaenomena of nature;
that is, the causes of those appearances in
nature which are not the effects of human
power. Felia qui potwit rerum cognoscere
causas, is the sentiment of every mind that
has a turn to speculation. **
The knowledge of the causes of things
promises no less the enlargement of human
power than the gratification of human
curiosity ; and, therefore, among the en-
lightened part of mankind, this knowledge
has been pursued in all ages with an avidity
proportionate to its importance.
In nothing does the difference between
the intellectual powers of man and those of
brutes appear more conspicuous than in
this. For in them we perceive no desire to
investigate the causes of things, nor indeed
any sign that they have the proper motion.
of a cause. [286]
There is reason, however, to apprehend,
that, in this investigation, men have wan-
dered much in the dark, and that their
success has, by no means, been equal to
their desire and expectation.
We easily discover an established order
and connection in the phaenomena of nature.
We learn, in many cases, from what has
happened, to know what will happen. The
discoveries of this kind, made by common
observation, are many, and are the founda-
tion of common prudence in the conduct of
life. Philosophers, by more accurate ob-
Servation and experiment, have made many
more; by which arts are improved, and
human power, as well as human knowledge,
is enlarged.
But, as to the real causes of the phae-
nomena of nature, how little do we know I
All our knowledge of things external, must
be grounded upon the informations of our
senses; but causation and active power are
not objects of sense ; nor is that always
the cause of a phaenomenon which is prior
to it, and constantly conjoined with it :
otherwise might would be the cause of day,
and day the cause of the following night.
It is to this day problematical, whether
all the phaenomena of the material system
be produced by the immediate operation of
the First Cause, according to the laws which
his wisdom determined, or whether subor-
dinate causes are employed by him in the
operations of nature; and, if they be, what
their nature, their number, and their dif-
ferent offices are 2 And whether, in all
cases, they act by commission, or, in some,
according to their discretion ? [287]
When we are so much in the dark with re-
gard to the real causes of the phaenomena of
nature, and have a strong desire to know
them, it is not strange that ingenious men
should form numberless conjectures and
theories, by which the soul, hungering for
knowledge, is fed with chaff intead of wheat.
[285–287]
CHAP. III.]
607
OF THE AMBIGUITY OF THOSE WORDS.
In a very ancient system, love and strife
were made the causes of things. In the
Pythagorean * and Platonic system, Matter,
Ideas, and an Intelligent Mind. By Aris-
totle, Matter, Form, and Privation. Des
Cartes thought that Matter and a certain
quantity of Motion given at first by the
Almighty, are sufficient to account for all the
phaenomena of the natural world. Leibnitz,
that the universe is made up of Monades,
active and percipient, which, by their active
power, received at first, produce "all the
changes they undergo.
While men thus wandered in the dark in
search of causes, unwilling to confess their
disappointment, they vainly conceived every-
thing they stumbled upon to be a cause,
and the proper notion of a cause is lost, by
giving the name to numberless things which
neither are nor can be causes.
This confusion of various things under
the name of causes is the more easily toler-
ated, because, however hurtful it may be
to sound philosophy, it has little influence
upon the concerns of life. A constant an-
tecedent or concomitant of the phaenome-
mon whose cause is sought, may answer the
purpose of the inquirer, as well as if the
real cause were known. Thus a sailor
desires to know the cause of the tides, that
he may know when to expect high water.
He is told that it is high water when the
moon is so many hours past the meridian :
and now he thinks he knows the cause of
the tides. What he takes for the cause
answers his purpose, and his mistake does
him no harm. [288]
Those philosophers seem to have had the
justest views of nature, as well as of the
weakness of human understanding, who,
giving up the pretence of discovering the
causes of the operations of nature, have
applied themselves to discover, by observa-
tion and experiment, the rules or laws of
nature, according to which the phaenomena
of nature are produced.
In compliance with custom, or, perhaps,
to gratify the avidity of knowing the causes
of things, we call the laws of nature causes
and active powers. So we speak of the
powers of gravitation, of magnetism, of elec-
tricity.
We call them causes of many of the
phaenomena of nature ; and such they are
esteemed by the ignorant, and by the half
learned.
But those of juster discernment see that
laws of nature are not agents. They are not
endowed with active power, and, therefore,
cannot be causes in the proper sense. They
are only the rules according to which the
unknown cause acts.
* Thus it appears that our natural desire
to know the causes of the phaenomena of
nature, our inability to discover them, and
the vain theories of philosophers employed
in this search, have made the word cause,
and the related words, so ambiguous, and
to signify so many things of different na-
tures, that they have, in a manner, lost
their proper and original meaning, and yet
we have no other words to express it.
Everything joined with the effect, and
prior to it, is called its cause. An instru-
ment, an occasion, a reason, a motive, an
end, are called causes.” And the related
words effect, agent, power, are extended in
the same vague manner. [289]
Were it not that the terms cause and
agent have lost their proper meaning, in the
crowd of meanings that have been given
them, we should immediately perceive a
contradiction in the terms necessary cause
and necessary agent. And, although the
loose meaning of those words is authorized
by custom, the arbiter of language, and,
therefore, cannot be censured, perhaps can-
not always be avoided, yet we ought to be
upon our guard, that we be not misled by
it to conceive things to be the same which
are essentially different.
To say that man is a free agent, is no
more than to say that, in some instances, he
is truly an agentt and a cause, and is not
merely acted upon as a passive instrument.
On the contrary, to say that he acts from
necessity, is to say that he does not act at
all, that he is no agent, and that, for any-
thing we know, there is only one agent in
the universe, who does everything that is
done, whether it be good or ill.
If this necessity be attributed even to
* The less that is said of the Pythagorean system
in this relation the better.—H.
* There is no reason why whatever is conceived as
necessarily going to the constitution of the phaenome-
non called the effect—in other words, why all and
each of its coefficients—may not be properly called
causes, or rather comcauses; for there must always
be more causes than one to an effect. This would
be more correct than to give exclusively the name
of Cause to any partial constituent or coefficient,
even though proximate and principal. In this view,
the doctrine of Aristotle, and other ancients, is
more rational than that of our modern philosophers.
+ It is proper to notice, that, as to live is to act
and as man is not free to live or not to live, so neither,
absolute y speaking, is he free to act or not to act. As
he lives, he is necessarily determined to act or ener-
gize—to think and will ; and all the liberty to which
he can pretend, is to choose between this mode of ac-
tion and that. In scholastic language, man cannot
have the liberty of eacercise, though he may have the
liberty of specification. The root of his freedom is
thus necessity. Nay, we cannot conceive otherwise
even of the Deity. As we must think Him as neces-
sarily exis ent, and mccessarily living, so we must
think him as necessarily active. Such are the condi-
tions of human thought. It is thus sufficiently mani-
fest that Dr Clarke's inference of the fact of moral
liberty, from the conditions of self-activity, is incom-
petent. And when he says “ the true definition Qſ
Liberty is the Power to Act,” he should have recol-
lected that this power is, on his own hypothesis, ab-
solutely fatal if it cannot but act. See his “Remarks
on Collins,” pp. 15, 20, 27.—H. -
[288, 289]
608 ON THE ACT
IVE POWERS. [ESSAY Iv,
the Deity, the consequence must be, that
there neither is, nor can be, a cause at all ;
that nothing acts, but everything is acted
upon ; nothing moves, but everything is
moved ; all is passion without action ; all
instrument without an agent ; and that
everything that is, or was, or shall be, has
that necessary existence in its season,
which we commonly consider as the pre-
rogative of the First Cause.
This I take to be the genuine and the
most tenable system of necessity. It was
the system of Spinoza, though he was not
the first that advanced it; for it is very an-
cient. And if this system be true, our rea-
soning to prove the existence of a first cause
of everything that begins to exist, must
be given up as fallacious. [290]
If it be evident to the human understand-
ing, as I take it to be, That what begins to
exist must have an efficient cause, which
had power to give or not to give it existence;
and if it be true, that effects well and wisely
fitted for the best purposes, demonstrate
intelligence, wisdom, and goodness in the
efficient cause, as well as power, the proof
of a Deity from these principles is very easy
and obvious to all men that can reason.
If, on the other hand, our belief, That
everything that begins to exist has a cause,
be got only by Experience ; and if, as Mr
Hume maintains, the only notion of a cause
besomething prior to the effect, which exper-
ience has shewn to be constantly conjoined
with such an effect, I see not how, from
these principles, it is possible to prove the ex-
istence of an intelligent cause of the universe.
Mr Hume seems to me to reason justly
from his definition of a cause, when, in the
person of an Epicurean, he maintains that,
with regard to a cause of the universe, we
can conclude nothing, because it is a singu-
lar effect. We have no experience that
such effects are always conjoined with such
a cause. Nay, the cause which we assign
to this effect, is a cause which no man hath
seen, nor can see, and therefore experience
cannot inform us that it has ever been con-
joined with any effect. He seems to me
to reason justly from his definition of a
cause, when he maintains, that anything
may be the cause of anything ; since pri-
ority and constant conjunction is all that
can be conceived in the notion of a cause.
Another zealous defender of the doctrine
of necessity" says, that, “A cause cannot
be defined to be anything but such previous
circumstances as are constantly followed by
a certain effect, the constancy of the result
making us conclude that there must be a
sufficient reason, in the nature of things,
why it should be produced in those circum-
stances.”
(
This seems to me to be Mr Hume’s de-
finition of a cause in other words, and neither
more nor less; but I am far from thinking
that the author of it will admit the conse-
quences which Mr Hume draws from it,
however necessary they may appear to
others. [291] -
CHAPTER IV.
OF THE INFLUENCE OF MOTIVES.
THE modern advocates for the doctrine
of Necessity lay the stress of their cause
upon the influence of motives.”
“Every deliberate action, they say, must .
have a motive. When there is no motive
on the other side, this motive must deter-
mine the agent: When there are contrary
motives, the strongest must prevail: We
reason from men’s motives to their actions,
as we do from other causes to their effects.
If man be a free agent, and be not governed
by motives, all his actions must be mere
caprice, rewards and punishments can have
no effect, and such a being must be abso-
lutely ungovernable.”
In order, therefore, to understand dis-
tinctly, in what sense we ascribe moral
liberty to man, it is necessary to understand
what influence we allow to motives. To
prevent misunderstanding, which has been
very common upon this point, I offer the
following observations :—
^ 1. I grant that all rational beings are
influenced, and ought to be influenced, by
motives. But the influence of motives is
of a very different nature from that of effi-
cient causes. They are neither causes+ nor
agents. They suppose an efficient cause, and
can donothing withoutit. [292] We cannot,
without absurdity, suppose a motive either
to act, or to be acted upon ; it is equally
incapable of action and of passion ; because
it is not a thing that exists, but a thing
that is conceived ; it is what the schoolmen
called an ens rationis. Motives, therefore,
may influence to action, but they do not
act.: They may be compared to advice,
* Priestley.—H.
* A motive, abstractly considered, is called an end
or final cause. It was well denominated in the Greek
philosophy, rô #vez off—that for the sake of which.
A motive, however, in its concrete reality, is nothing
apart from the mind; only a mental tendency.—H.
t Not causes; only if the term cause be limited to
the last or proximate efficient cause.—H.
# If Motives “influence to action,” they must co-
operate in producing a certain effect upon the agent;
and the determination to act, and to act in a certain
manner—is that effect. They are thus, on Reid's
own view, in this relation, causes, and efficient causes.
It is of no consequence in the argument whether
motives be said to determine a man to act or to in-
fluence (that is to determine) him to determine him-
self to act. It does not, therefore, seem consistent to
say that motives are not causes, and that they do
*ot act. See Leibnitz, quoted below, under p. 296,
infra.—H.
[290–292]
CHAP. Iv.]
609
OF THE INFLUENCE OF MOTIVES.

or exhortation, which leaves a man still at
liberty. For in vain is advice given when
there is not a power either to do or to for-
bear what it recommends. In like manner,
motives suppose liberty in the agent, othº
wise they have no influence at all.
It is a law of nature with respect to
matter, That every motion and change of
motion, is proportional to the force im-
pressed, and in the direction of that force.
The scheme of necessity supposes a similar
law to obtain in all the actions of intelligent
beings; which, with little alteration, may
be expressed thus :—Every action, or
change of action, in an intelligent being, is
proportional to the force of motives im-
pressed, and in the direction of that force.
The law of nature respecting matter, is
grounded upon this principle: That matter
is an inert, inactive substance, which does
not act, but is acted upon ; and the law of
necessity must be grounded upon the sup-
position, That an intelligent being is an in-
ert, inactive substance, which does not act,
but is acted upon.
2. Rational beings, in proportion as they
are wise and good, will act according to the
best motives; and every rational being who
does otherwise, abuses his liberty. The
most perfect being, in everything where
there is a right and a wrong, a better and a
worse, always infallibly acts according to
the best motives. This, indeed, is little
else than an identical proposition ; for it is
a contradiction to say, That a perfect being
does what is wrong or unreasonable. But,
to say that he does not act freely, because
he always does what is best, is to say, That
the proper use of liberty destroys liberty,
and that liberty consists only in its abuse.
[293]
The moral perfection of the Deity con-
sists, not in having no power to do ill,
otherwise, as Dr Clarke justly observes,
there would be no ground to thank him for
his goodness to us, any more than for his
eternity or immensity ; but his moral per-
fection consists in this, that, when he has
power to do everything,” a power which
cannot be resisted, he exerts that power
only in doing what is wisest and best. To
be subject to necessity, is to have no power
at all ; for power and necessity are oppo-
sites. We grant, therefore, that motives
have influence, similar to that of advice or
persuasion; but this influence is perfectly
consistent with liberty, and, indeed, sup-
poses liberty.
3. Whether every deliberate action must
ºr
* To do everything consistent with his perfection.
But here one of the insoluble contradictions in the
question arises; for if, on the one hand, we attribute
to the Deity the power of moral evil, we detract from
his essential goodness; and iſ, on the other, we deny
him this power, we detract from his omnipotence.—
H.
have a motive, depends on the meaning we
put upon the word deliberate. If, by a
deliberate action, we mean an action wherein
Anotives are weighed, which seems to be
the original meaning of the word, surely
there must be motives, and contrary mo-
tives, otherwise they could not be weighed.
But, if a deliberate action means only, as it
commonly does, an action done by a cool
and calm determination of the mind, with
forethought and will, I believe there are
innumerable such actions done without a
motive. *
This must be appealed to every man's
consciousness. I do many trifling actions
every day, in which, upon the most careful
reflection, I am conscious of no motive;
and to say that I may be influenced by a
motive of which I am not conscious, is, in
the first place, an arbitrary supposition
without any evidence, [?] and then, it is to
say, that I may be convinced by an argu-
ment which never entered into my thought.
[294]
Cases frequently occur, in which an end
that is of some importance, may be an-
swered equally well by any one of several dif-
ferent means. In such cases, a man who
intends the end finds not the least difficulty
in taking one of these means, though he be
firmly persuaded that it has no title to be
preferred to any of the others.
To say that this is a case that cannot hap-
pen, is to contradict the experience of man-
kind; for surely a man who has occasion
to lay out a shilling, or a guinea, may have
two hundred that are of equal value, both
to the giver and to the receiver, any one of
which will answer his purpose equally well.
To say, that, if such a case should happen,
the man could not execute his purpose, is
still more ridiculous, though it have the
authority of some of the schoolmen, who
determined that the ass, between two equal
bundles of hay, would stand still till it died
of hunger.t.
If a man could not act without a motive,t
he would have no power at all; for motives
are not in our power ; and he that has not
power over a necessary mean, has not power
over the end.
That an action, done without any motive,
can neither have merit nor demerit, is much
insisted on by the writers for necessity, and
triumphantly, as if it were the very hinge
* Mr Stewart (“ Active and Moral Powers,” pp. 481
and 495) is disposed to concede that no action is per-
formed without some motive; and thinks that Reid
has not strengthened his argument by denying this. .
—H.
Joannes Buridanus. See above, p. 238, note.—H.
Can we conceive any act of which there was not
a sufficient cause or concourse of causes, why the
man performed it, and no other ? If not, call this
cause, or these concauses, the motive, and there is
º longer a dispute. See the three following notes.—
[293, 294]
2 R.
6] ()
[ESSAY Iv.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
of the controversy. I grant it to be a self-
evident proposition, and I know no author
that ever denied it. -
How insignificant soever, in moral estim-
ation, the actions may be which are done
without any motive, they are of moment in
the question concerning moral liberty. For,
if there ever was any action of this kind,
motives are not the sole causes of human
actions. And, if we have the power of act-
ing without a motive, that power, joined to
a weaker motive, may counterbalance a
stronger. [295] -
4. It can never be proved, That when
there is a motive on one side only, that mo-
tive must determine the action.
According to the laws of reasoning, the
proof is incumbent on those who hold the
affirmative ; and I have never seen a sha-
dow of argument, which does not take for
granted the thing in question—to wit, that
motives are the sole causes of actions.
Is there uo such thing as wilfulness,
caprice, or obstimacy, among mankind Pº
If there be not, it is wonderful that they
should have names in all languages. If
there be such things, a single motive, or
even many motives, may be resisted.
5. When it is said, that of contrary mo-
tives the strongest always prevails, this can
neither be affirmed nor denied with under-
standing, until we know distinctly what is
meant by the strongest motive.
I do not find that those who have ad-
vanced this as a self-evident axiom, have
ever attempted to explain what they mean
by the strongest motive, or have given any
rule by which we may judge which of two
motives is the strongest.
How shall we know whether the strongest
motive always prevails, if we know not
which is strongest ? There must be some
test by which their strength is to be tried,
some balance in which they may be weighed;
otherwise, to say that the strongest mo-
tive always prevails, is to speak without
any meaning. We must therefore search
for this test or balance, since they who have
laid so much stress upon this axiom, have
left us wholly in the dark as to its meaning.
I grant, that, when the contrary motives
are of the same kind, and differ only in
quantity, it may be easy to say which is the
strongest. Thus a bribe of a thousand
pounds is a stronger motive than a bribe of
a hundred pounds. But when the motives
are of different kinds—as money and fame,
* But are not these all tendencies, and fatal tend-
$ºgies, to act or not to act P By contra-distinguish-
ing such tendencies from motives, strictly so called,
or rational impulses, we do not advance a single
§§p towards rendering liberty comprehensible.
following notes. The same may be said of all the
9ther attempts to this end; but in regard to these
in general, I conceive it unnecessary to -
farther.-H. y to say anything
See
sidered,
duty and worldly interest, health and
strength, riches and honour—by what rule
shall we judge which is the strongest mo-
tive 2 [296] -
Either we measure the strength of mo-
tives merely by their prevalence, or by
Some other standard distinct from their
prevalence. -
If we measure their strength merely by
their prevalence, and by the strongest mo-
tive mean only the motive that prevails, it
will be true indeed that the strongest mo-
tive prevails ; but the proposition’ will be
identical, and mean no more than that the
strongest motive is the strongest motive.
From this surely no conclusion can be
drawn.
If it should be said, That by the strength
of a motive is not meant its prevalence, but
the cause of its prevalence; that we mea-
sure the cause by the effect, and from the
superiority of the effect conclude the supe-
riority of the cause, as we conclude that to
be the heaviest weight which bears down
the scale: I answer, That, according to this
explication of the axiom, it takes for granted
that motives are the causes, and the sole
causes, of actions. Nothing is left to the
agent, but to be acted upon by the motives,
as the balance is by the weights. The
axiom supposes, that the agent does not
act, but is acted upon ; and, from this sup-
position, it is concluded that he does not
act. This is to reason in a circle, or rather
it is not reasoning but begging the ques-
tion.*
* On this subject, I shall quote a passage from the
controversy between Leibnitz and Clarke:-
“I shall now” (says the former) “come to an objec-
tion raised here, against my comparing the weights of
a balance with the motives of the Will. It is objected,
that a balance is merely passive, and moved by the
weights ; whereas agents intelligent and endowed
with will, are active. To this I answer, that the
principle of the want of a sufficient reason, is common
both to agents and patients. They want a sufficient
reason of their action, as well as of their passion. A
balance does not only not act when it is equally
pulled on both sides, but the equal weights likewise
do not act when they are in an equilibrium, so that
one of them cannot go down without the other rising
up as much.
“It must also be considered that, properly speaking,
motives do not act upon the mind as weights do upon a
balance; but it is rather the mind that acts by virtue
of the motives, which are its dispositions to act. And,
therefore, to pretend, as the author does here, that
the mind prefers sometimes weak motives to strong
ones, and even that it prefers that which is indifferent
before motives—this, I say, is to divide the mind
from the motives, as if they were without the mind,
as the weight is distinct from the balance, and as if
the mind had, besides motives, other dispositions to
act, by virtue of which it could reject or accept the
motives. Whereas, in truth, the motives compre-
hend all the dispositions which the mind can have
to act voluntarily; for they include not only the rea-
Sons, but also the inclinations arising from passions,
or other preceding impressions. ... Wherefore, if the
mind should prefer a weak inclination to a strong one,
it would act against itself, and otherwise than it is
disposed to act. Which shews that the author's
notions, contrary to mine, are superficial, and appear
to have no solidity in them, when they are well con-
[295, 296]
chap. iv.]
611
OF THE INFLUENCE OF MOTIVES.
Contrary motives may very properly be
compared to advocates pleading the opposite
sides of a cause at the bar. It would be
very weak reasoning to say, that such an
advocate is the most powerful pleader, be-
'cause sentence was given on his side. The
sentence is in the power of the judge, not
of the advocate. It is equally weak reason-
ing, in proof of necessity, to say, such
a motive prevailed, therefore it is the
strongest ; since the defenders of liberty
maintain that the determination was made
by the man, and not by the motive.” [297]
We are therefore brought to this issue,
that, unless some measure of the strength of
motives can be found distinct from their
prevalence, it cannot be determined whether
the strongest motive always prevails or not.
If such a measure can be found and applied,
we may be able to judge of the truth of this
maxim, but not otherwise.
Everything that can be called a motive,
is addressed either to the animal or to the
rational part of our nature. Motives of the
former kind are common to us with the
brutes; those of the latter are peculiar to
rational beings. We shall beg leave, for
distinction's sake, to call the former, animal
motives, and the latter, rational.
Hunger is a motive in a dog to eat ; so
—r
“To assert, also, that the mind may have good rea-
sons to act, when it has rio motives, and when things
are absolutely indifferent, as the author explains
himself here—this, I say, is a manifest contradiction;
for, if the mind has good reasons for taking the part
it takes, then the things are not indifferent to the
mind.”—Collection of Papers, &c., Leibnitz's Fifth
Paper, S $ 14–16. - --
The death of Leibnitz terminated his controversy
with Clarke; but a defence of the fifth and last
paper of Leibnitz against the answer of Clarke, by
Thummig, was published, who, in relation to the
point in question, says—“The simile of the balance
is very unjustly interpreted. No resemblance is in-
tended between scales and motives. It is
of no consequence whether, in their reciprocal rela-
tions, the scales are passive, while the mind is active,
since, in this respect, there is no comparison at-
tempted. But, in so far as the principle of Sufficient
Reason is concerned, that principle applies equally to
actions and passions, as has been noticed by Baron
leibnitz. . . . . . It is to plailosophise very
crudely concerning mind, and to image everything
in a corporeal manner, to conceive that actuating
reasons are something external, which make an im-
pression on the mind, and to distinguish motives from
the active principle (principio actionis) itself.” (In
Rochler's German Translation of these Papers.-H.
+ But was the man determined by no motive to
that determination ? Was his specific volition to
this or to that without a cause ? On the supposition
that the sum of influences (motives, dispositions,
tendencies) to volition A, is equal to 12, and the sum
of influences to counter volition B, equal to 8—can
we conceive that the determination of volition A
should uot be necessary 2—We can only conceive the
volition B to be determined by supposing that the
man creates (calls from non-existence into existence)
a certain supplement of influences. But this creation
as actual, or, in itself, is inconceivable, and even to
conceive the possibility of this inconceivable act,
we must suppose some cause by which the man is
determined to exertit. We thus, in thought, never
escape determination and necessity. It will be ob-
served, that I do not consider this inability to the
ºnotion, any disproof of the fact of Free Will.—H.
is it in a man. According to the strength
of the appetite, it gives a stronger or a
weaker impulse to eat. And the same
thing may be said of every other appetite
and passion. Such animal motives give an
impulse to the agent, to which he yields
with ease ; and, if the impulse be strong, it
cannot be resisted without an effort which
requires a greater or a less degree of self-
command. Such motives are not addressed
to the rational powers. Their influence is
immediately upon the will.” We feel their
influence, and judge of their strength, by
the conscious effort which is necessary to
resist them.
When a man is acted upon by contrary
Imotives of this kind, he finds it easy to yield
to the strongest. They are like two forces
pushing him in contrary directions. To
yield to the strongest, he needs only to be
passive. By exerting his own force, he
may resist ; but this requires an effort of
which he is conscious. [298] The strength
of motives of this kind is perceived, not by
our judgment, but by our feeling; and that
is the strongest of contrary motives, to
which he can yield with ease, or which it
requires an effort of self-command to resist ;
and this we may call the animal test of the
strength of motives. ,
If it be asked, whether, in motives of
this kind, the strongest always prevails, I
would answer, that in brute-animals I be-
lieve it does. They do not appear to have
any self-command; an appetite or passion
in them is overcome only by a stronger
contrary one. On this account, they are
not accountable for their actions, nor can
they be the subjects of law.
But in men who are able to exercise
their rational powers, and have any degree
of self-command, the strongest animal mo-
tive does not always prevail. The flesh
does not always prevail against the spirit,
though too often it does. And if men were
necessarily determined by the strongest
animal motive, they could no more be ac-
countable, or capable of being governed by
law, than brutes are.
Let us next consider rational motives, to
which the name of motive is more commonly
and more properly given. Their influence
is upon the judgment, by convincing us that
such an action ought to be done ; that it is
our duty, or conducive to our real good, or
to some end which we have determined to
pursue.
They do not give a blind impulse to the
will,i as animal motives do. They con-
vince, but they do not impel, unless, as
may often happen, they excite some passion
* This is virtually to identify Desire and Will,
which is contrary to truth and our author's own
doctrine.— H
f Sec the last note.—H.
2 R. 2
612
[ESSAY Iv.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
of hope, or fear, or desire. Such passions
may be excited by conviction, and may
operate in its aid as other animal motives
do. But there may be conviction without
passion ; and the conviction of what we
ought to do, in order to some end which we
have judged fit to be pursued, is what I call
a rational motive. [299]
Brutes, I think, cannot be influenced by
such motives. They have not the concep-
tion of ought and ought not. Children ac-
quire these conceptions as their rational
powers advance ; and they are found in all
of ripe age, who have the human faculties.
If there be any competition between ra-
tional motives, it is evident that the strong-
est, in the eye of reason, is that which it is
most our duty and our real happiness to
follow. Our duty and our real happiness
are ends which are inseparable; and they
are the ends which every man, endowed
with reason, is conscious he ought to pur-
sue in preference to all others. This we
may call the rational test of the strength of
motives. A motive which is the strongest,
according to the animal test, may be, and
very often is, the weakest according to the
rational.
The grand and the important competition
of contrary motives is between the animal,
on the one hand, and the rational on the
other. This is the conflict between the
flesh and the spirit, upon the event of which
the character of men depends.
If it be asked, Which of these is the
strongest motive 2 the answer is, That the
first is commonly strongest, when they are
tried by the animal test. If it were not so,
human life would be no state of trial. It
would not be a warfare, nor would virtue
require any effort or self-command. No
man would have any temptation to do wrong.
But, when we try the contrary motives by
the rational test, it is evident that the ra-
tional motive is always the strongest.
And now, I think, it appears, that the
strongest motive, according to either of the
tests I have mentioned, does not always
prevail. [300]
In every wise and virtuous action, the
motive that prevails is the strongest ac-
cording to the rational test, but commonly
the weakest according to the animal. In
every foolish and in every vicious action,
the motive that prevails is commonly the
strongest according to the animal test, but
always the weakest according to the ra-
tional.
6. It is true that we reason from men's
motives to their actions, and, in many cases,
with great probability, but never with abso-
lute certainty. And to infer from this,
that men are necessarily determined by
motives, is very weak reasoning. -
For let us suppose, for a moment, that
men have moral liberty, I would ask, what
use may they be expected to make of this
liberty P . It may surely be expected, that,
of the various actions within the sphere of
their power, they will choose what pleases
them most for the present, or what appears
to be most for their real, though distant
good. When there is a competition be-
tween these motives, the foolish will prefer
present gratification; the wise the greater
and more distant good. •
Now, is not this the very way in which
we see men act 2 Is it not from the pre-
sumption that they act in this way, that we
reason from their motives to their actions 2
Surely it is. Is it not weak reasoning,
therefore, to argue, that men have not
liberty, because they act in that very way
in which they would act if they had liberty?
It would surely be more like reasoning to
draw the contrary conclusion from the same
premises.
7. Nor is it better reasoning to conclude
that, if men are not necessarily determined
by motives, all their actions must be capri-
ClOllS.
To resist the strongest animal motives
when duty requires, is so far from being
capricious that it is, in the highest degree,
wise and virtuous. And we hope this is
often done by good men. [301]
To act against rational motives, must
always be foolish, vicious, or capricious.
And, it cannot be denied, that there are
too many such actions done. But is it
reasonable to conclude, that, because liberty
may be abused by the foolish and the vici-
ous, therefore it can never be put to its
proper use, which is to act wisely and vir-
tuously 2
8. It is equally unreasonable to conclude
—That, if men are not necessarily deter-
mined by motives, rewards and punish-
ments would have no effect. With wise
men they will have their due effect ; but
not always with the foolish and the vicious.
Let us consider what effect rewards and
punishments do really, and in fact, produce,
and what may be inferred from that effect
upon each of the opposite systems of liberty
and of necessity.
I take it for granted that, in fict, the
best and wisest laws, both human and
divine, are often transgressed, notwithstand-
ing the rewards and punishments that are
annexed to them. If any man should deny
this fact, I know not how to reason with
him.
From this fact, it may be inferred with
certainty, upon the supposition of necessity,
That, in every instance of transgression,
the motive of reward or punishment was
not of sufficient strength to produce obe-
dience to the law. This implies a fault in
the lawgiver ; but there can be no fault in
[299–301]
on Ap. v.j LIBERTY CONSISTENT WITH GOVERNMENT,
613
the transgressor, who acts mechanically by
the force of motives. We might as well
impute a fault to the balance when it does
not raise a weight of two pounds by the
force of one pound.
Upon the supposition of necessity, there
can be neither reward nor punishment, in
the proper sense, as those words imply
good and ill desert. Reward and punish-
ment are only tools employed to produce a
mechanical effect. When the effect is not
produced, the tool must be unfit or wrong
applied. [302]
Upon the supposition of liberty, rewards
and punishments will have a proper effect
upon the wise and the good; but not so
upon the foolish and the vicious, when
opposed by their animal passions or bad
habits; and this is just what we see to be
the fact. Upon this supposition, the trans-
gression of the law implies no defect in the
law, no fault in the lawgiver ; the fault is
solely in the transgressor. And it is upon
this supposition only, that there can be
either reward or punishment, in the proper
sense of the words, because it is only on
this supposition that there can be good or
ill desert.
CHAPTER V.
LIBERTY CONSISTENT WITH GOVERNMENT.
WHEN it is said that liberty would make
us absolutely ungovernable by God or man;
to understand the strength of this conclu-
sion, it is necessary to know distinctly what
is meant by government. There are two
kinds of government, very different in their
nature. The one we may, for distinction’s
sake, call mechanical government, the other
moral. The first is the government of
beings which have no active power, but are
merely passive and acted upon ; the second,
of intelligent and active beings. [303]
An instance of mechanical government
may be that of a master or commander of
a ship at sea. Supposing her skilfully
built, and furnished with everything proper
for the destined voyage, to govern her pro-
perly for this purpose requires much art
and attention. And, as every art has its
rules, or laws, so has this. But by whom
are those laws to be obeyed, or those rules
observed? Not by the ship, Surely, for
she is an inactive being, but by the gover-
nor. A sailor may say that she does not
obey the rudder; and he has a distinct
meaning when he says so, and is perfectly
understood. But he means not obedience
in the proper, but in a metaphorical
sense. For, in the proper sense, the ship can
no more obey the rudder than she can give
a command. Every motion, both of the
ship and rudder, is exactly proportioned to
the force impressed, and in the direction of
that force. The ship never disobeys the
laws of motion, even in the metaphorical
sense ; and they are the only laws she can
be subject to.
The sailor, perhaps, curses her for not
obeying the rudder ; but this is not the
voice of reason, but of passion, like that of
the losing gamester when he curses the dice.
The ship is as innocent as the dice.
Whatever may happen during the voy-
age, whatever may be its issue, the ship, in
the eye of reason, is neither an object of
approbation nor of blame ; because she
does not act, but is acted upon. If the
material, in any part, be faulty, Who put
it to that use 2 If the form, Who made it?
If the rules of navigation were not observed,
Who transgressed them 2 If a storm oc-
casioned any disaster, it was no more in the
power of the ship than of the master.
Another instance to illustrate the nature
of mechanical government may be, that of
the man who makes and exhibits a puppet-
show. The puppets, in all their diverting
gesticulations, do not move, but are moved
by an impulse secretly conveyed, which they
cannot resist. If they do not play their
parts properly, the fault is only in the
maker or manager of the machinery. Too
much or too little force was applied, or it
was wrong directed. No reasonable man
imputes either praise or blame to the pup-
pets, but solely to their maker or their
governor. [304]
If we suppose for a moment, the puppets
to be endowed with understanding and will,
but without any degree of active power, -
this will make no change in the nature of
their government; for understanding and
will, without some degree of active power,
can produce no effect. They might, upon
this supposition, be called intelligent ma-
chines; but they would be machines still as
much subject to the laws of motion as in-
animate matter, and, therefore, incapable
of any other than mechanical government.
Let us next consider the nature of moral
government. This is the government of
persons who have reason and active power,
and have laws prescribed to them for their
conduct by a legislator. Their obedience
is obedience in the proper sense ; it must,
therefore, be their own act and deed, and,
consequently, they must have power to obey
or to disobey. To prescribe laws to them
which they have not the power to obey, or to
require a service beyond their power, would
be tyranny and injusticeinthelhighest degree.
When the laws are equitable, and pre-
scribed by just authority, they produce
moral obligation in those that are subject
to them, and disobedience is a crime deserv-
ing punishment. But, if the obedience be
[302–304]
614
[ESSAY Iv.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
impossible—if the transgression be neces-
sary—it is self-evident that there can be no
moral obligation to what is impossible, that
there can be no crime in yielding to neces-
sity, and that there can be no justice in
unishing a person for what it was not in
is power to avoid." There are first prin-
ciples in morals, and, to every unprejudiced
mind, as self-evident as the axioms of ma-
thematics. The whole science of morals
must stand or fall with them. [305]
Having thus explained the nature both of
mechanical and of moral government, the
only kinds of government I am able to con-
ceive, it is easy to see how far liberty or
necessity agrees with either.
On the one hand, I acknowledge that
necessity agrees perfectly with mechanical
government. This kind of government is
most perfect when the governor is the sole
agent; everything done is the doing of the
governor only. The praise of everything
well done is his solely ; and his is the blame
if there be anything ill done, because he is
the sole agent.
It is true that, in common language,
praise or dispraise is often metaphorically
given to the work; but, in propriety, it be-
longs solely to the author. Every work-
man understands this perfectly, and takes
to himself very justly the praise or dispraise
of his own work.
On the other hand, it is no less evident,
that, on the supposition of necessity in the
governed, there can be no moral govern-
ment. There can be neither wisdom nor
equity in prescribing laws that cannot be
obeyed. There can be no moral obligation
upon beings that have no active power.
There can be no crime in not doing what
it was impossible to do ; nor can there be
justice in punishing such omission.
If we apply these theoretical principles
to the kinds of government which do actually
exist, whether human or divine, we shall
find that, among men, even mechanical
government is imperfect.
Men do not make the matter they work
upon. Its various kinds, and the qualities
belonging to each kind, are the work of
God. The laws of nature, to which it is
subject, are the work of God. The motions
of the atmosphere and of the sea, the heat
and cold of the air, the rain and wind,
which are useful instruments in most human
operations, are not in our power. So that,
in all the mechanical productions of men,
the work is more to be ascribed to God
than to man. [306] &
Civil government among men is a species
of moral government, but imperfect, as its
lawgivers and its judges are. Human laws
may be unwise or unjust ; human judges
may be partial or unskilful. But, in all
equitable civil governments, the maxims of
moral government above mentioned, are ac-
knowledged as rules which ought never to
be violated. Indeed the rules of justice are
so evident to all men, that the most tyran-
nical governments profess to be guided by
them, and endeavour to palliate what is
contrary to them by the plea of necessity.
That a man cannot be under an obliga-
tion to what is impossible; that he cannot
be criminal in yielding to necessity, nor
justly punished for what he could not avoid,
are maxims admitted, in all criminal courts,
as fundamental rules of justice. -
In opposition to this, it has been said, by
Some of the most able defenders of neces-
sity, That human laws require no more to
constitute a crime, but that it be voluntary;
whence it is inferred that the criminality
consists in the determination of the will,
whether that determination be free or
necessary. This, I think, indeed, is the
only possible plea by which criminality can
be made consistent with necessity, and,
therefore, it deserves to be considered.
I acknowledge that a crime must be vol-
untary; for, if it be not voluntary, it is no
deed of the man, nor can be justly imputed
to him ; but it is no less necessary that the
criminal have moral liberty.” In men that
are adult and of a sound mind, this liberty
is presumed. But, in every case where it
cannot be presumed, no criminality is im-
puted, even to voluntary actions. [307]
This is evident from the following in-
stances:–First, The actions of brutes ap-
pear to be voluntary; yet they are never
conceived to be criminal, though they may
be noxious. Secondly, Children in nonage
act voluntarily, but they are not charge-
able with crimes. Thirdly, Madmen have
both understanding and will, but they have
not moral liberty, and, therefore, are not
chargeable with crimes. Fourthly, Even
in men that are adult and of a sound mind,
a motive that is thought irresistible by any
ordinary degree of self-command, such as
the rack, or the dread of present death,
either exculpates or very much alleviates a
voluntary action, which, in other circum-
cumstances, would be highly criminal ;
whence it is evident that, if the motive
were absolutely irresistible, the exculpation
* Ste Austin eloquently says—“Etiamne libri hi
obscuri mihi scrutandi erant, unde discerem, nemi-
mem wituperatione suppliciove dignum, qui aut id
velit quod justitia velle non prohibet, aut id non
faciat quod facere non potest ? Nonne ista cantant
et in IIIontibus pastores, et in theatris poetae, et in-
docti in circulis, et docti in bibliothecis, et magistri
in Scholis, et antistites in sacratis, locis, et in Torbe
º genus humanum ?”—De Duabws Animabus,
* That is, criminality supposes not merely Liberty
of Spontaneity, but also Liberty from Necessity. Ail
imputable actions are spontaneous or voluntary; but
all spontaneous or voluntary actions are not imput.
able.—H.
[305-307]
chap. v.] LIBERTY CONSISTENT WITH GOVERNMENT.
6] 5
would be complete. So far is it from being
true in itself, or agreeable to the common
sense of mankind, that the criminality of an
action depends solely upon its being volun-
tary.
The government of brutes, so far as they
are subject to man, is a species of me-
chanical government, or something very
like to it, and has no resemblance to moral
government. As inanimate matter is go-
verned by our knowledge of the qualities
which God hath given to the various pro-
ductions of nature, and our knowledge of
the laws of nature which he hath established;
so brute animals are governed by our know-
ledge of the natural instincts, appetites,
affections, and passions, which God hath
given them. By a skilful application of
these springs of their actions, they may be
trained to many habits useful to man.
After all, we find that, from causes un-
known to us, not only some species, but
some individuals of the same species, are
more tractable than others.
Children under age are governed much
in the same way as the most sagacious
brutes. The opening of their intellectual
and moral powers, which may be much
aided by proper instruction and example, is
that which makes them, by degrees, capable
of moral government. [308]
Reason teaches us to ascribe to the Su-
preme Being a government of the inanimate
and inactive part of his creation, analogous
to that mechanical government which men
exercise, but infinitely more perfect. This,
I think, is what we call God’s natural go-
vernment of the universe. In this part of
the divine government, whatever is done is
God's doing. He is the sole cause and the
Sole agent, whether he act immediately
or by instruments subordinate to him ;
and his will is always done : For instru-
ments are not causes, they are not agents,
though we sometimes improperly call them
SO.
It is therefore no less agreeable to rea-
son, than to the language of holy writ, to
impute to the Deity whatever is done in
the natural world. When we say of any-
thing, that it is the work of Nature, this is
saying that it is the work of God, and can
have no other meaning.
The natural world' is a grand machine,
contrived, made, and governed by the
wisdom and power of the Almighty. And,
if there be in this natural world, beings that
have life, intelligence, and will, without
any degree of active power, they can only
be subject to the same kind of mechanical go-
vernment. Their determinations, whether
we call them good or ill, must be the actions
of the Supreme Being, as much as the pro-
ductions of the earth. For life, intelli-
gence, and will, without active power, can
do nothing, and therefore nothing can justly
be imputed to it.
This grand machine of the natural world,
displays the power and wisdom of the arti-
ficer. But in it, there can be no display of
moral attributes, which have a relation to
moral conduct in his creatures, such as jus-
tice and equity in rewarding or punishing,
the love of virtue and abhorrence of wicked-
ness: For, as everything in it is God's
doing, there can be no vice to be punished
or abhorred, no virtue in his creatures to
be rewarded. [309]
According to the system of necessity, the
whole universe of creatures is this natural
world; and of everything done in it, God
is the sole agent. There can be no moral
government, nor moral obligation. Laws,
rewards, and punishments, are only mechan-
ical engines, and the will of the lawgiver
is obeyed as much when his laws are trans-
gressed, as when they are observed. Such
must be our motions of the government of
the world, upon the supposition of necessity.
It must be purely mechanical, and there
can be no moral government upon that hy-
pothesis.
Let us consider, on the other hand, what
notion of the divine government we are na-
turally led into by the supposition of li-
berty.
They who adopt this system conceive
that, in that small portion of the universe
which falls under our view, as a great part
has no active power, but moves as it is
moved by necessity, and therefore must be
subject to a mechanical government, so it
has pleased the Almighty to bestow upon
some of his creatures, particularly upon
man, some degree of active power, and of
reason, to direct him to the right use of his
power. - -
What connection there may be, in the
nature of things, between reason and active
power, we know not. But we see evidently
that, as reason without active power can do
nothing, so active power without reason has
no guide to direct it to any end. [310]
These two conjoined make moral liberty,
which, in how small a degree soever it is
possessed, raises man to a superior rank in
the creation of God. He is not merely a
tool in the hand of the master, but a ser-
vant, in the proper sense, who has a certain
trust, and is accountable for the discharge
of it. Within the sphere of his power, he
has a subordinate dominion or government,
and therefore may be said to be made after
the image of God, the Supreme Governor.
But, as his dominion is subordinate, he is
under a moral obligation to make a right
use of it, as far as the reason which God
hath given him can direct him. When he
does so, he is a just object of moral appro-
bation ; and no less an object of disappro-
[308-310] a
616
- EEssay Iv.
ON THE ACTIVE Powers.
tion and just punishment when he abuses
the power with which he is entrusted. And
he Inust finally render an account of the
talent committed to him, to the Supreme
Governor and righteous Judge.
This is the moral government of God,
which, far from being inconsistent with
liberty, supposes liberty in those that are
subject to it, and can extend no farther than
that liberty extends; for accountableness
can no more agree with necessity than light
with darkness.
It ought, likewise, to be observed, that, as
active power in man, and in every created
being, is the gift of God, it depends entirely
on his pleasure for its existence, its degree,
and its continuance; and, therefore, can do
nothing which he does not see fit to permit.
Our power to act does not exempt us
from being acted upon, and restrained or
compelled by a superior power; and the
power of God is always superior to that of
Illa,D.
It would be great folly and presumption
in us to pretend to know all the ways in
which the government of the Supreme
Being is carried on, and his purposes ac-
complished by men, acting freely, and hav-
ing different or opposite purposes in their
view. For, as the heavens are high above
the earth, so are his thoughts above our
thoughts, and his ways above our ways.
[31]] s
That a man may have great influence
upon the voluntary determinations of other
men, by means of education, example, and
persuasion, is a fact which must be granted,
whether we adopt the system of liberty or
necessity. How far such determinations
ought to be imputed to the person who ap-
plied those means, how far to the person
influenced by them, we know not ; but God
knows, and will judge righteously,
But what I would here observe is, That,
if a man of superior talents may have so
great influence over the actions of his fel-
low-creatures, without taking away their
liberty, it is surely reasonable to allow a
much greater influence of the same kind to
Him who made man. Nor can it ever be
proved, that the wisdom and power of the
Almighty are insufficient for governing free
agents, so as to answer his purposes.
He who made man may have ways of
governing his determinations, consistent
with moral liberty, of which we have no
conception. And He who gave this liberty
freely, may lay any restraint upon it that is
necessary for answering his wise and benev-
olent purposes. The justice of his govern-
ment requires that his creatures should be
accountable only for what they have re-
ceived, and not for what was never entrusted
to them. And we are sure that the Judge
of all the earth will do what is right.
Thus, I think, it appears, that, upon the
supposition of necessity, there can be no
moral government of the universe. Its
government must be perfectly mechanical,
and everything done in it, whether good or
ill, must be God's doing; and that, upon .
the supposition of liberty, there may be a
perfect moral government of the universe,
consistent with his accomplishing all his
purposes, in its creation and government.
[312] ' .
The arguments to prove that man is en-
dowed with moral liberty, which have the
greatest weight with me, are three : first,
Because he has a natural conviction or
belief, that, in many cases, he acts freely ;
sccondly, Because he is accountable; and,
thirdly, Because he is able to prosecute an
end by a long series of means adapted to it.
CHAPTER WI.
FIRST ARGUMENT.
We have, by our constitution a natural
conviction or belief, that we act freely—a
conviction so early, so universal, and so
necessary in most of our rational operations,
that it must be the result of our constitu-
tion, and the work of Him that made us.
Some of the most strenuous advocates for
the doctrine of necessity acknowledge that
it is impossible to act upon it. They say
that we have a natural sense or conviction
that we act freely;" but that this is a fallaci-
ous sense.i.
This doctrine is dishonourable to our
Maker, and lays a foundation for universal
Scepticism. It supposes the Author of ourbe-
ing to have given us one faculty on purpose
to deceive us, and another by which we
may detect the fallacy, and find that heim-
posed upon us.:
* Thus, Hommel, certainly one of the ablest and
most decided fatalists—“ I myself believe that I
have a feeling of Liberty even at the very moment
when I am writing against Liberty, upon grounds
which I regard as incontrovertible. Zeno was a
fatalist only in theory; in practice, he did not act in
conformity to that conviction.”—H.
t Among others, Reid’s friend, Lord Kames, in the
first edition of his “ Essays on the Principles of
Morality and Natural Religion,” admitted this natu-
ral conviction of freedom from necessity, maintain-
ing it to be illusive. On this melancholy doctrine,
* Man fondly dreams that he is free in act :
Naught is he but the powerless, worthless plaything
Of the blind force that in his Will itself
Works out for him a dread necessity.”
# All necessitarians do not, however, admit the re-
ality of this deceitful experience, or fallacious feeling
of liberty. “ Dr Hartley,” says Mr Stewart, “was,
I believe, one of the first, if not the first, who denied
that our consciousness is in favour of free agency;”
and in this assertion, he observes, “Hartley was fol-
lowed by Priestley and Belsham. Speaking of the
latter, ºwe are told,” he says, “by Mr Belsham, that
the popular opinion that, in many cases, it was in the
power of the agent to have chosen differently, the
previous circumstances remaining exactly the same,
[311, 312]
CHAP. v1.]
617
FIRST ARGUMENT.
If any one of our natural faculties be
fallacious, there can be no reason to trust
ºny of them ; for He that made one made
all.
The genuine dictate of our natural facul-
ties is the voice of God, no less than what
he reveals from heaven; and to say that it
is fallacious, is to impute a lie to the God
of truth.” [313]
If candour and veracity be not an essen-
tial part of moral excellence, there is no
such thing as moral excellence, nor any
reason to rely on the declarations and
promises of the Almighty. A man may be
tempted to lie, but not without being con-
Scious of guilt and of meanness. Shall we
impute to the Almighty what we cannot
impute to a man without a heinous affront ?
Passing this opinion, therefore, as shock-
ing to an ingenuous mind, and, in its con-
sequences, subversive of all religion, all
morals, and, all knowledge, let us proceed to
consider the evidence of our having a natural
conviction that we have some degree of
active power. .
The very conception or idea of active
power must be derived from somethinginour
own constitution. It is impossible to account
for it otherwise. We see events, but we
see not the power that produces them. We
perceive one event to follow another, but
arises either from a mistake of the question, or from
a forgetfulness of the motives by which own choice was
ºned."-(Philosophy of the Active Powers, ii.
I). ..)
To deny, or rather to explain away, the obnoxious
phaenomenon of a sense of liberty, had, however, been
attempted by many Necessitarians before Hartley, and
with far greateringenuity than either he or his two fol.
lowers displayed. Thus Leibnitz, after rejecting the
Liberty of Indifference, says, “Quamobrem ratio illa,
quam Cartesius adduxit, ad probandam actionum
nostrarum liberarum independentiam, ex jactato
quodam vivido sensw intermo, vim nullam habet. Non
possumws propric carperiri independentiam mostram,
ºnec causas a quibus clectio mostra pendet semper per-
cipimus, utpote Sape sensum omnem fugientes. [He
here refers to his doctrine of latent mental modifica-
tions.] Et perinde est acsi acus magnetica versus po-
lwm converti lactaretw) ; putaret emim, se illuc com-
verti independenter a quacumque alia causa, cum mom
perciperet motus insensibiles materiae magneticae.”
But, previously to Leibnitz, a similar solution and il-
lustration, I find, had been proposed by Bayle—his il-
lustration is a conscious weathercock; but both philo-
sophers are, in argument and example, only followers
of Spinoza. Spinoza, after supposing that a certain
quantity of motion had been communicated to a stone,
proceeds—“Porro concipe jam si placet, lapidem dum
moveri pergit cogitare et Scire, Se quantum potest con-
ari ut moveri pergat. Hic lapis sane, quandoquidem
suitantummodo conatus est conscius et minime indif.
ferens, se liberrimum esse et nulla alia de causa in mo-
tu perseverare credet quam quia vult.—Atque hachw-
mana illa libertas est quam omnes habere jactant, et
qua in hoc solo consistit—quod homimes sui appetitus
sunt conscii, et causarum a quibus determinantwr ig-
mari.” Chrysippus's Top or Cylinder is the source.—H.
* It can easily be proved to those who are able and
not afraid to reason, that the doctrine of Necessity
is subversive of religion, natural and revealed; and,
Fatalism involving Atheism, the Necessitarian who
intrepidly follows out his scheme to its consequences,
however monstrous, will consistently reject every
argument which proceeds upon the supposition of a
Deity and divine attributes.—H.
we perceive not the chain that binds them
together. The notion of power and causa-
tion, therefore, cannot be got from external
objects.
Yet the notion of causes, and the belief
that every event must have a cause which
had power to produce it, is found in every
human mind so firmly established, that it
cannot be rooted out.
. This notion and this belief must have its
Örigin from something in our constitution ;
and that it is natural to man, appears from
the following observations.
1. We are conscious of many voluntary
exertions, some easy, others more difficult,
some requiring a great effort. These are
exertions of power. And, though a man
may be unconscious of his power when he
does not exert it, he must have both the
conception and the belief of it, when he
knowingly and willingly exerts it, with in-
tention to produce some effect. [314]
2. Deliberation about an action of mo-
ment, whether we shall do it or not, implies a
conviction that it is in our power. To de-
liberate about an end, we must be con-
vinced that the means are in our power ;
and to deliberate about the means, we must
be convinced that we have power to choose
the most proper.
3. Suppose our deliberation brought to
an issue, and that we resolve to do what
appeared proper, can we form such a reso-
lution or purpose, without any conviction of
power to execute it 2 No ; it is impossible.
A man cannot resolve to lay out a sum of
money which he neither has nor hopes
ever to have. 4.
4. Again, when I plight my faith in any
promise or contract, I must believe that I
shall have power to perform what I pro-
mise. Without this persuasion, a promise
would be downright fraud.
There is a condition implied in every
promise, if we live and if God continue with
ws the power which he hath given us. Our
conviction, therefore, of this power dero-
gates not in the least from our dependence
upon God. The rudest savage is taught by
nature to admit this condition in all pro-
mises, whether it be expressed or not. For
it is a dictate of common sense, that we can
be under no obligation to do what it is im-
possible for us to do.
If we act upon the system of necessity,
there must be another condition implied in
all deliberation, in every resolution, and in
every promise ; and that is, if we shall be
willing. But the will not being in our
power, we cannot engage for it. #
If this condition be understood, as it must
be understood if we act upon the system of
necessity, there can be no deliberation, or
resolution, nor any obligation in a promise.
A man might as well deliberate, resolve, and
[313–315]
618
[ESSAY Iv.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
promise, upon the actions of other men as
upon his own.
It is no less evident that we have a con-
viction of power in other men, when we
advise, or persuade, or command, or con-
ceive them to be under obligation by their
promises.
5. Is it possible for any man to blame
himself for yielding to necessity ? Then he
may blame himself for dying, or for being a
man. Blame supposes a wrong use of power;
and, when a man does as well as it was pos-
sible for him to do, wherein is he to be
blamed 2 Therefore, all conviction of wrong
conduct, all remorse and self-condemnation,
imply a conviction of our power to have
done better. Take away this conviction,
and there may be a sense of misery, or a
dread of evil to come ; but there can be no
sense of guilt or resolution to do better.
Many who hold the doctrine of necessity,
disown these consequences of it, and think
to evade them. To such, they ought not
to be imputed ; but their inseparable con-
nection with that doctrine appears self-evi-
dent ; and, therefore, some late patrons of
it" have had the boldness to avow them.
“They cannot accuse themselves of having
done anything wrong, in the ultimate sense
of the words. In a strict sense, they have
nothing to do with repentance, confession,
and pardon—these being adapted to a falla-
cious view of things.”
Those who can adopt these sentiments,
may, indeed, celebrate, with high encomiums,
“ the great and glorious doctrine of neces-
sity.” It restores them, in their own con-
ceit, to the state of innocence. It delivers
them from all the pangs of guilt and re-
morse, and from all fear about their future
conduct, though not about their fate. They
may be as secure that they shall do nothing
wrong as those who have finished their
course. A doctrine so flattering to the
mind of a sinner, is very apt to give strength
to weak arguments. [316]
After all, it is acknowledged, by those who
boast of this glorious doctrine, “That every
man, let him use what efforts he can, will
necessarily feel the sentiments of shame,
remorse, and repentance, and, oppressed
with a sense of guilt, will have recourse to
that mercy of which he stands in need.”
The meaning of this seems to me to be,
That, although the doctrine of necessity be
supported by invincible arguments, and
though it be the most consolatory doctrine
in the world; yet no man, in his most
serious moments, when he sists himself be-
fore the throne of his Maker, can possibly
believe it, but must then necessarily lay
aside this glorious doctrine, and all its flat-
tering consequences, and return to the
* Priestley. Belsham is still more explicit.—H.
humiliating conviction of his having made a
bad use of the power which God had given
him. * - .
If the belief of our having active power
be necessarily implied in those rational
operations we have mentioned, it must be
coeval with our reason ; it must be as uni-
versal among men, and as necessary in the
conduct of life, as those operations are.
We cannot recollect by memory when it
began. . It cannot be a prejudice of educa-
tion, or of false philosophy. It must be a
part of our constitution, or the necessary
result of our constitution and therefore
the work of God.
It resembles, in this respect, our belief of
the existence of a material world; our be-
lief that those we converse with are living
and intelligent beings; our belief that those
things did really happen, which we distinctly
remember ; and our belief that we continue
the same identical persons. [317]
We find difficulty in accounting for our
belief of these things; and some philoso-
phers think that they have discovered good
reasons for throwing it off. But it sticks
fast, and the greatest sceptic finds that he
must yield to it in his practice, while he
wages war with it in speculation.
If it be objected to this argument, That
the belief of our acting freely cannot be
implied in the operations we have men-
tioned, because those operations are per-
formed by them who believe that we are,
in all our actions, governed by necessity—
the answer to this objection is, That men
in their practice may be governed by a be-
lief which in speculation they reject.
However strange and unaccountable this
may appear, there are many well-known
instances of it. -
I knew a man who was as much convinced
as any man of the folly of the popular bu-
lief of apparitions in the dark; yet he could
not sleep in a room alone, nor go alone
into a room in the dark. Can it be said,
that his fear did not imply a belief of danger?
This is impossible. Yet his philosophy
convinced him that he was in no more
danger in the dark when alone, than with
company.
Here an unreasonable belief, which was
merely a prejudice of the nursery, stuck so
fast as to govern his conduct, in opposition
to his speculative belief as a philosopher and
a man of sense.
There are few persons who can look down
from the battlement of a very high tower
without fear, while their reason convinces
them that they are in no more danger than
when standing upon the ground. [318]
* This is hardly implied. In this the modern Neces-
sitarian, like the ancient Fatalist, only admits-
º quoque Fatale cst, sic ipsum carpendere Fatum.
[816-818]
CHAP, v1.]
619
FIRST ARGUMENT.
There have been persons who professed
to believe that there is no distinction be-
tween virtue and vice, yet in their practice
they resented injuries, and esteemed noble
and virtuous actions.
There have been sceptics who professed
to disbelieve their senses and every human
faculty; but no sceptic was ever known,
who did not, in practice, pay a regard to
his senses and to his other faculties. &
There are some points of belief so ne-
cessary, that, without them, a man would
not be the being which God made him.
These may be opposed in speculation, but
it is impossible to root them out. In a
speculative hour they seem to vanish, but
in practice they resume their authority.
This seems to be the case of those who hold
the doctrine of necessity, and yet act as if
they were free. .
This natural conviction of some degree of
power in ourselves and in other men, re-
spects voluntary actions only. For, as all
our power is directed by our will, we can
form no conception of power, properly so
called, that is not under the direction of
will." And therefore our exertions, our
deliberations, our purposes, our promises,
are only in things that depend upon our
will. Our advices, exhortations, and com-
mands, are only in things that depend upon
the will of those to whom they are addressed.
We impute no guilt to ourselves, nor to
others, in things where the will is not con-
cerned.
But it deserves our notice, that we do not
conceive everything, without exception, to
be in a man's power which depends upon
his will. There are many exceptions to
this general rule. The most obvious of
these I shall mention, because they both
serve to illustrate the rule, and are of im-
portance in the question concerning the
liberty of man. [319]
In the rage of madness, men are abso-
lutely deprived of the power of self-govern-
ment. They act voluntarily, but their will
is driven as by a tempest, which, in lucid
intervals, they resolve to oppose with all
their might, but are overcome when the fit
of madness returns.
Idiots are like men walking in the dark,
who cannot be said to have the power of
choosing their way, because they cannot
distinguish the good road from the bad.
Having no light in their understanding, they
must either sit still, or be carried on by
some blind impulse.
Between the darkness of infancy, which
is equal to that of idiots, and the maturity
of reason, there is a long twilight, which,
by insensible degrees, advances to the per-
fect day.
In this period of life, man has but little
of the power of self-government. His
actions, by nature, as well as by the laws
of society, are in the power of others more
than in his own. His folly and indiscretion,
his levity and inconstancy, are considered
as the fault of youth, rather than of the
man. We consider him as half a man and
half a child, and expect that each by turns
should play its part. He would be thought
a severe and unequitable censor of manners,
who required the same cool deliberation,
the same steady conduct, and the same
mastery over himself, in a boy of thirteen,
as in a man of thirty.
It is an old adage, That violent anger is
a short fit of madness." If this be literally
true in any case, a man, in such a fit of
passion, cannot be said to have the com-
mand of himself. If real madness could
be proved, it must have the effect of mad-
ness while it lasts, whether it be for an hour
or for life. But the madness of a short fit
of passion, if it be really madness, is in-
capable of proof; and therefore is not ad-
mitted in human tribunals as an exculpa-
tion. And, I believe, there is no case where
a man can satisfy his own mind that his
passion, both in its beginning and in its
progress, was irresistible. The Searcher of
hearts alone knows infallibly what allow-
ance is due in cases of this kind. [320]
But a violent passion, though it may not
be irresistible, is difficult to be resisted :
And a man, Surely, has not the same power
over himself in passion, as when he is cool.
On this account it is allowed by all men to
alleviate, when it cannot exculpate; and
has its weight in criminal courts, as well as
in private judgment.
It ought likewise to be observed, That
he who has accustomed himself to restrain
his passions, enlarges by habit his power
over them, and consequently over himself.
When we consider that a Canadian savage
can acquire the power of defying death in
its most dreadful forms, and of braving the
most exquisite torment for many long hours,
without losing the command of himself;
we may learn from this, that, in the con-
stitution of human nature, there is ample
Scope for the enlargement of that power of
self-command without which there can be
no virtue nor magnanimity.
There are cases, however, in which a
man's voluntary actions are thought to be
very little, if at all, in his power, on ac-
count of the violence of the motive that
impels him. The magnanimity of a hero,
or of a martyr, is not expected in every
man, and on all occasions. *
If a man trusted by the government with
a secret which it is high treason to disclose,
*This explicitly admits what (though seemingly de-
nied) was stated as undeniable, in note at p. 599.-H.
* Ira furor brovis (st.— H.
[319, 320]
620
[ESSAY 1 v.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
be prevailed upon by a bribe, we have no
mercy for him, and hardly allow the greatest
bribe to be any alleviation of his crime.
But, on the other hand, if the secret be
extorted by the rack, or by the dread of
present death, we pity him more than we
blame him, and would think it severe and
unequitable to condemn him as a traitor.
[321]
What is the reason that all men agree in
condemning this man as a traitor in the
first place, and, in the last, either excul-
pate him, or think his fault greatly allevi-
ated 2 If he acted necessarily in both cases,
compelled by an irresistible motive, I can
see no reason why we should not pass the
Same judgment on both.
But the reason of these different judg-
ments is evidently this—That the love of
money, and of what is called a man's inte-
rest, is a cool motive, which leaves to a man
the entire power over himself; but the tor-
ment of the rack, or the dread of present
death, are so violent motives that men
who have not uncommon strength of mind,
are not masters of themselves in such a
situation, and, therefore, what they do is
not imputed, or is thought less criminal.
If a man resist such motives, we admire
his fortitude, and think his conduct heroical
rather than human. If he yields, we im-
pute it to human frailty, and think him
rather to be pitied than severely censured.
Inveterate habits are acknowledged to
diminish very considerably the power a man
has over himself. Although we may think
him highly blameable in acquiring them,
yet, when they are confirmed to a certain
degree, we consider him as no longer master
of himself, and hardly reclaimable without
a miracle.
Thus we see that the power which we
are led, by common sense, to ascribe to man
respects his voluntary actions only, and
that it has various limitations even with
regard to them. Some actions that depend
upon our will are easy, others very difficult,
and some, perhaps, beyond our power. In
different men, the power of self-government
is different, and in the same man at dif-
ferent times. It may be diminished, or
perhaps lost, by bad habits; it may be
greatly increased by good habits. [322]
These are facts attested by experience,
and supported by the common judgment of
mankind. Upon the system of Liberty
they are perfectly intelligible; but, I think,
irreconcileable to that of Necessity; for,
How can thrre be an easy and a difficult in
actions equally subject to necessity ?—or,
How can power be greater or less, in-
creased or diminished, in those who have
no power 2
This natural conviction of our acting
freely, which is acknowledged by many who
hold the doctrine of necessity, ought to
throw the whole burden of proof upon that
side ; for, by this, the side of liberty has
what lawyers call a jus quasilum, or a right
of ancient possession, which ought to stand
good till it be overturned. If it cannot be
proved that we always act from necessity.
there is no need of arguments on the other
side to convince us that we are free agents.
To illustrate this by a similar case:—
If a philosopher would persuade me that
my fellow-men with whom I converse are
not thinking, intelligent beings, but mere
machines, though I might be at a loss to
find arguments against this strange opinion,
I should think it reasonable to hold the
belief which nature gave me before I was
capable of weighing evidence, until con-
vincing proof is brought against it. [323]
CHAPTER VII.
SECOND ARGUMENT.
THAT there is a real and essential distinc-
tion between right and wrong conduct, be-
tween just and unjust—That the most perfect
moral rectitude is to be ascribed to the Deity
—That man is a moral and accountable
being, capable of acting right and wrong,
and answerable for his conduct to Him who
made him, and assigned him a part to act
upon the stage of life; are principles pro-
claimed by every man’s conscience—princi-
ples upon which the systems of morality
and natural religion, as well as the system
of revelation, are grounded, and which
have been generally acknowledged by those
who hold contrary opinions on the subject
of human liberty. I shall therefore here
take them for granted.
These principles afford an obvious, and,
I think, an invincible argument, that man
is endowed with Moral Liberty.
Two things are implied in the notion of
a moral and accountable being—Under-
standing and Active Power.
First, He must understand the law to
which he is bound, and his obligation to obey
it. Moral obedience must be voluntary, and
must regard the authority of the law. I
may command my horse to eat when he
hungers, and drink when he thirsts. He
does so; but his doing it is no moral obedi-
ence. He does not understand my com-
mand, and therefore can have no will to
obey it. He has not the conception of mo-
ral obligation, and therefore cannot act
from the conviction of it. In eating and
drinking, he is moved by his own appetite
only, and not by my authority. [324]
Brute-animals are incapable of moral ob-
ligation, because they have not that degree
of understanding which it implies. They
[321–324]
CHAP. VII.]
621
SECONI) ARGUMENT.
have not the conception of a rule of conduct,
and of obligation to obey it, and therefore,
though they may be noxious, they cannot
be criminal.
Man, by his rational nature, is capable
both of understanding the law that is pre-
scribed to him, and of perceiving its obli-
gation. He knows what it is to be just and
honest, to injure no man, and to obey his
Maker. From his constitution, he has an
immediate conviction of his obligation to
these things. He has the approbation of
his conscience when he acts by these rules;
and he is conscious of guilt and demerit
when he transgresses them. And, without
this knowledge of his duty and his obliga-
tion, he would not be a moral and account-
able being.
Secondly, Another thing implied in the
notion of a moral and accountable being, is
power, to do what he is accountable for.
That no man can be under a moral obli-
gation to do what it is impossible for him to
do, or to forbear what it is impossible for
him to forbear, is an axiom as self-evident
as any in mathematics. It cannot be con-
tradicted, without overturning all notion of
moral obligation ; nor can there be any ex-
ception to it, when it is rightly understood.
Some moralists have mentioned what
they conceived to be an exception to this
maxim. The exception is this. When a
man, by his own fault, has disabled himself
from doing his duty, his obligation, they
Say, remains, though he is now unable to
'discharge it. Thus, if a man by sumptu-
ous living has become bankrupt, his inabil-
ity to pay his debt does not take away his
obligation. [325]
To judge whether, in this and similar
cases, there be any exception to the axiom
above mentioned, they must be stated
accurately." -
No doubt a man is highly criminal in
living above his fortune, and his crime is
greatly aggravated by the circumstance of
his being thereby unable to pay his just
debt. Let us suppose, therefore, that he is
punished for this crime as much as it de-
serves; that his goods are fairly distributed
among his creditors, and that one half re-
mains unpaid. Let us suppose also, that
he adds no new crime to what is past, that
he becomes a new man, and not only sup-
ports himself by homest industry, but does
all in his power to pay what he still owes.
I would now ask, Is he further punish-
able, and really guilty for not paying more
than he is able 2 Let every man consult his
conscience, and say whether he can blame
this man for not doing more than he is
able to do. His guilt before his bank-
* Such cases are considered and solved on broader
grounds by Aristotle. See Nic. Eth. L. iii. c. 5.—H.
ruptcy is out of the question, as he has
received the punishment due for it. But
that his subsequent conduct is unblameable,
every man must allow ; and that, in his
present state, he is accountable for no more
than he is able to do. His obligation is not
cancelled, it returns with his ability, and
can go no farther.
Suppose a sailor, employed in the navy
of his country, and longing for the ease of
a public hospital as an invalid, to cut off his
fingers, so as to disable him from doing the
duty of a sailor ; he is guilty of a great
crime ; but, after he has been punished
according to the demerit of his crime, will
his captain insist that he shall still do the
duty of a sailor P Will he command him
to go aloft when it is impossible for him to
do it, and punish him as guilty of disobe-
dience 2 Surely, if there be any such thing
as justice and injustice, this would be un-
just and wanton cruelty. [326]
Suppose a servant, through negligence
and inattention, mistakes the orders given
him by his master, and, from this mistake,
does what he was ordered not to do. It is
commonly said that culpable ignorance does
not excuse a fault. This decision is inac-
curate, because it does not shew where the
fault lies. The fault was solely in that in-
attention, or negligence, which was the
occasion of his mistake. There was no
Subsequent fault.
This becomes evident, when we vary the
case so far as to suppose that he was un-
avoidably led into the mistake without any
fault on his part. His mistake is now in-
vincible, and, in the opinion of all moralists,
takes away all blame; yet this new case
supposes no change, but in the cause of his
mistake. His subsequent conduct was the
Same in both cases. The fault therefore
lay solely in the negligence and inattention
which was the cause of his mistake.
The axiom, That invincible ignorance
takes away all blame, is only a particular
case of the general axiom, That there can
be no moral obligation to what is impossible;
the former is grounded upon the latter, and
can have no other foundation.
I shall put only one case more. Suppose
that a man, by excess and intemperance,
has entirely destroyed his rational faculties,
So as to have become perfectly mad or
idiotical; suppose him forewarned of his
danger, and that, though he foresaw that
this must be the consequence, he went on
still in his criminal indulgence. A greater
crime can hardly be supposed, or more de-
serving of severe punishment P Suppose
him punished as he deserves; will it be said,
that the duty of a man is incumbent upon
him now, when he has not the faculties of
a man, or that he incurs new guilt when he
is not a moral agent 2 Surely we may as
|325, 326]
622
[Essay Iv
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
well suppose a plant, or a clod of earth, to
be a subject of moral duty. [327]
The decisions I have given of these cases,
are grounded upon the fundamental prin-
ciples of morals, the most immediate dic-
tates of conscience. If these principles are
given up, all moral reasoning is at an end,
and no distinction is left between what is
just and what is unjust. And it is evident
that none of these cases furnishes any ex-
ception to the axiom above mentioned. No
moral obligation can be consistent with im-
possibility in the performance.
Active power, therefore, is necessarily
implied in the very notion of a moral ac-
countable being. ' And if man be such a
being, he must have a degree of active
power proportioned to the account he is to
make. He may have a model of perfection
set before him which he is unable to reach;
but, if he does to the utmost of his power,
this is all he can be answerable for. To
incur guilt, by not going beyond his power,
's impossible.
What was said, in the first argument, of
the limitation of our power, adds much
strength to the present argument. A man’s
power, it was observed, extends only to his
voluntary actions, and has many limitations,
even with respect to them.
His accountableness has the same extent
and the same limitations.
In the rage of madness he has no power
over himself, neither is he accountable, or
capable of moral obligation. In ripe age,
man is accountable in a greater degree than
in non-age, because his power over himself
is greater. Violent passions and violent
motives alleviate what is done through
their influence, in the same proportion as
they diminish the power of resistance. [328]
There is, therefore, a perfect correspond-
ence between power, on the one hand, and
moral obligation and accountableness, on the
other. They not only correspond in gene-
ral, as they respect voluntary actions only,
but every limitation of the first produces a
corresponding limitation of the two last.
This, indeed, amounts to nothing more than
that maxim of common sense, confirmed by
Divine authority, “That to whom much is
given, of him much will be required.”
The sum of this argument is—that a cer-
tain degree of active power is the talent
which God hath given to every rational
accountable creature, and of which he will
require an account. If man had no power,
he would have nothing to account for. All
wise and all foolish conduct, all virtue and
vice, consist in the right use or in the abuse
of that power which God hath given us. If
man had no power, he could neither be wise
nor foolish, virtuous nor vicious.
If we adopt the system of necessity, the
terms moral obligation and accountableness,
praise and blame, merit and demerit, justice
and injustice, reward and punishment, wis-
dom and folly, virtue and vice, ought to be
disused, or to have new meanings given to
them when they are used in religion, in
morals, or in civil government; for, upon
that system, there can be no such things
as they have been always used to signify.
[329]
CHAPTER VIII.
THIRD ARGUMENT.
THAT man has power over his own ac-
tions and volitions appears, because he is .
capable of carrying on, wisely and prudent-
ly, a system of conduct, which he has be-
fore conceived in his mind, and resolved to
prosecute.
I take it for granted, that, among the var-
ious characters of men, there have been
Some who, after they came to years of un-
derstanding, deliberately laid down a plan
of conduct, which they resolve to pursue
through life ; and that of these, some have
steadily pursued the end they had in view,
by the proper means,
It is of no consequence in this argument,
whether one has made the best choice of
his main end or not ; whether his end be
riches, or power, or fame, or the approba-
tion of his Maker. I suppose only, that he
has prudently and steadily pursued it; that,
in a long course of deliberate actions, he
has taken the means that appeared most
conducive to his end, and avoided whatever
might cross it.
That such conduct in a man demonstrates
a certain degree of wisdom and understand-
ing, no man ever doubted; and I say it
demonstrates, with equal force, a certain
degree of power over his voluntary determin-
ations.
This will appear evident, if we consider,
that understanding without power may pro-
ject, but can execute nothing. A regular
plan of conduct, as it cannot be contrived
without understanding, so it cannot be car-
ried into execution without power; and,
therefore, the execution, as an effect,
demonstrates, with equal force, both power
and understanding in the cause. [330]
Every indication of wisdom, taken from
the effect, is equally an indication of power
to execute what wisdom planned. And, if
we have any evidence that the wisdom
which formed the plan is in the man, we
have the very same evidence that the power
which executed it is in him also.
In this argument, we reason from the
same principles as in demonstrating the
being and perfections of the First Cause of
all things.
- [327–330]
CHAP. VIII.]
623
THIRD ARGUMENT.
The effects we observe in the course of
nature require a cause. Effects wisely ad-
apted to an end, require a wise cause.
Every indication of the wisdom of the Crea-
tor is equally an indication of His power.
His wisdom appears only in the works done
by his power; for wisdom without power
may speculate, but it cannot act; it may
plan, but it cannot execute its plans.
The same reasoning we apply to the
works of men. In a stately palace we see
the wisdom of the architect. His wisdom
contrived it, and wisdom could do no more.
The execution required both a distinct con-
ception of the plan, and power to operate
according to that plan.
Let us apply these principles to the sup-
position we have made—That a man, in a
long course of conduct, has determined and
acted prudently in the prosecution of a cer-
tain end. If the man had both the wisdom
to plan this course of conduct, and that power
over his own actions that was necessary
to carry it into execution, he is a free
agent, and used his liberty, in this instance,
with understanding. [33]]
But, if all his particular determinations,
which concurred in the execution of this
plan were produced, not by himself, but by
some cause acting necessarily upon him,
then there is no evidence left that he con-
trived this plan, or that he ever spent a
thought about it.
The cause that directed all these determ-
inations so wisely, whatever it was, must
be a wise and intelligent cause ; it must
have understood the plan, and have intended
the execution of it.
If it be said that all this course of de-
termination was produced by Motives, mo-
tives, surely, have not understanding to
conceive a plan, and intend its execution."
We must, therefore, go back beyond motives
to some intelligent being who had the power
of arranging those motives, and applying
them in their proper order and season, so
as to bring about the end.
This intelligent being must have under-
stood the plan, and intended to execute it.
If this be so, as the man had no hand in the
execution, we have not any evidence left
that he had any hand in the contrivance, or
even that he is a thinking being.
If we can believe that an extensive series
of means may conspire to promote an end
without a cause that intended the end, and
had power to choose and apply those means
for the purpose, we may as well believe that
this world was made by a fortuitous con-
course of atoms, without an intelligent and
powerful cause.
If a lucky concourse of motives could
+ On the true signification of Motives, see above,
p. 608, note *, and p. 610, note *.-H.
produce the conduct of an Alexander or a
Julius Caesar, no reason can be given why
a lucky concourse of atoms might not pro-
duce the planetary system,
If, therefore, wise conduct in a man de-
monstrates that he has some degree of wis-
dom, it demonstrates, with equal force and
evidence, that he has some degree of power
over his own determinations. [332]
All the reason we can assign for believ-
ing that our fellow-men think and reason,
is grounded upon their actions and speeches.
If they are not the cause of these, there is
no reason left to conclude that they think
and reason.
Des Cartes thought that the human body
is merely an engine, and that all its motions
and actions are produced by mechanism.
If such a machine could be made to speak
and to act rationally, we might, indeed,
conclude with certainty, that the maker of
it had both reason and active power; but,
if we once knew that all the motions of the
machine were purely mechanical, we should
have no reason to conclude that the man
had reason or thought.
The conclusion of this argument is—That,
if the actions and speeches of other men
give us sufficient evidence that they are
reasonable beings, they give us the same
evidence, and the same degree of evidence,
that they are free agents.
There is another conclusion that may be
drawn from this reasoning, which it is pro-
per to mention. -
Suppose a Fatalist, rather than give up
the scheme of necessity, should acknow-
ledge that he has no evidence that there is
thought and reason in any of his fellow-
men, and that they may be mechanical
engines for all that he knows, he will be
forced to acknowledge that there must be
active power, as well as understanding, in
the maker of those engines, and that the
first cause is a free agent. We have the
same reason to believe this as to believe
his existence and his wisdom. And, if the
the Deity acts freely, every argument
brought to prove that freedom of action is
impossible, must fall to the ground. [333),
The First Cause gives us evidence of his
power by every effect that gives us evidence
of his wisdom. And, if he is pleased to
communicate to the work of his hands some
degree of his wisdom, no reason can be
assigned why he may not communciate
Some degree of his power, as the talent
which wisdom is to employ.
That the first motion, or the first effect,
whatever it be, cannot be produced neces-
sarily, and, consequently, that the First
Cause must be a free agent, has been de-
monstrated so clearly and unanswerably
by Dr Clarke, both in his “ Demonstra-
tion of the Being and Attributes of God,”
[331–333]
.624
[ESSAY Iv
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
and in the end of his “Remarks on Collins’s
Philosophical Enquiry concerning Human
Liberty,’” that I can add nothing to what he
has said; nor have I found any objec-
tion made to his reasoning, by any of the
defenders of necessity.”
CHAPTER IX.
of ARGUMENTS FOR NECESSITY.
SoME of the arguments that have been
offered for Necessity were already con-
sidered in this essay.
It has been said, That human Liberty
respects only the actions that are subsequent
to Volition; and that power over the determ-
inations of the Will is inconceivable, and
involves a contradiction. This argument
was considered in the first chapter.
It has been said, That Liberty is incon-
sistent with the influence of Motives, that
it would make human actions capricious,
and man wragovernable by God or man.
These arguments were considered in the
jourth and fifth chapters. [334]
I am now to make some remarks upon
other arguments that have been urged in
this cause. They may, I think, be reduced
to three classes. They are intended to
prove, either [A] that liberty of determina-
tion is impossible—or, [B] that it would be
hurtful—or, [C] that, in fact, Man has no
such liberty.
[A.] To prove that liberty of determina-
tion is impossible, it has been said—That
there must be a sufficient reason for every-
thing. For every Eatistence, for every
Event, for every Truth, there must be a SUF-
FICIENT REASON.--
The famous German philosopher Leib-
nitz boasted much of having first applied
this principle to philosophy, £ and of having,
by that means, changed metaphysics from
being a play of unmeaning words, to be a
rational and demonstrative science. On
this account it deserves to be considered.
A very obvious objection to this prin-
ciple was—That two or more means may be
equally fit for the same end; and that, in
such a case, there may be a sufficient reason
for taking one of the number, though there
be no reason for preferring one to another,
of means equally fit.
To obviate this objection Leibnitz main-
tained, that the case supposed could not
happen; or, if it did, that none of the means
could be used, for want of a sufficient rea-
Son to prefer one to the rest. Therefore he
determined, with some of the schoolmen—
That, if an ass could be placed between two
bundles of hay, or two fields of grass equally
inviting, the poor beast would certainly
stand still and starve; but the case, he says,
could not happen without a miracle. [335]
When it was objected to this principle,
That there could be no reason but the will
of God why the material world was placed
in one part of unlimited space rather than
another, or created at one point of un-
limited duration rather than another, or
why the planets should move from west to
east, rather than in a contrary direction ;
these objections Leibnitz obviated by main-
taining, That there is no such thing as un-
occupied space or duration ; that space is
nothing but the order of things coexisting,
and duration is nothing but the order of
things successive ; that all motion is relat-
ive, so that, if there were only one body in
the universe, it would be immovable ; that
it is inconsistent with the perfection of the
Deity, that there should be any part of
Space unoccupied by body; and, I sup-
pose, he understood the same of every part
of duration. So that, according to this sys-
tem, the world, like its Author, must be
infinite, eternal, and immovable ; or, at
least, as great in extent and duration as it
is possible for it to be.
When it was objected to the principle of
a sufficient reason, That of two particles of
Imatter perfectly similar, there can be no
reason but the will of God for placing this
here and that there; this objection Leib-
nitz obviated by maintaining, that it is im-
possible that there can be two particles
of matter, or any two things, perfectly simi-
lar. And this seems to have led him to
another of his grand principles, which he
calls, The Identity of Indiscernibles."
When the principle of a Sufficient Rea-
Son had produced so many surprising dis-
coveries in philosophy, it is no wonder that
it should determine the long disputed ques-
tion about human liberty. This it does in

# It is needless again to say, that, in the preceding
three arguments for Liberty, Beid has done nothing
to render the scheme of Liberty conceivable. But, if
our intellectual mature be not a lie—if our con-
sciousness and conscience do not deceive us in
the immediate datum of an Absolute Law of Duty,
(to say nothing of an immediate datum of Liberty
itself)—we are free, as we are moral agents; for mo-
rality involves Liberty as its essential condition—as
its ratio essendi. But this doctrine I cannot now
develope.—H.
t The principle of the Sufficient Reason, (p. ra-
tionis sufficientis, )—called, likewise, by Leibnitz, that
of the Determining Reason, (p. rationis determinan-
tis)—of Convenience, (p. convenientiae)—of Perfec-
tion, (p. perfectionis)—and of the Order of Eacist-
emces, (p. eſcistentiarum)—is one of the most exten-
'sive, not to say ambiguous, character. For it is
employed to denote, conjunctly and severally, the
two metaphysical or real principles–19, Why a
thing is, (primcipium or ratio essendi :) 2°, Why a
thing becomes or is produced, (p. or r fiend; ;) and, 3°,
the logical or ideal principle, Why a thing is known
or conceived, (p. or ?". Cognoscendi.)—H.
; First he did jº #.
* This principle I find enounced in several authors
prior to leibnitz.-H. -
[334, 335]
on AP. ix.]
OF ARGUMENTS
FOR NECESSITY, 625
a moment.
is an event for which there must be a suffi-
cient reason—that is, something previous,
which was necessarily followed by that de-
termination, and could not be followed by
any other determination ; therefore it was
necessary. [336]
Thus we see, that this principle of the
necessity of a Sufficient Reason for every-
thing, is very fruitful of consequences; and
by its fruits we may judge of it. Those
who will adopt it, must adopt all the conse-
quences that hang upon it. To fix them
all beyond dispute, no more is necessary
but to prove the truth of the principle on
which they depend. .
I know of no argument offered by Leib-
nitz in proof of this principle, but the
authority of Archimedes, who, he says,
makes use of it to prove that a balance
loaded with equal weights on both ends will
continue at rest.
I grant it to be good reasoning with re-
gard to a balance, or with regard to any
machine, That, when there is no external
cause of its motion, it must remain at rest,
because the machine has no power of moving
itself. But to apply this reasoning to a man,
is to take for granted that the man is a
machine, which is the very pointin question."
Leibnitz and his followers would have us
to take this principle of the necessity of a
sufficient reason for every existence, for
every event, for every truth, as a first
principle, without proof, without explana-
tion ; though it be evidently a vague pro-
position, capable of various meanings, as the
word reason is. It must have different
meanings when applied to things of so dif-
ferent nature as an event and a truth ; and
it may have different meanings when ap-
plied to the same thing. We cannot, there-
fore, form a distinct judgment of it in the
gross, but only by taking it to pieces, and
applying it to different things, in a precise
and distinct meaning.
It can have no connection with the dis-
pute about liberty, except when it is applied
to the determinations of the will. Let us,
therefore, suppose a voluntary action of a
man; and that the question is put, Whether
was there a sufficient reason for this action
or not 2 [337]
The natural and obvious meaning of this
question is—Was there a motive to the
action sufficient to justify it to be wise and
good, or, at least, innocent P Surely, in
this sense, there is not a sufficient reason
for every human action, because there are
many that are foolish, unreasonable, and
unjustifiable."f
The determination of the will [.
If the meaning of the question le—Was
there a cause of the action ? Undoultedly
there was. Of every event there must be a
cause that had power sufficient to produce
it, and that exerted that power for the pur-
pose. In the present case, either the man
was the cause of the action, and then it
was a free action, and is justly imputed to
him”; or it must have had another cause,
and cannot justly be imputed to the man.*
In this sense, therefore, it is granted that
there was a sufficient reason for the action ;
but the question about liberty is not in the
least affected by this concession.
If, again, the meaning of the question he
—Was there semething previous to the
action which made it to be necessarily pro-
duced 2–every man who believes that the
action was free, will answer to this question
in the negative.†
I know no other meaning that can be
put upon the principle of a sufficient rea-
son, when applied to the determinations of
the human will, hesides the three I have
mentioned. In the first, it is evidently
false ; in the second, it is true, but does
not affect the question about liberty; in the
third, it is a mere assertion of necessity
without proof.
Before we leave this boasted principle,
we may see how it applies to events of
another kind. When we say that a philo-
sopher has assigned a sufficient reason for
such a phaenomenon, what is the meaning
of this? The meaning surely is, that he
has accounted for it from the known laws
of nature. The sufficient reason of a phae-
momenon of nature must therefore be some
law or laws of nature, of which the phaeno-
menon is a necessary consequence. But
are we sure that, in this sense, there is a
sufficient reason for every phaenomenon of
nature ? I think we are not. [338]
For, not to speak of miraculous events
in which the laws of nature are suspended
or counteracted, we know not but that, in
the ordinary course of God's providence,
there may be particular acts of his adminis-
tration that do not come under any general
law of nature.
Established laws of nature are necessary
for enabling intelligent creatures to conduct
their affairs with wisdom and prudence,
and prosecute their ends by proper means;
but still it may be fit that some particular
events should not be fixed by general laws,
* See above, p. 610, b, note *.-H.
f But, in regard to the signification of motives,
Leibnitz says:-" Non semper sequimur judicium ul-
timum intellectus practici, dum ad volendum nos de-
terminamus ; at ubi volumus, semper sequimur col-
lectionem omnium inclinationum, tam a parte ra-
tionum, quam passionum, profectarum ; , id quod
Saepenumero sine expresso intellectus judicio contin-
git.”— (Theod. P. I. § 51. Op. I. p. 56.) See also
above, p. 608, b, note *, and p. 610, b, note *.—H. .
see above, p. 608, b, notef, and p. 6! I, a, note *
f If it had a cause, (and every effect is the product
of more than one cause,) then “was there something
previous to the action which made it to be necessarily
produced.” I'or, posita causa, pomitur effectus.-H.
[336–338]
2 S
626
[Essay Iv.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
but be directed by particular acts of the
Divine government, that so his reasonable
creatures may have sufficient inducement
to supplicate his aid, his protection and
direction, and to depend upon him for the
success of their honest designs.
We see that, in human governments,
even those that are most legal, it is impos-
sible that every act of the administration
should be directed by established laws.
Some things must be left to the direction
of the executive power, and particularly
acts of clemency and bounty to petitioning
subjects. That there is nothing analogous
to this in the Divine government of the
world, no man is able to prove.
We have no authority to pray that God
would counteract or suspend the laws of
nature in our behalf. Prayer, therefore,
supposes that he may lend an ear to our
prayers, without transgressing the laws of
nature. Some have thought that the only
use of prayer and devotion is, to produce a
proper temper and disposition in ourselves,
and that it has no efficacy with the Deity.
But this is a hypothesis without proof. It
contradicts our most natural Sentiments, as
well as the plain doctrine of Scripture, and
tends to damp the fervour of every act of
devotion.” [339]
It was, indeed, an article of the system
of Leibnitz, That the Deity, since the crea-
tion of the world, never did anything, ex-
cepting in the case of miracles; his work
being made so perfect at first as never to
need his interposition. But, in this, he
was opposed by Sir Isaac Newton, and
others of the ablest philosophers, nor was
he ever able to give any proof of this tenet.t
There is no evidence, therefore, that there
is a sufficient reason for every natural
event ; if, by a sufficient reason, we under-
stand some fixed law or laws of nature, of
which that event is a necessary conse-
quence.
But what, shall we say, is a sufficient
reason for a truth P For our belief of a
truth, I think, the sufficient reason is our
having good evidence; but what may be
meant by a sufficient reason for its being a
truth I am not able to guess, unless the
sufficient reason of a contingent truth be,
'That it is true; and, of a necessary truth,
That it must be true. This makes a man
little wiser.
From what has been said, I think it ap-
pears, that this principle of the necessity
of a sufficient reason for everything is very
indefinite in its signification. If it mean,
that of every event there must be a cause
that had sufficient power to produce it, this
is true, and has always been admitted as a
first principle in philosophy, and in common
life." If it mean that every event must
be necessarily consequent upon something
(called a sufficient reason) that went before
it; this is a direct assertion of universal fatal-
ity, and has many strange, not to say ab-
surd, consequences.” But, in this sense, it
is neither self-evident, nor has any proof of
it been offered. And, in general, in every
sense in which it has evidence, it gives no
new information; and, in every sense in
which it would give new information, it
wants evidence. [340] -
Another argument that has been used to
prove liberty of action to be impossible is,
That it implies “an effect without a cause.”
To this it may be briefly answered,
That a free action is an effect produced by
a being who had power and will to produce
it ; therefore it is not an effect without a
Call Se. -
To suppose any other cause necessary to
the production of an effect than a being
who had the power and the will to produce
it, is a contradiction ; for it is to suppose
that being to have power to produce the
effect, and not to have power to produce it.
But, as great stress is laid upon this
argument by a late zealous advocate for
necessity,+ we shall consider the light in
which he puts it. -
He introduces this argument with an ob-
servation to which I entirely agree. It is,
That, to establish this doctrine of neces-
sity, nothing is necessary but that, through-
out all nature, the same consequences
should invariably result from the same cir-
Cunnstances.
. I know nothing more that can be desired
to establish universal fatality throughout the
universe. When it is proved that, through
all nature, the same consequences invari-
ably result from the same circumstances, the
doctrine of liberty must be given up.
[34]]
To prevent all ambiguity, I grant that, in
reasoning, the same consequences, through-
out all nature, will invariably follow from
the same premises; because good reasoning
must be good reasoning in all times and
places. But this has nothing to do with
the doctrine of necessity. The thing to be
* But, in relation to the last five paragraphs, and
the two following, it may be observed, that, of a hyper-
physical as well as of a physical event, we must, by a
necessary mental law, always suppose a sufficient
reason why it is, and is as it is ; and Reid has no
ground on which to restrict the Leibnitzian applica-
tion of that principle to the sphere of the ordinary
laws of nature.—H.
t. This opinion of Leibnitz stands, however, alto-
gether apart from his doctrine of the Sufficient Rea-
son. That doctrine is equally applicable in the theory
of Malebranche, who viewed the Deity as the proxi.
mate efficient cause of every effect in nature, and
to the theory of Leibnitz himself, who held that the
Deity operated in the univer e once, and once for all.
* These two positions are, in reality, one and the
same. Sufficient Reason =- Sum of Causes.—H.
f Priestley.—H.
[339–341]
CHAP. IX.] OF ARGUMENTS
FOR NECESSITY. 627
proved, therefore, in order to establish that
doctrine, is, That, through all nature, the
same events invariably result from the same
circumstances.
Of this capital point, the proof offered by
that author is, That an event not preceded by
any circumstances that determined it to be
what it was, would be an effect without a cause.
Why so 2 “For,” says he, “a cause can-
not be defined to be anything but such pre-
vious circumstances as are constantly...fol-
dowed by a certain effect; the constancy of
the result making us conclude that there
must be a sufficient reason, in the nature of
things, why it should be produced in those
circumstances.”—[DJctrine of Philosophi-
cal Necessity, p. 11.]
I acknowledge that, if this be the only
definition that can be given of a Cause, it
will follow that an event not preceded by
circumstances that determined it to be what
it was, would be (not an effect without a
cause, which is a contradiction in terms,
but) an event without a cause, which I hold
to be impossible. The matter, therefore, is
brought to this issue, Whether this be the
only definition that can be given of a cause P
With regard to this point, we may ob-
serve, first, That this definition of a cause,
bating the phraseology of putting a cause
under the category of circumstances, which
I take to be new, is the same, in other
words, with that which Mr Hume gave, of
which he ought to be acknowledged the in-
ventor; for I know of no author before Mr
Hume, who maintained that we have no
other notion of a cause but that it is some-
thing prior to the effect, which has been
found by experience to be constantly fol-
lowed by the effect. This is a main pillar
of his system ; and he has drawn very im-
portant consequences from this definition,
which I am far from thinking this author
will adopt. [342]
Without repeating what I have before
said of causes in the first of these Essays,
and in the second and third chapters of
this, I shall here mention some of the con-
sequences that may be justly deduced from
this definition of a cause, that we may
judge of it by its fruits.
First, It follows from this definition of a
cause, that night is the cause of day, and
day the cause of night. For no two things
have more constantly followed each other
since the beginning of the world.
Secondly, It follows from this definition
of a cause, that, for what we know, any-
thing may be the cause of anything, since
nothing is essential to a cause but its being
constantly followed by the effect. If this
be so, what is unintelligent may be the
cause of what is intelligent; folly may be .
* See above, p. 604, b, note *.--H.
the cause of wisdom, and evil of good ; all
reasoning from the nature of the effect—to
the nature of the cause, and all reasoning
from final causes, must be given up as fal-
lacious.
Thirdly, From this definition of a cause,
it follows that we have no reason to con-
clude that every event must have a cause ;
for innumerable events happen, when it
cannot be shewn that there were certain
previous circumstances that have constantly
been followed by such an event. And,
though it were certain that every event
we have had access to observe had a cause,
it would not follow that every event must
have a cause ; for it is contrary to the rules
of logic to conclude, that, because a thing
has always been, therefore it must be—to
reason from what is contingent to what is
necessary. [343]
Fourthly, From this definition of a cause,
it would follow that we have no reason to
conclude that there was any cause of the
creation of this world; for there were no
previous circumstances that had been con-
stantly followed by such an effect. And,
for the same reason, it would follow from
the definition, that whatever was singular
in its nature, or the first thing of its kind,
could have no cause.
Several of these consequences were fondly
embraced by Mr Hume, as necessarily fol-
lowing from his definition of a cause, and
as favourable to his system of absolute scep-
ticism. Those who adopt the definition of
a cause, from which they follow, may choose
whether they will adopt its consequences,
or shew that they do not follow from the
definition.
A second observation with regard to this
argument is, That a definition of a cause
may be given, which is not burdened with
such untoward consequences.
Why may not an Efficient Cause be de-
fined to be a being that had power and will
to produce the effect 2 The production of
an effect requires active power, and active
power, being a quality, must be in a being
endowed with that power. Power without
will produces no effect; but, where these
are conjoined, the effect must be produced.
This, I think, is the proper meaning of
the word cause, when it is used in meta-
physics; and particularly when we affirm,
that everything that begins to exist must
have a cause ; and when, by reasoning, we
prove that there must be an eternal First
Cause of all things.
Was the world produced by previous
circumstances which are constantly followed
by such an effect 2 or, Was it produced
by a Being that had power to produce it,
and willed its production ? [344]
In natural philosophy, the word cause is
often used in a very different sense. When
[3 12–344."
& 2 S 2
628
[ESSAY Iv.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
an event is produced according to a known
law of nature, the law of nature is called
the cause of that event. But a law of na-
ture is not the efficient cause of any event.
It is only the rule, according to which the
efficient cause acts. A law is a thing con-
ceived in the mind of a rational being, not
a thing that has a real existence; and, there-
fore, like a motive, it can neither act nor be
acted upon, and consequently cannot be
an efficient cause. If there be no being
that acts according to the law, it produces
no effect.
This author takes it for granted, that
every voluntary action of man was deter-
mined to be what it was by the laws of na-
ture, in the same sense as mechanical mo-
tions are determined by the laws of motion ;
and that every choice, not thus determined,
“is just as impossible as that a mechanical
motion should depend upon no certain law
or rule, or that any other effect should ex-
ist without a cause.”
It ought here to be observed, that there
are two kinds of laws, both very properly
called laws of nature, which ought not to be
confounded. There are moral laws of ma-
ture, and physical laws of nature." The
first are the rules which God has prescribed
to his rational creatures for their conduct.
They respect voluntary and free actions
only ; for no other actions can be subject
to moral rules. These laws of nature
ought to be always obeyed, but they are of
ten transgressed by men. There is, there-
fore, no impossibility in the violation of the
moral laws of nature, nor is such a violation
an effect without a cause. The transgres-
sor is the cause, and is justly unaccountable
for it. [345] -
The physical laws of nature are the rules
according to which the Deity commonly acts
in his matural government of the world;
and whatever is done according to them, is
not done by man, but by God, either im-
mediately or by instruments under his di-
rection. These laws of nature neither re-
strain the power of the Author of nature,
nor bring him under any obligation to do no-
thing beyond their sphere. He has some-
times acted contrary to them, in the case of
miracles, and, perhaps, often acts without
regard to them, in the ordinary course
of his providence. Neither miraculous
events, which are contrary to the phy-
sical laws of nature, nor such ordinary
acts of the Divine administration as are
without their sphere, are impossible, nor
are they effects without a cause. God is the
cause of them, and to him only they are to
be imputed.
That the moral laws of nature are often
transgressed by man, is undeniable. If the
physical laws of nature make his obedience
to the moral laws to be impossible, then he .
is, in the literal sense, born wºnder one law,
buwnd wnto another, which contradicts every
notion of a righteous government of the
world.
But though this supposition were attended
with no such shocking consequence, it is
merely a supposition; and, until it be proved,
that every choice or voluntary action of man
is determined by the physical laws of nature,
this argument for necessity is only the tak-
ing for granted the point to be proved.
Of the same kind is the argument for the
impossibility of liberty, taken from a balance,
which cannot move but as it is moved by
the weights put into it. This argument,
though urged by almost every writer in de-
fence of necessity, is so pitiful, and has been
so often answered, that it scarce deserves
to be mentioned. -
Every argument in a dispute, which is
not grounded on principles granted by both
parties, is that kind of sophism which lo-
gicians call petitio principii ; and such, in
my apprehension, are all the arguments
offered to prove that liberty of action is im-
possible. [346]
It may farther be observed, that every
argument of this class, if it were really con-
clusive, must extend to the Deity, as well
as to all created beings ; and necessary ex-
istence, which has always been considered
as the prerogative of the Supreme Being,
must belong equally to every creature and
to every event, even the most trifling.
This I take to be the system of Spinosa,
and of those among the ancients who carried
fatality to the highest pitch,
I before referred the reader to Dr Clarke's
argument, which professes to demonstrate
that the First Cause is a free agent. Until
that argument shall be shewn to be fallaci-
ous, a thing which I have not seen at-
tempted, such weak arguments as have
been brought to prove the contrary, ought
to have little weight."
* On the ambiguous extent in which the term
Nature is employed, see above, p. 216, note f. Ety-
mologically considered, “physical laws of nature”
is tautological—physical being equivalent to matural.
It would, perhaps, have been better to have distin-
guished the one class of laws simply as moral laws, or
laws of Intelligence, the other as physical laws, or
laws of Natwre. Nature would thus be restricted to
the material universe, as is done by the German phi-
losophers. But it must be admitted that there is no
imperative reason why Nature should not be used to
comprehend both mind and matter, as was done by
the Greek philosophers.-H.
* As I have before observed, the advocates of
Liberty and of Necessity are severally successful in
proving the doctrine of their antagonists to be, under
the law of cause and effect, fundamentally incompre-
hensible, if not self-repugnant; but it remains to be
shewn, on the very couditions of human thought,
why these counter schemes are, and must be, un-
thinkable.—H.
[345, 346]
CHAP. x.]
OF ARGUMENTS
FoR NECEssity. 629
CHAPTER X.
THE SAME SUBJECT.
[B, ) WITH regard to the second class of
arguments for necessity, which are intended
to prove that liberty of action would be
hurſful to man, I have only to observe, that
it is a fact too evident to be denied, whether
we adopt the system of Liberty or that of
Necessity, that men actually receive hurt
from their own voluntary actions, and from
the voluntary actions of other men ; nor
can it be pretended, that this fact is incon-
sistent with the doctrine of liberty, or that
it is more unaccountable upon this system
than upon that of necessity. [347]
In order, therefore, to draw any solid
argument against liberty, from its hurtful-
ness, it ought to be proved—That, if man
were a free agent, he would do more hurt to
himself, or to others, than he actually does.
To this purpose, it has been said, That
liberty would make men's actions caprici-
ous ; that it would destroy the influence of
motives; that it would take away the effect
of rewards and punishments ; and that it
would make man absolutely ungovernable.
[C.] These arguments have been al-
ready considered in the fourth and fifth
chapters of this Essay; and, therefore, I
shall now proceed to the third class of ar-
guments for necessity, which are intended
to prove, that, in fact, men are not free
agents.
The most formidable argument of this
class, and, I think, the only one that has
not been considered in some of the preced-
ing chapters, is taken from the prescience
of the Deity.
God foresees every determination of the
human mind. It must, therefore, be what he
foresees it shall be ; and, therefore, must be
7tecessary.
This argument may be understood three
different ways, each of which we shall con-
sider, that we may see all its force.
The necessity of the event may be thought
to be a just consequence, either barely from
its being certainly future—or barely from
its being foreseen—or from the impossibility
of its being foreseen if it was not neces-
Saºry.
First, It may be thought, that, as no-
thing can be known to be future which is
not certainly future ; so, if it be certainly
future, it must be necessary. [348]
This opinion has no less authority in its
favour than that of Aristotle, who indeed
held the doctrine of liberty, but believing,
at the same time, that whatever is certainly
future must be necessary, in ordpr to defend
the liberty of human actions, maintained,
That contingent events have no certain
futuri'y;" but I know of no modern advo-
cate for liberty who has put the defence of
it upon that issue.
It must be granted, that, as whatever was,
certainly was, and whatever is, certainly is,
so whatever shall be, certainly shall be.
These are identical propositions, and can-
not be doubted by those who conceive them
distinctly.
But I know no rule of reasoning by which
it can be inferred, that, because an event
certainly shall be, therefore its production
must be necessary. The manner of its pro-
duction, whether free or necessary, cannot
be concluded from the time of its produc-
tion, whether it be past, present, or future.
That it shall be, no more implies that it
shall be necessarily than that it shall be
freely produced; for neither present, past,
nor future, have any more connection with
necessity than they have with freedom.
I grant, therefore, that, from events be-
ing foreseen, it may be justly concluded,
that they are certainly future ; but from
their being certainly future, it does not fol-
low that they are necessary.
Secondly, If it be meant by this argu-
ment, that an event. must be necessary,
merely because it is foreseen, neither is this
a just consequence ; for it has often been
observed, That prescience and knowledge of
every kind, being an immanent act, has no
effect upon the thing known. Its mode of
existence, whether it be free or necessary,
is not in the least affected by its being
lºnown to be future, any more than by its
being known to be past or present. The
Deity foresees his own future free actions,
but neither his foresight nor his purpose
makes them necessary. The argument,
therefore, taken in this view, as well as in
the former, is inconclusive. [349]
A third way in which this argument may
be understood, is this—It is impossible that
an event which is not mecessary should be
foreseen ; therefore every event that is cer-
tainly foreseem must be necessary. Here
the conclusion certainly follows from the
antecedent proposition, and therefore the
whole stress of the argument lies upon the
proof of that proposition.
Let us consider, therefore, whether it ean
be proved—That no free action can be cer-
tainly foreseen. If this can be proved, it
will follow, either that all actions are ne-
cessary, or that all actions cannot be foreseen.
* See De Interpretatione, c. ix. ; and there the
commentary of Ammonius. By contingent is meant
what may or may not happen. On this definition,
Aristotle, therefore, justly a gued, that, of any pro-
position concerning future contingents, we can only
say indefinitely that it may or may not be true; nor
is it possible for the human mind to conceive how,
without contradiction, a future event can be at once
viewed as certain, (that is, which cannot, by not hap-
pening, possibly falsify,the affirmation that it will
happen,) and contingent, (that is, which may or may
not happen.) See Note U.- H.
[347–348]
630.
[Essay Iv.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. .
With regard to the general proposition—
That it is impossible that any free action can
be certainly foreseen, I observe— :
First, That every man who believes the
Deity to be a free agent, must believe that
this proposition not only is incapable of
proof, but that it is certainly false. For
the man himself foresees, that 'the Judge
of all the earth will always do what is
right, and that he will fulfil whatever he
has promised ; and, at the same time, be-
lieves, that, in doing what is right, and in
fulfilling his promises, the Deity acts with
the most perfect fredom.
Secondly, I observe, that every man who
believes that it is an absurdity or contradic-
tion that any free action should be certainly
foreseen, must believe, if he will be con-
sistent, either that the Deity is not a free
agent, or that he does not foresee his own
actions;.. nor can we foresee that he will do
what is right, and will fulfil his promises.
[350]
Thirdly, Without considering the conse-
quences which this general proposition car-
ries in its bosom, which give it a very bad
aspect, let us attend to the arguments offered
to prove it.
Dr Priestley has laboured more in the
proof of this proposition than any other
author I am acquainted with, and main-
tains it to be, not only a difficulty and a
mystery, as it has been called, that a con-
tingent event should be the object of know-
ledge, but that, in reality, there cannot be
a greater absurdity or contradiction. Let
us hear the proof of this.
“For,” says he, “as certainly as nothing
can be known to exist but what does exist;
so certainly can nothing be known to arise
jrom what...does earist, but what does arise
from it or depend upon it. But, according
to the definition of the terms, a contingent
event does not depend upon any previous
known circumstances, since some other event
might have arisen in the same circum-
stances.”—ſ Doctrine of Philosophical Ne-
cessity.] -
This argument, when stripped of inci-
dental and explanatory clauses, and affected
variations of expression, amounts to this :
Nothing can be known to arise from what
does exist, but what does arise from it.
But a contingent event does not arise
from what does exist. The conclusion,
which is left to be drawn by the reader,
must, according to the rules of reason-
ing, be—Therefore, a contingent event
cannot be known to arise from what does
exist.
It is here very obvious, that a thing may
arise from what does exist, two ways, freely
or necessarily. A contingent event arises
from its cause, not necessarily but freely,
and so, that another event might have arisen
from the same cause, in the same circum-
stances. [351]
The second proposition of the argument
is, that a contingent event does not depend
upon any previous known circumstances,
which I take to be only a variation of the
term of mot arising from what does eaſist.
Therefore, in order to make the two pro-
positions to correspond, we must under-
stand, by arising from what does eatist, aris-
ing necessarily from what does exist. When
this ambiguity is removed, the argument
stands thus: Nothing can be known to
arise necessarily from what does exist, but
what does necessarily arise from it: but a
contingent event does not arise necessarily
from what does exist ; therefore, a contin-
gent event cannot be known to arise neces-
sarily from what does exist.
I grant the whole; but the conclusion of
this argument is not what he undertook to
prove, and therefore the argument is that
kind of sophism which logicians call igno-
rantia elemehi.
The thing to be proved is not, that a
contingent event cannot be known to arise
necessarily from what exists; but that a
contingent future event cannot be the object
of knowledge.
To draw the argument to this conclusion,
it must be put thus:–Nothing can be known
to arise from what does exist, but what
arises necessarily from it: but a contingent
event does not arise necessarily from what
does exist; therefore, a contingent event
cannot be known to arise from what does
exist.
The conclusion here is what it ought to
be ; but the first proposition assumes the
thing to be proved, and therefore the argu-
ment is what logicians call petitio principii.
To the same purpose he says, “That
nothing can be known at present, except
itself or its necessary cause exist at pre-
sent.”
This is affirmed, but I find no proof of it.
[352]
Again, he says, “That knowledge Sup-
poses an object which, in this case, does
not exist.” It is true that knowledge sup-
poses an object; and everything that is
known is an object of knowledge, whether
past, present, or future, whether contingent
or necessary. .
Upon the whole, the arguments I can
find upon this point bear no proportion to
the confidence of the assertion, that there
cannot be a greater absurdity or contradic-
tion, than that a contingent event should
be the object of knowledge.
To those who, without pretending to
shew a manifest absurdity or contradiction
in the knowledge of future contingent events,
are still of opinion that it is impossible that
the future free actions of man, a being of
[350–352]
GH. A. P. x.]
63}
OF ARGUMENTS FOR NECESSITY.
imperfect wisdom and virtue, should be
certainly foreknown, I would humbly offer
the following considerations.
1. I grant that there is no knowledge of
this kind in man; and this is the cause that
we find it so difficult to conceive it in any
other being.
All our knowledge of future events is
drawn either from their necessary connec-
tion with the present course of nature, or
from their connection with the character of
the agent that produces them. Our know-
ledge, even of those future events that ne-
cessarily result from the established laws of
nature, is hypothetical. It supposes the
continuance of those laws with which they
are connected. And how long those laws
may be continued, we have no certain
knowledge. God only knows when the
present course of nature shall be changed,
and therefore he only has certain know-
ledge even of events of this kind. [353]
The character of perfect wisdom and
perfect rectitude in the Deity, gives us
certain knowledge that he will always be
true in all his declarations, faithful in all his
promises, and just in all his dispensations.
But when we reason from the character of
men to their future actions, though, in many
cases, we have such probability as we rest
upon in our most important worldly con-
cerns, yet we have no certainty, because
men are imperfect in wisdom and in virtue.
If we had even the most perfect knowledge
of the character and situation of a man,
this would not be sufficient to give certainty
to our knowledge of his future actions;
because, in some actions, both good and
bad men deviate from their general charac-
ter.
The prescience of the Deity, therefore,
must be different not only in degree, but
in kind, from any knowledge we can attain
of futurity.
2. Though we can have no conception
how the future free actions of men may be
known by the Deity, this is not a sufficient
reason to conclude that they cannot be
known. Do we know, or can we conceive,
how God knows the secrets of men's hearts 2
Can we conceive how God made this world
without any pre-existent matter P All the
ancient philosophers believed this to be im-
possible : and for what reason but this, that
they could not conceive how it could be
done 2 Can we give any better reason for
believing that the actions of men cannot be
certainly foreseen P
3. Can we conceive how we ourselves
have certain knowledge by those faculties
with which God has endowed us 2 If any
man thinks that he understands distinctly
how he is conscious of his own thoughts;
how he perceives external objects by his
senses; how he remembers past events—I
am afraid that he is not yet so wise as to
understand his own ignorance. [354]
4. There seems to me to be a great an-
alogy between the prescience of future con-
tingents, and the memory of past contin-
gents." We possess the last in some degree,
and therefore find no difficulty in believing
that it may be perfect in the Deity. But
the first we have in no degree, and there-
fore are apt to think it impossible.
In both, the object of knowledge is
neither what presently exists, nor has any
necessary connection with what presently
exists. Every argument brought to prove
the impossibility of prescience, proves, with
equal force, the impossibility of memory.
If it be true that nothing can be known to
arise from what does exist, but what neces-
sarily arises from it, it must be equally true
that nothing can be known to have gone
before what does exist but what must
necessarily have gone before it. If it be
true that nothing future can be known un-
less its necessary cause exist at present, it
must be equally true that nothing past can
be known unless something consequent,
with which it is necessarily connected, exist
at present. If the fatalist should say,
that past events are indeed necessarily
connected with the present, , he will not
Surely venture to say, that it is by tracing
this necessary connection that we remember
the past.
Why then should we think prescience
impossible in the Almighty, when he has
given us a faculty which bears a strong
analogy to it, and which is no less unac-
countable to the human understanding than
prescience is ? It is more reasonable, as
well as more agreeable to the sacred writ-
ings, to conclude, with a pious father of the
church—“Quocirca nullo modo cogimur,
aut, retentapraescientia Dei, tollere volun-
tatis arbitrium, aut, retento voluntatis ar-
* We have no memory of past contingents. A past
contingent is a contradiction. An event is only con-
tingent as future; in becoming past, it forthwith
becomes necessary—it cannot but be. "Ezel rô yºy-
oväs &vézzav, says Aristotle; and the proverb–
Factum infectum, reddere, me Deus quidem potest,
has been said and sung in a thousand forms. But it
is only as past that anything is remembered ; what-
ever, therefore, is known in memory is known as
necessary.
Now, so far is it from being true, as Reid soon
after says, that “every argument to prove the im-
possibility of prescience (as the knowledge of future
contingents) proves, with equal force, the impossi-
bility of memory,” (as the knowledge of past contin-
gents,) that the possibility of a memory of events as
contingent was, I believe, never imagined by any
philosopher—nor, in reality, is it by Reid himself;
and, in fact, one of the most insoluble objections to the
possibility of a free agency, arises (on the admission
that all future events are foreseen by God) from the
analogy of prescience to memory; it being impossible
for the human mind to reconcile the supposition that
an event may or may not occur, and the supposition
that one of these alternatives has been foreseen as cer.
tain. On this I may say something in Note U.-H..
[353, 354]
632
[Essay Iv.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
bitrio, Deum (quod nefas est) negare prae-
scium futurorum ; Sed utrumque amplecti-
mur, utrumque fideliter et veraciter con-
fitemur : Illud, ut bene credamus ; hoc, ut
benevivamus.” [AUGUSTINUs, De Civitate
Dei, L. v. c. 10.]
CHAPTER XI.
of THE PERMISSION OF EVIL.
ANOTHER use has been made of Divine
prescience by the advocates for necessity,
which it is proper to consider before we
leave this subject.
It has been said—“That all those conse-
quences follow from the Divine prescience
which are thought most alarming in the
scheme of necessity; and particularly God's
being the proper cause of moral evil. For,
to suppose God to foresee and permit what
it was in his power to have prevented,
is the very same thing as to suppose him
to will, and directly to cause it. He dis-
tinctly foresees all the actions of a man's
life, and all the consequences of them. If,
therefore, he did not think any particular
man and his conduct proper for his plan
of creation and providence, he certainly
would not have introduced him into being
at all.”
In this reasoning we may observe, that
a supposition is made which seems to con-
tradict itself.
That all the actions of a particular man
should be distinctly foreseen, and, at the
same time, that that man should never be
brought into existence, seems to me to be
a contradiction; and the same contradic-
tion there is, in supposing any action to be
distinctly foreseen, and yet prevented.
For, if it be foreseen, it shall happen ; and, if
it be prevented, it shall not happen, and
therefore could not be foreseen. [356]
The knowledge here supposed is neither
prescience nor science, but something very
different from both. It is a kind of know-
ledge, which some metaphysical divines, in
their controversies about the order of the
Divine decrees, a subject far beyond the
limits of human understanding, attributed
to the Deity, and of which other divines
denied the possibility, while they firmly main-
tained the Divine prescience.
It was called scientia media, to distin-
guish it from prescience ; and by this scien-
tia media was meant, not the knowing from
eternity all things that shall exist, which is
prescience, nor the knowing all the connec-
tions and relations of things that exist or
may be conceived, which is science, but a
knowledge of things contingent, that never
did nor shall exist. For instance, the know-
ing every action that would be done by a
man who is barely conceived, and shall
never be brought into existence."
Against the possibility of the scientia me-
dia arguments may be urged, which can-
not be applied to prescience. Thus it may
be said, that nothing can be known but
what is true. It is true that the future ac-
tions of a free agent shall exist, and there-
fore we see no impossibility in its being
known that they shall exist. But with re-
gard to the free actions of an agent that
never did nor shall exist, there is nothing
true, and therefore nothing can be known.
To say that the being conceived, would cer-
tainly act in such a way, if placed in such a
situation, if it have any meaning, is to say,
That his acting in that way is the conse-
quence of the conception ; but this contra-
dicts the supposition of its being a free ac-
tion.
Things merely conceived have no rela-
tions or connections but such as are implied
in the conception, or are consequent from
it. Thus I conceive two circles in the same
plane. If this be all I conceive, it is not
true that these circles are equal or unequal,
because neither of these relations is implied
in the conception ; yet, if the two circles
really existed, they must be either equal or
unequal. Again, I conceive two circles in
the same plane, the distance of whose cen-
tres is equal to the sum of their semidiame-
ters. It is true of these circles, that they
will touch one another, because this follows
from the conception; but it is not true that
they will be equal or unequal, because nei-
ther of these relations is implied in the con-
ception, nor is consequent from it. [357]
* The Scientia Media (called likewise Sc. Hypoth-
etica-Sc. de futuro conditionato,) is a scheme excogi-
tated by certain Jesuits about the end of the six-
teenth century, and first reduced to system by the
Spaniard Molina and his learned countryman Fon-
Beca. It was opposed to another theory, touching
the divine decrees, called that of Praedetermination,
which had a little before been introduced among
the Spanish I homists. The former doctrine was
generally espoused by the Franciscans and Jesuits;
the latter by the Dominicans and Augustinians: a
keen theological controversy was the result. Mo-
lina regarded the objects of the divine knowledge as
threefold. They were—18 things possible; 20 actual
events : and, 3° conditional events, that is, such as
would have existed, had a certain condition been
realized. The knowledge of possibilities he denomi-
nated the knowledge of simple intelligence, (scientia
simplicis intelligentia: ;) and the knowledge of events
which have actually bappened in the universe, he
called the knowledge of vision, (scientia visionis.)
But as, besides the knowledge of the simply possible
and the absolutely actual, there was a third know-
ledge—that, to wit, of conditional events—Molina
conceived that this afforded an intermediate know-
ledge-scientia media—between Vision and Simple
Intelligence. A celebrated example of the scientia
media is that of David consulting the Lord,
whether the men of Keilah would deliver him to
Saul, if Saul came down against the city. The
answer was, that they would so deliver him ; upon
which David, who had intended retiring into Kei-
lah, adopted other plans.—From this it will be seen
that Reid is not altogether exact in his statement
of the Scientia Media; nor is his criticism of it un-
exceptionable.—H, -
[355-357]
CHAP. xi.]
633
OF THE PERMISSION OF EVIL.
In like manner, I can conceive a being
who has power to do an indifferent action
or not to do it. It is not true that he
would do it, nor is it true that he would not
do it, because neither is implied in my con-
ception, nor follows from it; and what is
not true cannot be known.
Though I do not perceive any fallacy in
this argument against a scientia media, I
am sensible how apt we are to err in apply-
ing what belongs to our conceptions and
our knowledge, to the conceptions and
knowledge of the Supreme Being; and,
therefore, without pretending to determine
for or against a scientia media, I only ob-
serve, that, to suppose that the Deity pre-
vents what he foresees by his prescience,
is a contradiction, and that to know that a
contingent event which he sees fit not to
permit would certainly happen if permitted,
is not prescience, but the scientia media,
whose existence or possibility we are under
no necessity of admitting.
Waving all dispute about scientia media,
we acknowledge that nothing can happen
under the administration of the Deity,
which he does not see fit to permit. The
permission of natural and moral evil, is a
phaenomenon which cannot be disputed.
To account for this phaenomenon under the
government of a Being of infinite goodness,
justice, wisdom, and power, has, in all ages,
l,een considered as difficult to human reason,
whether we embrace the system of liberty
or that of necessity. But, if the difficulty
of accounting for this phaenomenon upon
the system of necessity, be as great, as it
is upon the system of liberty, it can have
no weight when used as an argument against
liberty. [358]
The defenders of necessity, to reconcile
it to the principles of Theism, find them-
selves obliged to give up all the moral at-
tributes of God, excepting that of goodness,
or a desire to produce happiness. This
they hold to be the sole motive of his
making and governing the universe. Justice,
veracity, faithfulness, are only modifica-
tions of goodness, the means of promoting
its purposes, and are exercised only so far
as they serve that end. Virtue is accept-
able to him and vice displeasing, only as
the first tends to produce happiness and the
last misery. He is the proper cause and
agent of all moral evil as well as good; but
it is for a good end, to produce the greater
happiness to his creatures. He does evil
that good may come, and this end sanctifies
the worst actions that contribute to it. All
the wickedness of men being the work of
God, he must, when he surveys it, pro-
nounce it, as well as all his other works, to
be very good.
This view of the Divine nature, the only
one consistent with the scheme of necessity,
appears to me much more shocking than the
permission of evil upon the scheme of liberty.
It is said, that it requires only strength of
mind to embrace it: to me it seems to re-
quire much strength of countenance to pro-
fess it.
In this system, as in Cleanthes’ Tabla-
ture of the Epicurean System, Pleasure or
Happiness is placed upon the throne as the
queen, to whom all the virtues bear the
humble office of menial servants.—[CIC.
Fin. ii. 21.]
As the end of the Deity, in all his actions,
is not his own good, which can receive no
addition, but the good of his creatures; and,
as his creatures are capable of this disposi-
tion in Some degree, is he not pleased with
this image of himself in his creatures, and
displeased with the contrary P Why then
should he be the author of malice, envy,
revenge, tyranny, and oppression, in their
hearts P Other vices that have no malevo-
lence in them may please such a Deity,
but surely malevolence cannot please him.
[359]
If we form our notions of the moral attri-
butes of the Deity from what we see of his
government of the world, from the dictates
of reason and conscience, or from the doc-
trine of revelation—justice, veracity, faith-
fulness, the love of virtue and the dislike of
vice, appear to be no less essential attri-
butes of his nature than goodness.
In man, who is made after the image of
God, goodness or benevolence is indeed an
essential part of virtue, but it is not the
whole.
I am at a loss what arguments can be
brought to prove goodness to be essential to
the Deity, which will not, with equal force,
prove other moral attributes to be so ; or
what objections can be brought against the
latter, which have not equal strength against
the former, unless it be admitted to be an
objection against other moral attributes
that they do not accord with the doctrine
of necessity.
If other moral evils may be attributed to
the Deity as the means of promoting gen-
eral good, why may not false declarations
and false promises 2 And then what ground
have we left to believe the truth of what he
reveals, or to rely upon what he promises 2
Supposing this strange view of the Divine
nature were to be adopted in favour of the
doctrine of necessity, there is still a great
difficulty to be resolved. [360]
Since it is supposed that the Supreme
Being had no other end in making and
governing the universe but to produce the
greatest degree of happiness to his crea-
tures in general, how comes it to pass that
there is so much misery in a system made
and governed by infinite wisdom and power
for a contrary purpose P
[358–360]
634.
[ESSAY Iv.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
The solution of this difficulty leads us
necessarily to another hypothesis—That all
the misery and vice that is in the world is
a necessary ingredient in that system which
produces the greatest sum of happiness upon
the whole. This connection betwixt the
greatest sum of happiness and all the misery
that is in the universe must be fatal and
necessary in the nature of things, so that
even Almighty power cannot break it ; for
benevolence can never lead to inflict misery
without necessity.
This necessary connection between the
greatest sum of happiness upon the whole,
and all the natural and moral evil that is,
or has been, or shall be, being once esta-
blished, it is impossible for mortal eyes to
discern how far this evil may extend, or on
whom it may happen to fall; whether this
fatal connection may be temporary or eter-
nal, or what proportion of the happiness may
be balanced by it.
A world made by perfect wisdom and Al-
mighty power, for no other end but to make
it happy, presents the most pleasing pro-
spect that ean be imagined. We expect
nothing but uninterrupted happiness to pre-
vail for ever. But, alas ! when we con-
sider that, in this happiest system, there
must be necessarily all the misery and vice
we see, and how much more we know not,
how is the prospect darkened
These two hypotheses, the one limiting
the moral character of the Deity, the other
limiting his power, seem to me to be the
necessary consequences of necessity, when
it is joined with Theism ; and they have,
accordingly, been adopted by the ablest
defenders of that doctrine. [36]] -
If some defenders of liberty, by limiting
too rashly the Divine prescience, in order
to defend that system, have raised high in-
dignation in their opponents; have they
not equal ground of indignation against
those who, to defend necessity, limit the
moral perfection of the Deity, and his
Almighty power ?
Let us consider, on the other hand, what
consequences may be fairly drawn from
God’s permitting the abuse of liberty in
agents on whom he has bestowed it.
It it be asked, Why does God permit so
much sin in his creation ? I confess, I can-
not answer the question, but must lay my
hand upon my mouth. He giveth no ac-
count of his conduct to the children of
men. It is our part to obey his com-
mands, and not to say unto him, Why dost
thou thus 2 -
Hypotheses might be framed ; but, while
we have ground to be satisfied that he does
nothing but what is right, it is more be-
coming us to acknowledge that the ends and
reasons of his universal government are
beyond our knowledge, and, perhaps, be-,
yond the comprehension of human under-
standing. We cannot penetrate so far into
the counsel of the Almiglity as to know all
the reasons why it became him, of whom are
all things, and to whom are all things, to
create, not only machines, which are solely
moved by his hand, but servants and child-
ren, who, by obeying his commands, and
imitating his moral perfections, might rise
to a high degree of glory and happiness in
his favour ; or, by perverse disobedience,
might incur guilt and just punishment. In
this he appears to us awful in his justice, as
well as amiable in his goodness.
But, as he disdains not to appeal to men
for the equity of his proceedings towards
them when his character is impeached, we
may, with humble reverence, plead for God,
and vindicate that moral excellence which
is the glory of his nature, and of which the
image is the glory and the perfection of
man. [362]
Let us observe, first of all, that to permit
hath two meanings. It signifies not to for-
bid; and it signifies not to hinder by Supe-
rior power. In the first of these senses,
God never permits sin. His law forbids
every moral evil. By his laws and by his
government, he gives every encouragement
to good conduct, and every discouragement
to bad. But he does not always, by his
superior power, hinder it from being com-
mitted. This is the ground of the accu-
sation ; and this, it is said, is the very same
thing as directly to will and to cause it.
As this is asserted without proof, and is
far from being self-evident, it might be suf-
ficient to deny it until it be proved. But,
without resting barely on the defensive we
may observe that the only moral attributes
that can be supposed inconsistent with the
permission of sin, are either goodness or
justice.
The defenders of necessity, with whom
we have to do in this point, as they main-
tain that goodness is the only essential
moral attribute of the Deity, and the motive
of all his actions, must, if they will be con-
sistent, maintain, That to will, and directly
to cause sin, much more not to hinder it, is
consistent with perfect goodness, nay, that
goodness is a sufficient motive to justify the
willing, and directly causing it.
With regard to them, therefore, it issurely
unnecessary to attempt to reconcile the
permission of sin with the goodness of God,
since an inconsistency between that attri-
bute and the causing of sin would overturn
their whole system.
If the causing of moral evil, and being
the real author of it, be consistent with per-
fect goodness, what pretence can there be
to say, that not to hinder it is inconsistent
with perfect goodness 2 [363]
What is incumbent upon them, there-
[361-363]
CHAP. XI.]
635
OF THE PERMI; SSION OF EV L. .
fore, to prove, is, That the permission of
sin is inconsistent with justice ; and, upon
this point, we are ready to join issue with
them.
But what pretence can there be to say,
that the permission of sin is perfectly con-
sistent with goodness in the Deity, but in-
consistent with justice?
Is it not as easy to conceive that he
should permit sin though virtue be his de-
light, as that he inflicts misery when his
sole delight is to bestow happiness P Should
it appear incredible, that the permission of
sin may tend to promote virtue, to them
who believe that the infliction of misery is
necessary to promote happiness 2
The justice, as well as the goodness of
God’s moral government of mankind ap-
pears in this—that his laws are not arbi-
trary nor grievous, as it is only by the obe-
dience of them that our nature can be per-
fected and qualified for future happiness;
that he is ready to aid our weakness, to
help our infirmities, and not to suffer us to
he tempted above what we are able to bear;
that he is not strict to mark iniquity, or to
execute judgment speedily against an evil
work, but is long-suffering, and waits to be
gracious; that he is ready to receive the
humble penitent to his favour; that he is
no respecter of persons, but in every na-
tion, he that fears God and works righteous-
ness is accepted of him ; that of every man
he will require an account proportioned to
the talents he hath received ; that he de-
lights in mercy, but hath no pleasure in the
death of the wicked ; and, therefore, in
punishing, will never go beyond the de-
merit of the criminal, nor beyond what the
rules of his universal government require.
[364]
There were, in ancient ages, some who
said, the way of the Lord is not equal; to
whom the Prophet, in the name of God,
makes this reply, which, in all ages, is
sufficient to repel this accusation. “Hear
now, O house of Israel, is not my way
equal, are not your ways unequal 2 When
a righteous man turneth away from his
righteousness, and committeth iniquity, for
his iniquity which he hath done shall he
die. Again, When a wicked man turneth
away from his wickedness that he hath
committed, and doth that which is lawful
and right, he shall save his soul alive. O
house of Israel, are not my ways equal, are
not your ways unequal P Repent, and
turn from all your transgressions, so ini-
quity shall not be your ruin. Cast away
from you all your transgressions whereby
you have transgressed, and make you a new
heart and a new spirit, for why will ye die,
O house of Israel ? For I have no pleasure
in the death of him that dieth, saith the
Lord God.”
Another argument for necessity has been
lately offered, which we slall very briefly
consider.
It has been maintained that the power of
thinking is the result of a certain modifica-
tion of matter, and that a certain configura-
tion of brain makes a soul; and, if man be .
wholly a material being, it is said that it
will not be denied that he must be a me-
chanical being ; that the doctrine of neces-
sity is a direct inference from that of ma-
terialism, and its undoubted consequence.
As this argument can have no weight with
those who do not see reason to embrace
this system of materialism ; so, even with
those who do, it seems to me to be a mere
Sophism.
Philosophers have been wont to conceive
matter to be an inert passive being, and to
have certain properties inconsistent with
the power of thinking or of acting. But a
philosopher arises," who proves, we shall
suppose, that we were quite mistaken in our
motion of matter; that it has not the pro-
perties we supposed, and, in fact, has no
properties but those of attraction and re-
pulsion; but still he thinks, that, being
matter, it will not be denied that it is a
mechanical being, and that the doctrine of
necessity is a direct inference from that of
materialism. [365]
Herein, however, he deceives himself.
If matter be what we conceived it to be, it
is equally incapable of thinking and of act-
ing freely. But, if the properties from
which we drew this conclusion, have no
reality, as he thinks he has proved—if it
have the powers of attraction and repulsion,
and require only a certain configuration to
make it think rationally—it will be impos-
sible to shew any good reason why the same
configuration may not make it act rationally
and freely. If its reproach of solidity, in-
ertness, and sluggishness be wiped off; and
if it be raised in our esteem to a nearer
approach to the nature of what we call
spiritual and immaterial beings, why should
it still be nothing but a mechanical being 2
Is its solidity, inertness, and sluggishness
to be first removed to make it capable of
thinking, and then restored in order to make
it incapable of acting 2
Those, therefore, who reason justly from
this system of materialism, will easily per-
ceive that the doctrine of necessity is so
far from being a direct inference, that it
can receive no support from it.
To conclude this Essay:—Extremes of
all kinds ought to be avoided ; yet men are
prone to run into them ; and, to shun one
extreme, we often run into the contrary.
Of all extremes of opinion, none are more
dangerous than those that exalt the powers
* Priestley is intended.-H.
[364, 365]
636
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. [Essay Iv.—ohAP. x1.]
of man too high, on the one hand, or sink
them too low, on the other.” [366]
By raising them too high, we feed pride
and vainglory, we lose the sense of our
dependence upon God, and engage in at-
tempts beyond our abilities. By depressing
them too low, we cut the sinews of action
and of obligation, and are tempted to think
that, as we can do nothing, we have nothing
ty do, but to be carried passively along by
the stream of necessity. *
Some good men, apprehending that to
kill pride and vainglory, our active powers
cannot be too much depressed, have been
led, by zeal for religion, to deprive us of all
active power.
Other good men, by a like zeal, have been
led to depreciate the human understanding,
and to put out the light of nature and rea-
son, in order to exalt that of revelation.
Those weapons which were taken up in
support of religion, are now employed to
overturn it ; and what was, by some, ac-
counted the bulwark of orthodoxy, is be-
come the stronghold of atheism and infi-
delity. &
Atheists join hands with Theologians in
depriving man of all active power, that they
may destroy all moral obligation, and all
sense of right and wrong. They join hands
with Theologians in depreciating the human
understanding, that they may lead us into
absolute scepticism.
God, in mercy to the human race, has
made us of such a frame that no specula-
tive opinion whatsoever can root out the sense
of guilt and demerit when we do wrong,
nor the peace and joy of a good conscience
when we do what is right. No speculative
opinion can root out a regard to the testi-
mony of our senses, of our memory, and of
our rational faculties. But we have reason
to be jealous of opinions which run counter
to those natural sentiments of the human
mind, and tend to shake though they never
can eradicate them. [367]
There is little reason to fear that the
conduct of men, with regard to the concerns
of the present life, will ever be much affect-
ed, either by the doctrine of necessity, or
by scepticism. It were to be wished that
men's conduct, with regard to the concerns
of another life, were in as little danger from
those opinions.
In the present state, we see some who
zealously maintain the doctrine of necessity,
others who as zealously maintain that of
liberty. One would be apt to think, that a
practical belief of these contrary systems
should produce very different conduct in
them that hold them ; yet we see no such
difference in the affairs of common life.
The Fatalist deliberates, and resolves,
and plights his faith. He lays down a plan
of conduct, and prosecutes it with vigour
and industry. He exhorts and commands,
and holds those to be answerable for their
conduct to whom he hath committed any
charge. . He blames those that are false or
unfaithful to him, as other men do. He
perceives dignity and worth in some cha-
racters and actions, and in others demerit
and turpitude. He resents injuries, and is
grateful for good offices.
If any man should plead the doctrine of
necessity to exculpate murder, theft, or
robbery, or even wilful negligence in the
discharge of his duty, his judge, though a
Fatalist, if he had common sense, would
laugh at such a plea, and would not allow
it even to alleviate the crime.
In all such cases, he sees that it would
be absurd not to act and to judge as those
ought to do who believe themselves and
other men to be free agents, just as the
Sceptic, to avoid absurdity, must, when he
goes into the world, act and judge like other
men who are not Sceptics. [368]
If the Fatalist be as little influenced by
the opinion of necessity in his moral and
religious concerns, and in his expectations
concerning another world, as he is in the
common affairs of life, his speculative opi-
nion will probably do him little hurt. But,
if he trust so far to the doctrine of neces-
sity, as to indulge sloth and inactivity in
his duty, and hope to exculpate himself to
his Maker by that doctrine, let him con-
sider whether he sustains this excuse from
his servants and dependants, when they are
negligent or unfaithful in what is committed
to their charge.
Bishop Butler, in his “Analogy,” has an
excellent chapter upon the opinion of ne-
cessity considered as influencing practice,
which I think highly deserving the consi-
deration of those who are inclined to that
opinion." [369]
* Could Reid have had the thought of the great
Pascal in his view 2–4% Il est dangereux de trop faire
voir à l'homme combien il est égal aux betes, sans lui
montrer sa grandeur. Il est encore dangereux de lui
faire trop voir sa grandeur sans sa basesse. Il est
encore plus dangereux de lui laisser ignorer l'un et
l'autre. Mais illest tres avantageux de lui représen-
ter l'un ( t l'autre.” (Pensées, I. Partie, Art. iv. § 7.)
* Suetonius of Tiberius observes:—“ Circa Deos
et religiones negligentior erat, quippe addictus ma-
thematicas, persuasionisque plenus, omnia fato agi.”
(c. 69.) And, among others, Eusebius has shewn,
in general, that the opinion of Necessity operates
practically as a powerful incentive to profligacy, in-
justice and every vice by which the private and pub-
lic welfare of mankind is subverted. (Praep. Evang.,
L. vi. c. 6.)—H.
[366–369]
| Essay v.—oh AP. I.] Of THE FIRST
PRINCIPLES OF MORALS, 637
ESSAY V.
OF MORALS.
CHAPTER. I.
OF THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF MORALS.
MoRALs, like all other Sciences, must
have first principles, on which all moral
reasoning is grounded.
In every branch of knowledge where dis-
putes have been raised, it is useful to dis-
tinguish the first principles from the super-
structure. They are the foundation on
which the whole fabric of the science leans;
and whatever is not supported by this
foundation can have no stability.
In all rational belief, the thing believed
is either itself a first principle, or it is by
just reasoning deduced from first principles.
When men differ about deductions of rea-
Soning, the appeal must be to the rules of
reasoning, which have been very unani-
mously fixed from the days of Aristotle.
But when they differ about a first principle,
the appeal is made to another tribunal—to
that of Common Sense. [370]
How the genuine decisions of Common
Sense may be distinguished from the coun-
terfeit, has been considered in Essay Sixth,
.*
on the Intellectual Powers of Man, chapter
fourth, to which the reader is referred.
What I would here observe is, That, as
first principles differ from deductions or
reasoning in the nature of their evidence,
and must be tried by a different standard
when they are called in question, it is of
importance to know to which of these two
classes a truth which we would examine,
belongs. When they are not distinguished,
men are apt to demand proof for everything
they think fit to deny, And when we
attempt to prove, by direct argument, what
is really self-evident, the reasoning will
always be inconclusive; for it will either
take for granted the thing to be proved, or
something not more evident ; and So, in-
stead of giving stength to the conclusion,
will rather tempt those to doubt of it who
never did so before.
I propose, therefore, in this chapter, to
point out some of the first principles or
morals, without pretending to a complete
enumeration.
The principles I am to mention, relate
either [A] to virtue in general, or [B] to
the different particular branches of virtue,
or [C] to the comparison of virtues where
they seem to interfere.
[A] l. There are some things in human
conduct that merit approbation and praise,
others that merit blame and punishment ;
and different degrees either of approbation
or of blame, are due to different actions.
2. What is in no degree voluntary, can
neither deserve moral approbation nor blame.
3. What is done from unavoidable neces-
sity may be agreeable or disagreeable, useful
or hurtful, but cannot be the object either of
blame or of moral approbation.
4. Men may be highly culpable in omit-
ting what they ought to have done, as well
as in doing what they ought not. [371]
5. We ought to use the best means we
can to be well informed of our duty—by ser-
ious attention to moral instruction ; by ob-
serving what we approve, and what we dis-
approve, in other men, whether our acquaint-
ance, or those whose actions are recorded
in history; by reflecting often, in a calm
and dispassionate hour, on our own past
conduct, that we may discern what was
wrong, what was right, and what might
have been better; by deliberating coolly
and impartially upon our future conduct,
as far as we can foresee the opportunities
we may have of doing good, or the tempta-
tions to do wrong ; and by having this
principle deeply fixed in our minds, that, as
moral excellence is the true worth and
glory of a man, so the knowledge of our
duty is to every man, in every station of
life, the most important of all knowledge.
6. It ought to be our most serious con-
cern to do our duty as far as we know
it, and to fortify our minds against every
temptation to deviate from it—by main-
taining a lively sense of the beauty of right
conduct, and of its present and future reward,
of the turpitude of vice, and of its bad conse-
quences here and hereafter ; by having al-
ways in our eye the noblest examples; by
the habit of subjecting our passions to the
government of reason; by firm purposes.
and resolutions with regard to our conduct ;
by avoiding occasions of temptation when
we can ; and by imploring the aid of Him
who made us, in every hour of temptation.
These principles concerning virtue and
vice in general, must appear self-evident
to every man who hath a conscience, and
who hath taken pains to exercise this na-
[370, 371]
638
[ESSAY v.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
tural power of his mind. I proceed to
others that are more particular.
[B] 1. We ought to prefer a greater
good, though more distant, to a less ; and a
less evil to a greater. [372]
A regard to our own good, though we
had no conscience, dictates this principle ;
and we cannot help disapproving the man
that acts contrary to it, as deserving to lose
the good which he wantonly threw away,
and to suffer the evil which he knowingly
brought upon his own head.
We observed before, that the ancient
moralists, and many among the modern,
have deduced the whole of morals from this
principle, and that, when we make a right
estimate of goods and evils according to
their degree, their dignity, their duration,
and according as they are more or less in
our power, it leads to the practice of every
virtue. More directly, indeed, to the vir-
tues of self-government, to prudence, to
temperance, and to fortitude ; and, though
more indirectly, even to justice, humanity,
and all the social virtues, when their influ-
ence upon our happiness is well understood.
Though it be not the noblest principle of
conduct, it has this peculiar advantage, that
its force is felt by the most ignorant, and
even by the most abandoned.
Let a man's moral judgment be ever so
little improved by exercise, or ever so much
corrupted by bad habits, he cannot be in-
different to his own happiness or misery.
When he is become insensible to every no-
bler motive to right conduct, he cannot be
insensible to this. And though to act from
this motive solely may be called prudence
rather than virtue, yet this prudence de-
serves some regard upon its own account,
and much more as it is the friend and ally
of virtue, and the enemy of all vice ; and
as it gives a favourable testimony of virtue
to those who are deaf to every other recom-
mendation.
If a man can be induced to do his duty
even from a regard to his own happiness,
he will soon find reason to love virtue for
her own sake, and to act from motives less
mercenary. [373] -
I cannot therefore approve of those
moralists who would banish all persuasives
to virtue taken from the consideration of
private good. In the present state of human
nature these are not useless to the best,
and they are the only means left of reclaim-
ing the abandoned.
2. As far as the intention of nature ap-
pears in the constitution of man, we ought
to comply with that intention, and to act
agreeably to it.
*. The Author of our being hath given us
\ not only the power of acting within a limited
'sphere, but various principles or springs of
aëtion, of different nature and dignity, to
direct us in the exercise of our active
power.
From the constitution of every species of
the inferior animals, and especially from
the active principles which nature has given
them, we easily perceive the manner of life
for which nature intended them ; and they
uniformly act the part to which they are
led by their constitution, without any reflec-
tion upon it, or intention of obeying its dic-
tates. Man only, of the inhabitants of this
world, is made capable of observing his own
constitution, what kind of life it is made for,
and of acting according to that intention, or
contrary to it. He only is capable of yield-
ing an intentional obedience to the dictates
of his nature, or of rebelling against them.
In treating of the principles of action in
man, it has been shewn, that, as his natural
instincts and bodily appetites are well
adapted to the preservation of his natural
life, and to the continuance of the species;
so his matural desires, affections, and pas-
sions, when uncorrupted by vicious habits,
and under the government of the leading
principles of reason and conscience, are ex-
cellently fitted for the rational and social
life. Every vicious action shews an excess,
or defect, or wrong direction of some natural
spring of action, and therefore may, very
justly, be said to be unnatural. Every
virtuous action agrees with the uncorrupted
principles of human nature. [374] -
The Stoics defined Virtue to be a life ac-
cording to nature. Some of them more ac-
curately, a life according to the nature of
man, in so far as it is superior to that of
brutes. The life of a brute is according to
the nature of the brute ; but it is neither
virtuous nor vicious. The life of a moral
agent cannot be according to his nature,
unless it be virtuous. That conscience
which is in every man's breast, is the law
of God written in his heart, which he can.
not disobey without acting unnaturally, and
being self-condemned. -
The intention of nature, in the various
active principles of man—in the desires of
power, of knowledge, and of esteem, in the
affection to children, to near relations, and
to the communities to which we belong, in
gratitude, in compassion, and even in re-
sentment and emulation—is very obvious,
and has been pointed out in treating of those
principles. Nor is it less evident, that
reason and conscience are given us to regu-
late the inferior principles, so that they may
conspire, in a regular and consistent plan
of life, in pursuit of some worthy end.
3. No man is born for himself only.
Every man, therefore, ought to consider
himself as a member of the common society
of mankind, and of those subordinate socie-
ties to which he belongs, such as family,
friends, neighbourhood, country, and to do
[372–374]
CHAP. I.]
639
OF THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF MORALs.
as much good as he can, and as little hurt
to the societies of which he is a part.
This axiom leads directly to the practice
of every social virtue, and indirectly to the
virtues of self-government, by which only
we can be qualified for discharging the duty
we owe to society. [375]
4. In every case, we ought to act that
part towards another, which we would judge
to be right in him to act toward us, if we
were in his circumstances and he in ours ;
or, more generally—What we approve in
others, that we ought to practise in like cir-
cumstances, and what we condemn in others
we ought not to do.
If there be any such thing as right and
wrong in the conduct of moral agents, it
must be the same to all in the same circum-
stances.
We stand all in the same relation to Him
who made us, and will call us to account
for our conduct; for with Him there is no
respect of persons. We stand in the same
relation to one another as members of the
great community of mankind. The duties
consequent upon the different ranks and
offices and relations of men are the same
to all in the same circumstances.
It is not want of judgment, but want of
candour and impartiality, that hinders men
from discerning what they owe to others.
They are quicksighted enough in discerning
what is due to themselves. When they are
injured, or ill-treated, they see it, and feel
resentment. It is the want of candour that
makes men use one measure for the duty
they owe to others, and another measure
for the duty that others owe to them in like
circumstances. That men ought to judge
with candour, as in all other cases, so espe-
cially in what concerns their moral conduct,
is surely self-evident to every intelligent
being. The man who takes offence when
he is injured in his person, in his property, in
his good name, pronouncesjudgment against
himself if he act so toward his neighbour.
As the equity and obligation of this rule
of conduct is self-evident to every man who
hath a conscience ; so it is, of all the rules
of morality, the most comprehensive, and
truly deserves the encomium given it by
the highest authority, that “it is the law
and the prophets.” [376]
It comprehends every rule of justice
without exception. It comprehends all the
relative duties, arising either from the more
permanent relations of parent and child, of
master and servant, of magistrate and Sub-
ject, of husband and wife, or from the more
transient relations of rich and poor, of
buyer and seller, of debtor and creditor, of
benefactor and beneficiary, of friend and
enemy. It comprehends every duty of
charity and humanity, and even of courtesy
and good manners.
Nay, I think, that, without any force or
straining, it extends even to the duties of
self-government. For, as every man ap-
proves in others the virtues of prudence,
temperance, self-command, and fortitude,
he must perceive that what is right in
others must be right in himself in like cir-
cumstances. -
To sum up all, he who acts invariably
by this rule will never deviate from the
path of his duty, but from an error of judg-
ment. And, as he feels the obligation that
he and all men are under to use the best
means in his power to have his judgment
well-informed in matters of duty, his errors
will only be such as are invincible.
It may be observed, that this axiom sup-
poses a faculty in man by which he can
distinguish right conduct from wrong. It
supposes also, that, by this faculty, we easily
perceive the right and the wrong in other
men that are indifferent to us; but are very
apt to be blinded by the partiality of selfish
passions when the case concerns ourselves.
Every claim we have against others is apt
to be magnified by self-love, when viewed
directly. A change of persons removes this
prejudice, and brings the claim to appear
in its just magnitude. [377]
5. To every man who believes the earist-
ence, the perfections, and the providence of
God, the veneration and submission we owe
to him is self-evident. Right sentiments of
the Deity and of his works, not only make
the duty we owe to him obvious to every
intelligent being, but likewise add the au-
thority of a Divine law to every rule of right
conduct.
[C.] There is another class of axioms in
morals, by which, when there seems to be
an opposition between the actions that dif-
ferent virtues lead to, we determine to
which the preference is due.
Between the several virtues, as they are
dispositions of mind, or determinations of
will, to act according to a certain general
rule, there can be no opposition. They
dwell together most amicably, and give
mutual aid and ornament, without the pos-
sibility of hostility or opposition, and, taken
altogether, make one uniform and consist-
ent rule of conduct. But, between par-
ticular external actions, which different
virtues would lead to, there may be an oppo-
sition. Thus, the same man may be in
his heart, generous, grateful, and just.
These dispositions strengthen, but never
can weaken one another. Yet it may
happen, that an external action. which
generosity or gratitude solicits, justice may
forbid. -
That in all such cases, ummerited gene-
rosity should yield to gratitude, and both to
justice, is self-evident. Nor is it less so,
that unmerited beneficence to those who are
[375–377]
640
Lessay V . .
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
at ease should yield to compassion to the
miserable, and eaternal acts of piety to works
of mercy, because God loves mercy more
than sacrifice. -
At the same time, we perceive, that those
acts of virtue which ought to yield in the
case of a competition, have most intrinsic
worth when there is no competition. Thus,
it is evident that there is more worth in
pure and unmerited benevolence than in
compassion, more in compassion than in
gratitude, and more in gratitude than in
justice. [378]
I call these first principles, because they
appear to me to have in themselves an
intuitive evidence which I cannot resist.
I find I can express them in other words.
I can illustrate them by examples and
authorities, and perhaps can deduce one of
them from another ; but I am not able to
deduce them from other principles that are
more evident. And I find the best moral
reasonings of authors I am acquainted with,
ancient and modern, Heathen and Christian,
to be grounded upon one or more of them.
The evidence of mathematical axioms is
not discerned till men come to a certain
degree of maturity of understanding. A boy
must have formed the general conception of
quantity, and of more and less and equal, of
sum and difference ; and he must have
been accustomed to judge of these relations
in matters of common life, before he can
perceive the evidence of the mathematical
axiom—that equal quantities, added to
equal quantities, make equal sums.
In like manner, our Moral Judgment or
Conscience, grows to maturity from an im-
perceptible seed, planted by our Creator.
When we are capable of contemplating the
actions of other men, or of reflecting upon
our own calmly and dispassionately, we
begin to perceive in them the qualities of
honest and dishonest, of honourable and
base, of right and wrong, and to feel the
sentiments of moral approbation and disap-
probation.
These sentiments are at first feeble,
easily warped by passions and prejudices,
and apt to yield to authority. By use and
time, the judgment, in morals, as in other
matters, gathers strength, and feels more
vigour. We begin to distinguish the dic-
tates of passion from those of cool reason,
and to perceive that it is not always safe
to rely upon the judgment of others. By
an impulse of nature, we venture to judge
for ourselves, as we venture to walk by our-
selves. [379]
There is a strong analogy between the
progress of the body from infancy to matur-
ity, and the progress of all the powers of
the mind. This progression in both is the
work of nature, and in both may be greatly
aided or hurt by proper education. It is
of immorality.
natural to a man to be able to walk, or run,
or leap.; but, if his limbs had been kept in
fetters from his birth, he would have none
of those powers. It is no less natural to a
man trained in Society, and accustomed to
judge of his own actions and those of other
men, to perceive a right and a wrong, an
honourable and a base, in human conduct ;
and to such a man, I think, the principles
of morals I have above mentioned will ap-
pear self-evident. Yet there may be indi-
viduals of the human species so little accus-
tomed to think or judge of anything but
of gratifying their animal appetites, as to
have hardly any conception of right or
wrong in conduct, or any moral judgment;
as there certainly are some who have not
the conceptions and the judgment necessary
to understand the axioms of geometry.
From the principles above mentioned,
the whole system of moral conduct follows
so easily, and with so little aid of reason-
ing, that every man of common understand-
ing, who wishes to know his duty, may
know it. The path of duty is a plain path,
which the upright in heart can rarely mis-
take. Such it must be, since every man is
bound to walk in it. There are some intri-
cate cases in morals which admit of disputa-
tion; but these seldom occur in practice;
and, when they do, the learned disputant
has no great advantage : for the unlearned
Imall, .. uses the best means in his power
to know his duty, and acts according to his
knowledge, is inculpable in the sight of God
and man. He may err, but he is not guilty.
[380]
CHAPTER II.
OF SYSTEMS OF MORALS.
If the knowledge of our duty be so level
to the apprehension of all men as has been
represented in the last chapter, it may seem
hardly to deserve the name of a Science.
It may seem that there is no need for in-
struction in morals.
From what cause then has it happened,
that we have many large and learned sys-
tems of Moral Philosophy, and systems of
Natural Jurisprudence, or the Law of Na-
ture and Nations; and that, in modern
times, public professions" have been insti-
tuted in most places of education for in-
structing youth in these branches of know-
ledge 2
This event, I think, may be accounted
for, and the utility of such systems and
professions" justified, without supposing
any difficulty or intricacy in the knowledge
of our duty.
* Professorships.-H.
[378-380]
CHAP. II.] OF SYSTEMS
OF MORALS. w” 64].
I am far from thinking instruction in
morals unnecessary. Men may, to the end
of life, be ignorant of self-evident truths.
They may, to the end of life, entertain
gross absurdities. Experience shews that
, this happens often in matters that are indif-
ferent. Much more may it happen in mat-
ters where interest, passion, prejudice, and
fashion, are so apt to pervert the judgment.
The most obvious truths are not per-
ceived without some ripeness of judgment.
For we see that children may be made to
believe anything, though ever so absurd.
Qur judgment of things is ripened, not by
time only, but chiefly by being exercised
about things of the same or of a similar
kind. [38]]
Judgment, even in things self-evident, re-
quires a clear, distinct, and steady concep-
tion of the things about which we judge.
Our conceptions are at first obscure and
wavering. The habit of attending to them is
necessary to make them distinct and steady :
and this habit requires an exertion of mind
to which many of our animal principles are
unfriendly. The love of truth calls for
it; but its still voice is often drowned by
the louder call of some passion, or we are
hindered from listening to it by laziness and
desultoriness. Thus men often remain
through life ignorant of things which they
needed but to open their eyes to see, and
which they would bave seen if their atten-
tion had been turned to them.
The most knowing derive the greatest
part of their knowledge, even in things ob-
vious, from instruction and information,
and from being taught to exercise their
natural faculties, which, without instruc-
tion, would lie dormant.
I am very apt to think, that, if a man
could be reared from infancy, without
any society of his fellow-creatures, he
would hardly ever shew any sign, either of
moral judgment, or of the power of reason-
ing. His own actions would be directed by
his animal appetites and passions, without
cool reflection, and he would have no access
to improve, by observing the conduct of
other beings like himself.
The power of vegetation in the seed of a
plant, without heat and moisture, would for
ever lie dormant. The rational and moral
powers of man would perhaps lie dormant
without instruction and example. Yet
these powers are a part, and the noblest
part, of his constitution; as the power of
vegetation is of the seed. [382]
Our first moral conceptions" are proba-
bly got by attending coolly to the conduct
of others, and observing what moves our
approbation, what our indignation. These
sentiments" spring from our moral faculty
* Moral Conceptions and Moral Sentiments, though
related, ought not to be used convertibly.-H.
as naturally as the sensations of sweet and
hitter from the faculty of taste. They have
their natural objects. But most human
actions are of a mixed nature, and have
various colours, according as they are
viewed on different sides. Prejudice against
or in favour of the person, is apt to warp
our opinion. It requires attention and
candour to distinguish the good from the
ill, and, without favour or prejudice, to form
a clear and impartial judgment. In this
we may be greatly aided by instruction.
He must be very ignorant of human
nature, who does not perceive that the seed
of virtue in the mind of man, like that of a
tender plant in an unkindly soil, requires
care and culture in the first period of life,
as well as our own exertion when we come
to maturity.
If the irregularities of passion and appe-
tite be timely checked, and good habits
planted ; if we be excited by good examples,
and bad examples be shewn in their proper
colour ; if the attention be prudently di-
rected to the precepts of wisdom and virtue,
as the mind is capable of receiving them—
a man thus trained will rarely be at a loss
to distinguish good from ill in his own con-
duct, without the labour of reasoning.
The bulk of mankind have but little of
this culture in the proper season ; and what
they have is often unskilfully applied; by
which means bad habits gather strength,
and false notions of pleasure, of honour,
and of interest occupy the mind. They give
little attention to what is right and honest.
Conscience is seldom consulted, and so little
exercised that its decisions are weak and
wavering. Although, therefore, to a ripe
understanding, free from prejudice, and
accustomed to judge of the morality of
actions, most truths in morals will appear
self-evident, it does not follow that moral
instruction is unnecessary in the first part
of life, or that it may not be very profitable
in its more advanced period. [383] .
The history of past ages shews that na-
tions, highly civilized and greatly enlight-
ened in many arts and sciences, may, for
ages, not only hold the grossest absurdities
with regard to the Deity and his worship,
but with regard to the duty we owe to our
fellow-men, particularly to children, to ser-
vants, to strangers, to enemies, and to
those who differ from us in religious opin-
1011S.
Such corruptions in religion and in mor-
als had spread so wide among mankind, and
were so confirmed by custom, as to require
a light from heaven to correct them. Re-
velation was not intended to supersede, but
to aid the use of our natural faculties; and
I doubt not but the attention given to moral
truths, in such systems as we have men-
tioned, has contributed much to correct the
[381–883]
2 T
642
[ESSAY v.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
errors and prejudices of former ages, and
may continue to have the same good effect
in time to come.
It needs not seem strange that systems
of morals may swell to great magnitude, if
we consider that, although the general
principles be few and simple, their applica-
tion extends to every part of human con-
duct, in every condition, every relation, and
every transaction of life. They are the
rule of life to the magistrate and to the sub-
ject, to the master and to the servant, to
the parent and to the child, to the fellow-
citizen and to the alien, to the friend and to
the enemy, to the buyer and to the seller,
to the borrower and to the lender. Every
-human creature is subject to their authority
in his actions and words, and even in his
thoughts. They may, in this respect, be
compared to the laws of motion in the natu-
ral world, which, though few and simple, serve
to regulate an infinite variety of operations
throughout the universe. [384]
And as the beauty of the laws of motion
is displayed in the most striking manner,
when we trace them through all the variety
of their effects; so the divine beauty and
sanctity of the principles of morals appear
most august when we take a comprehen-
sive view of their application to every con-
dition and relation, and to every transaction
of human society.
This is, or ought to be, the design of sys-
tems of morals. They may be made more
or less extensive, having no limits fixed by
nature, but the wide circle of human trans-
actions. When the principles are applied
to these in detail, the detail is pleasant and
profitable. It requires no profound reason-
ing, (excepting, perhaps, in a few disput-
able points.) It admits of the most agree-
able illustration from examples and autho-
rities; it serves to exercise, and thereby to
strengthen, moral judgment. And one who
has given much attention to the duty of
man, in all the various relations and cir-
cumstances of life, will probably be more
enlightened in his own duty, and more able
to enlighten others.
The first writers in morals, we are ac-
quainted with, delivered their moral instruc-
tions, not in systems, but in short uncon-
nected sentences, or aphorisms. They saw
no need for deductions of reasoning, because
the truths they delivered could not but be
admitted by the candid and attentive.
Subsequent writers, to improve the way
of treating this subject, gave method and
arrangement to moral truths, by reducing
them under certain divisions and subdivi.
sions, as parts of one whole. By these
means the whole is more easily compre-
hended and remembered, and from this
airangement gets the name of a system
and of a science. [385]
A system of morals is not like a system
of geometry, where the subsequent parts
derive their evidence from the preceding,
and one chain of reasoning is carried on
from the beginning; so that, if the arrange-
ment is changed, the chain is broken, and .
the evidence is lost. It resembles more a
system of botany, or mineralogy, where the
subsequent parts depend not for their evi-
dence upon the preceding, and the arrange-
ment is made to facilitate apprehension
and memory, and not to give evidence.
Morals have been methodised in differ-
ent ways. The ancients commonly ar-
ranged them under the four cardinal vir-
tues of Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude,
and Justice;" Christian writers, I think
more properly, under the three heads of
the Duty we owe to God—to Ourselves—
and to our Neighbour. One division may
be more comprehensive, or more natural,
than another ; but the truths arranged are
the same, and their evidence the same in
all. -
I shall only farther observe, with regard
to systems of morals, that they have been
made more voluminous and more intricate,
partly by mixing political questions with
morals, which I think improper, because
they belong to a different science, and are
grounded on different principles; partly by
making what is commonly, but I think im-
properly, called the Theory of Morals, a
part of the system.
By the Theory of Morals is meant a just
account of the structure of our moral
powers—that is, of those powers of the
mind by which we have our moral concep-
tions, and distinguish right from wrong in
human actions. This, indeed, is an intri-
cate subject, and there have been various
theories and much controversy about it in
ancient and in modern times. But it has
little connection with the knowledge of our
duty; and those who differ most in the
theory of our moral powers, agree in the
practical rules of morals which they dictate.
As a man may be a good judge of colours,
and of the other visible qualities of objects,
without any knowledge of the anatomy of
the eye, and of the theory of vision; so a
man may have a very clear and compre-
hensive knowledge of what is right and
what is wrong in human conduct, who never .
studied the structure of our moral powers.
[386]
* This particular distribution was introduced by
the Stoics, and adopted from them by Cicero. But
a doctrine of four fundamental virtues is to be traced
to Plato, and even to Socrates. These, according
to the latter, are—Piety (sºcić ſoº) Self-restraint
(ix26&reid), Fortitude (&vågſø), and Justice (8.
zzlorëyn); according to the former—Wisdom (copio),
Temperance (goºgozüyn), Fortitude (&vègiz), and
Justice (312&torávn.) Aristotle did not countenance
such a reduction.—H -
[384–386]
CHAP. III.] OF SYSTEMS OF NATURAL JURISPRUDENCE.
643
A good ear in music may be much im-
proved by attention and practice in that
art ; but very little by studying the ana-
tomy of the ear, and the theory of sound.
In order to acquire a good eye or a good
ear in the arts that require them, the theory
of vision and the theory of sound are by no
means necessary, and indeed of very little
use. Of as little necessity or use is what
we call the theory of morals, in order to
improve our moral judgment.
I mean not to depreciate this branch of
knowledge. It is a very important part of
the philosophy of the human mind, and
ought to be considered as such, but not as
any part of morals. By the name we give
to it, and by the custom of making it a
part of every system of morals, men may
be led into this gross mistake, which I wish
to obviate, That, in order to understand his
duty, a man must needs be a philosopher
and a metaphysician. [387]
CHAPTER III.
OF SYSTEMS OF NATURAL JURISPRUDENCE.
SYSTEMs of Natural Jurisprudence, of the
Rights of Peace and War, or of the Law of
Nature and Nations, are a modern inven-
tion, which soon acquired such reputation
as gave occasion to many public establish-
ments for teaching it along with the other
Sciences. It has so close a relation to
morals, that it may answer the purpose of a
system of morals, and is commonly put in
the place of it, as far, at least, as concerns
our duty to our fellow-men. They differ in
the name and form, but agree in substance.
This will appear from a slight attention to
the nature of both.
The direct intention of Morals is to teach
the duty of men : that of Natural Jurispru-
dence to teach the rights of men. Right
and Duty are things very different, and
have even a kind of opposition ; yet they are
so related that the one cannot even be
conceived without the other ; and he that
understands the one must understand the
other. -
They have the same relation which credit
has to debt. As all credit supposes an
equivalent debt, so all right supposes a cor-
responding duty. There can be no credit
in one party without an equivalent debt in
another party ; and there can be no right
in one party, without a corresponding duty
in another party. The sum of credit shews
the sum of debt; and the sum of men’s
rights shews, in like manner, the sum of
their duty to one another. [388]
The Word Right has a very different
meaning, according as it is applied to actions
or to persons. A right action is an action
agreeable to our duty. But, when we speak
of the rights of men, the word has a very
different and a more artificial meaning. It
is a term of art in law, and signifies all that
a man may lawfully do, all that he may
lawfully possess and use, and all that he
he may lawfully claim of any other person.
This comprehensive meaning of the word
fight, and of the Latin word jus, which cor-
responds to it, though long adopted into
common language, is too artificial to be the
birth of common language. It is a term of
art, contrived by Civilians when the Civil
Law became a profession.
The whole end and object of Law is to
protect the subjects in all that they may
lawfully do, or possess, or demand. This
threefold object of law, Civilians have com-
prehended under the word jus or right,
which they define, “Facultas aliquid agendi,
vel possidendi, vel ab alio consequendi :”
“A lawful claim to do anything, to possess
anything, or to demand some prestation
jrom some other person.” The first of these
may be called the right of liberty; the second
| that of property, which is also called a real
ºright ; the third is called personal right, be-
cause it respects some particular person or
persons of whom the prestation may be de-
manded.
We can be at no loss to perceive the
Duties corresponding to the several kinds of
Rights. What I have a right to do, it is
the duty of all men not to hinder me from
doing. What is my property or real right,
no man ought to take from me; or to molest
me in the use and enjoyment of it. And
what I have a right to demand of any man,
it is his duty to perform. Between the right,
on the one hand, and the duty, on the other,
there is not only a necessary connection,
but, in reality, they are only different ex-
pressions of the same meaning ; just as it is
the same thing to say, I am your debtor,
and to say, You are my creditor; or as it is
the same thing to say, I am your father, and .
to say, You are my son. [389]
Thus we see, that there is such a corre-
spondence between the rights of men and
the duties of men, that the one points out
the other ; and a system of the one may be
substituted for a system of the other.
But here an objection occurs. It may
be said, That, although every right implies
a duty, yet every duty does not imply a right.
Thus, it may be my duty to do a humane
or kind office to a man who has no claim of
right to it; and therefore a system of the
rights of men, though it teach all the duties
of strict justice, yet it leaves out all the
duties of charity and humanity, without
which the system of morals must be very
lame.
In answer to this objection, it may be
observed, That, as there is a strict notion
[387–389]
2 T 2
644
[ESSAY v.
ON THE ACTIVE PoweRs.
of justice, in which it is distinguished from
humanity and charity, so there is a more
extensive signification of it, in which it in-
cludes those virtues. The ancient moralists,
both Greek and Roman, under the cardinal
virtue of justice, included beneficence ;
and, in this extensive sense, it is often used
in common language. The like may be
said of right, which, in a sense not un-
common, is extended to every proper claim
of humanity and charity, as well as to the
claims of strict justice. But, as it is proper
to distinguish these two kinds of claims by
different names, writers in natural jurispru-
dence have given the name of perfect rights
to the claims of strict justice, and that of
imperfect rights to the claims of charity and
humanity. Thus, all the duties of humanity
have imperfect rights corresponding to
them, as those of strict justice have perfect
rights. -
Another objection may be, That there is
still a class of duties to which no right, per-
fect or imperfect, corresponds. [390]
We are bound in duty to pay due respect,
not only to what is truly the right of an-
other, but to what, through ignorance or
mistake, we believe to be his right. Thus,
if my neighbour is possessed of a horse
which he stole, and to which he has no
right, while I believe the horse to be really
his, and am ignorant of the theft, it is my
duty to pay the same respect to this con-
ceived right as if it were real. Here, then,
is a moral obligation on one party without
any corresponding right on the other.
To supply this defect in the system of
rights, so as to make right and duty corre-
spond in every instance, writers in juris-
prudence have had recourse to something
like what is called a fiction of law. They
give the name of right to the claim which
even the thief hath to the goods he has
stolen, while the theft is unknown, and to
all similar claims grounded on the ignor-
ance or mistake of the parties concerned.
And to distinguish this kind of right from
genuine rights, perfect or imperfect, they
call it an external right.
Thus it appears, That, although a system
of the perfect rights of men, or the rights
of strict justice, would be a lame substitute
for a system of human duty, yet, when we
add to it the imperfect and the external
rights, it comprehends the whole duty we
owe to our fellow-men.
But it may be asked, Why should men be
taught their duty in this indirect way, by
Teflection, as it were, from the rights of
other men 2
Perhaps it may be thought that this in-
direct way may be more agreeable to the
pride of man, as we see that men of rank
like better to hear of obligations of honour
than of obligations of duty (although the
dictates of true honour and of duty be the
same ;) for this reason that honour puts a
man in mind of what he owes to himself,
whereas duty is a more humiliating idea.
For a like reason, men may attend more
willingly to their rights which put them in
mind of their dignity, than to their duties,
which suggest their dependence. And we
See that men may give great attention to
their rights who give but little to their
duty. [391] .'
Whatever truth there may be in this, I
believe better reasons can be given why
systems of natural jurisprudence have been
contrived and put in the place of systems
of morals.
Systems of Civil Law were invented
many ages before we had any system of
Natural Jurisprudence ; and the former
seem to have suggested the idea of the
latter.
Such is the weakness of human under-
standing, that no large body of knowledge
can be easily apprehended and remembered,
unless it be arranged and methodised—that
is, reduced into a system. When the laws
of the Roman people were multiplied to a
great degree, and the study of them became
an honourable and lucrative profession, it
became necessary that they should be meth-
Odised into a system. And the most natu.
ral and obvious way of methodising law, was
found to be according to the divisions and
subdivisions of men's rights, which it is the
intention of law to protect.
The study of law produced not only sys-
tems of law, but a language proper for ex-
pressing them. Every art has its terms of
art for expressing the conceptions that be-
long to it; and the civilian must have terms
for expressing accurately the divisions and
subdivisions of rights, and the various ways
whereby they may be acquired, transferred,
or extinguished, in the various transactions
of civil society. He must have terms accu-
rately defined, for the various crimes by
which men's rights are violated, not to speak
of the terms which express the different
forms of actions at law, and the various
steps of the procedure of judicatories. [392]
Those who have been bred to any pro-
fession are very prone to use the terms of
their profession in speaking or writing on
subjects that have any analogy to it. And
they may do so with advantage, as terms of
art are commonly more precise in their sig-
nification, and better defined, than the words
of common language. To such persons, it
is also very natural to model and arrange
other subjects, as far as their nature admits,
into a method similar to that of the system
which fills their minds.
It might, therefore, be expected that a
civilian, intending to give a detailed system
of morals, would use many of the terms of .
[390–392]
CHAP. III.] OF SYSTEMS OF NATURAL JURISPRUDENCE.
645
civil law, and mould it, as far as it can be
done, into the form of a system of law, or
of the rights of mankind. -
The necessary and close relation of right
to duty, which we before observed, justified
this. And Moral Duty had long been con-
sidered as a law of nature ; a law, not
wrote on tables of stone or brass, but on
the heart of man; a law of greater anti-
quity and higher authority than the laws of
particular states; a law which is binding
upon all men of all nations, and, therefore,
is called by Cicero the law of mature and of
nations.
The idea of a system of this law was
worthy of the genius of the immortal Hugo
Grotius, and he was the first who executed
it in such a manner as to draw the attention
of the learned in all the European nations;
and to give occasion to several princes and
states to establish public professions for the
teaching of this law. -
The multitude of commentators and an-
notators upon this work of Grotius, and the
public establishments to which it gave occa-
Sion, are sufficient vouchers of its merit.
It is, indeed, a work so well designed,
and so skilfully executed ; so free from the
scholastic jargon which infected the learned
at that time ; so much addressed to the
common sense and moral judgment of man-
kind; and so agreeably illustrated by ex-
amples from ancient history, and authorities
from the sentiments of ancient authors,
heathen and Christian, that it must always
be esteemed as the capital work of a great
genius upon a most important subject.
[393]
The utility of a just system of natural
jurisprudence appears—l. As it is a system
of the moral duty we owe to men, which,
by the aid they have taken from the terms
and divisions of the civil law, has been
given more in detail and more systematic-
ally by writers in natural jurisprudence
than it was formerly. 2. As it is the best
preparation for the study of law, being, as
it were, cast in the mould, and using and
explaining many of the terms of the civil
law, on which the law of most of the Euro-
pean nations is grounded. 3. It is of use
to lawgivers, who ought to make their laws
as agreeable as possible to the law of nature.
And as laws made by men, like all human
works, must be imperfect, it points out the
errors and imperfections of human laws.
4. To judges and interpreters of the law it
is of use, because that interpretation ought
to be preferred which is founded in the law
of nature. 5. It is of use in civil contro-
versies between states, or between indivi-
duals who have no common Superior. In
such controversies, the appeal must be made
to the law of nature; and the standard sys-
tems of it, particularly that of Grotius, have
great authority. And, 6, To say no more
upon this point, it is of great use to sove-
reigns and states who are above all human
laws, to be solemnly admonished of the
conduct they are bound to observe to their
own subjects, to the subjects of other states,
and to one another, in peace and in war.
The better and the more generally the law
of nature is understood, the greater dis-
honour, in public estimation, will follow
every violation of it. [394]
Some authors have imagined that sys-
tems of natural jurisprudence ought to be
confined to the perfect rights of men, be-
| cause the duties which correspond to the
imperfect rights, the duties of charity and
humanity, cannot be enforced by human
laws, but must be left to the judgment and
conscience of men, free from compulsion.
But the systems which have had the great-
est applause of the public, have not followed
this plan, and, I conceive, for good reasons.
First, Because a system of perfect rights
could by no means serve the purpose of a
system of morals, which surely is an im-
portant purpose. Secondly, Because, in
many cases, it is hardly possible to fix the
precise limit between justice and humanity,
between perfect and imperfect right. Like
the colours in a prismatic image, they run
into each other, so that the best eye cannot
fix the precise boundary between them.
Thirdly, As wise legislators and magistrates
ought to have it as their end to make the
citizens good as well as just, we find, in all
civilized nations, laws that are intended to
encourage the duties of humanity. Where
human laws cannot enforce them by punish-
ments, they may encourage them by re-
wards. Of this the wisest legislators have
given examples; and how far this branch
of legislation may be carried, no man can
foresee.
The substance of the four following chap-
ters was wrote long ago, and read in a late-
rary society,” with a view to justify some
points of morals from metaphysical objec-
tions urged against them in the writings of
David Hume, Esq. If they answer that
end, and, at the same time, serve to illus-
trate the account I have given of our moral
powers, it is hoped that the reader will not
think them improperly placed here; and
that he will forgive some repetitions, and
perhaps anachronisms, occasioned by their
being wrote at different times, and on dif-
ferent occasions. [395]
* Probably the Philosophical Society in Aberdeen ;
and, if so, these chapters were written before 1764.
See above, pp. 7, a, 41, b.-H.
[393–895.]
{546
[ESSAY v.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
CHAPTER IV.
WHETHER, AN ACTION DESERVING MORAL AP-
PROBATION, MUST BE DONE WITH THE BE-
LIEF OF ITS BEING MORALLY GOOD.
THERE is no part of philosophy more sub-
tile and intricate than that which is called
The Theory of Morals. Nor is there any
more plain and level to the apprehension of
man than the practical part of morals.
In the former, the Epicurean, the Peri-
patetic, and the Stoic, had each his different
system of old; and almost every modern
author of reputation has a system of his own.
At the same time there is no branch of hu-
man knowledge, in which there is so gen-
eral an agreement among ancients and mo-
derns, learned and unlearned, as in the
practical rules of morals.
. From this discord in the theory, and har-
mony in the practical part, we may judge
that the rules of morality stand upon an-
other and a firmer foundation than the
theory. And of this it is easy to perceive
the reason.
For, in order to know what is right and
what is wrong in human conduct, we need
only listen to the dictates of our conscience
when the mind is calm and unruffled, or at-
tend to the judgment we form of others in
like circumstances. But, to judge of the
various theories of morals, we must be able
to analyze and dissect, as it were, the ac-
tive powers of the human mind, and espe-
cially to analyze accurately that conscience
or moral power by which we discern right
from wrong. [396]
The conscience may be compared to the
eye in this as in many other respects. The
learned and the unlearned see objects with
equal distinctness. The former have no
title to dictate to the latter, as far as the
eye is judge, nor is there any disagreement
about such matters. But, to dissect the
eye, and to explain the theory of vision, is
a difficult point, wherein the most skilful
have differed.
From this remarkable disparity between
our decisions in the theory of morals and
in the rules of morality, we may, I think,
draw this conclusion, That wherever we
find any disagreement between the practi-
cal rules of morality, which have been re-
ceived in all ages, and the principles of any
of the theories advanced upon this sub-
ject, the practical rules ought to be the
standard by which the theory is to be cor-
rected, and that it is both unsafe and un-
philosophical to warp the practical rules,
in order to make them tally with a favour-
ite theory. 2. -
The question to be considered in this
chapter belongs to the practical part of mo-
rals, and therefore is capable of a more easy
and more certain determination. And, if
it be determined in the affirmative, I con-
ceive that it may serve as a touchstone to
try some celebrated theories which are in-
consistent with that determination, and
which have led the theorists to oppose it by
very subtile metaphysical arguments.
Every question about what is or is not
the preper object of moral approbation, be-
longs to practical morals, and such is the
question now under consideration :- Whe-
ther actions deserving moral approbation
must be done with the belief of their being.
morally good? or, Whether an action, done
without any regard to duty or to the dictates
of conscience, can be entitled to moral ap-
probation? [397] -
In every action of a moral agent, his
conscience is either altogether silent, or it
pronounces the action to be good, or bad, or
indifferent. This, I think, is a complete
enumeration. If it be perfectly silent, the
action must be very trifling, or appear so.
For conscience, in those who have exer-
cised it, is a very pragmatical faculty, and
meddles with every part of our conduct,
whether we desire its counsel or not. And
what a man does in perfect simplicity,
without the least suspicion of its being bad,
his heart cannot condemn him for, nor will
He that knows the heart condemn him.
If there was any previous culpable negli-
gence or inattention which led him to a
wrong judgment, or hindered his forming a
right one, that I do not exculpate. I only
consider the action done, and the disposi-
tion with which it was done, without its
previous circumstances. And in this there
appears nothing that merits disapproba-
tion. As little can it merit any degree of
moral approbation, because there was neither
good nor ill intended. And the same may
be said when conscience pronounces the
action to be indifferent.
If, in the second place, I do what my
conscience pronounces to be bad or dubi-
ous, I am guilty to myself, and justly de-
serve the disapprobation of others. Nor
am I less guilty in this case, though what
I judged to be bad should happen to be
good or indifferent. I did it believing it
to be bad, and this is an immorality.
Lastly, If I do what my conscience pro-
nounces to be right and my duty, either I
have some regard to duty, or I have none.
The last is not supposable ; for I believe
there is no man so abandoned but that he
does what he believes to be his duty, with
more assurance and alacrity upon that ac-
count. The more weight the rectitude of
the action has in determining me to do it,
the more I approve of my own conduct.
And if my worldly interest, my appetites,
or inclinations draw me strongly the con-
[396, 397]
CHAP. Iv.]
647
OBJECT OF MORAL APPROBATION.
trary way, my following the dictates of my
conscience, in opposition to these motives,
adds to the moral worth of the action.
[398]
When a man acts from an erroneous
judgment, if his error be invincible, all
agree that he is inculpable. But if his
error be owing to some previous negligence
or inattention, there seems to be some dif-
ference among moralists. This difference,
however, is only seeming, and not real.
For wherein lies the fault in this case ? It
must be granted by all, that the fault lies
in this and solely in this, that he was not
at due pains to have his judgment well in-
formed. Those moralists, therefore, who
consider the action and the previous conduct
that led to it as one whole, find something
to blame in the whole; and they do so
most justly. But those who take this whole
to pieces, and consider what is blameable
and what is right in each part, find all that
is blameable in what preceded this wrong
judgment, and nothing but what is ap-
provable in what followed it.
Let us suppose, for instance, that a man
believes that God has indispensably re-
quired him to observe a very rigorous fast
in Lent; and that, from a regard fo this
supposed divine command, he fasts in such
manner as is not only a great mortification
to his appetite, but even hurtful to his
health.
His superstitious opinion may be the
effect of a culpable negligence, for which
he can by no means be justified. Let him,
therefore, bear all the blame upon this ac-
count that he deserves. But now, having
this opinion fixed in his mind, shall he act
according to it or against it 2 Surely we
cannot hesitate a moment in this case. It
is evident that, in following the light of
his judgment, he acts the part of a good
and pious man; whereas, in acting contrary
to his judgment, he would be guilty of wil-
ful disobedience to his Maker.
If my servant, by mistaking my orders,
does the contrary of what I commanded,
believing, at the same time, that he obeys
my orders, there may be some fault in his
mistake, but to charge him with the crime
of disobedience, would be inhuman and un-
just. [399] -
These determinations appear to me to
have intuitive evidence, no less than that
of mathematical axioms. A man who is
come to years of understanding, and who
has exercised his faculties in judging of
right and wrong, sees their truth as he sees
daylight. Metaphysical arguments brought
against them have the same effect as when
brought against the evidence of sense: they
may puzzle and confound, but they do not
convince. It appears, evident, therefore,
that those actions only can truly be called
virtuous, or deserving of moral approba-
tion, which the agent believed to be right,
and to which he was influenced, more or
less, by that belief.
If it should be objected, That this prin-
ciple makes it to be of no consequence to a
man's morals, what his opinions may be,
providing he acts agreeably to them, the
answer is easy. -
Morality requires, not only that a man
should act according to his judgment, but
that he should use the best means in his
power that his judgment be according to
truth. If he fail in either of these points, he
is worthy of blame ; but, if he fail in neither,
I see not wherein he can be blamed.
When a man must act, and has no longer
time to deliberate, he ought to act accord-
ing to the light of his conscience, even when
he is in an error. But, when he has time
to deliberate, he ought surely to use all the
means in his power to be rightly informed.
When he has done so, he may still be in
an error ; but it is an invincible error, and
and cannot justly be imputed to him as a
fault. [400]
A second objection is, That we imme-
diately approve of benevolence, gratitude,
and other primary virtues, without inquiring
whether they are practised from a per-
Suasion that they are our duty. And the
laws of God place the sum of virtue in
loving God and our neighbour, without any
provision that we do it from a persuasion
that we ought to do so.
The answer to this objection is, That the
love of God, the love of our neighbour,
justice, gratitude, and other primary vir-
tues, are, by the constitution of human
nature, necessarily accompanied with a con-
viction of their being morally good. We
may, therefore, safely presume, that these
things are never disjoined, and that every
man who practises these virtues does it
with a good conscience. In judging of
men's conduct, we do not suppose things
which cannot happen, nor do the laws of
God give decisions upon impossible cases,
as they must have done if they supposed
the case of a man who thought it contrary
to his duty to love God or to love mankind.
But if we wish to know how the laws of
God determine the point in question, we
ought to observe their decision with regard
to such actions as may appear good to one
man and ill to another. And here the
decisions of scripture are clear: “Let every
man be persuaded in his own mind;”—“He
that doubteth is condemned if he eat, because
he eateth not of faith, for whatsoever is not
of faith is sin;”—“ To him that esteemeth
anything to be unclean, it is unclean.” The
Scripture often placeth the sum of virtue in
“ living in all good conscience,” in acting.
so “ that our hearts condemn us not.”
[398–400]
648
[ESSAY v.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
The last objection I shall mention is a
metaphysical one urged by Mr Hume.
It is a favourite point in his system of
morals, That justice is not a natural but an
artificial virtue. To prove this, he has ex-
erted the whole strength of his reason and
eloquence. And as the principle we are
considering stood in his way, he takes pains
to refute it. [401]
“Suppose,” says he, “a person to have
lent me a sum of money, on condition that it
be restored in a few days. After the expira-
tion of the term, he demands the sum. I ask,
what reason or motive have I to restore the
money P. It will perhaps be said, That my
regard to justice and abhorrence of villany
and knavery are sufficient reasons for me.”
And this, he acknowledges, would be a
satisfactory answer to a man in his civilized
state, and when trained up according to a
certain discipline and education. “But,
in his rude and more natural condition,”
says he, “if you are pleased to call such a
condition natural, this answer would be re-
jected as perfectly unintelligible and Sophis-
tical.
“For wherein consists this honesty and
justice P Not surely in the external action.
It must, therefore, consist in the motive
from which the external action is derived.
This motive can never be a regard to the
honesty of the action. For it is a plain
fallacy to say, That a virtuous motive is
requisite to render an action honest, and, at
the same time, that a regard to the honesty
is the motive to the action. We can Inever
have a regard to the virtue of an action
unless the action be antecedently virtuous.”
And, in another place—“To suppose
that the mere regard to the virtue of the
action is that which rendered it virtuous, is
to reason in a circle. An action must be
virtuous before we can have a regard to its
virtue.
must be antecedent to that regard. Nor
is this merely a metaphysical subtilty,” &c.
(Treatise of Human Nature, Book III.
Part ii. Sect. 1.)
I am not to consider, at this time, how
this reasoning is applied to support the
author's opinion, That justice is not a na-
tural but an artificial virtue. I consider it
only as far as it opposes the principle I
have been endeavouring to establish, That,
to render an action truly virtuous, the agent
must have some regard to its rectitude.
And I conceive the whole force of the rea-
Soning amounts to this :- [402]
When we judge an action to be good or
bad, it must have been so in its own nature
antecedent to that judgment, otherwise the
judgment is erroneous. If, therefore, the
action be good in its nature, the judgment
of the agent cannot make it bad, nor can
his judgment make it good if, in its nature,
Some virtuous motive, therefore,
it be bad. For this would be to ascribe to
our judgment a strange magical power to
transform the nature of things, and to say,
that my judging a thing to be what it is
not, makes it really to be what I erron-
eously judge it to be. This, I think, is the
objection in its full strength. And, in an-
swer to it— -
[1..] First, If we could not loose this
metaphysical knot, I think we might fairly
and honestly cut it, because it fixes an ab-
Surdity upon the clearest and most indis-
putable principles of morals and of common
Sense. For I appeal to any man whether
there be any principle of morality, or any
principle of common sense, more clear and
indisputable than that which we just now
quoted from the Apostle Paul, That, al-
though a thing be not unclean in itself, yet
to him that esteemeth it to be unclean, to
him it is unclean. But the metaphysical
argument makes this absurd. For, says
the metaphysician, If the thing was not un-
clean in itself, you judged wrong in esteem-
ing it to be unclean ; and what can be more
absurd than that your esteeming a thing to
be what it is not, should make it what you
erroneously esteem it to be 2 [403]
Let us try the edge of this argument in
another instance. Nothing is more evident
than that an action does not merit the name
of benevolent, unless it be done from a be-
lief that it tends to promote the good of our
neighbour. But this is absurd, says the
metaphysician. For, if it be not a bene-
volent action in itself, your belief of its
tendency cannot change its nature. It is
absurd that your erroneous belief should
make the action to be what you believe it
to be. Nothing is more evident than that
a man who tells the truth, believing it to
be a lie, is guilty of falsehood; but the
metaphysician would make this to be ab-
Surd.
In a word, if there be any strength in
this argument, it would follow, That a man
might be, in the highest degree, virtuous,
without the least regard to virtue; that he
might be very benevolent, without ever in-
tending to do a good office; very malicious,
without ever intending any hurt; very re-
vengeful, without ever intending to retaliate
an injury; very grateful, without ever in-
tending to return a benefit ; and a man of
strict veracity, with an intention to lie.
We might, therefore, reject this reasoning,
as repugnant to self-evident truths, though
we were not able to point out the fallacy of
it.
2. But let us try, in the second place,
whether the fallacy of this argument may
not be discovered.
We ascribe moral goodness to actions
considered abstractly, without any relation
to the agent. We likewise ascribe moral
- [401–403]
CHAP. Iv.]
649
OBJECT OF MORAL APPROBATION.
goodness to an agent on account of an action
he has done; we call it a good action,
though, in this case, the goodness is properly
in the man, and is only by a figure ascribed
to the action. Now, it is to be considered,
whether moral goodness, when applied to an
action considered abstractly, has the same
meaning as when we apply it to a man on
account of that action; or whether we do
not unawares change the meaning of the
word, according as we apply it to the one
or to the other. [404]
The action, considered abstractly, has
neither understanding nor will ; it is not
accountable, nor can it be under any moral
obligation. But all these things are essen-
tial to that moral goodness which belongs
to a man ; for, if a man had not under-
standing and will, he could have no moral
goodness. Hence it follows necessarily,
that the moral goodness which we ascribe
to an action considered abstractly, and that
which we ascribe to a person for doing that
action, are not the same. The meaning of
the word is changed when it is applied to
these different subjects. w
This will be more evident, when we con-
sider what is meant by the moral goodness
which we ascribe to a man for doing an
action, and what by the goodness which be-
longs to the action considered abstractly.
A good action in a man is that in which he
applied his intellectual powers properly,
in order to judge what he ought to do, and
acted according to his best judgment. This
is all that can be required of a moral agent;
and in this his moral goodness, in any good
action, consists. But is this the goodness
which we ascribe to an action considered
abstractly 2 No, surely. For the action,
considered abstractly, is neither endowed
with judgment nor with active power; and,
therefore, can have none of that goodness
which we ascribe to the man for doing it.
But what do we mean by goodness in an
action considered abstractly 2 To me it
appears to lie in this, and in this only,
That it is an action which ought to be done
by those who have the power and oppor-
tunity, and the capacity of perceiving their
obligation to do it. I would gladly know
of any man, what other moral goodness can
be in an action considered abstractly. And
this goodness is inherent in its nature, and
inseparable from it. No opinion or judg-
ment of an agent can in the least alter its
11ature.
Suppose the action to be that of reliev-
ing an innocent person out of great distress.
This surely has all the moral goodness that
an action, considered abstractly, can have.
Yet, it is evident that an agent, in relieving
a person in distress, may have no moral
goodness, may have great merit, or may
have great demerit. [405]
Suppose, first, That mice cut the cords
which bound the distressed person, and so
bring him relief. Is there moral goodness
in this act of the mice 2
Suppose, secondly, That a man maliciously
relieves the distressed person, in order to
plunge him into greater distress. In this
action, there is surely no moral goodness,
but much malice and inhumanity.
If, in the last place, we suppose a person,
from real sympathy and humanity, to bring
relief to the distressed person, with consider-
able expense or danger to himself—here is
an action of real worth, which every heart
approves and every tongue praises. But
wherein lies the worth P. Not in the action
considered by itself, which was common to
all the three, but in the man who, on this
occasion, acted the part which became a
good man. He did what his heart approved,
and therefore he is approved by God and
Illall.
Upon the whole, if we distinguish between
that goodness which may be ascribed to an
action considered by itself, and that good-
ness which we ascribe to a man when he
puts it in execution, we shall find a key to
this metaphysical lock. We admit that
the goodness of an action, considered ab-
stractly, can have no dependence upon the
opinion or belief of an agent, any more than
the truth of a proposition depends upon our
believing it to be true. But, when a man
exerts his active power well or ill, there is
a moral goodness or turpitude which we
figuratively impute to the action, but which
is truly and properly imputable to the man
only ; and this goodness or turpitude de-
pends very much" upon the intention of the
agent, and the opinion he had of his action.
[406]
This distinction has been understood in
all ages by those who gave any attention to
morals, though it has been variously ex-
pressed. The Greek moralists gave the
name of 22.9%zoy to an action good in itself;
Such an action might be done by the most
worthless. But an action done with a right
intention, which implies real worth in the
agent, they called 221689 wºo. The distinc-
tion is explained by Cicero in his “Offices.”
He calls the first officium medium, and the
Second officium perfectum, or rectum.ºf In
the scholastic ages, an action good in itself
was said to be materially good, and an action
done with a right intention was called form-
* It should have been said—“depends altogether,”
&c.—H.
# The 22.9%zov ºroy or officium medium, was
never called simply either zcz.9%zov or officium ; though
frequently merely £2.Écoy. Reid was probably led into
the mistake by an erroneous reading, (uncounte;
nanced by any MS., and contrary to the universal
analogy of the Stoical language), which Pearce, in
his edition, introduced into the third chapter of the
first book of Cicero's Offices.—H.
[404–406]
650
[ESSAY v.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
ally good. This last way of expressing the
distinction is still familiar among Theo-
logians; but Mr Hume seems not to have
attended to it, or to have thought it to be
words without any meaning.
Mr Hume, in the section already quoted,
tells us with great assurance—“In short,
it may be established as an undoubted
maxim, that no action can be virtuous or
morally good, unless there be in human
nature some motive to produce it, distinct
from the sense of its morality.” And upon
this maxim he founds many of his reason-
ings on the subject of morals. -
Whether it be consistent with Mr Hume’s
own system, that an action may be 'pro-
duced merely from the sense of its morality,
without any motive of agreeableness or
utility, I shall not now inquire. But, if it
be true, and I think it evident to every man
of common understanding, that a judge or
an arbiter acts the most virtuous part when
his sentence is produced by no other motive
but a regard to justice and a good con-
science—nay, when all other motives dis-
tinct from this are on the other side :-if
this, I say, be true, then that undoubted
maxim of Mr Hume must be false, and all
the conclusions built upon it must fall to the
ground. [407]
From the principle I have endeavoured
to establish, I think some consequences may
be drawn with regard to the theory of
morals.
First, If there be no virtue without the
belief that what we do is right, it follows,
that a moral faculty—that is, a power of
discerning moral goodness and turpitude in
human conduct—is essential to every being
capable of virtue or vice. A being who has
no more conception of moral goodness and
baseness, of right and wrong, than a blind
man hath of colours, can have no regard to
it in his conduct, and therefore can neither
be virtuous nor vicious.
He may have qualities that are agreeable
or disagreeable, useful or hurtful; so may
a plant or a machine. And we sometimes
use the word virtue in such a latitude as to
signify any agreeable or useful quality, as
when we speak of the virtues of plants.
But we are now speaking of virtue in the
strict and proper sense, as it signifies that
quality in a man which is the object of
Imoral approbation.
This virtue a man could not have, if he
had not a power of discerning a right and a
wrong in human conduct, and of being in-
fluenced by that discernment. For in so
far only he is virtuous as he is guided in his
conduct by that part of his constitution.
Brutes do not appear to have any such
power, and therefore are not moral or ac-
countable agents. They are capable of
culture and discipline, but not of virtuous
or criminal conduct. Even human crea.
tures, in infancy and non-age, are not mora,
agents, because their moral faculty is not
yet unfolded. These sentiments are sup-
ported by the common sense of mankind,
which has always determined that neither
brutes nor infants can be indicted for crimes.
[408]
It is of Small consequence what name we
give to this moral power of the human
mind; but it is so important a part of our
constitution as to deserve an appropriated
name. The name of conscience, as it is the
most common, seems to me as proper as
any that has been given it. I find no fault
with the name moral sense, although I con-
ceive this name has given occasion to some
mistakes concerning the nature of our moral
power. Modern philosophers have conceived
of the external senses as having no other
office but to give us certain sensations, or
simple conceptions, which we could not have
without them. And this notion has been
applied to the moral sense. But it seems
to me a mistaken notion in both. By the
sense of seeing, I not only have the con-
ception of the different colours, but I per-
ceive one body to be of this colour, another
of that. In like manner, by my moral
sense, I not only have the conceptions of
right and wrong in conduct, but I perceive
this conduct to be right, that to be wrong,
and that indifferent. All our senses are
judging faculties," so also is conscience.
Nor is this power only a judge of our own
actions and those of others—it is likewise a
principle of action in all good men ; and so
far only can our conduct be denominated
virtuous as it is influenced by this prin-
ciple.
A second consequence from the principle
laid down in this chapter is, that the formal
nature and essence of that virtue which is
the object of moral approbation consists
neither in a prudent prosecution of our pri-
vate interest, nor in benevolent affections
towards others, nor in qualities useful or
agreeable to ourselves or to others, nor in
sympathizing with the passions and affec-
tions of others, and in attuning our own
conduct to the tone of other men’s pas-
sions; but it consists in living in all good
conscience—that is, in using the best means
in our power to know our duty, and acting
accordingly.
Prudence is a virtue, Benevolence is a
virtue, Fortitude is a virtue; but the essence
and formal nature of Virtue must lie in
something that is common to all these, and
to every other virtue. And this I conceive
can be nothing else but the rectitude of such
conduct and turpitude of the contrary, which
is discerned by a good man. And so far
+ See above, p. 590, a, note; et alibi...—H.
[407, 408]
CHAP. v.]
651
OF JUSTICE.
only he is virtuous as he pursues the former
and avoids the latter. [409]
CHAPTER. W.
WHETHER JUSTICE BE A NATURAL OR AN
ARTIFICIAL VIRTUE,
Mr HUME's philosophy concerning morals
was first presented to the world in the third
volume of his “Treatise of Human Nature,”
in the year 1740; afterwards in his “ In-
quiry concerning the Principles of Morals,”
which was first published by itself, and then
in several editions of his “Essays and Trea-
tises.”
In these two works on morals, the system
is the same. A more popular arrangement,
great embellishment, and the omission of
Some metaphysical reasonings, have given a
preference in the public esteem to the last :
but I find neither any new principles in it,
nor any new arguments in support of the
system common to both.
In this system, the proper object of Moral
Approbation is not actions or any voluntary
exertion, but qualities of mind—that is,
natural affections or passions, which are in-
voluntary, a part of the constitution of the
man, and common to us with many brute.
animals. When we praise or blame any
voluntary action, it is only considered as a
sign of the natural affection from which it
flows, and from which all its merit or demerit
is derived.
Moral Approbation or Disapprobation, is
not an Act of the Judgment, which, like all
acts of judgment, must be true or false;
it is only a certain Feeling, which, from
the constitution of human nature, arises
upon contemplating certain characters, or
* of mind, coolly and impartially.
410]
This feeling, when agreeable, is moral
approbation ; when disagreeable, disappro-
bation. The qualities of mind which pro-
duce this agreeable feeling, are the moral
virtues; and those that produce the disa-
greeable, the vices. -
These preliminaries being granted, the
question about the foundation of morals is
reduced to a simple question of fact—to wit,
What are the qualities of mind which pro-
duce, in the disinterested observer, the feel-
ing gf approbation, or the contrary feel-
ing :
In answer to this question, the author
endeavours to prove, by a very copious in-
duction, That all personal merit, all virtue,
all that is the object of moral approbation,
consists in the qualities of mind which are
agreeable or useful to the person who pos-
sesses them, or to others.
The dulce and the wtile is the whole sum
of merit in every character, in every quality
of mind, and in every action of life. There
is no room left for that honestum which
Cicero thus defines:– Homestum igitur id
intelligimus, quod tale est, ut detracta omni
utilitate, sine ullis premiis fructibusve, per
Seipsum jure possit laudari.—[DE FINIBUS,
ii. 14.] -
Among the ancient moralists, the Epicu-
reans were the only sect who denied that
there is any such thing as honestwm, or
moral worth, distinct from pleasure. In
this, Mr Hume's system agrees with theirs.
For the addition of utility to pleasure, as a
foundation of morals, makes only a verbal,
but no real difference. What is useful only
has no value in itself; but derives all its
merit from the end for which it is useful.
That end, in this system, is agreeableness,
or pleasure; so that, in both systems, plea-
sure is the only end, the only thing that is
good in itself, and desirable for its own sake ;
and virtue derives all its merit from its
tendency to produce pleasure. [411]
Agreeableness and utility are not moral
conceptions, nor have they any connection
with morality. What a man does, merely
because it is agreeable, or useful to pro-
cure what is agreeable, is not virtue. There-
fore the Epicurean system was justly thought,
by Cicero, and the best moralists among
the ancients, to subvert morality, and to
substitute another principle in its room ,
and this system is liable to the same cen-
SUlre. -
In one thing, however, it differs remark-
ably from that of Epicurus. It allows that
there are disinterested affections in human
nature; that the love of children and rela-
tions, friendship, gratitude, compassion, and
humanity, are not, as Epicurus maintained,
different modifications of self-love, but simple
and original parts of the human constitu-
tion; that, when interest, or envy, or re-
venge, pervert not our disposition, we are
inclined, from natural philanthropy, to de-
sire, and to be pleased with the happiness
of the human kind.
All this, in opposition to the Epicurean
system, Mr Hume maintains with great
strength of reason and eloquence, and, in
this respect, his system is more liberal and
disinterested than that of the Greek phi-
losopher. According to Epicurus, virtue is
whatever is agreeable to ourselves—accord-
ing to Mr Hume, every quality of mind
that is agreeable or useful to ourselves or
to others.
This theory of the nature of virtue, it
must be acknowledged, enlarges greatly the
eatalogue of moral virtues, by bringing into
that catalogue every quality of mind tha's
is useful or agreeable. Nor does there
appear any good reason why the useful and
agreeable qualities of body and of fortune,
[409–411] -
652
[ESSAY v.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
as well as those of the mind, should not
have a place among moral virtues in this
system. They have the essence of vir-
tue; that is, agreeableness and utility—
tº. then should they not have the name P
412]
But, to compensate this addition to the
moral virtues, one class of them seems to
be greatly degraded and deprived of all
intrinsic merit. The useful virtues, as was
above observed, are only ministering ser-
vants of the agreeable, and purveyors for
them ; they must, therefore, be so far in-
ferior in dignity as hardly to deserve the
Sal Ile Ida, Ille.
Mr Hume, however, gives the name of
virtue to both ; and, to distinguish them,
calls the agreeable qualities natural virtues,
and the useful artificial.
The natural virtues are those natural
affections of the human constitution which
give immediate pleasure in their exercise.
Such are all the benevolent affections.
Nature disposes to them, and from their
own nature they are agreeable, both when
we exercise them ourselves, and when we
contemplate their exercise in others.
The artificial virtues are such as are
esteemed solely on account of their utility,
either to promote the good of society—as
justice, fidelity, honour, veracity, allegiance,
chastity; or on account of their utility to
the possessor—as industry, discretion, fru-
gality, Secrecy, order, perseverance, fore-
thought, judgment, and others, of which, he
says, many pages could not contain the
catalogue.
This general view of Mr Hume's system
concerning the foundation of morals, seemed
necessary, in order to understand distinctly
the meaning of that principle of his, which
is to be the subject of this chapter, and on
which he has bestowed much labour—to
wit, that justice is not a natural but an
artificial virtue. [413]
This system of the foundation of virtue is
so contradictory in many of its essential
points to the account we have before given
of the active powers of human nature, that,
if the one be true, the other must be
false.
If God has given to man a power which
we call conscience, the moral faculty, the
sense of duty, by which, when he comes to
years of understanding, he perceives certain
things that depend on his will to be his
duty, and other things to be base and un-
worthy; if the notion of duty be a simple
conception, of its own kind, and of a differ-
ent nature from the conceptions of utility
and agreeableness, of interest or reputation ;
if this moral faculty be the prerogative of
man, and no vestige of it be found in brute
animals; if it be given us by God to regu-
late all our animal affections and passions;
if to be governed by it, be the glory of man
and the image of God in his soul, and to
disregard its dictates be his dishonour and
depravity—I say, if these things be so, to
seek the foundation of morality in the affec-
tions which we have in common with the
brutes, is to seek the living among the
dead, and to change the glory of man, and
the image of God in his soul, into the simi-
litude of an ox that eateth grass.
If virtue and vice be a matter of choice,
they must consist in voluntary actions, or
in fixed purposes of acting according to a
certain rule when there is opportunity, and
not in qualities of mind which are involun-
tary.
It is true that every virtue is both agree-
able and useful in the highest degree; and
that every quality that is agreeable or use-
ful, has a merit upon that account. But
virtue has a merit peculiar to itself, a merit
which does not arise from its being useful
or agreeable, but from its being virtue.
This merit is discerned by the same faculty
by which we discern it to be virtue, and
by no other. [414]
We give the name of esteem both to the
regard we have for things useful and agree-
able, and to the regard we have for virtue;
but these are different kinds of esteem. I
esteem a man for his ingenuity and learn-
ing—I esteem him for his moral worth. The
sound of esteem in both these speeches is
the same, but its meaning is very dif-
ferent.
Good breeding is a very amiable quality;
and even if I knew that the man had no
motive to it but its pleasure and utility to
himself and others, I should like it still ;
but I would not in that case call it a moral
virtue.
A dog has a tender concern for her pup-
pies; so has a man for his children. The
natural affection is the same in both, and
is amiable in both. But why do we impute
moral virtue to the man on account of this
concern, and not to the dog P The reason
Surely is, That, in the man, the natural
affection is accompanied with a sense of
duty; but in the dog it is not. The same
thing may be said of all the kind affections
common to us with the brutes. They
are amiable qualities; but they are not
moral virtues.
What has been said relates to Mr Hume's
system in general. We are now to con-
sider his notion of the particular virtue of
justice—That its merit consists wholly in its
utility to society.
That justice is highly useful and neces-
sary in society, and, on that account, ought
to be loved and esteemed by all that love
mankind, will readily be granted. And as
justice is a social virtue, it is true also, that
there could be no exercise of it, and, per-
[412–414]
char v.]
OF JUSTICE. 653
haps, we should have no conception of it,
without society. But this is equally true
of the natural affections of benevolence,
gratitude, friendship, and compassion, which
Mr Hume makes to be the natural virtues.
[415]
It may be granted to Mr Hume, that
men have no conception of the virtue of jus-
tice till they have lived some time in so-
ciety. It is purely a moral conception, and
our moral conceptions and moral judgments
are not born with us. They grow up by
degrees, as our reason does. Nor do I pre-
tend to know how early, or in what order,
we acquire the conception of the several vir-
tues. The conception of justice supposes
some exercise of the moral faculty, which,
being the noblest part of the human con-
stitution, and that to which all its other
parts are subservient, appears latest.
It may likewise be granted, that there is.
no animal affection in human nature that
prompts us immediately to acts of justice,
as such. We have natural affections of the
animal kind, which immediately prompt us
to acts of kindness; but none, that I know,
that has the same relation to justice.
very conception of justice supposes a moral
faculty; but our natural kind affections do
not ; otherwise we must allow that brutes
have this faculty.
What I maintain is, first, That when men
come to the exercise of their moral faculty,
they perceive a turpitude in injustice, as
they do in other crimes, and consequently
an obligation to justice, abstracting from the
consideration of its utility. And, secondly,
That, as soon as men have any rational con-
ception of a favour, and of an injury, they
must have the conception of justice, and
perceive its obligation distinct from its util-
ity.
The first of these points hardly admits of
any other proof but an appeal to the sent-
iments of every honest man and every
man of honour, Whether his indignation is
not immediately inflamed against an atro-
cious act of villany, without the cool consi-
deration of its distant consequences upon
the good of society P [416]
We might appeal even to robbers and pi-
rates, whether they have not had great strug-
gles with their conscience, when they first
resolved to break through all the rules of
justice ; and whether, in a solitary and ser-
ious hour, they have not frequently felt the
pangs of guilt. They have very often con-
fessed this at a time when all disguise is laid
aside.
The common good of society, though a
pleasing object to all men, when presented
to their view, hardly ever enters into the
thoughts of the far greatest part of mankind;
and, if a regard to it were the sole motive to
justice, the number of honest men must be
The
Small indeed. It would be confined to
the higher ranks, who, by their educa-
tion or by their office, are led to make
the public good an object; but that it is so
confined, I believe no man will venture to
affirm.
The temptations to injustice are strong-
est in the lowest class of men ; and, if na-
ture had provided no motive to oppose those
temptations, but a sense of public good,
there would not be found an honest man
'in that class.
To all men that are not greatly corrupt-
ed, injustice, as well as cruelty and ingra-
titude, is an object of disapprobation on its
own account. There is a voice within us
that proclaims it to be base, unworthy, and
deserving of punishment.
That there is, in all ingenuous natures,
an antipathy to roguery and treachery, a
reluctance to the thoughts of villany and
baseness, we have the testimony of Mr
Hume himself; who, as I doubt not but he
felt it, has expressed it very strongly in the
conclusion to his “Enquiry,” and acknow-
ledged that, in some cases, without this re-
luctance and antipathy to dishonesty, a sen-
sible knave would find no sufficient motive
from public good to be honest. [4]7]
I shall give the passage at large from the
“ Enquiry concerning the Principles of
Morals,” Section 9, near the end.
“Treating vice with the greatest can-
dour, and making it all possible concessions,
we must acknowledge that there is not, in
any instance, the smallest pretext for giv-
ing it the preference above virtue, with a
view to self-interest; except, perhaps, in
the case of justice, where a man, taking
things in a certain light, may often seem to
be a loser by his integrity. And, though it
is allowed that, without a regard to property,
no society could subsist ; yet, according
to the imperfect way in which human af-
fairs are conducted, a sensible knave, in
particular incidents, may think that an act
of iniquity or infidelity will make a consider-
able addition to his fortune, without causing
any considerable breach in the social union
and confederacy. That honesty is the best
policy, may be a good general rule, but it
is liable to many exceptions: and he, it may
perhaps be thought, conducts himself with
most wisdom, who observes the general
rule, and takes advantage of all the excep-
tions.
“I must confess that, if a man think that
this reasoning much requires an answer, it
will be a little difficult to find any which
will to him appear satisfactory and con-
vincing. If his heart rebel not against such
pernicious maxims, if he feel no reluctance
to the thoughts of villany and baseness, he
has indeed lost a considerable motive to vir-
tue, and we may expect that his practice
[415–417]
654
[ESSAY v.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
will be answerable to his speculation. But,
in all ingenuous natures, the antipathy to
treachery and roguery is too strong to be
counterbalanced by any views of profit or
pecuniary advantage. Inward peace of
mind, consciousness of integrity, a satisfac-
tory review of our own conduct—these are
circumstances very requisite to happiness,
and will be cherished and cultivated by
every honest man who feels the importance
of them.” [418] -
The reasoning of the sensible knave in
this passage, seems to me to be justly
founded upon the principles of the “Em-
quiry” and of the “Treatise of Human Na-
ture,” and therefore it is no wonder that
the author should find it a little difficult to
give any answer which would appear satis-
factory and convincing to such a man. To
counterbalance this reasoning, he puts in
the other scale a reluctance, an antipathy,
a rebellion of the heart against such perni-
cious maxims, which is felt by ingenuous
natures.
Let us consider a little the force of Mr
Hume's answer to this sensible knave, who
reasons upon his own principles. I think
it is either an acknowledgment that there
is a natural judgment of conscience in man,
that injustice and treachery is a base and
unworthy practice—which is the point I
would establish ; or it has no force to
convince either the knave or an honest
IIla,D,
A clear and intuitive judgment, resulting
from the constitution of human nature, is
sufficient to overbalance a train of subtile
reasoning on the other side. Thus the test-
imony of our senses is sufficient to over-
balance all the subtile arguments brought
against their testimony. And, if there be
a like testimony of conscience in favour of
honesty, all the subtile reasoning of the
knave against it ought to be rejected with-
out examination, as fallacious and sophist-
ical, because it concludes against a self-evi-
dent principle ; just as we reject the subtile
reasoning of the metaphysician against the
evidence of sense.
If, therefore, the reluctance, the antipa-
thy, the rebellion of the heart against injust-
ice, which Mr Hume sets against the rea-
soning of the knave, include in their mean-
ing a natural intuitive judgment of con-
Science, that injustice is base and unworthy,
the reasoning of the knave is convincingly
answered; but the principle, That justice
is an artificial virtue, approved solely for its
utility, is given up. [419] -
If, on the other hand, the antipathy, re-
luctance, and rebellion of heart, imply no
judgment, but barely an uneasy feeling, and
that not natural, but acquired and artificial,
the answer is indeed very agreeable to the
principles of the “Enquiry,” but has no
force to convince the knave, or any other
Illa, Il. 4. -
The knave is here supposed by Mr Hume
to have no such feelings, and therefore the
answer does not touch his case in the least,
but leaves him in the full possession of his
reasoning. And ingenuous natures, who
have these feelings, are left to deliberate
whether they will yield to acquired and
artificial feelings, in opposition to rules of
conduct, which, to their best judgment,
appear wise and prudent.
The second thing I proposed to shew was,
That, as soon as men have any rational
conception of a favour and of an injury,
they must have the conception of justice,
and perceive its obligation.
The power with which the Author of
nature hath endowed us, may be employed
either to do good to our fellow-men, or to
hurt them. When we employ our power
to promote the good and happiness of others,
this is a benefit or favour ; when we employ
it to hurt them, it is an injury. Justice
fills up the middle between these two. It
is such a conduct as does no injury to
others; but it does not imply the doing
them any favour. [420]
The notions of a favour and of an injury,
appear as early in the mind of man as any
rational notion whatever. They are dis-
covered, not by language only, but by cer-
tain affections of mind, of which they are
the natural objects. A favour naturally
produces gratitude. An injury done to our-
Selves produces resentment ; and even when
done to another, it produces indignation.
I take it for granted that gratitude and
resentment are no less natural to the human
mind than hunger and thirst ; and that
those affections are no less naturally ex-
cited by their proper objects and occasions
than these appetites.
It is no less evident, that the proper and
formal object of gratitude is a person who
has done us a favour; that of resentment,
a person who has done us an injury.
Before the use of reason, the distinction
between a favour and an agreeable office is
not perceived. Every action of another
person which gives present pleasure pro-
duces love and good will towards the agent.
Every action that gives pain or uneasiness
produces resentment. This is common to
man before the use of reason, and to the
more sagacious brutes; and it shews no
conception of justice in either.
But, as we grow up to the use of reason,
the notion, both of a favour and of an in-
jury, grows more distinct and better de-
fined. It is not enough that a good office
be done; it must be done from good will,
and with a good intention, otherwise it is
no favour, nor does it produce gratitude.
I have heard of a physician who gave
[418–420]
cBAP. v.]
655
OF JUSTICE.
spiders in a medicine to a dropsical patient,
with an intention to poison him, and that
this medicine cured the patient, contrary
to the intention of the physician. Surely
no gratitude, but resentment, was, due by
the patient, when he knew the real state of
the case. It is evident to every man, that
a benefit arising from the action of another,
either without or against his intention, is
not a motive to gratitude ; that is, is no
favour. [421]
Another thing implied in the nature of a
favour is, that it be not due. A man may
save my credit by paying what he owes me.
In this case, what he does tends to my
benefit, and perhaps is done with that in-
tention ; but it is not a favour—it is no more
than he was bound to do.
If a servant do his work and receive his
wages, there is no favour done on either
part, nor any object of gratitude ; because,
though each party has benefited the other,
yet neither has done more than he was
bound to do.
What I infer from this is, That the con-
ception of a favour in every man come to
years of understanding, implies the concep-
tion of things not due, and consequently the
conception of things that are due.
A negative cannot be conceived by one
who has no conception of the correspondent
positive. Not to be due is the negative of
being due ; and he who conceives one of
them must conceive both. The conception
of things due and not due must therefore be
found in every mind which has any rational
conception of a favour, or any rational senti-
ment of gratitude.
If we consider, on the other hand, what
an injury is which is the object of the na-
tural passion of resentment, every man,
capable of reflection, perceives, that an in-
jury implies more than being hurt. If I
be hurt by a stone falling out of the wall,
or by a flash of lightning, or by a convul-
sive and involuntary motion of another
man's arm, no injury is done, no resent-
ment raised in a man that has reason. In
this, as in all moral actions, there must be
the will and intention of the agent to do the
hurt. [422] *
Nor is this sufficient to constitute an in-
jury. The man who breaks my fences, or
treads down my corn, when he cannot
otherwise preserve himself from destruc-
tion, who has no injurious intention, and is
willing to indemnify me for the hurt which
necessity, and not ill will, led him to do, is
not injurious, nor is an object of resentment.
The executioner who does his duty in
cutting off the head of a condemned crim-
inal, is not an object of resentment. He
does nothing unjust, and therefore nothing
injurious. -
From this it is evident, that an injury,
the object of the natural passion of resent-
ment, implies in it the notion of injustice.
And it is no less evident that no man can
have a notion of injustice without having
the notion of justice.
To sum up what has been said upon this
point, a favour, an act of justice, and an
injury, are so related to one another that
he who conceives one must conceive the
other two. They lie, as it were, in one
line, and resemble the relations of greater,
less, and equal. If one understands what is
meant by one line being greater or less than
another, he can be at no loss to understand
what is meant by its being equal to the
other ; for, if it be neither greater nor less,
it must be equal. -
In like manner, of those actions by which
we profit or hurt other men, a favour is
more than justice, an injury is less; and
that which is neither a favour nor an in-
jury is a just action.
As soon, therefore, as men come to have
any proper notion of a favour and of an in-
jury; as soon as they have any rational
exercise of gratitude and of resentment—so
soon they must have the conception of just-
ice and of injustice; and, if gratitude and
resentment be natural to man, which Mr
Hume allows, the notion of justice must be
no less natural. [423]
The notion of justice carries inseparably
along with it a perception of its moral obli-
gation. For, to say that such an action is
an act of justice, that it is due, that it ought
to be done, that we are under a moral obli-
gation to do it, are only different ways of
expressing the same thing. It is true, that
we perceive no high degree of moral worth
in a merely just action, when it is not op-
posed by interest or passion; but we per-
ceive a high degree of turpitude and demerit
in unjust actions, or in the omission of wha
justice requires. -
Indeed, if there were no other argument
to prove that the obligation of justice is
not solely derived from its utility to procure
what is agreeable either to ourselves or to
society, this would be sufficient, that the
very conception of justice implies its obli-
gation. The morality of justice is included
in the very idea of it: nor is it possible that
the conception of justice can enter into the
human mind, without carrying along with
it the conception of duty and moral obliga-
tion. Its obligation, therefore, is insepar-
able from its nature, and is not derived
solely from its utility, either to ourselves or
to society. . .
We may farther observe, that, as in all
moral estimation, every action takes its
denomination from the motive that pro-
duces it ; So no action can properly be de-
nominated an act of justice, unless it be
done from a regard to justice. [424]
[421–424]
656
[ESSAY v.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
If a man pays his debt, only that he may
not be cast into prison, he is not a just man,
because prudence, and not justice, is his
motive. And if a man, from benevolence
and charity, gives to another what is really
due to him, but what he believes not to be
due, this is not an act of justice in him, but
of charity or benevolence, because it is not
done from a motive of justice. These are
self-evident truths; nor is it less evident,
that what a man does, merely to procure
something agreeable, either to himself or
to others, is not an act of justice, nor has
the merit of justice.
Good music and good cookery have the
merit of utility, in procuring what is agree-
able both to ourselves and to society; but
they never obtained among mankind the
denomination of moral virtues. Indeed, if
this author’s system be well founded, great
injustice has been done them on that ac-
count. -
I shall now make some observations upon
the reasoning of this author, in proof of his
favourite principle, That justice is not a
natural but an artificial virtue ; or, as it is
expressed in the “Enquiry,” That public
utility is the sole origin of justice, and that
reflections on the beneficial consequences of
this virtue, are the sole foundation of its
merit.
1. It must be acknowledged that this
principle has a necessary connection with
his system concerning the foundation of all
virtue; and, therefore, it is no wonder that
he hath taken so much pains to support it;
for the whole system must stand or fall with
it. -
If the dulce and the utile—that is, plea-
sure, and what is useful to procure pleasure
—be the whole merit of virtue, justice can
have no merit beyond its utility to procure
pleasure. If, on the other hand, an intrin-
sic worth in justice, and demerit in injust-
ice, be discerned by every man that hath
a conscience ; if there be a matural principle
in the constitution of man by which justice
is approved, and injustice disapproved and
condemned—then the whole of this laboured
system must fall to the ground. [425]
2. We may observe, That, as justice is
directly opposed to injury, and as there are
various ways in which a man may be in-
jured, so there must be various branches of
justice opposed to the different kinds of
injury. w -
A man may be injured, first, in his per-
son, by wounding, maining, or killing him ;
secondly, in his family, by robbing him of
his children, or any way injuring those he
is bound to protect; thirdly, in his liberty,
by confinement; fourthly, in his reputation;
fifthly, in his goods, or property ; and,
lastly, in the violation of contracts or en-
gagements made with him. This enumera-
tion, whether complete or not, is sufficient
for the present purpose.
. The different branches of justice, opposed
to these different kinds of injury, are com-
monly expressed by saying, that an innocent
man has a right to the safety of his person
and family, a right to his liberty and reput-
ation, a right to his goods, and to fidelity
to engagements made with him. To say
that he has a right to these things, has pre-
cisely the same meaning as to say that
justice requires that he should be permitted
to enjoy them, or that it is unjust to violate
them ; for injustice is the violation of right,
and justice is to yield to every man what is
his right. -
These things being understood as the .
simplest and most common ways of express-
ing the various branches of justice, we are
to consider how far Mr Hume's reasoning
proves any or all of them to be artificial, or
| grounded solely upon public utility. The
last of them, fidelity to engagements, is to
be the subject of the next chapter, and,
therefore, I shall say nothing of it in this.
[426] -
The four first named—to wit, the right of
an innocent man to the safety of his person
and family, to his liberty and reputation,
are, by the writers on jurisprudence, called
natural rights of man, because they are
grounded in the nature of man as a rational
and moral agent, and are by his Creator
committed to his care and keeping. By
being called natural or innate, they, are
distinguished from acquired rights, which
suppose some previous act or deed of man
by which they are acquired; whereas natu-
ral rights suppose nothing of this kind.
When a man's natural rights are violated,
he perceives intuitively, and he feels that he
is injured. The feeling of his heart arises,
from the judgment of his understanding ;
for, if he did not believe that the hurt was
intended, and unjustly intended, he would
not have that feeling. He perceives that
injury is done to himself, and that he has a
right to redress. The natural principle of
resentment is roused by the view of its pro-
per object, and excites him to defend his
right. Even the injurious person is con-
scious of his doing injury; he dreads a just
retaliation ; and, if it be in the power of the
injured person, he expects it as due and de-
served. *
That these sentiments spring up in the
mind of man as naturally as his body grows
to its proper stature ; that they are not the
birth of instruction, either of parents,
priests, philosophers, or politicians, but the
pure growth of nature—cannot, I think,
without effrontery, be denied. We find
them equally strong in the most savage and
in the most civilized tribes of mankind;
and nothing can weaken them but an invete-
[425, 426]
CIl AP. v.]
657
(OF JUSTICE,
rate habit of rapine and bloolshed, which
benumbs the conscience, and turns men into
wild beasts.
The public good is very properly con-
sidered by the judge who punishes a private
injury, but seldom enters into the thought
of the injured person. In all criminal law,
the redress due to the private sufferer is
distinguished from that which is due to the
public ; a distinction which could have no
foundation, if the demerit of injustice arose
solely from its hurting the public. And
every man is conscious-of a specific differ-
ence between the resentment he feels for an
injury done to himself, and his indignation
against a wrong done to the public. [427]
I think, therefore, it is evident that, of
the six branches of justice we mentioned,
four are natural, in the strictest sense, being
founded upon the constitution of man, and
antecedent to all deeds and conventions of
Society ; so that, if there were but two men
upon the earth, one might be unjust and
injurious, and the other injured.
But does Mr Hume maintain the con-
trary 2
To this question I answer, That his doc-
trine seems to imply it; but I hope he meant
it not.
He affirms, in general, that justice is not
a natural virtue; that it derives its origin
solely from public utility; and that reflec-
tions on the beneficial consequences of this
virtue, are the sole foundation of its merit.
He mentions no particular branch of just.
ice as an exception to this general rule;
yet justice, in common language, and in all
the writers on jurisprudence I am acquainted
with, comprehends the four branches above
mentioned. His doctrine, therefore, ac-
cording to the common construction of
words, extends to these four, as well as to
the two other branches of justice.
On the other hand, if we attend to his
long and laboured proof of this doctrine, it
appears evident that he had in his eye only
two particular branches of justice. No
part of his reasoning applies to the other
four. He seems, I know not why, to have
taken up a confined notion of justice, and
to have restricted it to a regard to property
and fidelity in contracts. As to other
branches he is silent. He nowhere says,
that it is not naturally criminal to rob an
innocent man of his life, of his children, of
his liberty, or of his reputation ; and I am
apt to think hernever meant it. [428]
The only philosopher I know who has
had the assurance to maintain this, is Mr
Hobbes, who makes the state of nature to
be a state of war, of every man against
every man; and of such a war in which
every man has a right to do and to acquire
whatever his power can, by any means, ac-
complish—that is, a state wherein neither
right nor injury, justice nor injustice, can
possibly exist.
Mr Hume mentions this system of
Hobbes, but without adopting it, though he
allows it the authority of Cicero in its favour.
He says, in a note, “This fiction of a
state of nature as a state of war was not
first started by Mr Hobbes, as is commonly
imagined. Plato endeavours to refute an
hypothesis very like it, in the 2d, 3d, and
4th books, ‘De Republica.” Cicero, on
the contrary, supposes it certain and uni-
versally acknowledged, in the following pas-
Sage,” &c.—Pro Sertão, Ś 42.
The passage, which he quotes at large
from one of Cicero's orations, seems to me
to require some straining to make it tally
with the system of Mr Hobbes. Be this as
it may, Mr Hume might have added, That
Cicero, in his orations, alike many other
pleaders, sometimes says not what he be-
lieved, but what was fit to support the cause
of his client. That Cicero's opinion, with
regard to the natural obligation of justice,
was very different from that of Mr Hobbes,
and even from Mr Hume's, is very well
known. [429]
3. As Mr Hume, therefore, has said
nothing to prove the four branches of just-
ice which relate to the innate rights of
men, to be artificial, or to derive their ori-
gin solely from public utility, I proceed to
the fifth branch, which requires us not to
invade another man's property.
The right of property is not innate, but
acquired. It is not grounded upon the con-
stitution of man ; but upon his actions.
Writers on jurisprudence have explained
its origin in a manner that may satisfy every
man of common understanding.
The earth is given to men in common
for the purposes of life, by the bounty of
Heaven. But, to divide it, and appropriate
one part of its produce to one, another part
to another, must be the work of men who
have power and understanding given them.
by which every man may accommodate him-
self without hurt to any other..
This common right of every man to what
the earth produces, before it be occupied
and appropriated by others, was, by ancient
moralists, very properly compared to the
right which every citizen had to the public
theatre, where every man that came might
occupy an empty seat, and thereby acquire
a right to it while the entertainment lasted,
but no man had a right to dispossess an-
other. . .
The earth is a great theatre, furnished by
the Almighty, with perfect wisdom and
goodness, for the entertainment and employ-
ment of all mankind. Here every man has
a right to accommodate himself as a spec-
tator, and to perform his part as an actor,
but without hurt to others.
[427–429]
2 U
658
[ESSAY v.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
He who does so is a just man, and thereby
entitled to some degree of moral approba-
tion; and he who not only does no hurt,
but employs his power to do good, is a good
man, and is thereby entitled to a higher de-
gree of moral approbation. But he who
jostles and molests his neighbour, who de-
prives him of any accommodation which
his industry has provided without hurt to
others, is unjust, and a proper object of
resentment. [430]
It is true, therefore, that property has a
beginning from the actions of men, occupy-
ing, and, perhaps, improving by their in-
dustry, what was common by nature. It is
true, also, that, before property exists, that
branch of justice and injustice which re-
gards property cannot exist. But it is also
true, that, where there are men, there will
very soon be property of one kind or an-
other, and, consequently, there will be that
branch of justice which attends property as
its guardian.
There are two kinds of property which we
may distinguish.
The first is what must presently be con-
sumed to sustain life ; the second, which is
more permanent, is, what may be laid up
and stored for the supply of future wants.
Some of the gifts of nature must be used
and consumed by individuals for the daily
support of life; but they cannot be used
till they be occupied and appropriated. If
another person may, without injustice, rob
me of what I have innocently occupied for
present subsistence, the necessary conse-
quence must be, that he may, without in-
justice, take away my life.
A right to life implies a right to the neces-
sary means of life. And that justice which
forbids the taking away the life of an inno-
cent man, forbids no less the taking from
him the necessary means of life. He has
the same right to defend the one as the
other ; and nature inspires him with the
Same just resentment of the one injury as
of the other. [43]]
The natural right of liberty implies a
right to such innocent labour as a man
chooses, and to the fruit of that labour. To
hinder another man's innocent labour, or to
deprive him of the fruit of it, is an injust-
ice of the same kind, and has the same
effect, as to put him in fetters or in prison,
and is equally a just object of resentment.
Thus it appears, that some kind, or some
degree, of property must exist wherever
men exist, and that the right to such pro-
perty is the necessary consequence of the
natural right of men to life and liberty.
It has been further observed, that God
has made man a Sagacious and provident
animal, led by his constitution not only to
occupy and use what nature has provided
for the supply of his present wants and
necessities, but to foresee future wants, and
to provide for them ; and that not only for
himself, but for his family, his friends, and
connections. -
He therefore acts in perfect conformity
to his nature, when he stores, of the fruit
of his labour, what may afterwards be use-
ful to himself or to others; when he invents
and fabricates utensils or machines by which
his labour may be facilitated, and its pro-
duce increased; and when, by exchanging
with his fellow-men commodities or labour,
he accommodates both himself and them.
These are the natural and innocent exer-
tions of that understanding wherewith his
Maker has endowed him. He has there-
fore a right to exercise them, and to enjoy
the fruit of them. Every man who impedes
him in making such exertions, or deprives
him of the fruit of them, is injurious and
unjust, and an object of just resentment.
Many brute-animals are led by instinct
to provide for futurity, and to defend their
store, and their store-house, against all in-
vaders. There seems to be in man, before
the use of reason, an instinct of the same
kind. When reason and conscience grow
up, they approve and justify this provident
care, and condemn, as unjust, every inva-
sion of others, that may frustrate it. [432]
Two instances of this provident Sagacity
seem to be peculiar to man : I mean the
invention of utensils and machines for facili-
tating labour, and the making exchanges
with his fellow-men for mutual benefit. No
tribe of men has been found so rude as not
to practise these things in some degree.
And I know no tribe of brutes that was ever
observed to practise them. They neither
invent nor use utensils or machines, nor do
they traffic by exchanges. -
From these observations, I think it evi-
dent that man, even in the state of nature,
by his powers of body and mind, may ac-
quire permanent property, or what we call
Tiches, by which his own and his family’s
wants are more liberally supplied, and his
power enlarged to requite his benefactors,
to relieve objects of compassion, to make
friends, and to defend his property against
unjust invaders. And we know from history,
that men, who had no superior on earth,
no connection with any public beyond their
own family, have acquired property, and
had distinct notions of that justice and in-
justice of which it is the object.
Every man, as a reasonable creature, has
a right to gratify his natural and innocent
desires, without hurt to others. No desire
is more natural, or more reasonable, than
that of supplying his wants. When this is
done without hurt to any man, to hinder or
frustrate his innocent labour, is an unjust
violation of his natural liberty. Private
utility leads a man to desire property, and
[430–432]
GHAP. v.]
659
OF JUSTICE.
to labour for it ; and his right to it is only
a right to labour for his own benefit. [433]
That public utility is the sole origin, even
of that branch of justice which regards pro-
perty, is so far from being true, that, when
men confederate and constitute a public,
under laws and government, the right of
each individual to his property is, by that
confederation, abridged and limited. In the
state of nature every man's property was
solely at his own disposal, because he had
no superior. In civil society it must be
subject to the laws of the society. He gives
up to the public part of that right which he
had in the state of nature, as the price of
that protection and security which he re-
ceives from civil society. In the state of
nature, he was sole judge in his own cause,
and had right to defend his property, his
Iiberty, and life, as far as his power reached.
In the state of civil society, he must sub-
mit to the judgment of the society, and ac-
quiesce in its sentence, though he should
conceive it to be unjust.
What was said above, of the natural right
every man has to acquire permanent pro-
perty, and to dispose of it, must be under-
stood with this condition, That no other
man be thereby deprived of the necessary
means of life. The right of an innocent
man to the necessaries of life, is, in its
nature, superior to that which the rich man
has to his riches, even though they be
honestly acquired. The use of riches, or
permanent property, is to supply future and
casual wants, which ought to yield to pre-
sent and certain necessity.
As, in a family, justice requires that the
children who are unable to labour, and
those who, by sickness, are disabled, should
have their necessities supplied out of the
common stock, so, in the great family of
God, of which all mankind are the children,
justice, I think, as well as charity, requires,
that the necessities of those who, by the
providence of God, are disabled from sup-
plying themselves, should be supplied from
what might otherwise be stored for future
wants. [434]
From this it appears, That the right of
acquiring and that of disposing of property,
may be subject to limitations and restric-
tions, even in the state of nature, and much
more in the state of civil society, in which
the public has what writers in jurisprudence
call an eminent dominion over the property,
as well as over the lives of the subjects, as
far as the public good requires.
If these principles be well founded, Mr
Hume's arguments to prove that justice is
an artificial virtue, or that its public utility
is the sole foundation of its merit, may be
easily answered.
He supposes, first, a state in which nature
has bestowed on the human race, such
abundance of external goods, that everyman,
without care or industry, finds himself pro-
vided of whatever he can wish or desire. It
is evident, says he, that, in such a state,
the cautious, jealous virtue of justice would
never once have been dreamed of.
It may be observed, first, That this argu-
ment applies only to one of the six branches
of justice before mentioned. The other
five are not in the least affected by it ; and
the reader will easily perceive that this
observation applies to almost all his argu-
ments, so that it needs not be repeated.
Secondly, All that this argument proves
is, That a state of the human race may be
conceived wherein no property exists, and
where, of consequence, there can be no
exercise of that branch of justice which re-
spects property. But does it follow from
this, that where property exists, and must
exist, that no regard ought to be had to it 2
He next supposes that the necessities of
the human race continuing the same as at
present, the mind is so enlarged with friend-
ship and generosity, that every man feels as
much tenderness and concern for the interest
of every man, as for his own. It seems
evident, he says, that the use of justice
would be suspended by such an extensive
benevolence, nor would the divisions and
barriers of property and obligation have ever
been thought of. [435]
I answer, The conduct which this extensive
benevolence leads to, is either perfectly con-
sistent with justice, or it is not. First, If
there be any case where this benevolence
would lead us to do injustice, the use of just-
ice is not suspended. Its obligation is super-
ior to that of benevolence ; and, to shew be-
nevolence to one, at the expense of injustice
to another, is immoral. Secondly, Supposing
no such case could happen, the use of just-
ice would not be suspended, because by it
we must distinguish good offices to which
we had a right, from those to which he
had no right, and which therefore require
a return of gratitude. Thirdly, Suppos-
ing the use of justice to be suspended, as
it must be in every case where it cannot
be exercised, Will it follow, that its obliga-
tion is suspended, where there is access to
exercise it 2
A third supposition is, the reverse of the
first, That a society falls into extreme want
of the necessaries of life : The question is
put, Whether, in such a case, an equal part-
ition of bread, without regard to private
property, though effected by power, and
even by violence, would be regarded as cri-
minal and injurious 2 And the author con-
ceives that this would be a suspension of
the strict laws of justice.
I answer, That such an equal partition
as Mr Hume mentions, is so far from be-
ing criminal or injurious, that justice re-
[433–435]
2 U 2
660
[ESSAY v.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
quires it ; and Surely that cannot be a sus-
pension of the laws of justice, which is an
act of justice. All that the strictest justice
requires in such a case, is, That the man
whose life is preserved at the expense of
another, and without his consent, should
indemnify him when he is able. His case
is similar to that of a debtor who is insolv-
ent, without any fault on his part. Justice
requires that he should be forborne till he is
able to pay. It is strange that Mr Hume
should think that an action, neither crim-
inal nor injurious, should be a suspension
of the laws of justice. This seems to me a
contradiction ; for justice and injury are
contradictory terms. [436]
The next argument is thus expressed :-
“When any man, even in political society,
renders himself, by crimes, obnoxious to
the public, he is punished in his goods and
person—that is, the ordinary rules of just-
ice are, with regard to him, suspended for a
moment, and it becomes equitable to inflict
on him what otherwise he could not suffer
without wrong or injury.”
This argument, like the former, refutes
itself. For that an action should be a sus-
pension of the rules of justice, and at the
same time equitable, seems to me a contra-
diction. It is possible that equity may in-
terfere with the letter of human laws, be-
cause all the cases that may fall under them,
cannot be foreseen; but that equity should
interfere with justice is impossible. It is
Strange that Mr Hume should think that
justice requires that a criminal should be
treated in the same way as an innocent
Iſlan,
Another argument is taken from public
war. What is it, says he, but a suspension
of justice among the warring parties 2 The
laws of war, which then succeed to those
of equity and justice, are rules calculated
for the advantage and utility of that parti-
cular state in which men are now placed.
I answer, when war is undertaken for self-
defence, or for reparation of intolerable in-
juries, justice authorizes it. The laws of
war, which have been described by many
judicious moralists, are all drawn from the
fountain of justice and equity; and every-
thing contrary to justice, is contrary to the
laws of war. That justice which prescribes
One rule of conduct to a master, another to
a servant ; one to a parent, another to a
child—prescribes also one rule of conduct
towards a friend, another towards an enemy.
I do not understand what Mr Hume means
by the advantage and utility of a state of
war, for which he says the laws of war are
calculated and succeed to those of justice
and equity. I know no laws of war that
are not calculated for justice and equity.
[437]
The next argument is this—Were there a
[436–438]
species of creatures intermingled with men,
which, though rational, were possessed of
such inferior strength, both of body and
mind, that they were incapable of all re-
sistance, and could never, upon the highest
provocation, make us feel the effects of
their resentment; the necessary conse-
quence, I think, is, that we should be bound,
by the laws of humanity, to give gentle
usage to these creatures, but should not,
properly speaking, lie under any restraint
of justice with regard to them, nor could
they possess any right or property, exclu-
sive of such arbitrary lords.
If Mr Hume had not owned this senti-
ment as a consequence of his Theory of
Morals, I should have thought it very un-
charitable to impute it to him. However,
we may judge of the Theory by its avowed
consequence. For there cannot be better
evidence that a theory of morals, or of any
particular virtue, is false, than when it
subverts the practical rules of morals.
This defenceless species of rational crea-
tures, is doomed by Mr Hume to have no
rights. Why? Because they have no
power to defend themselves. Is not this
to say—That right has its origin from
power ; which, indeed, was the doctrine of
Mr Hobbes. And to illustrate this doc-
trine, Mr Hume adds—That, as no incon-
venience ever results from the exercise of
a power so firmly established in nature, the
restraints of justice and property, being
totally useless, could never have place in
so unequal a confederacy; and, to the same
purpose, he says, that the female part of
our own species owe the share they have
in the rights of society, to the power which
their address and their charms give them.
If this be sound morals, Mr Hume's Theory
of Justice may be true. [438] iº
We may here observe, that, though, in
other places, Mr Hume founds the obliga-
tion of justice upon its utility to ourselves
or to others, it is here founded solely upon
utility to ourselves. For surely to be treated
with justice would be highly useful to the
defenceless species he here supposes to ex-
ist. But, as no inconvenience to ourselves
can ever result from our treatment of
them, he concludes, that justice would be
useless, and therefore can have no place.
Mr Hobbes could have said no more.
He supposes, in the last place, a state
of human nature wherein all society and
intercourse is cut off between man and
man. It is evident, he says, that So So-
litary a being would be as much incapable
of justice as of social discourse and convers-
ation.
And would not so solitary a being be as
incapable of friendship, generosity, and com-
passion, as of justice 2 If this argument
prove justice to be an artificial virtue, it
CHAP. v.]
661
OF JUSTICE.
will, with equal force, prove every social
virtue to be artificial.
These are the arguments which Mr Hume
has advanced in his “ Enquiry,” in the
first part of a long section upon justice.
In the second part, the arguments are
not so clearly distinguished, nor can they
be easily collected. I shall offer some re-
marks upon what seems most specious in
this second part.
He begins with observing—“That, if
we examine the particular laws by which
justice is directed and property determined,
they present us with the same conclusion.
The good of mankind is the only object of
all those laws and regulations.” [439]
It is not easy to perceive where the stress
of this argument lies. The good of man-
kind is the object of all the laws and regula.
tions by which justice is directed and pro-
perty determined; therefore, justice is not a
natural virtue, but has its origin solely from
public utility, and its beneficial consequences
are the sole foundation of its merit.
Some step seems to be wanting to connect
the antecedent proposition with the conclu-
sion, which, I think, must be one or other
of these two propositions—first, All, the
Tules of justice tend to public utility; or,
secondly, Public utility is the only standard
of justice, from which alone all its rules
must be deduced.
If the argument be, That justice must
have its origin solely from public utility,
because all its rules tend to public utility, I
cannot admit the consequence; nor can Mr
Hume admit it without overturning his own
system ; for the rules of benevolence and
humanity do all tend to the public utility ;
and yet, in his system, they have another
foundation in human nature; so likewise
may the rules of justice.
I am apt to think, therefore, that the
argument is to be taken in the last sense,
That public utility is the only standard of
justice, from which all its rules must be
deduced ; and therefore justice has its origin
solely from public utility.
This seems to be Mr Hume's meaning,
because, in what follows, he observes, That,
in order to establish laws for the regulation
of property, we must be acquainted with
the nature and situation of man ; must re-
ject appearances which may be false though
specious; and must search for those rules
which are, on the whole, most useful and
beneficial; and endeavours to shew, that the
established rules which regard property are
more for the public good than the system,
either of those religious famatics of the last
age who held that Saints only should in-
herit the earth, or of those political fanatics
who claimed an equal division of property.
We see here, as before, that, though Mr
Hume's conclusion respects justice in gene-
ral, his argument is confined to one branch
of justice—to wit, the right of property; and
it is well known that, to conclude from a
part to the whole is not good reasoning. [440]
Besides, the proposition from which his
conclusion is drawn cannot be granted,
either with regard to property, or with re-
gard to the other branches of justice.
We endeavoured before to shew that
property, though not an innate but an ac-
quired right, may be acquired in the state
of nature, and agreeably to the laws of na-
ture ; and that this right has not its origin
from human laws, made for the public
good, though, when men enter into political
Society, it may and ought to be regulated
by those laws. -
If there were but two men upon the face
of the earth, of ripe faculties, each might
have his own property, and might know his
right to defend it, and his obligation not to
invade the property of the other. He would
have no need to have recourse to reasoning
from public good, in order to know when he
was injured, either in his property or in any
of his natural rights, or to know what rules
of justice he ought to observe towards his
neighbour.
The simple rule, of not doing to his neigh-
bour what he would think wrong to be done
to himself, would lead him to the knowledge
of every branch of justice, without the con-
sideration of public good, or of laws and
statutes made to promote it. [44] ]
It is not true, therefore, that public utility
is the only standard of justice, and that the
rules of justice can be deduced only from
their public utility.
Aristides, and the people of Athens, had
surely another notion of justice, when he
pronounced the counsel of Themistocles,
which was communicated to him only, to
be highly useful, but unjust ; and the as-
sembly, upon this authority, rejected the
proposal unheard." These honest citizens,
though subject to no laws but of their own
making, far from making utility the stand-
ard of justice, made justice to be the stand-
ard of utility.
“ What is a man's property 2 Anything
which it is lawful for him, and for him alone,
to use. But what rule. have we by which
we can distinguish-these objects 2 Here we
must have recourse to statutes, customs,
precedents, analogies, &c.”
Does not this imply that, in the state of
nature, there can be no distinction of pro-
perty 2 If so, Mr Hume's state of nature
is the same with that of Mr Hobbes.
It is true that, when men become mem-
bers of a political society, they subject their
* Had they heard it, there would not probably
have been found the same unanimity. The rejection
of a vague abstraction is very different from that of
a specific reality.—H.
[489–441]
662
[ESSAY v.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
property, as well as themselves, to the laws,
and must either acquiesce in what the laws
determine, or leave the society. But just-
ice, and even that particular branch of it
which our author always supposes to be the
whole, is antecedent to political societies
and to their laws; and the intention of these
laws is, to be the guardians of justice, and
to redress injuries. -
As all the works of men are imperfect,
human laws may be unjust ; which could
never be, if justice had its origin from law,
as the author seems here to insinuate. [442]
Justice requires that a member of a
state should submit to the laws of the state,
when they require nothing unjust or im-
pious. There may, therefore, be statutory
rights and statutory crimes. A statute
may create a right which did not before exist,
or make that to be criminal which was not
so before. But this could never be, if
there were not an antecedent obligation
upon the subjects to obey the statutes. In
like manner, the command of a master may
make that to be the servant's duty which,
before, was not his duty, and the servant
may be chargeable with injustice if he dis-
obeys, because he was under an antecedent
obligation to obey his master in lawful
things. -
We grant, therefore, that particular laws
may direct justice and determine property,
and sometimes even upon very slight rea-
Sons and analogies, or even for no other
reason but that it is better that such a point
should be determined by law than that it
should be left a dubious subject of conten-
tion. But this, far from presenting us with
the conclusion which the author would
establish, presents us with a contrary con-
clusion. For all these particular laws and
statutes derive their whole obligation and
force from a general rule of justice antece-
dent to them—to wit, That subjects ought
to obey the laws of their country.
. The author compares the rules of justice
with the most frivolous superstitions, and
can find no foundation for moral sentiment
in the one more than in the other, except-
ine that justice is requisite to the well-being
and existence of society.
It is very true that, if we examine mine
and thing by the senses of sight, smell, or
touch, or scrutinize them by the sciences of
medicine, chemistry, or physics, we perceive
no difference. But the reason is, that none
of these senses or sciences are the judges
of right or wrong, or can give any conception
of them any more than the ear of colour, or
the eye of sound. Every man of common
understanding, and every savage, when he
applies his moral faculty to those objects,
perceives a difference as clearly as he per-
ceives day-light. When that sense or fa-
culty is not consulted, in vain do we con-
sult every other, in a question of right and
wrong. [443]
To perceive that justice tends to the good
of mankind, would lay no moral obligation
upon us to be just, unless we be conscious
of a moral obligation to do what tends to
the good of mankind. If such a moral obli-
gation be admitted, why may we not admit a
stronger obligation to do injury to no man 2
The last obligation is as easily conceived as
the first, and there is as clear evidence of
its existence in human nature.
The last argument is a dilemma, and is
thus expressed :—“The dilemma seems
obvious. As justice evidently tends to pro-
mote public utility, and to support civil
Society, the sentiment of justice is either
derived from our reflecting on that tend-
ency, or, like hunger, thirst, and other ap-
petites, resentment, love of life, attachment .
to offspring, and other passions, arises from
a simple original instinct in the human
breast, which nature has implanted for like
Salutary purposes. If the latter be the case,
it follows, That property, which is the ob-
ject of justice, is also distinguished by a
simple original instinct, and is not ascer-
tained by any argument or reflection. But
who is there that ever heard of such an
instinct,” &c.
I doubt not but Mr Hume has heard of
a principle called conscience, which nature
has implanted in the human breast.
Whether he will call it a simple original
instinct I know not, as he gives that name
to all our appetites, and to all our passions.
From this principle, I think, we derive the
sentiment of justice. [444]
As the eye not only gives us the concep-
tion of colours, but makes us perceive one
body to have one colour, and another body
another; and as our reason not only gives
us the conception of true and false, but
makes us perceive one proposition to be
true and another to be false ; SO our con-
science, or moral faculty, not only gives us
the conception of honest and dishonest,
but makes us perceive one kind of conduct
to be honest, another to be dishonest. By
this faculty we perceive a merit in honest
conduct, and a demerit in dishonest, with-
out regard to public utility.
That these sentiments are not the effect
of education or of acquired habits, we have
the same reason to conclude as that our
perception of what is true and what false, is
not the effect of education or of acquired
habits. There have been men who pro-
fessed to believe that there is no ground to
assent to any one proposition rather than
its contrary; but I never yet heard of a
man who had the effrontery to profess him-
self to be under no obligation of honour or
honesty, of truth or justice, in his dealings
with men.
[442–444]
CHAP. VI.] OF THE NATURE
OF A CONTRACT. 663
Nor does this faculty of conscience re-
quire innate ideas of property, and of the
various ways of acquiring and transferring
it, or innate ideas of kings and senators, of
praetors, and chancellors, and juries, any
more than the faculty of seeing requires in-
nate ideas of colours, or than the faculty of
reasoning requires innate ideas of cones,
cylinders, and spheres. [445]
CHAPTER VI.
OF THE NATURE AND OBLIGATION OF A
CONTRACT,
THE obligation of Contracts and Promises
is a matter so sacred, and of such conse-
quence to human Society, that speculations
which have a tendency to weaken that obli-
gation, and to perplex men's notions on a
subject so plain and so important, ought to
meet with the disapprobation of all honest
Rlle II.
Some such speculations, I think, we have
in the third volume of Mr Hume’s “Trea-
tise of Human Nature,” and in his “ En-
quiry into the Principles of Morals;” and
my design in this chapter is, to offer some
observations on the nature of a contract or
promise, and on two passages of that author
on this subject.
I am far from saying or thinking that
Mr Hume meant to weaken men’s obliga-
tions to honesty and fair dealing, or that he
had not a sense of these obligations himself.
It is not the man I impeach, but his writ-
ings. Let us think of the first as charitably
as we can, while we freely examine the im-
port and tendency of the last.
Although the nature of a contract and of
a promise is perfectly understood by all men
of common understanding ; yet, by atten-
tion to the operations of mind signified by
these words, we shall be better enabled to
judge of the metaphysical subtilties which
have been raised about them. A promise
and a contract differ so little in what con-
cerns the present disquisition, that the same
reasoning (as Mr Hume justly observes)
extends to both. In a promise, one party
only comes under the obligation, the other
acquires a right to the prestation promised.
But we give the name of a contract to a
transaction in which each party comes under
an obligation to the other, and each recipro-
cally acquires a right to what is promised
by the other. [446]
The Latin word Pactum seems to extend
to both ; and the definition given of it in
the Civil Law, and borrowed from Ulpian,
is, Duorum pluriumve in idem placitum
consensus. Titius, a modern Civilian, has
endeavoured to make this definition more
complete, by adding the words, obligationis
licitè constituendae vel tollendae causa datus.
With this addition, the definition is, that
a Contract is the consent of two or more per-
sons in the same thing, given with the inten-
tion of constituting or dissolving lawfully
some obligation.
. This definition is, perhaps, as good as any
other that can be given ; yet, I believe,
every man will acknowledge that it gives
him no clearer or more distinct notion of a
contract than he had before. If it is con-
sidered as a strictly logical definition, I be-
lieve some objections might be made to it ;
but I forbear to mention them, because I
believe that similar objections might be made
to any definition of a contract that can be
given.
Nor can it be inferred from this, that the
notion of a contract is not perfectly clear
in every man come to years of understand-
ing. For this is common to many opera-
tions of the mind, that, although we under-
stand them perfectly, and are in no danger
of confounding them with anything else;
yet we cannot define them according to the
rules of logic, by a genus and a specific dif-
ference. And when we attempt it, we
rather darken than give light to them.
Is there anything more distinctly under-
stood by all men, than what it is to see, to
hear, to remember, to judge 2 Yet it is the
most difficult thing in the world to define
these operations according to the rules of
logical definition. But it is not more diffi-
cult than it is useless. [447]
Sometimes philosophers attempt to de-
fine them ; but, if we examine their defin-
itions, we shall find that they amount to no
more than giving one synonymous word for
another, and commonly a worse for a better.
So, when we define a contract, by calling it
a consent, a convention, an agreement, what
is this but giving a synonymous word for it,
and a word that is neither more expressive
nor better understood 2 -
One boy has a top, another a scourge ;
says the first to the other, If you will lend
me your scourge as long as I can keep up
my top with it, you shall next have the top
as long as you can keep it up. Agreed,
says the other. This is a contract perfectly
understood by both parties, though they
never heard of the definition given by
Ulpian or by Titius. And each of them
knows that he is injured if the other breaks
the bargain, and that he does wrong if he
breaks it himself.
The operations of the human mind may
be divided into two classes, the Solitary and
the Social. As promises and contracts be-
long to the last class, it may be proper to
explain this division.
I call those operations solitary which may
be performed by a man in solitude, without
intercourse with any other intelligent being,
[445–447]
664
[Essay v.
- ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
I call those operations social which neces-
sarily imply social intercourse with some
other intelligent being who bears a part in
them. [448]
A man may see, and hear, and remember,
and judge, and reason; he may deliberate
and form purposes, and execute them, with-
out the intervention of any other intelligent
being. They are solitary aets. But, when
he asks a question for information, when he
testifies a fact, when he gives a command to
his servant, when he makes a promise, or
enters into a contract, these are social acts
of mind, and can have no existence without
the intervention of some other intelligent
being, who acts a part in them. Between
the operations of the mind, which, for want
of a more proper name, I have called soli-
tary, and those I have called social, there
is this very remarkable distinction, that, in
the solitary, the expression of them by words,
or any other sensible sign, is accidental.
They may exist, and be complete, without
being expressed, without being known to
any other person. But, in the social opera-
tions, the expression is essential. They
cannot exist without being expressed by
words or signs, and known to the other
party.
If nature had not made man capable of
such social operations of mind, and fur-
mished him with a language to express
them, he might think, and reason, and de-
liberate, and will; he might have desires
and aversions, joy and sorrow ; in a word,
he might exert all those operations of mind
which the writers in logic and pneumatology
have so copiously described; but, at the
same time, he would still be a solitary being,
even when in a crowd ; it would be impos-
sible for him to put a question, or give a
command, to ask a favour, or testify a fact,
to make a promise, or a bargain.
I take it to be the common opinion of
philosophers, That the social operations of
the human mind are not specifically differ-
ent from the solitary, and that they are
only various modifications or compositions
of our solitary operations, and may be re-
solved into them.
It is for this reason, probably, that, in
enumerating the operations of the mind,
the solitary only are mentioned, and no
notice at all taken of the social, though they
are familiar to every man, and have names
in all languages. [449]
I apprehend, however, it will be found
extremely difficult, if not impossible, to
resolve our social operations into any modi-
fication or composition of the solitary; and
that an attempt to do this would prove as
ineffectual as the attempts that have been
made to resolve all our social affections into
the selfish. The social operations appear
to be as simple in their nature as the soli-
tary. They are found in every individual -
of the species, even before the use of rea-
SOIl,
- The power which man has of holding so-
cial intercourse with his kind, by asking
and refusing, threatening and supplicating,
commanding and obeying, testifying and
promising, must either be a distinct faculty
given by our Maker, and a part of our con-
stitution, like the powers of seeing and hear-
ing, or it must be a human invention. If
men have invented this art of social inter-
course, it must follow, that every individual
of the species must have invented it for
himself. It cannot be taught ; for, though,
when once carried to a certain pitch, it may
be improved by teaching; yet it is impossi-
ble it can begin in that way, because all
teaching supposes a social intercourse and
language already established between the
teacher and the learner. This intercourse
must, from the very first, be carried on by
sensible signs; for the thoughts of other
men can be discovered in no other way. I
think it is likewise evident, that this inter-
course, in its beginning at least, must be
carried on by natural signs, whose meaning
is understood by both parties, previous to all
compact or agreement. For there can be
no compact without signs, nor without so-
cial intercourse.
I apprehend, therefore, that the social
intereourse of mankind, consisting of those
social operations which I have mentioned,
is the exercise of a faculty appropriated to
that purpose, which is the gift of God, no
less than the powers of seeing and hearing.
And that, in order to carry on this inter-
course, God has given to man a natural
language, by which his social operations are
expressed, and without which, the artificial
languages of articulate sounds, and of writ-
ing, could never have been invented by hu-
man art. [450]
The signs in this natural language are
looks, changes of the features, modulations
of the voice, and gestures of the body. All
men understand this language without in-
struction, and all men can use it in some
degree. But they are most expert in it
who use it most. It makes a great part of
the language of Savages, and therefore they
are more expert in the use of natural signs
than the civilized.
The language of dumb persons is mostly
formed of natural signs; and they are all
great adepts in this language of nature.
All that we call action and pronunciation,
in the most perfect orator, and the most
admired actor, is nothing else but superadd-
ing the language of nature to the language
of articulate sounds. The pantomimes
among the Romans carried it to the high-
est pitch of perfection. For they could act
parts of comedies and tragedies in dumb-
[448–450ſ
CHAP. v1.]
66.5
OF THE NATURE OF A CONTRACT.
show, so as to be understood, not only by
those who were accustomed to this enter-
tainment, but by all the strangers that
came to Rome, from all the corners of the
earth.
For it may be observed of this natural
language, (and nothing more clearly de-
monstrates it to be a part of the human con-
stitution,) that, although it require practice
and study to enable a man to express his
sentiments by it in the most perfect man-
ner; yet it requires neither study nor prac-
tice in the spectator to understand it. The
knowledge of it was before latent in the
mind, and we no sooner see it than we im-
mediately recognise it, as we do an acquaint-
ance whom we had long forgot, and could
not have described ; but no sooner do we
see him, than we know for certain that he
is the very man. [45]]
This knowledge, in all mankind, of the
natural signs of men's thoughts and senti-
ments, is indeed so like to reminiscence
that it seems to have led Plato to conceive
all human knowledge to be of that kind.
It is not by reasoning that all mankind
know that an open countenance and a
placid eye is a sign of amity ; that a con-
tracted brow and a fierce look is the sign
of anger. It is not from reason that we
learn to know the natural signs of consent-
ing and refusing, of affirming and denying,
of threatening and supplicating.
No man can perceive any necessary con-
nection between the signs of such opera-
tions, and the things signified by them.
But we are so formed by the Author of our
nature, that the operations themselves be-
come visible, as it were, by their natural
signs. This knowledge resembles reminis-
cence, in this respect, that it is immediate.
We form the conclusion with great assur-
ance, without knowing any premises from
which it may be drawn by reasoning.
It would lead us too far from the inten-
tion of the present inquiry, to consider,
more particularly, in what degree the social
intercourse is natural, and a part of our
constitution; how far it is of human inven-
tion.
It is sufficient to observe, that this in-
tercourse of human minds, by which their
thoughts and sentiments are exchanged,
and their souls mingle together, as it were, is
common to the whole species from infancy.
Like our other powers, its first beginnings
are weak, and scarcely perceptible. But
it is a certain fact, that we can perceive
Some communication of sentiments between
the nurse and her nursling, before it is a
month old. And I doubt not but that, if
both had grown out of the earth, and had
never seen another human face, they would
be able in a few years to converse together.
[452]
There appears, indeed, to be some degree
of social intercourse among brute-animals,
and between some of them and man. A
dog exults in the caresses of his master,
and is humbled at his displeasure. But
there are two operations of the social kind,
of which the brute-animals seem to be alto-
gether incapable. They can neither plight
their veracity by testimony, nor their fide-
lity by any engagement or promise. If
nature had made them capable of these
operations, they would have had a language
to express them by, as man has : But of
this we see no appearance.
A fox is said to use stratagems, but he
cannot lie; because he cannot give his test-
imony, or plight his veracity. A dog is
said to be faithful to his master; but no
more is meant but that he is affectionate,
for he never came under any engagement.
I see no evidence that any brute-animal is
capable of either giving testimony, or mak-
ing a promise.
A dumb man cannot speak any more
than a fox or a dog ; but he can give his
testimony by signs as early in life as other
men can do by words. He knows what a
lie is as early as other men, and hates it as
much. He can plight his faith, and is sen-
sible of the obligation of a promise or con-
tract.
It is therefore a prerogative of man, that:
he can communicate his knowledge of facts
by testimony, and enter into engagements
by promise or contract. God has given
him these powers by a part of his constitu-
tion, which distinguishes him from all brute-
animals. And whether they are original
powers, or resolvable into other original
powers, it is evident that they spring up in
the human mind at an early period of life,
and are found in every individual of the
species, whether Savage or civilized.
These prerogative powers of man, like all
his other powers, must be given for some
end, and for a good end. And if we con-
sider a little farther the economy of nature,
in relation to this part of the human con-
stitution, we shall perceive the wisdom of
nature in the structure of it, and discover
clearly our duty in consequence of it. [453]
It is evident, in the first place, that, if no
credit was given to testimony, if there was
no reliance upon promises, they would
answer no end at all, not even that of de-
ceiving.
Secondly, Supposing men disposed by
some principle in their nature to rely on
declarations and promises; yet, if men found
in experience that there was no fidelity on
the other part in making and in keeping
them, no man of common understanding
would trust to them, and so they would be-
come useless.
Hence it appears, thirdly, That this
[451–453]
666
[ESSAY v.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
power of giving testimony, and of promising,
can answer no end in Society, unless there
be a considerable degree, both of fidelity
on the one part, and of trust on the other
These two must stand or fall together, and
one of them cannot possibly subsist without
the other.
Fourthly, It may be observed that fidelity
‘in declarations and promises, and its coun-
terpart, trust and reliance upon them, form
a system of social intercourse, the most
amiable, the most useful, that can be among
men. Without fidelity and trust, there can
be no human society. There never was a so-
ciety, even of Savages—nay, even of robbers
or pirates—in which there was not a great
degree of veracity and of fidelity among
themselves. Without it man would be the
most dissocial animal that God has made.
His state would be in reality what Hobbes
conceived the state of nature to be—a state
of war of every man against every man;
nor could this war ever terminate in peace.
It may be observed, in the fifth place,
that man is evidently made for living in
society. His social affections shew this as
evidently as that the eye was made for see-
ing. His social operations, particularly
those of testifying and promising, make it
no less evident. [454]
From these observations it follows, that,
if no provision were made by nature, to en-
gage men to fidelity in declarations and
promises, human nature would be a con-
tradiction to itself, made for an end, yet
without the necessary means of attaining it.
As if the species had been furnished with
good eyes, but without the power of open-
ing their eyelids. There are no blunders
of this kind in the works of God. Where-
ever there is an end intended, the means
are admirably fitted for the attainment of
it ; and so we find it to be in the case be-
fore us.
For we see that children, as soon as they
are capable of understanding declarations
and promises, are led by their constitution
to rely upon them. They are no less led
by constitution to veracity and candour, on
their own part. Nor do they ever deviate
from this road of truth and sincerity, until
corrupted by bad example and bad company.
This disposition to sincerity in themselves,
and to give credit to others, whether we call
.it instinct, or whatever name we give it,
must be considered as the effect of their
constitution.
So that the things essential to human
Society—I mean good faith on the one part,
and trust on theother—are formed by nature
in the minds of children, before they are
capabec of knowing their utility, or being
influlened by considerations either of duty
or interest. -
When we grow up so far as to have the
conception of a right and a wrong in con-
duct, the turpitude of lying, falsehood, and
dishonesty, is discerned, not by any train
of reasoning, but by an immediate percep-
tion. For we see that every man disap-
proves it in others, even those who are con-
scious of it in themselves. .
Every man thinks himself injured and ill
used, and feels resentment, when he is im-
posed upon by it. Every man takes it as a
reproach when falsehood is imputed to him.
These are the clearest evidences, that all
men disapprove of falsehood, when their
judgment is not biassed. [455]
I know of no evidence that has been
given of any nation so rude as not to have
these sentiments. It is certain that dumb
people have them, and discover them about
the same period of life in which they ap-
pear in those who speak. And it may rea-
sonably be thought, that dumb persons, at
that time of life, have had as little ad-
vantage, with regard to morals, from their
education, as the greatest Savages.
Every man, come to years of reflection,
when he pledges his veracity or fidelity,
thinks he has a right to be credited, and is
affronted if he is not. But there cannot be
a shadow of right to be credited, unless
there be an obligation to good faith. For
right on one hand, necessarily implies ob-
ligation on the other.
When we see that, in the most savage
state that ever was known of the human
race, men have always lived in societies
greater or less, this of itself is a proof from
fact, that they have had that sense of their
obligation to fidelity without which no
human society can subsist.
From these observations, I think, it ap-
pears very evident, that, as fidelity on one
part, and trust on the other, are essential
to that intercourse of men which we call
human society; so the Author of our nature
has made wise provision for perpetuating
them among men, in that degree that is ne-
cessary to human society, in all the different
periods of human life, and in all the stages
of human improvement and degeneracy.
In early years, we have an innate dis-
position to them. In riper years, we feel
our obligation to fidelity as much as to any
moral duty whatsoever. [456]
Nor is it necessary to mention the col-
lateral inducements to this virtue, from
considerations of prudence, which are obvi-
ous to every man that reflects. Such as,
that it creates trust, the most effectual
engine of human power; that it requires no
artifice or concealment; dreads no detec-
tion ; that it inspires courage and mag-
nanimity, and is the natural ally of every
virtue; so that there is no virtue whatso-
ever, to which our natural obligation ap-
pears more strong or more apparent.
[454–456]
OHAP. VI.] OF THE NATURE
OF A CONTRACT, 667
An observation or two, with regard to
the nature of a contract, will be sufficient
for the present purpose.
It is obvious that the prestation pro-
mised must be understood by both parties.
One party engages to do such a thing, an-
other accepts of this engagement: An en-
gagement to do, one does not know what,
can neither be made nor accepted. It is no
less obvious, that a contract is a voluntary
transaction.
But it ought to be observed, that the
will, which is essential to a contract, is
only a will to engage, or to become bound.
We must beware of confounding this will
with a will to perform what we have en-
gaged. The last can signify nothing else
than an intention and fixed purpose to do
what we have engaged to do. The will to
become bound, and to confer a right upon
the other party, is indeed the very essence
of a contract; but the purpose of fulfilling
our engagement, is no part of the contract
at all.
A purpose is a solitary act of mind, which
lays no obligation on the person, nor con-
fers any right on another. A fraudulent
person may contract with a fixed purpose
of not performing his engagement. But
this purpose makes no change with regard
to his obligation. He is as much bound as
the lionest man, who contracts with a fixed
purpose of performing. [457]
As the contract is binding without any
regard to the purpose, so there may be a
purpose without any contract. A purpose
is no contract, even when it is declared to
the person for whose benefit it is intended.
I may say to a man, I intend to do such a
thing for your benefit, but I come under
no engagement. Every man understands
the meaning of this speech, and sees no
contradiction in it : whereas, if a purpose
declared were the same thing with a con-
tract, such a speech would be a contradic-
tion, and would be the same as if one
should say, I promise to do such a thing,
but I do not promise.
All this is so plain to every man of com-
mon sense, that it would have been unne-
cessary to be mentioned, had not so acute
a man as Mr Hume grounded some of the
contradictions he finds in a contract, upon
confounding a will to engage in a contract
with a will or purpose to perform the en-
gagement.
I come now to consider the speculations
of that author with regard to contracts.
In order to support a favourite notion of
his own, That justice is not a natural but
an artificial virtue, and that it derives its
whole merit from its utility, he has laid
down some principles which, I think, have
a tendency to subvert all faith and fair-
dealing among mankind.
In the third volume of the “Treatise of
Human Nature,” p. 40, he lays it down as
an undoubted maxim, That no action can
be virtuous or morally good, unless there
be in human nature, some motive to pro-
duce it, distinct from its morality. Let us
apply this undoubted maxim in an instance
or two. If a man keeps his word, from this
sole motive, that he ought to do so, this is
no virtuous or morally good action. If a
man pays his debt from this motive, that
justice requires this of him, this is no vir-
tuous or morally good action. If a judge
or an arbiter gives a sentence in a cause,
from no other motive but regard to justice,
this is no virtuous or morally good action.
These appear to me to be shocking absurd-
ities, which no metaphysical subtilty can
ever justify. [458]
Nothing is more evident than that every
human action takes its denomination and
its moral nature from the motive from which
it is performed. That is a benevolent ac-
tion which is done from benevolence. That
is an act of gratitude which is done from a
sentiment of gratitude. That is an act of
obedience to God, which is done from a
regard to his command. And, in general,
that is an act of virtue which is done from
a regard to virtue.
Virtuous actions are so far from needing
other motives, besides their being virtuous,
to give them merit, that their merit is then
greatest and most conspicuous, when every
motive that can be put in the opposite scale
is outweighed by the sole consideration of
their being our duty.
This maxim, therefore, of Mr Hume,
That no action can be virtuous or morally
good, unless there be some motive to produce
it distinct from its morality, is so far from
being undoubtedly true, that it is undoubt-
edly false. It was never, so far as I know,
maintained by any moralist, but by the
Epicureans; and it savours of the very dregs
of that sect. It agrees well with the prin-
ciples of those who maintained, that virtue
is an empty name, and that it is entitled to
no regard but in as far as it ministers to
pleasure or profit.
I believe the author of this maxim acted
upon better moral principles than he wrote ;
and that what Cicero says of Epicurus, may
be applied to him :—Redarguitur ipse a
sese, vincunturque scripta ejus probitate
ipsius et moribus ; et wit alii earistimantur
dicere melius quam facere, sic ille mihi
videturfacere melius quam dicere. [459]
But let us see how he applies this maxim
to contracts. I give you his words from
the place formerly cited :—“I suppose,”
says he, “a person to have lent me a sum
of money, on condition that it be restored
in a few days; and, after the expiration of
the term agreed on, he demands the sum.
[457-459]
(568
[ESSAY v.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS. "
I ask, what reason or motive have I to
restore the money? It will, perhaps, be
said, that my regard to justice, and abhor-
rence of villany and knavery, are sufficient
reasons for me, if I have the least grain of
honesty, or sense of duty and obligation.
And this answer, no doubt, is just and satis-
factory to man in his civilized state, and
when trained up according to a certain dis-
cipline and education. But, in his rude
and more natural condition, if you are
pleased to call such a condition natural,
this answer would be rejected as perfectly
unintelligible and sophistical.”
The doctrine we are taught in this pass-
age is this, That, though a man, in a civil-
ized state, and when trained up according
to a certain discipline and education, may
have a regard to justice and an abhorrence
of villany and knavery, and some sense of
duty and obligation; yet, to a man in his
rude and more natural condition, the consi-
derations of honesty, justice, duty, and ob-
ligation, will be perfectly unintelligible and
sophistical. And this is brought as an argu-
ment to shew that justice is not a natural
but an artificial virtue.
I shall offer some observations on this
argument. -
1. Although it may be true that what is
unintelligible to man in his rude state may
be intelligible to him in his civilized state,
I cannot conceive that what is sophistical
in the rude state should change its nature,
and become just reasoning when man is
more improved. What is a sophism, will
always be so ; nor can any change in the
state of the person who judges make that to
be just reasoning which before was sophist-
ical. [460] Mr Hume's argument re-
quires that to man, in his rude state, the
motives to justice and honesty should not
only appear to be sophistical, but should
really be so. If the motives were just in
themselves, then justice would be a natural
virtue, although the rude man, by an error
of his judgment, thought otherwise. But
if justice be not a natural virtue, which is
the point Mr Hume intends to prove, then
every argument, by which man in his na-
tural state may be urged to it, must be a
sophism in reality, and not in appearance
only ; and the effect of discipline and edu-
cation in the civilized state can only be to
make those motives to justice appear just
and Satisfactory, which, in their own nature,
are Sophistical. -
2. It were to be wished that this ingen-
ious author had shewn us why that state of
man, in which the obligation to honesty,
and an abhorrence of villany, appear per-
fectly unintelligible and sophistical, should
be his more natural state.
It is the nature of human society to be
progressive, as much as it is the nature of
the individual. In the individual, the state
of infancy leads to that of childhood, child-
hood to youth, youth to manhood, manhood
to old age. If one should say that the state
of infancy is a more natural state than that
of manhood or of old age, I am apt to think
that this would be words without any mean-
ing. In like manner, in human Society, there
is a natural progress from rudeness to civil-
ization, from ignorance to knowledge. What
period of this progress shall we call man’s
natural state P To me they appear all
equally natural. Every state of society is
equally natural, wherein men have access
to exert their natural powers about their
proper objects, and to improve those powers
by the means which their situation affords.
[46]]
Mr Hume, indeed, shews some timidity
in affirming the rude state to be the more
natural state of man ; and, therefore, adds
this qualifying parenthesis, If you are
pleased to call such a condition natural.
But it ought to be observed, That, if the
premises of his argument be weakened by
this clause, the same weakness must be
communicated to the conclusion ; and the
conclusion, according to the rules of good
reasoning, ought to be, That justice is an
artificial virtue, if you be pleased to call it
artificial.
3. It were likewise to be wished, that Mr
Hume had shewn, from fact, that there
ever did exist such a state of man as that
which he calls his more natural state. It
is a state wherein a man borrows a sum of
money, on the condition that he is to re-
store it in a few days; yet, when the time
of payment comes, his obligation to repay
what he borrowed is perfectly unintelligible
and sophistical. It would have been pro-
per to have given, at least, a single instance
of some tribe of the human race that was
found to be in this natural state. If no
such instance can be given, it is, probably,
a state merely imaginary; like that state,
which some have imagined, wherein men
were ouran outangs, or wherein they were
fishes with tails.
Indeed, such a state seems impossible.
That a man should lend without any con-
ception of his having a right to be repaid ;
or that a man should borrow on the condi-
tion of paying in a few days, and yet have
no conception of his obligation—seems to
me to involve a contradiction.
I grant that a humane man may lend
without any expectation of being repaid ;
but that he should lend without any concep-
tion of a right to be repaid, is a contradir.
tion. In like manner, a fraudulent man
may borrow without an intention of paying
back; but that he could borrow, while an
obligation to repay is perfectly unintelligible
to him, this is a contradiction. [462]
[460–462]
CHAP. VI.] OF THE NATURE
OF A CONTRACT. 66%
The same author, in his “Enquiry into
the Principles of Morals,” $ 3, treating
of the same subject, has the following
note:–
“”Tis evident that the will or consent
alone, never transfers property, nor causes
the obligation of a promise ; (for the same
reasoning extends to both ;) but the will
must be expressed by words or signs, in
order to impose a tie upon any man. The
expression being once brought in as subser-
vient to the will, soon becomes the princi-
pal part of the promise ; nor will a man be
less bound by his word, though he secretly
give a different direction to his intention,
and withhold the assent of his mind. But,
though the expression makes, on most occa-
sions, the whole of the promise ; yet it does
not always so ; and one who should make
use of any expression of which he knows
not the meaning, and which he uses with-
out any sense of the consequences, would
not certainly be bound by it. Nay, though
he know its meaning, yet, if he uses it in
jest only, and with such signs as shew
evidently he has no serious intention of
binding himself, he would not be under any
obligation of performance; but it is neces-
sary that the words be a perfect expression
of the will, without any contrary signs;
nay, even this we must not carry so far
as to imagine that one whom, from our
quickness of understanding, we conjectured
to have an intention of deceiving us, is not
Bound by his expression or verbal promise,
if we accept of it; but must limit this con-
clusion to those cases where the signs are
of a different nature from those of deceit.
All these contradictions are easily accounted
for, if justice arises entirely from its useful-
mess to Society, but will never be explained
on any other hypothesis.” [463]
Here we have the opinion of this grave
moralist and acute metaphysician, that the
principles of honesty and fidelity are at
bottom a bundle of contradictions. This is
one part of his moral system which, I can-
not help thinking, borders upon licentious-
ness. It surely tends to give a very un-
favourable notion of that cardinal virtue
without which no man has a title to be
called an honest man. What regard can a
man pay to the virtue of fidelity, who be-
lieves that its essential rules contradict each
other ? Can a man be bound by contra-
dictory rules of conduct 2 No more, surely,
than he can be bound to believe contradict-
ory principles.
He tells us, “ that all these contradic-
tions are easily accounted for, if justice
arises entirely from its usefulness to society,
but will never be explained upon any other
hypothesis.”
I know not, indeed, what is meant by
accounting for contradictions, or explaining
them. I apprehend that no hypothesis
can make that which is a contradiction to be,
no contradiction. However, without attempt.
ing to account for these contradictions upon
his own hypothesis, he pronounces, in a
decisive tone, that they will never be ex-
plained upon any other hypothesis.
What if it shall appear that the contra-
dictions mentioned in this paragraph do all
take their rise from two capital mistakes
the author has made with regard to the
nature of promises and contracts; and if,
when these are corrected, there shall not
appear a shadow of contradiction in the
cases put by him P
The first mistake is, That a promise is
some kind of will, consent, or intention,
which may be expressed, or may not be
expressed. This is to mistake the nature
of a promise. For no will, no consent, or
intention, that is not expressed, is a pro-
mise. A promise, being a social transac-
tion between two parties, without being ex-
pressed can have no existence. [464]
Another capital mistake that runs through
the passage cited is, That this will, consent,
or intention, which makes a promise, is a
will or intention to perform what we pro-
mise. Every man knows that there may
be a fraudulent promise, made without in-
tention of performing. But the intention
to perform the promise, or not to perform
it, whether the intention be known to the
other party or not, makes no part of the
promise—it is a solitary act of the mind, and
can neither constitute nor dissolve an obli-
gation. What makes a promise is, that it
be expressed to the other party with under-
standing, and with an intention to become
bound, and that it be accepted by him.
Carrying these remarks along with us,
let us review the passage cited.
First, He observes, that the will or con-
sent alone does not cause the obligation of
a promise, but it must be expressed.
I answer, The will not expressed is not
a promise ; and is it a contradiction that
that which is not a promise should not
cause the obligation of a promise 2 He
goes on, The expression being once brought
in as subservient to the will, soon becomes
a principal part of the promise. Here it
is supposed, that the expression was
not originally a constituent part of the
promise, but it soon becomes such. It is
brought in to aid and be subservient to the
promise which was made before by the will.
If Mr Hume had considered that it is the
expression accompanied with understanding
and will to become bound, that constitutes
a promise, he would never have said, that
the expression soon becomes a part, and is
brought in as subservient.
He adds, Nor will a man be less bound
by his word, though he secretly gives a dif-
T463, 464]
670
[ESSAY v.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
ferent direction to his intention, and with-
holds the assent of his mind. [465]
The case here put needs some explication.
Either it means, that the man knowingly
and voluntarily gives his word, without any
intention of giving his word ; or that he
gives it without the intention of keeping it,
and performing what he promises. The
last of these is indeed a possible case, and
is, I apprehend, what Mr Hume means.
But the intention of keeping his promise is
no part of the promise, nor does it in the
least affect the obligation of it, as we have
often observed.
If the author meant that the man may
knowingly and voluntarily give his word,
without the intention of giving his word,
this is impossible: For such is the nature
of all social acts of the mind, that, as they
cannot be without being expressed, so they
cannot be expressed knowingly and will-
ingly, but they must be. If a man puts a
question knowingly and willingly, it is im-
possible that he should at the same time
will not to put it. If he gives a command
knowingly and willingly, it is impossible
that he should at the same time will not
to give it. We cannot have contrary wills
at the same time. And, in like manner, if
a man knowingly and willingly becomes
bound by a promise, it is impossible that
he should at the same time will not to be
bound.
To suppose, therefore, that, when a man
knowingly and willingly gives his word, he
withholds that will and intention which
makes a promise, is indeed a contradiction;
but the contradiction is not in the nature
of the promise, but in the case supposed by
Mr Hume.
. He adds, though the expression, for the
most part, makes the whole of the promise,
it does not always so.
I answer, That the expression, if it is
not accompanied with understanding and
will to engage, never makes a promise.
The author here assumes a postulate, which
nobody ever granted, and which can only
be grounded on the impossible supposi-
tion made in the former sentence. And
as there can be no promise without know-
ledge and will to engage, is it marvellous
that words which are not understood, or
words spoken in jest, and without any in-
tention to become bound, should not have
the effect of a promise 2 [466] .
The last case put by Mr Hume, is that
of a man who promises fraudulently with
an intention not to perform, and whose
fraudulent intention is discovered by the
other party, who, notwithstanding, accepts
the promise. He is bound, says Mr Hume,
by his verbal promise. Undoubtedly he is
bound, because an intention not to perform
the promise, whether known to the other
party or not, makes no part of the promise,
nor affects its obligation, as has been re-
peatedly observed.
From what has been said, I think it
evident, that to one who attends to the
nature of a promise or contract, there is
Klot the least appearance of contradiction
in the principles of morality relating to
COIntracts. -
It would, indeed, appear wonderful that
such a man as Mr Hume should have im-
posed upon himself in so plain a matter, if
we did not see frequent instances of inge-
nious men, whose zeal in supporting a fa-
vourite hypothesis darkens their under-
standing, and hinders them from seeing
what is before their eyes. [467]
CHAPTER VII.
THAT MORAL APPROBATION IMPLIES A REAL
J UDGMENT,
THE approbation of good actions, and
disapprobation of bad, are so familiar to
every man come to years of understanding,
that it seems strange there should be any
dispute about their nature.
Whether we reflect upon our own con-
duct, or attend to the conduct of others
with whom we live, or of whom we hear or
read, we cannot belp approving of some
things, disapproving of others, and regard-
ing many with perfect indifference.
These operations of our minds we are
conscious of every day and almost every
hour we live. Men of ripe understanding
are capable of reflecting upon them, and
of attending to what passes in their own
thoughts on such occasions; yet, for half
a century, it has been a serious dispute
among philosophers, what this approbation
and disapprobation is, Whether there be a
real judgment included in it, which, like all
other judgments, must be true or false ; or,
Whether it include no more but some agree-
able or uneasy feeling, in the person who
approves or disapproves.
Mr Hume observes very justly, that this
is a controversy started of late. Before
the modern system of Ideas and Impressions
was introduced, nothing would have ap-
peared more absurd than to say, that when
I condemn a man for what be has done, I
pass no judgment at all about the man, but
only express some uneasy feeling in my-
self. [468]
Nor did the new system produce this dis-
covery at once, but gradually, by several
steps, according as its consequences were
more accurately traced, and its spirit more
thoroughly imbibed by successive philoso-
phers. -
. Des Cartes and Mr Locke went no far-
- [465–468]
CHAP. VII.]
671
APPROBATION IMPLIES JUDGMENT.
ther than to maintain. that the Secondary
Qualities of body—Heat and Cold, Sound,
Colour, Taste, and Smell—which we per-
ceive and judge to be in the external ob-
ject, are mere feelings or sensations in our
minds, there being nothing in bodies them-
selves to which these names can be applied;
and that the office of the external senses is
not to judge of external things, but only to
give us ideas of sensations, from which we
are by reasoning to deduce the existence of
a material world without us, as well as we
Cà.D.
Arthur Collier and Bishop Berkeley dis-
covered, from the same principles, that the
Primary, as well as the Secondary, Quali-
ties of bodies, such as Extension, Figure,
Solidity, Motion, are only sensations in our
minds; and, therefore, that there is no ma-
terial world without us at all.
The same philosophy, when it came to
be applied to matters of taste, discovered
that beauty and deformity are not anything
in the objects, to which men, from the be-
ginning of the world, ascribed them, but
certain feelings in the mind of the spec-
tator.
The next step was an easy consequence
from all the preceding, that Moral Appro-
bation and Disapprobation are not Judg-
ments, which must be true or false, but
barely agreeable and uneasy Feelings or
Sensations.
Mr Hume made the last step in this pro-
gress, and crowned the system by what he
-calls his hypothesis—to wit, That Belief is
more properly an act of the Sensitive than
of the Cogitative part of our nature. [469]
Beyond this I think no man can go in
this track; sensation or feeling is all, and
what is left to the cogitative part of our na-
ture, I am not able to comprehend.
I have had occasion to consider each of
these paradoxes, excepting that which re-
lates to morals, in “Essays on the Intel-
lectual Powers of Man;” and, though they
be strictly connected with each other, and
with the system which has produced them,
I have attempted to shew that they are in-
consistent with just notions of our intellec-
tual powers, no less than they are with the
common sense and common language of
mankind. And this, I think, will likewise ap-
pear with regard to the conclusion relating
to morals—to wit, That moral approbation is
only an agreeable feeling, and not a real
judgment.
To prevent ambiguity as much as possi-
ble, let us attend to the meaning of Feeling
and of Judgment. These operations of the
mind, perhaps, cannot be logically defined;
but they are well, understood, and easily
distinguished, by their properties and ad-
juncts.
Feeling,
or sensation, seems to be the
lowest degree of animation we can conceive.
We give the name of animal to every be-
ing that feels pain and pleasure; and this
seems to be the boundary between the in-
animate and animal creation.
We know no being of so low a rank in
the creation of God as to possess this ani-
mal power only without any other.
We commonly distinguish Feeling from
Thinking, because it hardly deserves the
name ; and though it be, in a more general
sense, a species of thought, is least removed
from the passive and inert state of things
inanimate. [470]
A feeling must be agreeable, or uneasy,
or indifferent. It may be weak or strong.
It is expressed in language either by a sin-
gle word, or by such a contexture of words
as may be the subject or predicate of a pro-
position, but such as cannot by themselves
make a proposition. For it implies neither
affirmation nor negation; and therefore
cannot have the qualities of true or false,
which distinguish propositions from all other
forms of speech, and judgments from all
other acts of the mind. -
That I have such a feeling, is indeed an
affirmative proposition, and expresses tes-
timony grounded upon an intuitive judg-
ment. But the feeling is only one term of
this proposition ; and it can only make a
proposition when joined with another term,
by a verb affirming or denying.
As feeling distinguishes the animal na-
ture from the inanimate ; so judging seems
to distinguish the rational nature from the
merely animal.
Though judgment in general is express-
ed by one word in language, as the most
complex operations of the mind may be ;
yet a particular judgment can only be ex-
pressed by a sentence, and by that kind of
sentence which logicians call a proposition,
in which there must necessarily be a verb
in the indicative mood, either expressed or
understood. -
Every judgment must necessarily be true
or false, and the same may be said of the
proposition which expresses it. It is a de-
termination of the understanding, with re-
gard to what is true, or false, or dubious.
In judgment, we can distinguish the ob-
ject about which we judge, from the act of
the mind in judging of that object. In mere
feeling there is no such distinction. The
object of judgment must be expressed by a
proposition; and belief, disbelief, or doubt,
always accompanies the judgment we form.
If we judge the proposition to be true, we
must believe it; if we judge it to be false, we
must disbelieve it; and if we be uncertain .
whether it be true or false, we must doubt.
[471] -
The toothache, the headache, are words
which express uneasy feelings; but to say
[469–471]
672
[Essay v.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
that they express a judgment would be ridi-
culous. -
That the sun is greater than the earth, is
a proposition, and therefore the object of
judgment; and, when affirmed or denied,
believed or disbelieved, or doubted, it ex-
presses judgment; but to say that it ex-
presses only a feeling in the mind of him
that believes it, would be ridiculous.
These two operations of mind, when we
consider them separately, are very differ-
ent, and easily distinguished. When we
feel without judging, or judge without feel-
ing, it is impossible, without very gross in-
attention, to mistake the one for the other.
But in many operations of the mind,
both are inseparably conjoined under one
name ; and when we are not aware that
the operation is complex, we may take one
ingredient to be the whole, and overlook
the other.
In former ages," that moral power by
which human actions ought to be regulated,
was called Reason, and considered, both by
philosophers and by the vulgar, as the power
of judging what we ought and what we
ought not to do.
This is very fully expressed by Mr Hume,
in his “Treatise of Human Nature,” Book
II. Part iii. § 3. “Nothing is more usual
in philosophy, and even in common life,
than to talk of the combat of passion and
reason, to give the preference to reason,
and assert that men are only so far virtuous
as they conform themselves to its dictates.
Every rational creature, ’tis said, is obliged
to regulate his actions by reason ; and, if
any other motive or principle challenge the
direction of his conduct, he ought to oppose
it, till it be entirely subdued, or, at least,
brought to a conformity to that superior
principle. On this method of thinking, the
greatest part of moral philosophy, ancient
and modern, seems to be founded.” [472]
That those philosophers attended chiefly
to the judging power of our moral faculty,
appears from the names they gave to its
operations, and from the whole of their
language concerning it.
The modern philosophy has led men to
attend chiefly to their sensations and feel-
ings, and thereby to resolve into mere feel-
ing, complex acts of the mind, of which
feeling is only one ingredient.
I had occasion, in the preceding Essays,
to observe, that several operations of the
mind, to which we give one name, and con-
sider as one act, are compounded of more
simple acts inseparably united in our con-
stitution, and that, in these, sensation or
feeling often makes one ingredient.
Thus, the appetites of hunger and thirst
are compounded of an uneasy sensation, and
* And by many philosophers since Reid.-H.
the desire of food or drink. In our bene-
volent affections, there is both an agreeable
feeling, and a desire of happiness to the
object of our affection ; and malevolent
affections have ingredients of a contrary
nature. -
In these instances, sensation or feeling is
inseparably conjoined with desire. In other
instances, we find sensation inseparably
conjoined with judgment or belief, and that
in two different ways. In some instances,
the judgment or belief seems to be the con-
sequence of the sensation, and to be regu-
lated by it. In other instances, the sensa-
tion is the consequence of the judgment.
[473]
When we perceive an external object by
our senses, we have a sensation conjoined
with a firm belief of the existence and
sensible qualities of the external object.
Nor has all the subtilty of metaphysics
been able to disjoin what nature has con-
joined in our constitution. Des Cartes and
Locke endeavoured, by reasoning, to deduce
the existence of external objects from our
sensations, but in vain. Subsequent philo-
sophers, finding no reason for this connec-
tion, endeavoured to throw off the belief of
external objects as being unreasonable ;
but this attempt is no less vain. Nature
has doomed us to believe the testimony of
our senses, whether we can give a good
reason for doing so or not.
In this instance, the belief or judgment
is the consequence of the sensation, as the
sensation is the consequence of the impres-
sion made on the organ of sense.
But in most of the operations of mind in
which judgment or belief is combined with
feeling, the feeling is the consequence of the
judgment, and is regulated by it.
Thus, an account of the good conduct of
a friend at a distance gives me a very agree-
able feeling, and a contrary account would
give me a very uneasy feeling; but these feel-
ings depend entirely upon my belief of the
report.
In hope, there is an agreeable feeling, de-
pending upon the belief or expectation of
good to come : fear is made up of contrary
ingredients; in both, the feeling is regu-
lated by the degree of belief.
In the respect we bear to the worthy, and
in our contempt of the worthless, there is
both judgment and feeling, and the last de-
pends entirely upon the first.
The same may be said of gratitude for
good offices and resentment of injuries.[474]
Let me now consider how I am affected
when I see a man exerting himself nobly in
a good cause. I am conscious that the
effect of his conduct on my mind is com-
plex, though it may be called by one name.
I look up to his virtue, I approve, I admire
it. In doing so, I have pleasure indeed, or
[472—474]
CHAP. VII.]
673
APPROBATION IMPLIES JUDGMENT.
an agreeable feeling ; this is granted. But
I find myself interested in his success and
in his fame. This is affection ; it is love
and esteem, which is more than mere feel-
ing. The man is the object of this esteem;
but in mere feeling there is no object.
I am likewise conscious that this agree-
able feeling in me, and this esteem of him,
depend entirely upon the judgment I form
of his conduct. I judge that this conduct
merits esteem ; and, while I thus judge, I
cannot but esteem him, and contemplate
his conduct with pleasure. Persuade me
that he was bribed, or that he acted from
some mercenary or bad motive, immediately
my esteem and my agreeable feeling vanish.
In the approbation of a good action, there-
fore, there is feeling indeed, but there is also
esteem of the agent; and both the feeling
and the esteem depend upon the judgment
we form of his conduct.
When I exercise my moral faculty about
my own actions or those of other men,
I am conscious that I judge as well as
feel. I accuse and excuse, I acquit and
condemn, I assent and dissent, I believe and
disbelieve, and doubt. These are acts of
judgment, and not feelings.
Every deterimination of the understanding,
with regard to what is true or false, isjudg-
ment. That I ought not to steal, or to kill, or
to bear false witness, are propositions, of the
truth of which I am as well convinced as of
any proposition in Euclid. I am conscious
that I judge them to be true propositions;
and my consciousness makes all other argu-
ments unnecessary, with regard to the
operations of my own mind. [475]
That other men judge, as well as feel, in
such cases, I am convinced, because they
understand me when I express my moral
judgment, and express theirs by the same
terms and phrases.
ſ Suppose that, in a case well known to
both, my friend says—Such a man did well
and worthily, his conduct is highly approv-
able. This speech, according to all rules
of interpretation, expresses my friend’s
judgment of the man’s conduct. This
judgment may be true or false, and I may
agree in opinion with him, or I may dissent
from him without offence, as we may differ
in other matters of judgment.
Suppose, again, that, in relation to the
same case, my friend says—The man's con-
duct gave me a very agreeable feeling.
This speech, if approbation be nothing
*but an agreeable feeling, must have the
very same meaning with the first, and ex-
press neither more nor less. But this can-
not be, for two reasons.
First, Because there is no rule in gram-
mar or rhetoric, nor any usage in language,
by which these two speeches can be con-
strued so as to have the same meaning.
The first expresses plainly an opinion or
judgment of the conduct of the man, but
says nothing of the speaker. The secona
only testifies a fact concerning the speaker
—to wit, that he had such a feeling.
Another reason why these two speeches
cannot mean the same thing is, that the
first may be contradicted without any ground
of offence, such contradiction being only a
difference of opinion, which, to a reason-
able man, gives no offence. But the second
speech cannot. be contradicted without an
affront : for, as every man must know his
own feelings, to deny that a man had a
feeling which he affirms he had, is to charge.
him with falsehood. [476]
If moral approbation be a real judgment,
which produces an agreeable feeling in the
mind of him who judges, both speeches
are perfectly intelligible, in the most obvi-
ous and literal sense. . Their meaning is
different, but they are related, so that the
one may be inferred from the other, as we
infer the effect from the cause, or the cause
from the effect. I know, that what a man
judges to be a very worthy action, he con-
templates with pleasure; and what he con-
templates with pleasure must, in his judg-
ment, have worth. But the judgment and
the feeling are different acts of his mind,
though connected as cause and effect. He
can express either the one or the other
with perfect propriety; but the speech,
which expresses his feeling, is altogether
improper and inept to express his judgment,
for this evident reason, that judgment and
feeling, though in some cases connected,
are things in their nature different.
If we suppose, on the other hand, that
moral approbation is nothing more than an
agreeable feeling, occasioned by the con-
templation of an action, the second speech,
above mentioned, has a distinct meaning,
and expresses all that is meant by moral
approbation. But the first speech either
means the very same thing, (which cannot
be, for the reasons already mentioned,) or
it has no meaning.
Now, we may appeal to the reader,
whether, in conversation upon human cha-
racters, such speeches as the first are not
as frequent, as familiar, and as well under-
stood, as anything in language; and whether
they have not been common in all ages
that we can trace, and in all languages P
[477]
This doctrine, therefore, That moral ap-
probation is merely a feeling without judg-
ment, necessarily carries along with it this
consequence, that a form of speech, upon
one of the most common topics of discourse,
which either has no meaning, or a meaning
irreconcilable to all rules of grammar or
rhetoric, is found to be common and familiar
in all languages and in all ages of the world,
[475-477]
2 X
674
[Essay v.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
while every man knows how to express the
meaning, if it have any, in plain and proper
language.
Such a consequence I think sufficient to
sink any philosophical opinion on which it
hangs. -
A particular language may have some
oddity, or even absurdity, introduced by
some man of eminence, from caprice or
wrong judgment, and followed by servile
imitators, for a time, till it be detected, and,
of consequence, discountenanced and dropt;
but that the same absurdity should pervade
all languages, through all ages, and that,
after being detected and exposed, it should
still keep its countenance and its place in
language as much as before, this can never
be while men have understanding.
It may be observed, by the way, that the
Same argument may be applied, with equal
force, against those other paradoxical opi-
nions of modern philosophy, which we be-
fore mentioned as connected with this ;
such as, that beauty and deformity are not
at all in the objects to which language uni-
versally ascribes them, but are merely feel-
ings in the mind of the spectator; that the
Secondary qualities are not in external ob-
jects, but are merely feelings or sensations
in him that perceives them; and, in gene-
ral, that our external and internal senses
are faculties by which we have sensations
or feelings only, but by which we do not
judge. [478]
That every form of speech which language
affords to express our judgment, should, in
all ages and in all languages, be used to
express: what is no judgment ; and that
feelings which are easily expressed in pro-
per language, should as universally be ex-
pressed by language altogether improper
and absurd, I cannot believe ; and, there-
fore, must conclude, that, if language be the
expression of thought, men judge of the
primary and secondary qualities of body by
their external senses, of beauty and deform-
ity by their taste, and of virtue and vice by
their moraſ faculty. 3.
A truth so evident as this is, can hardly
be obscured and brought into doubt, but by
the abuse of words. And much abuse of
words there has been upon this subject. To
avoid this as much as possible, l have used
the word judgment on one side, and sensa-
tion or feeling upon the other ; because
these words have been least liable to abuse
or ambiguity. But it may be proper to
make some observations upon other words
that have been used in this controversy.
Mr Hume, in his “Treatise of Human
Nature,” has employed two sections upon
it, the titles of which are, “Moral Dis-
tinctions not derived from Reason,” and
“ Moral Distinctions derived from a Moral
ISense.”
feeling.-f
When he is not, by custom, led unawares
to speak of Reason like other men, he
limits that word to signify only the power
of judging in matters merely speculative.
Hence he concludes, “That reason of it-
self is inactive and perfectly inert;” that
“actions may be laudable or blamable,
but cannot be reasonable or unreasonable;”
that “it is not contrary to reason to pre-
fer the destruction of the whole world to the
scratching of my finger;” that “it is not
contrary to reason for me to chuse my total
ruin to prevent the least uneasiness of an
Indian, or of a person wholly unknown to
me;” that “reason is, and ought only to
be, the slave of the passions, and can never
pretend to any other office than to serve
and obey them.” [479]
If we take the word reason to mean what
common use, both of philosophers and of
the vulgar, hath made it to mean, these
maxims are not only false, but licentious.
It is only his abuse of the words reason and
passion that can justify them from this
CeIDSUll’e,
The meaning of a common word is not to
be ascertained by philosophical theory, but
by common usage ; and, if a man will take
the liberty of limiting or extending the
meaning of common words at his pleasure,
he may, like Mandeville, insinuate the most
licentious paradoxes with the appearance of
plausibility. I have before made some ob-
servations upon the meaning of this word,
(Essay II., chap. 2, and Essay III., part iii.
chap. 1,) to which the reader is referred.
When Mr Hume derives moral distinc-
tions from a Moral Sense, I agree with him
in words, but we differ about the meaning
of the word sense. Every power to which
the name of a Sense has been given, is a
power of judging of the objects of that
Sense," and has been accounted such in all
ages; the moral sense, therefore, is the
power of judging in morals. But Mr Hume
will have the Moral Sense to be only a power
of feeling without judging—this I take to be
an abuse of a word.
Authors who place moral approbation in
feeling only, very often use the word Sent-
iment, to express feeling without judgment.
This I take likewise to be an abuse of a
word. Our moral determinations may, with
propriety, be called moral sentiments. For
the word sentiment, in the English lan-
guage, never, as I conceive, signifies mere
feeling, but judgment accompanied withs.
It was wont to signify opinion or
judgment of any kind, but, of late, is appro-
priated to signify an opinion or judgment,
that strikes, and produces some agreeable
* See above, p. 590, note.—H. -
f This is too unqualified an assertion. The term
Sentiment is in English applied to the higher feelings.
— H.
[478, 479]
CHAP. VII.]
APPROBATION. IMPLIES JUDGMENT.
or uneasy emotion. So we speak of senti-
ments of respect, of esteem, of gratitude;
but I never heard the pain of the gout, or
any other mere feeling, called a sentiment.
[480]
Even the word judgment has been used
by Mr Hume to express what he maintains
to be only a feeling. “Treatise of Human
Nature, part iii., page 3:—“The term per-
ception is no less applicable to those judg-
ments by which we distinguish moral good
and evil than to every other operation of
the mind.” Perhaps he used this word
inadvertently ; for I think there cannot be
a greater abuse of words than to put judg-
ment for what he held to be mere feel-
ing. *
¥All the words most commonly used, both
by philosophers and by the vulgar, to ex-
press the operations of our moral faculty—
such as, decision, determination, sentence,
approbation, disapprobation, applause, cen-
sure, praise, blame—necessarily imply judg-
ment in their meaning. When, therefore,
they are used by Mr Hume, and others who
hold his opinion, to signify feelings only,
this is an abuse of words. If these philo.
sophers wish to speak plainly and properly,
they must, in discoursing of morals, discard
these words altogether, because their esta-
blished signification in the language is con-
trary to what they would express by them.
They must likewise discard from morals
the words ought and ought not, which very
properly express judgment, but cannot be
applied to mere feelings. Upon these words
Mr Hume has made a particular observa-
tion in the conclusion of his first section
above mentioned. I shall give it in his
own words, and make some remarks upon
it.
“I cannot forbear adding to these rea-
sonings an observation which may, perhaps,
be found of some importance. In every
system of morality which I have hitherto
met with, I have always remarked that the
author proceeds for some time in the ordin-
ary way of reasoning, and establishes the
being of a God, or makes observations con-
cerning human affairs; when, of a sud-
den, I am surprised to find that, instead of
the usual copulations of propositions, is, and
is not, I meet with no proposition that is
not connected with an ought or an ought not.
[481] This change is imperceptible, but
is, however, of the last consequence. For,
as this ought or ought not expresses some
new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary
that it should be observed and explained ;
and, at the same time, that a reason should
be given for what seems altogether incon-
ceivable—how this new relation can be a
deduction from others which are entirely
* Mr Hume could easily be defended. – H.
different from it. But, as authors do not
commonly use this precaution, I shall pre-
Sume to recommend it to the readers; and
am persuaded that this Small attention would
subvert all the vulgar systems of morality,
and let us see that the distinction of vice
and virtue is not founded merely on the
relations of objects, nor is perceived by rea-
Son.”
We may here observe, that it is acknow-
ledged that the words ought and ought not
express Some relation or affirmation; but a
relation or affirmation which Mr Hume
thought inexplicable, or, at least, inconsist-
ent with his system of morals. He must,
therefore, have thought that they ought not
to be used in treating of that subject.
He likewise makes two demands, and,
taking it for granted that they cannot be
Satisfied, is persuaded that an attention to
this is sufficient to subvert all the vulgar
systems of morals.
The first demand is, that ought and ought
not be explained.
To a man that understands English, there
are surely no words that require explana-
tion less. Are not all men taught, from
their early years, that they ought not to
lie, nor steal, nor swear falsely 2 But Mr
Hume thinks, that men never understood
what these precepts mean, or rather that
they are unintelligible. If this be so, I
think indeed it will follow, that all the
vulgar systems of morals are subverted.
[482]
Dr Johnson, in his Dictionary, explains
the word ought to signify, being obliged by
duty; and I know no better explication that
can be given of it. The reader will see
what I thought necessary to say concerning
the moral relation expressed by this word
in Essay III., part iii., chap. 5.
The second demand is, That a reason
should be given why this relation should be
a deduction from others which are entirely
different from it. *
This is to demand a reason for what does
not exist. The first principles of morals
are not deductions. They are self-evident;
and their truth, like that of other axioms,
is perceived without reasoning or deduction.
And moral truths that are not self-evident
are deduced, not from relations quite differ-
ent from them, but from the first principles
of morals.
In a matter so interesting to mankind,
and so frequently the subject of conversa-
tion among the learned and the unlearned
as morals is, it may surely be expected that
men will express both their judgments and
their feelings with propriety, and consist-
ently with the rules of language. An opi-
nion, therefore, which makes the language
of all ages and nations, upon this subject,
to be improper, contrary to all rules of lan-
[480–482]
2 X 2
676
[ESSAY v.
ON THE ACTIVE POWERS.
guage, and fit to be discarded, needs no
other refutation.
As mankind have, in all ages, understood
reason to mean the power by which not
only our speculative opinions, but our ac-
tions ought to be regulated, we may say,
with perfect propriety, that all vice is con-
trary to reason; that, by reason, we are to
judge of what we ought to do, as well as of
what we ought to believe. [483]
But, though all vice be contrary to rea-
son, I conceive that it would not be a pro-
per definition of vice to say that it is a con-
duct contrary to reason, because this defin-
ition would apply equally to folly, which all
men distinguish from vice.
There are other phrases which have been
used on the same side of the question, which
I see no reason for adopting, such as–acting
contrary to the relations of things—contrary
to the reason of things—to the jitness of
things—to the truth of things—to absolute
fitness. These phrases have not the autho-
rity of common use, which, in matters of
language, is great. They seem to have
been invented by some authors, with a
view to explain the nature of vice ; but I
do not think they answer that end. If in-
tended as definitions of vice, they are im-
proper; because, in the most favourable
sense they can bear, they extend to every
kind of foolish and absurd conduct, as well
as to that which is vicious.
I shall conclude this chapter with some
observations upon the five arguments which
Mr Hume has offered upon this point in his
“Enquiry.”
The first is, That it is impossible that the
hypothesis he opposes, can, in any particu-
lar instance, be so much as rendered in-
telligible, whatever specious figure it may
make in general discourse. “ Examine,”
Says he, “the crime of ingratilude, anato-
mize all its circumstances, and examine, by
your reason alone, in what consists the
demerit or blame, you will never come to
any issue or conclusion.”
I think it unnecessary to follow him
through all the accounts of ingratitude which
he conceives may be given by those whom
he opposes, because I agree with him in
that, which he himself adopts—to wit,
“That this crime arises from a complica-
tion of circumstances, which, being pre-
Sented to the spectator, excites the senti-
ment of blame by the particular structure
and fabric of his mind.” [484]
This he thought a true and intelligible
account of the criminality of ingratitude.
So do I. And therefore I think the hypo-
thesis he opposes is intelligible, when ap-
plied to a particular instance.
Mr Hume, no doubt, thought that the
account he gives of ingratitude is incon-
sistent with the hypothesis he opposes, and
could not be adopted by those who hold
that hypothesis. He could be led to think
so, only by taking for granted one of these
two things. Either, first, That the senti-
ment of blame is a feeling only, without
judgment; or, secondly, That whatever is
excited by the particular fabric and struc-.
ture of the mind must be feeling only, and
not judgment. But I cannot grant either
the one or the other.
For, as to the first, it seems evident to
me, that both sentiment and blame imply
judgment ; and, therefore, that the senti-
ment of blame is a judgment accompanied
with feeling, and not mere feeling without
judgment.
The second can as little be granted ; for
no operation of mind, whether judgment or
feeling, can be excited but by that parti-
cular structure and fabric of the mind which
makes us capable of that operation.
By that part of our fabric which we call
the faculty of seeing, we judge of visible
objects;" by taste, another part of our fabric,
we judge of beauty and deformity ; by that
part of our fabric which enables us to form
abstract conceptions, to compare them, and
perceive their relations, we judge of abstract
truths; and by that part of our fabric which
we call the moral faculty, we judge of vir-
tue and vice. If we suppose a being with-
out any moral faculty in his fabric, I grant
that he could not have the sentiments of
blame and moral approbation. [485]
There are, therefore, judgments, as well
as feelings, that are excited by the particu-
lar structure and fabric of the mind. But
there is this remarkable difference between
them, That every judgment is, in its own
nature, true or false ; and, though it de-
pends upon the fabric of a mind, whether it
have such a judgment or not, it depends
not upon that fabric whether the judg-
ment be true or not. A true judgment
will be true, whatever be the fabric of
the mind; but a particular structure and
fabric is necessary, in order to our per-
ceiving that truth. Nothing like this can
be said of mere feelings, because the at-
tributes of true or false do not belong to
them.
Thus I think it appears, that the hy-
pothesis which Mr Hume opposes is not
unintelligible, when applied to the partic-
ular instance of ingratitude ; because the
account of ingratitude which he himself
thinks true and intelligible, is perfectly
agreeable to it.
The second argument amounts to this :
That, in moral deliberation, we must be
acquainted before-hand with all the , ob-
jects and all their relations. After these
things are known, the understanding has
* See above, p. 590, note.-H.
[483-485]
CHAP. VII.] APPROBATION IMPLIES JUDGMIENT.
677
no farther room to operate. Nothing re-
mains but to feel, on our part, some Sen-
timent of blame or approbation.
Let us apply this reasoning to the of
fice of a judge. In a cause that comes
before him, he must be made acquainted
with all the objects, and all their rela-
lations. After this, his understanding has
no farther room to operate. Nothing re-
mains, on his part, but to feel the right or
the wrong : and mankind have, very ab-
surdly, called him a judge—he ought to be
called a feeler. [486]
To answer this argument more directly :
The man who deliberates, after all the
objects and relations mentioned by Mr
Hume are known to him, has a point to
determine ; and that is, whether the action
under his deliberation ought to be done or
ought not. In most cases, this point will
appear self-evident to a man who has been
accustomed to exercise his moral judg-
ment; in some cases it may require reason-
IIl Qſ.
In like manner, the judge, after all the
circumstances of the cause are known, has
to judge whether the plaintiff has a just
plea or not.
The third argument is taken from the
analogy between moral beauty and natural,
between moral sentiment and taste. As
beauty is not a quality of the object, but a
certain feeling of the spectator, so virtue
and vice are not qualities in the persons to
whom language ascribes them, but feelings
of the spectator.
But is it certain that beauty is not any
quality of the object 2 This is indeed a
paradox of modern philosophy, built upon a
philosophical theory ; but a paradox So
contrary to the common language and com-
mon sense of mankind, that it ought rather
to overturn the theory on which it stands,
than receive any support from it. And if
beauty be really a quality of the object,
and not merely a feeling of the spectator,
the whole force of this argument goes over
. to the other side of the question.
“Euclid,” he says, “ has fully explained
all the qualities of the circle, but has not,
in any proposition, said a word of its beauty.
The reason is evident. The beauty is not
a quality of the circle.” [487]
By the qualities of the circle, he must
mean its properties; and there are here two
mistakes.
First, Euclid has not fully explained all
the properties of the circle. Many have
been discovered and demonstrated which he
never dreamt of.
Secondly, The reason why Euclid has not
said a word of the beauty of the circle, is
not, that beauty is not a quality of the circle ;
the reason is, that Euclid never digresses
from his subject. His purpose was to de-
monstrate the mathematical properties of
the circle. Beauty is a quality of the circle,
not demonstrable by mathematical reason-
ing, but immediately perceived by a good
taste. To speak of it would have been a
digression from his subject; and that is a
fault he is never guilty of. •
The fourth argument is, That inanimate
objects may bear to each other all the same
relations which we observe in moral agents.
If this were true, it would be very much
to the purpose ; but it seems to be thrown
out rashly, without any attention to its
evidence. Had Mr Hume reflected but a
very little upon this dogmatical assertion,
a thousand instances would have occurred
to him in direct contradiction to it.
May not one animal be more tame, or
more docile, or more cunning, or more fierce,
or more ravenous, than another ? Are
these relations to be found in inanimate ob-
jects 2 May not one man be a better painter,
or sculptor, or ship-builder, or tailor, or
shoemaker, than another ? Are these re-
lations to be found in inanimate objects, or
even in brute animals 2 May not one moral
agent be more just, more pious, more atten-
tive to any moral duty, or more eminent in
any moral virtue, than another ? Are not
these relations peculiar to moral agents 2
But to come to the relations most essential
to morality. [488]
When I say that I ought to do such an
action, that it is my duty, do not these words
express a relation between me and a certain
action in my power ; a relation which can-
not be between inanimate objects, or be-
tween any other objects but a moral agent
and his moral actions ; a relation which is
well understood by all men come to years of
understanding, and expressed in all lan-
guages 2
Again, when in deliberating about two
actions in my power, which cannot both be
done, I say this ought to be preferred to the
other—that justice, for instance, ought to
be preferred to generosity—I express a
moral relation between two actions of a
moral agent, which is well understood, and
which cannot exist between objects of any
other kind.
There are, therefore, moral relations
which can have no existence but between
moral agents and their voluntary actions.
To determine these relations is the object of
morals; and to determine relations is the
province of judgment, not of mere feeling.
The last argument is a chain of several
propositions, which deserve distinct con-
sideration. They may, I think, be summed
up in these four :-1. There must be ulti-
mate ends of action, beyond which it is
absurd to ask a reason of acting, 2. The
ultimate elds of human actions can never
be accounted for by reason; 3. but recom-
[486–488]
678
- ſessay W.
ON THE ACT TVE POWERS.
mend themselves entirely to the sentiments
and affections of mankind, without any de-
pendence on the intellectual faculties. 4.
As virtue is an end, and is desirable on its
own account, without fee or reward, merely
for the immediate satisfaction it conveys;
it is requisite that there should be some
sentiment which it touches, some internal
taste or feeling, or whatever you please te
call it, which distinguishes moral good and
evil, and which embraces the one and rejects
the other. [489] -
To the first of these propositions I en-
tirely agree. The ultimate ends of action
are what I have called the principles of action,
which I have endeavoured, in the third
essay, to enumerate, and to class under
three heads of mechanical, animal, and
rational.
The second proposition needs some expli-
cation. I take its meaning to be, That
there cannot be another end, for the sake
of which an ultimate end is pursued. For
the reason of an action means nothing but
the end for which the action is done; and
the reason of an end of action can mean
nothing but another end, for the sake of
which that end is pursued, and to which it
is the means. - - -
That this is the author's meaning is
evident from his reasoning in confirmation
of it. “Ask a man, why he wses exercise 2
he will answer, because he desires to keep his
health. If you then inquire, why he desires
health 2 he will readily reply, because sick-
ness is painful. If you push your inquiries
further, and desire a reason why he hates
pain, it is impossible he can ever give any.
This is an ultimate end, and is never re-
ferred to any other object.” To account
by reason for an end, therefore, is to shew
another end, for the sake of which that end
is desired and pursued. And that, in this
Sense, an ultimate end can never be ac-
counted for by reason, is certain, because
that cannot be an ultimate end which is
pursued only for the sake of another end.
I agree therefore with Mr Hume in this
second proposition, which indeed is implied
in the first. [490] -
The third proposition is, That ultimate
ends recommend themselves entirely to the
sentiments and affections of mankind, with-
out any dependence on the intellectual fa-
culties. - -
J3y sentiments he must here mean feel-
ings without judgment, and by affections,
such affections as imply no judgment. For
Surely any operation that implies judgment,
cannot be independent of the intellectual
faculties.
This being understood, I cannot assent
to this proposition. I
The author seems to think it implied in
the preceding, or a necessary consequence
from it, that because an ultimate end can-
not be accounted for by reason—that is,
cannot be pursued merely for the sake of
another end—therefore it can have no
dependence on the intellectual faculties. I
deny this consequence, and can see no force
in it. .
I think it not only does not follow from
the preceding proposition, but that it is
contrary to truth. -
A man may act from gratitude as an
ultimate end; but gratitude implies a judg-
ment and belief of favours received, and
therefore is dependent on the intellectual
faculties. A man may act from respect to
a worthy character as an ultimate end ;
but this respect necessarily implies a judg-
ment of worth in the person, and therefore
is dependent on the intellectual faculties.
I have endeavoured, in the third Essay
before mentioned, to shew that, beside the
animal principles of our nature, which
require will and intention, but not judg-
ment, there are also in human nature ra-
tional principles of action, or ultimate ends,
which have, in all ages, been called rational.
and have a just title to that name, not only
from the authority of language, but because
they can have no existence but in beings
endowed with reason, and because, in all
their exertions, they require not only inten-
tion and will, but judgment or reason.
[491]
Therefore, until it can be proved that an
ultimate end cannot be dependent on the
intellectual faculties, this third proposition,
and all that hangs upon it, must fall to the
ground. - - -
The last proposition assumes, with very
good reason, That virtue is an ultimate
end, and desirable on its own account.
From which, if the third proposition were
true, the conclusion would undoubtedly fol-
low, That virtue has no dependence on the
intellectual faculties. But, as that proposi-
tion is not granted, nor proved, this conclu-
sion is left without any support from the
whole of the argument. * e
I should not have thought it worth while
to insist so long upon this controversy, if I
did not conceive that the consequences
which the contrary opinions draw after
them are important.
If what we call moral judgment be no real
judgment, but merely a feeling, it follows
that the principles of morals which we have
been taught to consider as an immutable
law to all intelligent beings, have no other
foundation but an arbitrary structure and
fabric in the constitution of the human
mind. So that, by a change in our struct-
ure, what is immoral might become moral,
virtue might be turned into vice, and vice
into virtue. And beings of a different
structure, according to the variety of their
| 489–491.T
CHAP. VII.]
679
APPROBATION IMPLIES JUDGMENT.
feelings, may have different, nay opposite
measures of moral good and evil. [492]
It follows that, from our notions of
morals, we can conclude nothing concern-
ing a moral character in the Deity, which
is the foundation of all religion, and the
strongest support of virtue.
Nay, this opinion seems to conclude
strongly against a moral character in the
Deity, since nothing arbitrary or mutable
can be conceived to enter into the descrip-
tion of a nature eternal, immutable, and
necessarily existent. Mr Hume seems per-
fectly consistent with himself, in allowing
of no evidence for the moral attributes of
the Supreme Being, whatever there may be
for his natural attributes.
On the other hand, if moral judgment be
a true and real judgment, the principles of
morals stand upon the immutable founda-
tion of truth, and can undergo no change
by any difference of fabric, or structure of
those who judge of them. There may be,
and there are, beings, who have not the
faculty of conceiving moral truths, or per-
ceiving the excellence of moral worth, as
there are beings incapable of perceiving
mathematical truths; but no defect, no error
of understanding, can make what is true to
be false.
[492, 493]
If it be true that piety, justice, benevo-
lence, wisdom, temperance, fortitude, are,
in their own nature, the most excellent and
most amiable qualities of a human creature ;
that vice has an inherent turpitude, which
merits disapprobation and dislike ; these
truths cannot be hid from Him whose under-
standing is infinite, whose judgment is
always according to truth, and who must
esteem everything according to its real
value.
The Judge of all the earth, we are sure,
will do right. He has given to men the
faculty of perceiving the right and the wrong
in conduct, as far as is necessary to our pre-
sent state, and of perceiving the dignity of
the one, and the demerit of the other; and
surely there can be no real knowledge or
real excellence in man, which is not in his
Maker. [493]
We may therefore justly conclude, That
what we know in part, and see in part, of
right and wrong, he sees perfectly ; that the
moral excellence, which we see and admire
in some of our fellow-creatures is a faint
but true copy of that moral excellence which
is essential to his nature ; and that to tread
the path of virtue, is the true dignity of
our nature, an imitation of God, and the
way to obtain his favour. |
A
BRIEF A CCO UNT
OF
A RIST OTLE'S LOGIC,”
WITH REMARKS.
CHAPTER I.
QF THE FIRST THREE TREATISES.
Section I.
OF THE AUTHOR.
ARISTOTLE had very uncommon advan-
tages : born in an age when the philoso-
phical spirit in Greece had long flourished,
and was in its greatest vigour; brought up
in the court of Macedon, where his father
was the king's physician; twenty years a
favourite scholar of Plato; and tutor to
Alexander the Great, who both honoured
him with his friendship, and supplied him
with everything necessary for the prosecu-
tion of his inquiries.
These advantages he improved by inde-
fatigable study, and immense reading." He
was the first we know,” says Strabo, who
composed a library; and in this the Egyp-
tian and Pergamenian kings copied his ex-
ample. As to his genius, it would be dis-
respectful to mankind not to allow an un-
common share to a man who governed the
opinions of the most enlightened part of
the species near two thousand years.:
If his talents had been laid out solely for
the discovery of truth and the good of
mankind, his laurels would have remained
for ever fresh ; but he seems to have had a
greater passion for fame than for truth, and
to have wanted rather to be admired as the
prince of philosophers than to be useful;
so that it is dubious whether there be in his
character most of the philosopher or of the
Sophist.S The opinion of Lord Bacon is
* This treatise originally appeared in the second
volume of Lord Kames's “Sketches of the History
of Man,” published in the year 1774. It was written
at the earnest solicitation of his Lordship, and forms
an appendix to the sketch which he has entitled
** Principles and Progress of Reason.” From Reid’s
Correspondence, (supra, p. 49, b,) it would appear
that he had begun the execution of his task towards
the close of the year 1767. Since Reid's death, this
work has been once and again published, apart and
in the series of the author's philosophical writings,
under the title, “Analysis of Aristotle's Logic.” But,
as the term Analysis was applied to it only by the fiat
of the bookseller, and may tend to convey an erro-
neous conception of its purport, I have adhered to
the original title, which, not only, good or bad, has a
right of occupancy, but is, in fact, far more appro-
priate to the real character of the work, which is at
Once more and less than an analysis of the Organcm.
From the number of errors, especially in the pro-
per names and terms of art, with which this treatise
is deformed, as well in the original as in all the sub-
sequent editions, it is probable that the first impres-
Sion was not revised by the author, who was, how-
ever, it must be owned, at all times rather negligent
in this respect. These I shall, in this treatise, silently
correct. This I have, indeed, frequently taken the
liberty of doing in the other works; but I need not
say that such corrections are, in all cases, only of
palpable inaccuracies or oversights, and do not extend
to a change of even the smallest pcculiarity of ex-
pression.-H. -
* If we take circumstances into account, his acti-
vity and research, his erudition and universality, bawe
never been equalled. “ For the master of the
learned,” says Hegel, himself a kindred genius, “ the
criminal jurisprudence of the Oscan Cumae or a my-
thical fable of the founding of a city, were not less
attractive than speculations regarding first causes
and Supreme ends, than discussions on the laws of
animal life or the principles of poetry.”—H.
f Strabo says, “As far as we know” (3y frºzºv:)
but even this qualification does not render the asser.
tion correct.—H.
+ This is a very scanty allowance. Others have
not been so niggardly. As a specimen :-‘‘ Aristotle,”
says Johann von Mueller, “was the clearest intellect
that ever illuminated the world ;” his own rival,
Campanella, styles him “ Naturae Genius ;” and
the Christian rigour of St Jerome confesses him
#iraculum Mundi, and Humani Intellectus I’imis.-
§ In reference to this antithesis, I have great plea-
sure in quoting a passage from an excellent intro-
ductory lecture to a first course of Greek and ſatin
Philosophy in the College Royal de France, by M.
Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, to whom we owe an ad-
mirable edition, translation, and criticism of the
Politics of Aristotle. M. Saint-Hilaire and M.
Ravaisson are remarkable manifestations of the
spirit of philosophical scholarship, now auspiciously
awakencá in France by the discipline, example, and
632
ECHAP. I.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF
not without probability, That his ambition
was as boundless as that of his royal pupil;
the one aspiring at universal monarchy
over the bodies and fortunes of men, the
other over their opinions." If this was the
case, it cannot be said that the philosopher
pursued his aim with less industry, less
ability, or less success than the hero. +
His writings carry too evident marks of
encouragement of the accomplished thinker to whom
this edition of Reid is dedicated.
“ Depuis Bacon et Des Cartes, il avait eté regu
comme une opinion de bongoſt et ume preuve d'ori-
ginalité, de dédaigner profondément l'antiquité.
dédain appuyé sur l'autorité de ces deux grands ex-
emples, fit fortune en France et en Angleterre.
Aristote surtout en await été l'objet; et c'est à peine
s'il y a quelques années que ce superbe mépris n' a
plus de succès parminous. Les meilleurs esprits n”
avaient pas su se defendre dece prejugé et de cet
aveuglement de l’égoisme moderne. Reid, le chef
de l'école Ecossaise, tout circonspect qu'il est, par les
habitudes de son caractère et par l'esprit même desa
doctrine, Reid se croit encore tenu d'insulter Aris-
tote, passez-moi le mot. car il est vrai, et il va jus-
qu'a dire qu'il ne sait si, dans le précepteur d' Alex-
ander, le sophiste ne l’emporte pas sur le philosophe.
Chez nous, il y a vingt ans à peine, l'illustre M. de
Tracy affirmait, sans réclamation contraire, que
jamais doctrine n'avait autant nuique celle d’ Aris-
tote a l'esprit humain. Brucker, le grand historien
de la philosophie, n'est pas plus équitable que Reid
et M. de Tracy. , Quand les philosophes eux-mêmes
en Étaient arrivés à ce point, on peutimaginer sans
peine ce que devait etre le sentiment de la foule qui,
surces matieres, recevait necessairement ses opinions
toutes faites, des juges compétens. Moliere avait
raillé Aristote sur la scène ; et les sarcasmes depoète
Spirituels et vrais, quand illes faisait, parce qu'alors
ils pouvaient étre dangereux pour lui et utiles à la
société, etaient seuls demeurés, dans un siécle ou
cependant ils n' avaient plus ni sel ni měme de signi-
fication.”
This is not the place to enter into a vindication of
the scientific integrity of Aristotle. I shall simply
observe, that his works afford no valid ground on
which to conclude that he was ever actuated by any
other than the generous sentiment which he pro-
fesses—“ that a philosopher, a lover of wisdom, is
bound, in the cause of Truth, to refute all error,
be it the error of himself or of his friends; for,
though friends be dear, it is still his hallowed
duty to give the higher reverence to Truth : &pºpoly
2&g 8vºroiy ºf ov, Šalov argoriºgy rºv &X30sloy.—H.
| * “For this excellent person, Aristotle, I will think
of him, that he learned that humour of his scholar,
with whom, it seemeth, he did emulate—the one to
conquer all opinions, as the other to conquer all
nations. Wherein, nevertheless, it may be, he may,
at some men's hands, that are of a bitter disposition,
get a like title as his scholar did :- -
- Felix terrarum praedo, mom wtile mundo
S Editus eacemplum, &c.
O== e
- Feliac doctrinae praedo.”
“Advancement of Learning,” Book II.
** De Augmentis Scientiarum,” Lib. III. c.
. f. In fact, were such his aim, he accomplished it
with far superior success. The monarchy of Alex-
ander terminated with his death; whereas of Aris-
totle is pre-eminently true, what has been, not more
ºnly than justly, said of the ancients in ge-
Tº eral-
See also
4.
“The great of old /
The dead but sceptered sovrams, who still rule
Owr spirits from their wrms.”
Aristotle governs the opinions of more than are
‘conscious of their allegiance to the Stagirite. His
Seal is upon all the sciences, and his speculations
have mediately or immediately determined those of
'all subsequent thinkers. Aristotle and Plato are as
the two poles of human intelligence, between which
the various systems of philosophy still continue to
oscillate.-H. - -
Ce"
that philosophical pride, vanity, and envy,
which have often sullied the character of
the learned. He determines boldly things
above all human knowledge; and enters
upon the most difficult questions, as his
pupil entered on a battle, with full assur-
ance of success. ' He delivers his decisions
oracularly, and without any fear of mis-
take.” Rather than confess his ignorance,
he hides it under hard words and ambiguous
expressions, of which his interpreters can
make what pleases them. There is even
reason to suspect that he wrote often with
affected obscurity; either that the air of
mystery might procure greater veneration,t
or that his books might be understood only
by the adepts who had been initiated in his
philosophy.
His conduct towards the writers that
went before him has been much censured.
After the manner of the Ottoman princes,
says Lord Verulam, he thought his throne
could not be secure unless he killed all his
brethren.: Ludovicus Vives charges him
with detracting from all philosophers, that
he might derive that glory to himself of
which he robbed them.S He rarely quotes
an author but with a view to censure, and
is not very fair in representing the opinions
which he censures.
The faults we have mentioned are such
as might be expected in a man who had the
daring ambition to be transmitted to all
future ages as the Prince of Philosophers,
as one who had carried every branch of
human knowledge to its utmost limit, and
who was not very scrupulous about the
means he took to obtain his end.
We ought, however, to do him the just-
ice to observe, that, although the pride and
vanity of the Sophist appear too much in
his writings in abstract philosophy, yet, in
natural history, the fidelity of his narrations
seems to be equal to his industry; and he
always distinguishes between what he knew
* This assertion is curiously incorrect. On the
contrary, Aristotle rarely propounds a categorical de-
cision ; his conclusions being usually qualified with
an iros, a rézz, a poivero.1, &c.—H.
f “Socrates, Aristotle, Galen, were men full of
Ostentation.”—Bacon, Essay on Vain Glory. The
Selection is singular.—H.,
f “ De Augmentis Scientiarum,” Lib. III., c. 4.
“Advancement of Learning,” Book II.
The passage of Vives, to which, I presume, Reid
refers, is in his Commentary on St Austin ; and it
is but fair to quote it at large.—Magnus et admira-
bilis vir, quique ingenio diligentiaque vinceret plwri-
7m.0s, nemimi esset secundus ; variarwin rerum cogni-
tione Platone magistro superior; artificio, vero, omnes,
qui ca: Omni memoria humanas tractaverwnt artes,
longo intervallo post se reliquit. Non sunt proclara,
dotes maligne vel observandae vel interpretandae.
Fuisse avidiorem gloriae, avidiorem carpendi alios,
Jatemdum est; at deacteritatem in trademdis artibus
7107tawm est aliqwis ab avo condito consecutus. De
Civ. Dei, L. vii. c. 12.
The accusation of unfairness in his representation
of the opinions of others, which owed its origin to the
lower Platonists, has now been very generally aban-
doned,—H -
2 T
SECTS. II., III.]
683
ARISTOTLE’s LOGIC.
and what he had by report.” And, even in
abstract philosophy, it would be unfair to
impute to Aristotle all the faults, all the
obscurities, and all the contradictions that
are to be found in his writings. The greatest
part, and perhaps the best part, of his writ-
ings is lost.* There is reason to doubt
whether some of those we ascribe to him
be really his ; and whether what are his be
not much vitiated and interpolated. These
suspicions are justified by the fate of Aris-
totle's writings, which is judiciously re-
lated, from the best authorities, in Bayle's
Dictionary, under the article Tyrannion, to
which I refer.:
His books in Logic, which remain, are,
1. One book of the Categories. 2. One of
Interpretation. 3. First Analytics, two
books. 4. Last Analytics, two books.
5. Topics, eight books. 6. Of Sophisms,
one book. Diogenes Laertius mentions
many others that are lost.S Those I have
mentioned have commonly been published
together, under the name of Aristotle's
Organon, or his Logic ; and, for many
ages, Porphyry's Introduction to the Cate-
gories has been prefixed to them.
Section II.
of PORPHYRY'S INTRODUCTION.
In this introduction, which is addressed
to Chrysaorius, the author observes, That,
in order to understand Aristotle's doctrine
concerning the Categories, it is necessary
to know what a Genus is, what a Species,
what a Specific Difference, what a Property,
and what an Accident ; that the knowledge
of these is also very useful in Definition, in
Division, and even in Demonstration;
therefore, he proposes, in this little tract,
to deliver shortly and simply the doctrine
of the ancients, and chiefly of the Peripate-
tics, concerning these five Predicables,
avoiding the more intricate questions con-
cerning them ; such as, Whether genera
and species do really exist in nature ? or,
Whether, they are only conceptions of the
human mind 2 If they exist in nature,
Whether they are corporeal or incorporeal 2
and, Whether they are inherent in the ob-
jects of sense, or disjoined from them 2.
These, he says, are very difficult questions,
and require accurate discussion ; but that
he is not to meddle with them.
After this preface, he explains very
Iminutely each of the “fice words” above
mentioned, divides and subdivides each of
them, and then pursues all the agreements
and differences between one and another
through sixteen [seventeen] chapters.”
Section III.
of THE CATEGORIES.T
The book begins with an explication of
what is meant by [synonymous: or] wrivo-
cal words, what by [homonymous, or] equi-
vocal, and what by [paronymous, or] de-
nominative. Then it is observed, that what
we say is either simple, without composition
or structure, as man, horse, [fights, runs : ]
or it has composition and structure, as a
man fights, the horse runs. Next comes a
distinction between a subject of predication ;
that is, a subject of which anything is
affirmed or denied, and a subject of inhesion.
These things are said to be inherent in a
subject, which, although they are not a part
of the subject,S cannot possibly exist with-
out it, as figure in the thing figured. Of
things that are, says Aristotle, [1°] some
may be predicated of a subject, but are in
no subject ;|| as man may be predicated of
James or John, but is not in any subject.
[2°] Some again are in a subject, but can
be predicated of no subject." Thus my
knowledge in grammar is in me as its sub-
ject, but it can be predicated of no subject;
because it is an individual thing. [3°] Some
are both in a subject, and may be predicated
of a subject,” as science, which is in the
mind as its subject, and may be predicated
of geometry. [4°] Lastly, Some things can
neither be in a subject nor be predicated of
any subject.-ft. Such are all individual sub-
stances, which cannot be predicated, because
# To this, far more than this, ample testimony is
borne, among others, by Bacon, Buffon, and Cuvier.
But, if so disinterested and indefatigable a worshipper
of Truth in the lower walks of science, is it probable
that he would sacrifice Truth to Vanity in the higher?
# This is incorrect.—H.
f The recent critical examination of the testi-
monies of Strabo, Plutarch, Athenaeus, Suidas, &c.,
in regard to the fortune of the Aristotelic writings,
by Schneider, Brandés, Kopp, and Stahr, has thrown
a new light upon this question. It is now proved
that various of his most important works were pub-
lished by Aristotle during his lifetime ; and that, at
least, the greater number of those now extant were
preserved and patent during the two centuries and a
half intervening between the death of Aristotle and
their pretended publication by Tyrannion.—H.
We are not, however, to suppose that Aristotle
was the author of all the writings under his name in
the lists of Laertius, Suidas, the Anonymus Men-
agii, &c., or that these were all in reality distinct
works.—H.
|| Porphyry flourished from the middle of the third
century.—H. - -
* Reid follows the Pacian distribution of the Or.
gamon into chapters. There are two older.—H.
The book of Categories is rather a metaphysical
than a logical treatise; and has therefore improperly
been introduced into the Organon.—H.
f Synonymes in Logic and Synonymes in Gram-
mer are not the same.-H.
§ It should have been, “which are in a thing, but
not in it as a part.”—H
|| Universal substances.—H.
T Individual or Singular Accidents.—H.
** Universal Accidents. – H.
if Individual or Singular Substances.—H.
684
[CIIAP. i.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF
they are individuals ; and cannot be in a
subject, because they are substances. After
some other subtleties about Predicates and
Subjects, we come to the Categories them-
selves; the things above mentiomed being
called by the schoolmen the antepraedica-
amenta. J t may be observed, however, that,
notwithstanding the distinction now ex-
plained, the being in a subject, and the
being predicated truly of a subject, are, in the
Analytics, used as synonymous phrases;”
and this variation of style has led some per-
sons to think that the Categories were not
written by Aristotle.
Things which may be expressed without
composition or structure are, says the
author, reducible to the following heads:—
They are either Substance, or Quantity,
or Quality, or Relatives [or Posture],
or Pluce [where], or Time [when], or
Having, or Doing, or Suffering. These
are the Predicaments or Categories. The
first four are largely treated of in four chap-
ters; the others are slightly passed over, as
sufficiently clear of themselves. As a speci-
men, I shall give a summary of what he
says on the category of Substance.
Substances are either primary—to wit,
individual substances; or, secondary—to
wit, the genera and species of substances.
Primary substances neither are in a sub-
ject, nor can be predicated of a subject ;
but all other things that exist, either are in
primary substances, or may be predicated
of them. For whatever can be predicated
of that which is in a subject, may also be
predicated of the subject itself. Primary
Substances are more substances than the
Secondary ; and of the secondary, the spe-
cies is more a substance than the genus.
If there were no primary, there could be no
Secondary substances.
The properties of Substance are these :—
1. No substance is capable of intention or
2. No substance can be in any
other thing as its subject of inhesion. 3.
No substance has a contrary; for one sub-
stance cannot be contrary to another ; nor
can there be contrariety between a sub-
stance and that which is no substance. 4.
*
* For this statement, Reid has been bitterly re-
roached by the learned Dr Gillies, and various Eng-
ish writers in his wake, while Mr Stewart only at-
tempts to palliate the error, but not to vindicate the
accuracy, of his friend. -
“The subject,” observes the former in his “ New
Analysis of Aristotle's Works,” “ has been strangely
perplexed by mistaking Aristotle's language, which
is itself highly perspicuous. Tô 3: #y 3A4 Evo.1, &c.
*To say that one term is contained in another. is the
same as saying that the second can be predicated of
the first in the full extent of its signification ; and ome
term is predicated of another in the full extent of its
signification, when there is no particular demoted by
the subject to which the predicate does not apply.” This
remark, which is the foundation of all Aristotle's
logic, has been sadly mistaken by many. Among
others, the learned and truly respectable Dr Reid
writes as follows:– The being in a subject, and the
being truly predicated of a subject, are used by Aris-
totle in his Analytics as synonymous phrases.” But
the two phrases of “being in a subject,” and “being
predicated of it,” are so far from being used as syno-
nymous, that the meaning of the one is directly the
weverse of the meaning of the other.”—P. 63, 4to edi-
tion.
. On this Mr Stewart, in the second volume of his
“Philosophy of the Human Mind,” remarks:–
“While I readily admit the justness of this criticism
on Dr Reid, I must take the liberty of adding, that I
consider Reid’s error as a mere oversight, or slip of
the pen. That he might have accused Aristotle of
confounding two things which, although different in
fact, had yet a certain degree of resemblance or
affinity, is by no means impossible ; but it is scarcely
conceivable that he could be so careless as to accuse
him of confounding two things which he invariably
States in direct opposition to each other. I have not
a doubt, therefore, that Reid’s idea was, that Aris-
totle used as .synonymous phrases, the being in a
thing, and the being a subject of which that thing can
be truly predicated ; more especially as either state-
ment would equally well have answered his purpose.”
. But even this extenuation Dr Gillies will not ad-
‘mit. In his “ Introduction to Aristotle's Khetoric,”
after scne prefatory comments on the importance of
the point, and the heinousness of “ this radical el','o','”
—“I commend,” he says, “ Mr Stewart for his zeal in
‘the defence of his adopted guide in philosophy, and of
So wise and good a man as, from personal acquaintance,
I knew Dr Reid to be. But the defence is rendered
altogether ineffectual by the words of Dr Reid him-
self, who subjoins—“Aristotle's distinction between
the phrases being in a subject, and being said of a sub-
jeet, in the Categories, have led some writers to con-
... 'clude that the Categories were not written by Aris.
totle.”. Dr Reid's mistake, therefore, being a matter
of deliberation, could not proceed from a mere slip
of the pen; it runs through the rest of his work, and
Sometimes becomes the cause of his speaking with
much disrespect of the author whose work he professes
to illustrate. For this task Dr Reid possessed many re-
-quisites-patience, candour, learning, and science.
hat he wanted was a deeper and more intimate ac-
quaintance with Aristotle's writings,” &c., &c. P. 34.
Now, the simple but unsuspected fact is, That
Reid is right, and Gillies wrong. “The being in a
Sºject, and the being predicated of a subject, are, in
the Analytics, used as synonymous phrases”—this
statement of Reid is literally true. For example, the
remission.
two following propositions are, in Aristotle's language,
convertible:—Tô A 227& rocytös B 2.27%20gerato.
or Aéréadai, and rô A rozyr B Örészely; (A is pre-
dicated of all B ; A is, or inheres, in all B.) The latter
is Aristotle's usual form of expression. What Dr
Gillies was thinking of when he said, “ the meaning
of the one is directly the reverse of the meaning of
the other,” was the inverse relation of an attributive
whole and subject part to each other. To this, and not
to the subject of predication, and subject of inhe-
sion, does the quotation he makes from Aristotle
apply; and he must, by some inconceivable confu-
sion or oversight, have imagined that Reid's st:te-
ment was tantamount to the absurdity of saying, that
a species being in a genus, and a species being predi-
cated of a genus, were used by Aristotle as synony-
mous phrases. To vindicate Aristotle's consistency in
this matter, the present is not the occasion.
The exposition of this elementary blunder, is a
good illustration of the maxim—To take mothing
wpon trust ; mothing upon authority. Mr Stewart
was one of the most acute and cautio is of reasoners;
yet we here find him painfully admitting one erro-
neous statement, in reliance on the learned accuracy
of Dr Gillies; and it may be added, that in the note
immediately preceding the one in which the present is
contained, we find him accepting another, in deſer-
ence to the authority of Lord Monboddo. The prin-
ciple on which his Lordship supposes the whole truth
of the syllogism to depend, and the discovery of
which he marvellously attributes to a then living
author, is one that may be found stated as a common
doctrine in almost every system of logic, worthy of
the name, for the last fifteen centuries.--H.
SECT. Iv.]
685
ARISTOTLE's LOGIC.
The most remarkable property of substance
is, that one and the same substance may,
by some change in itself, become the sub-
ject of things that are contrary. Thus the
same body may be at one time hot, at
another cold."
Let this serve as a specimen of Aristotle's
manner of treating the categories. After
them, we have some chapters, which the
schoolmen call postpraedicamenta ; wherein,
first, the four kinds of opposition of terms
are explained; to wit, relative, privative of
contrariety, and of contradiotion. This is
repeated in all systems of logic.t. Last of
all, we have distinctions of the four Greek
words which answer to the Latin ones—
privas, simul, molus, and habere.
Section IV.
OF THE BOOK CONCERNING INTERPRETA-
TION.j
We are to consider, says Aristotle, what
a Noun is, what a Verb, what Affirmation,
what Negation, [what Enumciation,] what
Speech. Words are the signs of what pass-
eth in the mind; Writing is the sign of
words.S The signs both of writing and of
words are different in different nations, but
the operations of mind signified by them
are the same. There are some operations
of thought which are neither true nor false.
These are expressed by mouns or verbs
singly, and without composition.
A Noun is a sound, which, by compact,
signifies something without respect to time,
and of which no part has signification by
itself. The cries of beasts may have a
natural signification, but they are not nouns:
we give that name only to sounds which
have their signification by compact. The
cases of a noun, as the genitive, dative, are
not nouns. Non homo is not a noun, but,
for distinction's sake, may be called a Nomen
Infinitum. || -
A Verb signifies something by compact
with relation to time. Thus, valet is a verb;
but valetudo is a noun, because its signifi-
cation has no relation to time. It is only
the present tense of the indicative that is
properly called a verb ; the other tenses
* These are not all the properties enumerated by
Aristotle. Two others are omitted.—H.
f This is hardly correct.—H
# The boºk II:g, 'Egºzavšío.s is absurdly translated
De Interpretatione. It should be styled in Latin,
De Enumciamdi ratione. In 1 nglish, we might ren.
der it—07, the doctrine of Enouncement—Enºſºcia-
tion—or the like.—H.
§ “Becte Aristoteles-Cogitationum lesserae Verba,
P.ºm Litterac.” BACo De Augm. Scient. L. VI.
C. l.—
| More properly, Nomen Indefinitum—ºvogo. &ég-
5-ov. This mistranslation of Boethius has bcen the
cause of error, among others, to Kant.—H.
and moods are variations" of the verb:
Non valet may be called a verbum infini-
tum.-f
Speech is sound significant by compact,
of which some part is also significant. And
it is either enunciative, or not enunciative.
Enumciative speech is that which affirms or
denies. As to speech which is not enuncia-
tive, such as a prayer or wish, the consi-
deration of it belongs to oratory or poetry.
Every enunciative speech must have a verb,
or some variation of a verb. Affirmation
is the enunciation of one thing concerning
another. Negation is the enunciation of
one thing from another. Contradiction is
an affirmation and negation that are oppo-
site. This is a summary of the first six
chapters.
The seventh and eighth treat of the vari-
ous kinds of enunciations or propositions,
wniversal, particular, indefinite, and singu-
bar ; and of the various kinds of opposition
in propositions, and the arioms concerning
them. These things are repeated in every
system of logic. In the ninth chapter, he
endeavours to prove, by a long metaphysi-
cal reasoning, that propositions respecting
Julwre contingencies are not, determinately,
either true or false; and that, if they were,
it would follow that all things happen neces-
Sarily, and could not have been otherwise
than as they are. The remaining [five]
chapters contain many minute observations
concerning the aequipollency of propositions
both pure and modal.
CHAPTER II.
R.E.M.A.R.K.S.
Section I.
ON THE FIVE PREDICA BI.F.S.
THE writers on logic have borrowed their
materials almost entirely from Aristotle's
Organon, and Porphyry's Introduction.
The Organon, however, was not written by
Aristotle as one work. It comprehends
various tracts, written without the view of
making them parts of one whole, and after-
wards thrown together by his editors under
one name, on account of their affinity,
Many of his books that are lost would have
made a part of the Organon, if they had
been saved. -
The three treatises, of which we have
given a brief account, are unconnected with
each other, and with those that follow.
And although the first was undoubtedly
compiled by Porphyry, and the two last
* TIrúa'el; ; cases, flexions.—H.
f See penult note,—H,
686
[CHAP. II.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF
probably by Aristotle, yet I consider them
as the venerable remains of a philosophy
more ancient than Aristotle. Archytas of
Tarentum, an eminent mathematician and
philosopher of the Pythagorean school, is
said to have wrote upon the ten categories;"
and the five predicables probably had their
origin in the same school. Aristotle, though
abundantly careful to do justice to himself,
does not claim the invention of either. And
Porphyry, without ascribing the latter to
Aristotle, professes only to deliver the doc-
trine of the ancients, and chiefly of the
Peripatetics, concerning them.
The writers on logic have divided that
science into three parts; the first treating
of Simple Apprehension and of Terms ; the
second, of Judgment and of Propositions ;
and the third, of Reasoning and of Syllo-
gisms. The materials of the first part are
taken from Porphyry's Introduction and
the Categories; and those of the second
from the book of Interpretation.
A Predicable, according to the gramma-
tical form of the word, might seem to sig-
nify whatever might be predicated, that is,
affirmed or denied, of a subject and in this
sense every predicate would be a predicable.
But the logicians give a different meaning to
the word. They divide propositions into
certain classes, according to the relation
which the predicate of the proposition bears
to the subject. The first class is that
wherein the predicate is the genus of the
subject, as when we say, “This is a triangle,”
“Jupiter is a planet.” In the second class,
the predicate is a species of the subject; as
when wesay, “This triangle is right-angled.”
A third class is when the predicate is the
specific difference of the subject; as when
we say, “Every triangle has three sides and
three angles.” A fourth, when the predicate
is a property of the subject; as when we
say, “The angles of every triangle are equal
to two right angles.” And a fifth class is
when the predicate is something accidental
to the subject; as when we say, “This tri-
angle is neatly drawn.” -
Each of these classes comprehends a
great variety of propositions, having differ-
ent subjects and different predicates; but
in each class the relation between the pre-
dicate and the subject is the same. Now,
it is to this relation that logicians have given
* Archytas is only said to have written upon the
ten categories, because there is an exposition of these
in the treatise on the “Nature of the Universe,”
under his name, from which copious extracts are
preserved by Simplicius, in his Commentaries on
the Categories and the Physics of Aristotle. These ex-
tracts, however, of themselves, afford sufficient evi-
dence that this treatise is, like the rest of the Pytha-
gorean Fragments, the fabrication of some sophist
long subsequent to Aristotle. The unsuspecting
adtnission of these Fragments as genuine remains, is
an error, or rather ignorance, of which all British
writers on Logic and l'hilosophy, who have had occa-
Sion to refer to them, are guilty.—H.
the name of a predicable. Hence it is, that,
although the number of predicates be infin-
ite, yet the number of predicables can be
no greater than that of the different rela-
tions which may be in propositions between
the predicate and the subject. And if all
propositions belong to one or other of the
five classes above mentioned, there can be
but five predicables—to wit, genus, species,
differentia, proprium, and accidens. These
might, with more propriety perhaps, have
been called the five classes of preawales ;
but use has determined them to be called
the five predicables. v -
It may also be observed, that, as some ob-
jects of thought are individuals, such as, Ju-
lius Caesar, the city of Rome ; so others are
common to many individuals, as good, great,
virtuous, vicious. Of this last kind are all
things that are expressed by adjectives.
Things common to many individuals were
by the ancients called wniversals. All predi-
cates are universals, for they all have the
nature of adjectives; and, on the other hand,
all universals may be predicates. On this ac-
count, universals maybe divided into thesame
classes as predicates; and as the five classes of
predicates above mentioned have been called
the five predicables, so, by the same kind of
phraseolegy, they have been called the five
wniversals ; although they may more pro-
perly be called the five classes of whiversals.
The doctrine of the Five Universals, or
Predicables, makes an essential part of
every system of logic, and has been handed
down without any change to this day. The
very name of predicables shews, that the
author of this division, whoever he was, in-
tended it as a complete enumeration of all
the kinds of things that can be affirmed of any
subject ; and So it has always been under-
stood. It is accordingly implied in this
division, that all that can be affirmed of
anything whatsoever, is either the genus of
the thing, or its species, or its specific differ-
ence, or some property or accident belong-
ing to it. •.
Burgersdyk, a very acute writer in logic,
seems to have been aware that strong ob-
jections might be made to the five predica-
bles, considered as a complete enumera-
tion : But, unwilling to allow any imperfec-
tion in this ancient division, he endeavours
to restrain the meaning of the word predica-
ble, so as to obviate objections. Those things
only, says he, are to be accounted predica-
bles, which may be affirmed—of many indi-
viduals — truly—properly — [naturally]—
and immediately. The consequence of put-
ting such limitations upon the word predi-
cable is, that, in many propositions, perhaps
in most, the predicate is not a predicable.
But, admitting all his limitations, the enu-
meration will still be very incomplete; for
of many things we may affirm, truly, pro-
SECT. II.]
687
ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC.
perly, and immediately, their existence,
their end, their cause, their effect, and var-
ious relations which they bear to other
things. These, and perhaps many more,
are predicables in the strict sense of the
word, no less than the five which have been
so long famous."
Although Porphyry, and all subsequent
writers make the predicables to be in num-
ber five, yet Aristotle himself, in the begin-
ning of the topics, reduces them to four,
and demonstrates that there can be no
more. We shall give his demonstration
when we come to the topics, it and shall only
here observe, that, as Burgersdyk justifies
the fivefold division, by restraining the
meaning of the word predicable, so Aristo-
tle justifies the fourfold division, by enlarg-
ing the meaning of the words property and
accident. -
After all, I apprehend that this ancient
division of predicables, with all its imper-
fections, will bear a comparison with those
which have been substituted in its stead by
the most celebrated modern philosophers.
Locke, in his “Essay on the Human
Understanding,” having laid it down as a
principle, That all our knowledge consists
in perceiving certain agreements and dis-
agreements between our ideas, reduces these
agreements and disagreements to four heads
—to wit, I, Identity and Diversity; 2, Rela-
tion ; 3, Co-existence ; 4, Real Ealistence. S
Here are four predicables given as a com-
plete enumeration, and yet not one of the an-
cient predicables is included in the number.|
The author of the “ Treatise of Human
Nature,” proceeding upon the same prin-
ciple, that all our knowledge is only a per-
ception of the relations of our ideas, ob-
serves, “That it may perhaps be esteemed
an endless task to enumerate all those qua-
lities which admit of comparison, and by
which the ideas of philosophical relation are
produced ; but, if we diligently consider
them, we shall find, that, without difficulty,
they may be comprised under seven general
heads:—l, Resemblance ; 2, Identity ; 3,
Belations of Space and Time ; 4, Relations
of Quantity and Number ; 5, Degrees of
Quality; 6, Contrariety; 7, Causation.”
Here again are seven predicables given as
a complete enumeration, wherein all the
predicables of the ancients, as well as two
of Locke's, are left out.--
The ancients, in their division, attended
only to categorical propositions which have
one subject and one predicate; and of these
to such only as have a general term for their
subject. The moderns, by their definition
of knowledge, have been led to attend only
to relative propositions, which express a
relation between two subjects, and these
subjects they suppose to be always ideas.:
Section II.
on THE TEN CATEGORIES, AND ON DIVISIONS
IN GTENERAL, -
The intention of the Categories or Predic-
aments is, to muster every object of human
apprehension under ten heads ; for the
categories are given as a complete enumer-
ation of everything which can be expressed
without composition and structure—that is,
of everything which can be either the subject
or the predicate of a proposition.S. So that,
as every soldier belongs to some company,
and every company to some regiment, in
like manner everything that can be the
object of human thought has its place in
one or other of the ten categories; and, by
dividing and subdividing properly the se-
veral categories, all the notions that enter
into the human mind may be mustered in
rank and file, like an army in the day of
battle. ||
* All these, however, fall under one or other of
the five words which, it should be observed, are forms
or modes of predication, and not things predicated.
Reid seems to have taken the objection from Bur-
gersdyk : he should not have overlooked his solution.
—“Quod quidam aiunt, etiam partem praedicari de
toto, causam de effecto, adjunctum éacternwm de sub-
jecto ; ac proinde plura esse praedicabilia quam
quinque, nullius prorsus momenti est. Nam pars
non praedicatur de toto in casu recto, neque causa
de effecto, megue adjunctum externum de subjecto ;
sed tantum in casu obliquo. Neque enim dicinus,
Animal est capwt, Sed, csl capitatum, aut tale quid :
non, dicinus etiam, Eclipsis est interpositio terrae
(nisi improprie) sed, fit ob interpositionem terra: ;
neque, Miles est gladius, sed est gladiatus. Et ejus-
modi praedicationes revocari debent ad differentiam,
p' oprium aut accidens.”— Institut. Log., l. i. c. 10.—H.
f Not absolutely; but only in a certain point of
view.-H.
£ Chapter iv. § 2.-H.
§ Book iv. chap. 1. . .
| See note next but one.-H.
* Vol. i. pp. 33 and 125. -
f These two paragraphs, independently of the
general tenor of the treatise, shew that Reid, like
our British philosophers in general, was unaware of
the difference between the Logical or Formal, and
the Metaphysical or Real. He did not consider that
the Predicables are forms or modes of predication,
| and not things predicated ; in the language of the
schools, second motions, not first. These real gener-
alisations of Locke and Hume may be brought into
comparision with the Categories of Aristotle, which
are, in truth, a Metaphysical, and not a Logical
reduction ; but they cannot be brought into com-
parison with the Five Words, which constitute a
purely formal generalisation. Why, in brief, was
it not objected that the predicables do not contain
the predicaments, or the predicaments the predic-
ables 2–H.
# This observation is out of place.-H.
§. This is incorrect; for from the Categories are ex-
cluded many things that form the subject and predi-
cate of a proposition, as entia rationis and motiones
secunda: ; while others transcend the classification
altogether, as being, one, whole, the infinite, &c. In
fact, as already noticed, the classification is of a me-
taphysical, not a logical, purport.—H.
|| The ten Aristotelic Categories may be thus
methodically deduced and simplified :—They are all
divisions of Being—Iºns. Being is divided into Ens per
se and Ems per accidens. Ems per se, corresponds to
Substance—the first of the Aristotelic Categories ;
688
[chap. ii.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF
The perfection of the division of cate-
gories into ten heads has been strenuousyl
defended by the followers of Aristotle, as
well as that of the five predicables. They
are, indeed, of kin to each other ; they
breathe the same spirit, and probably had
the same origin. By the one we are taught
to marshal every term that can enter into
a proposition, either as subject or predicate;
and, by the other, we are taught all the
possible relations which the subject can
have to the predicate. Thus the whole fur-
niture of the human mind is presented to
us at one view, and contracted, as it were,
into a nutshell. To attempt, in so early a
period, a methodical delineation of the vast
region of human knowledge, actual and
possible, and to point out the limits of
every district, was indeed magnanimous in
a high degree, and deserves our admiration,
while we lament that the human powers
are unequal to so bold a flight.
A regular distribution of things under
proper classes or heads is, without doubt, a
great help both to memory and judgment.
And as the philosopher’s province includes
all things, human and divine, that can be ob-
jects of inquiry, he is naturally led to attempt
some general division like that of the cate-
gories. And the invention of a division of
this kind, which the speculative part of
mankind acquiesced in for two thousand
years, marks a Superiority of genius in
the inventor, whoever he was. Nor does
it appear that the general divisions which,
since the decline of the Peripatetic philoso-
phy, have been substituted in place of the
ten categories are more perfect.
Locke has reduced all things to three ca-
tegories—viz., substances, modes, and rela-
tions. In this division, time, space, and num-
(er, three great objects of human thought,
are omitted.*
The author of the “Treatise of Human
Nature”-F has reduced all things to two
Bns per accidens, comprises the other nine. For it
either denotes something absolute or something rela-
tive. If something absolute, it either originates in
the matter of the substance, and is divisible-Quant-
ity, Aristotle's second Category; or in the form, and
is indivisible—Quality, Aristotle's third Category. If
something relative, it constitutes Relation, the fourth
Category; and to Relation the other six may easily
be reduced. For the fifth, Where, denotes the rela-
tion between different objects in space, or the rela-
tion between place and the thing placed. The sixth,
When, denotes the relation between objects in suc-
cession, or the relation between time and a thing
In time. The seventh, Postwre, is the relation of the
parts of a body to each other. The eighth, Having,
is the relation of the thing having, and the thing had ;
while the ninth and tenth, Action and Passion, are
the reciprocal relations between the agent and the
patient. There are, on this scheme, one supreme
Category—Being; two at the first descent—Ems pe.
sc, Ens per accidens ; four at the first and second–
Substance, Quantity, Quality, Relation ; and to the
dignity of Category, these four are, of Aristotle's ten,
pre-eminently, if not exclusively entitled.—H.
* It might be contended that the three latter are
P .
categories—viz., ideas and impressions; a
division which is very well adapted to his
system, and which puts me in mind of
another made by an excellent mathema-
tician” in a printed thesis I have seen. In
it the author, after a severe censure of the
ten categories of the Peripatetics, maintains
that there neither are nor can be more than .
two categories of things—viz., data and
quaesita.
There are two ends that may be proposed
by such divisions. The first is, to method-
ise or digest in order what a man actually
knows. This is neither unimportant nor
impracticable; and, in proportion to the
solidity and accuracy of a man's judgment,
his divisions of the things he knows will be
elegant and useful. The same subject may
admit, and even require, various divisions,
according to the different points of view
from which we contemplate it; nor does it
follow, that, because one division is good,
therefore another is naught. To be ac-
quainted with the divisions of the logicians
and metaphysicians, without a superstitious
attachment to them, may be of use in divid-
ing the same subjects, or even those of a
different nature. Thus Quintilian borrows
from the ten categories his division of the
topics of rhetorical argumentation. Of all
methods of arrangement, the most anti-
philosophical seems to be the invention of
this age;t I mean the arranging the arts
and sciences by the letters of the alphabet,
in dictionaries and encyclopaedias. With
these authors the categories are, A, B, C,
&c. --
Another end commonly proposed by such
divisions, but very rarely attained, is to ex-
haust the subject divided, so that nothing
that belongs to it shall be omitted. It is
one of the general rules of division, in all
systems of logic, That the division should be
adequate to the subject divided: a good rule
without doubt, but very often beyond the
reach of human power. To make a perfect
division, a man must have a perfect com-
prehension of the whele subject at one view.
When our knowledge of the subject is im-
perfect, any division we can make must be
like the first sketch of a painter, to be ex-
tended, contracted, or mended, as the sub-
ject shall be found to require. Yet nothing
is more common, not only among the ancient,
but even among modern philosophers, than
to draw, from their incomplete divisions,
conclusions which suppose them to be per-
fect. +
A division is a repository which the phi-
losopher frames for holding his ware in con-
venient order.”The philosopher maintains,
contained under the three former.—H.
f Hume.—H.
* Reid's uncle, James Gregory. See above, p. 68,
ºf Not the invention of Reid's age, though in that
it was more generally and extensively applied.-H. '
SECT. III.]
689
ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC,
that such or such a thing is not good ware,
because there is no place in his wareroom
that fits it. We are apt to yield to this
argument in philosophy, but it would appear
ridiculous in any other traffic.
Peter Ramus, who had the spirit of a
reformer in philosophy, and who had a force
of genius sufficient to shake the Aristotelian
fabric in many parts, but insufficient to
erect anything more Solid in its place, tried
to remedy the imperfection of philosophical
divisions, by introducing a new manner of
dividing.” His divisions always consisted
of two members, one of which was contra-
dictory of the other, as if one should divide
England into Middlesex and what is not
Middlesex. It is evident that these two
members comprehend all England; for the
Logicians observe, that a term along with
its contradictory comprehend all things.
In the same manner, we may divide what
is not Middlesex into Kent and what is not
Kent. Thus one may go on by divisions and
subdivisions that are absolutely complete.
This example may serve to give an idea of
the spirit of Ramean divisions, which were
in no Small reputation about two hundred
years ago.
Aristotle was not ignorant of this kind of
division. But he used it only as a touch-
stone to prove by induction the perfection
of some other division, which indeed is the
best use that can be made of it. When
applied to the common purpose of division, it
is both inelegant and burdensome to the me-
mory; and, after it has put one out of breath
by endless subdivisions, there is still a nega-
tive term left behind, which shews that you
are no nearer the end of your journey than
when you began.
Until some more effectual remedy be
found for the imperfection of divisions, I
beg leave to propose one more simple than
that of Ramus. It is this—When you meet
with a division of any subject imperfectly
comprehended, add to the last member an
et catera. That this et caetera makes the
division complete, is undeniable ; and there-
fore it ought to hold its place as a member,
and to be always understood, whether ex-
pressed or not, until clear and positive
proof be brought that the division is com-
plete without it. And this same et caetera
shall be the repository of all members that
may in any future time shew a good and
valid right to a property in the subject.i.
* There is nothing new whatever in Ramus's
Dichotomy by contradiction. It was, in particu-
lar, a favourite with Plato. Among others, see
Ammonius on the Categories, f. 26, a, ed. Ald. 1546.
* f ls this “protestation to add and eke” serious or
in joke P-H.
Section III.
ON DISTINCTIONS.
Having said so much of logical divisions,
we shall next make some remarks upon
distinctions.
Since the philosophy of Aristotle fell into
disrepute, it has been a common topic of
wit and raillery to inveigh against meta-
physical distinctions. Indeed the abuse of
them, in the scholastic ages, seems to justify
a general prejudice against them; and
shallow thinkers and writers have good
reason to be jealous of distinctions, because
they make sad work when applied to their
flimsy compositions. But every man of true
judgment, while he condemns distinctions
that have no foundation in the nature of
things, must perceive, that indiscriminately
to decry distinctions, is to renounce all
pretensions to just reasoning : for, as false
reasoning commonly proceeds from con-
founding things that are different, so, with-
out distinguishing such things, it is impos-
sible to avoid error or detect sophistry. The
authority of Aquinas, or Suarez, or even of
Aristotle, can neitherstamp areal value upon
distinctions of base metal, nor hinder the
currency of those that have intrinsic value.
Some distinctions are verbal, others are
real. The first kind distinguish the various
meanings of a word, whether proper or me-
taphorical. Distinctions of this kind make
a part of the grammar of a language, and
are often absurd when translated into
another language. Real distinctions are
equally good in all languages, and suffer
no hurt by translation. They distinguish
the different species contained under some
general notion, or the different parts con-
tained in one whole.
Many of Aristotle's distinctions are verbal
merely, and therefore more proper mate-
rials for a dictionary of the Greek language,
than for a philosophical treatise. At least,
they ought never to have been translated
into other languages, when the idiom of the
language will not justify them : for this is
to adulterate the language, to introduce fo-
reign idioms into it without necessity or
use, and to make it ambiguous where it was
not. The distinctions in the end of the
categories of the four words, privs, simul,
motus, and habere, are all verbal.”
The modes or species of Prius, accord-
ing to Aristotle, are five. . One thing may
be prior to another—first, in point of time 3
secondly, in point of dignity; thirdly, in
point of order; and so forth,t The modes
+ These distinctions are all founded on the analo-
gies of real existence, and are all equally valid in
other languages as in Greek.-H.. - w
# More accurately: One thing is prior to another
2 Y
590
| Gh AP II.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF
tº:
of simul are only three. It seems this word
was not used in the Greek with so great
latitude as the other, although they are
relative terms.”
The modes or species of Motion he makes
to be six—viz., generation, corruption, in-
crease, decrease, alteration, and change of
place."
The modes or species of Having are
[principally] eight. 1. Having a quality
or habit,'i as having wisdom. 2. Having
quantity or magnitude. 3. Having things
adjacent, as having a sword. 4. Having
things as parts, as having hands or feet.
5. Having in a part or on a part, as having
a ring on one's finger. 6. Containing, as a
cask is said to have wine. 7. Possessing,
as having lands or houses. 8. Having a
wife [or husband.]"
Another distinction of this kind is Aris-
totle’s distinction of Causes ; of which he
makes four kinds, efficient, material, formal,
and final. These distinctions may deserve
a place in a dictionary of the Greek lan-
guage; but, in English or Latin, they adul-
erate the language.f. Yet so fond were
the schoolmen of distinctions of this kind,
that they added to Aristotle's enumeration
an impulsive cause, Š an ea'emplary cause, ||
and I don’t know how many more. We
seem to have adopted into English a final
cause ; but it is merely a term of art, bor-
rowed from the Peripatetic philosophy,
without necessity or use; for the English
word end is as good as final cause, though
not so long nor so learned.
in the order of Time—of Nature—of Arrangement—
of Dignity—of Cawsation. This last, which was
added by Aristotle, may be well reduced to the
second.— H.
* The penult note applies to these.— H.
t It should have been—“ Habit, Disposition, or
other Quality.” The others are, in like manner,
neither accurately nor adequately stated: sed momi.
tamti.-H.
# This statement, that Aristotle's quadruple dis-
tinction or causes was one not established on the
essential nature of things, but founded on a verbal
peculiarity of the Greek language, Reid has, in his
subsequent writings, once and again repeated. (See
above, Correspondence, p. 75, a, and 76, b ; Active
Powers, p. 526, a.) It is not, however, correct. The
distinction is not found marked out in the Greek
language more than in any other; though, from the
natural, flexibility, and analogies of that tongue, it
was better suited to express without effort this and
other philosophical discriminations. In itself the
division is not merely verbal, but proceeds on the
natural differences of real things. This, however,
is not the place to shew that Aristotle had taken ä
far juster and more comprehensive view of this sub.
ject than the great majority, if not the whole, of our
recent philosophers.—H.
. § This is a mistake. The schoolmen added no
impulsive Catºse, distinct from the final and efficient
causes of Aristotle.—H.
|| The evenplary cause was introduced by Plato;
and was not adopted by the schoolmen as a fifth
cause in addition to Aristotle's four.—H.
Section I V.
ON DEFINITIONS,
It remains that we make some remarks
on Aristotle's Definitions, which have ex-
posed him to much censure and ridicule.
Yet I think it must be allowed, that, in
things which need definition, and admit of
it, his definitions are commonly judicious
and accurate ; and, had he attempted to
define such things only, his enemies had
wanted great matter of triumph. I believe
it may likewise be said in his favour, that,
until Locke's essay was wrote, there was
nothing of importance delivered by philo-
sophers with regard to definition,” beyond
what Aristotle has said upon that subject.
He considers a Definition as a speech
declaring what a thing is. Every thing
essential to the thing defined, and nothing
more, must be contained in the definition.
Now, the essence of a thing consists of
these two parts: first, What is common to
it with other things of the same kind; and,
secondly, What distinguishes it from other
things of the same kind. The first is called
the Genus of the thing, the second its Spe-
cific Difference. The definition, therefore,
consists of these two parts. And, for find-
ing them, we must have recourse to the
ten categories; † in one or other of which
everything in nature is to be found. Each
category is a genus, and is divided into so
many species, which are distinguished by
their specific differences. Each of these
species is again subdivided into so many
species, with regard to which it is a genus.
This division and subdivision continues
until we come to the lowest species, which
can only be divided into individuals distin-
guished from one another, not by any spe-
cific difference, but by accidental differences
of time, place, and other circumstances.
The category itself, being the highest
genus, is in no respect a species, and the
lowest species is in no respect a genus ; but
every intermediate order is a genus com-
pared with those that are below it, and a
species compared with those above it. To
find the definition of anything, therefore,
* This is commonly but erroneously asserted.
Locke says little or nothing on the subject of Defin-
ition which had not been previously said by philoso-
phers before him, and with whose works he can be
proved to have been acquainted. See above, p. 220,
a, note f.-H.
+ From this and what follows, it would seem that
Reid thought that the Aristotelic doc_rine of Defini:
tion is necessarily relative to the ten Categories; and
that, to find the definition of a thing, we must de-
scend from the category to the genus and specific dif-
ference sought. This, however, is not the case. For,
according to Aristotle, there are two methods of
“hunting up” the required definition: the one by
division * descent, the other by induction and
as Cent, - H.
SECT. v.]
69 1.
ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC.
you must take the genus which is imme-
diately above its place in the category, and
the specific difference by which it is distin-
guished from other species of the same
genus. These two make a perfect defini-
tion. This I take to be the substance of
Aristotle's system, and probably the system
of the Pythagorean school," before Aristotle,
concerning definition.
But, notwithstanding the specious appear-
ance of this system, it has its defects. Not
to repeat what was before said of the im-
perfection of the division of things into ten
categories, the subdivisions of each category
are no less imperfect. Aristotle has given
some subdivisions of a few of them ; and,
as far as he goes, his followers pretty unani-
mously take the same road. But, when
they attempt to go farther, they take very
different roads. It is evident, that, if the
series of each category could be completed,
and the division of things into categories
could be made perfect, still the highest genus
in each category could not be defined, be-
cause it is not a species; nor could indivi-
duals be defined, because they have no
specific difference. There are also many
species of things, whose specific difference
cannot be expressed in language, even when
it is evident to sense, or to the understand-
ing. Thus, green, red, and blue, are very
distinct species of colour; but who can ex-
press in words wherein green differs from
red or blue P+ -
Without borrowing light from the ancient
system, we may perceive that every defini-
tion must consist of words that need no
definition; and that to define the common
words of a language that have no ambiguity
is trifling, if it could be done; the only use
of a definition being to give a clear and
adequate conception of themeaning of a word.
The logicians indeed distinguish between
the definition of a word and the definition of
a thing ; considering the former as the mean
office of a lexicographer, but the last as the
grand work of a philosopher. But what they
have said about the definition of a thing, if
it has a meaning, is beyond my compre-
hension. All the rules of definition agree
to the definition of a word : and if they
mean, by the definition of a thing, the giv-
ing an adequate conception of the nature
and essence of anything that exists, this is
impossible, and is the vain boast of men
unconscious of the weakness of human un-
derstanding.S
The works of God are all imperfectly
known by us. We see their outside, or
perhaps we discover some of their qualities
and relations, by observation and experi-
ment, assisted by reasoning : but we can
give no definition of the meanest of them
which comprehends its real essence. It
is justly observed by Locke, that nominal
essences only, which are the creatures of our
own minds, are perfectly comprehended by
us, or can be properly defined;" and even
of these there are many too simple in their
nature to admit of definition. When we
cannot give precision to our notions by a
definition, we must endeavour to do it by
attentive reflection upon them, by observing
minutely their agreements and differences,
and especially by a right understanding of
the powers of our own minds by which such
notions are formed.
The principles laid down by Locke, with
regard to definition, and with regard to the
abuse of words, carry conviction along with
them : and I take them to be one of the mos
important improvements made in logic,
since the days of Aristotle; not so much be-
cause they enlarge our knowledge, as be-
cause they make us sensible of our igno-
rance, and shew that a great part of what
speculative men have admired as profound
philosophy, is only a darkening of know-
ledge by words without understanding.f.
Section P.
ON THE STRUCTURE OF SPEECH.
The few hints contained in the beginning
of the book concerning Interpretation re-
lating to the structure of speech, have been
left out in treatises of logic, as belonging
rather to grammar; yet I apprehend this is
a rich field of philosophical speculation.
Language being the express image of human
* See above, p. 686, note.—H.
+ This, of course, is stated by Aristotle himself and
other logicians: and it does not affect his doctrine of
Definition, but marks the necessary limits of Defini-
tion in general.-H.
f Hence it was expressly stated by the old logicians
—0:mmis intuitiva motitia est definitio.—H.
§ by a real, in contrast to a verbal or nominal de-
finition, the logicians do not intend “the giving an
adequate conception of the mature and essence of a
thing”—that is, of a thing considered in itself, and
apart from the conceptions of it already possessed.
Hy verbal definition, is meant the more accurate
determination of the signification of a word ; by real,
the more accurate determination of the contents of
a motion. The one clears up the relation of words to
motions ; the other of motions to things. The substitu-
tion of motional for real would, perhaps, remove the
ambiguity. But, if we retain the term real, the aim
of a verbal definition being to speciſy the thought
denoted by the word, such definition ought to be
called motional, on the principle on which the defini-
tion of a motion is called real ; for this definition is
the exposition of what things are comprehended in a
thought.-H.
* Locke gives the title Nominal Essence to the
abstract notion marked out by a general term ; and
Real Essence to that (probably unknown) constitution,
whereby a thing is as it is. On this definition as the
Nominal Essence comprehends all that is conceived
it must, of course, comprehend all that can be de-
fined. The Nominal Essence of Locke is, in fact,
only a new name for the Logical Essence of other
philosophers.-H. - -
f See above, p. 690, b, note *.-See also, a para-
graph here cmitted, at the end of this treatise.-H.
2 Y 2
692
[CHAP. II.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF
thought, the analysis of the one must cor-
respond to that of the other. Nouns ad-
jective and substantive, verbs active and
passive, with their various moods, tenses,
and persons, must be expressive of a like
variety in the modes of thought. Things
that are distinguished in all languages, such
as substance and quality, action and passion,
cause and effect, must be distinguished by
the natural powers of the human mind. The
philosophy of grammar, and that of the
human understanding, are more nearly
allied than is commonly imagined.
The structure of language was pursued
to a considerable extent by the ancient com-
mentators upon this book of Aristotle. Their
speculations upon this subject, which are
neither the least ingenious nor the least
useful part of the Peripatetic philosophy,
were neglected for many ages, and lay buried
in ancient manuscripts, or in books little
known, till they were lately brought to light
by the learned Mr Harris, in his “Hermes.”
The definitions given by Aristotle of a
moun, of a verb, and of speech, will hardly
bear examination. It is easy in practice to
distinguish the various parts of speech; but
very difficult, if at all possible, to give ac-
curate definitions of them.
He observes justly, that, besides that
kind of speech called a proposition, which is
always either true or false, there are other
kinds which are neither true nor false, such
as a prayer or wish ; to which we may add,
a question, a command, a promise, a con-
tract, and many others. These Aristotle
pronounces to have nothing to do with his
subject, and remits them to oratory or
poetry; and so they have remained banished
from the regions of philosophy to this day;
yet I apprehend that an analysis of such
speeches, and of the operations of mind
which they express, would be of real use,
and perhaps would discover how imperfect
an enumeration the logicians have given of
the powers of human understanding, when
they reduce them to Simple Apprehension,
Judgment, and Reasoning."
Section. VI.
ON PROPOSITIONS.
Mathematicians use the word Proposi-
tion in a larger sense than Logicians. A
problem is called a proposition in mathema-
tics, but in logic it is not a proposition; it
is one of those speeches which are not enun-
ciative, and which Aristotle remits to
oratory or poetry. [?]
A Proposition, according to Aristotle, is
a speech wherein one thing is affirmed or
denied of another. Hence, it is easy to
distinguish the thing affirmed or denied,
which is called the Predicate, from the
thing of which it is affirmed or denied, which
is called the Subject ; and these two are
called the Terms of the proposition. Hence,
likewise, it appears that propositions are
either affirmalive or negative ; and this is
called their Quality. All affirmative propo-
sitions have the same quality, so likewise
have all negative; but an affirmative and a
negative are contrary in their quality.
When the subject of a proposition is a
general term, the predicate is affirmed or
denied either of the whole, or of a part.
Hence propositions are distinguished into
wniversal and particular. “ All men are
mortal,” is an universal proposition; “Some
men are learned,” is a particular ; and this
is called the Quantity of the proposition.
All universal propositions agree in quantity,
as also all particular ; while an universal and
a particular are said to differ in quantity.
A proposition is called indefinite when there
is no mark either of universality or particu-
larity annexed to the subject: thus, “ Man
is of few days,” is an indefinite proposition ;
but it must be understood either as univer.
Sal or as particular, and therefore is not a
third species, but, by interpretation, is
brought under one of the other two."
There are also singular propositions, which
have not a general term, but an individual,
for their subject; as, “ Alexander was a
great conqueror.” These are considered
by Logicians as universal, because the sub-
ject being indivisible, the predicate is
affirmed or denied of the whole, and not of
a part only. Thus, all propositions, with
regard to quality, are either affirmative or
negative ; and, with regard to quantity, are
universal or particular ; and, taking in both
quantity and quality, they are universal
affirmatives, or universal negatives, or par-
ticular affirmatives or particular negatives.
These four kinds, after the days of Aristotle,
came to be named by the names of the four
first vowels, A, E, I, O, according to the
following distich :—
Asserit A, negat E, seduniversaliter ambae ;
Asserit I, negat O, sed particulariter ambo.f
When the young Logician is thus far in-
structed in the nature of propositions, he is
apt to think there is no difficulty in analyz-
ing any proposition, and shewing its subject
and predicate, its quantity and quality :
and, indeed, unless he can do this, he will
be unable to apply the rules of logic to use.
Yet he will find there are some difficulties
* This enumeration was neverintended by logicians
for a general psychological analysis, but merely for a
special enumeration of those faculties, the laws of
which were proposed to logic, as its object matter.—H.
3. The term indefinite ought to be discarded in this
relation, and replaced by indesigmatc.-H. .
+ Thé history of these and the other logical verses
is curious, but, I may say, to Logicians unknown.-H.
SECT. VI.]
693
ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC.
in this analysis, which are overlooked by
Aristotle altogether; and although they are
sometimes touched, they are not removed
by his followers.” For, l. There are propo-
sitions in which it is difficult to find a sub-
ject and a predicate; as in these, “It rains,”
“It snows.” 2. In some propositions, either
term may be made the subject or the predi-
cate, as you like best ; as in this, “Wirtue is
the road to happiness.” 3. The same ex-
ample may serve to shew that it is some-
times difficult to say, whether a proposition
be universal or particular. 4. The quality
of some propositions is so dubious that
Logicians have never been able to agree
whether they be affirmative or negative; as
in this proposition, “Whatever is insentient
is not an animal.” 5. As there is one class
of propositions which have only two terms,
viz., one subject and one predicate, which
are called Categorical+ propositions, so there
are many classes that have more than two
terms. What Aristotle delivers in this
book is applicable only to categorical propo-
sitions; and to them only the rules con-
cerning the conversion of propositions, and
concerning the figures and modes of syllo-
gisms, are accommodated. The subsequent
writers of logic have taken notice of some
of the many classes of complex propositions,
and have given rules adapted to them ; but,
finding this work endless, they have left us to
manage therest by the rules ofcommon sense.
CHAPTER III.
ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST ANALYTICS.
Section I.
OF THE CONVERSION OF PROPOSITIONS.
IN attempting to give some account of
the Analytics and of the Topics of Aristotle,
ingenuity requires me to confess, that,
though I have often purposed to read the
whole with care, and to understand what is
intelligible, yet my courage and patience
always failed before I had done. Why
should I throw away so much time and
painful attention upon a thing of so little
real use 2 If I had lived in those ages
when the knowledge of Aristotle's Or-
ganon entitled , a man to the highest
rank in philosophy, ambition might have
induced me to employ upon it some years
of painful study; and less, I conceive,
would not be sufficient. [?] Such reflections
as these always got the better of my resolu-
tion, when the first ardour began to cool.
All I can say is, that I have read some
parts of the different books with care, some
slightly, and some, perhaps, not at all. I
have glanced over the whole often, and,
when anything attracted my attention, have
dipped into it till my appetite was satisfied.
Of all reading, it is the most dry and the
most painful, employing an infinite labour
of demonstration, about things of the most
abstract nature, delivered in a laconic style,
and often, I think, with affected obscurity;
and all to prove general propositions, which,
when applied to particular instances, appear
self-evident.*
There is probably but little in the Cate-
gories, or in the book of Interpretation, that
Aristotle could claim as his own inven-
tion [?]; but the whole theory of syllo-
gisms he claims as his own, and as the
fruit of much time and labour. And indeed
it is a stately fabric, a monument of a great
genius, which we could wish to have been
more usefully employed. There must be
Something, however, adapted to please the
human understanding, or to flatter human
pride, in a work which occupied men of
speculation for more than a thousand years.
These books are called Analytics, because
the intention of them is to resolve all rea-
soning into its simple ingredients.
The first book of the First Analytics, con-
sisting of forty-six chapters, may be divided
into four parts ; the first [A] treating of
the conversion of propositions ; the second,
[B,] of the structure of syllogisms, in all the
different figures and modes; the third, [C,]
of the invention of a middle term ; and the
last, [D,] of the resolution of syllogisms.
We shall give a brief account of each.
[A] To convert a proposition is to infer
from it another proposition, whose subject is
the predicate of the first, and whose predi-
cate is the subject of the first. This is re-
duced by Aristotle to three rules:–1. An
universal negative may be converted into
an universal negative : thus, “No man is a
quadruped;” therefore, “No quadruped is a
man.” 2. An universal affirmative can be
converted only into a particular affirmative :
thus, “ All men are mortal;” therefore,
“Some mortalbeings are men.” 3. Aparticu-
lar affirmative may be converted into a par-
ticular affirmative : as, “Some men are
liust;” therefore, “Some just persons are
men.” When a proposition may be con-
verted without changing its quantity, this is
called simple conversion; but when the quan-
tity is diminished, as in the universal af-
firmative, it is called conversion per accidens.
There is another kind of conversion
* The difficulties that follow admit of a very easy
solution.—H.
f 1 was the first, as far as I am aware, who ob-
served that the term zoºrayaguzös is, by Aristotle,
used only in the sense of affirmative.—H.
* This is unjust. Aristotle attempts no proof of
these general propositions, ; he only shews that their
denial involves a contradiction.—H.
i It might be added, “ the quality remaining al-
ways the same.”—H.
694
[CHAP. III.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF

omitted in this place by Aristotle, but sup-
plied by his followers, called conversion by
contraposition, in which the term that is
contradictory to the predicate is put for the
subject, and the quality of the proposition
is changed;" as, “All animals are sentient;”
therefore, “What is insentient is not an
animal.” A fourth rule of conversion there-
fore is, That an universal affirmative, and a
particular negative, may be converted by
contraposition.
Section II.
OF THE FIGURES AND MODES OF PURE
SY L.LOGISMS.
[B] A sylloGISM is an argument, or
reasoning,f consisting [always, ea'plicitly or
implicitly, of three propositions, the last of
which, called the concLUSION, is [necessari-
ly] inferred from the [very statement of the]
two preceding, which are called the PREMISEs.
The conclusion having two terms, a subject
and a predicate, its predicate is called the
major term, and its subject the minor term.
In order to prove the conclusion, each of
its terms is, in the premises, compared with
the third term, called the middle term. By
this means one of the premises will have for
its two terms the major term and the mid-
dle term ; and this premise is called the
major premise, or the major proposition of
the syllogism. The other premise must
have for its two terms the minor term and
the middle term, and it is called the minor
proposition. Thus the syllogism consists
of three propositions, distinguished by the
names of the major, the minor, and the
conclusion ; and, although each of these has
two terms, a subject and a predicate, yet
there are only three different terms in all.
The major term is always the predicate of
the conclusion. and is also either the sub-
ject or predicate of the major proposition.
The minor term is always the subject of the
conclusion, and is also either the subject or
predicate of the minor proposition. The
middle term never enters into the conclu-
sion, but stands in both premises, either in
the position of subject or of predicate.
According to the various positions which
!he Middle Term may have in the premises,
s logisms are said to be of various Figures.
Now, all the possible positions of the mid-
dle term are only four ; for, first, it may be
the subject of the major proposition, and
the predicate of the minor, and then the
syllogism is of the first figure ; or it may
* In this conversion, consider Subject and Predi-
cate as changed into their contradictories, and thus
the quality in both propositions remains identical.—H.
t Here the genus should be (as Aristotle has it) a
Speech or Enwmciation ; for all “argument or reason-
ing" is a syllogism or series of syllogisms.-H.
be the predicate of both premises, and then
the syllogism is of the second figure; or it
may be the subject of both, which makes a
syllogism of the third figure; or it may be
the predicate of the major proposition, and
the subject of the minor, which makes the
fourth figure. Aristotle takes no notice of
the fourth figure. It was added by the fa-
mous Galen,” and is often called the Galen-
ical Figure.
There is another division of syllogisms
according to their Modes. The Mode of a
syllogism is determined by the Quality and
Quantity of the propositions of which it con-
sists. Each of the three propositions must
be either an universal affirmative, or an
universal negative, or a particular affirm-
ative, or a particular negative. These four
kinds of propositions, as was before ob-
served, have been named by the four
vowels, A, E, I, O ; by which means the
mode of a syllogism is marked by any three
of those four vowels. Thus, A, A, A, de-
notes that mode in which the major, minor,
and conclusion, are all universal affirma-
tives; E, A, E, denotes that mode in which
the major and conclusion are universal ne-
gatives and the minor is an universal affirm-
ative.
To know all the possible modes of syl-
logism, we must find how many different
combinations may be made of three out of
the four vowels; and from the art of com-
bination the number is found to be sixty-
four. So many possible modes there are
in every figure, consequently in the three
figures of Aristotle there are one hundred
and ninety-two, and in all the four figures
two hundred and fifty-six.
Now, the theory of syllogism requires
that we shew what are the particular modes
in each figure, which do or do not form a
just and conclusive syllogism, that so the
legitimate may be adopted, and the spuri-
ous rejected. This Aristotle has shewn in
the first three figures, examining all the
modes one by one, and passing sentence
upon each ; and from this examination he
collects some rules which may aid the
memory in distinguishing the false from
the true, and point out the properties of
each figure.
The first figure has only four legitimate
modes. The major proposition in this figure
must be universal, and the minor affirm-
ative; and it has this property, that it yields
conclusions of all kinds, affirmative and
negative, universal and particular.
The second figure has also four legiti-
mate modes. Its major proposition must
be universal, and one of the premises must
be negative. It yields conclusions both
universal and particular, but all negative.
# Improvable, though universally believed.—H.
SECTS. III.-v.]
695
ARIST OTLE'S LOGIC.
The third figure has six legitimate modes.
Its minor must always be affirmative ; and
it yields conclusions both affirmative and
negative, but all particular.
Besides the rules that are proper to each
figure, Aristotle has given some that are
common to all, by which the legitimacy of
syllogisms may be tried. These may, I
think, be reduced to five. l. There must
be only three terms in a syllogism. As
each term occurs in two of the propositions,
it must be precisely the same in both : If
it be not, the syllogism is said to have four
terms, which makes a vitious syllogism.
2. The middle term must be taken uni-
versally in one of the premises. 3. Both
premises must not be particular proposi-
tions, nor both negative. 4. The conclu-
sion must be particular, if either of the
premises be particular; and negative, if
either of the premises be negative. 5. No
term can be taken universally in the con-
clusion, if it be not taken universally in the
premises.
For understanding the second and fifth of
these rules, it is necessary to observe, that
a term is said to be taken universally, not
only when it is the subject of an universal
proposition, but when it is the predicate of
a negative proposition ; on the other hand,
a term is said to be taken particularly, when
it is either the subject of a particular, or
the predicate of an affirmative proposition.
Section III.
OF THE INVENTION () F A MIDDLE TERM.
[C.] The third part of this book contains
rules, general and special, for the invention
[discovery] of a middle term ; and this the
author conceives to be of great utility. The
general rules amount to this—That you are
to consider well both terms of the proposi-
tion to be proved; their definition, their
properties, the things which may be affirmed
or denied of them, and those of which they
may be affirmed or denied ; these things,
collected together, are the materials from
which your middle term is to be taken.
The special rules require you to consider
the quantity and quality of the proposition
to be proved, that you may discover in what
mode and figure of syllogism the proof is to
proceed. Then, from the materials before
collected, you must seek a middle term
which has that relation to the subject and
predicate of the proposition to be proved,
which the nature of the syllogism requires.
Thus, suppose the proposition I would prove
is an universal affirmative, I know, by the
rules of syllogisms, that there is only one
legitimate mode in which an universal
affirmative proposition can be proved ; and
that is the first mode of the first figure. I
know likewise that, in this mode, both the
premises must be universal affirmatives ;
and that the middle term must be the sub-
ject of the major, and the predicate of the
minor. Therefore, of the terms collected
according to the general rule, I seek out
one or more which have these two proper-
ties; first, That the predicate of the pro-
position to be proved can be universally
affirmed of it; and, secondly, That it can
be universally affirmed of the subject of the
proposition to be proved. Every term you
can find, which has those two properties,
will serve you as a middle term, but no
other. In this way, the author gives spe-
cial rules for all the various kinds of pro-
positions to be proved; points out the vari-
ous modes in which they may be proved,
and the properties which the middle term
must have to make it fit for answering that
end. And the rules are illustrated, or ra-
ther, in my opinion, purposely darkened,
by putting letters of the alphabet for the
several terms.”
Section I V.
OF THE REMAINING PART OF THE FIRST
BUUIC,
The resolution of syllogisms requires no
other principles but those before laid down
for constructing them. However, it is
treated of largely, and rules laid down for
reducing reasoning to syllogisms, by Sup-
plying one of the premises when it is under-
stood, by rectifying inversions, and putting
the propositions in the proper order.
Here he speaks also of hypothetical syl-
logisms;+ which he acknowledges cannot
be resolved into any of the figures, although
there be many kinds of them that ought
diligently to be observed, and which he
promises to handle afterwards. But this
promise is not fulfilled, as far as I know,
in any of his works that are extant.
Section V.
OF THE SECOND BOOK OF THE FIRST
ANALYTICS.
The second book treats of the powers of
* The purely formal character of logic requires an
abstraction from all determinate matter ; which is
best shewn through the application of universal and
otherwise unmeaning symbols. This is admirably
stated by the Aphrodisian. It would, indeed, have
been well had Aristotle always rigidly excluded
everything not formal from his logical treatises.—H.
+ The hypothetical syllogisms of Aristotle were
different from our hypothetical syllogisms—which,
with the term Categorical in its present sense, are an
inheritance from Theophrastus and Eudemus.-H.
696
[CHAP. Iv.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF
syllogisms, and shews, in twenty-seven chap-
ters, how we may perform many feats by
them, and what figures and modes are
adapted to each. Thus, in some syllogisms,
several distinct conclusions may be drawn .
from the same premises; in some, true
conclusions may be drawn from false pre-
mises ; in some, by assuming the conclu-
sion and one premise, you may prove the
other; you may turn a direct syllogism
into one leading to an absurdity.
We have likewise precepts given in this
book, both to the assailant in a syllogistical
dispute, how to carry on his attack, with
art, so as to obtain the victory, and to the
defendant, how to keep the enemy at such
a distance as that he shall never be obliged
to yield. From which we learn, that Aris-
totle introduced in his own school the prac-
tice of syllogistical disputation, instead of the
rhetorical disputations which the Sophists
were wont to use in more ancient times."
CHAPTER IV.
REMARKS.
Section I.
OF THE CONVERSION OF PROPositions.
WE have given a summary view of the
theory of pure syllogisms as delivered by
Aristotle, a theory of which he claims the
sole invention. And I believe it will be
difficult, in any science, to find so large a
system of truths of so very abstract and so
general a nature, all fortified by demonstra-
tion, and all invented and perfected by one
man. It shews a force of genius, and la-
bour of investigation, equal to the most
arduous attempts. I shall now make some
remarks upon it.
As to the conversion of propositions, the
writers on logic commonly satisfy them-
selves with illustrating each of the rules by
an example, conceiving them to be self-
evident, when applied to particular cases.
But Aristotle has given demonstrations of
the rules he mentions. As a specimen, I
shall give his demonstration of the first
rule. “Let A B be an universal negative
proposition ; I say, that if A is in no B,
it will follow that B is in no A. If you
deny this consequence, let B be in some
A, for example, in C ; then the first sup-
position will not be true ; for C is of the
BS.” In this demonstration, if I under-
stand it, the third rule of conversion is as-
šumed, that, if B is in some A, then A must
be in some B, which indeed is contrary to
:}; Inaccurate: See below, under the translation at
the conclusion of chapter iv. § 3.-H.
the first supposition. If the third rule be
assumed for proof of the first, the proof of
all the three goes round in a circle; for the
second and third rules are proved by the
first. This is a fault in reasoning which
Aristotle condemns, and which I would be
very unwilling to charge him with, if I
could find any better meaning in his de-
monstration. But it is indeed a fault very
difficult to be avoided, when men attempt
to prove things that are self-evident."
* This objection does credit to Reid's acuteness:
if just, it materially affects the logical impeccability
of Aristotle; and, what is remarkable, it is one
taken by some of the oldest of the Greek logicians
themselves. It is not, however, valid. Alexander
of Aphrodisias, the oldest of Aristotle's expositors
now extant, tells us, in his commentary of this text,
(it is in the Prior Analytics, Book I. ch. ii.), that
Some doubted, in regard to this demonstration of the
first rule of conversion, whether Aristotle had not
employed in it the third rule—that by which particu-
lar affirmative propositions are declared simply con-
vertible : thus committing a twofold violation of the
laws of reasoning—1°, ln using as a medium of proof
what had not yet itself been proved ; and, 28, In thus
employing what was itself subsequently proved
through the very canon which it is here applied to esta-
blish. Besides these charges of tissgow ºrgérigoy and
31&AAqxos, Philoponus records also another; but, as
this is, in itself, of little weight, and not relevant to
the matter in hand, I will simply translate (with
occasional abridgment and emendation, for the text
is very corrupt,) the satisfactory answer which Alex-
i. gives to the objection stated. It is as fol-
OWS :-
“This mode of procedure is confessedly vicious.
But Aristotle has not been guilty of it, as they be-
lieve. In the sequel, he will undoubtedly manifest
(8sſée) the convertibility of particular affirmatives
through that of universal negatives; but he does not,
at present, evince the convertibility of universal ne-
gatives, by assuming that of particular affirmatives.
He fairly demonstrates (38ſzyval) his thesis, and does
not employ it as a concession; for, on principles al-
ready settled, he shews it manifested and esta-
blished. These principles are ro 227& arozyrós and r3
zzro. wačeyós, [the dictum de Omni and the dictum
de nullo, and rô #y 6x6, and r3 #y ºbeyi, [the dictum
in toto and dictum in mullo Fland, by the application of
these, does he evince the convertibility of pure univer-
sal negatives. “It being supposed,’ he says, “ that A
is in [or is predicable of J no B, it follows from this
that B is in [or is predicable of no A ; for, if B is in
some A, let it be in C. Now, C is contained under
the logical whole, A, (iv 6x4, in toto, A.;) A will,
therefore, be universally predicated of it, (zczrö.
arozyrós, de omni.) But C is a part of B; A, there:
fore, will be predicated of a part of B. But the prim-
ary hypothesis was that A is predicable of no B (de
ovullo B ;) and the dictum de avullo is, that there is no
part of # of which A can be predicated.
“Farther, from the very form of the expression,
it is manifest that the demonstration does not pro-
ceed on the convertibility of particular affirmatives.
For he does not say—If B is in some A, A will be in
some B ; for this would have been to demonstrate
through the rule of particular affirmatives. But, in
the sequel, when he demonstrates the convertibility
of particular affirmatives, he employs to that end the
convertibility of universal negatives. For he says—‘If
B is in no A, A is in no B.,’ thus employing the first
rule as established and confessed; whereas, in now
demonstrating that rule itself, he does not assume as
established the convertibility of particular affirmatives.
But, there being held out in a concrete individual ex-
ample, (#20 ºvos,) C as a part of A, he grounds on
this his demonstration—B not being predicated of C
as a particular, but as a singular. It cannot, there-
fore, be maintained that he employed the reciproca-
tion of particular affirmatives, but the dictum de Omni
SECT. II.]
697
ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC.
The rules of conversion cannot be applied
to all propositions, but only to those that
are categorical, and we are left to the di-
rection of common sense in the conversion
of other" propositions. To give an ex-
ample: “Alexander was the son of Philip;”
therefore, “Philip was the father of Alex-
ander:”“A is greater than B;” therefore, “B
is less than A.T.” These are conversions
which, as far as I know, do not fall within
any rule in logic ::: nor do we find any loss
for want of a rule in such cases.
Even in the conversion of categorical
propositions, it is not enough to transpose
the subject and predicate. Both must un-
dergo some change, in order to fit them
for their new station ; for, in every propo-
sition, the subject must be a substantive,
or have the force of a substantive ; and the
predicate must be an adjective, or have the
force of an adjective. Hence it follows,
that when the subject is an individual, the
proposition admits not of conversion.S How,
for instance, shall we convert this proposi-
tion, “God is omniscient” P||
These observations shew, [?] that the
and the dictum in toto, as his medium of demonstra-
tion.
“It is, however, better perhaps, and more agreeable
to the context, to hold, that Aristotle made his de-
monstration to Sense through the holding up or expo-
sition of an individual [É20sors, expositio—hence, sin-
gular propositions and syllogisms are called caposi-
tory], and not in the manner previously stated, nor
syllogistically. For the expository mode of demon-
stration is brought to bear through sense, and not
syllogistically. For C is taken as some exposed and
sensible part of A, and also as an individual part of
B. C is thus a part at once of A and of B; is con-
tained under both these logical wholes; and when
A is predicated of C, as its own part, it will also be
predicated of a part of B. te - º & -
- - e - Thus, if it be agreed that
Man is in no Horse, [that no Horse is a Man]; and
if it be not admitted, e converso, that Horse is in 770
Man, [that no Man is a Horse] ; let us suppose that
Horse is in some Mam, [that some Maº is a Horsel,
and let this Man be Theon. Man will therefore be
in some Horse, [some Horse will be a Man], for
Theon is, car hypothesi, both a Man and a Horse.
But this is, as contradictory, impossible ; for it was
originally agreed, that Man is in no Horse, [that no
Horse is a Man],” &c.
It is to be noticed, that the terms which I have
usually translated demonstrate and demonstration,
are only beſzyuga and beigis, and never &robeſzywka
and &rööeräg.
I may notice, before concluding this note, 'the
simpler process by which Theophrastus and Eudemus
formally evinced the first rule of conversion; this
also is recorded by Alexander. “Let it be supposed
that A can be predicated of no B. Now, if not pre-
dicable of, it is disjoined from, B. B., therefore, is
also disjoined from A ; and if disjoined from, is not
predicable of, A.”—H.
* This is incorrect. Hypothetical propositions can
be converted per contrapositionem ; and Disjunctive,
per contrapositionem and per accidens.-H.
# These propositions are categorical; they cannot
therefore be given as examples of propositions,
“ other” than categorical.—H. -
+ But this simply because they are beyond the
sphere of logic, being material not formal conver-
sions.—H.
§ This is erroneous.—H.
| By saying—“ An, or the, omniscient is God.”
doctrine of the conversion of propositions
is not so complete as it appears. The rules
are laid down without any limitation; yet
they are fitted only to one class of propo-
sitions—viz., the categorical; and of these
only to such as have a general term for
their subject. -
Section II.
ON ADDITIONS MADE TO ARISTOTLE's
THEORY. -
Although the logicians have enlarged the
first and second parts of logic, by explain-
ing some technical words and distinctions
which Aristotle had omitted, and by giving
names to some kinds of propositions which
he overlooks, yet, in what concerns the
theory of categorical syllogisms, he is more
full, more minute and particular, than any
of them ; so that they seem to have thought
this capital part of the Organon rather
redundant than deficient.
It is true that Galen [?] added a fourth
figure to the three mentioned by Aristotle.
But there is reason to think that Aristotle
omitted the fourth figure, not through ig-
norance or inattention, but of design, as
containing only some indirect modes, which,
when properly expressed, fall into the first
figure.
It is true also that Peter Ramus, a pro-
fessed enemy of Aristotle, introduced some
new modes that are adapted to singular
propositions; and that Aristotle takes no
notice of singular propositions, either in his
rules of conversion, or in the modes of syl-
logism. But the friends of Aristotle have
shewn that this improvement of Ramus is
more specious than useful. Singular pro-
positions have the force of universal propo-
sitions, and are subject to the same rules.
The definition given by Aristotle of an
universal proposition applies to them ; and
therefore he might think, that there was no
occasion to multiply the modes of syllogism
upon their account.”
These attempts, therefore, shew rather
inclination than power to discover any ma-
terial defect in Aristotle’s theory.
The most valuable addition made to the
theory of categorical syllogisms seems to be
the invention of those technical names given
to the legitimate modes, by which they may
be easily remembered, and which have been
comprised in these barbarous verses :—
JBarbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferio, dato primae ;
Cesare, Cammestores, Festimo, Baroco, Secundae;
Tertia grandesonans recitat ljarapti, Fclapton,
Adjungens Disamis, Datisi, Bocardo, Ferison.t
# There are other and better reasons for the omis-
sion; but they are not wºmmoticed by Aristotle.-H.
+ This is one of the many variations of these verses
but not the original cdition.-H.
698
[CHAP. Iv.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF
In these verses, every legitimate mode be-
longing to the three figures has a name
given to it, by which it may be distinguished
and remembered. And this name is so
contrived as to denote its nature; for the
name has three vowels, which denote the
kind of each of its propositions.
Thus, a syllogism in Bocardo must be
made up of the propositions denoted by the
three vowels, O, A, O ; that is, its major
and conclusion must be particular negative
propositions, and its minor an universal
affirmative; and, being in the third figure,
the middle term must be the subject of both
premises. -
This is the mystery contained in the
vowels of those barbarous words. But there
are other mysteries contained in their con-
sonants; for, by their means, a child may
be taught to reduce any syllogism of the
second or third figure to one of the first.
So that the four modes of the first figure
being directly proved to be conclusive, all
the modes of the other two are proved at
the same time, by means of this operation
of reduction. For the rules and manner of
this reduction, and the different species of
it, called [director] ostensive, and [indirect
or] per impossible, I refer to the Logicians,
that I may not disclose all their mysteries.
The invention contained in these verses
is so ingenious, and so great an adminicle
to the dexterous management of syllogisms,
that I think it very probable that Aristotle
had some contrivance of this kind, which
was kept as one of the secret doctrines of
his school, and handed down by tradition,
until some person brought it to light. This
is offered only as a conjecture, leaving it to
those who are better acquainted with the
most ancient commentators on the Ana-
lytics, either to refute or confirm it."
Section III.
ON EXAMPLES USED TO ILLUSTRATE THIS
THEORY,
We may observe, that Aristotle hardly
ever gives examples of real syllogisms to
illustrate his rules. In demonstrating the
legitimate modes, he takes A, B, C, for the
terms of the syllogism. Thus, the first
mode of the first figure is demonstrated by
him in this manner:—“ For,” says he, “if
A is attributed to every B, and B to every
C, it follows necessarily, that A may be
attributed to every C.” For disproving
the illegitimate modes, he uses the same
manner; with this difference, that he com-
monly, for an example, gives three real
ºThis conjecture, I regret to say, is not borne out.
terms, such as bonum, habitus, prudentia :
of which three terms you are to make up a
syllogism of the figure and mode in question,
which will appear to be inconclusive.
The commentators and systematical
writers in logic have supplied this defect,
and given us real examples of every legiti-
mate mode in all the figures. We acknow-
ledged this to be charitably done, in order
to assist the conception in matters so very
abstract; but whether it was prudently done
for the honour of the art, may be doubted.
I am afraid this was to uncover the naked-
ness of the theory. . It has undoubtedly
contributed to bring it into contempt; for
when one considers the silly and uninstruc-
tive reasonings” that have been brought
forth by this grand organ of science, he can
hardly forbear crying out—
** Partwriw’nt montes; mascetwr ridiculus mºus.”
Many of the writers of logic are acute
and ingenious, and much practised in the
syllogistical art; and there must be some
reason why the examples they have given
of syllogisms are so lean.-F
We shall speak of the reason afterwards;
* This must refer to the concrete examples given
by Logicians, in illustration of their rules. Had they
given, or attempted to give instruction beyond the
bare significance of these rules, they would have been
indeed very “silly.” See next note. Logic also, it may
be observed, is no “organ of science,” meaning by
this, an instrument of discovery.—H.
† Why, these examples, instead of being merely
lean, ought to have been bare bones; and the Logi-
cians Inerit the reproach of having failed in making
their skeletons fat, for attempting to give them a
garniture of flesh at all. To the symbols of Aristotle
they should have stuck. Logic is the science of the
laws of thought as thought—that is, of the necessary
conditions to which thought, considered in itself, is
subject. This is technically called its Form. Logic,
therefore, supposes an abstraction from all consider-
ation of the matter of thought—that is, the infinitude
of determinate objects in relation to one or other of
which it is actually manifested. Now, the principal
reproach which can be fairly urged against logical
authors, is, that they have never realized to the
science its ideal beauty, by reducing it to a purely
formal system; that they have never yet fully dis-
engaged it from the material slime out of which it
has so painfully been working its way, and with
which it still continues to be soiled. Reid's reproach,
on the other hand, and that of many others, is, that
Logic is not wholly a material science; that it is
not an instrument of objective discovery ; that its
instances are uninstructive—are not an epitome, or
complement of the omme scibile. He thus reproaches
Logic for not being something other than what it is ;
for not performing what it never professed; nay,
for not performing what no single science can ef.
fect.—Again, if it be said that Logic, as a formal
science, is a lean and barren doctrine—be it so. But
this reproach only affects the science through its
object. Now, this object is the legislation of thought;
and, if the laws and processes which it displays be
unimportant and uninteresting, they are the laws
and processes by and through which, and which alone,
what is nearest to us and noblest in creation executes
its marvels. “On earth, there is nothing great but
Man; in Man, there is nothing great but, Mind.”
It is not, surely, imagined that there are other laws
and processes of thought competent to the human
intellect, besides those of which Logic is the exposi-
tion. All “ discourse of reason” is and must be
syllogistic; what is beyond the syllogism is beyond
uS.-H.
SECT. Iv.]
699
ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC.
and shall now give a syllogism in each
figure as an example.
No work of God is bad ;
The natural passions and appetites of
men are the work of God;
Therefore, none of them is bad.
In this syllogism, the middle term,
“work of God,” is the subject of the major,
and the predicate of the minor; so that the
syllogism is of the first figure. The mode
is that called Celarent ; the major and con-
clusion being both universal negatives, and
the minor an universal affirmative. It
agrees to the rules of the figure, as the
major is universal, and the minor affirma-
tive ; it is also agreeable to all the general
rules; so that it maintains its character in
every trial. And to shew of what ductile
materials syllogisms are made, we may, by
converting simply the major proposition,
reduce it to a good syllogism of the second
figure, and of the mode Cesare, thus:—
Whatever is bad is not the work of God;
All the natural passions and appetites
of men are the work of God;
Therefore, they are not bad.
Another example:
Every thing virtuous is praiseworthy;
Some pleasures are not praiseworthy;
Therefore, some pleasures are not vir-
tuous.
Here the middle term, “praiseworthy,”
being the predicate of both premises, the
syllogism is of the second figure ; and see-
ing it is made up of the propositions, A, O,
O, the mode is Baroco. It will be found to
agree both with the general and special
rules ; and it may be reduced into a good
syllogism of the first figure, upon convert-
ing the major by contraposition, thus:—
What[ever] is not praiseworthy is not
virtuous;
Some pleasures are not praiseworthy;
Therefore, some pleasures are not vir-
tuous.
That this syllogism is conclusive, common
sense pronounces, and all Logicians must
allow; but it is somewhat unpliable to
rules, and requires a little straining to make
it tally with them.
That it is of the first figure is beyond dis-
pute ; but to what mode of that figure shall
we refer it 2
This is a question of some difficulty; for,
in the first place, the premises seem to be
both negative, which contradicts the third
general rule ; and, moreover, it is contrary
to a special rule of the first figure, That
the minor should be negative, These are
the difficulties to be removed.
Some Logicians think that the two nega-
tive particles in the major are equivalent to
an affirmative; and that, therefore, the
major proposition, “What[ever] is not
praiseworthy is not virtuous,” is to be ac-
counted an affirmative proposition. This,
if granted, solves one difficulty; but the
other remains. The most ingenious solu- .
tion, therefore, is this, Let the middle term
be “not-praiseworthy.” Thus, making the
negative particle a part of the middle term,
the syllogism stands thus:— -
Whatever is not-praiseworthy is not
virtuous; -
Some pleasures are not-praiseworthy;
Therefore, some pleasures are not vir-
tuous.
By this analysis, the major becomes an
universal negative, the minor a particular
affirmative, and the conclusion a particular
negative, and so we have a just syllogism
in Ferio.
We see, by this example, that the quality
of propositions is not so invariable, but that,
when occasion requires, an affirmative may
be degraded into a negative, or a negative
exalted to an affirmative." *
Another example:
All Africans are black;
All Africans are men ;
Therefore, some men are black.
This is of the third figure, and of the
mode Darapti ; and it may be reduced to
Darii in the first figure, by converting the
minor.
All Africans are black;
Some men are Africans;
Therefore, some men are black.
By this time I apprehend the reader has
got as many examples of syllogisms as will
stay his appetite for that kind of entertain-
ment.
Section IV.
ON THE DEMONSTRATION OF THE THEORY.
Aristotle and all his followers have thought
it necessary, in order to bring this theory
of categorical syllogisms to a science, to de-
monstrate both that the fourteen authorised
modes conclude justly, and that none of the
rest do. Let us now see how this has been
executed.
As to the legitimate modes, Aristotle and
those who follow him the most closely, de-
monstrate the four modes of the first figure
directly from an axiom called the Dictum
de omni et mullo. The amount of the axiom
is, That what is affirmed of a whole genus
may be affirmed of all the species and indi-
viduals belonging to that genus ; and that
what is denied of the whole genus may be de-
nied of [all] its species and individuals. The
four modes of the first figure are evidently
included in this axiom. And as to the le-
gitimate modes of the other figures, they
are proved by reducing them to some mode
* This is not, in reality, the case.-H.
700
[CHAP. Iv.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF
of the first. Nor is there any other principle
assumed in these reductions but the axioms
concerning the conversion of propositions,
and, in some cases, the axioms concerning
the opposition of propositions. -
As to the illegitimate modes, Aristotle has
taken the labour to try and condemn them
one by one in all the three figures: But this
is done in such a manner that it is very
painful to follow him.” To give a specimen :
In order to prove that those modes of the
first figure, in which the major is particular,
do not conclude, he proceeds thus:–“If A
is, or is not, in some B, and B in every C,
no conclusion follows. Take for the terms
in the affirmative case, good; habit, pru-
dence ; in the negative, good, habit, ignor-
ance.” This laconic style, the use of sym-
bols not familiar,t and, in place of giving
an example, his leaving us to form one
from three assigned terms, give such em-
barrassment to a reader, that he is like one
reading a book of riddles.
Having thus ascertained the true and
false modes of a figure, he subjoins the par-
ticular rules of that figure, which seem to
be deduced from the particular cases before
determined. The general rules come last
of all, as a general corollary from what goes
before. -
I know not whether it is from a diffidence
of Aristotlé’s demonstrations, or from an
apprehension of their obscurity, or from a
desire of improving upon his method, that
almost all the writers in logic I have met
with have inverted his order, beginning
where he ends, and ending where he begins.
They first demonstrate the general rules,
which belong to all the figures, from three
axioms; then, from the general rules and
the nature of each figure, they demonstrate
the special rules of each figure. When this
is done, nothing remains but to apply these
general and special rules, and to reject every
mode which contradicts them.it
This method has a very scientific appear-
ance; and when we consider that, by a few
rules once demonstrated, an hundred and
seventy-eight false modes are destroyed at
* It must be recollected that Aristotle was the
Joºnder of the science ; and that it was requisite for
him to shew articulately what, in consequence of
that manifestation, his successors have been war-
ranted in assuming.—H.
+ From the nature and flexion of the prepositive ar-
ticle in Greek, such symbols are far less vague than in
our language or in Latin : at the same time, it should
be remembered, that those to whom Aristotle addres-
sed himself, were already familiar with the application
of such symbols—Mathematics being the first branch
of juvenile instruction among the Greeks. It is likely,
too, that these letters were relative to diagrams, the
loss of which his later commentators have endavoured
to Supply. Of the intrinsic propriety of using a sym-
bººl notation in Logic, I have elsewhere spoken.
# Each order is proper in its place ; the Analytic
for the establishment; the Synthetic for the teaching
of a science,—H.
one blow, which Aristotle had the trouble
to put to death one by one, it seems to be a
great improvement. I have only one ob-
jection to the three axioms.” -
The three axioms are these : 1. Things
which agree with the same third agree
with one another. 2. When one agrees
with the third, and the other does not,
they do not agree with one another. 3.
When neither agrees with the third, you
cannot thence conclude, either that they
do, or do not agree with one another. If
these axioms are applied to mathematical
quantities, to which they seem to relate
when taken literally, they have all the evi-
dence that an axiom ought to have ; but
the Logicians apply them in an analogical
sense to things of another nature. In order,
therefore, to judge whether they are truly
axioms, we ought to strip them of their
figurative drešs, and to set them down in
plain English, as the Logicians understand
them. They amount, therefore, to this :—
1. If two things be affirmed of a third, or
the third be affirmed of them ; or if one be
affirmed of the third, and the third affirmed
of the other; then they may be affirmed
one of the other. 2. If one is affirmed of
the third, or the third of it, and the other
denied of the third, or the third of it, they
may be denied one of the other. 3. If both
are denied of the third, or the third of them,
or if one is denied of the third, and the
third denied of the other, nothing can be
inferred.
When the three axioms are thus put in
plain English, they seem not to have that
degree of evidence which axioms ought to
have ; and, if there is any defect of evidence
in the axioms, this defect will be communi-
cated to the whole edifice raised upon them.
It may even be suspected, that an at-
tempt, by any method, to demonstrate that
a syllogism is conclusive, is an impropriety
Somewhat like that of attempting to demon-
strate an axiom. In a just syllogism, the
connection between the premises and the
conclusion is not only real, but immediate ;
So that no proposition can come between
them to make their connection more appar-
ent. The very intention of a syllogism is
to leave nothing to be supplied that is neces-
Sary to a complete demonstration. There-
fore, a mart of common understanding, who
has a perfect comprehension of the pre-
mises, finds himself under a necessity of
admitting the conclusion, supposing the
premises to be true ; and the conclusion is
connected with the premises with all the
force of intuitive evidence. In a word, an
immediate conclusion is seen in the pre-
+ These three axioms are not thus employed by
Logicians in general; and , they have been often,
justly, and severely criticised, as a faulty application
of Mathematical language to Logical notions.—H.
SEOT. V.]
701
ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC.
mises by the light of common sense ; and,
where that is wanting, no kind of reasoning
will supply its place. *
Section V.
ON THIS THEORY, CONSIDERED AS AN ENGINE
of SCIENCE.T.
The slow progress of useful knowledge,
during the many ages in which the syllo-
gistic art was most highly cultivated as the
only guide to science, and its quick progress
since that art was disused, suggest a pre-
Šumption against it ; and this presumption
is strengthened by the puerility of the ex-
amples which have always been brought to
illustrate its rules.:
The ancients seem to have had too high
notions, both of the force of the reasoning
power in man, and of the art of syllogism as
its guide. Mere reasoning can carry us
but a very little way in most subjects,S
By observation, and experiments properly
conducted, the stock of human knowledge
may be enlarged without end; but the
power of reasoning alone, applied with vig-
our through a long life, would only carry a
man round like a horse in a mill, who la-
bours hard but makes no progress. There
is indeed an exception to this observation in
-1–
the mathematical Sciences. The relations
of quantity are so various, and so suscep-
tible of exact mensuration, that long trains
of accurate reasoning on that subject may
be formed, and conclusions drawn, very
remote from the first principles. It is in
this science, and those which depend upon
it, that the power of reasoning triumphs;”
in other matters, its trophies are inconsider-
able. If any man doubt this, let him pro-
duce, in any subject unconnected with ma-
thematics, a train of reasoning of some
length, leading to a conclusion which, with-
out this train of reasoning, would never
have been brought within human sight.
Every man acquainted with mathematics
can produce thousands of such trains of
reasoning. I do not say that none such can
be produced in other sciences; but I be-
lieve they are few, and not easily found ;
and that, if they are found, it will not be in
subjects that can be expressed by categori-
cal propositions, to which alone the theory
of figure and mode extends.
ln matters to which that theory extends,
a man of good sense, who can distinguish
things that differ, who can avoid the snares
of ambiguous words, and who is moderately
practised in such matters, sees at once all
that can be inferred from the premises, or
finds that there is but a very short step to
the conclusion. -
When the power of reasoning is so feeble
by nature, especially in subjects to which
this theory can be applied, it would be un-
reasonable to expect great effects from it.
And hence we see the reason why the ex-
amples brought to illustrate it by the most
ingenious Logicians have rather tended to
bring it into contempt. -
If it should be thought that the syllo-
gistic art may be an useful engine in mathe-
matics, in which pure reasoning has ample
scope : First, it may be observed, That
facts are unfavourable to this opinion : For
it does not appear that Euclid, or Apol-
lonius, or Archimedes, or Huygens, or New-
ton, ever made the least use of this art;
and I am even of opinion that no use can
be made of it in mathematics.-- I would
not wish to advance this rashly, since Ari-
* The observations contained in this paragraph,
which have been adopted and expanded by Mr Stew-
art, are, in my opinion, without application. ,There
is no Logician I am aware of who has attempted to
demonstrate that a syllogism is conclusive , though
many have taken different modes of scientifically
stating the principles which constitute its native evi-
dence and necessity. Aristotle's definition of the
syllogism, which has been generally adopted, of itself
shews how superfluous are these remarks. As this
definition is not given by Reid, I shall quote it:—“A
syllogism is a speech, in which certain things [the pre-
mises] being supposed, something different from what
is supposed º conclusion] follows of necessity;
and this solely in virtue of the suppositions them-
selves.” And Alexander, in his commentary on this
definition, thus explains—what no logician ever
dreamt of doubting—the formal necessity of the com-
sequence in all syllogisms :-‘‘But when Aristotle
says, “follows of necessity,' this does not mean that the
conclusion, as a proposition in itself, should neces-
sarily be true; for this is the case only in syllogisms
of necessary matter; but that the conclusion, be its
matter what it may—actual, contingent, or necessary
—must follow of necessity from the premises ; for,
even if the conclusion be (materially considered) con-
tingent, still it cannot but result from propositions
standing in syllogistical connection. His words do
not, therefore, denote that the conclusion should be
a necessary proposition ; but the nature of the rela-
tion in which the conclusion stands, to the pre-
mises.”—(0m First Book of the Prior Analytics, f. 8,
a. ed. Ald.)—Into Logic ought never to have been
introduced a consideration of the differences of
Matter at all ; it should have been limited exclu-
sively to the Form ; and thus would have been avoided
. mºkes so prevalent in regard to its object and
€110.- Ed.
t As an engine" of science, an instrument."of...dis-
covery, logic never, even by the schoolmen, was pro-
posed.—H. -
# See above, p. 698, b, notes.—H.
... § Does “mere reasoning” mean. reasoning. apart
from the conditions of an object matter?—H.
* If, by “power of reasoning,” be understood
mental force, that is less exerted in mathematics than
in any other intellectual pursuit. As Warburton
truly says, “ Mathematical demonstration is the easiest
eacercise of reason.” In another sense, Reid's observ-
ation is correct.—H.
f Mathematical, like all other reasoning, is syllo-
gistic; but, here, the perspicuous necessity of the mat:
ter necessitates the correctness of the form : We cannot
reason wrong. Logic, whether natural or acquired,
is thus less exercised in mathematics than in any
other department of science; and on this account it
is that mathematical study is the very worst gymnas-
tic of the intellect—the very worst preparative for
reasoning correctly on matters (and these are only
not all the objects of human concernment) in which
the mind must actively precede, and not passively
follow the evolution of its objects.—H.
702
[Ch.AP. iv.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF
stotle has said, that mathematicians reason
for the most part in the first figure. What
led him to think so was, that the first figure
only yields conclusions that are universal
and affirmative, and the conclusions of ma-
thematics are commonly of that kind. But
it is to be observed, that the propositions of
mathematics are not categorical proposi-
tions, consisting of one subject and one
predicate. They express some relation
which one quantity bears to another, and
on that account must have three terms.
The quantities compared make two, and the
relation between them is a third. Now, to
such propositions we can neither apply the
rules concerning the conversion of propo-
sitions, nor can they enter into a syllogism
of any of the figures or modes. We ob-
served before, that this conversion, A is
greater than B, therefore B is less than A,
does not fall within the rules of conversion
given by Aristotle or the Logicians;" and
we now add, that this simple reasoning,
A is equal to B, and B to C, therefore A is
equal to C, cannot be brought into any syl-
logism in figure and mode.f. There are
indeed syllogisms into which mathematical
propositions may enter, and of such we
shall afterwards speak : but they have no-
thing to do with the system of figure and
mode.
When we go without the circle of the
mathematical sciences, I know nothing in
which there seems to be so much demon-
stration as in that part of logic which treats
of the figures and modes of syllogism; but
the few remarks we have made, shew that
it has some weak places [?]; and, besides,
this system cannot be used as an engine to
rear itself.:
The compass of the syllogistic system,S
as an engine of science, may be discerned
*See above, p. 697, a, note f.-H.
f Not as it stands; for, as expressed, this reason-
ing is elliptical. Explicitly stated, it is as follows:–
ºhat are equal to the same, are equal to each
other ;
4 and C are equal to the same (B) ;
Therefore, A and C are equal to each other.
IXr Reid could have found a rare work in the Col-
lege Library of Glasgow, which it might have been
profitable for him to consult—viz., an edition of the
first six books of Euclid, by Herlinus and Dasypo-
dius, in which every demonstration is developed in
regular syllogisms. But this developement did not
render syllogistic what was not syllogistic from the
beginning—it only shews that it was always so.
ZA Reasoning is not the less syllogistic, because not
formally enounced in two orderly premises and a
conclusion. This, however, is the notion that many
of those who have written about and against logic,
seem to have entertained.—H.
# Which is not attempted.—H.
“The Compass of the Syllogistic System” is the
compass of the reasoning faculty of man. I may no-
tice, however, that Logicians have actually over-
looked the better half of Logic; exclusively consi-
dering the reasoning in the Whole of Extension, and
(except in one accidental variety of Syllogism, and
the peculiar nature of this also they did not under-
stand) altogether unobservant of that in the Whole
of Comprehension, . But this by the way.—H.
by a compendious and general view of the
conclusion drawn, and the argument used,
to prove it," in each of the three figures.
In the first figure, the conclusion affirms
or denies something of a certain species or
individual ; and the argument to prove"
this conclusion is, That the same thing may
be affirmed or denied of the whole genus to
which that species or individual belongs.
In the second figure, the conclusion is,
That some species or individual does not
belong to such a genus; and the argument”
is, That some attribute common to the whole
genus does not belong to that species or indi-
vidual. -
In the third figure, the conclusion is,
That such an attribute belongs to part of
a genus; and the argument" is, That the
attribute in question belongs to a species or
individual which is part of that genus.
I apprehend that, in this short view,
every conclusion that falls within the com-
pass of the three figures, as well as the mean
of proof, is comprehended. The rules of
all the figures might be easily deduced from
it; and it appears that there is only one
principle of reasoning in all the three ; so
that it is not strange that a syllogism of
one figure should be reduced to one of ān-
other figure.
The general principle in which the whole
terminates, and of which every categorical
syllogism is only a particular application,
is this, That what is affirmed or denied of
the whole genus may be affirmed or denied
of every species and individual belonging
to it. This is a principle of undoubted
certainty indeed, but of no great depth.
Aristotle and all the Logicians assume it as
an axiom, or first principle, from which
the syllogistic system, as it were, takes its
departure ; and, after a tedious voyage, and
great expense of demonstration, it lands at
last in this principle, as its ultimate conclu-
Sion.
“0 curashomimum. / Ogwantum est in rebus iname 1”f
Section VI.
ON MODAL SYLLOGISMS.
Categorical propositions, besides their
quantity and quality, have another affec-
tion, by which they are divided into pure
and modal.: In a pure proposition, the
* For “argument to prove,” &c., read, “proxi-
mate principle which legitimates.”—PI. -
f The end of all science is the reduction of the
many to the one. Is Logic, then, to be derided for
accomplishing this end? Astronomy is not an empty,
beacuse a simple, science; nor is La Place unhon.
oured for having shewn the universal sufficiency for
its phanomena of the single principle of gravitation.
But see above, p. 698, b, note f.-H.
f The Modality of propositions and syllogisms is a
*cal or Metaphysical, and not a formal or Logical
---
BECT. VI.]
703
ARISTOTLE'S. LOGIC.
predicate is barely affirmed or denied of the
subject; but, in a modal proposition, the
affirmation or negation is modified, by being
declared to be necessary, or contingent, or
possible, or impossible. These are the four
modes observed by Aristotle," from which
he denominates a proposition modal. His
genuine disciples maintain, that these are
all the modes that can affect an affirmation
or negation, and that the enumeration is
complete. Others maintain, that this enu-
meration is incomplete; and that, when an
affirmation or negation is said to be certain
or uncertain, probable or improbable, this
makes a modal proposition, no less than the
four modes of Aristotle. We shall not
enter into this dispute, but proceed to ob-
serve, that the epithets of pure and modal
are applied to syllogisms as well as to pro-
positions. A pure syllogism is that in which
both premises are pure propositions. A
modal syllogism is that in which either of
the premises is a modal proposition.
The syllogisms of which we have already
said so much, are those only which are pure
as well as categorical. But, when we con-
sider, that, through all the figures and modes,
a syllogism may have one premise modal of
any of the four modes, while the other is
pure, or it may have both premises modal,
and that they may be either of the same
mode, or of different modes, what prodigious
variety arises from all these combinations 2
Now, it is the business of a Logician to
shew how the conclusion is affected in all
this variety of cases. Aristotle has done
this in his first Analytics with immense
labour; and it will not be thought strange
that, when he had employed only four
chapters in discussing one hundred and
ninety-two modes, true and false, of pure
syllogisms, he should employ fifteen upon
modal syllogisms.
I am very willing to excuse myself from
entering upon this great branch of logic,
by the judgment and example of those who
cannot be charged either with want of re-
spect to Aristotle, or with a low esteem of
the syllogistic art.
Keckermann, a famous Dantiscan pro-
fessor, who spent his life in teaching and
writing logic,+ in his huge folio system of
that science, published anno 1600, calls the
doctrine of the modals the crua Logicorum.
With regard to the scholastic doctors,
among whom this was a proverb, De modali
non gustabit asinus, he thinks it very dubi-
ous whether they tortured most the modal
syllogisms, or were most tortured by them.
But those crabbed geniuses, says he, made
this doctrine so very thorny that it is fitter
to tear a man's wits in pieces than to give
them solidity. He desires it to be ob-
served, that the doctrine of the modals is
adapted to the Greek language. The
modal terms were frequently used by the
Greeks in their disputations, and, on that
account, are so fully handled by Aristotle;
but, in [disputations in] the Latin tongue,
you shall hardly ever meet with them. Nor
do I remember, in all my experience, says
he, to have observed any man in danger of
being foiled in a dispute, through his ignor-
ance of the modals."
This author, however, out of respect to
Aristotle, treats pretty fully of modal pro-
positions, shewing how to distinguish their
subject and predicate, their quantity and
quality. But the modal syllogisms he
passes over altogether.
Ludovicus Wives, whom I mention, not
as a devotee of Aristotle, but on account of
his own judgment and learning, thinks that
the doctrine of modals ought to be banished
out of logic, and remitted to grammar ; and
that, if the grammar of the Greek tongue
had been brought to a system in the time
of Aristotle, that most acute philosopher
would have saved the great labour he has
bestowed on this subject.”
Burgersdyk, after enumerating five classes
of modal syllogisms, observes, that they re-
quire many rules and cautions, which Aris-
totle hath handled diligently ; but that, as
the use of them is not great, and their rules
difficult, he thinks it not worth while to
enter into the discussion of them ; recom-
mending to those who would understand
them, the most learned paraphrase of Jo-
annes Monlorius upon the first book of the
First Analytics.it -
All the writers of logic for two hundred
years back, that have fallen into my hands,
have passed over the rules of modal syllo-
gisms with as little ceremony.S. So that
this great branch of the doctrine of syllo-
gism, so diligently handled by Aristotle,
fell into neglect, if not contempt, even
while the doctrine of pure syllogisms con-
tinued in the highest esteem. Moved by
these authorities, I shall let this doctrine
rest in peace, without giving the least dis-
turbance to its ashes.
affection. It ought, therefore, as I have shewn, on
principle, to be wholly excluded from Logic. See
JEdinburgh Review, vol. lvii. p. 315, sq.-H.
* Aristotle has two enumerations of the Modes ;-
the one now mentioned, and another in the same
chapter, comprehending, besides the four stated, also
the true and the false. Modes are indefinite in num-
ber; and his Greek expositors contend that Aristotle
did not mean to enumerate all, but only to signalize
the more important.—H.
f. Keckermann died at the age of thirty-seven,
and, besides Systems of Logic, a greater and less,
left Systems of thirteen other sciences, with various
bulky treatises on particular subjects.-H.
H' Systema Plenius, L. i. c. 3. Opera, i. p. 7ſ 3.-
f Vives De Causis Corrupt. Artium, L. iii.-H. .
f Burgersdicii, Institut. Log. L. ii. c. 14.-H.
§ Modals have, indeed, been frequently treated
with neglect by Logical writers, but never, at least
till lately, formally expelled from the science.-H.
704.
[on AP. Iv.]
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF
Section VII.
QN SYLLOGISMS THAT DO NOT BELONG TO
FIG URE AND MODE,
Aristotle gives some observations upon
imperfect syllogisms; such as the Enthy-
meme, in which one of the premises is not
expressed, but understood ;* Induction,
wherein we collect an universal from a full
enumeration of particulars; and Ea'ample,
which is an imperfect induction. The
Logicians have copied Aristotle, upon these
kinds of reasoning, without any consider-
able improvement. But, to compensate
the modal syllogisms, which they have laid
aside, they have given rules for several
kinds of syllogism, of which Aristotle takes
no notice. These may be reduced to two
classes.
The first class comprehends the syllo-
gisms into which any eaclusive, restrictive, i.
earceptive, or reduplicative + proposition
enters. Such propositions are by some
called Earponible, by others Imperfectly [or
Secondarily] Modal. The rules given with
regard to these are obvious, from a just in-
terpretation of the propositions.
The second class is that of Hypothetical
syllogisms, which take that denomination
from having a hypothetical proposition for
one or both premises. Most Logicians give
the name of hypothetical to all complex
propositions which have more terms than
one subject and one predicate.: I use the
word in this large sense, and mean, by hy-
pothetical syllogisms, all those in which
either of the premises consists of more terms
than two. How many various kinds there
may be of such syllogisms, has never been
ascertained. The Logicians have given
names to some ; such as the copulative, the
conditional, (by some called hypothetical,)
and the disjunctive.
Such syllogisms cannot be tried by the
rules of figure and mode. Every kind
would require rules peculiar to itself. Lo-
gicians have given rules for some kinds ;
but there are many that have not so much
as the name.
The Dilemma is considered by most Lo-
gicians as a species of the disjunctive syllo-
gism.S. A remarkable property of this kind
is, that it may sometimes be happily re-
torted : it is, it seems, like a hand-grenade,
which, by dextrous management, may be
thrown back, so as to spend its force upon
the assailant.” We shall conclude this
tedious account of syllogisms with a di-
lemma mentioned by Aulus Gellius, and
from him by many Logicians, as insoluble
in any other way.f
“Euathlus, a rich young man, desirous
of learning the art of pleading, applied to
Protagoras, a celebrated Sophist, to instruct
him, promising a great sum of money as his
reward; one half of which was paid down ;
the other half he bound himself to pay as
Soon as he should plead a cause before the
judges, and gain it. Protagoras found him
a very apt scholar ; but, after he had made
good progress, he was in no haste to plead
causes. The master, conceiving that he
intended by this means to shift off his second
payment, took, as he thought, a sure method
to get the better of his delay. He sued
Euathlus before the judges; and, having
opened his cause at the bar, he pleaded to
this purpose :—‘O most foolish young man,
do you not see that, in any event, I must
gain my point 2—for, if the judges give sent-
ence for me, you must pay by their sent-
ence; if against me, the condition of our
bargain is fulfilled, and you have no plea
left for your delay, after having pleaded and
gained a cause.” To which Euathlus an-
swered :-‘O most wise master, I might
have avoided the force of your argument,
by not pleading my own cause. But, giv-
ing up this advantage, do you not see that,
whatever sentence the judges pass, I am
safe P. If they give sentence for me, I am
acquitted by their sentence; if against me,
the condition of our bargain is not fulfilled,
by my pleading a cause, and losing it.” The
judges, thinking the arguments unanswer-
able on both sides, put off the cause to a
long day.”-f
* This is the vulgar opinion regarding Aristotle's
Enthymeme, but, as I have shewn, not the correct.
See Edinburgh Review, vol. lvii. p. 221, sq.-H.
# Zēeduplicative, and Specificative, are two species of
Restrictive propositions.—H.
# This abusive employment of the term Hypotheti-
cal, is not sanctioned by the best Logicians, nor even
by the greater number. Hypothetical and Conditional
ought to be used as convertible terms. See Edin-
burgh Review, vol. lvii. p. 219.-H.
§ This is hardly accurate. The greater number of
logicians consider it as an hypothetical (conditional)
syllogism ; but, in fact, it is both hypothetical and
disjunctive, and ought, therefore, to be styled the
Hypothetico-Disjunctive Syllogism.—H.
* We must not confound the Dilemma, or Hypoth-
etico-Disjunctive Syllogism, and the Sophism called
the Dilemma.-H.
# Is this not an erratum for “any way ?”—H.
# This story is, by the Greek authors, generally
told of the Rhetorician Corax (Crow) and his pupil
Tisias. The puzzled judges, in lieu of a decision on
the case, angrily pronounced of plaintiff and defend-
ant-Koczot, 268220s zczzöv dév (plaguy egg of a
plaguy crow /) Hence the proverb.-H.
[CHAP. v.--SECT. I.]
ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC. - .' 705
C: HAPTER. V.
ACC() UNT OF THE REMAINING BOOKS OF THE
ORGANON.
Section I.
OF THE LAST AN ALYTICS.
IN the First Analytics, syllogisms are
considered in respect of their form ; they
are now to be considered in respect of their
matter. The form lies in the necessary
connection between the premises and the
conclusion; and, where such a connection
is wanting, they are said to be informal, or
vicious in point of form.
But, where there is no fault in the form,
there may be in the matter—that is, in the
propositions of which they are composed,
which may be true or false, probable or im-
probable. ... •
When the premises are certain," and the
conclusion drawn from them in due form,
this is demonstration, and produces science.
Such syllogisms are called apodictical, and
are handled in the two books of the Last
Analytics. When the premises are not cer-
tain, but probable only, such syllogisms are
called dialectical ; and of them he treats in
the eight books of the Topics. But there
are some syllogisms which seem to be per-
fect both in matter and form, when they
are not really so ; as, a face may seem
beautiful which is but painted. These
being apt to deceive, and produce a false
opinion, are called sophistical ; and they
are the subject of the book concerning
Sophisms.
To return to the Last Analytics, which
treat of demonstration and of science : We
shall not pretend to abridge those books,
for Aristotle's writings do not admit of
abridgement; no man, in fewer words, can
say what he says; and he is not often guilty
of repetition. We shall only give some of
his capital conclusions, omitting his long
reasonings and nice distinctions, of which
his genius was wonderfully productive.
All demonstration must be built upon
principles already known, and these upon
others of the same kind; until we come at
last to first principles, which neither can
be demonstrated, nor need to be, being
evident of themselves.
We cannot demonstrate things in a circle,
Supporting the conclusion by the premises,
and the premises by the conclusion. Nor
can there be an infinite number of middle
terms between the first principle and the
conclusion.
** In Demonstration, the preinises must not only
'e true and certain, but necessarily so.-H. ,
In all demonstration, the first principles,
the conclusion, and all the intermediaté
propositions, must be necessary, general,
and eternal truths; for, of things fortuitous,
contingent, or mutable, or of individual
things, there is no demonstration.
Some demonstrations prove only, that
the thing is thus affected; others prove,
why it is thus affected. The former may
be drawn from a remote cause, or from an
effect ; but the latter must be drawn from
an immediate cause, and are the most per-
fect. -
The first figure is best adapted to demon-
stration, because it affords conclusions uni-
versally affirmative ; and this figure is com-
monly used by the mathematicians.
The demonstration of an affirmative pro-
position is preferable to that of a negative;
the demonstration of an universal to that
of a particular; and direct demonstration
to that ad absurdum. -
The principles are more certain than the
conclusion.
There cannot be opinion and science of
the same thing at the same time.
In the second book, we are taught, that
the questions that may be put with regard
to anything are four : 1. Whether the thing
be thus affected. 2. Why it is thus affected.
3. Whether it easists. 4. What it is.”
The last of these questions, Aristotle, in
good Greek, calls the What is it of a thing
The Schoolmen, in very barbarous Latin,
called this the quiddity of a thing. This
quiddity, he proves by many arguments,
cannot be demonstrated, but must be fixed
by a definition. This gives occasion to treat
of definition, and how a right definition
should be formed. As an example, he gives
a definition of the number three, and de-
fines it to be the first odd number.
In this book he treats also of the four
kinds of causes—efficient, material, formal,
and final.
Another thing treated of in this book is,
the manner in which we acquire first prin-
ciples, which are the foundation of all de-
monstration. These are not innate, be-
cause we may be, for a great part of life,
ignorant of them : nor can they be deduced
demonstratively from any antecedent know-
ledge, otherwise they would not be first
principles. Therefore he concludes, that
first principles are got by induction, from
the informations of sense. The senses give
us informations of individual things, and
from these by induction we draw general
conclusions; for it is a maxim with Aris-
totle, That there is nothing in the under-
standing which was not before in some sense.'i'
* The natural order of the four questions, and as
they are commonly enounced, is:-Am sit—Quid sit
—Quale sit—Cuº' st.-H.
f Whether Aristotle admitted the virtual or po-
tential existence of any a priori or native judg-
2 Z
706
[CHAP. v.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF
The knowledge of first principles, as it is
not acquired by demonstration, ought not
to be called science ; and therefore he calls
it intelligence [yo5:..]
Section II.
‘OF THE TOPICS.
The professed design of the Topics is, to
shew a method by which a man may be
able to reason with probability and con-
sistency upon every question that can
OCCUIT.
Every question is either about the genus
of the subject, or its specific difference, or
something proper to it, or something acci-
dental.
To prove that this division is complete,
Aristotle reasons thus : Whatever is attri-
buted to a subject, it must either be, that
the subject can be reciprocally attributed to
it, or that it cannot. If the subject and
attribute can be reciprocated, the attribute
either declares what the subject is, and
then it is a definition ; or it does not de-
clare what the subject is, and then it is a
property. If the attribute cannot be re-
ciprocated, it must be something contained
in the definition, or not. If it be contained
in the definition of the subject, it must
be the genus of the subject, or its spe-
cific difference ; for the definition consists
of these two. If it be not contained in the
definition of the subject, it must be an ac-
cident.
[The instruments by which we may sup-
ply ourselves with] the furniture proper
to fit a man for arguing dialectically may
be reduced to these four heads: 1. [To
make choice of] probable propositions of all
Sorts, which may on occasion be assumed
in an argument. 2. [To take] distinc.
tions of words which are nearly of the same
signification. 3. [To mark the] distinctions
of things which are not so far asunder
but that they may be taken for one and the
Same. 4. [To consider] similitudes.
The second and the five following books
are taken up in enumerating the topics or
heads of argument that may be used in
questions about the genus, the definition,
the properties, and the accidents of a thing;
and occasionally he introduces the topics
for proving things to be the same or differ-
ent, and the topics for proving one thing
to be better or worse than another.
In this enumeration of topics, Aristotle
has shewn more the fertility of his genius
than the accuracy of method. The writers
of logic seem to be of this opinion; for I
know none of them that has followed him
closely upon this subject. They have con-
sidered the topics of argumentation as re-
ducible to certain axioms. For instance,
when the question is about the genus of a
thing, it must be determined by some axiom
about genus and species; when it is about
a definition, it must be determined by some
axiom relating to definition, and things de-
fined ; and so of other questions. They
have therefore reduced the doctrine of the
topics to certain axioms or canons, and dis-
posed these axioms in order under certain
heads.
This method seems to be more commod-
ious and elegant than that of Aristotle. Yet
it must be acknowledged that Aristotle has
furnished the materials from which all the
logicians have borrowed their doctrine of
topics; and even Cicero, Quintilian, and
other rhetorical writers, have been much
indebted to the topics of Aristotle.
He was the first, as far as I know, who
made an attempt of this kind; and in this
he acted up to the magnanimity of his own
genius, and that of ancient philosophy.
Every subject of human thought had been
reduced to ten categories; everything that
can be attributed to any subject, to five
predicables; he attempted to reduce all the
forms of reasoning to fixed rules of figure
and mode, and to reduce all the topics of
argumentation under certain heads; and
by that means to collect, as it were, into
one store, all that can be said on one side
or the other of every question, and to pro-
vide a grand arsenal, from which all future
combatants might be furnished with arms,
offensive and defensive, in every cause, so
as to leave no room to future generations
to invent anything new.
The last book of the Topics is a code
of the laws according to which a syllogist-
ical disputation ought to be managed, both
on the part of the assailant and defendant.
From which it is evident, that this philoso-
pher trained his disciples to contend, not
for truth merely, but for victory.*
ments, or whether he held that all principles are
actually generalizations by induction from expe-
rience, is a vexata quabstio among his followers; and
texts may be produced on both sides of nearly equal
Weight.—H.
* The implication here is unfounded, and could
easily be shewn to be unjust.—I may notice that there
is nothing in regard to which, notions cruder, nar-
rower, or more erroneous prevail, than in regard to
Disputation, its nature, its objects, and its ends;
nay, I make bold to say, that by no academical de-
generacy has the intellectual vigour of youth lost
more, than through the desuetude into which, during
these latter ages, Disputation, as a regular and daily
exercise in our universities, has fallen. Before the
invention of printing, when universities could vin-
dicate their necessity as organs of publication, Exer-
cise, and Disputation in particular, was still recog-
nised as their grand instrument of education; whereas
now, when books are but a drug, our professors too
often content themselves with reciting in their class-
rooms, what can, with equal profit and far more con-
venience, be read at home I cannot, of course,
here adduce my reasons, historical and psychologi-
SECT, III.]
707
ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC,
Section III.
OF THE BOOK CONCERNING SOPHISMS.
A syllogism which leads to a false con-
clusion must be vicious, either in matter or
form ; for, from true principles, nothing
but truth can be justly deduced. If the
matter be faulty—that is, if either of the
premises be false, that premise must be de-
nied by the defendant. If the form be faulty,
Some rule of syllogism is transgressed; and
it is the part of the defendant to shew what
general or special rule it is that is trans-
gressed ; so that, if he be an able logician,
he will be impregnable in the defence of
truth, and may resist all the attacks of the
Sophist. But, as there are syllogisms which
may seem to be perfect both in matter and
form, when they are not really so, as a
piece of money may seem to be good coin
when it is adulterate, such fallacious syllo-
gisms are considered in this treatise, in or-
der to make a defendant more expert in the
use of his defensive weapons. -
And here the author, with his usual mag-
nanimity, attempts to bring all the Fallacies
that can enter into a syllogism under thir-
teen heads; of which sia, lie in the diction
or language, and seven not in the diction.
The Fallacies in diction are, 1. When an
ambiguous word is taken at one time in
One Sense, and at another time in another.
2. When an ambiguous phrase is taken in
the same manner. 3. and 4. are ambigui-
ties in syntax; when words are conjoined
in syntax that ought to be disjoined, or
disjoined when they ought to be conjoined.
5. is an ambiguity in prosody, accent, or
pronunciation. 6. An ambiguity arising
from Some figure of speech.
When a sophism of any of these kinds is
translated into another language, or even
rendered into unambiguous expressions in
the same language, the fallacy is evident,
and the syllogism appears to havefour terms.
The seven fallacies which are said not to
be in the diction, but in the thing [the
thought], have their proper names in Greek
and in Latin, by which they are distinguished.
Without minding their names, we shall
give a brief account of their nature.
1. The first is, Taking an accidental con-
junction of things for a natural or necessary
cal, shewing the superior utility of Disputation as an
exercise, and the superior utility of Exercise in gen-
eral as a mean of intellectual developement; but I
am tempted to quote, in favour of the principle, the
testimony of a great philosopher, and great Scholar :-
“Tacitis meditationibus magis proficere nos, quam
altercationibus, verum non est. Etenim sicutilapi-
dum collisione ignis; ita ex disceptationibus elicitur
veritas. Quin egomet mecum Saºpe, diu, multum
meditatus—sed incassum ; nisi pugnem, infeliciter
cadet mihi. A Magistro plus excitamur ; at Adver-
sarius, suavel pertinacia, vel rapientia, mihi duplex
magister est.”—PH. - - - -
connection ; as, when from an accident we
infer a property; when from an example
we infer a rule ; when from a single act
we infer a habit.
2. Taking that absolutely which ought
to be taken comparatively, or with a cer-
tain limitation. The construction of lan-
guage often leads into this fallacy; for, in
all languages it is common to use absolute
terms to signify things that carry in them
some secret comparison ; or, to use unlim-
ited terms, to signify what from its nature
must be limited.
3. Taking that for the cause of a thing
which is only an occasion, or concomitant.
4. Begging the question. This is done
when the thing to be proved, or something
equivalent, is assumed in the premises.
5. Mistaking the question. When the
conclusion of the syllogism is not the thing
that ought to be proved, but something else
that is mistaken for it. -
6. When that which is not a consequence
is mistaken for a consequence; as if, be-
cause all Africans are black, it were taken
for granted that all blacks are Africans.
7. The last fallacy lies in propositions
that are complex and imply two affirma-
tions, whereof one may be true, and the
other false; so that, whether you grant the
proposition or deny it, you are entangled ;
as when it is affirmed that such a man has
left off playing the fool. If it be granted, it
implies that he did play the fool formerly;
if it be denied, it implies, or seems to imply,
that he plays the fool still.
In this enumeration, we ought, in justice
to Aristotle, to expect only the fallacies
incident to categorical syllogisms. And I
do not find that the Logicians have made
any additions to it when taken in this view,
although they have given some other falla-
cies that are incident to syllogisms of the
hypothetical [non-categorical] kind, partic-
ularly the fallacy of an incomplete enumera-
tion in disjunctive syllogisms and dilemmas.
The different species of sophisms above
mentioned are not so precisely defined by
Aristotle, or by subsequent Logicians, but
that they allow of great latitude in the ap-
plication; and it is often dubious under
what particular species a sophistical syllo-
gism ought to be classed. We even find
the same example brought under one species
by one author, and under another species by
another. Nay, what is more strange, Aris-
totle himself employs a long chapter in
proving, by a particular induction, that all
the seven may be brought under that which
we have called mistaking the question, and
which is commonly called ignoratio elemchi.
And, indeed, the proof of this is easy, with-
out that laborious detail which Aristotle
uses for the purpose; for if you lop off from
the conclusion of a sophistical syllogism all
2 Z 2
708
[CHAP. VI.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF
that is not supported by the premises, the
conclusion in that case will always be found
different from that which ought to have
been proved ; and so it falls under the ignor-
atio elemchi.
It was probably Aristotle's aim to reduce
all the possible variety of sophisms, as he
had attempted to do of just syllogisms, to
certain definite species; but he seems to be
sensible that he had fallen short in this last
attempt. When a genus is properly di-
vided into its species, the species should not
only, when taken together, exhaust the
whole genus, but every species should have
its own precinct so accurately defined that
one shall not encroach upon another. And
when an individual can be said to belong to
two or three different species, the division
is imperfect; yet this is the case of Aris-
totle's division of the sophisms, by his own
acknowledgment. It ought not, therefore,
to be taken for a division strictly logical.
It may rather be compared to the several
species or forms of action invented in law
for the redress of wrongs. For every wrong
there is a remedy in law by one action or
another ; but sometimes a man may take
his choice among several different actions.
So every sophistical syllogism may, by a
little art, be brought under one or other of
the species mentioned by Aristotle, and
very often you may take your choice of two
or three.
Besides the enumeration of the various
kinds of sophisms, there are many other
things in this treatise concerning the art of
managing a syllogistical dispute with an
antagonist. And indeed, if the passion for
this kind of litigation, which reigned for so
manyages, should ever again lift up its head,
we may predict, that the Organon of
Aristotle will then become a fashiofiable
study; for it contains such admirable mate-
rials and documents for this art, that it may
be said to have brought it to a science.
The conclusion of this treatise ought not
to be overlooked ; it manifestly relates, not
to the present treatise only, but also to the
whole analytics and topics of the author. I
shall therefore give the substance of it –
“Of those who may be called inventors,
Some have made important additions to
things long before begun and carried on
through a course of ages; others have given
a small beginning to things which, in suc-
ceeding times, will be brought to greater per-
fection. The beginning of a thing, though
small, is the chief part of it, and requires the
greatest degree of invention; for it is easy
to make additions to inventions once begun.
“ Now, with regard to the dialectical
art," there was not something done, and
something remaining to be done. There
was absolutely nothing done ; for those
who professed the art of disputation had
only a set of orations composed,” and of
arguments, and of captious questions,
which might suit many occasions. These,
their scholars Soon learned, and fitted to the
occasion. This was not to teach you the art,
but to furnish you with the materials pro-
duced by the art; as if a man professing to
teach you the art of making shoes should
bring you a parcel of shoes of various sizes
and shapes, from which you may provide
those who want. This may have its use;
but it is not to teach the art of making
shoes. And indeed, with regard to rhetori-
cal declamation, there are many precepts
handed down from ancient times; but, with
regard to the construction of syllogisms,
not one.”f
“We have, therefore, employed much
time and labour upon this subject; and if
our system appear to you not: to be in the
number of those things which, being before
carried a certain length, were left to be per-
fected, we hope for your favourable accept-
ance of what is done, and your indulgence
in what is left imperfect.S
CHAPTER VI.
REFLECTIONS ON THE UTILITY of Logic, AND
THE MEANS OF IT'S IMPROVEMENT.
Section I. 2-
OF THE UTILITY OF LOGIC.
MEN rarely leave one extreme without
running into the contrary. It is no wonder,
therefore, that the excessive admiration of
Aristotle, which continued for so many
ages, should end in an undue contempt ;
and that the high esteem of logic, as the
grand engine of science, should at last
make way for too unfavourable an opinion,
which seems now prevalent, of its being
unworthy of a place in a liberal education.
Those who think according to the fashion,
as the greatest part of men do, will be as
prone to go into this extreme as their grand-
fathers were to go into the contrary.
* Aristotle, in this particular passage, does not al-
lude to the doctrine of the syllogism in general, which
he does not call Dialectic, but to dialectic proper, as
Contained in his books of Topics and Sophisms.—H.
* This appears to be rather incorrect.--H.
f. In this particular passage, Logic in general is
plainly intended.—H.
# Reid is here led into error by a false reading in
the common editions.—H.
§ I had meant to have here given a full transla-
tion of this remarkable statement of Aristotle in re-
gard to what Logic owed to him when first developed,
with a parallel testimony of Kant, to what the
Science now owes him after an assiduous cultivation
of two thousand years; but the press is urgent. I
shall therefore adjourn these to Note V.-H.
| See above, p. 701, a, note f.-H.
sect, 1.]
709.
ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC.
Laying aside prejudice, whether fashion-
able or unfashionable, letus consider whether
logic is, or may be made, subservient to any
good purpose. Its professed end is, to
teach men to think, to judge, and to reason,
with precision and accuracy. No man will
say that this is a matter of no importance ;
the only thing, therefore, that admits of
doubt is, whether it can be taught.
To resolve this doubt, it may be ob-
served, that our rational faculty is the gift
of God, given to men in very different
measure. Some have a larger portion, some
a less ; and where there is a remarkable
defect of the natural power, it cannot be
supplied by any culture. But this natural
power, even where it is the strongest, may
lie dead for want of the means of improve-
ment : a Savage may have been born with
as good faculties as a Bacon or a Newton :
but his talent was buried, being never put
to use ; while theirs was cultivated to the
best advantage.
It may likewise be observed, that the
chief mean of improving our rational power,
is the vigorous exercise of it, in various
ways and in different subjects, by which the
habit is acquired of exercising it properly.
Without such exercise, and good sense over
and above, a man who has studied logic all
his life may, after all, be only a petulant
wrangler, without true judgment or skill of
reasoning in any science.
I take this to be Locke's meaning, when,
in his “Thoughts on Education,” he says,
“If you would have your son to reason
well, let him read Chillingworth.” The
state of things is much altered since Locke
wrote. Logic has been much improved,
chiefly by his writings; and yet much less
stress is laid upon it, and less time con-
sumed in it. His counsel, therefore, was
judicious and seasonable—to wit, That the
improvement of our reasoning power is to
be expected much more from an intimate
acquaintance with the authors who reason
the best, than from studying voluminous
systems of logic. But if he had meant that
the study of logic was of no use, nor de-
served any attention, he surely would not
have taken the pains to have made so con-
siderable an addition to it by his “ Essay
on the Human Understanding ” and by his
“Thoughts on the Conduct of the Under-
standing.” Nor would he have remitted
his pupil to Chillingworth, the acutest
logician as well as the best reasoner of his
age ; and one who, in innumerable places
of his excellent book, without pedantry even
in that pedantic age, makes the happiest
application of the rules of logic, for unravel-
ling the sophistical reasoning of his anta-
gonist.
Our reasoning power makes no appear-
ance in infancy ; but as we grow up, it
.*
unfolds itself by degrees, like the bud of a.
tree. When a child first draws an infer-
ence, or perceives the force of an inference
drawn by another, we may call this the
birth of his reason ; but it is yet like a new-
born babe, weak and tender ; it must be
cherished, carried in arms, and have food
of easy digestion, till it gathers strength.
I believe no man remembers the birth of
his reason : but it is probable that his de-
cisions are at first weak and wavering ;
and, compared with. that steady conviction
which he acquires in ripe years, are like
the dawn of the morning compared with
noon-day. We see that the reason of
children yields to authority, as a reed to
the wind ; nay, that it clings to it, and
leans upon it, as if conscious of its own
weakness.
When reason acquires such strength as
to stand on its own bottom, without the aid
of authority, or even in opposition to au-
thority, this may be called its manly age.
But, in most men, it hardly ever arrives at
this period. Many, by their situation in
life, have not the opportunity of cultivating
their rational powers. Many, from the
habit they have acquired of submitting their
opinions to the authority of others, or from
Some other principle which operates more
powerfully than the love of truth, suffer
their judgment to be carried along to the
end of their days, either by the authority
of a leader, or of a party, or of the multi-
tude, or by their own passions. Such per-
Sons, however learned, however acute, may
be said to be all their days children in un-
derstanding. They reason, they dispute,
and perhaps write ; but it is not that they
may find the truth, but that they may de-
fend opinions which have descended to
them by inheritance, or into which they
have fallen by accident, or been led by af-
fection. -
I agree with Mr Locke, that there is no
study better fitted to exercise and strengthen
the reasoning powers, than that of the ma-
thematical Sciences—for two reasons: first,
Because there is no other branch of science
which gives such scope to long and accu-
rate trains of reasoning ;" and, secondly,
. .” It is not “ the length and accuracy of its trains
of reasoning” that makes a science a profitable gym-
nastic of the mind—for this is only the result of
the nature, and necessity of its matter—but the
amount of intellectual effort which it determines in
the student.
Now mathematics are, as is universally
confessed, the easiest of all sciences ; their perspicuity
is excessive; and thus they only conduce to exercise
the patience and attention. Mr Stewart, who was an
eminent mathematician before he was a distinguished
philosopher, in the admirable chapter of his “ Philo-
sophy of the Human Mind,” entitled “The Mathe-
matician,” limits the benefit to be derived from the
study of mathematics, in the cultivation of the men-
tal faculties, to the power of continuous attention
which it contributes to exercise ; and this to the ex-
press exclusion of the mechanical process of the al-
gebraic calculus, “ This command of attention,”
710
[CHAP. vi.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF
Because, in mathematics, there is no room
for authority, nor for prejudice of any kind,
which may give a false bias to the judg-
ment." -
When a youth of moderate parts begins
to study Euclid, everything at first is
new to him. His apprehension is unsteady ;
his judgmentis feeble, and rests partly upon
the evidence of the thing, and partly upon
the authority of his teacher. But, every
time he goes over the definitions, the axioms,
the elementary propositions, more light
breaks in upon him ; the language becomes
familiar, and conveys clear and steady con-
ceptions; the judgment is confirmed ; he
begins to see what demonstration is; and
it is impossible to see it without being
charmed with it. He perceives it to be a
kind of evidence that has no need of au-
thority to strengthen it. He finds himself
emancipated from that bondage, and exults
so much in this new state of independence,
that he spurns at authority, and would
have demonstration for everything, until ex-
perience teaches him that this is a kind of
evidence which cannot be had in most things;
and that, in his most important concerns,
he must rest contented with probability.
As he goes on in mathematics, the road
of demonstration becomes smooth and easy;
he can walk in it firmly, and take wider
steps; and at last he acquires the habit,
not only of understanding a demonstration,
but of discovering and demonstrating ma-
thematical truths.
Thus a man, without rules of logic, may
acquire a habit of reasoning justly in ma-
thematics;t. and I believe he may, by like
means, acquire a habit of reasoning justly
in mechanics, in jurisprudence, in politics,
or in any other science. Good sense, good
examples, and assiduous exercise, may bring
ducing it to rules.
a man to reason justly and acutely in his
own profession, without rules.
But if any man think, that, from this
concession, he may infer the intifility of lo-
gic, he betrays a great want of that art by
this inference; for it is no better reasoning
than this, That because a man may go
from Edinburgh to London by the way of
Paris, therefore any other road is useless.
There is perhaps no practical art which
may not be acquired, in a very considerable
degree, by example and practice, without re-
But practice, joined
with rules, may carry a man on in his art
farther, and more quickly, than practice
without rules. Every ingenious artist
knows the utility of having his art reduced
to rules, and by that means made a science.
He is thereby enlightened in his practice,
and works with more assurance. By rules,
he sometimes corrects his own errors, and
often detects the errors of others; he finds
them of great use to confirm his judgment,
to justify what is right, and to condemn
what is wrong. -
Is it of no use in reasoning to be well
acquainted with the various powers of the
human understanding, by which we reason 2
Is it of no use to resolve the various kinds
of reasoning into their simple elements, and
to discover, as far as we are able, the rules
by which these elements are combined in
judging and in reasoning 2 Is it of no use
to mark the various fallacies in reasoning,
by which even the most ingenious men
have been led into error P It must surely
betray great want of understanding, to think
these things useless or unimportant. These
are the things which Logicians have at-
tempted, and which they have executed;
not, indeed, so completely as to leave no
room for improvement, but in such a man-
ner as to give very considerable aid to our
reasoning powers. That the principles laid
down with regard to definition and division,
with regard to the conversion and opposi-
tion of propositions, and the general rules
of reasoning, are not without use, is suffi-
ciently apparent from the blunders com-
mitted by those who disdain any acquaint-
ance with them.*
he says, “it may be proper to add, is to be acquired,
not by P. of the modern methods, but by the
study of the Greek geometry ; more particularly, by
accustoming ourselves to pursue long trains of de-
monstration, without availing ourselves of the aid of
any sensible diagrams; the thoughts being directed
solely to those ideal delineations which the powers of
conception and of memory enable us to form.”
Reid likewise, in what he now says in favour of
Mathematics as an intellectual exercise, contem-
plates exclusively the ostensive or geometric method.
This is manifest, not only from the necessary mean-
ing of his words, but also from his “ Essay on
Quantity,” in which he says: “Long deductions in
algebra are, for the most part, made, not so much
by a train of reasoning in the mind, as by a kind of
artificial [mechanical ?] operation which is built on
a few principles,” &c. On the pernicious influence
of the modern analysis, in an educational point of
view, many philosophers and practical instructors
have recorded their emphatic testimonies. On this
subject, see Edinburgh Review, No. 126, art, 7.-H.
* There is, in fact, no room ſor difference of opin-
ion. But it is difficult to see how we can be trained
to reason right, by a science in which there is no
reasoning wrong.—H.
t A man is made “to reason justly in mathematics,”
In the same manner in which a mán is made to walk
straight in a diteh.-- H.
* I am aware,” says Baron Degerando, “that in
presenting the syllogism as the primary and essential
form of reasoning, I run counter to the opinions of
modern metaphysicians. I am aware that the Very
name of Syllogism is enough, at the present day, to
throw a sort of ridicule on any philosophical work in
which it ventures to appear. Men have reasoned
frequently so ill in mood and figure, that syllogism
seems to have for ever lost its credit. Nevertheless,
I am not afraid to oppose myself to these preposses-
sions ; and I make bold to maintain that, on this
occasion, own predecessors have analysed better than
we. The moderns have considered reasoning only
as clothed in the external and sensible forms of
speech ; the ancients have observed it as it exists
in the mind. The abuse that has been made of
syllogism, proves nothing against its necessity
because the conncotion of signs is not enough to
SECT. II.]
711
ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC.
Although the art of categorical syllogism
is better fitted for scholastic litigation than
for real improvement in knowledge, it is a
venerable piece of antiquity, and a great
effort of human genius. We admire the
pyramids of Egypt, and the wall of China,
though useless burdens upon the earth ;
we can bear the most minute description of
them, and travel hundreds of leagues to
see them : if any person should, with sac-
rilegious hands, destroy or deface them, his
memory would be had in abhorrence. The
predicaments and predicables, the rules of
syllogism, and the topics, have a like title
to our veneration as antiquities; they are
uncommon efforts, not of human power,
but of human genius; and they make a
remarkable period in the progress of human
I'éaSOE). -
The prejudice against logic has probably
been strengthened by its being taught too
early in life. Boys are often taught logic
as they are taught their creed, when it is
an exercise of memory only, without under-
standing. One may as well expect to un-
derstand grammar before he can speak, as
to understand logic before he can reason.
It must even be acknowledged, that com-
monly we are capable of reasoning in mathe-
matics more early than in logic. The
objects presented to the mind in this science
are of a very abstract nature, and can be
distinctly conceived only when we are capa-
ble of attentive reflection upon the opera-
tions of our own understanding, and after
we have been accustomed to reason. There
may be an elementary logic, level to the
capacity of those who have been but little
exercised in reasoning; but the most im-
portant parts of this science require a ripe
understanding, capable of reflecting upon
its own operations. Therefore, to make
logic the first branch of science that is to
be taught, is an old error that ought to be
corrected."
guarantee the concatenation of 'ideas, and thus, as
we are about to see, the mind may err in a reasoning
the best conformed to rule. Though it may be use-
less to enounce, in terms, a proposition in itself
evident and simple, this does not prove that such pro-
position ought not to be presented to the mind when
reasoning, in order to establish the connection of the
notions which it compares. Let those who would
reduce all reasoning to the Enthymeme, ask them-
selves how a first proposition could conduct them to
a second, if the understanding did not, by a secret
operation, apprehend the nexus of their terms. Let
them propose their enthymeme to a child, or a man
of limited understanding, and they will soon, by
being compelled to restore, in their discourse, the
omitted proposition, be made to see that its presence in
the intellect was necessary all along, and that, though
not expressed by them, it was always understood.”
I quote this acknowledgment as valuable from a
philosopher of the school of Condillac. To adduce
testimonies from the followers of Leibnitz or Kant,
would be superfluous. In Germany, Logic has al-
ways been estimated at its proper value.—H.
* On the absurdity of entering on the study of the
sciences of reflection before concluding the study of
those of observation, see above, p. 420, a, note f. To
Section II.
OF THE IMPROVEMENT OF LOGIC.
In compositions of human thought, ex-
pressed by speech or by writing, whatever
is excellent and whatever is faulty fall with-
in the province, either of grammar, or of
rhetoric, or of logic. Propriety of expres-
sion is the province of grammar; grace,
elegance, and force, in thought and in ex-
pression, are the province of rhetoric ; just-
ness and accuracy of thought are the pro-
vince of logic.
The faults in composition, therefore,
which fall under the censure of logic, are
obscure and indistinct conceptions, false
judgment, inconclusive reasoning, and all
improprieties in distinctions, definitions,
division, or method. To aid our rational
powers in avoiding these faults, and in at-
taining the opposite excellencies, is the end
of logic; and whatever there is in it that
has no tendency to promote this end, ought
to be thrown out.
The rules of logic being of a very abstract
nature, ought to be illustrated by a variety
of real and striking examples taken from
the writings of good authors. It is both
instructive and entertaining to observe the
virtues of accurate composition in writers
of fame: we cannot see them without being
drawn to the imitation of them, in a more
powerful manner than we can be by dry
rules. Nor are the faults of such writers
less instructive or less powerful monitors.
A wreck left upon a shoal, or upon a rock,
is not more useful to the Sailor than the
faults of good writers, when set up to view,
are to those who come after them. It was
a happy thought in a late ingenious writer
of English grammar, to collect under the
several rules examples of bad English found
in the most approved authors. It were to
be wished that the rules of logic were illus-
trated in the same manner. By this means,
a system of logic would become a reposi-
tory, wherein whatever is most acute in
judging and in reasoning, whatever is most
accurate in dividing, distinguishing, and
defining, should be laid up and disposed in
order for our imitation, and wherein the
false steps of eminent authors should be
recorded for our admonition.
After men had laboured in the search of
truth near two thousand years by the help
of syllogisms, Lord Bacon proposed the
method of induction, as a more effectual
engine for that purpose. His “ Novum
Organum” gave a new turn to the thoughts
Mr Stewart's testimony there quoted, might be added
that of almost every competent authority in educa-
tion. See Note W. — H -
712
[CHAP. VI.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF
and labours of the inquisitive, more re-
markable and more useful than that which
the “Organon” of Aristotle had given be-
fore, and may be considered as a second
grand-era in the progress of human reason."
The art of syllogism produced number-
less disputes, and numberless sects who
fought against each other with much ani-
mosity, without gaining or losing ground,
but did nothing considerable for the benefit
of human life. The art of induction, first
delineated by Lord Bacon, produced num-
berless laboratories and observatories, in
which nature has been put to the question
by thousands of experiments, and forced to
confess many of her secrets that before were
hid from mortals: and, by these, arts have
been improved, and human knowledge won-
derfully increased. -
In reasoning by syllogism from general
principles, we descend to a conclusion vir-
tually contained in them. The process of
induction is more arduous, being an ascent
from particular premises to a general con-
clusion." The evidence of such general
conclusions is probable only, not demon-
strative : but when the induction is suffi-
ciently copious, and carried on according
to the rules of art, it forces conviction no
less than demonstration itself does.
The greatest part of human knowledge
rests upon evidence of this kind. Indeed
we can have no other for general truths
which are contingent in their nature, and
depend upon the will and ordination of the
Maker of the world. He governs the world
he has made by general laws : The effects
of these laws in particular phaenomena are
open to our observation; and, by observing
a train of uniform effects with due caution,
we may at last decipher the law of nature
by which they are regulated.
Lord Bacon has displayed no less force
of genius in reducing to rules this method
of reasoning, than Aristotle did in the me-
thod of syllogism. [?] His “ Novum Or-
ganum” ought therefore to be held as a
most important addition to the ancient logic.:
Those who understand it, and enter into
its spirit, will be able to distinguish the
chaff from the wheat in philosophical dis-
quisitions into the works of God. They
will learn to hold in due contempt all hy-
* The Organon of Aristotle and the Organum
of Bacon stand in relation, but the relation of con-
trariety: the one considers the laws under which
the subject thinks; the other the laws under which
the object is to be known. To compare them together
is therefore, in reality, to compare together quanti-
ties of different species. Each proposes a different
end ; both, in different ways, are useful; and both
ought to be assiduously studied.— H.
..f. Induction is always a syllogism. But we must
distinguish two inductions—a formal and a material.
The confusion of these has led to great confusion,
But of this not here.-H.
# It is not of a logical argument at all, if we limit
the domain of logic to the form of thought.—H.
potheses and theories, the creatures of hu-
man imagination, and to respect nothing but
facts sufficiently vouched, or conclusions
drawn from them by a fair and chaste in-
terpretation of nature.
Most arts' have been reduced to rules,
after they had been brought to a consider-
able degree of perfection by the natural sa-
gacity of artists ; and the rules have been
drawn from the best examples of the art
that had been before exhibited ; but the
art of philosophical induction was delineated
by Lord Bacon in a very ample manner,
before the world had seen any tolerable
example of it.* This, although it adds
greatly to the merit of the author, must
have produced some obscurity in the work,
and a defect of proper examples for illus-
tration. This defect may now be easily
supplied from those authors who, in their
philosophical disquisitions, have the most
strictly pursued the path pointed out in the
“Novum Organum.” Among these, Sir
Isaac Newton appears to hold the first
rank; having, in the third book of his
“Principia,” and in his “Optics,” had the
rules of the “Novum Organum” constantly
in his eye.
I think Lord Bacon was also the first
who endeavoured to reduce to a system the
prejudices or biasses of the mind, which
are the causes of false judgment, and which
he calls the idols of the human understand-
ing. Some late writers of logic have very
properly introduced this into their system ;
but it deserves to be more copiously hand-
led, and to be illustrated by real examples.
It is of great consequence to accurate
reasoning to distinguish first principles
which are to be taken for granted, from
propositions which require proof. All the
real knowledge of mankind may be divided
into two parts: The first consisting of self-
evident propositions ; the second, of those
which are deduced by just reasoning from
self-evident propositions. The line that
divides these two parts ought to be marked
as distinctly as possible ; and the principles
that are self-evident reduced, as far as can
be done, to general axioms. This has been
done in mathematics from the beginning,
and has tended greatly to the emolument
of that science. It has lately been done in
natural philosophy : and by this means
that science has advanced more in an hun-
dred and fifty years, than it had done be-
fore in two thousand. Every science is in
an unformed state until its first principles
are ascertained; after which, it advances
regularly, and secures the ground it has
gained. -
* One of the most perfect examples of a genuine
induction is that aſſorded by Bacon’s contemporary,
Galileo ; but Galileo's practice was anterior to Ba-
con's precept.—H
SECT. II.]
713
ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC.
* Although first principles do not admit of
direct proof, yet there must be certain marks
and characters by which those that are
truly such may be distinguished from coun-
terfeits. These marks ought to be described
and applied to distinguish the genuine from
the spurious.
In the ancient philosophy, there is a
redundance, rather than a defect, of first
principles. Many things were assumed
under that character without a just title.
That nature abhors a vacuum ; that bodies
do not gravitate in their proper place; that
the heavenly bodies undergo no change ;
that they move in perfect circles, and with
an equable motion : Such principles as these
were assumed in the Peripatetic philosophy
without proof, as if they were self-evident.
Des Cartes, sensible of this weakness in
the ancient philosophy, and desirous to
guard against it in his own system, resolved
to admit nothing until his assent was forced
by irresistible evidence. The first thing
which he found to be certain and evident
was, that he thought, and reasoned, and
doubted. He found himself under a ne-
cessity of believing the existence of those
mental operations of which he was con-
scious ; and having thus found sure footing
in this one principle of consciousness, he
rested satisfied with it, hoping to be able to
build the whole fabric of his knowledge
upon it ; like Archimedes, who wanted but
one fixed point to move the whole earth.
But the foundation was too narrow ; and
in his progress he unawares assumes many
things less evident than those which he
attempts to prove. Although he was not
able to suspect the testimony of conscious-
ness, yet he thought the testimony of sense,
of memory, and of every other faculty,
might be suspected, and ought not to be
received until proof was brought that they
are not fallacious. Therefore he applies
these faculties, whose character is yet in
question, to prove, That there is animfinitely
perfect Being, who made him, and who
made his senses, his memory, his reason,
and all his faculties; that this Being is no
deceiver, and therefore could not give him
faculties that are fallacious ; and that on
this account they deserve credit.
It is strange that this philosopher, who
found himself under a necessity of yielding
to the testimony of consciousness, did not
find the same necessity of yielding to the
testimony of his senses, his memory, and
his understanding ; and that, while he was
certain that he doubted and reasoned, he
was uncertain whether two and three made
five, and whether he was dreaming or awake.
It is more strange that so acute a reasoner
should not perceive that his whole train of
reasoning, to prove that his faculties were
not fallacious, was mere sophistry; for, if
his faculties were fallacious, they might
deceive him in this train of reasoning; and
so the conclusion, That they were not fal-
lacious, was only the testimony of his faculties
in their own favour, and might be a fallacy.
It is difficult to give any reason for dis-
trusting our other faculties, that will not
reach consciousness itself.” And he who
distrusts the faculties of judging and reason-
ing which God hath given him, must even
rest in his scepticism till he come to a sound
mind, or until God give him new faculties
to sit in judgment upon the old. If it be not
a first principle, that our faculties are not fal-
lacious, we must be absolute sceptics; for
this principle is incapable of a proof; and if
it is not certain, nothing else can be certain.
Since the time of Des Cartes, it has been
fashionable with those who dealt in abstract
philosophy, to employ their invention in
finding philosophical arguments, either to
prove those truths which ought to be re-
ceived as first principles, or to overturn
them : and it is not easy to say, whether
the authority of first principles is more hurt
by the first of these attempts, or by the
last ; for such principles can stand secure
only upon their own bottom ; and to place
them upon any other foundation than that
of their intrinsic evidence, is in effect to
overturn them.
I have lately + met with a very sensible
and judicious treatise, wrote by Father
Buffier about fifty years ago, concerning
first principles and the source of human
judgments, which, with great propriety, he
prefixed to his treatise of logic. And in-
deed I apprehend it is a subject of such
consequence, that, if inquisitive men can be
brought to the same unanimity in the first
principles of the other sciences as in those
of mathematics andnatural philosophy, (and
why should we despair of a general agree-
ment in things that are self-evident 2) this
might be considered as a third grand era in
the progress of human reason.
* Two things must be distinguished in Conscious-
ness—the reality of the phaenomenon, and the truth
of what the phaenomenon vouches. Of the former,
scepticism is impossible, because the doubt implies a
contradiction. Of the latter, scepticism is always pos-
sible, because it does not immediately subvert itself.
+ This would seem to prove that Reid was not
aware of Buffier's treatise on First Truths, when he
wrote his “ Inquiry;” as indeed, from internal evi-
dence, is probable.— H.
714 ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC.
OMISSION.
NoTE.—The following paragraph should have formed the conclusion of chapter II.,
Section 4–On Definitions. It had been omitted in the editions of this treatise published
apart from Lord Kames's “Sketches.” One of these was the copy given to the printer;
the proof was, however, always collated with the two authentic editions, and the various
unauthorized changes which had been subsequently introduced into the teat carefully ex-
punged. It was found impossible, however, to restore this passage to its connection, with-
out deranging several sheets which had been set up together.—H.
If Aristotle had understood those principles, many of his definitions, which furnish
matter of triumph to his enemies, had never seen the light; let us impute them to the
times rather than to the man. The sublime Plato, it is said, thought it necessary to
have the definition of a man, and could find none better than Animal implume bipes;
upon which Diogenes sent to his school a cock with his feathers plucked off, desiring to
know whether it was a man or not.
AN
E S S A Y
ON
QUAN TITY;”
OCCASIONED BY READING A TREATISE
IN WEHICH
SIM P L E AND COMPO UN D R A T IOS
ARE APPLIED TO
VIRTUE AND
MERIT.
SINCE it is thought that mathematical
demonstration carries a peculiar evidence
along with it, which leaves no room for
further dispute, it may be of some use, or
entertainment at least, to inquire to what
subjects this kind of proof may be applied.
Mathematics contain properly the doc-
trine of measure; and the object of this
Science is commonly said to be Quantity;
therefore, quantity ought to be defined, what
nay be measured. Those who have de-
fined quantity to be whatever is capable of
more or less, have given too wide a notion
of it, which, it is apprehended, has led some
persons to apply mathematical reasoning to
subjects that do not admit of it. Pain and
pleasure admit of various degrees, but who
can pretend to measure them 2
Whatever has quantity, or is measurable,
must be made up of parts, which bear pro-
portion to each other, and to the whole; so
that it may be increased by addition of like
parts, and diminished by subtraction, may
be multiplied and divided, and, in short,
may bear any proportion to another quan-
tity of the same kind, that one line or num-
ber can bear to another. That this is es-
sential to all mathematical quantity, is evi-
dent from the first elements of algebra,
which treats of quantity in general, or of
those relations and properties which are
common to all kinds of quantity. Every
algebraical quantity is supposed capable,
not only of being increased and diminished,
but of being exactly doubled, tripled, halved,
or of bearing any assignable proportion to
another quantity of the same kind. This,
then, is the characteristic of quantity ;
whatever has this property may be adopted
into mathematics; and its quantity and re-
lations may be measured with mathematical
accuracy and certainty.
* This Essay was originally published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of London, vol. xlv.,
anno, 1748. On the occasion of the paper, see above, p. 5; and Stewart's Elements, II. 539.
This is Reid's earliest publication: and it is curious that, Kant should, in the preceding year, have also
ushered into the world his first regular work, and on a similar subject; that work, too, containing a refuta-
#. of the Leibnitzian estimate of velocity. I refer to his “Thoughts on the True Measure of Living
orces.”
This is not the only parallel between the two philosophers, who, with sundry striking contrasts, presented still
more remarkable similarities. The doctrines of both, however different in external character and in particu-
lar opinions, were of a kindred spirit: they had a common origin, as recoils against the scepticism of Hume;
the same dominant result, in the establishment of certain ultimate laws of speculation and practice; and thé
same tendency, in restraining the intellectual pride, and elevating the moral dignity of man. Each, in a
different sphere, was at the head of a great scientific determination; both were distinguished rather for
philosophical originality and independence, than for the extent of their philosophical learning; and, finally,
(may 1 add 2) both were Scotchmen—Reid by birth, Kant (Cant) by proximate descent.—II.
716
AN ESSAY ON QUANTITY.
There are some quantities which may be
called proper, and others improper. This
distinction is taken notice of by Aristotle;
but it deserves some explanation. That
properly is quantity which is measured by
its own kind; or which, of its own nature,
is capable of being doubled or tripled, with-
out taking in any quantity of a different
kind as a measure of it.
Improper quantity is that which cannot
be measured by its own kind; but to which
we assign a measure by the means of some
proper quantity that is related to it. Thus
velocity of motion, when we consider it by
itself, cannot be measured. We may per-
ceive one body to move faster, another
slower; but we can have no distinct idea of
a proportion or ratio between their veloci-
ties, without taking in some quantity of an-
other kind to measure them by. Having,
therefore, observed, that by a greater velo-
city a greater space is passed over in the
same time, by a less velocity a less space,
and by an equal velocity an equal space ;
we hence learn to measure velocity by the
space passed over in a given time, and to
reckon it to be in exact proportion to that
Space: and having once assigned this mea-
sure to it, we can then, and not till then,
conceive one velocity to be exactly double,
or half, or in any other proportion to
another ; we may then introduce it into
mathematical reasoning without danger of
confusion or error, and may also use it as a
measure of other improper quantities.
All the kinds of proper quantity we
know, may perhaps be reduced to these
four, extension, duration, number, and pro-
portion. Though proportion be measurable
in its own nature, and, therefore, has pro-
per quantity, yet as things cannot have
proportion which have not quantity of some
other kind, it follows, that whatever has
quantity must have it in one or other of
these three kinds, eatension, duration, or
number. These are the measures of them-
selves, and of all things else that are mea-
Surable.
Number is applicable to some things, to
which it is not commonly applied by the
vulgar. Thus, by attentive consideration,
lots and chances of various kinds appear to
be made up of a determinate number of
chances that are allowed to be equal ; and
by numbering these, the values and propor-
tions of those which are compounded of
them may be demonstrated.
Velocity, the quantity of motion, density,
elasticily, the vis insita and impressa, the
various kinds of centripetal forces, and dif-
ferent orders of fluvions, are all improper
quantities; which, therefore, ought not to
be admitted into mathematics, without hav-
ing a measure of them assigned. The
measure of an improper quantity ought
always to be included in the definition of
it; for it is the giving it a measure that
makes it a proper subject of mathematical
reasoning. If all mathematicians had con-
sidered this as carefully as Sir Isaac New-
ton appears to have done, some labour had
been saved both to themselves and to
their readers. That great man, whose clear
and comprehensive understanding appears
even in his definitions, having frequent oc-
casion to treat of such improper quantities,
never fails to define them so as to give
a measure of them, either in proper quan-
tities, or in such as had a known measure.
This may be seen in the definitions prefixed
to his “Principia Philosophiae Naturalis
Mathematica.”
It is not easy to say how many kinds of
improper quantity may, in time, be intro-
duced into mathematics, or to what new
subjects measures may be applied; but
this, I think, we may conclude, that there
is no foundation in nature for, nor can any
valuable end be served, by applying measure
to anything but what has these two proper-
ties:–First, It must admit of degrees of
greater and less ; Secondly, It must be asso-
ciated with or related to something that has
pm oper quantity, so as that when one is in-
creased, the other is increased ; when one is
diminished, the other is diminished also ;
and every degree of the one must have a de-
terminate magnitude or quantity of the other
corresponding to it.
It sometimes happens, that we have occa-
sion to apply different measures to the same
thing. Centripetal force, as defined by
Newton, may be measured in various ways;
he himself gives different measures of it,
and distinguishes them by different names,
as may be seen in the above-mentioned
definitions.
In reality, Dr M.” conceives, that the
applying of measures to things that properly
have not quantity, is only a fiction or arti-
fice of the mind, for enabling us to conceive
more easily, and more distinctly to express
and demonstrate, the properties and rela-
tions of those things that have real quantity.
The propositions contained in the first two
books of Newton’s “ Principia” might per-
haps be expressed and demonstrated with-
out those various measures of motion, and
of centripetal and impressed forces which
he uses; but this would occasion such in-
tricate and perplexed circumlocutions, and
such a tedious length of demonstrations, as
would frighten any sober person from at-
tempting to read them.
From the nature of quantity, we may see
what it is that gives mathematics such ad-
vautage over other sciences, in clearness
and certainty; namely, that quantity ad-
* The author, Reid himself—II.
AN ESSAY ON QUANTITY.
717
mits of a much greater variety of relations
than any other subject of human reasoning;
and, at the same time, every relation or
proportion of quantities may, by the help of
lines and numbers, be so distinctly defined
as to be easily distinguished from all others,
without any danger of mistake. Hence it is
that we are able to trace its relations through
a long process of reasoning, and with a
perspicuity and accuracy which we in vain
expect in subjects not capable of mensura-
tion.
Extended quantities, such as lines, sur-
faces, and solids, besides what they have in
common with all other quantities, have this
peculiar, that their parts have a particular
place and disposition among themselves: a
line may not only bear any assignable pro-
portion to another, in length or magnitude,
but, lines of the same length may vary in
the disposition of their parts; one may be
straight, another may be part of a curve
of any kind or dimension, of which there is
an endless variety. The like may be said
of surfaces and solids. So that extended
quantities admit of no less variety with re-
gard to their form, than with regard to their
magnitude; and as their various forms may
be exactly defined and measured, no less
than their magnitudes, hence it is that geo-
metry, which treats of extended quantity,
leads us into a much greater compass and
variety of reasoning than any other branch
of mathematics. Long deductions in alge-
bra, for the most part, are made, not so
much by a train of reasoning in the mind,
as by an artificial kind of operation, which
is built on a few very simple principles;
but in geometry we may build one proposi-
tion on another, a third upon that, and so
on, without ever coming to a limit which
we cannot exceed. The properties of the
more simple figures can hardly be exhausted,
much less those of the more complex ones.
It may be deduced from what has been
said above, that mathematical evidence is
an evidence sui generis, not competent to
any proposition which does not express a
relation of things measurable by lines or
numbers. All proper quantity may be
measured by these, and improper quantities
must be measured by those that are proper.
There are many things capable of more
and less, which, perhaps, are not capable of
mensuration. Tastes, Smells, the Sensa-
tions of heat and cold, beauty, pleasure, all
the affections and appetites of the mind,
wisdom, folly, and most kinds of proba-
bility, with many other things too tedious
to enumerate, admit of degrees, but have
not yet been reduced to measure, nor, per-
haps, ever can be." I say, most kinds of
probability, because one kind of it—viz., the
* What would Reid now say to the Herbartian
Psychology 2–H.
probability of chances—is properly measur-
able by number, as observed above.
Though attempts have been made to
apply mathematical reasoning to some of
these things, and the quantity of virtue
and merit in actions has been measured by
simple and compound ratios; yet Dr M.
does not think that any real knowledge has
been struck out this way; it may, perhaps,
if discreetly used, be a help to discourse on
these subjects, by pleasing the imagination,
and illustrating what is already known ; but
till our affections and appetites shall them-
selves be reduced to quantity, and exact
measures of their various degrees be as-
signed, in vain shall we essay to measure vir-
tue and merit by them. This is only to ring
changes on words, and to make a show of
mathematical reasoning, without advancing
one step in real knowledge,
Dr M. apprehends that the account given
of the nature of proper and improper quan-
tity, may also throw some light on the
controversy about the force of moving
bodies, which long exercised the pens of
many mathematicians, and, perhaps, is
rather dropped than ended, to the no small
scandal of mathematics, which has always
boasted of a degree of evidence inconsistent
with debates that can be brought to no
issue.
Though philosophers on both sides agree
with each other and with the vulgar in this,
that the force of a moving body is the same
while its velocity is the same, is increased
when its velocity is increased, and dimi-
mished when that is diminished: but this
vague notion of force, in which both sides
agree, though perhaps sufficient for com-
mon discourse, yet is not sufficient to make
it a subject of mathematical reasoning : in
order to that, it must be more accurately
defined, and so defined as to give us a
measure of it, that we may understand what
is meant by a double or a triple force. The
ratio of one force to another cannot be per-
ceived but by a measure; and that measure
must be settled, not by mathematical reason-
ing, but by a definition. Let any one con-
sider force without relation to any other
quantity, and see whether he can conceive
one force exactly double to another ; I am
sure I cannot, says he, nor shall, till I shall
be endowed with some new faculty; for I
know nothing of force but by its effects, and
therefore can measure it only by its effects.
Till force then is defined, and by that de-
finition a measure of it assigned, we fight in
the dark about a vague idea, which is not
sufficiently determined to be admitted into
any mathematical proposition. And when
such a definition is given, the controversy
will presently be ended.
Of the Newtonian Measure of Force.—
You say, the force of a body in motion is as
718
AN ESSAY ON QUANTITY.
its velocity: either you mean to lay this
down as a definition, as Newton himself has
done; or you mean to affirm it as a propo-
sition capable of proof. If you mean to lay
it down as a definition, it is no more than
if you should say, I call that a double force
which gives a double velocity to the same
body, a triple force which gives a triple
velocity, and so on in proportion. This he
entirely agrees to ; no mathematical defini-
tion of force can be given that is more clear
and simple, none that is more agreeable to
the common use of the word in language.
For, since all men agree that the force of
the body being the same, the velocity must
also be the same ; the force being increased
or diminished, the velocity must be so also—
what can be more natural or proper than to
take the velocity for the measure of the
force 2 - -
Several other things might be advanced
to shew that this definition agrees best with
the common popular notion of the word
force. If two bodies meet directly with a
shock, which mutually destroys their motion,
without producing any other sensible effect,
the vulgar would pronounce, without hesi-
tation, that they met with equal force; and
so they do, according to the measure of
force above laid down; for we find by ex-
perience, that in this case their velocities
are reciprocally as their quantities of matter.
In mechanics, where by a machine two
powers or weights are kept in aequilibrio,
the vulgar would reckon that these powers
act with equal force, and so by this defini-
tion they do. The power of gravity being
constant and uniform, any one would expect
that it should give equal degrees of force to
a body in equal times, and so by this defini-
tion it does. So that this definition is not
only clear and simple, but it agrees best
with the use of the word force in common
language, and this is all that can be desired
in a definition.
But if you are not satisfied with laying it
down as a definition, that the force of a body
is as its velocity, but will needs prove it by
demonstration or experiment, I must beg
of you, before you take one step in the proof,
to let me know what you mean by force,
and what by a double or a triple force.
This you must do by a definition which con-
tains a measure of force. Some primary
measure of force must be taken for granted,
or laid down by way of definition ; other-
wise we can never reason about its quantity.
And why then may you not take the velocity
for the primary measure as well as any
other ? You will find none that is more
simple, more distinct, or more agreeable to
the common use of the word force : and he
that rejects one definition that has these
properties, has equal right to reject any
other. I say then, that it is impossible, by
mathematical reasoning or experiment, to
prove that the force of a body is as its ve-
locity, without taking for granted the thing
you would prove, or something else that is
no more evident than the thing to be proved.
Of the Leibnitzian Measure of Force.—
Let us next hear the Leibnitzian, who says,
that the force of a body is as the square of
its velocity. If he lays this down as a
definition, I shall rather agree to it than
quarrel about words, and for the future shall
understand him, by a quadruple force to
mean that which gives a double velocity; by
mine times the force, that which gives three
times the velocity ; and so on in duplicate
proportion. While he keeps by his defini-
tion, it will not necessarily lead him into
any error in mathematics or mechanics.
For, however paradoxical his conclusions
may appear, however different in words
from theirs who measure force by the simple
ratio of the velocity, they will in their
meaning be the same : just as he who would
call a foot twenty-four inches, without chang-
ing other measures of length, when he says
a yard contains a foot and a half, means the
very same as you do, when you say a yard
contains three feet:
But, though I allow this measure of force
to be distinct, and cannot charge it with
falsehood, for no definition can be false, yet
I say, in the first place, It is less simple
than the other; for why should a duplicate
ratio be used where the simple ratio will
do as well ? In the newt place, This mea-
sure of force is less agreeable to the com-
mon use of the word force, as has been
shewn above; and this indeed is all that
the many laboured arguments and experi-
ments, brought to overturn it, do prove.
This also is evident, from the paradoxes
into which it has led its defenders.
We are next to consider the pretences of
the Leibnitzian, who will undertake to prove
by demonstration, or experiment, that force
is as the square of the velocity. I ask him
first, what he lays down for the first mea-
sure of force P The only measure I re-
member to have been given by the phi-
losophers of that side, and which seems
first of all to have led Leibnitz into his
notion of force, is this ; the height to which
a body is impelled by any impressed force,
is, says he, the whole effect of that force,
and therefore must be proportional to the
cause: but this height is found to be as the
square of the velocity which the body had
at the beginning of its motion.
In this argument I apprehend that great
man has been extremely unfortunate. For,
first, whereas all proof should be taken from
principles that are common to both sides,
in order to prove a thing we deny, he as-
sumes a principle which we think farther
from the truth; namely, that the height to
AN ESSAY ON QUANTITY.
719
which the-body rises is the whole effect of
the impulse, and ought to be the whole
measure of it. Secondly, His reasoning
serves as well against him as for him : for
may I not plead with as good reason at
least thus P. The velocity given by an im-
pressed force is the whole effect of that
impressed force; and therefore the force
must be as the velocity. Thirdly, Sup-
posing the height to which the body is
raised to be the measure of the force, this
principle overturns the conclusion he would
establish by it, as well as that which he
opposes. For, supposing the first velocity
of the body to be still the same; the height
to which it rises will be increased, if the
power of gravity is diminished; and di-
minished, if the power of gravity is increased.
Bodies descend slower at the equator, and
faster towards the poles, as is found by
experiments made on pendulums. If then
'a body is driven upwards at the equator
with a given velocity, and the same body is
afterwards driven upwards at Leipsic with
the same velocity, the height to which it
rises in the former case will be greater than
in the latter; and therefore, according to
his reasoning, its force was greater in the
former case; but the velocity in both was
the same; consequently the force is not
as the square of the velocity any more than
as the velocity.
Reflections on this Controversy.—On the
whole, I cannot but think the controvertists
on both sides have had a very hard task;
the one to prove, by mathematical reason-
ing and experiment, what ought to be taken
for granted; the other by the same means to
prove what might be granted, making some
allowance for impropriety of expression,
but can never be proved.
*-
If some mathematician should take it in
his head to affirm that the velocity of a
body is not as the space it passes over in a
given time, but as the square of that space;
you might bring mathematical arguments
and experiments to confute him, but you
would never by these force him to yield, if
he was ingenious in his way; because you
have no common principles left you to
argue from, and you differ from each other,
not in a mathematical proposition, but in a
mathematical definition.
Suppose a philosopher has considered
only that measure of centripetal force which
is proportional to the velocity generated by
it in a given time, and from this measure
deduces several propositions. Another phi-
losopher in a distant country, who has the
same general notion of centripetal force,
takes the velocity generated by it, and
the quantity of matter together, as the
measure of it. From this he deduces several
conclusions, that seem directly contrary to
those of the other. Thereupon a serious
controvery is begun, whether centripetal
force be as the velocity, or as the velocity
and quantity of matter taken together.
Much mathematical and experimental dust
is raised, and yet neither party can ever be
brought to yield; for they are both in the
right, only they have been unlucky in giv-
ing the same name to different mathema-
tical conceptions. Had they distinguished
these measures of centripetal force as New-
ton has done, calling the one vis centripetae
quantitatis acceleratria, the other, quanti-
tatis motria ; all appearance of contradic-
tion, had ceased, and their propositions,
which seem so contrary, had exactly tal-
lied.
A
STATISTICAL ACCOUNT
G F THE
UNIVERSITY OF GLAS G O W. *
INTRODUCTION,
To give a distinct account of the Uni-
versity of Glasgow, it is necessary to dis-
tinguish two periods of its existence, in
which its constitution and appearance were
extremely different—the period before the
reformation from Popery, and that which
followed it; to which may be subjoined,
the present state of the University, with
such alterations in the mode of conducting
education as the improvements in litera-
ture, and the state of society, have sug-
gested.
HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY BEFORE THE
REFORMATION.
I.
Origin.—At the request of King James
II., Pope Nicolas V. granted a Bull, con-
stituting a “ studium generale, tam in theo-
dogia, ac jure canonico et civili, quam in arti-
bus, et quavis alia licita facultate,” to
continue in all time to come in the city of
Glasgow, as being a notable place, and fit
for the purpose, by the temperature of the
air, and the plenty of all kinds of provisions
for human life; and, by his apostolical
authority, ordained, That its doctors, mas-
ters, readers, aud students, shall enjoy all
the privileges, liberties, honours, exemp-
tions, and immunities granted to the stu-
dium generale of his city of Bononia. [Bo-
logna.] He likewise appointed Williana
Turnbull, then Bishop of Glasgow, and his
successors in that see, to be the Rectors,t
called Chancellors, of the said studium ;
and to have the same authority over the
doctors, masters, and scholars, as the Rec-
tors [of the schools] have in the Studium
Bonomiense.: This Bull is dated at Rome
the 7th of the month of January 1450, and
the fourth year of his pontificate.
Establishment.—By the care of the bishop
and his chapter, a body of statutes was pre-
pared, and an university established in the
year 1451 : consisting, besides the Chancel-
lor, of a Rector, Doctors, and Masters of the
four faculties, who had taken their degrees
in other universities; and students, who,
after a course of study and examination,
prescribed by their several faculties, might
be promoted to academical degrees.
That this institution might open with the
greater celebrity, the bishop had procured
and published a Bull from the Pope, grant-
ing an universal indulgence to all faithful
* This Account was published in the last or 21st
volume of the “ Statistical Account of Scotland,” in
1799, three years after the death of Reid. It was not
communicated by the author himself to Sir John
Sinclair, nor probably during his life, but, as the
title bears, was “Transmitted by Professor Jardine
in Name of the Principal and Professors of the Uni.
versity.” In the “Statistical Account,” there is no
indication afforded in regard to the writer: but it has
always been attributed to our author. It exhibits his
character of thought and style, and even various of
his peculiarities of expression (as professions for pro-
fessorships); and, as I am informed by my learned
friend, Dr Lee, was produced and founded on as the
work of Reid, in an action maintained, some **-ty
years ago, by sundry of his colleagues, (Mr Jardine
among the number,) in regard to their collegiate pri-
vileges. From internal evidence, it appears that the
Account itself was drawn up in 1794, two years be-
fore Reid's death; but the “Additions and Correc-
tions” are of a more recent date, and probably by a
different hand.
Before I became aware that this Account was the
work of Reid, I had been struck by the singular cor-
rectness of the view that is here taken of the consti-
‘tution of the ancient University, and this, as it ap-
pears, not from any analogical knowledge of the his-
tory of the European universities in general, but
abstracted from the records of the Glasgow Faculty
of Arts alone.-H.
* This quotation has been corrected from the
Bull.— H.
f The term Rector is here used generically. The
Rector, the proper head of the University, was by the
University elected.—H.
f The origin and nature of the office of Chancellor,
in elation to the ancient universities, is a very curi-
ous subject, and one not at all known ; but, as it can-
not be explained in a few words, I must not speak of
i: at present.—l may observe, in general, that there
is nothing in the privileges and regulations of the
. University of ſºlasgow but what is common, I may
say, to all the older Universities.—H.
3. A
722
A STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF
Christians, who should visit the cathedral
church of Glasgow, in the year 1451. We
have no account of the solemnity and cere-
mony of the first establishment; but it ap-
pears that David Cadzow, licentiate in can-
non-law, and canon of Glasgow, was the
first rector, (probably appointed by the
bishop;) and that he was, by election,
continued in 1452. There are more than
100 members mentioned, as incorporated
by him in these two years; and most of
them not young men; but secular or regular
ecclesiastics, canons, rectors, vicars, and
presbyters, abbots, priors, and monks.”
Andrew Stewart, brother to King James
II., was incorporated in 1456, being then
sub-dean of Glasgow.
Ea'emptions.—The clergy would perhaps
be the more disposed to attend the Univer-
sity, as, while they were incorporated mem-
‘bers, they were, by royal charters and acts
of Parliament, exempted from all taxes
and public burdens. And Bishop Turn-
bull, in the year 1453, ordained, That the
beneficed clergy in his diocese, who were
regents or students in his university, or
willing to study while they were teachable,
should, upon asking his license, be exempted
from residence in their cures, providing
they took care to have the religious offices
duly performed.
Royal Charter.—King James II., in the
year 1453, at the request of Bishop Turn-
bull, granted a charter in favour of the
University of Glasgow; by which the Rec-
tor, the Deans of the Faculties, the Procura-
‘tors of the four nations, the Masters, Re-
gents, and Scholars, studying in the said
university, providing they be not prelates,
as well as the Beadals, Writers, Stationers,
and Parchment-makers, t are exempted ab
omnibus tributis, mumeribus, ea'actionibus,
tavationibus, collectis, vigiliis, et pedagiis,
aliquo modo infra regmwm nostrum statuen-
dis et levandis.
Privileges and Powers.--The same pri-
vilege was renewed by subsequent sove-
reigns, and confirmed by acts of Parliament.
And even in taxes of an eighth part of all
ecclesiastical livings, for the defence of the
nation against an invasion of the English,
the clergy in the University of Glasgow,
.*
* This circumstance was probably the cause why
the election of Rector was conceded to all the mem-
bers of the University, and not limited to the gra-
duated alone. In this particular, the custom of the
Italian schools was preferred to that of Paris, by the
example of which most of the transalpine univer-
sities were regulated. This, with the circumstance
that only one college arose within the University,
enabled the regents of that college more easily to
usurp from the graduates at large the rights of aca-
‘demical teaching and legislation—to sink the public
-university in the private paedagogium.—H.
f These were all the common supposts (subpositi)
of a univers ty; and the following are only the im.
munities and privileges in the usual form granted to
every other institution of the kind over Europe.—H.
on pleading their privilege, were exempted.
This right of exemption from taxation, was
pleaded by this University before the Lords
of Council and Session, on the 20th of No-
vember 1633, and was sustained.
To these privileges, which the bishops of
Glasgow obtained from the Crown and
Parliament, they added others which were
in their own power, in consequence of the
ample civil and criminal jurisdiction which
they possessed within their own diocese—
to wit, The privilege of buying, selling, and
transporting provisions, within the jurisdic-
tion of the bishop, free of tolls and cus-
toms; the fixing the rent of houses or lod-
gings, possessed by persons belonging to
the university, by a jury, the one half citi-
zens, the other half persons belonging to
the university; the obliging the magistrates
of Glasgow, upon their election, to swear
that they shall observe, and cause to be
observed, the immunities, liberties, and sta-
tutes of the university; the granting the
rector the next place, in precedence to the
bishop, in all ceremonies and processions;
the granting the privileges of incorporated
members to all the servants of the univer-
sity; the self-denying clause in the chancel-
lor's oath, [?] and which still makes a clause
in it—“Se mihil in academiaº negotiis sine
moderatorum et magistrorum assentione tem-
taturum"—and particularly, the granting to
the Rector, at first, the jurisdiction in all
civil and pecuniary questions, respecting
members of the university, and in crimes
less atrocious ; and afterwards, the extend-
ing it to all causes and crimes whatsoever;
the power also, of inflicting ecclesiastical
censure, even that of excommunication.
Capital Trial,—There is, however, only
one instance on record of a capital trial
before the rector's court, and that so late
as the year 1670. That year, Robert Bar-
toune, a student, was indicted for murder,
before Sir William Fleming, rector ; but
was acquitted by the jury. g
II. ANCIENT CONSTITUTION.
The constitution of this learned body will
appear, by taking a view of the parts into
which it was divided, and the powers and
obligations of each.
I. Election of Office-Bearers, &c.—The
whole incorporated members, students, as
well as doctors and masters, were divided
into four parts, called the Quatuor Nationes,
according to the place of their nativity. The
whole realm of Scotland, and the Isles, was
distinguished into four districts, under the
names of Clydesdale, Teviotdale, Albany,
and Rothesay. A meeting of the whole
University was annually called, on the day
next after St Crispin's day. This meeting
THE UNIVERSITY OF GLAsgow.
723
was called the Congregatio Universitalis :
and, being divided into the four Nations,
each nation, by itself, chose a Procurator
and an Intrant; and the intrants, meeting
by themselves, made choice of a Rector
and a Deputatus of each nation, who were
assistants and Assessors to the Rector.”
Functions.—The Rector and Deputati
had several functions.
1st, They were judges in all civil and
criminal causes, wherein any member of
the University was a party. Every mem-
who either sued or answered before any
other court, was guilty of perjury, and in-
curred the penalty of expulsion. The eccle-
siastics in the University, to whatever dio-
cese they belonged, could not be called be-
fore their rural deans.
2dly, All members were incorporated by
the rector and deputati, after taking an
oath to obey the rector and his successors,
to observe the statutes, and preserve the
privileges of the University, and not to
reveal its secrets to its prejudice, to what-
ever station they should arive.
3dly, The rector and deputati were the
council of the University ; who deliberated
upon, and digested all matters to be brought
before the congregation of doctors and mas-
ters. And the determinations of the doctors
and masters, in such cases, were accounted,
in respect of authority, next to the statutes.
Sometimes the congregatio universitatis was
called occasionally for weighty matters;
such as the making or repealing of statutes,
or for an embassy to the higher powers, in
name of the University. In such cases,
each nation chose three or four deputati,
who were joined with the rector and his
deputali, to transact the business committed
to them.
Two other office-bearers were chosen
annually, on the morrow after St Crispin's
day; a Bursarius, who kept the university
purse, and accounted for what he received
and expended; and a Promotor, whose office
was to see that the statutes were observed,
and to bring delinquents before the Rector's
court, which had power to enforce the sta-
tutes, or to dispense with them in cases
that were not declared to be indispensible.
II. Facullies—A second division of the
University was into its different Faculties.
The Pope's Bull mentions four by name—to
wit, Theology, Canon Law, Civil Law, and
the Arts. All others are comprehended
in a general clause, et in quavis alia licita
jacultate. In the dark ages, the profes-
Sions of theology, canon, and civil law, were
called the three learned professions; as
being the only professions in which learning
was expected or thought necessary. They
fitted men for the most honourable and lu-
crative employments; for the highest digni-
ties in the church; for the councils of kings;
for the offices of judges at home; and of
ambassadors to foreign courts. To train
men to eminence in these professions, was
the first intention of universities. The
Arts, under which was comprehended logic,
physics, and morals, were considered as a
necessary introduction to the learned pro-
fessions, and, therefore, a necessary part of
study in every university.
Their Plan.—The plan upon which uni-
versities were incorporated by the Popes,
was very like to that of incorporated towns
and boroughs, and perhaps was borrowed
from it. The university corresponds to the
whole incorporation of the borough ; the
different faculties to the different companies
of the trades or crafts into which the
borough is divided. A company is a smaller
incorporation, subordinate to that of the
borough ; has the power of choosing its own
head, or deacon ; and an authority over
those who are in the course of being trained
to the same craft. The companies in the
incorporated towns were anciently called
collegia, or colleges; and the whole incor-
poration, comprehending all the companies,
was called the universitas of that town.
These names were, by analogy, applied to
corporations of the learned professions, and
at last appropriated to them. The word
used in Pope Nicolas’ Bull is not universi-
tas but studium generale ; and the univer-
sity of Bononia, he calls Studium Bonon-
iense ; but, in the charter of King James
II. in 1453, we have—Alma whiversitas
Glasgwensis, filia nostra dilecta."
Government.—The government of a fa-
culty was very similar to that of the Uni-
versity. Each faculty had its own statutes,
determining the time of study, and the ex-
ercises and examinations requisite for at-
taining degrees in that faculty. Each
chose annually its own dean, its own bur-
sarius, and sometimes four deputati as a
council to the dean. We know very little
of the three higher faculties in this Uni-
versity, as there is no record extant, either
of their statutes or of their transactions.
There are only two memorandums relating
to them in the University record. In the
first, we are told, that, on the 29th of July
1460, the venerable David Cadzow, then
rector of the University, began, in the
chapter house of the predicant friars, the
clergy and masters being there convened,
to read the rubric in the canon law, de vita
et homestate clericorum ; and that he con-
* See above, note, 721, b.-H.
* Universitas, as originally used, is simply a word
for an incorporated generality. It has nothing to do
with any complement of studies. Collegium is am-
biguous in its academical employment; sometimes
being applied to denote the public sub-incorporation
of a faculty; sometimes a private incorporation of
certain individuals of the university.— H
3 A 2
724
A STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF
tinued according to the pleasure of the
hearers : and that, on the same day, and in
the same place, William de Levenax began
a title in the civil law. But we are not
told how long it pleased the hearers that
these lectures should be continued. In
another memorandum we are told, that, on
the 23d of March, in the year 1521, Robert
Lile, bachelor in theology, and prior of the
convent of predicant friars in Glasgow,
began, pro forma, to read a lecture on the
fourth book of the sentences, in the monas-
tery; in presence of the rector, dean of
faculty, and the rest of the masters ; John
Ade, professor of theology, and provincial of
the order in Scotland, presiding at the time.
III. Degrees.—A third division was ac-
cording to the academical degree of every
member. The highest degree in theology,
canon, and civil law, was that of Doctor;
and in the arts, that of Master. In some
universities, Masters of Arts are called Doc-
tors of Philosophy; but in most they are
distinguished by the name of Master, from
those who have the highest degree in any
of the higher faculties." A master, however,
might be chosen to be rector, or a deputa-
tus, as well as doctor. In all the faculties,
there were two degrees by which a man
rose to the highest : these were Bachelor
and Licentiate.t. The degree of Licentiate,
as well as that of Doctor or Master, was
conferred only by the chancellor or vice-
chancellor. The requisites to all the de-
grees was a certain time of study, and the
having heard certain books prelected upon,
and certain exercises and examinations: in
Bachelors of the Arts fifteen years of age, and
in Masters twenty. It was forbidden, undera
heavy penalty, to give any man the title of
Master, by word or writing, who had not
attained that degree; and the penalty was
still more heavy if any man took it to him-
self before he had lawfully obtained it.
Academical degrees were considered as of
livine institution, (probably because insti-
.uted by Popes, who were thought to be
inspired by the Holy Ghost); and, there-
fore, the chancellor or vice-chancellor con-
ferred them authoritate divina, et in nomine
Patris, Filii, et Spirités Sancti.
IV. Teaching. —The last division we
shall mention, is into teachers, and those
who were taught. On this part of the
constitution, the records that are extant
leave us much in the dark. We know
that four faculties were established; be-
cause, in the oath taken by masters of
arts, they swore to promote peace among
the four faculties, especially with the faculty
of theology. A school of canon law is
mentioned as being in disrepair, and to be
repaired out of the university purse ; and
it appears that degrees were conferred both
in that faculty and in theology. Andreas
de Garlies, Doctor in Medicinis, was incor-
porated in 1469; but his name is never
mentioned again, nor anything else that
relates to medicine. It is probable, there-
fore, that there was no faculty of medicine,
nor any teaching in that science. Of the
teaching in the faculty of arts we have more
full information, from two manuscripts in
parchment ; –one of which contains the
statutes of that faculty, and its conclusions;
and the other the minutes of its meetings,
and transactions, from 1451 to 1509, and
from 1535 to 1555. These manuscripts
were transcribed by order of the University
in 1769.
Paedagogium.—Some years after the Uni-
versity was founded, many of the students
were young men, to whom tuition, as well
as teaching, was necessary; and, therefore,
provision was made that they should live
and eat in one house, which was called
Paedagogium, or the College of Arts; where
they were taught and governed by certain
masters, who were called Regentes in Arti-
bus.” This college was at first on the south
side of the Rotten-row, and probably was a
part of the property of the bishop and
chapter; but afterwards a tenement was
bequeathed by Lord Hamilton, for the Col-
lege of Arts, where the college now stands.
Ičegents.-At first there were three re-
gents in the arts; to wit, Alexander Ged-
des, a Cistertian monk; Duncan Bunch ;
and William Arthurlie. Afterwards, we
find sometimes two, and sometimes but one.
It seems to have been the most laborious
and least coveted office in the University.
Besides teaching and presiding in disputa-
tions omni die legibili, they lived within the
College, eat at a common table with the
students of arts, visited the rooms of the
students before nine at night, when the
gates were shut, and at five in the morning,
and assisted in all examinations for degrees
in arts. In the beginning of every session,
they proposed to the faculty the books they
intended to prelect upon, and had their
* Originally Magister, Doctor, and Professor were
Convertible terms.-H.
f The License was originally properly granted by
the Chancellor, and usually preceded the highest
Degree, or admission to a Faculty, by a year. This
function of the Chancellor—who, in the older univer-
ities, was always the Ecclesiastical Ordinary or his
anandatory—was the continuance of a right exercised
prior to the origin of universities, in the eleventh and
*welfth centuries.—H.
* A Regens in Artibus was not a title appropri-
ated to a teacher in the papdagogium or college. This
was only a house into which certain members of the
university were admitted, and where they were
maintained ; and among these certain graduates, un-
der the condition of there teaching in their faculty.
Regere, or regere scholas, meant simply and in gen-
eral, to teach ; and Magister Regens, or Doctor Ré-
gems, denoted a graduate who actually exercised his
duty or his privilege of lecturing, &c. There were,
at least there might have been, many other graduates
“regenting,” besides those who had appointments in
the paedagogium.—H.
THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.
725
permission. There was no salary for this
office for many years; and the fees paid by
the hearers were very small. Twice we
find a regent presented by the chancellor,
and one of these he turned off for insuffi-
ciency in two or three years. Once, the
faculty turned one out for insufficiency, and
put two in his place, with power to choose
a third, with the consent of the faculty, if
they found it proper. All that had this
office, excepting two, continued in it but a
few years; and very often one who was not
a member of the faculty was called to this
office, and made a regent immediately upon
being incorporated. From these particu-
lars, it is probable that there was no com-
petition either for this office or for the pa-
tronage of it; but rather some difficulty to
find persons qualified who were willing to
take it.
Books. –The books which students were
obliged to hear read, before taking the de-
gree of Bachelor, were prescribed by sta-
tute. They were, “Porphirie's Introduc-
tion to certain books of Aristotle,” and
“Petrus Hispanus.” The fee to be paid
for hearing each was also fixed.* When
they had these, and the other requisites,
they were presented by their regent to a
meeting of the Faculty, which, by statute,
was appointed to be held annually the day
after All-Saints.
Ea'aminations.—When they were found
to have all the requisita, or wanted only
such as the faculty saw cause to dispense
with, four examinators, called temptatores,
were elected, to examine them, within ten
days. Of the four temptatores, two were
regents, (when there were two,) and the
other two non-regents. The examinators,
after examination, wrote, signed, and sealed
their report ; which contained not only the
name of those whom they found worthy,
but their order, according to their merit;
and, in this order, the dean conferred the
degree of Bachelor of Arts. The examin-
ators, when they were chosen, took an oath
to make a faithful report, and not to reveal
the secrets of the examination. The can-
didates were also sworn not to reveal the
Secrets of the examination ; nor to shew
any resentment, by word or deed, against
any fellow-candidate, by whom they had
been refuted in the course of the examina-
tion. The examination for the degrees of
Licentiate and of Master was carried on in
the same way.
Obligation.—In the oath taken by one
who took the degree of Master, he came
under an obligation de lectura ad biennium ;
but this, which implied not only bis conti-
nuing his studies in the College for two
years, but his giving lectures during that
time, was very often dispensed with upon
paying a fine.”
* This fee was called the Pastus It was exigible
by all unsalaried graduates for their prelections. But
when the custom of giving salaries to certain gradu-
ates, i.e. of endowing certain chairs, was introduced,
no fee could be legally demanded ; the endowment
was in lieu of the pastus, a boon to the public and
the poor; and it was only after these salaried gradu-
ates, who in time came to be called professors, had, by
their gratuitous instruction, rendered the lectures of
the graduates at large a profitless vocation—I say
it was only when other lectures were discontinued,
competition thus removed, and the whole instruc-
tion, and oſten even the whole regulation, of the
university allowed to fall into their hands, that,
by slow and imperceptible degrees, fees were again
introduced, and in different schools and coun-
tries, by different means, sometimes legally, more
frequently illegally, raised to the footing of compul-
sory exactions. The records of the University of
Glasgow shew the progress of the innovation in that
institution. In the earlier ages, and when the sal-
aried graduates—the regents of the patedagogium—
were very inadequately provided for, honoraria, or
voluntary offerings, by the richer students, were
naturally made. These gradually became customary;
were, in time, looked upon as a due ; and, by Sanction
of the Moderators, (not Professors,) a graduated scale
was, from time to time, fixed, according to which stu-
dents of different ranks were expected to contribute.
The poorer scholars were always declared free, and
those educated for the church being generally of that
description, no custom of honoraries was ever intro-
duced into the theological classes. The city of Glas-
gow had been a considerable benefactor of the col-
lege; and the corporation, till a late period, took
care that its citizens should enjoy their original priv-
ilege of gratuitous instruction, or, at least, pay only
such fees as they themselves deemed reasonable; for,
at every new regulation touching “schollages,” or
“ honoratºries,” it is stated, either that the children
of the citize: is shall be entitled to gratuitous educa-
tion, or that they shall be liable in payment only “in
such proportions and rates as the Town Council and
Moderators, after conference, shall agree upon.” At
length, since the commencement of the present
century, the Professors seem to have taken upon them-
selves, to double and treble the previous rate of fees
without the sanction of the Moderators, far less the
consent of the city. The Commissioners of Inquiry
into the state of the Universities of Scotland anim-
advert severely upon the impropriety of the high
amount of fees thus exacted ; whereby, in the ſac-
ulty of arts, the poor student is obliged to pay as
high (and in one class even higher) to the well
endowed professors of a provincial university, as he
does to those of the metropolitan university, who
enjoy no salaries worth taking into account. But,
while commenting on the impropriety of the pro-
ceeding, it is singular that the Commissioners have
not adverted to its palpable illegality. If the city of
Glasgow should vindicate its right of control, this
might be exerted not merely as a salutary check on
the irregular imposition of fees, but indirectly be
employed as a mean of raising the character of the
university itself, by extorting a reform in the present
mode of its academical patronage—that by Self-elec-
tion. See above, p. 43, a, note *.-H.
* This statement is quite correct. This interval
was the period of what, in the older universities, was
called the necessary regency. I see that this matter is
mistaken in the able Report relative to the Univers-
ity of Glasgow, by the Commissioners on the Uni-
versities and Colleges of Scotland. The phrase is
there supposed to mean, only a continuation of study
in the Faculty for two years subsequent to the de-
gree of A. M. In the English universities the dis-
pensation is still in use; and, on the supposition that
they are then actually teaching, Masters, during this
interval, have certain privileges in the university
which they may not afterwards enjoy. The practice
was originally universal. In the first place, it was
necessary to ensure instruction in the department of
the faculty; and, in the second place, our ancestors
knew, it seems, better than we the value of intellect-
ual exercise, and, in particular, that the most ef.
fective means of learning is to teach.
726
A STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF
Lectures.—The statutes of this faculty
suppose that every master is to give pre-
lections; for they enjoin, that, on the day
in which the dean is chosen, the masters,
according to their seniority, shall name the
book upon which they are to prelect; and
that, if two masters choose the same book,
the senior be preferred, unless there be so
many hearers that both may prelect on the
same book, at the same time, in different
schools. But, in the minutes of faculty,
there is no mention of any such lectures
being proposed or given by any master but
the magistri regentes.”
The manner of teaching and of hearing
is, by the statutes, ordained to be the same
as in Bononia and in Pisa. In many other
things, the practice of some one of the fo-
reign universities is made the rule ; but
those of England are never mentioned.
Discipline.—Corporeal punishment was
sometimes inflicted upon students in the
College of Arts. For some faults, the sta-
tutes order the punishment to be inflicted
caligis lawatis.
Property.—It may appear strange that
this University was founded without any
property in lands, houses, or rents. It
came into the world as naked as every in-
dividual does. The congregatio universita-
tis was always held at the cathedral. Some-
times the doctors and masters met at the
convent of the Dominicans, or Predicators,
as they were called. All the lectures we
find mentioned in theology, canon or civil
law, were read there. There was an uni-
versity purse, into which some perquisites,
paid at incorporation, and at examinations,
and promotions to degrees, were put. From
this purse, caps of ceremony were furnished,
after some years: but, to defray the expense
of a silver rod or mace, to be carried before
the rector at certain solemnities, it was
found necessary to tax all the incorporated
members; and, on that occasion, we are
told that David Cadzow, who was then
rector, gave twenty nobles.
Two or three chaplainries were be-
queathed, under the patronage of the uni-
versity, by some of its first members. The
duty of the chaplain was to perform certain
masses, at such an altar, for the Souls of the
As it was proverbially said—
Disceré si quaris, doceas: sic ipse doceris;
Nam studio tali tibi proficis atque sodali.
Those graduates who not merely performed their
obligation during the years of necessary regency,
but exercised their privilege of teaching when that
period was at an end, were called voluntary rege.,ts,
(regentes ad placitum.)—H.
* lin regard to the term Magistri regentes, see above
p. 724, b, *. This practice of arranging the books to
be prelected on in ordinary (ordinarie) by the regent
masters, was general in the ICuropean schools. We
have some curious lists of the books, and of the var-
ious rates of pastus at which the lectures on them
were stinted, in the historics of the universities of
Vienna and Ingolstadt.—H,
founder and his friends; for which he had
a small annuity. These chaplainries were
commonly given to some of the regents of
the college of arts; perhaps because they
were the poorest of the Sacerdotal order in
the university. This patronage and this
purse, as far as appears, were all the pro-
perty which the university ever possessed.
Nor does it appear that the faculties of
theology, canon or civil law, ever had any
property. The individuals had rich livings
through all parts of the nation—abbacies,
priories, prebends, rectories, and vicarages:
but the community had nothing. ‘Its privi-
leges were the inducement to bring rich
ecclesiastics into a society, in which they
lived at ease, free of all taxes, and subject
to no authority but that of their own rector.
The College of Arts, however, being per-
haps thought the most useful part of the
whole, and entitled to public favour, as en-
trusted with the education of youth, soon
came to have some property. In the year
1459, James Lord Hamilton bequeathed
to Mr Duncan Bunch, principal regent of
the College of Arts, and his successors,
regents, for the use of the said College—a
tenement, with the pertinents, lying on the
north side of the church and convent of the
Predicators, together with four acres of land
in the Dow hill.” From this time we find
the purse of the faculty of arts, which ap-
pears, to have been heavier than that of the
University, employed in repairing and add-
ing to the buildings of the College; furnish-
ing rooms for the regents and students;
and things necessary for the kitchen, and a
common table.
In the year 1466, another tenement, ad-
joining to the College, was bequeathed by
Mr Thomas Arthurlie. By this time,
many of the students of arts were the youth
of the nation, whose good education was a
matter of importance to the public. They
were distinguished, according to their rank,
into sons of noblemen, of gentlemen, and of
those of meaner rank; and, in the expense
of their education, were taxed accordingly.
Such, as far as we can learn, was the
constitution of the University of Glasgow
before the Reformation. There is reason to
think, that, when the zeal in favour of a
new institution began to cool, the three
higher faculties gradually declined into in-
activity.
Defects.—From the year 1490, we find
frequent complaints, of masters not attend-
ing university meetings; of statutes having
fallen into disuse; of bachelors and licenti-
* In this deed, the regents and students are re-
quired, every day after dinner and after Supper, to
stand up and pray for the souls of Jaliles Lord Ham-
ilton, founder of the college; of Euphemia his spouse,
Countess of Douglass; of his ancestors and successors;
and of all from whom he has received any benefit, for
which he has not made a proper rcturn.
THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.
727
ates not proceeding in their degrees; of the
jurisdiction of the University not being re-
spected. Sometimes, at the election of a
rector, not one of the nation of Albany was
present; and once, none either of Albany
or of Teviotdale. There seems only to have
been one dean in the University for some
time before the Reformation, to wit, the
dean of the faculty of arts ; and, therefore,
it is probable the other faculties had no
meetings. In the later minutes of the Uni-
versity he is called Decanus Facultatis,
without addition; whereas, more early, he
is always Decanus Facultatis Artium.” This
style, of Dean of Faculty of the University,
which we see was a considerable time be-
fore the Reformation, continues to be used
to this day; there being only one dean of
faculty in that University, who is considered
not as the head of one particular faculty,
but in the light of an university officer, as
the rector is.
There seem to have been two obvious
defects in the ancient constitution of the
University. The first, that no salaries were
provided for regular lectures in the high
faculties. It was not to be expected, that
the laborious work of teaching shoulu he
performed by those who could not live by it;
and who could not, by their industry and
eminence in their profession, rise to some
degree of respect proportioned to what their
talents and learning might have raised them
in another line of life. The second defect—
That there was not sufficient power over
the University to remedy disorders, when
these became general, and infected the
whole body. The chancellor had, by his
oath already mentioned, divested himself
of the power which the Pope's Bull gave
him ; and neither royal nor parliamentary
visitations, so frequent afterwards, were
then introduced. +
III. HISTORY AFTER THE ReformATION.
The reformation in religion, established
by act of Parliament in the year 1560,
brought the University of Glasgow almost
to annihilation. The dignitaries of the
church and convents, of whom its doctors
and masters were composed, were no more.
The Chancellor, James Beaton, fled to
France, and carried with him the plate of
the cathedral, with the bulls, charter, and
rights both of the see and of the University,
which he deposited partly in the Convent
of the Carthusians, and partly in the Scotch
College at Paris, (where they lately were.)
to be restored when Popery should be re-
established. It ought to be observed, to
the honour of that college, that they have
always been ready to give extracts from the
originals deposited with them, as well as to
gratify the curious by the inspection of
them. The late Principal Gordon, of that
college, made a present to the University
of Glasgow of a copy of the chartulary of
the Chapter of Glasgow, notorially attested.
All that was now to be seen of the Uni-
versity was that small part, called the Col-
lege of Arts, or Padagogium; * the least in
dignity, though perhaps not the least useful.
This small part, with its small property—
probably much impaired by the confusion
of the times, and the loss of rights—re-
mained as a relic of the ancient University,
and a seed of a reformed University, de-
pendent for its subsistence and growth on
future benefactions. The rich fabric of the
Popish hierarchy, in Scotland, was pulled
down with more zeal than prudence, by a
fierce nation, long oppressed, and little
accustomed to regular government. All
who had neºrer or interest scrambled for
* This conjecture is confirmed by a notarial in-
strument of the foundation of a chaplainry, by Mr
Thomas Leiss, while he was on a sick-bed, but sound
in his mind. . This instrument was taken, the 8th
day of March, in the year 1529, before respectable
witnesses, five of whom signed it with the notary.
In it the notary says—Constituit domimum rectorcm
Universitatis Glasguensis ct decanum facultatis ejus-
dem, indubitatos patronos. From this, it appears,
that only one dean existed at that time in the Uni-
versity, or was expected to exist; and we know that
a dean of the faculty of arts was chosen annually, till
the year 1555. [See p. 729, note.-H
# Whatever were the causes of declension in this
University before the Reformation, the annals of
literature mention very few of its members who
made any considerable figure in the learned world.
Oue, however, deserves to be mentioned. William
Elphinston, who had been a canon of Glasgow, and
had borne the offices both of rector of the University,
and dean of the faculty of arts, was eminent in the
knowledge both of the canon and civil law. He was
made Bishop of Aberdeen, and Chancellcr of Scot-
land; and was employed in, several embassies to
foreign courts. He founded the University of Old
Aberdeen, in the year 1496; and, either, from the
experience of what he had seen in the University of
Glasgow, or from a deeper knowledge of human
nature, he supplied, in his university, both the defects
we have obse, ved in that of Glasgow; for he gave
Salaries (not illiberal for the times) to those who were
to teach theology, canon and civil law, medicine,
languages, and philosophy, and pensions to a certain
number of poor students; and likewise appointed a
visitorial power, reserving to himself, as chancellor,
and to his successors in that office, a dictatorial power,
to be exercised occasionally according to the report of
the visiters.
James Beaton, the last Popish Archbishop of Glas-
gow, dcServes also to be mentioned with honour. His
fidelity, in depositing everything he carried away,
that belonged to the Archbishopric or to the Univer.
sity, in the Convent of the Carthusians, or in the
Scotch College at Paris, was never questioned. His
political ability appears by his having been appointed
one of the Scottish ambassadors, at the court of
France, for settling the articles of the Queen's mar-
riage with the Dauphin ; his having been again ap-
pointed her ambassador at that court, and continuing
in that office from the time of the Reformation till
her death ; and, after that tragical event, his being
appointed King James's ambassador at the same court,
and holding that office till the time of his own death
in 1603, when King, James came to be King of
England. This archbishop left several monuments of
his learning in manuscript, which are preserved in
the Scotch College at Paris, to which he bequeathed
the greatest part of his effects at his death.
No. synonymous. See above, p. 723, b, note #
728
A STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF
the wreck. The crown, the nobility, and
the cities, were enriched by it; some crumbs
came, by second hand, to the universities.
Queen Mary’s Charter.—The first who
had compassion on the University of Glas-
gow, in its depressed state, was the fam-
ous and the unfortunate Queen Mary. In
a charter granted by her, and to which
her privy seal is appended, dated the 13th
of July 1560, there is the following narra-
tive :—“Forasmuch as, within the citie of
Glasgow, ane colledge and universitie was
devysit to be hade, &c., of the whilke col-
ledge ane part of the scoles and chalmers
being bigget, the rest thairof, alsweil dwel-
lings as provision for the poor bursars and
maisters to teach, ceasit, swa that the samyn
appeared rather to be the decay of ane uni-
versity, nor onieways to be reckonit ane
establisht foundation.” Therefore, for the
zeal she bore to letters, &c., she founds five
poor children bursars within the said col-
lege, to be called, in all times to come, bur-
sars of her foundation ; and for their sus-
tentation, she gives to the Masters of the
said college and university the manse and
kirk of the Friars Predicators, with thirteen
acres of ground adjacent, and several other
rents and annuities therein named, which
had belonged to the said friars.”
Burgh Charter.—The next benefaction
made to this college is contained in a char-
ter, granted by Sir John Stewart of Mynto,
provost, with the bailies, council, and com-
munity of the city of Glasgow, in the year
1572, and ratified by the Parliament the
same year. They, considering that, besides
other detriment their town sustained, their
schools and colleges were utterly ruined;
and their youth, who were wont to be trained
to probity and good morals, left to be cor-
rupted by idleness and wantonness; and,
being earnestly desirous to remedy so great
an evil, by the exhortation, counsel, and
aid of the most respectable Master Andrew
Hay, Rector of the church of Renfrew, and
Vice-Superintendent, and Rector for the
time, of their University of Glasgow—re-
solved to restore, renew, and give a new
foundation to the Padagogium Glasguense,
quod pro sumptuum inopia pene corruerat,
et in quo, pro mimia paupertate, disciplin-
arum studia eatincta jacebant. For this
purpose, they annex to the said college,
and to the regents and students after-
named, residing within it, being fifteen per-
Sons in all, “for their honest and commo-
* The name of bursar, or bursarius, was anciently
given to the treasurer of an university or of a college,
who kept the common purse of the community. Wé
See that, in Queen Mary's time, this name had come
to be given to poor students, probably because they
were pensioners on the common purse. Her gift is the
first we have met with, that was destined particularly
for the support of a certain number of such poor
students, whom she appoints to be called bursars of
her foundation.
dious sustentation, all and sundry the lands,
tenements, houses, biggings, kirks, chapels,
yards, orchards, crofts, annual-rents, fruits,
duties, profits and emoluments, mails,
obit-silver, and anniversaries whatsoever,
which pertained to whatsoever chappels,
altarages, prebendaries, founded in what-
ever kirk or college within the said city; or
of the places of all the friars of the same
city, according to the gift made to them by
the Queen, under the Great Seal, the 26th
March 1566.” They likewise will and de-
clare, that the said College, the fifteen per-
Sons before mentioned, and all others who
shall be students in the same, and their ser-
vants, shall be exempted ab omni jurisdic-
tione ordinaria ; mecnon ab omnibus cus-
tumis, et exactionibus pedariis, intra civita-
tem nostram impositis, vel imponendis. It
is understood to be in consequence of this
charter, that the magistrates of Glasgow,
or a deputation from them, still continue
annually to inspect the accompts of the old
revenue of the College in which the parti-
culars of this donation were comprehended,”
though the greatest part of it, which con-
sisted of small ground annuals, is now
lost. -
One might think, that, when to the for-
mer revenue of the College were added
these donations of Queen Mary, and of the
city of Glasgow, it must have been com-
pletely endowed for the maintenance of
fifteen persons; yet it was soon found ne-
cessary to increase the revenue, and to
diminish the number of persons to be main-
tained by it. For, although the property of
the Dominican Friars in Glasgow was cer-
tainly very considerable before the Reform-
ation, yet all that the College could make
effectual of that, and all their funds taken
together, amounted only, by their rental, to
£300 Scotch money.-f
A more effectual benefaction was made
to this poor society, in the year 1577, by
King James VI., in his minority, with the
advice and consent of the Earl of Morton,
* Hence, too, the privilege of the citizens of Glas-
gow, to which l have alluded in a previous note.—H.
The reason why donations, in appearance liberal,
turned out to so small account, was, partly, that the
Popish ecclesiastics, secular and regular, though
their form of worship was totally abolished through
the whole nation, continued to enjoy their temporali-
ties for life, subject to a taxation of a third part to
the Crown, out of which the clergy of the reformed
church were to be maintained; p.rtly, that those in-
Cumbents, during their life, practised many arts to
alienate, their revenues to laymen, either from
friendship or for their own profit, by pretended feu-
contracts, perpetual or long leases, and many other
means, which their private interest, their regard
to relations, or their hatred of the new religion, sug-
gested. - -
Some of these pretended alienations, made to the
hurt of the college, were afterwards reduced and
annulled by the courts of law, some by arbitration.
Probably many more might have been reduced ; but
that very often the subject was too small to bear the
expense of a lawsuit, or the man in possession too
powerful to be sued by the college.
The UNIVERSITY OF GLASGow.
729
Regent of the kingdom. That was the rec-
tory and vicarage of the parish of Govan,
of which the incumbent was lately dead,
and the value reckoned about twenty-four
chalders. It was found, however, that the
late incumbent had, before his death, given
a nineteen years’ lease of the temporality to
a friend, and that friend had transferred his
right to a man in power. By this, and
some other incumbrances, all that the Col-
lege could draw from it, for about twenty
years, was only 300 merks yearly.
IV. MODERN CONSTITUTION.
New Royal Charter.—With this gift,
King James gave a charter of foundation to
the College, which, in its most essential
articles, has continued in force to this day.
It is commonly called the nova erectio ; all
subsequent changes being superstructures
upon this foundation. The charter proceeds
upon this narrative :—Intelligentes quod
annua proficua et reditus collegii, sew Paeda-
gogii Glasguensis, tam ea'igua sunt, wt hac
nostra actate minime sufficientia sint ad
sustentandum principalem, magistros re-
gentes, bursarios, et officiarios necessarios in
quovis collegio; mec ad adminiculandum
sustentationi et reparationi ejusdem. And
afterwards—Dum animum nostrum adjecer.
imus ad colligendas reliquias academiae
Glasguensis ; quam prae inopia languescent-
tem, ac jam pene confectam reperimus.—
The persons founded by this charter are
twelve ; a Principal, three Regents, four
Bursars, an OEconomºus or Steward, a Cook,
a Porter, and a Servant to the Principal.
Establishment.—The Principal was to
teach Theology one day, and Hebrew and
Syriac the next alternately, through the
week; and to preach in the church of
Govan on Sunday. Of the Regents, one was
to teach Greek and Rhetoric ; another,
Dialectics, Morals, and Politics, with the
elements of Arithmetic and Geometry.; and
the third, who was also Sub-Principal, was to
teach all the branches of Physiology and
Geography, Chronology and Astrology.
The Principal to be presented by the
Crown; the Regents to be elected by the
Rector, Dean of Faculty, and the Prin-
cipal. The Regents were not, as was the
custom of other Scottish universities, to
carry on their students through the three
years’ course; but to keep by one profes-
sion ; so that the student had a new Regent
every year. The Bursars were to be main-
tained for three years and a half within the
College; that being the time required in
the Scottish universities for acquiring the
degree of Master of Arts. The Steward
was to collect the whole revenues, and to
provide all necessaries for the College table ;
and to give an account, every day, to the
Principal and Regents, of his disburse-
ments. The Rector, the Dean of Faculty,
and the Minister of Glasgow, are author-
ized to visit the College four times in the
year, to examine and authenticate the pub-
lic accounts, and to see that all things be
carried on according to the intention of this
foundation, and to correct what was not.
Privileges and Da'emptiºns.—All dona-
tions formerly made to the College, by what-
soever person or persons, of whatsoever
rank, are ratified. And the whole revenue
formerly belonging to, or now granted, the
Ring declares and ordains, for him and his
successors, shall be enjoyed by the said
College, free from any taxation of a third
part, or any other taxation whatsoever;
any law, custom, act, or ordinance of Par-
liament, notwithstanding. Finally, he wills
and declares, That the College and Uni-
versity of Glasgow shall enjoy all the pri-
vileges and immunities, by his ancestors,
by him, or any other way, granted to any
university in his kingdom, as freely, peace-
ably, and quietly as if it had enjoyed them
from ancient times before the memory of
men. This charter was ratified by the
King, after he came to the years of major-
ity, and confirmed by act of Parliament, in
the year 1587.
Government.—In Glasgow, the whole
property and revenue pertaining to the
University, is vested in the college, and is
administrated by a meeting of the Principal
and Professors, commonly called the College
Meeting, and very, often, though perhaps
with less propriety, the Faculty Meeting.
The record of this meeting is visited and
authenticated by the Rector, Dean of
Faculty, and the Minister of the High
Church of Glasgow. Other business of
the University, besides matters of revenue,
and the discipline of the students, is
managed in what is called an University-
Meeting, or Senate ; in which the Rector
and Dean of Faculty sit, along with the
Principal and Professors. Indeed, besides
the College, all that remains of the Univer-
sity is a Chancellor, Rector, and Dean.
We see that the Nova Erectio supposes
their existence; but makes no change with
regard to their powers, except in giving to
the two last, together with the Minister of
Glasgow, a visitorial power over the College.
The Rector and Dean are chosen annually;
much in the same manner as they were
from the first foundation of the University.*
The Rector always names the Principal and
* The Dean—the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, he
is not. He was originally, and, on the constitutional
principle of the University, he ought now, to be
elected by the whole body of graduates of this Fa-
culty of Arts, (for they constitute that faculty which
is an whiversity, not a college incorporation,) and not
by the Professors only, i. e., the collegiate or salaried
73()
A STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF
Professors to be his Assessors; and, with
them, occasionally forms a court of law, for
judging in pecuniary questions, and less
atrocious crimes, wherein any member of
the University was party. The University
has always maintained its exemption from
all jurisdiction of the City Magistrates, but
not of the Sheriff or Court of Session.
This may suffice for a general view of
the constitution of the university, since the
reformation from Popery. As to the state
of its revenues during that period, it has
been much indebted both to our princes and
to subjects. Its declension before the reign
of James VI. was not more remarkable than
its progress since that period. From the
small beginning derived from the bounty of
that prince, it continued to prosper to the
era of the Restoration ; having, at that
time, besides a Principal, eight Professors,
a Librarian, with a tolerable Library, the
number of its Bursars increased, and an
additional number of other Students of all
ranks. A renewal of the fabric (which
had been ruinous) was begun and carried
on, with great enlargement, in an elegant
manner for the time; but not finished.
V. DONATIONS.
Soon after the new foundation, in the
year 1581, the Archbishop gave to the Col-
lege the customs of the city of Glasgow, by
which it was enabled to found a fourth
regent. A new body of statutes was formed
about this time, which are extant. By
them it appears that the Principal and four
regents were put to very hard and constant
labour; and the students kept under very
strict discipline. Of the Regents, the first
and highest was Professor of Physiology,
and Sub-Principal ; the second was Profes-
sor of Moral Philosophy; the third of Logic
and Rhetoric ; and the fourth of Greek.
Their salaries rose in gradation; and, when
any of the higher offices became vacant,
those who were in the lower were commonly
advanced a step ; and the new chosen Re-
gent had the profession of Greek for his
department.
In this state, the College continued for a
long time; excepting that, in the year
1621, by a meeting of the visitºrs, in which
the Archbishop was present, the principal
was freed from the duty of preaching in the
church of Govan. A minister was appointed
to have the pastoral charge of that parish,
to whom a stipend was provided out of the
teinds of the parish ; the patronage of the
church being reserved to the University,
and the minister being obliged “to read
Some public lecture in the common schools
of the college, as shall be prescribed to him
by the officers of the University, and Mas-
ters of the College.” This change they .
were enabled to make, from having, by an
act of Parliament, in the year 1616, been
vested in the tithes of the parishes of Kil-
bride and Renfrew ; burdened with the
payment of stipends to the ministers of
these two parishes, which are modified by
the act; and likewise burdened with the
life-rent of the persons who were at that
time titulars of these tithes. In the year
1637, it appears that a Master or Professor,
Humaniorum Literarum, commonly called
Professor of Humanity, had been founded.*
In the year 1641, Charles I., by his sig-
nature, gave to the College the temporality
of the bishopric of Galloway; reserving to
himself the power of burdening it with the
sum of £100 sterling, to any person he
should name. This gift was confirmed by
an act of Parliament the same year. The
office of Chancellor of the University be-
coming vacant by the abolition of Episco-
pal government in the church, James Mar-
quis of Hamilton was chosen chancellor,
and was the first layman who bore that of.
fice. After him, William Earl of Glen-
cairn was chosen, in the year 1660.
Though the greatest part of the Masters
submitted with reluctance to the govern-
ment of Oliver Cromwell, and wished a re-
storation of the monarchy, under proper lim-
itations, the Principal, Mr Patrick Gillespie,
was a zealous republican ; and, by the in-
terest he had with Oliver, obtained great
favours for the University. The Protector
and his counsel renewed all its immunities
and privileges; adding that of printing bi-
bles, and all sorts of books belonging to the
liberal sciences, and licensed by the Uni-
versity. He confirmed all former founda-
Masters, who are only members of it qua Masters;
for, on principle, no one is eligible to a professorship
who is not a graduate in the relative faculty. In
like manner, the other faculties ought severally to
Thave their own Deans elected in the same way by
their graduates at large; a Dean of Faculties is an
academical solecism. Each Faculty also should con-
fer its proper degrees apart from every other; and
establish its own by-laws and statutes. The college
is not the wrviversity, though they are now so con-
fusedly mixcd up together. As to the right of
the graduates at large to constitute the university,
and to ratify its laws; this was recognised in Glas.
gow, so late as the year 1727, when, as I remember
moticing in the academical records, which I had oc-
casion some years ago to examine, it was found neces-
sary, in conformity to principle and practice, (not then
forgotten,) to summon a Congregation of Graduates,
in order to legalise the statutes proposed by the Visita.
tion of that date. All constitutional principles have,
however, in this as in our other British universi-
ities, been so long violated with impunity, that they
are now conscientiously ignored.—H. -
* In the year 1637, a meeting of the Visiters, the
Archbishop being present, appointed Mr Robert
Mayne, then Professor of Logic, to be Professor of
Medicine, and to give lectures in that science. At
the same time, the Professor of Greek was advanced-
to the profession of Logic; the Professor of Human-
ity to the profession of Greek; and a new Professor
of Humanity was chosen.
THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.
731
tions, mortifications, and donations made
in its favour, particularly that of the bishop-
ric of Galloway; to which he added the va-
cant stipends of the parishes which had
been in the patronage of the bishop of Gal-
loway, for seven years to come ; and also,
in perpetuity, the revenues of the deanery
and sub-deanery of Glasgow. This last gift,
however, was accompanied with several lim-
itations and restrictions, by which the Col-
lege had not the possession of the subjects
while his power lasted ; and, his acts being
rescinded at the Restoration, it fell, of
course, and had no effect.
The re-establishment of Episcopal gov-
ernment in the church after the restoration
of Charles II, gave a severe check to the
prosperity of the University; by depriving
it at once of the best part of its revenue—
to wit, that of the bishopric of Galloway.
Before arrangements could be made, suited
to this impoverished state, a great debt was
contracted. Of the eight professions which
had been established, three were sunk; and
those that remained were reduced to a very
short allowance. The College now consist-
ed of a Principal, a Professor of Theology,
and four Regents; a very scanty revenue,
sunk in debt; and a large fabric unfinished.
A visitation of the universities was ap-
pointed by Parliament, in the year 1664.
The noblemen, gentlemen, and clergy, who
visited the College of Glasgow, after a
strict examination of their revenue, report—
“That the sum of three thousand nine hun-
dred and forty-one pounds Scotch, yearly,
will be necessar to be speedily provided for
unto the University, or otherways it must
quickly decay and ruine.” Besides this,
they found it had a great load of debt; and
that many professions were wanting which
it ought to have, but cannot for the pre-
sent possibly have for want of revenue. In
this report the visiters were unanimous.
In this state the University remained till
after the Revolution. It is true that, in
this interval, it received several consider-
able donations and mortifications ; but
these were all appropriated, by the donors,
either to the carrying on of the building, or
to the foundation of bursars ; and were
faithfully applied to these purposes. So
that it must have required great economy
in the professors, as well as great lenity in
-their creditors, to preserve them from bank-
ruptcy, during this long interval.
In the year 1693, each of the Scottish
universities obtained a gift of £300 a-year
out of the bishops’ rents in Scotland. The
sum payable to the University of Glasgow,
was allocated upon the income of the arch-
* The visiters of the college of Glasgow were, the
Archbishop of Glasgow, the Bishop of Galloway : of
the nobility, Hamilton, Montrose, Argyle, Kilmar-
nock, Cochran; besides gentlemen and clergy.
|
bishopric of Glasgow ; and soon after, still
better to secure the payment, the College
obtained a lease of the whole rent of the
archbishopric for nineteen years, which
lease has from time to time been renewed
by the Crown.
The University began now to raise her
head, after a long period of depression, by
debt and poverty, and by the diminution of
her professors. The exertions which were
made about this time were encouraged by
the great number of her students. Princi-
pal Stirling, in his diary, says, that in the
year 1702 the students of Theology, Greek,
and Philosophy, amounted to upwards of
four hundred and two. The great demand
for clergymen, to fill the vacant benefices,
immediately after the establishment of the
Presbyterian government, occasioned the
attendance of a greater number of students
about the beginning of this century, than
at any former period.
In the year 1706, the profession of Hu-
manity was revived; and Mr Andrew Ross
was appointed professor.
In the year 1708, her Majesty Queen
Anne was pleased to grant the Univers-
ity £210 sterling yearly, payable out of
the Exchequer; one part of which was
appropriated for salaries to a Professor
of Anatomy and Botany, and to a Pro-
fessor of Oriental Languages ; and an-
other part of it for augmenting the salaries
of the Principal and Professors, according
to a scheme of division mentioned in the
deed. . This gift has been renewed by all
the Subsequent sovereigns.
The gift of £300 per annum, by King
William, was for some time directed to be
applied for extinguishing the college debts,
and supporting four Bursars. By a subse-
quent deed of Queen Anne, in the year
1713, part of it was continued for the said
purposes ; and the remainder appropriated
for salaries to a Professor of Civil Law, and
a Professor of Medicine.
His Majesty King George I. was pleased
to grant, out of the rents of the archbishop-
ric, a new gift of £170 per annum; which
was appropriated for a salary to a Professor of
Ecclesiastical History, and for augmenting
the smaller salaries of the other professors.
By these royal donations, the whole of the
rent paid by the College, for the lease of
the archbishopric, is exhausted; and regu-
lar accompts thereof are transmitted to the
Exchequer. -
Since that time, there has been one pro-
fession added to this University, by the
bounty of King George II.
Alexander Macfarlane, Esq., of Jamaica,
had erected an astronomical observatory in
that island for his own use. At his death,
he bequeathed his astronomical apparatus to
the College of Glasgow, on condition that
732
A STATISTICAL Account OF
they should build an observatory, and ap-
point an observer. The College very readily
accepted the condition, and built an observ-
atory; and, in the year 1760, his Majesty
was pleased to grant a presentation to Dr
Alexander Wilson, to be Professor of Prac-
tical Astronomy and Observer, with a salary
of £50 yearly out of the Exchequer. -
It will not be expected that we should
enumerate the donations made by subjects:
of books or prints to the public library, or
money to purchase books—of money for
prizes to the more deserving students in
the several classes—of money for carrying
on the buildings—of money, or land, for the
foundation of bursars in philosophy, in the-
ology, and in medicine. The names of
many of these benefactors are now little
known but in the annals of the University
of Glasgow, where they will always be pre-
served. Some may be mentioned, whose
attention to the interest of this society does
them honour. Among these are, Anne
Duchess of Hamilton ; Rabina, Countess
of Forfar; William Earl of Dundonald;
the Duke of Chandos; the Duke of Mon-
trose; Dr Robert Leighton, Archbishop of
Glasgow; and Boulter, Archbishop of Ar-
magh. Of commoners—Mr Snell, Dr Wil-
liams, Dr Walton, and the late Dr William
Hunter, are distinguished by the largeness
of their donations.
v I. PRESENT STATE,
From the foregoing statement, it appears
that the ancient constitution of the Univers-
ity of Glasgow, in the distribution of
Sciences and modes of teaching, as well as
in the form of its government, was very
similar to that of all the other universities
of Europe. The alterations which it has
undergone, in later times, are such as might
be expected from the changes of opinion
with respect to literary objects, and from
other varying circumstances. The pro-
gress of knowledge, and the increasing de-
mand for literature, have produced many
additional departments of science, to those
which were originally thought worthy of a
particular teacher. What is called the
curriculum, or ordinary course of public
education, comprehends at present five
branches—the Latin and Greek languages,
Logic, Moral Philosophy, and Natural Phil-
osophy. These branches are understood to
require the study of five separate sessions.
During their attendance upon these
courses of languages and philosophy, and
particularly before they enter the class of na-
tural philosophy, the students are expected
to acquire a knowledge of Mathematics and
Algebra, for which there is a separate Pro-
fessor, and which is understood to be sub-
servient to natural philosophy, and to many
of the practical arts. There is also a Pro-
fessor of Practical Astronomy, whose busi-
ness is to make observations, for the im-
provement of that great branch of physics.
After the course of general education,
above-mentioned, a provision is made for
what are called the three learned profes-
sions—Divinity, Law, and Medicine. For
the peculiar education of Churchmen,
there are four Professors: the Principal,
who is Primarius Professor of Theology,
and has, besides, the Superintendence of the
whole University; and the respective Pro.
fessors of Theology, of Oriental Languages,
and of Church History. This last is also
lecturer in Civil History.
In Law there is only one professor.
There are, by the constitution, no more
than two professors allotted to the faculty
of Medicine—to wit, a professor of the
Theory and Practice of Medicine, and a
professor of Anatomy and Botany. But
the University, out of its funds, and with
the assistance of private donations, has made
an annual provision for three additional
lecturers—in Chemistry, in Materia Medica,
and in Midwifery. -
The University has now the prospect of
a great and important addition being soon
made to the faculty of Medicine. The late
Rev. Dr Walton, of Upton, in Hunting-
donshire, about twenty years ago, in a tour
to Scotland, visited the University of Glas-
gow ; and, approving of its constitution and
mode of conducting education, gave to the
University £400 sterling; the interest of
which, at his death, he appropriated for the
support of a medical student during the
course of his education. About five years
ago, the same generous benefactor mortified
the additional sum of £1000 sterling, at his
death, to the University, for the purpose of
supporting a lecturer in any branch of me-
dicine, or of science connected with medi-
cine, which the University should judge
most expedient or necessary. By the Doc-
tor’s death, which happened about three years
ago, both these donations now take effect.
Miss Christian Brisbane, sister of the
late Dr Brisbane, Professor of Medicine
in this University, mortified the sum of
£1000 sterling; the interest of which she
appropriated for the support of a medical
student, two years at this University, and
other two years at any other celebrated
school of medioine in Britain, or on the
Continent, as the University shall direct.
The late celebrated Dr William Hunter,
of London, formerly an alumnus of this
University, and, during the whole of his
life, warmly attached to its interests, be-
queathed to the University, at his death,
the whole of his Musaeum, one of the most
valuable collections in Europe, of Natural
THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.
733
History, Medals, Anatomical Preparations,
Books, &é. When this collection has con-
tinued a certain number of years at Lon-
don, he has, by his will, directed it to be
carried to the University of Glasgow. And,
for the purpose of building a house for the
reception of this noble donation, and esta-
blishing such new professions in medicine as
the University should judge expedient, he
bequeathed £8000 sterling, bearing interest
from his death; the one-half of which he
directed to be applied for the support of the
Said Musæum, while it continues in London
—the other, to increase the principal sum,
till the period arrive when both principal
and interest shall be appropriated, by the
University, for the above-mentioned pur-
poses specified in the deed of donation.
Infirmary.—The progress of a medical
school, in this University, has been hitherto
much retarded by the want of an infirmary
in Glasgow. But there is at present a
prospect of that obstacle being immediately
removed. A very considerable sum of
money has been lately raised, by voluntary
subscription, for the purpose of erecting
and supporting an infirmary in Glasgow.
A royal charter has been obtained, and a
grant from the Crown, of the site of the
Archbishop's Castle, for the buildings ;
which, according to a beautiful design, given
by the late Robert Adam, Esq., are now
finished.
Appointments of the Professors.-The
Principal, and the Professors of Church
History, Law, Medicine, Anatomy and
Botany, and Astronomy, are nominated by
the King. The Professors of Theology,
Oriental Languages, Humanity, Greek,
Logic, Moral Philosophy, Natural Philoso-
phy, and Mathematics, and the Lecturers
on Chemistry, Materia Medica, and Mid-
wifery, are nominated by the College. The
average number of students, of all deno-
minations, attending the different classes
is considerably above six hundred. -
Salaries, &c.—From the state of the uni-
versity funds, the professors are allowed
very moderate salaries; so as to depend
chiefly for subsistence upon the honorariums,
or fees of their students. This, it is be-
lieved, has greatly promoted their zeal and
their diligence in their several professions.
In seminaries of literature, possessed of
rich endowments, and where there is access
to large ecclesiastical benefices, by seniority,
the business of lecturing has generally gone
into disuse, or been reduced to a mere mat-
ter of form ; as few persons are willing to
labour, who, by doing little, or by following
their amusement, find themselves in easy
and comfortable circumstances. The de-
partment of teaching is likely, in such a
case, to be devolved upon the junior mem-
bers of the society, who discharge the office
of private tutors; and who, from the mo-
ment they enter upon their office, are ready
to consider it as a passing state, and to
look forward to that period when they shall,
in their turn, be freed from the drudgery of
teaching. In such circumstances, when
neither the tutor nor pupil is under theim-
mediate eye of the public, instead of strug-
gling for distinction and superiority in their
respective stations, they will be too apt to
indulge the laziness, and to gratify the pe-
culiar humour of each other. In the Scot-
tish universities, and particularly that of
Glasgow, where the professors have no be-
nefices in the church, nor any emoluments
of any kind independent of their labour,
nor anything that can be called preferment
within their reach, that radical defect in
the conduct of education is altogether re-
moved. There is likely to grow up with
them, in these circumstances, a habitual
liking to their objects and occupations, and
that interest and zeal in the discharge of
their duty, which are most likely to call forth
the activity and industry of their pupils.
It may be thought, perhaps, that, as ne-
cessity is the parent of labour, it would be
a still greater improvement, that professors
in colleges should have no salaries at all.
This would be indisputable, if all other em-
ployments were left to the natural profit
which they can produce, and were not pe-
culiarly rewarded by fixed appointments
from the public. . But if one trade, or art,
is allowed a bounty, another must, upon
this account, have also some compensation.
The peculiar premiums given by Govern-
ment to other professions, particularly to
the church and the law, seem to require,
that, for maintaining some kind of balance,
a degree of similar encouragement should
be given to the teaching of the liberal arts
and sciences. Without this, a private aca-
demy can seldom collect a sufficient number
of well qualified teachers, so as to prevent
a single individual from undertaking too
many branches, and becoming what is vul-
garly called a Jack of all trades.
Time of Lecturing, &c.—The uniform
assiduity of the professors in the University
of Glasgow, and the length of time which
they employ in lecturing, will afford an
illustration of these remarks. The annual
session for teaching, in the university, be-
gins, in the ordinary curriculum, on the
tenth of October; and ends, in some of the
classes, about the middle of May, and in
others continues to the tenth of June. The
lectures, in all the other branches, com-
mence on the first of November, and end
about the beginning of May. The class of
Botany begins on the first of May.
During this period, the business of the
College continues without interruption. The
Professors of Humanity, or Latin, and of
.” "
734
Greek, lecture and examine their students,
receive and correct exercises, three hours
every day, and four hours for two days
every week : the professors of Logic, Moral
Philosophy, and Natural Philosophy, two
hours every day, and three hours during a
part of the session; excepting on Saturdays,
when, on account of a general meeting of
the public students, there is only one lecture
given. The other professors lecture, in
general, one hour every day; the Professor
of Mathematics, two hours every day, ex-
cept on Saturdays; the Professor of Law,
in his public department, two hours. The
Professor of Practical Astronomy gives no
public lecture.
Advantages of Public Lecturing.—In
those universities where the professors are
uniformly employed in lecturing, it may be
expected that the matter of their lectures
will correspond, in some measure, to the
general progress of science and literature
in their several departments. A professor
whose consequence and livelihood depend
upon the approbation given by the public
to his lectures, will find it necessary to
study the principal authors upon the sub-
ject : he will imbibe, in some degree, the
taste of the age in which he lives, and avail
himself of the increase of knowledge and
new discovery : he will find it expedient to
model his instructions in the manner most
likely to suit the purposes and to promote
the interest of his students. By going fre-
quently over the same subject, he has a
chance to correct the erroneous opinions
which he might formerly have admitted;
and, according to the scale of his under-
standing, to attain the most liberal and
comprehensive views of his science. If he
is possessed, at the same time, of taste and
abilities, he can hardly avoid acquiring an
enthusiastic attachment to the objects of
his profession, and an ardent desire of pro-
pagating those improvements in it which
appear to him of importance.
In colleges where no lectures are given,
and where the reading and prelecting on
certain books, in a private manner, make
the chief object of the teacher, the same
dispositions and views will seldom occur.
The professor, having little temptation to
study, in any particular manner, that science
with which he is nominally connected, will
be apt to possess but a superficial know-
ledge of it, and to have little zeal in com-
municating new ideas or discoveries con-
cerning it. In such a situation, the preju-
dices and contracted views of literature,
which formerly prevailed, and which were
natural upon the immediate revival of let-
ters, may remain to the present day; and
the name of scholar be restricted to a mere
proficient in the Greek and Roman lan-
guages, the vehicles only of taste and know-
A STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF
ledge: the pursuits of philosophy may be
regarded as idle and chimerical ; and every
attempt to dissipate the clouds of ancient
ignorance, or to correct the errors and pre-
judices of a former period, may be repro-
bated as a dangerous innovation.
The distribution of science, and the course
of lectures, formerly established in all the
universities of Europe, were almost exclu-
sively adapted to the education of church-
men, and proceeded upon a much more
limited state of knowledge than that which
obtains at present. To accommodate in-
struction, therefore, to the purposes and
views of the nation at large, and to render
the academical course useful in every situ-
ation, it is frequently necessary, in those
universities where any part of the old plan
is retained, that the professors should now
treat their respective subjects in a different
manner, and that what is comprehended
under particular branches should be greatly
varied and extended.
Latin.—In the University of Glasgow,
the students, who attend the Humanity
lectures, are supposed to have acquired the
elements of the Latin tongue, in public or
private schools; and the Professor is em-
ployed in reading, explaining, and prelect-
ing upon such Roman authors as are most
suited to carry on their progress in that
language. To a class of more advanced
students, the Professor reads a course of
lectures on the peculiarities and beauties of
the Roman language, on the principles of
classical composition, and on Roman anti-
quities.
Greek.-In the ancient state of the Uni-
versity, it was probably not usual for any
person to study under the professor of
Greek, until he had acquired some previous
knowledge of the Greek language. But, as
Greek is now seldom regularly taught in
public schools, the Professor is under the ne-
cessity of instructing a great number in the
very elements of that language. To a second
set, who have made some proficiency in
that respect, he is employed in reading, ex-
plaining, and prelecting upon those classical
authors from an acquaintance with whom
his hearers are most likely to imbibe a
knowledge of Greek, and, at the same time,
to improve their taste in literary composi-
tion. To a still more advanced set of stu-
dents, he also delivers a course of lectures
on the higher branches of Greek literature,
introducing a variety of disquisitions on the
general principles of grammar, of which the
regular structure of that language affords
such copious illustration.
Philosophy. —In the threefold distribu-
tion of Philosophy, in the academical course,
Logic has, in general, preceded the other
two in the order of teaching, and has been
considered as a necessary preparation for
THE UNIVERSITY OF GLAsgow. 735
them. Before the student entered upon
the subjects of moral and natural philoso-
phy, it was thought proper to instruct him
in the art of reasoning and disputation;
and the syllogsitic art, taken from the Ana-
. lytics of Aristotle, was, for many ages, con-
sidered as the most effectual and infallible
instrument for that purpose. It was sup-
posed to afford a mechanical mode of rea-
soning, by which, in all cases, truth and
falsehood might be accurately distinguish-
ed. [?] But the change of opinions on the
subjects of literature, and on the means of
comprehending them, has occasioned a
correspondent alteration in the manner of
treating this part of the academical course.
The present Professor, after a short analysis
of the powers of the understanding, and an
explanation of the terms necessary to com-
prehend the subjects of his course, gives a
historical view of the rise and progress of
the art of reasoning, and particularly of the
syllogistic method, which is rendered a
matter of curiosity by the universal influence
which for a long time it obtained over the
learned world ; and then dedicates the
greater part of his time to an illustration
of the various mental operations, as they
are expressed by the several modifications
of speech and writing ; which leads him
to deliver a system of lectures on general
grammar, rhetoric, and belles lettres. This
course, accompanied with suitable exercises
and specimens, on the part of the students,
is properly placed at the entrance to phi-
losophy : no subjects are likely to be more
interesting to young minds, at a time when
their taste and feelings are beginning to
open, and have naturally disposed them to
the reading of such authors as are neces-
sary to supply them with facts and mate-
rials for beginning and carrying on the im-
portant habits of reflection and investiga-
tion. -
Moral Philosophy.—The lectures in the
Moral Philosophy class consist of three
principal divisions. The first comprehends
natural theology; or the knowledge, con-
firmed by human reason, concerning the
being, perfections, and operations of God.
The second comprehends ethics; or in-
quiries concerning the active powers of
man, and the regulation of them, both in
the pursuit of happiness, and in the prac-
tice of, virtue; and, consequently, those
questions that have been agitated concern-
ing good and evil, right and wrong. The
third comprehends natural jurisprudence,
or the general rules of justice, which are
founded upon the rights and the condition
of man; whether considered as an indivi-
dual, or as a member of a family, or as a
member of some of those various forms of
government which have arisen from the
social combinations of mankind.
Natural Philosophy.—The lectures in
Natural Philosophy comprehend a gene-
ral system of physics ; and are calculated, in
like manner, to keep pace with those lead-
ing improvements and discoveries, in that
branch of science, by which the present
age is so much distinguished. The theo-
retical and experimental parts make the
subjects of two separate courses. The ap-
paratus for conducting the latter is believed
not to be inferior to any in Europe.
Mathematics. The Professor of Mathe-
matics has three separate courses. The
first comprehends the elements of geometry
and algebra ; the second, the higher parts
of those sciences; the third, the general
principles of geometry and astronomy. To
teach the application of the speculative doc-
trines to the various practical arts, makes
a very important object in this useful de-
partment of education.
Theology.—In the faculty of Theology,
the respective Professors of Theology,
Church. History, and Oriental Languages,
deliver a system of lectures on natural and
revealed religion, on the history of the
church, and on the Hebrew language. In
this faculty, no honorarium or fee is paid
by the students.” If this regulation had
been extended to all the sciences, it would
probably have been fatal to academical ac-
tivity; but, being limited to a single branch,
it has been counteracted by the influence
of the general industry and exertion which
pervade the society. No deficiency, there-
fore, is imputable to the professors in this.
department, either with respect to their
zeal in teaching, or with respect to those
liberal and tolerating principles which are
so conformable to the spirit and genius of
Christianity. -
Law.—The improvement of Law in this
university, seems to have excited less at-
tention from government than that of the
other sciences, as this profession was not
established till a late period, and as no pro-
vision has hitherto been made for dividing
this branch of education among separate
professors. The want of competition ap-
pears to have had the usual effects; and the
custom of lecturing in Latin was longer re-
tained in this than in the other sciences.
The predecessor of the present professor
was the first who prelected on Justinian’s
“Institutes,” in English; and this example
has, for many years, been followed in the
prelections upon the pandects. It may be
mentioned, as a strong instance of pre-
possession in favour of ancient usages, that,
upon this last innovation, the Faculty of
Advocates made application to the Univer-
sity of Glasgow, requesting “ that the old
practice of teaching the civil law in Latin
* Why, see above, p. 725, a, note*.--H.
736
A STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF
might be restored.” The Professor of Law,
besides lecturing regularly upon the In-
stitutes and Pandects of Justinian, delivers
annually a course of lectures on the prin-
ciples of civil government, including a par-
ticular account of the British constitution;
and, every Second year, a course of lectures
on the law of Scotland.
Medicine.—The professors and lecturers
in the medical department, it would appear,
have been less limited than those in some
of the other parts of literature, by the effect
of old institutions and prejudices. They
have thus been enabled to accommodate
their lectures to the progress of knowledge
and discovery, and to those high improve-
ments which have of late years been intro-
duced into all the sciences connected with
the art of medicine. The progress of bo-
tany and natural history, and the wonder-
ful discoveries in chemistry, have now ex-
tended the sphere of these useful branches
beyond the mere purposes of the physician,
and have rendered a competent knowledge
of them highly interesting to every man of
liberal education.
Improvements.—The University of Glas-
gow, as has been already observed, was
anciently possessed of a jurisdiction similar
to that of the other universities of Europe,
and exercised a similar discipline and autho-
rity over its members. A great part of the
students were accommodated with lodgings
in the college, and dined at a common table,
under the inspection of their teachers.
While this mode of living continued, almost
everything was the subject of restrictions.
and regulations. But, for a long time, this
practice has been discontinued, and the
severity of the ancient discipline has been a
good deal relaxed. The lodgings in the
college rooms, after the disuse of the com-
mon table, became less convenient; and,
at present, no students live within the
college, but a few of considerable standing,
whose regularity of conduct is perfectly
known and ascertained.
These deviations from the ancient usage
were introduced from the experience of
many inconveniences attending it. The
common table, by collecting a multitude of
students so frequently together, afforded
encouragement and temptations to idleness
and dissipation; and, though the masters
sat at table along with the students, yet few
advantages of conversation could beattained.
Contrivances were fallen upon to remedy
that defect, by appointing one of the stu-
dents (generally a bursar, or servitor) to
read a portion of Scripture, or of some use-
ful book, while the rest of the students were
at table. But this practice, it is obvious,
in such circumstance, was more likely to
bring ridicule upon the subjects, or at least
to occasion indifference or contempt, than
to be productive of improvement. Besides,
from a general alteration in the habits and
manners of the people, the academical rules,
in these matters, were found troublesome
both to the teachers and the students.
Hence, attendance at the common table be-
came a kind of drudgery to the masters,
from which they endeavoured to escape, or
to which they submitted in their turns with
reluctance ; while the students procured
dispensations, or permissions to have their
commons in their own apartments. This
latter was found to be a source of ex-
pense and dissipation, not more unfriendly
to literature than to morals. The common
table, it is said, became a source of mis-
management and imposition, which could
not easily be remedied. -
This change in the mode of living has
been attended with much comfort and satis-
faction to all the members of the University,
by superseding many strict regulations, and
of course rigorous penalties, which, in the
former situation, had been thought neces-
sary : neither has it produced any bad effect
upon the manners and behaviour of the
students. When teachers are attentive to
perform their duty, and discover an anxiety
to promote the interests of their scholars,
who are above the age of mere boys, it re.
quires very little authority to enforce respect
and propriety of behaviour. The most
certain and effectual mode of discipline, or
rather the best method of rendering discip-
line in a great measure useless, is by filling
up regularly and properly the time of the
student, by interesting him in the objects of
his studies and pursuits, and by demand-
ing, regularly and daily, an account of his
labours.
Boarding.—In the present state of the
University of Glasgow, such of the students
as can afford the expense, frequently live in
the families of the Principal and Professors;
where they have, together with the oppor-
tunity of prosecuting their studies, the ad-
vantages of proper society and private tui-
tion. It is, at the same time, in the power
of every Professor, to be acquainted with
the behaviour, the application, and the
abilities of almost every one of his students.
And the knowledge of this is likely to be
much more effectual in exciting their exer-
tions, and producing regular attention to
their studies, than the endless penalties
which may be contrived for every species
of misdemeanour. A complicated and
rigorous discipline, extending to innumer-
able frivolous observances, can hardly fail,
in this age, to become contemptible ; and,
if students are treated like children, it is
not to be expected that they will behave
like men. -
Weekly Meeting.—Every Saturday there
is a general meeting of all the public or
THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.
737
gowned students, which is attended by the
Principal and their respective Professors. A
Latin oration is delivered by the higher
students, in their turns: after which, all
Smaller matters of discipline are discussed.
By this weekly meeting, the whole of the
students are brought, in a more particu-
lar manner, under the inspection of the
teachers ; and a good opportunity is regu-
larly afforded of mutual information, re-
specting the studies and deportment of their
scholars.
Tests not required.—No oaths, or sub-
scriptions, or tests of any kind, are required
of students, at their admission to the Uni-
versity; as it is deemed highly improper
that young persons, in prosecuting a general
course of academical education, should bind
themselves to any particular system of
tenets or opinions,
Bursaries. – Besides the salaries be-
stowed upon professors, additional encour-
agement has been often given to universi-
ties, by the mortification of certain funds
for the maintenance of students; as also by
requiring that a certain attendance shall be
given, in those seminaries, by such as ob-
tain academical degrees, accompanied with
various exclusive privileges.
It has of late been remarked, that such
institutions and regulations, though intended
to promote the interest of those incorpora-
ted societies, have proved, in some degree,
hurtful to them, by forcing an attendance
from a greater number of students, and
consequently tending to supersede the
industry and abilities of the respective
teachers. But the number of this descrip-
tion of students, commonly called bursars,
at the University of Glasgow, cannot have
any considerable tendency of this nature, as
their honorariums make but a small part of
the professor's income; and, it must not be
overlooked, that the payment of fees to the
professors supposes that lectures are to be
given : so that this establishment encour-
ages, at least, the practice of lecturing,
however it may tend to produce careless-
ness in the performance. One good effect
of it is obvious. Several of these bursaries
are in the gift of the college; so that the
principal and professors have it in their
power to bestow them upon students of
superior genius and industry, but who have
not the means of prosecuting their studies.
The character of a bursar does not, in the
University of Glasgow, carry with it any
external marks of Servility, or degradation
of any kind. Several names might be here
mentioned, that would do great honour to
the University, who were supported, during
the course of their studies, by funds appro-
priated for that purpose.
The foundation by Mr Snell deserves par-
ticularly to be mentioned, as perhaps one of
part of the candidate.
the largest and most liberal in Britain. That
gentleman, in the year 1688, bequeathed a
considerable estate in Warwickshire for the
support of Scotch students at Baliol College.
Oxford, who had studied for some years at
the University of Glasgow. By the rise in
the value of lands, and the improvements
which have, from time to time, l:een made
on that estate, that fund now affords £70
per annum, for ten years, to each of ten
exhibitioners. Another foundation, at the
same college, of £20 per annum, to each of
four Scotch students, though under a dif-
ferent patronage, is generally given to the
Glasgow eachibitioners; so that four of them
have a stipend of £90 per annum, con-
tinuing for ten years. The University have
the sole nomination or appointment of these
exhibitioners.
Rules for obtaining Degrees.—The can-
didates for degrees in arts, are, by express
regulations, obliged to attend the hours of
lecture, and the separate hours of examina-
tion, in the curriculum, or public course
already mentioned ; and the laws of the
church oblige all students to pass the same
curriculum before they can be enrolled
students of theology. But no such quali-
fication is requisite for entering upon the
study of law or medicine. Such students,
in short, as are not upon any public founda-
tion, or who do not intend to qualify them-
selves for the church, may attend any of the
lectures which they think most suited to
their views; though, in case of their de-
viating from the curriculum, they have not
the benefit of the regular examinations and
exercises of the public students.
The rules, for conferring degrees, were
formerly much the same in the University
of Glasgow as in the other ancient univer-
sities. In those days, when the art of dis-
putation was considered as the ultimate
object of academical education, the can-
didates were obliged, after a certain stand-
ing, or residence at the University, to com-
pose and print a thesis, and to defend it in
a public syllogistic disputation. But ex-
perience discovered that mode of trial to be
inadequate to the purpose for which it was
intended. It, by degrees, degenerated into
a mere matter of form and ceremony. The
same subjects of disputation, the same
arguments of attack and defence, were pre-
served and handed down among the stu-
dents; the public disputations were not
attended :-so that degrees became not the
rewards of abilities and diligence, but merely
the marks of standing, or residence at the
University. These circumstances gave oc.
casion for a material change, in the rules
for conferring degrees, in the University of
Glasgow. The composing and defending a
thesis have now become optional on the
The same standing
on
- 3 B
738
A STATISTICAL ACCOUNT of
is still required; and the candidates for
degrees in arts are obliged to undergo a
minute examination, in the Greek and
IRoman classics, in the different branches
of philosophy which compose the curricu-
lum, and by each of the professors in their
respective branches : an examination which,
in the manner it is conducted, gives the
best opportunity of judging of the proficieney
and literature of the candidates.
Degrees in Theology and Law.—Degrees
in theology, having no privileges in the
church attached to them, under the Pres-
byterian form of government, are, without
any regard to standing in the University,
conferred on clergymen respectable for their
abilities and literature.—Degrees in law are
either bestowed upon eminent men as marks
of respect ; or upon students of a certain
standing, after a regular examination of the
eandidate. The University of Glasgow
admits students who have passed a part of
their academical course in other universi-
ties, ad eundem, as it is commonly called :
that is, whatever part of their academical
course is finished at any other university,
upon proper certificates, is admitted, as a
part of their standing, in the University of
Glasgow; so that, without again beginning
their course, they can pass forward to de-
grees, and be enrolled students of theology.
Medical Degrees.—Degrees in medicine
are conferred, after having finished the
medical course, at the University ; or, upon
proper certificates of having finished it at
some eminent school of physic: but the
candidates are obliged to undergo both a
private and public examination, on all the
different branches of medicine, before they
can receive that honour. It is very com-
mon also for them, though not absolutely
º to defend a thesis in the common
hall. -
Prizes.—The institution of Prizes, or
rewards of literary merit, either in books
or medals, to students, during the course of
their education, has now been tried for
many years in the University of Glasgow,
and has been attended with the best effects.
Every effort has been made to correct the
common defects and irregularities in the
distribution of prizes, and to render the
competition fair and equal. Subjects of
competition are prescribed, calculated to
give scope to every kind of genius, and ac- #
commodated to the standing of the different
students.
Library.—The University Library, to
which all the students have easy access, is
a large and valuable collection of books,
among which are many now become very
scarce. As it was founded about two cen-
turies ago, it is enriched with many early
editions; and proper attention has been
paid, from time to time, to supply it with
|
departments.
time.
the mathematical department, by the lib-
son, prefessor of mathematics.
ingenuity of the kate Dr Wilson & Sons,
type-founders, and the care and accuracy
the more elegant and improved productions
of the press, particularly in the classica?
The funds which are des-
timed for its support and increase, are con-
siderable ; and many private donations of
books have been made to it from time to
It was of late greatly enriched, in
rary of the kate celebrated Er Robert Sim-
By the
of the late Messrs Foulis, printers to the
University, the Library contains some of
the most elegant editions of many valuable
books.
It will soon receive an important
addition, by a collection of many rare and
splendid editions of books, in all the differ-
ent departments of Science, but particularly
in the medical department, bequeathed by
the late Dr William Hunter.
Antiquities.—In an adjoining apartment,
the college has plaeed a number of mile-
stomes, altars, and other remains of anti-
quity, which have been discovered in the
ancient Roman walk between the Forth and
the Clyde.
Worship.—During the session, there is.
public worship every Sunday in the college
chapel. Three or four preachers are an-
nually appointed out of the number of
those students who continue at the univer-
sity after they have received their license.
The Principal, and such of the Professors
as have been ordained, or have received
lieanses, occasionally preach in the colkege
chapel during the session.
Landed Property, &c. — The college,
though in some measure surrounded by the
houses of the town, is possessed of more
than twenty acres of ground adjacent to its
buildings. Upon the most distant part of
this ground, and upon a small eminence, is
erected the Observatory, properly fitted up,
and supplied with the most improved in-
struments for the purposes of the Professor
of Practical Astronomy. The college build-
ings, though not splendid, are neat and
commodious. The Principal and all the
Professors possess convenient houses con-
tiguous to the other public buildings. These
buildings are surrounded by a garden of
about ten acres, appropriated to the use of
the members of the University, and some
part of it for exercise to the younger classes
of students.
VII, CONCLUSION.
|Upon the whole, this University, after
experiencing many revolutions and turns of
fortune, has, by favourable conjunctures,
and by the bounty of the sovereign and of
the public, been raised to prosperous cir-
THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.
739
cumstances; and has, as an academical
foundation, become possessed of some con-
spicuous advantages. Its local situation,
in the neighbourhood of an industrious
city, and at some distance from the capital;
by which it is not exposed to the dissipa-
tion arising from a number of amusements;
nor too remote from the topics of specula-
tion, suggested by the progress of philoso-
phy, and the interesting business of society.
The state of its revenue, sufficient, with
economy, in the management of the society,
to promote useful improvements; but not
so large as to be productive of idleness, and
the luxury of learned indolence. Its insti-
tutions and government, by which no sort
of monopoly is created in favour of particu-
lar sects, or particular branches of science;
but persons of all persuasions are at liberty
to follow that course of study which they
find suited to their various pursuits and
prospects. Lastly, Its moderate discipline,
endeavouring to regulate the behaviour of
the students by a regard to interest and
reputation, more than by authority ; and
substituting the anxious watchfulness of a
parent, in place of the troublesome and
vexatious interpositions of a prying and,
perhaps, unpopular magistrate.
ADDITIONs."
Infirmary.—The medical school in this
University was long retarded by the want
of an infirmary at Glasgow. But that ob-
stacle is now completely removed. In the
year 1790, a voluntary subscription was
opened, for the purpose of erecting and
* Not by Reid.—H
supporting an infirmary, in this place, for
the western districts of Scotland. This
scheme met with the most liberal encourage-
ment, from the charitable and well-disposed
in the city of Glasgow, and in the adjoin-
ing counties, and was, in particular, much
promoted by the activity and influence of
the members of the University. In the
year 1791, upon the petition of the sub-
scribers, a royal charter was obtained from
the Crown, together with a grant of the
site of the Archbishop's castle and garden,
for the purpose of erecting the buildings.
During the years 1792 and 1793, the build-
ings were erected, according to a most
beautiful design given by the late Robert
Adam, Esq., architect, at an expense of
about £8000; and it is believed, that, in
point of situation, good air, abundance of
water, and convenient accommodation for
the patients, this infirmary is not excelled
by any other establishment of the same kind
in Britain. The infirmary was opened for
the reception of patients on the 8th Decem-
her 1794; and since that time, the bene-
ficial and salutary effects of it have been so
much felt that it is now considered as a
public benefit and blessing to this part of
the country. Among other advantages, the
number of medical students is greatly in-
creased since it was opened ; and there is
every reason to believe, that this institution
will contribute, in a great degree, to the
further extension and improvement of the
medical school in this University.
P. 732, b : The Rev. Dr Walton's first
donation was anno 1767, and his second
anno 1788. P. 736, a, l. 8: After Scotland,
add, “to which is now added a course of
lectures on English law.”
S B 2
DISSERTATIONS,
H I S T O RIC A. L., C R IT I C A L,
AND
S UP P L E M E N T A R Y
BY
THE EDITOR.
S UP P L E MENTARY DISS ERTATIONS:
- - O R. -
E X C U R S I W E N O T E S,
C R IT I C A L A N D H IS TO RIC A. L.
N O TE A,
ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE ;
OR .
- oUR PRIMARY BELIEFs
CONSIDERED AS THE ULTIMATE cRITERION OF TRUTH
§ I.— The meaning of the doctrine, and pwrport of the argument, of Common Sense.
§ II.—The conditions of the legitimacy, and legitimate application, of the argument.
§ III.- That it is one strictly philosophical and scientific. !
§ IV.- The essential characters by which owr primary beliefs, or the principles of
Common Sense, are discriminated.
§ W.— The momenclature, that is, the various appellations by which these have been
designated. - * * * * * * ... • * *
§ VI.- The waiversality of the philosophy of Common Sense ; or its general recogni.
tion, in reality and in name, shown by a chronological series of testimonies
Jrom the dawn of speculation to the present day.
[References.—On Common Sense from Inq. 96 b, 209 b, I. P. 233 a, 421 b, 468 b,
see passim, and $ W. i. 1–$ VI. No. 63;—on Instinct from Inq. 184 b, &c., see Ś W.
ii. 3;-on Belief from Inq. 95 b, &c., see Ś W. ii. 3;-on Reason from Inq. 100 b, 108
a, 127 ab, see Ś W. ix. 7.]
§ I. — The meaning of the doctrine, and consequence of the erroneous views which
purport of the argument, of Common
Sense.
In the conception and application of the
doctrine of Common Sense, the most sig-
mal mistakes have been committed; and
much unfounded prejudice has been excited
against the argument which it affords, in
have been held in regard to its purport
and conditions. What is the veritable
character of this doctrine, it is, therefore,
necessary to consider.
Our cognitions, it is evident, are not all
at Second hand. Consequents cannot, by
an infinite regress, be evolved out of ante-
*Note A. § 1.] oN COMMON SENSE. W43
cedents, which are themselves only coase-
quents. Demonstration, if preof be pos-
sible, behoves to repose at last on proposi-
tions, which, carrying their own evidence,
necessitate their own admission; and which
being, as primary, inexplicable, as inexpli-
cable, incomprehensible, must consequently
manifest themselves less in the character
of cognitions than of facts, of which con-
sciousness assures us under the simple form
offeeling or belief.
Without at present attempting to de-
termine the character, number, and rela-
tions—waiving, in short, all attempt at an
articulate analysis and classification of the
primary elements of cognition, as carrying
us into a discussion beyond our limits, and
not of indispensable importance for the
end we have in view; * it is sufficient to
have it conceded, in general, that such ele-
ments there are; and this concession of their
existence being supposed, I shall proceed
to hazard some observations, principally
* Such an analysis and classification is how-
eyer in itself certainly ome of the most interest-
ing and important problems of philosophy; and
it is one in which much remains to be accom-
plished. Principles of cognition, which now
stand as ultimate, may, I think, be reduced to
simpler elements; and some which are now
viewed as direct and positive, may be shown to
be merely indirect and negative; their cogency
depending not on the immediate necessity of
thinking them—for if carried unconditionally
out they are themselves incogitable—but in
the impossibility of thinking something to
which they are directly opposed, and from
which they are the immediate recoils. An ex-
position of the axiom—That positive thought
lies in the limitation or conditioning of one or
other of two opposite extremes, neither of
which, as unconditioned, can be realized to the
mind as possible, and yet of which, as con-
$radictories, one or other must, by the funda-
mental laws of thought, be recognised as me.
cessary;-the exposition of this great but un-
enounced axiom would show that some of the
most illustrious principles are only its subordi-
nate modifications, as applied to certain pri-
mary motions, intuitions, data, forms, or cate-
gories of intelligence, as Existence, Quantity,
(protensive, Time—extensive, Space—inten-
sive, Degree) Quality, &c. Such modifications,
for example, are the principles of Cause and
Effect, Substance and Phaenomenon, &c.
I may here also observe, that though the pri-
*ary truths of fact, and the primary truths of in-
telligence (the contingent and necessary truths of
Reid) form two very distinct classes of the
original beliefs or intuitions of consciousness;
there appears no sufficient ground to regard
their sources as different, and therefore to
be distinguished by different names. In this
I regret that I am unable to agree with Mr
Stewart. See his Elements, vol. ii., ch. 1, and
his Account of Reid, supra, p. 27 b.
in regard to their aufthority as warrants
and criteria of truth. Nor can this as-
sumption of the existence of some original
bases of knowledge in the minditself, bere.
fused by any. For even those philosophers
who profess to derive all our knowledge
from experience, and who admit no uni-
versal truths of intelligence but such as
are generalized from individual truths of
* fact—even these philosophers are forced
virtually to acknowledge, at the root of
the several acts of observation from which
their generalization starts, some law or
principle to which they can appeal as guar-
anteeing the procedure, should the validity
of these primordial acts themselves be
called in question. This acknowledgment
is, among others, made even by Locke;
and on such fundamental guarantee of in-
duction he even bestows the name of Com-
mon Sense. (See below, in Testimonies,
No. 51.)
Limiting, therefore, our consideration to
the question of authority; how, it is asked,
do these primary propositions—these cog.
nitions at first hand—these fundamental
facts, feelings, beliefs, certify us of their
own veracity ? To this the only possible
answer is—that as elements of our mental
constitution—as the essential conditions of
our knowledge—they must by us be ac-
cepted as true. To suppose their false-
hood, is to suppose that we are created
capable of intelligence, in order to be
made the victims of delusion; that God is a
deceiver, and the root of our nature a lie.
But such a supposition, if gratuitous, is
manifestly illegitimate. For, on the con-
trary, the data of our original conscious-
ness must, it is evident, in the first instance,
be presumed true. It is only if proved
false, that their authority can, in conse-
quence of that proof, be, in the second in-
stance, disallowed. Speaking, therefore,
generally, to argue from common sense, is
simply to show, that the denial of a given
proposition would involve the denial of
some original datum of consciousness; but
as every original datum of consciousness
is to be presumed true, that the proposi-
tion in question, as dependent on such a
principle, must be admitted.
But that such an argument is competent
and conclusive, must be more articulately
shown. -
Here, however, at the outset, it is pro-
per to take a distinction, (to which in the
foot-notes I have once and again adverted,).
the neglect of which has been productive
of considerable error and confusion. It is
the distinction between the data or deli-
verances of consciousness considered sim-
744
[NOTE A.
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
ply, in themselves, as apprehended facts or
actual manifestations, and those deliver-
ances considered as testimonies to the truth
of facts beyond their own phaenomenal re-
ality. -
Viewed under the former limitation, they
are above all scepticism. For as doubt is
itself only a manifestation of consciousness,
it is impossible to doubt that, what consci-
ousnessmanifests, it does manifest, without,
in thus doubting, doubting that we actu-
ally doubt; that is, without the doubt con-
tradicting and therefore annihilating itself.
Hence it is that the facts of consciousness,
as mere phaenomena, are by the unanimous
confession of all Sceptics and Idealists,
ancient and modern, placed high above the
reach of question. Thus, Laertius, in
Pyrrh. L. ix., seg. 103; — Sectus Empiri-
cus, Pyrrh. Hypot. I. i. cc. 4, 10, et pas-
sim;-Descartes, Med., ii., pp. 13, and iii.,
p. 16, ed. 1658;-Hume, Treatise on Hu-
man Nature, vol. i., pp. 123, 370, et alibi,
orig. ed.;-Schulze, Aenesidemus, p. 24,
Kritik, vol. i., p. 51;—Platner, Aphor.,
vol. i. § 708;-Reinhold, Theorie, p. 190;
–Schad, in Fichte's Philos. Jour., vol. x.,
p. 270. See also St. Austin, Contra Aca-
dem., L. iii., c. 11; De Trin. L. xv.,
c. 112; –Scotus, in Sent., L. i., dist. 3,
qu. 4, 10;-Buffier, Prem. Verit., § 9–
II, 40;-Mayne's Essay on Consciousness,
p. 177, sq.;-Reid, p. 442, b. et alibi;-
Cousin, Cours d’Hist. de la Philosophie
Morale, vol. ii., pp. 220, 236.
On this ground, St. Austin was war-
ranted in affirming—Nihil intelligenti tam
notum esse quam Se Sentire, Sé cogitaré, Se
velle, se vivere; and the cogito ergo Sum
of Descartes is a valid assertion, that in
so far as we are conscious of certain modes
of existence, in so far we possess an abso-
lute certainty that we really exist. (Aug.,
De Lib. Arb. ii., 3; De Trin., x..., 3; De
Civ. Dei., xi., 26; Desc., Il. cc., et passim.)
Viewed under the latter limitation, the
deliverances of consciousness do not thus
peremptorily repel even the possibility of
doubt. I am conscious, for example, in an
act of sensible perception, 1°, of myself,
the subject knowing; and, 2°, of some
thing given as different from myself, the
object known. To take the second term
of this relation:—that I am conscious in
this act of an object given, as a non-ego—
that is, as not a modification of my mind—
of this, as a phanomenon, doubt is impos-
sible. For, as has been seen, we cannot
doubt the actuality of a fact of conscious-
ness without doubting, that is subverting,
our doubt itself. To this extent, therefore,
all scepticism is precluded. But though
it cannot but be admitted that the object
of which we are conscious in this cognition
is given, not as a mode of self, but as a
mode of something different from self, it
is however possible for us to suppose,
without our supposition at least being felo
de 86, that, though given as a non-ego, this
object may, in reality, be only a representa-
tion of a non-ego, in and by the ego. Let
this therefore be maintained: let the fact
of the testimony be admitted, but the truth
of the testimony, to aught beyond its own
ideal existence, be doubted or denied.
How in this case are we to proceed? It
is evident that the doubt does not in this,
as in the former case, refute itself. It is
not suicidal by self contradiction. The
Idealist, therefore, in denying the exis-
tence of an external world, as more than
a subjective phaenomon of the internal,
does not advance a doctrine ab initio null,
as a scepticism would be which denied the
phaenomena of the internal world itself.
Yet many distinguished philosophers have
fallen into this mistake; and, among others,
both Dr Reid, probably, and Mr Stewart,
certainly. The latter in his Philosophical
Essays (pp. 6, 7) explicitly states, “that
the belief which accompanies conscious-
ness, as to the present existence of its ap-
propriate phaenomena, rests on no founda-
tion more solid than our belief of the ex-
istence of external objects.” Reid does
not make any declaration so explicit, but
the same doctrine seems involved in va-
rious of his criticisms of Hume and of
Descartes (Inq. pp. 100 a., 129, 130; Int.
Pow., pp. 269 a., 442 b.) Thus (p. 100 a.)
he reprehends the latter for maintaining
that consciousness affords a higher assur-
ance of the reality of the internal phaeno-
mena, than sense affords of the reality of
the external. He asks—Why did Descartes
not attempt a proof of the existence of his
thought? and if consciousness be alleged
as avouching this, he asks again,-Who is
to be our voucher that consciousness may
not deceive us? My observations on this
point, which were printed above three
years ago, in the foot-notes at pp. 129 and
442 b., I am happy to find confirmed by
the authority of M. Cousin. The follow-
ing passage is from his Lectures on the
Scottish School, constituting the second
volume of his “Course on the History of
the Moral Philosophy of the Eighteenth
Century,” delivered in the years 1819,
1820, but only recently published by M.
Vacherot. “It is not (he observes in re-
ference to the preceding strictures of Reid
upon Descartes) as a fact attested by con-
sciousness, that Descartes declares his
§ 1.]
745
‘OF COMMON SENSE.
personal existence beyond a doubt; it is
because the negation of this fact would in-
volve a contradiction.” And after quot-
ing the relative passage from Descartes:
—“It is thus by a reasoning that Descartes
establishes the existence of the thinking
subject; if he admit this existence, it is not
because it is guaranteed by consciousness;
it is for this reason, that when he thinks
—let him deceive himself or not—he ex-
ists in so far as he thinks.” P. 236. See
also p. 219, Sg.
It is therefore manifest that we may
throw wholly out of account the phaeno-
mena of consciousness, considered merely
in themselves; seeing that scepticism in
regard to them, under this limitation, is
confessedly impossible; and that it is only
requisite to consider the argument from
Common Sense, as it enables us to vindi-
cate the truth of these phaenomena, viewed
as attestations of more than their own
existence, seeing that they are not, in this
respect, placed beyond the possibility of
doubt.
When, for example, consciousness as-
sures us that, in perception, we are imme-
diately cognizant of an external and ex-
tended non-ego; or that, in remembrance,
through the imagination, of which we are
immediately cognizant, we obtain a medi-
ate knowledge of a real past; how shall
we repel the doubt—in the former case,
that what is given as the extended reality
itself is not merely a representation of
matter by mind;—in the latter, that what
is given as a mediate knowledge of the
past, is not a mere present phantasm, con-
taining an illusive reference to an unreal
past? We can do this only in one way.
The legitimacy of such gratuitous doubt
necessarily supposes that the deliverance
of consciousness is not to be presumed true.
If therefore it can be shown, on the one
hand, that the deliverances of conscious-
ness must philosophically be accepted, until
their certain or probable falsehood has
been positively evinced; and if, on the
other hand, it cannot be shown that any
attempt to discredit the veracity of con-
sciousness has ever yet succeeded; it fol-
lows that, as philosophy now stands, the
testimony of consciousness must be viewed
as high above suspicion, and its declara-
tions entitled to demand prompt and un-
conditional assent. -
In the first place, as has been said, it
cannot but be acknowledged that the ve-
racity of consciousness must, at least in
the first instance, be conceded. “Neganti
incumbit probatio.” Nature is not gra-
tuitously to be assumed to work, not only
in vain, but in counteraction of herself;
our faculty of knowledge is not, without a
ground, to be supposed an instrument of
illusion; man, unless the melancholy fact
be proved, is not to be held organized for
the attainment, and actuated by the love,
of truth, only to become the dupe, and
victim of a perfidious creator.
But, in the second place, though the
veracity of the primary convictions of con-
sciousness must, in the outset, be admitted,
it still remains competent to lead a proof
that they are undeserving of credit. But
how is this to be done? As the ultimate
grounds of knowledge, these convictions
cannot be redargued from any higher
knowledge; and as original beliefs, they
are paramount in certainty to every de-
rivative assurance. But they are many;
they are, in authority, co-ordinate; and
their testimony is clear and precise. It is
therefore competent for us to view them
in correlation; to compare their declara-
tions; and to consider whether they con-
tradict, and, by contradicting, invalidate
each other. This mutual contradiction is
possible, in two ways. 19, It may be
that the primary data themselves are di-
rectly or immediately contradictory of
each other; 2°, it may be that they are
mediately or indirectly contradictory, in
as much as the consequences to which
they necessarily lead, and for the truth or
falsehood of which they are therefore re-
sponsible, are mutually repugnant. By
evincing either of these, the veracity of
consciousness will be disproved; for in
either case consciousness is shown to be
inconsistent with itself, and consequently
inconsistent with the unity of truth. But
by no other process of demonstration is
this possible. For it will argue nothing
against the trustworthiness of conscious-
ness, that all or any of its deliverances are
inexplicable—are incomprehensible; that
is, that we are unable to conceive through
a higher notion, how that is possible, which
the deliverance avouches actually to be.
To make the comprehensibility of a datum
of consciousness the criterion of its truth,
would be indeed the climax of absurdity.
For the primary data of consciousness, as
themselves the conditions under which
all else is comprehended, are necessarily
themselves incomprehensible. We know,
and can know, only—That they are, not—
How they can be. To ask how an imme.
diate fact of consciousness is possible, is to
ask how consciousness is possible; and to
ask how consciousness is possible, is to
suppose that we have another conscious-
ness, before and above that human consci-
?46.
[NOTE. A.
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
|i
ousness, concerning whose mode of ope-
ration we inquire. Could we answer this,
“verily we should be as gods.”
To take an example:—It would be unrea-
sonable in the Cosmothetic or the Abso-
lute Idealist, to require of the Natural Real-
isti a reason, through which to under-
stand how a self can be conscious of a not-
self—how an unextended subject can be
cognizant of an extended object; both of
which are given us as facts by conscious-
ness, and, as such, founded on by the Natu-
ral Realist. This is unreasonable, because
it is incompetent to demand the explanation
of a datum of consciousness, which, as ori-
ginal and simple, is necessarily beyond
analysis and explication. It is still further
unreasonable, in as much as all philosophy
being only a development of the primary
data of consciousness, any philosophy, in
not accepting the truth of these, pro tan-
to surret-ders its own possibility—is felo
de se. But at the hands of the Cosmo-
thetic Idealists—and they constitute the
great majority of philosophers—the ques-
tion is peculiarly absurd; for before pro-
posing it, they are themselves bound to
afford a solution of the far more insuper-
able difficulties which their own hypothesis
involves—difficulties which, so far from
attempting to solve, no Hypothetical Re-
alist has ever yet even articulately stated.
For the illustration of this, I must refer
the reader to an article “On the Philo-
sophy of Perception,” Edinburgh Review,
voi. lii., p. 175—181; to be found also
in Cross's Selections, and Peisse's Frag-
ments.
This being understood, the following
propositions are either self-evident, or ad-
mit of easy proof:—
1. The end of philosophy is truth; and
consciousness is the instrument and crite-
rion of its acquisition. In other words,
philosophy is the development and appli-
cation of the constitutive and normal
truths which consciousness immediately
reveals.
2. Philosophy is thus wholly dependent
upon consciousness; the possibility of the
former supposing the trustworthiness of
the latter.
* From what has now been stated, it will be
seen how far and on what grounds I hold, at
once with Dr Reid and Mr Stewart, that our
original beliefs are to be established, but their
authority not to be canvasscd; and with M.
Jouffroy, that the question of their authority is
not to be absolutely withdrawn, as a forbidden
problem, from philosophy.—See Preface.
+ On these terms, see in the sequel of this
§ p. 7486, sq. and Note C, § 1.
3. Consciousness is to be presumed trust-
worthy, until proved mendacious.
4. The mendacity of consciousness is
proved, if its data, immediately in them-
selves, or mediately in their necessary con-
sequences, be shown to stand in mutual
contradiction.
5. The immediate or mediate repug-
nance of any two of its data being esta-
blished, the presumption in favour of the
general veracity of consciousness is abol-
ished, or rather reversed. For while, on
the one hand, all that is not contradictory
is not therefore true; on the other, a posi-
tive proof of falsehood, in one instance,
establishes a presumption of probable false-
hood in all; for the maxim, “falsus in who,
falsus in omnibus,” must determine the
credibility of consciousness, as the credi-
bility of every other witness.
6. No attempt to show that the data of
consciousness are (either in themselves, or
in their necessary consequences) mutually
contradictory, has yet succeeded: and the
presumption in favour of the truth of con-
sciousness and the possibility of philosophy
has, therefore, never been redargued. In
other words, an original, universal, dog-
matic subversion of knowledge has hitherto
been found impossible.
7. No philosopher has ever formally de-
nied the truth or disclaimed the authority
of consciousness; but few or none have
been content implicitly to accept and con-
sistently to follow out its dictates. Instead
of humbly resorting to consciousness, to
draw from thence his doctrines and their
proof, each dogmatic speculator looked
only into consciousness, there to discover
his preadopted opinions. In philosophy,
men have abused the code of natural, as in
theology, the code of positive, revelation ;
and the epigraph of a great protestant
divine, on the book of scripture, is cer-
tainly not less applicable to the book . of
consciousness:
“Elic liber est in quo quarit swa dogmata quisque;
Invenit, et pariter dogmata quisque swa.”
8. The first and most obtrusive conse-
quence of this procedure has been, the
multiplication of philosophical systems in
every conceivable aberration from the
unity of truth.
9. The second, but less obvious, conse-
quence has been, the virtual surrender, by
each several system, of the possibility of
philosophy in general. For, as the possi-
bility of philosophy supposes the absolute
truth of consciousness, every system which
proceeded on the hypothesis, that even a
single deliverance of consciousness is un-
true, did, however it might eschew the
§ I.]
747
OF COMMON SENSE.
overt declaration, thereby invalidate the
general credibility of consciousness, and
supply to the sceptic the premises he re-
quired to subvert philosophy, in so far as
that system represented it.
10. And yet, although the past history
of philosophy has, in a great measure,
been only a history of variation and error
(variasse erroris est); yet the cause of
this variation being known, we obtain a
valid ground of hope for the destiny of
philosophy in future. Because, since phi-
losophy has hitherto been inconsistent
with itself, only in being inconsistent with
the dictates of our natural beliefs—
“For Truth is catholic and Nature one ; " .
it follows, that philosophy has simply to
return to natural consciousness, to return
to unity and truth.
In doing this we have only to attend to
the three following maxims or precau-
tions:—
I°, That we admit nothing, not either
an original datum of consciousness, or the
legitimate consequence of such a datum;
2°, That we embrace all the original
data of consciousness, and all their legiti-
mate consequences; and
3°, That we exhibit each of these in its
individual integrity, neither distorted nor
mutilated, and in its relative place, whether
of pre-eminence or subordination.
Nor can it be contended that conscious-
ness has spoken in so feeble or ambiguous
a voice, that philosophers have misappre-
hended or misunderstood her enounce-
ments. On the contrary, they have been
usually agreed about the fact and purport
of the deliverance, differing only as to the
mode in which they might evade or qualify
its acceptance.
This I shall illustrate by a memorable
example——by one in reference to the very
cardinal point of philosophy. In the act
of sensible perception, I am conscious of
two things;–of myself as the perceiving
subject, and of an eaternal reality, in rela-
tion with my sense, as the object perceived.
Of the existence of both these things I
am convinced: because I am conscious of
knowing each of them, not mediately, in
something else, as represented, but imme-
diately in itself, as evisting. Of their mu-
tual independence I am no less convin-
ced; because each is apprehended equally,
and at once, in the same indivisible energy,
the one not preceding or determining, the
other not following or determined ; and
because each is apprehended out of, and
in direct contrast to, the other.
Such is the fact of perception, as given
in consciousness, and as it affords to man-
kind in general the conjunct assurance
they possess, of their own existence, and
of the existence of an external world.
Nor are the contents of the deliverance,
considered as a phoenomenon, denied by
those who still hesitate to admit the truth
of its testimony. As this point, however,
is one of principal importance, I shall not
content myself with assuming the preced-
ing statement of the fact of perception as
a truth attested by the internal experience
of all; but, in order to place it beyond the
possibility of doubt, quote in evidence,
more than a competent number of autho-
ritative, and yet reluctant, testimonies,
and give articulate references to others.
Descartes, the father of modern Ideal-
ism, acknowledges, that in perception we
suppose the qualities of the external re-
alities to be themselves apprehended, and
not merely represented, by the mind, in
virtue or on occasion of certain move-
ments of the sensuous organism which
they determine. “Putamus nos videre
*pśam tºdam, et audire ips&m campanam :
non vero Solum sentire motus qui ab ipsis
proveniunt.” De Passionibus art. xxiii.
This, be it observed, is meant for a state-
ment applicable to our perception of ex-
ternal objects in general, and not merely
to our perception of their secondary
qualities. -
JDe Raei, a distinguished follower of
Descartes, frequently admits, that what is
commonly rejected by philosophers is uni-
versally believed by mankind at large—
“ Res ipsas Secundum se in senswan incur-
rere.” De Mentis Humanae Facultatibus,
Sectio II. § 41, 70; 89. De Cognitione
Humana, § 15, 39, et alibi.
In like manner, Berkeley, contrasting
the belief of the vulgar, and the belief of
philosophers on this point, says:—“ The
former are of opinion that those things
they immediately perceive are the real
things ; and the latter, that the things
immediately perceived are ideas which
exist only in the mind.” Three Dialogues,
&c., Dial. III. prope finem. His brother
idealist, Arthur Collier, might be quoted
to the same purport; though he does not,
like Berkeley, pretend that mankind at
large are therefore idealists. -
Hume frequently states that, in the teeth
of all philosophy, “men are carried by a
blind and powerful instinct of nature to
suppose the very images presented by the
senses to be the eaſternal objects, and never
entertain any suspicion that the one are
nothing but representations of the other.” –
Enquiry concerning Human Understand-
ing, Sect. XII., Essays, ed. 1788, vol. Il.
748
[NOTE. A.
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
p. 154. Compare also ibid. p. 157; and
Treatise of Human Nature, vol. i., B. i.,
P. iv., Sect. 2, pp. 330, 338, 353, 358,
361, 369.
Schelling, in many passages of his works,
repeats, amplifies, and illustrates the state-
ment, that “the man of common Sense be-
lieves, and will not but believe, that the ob-
ject he is conscious of perceiving is the real
one.” This is from his Philosophische
Schriften, I. p. 274; and it may be found
with the context, translated by Coleridge
—but given as his own—in the “Biogra-
phia Literaria,” I. p. 262. See also among
other passages, Philos. Schr., I. pp. 217,
238; Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Na-
tur, Einleit. pp. xix, xxvi, first edition,
(translated in Edinb. Rev. vol. lii., p.
202.); Philosophisches Journal von Fichte
und Niethhammer, vol. vii., p. 244. In
these passages Schelling allows that it is
only on the believed identity of the object
known and of the object eaſisting, and in
our inability to discriminate in perceptive
consciousness the representation from the
thing, that mankind at large believe in the
reality of an easternal world.
But to adduce a more recent writer, and
of a different school.—“From the natural
point of view” says Stiedenroth, “the re-
presentation (Vorstellung) is not in sen-
sible perception distinguished from the
object represented; for it appears as if
the sense actually apprehended the things
out of itself, and in their proper space.”
(Psychologie, vol. i. p. 244.) “ The
things—the actual realities are not in our
soul. Nevertheless, from the psychologi-
cal point of view on which we are origi-
nally placed by nature, we do not suspect
that our representation of external things
and their relations is nought but repre-
sentation. Before this can become a
matter of consideration, the spatial rela-
tions are so far developed, that it seems
as if the soul apprehended out of itself—
as if it did not carry the images of things
within itself, but perceived the things
themselves in their proper space,” (p.
267.) “ This belief (that our sensible
percepts are the things themselves,) is so
strong and entire, that a light seems to
break upon us when we first learn, or be-
think ourselves, that we are absolutely
shut in within the circle of our own re-
presentations. Nay, it costs so painful
an effort, consistently to maintain this
acquired view, in opposition to that per-
manent and unremitted illusion, that we
need not marvel, if, even to many philo-
sophers, it should have been again lost,”
(p. 270.) .
But it is needless to accumulate con-
fessions as to a fact which has never, I
believe, been openly denied; I shall only
therefore refer in general to the following
authorities, who, all in like manner, even
while denying the truth of the natural be-
lief, acknowledge the fact of its existence.
Malebranche, Recherche, L. iii. c. 1.; Te-
tens, Versuche, vol. i. p. 375. ; Fichte,
Bestimmung des Menschen, p. 56, ed.
1825; and in Philos. Journal, VII. p. 35.;
Tennemann, Geschichte der Philosophie,
vol. ii. p. 294, (translated in Edinb. Rev.,
vol. lii. p. 202.); Fries, Neue Kritik,
Worr. p. xxviii. sec. ed.; Herbart, Allge-
meine Metaphysik, II Th., § 327.; Ger-
lach, Fundamental Philosophie, § 33.;
JBeneke, Das Verhaeltniss von Seele und
Leib, p. 23; and Kant und die Philoso-
phische Aufgabe unserer Zeit, p. 70.;
Stoeger, Pruefung, &c., p. 504. To these
may be added, Jacobi, Werke, vol. i. p
119 ; and in vol. ii., his “ David Hume’
passim, of which see a passage quoted infra
in Testimonies, No. 87 c. Reid’s opinion
will be adduced in Note C, Ś II.
The contents of the fact of perception,
as given in consciousness, being thus esta-
blished, what are the consequences to phi-
losophy, according as the truth of its tes-
timony (I.) is, or (II.) is not, admitted?
I. On the former alternative, the vera-
city of consciousness, in the fact of per-
ception, being unconditionally acknow-
ledged, we have established at once, with-
out hypothesis or demonstration, the
reality of mind, and the reality of matter;
while no concession is yielded to the scep-
tic, through which he may subvert philo-
sophy in manifesting its self-contradiction.
The one legitimate doctrine, thus possible,
may be called Natural Realism or Natural
Dualism.
II. On the latter alternative, five great
variations from truth and nature may be
conceived—and all of these have actually
found their advocates—according as the
testimony of consciousness, in the fact of
perception, (A) is wholly, or (B) is par-
tially, rejected.
A. If wholly rejected, that is, if nothing
but the phaenomenal reality of the fact
itself be allowed, the result is Nihilism.
This may be conceived either as a dogma-
tical or as a sceptical opinion; and Hume
and Fichte have competently shown, that
if the truth of consciousness be not uncon-
ditionally recognized, Nihilism is the
conclusion in which our speculation, if
consistent with itself, must end.
B. On the other hand, if partially re-
jected, four schemes emerge, according to.
§ $ 1. II.]
749
OF COMMON SENSE.
the way in which the fact is tampered
with. -
i. If the veracity of consciousness be
allowed to the equipoise of the subject and
object in the act, but disallowed to the
reality of their antithesis, the system of
Absolute Identity (whereof Pantheism is
the corollary) arises, which reduces mind
and matter to phaenomenal modifications
of the same common substance.
ii., iii. Again, if the testimony of consci-
ousness be refused to the equal originality
and reciprocal independence of the subject
and object in perception, two Unitarian
schemes are determined, according as the
one or as the other of these correlatives
is supposed the prior and genetic. Is the
object educed from the subject 7 Idealism ;
is the subject educed from the object 7
Materialism, is the result.
iv. Finally, if the testimony of consci-
ousness to our knowledge of an external
world existing be rejected with the Ideal-
ist, but with the Realist the eaſistence of
that world be affirmed; we have a scheme
which, as it by many various hypotheses,
endeavours, on the one hand, not to give
up the reality of an unknown material
universe, and on the other, to explain the
ideal illusion of its cognition, may be called
the doctrine of Cosmothetic Idealism, Hy-
pothetical Realism, or Hypothetical Dual-
ism. This last, though the most vacillat-
ing, inconsequent, and self-contradictory
of all systems, is the one which, as less ob-
noxious in its acknowledged consequences,
(being a kind of compromise between spe-
culation and common sense,) has found fa-
vour with the immense majority of philo-
sophers.”
From the rejection of the fact of con-
sciousness in this example of perception,
we have thus, in the first place, multipli-
city, speculative variation, error; in the
second, systems practically dangerous; and
in the third, what concerns us exclusively
at present, the incompetence of an appeal
to the common sense of mankind by any
of these systems against the conclusions of
others. This last will, however, be more
appropriately shown in our special consi–
deration of the conditions of the argument
of Common Sense, to which we now go
9I),
* See, in connexion with this more general
distribution of philosophical systems from the
whole fact of consciousness in perception, other
more special divisions, from the relation of the
object to the subject of perception, in Note C,
§l,
§ II.-Conditions of the legitimacy, and
legitimate application, of the argument.
from Common Sense. 4
From what has been stated, it is mani-
fest that the argument drawn from Com-
mon Sense, for the truth or falsehood of
any given thesis, proceeds on two suppo-
sitions—
1°. That the proposition to be proved is
either identical with, or necessarily evolved
owt of, a primary datum of consciousness;
and,
2°. That the primary data of conscious-
mess are, one and all of them, admitted, by
the proponent of this argument, to be true.
From this it follows, that each of these
suppositions will constitute a condition,
under which the legitimate application of
this reasoning is exclusively competent.
Whether these conditions have been ever
previously enounced, I know not. But
this I know, that while their necessity is
so palpable, that they could never, if ex-
plicitly stated, be explicitly denied; that
in the hands of philosophers they have
been always, more or less violated, impli-
citly and in fact, and this often not the
least obtrusively by those who have been
themselves the loudest in their appeal from
the conclusions of an obnoxious specula-
tion to the common convictions of mankind.
It is not therefore to be marvelled at if the
argument itself should have sometimes
shared in the contempt which its abusive
application so frequently and so justly
merited.
1. That the first condition—that of
Originality—is indispensable, is involved
in the very conception of the argument.
I should indeed hardly have deemed that
it required an articulate statement, were
it not that, in point of fact, many philoso-
phers have attempted to establish, on the
principles of common sense, propositions
which are not original data of conscious-
ness; while the original data of conscious-
ness, from which their propositions were
derived, and to which they owed their
whole necessity and truth—these data the .
same philosophers were (strange to say!)
not disposed to admit. Thus, when it is
argued by the Cosmothetic Idealists—
“The external world exists, because we
naturally believe it to exist;” the illation
is incompetent, in as much as it errone-
ously assumes that our belief of an exter-
nal world is a primary datum of conscious-
ness. This is not the case. That an outer
world exists is given us, not as a “miracu-
lous revelation,” not as a “cast of magic,”
not as an “instinctive feeling,” not as a
“blind belief.” These expressions, in
750
[NotE A.
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
which the Cosmothetic Idealists shadow
forth the difficulty they create, and attempt
to solve, are wholly inapplicable to the
real fact. Our belief of a material uni-
verse is not ultimate; and that universe is
not unknown. This belief is not a super-
natural inspiration; it is not an infused
faith. We are not compelled by a blind
impulse to believe in the external world,
as in an unknown something; on the con-
trary, we believe it to exist only because
we are immediately cognizant of it as ex-
isting. If asked, indeed —How we know
that we know it?—how we know that
what we apprehend in sensible perception
is, as consciousness assures us, an object,
external, extended, and numerically diffe-
rent from the conscious subject?—how we
know that this object is not a mere mode
of mind, illusively presented to us as a
mode of matter?—then indeed we must
reply, that we do not in propriety know
that what we are compelled to perceive as
not-self, is not a perception of self, and
that we can only on reflection believe such
to be the case, in reliance on the original
necessity of so believing, imposed on us by
Our nature,
Quae nisi sit veri, ratio quoque falsa fit omnis.
That this is a correct statement of the
fact has been already shown; and if such
be the undenied and undeniable ground of
the natural belief of mankind, in the re-
ality of external things, the incompetence
of the argument from common sense in
the hands of the Cosmothetic Idealist is
manifest, in so far as it does not fulfil the
fundamental condition of that argument.
This defect of the argument may, in
the present example indeed, be easily sup-
plied, by interpolating the medium which
has been left out. But this cannot con-
sistently be done by the Cosmothetic
Idealist, who is reduced to this dilemma—
that if he adhere to his hypothesis, he must
renounce the argument; and if he apply
the argument, he must renounce his hypo-
thesis.
2. The second condition, that of absolute
truth, requires that he who applies the ar-
gument of common sense, by appealing to
the veracity of consciousness, should not
himself, directly or indirectly, admit that
consciousness is ever false; in other words,
he is bound, in applying this argument, to
apply it thoroughly, impartially, against
himself no less than against others, and not
according to the conveniences of his po-
lemic, to approbate and reprobate the tes-
timony of our original beliefs. That our
immediate consciousness, if competent to
prove any thing, must be competent to
prove every thing it avouches, is a prin-
ciple which none have been found, at least
openly, to deny. It is proclaimed by
Leibnitz: “Sil’expérience interne immé-
diate pouvait nous tromper, il ne saurait y
avoir pour moi aucune vérité de fait,
j'ajoute, ni deraison.” And by Lucretius:–
Denique ut in fabrica si prava 'st Regula prima,
Omnia mendosa fieriatgue obstipa necessum'st;
Sic igitur Ratio tibi rerum prava necesse 'st,
Falsaque sit, falsis quaecunque ab Sensibus or-
ta, 'St.
Compare Plotinus, En. W. Lib. v. c. 1 —
Buffier, Pr. Ver., § 71—I’eid, Inq., p. 183,
b. I. P., p. 260, b.
Yet, however notorious the condition,
that consciousness unless held trustworthy
in all its revelations cannot be held trust-
worthy in any ; marvellous to say, philo-
sophers have rarely scrupled, on the one
hand, quietly to supersede the data of con-
sciousness, so often as these did not fall in
with their preadopted opinions;–and on
the other, clamorously to appeal to them,
as irrecusable truths, so often as they could
allege them in corroboration of their own,
or in refutation of a hostile, doctrine.
I shall again take for an example the
fact of perception, and the violation of the
present condition by the Cosmothetic Ideal-
ists—1°, in the constitution of their own
doctrine; 2°, in their polemic against
more extreme opinions. -
In the first place, in the constitution of
their doctrine, nothing can be imagined
more monstrous than the procedure of
these philosophers, in attempting to win-
dicate the reality of a material world, on
the ground of an universal belief in its
existence; and yet rejecting the universal
belief in the knowledge on which the uni-
versal belief in the easistence is exclusively
based. Here the absurdity is twofold.
Firstly, in postulating a conclusion though
rejecting its premises; secondly, in found-
ing their doctrine partly on the veracity,
and partly on the mendacity, of conscious-
In GSS.
In the second place, with what consis-
tency and effect do the Hypothetical Real-
ists point the argument of common sense
against the obnoxious conclusions of the
thorough-going Idealist, the Materialist,
the Absolutist, the Nihilist?
Take first their vindication of an exter-
mal world against the Idealist. -
To prove this, do they, like Dr Thomas
Brown, simply found on the natural belief
of mankind in its existence? But they
themselves, as we have seen, admitting the
untruth of one natural belief—the belief
in our immediate knowledge of external
things—have no right to presume upon
§§ II. III.]
OF COMMON SENSE. - 751.
the truth of any other; and the absurdity
is carried to its climax, when the natural
belief, which they regard as false, is the
sole ground of the natural belief which
they would assume and found upon as true.
Again, do they, like Descartes, allege that
God would be a deceiver, were we con-
strained by nature to believe in the reality
of an unreal world ! But the Deity, on
their hypothesis, is a deceiver; for that
hypothesis assumes that our natural con
sciousness deludes us in the belief, that
external objects are immediately, and in
themselves, perceived. (See 747 a.) Either
therefore maintaining the veracity of God,
they must surrender their hypothesis; or,
maintaining their hypothesis, they must
surrender the veracity of God.
Against the Materialist, in proof of our
Personal Identity, can they maintain, that
consciousness is able to identify self, at
one period, with self, at another; when,
in their theory of perception, conscious-
ness mistaking self for not-self, is unable,
they virtually assert, to identify self with
self, even at the same moment of existence?
How, again, can they maintain the sub-
stantial Individuality and consequent Im-
materiality of the thinking principle, on
the unity of consciousness, when the duality
given in consciousness is not allowed sub-
stantially to discriminate the object from
the subject in perception ? -
But to take a broader view. It is a
maxim in philosophy, - That substances are
not to be multiplied without necessity; in
other words,--That a plurality of prin-
ciples are not to be assumed, when the pha2-
womena can possibly be eaſplaint d by one.
This regulative principle, which may be
called the law or maxim of Parcimony,
throws it therefore on the advocates of a
scheme of psychological Dualism, to prove
the necessity of supposing more than a
single substance for the phaenomena of
mind and matter.—Further, we know no-
thing whatever of mind and matter, con-
sidered as substances; they are only known
to us as a twofold series of phaenomena:
and we can only justify, against the law of
parcimony, the postulation of two sub-
stances, on the ground, that the two series
of phaenomena are, reciprocally so con-
trary and incompatible, that the one can-
not be reduced to the other, nor both be
supposed to coinhere in the same common
substance. Is this ground shown to be
invalid 7–the presumption against a dual-
istic theory at once recurs, and a unitarian
scheme becomes, in the circumstances,
philosophically necessary.
Now the doctrine of Cosmothetic Ideal-
ism, in abolishing the incompatibility of the
two series of phaenomena, subverts the only
ground on which a psychological Dualism
can be maintained. This doctrine denies
to mind a knowledge of aught beyond its
own modifications. The qualities, which
we call material—Extension, Figure, &c.
—ealist for ws, only as they are known by
w8 ; and, on this hypothesis, they are known
by us, only as modes of mind. The two
Series of phaenomena, therefore, so far
from being really, as they are apparently,
opposed, are, on this doctrine, in fact, ad-
mitted to be all only manifestations of the
same substance. -
So far, therefore, from the Hypotheti-
cal Dualist being able to resist the conclu-
sion of the Unitarian—whether Idealist,
Materialist, or Absolutist; the fundamen-
tal position of his philosophy—that the ob-
ject immediately known is in every act of
cognition identical with the subject knowing
—in reality, establishes any and every
doctrine but his own. On this principle,
the Idealist may educe the object from the
subject; the Materialist educe the subject
from the object; the Absolutist carry both
up into indifference; nay the Nihilist sub-
vert the substantial reality of either:—and
the Hypothetical Dualist is doomed to
prove, that, while the only salvation against
these melancholy results is an appeal to
the natural convictions of mankind, that
the argument from common sense is, in his
hands a weapon, either impotent against
his opponents, or fatal equally to himself
and them. -
Ś III. — The argument from Common
Sense is one strictly philosophical and
scientific.
We have thus seen, though the argu-
ment from common sense be an appeal to
the natural convictions of mankind, that it
is not an appeal from philosophy to blind
feeling. It is only an appeal, from the
heretical conclusions of particular philoso-
phies, to the catholic principles of all phi-
losophy. The prejudice, which, on this
supposition, has sometimes been excited
against the argument, is groundless.
Nor is it true, that the argument from
common sense denies the decision to the
judgment of philosophers, and accords it
to the verdict of the vulgar. Nothing can
be more erroneous. We admit—may we
maintain, as D’Alembert well expresses it,
“ that the truth in metaphysic, like the
truth in matters of taste, is a truth of
which all minds have the germ within
themselves; to which indeed the greater
number pay no attention, but which they
752
[NOTE. A.
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
recognise the moment it is pointed out to
them. . . But if, in this sort, all are able to
understand, all are not able to instruct.
The merit of conveying easily to others
true and simple notions is much greater
than is commonly supposed; for experience
proves how rarely this is to be met with.
Sound metaphysical ideas are common
truths, which every one apprehends, but
which few have the talent to develope.
So difficult is it on any subject to make
our own what belongs to every one.”
(Melanges, t. iv. § 6.) Or, to employ the
words of the ingenious Lichtenberg—
“Philosophy, twist the matter as we may,
is always a sort of chemistry (Scheide-
kunst.) The peasant employs all the
principles of abstract philosophy, only in-
veloped, latent, engaged, as the men of
physical science express it; the Philoso-
pher exhibits the pure principle.” (Hin-
terlassene Schriften, vol. ii., p. 67.)
The first problem of Philosophy—and
it is one of no easy accomplishment—being
thus to seek out, purify, and establish, by
intellectual analysis and criticism, the ele-
mentary feelings or beliefs, in which are
given the elementary truths of which all
are in possession; and the argument from
common sense being the allegation of these
feelings or beliefs as explicated and ascer-
tained, in proof of the relative truths and
their necessary consequences;–this argu-
ment is manifestly dependent on philo-
sophy, as an art, as an acquired dexterity,
and cannot, notwithstanding the errors
which they have so frequently committed,
be taken out of the hands of the philoso-
phers. Common Sense is like Common
Law. Each may be laid down as the ge-
neral rule of decision; but in the one case
it must be left to the jurist, in the other
to the philosopher, to ascertain what are
the contents of the rule; and though in
both instances the common man may be
cited as a witness, for the custom or the
fact, in neither can he be allowed to offi-
ciate as advocate or as judge.
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PHocyLIDEs.
It must be recollected, also, that in ap-
pealing to the consciousness of mankind
in general, we only appeal to the consci-
ousness of those not disqualified to pro-
nounce a decision. “ In saying (to use
the words of Aristotle) simply and with-
out qualification, that this or that is a
known truth, we do not mean that it is in
fact recognized by all, but only by such
as are of a sound understanding; just as
in saying absolutely, that a thing is whole-
some, we must be held to mean, to such as
are of a hale constitution.” (Top. L. vi.,
c. 4, § 7.)—We may, in short, say of the
true Philosopher what Erasmus, in an
epistle to Hutten, said of Sir Thomas
More:—“Nemo minus ducitur vulgi ju-
dicio ; sed rursus nemo minus abest a
sensw communi.”
When rightly understood, therefore, no
valid objection can be taken to the argu-
ment of common sense, considered in itself.
But it must be allowed that the way in
which it has been sometimes applied was
calculated to bring it into not unreason-
able disfavour with the learned. (See C.
L. Reinhold's Beytraege zur leichtern
Uebersicht des Zustandes der Philosophie,
i. p. 61; and Niethhammer in his Journal,
i. p. 43 sq.) In this country in particular,
some of those who opposed it to the scep-
tical conclusions of Hume did not suffi-
ciently counteract the notion which the
name might naturally suggest; they did
not emphatically proclaim that it was no
appeal to the undeveloped beliefs of the
unreflective many; and they did not in-
culcate that it presupposed a critical ana-
lysis of these beliefs by the philosophers
themselves. On the contrary, their lan-
guage and procedure might even, some-
times, warrant an opposite conclusion.
This must be admitted without reserve
of the writings of Beattie, and more es-
pecially, of Oswald. But even Reid, in
his earlier work, was not so explicit as to
prevent his being occasionally classed in
the same category. That the strictures
on the “Scottish Philosophy of Common
Sense” by Feder, Lambert, Tetens, Eber-
hard, Kant, ljlrich, Jacob, &c., were inap-
plicable to Reid, is sufficiently proved by
the more articulate exposition of his doc-
trine, afterwards given in his Essays on
the Intellectual and Active Powers. But
these criticisms having been once recorded,
we need not wonder at their subsequent
repetition, without qualification or excep-
tion, by philosophers and historians of
philosophy.
To take, as an example, the judgment
of the most celebrated of these critics.
“It is not (says Kant, in the preface to
his Prolegomena) without a certain pain-
ful feeling, that we behold how completely
Hume's opponents, Reid, Oswald, Beattie,
and, at last, Priestley, missed the point of
his problem; and whilst they, on the one
hand, constantly assumed the very posi-
tions which he did not allow, and on the
§ III.]
753
OF COMMON SENSE.
ôther, demonstrated warmly, and often
with great intemperance, what he had
never dreamt of calling into question, they
so little profited by the hint which he had
given towards better things, that all re-
mained in the same position as if the mat-
ter had never been agitated at all. The
question mooted, was not— Whether the
notion of Cause were right, applicable, and,
in relation to all natural knowledge, indis-
pensable ; for of this Hume had never insin-
uated a doubt; but— Whether this motion
were by the mind eacogitated a priori,
whether it thus possessed an intrinsic truth,
independent of all eaſperience, and conse-
quently a more eatensive applicability, one
riot limited merely to objects of eaperience :
on this Hume awaited a disclosure. In
fact, the whole dispute regarded the
origin of this notion, and not its indispen-
sability in use. If the former be made
out, all that respects the conditions of its
use, and the sphere within which it can
be validly applied, follow as corollaries, of
themselves. In order satisfactorily to
solve the problem, it behoved the oppo-
nents of this illustrious man to have pene-
trated deeply into the nature of the mind,
considered as exclusively occupied in pure
thinking: but this did not suit them. They,
therefore, discovered a more convenient
method, in an appeal to the common un-
derstanding of mankind (gemeiner Men-
schenverstand)”—and so forth; showing
that Kant understood by the common
sense of the Scottish philosophers, only
good sense, sound understanding, &c.
(Prolegomena, p. 10.)
I will not object to the general truth of
the statements in this passage; nor to
their bearing in so far as they are applied
to the British philosophers in general. For
Reid, however, I must claim an exemp-
tion; and this I shall establish with regard
to the very notion of Cause to which Kant
refers.
That from the limited scope of his
earlier work the “Inquiry,” Reid had not
occasion to institute a critical analysis of
the notion of Causality, affords no ground
for holding that he did not consider such
analysis to be necessary in the establish-
ment of that and the other principles of
common sense. This, indeed, he in that
very work, once and again, explicitly de-
clares. “We have taken notice of several
original principles of belief in the course
of this inquiry; and when other faculties
of the mind are examined we shall find
more. * * * A clear eaſplication and
enwmeration of the principles of common
sense, is one of the chief desiderata in Logic.
We have only considered such of them as
occurred in the examination of the five
Senses.” p. 209 ab. See also p. 96 a. And
accordingly in his subsequent and more
extensive work, the “Essays on the In-
tellectual Powers,” published within two
years after Kant’s “Prolegomena,” we
find the notion of Causality, among others,
investigated by the very same critical pro-
cess which the philosopher of Koenigsberg
so successfully employed; though there be
no reason whatever for surmising that
Reid had ever heard the name, far less
seen the works, of his illustrious censor
The criterion—the index by which Kant
discriminates the riotions of pure or a priori
origin from those elaborated from expe-
rience, is their quality of necessity; and its
quality of necessity is precisely the cha-
racteristic by which Reid proves that,
among others, the notion of causality can
not be an educt of experience, but must
form a part of the native cognitions of the
mind itself. It is doubtful indeed whether
Reid, like Kant, was even indebted to
Leibnitz for his knowledge of this touch-
stone; but the fact of its familiar employ-
ment by him in the discrimination and
establishment of the fundamental principles
of thought, more especially in his later
works, sufficiently shows, that the reproach
of an uncritical application of the argu-
ment from common sense, made against
the Scottish philosophers in general, was,
at least in reference to him, unfounded.
Reid however—and to his honour be it
spoken—stands alone among the philoso-
phers of this country in his appreciation
and employment of the criterion of neces-
sity. See Note T. -
[Since writing the above, I have met
with the following passage in the “Lettere
Philosophiche” of Baron Galluppi, one of
the two most distinguished of the present
metaphysicians of Italy. -
“The philosopher of Koenigsberg makes
Hume thus reason:—‘Metaphysical Cau-
sality is not in the objects observed; it
is, therefore, a product of imagination
engendered upon custom.”—This reason-
ing, says Kant, is inexact. It ought to
have proceeded thus. – “Causality is not
in the things observed; it is therefore in
the observer.” But here Kant does not
apprehend Hume's meaning, whose rea-
soning, as I have stated in the eighth let-
ter, is altogether different. Metaphysical
causality, he argues, is not in the things.
observed; it cannot therefore be in the
observer, in whom all is derived from the
things observed. Reid fully understands
the purport of Hume's argument, and
3 G
754
[NOTE 3.
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
meets it precisely and conclusively with
this counter-reasoning; — ‘ Metaphysical
Causality is a fact in our intellect; it is not
derived from the things observed, and is
therefore a subjective law of the observer.’
Kant objects, that Reid has not attended
to the state of the question. There is no
dispute, he says, about the existence of the
notion of metaphysical causality; the only
doubt regards its origin, This is altoge-
ther erroneous. Hume being unable to
find the origin of the notion in experience,
denied its existence. Kant's eritieism of
Reid is therefore unjust.” P. 225. .
Kant, I think, is here but hardly dealt
with. Hume did not, certainly, deny the
existenee of the notion of causality, mean-
ing thereby its existence as a mental phae-
nomenon; he only (on the hypothesis of
the them dominant doctrine of sensualism)
shewed that it had no objective validity—
no legitimate genesis. Hin different points
of view, therefore, Hume may be said to
deny, and not to deny, its reality. The
dispute is a mere logomachy. See Note
Q.—Kant also stands clear of injustice to-
wards Reid, when it is considered that his
strictures on the Scottish philosophers were
prior to the appearance of the “Essays on
the Intellectual Powers,” the work in
which Reid first expounded his doctrine
of causality.]
§ IV. On the Essential Characters by
which the principles of Common Sense
are discriminated.
It now remains to consider what are
the essential notes or characters by which
we are enabled to distinguish our original,
from our derivative, convictions. These
characters, I think, may be reduced to
four;-1°, their Incomprehensibility—2°,
their Simplicity—3°, their Necessity and
absolute Universality—4°, their compara-
tive Evidence and Certainty.
1. In reference to the first;-A con-
viction is incomprehensible when there is
merely given us in consciousness— That
its object is (3r floºri); and when we
are unable to comprehend through a higher
motion or belief, Why or How it is (3,644
#ara). When we are able to comprehend
why or how a thing is, the belief of the
existence of that thing is not a primary
datum of consciousness, but a subsumption
under the cognition or belief which affords
its reason. -
2. As to the second;—It is manifest
that if a cognition or belief be made up
of, and can be explicated into, a plurality
of cognitions or beliefs, that, as compound,
it cannot be original.
3. Touching the third;—Necessity and
Universality may be regarded as coinci-
dent. For when a belief is necessary it
is, eo ipso, universal; and that a belief is
universal, is a certain index that it must
be necessary. (See Leibnitz, Nouveaux
Essais, L. i. § 4. p. 32.) To prove the
necessity, the universality must, however,
be absolute; for a relative universality
indicates no more than custom and educa-
tion, howbeit the subjects themselves may
deem that they follow only the dictates of
nature. As St Jerome has it –“ Uma-
quaeque gens hec legem naturae putat,
quod didieit.”
It is to be observed, that the necessity
here spoken of, is of two kinds. There
is one necessity, when we cannot construe
it to our minds as possible, that the deli-
Verance of consciousness should not be true.
This logical impossibility occurs in the
case of what are called necessary truths—
truths of reason or intelligence; as in the
law of causality, the law of substance, and
still more in the laws of identity, contra-
diction, and excluded middle. There is
another necessity, when it is not unthink-
able, that the deliverance of consciousness
may possibly be false, but at the same
time, when we cannot but admit, that this
deliverance is of such or such a purport.
This is seen in the case of what are called
eontingent truths or truths of fact. Thus,
for example, I can theoretically suppose -
that the external object I am conscious of
in perception, may be, in reality, nothing
but a mode of mind or self. I am unable
however to think that it does not appear
to me—that consciousness does not com-
pel me to regard it—as oxternal—as a
mode of matter or not-self. And such
being the case, I cannot practically believe
the supposition I am able speculatively
to maintain. For I cannot believe this
supposition, without believing that the last
ground of all belief is not to be believed ;
which is self-contradictory. “Nature,”
says Pascal, “confounds the Pyrrhonist;”
and, among many similar confessions, those
of Hume, of Fichte, of Hommel may suffice
for an acknowledgement of the impossibi-
lity which the Sceptic, the Idealist, the
Fatalist finds in practically believing the
scheme which he views as theoretically
demonstrated.—The argument from com-
mon sense, it may be observed, is of prin-
cipal importance in reference to the class
of contingent truths. The others, from
their converse being absolutely incogitable,
sufficiently guard themselves.
As this criterion of Necessity and Uni-
versality is signalised by nearly the whole
§ $ Iv. v.]
OF COMMON SENSE. 755.
series of authorities adduced in the sequel,
it would be idle to refer to any in particu-
lar. See however Reid, p. 233, a.; and
on the quality of Necessity as a criterion
of the originality of a cognition, Note T,
with the relative places. Buffier’s second
and third essential qualities of primary
truths may be reduced to this. See in
Testimonies n. 63.
4. The fourth and last character of our
original beliefs is their comparative Evi-
dence and Certainty. This along with
the third is well stated by Aristotle.—
“What appears to all that we affirm to be;
and he who rejects this belief will assured-
ly advance nothing better deserving of cre-
dence.” And again:—“If we know and
believe through certain original princi-
ples, we must know and believe these with
paramount certainty, for the very reason
that we know and believe all else through
them.” And such are the truths in regard
to which the Aphrodisian says, “ though
some men may verbally dissent, all men
are in their hearts agreed.” This con-
stitutes the first of Buffier's essential qua-
lities of primary truths, which is, as he
expresses it, “to be so clear, that if we
attempt to prove or to disprove them,
this can be done only by propositions
which are manifestly neither more evident
nor more certain.” Testimonies nn. 3,
10, 63. Compare the others, passim.
A good illustration of this character is
afforded by the assurance—to which we
have already so frequently referred—that
in perception mind is immediately cogni-
sant of matter. How self can be con-
scious of not-self, how mind can be cog-
misant of matter, we do not know; but we
know as little how mind can be percipient
of itself. In both cases we only know the
fact, on the authority of consciousness;
and when the conditions of the problem
are rightly understood—when it is esta-
blished that it is only the primary qualities
of body which are apprehended in them-
selves, and this only in so far as they are
in immediate relation to the organ of sense,
the difficulty in the one case is not more
than in the other. This in opposition to
the simple Idealists. But the Cosmothe.
tic Idealists—the Hypothetical Realists
are far less reasonable; who, in the teeth
of consciousness, on the ground of incon-
ceivability, deny to mind all cognisance
of matter, yet bestow on it the more
inconceivablo power of representing, and
truly representing, to itself the external
world which, ex bypothesi, it does not know.
These theorists do not substitute, in
place of the simple fact which they repu-
diate, another more easy and intelligible.
On the contrary they gratuitously involve
themselves in a maze of unwarrantable
postulates, difficulties, improbabilities, and
self-contradictions, of such a character,
that we well may wonder, how the doc-
trine of Cosmothetic Idealism has been
able to enlist under its banners, not a few
merely, but the immense majority of mo-
dern philosophers. The Cosmothetic
Idealists, in truth, violate in their hypo-
thesis every condition of a legitimate hy-
pothesis. But for the illustration of this,
I must again refer to the article on the
Philosophy of Perception, Edinburgh Re-
view, vol. lii. p. 178–181.
§ V.— The Nomenclature, that is the vari-
ows appellations by which the principles
of Common Sense have been designated.
It is evident that the foundations of our
knowledge cannot properly be themselves
the objects of our knowledge; for as by
them we know all else, by nought else can
they themselves be known. We know
them indeed, but only in the fact, that
with and through them we know. This
it is which has so generally induced philo-
sophers to bestow on them appellations
marking out the circumstance, that in dif-
ferent points of view, they may and they
may not, be regarded as cognitions. They
appear as cognitions, in so far as we are
conscious that (šºr) they actually are; they
do not appear as cognitions, in so far as
in them we are not conscious how (316+1)
they possibly can be. Philosophers ac-
cordingly, even when they view and desig-
nate them as cognitions, are wont to qua-
lify their appellation, under this character,
by some restrictive epithet. For exam-
ple, Cicero styling them intelligentia: does
not do so simply; but i. inchoatoe, i. ad-
wmbratae, i. obscurae, &c. A similar limi-
tation is seen in the terms witimate facts,
primary data, &c. of consciousness; for
these and the analogous expressions are in-
tended to show, that while their existence
is within our apprehension, the reason or
ground of their existence is beyond our
comprehension.
. On the other hand we see the preva-
lence of the opposite point of view in the
nomenclatures which seem to regard them.
not as cognitions wholly within conscious-
ness, but as the bases of cognition, and
therefore partly without, and partly with-
in, consciousness. Such is the scope of
the analogical designations applied to
them of Senses, Feelings, Instincts, Revela-
tions, Inspirations, Suggestions, Beliefs,
Assents, Holdings, &c. It is the inexpli-
756
[Note A.
~ ()N THE PHILOSOPHY
cable and equivocal character which the
roots of our knowledge thus exhibit, to
which we ought to attribute the inade-
quacy, the vacillation and the ambiguity of
the terms by which it has been attempted
to denote them; and it is with an indul-
gent recollection of this, that we ought
to criticise all and each of these denomi-
nations, – which, after this general ob-
servation, I proceed to consider in de-
tail. In doing this I shall group them ac-
cording to the principal points of view
from which it would seem they were im-
posed.
I. The first condition, the consideration
of which seems to have determined a cer–
tain class of names, is that of Immediacy.
In our primitive cognitions we apprehend
existence at once, and without the inter-
vention of aught between the apprehend-
ing mind and the existence apprehended.
Under this head the first appellations
are those which, with some qualifying at-
tribute, apply to these cognitions the name
of --Sense. *
It is hardly necessary to observe that
the words corresponding to the term Sense
and its conjugates have in no language
been limited to our perceptions of the ex-
ternal world, or to the feeling of our bodily
affections. In every language they have
been extended to the operations of the
higher faculties;–indeed it can be shown,
in almost every instance, that the names
which ultimately came to be appropriated
to the purest acts of intelligence were, in
their origin, significant of one or other of
the functions of our organic sensibility.
Such among others is the rationale of the
terms moral sense (sensus boni.) logical
sense (sensus veri) aesthetical sense (sensus
pulchri), which, even in modern philoso-
phy, have been very commonly employed,
though not employed to denote any thing
lower than the apprehensive faculty of in-
telligence in these different relations. On
this transference of the term Sense, see
Aristotle, (De Anima, L. iii. c. 3)—Quin-
tàian, (Instit. L. viii. c. 5)—Budaeus, (in
Pandectas, Tit. i.)—Salmasius, (ad Soli-
num, p. 141.)—Grotius, (ad Acta Aposto-
lorum, vii. 32, and I. Petri, i.12.)—Clanber-
givis, (Exercitationes, 83–88)—IBurman-
nus, (ad Phaedrum, L. ii. Ep. 13.)—Gro-
movius, (Diatribe ad Statium, c. 43.)—J. A.
Fabricius, (Programma De Gustatu Pul-
cri, p. 5.) &c. &c.
This being, in general, premised we
have now to consider in particular, 1°, the
ancient term Common Sense; and, 2°, the
modern term Internal Sense, as applied to
our elementary consciousness.
1. SENSE Common, (sensus communis,
sensus communes, sensus publicus, sens com-
nwn, senso comune, Gemeinsinn,) principles,
awioms, maſcims, truths, judgments, &c. of.
The Greek tongue was for a long pe—
riod destitute of any word to denote Con-
Sciousness; and it was only after both the
philosophy and language of Greece had
passed their prime, that the terms avyazia-
£4,022, and avyozizénois were applied not
merely to denote the apperception of sense
but the primary condition of knowledge in
general. (See Note I.) The same ana-
logy explains how in the Latin tongue the
term Sensus Communis came, from a very
ancient period, to be employed with a si-
milar latitude; and as Latin, even after
its extinction as a living language, was
long the exclusive vehicle of religion and
philosophy throughout western Europe,
we need not wonder that the analysis and
its expression, the thing and the word,
passed not only into the dialects in which
the Romanic, but into those also in which
the Teutonic, element was predominant.
But as the expression is not unambiguous
it is requisite to distinguish its significa-
tions.
The various meanings in which the term
Common Sense is met with, in ancient and
modern times, may I think be reduced to
four ; and these fall into two categories,
according as it is, or is not, limited to the
Sphere of sense proper.
As restricted to sense proper.
a.—Under this head Common Sense has
only a single meaning; that to wit which
it obtained in the Peripatetic philosophy
and its derivative systems. Common
Sense (zolvå &ſadnous) was employed by
Aristotle to denote the faculty in which
the various reports of the several senses
are reduced to the unity of a common ap-
perception. This signification is determi-
nate. The others are less precisely dis-
criminated from each other. -
(I may observe, however, that a second
meaning under this category might be
found in the Coenaesthesis, common feeling
or sensation, by which certain German
physiologists have denominated the sensus
vagus or vital sense, and which some of
them translate by common sense (Gemein-
sinn). But as the term in this significa-
tion has been employed recently, rarely,
abusively, and without imposing authority,
I shall discount it.)
As not limited to the sphere of sense pro-
per, it comprises three meanings. . .
b.—The second signification of Com-
mon Sense is when it denotes the comple-
ment of those cognitions or convictions
§ v.]
757
OF COMMON SENSE.
which we receive from nature; which all
men therefore possess in common; and by
which they test the truth of knowledge,
and the morality of actions. This is the
meaning in which the expression is now
emphatically employed in philosophy, and
which may be, therefore, called its philo-
sophical signification. As authorities for
its use in this relation, Reid (I. P. p. 423–
425) has adduced legitimate examples
from Bentley, Shaftesbury, Fenelon, Buf-
fier, and Hume. The others which he
quotes from Cicero and Priestley can hardly
be considered as more than instances of
the employment of the words; for the for-
mer, in the particular passage quoted, does
not seem to mean by “sensus communes.”
more than the faculty of apprehending
sensible relations which all possess; and the
latter explicitly states, that he uses the
words in a meaning (the third) which we
are hereafter to consider. Mr Stewart
(Elements, vol ii., c. 7, sect. 3, p. 76) to
the examples of Reid adds only a single,
and that not an unambiguous, instance—
from Bayle. It therefore still remains to
show that in this signification its employ-
ment is not only of authorised usage, but,
in fact, one long and universally estab-
lished. This is done in the series of tes-
timonies I shall adduce in a subsequent
part of this note, principally indeed to
prove that the doctrine of Common Sense,
notwithstanding many schismatic aberra-
tions, is the one catholic and perennial
philosophy, but which also concur in show-
ing that this too is the name under which
that doctrine has for two thousand years
been most familiarly known, at least, in
the western world. Of these Lucretius,
Cicero, Horace, Seneca, Tertullian, Ar-
nobius, and St Augustin, exhibit the ex-
pression as recognised in the language and
philosophy of ancient Rome; while some
fifty others prove its scientific and collo-
quial usage in every country of modern
Europe. (See Nos. 5–8, 12, 13, 15, 23,
25, 27–29, 31, 32, 34, 36, 38–44, 47, 48,
51–53, 55, 56, 58–69, 71–75, 78–85,
90.
ł. objections to the term Common
Sense in this its philosophical application
are obvious enough. It is not unambigu-
ous. To ground an objection it has some-
times unintentionally, more frequently wil-
fully, been taken in the third signification
(v. p. 758b); and its employment has even
afforded a ground for supposing that Reid
and other Scottish philosophers proposed
under it a certain peculiar sense, distinct
from intelligence, by which truth is appre-
hended or revealed. See Fries, in Testi-
monies No. 70, and Franke, Leben aes
Gefuehls, $42. - *
On the other hand, besides that no other
expression, to which valid objection may
not be taken, has yet been proposed; and
besides, that it has itself been ratified by
ancient and general usage; the term Com-
mon Sense is not inappropriately applied
to denote an original source of knowledge
common to all mankind—a fountain of
truths intelligible indeed, but like those of
the senses revealed immediately as facts to
be believed, but not as possibilities to be
explained and understood. On this ground
the term Sense has found favour, in this
application, with the most ancient and the
most recent philosophers. For example—
Aristotle (Eth. Nic. L. vi. c. 11, and Eth.
Eud. L. V. c. 11) says that vois, Intelli-
gence proper, the faculty of first princi-
ples is, in certain respects, a Sense; and
the ancient Scholiast, Eustratius, in his
commentary on the former work (f. 110, b)
explains it by observing, “ that Intelli-
gence and Sense have this exclusively in
common—they are both immediate cogni-
tions.” Hence it is that Aristotle (Me-
taph. xii. 7), Theophrastus (see Test. No.
| 4), and Plotinus (En. vi. L. vii. cc. 36, 39,
L. ix. c. 7) assimilate intellection, the noetic
energy, to towching in particular. * In
* Among the Greeks the expression “Com-
mon Intellect” was, however, rarely, if ever,
used for Common Sense in this its second, or
philosophical, meaning. The learned Mr Har-
ris (in a note on his Dialogue concerning Hap-
piness) in stating the doctrine of the Greek
philosophers, says—“The recognition of self
evident truths, or at least the ability to recog-
nize them is called zouvèg vows, “ common sense,”
as being a sense common to all, except lunatics
and idiots.” This is inaccurate; for his state-
ment of what was usual among the Greeks is
founded (I presume, for he does not allege any
authority,) on a single, and singular, example
of such usage. It is that of Epictetus (Diss.
Arriani, L. iii. c. 6). This philosopher seems
in that passage to give the name of common
intellect (zouvès voijs which H. Wolfius and Up-
ton translate by sensus communis) to the faculty
of those common motions possessed by all who
are of sound mind. Now were the epithet
common here applied to intellect because intel-
lect is the repository of such common notions
or in as much as it is common to all men—this,
however likely a usage, is, I am confident, the
only, or almost the only, example to be found
in antiquity of such a nomenclature; for though
the expression in question is frequent among
the Greek writers, I do not recollect to have
elsewhere met with it in a similar import. It
is employed in two significations.—1°, with vous
in its stricter meaning, for the highest faculty
of mind, rouvès is used to mark its imperson-
758
[NOTE A.
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
reference to the apprehension of primary
truths, ‘the soul,” says Dr John Smith,
* has its senses, in like manner as the
body’ (Select Discourses); and his friend
Dr Henry More designates the same, by
the name of intellectual sense, (Test. n.
45.) Jacobi defines Vernunſt, his faculty
of ‘intellectual intuitions’ as ‘the sense
of the supersensible.” (Test. n. 87.) De
la Mennais could not find a more suitable
expression whereby to designate his theo-
logical system of whiversal consent or gene-
ral reason, than that of Common Sense ;
and Borger in his classical work “De
Mysticismo” prefers sensus as the least ex-
ceptionable word by which to discriminate
those notions, of which, while we are con-
scious of the existence, we are ignorant of
the reason and origin. “Cum igitur, qui
has notiones sequitur, illum sensum sequi
ality, its unity, its general identity in men, or
in man and God. 29, With vows, in its looser
meaning for mind in general, it denotes a com-
munity of opinion or a community of social
sentiment, corresponding to Sensus Communis
among the Romans, to be spoken of as the fourth
signification. The only second instance, I be-
lieve, that can be brought, is from the Aphro-
disian. (On the Soul, f. 138 ed. Ald.) But
there the epithet common is given to the natu-
ral in opposition to the acquired intellect, ex-
clusively from the circumstance that the for-
mer is possessed by all of sound mind, the latter
only by some; may from a comparison of the two
passages it is evident, that Alexander in his em-
ployment of the expression had Epictetus and
this very instance immediately in his eye. But
it is in fact by no means improbable that Epic-
tetus here uses the expression only in the first
of its two ordinary significations—as a Stoic, to
denote the individual intellect, considered as a
particle of the universal; and this even the
commentators are inclined to believe. See
Upton, ad locum. In illustration of this:—Plu-
tarch in his treatise ‘ On Common Notions
against the Stoics,” uses (after ºrog& or zoºr&)
rºw zouwhy ivyoto,w or rās zolyā; #vvoices at least
twenty-three times, and without the adjective rºy
#vyolºv or rās #vvoias, at least twenty-one times 3
which last, by the bye, Xylander always renders
by “Sensus Communis.” Now how many times
does Plutarch use as a symonyme, couvèv vody
Not once. He does, indeed, once employ it
and Kolve; peºvas (p. 1077 of the folio editions);
but in the sense of an agreement in thought
with others—the sense which it obtains also in
the only other example of the expression to be
foundin his writings. (P. 529 D.)
I see Forcellini (voce Sensus) has fallen into
the same inaccuracy as Harris.
Imay here notice that Aristotle does not apply
the epithet common to intellect at all; for roi,
xoivot (De An. i. S. § 5) does not, as Themistius
supposes, mean * of the common [intellect].”
but ‘ of the composite; made up of soul and
body.
dicinus, hoc dicinus, illas notiones non
esse ratione [ratiocinatione] quaesitas, sed
omni argumentatione antiquiores. Eo au-
tem majori jure eos sensus vocabulo com-
plectimur, quod, adeo obscurae sunt, ut
eorum me distincte quidem nobis conscii
simus, Sed eas esse, ex efficacia earum in-
telligamus, i. e. ex vi qua animum afficiuntº
(P. 259, ed. 2.) See also of Testimonies
the numbers already specified.
c.—In the third signification, Common
Sense may be used with emphasis on the
adjective or on the substantive.
In the former case, it denotes such an
ordinary complement of intelligence, that,
if a person be deficient therein, he is ac-
counted mad or foolish.
Sensus communis is thus used in Phae-
drus, L. i. 7 ;—but Horace, Serm i. iii. 66,
and Juvenal Sat. viii. 73, are erroneously,
though usually, interpreted in this signi-
fication. In modern Latinity (as in Milton
contra Salmasium, c. 8) and in most of
the vulgar languages, the expression in
this meaning is so familiar that it would
be idle to adduce examples. Sir James
Mackintosh (Dissertations, &c., p. 387 of
collected edition) indeed, imagines that
this is the only meaning of common sense ;
and on this ground censures Reid for the
adoption of the term; and even Mr Stew-
art’s objections to it seem to proceed on
the supposition, that this is its proper or
more accredited signification. See Ele=
mentsii. ch. 1, Sec. 2; et supra 27 b. This
is wrong; but Reid himself, it must be ac-
knowledged, does not sufficiently distin-
guish between the second and third accep-
tations; as may be seen from the tenor
of the second chapter of the sixth Essay
on the Intellectual Powers, but especially
from the concluding chapter of the In-
quiry. (p. 209 b.)
In the latter case, it expresses native,
practical intelligence, natural prudence,
mother wit, tact in behaviour, acuteness
in the observation of character, &c., in
contrast to habits of acquired learning, or
of speculation away from the affairs of
life. I recollect no unambiguous exam-
ple of the phrase, in this precise accepta-
tion, in any ancient author. In the mo-
dern languages, and more particularly in
French and English, it is of ordinary oc-
currence. Thus, Voltaire's saying, ‘Le
sens commun n'est pas si commun;’—
which, I may notice, was stolen from Buf-
fier. (Metaphysique, $ 69.)
With either emphasis it corresponds to
the zouvög Aoylagög of the Greeks, and
among them to the d666; 7,670g of the Sto-
| ics, to the gesunde Menschenverstand of the
§ v.]
'759
OF COMMON SENSE.
Germans, to the Bons Sens of the French,
and to the Good Sense of the English.
The two emphases enable us to reconcile
the following contradictions:—* Le bon
sens (says Descartes) est la chose du
monde la mieux partagée;’ ‘Good sense
(says Gibbon) is a quality of mind hardly
less rare than genius.”
d.—In the fourth and last signification,
Common Sense is no longer a natural
quality; it denotes an acquired perception
or feeling of the common duties and pro-
prieties expected from each member of
society, a gravitation of opinion—a sense
of conventional decorum—communional
sympathy—general bienséance—public spi-
rit, &c. In this signification—at least as
absolutely used—it is limited to the lan-
guage of ancient Rome. This is the mean-
ing in which it occurs in Cicero, De Orat.
3. 3, ii. 16—Or. pro Domo 37—in Ho-
race, Serm. i. iii. 66—in Juvenal, Sat. viii.
73—in Quintilian, Instit. i. 2—and in Se-
neca, Epp. 5, 105, whose words in ano-
ther place (which I cannot at the moment
recover) are—“Sic in beneficio Sensus
communis, locum, tempus, personam ob-
servet.” Shaftesbury and others, misled
probably by Casaubon, do not seize the
central motion in their interpretation of
several of these texts. In this meaning
the Greeks sometimes employed zouvög vowg
—an ambiguous expression, for which An-
toninus seems to have coined as a substi-
tute, zouvovozºogºva.--To this head may be
referred Hutcheson's employment of Sem-
sus Communis for Sympathy. Synopsis
Metaphysicae, P. ii. c. l.
2. – SENSE imanost, interior, internal,
(sensus intimus, interior, internus, sons
intime, interne.) This was introduced,
as a convertible term with Conscious-
wess in general, by the philosophers of the
Cartesian school; and thus came to be
frequently applied to denote the source,
complement, or revelation of immediate
truths. It is however not only in itself
vague, but liable to be confounded with
&nternal sense, in other very different sig-
nifications. . We need not therefore re-
gret, that in this relation, it has not (though
Hutcheson set an example) been natural-
ized in British Philosophy.
The third appellation determined by the
condition of Immediacy is that of
3.–INTUIT Ions—INTUITIVE cognitions,
motions, judgments, (Intwittories—Intwitt's
—cognitio Intuitiva—Intuitions—faculté
Intuitive—Anschauungen. We may add,
#zºoxazi-yvägi, zºrº 76%rnu #zºoxhu.
In this sense cºrozºrazós, #707 ruzög are rare.
: The term Intuition is not unambiguous.
Besides its original and proper meaning
(as a visual perception), it has been em-
ployed to denote a kind of apprehension,
and a kind of judgment.
‘Under the former head, Intuition, or in-
tuitive knowledge, has been used in the
six following significations:——
a.—To denote a perception of the ac-
tual and present, in opposition to the ‘ab-
stractive’ knowledge which we have of
the possible in imagination, and of the past
In memory.
b. — To denote an immediate appre-
hension of a thing in itself; in contrast to
a representative, vicarious, or mediate, ap-
prehension of it, in or through something
else. (Hence by Fichte, Schelling, and
others, Intuition is employed to designate
the cognition, as opposed to the conception,
of the Absolute.)
c. — To denote the knowledge which
we can adequately represent in imagina-
tion, in contradistinction to the ‘symbo-
lical' knowledge which we cannot image,
but only think or conceive, through and
under a sign or word. (Hence probably
Kant's application of the term to the forms
of the Sensibility—the imaginations of
Space and Time—in contrast to the forms
or categories of the Understanding).
d.— To denote perception proper (the
objective), in contrast to sensation proper
(the subjective), in our sensitive consci-
OllSI1(3SS.
e.—To denote the simple apprehension
of a notion, in contradistinction to the
complex apprehension of the terms of a
proposition. -
Under the latter head, it has only a
single signification; viz. -
f. — To denote the intmediate affirma-
tion by the intellect, that the predicate
does or does not pertain to the subject, in
what are called self-evident propositions.
All these meanings, however, with the
exception of the fourth, have this in com-
mon, that they express the condition of
an immediate, in opposition to a mediate,
knowledge. It is therefore easy to see,
how the term was suggested in its appli-
cation to our original cognitions; and how
far it marks out their distinctive character.
It has been employed in this relation by
Bescartes, Leibnitz, Locke, Hemsterhuis,
Beattie, Jacobi, Ancillon, Degerando,
Thurot, and many others.
II. The second condition, which, along
with their Immediacy, seems to have de-
termined a class of names, is the Incom-
prehensibility or Imeſºplicability of our
original cognitions.
Under this head there are two ap-
760
[NOTE: A
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
pellations which first present themselves
––Feeling and Belief; and these must be
considered in correlation.
A thing mediately known is conceived
under a representation or notion, and
therefore only known as possibly existing;
a thing immediately known is apprehend-
ed in itself, and therefore lºinown as ac-
tually existing. -
This being understood, let us suppose
an act of immediate knowledge. By ex-
ternal or internal perception I apprehend
a phaenomenon, of mind or matter, as
existing ; I therefore affirm it to be.
Now if asked how I know, or am assured,
that what I apprehend as a mode of mind,
may not be, in reality, a mode of matter,
or that what I apprehend as a mode of
matter, may not, in reality, be a mode of
mind; I can only say, using the simplest
language, ‘I know it to be true, because
I feel and cannot but feel,” or ‘because I
believe and cannot but believe, it so to be.”
And if farther interrogated, how I know
or am assured, that I thus feel, or thus
believe, I can make no better answer than,
in the one case, ‘because I believe that I
feel,’ in the other, “because I feel that I
believe.” It thus appears, that when push-
ed to our last refuge, we must retire either
upon Feeling, or upon Belief, or upon both
indifferently. And accordingly, among
philosophers we find that a great many
employ one or other of these terms by
which to indicate the nature of the ulti-
mate ground to which our cognitions are
reducible; while some employ both, even
though they may accord a preference to
ODe,
1.—FEELING in English (as Sentiment
in French, Gefuehl in German &c.) is am-
biguous:—And in its present application
(to say nothing of its original meaning in
relation to Touch) we must discharge
that signification of the word by which we
denote the phaenomena of pain and plea-
sure. Feeling is a term preferable to
Consciousness, in so far as the latter does
not mark so well the simplicity, ultimacy,
and incomprehensibility of our original
apprehensions, suggesting, as it does, al-
ways something of thought and reflection.
In other respects, Consciousness—at least
with a determining epithet—may be the
preferable expression. In the sense now
in question, Feeling is employed by Aris.
totle, Theophrastus, Pascal, Malebranche,
Bossuet, Leibnitz, Buffier, D’Aguesseau,
Berkeley, Hume, Kames, Hemsterhuis,
Jacobi, Schulze, Bouterweck, Fries, Köp-
pen, Ancillon, Gerlach, Franke, and a
hundred others. In this meaning it has
been said, and truly, that ‘Reason is only
a developed Feeling.”
2.—BELIEF or FAITH, (IIlorig, Fides,
Croyance, Foi, Glaube, &c.) Simply, or
with one or other of the epithets natural,
primary, instinctive, &c., and some other
expressions of a similar import as Convic-
tion, Assent, Trust, Adhesion, Holding for
true or real &c. (>vyxozºrd.ésqug, Assensus,
Fuerwahr-wnd-wirklichhalten, &c.) have,
though not unobjectionable, found favour
with a great number of philosophers, as
terms whereby to designate the original
warrants of cognition. Among these may
be mentioned Aristotle, Lucretius, Alex-
ander, Clement of Alexandria, Proclus,
Algazel, Luther, Hume, Reid, Beattie,
Hemsterhuis, Kant, Heidenreich, Fichte,
Jacobi, Bouterweck, Köppen, Ancillon,
Hermes, Biunde, Esser, Elvanich, &c. &c.
Nor can any valid objection be taken to
the expression.—St Austin accurately
says—“We know, what rests upon reason ;
we believe, what rests upon awthority.”
But reason itself must rest at last upon
authority; for the original data of reason
do not rest on reason, but are necessarily
accepted by reason on the authority of
what is beyond itself. These data are,
therefore, in rigid propriety, Beliefs or
Trusts. Thus it is, that in the last resort,
we must, perforce, philosophically admit,
that belief is the primary condition of
reason, and not reason the ultimate ground
of belief. We are compelled to surrender
the proud Intellige wt credas of Abelard,
to content ourselves with the humble
Crede wt intelligas of Anselm.
3.—A third denomination, under this
head, is that of
INSTINCTs, rational or intellectual (In-
stinctus, Impetus Spontanei, Instinctus in-
telligentiae, rationales.)
INSTINCTIVE beliefs, cognitions, judg-
ºnents, &c.
These terms are intended to express
not so much the light as the dark side
which the elementary facts of conscious-
mess exhibit. They therefore stand op-
posed to the conceivable, the understood,
the known.
Notre faible Raison se trouble et se con.
fond;
Oui, la Raison se tait, mais l’Instinct vous
répond.
Priestley (Examination, &c., passim) has
attempted to ridicule Reid’s use of the
terms Instinct and Instinctive, in this
relation, as an innovation, not only in
philosophy, but in language; and Sir
James Mackintosh (Dissert. p. 388) con.
§ v.]
761
OF COMMON SENSE.
siders the term Instinct not less improper
than the term Common Sense.
As to the impropriety, though like
most other psychological terms these are
not unexceptionable, they are however less
so than many, may than most, others. An
Instinct is an agent which performs blindly
and ignorantly a work of intelligence and
knowledge. The terms Instinctive belief,
—judgment—cognition, are therefore ex-
pressions not ill adapted to characterise a
belief, judgment, cognition, which, as the
result of no anterior consciousness, is, like
the products of animal instinct, the intel-
ligent effect of (as far as we are concern-
ed) an unknowing cause. In like manner,
we can hardly find more suitable expres-
sions to indicate those incomprehensible
spontaneities themselves, of which the pri-
mary facts of consciousness are the mani-
festations, than rational or intellectual In-
stincts. In fact if Reason can justly be
called a developed Feeling, it may with
no less propriety be called an illuminated
Instinct :—in the words of Ovid,
Et quod nunc Ratio, Impetus ante fuit.
As to an innovation either in language or
philosophy, this objection only betrays the
ignorance of the objector. Mr Stewart (Es-
says, p. 87 4to ed.) adduces Boscovich and
D’Alembert as authorities for the employ-
ment of the terms Instinct and Instinctive
in Reid’s signification. But before Reid he
might have found them thus applied by Cice-
ro, Scaliger, Bacon, Herbert, Descartes,
Rapin, t’ascal, Poiret, Barrow, Leibnitz,
Musaeus, Feuerlin, Hume, Bayer, Kames,
Reimarus, and a host of others; while
subsequent to the “Inquiry into the Hu-
man Mind,” besides Beattie, Oswald,
Campbell, Fergusson, among our Scottish
philosophers, we have, with Hemsterhuis
in Holland, in Germany Tetens, Jacobi,
Bouterweck, Neeb, Köppen, Ancillon,
and many other metaphysicians who have
adopted and defended the expressions.
In fact, Instinct has been for ages fami-
liarised as a philosophical term in the
sense in question, that is, in application to
the higher faculties of mind, intellectual and
moral. In proof of this, take the article
from the ‘Lexicon Philosophicum” of
Micraelius, which appeared in 1653:-
* Instinctus est rei ad aliquid tendentis
inclinatio; estgue alius materialis in cor-
poribus; aliws rationalis in mente ;’ and
Chauvin is to the same purport, whose
* Lexicon Philosophicum” was first pub-
lished in 1691. In a moral relation, as a
name for the natural tendencies to virtue,
it was familiarly employed even by the phi-
losophers of the sixteenth century (v. F.
Picolominei ‘ Decem Gradus,’ &c. Gr.
iii. c. i. Sq.); and in the seventeenth, it had
become, in fact, their usual appellation
(v. Welthuysen De Principiis Justi, &c. p.
73 sq.) -
4.—REVELATIONS – INSPIRATIons.—
These expressions are intended metapho-
rically to characterise the incomprehen-
sible manner in which we are made sud-
denly aware of existence; and, perhaps,
to indicate that our knowledge rests ulti-
mately on a testimony which ought to be
implicitly believed, however unable we
may be explicitly to demonstrate, on ra-
tional grounds, its credibility. They have
been thus employed, one or both, by Reid,
Stewart, Degerando, Cousin, and others,
but most emphatically by Jacobi.
5.—SUGGESTIONs, (Suggestiones, Sug-
gestus.)—This term with some determin-
ing epithet is a favourite word of Reid,
and in a similar signification. So also was
it of St Augustin and Tertullian.—By
the voijg of Aristotle the latter says—
“non aliud quid intelligimus quam sugges-
twm animae ingenitum et insitum et nativi-
tus proprium. De Anima c. 12. See also
Testimonies, infra, No. 12 d: and, supra,
p. 111 a, note. -
6.—FACTs—DATA (wltimate—primary
—original &c.) of Consciousness or Intelli-
gence. These expressions have found
favour with many philosophers, among
whom Fergusson, Fichte, Creuzer, Krug,
Ancillon, Gerlach, Cousin, Bautain, may
be mentioned. They are well adapted to
denote, that our knowledge reposes upon
what ought to be accepted as actually
true, though why, or in what manner it
is true, be inexplicable.
III.-The third quality, in reference to
which our primary cognitions have ob-
tained certain appellations, is their Origi-
mality. Under this head:
1.—FIRST — PRIMARY — PRIMITIVE-
PRIMoRDIAL –– ULTIMATE, as epithets
applied to truths, principles of thought,
laws of intelligence, facts or data of consci-
owsness, elements of reason, &c., are ex-
pressions which require no comment.
2-—PRINCIPLEs ('Agx.xi, Principia, li-
terally commencements—points of depar-
ture) Principles of Common Sense—first,
proper, authentic (zvguararo.1) Principles
of thought, reason, judgment, intelligence—
Initia naturae, &c.
Without entering on the various mean.
ings of the term Principle, which Aris.
totle defines, in general, that from whence
any thing eaſists, is produced, or is known,
it is sufficient to say that it is always used
#62
[NOTE A,
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
for that on which something else depends;
and thus both for an original law, and for
an original element. In the former case
it is a regulative, in the latter a constitut-
tive, principle; and in either signification
it may be very properly applied to our
original cognitions. In this relation, Mr
Stewart would impose certain restrictions
on the employment of the word. But
admitting the propriety of his distinctions,
in themselves, and these are not new—
it may be questioned whether the limita-
tion he proposes of the generic term be
expedient, or permissible. See his Ele-
ments ii. c. 1. particularly pp. 59, 93 of
8vo. editions.
3.—ANTICIPATIONs—PRESUMPTIONS-
PRENOTIONS, (700)\}\psig, 76097&6×ovac,
yvøgig, anticipationes, praeswºmptiones,
praenotiones, informationes anteceptae, cog-
nitiones anticipata, &c.) with such at-
tributes as common, natural, native, con-
ºvate, inſtate, &c., have been employed to
indicate that they are the antecedents,
causes, or conditions of all knowledge.
These are more especially the terms of
ancient philosophy.—To this group may
be added the expression Legitimate Pre-
judices, borrowed from the nomenclature
of theology, but which have sometimes
oeen applied by philosophers, in a paral-
lel signification.*
4.—A PR1ORI—truths, principles, cog-
mitions, notions, judgments, &c. -
The term a priori, by the influence of
Kant and his school, is now very generally
employed to characterise those elements
of knowledge which are not obtained a
posteriori, are not evolved out of expe-
rience as factitious generalizations; but
which, as native to, are potentially in, the
mind antecedent to the act of experience,
on occasion of which (as constituting its
subjective conditions) they are first actu-
ally elicited into consciousness. These
like many—indeed most—others of his
technical expressions, are old words ap-
plied in a new signification. Previously
to Kant the terms a priori and a postériori
were, in a sense which descended from
Aristotle, properly and usually employed,
—the former to denote a reasoning from
cause to effect—the latter, a reasoning
* As by Trembley of Geneva. It is mani-
fest, though I have not his treatise at hand,
that he borrowed this, not over-fortunate, ex-
pression from the Préjugés Légitimes contre les
Calvinistes of Nicole, the work in which ori-
ginated the celebrated controversy in which
Pajon, Basmage, &c. were engaged. Of this
Mr Stewart does not seem to be aware. See
p. 27 b.
from effect to cause. The term a priori
came, however, in modern times to be
extended to any abstract reasoning from
a given notion to the conditions which
such notion involved; hence, for example,
the title a priori bestowed on the ontolo-
gical and cosmological arguments for the
existence of the deity. The latter of
these, in fact, starts from experience—
from the observed contingency of the
world, in order to construct the supposed
notion on which it founds. Clarke's cos-
mological demonstration, called a priori,
is therefore, so far, properly an argument
a posteriori.
5.—CATEGORIEs of thought, whder-
Standing, reason, &c.
The Categories of Aristotle and other
philosophers were the highest classes (un-
der Being) to which the objects of our
knowledge could be generalized. Kant
contorted the term Category from its
proper meaning of attribution; and from
an objective to a subjective application;
bestowing this name on the ultimate and
necessary laws by which thought is go-
verned in its manifestations. The term,
in this relation, has however found accep-
tation; and been extended to designate,
in general, all the a priori phaenomena of
mind, though Kant himself limited the
Word to a certain order of these.
6. TRANSGENDENTAL truths, principles,
cognitions, judgments, &c. -
In the Schools tramcendentalis and tran-
scendens were convertible expressions, em-
ployed to mark a term or notion which
transcended, that is, which rose above, and
thus contained under it, the categories, or
summa genera, of Aristotle. Such, for
example is Being, of which the ten cate-
gories are only subdivisions. Kant, ac-
cording to his wont, twisted these old
terms into a new signification. First of
all, he distinguished them from each other.
Transcendent (transcendens) he employed
to denote what is wholly beyond experi-
ence, being given neither as an a poste-
riori nor a priori element of cognition—
what therefore transcends every category
of thought. Transcendental (transcen-
dentalis) he applied to signify the a priori
or necessary cognitions which, though ma-
nifested in, as affording the conditions of,
experience, transcend the sphere of that
contingent or adventitious knowledge
which we acquire by experience. Trans-
cendental is not therefore what transcends,
but what in fact constitutes, a category of
thought. This term, though probably
from another quarter, has found favour
with Mr Stewart; who proposes to ex-
§ v.]
763
OF COMMON SENSE.
change the expression principles of corn-
mon Sense for, among other names, that of
transcendental truths.
7. PURE (rein) is another Kantian ex-
pression (borrowed with a modification of
meaning from previous philosophers”) for
cognitions, in which there is mingled no-
thing foreign or adventitious, that is, no-
thing from experience, and which conse-
quently are wholly native to the mind,
wholly a priori. Such elements however,
it is evident, are obtained only by a pro-
cess of sundering and abstraction. In ac-
tual, or concrete, thinking, there is given
nothing pure; the native and foreign, the
a priori and a posteriori are there present-
ed in mutual fusion. - -
IV. The fourth determining circum-
stance, is that the cognitions in question
are natural not conventional, native not
acquired. Hence their most universal
denominations:
1. NATURE (@woug natura); as, com-
mon Nature of man—light of Naturet—
primary hypotheses of Nature—initia Na-
twrae, &c.
NATURAL (@wouzóg, naturalis) as con-
joined with cognitions, notions, judgments,
anticipations, presumptions, premotions,
beliefs, truths, criteria, &c. -
2. NATIve, INNATE, CoNNATE, IMPLANT-
ED, &c. (Évov, #20wrog, glºvros, innatus,
ingenitus, congenitus, insitus, &c.) as ap-
plied to cognitions, notions, conceptions,
judgments, intellections, beliefs, &c. T hese
terms may be used either to express a
correct or an erroneous doctrine.
V. The fifth ground of nomenclature,
is the Necessity of these cognitions, consti-
tuting as they do the indispensable four-
dations and elementary ingredients of every
* Pure knowledge (cognitio pura) was a term
employed by the Cartesians and Leibnitians to
denote that knowledge in which there Was no
mixture of sensible images, being purely intel-
lectual. Using the term Intellect less precisely
than the Aristotelians, the Cartesians found it
necessary to employ, in ordinary, for the sake
of discrimination, the expression pure Intellect
(intellectus purus) in contrast to Sense and
Imagination. This term was however borrow-
ed from the Schools; who again borrowed it,
through the medium of St. Augustine, from
the Platonists.-See Scoti Comm. Oxon. in
Sent, L. i. dist. iii. qu. 4. § 22. Op. V. p. 491.
+ Light of Nature, or Lwmen naturale (intel-
lectus sc. agentis) a household expression with
the Schoolmen, was however used to denote
the matural revelation of intelligence, in opposi-
tion to the supernatural light afforded through
divine inspiration. The analogy of the active
Intellect and light, was suggested by Aristotle.
—(De An. iii. § 1.)
act of knowledge and thought, Hence
they have been called in the one point of
view,
FUNDAMENTAL –truths, laws of belief,
principles of knowledge, intelligence, rea-
‘son, &c.; in the other, - .
Essent IAL or Constituent ELEMENTs
of reason—Original STAMINA, of reason—
ELEMENTAL laws of thought, &c. These
are Mr Stewart’s favourite denominations.
WI. The sixth circumstance is, that
they afford the conditions and regulative
principles of all knowledge, Hence they
obtain the name of,
LAws, or CANoNs—-fundamental, wité-
mate, elemental, necessary, &c. of human
belief, knowledge, thought, &c.
VII. The seventh circumstance is their
Universality; this being at once the con-
sequence of their necessity, and its index.
Hence to designate them the attributes
of—
CoMMON – UNIVERSAL – CATIIolic—
PUBLIC, &c. (zolvög, communis, zo,007,426g, .
wniversalis, publicus) applied to sense,
reason, intelligence—to cognitions, motions,
conceptions, judgments, intellections, pre-
notions, anticipations, presumptions, prin-
ciples, awioms, beliefs, nature of man, &c.,
&c. I may observe, however, that a prin.
ciple, &c, may be called common for one
or other, or for all of three reasons:—
1°, because common to all men (philoso-
phers in general); 2°, because common to
all sciences, (Aristotle, Anal. Post. L. i.
c. ii. § 5); 3°, by relation to the multitude
of conclusions dependent from it, (Calo-
vius, Nool. c. 2.)
VIII. The eighth, is their presumed
Trustworthiness, either as veracious
enouncements, or as accurate tests, of
truth. Hence, in the one relation, they
have been styled—
1. TRUTIIs (veritates) first, primary,
& priori, fundamental, &c.; and in the
other,
2. CRITERIA (2047%gtoº, normae) natu-
ral, awthentic, &c.
IX. The ninth, is that the principles of
our knowledge must be themselves Knows
ledges.*
If viewed as cognitions, in general, they
have been called
1. a. CoGNITIONS or KNow LEDGEs
(yvøagug, cognitiones, notitiae, informa-
tiones, &c.) with the discriminative attri-
* Knowledges, in common use with Bacon and
our English philosophers till after the time
of Locke, ought not to be discarded. It is
however unnoticed by any English Lexico-
grapher.
764
[NOTE: A.
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
butes, first, primary, witimate, original,
fundamental, elemental, natural, common,
pwre, transcendental, a priori, native, in-
nate, connate, implanted, &c.
2. b.-ConsorousNEss (conscientia, con-
science, Bewusstseym) facts, data, revela-
tions, &c. of, have been very commonly
employed; while
Consciousness Es (conscientiae, con-
sciences,) with, or without, an epithet, as
connate, innate, has the authority of Ter-
tullian, Keckermann, D’Aguesseau, Hu-
ber, and many others.
If viewed as incomplea, cognitions, they
have more properly obtained the names of
3.—NoTrons, CoNCEPTIONS, PRENo-
TIons (Évvotect, #vvožoºroº, vožoºroº, reo-
Xàberg, notiones, conceptiones, conceptus,
&c.) sometimes simply, but more usually
limited by the same attributes; though
these terms were frequently extended to
complex cognitions likewise.
If viewed as complea, cognitions, they
have been designated, either by the gene-
ral name of -
4.—JUDGMENTS, PROPOSITIONs (judicia,
&704)&vgets, reoréasus, effata, pronunciata,
enunciata, &c.) qualified by such adjectives
as self-evident, intuitive, natural, common,
a priori, &c.;-or by some peculiar name.
Of these last there are two which deserve
special notice—Axiom and Maxim.
5.— Axioms, (2%xtoc, dignitates,
pronunciata honoraria, effata ſide dºgma,
Propositiones illustres, xúgical 36321, ratae,
firmae sententiae, &c.)
The term Axiom is ambiguous; the his-
tory of its employment obscure, and unin-
vestigated; and the received accounts of
its signification, and the reasons of its sig-
nification, very erroneous —I am aware of
three very different meanings in which it
has been used. Of these the first and Se-
cond are of ancient, the third of modern,
usurpation. The verb &étéo, originally
and properly, means to rate a thing at a
certain worth or value, to appreciate, to es-
timate. Now it is evident, that from this
central signification it might very easily
be deflected into two collateral meanings.
a.—To rate a thing at its value, seems
to presuppose that it has some value to be
rated; hence the verb came very naturally
to signify—I deem worthy, &c. From it
in this signification we have &áio/.2, worth,
dignity, authority; and, applied in a logi-
cal relation, a worthy, an authoritative,
proposition. But why worthy 2–why
authoritative? Either because a propo-
sition worthy of acceptance (706to otg
&#107-iorn); or because a proposition com-
manding and obtaining acceptance (×vgiz
36%x, pronunciatum honorarium, illustre.)
But of what nature are the propositions
worthy of, or which command, universal
credence : Manifestly not, at least pri-
marily, those which, though true, and
even admitted to be true, shine in a re-
flected light of truth, as dependent on
other propositions for their evidence; but
those out of which the truth beams di-
rectly and immediately, which borrow not
the proof from any which they afford to all,
which are deserving of credit on their own
authority—in a word, self-evident proposi-
tions (ºrgórzasıg cºrrorio roºt.) Hence the
application of the term to judgments true,
primary, immediate, common. To this
result converge the authorities of Aris-
totle, Theophrastus, Alexander, Them-
istius, Proclus, Ammonius Hermiae, and
Philoponus.
In this signification, as Ican recollect, the
oldest example of the word is to be found
in Aristotle. That this philosopher li-
mited the expression Axiom to those judg-
ments which, on occasion of experience,
arise naturally and necessarily in the con-
scious mind, and which are therefore vir-
tually prior to experience, cannot, I think,
be reasonably doubted. ‘Of the imme-
diate principles,” he says, “ of syllogism,
that which cannot be demonstrated, but
which it is not necessary to possess as the
prerequisite of all learning, I call Thesis;
and that Aaliom, which he who would
learn aught must himself bring, [and not
receive from his instructor]. For some
such principles there are; and it is to these
that we are accustomed to apply this name.’
(Anal. Post., L. i. c. 1, § 14.) And again,
distinguishing the Axiom from the Hypo-
thesis and Postulate, of the two latter he
says—“Neither of these of itself necessarily
exists, and necessarily manifests its exis-
tence in thought.” (Ibid. c. 10, $ 7.) He,
consequently, supposes that an Axiom is
not only something true, but something
that we cannot but think to be true. All
this is confirmed by sundry other passages.
(Of these, some will be seen in Testimonies,
n. 3; where also, in a note, is given a so-
lution of what may be said in opposition to
the attribution of this doctrine to the
Stagirite.) The same is confirmed, also,
by the ancient interpreters of the Poste-
rior Analytics—Themistius, (f. 2. a. ed.
Ald.) and Philoponus, or rather Ammo-
nius Hermiae, (f. 9. b., ed. Ald.) These
harbour no doubt in regard to the pur-
port of the texts now quoted;—and the
same construction is given to Aristotle’s
doctrine on this point, by Alexander, else-
where, but especially in his Commentary
§ v.]
765
OF COMMON SENSE.
on the Topics (p. 12, ed. Ald.), and by
Proclus in his Commentaries on Euclid.
(Libb. ii. iii.)
The following definition by Theophras-
tus is preserved by Themistius (l.c.) I
translate the context, cautioning the rea-
der that it is impossible to determine
whether the latter part of the passage
belongs to Theophrastus, or, what is more
probable, to Themistius himself. “Theo-
phrastus thus defines an Axiom:—An ax-
iom is a certain kind of opinion [or judg-
ment, one species of which is ſvalid] of
all things of the same class, as [under the
category, Quantity]—If equals be taken
from equals, the remainders are equal ;
while another is [valid] of all things indif-
ferently, as–Between affirmation and né-
gation there is no medium. For these are,
as it were, connate and common to all.
Whence also the reason of the denomina-
tion Axiom, [worth, dignity, authority.]
For what is set over, either all things
absolutely, or certain classes of things
universally, that we judge to have prece-
dence, authority, by reference to them.
In this sense the word is universally
supposed to have been technically employ-
ed by the mathematicians, from a very an-
cient period. But whether it was so prior
to Aristotle, I should be vehemently dis-
posed to doubt; both from the tenor of
the former passage of the Posterior Ana-
lytics, just quoted, in which the philosopher
seems to attribute to himself this applica-
tion of the term, and from the absence of
all evidence to prove its earlier introduc-
tion. I am aware indeed of a passage in
the Metaphysics, (L. iii. [iv.] c. 3,) which,
at first sight, and as it has always been
understood, might appear unfavourable to
this surmise; for mention is there made
of ‘what in mathematics (#y roig £2.2%-
Azazat) are called Axioms.” But this text
is, I suspect, misunderstood, and that it
ought to be translated— what in our
“Mathematics” are called Axioms.” But
did Aristotle write on this subject 7 He
did, one, if not two treatises; as appears
from the lists of Laertius (L. v. § 24) and
the Anonymus Menagii. In the former
we have Moºn/coºrtzöv, &, ‘ On Mathema-
tics, one book;’ in the latter—IIegl tºg áv
roig &c.9%aczaw ovoices, ‘On the eaistence
treated of in Mathematics.” Nay, the term
is not to be found in the writings we pos-
sess of those geometricians who ascend the
nearest to the age of Aristotle. Euclid,
what may surprise the reader, does not
employ it. There it stands, certainly, in
all the editions and translations of the Ele-
ments, in ordinary use. But this is only
one of the many tamperings with his text,
for which the perfidious editors and trans-
lators of Euclid are responsible; and in the
present instance the Aristotelizing com-
mentary of Proclus seems to have origi-
nally determined the conversion of ‘Com-
mon Notions’ into ‘Axioms.” Archime-
des (De Sphaera et Cylindro, sub initio)
is, after Aristotle, the oldest authority
extant for the term, in a mathematical re-
lation; though Archimedes, who only once
employs it, does not apply it in the Aris–
totelic limitation, as equivalent to the
Common Notions of Euclid, and exclusive
of Postulates and Definitions. On the
contrary, with him aariom is, if not con-
vertible with definition, used only in the
Second or Stoical sense, for an enunciation
in general. Turning indeed to the works
of the other Greek Mathematicians which
I have at hand, I cannot find the term in
Apollonius of Perga, in Serenus, Dio-
phantus, Pappus, Eutocius, Hero, or the
Samian Aristarchus. Sextus Empiricus,
in ail his controversy with the Mathema-
ticians, knows it not ; nor, except in the
Second technical meaning, is it to be found
in Plutarch. Its application in mathema-
tics was therefore, I surmise, compara-
tively late, and determined by the influence
of Aristotle. This is not the only instance
by which it might be shown that the Ma-
thematicians are indebted to the Stagirite
for their language; who, if he borrowed a
part of his Logical nomenclature from
Geometry, amply repaid the obligation.
This first meaning is that which Ax-
iom almost exclusively obtains in the
writings of the Aristotelian, and (though
Plato does not philosophically employ
the term) of the Platonic school.
b.—To rate a thing at its value, that is,
to attribute or not to attribute to it a
certain worth, is a meaning which would
easily slide into denoting the affirmation
or negation of qualities in regard to a
subject; for its qualities determine, posi-
tively or negatively, the value of anything,
Hence, in general, to be of opinion, to
think so and so, to judge. (In like man-
ner, among other analogical examples, the
Latin verb easistimo (that is ea-westimo), its
primary meaning falling into desuetude,
was at last almost exclusively employed
in the secondary, as—I think that, or I
opine. J From this signification of the
verb flowed a second logical meaning of
the substantive; Axiom being applied to
denote, in general, an enunciation or pro-
position, (properly a categorical), whether
true or false. In this sense it was used,
sometimes by Aristotle (v. Top. L. viii
766
[Note A.
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
cc, 1,3—if this work be his—et ibi, Alex-
andrum), and, as far as I am aware, to say
nothing of the Epicureans and Sceptics,
always by the Stoics—though Simplicius
(ad. Epict. Ench. c. 58) asserts, that they
occasionally employed it, like the Aristo-
telians, in the first. Laelius, Varro, Ci-
cero, Sergius, Agellius, Apuleius, Dona-
tus, Martianus Capella, &c., render it by
various Latin terms, in all of which how-
ever the present meaning, exclusively, is
embodied; and in the same signification
the Greek term aa'ioma itself was, in mo-
dern times, adopted by Ramus and his
school, as their common logical expression
for ‘proposition.”
Thus in neither of its logical significa-
tions, I make bold to say, is the word
Axiom to be found in any writing extant,
prior to Aristotle; and in its second, only
in a work, the Topics, which is not with
absolute certainty the production of the
Stagirite.—I may observe, that there is
another account given of the logical ap-
plications of the word, but to this I think
it wholly needless to advert.
c.—The third and last meaning is that
imposed upon the word by Bacon. He
contorted Axiom to designate any higher
proposition, obtained by generalisation and
induction from the observation of indivi-
dual instances—the enunciation of a ge-
neral fact—an empirical law.
So much for the meanings of the term
Axiom itself—now for its translation.
Dignitas was employed by Boethius to
render Axioma in its first or Aristotelic
meaning; and from him came, in this ap-
plication, into general use among the Latin
schoolmen. But before Boethius, and as
a translation of the term in its second or
Stoical meaning, I find Dignitas employed
by Priscian, (Instit. Grammat. L. xvii.
c. 1.) No lexicographer, however, no
philologist has noticed these authorities
for the word, while Latin was still a living
language. It has, indeed, till this hour,
been universally taken for granted by
philologers that dignitas in this relation is
a mere modern barbarism. “ Inepte fa-
ciunt (says Muretus) qui 23162&ro, digni-
tates vocant; cujus pravae consuetudinis
Hermolaus Barbarus auctor fuit.” (Variae
Lectiones, L. vi. c. 2.) This is wrong,
more especially as regards the author and
aera of the custom: nay H. Barbarus is
only reprehensible for not always, instead
of rarely, translating the term, as it occurs
in Themistius, by Dignitas, if translated
into Latin it must be; for his usual version
by Proloquium or Pronuntiatum—expres–
sions which only render the word in its
Stoical meaning—has been the cause of
considerable error and confusion among
subsequent logicians, who, unable to resort
to the one rare edition of the original,
were thus led to suppose that the nomen-
clature of Theophrastus and Themistius
were different from that of Aristotle.
The authority of Muretus has obtained,
however, for his mistake a universal accep-
tation; and what is curious, Nicolaus Loen–
sis (Misc. Epiph. L. i. c. 1.) in his criti-
cism of the very chapter in which it oc-
curs, omitting this solitary error, stupidly
or perfidiously inculpates Muretus for as-
Sertions, which that illustrious scholar as-
suredly never dreamt of hazarding.
6. MAXIMs — (maa'ima”, propositiones
maaſimae, supremae, principales, &c.)
In Maxim we have the example of a
word which all employ, but of whose
meaning none seem to know the origin or
reason. * Extant in all the languages of
Christendom, this term is a bequest of
that philosophy, once more extensive than
Christianity itself, through which Aris-
totle, for a thousand years, swayed at once
and with almost equal authority, the theo-
logy of the Bible and the Koran. But it
was not original to the scholastic philoso-
phy. The schoolmen received it from
Boethius, who is the earliest author to
whom I trace the expression. He pro-
pounds it in his two works—“In Topica
Ciceronis,' and “De Differentiis Topicis.”
The following is one of his definitions:—
* Maximas propositiones [which he also
styles propositiones Supremae, principales,
indemonstrabiles, per se notae, &c.] voca-
mus quae et universales Sunt, et ita notae
atque manifestae, ut probatione non ege-
ant, eague potius quae in dubitatione sunt
* I have had the curiosity to see how far this
ignorance extended. Our English Lexico-
graphers, Johnson, Todd, Webster, are in outer
darkness. They only venture to hint at some
unknown relation between maarim and “maarian-
wm, the greatest 1” Richardson is not positively
Wrong. He is aware (probably from Furetiere
or his copyist the Dictionaire de Trevoux, for
there is a verbal coincidence in all three) that
'maſcima was in low Latin used in a similar sig-
nification; but his explanation of the reason is
not only defective but erroneous. In other
dictionaries, real and verbal, if we find the
word noticed at all, we find nothing beyond a
bare statement of its actual meaning; as may
be seen in those of Goclenius, Micraelius, Mar-
tinius, Ducange, the Zedlerian Lexicon, to say
nothing of our more modern Encyclopaedias.
Even the great Selden (On Fortescue, c. 8) in
attempting to explain the term in its legal ap-
plication, betrays his unacquaintance with its
history and proper import.
§ v.]
767
OF COMMON SENSE.
probent. Nam quae indubitatae sunt,
ambiguorum demonstrationi Solent esse
principia; qualis est—Omnem numerum vel
parem vel imparem, et—Aequalia relin-
qui sã aequalibus aequalia detrahuntur,
caeteraeque de quarum nota veritate mon
quaeritur.”
With Boethius maa'ima propositio (max-
ima he never uses absolutely) is thus only
a synonyme for axiom or self-evident
judgment. He however applies the term
specially to denote those dialectical prin-
ciples, axioms, or canons, those catholic
judgments which constitute what in Logic
and Rhetoric have since Aristotle been
called common places; that is, the sources
or receptacles of arguments applicable to
every matter, and proper to none. Such
propositions, he says, are styled maa'imae
or greatest, because as universal and pri-
mary they implicitly contain the other
propositions, (minores posterioresque,) and
determine the whole inference of a rea-
soning; (reliquas in se propositiones com-
plectuntur, et per eas fit consequens et
rata conclusio.)* But he also sometimes
indicates that they are entitled to this epi-
thet, because, as evident in themselves and
independent of all others, they afford to
the unintuitive judgments they support,
their primary proof, (antiquissimam pro-
bationem,) and their greatest certainty,
(maximam fidem.) Compare In Top. Cic.
* Thus in arguing, that a wise, is not an in-
temperate, man, by the syllogism—
He is wise who controls his passions;
EIe is intemperate who does not contro'. bis
passions;
Therefore a wise, is not an intemperate, man;
the whole reasoning is contained under, and
therefore presupposes, the proposition—To
what the definition is inapplicable, to that is inap-
plicable the thing defined, (cwi non convenit defini-
tio, non convenit definitum.) This proposition
(one of six co-ordinates which make up the
common place called of Definition) as contain
ing under it a multitude of others (e. g. Cuinon
convenit definitio sapientis, nec convenit no-
men; cui non convenit definitio justi, pulchri,
timidi, &c. &c., nec nomen) is not inappro-
priately styled p. maa'ima. I may observe,
however, that, as thus employed, marima can
only, in strict propriety, qualify a proposition
relatively, not absolutely, greatest. For every
maxim of every dialectical Place is itself con-
tained within the sphere of one or other of the
four logical laws of Identity, Contradiction,
Excluded Middle, and Reason and Consequent,
of which it is only a subordinate modification.
Thus the maxim adduced, is only a special ap-
plication of the law of Contradiction. To the
four laws therefore the name of propositiones
maasimae should be exclusively applicable, if
this expression were intended to denote an un-
conditioned universality.
L. i. Op. p. 765—De Diff. Top. L. i. p. 859
H. ii. p. 865 sq. Boethius had likewise
perhaps Aristotle's saying in his thought
—‘ that principles, though what are least
in magnitude, are what are greatest in
power.’
Maa'ma propositio, as a dialectical ex-
pression, was adopted from Boethius by
his friend and brother consul, the patrician
Cassiodorus; and from these “ultimi Ro-
manorum’ it passed to the schoolmen, with
whom so soon as it became established as
a common term of art, propositio was very
naturally dropt, and maa'ima thus came to
be employed as a substantive—by many at
last, who were not aware of the origin
and rationale of its meaning. Finally,
from the Latinity and philosophical no-
menclature of the schools, it subsided, as a
household word, into all the vernacular
languages of Europe; with this restriction
however—that in them it is not usually
applied except in a practical relation; de-
noting a moral apophthegm, a rule of con-
duct, an ethical, a political, a legal, canon,
&c., and this too, enouncing, not so much
what is always and necessarily, but what
is for the most part and probably, true.
It sounds strange in our ears to hear of a
mathematical or logical maxim, in the
sense of axiom, self-evident principle, or
law—though this is the sense in which it
was commonly employed, among others,
by Locke and Leibnitz. To this restric-
tion, its special employment in Dialectic
(the logic of contingent matter) probably
prepared the way; though by the school-
men, as by Boethius, it continued to be
used as convertible with axiom. * Dignitas
dicitur (says Albertus Magnus) quia om-
nibus dignior est, eo quod omnibus influit
cognitionem et veritatem; et dicitur Maa:-
ima, eo quod virtute influentiae lucis et
veritatis omnia excedit immediata princi-
pia.” (Ini. Post. Anal. c. 1.) St Thomas
and Scotus, might be adduced to the same
effect; see also P. Hispanus (Summulae,
tr. v. c. 3, et ibi Versor.) At an early
period, it was borrowed as a term of art,
into the Common Law of England; Maa-
ims there denoting what by the civilians
were technically denominated Regulae
Juris. (Fortescue, De Laudibus legum
Angliae c. 8.—Boctor and Student. c. 8.)
By Kant Maxim was employed to desig-
nate a subjective principle, theoretical or
practical, i.e. one not of objective validity,
being exclusively relative to some interest
of the subject. Maxim and Regulative
| principle are, in the Critical philosophy,
opposed to Law and Constitutive prin-
ciple.
768
[NOTE. A.
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
Besides the preceding designations un-
der this head, names have been given to
the original deliverances of Consciousness,
considered as the manifestations of some
special faculty; that is, Consciousness as
performing this peculiar function has ob:
tained a particular name. In this respect
it has been called Reason, and, with greater
propriety, Intellect or Intelligence.
7. REAson, (A6xog, ratio, raison, Ver-
nunſt,) truths, principles, beliefs, feelings,
intuitions, &c. of.
Reason is a very vague, vacillating, and
and equivocal word. Throwing aside ya-
rious accidental significations which it has
obtained in particular languages, as in
Greek denoting not only the ratio but the
oratio of the Latins; throwing aside its
employment, in most languages, for cause,
motive, argument, principle of probation,
or middle term of a syllogism, and con-
sidering it only as a philosophical word
denoting a faculty or complement of facul-
tics; in this relation it is found employed
in the following meanings, not only by
different individuals, but frequently, to a
greater or less extent, by the same philo-
sopher.
a.—It has both in ancient and modern
times been very commonly employed,
like understanding and intellect, to denote
our intelligent nature in general (Aoyazów
&#803); and this usually as distinguished
from the lower cognitive faculties, as sense,
imagination, memory—but always, and
emphatically, as in contrast to the feelings
and desires. In this signification, to fol-
low the Aristotelic division, it compre-
hends—19, Conception, or Simple Appre-
hension (#vyotº, vánais røy 2012.6%rov,
conceptus, conceptio, apprehensio simplex,
das Begreifen);-2°, the Compositive and
Divisive process, Affirmation and Negation,
Judgment, (gºvéequg zoºl bucciºsats, 3764)29-
aug, judicium);-3°, Reasoning or the Dis-
cursive faculty (61%voto, Aózog, Aoyagºzóg,
ró avXAoyić sato.t, discursus, ratiocinatio);
–4°, Intellect or Intelligence proper,
either as the intuition, or as the place, of
principles or self-evident truths (vois, in-
tellectus, intelligentia, mens.)
b.–In close connexion with the pre-
ceding signification, from which perhaps
it ought not to be separated, is that mean-
ing in which reason, the rational, the rea
sonable, is used to characterize the legiti-
mate employment of our faculties in gene-
ral, in contradistinction to the irregular
or insubordinate action of one or more
even of our rational faculties, which, if
exercised out of their proper sphere, may
be viewed as opposed to reason. Thus
the plain sense of one of Moliere's charac-
ters complains—
Raisonner est Pemploi de toute ma maison,
It le raisonnement en bannit la raison.
c.—It has not unfrequently been em-
ployed to comprehend the third and fourth
of the special functions above enumerated
—to wit, the diamoetic and noetic. In
this meaning it is taken by Reid in his
later works. Thus in the Intellectual
Powers (p. 425 ab.) he states, that Rea-
son, in its first office or degree, [the noetic, ]
is identical with Common Sense, in its se-
cond, [the dianoetic, with Reasoning.
d.—It has very generally, both in an”
cient and modern philosophy, been em-
ployed for the third of the above special
functions;–7.6).0g and Aoylakzóg, Ratio and
Ratiocinatio, Reason and Reasoning being
thus confounded. Reid thus applied it in
his earlier work, the Inquiry. See pp.
100, b., 108, a., 127, a. b.
e.—In the ancient systems it was very
rarely used exclusively for the fowrth spe-
cial function, the noetic, in contrast to the
dianoetic. Aristotle, indeed, (Eth. Nic.
L. vi. c. 11 (12), Eth. Eud. L. v. c. 8) ex-
pressly says that Reason is not the faculty
of principles, that faculty being Intelli-
gence proper. Boethius (De Cons. Phil.
L. v. Pr. 5) states that Reason or Discur-
sive Intellect belongs to man, while In-
telligence or Intuitive Intellect is the ex-
clusive attribute of Divinity. ‘Ratio hu-
mani tantum generis est, sicuti Intelligen-
tia sola divini;’ while Porphyry somewhere
says ‘ that we have Intelligence in common
with the Gods, and Reason in common
with the brutes.” Sometimes however it
was apparently so employed. Thus St
Augustine seems to view Reason as the fa-
culty of intuitive truths, and as opposed to
Reasoning : — ‘ Ratio est quidam mentis
adspectus, quo, per seipsam non per cor-
pus, verum intuetur; Ratiocinatio autem
est rationis inquisitio, a certis ad incert-
orum indagationem mitems cogitatio.’ (De
Quant. An. § 53—De Immort. An. §§ 1,
10.) This, however, is almost a singular
exception.
In modern times, though we frequently
meet with Reason, as a general faculty,
distinguished from Reasoning, as a parti-
cular; yet until Kant, I am not aware that
Reason (Vernunft) was ever exclusively,
or even emphatically, used in a significa-
tion corresponding to the noetic faculty,
in its strict and special meaning, and op-
posed to understanding (Verstand) viewed
as comprehending the other functions of
thought—unless Crusins (Weg, &c. § 62
sq.) may be regarded as Kant's forerun-
§ V.]
769
OF COMMON SENSE.
ner in this innovation Indeed the Ver.-
nunft of Kant, in its special signification,
(for he also uses it for Reason in the first or
more general meaning, as indeed nothing
can be more vague and various than his
employment of the word,) cannot without
considerable qualification be considered
analogous to Noüg, far less to Common
. Sense; though his usurpation of the term
for the faculty of principles, probably de-
termined Jacobi (who had originally, like
philosophers in general, confounded Ver.
nunft with Verstand, Reason with Rea-
soning.) to appropriate the term Reason
to what he had at first opposed to it, under
the name of Belief (Glaube.) Accordingly
in his maturer writings, ‘Wernwnft, Rea-
son—º Vernunft-Glaube,” Belief of Reason
– Vernunft-Gefuehl, Feeling of Reason.
— Rationale Anschauung,” Rational Intui-
tion—“Sinn, Organ fuer das Uebersinn-
'iche,” Sense or Organ of the Supersen-
sible, &c. are the terms by which we may
roundly say that Jacobi denominates the
-noetic faculty or common sense.
Kant’s abusive employment of the term
'Reason, for the faculty of the Uncondi-
tioned, determined also its adoption, under
the same signification, in the philosophy of
Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel; though
Noijg, Intellectus, Intelligentia, which had
been applied by the Platonists in a similar
sense, were (through Verstand, by which
they had been always rendered into Ger-
man) the only words suitable to express
that cognition of the Absolute, in which
subject and object, knowledge and exis-
tence, God and man, are supposed to be
identified. But even in this, to add to the
confusion, no consistency was maintained.
For though that absolute cognition was
emphatically the act of Reason, it was yet
by Fichte and Schelling denominated the
Intuition of Intellect (intellectuale An-
schauung.) F. Schlegel was therefore jus-
tified in his attempt to reverse the relative
superiority of Vernunft and Verstand.
What were his reasons I know not; but
as they have excited no attention, they
were probably of little weight. --
Though Common Sense be not there-
fore opposed to Reason, except perhaps in
its fourth signification, still the term Rea-
son is of so general and ambiguous an im-
port, that its employment in so determi-
nate a meaning as a synonyme of Common
Sense ought to be avoided. It is only, we
have seen, as an expression for the noetic
faculty, or Intellect proper, that Reason
can be substituted for Common Sense;
and as the former is hardly allowable, still
less is the latter.
Besides the more precise employment
of Reason as a synonyme for Common
Sense by the recent German philosophers,
it will be found more vaguely applied in
the same meaning—usually, however, with
some restrictive epithet, like common, uni-
versal, fundamental, &c.—by many older
authorities, of whom Heraclitus, the Stoics,
Turretin, Lyons, Bentley, Shaftesbury,
De La Mennais, are among the Testimonies
adduced in the sequel.
8.—INTELLECT, INTELLIGENCE, (voijg,”
intellectus, intelligentia, mens, entendement,
ântelligence, intellect, Verstand,) truths,
principles, &alioms, dicta, intwitions, &c., of.
INTELLECTIONS, (vožagug, intellectiones,
intelligentiaº, intellections, intelligences,) pri-
nary, natural, common, &c.
By Aristotle, from whom it finally ob-
tained the import which it subsequently re-
tained, the term Noüç is used in two prin-
cipal significations. In the one (like Reason
in its first meaning) it denotes, in general,
our higher faculties of thought and know-
ledge ; in the other it denotes, in special,
the faculty, habit, place, of principles, that
is, of self-evident and self-evidencing no-
tions and judgments. The schoolmen,
following Boethius, translated it by intel-
lectus and intelligentia ; # and some of them
appropriated the former of these terms to
its first, or general, signification, the latter
to its second or special. Cicero does not
employ the term intellectus ; and the Cice-
ronian epidemic prevalent after the revival
of letters, probably induced the Latin trans-
lators of the Greek philosophers to render
it more usually by the term mens. . In one
and all of our modern languages the words
derived from, or corresponding to, Intel-
lectus, Intellectio, Intelligentia, have been
so loosely and variously employed, that they
offer no temptation to substitute them for
that of Common Sense. The case is dif-
ferent with the adjective noetic. The cor-
relatives noetic and diamoetic would afford
the best philosophical designations—the
former for an intuitive principle, or truth
at first hand; the latter for a demonstra-
* See above, p 757 b, note. -
# Intelligentia (like Intellectio) properly de
notes the act or energy of Intellectus. How it
came that the term Intelligentiae was lat-
terly applied to denote the higher order of
created existences, as angels, &c., is explained
by Aquinas (S. Th. P. i., qu. 79, art, 10,) as an
innovation introduced by certain translations
from the Arabic. I shall not commemorate the
distinction of Intellectus and Intelligentia given
in the contradictory farrago attributed to St.
Augustine, under the title De Spiritwet Anima.
See co. 37, 38. -
3 C, 2
770
ſNOTE: A
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
tive proposition, or truth at second hand.
Noology and Noological, Dianoialogy and
Dianoialogical would be also technical
terms of much convenience in various de-
partments of philosophy. On the doctrine
of first principles as a department of
‘ Gnostology,’ the philosophy of know-
ledge, we have indeed during the seven-
teenth century, by German authors alone,
a series of special treatises, under the titles
—of “ Noologia,” by Calovius, 1651, Meje-
rus, 1662, Wagnerus, 1670, and Zeidlerus,
1680, and of ‘Intelligentia,” by Gutkius,
1625, and Geilfussius, 1662. ‘Archelogia,”
again, was the title preferred for their
works upon the same subject by Alstedius,
1620, and Micraelius, 1658. Of these
treatises, in so far as I have seen them, the
execution disappoints the curiosity awak-
ened by the title and attempt.
In this sense, besides the ordinary em-
ployment of Intellectus, and Intelligentia
by the ancient and modern Aristotelians;
Cicero, St Austin, and others, in like man-
ner, use Intelligentia, either simply, or with
some differential epithet, as inchoatae, ad-
wmbratae, complicatae, involutae, primae,
communes, &c.; as is done likewise by
Pascal and other French philosophers with
the terms Intelligence and Intelligences.
X. The tenth and last circumstance is,
that the native contributions by the mind
itself to our concrete cognitions have, prior
to their elicitation into consciousness
through experience, only a potential, and
in actual experience only an applied, en-
gaged, or implicate, existence. Hence
their designation of—
HABITS, (possessions,) Dispositions,
VIRTUALITIES. &c., with some discriminat-
ing epithet. Thus, by Aristotle, noetic
Intelligence is called the (natural) Habit
of principles (Ég rºw &6x39); and prin-
ciples themselves are characterised by
Leibnitz, as matural Habits, Dispositions,
Wirtualities. As prior to experience, Ga-
len styles them things occult or delites-
cent (zezovºkzávez,) in contrast to the ma-
nifestations made in experience itself
(@auvézzavoc.) Cicero and others call them
Intelligentiae obscurae, inchoatae, compli-
catae, involutae, &c. To the same head
are to be referred the metaphorical deno-
minations they have obtained of— Seeds
(Aówou aregºzczruxoi, semina scientiae, semi-
na aetermitatis, &c.,)—or Sparks (Scintil-
lae, igniculi, Č%zvez, Évo.do?ccºro, a riv6-
%ges, &c.)
§ VI. The Universality of the philosophy
of Common Sense ; or its general re-
cognition, in Reality and in Name,
shewn by a chronovogical series of Tes-
timonies, from the dawn of speculation
to the present day.”
1.—HESIoD thus terminates his Works
and Days:— -
f 3 xy z -
‘Pāºn 5 obrové zéºzzy &zóxxvra, 3,
Tuvo. 7:07.20%
A&ol ©n&ićova, 0ság v0 rig tari 22,
cººr}. -
& The Word proclaimed by the concordant
WOl CO
- oºkina fails not ; for in Man speaks
Od."
Hence the adage?—Vox Populi, vox Dei.
2.—HER ACLITUS.—The doctrine held
by this philosopher of a Common Reason,
(<vvög Aózog,) the source and the criterion
of truth, in opposition to individual wis-
dom, (ioſo. £669%aug,) the principle of opin-
ion and error, may be regarded as one of
Common Sense. Its symbol—rº zouv;
@oºtwóp.svo, 7tatº—Sextus Empiricus thus
briefly expounds:—‘What appears to all,
that is to be believed; for it is apprehended
by the Reason which is Common and Di-
vine: whereas, what is presented to indi-
vidual minds, is unworthy of belief, and
for the counter cause.”—I. Adv. Log. S
131.
In so far, however, as our scanty sources
of information enable us to judge, Hera-
clitus mistook the import, and transgressed
the boundaries of the genuine doctrine, in
the same way as is done in the system of
* Common Sense,” “ Universal Consent,’
or * Common Reason, so ingeniously
maintained by the eloquent Abbé De La
Mennais, (No. 101.) Both vilipend all
private judgment as opinion; and opinion
both denounce as a disease. Both sacri-
fice the intelligence of individual men at
the shrine of the common reason of man-
kind; and both celebrate the apotheosis of
this Common Reason or Sense, as an im-
mediate ray of the divinity. Both, finally,
• In throwing together these testimonies, I
had originally in view, merely to adduce such
as bore explicitly and directly on the doctrine
of Common Sense, word and thing ; subse-
quently I found it proper to take in certain
others, in which that doctrine is clearly, though
only implicitly or indirectly, asserted. These
last, I have admitted, in preference, from those
schools which ascribe the least to the mind it-
self, as a fountain of knowledge, and a criterion
of truth; and have, in consequence, taken little
or nothing from the Platonic. I have also been
obliged to limit the testimonies, almost exclu-
sively, to Common Sense, considered on its spe-
culative side. On its practical, there could have
been no end. -
§ v1.]
771
. OF COMMON SENSE.
in proclaiming—‘ that we ought to follow
the Common,” (äsiv šzegőczi ré, évvö,)
mean, that we should resort to this, not
merely as a catholic criterion, or a source
of elementary truths, but as a magazine of
ready fabricated dogmas. Heraclitus and
La Mennais are the first and last philo-
sophers in our series: philosophy would
thus seem to end as it began.—In relation
to the former, see Schleiermacher, in Wolf
und Buttmann's Museum, i. pp. 313, seq.;
and Brandis Geschichte der Philosophie,
i., § 44. In relation to the latter, see his
Catechisme du Sens Commun-Essais sur
L’Indifference, &c., passim ; with Bau-
tain, Psychologie, i., Disc. Prelim., pp.
xliv. seq.; and Biunde, Fund. Phil. pp. 129,
seq. 166. (To these is now to be added
the Esquisse d’une Philosophie par F.
Lamennais, 1840, L. i. ch. 1. Here the
doctrine in question is presented in a far
less objectionable form; but as its previous
statements are not withdrawn, I have not
thought it necessary to cancel the pre-
ceding observations, which were written
before I had received this remarkable
work.)
3. —AR1stotle.—He lays it down in
general as the condition of the possibility
of knowledge that it do not regress to in-
finity, but depart from certain primary
facts, beliefs, or 7 rinciples — true, and
whose truth commands assent, through
themselves, and themselves alone. These,
as the foundations, are not objects, of Sci-
ence; as the elements of Demonstration,
they are themselves indemonstrable. The
fountains of certainty to all else, they are
themselves pre-eminently certain; and if
denied in words, they are still always men-
tally admitted. The faculty of such prin-
cipleg is not Reason, the discursive or dia-
moetic faculty, (Aózog, 31&voice,) but Intel-
lect or Intelligence proper, the noetic fa-
culty, (voijg.) Intellect as an immediate ap-
prehension of what is, may be viewed as a
Sense (ociatºngug.) Compare Analyt. Post.
L. i. cc. 2, 3, 10, 32—L. ii. c. ult.—Top.
L. i. c. 1–Metaph. L. i. c. 7–L. ii. (A
minor) c. 2–L. ii. (iii. Duvallio) ce. 3, 4,
6–L. iii. (iv.) ca 6–Eth. Nic. L. vi. cc.
6, 11 (12)—Eth. Eud. L. v. cc. 6, 8–L.
vii. c. 14.—Mag. Mor. L. i. c. 35.—See
also above, p. 764 b.
Jº particular, that Aristotle founds
knowledge on belief, and the objective
certainty of science on the subjective ne-
cessity of believing, is, while not for-
mally enounced, manifest from many pas-
sages—though he might certainly have
been more explicit. Compare Post. Anal.
L. i. c. 2, §§ 1, 2, 16, 17, 18; c. 10, $ 7;
c. 31, § 3; Top. L. i. c. 1, § 6, &c.; Eth.
Nic. vii. c. 3; Magn. Mor. L. ii. c. 6.
‘Since Aristotle,’ says the profound
Jacobi (Werke ii p. 11) “there has been
manifested a continual and increasing ten-
dency in the philosophical schools to sub-
ordinate, in general, immediate to medi-
ate knowledge—the powers of primary
apprehension, on which all is founded, to
the powers of reflexion as determined by
abstraction—the prototype to the ectype
—the thing to the word—the . Reason
[Vernunft— Aristotle's noetic faculty or
Intellect]to the Intellect[Verstand—Aris-
totle's diamoetic faculty or Reason]; nay
to allow the former to be wholly subju-
gated and even lost.”—In this Jacobi (and
to Jacobi may be added Fries) does Aris-
totle the most signal injustice; for there
is no philosopher who more emphatically
denounces the folly of those ‘who require
a reason of those things of which there is
no reason to be given, not considering
that the principle of demonstration is not
itself demonstrable.” Metaph. iii. 6. See
No. 4 a. In fact Jacobi's own doctrine in
its most perfect form will be found to bear
a wonderful analogy to that of Aristotle.
See No. 87 d. In determining indeed the
question whether Aristotle does or does
not derive all our knowledge from expe-
rience and induction, there is some diffi-
culty, from the vagueness with which the
problem has usually been stated. In so
far, however, as it concerns the doctrine
of Common Sense, the opinion of Aristotle
admits of no reasonable doubt.*
* The doctrine of those passages (as Post.
An. L. ii., c. ult. Eth. Nic. L. vi. c. 3. Eth. Eud.
L. v. c. 3, &c.) in which Aristotle asserts that
our knowledge of principles is derived from
sense, experience, induction, may be reconciled
with the doctrine of those others in which he
makes the intellect itself their source (see
above, p. 764 b, and quotations a, b. c. that fol-
low)—in two ways.
The first is that adopted by a majority of his
Greek and Latin expositors. They suppose
that our knowledge of principles is dependent
on both, but in different manners, and in diffe-
rent degrees. On the intellect this knowledge
is principally dependent, as on its proximate,
efficient, essential cause («irſz yśvvnºruzà,
arounrtz}, causa, causa per se, origo, &c.) On
sense, experience, induction, it is dependent,
as on its exciting, disponent, permissive, ma-
nifestive, subsidiary, instrumental, occasional
cause (&ºotº, #906/2}, ºrgáºzois, airio tºrougyös,
x4+gis, Öznétis, &c.) Of the Greek interpre-
ter, see Alexander in Top. pp. 12, 47, 48, ed.
Ald. (Test, n. 10)—Themistius in Post. An. ff.
2, 14, 15, and De An. f. 90, ed. Ald.—Philopo-
nus, (or Ammonius) in Post. An. f. 100, ed. Ald,
and De Anima, Proem.—Eustratius in Post. An.
772
ſNotE A,
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
But to adduce some special testimonies.
These Ishalltranslate; and for the original
of the more essential parts of Sundry of the
following passages, see foot-note at p. 328.
a. — Top. L. i. c. 1. § 6.—‘First truths
âre such as are believed, not through
aught else, but through themselves alone.
For in regard to the principles of science
we ought not to require the reason Why
[but only the fact That they are given];
for each such principle behoves to be itself
a belief in and of itself.” -
b.—Pr. Analyt. L. i. c. 3. § 4.—Main-
taining against one party, that demonstra-
tive science is competent to man, and
f. 63, sq., ed. Ald. in Eth. Nic. f. 89 b., ed. Ald.
Of the Latin expositors, among many, Fonseca,
in Metaph. L. i. c. 1, q. Conimbricenses,
Org. Post. Anal. L. i. c. 1. q. 1—Somerus in
Metaph. L. i. c. 1, p. 67, sq. Of Testimonies
infra, see nos. 10, 20, 21, 22. On this inter-
pretation, Aristotle justly views our knowledge
as chronologically commencing with Sense, but
logically originating in Intellect. As one of the
oldest of his modern antagonistS has incompa-
rably enounced it—‘ Cognitio nostra omnis a
Mente primam originem, a Sensibws eacordium ha-
bet primum;’—a text on which an appropriate
commentary may be sought for in the opening
chapter of Kant's Critique of pure Reason, and
in the seventeenth Lecture of Cousin upon
Locke.
The second mode of reconciling the contra-
diction, and which has not I think been at-
tempted, is—that on the supposition of the
mind virtually containing, antecedent to all ac-
tual experience, certain universal principles of
knowledge, in the form of certain necessities
of thinking; still it is only by repeated and
comparative experiment, that we compass the
certainty—on the one hand, that such and Such
cognitions cannot but be thought, and are,
therefore, as necessary, native generalities;–
and, on the other, that such and such cogni-
tions may or may not be thought, and are,
therefore, as contingent, factitious generaliza-
tions. To this process of experiment, analysis
and classification, through which we attain to
a scientific knowledge of principles, it might
be shown that Aristotle, not improbably, applies
the term Induction.
In regard to the passage (De An. L. iii. c. 5)
in which the intellect prior to experience is
compared to a tablet on which nothing has ac-
tually been written, the context shows that the
import of this simile is with Aristotle very dif-
ferent from what it is with the Stoics; to
whom, it may be noticed, and not, as is usually
supposed, to the Stagirite, are we to refer the
first enouncement of the brocard—In Intellectu
nihil est, quod non privs fuerit in Sensw.
In making intellect a source of knowledge,
Aristotle was preceded by Plato. But the
Platonic definition of “Intellection’ is “ The prin-
ciple of science;’ and Aristotle’s merit is not the
abolition of intellect as such, but its reduction
from a sole to a conjunct principle of science.
against another, that this science cannot
itself be founded on propositions which
admit of demonstration, Aristotle says–
* We assert not only that science does ex-
ist, but also that there is given a certain
beginning or principle of science, in so far
as [or on another interpretation of the
term ñ—‘ by which’] we recognize the im-
port of the terms.” On the one interpre-
tation the meaning of the passage is.__* We
assert not only that [demonstrative] sci-
ence does exist, but also that there is given
a certain [indemonstrable] beginning or
principle of science, [that is, Intellect which
comes into operation] so soon as we ap-
prehend the meaning of the terms.” For
example, when we once become aware of
the sense of the terms whole and part, then
the intellect of itself spontaneously enoun-
ces the axiom—The whole is greater than
its part.—On the other interpretation;–
* We assert not only that [demonstrative]
Science does exist, but also that there is
given a certain [indemonstrable] begin-
ning or principle of science [viz. intellect]
by which we recognize the import of the
terms,’ i. e. recognize them in their ne-
cessary relation, and thereupon explicitly
enounce the axiom which that relation
implies. -
c.—Anal. Post. L. i. c. 2. § 16.—“But it
is not only necessary that we should be
endowed with an antecedent knowledge
of first principles—all or some—but that
this knowledge should, likewise, be of pa-
ramount certainty. For whatever com-
municates a quality to other things must
itself possess that quality in a still higher
degree; as that on account of which we
love all objects that partake of it, cannot
but be itself, pre-eminently, an object of
our love. Hence if we know and believe
through certain first principles, we must
know and believe these themselves in a
Superlative degree, for the very reason
that we know and believe [all] secondary
truths through them.”
In connexion herewith, compare the
passages quoted above, p. 764 b.
d.—Rhet. L. i. c. 1.—-‘By nature man
is competently organized for truth; and
truth, in general, is not beyond his reach.”
e.–Metaph. L. ii. (A minor) c. 1.-
* The theory of Truth is in one respect
difficult, in another easy; as shown indeed
by this—that while enough has been de-
nied to any, some has been conceded to all.”
f. — Eth. Nic. L. x. c. 2. —Arguing
against a paradox of certain Platonists, in
regard to the Pleasureable, he says—‘ But
they who oppose themselves to Eudoxus,
as if what all nature desiderates were not
§ VI.]
773.
OF COMMON SENSE.
a good, talk idly.
all, that we affirm to be; and he who would
subvert this belief, will himself assuredly
advance nothing more deserving of credit.”
—Compare also L. vii. c. 13 (14 Zuing.)
In his paraphrase of the above passage
the Pseudo-Andronicus (Heliodorus Prus-
ensis) in one place uses the expression
common opinion, and in another all but
uses (what indeed he could hardly do in
this meaning as an Aristotelian, if indeed
in Greek at all) the expression common
sense, which D. Heinsius in his Latin Ver-
sion actually employs. “But, that what all
beings desire is a good, this is manifest to
every one endowed with sense’—(7&al roig
#y oria&#ael, “omnibus communi sensu prae-
ditis.”) See No. 31.
g—Eth. Eud. L. i. c. 6.—‘But of all
these we must endeavour to seek out ra–
tional grounds of belief, by adducing mani-
fest testimonies - and examples.
the strongest evidence of a doctrine, if all
men can be adduced as the manifest con-
fessors of its positions; because every in-
dividual has in him a kind of private organ
of the truth. Hence we ought Inot
always to look only to the conclusions of
reasoning, but frequently rather to what
appears [and is believed] to be.’ See Nos.
10, 30. •. s
h.—Ibid. L. vii. c. 14.—‘The problem
is this;–What is the beginning or prin-
ciple of motion in the soul ? Now it is
evident. that as God is in the universe,
and the universe in God, that [I read zuv-
giv x&t] the divinity in us is also, in a
certain sort, the universal mover of the
mind. For the principle of Reason is not
Reason, but something better. Now what
can we say is better than even science, ex-
cept God?”——The import of this singular
passage is very obscure. It has excited,
I see, the attention, and exercised the in-
genuity, of Pomponatius, J. C. Scaliger,
De Raei, Leibnitz, Leidenfrost, Jacobi,
&c. But without viewing it as of pan-
theistic tendency, as Leibnitz is inclined
to do, it may be interpreted as a declara-
tion, that Intellect, which Aristotle else-
where allows to be pre-existent and im-
mortal, is a spark of the Divinity; whilst
its data (from which, as principles more
certain thai, their deductions, Reason, De-
monstration, Science must depart) are to
be reverenced as the revelation of truths,
which would otherwise lie hid from man.
That, in short, -
* The voice of Nature is the voice of God.”
By the bye, it is remarkable that this text
was not employed by any of those Aristo-
For what appears to
For it is
telians who endeavoured to identify the
Active Intellect with the Deity. -
i.—Phys. L. viii. c. 3.--Speaking of
those who from the contradictions in our
conception of the possibility, denied the
fact, of motion:—‘But to assert that all
things are at rest, and to attempt a proof
of this by reasoning, throwing the testi-
mony of sense out of account, is a sign not
of any strength, but of a certain imbecility
of reason.” And in the same chapter—
‘Against all these reasonings there suffices
the belief [of sense] alone.’ See Simplicius
ad locum, ed. Ald. ff. 276, 277.
k.—De Gen. Anim. L. iii. c. 10.—‘We
ought to accord our belief to sense, in pre-
ference to reasoning; and of reasonings,
- especially to those whose conclusions are
in conformity with the phaenomena.’ And
somewhere in the same work he also says,
* Sense is equivalent to, or has the force of,
science.” * *
l.—See also De Coelo L. i. c. 3, text
22.
m.—Ibid, L. iii. c. 7, text 61.
n.—Meteor., L. i. c. 13.
4.—THEOPHRASTUs.—a.–Metaph. c. 8,
(ed. Sylb. p. 260, Brand. p. 319.) The
following testimony of this philosopher (if
the treatise be indeed his) is important
both in itself, and as illustrative of the
original peripatetic doctrine touching the
cognition of first principles, which he
clearly refuses to Sense and induction,
and asserts to Intelligence and intuition.
It has however been wholly overlooked;
probably in consequence of being nearly
unintelligible in the original from the cor-
ruption of the common text, and in the
version of Bessarion—also from a misap-
prehension of his author's meaning,
Having observed that it was difficult to
determine up to what point and in regard
to what things the investigation of causes
or reasons is legitimate;—that this diffi-
culty applies to the objects both of Sense
and of Intelligence, in reference to either
of which a regress to infinity is at once a
negation of them as objects of understand-
ing and of philosophy;-that Sense and
Intelligence, severally furnish a point of .
departure, a principle, the one relative, or
to us, the other absolute, or in nature;—
and that each is the converse of the other,
the first in nature being the last to us;–
he goes on to state what these counter
processes severally avail in the research,
or, as he calls it, after Aristotle, the specu-
lation, of principles. “ Up to a certain
point, taking our departure from the
Senses, we are able, rising from reason to
reason, to carry on the speculation of prin-
774
[NOTE A,
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
ciples; but when we arrive at those which
are [not merely comparatively prior but]
absolutely supreme and primary, we can
no more; because, either that a reason is
no longer to be found, or of our own im-
becility, unable, as it were to look from
mere excess of light. [Compare Arist.
Metaph. A minor, c. 1; which supports
the reading, postvároºroz.] But the other
procedure is probably the more authentic,
which accords the speculation of principles
to the towch, as it may be called, and feel-
ing of Intelligence (rá vč 9tyovra zoºl of v
&boºzévg.) [Comp. Aristot. Metaph. xii.
7.] For in this case there is no room for
illusion in regard to these.” He then ob-
serves—‘That it is even in the sciences of
detail, of great, but in the universal sci-
ences, of paramount, importance, to deter-
mine wherein, and at what point the limit
to a research of reasons should be fixed.’
And why? . . Because they who require a
ºreason for every thing, subvert, at once, the
foundations of reason and of knowledge.’
b.—See above, p. 765 a, where from his
doctrine in regard to first principles it ap-
pears that Theophrastus, like Aristotle,
founds knowledge on natural Belief.
‘5.—LUGRETIUs.—De Rerum Natura, L.
i. v. 423, sq.
* Corpus enim per se communis deliquat esse
Sensus; quo nisi prima fides fundata valebit,
Haud erit, occultis de rebus quo referentes,
Confirmare animi quicquam ratione queamus.” -
Sensus Communis here means Sense,
strictly so called, as testifying not only in
all men, but in all animals. It is a trans-
lation of the expression of Epicurus–
% cigánaig #7. 7&vrov (Laert. x. 39);
and as in the Epicurean philosophy all our
knowledge is merely an educt of Sense,
the truth of the derived, depends wholly
upon the truth of the original evidence.
See L. iv., vv. 480, sq. -
6.–CIGERO.-a.—De Fin. I. iv. c. 19.-
Speaking of the Stoical paradoxes, (‘recte
facta omnia aequalia, omnia peccata pa-
ria,’ &c.) he says—‘ Quae cum magnifice
primo dici videntur, considerata, minus
probantur. Sensus enim cujusque, [i.e.
S. communis] et natura rerum, atque ipsa.
Veritas clamat, quodam modo, non posse
adduci, ut inter eas res quas Zeno exae-
quaret, nihil interesset.” (See No. 7.)
b.—Tusc. Disp. L. i. c. 13.—' Omni au-
tem in re consensio omnium gentium lex
naturae putanda est.’ Compare also c. 15.
c.—De Nat. Deor.; L. i. c. 16. The
Epicurean Welleius there speaking the
doctrine of his sect:—‘Intelligi necesse
est, esse Deos, quoniam insitas eorum, vel
potius innatas cognitiones habemus.* De
qwC awtem, omnium natura consentit, id
verwin esse mec sse est. Esse igitur Deos
confitendum est.’ Compare Plato, De
Legibus, L. x.; Aristotle, De Coelo, L. i.
c. 3, ; Plutarch, Amatores; Seneca, Episto-
lac, 117. -
d.—For “Sensw8 Communis, and “Sensus
Communes, as the sources of moral judg-
ment, see the Orations Pro Cluentio 6.
Pro Plancio, 13, 14.—Pro Domo, 36.
e.—For “Sensus Communis’ as criterion
of judgment in the arts, see De Orat., L.
iii. c. 50; quoted by Reid, p. 424, b ; com-
pare L. i. c. 3.
7.—HoRAGE.--Sermones, I.iii. 96.Speak-
ing like Cicero (No. 6, a.) of the Stoica-
paradox, he says— -
* Queis paria esse fere placuit peccata, labo-
rant,
Quem ventum ad verum est; Sensus moresque
repugnant.”
That is, as Acro (to say nothing of Tor-
rentius, Baxter, and other moderns,) in-
terprets it—‘ communis hominum sensus.’ ‘f
8.—SENECA.—a.—Epist. 117. —“ Mul-
tum dare solemus praesumptioni omnium
hominum. Apud nos veritatis argumen-
tum est, aliquid omnibus videri.’
b.—Ep. 9. ‘Ut scias autem hos sensus
| communes esse, natura scilicet dictante,
| apud poetam comicum invenies,
“Non est beatus, esse se quinon putet.”
• It is not to be supposed that the zouyoci
#ywotzu, ºva'izzi a goańspels, of the Stoics, far
less of the Epicureans (however, as in the pre-
Sent instance, styled innate or implanted,) were
more than generalisations a posteriori. Yet
this is a mistake, into which, among many
others, even Lipsius and Leibnitz have fallen,
in regard to the former. See Mamud. ad Stoic.
Philos. L. ii. diss, ll; and Nouv. Ess. Pref.
# This gloss of Acro is not to be found in any
of the editions of the two Horatian scholiasts.
But I am in possession of extracts made by the
celebrated William Canter, from a more com-
plete MS. of these commentators, than any to
which Fabricius and their other editors had ac-
cess. This codex belonged to Canter himself; .
and he gives its character, and a few specimens
of its anecdota, in his Novae Lectiones. The copy
of Horace (one of the first edition of Lambinus)
in which these extracts are found, contains also
the full collation of Canter’s ‘Manuscripti Co-
dices Antiquissimi” of the poet, (two only, I
can prove, not three, as the Novae Lectiones,
fallaciously state,) and which, from the many
remarkable readings to be found exclusively in
them, must, in all probability, have perished—
perhaps in the inundation by which Canter’s
celebrated library was, in a great measure, de
stroyed. -
§ v1.]
775
OF COMMON SENSE.
c.——Ep. 120. “Natura semina mobis sci-
entiae dedit, scientiam laon dedit.’
9.—PLINY the Younger.—Paneg. c. 64.
—‘ Melius omnibus quam singulis creditur.
Singuli enim decipere et decipi possunt :
aeme omnes, Heminem omnes fefellerunt.”
9*—-QUINTILIAN.—Inst., L. V. c. 10. §
12–' Pro certis habemus ea, in quae com-
muni opinione consensum est.’
10 —ALEXANDER OF APHRODIsIAs, the
oldest and ablest of the interpreters of
Aristotle whose writings have come down
to us, follows his master, in resting truth
and philosophy on the natural convictions
of mankind. -
a.—On Fate, § 2, edd. Lond. et Orell.
Oi 2syöv ość Čarozov a 2Azºoig A zouv}
wów &v66%zov (pºag, z.T.A. “The common
nature of man is neither itself void of truth,
nor is it an erring index of the true; *
in virtue whereof all men are on certain
points mutually agreed, those only ex-
cepted, who, through preconceived opin-
ions, and a desire to follow these out con-
sistently, find themselves compelled verbal-
ly f to dissent.’ And he adds, that ‘ An-
axagoras of Clazomene, however otherwise
distinguished as a physical philosopher, is
undeserving of credit, in opposing his tes-
timony touching fate to the common belief
of mankind.” This he elsewhere calls their
* common presumptions,’ their ‘ common
and natural notions.’ See §§ 8, 14, 26, of
the same work, and the chapter on Fate
in the second book of his treatise On the
Soul, f. 161, ed. Ald. 1534.
b.—On the Topics of Aristotle, (p. 48,
ed. Ald.) “ The induction useful in the
employment of axioms is useful for illus-
trating the application to particulars of the
axiomatic rule, [read zreel Aºzºzvozzévo,
but not in demonstrating its universality;
for this, as an object of intellect, is self-evi-
dent, nor can it, in propriety, be proved
by induction at all.’ Compare also p. 12.
11.-CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA—Stro-
mata. After stating (L. v. Op. ed. 1688,
p. 544,) that there is neither knowledge
without belief, nor belief without know-
ledge, and having shown (L. viii. p. 771,)
after Aristotle and others, that the sup-
position of proof or demonstration being
founded on propositions themselves capable
of being proved, involves the absurdity of
an infinite regress, and therefore subverts
the possibility of demonstration, he says—
“Thus the philosophers confess that the
beginnings, the principles of all knowledge,
are indemonstrable; consequently if de-
monstration there be, it is necessary that
there should be something prior, believable
of itself, something first and indemonstrable.
All demonstration is thus ultimately re-
solved into an indemonstrable b-lief.”
12. —TERTULLIAN.—a,—De Testimonio
Animae adversus Gentes, c. 5.—‘ Haec
testimonia animae, quanto vera tanto sim-
plicia, quanto simplicia tanto. vulgaria,
quanto vulgaria tanto communia, quanto
communia tanto naturalia, quanto natura-
lia tanto divina; non putem cuiquam fri-
volum et frigidum videri posse, si recogi-
tet naturae majestatem, ex qua censetur
auctoritas animae. Quantum dederis ma-
gistrae, tantum adjudicabis discipulae. Ma-
gistra natura, anima discipula. Quicquid
aut illa edocuit, autista perdidicit, a Deo
traditum est, magistro scilicet ipsius ma-
gistrae. Quid anima possit de principali
institutore praesumere, in te est aesti-
mare de ea quae in te est. Sed
qui ejusmodi eruptiones animae non puta-
vit doctrinam esse naturae, et congenitae et
ingenitae conscientiae * tacita commissa,
dicet potius de ventilatis in vulgus opi-
nionibus, publicatarum litterarum usum
jam, et quasi vitium, corroboratum taliter
sermocinandi. Certe prior anima quam
littera, et prior sermo quam liber, et prior
sensus quam stylus, et prior homo ipse
quam philosophus et poeta. Nunquid ergo
credendum est ante litteraturam et divul-
gationem ejus, mutos absºlue hujusmodi
pronunciationibus homines vixisse ? . . .
Et unde ordo ipsis litteris contigit, nosse,
et in usum loquelae disseminare, quae mulla
unquam mens conceperat, aut lingua pro-
tulerat, aut auris exceperat 2 –He alludes
to I. Corinthians ii. 9, &c.
b.—De Resurrectione Carnis, c. 3.—
* Est quidem et de communibus sensibws
Sapere in Dei rebus. . . Utar et con-
Scientia. * populi, contestantis Deum Deo-
rum; utar et reliquis communibus sensibws,
etc. . . Communes enim sensus simplicitas
ipsa commendat, et compassio sententia-
rum, et familiaritas opinionum, eoque fide-
liores existimantur, quia nuda et aperta et
omnibus nota definiumt. Ratio enim di-
vina in medulla est, non in superficie, et.
plerumque aermula manifestis.” .
c.—Ibid. c. 5.-" Igitur quoniametrudes
quique de communibus adhuc sensibus sa-
piunt,’ &c.
.* See Aristotle, No. 3, d. -
# Verbally, not mentally. He has Aristotle
(Anal. Post. L. i. c. 10. § 7,) in view. See Buf-
tier, No. 63. -
* Tertullian is the only ancient writer who
uses the word Conscientia in a psychological
sense, Gorresponding with our Consciousness. See
nóte I.
776
[NOTE A.
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
d.—De Anima, c. 2.--Speaking of the
sources from which a merely human phi-
losophy had derived its knowledge of the
mind, he concludes—‘ Sed et natura plera-
que suggeruntur quasi de publico SenSw,
quo animam Deus dotare dignatus est.’
See above, p. 111 b, note. -
e.—Praescr. 28. ‘Quodapud multos unum
invenitur, non est erratum sed traditum.”
13.− ARNOB1Us.—Adversus Gentes, L.ii.
p.92. ed. 1651. “Quidest anobisfactum con-
tra sensumjudiciumque commune, si majora
et certiora delegimus, nec Sumus nos passi
falsorum religionibus attineri ?’ Add., pp.
66, 127.
14.—LAGTANTIUs.—Institut. L. iii. C.
5.—* Debuit ergo Arcesilaus siquid Sape-
ret, distinguere, quae Sciri possent, quaeve
nesciri. Sed si id fecisset, ipse se in po-
pulum redigisset. Nam vulgus interdum
plus Sapit, quia tantum, quantum opus est,
sapit.” -
Quaere—Had Lactantius the line of
Martial in his eye 7
* Quisquis plus justo non Sapit, ille Sapit;’
or the precept of St Paul ?–“ Non plus
Sapere quam oportet Sapere, Sed Sapere
ad sobrietatem.”
15. — ST AUGUSTIN.—a.— De duabus
Animabus, c. 10. “Quivis enim homines,
quos modo a communi sensw generis hu-
mani nulla disrupisset amentia,’ &c.
b.--De Trinitate. Lib. xiii. c. 1.- No-
vimus certissima scientia, et clamante Con-
scientia.’ That is, Conscience, not Con-
sciousness, as sometimes supposed.
c.—De Magistro, c. 11.—‘Ait Propheta,
[Is. vii. 9..] Nisi credideritis non intelli-
getis ; quod non dixisset profecto, si nihil
distare judicasset. Quod ergo intelligo,
id etiam credo; at non omne quod credo,
etiam intelligo. Omne autem quod intel-
ligo scio; non omne quod credo Scio.—
Quare pleraque . cum scire non possim,
quanta tamen utilitate credantur scio.’
16.—PRocI.Us (In Platonis Theologiam,
Lib. i. c. 25,) has still more remarkable
declarations of the truth, that Belief is the
foundation of knowledge. Speaking of the
faith of the gods, which he describes as
anterior to the act of cognition, (ºrgsgè0-
ºrégou täg yyoo ruzăg #vegysicag,) he says that
it is not only to be distinguished from our
belief, or rather error, in regard to things
sensible; but likewise from the belief we
have of what are called Common Notions,
with which it, however, agrees, in that
these common notions command assent,
prior to all reflection or reasoning: (zczl
226 raig ×ouvøig #vvoiceg 7:00 arczyróg Aóvov
zrtarevokzev.) See below, Hermes, No. 99.
Among other Platonists the same doctrine
is advanced by the pseudo Hermes Tris-
megistus, L. xvi. Sub fine, p. 436, ed. Pa-
tricii, 1593. -
17–AMMONIUS HERMIAE (as extracted
and interpolated by Philoponus) in his
Commentary on Aristotle ‘ On the Soul,’
Introduction, p. 1-3, ed. Trincavelli, 1535.
* The function of Intellect (vojg) is by im-
mediate application [or intuition, &#x2i;
7800&ox&is, to reach or compass reality,
and this end it accomplishes more certain-
ly than through the medium of demonstra-
tion. For as Sense, by applying itself at
once to a coloured or figured object, ob-
tains a knowledge of it better than through
demonstration—for there needs no syllo-
gism to prove that this or the other thing
is white, such being perceived by the sim-
ple appliance of the sense; so also the In-
tellect apprehends its appropriate object
by a simple appliance, [a simple intuitive
jet, &rAñ #7-130A;i,j better than could be
done through any process of demonstra-
tion.’ tº gº
* I say that the rational soul has in, and
co-essential with, it the reasons (A62,096)
of things; but, in consequence of being
clothed in matter, they are, as it were,
oppressed and Smothered, like the spark
which lies hid under the ashes. And as,
when the ashes are slightly dug into, the
spark forthwith gleams out, the digger not
however making the spark, but only re-
moving an impediment; in like manner,
Opinion, excited by the senses, elicits the
reasons of existences from latency into
manifestation. Hence they [the Plato-
nists] affirm that teachers do not infuse
into us knowledge, but only call out into
the light that which previously existed in
us, as it were, concealed. It is
however more correct to say that these are
Common Notions or adumbrations of the,
Intellect; for whatever we know more
certainly than through demonstration, that
we know in a common notion.’ • e e
Such common notions are—“Things that
are equal to the same are equal to one an-
other,’—‘If equals be taken from equals
the remainders are equal,”—“ Everything
must be either affirmed or denied.”
18.-ST ANSELM professes the maxim—
* Crede ut intelligas;’ which became cele-
brated in the schools, as opposed to the
* Intellige ut credas’ of Abelard.
19.-ALGAZEL of Bagdad, ‘the Imaum
of the world,” somewhere (in his De-
struction of the Philosophers, if I recol-
lect aright) says, as the Latin version
gives it—‘ Radix cognitionis fides.’
20.-ST THOMAS Aquin As-a-Deve-
'§ v 1.]
777
OF COMMON SENSE.
ritate fidei catholicae contra Gentiles. L. i.
c. 7. § 1. * Ea quae naturaliter rationi insita,
verissima esse constat ; intantum, ut nec
ea falsa esse possibile cogitare. . . . .
Βrincipiorum maturaliter notorum cognitio
nobis divinitus est indita, cum ipse Deus sit
auctor nostrae naturae. Haec ergo prin-
cipia etiam divina sapientia continet. Quic-
quid igitur principiis hujusmodi contrarium
est, est divinae sapientiae contrarium :
non igitur a Deo esse potest. Ea igitur
quae ex revelatione divina, per fidem tenen-
tur, non possunt uaturali cognitioni esse
contraria.' «
b.—Expositio in Libb. Metaph. Aristot.
Lect. v.—* Eô quia talis cognitio princi-
piorum (those of Contradiction and of Ex-
cluded Middle) inest nobis statim a natura,
concludit,' &c.
c.—Summa Theologiae, P. i. Partis ii.
Qu. 51, art. 1.—* Intellectus principiorum
dicitur esse habitus naturalis. Ex ipsa
enim natura animae intellectualis convenit
homini, quod, statim cognito quid est to-
tum et quid est pars, cognoscat quod omne
totum est majus sua parte, et simiie in
caeteris. Sed quid sit totum et quid sit
pars cognoscere non potest, nisi per species
intelligibiles a phantasmatibus acceptas, et
propter hoc Philosophus, in fine Posterio-
rum, ostendit quod cognitio principiorum
provenit ex sensu.'
d.—De Veritate, Qu. xi. De MIagistro,
conclusio —* Dicendum est similiter de
scientiae acquisitione, quod præexistunt in
nobis principia quae statim lwmine ántellec-
tus agentis cognoscuntur, per species a
sensibilibus abstractas, sive sint complexa ,
ut dignitates, sive incomplexa. sicut entis
et w^ius et hujusmodi quae statim intellec-
tus apprehendit. Ex istis autem principiis
universalibus omnia principia sequuntur,
sicut ex quibusdam ratíonibus seminalibus,'
&c.
e.— Summa Theologiae, P. i. Partis ii.
Qu. 5. art. 3. * Quod ab omnibus dicitur
non potest totaliter falsum esse. Videtur
enim naturale quod in pluribus est ; matura,
autem non totaliter deficit.* Compare Nos.
l and 3, f.
21.—JoANNEs DUNs ScoTUs holds a
doctrine of Commom, Sense, with reference,
more especially, to necessary truths, in
which the genuine doctrine of Aristotle is
admirably enoumced, and cogently de-
fended.
On the one hand, he maintains (against
Averroes) that principles are not, in a cer-
tain sense, innate im the Intellect; ί. e. not
as actual cognitions chronologically ante-
rior to experience.—* Dicendum quod non
habet aliquam cognitionem naturalem se-
cundum naturam suam, neque simplicium,
neque complexorum, quia omnis nostra cog-
nitio ortum habet ex sensu. Primo enim
movetur sensus ab aliquo simplici non com-
plexo, et a sensu moto movetur intellectus et
intelligit simplicia, quod est primus actus in-
tellectus ; deinde post apprehensionem sim-'
plicium, sequitur alius actus, qui est com-
ponere simplicia, ad invicem ; post illam
autem compositioném, habet intellectus ex
lumine maturali quod assentiat illi veritati
complexorum, si illud complexum sit prin-
cipium primum.* Quaestt. super libros
Metaph. L. ii. q. 1. § 2.
On the other hand, he maintains (against
Henry of Ghent) that, in a different sense,
principles are naturally inherent in the
mind. For he shews that the intellect is
not dependent upom sense and experience,
except accidentally, in so far as these are
requisite, in affording a kmowledge of the
terms, to afford the occasion on which, by
its native and proper light, (in other words,
by the suggestion of common sense,) it
actually mamifests the principles which it
potentially contained ; amd that these prin-
ciples are certain, even were those phæno-
mena of sense illusive, in reference to
which they are elicited. * Respondeo, quod
quantum ad istam notitiam, (principiorum
sc.) intellectus non habet sensus pro causa
[vel origìne, as he elsewhere has it,] sed
tantum pro occasione : quia intellectus non
potest habere notitiam simplicium nisi ac-
ceptam a sensibus, illa tamen accepta potest
simplioia virtute sua componere et, si ex
ratione talium simplicium sit complexio
evidenter vera, intellectus virtute propria
et terminorum assentiet illi complexioni,
non 'virtute sensus, a quo accipit terminos
exterius. Exemplum ;—si ratio totius et
ratio majoritatis accipiantur a sensu, et
intellectus componat istam— Omne totum,
est maius sua parte, intellectus virtute sui
et istorum terminorum assentiet indubitan-
ter isti complexioni, et non tantum quia
vidit terminos conjunctos in re, sicut assem-
tit isti—Socrates est albus, quia vidit ter-
minos in re uniri. Immo dico, quod si
omnes sensus essent falsi,' &c. In libros
Sent. Comm. Oxon. L. i., Dist. 3, qu. 4,
§ 8.—See also §§ 12, 23; and Quaestt.
super Metaph., L. i. qu. 4. §§ 3, 4, 5, 1I,
12, 14, 16; L. ii. qu. 1. §§ 2, 3, et alibi;
where it is frequently repeated that sense
and experience are mot the cause or origin,
but only the occasion on which the matural
light qf Intellect reveals its principles or
first truths.
I may observe, that like Locke, the Sub-
tle Doctor divides our aequisition of know-
ledge between two sQurces, Sense and
778
[NOTE A.
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
Reflection.—* Nihil est in intellectu quin
• prius fuerit in sensu, vera est de eo quod
est primum intelligibile, scilicet quod qwid
est [rò άτι] rei materialis, non autem de
omnibus per se intelligibilibus; nam multa
per se intelliguntur, non quia speciem fa-
ciunt in Sensu, sed per Refleâionem intellec-
tus.' Quaestt. super Univ. Porph. q. 3.
But what Locke was sometimes compelled
virtually to confess, in opposition to the
general tenor of his doctrine, (see No. 51,)
Scotus professedly lays down as the very
foundation of his—that Reflection finds in
the mind, or intelleet itself, principles, or
necessary cognitions, which are not the
educts of experience, howbeit not actually
manifested prior to, or except on occasion
of, some empirical act of knowledge.*
22.—ANToNIUS ANDREAs, an . imme-
diate disciple of Scotus,—the Doctor Dul-
cifluus. Quaestt. super libros Metaph. L.
ii. qu. 1.—* Respondeo, et dico duo.
* PRIMUM ; — Quod notitia, Primorum
Principiorwm non est nobis a natura ; quia
omnis nostra cognitio intellectiva habet or-
tum a sensu, et, per consequens, non inesta
natura. . . Primo enim motu movetur sen-
sus ab objecto simplici non complexo ; et a
sensu moto movetur intellectus, et intelligit
simplicia, qui est primus actus intellectus.
I)einde post apprehensionem simplicium
- sequitur alius actus, qui est componere sim-
plicia ad invicem ; et post istam composi-
tionem habet intellectus, eæ lúmine ^atw-
rali ut assentiat illi veritati complexae, si
illud complexum sit primum principium.
* SECUNDUM ;—Quod notitia, Primorum
Principiorum [recte] dicitur nobis inesse
naturaliter, quatenus, eæ lumine natwrali
intellectus, sunt nobis inesse nota, habita
notitia simplici terminorum, quia * princi-
pia cognoscimus inquantum terminos cog-
moscimus,” (ex primo Posteriorum.)*
To this schoolmam we owe the first en-
ouncement of the Principle of Identity.
Those who are curious in this matter
will find many acute observations on the
nature of principles in the other school-
men ; more especially in Averroes on the
Analytics and Metaphysics, in Albertus
• The edition I use, is that by the Irish Fran-
ciscans, Lyons, 1639, of the Opera Omnia of
Scotus, 12 vols. in folio. This is the only edi-
tion in which the Subtile Doctor cam be conve-
niently studied. His editor and commentators
of course maintain him to be a countrymam ;
. but the patriotism of Father Maurice (t. iii. p.
254,) makes mo scruple in holding him out as
actually inspired :—“ Suppono, cum Moyse in
monte hoc vidit, aut cum Paulo ad tertium
coelum ascemdit, aut certe cum alio Joanne su-
pra pectus sapientiae recubuit.'
Magnus on the Predieables and Pr. An-
alytics, and in Hales, 3d and 4th books
of his Metaphysics. - {
23.—BUDAE vs.—In Pandectas, Tit. i.
—* Ista igitur fere quae juri naturali ascri-
buntur, idest, quae matura docuisse nos cre-
ditur, versantur in Sensw Communi,' &c.
24.—LUTHER.—Weisheit, Th. iii. Abth.
2.—* All things have their root in Belief,
which we cam neither perceive nor com-
prehend. He who would make this Be-
lief visible, manifest, and conceivable, has
sorrow for his pains.'
25. — MELANCHTHON. — a.—De Dialec-
tica, ed. Lugd. 1542, p. 90.—Speaking of
the Dicta, de Ommi et de Nullo—* Nec
opus est procul quaerere harum regularum
interpretationem; si quis sensum commw-
nem consuluerit, statim intelliget eas.
Nam ut Arithmetica et aliae artes imitia
• sumunt a sensw commwni, ita Dialecticae
principia nobiscum mascuntur.* -
b.—Ibid., p. 103.—Speaking of the pro-
cess in the Expository Syllogism,—* Ha-
bet causam haec consequentia in natura
positam quandam xoivòv àvvouo&v, ut vocamt,
hoc est, sententiam quam omnis natura
docet, de qua satis est sensum commwnem
consulere.' And again—* Est et hujus
consequentiae ratio sumpta a communi
sensw.*
c.—Erotemata Dialectica I,. iv. in Loco,
ab Absurdo, p. 1040, ed. 3, Strigelii, 1579
—* Absurdum in Philosophia vocatur opi-
nio pugnans cum Sensw, Communi, id est
vel cum principiis naturae motis, vel cum
universali experientia.* Reid (see n. 79 a)
says repeatedly the very same.
d.—Ibid., p. 853.—* Quare Primcipia sunt
certa? I. Quia notitia prineipiorum est
lumem maturale, insitum humanis mentibus
divinitus. II. Quia dato opposito sequi-
tur destructio naturae.* See also pp. 798,
857, and the relative commentary of
Strigelius. What Melanchthon states in
regard to the cognition of Principles and
Light of Nature is borrowed from the
schoolmen. See above, Nos. 20, 21, 22.
Consult also his treatise De Anima im the
chapters De Intellectu ; more especially
that entitled— Estne verum dictum, notitias
aliquas nobiscum masci?
26.—JULIUS CAESAR SCALIGER.—IDe
Subtilitate, Exerc. cccvii. § 18.—* Sunt
cum anima nostra quaedam cognatae, noti-:
tiae, quae idcirco voυς dicuntur a Philoso-
pho. Nemo enim tam infans est, quem
cognitio lateat, pluris et paucioris. ln-
fanti duo poma apponito. Uno recepto,
alterum item poscet. Ab his principiis
actus Mentis, a sensilibus excitatus.'—Such.
principles, he contends, are innate in the.
§ VI.]
779
OF COMMON SENSE.
human Intellect, precisely as the instincts
of the lower animals are innate in their
highest power. They may therefore be
denominated Intellectual Instincts. Com-
pare §§ 21, 22. »
The doctrine of this acute philosopher
was adopted and illustrated, among others,
by his two expositors Rodolphus Goclen-
ius of Marburg, and Joannes Sperlingius
of Wittemberg ; by the former in his Ad-
versaria ad Scaligeri Exercitationes, 1594
(qq. 41, 51, 60) ; by the latter, not in-
deed im his Meditationes ad Scaligeri Ex-
ereitationes, but in his Physica Anthro-
pologica, 1668 (L. i. c. 3, § 8.) In these
the arguments of Gassendi and Locke for
the counter opinion, are refuted by anti-
cipation ; though, in fact, Locke himself
is at last, as we shall see, obliged to ap-
peal to Commom, Semse, identical with the
Intellectus, Mens and Lumen, Naturale of
these and other philosophers. (No. 51.)
Otto Casmann, the disciple of Goclenius,
may also be consulted in his Psychologia
Anthropologica, 1594. (c. 5, § 5.)
27.—OMPEIAL1Us.—Nomologia, f. 72 b.
* Non eget his praeceptis [dictis scilicet de
omni et de nullo] qui Sensum Coinmunem
consulit, Natura siquidem plerasque xouvo&ς
àvvofozs animis nostris insevit quibus re-
rum maturam pervidemus.'
28.— ANToNiUs GovEANUs.—Pro Aris-
totele Responsio adversus Petri Rami Ca-
1umnias. Opera Omnia, ed. Meermanniana,
p. 802 a.—* An non ex homivum com-
^nwmi sensu desumptae enunciationum re-
ciprocationes hae videntur? . . . Sumpta,
haec, Rame, sunt-e communi hominum in-
telligentia, cujus cum mater natura sit,
quid est, quaeso, cur negemus naturae de-
creta haec et praecepta esse ? '
29. — NUNNEsIUs. — De Constitutione
Dialecticae, f. 56, b. ed. 1554.—* Sed cum
Dialectica contenta sit Sensu, Com7nuni,*
&c.
30.—MURETUs.—In Aristotelis Ethica
ad Nicomachum Commentarius, 1583.
Opera Omnia, Ruhnkenii, t. iii. p. 230.
In proof of the immortality of the soul,
in general, and in particular, in disproof
of an old and ever-recurring opinion—one,
indeed, which agitates, at the present mo-
ment, the divines and philosophers of Ger-
many — that the intellect in man, as a
merely passing manifestation of the uni-
versal soul, the Absolute, can pretend to
mo individual, no personal, existence be-
yond the grave; he adduces the argument
drawn from the commom sense of mankind,
in the following moble, though hitherto um-
moticed, passage:—touching the eloquemce
of which, it should be borne in mind, that
what is now read as a commentary was
originally listened to by a great and min-
gled auditory, as improvisations from the
mouth of him, for whose equal as a Latin
orator we must ascend to Cicero himself.
* Neque laborandum estetiamsi haec [nisi]
naturalibus argumentis probare nequeamus,
neque fortassis dissolvererationes quasdam,
quas afferunt ii, qui contrarias opiniones
tuentur. Naturalis enim omnium gentium
consensus multo plus ponderis apud nos,
quam omnia istorum argumenta, habere
debet. Neque quicquam est aliud gigan-
tum more bellare cum diis, quam repug-
mare naturae,* et insitas ab ea in omnium
animis opiniones acutis ac fallacibus con-
clusiunculis velle subvertere. Itaque ut
senes illi Trojani, apud Homerum, dice-
bant, pulchram quidem esse Helenam, sed
tamen ablegandum ad suos, ne exitio esset
civitati; ita nos, si quando afferetur nobis
ab istis acutum aliquod argumentum, quo
colligatur . . . . animos interire una cum
corporibus, aut si quid supersit, commune
quiddam esse, et ut unum solem,f ita unam
esse omnium mentem, . . . respondeamus:
— Ingeniosus quidem es, o bone, et erudi-
tus, et in disputando potens; sed habe tibi
istas praeclaras rationes tuas; ego eas, ne
mihi exitiosae sint, admittere in animum
meum nolo. Accipite, enim, gravissimi
viri, . . . studiosissimi adolescentes, . . .
praeclaram, et immortali memoria dignam,
summi philosophi Aristotelis sententiam,
quam in omnibus hujus generis disputa-
tionibus teneatis, quam sequamini, ad quam
sensus cogitationesque vestras perpetuo
dirigatis. Ex illius enim divini hominis
pectore, tanquam ex augustissimo quodam
sapientiae sacrario, haec prodierunt, quae
primo Ethicorum ad Eudemum leguntur—
IIgoaâzειν οὐ δεῖ παντα τοῖς δι2 τὸν λό-
Wayv, 2Áλα τολλάχις μᾶλλον τοῖς φαινομ-
êvoug. Convertam haec in Latinum ser-
monem, utinamque possem in omnes om-
nium populorum linguas convertere, atque
in omnium hominum animis, ita ut mun-
* Cic. De Sen. c. 2. Quid enim est, aliud
gigantum more bellare cum diis, nisi naturae
repugnare?
+ Had Muretus the following passage of Bes-
sariom im his eye?—* Intellectum deforis adven-
ire, [Aristotle's dictum,] Theophrastus, Alex-
ander, Themistius, AveTroes, ita, accipiumt, ut.
jam quisque ortus, illico intellectus sibi appli-
catam excipiat portionem, ita extinctus relin-
quat in commune ; non aliter, ac si quis Sole,
mascens, participare dicatwr, moriens, priva^-i ; et
non esse animam particularem, quae deforis
advenit, sed ex communi acceptam applica-
tiomem.' In Calumm. Plat; L. iii. c. 27.—The :
simile of the sun is however to be found in P]o
tinus, and— I think—in Themistius.
780
[NOTE A,
ON THE PEHILOSOPHY
quam delerentur, insculpere:—Non sem-
per, meque omnibus in rebus, assentiendum
est iis quae rationibus et argumentis pro-
bantur ; immo potius ea plerumque tenenda,
quae communi hominum sententia compro-
öantur.. Quid enim est tam falsum,
tamque abhorrens a vero, ut non ad id
probaridum ab ingeniosis et exercitatis
hominibus argumenta, excogitari queant?
. . . Vidistisne unquam in temebrosa nocte
accensam aliquam facem e longinquo. loco
micamtem ? Illam, igitur, quamvis dissi-
tam, videbatis; neque tamen quicquam, in
illo longo, interjecto inter oculum vestrum
et facem, densis obsito tenebris spatio, vi-
dere poteratis. Idem putatote animis ac-
eidere. Saepe animus noster veritatem
alicujus enunciationis tanquam eminus ful-
gentem ac collucentem videt, etiamsi
propter illam, qua circumfusus est, calig-
inem, videre ea, quae intermedia sunt, et
per quae ad eam pervenitur, non potest.
. . . Si iter aliquod ingressurus, duas vi-
deres vias, quae eodem ferrent; unam ex-
peditam, planam, tutam, et eo quo consti-
tuisses, sine ulla erratione, ducentem ; al-
teram tortuosam, asperam, periculosam, et
quam qui sequerentur, propter varios et
multiplices anfractus, saepe aberrarent;—
dubitares utram potius eligeres ? Duae
sunt viae quibus homines ad aliquam cog-
nitionem Dei et animi sui pervenire posse
se putant. Aut enim eo contendunt dis-
putando, et cur quicquam ita sit subtiliter
inquirendo; aut sine dubitatione ulla assen-
tiendo iis, quae majores summo consensu,
partim maturali lumine cognita, partim
divinitus inspirata, tradiderunt. Illam qui
secuti sunt, omnibus saeculis in multiplices
errores inciderunt. At haec illorum sig-
nata est vestigiis, quos in coelum sublatos
veneramur et colimus.**
31.—GIPHANIUS.—Commentarii in li-
* Of mone of the great, scholars of the 16th
cemtury—the second goldem age of Latin Ietters
—have the works been so frequently republish-
ed, so learmedly annotated, so industriously col-
lected, as those of the pattern critic, the incom-
parable Muretus. There however still remains
a considerable gleamimg. I have myself taken
note of some twenty scattered amecdota, improse
and verse, im Greek, Latin, and Fremch, which, if
the excellent editiom (excellent, even after that,
of Ruhnkenius) of the Opera Omnia, by Profes-
sor Frotscher of Leipsic, mow unfortumately
interrupted, be not finally abamdomed, I should
have great pleasure in communicating to the
learned editor.—How is it, that whilst Italy,
Germany, and Holland have, for centuries, beem
emulating each other in paying homage to the
genius of Muretus, Framce has dome absolutely
mothing to testify her admiratiom of so illus.
trious a son?
bros Ethicorum ad Nicomachum, L. x.
c. 2.—* Quod omnibus videtur, id (inquit
Aristoteles) esse dicimus. Nam communis
hominum sensus et judicium est tanquam
lex naturae.* See n. 3. f. .
32.—MARIANA. De Rege et Regis in-
stitutione, L. i. c. 6. * Et est communis
sensus quasi quaedam naturae vox [lex ?]
mentibus nostris indita, auribus insonans
lex, [vox ?] qua a turpi honestum secer-
nimus.*
33.—SIR. JoHN DAV1Es. Of the Im-
mortality of the Soul, I ed. 1599, pp. 63,
97.
* If them all souls, both good amd bad, doteach,
With general voice, that souls cam mewer die;
°Tis not man's flattering gloss, but nature's
speech,
Which, like God's oracle, cam newer lie.'
& & �; * *#
* But how cam that, be false, which every tongue
Of every mortal mam affirms for true?
Whichtruth has in all ages stood so strong,
That, loadstome-like, all hearts it ever drew.
Eor mot, the Christiam or the Jew alone,
The Persiam or the Turk, acknowledge this;
This mystery to the wild Indiam kmown,
And to the Cannibal and Tartar is.'
These latter stanzas were probably sug-
gested by a passage in the first Disserta-
tion of Maximus Tyrius. This * learned
poet* requires, and eminently deserves, a
commentary.
34.— KECKERMANNUs, (Systema Logi-
cum, L. iii. c. 13.) treating of Necessary
Testimony :—“ Testimonium necessarium
est vel Dei vel Sensuum.* Having spoken of
the former, he proceeds: * Restat testimo-
mium sensuum, quodsuus cuiquesensus dictat.
Estque vele£ternum velinternum. Internum
est, quod leges naturae, tam theoreticae
quam practicae dictant ; itemque conscien-
tia. Externum est, quod sensus externi,
ut visus, auditus, &c., recte dispositi, adeo-
que ipsa sensualis observatio, et experien-
tia comprobat.* In illustration of the tes-
timony of Internal Sense, Conscientia, he
says: “ Magna est vis testimonii Conscien-
tiae in utramque partem ; et sicut leges
seu principia naturae duplicia sunt—theo-
retica, ut, totum est major swa parte—et
practica, ut, quod tibi fieri non vis, alterâ me
feceris : ita duplex est Conscientia, theo-
retica, nimirum et practica, per quam con-
clusiones theoreticae et practicae firmiter
nobis probantur.'
The employment here of Conscientia, for
the noetic faculty or facülty of principles,
is (if we except the single precedent of
Tertullian) umexampled, as far as I have
observed, previous to the extension given
to the word by Descartes. The internal
and eæternal sense of Keckermamn are,
§ VI.]
781
of COMMON SENSE.
taken together, nearly equivalent to the
expression common sense, in the meaning
under consideration; an expression, it may
be added, which this author had himself,
in the same work, previously employed.
(L. i. c. 5.) *
35.-LORD HERBERT of CHERBURy.—
In 1624, at Paris and London, was first
published his work ‘De Veritate;’ and to
the third edition, London, 1645, was an-
nexed his correlative treatise ‘De Causis
Errorum.” These works, especially the
former, contain a more formal and articu-
late enouncement of the doctrine of com-
mon sense, than had (I might almost say
than has) hitherto appeared. It is truly
marvellous, that the speculations of so able
and original a thinker, and otherwise of
so remarkable a man, should have escaped
the observation of those, who, subsequent-
ly, in Great Britain, philosophized in a
congenial spirit; yet he is noticed by Locke,
and carefully criticised by Gassendi. The
following is an abstract of his doctrine—
strictly in reference to our present sub-
ject. The edition I use is the third, that
of 1645.
Lord Herbert makes a fourfold distribu-
tion of the human faculties;–into Natu-
ral Instinct — Internal Sense — Eaſternal
Sense—and, the Discursive faculty, (Dis-
cursus) p. 37. These names he employs
in significations often peculiar to himself.
Each of these powers is the guarantee of
a certain class of truths; and there is given
no truth, which is not made known to us
through one or other of these attesting
faculties. Let us not, therefore, be wise
beyond our powers. (Ne sapiamus wit, a
facultates.)
But of these there is one whose truths
are of a relatively higher order, as com-
manding universal assent, and therefore of
indubitable certainty. This faculty, which
he calls Natural Instinct, (Instinctus Na-
turalis,) might with more discriminative
propriety have been styled Intellectual In-
stinct ; and it corresponds, as is manifest,
with the Noijg of Aristotle, the Intelligen-
tia of the schoolmen, and the Common
Sense of philosophers in general. Natural
Instinct may be considered, either as a fa-
culty, or as the manifestation of a faculty.
*In the former signification, Instinct or the
Noetic faculty is the proximate instrument
of the universal intelligence of God; in
fact, a certain portion thereof ingrafted
on the mind of man. In the latter signi-
fication, Natural Instincts are those Catho-
lic Cognitions or Common Notions, (zouvøl
ãvvoicz, notitiae communes,) which exist in
mind; and with wnnen we are naturally or
divinely furnished, to the end that we may
truly decide touching the objects with
which we are conversant during the pre-
sent life, (pp. 27, 29, 44.) These Instincts
or Common Notions, he denominates also
Primary Truths— Common Principles—
Received Principles of Demonstration—
Sacred Principles against which it is unlaw-
ful to contend, &c. These are so far from
being mere products of experience and
observation, that, without some of them,
no experience or observation is possible,
(pp. 28, 48, 54.) But, unless excited by
an object, they remain silent ; have then
a virtual, not an actual, existence, (pp. 39,
42.) The comparison of the mind to a
tabula rasa or blank book, on which ob-
jects inscribe themselves, must be rejected;
but it may be resembled to a closed book,
only opened on the presentation of objects,
(p. 54.) The sole criterion by which we
can discriminate principles, natural or di-
vine, is wrviversal agreement ; though, at
the same time, the higher and more neces-
sary the truth, the more liable is it to be
alloyed with error, (p. 52.) Our Natural
Instincts operate irrationally ; that is, they
operate without reasoning or discursion; \
and Reason, (Ratio,) which is the deduc-
tion of these common notions to their lower ;
and lowest applications, has no other ap-
peal, in the last resort, except to them,
(p. 42.)
The primary truths, or truths of In-
stinct, are discriminated from secondary
truths, (those, to wit, which are not ob-
tained without the intervention of the Dis-
cursive faculty,) by six characters.
10. By their Priority. For Natural In-
stinct is the first, Discursion the last, of our
faculties.
20. By their Independence. For if a
truth depend upon a common notion, it is
only secondary ; whereas a truth is pri-
mary, which itself hanging upon no supe-
rior truth, affords dependence to a chain
of subordinate propositions.
30. By their Universality. Universal
consent is indeed the most unequivocal cri-
terion of an instinctive truth. The Par-
ticular is always to be suspected as false,
or, at least, as partially erroneous; where-
as Common Notions, drawn as it were
from the very wisdom of nature, are, in
themselves, universal, howbeit, in reason-
ing, they may be brought down and ap-
plied to particulars.
40. By their Certainty. For such is
their authority, that he who should call
them into doubt, would disturb the whole
every human being of sound and entire | constitution of things, and, in a certain
782
[NOTE A,
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
sort, denude himself of his humanity. It
is, therefore, unlawful to dispute against
these principles, which, if clearly under-
stood, cannot possibly be gainsaid. (Com-
pare No. 25, d.)
50. By their Necessity. For there is
none which does not conduce to the con-
servation of man.
60. By the Manner of their Formation
or Manifestation. For they are elicited,
instantaneously and without hesitation, so
soon as we apprehend the significance of
the relative objects or words. The dis-
cursive understanding, on the other hand,
is in its operations slow aud vacillating—
advancing only to recede—exposed to in-
numerable errors—in frequent confliction
with sense—attributing to one faculty what
is of the province of another, and not ob-
serving that each has its legitimate boun-
daries, transcending which, its deliverances
are incompetent or null, (pp. 60, 61.) *
36.-JoANNEs CAMERo N, the celebrated
theologian.—De Ecclesia iv., Op. ed. 1642,
P. * Sensus Communis seu Ratio,' &c.
37.-DescARTEs proclaims as the lead-
ing maxim of philosophy a principle which
it would have been well for his own doc-
trine had he always faithfully applied. (v.
p. 749 a.) * Certum autem est, nihil nos
unquam falsum pro vero admissuros, si
tantum iis assensum praebeamus quae clare
et distincte percipienus. Certum, inquam,
quia cum Dews non sit fallaa, facultas per-
cipiendi, quam nobis dedit [sive Lumen
Naturae], non potest tendere in falsum ;
ut neque etiam facultas assentiendi, cum
tantum ad ea, quae clare percipiuntur, Se
extendit. Et quamvis hoc nulla ratione
probaretur, ita omnium animis a natura
impressum est, ut quoties aliquid clare
percipimus, ei sponte assentiamur, et nullo
modo possimus dubitare quin sit verum.”
Princ. i. § 43, with $$ 30, 45—De Meth.
§ 4—Med. iii. and iv.—Resp. ad Obj. ii.
passim. What Descartes, after the school-
men, calls the “Light of Nature’ is only an-
other term for Common Sense (see Nos. 20,
21,22, 25); and Common Sense is the name
which Descartes’ illustrious disciple, Fene-
• I was surprised to find an eloquent and very
just appreciation of Herbert (for he it is who is
referred to,) by a learned and orthodox theolo-
gian of Cambridge—Nathaniel Culverwell, in
his ‘Discourse of the Light of Nature,” written
in 1646, p. 93. Culverwell does not deserve the
oblivion into which he has fallen; for he is a
compeer worthy of More, Spencer, Smith, Cud-
worth, and Taylor—the illustrious and conge-
nial band by which that university was illustra-
ted, during the latter half of the seventeenth
century.
lon, subsequently gave it. See No. 60.
There are some good observations on Des-
cartes' Light of Nature, &c. in Gravii Speci-
mina Philosophiae Veteris, L. ii. c. 16;
and in Regis, Metaphysique, L. i. P. i.
ch. 12, who identifies it with consciousness.
That Descartes did not hold the crude
and very erroneous doctrine of inmate
ideas which Locke took the trouble to
refute, I may have another opportunity
of more fully showing. ‘Nunquam scripsi
vel judicavi (he says) mentem indigere
ideis inmatis, quae sint aliquid diversum
ab ejus facultate cogitandi.' Notae in
Programma (Regii) $ 12.-Compare $13
with Responsiones et Objectiones, iii. rr. 5,
10. By innate ideas in general, Descartes
means simply the innate faculty we pos-
sess of forming or eliciting certain mani-
festations in consciousness (whether of
necessary or contingent truths) on occa-
sion of, but wholly different from, both the
qualities of the reality affecting, and the
movements of the organism affected; these
manifestations or ideas being nothing else
than states of the conscious substance it-
self. On this ground he occasionally calls
the Secondary qualities innate; in so far as
they are, actually, mere modes of mind,
and, potentially, subjective predispositions
to being thus or thus modified. -
His doctrine in regard to principles,
when fully considered, seems identical with
that of Aristotle, as adopted and expound-
ed by the schoolmen; and I have no doubt
that had he and Locke expressed them-
selves with the clearness and precision of
Scotus, their opinions on this subject
would have been found coincident both
with each other and with the truth.
38.- SIR THoMAs BB own (Religio
Medici, First Part, sect. 36.) has ‘Common
Sense,’ word and thing.
39.—BALzAc in Le Barbon, (Sallengre
Histoire de Pierre de Montmaur, t. ii. p. 88,
and CEuvres de Balzac,) “Sens Commun,”
word and thing. -
40.—CHANET, (Traité de l’Esprit, p. 15)
notices that the term Common Sense had
in French a meaning different from its
Scholastic or Aristotelic signification,
‘ being equivalent to common or wrviversal
reason, and by some denominated natural
logic.’
41.-P. IRENAEUs A SANcto JAcoBo, a
Thomist philosopher, and Professor of
Theology at Rennes.—Integra Philosophia,
1655; Logica, c. iv. sectio 4. § 2. —In re-
ference to the question, “Quid sit habitus
ille primorum principiorum ?’ he says—
‘ Probabilior apparet sententia dicentium
habitum primorum principiorum esse lw-
§ VI.]
783
* OF COMMON. SENSE.
men naturale, $eu naturaliter inditum (in- I ment, mombre, matière, est aussi ferme
tellectus sc.) . . . Favet communis om-
nium sensus, qui diffiteri nequit aliqua esse
naturaliter et seipsis cognoscibilia ; ergo
principium talis cognitionis debet censeri
signatum super nos maturae lumen.'
42.—J/EscALOPIER.—Humanitas Theo-
logica, &c. L. i. p. 87.—* Quid gravius in
sentiendo, quod sequamur, habere possu-
mus, quam constans naturae judicium,
aetatum omnium cana sapientia et per-
petuo suffragio confirmatum ? Possunt
errare singuli; labi possunt viri sapientes
sibi suoque arbitrio permissi ; at totam
hominis naturam tanta erroris contagio
invadere non potest. . . . Quod in com-
munibus hominum sensibus positum, id
quoque in ipsa natura, situm atque fixum
esse, vel ipse Orator coram judice non dif-
fitetur. [Pro Cluentio, c. 6.] Itaque com-
m^tmis ille sensus, naturae certissima vox
est ; immo, * vox Populi,* ut trito fertur
adagio, * vox Dei.'
43. — PAscAL. — Pensées ; editions of
Bossut and Renouard.
a.—Partie i. art. x. § 4. (ch. 31 old edi-
tions,) * Tout notre raisomnement se réduit
à céder au Sentiment.* This feeling he, be-
fore and after, calls * Sems Commum.' Art.
vi. § 17, (ch. 25)—art. xi. § 2, (wantimg
in old editions.)
b.—Partie ii. art. i. § I (ch 21.) Speak-
ing the doctrime of the Sceptics—* Nous n*
avons aucum certitude de la vérité des
principes (hors la foi et la revelation)
sinon en ce que nous les sentons natwrelle-
^nent en nous.' . . . . And having stated
their principal arguments why this is not
conclusive, he takes up the doctrine of the
Dogmatists.
* L* unique fort des Dogmatistes, c'est
qu' en parlant de bonne foi et sincèrement,
on ne peut douter des principes maturels.
Nous connoissons, disent-ils, la vérité, non
seulement par raisonnement, mais aussi par
sentiment, et par une intelligence vive et lu-
^^imeuse ; et c'est de cette dernière sorte
que nous conmoissons les premiers prin-
cipes. C'est en vaim que le raisonnement,
qui n'y a point de part, essaie de les com-
battre. Les Pyrrhoniens, qui n'ont que
cela pour objet, y travaillent inutilement.
Nous savons que nous ne révons point,
quelque impuissance où nous soyons de le
prouver par raison [which he uses con-
vertibly with raisonnement.] Cette im-
puissance ne conclut autre chose que la
foiblesse de motre raison, mais non pas
l'incertitude de toutes nos connoissances,
comme ils Je pretendent: car la commois-
sance des premiers principes, comme, par
exemple, qu* il y a espace, temps, mouve-
Y
qu'aucune de celles que nos raisommements
nous donnent. Et c'est sur ces conmois-
sances d'intelligence et de sentimcnt qu'il
faut que la raison s'appuie, et qu* elle
fonde tout son discours. Je sens qu'il y a
trois dimensions dans l'espace, et que les
nombres sont infinis ; et la raison démon-
tre ensuite qu'il n'y a point deux nombres
carrés dont, l'un soit, double de l' autre.
Les principes se sentent ; les proposi-
tions se concluent ; le tout avec certitude, .
quoique par differentes voies. Etil est aussi
ridicule que la raison demande au senti-
ment et a l' intelligence des preuves de ces
premiers principes pour y consentir, qu* il
seroit ridicule que l'intelligence demandât;
à la raison um sentinent de toutes les pro-
positions qu' elle démontre. Cette im-
puissance ne peut donc servir qu* à humi-
lier la raison qui voudroit juger de tout,
mais non pas à combattre notre certitude,
comme s'il n'y avoit que la raison cap-
able de nous instruire. Plùt à Dieu que
nous n* en eussions au contraire jamais
besoim, et que nous conmussions toutes
choses par ìnstìnct et par sentiment ! Mais
la, mature nous a, refusé ce biem et elle ne
nous a donné que très peu de connoissances
de cette sorte ; toutes les autres me peu-
vent étre acquises que par le raisonne-
ment.' ' . . . -
* Qui démélera cet embrouillement ?
La, mature confond les Pyrrhoniens, et la
raison confond les Dogmatistes. Que de-
viendrez vous donc, ô homme, qui cherchez
votre veritable condition par votre raison
naturelle ? Vous ne pouvez fuir une de
ces sectes, ni subsister dans aucume.
Voilà ce qu* est l'homme à l'égard de la
verite.” -
44.—LA CIIAMBRE.—Systeme de l'Ame,
L. ii. c. 3. —* Sems Comm^tm' word and
thing. -
45.—HENRY MoRE.—Confutatio Cab-
balae ; Opera Omnia, p. 528. * Hoc Ex-
ternus Sensus, corporeave Imaginatio nom
dictat, sed Sensus Intellectualis, innataque
ipsius mentis sagacitas, inter cujus mo-
tiones communes seu axiomata, noematice
vel immediate vera, supra numeratum
est.'—Compare Epistola H. Mori, ad. V.
C. § 17, Opera, p. 117, and Enchiridiom
Ethicum, L. i. cc. 4, 5.
46.—RAPIN.— Comparaison de Platon
et d'Aristote, ch. vii. § II.—* Ce consente-
ment general de tous les peuples, est un
instinct de la natwre qui ne peut estre
faux, estant, si universel.*
47.—DUH AMET,.—Philosophia Burgun-
diae, t. i. Disp. ii. in Categ. qu. 4, art. 2.
* Commwnis Sensus,' name and thing.
784
[NOTE A,
ON THE PEIILOSOPHY
48.—MALE BRANCHE.—Récherche de la
Verité—Entretiens sur la Metaphysique
—Traité de Morale, &c. passim.
He holds, 1°, that there is a supreme
absolute essential Reason or Intelligence,
an eternal light illuminating all other
minds, containing in itself and revealing to
them the necessary principles of science
and of duty; and manifesting also to us
the contingent existence of an external,
extended universe. This Intelligence is
the Deity; these revelations, these mani-
festations, are Ideas. He holds, 2°, that
there is a natural Reason common to all
men—an eye, as it were, fitted to receive
the light, and to attend to the ideas in the
supreme Intelligence; in so far therefore
an infallible and * Common Sense.” But,
3°, at the same time, this Reason is ob-
noxious to the intrusions, deceptions, and
solicitations of the senses, the imagination,
and the passions; and, in so far, is per-
sonal, fallible, and factitious. He opposes
objective knowledge, ‘par idée, to sub-
jective knowledge, “par conscience,” or
“sentiment interieur.” To the latter be-
long all the Beliefs; which, when neces-
sary, as determined by Ideas in the Su-
pernal Reason, are always veracious.-It
could, however, easily be shown that, in so
far as regards the representative percep-
tion of the external world, his principles
would refute his theory.—A similar doc-
trine in regard to the infallibility and di-
vinity of our Intelligence or Common
Sense was held by Bossuet.
49.-PourET.—The objects of our cog-
initions are either things themselves—re-
alities; or the representations of realities,
their shadows, pictures,-ideas. Realities
are divided into two classes; corporeal
things, and spiritual things. Each of
these species of object has an appropriate
faculty by which it is cognised. 19, Cor-
poreal realities are perceived by the ami-
mal or sensual Intellect—in a word by
Sense ; this is merely passive. 2°, Spi-
ritual realities—original truths—are per-
ceived by the passive or receptive Intellect
which may be called Intelligence; it is the
sense of the supersensible. [This corre-
sponds not to the passive intellect of Aris-
totle, but to his intellect considered as the
place of principles and to Common Sense;
it coincides also with the Vernunft of Ja-
cobi and other German philosophers, but is
more correctly named.]—These two facul-
ties of apprehension are veracious, as God
is veracious. 3°, The faculty of calling
up and complicating Ideas is the active—
ideal—reflective Intellect, or human Reason.
[This answers not to the active or efficient,
but to the discurs ve or diamoetic, intellect
of Aristotle and the older philosophers in
general, also to the Verstand of Kant,
Jacobi, and the recent philosophers of
Germany, but is more properly denomi-
nated.] (De Eruditione Solida, &c. ed. 2.
Meth. P. i. § 43–50, and Lib. i. § 4–7,
and Lib. ii. § 3–8, and Def. p. 468 sq.-
Cogitationes Rationales, &c. ed. 2. disc. pr.
§ 45. L. ii. c. 4. § 2.-Fides et Ratio, &c.
p. 28 sq. p. 81. Sq. p. 131 sq.-Defensio
Methodi, &c. Op. post. p. 113 sq.-OEco-
nomia Divina, L. iv. c. 20–25.—Vera et
Cognita, passim.)—‘Innate principles’ he
indifferently denominates ‘Instincts.” (Fi-
des et Ratio, Pr. pp. 13, 45.-Def. Meth.
Op. post. pp. 131, 133, 136, 172.—Windi-
ciae, ibid. p. 602.)
This profound but mystical thinker has
not yet obtained the consideration he de-
serves from philosophers and historians of
philosophy;-why, is sufficiently apparent.
50.—Boss UET.-CEuvres inédites, Lo-
gique, L. iii. c. 22.-‘ Le Sentiment de
genre humain est considéré comme la voix
de toute la nature, et par consequent en
quelque façon, comme celle de Dieu. C'est
pourquoi la preuve est invincible.”—Alibi.
51.-LocRE.—Essay, B. i. c. 3. § 4. ‘He
would be thought void of common sense,
who asked, on the one side, or on the
other, went to give, a reason, why it is im-
possible for the same thing to be or [and]
not to be.” In other words—Common
Sense or intellect, as the source, is the
guarantee, of the principle of contradic-
tion.—There is here a confession, the im-
portance of which has been observed nei-
ther by Locke nor his antagonists. Had
Locke, not relying exclusively on Gas-
sendi, prepared bimself by a study of the
question concerning the origin of our
knowledge in the writings of previous phi-
losophers, more especially of Aristotle, his
Greek commentators, and the Schoolmen
(see Nos. 3, 10, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, &c.);
and had he not been led astray in the pur-
suit of an ignis fatuus, in his refutation, I
mean, of the Cartesian theory of Innate
Ideas, which, certainly, as impugned by
him, neither Descartes, nor the represen-
tatives of his school, ever dreamt of hold-
ing ; he would have seen, that in thus ap-
pealing to common sense or intellect, he
was, in fact, Surrendering his thesis—that
all our knowledge is an educt from expe-
rience. For in admitting, as he here virtu-
ally does, that experience must ultimately
ground its procedure on the laws of intel-
lect, he admits that intellect contains prin-
ciples of judgment, on which experience
being dependent, cannot possibly be their
$ VI.j .
785
OF COMMON SENSE.
precursor or their cause. Compare Locke's
language with that of the intellectualist,
Price, as given in No. 78. They are, in
substance, identical. —What Locke here
calls Common Sense, he elsewhere by ano-
ther ordinary synonyme denominates In-
tuition (B. iv. c. 2. § 1, c. 3. § 8 et a-
libi); also Self-evidence (B. iv. c. 7. § 1. sq.)
As I have already observed, had Descartes
and Locke expressed themselves on the
subject of innate ideas and principles with
due precision, the latter would not so have
misunderstood the former, and both would
have been found in harmony with each
other and with the truth. *
52–BENTLEy.—Quoted by Reid, I. P.
p.423a. “Common Sense,” word and thing.
53.—SERJEANT, Locke's earliest anta-
gonist.— Solid Philosophy Asserted, p.
296.-‘These ideas of Act and Power are
So natural that common sense forces us to
acknowledge them.’ &c. So alibi.
53.”— ABERGROMBY. — Fur Academi-
cus, Sect. 2, 30.-‘ Communis homimum
Sensw8,’—name and thing.
54. -- LEIBNITz. — This great philo-
sopher held a doctrine, on the point in
question, substantially corresponding to
that of Aristotle, the Schoolmen, and Des-
cartes. It is most fully evolved in his
posthumous work the Nouveaux Essais;
which I refer to in the original edi-
tion by Raspe.—Leibnitz admitted innate
truths, which he explains to be cognitions
not actually, but only virtually, existent
in the mind, anterior to experience; by
- which they are occasioned, excited, re-
gistered, exemplified, and manifested, but
not properly caused or contributed, or their
infallibility and eternal certainty demon-
strated, (pp. 5, 6, 37.) For, as necessary to
be thought, and therefore absolutely univer-
sal, they cannot be the product of sense, ex-
perience, induction; these at best being
only competent to establish the relatively
general, (pp. 5, sq. 36,116.) See also Opera
by Dutens, t. v. p. 358 and t. vi. p. 274.
These truths are consequently given ‘ as
natural habitudes, that is, dispositions, ap-
titudes, preformations, active and pas-
sive, which render the intellect more than
a mere tabula rasa, (p. 62.) Truths thus
innate are manifested in two forms; either
as Instincts, or as the Light of Nature, (p.
48.) But both become known to us as
facts of consciousness, that is, in an im-
Smediate, internal experience; and if this
experience deceive us, we can have no as-
surance of any truth, be it one of fact, or
be it one of reason, (p. 197.)—Leibnitz's
Natural Light and Instinct are, together,
equivalent to Common Sense.
55.--ToDANd.—Christianity not Mys-
terious, Scot. i. ch. i. p. 9. “Common
Sense, or Reason in general.’ See Leibnitz
(Opera, t. y. p. 143.) This testimony be-
longs perhaps rather to the third signi-
fication of the term. . -
56.— CHRISTIAN THOMASIU's gave ‘Fun-
damenta Juris Naturae et Gentium ex Sensu
Communi deducta;' and in his introduc-
tory chapter, $ 26, he says—‘ Rogo ut
considerent, quod ubique mihi posuerim
Sequi Semsum communem, atque non stabi-
lire intenderim sententias, quae multis
subtilibus abstractionibus opus habent, sed
quarum veritatem quilibet, si Inodo paulu-
lum attentior esse velit, intra se sentit.”
Compare also his Philosophia Aulica. c.
v. §§ 26, 35. .
57.—RIDIGER, in 1709 published his
work “ De Sensw Veri et Falsi.’ By this
he does not, however, designate the Com-
mon Sense of mankind as a natural prin-
ciple, but the dexterity, ‘qua quid in una-
quaque re sit verum, falsumve, sentire
queamus.’
58.-FEUERLIN.—De genuina ratione
probandi a consensu gentium existentiam
Dei. — ‘Haec est praecipui argumenti
facies:—Ad cujuscunque rei existentiam
agnoscendam mentes humanae, [ab in-
stinctu naturali, to wit, as he frequently
states] peculiarem habent inclinationem,
ea were existit,’ &c. p. 28.
59 – A. TURRETINUs.—Cogitationes et
Disputationes Theologicae, Vol. i. p. 43,
Sq.
* DE SENSU Communi.
S xv. Religio Semsum communem Sup-
ponit; mec enim truncos, aut bruta, aut
ebrios aut mente captos, sed homines sui
compotes, alloquitur. -
Ś xvi. In artibus omnibus atque disci-
plinis, non modo licet, sed et necesse est
adhibere sensum communem. Quis capiat
eam solam artem, eam solam disciplinam,
quae omnium praestantissima est, sensus
communis usum adimere 2
§ xvii. Nisi supponatur sensus com-
munis, nulla fides, nulla religio, consistere
potest : Etenim, quo organo res sacras
percipimus, verasque a falsis, aequas ab
iniquis, utiles a noxiis, dignoscimus, nisi
ope sensus communis 2
Ś xviii. Quomodo gentes notitiam Del
habuerunt, nisi ope sensus communis 7–
Quid est ‘Lex in cordibus scripta,’ de
qua Paulus (Rom. ii.), nisi ipsemet sºnsus
communis, quatenus de moribus pronun-
tiat 2
§ xix. Divinitas Scripturae, quibus ar-
gumentis probari potest, nisi argumentis
e sensw communi depromptis?
3 D
786
- [NoTe A.
ON. THE PHILOSOPHY
§ xx. Sensus Scripturae, quibus regulis
erui potest, nisi regulis a sensu communi
subministratis ? -
§ xxi. Scriptura perpetuo provocat ad
sensum communem : etenim quotiescun-
que ratiocinatur, toties supponit : sensum
comminem esse in nobis, et sensu communi
utendum esse.
§ xxii. In syllogismis theologicis pene
omnibus, quis nescit praemissarum alteram,
imo saepissme utramque, a 8£n8w commwni
desumptam esse ? -
§ xxiii. Divinae veracitati non minus
repugnat, sensum communem nos fallere,
quam Scripturam Sacram aliquid falsum
docere ; etenim sensus communis mon minus
opus Dei quam Scriptura Sacra.
§ xxiv. Pessimum est indicium, cum ali-
quis mon vult de suis placitis ex sensw
commwmi judicari. v.
§ xxv. Nullus est error magis noxius,
magisque Religioni injurius, quam is qui
statuit, Religioni credi non posse, quin
senswi commwni nuntius mittatur.
§ xxvi. Nulla datur major absurditas,
qnàm ea, quae nullis non absurditatibus
portam aperit, quaeque ad eas revincendas
omnem praecludit viam : atque talis est
eorum sententia, qui nolunt senswm, c0m-
mvtv/m adhiberi in Religione.
§ xxvii. Quae hactemus diximus de sensu
commwni, a memine, 'ut quidem putamus,
improbabuntur : at si loco Sensus Com-
munis, vocem Rationis subjiciamus, multi
illico caperata fronte et torvis oculis nos
. adspicient. Quid ita ? cum sensus com-
munis, lumem matwrale, et ratio, unum
idemque sint.'
60. — FENELON. — De l' Existence de
IDieu. Partie ii. ch. 2.—* Mais qu' est-ce
que le Sens Commun ? N' est-ce pasf les
premières motions que tous les hommes
ont également des mêmes choses ? Ce
Sens Commum qui est toujours et par-tout
le même, qui prévient f tout examen, qüi
rend l' examem même de certaines ques-
tions ridicule, qui réduit l* homme à ne
pouvoir douterf quelque effort, qu* il fit
pour se mettre dans um vrai doute ; ce
Sens Commun qui est celui de tout
homme ; ce Sens, qui n' attend que d'être
consulté, qui se montre au premier coup-
d'oeil, et qui découvre aussitôt l' evidence
ou 1° absurdité de la question ; n' est-ce
pas ee que j' appelle mes idées ? Les
voilà donc ces idées ou notions générales
que je me puis ni contredire ni examiner,
suivant lesquelles au contraire j' examine
et je décide tout ; en sort que je ' ris au
lieu de répondre, toutes les fois qu' on me
propose ce qui est clairement opposé à ce
que ces idées immuables me representent.
* Ce principe est constant, et il n'y au-
roit que son application qui pourroit être
fautive: c' est, à-dire qu'il faut sans hési-
ter suivre toutes mes idées claires ; mais
qu' il faut bien prendre garde de me
prendre jamais pour idée clair celle qui
renferme quelque chose d' obscur. Au§si
yeux-je suivre exactement cette régle dans
les choses que jevais mediter.*
Common Sense is declared by Fenelon
to be identical with the Naturaî Light of
Descartes, See No 37. The preöeding
passage is partly quoted by Reid froí
a garbled and blundering translatiom, (p.
424.) . The obeli mark the places where
.the principal errors have been committed.
Like Melanchthon, Reid, &c. (Nos. 25,
79,) Fenelon calls what is cohtrary tö
common sense, the absurd. -
61.—SIIAFT ESBURY.—Quoted by Reid,
I. P. p. 424 a., * Common sense,* word
and thing.
' 62.—D'AGUEssEAU.—Meditations Me-
taphysiques, Med. iv. CEuvres, 4o t. xi. p.
127.—* Je m' arrête donc à ces deux prifi-
' cipes, qui sont comme la conclusiom géné-
rale de tout ce que je viems d' établir sur
1' assurance où l'homme peut être d?
avoir découvert la vérité.
* I'un, que cet état de certitude m' est em :
lui-même qu'un sentiment ouune conscience
interiewre.
* L' autre, que les trois causes que j' em
eu distinguées se réduissent encore â um
autre sentiment.
* Sentiment simple, qui se prouve lui-
même comme dans ces vérités, j' ea iste, je
pense, je vevæ, je suis libre, et que je puiis
appeller un sentiment de pure conscience.
* Sentiment justifié, ou sentiment de
1' evidence qui est dans le chose même, ou
de cette proposition, que tout ce qui est
evident est vrai, et je l' appellerai um
sentiment d' evidence.
* Enfin, sentiment que peut aussi étre
appellé, um sentiment justifié par le poids
du témoignage qui l' excite, et qui a pour
fondement ume evidence d' autorité. " Je
1' appellerai donc par cette raison, le senti-
ment d' vtme awtorité évidente.'
62.*—BERKELEY.—Quoted by Reid, I.
P. pp. 283, 284 ; compare p. 423 a.
* Conmon Sense,* name and reality.
63.—BUFFIER*s * Traité des Premiéres
Véritez * was first published in 1717, his
* Elemens de Metaphysique' in 1724. I£
we except Lord Herbert's treatise * De
Veritate,* these works exhibit the first re-
gular and comprehensive attempt to found
philosophy on certaim primarytruths, givem
in certain primary sentiments or feelings.
These feelings, and the truths of which
$ v1.] , -
787
· OF COMMON SENSE
they are the sources, he distinguishes into
two kinds. One is Internal Feeling (sen-
timent intime), the self-consciousness of
our existence, and of what passes in our
minds. By this he designates our convic-
tion of the facts of consciousness in them-
selves, as merely present and idealphaeno-
mena. But these phaenomena, as we have
seen, (p. 743 sq.) testify also to the reality
of what lies beyond themselves ; and to our
instinctive belief in the truth of this testi-
mony, he gives, by perhaps an arbitrary
limitation of words, the name of common
natural feeling (sentiment commun de la
nature), or, employing a more familiar
expression, Common Sense (sens commun.)
—Buffier did not fall into the error of Mr
Stewart and others, in holding that we
have the same evidence for the objective
reality of the external world, as we have
for the subjective reality of the internal.
* If,' he says, * a man deny the truths of
internal feeling, he is self-contradictory ;
if he deny the truths of common sense, he
is not self-contradictory-he is only mad.'
Common Sense he thus defines :-* J'en-
tens donc ici par le Sens Commun la dis-
position que la nature a mise dans tous les
hommes ou manifestment dans la plupart
d' entre eux ; pour leur faire porter, quand
ils ont ateint l' usage de la raison ; un
jugement commun et uniforme, sur des ob-
jets diférens du sentiment intime de leur
propre perception ; jugement qui n'est
point la consequence d'aucun principe in-
terieur.'—Prem. Vér. $ 33. And in his
* Metaphysique,'—* Le sentiment qui estma-
nifestement le plus commun aux hommes
· de tous les temps et de tous les pays,
quand ils ont ateint l'usage de la raison, et
des choses sur quoi ils portent leur juge-
ment.' $ 67.
He then gives in both works not a full
enumeration, but examples, of First Truths
or sentiments common to all men. These
are more fully expressed in the * Metaphy-
sique,' from which as the later work, and
not noticed by Reid (p. 467 b), I quote,
leaving always the author's orthography
intact.
* I. Il est quelque chose qui existe hors
de moi ; et ce qui existe hors de moi, est
autre que moi. - -
2. Il est quelque chose que j'apelle âme,
esprit, pensée, dans les autres hommes et
dans moi, et la pensée n'est point ce qui
s'apelle corps ou matière. .
3. Ce qui est connu par le sentiment ou
par l'experience de tous les hommes, doit
être reçu pour vrai; et on n'en peut dis-
convenir sans se brouiller avec le sens com-
mun.'—$.78.
[These three he calls * véritez externes,
qui soient des sentiments communs à tous
les hommes.' The third is not given in
the * Traité des Premiéres Véritez.']
4. Il est dans les hommes quelque chose
qui s'apelle raison et qui est oposé à l'ex-
travagance ; quelque chose qui s'apelle
prudence, qui est oposé a l'imprudence ;
quelque chose qui s'apelle liberté, oposé à
la necessité d' agir. -
5. Ce qui réunit un grand nombre de
parties diférentes pour un effet qui revient
reguliérement, ne sauroit être le pur effet
du hazard ; mais c'est l'effet de ce que nous
apellons une intelligence.
6. Un fait atesté par un très grand nom-
bre de gens senséz, qui assurent en avoir
été les temoins, ne peut sensement être
revoqué en doute.' $ 82.
These examples are not beyond the reach
of criticism.
In the Treatise on First Truths he gives
a statement and exposition of their three
essential characters. ' The statement is as
follows :- -
* I. Le premier de ces caractères est,
qu'elles soient si claires, que quand on en-
treprend de les prouver, ou de les ataquer,
on ne le puisse faire que par des proposi-
tions, qui, manifestement, ne sont ni plus
clairs ni plus certaines.
2. D'être si universellement reçues par-
mi les hommes en tous tems, en tous lieux,
et par toutes sortes d'esprits; que ceux
qui les ataquent se trouvent dans le genre
humain, être manifestement moins d'un
contre cent, ou même contre mille.
3. D'être si fortement imprimées dans
nous, que nous y conformions notre con-
duite, malgré les rafinemens de ceux qui
imaginent des opinions contraires ; et qui
eux-memes agissent conformément, non à
leurs opinions imaginées, mais aux pre-
mières véritez universellement reçues.'—-
$ 51-52. Compare Alexander, n. 10 a.*
* We are now only considering the natural
data of consciousness in their most catholic re-
lations,—and it would be out of place to de-
scend to any discussion of them in a subordinate
point of view. But, though alluding to matters
beyond our present purpose, I cannot refrain
from doing, by the way, an act of justice to this
acute philosopher, to whom, as to Gassendi,
his countrymen have never, I think, accorded
the attention he deserVeS.
No subject, perhaps, in modern speculation,
has excited an intenser intel'est or more vehe-
ment controversy, than Kant's famous distinc-
tion of Analytic and Synthetic judgments a priori,
or, as I think they might with far less of ambi-
guity be denominated, Explicative amd Amplia-
tive judgments. The interest in the distinction
£88
[NOTE A,
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
I should not have deemed it necessary
to make any comment on Buffier's doc-
trine of Common Sense, were it not that it
is proper to warm my readers against the
fl-
itself was naturally extended to its history.
The records of past philosophy were again ran-
sacked; and, for a moment, it was thought, that
the Prussian sage had been forstalled, in the
very groundwork of his system, by the Megaric
Stilpo. But the originality (I say nothing of
the truth) of Kant's distinction still stands un-
touched; the originality of its author, a very
different question, was always above any rea-
sonable doubt. Kant himself is disposed, in-
deed, to allow, that Locke (B. iv. ch. 3. § 9, sq.)
. had, perhaps, a glimpse of the discrimination;
but looking to the place referred to, this seems,
on the part of Kant, an almost gratuitous con-
cession. Locke, in fact, came far nearer to it in
another passage (B.i. ch. 2, §§ 19, 20); but there
although the examples on which the distinetion
could have been established are stated, and
even stated in contrast, the principle was not
apprehended, and the distinction, consequently,
permitted to escape.
But this passage and its instances. seem to
have suggested, what was overlooked by Locke
himself, to Buffier; who although his name has
not, as far as I am aware, ever yet been men-
...tioned in connexion with this subject, may
claim the honour of having been the first to re-
cognize, to evolve, and even to designate, this
celebrated distinction, almost as precisely as
the philosopher who erected on it so splendid
an edifice of speculation. I cannot now do
more than merely indicate the fact of the anti-
cipation; mentioning only that, leaving to Kant's
: analytic judgment its previous title of identical,
Buffier preoccupies Kant's designation of syn.
thetic in that of conjunctive (or logical) judgment,
which he himself proposes. Those interested
in the question will find the exposition in the
‘Wéritez de Consequence, Log. ii. Art. xxi.
I may further, however, when on this mat-
ter, notice, that before IXant, another philoso-
.pher had also signalised the same distinction.
..I refer to Principal Campbell of Aberdeen, in
the chapter on intuitive evidence, of his Philo-
sophy of Rhetoric (B. i. c. 5. S. l. P. l.)—first
published in 1776, and therefore four years
prior to the Critique on Pure Reason; for the
distinction in question is to be found, at least
explicitly, neither in the treatise ‘Ueber die
Evidenz,’ nor in the Dissertation ‘De Mundi
Sensibilis atque Intelligibilis forma et princi-
piis,” which appeared in 1763 and 1770. But
Campbell manifestly only repeats Buffier, (with
whose works he was intimately acquainted, and
from which he frequently borrows,) and with
inferior precision; so that, if we may respect
the shrewdness, which took note, and appre-
ciated the value, of the observation, we must
condemn the disingenuity which palmed it on
the world as his own. Campbell's doctrine, I
may finally observe, attracted the attention of
Mr Stewart (El. ii. p. 32 sq.); but he was not
aware either of its relation to Buſfier or of its
bearing upon Kant.
misrepresentations of the anonymous Eng-
lish translator of his Treatise on Primary
Truths; for not only have these never
been exposed, but Mr Stewart has be-
Stowed on that individual an adventitious
importance, by lauding his “acuteness and
intelligence,’ white acquiescing in his ‘se-
were but just animadversions’ on Dr Beat-
tie. (Elements vol. ii. c. 1, sect. 3, p. 87,
89, 2 ed.)
Buffier does not reduce Reason (which
he employs for the complement of our
higher faculties in general) to Reasoning;
he does not contra-distinguish Common
Sense from Reason, of which it is con-
stituent ; but while he views the former
as a natural sentiment, he views it as a
sentiment of our rational nature; and he
only requires, as the condition of the exer-
cise of common sense in particular, the
actual possession of Reason or under-
standing in general, and of the object re-
quisite to call that Reason into use. Com-
Inon Sense, on Buffier's doctrine, is thus
the primary, spontaneous, unreasoning,
and, as it were, instinctive, energy of our
rational constitution. Compare Pr. Vér.
§§ 41, 66–72, 93. Met. §§ 65, 72, 73.
The translator to his version, which ap-
peared in 1780, has annexed an elaborate
Preface, the sołe purport of which is to
inveigh against Reid, Beattie, and Oswald
—more especially the two last—for at
once stealing and spoiling the doctrine of
the learned Jesuit.
In regard to the spoiling, the translator
is the only culprit. According to him,
Buffier’s ‘Common Sense is a disposition
of mind not natural but acquired by age
and time,’ (pp. iv. xxxiv.) “Those first
truths which are its object require expe-
rience and meditation to be conceived, and
the judgments thenee derived are the re-
sult of exercising reason,’ (p. v.) ‘The
use of Reason is Reasoning ;’ and ‘Com-
mon Sense is that degree of understand-
ing in all things to which the generality
of mankind are capable of attaining by
the exertion of their rational faculty.”
(p. xvii.) In fact Buffier's first truths, on
his translator's showing, are last truths;
for when ‘ by time we arrive at the know-
ledge of an infinitude of things, and by
the use of reason (i. e. by reasoning)
form our judgment on them, those judg-
ments are then justly to be considered as
first truths’ ſ 11 (p. xviii.)
But how, it will be asked, does he give
any colour to so unparalleled a perver-
sion ? . By the very easy process of 1°
throwing out of account, or perverting,
what his author does say;-2° of interpo-
§ v1.]
ON SENSE. #89
OF COMM
łating what his author not only does not
say, but what is in the very teeth of his as-
sertions; and 3° by founding on these per-
versions and interpolations as on the au-
thentic words of his author. .
As to the plagiarism, I may take this
opportunity of putting down, once and
for ever, this imputation, although the
character of the man might have well
exempted Reid from all suspicion of so
unworthy an act. It applies only to the
“Inquiry;’ and there the internal evi-
dence is almost of itself sufficient to prove
that Reid could not, prior to that publi-
cation, have been acquainted with Buf-
fier's Treatise. The strongest, indeed
the sole, presumption arises from the em-
ployment, by both philosophers, of the
term Common Sense, which, strange to
say, sounded to many in this country as
singular and new; whilst it was even
commonly believed, that before Reid Buf-
fier was the first, indeed the only philo-
sopher, who had taken notice of this prin-
ciple, as one of the genuine sources of our
knowledge. See Beattie, n. 82 ; Camp-
bell's Philosophy of Rhetoric, B. i. c. 5,
part 3; and Stewart's Account of Reid,
supra, p. 27 b.
After the testimonies now adduced, and
to be adduced, it would be the apex of
absurdity to presume that none but Buf-
fier could have suggested to Reid either
the principle or its designation. Here are
given forty-eight authorities, ancient and
modern, for the philosophical employment
of the term Common Sense, previous to
Reid, and from any of these Reid may be
said to have borrowed it with equal jus-
. tice as from Buffier; but, taken together,
they concur in proving that the expres-
sion, in the application in question, was
one in general use, and free as the air to
all and each who chose thus to employ
it.—But, in fact, what has not been no-
ticed, we know, from an incidental state-
ment of Reid himself—and this, be it
noticed, prior to the charge of plagiarism,
—that he only became acquainted with the
treatise of Buffier, after the publication of
Jhis own Inquiry. For in his Account of
Aristotle's Logic; written and published,
some ten years subsequently to that work,
he says—'I have lately met with a very
judicious treatise written by Father Buf-
fier,’ &c., p. 713, b. Compare also Intel-
lectual Powers, p. 468, b. In this last
work, however, published after the trans-
lation of Buffier, though indirectly de-
fending the less manifestly innocent part-
ners in the accusation, from the charge
advanced, his self-respect prevents him.
from saying a single word in his own vin-
dication. -
64–Lyons.—About the year 1720
was published the first edition of the fol-
lowing curious, and now rare, work:—
‘The Infallibility of Human Judgment,
its Dignity and Excellence. Being a New
Art of Reasoning, and discovering Truth,
by reducing all disputable cases to general
and self-evident propositions. Illustrated
by bringing several well known disputes
to such self-evident and universal conclu-
sions. With the Supplement answering
all objections which have been made to it
and the design thereby perfected, in prov-
ing this method of Reasoning to be as
forcibly conclusive and universal as Arith-
metick and as easie. Also a Dissertation
on Liberty and Necessity. The fourth
edition. To which is now added a Post-
Script obviating the complaints made to it,
and to account for some things which oc-
curred to it and the author. By Mr
Lyons. London. 1724.’
He gives (p. 83–94) “A Recapitula-
tion of the whole work, being the prin-
ciples of a Rationalist reduced to certain
stated articles containing the Laws of
Reason, the Elements of Religion, of
Morals, and of Politicks; with the Art of
reducing all disputes to universal deter-
minations.” From these articles (twenty-
three in number) I extract. the first three,
1. ‘Reason is the distinguishing ex-
cellency, dignity, and beauty of man
kind. - -
2. ‘There is no other use of Reason—
than to judge of Good and Bad, Justice
and Injustice, Wisdom and Folly, and the
like ; that a man may thereby attain
Knowledge to distinguish Truth from
Error, and to determine his Actions ac-
cordingly.
3. ‘This Reason is known to us also by
the names of Judgment, Light of Nature,
Conscience, and Common Sense ; only
varying its name according to its different
uses and appearances, but is one and the
same thing.’ - w
The conclusion of the whole is given in
the maxim—‘JEacert with Diligence and
Fortitude the Common Use of Common
Sense.” .
It is probable that Lyons was not unac-
quainted with the treatise of Turretini.
65. — AMHERST.— Terrae Filius, No.
21.—“Natural reason and common sense,”
used as convertible terms.
66.-Woll Aston.—Religion of Nature
Delineated, (ed. 1721, p. 23.) ‘They who
deduce the difference between good and
evil from the Common Sense of mankind,
790
[NOTE A,
ON' THE PHILOSOPHY
and certain principles that are borh with
us, put,' &c.
67.—VULPIUS (Volpi).—Scholae Duae, .
p. 45. * Non certe quod putaret Aristo-
teles, summos illos viros (Parmenidem et
IMelissum) tam longe a communi sensw ab-
horruisse, ut opinarentur nullam esse om-
nino rerum dissimilitudinem,' &c.
68.—Vico frequently employs the terms
* communis sensus' and * senso comwme * for
Qmr primary beliefs. See his Latin and
Italian works, passim.
69. — WoLFIUS.—Ontologia, § 125.—
*Veritates ad sensum communem reduci-
mus, dum in notiones resolvuntur, quas
adjudicandum utitur ipsum vulgus imperi-
tum naturali quodam acumine, quae dis-
tincte enunciata maxime abstracta sunt, in
rebus obviis confuse percipiens. . . .
Id igitur in Philosophia prima agimus,
ut notiones quae confusae vulgo sunt, dis-
tinctas reddamus, et termimis generalibus
enunciemus : ita enim demum in disci-
plinis caeteris, quae sublimia sunt, et a
cognitione vulgi remota, ad notiones
eidem familiares revocare, sicque ad Sen-
sum Communem reducere licebit.* . . .
§ 245. . . * Nemo miretur, quod
notiones primas, quas fundamentales me-
rito dixeris, cum omnis tandem nostra
cognitio iisdem innitatur, notionibus vulgi
conformes probemus. Mirandum potius
esset, quod non dudum de reductione phi-
losophiae ad notiones communes cogitave-
rint philosophi, nisi constaret singulare
requiri acumen, ut, quid notionibus com-
munibus insit, distincte et pervidere, et
verbis minime ambiguis emunciare vale-
amus, quod nonnisi peculiari et continuo
quodam exercitio obtinetur in Psycholo-
gia exponendo.*— See also a curious letter
of Wolf among the * Epistolae Physicae'
of Krazenstein, regarding Common Sense.
70.—HUBER.—In I732 appeared the
first edition of I,e Monde Fou preféré au
Monde Sage. This treatise is anonymous,
but known to be the work of Mademoiselle
Huber. Its intrimsic morit, independently
of its interest as the production of a Lady,
vmight have sayed it from the oblivion
into which it, seems to have fallem.— Con-
sciousness (conscience) is considered as
the faculty of * uncreated, primary, simple,
and universal truths,' in contrast to *truths
created, particular, distinct, limited,' (i.
pp. 180, 220.) Consciousness is superior
to Reasoning; and as primitive is above
all definition, (i. pp. 103, 130, 140). * Les
véritez les plus simples sont, par leur ré-
lation avec la verité primitive si fort au-
dessus des preuves, qu' eiles ne paroissent
douteuses que parce qu' on entrepend de
rities.
les prouver ; leur idée seule, ou le senti-
ment que l' on em a, prouve qu* elles exis-
tent; l' existence de la Conscience, par
example, est prouvé par son langage"
même ; elle se fait entendre, dono elle
est; son témoignage est invariablement
droit, donc il est infaillible, donc les véri-
tez particulières qu' il adopte sont indu-
bitables, par cela seul qu* elles n' ont pas
besoin d' autres preuves, (i. p. 189.)
71.—GENovEsi. — Elementorum Meta-
physicae, Pars Prior, p. 94. In reference
to our moral liberty, he says—* Appello ad
sensum, non plebeiorum modo, ne tantas
res judicio imperitorum judicari quis oppo-
nat, sed philosophorum maxime, commu-
nem, quem qui erroris reprehendere non
veretur, is vecors sit oportet.' See also
Pars Altera, p. 160, et alibi.
72.—EIUM E.—Quoted by Reid, p. 424
b. * Common Sense,' word and thing.
73.—CRUSIUS.—a.—Weg zur Gewiss.
heit, § 256, et alibi. * The highest prin-
ciple of all knowledge and reasoning is—
That which we cannot but think to be true,
is true ; αγγd that which we absolutely cam-
not think at all, [?] or cannot but think to
be false, is false.'
b.—Entwurf nothwendigen Vernunft-
wahrheiten, Pref. 2 ed. * The I.eibnitio-
Wolfiam system does not quadrate with
the commom semse of mankind (sensus com-
munis.)' His German, expressiom is * ge-
meiner Menschensinn.'
74.— D'ALEM BERT holds that philoso-
phy is am evolution from, amd must, if le-
gitimate, be conformed to, the primary
truths of which all men are naturally in
possession. The complement of these
truths is * sens commwn.' Compare Me-
langes, t. iv. §§ 4, 6, pp. 28, 46 t. v. § 76,
p. 269, ed. Amst. 1763.
75.—OET IN G ER.—Inquisitio im Sensum
Commúnem et Rationem, necnon utriusque
regulas, pro dijudicandis philosophorum
theoriis, &c. Tubingae, 1753.—* Sensus
Communis* is defined (§ 11), * Viva et pe-
netrans perceptio objectorum, toti huma-
nitati obviorum, ex immediato tactu, et im-
twitw eorum, quae sunt simplicissima, uti-
lissima et maxime necessaria,' &c.—§ 18.
. . * Objecta Sensus Commwvis sunt veri-
tates omni tempore et loco omnibus utiles,
apprehensu faciles, ad quas conservandas
Deus illos secreto impulsu indesinenter
urget, ut sunt moralia,' &c. &c.—So far,
so well. The book however turms out but
a vague and mystical farrago. The au-
thor appears to have had no knowledge of
Euffier's treatise on First Truths. Solo-
mon and Confucius are his staple autho-
Thè former affords him all his
§ VI.]
791
OF COMMON SENSE.
rules; and even materials for a separate
publication on the same subject, in the
same year—“Die Wahrheit 'des Sensus
Communis in den erklaerten Spruechen
Salomonis.’ This I have not seen.
76. — EscHENBACH. — Sammlung, &c.
1756. In the appendix to his translation
of the English Idealists Berkeley and
Collier, after showing that the previous
attempts of philosophers to demonstrate
the existence of an external world were
inconclusive, the learned Professor gives
us his own, which is one of common sense.
—‘How is the idealist to prove his exis-
tence as a thinking reality ? He can only
say—I know that I so ea'ist, because I feel
that I so eaist.’ This feeling being thus
the only ground on which the Idealist can
justify the conviction he has of his exis-
tence, as a mind, our author goes on to
show, that the same feeling, if allowed to
be veracious, will likewise prove the ex-
istence, immediately, of our bodily organ-
ism, and, through that, of a material
world. p. 549–552. g
77.—GEsNER, prelecting on his ‘Isa-
goge in Eruditionem Universalem, $808,
speaking of Grotius, says:—‘De jure gen-
tium eleganter scripsit, et auctor classicus
est. Imprimis, quod reprehendunt impe-
riti, laudandum in eo libro est hoc, quod
omnia veterum auctorum locis ac testimo-
niis probat. Nam ita provocatur quasi ad
totum genus humanum. Nam si videmus,
illos viros laudari, et afferri eorum testi-
"monia, qui dicuntur sensum communem
omnium hominum habuisse; si posteri di-
cant, se ita sentire, ut illi olim scripserint:
est hoc citare genus humanum. Profer-
untur enim illi in medium, quos omnes
pro sapientibus habuerunt. Verum est,
potest unusquisque stultus dicere: ‘Ego
habeo sensum communem :’ Sed sensus
communis est, quod consensu humano dic-
tum sit per ommia saecula. Ita etiam in
religione naturali videndum est, quid
olim homines communi consensu dixerint:
nec ea ad religionem et theologiam na-
turalem referenda sunt, quae aliunde ac-
cepimus. Sic egit Grotius in opere
praestantissimo. Ostendit, hoc Romano-
rum, hoc Gallorum, legatos dixisse; hoc
ab omni tempore fuisse jus gentium, hoc
est, illud jus, ex quo totae gentes judicari,
et agi secum, voluerint. Sermo est de eo
jure quod toti populi et illi Sapientissimi
scriptores nomine et consensu populorum
totorum, pro jure gentium habuere; de
eo, quo gentes inter se teneantur ; non
de jure putativo, quod unusquisque sibi
excogitaviº. Haec enim est labes, hoc est
vitium saeculi nostri, quod unusquisque
ponit principium, ex quo deducit deinde
conclusiones. Bene est, et laudandisunt,
quod in hoc cavent sibi, ut in fine con-
veniant in conclusionibus; quod ex diversis
principiis efficiunt easdem conclusiones:
Sed Grotius provocat simpliciter ad con-
sensum generis humani et sensum comunem.”
78.-PRICE, in his Review of the prin-
cipal Questions on Morals, I ed. 1758,
speaking of the necessity of supposing a
cause for every event, and having stated
examples, says—‘I know nothing that can
be said or done to a person who professes
to deny these things, besides referring
him to common sense and reason,’ p. 35.
And again; “Were the question—whether
our ideas of number, diversity, causation,
proportion, &c., represent truth and
reality perceived by the understanding, or
particular impressions made by the object
to which we ascribe them on our minds;
—were this, I say, the question; would
it not be sufficient to appeal to common
sense, and to leave it to be determined by
every person's private consciousness?’ p.
65. See also 2 ed. p. 81 note; ‘Common
sense, the faculty of self-evident truths.”
79.-REID.—a.—Inquiry, &c., p. 108 b.
—‘If there be certain principles, as I
think there are, which the constitution of
our nature leads us to believe, and which
we are under a necessity to take for
granted in the common concerns of life,
without being able to give a reason for
them ; these are what we call the prin-
ciples of common Sense ; and what is mani-
festly contrary to them is what we call
absurd."—See also p. 209, b. Compare
Melanchthon n. 25, c., Fenelon, n. 60,
Buffier n. 63. -
b.—Intellectual Powers, p. 425, a. b.-
‘It is absurd to conceive that there can be
any opposition between Reason and Com-
mon Sense. Common Sense is indeed
the first-born of Reason; and they are
inseparable in their nature.—We ascribe
to Reason two offices or two degrees.
The first is to judge of things self-evident ;
[this is Intellect, voijg.] The second is to
draw conclusions that are not self-evident
from those that are ; [this is Reasoning,
or Ötövoto...] The first of these is the pro-
vince, and the sole province of Common
Sense; and therefore it coincides with
Reason in its whole extent, and is only
another name for one branch or one de-
gree of Reason.”—I have already observed
that of these offices, the former (Common
Sense) might be well denominated the
noetic function of Reason, or rather In-
tellect, and the latter (Reasoning) its
diamoetic or discursive. See p. 769 b,
792
[NOTE A.
ON THE PHILOSOPHY •
80. — HILLER.— Curriculum Philoso-
phiae, 1765. Parsiii. § 34.—“Sensus Com-
munis’ used in its philosophical meaning.
81.-HEMsTERHUls, “ the Batavian Pla-
to,” founds his philosophy on the origi-
ginal feelings or beliefs of our intelligent
nature, as on ultimate facts. Feeling, or
the faculty of primitive intuition (senti-
ment, sensation, faculté intuitive) is prior
to reasoning; on which it confers all its
validity, and which it supplies with the
necessary conditions of its activity. It is
not logical inference which affords us the
assurance of any real existence; it is be-
lief—feeling—the instinctive judgment of
the intuitive faculty. (This he sometimes
calls common sense—sens commun). De-
monstration is the ladder to remoter
truths. But demonstrations can yield us
information, neither as to the ground on
which the ladder rests, nor as to the points
on which it is supported.—Of his works,
see in particular, ‘Sophyle' and ‘Lettre
sur l’Homme et ses Rapports,’ passim.
82.-BEATT1E.—Essay on Truth, 1773,
p. 40. “The term Common Sense hath,
in modern times, been used by philo-
sophers, both French and British, to sig-
nify that power of the mind which per-
ceives truth, or commands belief, not by
progressive argumentation, but by an in-
stantaneous, instinctive, and irresistible
impulse; derived neither from education
nor from habit, but from nature ; acting
independently of our will, whenever its
object is presented, according to an esta-
blished law, and therefore properly called
Sense ; and acting in a similar manner
upon all, or at least upon a great majority
of mankind, and therefore properly called
Common Sense.’
I should hardly have thought it neces-
sary to quote Beattie's definition of
common sense any more than those of
Campbell, Oswald, Fergusson, and other
Scottish philosophers in the train of
Reid, were it not to remark that Mr
Stewart, (Elements, vol. ii. c. 1, sect.
3), contrary to his usual tone of cri-
ticism, is greatly too unmeasured in his
reprehension of this and another passage
of the same Essay. In fact if we dis-
count the identification of Reason with
Reasoning—in which Beattie only follows
the great majority of philosophers, ancient
and modern--his consequent distinction
of Reason from Common Sense, and his
error in regard to the late and limited
employment of this latter term, an error
shared with him by Mr Stewart, there is
far more in this definition to be praised
than censured. The attack on Beattie by
the English translator of Buffier is futile
and false. Mr Stewart's approbation of
it is to me a matter of wonder. See
No. 63.
83.—Von STORCHEN AU.—Grundsaetze
der Logik, 1774. , Common Sense (der
allgemeine Menschensinn) defined and
founded on, as an infallible criterion of
truth, in reference to all matters not be-
yond its sphere.
84. – STATTLER.— Dissertatio Logica
de valore Sensus Communis, 1780.--A
treatise chiefly in reference to the proof
of the being of a God from the general
agreement of mankind. — See also his
Logica.
85. – HENNERT.-Aphorismi philoso-
phici Utrecht, 1781.-‘ Sensus communis,
Seu sensus immediatae evidentiae, intimus
est sensus,’ $112. “Sensus communis estcos
et norma omnis veri,’ $ 2. ‘ Natura mor-
talibus tribuit sensum communem, qui
omnes edocet quibus in rebus consentire
debeant,’ &c. § 1. -
86.-KANT is a remarkable confessor
of the supreme authority of natural be-
lief; not only by reason of his rare pro-
fundity as a thinker, but because we see
him, by a signal yet praiseworthy incon-
sequence, finally re-establishing in autho-
rity the principle, which he had originally
disparaged and renounced. His theoreti-
cal philosophy, which he first developed,
proceeds on a rejection, in certain re-
spects, of the necessary convictions of
mankind; while on these convictions his
practical philosophy, the result of his ma-
turer contemplations, is wholly established.
As Jacobi well expresses it—‘The Criti-
cal philosophy, first out of love to science,
theoretically subverts metaphysic; then—
when all is about to sink into the yawning
abyss of an absolute subjectivity—it again,
out of love to metaphysic, subverts science,’
(Werke ii. p. 44). The rejection of the
common sense of mankind as a criterion
of truth, is the weakest point of the spe-
culative philosophy of Kant. When he
says—‘Allowing idealism to be as dange-
rous as it truly is, it would still remain a
scandal to philosophy and human reason
in general, to be forced to accept the
existence of external things on the testi-
mony of mere belief, (Cr. d.sr. V. Vorr.):
yet, that very belief alone is what makes
the supposition of an external world in-
cumbent; and the proof of its reality
which Kant attempted, independently of
that belief, is now admitted by one and all.
of his disciples, to be so inconsequent, that
it may reasonably be doubted, whether he
ever intended it for more than an ex-
§ VI.] .
793
OF COMMON SENSE.
oteric disclaimer of the esoteric idealism
of his doctrine. But the philosopher who
deemed it ‘ a scandal to philosophy and
human reason to found the proof of a
material world—in itself to us a matter of
supreme indifference—on belief; on be-
lief, on feeling, afterwards established the
proof of all the highest objects of our inte-
rest—God—Free Will—and Immortality.
In the character he ascribes to this Feel-
ing and Belief, Kant indeed erred. For
he ought to have regarded it, Ilot as a
mere spiritual craving, but as an imme-
diate manifestation to intelligence; not as
a postulate, but as a datum ; not as an
interest in certain truths, but as the fact,
the principle, the warrant, of their cogni-
tion and reality. Kant's doctrine on this
point is too prominent and pervading, and
withal too well known, to render any
quotation necessary; and I only refer to
his Critique of Practical Reason and his
moral treatises in general.—See also on
Kant's variation in this respect, among
others, Jacobi's Introduction to his col-
lected philosophical writings (Werke vol.
ii. p. 3–126), with the Appendix on
Transcendental Idealism (ibid. p. 289–
309); and Platner's Philosophical Apho-
risms (vol. i. Pref. p. vi.); to which may
be added Schoppenhauer’s letter in Pre-
face to the first volume of Kant's collected
works by Rosenkrantz and Schubert.
87.—JAcobi. — The philosophy of Ja-
cobi–who from the character and profun-
dity of his speculations merited and ob-
tained the appellation of the Plato of
Germany—in its last and most perfect ex-
position establishes two faculties immedi-
ately apprehensive (vernehmend, wahrneh-
mend) of reality; Sense of corporeal ex-
istence, Reason (Vernunft) of supersen-
sible truths.” Both as primary are incon-
ceivable, being only cognitions of the fact.
Both are therefore incapable of definition,
and are variously and vaguely character-
ised as revelations, intuitions, feelings, be-
liefs, instincts.
The resistless belief or feeling of reality
which in either cognition affords the sur-
rogate of its truth, is equivalent to the
* This last corresponds to the vows proper of
the Greek philosophers; and the employment
of the term Reason in this limitation by Jacobi
in his later works (to which he was manifestly
led by Kant), is not a fortunate flomenclature.
In his earlier writings he does not discriminate
Reason from Understanding (Werstand), view-
ing it as a faculty of mediate knowledge, and
as opposed to Belief, in which Jacobi always
held that we obtain the revelation of all I'eality-
—all original cognition. See pp. 768, 769.
| common sense of Reid. Reid was an es-
pecial favourite with Jacobi; and through
Jacobi's powerful polemic we may trace
the influence of the Scottish philosophy on
the whole subsequent speculation of Ger-
many. See Preface. - -
a.—Die Lehre des Spinoza, &c. 1785,
p. 162, sq.-Werke, vol. iv. p. 210. “Dear
Mendelsohn, we are all born in belief
(Glaube”), and in belief we must remain,
as we were all born in society, and in so-
ciety must remain. How can we strive
after certainty, were certainty not already
known to us; and known to us, how can it
be, unless through something which we al-
ready know with certainty ? This leads
to the notion of an immediate certainty,
which not only stands in need of no proof,
but absolutely excludes all proof, being it-
self, and itself alone, the representation
(Vorstellungi) corresponding with the
represented thing, and therefore having
its sufficient reason within itself. The
conviction, through proof or demonstra-
tion, is a conviction at second hand; rests
upon comparison; and can never be alto-
gether sure and perfect. If, then, all as-
sent, all holding for true, (Fuerwahrhal-
ten,) not depending on such grounds of
reasoning, be a belief; it follows, that the
conviction from reasoning itself, must
spring out of belief, and from belief re-
ceive all the cogency it possesses.
‘Through belief we know that we have
a body, and that, external to us, there are
found other bodies, and other intelligent
existences. A truly miraculous [marvel-
lous;], revelation For we have only a
sensation (Empfinden) of our body, under
this or that modification; and whilst we
have a sensation of our body thus modi-
fied, we are at the same time, aware or
percipient, not only of its changes, but
likewise of what is wholly different from
* The Germans have only this one word
for philosophical Belief and theological Faith.
Hence much scandal, confusiou, and misrepre-
sentation, on its first employment by Jacobi.
# Vorstellwng in this place might perhaps be
rendered presentation. But I adhere to the
usual translation; for Jacobi never seems to
bave risen to the pure doctrine of Natural
Realism. -
# The Germans have only one word, Wunder,
wunderbar, to express marvel and miracle, mar-
wellows and miraculous. IHence often confusion
and ambiguity in their theology. The superi-
ority we have over them in the two instances
noticed in this and the penult note is, how-
ever, rare. The making perception a revelation
and not an apprehension of existence belongs
also to a Cosmothetic Idealism, struggling into
Natural Realism, -
794
[NOTE A.
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
mere sensation, or a mere thought—we
are aware or percipient of other realthings,
and this too with a certainty, the same as
that with which we are percipient of our
own existence; for without a Thow an I is
impossible. [?— See above, p. 742 sq.]
‘We have thus a revelation of nature,
which does not recommend merely, but
compels, all and each of us to believe, and,
through belief, to receive those eternal
truths which are vouchsafed to man.”
P. 223. ‘W. We can only demonstrate
similarities (coincidences, conditioned ne-
cessary truths) in a series of identical pro-
positions. Every proof supposes, as its
basis, something already established, the
principle of which is a revelation.
‘VI. The element of all human know-
ledge and activity is Belief.”
P. 193. (Given as an aphorism of Spi-
noza)—“Animmediate cognition, consider-
ed in and for itself, is without representa-
tion—is a Feeling."—The three last words
do not appear in the original edition; and
I cannot find their warrant in Spinoza.
b.—From the Dialogue entitled ‘David
Hume upon Belief, or Idealism and Real-
ism,’ which appeared two years later
(1787), Werke, vol. ii. p. 143, sq.
* I.—That things appear as external to
us, requires no argument. But that these
things are not mere appearances in w8—
are not mere modifications of our proper
self, and consequently null as representa-
tions of aught easternal to ourselves; but
that, as representations in ws, they have
still reference to something really exter-
nal and self-existent, which they express,
and from which they are taken—in the
face of this, not only is doubt possible, it
has been even often satisfactorily demon-
strated, that such doubt cannot be solved
by any process of reasoning strictly so de-
nominated. Your immediate certainty of
external things would, therefore, on the
analogy of my Belief, be a blind cer-
tainty.”
(After defending the propriety of the
term Glaube employed by him in his pre-
vious writings (which, in consequence of
the word denoting in German both posi-
tive faith and general belief, had exposed
him to the accusation of mysticism,) by
examples of a similar usage of the word
Belief, in the philosophical writings of
Hume, Reid, &c.; he proceeds to vindi-
cate another term he had employed—Of-
fenbarung, revelation.)
‘I-In so far as the universal usage of
language is concerned, is there required
any special examples or authorities 2 We
say commonly in German, that objects
through the senses.
offenbarem, reveal, i.e. manifest, themselves
The same expression
is prevalent in French, English, Latin, and
many other languages. With the particu-
lar emphasis which I have laid on it, this
expression does not occur in Hume ;-
among other reasons because he leaves it
undetermined, whether we perceive things
really eaſternal or only as external. . . .
The decided Realist, on the contrary, who
unhesitatingly accepts an external exis-
tence, on the evidence of his senses, con-
siders this certainty as an original convic-
tion, and cannot but think, that on this
fundamental experience, all our specula-
tion touching a knowledge of the external
world, must rest—such a decided Real-
ist, how shall he denominate the mean
through which he obtains his certainty of
external objects, as of existences indepen-
dent of his representation of them . He
has nothing on which his judgment can
rest, except the things themselves—no-
thing but the fact, that the objects stand
there, actually before him. In these cir-
cumstances, can he express himself by a
more appropriate word, than the word Re-
velation.” And should we not rather in-
quire, regarding the root of this word,
and the origin of its employment 7
* He.—So it certainly appears.
‘I.—That this Revelation deserves to be
called truly miraculous [marvellous) fol.
lows of course. For if we consider suffi-
ciently the reasons for the proposition—
“That consciousness is exclusively conver-
Sant with the modifications of our proper
self,” Idealism will appear in all its force,
and as the only scheme which our specu-
lative reason can admit. Suppose, how-
ever, that our Realist, notwithstanding,
still remains a Realist, and holds fast by
the belief that—for example—this object
here, which we call a table, is no mere
sensation—no mere existence found only
in us, but an existence external and inde-
pendent of our representation, and by us
only perceived; I would boldly ask him
for a more appropriate epithet for the Re-
velation of which he boasts, in as much as
he maintains that something external to
him is presented (sich darstelle) to his
consciousness. For the presented exis-
tence (Daseyn) of such a thing external to
us, we have no other proof than the pre-
sented existence of this thing itself; and
we must admit it to be wholly inconceiv-
able, how that existence can possibly be
perceived by us. But still, as was said,
we maintain that we do perceive it; main-
* This looks very like Natural Realism.
§ VI.]
OF COMMON SENSE.
tain with the most assured conviction, that
things there are, extant really out of us,
that our representations and notions are
conformed to these external things, and
not that the things which we only fancy
external are conformed to our representa-
tions and notions. I ask on what does
this conviction rest? In truth on nothing,
except on a revelation, which we can de-
nominate no otherwise than one truly mi-
ºraculous [marvellous.]” -
c. — Allwills Briefsammlung, 1792.
Werke, vol. i. p. 120.—“We admit, pro.
ceeded Allwill, freely and at once, that we
do not comprehend how it is that, through
the mere excitation and movement of our
organs of sense, we are not only sensitive
but sensitive of something;-become aware
of, perceive, something wholly different
from us; and that we comprehend, least of
all, how we distinguish and apprehend our
proper self, and what pertains to our in-
ternal states, in, a manner wholly different
from all sensitive perception. But we
deem it more secure here to appeal to an
original Instinct, with which every cog-
nition of truth begins, than, on account of
that incomprehensibility, to maintain—
that the mind can perceive and represent in
an infinitely various fashion not itself, and
not other things, but, eaclusively and alone,
what is neither itself, nor any other thing.”
d.—From the Preface to the second
volume of his Works, forming the ‘Intro-
duction to the author's collected philo-
sophical writings;’ this was published in
1815, and exhibits the last and most au-
thentic view of the Jacobian doctrine.
P. 58 sq.-‘Like every other system of
cognitions, Philosophy receives its Form
exclusively from the Understanding (Ver-
stand) as, in general, the faculty of Con-
cepts (Begriffe). Without notions or
concepts there can be no reconsciousness,
no consciousness of cognitions, conse-
quently no discrimination and comparison,
no separation and connexion, no weigh-
ing, reweighing, estimating, of these; in a
word, no seizing possession (Besitzer-
greifung) of any truth whatever. On the
other hand the contents—the peculiar
contents, of philosophy are given exclu-
sively by the Reason (Vernunft),f by the
faculty, to wit, of cognitions, independent
of sense, and beyond its reach. The
Reason fashions no concepts, builds no
systems, pronounces no judgments, but,
• And to be represented, a thing must be
known. But ea hypothesi, the external reality
is unknown; it cannot therefore be represented,
# See note at p. 793 a, and references.
like the eaſternal senses, it merely reveals,
it merely announces the fact.
* Above all, we must consider—that as
there is a sensible intuition, an intuition
through the Sense, so there is likewise a
rational intuition through the Reason.
Each, as a peculiar source of knowledge,
stands counter to the other; and we can
no more educe the latter from the former,
than we can educe the former from the
latter. So Hkewise, both hold a similar
relation to the Understanding (Verstand),
and consequently to demonstration. Op-
posed to the intuition of sense no demon-
stration is valid; for all demonstration is
only a reducing, a carrying back of the
concept to the sensible intuition (empiri-
cal or pure), which affords its guarantee:
and this, in reference to physical science,
is the first and the last, the unconditionally
valid, the absolute. On the same prin-
ciple, no demonstration avails in opposi-
tion to the intuition of reason, which
affords us a knowledge of supersensible
objects, that is, affords us assurance of
their reality and truth.* -
‘We are compelled to employ the ex-
pression rational intuition, or intuition of
ºreason (Vernunft-Anschauung), because
the language possesses no other to denote
the mean and the manner, in which the
understanding is enabled to take cogni-
sance of what, unattainable by the sense,
is given by Feeling alone, and yet, not as
a subjective excogitation, but as an ob-
jective reality. -
“When a man says—I know, we have a
right to ask him— Whence he knows 8 And
in answering our question, he must, in the
end, inevitably resort to one or other of
these two sources—either to the Sensation
of Sense (Sinnes-Empfindung), or to the
Feeling of the Mind (Geistes-Gefuehl).
Whatever we know from mental feeling,
that, we say, we believe. So speak we all.
Virtue—consequently, Moral Liberty—
consequently, Mind and God—these can
only be believed. But the Sensation on
which knowledge in the intuition of sense
—knowledge properly so called—reposes, is
as little Superior to the Feeling on which
the knowledge in belief is founded, as the
brute creation is to the human, the mate-
rial to the intellectual world, nature to its
creator.f
* Compare this with Aristotle's doctrine, No.
! 3, especially a b. c. f., and p. 771, b.
# As will be seen from what follows, Jacobi
applies the terms Feeling and Belief to both
Sense and Reason. Sensation, as properly the
mere consciousness of a subjective sensual
state, of the agreeable or disagreeable in our
796
[NOTE A.
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
“The power of Feeling, I maintain, is
the power in man paramount to every
other; it is that alone which specifically
distinguishes him from the brutes, that is,
which, affording a difference not merely
in degree but in kind, raises him to an in-
comparable eminence above them : it is,
I maintain, one and the same with Rea-
son; or, as we may with propriety ex-
press ourselves—what we call Reason,
what transcends mere understanding, un-
derstanding solely applied to nature,
springs exclusively and alone out of the
power of Feeling. As the senses refer
the understanding to Sensation, so the
Reason refers it to Feeling. The con-
sciousness of that which Feeling mani-
fests, I call Idea.” *
P. 107.—* As the reality, revealed by
the external senses, requires no guarantee,
itself affording the best assurance of its
truth; so the reality, revealed by that
deep internal sense which we call Reason,
needs no guarantee, being, in like man-
ner, alone and of itself the most compe-
tent witness of its veracity. Of necessity,
man believes his senses; of necessity, he
believes his reason; and there is no cer-
tainty superior to the certainty which this
belief contains. -
“When men attempted to demonstrate
scientifically the truth of our representa-
tions (Worstellungen) of a material world,
existing beyond, and independent of, these
representations, the object which they
wished to establish vanished from the de-
monstrators; there remained nought but
mere subjectivity, mere sensation : they
found Idealism.
“When men attempted to demonstrate
scientifically the truth of our repre-
sentations of an immaterial world, exist-
ing beyond these representations,—the
truth of the substantiality of the hu-
man mind,—and the truth of a free crea-
tor of the universe, distinct from the
universe itself, that is, an administrator,
endowed with consciousness, personality,
and veritable providence; in like man-
ner the object vanished from the demon-
strators; there remained for them mere lo-
gical phantasms: they found—Nihilism.
“All reality, whether corporeal, revealed
by the senses, or spiritual, revealed by the
reason, is assured to us alone by Feeling;f
beyond and above this there is no guarantee.”
corporeal organism, is a term that ought to
have been here avoided. .
* Without entering on details, I may ob-
serve that Jacobi, like Kant, limits the term Idea
to the highest notions of pureintellect, or Reason.
# In regard to the term Feeling, see p. 760 a.
Among those who have adopted the
principles of Jacobi, and who thus philo-
sophize in a congenial spirit with Reid, be-
sides Koeppen and Ancillon (Nos. 96, 97),
I may refer, in general, to Bouterwek,
Lehrb. d. philos. Wissensch. i. § 26, 27,
and Lehrb. d. philos. Workent. §§ 12, 27.—
Neeb, Verm. Schr., vol. i. p. 154 sq. vol.
ii. p. 18, 70, 245 sq. 251, vol. iii. p. 141 sq.
88.—HEIDENREICH, one of the most
distinguished of the older Kantians. Be-
trachtungen, &c., P. i. p. 213, 227.-‘ In
as much as the conviction of certain cog-
nitions (as of our own existence, of the
existence of an external world, &c.,) does
not depend upon an apprehension of rea-
sons, but is exclusively an immediate in-.
nate reliance of the subject on self and
nature, I call it natural belief (Natur-
glaube). Every other cognition, notion,
and demonstration, reposes upon this na-
tural belief, and without it cannot be
brought to bear.’
89. — L. CREUzE.R.— Skeptische Be-
trachtungen, &c., p. 110.—* We accord
reality to the external world because our
consciousness impels us so to do.
That we are unable to explain, conceive,
justify all this, argues nothing against its
truth. Our whole knowledge rests ulti-
mately on facts of consciousness, of which
we not only cannot assign the reason, but
cannot even think the possibility.” He
does not however rise above Hypothetical
Realism; see p. 108.
90-PLATNER.—Philosophische Apho-
rismen, 2d ed. Pref. p. vi.—‘There is, I
am persuaded, only one philosophy ; and
that the true; which in the outset of its
inquiries departs from the principle, that
the certainty of human knowledge is
demonstrable, only relatively to our fa-
culty of knowing, and which, at the end
of its speculative career, returns within
the thoughts—Experience, Common Sense,
and Morality—the best results of our
whole earthly wisdom.’
91–FICHTE is a more remarkable, be-
cause a more reluctant, confessor of the
paramount authority of Belief than even
Kant. Departing from the principle
Qommon to Kant and philosophers in
general, that the mind cannot transcend
itself, Fichte developed, with the most ad-
mirable rigour of demonstration, a scheme
of idealism, the purest, simplest, and
most consistent which the history of phi-
losophy exhibits. And so confident was
Fichte in the necessity of his proof, that
on one occasion he was provoked to im-
precate eternal damnation on his head,
should he ever swerve from any, even the
§ VI.]
797
OF COMMON SENSE.
least, of the doctrines which he had so
victoriously established. But even Fichte
in the end confesses that natural belief is
paramount to every logical proof; and
that his own idealism he could not be-
lieve.
In the foot note at page 129 b, I have
given the result as stated by himself of his
theoretical philosophy—Nihilism. After
the passage there quoted, he thus pro-
ceeds:– All cognition strictly so called
(Wissen) is only an effigiation (Abbild-
ung), and there is always in it some-
thing wanted, that to which the image or
effigies (Bild) corresponds. This want
can be supplied through no cognition ;
and a system of cognitions is necessarily a
system of mere images, destitute of rea-
lity, significance, or aim.’ These passages
are from the conclusion of the second
book of his ‘Bestimmung des Menschen,’
entitled ‘Wissen,” pp. 130, 132, ed. 1825.
But in his Practical Philosophy Fichte
became convinced that he had found an
organ by which to lay hold on the inter.
mal and external worlds, which had
escaped from him in his Theoretical. ‘I
have discovered, he says, the instrument
by which to seize on this Reality, and
therewith, in all likelihood, on every other.
Knowledge (das Wissen) is not this in-
strument: no cognition can be its own
basis, and its own proof; every cognition
supposes another still higher, as its reason,
and this ascent has no termination. The
instrument I mean, is Belief (Glaube).”
(Ib. book third, entitled “ Glaube, p. 146.)
—‘All my conviction is only Belief, and
it proceeds from Feeling or Sentiment
(Gesinnung), not from the discursive Un:
derstanding (Verstand).” (Ib. p. 147). ‘I
possess, when once I am aware of this,
the touchstone of all truth and of all con-
viction. The root of truth is in the Con-
science (Gewissen) alone.” (Ib. p. 148).
Compare St Austin, supra, No. 15, b.-
See also to the same effect Fichte's ‘Sys-
tem der Sittenlehre,’ p. 18;-his work
“Ueber den Begriff der Wissenschafts-
lehre, p. 21, sq.; — and the ‘Philoso-
phische Journal, vol. x. p. 7. Still more
explicit is the recognition of ‘internal
sense’ and “belief’ as an irrecusable testi-
mony of the reality of our perception of
external realities, subsequently given by
Tichte in his lectures at Erlangen in 1805,
and reported by Gley in his ‘Essai Sur
les Elements de la Philosophie, p. 141,
sq., and in his ‘Philosophia Turonensis,'
vol. i. p. 237.—I regret that I have not yet
seen Fichte's ‘Hinterlassene Schriften,'
lately published by his son.
After these admissions it need not sur-
prise us to find Fichte confessing, that
‘How evident soever may be the demon-
stration that every object of conscious-
ness (Vorstellung) is only illusion and
dream, I am unable to believe it ;’ and
in like manner maintaining, that Spinoza
never could have believed the system
which he deduced with so logical a neces-
sity. (Philos. Journ. vii. p. 35.)
93.−KRUG.—The Transcendental Syn-
thetism of this philosopher is a scheme of
dualism founded on the acceptance of the
original datum of consciousness, that we
are immediately cognisant, at once, of an
internal, and of an external world. It is
thus a scheme of philosophy, really, though
not professedly, founded on Common
Sense. Krug is a Kantian; and as origi-
nally promulgated in his ‘Entwurf eines
neuen Organons,’ 1801, (§ 5), his system
was, like Kant's, a mere Cosmothetic Ideal.
ism; for while he allowed a knowledge of
the internal world, he only allowed a be-
lief of the external. The polemic of
Schulze against the common theory of
sensitive representation, and in professed
conformity with Reid’s doctrine of per-
ception, was published in the same year;
and it was probably the consideration of
this that determined Krug to a fundamen-
tal change in his system. For in his trea-
tise ‘Ueber die verschiedenen Methoden,”
&c. 1802 (p. 44), and still more explicitly
in his ‘Fundamental Philosophie,’ 1803
(§ 68), the mere belief in the unknown
existence of external things is commuted
into a cognition, and an immediate percep-
tion apparently allowed, as well of the
phaenomena of matter, as of the phaeno-
mena of mind. See also his pamphlet
“Ueber das Verhaeltniss der Philosophie
zum gesunden Menschenverstande,’ 1835,
in reference to Hegel’s paradox,−“That
the world of Common Sense, and the
world of Philosophy, are, to each other,
worlds upside down.” !
94.—DEGERANDo.—Histoire comparé
des Systemes de Philosophie t. iii. p., 343,
original edition. “Concluons: la realité
de nos connaissances [of the external
world] ne se démontre pas; elle se recon-
nait. Elle se reconnait, par l’effet de cette
même conscience qui nous révèle notre
connaissance elle-même. Tel est le pri-
vilège de l’ intelligence humaine. Elle
aperçoit les objets, elle s'aperçoit ensuite
elle-même, elle aperçoit qu’elle a aperçu.
Elle est toute lumière, mais une lumière
qui réfléchit indéfiniment sur elle-même.
On nous opposera ce principe abstrait:
qu'une Sensation ne pewt nows instruire que
798
[NOTE A.
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
de notre propre eaſistence. . . Sans doute
lorsqu' on commence par confondre la sen-
sation avec la perception, par définir celle-
ci wºme manière d’étre dw moi, on ne peut
leur attribuer d'autre instruction que celle
dont notre propre existence est l’ objet.
Mais Évitons ici les disputes de mots; il
s'agit seulement de constater un fait; Sa-
voir, si dans certains cas, en réfléchissant
surnos opérations, en démélant toutes leurs
circonstances, nous n' y découvrons pas
la perception immédiate et primitive d'une
existence étrangère, perception à la quelle
on donnera tel nom qu’ on jugera conven-
able. Si ce fait est exact, constant, uni-
versel, si ce fait est primitif, il est non
seulement inutile, mais absurde, d'en de-
mander le powrquoi et le comment. Car
nous n’avons aucune donnée pour l’ex-
pliquer.” -
95.—FR1Es, a distinguished philosopher
of the Kantian school, but whose opinions
have been considerably modified by the in-
fluence of the Jacobian philosophy of be-
lief, professes in his Feeling of Truth
(Wahrheitsgefuehl) a doctrine of common
sense. This doctrine is in every essential
respect the same as Reid's; for Fries is
altogether wrong in the assertion which,
in different works, he once and again ha-
zards that, under Common Sense, Reid
had in view a special organ of truth—
a peculiar sense, distinct from reason
or intelligence in general. See in par-
ticular his Krit. vol. i. § 85. – Metaph.
§ 17. – Gesch. d. Phil. vol. ii. § 172.
Anthr. vol. i. § 52. ii. Worr. p. xvi.-
Log. § 84. -
96.- Koepp E.N.—a philosopher of the
school of Jacobi.—Darstellung des Wes-
ens der Philosophie, § 11.—“ Human know-
ledge, (Wissen) considered in its totality,
exhibits a twofold character. It is either
Apprehension (Wahrnehmung) or Concep-
tion (Begriff); either an immediate con-
viction, or a mediate insight, obtained
through reasons. By the former we are
said to believe, by the latter to conceive
, [or comprehend].” After an articulate ex-
position of this, and having shown, with
Jacobi and Hume, that belief as convert–
ible with feeling constitutes the ultimate
ground both of action and cognition, he
proceeds:—‘ In a philosophical sense, be-
£ieved is tantamount to apprehended. For
all apprehension is an immediate convic-
tion which cannot be founded upon reflec-
tion and conception. In our human in-
dividuality we possess a double faculty of
apprehension—Reason [intelligence, votg|
and Sense. What, therefore, through
reason and sense is an object of our appre-
hension is believed. . . . The halief of rea-
son and the belief of sense, are our guar-
antees for the certainty of what we appre-
hend. The former relies on the testi-
mony of reason, the latter on the testi-
mony of sense. Is this twofold testimony
false, there is absolutely no truth of ap-
prehension. The combinations of concep-
tions afford no foundation for this original
truth.-Belief is thus the first in our cog-
nition, because apprehension is the first;
conception is the second, because it regards
the relations of what is given through ap-
prehension. If, then, I exclusively appro-
priate to the result of conceptions the
name of knowledge (Wissen)—still all
knowledge presupposes belief, and on be-
lief does the truth of knowledge repose.
Belief lays hold on the originally given;
knowledge developes the relations of the
given, in conformity with the laws of
thought,’ &c.
97.-ANCILLoN (the Son).—German by
birth, French by lineage, writing in either
language with equal elegance, and repre-
senting in himself the highest and most
peculiar qualities of both his nations; we
have still farther to admire in the prime
minister of Prussia, at once, the metaphy-
sician and moralist, the historian and
statesman, the preacher and man of the
world. He philosophised in the spirit of
Jacobi; and from his treatise Ueber
Glaube (On Belief), one of his later
writings, I translate the following pas-
Sages:—
P. 36. ‘Existences, realities, are given ws
We apprehend them by means of an inter-
mal mental intuition (geistige Anschauung)
which, in respect of its clearness, as in re-
spect of its certainty, is as evident as uni-
versal, and as resistless and indubitable as
evident. . -
* Were no such internal, immediate,
mental intuition given us, there would be
given us no existence, no reality. The
universe—the worlds of mind and matter—
would then resolve themselves into appa-
rency. All realities would be mere ap-
pearances, appearing to another mere ap-
pearance—Man ; whilst no answer could
be afforded to the ever-recurring questions
— What is it that appears 2 and To whom
Čs the appearance made * Even language
resists such assertions, and reproves the
lie.
“Had we no such internal, immediate,
mental intuition, existences would be be-
yond the reach of every faculty we possess.
For neither our abstractive nor reflective
powers, neither the analysis of motions,
nor notions themselves, neither synthesis,
s VI.]
OF COMMON SENSE: 799
nor reasoning, could ever lead us to reality
and existence.”
(Having shown this in regard to each
of these in detail, he proceeds: p. 40.)—
* This root of all reality, this ground of
existence, is the Reason (Vernunft),f out
of which all reasonings proceed, and on
which alone they repose.
* The Reason of which I here speak is
not an instrument which serves for this or
that performance, but a true productive
force, a creative power, which has its own
revelation; which does not show what is
already manifested, but, as a primary con-
sciousness, itself contemplates existence;
which is not content to collect data, and
from these data to draw an inference, but
which itself furnishes Reality as a datum.
This Reason is no arithmetical machine,
but an active principle; it does not reach
the truth after toil and time, but departs
from the truth, because it finds the truth
within itself.
* This Reason, this internal eye,f which
immediately receives the light of existence,
and apprehends existences, as the bodily eye
the outlines and the colours of the sensu-
ous world, is an immediate sense which
contemplates the invisible.
* This Reason is the ground, the prin-
ciple, of all knowledge (Wissen); for all
knowledge bears reference to reality and
existences. -
* All knowledge must, first or last, rest
on facts (Thatsachen,) universal facts,
necessary facts, of the internal sense;—on
facts which give us ourselves, our own ex-
istence, and a conviction of the existence
of other supersensible beings.
• These facts are for us mental intwi-
tions. In as much as they give us an in-
stantaneous, clear, objective perception
of reality, they are entitled to the name of
Intuition (Anschauung); in as much as
this intuition regards the objects of the in-
visible world, they deserve the attribute of
'mental.
• Such an intuition, such a mental
feeling (Gefuehl), engenders Philosophical
Belief. This belief consists in the imme-
diate apprehending of existences wholly
concealed and excluded from the senses,
which reveal themselves to us in our in-
* Fichte says the same :—‘From cognition to
pass out to an object of cognition—this is im-
possible; we must therefore depart from the
reality, otherwise we should remain forever un-
able to reach it.”
+ On the employment of the word Reason by
the German philosophers, Bupra, p.786, sq.
# Plato, Aristotle, and many philosophers
after them, say this of Intelligence, votis.
most consciousness, and this too with a
necessary conviction of their objectivity
(reality.)
* Belief, in the philosophical sense,
means, the apprehension without proof,
reasoning or deduction of any kind, of
those higher truths which belong to the
supersensible world, and not to the world
of appearances.” . . . .
P. 43. “Philosophical belief apprehends
existences which can neither be conceived
nor demonstrated. Belief is therefore a
knowledge conversant about existences,
but it does not know existences, if under
knowledge be understood—demonstrating,
comprehending, conceiving.” . . .
P. 44.—" The internal intuition which
affords us the apprehension of certain
existences, and allows us not to doubt in
regard, to the certainty of their reality,
does not inform us concerning their na-
ture. This internal intuition is given us
in Feeling and through Feeling.” . . .
P. 48.-‘This internal universal sense,
this highest power of mental vision in
man, seems to have much in it of the in-
stinctive, and may therefore appropriately
be styled intellectual Instinct. For on the
one hand it manifests itself through Sud-
den, rapid, uniform, resistless promptings;
and on the other hand, these promptings
relate to objects, which lie not within the
domain of the senses, but belong to the
supersensible world.
* Let no offence be taken at the expres-
sion Instinct. For, &c.” . . . . .
P. 50.—* Had man not an intellectua
instinct, or a reason giving out, revealing,
but not demonstrating, truths rooted in
itself, for want of a point of attachment
and support, he would move himself in all
directions, but without progress; and on
a level, too, lower than the brutes, for he
could not compass that kind of perfection
which the brute possesses, and would be
disqualified from attaining any other.
* The immediate Reason elicits inter-
nal mental intwitions ; these intuitions
have an evidence, which works on us like
an intellectual instinct, and generates in us
a philosophical belief, which constitutes
the foundation of our knowledge. To
which soever of these expressions the pre-
ference be accorded, all their notions
have a common character, and are so in-
terlinked together, that they all equally
result in the same very simple proposi-
tion:—* There is either no truth, or there
are fundamental truths, which admit as
little of demonstration as of doubt.” .
P. 51.-‘Had we not in ourselves an ac-
tive principle of truth, we should have
800
[NotE A.
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
neither a rule, nor a touchstone, nor a
standard, of the true. Had we not in our-
selves the consciousness of existences,
there would be for us no means of know-
ing, whether what comes from without
be not mere illusion, and whether what
the mind itself fashions and combines be
aught but an empty play with notions.
In a word—the truth must be in us, as a
constitutive, and as a regulative, prin-
ciple; or we should never attain to truth.
Only with determinate points of com-
mencement and termination, and with a
central point of knowledge, from which
every thing departs, and to which every
things tends to return, are other cogni-
tions possible; failing this primary condi-
tion, nothing can be given us to know, and
nothing certain can exist.’
And in the Preface (p. xi) he had
said:—“The Reason invents, discovers,
creates, in propriety, nothing; it enounces
only what it harbours, it only reveals what
God himself has deposited within it; but
so soon as it is conscious to itself of this,
it speaks out with a force which inspires
us with a rational belief, a faith of rea-
son (Vernunſtglaube),—a belief which
takes priority of every other, and which
serves to every other as a point of depar-
ture and of support. How can we believe
the word of God, if we do not already
believe that a God exists 3'
Compare also his “Zur Vermittlung
der Extreme, vol. ii. p. 253, sq., and his
* Moi Humain 'passim.
98.-GERLACH.-Fundamental Philo-
sophie, § 16.—“So soon as a man is con-
vinced of any thing—be his conviction of
the True, of the Good, or of the Beauti-
ful—he rests upon his Consciousness; for
in himself and in his Consciousness alone
does he possess the elements which consti-
tute the knowledge of things, and it is
herein alone that he finds the necessity of
all and each of his judgments. In a
word, that only has an existence for us
of which we are conscious.”
99.-HERMEs, the late illustrious orna-
ment of the Catholic faculty of Theo-
logy in Bonn, a thinker of whom any
country may well be proud, is the author
of a philosophy of cognition which, in its
fundamental principles, is one of Common
Sense. It is contained in the first volume
of his ‘Introduction to Christian Catholic
Theology,’ a work which, since the au-
thor’s death, has obtained a celebrity,
apart from its great intrinsic merits,
through the agitation consequent on its
condemnation at Rome, for doctrines,
which, except on some notoriously open
questions, the Hermesians—in Germany,
now a numerous and able school—strenu-
ously deny that it contains.
To speak only of his theoretical philo-
sophy.—For the terms Feeling of Truth,
Belief, &c., Hermes substitutes the term
Bolding-for-true (Fuerwahrhalten) which
is only inadequately expressed by the
Latin assensus, assentio, adhaesio, the
Greek ovyzoztáðsqug, or any English
term. Holding-for-true involves in it a du-
plicity;-viz., a Holding-for-true of the
knowledge, and a Holding-for-real (Fuer-
wirklichhalten) of the thing known. Both
of these parts are united in the decision—
that the knowledge and the thing known
coincide.
Holding-for-real is not consequent on
reflection; it is not the result of a recog-
nition; it is the concomitant, not the con-
sequent of apprehension. It is a consti-
tuent element of the primary consciousness
of a perception external or internal; it is
what, in the language of the Scottish phi-
losophers, might be called an instinctive
belief. , ‘This holding-for-real ( says
Hermes) is manifestly given in me prior
to all Reflection: for with the first con-
sciousness, with the consciousness “that I
know,” from which all Reflection departs,
the consciousness is also there, ‘that I
hold the thing known for real,’’ Einl. vol.
i. p. 182. See Nos. 3, 15* (at end), 16, &c.
The necessity we find of assenting or
holding is the last and highest security we
can obtain for truth and reality. The ne-
cessary holding of a thing for real is not
itself reality; it is only the instrument,
the mean, the surrogate, the guarantee, of
reality. It is not an objective, it is only
a subjective, certainty. It constitutes,
however, all the assurance or certainty of
which the human mind is capable. ‘The
[necessary] Holding,” says Hermes, ‘of
something known [for real, can afford no
other certainty of the objective existence
of what is known but this—that I (the
subject) must hold the thing known for ob-
jectively calistent ; or (meaning always by
the word subjective what is in me, in the
subject, )—of the objective easistence of a
thing known there can possibly be given
only the highest subjective certainty. But
no one who knows what he would be at, will
ever ask after any other certainty; not
merely because it is unattainable, but
because it is contradictory for human
thought: in other words, can a subject be
any otherwise certain than that it is certain
—than that itself, the subject, is certain :
. To be objectively certain (taking the term
objective in a sense corresponding to the
§ VI.]
801
OF COMMON SENSE.
term subjective as here employed) the
subject must, in fact, no longer remain
the subject, it must also be the object,
and, as such, be able to become certain;
and yet in conformity to our notion of
certainty (Gewissheit) – or whatever
more suitable expression may be found for
it—all questions concerning certainty
must be referred to the subject (to
the Ego): the attempt to refer them
to the object involves a contradiction.”
Ibid. p. 186.
This is clearly and cogently stated;
and it would seem as if we had only to
appeal to the subjective certainty we have,
in our being compelled to hold that in
perception the ego, is immediately cog-
misant, not only of itself as subject but of
a non-ego as object—to prove that the
easternal world being actually known as
existing, actually exists. (See above, p.
745, sq.) This Hermes does not, however,
do. He seems not, indeed, to have con-
templated the possibility of the mind
being conscious or immediately cognitive
of aught but self; and only furnishes us
with an improved edition of the old and in-
2Onclusive reasoning, that an external
world must be admitted, as the necessary
ground or reason of our internal repre-
sentation of it.
100. — Cousin. — Fragmens Philoso-
phiques, third edition, Vol. i.
a.—P. 243.−“Philosophy is already re-
alized, for human thought is there.
* There is not, and there cannot be, a
philosophy absolutely false; for it would
behove the author of such a philosophy to
place himself out of his own thought, in
other words, out of his humanity. This
power has been given to no man.
‘How then may philosophy err 7—By
considering thought only on a single side,
and by seeing, in that single side, the to-
tality of thought. There are no false, but
many incomplete systems;–systems true
in themselves, but vicious in their preten-
sions, each to comprise that absolute truth
which is only found distributed through all.
* The incomplete, and by consequence,
the exclusive—this is the one only vice of
philosophy, or rather, to speak more cor-
rectly, of philosophers, for philosophy rises
above all the systems. The full portrait
of the real, which philosophy presents, is
indeed made up of features borrowed from
every several system; for of these each
reflects reality; but unfortunately reflects
it under a single angle.*
* The like has been said by Leibnitz and He-
gel; but not so finely.
“To compass possession of reality full
and entire, it is requisite to sist ourselves
at the centre. To reconstitute the intel-
lectual life, mutilated in the several sys-
tems, it behoves us to re-enter Consci-
ousness, and there, weaned from a systema-
tic and exclusive spirit, to analyse thought
into its elements, and all its elements, and
to seek owt in it the characters, and all the
characters, wrºder which it is at present ma-
nifested to the eye of consciousness.”—Du
Fait de Conscience.
b.–P. 181.—* The fundamental prin-
ciple of knowledge and intellectual life is
Consciousness. Life begins with consci-
ousness, and with consciousness it ends :
in consciousness it is that we apprehend
ourselves; and it is in and through con-
sciousness that we apprehend the external
world. Were it possible to rise above
consciousness, to place ourselves, so to
speak, behind it, to penetrate into the se-
cret workshop where intelligence blocks
out and fabricates the various phaenome-
na, there to officiate, as it were, at the
birth, and to watch the evolution of con-
sciousness;–then might we hope to com-
prehend its nature, and the different steps
through which it rises to the form in which
it is first actually revealed. But, as all
knowledge commences with consciousness,
it is able to remount no higher. Here a
prwdent analysis will therefore stop, and oc-
cupy itself with what is given.”
Other testimonies might easily be quot-
ed from the subsequent writings of M.
Cousin—were this not superfluous; for I
presume that few who take an interest in
philosophical inquiries can now be igno-
rant of these celebrated works.
101.-DE LA MENNAIs.-See No. 2.
OMITTED.
9**. — AELIUS ARISTIDEs. –Platonic
Oration, ii. (Opera, ed. Canter. t. iii. p. 249
ed. Jebb. t. ii. p. 150)—‘That the Many
are not to be contemned, and their opinion
held of no account ; but that in them, too,
there is a presentiment, an unerring in-
stinct, which, by a kind of divine fatality,
seizes darkling on the truth;-this we
have Plato himself teaching, and, ages ear-
lier than Plato, this old Hesiod, with poste-
rity in chorus, in these familiar verses sang:
The Fame, born of the many-nation'd voice
Of mankind, dies not ; for it lives as God.”
For Hesiod, see No. 1. These verses
are likewise adduced by Aristotle as pro-
verbial. (Eth. Nic. vii. 13 [14]) The
may be also rendered thus: -
* The Word, forth sent by the conclamant voice
Of mankind, errs not ; for its truth is God’s.’
3 E
802
[NOTE: A
ON THE PHILOSOPHY
Fame (Public Opinion) had her temple in
Athens. See Pausanias.
Plato is referred to in the Laws, (L.xii Š
5. ed. Bekk. t. ii. p. 950, ed Steph.) Ano-
ther passage, in the Crito, which Canter
indicates, is irrelevant. In the former,
Plato attributes to mankind at large a
certain divine sense or vaticination of the
truth (9aiovvi zoºl giovox.ow), by which, in our
natural judgments, we are preserved from
error. I did not, however, find the state-
ment sufficiently generalized to quote the
context as a testimony. -
15*. — THEodor ET.-The Curative of
Greek Affections, Sermon i., On Belief.
(Opera, ed. Sirmondi, t. iv. p. 478.)—
* Belief [or Faith], therefore, is a matter
of the greatest moment. For, according
to the Pythagorean Epicharmus,
Mind, it seeth; Mind, it heareth;
All beside is deaf and blind:
and Heraclitus, in like manner, exhorts
us to submit to the guidance of belief, in
these words;– Unless ye hope, ye shall
not find the wrhoped for, which is inscrut-
able and impermeable. . And let
none of you, my friends, say aught in dis-
paragement of belief. For belief is called
by Aristotle, the Criterion of Science ;
whilst Epicurus says, that it is the Antici-
pation of Reason, and that anticipation,
having indued Knowledge, results in
Comprehension.— But, as we define it, Be-
lief is—a spontaneous assent or adhesion of
the mind,-or the intuition of the wrappa-
vent,--or the taking possession of the real
(Tsgi rā āv Švaroqug—v, Bud. in Pand. et
Com. L. G.), and natural apprehension of
the unperceivable,_or an unvacillating pro-
pension established in the mind of the be-
liever.—But, on the one hand, Belief re-
quires knowledge, as on the other, Know-
ledge requires belief. For there can sub-
sist, neither belief without knowledge, nor
knowledge without belief. Belief pre-
cedes knowledge, knowledge follows be-
lief; while desire is attendant upon know-
ledge, and action consequent upon desire.
For it is necessary, to believe first ; then
to learn; knowing, to desire ; and desiring,
to act. . . . .-Belief, therefore, my
friends, is a concern common to all; . . .
for all who would learn any thing must
first believe. [So Aristotle..] Belief is,
therefore, the foundation and basis of Sci-
ence. For your philosophers have defined
Belief—a voluntary assent or adhesion of
the mind; and Science--an immutable
habit, accompanied with reason.’—This is
a testimony which I should regret to have
totally forgotten. Compare Nos. 3, II,
15, 16, 18, 19, 24, 81, 86, 87, 91, 96, 97,
99, &c. e
17 *.—SIMPLICIUS. – Commentary on
the Manual of Epictetus; and there speak-
ing in the language of the Porch, rather
than in that of the Lyceum or the Aca-
| demy.
a.—C. 33, Heins. 23, Schweigh.- The
Common Notions of men concerning the
nature of things, according to which, in
place of varying from each other, they are
in opinion mutually agreed, (as, that the
good is useful, and the wseful good, that all
things desiderate the good, that the equal is
neither surpassing nor swrpassed, that twice
two is four)—these notions, and the like,
suggested in us by right reason, and tested
by experience and time, are true, and in
accordance with the nature of things;
whereas the notions proper to individual
men are frequently fallacious.”
b.—C. 72, Heins. 48, Schweigh.--' But
Reason, according to the proverb, is a
Mercury common to all; for, although, as
in us individually, reasons are plural, or
numerically different, they are in species
one and the same ; so that, by reason all
men follow after the same things as good,
and eschew the same things as bad, and
think the same things to be true or to be
false.”
In these passages, Reason, in the vaguer
meaning of the Stoics, is employed, where
Intellect, in the precise acceptation of the
Aristotelians and Platonists, might have
been expected from Simplicius. But he is
here speaking by accommodation to his
author. -
As a chronological Table was luckily
omitted at the head of the Series, I here
append, ethnographically subarranged, the
following—
LIST OF THE PRECEDING TESTIMONIES.
GREER.—1, Hesiod; 2, Heraclitus; 3, Aristotle; 4, Theophrastus; 9°*, Aelius
Aristides, see at end ; 10, Alexander Aphrodisiensis; 11, Clemens Alexandrinus;
15, Theodoret, see at end; 16, Proclus; 17, Ammonius Hermiae; 17*, Simplicius,
See at end.
§ VI.] OF COMMON SENSE. 803
RoMAN.—5, Lucretius; 6, Cicero; 7, Horace; 8, Seneca; 9, Pliny, younger; 9°,
Quintilian; 12, Tertullian; 13, Arnobius; 14, Lactantius; 15, St Augustin.
ARABIAN.—19, Algazel.
Iranian–18. St Anselm (ambiguously French); 20, Aquinas; 26, Julius Caesar
Scaliger; 67, Wulpius; 68, Wico; 71, Genovesi.
SPANISH.—22, Antonius Andreas; 28, Antonius Goveanus (Portuguese) ; 29,
Nunnesius; 32, Mariana.
FRENCH.—-23, Budaeus; 27, Omphalius; 30, Muretus; 37, Descartes; 39, Bal-
Zac; 40, Chanet; 41, Irenaeus a Sancto Jacobo ; 42, Lescalopier; 43, Pascal; 44,
La Chambre; 46, Le Pere Rapin; 47, Du Hamel; 48, Malebranche; 49, Poiret;
50, Bossuet; 59, John Alphonso Turretini (Genevese); 60, Fenelon; 62, D’Agues-
seau; 63, Buffier; 70, Huber; 74, D'Alembert; 94, Degerando ; 100, Cousin; 101,
De La Mennais. -
BRITIs II.—21, Duns Scotus; 33, Sir John Davies; 35, Lord Herbert ; 36,
Cameron; 38, Sir Thomas Brown; 45, Henry More; 51, Locke; 52, Bentley; 53,
John Serjeant; 53*, Abercromby; 55, Toland; 6), Shaftesbury; 62%, Berkeley; 64,
Iyons; 65, Amherst; 66, Wollaston; 72, Hume; 78, Price; 79, Reid; 82, Beattie.
(Of these, 21, [?] 36, 53*, 72, 79, 82, are Scottish.)
GERMAN.—24, Luther; 25, Melanchthon; 34, Keckermann; 54, Leibnitz; 56, Chris-
tian Thomasius; 57, Ridiger; 58, Feuerlin; 69, Christian Wolf; 73, Crusius;75, Oetin-
ger; 76, Eschenbach; 77, John Matthew Gesner; 80, Hiller; 83, Storchenau; 84,
Stattler; 86, Kant; 87, Jacobi; 88, Heidenreich; 89, Leonhard Creuzer; 90, Plat-
ner; 91, Fichte; 93, Krug; 95, Fries; 96, Koeppen; 97, Ancillon, the son: 98, Ger-
lach ; 99, George Hermes.
BELGIAN.—31, Giphanius; 81, Hemsterhuis; 85, Hennert.
In all one hundred and six Witnesses
NOTE
B.
OF PRESENTATIVE AND REPRESENTATIVE
KNOWLEDGE.
§ I.—The distinction of Presentative, Intuitive or Immediate, and of Representative
or Mediate cognition ; with the various significations of the term Object, its
conjugates and correlatives.
Ś II.-Errors of Reid and other philosophers, in reference to the preceding distinctions.
[References. –From Inq. 106 a, from I. P. 226 b, 233 a, 292 a b, 293 b, 298 b,
305 a, 339 b, 351 b, 357 a, 368 b, 369 a b, 373 a, 427 a.]
§ I.—The distinction of Presentative, In-
twitive or Immediate, and of Representa-
tive or Mediate cognition; with the vari-
ows significations of the term Object, its
conjugates and correlatives.
The correlative terms, Immediate and
Mediate, as attributes of knowledge and its
modifications, are employed in more than
a single relation. In order, therefore, to
obviate misapprehension, it is necessary,
in the first place, to determine in what sig-
nification it is, that we are at present to
employ them.
In apprehending an individual thing,
either itself through sense or its represen-
tation in the phantasy, we have, in a cer-
tain sort, an absolute or irrespective
cognition, which is justly denominated im-
mediate, by contrast to the more relative
and mediate knowledge which, subsequent-
ly, we compass of the same object, when,
by a comparative act of the understand-
ing we refer it to a class, that is, think or
recognise it, by relation to other things,
under a certain notion or general term.
With this distinction we have nothing now
to do. The discrimination of immediate
and mediate knowledge, with which we are
at present concerned, lies within and sub-
divides what constitutes, in the foregoing
division, the branch of immediate cogni-
tion; for we are only here to deal with
the knowledge of individual objects abso-
lutely considered, and not viewed in rela-
tion to aught beyond themselves.
This distinction of immediate and me-
diate cognition it is of the highest impor-
tance to establish ; for it is one without
which the whole philosophy of knowledge
must remain involved in ambiguities.
What, for example, can be more various,
vacillating, and contradictory, than the
employment of the all-important terms
object and objective, in contrast to subject
and subjective, in the writings of Kant ?—
though the same is true of those of other
recent philosophers. This arose from
the want of a preliminary determination
of the various, and even opposite, mean-
ings of which these terms are susceptible,
—a selection of the one proper meaning,
—and a rigorous adherence to the mean-
ing thus preferred. But, in particular,
the doctrine of Natural Realism cannot,
without this distinction, be adequately un-
derstood, developed, and discriminated.
Teid, accordingly, in consequence of the
want of it, has not only failed in giving
to his philosophy its precise and appro-
NoTE B. § 1.]
805
SPECIES OF KNOWLEDGE.
priate expression, he has failed even in
withdrawing it from equivocation and
confusion;–in so much, that it ever,
remains a question, whether his doc-
trine be one of Natural Realism at all.
—The following is a more articulate deve-
lopement of this important distinction than
that which I gave, some ten years ago;
and since, by more than one philosopher
adopted. See Edinburgh Review, vol. lii.
p. 166, sq.; Cross's Selections from Ed.
Rev. vol. iii. p. 200 sq.; Peisse, Fragments
Philosophiques, p. 75 sq.
For the sake of distinctness, I shall
state the different momenta of the dis-
tinction in separate Propositions ; and
these for more convenient reference I
shall number.
1.—A thing is known immediately or
proſcimately, when we cognise it in itself;
mediately or remotely, when we cognise it
in or through something numerically diffe-
rent from itself. Immediate cognition,
thus the knowledge of a thing in itself, in-
volves the fact of its existence; mediate
cognition, thus the knowledge of a thing
in or through something not itself, involves
only the possibility of its existence.
2.—An immediate cognition, in as much
as the thing known is itself presented to
observation, may be called a presentative 3
and in as much as the thing presented, is,
as it were, viewed by the mind face to face,
may be called an intuitive,” cognition.—A
mediate cognition, in as much as the thing
known is held wy or mirrored to the mind
in a vicarious representation, may be called
a representative f cognition.
3.—A thing known is called an object of
knowledge.
4.—In a presentative or immediate cog-
nition there is one sole object ; the thing
(immediately) known and the thing exist-
ing being one and the same.—In a repre-
sentative or mediate cognition there may
be discriminated two objects ; the thing
(immediately) known, and the thing ex-
isting being numerically different.
* On the application of the term Intuitive, in
this sense, see in the sequel of this Excursus,
p. 812 a b. -
# The term Representation I employ always
strictly, as in contrast to Presentation, and,
therefore, with exclusive reference to indivi-
dual objects, and not in the vague generality
of Representatio or Vorstellung in the Leibnitz-
jam and subsequent philosophies of Germany,
where it is used for any cognitive act, consider-
ed, not in relation to what knows, but to what
is known; that is, as the genus including under
it Intuitions, Perceptions, Sensations, Concep-
tions, Notions, Thoughts proper, &c, as spe-
CICS,
5.—A thing known in itself is the (sole)
presentative or intuitive object of know-
ledge, or the (sole) object of a presen-
tative or intuitive knowledge. — A thing
Rnown in and through something else is
the primary, mediate, remote, * real, f
easistent, or represented, object of (medi-
ate) knowledge,_objectum quod ; and a
thing through which something else is known
is the secondary, immediate, proacimate,”
• The distinction of proacimate and remote ob-
ject is sometimes applied to perception in a
different manner. Thus Colour (the White of
the Wall, for instance,) is said to be the prowi-
mate object of vision, because it is seen imme-
diately; the coloured thing (the Wall itself for
instance) is said to be the remote object of
vision, because it is seen only through the me-
diation of the colour. This however is inaccu-
rate. For the Wall, that in which the colour
inheres, however mediately known, is never me-
diately seen. It is not indeed an object of per-
ception at all; it is only the subject of such an
object, and is reached by a cognitive process,
different from the merely perceptive.
+ On the term Real.—The term Real (realis),
though always importing the easistent, is used in
various significations and oppositions. The
following occur to me :—
1. As denoting eacistence, in contrast to the
nomenclature of existence,—the thing, as con-
tradistinguished from its name. Thus we have
definitions and divisions real, and definitions
and divisions nominal or verbal.
2. As expressing the eacisterºt opposed to the
non-existent, a something in contrast to a nothing.
In this sense the diminutions of existence, to
which reality, in the following significations, is
counterposed, are all real. -
3. As denoting material or external, in con-
trast to mental, spiritual or internal, existence.
This meaning is improper; so, therefore, is
the term Realism, as equivalent to Materialism,
in the nomenclature of some recent philo-
sophers.
4. As synonymous with actual; and this a.)
as opposed to potential, b.) as opposed to pos-
sible, existence.
5. As denoting absolute or irrespective, in op-
position to phacnomenal or relative, existence;
in other words, as denoting things in them-
selves and out of relation to all else, in con-
trast to things in relation to, and as known by,
intelligences, like men, who know only under
the conditions of plurality and difference. In
this sense, which is rarely employed and may
be neglected, the Real is only another term for
the Unconditioned or Absolute, rå Öyºral; 8w.
6. As indicating existence considered as a
subsistance in mature, (ems eaſtra animam, ems ma-
twrae,) it stands counter to an existence con-
sidered as a representation in thought. In this
sense, reale, in the language of the older phi-
losophy (Scholastic, Cartesian, Gassendian,) as
applied to esse or ens, is opposed to intentionale,
motionale, conceptibile, imaginarium, rationis, cog-
initionis, in anima, in intellectwº, prowt cognitwm,
ideale, &c.; and corresponds with a parte rei,
806
[NOTE. B.
. OF PRESENTATIVE AND
ideal, * vicarious or representative, object
of (mediate) knowledge,_objectum quo, or
per quod. The former may likewise be
styled objectum entitativum. -
6.—The Ego as the subject of thought
and knowledge is now commonly styled
by Philosophers simply The Subject ; and
Subjective is a familiar expression for what
'as opposed to a parte intellectus, with subjectivum,
as opposed to objectivum, (see p. 806 b, sq. note),
with proprium, principale and fundamentale, as
opposed to vicariwm, with materiale, as opposed
to formale, and with formale in seipso, and enti-
tativwm, as opposed to representativum, &c. Un-
der this head, in the vacillating language of
our more recent philosophy, real approximates
to, but is hardly convertible with, objective, in
contrast to subjective in the signification thero
prevalent, (see p. 808 ab, note.)
7. In close connexion with the sixth mean-
ing, real, in the last place, denotes an identity
or difference founded on the conditions of the
existence of a thing in itself, in contrast to an
identity or difference founded only on the rela-
tion or point of View in which the thing may
be regarded by the thinking subject. In this
sense it is opposed to logical or rational, the
terms being here employed in a peculiar mean-
ing. Thus a thing which really (re) or in itself
is one and indivisible may logically (ratione) by
the mind be considered as diverse and plural,
and, vice versa, what are really diverse and
plural may logically be viewed, as one and in-
divislble. As an example of the former ;-the
sides and angles of a triangle (or trilateral), as
mutually correlative—as together making up
the same simple figure—and as, without de-
struction of that figure, actually inseparable
from it, and from each other, are really one;
but in as much as they have peculiar relations
which may, in thought, be considered severally
and for themselves, they are logically twofold.
In like manner take apprehension and judg-
ment. These are really one, as each involves
the other, (for we apprehend only as we judge
something to be, and we judge only, as we ap-
prehend the existence of the terms compared),
and as together they constitute a single indi-
visible act of cognition; but they are logically
double, in as much as, by mental abstraction,
they may be viewed each for itself, and as a
distinguishable element of thought. As an
example of the latter 5–individual things, as
John, James, Richard, &c., are reolly (nume-
rically) different, as co-existing in mature only
under the condition of plurality ; but, as re-
sembling objects constituting a single class or
motion (mam) they are, logically considered, (ge-
merically or specifically) identical and one.
* I eschew, in general, the employment of the
words Idea and Ideal—they are so vague and
various in meaning. (See Note G.) But they
cannot always be avoided, as the conjugates of
the indispensable term Idealism. Nor is there,
as I use them, any danger from their ambi-
guity; for I always manifestly employ them
simply for subjective—(what is in or of the
mind), in contrast to objective—(what is out
of, or external to, the mind.)
pertains to the mind or thinking principle.
In contrast and correlation to these, the
terms Object and Objective aré, in like
manner, now in general use to denote the
Non-ego, its affections and properties,
and in general the Really existent as op-
posed to the Ideally known. These ex-
pressions, more especially Object and Ob-
jective, are ambiguous; for though the
Non-Ego may be the more frequent and
obtrusive object of cognition, still a mode
of mind constitutes an object of thought
and knowledge, no less than a mode of
matter. Without, therefore, disturbing
the preceding nomenclature, which is not
only ratified but convenient, I would pro-
pose that, when we wish to be precise, or
where any ambiguity is to be dreaded, we
should employ—on the one hand, either
the terms subject-object or swbjective ob-
ject, (and this we could again distinguish
as absolute or as relative)—on the other,
either object-object, or objective object."
* The terms Subject and Subjective, Object and
Objective.—I have already had occasion to shew,
that, in the hands of recent philosophers, the
principal terms of philosophy have not only
been frequently changed from their original
meanings and correlations, but those mean.
ings and correlations sometimes even simply
reversed. I have again to do this in refe-
rence to the correlatives subjective and ob-
jective, as employed to demote what Aristotle
vaguely expressed by the terms rê #zīy and r&
(púa et—the things in ws, and the things in nature.
The terms subject and object were, for a long
time, not sufficiently discriminated from each
other.—Even in the writings of Aristotle rô
bºrozsºčvoy is used ambiguously for id in quo,
the subject proper, and id circa quod, the object
proper;-and this latter meaning is unknown
to Plato. The Greek language never, in fact,
possessed any one term of equal universality,
and of the same definite signification, as object.
For the term āyrix sſp.svoy, which comes the
nearest, Aristotle uses, like Plato, in the plu-
ral, to designate, in general, the various kinds
of opposites; and there is, I believe, only a
single passage to be found in his writings, (De
An. ii. c. 4,) in which this word can be adequately
translated by object. The reason of this, at
first sight, apparent deficiency may have been
that as no language, except the Greek, could
express, not by a periphrasis, but by a special
word, the object of every several faculty or
application of mind, (as aid.6mºrów, parvº-acrév,
vontów, Yvarrév, Hºrizºrnºrów, ČovXnºrév, 5gs ºrów,
Gov2.svgrév, riorów, &c. &c.,) so the Greek phi.
losophers alone found little want of a term
precisely to express the abstract notion of ob-
ſectivity in its indeterminate universality, which
they could apply, as they required it, in any
determinate relation. The schoolmen distin-
guished the subjectwm occupationis, from the sub-
jectum inhaesionis, pracdicationis, &c., limiting the
torm objectwm (which in classical Latinity had
§ 1.]
807
REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLEDGE.
7.—If the representative object be sup-
posed (according to one theory) a mode
of the conscious mind or self, it may be
distinguished as Egoistical; if it be sup-
never been naturalised as an absolute term,
even by the philosophers) to the former; and
it would have been well had the term subjec-
twm, in that sense, been, at the same time,
wholly renounced. This was not, however,
done. Even to the present day, the word sub-
icct is employed, in most of the vernacular
languages, for the materia circa quam, in which
signification the term object ought to be exclu-
sively applied. But a still more intolerablo
abuse has receitly crept in; object has, in
French and English, been for above a century
vulgarly employed for end, motive, final cause.
But to speak of these terms more in detail.
- The term object (objectum, id quod objicitur
cognitioni, &c.,) involves a twofold element
of meaning. 19, It expresses something abso-
lute, something in itself that is ; for before a
thing can be presented to cognition, it must
be supposed to exist. 2°, It expresses some-
thing relative ; for in so far as it is presented
to cognition, it is supposed to be only as it is
known to exist. Now if the equipoise be mot
preserved, if either of these elements be al-
lowed to preponderate, the word will assume
a meaning precisely opposite to that which it
would obtain from the preponderance of the
other. If the first element prevail, object and
objective will denote that which exists of its
own nature, in contrast to that which exists
only under the conditions of our faculties;–
the real in opposition to the ideal. If the se-
cond element prevail, object and objective will
denote what exists only as it exists in thought;
—the ideal in contrast to the real.
Now both of these counter meanings of the
terms object and objective have obtained in the
nomenclature of different times and different
philosophies,—may in the momenclature of the
same time and even the same philosophy.
Hence great confusion and ambiguity.
In the Scholastic philosophy in which, as al.
ready said, object and objective, subject and sub-
jective, were first.employed in their high ab-
straction, and as absolute terms, and, among
the systems immediately subsequent, in the
Cartesian and Gassendian schools, the latter
meaning was the one exclusively prevalent.
In these older philosophies, objectivum, as ap.
plied to ens or esse, was opposed to formale and
subjectivum; and corresponded with intentionale,
vicarium, representativwm, rationale or rationis,
intellectuale or in intellectu, prowt Cognitum,
ideale, &c., as opposed to reale, propriwºn, princi-
pale, fundamentale, prowt in seipso, &c.
In these schools the esse subjectivum, in Con.
trast to the esse objectivum, denoted a thing con-
sidered as inhering in its subject, whether
that subject were mind or matter, as contra-
distinguished from a thing considered as pre-
sent to thc mind only as an accidental object of
thought. Thus the faculty of imagination, for
example, and its acts, were said to have a sub-
jective existence in the mind; while its several
images or representations had, atta images or
posed (according to another) something
numerically different from the conscious
mind or self, it may be distinguished as,
Non-Egoistical. See Note C. The former
objects of consciousness, only an objective.
Again, a material thing, say a horse; qata exist-
ing, was said to have a subjective being out of
# the mind; qua conceived or known, it was said
to have an objective being in the mind. Every
thought had thus a subjective and an objective
phasis;–of which more particularly as fol
lows:–
1. The esse subjectivum, formale, or propriwon
of a motion, concept, Species, idea, &c., denoted it
as considered absolutely for itself, and as dis-
tinguished from the thing, the real object, of
which it is the notion, species, &c.; that is,
Simply as a mode inherent in the mind as a
subject, or as an operation exerted by the
Inind as a cause. In this relation, the esse
Teale of a notion, species, &c., was opposed to
the following.
2. The esse objectivuºn, vicarium, intentionale,
ideale, representativum of a motion, concept, spe-
cies, idca, &c., denotcd it, not as considered ab-
Solutely for itself, and as distinguished from its
object, but simply as vicarious or representa-
tive of the thing thought. In this relation the
esse reale of a notion, &c., was opposed to the
mere negation of existence—only distinguished
it from a simple nothing. -
Hitherto we have seem the application of the
term objective determined by the prepondcrance
of the second of the two counter elements of
meaning; we have now to regard it in its sub-
sequent change of sense as determined by the
first.
The cause of this change I trace to the more
modern Schoolmen, in the distinction they
took of conceptus (as also of notio and intentio)
into formalis and objectivus, a-distinction both
in itself and in its momenclature, inconsistent
and untenable.—A formal concept or notion
they defined—‘the immediate and actual re-
presentation of the thing thought;’ an objec-
tive concept or notion they defined—" the thing
itself which is represented or thought.”—Now,
in the first place, the second of these, is, either
not a concept or notion at all, or it is indis-
tinguishable from the first. (A similar ab-
surdity is committed by Locke in his employ-
ment of Idea for its object—the reality re-
presented by it—the Ideatum.)—In the second
place, the terms formal and objective are here
used in senses precisely opposite to what they
were when the same philosophers spoke of the ,
esse formale and esse objectivum of a notion.
This distinction and the terms in which it
was oxpressed came however to be universally
admitted. Iſence, though proceeding from an
error, I would account, in part, but in part
only, for the general commutation latterly ef.
fected in the application of the term objective.
This change began, I am inclined to think,
about the middle of the seventeenth century—
and in the German schools. Thus Calovius—
* Quicquid objective fundamentaliter in natura
existit,’ &c., (Scripta Philosophica, 1651, p.
72.) In the same sense it is used by Leibnitz;
808
[NOTE B.
OF PRESENTATIVE AND
theory supposes two things numerically dif-
ferent: .1°, the object represented,—2°,
the representing and cognisant mind:—
the latter, three 3–1°, the object repre-
e.g. N. Essais, p. 187; and subsequently to
him by the Leibnitio-Wolfans and other Ger-
man philosophers in general. This application
of the term, it is therefore seen, became pre-
valent among his countrymen long before the
time of Kant; in the “Logica” of whose mas-
ter Knutzen, I may notice, objective, and sub-
jective, in their modern meaning are employed
in almost every page. The English philo-
sophers, at the commencement of the last cen-
tury, are found sometimes using the term
objective in the old sense, as Berkeley in his
‘Siris, § 292; sometimes in the new, as
Norris in his ‘Reason and Faith,’ (ch. 1.) and
Oldfield in his ‘Essay towards the improve-
ment of Reason,’ (Part ii. c. 19,) who both like-
wise oppose it to subjective, taken also in its
present acception.
But the cause, why the general terms subject
and subjective, object and objective, came, in phi-
Tosophy, to be simply applied to a certain
special distinction; and why, in that distinc-
tion, they came to be opposed as contraries—
this is not to be traced alone to the inconsis-
tencies which I have noticed; for that incon-
sistency itself must be accounted for. It lies
deeper. It is to be found in the constituent
elements of all knowledge itself; and the no-
menclature in question is only an elliptical
abbreviation, and restricted application of the
scholastic expressions by which these ele-
ments have for many ages been expressed.
All knowledge is a relation—a relation be-
tween that which knows, (in scholastic lan-
guage, the subject in which knowledge inheres),
and that which is known, (in scholastic lan-
guage, the object about which knowledge is con-
versant); and the contents of every act of
knowledge are made up of elements, and re-
gulated by laws, proceeding partly from its
object and partly from its subject. Now phi-
losophy proper is principally and primarily
the science of knowledge ; its first and most im-
portant problem being to determine—What
can we know f-that is, what are the conditions
of our knowing, whether these lie in the na-
ture of the object, or in the mature of the sub-
ject, of knowledge?
But Philosophy being the Science of Knowledge;
and the science of knowledge supposing, in its
most fundamental and thorough-going analysis,
the distinction of the subject and object of know-
ledge ; it is evident, that to philosophy the sub-
.ject of knowledge would be, by pre-eminence,
The Subject, and the object of knowledge by pre-
eminence, The Object. It was therefore natural
that the object and the objective, the sub-
ject and the subjective should be employed
by plıilosophers as simple terms, compen-
diously to denote the grand discrimina
tion, about which philosophy was constantly
employed, and which no others could be found
so precisely and promptly to express. In fact,
had it not been for the special meaning given
to objective in the Schools, their employment in
sented,—2°, the object representing,<-3°,
the cognisant mind. Compared merely
with each other, the former, as simpler,
may, by contrast to the latter, be consi.
this their natural relation would probably have
been of a much earlier date; not however that
they are void of ambiguity, and have not been
often abusively employed. This arises from
the following circumstance :-The subject of
knowledge is exclusively the Ego or con-
scious mind. Subject and subjective, considered
in themselves, are therefore little liable to
equivocation. But, on the other hand, the
object of knowledge is not necessarily a phae-
momenon of the Non-Ego ; for the phaenomena
of the Ego itself constitute as veritable, though
not so various and prominent, objects of cog-
mition, as the phaenomena of the Non-Ego.
Subjective and objective do not, therefore,
thoroughly and adequately discriminate that
which belongs to mind, and that which belongs to
matter; they do not even competently distin-
guish what is dependent, from what is inde-
pendent, on the conditions of the mental self. But
in these significations they are and must be
frequently employed. Without therefore dis-
carding this momenclature, which, as far as it
goes, expresses, in general, a distinction of
the highest importance, in the most apposite
terms; these terms may by qualification easily
be rendered adequate to those subordinate
discriminations, which it is often requisite to
signalise, but which they cannot simply and of
themselves demote. -
Subject and subjective, without any qualifying
attribute, I would therefore employ, as has hi-
therto been done, to mark out what inheres in,
pertains to, or depends on, the knowing mind
whether of man in general, or of this or that
individual man in particular; and this in Con-
trast to object and objective, as expressing What
does not so inhere, pertain, and depend. Thus,
for example, an art or science is said to be ob-
fective, when considered simply as a system of
speculative truths or practical rules, but with-
out respect of any actual possessor; subjective
when considered as a habit of knowledge or a
dexterity, inherent in the mind, either vaguely
of amy, or precisely of this or that, possessor.
But, as has been stated, an object of know-
ledge may be a mode of mind, or it may be
something different from mind; and it is fre.
quently of importance to indicate preciscly un-
der which of these classes that object comes.
In this case by an internal developement of the
nomenclature itself, we might employ, on the
former alternative, the term subject-object ; on
the latter, the term object-object.
But the subject-object may be either a mode
of mind, of which we are conscious as absolute
and for itself alone,—as, for example, a pain or
pleasure; or a mode of mind, of which we aro
conscious, as relative to, and representative of,
something else, as, for instance, the imagina-
tion of something past or possible. Of these
we might distinguish, when necessary, the one,
as the absolute or the real subject-object, the other,
as the relative or the ideal or the representative
subject-object. -
§ 1.]
869
REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLEDGE.
dered, but still inaccurately, as an imme-
diate cognition.* The latter of these as
limited in its application to certain facul-
ties, and now in fact wholly exploded, may
be thrown out of account. -
8.—Eaſternal Perception or Perception
simply, is the faculty presentative or intui-
tive of the phaenomena of the Non-Ego or
Matter—if there be any intuitive appre-
hension allowed of the Non-Ego at all.
Internal Perception or Self-Consciousness
is the faculty presentative or intuitive of
the phaenomena of the Ego or Mind.
9.—Imagination or Phantasy, in its most
extensive meaning, is the faculty represen-
tative of the phaenomena both of the ex-
ternal and internal worlds.
10.-A representation considered as an
object is logically, not really, different from
a representation considered as an act.
Here object and act are merely the same
indivisible mode of mind viewed in two
different relations. Considered by refer-
ence to a (mediate) object represented, it
is a representative object; considered by
reference to the mind representing and
contemplating the representation, it is a
representative act. A representative ob-
ject being viewed as posterior in the order
of nature, but not of time, to the repre-
sentative act, is viewed as a product ; and
the representative act being viewed as prior
in the order of nature, though not of time,
to the representative object, is viewed as a
producing process. (v. I. P. 305 a.) The
same may be said of Image and Imagina-
tion. (Prop. 21, and p. 813, ab, and note.)
11. — A thing to be known in itself must
be known as actually easisting (Pr. 1.) and
it cannot be known as actually existing
unless it be known as existing in its When
and its Where. But the When and Where
of an object are immediately cognisable by
the subject, only if the When be now (i. e.
at the same moment with the cognitive act,)
and the Where be here, (i. e. within the
sphere of the cognitive faculty); therefore
a presentative or intuitive knowledge is
only competent of an object present to the
mind, both in time and in Space.
12. – E converso—whatever is known,
but not as actually existing now and here,
is known not in itself, as the presentative
Finally it may be required to mark whether
the object-object and the subject-object be imme-
diately known as present, or only as represent-
ed. In this case we must resort, on the former
alternative to the epithet presentative or intui-
tive; on the latter, to those of represented, medi-
ate, remote, primary, principal, &c.
* This observation has reference to Reid.
See sequel of this note, $ ii., and note C. § ii.
object of an intuitive, but only as the re-
mote object of a representative, cogni-
tion.
13.−A representative object, considered
irrespectively of what it represents, and
simply as a mode of the conscious subject,
is an intuitive or presentative object. For
it is known in itself, as a mental mode, ac-
tually existing now and here.*
* Propositions 10–13 may illustrate a pas-
sage in Aristotle's treatise on Memory and
Reminiscence (c. 1), which has been often
curiously misunderstood by his expositors;
and as it, in return, serves to illustrate the
doctrine here stated, I translate it :—
‘ Of what part of the soul memory is a func-
tion, is manifest;-of that, to wit, of which
imagination or phantasy is a function. [And
imagination had been already shown to be a
function of the common sense.]
‘And here a doubt may be started—Whether
the affection [or mental modification] being
present, the reality absent, that which is not
present can be remembered [or, in general,
known.] For it is manifest that we must
conceive the affection, determined in the soul
or its proximate bodily organ, through sense,
to be, as it were, a sort of portrait, of which we
say that memory is the habit [or retention].
For the movement excited [to employ the
simile of Plato] stamps, as it were, a kind of
impression of the total process of perception;
[on the soul or its organ], after the manner of
One who applies a signet to Wax. . . .
“But if such be the circumstances of memory,
—Is remembrance [a cognition] of this af-
fection, or of that from which it is produced
For if, of the latter, we can have no remembrance
[or cognition] of things absent; if of the for-
mer, how, as percipient [or conscious of this
[present affection], can we have a remem-
brance [or cognition] of that of which we are
not percipient [or conscious] — the absent
[reality]?—Again f –supposing there to be a
resembling something, such as an impression
or picture, in the mind; the perception [or
consciousness] of this—Why should it be the
remembrance [or cognition] of another thing,
and not of this something itself f—for in the
act of remembrance we contemplate this men-
tal affection, and of this [alone] are we per-
cipient [or conscious]. In these circumstances,
how is a remembrance [or cognition] possible
of what is not present 2 For if so, it would
seem that what is not present might, in like
manner, be seen and heard.
“Or is this possible, and what actually
occurs ? And thus:—As in a portrait the
thing painted is an animal and a represen-
lation (six&v) [of an animal], one and the
# Aio 4%garo; :—this comprehends both the
objective presentation—otia ºn rôy, and the sub-
jective energy—ocia &ncis.
# I read Éiri gi ºri.
Themistius has #Fi
A, 4
tive.
810
[NOTE B.
OF PRESENTATIVE AND
14.—Consciousness is a knowledge solely
of what is now and here present to the
mind. It is therefore only intuitive, and
its objects exclusively presentative. Again,
Consciousness is a knowledge of all that
is now and here present to the mind: every
immediate object of cognition is thus an
object of consciousness, and every intuitive
cognition itself, simply a special form of
consciousness. See Note H.
15. – Consciousness comprehends every
cognitive act; in other words, whatever we
are not conscious of, that we do not know.
But consciousness is an immediate cogni-
tion. Therefore all our mediate cognitions
are contained in our immediate.
16.—The actual modifications—the pre-
sent acts and affections of the Ego, are ob-
jects of immediate cognition, as themselves
objects of consciousness. (Pr. 14.). The
past and possible modifications of the Ego
are objects of mediate cognition, as repre-
sented to consciousness in a present or ac-
tual modification.
17.-The Primary Qualities” of matter
or body, now and here, that is in proximate
relation to our organs, are objects of im-
mediate cognition to the Natural Realists,f
of mediate, to the Cosmothetic Idealists:f
the former, on the testimony of conscious-
ness, asserting to mind the capability of
intuitively perceiving what is not itself;
the latter denying this capability, but as-
serting to the mind the power of repre-
senting, and truly representing, what it
does not know.—To the Absolute Ideal-
istsf matter has no existence as an object
of cognition, either immediate or mediate.
18.—The Secondary Qualities* of body
now and here, as only present affections of
the conscious subject, determined by an un-
known external cause, are, on every theory,
now allowed to be objects of immediate
cognition. (Pr. 16.) -
19.-As not now present in time, an im-
mediate knowledge of the past is impos-
sible. The past is only mediately cog-
misable in and through a present modifica-
tion relative to, and representative of, it,
as having been. To speak of an imme-
diate knowledge of the past involves a
contradiction in adjecto. For to know
the past immediately, it must be known in
7tself;—and to be known in itself it must
be known as now eaſisting. But the past
is just a negation of the now existent : its
very notion therefore excludes the possi-
bility of its being immediately known.—
So much for Memory, or Recollective
Imagination. .
20.-In like manner, supposing that a
knowledge of the future were competent,
this can only be conceived possible, in and
through a now present representation;
that is, only as a mediate cognition. For
as not yet eaſistent the future cannot be
known in itself, or as actually existent.
As not here present, an immediate know-
ledge of an object distant in space is like-
wise impossible.* For, as beyond the
sphere of our organs and faculties, it can-
not be known by them in itself; it can
only therefore, if known at all, be known
through something different from itself,
that is mediately, in a reproductive or a
constructive act of imagination.
21.—A possible object—an ens rationis
—is a mere fabrication of the mind itself;
it exists only ideally in and through an
act of imagination, and has only a logi-
cal existence, apart from that act with
which it is really identical. (Pr. 10, and
p. 813 a b, with note.) It is therefore an in-
tuitive object in itself: but in so far, as
not involving a contradiction, it is con-
ceived as prefiguring something which
may possibly exist some-where and some-
when, –this something, too, being con-
structed out of elements which had been
same being, at once, both ; (for, though in
reality both are not the same, in thought we
can view the painting, either [absolutely] as
animal, or [relatively] as representation [of
an animal]): in like manner, the phantasm in
us, we must consider, both absolutely, as a phae-
nomenon (4sdengo.) in itself, and relatively, as
a phantasm [or representation] of something
different from itself. Considered absolutely,
it is a [mere] phaenomenon or [irrespective]
phantasm; considered relatively, it is a repre-
sentation or recollective image. So that when
a movement [or mental modification] is in
present act;-if the soul perceive [or appre-
hend] it as absolute and for itself, a kind of
[irrespective] concept or phantasm seems the
result; whereas, if as relative to what is diffe-
rent from itself, it views it (as in the picture)
for a representation, and a representation of
Coriscus, even although Coriscus has not him-
self been seen. And here we are differently
affected in this mode of viewing [the move-
ment, as painted representation,] from what
we are when viewing it, as painted animal;
the mental phaenomenon, in the one case, is, so
to say, a mere [irrelative] concept; while in the
other, what is rememberedis here [in the mind,
as there [in the picture, a representation.’
* On the distinction of the Primary and Se-
condary Qualities of Matter—its history and
completion, see Note D.
- + On these designations, see above, Note A.
§ i. pp. 746, 747, and below, Note C. § i.
* On the assertions of Reid, Stewart, &c.,
that the mind is immediately percipient of dis-
tant objects, see $ ii. of this Note, and Note C
$ ii.
§ 1.]
81 .
REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLEDGE.
previously given in Presentation—it is Re-
presentative. See Note C. § i. -
Compared together, these two cogni-
tions afford the following similarities and
differences.
A. Compared by reference to their
simplicity or completcity, as Acts.
22.—Though both as really considered,
(re, non ratione), are equally one and in-
divisible; still as logically considered, (ra-
tione, non re,) an Intuitive cognition is
simple, being merely intuitive; a Repre-
sentative, complea, as both representative
and intuitive of the representation.
B. Compared by reference to the num-
ber of their Objects.
23—In a Presentative knowledge there
can only be a single object, and the term
object is here therefore univocal.—In a
Representative knowledge two different
things are viewed as objects, and the term
object, therefore, becomes equivocal; the
secondary object within, being numeri-
cally different from the primary object
without, the sphere of consciousness, which
it represents.
C. Compared by reference to the rela-
tivity of their Objects, known in conscious-
%20SS.
24.—In a presentative cognition, the
object known in consciousness, being re-
lative only to the conscious subject, may,
by contrast, be considered as absolute or
frespective. In a representative cogni-
tion, the object known in consciousness,
being, besides the necessary reference to
the subject, relative to, as vicarious of, an
object unknown to consciousness, must, in
every point of view, be viewed as relative
or respective. Thus, it is on all hands ad-
mitted, that in Self-consciousness the ob-
ject is subjective and absolute; and, that
in Imagination, under every form, it is
subjective and relative. In regard to ex-
termal Perception, opinions differ. . For,
on the doctrine of the Natural Realists, it
is objective and absolute; on the doctrine
of the Absolute Idealists, subjective and
absolute; on the doctrine of the Cosmo-
thetic Idealists, subjective and relative.
See Note C. § i.
D. Compared by reference to the cha-
racter of the easistential Judgments they in-
volve.
25.—The judgment involved in an In-
tuitive apprehension is assertory ; for the
fact of the intuition being dependent on
the fact of the present existence of the ob-
ject, the existence of the object is uncon-
ditionally enounced as actual.—The judg-
ment involved in a Representative appre-
hension is problematic ; for here the fact
of the representation not being dependent
on the present existence of the object re-
presented, the existence of that object can
be only modally affirmed as possible.
E. Compared by reference to their
character as Cognitions. -
26.-Representative knowledge is ad-
mitted on all hands to be exclusively sub-
jective or ideal ; for its proximate object is,
on every theory, in or of the mind, while
its remote object, in itself, and, except in
and through the proximate object, is un-
known.—Presentative knowledge is, on the
doctrine of the Natural Realists, partly
subjective and ideal, partly objective and
weal; inasmuch as its sole object may be a
phaenomenon either of self or of not-self: .
while, on the doctrine of the Idealists
(whether Absolute or Cosmothetic) it is
always Swbjective or ideal; consciousness,
on their hypothesis, being cognisant only
of mind and its contents.
F. Compared in respect of their Self-
sufficiency or Dependence.
27.—a.—In one respect, Representative
knowledge is not self-sufficient, in as much
as every representative cognition of an
object supposes a previous presentative ap-
prehension of that same object. This is
even true of the representation of an
imaginary or merely possible object; for
though the object, of which we are con-
scious in such an act, be a mere figment
of the phantasy, and, as a now represented
whole, was never previously presented to
our observation; still that whole is no-
thing but an assemblage of parts, of which,
in different combinations, we have had an
intuitive cognition.—Presentative know-
ledge, on the contrary, is, in this respect,
Self-sufficient, being wholly independent on
Representative for its objects.
28-b.—Representative knowledge, in
another respect, is not self-sufficient. For
in as much as all representation is only the
repetition, simple or modified, of what was
once intuitively apprehended; Representa-
tive is dependent on Presentative know-
ledge, as (with the mind) the concause
and condition of its possibility.— Presen-
tative knowledge, on the contrary, is in
this respect independent of Representative;
for with our intuitive cognitions, com-
mences all our knowledge.
29.-c.—In a third respect Representa-
tive knowledge is not self-sufficient ; for it
is only deserving of the name of know-
ledge in so far as it is conformable with
the intuitions which it represents.—Pre-
sentative knowledge, on the contrary, is,
in this respect, all-sufficient ; for in the
812
[NOTE B.
OF PRESENTATIVE AND
last resort it is the sole vehicle, the exclu-
sive criterion and guarantee of truth.
30.—d.—In a fourth respect, Represen-
tative knowledge is not self-sufficient,
being wholly dependent upon Intuitive;
for the object represented is only known
through an intuition of the subject repre-
senting. Representative knowledge al-
ways, therefore, involves presentative, as
its condition. — Intuitive knowledge, on
the contrary, is, in this respect, all-suffi-
cient, being wholly independent of repre-
sentative, which it, consequently, excludes.
Thus in different points of view Repre-
sentative knowledge contains and is con-
tained in, Presentative, (Pr. 15.)
G.—Compared in reference to their
intrinsic Completeness and Perfection.
31,–a.—In one respect Intuitive know-
ledge is complete and perfect, as irrespec-
tive of aught beyond the sphere of con-
sciousness; while Representative know-
ledge is incomplete and imperfect, as re-
lative to what transcends that sphere.
32.-b.—In another respect, Intuitive
knowledge is complete and perfect, as
affording the highest certainty of the
highest determination of existence—the
Actual—the Here and Now existent;-Re-
presentative, incomplete and impérſect, as
affording only an inferior assurance of
certain inferior determinations of exist-
ence—the Past, the Future, the Possible
—the not Here and not Now existent.
33.—c.—In a third respect, Intuitive
knowledge is complete and perfect, its
object known being at once real, and
known as real;-Representative know-
ledge, incomplete and imperfect, its known
object being unreal, its real object un-
known.
The precise distinction between Pre-
sentative and Representative knowledge,
and the different meanings of the term
Object, the want of which has involved
our modern philosophy in great confusion,
—I had long ago evolved from my own
reflection, and before I was aware that a
parallel distinction had been taken by the
Schoolmen, under the name Intuitive and
Abstract knowledge (cognitio Intuitiva et
Abstractiva, or Visionis et Simplicis In-
telligentiae.) Of these, the former they
defined—the knowledge of a thing present
as it is present, (cognitio rei praesentis,
wt praesens est) ; the latter—the know-
ledge of a thing not as it is present, (cog-
nitio rei non wt praesens est.) This
distinction remounts, among the Latin
Schoolmen, to at least the middle of the
eleventh century; for I find that both St
Anselm and Hugo a Sancto Victore no-
tice it. It was certainly not borrowed from
the Arabians; for Averroes, at the end
of the following century, seems unaware
of it. In fact, it bears upon its front the
indication of a Christian origin; for, as
Scotus and Ariminensis notice, the term
Intuitive was probably suggested by St
Paul’s expression, “facie ad faciem,' as the
Vulgate has it, (I Corinth. xiii. 12.) For
intuitive, in this sense, the lower Greeks
sometimes employed the terms #7-07-
ruzög, and 2i tortuzóg—a sense unknown
to the Lexicographers;–but they do not
appear to have taken the counter distinc-
tion. The term abstract or abstractive
was less fortunately chosen than its cor-
relative; for besides the signification in
question, as opposed to intuitive, in which
case we look away from the existence of
a concrete object ; it was likewise em-
ployed in opposition to concrete, and,
though improperly, as a synonyme of whi-
versal, in which case we look away from
each and every individual subject of inhe-
sion. As this last is the meaning in which
abstract as it was originally, is now ex-
clusively, employed, and as representative
is, otherwise, a far preferable expres-
sion, it would manifestly be worse than
idle to attempt its resuscitation in the
former sense.
The propriety and importance of the dis-
tinction is unquestionable; but the School-
men—at least the great majority who held
the doctrine of intentional species—wholly
spoiled it in application; by calling the
representative perception they allowed of
external things, by the name of an in-
tuitive cognition, to say nothing of the
idle thesis which many of them defended
—that by a miracle we could have an
intuitive apprehension of a distant, nay
even of a non-existent, object. This error,
I may notice, is the corollary of another
of which I am soon to speak—the holding
that external things, though known only
through species, are immediately known
in themselves, (see p. . )
Ś II.- The errors of Reid and other phi-
losophers, in reference to the distinction
of Presentative or Immediate and Re-
presentative or Mediate knowledge, and
of Object Proaimate and Remote.
The preceding distinction is one which,
for the Natural Realist, it is necessary to
establish, in order to discriminate his own
peculiar doctrine of perception from those
of the Idealists, Cosmothetic and Abso-
lute, in their various modifications. This,
however, Reid unfortunately did not do;
§ II.]
813
REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLEDGE.
and the consequence has been the follow-
ing imperfections, inaccuracies, and errors.
A. In the first place he has, at least
in words, abolished the distinction of pre-
sentative and representative cognition.
1°, He asserts, in general, that every
object of thought must be an immediate
object, (I. P. 427 b.)
2°, He affirms, in particular, not only
of the faculties whose objects are, but
of those whose objects are not, actually
present to the mind, – that they are
all and each of them immediate know-
ledges. Thus he frequently defines me-
mory (in the sense of recollective ima-
gination) “an immediate knowledge of
things past,” (I. P. 339 a, 351 b, 357 a);
he speaks of an immediate knowledge of
things future, (I. P. 340 b); and main-
tains that the immediate object in our
conception (imagination) of a distant
reality is that reality itself (I. P. 374 b.)
See above, Propp. 10, II, 12, 19, 20, 21.
Now the cause why Reid not only did
not establish, but even thought to abolish,
the distinction of mediate cognition with
its objects proximate and remote was, 1°,
his error, which we are elsewhere to con-
sider, (Note C. § ii.,) in supposing that
philosophers in the proximate object of
knowledge, had in view, always, a tertium
quid different both from the reality repre-
sented and the conscious mind (Inq. 106 a,
1. P. 226 b, 369 ab); and 2°, his failing to
observe that the rejection of this complex
hypothesis of non-egoistical representa-
tion, by no means involved either the sub-
version of representative knowledge in
general, or the establishment of presenta-
tive perception in particular. (See Prop. 7,
and Note C. § i.)
But Reid’s doctrine in this respect is
perhaps imperfectly developed, rather than
deliberately wrong; and I am confident
that had it been proposed to him, he would
at Once have acquiesced in the distinction
of presentative and representative know-
ledge, above stated, not only as true in it-
self, but as necessary to lay a solid foun-
dation for a theory of intuitive perception,
in conformity with the common sense of
mankind.
B. In the Second place, Reid maintains
that in our cognitions there must be an ob-
ject (real or imaginary) distinct from the
operation of the mind conversant about it ;
for the act is one thing and the object of
the act another. (I. P. 292 b, 305 a, also
298 b, 373 a, 374 b.)
This is erroneous—at least it is errone-
ously expressed. Take an imaginary ob-
ject, and Reid’s own instance—a centaur.
Herehe says, “The sole object of concep-
tion (imagination) is an animal which I
believe never existed.” It never existed;’
that is never really, never in nature, never
externally, existed. But it is “an object
of imagination.' It is not therefore a
mere non-existence; for if it had no kind
of existence, it could not possibly be the
positive object of any kind of thought.
For were it an absolute nothing, it could
have no qualities (non-entis nulla sunt at-
tributa); but the object we are conscious
of, as a Centaur, has qualities, qualities
which constitute it a determinate some-
thing, and distinguish it from every other
entity whatsoever. We must, therefore,
per force, allow it some sort of imaginary,
ideal, representative, or (in the older
meaning of the term) objective, existence
in the mind. Now this existence can only
be one or other of two sorts; for such
object in the mind, either is, or is not, a
mode of mind. Of these alternatives the
latter cannot be supposed; for this would
be an affirmation of the crudest kind of
non-egoistical representation—the very
hypothesis against which Reid so strenu-
ously contends. The former alternative
remains—that it is a mode of the imagin-
ing mind;—that it is in fact the plastic
act of imagination considered as represent-
ing to itself a certain possible form—a
Centaur. But then Reid’s assertion—that
there is always an object distinct from the
operation of the mind conversant about it,
the act being one thing, the object of the
act another—must be surrendered. For
the object and the act are here only one
and the same thing in two several relations.
(Prop. 21.) Reid's error consists in mis-
taking a logical for a metaphysical diffe-
rence—a distinction of relation for a dis-
tinction of entity. Or is the error only
from the vagueness and ambiguity of ex
pression ? “ -
* In what manner many of the acutest of
the later Schoolmen puzzled themselves like-
wise, with this, apparently, very simple mat-
ter, may be seen in their discussions touch-
ing the mature of Entia Rationis. I may men-
tion in general Fonseca, Suarez, Mendoza,
Ruvius Murcia, Oviedo, Arriaga, Carleton, &c.,
on the one hand; and Biel, Mirandulanus,
Jandunus, Walesius, Erice, &c., on the other.
I may here insert, though only at present, for
the latter paragraph in which Reid’s difficulty
is solved, the following passage from Biel. It
contains important observations to which I
must subsequently refer :—
* Ad secundum de figmentis dicitur, quod
(intelligendo illam similitudinem quam anima.
fingit, i.e. abstrahit a rebus) sic figmenta Sunt
actus intelligendi, qui habent esse verum et
subjectivum (v. p. 807 a b, note) in anima.
814
[NOTE B.
OF PRESENTATIVE AND
C. In the third place, to this head we
may refer Reid’s inaccuracy in regard to
the precise object of perception. This ob-
ject is not, as he seems frequently to assert,
any distant reality; (Inq. 104 b, 158 b,
159 a b, 160 a., 186 b.—I. P. 299 a, 302
a, 303 a, 304 a, et alibi); for we are per-
cipient of nothing but what is in proxi-
mate contact, in immediate relation, with
our organs of sense. Distant realities we
reach, not by perception, but by a subse-
quent process of inference founded there-
on : and so far, as he somewhere says,
(I. P. 284 b,) from all men who look
upon the sun perceiving the same object,
in reality, every individual, in this instance,
perceives a different object, nay, a diffe-
rent object in each several eye. The
doctrine of Natural Realism requires no
such untenable assumption for its basis.
It is sufficient to establish the simple fact,
that we are competent, as consciousness
assures us, immediately to apprehend
through sense the non-ego in certain
limited relations; and it is of no conse-
quence whatever, either to our certainty
of the reality of a material world, or to
our ultimate knowledge of its properties,
whether by this primary apprehension we
lay hold, in the first instance, on a larger
or a lesser portion of its contents.
Mr Stewart also (Elem. vol. i. ch. i.
sect. 2, p. 79 sq. 6 ed.), in arguing against
the counter doctrine in one of its acci-
dental forms, maintains, in general, that
we may be percipient of distant objects.
Sunt enim qualitates animae inhaerentes; et
hi actus sunt naturales similitudines rerum a
quibus formantur, quae Sunt objecta eorum;
nec oportet ponere aliquod objectum medium
inter cognitionem intellectivalm actus, et reale
ejus objectum. -
* Dicuntur autem hujusmodi actus figmenta,
quia tales sunt in repraesentando rem, quales
sunt res repraesentatae. Non autem talia in
easistendo, i.e. in qualitatibus realibus; quia
sunt qualitates spirituales, objecta vero fre-
quenter res materiales; sunt autem naturaliter
similes in reprosentando, quia repraesentant res
distincte cum suis habitudinibus sicut Sunt
realiter; non autem sunt similes in essendo, i.e.
Quod actus [actul haberent esse reale ejusdem
speciei cum suis objectis.
* Quod additur de Chimaera ; patet quod ali-
ter chimaera dicitur figmentum, et aliter cog-
nitio rei possibilis. Verum conceptus chi-
maerae, id est actus cognoscendi correspon-
dens huic voci “ chimaerae,” est vera qualitas in
mente; tamen illud quod significat nihil est.”
In i. Sent. Dist. ii. Qu. 8.
The author of the preceding passage, it must
be remembered, allowed no intentional species,
that is, no representative entities different from
the operations of the mind itself.
{
But his observations do not contemplate,
therefore do not meet, the cardinal ques-
tions;–Is perception a presentative cog-
nition of the non-ego, or only a represen-
tative cognition of it, in and through the
ego 2 — and if the former, Can we ap-
prehend a thing immediately and not
know it in itself?—Can we apprehend it
as actually existing 2—and, Can we ap-
prehend it as actually existing, and not
apprehend it in the When and Where of
its existence, that is, only as present 7
A misapprehension analogous to that of
Reid and Stewart, and of a still more ob-
trusive character, was made by a majority
of those Schoolmen who, as non-egoistical
representationists, maintained the hypothe-
sis of intentional species, as media of sen-
sitive perception, imagination, &c. They,
in general, held, that the species is not
Čtself perceived, but the reality through the
Species ;—and on the following as the
principal grounds:—The present objects
we perceive by sense, or the absent ob-
jects we imagine, are extended, figured,
coloured, &c.; but the species are not
themselves extended, figured, coloured,
&c., they are only representative of these
qualities in external objects; the species
are not, therefore, themselves objects of
knowledge, or, as they otherwise ex-
pressed it, do not themselves terminate
the cognition.* See, instar omnium, De
Raconis, Physica, Disp. iii. de An. Sens.
App. sect. ii. qu. 4, art 3.−Irenaeus, De
Anima, c. 2. Sect. 3. § 3. -
The error of this doctrine did not,
however, escape the observation of the
acuter even of those who supported the
theory of intentional species. It is ex-
posed by Scaliger the father; and his ex-
position is advanced as a ‘very subtle '
speculation. Addressing Cardan, whose
work “De Subtilitate 'he is controverting,
he says:—
“Cum tam praeclare de visu sentires,
maximam omisisti subtilitatem. Doce me
prius sodes—Quidestid quod video? Dices,
“Puerilem esse interrogationem — Rem
enim esse, quaevideatur.” At doce quaeso
nos pueros per salebras hasce Naturae
perreptantes. Si Sensio est receptio ; mec
recipitur Res; demonstrabitur certissima
* This doctrine his recent and very able
biographer (M. Huet) finds maintained by the
great Henry of Ghent, and he adduces it as
both an original opinion of the Doctor Solem-
mis, and an anticipation of one of the truths
established by the Scottish school. There
was, however, nothing new in the opinion; and
if an anticipation, it was only the anticipation
of an error. Rächerches, &c., pp. 130, 119.
§ II.]
815
REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLEDGE.
demonstratione sic;-ergo non sentitur
Res. Aiunt—“Rem videri per Speciem.”
Intelligo; et concludo:—Species ergo sen-
titwr. Rem ipsam haud percipit sensus.
Species ipsa non est ea res, cujus est
species. Isti vero ausi sunt ita dicere;—
“ Non videri speciem, sed Rem per Spe-
ciem. Speciem vero esse videndi ratio-
nem.” Audio verba; rem haud intelli-
go. Non enim est species ratio videndi,
ut Lux. Quid igitur !—“Per speciem
(inquiunt) vides rem; non potes autem
videre speciem, quia necesse esset ut, per
speciem, videres.” Quae sententia est om-
nium absurdissima. Dico enim jam ;-Rem.
nom videri, Sed Speciem. Sensus ergo
recipit speciem; quam rei similem judicat
Intellectus, atque sic rem cognoscit per
reflexionem.’ (De Subtilitate, Ex. ccxcviii.
§ 14.)
But in correcting one inconsistency
Scaliger here falls into another. For how
can the reflective intellect judge the species
to resemble, that is, correctly to represent,
the external reality, when, ex hypothesi,
the reality itself is unknown; unknown in
its qualities, unknown even in its existence?
This consideration ought to have led ‘the
Master of Subtilties’ to doubt concerning
the doctrine of perception by species alto-
gether.
But long before Scaliger, the error in
question had been refuted by certain of
those Schoolmen who rejected the whole
doctrine of intentional species. I was Sur-
prised to find the distinction between an
immediate and a mediate object, in our
acts cognitive of things not actually pre-
sent to apprehension, advanced by Gre-
gory of Rimini, in a disputation maintained
by him against a certain ‘Joannes Scotus,’
—not the Subtle Doctor, who was already
gone, but—a Scotsman, who appears to
have been a fellow Regent with Gregory
in the University of Paris. This doctrine
did not, however, obtain the acceptation
which it merited; and when noticed at all,
it was in general noticed only to be re-
dargued—even by his brother Nominalists.
Biel rejects the paradox, without naming
its author. But John Major, the last of
the regular Schoolmen, openly maintains
on this point, against the Authentic Doc-
tor, the thesis of his earlier countryman,
Joannes—a thesis also identical with the
doctrine of his later countryman, Reid.
‘Dico (he says, writing in Paris,) quod
notitiam abstractivam quam habeo pinna-
culi Sanctae Genovefes in Scotia, in Sanc-
to Andrea, ad pinnaculum immediate ter-
minatur; verum, ob notitiae imperfec-
tionem et naturam, mescio certitudinaliter
an sit dirutum exustumve, sicut olim to-
nitruo conflagravit.” In Sent. L. i. dist,
3. qu. 2. d
I have omitted however to notice, that
the vulgar doctrine of the Schools in re-
gard to the immediate cognition of real
objects, through their species or represen-
tations, was refuted, in anticipation, by
Plotinus, who observes—“That if we re-
ceive the impressed forms (rùºroug) of ob-
jects perceived, it cannot be that we really
perceive the things which we are said to
perceive, but only their images or sha-
dows; so that the things existing are one
distinct order of beings, the objects per-
ceived by us, another.” (Ennead. v. L. vi.
c. 1.) His own doctrine of perception is
however equally subjective as that which
he assails; it is substantially the same with
the Cartesian and Leibnitzian hypotheses.
Representationists (Note C. § i.) are
not however always so reluctant to see
and to confess, that their doctrine in-
volves a surrender of all immediate and
real knowledge of an external world.
This too is admitted by even those who,
equally with Reid, had renounced ideas
as representative entities, different, either
from the substance of mind, or from the
act of cognition itself. Arnauld frankly
acknowledges this of his own theory of
perception; which he justly contends to be
identical with that of Descartes. (See
above, p. 296 a, n. f.) Other Cartesians,
and of a doctrine equally pure, have been no
less explicit. ‘Nota vero, (says Flender,
whose verbosity Isomewhatabridge,) men-
tem nostram percipere vel cognoscere im-
nediate tantum Seipsam Suasque facultates,
per intimam Sui conscientiam; sed alias reg
a se distinctas, non misi mediate, scilicet per
ideas. . . Nota porro, quod perceptio seu
Čdea rei spectari dupliciter: vel in se ipsa,
prout est modus cogitandi cujus mens est
conscia,-quo modo a mente ut causa effi-
ciente fluit; vel relata ad objectum quod
per eam representatur, prout est cogitatio
intellectus hanc velillam rem representans,
—quo modo forma seu essentia ideae con-
sistit in representatione rei, sive in eo quod
sit representamen vel imago ejus rei quam
concipimus.” (Phosph. Philos. § 5.)
• The existence of a Pinnacle of St Gene-
vieve in St Andrews is now unknown to our
Scottish Antiquaries; and this, I may notice,
is one of a thousand curious anecdotes relative
to his country, scattered throughout Major's
writings, and upon matters to which allusions
from a Doctor of the Sorbonne, in a Commen.
tary on the Sentences, were least to be ex-
pected.
NOTE C.
ON THE WARIOUS THEORIES OF EXTERNAL PERCEPTION.
we
Ś I.—Systematic Schemes, from different points of view, of the various theories of the
relation of Easternal Perception to its Object; and of the various systems of
Philosophy founded thereon.
§ II.--What is the character, in this respect, of Reid's doctrine of Perception ?
[References.—From Inq. 106 a, 128 a b, 130 b, 210 a, I. P. 226 a b, 257 b, 269 a,
274 a, 277 b, 278 a b, 293 b, 299 a, 305 a,
318 b, 427 a b.]
§ 1.—Systematic Schemes, from different
points of view, of the various theories of
the relation of Easternal Perception to
its Object, and of the various systems of
Philosophy founded thereon.*
SchEME I.— Table of distribution, Ge-
neral and Special.—In the perception of
the external world, the object of which
we are conscious may be considered—
either, (I.) as absolute and total—or, (II.)
as relative and partial, i. e. vicarious or
yepresentative of another and principal
object, beyond the sphere of conscious-
ness. Those who hold the former of these
doctrines may be called Presentationists
or Intuitionists ; those who hold the lat-
ter, Representationists.i. Of these in their
order.
I.—The Presentationists or Intwitionists
constitute the object, of which we are
conscious in perception, into a sole, abso-
• Compare the more comprehensive evolu-
tion of Philosophical Systems from the total
fact of Consciousness in Perception, given
above, p. 746 a, sq. An acquaintance with
that distribution is here supposed.
+ On the terms Intuition and Representation,
and on the distinction of immediate and mediate,
of ideal and real, object, see Note B. § i.
lute, or total, object; in other words, re-
duce perception to an act of immediate
or intuitive cognition: and this—either
(A) by abolishing any immediate, ideal,
subjective object, representing;-or, (B)
by abolishing any mediate, real, objective
object, represented.
A.—The former of these, viewing the
one total object of perceptive conscious-
ness as real, as existing, and therefore,
in this case, as material, extended, external,
are Realists, and may distinctively be called
Intuitional or Presentative Realists, and
Real Presentationists or Intwitionists; while,
as founding their doctrine on the datum
of the natural consciousness, or common
sense, of mankind, they deserve the names
of Natural Realists or Natural Dualists.
Of this scheme there are no subordinate
varieties; except in so far as a difference
of opinion may arise, in regard to—what
qualities are to be referred to the object
perceived, or non-ego, what qualities to
the percipient subject, or ego. Presenta-
tive Realism is thus divided (i.) into a
philosophical or developed form—that, to
wit, in which the Primary Qualities of
body, the Common Sensibles, (see Note
D.) constitute the objective object of
perception; and (ii.) into a vulgar or un-
l developed form—that, to wit, in which
Note c. § 1.] THEORIES OF EXTERNAL PERCEPTION.
817
not only the primary qualities, (as Exten-
sion and Figure,) but also the secondary,
(as Colour, Savour, &c.,) are, as known
to us, regarded equally to appertain to the
non-ego.
B.—The latter of these, viewing the
object of consciousness in perception as
ideal, (as a phaenomenon in or of mind,)
are Idealists; and as denying that this
ideal object has any external prototype,
they may be styled Absolute Idealists, or
Idealist Unitarians.—They are to be
again divided into two subaltern classes,
as the Idea—(i.) is, or (ii.) is not, con-
sidered a modification of the percipient
mind.
i.—If the Idea be regarded as a mode
of the human mind itself, we have a
scheme of Egoistical Idealism : and this
again admits of a twofold distinction, ac-
cording as the idea is viewed — (a) as
having no existence out of the momen-
tary act of presentative consciousness,
with which it is, in fact, identical ;-or (b)
as having an (unknown) existence, inde-
pendent of the present act of conscious-
ness by which it is called up, contemplated,
but not created. Finally, as in each of
these the mind may be determined to
present the object either—(1) by its own
natural laws, or (2.) by supernatural
agencies, each may be subdivided into a
Natural and Supernatural variety.
ii.—If, on the other hand, the Idea be
viewed not as a mode of the human mind,
there is given the scheme of Non-Egois-
tical Idealism, which, in all its forms, is
necessarily hyperphysical. It admits, in
the first place, of a twofold distinction,
according as the ideal object is supposed—
(a) to be, or (b) not to be, in the per-
ceiving mind itself.
a.—Of these the former may again be
subdivided according as the ideas are Sup-
posed—(1.) to be connate with the mind
and existent in it out of consciousness;
—or (2.) infused into it at the moment
of consciousness, ( or ) immediately by
God, (6) by some lower supernatural
agency.
b.—The latter supposes that the human
mind is conscious of the idea, in some
higher intelligence, to which it is inti-
mately present; and this higher mind
may either be—(1.) that of the deity, or
—(2) that of some inferior supernatural
existence.
All these modifications of Non-Egoisti-
cal Idealism admit, however, in common,
of certain subordinate divisions, according
as the qualities (primary and secondary)
and the phaenomena of the several senses
may be variously considered either as
objective and ideal or as subjective and
sensational.”
II.-The Representationists, as denying
to consciousness the cognisance of aught
beyond a merely subjective phaenomenon,
are likewise Idealists; yet as positing the
reality of an external world, they must
be distinguished as Cosmothetic Idealists.
But, as affirming an external world, they
are also Realists, or Dualists. Since,
however, they do not, like the Natural
Realists, accept the existence of an exter-
nal world directly on the natural tes-
timony of consciousness, as something
known, but endeavour to establish its un-
known existence by a principal and sundry
subsidiary hypotheses; they must, under
that character, be discriminated as Hypo-
thetical Realists or Hypothetical Dualists.
This Hypothesis of a Representative per-
ception has been maintained under one or
other of two principal forms, a finer and
a cruder, according as the representa-
tion—either, (A) is, or (B) is not, sup-
posed to be a mode of the percipient
subject itself. (And, be it observed, this
distinction, in reference to Reid's philo-
sophy, ought to be carefully borne in mind.)
A.—If the immediate, known, or repre-
sentative, object be regarded as a modifi-
cation of the mind or self, we have one
variety of representationism, (the simpler
• The general approximation of thorough-
going Realism and thorough-going Idealism
here given, may, at first sight, be startling.
On reflection, however, their radical affinity
will prove well grounded. Both build upon
the same fundamental fact—that the extended
object immediately perceived is identical with
the extended object actually existing ;-for the
truth of this fact, both can appeal to the com-
mon sense of mankind;—and to the common
sense of mankind Berkeley did appeal not less
confidently, and perhaps more logically, than
Reid. Natural Realism and Absolute Idealism
are the only systems worthy of a philosopher;
for, as they alone have any foundation in con-
sciousness, so they alone have any consistency
in themselves. The scheme of Hypothetical
Realism or Cosmothetic Idealism, which sup-
poses that behind the non-existent world per-
ceived, there lurks a correspondent but un-
known world existing, is not only repugnant to
our natural beliefs, but in manifold contradic-
tion with itself. The scheme of Natural Real-
ism may be ultimately difficult—for, like all
other truths, it ends in the inconceivable ; but
Hypothetical Realism — in its origin—in its
development—in its result, although the fa-
vourite scheme of philosophers, is philosophi-
cally absurd. See Philosophy of Perception,
Ed. Rev. vol. lii. p. 175–181.
3 F
818
[NOTE c.
ON THE WARIOUS THEORIES
and more refined) which may be charac-
terised as the Egoistical Representationism.
This finer form is, however, itself again
subdivided into a finer and a cruder; ac-
cording as the subjective object—(i.) is—
or (ii.) is not, identified with the perci-
pient act.
i.—In the former case, the immediate
or ideal object is regarded, as only logi-
cally distinguished from the perceptive
act; being simply the perceptive act itself,
considered in one of its relations,—its re-
lation, to wit (not to the subject perceiv-
ing, in which case it is properly called a
perception, but) to the mediate object, the
reality represented, and which, in and
through that representation alone, is ob-
jectified to consciousness and perceived.
ii.-In the latter case, the immediate
object is regarded, as a mode of mind,
existent out of the act of perceptive con-
sciousness, and, though contemplated in,
not really identical with, that act. This
cruder form of egoistical representationism
substantially coincides with that finer form
of the non-egoistical, which views the vi-
carious object as spiritual (II. B, i. b.)
I have therefore found it requisite to con-
sider these as identical; and accordingly
in speaking of the finer form of represen-
tation, be it observed, I exclusively have
in view the form of which I have last
spoken, (II. A, i.)
This form, in both its degrees, is divid-
ed into certain subaltern genera and
species, according as the mind is supposed
to be determined to represent by causes—
either, (a) natural, physical,—or, (b) su-
pernatural, hyperphysical.
a.—Of these, the matural determination
to represent, is—either, (1.) one foreign
and external, (by the action of the mate-
rial reality on the passive mind, through
sense);-or (2.) one native and internal,
(a self determination of the impassive
mind, on occasion of the presentation of
the material object to sense);-or finally,
(3.) one partly both, (the mind being at
once acted on, and itself reacting.)
b. — The hyperphysical determination,
again, may be maintained—either to be,
(i.) immediate and special; whether this be
realized—(2) by the direct operation or
concourse of God (as in a scheme of Occa-
sional Causes)—or (3) by the influence of
inferior supernatural agencies:—or (2.)
mediate and general, (as by the predeter-
mined ordination of God, in a theory of
Pre-established Harmony.)
B. — If the representative object be
viewed as something in, but not a mere
mode of, mind;—in other words, if it be
viewed as a tertium quid numerically dif-
ferent both from the subject knowing and
the object represented; we have a second
form of Representationism, (the more
complex and cruder,) which may be dis-
tinguished as the Non-egoistical. This
also falls into certain inferior species: for
the ideal or vicarious object has been held
(i.) by some to be spiritual;-(ii.) by
othersto be corporeak;-while (iii.) others,
to carry hypothesis to absurdity, have re-
garded it, as neither spiritual nor corpo-
real, but of an inconceivable nature, inter-
mediate between, or different from, both.
i.—Spiritual. Here the vicarious ob-
ject may be supposed—either, (a) to be
some supernatural intelligence, to which
the human mind is present; and this—
either (1.) the divine,—or (2.) not the di-
vine:—or (b) in the human mind; and if
so—either (1.) connate and inexistent, be-
ing elicited into consciousness, on occasion
of the impression of the external object on
the sensual organ;–or, (2.) infused on
such occasions, and this—either (2) by
God, or (3) by other supernatural intel-
ligences, and of these different theorists
have supposed different kinds.
ii.-Corporeal, in the common sensory
(whether brain or heart.) This—either
(a) as a propagation from the external re-
ality—(1.) of a grosser ;-(2.) of a more
attenuated nature:—or (b) a modification
determined in the sensory itself—(1.) as a
configuration;– (2.) as a motion, (and
this last—either (2) as a flow of spirits—
or (&) as a vibration of fibres—or (y) as
both a flow and a vibration);-or (3.) as
both a configuration and a motion.
iii. — Neither spiritual nor corporeal.
This might admit, in part, of similar mo-
difications with B, i. and B, ii.
All these species of Representationism
may be, and almost all of them have been,
actually held. Under certain varying re-
strictions, however, in as much as a repre-
sentative object may be postulated in per-
ception for all, or only for some of the
senses, for all or only for some of the
qualities made known to us in the percep-
tive act. And this latter alternative
which has been most generally adopted,
again admits of various subdivisions, ac-
cording to the particular senses in which,
and the particular qualities of which, a
vicarious object is allowed.
SCHEME II.—Table of General distri-
bution ; with references for details to Scheme
I
The object of Consciousness in Percep-
tion is a quality, mode or phaenomenon—
either (I.) of an easternal reality, in imme-
§§ 1. II.]
819
. OF EXTERNAL PERCEPTION.
diate relation to our organs;–or (II.) not
of an easternal reality, but either of the
mind itself, or of something in the mind,
which internal object, let us on either al-
ternative, here call Idea.
I. The former opinion is the doctrine of
real presentative perception. (I.A.)
II. The latter is the doctrine of ideal
perception; which either—
A—supposes that the Idea is an origi-
nal and absolute presentment, and thus
constitutes the doctrine of ideal presenta-
tive perception (I. B); or
B—supposes that the Idea only repre-
sents the quality of a real object; and thus
constitutes the doctrine of ideal represen-
tative perception (II.)
SchEME III.- Merely General Table.
In relation to our perception of an ex-
ternal world, philosophers are (I.) Realists;
(II.) Idealists.
I. The Réalists are (A) Natural; (B)
Hypothetical, (= Cosmothetic Idealists.)
II. The Idealists are (A) Absolute or
Presentative ; (B) Cosmothetic or Repre-
sentative, (= Hypothetical Realists.) See
above, p. 817 b, and 747 a.
Such is a conspectus in different points
of view of all the theories touching per-
ception and its object; and of the diffe-
rent systems of philosophy founded there-
on, which, as far as they occur to me, have
been promulgated during the progress of
philosophy. But it is at present only requi-
site for the student of philosophy to bear
in mind the more general principles and
heads of distribution. To enumerate the
individual philosophers by whom these se-
veral theories were originated or main-
tained, would require a far greater ampli-
tude of detail than can be now afforded;
and, though of some historical interest,
this is not required for the purposes which
I am here exclusively desirous of accom-
plishing. Similar tables might be also
given of the opinions of philosophers,
touching the object of Imagination and of
Intellect. But the relation of these facul-
ties to their object does not, in like man-
ner, afford the fundamental principles of
difference, and therefore a common start-
ing point, to the great philosophical sys-
tems; while a scheme of the hypotheses in
regard to them, would, at least in the de-
tails, be little more than an uninteresting
repetition of the foregoing distribution.
There is therefore little inducement to an-
nex such tables; were they not, in other
respects, here completely out of place. I
have only, at present, two ends in view.
Of these the primary, is to display, to dis-
criminate, and to lay down a momenclature
of, the various theories of Perception, ac-
tual and possible. This is accomplished.
The secondary, is to determine under
which of these theories the doctrine of
Reid is to be classed. And to this inquiry
I now address myself.
Ś II.-Of what character, in the preced-
ing respect, is Reid's doctrine of Per-
ception ?
As in this part of his philosophy, in par-
ticular, Mr Stewart closely follows the
footsteps of his predecessor, and seems
even to have deemed all further speculation
on the subject superfluous; the question
here propounded must be viewed as com-
mon to both philosophers.
Now, there are only two of the preced-
ing theories of perception, with one or
other of which Reid's doctrine can pos-
sibly be identified. He is a Dualist;-
and the only doubt is—whether he be a
Natural Realist, (I. A.,) or a Hypotheti-
cal Realist, under the finer form of Ego-
istical Representationism, (II. A, i.)
The cause why Reid left the character
of his doctrine ambiguous on this the very
cardinal point of his philosophy, is to be
found in the following circumstances.
1°, That, in general, (although the
same may be said of all other philoso-
phers,) he never discriminated either spe-
culatively or historically the three theories
of Real Presentationism, of Egoistical,
and of Non-Egoistical, JRepresentationism.
2°, That, in particular, he never clearly
distinguished the first and second of these,
as not only different, but contrasted, theo-
ries; though on one occasion (I. P. p.
297 a b) he does seem to have been ob-
scurely aware that they were notidentical.
3°, That, while right in regarding phi-
losophers, in general, as Cosmothetic
Idealists, he erroneously supposed that
they were all, or nearly all, Non-Egoisti-
cal Representationists. And—
4°, That he viewed the theory of Non-
Egoistical Representationism as that form
alone of Cosmothetic Idealism which
when carried to its legitimate issue ended
in Absolute Idealism; whereas the other
form of Cosmothetic Idealism, the theory
of Egoistical Representationism, whether
speculatively or historically considered, is,
with at least equal rigour, to be deve-
loped into the same result. -
Dr Thomas Brown considers Reid to
be, like himself, a Cosmothetic Idealist,
under the finer form of egoistical repre-
sentationism; but without assigning any
820
[Note c.
ON THE WARIOUS THEORIES
reason for this belief, except one which,
as I have elsewhere shewn, is altogether
mugatory.* For my own part, I am de-
cidedly of opinion, that, as the great end
—the governing principle of Reid’s doc-
trine was to reconcile philosophy with
the necessary convictions of mankind,
that he intended a doctrine of natural,
consequently a doctrine of presentative,
realism; and that he would have at once
surrendered, as erroneous, every state-
ment which was found at variance with
such a doctrine. But that the reader
should be enabled to form his own opi-
nion on the point, which I admit not to
be without difficulty; and that the ambi-
guities and inconsistencies of Reid, on this
the most important part of his philosophy,
should, by an articulate exposition, be de-
prived of their evil influence : I shall
now enumerate — (A) the statements,
which may, on the one hand, be adduced
to prove that his doctrine of perception is
one of mediate cognition under the form
of egoistical representationism;-and (B)
those which may, on the other hand, be
alleged to shew, that it is one of imme-
diate cognition, under the form of real
presentationism. But as these counter
statements are only of import, in as much
as they severally imply the conditions of
mediate or of immediate cognition; it is
necessary that the reader should bear in
mind the exposition, which has been given
of these conditions, in Note B. § I.
A.—Statements conformable to the doc-
trine of a mediate perception, whder the
form of an egoistical representation, and
inconsistent with th ** immediate per-
ception, wºnder the form of & real presen-
tation, of material objects.
I. On the testimony of consciousness,
and in the doctrine of an intuitive per-
ception, the mind, when a material exis-
tence is brought into relation with its
organ of sense, obtains two concomitant,
and immediate, cognitions. Of these, the
* Edinb. Rev. vol. lii. p. 173–175;-also in
Cross and Peisse. In saying, however, on that
occasion, that Dr 13rown was guilty of “a re-
versal of the real and even unambiguous import?
of Reid's doctrine of perception, I feel called
upon to admit, that the latter epithet is too
strong 5–for on grounds, totally different from
the untenable one of Brown, I am now about
to shew, that Reid’s doctrine, on this point, is
doubtful. This admission does not, however,
imply that Brown is not, from first to last,-is
not in one and all of his strictures on Reid's
doctrine of perception, as thcre shewn, wholly
in error. -
one is the consciousness (sensation) of cer-
tain subjective modifications in us, which .
We refer, as effects, to certain unknown
'powers, as causes, in the external reality;
the secondary qualities of body: the other
is the consciousness (perception) of certain
objective attributes in the external reality.
itself, as, or as in relation to our sensi-
ble organism ;-the primary qualities of
body. Of these cognitions, the former is
admitted, on all hands, to be subjective
and ideal: the latter, the Natural Realist
maintains, against the Cosmothetic Idea-
list, to be objective and real. But it is
only objective and real, in so far as it is
immediate ; and immediate it cannot be,
if-either, 1° dependent on the latter, as
its cause or its occasion—or, 2° conse-
quent on it, as on a necessary antecedent.
But both these conditions of a presenta-
tive perception Reid and Stewart are seen
to violate; and therefore they may be
held, virtually, to confess, that their doc-
trine is one only of representative per-
ception. See Note D. § i. No. 23. -
Touching the former condition: Reid
States, that the primary qualities of mate-
rial existences Extension, Figure, &c., are
suggested to us through the secondary;
which, though not the sufficient causes of
Our conception, are the signs,” on occa-
sion of which, we are made to “ conceive”
the primary. (Inq. 188 a, 122 a, 123 b,
128 b note). The secondary qualities, as
mere sensations, mere consciousness of
certain subjective affections, afford us no
immediate knowledge of aught different
from self. If, therefore, the primary qua-
lities be only suggestions,’ only concep-
tions,’ (Inq. 183 a, I. P. 318 a b), which
are, as it were, ‘conjured up by a kind of
natural magic,” (Inq. 122 a), or “inspired
by means unknown,” (Inq. 188 a); these
Conceptions are only representations, which
the mind is, in some inconceivable manner,
blindly determined to form of what it does
not know; and, as perception is only a
consciousness of these conceptions, per-
Cºption is, like sensation, only an imme-
diate cognition of certain modes of self.
Qur knowledge of the external world, on
this footing, is wholly subjective or idéal 5
* This application of the term sign suits the
Cosmothetic Idealist, as the Cartesian Bos-
Suet (Connaissance de Dieu, &c., ch. 3, § 8), or
the Absolute Idealist, as Berkeley (passim),
but not the Natural Realist. . In this doctrine
of natural signs, I see Reid was, in a manner,
also preceded by Hutcheson, (Syn. Met. P. ii.
c. 1–Syst. of Mor. B. i. ch. 1, p. 5).
§ º
821.
OF EXTERNAL PERCEPTION,
and iſ such be Reid’s doctrine, it is wholly
conformable to that enounced in the fol-
lowing statement of the Cartesian repre-
sentationism by Silvain Regis:– “... We
may thus, he says, affirm, that the cogni-
tion we have of any individual body which
strikes the sense is composed of two parts,
—of a sensation (sentiment), and of an
imagination ; an imagination, which re-
presents the extension of this body under
a determinate size; and a sensation of
colour and light, which renders this ex-
tension visible.” (Metaph. L. ii. P. i. ch.
5. Cours, t. i. p. 162, ed. 1691). This
statement may standequally for an enounce-
ment of the Kantian doctrine of percep-
tion; and it is, perhaps, worth noticing,
that Regis anticipated Kant, in holding the
imagination of space to be the a priori
form or subjective condition of percep-
tion. “L” idée de l’ Entendue (he says)
est née avec l’ àme,’ &c., (ibid. c. 9, p.
171 et alibi.)—This theory of Suggestion,
so explicitly maintained in the “Inquiry,’
is not repeated in the ‘Essays on the In-
tellectual Powers.” Reid, therefore, as I
have already observed, (p. 129 a, note,)
may seem to have become doubtful of the
tendency of the doctrine advanced in his
earlier work; and we ought not, at all
events, to hold him rigorously account-
able for the consequences of what, if he
did not formally retract in his later writ-
ings, he did not continue to profess.
Touching the latter condition:—Reid
in stating, that “if sensation be produced,
the corresponding perception follows even
when there is no object,” (I. P. 320 b,)—
and Stewart in stating, that “sensations
are the constant antecedents of our per-
ceptions,” (El. i. c. 1, p. 93, e d. 6,) mani-
festly advance a doctrine, which if rigidly
interpreted, is incompatible with the re-
quisites of an intuitive perception.
2. It is the condition of an intuitive
perception, that a sensation is actually
felt there, where it is felt to be. To sup-
pose that a pain, for instance, in the toe,
is felt really in the brain, is conformable
only to a theory of representationism.
For if the mind cannot be conscious of
the secondary qualities, except at the cen-
tre of the nervous organism, it cannot be
conscious of the primary, in their relation
to its periphery; and this involves the
admission, that it is incompetent to more
than a subjective or ideal or representa-
tive cognition of external things. But
such is the doctrine which Reid mani-
festly holds. (I. P. 319 b, 320 a b.).
3. On the doctrine of Natural Realism,
that the ego has an intuitive perception of
the non-ego in proximate relation to its
organs, a knowledge and a belief of the
existence of the external world, is clearly
given in the fact of such intuitive percep-
tion. In this case, therefore, we are not
called upon to explain such knowledge
and belief by the hypothesis, or, at least,
the analogy, of an inspired notion and
infused faith. On the doctrine of Cosmo-
thetic Idealism, on the contrary, which
supposes that the mind is determined to
represent to itself the external world,
which, ex hypothesi, it does not know;
the fact of such representation can only
be conceived possible, through some hy-
perphysical agency; and therefore Reid's
rationale of perception, by an inspiration.
or kind of magical conjuration, as given
in the Inquiry, (122 a, 188 a ; Stewart,
El. i. 64, 93), may seem to favour the con-
struction, that his doctrine is a represen-
tationism. In the Essays on the Intellec-
tual Powers heis, however, more cautious;
and the note I have appended in that work
at p. 257 a, is to be viewed in more
especial reference to the doctrine of the
Inquiry; though in the relative passage
‘the will of God’ may, certainly, seem
called as a Deus ex machina, to solve a
knot which the doctrine of intuitive per-
ception does not tie.
4. The terms motion and conception are,
in propriety, only applicable to our me-
diate and representative cognitions. –
When Reid, therefore, says that ‘ the Per-
ception of an object consists of, or im-
plies, a conception or motion of it,” (Inq.
183 a, 188 a, I. P. 258 a b, 318 b, 319 a,
et alibi); there is here, either an impro-
priety of language, or perception is, in
his view, a mediate and representative
knowledge. The former alternative is,
however, at least equally probable as the
latter; for Consciousness, which, on all
hands, is admitted to be a knowledge im-
mediate and intuitive, he defines (I. P.
327 a) “an immediate conception of the
operation of our own minds,’ &c. Con-
ception and Notion, Reid seems, therefore,
to employ, at least sometimes, for cogni-
tion in general.
5. In calling imagination of the past,
the distant, &c., an immediate know-
ledge, Reid, it may be said, could only
mean by immediate, a knowledge effected
not through the supposed intermediation .
of a vicarious object, numerically diffe-
rent from the object existing and the
mind knowing, but through a representa-
tion of the past, or real, object, in and by
the mind itself; in other words, that by
mediate knowledge he denoted a non-ego-.
822
[Note c,
ON THE WARIOUS THEORIES
istical, by immediate knowledge an egoisti-
cal, representation. (Note B. § 1. Pr. 7.
p. 805 a). This being established, it may
be further argued—1°, that in calling
Perception an immediate knowledge, he,
on the same analogy, must be supposed to
deny, in reference to this faculty, only the
doctrine of non-egoistical representation.
This is confirmed—2°, by his not taking -
the distinction between perception as a
presentative, and Memory, for instance,
(i.e. recollective imagination) as a repre-
sentative, cognition; which he ought to
have done, had he contemplated, in the
former, more than a faculty, through
which the ego represents to itself the non-
ego, of which it has no consciousness—no
true objective and immediate apprehension.
This, however, only proves that Reid's
Perception may be representative, not that
it actually is so.
6. The doctrine maintained by Reid
(I. P. 199 a, 298 b, 299 a, 302 e, 305 b)
and by Stewart (Elem. vol. i. e. I, sect. 2)
that perception is possible of distant ob-
jects, is, when sifted, found necessarily to
imply, that perception is not, in that case,
an apprehension of the object in its place
in space—in its Where ; and this again ne-
cessarily implies, that it is not an appre-
hension of the object, as existing, or in it-
self. But if not known as existing, or in
itself, a thing is, either not known at all,
or known only in and through something
different from itself. Perception, there-
fore, is, on this doctrine, at best a mediate
or representative cognition;––of the sim.
pler form of representation, the egoistical,
it may be, but still only vicarious and sub-
jective. See Note B. .
7. In some places our author would
seem to hold that Perception is the result
of an inference, and that what is said to be
perceived is the remote cause and there
fore not the immediate object of Percep-
tion. If this be so, Perception is not a
presentative knowledge. (Inq. 125 a, J.
P. 310 a b, 319 a.) In other passages,
that perception is the result of inference
or reasoning is expressly denied. (I. P.
259 b, 260 a b, 309 b, 326 a, 328 b, &c.)
8. On the supposition, that we have an
immediate cognition or consciousness of
the non-ego, we must have, at the same
time, involved as part and parcel of that
cognition, a belief of its existence. To
view, therefore, our belief of the existence
of the external world, as any thing apart
from our knowledge of that world,—to
refer it to instinct—to view it as unac-
countable—to consider it as an ultimate
law of our constitution, &c., as Reid does,
(Inq. 188 a b, I. P. 258 b, 309 b, 326 a,
327 a, et alibi), is, to say the least of it,
suspicious; appearing to imply, that our
cognition of the material world, as only
mediate and subjective, does not, at once
and of itself, necessitate a belief of the ex-
istence of external things. -
B. Counter statements, conformable to
the doctrine of a real presentation of mate-
rial objects, and inconsistent with that of a
Tepresentative perception. -
1. Knowledge and existence only infer
each other when a reality is known in it-
self or as existing; for only.in. that case
can we say of it, on the one hand, it is
known, because it eacists, on the other, it
easists, since it is known. In propriety of
language, this constitutes, exclusively, an
immediate, intwitive or real, cognition.
This is at once the doctrine of philoso-
phers in general, and of Reid in particular.
‘It seems,’ he says, “admitted as a first
principle, by the learned and the unlearn-
ed, that what is really perceived must ex-
ist, and that to perceive what does not
exist is impossible. So far the unlearned
man and the philosopher agree.” (I. P.
p. 274 b.) This principle will find an ar-
ticulate illustration in the three proxi-
mately following statements, in all of which
it is implied. -
2. The idea or representative object, all
philosophers, of whatever doctrine, con-
cur in holding to be, in the strictest sense
of the expression, itself immediately ap-
prehended; and that, as thus apprehended,
it necessarily exists. That Reid fully un-
derstands their doctrine, is shown by his
introducing a Cosmothetic Idealist thus
speaking :—‘ I perceive animage, or form,
or idea, in my own mind, or in my brain.
I am certain of the existence of the idea ;
because I immediately perceive it.” (Ibid.)
Now then, if Reid be found to assert–
that, on his doctrine, we perceive material
objects not less immediately, than, on the
common doctrine of philosophers, we per-
ceive ideal objects; and that therefore
his theory of perception affords an equal
certainty of the existence of the external
reality, as that of the Cosmothetic Ideal-
ist does of the existence of its internal re-
presentation;–if Reid, I say, "do this, he
unambiguously enounces a doctrine of
presentative, and not of representative,
perception. And this he does. Having.
repeated, for the hundredth time, the deli-
Verance of common sense, that we per-
ceive material things immediately, and not
their ideal representations, he proceeds:—
* I shall only here observe that if external
objects be perceived immediately, we have
§ n.]
OF EXTERNAL PERCEPTION. - 823.
the same reason to believe their existence
as philosophers have to believe the exis-
tence of ideas, while they hold them to be
the immediate objects of perception." (I.
P. 446 a b. See also 263 b, 272 b.)
3. Philosophers — even Sceptics and
Idealists—concur in acknowledging, that
mankind at large believe that the exter-
nal reality is itself the immediate and only
object in perception. (Note A. p. 745 sq.).
Reid is of course no exception. After stat-
ing the principle, previously quoted (B,
st 1.) ‘that what is really perceived must
exist,” he adds;– the unlearned man
says, I perceive the external object and I
perceive it to exist. Nothing can be more
absurd than to doubt it.” (I. P. 274 b).
—Again:—‘The vulgar undoubtedly be-
łieve, that it is the external object which
we immediately perceive, and not a re-
presentative image of it only. It is for
this reason, that they look upon it as per-
fect lunacy to call in question the exis-
tence of external objects.” (Ibid.) Again:
—“The vulgar are firmly persuaded, that
the very identical objects which they per-
ceive continue to exist when they do not
perceive them; and are no less firmly per-
suaded, that when ten men look at the
sun or the moon they all see the same in-
dividual object.” (I. P. 284 b). Again,
speaking of Berkeley:-‘The vulgar opi-
nion he reduces to this, that the very
things which we perceive by our senses
do really exist. This he grants.” (I. P.
284 a). Finally, speaking of Hume:–
“It is therefore acknowledged by this phi-
losopher to be a natural instinct or pre-
possession, an universal and primary opi-
nion of all men, that the objects which we
immediately perceive, by our senses, are
not images in our minds, but external
objects, and that their existence is inde-
pendent of us and our perception.” (I. P.
299 b ; see also 275 a, 298 b, 299 a b,
302 a b). ^ -
It is thus evinced, that Reid, like other
philosophers, attributes to men in general
the belief of an intuitive perception. If
then he declare that his own opinion coin-
cides with that of the vulgar, he will,
consequently, declare himself a Presenta-
tive Realist. And he does this; empha-
tically too. Speaking of the Perception
of the external world:—‘We have here a
remarkable conflict between two contra-
dictory opinions, wherein all mankind are
engaged. On the one side stand all the
• The inaccuracy of this statement (see p.
}
814 a) does not affect the argument,
vulgar, who are unpractised in philosophi-
cal researches, and guided by the uncor-
rupted primary instincts of nature. On
the other side, stand all the philosophers,
ancient and modern ; every man, without
exception, who reflects. In this division,
to my great humiliation, I find myself
classed with the vulgar.” (I. P. 302 b).
4. All philosophers agree that self-
consciousness is an immediate knowledge,
and therefore affords an absolute and
direct certainty of the existence of its
objects. Reid (with whom consciousness
is equivalent to self-consciousness,) of
course maintains this; but he also main-
tains, not only that perception affords a
sufficient proof, but as valid an assurance
of the reality of material phaenomena, as
consciousness does of the reality of men-
tal. (I. P. 263 b, 269 a, 373, et alibi.)
In this last assertion I have shewn that
Reid (and Stewart along with him) is
wrong ; for the phaenomena of self-con-
sciousness cannot possibly be doubted or
denied (p. 741 b, sq.); but the statement, at
least tends to prove, that his perception is
truly immediate, is, under a different
name, a consciousness of the non-ego.
5. Arnauld's doctrine of external per-
ception is a purely egoistical representa-
‘tionism ; and he has stated its conditions
and consequences, with the utmost accu-
racy and precision. (I. P. 295–298).
Reid expresses both his content and dis-
content with Arnauld's theory of per-
ception, which he erroneously views as
inconsistent with itself, (297 a b). This
plainly shews that he had not realised to
himself a clear conception of the two doc-
trines of Presentationism and Egoistical
Representationism, in themselves and in
their contrasts. But it also proves that
when the conditions and consequences of
the latter scheme, even in its purest form,
were explicitly enounced, that he was
then sufficiently aware of their incompa-
tibility with the doctrine which he him-
self maintained—a doctrine, therefore, it
may be fairly contended, (though not in
his hands clearly understood, far less ar-
ticulately developed,) substantially one of
Natural Realism.*
To Reid’s inadequate discrimination
—common to him with other philoso-
* It will be observed that I do not found any
argument on Reid's frequent assertion, that
perception affords an immediate knowledge and
immediate belief of external things; (e. g. I. P.
824
[NOTE C. § II.
THEORIES OF EXTERNAL PERCEPTION.
phers—of the different theories of Per-
ception, either as possible in theory, or as
actually held, is, as I have already noticed,
to be ascribed the ambiguities, and virtual
contradictions, which we have now been
considering.
In the first place, (what was of little
importance to the Hypothetical, but in-
dispensably necessary for the Natural
Realist), he did not establish the fact of
the two cognitions, the presentative and
representative;—signalise their contents;
—evolve their several conditions;–con-
sider what faculties in general were to be
referred to each; — and, in particular,
which of these was the kind of cognition
competent, in our Perception of the ex-
ternal world.
In the second place, he did not take
note, that representation is possible under
two forms—the egoistical, and non-egois-
tical; each, if Perception be reduced to a
259 b, 260 a b, 267 a, 309 b, 326 b). For if he
call memory an immediate knowledge of the
past—meaning thereby, in reference to it, only
a negation of the doctrine of non-egoistical re-
presentation—he may also call Perception an
immediate knowledge of the outward reality,
and still not deny that it is representative
cognition, in and by the mind itself.
representative faculty, affording premises
of equal cogency to the absolute idealist
and sceptic. On the contrary, he seems
to have overlooked the egoistical form of
representationism altogether (compare
Inq. 106 a, 128 a b, 130 b, 210 a, I. P.
226 a b, 256 a b, 257 a b, 269 a, 274 a,
277 b, 278 a b, 293 b, 299 a, 318 b, 427
a b.); and confounded it either with the
non-egoistical form, or with the counter
doctrine of real presentationism. In con-
sequence of this, he has been betrayed
into sundry errors, of less or greater ac-
count. On the one hand;—to the confu-
sion of Presentationism and Non-egoisti.
cal representationism, we must attribute
the inconsistencies, we have just signalis-
ed, in the exposition of his own doctrine.
These are of principal account. On the
other hand;—to the confusion of Egoisti-
cal and Non-egoistical representationism,
we must refer the less important errors;
—1°, of viewing many philosophers who
held the former doctrine, as holding the
latter; and 2°, of considering the refuta-
tion of the non-egoistical form of repre-
sentation, as a subversion of the only
ground on which the sceptic and absolute
idealist established, or could establish their
conclusions.
N 0 T E D.
DISTINCTION OF THE PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES
OF BODY.
Ś I.—Historically considered.
Ś II.—Critically considered.
[References.—From Inq. 123 a, 205, From I. P. 316 a, 319 a.]
The developed doctrine of Real Pre-
sentationism, the basis of Natural Realism,
asserts the consciousness or immediate
perception of certain essential attributes
of matter objectively existing; while it
admits that other properties of body are
unknown in themselves, and only inferred
as causes to account for certain subjective
affections of which we are cognisant in
ourselves. This discrimination, which to
other systems is contingent, superficial,
extraneous, but to Natural Realism neces-
sary, radical, intrinsic,” coincides with
what, since the time of Locke, has been
generally known as the distinction of the
Qualities of Matter or Body, using these
terms as convertible into Primary and
Secondary.
Of this celebrated analysis, I shall here,
in the first place, attempt an historical sur-
vey ; and in the second, endeavour to place
it on its proper footing by a critical ana-
lysis ; without however in either respect
proposing more than a contribution to-
wards a more full and regular discussion
of it in both.
§ I.—Distinction of the Primary and Se-
condary Qualities of Body considered
Historically. -
In regard to its History—this, as hither-
to attempted, is at once extremely erro-
neous, if History may be called the inci-
dental notices in regard to it of an histori-
cal import, which are occasionally to be
met with in philosophical treatises.—
Among the most important of these, are
those furnished by Reid himself, and by
M. Royer Collard.
The distinction of the real and the ap-
parent, of the absolute and the relative,
or of the objective and the subjective qua-
lities of perceived bodies is of so obtru-
sive a character, that it was taken almost
at the origin of speculation, and can be
shown to have commanded the assent even
of those philosophers by whom it is now
commonly believed to have been again
formally rejected. For in this, as in many
other cases, it will be found that while
philosophers appear to differ, they are, in
reality, at one.
1.—LEUCIPPUs and DEMOCRITUs are
the first on record by whom the observa-
tion was enounced, that the Sweet, the
Bitter, the Cold, the Hot, the Coloured,
&c., are wholly different, in their absolute
nature, from the character in which they
come manifested to us. In the latter
case, these qualities have no real or inde-
pendent existence (ot zoºroº &A49elow.)
The only existence they can pretend to,
is merely one phaenominal in us; and this
in virtue of a law or relation (váºzº), esta-
blished between the existing body and the
826
LNOTE D.
PRIMARY ANL SECONDARY
percipient mind; while all that can be de-
nominated Quality in the external reality,
is only some modification of Quantity,
some particular configuration, position, or
co-arrangement of Atoms, in conjunction
with the Inane. (Aristoteles, Metaph. L.
i. c. 4—Phys. Ausc. L. i. c. 5—De Ani-
ma, L. iii. c. 1–De Sensu et Sensili, c. 4
–De Gen. et Corr. I. i. cc. 2. 7. 8.5–
Theophrastus, De Sensu, $$ 63. 65. 67.
69. 73, ed. Schneid.;-Seaſtw8 Empiricus,
adv. Math. vii. § 135—Hypot. i. § 213;-
Galenus, De Elem. I. i. c. 2.;-Laërtius,
L. ix. seg. 44. ;— Plutarchws, adv. Colot.
p. 1110, ed. Xyl.;—Simplicius, in Phys.
Ausc. ff. 7. 10, 106, 119. ed. Ald. ;—Phi-
loponus, De Gen. et Corr. f. 32. ed. Ald.)
2, 3. —This observation was not lost on
PROTAGoRAs or on PLATO. The former
on this ground endeavoured to establish
the absolute relativity of all human know-
ledge; the latter the absolute relativity of
our sensible perceptions. (Theaetetus,
passim.)
4.—By the CY RENAEAN philosophers the
distinction was likewise adopted and ap-
plied. (Cic. Qu. Acad. iv. c. 24.)
5.—With other doctrines of the older
Atomists it was transplanted into his sys-
tem by EPicurus. (Epist. ad Herod.
apud Laert. L. x. Seg. 54. Lucret, L. ii. v.
729—1021.)
6.—In regard to ARIST otLE, it is re-
quisite to be somewhat more explicit. This
philosopher might seem, at first sight, to
have rejected the distinction (De Anima,
L. iii. c. 1.); and among many others,
Reid has asserted that Aristotle again ig-
mored the discrimination, which had been
thus recognised by his predecessors. (Inq.
123 a, I. P. 313 b.) Nothing, however,
can be more erroneous than the accredited
doctrine upon this point. Aristotle does
not abolish the distinction;–nay, I am
confident of showing, that to whatever
merit modern philosophers may pretend in
this analysis, all and each of their observa-
tions are to be found, clearly stated, in the
writings of the Stagirite.
In the first place, no philosopher has
discriminated with greater, perhaps none
with equal, precision, the difference of cor-
poreal qualities considered objectively and
subjectively. These relations he has not
only contrasted, but has assigned to them
distinctive appellations. In his Categories,
(c. viii. § 10, Pacian division, by which,
as that usually adopted, I uniformly quote,)
speaking of Quality, he says:—‘A third
kind of Quality [Suchness] is made up of
the Affective Qualities and Aff.ctions (ºrce-
thrºux 21 ºrouárnver, ºréén.) Of this class
are Sweetness, Bitterness, Sourness, and
the like, also Heat and Cold, Whiteness
and Blackness, &c.
That these are qua-
lities [suchnesses] is manifest. For the
subjects in which they are received, are
said to be such and such by relation to
them. Thus honey is called sweet, as re-
cipient of Sweetness, body, white, as re-
cipient of whiteness, and so of the rest.
They are called affective [i. e. causing
passion or affection*] not because the
t
* The activo-potential term, ragnºrixás, pri-
marily and properly denotes that which can in
itself suffer or be affected; it is here employed in
a secondary and abusive sense (for arzaza,
is intransitive), but which subsequently be-
came the more prevalent, — to signify that
which can cause suffering or affection in some-
thing else. The counter passivo-potential form,
ºra:4n-6s, is not, Iventure to assert, ever used
by Aristotle, though quoted from him, and
from this very treatise, by all the principal
lexicographers for the last three centuries;
nay, I make further bold to say, there is no
authority for it, (Menander's is naught,) until
long subsequently to the age of the Stagirite.
[The error, I suspect, originated thus:–Tu-
Sanus, in his Lexicon (1552), says, under the
word, “Wide Fabrum Stapulensem apud Aris-
totelem in Pracdicamentis ; ” meaning, it is
probable (for I have not the book at hand), to
send us to Faber’s Introduction to the Cate-
gories, for some observations on the term.
The Lexicon Septemvirale (1563), copying
Tusanus, omits Faber, and simply refers “Aris-
toteli, in Praedicamentis,” as to an authority
for the word; and this error propagated
through Stephanus, Constantine, Scapula, and
subsequent compilers, Stands uncorrected to
the present day.] But this term, even were
it of Aristotelic usage, could not, without vio-
lence, have been twisted to denote, in conjunc-
tion with rouárns, what the philosopher less
equivocally, if less symmetrically, expresses by
orá40s, affection.—Patibilis, like most Latin ver-
bals of its class, indiscriminately renders the
two potentials, active and passive, which the
Greek tongue alone so admirably contradis-
tinguishes. But, in any way, the word is in-
competent to Aristotle's meaning in the senso
of affective. For it only signifies, either that
which can suffer, or that which can be suffered ;
and there is not, I am confident, a single an-
cient authority to be found for it, in the sense
of that which can cause to suffer, the sense to
which it is contorted by the modern Latin
Aristotelians. But they had their excuse—
necessity; for the terms, passivus, used in the
‘Categoriae Decem’ attributed to St Augustine,
and passibilis, employed by Boéthius in his
version of the present passage, are even worse.
The words affective and affection render the
Greek adjective and substantive tolerably well.
This distinction by Aristotle is very com-
monly misunderstood. It is even reversed by
Gassendi; but with him, of course, only from
inadvertence. Phys. Sect. i. Lib. vi. c. 1.
§ 1.]
827
QUALITIES OF BODY.
things to which these qualities belong,
have been themselves affected in any way;
(for it is not because honey, or the like,
has been somehow affected that it is called
Sweet, and in like manner heat and cold
are not called affective qualities because
the bodies in which they inhere have un-
dergone any affection;) but they are called
affective, because each of the foresaid qua-
lities has the power of causing an affection
in the sense. For sweetness determines a
certain affection in tasting, heat in touch-
ing, and in like manner the others.”
Nothing can be juster than this distinc-
tion, and it is only to be regretted that he
should have detracted from the precision
of the language it which it is expressed
by not restricting the correlative terms,
Affective Qualities and Affections, to the
discrimination in question alone. In this
particular observation, it is proper to no-
tice, Aristotle had in view the secondary
qualities of our modern philosophy exclu-
sively. It suffices, however, to show that
no philosopher had a clearer insight into
the contrast of such qualities, as they are,
and as they are perceived; and, were other
proof awanting, it might also of itself ex-
onerate him from any share in the perver-
sion made by the later Peripatetics of his
philosophy, in their doctrine of Substantial
Forms;–a doctrine which, as Reid (I. P.
316) rightly observes, is inconsistent with
the distinction in question as taken by the
Atomic philosophers, but which in truth,
is not less inconsistent with that here es-
tablished by Aristotle himself.” It may
-
• The theory of what are called Substantial
Forms, that is, qualities viewed as entities
conjoined with, and not as mere dispositions or
modifications of, matter, was devised by the
perverse ingenuity of the Arabian philosophers
and physicians. Adopted from them, it was
long a prevalent doctrine in the Western
schools, among the followers of Aristotle and
Galen; to either of whom it is a gross injus-
tice to attribute this opinion. It was the am-
biguity of the word oboriz, by which the Greeks
express what is denoted (to say nothing of
Arabic) by both the Latin terms essentia and
substantia, that allowed of, and principally oc-
casioned, the misinterpretation.
I may, likewise, notice, by the way, that
Aristotle's doctrine of the assimilation, in the
sensitive process, of that which perceives with
that which is perceived, may reasonably be ex-
plained to mean, that the object and subject
are then, so brought into mutual relation, as,
by their coefficient energy, to constitute an
act of cognition one and indivisible, and in
which the reality is to us, as we perceive it to
be. This is a far easier and a far more con-
sistent interpretation of his words, than the
be here likewise observed that Androni-
cus, as quoted by Simplicius (Categ. f. 55
ed. Welsii), explicitly states, that the Affec-
tive Qualities are, in strict propriety, not
qualities but powers (ot zoto: &Ax2 ºrotn-
Tuxº.) Aristotle hilaself, indeed, accords
to these, apart from perception, only a po-
tential existence; and the Peripatetics in
general held them to be, in their lan-
guage not 72%rrizog, formally, subjective-
ly, but Évagyarizag, virtually, eminently, in
the external object. Locke has thus no
title whatever to the honour generally ac-
corded to him of first promulgating the
observation, that the secondary qualities,
as in the object, are not so much qualities
as powers. This observation was, how-
ever, only borrowed by Locke from the
Cartesians. But of this hereafter.
In the second place, Aristotle likewise
notices the ambiguity which arises from
languages not always affording different
terms by which to distinguish the potential
from the actual, and the objective from the
subjective phases, in our perception by the
different senses. Thus, he observes (De
Anima, L. iii. c. 1.) that, ‘Though the ac-
tuality or energy of the object of sense and
of the sense itself be one and indivisible,
the nature, the essence, of the energy is,
however, not the same in each ; as, for ex-
ample, swund in energy, and hearing in
energy. For it may happen, that what
has the power of hearing does not now
hear, and that what has the power of
monstrous doctrine of intentional forms or spe-
cies;–a doctrine founded on one or two vague
or metaphorical expressions, and for which
the general analogy of his philosophy required a
very different meaning. For example, when
Aristotle (De Anima, iii. 1.) in showing that an
objection was incompetent, even on its own
hypothesis, dialectically admits — that what
sees colour is, in a certain sort, itself coloured;’
—is this more than a qualified statement of
what modern philosophers have so often, far
less guardedly, asserted—that colour is not
to be considered merely as an attribute of
body, since, in a certain respect, it is an affec-
tion of mind --And when he immediately sub-
joins the reason, “for each organ of sense is
receptive of its appropriate object,” or, as he
elsewhere expresses it, “receptive of the form
without the matter; ” what is this but to say
—that our organs of sense stand in relation to
certain qualities of body, and that each organ
is susceptible of an affection from its appro-
priate quality; such quality, however, not
being received by the sense in a material efflux
from the object, as was held by Democritus
and many previous philosophers? Yet this is
the principal text on which the common doc-
trine of Intentional Species is attributed to
| Aristotle,
828
[NotE D.
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
sounding does not always sound. But
when what has the faculty of hearing, on
the one hand, operates, and what has the
faculty of sounding, on the other, sounds,
then the actual hearing and the actual
sounding take place conjunctly; and of
these the one may be called Awdition, the
other Sonation ;’—the subjective term,
hearing, and the objective term, sound, as
he afterwards states, being twofold in
meaning, each denoting ambiguously both
the actual and the potential. — ‘The
same analogy,’ he adds, ‘holds good in re-
gard to the other senses and their respec-
tive objects. For as affection and passion
are realized in the patient, and not in the
efficient, so the energy of the object of
sense (2ia&róv), and the energy of the
faculty of sense (ociatºrizów) are both in
the latter;-but whilst in certain of the
senses they have obtained distinct names,
(as Sonation and Audition), in the rest,
the one or the other is left anonymous.
For Vision denotes the energy of the visu-
al faculty, whereas the energy of colour,
its object, is without a name; and while
Gustation expresses the act of what is able
to taste, the act * of that capable of being
tasted is nameless. But seeing that of
the object, and of the faculty, of sense the
energy is one and the same, though their
nature be different, it is necessary, that
hearing and sound, as actual, (and the
same is the case in the other senses), should
subsist and perish together; whereas this
is not necessary, in so far as these are con-
sidered as potentially existing.’
He then goes on to rectify, in its state-
ment, the doctrine of the older physical
philosophers; in whom Philoponus (or Am-
monius) contemplates Protagoras and his
followers, but Simplicius, on better
grounds, the Democriteans. “But the
earlier speculators on nature were not
corfect in saying, that there is nothing
white or black, apart from sight, and no-
thing sapid, apart from taste. This doc-
trine is, in certain respects, right, in cer-
* In English and in most other languages
there are not distinct words to express as well
the objective, as the subjective, coefficient in
the senses, more particularly of Tasting and
Smelling ; and we are therefore obliged ambi-
guously to apply the terms taste and smell
(which are rather subjective in signifreation) in
an objective sense, and the terms savowr, fla-
vowr, &c. (which have perhaps now more of an
objective meaning) in a subjective significa-
tion. In reference to the sense of touch, the
same word is often equivocally used to denote,
objectively, a primary quality, and subjectively,
a Becondary. As hardness, roughness, &c.
tain respects, wrong. For sense, and the
object of sense, having each a twofold sig-
nification, in as much as they may severally
mean either what is potentially, or what is
actually, existent; in the latter case, what
is here asserted, takes place, but not so
in the former. These speculators were
therefore at fault, in stating absolutely
what is only true under conditions.” (De
Anima, iii. c. 1.) -
This criticism, it is evident, so far from
involving a rejection of the distinction
taken by Leucippus and Democritus, is
only an accommodation of it to the form
of his own philosophy; in which the dis-
tinction of the Potential and Actual ob-
tains a great, perhaps an exaggerated im-
portance. And it is sufficiently manifest
that the older philosophers exclusively
contemplated the latter.
But, in the third place, not only did
Aristotle clearly establish the difference
between qualities considered absolutely,
as in the existing object, and qualities
considered relatively, as in the sentient
subject; and not only did he signalize the
ambiguity which arises from the poverty
of language, employing only a single word
to denote these indifferently;-he like-
wise anticipated Descartes, Locke, and
other modern philosophers, in establishing,
and marking out by appropriate terms, a
distinction precisely analogous with that
taken by them of the Primary and Secon-
dary Qualities of Matter. The Aristo-
telic distinction which, in its relation to
the other, has been wholly overlooked, is
found in the discrimination of the Com-
mon and Proper Percepts, Sensibles,
or objects of Sense (ociatºrº zolvº zoºl
fölz.) It is given in the two principal
psychological treatises of the philosopher;
and to the following purport.
Aristotle (De Anima L. ii. c. 2, L. iii. c.
I. and De Sensu et Sensili, c. 1.) enume-
rates five percepts common to all or to a
plurality of the senses, viz, Magnitude
(Eatension), Figure, Motion, Rest, Num-
ber. To these in one place (De Anima
iii. 1.) he adds Unity ; and in another
(De Sensu et Sensili c. 4), he states, as
common, at least to sight and touch, be-
sides Magnitude and Figure, the Rowgh
and the Smooth, the Acute and the Ob-
tuse. Unity however he comprises under
Number; and the Rough and Smooth, the
Acute and Obtuse, under Figure. Nay,
of the five common sensibles or percepts,
he gives us (De Anima iii. 1.) a further
reduction, resolving Figure into Magni-
tude; while both of these, he says, as well
as Rest and Number, are known through
§ 1.]
829
QUALITIES OF BODY."
Motion; which last, as he frequently re-
peats, necessarily involves the notion of
Time; for motion exists only as in Time.
(Compare Phys. Ausc. L. iv. passim.)
His words are—‘All these we perceive by
Motion.* Thus Magnitude (Extension)
is apprehended by motion; wherefore also
Figure, for figure is a kind of magni-
tude; what is at Rest by not being moved;
Number, by a negation of the continuous,f
even in the sensations proper to the se-
veral senses, for each of these is itself per-
cipient of what is one.”—This attempt at
simplification was followed out by his dis-
ciples. Thus St Thomas (Summa Theo-
logiae P. i. Qu. 78, art. 3), in shewing
that the common sensibles do not prima-
* This doctrine of Aristotle is rejected by
Theophrastus, as we learn from the fragments
concerning Sense preserved in the rare and
neglected treatise of Priscianus Lydus, p. 285.
Many modern philosophers when they attempt-
ed to explain the origin of our motion of ex-
tension from motion, and, in particular, the
motion of the hand, were not aware that they
had the Stagirite at their head. It is to be re-
membered, however, that Aristotle does not
attempt, like them, to explain by motion our
necessary concept of space, but merely . our
contingent perception of the relative exten-
Sion of this or that particular object.
This, however, takes it for granted, that by
motion, (ziynous,) Aristotle intends local motion.
But motion is with him a generic term, com-
prising under it four, or six, species; and, in
point of fact, by motion Aristotle may here, as
in many, if not most, other places of his psycho-
logical writings, mean a subjective mutation
(&xxologus) or modification of the percipient.
This, too, is the interpretation given to the
passage by the great majority, if not the whole,
of the ancient expositors—by Plutarchus of
Athens, Ammonius or Philoponus, Simplicius,
and Priscianus Lydus;–Themistius alone is
silent. I say nothing of the sequacious cloud
of modern commentators. It is therefore re-
markable that Dr Trendelenburg, in his late
valuable edition of the De Anima, should have
apparently contemplated the interpretation by
local motion, as the only one proposed or pos-
sible. This may, however, adduce in its fa-
vour the authority of Theophrastus, among the
ancients—among the moderns, of the subtle
, Scaliger.—From both interpretations, how-
ever, a defensible meaning can be elicited.
# This explicitly shews that, by Number,
Aristotle means only the necessary attribu-
tion of cither wmity or plwrality to the object of
sense. Divisibility (in extension, intension,
protension,) is thus contained under Number.
Number in the abstract is, of course, a merely
intellectual concept, as Aristotle, once and
again, notices. See Philoponus on 63 text of
second book De Anima, Sign. i. 8 ed. Trinc.
1535. Of this again under Locke, No. 19 ; and
Royer Collard, No. 25.
rily, and of themselves, act upon and
affect the sense, carries them all up into
modifications of Quantity (Quantitatis);
—and in another book (De Sensu et Sen-
sibili, Lect. ii.) by a variation of the ex-
pression (for in both cases he contem-
plates only the Extended) into species of
the Continuous. To quote the latter:—
* Sensibilia communia omnia pertinent
aliquo modo ad Continuum ; vel secun-
dum mensuram ejus, ut Magnitudo ; vel
Secundum divisionem, ut Numerus ; vel
Secundum terminationem, ut Figura ; vel
Secundum distantiam et propinquitatem,
ut Motus.”
Aristotle indeed (De Anima, L. ii. c. 6.)
virtually admits, that the common are abu-
sively termed sensibles at all: for he says,
‘ the proper alone are accurately, or pre-
eminently, objects of sense” (ro fºuz zvg-
fog ágr. &iatºr&); and the same seems
also to be involved in his doctrine, that
the common precepts (which in one place
he even says are only apprehended per ac-
cidens) are, in fact, within the domain
of sense, merely as being the concomitants
or consequents (c.207,ověoivºrcz, #7 opºvoz) of
the proper.” (Ibid. L. iii. cc. 1, 4.) See
* I have already noticed (p. 124) that Hut.
cheson, in saying that ‘ Extension, Figure,
Motion, and Rest, seem to be more properly
ideas accompanying the sensations of Sight
and Touch than the sensations of either of
these senses” only, mediately or immediately,
repeats Aristotle; to whom is therefore due
all the praise which has been lavished on the
originality and importance of the observation.
[I might have there added, however, that Hut-
cheson does not claim it as his own. For in
his System of Moral Philosophy (which is to
be annexed to the other references) he speaks
of ‘what some call the Comcomitant ideas of
Sensation.” (B. i. c. 1, p. 6) J. Dr Price ex-
tols it as “a very just observation of Hutche-
son.” (Rev. p. 56, ed. 1). Mr Stewart calls it
‘ a remark of singular acuteness,”—“a very in-
genious and original remark,'—and ‘a sentence
which, considering the period at which the
author (Hutcheson) wrote, reflects the highest
honour on his metaphysical acuteness.” (ES-
says pp. 31, 46, 551, 4° ed.) M. Royer Col-
lard says, “ Hutcheson cst le premier des
philosophes modernes qui ait fait cette obscr-
wation aussi fine que juste que,’ &c. (Oeuvres
de Reid, t. iii. p. 431).
I may here observe that Philippson (“YAn
#yágoorſyn p. 335) is misled by an ambiguous
expression of Aristotle in stating that he as-
signed the common sensibles as objects to the
Common Sense. See the Commentaries of Phi-
loponus and of Simplicius on the 134 com-
mon text of third book De Anima. But com-
pare also Alexander in his treatise on the
Soul, first Book, in the chapter on the Com-
mon Sense, f. 134 ed. Ald.
830
ſNotE D.
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
also Alexander On the Soul. (A. ff. 130
b, 134 a b–B. ff. 152, 153, ed. Ald.)
The more modern Schoolmen (followed
sometimes unwittingly by very recent
philosophers) have indeed contended, that
on the principles of Aristotle the several
common sensibles are in reality appre-
hended by other and higher energies than
those of sense. Their argument is as
follows: — Motion cannot be perceived
without the collation of past and present
time, without acts of memory and com—
parison. Rest, says Aristotle, is known
as a privation, but sense is only of the po-
sitive; let it, however, be considered as a
state, and as opposed to motion, still this
supposes comparison. Number in like
manner as a negation, a negation of the
continuous, is beyond the domain of sense;
and while Aristotle in one treatise (Phys.
iv. 14) attributes the faculty of numera-
tion to intelligence; in another (Problem.
sect. 30 $ 5, if this work be his,) he
virtually denies it to sense, in denying it
to the brutes. Magnitude (extension), if
considered as comparative, is likewise
manifestly beyond the province of mere
sense; Aristotle, indeed, admits that its
apprehension, in general, presupposes Mo-
tion. Finally, Figure, as the cognition
of extension terminated in a certain man-
ner, still more manifestly involves an act
of comparison. (Scaliger, De Subtilitate,
Ex. lxvi. and ccxcviii. § 15—Toletus, in
lib. de Anima L. ii. c. 6.—Comimbricences.
ibid.—Irenaeus, De An. p. 40.-Compare
Gassendi, Phys. Sect. iii. Memb. Post. L.
vi. c. 2–Dw Hamel, Philos. Vetus et
Nova, Phys. P. iii. c. 4.—and Royer Col-
lard, in CEuvres de Reid, t. iii. p. 428 sq.
—to be quoted in the sequel, No. 25.
The common sensibles thus came, in
fact, to be considered by many of the
acutest Aristotelians, as not so much per-
ceptions of sense (in so far as sensible per-
ception depends on corporeal affection) as
concomitant cognitions to which the im-
pression on the organ by the proper sen-
sible only afforded the occasion. “Sen-
sibile Commune dicitur (says Compton
Carleton) quod vel percipitur pluribus
sensibus, vel ad quod cognoscendum, ab
intellectu vel imaginatione desumitur oc-
casio ex variis sensibus; ut sunt Figura,
Motus, Ubicatio, Duratio, Magnitudo, Dis-
tantia, Numerus,’ &c. (Philosophia Uni-
versa, De Anima Disp. xvi. Sect 2. § 1.)
But before leaving Aristotle, I should
state, that he himself clearly contemplated,
in his distinction of Common and Proper
Sensibles, a classification correspondent
to that of the Primary and Secondary
|
Qualities of bodies, as established by the
ancient atomists. This is expressly shewn
in a passage wherein he notices that
* Democritus, among others, reduced the
proper sensibles to the common, in explain-
ing, for example, the differences of colour
by differences of roughness and smooth-
ness in bodies, and the varieties of savour
by a variety in the configuration of atoms.”
(De Semsu et Sensili, c. 4.)
Of a division by Aristotle, in a physical
point of view, of the Qualities of body
into Primary and Secondary, I shall
speak in the sequel, when considering
this nomenclature, as adopted, and trans-
ferred to the psychological point of view,
by Locke, No. 19.
7.—GALEN, whose works are now hardly
more deserving of study by the physician
than by the philosopher, affords me some
Scattered observations which merit notice,
not merely in reference to the present
subject. Sensitive perception, he well ob-
serves, consists not in the passive affection.
of the organ, but in the discriminative re-
cognition—the dijudication of that affec-
tion by the active mind. "Eart 33 cigánaig
oùz &AAoiolog, &AA2 bºyvogug &AAouá-
aga.g. This function of diagnostic ap-
prehension he accords to the dominant
principle (ºrd hºspºovuzów,) that is, the
imaginative, recollective and ratiocinative
mind. (De Placit. Hipp. et Plat. L. vii.
cc. 14, 16, 17).”—Again:—‘The objects
in propriety called Sensible, are such as
require for their discriminative recogni-
tion no other faculty but that of sensitive
perception itself; whereas those objects
are improperly called sensible, whose re-
cognition, besides a plurality of the senses,
involves memory and what is called the
compositive and collective (generalising)
reason. [I read avv8.erizº and x8027.2to-
ruzó.] Thus Colour is an object proper
of sense, and Savour and Odour and
Sound; so likewise are Hardness and
Softness, Heat and Cold, and, in a word,
all the Tactile qualities.” Then, after stat-
ing that no concrete object of sense—an
apple for instance—is fully cognisable by
sense alone, but, as Plato has it, by opi-
nion with the aid of sense; and having
well shewn how this frequently becomes a
source of illusion,-in all which he is close-
ly followed by Nemesius, he goes on:—
“But to carry sense into effect in all its
* The annotators of Nemesius have not ob-
served that this philosopher is indebted to
Galen, really and verbally, for the whole of his
remarkable doctrine of sense. See his treal-
tise De Nat. Hom. c. 6–11. ed. Matthiae.
§ I.]
831.
QUALITIES OF BODY.
various applications, is impossible without
the co-operation of memory and connume-
memory, but of the discursive or diamoetic
faculty of thought. (Com. i. in Hipp.
Lib. De Medici Officina, text. 3.)—In
another work we have the same doctrine
applied to solve the question—By what
faculty is Motion apprehended ? and it
affords the result, ‘That all motion is
manifestly recognised, not by a mere act
of sensitive perception, not even by sense
with the aid of memory, but principally
by a compositive act of thought” (q.vx-
Aoylagö). This is a fourth synonyme for
the three other convertible terms which
occur in the previous passage. They are
Platonic. (De Dignoscendis Pulsibus, L.
iii. c. 1.)
8.—A remarkable but neglected pas-
sage relative to the present subject is to
be found in the Saggiatore of GALILEo,
a work first published in 1623. Mamiani
della Rovere is the only philosopher, as
far as I am aware, who has ever alluded to
it. Galileo there precedes Descartes in the
distinction, and anticipates Locke in its
momenclature. The following is an ab-
stract of his doctrine, which coincides
with that of the ancient Atomists, in some
respects, and with that of Kant, in others.
In conceiving matter or corporeal sub-
stance we cannot but think that it is
somehow terminated, and therefore of
such and such a figure; that in relation to
other bodies it is large or small; that it
exists in this or that place; in this or that
time; that it is in motion or at rest; that
it does or does not touch another body;
that it is single or composed of parts;
and these parts either few or many. These
are conditions from which the mind can-
not in thought emancipate the object.
But that it is white or red, bitter or sweet,
sonorous or noiseless, of a grateful or un-
grateful odour; — with such conditions
there is no necessity for conceiving it ac-
companied.* Hence Tastes, Odours, Col-
• But, as Aristotle has observed, we cannot
imagine body without all colour, though we
can imagine it without any one. In like man-
ner where the qualities are mutual contradic-
tories, we cannot positively represent to our-
selves an object without a determination by
one or other of these opposites. Thus we
cannot conceive a body which is not either sapid
or tasteless, either sonorous or noiseless, and
so forth. This observation applies likewise to
the first class.
ours, &c., considered as qualities inherent
in external objects, are merely names;
ration (avvcºgí%zngug), and this, which like-
wise obtains the name of summation (avy-
×eq)2A2iogag, conceiving, thinking under
a class,) is an act neither of sense nor of
they reside exclusively in the sentient
subject. Annihilate the animal perci-
pient of such qualities, and you annihilate
such qualities themselves; and it is only
because we have bestowed on them parti-
cular names different from those by which
we designate the other primary and real
affections of matter (primi e reali acci-
denti), that we are disposed to believe that
the former are in objects truly and really
different from the latter.
Having illustrated this doctrine at con-
siderable length in relation to the senses
of Touch, Taste, Smell, and Hearing ;
and, in imitation of Aristotle, shewn the
analogy which these severally hold to the
elements of Earth, Water, Fire, and Air,
he adds:—‘Ma che ne” corpi esterni per
eccitare in noi i Sapori, gli odori, e i Suomi,
si richiegga altro, que grandezze, figure,
moltitudini, e movimenti tardi o veloci, io
non lo credo. Io stimo, che tolti via gli
orecchi, le lingue, e i nasi, restino bene le
figure, i numeri, e i moti, ma non già gli
odori, né i sapori, né i suoni, li quali fuor
dell’ animal vivente, non credo che sieno
altro che nomi, come appunto altro
che nome non è il solletico, e la titilla-
zione, rimosse l'ascelle, e la pelle intorno
al naso; e come a i quattro sensi consi-
derati hanno relazione i quattro elementi,
cosi credo, che per la vista, senso Sopra
tutti gli altri eminentissimo, abbia rela-
zione la luce, ma non quella proporzione d'
eccellenza, qual’ & tra ‘l finito, e l’infinito,
tra 'l temporaneo, e l’ instantaneo, tra 'l
quanto, e l’indivisible, tra la luce, e le te-
nebre.”
He then applies this doctrine to the
case of Heat and says, “ Ma che oltre alla
figura, moltitudine, moto, penetrazione, e
toccamento, sia mel fuoco altra qualità, e
che questa sia caldo, io non lo credo altri-
menti, estimo, che questosia talmente nos-
tro, che rimosso il corpo animato, e sen-
sitivo, il calore non resti altro che un
semplice vocabolo.’ (Opere, t. ii. p. 340
sq. ed. Padov. 1744.)
9.—DEscARTEs is always adduced as
the philosopher by whom the distinction
in question was principally developed ;
and by whom, if not first established, it
was, at least in modern times, first restor-
ed. In truth, however, Descartes origi-
nated nothing. He left the distinction as
he found it. His only merit is that of sig-
malizing more emphatically than had pre-
viously been done, the different character
of the knowledge we are conscious of in
reference to the two contrasted classes;
832
[NOTE D.
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
although this difference is not, as he thinks,
to be explained by a mere gradation in
the clearness of our perceptions. But
neither of the one nor of the other is his
enumeration of the contents exhaustive;
nor did he bestow distinctive appellations
on the counter classes themselves.—His
• Meditationes’ were first published in
1641, his ‘Principia' in 1644; and in these
works his doctrine upon this matter is
contained.
In the latter, he observes—‘Nos longe
alio modo cognoscere quidnam sit in viso
corpore Magnitudo, yel Figura, yel Mo-
tus, (saltem localis, philosophi enim alios
quosdam motus a locali diversos affingen-
do, naturam ejus sibi minus intelligibilem
reddiderunt,) vel Situs, vel Duratio, vel
Numerus, et similia, quae in corporibus
clare percipijam dictum est; quam quid
in eodem corpore sit Color, vel Dolor, vel
Odor, vel Sapor, vel quid aliud ex iis,
quae ad sensus dixi esse referenda. Quam-
visenim videntes aliquod corpus, non magis
certi simus illud existere, quatenus ap-
paret figuratum, quam quatemus apparet
coloratum ; longe tamen evidentius agnos-
cimus, quid sit in eo esse figuratum, quam
quid sit esse coloratum.” (Princ. i. § 69.)
Of the former class we find enumerated
by a collation of different passages, Mag-
nitude (or Extension in length, breadth,
and thickness), Figure, Locomotion, Posi-
tion, Duration, Number, Substance, and
the like;—all (with the exception of Sub-
stance, which is erroneously and only once
enumerated) corresponding with the Com-
mon Sensibles of the Peripatetics. Of
the latter class, he instances Colours,
Sounds, Odours, Savours, the Tactile qua-
lities * in general, spe:ially enumerating,
as examples, Heat, Cold, Pain, Titillation,
and (N. B.) Hardness, Weight;-all con-
formable to the Proper Sensibles of Aris-
totle.—In the one class we have an idea
of the property, such as it exists, or
may exist, (‘ut sunt, aut Saltem esse pos-
sunt,”) in the external body; in the other,
we have only an obscure and confused
* I am not aware that Descartes, any where,
gives a full and formal list of the Tactile qua-
lities. In his treatise De Homine, under the
special doctrine of Touch (§§. 29, 30) we have
Pain, Titillation, Smoothness, Roughness, Heat,
Cold, Humidity, Dryness, Weight, ‘ and the
like.’ He probably acquiesced in the Aristo-
telic list, the one in general acceptation,--
viz., the Hot and Cold, Dry and Moist, Heavy
and Light, Hard and Soft, Wiscid and Friable,
Rough and Smooth, Thick and Thin. De Gen.
et Corr. ii. 2. +
conception of a something in that body
which occasions the Sensation of which
we are distinctly conscious in ourselves,
but which sensation does not represent to
us aught external—does not afford us a
real knowledge of any thing beyond the
states of the percipient mind itself. (Princ.
P. i. §§, 70, 71. P. iv. §§ 191, 197, 199.
—Medit. iii. p. 22. vi. pp. 43, 47, 48.—
Resp. ad. Med. vi. p. 194, ed. 1658.) Of
these two classes, the attributes included
under the latter, in so far as they are con-
sidered as residing in the objects them-
selves of our sensations, Descartes, like
Democritus and Galileo, held to be only
modifications of those contained under the
former. ‘Exceptis Magnitudine, Figura
et Motu, quae qualia. Sintin unoquoque cor-
pore explicui, nihil extra nos positum sen-
titur nisi Lumen, Color, Odor, Sapor,
Sonus, et Tactiles qualitates; quae nihil
aliud esse in objectis, quam dispositiones
quasalam in Magnitudine, Figura et Motw
consistentes, hactenus est demonstratum.
(Princ. P. iv. § 199.—Med. Resp. vi. p.
194.) This distinction, by their master,
of the two classes of quality, was, as we
shall see, associated by the Cartesians
with another, taken by themselves,--be-
tween Idea and Sensation.
I have previously shewn, that Aristotle
expressly recognises the coincidence of his
own distinction of the proper and com-
mon sensibles with the Democritean dis-
tinction of the apparent and real proper-
ties of body. I have now to state that
Descartes was also manifestly aware of
the conformity of his distinction with
those of Aristotle and Democritus. Suf-
ficient evidence, I think, will be found—of
the former, in the Principia P. iv. §. 200,
and De Homine $.42;-of the latter, in
the Principia P. iv. §. 200–203. All this
enhances the marvel, that the identity of
these famous classifications should have
hitherto been entirely overlooked.
10.-The doctrine of DERo Don—an
acute and independent thinker, who died
in 1664—coincides with that of Aristotle
and his genuine school; it is very dis-
tinctly and correctly expressed. Sen-
sible qualities, he says, may be considered
in two aspects; as they are in the sen-
sible object, and as they are in the sentient
animal. As in the latter, they exist
actually and formally, constituting certain
affections agreeable or disagreeable, in a
word, sensations of such or such a charac-
ter. The feeling of Heat is an example.
As in the former, they exist only virtu-
ally or potentially ; for, correctly speak-
ing, the fire does not contain heat, and is,
§ 1.]
833
QUALITIES OF BODY.
therefore, not hot, but only capable of
heating. ‘Ignis itaque, proprie loquendo,
non habere calorem, atque adeo non esse
calidum sed calorificum ; * nisi vocaba-
lum caloris Sumatur pro virtute produ-
cendi calorem in animali. Sed philosophi
(he refers to the scholastic Aristotelians
with their substantial Forms, and Inten-
tional Species, though among them were
exceptions)—sed philosophi sunt prorsus
inexcusabiles, qui volunt calorem, sump-
tum pro virtute calefaciendi, quae est in
igne, aut potius identificatur cum ipso
igne, et calorem productum in animali,
esse ejusdem speciei, naturae et essentiae;
nam calor moderatus productus in ani-
mali consistit in aliqua passione et quasi
titillatione grata quae sentitur ab animali,
quae passio non potest esse in igne.’ And
so forth in regard to the other senses.
(Philos. Contr. Phys. p. 199.)
11.-I may adduce to the same purport
GLANVILLE, who, in his ‘Vanity of Dogma-
tizing” (1661 p. 88 sq.), and in his ‘Scepsis
Scientifica’ (1665 p. 65 sq.), though a
professed, and not overscrupulous anta-
gonist of Aristotle, acknowledges, in re-
ference to the present question, that ‘ the
Peripatetic philosophy teaches us, that
. Heat is not in the body of the sun, as
formally considered, but only virtually,
and as in its cause.” I do not know
whether Glanville had Aquinas specially
in view ; but the same general statement
and particular example are to be found in
the Summa contra Gentes, L. i. cc. 29,
31, of the Angelic Doctor.
12.-It is remarkable that MR Boy LE’s
speculations in regard to the classifica-
tion of corporeal Qualities should have
been wholly overlooked in reference to
the present subject; and this not only on
account of their intrinsic importance, but
because they probably suggested to Locke
the nomenclature which he has adopted,
but, in adopting, has deformed.
In his treatise entitled ‘The origin of
Forms and Qualities,’ published at Oxford
in 1666, Boyle denominates ‘Matter and
Motion * * the most Catholic Principles of
bodies.” (P. 8.) ‘Magnitude (Size,
Bulk, or Bigness), Shape (Figure), Mo-
tion or Rest,’ to which he afterwards
adds “Texture,” he styles ‘the Primitive
* The chemists have called Caloric what
they ought to have called Calorific. Tho La-
voiserian nomenclature, whatever it merits in
other respects, is a system of philological
monstrositics, in which it is fortunate when
the analogies of language aro only violated,
and not reversed.
Moods or Primary Affections of bodies, to
distinguish them from those less simple
Qualities (as Colours, Tastes, Odours, and
the like) that belong to bodies upon their
account,” (p. 10). The former of these,
he likewise designates ‘the Primitive or
more Catholic Affections of Matter,” (pp.
43, 44); and in another work, (Tracts
1671, p. 18), ‘the Primary and most
Simple Affections of Matter.” To the lat-
ter he gives the name of ‘Secondary Qua-
lities, if (he says) I may so call them,”
(p. 44).
In reference to the difficulty, “That
whereas we explicate colours, odours, and
the like sensible qualities, by a relation to
our senses, it seems evident that they have
an absolute being irrelative to us; for snow
(for instance) would be white, and a
glowing coal would be hot, though there
were no man or any other animal in the
world,” (p. 42). And again (p. 49) :-
“So if there were no sensitive Beings,
those bodies that are now the objects of
our senses, would be so dispositively, if I
may so speak, endowed with Colours,
Tastes, and the like, but actually only
with those more catholic affections of
bodies, Figure, Motion, Texture, &c.” Is
this intended for an Aristotelic qualifica-
tion of the Democritean paradox of Ga-
lileo 7
In his ‘Tracts, published at Oxford
1671—in that entitled ‘History of parti-
cular Qualities,” he says;– I shall not in-
quire into the several significations of the
word Quality, which is used in such va-
rious senses, as to make it ambiguous
enough. But thus much I think it not
amiss to intimate, that there are some
things that have been looked upon as Qua-
lities, which ought rather to be looked on
as States of Matter or complexions of
particular Qualities; as animal, inanimal,
&c., Health, Beauty. And there are some
other attributes — namely, Size, Shape,
Motion, Rest, that are wont to be reckoned
among Qualities, which may more con-
veniently be esteemed the Primary Modes
of the parts of Matter, since from these
Simple Attributes or Primordial Affections,
all the Qualities are derived,” (p. 3). This
is accurate; and it is to be regretted that
Locke did not profit by the caution.
13.—DE LA For GE, whose able trea-
tise ‘De l’Esprit de l’Homme ' was first
published in 1666, contributes little of
importance to the observation of Des-
cartes, of whose psychology he there ex-
hibits a systematic view. To the ideas of
the primary attributes, enumerated by
Descartes, he inconsistently adds those of
3 G
834
[Notr, D.
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
Solidity and Fluidity; and among the se-
oondary he mentions the sensations of
the Dry and the Humid, (ch. 10). In
shewing that our sensations of the secon-
dary qualities afford us no knowledge of
what these are, as in the external object;
and in explanation of the theories of Aris-
totle and Descartes, he says;– Mais Sans
examiner ici lequel a le mieux remcontré,
je ne pense pas qu'aucun des sectateurs
de l'um ni de l'autre fassent difficulté
d’avoiler que le Sentiment qu’ excitent en
lui les corps chauds ou froids, et l'Idée
qu’il en a ne lui représenterien de tout
cela.” He thus correctly places the Aris-
totelians and Cartesians on a level, in ad-
mitting that both equally confess ... our
ignorance of what the secondary qualities
are in themselves, -an ignorance which is
commonly regarded as a notable disco-
very of Descartes alone.
14.—GEULINX, a Cartesian not Hess
distinguished than De la Forge, and who
with him first explicitly proclaimed the
doctrine of Occasional Causes, died in
1669; but his “ Annotata' and ‘Dictata
on the ‘Principia' of Descartes were only
published in 1690, and 1691. In these
works, like most other Cartesians, he
uses the term Idea, in reference to body,
exclusively to denote the representations
of its primary qualities; but he adopts the
scholastic term Species, instead of Sensatio
(sensation, sentiment) as employed by
them, to express our consciousness of the
secondary. (Species, De la Forge had
made a better use of, in relieving an am–
biguity in the philosophical language of
Descartes, who had sometimes abusively
usurped the word idea for the organic
motion in the -brain, to which the idea
proper—the intellectual representation in
the mind itself was by the law of union
attached.) Geulinx is the Cartesian who,
from the occasional paradox of his ex-
pression, has afforded the most valid foun-
dation for the charge so frequently, but
so erroneously, preferred against the sect,
of denying all objective reality to the se-
condary qualities of matter.
15.—RoPIAULT, another illustrious Car-
tesian whose ‘ Physique,” was first pub-
lished in 1671, (and which continued until
about the middle of last century to be
a College text-book of philosophy in the
University of Newton) may be adduced in
disproof of this accusation—an accusa-
tion which will be further refuted in the
sequel by the testimonies of Malebranche
and Sylvain Regis.--Speaking of Heat
and Cold, he says, -‘ Ces deux mots ont
chacun deux significations. Car, première-
iment, par la Chaleur et par la Froideur
on entend deux sentimens particuliers qui
sont en mous, et qui resemblent en quelque
façon à ceux qu' on nomme douleur et
chatouillement, tels que les sentimens qu’
on a quand on approche du feu, ou quand
on touche de la glace. Secondement, par
la Chaleur et par la Froideur on entend le
powvoir que certains corps ont de causer
en nous ces deux sentimens dont je viens
de parler.” He employs likewise the same
distinction in treating of Savours (ch.
24)—of Odours (ch. 25)—of Sound (ch.
26)—of Light and Colours (ch. 27.)
16.—DUHAMEL.-I quote the following
passage without the comment, which some
of its statements might invite, from the
treatise ‘De Corpore Animato,’ 1673, of
this learned and ingenious philosopher.
It contains the most explicit (though still
a very inadequate) recognition of the
merits of Aristotle, in reference to our
present subject, with which I am ac-
quainted.—‘Quoeirca, ut id, quod sentio,
paucis aperiam. Corpus omne sensibile
vim habet in se, qua sensum moveat; sed
forma ipsa, qua percipimus, vel est motus,
vel effluvium, vel quidam substantiae mo-
dus, quem possumus qualitatem appellare.
Nec sensibile solius qualitatis praedicamen-
to continetur, sed per omnia fere vagatur
genera. Corporum enim Figurae, Di-
mensiones, Motus, et variae Positiones
sensum impellunt. Itaque Humor Sicci-
tas, Durities, Figura, atque alii modi,
tales sunt, quales a nobis percipiuntur.
Rotunditas enim circuli, vel terrae siccitas
a sensuum cognitione non pendet. Idem
fortassis erit de Colore, Luce, atque aliis
activis qualitatibus judicium. Sonus vero
nihil est quam percussio organi ex motione
aëris, aut conflictu corporum orta. Sapor
item et Odor positi sunt in sola sensus
impressione. Tolle animalia, nullus erit
Sapor, Ilullus odor. Quanquam, ut mihi
videtur, rem totam optime disting wit Aris-
toteles, cum Patibilem Qualitatem vocat id
quod in objecto est sensibili, Passionem?
vero eandem vocat qualitatem, wit a nobis
percipitur.” (Lib. i. c. 3, § 11.)
17.—In the following year (1674) was
first published the celebrated ‘Recherche
de la Verité of MALE BRANCHE. The
admissions already quoted of his imme-
diate predecessor might have guarded
him, at least on the point under conside-
ration, from the signal injustice of his at-
tack on Aristotle, the philosophers, and
mankind in general, as confounding our
Swbjective sensations with the objective qua-
lities of matten: ; and it is only by a not
unmerited retribution, that he likewise
§ 1.]
835
QUALITIES OF BODY.
has been made the object of a counter ac-
cusation, equally unfounded, by authori-
ties hardly inferior to himself. Buffier,”
Reid,+ Royer Collard, f and many beside,
reproach Descartes, Malebranche, Locke,
and others, with advancing it, without
qualification, as a new and an important
truth, that the sensible or secondary quali-
ties have no easistence in eaternal objects,
their only easistence being as modes of the
percipient mind. The charge by Male-
branche in the following passage, has been
already annihilated, through what has been
previously adduced; and the passage itself
sufficiently disproves the charge against
Malebranche.—‘ As regards the terms ex-
pressive of Sensible ideas, there is hardly
any one who recognises that they are
equivocal. On this Aristotle and the
ancient philosophers have not even be-
stowed a thought. [!] What I state will
be admitted by all who will turn to any
of their works, and who are distinctly
cognisant of the reason why these terms
are equivocal. For there is nothing more
evident, than that philosophers have be-
lieved on this subject quite the contrary
of what they ought to have believed. [!!]
* For example, when the philosophers
say that fire is hot, the grass green, the
sugar sweet, &c., they mean, as children
and the vulgar do, that the fire contains
what they feel when they warm themselves;
that the grass has on it the colours which
they believe to be there; that the Sugar
contains the sweetness which they taste in
eating it; and thus of all the objects of the
different senses. It is impossible to doubt
of it in reading their writings. They
speak of sensible qualities as of Sensations;
they mistake motions for heat; and they
thus confound, by reason of the ambiguity
of these terms, the modes in which bodies
with the modes in which minds, exist. [!!!]
* It is only since the time of Descartes
that those confused and indeterminate
questions whether fire be hot, grass green,
sugar sweet, &c., have been answered by
distinguishing the ambiguity of the terms
in which they are expressed. If by heat,
colour, savour, you understand such or
such a motion of the insensible parts, then
fire is hot, grass green, and sugar Sweet.
But iſ by heat and the other sensible qua-
lities, you mean what I feel when near the
* Logique, § 222. Cours, p. 819.
P. lºl a, second paragraph, from which
there should have been a reference to the pre-
Sent Note. -
# CEuvres de Reid, t. iii. pp. 386, 447.
fire, what I see when I look at the grass,
&c., in that case the fire is not hot, nor
the grass green, &c.; for the heat I feel
and the colour I see are only in the soul.”
(Recherche, Liv. vi. P. ii. c. 2.)
Malebranche contributed to a more pre-
cise discrimination between the objective
or primary, and the subjective or secon-
dary qualities, by restricting the term Idea
to the former, and the term Sensation to
the latter. For though the other Carte-
sians soon distinguished, more accurately
than Descartes himself, Idea from Sensa-
tion, and coincided with Malebranche, in
their application of the second; yet in al-
lowing Ideas of the modes, both of eaten-
Sion and of thought, they did not so pre-
cisely oppose it to Sensation as Male-
branche, who only allowed ideas of eaten-
sion and its modes. (See Recherche, L.
iii. P. ii. cc. 6, 7, and relative Eclaircisse-
ment.) It has not, I believe, been ob-
served that Locke and Leibnitz, in their
counter criticisms of Malebranche's theory,
have both marvellously overlooked this
his peculiar distinction, and its bearing on
his scheme; and the former has moreover,
in consequence of neglecting the Cartesian
opposition of Idea and Sensation altoge-
ther, been guilty of an egregious mutatio
elemchi in his strictures on the Cartesian
doctrine of Extension, as the essential
attribute of body. (Essay, B. ii. c. 13.
§ 25.
18.—The ‘Système de Philosophie’ of
the celebrated Cartesian SYLVAIN REGIs
appeared in 1690. The following, among
other passages of a similar import, deserve
quotation from the precision with which
the whole ambiguity of the terms expres-
sive of the secondary qualities in their sub-
jective and objective relations, is explain-
ed and rectified.
‘It is evident that savours, taken for-
mally, are nothing else than certain sen-
sations (sentimens) or certain perceptions.
of the soul, which are in the soul itself;
and that savours, taken for the physical
cause of formal savours, consist in the par-
ticles themselves of the savoury bodies,
which according as they differ in size, in
figure, and in motion, diversely affect the
nerves of the tongue, and thereby cause
the sensation of different savours in the
soul in virtue of its union with the body.”
This doctrine, as the author admits, is
conformable to that of Aristotle, though
not to that of his scholastic followers,
‘who maintain that savour in the savoury
body is something similar to the schsation
which we have of it.” (Phys. L. viii. P. ii.
ch. 4.) -
636
[Norr, ra
PRIMARY AN13 SECON DARY
The same, mutatis mutandis, is repeated
in regard to Odours (ch. 5), and to Sounds
(ch. 7); and so far, the distinction with
its expression of formal as opposed to vir-
tual is wholly borrowed from the Aristo-
telians.
But a more minute analysis and nomen-
clature are given in regard to Light and
to Colour. -
• The word Light is not less equivocal,
than those of Savour, Smell, and Sound;
for it is employed sometimes to express
the peculiar sensation which the soul Fe-
ceives from the impression made by lumi-
nous bodies on the eye, and sometimes to
denote what there is in those bodies by
which they cause in the soul this peculiar
sensation.
* Moreover, as luminous bodies are not
applied immediately to the eye, and as they
act by the intervention of certain interme-
diate bodies, as air, water, glass, &c., what-
soever that may be which they impress on
these media is also called Light, but light Se-
condary and Derived, to distinguishit from
that which is in the luminous body, which
last is styled Primitive or Radical Light.”
(ch. 9.)
* We call the Sensation of Colour, For-
mal colour; the quality in bodies causing
this Sensation, Radical colour; and what
these bodies impress on the medium, Dé-
rivative colour.” (ch. 17.)
But this acute subdivision of objective
Light and Colour into primitive or radi-
cal, and into secondary or derivative, is not
original with Regis, nor indeed with any
Cartesian at all. It is evidently borrowed
from the following passage of Gassendi:—
“Illumen, ut Simplicius ait, est quasi bac-
ulus qui uno sui extremo a sole motus, alio
extremo oculum moveat: sicque motio in
ipso sole (non movit quippe nisimoveatur)
est ipsa radicalis et quasi fontana lux;—
motio vero perspicui per omnia spatia a
sole ad terram extensa, est lux diffusa de-
rivataque ;—et motio in oculo est percep-
tio conspectiowe ipsius lucis.’ (Animadv.
in x. lib. Diog. Laertii. p. 851.) Though
apparently the whole sentence is here
given as a quotation from Simplicius (or,
as I suspect, Priscianus) in his commen-
tary on the De Anima of Aristotle; the
comparison of the staff (or more correctly.
of the lever) is alone his; and there-
fore the merit of the distinction in ques-
tion would belong to Gassendi, were it
not that the term radical was an ex-
pression common in the Schools as a syno-
nyme of fundamental, and as opposed to
actual or formal. The distinction is thus
sabotantially Aristotelian. -
19.—The Essay of Lock E on the Hu-
man Understanding was published in the
same year with the Système de Philoso-
phie of Regis, in 1690. His doctrine in
regard to the attributes of bodies, in so
far as these have power to produce sensa-
tions, or perceptions, or simple ideas in
us, contains absolutely nothing new ; and
it is only in consequence of the prevalent
ignorance in regard to the relative obser-
vations of previous philosophers, that sº
much importance has been attached to
Loeke's speculations on this matter. The
distinction is, however, far more correctly
given by him than by many of those who
Subsequently employed it.
Neglecting what Locke calls qualities
mediately perceivable, but which lie alto-
gether beyond the sphere of sense, being
in reality powers, which, from the phae-
nomena manifested in certain bodies, we
infer to exist in other bodies of producing
these phaenomena as their effects—ne-
glecting these, the following is an abstract
of the doctrine given, at great length, and
with much repetition, in the eighth chapter
of the second book of the Essay.
a.—Locke discriminates the attributes
of sensible objects into the same two classes
which had been established by all his pre-
decessors.
b.—To the one of these he gives the
name of Primary, to the other that of Se-
condary, Qualities; * calling likewise the
former Real or Original, the latter Im-
puted, Qualities.
Remark. — In this nomenclature, of
which Locke is universally regarded as
the author, there is nothing mew. Pri-
mary or Original and Secondary or De-
rived Qualities had been terms applied by
Aristotle and the Peripatetics to mark a
distinction in the attributes of matter;--a
distinction, however, not analogous to that
of Locke, for Aristotle's Primary and Se-
condary qualities are exclusive of Locke's
Primary.j But Galileo had bestowed the
* The term Quality ought to have been re-
stricted to the attributes of the second class;
for these are the properties of body as such or
such body, (corporis ut tale corpus), whereas
the others are the properties of body as body,
(corporis ut corpus); a propriety of language
which pocke was among the first to violate.
# Corporeal qualities, in a physical point of
view, were according to Aristotle, (De Gen.
et Corr. L. ii. and Meteor. L. iv.)—and the
distinction became one classical in the Schools,
—divided into Primary and Secondary 3 the
former being original, the latter, derived.
The Primary are four in number, and all tac-
tile,_Hot and Cold, Humid (Liquid) and Dry;
§ 1.]
837
QUALITIES OF BODY.
mames of Primary or Real on the same
class of attributes with Locke, leaving, of
course, the correlative appellations of Se-
condary, Intentional, Ideal, &c. to be given
to the other; while Boyle had even anti-
cipated him in formally imposing the
names of Primary and Secondary on the
counter classes. It is indeed wholly im-
possible to doubt, from many remarkable
coincidences of thought and expression,
that Locke had at least the relative trea-
tises of his countryman, friend and cor-
respondent under his eye; and it is far
more probable, that by Boyle, than by
either Aristotle or Galileo, were the names
suggested, under which Locke has had the
honour of baptising this classical distinc-
tion.
c.—To the first class belong Extension
(or Bulk), Solidity (or Impenetrability),
Figure, Motion and Rest (or Mobility),
Number; * and to these five (or six) which
he once and again formally enumerates, he
afterwards, without compaent, throws in
Situation and Texture.
and are subdivided into two classes,—the two
former being active, the two latter, passive.
The Secondary are either less, or more, pro-
perly secondary.—The former are common to
elementary and to mixed bodies ; and are all
j different phases.
potentially objects of touch. Of these Aristotle
enumerates fourteen,-the Heavy and Light,
the Dense and Rare, the Thick and Thin,
(Concrescent and Fluid), the Hard and Soft. .
the Wiscid and Friable, the Rough and Smooth,
the Tenacious and Slippery.—The latter are
Colour, Savour, Odour, [to which ought to be
added Sound], the potential objects of the
senses cf Sight, Taste, Smell, [and Hearing.]
This whole distinction of Qualities Primary
and Secondary, is exclusive of Locke’s class
of Primary. To these, Aristotle would not in-
deed have applied the term Quality at all.
Cicero also may have given the hint.—‘ Qua-
litatum aliae principes (vel primae,) aliae exiis
ortae,’ &c. The former are the corporeal ele-
ments, the latter the bodies constituted by
them. (Acad. i. 7.)
* Locke borrowed Number (i. e. Unity or
Plurality) from the Cartesians,—Descartes, from
Aristotle. It corresponds in a sort with Divi-
sibility, for which it has latterly been ex-
changed. See Nos. 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25.
Locke is not therefore primarily liable to Mr
Stowart’s censure for the introduction of Num-
ber among the Primary Qualities, were that
censure in itself correct. Dut it is not ; for
Mr Stewart (with M. Royer Collard, No 25)
laas misapprehended the import of the ex-
pression. (Essays p. 95.4° ed.) For Number
is not used only for the measure of discrete
quantity, but likewise for the continuation:
(unity) or discontinuation (plurality) of a per-
cept. The former is an abstract notion ; the
latter is a recognition through sense. See
above p. 829 a, note # and Note D. * $ i.
Remark.--In all this there is nothing
original. To take the last first:—Situa-
tion (relative Position or Ubication) was
one of the Common Sensibles current in
the Schools. Texture is by Boyle, in like
manner, incidentally enumerated, though
neither formally recognised as a co-ordi-
nate quality, nor noticed as reducible to
any other. Solidity or Impenetrability is,
to go no higher, borrowed from Gassendi;
i>e la forge's Solidity is only the contrast
of Fluidity. But Solidity and Exten-
sion ought not thus to be centra-distin-
guished, being attributes of body only, as
constituting its one total property—that
of occupying space.f. The other attributes
# The term Solidity (ºr a rºsév, solidum), as
denoting an attribute of body, is a word of wa-
rious significations; and the non-determina-
tion and non-distinction of these have given
rise to manifold error and confusion.
First Meaning.—In its most unexclusive sig-
nification the Solid is that which fills or occupies
| space, (ºr £ºrážov rázov.) In this meaning it
| is simply convertible with Body; and is op-
posed, lº, to the unextended in all or in any
of the three dimensions of space, and 2° to
more extension or empty space itself. This
We may call Solidity, simply.
But the filling of space may be viewed in
The conditions it involves,
though all equally essential and inseparable, as
all involving each other, may, however, in
thought, be considered apart; from different
points of view the one or the other may even
be regarded as the primary ; and to these parts
or partial aspects, the name of the unexclusive
whole may be conceded. The occupation of
space supposes two necessary conditions;–
and each of these has obtained the common
name of Solidity, thus constituting a second
and a third meaning.
Second Meaning.—What is conceived, as oc-
cupying space, is necessarily conceived as
cetended in the three dimensions of space (tº reuxi
3tocorra rév.) This is the phasis of Solidity
which the Geometer exclusively contemplates.
Trinal extension has accordingly, by mathema-
ticians, been emphatically called the Solid;
and this first partial Solidity we may therefore
distinguish as the Mathematical, or rather, the
Geognetºrical.
Third Meaning.—On the other hand, what is
conceived as occupying space, is necessarily
conceived as what cannot be climinated from
space. But this supposes a powcr of resisting
such elimination. This is the phasis of solidity
considered exclusively from the physical point
of view. Accordingly, by the men of natural
science the impossibility of compressing a
body from an extended to an unextended has
been emphatically styled Solidity; and this se-
cond partial solidity we may therefore distin-
guish as the Physical. The resisting force
here involved has been called the Impenetra-
bility of matter; but most improperly and most
838
[NOTE D.
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
are those of Aristotle, Descartes, and the
philosophers in general;-their legitimacy
will be considered in the sequel.
d.—The principle which constitutes the
ambiguously. It might more appropriately be
termed its Ultimate or Absolute Incompressibility.
In each of these its two partial significations,
Solidity denotes an essential attribute of body;
and which so ever of these attributes be sisted as
the prior, the other follows, as a necessary con-
sequent. In regard to their priority, opinions
are divided. Precedence is accorded to trinal
eatension by Descartes, at the head of one body
of philosophers; to impenetrability by Leibnitz,
at the head of another. Both parties are right;
and both are wrong. Each is right as looking
from its peculiar point of view ; each is wrong,
in not considering that its peculiar, is only a
partial, point of view, and neither the one sole,
nor even the one absolutely preferable.—From
the psychological point of view, Descartes is
triumphant ; for extension is first in the
order of thought.—From the physical point of
view, Leibnitz is victorious; for impenetrabi-
lity is the more distinctive attribute of body.
The two properties, the two points of view,
ought not, in truth, to be disjoined; and the
definitions of body by the ancients are, as least
exclusive, still the most philosophical that have
been given;–73 #zážov rázoy, and r3 reuzà
312a-a-row £cer' &yºu'rvºrizs, and 3)xos ày'riºrvºros
§orov #4, #2vºró.
Locke is therefore wrong, really and ver-
bally.—Really he is wrong, in distinguishing
trimal extension and impenetrability (or ulti-
mate incompressibility) as two primary and
separate attributes, instead of regarding them
only as one-sided aspects of the same primary
and total attribute—the occupying of space.
Each supposes the other. The motion of a
thing trinally extended, eo ipso, excludes the
negation of such extension. It therefore includes
the negation of that negation. But this is just
the assertion of its ultimate incompressibility.
Again, the motion of a thing as ultimatcly in-
compressible, is only possible under the notion
of its trinal extension. For body being, ex
hypothesi, conceived or conceivable only as
that which occupies space; the final compres-
sion of it into what occupies no space goes to
reduce it, either from an entity to a non-entity,
or from an eactended to an atmeatended entity.
But neither alternative can be realised in
thought. Not the former; for annihilation, not
as a mere change in an effect, not as a mere
resumption of creative power in a cause, but
as a taking out from the sum total of existence,
is positively and in itself incogitable.
latter; for the conception of matter, as an
unextended entity, is both in itself inconceiv-
able, and ex hypothesi absurd. — Verbally,
Locke is wrong, in bestowing the name of so-
lidity, without a qualification, exclusively on
the latter of these two phases; each being
equally entitled to it with the other, and neither'
so well entitled to it, without a difference, as
the total attribute of which they are the par-
tial expressions.—But these inaccuracies of
Locke are not so important as the errors of
Not the
preceding qualities into a separate class, is
that the mind finds it impossible to think
any particle of matter, as divested of such
attributes.
subsequent philosophers, to which, however,
they seem to have afforded the occasion. For
under the term Solidity, and on the authority of
Locke, there have been introduced as primary,
certain qualities of body to which in common
language the epithet Solid is applied, but
which have no title whatever to the rank in
question. Against this abuse, it must be ac-
knowledged, Locke not only guarded himself,
but even, to a certain extent, cautioned others;
for he articulately states, that Solidity, in his
sense, is not to be confounded with Hardness.
(B. ii. c. 4 $4.) It must, however, also be con-
fessed, that in other passages he seems to iden-
tify Solidity and Cohesion; while on Solidity
he, at the same time, makes ‘the mutual im-
pulse, resistance and protrusion of bodies to
depend.” (Ibid. § 5.) But I am anticipating.
In a psychological point of view—and this is
that of Locke and metaphysicians in general—
no attribute of body is primary which is not
necessary in thought ; that is, which is not
necessarily evolved out of, as necessarily in-
plied in, the very notion of body. And such is
Solidity, in the one total and the two partial
significations heretofore enumerated. But in
its physical application, this term is not always
limited to denote the ultimate incompressi-
bility of matter. Besides that necessary at-
tribute, it is extended, in common language, to
express other powers of resistance in bodies,
of a character merely contingent in reference
to thought. (See § ii.) These imay be re-
duced to the five following :-
Towrth Meaning.—The term Solid is very
commonly employed to denote not merely the
absolutely, but also the relatively, incompres-
sible, the Dense, in contrast to the relatively
compressible, the Rare, or Hollow.—(In Latin
moreover, Solidws was not only employed, in
this sense, to denote that a thing fully oc-
cupied the space comprehended within its
circumference; but likewise to indicate, 19 its
entiremess in quantity—that it was whole or
complete ; and, 2°, its entireness in quality—
that it was pure, uniform, bomogeneous. This
arose from the original identity of the Latin
Solidwm with the Oscan sollwm or solum, and
the Greek Šxov. See Festus or Verrius Flac-
cus, vv. Solitawrilia and Sollo; also J. C. Sca-
liger, De Subtilitate, ex. 76.)
Fifth Meaning. — Under the Vis Inertiae. a
body is said to be Solid, i c. Inert, Stable, Im-
moveable, in proportion as it, whether in mo-
tion or at rest, resists, in general, a removal
from the place it would otherwise occupy in
Space.
Sixth Meaning.—Under Gravity, a body is said
to be Solid, i.e. Heavy, in proportion as it resists,
in particular, a displacement by being lifted up.
The two following meanings fall under Co-
hesion, the force with which matter resists the
distraction of its parts; for a body is said in a
Scventh Meaning, to be Solid, i.e. Hard, in
contrast to Soft ; and in an—
§ 1.]
839
QUALITIES OF BODY.
Remark.—In this criterion Locke was
preceded by Galileo.
from the secondary qualities. For, as al-
ready noticed, of two contradictory qua-
lities, one or other must, on the logical
principle of excluded middle, be attributed
to every object. Thus, odorous or inodo-
rous, sapid or tasteless, &c., though not
primary qualities, cannot both be abstract-
ed in thought from any material object;
and, to take a stronger example, colour,
which, psychologically speaking, contains
within itself such contradictions (for light
and darkness, white and black, are, in this
relation, all equally colours) is thus a me-
cessary concomitant of every perception,
and even every imagination, of extended
substance ; as has been observed by the
Pythagoreans, Aristotle, Themistius, and
many others.
e.—These attributes really exist in the
objects, as they are ideally represented to
our minds. -
Remark.—In this statement Locke fol-
lowed Descartes; but without the impor-
tant qualification, necessary to its accu-
racy, under which Descartes advances it.
On the doctrine of both philosophers, we
know nothing of material existence in it-
self; we know it only as represented or in
idea. When Locke, therefore, is asked,
how he became aware that the known idea
truly represents the unknown reality; he
can make no answer. On the first prin-
ciples of his philosophy, he is wholly and
necessarily ignorant, whether the idea
does, or does not, represent to his mind
the attributes of matter, as they exist in
nature. His assertion is, therefore, con-
fessedly without a warrant; it transcends,
ex hypothesi, the sphere of possible know-
Eighth Meaning, to be Solid, i.e. Concrete, in
opposition to Fluid. -
The term Solidity thus denotes besides the
absolute and necessary property of occupying
space, simply and in its two phases of Exten-
sion and Impenetrability, also the relative and
contingent qualities of the Dense, the Inert,
the Heavy, the Hard, the Concrete; and the
introduction of these latter, with their corre-
Jative opposites, into the list of Primary Qua-
lities was facilitated, if not prepared, by Locke's
vacillating employment of the vague expres-
sion Solid; in partial designation of the for-
mer. By Kames, accordingly, Gravity and
Incrtia were elevated to this rank; while Co-
hesion, in its various modifications and de-
grees, was, by Kames, Reid, Fergusson, Stewart,
Royer Collard, and many others, not only re-
cognized as Primary, but expressly so recog-
nized as in conformity with the doctrine of
Ilocke. Seo the sequel of this Š, and $.ii.
But it does not,
alone, suffice to discriminate the primary
ledge. Descartes is more cautious. He
only says, that our ideas of the qualities in
question represent those qualities as they
are, or as they may exist;-‘ut sunt, vel
saltem esse possunt.” The Cosmothetic
Idealist can only assert to them a proble-
matical reality.
f—To the second class belong those
qualities which, as in objects themselves,
are nothing but various occult modifica-
tions of the qualities of the former class;
these modifications possessing, however,
the power of determining certain manifest
Sensations or ideas in us. Such for exam-
ple are colours, Sounds, tastes, smells, &c.,
—all, in a word, commonly known by the
name of Sensible Qualities. These qua.
lities, as in the reality, are properly only
powers; powers to produce certain sensa-
tions in us. As in w8, they are only sensa-
tions, and cannot, therefore, be considered
as attributes of external things.
Remark. — All this had, long before
Locke, become mere philosophical com-
monplace. With the exception of the
dogmatical assertion of the hypothetical
fact, that the subjective sensations of the
secondary, depend exclusively on the ob-
jective modifications of the primary, qua-
lities, this whole doctrine is maintained by
Aristotle; while that hypothetical asser
tion itself had been advanced by the an-
cient Atomists and their followers the
Epicureans, by Galileo, by Descartes and
his school, by Boyle, and by modern philo-
sophers in general. That the secondary
qualities, as in objects, are only powers of
producing sensations in us—this, as wo
have seen, had been explicitly stated, after
Aristotle, by almost every theorist on the
subject. But it was probably borrowed
by Locke from the Cartesians.
It is not to be forgotten, that Locke did
not observe the propriety of language in-
troduced by the Cartesians, of employing
the term Idea, in relation to the primary,
the term Sensation, in relation to the se–
condary, qualities. Indeed Locke's whole
philosophical language is beyond measure
vague, vacillating, and ambiguous; in this
respect, he has afforded the worst of pre-
cedents, and has found only too many
among us to follow his example.
20.-PURCHOT’s doctrine on this sub-
ject deserves to be noticed—which it never
has been. It struck me from its corres-
pondence, in certain respects, with that
which I had myself previously thought
out. The first edition of his Institutiones
Philosophicae did not appear at Paris un-
til a year or two after the publication of
Locke's Essay,+the second was in 1698;
840.
[sore D.
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
but the French cursualist does not appear
to have been aware of the speculations of
the English philosopher, nor does he refer
to Boyle. His doctrine—which is not ful-
ly stated in any single place of his work
—is as follows:
a.—The one Primary Affection or Attri-
bute of Body is Eatension. Without this,
matter cannot be conceived. But in the
notion of Extension as an attribute is im-
mediately involved that of Solidity or Im-
penetrability, i. e. the capacity of filling
space to the exclusion of another body.
b.—But extended substance (eo ipso,
solid or impenetrable)—
1°, Necessarily exists under some par-
ticular mode of Extension, in other words
it has a certain Magnitude ; and is Divisible
into parts;
2°, Is necessarily thought as capable of
*Totion and Rest ;
3°, Necessarily supposes a certain Fi-
gure ; and in relation to other bodies a
certain Position.
These five, 1, Magnitude or measure of
extension, involving Divisibility; 2, Mo-
tion; 3, Rest; 4, Figure; 5, Position or
Situation, he styles the simple and secon-
dary attributes, affections or qualities which
flow immediately from the nature of Body,
i. e. Extension.
c.—Out of these Primary Affections of
Body there are educed, and as it were
compounded, other affections to which the
name of Quality in a more emphatic and
appropriate sense belongs; such among
others are Light, Colowrs, Sownds, Odowrs,
Tastes, and the Tactile qualities, Heat, Cold,
Moistwre, Dryness, &c. These he deno-
minates the secondary and composite qua-
lities or affections of Body. (Instit. Philos.
t. ii. Phys. Sects. i. iv. v. pp. 87, 205, 396,
ed 4.)
21.—LE CLERo does not borrow his
doctrine on this head from his friend
Locke; and his point of view is not purely
psychological. The five properties com-
mon to allbodies—Extension—Divisibility
— Solidity (Impenetrability) — Figure—
Mobility—he very properly does not de-
nominate Qualities, but reserves that name
for what serves to distinguish bodies from
each other. Under this restriction, he
divides Qualities into Primitive and Deri-
vative. By Primitive he designates those
occult qualities in body which are known
to us only in their effects; as, for example,
the cause of Solidity. The Derivative, he
says, are those which flow from the Pri-
mitive and affect our senses, as colour, sa-
vour, odour, &c. His doctrine is, how-
ever, neither fully evolved nor unambigu-
ſ
|
ously expressed. (Clerici Opera Philos.
Phys. L. v. cc. 1, 6.) - -
22.—LoRD KAMEs, in the first edition of
his ‘Essays on the principles of Morality
and Natural Religion, (1751,) touches only
incidentally on the present subject. He
enumerates Softwess, Hardness, Smooth-
mess, Rowghness, among the Primary Qua-
lities (p. 248); and he was, I am confi-
dent, the only philosopher before Reid, by
whom this amplification was sanctioned,
although Mr Stewart has asserted that
herein Reid only followed the classifica-
tion of most of his immediate predeces-
sors.” (Essays, p. 91.) The second edi-
tion I have not at hand. In the third and
last, (1779,) there is introduced a chap-
ter expressly on the distinction, which is
treated of in detail. He does not here re-
peat his previous enumeration; but to
Size, Figure, Solidity (which he does not
define) and Divisibility, he adds, as pri-
mary qualities, Gravity, the Wis Inertiae,
and the Wis Incita ; the two last being the
Wis Insita or Wis Inertiae of Kepler and
Newton divided into a double power. See
Reid's Correspondence, pp. 55, 56. Kames
unwittingly mixes the psychological and
physical points of view ; and, otherwise, his
classification, in so far as original, is open
to manifold objections. See the foot-note
+ at p. 837 c, and $ ii.
23.−REID.—We have seen that Des-
cartes and Locke, to say nothing of other
metaphysicians, admitted a fundamental
difference between the primary and the
secondary qualities: the one problema-
tically, the other assertorily, maintaining,
that the primary qualities, as known, cor-
respond with the primary qualities, as ex-
istent; whereas that the secondary quali-
ties, as sensations in us, bear no analogy
to these qualities as inherent in matter.
On the general doctrine, however, of
these philosophers, both classes of quali-
ties, as known, are confessedly only states
of our own minds ; and, while we have no
right from a subjective affection to infer
the existence, far less the corresponding
character of the existence, of any objec-
tive reality, it is evident that their doc-
trine, if fairly evolved, would result in a
dogmatic, or in a sceptical, negation of
the primary, no less than of the secondary
• Mr Stewart also says that Berkeley ‘em-
ploys the word Solidity as synonymous with
Hardness and Resistance.” This is not Cor-
rect. Berkeley does not consider hardness
and resistance as convertible; and these he
mentions as two only out of three significations
in which, he thinks, the term Solidity is used.
§ 1.]
84!
QUALITIES OF BODY.
qualities of body, as more than appear-
ances in and for us. This evolution was
accordingly soon accomplished; and Leib-
nitz, Berkeley, Hume, Condillac, Kant,
Fichte, and others, found no difficulty in
demonstrating, on the principles of Des-
cartes, and Locke, and modern Represen-
tationists in general, that our notions of
Space or Extension, with its subordinate
forms of Figure, Motion, &c., has no
higher title to be recognized as objec-
tively valid, than our sensations of Colour,
of Savour, of Odour; and were thus
enabled triumphantly to establish their
several schemes of formal or virtual ideal-
ism. Hence may we explain the fact
that this celebrated distinction is over-
looked or superseded in the speculation,
not of some merely, but of all the more
modern German Schools.
It is therefore manifest that the fun-
damental position of a consistent theory of
dualistic realism is—that our cognitions
of Extension and its modes are not wholly
ideal;-that although Space be a native,
necessary, a priori, form of imagination,
and so far, therefore, a mere subjective
state, that there is, at the same time, com-
petent to us, in an immediate perception
of external things, the consciousness of a
really existent, of a really objective, ea:-
tended world. To demonstrate this was
therefore prescribed, as its primary prob-
lem to a philosophy which, like that of Reid,
proposed to re-establish the philosophy of
natural realism—of common sense, on a
refutation of every idealism overt or im-
plied. Such is the problem. It remains
for us to see how it was dealt with.
Reid's doctrine, in regard to the Pri-
mary and Secondary Qualities, is to be
found in the Inquiry, ch. 5, sect. 4–6, p.
123–126, and in the Intellectual Powers
Essay ii. ch. 17, p. 313–318.
In his enumeration of the Primary qua-
lities Reid is not invariable; for the list
in the Inquiry is not identical with that in
the Essays.
fessing to furnish an exhaustive catalogue,
he enumerates Eatension, Figure, Motion,
Hardness and Softness, Roughness and
Smoothness. The four last are, as we have
seen, to be found, for the first time, in the
earliest edition of Lord Kames's Essays
on Morality, which preceded Reid's In-
quiry by thirteen years. In the latter he
gives another list, which he does not state
to be an altered edition of his own, but
which he apparently proposes as an enu.
meration identical with Locke’s. “Every
one,’ he says, “knows that Eatension, Di-
visibility, Figure, Motion, Solidity, Hard-
In the former, without pro-
ness, Softness, and Fluidity, were by Locke
called primary qualities of body.' . In re-
ference to himself—this second catalogue
omits Roughness and Smoothness, which
were contained in his first : and intro-
duces, what were omitted in the first, Di-
visibility (which Kames had also latterly
added), Solidity and Fluidity. In refe-
rence to Locke—this and the former list
are both very different from his. For,
allowing Divisibility to replace Number,
and saying nothing in regard, either to
the verbal inaccuracy of making Motion
stand for Mobility, or to the real inaccu-
racy of omitting Rest as the alternative
of Motion ; we find in both lists a series
of qualities unrecognized as primary by
Locke; or, as far as I know, by any other
philosopher previous to Lord Kames and
himself. These are Roughness and Smooth-
mess, in the Inquiry ; Fluidity in the
Essays; and Hardness and Softness in
both. But these five qualities are not
only not to be ascribed to the list of primary
qualities by Locke ; they ought not to be
viewed as co-ordinate with Eastension, So-
lidity (which Reid more rigorously than
Locke limits to the ultimate incompressi-
bility of matter), Figure, Mobility, and
Divisibility, i.e. not as primary qualities at
all. Of these five qualities, the last three,
as he himself states (p. 314 a), are only
different degrees of Cohesion ; and the
first two are only modifications of Figure
and Cohesion combined. But Cohesion,
as will be shewn ($ ii.), is not a character
necessarily involved in our motion of body;
for though Cohesion, (and we may say
the same of Inertia,) in all its modes, ne–
cessarily supposes the occupation of space,
the occupation of space while it implies a
continuity does not necessarily imply a
cohesion of the elements (whatever they
may be) of that which occupies space.
At the same time, the various resistances
of cohesion and of inertia cannot be re-
duced to the class of Secondary qualities.
It behoves us therefore, neither with
Locke and others, to overlook them; nor
to throw them in without qualification
or remark, either with Descartes among
the Secondary, or with Reid among the
Primary, qualities. But of this again.
Independently of these minor differen-
ces, and laying also out of account Reid's
strictures on the cruder forms of the re-
presentative hypothesis, as held by Des-
cartes and Locke, but which there is no
sufficient ground to suppose that Des-
cartes, at least, adopted; Reid's doctrine
touching the present distinction corre-
sponds, in all essential respects, with that
842
[NOTE 10.
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
maintained by these two philosophers.
He does not adopt, and even omits to no-
tice, the erroneous criterion of insepara-
bility in thought, by , which Locke at-
tempts to discriminate the primary quali-
ties from the secondary. Like Descartes,
he holds that our notions of the primary
qualities are clear and distinct; of the se-
condary, obscure and confused ; and, like
both philosophers, he considers that the
former afford us a knowledge of what the
corresponding qualities are (or, as Des-
cartes cautiously interpolates may be) in
themselves, while the latter only point to
the unknown cause or occasion of sensa-
tions of which we are conscious ourselves.
Reid therefore calls the notion we have of
the primary qualities, direct ; of the se-
condary, relative. (I. P. 313 b.) On this
subject there is, thus, no important dif-
ference of opinion between the three phi-
losophers. For if we modify the obnoxious
language of Descartes and Locke; and,
instead of saying that the ideas or notions
of the primary qualities resemble, merely
assert that they truly represent, their ob-
iects, that is, afford us such a knowledge
of their nature as we should have were an
immediate intuition of the extended rea-
lity in itself competent to man,—and this
is certainly all that one, probably all that
either philosopher, intended,—Reid's doc-
trine and theirs would be found in perfect
unison. The whole difficulty and dispute
on this point is solved on the old distinc-
tion of similarity in ealistence, and simi-
larity in representation, which Reid and
our more modern philosophers have over-
looked. Touching this, see, as stated
above, the doctrine of those Schoolmen
who held the hypothesis of species, (p. 814
b); and of those others who, equally with
Reid, rejected all representative entities
different from the act itself of cognition,
(p. 813 b. note.)
But much more than this was called for
at Reid's hands. His philosophy, if that
of Natural Realism, founded in the com-
mon sense of mankind, made it incumbent
on him to shew, that we have not merely a
notion, a conception, an imagination, a
subjective representation—of Extension,
for example, ‘ called up or suggested,” in
some incomprehensible manner to the mind,
on occasion of an extended object being
presented to the sense; but that in the
perception of such an object, we really
have, as by nature we believe we have, an
immediate knowledge or consciousness of
that external object, as eatended. In a
word, that in sensitive perception the ex-
tension, as known, and the extension, as
existing, are convertible; known, because
existing, and existing, since known.
Beid however, unfortunately, did not
accomplish—did not attempt this. He
makes no articulate statement, even, that
in perception we have an immediate know-
ledge—an objective consciousness, of an
extended non-ego, actually existing; as
in imagination we have a subjective con-
sciousness of a mode of the ego, repre-
senting such an extended non-ego, and
thereby affording us a mediate knowledge
of it as possibly existing. On the con-
trary were we to interpret his expressions
rigidly, and not in liberal conformity with
the general analogy of his philosophy, we
might, as repeatedly noticed, found on the
terms in which he states his doctrine of the
primary qualities, and, in particular, his
doctrine concerning our cognition of ex-
tension, a plausible argument that his own
theory of perception is as purely subjec-
tive, and therefore as easily reducible to
an absolute Idealism, as that of any of tho
philosophers whom he controverts.
Thus when Reid, for example, (Inq.
123 b.) states ‘that Extension is a quality
suggested to us by certain sensations,’ i. e.
by certain merely subjective affections;
and when (324 b.) he says ‘ that Space
[Extension] whether tangible or visible,
is not so properly an object of sense as a
necessary concomitant of the objects both
of sight and touch ;’ he apparently denies
us all immediate perception of any extend-
ed reality. But if we are not percipient
of any extended reality, we are not per-
cipient of body as existing ; for body ex-
ists, and can only be known immediately
and in itself, as eartended. The material
world, on this supposition, sinks into some-
thing unknown and problematical; and its
existence, if not denied, can, at best, be
only precariously affirmed, as the occult
cause, or incomprehensible occasion, of
certain subjective affections we experience
in the form, either of a sensation of the
secondary quality, or of a perception of
the primary. Thus interpreted, what is
there to distinguish the doctrine of Reid
from the undeveloped idealism of Des-
cartes or of Kant : See Note C. § ii. p.
820 b, sq.
Having noticed the manifestincongruity
of Reid’s doctrine on this point with the
grand aim of his philosophy, -an incongru-
ity which I am surprised has not been long
ago adverted to either by friend or foe,
I may take this opportunity of modifying
a former statement, (p. 123 b, note *)—
that, according to Reid, Space is a notion
a posteriori, the result of experience. On
§ 1.] QUALITIES
OF BODY. 843
reconsidering more carefully his different
statements on this subject, (Inq. 123 sq. I.
P. 324 sq.), I am now inclined to think
that his language implies no more than the
chronological posteriority of this notion;
and that he really held it to be a native,
necessary, a priori form of thought, re-
quiring only certain prerequisite condi-
tions to call it from virtual into manifest
existence. I am confirmed in this view by
finding it is also that of M. Royer Collard.
Mr Stewart is however less defensible,
when he says, in opposition to Kant's doc-
trine of Space—‘I rather lean to the com-
mon theory which supposes our first ideas
of Space or Extension to be formed by
other qualities of matter.” (Dissertation,
&c. p. 281, 2d ed.)
Passing over the less important obser-
vations of several intermediate philoso-
phers in the wake of Reid, I proceed to
the most distinguished of his disciples.
24.—STEwART, while he agrees with his
master in regard to the contrast of Pri-
mary and Secondary Qualities, proposes
the following subdivision, and change of
nomenclature in reference to the former.
‘I distinguish,” he says, “Extension and
Figure by the title of the mathematical af.
fections of matter ; restricting the phrase
primary qualities to Hardness and Soft-
ness, Roughness and Smoothness, and
other properties of the same description.
The line which I would draw between
primary and secondary qualities is this;
that the former necessarily involve the
notion of eatension, and consequently of
easternality or outness ; whereas the latter
are only conceived as the unknown causes
of known sensations; and when first ap”
prehended by the mind do not imply the
existence of anything locally distinct from
the subjects of its own self-consciousness.”
(Essays, p. 94.)
looked at Extension (Solidity Mathema-
cal), as a property of body, in virtue of
body filling space, he would not only not
have omitted, but not have omitted as an
attribute co-ordinate with extension, the
Ultimate Incompressibility or Impenetra-
bility of body, (Solidity Physical.)
3°, But while omitting this essential
property, the primary qualities which,
after Reid, he enumerates, (Hardness,
Softness, Roughness, Smoothness,) are,
as already noticed, and to be hereafter
shewn, not primary, not being involved
in the necessary notion of body. For
these are all degrees or modifications of
Cohesion; but a Cohesion of its ultimate
elements it is not necessary to think as a
condition or attribute of matter at all.
See § ii. Moreover, Roughness and
Smoothness, as more than the causes of
certain sensations in us, therefore only se-
condary qualities, are modifications, not
only of Cohesion, but of Figure, and
would, therefore, on Mr Stewart's distri-
bution, fall under the category of the Ma-
thematical Affections of Body. -
As regards the great problem of Na-
tural Realism, to prove that we have an
immediate perception of the primary qua-
lities of body, this was left by Mr Stewart
where it was left by Reid.
25.-The last philosopher to be ad-
duced is the illustrious founder of the
Scoto-Gallican School, M. Roy ER Col-
LARD. The sum of his doctrine touching
the Primary Qualities is given in the fol-
lowing passage, which I translate from
the Fragments of his Lectures, published
by M. Jouffroy as Appendices to his ver-
sion of the Works of Reid, (Vol. iii. p.
429 sq.);- Fragments which, with M.
Jouffroy's general Preface, I have reason
to hope will be soon given to the British
! public by a translator eminently qualified
The more radical defects of this inge- for the task.
My observations I find it
nious reduction are, as they appear to me, most convenient to subjoin in the form of
the following:
1°, That it does not depart from the
central notion of body — from Solidity
Absolute, the occupying of space. (See
p. 837 c, note f) In logical propriety Ex-
tension and Figure are not proximately
attributes of body but of space; and belong self.
to body only as filling space. Body sup-
poses them; they do not suppose body;
and the inquiry is wholly different in re-
gard to the nature of extension and figure
as space, and of the extended and figured
as body.
29, This original defect in the order of
evolution, has led, however, to more im-
portant consequences. Had Mr Stewart
notes; and admiring as I do both the at-
tempt itself and the ability of its author,
I regret to differ here so widely, not only
from the doctrines which M. Royer Collard
holds in common with other philosophers,
, but from those which are peculiar to him-
On the former, however, in so far
as, with his more immediate predecessors,
he confounds in one class qualities which
I think ought to be discriminated into
two, I deem it unnecessary to make any
special comment; as this matter, which
has been already once and again adverted
to, is to be more fully considered in the
sequel. ($ ii.) As to the latter, it will
be seen that the more important differences
844
[Not E B.
PRIMARY, SECUNDO-PRIMARY AND
arise from the exclusive point of view
from which M. Royer Collard has chosen
to consider the Qualities in question.
* Among the Primary Qualities, that of
Number is peculiar to Locke.* It is evi-
dent that Number, far from being a qua-
lity of matter, is only an abstract notion,
the work of intellect and not of sense.f
• Divisibility is proper to Reid.: On
this quality and Mobility I will observe,
that neither ought to have been placed
among the qualities manifested through
sense; and yet this is what Reid under-
stands by the Primary Qualities, for he
distinguishes them from the Secondary by
this—that we have of the former a direct
notion.S Divisibility is known to us by
division; and a body divided is known to
us, as such, by memory. For did we not
recollect that it had previously been one,
• Number is, with Locke, common to Aris-
totle and the Aristotelians, Galileo, Descartes,
and the Cartesians, &c.
+ Number, as an abstract notion, is certainly
not an object of sense. But it was not as an ab-
stract motion intended by the philosophers to
denote an attribute of Body. This misprision
was expressly guarded against by the Aristo-
telians See Toletus in Aristotelem De Anima,
L. ii. c. 6, qu. 15. Number may be said to
correspond to Divisibility; see p. 829 a, and
p. 837 a. If it cannot be said that sense is
percipient of objects as many, it cannot be said
to be percipient of an object as one. Percep-
tion, moreover, is a consciousness, and con-
sciousness is only realized under the condition
of plurality and difference. Again, if we deny
that through sense we perceive a plurality of
colours, we must deny that through sense we
perceive a figure or even a line. See Note E.
And if three bodies are not an object of sense,
neither is a triangle. Sense and intellect can-
not thus be distinguished. See Note D*, § i.
# Sundry philosophers preceded Reid in mak-
ing Divisibility (which corresponds also to
Number) one of the Primary Qualities. See
Nos. 20, 21, 22. - -
§ M. Royer Collard not only takes his point
of view exclusively from Sense; but sense he
so limits, that, if rigorously carried out, no
sensible perception, as no consciousness, could
be brought to bear. See Note D*, § i. The
reason he gives why Reid must be held as of
the same opinion, I do not understand. Psy-
chologically speaking, an attribute would not
be primary if it could be thought away from
body; and the motion of body being supposed
given, every primary quality is to be evolved
out of that motion, as necessarily involved in
it, independently altogether of any experience
of sense. In this respect, such quality is an
object of intellect. At the same time, a pri-
mary quality would not be an attribnte of body,
if it could not, contingently, to some extent, at
least, be apprehended as an actual phaenomenon
of sense. In this respect, such quality is an
object of perception and experience.
we should not know that it is at present
two ; we should be unable to compare its
present with its past state; and it is by
this comparison alone that we become
aware of the fact of division. Is it said
that the notion of Divisibility is not ac-
quired by the fact of division, but that it
presents itself immediately to the mind
prior to experience 2 In this case it is
still more certain that it is not a cognition
proper to sense.”
* As to the notion of Molility it is evi-
dently posterior to that of motion; fi that
of motion supposes not less evidently the
exercise of memory and the idea of time;
it is thus not derived exclusively from
sense. If As Divisibility also supposes
motion, this again is an additional proof
that the notion of divisibility is not imme-
diate.
* Figure is a modification of Eatension.
“Solidity, Impenetrability, Resistance, are
one and the same thing; $$ Hardness,
Softness, Fluidity, are modifications of So-
lidity and its different degrees; while the
Roughness and Smoothness of surfaces ex-s
press only sensations attached to certain
perceptions of Solidity. - 3.
* The Primary Qualities may be thus
generalized, if I may so express myself,
into Eartension and Solidity.’ w
T I am afraid that this, likewise, is a misap-
prehension of the meaning of the philosophers.
Divisibility, in their view, has nothing to do
with the process of dividing. It denotes either
the alternative attribute, applicable to all body,
of unity or plurality; or the possibility that
every single body, may, as extended, be sun--
dered into a multitude of extended parts.
Every material object being thus, though ac-
tually one, always potentially many, it is thus
convertible with Number; see foot-note #. .
# Mobility, as applied in this relation, is
merely a compendious expression for the al-
ternative attributions of motion or rest; and
both of these, as possible attributes, are in-
volved in the motion of body. See § ii. of this
Excursus.
# Compare above pp. 830 a., 881 a. But
Perception can no more be separated from all
memory than from all judgment ; for con-
sciousness involves both. See Note D*, $ i.
§§ This is only correct from M. Royer Col-
lard's exclusive point of view—from sense
alone. On the various meanings of the term
Solidity, see p. 837, note #. The confusion also
resulting from the ambiguity of the word
Impenetrability as denoting both a resistance
absolute and insuperable, and a resistance re-
lative and superable, both what is necessary,
and what is contingent to body, is here shown,
either in the reduction to a single category of
qualities of a wholly heterogeneous character,
or in the silent elimination of the higher.
§ 11.]
845
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF BODY.
The distinction of these different classes
of material qualities has, as already no-
ticed, no real importance, no real foun-
dation, on the hypothesis of Idealism,
whether absolute or cosmothetic,-in no
philosophy, indeed, but that of Natural
Realism ; and its recognition, in the sys-
tems of Descartes and Locke, is, there-
fore, with them a superficial observation,
if not a hors d'aºwvre. It was, accord-
ingly, with justice formally superseded,
because virtually null, in the philosophy
of Leibnitz, the complement of the Car.
tesian, and in the philosophy of Condillac,
the complement of the Lockian. The
Kantian system, again, is built on its
positive negation, or rather its positive
reversal. For Kant's transcendental
Idealism not only contains a general as-
sertion of the subjectivity of all our per-
ceptions; its distinctive peculiarity is, in
fact, its special demonstration of the ab-
solute subjectivity of Space or Exten-
sion, and in general of the primary attri-
butes of matter; these constituting what
he calls the Form, as the Secondary con-
stitute what he calls the Matt r, of our
Sensible intuitions. (See, in particular,
Proleg., § 13, Anm. 2.) This, I repeat,
may enable us to explain why the discri-
mination in question has, both in the in-
tellectualism of Germany and in the sen-
sualism of France, been so generally
overlooked; and why, where in relation.
to those philosophers by whom the dis-
tinction has been taken, any observations
on the point have been occasionally ha-
Zarded, (as by Tetens with special refe-
rence to Reid,) that these are of too per-
functory a character to merit any special
commemoration.*
* To this also are we to attribute it, that
the most elaborate of the recent histories of
philosophy among the Germans, slur over, if
they do not positively misconceive, the dis-
tinction in question. In the valuable exposi-
tions of the Cartesian doctrine by the two dis-
tinguished Hegelians, Feuerbach and Erdmann,
it obtains from the one no adequate consider-
ation, from the other no consideration at all.
In the Lectures on the History of Philosophy
by their illustrious master, a work in which
the erudition is often hardly less remarkable
than the force of thought, almost every state-
ment in reference to the subject is, to say the
least of it, inaccurate. Hegel, as he himself
employs, apparently makes Aristotle and Des-
cartes employ, the term Solidity simply for
Hardness. This, however, neither one nor
other ever does; while by Locke, the terms
are even expressly distinguished. (Vol. iii.
pp. 360, 431.) He confounds Descartes’ dis-
tinction (baptized by Locke that) of the
Frimary and Secondary qualitics, with Des-
| Such, then, are the forms under which
the distinction of the Primary and Se-
condary Qualities of Body has been pre-
sented, from its earliest promulgation to
its latest development. In this histori-
cal survey, I have to acknowledge no
assistance from the researches of preced-
ing inquirers; for what I found already
done in this respect was scanty and super-
ficial, even when not positively erroneous.
Every thing had thus anew to be explored
and excavated. The few who make a
study of philosophy in its sources, can ap-
preciate the labour of such a research ; and
from them, at least, I am sure of indul-
gence for the imperfections of what I
offer, not as a history, but as a hasty col-
lection of some historical materials.
§ II.-Distinction of the Primary and
Secondary Qualities of Body critically
considered.
From what has been said in the fore-
going section, it will be seen that I am by
no means satisfied with the previous re-
duction of the Qualities of Body to two
classes of Primary and Secondary. With-
out preamble, I now go on to state what
I deem their true and complete classi-
fication; limiting the statement, however,
to little more than an enouncement of
the distribution and its principles, not
allowing myself to enter on an exposition
of the correlative doctrine of perception,
and refraining, in general, from much
that I might be tempted to add, by way
of illustration and support.
The Qualities of Body I divide into
three classes.
Adopting and adapting, as far as pos-
sible, the previous nomenclature — the
first of these I would denominate the class
of Primary, or Objective, Qualities; the
second, the class of Secundo-Primary, or
Subjectivo-Objective, Qualities; the third,
the class of Secondary, or Subjective,
Qualities. - &
cartes' distinction of the Primitive and
Derivative attributes of body; distinctions
not coincident, though not opposed. Figure,
for example, in the one is primary, but not in
the other primitive. In regard to his criti-
cism of Locke, (p. 431,) suffice it to say, that
Locke, so far from opposing, in fact follows
Descartes in making “Figure and so forth”
primary qualities; nor does Descartes deno-
minate any class of qualities “secondary.”—
(pp. 359, 430.) Finally, Aristotle's distinction
of “external qualities” into primary and
secondary, if this be referred to, corresponds
with that so styled by Locke only in the name.
846
[NOTE D.
PRIMARY, SECUNDO-PRIMARY AND
The general point of view from which
the Qualities of Matter are here consi-
dered is not the Physical, but the Psycho-
logical. But, under this, the ground or
principle on which these qualities are
divided and designated is, again, twofold.
There are, in fact, within the psycholo-
gical two special points of view; that of
Sense, and that of Understanding. Both
of these ought to be taken, but taken
separately, into account in a classification
like the present; and not, as has been
often done, either one only adopted or
both fortuitously combined. Differing,
however, as these widely do from each
other, they will be found harmoniously to
conspire in establishing the threefold dis-
tribution and nomenclature of the quali-
ties in question which I have ventured to
propose.
The point of view chronologically prior,
or first to us, is that of Sense.
ciple of division is here the different cir-
cumstances under which the qualities are
originally and immediately apprehended.
On this ground, as apprehensions or im-
mediate cognitions through Sense, the
Primary are distinguished as objective,
not subjective,” as percepts proper, not
sensations proper; the Secundo-primary,
as objective and subjective, as percepts
proper and sensations proper ; the Secon-
dary, as subjective, not objective, cogni-
tions, as Sensations proper, not percepts
proper.
The other point of view chronologi-
cally posterior, but first in nature, is that
of Understanding. The principle of di-
vision is here the different character
under which the qualities, already appre-
hended, are conceived or construed to the
mind in thought. On this ground, the
Primary, being thought as essential to
the notion of Body, are distinguished
from the Secundo-primary and Secondary,
as accidental ; while the Primary and
Secundo-primary, being thought as mani-
fest or conceivable in their own nature, are
distinguished from the Secondary, as in
* All knowledge, in one respect, is subjec-
tive 3 for all knowledge is an energy of the
Ego. But when I perceive a quality of the
Non-Ego, of the object-object, as in imme.
diate relation to my mind, I am said to have of
it an objective knowledge ; in contrast to the
subjective knowledge, I am said to have of it
when supposing it only as the hypothetical or
Occult cause of an affection of which I am con-
scious, or thinking it only mediately through
a subject object or representation in, and of,
the mind. But see below, in footnote to Par.
I5, and first footnote to Par. 18.
The prin-
their own nature occult and inconceivable.
For the notion of Matter having been
once acquired, by reference to that no-
tion, the Primary Qualities are recognized
as its a priori or necessary constituents;
and we clearly conceive how they must
exist in bodies in knowing what they are
objectively in themselves; the Secundo-
primary Qualities, again, are recognized
as a posteriori or contingent modifications
of the Primary, and we clearly conceive
how they do exist in bodies in knowing
what they are objectively in their condi-
tions; finally, the Secondary Qualities
are recognized as a posteriori or contin-
gent accidents of matter, but we ob-
scurely surmise how they may exist in
bodies only as knowing what they are
subjectively in their effects. -
It is thus apparent that the Primary
Qualities may be deduced a priori, the
bare notion of matter being given; they
being, in fact, only evolutions of the con-
ditions which that notion Inecessarily im-
plies: whereas the Secundo-primary and
Secondary must be induced a posteriori;
both being attributes contingently super-
added to the naked notion of matter.
The Primary Qualities thus fall more
under the point of view of Understand-
ing, the Secundo-primary and Secondary,
more under the point of view of Sense.
Deduction of the Primary Qualities.—
Space or Extension is a necessary form
of thought. We cannot think it as non-
existent; we cannot but think it as exis-
tent. But we are not so necessitated to
imagine the reality of aught occupying
space; for while unable to conceive as
null the space in which the material uni-
verse exists, the material universe itself
we can, without difficulty, annihilate in
thought. All that exists in, all that occu-
pies, space, becomes, therefore, known to
us by experience : we acquire, we con-
struct, its notion. The motion of space
is thus native or a priori; the notion of
what space contains, adventitious or a
posteriori. Of this latter class is that of
Body or Matter.
But on the hypothesis, always, that
body, has been empirically apprehended,
that its notion has been acquired;—What
are the a priori characters in and through
which we must conceive that notion, if
conceived it be at all, in contrast to the
a posteriori characters under which we
may, and probably do, conceive it, but
under which, if we conceive it not, still
the notion itself stands unannihilated 7 In
other words, what are the necessary or
essential, in contrast to the contingent or
§ II.]
847
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF BODY.
accidental properties of Body, as appre-
hended and conceived by us? The answer
to this question affords the class of Pri-
mary, as contradistinguished from the two
classes of Secundo-primary and Secondary
Qualities.
Whatever answer may be accorded to
the question—How do we come by our
knowledge of Space or trinal extension ?
it will be admitted on all hands, that
whether given solely a priori as a native
possession of the mind, whether acquired
solely a posteriori as a generalization from
the experience of sense, or whether, as I
would maintain, we at once must think
Space as a necessary notion, and do per-
ceive the extended in space as an actual
fact; still, on any of these suppositions,
it will be admitted, that we are only able
to conceive Body as that which (I.) occu-
pies space, and (II.) is contained in Space.
But these catholic conditions of body,
though really simple, are logically com-
plex. We may view them in different
aspects or relations, which, though like
the sides and angles of a triangle, incap-
able of separation, even in thought, sup-
posing as they do each other, may still, in
a certain sort, be considered for them-
selves, and distinguished by different ap-
pellations.
I.—The property of filling space (Soli-
dity in its unexclusive signification, So-
lidity Simple) implies two correlative
conditions: (A) the necessity of trinal
eatension, in length, breadth, and thickness,
(Solidity geometrical ;) and (B) the cor-
responding impossibility of being reduced
from what is to what is not thus eaſtended,
(Solidity Physical, Impenetrability.)
A.—Out of the absolute attribute of
Trinal Extension may be again explicated
three attributes, under the form of neces-
sary relations: — (i.) Number or Divisi-
bility ; (ii.) Size, Bulk, or Magnitude ;
(iii.) Shape or Figure.
i.—Body necessarily exists, and is ne-
cessarily known, either as one body or as
many bodies. Number, i. e. the alterna-
tive attribution of unity or plurality, is
thus, in a first respect, a primary attribute
of matter. But again, every single body
is also, in different points of view, at the
same time one and many. Considered as
a whole, it is, and is apprehended, as actu-
ally one; considered as an eartended whole,
it is, and is conceived, potentially many.
Body being thus necessarily known, if not
as already divided, still as always capable
of division, Divisibility or Number is thus
likewise, in a second respect, a primary
attribute of matter. (See pp. 829 a, 837 a.)
ii.-Body (multo majus this or that
body) is not infinitely extended. Each
body must therefore have a certain finite
extension, which by comparison with that
of other bodies must be less, or greater,
or equal; in other words, it must by rela-
tion have a certain Size, Bulk, or Magni-
tude; and this, again, as estimated both
(a) by the quantity of space occupied, and
(b) by the quantity of matter occupying,
affords likewise the relative attributes of
Lense and Rare.
iii.-Finally, bodies, as not infinitely ex-
tended, have, consequently, their exten-
sion bounded. But bounded extension is
necessarily of a certain Shape or Figure.
B.—The negative notion—the impossi-
bility of conceiving the compression of
body from an extended to an unextended,
its elimination out of space—affords the
positive notion of an insuperable power in
body of resisting such compression or
elimination. This force, which, as abso-
lute, is a conception of the understanding,
not an apprehension through sense, has
received no precise and unambiguous name;
for Solidity, even with the epithet Physi-
cal, and Impenetrability and Eatreity are
vague and equivocal.—(See p. 837 b, note
f.) We might call it, as I have said,
Ultimate or Absolute Incompressibility.
It would be better, however, to have a
positive expression to denote a positive
notion, and we might accordingly adopt,
as a technical term, Autantitypy. This is
preferable to Antitypy (duritv7riz,) a
word in Greek applied not only to this
absolute and essential resistance of matter,
qua matter, but also to the relative and
accidental resistances from cohesion, in-
ertia, and gravity.
II.-The other most general attribute
of matter—that of being contained in
space—in like manner affords, by explica-
tion, an absolute and a relative attribute:
viz., (A) the Mobility, that is the possible
motion, and, consequently, the possible
rest, of a body; and (B) the Situation,
J’osition, Ubication, that is, the local cor-
relation of bodies in space. For
A.—Space being conceived as infinite,
(or rather being inconceivable as not in-
finite,) and the place occupied by body as
finite, body in general, and, of course,
each body in particular, is conceived
capable either of remaining in the place
it now holds, or of being translated from
that to any then unoccupied part of space.
And
B.—As every part of space, i.e., every
potential place, holds a certain position
relative to every other, so, consequently,
848
[NOTE:D,
PRIMARY, SECUNDO-PRIMARY AND
must bodies, in so far as they are all con-
tained in space, and as each occupies, at
one time, one determinate place.
To recapitulate:—The necessary con-
stituents of our notion of Matter, the
Primary Qualities of Body, are thus all
evolved from the two catholic conditions
of matter—(I.) the occupying space, and
(II.) the being contained in space. Of
these the former affords (A) Trinal Ea:-
tension, explicated again into (i.) Divisi-
bility, (ii.) Size, containing under it
Density or Rarity, (iii.) Figure ; and (B)
Ultimate Incompressibility : while the lat-
ter gives (A) Mobility; and (B) Situation.
Neglecting subordination, we have thus
eight proximate attributes; 1, Extension;
2, Divisibility; 3, Size ; 4, Density, or
Rarity; 5, Figure; 6, Incompressibility
absolute; 7, Mobility; 8, Situation.
The primary qualities of matter thus
develope themselves with rigid necessity
out of the simple datum of—substance oc-
cupying space. In a certain sort, and by
contrast to the others, they are, there-
fore, notions a priori, and to be viewed,
pro tanto, as products of the understand-
ing. The others, on the contrary, it is
manifestly impossible to deduce, i.e., to
evolve out of such a given notion. They
must be induced, i.e., generalized from
experience; are, therefore, in strict pro-
priety, notions a posteriori, and, in the
last resort, mere products of sense. The
following, may be given as consummative
results of such induction in the esta-
blishment of the two classes of the Se-
cundo-primary and Secondary Qualities.
Induction of the Class of Secundo-
primary Qualities. – This terminates in
the following conclusions.—These quali-
ties are modifications, but contingent mo-
difications, of the Primary. They sup-
pose the Primary ; the Primary do not
suppose them. They have all relation to
space, and motion in space; and are all
contained under the category of Resist-
ance or Pressure. For they are all
only various forms of a relative or supe-
rable resistance to displacement, which,
we learn by experience, bodies oppose to
other bodies, and, among these, to our
organism moving through space;—a re-
sistance similar in kind (and therefore
clearly conceived) to that absolute or in-
superable resistance, which we are compel-
led, independently of experience, to think
that every part of matter would oppose to
any attempt to deprive it of its space, by
eompressing it into an inextended.
In so far, therefore, as they suppose the
primary, which are necessary, while they
themselves are only accidental, they ex-
hibit, on the one side, what may be called
a quasi primary quality; and, in this re-
spect, they are to be recognised as per-
cepts, not sensations, as objective affec-
tions of things, and not as subjective
affections of us. But, on the other side,
this objective element is always found ac-
companied by a secondary quality or sen-
sorial passion. The Secundo-primary
qualities have thus always two phases,
both immediately apprehended. On their
Primary or objective phasis they mani-
fest themselves as degrees of resistance
opposed to our locomotive energy; on
their secondary or subjective phasis, as
modes of resistance or pressure affecting
our sentient organism. Thus standing be-
tween, and, in a certain sort, made up of
the two classes of Primary and Secon-
dary qualities, to neither of which, how-
ever, can they be reduced; this their
partly common, partly peculiar nature,
vindicates to them the dignity of a class
apart from both the others, and this
under the appropriate appellation of the
Secundo-primary qualities.
They admit of a classification from two
different points of view. They may be
physically, they may be psychologically,
distributed.—Considered physically, or in
an objective relation, they are to be re-
duced to classes corresponding to the
different sources in external nature from
which the resistance or pressure springs.
And these sources are, in all, three :—
(I.) that of Co-attraction ; (II.) that of
Repulsion ; (III.) that of Inertia.
I.—Of the resistance of Co-attraction
there may be distinguished, on the same
objective principle, two subaltern genera;
to wit (A) that of Gravity, or the co-at-
traction of the particles of body in gene-
ral; and (B) that of Cohesion, or the
co-attraction of the particles of this and
that body in particular.
A. — The resistance of Gravity or
Weight according to its degree, (which,
again, is in proportion to the Bulk and
Density of ponderable matter,) affords,
under it, the relative qualities of Heavy
and Light (absolute and specific.)
B.—The resistance of Cohesion (using
that term in its most unexclusive univer-
sality) contains many species and counter-
species. Without proposing an exhaus-
tive, or accurately subordinated, list;-of
these there may be enumerated, (i.) the
Hard and Soft ; (ii.) the Firm (Fixed,
Stable, Concrete, Solid,) and Fluid
(Liquid,) the Fluid being again subdivided
into the Thick and Thin ; (iii.) the
§ II.]
* 849
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF BODY.
Viscid and Friable ; with (iv.) the Tough
and Brittle (Irruptile and Ruptile); (v.)
the Rigid and Fleasible ; (vi.) the Fissile
and Infºssile; (vii.) the Ductile and In-
ductile (Extensible and Inextensible);
(viii.) the Rectractile and Irretractile
(Elastic and Inelastic); (ix.) (combined
with Figure) the Rough and Smooth :
(x.) the Slippery and Tenacious.
II.-The resistance from Repulsion is
divided into the counter qualities of (A.)
the (relatively) Compressible and Incom-
pressible; (B.) the Resilient and Irresi-
tient (Elastic and Inelastic.)
III. — The resistance from Inertia
(combined with Bulk and Cohesion) com-
prises the counter qualities of the (rela-
tively) Moveable and Immoveable.
There are thus, at least, fifteen pairs
of counter attributes which we may refer
to the Secundo-primary Qualities of
Body; —all obtained by the division and
subdivision of the resisting forces of mat
ter, considered in an objective or physical
point of view. (Compare Aristotle,
Meteor. L. iv., c. 8.)
Considered psychologically, or in a subjec-
.tive relation, they are to be discriminated,
under the genus of the relatively Resist-
ing, (I.) according to the degree in which
the resisting force might counteract our
locomotive faculty or muscular force;
and, (II.) according to the mode in which
it might affect our capacity of feeling or
sentient organism. Of these species, the
former would contain under it the grada-
tions of the quasi-primary quality, the
latter the varieties of the secondary qua-
|ity—these constituting the two elements
of which, in combination, every Secundo-
primary quality is made up. As, how-
ever, language does not afford us terms
by which these divisions and subdivisions
can be unambiguously marked, I shall not
attempt to carry out the distribution,
which is otherwise sufficiently obvious, in
detail.— So much for the induction of the
Secundo-primary qualities.
But it has sometimes been said of the
Secundo-primary qualities as of the Pri-
mary, that they are necessary characters
in our notion of body; and this has more
particularly been asserted of Gravity,
Cohesion, and Inertia. This doctrine,
though never brought to proof, and never,
I believe, even deliberately maintained,
it is, however, necessary to show, is wholly
destitute of foundation.
That Gravity, Cohesion, Inertia, and
Repulsion, in their various modifications,
are not conceived by us as necessary pro-
perties of matter, and that the resistances
through which they are manifested do
not therefore, psychologically, constitute
any primary quality of body; this is
evident, 1°, from the historical fact of
the wavering and confliction of philoso-
phical opinion, in regard to the nature of
these properties; and, 2°, from the re-
sponse afforded to the question by our
individual consciousness. These in their
order:—
1. – The vacillation of philosophical
opinion may be shown under two heads;
to wit, from the Psychological, and from
the Physical, point of view.
As to the Psychological point of view,
the ambiguous, and at the same time the
unessential, character of these qualities,
is shown by the variation of philosophers
in regard to which of the two classes of
Primary or Secondary they would refer
them ; for the opinion, that philosophers
are in this at one, is an error arising from
the perfunctory manner in which this
whole subject has hitherto been treated.
Many philosophers in their schemes of
classification, as Galileo, Boyle, Le Clerc,
overlook, or at least omit to enumerate
these qualities. In point of fact, how-
ever, they undoubtedly regarded them as
Sensible, and therefore, as we shall see, as
Secondary, qualities. The great majority
of philosophers avowedly consider them as
secondary. This is done, implicitly or
explicitly, by Aristotle and the Aristote-
lians, by Galen, by Descartes * and his
school, by Locke,f by Purchot, &c.; for
these philosophers refer Hardness, Soft-
ness, Roughness, Smoothness, and the
like, to the Tactile qualities—the sensible
qualities of Touch; while they identify
the sensible qualities in general, that is,
the sensations proper of the several senses,
with the class of Secondary, the percepts
* Seo, besides what is said under Des-
cartes, No. 9, Regis, Phys. L. viii. P. ii., ch.
2. Spinosa, Princ. Philos. Cartes. P. ii., Lem.
2, pr. 1.
+ Compare Essay B. ii., c 3, § 1, and c. 4,
§ 4, and c. 8, §§ 14, 23; with Lee's Notes B.
ii., c. 8, § 4, p. 56. Looking superficially at
cortain casual ambiguities of Locke's language,
we may, with Kames, Reid, and philosophers
in general, suppose him to have referred the
qualities in question to the class of Primary.
Looking more closely, we may hold him to
have omitted them altogether, as inadvertent-
ily stated at p. 841 b. But, looking critically
to the whole analogy of the places now quoted,
and, in particular, considering the import of
the term “sensible qualities,” as then in or-
dinary use, we can have no doubt that, like
the Peripatetics and Descartes, he viewed
them as pertaining to the class of Secondary.
3 H
850
[NotE D.
PRIMARY, SECUNDO-PRIMARY AND
common to more than a single sense, with
the class of Primary, qualities. In this
Aristotle, indeed, is found not always in
unison with himself; or rather, at differ-
ent times he views as proximate the dif-
ferent phases presented by the qualities
in question. For though in general he
regards the Rough and the Smooth as
sensations proper to Touch, (De Gen, et
Corr. ii. 2, et alibi,) on one occasion he
reduces these to the class of common
percepts, as modifications of Figure. (De
Sensu et Sensili, c. 4.) Recently, how-
ever, without suspecting their confliction
with the older authorities, may, even in
professed conformity with the doctrine of
Descartes and Locke, psychologists have,
with singular unanimity, concurred in con-
sidering the qualities in question as Pri-
mary. For to say nothing of the ano-
malous and earlier statements of De La
Forge and Du Hamel, (Nos. 13, 14,) and
passing over, as hardly of psychological
import, the opinion of Cotes, (Praef. ad
Newtoni Princ. ed. 2,) this has been done
by Kames, Reid, Fergusson, Stewart, and
Royer Collard—philosophers who may be
regarded as the authors or principal re-
presentatives of the doctrine now pre-
valent among those by whom the distinc-
tion is admitted.
I,ooking, therefore, under the surface
at the state of psychological opinion, no
presumption, assuredly, can be drawn from
the harmony of philosophers against the
establishment of a class of qualities dif-
ferent from those of Primary and Secon-
dary. On the contrary, the discrepancy
of metaphysicians not only with each
other, but of the greatest-even with them-
selves, as to which of these two classes
the qualities I call Secundo-primary should
be referred, does, in fact, afford a strong
preliminary probability that these qualities
can with propriety be reduced to neither;
themselves, in fact, constituting a peculiar
class, distinct from each, though interme-
diate between both. --
As to the Physical point of view, I shall
exhibit in detail the variation of opinion
in relation to the several classes of those
qualities which this point of view affords.
a.—Gravity. In regard to weight, this,
so far from being universally admitted,
from the necessity of its conception, to be
an essential attribute of body, philoso-
phers, ancient and modern, very generally
disallow all matter to be heavy ; and
many have even dogmatically asserted to
certain kinds of matter a positive levity.
This last was done by Aristotle, and his
Greek, Arabian, and Latin followers; i.e.,
**
by the philosophic world in general for
nearly two thousand years. At a recent
period, the same doctrine was maintained,
as actually true, by Gren and other ad-
vocates of the hypothesis of Phlogiston,
among many more who allowed its truth
as possible; and Newton had previously
found it necessary to clothe his universal
aether with a quality of negative gravity,
(or positive lightness,) in order to enable
him hypothetically to account for the
phaenomenon of positive gravity in other
matter.
Of Gravity, some, indeed, have held the
cause to be internal and essential to mat-
ter. Of these we have the ancient ato-
mists, (Democritus, Leucippus, Epicurus,
&c.,) with Plato and a few individual
Aristotelians, as Strato and Themistius;
and in modern times a section of the
Newtonians, as Cotes, Freind, Keill, with
Boscovich, Kant, Kames, Schelling, and
Hegel. But though holding (physically)
weight to be, de facto, an essential pro-
perty of matter, these philosophers were
far from holding (psychologically) the
character of weight to be an essential
constituent of the notion of matter. Kant,
for example, when speaking psychologi-
cally, asserts that weight is only a syn-
thetic predicate which experience enables
us to add on to our prior notion of body,
(Cr. d. r. Vern. p. 12, ed. 2.-Proleg.
§ 2, p. 25, ed. 1.); whereas, when speak-
ing physically, he contends that weight
is an universal attribute of matter, as
a necessary condition of its existence,
(Met. Anfangsgr. d. Naturwiss. p. 71,
ed. 2.)
But the latter opinion—that weight is
only, in reality, as in thought, an accident
of body—is that adopted by the immense
majority, not only of philosophers but of
natural philosophers. Under various mo-
difications, however; some, for example,
holding the external cause of gravity to
be physical, others to be hyperphysical.
Neglecting subordinate distinctions, to
this class belong Anaxagoras, Democri-
tus, Melissus, Diogenes of Apollonia,
Aristotle and his school, Algazel, Avi-
cembron, Copernicus, Bruno, Keppler,
Gilbert, Berigardus, Digby, Torricelli,
T)escartes, Gassendi, Lana, Kircher, An-
dala, Malebranche, Rohault, De Guericke,
Perrault, H. More, Cudworth, Du Hamel,
Huygens, Sturmius, Hooke, Is. Wossius,
Newton, S. Clarke, Halley, Leibnitz,
Saurin, Wolf, Mueller, Bilfinger, the Ber-
noullis James and John, Canz, Hamber-
ger, Varignon, Willemot, Fatio, Euler,
Baxter, Colden, Saussure, Le Sage,
§ II.]
851
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF BODY
L’Huillier, Prevost, De Luc, Monboddo,
Horsley, Drummond, Playfair, Blair, &c.
In particular, this doctrine is often and
anxiously inculcated by Newton — who
seems, indeed, to have sometimes inclined
even to an immaterial cause ; but this
more especially after his follower, Cotes,
had ventured to announce an ada. 'sion to
the counter theory, in his preface to the
second edition of the ‘Principia,” which he
procured in 1713. See Newton's letter
to Boyle, 1678 – Letters, second and
third, to Bentley, 1693;—Principia, L.
i. c. 5. L. iii. reg. 3, alibi;-in particu-
lar, Optics, ed. 1717, B. iii. Qu. 21.
b. — Cohesion, comprehending under
that term not only Cohesion proper, but
all the specific forces, (Adhesion, Capil-
larity, Chemical Affinity, &c.,) by which
the particles of individual bodies tend to
approach, and to maintain themselves in
union—Cohesion is even less than Gra-
vity, than the force by which matter in
general attracts matter, a character essen-
tial to our notion of body. Upon Gravity,
indeed, a majórity of the earlier Newton-
ians maintained Cohesion, in some inex-
plicable manner, to depend; and the other
hypotheses of an external agency, all pro-
ceed upon the supposition that it is merely
an accident of matter. Cohesion, the
cause of which Locke wisely regarded as
inconceivable, Descartes attempted to ex-
plain by the quiescence of the adjoining
molecules ; Malebranche, (as an occa-
sional cause,) by the agitation of a per-
vading invisible matter; Stair, by the
pressure (whence, he does not state) of
the physical points, his supposed consti-
tuents of body, to a common centre;
and James Bernoulli, by the pressure of a
circumambient fluid, an hypothesis to
which Newton likewise seems to have in-
clined: while a host of others, following
Algazeland Avicembron, Bieland D'Ailly,
spurned all mechanical media, these being
themselves equally inexplicable as the
phaenomenon in question, and resorted to
the immediate agency of an immaterial
principle. The psychologists, therefore,
who (probably from confounding hard-
mess with solidity, solidity with impene-
trability) have carried up the resistance
of cohesion into the class of primary
qualities, find but little countenance for
their procedure, even among the crude
precedents of physical speculation.
c.—Wis Inertiae. But if, on the ground
of philosophical agreement, Gravity and
Cohesion are not to be regarded as pri-
mary qualities of matter; this dignity is
even less to be accorded to that force by
which bodies resist any change of state,
whether that be one of quiescence or of
motion. This, variously known under the
names of Wis Inertiae, Inertia, Wis Insita
Resistentiae, Resistentia Passiva, &c., was,
indeed, if not first noticed, only first gene-
ralized at a comparatively recent period—
to wit, by Keppler; while the subsequent
controversies in regard to its nature and
comprehension, equally concur in showing
that there is no necessity for thinking it
as an essential attribute of matter. The
Cartesians, among others, viewed it as a
quality not only derivative but contingent;
and even those Newtonians who, in oppo-
sition to Newton, raised Gravity to the
rank of a primary quality, did not, how-
ever, venture to include inertia under the
same category. (See Cotes's Preface to
the second edition of the Principia.)
Leibnitz, followed, among others, by
Wolf, divided this force into two ;—dis-
criminating the vis activa or motria, from
the vis passiva or inertia. The former
they held not to be naturally inherent in,
but only supernaturally impressed on,
matter. Without reference to Leibnitz,
a similar distinction was taken by D'Alem-
bert, in which he is followed by Destutt
de Tracy; a distinction, as we have seen,
which also found favour with Lord Kames,
who in this, however, stands alone, among
metaphysicians, that he places both his
vis inertiae and vis incita among the pri-
mary qualities of body.
Finally, Physical speculators, in gene-
ral, distinguish Inertia and Weight, as
powers, though proportional, still distinct.
Many, however, following Wiedeburg,
view the former as only a modification or
phasis of the latter.
d.—Repulsion, meaning by that term
more than the resistance of impenetrabi-
lity, gravity, cohesion, or inertia, has, least
of all, authority to plead in favour of its
pretension to the dignity of a primary
quality. The dynamical theories of mat-
ter, indeed, view Attraction and Repulsion
not merely as fundamental qualities, but
even as its generic forces; but the ground
of this is the necessity of the hypothesis,
not the necessity of thought.
2.—But the voice of our individual
consciousness is a more direct and cogent
evidence than the history of foreign opi-
nion;–and this is still less favourable to
the claim in question. The only resist-
ance which we think as necessary to the
conception of body, is a resistance to the
occupation of a body's space—the resist-
ance of ultimate incompressibility. The
others, with their causes, we think only
S52
[NOTE D.
PRIMARY, SECUNDO-PRIMARY AND
as contingent, because, one and all of them
we can easily annihilate in thought.
Repulsion (to take them backwards)—
a resistance to the approximation and
contact of other matter—we come only
by a late and learned experience to view
as an attribute of body, and of the ele-
ments of body; nay, so far is it from being
a character essential in our motion of mat-
ter, it remains, as apparently an actio in
distans, even when forced upon us as a fact,
still inconceivable as a possibility. Ac-
cordingly, by no philosopher has the re-
sistance of Repulsion been psychologi-
cally regarded as among the primary
qualities.
Nor has Inertia a greatly higher claim
to this distinction. There is no impossi-
bility, there is little difficulty, in imagin-
ing a thing, occupying space, and there-
fore a body; and yet, without attraction
or repulsion for any other body, and
wholly indifferent to this or that position,
in space, to motion and to rest; opposing,
therefore, no resistance to any displacing
power. Such imagination is opposed to
experience, and consequently to our ac-
quired habitudes of conceiving body; but
it is not opposed to the necessary condi-
tions of that concept itself.
It was on this psychological ground
that Descartes reduced inertia to a mere
accident of extension. Physically rea-
soning, Descartes may not perhaps be
right; but Kames is certainly, as he is
singularly, wrong, in psychologically re-
cognizing Inertia as a primary attribute
of body.
Of the two attractions, Cohesion is not
constituent of the notion of what occu-
pies, or is trinally extended in, space.
This notion involves only the supposition
of parts out of parts; and although what
fills an uninterrupted portion of space, is,
pro tanto, considered by us as one thing;
the unity which the parts of this obtain in
thought, is not the internal unity of co-
hesion, but the external unity of conti-
nuity or juxtaposition. Under the notion
of repletion of space, a rock has not in
thought a higher unity than a pile of sand.
Cohesion, consequently, is not, in a psy-
chological view, an essential attribute of
body. [In saying this, I may notice
parenthetically, that I speak of cohesion
only as between the ultimate elements of
body, whatever these may be ; and fortu-
nately our present discussion does not
require us to go higher, that is to regard
cohesion in reference to our conception of
these considered in themselves. In form-
ing to ourselves such concept, two counter
inconceivabilities present themselves;–
inconceivabilities from the one or other of
which, as speculators have recoiled, they
have embraced one or other of the counter
theories of Atomism and Dynamism.]
But if cohesion be not thought as an
essential attribute of body, Kames, Reid,
Fergusson, Stewart, Royer Collard, and
other recent philosophers, were wrong to
introduce the degrees of cohesive resist-
ance among the primary qualities; either
avowedly, under the explicit titles of the
Hard, the Soft, &c., or covertly, under
the ambiguous head of Solidity. But
though Locke did not, as they believe,
precede them in this doctrine, his lan-
guage, to say the least of it, is unguarded
and inaccurate. For he employs cohesion
and continuity as convertible terms; and
states, without the requisite qualification,
that ‘ upon the solidity [to him the im-
penetrability or ultimate incompressibi-
lity] of bodies depend their mutual im-
pulse, resistance and protrusion.” (ii. 4,
As to Weight, we have from our ear-
liest experience been accustomed to find
all tangible bodies in a state of gravita-
tion; and, by the providence of nature,
the child has, even anteriorly to expe-
rience, an instinctive anticipation of this
law in relation to his own. This has
given weight an advantage over the
other qualities of the same class; and it
is probably through these influences, that
certain philosophers have been disposed to
regard gravity, as, physically and psy-
chologically, a primary quality of matter.
But instinct and consuetude notwith-
standing, we find no difficulty in imagin-
ing the general co-attraction of matter to
be annihilated; nay, not only annihilated,
but reversed. For as attraction and re-
pulsion seem equally actiones in distans, it
is not more difficult to realize to our-
selves the notion of the one, than the
notion of the other.
In reference to both Cohesion and
Gravity, I may notice, that though it is
only by experience we come to attribute an
internal unity to ought continuously ex-
tended, that is, consider it as a system or
constituted whole ; still, in so far as we
do so consider it, we think the parts as held
together by a certain force, and the whole,
therefore, as endowed with a power of
resisting their distraction. It is, indeed,
only by finding that a material continuity
resists distraction, that we view it as
more than a fortuitous aggregation of
many bodies, that is, as a single body.
The material universe, for example,
§ 11.]
853
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF BODY.
though not defacto continuously extended,
we consider as one system, in so far, but
only in so far, as we find all bodies tend-
ing together by reciprocal attraction.
But here I may add, that though a love
of unity may bias us, there is no necessity
for supposing this co-attraction to be the
effect of any single force. It may be the
result of any plurality of forces, provided
that these co-operate in due subordina-
tion. Thus we are not constrained to
view the universe of matter as held to-
gether by the power of gravity alone.
For though gravity be recognized as the
prime, proximate, and most pervading
principle of co-attraction, still, until the
fact be proved, we are not required to
view it as the sole. We may suppose that
a certain complement of parts are en-
dowed with weight; and that the others,
immediately and in themselves indifferent
to gravitation, are mediately drawn with-
in its sphere, through some special affinity
or attraction subsisting between them and
the bodies immediately subjected to its
influence. Let the letters A, B, C, x, y,
Z, represent in general the universe of
matter; the capital letters representing,
in particular, the kinds of matter pos-
sessed of, the minor letters representing
the kinds of matter destitute of, weight.
Of themselves, A, B, C will, therefore,
gravitate; x, y, z will not. But if x have
a peculiar affinity for A, y for B, and z
for C ; x, y, z, though in themselves
weightless, will, through their correla-
tion to A, B, C, come mediately under
the influence of gravitation, and enter
along with their relatives, as parts, into
the whole of which gravity is the proxi-
mate bond of unity. To prove, there-
fore, a priori, or on any general principle
whatever, that no matter is destitute of
weight, is manifestly impossible. All
matter may possibly be heavy; but until
experiment can decide, by showing, in
detail, that what are now generally re-
garded as imponderable fluids, are either
in truth ponderable substances, or not
substances at all, we have no data on
which to infer more than a conjectural
affirmative of little probability. On the
dynamical theories of matter, the at-
tempts made from Boscovich to Hegel
to demonstrate, that weight is a catholic
property, as a fundamental condition, of
matter, are all founded on petitory pre-
mises. This is justly acknowledged by
Hegel himself of the Kantian deduction,
(Werke, Vol. vii. P. i. § 262); and, were
the proof of psychological concernment,
the same might no less justly be demon-
strated of his own.”
Induction of the Secondary Qualities.
T-Its results are the following.—The
Secondary as manifested to us, are not,
* Since writing the above, I am indebted to
the kindness of Mr Whewell for his ‘Demon-
stration that all Matter is Heavy,’ published in
the Transactions of the Cambridge Philoso-
phical Society, Vol. vii., Part il. ;–an author
whose energy and talent all must admire,
even while convinced the least by the cogency
of his reasoning. As this demonstration pro-
ceeds not on a mere physical ground, but on
the ground of a certain logical or psychologi.
cal law, and as it is otherwise diametrically
Opposed to the whole tenor of the doctrine
previously maintained, I shall briefly consider
it in its general bearing 3–which Mr Whewell
thus states, afterwards illustrating it in de.
tail:— -
‘The question then occurs, whether we can,
by any steps of reasoning, point out an incon-
sistency in the conception of matter without
weight. This I conceive we may do, and this
I shall attempt to show.—The general mode of
stating the argument is this —The quantity
of matter is measured by those sensible pro-
perties of matter [Weight and Inertial which
undergo quantitative addition, subtraction, and
division, as the matter is added, subtracted,
and divided. The quantity of matter cannot
be known in any other way. But this mode of
measuring the quantity of matter, in order to
be true at all, must be universally true. If it
were only partially true, the limits within
which it is to be applied would be arbitrary;
and, therefore, the whole procedure would be
arbitrary, and, as a method of obtaining philo-
sophical truth, altogether futile.” [But this
is not to be admitted. ‘We must suppose the
rule to be universal. If any bodies have weight
all bodies must have weight.’]
1°. This reasoning assumes in chief that we
cannot but have it in our power, by some
means or other, to ascertain the quantity of
matter as a physical truth. But gratuitously.
For why may not the quantity of matter be
one of that multitude of problems, placed be-
yond the reach, not of human curiosity, but of
human determination?
2°. But, subordinate to the assumption that
some measure we must have, the reasoning fur.
ther supposes that a measure of the weight (and
inertia) is the only measure we can have of the
quantity of matter. But is even this cor-
rect? We may, certainly, attempt to esti-
mate the quantity of matter by the quantity of
two, at least, of the properties of matter; to.
wit a) by the quantity of space of which it is
found to resist the occupation; and—b) by the
quantity of weight (and inertia), which it
manifests. We need not enquire, whether,
were these measures harmonious in result,
they would, in combination, supply a compe-
tent criterion; for they are at variance; and,
if either, one must be exclusively selected.
Of the two, the former, indeed, at first sight,
854
[NOTE d.
PRIMARY, SECUNDO-PRIMARY AND
in propriety, qualities of Body at all. As
apprehended, they are only subjective
affections, and belong only to bodies in so
far as these are supposed furnished with
the powers capable of specifically deter-
mining the various parts of our nervous
apparatus to the peculiar action, or rather
passion, of which they are susceptible;
which determined action or passion is the
quality of which alone we are immedi-
ately cognisant, the external concause of
that internal effect remaining to percep-
tion altogether unknown. Thus, the
recommends itself as the alone authentic. For
the quantity of matter is, on all hands, ad-
mitted to be in proportion to the quantity
of space it fills, extension being necessarily
thought as the essential property of body;
whereas it is not universally admitted that the
quantity of matter is in proportion to its
amount of weight and inertia; these being, on
the contrary, conceivable, and generally con-
ceived, as adventitious accidents, and not,
therefore, as necessary concomitants of mat-
ter.—But, then, it may be competently ob-
jected,—The cubical extension of compressed
bodies cannot be taken as an authentic mea-
sure of the quantity of space they fill, because
we are not assured that the degree of com-
pressing force which we can actually apply is
an accurate index of what their cubical exten-
sion would be, in a state of ultimate or closest
compression. But though this objection must
be admitted to invalidate the certainty of the
more direct and probable criterion, it does
not, however, leave the problem to be deter-
mined by the other; against which, indeed, it
falls to be no less effectually retorted. For as
little, at least, can we be assured that thereis not
(either separately, or in combination with gra-
vitating matter) substance occupying space,
and, therefore, material, but which, being des-
titute of weight, is, on the standard of pom-
derability, precisely as if it did not exist.
This supposition, be it observed, the experi-
ments of Newton and Bessel do not exclude.
Nay, more ; there are, in fact, obtruded on our
observation a series of apparent fluids, (as
Light or its vehicle, the Calorific, Electro-gal-
vanic and Magnetic agents,) which, in our pre-
sent state of knowledge, we can neither, on
the one hand, denude of the character of sub-
stance, nor, on the other, clothe with the
attribute of weight.
3°. This argument finally supposes, as a lo-
gical canon, that a presumption from analogy
affords a criterion of truth, subjectively neces-
sary, and objectively certain. But not the
former; for however inclined, we are never
necessitated, a posteriori, to think, that be-
cause some are, therefore all the constituents
of a class must be, the subjects of a predicate a
priori contingent. Not the latter; for though
a useful stimulus and guide to investigation,
analogy is, by itself, a very doubtful guarantee
of truth
Secondary qualities (and the same is to
be said, mutatis mutandis, of the Secundo-
primary) are, considered subjectively, and
considered objectively, affections or quali-
ties of things diametrically opposed in
nature—of the organic and inorganic, of
the sentient and insentient, of mind and
matter: and though, as mutually corre-
lative, and their several pairs rarely ob-
taining in common language more than a
single name, they cannot well be con-
sidered, except in conjunction, under the
Same category or general class; still their
essential contrast of character must be
ever carefully borne in mind. And in
speaking of these qualities, as we are here
chiefly concerned with them on their sub-
jective side, I request it may be observed,
that I shall employ the expression Second-
ary qualities to denote those phaenomenal
affections determined in our sentient or—
ganism by the agency of external bodies,
and not, unless when otherwise stated,
the occult powers themselves from which
that agency proceeds.
Of the Secondary qualities, in this rela-
tion, there are various kinds; the variety
principally depending on the differences
of the different parts of our nervous ap-
paratus. Such are the proper sensibles,
the idiopathic affections of our several
organs of sense, as Colour, Sound, Flavour,
Savour, and Tactual sensation; such are
the feelings from Heat, Electricity, Gal-
vanism, &c.; nor need it be added, such
are the muscular and cutaneous sensations
which accompany the perception of the
Secundo-primary qualities. Such, though
less directly the result of foreign causes,
are Titillation, Sneezing, Horripilation,
Shuddering, the feeling of what is called
Setting-the-teeth-on-edge, &c., &c.; such,
in fine, are all the various sensations of
bodily pleasure and pain determined by
the action of external stimuli.--So much
for the induction of the Secondary Quali-
ties in a subjective relation.
It is here, however, requisite to add
Some words of illustration.—What aro
denominated the secondary qualities of
body, are, I have said, as apprehended,
not qualities of body at all; being only
idiopathic affections of the different por-
tions of our nervous organism—affections
which, however uniform and similar in us,
may be determined by the most dissimilar
and multiform causes in external things.
This is manifest from the physiology of
our senses and their appropriate nerves.
Without entering on details, it is sufficient
to observe, that we are endowed with
§ II.]
855
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF BODY.
various assortments of nerves; each of
these being astricted to certain definite
functions; and each exclusively discharg—
ing the function which specially belongs
to it. Thus there are nerves of feeling,
(comprehending under that term the
Sensations of cutaneous touch and feeling
proper, of the muscular sense, and of the
vital sense, or sensus vagus, in all its
modifications,) of seeing, of hearing, of
smelling, of tasting, &c.
The nerves of feeling afford us sensa-
tions to which, in opposite extremes, we
emphatically, if not exclusively, attribute
the qualities of pain and pleasure. Acute
pain—pain from laceration may, indeed,
be said to belong exclusively to these ;
for the nerves appropriated to the other
and more determinate senses, are like the
brain in this respect altogether insensible,
and it is even probable that the pain we
experience from their over-excitement is
dependent on the nerves of feeling with
which they are accompanied. Now pain
and pleasure no one has ever attributed
as qualities to external things: feeling has
always been regarded as purely subjective,
and it has been universally admitted that
its affections, indicating only certain con-
scious states of the sentient animal, afforded
no inference even to definite causes of its
production in external nature. So far
there is no dispute.
The case may, at first sight, seem dif-
ferent with regard to the sensations pro-
per to the more determinate senses; but
a slight consideration may suffice to satisfy
us that these are no less subjective than
the others;–as is indeed indicated in
the history already given of the distinction
of Primary and Secondary qualities. As,
however, of a more definite character,
it is generally, I believe, supposed that
these senses, though they may not pre-
cisely convey material qualities from ex-
ternal existence to internal knowledge,
still enable us at least to infer the posses-
sion by bodies of certain specific powers,
each capable exclusively of exciting a
certain correlative manifestation in us.
But even this is according greatly too
large a share in the total sensitive
effect to the objective concause. The
sensations proper to the several senses
depend, for the distinctive character of
their manifestation, on the peculiar cha-
racter of the action of their several
nerves ; and not, as is commonly sup-
posed, on the exclusive susceptibility of
these nerves for certain specific stimuli.
In fact every the most different stimulus
(and there are many such, both extra and
external object.
intra-organic, besides the one viewed as
proper to the sense,) which can be brotight
to bear on each several nerve of sense,
determines that nerve only to its one pe-
culiar sensation. Thus the stimulus by
the external agent exclusively denomi-
: nated Light, though the more common, is
: not the only, stimulus which excites in the
visual apparatus the subjective affection
of light and colours. Sensations of light
and colours, are determined among other
causes, from within, by a sanguineous
congestion in the capillary vessels of the
optic nerve, or by various chemical agents
which affect it through the medium of
the blood; from without, by the applica-
tion to the same nerve of a mechanical
force, as a blow, a compression, a wound,
or of an imponderable influence, as elec-
tričity or galvanism. In fact, the whole
actual phaenomena of vision might be
realized to us by the substitution of an
electro-galvanic stimulus, were this radi-
ated in sufficient intensity from bodies,
and in conformity with optical laws. The
blind from birth are thus rarely without
all experience of light, colour and visual
extension, from stimulation of the interior
organism.—The same is the case with the
other senses. Apply the aforementioned
or other extraordinary stimuli to their
several nerves; each sense will be excited
to its appropriate sensation, and its ap-
propriate sensation alone. The passion
manifested (however heterogeneous its
external or internal cause) is always, of
the auditory nerves, a sound, of the olfac-
tory, a smell, of the gustatory, a taste. But
of the various common agencies which
thus excite these several organs to their
idiopathic affection, we are manifestly no
more entitled to predicate the individual
colour, sound, odour, or savour of which,
in each case, we have a sensation, than we
are to attribute the pain we feel to the pin
by which we are pricked. But if this must
per force be admitted of the extraordinary
external causes of these sensations, it is
impossible to deny it of the ordinary.
In this respect Aristotle, (and the same
may also be said of Theophrastus,) was far
in advance of many of our modern philo-
sophers.
In his treatise on Dreams, to
prove that sensation is not a purely objec-
tive cognition, but much more a subjective
modification or passion of the organ, he
shows, and with a detail very unusual
to him, that this sensible affection does
not cease with the presence, and, there-
fore, does not manifest the quality, of the
‘This (he says) is ap-
parent so often as we have the sensation
856.
[NotE D.
PRIMARY, SECUNDo-PRIMARY AND
of a thing for a certain continuance.
For then, divert as we may the sense from
one object to another, still the affection
from the first accompanies the second; as
(for example) when we pass from sun-
shine into shade. In this case we at first
see nothing, because of the movement in
the eyes still subsisting, which had been
determined by the light. In like manner
if we gaze for a while upon a single colour,
say white or green, whatever we may now
turn our sight on will appear of that tint.
And if, after looking at the sun or other
dazzling object, we close our eyelids, we
shall find, if we observe, that, in the line
of vision, there first of all appears a colour
such as we had previously beheld, which
then changes to red, then to purple, until
at last the affection vanishes in black; '-
with more to the same effect. (C. 2.)
And in the same chapter he anticipates
modern psychologists in the observation
—that “Sometimes, when suddenly awoke,
we discover, from their not incontinently
vanishing, that the images which had ap-
peared to us when asleep are really move.
ments in the organs of sense; and to
young persons it not unfrequently hap-
pens, even when wide awake, and with-
drawn from the excitement of light, that
moving images present themselves so
vividly, that for fear they are wont to
hide themselves under the bed-cloaths.”
(C. 2.) See also Ockham, in Sent. L. ii.
qq. 17, 18.—Biel, in Sent. L. ii. Dist. iii.
q. 2.-Bergardws, Circulus Pisanus P. vi.
Circ. 12, ed. 2–Hobbes, Human Nature,
ch. ii. § 7–10.-Boerhaave, Praelectiones
in proprias Institutiones, §§ 284, 579.
Sprengel, Semiotik $ 770–773; Patho-
logie, vol. ii. § 719.—Grwithwisen, Anthro-
pologie, § 449.—Sir Charles Bell, An
Idea, &c. (in Shaw's Narrative, p. 35, sq.;)
The Hand, &c., p. 175, sq.-- Plateau,
Essai d'une Theorie, &c., p. ...—J. Muel.
!er, Physiology, Book v., Preliminary Con-
siderations, p. 1059, sq., Engl. Transl.
Such being the purely subjective cha-
racter of the Secondary qualities, as ap-
prehended or immediately known by us,
We must reject as untenable the doctrine
on this point, however ingeniously sup-
ported, of the celebrated Neapolitan phi-
losopher, Baron Galluppi; who, while,
justly I think, dissatisfied with the opinion
of Reid, that the perception of the pri-
mary qualities is a conception instinctively
suggested on occasion of our sensation of
the secondary, errs on the opposite ex-
treme, in his attempt to show that this
sensation itself affords us what is wanted,
—an immediate cognition, an objective
apprehension, of external things. The
result of his doctrine he thus himself
states:—‘ Sensation is of its very nature
objective; in other words, objectivity is
essential to every sensation.” Elementi di
Filosofia, vol. i. c. 10, ed. 4. Florence,
1837. The matter is more amply treated
in his Critica della Conoscenza, L. ii. c. 6,
and L. iv.–a work which I have not yet
seen. Compare Bonelli, Institutiones
Logico-Metaphysicae, t. i. pp. 184, 222,
ed. 2, 1837.
Such is a general view of the grounds
on which the psychological distinction of
the Qualities of Body, into the three
classes of Primary, Secundo-primary, and
Secondary is established. It now remains
to exhibit their mutual differences and
similarities more in detail. In attempt—
ing this, the following order will be pur-
sued.—I shall state of the three relative
classes, (A) What they are, considered
ân general; then, (B) What they are, con-
sidered in particular. And under this
latter head I shall view them, (19) as in .
Bodies : (2°) as in Cognition ; and this
(a) as in Sensitive Apprehension ; (b) as
in Thought ; (c) as in both.-For the
conveniency of reference the paragraphs
will be numbered.
A.—What they are in general.
1. The Primary are less properly de-
nominated Qualities (Suchnesses,) and
deserve the name only as we conceive
them to distinguish body from not-body,
—corporeal from incorporeal substance.
They are thus merely the attributes of
body as body, corporis wit corpus. The
Secundo-primary and Secondary, on the
contrary, are in strict propriety denomi-
nated Qualities, for they discriminate
body from body. They are the attri-
butes of body as this or that kind of body,
—corporis wt tale corpus.*
2. The Primary arise from the universal
relations of body to itself; the Secundo-
primary from the general relations of this
body to that; the Secondary from the
special relations of this kind of body to
this kind of animated or sentient organism.
3. The Primary determine the possi-
bility of matter absolutely; the Secundo-
* Thus, in the Aristotelic and other philo-
sophies, the title Quality would not be allowed
to those fundamental conditions on which the
very possibility of matter depends, but which
modern philosophers have denominated its
Primary Qualities.
§ II.j .
- 857.
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF BODY.
primary, the possibility of the material
universe as actually constituted ; the
Secondary, the possibility of our relation
as sentient existences to that universe.
4. Under the Primary we apprehend
modes of the Non-ego; under the Secundo-
primary we apprehend modes both of the
Ego and of the Non-ego; under the
Secondary we apprehend modes of the
Ego, and infer modes of the Non-ego.
(See par. 15.) w
5. The Primary are apprehended as
they are in bodies; the Secondary, as
they are in us; the Secundo-primary, as
they are in bodies, and as they are in us.
(See par. 15.)
6. The term quality in general, and
the names of the several qualities in par-
ticular, are—in the case of the Primary,
univocal, one designation unambiguously
marking out one quality;”—in the case
of the Secundo-primary and Secondary,
equivocal, a single term being ambigu-
ously applied to denote two qualities, dis-
tinct though correlative—that, to wit,
which is a mode of existence in bodies,
and that which is a mode of affection in
our organism.f. (See par. 24.)
7. The Primary, and also the Secundo-
primary qualities, are definite in number
and exhaustive; for all conceivable rela-
tions of body to itself, or of body to body
merely, are few, and all these found actu-
ally existent. The Secondary, on the
contrary, are in number indefinite; and
the actual hold no proportion to the pos-
sible. For we can suppose, in an animal
organism, any number of unknown capa-
cities of being variously affected; and, in
matter, any number of unknown powers
of thus variously affecting it; f and this
though we are necessarily unableto imagine
to ourselves what these actually may be.
* For example, there is no subjective Sensa-
tion of Magnitude, Figure, Number, &c., but
only an objective Perception. (See par. 15–19.)
# Thus, in the Secundo-primary the term
Hardness, for instance, denotes both a certain
resistance, of which we are conscious, to our
motive energy, and a certain feeling from
pressure on our nerves. The former, a Per-
ception, is wholly different from the latter, a
Sensation; and we can easily imagine that we
might have been so constituted, as to appre-
hend Resistance as we do Magnitude, Figure,
&c., without a corresponding organic passion.
(See par. 18.)—In the Secondary the term
Heat, for example, denotes ambiguously both
the quality which we infer to be in bodies and
the quality of which we are conscious in our-
Sclves.
# Sextus Empiricus, Montaigne, Voltaire,
Hemsterhuis, Irueger, &c., notice this as pos-
B.— What they are in particular ; and
1°, Considered as in Bodies.
8. The Primary are the qualities of
body in relation to our organism, as a
body simply ; the Secundo-primary, are
the qualities of body in relation to our
organism, as a propelling, resisting, cohe-
sive body; the Secondary are the quali-
ties of body in relation to our organism,
as an idiopathically excitable and sentient
body. (See p. 854 b–856 a.)
9. Under this head we know the Pri-
mary qualities immediately as objects of
perception; the Secundo-primary, both
immediately as objects of perception and
mediately as causes of sensation; the Se-
condary, only mediately as causes of sen-
sation. In other words:—The Primary
are known immediately in themselves;
the Secundo-primary, both immediately
in themselves and mediately in their
effects on us; the Secondary, only me-
* in their effects on us. (See par.
15.
10. The Primary are known under
the condition of sensations; the Secundo-
primary, in and along with sensations;
the Secondary, in consequence of sensa-
tions. (See par. 20.)
11. The Primary are thus apprehended
objects; the Secondary, inferred powers;
the Secundo-primary, both apprehended
objects and inferred powers.
12. The Primary are conceived as ne-
cessary and perceived as actual; the Se-
cundo-primary are perceived and con-
ceived as actual; the Secondary are
inferred and conceived as possible.
T3. The Primary are perceived as con-
ceived. The Secundo-primary are con-
ceived as perceived. The Secondary are
neither perceived as conceived, nor con-
ceived as perceived;—for to perception
they are occult, and are conceived only
as latent causes to account for manifest
effects. (See par. 15, and footnote.)*
14. The Primary may be roundly cha-
racterized as mathematical ; the Secundo-
primary, as mechanical ; the Secondary,
as physiological.
2°. Considered as Cognitions ; and here
(a) As in Sensitive Apprehension, or in
orelation to Sense.
15. In this relation the Primary quali-
ties are, as apprehended, unambiguously
sible; but do not distinguish the possibility as
limited to the Secondary Qualities.
858
[NOTE D.
PRIMARY, SECUNDO-PRIMARY AND
objective (object-objects); the Secondary,
unambiguously subjective (subject-ob-
jects); * the Secundo - primary, both
objective and subjective (object-objects
and subject–objects). In other words:—
We are conscious, as objects, in the Pri-
mary qualities, of the modes of a not-
self; in the Secondary, of the modes of:
self; * in the Secundo-primary, of the
modes of self and of a not-self at once.f
16. Using the terms strictly, the ap-
prehensions of the Primary are percep-
tions, not sensations; of the Secondary,
sensations, not perceptions; of the Se-
cundo-primary, perceptions and sensations
together. (See par. 15, footnote *.)
17. In the Primary there is, thus, no
concomitant Secondary quality; in the
Secondary there is no concomitant pri-
mary quality; in the Secundo-primary, a
secondary and quasi-primary quality ac-
company each other.
18. In the apprehension of the Primary
qualities the mind is primarily and prin-
cipally active ; it feels only as it knows.
In that of the Secondary, the mind is
primarily and principally passive; it knows
only as it feels. # In that of the Secundo-
* How much this differs from the doctrine
of Reid, Stewart, &c., who hold that in every
sensation there is not only a subjective object
of sensation, but also an objective object of
perceptºn, see Note D*, § 1.
# In illustration of this paragraph, I must
notice a confusion and ambiguity in the very
cardinal distinction of psychology and its terms
—the distinction I mean of subjective and ob-
jective, which, as far as I am aware, has never
been cleared up, nay, never even brought
clearly into view. -
Our nervous organism, (the rest of our body
may be fairly thrown out of account,) in con-
trast to all exterior to itself, appertains to the
concrete human Ego, and in this respect is
subjective, internal; whereas, in contrast to the
abstract immaterial Ego, the pure mind, it
belongs to the Non-ego, and in this respect is
objective, external. Here is one source of am-
biguity sufficiently perplexing ; but the dis-
crimination is here comparatively manifest,
and any important inconvenience from the
employment of the terms may, with proper
attention, be avoided.
The following problem is more difficult :
Looking from the mind, and not looking be-
yond our animated organism, are the phaeno-
mena of which we are conscious in that organ-
ism all upon a level, i.e., equally objective or
equally subjective ; or is there a discrimination
to be made, and some phaenomena to be con-
sidered as objective, being modes of our organ-
ism viewed as a mere portion of matter, and
in this respect a Non-ego, while other phaeno-
mena are to be considered as subjective, being
the modes of our organism as animated by or
in union with the mind, and therefore states
of the Ego P Without here attempting to enter
on the reasons which vindicate my opinion,
suffice it.to say, that I adopt the latter alter-
native; and hold further, that the discrimina-
tion of the sensorial phaenomena into objective
and subjective, coincides with the distinction
of the qualities of body into Primary and
Secondary, the Secundo-primary being sup-
posed to contribute an element to each. Our
nervous organism is to be viewed in two rela-
tions;–1°, as a body simply, and—2°, as an
animated body. As a body simply it can pos-
sibly exist, and can possibly be known as ex-
istent, only under those necessary conditions
of all matter, which have been denominated
its Primary qualities. As an animated body
it actually exists, and is actually known to
exist, only as it is susceptible of certain affec-
tions, which, and the external causes of which,
have been ambiguously called the Secondary
qualities of matter. Now, by a law of our
nature, we are not conscious of the existence
of our organism, consequently not conscious
of any of its primary qualities, unless when
we are conscious of it, as modified by a secon-
dary quality, or some other of its affections, as
an animated body. But the former conscious-
ness requires the latter only as its negative
condition, and is neither involved in it as a
part, nor properly dependent on it as a cause.
The object in the one consciousness is also
wholly different from the object in the other.
In that, it is a contingent passion of the organ-
ism, as a constituent of the human self; in
this, it is some essential property of the organ-
ism, as a portion of the universe of matter,
and though apprehended by, not an affection
proper to, the conscious self at all. In these
circumstances, the secondary quality, say a
colour, which the mind apprehends in the
organism, is, as a passion of self, recognised
to be a subjective object; whereas the primary
quality, extension, or figure, or number, which,
when conscious of such affection, the mind
therein at the same time apprehends, is, as
not a passion of self, but a common property
of matter, recognized to be an objective object.
(See par. 16–19, with footnote#, and par. 18,
with footnote f.)
# Thus in vision the secondary quality of
colour is, in the strictest sense, a passive
affection of the sentient ego; and the only
activity the mind can be said to exert in the
sensation of colours, is in the recognitive con-
sciousness that it is so and so affected. It thus
knows as it feels, in knowing that it feels.
But the apprehension of extension, figure,
divisibility, &c., which, under condition of its
being thus affected, simultaneously takes
place, is, though necessary, wholly active and
purely spiritual; in as much as extension,
figure, &c., are, directly and Sin their own
nature, neither, subjectively considered, pas-
sions of the animated sensory, nor, objectively
considered, efficient qualities in things by
which such passion can be caused. The per-
ception of parts out of parts is not given in
the mere affection of colour, but is obtained by
§ II.]
859
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF BODY.
primary the mind is equally and at once
active and passive; in one respect, it feels as
it knows, in another, it knows as it feels.”
19. Thus Perception and Activity are
at the maximum in the Primary qualities;
at the minimum in the Secondary; Sen-
sation and Passivity are at the minimum
in the Primary, at the maximum in the
Secondary; while, in the Secundo-pri-
mary, Perception and Sensation, Activity
and Passivity, are in equipoise.—Thus too
it is, that the most purely material phaeno-
mena are apprehended in the most purely
inorganic energy.T
a reaction of the mind upon such affection. It
is merely the recognition of a relation. But a
relation is neither a passion nor a cause of
passion; and, though apprehended through
sense, is, in truth, an intellectual not a sensi-
tive cognition;–unless under the name of
sensitive cognition we comprehend, as I think
we ought, more than the mere recognition of
an organic passion. (See Note D*, § 1.) The
perception of Extension is not, therefore, the
mere consciousness of an affection—a mere
sensation.—This is still more manifest in re-
gard to Figure, or extension bounded. Visual
figure is an expanse of colour bounded in a
certain mammer by a line. Here all is nothing
but relation. “ Earpanse of colour” is only
coloured extension; and extension, as stated,
is only the relation of parts out of parts.
* Bownded in a certain manner,’ is also only the
expression of various relations. A thing is
* bownded,” only as it has a limited number of
parts; but limited, number, and parts, are, all
three, relations: and, further, ‘in a certain man-
ner' denotes that these parts stand to each other
in one relation and not in another. The percep-
tion of a thing as bounded, and bounded in a
certain manner, is thus only the recognition of
a thing under relations. Finally, ‘by a line'
still merely indicates a relation ; for a line is
nothing but the negation of each other, by two
intersecting colours. Absolutely considered,
it is a nothing ; and so far from there being
any difficulty in conceiving a breadthless line,
a line is, in fact, not a line (but a narrow sur-
face between two lines) if thought as pos-
sessed of breadth. (See Note E.)—In such per-
ceptions, therefore, if the mind can be said to
feel, it can be said to feel only in being con-
scious of itself as purely active ; that is, as
Spontaneously apprehensive of an object-ob-
ject or mode of the non-ego, and not of a sub-
ject-object or affection of the ego. (See par.
16–19, and relative footnote#.)
The application of the preceding doctrine to
the other primary qualities is even more ob-
trusive.
To prevent misunderstanding, it may be
observed, that in saying the mind is active,. not
passive, in a cognition, I do not mean to say that
the mind is free to exert or not to exert the
cognitive act, or even not to exert it in a de-
terminate manner. The mind energises as it
lives, and it cannot choose but live; it knows
as it energises, and it cannot choose but ener-
gise. An object being duly presented, it is
snable not to apprehend it, and apprehend it,
both in itself, and in the relations under which .
it stands. We may evade the presentation,
not the recognition of what is presented. But
of this again.
* This is apparent when it is considered
that under the cognition of a secundo-primary
quality are comprehended both the apprehen-
sion of a secondary quality, i.e. the sensation
of a subjective affection, and the apprehension
of a quasi-primary quality, i.e. the perception
of an objective force. Take, for example, the
Secundo-primary quality of Hardness. In the
sensitive apprehension of this we are aware of
two facts. The first is the fact of a certain
affection, a certain feeling, in our sentient or-
ganism, (Muscular and Skin senses.) This is
the sensation, the apprehension of a feeling
consequent on the resistance of a body, and
which in one of its special modifications con-
stitutes Hardness, viewed as an affection in
us;—a sensation which we know, indeed, by
experience to be the effect of the pressure of
an unyielding body, but which we can easily con-
ceive might be determined in us independently
of all internal movement, all external resis-
tance; while we can still more easily conceive
that such movement and resistance might be
apprehended, independently of such concomi-
tant sensation. Here, therefore, we know
only as we feel, for here we only know, that is,
are conscious, that we feel.-The second is the
fact of a certain opposition to the voluntary
movement of a limb–to our locomotive energy.
Of this energy we might be conscious, without
any consciousness of the state, or even the
existence, of the muscles set in motion; and
we might also be conscious of resistance to its
exertion, though no organic feeling happened
to be its effect. But as it is, though conscious of
the sensations connected both with the active
state of our muscular frame determined by its
tension, and of the passive state in our skin
and flesh determined by external pressure;
still, over and above these animal sensations,
we are purely conscious of the fact, that the
overt exertion of our locomotive volition is, in
a certain sort, impeded. This consciousness is
the perception, the objective apprehension, of
resistance, which in one of its special modifi-
cations constitutes Hardness, as an attribute
of body. In this cognition, if we can be said
with any propriety to feel, we can be said
only to feel as we know, because we only feel,
i.e., are conscious, that we know. (See par
18, footnotet, and par 25, first footnote, Part
# The doctrine of paragraphs 16–19 seems
to have been intended by Aristotle (see above,
p. 829 b) in saying that the Common Sensibles
(=the Primary Qualities) are percepts con-
comitant or consequent on the sensation of the
Proper (=the Secondary Qualities), and on
one occasion that the Common Sensibles are,
in a Gertain sort, only to be considered as ap-
prehensions of sense per accidems. For this
may be interpreted to mean, that our appro-
860
[NOTE D.
PRIMARY, SECUNDO-PRIMARY AND
20. In the Primary, a sensation of
organic affection is the condition of
perception, a mental apprehension ; in
the Secundo-primary, a sensation is the
concomitant of the perception; in the
Secondary, a sensation is the all in all
which consciousness apprehends. (See
par. 10.)
21. In the Primary, the sensation, the
condition of the perception, is not itself
hension of the common sensibles is not, like
that of the proper, the mere consciousness of
a subjective or sensorial passion, but, though
only exerted when such passion is determined,
is in itself the spontaneous energy of the mind
in objective cognition.
Tending towards, though not reaching to,
the same result, might be adduced many pas-
sages from the works of the Greek interpre-
ters of Aristotle. In particular, I would refer
to the doctrine touching the Common Sen-
sibles, stated by Simplicius in his Commentary
on the De Anima, (L. ii., c. 6, f, 35 a., L. iii., c.
1, f, 51 a, ed. Ald.,) and by Priscianus Lydus,
in his Metaphrase of the Treatise of Theo-
phrastus on Sense, (p. 274, 275, 285, ed. Basil.
Theoph.):-but (as already noticed) these books
ought, I suspect, from strong internal evi-
dence, both to be assigned to Priscianus as
their author; while the doctrine itself is pro-
bably only that which Iamblichus had de-
livered, in his lost treatise upon the Soul. It
is to this effect :— The common sensibles
might appear not to be sensibles at all, or
sensibles only per accidens, as making no im-
pression on the organ, and as objects analo-
gous to, and apprehended by, the understand-
ing or rational mind alone. This extreme
doctrine is not, however, to be admitted. As
sensibles, the common must be allowed to act
somehow upon the sense, though in a diffe-
rent manner from the proper. Comparatively
speaking, the proper act primarily, corporeally,
and by causing a passion in the sense ; the
common, secondarily, formally, and by elicit-
ing the sense and understanding to energy.
But though there be, in the proper more of
passivity, in the common more of activity, still
the common are, in propriety, objects of sense
per se; being neither cognized (as substances)
exclusively by the understanding, nor (as is
the sweet by vision) accidentally by sense.
A similar approximation may be detected in
the doctrine of the more modern Aristotelians.
(See p. 830 a.) Expressed in somewhat diffe-
rent terms, it was long a celebrated contro-
versy in the schools, whether a certain class
of objects, under which common sensibles
were included, did or did not modify the or-
ganic sense; and if this they did, whether
primarily and of themselves, or only secon-
darily through their modification of the pro-
per sensibles, with which they were associated.
Ultimately, it became the prevalent doctrine,
that of Magnitude, Figure, Place, Position,
Time, Relation in general, &c., “nullam
CŞse efficaoiam vel actionem :’ that is, these
caused by the objective quality perceived;
in the Secundo-primary, the concomitant
sensation is the effect of the objective
quality perceived; in the Secondary, the
sensation is the effect of an objective
quality supposed, but not perceived. In
other words:–In the apprehension of the
Primary, there is no subject-object de-
termined by the object-object; in the
Secundo-primary, there is a subject-object
do not, like the affective qualities (qualitates
patibiles) or proper sensibles, make any real,
any material impress on the sense; but if
they can be said to act at all, act only,
either, as some held, spiritually or inten-
tionally, or as others, by natural resultance,
(vel spiritualiter sive intentionaliter, vel per
naturalem resultantiam.) See Toletus, Comm.
De Anima, L. ii., c. 6, qq. 14, 155–Zabarella,
Comm De. Anima, L. ii., Text. 65; De Rebus
Naturalibus, p. 939 sq., De Sensu Agente, cc.
4, 5;-Goclenius, Adversaria, q. 55;-Suarez,
Metaphysicae Disputationes, disp. xviii., Sec.
4;—Scheibler, Metaphysica, L. ii., c. 5, art. 5,
punct. 1; De Anima, P. ii., disp. ii., § 24; Liber
Sententiarum, Ex. vi., ax. 4, Ex. vii., ax. 10.
The same result seems, likewise, confirmed
indirectly, by the doctrine of those philoso-
phers who, as Comdillac in his earlier writ-
ings, Stewart, Brown, Mill, J. Young, &c., hold
that extension and colour are only mutually
concomitant in imagination, through the influ-
ence of inveterate association. In itself, in-
deed, this doctrine I do not admit; for it
supposes that we could possibly be conscious
of colour without extension, of extension with-
out colour. Not the former; for we are only,
as in sense, so in the imagination of sense,
aware of a minimum visible, as of a luminous
or coloured point, in contrast to and out of a
surrounding expanse of. obscure or differently
coloured surface; and a visual object, larger
than the Ininimum, is, ex hypothesi, presented,
or represented, as extended. (See also Note
E.)—Not the latter; for, as I have already ob-
served, psychologically speaking, the sensation
of colour comprehends contradictory oppo-
sites; to wit, both the sensation of positive
colour, in many modes, and the sensation of a
privation of all colour, in one. But of contra.
dictory predicates one or other must, by the
logical law of excluded middle, be attributed
in thought to every object of thought. We
cannot, therefore, call up in imagination an
extended object, without representing it either
as somehow positively coloured, (red, or green,
or blue, &c.,) or as negatively coloured, (black.)
But though I reject this doctrine, I do not
reject it as absolutely destitute of truth. It is
erroneous I think; but every error is a truth
abused; and the abuse in this case seems to
lie in the extreme recoil from the counter
error of the common opinion,--that the appre-
hension through sight of colour, and the ap-
prehension through sight of extension and
figure, are as inseparable, identical cognitions
of identical objects.-See Reid, Inq. 145,
§ II.]
86]
SECONDARY QUALl 1 IES OF BODY.
determined by the object-object ; in the
Secondary, a subject-object is the only
object of immediate cognition.
22. In the Primary, the sensation of
the secondary quality, which affords its
condition to the perception of the pri-
mary, is various and indefinite; * in the
Secundo-primary, the sensation of the
* The opinions so generally prevalent, that
through touch, or touch and muscular feeling,
or touch and sight, or touch, muscular feeling,
and sight, that through these senses, exclu-
sively, we are percipient of extension, &c.,
I do not admit. On the contrary, I hold that
all sensations, whatsoever, of which we are
conscious, as one out of another, eo ipso, afford
us the condition of immediately and necessarily
apprehending extension; for in the conscious-
ness itself of such reciprocal outness is actually
involved a perception of difference of place in
space, and, consequently, of the extended.
Philosophers have confounded what supplies
the condition of the more prompt and precise
perception of extension, with what supplies the
condition of a perception of extension at all.
And be it observed, that it makes no essen-
tial difference in this doctrine, whether the
mind be supposed proximately conscious of
the reciprocal outness of sensations at the
central extremity of the nerves, in an eastended
sensorium commune, where each distinct mer-
vous filament has its separate locality, or at the
peripheral extremity of the nerves, in the places
themselves where sensations are excited, and
to which they are referred. From many pa-
thological phaenomena the former alternative
might appear the more probable. In this
view, each several nerve, or rather, each
several mervous filament, (for every such fila-
ment has its peculiar function, and runs isola-
ted from every other,) is to be regarded merely
as one sentient point; which yields one indivi-
sible sensation, out of and distinct from that
of every other, by the side of which it is
arranged; and not as a sentient line, each point
of which, throughout its course, has for itself
a separate local sensibility. For a stimulus
applied to any intermediate part of a nerve, is
felt not as there, but as if applied to its peri-
pheral extremity; a feeling which continues
when that extremity itself, nay, when any por-
tion of the nerve, however great, has been long
cut off. Thus it is that a whole line of nerve
affords, at all its points, only the sensation of
one determinate point. One point, therefore,
physiologically speaking, it is to be considered.
(See Plutarch, De Plac. Philos. L. iv. c. 23;-
Nemesius, De Hom., c. 8;-Fabricius Hildanus,
Obs. Cent, iii. obs. 15;-Descartes, Princ. P. iv.
§ 1963—Blancard, Coll. Med. Phys. cent. vii.
obs. 155—Stuart, De Motu Musc. c. 5;-Kaaw
Boerhaave, Imp. fac. § 368 sq.;-Sir Ch. Bell,
Idea, &c. p. 12; The Hand, p. 1595–Magendie,
Journ tº v. p. 38;-Mueller, Phys. pp. 692-696,
Engl. tr.)
Take for instance a man whose leg has been
amputated. If now two nervous filaments be
irritated, the one of which ran to his great,
secondary quality, which accompanies the
perception of the quasi primary, is, under
the same circumstances, uniform and de-
finite; in the Secondary, the sensation is
itself definite, but its exciting cause, the
supposed quality in bodies, various and
indefinite. (See p. 854 b–856 a.)
23. The Primary and Secondary qualities
the other to his little, toe—he will experience
two pains, as in these two members. Nor is
there, in propriety, any deception in such sen-
sations. For his toes, as all his members, are
his only as they are to him sentient; and they
are only sentient and distinctively sentient, as
endowed with nerves and distinct nerves.
The nerves thus constitute alone the whole
sentient organism. In these circumstances,
the peculiar nerves of the several toes, running
isolated from centre to periphery, and thus
remaining, though curtailed in length, unmu-
tilated in function, will, if irritated at any
point, continue to manifest their original
sensations; and these being now, as heretofore,
manifested out of each other, must afford the
condition of a perceived extension, not less
real than that which they afforded prior to
the amputation. - -
The hypothesis of an extended sensorium
commune, or complex nervous centre, the
mind being supposed in proximate connexion
with each of its constituent nervous termina-
tions or origins, may thus be reconciled to the
doctrine of natural realism; and therefore
what was said at p. 821 a, No. 2, and relative
places, with reference to a sensorium of a dif-
ferent character, is to be qualified in conform-
ity to the present supposition.
It is, however, I think, more philosophical,
to consider the nervous system as one whole,
with each part of which the animating prin-
ciple is equally and immediately connected,
so long as each part remains in continuity with
the centre. To this opinion may be reduced
the doctrine of Aristotle, that the soul contains
the body, rather than the body the soul, (De
An., L. i., c. 9, § 4);-a doctrine on which
was founded the common dogma of the Schools,
that the Soul is all in the whole body, and all
in every of its parts, meaning thereby, that the
simple, unextended mind, in some inconceiv-
able manner, present to all the organs, is per-
cipient of the peculiar affection which each is
adapted to receive, and actuates each in the
peculiar function which it is qualified to dis-
charge. See also St Gregory of Nyssa, (De
Hom. Opif. cc. 12, 14, 15), the oldest philoso-
pher I recollect, by whom this dogma is ex-
plicitly enounced. Compare Galen. De Sympt.
Causis. L. ii. c. Of modern authorities to the
same result, are—Perrawlt (Du Mouv. des
Yeux, p. 591, and Du Toucher, p. 531); Tabor
(Tract. iii. c. 3); Stuart (De Motu Musc. c. 5);
Leidenfrost (De Mente Humana, c. iii. §§ 11, 14,
15); Tiedemann (Psychologie, p. 309. Sq.); Be-
rard, (Rapports &c. ch. i Ś 2.); R. G. Carus
(Vorles. ueb. Psychologie, passim); Umbreit
(Psychologie, c. 1, and Beilage, passim); F.
Fischer (Ueb, d. Sitz d. Seele, passim, and Psy-
862
[NOTE D.
PRIMARY, SECUNDO-PRIMARY AND
are, in this relation, simple and self-dis-
criminated. For, in the perception of a
primary, there is involved no sensation of
a secondary with which it can be mixed
up; while in the sensation of a secondary
chologie, c. 4). The two last seem to think that
their opinion on this matter is something newl
Rosmini also maintains the same doctrine, but
as I have not yet obtained his relative Works,
I am unable to refer to them articulately.—See
Bibl. Univ. de Genève, No. 76, June 1842. p.
241, sq. -
As to the question of materialism this doc-
trime is indifferent. For the connexion of an
unextended with an extended substance is
equally incomprehensible, whether we con-
tract the place of union to a central point, or
whether we leave it co-extensive with organi-
zation. -
The causes why the sensations of different
parts of the nervous apparatus vary so greatly
from each other in supplying the conditions of
a perception of extension, &c., seem to me
comprehended in two general facts, the one
constituting a physiological, the other a psycho-
logical, law of perception;–laws, neither of
which, however, has yet obtained from philo-
sophers the consideration which it merits.
The Physiological law is—That a nervous point
yields a sensation felt as locally distinct, in pro-
portion as it is isolated in its action from every
other. Physiological experiment has not yet
been, and probably never may be able, to prove
anatomically the truth of this law which I have
here ventured to enounce; physiologists, in-
deed, seem hitherto to have wholly neglected
the distinction. So far, however, is it from
being opposed to physiological observation, it
may appeal in its confirmation to the analogy
of all the facts to which such observation
reaches, (see par. 25, first note, III. ;) while the
psychological phaenomena are such as almost
to necessitate its admission. To say nothing
of the ganglionic fusions, which are now dis-
proved, the softness and colliquescence of the
olfactory nerves and nervous expansion, for
example, correspond with the impossibility we
experience, in Smell, of distinctly apprehend-
ing one part of the excited organism as out of
another; while the marvellous power we have
of doing this in vision, seems, by every more
minute investigation of the organic structure,
more clearly to depend upon the isolation,
peculiar arrangement, and tenuity of the pri.
mary fibrils of the retina and optic nerve;
though microscopical anatomy, it must be con-
fessed, llas not as yet been able to exhibit anyº
nervous element so inconceivably small as is
the minimum visibile. Besides the older ex-
periments of Porterfield, Haller, &c., see Tre-
viranus, Beytraege, 1835, p. 68 sq.-Volkmann,
Neue Beytraege, 1836, pp. 61 sq , 197 sq.;-
Mueller, Phys. 1838, pp. 1073 sq. 1121 sq.
Engl. tr., ;-also Baer, Anthropologie, 1824,
§ 153.−Of Touch and Feeling I am to speak
ill, mcdiately.
And here I may say a word in relation to a
difficulty which bas perplexed the physiolo-
there is no perception of a primary at all.
Thus prominent in themselves, and pro-
minently contrasted as mutual extremes,
neither class can be overlooked, neither
class can be confounded with the other.
gists, and to which no solution, I am aware of,
has been attempted.—The retina, as first
shown by Treviramus, is a pavement of perpen-
dicular rods, terminating in papillae ; a con-
stitution which may be roughly represented to
imagination . by the bristles of a thick set
brush. The retina is, however, only the ter-
minal expansion of the optic nerve; and the
rods which make up its area, after bending
behind to an acute angle, run back as the con-
stituent, but isolated, fibrils of that nerve, to
their origin in the brain. On the smaller size
of the papillae and fibrils of the optic nerve,
principally depends, as already stated, the
greater power we possess, in the eye, of dis-
criminating one sensation as out of another,
consequently of apprehending extension, figure,
&c.—But here the difficulty arises : Micro-
scopic observations on the structure of the re-
tina give the diameter of the papillae as about
the eight or nine thousandth part of an inch.
Optical experiments, again, on the ultimate
capacity of vision, show that a longitudinal
object (as a hair) viewed at such a distance
that its breadth, as reflected to the retina, is
not more than the six hundred thousandth or
millionth of an inch, is distinctly visible to a
good eye. Now there is here—1° a great dis-
crepancy between the superficial extent of the
apparent ultimate fibrils of the retina, and the
extent of the image impressed on the retina by
the impinging. Tays of light, the one being
above a hundred times greater than the other;
and, 2°, it is impossible to conceive the exist-
ence of distinct fibrils so minute as would be
required to propagate the impression, if the
breadth of the part affected were actually no
greater than the breadth of light reflected
from the object to the retina. To me the
difficulty seems soluble if we suppose, 1°,
that the ultimate fibrils and papillae are, in
fact, the ultimate units or minima of sensa-
tion; and, 2°, that a stimulus of light, though
applied only to part of a papilla, idiopathically
affects the whole. This theory is confirmed
by the analogy of the nerves of feeling, to
which I shall soon allude. The objections to
which it is exposed I see ; but I think that
they may easily be answered. On the discus-
sion of the point I cannot however enter.
The Psychological law is—That though a per-
ception be only possible winder condition of a sen-
sation: still, that above a certain limit the more
intense the sensation or subjective consciousness,
the more indistinct the perception or objective
consciousness.
On this, which is a special case of a still
higher law, I have already incidentally spoken,
and shall again have occasion to speak. (See
Note D*.) It is at present sufficient to notice—
1°. That we are only conscious of the exist-
ence of our organism as a physical body, under
our consciousness of its existence as an animal
§ II.]
863
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF BODY.
The Secundo-primary qualities, on the
contrary, are, at once, complex and con-
fusive. For, on the one hand, as percep-
tions approximating to the primary, on
the other, as sensations identified with
the secondary, they may, if not altogether
overlooked, lightly be, as they have al-
ways hitherto been, confounded with the
one or with the other of these classes.
(See pp. 849 b, 850 a.)
body, and are only conscious of its existence
as an animal body under our consciousness of
it as somehow or other sensitively affected.
2°. That though the sensation of our organ-
ism as, animally affected, is, as it were, the
light by which it is exhibited to our percep-
tion as a physically extended body; still, if the
affection be too strong, the pain or pleasure
too intense, the light blinds by its very splen-
dour, and the perception is lost in the sensa-
tion. Accordingly, if we take a survey of the
senses, we shall find, that exactly in propor-
tion as each affords an idiopathic sensation
more or less capable of being carried to an
extreme either of pleasure or of pain, does it
afford, but in an inverse ratio, the condition of
an objective perception more or less distinct.
In the senses of Sight and Hearing, as con-
trasted with those of Taste and Smell, the
counter proportions are precise and manifest;
and precisely as in animals these latter senses
gain in their objective character as means of
knowledge, do they lose in their subjective
character as sources of pleasurable or painful
sensations. To a dog, for instance, in whom
the sense of smell is so acute, all odours seem,
in themselves, to be indifferent. In Touch or
Feeling the same analogy holds good, and
within itself; for in this case, where the sense
is diffused throughout the body, the subjective
and objective vary in their proportions at
different parts. The parts most subjectively
sensible, those chiefly susceptible of pain and
pleasure, furnish precisely the obtusest organs
of touch; and the acutest organs of touch do
not possess, if ever even that, more than an
average amount of subjective sensibility. I
am disposed, indeed, from the analogy of the
other senses, to surmise, that the nerves of
touch proper (the more objective) and of feel-
ing proper (the more subjective) are distinct;
and distributed in various proportions to dif-
ferent parts of the body. I should also sur-
mise, that the ultimate fibrils of the former
run in isolated action from periphery to centre,
while the ultimate fibrils of the latter may, to
a certain extent, be confounded with each
other at their terminal expansion in the skin;
so that for this reason, likewise, they do not,
as the former, supply to consciousness an op-
portunity of so precisely discriminating the
reciprocal outness of their sensations. The
experiments of Weber have shown, how dif.
ferently in degree different parts of the skin
possess the power of touch proper ; this
power, as measured by the smallness of the
interval at which the blunted points of a pair
of compasses, brought into contact with the
skin, can be discriminated as double, varying
from the twentieth of an English inch at the
tip of the tongue, and a tenth on the volar
surface of the third finger, to two inches and
a-half over the greater part of the neck,
back, arms, and thighs.-(De Pulsu, &c., p. 44-
81, in particular p. 58. An abstract, not al-
together accurate, is given by Mueller, Phys.
p. 700.) If these experiments be repeated
with a pair of compasses not very obtuse, and
capable, therefore, by a slight pressure, of ex-
citing a sensation in the skin, it will be found,
that whilst Weber's observations, as to the re.
markable difference of the different parts in
the power of tactile discrimination, are cor-
rect ; that, at the same time, what he did
not observe, there is no corresponding diffe-
rence between the parts in their sensibility to
superficial pricking, scratching, &c. On the
contrary, it will be found that, in the places
where, objectively, touch is most alive, sub-
jectively feeling is, in the first instance at
least, in some degree deadened; and that the
parts the most obtuse in discriminating the
duplicity of the touching points, are by no
means the least acute to the Sensation excited
by their pressure.
For example :-The tip of the tongue has
fifty, the inferior surface of the third ſinger
twenty five, times the tactile discrimination of
the arm. But it will be found, on trial, that
the arm is more sensitive to a sharp point
applied, but not strongly, to the skin, than
either the tongue or the finger, and (depi-
lated of course) at least as alive to the pre-
sence of a very light body, as a hair, a thread,
a feather, drawn along the surface. In the
several places the phaenomena thus vary :—
In those parts where touch proper prevails, a
subacute point, lightly pressed upon the skin,
determines a sensation of which we can hardly
predicate either pain or pleasure, and nearly
limited to the place on which the pressure is
made. Accordingly, when two such points
are thus, at the same time, pressed upon the
skin, we are conscious of two distinct impres-
sions, even when the pressing points approxi-
mate pretty closely to each other.—In those
parts, on the other hand, where feeling proper
prevails, a subacute point, lightly pressed
upon the skin, determines a sensation which
we can hardly call indifferent ; and which ra-
diates, to a variable extent, from the place on
which the pressure is applied. Accordingly,
when two such points are thus, at the same
time, pressed upon the skin, we are not con-
scious of two distinct impressions, unless the
pressing points are at a considerable distance
from each other; the two impressions run-
ning, as it were, together, and thus consti-
tuting one indivisible sensation. The discri-
minated sensations in the one case, depends
manifestly on the discriminated action, through
the isolated and unexpanded termination of
the nervous fibrils of touch proper; and the
indistinguishable sensation in the other, will,
I have no doubt, be ultimately found by micro-
scopic anatomy to depend, in like manner, on
864
[NOTE D.
PRIMARY, SECUNDo-PRIMARY AND
24. In the same relation a Primary or
a Secondary quality, as simple, has its
term univocal. A Secundo-primary, on
the contrary, being complex, its term, as
one, is necessarily equivocal. For, viewed
on one side, it is the modification of a
primary; on the other, it is, in reality,
simply a secondary quality.—(How, in a
more general point of view, the Second-
ary qualities are no less complex, and their
terms no less ambiguous than the Secundo-
primary, see par. 6.)
the nervous fibrils of feeling proper being, as
it were, fused or interlaced together at their
termination, or rather, perhaps, on each ulti-
mate fibril, each primary sentient unit being
expanded through a considerable éxtent of skin.
The supposition of such expansion seems, in .
deed, to me necessitated by these three facts:
—1°, that every point of the skin is sensible;
2°, that no point of the skin is sensible ex-
cept through the distribution to it of nervous
substance; and, 3°, that the ultimate fibrils,
those minima, at least, into which anatomists
have, as yet, been able to analyse the nerves,
are too large, and withal too few, to garry
sensation to each cutaneous point, unless by an
attenuation and diffusion of the finest kind.—
Within this superficial sphere of cutaneous ap-
prehension, the objective and subjective, per-
ception and sensation, touch proper and feeling
proper, are thus always found to each other in
an inverse ratio.
But take the same places, and puncture
deeply. Then, indeed, the sense of pain will
be found to be intenser in the tongue and
finger than in the arm ; for the tongue and
finger are endowed with comparatively more
numerous nerves, and consequently with a
more concentrated sensibility, than the arm;
though these may either, if different, lie
beneath the termination of the nerves of
touch, or, if the same, commence their energy
as feeling only at the pitch where their energy
as touch concludes. Be this, however, as it
may, it will be always found, that in propor-
tion as the internal feeling of a part becomes
excited, is it incapacitated, for the time, as an
organ of external touch.
I do not therefore assert, without a quali-
fication, that touch and feeling are every
where manifested in an inverse ratio ; for
both together may be higher, both together
may be lower, in one place than another.
But whilst I diffidently hold that they are de-
pendent upon different conditions—that the
capacity of pain and pleasure, and the power
of tactual discrimination, which a part pos-
sesses, are not the result of the same nervous
fibres; I maintain, with confidence, that these
senses never, in any part, coexist in exercise
in any high degree, and that wherever the one
rises to excess, there the other will be found
to sink to a corresponding deficiency.
In saying, in the present note, that touch is
more objective than feeling, I am not to be
Supposed to mean, that touch is, in itself,
|
25. All the senses, simply or in combi-
nation, afford conditions for the percep-
tion of the Primary qualities, (par. 22,
note;) and all, of course, supply the sen-
sations themselves of the Secondary. As
only various modifications of resistance,
the Secundo-primary qualities are all, as
percepts proper, as quasi-primary qualities,
apprehended through the locomotive
faculty,” and our consciousness of its
energy; as sensations, as secondary quali-
ties, they are apprehended as modifications
aught but a subjective affection—a feeling—a
sensation. Touch proper is here styled objec-
tive, not absolutely, but only in contrast and
in comparison to feeling proper; 19, in as
much as it affords in the cycle of its own phae-
nomena a greater amount of information; 2°,
as it affords more frequent occasions of per-
ception or objective apprehension; and, 3°, as
it is feebly, if at all, characterized by the sub-
jective affections of pain and pleasure.
*I.—On the Locomotive Faculty and Muscular
Sense, in relation to Perception.—I say that the
Secundo-primary qualities, in their quasi-pri-
mary phasis, are apprehended through the
locomotive faculty, and not through the muscu-
lar sense; for it is impossible that the state of
muscular feeling can enable us to be immedi-
ately cognisant of the existence and degree of
a resisting force. On the contrary, supposing
all muscular feeling abolished, the power of
moving the muscles at will remaining, how-
ever, entire, I hold (as will anon be shown)
that the consciousness of the mental motive
energy, and of the greater or less intensity of
such energy requisite, in different circum-
stances, to accomplish our intention, would of
itself enable us always to perceive the fact,
and in some degree to measure the amount,
of any resistance to our voluntary movements;
howbeit the concomitance of certain feelings
with the different states of muscular tension,
renders this cognition not only easier, but, in
fact, obtrudes it upon our attention. Scaliger,
therefore, in referring the apprehension of
weight, &c., to the locomotive faculty, is, in my
opinion, far more correct than recent philoso-
phers, in referring it to the muscular sense.
(See II. of this footnote.)
We have here to distinguish three things.
1°. The still immanent or purely mental act
of will : what for distinction s sake I would
call the hyperorganic volition to move ;-the
actio elicita of the schools. Of this volition we
are conscious, even though it do not go out
into overt action.
2°. If this volition become transeunt, be
carried into effect, it passes into the mental
effort or nisus to move. This I would call the
enorganic volition, or, by an extension of the
scholastic language, the actio imperans. Of
this we are immediately conscious. For we
are conscious of it, though by a narcosis or
stupor of the sensitive nerves we lose all
feeling of the movement of the limb;-though
by a paralysis of the motive nerves, no move.
§ II.,
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF BODY. scs
of touch proper, and of cutaneous and
muscular feeling.”
b)—As in Thought ; as in relation to
Intellect,
26. As modes of matter, the Primary
qualities are thought as necessary and
ment in the limb follows the mental effort to
move 5–though by an abnormal stimulus of .
the muscular fibres, a contraction in them is
caused even in opposition to our will.
3°. Determined by the enorganic volition,
the cerebral influence is transmitted by the
motive nerves; the muscles contract or endea-
vour to contract, so that the limb moves or
endeavours to moye. This motion or effort to
move I would call the organic movement, the
organic misus; by a limitation of the scholastic
term, it might be denominated the actio im-
perata. -
It might seem at first sight, 19, that the
Organic movement is immediately determined
by the enorganic volition; and, 2°, that we are
immediately conscious of the organic misus in
itself. But neither is the case.—Not the for-
mer: for even if we identify the contraction
of the muscles and the overt movement of the
limb, this is only the mediate result of the
enorganic volition, through the action of the
nervous influence transmitted from the brain.
The mind, therefore, exerts its effort to move,
proximately in determining this transmission;
but we are unconscious not only of the mode
in which this operation is performed, but even
of the operation itself.-Not the latter : for
all muscular contraction is dependent on the
agency of one set of nerves, all feeling of mus-
cular contraction on another. Thus, from the
exclusive paralysis of the former, or the ex-
clusive stupor of the latter, the one function
may remain entire, while the other is abo-
lished; and it is only because certain muscu-
lar feelings are norinally, though contingently,
associated with the different muscular states,
that, independently of the consciousness of the
enorganic volition, we are indirectly made
aware of the various degrees of the organic
nisus exerted in our different members.” But
• I must here notice an error of inference,
which runs through the experiments by Pro-
fessor Weber of Leipsic, in regard to the shares
which the sense of touch proper and the con-
sciousness of muscular effort have in the esti-
mation of weight, as detailed in his valuable
‘Ammotationes de Pulsu, Resorptione, Auditu
et Tactu,’ 1834, pp. 81–113, 134, 159–161.—
Weight he supposes to be tested by the Touch
alone, when objects are laid upon the hand,
reposing, say, on a pillow. Here there appears
to me a very palpable mistake. For without
denying that different weights, up to a certain
point, produce different sensations on the
nerves of touch and feeling, and that conse-
quently an experience of the difference of such
universal; the Secundo-primary, as con-
tingent and common; the Secondary, as
contingent and peculiar.
27. Thought as necessary, and imme-
diately apprehended as actual, modes of
matter, we conceive the Primary qualities
in what they objectively are. The Se-
cundo-primary, thought in their objective
phasis, as modifications of the Primary,
though indirect, the information thus forced
upon us is not the less valuable. By the as-
Sociated sensations our attention is kept alive
to the state of our muscular movements; by
them we are enabled to graduate with the re.
quisite accuracy the amount of organic effort,
and to expend in each movement precisely the
quantum necessary to accomplish its purpose.
Sir Charles Bell records the case of a mother
who, while nursing her infant, was affected
with paralysis or loss of muscular motion on
one side of her body, and by stupor or loss of
sensibility on the other. With the arm ca-
pable of movement she could hold her child to
her bosom ; and this she continued to do so
long as her attention remained fixed upon the
infant. But if surrounding objects withdrew
her öbservation, there being no admonitory
sensation, the flexor muscles of the arm gra-
dually relaxed, and the child was in danger of
falling. (The Fland, p. 204.)
These distinctions, in the process of volun-
tary motion, especially the two last, (for the
first and second may be viewed as virtually the
same,) are of importance to illustrate the
double mature of the secundo-primary quali-
ties, each of which is, in fact, the aggregate of
an objective or quasi-primary quality, appre-
hended in a perception, and of a secondary or
subjective quality caused by the other, appre-
hended in a sensation. Each of these quali-
ties, each of these cognitions, appertains to a
different part of the motive process. The
quasi-primary quality and its perception, de-
pending on the enorganic volition and the
nerves of motion ; the secondary quality and
its sensation, depending on the organic nisus
and the nerves of sensibility.
The quasi-primary quality is, always, simply
a resistance to our enorganic volition, as rea-
lized in a muscular effort. But, be it remem.
sensation may help us to an inference of a
difference of weight; it is manifest, that if a
body be laid upon a muscular part, that we
estimate its weight proximately and princi-
pally by the amount of lateral pressure on the
muscles, and this pressure itself, by the diffi-
culty we find in lifting the body, however im-
perceptibly, by a contraction or bellying out of
the muscular fibres. When Superincumbent
bodies, however different in weight, are all
still so heavy as to render this contraction
almost or altogether impossible; it will be
found, that our power of measuring their com-
parative weights becomes, in the one case
feeble and fallacious, in the other null.
3 I
866
[NotE D.
PRIMARY, SECUNDO-PRIMARY AND
and, in both their objective and subjective
phases, immediately apprehended, we con-
ceive them in what they objectively, as
well as in what they subjectively, are.
The Secondary being neither thought as
bered, there may be muscular effort, even if a
body weighs or is pressed upon a part of our
muscular frame apparently at rest. (See
footnote * of page. 865.)—And how is the
resistance perceived? I have frequently as-
serted, that in perception we are conscious
of the external object immediately and in
itself. This is the doctrine of Natural Real-
ism. But in saying that a thing is known in
itself, I do not mean that this object is known
in its absolute existence, that is, out of rela-
tion to us. This is impossible; for our know-
ledge is only of the relative. To know a thing
in itself or immediately, is an expression I use
merely in contrast to the knowledge of a thing
in a representation, or mediately. (See Note
B.). On this doctrine an external quality is said
to be known in itself, when it is known as the
immediate and necessary correlative of an
internal quality of which I am conscious.
Thus, when I am conscious of the exertion of
an enorganic volition to move, and aware
that the muscles are obedient to my will, but
at the same time aware that my limb is arrest.
ed in its motion by some external impediment;
—in this case I cannot be conscious of myself
as the resisted relative without at the same
time being conscious, being immediately per-
cipient, of a not-self as the resisting correla-
tive. In this cognition there is no sensation,
no subjectivo-organic affection. I simply know
myself as a force in energy, the not-self as a
counter force in energy.—So much for the
quasi-primary quality, as dependent on the
enorganic volition.
But though such pure perception may be
detected in the simple apprehension of re-
sistance, in reality it does not stand alone;
for it is always accompanied by sensations, of
which the muscular misus or quiescence, on
the one hand, and the resisting, the pressing
body, on the other, are the causes. Of these
sensations, the former, to wit the feelings con-
nected with the states of tension and relaxa-
tion, lie wholly in the muscles, and belong to
what has sometimes been distinguished as the
muscular sense. The latter, to wit the sensa-
tions determined by the foreign pressure, lie
partly in the skin, and belong to the sense of
touch proper and cutaneous feeling, partly in
the flesh, and belonging to the muscular sense.
These affections, sometimes pleasurable, some-
times painful, are, in either case, merely modi.
fications of the sensitive nerves distributed to
the muscles and to the skin; and, as mani-
fested to us, constitute the secondary quality,
the sensation of which accompanies the per-
ception of every secundo-primary.
Although the preceding doctrine coincide,
in result, with that which M. Maine de Biran,
after a hint by Locke, has so ably developed,
more especially in his “ Nouvelles Considera-
tions sur les Rapports du Physique et du
Morel de l’Hºmme;’ I find it impossible to go
necessary, nor immediately apprehended
in their external reality, we conceive
adequately what they are in their subjec-
tive effects, but inadequately what they
are as objective causes. -
along with his illustrious editor, M. Cousin,
(p. xxv. of Preface,) in thinking that his exa.
mination of Eſume's reasoning against the de-
duction of our notion of Power from the con-
Sciousness of efficacy in the voluntary move-
ment of our muscles, “ leaves nothing to de-
sire, and nothing to reply.” On the contrary,
though always dissenting with diffidence from
M. Cousin, I confess it does not seem to me,
that in any of his seven assaults on Hume, has
De Biran grappled with the most formidable
objections of the great sceptic. The second,
third, and seventh, of Hume's arguments, as
stated and criticized by Biran, are not pro.
posed, as arguments, by Hume at all; and the
fourth and fifth in Biran's array constitute only
a single reasoning in Hume's. Of the three
arguments which remain, the first and sixth in
Biran’s enumeration are the most important.
—But, under the first, the examples alleged by
Hume, from cases of sudden palsy, Biran silently
passes by ; yet these prosent by far the most
perplexing difficultics for his doctrine of con-
scious efficacy. In another and subsequent
work (Réponses, &c., p. 386) he, indeed, inci-
dentally considers this objection, referring us
back for its regular refutation to the strictures
on Hume, where, however, as stated, no such
refutation is to be found. Nor does he in this
latter treatise relieve the difficulty. For as
regards the argument from our non con-
sciousness of loss of power, prior to an actual
attempt to move, as shown in the case of pa-
ralysis supervening during sleep, — this, it
seems to me, can only be answered from the
fact, that we are never conscious of force, as
nnexerted or in potentia, (for the ambiguous
term power, unfortunately after Locke em-
ployed by Hume in the discussion, is there
equivalent to force, vis, and not to mere poten-
tiality as opposed to actuality,) but only of
force, as in actu or exerted. For in this case,
we never can possibly be conscious of the
absence of a force, previously to the effort
made to put it förth.-The purport of the
sixth argument is not given, as Hume, mot-
withstanding the usual want of precision in
his language, certainly intended it;-which
was to this effect :—Wolition to move a limb,
and the actual moving of it, are the first and
last in a scries of more than two successive
events; and cannot, therefore, stand to each
other, immediately, in the relation of cause
and effect. They may, however, stand to each
other in the relation of cause and effect, me-
diately. But, then, if they can be known in
consciousness as thus mediately related, it is
a necessary condition of such knowledge, that
the intervening series of causes and effects,
through which the final movement of the limb
is supposed to be mediately dependent on tho
primary volition to move, should be known to
consciousness immediately under that relation.
But this intermediate, this connecting series
§ II.]
867
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF BODY.
28. Our conceptions of the Primary
are clear and distinct ; of the Secundo-
primary, both as secondary and quasi-
primary qualities, clear and distinct; of
the Secondary, as subjective affections,
clear and distinct, as objective, obscure
is, confessedly, unknown to consciousness at
all, far less as a series of causes and effects.
It follows therefore, a fortiori, that the de-
pendency of the last on the first of these events,
as of an effect upon its cause, must be to con-
sciousness unknown. In other words:—having
no consciousness that the wolition to move is
the efficacious force (power) by which even
the event immediately consequent on it (say
the transmission of the nervous influence from
brain to muscle) is produced, such event being
in fact itself to consciousness occult; multo
minus can we have a consciousness of that
volition being the efficacious force, by which
the ultimate movement of the limb is mediately
determined? This is certainly the argument
which Hume intended, and as a refutation of
the doctrine, that in our voluntary movements
at least, we have an apprehension of the cau-
sal nexus between the mental volition as cause
and the corporeal movement as effect, it seems
to me unanswerable. But as stated, and
easily refuted, by De Biran, it is only tanta-
mount to the reasoning—That as we are not
conscious how we move a limb, we cannot be
conscious of the feeling that we do exert a
motive force. But such a feeling of force, ac-
tion, energy, Hume did not deny.
II.-Historical notices touching the recognition
of the Locomotive Faculty as a medium of per-
ception, and of the Muscular Sense.—That the re-
cognition of the Locomotive Faculty, or rather,
the recognition of the Muscular Sense as a
medium of apprehension, is of a recent date,
and by psychologists of this country, is an
opinion in both respects erroneous.—As far
as I am aware, this distinction was originally
taken by two Italian Aristotelians, some three
centuries ago; and when the observation was
again forgotten, both France and Germany are
before Scotland in the merit of its modern
revival.
It was first promulgated by Julius Caesar
Scaliger about the middle of the sixteenth
century (1557.) Aristotle, followed by philo-
sophers in general, had referred the percep-
tion of weight (the heavy and light) to the
sense of Touch; though, in truth, under
Touch, Aristotle seems to have comprehended
both the Skin and Muscular senses. See Hist.
An. i. 4. De Part. An. ii. 1, 10. De Anima,
ii. 11. On this particular doctrine, Scaliger,
inter alia, observes: ‘Et same sic videtur.
Namgue gravitas et levitas tangendo depre-
henditur. AC memo est, qui non putet, attrec-
- tatione sese cognoscere gravitatem et levi.
tatem. Mihi tamen haud persuadetur. Tactu
motum deprehendi fateor, gravitatem nego.
Est autem maximum argumentum hoc. Gra-
vitas est objectum motiva potestatis: cuisane
competit actio. At tactus non fit, nisi patiendo.
Gravitas ergo percipitur a motiva potestate,
and confused. For the Primary, Secun-
do-primary, and Secondary, as subjective
affections, we can represent in imagina-
tion; the Secondary, as objective powers,
We cannot. -
29. Finally—The existential judgments
non a tactu. - Nam duo cum Sint instrumenta
(de nervis atque spiritibus loquor,) ad sensum
et ob motum, a se inviccm distincta : male
confunderemus, quod est motricis objectum,
cum objecto motae. Movetur enim tactus, mon
agit. Motrix autem movet grave corpus, non
autem movetur ab eo. Idque manifestum est in
paralysi. Sentitur calor, non sentitur gravitas.
Motrici namgue instrumenta sublata sunt.—
An vero sentitwr gravitas 2 Sentitur quidem a
motrice, atque ab ea judicatur: quemadmo-
dum difficile quippiam enunciatu [enunciatur Pl
ab ipsa intellectus vi. quae tamen agit, mon
patitur, cum enunciat. Est enim omnibus
commune rebus nostratibus hisce, quae pen-
dent a materia: ut agendo patiantur.—Poterit
aliquid objici de compressione. Nam otc. . . .
Sunt praeterea dua, rationes. Quando et sine
tactu sentimus gravitatem, et quia tactu mon
sentimus. Nempe cuipiam gravi corpori ma-
mus imposita conting it illud: at non sentit gra-
vitatem. Sine tactu, vero, virtus motrix sentiet.
Appensum filo plumbum grave Sentitur. Manus
tamen filum, non plumbum tanget. Deinde
hoc. Brachium suo pondere cum deorsum
fertur, sentitur grave. At nihil tangit.” (De
Subtilitate, contra, Cardanum, ex. 109.)
It should, however, be noticed, that Scaliger
may have taken the hint for the discrimina-
tion of this and another sense, from Cardan.
This philosopher makes Touch fourfold. One
sense apprehending the four primary qualities,
the Hotand Cold, the Dry and Humid; a second
the Pleasurable and Painful; a third the We-
nereal sensations; a fourth the Eleavy and
Light. (De Subtilitate, L. xiii.)
This doctrine did not excite the attention it
deserved. It was even redargued by Scalig-
er's admiring expositor Goclenius. (Adver-
saria, p. 75–89); nor do I know, indeed, that
previous to its revival in very recent times,
with the exception to be immediately stated,
that this opinion was ever countenanced by
any other philosopher. Towards the end of
the seventeenth century it is indeed comme.
morated by Chauvin, no very erudite autho-
rity, in the first edition of his Lexicon Philo-
sophicum (ww. Tactile and Gravitas) as an
opinion that had found supporters; but it is
manifest from the terms of the statement, for
no names are given, that Scaliger and Scali-
ger only is referred to. In the subsequent
edition the statement itself is omitted.
By another philosophical physician, the
celebrated Caesalpinus of Arezzo, it was after-
wards (in 1569) still more articulately shown,
that only by the exercise of the motive power
are we percipient of those qualities which I
denominate the Secundo. Primary; though he
can hardly be said, like Scaliger, to have dis-
criminated that power as a faculty of percep-
tion or active apprehension, from touch as a
868
[NOTE p
PRIMARY, SECUNDO-PRIMARY AND
are of the Primary assertory; of the
Secundo-primary, in both their aspects, .
assertory; of the Secondary, as modes of
mind, assertory, as modes of matter, pro-
blematic. (See par. 11, 12, 13.)
c)—As both in Sensitive Apprehension
and in Thought , as in relation both to
Sense and Intellect.
30. In the order of nature and of ne-
capacity of sensation or mere consciousness of
passion. It does not indeed appear that Cae-
salpinus was aware of Scaliger's speculation
at all.
‘Tactus igitur si unus est sensus, circa
umam erit contrarietatem, reliquae autein ad
ipsam reducentur. [Compare Aristotle, De
Anima, ii. 11..] Patet autem. Calidum et Fri-
gidum maxime proprie ipsius tactus esse ;
soluum enim tangendo comprehendumtur. Hu-
midum autem et Siccum (Fluid and Solid),
Durum et Molle, Grave et Leve, Asperum et
Lene, Rarum et Densum, aliaque hujusmodi,
ut tactu comprehendantur, mon satis est ea tan-
gere, Sed necesse est motwm quemdam adhibere, aut
comprimendo, aut impellendo, aut trahendo,
aut alia ratione patiendi potentiam experiendo.
Sic enim quod proprium terminum mom reti-
net, et quod facile dividitur, Humidum esse
cognoscimus; quod autem opposito modo Se
habet, Siccum: et quod cedit comprimenti,
Molle, quod non cedit, Durum. Similiter
autem et reliquae tactivae qualitates sine
motu non percipiuntºur. Idcirco et a reliquis
sensibus cognosci possunt, ut a visu. [But
not immediately 1 Motus enim inter commu-
mia sensibilia ponitur. [There is here through
ambiguity a mutatio elemchi.] Nihil autem
refert, an motus in organo an in re fiat.” [?]
(Quaestiones Peripateticae, L. iv. qu. 1.)
In more recent times, the action of the vo-
luntary motive faculty and its relative sense
in the perception of Extension, Figure, Weight,
Ičesistance, &c., was in Erance brought vaguely
into notice by Condillac, and subsequently
about the commencement of the present cen-
tury more explicitly developed, among others,
by his distinguished follower M. Destutt de
Tracy, who established the distinction between
active and passive touch. The speculations of
M Maine de Biran on muscular effort (from
1803,) I do not here refer to ; as these have a
different and greatly higher significance.
(Condillac, Traité des Sensations, P. ii. cc. 3, 12.
—De Tracy, Ideologie, t. i. cc. 9–13; t. iii. cc.
5, 9.-Compare Degerando, Histoire des Sys-
tèmes, t. iii. p. 345, sq. orig. ed., and La-
bowlinière, Précis, p. 322, sq.)—In Germany,
before the conclusion of the last century, the
same analysis was made, and the active touch
there first obtained the distinctive appellation
of the Muscular Sense (Muskel Sinn.) The
German physiologists and psychologists not
only—what had been previously done—pro-
fessedly demonstrated the share it had in the
empirical apprehension of Space, &c., and es-
tablished its necessity as a condition even of
the perceptions of Touch proper—the Skin
Sense; they likewise for the first time endea-
Woured to show how in vision we are enabled
to recognise not only figure, but distance, and
the third dimension of bodies, through the con-
Bcious adjustment of the eye. (Tittel, Kantis-
che Denkformen, (1787,) p.18S, sq.-Tiedemann,
in Hessische Beytracge (1789) St. i. p. 119,
sq.; Theaetet (1794,) passim; Idealistische
Briefe (1798,) p. 84, sq.; Psychologie (1804)
p. 405, sq.-Schulz, Pruefung (1791) i. p. 182,
sq.-Engel, in Mémoires de l'Academie de Ber.
lim (1802.)—Grwithwisen, Anthropologie (1810)
pp. 130, sq. 361, sq. and the subsequent works
of Herbart, Hartmann, Lemhossek, Town’tual, Be-
neke, and a host of others.) But see Reid, 188, b.
Britain has not advanced the enquiry which,
if we discount some resultless tendencies by
Hartley, Wells, and Darwin, she was the last
in taking up ; and it is a curious instance of
the unacquaintance with such matters preva-
lent among us, that the views touching the
functions of the will, and of the muscular
Sense, which constitute, in this relation cer-
tainly, not the least valuable part of Dr
Brown's psychology, should to the preseat
hour be regarded as original, howbeit these
views, though propounded as new, are mani-
festly derived from sources with which all in-
terested in psychological disquisitions might
reasonably be presumed familiar. This is by
no means a solitary instance of Brown’s silent
appropriation ; nor is he the only Scottish me-
taphysician who has borrowed, without acknow
ledgment, these and other psychological ana.
lyses from the school of Condillac. De Tracy
may often equally reclaim his own at the hands
of Dr John Young, Professor of Philosophy in
Belfast College, whose frequent coincidences
with Brown are not the marvels he would in-
duce us to believe, when we know the common
sources from which the resembling doctrines
are equally derived. It must be remembered,
however, that the Lectures of both Professors
were posthumously published; and are there-
fore not to be dealt with as works deliberately
Submitted to general criticism by their au-
thors. Dr Young, it should likewise be noticed,
was a pupil of the late Professor Mylne of
Glasgow, whose views of mental philosophy
are well known to have closely resembled those
of M. De Tracy. I see from M. Mignet’s elo-
quent cloge that this acute philosopher was,
like Kant, a Scotsman by descent, and “ of the
clan Stutt,” (Stott F)
These notices of the gradual recognition of
the sense of muscular feeling, as a special
source of knowledge, are not given on account
of any importance it may be thought to pos.
sess as the source from which is derived our
notion of Space or Extension. This notion, I
am convinced, though first manifested in,
cannot be evolved out of, experience; and
what was observed by Reid (Inq. p. 126, a,)
by Kant (Cr. d.r. V. p. 38,) by Schulz (Pruef. i
p. 114,) and by Stewart (Essays, p. 564,) in
regard to the attempts which had previously
been made to deduce it from the operatinns of
sense, and, in particular, from the motion of
the hand, is equally true of those subsequently
repeated. In all these attempts, the exper
§ 11.]
869
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF BODY.
cessary thought, the Primary qualities are
prior to the Secundo-primary and Secon-
dary; but in the order of empirical
apprehension, though chronologically si-
multaneous, they are posterior to both.
ence itsclf is only realized through a substitu-
tion of the very notion which it professes to
generate; there is always a concealed petitio
principii. Take for example the deduction so
laboriously essayed by Dr Brown, and for which
he has received such unqualified encomium,
(Lect. 23 and 24.)——Extension is made up of
three dimensions; but Brown's exposition is
limited to length and breadth. These only,
therefore, can be criticised.
As far as I can find his meaning in his cloud
of words, he argues thus:—The notion of Time
or succession being supposed, that of longitwº-
dinal extension is given in the succession of
feelings which accompanies the gradual con-
traction of a muscle; the notion of this suc-
cession constitutes, ipso facto, the motion of a
certain length; and the motion of this length
[he quietly takes for granted] is the motion
of longitudinal extension sought, (p. 146. a.)
— The paralogism here is transparent. —
Length is an ambiguous term ; and it is
length in space, extensive length, and not
length in time, protensive length, whose notion
it is the problem to evolve. To convert,
therefore, the motion of a certain kind of length
(and that certain kind being also confessedly
only length in time) into the notion of a length
in space, is at best an idle begging of the ques-
tion.—Is it not ? Then I would ask, whether
the series of feelings of which we are aware in
the gradual contraction of a muscle, involve
the consciousness of being a succession or
length, (1) in time alone? or (2) in Space alone?
—or (3) in time and space together P These
three cases will be allowed to be exhaustive.
If the first be affirmed, if the succession appear
to consciousness a length in time exclusively,
then nothing has been accomplished; for the
notion of extension or space is in no way con-
tained in the motion of duration or time.—
Again, if the second or the third be affirmed,
if the series appear to consciousness a suc-
cession or length, either in space alone, or in
space and time together, then is the motion it
behoved to generate employed to generate
tSelf.
In the deduction of the notion of superficial
extension he is equally illogical; for here,
too, his process of evolution only in the end
openly extracts what in the commencement
it had secretly thrown in. The elements, out
of whicl be constructs the motion of extension,
in the second dimension, he finds in the con-
sciousncss web.ave of several contemporaneous
series of muscular feelings or lengths, stand-
ing in relation to each other, as proſcimate,
distant, intermediate, &c. — Proximate 1 In
What? In time? No; for the series are sup-
posed to be in time coexistent; and were it
otherwise, the process would be unavailing’
for proximity in time does not afford proxi-
mity in space. In space, then 7 Necessarily.
On this alternative, however, the notion
For it is only under condition of the Sen-
sation of a Secondary, that we are per-
cipient of any Primary, quality.
31. The apprehension of a Primary
quality is principally an intellectual cogni-
of space or extension is already involved
doubly deep in the elements themselves, out
of which it is proposed to construct it ; for
whentwo or more things are conceived as proxi-
mate in space, they are not merely conceived
as in different places or out of each other, but
over and above this elementary condition in
which extension simply is involved, they are
conceived as even holding under it a secon-
dary and more complex relation. But it is
needless to proceed, for the petition of the
point in question is even more palpable if wa
think the series under the relations of tho
distant, the intermediate &c.—The notion of
Space, therefore, is not shown by this expla-
nation of its genesis to be less a native notion
then that of Time, which it admits. Brown's
is a modification of De Tracy's deduction, the
change being probably suggested by a remark
of Stewart (l.c.); but though both involve a
paralogism, it is certainly far more shrewdly
cloaked in the original. • .
III.-EIistorical notices in regard to the dis-
tinction of Nerves and nervous Filaments into
Motive and Sensitive j and in regard to the pecu.
liarity of function, and absolute isolation, of the
wltimate nervous Filaments. – The important
discovery of Sir Charles Bell, that the spinal
nerves are the organs of Emotion through their
anterior roots, of sensation through their pos-
terior ; and the recognition by recent physio-
logists, that each ultimate nervous filament is
distinct in function, and runs isolated from its
origin to its termination;–these are only the
last of a long series of previous observations
to the same effect, observations, in regard to
which (as may be inferred from the recent
discussions touching the history of these re-
Sults) the medical world is, in a great mea-
sure, uninformed. At the same time, as these
are the physiological facts with which psy-
chology is principally interested; as a contri-
bution towards this doctrine and its history, I
shall throw together a few notices, which
have for the most part fallen in my way when
engaged in researches for a different purpose.
The cases of paralysis without narcosis
(stupor,) and of narcosis without paralysis
—for the ancient propriety of these terms
ought to be observed —that is, the cases in
which either motion or sensibility, exclusively,
is lost, were too remarkable not to attract
attention even from the earliest periods; and
at the same time, too peremptory not to
necessitate the conclusion, that the several
phaenomena are, either the functions of differ-
ent organs, or, if of the same, at least regu-
lated by different conditions. Between these
alternatives all opinions on the subject aro
divided; and the former was the first, as it
has been the last, to be adopted.
No sooner had the nervous system been re-
cognised as the ultimate organ of the animal
and wital functions, and the intracranial me.
870
[Note D.
PRIMARY, SECUNDO-PRIMARY AND
tion, in so far as it is, in itself, a purely
mental activity, and not the mere sensa-
tion of an organic passion; and second-
arily, a sensible cognition, in so far as it
is the perception of an attribute of mat-
ter, and, though not constituted by, still
not realized without, the sensation of an
organic passion.—The apprehension of a
Secondary quality is solely a sensible
cognition; for it is nothing but the sen-
gººm *-* *-*
dulla or encephalos (encephalon is a modern
misnomer) ascertained to be its centre, than
Erasistratus proceeded to appropriate to dif-
ferent parts of that organism the functions
which, along with Herophilus, he had distin-
guished, of sensibility and voluntary motion.
He placed the source—of the former in the
meminges or membranes, of the latter in the
substance, of the encephalos in general, that is,
of the Brain-proper and After-brain or Cere-
bellum. And while the nerves were, medi-
ately or immediately, the prolongations of
these, he viewed the nervous membranes as
the vehicle of sensation, the nervous substance
as the vehicle of motion. (Rufus Ephesius,
L. i. c. 22; L. ii. cc. 2, 17.) This theory
which is remarkable, if for nothing else, for
manifesting the tendency from an early period
to refer the phaenomena of motion and sensa-
tion to distinct parts of the nervous organ-
ism, has not obtained the attention which it
even intrinsically merits. In modern times,
indeed, the same opinion has been hazarded,
even to my fortuitous knowledge, at least
thrice. Firstly by Fernelius (1550, Physio-
logia, v. 10, 15;) secondly by Rosetti (1722,
Raccolta d’Opuscoli, &c., t. V. p. 272 sq.;)
thirdly by Lo Cat (1740, Traité des Sensations,
CEuv. Phys. t. i. p. 124, and Diss. Sur la Sensi-
bilité des Meninges, § i.)—By each of these
the hypothesis is advanced as original. In the
two last this is not to be marvelled at ; but it
is surprising how the opinion of Erasistratus
could have escaped the erudition of the first.
I may observe, that Erasistratus also antici-
pated many recent physiologists in the doc-
trine, that the intelligence of man, and of ani-
mals in general, is always in proportion to the
depth and number of the cerebral convolutions,
that is, in the ratio of the extent of cerebral
surface, not of cerebral mass.
The second alternative was adopted by
Galen, who while he refutes apparently mis.
represents the doctrine of Erasistratus; for
Erasistratus did not, if we may credit Rufus,
an older authority than Galen, derive the
nerves from the membranes of the encephalos,
to the exclusion of its substance; or if Galen
be herein correct, this is perhaps the early
doctrine which Erasistratus is by him said in
his maturer years to have abandoned;—a doc-
trine, however, which, under modifications,
has in modern times found supporters in
Rondeletius and others. (Laurentii Hist.
Anat. iv. qu. 13.)—Recognising, what has
always indeed been done, the contrast of the
two phaenomena of sensibility and motion,
Galen did not, however, regard them as neces.
sarily the products of distinct parts of the
nervous system, although, de facto, different
Parts of that system were oſten subservient
to their manifestation. As to the problem–
Do the nerves perform their double function
by the conveyance of a corporeal fluid, or
through the irradiation of an immaterial
power P-Galem seems to vacillate; for texts
may be adduced in favour of each alternative.
He is not always consistent in the sharos
which he assigns to the heart and to the
brain, in the elaboration of the animal spirits;
nor is he even uniform in maintaining a dis-
crimination of origin, between the animal
spirits and the vital. Degrading the mem-
branes to mere onvelopments, he limits evory
peculiar function of the nervous organism to
the enveloped substance of the brain, the after
brain, the spinal chord and nerves. But as
the animal faculty is one, and its proximate
vehicle the animal spiritsis homogeneous, so the
nervous or cerebral Substance which conducts
these spirits is in its own mature uniform and
indifferently competent to either function; it
being dependent upon two accidental circum-
stances, whether this substance conduce to
motion, to sensation, or to motion and sensa-
tion together.
The first circumstance is the degree of
hardness or softness; a nerve being adapted
to motion, or to sensation, in proportion as it
possesses the former quality or the latter.
Nerves extremely soft are exclusively compe-
tent to sensation. Nerves extremely hard are
pre-eminently, but not exclusively, adapted to
motion; for no nerve is wholly destitute of
the feeling of touch. The soft nerves, short
and straight in their course, arise from the
anterior portion of the encephalos (the Brain
proper;) the hard, more devious in direction,
spring from the posterior portion of the brain
where it joins the spinal chord, (Medulla
oblongata?) the spinal chord being a continua-
tion of the After-brain, from which no nerve
immediately arises; the hardest originate from
the spinal chord itself, more especially towards
its inferior extremity. A nerve soft in its
origin, and, therefore, fitted only for sense,
may, however, harden in its progress, and by
this change become suitable for motion.
The second circumstance is the part to
which a nerve is sent; the nerve being sensi-
tive or motive as it terminates in an organ of
Sense, or in an organ of motion—a muscle;
cvery part being recipient only of the virtue
appropriate to its special function.
This theory of Galen is inadequate to the
phaenomena. For though loss of motion with-
out the loss of sense may thus be accounted
for, on the supposition that the innervating
force is reduced so low as not to radiate the
stronger influence required for movement, and
yet to radiate the fechler influence required
for feeling; still this leaves the counter case
(of which, though less frequently occurring,
Galcn has himself record.cd soluo illustrioſts
§ II.]
871 .
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF BODY.
3ation of an organic passion.——The ap-
prehension of a Secundo-primary quality
is, equally and at once, an intellectual and
sensible cognition ; for it involves both
-* *
examples) not only unexplained, but even
renders it inexplicable. In this theory Galen
is, likewise, not always consistent with him-
solf. The distinction of hard and soft, as cor.
responding with the distinction of motory and
sonsitivo, nerves, though true in general, is,
on his own admission, not absolutely through.
going.
other recent anatomists this is maintained by
Albinus, Malacarne, and Reil.) And to say
nothing of other vacillations, Galen, who in
one scntence, in consistency with his distinc-
tion of cerebral and (mediately) cerebellar
nerves, is forced to accord exclusively to those
of the spine the function of motion; in an-
other finds himself compelled, in submission
to the motorious fact, to extend to these nerves
the function of Scnsation likewise. But if
Galen's theory be inadequate to their solution,
it never leads him to overlook, to dissemble,
or to distort, the phaenomena themselves; and
with these no one was ever more familiarly
acquainted. So marvellous, indeed, is his
minute knowledge of the distribution and
functions of the several nerves, that it is
hardly too much to assert, that, with the ox-
ception of a few minor particulars, his patho-
logical anatomy of the nervous system is prac-
tically on a level with the pathological anatomy
of the present day. . (De Usu Partium, i. 7,
v. 9, 7, 14, viii. 3, 6, 10, 12, ix. 1, xii. 10, 11, 15.
xiii. 8, xvi. 1, 3, 5, xvii. 2, 3.—De Causis
Sympt. i. 5.-De Motu Musc, i. 13–De Anat.
Adm. Wii. 8.-Ars parva, 10, Il.—De Locis Aff.
i. 6, 7, 12. iii. 6, 12.-De Diss. Nerv. 1.-De
Plac. IIipp. et Plat. ii. 12, vii. 3, 4, 5, 8.)
The next step was not made until the middle
of the fourteenth century, Subsequent to Galen's
death; when Rondeletius (c. 1550,) reasoning
from the phaenomena of paralysis and stupor,
enounced it as an observation never previously
made, that ‘All nerves, from their origin in the
brain, are, even in the spinal marrow itself,
isolated from each other. The cause of para-
lysis is therefore not so much to be sought for
in the spinal marrow as in the encephalic
heads of the nerves; Galcn himself having,
indeed, remarked, that paralysis always super-
venes when the origin of the nerve is obstructed
or diseased.” (Curandi Methodus, c. 32.)
This observation did not secure the attention
which it deserved; and some thirty years
later (1595,) another French physiologist, an-
?ther celebrated professor in the same univer-
sity with Rondelct, I mean Lawrentius of Mont-
pellier, advanced this very doctrine of his
predecessor, as ‘a new and hitherto unheard-
of observation.” This amatomist has, however,
the merit of first attempting a sensible demon-
stration of the fact, by resolving, under water,
the spinal cord into its constituent filaments.
‘This new and admirable observation, he says,
‘ explains one of the obscurest problems of
(I must observe, however, that among.
the perception of a quasi-primary quality,
and the sensation of a secondary. (See
par. 15, sq., and Note D*, $ 1.)
nature; why it is that from a lesion, say of
the cervical medulla, the motion of the thigh
may be lost, while the motions of the arms and
thorax shall remain entire.” In tho second
edition of his Anatomy, Dulaurens would seem,
however, less confident, not only of the abso-
lute originality, but of the absolute accuracy,
of the observation. Nor does he rise above
the Galenic doctrine, that sensibility andmotion
may be transmitted by the same fibre. In fact,
rejecting the discrimination of hard and soft
nerves, he abolishes even the accidental dis- .
tinction which had been recognised by Galen.
(Compare Hist. Anat., later editions, iv. c. 18,
qq. 9, 10, 11; x. c. 12, with the relative places
in the first.)
The third step was accomplished by Varol-
lius, (1572,) who showed Galen to be mistaken
in holding that the spinal chord is a continua-
tion of the After-brain alone. He demon-
strated, against all previous anatomists, that
this chord is made up of four columns, seve-
rally arising from four encephalic roots; two
roots or trunks from the Brain-proper being
prolonged into its anterior, and two from the
After-brain into its posterior, columns. (Ana-
tomia, L. iii: De Nervis Opticis Epistolae.)
At the same time, the fact was signalized
by other contemporary anatomists, (as Coiter,
1572, Lawrentius, 1595,) that the spinal nerves
arise by double roots; one set of filaments
emerging from the anterior, another from the
posterior, portion of the chord. It was in
general noticed, too, (as by Coiter, and C.
Bauhinus, 1590,) that these filaments, on
issuing from the Čhord, passed into a knot or
ganglion; but, strange to say, it was reserved
for the second Monro, (1783,) to record the
special observation, that this ganglion is limited
to the fibres of the posterior root alone,
Such was the state of anatomical knowledge
touching this point at the close of the sixteenth
century; and it may now seem marvellous,
that aware of the independence of the motory
and sensitive functions,—aware that of these
functions the cerebral nerves were, in general,
limited to one, while the spinal nerves were
competent to both, –aware that the spinal
nerves, the nerves of double function, emerged
by double roots and terminated in a twofold
distribution,-and, finally, aware that each
nervous filament ran distinct from its peri-
pheral extremity through the spinal chord to
its central origin;–aware, I say, of all these
correlative facts, it may now seem marvellous
that anatomists should have stopped short,
should not have attempted to lay fact and fact
together, should not have surmised that in the
spinal nerves difference of root is correspon-
dent with difference of function, should not
have instituted experiments, and anticipated
by two centuries the most remarkable physio-
logical discovery of the prescnt day. But our
872
[NOT}, p.
PRIMARY, SECUNDO-PRIMARY AND
wonder will be enhanced, in finding the most
illustrious of the more modern schools of
medicine teaching the same doctrine in greater
detail, and yet never proposing to itself the
question—May not the double roots correspond
with the double function of the spinal nerves?
But so has it been with all the most momentous
discoveries. When Harvey proclaimed the cir-
culation of the blood, he only proclaimed a
doctrine necessitated by the discovery of the
venous valves; and the Newtonian theory of
the heavens was but a final generalization,
prepared by foregone observations, and even
already partially enounced.
The school I refer to is that of Leyden—the
school of Boerhaave and his disciples.—Boer-
haave held with Willis that the Brain-proper
is the organ of animality; a distinct part thereof
being destined to each of its two functions,
sense and voluntary motion;–that the After-
brain is the organ of vitality, or the involuntary
motions;–and that the two emcephalic organs
are prolonged, the former into the anterior,
the latter into the posterior, columns of the
spinal chord. In his doctrine, all nerves are
composite, being made up of fibrils of a tenuity,
not only beyond our means of observation, but
almost beyond our capacity of imagination.
Some nerves are homogeneous, their constituent
filaments being either for a certain kind of
motion alone, or for a certain kind of sensation
alone; others are heterogeneous, their consti-
tuent fibrils being some for motion, some for
censation;–and of this latter class are the
nerves which issue from the spine. On Boer-
haave's doctrine, however, the spinal nerves,
in so far as they arise from the anterior
column, are nerves both of sensation and
voluntary motion—of animality; in so far as
they arise from the posterior column, are
nerves of involuntary motion—of vitality. A
homogeneous nerve does not, as a totality, per-
form a single office; for every elementary
fibril of which it is composed runs from first
to last isolated from every other, and has its
separate sphere of exercise. As many distinct
spheres of sensation and motion, so many dis-
tinct nervous origins and terminations; and as
many different points of local termination in the
body, so many different points of local origin in
the brain. The Sensorium Commune, the centre
of sensation and motion, is not therefore an
indivisible point, not even an undivided place;
it is, on the contrary, the aggregate of as
many places (and millions of millions there
may be) as there are encephalic origins of
nervous fibrils. No nerve, therefore, in pro-
priety of speech, gives off a branch; their
sheaths of dura mater alone are ramified; and
there is rio intercourse, no sympathy between
the elementary fibrils, except through the
Sensorium commune. That the nerves are
made up of fibrils is shown, though inade-
quately, by various anatomical processes; and
that these fibrils are destined for distinct
snd often different purposes, is manifested by
the phaenomena of disjoined paralysis and
stupor. (De Morbis Nervorum Praelectiones,
by Van Eems. pp. 261, 490–497, 696, 713–717.
Compare Kaaw Boerhaave, Impetuan faciens,
§ 197–200.)
The developed doctrine of Boerhaave on
this point is to be sought for, neither in his
Aphorisms, nor in his Institutions and his .
Prelections on the Institutions—the more pro-
minent works to which his illustrious disciples,
Haller and Van Swieten, appended respectively
a commentary.—The latter adopts, but does
not advance, the doctrine of his master. (Ad
Aph. 701, 711, 774, 1057, 1060.)—The former,
who in his subsequent writings silently aban-
doned the opinion, that sensation and motion
are conveyed by different nervous fibrils, in
two unnoticed passages of his annotations on
, Boerhaave, (1740,) propounds it as a not im-
probable conjecture—that a total nerve may
contain within its sheath a complement of
motory and of sensitive tubules, distinct in
their origin, transit, and distribution, but
which at their peripheral extremity communi-
cate; the latter, like veins, carrying the spirits
back to the brain, which the former had, like
arteries, carried out. (Ad Boerh. Instit. §
288, n. 2, § 293, n. 2.) -
The doctrine of the school of Leyden, on
this point, was however still more articulately
evolved by the younger (Bernard Siegfried)
Albinus; not in any of his published works,
but in the prelections he delivered for many
years, in that university, on Physiology. From
a copy in my possession of his dictata in this
course, very fully taken, after the middle of
the century, by Dj William Grant, (of Rothie.
murcus,) subsequently a distinguished medical
author and practical physician in London, com-
pared with another very accurate copy of these
dictata, taken by an anonymous writer, in the
year 1741; I am enabled to present the fol.
lowing general abstract of the doctrine taught
by this celebrated anatomist, though obliged
to retrench both the special cases, and the
reasoning in detail by which it is illustrated
and confirmed.
• The nerves have a triple destination as they
minister (1) to voluntary motion, (2.) to sen.
sation, (3) to the vital emergies—secretion,
digestion, &c. Albinus seems to acquiesce in
the doctrine, that the Brain-proper is the ulti-
mate organ of the first and second function,
the After-brain, of the third.
Nerves, again, are of two kinds. They are
either such in which the function of each ulti-
mato fibril remains isolated in function from
centre to periphery (the cerebro-spinal
nerves); or such in which these are mutually
confluent (the ganglionic merves.)
To speak only of the cerebro-spinal nerves,
and of these only in relation to the functious
of motion and sensation;–they are to be dis-
tinguished into three classes according as de.
stined, (L.) to sense, (2) to motion, (3) to
both motion and sensation. Examples—of the
first class are the olfactory, the optic, the au.
ditory, of which last he considers the portio
mollis and the portio dura to be, in pro-
priety, distinct nerves;–of the second class,
are the large portion of those passing to
muscles, as the fourth and sixth pairs;–of the
third class, are the three lingual nerves, espe-
cially the ninth pair, fibrils of which he had
frequently traced, partly to the muscles, partly
to the gustatory papillae of the tongue, and
§ Il.]
873
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF BODY,
the subcutaneous nerves, which are seen to
give off branches, first to the muscles, and
thereafter to the tactile papillae of the skin.
The nervous fibres which minister to motion
are distinct in origin, in transit, in termina-
tion, from those which minister to sensation.
This is manifest, in the case of those nerves
which run from their origin in separate
sheaths, either to an organ of sense (as the
olfactory and optic), or to an organ of motion,
(as the fourth and sixth pairs, which go to the
muscles of the eye); but it is equally, though
not so obtrusively, true, in the case where a
nerve gives off branches partly to muscles,
partly to the cutaneous papillae. In this lat-
ter case, the nervous fibrils or fistulae are,
from their origin in the medulla oblongata to
their final termination in the skin, perfectly
distinct.—The Medulla Oblongata is a con-
tinuation of the encephalos; made up of two
columns from the Brain-proper, and of two
columns from the After-brain. Immediately
or mediately, it is the origin, as it is the organ,
of all the nerves. And in both respects it is
double; for one part, the organ of sense,
affords an origin to the sensitive fibrils; whilst
another, the organ of motion, does the same by
the motory. In their progress, indeed, after
passing out, the several fibrils, whether homo-
geneous or mot, are so conjoined by the invest-
ing membranés as to exhibit the appearance of
a single nerve; but when they approach their
destination they separate, those for motion
ramifying through the muscles, those for sen-
sation going to the cutaneous papillae or other
organs of sense. Examples of this are afforded
—in the ninth pair, the fibres of which (against
more modern anatomists) he holds to arise by
a double origin in the medulla, and which,
after running in the same sheath, separate
according to their different functions and des-
tinations;–and in the seventh pair, the hard
and soft portions of which are respectively
for motion and for sensation, though these
portions, he elsewhere maintains, ought rather
to be considered as two distinct nerves than
as the twofold constituents of one.
The proof of this is of various kinds.—In
the first place, it is a theory forced upon us by
the phaenomena; for only on this supposition
can we account for the following facts —(1)
That we have distinct sensations transmitted to
the brain from different parts of the same sen-
sitive organ (as the tongue) through which the
same total nerve is diffused. (2) That we can
Send out from the brain a motive influence to
one, nay, sometimes to a part of one, muscle
out of a plurality, among which the same total
nerve (e. g. the ischiatic) is distributed. (3)
That sometimes a part is either, on the one
hand, paralysed, without any loss of sensi-
bility; or, on the other, stupified, without a
diminution of its mobility.
In the second place, we can demonstrate
the doctrine, proceeding both from centre to
periphery, and from periphery to centre.
—Though ultimately dividing into filaments
beyond our means of observation, we can still
go far in following out a nerve both in its
general ramifications, and in the special dis-
tribution of its filaments, for motion to the
muscles and for sensation to the skin, &c.; and
bow far soever we are able to carry our inves-
tigation, we always find the least fibrils into
which we succeedin analysing a nerve, equally
distinct and continuous as the chord of which
they were constituent.—And again, in fol.
lowing back the filaments of motion from the
muscles, the filaments of sensation from the
skin, we find them ever collected into larger
and larger bundles within the same sheath, but
never losing their individuality, never fused
together to form the substance of a larger
chord.—The nerves are thus not analogous to
arteries, which rise from a common trunk,
convey a common fluid, divide into branches
all similar in action to each other and to tho
primary trunk. For every larger nerve is
only a complement of smaller nerves, and every
smallest nerve only a fasciculus of nervous
fibrils; and these not only numerically different,
but often differing from each other in the cha-
racter of their functions.
In the third place, that in the nerves for
both motion and sensation are enveloped dig-
tinct nerves or fibrils for these several func-
tions—this is an inference supported by the
analogy of those nerves which are motive or
sensitive, exclusively. And in regard to these
latter, it becomes impossible, in some cases, to
conceive why a plurality of nerves should have
been found necessary, as in the case of the
two portions of the seventh pair, in reality
distinct nerves, if we admit the supposition
that each nerve, each nervous fibril, is com-
petent to the double office.
In the fourth place, the two species of nerve
are distinguished by a difference of structure.
For he maintains the old Galenic doctrine, that
the nerves of motion are, as compared with
those of sensation, of a harder and more fibrous
texture;—a diversity which he does not con-
fine to the homogeneous nerves, but extends to
the counter filaments of the heterogeneous.-
This opinion, in modern times, by the majo-
rity surrendered rather than refuted, has been
also subsequently maintained by a small num-
ber of the most accurate anatomists, as Mala-
carne and Reil; and to this result the recent
observations of Ehrenberg and others seem to
tend. (See Memoirs of the Berlin Academy for
1836, p. 605, sq.; Mueller's Phys. p. 598.)
Finally, to the objection—Why has nature
not, in all cases as in some, enclosed the motive
and the Sentient fibrils in distinct sheaths?—as
answer, and fifth argument, he shows, with
great ingenuity, that nature does precisely
what, in the circumstances, always affords tho
greatest security to both, more especially to
the softer, fibrils; and he might have added,
as a siath reason and second answer—with the
Smallest expenditure of means.
The subtilty of the nervous fibres is much
greater than is commonly suspected; and
there is probably no point of the body to which
they are not distributed. What is the nature
of their peripheral terminations it is, however,
difficult to demonstrate; and the doctrincs of
Ruysch and Malpighi in this respect are, as he
shows, unsatisfactory.
The doctrine of Albinus, indeed, of the whole
school of Boerhaave, in regard to the nervous
874
[NOTE D.
PRIMARY, SECUNDO-PRIMARY AND
System, and, in particular, touching the dis-
tinction and the isolation of the ultimate ner-
vous filaments, seems during a century of inter-
val not only to bave been neglected but abso-
lutely forgotten; and a counter opinion of the
most erroneous character, with here and there
a feeble echo of the true, to have become
generally prevalent in its stead. For, strange
to say, this very doctrine is that recently pro-
Inulgated as the last consummation of nervous
physiology by the most illustrious physiologist
in Europe. “That the primitive fibres of all
the cerebro-spinal nerves are to be regarded
as isolated and distinct from their origin to
their termination, and as radii issuing from
the axis of the nervous system,” is the grand
result, as stated by himself, of the elaborate
researches of Johann Mueller ; and to the earli-
est discovery of this general fact he carefully
windicates his right against other contemporary
observers, by stating that it had been privately
communicated by him to Van der Kolk, of
Utrecht, so long ago as the year 1830. (Phys.
p. 596–603.)
In conclusion, I may observe that it is greatly
to be regretted that these Prelections of Albi-
nus were never printed. They present not
only a full and elegant digest of all that was
known in physiology at the date of their de-
livery, (and Albinus was celebrated for the
uncommon care which he bestowed on the
composition of his lectures;) but they likewise
contain, perdue, many original views, all deser-
ving of attention, and some which have been sub-.
sequently re-produced to the no small celebrity
of their second authors. The speculation, for
example, of John Hunter and Dr Thomas Young,
in regard to the self-contractile property of
the Chrystalline lens is here anticipated; and
that pellucidity and fibrous structure are com-
patible, shown by the analogy of those gela-
tinous mollusca, the medusae or sea blubbers,
which are not more remarkable for their tran-
sparency, than for their contractile and dilative
powers.
As I have already noticed, the celebrity of
the Leyden School far from commanding ac-
ceptance, did not even secure adequate atten-
tion to the doctrine of its illustrious masters;
and the Galenic theory, to which Haller lat-
terly adhered, was, under the authority of
Cullen and the Monros, that which continued
to prevail in this country, until after the com-
mencement of the present century. Hero
another step in advance was then made by Mr
Alexander Walker, an ingenious Physiologist
of Edinburgh; who, in 1809, first started the
prolific notion, that in the spinal nerves the
filaments of sensation issue by the one root,
the filaments of motion by the other. His at .
tribution of the several functions to the Several
roots—sensation to the anterior, motion to the
posterior — with strong presumption in its
favour from general analogy, and its confor-
mity with the tenor of all previous, and much
subsequent, observation, is, however, opposed
to the stream of later and more precise ex-
periment. Anatomists have been long agreed
that the anterior column of the Spinal marrow
is in continuity with the brain - proper, the
posterior, with the after-brain. To say nothing
of the Galenic doctrine, Willis and the School
of Boerhaave had referred the automatic,
Hoboken and Pouteau the automatic and
voluntary, motions to the cerebellum. Lat-
terly, the experiments of Rolando, Flourens,
and other physiologists, would show that
to the after-brain belongs the power of re-
gulated or voluntary motion; while the pa-
rallelism which I have myself detected, be
tween the relative development of that part
of the encephalos in young animals and their
command over the action of their limbs, goes,
likewise, to prove that such motion is one, at
least, of the cerebellic functions. (See Monro's
Anatomy of the Brain, 1831, p. 4—9.) In
contending, therefore, that the nervous fila.
ments of sensation ascend in the anterior
rachitic column to the brain-proper, and the ,
nervous filaments of motion in the posterior,
to the after-brain; Mr Walker originally pro-
posed, and still maintains, the alternative
which, independently of precise experiment,
had the greatest weight of general probability
in its favour. (Archives of Science for 1809;
The Nervous System, 1834, p. 50, sq.)
In 1811, Sir Charles Bell, holding always the
connexion of the brain-proper with the ante-
rior, of the after-brain with the posterior,
column of the spinal chord, proceeding, how-
ever, not on general probabilities, but on ex-
periments expressly instituted on the roots
themselves of the spinal nerves, first advanced
the counter doctrine, that to the filaments
ascending by the posterior roots belongs ex-
clusively the function of sensation; and there-
after, but still, as is now clearly proved, pre-
viously to any other physiologist, he further
established by a most ingenious combination of
special analogy and experiment, the correlative
fact, that the filaments descending by the ante-
rior roots are the sole vehicles of voluntary
motion. These results, confirmed as they have
been by the principal physiologists throughout
Europe, seem now placed above the risk of re-
futation. It still, however, reimains to reconcile
the seeming structural connexion, and the mani-
fest functional opposition, of the after-brain and.
posterior rachitic column; for the decussation
in the medulla oblongata, observed, almong
others, by Rolando and Solly, whereby the
cerebellnm and anterior column are connected,
is apparently too partial to reconcile the dis-
cordant phaenomena. (Bell’s Nervous System;
Shaw's Narrative; Mweller's Physiology, &c.)
As connected with the foregoing notices, I
may here call attention to a remarkable case
reported by M. Rey Regis, a medical observer,
in his ‘Histoire Naturelle de l’Ame.” This
work, which is extremely rare, I have beer
unable to consult, and must therefore rely ow
the abstract given by M. de Biran in his ‘Nou-
velles Considerations, p. 96, sq. This case, as
far as I am aware, has escaped the observa-
tion of all subsequent physiologists. In its
phaenomena, and in the inferences to which
they lead, it stands alone; but whether the
phaenomena are themselves anomalous, or that
experiments, with the same intent, not having
§ II.]
875
SECONDARY QUALITIES OF BODY.
been made in like cases, they have not in these
been brought in like manner into view, I am
unable to determine.—A man lost the power
of movement in one half of his body, (one
lateral half, probably, but in De Biran's ac-
count the paralysis is not distinctly stated as
hemiplegia;) while the sensibility of the parts
affected remained apparently entire. Experi-
ments, various and repeated, were, however,
made to ascertain with accuracy, whether the
loss of the motive faculty had occasioned any
alteration in the capacity of feeling : and it
was found that the patient, though as acutely
alive as ever to the sense of pain, felt, when
this was secretly inflicted, as by compression
of his hand under the bed-clothes, a sensation
of suffering or uneasiness, by which, when the
pressure became strong, he was compelled
lustily to cry out ; but a sensation merely
general, he being altogether unable to localize
the feeling, or to say from whence the pain
proceeded. It is, unfortunately not stated
whether he could discriminate one pain from
another, say the pain of pinching from the
pain of pricking ; but had this not been the
case, the notice of so remarkable a circum-
'stance could hardly, I presume, have been
overlooked. The patient, as he gradually re-
covered the use of his limbs, gradually also
recovered the power of localizing his sensa-
tions.— It would be important to test the
value of this observation by similar experi-
ments, made on patients similarly affected.
Until this be done, it would be rash to esta-
blish any general inferences upon its facts.
I may notice also another problem, the solu-
tion of which ought to engage the attention of
those who have the means of observation in
their power. Is the sensaticn of heat depen-
dent upon a peculiar set of nerves? This to
me seems probable; 19, because certain sen-
tient parts of the body are insensible to this
feeling; and, 2°, because I have met with
cases recorded, in which, while sensibility in
general was abolished, the sensibility to heat
remained apparently undiminished.
NOTE D.*
PERCEPTION:
PERCEPTION PROPER AND SENSATION PROPER,”
I.-Principal 'momenta of the Editor's doctrine of Perception, (A) in itself, and (B)
in contrast to that of Reid, Stewart, Royer Collard, and other philosophers of thºs.
Scottish School.
II.-Historical notices in regard to the distinction of Perception proper
proper.
&nd Sensation,
[References.—From Inq. 182 b ; from I. P. 229 a, 313 ab; from Supplementary
Dissertations, passim.]
§ I.— Principal momenta of the Editor's
doctrine of Perception.
A)—In itself:
i.—Perception in general.
I. Sensitive Perception, or Perception
simply, is that act of Consciousness
whereby we apprehend in our body,
a.) Certain special affections, whereof
as an animated organism it is contingently
Susceptible; and
b.) Those general relations of eatension
under which as a material organism it
necessarily exists.
* *-
* A word as to the various meanings of the
terms here prominent—Perception, Sensation,
Sense.
i.—Perception (Perceptio; Perception; Per-
cezione; Perception, Wahrnehmung) has dif-
ferent significations; but under all and each
of these, the term has a common ambiguity,
denoting as it may, either 18 the perceiving
Faculty, or 2° the perceiving Act, or 3° the
Object perceived. Of these the only ambiguity
of importance is the last; and to relieve it I
would propose the employment, in this relation,
of Percept, leaving Perception to designate both
the faculty and its act; for these it is rarely
necessary to distinguish, as what is applicable
to the one is usually applicable to the other.
But to the significations of the term, as ap-
plied to different faculties, acts, and objects; of
which there are in all four ;-
l. Perceptio—which has been maturalized in
all the principal languages of modern Europe,
with the qualified exception of the German, in
which the indigenous term Wahrnehmung has
again almost superseded it—Perceptio, in its
primary philosophical signification, as in the
mouths of Cicero and Quintilian, is vaguely
equivalent to Comprehension, Notion, or Cog-
nition in general.
2. From this first meaning it was easily de-
flected to a second, in which it corresponds
to an apprehension, a becoming aware of, in a
word, a consciousness. In this meaning, though
long thus previously employed in the schools, . -
it was brought more prominently and dis-
tinctively forward in the writings of Descartes.
From bim it passed, not only to his own dis-
ciples, but, like the term Idea, to his antago-
nist, Gassendi, and, thereafter, adopted equally
§ 1.]
877
PERCEPTION.
Of these Perceptions, the former, which
is thus conversant about a subject-object,
is Sensation proper ; the latter, which is
thus conversant about an object-object, is
Perception proper. (See 808 b, 858 a.)
2. All Perception is an act of Con-
sciousness; no Perception, therefore, is
possible except under the conditions
under which Consciousness is possible.
(See Note H.) : The eight following con-
ditions are partly common to Perception
with the other acts of Consciousness;
partly proper to it as a special operation.
3. The first is a certain concentration.
of consciousness on an object of sense;—
an act of Attention, however remiss.”
by Locke and Leibnitz, it remained a household
word in every subsequent philosophy, until its
extent was further limited, and thus a third
signification given to it.
Under this second meaning it is, however,
proper to say a word in regard to the special
employment of the term in the Cartesian and
Leibnitzio-Wolfian philosophies.—Perception
the Cartesians really identified with Idea (using
this term in its unexclusive universality,
but discounting Descartes’ own abusive appli-
cation of it to the organic movement in the
brain, of which the mind has, ex hypothesi, no
consciousness) and allowed them only a logical
distinction;–the same representative act being
called Idea, in as much as we regard it as a
representation, i.e. view it in relation to what
through it, as represented, is mediately known,
and Perception, in as much as we regard it as
a consciousness of such representation, i. e.
view it in relation to the knowing mind.—The
Leibnitzio-Wolfiams, on the other hand, dis-
tinguished three acts in the process of repre-
sentative cognition :-1° the act of represent-
ing a (mediate) object to the mind; 2° the
representation, or, to speak more properly,
representamen, itself as an (immediate or vi-
carious) object exhibited to the mind; 3° the
act by which the mind is conscious, immedi-
ately of the representative object, and, through
it, mediately of the remote object represented.
They called the first Perception; the last Ap-
perception; the second Idea—sensual, to wit, for
what they styled the material Idea was only an
organic motion propagated to the brain, which,
on the doctrine of the pre-established harmony,
is in sensitive cognition the arbitrary conco-
mitant of the former, and, of course, beyond
the sphere of consciousness or apperception.
3. In its third signification, Perception is
limited to the apprehensions of Sense alone.
This limitation was first formally imposed
upon the word by Reid, for no very cogent
reason besides convenience (222b;) and, there-
after by Kant. Kant, again, was not altogether
consistent; for he employs * Perception” in the
second meaning, for the consciousness of any
mental presentation, and thus in a sense cor-
responding to the Apperception of the Leibnitz-
iams, while its vernacular synonyme “Wahrneh-
mung' he defines in conformity with the third,
as the consciousness of an empirical intuition.
Imposed by such authorities, this is now the
accredited signification of these terms, in the
recent philosophies of Germany, Britain,
France, Italy, &c.
4. But under this third meaning it is again,
since the time and through the authority of
Reid, frequently employed in a still more re-
stricted acceptation, viz. as Perception (proper)
in contrast to Sensation (proper.) The import
of these terms, as used by Reid and other phi-
losophers on the one hand, and by myself on
the other, is explained in the text.
ii.— Sensation (Sensatio; Sensation, Senti-
ment ; Sensazione; Empfindung) has various
significations; and in all of these, like Percep-
tion, Conception, Imagination, and other ana-
logous terms in the philosophy of mind, it is
ambiguously applied;—19, for a Faculty—2°,
for its Act—3°, for its Object. Here there is
no available term like Percept, Concept, &c.,
whereby to discriminate the last.
There are two principal meanings in which
this term has been employed. -
1. Like the Greek Cesthesis, it was long and
generally used to comprehend the process of
sensitive apprehension both in its subjective
and its objective relations.
2. As opposed to Idea, Perception, &c. it was
limited, first in the Cartesian school, and there-
after in that of Reid, to the subjective phasis
of our sensitive cognitions; that is, to our
consciousness of the affections of our animated
organism, or on the Neo-Platonic, Cartesian,
and Leibnitzian hypotheses, to the affections
of the mind corresponding to, but not caused
by, the unknown mutations of the body. Under
this restriction, Sensation may, both in French
and English, be employed to designate our
corporeal or lower feelings, in opposition to
Sentinent, as a term for our higher, i.e., our
intellectual and moral, feelings.
iii.-Sense (Sensus; Sens; Senso; Sinn) is
employed in a looser and in a stricter appli-
cation.
Dnder the former head it has two applica-
tions;–1°, a psychological, as a popular term
for Intelligence: 2°, a logical, as a synonyme
for Meaning.
Under the latter head, Sense is employed
ambiguously;-1°, for the Faculty of sensitive
apprehension; 2°, for its Act; 3°, for its
Organ.
In this relation, Sense has been distinguished
into External and Internal ; but under the
second term, in so many vague and various
meanings, that I cannot here either explain or
enumerate them.
On the analogical employments of the word,
see above, p. 756 sq.
* St Jerome—‘Quod mens videat et mons
audiat, et quod nec audire quid piam nec vi-
dere possumus, nisi Sensus in ea quae cerni-
mus et audimus intentus, vetus sententia.”
(Adv. Jovin. ii., 9.) See Aristotle, (Probl. xi.;
33,) whom Jerome manifestly had in his eye;
Strato Physicus as quoted by Plutarch, (De
Sol. An. Opera, t. ii., p. 961 ;) and Plutarch
himself, (ibid.)
878
[NotE D.”
PERCEPTION: PERCEPTION PROPER
4. The second is (independently of
the necessary contrast of a subject and an
object,) a plurality, alteration, difference
on the part of the perceived object or ob-
jects, and of a recognition or discrimina-
tion thereof on the part of the perceiving
subject.*—This supposes the following:
—Quality proper ; Quantity, Protensive
(Time,) Eastensive (Space,) Intensive (De-
gree;) and Relation. Therefore—
5. The third is Quality, quality strict-
ly so called. For one affection is distin-
guished from another as it is, or is not,
such and such ; in other words, as it has,
or has not, this or that quality (suchness.)
6. The fourth is Time; which suppo-
ses Memory, or, to speak more correctly,
a certain continuous representation of the
late and latest past, known with and in
contrast to our apprehension of the pass-
ing present. For without such continuity
of consciousness, no consciousness is pos-
sible.
7. The fifth is Space. For we are
only conscious of perceiving, as we are
conscious of perceiving something as dis-
criminated from other co-existent things.
But this in perception is to be conscious
of one thing as out of another, that is, as
extended, that is, as in Space. -
8. The sixth is Degree. For all sen-
sations are, though possibly of any, actu-
ally of one definite intensity; and distin-
guished not only by differences in Quality,
Time, Space, but also by differences in
Degree. - -
9. The seventh is Relation. For dis-
crimination, which all perception supposes,
is a recognition of a relation, the relation
of contrast ; and differences in Quality,
Time, Space, Degree, are only so many
various kinds of such relativity.
10. Finally, the eighth is an Assert-
ory Judgment, that within the sphere of
sense an object (a) easists, and (b) exists
whus or thus conditioned. † All conscious-
• It has been well said by Hobbes, in regard
to the former, ‘Sentire semper idem, et non
sentire, ad idem recidunt,” (Elem. Philos. P. iv.
c. 25, § 5;) and by Galen and Nemesius in
reference to the latter, “Sensation is not an
alteration, (affection, modification,) but the re-
cognition of an alteration.’ See p. 830 b.
# Aristotle in various passages asserts that
Sensitive perception is a discrimination or
a judgment. (Anal. Post. L. ii., c. 19, § 5.—
Top. L. ii., c. 4, § 2.—De An. L. iii., c. 1, § 10;
c. 10, $1; alibi.) And the Aphrodisian:- Al-
though sensation be only brought to bear
through certain corporeal passions, yet Sensa.
tion itself is not a passion, but a judgment.”
(On the Soul, f. 138 b, ed. Ald.) Reid has the
merit among modern philosophers of first ºp-
mess is realized in the enunciation— That
is there (or This is here.) All Percep-
tion consequently enounces—That is there;
but in this case, there is especially under-
stood by the That—an object manifested
through one or more qualities, Second-
ary, Secundo-primary, Primary; and by
the is there—apprehended in, or in im-
mediate relation to, our organism.;
II. Such being the general conditions
of Perception, it is manifestly impossible
to discriminate with any rigour Sense
from Intelligence. Sensitive apprehen-
Sion is, in truth, only the recognition by
Intelligence of the phaenomena presented
in or through its organs.|
proximating to the recognition of judgment as
an element or condition of consciousness in
general, in laying it at the root of Perception,
Sensation, Memory, and [Self] Consciousness;
though he unfortunately fell short of the truth
in refusing an existential judgment also to the
acts of the representative faculty, his Concep-
tion, Imagination, or Simple Apprehension.
# In this qualitative judgment there is only
the consciousness of the quality perceived in
itself as a distinct object. The judgment,
again, by which it is recognised of such a class
or such a name, is a higher energy, and ought
not, as is sometimes done, to be styled Per-
ception; it is Judgment, emphatically so called,
a simple act of, what I would call, the elabor-
ative, or diamoetic, or discursive faculty, the
faculty of relations, or comparison.
| Tertullian:—“Non enim et sentire intelli-
gere est, et intelligere, sentire.—At quid erit
Sensus, nisi ejus rei quae sentitur intellectus?
Quid erit intellectus, nisi ejus rei quae intel-
ligitur sensus 2 Unde ista tormenta cruciandao
simplicitatis, et suspendendae veritatis? Quis
mihi exhibebit sensum non intelligentem quod
sentit; aut intellectum non sentientem quod
intelligit 7’—(De Anima, c. 18; compare De
Carne Christi. c. 12.)—To the same effect St
Gregory of Nyssa. (De Opif. Hom. cc. 6, 10;
and De Anima et Resur., Opera, t. ii. p. 623 ed.
Paris, 1615.)—See also St Jerome as quoted
in note • 877. — But this doctrine we may
trace back to Aristotle and his school, and
even higher. ‘There is extant, says Plutarch,
* a discourse of Strato Physicus, demonstrating
—That a Sensitive apprehension is wholly impos-
sible without an act of Intellect.” (Op. Mor p.
961.) And as to Aristotle himself:---‘ To
divorce (he says) Sensation from Understand-
ing, is to reduce Sensation to an insensible
process; wherefore it has been said—Intellect
sees, and Intellect hears." (Probl. xi. 33.)
This saying, as recorded by Aristotle, con-
stitutes in the original (a difference of dialect
discounted) the first hemistich of the famous
verse of Epicharmus:–
Noi; Ág; x&i Noüs &xodel, Táxxx zoºd zai
ºrvpx4.
Mird it seeth, Mind it heareth; all beside is deaf
and blind;
§ 1.j
879
AND SENSATION PROPER.
12. All Perception is an immediate or
presentative cognition : and has, therefore,
in either form, only one univocal object;
that, to wit, which it apprehends as now
and here existent. (See Note B. § i.4, 8, 11.)
13. All Perception is a sensitive cog-
nition; it, therefore, apprehends the ex-
istence of no object out of its organism,
or not in immediate correlation to its or-
ganism; for thus only can an object exist,
now and here, to sense.
ii.-Sensation proper and Perception
proper, in correlation.
14. In Perception proper there is a
higher energy of intelligence, than in
or less literally—
What sees is Mind, what hears is Mind ;
The ear and eye are deaf and blind,
Though overlooked as a quotation, by both
the commentators on the Problems, by Eras-
mus, and many others, it has never been sus-
pected that these words, as quoted, are not a
quotation from the Syracusan poet. This ne-
gative I, however, venture to maintain, at
least, as a probable thesis; for I am inclined
to think that the line, however great its merit,
does not ascend to Epicharmus, but was forged
and fathered on him in an age considerably
12ter than Aristotle's. My reasons are these :-
1. Epicharmus was a Pythagorean philo-
sopher and a Doric poet, But to fabricate
Pythagorean treatises in the Doric dialect
seems to have become in the latter ages a
matter of exercise and emulation among the
Greek Sophistae and Syncretists. In fact, of
the numerous fragments under the names of
Pythagoras, Theano, Timaeus, Ocellus, Archytas,
Hippodamus, Euryphamus, Hipparchus, Thea-
ges, Metopus, Clinias, Crito, Polus, Lysis,
Melissa, Mya, &c.; there are hardly any to a
critical eye not manifestly spurious, and none
whatever exempt from grave suspicion. On
general grounds, therefore, forgeries on Epi-
charmus are not only not improbable, but likely.
2. And that such were actually commit-
ted we are not without special evidence. We
know from Athenaeus (L. xiv.) that there
were many Pseudoepicharmia in circulation.
Besides Apollodorus, he cites, as authorities
for this, Aristoxenus (who was a scholar of
Aristotle) in the eighth book of his Polity, and
Philochorus (who lived about a century later)
in his treatise on Divination. Among the
more illustrious fabricators, the former of
these commemorates Chrysogonus the flute-
player ; the latter, Axiopistus of Locrus or
Sicyon, with the names of his two supposititious
works, the Canon and the Gnomac. Of either
of these, judging from their title, the line in
question may have formed a part; though it is .
not improbably of a still more recent origin.
3. The words (and none could be more direct
and simple) which make up the first hemistich
of the verse, we find occasionally quoted as a
proverbial philosopheme, subsequently to the
time of Plato. To Plato's doctrine, and his
language, I would indeed attribute its rise ;
for it is idle to suppose, with Jacobs, that
Sophocles (OEd. T. 389) and Euripides (Hel.
118) had either the verse or dogma in their
cyc, Aristotle, at least, the author of the
Problems, is the oldest testimony for such a
usage; and long after Aristotle, after, indeed,
the line had been already fathered on Epi-
charmus, we have Pliny (H. N. xi. 37,) Cassius
Felix (Pr. 22,) St Jerome (Adv. Jovin. ii. 9,)
the manuscripts of Stobaeus (iv. 42,) and the
Scholiast of Aristophanes (Pl. 43,) all adducing
it only as an adage. It is not, however, till
nearly siw centuries after Epicharmus, and con-
siderably more than four centuries after Aristotle,
that we find the saying either fully cited as a
verse, or the verse ascribed to the Syracusan.
But from the time of Plutarch, who himself
thrice alleges it, its quotation in either fashion
becomes frequent; as by Tertullian, Clement
of Alexandria, Maximus Tyrius, Julian, Theo-
doret, Olympiodorus (twice,) and Tzetzes (four
times.) Porphyry (thrice) records it—but as
a saying of Pythagoras; and Iamblichus, as
a dictum of the Pythagorean school. These
authors both had learning, though neither,
certainly, was ever critical in its application.
Their statements can only, therefore, bo held
to favour the opinion that they were unaware
of any decisive evidence to vindicate the verse
to Epiclharmus.
4. But if improbable, even at first sight,
that such a verse of such an author should not,
if authentic, have been adduced by any writer
now extant, during the long period of six hun-
dred years, the improbability is enhanced when
we come to find, that during that whole period
it is never quoted, even under circumstances
when, had it been current as a line of Epi-
charmus, it could not but have been eagerly
appealed to. Plato, as observed by Alcimus
and Laertius, was motoriously fond of quoting
Epicharmus ; and there were at least two
occasions—in the Theaetetus (§ 102, sq.,) and
in the Phaedo (§ 25 [ll Wytt.])—when this
gnome of his favourite poet would have con-
firmed and briefly embodied the doctrine he
was anxiously inculcating. Could he fail to
employ it? In fact, it comes to this;–these
passages must either be held to follow, or to
| found, the philosopheme in question.—In like
manner Cicero, in his exposition of the first
passage, (Tusc. i. 20,) could hardly have
avoided associating Epicharmus with Plato,
as Tertullian and Olympiodorus have done in
their expositions of the second—had the line
been recognised in the age of the former, as it
was in the age of the two latter. Nor could
such an apophthegm of such a poet have been
unknown to Cicero, to Cicero, so generally
conversant with Hellenic literature, and who,
among other sayings of Epicharmus himself,
adduces in Greek, as his brother Quintus
paraphrases in Latin, the no less celebrated
| maxim—
880
[NotE D.*
PERCEPTION: PERCEPTION PROPER
Sensation proper. For though the latter
be the apprehension of an affection of
the Ego, and therefore, in a certain sort,
the apprehension of an immaterial quality;
still it is only the apprehension of the
fact of an organic passion; whereas the
former, though supposing Sensation as its
condition, and though only the appre-
hension of the attributes of a material
Non-ego, is, however, itself without cor-
poreal passion, and, at the same time, the
recognition not merely of a fact, but
of relations.
notes f and f.)
15. Sensation proper is the conditio
sing qua non of a Perception proper of
the Primary qualities. For we are only
aware of the existence of our organism,
in being sentient of it, as thus or thus
affected; and are only aware of it being
the subject of extension, figure, division,
motion, &c., in being percipient of its
affections, as like or as unlike, and as out
of, or locally external to, each other.
16. Every Perception proper has a Sen-
sation proper as its condition; but every
Sensation has not a Perception proper as
its conditionate — unless, what I think
ought to be done, we view the general
consciousness of the locality of a sensorial
affection as a Perception proper. In this
case, the two apprehensions will be always
coexistent.
17. But though the fact of Sensation
proper and the fact of Perception pro-
per imply each other, this is all; — for
the two cognitions, though eoexistent,
are not proportionally coexistent. On
the contrary, although we can only take
note of, that is perceive, the special rela-
tions of sensations, on the hypothesis that
these sensations exist; a sensation, in pro-
portion as it rises above a low degree
of intensity, interferes with the percep-
tion of its relations, by concentrating con-
sciousness on its absolute affection alone.
It may accordingly be stated as a general
rule— That, above a certain point, the
stronger the Sensation, the weaker the Per-
ception ; and the distincter the perception
the less obtrusive the Sensation ; in other
words— Though Perception proper and
Sensation proper eacist only as they co-
ea'ist, in the degree or intensity of their
easistence they are always found in an in-
verse ratio to each other. (See 862 b, sq.)
Be sober, and to dowbt inclin’d :
These are the very joints of mind;
or on the other reading—
Be cool, and cke to doubt propense:
These are the sincws of good sense.
(See 22, 29, and p. 858,
18. The organism is the field of appre-
hension, both to Sensation proper and
Perception proper; but with this diffe-
rence:–that the former views it as of
the Ego, the latter, as of the Non-ego ;
that the 'one draws it within, the other
shuts it out from, the sphere of self. As
animated, as the subject of affections of
which I am coks fous, the organism be-
longs to me; l of tº 2se affections,
which I recognise as mine, Sensation pro-
per is the apprehension. As material, as
the subject of extension, figure, divisi-
bility, and so forth, the organism does
not belong to me, the conscious unit; and
of these properties, which I do not recog-
nise as mine, Perception proper is the
* (See 38,39, and p. 858
a f.
19. The affections in Sensation proper
are determined, (a) by certain intra-
organic, or (b) by certain extra-organic,
causes. The latter, as powers in bodies,
beyond the sphere of perception, and their
effects in us, the objects of Sensation, are
both (therefore ambiguously) denominated,
either, in the language of modern philo-
sophers, the Secondary Qualities of Mſat-
ter, or, in the language of Aristotle, and
his school, the Proper Sensibles. (Note D.)
* It may appear, not a paradox merely; but
a contradiction, to say, that the organism is,
at once, within and without the mind; is au
once, subjective and objective ; is, at once,
Ego and Non-ego. But so it is; and go wº
must admit it to be, unless, on the one hand,
as Materialists, we identify mind with matte.,
or, on the other, as Idealists, we identify mat-
ter with mind. The organism, as animated,
as sentient, is necessarily ours; and its affec-
tions are only felt as affections of the indivisi-
ble Ego. In this respect, and to this cxtent,
our organs are not external to ourselves. But
our organism is not merely a sentient subject,
it is at the same time an extended, figured,
divisible, in a word, a material, subject; and
the same sensations which are reduced to unity
in the indivisibility of consciousness are in the
divisible organism recognised as plural and
reciprocally external, and, therefore, as ex-
tended, figured, and divided. Such is the fact:
but how the immatorial can be united with
matter, how the unextended can apprehend ex-
tension, how the indivisible can measure the
divided,—this is the mystery of mysterics to
man. “ Modus (says the Pseudo-Augustin)—
Modus quo corporibus adhacrent spiritus, 6m-
nino mirus est, mec comprehendi, ab hominibus
potest ; et hoc ipse homo est.” Thus para.
phrased by Pascal :—“Man is, to himself, the
mightiest prodigy of nature. For he is unable
to conceive what is Body, still less what is
Mind, and, least of all, how there can be united
a body and a mind. This is the climax of lifs
difficulties; yet this is his peculiar nature.”
§ I.] * AND SENSA i ION PROPER. 881
20. Sensation proper has no object but
a subject–object, i.e. the organic affection
of which we are conscious. The cause of
that affection, whether without the organ-
ism or within, that is, whether or not a
secondary quality of body, is immediately
or in its own nature unknown; being
known only, if known it ever be, medi-
ately, by observation, iſ lºction, infer-
ence, conjectureº Even intº e perception
of the Secundo-p.imary qualities, where
there is the perception p. oper of a quasi-
primary quality, in some degree of resist-
ance, and the sensation proper of a second-
ary quality, in some affection of the sen-
tient organism, its effect ; still to Sensa-
tion proper there is no other object but
the subjective affection; and even its
dependence, as an effect, upon the resist-
ance, as a cause, is only a conclusion
founded on the observed constancy of
their concomitance. (See 36, 37, and p.
857 b, sq.) -
21. Nay, the Perception proper, ac-
companying a sensation proper, is not an
apprehension, far less a representation, of
the external or internal stimulus, or con- |
cause, which determines the affection
whereof the sensation is the consciousness.
—Not the former ; for the stimulus or
concau e of a sensation is always, in itself,
to consciousness unknown. Not the lat-
ter; for this would turn Perception into
Imagination — reduce it from an imme-
diate, and assertory, and objective, into a
mediate, and problematic, and subjective,
cogr:tion. In this respect, Perception
profar is an apprehension of the relations
of sensations to each other, primarily in
Space, and secondarily in Time and De-
gree. (See 31.)
iii.-Sensation propºr.
22. Sensation proper, viewed on one
side, is a passive affection of the organism;
but viewed on the other, it is an active
apperception, by the mind, of that affec-
tion. And as the former only exists for
us, in as much as it is perceived by us;
and as it is only perceived by us, in as
much as it is apprehended, in an active
concentration, discrimination, judgment,
of the mind;—the latter, an act of intelli-
gence, is to be viewed as the principal
factor in the percipient process, even in
its lower form, that of Sensation proper.”
(See 4, 10, 11, 14, with notes.)
* This is the true doctrine of Aristotle and
his school, who are, however, nºt unfrequently
iv.–Perception proper.
23. In Perception proper the object-
object perceived is, always, either a Pri-
ºnary quality, or the quasi-Primary phasis
of a Secundo-primary. (See p. 857 b, sq.)
24. The Primary qualities are perceived
as in our organism; the Quasi-primary
phasis of the Secundo-primary as in cor-
relation to our organism. (See 866 a.)
25. Thus a perception of the Primary
qualities does not, originally and in itself,
reveal to us the existence, and qualitative
existence, of aught beyond the organism,
apprehended by us as extended, figured,
divided, &c.
26. The primary qualities of things
external to our organism we do not per-
ceive, i.e., immediately know. For these
we only learn to infer, from the affections
which we come to find that they deter-
| mine in our organs;– affections which,
yielding us a perception of organic ex-
tension, we at length discover, by obser-
vation and induction, to imply a corre-
sponding extension in the extra-organic
agents.
27. Further, in no part of the or-
ganism have we any apprehension, any
misrepresented, by relation to the extreme
counter-opinion of the Platonists, as viewing
in the cognitions of Sense a mere passion;
—a misrepresentation to which, undoubtedly,
a few of the Latin Schoolmen have afforded
grounds. It is, indeed, this twofold charac-
ter of the Sensitive process that enables us to
reconcile the apparent confliction of those
passages of Aristotle, where (as De Anima, L.
ii. c. 4. § 8; c. 5. § 2; c. 11. § 14; c. 12. § l;
De Sensu et Sensili, c. 1. § 5; Physica, L. vii.
c. 3. § 12. Pacian division) he calls Sensation a
passion or alteration of the Sentient; and those
others where (as De Anima, L. iii. c. 8. § 2) he
asserts that in Sensation the Sentient is not
passively affected, In the former passages the
a sentient faculty is regarded on its organic
side, in the latter on its mental. Compare De
Somno et Vigilia, c. 1. § 6, where it is said,
that “Sensation is a process belonging exclu-
sively neither to the soul nor to the body, but,
as energy, a motion of the soul, through the
ſmedium of the] body;”—a text which, how-
ever, may still be variously expounded.—See
Alexandcr; in note # p. 878; who, with the
other Greek interpreters, Ammonius, Simpli- .
cius, Philoponus, solves the difficulty by saying,
that it is not the sentient mind that suffers,
but the sentient organ. To the same effect are
Galen and Nemesius, as quoted in note * p. 878.
Reid is partly at one with the Peripatetics;
with whose doctrine, indeed, he is more fre-
quently in accordance than he is always him
self aware. (Inq. 114 a.)
3 K
882
[NotE D.*
PERCEPTION; PERCEPTION PROPER
immediate knowledge, of extension in its
true and absolute magnitude; perception
noting only the fact given in sensation,
and sensation affording no standard, by
which to measure the dimensions given in
one sentient part with those given in
another. For, as perceived, extension is
only the recognition of one organic affec-
tion in its outness from another;-as a
minimum of extension is thus to percep-
tion the smallest extent of organism in
which sensations can be discriminated as
plural;-and as in one part of the or-
ganism this smallest extent is, perhaps,
Some million, certainly some myriad, times
smaller than in others; it follows that, to
perception, the same real extension will
appear, in this place of the body, some
million or myriad times greater than in
that.* Nor does this difference subsist
only as between sense and sense; for in
the same sense, and even in that sense
which has very commonly been held ex-
clusively to afford a knowledge of abso-
lute extension, I mean Touch proper, the
minimum, at one part of the body, is some
fifty times greater than it is at another.
(See p. 863 ab, note.)
28. The existence of an extra-organic
world is apprehended, not in a perception |
of the Primary qualities, but in a percep-
tion of the quasi-primary phasis of the
Secundo-primary; that is, in the con-
sciousness that our locomotive energy is
resisted, and not resisted by aught in our
organism itself. For in the conscious-
ness of being thus resisted is involved, as
a correlative, the consciousness of a resist-
ing something external to our organism.
Both are, therefore, conjunctly appre-
hended. (See p. 866 a, note.)—This ex-
perience presupposes, indeed, a posses-
sion of the notions of space and motion in
space.
* This difference, in the power of discrimi-
natièg affections, possessed by different parts
of the body, seems to depend partly on the
Ininuteness and isolation of the ultimate ner.
vous fibrils, partly on the sensation being less
or more connected with pleasure and pain. In
this respect the eye greatly transcends all the
other organs. For we can discriminate in the
retina sensations, as reciprocally external,
more minutely than we can in touch—as over
the greater part of the body, two millions five
hundred thousand fold—as at the most sensi-
tive place of the hand, a hundred thousand
fold—as at the tip of the tongue, where tac-
tile discrimination is at its maximum, fifty
thousand fold. I am, however, inclined to think
for reasons already given, that we must re-
duce millions to myriads. (See p. 862, note.)
|
29. But on the doctrine that space, as a
necessary condition, is a native element of
thought; and, since the notion of any one
of its dimensions, as correlative to, must
inevitably imply the others; it is evident
that every perception of sensations out of
sensations will afford the occasion, in ap-
prehending any one, of conceiving all the
three extensions; that is, of conceiving
space. Qu th; doctring and in the lan-
guage, of Reid, our original cognitions of
space, motion, &c., are instinctive; a view
which is confirmed by the analogy of
those of the lower animals which have the
power of locomotion at birth. It is truly
an idle problem to attempt imagining the
steps by which we may be supposed to
have acquired the notion of extension;
when, in fact, we are unable to imagine
to ourselves the possibility of that notion
not being always in our possession.
30. We have, therefore, a twofold cog-
nition of space : a) an a priori or native
imagination of it, in general, as a necessary
condition of the possibility of thought ;
and b,) under that, an a posteriori or
adventitious percept of it, in particular, as
contingently apprehended in this or that
actual complexus of sensations.”
B.) Editor’s doctrine of Perception, in con-
trast to that of Reid, Stewart, Royer
Collard, and other philosophers of the
Scottish School.f
31. Perception (proper) is the Notion
or Conception of an object, instinctively
Swggested, earcited, inspired, or, as it were,
conjured wip, on occasion or at the sign of
* This doctrine agrees with that of Kant
and Reid in the former : it differs certainly
from that of Kant, and probably from that of
Reid, in the latter. But see B.
#Ihere contrastmy own doctrine of perception
with that of the philosophers in question, not
because their views and mine are those at far-
thest variance on the point, but, on the con-
trary, precisely because they thereon approxi-
mate the nearest. I have already shown that
the doctrine touching Perception held by Reid,
(and in the present relation he and his two
illustrious followers are in almost all respects
at one) is ambiguous. For while some of its
statements seem to harmonize exclusively with
the conditions of natural presentationism,
others, again, appear only compatible with
those of an egoistical representationism. —
(See 820–823; also 812–815.) Maintaining, as
I do, the former doctrine, it is, of course, only
the positions conformable to the latter, which
it is, at present, necessary to adduce.
§ 1.]
883
AND SENSATION PROPER. -
a Sensation (proper.") Reid, Inq., 111 b,
121 a, 122 a, 123 b, 128 b note 130 b, 159
a, 183 a, 188 a. I. P. 258 ab, 259 b, 260
b, 318 ab, 327 a ;—Stewart, El. Vol. i. pp.
92, 93; – Royer Collard, in Jouffroy's
Reid, vol. iii. pp. 402, 403.−(Compare
820 b, 821 ab.)
On the contrary, I hold, in general,
that as Perception, in either form, is an
immediate or presentative, not a mediate
or representative, cognition, that a Per-
ception proper is not, and ought not to be
called, a Notion or Conception. And, I
hold, in particular, that, on the one hand,
in the consciousness of sensations, out of
each other, contrasted, limited, and vari-
ously arranged, we have a Perception
proper, of the primary qualities, in an ex-
ternalty to the mind, though not to the
nervous organism, as an immediate cogni-
tion, and not merely as a notion or con-
cept, of something extended, figured, &c.;
and, on the other, as a correlative con-
tained in the consciousness of our volun-
tary motive energy resisted, and not re-
sisted by aught within the limits of mind
and its subservient organs, we have a Per-
ception proper of the secundo-primary
quality of resistance, in an extraorganic
force, as an immediate cognition, and not
* This is not the doctrine, at least not the
language of the doctrine, of real presentation-
ism. It is the language, at best, of an egoisti-
cal representationism; and, as a doctrine, it
coincides essentially with the theory of mediate
perception held by the lower Platonists, the
Cartesians, and the Leibnitzians—as properly
understood. The Platonizing Cudworth, in
different parts of his works, gives, in fact,
nearly in the same terms, the same account of
the process of Sensitive Perception. He sig-
malises, firstly, the bodily affection, determined
by the impression of an external something,
[precisely as Reid;] secondly, the sympathetic
recognition thereof by the soul, [Reid’s Sen-
sation;] thirdly, to quote his expressions,
‘whereby according to nature's instinct, it hath
several Seemings or Appearances begotten in it
of those resisting objects, without it at a dis-
tance, in respect of colour, magnitude, figure,
and local motion,” [Reid's Conceptions or No-
tions of which Perception is made up.] (Imm.
Mor. B. v. ch. 2. § 3. Compare B. iii. ch. l. §
5.) See also, above, the Neoplatonic doctrine,
as stated, p. 262 b. note *; the Cartesian Syl-
vain Regis, as quoted, p. 821 a.; and the Car-
tesian Andala, as quoted, p. 257, b. note *; and
to these may be added the Aristotelian Comp-
ton Carlton, (who did not reject the doctrine
of a representative perception of the Common
Sensibles,) as quoted, p. 830 a.—But that Reid
might possibly employ the terms notion and
conception in a vague and improper sense, for
cognition in general, see p. 821, b. 4.
merely as a notion or concept, of a resisting
something external to our body;--though
certainly in either case there may be, and
probably is, a concomitant act of imagi-
nation, by which the whole complex con.
sciousness on the occasion is filled up.
(See 21, and Note B $ ii.)
32. On occasion of the Sensation (pro-
per,) along with the notion or conception
which constitutes the Perception (proper,)
of the external object, there is blindly
created in us, or instinctively determined,
an invincible belief in its oxistence. (Reid,
Inq. 159 a, 122 ab, 183 a, I.P. 258 a, 327 a,
alibi; Stewart and Royer Collard, Il. cc.)
On the contrary, I hold, that we only
believe in the existence of what we per-
ceive, as extended, figured, resisting, &c.,
in as much as we believe that we are con-
scious of these qualities as existing; con-
sequently, that a belief in the existence
of an extended world external to the
mind, and even external to the organism,
is not a faith blindly created or instinc-
tively determined, in supplement of a re-
presentative or mediate cognition, but
exists in, as an integral constituent of,
Perception proper, as an act of intuitive
or immediate knowledge.
33. The object.of Perception (proper)
is a conclusion, or inference, or result,
(instinctive, indeed, not ratiocinative,)
from a Sensation proper. (Reid, Inq.
125 a, 186 b, I. P. 310 ab, 319 a ;—Royer
Collard, l.c.)
On the contrary, I hold, that the object
of Perception proper is given immedi-
ately in and along with the object of
Sensation proper. (See 822 a 7.)
34. Sensation (proper) precedes, Per-
ception (proper) follows. (Reid, Inq.
186 b, 187 b. I. P. 320 b ; Stewart and
Royer Collard, ll. cc.)
On the contrary, I hold, that though
Sensation proper be the condition of, and
therefore anterior to, Perception proper
in the order of nature, thaf, in the order
of time, both are necessarily coexistent;
—the latter being only realised in and
through the present existence of the for-
mer. Thus visual extension cannot be
perceived, or even imagined, except under
the sensation of colour ; while colour,
again, cannot be apprehended or ima-
gined without, respectively, a concomi-
tant apprehension or phantasm of exten-
sion.
35. Sensation (proper) is not only an
antecedent, but an arbitrary antecedent,
of Perception (proper.) The former is
only a sign on occasion of which the lat-
ter follows; they have no necessary" or
884
[NotE D.*
PERCEPTION, PERCEPTION PROPER
even natural connexion; and it is only by
the will of God that we do not perceive
the qualities of external objects indepen-
dently of any sensitive affection. This
last, indeed, seems to be actually the case
in the perception of visible extension and
figure. (Reid, Inq. 111 b, 121 a, 143 b,
122 a, 123 b, 187 b, 188 a. I. P. 257 b,
260 b, alibi; Stewart and Royer Collard,
ll. cc.
* contrary, I hold that Sensation
proper is the universal condition of Per-
ception proper. We are never aware
even of the existence of our organism
except as it is somehow affected; and are
only conscious of extension, figure, and
the other objects of Perception proper, as
realized in the relations of the affections
of our sentient organism, as a body ex-
tended, figured, &c. As to colour and
visible extension, neither can be appre-
hended, neither can be even imagined,
apart from the other. (V. 831 a, foot-
note, et alibi; but especially Note E, $1.)
36. In a Sensation (proper) of the
secondary qualities, as affections in us, we
have a Perception (proper) of them as
properties in objects and causes of the
affections in us. (Reid, I. P. 310 ab, and
Inq. passim; Royer Collard, l.c.)
On the contrary, I hold, that as Per-
ception proper is an immediate cognition;
and as the secondary qualities, in bodies,
are only inferred, and therefore only
mediately known to exist as occult causes
of manifest effects; that these, at best
only objects of a mediate knowledge, are
not objects of Perception. (See 20, 21,
and p. 858.)
3. In like manner, in the case of vari-
ous other bodily affections, as the tooth-
ache, gout, &c., we have not only a Sen-
sation proper of the painful feeling, but a
conception and belief, i.e., a Perception
(proper) of its cause. (Reid, I. P. 319 a,
alibi.)
On the contrary, and for the same
reason, I hold, that there is in this case
no such Perception.
38. Sensation (proper) is an affection
purely of the mind, and not in any way an
affection of the body. (Reid, Inq. 105 a,
159 ab, 187 a, I. P. 229 ab, 310.)
On the contrary, I hold with Aristotle,
(De An. i. 5, De Som. c. 1. § 6,) indeed,
with philosophers in general, that Sensa-
tion is an affection neither of the body
alone nor of the mind alone, but of the
composite of which each is a constituent;
and that the subject of Sensation may be
indifferently said to be our organism (as
animated) or our soul (as united with
an organism.) For instance, hunger or
colour are, as apprehended, neither modes
of mind apart from body, nor modes of
body apart from mind. (See 18.)
39. Sensations (proper) as merely affec
tions of the mind, have no locality in the
body, no locality at all. (Reid, I. P. 319
ab, 320 ab.) From this the inference is
necessary, that, though conscious of the
relative place and reciprocal outness of
sensations, we do not in this consciousness
apprehend any real externality and ex-
tension.
On the contrary, I hold, that Sensation
proper being the consciousness of an affec-
tion, not of the mind alone, but of the
mind as it is united with the body, that
in the consciousness of sensations, rela-
tively localized and reciprocally external,
we have a veritable apprehension, and,
consequently, an immediate perception of
the affected organism, as extended, divided,
figured, &c. This alone is the doctrine
of Natural Realism, of Common Sense.
(See 18.)
40. In the case of Sensation (proper)
and the Secondary qualities, there is a
determinate quality in certain bodies, ex-
clusively competent to cause a determinate
sensation in us, as colour, odour, savour,
&c.; consequently, that from the fact of
a similar internal effect we are warranted
to infer the existence of a similar exter-
nal concause. (Reid, Inq. 137–142. I. P.
315, 316, alibi.)
On the contrary, I hold, that a similar
sensation only implies a similar idiopathic
affection of the nervous organism ; but
such affection requires only the excitation
of an appropriate stimulus; while such
stimulus may be supplied by manifold
agents of the most opposite nature, both
from within the body and from without.
(See 854, b–856, a.)
41. Perception excludes memory; Per-
ception (proper) cannot therefore be ap-
prehensive of motion. (Royer Collard,
supra, 844, ab.)
On the contrary, I hold, that as memory,
or a certain continuous representation, is
a condition of consciousness, it is a con-
dition of Perception; and that motion,
therefore, cannot, on this ground, be de-
nied as an object apprehended through
sense. (See 6, and Note H.)
42. An apprehension of relations is not
an act of Perception (proper.) (Royer
Collard [apparently, ibid.)
On the contrary, I hold, in general,
that as all consciousness is realized only
in the apprehension of the relations of
plurality and contrast; and as perception
§ 1.]
885
AND SENSATION PROPER.
is a consciousness; that the apprehension
of relation cannot, simpliciter, be denied
to perception: and, in particular, that
unless we annihilate Perception proper,
by denying to it the recognition of its
peculiar objects, Extension, Figure, and
the other primary qualities, we cannot
deny to it the recognition of relations;
for, to say nothing of the others, Exten-
sion is perceived only in apprehending
sensations out of sensations—a relation;
and Figure is only perceived in appre-
hending one perceived extension as limited,
and limited in a certain manner by another
—a complexus of relations. (See 9, pp.
844 a, 859 a, and infra Note E.)
43. Distant realities are objects of Per-
| eption (proper.) (Reid, Inq. 104 b, 145 a,
158 b, 159 ab, 160 a, 186 b : I. P. 299 a,
302 a, 303 a, 304 a, 305 b ; Stewart, El.
i. 79 sq.)
On the contrary, I hold, that the mind
perceives nothing external to itself, ex-
cept the affections of the organism as
animated, the reciprocal relations of these
affections, and the correlative involved in
the consciousness of its locomotive energy
being resisted. (See 814 a, 822 ab.)
44. Objects not in contact with the
organs of sense are perceived by a me-
dium. (Reid, Inq. 104 b, 186 ab, 187 b ;
I. P. 247 ab.) *
On the contrary, I hold, that the only
object perceived is the organ itself, as
modified, or what is in contact with the
organ, as resisting. The doctrine of a
medium is an error, or rather a confusion,
inherited from Aristotle, who perverted,
in this respect, the simpler and more accu-
rate doctrine of Democritus.
45. Eactension and Figure are first per-
ceived through the sensations of Towch.
(Reid, Inq. 123–125. 188 a ; I. P. 331;
Stewart, El. i. 349, 357; Ess. 564.)
On the contrary, I hold, that (unless by
Extension be understood only extension
in the three dimensions, as Reid in fact
seems to do, but not Stewart, ) this is
erroneous, for an extension is apprehended
in the apprehension of the reciprocal ex-
ternality of all sensations. Moreover, to
allow even the statement as thus restricted
to pass, it would be necessary to suppose,
that under Touch it is meant to compre-
hend the consciousness of the Locomotive
energy and of the Muscular feelings.
(See 864 b, sq.)
46. Easternality is exclusively perceived
on occasion of the sensations of Towch
(Reid, Inq. 123, 124, 188, a ; I. P. 332
and alibi; Royer Collard, Jouffroy's Reid,
iii. 412.)
On the contrary, I hold, that it is, pri-
marily, in the consciousness of our loco-
motive energy being resisted, and, secon-
darily, through the sensations of muscular
feeling, that the perception of Externality
is realized. All this, however, might be
confusedly involved in the Touch of the
philosophers in question. (See 28.)
47. Real (or absolute) magnitude is an
object of perception (proper) through
Towch, but through touch only. (Reid,
I. P. 303.)
On the contrary, I hold, that the mag-
nitude perceived through touch is as
purely relative as that perceived through
vision or any other sense; for the same
magnitude does not appear the same to
touch at one part of the body and to
touch at another. (303 b, note; 863 ab,
note; and n. 27.)
48. Colour, though a secondary quality,
is an object not of Sensation (proper) but
of Perception (proper); in other words,
we perceive Colour, not as an affection of
our own minds, but as a quality of exter-
nal things. (Reid, Inq. 137 ab, 138 a ;
I. P. 319 b.)
On the contrary, I hold, that colour,
in itself, as apprehended or immediately
known by us, is a mere affection of the
sentient organism; and therefore like
the other secondary qualities, an object
not of Perception, but of Sensation, pro-
per. The only distinguishing peculiarity
in this case, lies in the three following
circumstances : — a) That the organic
affection of colour, though not altogether
indifferent, still, being accompanied by
comparatively little pleasure, compara-
tively little pain, the apprehension of this
affection, qua affection, i.e., its Sensation
proper, is, consequently, always at a mini-
mum.—b) That the passion of colour first
rising into consciousness, not from the
amount of the intensive quantity of the
affection, but from the amount of the ex-
tensive quantity of the organism affected,
is necessarily apprehended under the con-
dition of extension.—c) That the isola-
tion, tenuity, and delicacy, of the ultimate
filaments of the optic nerve, afford us
sensations minutely and precisely distin-
guished, sensations realized in conscious-
ness only as we are conscious of them as
out of each other in space.—These cir-
cumstances show, that while in vision
Perception proper is at its maximum, and
Sensation proper at its minimum, (17,)
the sensation of colour cannot be realized
apart from the perception of extension :
but they do not warrant the assertions,
that colour is not, like the other second-
886
[NotE D.”
PERCEPTION; PERCEPTION PROPER
ary qualities, apprehended by us as a
mere sensorial affection, and, therefore,
an object not of Sensation proper but of
Perception proper. (See 855 ab, 858 ab.)
§ II.-Historical notices in regard to the
distinction of Perception proper and
Sensation proper. -
This distinction is universally supposed
to be of a modern date; no one has endea-
voured to carry it higher than Male-
branche; and, in general, the few indi-
cations of it noticed previous to Reid,
have been commemorated as only acci-
dental or singular anticipations.” This is
altogether erroneous; the distinction is
ancient ; and adopting, for the standard,
my own opinion of what the distinction
ought to be, I find it taken more simply
and less incorrectly by Aristotle, than by
any modern philosopher whatever.
Aristotle's discrimination of the Com-
mon and Proper Sensibles or Percepts
(which has been already explained, 828 b
sq.) embodies not only the modern dis-
tinction of the Primary and Secondary
Qualities of matter, but also the modern
distinction of the two Perceptions, Per-
* The only attempt of which I am aware, at
any historical account of the distinction in
hand, is by Mr Stewart, in Note F of his
Essays. It contains, however, notices, and
these not all pertinent, only of Hutcheson,
Crousaz, Baxter, and D'Alembert, and none of
these have any title to an historical commemo-
ration on the occasion. For Hutcheson (as
already once and again mentioned, 124 ab,
829 b) only repeats, indeed, only thought of
repeating, Aristotle; while the others, at best,
merely re-echo Malebranche and the Carte-
sians.
I may here observe, that in that Note, as
also repeatedly in the Dissertation, Mr Stewart
(who has been frequently followed) is wrong
in stating, unexclusively, that Reid's writings
were anterior to Kant's; founding thereon a
presumption against the originality of the lat-
tor. The priority of Reid is only true as
limited to the “Inquiry;' but, on the ground
of this alone there could be proved, between
the philosophers, but little community of
thought, on points where either could possibly
claim any right of property. But though
Kant's first ‘Critik” and ‘ Prolegomena? pre-
ceded Reid’s ‘Essays’ by several years, no
ORe will assuredly suspect any connexiom
whatever between these several works. In
general, I must be allowed to say, that the
tone and tenor of Mr Stewart's remarks on the
pluilosopher of Koenigsberg are remarkable
exceptions to the usual cautious, candid and
dignified character of his criticism.
ception proper and Sensation proper.
The generalization of these two correla-
tive distinctions into one, constitutes in-
deed, the first peculiar merit of Aristotle's
analysis and nomenclature. But a second
is, that in his hands at least, the Common
Sensibles, the immediate objects of Per-
ception proper, are viewed as the object-
objects of an intuitive, and not perverted
into the Swbject–objects of a representative
cognition. For in the writings of Aris-
totle himself I can find no ground for
regarding him as other than a presenta-
tionist or natural realist. In this re-
spect his doctrine stands distinguished
from all the others in which the distinction
in question has been recognised; for the
Neo-Platonic, the Neo-Aristotelic, the
Scholastic (with certain exceptions) and
the Cartesian, all proceed on the ideality
or representative character of the objects
of which we are conscious in Perception
proper. Even Reid himself, as we have
seen, and the Scottish School in general,
can only with doubt and difficulty be held
as qualified exceptions. (See § I., B of
this Note, and § II. of Note C.j -
Nay, the canon I have endeavoured to
establish of the universal co-existence in
an inverse ratio of Perception proper and
Sensation proper (and in general of Feel-
ing and &#. though not enounced
in its abstract universality by Aristotle,
may still be detected as supposed and spe-
cially applied by him. In his treatise On
the Soul (ii. 9. 1.) speaking of the sense
of Smell, and of the difficulty of deter-
mining the nature and quality of its
objects—odours, he says:—“ The cause
is, that we do not possess this sense in
any high degree of accuracy, but are, in
this respect, inferior to many of the brutes;
for man Smells imperfectly, and has no
perception of things odorous, unaccom-
panied by either pain or pleasure; the
organ of this sense not being nicely dis-
criminative.’ And the same is implied, in
what he adds touching the vision of the
Sclerophthalma. Does not this manifestly
suppose the principle—that in proportion
as a sense rises as a mean of information,
it sinks as a vehicle of pleasure and pain
—Galen, I may notice, has some remark-
able observations to the same effect. In
considering “ the causes of pleasure and
pain in the several senses;’ and after
stating, in general, the order of intensity
in which these are susceptible of such
affections, to wit, Touch or Feeling—
Taste — Smell — Hearing – Vision; he
goes on to treat of them in detail. And
here it is evident, that he also deems the
§ II.]
887
AND SENSATION PROPER,
capacity of pain and pleasure in a sense to
~be inversely as its power of cognitive dis-
crimination. For, inter alia, he says of
Hearing :—* The pleasurable is more con-
spicuous in this sense [than in that of
Vision,] because it is of a coarser nature
and constitution ; but the pleasurable be-
comes even more manifest in the sensa-
tions of Smell, because the nature and
constitution of this sense is coarser still.’
(De Sympt. causis L. i. c. 6.)
The distinction of the Common and
Proper Sensibles, and virtually therefore,
the distinction in question, was continued,
with some minor developments, by the
Greek and Latin Aristotelians. (See 830
a, 860 ab.) As to the interesting doc-
trine, on this point, of those Schoolmen
who rejected intentional species in Per-
ception, I may refer, instar omnium, to
Biel. (Collect. L. ii. dist. 3. qu. 2.)
Sensation proper and Perception proper
were, however, even more strongly con-
tradistinguished in the system of the .
lower Platonists. They discriminated,
on the one hand, in the body, the organic
passion and its recognition—that is Sen-
sation proper; and on the other, in the
impassive soul, the elicitation into con-
sciousness (through some inscrutable in-
stinct or inspiration) of a gnostic reason,
or subjective form, representative of the
external object affecting the sense—that
is Perception proper. (See 262 b Note *.)
There might also be shown, in like man-
ner, an analogy between the distinction in
question, and that by the Schoolmen of
the species impressa et ew.pressa ; but on
this I shall not insist. Nor on the Neo-
Platonic theory of Perception which has
rarely been touched upon, and when
touched on almost always misrepresented
(even Mr Harris, for instance, has wholly
misconceived the nature of the gnostic
reasons ;)—nor on this can I now enter,
though, as recently noticed, it bears a
striking analogy to one phasis of the
doctrine of Reid. In special reference
to the present distinction I may, however,
refer the reader to a passage of Plotinus.
(Enn. III. vi. 2.) -
In the Cartesian philosophy, the dis-
tinction was virtually taken by Descartes,
but first discriminated in terms by his
followers. In general, Perception proper,
and the Primary qualities as perceived,
they denoted by Idea ; Sensation proper,
and the Secondary qualities as felt, by
Sensation (sensatio, sentiment). See De
Raei, (Clavis, &c., p. 299 alibi, ed. 1677;)
—De la Forge, (De l’Esprit, ch. 10, p.
109 sq., ch, 17, p. 276, ed. Amst. et supra
834 a ;)—Geulina, (Dicv-a- an Principia,
pp. 45, 48, alibi, et supra. 834 a ;)—Ro-
hault, (Physique, passim;)—Malebranche
(Recherche, L. iii. P. ii. ch. 6 and 7, with
Ecclairc. on last, et supra 835 b ;)—.
Silvain Regis, (Cours, t. i. pp. 60, 61, 72,
145;—Bosswet, (Connaissance de Dieu, ch.
iii. art. 8;)—while Buffier, S' Gravesande,
Crow8&z, Sinsert, Keramflech, Genovesi,
with a hundred others, might be adduced
as showing that the same distinction had
been very generally recognised before
Reid; who, far from arrogating to him-
self the credit of its introduction, remarks
that it had been first accurately esta-
blished by Malebranche. (265 b.)
As already noticed, (835 b,) it is pass-
ing strange that Locke, but truly mar-
vellous that Leibnitz, should have been
ignorant of the Cartesian distinction of
Sensation and Idea (Sentiment, Idée.)
Locke’s unacquaintance is shown in his
* Essay,’ besides other places, in B. ii. ch.
13, § 25, but, above all, in his ‘Examina-
tion of P. Malebranche's Opinion;' and
that of Leibnitz, elsewhere, and in L. ii.
ch. 8 of his “ Nouveaux Essais, but more
particularly in the “Examen du Sentiment
du P. Malebranche, both of which works
he wrote in opposition to the relative
treatises of Locke. As for Locke, he
seems wholly unaware that any difference
subsisted in the Cartesian school, between
Idea and Sensation ; while Leibnitz actu-
ally thinks that Malebranche ‘ entend par
sentiment une perception d’imagination’ſ
In his own philosophy, Leibnitz virtually
supersedes the discrimination. I am,
therefore, doubly surprised at the obser-
vation of M. Royer Collard, that ‘Male-
branche is the first among modern philo-
sophers, and, with Leibnitz, perhaps the
only one before Reid, who accurately
distinguished perception from the sensa-
tion which is its forerunner and sign.”
(Jouffroy's Reid, iii. 329.)
In the Kantian school, and generally
in the recent philosophy of Germany, the
distinction is adopted, and marked out by
the terms Anschaww.ng or Intuitio, for the
one apprehension, and Empfindwng or
Sensatio for the other. In France and
Italy, on the other hand, where the dis-
tinction has been no less universally re-
cognised, Reid's expressions, Perception
and Sensation, have become the prevalent;
but their ambiguity, I think, ought to have
been avoided, by the addition of some
such epithet as—proper.
Since generalizing the Law of the co-
eaſistence, but the co-ea;istence in an inverse
*atio, of Sensation and Perception, of the
888
PERCEPTION, PERCEPTION PROPER, &c. [Note p. 31.
subjective and objective, and, in general,
of feeling and cognition ; I have noticed,
besides those adduced above from Aris-
totle and Galen, other partial observations
tending to the same result, by Sundry
modern philosophers.-Sulzer, in a paper
published in 1759 (Vermischte Schriften,
vol. i. p. 113,) makes the remark, that
‘ a representation manifests itself more
clearly in proportion as it has less the
power of exciting in us emotion;' and
confirms it by the analogy observed in
the gradation of the agreeable and dis-
agreeable sensations.—Kant in his An-
thropologie (1798, § 14,) in treating of
the determinate or organic senses (Sen-
sus fixi,) says:– Three of these are rather
objective than subjective—i.e., as empiri-
cal intuitions, they conduce more to the
cognition of the external object, than they
excite the consciousness of the affected
organ; but two are rather subjective
than objective—i.e., the representation
they mediate is more that of enjoyment
[or suffering] than of the cognition of the
external object. . . . . The senses of the
former class are those—1) of Touch (tac-
tus,) 2) of Sight (visus,) 3) of Hearing
(auditus ;) of the latter, those—a) of
Taste (gustus,) b) of Smell (olfactus.)’—
This and the Galenic arrangement will
appear less conflictive, if we recollect,
that under Touch Galen comprehends
Feeling proper, whereas Feeling proper
is by Kant relegated to his vital sense or
sensus vagus, the coenaesthesis or common
sense of others. See also Meiners, Un-
tersuchungen, i. p. 64; Wetzel, Psycholo-
gie, i. § 225; Fries, N. Kritik, i. § 14-
19; Anthropologie, i. §§ 27, 28, &c. &c.
M. Ravaisson, in an article of great
ability and learning on the ‘Fragments
de Philosophie’ which M. Peisse did me
the honour to translate, when speaking of
the reform of philosophy in France, ori-
ginating in Maine de Biran’s recoil against
the Sensualistic doctrine, has the follow-
ing passage:– “Maine de Biran commence
par séparer profondément de la passion
l'açºvité, que Condillac avait confondue
avec sº sous le titre commun de Sensa-
tion. La sensation proprement dite est
une affection toute passive; l'étre qui y
serait réduit irait se perdre, s'absorber
dans toutes ses modifications; il devien-
drait-successivement chacune d’elles, il ne'
se trouverait pas, ilne se distinguerait pas,
et jamais ne se connaitrait lui-même. Bien
loin que la connaissance soit la sensation
Seule, la Sensation, en se mélant à elle, la
trouble et l'obscurcit, et elle éclipse à son
tour la sensation. De la, la loi que M.
Hamilton a signalée dans son remarquable
article sur la theorie de la perception: la
Sensation et la perception, quoique insépar-
ables, sont en raison inverse l’une de l'autre.
Cette loi fondamentale, Maine de Biran
l'avait découverte près de trente ans
auparavant, et en avait suivi toutes les
applications; il en await surtout appro-
fondi le principe, Savoir, que la sensation
résulte de la passion, et que la perception
résulte de l'action.” (Revue des Deux
Mondes, Nov. 1840.)—It is perhaps need-
less for me to say, that when I enounced
the law in question (in 1830,) I had never
seen the printed memoir by De Biran,
which, indeed, from the circumstances of
its publication, was, I believe, inaccessible
through the ordinary channels of the
trade, and to be found in no library in
this country; and now I regret to find
that, through procrastination, I must send
this note to press before having obtained
the collective edition of his earlier works
which has recently appeared in Paris.
All that I know of De Biran is comprised
in the volume edited in 1834 by M.
Cousin, from whose kindness I received
it. In this, the ‘Nouvelles Considérations
sur les Rapports du Physique et du Moral
de l’Homme,” the treatise in which, as his
editor informs us, the full and final de-
velopment of his doctrine is contained,
was for the first time published. But
neither in that, nor in any other of the
accompanying pieces, can I discover any
passage besides the following, that may
be viewed as anticipating the law of co-
existence and inversion :- Souvent une
impression perçue à tel degré cesse de
l'étre à un degré plus élevé ou lorsqu’elle
s'avive au point d'absorber la conscience
ou le moi luimème qui la devient. Ainsi
plus la Sensation Serait éminemment ani-
male, moiris elle auraif le charactère vrai
d’une perception humaine.’
NOTE D.**
CONTRIBUTION TOWARDS
A HISTORY
OF THE DOCTRINE OF
MENTAL SUGGESTION OR ASSOCIATION.
[References omitted, and to be supplied from pp. 294, 386, &c.]
THE doctrine of, what is most fami-
liarly styled, the Association of Ideas,
would be an interesting subject for histo-
rical inquiry.—The importance of this
principle has, in later times, been fully
recognised,—sometimes, perhaps, exag-
gerated; but to the older philosophers,
and to the schoolmen in particular, the
Eacitatio Specierum afforded, likewise, a
peculiar object of interest and speculation.
Poncius, for example, pronounces it—
“ex difficilioribus naturae arcanis;” and
Oviedo, “ maximum totius philosophiae
sacramentum, nunquam ab aliquo satis
explicandum.” Joseph Scaliger informs
us, that touching two things especially,
his proud and subtle father professed cu-
riosity and ignorance ;-the cause of
ºréminiscence and the cause of gravity.
Association and Gravitation, indeed, pre-
sent, in themselves, a striking parallel;
in the history of their exposition, a strik-
ing contrast.
Fach (as observed by Hume) is a spe-
cies of Attraction; and the effects which,
in the mental world, are referred to the
one, are not less multiform, extraordinary,
and important, than those which, in the
material, are referred to the other. The
causes of both are equally occult; the
speculation of these causes equally unphi-
losophical; and each is to be reduced to
science only by observing its effects, and
carrying up its phaenomena into universal
facts or fact, laws or law. But in the
progress of this reduction the analogy
ceases;–it is actually reversed. For whilst
the laws of Gravitation were only slowly
developed by the labours of successive
generations, and their application only
gradually extended from the earth to the
universe of matter; the not more obtru-
sive laws of Association, whose evolution
modern philosophers fondly arrogated to
themselves, are, after these have tried
and tired themselves in the attempt, found
already developed and applied,—I may
say, indeed, even generalized into unity,
at a single jet, by a single philosopher of
antiquity, who, for this—but not alone for
this—stands the Copernicus and Kepler
and Newton of the intellectual world.
The singular circumstances of this in-
verted history have not, however, found a
competent historian;–nay, the circum-
stances themselves have yet to be signal-
ised and verified. Some attempts have
indeed been made under the name of
Histories of the Association of Ideas : but
comparing what has been, with what ought
to be, accomplished; these, at best, are
only fragmentary contributions by writers,
unaware of the real authors, of even the
most remarkable movements, and com-
pensating their omissions, or their meagre
and inaccurate notices of important mat-
ters, by tedious excursions on others of
no interest or difficulty. These inade-
890 ON THE
HISTORY [NotR D.”
quate attempts have been also limited to
Germany 5 and, in Germany, to the trea-
tises of three authors; for the historical
notices on this doctrine, found in the
works of other German psychologists, are
wholly borrowed from them. I refer—to
the “Geschichte” of Hissmann (1777); to
the “Paralipomena” and “Beytraege” of
Maass (1787, 1792); and to the “Ves-
tigia” of Goerenz, (1791). In England,
indeed, we have a chapter in Mr Cole-
r
i
ridge’s “Biographia Iiteraria,” entitled,
“ On the law of Association—its history
traced from Aristotle to Hartley;” but
this, in so far as it is of any value, is a
plagiarism, and a blundering plagiarism,
from Maass;* the whole chapter exhibit-
ing, in fact, more mistakes than para-
graphs. We may judge of Mr Coleridge's
competence to speak of Aristotle, the
great philosopher of ancient times, when
we find him referring to the De Anima
for his speculations on the associative
principle ; opposing the De Memoria and
Parva Naturalia as distinct works; and
attributing to Aquinas, what belongs ex-
clusively and notoriously to the Stagirite.
We may judge of his competence to speak
of Descartes, the great philosopher of
modern times, when telling us, that Idea,
in the Cartesian philosophy, denotes
merely a configuration of the brain; the
term, he adds, being first extended by
Locke, to denote the immediate object of
the mind's attention or consciousness.
But, in truth, it might be broadly as-
serted, that every statement in regard to
the history of this doctrine hazarded by
British philosophers, to say nothing of
others, is more or less erroneous.-Priest-
ley, for example, assigns to Locke the
honour of having first observed the fact
º
:
!
* To be added to my friend Professor Fer-
rier’s “Plagiarisms of S. T. Coleridge; ” in
Blackwood's Magazine, March 1840. This
paper is remarkable for the Sagacity which
tracks, through the “Hercynian brakes” of
philosophy and poetry, the footsteps of the
literary reaver; whose ignorance of French
alone freed France from contribution. Cole-
ridge's systematic plagiarism is, perhaps, the
most remarkable on record, taking all the
circumstances into account,
of which, certainly, is the natural ability of
the culprit. But sooth to say, Coleridge had
in him more of the ivy than of the oak, -
was better able to clothe than to create. The
publication of his literary Table-Talk, &c.,
shows that he was in the habit of speaking,
as his Biographia, &c., show that he was in
the habit of writing, the opinions of others,
—as his own.
the foremost,
of Association, (Hartley's Theory by P.
Intr. p. xxv.); and Hume, as we have
seen, arrogates to himself the glory of
first generalising its laws.” (Hum. Und.
sect. iii.)—Mr Stewart, but at second
hand, says, that “ something like an at-
tempt to enumerate the laws of Associa-
tion is to be found in Aristotle.”—Sir
James Mackintosh, again, founding on his
own research, affirms that Aristotle and
his disciples, among whom Wives is speci-
fied, confine the application of the law of
association “ ea clusively to the phaeno-
nema of recollection, without any glimpse
of a more general operation, extending to
all the connections of thought and feel.
ing :'' while the enouncement of a gene-
ral theory of Association, thus denied to
the genius of Aristotle, is, all, and more
than all, accorded to the sagacity of
Iſobbes. The truth, however, is, that
in his whole doctrine upon this subject,
name and thing, Hobbes is simply a silent
follower of the Stagirite; inferior to his
master in the comprehension and accu-
racy of his general views; and not supe-
rior, even on the special points selected,
either to Aristotle or to Vives.j (Disser-
tations, &c. Note I.)
* Among his other dreaming errors, Cole.”
ridge charges Hume with plagiarising from '
Aquinas (who, by the way, herein only repeats
Aristotle) his whole doctrine of Association.
But Coleridge charging plagiarism f “Quis,
tulerit Gracchum, de Seditione querentem **,
—See my ingenious friend, Mr Burton's excel. '
lent Biography of David Hume, lately pub. '
lished. ass-
# Let it not be supposed, that, in these
observations, I would insinuate aught like a
charge of plagiarism, against The Philosopher
of Malmesbury; or that, though disinclined
to many of his opinions, I am a lukewarm
admirer of his philosophical talent. It is an
egregious error to consider Hobbes as an
unlearned man; or, as one, who wove only
what he span and grew. Among English,_
among modern philosophers, he towers a
shrewd and intrepid, an original and inde-
pendent thinker. But these qualities are
exhibited, not so much in the discovery of .
new materials, as in the new elaboration of
old. He is essentially an eclectic. But he
chooses and rejects freely; illustrating the
principles he adopts with admirable inge-
nuity, and carrying them out with unshrink-
ing consistency to their most startling results.
This is more especially true of his psycho-
logy; which is original rather for what it
omits, than for what it contains. It is, in
substance, an Aristotelic doctrine, retrenched,
not to say mutilated. Of the writings of the
Stagirite himself, Hobbes was even a zealous
student; of which his “Briefc of the Art of
NotE D.**]
891
OF MENTAL ASSOCIATION.
But, that Aristotle's merits in regard accessible to few even of those otherwise
5 £
to the theory of Association have not, as
competent to read it;-but, above all,
yet, been fully recognised by philosophers, because we herein discover the origin of
is not to be marvelled at ; when we con- ; those misconceptions, which, bequeathed
sider the extra brevity and occasional
corruption of the treatise in which his
doctrine on that subject is contained, and
when it is known that the editors, trans-
lators, and expositors of that treatise
have all misapprehended its theory of
Association in the most important points.
Without, therefore, attempting aught
like a history of this doctrine, for which,
the materials I have collected, it is, at
present, impossible to employ; I shall
confine myself to the principal object of
such a history—endeavour to render jus-
tice to the great author of that theory; by.
translating, from his treatise on Memory
and Reminiscence, all that has any bear-
ing on the subject ; at the same time, re-
storing the text from its corruptions, and
illustrating its veritable import.—I shall
likewise translate what, (but only what,)
of any moment, is to be found in the rela-
tive commentary of Themistius ; because
this, both in itself and in reference to Aris-
totle, is, on the matter in question, a
valuable, though wholly neglected, monu-
ment of ancient philosophy;-because,
from the rarity of its one edition, it is
Rhetorique” is only one of many proofs that
could be shown ; and though he occasionally
abuses the schoolmen when in his way, he
was neither, ignorant of, nor unindebted to,
their writings. There is, however, another
philosopher whose relation to Hobbes has
never been observed, but whose influence, if
not on the general character of his specula.
tion, at least on the adoption of several of
his more peculiar opinions, appears to me
almost demonstrable. I mean the Frenchman
Berigardus, (Beauregard;) who, when Hobbes
visited Pisa, in 1637, was in the meridian of
his academic reputation, and who, in his great
work, the “Circulus Pisanus,” first published
in 1643, takes, or rather makes, an occasion
to speak of the English philosopher, then
known only by his recent work “De Cive,”
in terms manifestly the suggestion of per-
sonal regard. The counter alternative will
hardly be maintained,—that it was Hobbes
who privately acted upon Berigard.
I may be permitted to take this opportu-
mity of acknowledging for myself the obli-
gation which Sir William Molesworth has
conferred upon all who take an interest in
philosophical pursuits, by his recent edition
of the collected works of this illustrious
thinker; –an undertaking in which he has
not only done honour to himself, but taken off
a reproach which has long weighcd heavily
upon our country.
by the first, have been inherited by the
last, of Aristotle’s interpreters.
AIn other respects, I shall neglect no
subsidia within reach; and my Aristo-
telic collection is tolerably full, more com-
plete, indeed, than that extant in any
public library in this country. Though
statements may therefore sometimes ap-
pear sweeping, the reader should not be-
lieve that I hazard them without an ade-
quate foundation.*
* 19.-Of commentators on the De Memoria
I have the following.—The Greek Paraphrase
of Themistius which dates from the fourth cen-
tury.—The only edition is that of Aldus in
1534.—The Greek commentary of Michael
Jºphesivts, in points of difficulty seldom more
than a transcript of Themistius, is of a com-
paratively recent, but uncertain, date. If
Allatius (De Psellis, $ 32.) be right in his
plausible conjecture, and the Scholiast and
the Ex-Emperor Michael Ducas, who died
Archbishop of Ephesus, be the same, it will
not ascend higher than the latter part of the
eleventh century. Of this, also, there is only
one edition—the Aldine, of 1527.-I am well
acquainted with the scholastic commentaries
of Averroes, (#1206,) Albertus Magnus, (#1280,)
and Aquinas, (#1274.)—Subsequent to the re-
vival of letters, I have the expositions of
Faber Stapulensis, 1500,—Leonicus, 1520,—
Javellus, 1540,-Schegkius, 1546,-Labittus (in
MS.), 1553,-Gesner, c. 1560, but only printed
1586,-Simonius, 1566,-Crippa, 1567,-the
Coimbra Jesuits, 1600,—Pacius, 1600,—Haven-
reuter, 1600.—Of these the commentary of
Leonicus is of especial moment; not for any
original merit of its own, but as the principal
medium through which the views of the Greek
expositors, on the Parva Naturalia, were pro-
pagated in the west.—To these are to be add-
ed illustrations of this treatise occasionally
met with in psychological writings of the
Aristotelic school; of which it is only necessary
to notice one—the remarkable work “ De
Anima” of Vives, 1538.—The Paraphrase of
the Greek Monk, Theodorus Metochita,
(# 1332,) has escaped me.
20. Of versions, some of which: have the
authority of MSS., I have those of Leonicus,
Schegkius, Vatablus, Perionius, Labittws, Simo-
nius, Crippa, and the anonymous version extant
in the Venice editions of the combined works
of Aristotle and Averroes. That of Alcyoniws
I have not seen. Taylor's English translation
is mere rubbish.
30. In regard to the teact itself, besides
Bekker's admirable recension, with the varia-
tions of six MSS., in the edition of the Berlin
Academy, I shall compare, when requisite, the
Camotio. Aldine, Era &mian, Morellian, Simo-
892 ON THE
[Notr, D.”
HISTORY
J3y Memory (h ºvňºn, r3 ºwn/covečery,)
Aristotle, in his treatise on that subject,
does not simply denote the conservative
power of mind — mere retention. He
there employs it, proximately to desig-
nate the faculty of reproduction, in so far
as that is direct and immediate—simple
"emembrance or recollection ; while, to
the process of mediate or indirect repro-
duction of something heretofore in
memory, but which we cannot now call
up, except through the intervention of
something else, he gives the name of Re-
miniscence, (# &váºzy als.)
But though the term Reminiscence be
properly and principally applied to this
intentional process of recovery, and which
it is the purpose of the present treatise to
consider; he extends it also to the obtru-
sion of thoughts on our remembrance,
through the course of spontaneous sugges-
tion, of which, however, he has here occa-
sion only to speak incidentally.—This is
enough to prepare the reader for the
Aristotelic extract which follows; and
this, though divided, for the sake of illus-
tration, into segments, ought, in the first
instance, to be read continuously and by
itself.
S 1. Aristotle here enounces the one
proximate cause or condition of Reminis-
cence — the determined consecution of
thought on thought. (And, be it observed,
that I shall here employ the term thought
in its widest signification, for every con-
scious mode of mind.)
ARIST or LE.
“ Reminiscences take place,” in virtue
nian, Sylburgian, Casawbonian, Pacian and Dw-
vallian editions; but above all, the quotations
in Themistius, and the fiñasis in Michael Ephe.
8??&S. -
When not otherwise stated in the notes, the
text of Bekker is that from which the transla-
tion will be made.
* “Oblivio imperfecta,” (says Wives,) “in-
stauratione, indiget, ut vestigatione, et quasi
gradibus, ad id veniatur quod quaerimus : ut
ab annulo in a wrifabrum ; ex hoc in monile
Tegina: ; hinc in bellwm quod gesserit vir ejus; a
bello in duces; a ducibus ad eorwm progenitores
aut liberos; hinc ad disciplinas quibus stude-
bant 3–in quo nulla est ad sistendum meta-
Gradus hi per omnia argumentorum genera
late sese diffundunt :-a causa ad effectum ; ab
hoc ad instrumentwm ; e parte ad totum ; ab isto
ad locwm ; a loco ad personam j a persona ad
priora ejus et posteriora ; ad contraria ; ad si-
milia ;-in quo discursu non est finis.—Et
Sunt transitus quidam longissimi–immo sal-
tus. Ut ex Scipione venio in cogitationem.
potentia: Twrcica, propter victorias ejus de
of that constitution of our mind, where-
by each mental movement” is determined
Asia, in qua regnabat Antiochus : ex nomine
Ciceronis venit in recordationem Lactantius,
qui fuit ejus imitator; et ex hoc de chalco-
graphia [cogitamus, nam ejus liber dicitur
formulis aeneis excusus, vel primus, vel de
primis.” (De Anima, l. ii. c. De Mem. et
Rem)
* It is necessary to say a word in regard to
the Aristotelic employment of the term mo-
tion or movement, (ziynous,) in a psychological
relation. It has been generally either mis-
taken or inadequately understood.—Hissmann
supposes that Aristotle means by it some local
motion, akin to the vibrations of certain ner-
vous fibres, or the flow of certain nervous
spirits, by which so many ancient and modern
physiologists have pretended to explain the
phaenomena of thought. Maass and Goerenz
reject, for the Stagirite, this mechanical hy-
pothesis; but, unacquainted with the general
analogy of Aristotle's language, they have not
established their rejection on its broad and
proper basis.
Change or Mutation, (as rocéox},) according to
Aristotle, is a genus containing under it four
(or six) species;–each species affecting a
subject pertaining to a different category.—
19. If in Substance, (x2+3 q:d ri or rôa,) it is
generation and destruction, (yéveris, p4663. 3)
—29. if in Quantity, (x2+& rh ºroo’ey,) it is
augmentation and diminution, (atºngus, péia is ;)
—39. if in Quality, (zzºrz ré arody, or ré40s,)
it is variation, (&xxologis ;)—49. if in Place,
(zzºré ré ºroij, or réarov,) it is local motion,
(poe&.) (Metaph. xii. 2.)
Now Aristotle, sometimes makes motion
convertible with change, and thus a genus
containing under it the same four species,
(as in Phys. III. 1. ;)—sometimes he makes it
a Subgenus to change, containing under it only
the last three species, (as in Metaph. XI. 11,
12. Phys. W. 1. 2.-VII. 3. De Anima, I. 3.
—in which last the species of motion are
called four, increase and diminution being
counted as two.)
Now, by the generic term motion, or move-
7ment, Aristotle, in its psychological applica.
tion, simply means to denote change in quality,
or the species variation,-the nature of which
he more than once expounds, (Gen. et Corr.
I. 4. text 23. Phys. VII. 2.); and variation,
to accommodate a more ancient to a more
modern nomenclature, may be fairly translated
by the more familiar expression—modification.
In this, Aristotle only follows the example of
Plato; who, in the Timaeus and Parmenides,
constituting two species of simple motion,
lation and variation (Tö pågsødø and vô 3xxon-
oùorézi) commonly employs the generic term
for the latter species, in designating the men-
tal modes. As a psychological substitute for
these terms, Aristotle also very commonly
employs affection or passion (ºrá40s).
These three terms, then, Aristotle uses in-
.NotE D.**]
893
OF MENTAL ASSOCIATION.
differently to denote both the activities and
the passivities of mind; and (De Anima, ii. 5
§ 6) he explains “how the same [mental
phaenomenon, in different points of view, J is
variously styled affection, or movement, or
passion, or energy.” — Further, “Sensitive
perception (he says) consists in a certain
Tmovement and affection, for it seems to be a
kind of variation.” (De An. ii. 5. § 2. See
also Phys. vii. 8. § 12.) — “The phantasm,
the object represented in imagination, is an
affection—a movement of the common sense.”
(De Mem. 1. § 8.—De Ins. 2. §§ 16, 17, 20.)—
But as “there is no intelligence possible ex-
cept by relation to a phantasm,” (De An. iii.
8. §§ 5.8, 9. § 4. De Mem. i. § 8;) and as me.
mory is, along with phantasy, a function of
the common sense, “we remember our intel.
lections only secondarily and accidentally,
through our remembrance of the relative
phantasms.” (De Mem. 1. §§ 8, 11.)—These
intro-sensitive movements thus proximately
constituting our whole suggestive series of
thought.—To these movements are to be re-
ferred our Feelings. “Pleasures and Pains
are movements caused by a sensible object—
are variations of the sensitive part of the
soul,” (Phys. vii. 4, § 10;) while, in regard to
the Appetencies, (the desires, emotions, and
affections proper, “of which pain and pleasure
are the concomitants,”)—there is no room for
question. (Eth. Nic. ii. 4. Magn. Mor. i. 18.)
It is thus, in the first place, manifest, that
in employing the term movement, in this, as in
his other psychological treatises, Aristotle
never dreamt of insinuating any mechanical
hypothesis, by which to explain the phaeno-
mena of thought and suggestion ; and, in the
second, that he here and elsewhere employs it,
as a general word, by which to denote all the
various modifications of the conscious mind.—
Under this last, a word in reference to Sir
James Mackintosh.
“What,” (says Sir James,) “Mr Coleridge
has not told us is, that the Stagirite confines
the application of this law eacclusively to the
phaenomena of recollection, without any glimpse
of a more general operation extending to all
connections of thought and feeling.” And he
adds, that the illustrations “ of Ludovicus
Wives, as quoted by Mr Coleridge, extend no
farther.”—(L. c.) This, I must be pardoned
in saying, is altogether erroneous.
In the first place—Sir James is wrong, in
asserting, that Aristotle attempts to reduce to
law “the phaenomena of recollection alone,”
meaning by that, the phaenomena of inten-
tional reminiscence; for (see § 5, and rela-
tive notes,) Aristotle declares that the same
laws govern the voluntary, and the sponta-
neous, course of thought.
In the second place, he is wrong, in saying,
that Aristotle “ had no glimpse of a more
general operation, extending to all connections
of thought and feeling ;” for, we have now
shewn, that the term movement, as employed
by the philosopher, comprehends, indifferent-
ly, every mental mode, be it one of cognition,
whether a presentation, representation, or
thought proper, — one of feeling, whether
to arise, as the sequel of a certain
other.” +
THEMISTIUs.
“What, then, is Reminiscence, has been
shewn;–it is the renovation of Memory.
º this is brought to bear is also mani-
est.”
s
-^
Having quoted the preceding
text, he proceeds:—“ For as in a chain,
painful or pleasurable, – one of appetency,
whether a volition or a desire.—Hobbes's
“ train of imaginations or conceptions or
thoughts,” and Locke’s “association of ideas,”
are objectionable expressions, because, in
propriety, only applicable to the phaenomena
of cognition; to which it is certain, that
Locke, at least, had no thought of restricting
the connection. On the contrary, Aristotle's
“train of mental movements” states the fact,
and his view of the fact, fully and unambigu-
ously.
In the third place, in regard to Wives,
though Sir James be right, in so far as he
limits his assertion to “Wives, as quoted by
Mr Coleridge; ” yet as Coleridge only quotes
the scraps which he chanced to find in Maass, .
it is proper to state that any negative pre-
sumption founded upon these would be erro.
neous; for in other passages, the Spanish .
Aristotelian extends the principle of associa-
tion “to all the connections of thought and
feeling.”—Thus:—“Ad aspectum loci, de eo
wenit in mentem quod in loco scimus evenisse,
aut situm esse. Quando etiam cum voce, aut
somo aliquo quippiam conting it latum, eodem
sono audito, delectamur; Si triste, tristamwr.
Quod in brutis quoque est annotare ; quae, si
quo sono vocata, gratum aliquid accipiunt,
rursum, ad eundem Sonum facile ac liberiter
accurrunt ; sin caedantur, somitum eundem
deinceps reformidant, ex plagarum recorda-
tione. — Eundem in modum, de Sapore, de
odore. Puer, quum Valentiae febri laborarem,
et, depravato gustu, cerasa edissem, multis
post annis, quoties id pomum gustabam, toties,
non solum de febri memineram, sed habere
milli illam videbam.” (L. l.) I am unable to find in
PHobbes (whom Sir James Mackintosh would
elevate not only above Wives, but above Aris-
totle) any passage which shews that he had
taken so comprehensive a view of the influ-
ence of the associative principle as the Span.
ish philosopher.—On the other hand, the
reader may compare Cartesii, Epist. i. 36, and
Locke, Essay ii. 33, § 7.
* By #38 ºzeri, Tāvās, by Azeó' régov #2styn,
and the like, Aristotle here and in the sequel,
(see n. 4, p. 894, b, &c.) denotes the follow-
ing of this determinate mode of consciousness
upon that other, and not merely the following
of some one upon some other, or, as Hobbes
expresses it, of “ any thing to any thing.”
This the commentators have strangely over-
looked, and in consequence thereof, as we
shall sce, (§ 5,) sadly perverted Aristotle's
doctrine.
894 ON THE
HISTORY [NotE D.**
.
-
f
.
*‘.
¥
if one ring be lifted, the link therewith
connected will of necessity be moved,
and through that the next again, and
so forth;” this likewise is the case, in
those impressions of which the soul is the
subject. For if the soul be once moved
... by an impression, forthwith, the one
thereon following, and then the other
after that, move it likewise. For exam-
ple:—I have seen Coriscus, the musician,
with his lyre ; and there has remained
impressed in my mind an image, both of
the lyre and of Coriscus. Thereafter,
let us say, I behold Socrates holding a
lyre. Incontinently, I am reminiscent of
the lyre of Coriscus, and then of Coriscus
himself—Again —I have heard a person
singing [the religious song, (?)]
* Two souls the body leaving,
One to the other said:—
Ah 1 whither now to wend us,
[And join the happy dead P’]
After a season, I hear another singing the
same air, but to words of a different cha-
racter, as [in the amatory ditty,(?)]
“My-heart to hope wplifts me,
Then sinks me to despair.”f
Though now moved by the melody alone,
there yet rises therewith a reminiscence
of the former words, “ Two souls the body
leaving,” and of the person by whom they
were sung.”f
§ 2. Thought being only manifested as
consecutive and determined, the law of
consecution, absolutely considered, is thus
universal and necessary. But by relation
to the following of this individual thought
->
* Before Themistius, Carneades had com-
pared the consecution of thoughts to “a
chain, in which one link is dependent on
another.” (Sext. Emp. adv. Math L. vii. §.
176.) It is resembled by our countryman,
Joannes Major, to a cobbler's bristle and thread;
“una motitia aliam trahit, ut Seta Sutoris,
filum ;” (In Sent. L. i. d. 3, q. 3.) Hobbes
likens it to the following of water upon a table
whithersoever it is guided by the finger.”
(Hum. Nat. ch. 3, and Lev. ch. 3.) Hume,
finally, compares it to attraction, and repre-
sents the attraction of association in the
mental, as analogous to the attraction of gra-
vitation in the material, world. (Hum. Nat.
IB. 1. P. l. S. 4.)—On these see § 9, note 1st.
# This and the preceding fragment have
escaped the collectors of Greek Scolia.
# Michael Ephesius says—“We are first
reminiscent of the former words, then of the
former place, and then of the former singer,”
on that, there is a distinction to be taken;
for in this respect, the sequence is either
necessary or habitwal.
JARISTOTLE.
“If the consecution be necessary,” it is
manifest that, whenever the mind is de-
termined to that individual movement, it
will, also, be determined to this.”f
“If, again, the consecution be not of
necessity, but only the effect of habit ;
the [individual] movement will follow, not
as the invariable, but only as the ordinary,
rule,”;
THEMISTIUs.
“Some impressions are consequent to
each other, necessarily. For he who is
reminiscent of Fire, must at the same
time have an imaginatiou of Heat ; and
he who was struck by Socrates, in the re-
miniscence of Socrates, cannot but be cor-
reminiscent, that by him he was struck,
and in Such or such a placc.S
* By necessary or natural consecution Aris-
totle probably means the dependence subsist-
ing between notions, one of which cannot be
thought, without at the same time our think-
ing the other ; as all Relations, Cause and
Effect, Means and End, Premises and Conclu-
Sion, &c. (See nn. p. 894, a, b.) He did not, it
may be observed, fall into the error of many mo-
dern philosophers, in confounding the natural
and necessary, with the habitual and acquired
connections of thought. He makes no fruitless
attempt to shew the genesis of the former;
far less does he attempt to evolve the laws
under which we think, from the tendencies
generated by thinking. Locke, indeed, very
properly limits the term “association of ideas”
to their habitual or subjective connection, to
the exclusion of their logical or objective or
“natural connection.” (Essay, B. II. ch. 33,
§ 5.) Mr Stewart, again, (Elem. i. p. 291,
takes a distinction, corresponding to this of
Aristotle, as “important,” but one “which,”
he says, “as far as I am aware, has not hitherto
attracted the attention of philosophers.”
# The expositors not observing that Aris-
totle does not bere relax the condition of
determined consecution absolutely, but only
the determined consecution of this particu-
lar thought on that, (see n. *, p. 893, b. &c.;)
have all of them been led, as will be seen, to
the actual reversal of his doctrine, in sup-
posing him to admit the possibility of thought
arising Without suggestion—at least without
Suggestion according to the laws which he
lays down. See § 5.
f This applies to the consecution of any
two individual thoughts, not necessarily con-
nected, as well in different persons, as in the
same person, at different times, under different
circumstances, in different frames of mind.
§ These examples are unfortunate. If we
think Fire and Heat, in the relation of Cause
NotE D.**]
895
OF MENTAL ASSOCHATION.
“ Other impressions, again, are not
connected of necessity, but in virtue of
habit or custom ; and of these, the subse-
quent follow the antecedent, not always,
but only for the most part. An example
will illustrate this. It frequently hap-
pened, that wishing to employ lycabas,
' [archaic word for year,J I could not re-
call it. To remedy this I accustomed
myself to connect it in thought with the fa-
miliar term lycos [wolf], both words com-
mencing with the common syllable lyſc.]
Obtaining thus a starting impulse from
lycos, I henceforward was enabled easily
to recollect lycabas. Another finding it
difficult to remember Tawa'omenites [in-
habitant of Tauromenium], used himself
to think of tawros [a bull]; and a third
was wont, by departing from pleura [the
side], to call up Plewron [the town.]
But in these the antecedent is not always
followed by the consequent; we often, for
example, think of pleura, [the sidel with-
out any reminiscence of Pleuron [the
town.]”—See § 9, Themistius.
and Effect, in that case, certainly, the notion
of the one necessarily suggests the motion of
the other. But it is only by experience of
their coadjacency in time and space, and by
habit, that we come to think them under this
relation. The other example is one of a strong
habitual, (in Aristotle's sense of the word
habit,) but not of a necessary connection. The
example by St Thomas is better. The thought
of Socrates, he says, necessarily suggests the
thought of Man, and the thought of mam
necessarily suggests the thought of Animal.
But this too is exceptionable; for it may be
said, that animal, being a part of mam, man of
Socrates, the former notion is not properly
suggested by the latter, but already given in it.
This may indeed be applied to all relatives.
For a relation being an indivisible thought,
made up of two or more terms, to Say, that
one relative term suggests another, is impro-
per ; for, in point of fact, neither exists,
neither can exist, in thought apart from, or
prior to, the other. (See nn. p. 900, a, b.)—As
examples of necessary suggestion, take the
following :-We are aware of a phaenomenon.
That it exists—only as known—only as a phaë-
nomenon—only as an absolute relative, we
are unable to realise in thought; and there
is necessarily suggested the notion of an
unimaginable something, in which the phaeno-
menon inheres,-a Subject, or Substance.—
Again;–a thing appears, as beginning to bo.
Think we cannot, aught absolutely to com-
mence—to start of itself from nonentity into
being; and there is necessarily snggested the
notion of something (vague perhaps and unde-
termined) in which the complement of exis-
tence, appearing to begin, is thought as having
previously been realised in a different form,
and as now only relatively commencing under
§ 3. The necessary consecution or con-
comitancy of individual thoughts, being in-
volved in the very fact of the several
thoughts themselves, (the conception of
each being only realised through the con-
ception of the other); this requires and ad-
mits of no farther explanation. To the habi-
tual consecution, therefore, Aristotle ex-
clusively confines himself. And here, before
proceeding to enounce the laws by which
the habitual consecution is governed, he
indicates, in the first place, the circum-
stances by which, in different minds va-
riously constituted, and in the same mind
under different affections, thoughts are
more or less promptly associated, and
consequently the general or abstract laws
of association modified in their particular
or concrete applications. These have by
modern philosophers been sometimes
treated as secondary laws of association;
but from their contingent, variable, in-
definite, and latescent character, they can-
not be reduced to rule, and are, therefore,
undeserving of the name of Laws. In
doing this, he shows that by the term
habit he does not mean merely to express
the result of a frequent repetition of the
same action or passion, but generally the
simple fact of association, whether that
be the effect of such repetition, or of
some extraordinarily intense attention,
determined by peculiar circumstances
upon certain objects.—Text emended.
ARISTOTLE.
“But [in regard to habit it is to
be observed, that] with certain things,
certain minds” become more habitual-
a novel aspect, a Cause.—The impossibility
we find of imagining extension without colour
—not to say colour without extension—is
also an example.
* All the editions and collated MSS. have
#vious ; one Vatican codex, however, exhibiting
#vuz (and the correlative #7862) as a variation
or a correction. The natural and obvious mean-
ing of #vious is some persons or minds; but,
among the commentators, Michael Ephesius
supposes the ellipsis may be of 'rázovs, im-
pressions. Themistius with ēvious, reads, in-
stead of #xxovs, (or Érégovs for the MSS. vary,)
#zágos and x,yovſzávns.—All this manifests the
well-founded discontent with the present lec-
tion, which affords a sense inadequate to that
required; while the causal dependence, by
313 of the following sentence, or clause, from
the present, is, as the text stands, inept. I
therefore read—#vious Évic. This affords the
meaning desiderated; and at the cheapest
rate. For in transcription nothing is more
896 ON THE
HISTORY [NotE D.**
ised,” at the first movement, than other
minds, though this be frequently repeated.
Hence is it that some objects which we
have seen but once, are more perfectly
remembered by us, than others which we
have oftentimes beheld,”
THEMISTIUs
Reads :—“‘ But certain minds become
móre habitwalised with this movement at
once, than with that, though frequently re-
peated.’” No illustration given.
§4. In the second place, Aristotle pro-
ceeds to enounce the general laws of the
habitual consecution, suggestion, or asso-
ciation, on which Reminiscence is depen-
dent. This he does first in relation to
Reminiscence intentional or voluntary,
and then in relation to Reminiscence win-
£ntentional or spontaneous ;—in regard to
both of which it is shewn, that these laws
are absolutely identical.
Jn regard to intentional Reminiscence
hé generalises one supreme or universal
likely than the omission of one or other of
such semi-identical words.
* By habit (#40s) is commonly understood a
certain quality generated by custom ; (i.e. the
frequent iteration of the same action or pas-
sion)—though these words are frequently
commuted; in English, and in Greek, the
same term stands for both. Aristotle here,
however, uses the term in a less limited
sense; and it might, perhaps, at present, be
more adequately translated by Association
than by Habit. In like manner Aristotle often
uses the term #15, (which we inadequately
translate by habit or possession,) not only
for the acquired, but also for the natural.
Aristotle means simply to state the fact,
that two mental movements having once co-
existed, each tends, if reproduced, to repro-
duce the other; the force of this tendency
being in proportion, 19, to the frequency of
their co-existence, and 29, to their mutual
affinity;-this affinity being dependent on the
greater power of attention and retention na-
tural or acquired for this or that class of
objects, and on the temporary states of mind,
in which certain things and thoughts exert a
stronger influence than they do in others.
This Vives thus illustrates; and his obser-
vations comprise, in brief, nearly all of prim-
cipal moment that has been said upon this
subject, either before or since. “ (1.) Nec
memoriam habent omnes pariter ad omnia.
Sunt qui verba, sunt qui res meminerunt fa-
cilius; ut Themistocles rerum, Hortensius
verborum recordatione dicuntur valuisse;
quod exemplum positum sit pro toto et ho-
minum et rerum in genere. Nam alii curiosa,
alii recta et simplicia, alii publica, alii privata,
alii vetera, alii nova, alii sua, alii aliena, alii
vitia, alii virtutes recordantur citius et melius;
ut est cujusque ingenii pronitas, et attendit
ad haec aut illa libentius.-(2.) Memoriae plu-
rimum confert naturalis contemperatio corporis,
quali fuisse praeditos illos credibile est quo-
rum magnitudo memoriae monumentis litera-
rum celebratur—Themistocles, Cyrus, Cineas,
Hortensius.—(3.) Adjuvatur tota ratione vic-
tus, . . . (4) Alte descendunt in memoriam,
quae attente sunt a primo accepta et cum
cura; quo fit ut ingeniosissimi saepe homines
et bona memoria prolixe instructi non tam
recordentur multa, quam qui illis non Sunt
pares his dotibus, quod neglectim multa vi-
dent, legumt, audiunt.—(5.) Si se adfectus
aliquis concitatus, primae rei cujusque memo-
riae admiscuit, recordatio est deinceps facilior,
promptior, diuturnior; ut quae maxima laeti-
tia vel dolore Sunt in animum ingressa, horum
longissima est memoria; eague de causa mos
est quarundam gentium in statuendis agrorum
limitibus acriter caedere pueros qui adsint,
ut firmius et diutius recordentur illorum
finium. [Does Wives allude to what takes, or
took, place in the perambulation of the English
parishes 7 l—(6.) Eacercitatione et meditatione
crebra magnum memoria Sumit robur. Fit
enim et ad accipiendum prompta, et ad plura
capienda lation, et tenacior ad continendum ;
nec est ulla in toto animo functio, quae pe-
rinde cultum sui desideret, . . . —(7.) Quae
vacuo animo et tranquillo accepimus, facilius
haerent in mente, Si modo attente animum
applicamus. Qua de causa, quae prima aetate
vidimus atque audiwimus ea diutius recorda-
mur et integrius. Est enim tumc soluta curis
et cogitationibus mens.—(8.) Tum etiam atten-
dimus diligenter; quippe aetate illa admira-
mur omnia tanquam nova, at quae admiratio-
mem nobis movent ea solicite spectamus,
alteque in animum descendunt,” &c.—Aris-
totle, or whoever was the author of the Pro-
blems, makes a similar observation, and adds
that—“In like manner we remember best
what first occurs to us in the morning, our
memory falling off as the day advances, in
consequence of the multitude of objects by
which we are distracted.”—(Sect. XXX. § 5.)
An instance of the way in which our ha-
bitudes of thought and feeling regulate the
points of view in which we contemplate objects
and consequently determine—often capriciously
—the course of our reminiscence, is unwit-
tingly afforded, in himself, by the Lutheran com-
mentator, Simon Simonius of Lucca. This is
the general example of consecution which he
proposes:– “Hydrae, ab Hercule sagittis et
igne interfectae, memoria Papae mihi memo-
riam suggerit; haec Roma 3 qua deinceps
Babyloniae, reminiscor.” Compare Shylock,
(Merchant of Venice, Act I. Scene 1.) “My
wind, cooling my broth,” &c. The Ethology
and Pathology in the second book of Aristotle's
Rhetoric, more especially the chapters on the
different tendencies of the different ages and
conditions of life, supply a rich magazine of
observations on the practical influence of asso-
ciation and habit. Add John Barclay's Icon
Animatum.
Not E. D.”]
897
OF MENTAL ASSOCIATION.
law, divided into three special or subordi-
nate laws. The one ºniversal law,-to
which I would give the name of Redinte-
gration—is : Thoughts which have, at
am'ſ time, recent or remote, stood to each
other in the relation of coea;istence or im-
ºnediate consecution, do when severally re-
produced tend to reproduce each other ;
in other words: The parts of any total
thought when subsequently called into con-
Sciousness are apt to suggest, invºnedi-
atély, the parts to which they were proari-
mately related, and, mediately, the whole
of which they were co-constituent. The
terms in which this great law is enounced
by Aristotle, have not been understood by
his expositors; and the law itself has, in
consequence, altogether escaped their ob-
servation. Text, therefore, explicated.
The three laws, of which the one preced-
ing is an absolute expression, are the law of
Similars, the law of Contraries, and the
law of Co-adjacents ; for to these three
heads may be reduced all the relations
into which a thing, having once been
thought as a relative, tends subsequently
to relapse; and thus to recall into con-
sciousness all else with which it had then
stood in correlation.—What is the import
of these terms, is considered in the notes.
ARusto TLE.
“...When, therefore, we accomplish an
act of Reminiscence, we pass through a
certain series of precursive movements,
until we arrive at a movement, on which
the one we are in quest of is habitually con-
sequent. Hence too it is, that we hunt *
- -- * * *-
* “For as dogs,” (says Longinus,) “having
once found the footsteps of their game, follow
from trace to trace, deeming it already all
but caught ; so he, who would recover his
past cognitions from oblivion, must speculate
the parts which remain to him of these cogni-
tions, and the circumstances with which they
chance to be connected, to the end that he
may light on something which shall serve
him for a starting-point, from whence to follow
out his recollection of the others.” See the
interesting chapter on Memory, in the rheto-
rical treatise, restored by Ruhnkenius from
Apsines to Longinus; (Rhetores Graeci—of
Aldus, p. 719 ;— of Walz, t. ix. p. 574.) It is
not amongst the fragments in Weiske's Lom-
ginus.
Vives, too, compares the process of remin-
iscence to the tracing by dogs, and also to the
ascending the steps of a ladder or stair.
“The term 4ngsto (says Sir James Mackin-
tosh, speaking of the passage in the text,) is
as significant as if it had been chosen by
13 obbes.” In point of fact, it was chosen by
through the mental train,” excogitat-
ing [what we seek] from [its Concomitant
in THE PRESENT f or some oth ER f
Hobbes, and in illustration of this very pro-
cess;–but borrowed from Aristotle, along with
the correlative terms, seeking, beginning, &c.
(See Hum. Nat. ch. iii. §§ 3, 4.—Lev. P. i.
ch. 3.)
• The expressions rô Đsáñs and h zivnas
#3s ºr& rāvās, commonly rendered by Aris-
totle's Latin translators—motwwm anima, &c.
consequentia, series, sequela, insecutio, &c. were
among others adopted by Hobbes ; whose
“ consequentia vel series imaginationwm,” in
Latin, and in English, “ consequence, series,
train, succession of imaginations, conceptions
or thoughts,” have been often ignorantly sup-
posed expressions original to himself. Even
Hissmann and Maass seem guilty of this.
Subsequently to Aristotle, Carneades employed
...the term avy?gogº rāv pay raciáv; but, with
him, this is not to be viewed as simply con-
vertible with what we understand by the
mental train. (Sext. Emp. adv. Math. 1. vii.
§ 176–182.
# The Present (ºr vºy) is not of course to be
taken rigidly for the infinitesimal point of
transition from the past, but (as might even
be shewn from Aristotle's previous discussion)
in its common signification,-for a certain lat”
ter portion of the past. In fact, before we
are conscious of the Now, in its strict signifi-
cation, it is already fled. Concomitance, or
Simultaneity, is also to be taken in a certain
latitude;—viz, not only for that which is
strictly coexistent, but also for that which is
proximately antecedent or consequent.
I find, however, that all Aristotelians have
not been so blind to Aristotle's meaning, in
this passage, as his regular commentators.
Timpler seems to have fairly, if not fully,
understood it. “Adjuvans causa (recorda-
tionis) est consideratio, partim circumstantia-
ruin, praesertim temporis practeriti, quo homo
rem, wel per sensum, wel per intellectum,
cognovit; partim similium et affinium, partim
contrariorum. (Empsychologia L. iii. c. 3,
pr. 17.)—I should observe also, that Maass,
who, if we are to judge from one and all of
his Greek quotations, could not pretend to a
knowledge even of the alphabet of that lan-
guage, was yet too forward in philosophy, not
to see, at once, what, in this instance, Aris-
totle's meaning must necessarily be. Aris-
totle has been here so long misapprehended,
only because he was so far a head of his expo-
sitors. Nor is there a higher testimony to
his genius than that it required a progress in
philosophy of two thousand years, before phi.
losophers were prepared to apprehend his
meaning, when the discovery of that meaning
was abandoned to their own intelligence.
f The Commentators and Translators of this
treatise have, one and all, here marvellously
mistaken Aristotle's meaning, and thus mis-
represented his doctrine in its most important
point. They have not perceived that % &XXov
3 L
898
[NotE p.”
ON THii. HISTORY
[TIMEl,” and from its SIM 11, Ali or CoN-
ruvos means—“ or some other TIME,” and not “or
some other THING.” Looking to the preceding
words, the sub-intelligence of x86vov or x&igoû is.
demanded, as a correlative, by 73 vºv; and look-
ing to the context, before and after, it is
demanded, as that which alone satisfies the
natural, and even necessary, sense. The inter-
pretation of the Commentators, on the other
hand, is, at once, grammatically perverse, and
philosophically absurd. It does violence to
Aristotle’s language. And to what end? To
prevent him from consummating the theory
of association in the enouncement of its uni-
versal law. Nay more—actually to make him
throw up the attempt at reducing the phaeno-
mena of Suggestion to determinate laws at all.
Aristotle, in their view, appends to an imper-
fect series of four stated causes of association,
a fifth, under the title of a “ some other,”—thus
literally, and in sober earnest, making him
forestall Dean Aldrich in his joke :—
“Si bene quid speculor, causae sunt quinqué Bi-
bendi : -
Hospitis adventus; praesens sitis; atque futura ;
It vini probitas; et quºtlibet altcºat causa.”
* The law, I style that of Redintegration,
and which is here enounced by Aristotle, may
be viewed as a corollary of his doctrine of
Imagination and Memory. The representa-
tions of Imagination or Phantasy he views as
merely the movements continued in the organ
of internal sense after the moving object itself
has been withdrawn, (De Insom. c. 1. § 9–
c. ii. §§ 11, 15, 16, 18, 20, ed. Pac.;) and
though there are passages which would shew,
that he considered sensible perception as
something more than the mere recognition of
a subjective affection; he yet, when popularly
speaking, defines imagination to be—a kind
of feeble or decaying sense, (Rhet. l. i. c. 11. ;)
—a definition which Des Cartes and Hobbes
adopt without qualification, and in scientific
rigour.—Again :-Memory Aristotle does not
view as a faculty distinct from Imagination;
but simply as the recalling those impressions,
those movements into consciousness, of which
Phantasy is the complement. In these cir-
cumstances, as there is no reason, why the
movements should hold any other co-arrange-
Inent when vn, than they held when coming
into, the mind; and as there is no reason,
why they should be recalled to consciousness,
in any other co-ordination, than what they
hold previously to such revocation;– the law
of Redintegration is, consequently, a rule :
which follows naturally and of itself.
To Hobbes, who had, pro tanto, adopted
Aristotle's doctrine of Imagination, this, law
would, of course, present itself; but it might
also present itself, as a consectary of the
mechanical theory of cognition which he had
espoused. “All fancies are motions within
us, relics of those made in the sense; and
those motions that immediately succeeded one
another in the sense continue also together after
sense; in so much, as the former coming again
to take place, and be predominant ille latter
followeth, by coherence of the matter moved,
in such manner as water upon a plane table
is drawn which way any one part of it is
guided by the finger.” (Lev. P. i. ch. 3.−
compare also Hum. Nat. Ch. 3, § 2, and Elem.
Philos. c. 25, § 8.)
But while it is impossible, to hold with Sir
James Mackintosh, that Hobbes, as opposed to
Aristotle, is the original discoverer “ of this
fundamental law, of this prolific truth which
forms the basis of all true psychology;” it is
even impossible to allow him the priority of
such inadequate generalisation of this prin-
ciple as his materialism allowed, in competi-
tion with many subsequent philosophers.
Passing over St Augustine, whose doctrine
of Reminiscence is too important to be here
spoken of by the way, this law is, after Aris-
totle, explicitly enounced by Vives.—“ Qua,
simul sunt a Phantasia comprehensa, sī alteru-
trum occurrat, solet secum alterwm represen-
tare.” (L. C.) -
Omitting others, prior also to Hobbes,
whose “ Human Nature,” “Leviathan,” and
“Elementa Philosophiae,” appeared in 1650,
1651, and 1655, this law was enounced by
three of his own immediate contemporaries
and friends;–philosophers from whose mecha-
mical hypotheses of perception and memory it
flowed equally as from his own, and who,
howbeit their names have not hitherto been
adduced in connection with the doctrine of
Association, proclaimed it—two of them at
least—not less clearly than himself. These
are Berigard, Digby, and White. : …
In 1643, Berigard, in the course of a dis-
cussion, otherwise well deserving of attention,”
states the law of Redintegration, as regulating
the current of our thoughts;–“ quae sicut '
necessario acquiruntur, ita et moventur; frus-
traque finginus [NB.] internam aliquam :
facultatem quae incumbat in cogitationem
quamdiu vult, mox ad aljam sese transferat,
etenim illae omnes sunt simulacrorum motus,
qui se necessario consequuutur,” &c. (Circ. ...
Pis. P. vi. c. 19.) ***
“We see,” says Sir Kenelm Digby, in 1644,
“ that things of quite different natures, if they', Y
come in together, anºe remembered together; upon ,
which principle the whole art of memory
dependeth, &c.” (Treatise of Bodies, ch, 33,
§ 3.) ***
Finally, in 1647, Thomas White (De Albiis
or Anglus ;)—“Since those things which enter
together and at once must necessarily attain a .
kind of connection ; when, by any means, they are
again brought to the fowntain of sensation, [con
sciousness PJ they must needs meet there together,
and in a kind of order.” (Instit. Peripat. Lib.
ii. Lect. 20, § 6. English translation.)
In conclusion of this matter I may briefly
notice, in supplement and correction of what
has been stated by the German historians:—
19. That Malebranche, whom Hissman very
crroneously considers as the original disco-
werer of the law of Redintegration, can bo
shewn to have borrowed it from the illustrious
father to whom he is indebted for many other
of his opinions. I mean St Austin; a philo-
sopher whose merits, in regard to the doc-
trine of Association, have been, marvellous to
Note D.”]
899
OF MENTAL ASSOCIATION.
TRARY or CoADJACENT.”
say, wholly overlooked. See his Confessions,
L. x. cc. 8–19, and especially this last ; De
Musica, L. vi. c. 8. § 22. *
20. That Wolf, whom Maass considers (for
the “ Nouveaux Essais’ of Leibnitz were them
unpublished) as “the first who not only clearly
promulgated the universal law of Association,
but also recognised its importance for Psycho-
logy and Morals;” was, certainly, hercin anti-
cipated by his contemporary, and brother
Leibnitian, the celebrated Bilfinger—whose
merits in this respect have, also, remained
altogether unnoticed. See of this latter the
“Dilucidationes,” $$ 254, 255, and “Oratio de
Reductione Philosophica,” $ 2; both some
three years prior to the very earliest work of
Wolf, enouncing the law in question.
* An important, but altogether neglected
question, is, In what comprehension are these
three terms employed by Aristotle 2
i. The SIMILAR (ºrd &zotov) affords little diffi.
culty, and may pass without comment. It com.
prehends, of course, not merely simple, but
also analogical, resemblance.
ii. The CoNTRARY (rö #voy'rlov) is not an
unambiguous expression: for Aristotle some-
times usurps it even for the opposition of
possession and privation (Éls, a régnaus); some-
times he does not carry it beyond the oppo-
sition of genus and genus, of species and
Fpecies; and sometimes he restricts it to the
opposition of incompatible attributes. But I
recollect no instance, in which he uses it for
the opposition of relatives proper. With this
exception, we may presume, that Aristotle does
not here mean to employ the term in any
exclusive rigour; and may, therefore safely
apply it in its most extensive meaning. The-
mistius thrice renders it by rh &yºrizeig.svov,
the opposite ; but what comprehension he
gave to that equally vague term, he does not
explain.
iii. The CoADJACENT (ré cºveyyvs) is of some
difficulty; for I do not now think it probable,
that Aristotle by this intended to denote mere
vicinity in space. It is evident, that it must
comprehend all that is not comprehended in
the other two ; but it is not easy to see how
it is to do so much, and yet not comprehend
these also.
It is manifest, in general, that Aristotle,
under this head, intended to include whatever
stands, as part and part of the same whole. Of
these there are various kinds :—
10. –We must admit that the integrant parts
of an integrate whole suggest each other, as co-
adjacent. The thought of any thing which we
had previously known as such a part, is not
usually, when reproduced, viewed as an irre-
spective object, but tends to call up the other,
and, in particular, the proximately adjacent
parts, jointly with it constituent of a certain
total object. Such parts may be either coad-
jacent in space or coadjacent (coexistent or
immediately consecutive) in time; and, in both
ases, may possess either, a.) an objective
waity in themselves. (as the parts of a house
“Through this process Reminiscence is
or poem)—a unity, however, subjectively
recognised by us; or b.) objectively wr.connected
and even incongruous in themselves, (as the
parts of any common view,) they may obtain
a subjective unity for, and from, us, as form-
ing the partial objects of some totalising act
of our cognition.—To this head are to be re-
duced Hume’s “Contigwity in time or place,”
and his “ Cause or Effect,” in so far as the
latter does not fall under the category of
necessary suggestion.
20.—We may safely also refer to this head
the parts of a formal or comprehensive whole;
the several qualities and the several relations
of the same subject, suggesting each other as
coadjacent.—For example: The Sagacity of
Socrates calls up his Justice, his Fortitude,
and so forth; and thinking him as Son, we
are prone to think him as Father, Husband,
Citizen, &c. Here the attributes and rela-
tions are mutually suggestive, in virtue of
their proximity, as parts of a system or sys-
tems, of which Socrates is the centre and
principle of union.
30–The parts of a wniversal or extensive
whole may be likewise viewed as suggesting
each other, from their coadjacency. For,
though the conspecies of a genus are formed
by the combined principles of Similarity and
Contrast;—yet, once formed, they arrange
themselves in scientific thought, as the co-
ordinate parts of a common whole, and can
thus mutually suggest each other as coadja-
cents. Accordingly, Dog may suggest Wolf
as its coadjacent. But this, only in one
point of view ; for, in another, it may do this
as its similar, and in a third, again, as its con-
trary.
40°–The parts of an essential whole,_matter
and form, subject and accident, may suggest
each other, as coadjacents; although this
they may do also as contrancies.
50–The different signs of the same signifi-
cate, and the different significates of the same
sign, are also reciprocally suggestive, as co-
adjacents ; for, in different respects they con-
stitute parts of a certain whole or common
system of thought.
60–To this head, and on the same princi-
ple, also belong things, viewed not only as
different parts of the same whole, but as dif.
ferent wholes of the same part—viewed not only
as different effects of the same cause, but as
different causes of the same effect—viewed Lot
only as different accidents of the same sub-
ject, but as different subjects of the same acci-
dent. These are all reciprocally suggestive,
in as much as they are cogitable as parts of
the same total thought.
79.-The mutual suggestion of conjugates—
the abstract and concrete—is to be referred also
to coadjacency. -
80. —The whole suggests the parts, the parts
suggest the whole, as coadjacent ;-in truth,
they are only the same thought, viewed in
different relations. . . .
90–The sign and the thing signified are mu-
900
[NOTE p.**
ON THE HISTORY
effected.* For the movements [which,
and by which, we recollect, are, in these
cases, sometimes the same, sometimes at
the SAME TIME, sometimes PARTs of THE
tually suggestive, as coadjacent, if the sig-
nification be not in virtue of a natural resem-
blance. In this case, it may be referred more
properly to the head of similarity.
109–Are the terms of a relation suggestive
of each other, as coadjacent P It is manifest,
that all relatives being cogitable, only through
each other, and thus constituting only parts
of the same thought, fall naturally under the
class of coadjacents; and it is also manifest,
that there are relatives which cannot, with
any propriety, be reduced to either of the
other two classes,—the similars or the con-
traries. Such are what have obtained the
name of relatives proper. Socrates, for ex-
ample, suggesting his father Sophroniscus
or his wife Xantippe, and Tobias suggesting
his Dog, cannot, without violence, be said to
do so in virtue either of similarity or of com-
trast. But if such relatives are to be brought
exclusively under the class of coadjacents,
the question arises, Why not simply reduce
all relatives, whether of similarity or of con-
trast, to coadjacents, likewise? Nor is it easy
to give a satisfactory answer to this question.
For if, on the one hand, we admit all relatives
to be coadjacents,—the special law of Coad-
jacency then absorbs the other two, and rises
to a level with the universal law of Rodinte-
gration; and on the other, if we do not, there
then only remains an arbitrary line of demar-
cation between the laws of Similarity and Con-
trast and the law of Coadjacency.
But if, considered in itself, Aristotle’s re-
duction be not above criticism; compared
with that of others—with Hume’s, for in-
stance, which is at once redundant, defective,
and erroneous—it shews almost as perfect.—
See Reid, pp. 294, b., 386, ab. I may only
notice, that besides a host of the older psy-
chologists, who professed only to follow in
his steps; sundry of our more recent philo-
sophers, though incognisamt of his higher
law, have had the shrewdness to borrow
(but not the candour to confess the obliga-
tion) Aristotle’s three special principles of
association. This, for instance, has been
done by Dr Gerard, under the mames of Re-
semblance, Contrariety, and Vicinity; and that
this distribution, in contrast to Hume’s, is
alone exhaustive and complete, he has shewn
with considerable ingenuity. Nor, in his
case, can there be any presumption of origi-
mality on the ground of ignorance; for in the
same work, but in reference to other matters,
he quotes among the other Aristotelic treatises
that on Memory.—(“Essay on Genius,” pp.
109, 267.) Of the later British philosophers,
indeed, there is hardly to be found another,
who has studied the works of Aristotle more
attentively and to better effect.
Themistius, as synonymes for the coadja.
cent, uses the terms 'r', by yūg, r3 ####, 4-3
orvo'ºroux.cº.
sAME whol, E ;f so that [having, from
one or other of these, obtained a com-
mencement, the subsequent movement is
already more than half accomplished.”f
* Wore we to adopt the distribution and
combination of this and the preceding sen-
tence, as given by Themistius, for the true
reading, the antithesis and relative supre-
macy of the law of Redintegration would be
more emphatically signalized. In the text
he quotes, 31& roºro commences, and yivetz.
h &váºzymous concludes a sentence, of which
zoº gºveyyvs constitutes the middle.
# If it be held (as may plausibly be done,
and as I was originally inclined to do, (p. 244,
b. n. #) that the first—concomitancy in time
—is only one of four co-ordinate laws; this
clause suffices, however, to shew, that Aris-
totle was perfectly aware of the higher prin-
ciple : for he here states that Concomitant,
Sinuilar, Contrary, Coadjacent modifications
suggest each other, because, wholly or partially,
they had already coexisted in the mind.
f On the general doctrine in this Š, I must
here make two observations—one cautionary,
the other swpplementary –
The first is, that Aristotle is not to be un-
derstood as meaning, that things thought as
Coexistent, Similar, Contrary, Coadjacent,
are habitually suggestive of each other; for,
in this case, being thought as the terms of a
relation, they have, eo ipso, already been
thought together, and thus fall under the
category of necessary consecution ; but, that
things which may stand to each other in such
relations, and having, once at least, been
| thought together as so standing, if afterwards
introduced into the mind, as absolute and
sole, do, in virtue of custom, tend again to
fall back into relation, and consequently to
reproduce the objects with which they had
been formerly correlative. For example : If
we think Socrates as son or as husband, we
cannot but think of a parent or a wife, say
Sophroniscus or Xantippe. But while we can
think Socrates, without thinking him in any
domestic relation, the thought of Socrates is
not necessarily suggestive of parent or wife,
of Sophroniscus or Xantippe; though, in pro-
portion as we have been used to think the
philosopher under the filial or marital rela.
tions, will the thought of Socrates tend more
habitually to run into one or other of these
channels, and thus to suggest the thought of
the correlatives. The preceding explication
applies to the statements made, on this head,
by other philosophers as well as by Aristotle.
The second observation is, that thoughts
associated and mutually suggestive do not
suggest each other with equal certainty and
force. The rule is this :—Of two thoughts, the
one is suggested by the other, in proportion—19,
to its comparative importance, the thoughts being
considered in themselves; and, 29, to its compa-
parative interest (be it from love or loathing) the
thoughts being considered in relation to ws. Thus,
the Foot suggests the Head more promptly
| than the Head suggests the Foot ; and the
NoTE D.**]
901
OF MENTAL ASSOCIATION.
THEMISTIUs
20uotes Aristotle from “When”—to—
“whole ;” and the following (see n. *,
p. 900 b) he reads thus remarkably co-
arranged:—“‘ot HER [TIME.] Through
this process, and from its SIMILAR or
CoNTRARY or CoADJACENT, Réminiscence
is effected.’”—He then proceeds:—“For
example, I see a painted lyre, and moved
by this, as the prior and leading image,
I have the reminiscence of a real lyré 3
this suggests” the musician ; and the
musician, the song I heard him play.
Frequently, however, this result is deter-
mined ‘ by some other’ thing. For should
it have happened, that, in connection with
the original impression of the song, there
was impressed the image, say, of a cer-
tain Column, the view or representation
of the column will suggest the recollec-
tion of the Song.
“. From the SIMILAR and the ContRARY :
—[In the former case,] as when from the
portrait of Socrates, I become reminiscent
of Socrates himself; [in the latter, as
when the black suggests the white, the
hot suggests the cold. From the co-
ADJACENT :—As when the one clause—
* Ye would count, I think, no cost, O mem
of Athens,’ calls up the other:-‘ were it
shewn, that the measures now before yoºt
are, indeed, for the welfare of the state.’ ‘f
“Now, the beginning [according to the
proverb, is the better part of the whole;
and this once discovered, what follows
thereon is, comparatively, a small matter.
Hence, [in the case of reminiscence, hav-
ing obtained a principle or originating
movement, the other movements follow in
a concatenated train.
sight of Tobias's Dog calls up the image of
Tobias in the mind of his mother, with a far
greater vehemence, than does the sight of
Tobias call up in her mind the image of the
Dog. This, I should notice, did not escape
the observation of Vives:—“Illud usu evenit,
ut ex re minore veniat nobis de majore in
mentem saepius, none contrario.” ($ 9.)
* Let it not be supposed, that the terms
suggest and suggestion (which in translating
from an ancient, I thus venture to employ)
are, in their psychological relation, of recent,
or even modern, application; for so applied
they are old—the oldest we possess.-In this
relative signification, Suggero, the verb, as-
cends to Cicero; and suggestio, the noum, is a
household expression of Tertullian and St
Augustine. Among the earlier modern phi-
losophers, and in this precise application,
they were, of course, familiar words ;-as is
shewn, among five hundred others, by the
writings of Hermolaus Barbarus, the elder
“_We ought not, however, to marvel,
should it happen that, though a beginning
be found, and the first part of the series
set in motion, the movement is not pro-
pagated farther. For when an impres-
sion is completely vanished, it has, of
course, no longer any consecution.”
§ 5. Having stated what were the laws
of habitual consecution, in reference to
those reminiscences, accomplished, inten-
tionally, or through an act of will ; Aris-
totle proceeds, in the second place, to
shew, that the same laws equally govern
the other class of Reminiscences—those
which arise spontaneously, or without any
£ntentional effort, any conscious volition.
And, in subordination hereto, he elimin-
ates, as Superfluous, the question, as to the
mode in which, when seeking to recall one
thing, others wholly foreign to our quest,
obtrude themselves on our remembrance;
—this being manifestly only a particular
case of spontaneous suggestion, and one
exclusively governed by the general
rules. -
It is, in consequence of his very mani-
fest meaning having been here not mere-
ly misunderstood, but actually reversed,
by his interpreters, that Aristotle's doc-
trine did not exert its merited influence;
and that he himself has not, as yet, been
universally acknowledged, at once, the
founder and finisher of the theory of As-
sociation.—Text illustrated.
ARISTOTLE.
“_In this manner [reminiscence is
brought to bear] when we [intentionally]
seek out a remembrance.f. But also,
Scaliger, Melanchthon, Simonius, Campanella
—to say nothing of the Schoolmen, &c. They
were no strangers to Hobbes and Locke;—
and so far is Berkeley from having first em-
ployed them in this relation, as Mr Stewart
seems to suppose, Berkeley only did not dis-
continue what he found established and in
common use.—I may notice, that Association,
under the name of Suggestion, was styled in the
theology of the schools, “ The Logic of Luci-
fer” or “The Devil's Dialectic,” (Luciferi
Logica, Diaboli Dialectica.) Why?—is mani.
fest.
# Opening of first (or third) Olymthiac.
# Zºroúa, giv oëy, oùro. Themistius,
through leading the Subsequent expositors
astray in the following sentence, is here ex-
clusively correct. They all view &mºroúat
as the verb, and connect with it of ra : he,
again, regards the former as the participle,
and counccts the latter with yívara h
&várovna is, understood.
902
[Note p.”
ON THE HISTORY
when we do not so seek, it is still, in this
same manner, that we are [unintention-
ally] reminiscent,” so often as this par-
ticular movement follows upon that par-
ticular antecedent. But it is the usual
case, [though there are exceptions in the
spontaneous as in the intentional reminis-
cence, from spécial causes to be imme-
*
* Kø, 2} {n+oğvre; 38, oùrog Žygºlºvăzzow-
rozu :—thus I punctuate. Themistius, and all
the other expositors, commecting {n+oğyrs; 3’
oùros, make Aristotle say—“But also when
we do not so seek (i.e. from the concomitant,
the similar, &c.) still are we reminiscent,”
there being further understood—“ though
from none of these causes of suggestion.”—
But—10. Looking to the consecution of the
immediate words, this interpretation is con.
strained ; for had Aristotle intended so to
speak, he would have naturally said, xzi ºch
oğros &nrojvºrs;.—20. It renders the remain.
der of the clause, “so often,” &c., an idle su-
perfluity; and is altogether inconsistent with
the whole sequel of the paragraph.-39. Look
ing to the general meaning which it affords,
such is odious and strictissimi juris. For it
makes Aristotle, without reason, may, in oppo-
sition to the whole analogy of the context,
not only limit, but frustrate his reduction of
the phaenomena of reminiscence to necessary
and universal laws.
In looking again over the commentators,
to be assured that my sweeping statement in
regard to them is not inaccurate, I find that
Havenwrewter ought perhaps to be excepted—
who says, “ Itaque recordamur, si vel al-
terum ex altero inquirimus, vel si non inqui-
rimus; attamen alterwm post alterwm movetwr.”
But this is ambiguous,
Before him, however, Vives seems to have
had a clear perception of the truth. He
says—“Reminiscentia haec vel naturalis est,
cogitatione ultro ab aliis ad alia transeunte;
scu jussa, quum animus in recordationem rei
alicujus comatur pervenire.”
It has not been noticed, I think, that Hob-
bes varies in regard to the universality of the
law of connected consecution. In his “ Hu-
man Nature,” 1650, he divides the “series,
succession, or consequence” of conceptions in
the mind, “into casual or incoherent, and into
orderly or coherent.” In the latter case, the
antecedent thought is the cause of the conse.
quent ; in the former it is not. The casual
succession prevails in dreams; the orderly
in our waking bours. To this last exclusively,
he gives the name of Discwºrsion, which he
divides and subdivides, in a confused manner.
See ch. iv. § 3; ch. v. § 1. In his Leviathan,
published in the subsequent year, when treat-
ing of the “Consequence or Train of Thoughts,
or the Mental Discourse,” he says nothing of
any casual or incoherent succession, whether
awake or sleeping; on the contrary, he asserts
that “we have no transition from one imagi.
nation to another, whereof we have never
diately noticed, that the particular
movement does ensue, when the relative
movements, of the nature we have speci-
fied, actually precede.f. [The laws stated,
are therefore universal, applying both to
the voluntary, and to the spontaneous,
current of thought.]
“Nor is there any necessity to consider
had the like beſore in our senses.” This do-
termined sequence he divides into the win-
guided and the regulated. So also in the Ele-
menta Philosophiae, 1655, (c. 25, § 8.) In
his earlier doctrine, Hobbes thus harmonises
with the erring expositors of Aristotle; in
his later, with Aristotle himself. In the Le-
wiatham, he says :-
“This train of thoughts or mental dis-
course, is of two sorts. The first is wriguided,
without design and inconstant; wherein there
is no passionate thought, to govern and direct
those, that follow, to itself, as the end and
scope of some desire, or other passion: in
which case, the thoughts are said to wander
and seem impertiment one to amother, as in a
dream. . . . And yet in this wild ranging of
the mind, a man may oft-times perceive the
way of it, and the dependence of one thought
upon another. For in a discourse of own pre-
sent civil war, what could seem more imper-
tinent, [see Aristotle, $8,1 than to ask, as ome
did, what was the value of a Roman penny ?
Yet the coherence to me was manifest enough.
For the thought of the war, introduced the
thought of the delivering wy the king to his eme.
mies; the thought of that, brought in the
thought of the delivering up of Christ ; and that
again the thought of the thirty pence, which
was the price of that treason; and thence
easily followed that malicious question, and
all this in a moment of time; for thought is
qwick. [See Aristotle, § 8.]
“The second is more constant; as being re-
gwlated by some desire and design, &c.”—
(Lev. P. i. ch. 3.)
# “It is to be moted, that Aristotle does not
here, as the commentators suppose, admit
the non universality of the law of determined
consecution, contending for it merely as the
ordinary rule. He admits the non universa.
lity of the consecution, only of that individual
consequent (Ézstyn złynarug) upon this individual
antecedent (Érsgo. 2.Évnzig); as, for example, of
the thought of Tobias, on the sight or imagi-
nation of his Dog, which, though it usually,
does not always, take place. As Aristotle
afterwards explains, (§ 9,) the same thought,
having more than a single association, may
at one time suggest one consequent, at another
time, another; and howbeit the thoughts, in
themselves most strongly associated, will, in
general, call up each other, still, in particu-
lar circumstances, an association weaker in
itself may obtain, for the moment, a higher
relative intensity, and consequently prevail
over another, absolutely considered, more.
powerful. But still there is always sugges-
tion,-suggestion according to law.
NOTE D.**]
903
OF MENTAL ASSOCIATION.
things remote * [and irrelevant, how
these rise into memory; but only the
matters coadjacent [and pertinent to our
inquiry]. Tor it is manifest that the
mode is still the same, that, to wit, of
consecution, i-Din which a thing recurs
to us, when] neither pre-intentionally
seeking it, nor voluntarily reminiscent.
For [here too], by custom, the several
movements are concomitant of one another
—this determinately following wipon that.f
- THEMISTIUs. -
“ In this manner, when we [intentional-
ly] seek owta remembrance,” is reminiscence
effected from the sources enumerated,—
the similar, the opposite, or the continu-
ows (row ###s). But when a reminis-
cence takes place without our thus inten.
tionally seeking to remember aught, it is
determined by none of these. For if re-
membering a song, we haply become
reminiscent of Socrates ; in this case, the
reminiscence is caused neither by the
similar, nor the opposite, nor the adjacent,
(väv syyūg.) But this is rare. For in
most cases, the reminiscence follows as
the sequel of certain antecedent move-
ments. §
“. . Nor is there any necessity’ for those
treating of Reminiscence, ‘to consider
things remote” [in space 7) and old, [in
time, ‘ how these rise into memory, but
only things adjacent,’ſ and which we have
recently observed or learned; for, by
reason of their proximity, the latter are
more conducive to instruction than the
former. The mode of reminiscence, in
• T2 régo.—By this the interpreters,
after Themistius, all suppose that Aristotle
means old thoughts in contrast to recent. This
error is a corollary of the misprision of Aris-
totle's general doctrine, in regard to the in.
voluntary train. And yet, the no-meaning
which their interpretation, here again, af.
fords, might have rendered them suspicious
If its validity; whereas, independently of its
own evidence, the light which the interpre-
tation I propose, receives from, and reflects
back on, that general doctrine, is a satisfac-
tory confirmation of the truth of both. Veri-
tas, index sui et falsi.
# I read ºrgázros, ºrås (2.Éyo. 33 tº pećis)
'où &c.; both as that which affords the best
sense, and that towards which the MSS. and
editions, taken together, all gravitate. Most of
the editions, as those of Morell, Sylburgius,
Simonius, Casaubon, Pacius, Duvalle, give a
second Tr3s after 33. Bekker (apparently
with half his MSS.) omits it altogether. Again,
if xàyal be read with Themistius and Michael,
balf the MSS., the Erasmian and Camotio.
Aldine editions, and the versions in general,
both, is one and the same. For as, in
matters proximate and recent, starting
on our search from some intornal prin-
ciple or point of departure, we evolve
and are reminiscent of a certain subse-
quent train of thought; [so also in mat-
ters distant in time or space]. “ For, (as
observed,) by custom the several move-
ments &re concomitant of one another—this
determinately following wipon that.” But
the same takes place, when we call into
reminiscence those cognitions which we
had long previously acquired.”T
§ 6. Aristotle now returns from the in-
voluntary Reminiscence, on which he has
only touched incidentally, in consequence
of its relation to the voluntary Reminis-
cence,—the professed and special object
of this treatise. The transition here has
also been mistaken. Here, along with
the result, he enounces two corollaries of
the theory previously established; both
having reference to the perfection of Re-
miniscences, as determined by the relation
of the Swbjective to the objective.
The first,--that Reminiscence is per-
fect, in proportion as the principle and
consecution of the reminiscent thoughts
run parallel with the principle and evolu-
tion of the existences to be remembered.
The Second,—that Reminiscence is per-
feet, in proportion as the objects to be
recollected exhibit a definite arrange-
ment.
ARIST OTLE.
“...When, therefore, we are desirous to
accomplish an act of Reminiscence we
a tolerable sense is obtained, to this extent :
“For it is manifest, that the mode is hero
the same as that in which a man repeats
some Tote, without forethought or active
reminiscence.”
f It is to be observed that this latter para-
graph, likewise, exhibits a sense incompatible
with the interpretation, given by the com-
mentators of Aristotle's doctrine. Themistius
it will be seen, in reference to the last sen.
tence, (to say nothing of his other misrepre-
sentations,) exactly reverses Aristotle's appli.
cation.
§ Themistius, (followed by Michael, Leon-
cus, and the commentators in a body,) thus
'makes Aristotle admit the non-wniversality of the
law of connected consecution. So Hobbes, in his
earlier work :-See mote *, p. 902, a.
| “ Adjacent,” #yyū; ; gºveyyvs, co-adjacent, .
is the reading of Michael and of all the MSS.
and editions.
‘ſ Themistius, in these two latter sentences,
just inverts Aristotle's statement: applying
proximately to the one, what the philosopher
applies proximately to the other.
904
[NotE D.**
ON THE HISTORY
;
!
will do this, endeavour to find that prin-
ciple or initiatory movement, in the train
whereof the one of which we are in quest
will turn up.
“The Reminiscences most prompt and
perfect are therefore those which are
evolved from principles, which are as their
objects; * for the same dependency of
prior and posterior, that obtains among
objects, obtains among the relative mental
movementS.
“Such things, also, as display an orderly
arrangement are well and easily remem-
bered.—Mathematics, for example: while
others [confusedly disposed] are imper-
fectly [retained] and with difficulty [re-
collected.]”f -
§ 7. Distinction of Reminiscence and
Relearning.
A Ristotl, E.
“And Reminiscence is hereby distin-
guished from learning anew ; that, as
reminiscent, the mind exerts, in some sort,
a power of self-determined motion, in
relation to a certain pre-originated train;
• * The term &ezh, principle, has here an
emphatic and Special meaning. All reminis-
cences, according to Aristotle, proceed from
a beginning or principle of movement, that
is, from a certain mode of mind, which origi.
nates the evolution of a certain subsequent se-
ries of dependent modes; the dependence how-
ever, being, perhaps, only determined by some
personal or subjective association. But here,
Aristotle, as the following sentence manifests,
intends not a merely subjective principle,
but a principle, which, though subjective,
has an objective correlation and validity.
But he could hardly employ the word in this
restricted meaning, without, at least, some
premonition. Perhaps the word ºrgayº.4+oy
originally stood after &gzī; ; or rather &yzº-
whosis was followed by the words &; +2 ºre4 y-
Azzºrcz—words, which, from their proximate
repetition, were very likely to be omitted in
transcription.
# Aquinas (Lectio v. ad locum)—“Sic ergo
ad bene memorandum vel reminiscendum, ex
praemissis, quatuor documenta utilia addis.
cere possumus. Quorum primum est, ut
studeat quae vult retinere in aliquem ordi-
mem deducere: secundo, ut profunde et intente
eis mentem apponat: tertio, ut frequenter me-
ditetur Secundum ordinem: quarto, ut incipiat
reminisci a principio.”
# Mekºvicë21. — Themistius and Michael
seem to have read &vakolºvăzzegóczi, in the
Sense of which, at least, the other must here
be taken.
§ Auvéº et ;—Thus Bekker after half his
MSS. The common reading is 3592219, which
Themistius and Michael exhibit, but explain
in conformity to the other
whereas, when it has not this power, but
receives its direction from without, it is
no longer said to remember.”
$ 8. Question mooted and solved :—
Why essaying we do not (though abso-
lutely competent) always accomplish a
Reminiscence : One corollary; two inci-
dents. Text restored.
ARISTOTLE.
“It however often happens that the
mind attempts, and is foiled in, a Re-
miniscence. But it has the power of
seeking ; and seeking it at last finds.
This it does when, essaying many various
movements, it at length excites the move-
ment of which the matter sought is a
sequel. For to recollect f is to have
potentially $ the moving faculty [or
inceptive motion] within; and moreover,
as already said, to be self-moved, and to
movements which itself contains. But [in
this casting about] it is necessary always
to start from some primary movement—
some principle or other.|| Hence we some-
times become reminiscent from principles,
| “Necesse est (says Javellus) reminiscen-
tem incipere ab aliquo principio, quod me-
moria tenetur, et abillo procedere ad aliquod
memorandum, et ab illo ad aliud, donec de-
veniamus ad principale quod desideramus ad
memoriam reduci. Quod quidem principium
aliquando est res memoria retenta, aliquando
tempus, aliquando locus. . . . Exemplum
temporis :—Wolo reminisci, quo die, constitutus
in itimere, fui Bononia’, et incipio sic 5–heri
fui Parma, nudiustertius Mutinae, et illic
per diem quiewi, deinde itineratus sum, et non
pernoctavi extra Bononiam ; ergo, quarta die
fam elapsa, fui Bononiae. Exemplum loci :—
Wolo reminisci, constitutus in itinere, quo loco
pérdidi pecuniam, et incipio sic;-in tali loco
habebam pecuniam, quomiam solvi coenam in
hospitio, et in tali habebam, quoniam solvi
equitaturam, et in tali habebam quonian emi
panes, in taliautem locomon habebam, quoniam
non potui solvere in hospitio; ergo, in tanta
distantia cecidit bursa, et tunc, facta reminis
centia, incipio quaerere deperditam pecu
niam.” (Epit. Parv. Nat. tr. ii. c. 3.)
From this Hobbes seems to have taken the
hint in the following passages; which, at any
rate afford a good amplification of Aristotle's
meaning.
“There is yet another kind of Discursion
t beginning with the appetite to recover some-
, thing lost, proceeding from the Present back.
ward, from the thought of the Place where
*we miss at, to the thought of the place from
* whence we came last; and from the thought
of that, to the thought of a place before, till
we have in our mind some place, wherein we
; had the thing we miss: and this is called
# Reminiscence.” (Hum. Nat. ch. 4.)
“Sometimes a man seeks what he hath toºt
NoTE D.**)
905
OF MENTAL ASSOCIATION.
which [in relation to the result] appear
impertinent and absurd.* The reason of
this is the rapidity with which the mind
passes from thought to thought; as from
milk to white, from white to the [clear]
atmosphere, from that to wet weather,
which finally suggests autumn 5 — this
season being what we are supposed seek-
ing to remember, [but which, at first
sight, would seem to have no conceivable
connection with the principle from which
it has been evolved.]
“...But it would seem in general, that
the exordial movement or principle, is
also the central movement of a series.
For if not before, we shall, on this being
suggested, either find in itself the object
to be recollected, or obtain from it ex-
clusively the media of recollection. For
example, let the letters
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H,
represent a series of thoughts. If, then,
| on the suggestion of] D E, we do not
find what we would remember, we shall
find it on [traversing] E - - - - H ; for
from the centre, we may be moved
either backwards by D, or forwards by E.
and from that Place and Time, whereim he
misses it, his mind runs back, from place to
place, and time to time, to find where, and
when he had it; that is to say, to find some
limited time and place, in which to begin a
method of seeking. Again, from thence his
thoughts run over the same places and times
to find what action, or other occasion might
make him lose it. This we call Remembrance,
or calling to mind; the Latins call it Reminis-
centia, as it were a Re-conning of our former
actions. Sometimes a man knows a Place
determinate, within the compass whereof he
is to seek; and then his thoughts run over
all the parts thereof, in the same manner as
one would sweep a room to find a jewel; or
as a spaniel ranges the field till he find a
scent; or as a man should run over the alpha-
bet to start a rhyme.” (Lev. P. i. ch. 3.)
An excellent illustration of Aristotle's doc-
trine, in another view, is to be found in
Plautus, Trinummus, Act iv. scene ii., v.
65–78.
* The reading, hitherto received, is &zó
+ázoy, “from places;” and the commentators
have been more anxious to enumerate all the
meanings which this expression could possi-
bly bear, than to shew how any one of these
could possibly be tolerated in the present
passage. In this relation all are indeed
absurd ; and the expositors needed only to
pronounce Aristotle's lighteous judgment on
their attempts—3 roºro, 1–and they had re-
covered Aristotle's veritable words (&ºr’
&rgorov.) This emendation, I make no scruple
of proposing, as absolutely certain. For, by
the mere change of an o into am & — and be it
But, if we are seeking none of those [in
the forward series, in the backward, com-
ing on C, [Cheing suggested as a centre 2J
we shall accomplish our recollection in
it; or, if seeking B or D, [through it, in
them. But if none of these be what we
Seek, this we shall find at all events ol
[reaching] A. And thus is it always.”f
THEMISTIUs.
- - - “ “ To be reminiscent is to have
the moving faculty within.” By faculty, I
understand the inexistent principle; for
this excites the discursive faculty to an
analysis [read resumption fj of the rest.
- “Therefore * it is necessary
always to start from some primary move-
ment—some principle or other ; on which
account, we appear most rapidly “some-
times to be reminiscent from places.’ $
‘Places;’—meaning either [19] the prin-
ciples or primary movements which, we
said, behoved to be inexistent in the soul; |
or [2°] such heads, as Conjugates, Simi-
lars, Opposites, treated of in Dialectic
[and Rhetoric]; or [39] external locali-
ties, and the positions therein. Tº
remembered, that words were anciently
written continuously—the whole passage,
previously unintelligible and disjointed, be-
comes pregnant with sense, every part of it
supporting and illustrating every other. No
better elucidation of the truth and necessity
of this correction can be given, than the pas-
sage, (in n. *, p. 902, b.) from Hobbes, who in
this whole doctrine is an alter ego of Aristotle.
# In the preceding paragraph, Aristotle's
meaning in general,—in so far at least as it can
interest us at present, is sufficiently apparent.
But it is probable that something has been
lost in the details of his illustration. In the
readings also, more especially of the symbols,
the Greek expositors, the manuscripts and
the editions, are all at variance. The text, I
have chosen affords, I think, as good a mean-
ing as can be purchased at as cheap a rate ;
but to assign the reasons of preference—non
tanti. Those curious to see in how many
phases the notion of Aristotle can be viewed,
may consult the various hypotheses of The-
mistius, Faber, Amerbach, Crippa, Simonius,
Havenreuter, &c.
f In Themistius, we now have &váAvarty; *
and that this is an old reading, is shown by
Michael, who gives it also. Can there be a
doubt that &véxn-law is the true lection?
§ Themistius not only mistakes the purport
but reverses the order of Aristotle's thought.
| Noüs, Intellect, is called in the Aristotelic
philosophy the Place of Principles. Aristotle,
however, never styles principles, intellec-
tions, native or a priori cognitions, &c., by
the name of places.
* To these three alternative possibilities
906 &
HISTORY ſNotE D.**
ON THE
wº
the central movement of a series ;
“ ...But it would seem, in general, that
the eacordial movement, or principle, is also
and
the discovery of this is of capital im-
portance, leading us, as it does, to the
apprehension of what we seek. To illus-
trate this process, let us typify it by let-
ters, corresponding in number, and pro-
portional to the thoughts set in movement
towards the retrievement of a lurking
remembrance. -
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H.
Now as E is here the central thought,
cº, in finding it, we do not recover
what we seek, we shall certainly do so
when we arrive at H. For, the centre
once gained, we may, from thence, move
either backwards or forwards in the series.
Nor is there any thing to prevent a sug-
gestion of the thoughts per saltwm, or in
any perverse order ;-to think, for in-
stance, H immediately after E, and, after
H, to think, first F, and then G.-If, then,
the thought we seek lie in the progressive
series, we shall consequently, as already
said, find it [at furthest] on reaching H.
If, on the contrary, it lie in the regres-
sive series, it will be found [certainly)
on attaining A. The thoughts denoted
by the symbols, we shall say, are—
Athens [A]—the Lycian Suburb “[B]—
the House of Plato [C]—the time of
New Moon. [D]—the Banquet [E]—
Socrates [F]—the being struck by So-
crates [G]—the Lyre [H].”
- MICHAEL EPHESIUs
Thus continues:—“Nothing prevents us,
on recollecting the Banquet, to recollect,
Simonius, followed by Pacius, adds, and pre-
fers a fowrth ; the places, to wit, so called, em-
ployed in the Art of Memory—Mnemonic.
• Aſztoy. If we suppose this an error for
Avrºsſov, Lyceum, Themistius is guilty of an
anachromism, (see Plutarch, Op. Mor. Xyl. p.
790;) and, at any rate, the Lyceum was not
the place where Plato's house either would or
could be. I therefore suppose, that by this is
meant the extra mural quarter designated
from the temple of Apollo Lycius. (See Pau-
sanias.) And does this give us the true lo-
cality of Plato's residence?
f The fact, — that the same one thought
may, and commonly has, many connections,
and consequently may suggest, and l:e sug-
gested by, many different movements, (N. f,
p. 900, b ;) shows, that the old and familiar
simile of a Chain is inadequate to the phaenos
menon. (See N. *, p. 894, a.) For it implies —
1° Coexistonce, to the exclusion of succes.
Sion in consciousness; 29 equal and recipro.
first, the Lyre and when the being struck,
consequently, that it was by Socrates ;
although, in the order supposed, the
recollection of Socrates follows imme-
diately on that of the Banquet, then the
being struck, and, last of all, the Lyre.
For we may suppose, that the person was
struck with the lyre and not with a stick.
In saying, that ‘ the eacordial seems also
the central movement,’ he assigns the rea-
son, * because from the centre we may be
moved either forwards or backwards ; ’
for E is the road to the series subsequent
—F, G, H, and to the series preceding—
D, C, B, A. And it is competent for us,
at will, as from H, to call up either G or
F, so, from A, to call up any one of the
series consequent upon it. If E, however,
be not the centre, but C; in the sugges-
tion of C we shall terminate our reminis-
cence; or, if C be not our end, we shall
find it in A, in like manner, as E, not
contenting us itself, did so by helping us .
on to H.”
§ 9, Question mooted and solved:—
Why the same principle does not always
effectuate the same result 7–Collateral
observations.—Text restored.
ARIstotl E. -
“The reason why, though departing
from the same principle or inceptive
movement, the same thing is sometimes
recalled to mind, and sometimes not, is to
be found in the circumstance, that the
same principle, [having more than a single
connection,] can determine a resuscitating
movement upon one or other of a plural-
ity. If for example, [F and D be both
dependent upon C, from C the resusci-
al suggestion. But these vices are common;
the chain has others peculiar to itself. For,
39, it would lead us to suppose, that the mind
could run only backwards and forwards, on
one simple series; each consequent thought
having, like the link of a simple chain, only a
single determinate connection, before and
after ; whereas, the concatonations with every
ring of the mental series, are indefinitely nu-
merous. In this respect, instead of a mere
chain, the simile of a hauberk, or chain web,
would be better; and better still, a sphere of
claim work. But one defect there is in all of
these similitudes:—any ring being moved,
moves, and that equally, all the rings attached
to it; which is not the gase in the momental
of the mental dependency.
, Association of Ideas is an expression the in-
‘troduction of which is universally attributed
‘to Locke; but erroneously. For some twenty
years previous to the publication of the Es-
#ay, another philosophical physician, M. La
NorB D.”] OF MENTAL ASSOCIATION. 907
tating movement may tend, either upon then, not be through a natural ºccessity,”
F or upon D. Should the movement,
\Chambre, in his “Systeme de l'Ame,” (L. iv.
. 2, art. 9,) speaks of “the Union and Con-
&lection of Images ("Union ct la Liaison des
Tmages,) as an integrant action in our know-
\ledge by Imagination and Understanding,”
, &c. With the writings of this author, which
were, in that age, not undeservedly, popular,
* Locke could hardly fail to be acquainted;
; though we cannot presume that he was aware
( of “the mutually consecutive movements” of
, Aristotle. But of these three forms, the first
(and second aro, in both their parts, objec-
‘tionable.
Like the Chain—Association, Union, Con-
nection — is faulty. — 19: It implies coexist-
ence; a connection between coexistences ac-
tually known.—20. It implies a bilateral—an
equal correlation. If B is associated with A,
A is no less associated with B. But in the
mental train, it is rare that any two thoughts
call each other up with equal force; and this
, inequality may vary, from perfect equilibrium,
to a maximum in the one co Suggestive, and
a minimum in the other. Thus A suggests B,
far more strongly than B suggests A ; thus
the Dog suggests Tobit, far more strongly
than Tobit suggests the Dog. (See n. #, p.
900, b. a.) For the same reasons the simile
of Attraction, by Themistius (§ 9,) and Hume
(n. *, p. 894, a.) is at fault. Major's homely
illustration (ibid.,) by a cobbler's bristle and
thread, is better, as more unilateral; where.
as, that of Hobbes (ibid.,) by the following of
water through the guidance of the finger, is, on
all accounts, as bad as can be. In the third,
on the contrary, Mutual Consequence, (&zox-
ová'ío, &XX}Azus,) states the phaenomenon more
accurately than any of the others, though
not yet accurately enough. ,
The expressions, Association, Union, Con-
nection, of Ideas or Images, are (as already no-
ticed of Hobbes' language, p. 893, b. note,
and p. 898, b. note,) objectionable, imasmuch
as these terms are apt (even though not in.
tended by their authors) to limit the depen.
dency to modes of Cognition, to the exclusion
of those of Appetency and of Feeling. It
has, indeed, been held, even by some recent
and acute philosophers, that the secondary or
suggested movement is always a cognition—
an Idea. That a representative cognition is
here necessary, is indubitable. But that sug-
gestion is only of cognitions, must be denied;
for how, under this limitation, can the nume-
rous phaenomena be saved, like what Van
Swieten comemorates of himself? He never
passed, he says, a place, where he had once
Scen and smelt the putrid carcass of a dog,
without a recurrence of sickness. See also
Vives in note p. 893, b. On the other hand,
Aristotle's word Movement, (m. *, p. 892, b,)
as comprehending cognitions, feelings, and ap.
petencies, is praiseworthy.
The term Submotion, (Submotio,) as expressive
of the present phaenomenon, is good; but would
require (what cannot here be given) expla.
nation, along with a statement of the remark.
[in which case, as there is no alternative,
able but neglected doctrine of the ingenious
philosopher, and more illustrious poet, by
whom it was propounded.
The words of Aristotle, and the Greek
Aristotelians—Movement, Train, Series, Chan,
Comcatenation, Mutual Consecution, Subsequence,
Dependence, Determined Sequence, Resumption,
Subsumption, Seeking, Hunting, Discwºrsion,
Principle, Precursive Series, Beginning, Incep-
tive, Prior, Leading Movements, &c., and their
correlatives—words which mediately, but ge.
nerally have been adopted by modern philo.
sophers, are the oldest, and in so far as they
denote nothing but the simple fact, are, to say
the least of them, not exposed to objection.
(N. *, p. 897.)
Upon the whole, as among the earliest,
so I think, perhaps the best terms for the
process of reproduction are to be found in
Suggest, Suggestion, Suggestive, Co-suggestive,
with their conjugates. These were terms,
in this relation familiar to the Fathers and
the Schoolmen, to say nothing of modern
psychologists. The metaphor implied is not
inappropriate ; but, in English at least, the
tropical have long Subsided into proper
terms. (N. *, p. 901, a.) -
The other scholastic, and almost equivalent,
expressions (which Locke and others also
employ,)—Eaccite, Evcitation, &c., are likewiso
laudable. (P. 889, a.)
* M: 31& ºraxzuoč. Thus, all the manuscripts,
editions, translators, commentators; —with the
exception of Themistius and two MSS. which
with him omit the negative—and (strange to
sayſ)without either injuring or improving the
sense.—In regard to the import of ºrax cºoij,
opinions are also divided. Some, as Themis-
tius and Michael, explain it by “old and worn
out *—effete. Leonicus, the echo of the Greek
expositors, seems, in copying the latter of
these, to have read Tūzog avyháng, instead of
Túzog &avyń4ng, or to have so found it in his
MS. ; for, be it observed, neither Greek com.
mentary Was them printed. Leonicus, accord-
ingly, interprets it “old and worn in "-inve-
terate; in which he is followed by Simonius,
Crippa, and others. Nor is this latter expo-
sition, though founded on a blunder, a whit
inferior to the former ; the two opposites,
here again, affording each just the same mi-
nimum of sense—maximum of non-sense.
The expositors and translators, indeed, seem,
in general sensible of this; and prudently
pass by the difficulty altogether. It is, how- '
ever, easily solved. Mā 312 ora: Azuoi is mani-
festly a false reading; and I think it equally
manifest, that the true is found in tº 3,' &yzy-
zo.iov. This, exactly, and exclusively, supplies
the meaning which the context impetrates—
and for which the previous discussion bad
prepared us, (§ 2;) while it is obtained at the
expense of only an interchange of two and
three easily commutable letters. This con-
jectural lection I have accordingly adopted in
the translation, as indubitable.
908
[NOTE d.**
ON THE HISTORY
there is no question,] it will be turned,
among different objects, on that which
has to it the strongest habitual affinity.
For Habit obtains in a certain sort the
force of Nature. Hence, those things on
which we frequently think, we easily re-
member. For, as in nature, this conse-
quent follows [pronely] that antecedent,
so also in the operations or energy of
mind.” But an iteration of the same, at
length generates a nature. As some
things, however, occur, even in the works
of nature [proper, beside [the course of]
nature, from the intervention of acci-
dental causes, [as in the case of mon-
sters]; this will happen still more fre-
quently in the formations of habit, in which
[the acquired] nature is not of a deter-
mination equally intense. Thus it is, that
the mind may be sometimes moved at
once in one direction and anotner; and
this especially when something f [like]
shall turn it aside from the course on
which it was proceeding. This, [for in-
stance, is the reason why, when we have
occasion to call up a name, we are apt to
call up another somewhat similar, and so
blunder in a sort, f with regard to that of
which we are in quest.”
THEMISTIUs.
“If, for example, from pleura, [the
side, strictly, the membrane lining the
chest, we be moved towards, both plew-
ritis [inflammation of that membrane—
pleurisy, and Pleuronia, [Pleuron, Pleu-
rone, the town];—should, then, pleuritis
be inore familiar than Plewronia, it will
attractſ towards itself the mind, in the
same manner as the more brilliant colours
draw upon themselves the sight. [$2.
Themistius.]
“a Put in the case, that one of the im-
pressions is old, the other new : the new
will prevail in moving its own reminis-
gence, by preference; unless the old has
been deeply inscribed on the mind, as
part of a scientific acquirement, and be,
likewise, the more familiar. For thus, it
is, as it were, renovated, every time we
have occasion to turn our attention on it.
“...But, ‘ as in Nature, this consequent
follows that antecedent ; * (for, in the na–
tural reminiscence, the thought of heat
follows, necessarily, that of fire, and the
thought of light, that of the Swn ; Ś) * so
also in Habit.” For, through the force
of Habit, there are things, which, on their
own reminiscence, forthwith cause the con-
comitant reminiscence of certain others.
But what we are frequently accustomed
to, becomes, as it were, a second] nature.
And as, among the products of nature
itself, aberrations may occur from the
rule of nature; this also is possible in the
operations of habit. It may, therefore,
easily happen, that starting correctly from
the prior and suggestive thought, we shall
fall out, in consequence of a deflective
movement, in passing to the subsequent
and suggested; as when, [departing from
pleura, plewritis attracts the movement
* For ivseyeſ, Themistius seems to read
É0s.-But on the common reading, does
Energy mean act of mind? or, (as the inter-
preters in general suppose,) act of habit 2 If
the latter be preferred, the meaning will be
this :-" For as in [the works of] nature this
consequent follows [pronely and invariably]
upon that antecedent, so in the operations of
habit.” I decidedly prefer the former : both
as the one meaning which the context re-
quires; and because, while Aristotle could
hardly by energy simply mean to denote habit,
(which is a power, as opposed to energy,) it
was the natural expression whereby to denote
an act of mind—a cognition, thought, &c.
# For ºrn, which is otiose, I would read
ru, that is, “something [similar, 1" which, at
any rate, must be understood.
f “Quomiam Similitudo” (says Wives,) “ex
multis velut unum reddit, facilis est et usi-
tatus, non memoriae solum, Sed cogitationis
quoque error, wt a simili transeat ad simile.
Pro Gregorio, sumimus Georgium, pro enthy.
memate, problema, Pindarus pro Pamdaro ;
quae similitudo est in vrrbis, ex medio, prin-
cipio, fine : Tum in REBUs, ex eo quod in
illis attentio considerat : ut Xenocrates, pro
Aristotele, in philosophia et disciplina Plato-
mis; Scipionem pro Q. Fabio in bellis Punicis;
Irum pro Codro, in paupertate; Demosthenem
pro Cicerome, in eloquentia; Warcissum pro
Adonide in pulchritudine : allium pro cepis,
in odore. Eodem modo, de loco, tempore, do
actionibus aut qualitatibus, quorum exempla
patent latissime.—Hoc vitium vel in prima
attentione nascitur, quod intelligentia non satis
animadvertit quae offerumtur, ut integra ea
distinctaque posset memoriae commendare;
Vel in ipsa memoria, quas parum sincera fide
custodiit; vel in secunda attentiome, quum
perperam ea quaº integra erant in memoria
reposita depromit. Perturbatur item con-
sideratio vel secunda attentio, quum jussae
aliquid quaerere, aut depromere objicitur ex-
trinsecus, diversum quid vel alienum. Sa-
lutavit me heri in foro Petrus Toletanus,
nec satis animadverti, nec satis memini. Si
quis ex me quaerat, — Quis te in foro heri
Salutavit si nihil addat facilius respondere
quam si dicat.—Joannes Manricusme an Lodo-
vicus Abylensis?” (L. 1.)
"I See Hume ; (n.”, p. 894, a.)
§ Sco m. $, p S94. ** See n. *, p. 908.
Note D.**]
909
OF MENTAL ASSOCIATION.
from Plewºonia to itself. “ For this rea-
son, when we have occasion to call wy a
name, we are apt to call wip another some-
what similar, and so blunder in a sort,
with regard to that of which we are in
quest.” Wishing, for example, to recollect
Leophanes, we recollect Leosthemes, and
[substituting this, thus blunder in rela-
tion to Leophanes.”
§ 10. After other observations, which
it is not necessary to adduce, Aristotle
goes on to show, that Reminiscence—re-
miniscence intentional or proper, is to a
certain extent, a rational — discursive
procedure. • *
ARIST otLE.
vidual, the power of Memory and the
power of Reminiscence stand in no mutual
proportion, has been already stated.—
And, independently of the difference of
their manifestation, in the order of time;"
Reminiscence is distinguished from Me-
mory in this, that of memory, many of
the other animals are participant, whereas,
it may be safely affirmed, that, of the
*
* Reminiscence, chronologically considered,
is both prior and posterior to Memory (in Aris-
totle's meaning of this term.) For reminis-
cence starts from a Memory, which affords it
a principle or point of departure; and it
results in a Memory, as its end, this being a
memory of the matter sought.
# This Aristotle also states in his History
of Animals, (Book i. ch. 2.) The expositors
do not, I think, fully or correctly apprehend
Aristotle's view. Themistius, for example,
supposes that Reminiscence is a rational pro-
cedure, because, like syllogism, it connects a
lesser with a greater. But Memory, or simple
recollection, equally commects a lesser with a
greater; and this Aristotle accords to the
brutes, whilst he denies them intentional
reminiscence. At any rate, this subordination
is, in reminiscence, one merely accidental; for
the same two thoughts, in alternately Sug-
gesting each other, are alternately to each
other as the greater and the less. Aristotle,
I presume, refers to the analogy subsisting
between the acts of Reminiscence and Rea-
soning, in both being processes to a certain
end; both being processes from the known
to the unknown ;-and in both evolving their
conclusion, under certain laws, and from cer-
tain general sources;–Reminiscence, contin-
gently educing the thing to be recollected, in
conformity to the laws, and out of the com-
mon places, of Mnemonic, as universal princi-
ples or inceptive movements, by a process of
investigation, and subjective suggestion of the
connected by the connected; —Teasoning,
necessarily educing tho thing to be proved,
in conformity to the laws, and out of the
“That, in the same indi-.
animals known to us, man alone is en-
dowed with Reminiscence.f. The reason
is, that Reminiscence is, as it were, a kind
of syllogism or mental discourse. For he
who is reminiscent, that he has formerly
seen or heard or otherwise perceived, any
thing, virtually performs an act of syl-
logism. Here also there is instituted, as
it were, a question and inquiry. But
inquiry is competent, only as deliberation
is competent; while deliberation, in like
manner, is a sort of syllogism.”
THEMISTIUs.
- - “‘..Of the animals known
to ws, man alone is endowed with Reminis-
cence ; * because to whom reminiscence is
competent, to the same syllogism is com-
petent. For as, in the act of syllogising,
this [minor] proposition is connected with
that [majorj; so in the act of reminiscence
we connect lesser [movements] with
greater. But the power of syllogising
implies the power of inquiry, [for we only
syllogise as we inquire]; and the power
of inquiry implies the power of delibera-
tion,[for we only inquire as we deliberate.]
[The power of reminiscence, therefore,
common places of Logic, as universal princi-
ples or major propositions, by a process of
investigation, and objective subsumption of
the contained under the containing.
Aristotle, though he assimilates, does not
identify rational or logical subsumption, with
voluntary, far less with spontaneous, sugges-
tion. At most he only shows that reminis-
cence, qua intentional, as it involves an appli-
cation of means to end, involves deliberation,
which again involves discursion.
This discursion of Reminiscence the Latin
commentators, in general, refer, not to the
inorganic Intellect, not to Aé),0s, Auðvouc.,
or Ratio proper, but to that Analogon Rationis
or Particular Reason, possessed, in some mea-
sure, by the brutes; and which among other
Arabian Aristotelians, Averroes introduced,
as one of the internal senses, under the name
of Cogitativa. “Bx quibus patet, (says Ja-
wellus,) quod in reminiscendo, syllogizamus et
discurrimus, non quidem per proposition.cs
universales, id enim est proprium intellectus,
sed per singulares. Discurrimus enim ab uno
singulari memorato ad aliud memorando ; et
ideo fit a cogitativa quae dicitur ratio parti-
cularis apud commentatorem.”—Now, if we
discard the higher faculty of thought, and admit,
eaclusively, the lower, we bave at once the
scheme of Hobbes. It should be also noticed,
that while Aristotle and his followers limit,
and properly, the expression “mental dis
course ’’ to the intentional process of reminis-
cence, Hobbes, borrowing the term, unwar- .
rantably extends it to the spontaneous train
of thought.
910
THEORY [Note p.”
ON THE
implies the power of deliberation]. But
man alone deliberates; man, therefore,
alone, is reminiscent. That Reminiscence,
consequently, is a function of the discur-
sive intellect, (31zvátzs,) is demonstrated;
for deliberation is an act of intellect,
(voi); [and Themistius had previously
stated, that] discursion is only the energy
of intellect and imagination combined—
oë8av čregoy iairly # 31&vouz h voi ger& pay-
roa (c.; #vÉgysto.” -
NOTE D.”
OUTLINE
of A THEORY OF
MENTAL REPRODUCTION, SUGGESTION, OR ASSOCIATION.
§ I.—Laws of Mental Succession, as General.—(A.) Not of Reproduction progër,
wniform.–(B.) Of Reproduction proper, not wriform ; as possible ; as actual ; as
direct, Abstract or Primary law of Repetition; as indirect, Abstract or Primary
law of Redintegration, Concrete or Secondary law of Préférence.
§ II.-Jaws of Mental Succession, as Special,—Of Reproduction :-(4.) Abstract or
Primary, modes of the laws of Repetition and Redintegration, one or both s—(B.)
Concrete or Secondary, modes of the law of Préference.
[References omitted, and to be supplied from pp. 294, 386, &c.]
§ 1.—General Laws of Mental Succession.
A—As not of Reproduction proper.
Human Consciousness being realised,
(see Note H,) only under the two condi-
tions of contrast and continuity in time, is
necessarily astricted to a ceaseless varia-
tion of state ; and its variations (called
likewise more or less adequately mental
imodifications, modes, States, movements,
thoughts, activities, passivities, &c.,) are
thus successive, and uninterruptedly suc-
cessive. The two highest laws of thought
are, therefore, - -
i.—The Law of Succession :- That
we are only conscious, as conscious of Swc-
cession ; and
ii.—The Law of VARIATION:— That
we are only conscious of Swccession, as
conscious of Successive variation.
But these successive variations do not
follow on each other in a row, as isolated
phaenomena, related only as before and
after on the thread of time; nor is
their manifestation determined always
by causes, external to the series itself,
although this be frequently the case. On
the contrary, the train, though ever
ehanging, is ever continuous; cach ante-
cedent movement running into each con-
sequent; and, abstracting from the inter-
vention of foreign influences, each ante-
cedent standing to each consequent as
its cause. Thought is thus evolved, not
§ I.]
911
OF MENTAL REPRODUCTION.
only in a chronological, but in a causal
equence; and another of its Laws is,
therefore,
iii.-The Law of DEP ENDENCE or DE-
TERMINED Consecution :- That every
consequent modification in the mental train
is the effect of that immediately antecedent.
iv.–Thoughts are dependent on each
other, only as they stand together as the
ºrelative parts of the same common whole.
This may be called the Law of RELATI-
VITY or INTEGRATION.
But this whole is of two kinds. It is
either an objective (necessary and essential)
unity, constituted by, and intrinsic to, the
thoughts themselves; or it is a subjective
(contingent and accidental) unity, extrip-
sic to themselves, and imposed on them
by the mind—the mind-in general. In
the former case, a certain thought being
given, it necessarily, of, and along with
itself, evolves a certain one, exclusive,
other; in the latter, a certain thought
being given, it only moves the mind,
according to definite subjective laws, to
pass on to this or that of a certain plu-
rality of others. In the one instance,
there is a determination to an individual
consequent; in the other, only a determi-
nation to a class of consequents, the pre-
ference of this or that class, of this or
that individual under it, being regulated
by circumstances, external to the nature
of the antecedent thought itself. The
former constitutes what may be called the
logical or objective ; the latter, what may
be called the psychological or swbjective
train of thought.
The logical consecution is shewn in
those thoughts, which, though denoted
by a single and separate expression, im-
Alicitly contain a second ; which second,
the process of thinking explicates but
does not determine to succeed. Such are
all relatives. The conception of the one
term of a relation necessarily implies that
of the other; it being of the very nature
of a relative, to be thinkable, only through
the conjunct thought of its correlative.
For a relation is, in truth, a thought, one
and indivisible; and while the thinking a
relation, necessarily involves the thought
of its two terms, so is it, with equal neces-
sity, itself involved in the thought of
either. It is therefore improper to say,
that the thought of one relative follows,
or is consequent on, the thought of the
other,--if thereby be demoted a succes-
sion in time; since the thought of both
is, in truth, already given in the thought
of each. Aristotle expressly says of re-
latives, that they are things which exist
together (#22) in the mind. It is couse-
quently also improper to say of such
terms, that they are associated or mutu-
ally suggestive. Not the former, for this
supposes that they can be dissociated;
not the latter, for this supposes them not
to be given as necessary reciprocals.
Such are whole and parts, means and
end, cause and effect, reason and conse-
quent, substance and accident, like and
unlike, great and small, parent and child,
husband and wife, &c. &c. º
To this head, I may simply notice,
though I cannot now explain, are to be
referred those compulsory relatives, im-
posed upon thought by that great, but as
yet undeveloped, law of our intellectual
being, which I have elsewhere denomi-
nated the Law of the ConDITIONED :—
That all positive thought lies between two
eatremes, neither of which we can conceive
as possible, and yet, as mutual contradic-
tories, the one or the other we must recog-
mise as necessary. From this impotence
of intellect, we are unable to think aught
as absolute. Even absolute relativity is
unthinkable. But to this I merely allude,
that I may shew to what head such com-
pulsory connections are to be referred.
See, however, p. 743, m. *, p. 599n.*. Logi-
cal consecution is thus governed by :-
v.—The Law of INTRINSIC or OBJEC-
Trve RELATIVITY:—That one relative term
being thought, thera is virtually thought
Glso its correlative. * . .
General Laws of Mental Succession.
B—As of Reproduction proper.
The other kind of dependence, the
psyschological consecution, is that which
subsists between two thoughts, the one of
which preceding, entails the sequence of
the other, not necessarily, or in virtue of
its own intrinsic relativity, but of a cer-
tain extrinsic relativity, of a contingent
imposition and indefinite obtrusive force.
which inclines them, though perhaps un-
equally, to call each other into conscious-
ness, and which, when not counteracted
by a stronger influence, inevitably ope-
rates its end. The terms (chronological)
suggestion, association, Succession, are
properly applied to this dependence
alone ;-for under it, exclusively, have
the thoughts a before and after, in the
order of time, or in themselves any sepa-
rate and irrespective existence. Psycho-
logical consecution is equivalent to Re-
production. [I may parenthetically ob-
serve, that the power of reproduction
(into consciousness,) supposes a power of
912
[Note D.”
ON THE THEORY
retention (out of consciousness.) To this tion affords the ground, why, for example,
conservative power I confine exclusively
the term Memory; with this, however,
we have at present nothing to do.]
There are three swbjective writies, wholes
or identities, each of which affords a
ground of chronological succession, and
reciprocal suggestion, to the several
thoughts which they comprehend in one.
In other words, Reproduction has three
SO?!')"C62.S. *
These are:—1°, the unity of thoughts
differing in time and modification, in a
co-identity of SUBJECT —2°, the unity of
thoughts, differing in time, in a co-iden-
tity of MoDIFICATION ;—3° the unity of
thoughts, differing in modification, in a
co-identity of TIME.
Of these, the firstaffords a common prin-
ciple of the possibility of association, or
mutual suggestion for allour mental move-
ments, however different in their character
as modifications, however remote in the
times of their occurrence ; for all, even
the most heterogeneous and most distant,
are reproducible, co-suggestible, or asso-
ciable, as, and only as, phaenomena of the
same unity of consciousness—affections
of the same indivisible Ego. There thus
further emerges:—
vi.—The Law of Associ ABILITY or
PossIBLE Co-suggESTION:—All thoughts
of the same mental subject are associable,
or capable of suggesting each other. . .
But the unity of subject, the funda-
mental condition of the associability of
thought in general, affords no reason
why this particular thought should, de
facto, recall or suggest that. We require,
therefore, besides a law of possible,
a law or laws of actual reproduction.
Two such are afforded in the two other
unities—those of Modification and of
Time. - -
And now let us, for the sake of subse-
quent reference, pause a moment to state
the following symbolic illustration :-
A
Aſ
A”
Here the same letter, repeated in per-
pendicular order, is intended to denote
the same mental mode, brought into con-
sciousness, represented, at different times.
Here the different letters, in horizontal
order, are supposed to designate the par-
tial thoughts integrant of a total mental
state, and therefore co-existent, or im-
mediately consequent, at the moment of
its actual realization. - -
This being understood, we proceed :-
Of these two unities that of modifica-
an object determining a mental modifica-
tion of a certain complement and charac-
ter, to-day, this presentation tends to
call up the representation of the same
modification determined by that object,
yesterday. Or suppose, as in our sym-
bols, the three As to typify the same
thought, determined at three different
times, be the determining movement of a
presentation or a representation. On the
second occasion, A’ will suggest the re-
presentation of A. This, it will not be
denied, that it can do; for, on the possi-
bility hereof, depends the possibility of
simple remembrance. The total thought,
after this suggestion, will be A' + A ;
and on the third occasion, A" may sug-
gest A’ and A ; both on this principle,
and on that other which we are imme-
diately to consider, of co-identity in time.
We have thus, as a first general law of
actual Reproduction, Suggestion, or Asso-
ciation :-
vii.-The Law of REPETITION, or of
DIRECT REMEMBRANCE :- Thoughts co-
identical in modification, but differing in
time, tend to suggest each other.
The law which I here call that of Re-
petition, seems to be the principle of
remembrance referred to by Aristotle,
in saying, that “the movements [which
and by which, we recollect] are, in these
cases, sometimes THE SAME,” &c. (See
above, p. 900 a.) If this be correct,
Aristotle has here again made a step
a-head of subsequent philosophers; for,
if I be not mistaken, we must recur to
Repetition as an ultimate principle of
reproduction, and not rest satisfied, as
has been done, with that of Redintegra-
tion alone. But of this amon.
The unity of time affords the ground,
why thoughts, different in their character
as mental modes, but having once been
proximately coexistent, (including under
coexistence immediate consecution,) as
the parts' of some total thought, and a
totality of thought is determined even by
a unity of time ; do, when recalled into
consciousness, tend immediately to sug-
gest each other, as co-constituents of that
former whole, and mediately, that whole
itself. Thus, let (A, B, C, D, E, F,) be
supposed a complement of such concom-
mitant thoughts. If A be recalled into
consciousness, A will tend to reawaken
B, B to reawaken C, and so on, until
the whole formerly coexistent series has
been reinstated—or the mind diverted by
Some stronger movement, on some other
train. We have thus as a second general
§§ I, II.]
913
OF MENTAL REPRODUCTION.
law of actual Reproduction, Suggestion, , tion of interest (from whatever source.)
or Association,--
viii.-The Law of RED INTEGRATION, of
INDIRECT REMEMBRANCE, or of REM.INIs-
CENCE':— Thoughts once coidentical in
time, are, however different as mental modes,
again suggestive of each other, and that in
the mutual order which they originally
held. -
To this law of Redintegration can easily
be reduced Aristotle's second and third
suggestives—“the movements [which and
by which, we recollect, . . . . as some-
times AT THE SAME TIME, sometimes as
PARTs of THE same whole,” &c. (See
p. 900, a.)
Philosophers, in generalising the phae-
nomena of reproduction, have, if our
exception of Aristotle be not admitted,
of these two, exclusively regarded the
law of Redintegration. That of Repeti-
tion was, however, equally worthy of
their consideration. For the excitation
of the same by the same, differing in time,
is not less marvellous, than the excitation
of the different by the different, identical
in time. It was a principle, too, equally
indispensable, to explain the phaenomena.
For the attempts to reduce these to the
law of Redintegration alone will not stand
the test of criticism; since the reproduc-
tion of thought by thought, as disjoined
in time, cannot be referred to the repro-
duction of thought by thought, as con-
joined in time. Accordingly, we shall
find in coming to detail, that some phae-
nomena are saved by the law of Repetition
alone, while others require a combination
of two laws of Repetition and Redinte-
gration. -
Movements thus suggest and are sug-
gested, in proportion to the strictness of
the dependency between that prior and this
posterior. But such general relation be-
tween two thoughts—and on which are
founded the two Abstract or Primary
laws of Repetition and Redintegration
—is frequently crossed, is frequently
superseded, by another, and that a par-
ticular relation, which determines the
suggestion of a movement not warranted
by any dependence on its antecedent.
To complete the general laws of repro-
duction, we must therefore recognise a
Secondary or Concrete principle—what
may be styled, (under protest, for it is
hardly deserving of the title Law):—
ix. — The Law of PREFERENCE :-
Thoughts are suggested, not merely by
force of the general subjective relation
subsisting between themselves, they are
in which these stand to the individual
mind.
§ II.-Special Laws of Mental Succes-
Sion. Those of Reproduction.
A.—Primary ; modes of the laws of
Repetition and Redintegration.
. The first special law under this head
1S–
x.—The Law of SIMILARs :—Things—
thoughts resembling each other (be the re-
Semblance simple or analogical) are mw-
twally Suggestive.
From Aristotle downwards, all who
have written on Suggestion, whether in-
tentional or spontaneous, have recogniz-
ed the association of similar objects. But
whilst all have thus fairly acknowledged
the effect; none, I think, (if Aristotle be
not a singular exception,) have specu-
lated aright as to the cause.
In general, Similarity has been lightly
assumed, lightly laid down, as one of the
ultimate principles of associations. No-
thing, however, can be clearer than that
resembling objects — resembling mental
modifications, being, to us, in their resem-
bling points, identical ; they must, on the
principle of Repetition, call up each other.
This, of course, refers principally to sug-
gestion for the first time. Subsequently,
Redintegration co-operates with Repeti-
tion; for now, the resembling objects
have formed, together, parts of the same
ºmental whole ; and are, moreover, associ-
ated both as similar and as contrasted.
It is, however, more important to prove,
that the law of Similarity cannot be re-
duced to the law alone of Redintegra-
tion. This reduction has often been as-
sumed; seldom a demonstration of it pro-
pounded. Discounting Wolf, who can-
not properly be adduced, I recollect only
fowl' philosophers who have attempted
such probative reduction. As two of
these, however, are only repeaters of a
third, there are found, in reality, among
them, only two independent arguments;
and these, though both aiming at the
same end, endeavour to accomplish it on
different principles. – The one is by
Maass, (followed by Hoffbauer and Bi-
unde;) the other by Mr James Mill.
Of these, the former is as follows:–
“Similar representations,” says Maass,
“ can only be associated, in as much as
they, or their constituent characters, be-
long to the same total representation;
and this, without exception, is the case
also suggested, in proportion to the rela- with them. The two representations, A
3 M
914
[Note D.”
ON THE THEORY
and B resemble each other, in so far as
both contain the common character b.
If then, B, to which belong the charac-
ters b d e, is associated with A, to which
belong the characters b a c, in that case
a c are associated with b [B 21, and these
consequently, taken together, are all parts
of the same total representation.”—There
seems to be here so egregious a petitio
principii, that I am almost doubtful whe-
then I correctly apprehend the purport
of the argument.—No doubt, “if B is as-
sociated with A,” all will follow as stated.
For after one representation has, in vir-
tue of their similarity, been associated
with, and has suggested another; they
become associated anew as parts of the
total representation which that original
suggestion caused ; and may, of course,
subsequently re-suggest each other, sim-
ply on the principle of Redintegration,
and apart from their similarity alto-
gether. But the question here to be an-
swered is—“How do the similar repre-
sentations B and A become associated or
mutually suggestive 7—on the hypothesis,
always, that they have not been previ-
ously associated, as mentally coexistent;
—and the reasoning violates the hypo-
thesis.
Mr Maass goes on :-‘‘ Further, the
Similarity of two representations could
not, in itself, be any reason of their asso-
ciation. For Similarity is an objective
relation, subsisting between them; but
from this there follows not in the least
their subjective inter-dependence in ima-
gination.” (Versuch, &c., § 20.)—Here
again, I can hardly think that I understand
aright. Is it intended to be said, that
we knºw, or can know aught of objec-
tive Similarity in things, except through
our subjective consciousness, or feeling,
of the partial sameness of certain subjec-
tive movements determined by them in
us?—that representations are in them-
selves aught but subjective modifications,
and that the consciousness or feeling of
them, and their identity or difference, are
not also purely subjective 7
On the statements of Hoffbauer, who
manifestly, and of Biunde, who professed-
ly, adopts the preceding reasoning from
Maass, it is unnecessary to make any ob-
servation. They are as follows:—“We
call things,” says the former, “recipro-
cally similar when certain attributes are
common to them. The [common] attri-
bute which is found in one of these must
therefore also be met with in the others.
In the representation of the object A,
which resembles another object, B, there
is involved the representation of the com-
mon attribute, found also in B, and this
is likewise contained in a total represen-
tation along with B.” (Naturlehre, &c.,
Br. 23.)—“Were there,” says the latter,
“in similar (and analogous) representa-
tions no coexistence, the representations,
as Maass rightly observes, would be with-
out any internal bond of connection, and
no conceivable reason could be any longer
assigned, why a representation should
awaken its co-similars and not rather
any other representation.” (Versuch,
&c., § 70.)
The other attempt at such a reduction
is by the late Mr Mill, in his ingenious
“Analysis of the Phenomena of the Hu-
man Mind;” who thus, after Hobbes and
Hartley, enounces what I have called the
law of Redintegration as the general law
of association, with its causes: “Our ideas
spring up or exist, in the order in which
the sensations existed, of which they are
the copies.” He adds:–“ The causes of
strength in association seem all to be
resolvable into two ; the vividness of the
associated feelings and the frequency of
the association.” (i. pp. 56, 61.) Again,
treating of Hume's principles of associa-
tion, he thus endeavours to recall that of
Resemblance to these causes:—“I believe
it will be found that we are accustomed
to see like things together. When we see.
a tree, we generally see more trees than
one; when we see an ox, we generally see
more oxen than one; a sheep, more sheep
than one; a man, more men than one.
Fröm this observation, I think, we may
refer resemblance to the law of frequency,
of which it seems to form only a parti-
cular case.” (i. p. 79.)—I confess my-
self unable to perceive the cogency of
this reasoning,-if I rightly apprehend
its tenor. Admitting, “ that we are ac-
customed to see like things together,”
(though are we not far more accustomed
to things whlike together ?); the follow-
ing objections occur to this, as a ground
on which to reduce the principle of simi-
larity exclusively to the principle of ac-
customed mental concomitance.
1°. It could only unable us to explain
the mutual suggestion of those things
which have actually been seen together.
But there are innumerable cases of simi-
lars suggesting similars, in which the
objects having never previously been wit-
nessed in conjunction, nor even mentally
compared together, the fact of their asso-
ciation cannot be thus accounted for.
2°. Even in relation to things usually
seen together, the pervading Similarity
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