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 IS'Z'-, 
 
ESSAYS 
 
 THE POWERS 
 
 THE HUMAN MIND; 
 
 TO WHICH ARE ADDED, 
 
 AN ESSAY ON QUANTITY, 
 
 AN ANALYSIS OF ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC. 
 
 " In the right employment of the active powers of the human mmd consists all the 
 honour, dignity, and worth of a man ; and in the abuse and perversion of it, all vice, cor> 
 raption, and depravity." 
 
 BY THOMAS §,EID, D.D. F.R.S. Edin. ^ 
 
 PROFESSOR OP MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OP GLASGOW. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED FOR THOMAS TEGG, 73, CHEAPSIDE ; K. GRIFFIN AND CO., 
 GLASGOW; AND J. CUMMING, DUBLIN. 
 
 1827. 
 
LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFRIABS. 
 
MR. DUGALD STEWART, 
 
 LATELY PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS, NOW PROFESSO.Il OF MORAL 
 
 PHILOSOPHY ; 
 AND 
 
 DR. JAMES GREGORY, 
 
 PROFESSOR OF THE THEORY OF PHYSIC, 
 IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIENDS, 
 
 I KNOW not to whom I can address these Essays with more pro- 
 priety 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 pleasure ; but because, if these Essays have any merit, 
 you have a considerable share in it, having not only encouraged 
 me to hope that they may be useful, but favoured me with your 
 observations on every part of them, both before they were sent to 
 press, and while they were under it. 
 
 I have availed my,self of your observations, so as to correct many 
 faults that might otherwise have escaped me; and I have a very 
 grateful sense of your friendship in giving this aid to one, who 
 stood much in need of it : having no shame, but much 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 mention my obligations to the late Lord Karnes 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 account 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 observations on it, both with 
 respect to the matter and the expression. On some points we differed 
 in opinion, and debated them keenly, both in conversation and by 
 many letters, without any abatement of his affection, 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 others the same liberty in 
 judging which he claimed to himself. 
 
IV DEDICATION. 
 
 It is difficult to say whether that worthy man was more emment 
 in active hfe or in speculation. Very rare, surely, have been the in- 
 stances where the talents for both were united in so eminent a degree. 
 
 His genius and industry, in many different branches of literature, 
 will, by his works, be known to posterity : his private virtues, and 
 pubhc spirit, his assiduity through a . long and laborious life, in 
 many honourable public offices with which he was intrusted, and 
 his zeal to encourage and promote every thing that tended to the 
 improvement of his country in laws, literature, commerce, manu- 
 factures, and agriculture, are best known to his friends and co- 
 temporaries. 
 
 The favourable opinion which he, and you, my friends, were 
 pleased to' express of this work, has been my chief encouragement to 
 lay it before the public ; and perhaps, 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 when they are 
 approiRed by those whom we esteem good judges. 
 
 You know that the substance of these Essays was delivered 
 annually for more 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 recognize the 
 doctrine which they heard, some of them thirty years ago, delivered 
 to them more diffusely, and with the repetitions'and illustrations pro- 
 per for such audiences. 
 
 I am afraid, indeed, that the more intelligent reader, who is con- 
 versant in such abstract subjects, may think that there are repetitions 
 still left which might be spared. Such, I hope, will consider, that 
 what to one reader is a superfluous repetition, to the greater part, 
 less conversant in such subjects, may be very useful. If this apology 
 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 Glasgow College, 
 June 1, ]Ti5. 
 
 THO. REID. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Human knowledge may be reduced to two general headis, according as 
 it relates to body, or to mind ; to things material, or to things intellectual. 
 
 The whole system of bodies in the universe, 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 meanest creature endowed with 
 thought, may be called the Intellectual World. These are the two great 
 kingdoms of nature 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. 
 
 Many things there are, indeed, regarding the nature and the structure 
 bothof body and of mind, which our faculties cannot reach; many difficulties 
 which the ablest philosopher cannot resolve ; but of other natures, if any 
 other there be, we have no knowledge, no conception at all. 
 
 That every thing that exists must be either corporeal or incorporeal, is 
 evident. But it is not so evident, that every thing 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 intermediate nature that connects them together, we know not. 
 
 We have no reason to ascribe intelligence, 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 magnetical and electrical bodies 
 attract and repel each other, and by which the parts of solid bodies cohere. 
 
 Some have conjectured, that the phenomena 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 universe, beings 
 that are active without intelligence, which, as a kind of incorporeal ma- 
 chinery, contrived by the Supreme Wisdom, perform their destined task 
 without any knowledge or intention. But, laying aside conjecture, and 
 all pretences to determine in things beyond our reach, we must rest in 
 this, that body and mind are the only kinds of being of wKich we can have 
 any knowledge, or can form any conception. If there be 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. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 As, therefore, all our knowledge is confined 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 mind 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 universe, we cannot pretend to say. We dwell in a little corner of 
 God's dominion, disjoined 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 corre- 
 sponding 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 show, that they have some thinking 
 principle, though of a nature far inferior to the human mind. And every 
 thing 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. 
 
 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. It must 
 indeed be acknowledged, 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 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 ; and 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 effisct this prejudice may have with superficial thinkers, 
 the judicious will not be apt to be carried away with it. About two hun- 
 dred years ago, the opinions of men in natural philosophy were as various, 
 and as contradictory, as they are now concerning the powers of the mind. 
 Galileo, Torricelli, Kepler, Bacon, and Newton, had the same discourage- 
 ment in their attempts to throw light upon the material system, as we 
 have with regard to the intellectual. If they had been deterred by such 
 prejudices, we should never have reaped the benefit of their discoveries. 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 which do honour to human nature, and wijl inake their names immortal. 
 The motto which Lord Bacon prefixed to some of his writings was worthy 
 of his genius, Inveniam viam autfaciam. 
 
 There is a natural order in the progress of the sciences, and good reasons 
 may be assigned why the philosophy of body should be elder sister to that 
 of mind, and of a quicker growth ; but the last hath the principle of 
 life no less than the first, and wiU 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 Karnes, 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 certain 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 
 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 conquests every where." 
 
 The faculties of our minds are the tools and engines we must use in 
 every disquisition ; and the better we understand their nature and force, the 
 more successfidly 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 discoursing on a subject very remote from this, found themselves 
 quickly at a stand, by the difficulties that rose on every side. After we 
 had for a while puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer to a resolu- 
 tion 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 necessary 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 Inquiry." If this be commonly the 
 cause of perplexity in those disquisitions which have least relation to the 
 mind, it must be so much more in those that have an immediate connexion 
 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 
 
Vm _ iPEEFACE. 
 
 Natural Philosophy, the Mechanical Arts, Chemistry, Medicine, and Agri- 
 culture, belong to the first ; but, to the last, belong Grammar, Logic, 
 Rhetoric, Natural Theology, Morals, Jurisprudence, Law, Politics, and 
 the Fine Arts. The knowledge of the human mind is the root from which 
 these grow, and draw their nourishment. Whether, therefore, we consider 
 the dignity of this subject, or its subserviency to science in general, and 
 to the noblest branches of science in particular, it highly deserves to be 
 cultivated. 
 
 A very elegant writer, on the Sublime and Beautiful, concludes his 
 account of the passions thus : " The variety of the passions is great, and 
 worthy, in every branch of that variety, of the most diligent investigation. 
 The more accurately we search into the human mind, the stronger traces 
 we every where 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 ; 
 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 un- 
 common union of science and admiration, which a contemplation of the 
 works of Infinite Wisdom alone can afford to a rational mind; whilst 
 referring to him whatever we find of right, or good, or fair, in ourselves, 
 discovering his strength and wisdom even in our own weakness and imper- 
 fection, honouring them where we discover them clearly, and adoring their 
 profundity where we are lost in our search, we may be inquisitive without 
 impertinence, and elevated without pride : we may be admitted, if I may 
 dare to say so, into the counsel of the Almighty, by a consideration of his 
 works. This elevation 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." 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Dedication 
 Preface 
 
 ESSAYS ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF MAN. 
 
 ESSAY I. PRELIMINARY. 
 
 Chap. 1. Explication of words ... ,1 
 
 It. Principles taken for granted ■ • i • ' ^^ 
 
 III. Of hypotheses ... ... 21 
 
 IV. Of analogy . . . . . . . 24 
 
 V. Of the proper means of knowing the operations of the mind 26 
 
 VI. Of the difficulty of attending to the operations of our own minds 29 
 
 VII. Division of the powers of the mind . . . . 3? 
 VIII. Of social operations of mind .... 34 
 
 ESSAY II. OF THE POWERS WE HAVE BY MEANS OF OUR EX- 
 TERNAL SENSES. 
 
 Chap. I. Of the organs of sense .... 37 
 
 II. Of the impressions on the organs, nerves, and brain . . 39 
 
 III. Hypothesis concerning the nerves and brain . . .41 
 
 IV. False conclusions drawn from the impressions before mentioned 47 
 
 V. Of perception . . ... 53 
 
 VI. What it is to account for a phenomenon in nature , , 57 
 
 VII. Sentiments of philosophers about the perceptions of external 
 
 objects ; and first, of the theory of Father Malebranche . . 59 
 VIII, Of the common theory of perception, and of the sentiments of the 
 
 Peripatetics, and of Des Cartes . . . 64 
 
 IX. The sentiments of Mr. Locke . . . .74 
 
 X. The sentiments of Bishop Berkeley . . .81 
 XI. Bishop Berkeley's sentiments of the nature of ideas . . 90 
 
 XII. The sentiments of Mr. Hume . . . 96 
 
 XIII. The sentiments of Anthony Arnauld . . . 99 
 
 XIV. Reflections on the common theory of ideas . . 102 
 XV. Account of the system of Leibnitz . . .113 
 
 XVL Of sensation . . . . .117 
 
 XVII. Of the objects of perception j and, first, of primary and secondary 
 
 qualities . . . • 122 
 
 XVin. Of other objects of perception . . . . 129 
 
 XIX. Of matter and of space . . ... 133 
 
 XX. Of the evidence of sense, and of belief in general . . 139 
 
 XXI. Of the improvement of the senses . . . 144 
 
 XXII. Of the fallacy of the senses . ... 150 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ESSAY HI. OF MEMORY. 
 
 Page 
 
 158 
 
 Chap. r. Things obvious and certain with regard to memory ■ ^^^^ 
 
 11. Memoi'y an original faculty . • . ^ • ' • 
 
 III. Of duration . . ■ • ' 
 
 164 
 
 IV. Of identity . . • ■ . , i f 
 
 V. Mr. Locke's account of the origin of our ideas, and particularly ot 
 
 the idea of duration . • • ' ,_ 
 
 VI. Mr. Loclce's account of our personal identity . • ^^^ 
 
 VU. Theories concerning memory 
 
 ESSAY IV. OF CONCEPTION. 
 Chap. I. Of conception, or simple apprehension in general . • J°^ 
 
 11. Theories concerning conception 
 HI. Mistakes concerning conception 
 IV. Of the train of thought in the mind 
 
 197 
 206 
 211 
 
 ESSAY V. OF ABSTRACTION. 
 
 Chap. I. Of general words . .... 225 
 
 II. Of general conceptions . ... "28 
 
 HI. Of general conceptions formed by analysing objects . . 232 
 
 IV. Of general conceptions formed by combination . • 2o/ 
 
 V. Observations concerning the names given to our general notions 245 
 
 VI. Opinion of philosophers about universals . . • 24ei 
 
 ESSAY VI. OF JUDGMENT. 
 
 Chap. 1. Of judgment in general .... 259 
 
 II. Of common sense . . ... 270 
 
 III. Sentiments of philosophers concerning judgment . . 277 
 
 IV. Of first principles In general . . . 289 
 V. The first principles of contingent truths . . . 309 
 
 VI. First principles of nccessaiy truths . ... 314 
 
 Vll. Opinions, ancient and modern, about first principles . 328 
 
 VIIl. Of prejudices, the causes of error . . . 337 
 
 ESSAY VII. OF REASONING. 
 
 Chap. 1. Of reasoning in general, and of demonstration . . 347 
 
 II. Whether morality be capable of demonstration . . 351 
 
 III. Of probable reasoning .... 356 
 
 IV. Of Mr. Hume's scepticism with regard to reason . . 360 
 
 368 
 
 ESSAY VIII. OF TASTE. 
 Chap. I. Of taste in general . . , _ 
 
 II. Of the objects of taste, and first of novelty . . ' . 372 
 
 III. Of grandeur . . . _ , ' 374 
 
 IV. Of beauty . . . _ , 3gQ 
 
 » 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 Page 
 AN ESSAY ON QUANTITY . . . . 396 
 
 ANALYSIS OF ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC . . . . 402 
 
 ESSAYS ON THE ACTIVE POWERS OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 Introduction . ... 440 
 
 ESSAY L OF ACTIVE POWER IN GENERAL. 
 
 Chap. I. Of the motion of active power . . . 441 
 
 11. The same subject . . . . . 445 
 
 III. Of Mr. Loclje's account of our idea of power . . 450 
 
 IV. Of Mr. Hume's opinion of the idea of powe* . . 451 
 
 V. Whether beings that hare no will nor understanding may have 
 
 active power ? ... . 4.55 
 
 VI. Of the efficient causes of the phenomena of nature . 459 
 VII. Of the extent of human power . . . 462 
 
 ESSAY II. OF THE WILL. 
 
 Chap. I. Observations concerning the will . . • 468 
 
 I [. Of the influence of incitements and motives upon the will . 471 
 
 III. Of operations of mind which may be called voluntary . 477 
 
 IV. Corollaries . ... .484 
 
 ESSAY III. OF THE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 
 
 PART I. OF THE MECHANICAL PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 
 
 Chap. I. Of the principles of action in general . . . 486 
 
 II. Of instinct . . ... 489 
 
 III. Of habit . . .... 495 
 
 ESSAY III. PART II. 
 
 OF ANIMAL PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 
 
 Chap. I. Of appetites . . . 498 
 
 II. Of desires .... .502 
 
 III. Of benevolent affection in general . . . 507 
 
 IV. Of the particular benevolent affections . . 511 
 V. Of malevolent affections . ■ .519 
 
 VI. Of passion . . . ... 525 
 
 VII. Of disposition ... . . . 531 
 
 VIII. Of opinion . • ... 534 
 
 ESSAY III. PART III. 
 
 OF THE RATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 
 
 Chap. I. There are rational principles of action in man . . 538 
 
 II. Of regard to our good upon the whole . . , 539 
 
 III. The tendency of this principle . . . 542 
 
 IV. Defects of this principle . ... 545 
 
 V. Of the notion of duty, rectitude, moral obligation . . 548 
 VI. Of the sense of duty . • ■ • 552 
 
 VII. Of moral approbation and disapprobation . . 556 
 
 VIII. Observations concerning conscience . . . 560 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 ESSAY IV. OF THE LIBERTY OF MORAL AGENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Chap.^ I, The notioQs of moral liberty and necessity stated . • 567 
 
 II. Of the words, cause and effect, action, and active power . 570 
 
 III. Causes of the ambiguity of those words . • 573 
 
 IV. Of the influence of motives . . . • 578 
 V. Liberty consistent with government . . • 584 
 
 VI. First argument for liberty . • • • 588 
 
 VIT. Secpnd argument . .... 594 
 
 VIIL Third argument . . . . . 596 
 
 IX. Of arguments for necessity . . . • 599 
 
 X. The same subject . .... 605 
 
 XI- Of the permission of evil . . ... 609 
 
 ESSAY V. OF MORALS. 
 
 Chap. I. Of the first principles of morals . . . • GIO 
 
 II. Of systems of morals . . . . . 621 
 
 III. Of systems of natural jurisprudence . . . 624 
 
 IV. Whether an action deserving moral approbation, must be done 
 
 with the belief of its being morally good . . 628 
 
 V. Whether justice be a natural or an artificial virtue . 635 
 VI. Of the nature and obligation of a contract . . 653 
 
 VII. That moral approbation implies a real judgment . . 663 
 
E SS A Y S 
 
 ON THE 
 
 INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF MAN. 
 
 ESSAY L 
 
 PRELIMINARY. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EXPLICATION OP WORDS. 
 
 There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than 
 the ambiguity 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 excluded from mathematics and na- 
 tural philosophy than from other sciences. In mathematics it had no place 
 from the beginning : Mathematicians having had the wisdom to define ac- 
 curately the terms they use, and to, lay down, as axioms, the first principles 
 on which their reasoning is grounded. Accordingly we find no parties 
 among mathematicians, and hardly any disputes. 
 
 In natural philosophy, there was no less sophistry, no less dispute and 
 uncertainty, than in other sciences, until, about a century and a half ago, 
 * this science began to be built upon the foundation of clear definitions and 
 self-evident axioms. Since that time, the science, as if watered with the 
 dew of Heaven, hath grown apace ; disputes have ceased, truth hath pre- 
 vailed, and the science hath received greater increase in two centuries than 
 in two thousand! 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 definitions may not 
 be sought, where no definition can be given, nor logical definitions be at- 
 tempted, 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 
 tp 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 explication of the meaning of a word, 
 by words whose meaning is already known. Hence it is evident, that every 
 
2 EXPLICATION OF WORDS. QeSSAI'' !• 
 
 word cannot be defined; for the definition must consist of words; a«d there 
 could be no definition, if there were not words previously understood with- 
 out definition. Common words, therefore, ought to be used in their com- 
 mon acceptation; and, when they have diflferent acceptations in common 
 language, these, when it is necessary, ought to be distinguished. -But they 
 require no definition. It is suflicient to define words that are uncommon, 
 or that are used in an uncommon meaning. t.. i, t, i. 
 
 It may farther be observed, that there are many words, which, though 
 they may need explication, cannot be logically defined. A logical definition, 
 that is, a strict and proper definition, must express the kind of the thing 
 defined, and the specific difl'erence by which the species defined is distin- 
 guished irom 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 definition, it is evident, that no word 
 can be logically defined which does not denote a species; because such 
 things only can have a specific diflference; and a specific diiferenceis essen- 
 tial to a logical definition. On this account there can be no logical de- 
 finition of individual things, such as London or Paris. Individuals are 
 distinguished either by proper names, or by accidental circumstances of 
 time or place ; but they have no specific diflFerence ; and therefore, though 
 they may be known by proper names, or may be described by circumstances 
 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 some- 
 times that we have not words to express the specific diflference. Thus a 
 scarlet colour is no doubt a species of colour ; but how shall we express 
 the specific diiFerence by which scarlet is distinguished from green or blue ? 
 The diflference of them is immediately perceived by the eye ; but we have 
 not words to express it. These things we are taught by logic. 
 
 Without having recpurse to the principles of logic, we may easily be 
 satisfied that words cannot be defined, which signify things perfectly sim- 
 ple, and void of all composition. This observation, I think, was first made 
 by Des Cartes, and afterwards more fully illustrated by Locke. And how- 
 ever obvious it appears to be, many instances may be given of great phi- 
 losophers who have perplexed 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 de- 
 finitions will always be either obscure or false. It was one of the capital 
 defects of Aristotle's philosophy, that he pretended to define the simplest 
 .things, which neither can be, nor need to be defined ; such as ti7ne and 
 motion. Among modern philosophers, I know none that has abused de- 
 finition so much as Wolfius, the famous German philosopher, who, in a 
 work on the human mind, called Psychologia Empirica, consisting of many 
 hundred propositions, fortified by demonstrations, with. a proportional ac- 
 companiment of definitions, corollaries, and scholia, has given so many 
 definitions of things, which cannot be defined, and so many demonstrations 
 of things, self-evident, that the greatest part of the work consists of tau- 
 tology, and ringing changes upon words. 
 
 There is no subject in which there is more frequent occasion to use 
 words that 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 
 
CHAP. I.] EXPLICATION OF WORDS. 3 
 
 what it is to think, to apprehend, to believe, to will, to desire. Every 
 man who understands the language has some notion of the meaning at 
 these words ,• and every man, who is capable of reflection, may, by at- 
 tending to the operations of his own mind, which are" signified by them, 
 form a clear and distinct notion of them ; but they cannot be logically 
 defined. 
 
 Since therefore it is often impossible to define words which we must 
 use on this subject, we must as much as possible use comnlon words in 
 their common acceptation, 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 as well as we can without affecting to 
 give logical definitions, when the nature of the thing does not admit of 
 them. 
 
 The following observations on the meaning of certain words are in- 
 tended" 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 thinlcs, 
 remembers, reasons, wiUs. The essence both of body and of mind is un- 
 known to us. We know certain properties of the first, and certain opera- 
 tions of the last, and by these only we can define or describe them. We 
 define body to be that which is extended, solid, movable, divisible. In 
 like manner, we define mind to be that which thinks. We are conscious 
 that we think, and that we have a variety of thoughts of different kinds ; 
 such as seeing, hearing, remembering, deliberating, resolving, loving, 
 hating, and many 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 understand 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 operations, properly so called ; it is ex- 
 tended, divisible, movable, inert ; it continues in any state in which it 
 is put ; every change of its state is the effect of some force impressed upon 
 it, and is exactly proportional to the force impressed}, and in the precise 
 direction of that force. These are the general 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. 
 
 But the mind is from its very nature a living and active being. Every 
 thing 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, reasoning, willing, and the like. It seems therefore to be 
 the natural judgment of mankind, 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 ? may it not be a vulgar error } philosophers who think so, have, 
 no doubt, a right to be heard. But until it is proved that the mind is not 
 
 b2 
 
4 EXPLICATION OF WOEDS. [IeSSAY I. 
 
 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 phrase- 
 ology invented by philosophers, which implies its being merely passive. 
 
 3. The words power &nA. faculty, which are often used in speaking of 
 the mind, need little explication. Every operation supposes a power in 
 the being that operates ; for, to suppose any thing to operate, which has 
 no power to operate, is manifestly absurd. But, on the other hand, there 
 is no absurdity in supposing a being to have power to operate, when it 
 does not 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 •wordjaculty 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, 
 but habits. There must be something in the constitution of the mind 
 necessary to our being able to acquire habits, and this is commonly called 
 capacitp. 
 
 4. We frequently meet with a distinction in writers upon this subject, 
 between things in the mind, and things external to the mind. The powers, 
 faculties, and operations of the mind, are things in the mind. Every thing 
 is said to be in the mind, of which the mind is the subject. It is self-evi- 
 dent, 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 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. 
 
 There is a figurative sense in which things are said to be in the mind, 
 which it is sufiicieat 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 of it. In this sense, ex- 
 ternal 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 mmds, and is so well understood as to need no definition. 
 
 To perceive, to remember, to be conscious, and to conceive or imaeine are 
 words common to philosophers, and to the vulgar. They signify different 
 operations of the mind, which are distinguished in all languages, and bv 
 aU men that think. I shall endeavour to use them in their most common 
 and proper acceptation, and I think they are hardly capable of strict de- 
 finition. But as some philosophers, in treating of the mind, have taken 
 the liberty to use them very improperly, so as to corrupt the Endish 
 language, and to confound things which the common understanding of 
 mankind hath always led them to distinguish, I shall make some obser- 
 vations on the meaning of them, that may prevent ambiguity or con- 
 fusion in the use of them. , & j. i«. »-uii 
 
 6. First, We are never said to perceive things, of the existence of which 
 
CHAP. 1.3 KXrLICATION OF WORDS. 5' 
 
 wc Lave not a full conviction. I may conceive or imagine a mountain of 
 gold, or a wingedhorse ; but no man says that he perceives such a creature 
 of imagination. Thus perception is distinguished from conception or 
 imagination. Secondly, Perception is applied 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 present, and not what is past. 
 We may remember 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 signified, 
 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 appKed to the evidence which we 
 have of external objects by our senses. But as this is a very clear and 
 cogent kind of evidence, the word is often applied by analogy to the evi- 
 dence of reason or of testimony, when it is clear and cogent. The per- 
 ception of external objects by our senses, is an operation of the mind of 
 a peculiar nature, and ought to have a name appropriated to it. It has 
 so in all languages. And, in the 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 writings, it has no obscurity. Although this abuse is not 
 dhaigeable 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 name of impressions, he comprehends all our sensations, 
 passicms, 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 
 memory, and of the perceptions of imagination ; and he might as well 
 speak of the hearing of sight, or of the smelling of touch ; for, surely, 
 hearing is not mwe diflferent from sight, or smelling from touch, than 
 perceiving is from remembering or imagining. 
 
 7. Consciousness is a word used by Philosophers, to signify that im- 
 mediate 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 consciousness is only of things present. To apply con- 
 sciousness to things past, which sometimes 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 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. 
 
6 EXPLICATION OF WOEDS. [^KSSAY I. 
 
 As that consciousness by which we have a k nowledge of the operations or 
 our own minds, is a different power from that by which we perceive ex- 
 ternal objects, and as these different powers have different names m our 
 language, and, I believe^ in all languages, a Philosopher ought carefully 
 to preserve this distinction, and never to confound things so different in 
 tlieir nature. 
 
 8; Conceiving, imagining, and apprehending, are commonly used as 
 synonymoiis in our language, and signify the same thing which the Lo- 
 gicians call simple apprehension. This is an operation of the mind different 
 from all those we have mentioned. Whatever' wb perceive, whatever we 
 remember, whatever we are conscious of, we have: a full persuasion or con- 
 viction 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 
 caimot be the objecti of perception or of consciousness ; but what never 
 had, nor has, any existence may be conceived. Every man knows that it 
 is as easy to conceive a winged horse or a centaur, 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 judgment at all. 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 authorised 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. Politeness and 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 sayingi " This is 
 my opinion," or, " this is my judgment," which has the air of dogmatical- 
 ness, we say, " I conceive it to be thus, I imagine or apprehend it to be 
 thus;" which is understood as a modest declaration of our judgment. 
 In like manner, when any thing is said which we take to be impossible, 
 we say, " We cannot -conceive it," meaning, that we cannot believe it. 
 
 •Thus we see, that the words conceive, imagine, apprehend, have two 
 meanings, and are used to express two operations of the mind, which ought 
 never to be confounded. Sometimes they express simple apprehension, 
 which implies no judgment at all ; sometimes they express judgment of 
 opinion. This ambiguity ought to be attended to, that we may not impose 
 upon ourselves or others in the use of them. Tiie ambiguity is indeed 
 remedied in a great measure by their construction. When they are used 
 to express simple apprehension, they are followed by a noun in the ae- 
 cttsalive case, which signifies the object conceived. But when they are 
 used to express opinion or judgment, they are commonly followed- by a 
 verb in the injinitive mood. " I conceive an Egyptian pyramid." This 
 implies no judgment. " I conceive the Egyptian pyramids to be the most 
 ancient 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 si 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 obelisk. Yet it may be observed 
 that- even a. proposition may be simply apprehended without ft.rming any 
 judgment of its truth or falsehood: for it is one thing to concei'^ the 
 meaning of a proposition ; it is another thing- to judge it to be true or false 
 
CHAP. 1.] EXPLICATION OF WORDS. 7 
 
 Although the distinction between simple apprehension, and every de- 
 gree of assent or judgment, be perfectiy evident to every man who reflects 
 attentively on what passes in his own mind; although it is very necessarv, 
 in treating of the powers of the mind, to attend carefullv to tiis distinc- 
 tion, yet, in the aflFairs of common life, it is seldom necessary to observe 
 It accurately. On this account we shall find, in aU common languages, the 
 words which express one of those operations frequently applied to the 
 '^l J think, to suppose, to imagine, to conceive, to apprehend, are 
 
 the words we use to express simple apprehension; but they are all fre- 
 qnentlj used to express judgment. Their ambiguity seldom occasions any 
 ^convenience in the common afl'airs of life, for which language is framed. 
 But It has perplexed Philosophers, in treating of the operations of the 
 mmd, 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 they are em- 
 ployed. He that perceives, must perceive something; and that which he 
 perceives is called the object of his perception. To perceive, without 
 having any object of perception, is impossible, The mind that perceives, 
 the object perceived, and 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 ;" / is the person or mind ; 
 the active verb see denote the operation of that mind; and the moon de- 
 notes the object. What we have said of perceiving, is equally applicable 
 to most operations of the miiid. Such operations 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 nouH fol- 
 lowing 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 understanding, have distinguished these three things as dif- 
 ferent, to wit, the operations of the mind, which are expressed by active 
 verbs, the mind itself, which is the nominative to those verbs, and the 
 object, which is, in the oblique case, governed by them. 
 
 It would have been unnecessary to explain so obvious a distinction, if 
 some systems 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 
 imagination, and the ideas of sense, it is often impossible, 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, entitl^ to examine even those distinctions 
 that are to be found in the structure of all languages ; and, if he is able 
 to show that there is no foundation for them in the nature of the things 
 distinguished ; if he cau 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 philosophy. But when, in the 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 Philosophers, we must bring the old light of 
 
8 EXI-LICATION OF WORDS. [[ESSAY !• 
 
 common sense along with us, and by it judge of the new light which the 
 Philosopher communicates to us. But when we are required to put out 
 the old light altogether, that we may foUow the new, we have reason to be 
 on our guard. There may be distinctions that have a real foundation, and 
 which maybe necessary in philosophy, which are not made in common 
 language, because not necessary in the common business ot hte. Uut 1 
 believe no instance will be found of a distinction made in aU languages, 
 which has not a just foundation in nature. •■• i • • 
 
 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 observations upon it. There are chiefly two meanings of this 
 word in modern authors, a popular and a philosophical. 
 
 First, In popular language, idea signifies the same thing as conception, 
 apprehension, 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 aU. It was before observed, that conceiving or ap- 
 prehending, has always been considered by all men as an act or operation 
 of the mind, and on that account has been expressed 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 commonly express by the active verbs conceiving or 
 apprehending. 
 
 When the word idea is taken in this popular 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. Tlie 
 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 seuse, has precisely the same meaning with conceiving, 
 imagining, apprehending, and has likewise the same ambiguity. It may, 
 therefore, be doubted, whether the introduction of this word into popular 
 discourse, to signify the operation of conceiving or apprehending, was at 
 all necessary. For, Jlrst, We have, as has been shewn, several words which 
 are either originally English, or have been long naturalised, that express 
 the same thing ; why therefore should we adopt a Greek word in place of 
 these, any more than a French or a German word? Besides, the words of 
 our own language are less ambiguous. For the word idea has, for many 
 ages, been used by Philosophers as a term of art ; and in the different 
 systems of Philosophers means very different things. 
 
 Secondly, According to the philosophical 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 beiijg adopted 
 into common language), " are nothing but the immediate objects of the mind 
 in thmking." But of those objects of thought, called Ideas, different sects 
 of Philosophers have given a very different account. Bruckerus, a learned 
 German, wrote a whole book giving the history of ideas. 
 
 The most ancient system we have concerning 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 cer 
 
CHAP. 1.3 EXVLICATION OF WOllDS. 9 
 
 tain 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 Timseus 
 the Locrian, a Pythagorean Philosopher, concerning the soul of the world, 
 in which we find the substance of Plato's doctrine concerning ideas. They 
 were held to be eternal, uncreated, and immutable forms or models, ac- 
 cording to which the Deity made every species of things that exists of an 
 eternal matter. Those philosophers held, that there are three first prin- 
 ciples of all things. First, An eternal matter, of which all things were 
 made : Secondly, Eternal and immaterial forms or ideas,according to which 
 they were made : And, Thirdly, An efficient cause, the Deity, who made 
 them. The mind of man, in order to its being fitted for the contemplation 
 of these eternal ideas, must undergo a certain purification, and be weaned 
 from sensible things. The eternal ideas are the, only object of science ; be- 
 cause the objects 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 
 Platonists, 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 
 understanding, the natures and essences of all things being perfectly known 
 to him from eternity. - 
 
 It ought to be observed, that the Pythagoreans and the Platonists, 
 whether elder or latter, made to the eternal ideas to be objects of science 
 only, and of abstract contemplation, not the objects of sense. And in this 
 the ancient system of eternal ideas differs from the modern one of Father 
 Malebranche. 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 discover to us as much 
 of his ideas as he sees proper, according to certain established laws of 
 nature : and in his idees, as in a mirror, we perceive whatever we do per- 
 ceive of the external world. 
 
 Thus we have three systems, which maintain, that the ideas, which are 
 the immediate objects of human knowledge, are eternal and immutable, 
 and existed before the things which they represent. There are other sys- 
 tems, according to which, the ideas, which are the immediate objects of all 
 our thoughts, are posterior to the things which they represent, and de- 
 rived from them. We shall 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 them- 
 selves, 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 spiritualised, so 
 as to become objects of memory and imagination, and, at last, of pure in- 
 tellection. When they, are objects of memory and imagination, they get 
 the name oi phantasms. When, by farther refinement, and being stripped 
 of their particularities, they become objects of science, they are called in- 
 telligible species: so that every immediate object, whether of sense, of 
 
10 EXPLICATION 01-' WOUDS. [ESSAY 1. 
 
 memory^ of imaginatioiij 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 disquisitions with re- 
 gard 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 ; con- 
 cerning the number and oiBces 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 doc- 
 trine of modern philosophers concerning ideas is built upon it. Mr. Locke, 
 Avho uses this word so very frequently, tells us, that he means the same 
 thing by it as is commonly 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 Peripatetic 
 system, and the meaning of them is to be learned from it. 
 
 The theory of Democritus and Epicurus on this subject was not very 
 unlike to that of the Peripatetics. 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 Peripatetics and Epicureans of old, 
 have conceived, 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 internal 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 remembrance, no conception of the 
 mediate object. - 
 
 When, therefore, in common language, we speak of having an idea of 
 any thing, we mean 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 conceives 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 something which never 
 existed. This is the philosophical meaning of the word idea; and we rnay 
 observe, that this meaning of that word is built upon a philosophical 
 opinion : for, if philosophers had not believed that there are such imme- 
 diate 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, although I may have occasion to 
 use the word idea in this philosophical sense in explaining the opinions of 
 others, I shall have no occasion 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, notion, apprehension, answer 
 
CHAP. I.] EXPLICATION OF WORDS. 1 1 
 
 the purpose as well as the Greek word idea } with this advantage, that 
 they, are less ambiguous. There is, indeed, a meaning 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 BIr. 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) all the per- 
 ceptions of the human mind into two classes or species, which are distin- 
 guished by their different degrees of force and vivacity. The less lively 
 and forcible are commonly denominated thoughts or ideas. The other 
 species want a name in our language, and in most others j let us therefore 
 use a little freedom, and call them impressions. By the term impressions, 
 then, I mean all our more lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel, 
 or love, or hate, or desire, or will; Ideas are the 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 
 impressionsi when applied to the mind ; and his explication of it, in his 
 Treatise of Human Nature, is to the same purpose. 
 
 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 language will not admit. 
 I find fault with Mr.-Hume's phraseology in the words I have quoted. 
 
 First, Because he gives the name of perceptions to every operation of 
 the mind. Love is a perception, hatred a perception. Desire is a per- 
 ception, will is a perception ; and, by the same rule, a doubt, a question, 
 & command, is a perception. This is an intolerable abuse of language, 
 which no philosopher has authority to introduce. 
 
 Secondly, When Mr. Hume says, that <uie may divide all the perceptions 
 of the human mind into tiuo classes or species, tohich 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 
 another. 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 different individual. To say, therefore, 
 that two different classes or species of perceptions are distinguished by the 
 degrees of their force and vivacity, is to confound a difference of degree 
 with a difference oi species, which every man of understanding knows how 
 to distinguish. 
 
 Thirdly, 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 degree 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 impression. But why 
 
12 EXPLICATION OF WOKDS. [ESSAY I- 
 
 has not the Author told us, whether he gives the name of impression to the 
 object seen, or to that act of my mind by which I see it ? 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 impression ? We are left to 
 guess this ; nor does all that this Author writes about impressions clear 
 this point. Every thing 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 impression. " When we hear, 
 when we feel, when we love, when we hate, when we desire, 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 impression. But what is the im- 
 pression ? Is it my country, or is it the affection I bear to it ? I ask the 
 Philosopher this question ;' but I find no answer to it. And when I read 
 all that he has written on this subject, I find this word impression some- 
 timesused to signify 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 writing on other subjects, that Mr. Hume's 
 system with regard to the mind required a language of a different struc- 
 ture from the common ; or, if expressed in plain English, would have been 
 too shocking to the common sense oif mankind. To give an instance or 
 two of this. If a man receive 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 impresiion. 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 
 vivacity. Here he insinuates a tenet of his own, in contradiction to the 
 common sense 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 arguments 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 seeing 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, 61/ 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 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 analogy, 
 like most other words, its meaning is extended, so as to signify any change 
 
CHAP. I.] EXPLICATION OF WOEDS. 13 
 
 produced in a body by the operation of some external cause. A blow of 
 the hand makes no impression on a stone-wall ; but a battery 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, authorises this application of it. As when we say 
 that admonition and reproof make little impression on those who are con- 
 firmed 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. 
 
 I It may be observed, that in such examples, an impression made on the 
 /mind always implies some change of purpose or will ; some new habit pro- 
 duced, or some former habit weakened; some passion raised or allayed. 
 When such changes are produced by persuasion, example, or any external 
 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 impression 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 impression. 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 impressions. If they be impressions, they cannot be operations of the 
 mind. In the structure of all languages, they are considered as acts or 
 operations of the mind itself, and the names given them imply this. To 
 call them impressions, therefore, is to trespass against the structure, not of 
 a particular 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 sufficiently copious in words, is equally fit to express all opinions, 
 whether they be true or false. I apprehend, however, that there is an ex- 
 ception 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 reaUy is ; for we find in all 
 languages the same parts of speech, the distinction of nouns and verbs, the 
 distinction of nouns into adjective and substantive, 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 shows an uniformity among men in 
 those opinions upon which the structure of language 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 
 meaning unless when joined to a substantive. If there was any nation who 
 
14 EXPLICATION OF WORDS. [ESSAY I. 
 
 did not distinguish between acting and being acted uj)onj 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. 
 
 The structure of all languages is grounded upon common notions, 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 foundaition. 
 
 12. Sensation is a name given by philosophers 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 exist- 
 ence. It can be neither greater nor less in degree or duration, nor any 
 thing 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 and 
 sentient being can have the least resemblance 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 dis- 
 joined by abstraction, in order to our having a distinct and scientific notion 
 of the complex operation. In such operations, sensation for the most part 
 makes an ingredient. 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, overlooking 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 
 corresponding to the object perceived, and such sensations have, in many 
 cases, in all languages, 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 haive 
 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 like- 
 wise of importance that the name of sensation should, in philosophical 
 writings, be appropriated to signify this simple act of the mind, without 
 including any thing 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 
 
CHAP. II.] PRINCIPLES TAKEN FOR GRANTED. 15 
 
 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 worAfeeling is used to signify the same thing as sensation, 
 which we have just now explained ; and, in this sense, it has no object ; 
 the feeling and the thing felt are one and the same. 
 
 Perhaps betwixt feeling taken in this last sense, and sensation, there 
 may be this small diflFerence, that sensation is most commonly 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 determinations in matters of tastei^ 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 xeasans,Jirst, That I 
 may be the better understood when I use 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 application 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 lan- 
 guage, the reader ought to have -yarning of this, otherwise we shall impose 
 upon ourselves and upon him. 
 
 A very respectable writer has givfin a good example of this kind, by 
 explaining, in an Appendix to his Elements of Criticism, 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. 
 
 CHAPTER II, 
 
 PBINCIPLES TAKEN FOR GRANTED. 
 
 As there are words common to Philosophers and to the vulgar, which 
 need no explication, 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 aU men, being evident" in them- 
 selves, 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 understanding agree in such principles, and 
 consider a man as lunatic, or destitute of common sense, who denies or 
 calls them 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 
 
16 PRINCIPLES TAKEN FOE GBANTED- L^SSAY I- 
 
 his error ? Surely no wise man would. For before men can reason toge- 
 ther, 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 common understanding know ; or such, at least, 
 as they give a ready assent to, as soon as they are proposed and understood. 
 
 Siich principles, when we have occasion to use them in science, are called 
 axioms. And, although it be not absolutely necessary, 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 principles, upon which 
 they build their reasonings. 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 nothing 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 mathematics, 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 better able to judge what stress 
 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 conclusions can only be probable. If the 
 principles be false, dubious, or obscure, the superstructure that is built upon 
 them must partake of the weakness of the foundation. 
 
 Sir Isaac Newton, the greatest of natural 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 reasonings of philosophers, in that science, were as 
 vague and uncertain as they are in most others. Nothing was fixed ; all 
 was dispute and controversy : but, by this happy expedient, a solid foun- 
 dation is laid in that science, and a noble superstructure is raised upon it, 
 about which there is now no more dispute or controversy among men of 
 knowledge, than there is about the conclusions of mathematics. 
 
 It may, however, be observed, that the first principles of natural philo- 
 sophy are of a quite different nature from mathematical axioms : they have 
 not the same kind of evidence, nor are they necessary truths, as mathe- 
 matical axioms are : they are such as these ; that similar eflfects 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 sulficient to account for the 
 effects. These are principles, which, though they have not the same kind 
 of evidence 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 conceive 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 occasion for 
 this ; because very ingenious men, such as Des Cartes, Malebranche, Ar- 
 nauld, Locke, and many others, have lost much labour by not distinguishing 
 
CHAP, ll] PMNCIPLES TAKEN EOR GEANTED. 17 
 
 things which require proof, from things which, though they may admit of 
 illustration, yet being self-evident, do not admit of proof. When men at- 
 tempt to deduce such self-evident principles from others more evident, they 
 always fall into inconclusive 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 commonly decline it. Yet it is not impossible, that what is only a 
 vulgar prejudice may be mistaken for a first principle. Nor is it impos- 
 sible, 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 per- 
 haps in this science than in any other ; but they are not altogether 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 de- 
 monstrative, but intuitive. They require not proof, but to be placed in 
 a proper point of view. This will be shown more fully in its proper place, 
 and applied to those very principles which we now assume. In the mean 
 time, 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 cha- 
 racter. 
 
 1. First, then, I shall take it for granted, that I thinl; that I remember, 
 that I reason, and, in general, that 1 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 deceive him, and to require proof that it 
 cannot, I know of no proof that can be given him; he must be left to him- 
 self 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 every thing that hath this testimony is to be 
 taken as a first principle. 
 
 2. As by consciousness we know certainly the existence of our present 
 thoughts and passions ; so we know the past by remembrance. And when 
 they are recent, and the remembrance of them fresh, the knowledge of 
 them, from such distinct remembrance, is, in its certainty and evidence, 
 next to that of consciousness. 
 
 3. But it is to be observed, that we are conscious of many thmgs to 
 which we give little or no attention. We can hardly attend 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 Jt- 
 self. Thus, when a man is angry, his attention is turned to the mjury 
 done him, or the injurious person ; and he gives very little attention to the 
 passion of anger, although he is conscious of it. 'It is m our power, how- 
 ever when we come to the years of understanding, to give attention to our 
 own'thoughts and passions, and the various operations of our minds. And 
 when we make these the objects of our attention, either while they are 
 present, or when they are recent and fresh in our memory, this act of the 
 mind is called reflection. , „ ,. 
 
 We take it for granted, therefore, that, by attentive reflection, a man 
 may have a clear and certain knowledge of the operations of his own mind ; 
 
18 PRINCIPLES TAKEN FOR GRANTED. [^ESSAY I. 
 
 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 internal 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 every thing with regard to the operations of 
 his own mind, which he clearly and distinctly discerns by attentive re- 
 flection. 
 
 4. I take it for granted, that all the thoughts I am conscious of, or re- 
 member, 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 a proof that the thoughts he is successively conscious of he- 
 long 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 himself under the necessity of believing 
 his own identity, and continued existence. The conviction of this is im- 
 mediate and irresistible ; 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 themselves, but must be in something else to which they belong, as 
 qualities, or attributes. 
 
 Thus, motion cannot exist but in something that is moved. And to 
 suppose that there can be motion while every thing is at rest, is a gross 
 and palpable absurdity. In like manner, hardness and softness, sweetness 
 and bitterness, are things whicli 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 caUed their subject, and such 
 qualities necessarily suppose a subject. 
 
 Things which may exist by themselves,- and do not necessarily suppose 
 the existence of any thing else, are called substances; and with relation to 
 the qualities or attributes that belong to them, they are called the subjects 
 of such qualities or attributes. 
 
 AH the things which we immediately perceive 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, soft- 
 ness, motion, resistance, and such 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 qualities, 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 prin- 
 ciples and is not fit to be reasoned with. If he has common understanding;, 
 he will find that he cannot converse half an hour without saving things 
 which imply the contrary of what he professes to believe ° 
 
 In like manner, the things I am conscious of, such as thought, reasonino-, 
 desire, necessarily suppose something that thinks, that reasons, that de- 
 sires. We do not give the nanie of mind to thought, reaso,i, or desire ; but 
 to that being which thinks, which reasons, and which desires 
 
 That every act or operation, therefore, supposes an agent, that every 
 
CHAP. II.3 PRINCIPLES TAKE-N FOR GRAljTED. 19 
 
 quality supposes a subject, are things which I do not attempt to prove, 
 but take for granted. Every man of common understanding discerns this 
 immediately, and cannot entertain the least doubt of it. In all languages 
 we find certain words whicli, by grammarians, 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 person ; 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 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 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 remembering 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 minds 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 knoxu, denotes an 
 operation of mind. From the general structure of language, this verb re- 
 quires 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 Icnow, without having any object of know- 
 ledge, is an absurdity 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 show 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 expected 
 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 sus- 
 pected, in such cases, to difi^er from the rest of mankind, through pride, 
 obstinacy, or some favourite passion. Where there is such universal con- 
 sent in things not deep" nor intricate, but which lie, as it were, on .the sur- 
 face, 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 mind that loves" truth. Major enim pars eo fere deferri solet quo a 
 nalura deducitur. Cic. de Off. I. 41. . . 
 
 Perhaps it may be thought, that it is impossible to collect the opmions 
 of all men upon any point whatsoever, and, therefore, that this maxim can 
 be of no use. But there are many cases wherein it is otherwise. Who 
 can doubt, for instance, whether mankind have, m aU ages, believed the 
 existence of a material world, and that those things which they see and 
 handle are real, "and not mere illusions and apparitions ? Who can doubt, 
 whether mankind have universaUy believed, that every thing 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 
 
20 PMNCirLES TAKEN FOE GRAKTED. [ESSAY I. 
 
 there is a right" and a wrong in human conduct ? Some things whichj in 
 certain, circumstances, they ought to do, and other things which they ought 
 not to do? The universality of these opinions, and of many such that might 
 be named, is suificiently evident, from the whole tenor of men's conduct, 
 as far as our acquaintance reaches, and from the records of history, in all 
 ages and nations, that are transmitted to us. 
 
 There are other opinions that appear to be universal, from what is 
 common in the structure of all languages, ancient and modem, polished 
 and barbarous. Language is the express image and picture of human 
 thoughts ; and from the picture, we may often draw very certain con- 
 clusions 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, present, and future ; we find ad- 
 verbs, prepositions, and conjunctions. There are general rules of syntax 
 comrnon to all languages. This uniformity in the structure of language 
 shows a certain degree of uniformity in those notions upon which the struc- 
 ture of language is grounded. 
 
 We find, in the structure of all languages, the distinction of acting and 
 being acted upon, the distinction of action and agent, of quality and subject^ 
 and many others of the like kind ; which shows, that these distinctions are 
 founded in the universal sense of mankind. We shall have frequent occa- 
 sion 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 
 arguments 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 writers 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 their candour in their pro- 
 fessions of scepticism. 
 
 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 allj under a necessity of trusting to 
 them. Mt. Hume has been so candid as to acknowledge this ; and it is 
 no less true of those who have not shown the same candour : For I never 
 heard that any sceptic ran his head against a post, or stept 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 imposed 
 upon in this way, when such principles openly lay claim to the character, 
 and are thereby fairly exposed to the examination of those who may dis- 
 pute their authority. We do not pretend, that those things that are laid 
 down as first prmciples may not be examined, and that we ought not to 
 have our ears open to what may be pleaded against their being admitted 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 character is unimpeached. But if it can be shown that he is 
 suborned., or that he is influenced by malice or partial favour, his testimonv 
 loses all Its credit, and is justly rejected. 
 
CHAF. III.J OF HYPOTHESES. 21 
 
 CHAPTER HI, 
 
 OF HYPOTHESES. 
 
 Every branch of human knowledge hath its proper principles, its pro- 
 per ioundation and method of reasoning ; and, if we endeavour to build it 
 upon any other foundation, it will never stand firm and stable. Thus the 
 historian builds upon testimony, and rarely indulges conjecture. The an- 
 tiquarian mixes conjecture with testimony ; and the former often makes 
 the larger ingredient. The mathematician pays not the least regard either 
 to testimony or conjecture, but deduces every thing, by demonstrative 
 reasoning, from his definitions and axioms. Indeed, whatever is built 
 upon conjecture, is improperly called science ; for conjecture may beget 
 opinion, but cannot produce knowledge. Natural philosophy must be 
 built upon the_ phenomena of the material system, discovered by observa- 
 tion 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 expected, that, in many ages, they should 
 discover the proper and scientific way of proceeding in philosophical dis- 
 quisitions. Accordingly 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 authority to their opinions. Thus, in 
 early ages, 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 ; because 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, with- 
 out any claim to superior merit but this, that it is a more ingenious sys- 
 tem of conjectures, and accounts better for common appearances. 
 
 To omit many ancient systems of this kind, Des Cartes, about the mid- 
 dle of the last century, dissatisfied with the materia prima, the substantial 
 Jbrms, and the occult qualities of the peripatetics, conjectured boldly, that 
 the heavenly bodies of our system are carried round by a vortex or whirl- 
 pool of subtile jnatter, just as straws and chafiF 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 despatches these animal spirits as Ijer messengers, to put in motion the 
 several musples of the body, as there is occasion. By such conjectures as 
 these, Des Cartes could account for every phenomenon in nature, in such a 
 plausible manner as gave satisfaction to a great part of the learned world 
 for more than half a century. 
 
 Such conjectures in philosophical matters have commonly got the name 
 of hypotheses or theories. And the invention of an hypothesis, founded on 
 
22 OF HYPOTHESES. [^ESSAY I. 
 
 some slight probabilities, which accounts for many appearances of nature, 
 has been considered as the highest attainment of a philosopher. ^ If the 
 hypothesis hangs well together, is embellished by a lively imagination, and 
 serves to account for common appearances, it is considered by many as 
 having all the qualities that should recommend it to our belief; and all 
 that ought to be required in a philosophical system. 
 
 There is such proneness in men of genius to invent hypotheses, and in 
 others to acquiesce in them as the utmost vi^hich the human faculties can 
 attain in philosophy, that it is of the last consequence to the progress 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 yery pro- 
 bable conjectures concerning the works of men, every conjecture 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 wis- 
 dom exceeds that of a child. If a child were to conjecture how an army 
 is to be forined in the day of battle ; how a city is to be fortified, or a state 
 governed ; what chance has he to guess right ? 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. 
 
 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 made concerning the inward structure 
 of the human body, never one was made by conjecture. Accurate observa- 
 tions of anatomists have brought to light innumerable artifices of nature 
 in the contrivance of this machine of the human body, which we cannot 
 but admire as excellently adapted to their several purposes. But the most 
 sagacious physiologist never dreamed of them till they were discovered. 
 On the other hand, innumerable conjectures, formed in diflFerent ages, with 
 regard to the structure of the body, have been confuted by observation, 
 and none ever confirmed. 
 
 What we have said of the internal structure 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 experiments ; and such discoveries 
 have always tended to refute, but not to confirm, the theories and hypo- 
 theses which ingenious men had 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 contenfpt h?po- 
 theses in every branch of philosophy, and to despair of ever advancing 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. 
 
CHAP, nr.] OF HYPOTHESES. 23 
 
 This hypothesiSj however ridiculous it appears to liSj might seem very 
 reasonable to other Indians^ who knew no more than the inventor of it"; 
 and the same will be the fate of all hypotheses 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 hundreds 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, wiU 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 capacity and skill of the inventor; 
 and therefore 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 philo- 
 sophy, that it is of the utmost consequence to every man, who would make 
 any progress in real knowledge, to treat them with just contempt, as the 
 reveries of vain and fanciful men, whose pride makes them conceive 
 themselves able to unfold the mysteries of nature by the force of their 
 genius. A learned man, in an epistle to Des Cartes, has the following ob- 
 servation, which very much deserved the attention of that philosopher, and 
 of all that come after him : " When men, sitting in their closet, and con- 
 sulting only their books, attempt disquisitions into nature, they may in- 
 deed tell how they would have made the world, if God had given them 
 that in commission : that is, they may describe chimeras, which correspond 
 ^with the imbecility of their own minds, no less than the admirable beauty 
 of the universe corresponds 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 in- 
 quiries into the structure of the mind and its operations, that no regard is 
 due to the conjectures or hypotheses of philosophers, however ancient, how- 
 ever generally received. Let us accustom ourselves to try every opinion 
 by the touchstone of fact and experience. What can fairly be deduced 
 from facts duly observed, or sufficiently attested, is genuine and pure; it 
 is the voice of God, and no fiction of human imagination. _ 
 
 The first rule of philosophizing laid down by the great Newton, is this ; 
 Caucus rerum naturalium, mm plures adniitti debere, qumn qute et i:era suit, 
 et earum phanomenis explkandis sufficlant. "No more causes, nor any- 
 other causes of natural eflfects ought to be admitted, but such as are both 
 true, and are sufficient for explaining their appearances." This is a golden 
 rule; it is the true and proper test, by which what is sound and solid in 
 philosophy may be distinguished from what is hollow and vain. 
 
 If a philosopher, therefore, pretend to show us the cause of any natural 
 effect, whether relating to matter or to mind; let us first consider ^yhether 
 there is sufficient evidence that the cause he assigns does really exist, it 
 there is not, reject it with disdain as a fiction which- ought to have no 
 place in genuine philosophy. If the cause assigned really exist, consider 
 
24 OF ANALOGY. [ESSAY I 
 
 in the next place whether the effect it is brought to ^^V^^^ J'^'^^'^^'^J 
 follows from it. Unless it hath these two conditions, it is good for nothing. 
 When Newton had shown the admirable effects of gravitation in our 
 planetary system, he must have felt a strong desire to know its cause. He 
 could have invented an hypothesis for this purpose, as many had done be- 
 fore him. But his philosophy was of another complexion Let us hear 
 what he says: Rationem harum gravitatis proprietatum ew phamments non 
 potui deducere, et hypotheses non Jingo. Quicquid emm ex phancncnis nan 
 deducitur hypothesis -oocanda est. Et hypotheses, sen metaphysic^, seu 
 physiccB, seu quaUtaium occultarum, seu mechanlccB, m philosophta ex- 
 ■perimentali locum non habent.. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OF ANALOGY, 
 
 It is natural to men to judge of things less known, by some similitude 
 they observe, 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 nature, 
 when there is reason to think that they are subject to the same laws, there 
 may be a considerable degree of probability in conclusions drawn from 
 analogy. _ 
 
 Thus, we may observe a very great similitude between this earth which 
 we inhabit, and the other planets, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and 
 M'ercury. 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 suc- 
 cession 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 unreasonable to think, that those 
 planets may, like our earth, be the habitation of various orders of living crea- 
 tures. There is some probability in this conclusion from analogy. 
 
 In medicine. Physicians must, for the most part, be directed in their 
 prescriptions 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 generally 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 ob- 
 served, 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, «eldom dissected 
 human bodies; but very often the bodies of those quadrupeds, whose in- 
 
CHAP. IV.] OF AKfAl-OGY. 25 
 
 ternal structure was thought to approach nearest to that of the human 
 body. Modern Anatomists have discovered many mistakes the ancients 
 were led intOj 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 foundation ; and that we ought never to rest 
 upon evidence of this kind, when we can have more direct evidence. 
 
 I know no author who has made a more just and a more happy use of 
 this mode of reasoning, than Bishop Butler, in his Analogy of Religion, 
 Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature. In that 
 exceUent 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 objections 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 prone to form 
 their notions by analogies of this kind, as in what relates to the mind. 
 We form an early acquaintange with material things by means of our 
 senses, and are bred up in a constant familiarity with them. Hence we 
 are apt to measure all things by them ; and to ascribe to things most remote 
 from matter, the' qualities that belong to material things. It is for this 
 reason, that mankind have, in all ages, been so prone to conceive the mind 
 itself to be some subtile kind of matter ; that they have been disposed to 
 ascribe human figure and human 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 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 ope- 
 rations of the mind, are borrowed from material objects. To understand. 
 to conceive, to imagine, to comprehend, 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 contact 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 any thing, 
 the very word leads us to think, that there must be some image in the 
 mind of the thing conceived. 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 fuUy 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. 
 
86 OF THE PROPER MEANS OF KNOWING. [ESSAY I. 
 
 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 not perhaps any instance that can be named of a more striking analogy 
 between body and mind. Hence the phrases of weighing motives, of de- 
 liberating upon actions, are common to all languages. 
 
 Prom 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 cannot possibly de- 
 termine himself, if the motives on both hands are equal : and, as the balance 
 must necessarily turn to that side which has most weight, so the man Toust 
 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 stand still and starve to death, being unable to turn to either, 
 because there are equal motives to both. This is an instance of that 
 analogical reasoning 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 sup- 
 port any argument: a piece of dead inactive matter, and an active in- 
 telligent 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 directions, 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 reasonings drawn from some supposed similitude 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. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF THE PROPER MEANS OP KNOWING THE OPERATIONS OF THE MIND. 
 
 ^ Since we ought to pay no regard to hypotheses, and to be very sus- 
 picious of analogical reasoning, it may be asked, from what source must 
 the knowledge of the mind, and its faculties, be drawn ? 
 
 I answer, the chief and proper source of this branch of knowledge is ac- 
 curate reflection 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 language. 
 
 The language of mankind is expressive of their thoughts, and of the 
 various operations of their minds. The various operations of the under- 
 standing, will, and passions, 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 
 
CHAP, v.] THE OPEEATIONS OF THE MIND. 2^ 
 
 signs may, in many cases, give considerable light to the thing signified by 
 them. 
 
 There are in all languages modes of speech, by which men signify their 
 judgment, or give their testimony ; by which they accept or refuse ; by 
 which they ask information or advice ; by which they command, or 
 threaten, or supplicate ; by which they plight their faith in promises or 
 contracts. If such operations were not common to mankind, we should 
 not find in all languages forms of speech by which they are expressed. 
 
 All languages, indeed, have their imperfections; they can never be 
 adequate to all the varieties of human thought ; and therefore things 
 may be reaUy distinct in their nature, and capable of being distinguished 
 by the human mind, which are not distinguished 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 con- 
 clusion. But whatever we find common to all languages, must have a 
 common cause ; must be owing to some common 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 only, but of 
 attributes, or things which are common to many individusJs ; for no in- 
 dividual 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 ap- 
 probation, 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 opinions 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, 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 discovery 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 opinions 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 seemingly contradictory, and 
 some degree of probability to those that appeared most fanciful. 
 
 The history of philosophy, considered as a map of the intellectual opera- 
 
28 OP THE PllOPEll MEANS OF KNOWING [ESSAY I. 
 
 tions 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. . • t,- 
 
 I return to what I mentioned as the main source of information on this 
 subject, — attentive 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 judgment, of will, of desire, as he has of any object what- 
 ever. 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 
 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 ex- 
 pressed 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 re- 
 flection, 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 
 IS is too often confounded, even by Mr. Locke. All men are conscious of 
 the operations of their own minds, at all times, wliile 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 passion ; 
 but his attention is turned to the person who offended him, and the cir- 
 cumstances of the offence, while the passion of anger is not in the least 
 the object of his attention. 
 
 I conceive this is sufficient to show the difference between consciousness 
 of the operations of our minds, and reflection upon them ; and to show 
 that we may have the former without any degree of the latter. The dif- 
 ference between consciousness and reflection, is like to the difference 
 between a superficial view of an object which presents itself to the eye, 
 while we are engaged about something else, and that attentive examination 
 which we give to an object when we are whoUy employed in surveying it. 
 Attention is a voluntary act ; it requires an active exertion to begin and to 
 continue it ; and it may be continued as long as we wiU : but consciousness 
 is involuntary and of no continuance, changing with every thought. 
 
 The power of reflection upon the operations of their own minds does not 
 appear at all in children. Men must be come to some ripeness of under- 
 standing 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 improved 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 notions 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 absurdities. To 
 acquire this habit is a work of time and labour, even in those who begin 
 it early, and whose natural talents are tolerably fitted for it; but the 
 
CHAP. VI.] THE OPERATIONS OF THE MIND. 29 
 
 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 OP 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 dis- 
 couraged, by conceiving that the obstacles that lie in the way are in- 
 superable, and that there is no certainty to be attained in it. I shall 
 therefore endeavour to point 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, continually passing 
 from one thought, and one operation to another. The scene is constantly 
 shifting. Every man will be sensible 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 imagination fixed. 
 Other objects wiU 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 passions ; and the constant round of employment, 
 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 surveys 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 attention to some other object. Our sensations, as will be shown 
 afterwards, are natural 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, 
 
30 01'' THE DIFFICULTY OF ATTENDING TO j^KSSAY I. 
 
 the operation escapes our notice. Our passions, affections, and all our 
 active powers, have, in like manner, their objects which engross our at- 
 tention, and divert it from the passion itself. 
 
 4. To this we may add a just observation made by Mr. Hume, Ihat, 
 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 vanishes, 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 operation, 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 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 iu 
 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 he able to give attention to them ; he 
 must have the ability to distinguish accurately 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 mathe- 
 matical terms have. For, indeed, the same precision in the use of words, 
 the same cool attention to the minute differences of things, the same talent 
 for abstraction and analysing, which fits a man for the study of mathematics, 
 is 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 considerable degree of per- 
 fection, this remains, to this day, in a very low state, and, as it vvere, 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 esta- 
 blished, that, among thinking and intelligent men, there remains no doubt 
 or dispute about them : so that those who come after may raise the super- 
 structure higher, but shall never be able to overturn what is already built, 
 in order to begin on a new foundation. 
 
 Geometry seems to have been in its infancy about the time of Thales 
 and Pythagoras ; 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 system 
 of geometry which deserves the name of a science ; and though great ad- 
 ditions have been made by Apollonius, Archimedes, Pappus, and others 
 among the ancients, and still greater by the moderns ; yet what was'laid 
 down in Euclid's Elements was never set aside. It remains as the firm 
 foundation of all future superstructures in that science. 
 
CHAP. VI.] THE OPERATIONS OF OUK OWN MINDS. 31 
 
 Natural philosophy remained in its infant 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 century. The system of Des Cartes, which 
 was all hypothesis, prevailed in the most enlightened part of Europe till 
 towards the end of the last century. Sir Isaac Newton has the merit of 
 giving the form of a science to this branch of philosophy ; and it need not 
 appear 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 certain hypotheses, which have imposed on some of the 
 most acute writers on this subject, 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 retaining some of the ancient analogical notions, their discoveries have 
 been less useful 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. Some- 
 thing of this kind seems to have happened in our systems concerning the 
 mind. The accession they have received by modern discoveries, though 
 very important in 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 improvements 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 knowledge, in which in- 
 genious authors have been so apt to run into strange paradoxes, and even 
 into gross absurdities. 
 
 When we find philosophers maintaining, 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 
 examination ; 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, aiid 
 have no existence but in thought ; when we find the last maintaining, that 
 -there is neither body nor mind, nothing in nature but ideas and impres- 
 sions, without any substance on which they are impressed : that there is 
 no certainty, nor indeed probability, even in mathematical 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 themselves in cobwebs spun out of their 
 own brain. But we ought to consider, that the more closely and in- 
 geniously men reason from false principles, the more absurdities they will 
 be led into ; and when such absurdities help to bring to light the false 
 principles from which they are drawn, they may be the more easily for- 
 given. 
 
32 DIVISION OF THE POWEHS OF THE MIND. [ESSAY I. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DIVISION OF THE POWERS OF THE MIND. 
 
 The powers of the mind are so many, so variousj 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 objections. We shall 
 therefore take that general division which is the most common, into the 
 powers of understanding and those of tvill. Under the will we comprehend 
 our active powers, and all that lead to action, or influence the mind to act ; 
 such as appetites, passions, affections. The understanding 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. 
 
 Although this general division may be of use in order to our proceeding 
 more methodically in our subject, we are not to understand 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 conceive there is no operation of the 
 understanding wherein the mind is not active in some degree. 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 re- 
 strained by the latter : and because the understanding is always more or 
 less directed by the will, mankind have ascribed some degree of activity to 
 the mind in its intellectual operations, as well as in those which belong to 
 the wiU ; and have expressed them by active verbs, such as seeing, hearing, 
 judging, reasoning, and the like. 
 
 And as the mind exerts some degree of activity even in the operations 
 of understanding, so it is certain, that there can be no act of wiU 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 remembered, that in most, if not aU the 
 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 improper 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 may be observed, that without apprehension 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, there- 
 fore, 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 
 exercised without either of the two. It is on that account called simple ap- 
 prehension J that is, apprehension unaccompanied with any judgment about 
 the object apprehended. This simple apprehension of an object is, in 
 common language, called having a notion, or having a concejnion of the ob- 
 
CHAP. VII.3 DIVISION OF THE POWERS OF THli; MIND. 33r 
 
 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 for- 
 tune. Such words, taken by themselves, signify simple apprehensions. 
 They neither affirm nor 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 compared, and some 
 agreeinent or disagreement, or, in general, some relation discerned between 
 them ; in consequence of which, there is an opinion or belief of that re- 
 lation which we discern. This operation is expressed in speech by a pro- 
 position, 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 
 propositions 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 apprehensions, which are signified by such 
 words. 
 
 The third operation is reasoning; in which, from two or more judgments, 
 we draw a conclusion. 
 
 The division of our intellectual powers corresponds perfectly with the 
 account commonly given by philosophers, of the successive 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 
 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 com-. 
 paring- its ideas, and by perceiving their agreements and disagreements, it 
 forms its judgments. And, lastly, from two or more judgments, it de- 
 duces conclusions of reasoning. 
 
 Now, if all our knowledge is got by a procedure of this kind, certainly 
 the threefold division of the powers of understanding, into simple appre- 
 hension, judgment, 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 wluch 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 Idnd ; if there are other avenues of knowledge besides the 
 comparing our ideas, and peceiving their agreements and disagreements, it 
 is probable that there may be operations of the understanding which ca,n- 
 not be properly reduced under any of the threes that have been explained. 
 
 Let us consider some of the most familiar operations of our mmds, 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 ope- 
 ration of mv 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 reasoning that I know that 
 I think. It remains, therefore, that it must be by judgment, that is, ac- 
 cording to the account given of judgment, by comparing two ideas, and 
 perceiving the agreement between them. But what are the ideas com- 
 pared? they must be the idea of myself, and the idea of thought, for they 
 are the terms of .the proposition / think. . According to this account then. 
 
34 OF SOCIAL OPEUATIONS OF MIND. CeSSAY I. 
 
 first, I have the idea of myself, and the idea of thought : then, by comparing 
 these two ideas, I .perceive that I think. _ rr -u r, • 
 
 Let any man who is capable of reflection judge for himself, whether it 
 is by an operation of this kind that he comes to be convinced that he thinks. 
 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 agreement or disagreement between two ideas. 
 
 The perception of an object by my senses is another operation of the un- 
 derstanding. I would know whether it be simple apprehension, or judg- 
 ment, or reasoning. It is not simple apprehension, because I am persuaded 
 of the existence of the object as much as I could be by demonstration. It 
 is not judgment, if by judgment be meant the comparing ideas, and per- 
 ceiving their agreements or disagreements. It is not reasoning, because 
 those who cannot reason can perceive. 
 
 I find the same difficulty in classing memory under any of the operations 
 mentioned. 
 
 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. To 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 divisions, 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 pre- 
 tend 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 complete enumeration of the powers of 
 the human 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 resolving and analysing complex 
 objects, and compounding those that are more simple, ."jthly. Judging. 
 6thly, Reasoning. 7thly, Taste. 8thly, Moral Perception. And, last of 
 all. Consciousness. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OP SOCIAL OPBHATIONS OF MIND. 
 
 Thebe 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 foundation in nature. Some operations of our minds, from their 
 very nature, are social, others are solitary. 
 
 By the first, I understand such operations as necessarily suppose an iiK- 
 tercourse with some other inteUigent 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 
 information, or receives it; when he bears testimony, or receives the tes- 
 
GHAP. VIII.] OP SOCIAL OPERATIOXS OF MIND. 35 
 
 timony of another ; when he asks a favourj or accepts one ; when he gives 
 a command to his servant, or receives one from a superior ; when he plights 
 his faith in a promise or contract; these are acts of social intercourse be- 
 tween intelligent beings, and can have no place in solitude. They suppose 
 understanding and will ; but they suppose something more, which is neither 
 understanding nor will; that is, society with other intelligent beings. 
 They may be called intellectual, because they can only be in intellectual 
 beings : but they are neither simple apprehension, nor judgment, nor 
 reasoning, nor are they any combination of these operations. 
 
 To ask a question, is as simple an operation as to judge or to reason ; 
 yet it is neither Judgment, nor simple apprehension, nor judgment, nor 
 reasoning. Testimony is neither simple apprehension, nor judgmentj nor 
 reasoning. The same may be said of a promise, or of a contract. 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 divisions, by analysing them, they find inexplicable mysteries, and 
 even contradictions, in them. One may see an instance of this, of many 
 that might be mentioned, in Mr. Hume's Enquiry concerning the Prin- 
 ciples of Morals, sect. 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 reduce 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 intellectual 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 existence of other intelligent beings. When a child asks 
 a question of his nurse, this act 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 hum^n 
 mind, and therefore worthy of the consideration 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 ope- 
 rations 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 intelligent 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 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 shows that it is not intended solely 
 for this purpose. . 
 
 In every language, a question, a command, a promise, whicli are social 
 acts, can be expressed as easily and as properly as judgment, which is a. 
 soUtary act. The expression of the last has been honoured with a parti- 
 cular name; it is called a proposition; it has been an object of great at- 
 
 D ^ 
 
36 OF SOCIAI, «Bft:UATIONS OF MIND. QeSSAY I. 
 
 tention to philosophers; it, has been analysed into its very elements of 
 subject, predicate, and copula. 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 promise, is as capable of being analysed as a proposition 
 is i 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 re- 
 membered that all figurative ways of using words or phrases suppose a 
 natural and literal meaning of them. 
 
ESSAY II. 
 
 ON THE POWEKS WE HAVE BY MEANS OF OUR EXTERNAL SENSES. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 DP THE ORGANS OP 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 upT . 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 opera- 
 tions ; and because they are familiar, the names which properly belong to 
 them are applied to other powers, which are thought to resemble 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 intellectual. We shall 
 find many things in this operation unaccountable ; sufiicient to convince 
 us, that we know but little of our own frame ; and that a perfect com- 
 prehension 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, which, by the laws of our nature, are followed by certain opera- 
 tions 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 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 appre- 
 hended, that errors, with regard to the external, have, from analogy, led to 
 similar errors with regard to the internal ; it is therefore of some con- 
 sequence, even with regard to other branches of our subject, to have just 
 notions concerning the external senses. 
 
 In order to this, we shall begin with some observations on the organs of 
 jsense, 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 Supreme 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 
 Jig the power of perceiving jnany objects around us, the sun, moon, and 
 
38 OF THE ORGANS OF SKNSE. [ESSAY II. 
 
 Stars, the earth and sea, and a variety of animals, vegetables, and inanimate 
 bodies. But our pow-er of perceiving these objects is limited in various 
 ways, and particularly in this, that without the organs of the several 
 senses, we perceive no external object. We cannot see 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 blindness ; others that impair 
 the powers of vision, without destroying it altogether ; and the same may 
 be said of the organs of all the other senses. 
 
 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 show it to be impossible to the Supreme Being to have given us the 
 power of perceiving external objects without such organs. 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 every thing 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, without 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 perceiving external objects is limited and circum- 
 scribed by our organs of sense ; so that we perceive objects in a certain 
 manner, and in certain circumstances, and in no other. 
 
 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 impossible to see 
 any other way ? Perhaps if he had never in his life seen b^t in this way, 
 he might be apt to think so ; but the conclusion 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 circumscribed by 
 impediments on all other hands. 
 
 Another necessary caution in this matter is, that we ought not to con- 
 found the organs of perception with the being that perceives. Perceptioif 
 must be the act of some being that perceives. The eye is not that which 
 sees ; it is only the organ by which we see. The ear is not that which 
 hears ; but the organ by which we hear ; and so of the rest. 
 
 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 con- 
 dude, 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. Eyen 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. 
 
 Jf any thing more were necessary to be said on a point so evident, we 
 
CHAP, n.] OF IMl'KKSSIONS ON THE ORGANS, &C. 39 
 
 might observe, that if the faculty of seeing were in the eye, that of hearing 
 in the ear, and so of the other senses, the necessary consequence of this 
 would be, that the thinking principle, which I call myself, is not one, but 
 many. But this is contrary to the irresistible 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 absurd to say, that one piece of matter seeing, 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, lib. i. chap. 28. has ex- 
 pressed them very distinctly. Those who choose may consult the passage. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF THE IMPRESSIONS ON THE ORGANS, NERVES, AND BRAINS. 
 
 A SECOND law of our nature regarding perceptions is, that we perceive 
 no object, unless some impression is made upon the organ of sense, either 
 by the immediate application 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 
 application of the object to the organ. In the other three, the object is 
 perceived at a distance, but still by means of a medium, by which some 
 impression is made upon the organ. 
 
 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 vibr^itions of 
 some elastic medium, occasioned by the tremidous motion of the sounding 
 body, reach our ear. We perceive 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 hand, 
 or some part of our bodies. 
 
 These are facts known from experience to hold universally and in- 
 variably, both in men and brutes. By this law of our nature, our powers 
 of perceiving external objects are farther limited and circumscribed. Nor 
 call we give any other reason for this, than that it is the wiU'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 
 obiects the impressions made upon the organs of sense must be commu- 
 nicated to the nerves, and by them to the brain. This is perfectly known 
 to those who know any thing of anatomy. , , . , , . , 
 
 The nerves are fine cords, which pass from the bram, or from the spinal 
 marrow, which is a production of the brain, to all parts of the body, 
 dividing into smaUer branches as they proceed, until at last they escape 
 our eye-sight : And it is found by experience, that all the voluntary and 
 
40 OF IMPRESSIONS ON THE OIIGANS, &C. [^ESSAY II. 
 
 involuntary motions of the body are performed by their means. When the 
 nerves that serve any limb, are cut, or tied hard, wc 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 muscular motions, so there are others 
 that serve the several senses ; and as without the former we cannot move a 
 limb, so without the latter we can have no perception. 
 
 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 perception 
 is this, Tliat, from many observations and experiments, 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 disorders 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 produces 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 attraction, or repulsion, or 
 vibration, or something 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 any 
 thing at all. 
 
 But, whatever be the nature of those impressions upon the organs, 
 nerves, and brain, we perceive nothing without them. Experience in- 
 forms 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 impressions ; but we can discover no necessary connexion. The 
 Supreme Being has seen fit to limit our power of perception ; so that 
 we perceive not without such impressions : and this is all we know of the 
 matter. 
 
 This, however, we have reason to conclude in general, that as the im- 
 pressions on the organs, nerves, and brain, correspond exactly to the 
 nature and conditions of the objects by which they are made ; so our per- 
 ceptions and sensations correspond to those impressions, and vary in kind, 
 and in degree, as they vary. Without this exact correspondencie, the in- 
 formation 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. " 
 
CHAP. Ill ] HYPOTHESES CONCEllNING THE NERVES, &C, 41 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HYPOTHESES CONCERNING THE NBBVES AND BRAIN. 
 
 We are informed by anatomists, that although 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, however, 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 a great room left for 
 those who choose to indulge themselves in conjecture. 
 
 The ancients conjectured, that the nervous fibres are fine tubes, filled 
 with a very subtle 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 shown how, by these animal spirits going and returning in the 
 nerves, muscular motion, perception, memory, and imagination, are eflfected. 
 All this he has described as distinctly 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 shown by the nicest 
 injections ; and all that has been said about animal spirits through more 
 than fifteen centuries, is mere conjecture. 
 
 Dr. BriggSj who was Sir Isaac Newton's master in anatomy, was the 
 first, as far as I know, who advanced a new system concerning the nerves. 
 He conceived them to be solid filaments of prodigious tenuity ; and this 
 opinion, as it accords better 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, however, 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, although 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 doctrine, which he pretended to prove, by just induction, 
 from his conjectures, which were to stand or fall according as future ex- 
 periments and observations should establish or refute them. His conjec- 
 tures 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 injustice, 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 proposed 
 this ; Whether there may not be an elastic medium, or ether, 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 phe- 
 nomena ? 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, 
 Whetlier vision is effected chiefly by the vibrations of this medium ex- 
 
42 HYPOTHESES C0NCEIININ6 THE NEEVES, &C. [ESSAY II. 
 
 cited in the bottom of the eye by the ravs of light, and propagated along 
 the solid, pellucid, and uniform capillaments of the optic nerve ? And 
 whether hearing is effected by the vibrations of this or some other medium, 
 excited by the tremor of the air in the auditory nerves, and propagated along 
 the solid, pellucid, and uniform capillaments of those nerves? And so 
 with regard to the other senses. 
 
 What Newton only proposed as a matter to be enquired into. Dr. 
 Hartley conceived to have such evidence, that, in his Observations on 
 Man, he has deduced, in a mathematical form, a very ample system con- 
 cerning 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 Observations on Man. " Pro- 
 position 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 vibrations mentioned in the last proposition are excited, propagated, 
 and kept up. partly by the ether, that is, by a very subtle 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 con- 
 jectures in difficult and obscure matters, and a short detail of the prin- 
 cipal reasons and evidences in those that are clear ; by acknowledging, that 
 he shall not be able to execute, with any accuracy, the proper method of 
 philosophising, recommended and followed by Sir Isaac Newton ; and 
 that he wiU attempt a sketch only for the benefit of future inquirers," 
 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 opera- 
 tions of the mind mere mechanism, dependant on the laws of matter and 
 motion ; and as it has been held forth by its votaries, as in a manner 
 demonstrated, I shall make some remarks on that part of the system 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 propositions, 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, without any distinction. Co- 
 rollaries are drawn from them, and other propositions grounded upon them, 
 which, all taken together, make up a system. A system of this kind 
 resembles 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 aU ages adulterated by hypotheses ; that is, by 
 systems built partly on facts, and much upon conjecturei It is pity that 
 a man of Dr. Hartley'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 considered it as a reproach, when his system was called his hypothesis ; 
 and says veith disdain of such imputation, hypotheses non fin^o. And it 
 is very strange, that Dr. Hartley should not only follow such a method of 
 philosophising himself, but that he should direct others in their inquiries 
 
CHAP. HI.] HYPOTHESES CONCERNING THE NEllVES, &C. 43 
 
 to follow it. So he does in Proposition 87. Part 1. where he deduces 
 rules for the ascertainment of truth, from the rule of false in arithmetic,* 
 and from the art of decyphering ; aud in other places. 
 
 As to the vibrations and vibratiuncles, whether of an elastic ether, or of 
 the infinitesimal particles of the brain and nerves, there 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 solution of phenomena, and to build 
 a system upon them, is what, I conceive, we call building 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 Newton has taught us, to 
 have two conditions, otherwise they are good for nothing. First, They 
 ought to be true, to have a real existence, 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 continuance. 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 sen- 
 sations of sight and hearing in this particular. Thirdly, The continuance 
 of all our sensations, being thus established, it follows, that external 
 objects impress vibratory motions on the meduUary 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 experience ; the second is very weak ; and the third still 
 weaker. For other kinds of motion, 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 produced in the nerves ; it may be pressure, attraction, 
 repulsion, or something we do not know. This, indeed, is the common 
 refuge of all hypotheses, that we know no other way in which the phe- 
 nomena 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 ether 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 con- 
 jectures about this ether near fifty years before he died, and had it in his 
 eye during that long space as a subject of inquiry ; 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 ether 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 j a question, I say, for 
 I do not hold it as a thing established." If, therefore, we regard the 
 authority of Sir Isaac Newton, we ought to hold the existence of such an 
 ether 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. 
 
44 HYPOTHESES CONCERNING THE NERVES, &C. [ESSAY II. 
 
 But, says Dr. Hartley, " Supposing the existence of the ether, and of 
 -its properties, to be destitute of all direct evidence, still, if it serves to 
 account for a great variety of phenomena, it will have an indirect evidence 
 in its favor by this means." There never vi'as an hypothesis invented by 
 an ingenious "man vchich has not this evidence in its favor. The vortices 
 of Des Cartes, the Sylphs and Gnomes of Mr. Pope, serve to account for 
 a great variety of phenomena. 
 
 When a man has, with labour and ingenuity, wrought up an hypothesis 
 into a system, he contracts a fondness for it, which is apt 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 philosophising 
 recommended and followed by Sir Isaac Newton ; but having first devi- 
 ated 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 dia- 
 metrically 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 superior to that which made 
 the cypher. This instance, therefore, wiU then be in point, when he who 
 attempts to decypher the works of nature, by an hypothesis, has an under- 
 standing equal or superior to that which made them. The votaries of 
 hypotheses have often been challenged to show one useful discovery in the 
 works of nature that was ever made in that way. If instances of this 
 kind could be produced, we ought to conclude, that Lord Bacon and Sir 
 Isaac Newton have done great disservice to philosophy, by what they 
 have said against hypotheses. But if no such instance can be produced, 
 we must conclude, with those great men, that every system which pretends 
 to account for the phenomena of nature by hypothesis or conjecture, is 
 spurious and illegitimate, and serves only to flatter the pride of man with 
 a vain conceit of knowledge which he has not attained. 
 
 The author tells us, " that any hypothesis that has so much plausibility 
 as to explain a considerable number of facts, helps us to digest these factfe 
 in proper order, to bring new ones to light, and to make experimenta 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 proba- 
 bility of being led with precision, and certainty, to a true conclusion from 
 a false position. And it is of the very essence of algebra, to praceed in 
 the way of supposition." 
 
 This is true J but, when brought to justify the accounting for natural 
 phenomena by hypotheses, is foreign to the purpose. When an unknown 
 number, or any unknown 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 demons 
 strated to be the number or the quantity sought, by its answering aU the 
 conditions required. But it is one thing to find a quantity which shall 
 have certain conditions ; it is a very diflferent thing to find out the kws 
 by which it pleases God to govern liie world and produce the phenomena 
 which fall under our observation. And we can then only allow some 
 weight to this argument in favor of hypotheses, when it can be shown, that 
 the cause of any one phenomenon in nature has been, or can be found, 
 as an unknown quantity is, by the rule of false, or by algebraical analysis. 
 This, I apprehend, will never be, till the jcra arrives, which Dr. Hartley 
 seems to foretel, " when future generations shall put all kinds of evidences 
 
CHAP. III.] HYPOTHESES CONCERNING THE NERVES, &C. 45 
 
 and inquiries into mathematical forms ; and, as it were, reduce Aristotle's 
 ten Categories, and Bishop Wilkins' forty Summa Genera, to the head of 
 quantity alone, so as to make Mathematics, and logic, natural history, and 
 civil history, natural philosophy, and philosophy of all other kinds, co- 
 incide omni ex 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 ; perhaps 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 liave met with, who 
 reasons against them, and has taken pains to find out arguments in defence 
 of the exploded method of hypotheses. 
 
 Another condition which Sir Isaac Newton requires in the causes of 
 natural things assigned by philosophers, is, that they be sufficient to 
 account for the phenomena. Vibrations and vibratiuncles of the me- 
 dullary substances 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 opera- 
 tions 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 
 sensations, 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 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 im- 
 materiality of the soul. 
 
 It would therefore be unreasonable to require that his theory of vi- 
 brations should, in the proper sense, account for our sensations. 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 
 necessarily produce thought, any more than the vibrations of a pendulum. 
 Dr. Hartley disclaims this way of thinking, and therefore it ought not to 
 be imputed to him. All that he pretends is, that, in the human consti- 
 tution, there is a certain connexion between vibrations in the medullary sub- 
 stance of the nerves and brain, and the thoughts of the mind ; so that the 
 last depend entirely upon the first, and every kind of thought in the mind 
 arises in consequence of a corresponding vibration, or vibratiuncle in the 
 nerves and brain. Our sensations arise from vibrations, and our ideas 
 from vibratiuncles, or miniature vibrations ; 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 connexion between vibrations 
 and thought, when the existence of such vibrations was never proved } The 
 proof of their connexion cannot be stronger than the proof of their exist- 
 ence : for, as the author acknowledges, that we cannot infer the existence 
 of the thoughts from the existence of the vibrations, it is no less evident, 
 that we cannot Infer the existence of vibrations from the existence of our 
 thoughts. The existence of both must be known before we can know 
 
46 HYPOTHESES CONCERNING THE NEEVESj &0. [ESSAY II. 
 
 their connexion. As to the existence of our thoughts, we have the eTii- 
 dence of consciousness ; a kind of evidence that never was called in 
 question. But as to the existence of vibrations, in the medullary sub- 
 stance of the nerves and brain, no proof has yet been brought. 
 
 All therefore we have to expect from this hypothesis, is, that, in vi- 
 brations considered 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 connexion 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 hypothesis of their connexion, which 
 we commonly expect even in a mere hypothesis ; but we do not find even 
 this. 
 
 For, to omit all those thoughts and operations which the author com- 
 prehends under the name of ideas, and which he thinks are connected with 
 vibratiuncles ; to omit the perception of external objects, which he com- 
 prehends under the name of sensations ; to omit the sensations, properly 
 so called, which accompany our passions and affections; and to confine our- 
 selves to the sensations which we have by means of our external senses, 
 we can perceive no correspondence 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 may have a variety of sen- 
 sations, which differ specifically, and not in degree only. How many 
 tastes and smells are there which are specifically different, each of them 
 capable of all degrees of strength and weakness ? Heat and cold, roughness 
 and smoothness, hardness 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 degrees of each. The varieties of colour are many more than we 
 have names to express. How shall we find varieties in vibrations corre- 
 sponding to all this variety of sensations which we have by our five senses 
 only? 
 
 I know two qualities of vibrations in an uniform elastic medium, and I 
 know no more. They may be quick or slow in various 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 vibration ; or they are loud or soft, which answer 
 to strong or weak vibrations. But then we have no variety of vibrations 
 corresponding to the immense variety of sensations which we have by sight, 
 smell, taste, and touch. 
 
 Dr. Hartley has endeavoured to find out other two qualities of vibra- 
 tions : to wit, that they may primarily afliect one part of the brain or an- 
 other, and that they may vary in their direction, according as they enter 
 by different external nerves; but these 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 
 sensations to four kinds } 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 vibrations. 
 
CHAP. IV.] FALSE CONCLUSIONS, &C. 47 
 
 Dr. Hartley, Indeed, was sensible of the difficulty of finding vibrations 
 to suit all the variety of our sensations. His extensive knowledge of physi- 
 ology and pathology could yield him but a feeble aid ; and therefore he is 
 often reduced to the necessity of heaping supposition upon supposition, 
 conjecture upon conjecture, to give some credibility 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 ap- 
 propriated to another. , 
 
 Philosophers have accounted in some degree for our various sensations 
 of sound, by the vibrations of elastic air. But it is to be observed,^r«^. 
 That we know that such vibrations do really exist ; and secondli/. That 
 they tally exactly with the most remarkable phenomena of sound. We 
 cannot, indeed, show 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 re- 
 lation of successive vibrations which produces melody : and all this is not 
 conjectured, but proved by sufficient induction. This account of sounds, 
 therefore, is philosophical ; although, perhaps, there may be many things 
 relating to sound that we cannot account for, and of which the causes 
 remain latent. The connexions described in this branch of philosophy are 
 the work of God, and not the fancy of men. 
 
 If any thing similar to this could be shown 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 vibra- 
 tions, 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 sensa- 
 tions, the connexions 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 vibrations 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 olfactory 
 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 perception^i than to flatter our pride with the 
 conceit of knowledge which we have not, and to adulterate philosophy with 
 the spurious brood of hypotheses } 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FALSE CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FKOM THE IMPRESSIONS BEFORE MEN- 
 TIONED. 
 
 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 we are conscious of. This foolish 
 
48 FALSE CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FIIOM QeSSAY II- 
 
 opinion could only take its rise from observing the constant^ connexion 
 which the Author of nature hath established between certain impressions 
 made upon our senses, and our perception of the objects by which the im- 
 pression is made ; from which they weakly inferred, that those impressions 
 were the proper efficient causes of the corresponding 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 ? There is indeed 
 nothing more ridiculous than to imagine that any motion or modification 
 of matter should produce 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 ma- 
 chine 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 ex- 
 ternal 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 ; an- 
 other conclusion very generally made by philosophers, 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 the organ of sense, and strikes 
 upon the mind. Mr. Hume gives the name of impressions to all our per- 
 ceptions, to all our sensations, and even to the objects which we perceive. 
 Mr. Locke affirms very positively, that the ideas of external objects are 
 produced in our minds by impulse, " that being the only way we can con- 
 ceive 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 
 passage rectified ; but either from forgetfulness in the author, or negligence 
 in the printer, the passage remains in all the subsequent editions I have seen. 
 
 There is no prejudice more natural to man, than to conceive of the 
 mind as having some similitude to body in its operations. 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 impression 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 impressions 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 impressions on the mind whichjs weU 
 authorised, and of which we took notice in the observations made on that 
 word ; but this meaning applies only to objects that are interesting. To 
 say that an object which I see with perfect indifference makes an im- 
 pression upon my mind, is not, as I apprehend, good English. If philo- 
 sophers 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 ? 
 
 But it is evident, from the manner in which this phrase is used by 
 
CHAP, IV.] THE IMPRESSIONS BEFORE MENTIONED. 49 
 
 modern philosophers, that they mean not barely to express by it. my per- 
 ceiving an object, but to explain the manner of perception. They think 
 that the object perceived acts upon the mind, in some wav similar to that 
 in Which one body acts upon another, by making an impression upon it. 
 ihe impression upon the mind is conceived to be something wherein 
 the mind IS altogether passive, and has some effect produced in it by the 
 object. But this is a hypothesis which contradicts the common sense of 
 ™^\i^ 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 
 mmd 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 perceive. 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 j 
 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 shows 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 meaning, and contrary to the propriety of the English lan- 
 guage, or it is grounded upon a hypothesis which is destitute of proof. 
 On that account, though we grant that in perception there is an impression 
 made upon the organ of sense, and upon the nerves and brain, we do not 
 admit that the object makes any impression upon the mind. 
 
 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 eenerally by philosophers. It is, that, by the im- 
 pressions 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 external 
 objects, not immediately, but in certain images or species of them con- 
 veyed by the senses, seems to be the most ancient philosophical hypo- 
 thesis we have on the subject of perception, and to have, with small varia- 
 tions, retained its authority to this day. 
 
 Aristotle,, as was before observed, maintained, 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 subtile 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 spiritualized, 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 
 
 E 
 
50 FALSE CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FUOM [ESSAY II. 
 
 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 essential 
 difference between the systems of these two philosophers. The notion of 
 eternal and immutable i'deas, which Plato borrowed from the Pythagorean 
 school, was totally- rejected by Aristotle, who held it as a maxim, that 
 there is nothing- in the intellect 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 bis 
 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 compares 
 to persons in a deep and dark cave, who see not external objects them- 
 selves, but only their shadows, by a light into the cave through a small 
 opening. 
 
 It seems therefore probable, that the Pythagoreans and Platonists 
 agreed with the Peripatetics in this general theory of perception ; 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 improvements in anatomy, 
 that the nerves are the instruments of perception, and of the sensations 
 accompanying it, and that the nerves ultimately terminate in the bi'ain, 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 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. 
 
 Others have not thought proper to confine 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 sensorium. 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 sen- 
 sorium 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? And is there not an incorporeal, living, intelligent, and omni- 
 present Being, who, in infinite space, as if it were in his sensorium, inti- 
 mately perceives things themselves, and comprehends them perfectly, as 
 being present to them ; of which things, that principle in us, which per- 
 ceives and thinks, discerns only, in its little sensorium, the images brought 
 to it through the organs of the senses ?" 
 
 His friend Dr. Samuel Clarke adopted the same sentiment with more 
 confidence. 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 tiere 
 perceive where it is present, either to the things themselves, (as the omni- 
 present God is to the whole universe), or to the images of things, (as the 
 
CHAP. IV.J THE IMPRESSIONS EETTOM MENTIONED. 51 
 
 soul of man is in its proper sensory). Notliing can any more act^ or be 
 acted upon, where it is not present, tha.n 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 most part, 
 one would imagine that he thought that the ideas> or images of things, 
 which he believed to be the immediate objects of perception, are impres- 
 sions upon the mind itself ; 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 i 
 sense ; and if the organs or the nerves, which are the conduits to convey them 
 from without to their audience in the brain, in 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 inquire." 
 
 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 Cartes 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 evident. 
 
 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 soid has ' 
 its seat; «xr, 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 
 perceives them by means of those images. 
 
 As to the first point. That the soul has its 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 ? and -if they have, how they 
 occupy that place ? After men had fought in the dark about these points 
 for ages, the wiser part seem to have left off disputing about them, as 
 matters beyond the rieach of the human faculties. 
 
 As to the second point, That images of all the objects of sense are 1 
 formed in the brain, we may venture to aifirm, 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 anatomists ; every part of it examined by the naked eye, and 
 with the help of microscopes ; but no vestige of an image of any externa;! 
 object was ever found. The brain seems to be the most improper sub- 
 stance that can be imagined for receiving or retaining images, being a soft 
 moist medullary substance. 
 
 But how are these images formed ? or whence do they come ? Says Mr. 
 Locke, the organs of sense and nerves convey them from without. This is 
 just the Aristotelian hypothesis of sensible species, which modern philo- 
 
52 FALSE CONCLUSIONS, &C. [ESSAY II. 
 
 sophers have been at great pains to refute, and which must be acknow- 
 ledged 'to be one of the most unintelligible parts of the Peripatetic systemi 
 Those who consider species of colour, figure, sound, and smell, coming 
 from the object, and entering by the organs of sense, as a part of the scho- 
 lastic jai^on 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 show that an image of any 
 external object ever entered by any of the organs of sense. 
 
 That external objects make some impression 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 improbable. Every hypothesis that has been contrived 
 shows that there can be no such resemblance ; for neither the motions of 
 animal spirits, nor the vibrations of elastic chords, or of elastic ether, or of 
 the infinitesimal particles of the nerves, can be supposed 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 ? 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, of smell, or taste. The word image, when 
 applied to these objects of sense, has absolutely no meaning. Upon what 
 a weak foundation, then, does this hypothesis staind, 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 .'' 
 
 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 aoir 
 powers of perception be not altogether fallacious, the objects we perceive 
 arg not in our brain, but without us. 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 discovered, 
 by dissection, that the brain is a constituent part of the human body. 
 
 To sum up what has been said with regard to the organs of perception, 
 and the impressions made upon our nerves and brain. It is a law of our 
 nature, established by the will of the Supreme Being, that we perceive no 
 external object but by means of the organs given us for that purpose. 
 But these organs do not perceive. The eye is the organ of sight, but 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 h ow the 
 
 pictoejnakgs us seejSfi jQlyect, ^jelSattSK^aaL; and if experience had not 
 informed us that such a picture is necessary to vision, we should never 
 
CHAP, v.] O^ PEttCEPTION. 53 
 
 have known it. We can give no reason why the picture on the retina 
 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^ 
 nnless 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 
 perception by the will of our Maker, yet it does not appear that they have 
 any necessary connexion with it in their own nature, far less that they 
 can be the proper efficient cause of it. We perceive, because God has 
 given us the power of perceiving, and not because we have impressions 
 from objects. We perceive nothing without those impressions, because our 
 Maker has limited and circumscribed our powers of perception, by such 
 laws of nature as to his wisdom seemed meet, and such as suited our rank 
 in his creation. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OP PERCEPTION. 
 
 In speaking of the impressions made on our organs in perception, we 
 build upon facts borrowed from anatomy and physiology, 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 
 consciousness, 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 opera- 
 tions 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 em- 
 ploying ourselves frequently in this way, we get the habit of this attention 
 and reflection ; 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. 
 
 If therefore, we attend to that act of our mind which we call the per- 
 ception of an external objept of sense, we shall find in it these three things. 
 First, Some conception or notion of the object perceived. Secondly, A 
 strong and irresistible conviction and belief of its present existence. And, 
 Thirdly, That this conviction and belief are immediate, and not the eflfect 
 of reasoning. . , t • 
 
 Fint, It is impossible to perceive an object without having some notion 
 or conception of that which we perceive. We may indeed conceive an 
 object which we do not perceive ; but when we percpiye the object, we must 
 have some conception of it at the same time ; and we have commonly a more 
 pkar and steady notion of the object while we perceive it, than we have 
 from memory or imagination when it is not perceived. Yet, even m per- 
 ception, 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 
 
54 OF PERCEPTtON. [ESSAY II. 
 
 foggy day. An object seen indistinctly with the naked eye, on account of 
 its smallness, may be seen distinctly 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 senseSj that the appli- 
 cation may be left to the reader. 
 
 In a matter so obvious to every J)erson capable of reflection, it is 
 necessary only farther to observe, tliat 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 understand- 
 ing, 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. 
 .Thus the notion which a child has of a jack for roasting meat, will be 
 acknowledged to be Veyy 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 opera- 
 tions of different powers of the mind, which, by being always conjoined 
 after we grow up to understanding, are apt 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 alsojinjrresistible conviction and belief of its 
 existence. This is always the case when we are certain that we perceive 
 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 acquires 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 perception is in any degree clear and steady, there 
 remains no doubt of its reality; and when the reality of the percep- 
 tion is ascertained, the existence of the object perceived can no longer be 
 doubted. 
 
 By the laws of all nations, in the most solemn judicial trials wherein 
 men's fortunes 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 objection 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 
 declared but the testimony of their eyes and ears, and that we ought nbt 
 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 beheve no counsel, however sceptical, 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 mav 
 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 • 
 
CHAP, v.] OP PKRCEPXlONi 55 
 
 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 solemn 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 universal belief of mankind. 
 
 The first exception is that of some lunatics, 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 be- 
 lieved 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 constitution of the body, from .the disorders or diseases 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 i yet I have seen a man, and a very ingenious one, who was born 
 without hands or feet. It is natural to man to have faculties superior to 
 those of brutes ; yet we see some individuals 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 overthrown by instances of men whose in- 
 tellects 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 testi- 
 mony 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 maintained. It is 
 one thing to profess a doctrine of this kind, another seriously to believe it, 
 and to be governed by it in the cond^ict of life. IjLis. evident, ihat a man 
 whodidjiotjjelieve his_sej3aes,-)tmiI4n.at k^ put^f Jiarm^s way a^^ hour 
 ofhisjifej yeTmliir the history of philosopEy", we never "fead^br'any 
 sceptic that ever stepped into fire or water because he did not believe 
 his senses, or that showed, in the conduct of life, less trust in his senses 
 tian other men have. This gives us just ground to apprehend, that phi- 
 losophy 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 / ^ .... 
 
 I observed, thirdly, That this conviction is not only irresistible, but it 
 is immediate ; thatjs^it is not by a trainjalreag,^nJag.aB4-argBW^nta<;ifln 
 that' we" come to be cohvincj;d^'fjJj.JSi8feeaoe.of wlm^^ 
 ask"nbargumentlof "the existence of the object, but that we perceive it | 
 perception commands our belief upon its own authority, and disdains to 
 rest its authority upon any reasoning whatsoever. 
 
 The conviction of a truth may be irresistible, 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 reasoning. There are other truths m 
 mathematics of which we have not only an irresistible, but an immediate 
 conviction. Such are the axioms. Our belief of the axioms in mathe- 
 
56 OF PERCEPTION. QeSSAY II. 
 
 matics is not grounded upon argument. 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 immediate conviction of the 
 existence of what we see : But the conviction is equally immediate 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 wh^t he sees, and hears, and feels, as the most expert lo- 
 gician. The constitution of our understanding determines 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 con- 
 stitution of our power of perception determines us to hold the ejtistence 
 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 irresistible and immediate belief of the existence of objects di- 
 stinctly perceived, I mean only to aftirm with regard to persons so far ad- 
 vancied 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 Cromwell 
 he has not only a notion, but a belief that they did really exist. 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 any thing. The belief of the existence of any thing seems to 
 suppose a notion of existence ; a notion too abstract, perhaps, to enter into 
 the mind of an infant, 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 them- 
 selves, and by others, which have no existence. That such persons do in- 
 variably ascribe existence to every thing which they distinctly perceive, 
 without seeking reasons or arguments for doing so, is perfectly evident 
 from the whole tenor of human life. 
 
 The account I have given of our perception of external objects, is in- 
 tended as a faithful delineation of what every man, come to years of un- 
 derstanding, and capable of giving attention to what passes in his own 
 mind, may feel in himself. In what manner the notion of external 
 objects, and the immediate belief of their existence, is produced by means 
 of our senses, I am not able to show, and I do not pretend to show. 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 constitution 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 vdll of him who made both ; so I suspect we can 
 give no other reasori 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 sup- 
 plying the wants of nature, and avoiding the dangers to which we are 
 constantly exposed ; and he has admirably fitted our powers of perception 
 to this purpose. If the intelligence we Lave of external objects were to be 
 
CHAP. VI.;] ACCOUNT OF A PHENOMENON- 57 
 
 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 aU 
 upon a level. The information 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 FOB A PHENOMENON IN NATUKE. 
 
 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 knowing the fact, and 
 give themselves no trouble about the cause of it : But a philosopher is 
 impatient to know how this event is produced, to account for it, or assign 
 its cause. 
 
 This avidity to know the causes of things, is' the' parent of all philo- 
 sophy, true and false. Men of speculation plac'e a great part of their 
 happiness in such knowledge. Feliiv qui potuit 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. 
 
 It is a dictate of common sense, that the causes we assign of appear- 
 ances ought to be real, and not fictions of human imagination. It is 
 likewise self-evident, that such causes ought to be adequate to the efl^ects 
 that are conceived to be produced by them. 
 
 That those who are less accustomed to inquiries into the causes of 
 natural appearances, may the better understand what it is to show the 
 cause of such appearances, or to account for them ; I shall borrow a plain 
 instance of a -phenomenon or appearance, of which a fuU and satisfac- 
 tory account has been given. The phenomenon 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 must 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 in- 
 numerable 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 
 inactivity ; for it implies no more than that bodies cannot of themselves 
 change their state froih rest to motion, or from motion to rest. He ob- 
 seived also, that gravity acts constantly and equally upon a body, and 
 therefore will give equal degrees of velocity to a body in equal times. 
 
58 ACCOUNT OF A PHENOMENON. [ESSAY II. 
 
 From these principles, which are known from experience to be fixed laws 
 of nature, Galileo showed, that heavy bodies must descend with a velocity 
 uniformly accelerated, as by experience they are found to do. 
 
 For if the body by its gravitation acquire 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 continues, 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 gra- 
 vitation 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 phenomenon are 
 two : First, That bodies once put in motion, retain their velocity and their 
 direction, until it is changed 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 experience, and there- 
 fore 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 phenomenon 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 phe- 
 nomenon are things of which we can assign no cause. Why bodies once 
 put in motion continue to move ; why bodies constantly gravitate towards 
 the earth with the same force, no man has been able to show. 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 attenipt to find the cause of gravitation, and of other 
 phenomena which we call laws of nature } No doubt we may. We know 
 uot 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 gra- 
 vitation to be accounted for, by an ethereal elastic medium for instance, 
 this can only be done, first, By proving the existence and the elasticity of 
 this medium ; and, secondly. By showing, that this medium must ne- 
 cessarily .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 considered as a 
 law of nature, whose cause is unknown. The chain of natural causes has, 
 not unfitly, been compared to a chain hanging down from heaven : A link 
 that is discovered supports the links below it, but it must itself be sup- 
 ported ; and that which supports it miist be supported, until we come to 
 the first link, which is supported by the throne of the Almighty. Every 
 natural cause must have a caiise, until we ascend to the -first cause, which 
 is uncaused, and operates not by necessity, but by wilL 
 
 By what has been said in this chapter, those who are but little ac- 
 quainted with philosophical inquiries may see what is meant by accounting 
 for a phenomenon, or showing 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 objects by the senses. 
 
CHAP. VH.] SENTIMENTS ABOUT PEHCEPTION. 59 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SENTIMENTS OF PHILOSOPHERS ABOUT THE PERCEPTION OF EXTERNAL 
 OBJECTS ; AND, FIRST, 
 
 OP THE THEORY OF FATHER MAIiEBR ANCHE . 
 
 How the correspondence is carried on between the thinking principle 
 within us, 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 phenomenon in nature. Many philosophers, ancient 
 and modern, have employed their invention to discover how we are made 
 to perceive ■external Objects by our senses : And there appears to be a very 
 great uniformity in their sentiments in the main, notwithstanding 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 persons, variously employed, pass betvreen them andthe light, whose 
 shadows are seen by the prisoners, but not the persons themselves. 
 
 In this manner, that philosopher conceived, 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 Pythagoreans, 
 and they very probably from Pythagoras himself. If we make allowance 
 for Plato's allegorical genius, his sentiments on this subject correspond 
 very well with those of his scholar Aristotle, and of the Peripatetics. The 
 shadows of Plato may very well represent the species and phantasms of 
 the Peripatetic school, and the ideas and impressions of modem philo- 
 sophers. 
 
 Two thousand years after Plato, Mr. Locke, who studied the operations 
 of the human mind so much, and with so great success, represents our 
 manner of perceiving external objects, by a similitude very much resem- 
 bling 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 external 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 
 understanding of a man^ in reference to all objects of sight, and the ideas of 
 them." 
 
 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 perception^are only certain shadows of the 
 external objects. Those shadows or images, which we immediately per- 
 ceive, were by the ancients called species, forms, phantasms. Since the 
 time of Des Cartes, they have commonly been called ideas, and by Mr. 
 Hume impressions. But all philosophers, from Plato to Mr. Hume, agree 
 in this. That we do not perceive External objects immediately, ai;id that 
 the immediate object of perception must be some image present to the 
 mind. So far there appears an unanimity, rarely to be found among phi., 
 losophers on such abstruse points. 
 
60 SENTIMENTS ABOUT PERCEPTION. [ESSAY II. 
 
 If it should be asked. Whether, according to the opinion of philosophers, 
 we perceive the images or ideas only, and infer the existence and qualities 
 of the external object from what we perceive in the image ? or, whether 
 we really perceive the external object as well as its image ? the answer 
 to this question is not quite obvious. 
 
 On the one hand, philosophers, if we except Berkeley and Hume, believe 
 the existence of external objects of sense, ahd call them objects of perception, 
 though not immediate 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 figurative sense in which we say that we perceive an absent friend 
 when we look on his picture ; 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 in- 
 stance of perception, there is a double object perceived : That I perceive, 
 for instance, one sun in the heavens, and another in my own mind. But 
 I do not find that they aflirm 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 figurative 
 ?ense, 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, philo- 
 sophers have very geperaUy 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 
 jm^y that they are the only objects of .perception. 
 
 Having endeavoured to explain what is comriion to philosophers in ac- 
 counting for our perception of external objects, we shall give some detail 
 of their diflferences. 
 
 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 sensoriam, where the mind is. immediately present. The^rst 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 Platonic notion of ideas, but is not the saine. 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 philosophers, was conceived to 
 be eternal. Ideas are forms without matter of every kind of things wliich 
 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 imprisoned in the body, we are prone to give attention to the 
 objects of sense only ; but these being individual things, and in a constant 
 fluctuation, being indeed shadows rather than realities, cannot be the objects 
 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 therefore must have for its object eternal and immu- 
 table ideas ; these we are capable of contemplating in some degree even in 
 
CHAP. Vn.] SENTIMENTS ABOCT PERCEPTION. 61 
 
 our present state, but not without a certain purification of mind, and ab- 
 straction from the objects of sense. Such, as far as I am able to compre- 
 hend, were the sublime notions of Plato, and probably of Pythagoras- 
 
 The philosophers of the Alexandrian school commonly called the latter 
 Platonists,seem to have adopted the same system ; 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 conceptions 
 which the divine mind must from all eternity have had; not only of every 
 thing which he has made, but of every possible existence, and of all the 
 relations of things : By a proper purification- and abstraction from the 
 objects of sense, we may be in some measure united to the Deity, and iii 
 the eternal light be enabled to dfscern the most sublime intellectual truths. 
 
 These Platonic notions, grafted upon Christianity, probably gave rise 
 to the sect called Mystics, which, though in its spirit- and principles ex- 
 tremely opposite to the Peripatetic, yet was never extinguished, but subsists 
 to this day. 
 
 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 countenance 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 immediately by the eternal light, and uses other similar 
 expressions ; yet he seems to apply those expressions only to our illumina- 
 tion 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 Male- 
 branche are to be found in Amelius the Platonist, and even in Democritus ; 
 but his authorities seem to be strained. 
 
 Malebranche, with a very penetrating genius, entered into a more minute 
 examination of the powers of the human mind than any one before him. 
 He had the advantage of the discoveries made by Des Cartes, whom he 
 followed without selfish attachment. 
 
 He lays it down as a principle admitted by all philosophers, and which 
 could not be called in question, that we do not perceive external objects 
 immediately, but by means of images or ideas of them present to the mind. 
 " I suppose," says he, " that 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 sallies out of tlbe body, and, as it were, takes a walk 
 through the heavens to contemplate all those objects : She sees them not, 
 therefore, by themselves ; and the immediate object of the mind, when it 
 sees the sun, for example, is not the sun, but something 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 immediate 
 object, or nearest to the mind, when we perceive any object. It ought to 
 be carefully observed that, in order to the mind's perceiving any object, it 
 is absolutely necessary that the idea of that object 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 
 
62 SENTIMKNTS ABOUT PERCEPTION. [ESSAY II. 
 
 soul : Those that are in the soul are its own thoughts, that is to say, all 
 its diiFerent modifications. 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. 
 
 Having laid this foundation, as a principle which was common to all 
 philosophers, and which admits of no doubt, he proceeds to enumerate 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 itself; 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 ; or, JIfthly, the soul is united with a being possessed of all perfec- 
 tion, who has in hiniiself the ideas of all created things. 
 
 This he takes to be a complete enumeration 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 confirming 
 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 impressions 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. 
 
 However visionary this system may appear 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 hypo- 
 thesis concerning them, it will not appear so wonderful 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.- 
 
 He 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 particularly 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 confounding 
 of these in common language has led philosophers, in one period, to make 
 those things external which really are sensations in our own minds ; and, 
 in another period. Tunning, as is usual, into the contrary extreme, to make 
 every thing almost to be a sensation or feeling in our minds. 
 
 It is obvious, that the system of Malebranche 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 candid not to acknowledge 
 it : He fairly owns it,_ and endeavours to make advantage of it, resting the 
 complete evidence we have of the existence of matter upon the authority 
 of revelation. He shows, that the arguments 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 
 
CHAP. Vn.] SENTIMENTS ABOUT PERCEPTION. 63 
 
 such pro^nsities without evidence, is to expose ourselves to perpetual de- 
 lusion. 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 sake of 
 truth, he is willing to bear it. But no author, not even Bishop Berkeley, 
 hath shown more clearly, that, either upon his own system, or upon the 
 common principjes 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 acknowledge 
 that 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 Intellectual World, published 
 in two volumes 8vo. 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 : 
 1st, 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 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. 4thly, Immaterial things were perceived by them- 
 selves," they would be a true light to our minds, as being the intelUgible 
 form of our understandings, and consequently perfective of them, and in- 
 deed 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 pos- 
 thumous works : But whether it was written in haste, or after the vigour 
 of his understanding was impaired by age, there is less of strength and so- 
 lidity in it than in most of his writings. The most formidable antagonist 
 Malebranche 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 h»s produced many. Malebranche was a Jesuit, and 
 the antipathy between the Jesnits 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 ar- 
 gument and elegance of expression^ and on the part of Arnauld with much 
 wit and humour, may iind satisfaction by reading Malebranche's Inquiry 
 after Truth ; Arnauld's book of True and False Ideas ; Malebranche's de- 
 fence J and some subsequent replies a^id defences. In controversiesof 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 remark upon this controversy, that the arguments of Mr. Arnauld 
 against the system of Malebranche were often unanswerable, but they were 
 capable of being retorted against his own system ; and his ingenious anta- 
 gonist knew well how to use this defence. 
 
64 THE COMMON THEORY OV PJSIICEPTION, &C. QeSSAY II. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OF THE COMMON THEORy OP PEKCBPTlONj AND OP THE SENTIMENTS OP 
 THE PERIPATBTICSj AND OP DBS CARTES. 
 
 This theory in general is, that, we perceive external objects only by cer-r 
 tain 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 con- 
 cerning them. It would be a laborious task to enumerate all their variations,' 
 and perhaps would not requite the labour. I shall only give a sketch of 
 the principal differences 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 
 weTecalleiintelliglUespecies; and they thought, that there can be no percep- 
 tion, no imagination, no intellection, without speciesor 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 sensath.n, of imagination, and ot 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 understand- 
 ing, 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 phantasm, notion, or 
 species, divides ideas into these of sensation, and those of reflection ; 
 meaning by the first, the ideas of all corporeal objects, whether perceived, 
 remembered, or imagined ; by the second, the ideas of the powers and 
 operations of our minds. What Mr. Locke calls ideas, Mr. Hume divides 
 into two distinct kinds, impressions and ideas. The difference betwixt 
 these, he says, consists in the degrees of force and liveliness with which 
 they strike upon the mind. Under impressions he comprehends all our 
 sensations, passions, and emotions, as they make their first appearance in 
 the soul. By ideas he means the faint images of these in thinking and 
 reasoning. 
 
 Dr. Hartley gives the same meaning to ideas as Mr. Hume does, and 
 what Mr. Hume calls impressions he calls sensations ; conceiving our sen- 
 sations to be occasioned by vibrations of the infinitesimal particles of the 
 brain, and ideas by miniature vibrations 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 immediate objects of 
 perception. 
 
 We shall next give a short detail of the sentiments of the Peripatetics 
 and Cartesians, of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, concerning them. ., 
 
 Aristotle seems to have thought that the soul consists of two parts, or, 
 rather, that we have two souls, the animal and the rational; or, as he calls 
 them, the soul and the intellect. To the Jirst belong the senses, memory., 
 and imagination; to the last judgment, opinion, belief, and.ieasoningi 
 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 sensible 
 forms or species of objects, without any of the matter of them ; as wax re- 
 
CHAP. VIII.] THE COMMON THEORY OF I'EUCEPriON, &C. 65 
 
 ceives the form of the seal without any of the matter of it. The forms of 
 sound, of colour, of taste, and of other sensible qualities, are in like manner 
 received by the senses. 
 
 It seems to be a necessary consequence of Aristotle's doctrine, that bodies 
 are constantly sendmg forth, in all directions, as many different kinds of 
 torms without matter, as they have different sensible qualities; for the 
 torms of colour must enter by the eye, the forms of sound by the ear, and 
 so ot the other senses. This accordingly was maintained by the followers 
 Jpi. J* ' ^^'^^S^ ""*' ^® ^^^ as I know, expressly mentioned by himself. 
 Ihey disputed concerning the nature of those forms, or species, whether 
 they were real beings or non-entities ,• and some held them to be of an in- 
 termediate nature between the two. The whole doctrine of the peripatetics 
 and schoolmen concerning forms, substantial and accidental, and concerning 
 the transmission of sensible species from objects of sense to the mind, if it 
 be at all intelligible, is so far above my comprehension, that I should per- 
 haps do it injustice, by entering into it more minutely. Malebranche, in 
 his Recherche de la Verite, has employed a chapter to show, 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 circumstances of the times. 
 Men had, for more than a thousand years, looked up to Aristotle as an 
 oracle in philosophy. His authority was the test of truth. The small re- 
 mains of the Platonic system were confined to a few Mystics, whose prin- 
 ciples and manner of life drew little attention. The feeble attempts of 
 Kamus, and of some others, to make improvements in the system 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 speaking learnedly, 
 and disputing subtilely, without 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 every thing. 
 It was very fruitful also in controversies; but foi 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 attention 
 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 re- 
 ligion was to destroy the claim of infallibility, which hindered men from 
 using their judgment in matters of religion : and the most important step 
 in the reformation of philosophy was to destroy the authority, of which 
 Aristotle had so long had peaceable possession. The last had been at- 
 tempted by Lord Bacon and others, with no less zeal than the first by 
 Luther and Calvin. i . . t j 
 
 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- 
 
66 THE COMMON. THEOUr OF PEKCEPTION,,&C. [^BSSAY II. 
 
 Hvatical- sdiences, and had made considerable improvement in them. He 
 wished to introduce 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 _ every 
 thing, and hold every thing 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. 
 
 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, therefore, to prove his own existence, Cogita, ergo 
 sum. This he conceived to be the first of all truths, the foundation-stone 
 upon wliich the whole fabric of human knowledge 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 suf- 
 ficient foundation 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 principles, which, on account of their own light 
 and evidence, ought to be admitted by every man of sound judgment. 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 prin- 
 ciple, rather than seek a broader foundation. 
 
 Accordingly, he does not admit the evidence of sense to be a first prin- 
 ciple, as he does that of consciousness. The arguments of the ancient 
 sceptics here occurred to him ; that our senses often deceive us, and there- 
 fore 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 .'' 
 
 Hitherto he was uncertain of every thing 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. 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 argument, 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 concluded, that his senses, and the other faculties he found in him- 
 self, 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, ex- 
 plained 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 
 hot some notion of the Peripatetic system, in which he was educated. To 
 throw off the prejudices of education, and to create a system of nature, 
 
CHAP. Vlir.] THE COMMON THEORY OF PERCEPTION, &.C. jS? 
 
 totally dififerent from that which had subdued the uiideTStanding ,of man- 
 kind, and kept it in subjection for so many centuries, 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, every thing was, by a kind of metaphysical sub,- 
 limation, resolved into principles so mysterious, that it may be a question 
 whether they were words without meaning, or were notions too refined fot 
 human understanding. 
 
 All that we observe in nature, is, according to Aristotle, a constant aucr 
 cession of the operations of generation and corruption. The principles of 
 generation are matter 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 ac- 
 cident ; it has no quality or property ; it is nothing actually, but every 
 thing 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 sus- 
 ceptible of all forms successively. It has no nature, but only the capacity 
 of having any one. 
 
 This is the account which the Peripatetics give of the first matter. The 
 other principle of generation is form, act, perfection ; for these three wcwds 
 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, indeed, 
 are accidental forms, by which things artificial are formed : but every pro- 
 duction 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 nature, and all its qualities, powers, and activity. 
 Thus the substantial form of heavy bodies, is that which makes them de,- 
 scend; 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 anybody, is alter- 
 ation only ; but a change in the substantial form, is generation and cor- 
 ruption : it is corruption with respect to the substantial form of which the 
 body is deprived: it is generation with respect to the substantial form that 
 succeeds. Thus, when a horse dies and turns to dust, the philosophical 
 account of the phenomenon is this : A certain portion of the materia prima, 
 which was joined to the substantial form of a horse, is deprived of it by 
 privation, and in the same instant is invested with the substantial form of 
 earth. As every substance must have a substantial form, there are some 
 of these 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 bemg 
 disjoined from the body, and of subsisting by itself. 
 
 Such are the principles of natural things ih the penpatetic 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 consider- 
 able alterations in it. The first matter was probably the same m both 
 systems, and was in both held to be eternal. They differed more about form. 
 The Pythagoreans and Platonists held forms or ideas, as they called them, 
 to .be eternal, immutaUe, and self-existent. Aristotle maintained, that 
 
68 THE COMMON THKORY OF PEUCEPTION, &C. QeSSAY II. 
 
 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 hot 
 to be actually in the matter from which they are educed, but potentially 
 only. But 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 con- 
 sciousness: both of them things of which we have a distinct apprehension, 
 if the human mind be capable of distinct apprehension at aU. To the first, 
 no qualities are ascribed but extension, figure, and motion ; to the last, no- 
 thing but thought, and its various modifications, of which we are conscious. 
 He could observe no common attribute, no resembling feature in the at- 
 tributes 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 inanimate and inert, incapable of any kind of thought or sensation, 
 or of producing any change or alteration in itself. 
 
 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 begins. How much this distinction hath con- 
 tributed 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 distinction 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 valuable 
 discoveries in this branch of philosophy. 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 principles of the old philosophy. We may there- 
 fore truly say, that, in that part of philosophy which relates to the mind, 
 Des Cartes laid the foundation, and put us into that track, which all wise 
 men now acknowledge to be the only one in which we can expect success. 
 With regard to physics, or the philosophy of body, if Des Cartes had 
 not the merit of leading men into the right track, we must allow him that 
 of bringing them out of a virong one. The Peripatetics, by assigning to 
 every species of body a particular substantial form, which produces, in an 
 unknown manner, all the effects we observe in it, put a stop to all improve- 
 ment in this branch of philosophy. Gravity and levity, fluidity and hard- 
 ness, heat and cold, were qualities arising from the substantial form of the 
 bodies to which they belonged. Generation and corruption, substantial 
 forms and occult qualities, were always at hand, to resolve every phe- 
 nomenon. This philosophy, therefore, instead of accounting for any of the 
 phenomena of nature, contrived 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. 
 
 By the spreading of the Cartesian system, materia prima, substantial 
 forms, and occult 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 ridicule. Men became sensible that their 
 understanding had been hood-winked by those hard terms. They were 
 now accustomed to explain the phenomena of nature, by the figure, size, 
 and motion of the particles of matter, things perfectly level to human un- 
 
CHAP. VIII.J THE COMMON THEORY OF PERCEPTION, &C. 69 
 
 SteSi/"i ""^^f, "'i'^' °''*'"'"S >» philosophy that was dark and 
 nowliS '*^ ^'' after a reign of more than a thousand years, was 
 
 moJk Si ^'/^"''•'^'=*- "^ ^T'^"" ^^«n to *e vulgar, arrayed ik the 
 rirS^ f ^'\?"'^«tt"*'"'J''.™^ ^"^ ""^^l* 1"^l'ties. The ladies 
 worX tfr^ of a philosophy which was easUy learned, and required no 
 words too harsh for their delicate organs. Queens and princesses, the 
 mo*,t distinguished person^es of the age, courted the conversation of Des 
 Cartes, and became adepts in his philosophy. Witness Christina, Queen 
 ot bwedcn, and Elizabeth, daughter of Frederick, king of Bohemia, the 
 mother of our royal family. The last, though very young when Des Cartes 
 wrote hisPnncipia, he declares to be the only person he knew, who per- 
 tectly understood not only aU his philosophical writings, but the most ab- 
 struse of his mathematical works. - 
 
 That men should rush with violence from one extreme, without going 
 more or less into the contrsjiry extreme, is not to be expected from the weak- 
 ness of human nature. Des Cartes and his followers were not exempted 
 tr(m this weakness; they thought that extension, figure, and motion were 
 sufficient to resolve all the phenomena of the material system. To admit 
 other qualities, whose cause is unknown, was to return to Egypt, from 
 which they had been so happily delivered. 
 
 When Sir Isaac Newton's doctrine of gravitation was published, the 
 great objection to it, which hindered its general reception in Europe for 
 half a century, was, that gravitation seemed to be an occult quality, as it 
 could not be accounted for by extension, figure, and motion, the kno\vn 
 attributes 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 Aristotle, the Cartesians had gone into the 
 opposite 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 ignorance, than 
 which there is nothing more becoming a, philosopher. 
 
 As aU 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 manyex- 
 periments, and called earnestly upon all lovers of truth to aid him in this 
 way. But believing that all the phenomena of the material world are the 
 result of extension, figure, and motion, and that the Deity always combines 
 these, so as to produce the phenomena in the simplest manner possible, he 
 thought, that, from a few experiments, he might be able to discover the 
 simplest way, in which the obvious phenomena of nature can be produced, 
 by matter and motion only ; and that this must be the way in which they 
 are actually produced. 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. 
 
 The vortices or whirlpools of subtile matter, by which Des Cartes en- 
 deavoured to account for the phenomena of the material world, are now 
 found to be fictions, no less than the sensible species of Aristotle. 
 
 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 
 jas the fictions of human fancy, he laid it down as a rule of philosophising. 
 
70 THE COMMON THEOllY OF PER(.'EPTION, &C. [ESSAY II. 
 
 ihat no causes of natural things ouglit to be assigned but such as can be 
 proved to have a real existence. He saw, that all the length men can go 
 in accourit'ng for phenomena, is to discover the laws of nature, according 
 to which they are produced ; and therefore, that the true method of phi- 
 losophising is this : From real facts ascertained by observation and ex- 
 periment, to collect by just induction the laws of nature, and to apply the 
 laws so discovered, to account for the phenomena 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 induction is not demonstrative, it is the 
 bnly kind of evidence on which all the most important affairs of human 
 life must rest. 
 
 Pursuing this road without deviation, Newton discovered the laws of 
 our planetary 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 track ? 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 ? 
 
 To return to Des Cartes' notions of the manner of our perceiving ex- 
 ternal objects, from which a concern to do justice to the merits 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 imme- 
 diately present. The impressions 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 sensations in the 
 mind, which, by the laws of the union of soul and body, are raised on oc- 
 casion 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 repre- 
 sent houses, temples, and groves : and so far it is 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. 
 
 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 m 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 under- 
 stand, that the nature of matter does not consist in those things that affect 
 our senses, such as colour, or smell, or taste; but only iu this, that it is 
 something extended in length, breadth, and depth. 
 
 The writings of Des Cartes have in general a remarkable degree of per-, 
 spicuity; and he undoubtedly intended that, in this particular, his phi- 
 losophy should be a perfect contrast to that of Aristotle; yet, in what he 
 has said in different parts of his writings, of our perception of external 
 
CHAP. VIH.] THE COMMON THEORY OF 1«ERCE1'TI0N, &C. 71 
 
 objects, there seems to be some obscurity, and even inconsistency ; whether 
 owing to his having had different opinions on the subject 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 Jirst, 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_/?rii, 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 Cartesian 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 excited in the mind ; and therefore it is not necessary that there 
 should be an exact resemblance between the traces and the things repre- 
 sented 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 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 ; sometimes representing the ideas of material things as 
 being in the brain, but more frequently as in the mind itself. Neither 
 Des Cartes nor Mr. Locke could, consistently with themselves, attribute 
 any other qualities to images in the brain, but extension, figure, and mo- 
 tion ; for as to those qualities which Mr. Locke distinguished by the name 
 of secondary qualities, both philosophers believed them not to belong to 
 body at all, and therefore could not ascribe them to images in the brain. 
 
 Sir Isaac Newton and Dr. Samuel Clarke, uniformly speak of the species 
 or images of material things as being in that part of thebrain called the sen~ 
 sorium, 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 aU ; 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 cannot be fallacious : And 
 since we seem clearly to perceive, that the idea of matter comes to us from 
 things external, wliich it perfectly resembles, therefore we must conclude, 
 that there really exists something extended in length, breadth, and depth, 
 having all the properties which we clearly perceive to belong to an extended 
 
 At' other times, we find Des Cartes and his followers making frequent 
 complaints, as all the ancient philosophers did, of the faculties of sense. 
 He warns us to throw off its prejudices, and to attend only, with our in- 
 tellect, to the ideas implanted there. By this means we may perceive, 
 that the nature of matter does not consist in hardness, colour, weight, or 
 
72 THE COMMON TIIEOBY OF I-EKCEVTTON, &C. C^SSAY 11. 
 
 any of those things that affect our senses, but in this only, that it is some- 
 thins extended in length, breadth, and depth. 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 
 I'll pmsplvGS 
 
 It was probably owing to an aversion to admit any thing into philosophy, 
 of which we have not a clear and distinct conception, 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 ex- 
 tended, iigured, moveable. Extension, figure, mobility, therefore, are not 
 matter, but qualities, belonging to this something, which we call malfer. 
 Des Cartes could not relish this obscure something, which is supposed to 
 be the subject or substratum of those qualities ; and therefore maintained, 
 that extension is the very essence of matter. But, as we must ascribe 
 extension to space as well as to matter, he found himself 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 
 matter, 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 infinite, 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 therefore be 
 without thought : And as he conceived 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 come after Des Cartes, with regard to the 
 nature of body and mind, have been various. Many have maintained, that 
 body is only a collection of qualities to which we give one name ; and that 
 the notion of a subject of inhesion, to which those qualities belong, is only 
 a fiction of the mind. Some have even maintained, that the soul is only a 
 succession of related ideas, without any subject of inhesion. It appears, by 
 what has been said, how far these notions 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 philosophy, 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 Car- 
 tesian philosophy, and is a more important acquisition to mankind than 
 any of its particular tenets ; and for exerting this spirit so zealouslj"^, 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 external objects by the 
 senses, and that he adopted the other part. That theory may be divided 
 into two parts : The^nt, 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 
 persuaded, that it is ojily a representative image, in the mind, of the ex» 
 
CHAP. VIII.] THE COMMON THEORV OF TEECEPTIONj &C. 73 
 
 ternal 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. 
 
 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 external object which we immediately perceive, and not a 
 representative image of it only. It is for this reason, that they look upon 
 it as a perfect lunacy to call in question the existence of external objects. 
 
 It seems to be admitted as a first principle by the learned and the un- 
 learned, that what is really perceived must exist, and that to perceive what 
 does not exist is impossible. So far the unlearned man and the philo- 
 sopher 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 im- 
 pression upon my mind, as a seal does upon wax ; and therefore, I can 
 have no doubt of the existence of an object whose form I perceive. But 
 what says the Cartesian ? I perceive not, says he, the external object itself. 
 So far he agrees vrith 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 immediately 
 perceive it. But how this idea is formed, or what it represents, is not 
 self-evident ; and therefore I must find arguments, by which, from the 
 existence of the idea which I perceive, I can infer the existence of an ex- 
 ternal object which it represents. 
 
 As I take this to be a just view of the principles of the unlearned man, 
 of the Peripatetic, and of the Cartesian, so I think they all reason conse- 
 quentially 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 man none at all : And that the 
 difference of their situation arises from this, that the unlearned man has 
 no hypothesis ; the Peripatetic leans upon an hypothesis ; and the Car., 
 tesian 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 
 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 unani- 
 mous in this, that the objects they perceive are not ideas in their own 
 minds, but things external. It might have been expected, that a philo- 
 sopher who was so cautious as not to take his own existence for granted 
 without proof, would not have taken it for granted, without proof, that 
 every thing 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 
 0aly. AR their systems are built on this foundation. 
 
74 THE SENTIMENTS OF MK. LOCKE. [ESSAY 11- 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SENTIMENTS OF MK. 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. There is perhaps no book of the meta- 
 physical 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 philosophy. He gave, I believe, the first example 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 importance of having 
 distinct and determinate notions in judging and reasoning. His observa- 
 tions 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 attentive reflection on the operations of his own mind, the true 
 source of all real knowledge on these subjects ; and show an uncommon 
 degree of penetration and judgment : But he needs no panegyric of mine ; 
 and I mention these things, only that, when I have occasion to differ from 
 him, 1 may not be thought insensible of the merit of an author whom I 
 highly respect, and to whom I owe my first lights in those studies, as well 
 as my attachment to them. 
 
 He sets out in his essay with a full conviction common to him with 
 other philosophers, that ideas in the mind are the objects of all our thoughts 
 in every operation 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) whichj^I think, serves best to stand for whatso- 
 ever 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 employed 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 conscious of them in himself; and 
 men's words and actions wiU satisfy him that they are in others." 
 
 Speaking of the reality of our knowledge, he says, '' It is evident the 
 'mind knows not things immediately, but only by the intervention 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_4Jg£££ives 
 nothing but its own ideag,„Jcnow that they agree'wth things' themselves i" 
 This, though it seisms' not to want difficulty, yet I think there 'belwosorts 
 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 of ideas made it necessary, and at the same time difficult, to prove 
 the existence of a material world without us ; because the mirid, 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 success. Mr. Locke 
 attempts the same thing ; but his arguments are feeble. He even seems 
 
CHAP. IX.3 THE SENTIMENTS OF MR. LOCKE. 75 
 
 to be conscious of this : For he concludes his reasoning with this observa- 
 tion, " That we have evidence sufficient to direct us in attaining the good 
 «nd avoiding the evil, caused bjr external objects, and that this is the im- 
 portant concern we have in being made acquainted with them." This 
 indeed is saying no more than will be granted by those who deny the exist- 
 ence of a material world. 
 
 . As there is no material difference between Locke and Bes 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, sensation anireflection ; 
 meaning by sensation, the operations of our external senses ; and by re- 
 flection, that attention which we are capable of giving to the operations of 
 our own minds. 
 
 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 knowledge ; the other conceiving, that the very essence 
 of mind consists in thought ; and that of matter in extension ; by which 
 he made matter and space not to differ in 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 geiiera 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 disputes 
 which tortured the schoolmen for so many ages, in the controversy between 
 the nominalists and realists, could never be brought to an issue. He 
 shows distinctly how we form abstract and general notions, and the use 
 and necessity of them in reasoning. 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 ; he thinks that we form abstract ideas >■ 
 by leaving out of the idea of an individual, every thing wherein it differs 
 from other individuals of the same species or genus ; and that this power 
 of forming abstract ideas, is that which chiefly distinguishes us from brute 
 animals, in whom he could see no evidence of any abstract ideas. 
 
 Since the time of Des Cartes, philosophers 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. 
 
 Of the authors I have met with. Dr. Robert Hook is the most explicit. 
 He was one of the most ingenious and active members of the Royal So- 
 ciety of London at its first institution ; and frequently read lectures to the 
 Society, which were published among his posthumous works. In his 
 lectures upon Light, sect. T, 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 phosphorus ; that the ideas of sound are formed of some matter re- 
 sembling the chords or glasses which take a sound from the vibrations of 
 the air; and so of the rest. , , -. , ., 
 
 The soul, he thinks, may fabricate some hundreds of those ideas m a 
 day; and that as they are formed, they are pushed farther off from the 
 
76 THE SENTIMENTS OF MR. LOCKE. ^ESSAV II 
 
 centre of the brain where the soul resides. By this means they make a, 
 continued chain of ideas, coiled 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 formedj which is always present 
 the moment when considered ; and therefore, 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 regard to our sensations, the mind is passive, " they 
 being produced in us only by different degrees and modes of motion in our 
 animal spirits, variously agitated by external objects :" These, however, 
 cease to be, as soon as they cease to he perceived ; but by the faculties of 
 memory and imagination " 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. He ascribes likewise to 
 the mind the power of compounding 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 every thing by 
 which it is distinguished from other individuals of the kind, tiU at last it 
 becomes 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 after- 
 wards, abridged them considerably, and Mr. Hume much more. 
 
 The ideas we have of the various qualities 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 ie calls primary qualities: But colour, sound, taste, smell, heat, and 
 cold, he calls secondary qualities, and thinks that they are only powers in 
 bodies of producing certain 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 express was well under- 
 stood by Des Cartes, and is explained by him in his Principia, part 1, 
 sect. 69, 70, 71. 1 > 1^ ' 
 
 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 ambiguity 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 popular meaning, to 
 have an idea of any thing signifies nothing more than to think of it. 
 
 Although the operations of the mind are most properly and naturally, - 
 
CHAP. IX.] THE SENTIMENTS OF MR. LOCKE. 77 
 
 and indeed most cotntnonlyj in all vulgar languages, expressed 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 
 believe a thine, and to have a belief of it; to see a thing, and to have a 
 sight of it ; tcT conceive a thing, and to have a conception, notion, or idea 
 of it, are j^rases perfectly synonymous. In these phrases, the thought 
 means nothing but the act of thinking ; the belief, the act of believing ; 
 and the conception, notion, or idea, the act of conceiving. 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 philosophical theory, which the vulgar 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. 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 conceived to have an idea for its object. As this has been a 
 common opinion among philosophers', as far back as we can trace philosophy, 
 it is the less to be wondered at, that they should be apt to confound the 
 operation 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 diflFerent 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 lan- 
 guages, even by the vulgar ; and many things may be affirmed of thought, 
 that is, of the operation of the mind in thinking, which cannot, without 
 error, and even absurdity, be affirmed of the object of that operation. 
 
 From this, I think it is evident, that if the word idSa, in a work where 
 it occurs in every paragraph, be used, without any intimation of the am- 
 biguity of the word, sometimes to signify thought, or the operation of the 
 mind in thinking, sometimes to signify those internal objects of thought 
 which philosophers suppose, this must occasion confusion in the thoughts 
 both of the author and of the readers. I take this to be the greatest blemish* 
 in the Essay on Human Understanding. I apprehend this is the true 
 source of several paradoxical opinions 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 the only objects of thought ? or. Whether it is not possible for 
 men to think of things which are not ideas in the mind ? 
 
 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^mini^erceivesjaathiiigJmLiteLjavm jdsas : That all knowledge consists 
 in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our ideas : That we 
 can have no knowledge further than we have ideas. These, and many other 
 
78 THE SENTIMENTS OF Mil. LOCKE. [ESSAY II. 
 
 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. liocke would have acknow- 
 ledged, 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 reconcile 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 question proposed, it seems to involve 
 it in greater darkness. 
 
 When I think of Alexander, I am told there is an image or idea of Alex- 
 ander in my mind, which is the immediate object of this thought. The 
 necessary consequence of this seems to be, that there are two objects of this 
 thought ; the idea, which is in the mind, and the person represented by 
 that idea ; the first, tlie immediate _pbjee„t. of the_. thought ; the last object 
 of the same thought, but not the immediate object. This is a hard saying 5 
 for it makes every thought of things external to have a double object. Every 
 man is conscious of his thoughts, and yet, upon attentive reflection, he per- 
 ceives 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 
 philosopher who has expressly owned this duplicity in the object of thought, 
 though it follows necessarily from maintaining, that, in the same thought, 
 there is one object that is immediate and in the mind itself, ai;id 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 immediate 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 thin^ 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 thougiit, is an object of thought no less immediate than 
 the sign was before : And there are here two objects of thought, one suc- 
 ceeding another, which we have shown is not the case with respect to an 
 idea and the objects it represents. 
 
 I apprehend, therefore, that if philosophers 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 impossible for 
 men to think of any thing else. 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 peiceived, that the maintaining that ideas in the mind are the 
 only immediate objects of thought, must necessarily draw this consequence- 
 along with it. 
 
 The consequence, however, was seen by Bishop Berkeley and Mr. Hume, 
 
CHAP. IX.] THE SENTIMENTS OF MB. I.OCKK. 79 
 
 who rather chose to admit the consequence than to give up the principle 
 from which it follows. r r 
 
 Perhaps it was unfortunate for Mr. Locke, that he used the word idea so 
 very frequently, 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 notioti is a word in common language, 
 •whose meaning agrees exactly with the popular meaning of the word i^ea, 
 but not with the philosophical. 
 
 Wlien 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 distinguished in the frequent use of it. "there are many pas- 
 sages 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. 
 
 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 con- 
 sists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our ideas, it is 
 impossible to put a meaning upon this, consistent with his principles, un- 
 less he means by ideas every object of human thought, whether mediate or 
 immediate ; every thing, in a word, that can be signified by the subject, or 
 the predicate of a proposition. 
 
 Thus we see, that the word idea has three different meanings in the 
 essay ; and the author seems to have used it sometimes in one, sonietimes 
 in another, vidthout 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 Un- 
 derstanding, 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 at- 
 tention to the distinction between the operations of the mind and the ob- 
 jects of those operations. Although this distinction be familiar to the 
 vulgar, and found in the structure of all languages, philosophers, when 
 they speak of ideas, often confound the two together ; 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 coalesce with the thought, sometimes with 
 
80 THE SENTIMENTS OF MR. LOCKE. [^ESSAY 11. 
 
 the object of thought, and sometimes to have a distinct existence of their 
 own. 
 
 The same philosophical theory of ideas has led philosophers to confound 
 the different 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 knowledge 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 metaphor- 
 ically, or analogically. When I think of any thing that does not exist, 
 as of the republic of Oceana, I do not perceive it ; I only conceive or imagine 
 it : 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 
 perception, but of sensation and of consciousness. So far the vulgar dis- 
 tinguish very properly the different operations of the mind, and never con- 
 found 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 ,Ji.e 
 percg.ption„of_ideas^ injthejnjnd. Perceiving, remembering, imagining, 
 being conscious, are all perceiving ideas in the mind, and are called -per- 
 ceptions. Hence it is that philosophers speak of the perceptions of memory, 
 and the perceptions of imagination. They make sensation fo be a per- 
 ception ; and every thing we perceive by our senses to be an idea of sen- 
 sation : sometimes they say, that they are conscious of the ideas in their 
 own minds, sometimes that they perceive them. 
 
 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 distinctly than the vulgar, it seems really to be the case ; 
 and the only account that can be given of this strange phenomenon, I take 
 to be this : That the vulgar seek no theory to account for the operations of 
 their minds ; they knowthat they see, and hear, and remember, and imagine ; 
 and those who think distinctly, will express these operations distinctly, 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 performed ; how they see, and h^ar, and remember, 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 
 throwsa cloud upon the text, so a false theory darkens the phenomena 
 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 common language of the unlearned clearly 
 distinguishes 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 acquainted with the road. 
 
CHAP. X.] THE SENTIMENTS OF BISHOP EERKELEV. 81 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE SENTIMENTS OF BISHOP BERKELEY. 
 
 George Berkeley, afterwards Bishop of Cloyne, published his new 
 Theory of Vision in 1709 ; his Treatise on the Principles of Human Know- 
 ledge in 17 10; and his Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in 1713; 
 being then a fellow of Trinity CoUege, Dublin. He is acknowledged 
 universally to have great merit' as an excellent writer, and a very acute 
 and clear reasoner on the most abstract 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 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 demonstrated, by a variety of arguinents, 
 grounded 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 categories, 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, tliere^^d not appear to be that 
 force and clearness in them which might have been expected in a matter of 
 such importance. Mr. Norris had declared, that after air the arguments 
 that had been offered, the existence of an external world is only probable, 
 but by no means certain. Malebranche thought it rested upon the 
 authority of revelation, and that the arguments drawn from reason were 
 not perfectly conclusive. Others thought, that the argument from revelation 
 was a mere sophism, because revelation comes to us by jur senses, and must 
 rest upon their authority. 
 
 Thus we see, that the new philosophy had been making gradual approaches 
 towards 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 attempted to answer his argjuments, 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 certain he made some ; and that he himself continued to the end 
 of his life, firmly persuaded, not only of its truth, but of its great import- 
 ance for the improvement of human knowledge, and especially for the de- 
 fence of religion. Dial. Pref. " If the principles which I here endeavour 
 to propagate are admitted for true, the consequences which I think evidently 
 flow from thence are, that atheism and scepticism will be utterly destroyed, 
 many intricate points made plain, great (Dfiiculties solved, several useless 
 
82 THE SENTIMENTS OF BISHOP BEKKELEY. [|eSSAY II. 
 
 parts of science retrenched, speculation referred to practice, and men re- 
 duced from paradoxes to common sense." 
 
 In the Theory of Vision, he goes no farther than to assert, that the ob- 
 jects 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 the reason 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 de- 
 grees, I cannot say. I think he insinuates the last as the reason in the 
 Principles of Human Knowledge. 
 
 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 shows, that dis- 
 tance, of itself, and immediately, is not seen; but that we learn to judge 
 of it by certain sensations and perceptions 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 phenomena in optics, of which the greatest adepts 
 in that science had always either given a false account, or acknowledged 
 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 assertion 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 ob- 
 ject from another which we see immediately. The author acknowledges, 
 that there is a visible extension, and visible figures, which are proper ob- 
 jects of sight ; there must therefore be a visible distance. Astronomers 
 call it angular distance ; and although they measure it by the angle, which 
 is made by two lines drawn from the eye to the two distant objects, yet it 
 is immediately perceived by sight, even by those who never thought of that 
 angle. 
 
 _He led the way in showing how we learn to perceive the distance of an 
 object from the eye, though this speculation was carried further 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 ; calling the first, visible, the last, tangible extension and figure. He 
 showed likewise, that tangible extension, and not visible, is the object of 
 geometry, although ;nath6maticians commonly use visible diagrams in their 
 demonstrations. 
 
 The notion of extension and figure which we get from sight onlv, and 
 that which we get from touch, have been so constantly conjoined from our 
 intancy m aU the judgments we form of the objects of sense, that it required 
 great abilities to distinguish them accurately, and to assign to each sense 
 what truly belongs to it; "so diflicult a thing it is," as Berkeley iustlv 
 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 oii 
 Vision with that uncommon penetration and judgment which he possessed, 
 
 ^bstr^e a"uf?:S. '^""" " ""''''' """ "''''''''''' '"^ ^ ''''' ^«^-p' "P- - 
 
 He concludes this Essay, by showing, in no less than seven sections, the 
 
 of toTh Jif ? '"telhgent bemg, endowed with sight, without the sense 
 
 of touch, might form of the objects of sense. This speculation, to shallow 
 
CHAP. X] THE SENTIMENTS OF BISHOP EEKKELEV. 83 
 
 thinkers, may appear to be egregious trifling. To Bishop Berkeley it ap- 
 peared 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 pheno- 
 mena 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 require 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 boldnesj 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 philosophers concerning ideas, if he could biit take 
 courage to call in question the existence of ai material world, would easily 
 find unanswerable arguments in that doctrine. " Some truths there are," 
 says Berkeley, '' 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 furniture of the earth ; in a wordj 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 actually imprinted on the senses, or 
 else such as are perceived, by attending to the passions and operations of 
 the mind; or, lastly, ideas formed by help of memory and imagination, 
 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 established : yet Berkeley says nothing more for it than that itis evident. 
 If he means that it is self-evident, this, indeed; might be a good reason for 
 not offering any direct argument in proof of it. But I apprehend this 
 cannot justly be said. Self-evident propositions are those which appear 
 evident to every man of sound understanding who apprehends 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 own minds ? I believe, that, to any man' uninstructed in philosophy, 
 this proposition will appear very improbable, if not absurd. However 
 scanty his knowledge may be, he considers the sun and moon, the earth 
 and sea, as objects of it : and it will be diflicult 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 sen- 
 timents, I once believed this doctrine of ideas so firmly, as to embrace the 
 whole of Berkeley's system in consequence of it; till, finding other con- 
 sequences to follow froih 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 ob- 
 jects of my knowledge are ideas in my own mind? Prom that time to the 
 present, I have been candidly and impartially, as I think, seeking for the 
 evidence of this principle, but can find none, excepting the authority of 
 philosophers. 
 
84 THE SENTIMENTS OF BISHOP BEllKELEY. QeSSAY II. 
 
 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 material 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. What- 
 ever is perceived 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 evidence, in a line or two, to any 
 one who is capable of the least reflection .-'" But though his demonstration 
 might have been comprehended in a line or two, he very prudently thought, 
 that an opinion, which the world would be apt to look upon as a monster 
 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 .■" No; 
 there is need of time and pains j the attention must be awakened and de- 
 tained, by a frequent repetition of the same thing, placed often in the same, 
 often in different lights." 
 
 " It was therefore necessary to dwell upon it, and turn it on all sides till 
 it became familiar ; to consider all its consequences, and to obviate every 
 prejudice and prepossession 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 
 seriously into Berkeley's.'system, have found, after all the assistance which 
 writings give, that time and practice are necessary to acquire the habit of 
 speaking and thinking distinctly upon it. 
 
 Berkeley foresaw the opposition that would be made to his system, from 
 two different quarters ; first, from the philosophers ; 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 Dialogues. He 
 sets out with a declaration'. Dial. I, "That, of late, he had quitted several 
 of the subhme notions he had got in the schools of the philosophers for 
 vulgar opinions," and assures Hylas, his fellow-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 mvsterv 
 and riddle Pref. to Dial. " If Ids principles are admitted for true, men 
 wiJl be reduced from paradoxes to common sense." At the same time he 
 acknowledges, "That they carry with them a great opposition to the pre- 
 judices 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, 
 
CHAP. X.3 THE SENTIMENTS OF MSHOP BEEKELEY. 85 
 
 Philonous, that the denying of matter or corporeal substance is not re- 
 pugnant 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 represented as one who trusts his senses, who thinks he knows 
 the things he sees and feels, and entertains no doubt of their existence.—^ 
 If by material substance is meant only sensible body, that which is seen and 
 felt, (and the unphilosophical part of the world, I dare say mean no more), 
 then I am more certain of matter's existence than you or any other philo- 
 sopher pretend to be. If there be any thing which makes the 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 ac- 
 knowledge, are not near so natural, or so agreeable to the common sense of 
 mankind, and Holy Scripture, as yours." 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 vulgar and the philosophers ; the former being 
 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 ; which two things put together do, in elFect, constitute 
 the substance of what he advances :" and he concludes by observing, " That 
 those principles, which at first view lead to scepticism, pursued to a certain 
 point, bring men back to common sense." 
 
 These • passages show 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 
 found to take part with the vulgar against the philosophers, and to vindicate 
 common sense against their innovations. Whatjgity |s it that he did not 
 carry the suspicion of the doctrine of philosophers so fafas'tS'Soubt of that 
 philosophical tenet on which'Tiis whole System is built, to wit, that the 
 thin^i&mpdktely perceiTCd;by JK£leflseC^Ci^MI^C^^ 
 
 A?tef"31, 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 vukar opinion he reduces to this, that the very things which We 
 perceive by our senses do really exist. This he grants : For these things, 
 iays 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 ot 
 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 that this is no notion of the vulgar, but a refinement ot phUo- 
 sophers : and that the notion of material substance, as a suhstratum, or sup- 
 port of that coUection of sensible quaUties to which we give the name of an 
 apple or a melon, is likewise an invention of philosophers, a^ is not found 
 with the vulgar tiU they are instructed by philosophers. The substance 
 
{J6 THE SENTIMENTS OF BISHOP BERKELEY- [ESSAY II. 
 
 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 conjoined 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 exist- 
 ence 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 exist- 
 ence distinct from their being perceived by God, and exterior to all minds ? 
 This, indeed, he says, some heathens and philosophers have affirmed ; but 
 whoever entertains notions 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 perceive can exist any where, 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 objection 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. 
 
 To reconcile this repugnancy, he observes. Dial. 3, " That if the term 
 same be taken in the vulgar acceptation, it is certain, (and not at all re- 
 pugnant to the principles he maintains,) that different persons may per- 
 ceive the same thing ; or the same thing or idea exist in different minds. 
 Words are of arbitrary imposition ; and since men are used to apply the word 
 same, where no distinction or variety is perceived, and he does not preteiid 
 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 lan- 
 guage or the truth of things : But if the term same be used in the accep- 
 tation of philosophers, who pretend to an abstracted notion 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 philo- 
 sophers shall think fit to call a thing the same or no, is, I conceive, of 
 small importance. Men may dispute about identity and diversity, with- 
 out any real difference in their thoughts and opinions, abstracted from 
 names." 
 
 Upon the whole, I apprehend that Berkeley has carried this attempt to 
 reconcile his system to the vulgar opinion further than reason supports 
 him : and he was no doubt tempted to do so, from a just apprehension 
 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 show that his 
 system, if received 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 pleasures or our pains : Our sensations, whether agreeable or 
 disagreeable, are the same upon his system as upon any other. These are 
 
CHAP. X.] THE SENTIMENTS OF BISHOP BERKELEY. 87 
 
 real things, and the only things that interest us. They are produced in us 
 according to certain laws of nature, by which our conduct will be directed 
 in attaining the one, and avoiding the otlier : And it is of no moment to 
 us, whether they are. produced immediately by the operation of sonie 
 powerful 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 supposed 
 to possess, have always been the strong hold 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 
 attended 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 o^vn mind ; 
 5ind being ideas in 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 philosophy. 
 
 Of aU the opinions that have ever been advanced by pliilosophers, 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 wiU not, 
 I apprehend, be improper to trace this progeny of the doctrine of ideas 
 from its origin, and to observe its gradual progress, till it acquired 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 advancement of know- 
 ledge, and for the defence of religion. 
 
 During the reign of the Peripatetic philosophy, men were little disposed 
 to doubt, and much to dogmatize. The existence of the objects of sense 
 was held as a first principle ; and the received doctrine was, that the 
 sensible species or idea is the very form of the external object, just sepa- 
 rated 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 matter 
 under that philosophy. 
 
 Des Cartes taught men to doubt even of those things that had been 
 taken for first principles. 
 
 He rejected the doctrine of 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 som^ of his 
 disciples into egoism, and to disbelieve the existence of every creature in 
 the universe but themselves and their own ideas. i /-(. i. 
 
 But Des Cartes himself, either from dread of the censure of the Church, 
 whiph he took great care not to provoke, or to shun the ridicule of the 
 
88 THK SENTIMENTS OF BISHOP BERKELEY. . [kSSAY II. 
 
 world, which might have crushed liis system at once, as it did that of the 
 Egoists ; or perhaps, from inward conviction, was resolved to support the 
 existence 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 testi- 
 mony. But this argument is weak ; because according 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 vnll not support, we 
 deceive ourselves. To give more force to this weak argument, he some- 
 times adds, that we have by nature a strong propensity to believe that 
 there is an external world corresponding to our ideas. 
 
 Malebranche thought, that this strong propensity is not a sufficient 
 reason for believing 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, apos- 
 tles, 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 no^ too morose. 
 
 It may perhaps seem strange, that Locke, who wrote so much about 
 ideas, should not see those consequences which Berkeley thought so obvi- 
 ously deducible from that doctrine. Mr. Locke surely was not willing 
 that the doctrine of ideas should be thought to be loaded with such con- 
 sequences. He acknowledges, that the existence of a material 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 evidence as is sufficient 
 to direct us in pursuing 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 
 conjecture, that he had a glimpse of that system which Berkeley afterwards 
 advanced, but thought it proper to suppress it within his own breast. 
 The passage is in book 4, chap. 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 minds 
 requires no less power than the creation of matter, he adds what follows : 
 " Nay,_ possibly, if we could emancipate ourselves from vulgar notions, 
 and raise our thoughts, as far as they would reach, to a closer contem- 
 plation of things, we might be able to aim at some dim and seeming con- 
 ception, 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 omnipotent 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 
 authorise, if the common settled opinion opposes it ; especially in this 
 place, where the received doctrine serves well enough to our present 
 purpose." ° '^ 
 
 It appears from this passage,>*;. 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 emancipating 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 
 
CHAP. X.] THE SENTIMENTS OF BISHOP BERKELEY. 89 
 
 thought proper to keep it within his own breast. Thirdly, That it might 
 be doubted whether this system diflfered 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 
 110 aid in conceiving how a spirit might be made. These are the character- 
 istics of that system which Mr. Locke had in his mind, and thought it 
 prudent to suppress. M-ay they not lead to a probable conjecture, that it 
 was the same, or something^milar to that of Bishop Berkeley ? According 
 to- Berkeley's system, God's creating the material world at sueh 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. 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 conseq-uence, it seems reason- 
 able 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 fuU 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, published 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 collection 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 ma- 
 terial world ; and although 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 resolution to give up the material world altogether, as a sacrifice to 
 the received philosophy of ideas. 
 
 But we ought not in this historical sketch to omit an author of far in- 
 ferior name, Arthur Collier, rector of Langford Magna, near Sarum. He 
 published a book in 1713, which he calls Clavis Universalis ; or, a New 
 Enquiry after Truth ; being a demonstration of the non-existence or im- 
 possibility 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. Though he is not deficient in metaphysical acuteness, his style is 
 disagreeable, being full of conceits, of new coined words, scholastic terms, 
 and perplexed sentences. He appears to be well acquainted with Des 
 Cartes, Malebranche, and Norris, as well as with Aristotle and the school- 
 men : Butr what is very strange, it does not appear that he had ever 
 heard of Locke's Essay, which had been published 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 external world, before he ventured to publish his book. He is far from 
 thinking, as Berkeley does, that the vulgar are of his opinion. If his book 
 should make any converts to his system, (of which he expresses little hope, 
 though he has supported it by nine demonstrations,) he takes pains to 
 
90 BISHOP BERKELEY'S SENTIMEXTS OF IDEAS. [^ESSAY II/ 
 
 show that his disciples, notwithstanding their opinion, may, with the un- 
 enlightened, speak of material things in the common style. He himself 
 had scruples of conscience 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 aU 
 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 controversy 
 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. 
 
 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 pro- 
 perly be considered in another place. But I must take notice of one part 
 of his system, wherein he 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 principle ; 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 operations, the author informs us is this. That 
 ideas are passive, inert, unthinking beings ; they cannot therefore be the 
 image or lilteness 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 thinking, willing and perceiving ; we can reason 
 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 per- 
 ceives ideas, should itself be an idea, or like an idea, is evidently absurd. 
 
 He observes further, 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 of habitudes between things. But if, in the modern 
 way, the word idea is extended to spirits, and relations, and acts, this is, 
 after all, an aifair of verbal concern ; yet it conduces to clearness and pro- 
 priety, that we distinguish things very different 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 perceived, 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 similitude 
 to them : Yet we understand what they mean, and we can speak with 
 understanding, and reason about them, without ideas. 
 
CHAP. XI.J BISHOP BERKELEY'S SENTIMENTS OF IDEAS. 91 
 
 This account of ideas is very diflFerent from that which Locke has given. 
 In his system, we have no knowledge where we have no ideas. Every 
 thought must have an idea for its immediate object. In Berkeley's the 
 most important objects are known without ideas. In Locke's system, 
 there are two sources of our ideas, sensation and reflection. In Berkeley's, 
 sensation 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 ; 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 justice to Malebranche to acknowledge, that in this 
 point, 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 
 difi"erent ways in which we come to the knowledge of things. To know 
 things by their ideas, is only one of the four. He affirms, that we have 
 no ideas of our own mind, or any of its modifications : That we know these 
 things by consciousness, without ideas. Whether these two acute philo- 
 sophers foresaw the consequences that may be drawn from the system of 
 ideas, taken in its full extent, and which were afterwards drawn by Mr. 
 Hume, I cannot pretend to say. If they did, their regard to religion was 
 too great to permit them to admit those consequences, or the principles 
 with which they were necessarily connected. 
 
 However this may be, if there be so many things that may be appre- 
 hended 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 appre- 
 hend and reason about the world of spirits, without ideas, Is it not pos- 
 sible that we may apprehend and reason about the material world, without 
 ideas .^ consciousness and reflection furnish us with notions of spirits, and 
 of their attributes, without ideas. May not our senses furnish us with no- 
 tions 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 }" 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 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 the Deity." 
 
 Though Hylas declares himself satisfied with this answer, I confess I am 
 not : Because if I may trust the faculties that God has given me, I do not 
 perceive matter objectively, that is, something which is extended and 
 solid, which may be measured and weighed, is the immediate object of my 
 touch and sight. And this object I take to be matter, and not an idea. 
 And though I have been taught by philospphers, that what I immediately 
 touch is an idea, and not matter ; yet I have never been able to discover 
 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 language, 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 
 
92 BISHOP Berkeley's sentiments of ideas. [[essay ii. 
 
 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 object, is an act of my minji 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 notions and ideas ; and therefore it is worth while to find, if we 
 are able, what those things are which he calls ideas, as distinguished 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 imagination. " The ideas im- 
 printed 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. 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, 
 orderly, 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 certainly no idea, whether faint or strong, can 
 exist, otherwise than in a mind perceiving it." Princip. sect. 33. 
 
 From this passage we see, that, by the ideas of sense, the author means 
 sensations : And this indeed is evident from many other passages, of which 
 I shall mention a few : Princip. sect. 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 ; 
 and is it possible to separate, even in thought, any of these from percep- 
 tion } For my part, I might as easily divide a thing from itself." Sect. 
 18. As for our senses, by them we have the knowledge only of our sen- 
 sations, ideas, or those things that are immediately perceived by sense ; 
 caU them what you will : But they do not inform iis that things exist 
 without the mind, or unperceived, like to those which are perceived." 
 Sect. 25. " All (our ideas, sensations, 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, and refer 
 to the explication there given of it, which appears to me to be perfectly 
 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. 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 re- 
 semble a sensation, is a great absurdity. In all this, I cannot but agree 
 perfectly with Bishop Berkeley ; and I think his notions of sensations 
 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. 
 
CHAP. XI.] BISHOP BERKELEY'S SENTIMENTS OF IDEAS. 93 
 
 .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 knowledge only of our sensations or ideas, call 
 them which you wiU. I allow him to call them which he will; but I 
 would have the word only m 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 be given 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 any 
 thing that can be in a material world. The only proposition in this de- 
 monstration which admits of doubt is, that by our senses, we have the 
 knowledge of our sensations only, and of nothing else. If there are objects 
 of the senses which are not sensations, his arguments do not touch them j 
 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 operations, without ideas or sensations. 
 
 Shall we say then, that, by our senses, we have the knowledge of our 
 sensations only ; and that they give us no notion of any thing but of our 
 sensations ? Perhaps this has been the doctrine of philosophers, and not of 
 Bishop Berkeley alone, otherwise he would have supported it by argu- 
 ments. 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 of sensation are sensations. But phi- 
 losophers 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 in- 
 animate 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 sen- 
 sation, nor can have the least resemblance to any sensation. The pin has 
 length and thickness, 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 consider the account he gives of the ideas of imagination. Of 
 these he says, Princip. sect. 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. This much is certain, and grounded on experience. Our sen- 
 sations," 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. It might surely be expected, that 
 we should be well acquainted with the ideas of imagination, 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. 
 
94 BISHOP BERKELEY'S SENTIMENTS OF IDEAS. [ESSAY II. 
 
 I would observe^ in \h.e.Jirst place, with regard to these ideas of imagi- 
 natiorij that they are not sensations ; for surely sensation is the work of 
 the senses, and not of imagination ; 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 imagination and notions, which the author says are not ideas. I 
 can easily distinguish between a notion and a sensation. It is one thing 
 to say, I have the sensation of pain : It is another thing to say, I have no 
 notion of pain. The last expression signifies no more than that I under- 
 stand what is meant by the word pain. The first signifies that I really 
 feel pain. But I can iind no distinction between the notion of pain, and 
 the imagination of it, or indeed between the notion of any thing 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 perfectly 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 constant." 
 This doctrine was afterwards greedily 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 dif- 
 ference of these two states is only this, that, in the last, the pain is less 
 regular, vivid, and constant, than in the first. We cannot possibly assent 
 to this. Every man knows that he can relate the pain he sufi^ered, 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 important objects of knowledge, that is, of spirits, of their opera- 
 tions and of the relations 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 sensations 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 sensations only in the degree of their regu- 
 larity, vivacity, and constancy : But this cannot be reconciled to the ex- 
 perience of mankind ; besides this mark, which cannot be admitted, he 
 hath given us no other mark by which they njay 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 re- 
 lations of things, is applicable to what he calls ideas of imagination. 
 Princip. sect. 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, inasmuch as I know or understand what is meant by 
 these words It is also to be remarked that, all relations including an 
 act of the mind, we cannot so properly be said to have sin idea, but rather 
 a notion of the relations and habitudes between things." From this it 
 follows, that our imaginations are not properly ideas but notions, because 
 
CHAP. XI.] BISHOP EERKELEV'S SENTIMENTS OF IDEAS. 95 
 
 they include an act of the mind. 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 de- 
 nominated active. If it be a good reason why we have not ideas, but 
 notions only of relations, because they include an act of the mind ; the 
 same reason must lead us to conclude, that our imaginations are notions 
 and not ideas, since they are made and unmade by the mind as it thinks 
 fit, and from this it is properly denominated active. 
 
 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 belong. 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 aU, 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 
 difl^rent 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 stiU 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 \%j,,^^ 
 
 If we consult other authors who have treate'd of ideas, we shall find as 
 little satisfaction with regard to the meaning of this philosophical term. 
 The vulgar have adopted it ; but they only mean by it the notion or con- 
 ception we have of any object, especially our more abstract or general 
 notions. When it is thus put to signify the operation of the mind about 
 objects, whether in conceiving, remembering, or perceiving, it is well 
 understood. But philosophers will have ideas to be the objects of the 
 mind's operations, and not the operations 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 an- 
 other, are sent forth from the objects, whose form they are. In modern 
 philosophy, they are things in the mind, which are the immediate objects 
 of all our thoughts, and which have no existence 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 phi- 
 losophers, especially where they are so unanimous ; but until I can compre- 
 hend what they mean by ideas, I must think and speak with the vulgar. 
 
 In sensation properly so called^ I can distinguish two things, the mind 
 or sentient being, and the sensation. Whether the last is to be called a 
 feeling or an operation, 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 
 
96 THE SENTIMENTS OF MR. HUME. [ESSAY II. 
 
 mini and the object of that operation. That the object perceived is one 
 thing, and the perception of that object another, I am as certain as 1 can 
 be of any thing. The same may be said of conceptionj 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. Now, if in these operations the idea be a fourth thing 
 diflferent from the three I have mentionedj I know^ not v^hat it is, nor have 
 been able to learn from all that has been viritten about ideas. And if the 
 doctrine of philosophers about ideas confounds 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 doctrine is altogether repugnant to all that 
 I am able to discover of the operations of my own mind ; and it is re- 
 pugnant to the common sense of mankind, expressed in the structure of all 
 languages. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE SENTIMENTS OF MR. 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 time of Des Cartes, had called ideas, this author distinguished 
 into two kinds, to wit, impressions and ideas ; comprehending under the 
 iirst, aU our sensations, passions, and emotions ; and under the last, the 
 faint images of these, when we remember or imagine them. 
 
 He sets out with this as a principle that needed no proof, and of which 
 therefore he oifers 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 sy.stem 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, proceeding upon this- 
 foundation, demonstrated very easily, that there is no material world. 
 And he thought, that for the purposes both of philosophy and religion, ^ve 
 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 perceive only the ideas of 
 spirits, we shall find the same diificulty 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 shows no such partiality in favour of the world of spirits. 
 
CHAP. XII.]] THE SENTIMENTS OF MR. HOME. 97 
 
 He adopts the theory of ideas in its full extent ; and, in consequence, 
 shows 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 sen- 
 sations; and what we call the mind, is only a bundle of thoughts, 
 passions, and emotions, without any subject. 
 
 Some ages hence, it will perhaps be looked upon as a curious anecdote, 
 that two philosophers of the 18th century, of very distinguished rank, 
 were led by a philosophical hypothesis ; one to disbelieve the existence of 
 matter ; and the other, to disbelieve the existerice both of matter and of 
 mind. Such an anecdote may not be uninstructive, if it prove a warning 
 to philosophers to beware of hypotheses, especially when they lead to con- 
 clusions which contradict the principles upon which all men of common 
 sense must act in common life. 
 
 The Egoists, whom we mentioned before, were left far behind by Mr. 
 Hume; for they believed their own existence, and perhaps also the ex- 
 istence of a Deity. But Mr. Hume's system does not even leave him a 
 «e^to claim the property of his impressions and ideas. 
 
 A system of consequences, however absurd, 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 object 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. The struc- 
 ture of all languages supposes this distinction, and is built upon it. Phi- 
 losophers have introduced 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 immediate object. The vulgar know 
 nothing about this idea ; it is a creature of philosophy, introduced to 
 account for, and explain, the manner of our perceiving external objects. 
 
 It is pleasant to observe, that while philosophers, 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 sup- 
 planted 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 ? 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 confounded with the perception of it. But in Hume's, 
 the idea or the impression, which is only a more lively idea, is mind, per- 
 ception, 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 irnpressinns, and the less lively, which he calls ideas. To 
 prevent repetition, I must here refer the reader to some remarks made 
 
 H 
 
98 THE SENTIMENTS OF MR. HUME. [^ESSAY II. 
 
 upon this division^ Essay 1, chap. 1, in the explication there given of the 
 words perceive, object, impression. 
 
 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 derived originally from the senses ; and this ancient 
 doctrine seems to be revived by some late French philosophers^ and by Dr. 
 Hartley and Dr. Priestley among the British. Des Cartes maintained, 
 that many of our ideas are innate. Locke opposed the doctrine of innate 
 ideas with much zeal, and employs the whole first book of his Essay 
 against it. But he admits 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 reflection upon the operations of our 
 minds, by which we get the ideas of every thing belonging to the mind. 
 The main design of the second book of Locke's Essay, is to show, 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 para- 
 doxes, although, in general, he is not fond of paradoxes : and had he 
 foreseen all the consequences that may be drawn from his account 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 spi- 
 ritual, 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 any thing 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 im- 
 pressions ; and no wonder, since he holds that wC' 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 corresponding 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 relations of cause and effect. 
 
 As to the order and succession of our ideas, he holds it to be deter- 
 mined 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 included in the second, since causation, according to him, im- 
 plies no more than contiguity in time and place. 
 
 It is not my design at present to show how Mr. Hume, upon the prin- 
 ciples 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 bemg only to give a detail of the sentiments of philosophers con- 
 cernmg ideas since they became an object of speculation, and concerning 
 the manner of our perceiving external objects by their means. 
 
CHAP. Xlir.] THE SENTIMENTS OF ANTONY ARNAULD. 99 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE SENTIMENTS OP ANTONY ARNAULD. 
 
 In this sketch of the opinions of philosophers concerning ideas, we must 
 not omit Antony Arnauld, doctor of the Sorbonne, who, in the year 1 683, 
 published his book of True and False Ideas, in opposition to the system of 
 Malebranche, before mentioned. It is only about ten years since I could 
 find this book, and I believe it is rare. 
 
 Though Arnauld wrote before Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, I have re- 
 served to the last place some account of his sentiments, because it seems 
 difficult to determine whether he adopted the common theory of ideas, 
 or whether he is singular in rejecting it altogether as a fiction of philo- 
 sophers. 
 
 The controversy between Malebranche and Arnauld necessarily led 
 them to consider what kind of things ideas are, a point upon which other 
 philosophers had very generally been silent. Both of them professed 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 every thing that we perceive its properties. 
 
 It is necessary to premise, that both these authors use the word per- 
 cepfion, as Des Cartes had done before them, to signify every operation of 
 the understanding. " To think, to know, to perceive, are the same thing," 
 says Mr. Arnauld, chap. 5, 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 ex- 
 tension. I apprehend, therefore, that when they make sensation, per- 
 ception, 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 sensations, 
 its imaginations, its pure intellections, its passions and affections. These 
 are immediately perceived ; we are conscious of them, and have no need of 
 ideas to represent them to us. 
 
 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 communicate 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 necessarily conclude, either that the idea 
 is some modification of the human mind, or that it must be an idea in tlie 
 Divine Mind, which is always intimately present with our minds. The 
 
 H 2 
 
100 THE SENTIMENTS OF ANTONY ARNAULD. [eSSAY II. 
 
 matter being brought to this alternative, Malebranche considers first all 
 the possible ways such a modification 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 6bjections against every hy- 
 pothesis of such ideas being produced in our minds, and therefore con- 
 cludes, that the immediate objects of perception 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 mentioned by Malebranche ; but he 
 maintains, that ideas are modifications of our minds. And finding no 
 other modification of the human mind which can be called an idea of an 
 external object, he says, it is only another word for perception. Chap. 5. 
 def. 3. " 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 mo- 
 difications 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 per- 
 ceive external objects immediately, but by certain representative images of 
 them called ideas, 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 .'' 
 
 But, says Mr. Arnauld, those ideas are mere chimeras, fictions of philo- 
 sophers ; 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 human mind. 
 The only true and real ideas are our perceptions,, which are acknowledged 
 by all philosophers, and by Malebranche himself, to be acts or modifications 
 of our own minds. He does not say that the fictitious ideas were a fiction 
 of Malebranche. He acknowledges that they had been very generally 
 maintained by the scholastic philosophers, and points out, very judiciously, 
 thie prejudices that had led them into the belief of such ideas. 
 
 Of all the powers of our mind, the 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 belongs 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 every thing when we think of it, that it is 
 present to the mind, or in the mind. But this presence is' metaphorical, 
 or analogical only ; and Arnauld calls it objective 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 philosophers 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 
 
CHAP. Xlll.] THE SENTIMENTS OF ANTONY AUNAULD. 101 
 
 carried away by these prejudices than even the vulgar, because the use 
 made of this theory was to explain and account for the varibus operations 
 of the niindj a matter in which the vulgar take no concern. 
 
 He thinks, however, that Des Cartes had got the better of these pre- 
 judices,_ and that he uses the word idea as signifying the same thing with 
 perception, and is therefore surprised that a disciple of Des Cartes, ajid 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, 
 r^ard to his doctrine concerning ideas. 
 
 I shall not attempt to give the reader an account of the continuation 
 of this controversy between those two acute philosophers, in the subsequent 
 defences and replies ; because I have not access to see them. After much 
 reasoning, and some animosity, each continued in his own opinion, and left 
 his antagonist where he found him. 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 ; perhaps 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 acknow- 
 ledge no object of perception but the external object. But he seems very 
 unwilling to deviate so far from the common tract, and what he had given 
 up with one hand he takes back with the other. 
 
 For, first. Having deiined 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 philo- 
 sopher 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 idea^ I 
 understand that form of any thought, by the immediate perception of 
 which I am conscious of that thought ; so that I can express 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 Ar- 
 nauld. But Des Cartes adds a qualification to it, which Arnauld, in 
 quoting it, omits ; and which shows, 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. 
 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 cor- 
 poreal 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 show 
 that these ways of speaking, common among philosophers, to wit, that we 
 perceive nof things immediately ; that it is their ideas that ure the imme- 
 diate objects of our thoughts ; that it is in the idea of every thing that lue 
 perceive its properties,, are not -to be rejected, but are true when rightly 
 
102 REFLECTIONS ON THE THEOEY OF IDEAS. QeSSAY II. 
 
 understood. He labours to reconcile these expressions to his own definition 
 of ideasj by observing, that every perception and every thought is neces- 
 sarily conscious of itself, and reflects upon itself ; and that, by this con- 
 sciousness and reflection, it is its own immediate object. Whence he 
 infers, that the idea, that is, the perception, is the immediate object of 
 perception. 
 
 This looks like a weak attempt to reconcile two inconsistent doctrines 
 by one who wishes to hold both. It is true, that consciousness always goes 
 along with perception ; but they are diiFerent 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 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 re- 
 sentment ; 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 re- 
 sentment is the immediate object of my resentment. 
 
 Upon the whole, if Arnauld, in consequence of his doctrine, that ideas, 
 taken for representative images of external objects, are a mere fiction of 
 the philosophers, 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 existence, I should have thought him 
 more consistent with himself, and his doctrine concerning ideas more 
 rational and more intelligible than that of any other author of my acquaint- 
 ance who has treated of the subject. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 KEFI.BCTIONS ON THE COMMON THEORY OF IDEAS. 
 
 After so long a detail of the sentiments of philosophers, ancient and 
 modern, concerning 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 regulating 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, re- 
 membering, or imagining objects, I am far from calling in q\iestion the ex- 
 . istence 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 
 existence 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 con- 
 ceive things that are absent, as well as perceive those that are within the 
 reach of our senses ; and that such conceptions may be more or less distinct, 
 and more or less lively and strong. We have reason to ascribe to tlie 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 dispute among philosophers about a 
 word. The ideas, of whose existence I require the proof, are not the 
 operations of any mind, but supposed objects of those operations. They 
 are not perception, remembrance, 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 
 
CHAP. XIV.] REFLECTIONS ON THE THEOllY OF IDEAS. 103 
 
 perception. These, by all who acknowledge their existence, 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 impression, in our own minds. This idea is said to be the image, the 
 resemblance, the representative 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 philo- 
 sophers think, of its existence. 
 
 In like manner, when I remember, or when I imagine any thing, all 
 men acknowledge 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 imme- 
 diate object which really exists in the mind at the same time we re- 
 member or imagine. This object is an idea or image of the thing re- 
 membered 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 in- 
 structed in philosophy. When we see the sun or moon, we have no doubt 
 that the very objects which we immediately 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. 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, 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 perceive 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 plain man, uninstructed in philosophy, have 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 conjure 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 philosophical 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 sub- 
 stantial and permanent beings called the sun and moon ; but they never 
 appear to us in their own person^, but by their representatives 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 proposed : 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 whatsoever, are nothmg but 
 ideas in our minds; and that there can be nothing like the ideas of one 
 mind, but the ideas of another mind. There is nothing in nature but 
 
104 heflections on the theory of ideas. [essay II. 
 
 minds and ideaSj 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 misrepresented, as far as I am able to judge ; and surely nothing farther 
 is necessary to show, that, to the uninstructed in philosophy, it must ap- 
 pear extravagant and visionary, and most contrary to the dictates of common 
 understanding. 
 
 There is less need of any farther proof of this, that it is very amply ac- 
 knowledged by Mr. Hume in his Essay on the academical or sceptical 
 philosophy. " It seems evident," says he, " that men are carried by a 
 natural instinct, or prepossession, to' repose faith in their senses ; and tKat 
 without any reasoning, or even almost before 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 anni- 
 hilated. 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 when men follow this blind and powerful 
 instinct of nature, they always suppose the very images presented by the 
 senses to be the external objects, and never entertain any suspicion, that 
 the one is nothing but representations of the other. This very table which 
 we see white, and feel hard, is believed to.exist independent of our per- 
 ception, and to be something external to the mind which perceives it ; our 
 presence bestows not being upon it ; our absence annihilates it not. It 
 preserves its existence uniform and entire, independent of the situation of 
 intelligent beings who perceive or contemplate it. 
 
 " But this universal and primary notion of all men is soon destroyed by 
 the slightest philosophy, which teaches us, that nothing can ever be pre- 
 sent to the mind, but in 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 philosopher, to be a natural instinct 
 or prepossession, 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 
 existence is independent of us, and our perception. 
 
 In this acknowledgment, Mr. Hume, indeed, seems to be more generous, 
 and even more ingenious, than Bishop Berkeley, who would persuade us 
 that his opinion does not oppose the vulgar opinion, but only that of the 
 philosophers ; and that the external existence of a material world is a phi- 
 losophical hypothesis, and not the natural dictate of our perceptive powers. 
 The bishop shows a timidity of engaging such an adversary, as a primary 
 and universal opinion of all men. He is rather fond to court its patronage. 
 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 autfidvum 
 descendere monte leonem. After all, I suspect that a philosopher, who 
 wages war with this adversary, will find himself in the same condition as 
 a mathematician Avho 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 
 
CHAP. XIV.J REFLECTIONS ON THE THEOEY OF IDEAS. 105 
 
 have mentioned incidentallyj in order to prove it, seem too weak to sup- 
 port the conclusion, 
 
 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 imme- 
 diately ? He has oflFered four arguments to show 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 shown to be necessary that in perception there should be 
 an union between the object and the percipient. 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, if material objects were immediate objects of per- 
 ception, there could be no physical science; things necessary and im- 
 mutable being the only objects 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 ma- 
 terial things were perceived by themselves, they would be a true light to 
 our minds, as being the intelligible form of our understandings, and con- 
 sequently perfective of them, and indeed superior to them." If I compre- 
 hend any thing of this mysterious argument, it follows from it, that the 
 Deity perceives nothing at all, because nothing can be superior to his un- 
 derstanding, or perfective of it. 
 
 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 expressed, and most fully urged by Dr. Samuel Clarke, I 
 shall give it in his words, in his second reply to Leibnitz, sect. 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 things themselves, (as the omnipresent 
 God is to the whole universe) or the images of things, as the soul is in its 
 proper sensorium," 
 
 Sir Isaac Newton expresses the same sentiment, but with his usual 
 reserve, in a query only. 
 
 The ingenious Dr. Porterfield, in his ]^say concerning the motions of 
 our eyes, adopts this opinion with more confidence. His (vords 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, therefore, our mind can never perceive any thing but its own proper 
 modifications, and the various states of the sensorium, to vi^hich it is pre- 
 sent : 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 tjie sensorium, I know 
 
106 REFLKCTIONS ON THE THEORY OF IDEAS. J[ESSAY It. 
 
 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." And again, in his third reply to Leibnitz, sect. 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 ad- 
 mitted; 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 further necessary, that, 
 when we perceive objects, either they act upon us, or we act upon them. 
 This does not appear self-evident, nor have I ever met with any proof 
 of it. I shall briefly offer the reasons why I think it ought not to be ad- 
 mitted. 
 
 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, dcies not act at aU. 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 external de- 
 nomination, which implies neither action nor quality in the object per- 
 ceived. 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 con- 
 ceive 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 rea- 
 sonings, drawn from such analogies, ought never to be trusted. 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 pro- 
 perties. 
 
 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 operations of mind; the 
 first kind produces no effect without the mind ; the last does. The first 
 they call immanent acts ,- the second transitive. AU intellectual operations 
 belongto the first class ; they produce no effect upon any external object. 
 But without having recourse to logical distinctions, every man of common 
 sense knows, that to 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 
 
CHAP. XIV.3 REFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY OF IDEAS. 107 
 
 upon the object, or the object upon the mind, but strong reasons to the 
 contrary. Dr. Clarke's argument against our perceiving external objects 
 immediately 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 organs 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 operations of the 
 mind. INIany philosophers resolve 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 necessary between 
 that which makes the impression, and that which receives it ; between 
 that which feels, and that which is felt. And though no philosopher will 
 now pretend to justify such analogical reasoning as this; yet it has a 
 powerful influence upon the judgment, while we contemplate the opera- 
 tions of our minds, only as they appear through the deceitful medium of 
 such analogical notions and expressions. 
 
 When we lay aside those analogies, and reflect attentively upon our per- 
 ception 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 evidence, 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 ne- 
 cessity of yielding implicit submission? 
 
 There rempjns 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 opinion of all men, that we perceive 
 
 " external objects immediately, subjoins what follows : 
 
 " But 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 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 arid 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, suffers no alteration. It 
 was therefore nothing but its image which was present to the mind. These 
 are the obvious dictates of reason ; and no man 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 existences, which remain uniform and independent. 
 So far, then, we are necessitated, by reasoning, to depart from the primary 
 instincts of nature, and to embrace a new system with regard to the evidence 
 of our senses." 
 
 We have here a remarkable conflict between two contradictory opinions, 
 wherein all mankind are engaged. On the one side, stand all the vulgar, 
 who are unpractised in philosophical researches, and guided by the uncor- 
 rupted primary instincts of nature. On the other side, stand all the phi- 
 losophers ancient and modern ; every man without exception who reflects. 
 
108 KEFLECTIONS ON THE THEORV OF IDEAS. QeSSAY II. 
 
 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 reasoning in it than I have 
 found in any other author : I shall therefore examine it minutely. 
 
 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 present to the mind but an image or perception." 
 
 The phrase of being present to the mind has some obscurity ; but I con- 
 ceive he means being an immediate object of thought ; an immediate object, 
 for instance, of perception, 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. For though 
 common sense and my external senses demand my assent to their dictates 
 upon their own ,authority, yet philosophy is not entitled to this privilege. 
 But that I may not dissent from so grave a personage without giving a 
 reason of my dissent : I see the sun when he shines ; I remember the 
 battle of CuUoden ; 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 objects, and are let in by the senses, and strike upon the mind; 
 but this has been so effectually 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 unmeaning parts of the 
 ancient system. To what cause is it ovdng that modern philosophers are 
 so prone to fall back into this hypothesis, as if they really believed it ? 
 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 doctrine of images let in by 
 the senses, holding, 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 in- 
 voluntarily to that which they have rejected. 
 
 Mr. Hume surely did not seriously believe 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 shown, Mr. Hume and all modern 
 philosophers maintain, that the images which are the immediate objects of 
 perception have no existence when they are not perceived; whereas, if 
 they were let in by the senses, they must be, before they are perceived, 
 and have a separate existence. 
 
 He tells us further, 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 perceive external objects, and this I conceive 
 is the immediate intercourse here meant. 
 
 Hitherto I see nothing that can be called an argument. Perhaps it 
 was intended only for illustration. The argument, the only argument, 
 follows : 
 
CHAP. XIV.3 REFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY OF IDEAS. 109 
 
 The table which we see, seems to diminish as we remove farther fi-om 
 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 dictates of reason. 
 
 To judge of the strength of this argument, it is necessary to attend to a 
 distinction which is familiar to those who are conversant in the mathe- 
 matical sciences, I mean the distinction between real and apparent mag- 
 nitude. 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 tangible 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 ex- 
 tremities of the object, making an angle of which the object is the subtense, 
 the apparent magnitude is measured by this angle. This apparent mag- 
 nitude is an object of sight, and not of touch. Bishop Berkeley calls it 
 •visible magnitude. 
 
 If it is asked. What is the apparent magnitude 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 j" The answer 
 must be. So many thousand miles, or so many diameters of the earth. 
 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 dimensions, the last only two. The first is 
 measured 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 it is likewise evident, that tlie apparent magnitude must continue the 
 same while the body is unchanged. So far otherwise, that every man who 
 knows any thing of mathematics can easily demonstrate, that the same 
 individual object, remaining in the same place, and unchanged, must 
 necessarily vary in its apparent magnitude, according as the point from 
 which it is seen is more or less distant ; and that its apparent length or 
 breadth will be nearly in a reciprocal proportion to the distance of the 
 spectator. This is as certain as the principles 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 ex- 
 perience 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 apparent magnitude taken together, 
 we learn to judge of its real magnitude. 
 
 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 discover by one sense things 
 which are properly 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 
 
110 REFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY 01' IDEAS. j^ESSAY II. 
 
 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 beU, are properly objects of hearing. 
 
 If these things be considered, it will appear, that Mr. Hume's argument 
 hath no force to support his conclusion, nay, that it leads to a contrary 
 conclusion. The argument is this, the table we see seems to diminish 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 ; _ there- 
 fore it is not the real table we see : I admit both the premises in this 
 syllogism, but I deny the conclusion. The syllogism has what the Lo- 
 gicians call two middle terms : apparent magnitude 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- 
 mon sense. 
 
 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 ? It is de- 
 monstrable that it must. How then can this apparent diminution be an 
 argument that it is not the real table ? 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 absurd 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 sup- 
 port his conclusion, but that it leads to the contrary conclusion ; to wit, 
 that it is the real table we see ; for this plain reason, that the table we see 
 has precisely that apparent magnitude 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 distances ; and in every 
 distance, in a thousand different positions ; and it can be determined de- 
 monstratively, 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 positions, as you will, or in them all ; 
 open your eyes and you shall see a table precisely of that apparent mag- 
 nitude, 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 .'' 
 
 In a word, the appearance of a visible object is infinitely diversified, 
 according to its distance and position. The visible appearances are 
 innumerable, when we confine ourselves to one object, and they are mul- 
 tiplied according to the variety of objects. Those appearances have been 
 matter of speculation to ingenious men, at least since the time of Euclid.' 
 They have accounted for all this variety, on the supposition, that the 
 objects we see are external, and not in the mind itself. The rules they 
 have demonstrated about the various projections of the sphere, about the 
 appearances of the planets in their progressions, stations, and retrogra- 
 dations, and all the rules of perspective, are built on the supposition 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 instance. 
 Shall we say that a false suppo.sition, invented by the rude vulgar, has 
 
CHAV. XIV.] HEFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY OF IDEAS. Ill 
 
 been so lucky in solving an infinite number of phenomena of nature ? 
 This surely would be a greater prodigy than philosophy ever exhibited. 
 Add to this, that upon the contrary hypothesis, to wit, that the objects of 
 sight are internal, no account can be given of any one of those appearances, 
 nor any physicsd 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 existence 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 furnished an instance of an opinion so 
 unanimously entertained by philosophars upon so slight grounds. 
 
 A third reflection I would make upon this subject is. That philosophers, 
 notwithstanding 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 difl^er 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 sensoritim : I 
 considered the hypothesis of images in the brain, in the fourth chapter of 
 this essay. As to images in the mind, if any thing more is meant by the 
 image of an object in the mind than the thought of that object, I know 
 not what it means. The distinct conception of an object may, in a meta- 
 phorical or analogical sense, ,be called an image of it in the mind. But 
 this image is only the conceptioji of the object, and not the object conceived. 
 It is an act of the mind, and not the object of that act, 
 
 Some philosophers will have our ideas, or a part of them, to be innate ; 
 others will have them all to be adventitious : some derive them from the 
 senses alone ; others from sensation and reflection : some think they are 
 fabricated by the mind itself; others that they are produced by external 
 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 im- 
 pressions are unknown : some think that we have ideas only of material 
 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 dis- 
 tinguished 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 objects of thought, with others the only objects. 
 
 A fourth reflection is. That ideas do not make any of the operations of 
 the mind to he better understood, although it was probably with that 
 view that they have been first invented, and afterwards so generally 
 received. 
 
 We are at a loss to know how we perceive 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 kmd of feelmg, or 
 immediate perception of things present, and in contact with the percipient ; 
 and feeling is an operation so familiar, that we think it needs no explica- 
 tion, but may serve to explain other operations. 
 
 But this feeling, or immediate perception, is as difficult to- be compre- 
 hended, as the things which we pretend to explain by it. Iwo 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 po%ver is 
 
112 REFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY OF IDEAS. [[ESSAY II. 
 
 <m 
 
 produced, 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 pre- 
 sent, 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 remember 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 different, and to perplex and darken things that are clear. 
 The theory of ideas resembles this, by reducing all the operations of the 
 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 contiguity of the object contributes nothing at all to make 
 it better understood ; because there appears no connexion between con- 
 tiguity and perception, but what is grounded on prejudices, drawn from 
 some imagined similitude between mind and body ; and from the supposi- 
 tion, 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 language 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 regard to the common sense of mankind. 
 
 Not to mention, that it led the Pythagoreans 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 reformer 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 thousands of years ; but he still retained ideas 
 in the brain and in the mind. Upon this foundation, all our modern 
 systems of the powers of the mind are built. And the tottering 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 arguments, the ex- 
 istence 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 em- 
 ployed in mustering up metaphysical arguments, to prove that there is a 
 sun and a moon, an earth and a sea ? Yet we find these truly great men, 
 Des Cartes, Malebranche, Arnauld, and Locke, seriously employing them- 
 selves in this argument. 
 
 Surely their principles led them to think, that all men, from the 
 beginning of the world, believed the existence of these things upon insuf- 
 ficient 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 ex- 
 istence 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 paradoxes, was led into by this theory of ideas. Such as. 
 
CHAP. XV,] THE SYSTEM OF LEIBNITZ. 113 
 
 that the secondary qualities of body are no qualities of body at all, but 
 sensations of the mind : That the primary qualities of body are res3mblances 
 of our sensations : That we have no notion of duration, but from the suc- 
 cession of ideas in our minds : That personal identity consists in con- 
 sciousness ; so that the same individual thinking being may make two or 
 three different persons, and several diflFerent thinking beings make one 
 person : That judgment is nothing but a perception of the agreement or 
 disagreement of our ideas. Most of these paradoxes I shall have occasion 
 to examine. 
 
 However, all these consequences of the doctrine of ideas were tolerable, 
 compared with those which came afterwards to be discovered 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, without 
 any subject on which they may be impressed : 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 itself, 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 posi- 
 tions 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. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ACCOUNT OP THE SYSTEM OF LEIBNITZ. 
 
 There is yet another system concerning perception, of which I shall 
 give some account, becaijse of the fame of its author. It is the invention 
 of the famous German philosopher Leibnitz, who, while he hved, held the 
 first rank among the Germans in all parts of philosophy, as well as in ma- 
 thematics, in jurisprudence, in the knowledge of antiquities, aud m every 
 branch, both of science and of literature. He was highly respected by 
 emperors\ and by many kings and princes, who bestowed upon him sin- 
 gular marks of their esteem. He was a particular favourite of our Queen 
 Caroline, consort of George II., with whom he continued 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 improve- 
 ment in mathematics, caUed by Newton the method of fluxions, and by 
 Leibnitz the differential method, engaged the attention of the mathema- 
 ticians in Europe for several years. He had likewise a controversy with 
 the learned and judicious Dr. Samuel Clarke, about several points of 
 Newtonian philosophy which he disapproved. The papers which gave 
 occasion to this controversy, with all the repUes and rejoinders, had the 
 honour to be transmitted from the one party to the other through the 
 hands of Oueen Caroline, and were afterwards published. 
 
 His authority, in aU matters of philosophy, is still so grea,t in most parts 
 ef crrmanyrthat they are considered as bolrf spirits, and a kind of heretics. 
 
114 THE SYSTEM OF LETBNITZ. [ESSAY II. 
 
 who dissent from him in any thing. Wolfius, the most voluminous writer 
 in philosophy of this age, is considered as the great interpreter and advo- 
 cate of the Leibnitzian 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, lie published with the title 
 of Psychologia empirica, seu experimentalis. 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 learned. 
 
 I must therefore take the short account I am to give of this system from 
 the writings of Leibnitz himself, without the light which his interpreter 
 Wolfius may have thrown upon it. 
 
 Leibnitz conceived the whole universe, bodies as well as minds, to be 
 made up of monads, that is, simple substances, each of which is, by the 
 Creator in the beginning 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 existence to eternity. 
 The changes which the monad undergoes, of what kind soever, though 
 they may seem to us the eifect of causes operating from without, yet they 
 are only the gradual and successive evolutions 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 organised body, which orga- 
 nised 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. 
 
 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 re-acted upon by every other body, it 
 follows, says Leibnitz, that every monad is a kind of living mirror, which 
 reflects 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 mentioned, to wit, that every change in a monad is the evolution of 
 its own original powers, and would have happened though no other sub- 
 stance 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 human soul. The 
 monads that compose the organised 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, indestructible, because, having no parts, it cannot 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 made. 
 
 ^ 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 organised bodies, 
 of various forms and different degrees of perception ; but they never die, 
 nor cease to be in some degree active and percipient. 
 
 This philosopher makes a distinction between perception and what he 
 calls apperception. The first is common to all monads, the last proper to 
 the higher orders, among which are liuman souls. 
 
CHAP. XV."] THE SYSTEM OF LEIBNITZ. 115 
 
 By apperception he understands that degree 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 opera- 
 tions 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 opera- 
 tions 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 5 our percep- 
 tion of them would continue, 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, inde- 
 pendently of the external objects. , 
 
 Every perception or apperception, every operation, in a word, of the soul, 
 is a necessary consequence of the state of it, immediately 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 constitu- 
 tion, which produces successively, and by necessary consequence, all its 
 successive states to the end of its existence : 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 concerning monads, and the pre- 
 established harmony, I have kept as nearly as I could to his own expres- 
 sions, in his New System (if the nature and communication of substances, 
 and of the union of soul and Lady ; and in the several illustrations of that 
 new "system which he afterwards published; 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 another place, I 
 observe first, that the distinction made between perception and apperception 
 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 perception 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 ot 
 which we are not conscious, is, we know not what ; and to call such an 
 operation by the name of perception, is an abuse of language. No man 
 can perceive an object, without being conscious that he perceives it. Mo 
 man can think, without being conscious that he thinks What men are not 
 conscious of, cannot therefore, without impropriety, be called either per- 
 ception 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 ot 
 Tur imjination, that name must signify what we know nothing about. 
 
116 THE SYSTEM OF LEIBNITZ. l^ESSAY II. 
 
 2. To suppose bodies organised or unorganised, to be made up of in- 
 divisible 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, perception 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 suggest. 
 
 4. This system overturns all authority of our senses, and leaves not the 
 least ground to believe the existence of the objects of sense, or the existence 
 of anything which depends upon the authority of our senses ; for our per- 
 ception of objects, according to this system, has no dependance 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 system 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 I have mentioned, is, 
 that it is all hypothesis, made up of conjectures and suppositions, without 
 proof. The Peripatetics supposed sensible species to be sent forth by the 
 objects of sense. The moderns suppose ideas in the brain or in the mind. 
 Malebranche supposed that we perceive the ideas of the divine mind. Leib- 
 nitz supposed monads and a pre-established harmony ; and these monads 
 being creatures of his own making, he is at liberty to give them what pro- 
 perties and powers his fancy may suggest. In like manner, the Indian 
 philosopher supposed that the earth is supported by a huge elephant, and 
 that the elephant stands on the back of a huge tortoise. 
 
 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 agreeable to the rules of 
 the art : they are intended to please, not to convince. But the philo- 
 sophers would have us to believe their fictions, though the account they 
 give of the phenomena of nature has commonly no more probability than 
 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 Jiypotheses in just contempt ; and to consider them as the 
 reveries of speculative men, which will never have any similitude to the 
 works of God. 
 
 The Supreme Being has given us some inteUigence 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. What- 
 ever can be_ inferred from these common informations, by just and sound 
 reasoning, is true and legitimate philosophy ; but what we add to this 
 from conjecture is all spurious and ijlegitir^ate. 
 
CllAf. XVlQ OF SENSATION. 117 
 
 After this long account of the theories advanced by philosophers to ac- 
 coun-.; for our perception of external objects, I hope it will appear, that 
 neither Aristotle's theory of sensible species, nor Malebranche'^ 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 har- 
 mony, 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 difficulty, 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, memory, and imagination, are all original and simple powers 
 of the mind, and parts of its constitution. For' this reason, though I 
 have endeavoured tp show 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 philo- 
 sophers have wearied themselves and their readers with their speculations 
 upon this subject, they can neither strengthen this belief nor weaken it ; 
 nor can they show how it is produced. It puts the philosopher and the 
 peasant upon a level ; and neither of them can give any other reason for be- 
 lieving his senses, than that he finds it impossible for him to do otherwise. 
 
 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 per- 
 ception only, but with many other acts of ourjninds; and that is sensation- 
 To prevent repetition, I must refer the reader to the explication of this 
 word given in Essay 1. chap. J. _ 
 
 Almost all our perceptions have corresponding sensations winch con- 
 stantly accompany them, and, on that account, are very apt to be con- 
 founded with them. Neither ought we to expect that the sensation, and 
 its corresponding perception, should be distinguished in common language, 
 because the purposes of common life do not require it. Language is made to 
 serve the purposes of ordinary conversation ; and we have no reason to expect 
 that it should make distinctions that are not of pommon use. Hence it 
 happens that a quality perceived, and the sensation corresponding to that 
 perception, often go under the same name. _ 
 
 Th^ makes the names of most of our sensations ambiguous, and this 
 ambiguity hath very much perplexed philosophers. It wiU be necessary 
 to give some instances, to illustrate the distinction between our sensations 
 and the objects of perception. . , , ^- j „„„ 
 
 When I smell a rose, there is in this operation both sensation and per- 
 ception. The agreeable odour I feel, considered by itself, without relation 
 
118 OF SENSATION. I^ESSAV II. 
 
 to any external object, is merely a sensation. It affects the mind in a cer- 
 tain wayi 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 
 js not felt, it is not. There is no difference between the sensation 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. 
 Perception 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 agreeable sensation is raised when the rose is near, and 
 ceases when it is removed, I am led, by my nature, to conclude some qua- 
 lity 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 per- 
 ception. 
 
 But it is here to be observed, that the sensation I feel, and the quality 
 in the rose ivhich 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 distinguishing its different meanings removes all perplexity, and 
 enables us to give clear and distinct answers to questions about which phi- 
 losophers have held much dispute. 
 
 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 t%vo 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. 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 because 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 sen- 
 sation, and a quality perceived by means of that sensation. The first is 
 the sign, the last the thing signified. As both are conjoined by nature, 
 and as the purposes of common life do not require them to be disjoined in 
 Our thoughts, they are both expressed by the same name : and this ambi- 
 guity is to be found in all languages, because the reason of it extends to all. 
 
 The same ambiguity is found in the names of such diseases as are in- 
 dicated by a particular, painful sensation ; such as the toothach, the head- 
 ach. The toothach signifies a painful sensation, which can only be in a 
 sentient being ; but it signifies also a disorder in the body, which has no 
 similitude to a sensation, but is naturally connected 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 mindj 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 perceiving by the sense of touch. 
 
 I touch the table gently with my hand, and I feel it to be smooth, hard, 
 
CHAP. XVI,] OP SENSATION. * UQ 
 
 and cold. These are qualities of the table perceived by touch ; but I per- 
 ceive them by means of a sensation which indicates them. This sensation 
 not bejng painful, I commonly give no attention to it. It carries mv 
 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, smooth- 
 ness, or coldness, of the table which are signified by it. 
 
 It is indeed diflicult, 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 dif- 
 ficulty 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 illus- 
 trate 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 ingredients sen- 
 sation very often makes one. Of this we shall give some instances. 
 
 The appetite of hunger includes an uneasy sensation and a desire of 
 food. Sensation and desire are diiferent acts of mind. The last, from its 
 nature, must have an object ; the first has no object. These two ingre- 
 dients 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 com- 
 monly called it desire : many moderns choose rather to call it a feeling. 
 Both are right ; and they only err who exclude either of the ingredients. 
 Whether these two ingredients are necessarily connected, is perhaps difficult 
 for us to determine, there being many necessary connexions 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 contrary ingredients. When we hear of a heroic 
 action, the sentiment which it raises in our mind is made up of various in- 
 gredients. 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 ex- 
 ternal objects, but in most operations of the mind. 
 
 ' A smaU degree of reflection may satisfy us that the number and variety 
 of our sensations and feelings is prodigious : for to omit all those which 
 accompany our appetites, passions, and affections, our moral sentiments, 
 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. 
 
120 OF SENSATION. [^ESSAY II, 
 
 The most general and the most important division of our sensations 
 and feelings is into the agreeable, the disagreeable, and the indiflferent. 
 Every thing we call pleasure, happiness, or enjoyment, on the one hand ; 
 and on the other, every thing we call misery, pain, or uneasiness, is sen- 
 sation or feeling : for no man can for the present be more happy, or more 
 miserable than he feels himself to be. He cannot be deceived with regard 
 to the enjoyment or suffering of the present moment. 
 
 But I apprehend, that besides the sensations that are either agreeable, 
 or disagreeable, there is still a greater number that are indifferent. To 
 these we give so little attention that they have no name, and are imme- 
 diately forgot as if they had never been ; and it requires attention to the 
 operations of our minds to be convinced of their existence. 
 
 For this end we may observe, that to a good ear every human voice 
 is distinguishable from all others. Some voices are pleasant, some dis- 
 agreeable ; but the far greater part can neither be said to be one or 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 ev«ry 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 indifferent. 
 
 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 gave 
 him neither 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. 
 
 As to the sensations and feelings that are agreeable or disagreeable, they 
 differ much, not only in degree, but in kind and in dignity. 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 lastjeelings. 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 I'heorie des seritimens agreahles. 
 
 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 shown us, by the same means, what tenor of con- 
 duct we ought to hold. ¥ox, first, The painful sensations of the animal 
 kind are admonitions to avoid what would hurt us ; and the agreeable sen- 
 sations of this kind, invite us to those actions that are necessary to the pre- 
 servation of the individual, or of the kind. Secondly, By the same means 
 nature invites us to moderate bodily exercise, and admonishes us to avoid 
 idleness and inactivity on the one hand, and excessive labour and fatigue 
 on the other. 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 benevolent affections 
 are all accompanied with an agreeable feeling, the malevolent with the 
 contrary. And, sixthly, The highest, the noblest, amd most durable plea- 
 
CHAV. XVI.] OF SliNSATION. 121 
 
 sure, is that of doing well, aud acting the part that becomes us ; and the 
 most bitter and painful 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 agreeable sensations and feelings, are 
 illustrated by the author last mentioned, so elegantly and judiciously, that 
 I shall not attempt to say any thing upon them after him. 
 
 I shall conclude this chapter by observing, 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 regard to the senses ; so the distinguishing 
 these operations seems to me to be the Itey that leads to a right under- 
 standing 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. Perception im- 
 plies an immediate conviction and belief of something external ; something 
 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 
 constitution they are always united. Every different perception is con- 
 joined with a sensation that is proper to it. The one is the sign, the other 
 the thing signifiefl. They coalesce in our imagination. 1 hey are signi- 
 fied by one name, and are considered as one simple operation. 'Jhe pur- 
 poses of life do not require them to be distinguished. 
 
 It is the philosopher alone who has occasion to distinguish them, when 
 he would analyse the operation compounded of them. But he has no sus- 
 picion that there is any composition in it ; and to discover this requires a 
 degree of reflection which has been too little practised even by philosophers. 
 
 In the old philosophy, sensation and perception 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 perception, as you 
 pleased. 
 
 Des Cartes and Locke, attending more to the operations of their own 
 minds, say, that the sensations by which we have notice of secondary qua- 
 lities, 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. Mr. Locke maintains, that the sensations we Lave from primary 
 qualities are resemblances of those qualities. This shows 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 thosethat belong 
 to the primary qualities. The reason of this will appear in the next 
 chapter. 
 
 But had Mr. Locke attended with sufficient accuracy to the sensations 
 which he was every day aud every hour receiving from primary qualities, 
 he would have seen, that they can as little resemble any quality of an in- 
 animated being, as pain can resemble a cube or a circle. 
 
 What had escaped this ingenious philosopher, was clearly discerned by 
 Bishop Berkeley. He had a just notion of sensations, and saw that it was 
 impossible that any thing in an insentient being could resemble 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 
 
122 OBJECTS OF PEHCEPTION. [^ESSAY II. 
 
 and perception under one name, and to consider them as one uncompouuded 
 operation. Pliilosophers, even more than the vulgar, gave the name of 
 sensation to the whole operation of the senses ; and all the notions we have 
 of material things were called ideas of sensation. This led Bishop Berkeley 
 to take one ingredient 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 re- 
 semblance to any thing material, he concluded that there is no material 
 world. 
 
 If the senses furnished us with no materials of thought but sensations, 
 his conclusion 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 conviction of external 
 objects, he reasons from a false supposition, and his arguments fall to the 
 ground. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 OF THE OBJECTS OF PBRCEI'TION ; AND FIHST, OF PRIMARY AXD 
 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 be- 
 tween 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 
 distinction 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, divisibility, figure, motion, solidity, 
 hardness, softness, and fluidity, were by Mr. Locke called primary qua- 
 lities 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 any thing common to the primary which belongs not to the se- 
 condary ? And what is it ? 
 
 I answer. That there appears to me to be a real foundation for the dis- 
 tinction ; and it is this : That our senses give us a direct and a distinct 
 notion of the primary qualities, and inform ns what they are in themselves : 
 but of the secondary qualities, our senses give us only a relative and ob- 
 scure notion. They inform us only, that they are qualities that aflFect 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. 
 
 Every man capable of reflection may easily satisfy himself, that he has 
 a perfectly clear and distinct notion of extension, divisibility, 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, soft- 
 ness, 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 cohesion is weak ; 
 and hard when it is strong : of the cause of this cohesion we are ignorant, 
 but the thing itself we understand perfectly, being immediately informed 
 
CHAP. XVII.] OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION. 123 
 
 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 causes. 
 
 I observe further, 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 tendency of bodies towards the 
 earth ; sometimes 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 speculation. Now what notion have we of this cause 
 when we think and reason about it ? It is evident, we think of it as an 
 unknown cause, of a known eflfect. This is a relative notion, 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 
 unknown bears to something that is known, may give a relative notion of 
 it ; and there are many objects of thought, and of discourse, of which our 
 faculties can give no better than a relative notion. 
 
 Having premised these things to explain what is meant by a relative 
 notion, it is evident, 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 or modification in a rose which I call its smell, I am at a loss to 
 answer directly. Upon reflection 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 insentient. The quality in 
 the rose is something 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 oc- 
 casion 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 reasoning will apply to every secondary quality. 
 
 Thus I think it appears, that there is a real foundation for the dis- 
 tinction of primary from secondary qualities ; and that they are distin- 
 guished 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 conceived only as the un- 
 known causes or occasions -of certain sensations with which we are well 
 acquainted. 
 
 The account I have given of this distinction is founded upon no hypothesis. 
 Whether our notions of primary qualities are direct and distinct, those of 
 the secondary relative and obscure, is a matter of fact, of which every man 
 may have certain 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 are neither sensations, nor are they resem- 
 blances of sensations. 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 compare the one with the other ; and 
 
124 OUJECTS OF PERCEPTION- [ESSAY II. 
 
 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 sensation that is not felt by some 
 sentient being, is an absurdity. Figure and divisibility suppose a subject 
 that is figured and divisible, but not a subject that is sentient. 
 
 2. We have no reason to think, that the sensations by which we have 
 notice of secondary qualities resemble any quality of body. The absurdity 
 of this notion has been clearly shown 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 re- 
 semble the sensation of sound, nor the effluvia of an odorous body the 
 sensation of smell. 
 
 3. The distinctness of our notions of primary qualities prevents all 
 questions and disputes about their nature. '1 here are no different opinions 
 about the nature of extension, figure, or motion, or the nature of any 
 primary quality. Their nature is manifest to our senses, and cannot be 
 unknown to any man, or mistaken by him, though their causes may admit 
 of dispute. 
 
 The primary qualities are the object of the mathematical sciences ; and 
 the distinctness of our notions of them enables us to rea.son 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 certainty. 
 
 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 ? I answer : There is the same appearance 
 of contradiction in many things, that must be granted. We know that 
 wine has an inebriating quality ; 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 aflirm nothing of either 
 with understanding. We have a notion of both ; but it is only a relative 
 notion. We know that they are the causes of certain known eflfects. 
 
 4. The nature of secondary qualities is a proper subject of philosophical 
 disquisition ; and in this philosophy has made some progress. 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 
 reflect a particular kind of light occasions the sensation of colour. Very 
 curious discoveries 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 belonging 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 object perceived^ but they bear a 
 capital part in the notion we form of it. 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 carries us back to the sensation which it produces. We 
 give the same name to both, and are apt to confound them together. 
 
 But having a clear and distinct conception of primary qualities, we have 
 
CHAP. XVII.] OBJECTS OF PEHCEPtlON. 125 
 
 no need when we think of them to recall their sensations. When a pri- 
 mary quality is perceived, the sensation immediately leads our thought to 
 the quality signified hy it, iind is itself forgot. We have no occasion after- 
 wards 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 
 attention. 
 
 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 qua- 
 lities 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 any thing but the 
 figure and hardness of the body ; so difficult it is to attend to the sensations 
 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 philo- 
 sophers upon this subject. As to the former, it is not to be expected that 
 they should make distinctions which have no connexion with the common 
 affairs of life ; they do not therefore distinguish the primary from the se- 
 condary qualities, but speak of both as being equally qualities of the ex- 
 ternal object. Of the primary qualities they have a distinct notion, as 
 they are immediately and distinctly perceived by the senses ; of the se- 
 condary, 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 name is common to the cause and 
 the effect. Now, to distinguish clearly the different ingredients of a 
 complex notion, and, at the same time, the different meanings of an am- 
 biguous 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 contradic- 
 tion between the vulgar and the philosopher upon this subject, and each 
 charges the other with a gross absurdity. The vulgar say. That fire is 
 hot, and snow cold, and sugar sweet ; and that to deny this is a gross 
 absurdity, and contradicts 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 lauguage on 
 the part of the philosopher, and to indistinct notions on the part of the 
 vulgar. The philosopher says, I'here 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 whicli 
 the proper name is heat ; and the name of heat is given to this quality, 
 both by philosophers and by the vulgar^ much more frequently than to the 
 sensation of heat. 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 
 
126 OBJECTS OF PEUCEPTION. [eSSAY II. 
 
 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 revolutions : They were 
 distinguished, long before 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 considered as essential to matter, were not called qualities. That 
 the atoms, which they held to be the first principles of things, were ex- 
 tended, solid, figured, and moveable, there was no doubt ; but the question 
 was, whether they had srhell, taste, and colour ? or, as it was commonly 
 expressed, whether they had qualities ? The atomists maintained, that 
 they had not ; that the qualities were not in bodies, but were something 
 residting from the operation of bodies upon our senses. 
 
 It would seem, that when men began to speculate upon this subject, 
 the primary qualities appeared so clear and manifest, that they could en- 
 tertain no doubt of their existence wherever matter existed ; but the se- 
 condary 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. 
 
 This doctrine was opposed by Aristotle. He believed taste and colour 
 to be substantial 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 absurd fiction. Des Cartes not 
 only showed the absurdity of sensible species received by the senses, hut 
 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, 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 showed that there neither is nor can be 
 any similitude between them. 
 
 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 con- 
 founding the sensation with the quality that occasions it, this is owing to 
 rash judgment, or weak understanding, but not to any false testimony of 
 our senses. 
 
 This account of secondary qualities I lake to be very just ; and if Mr. 
 Locke had stopped here, he would have left the matter very clear. But 
 he thought it necessary to 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 
 
CHAP. XVII.] OBJECTS OF PEUCEPTION. ']27 
 
 fictions, that have no existence. They have told us, that, by the ideas 
 which we have immediately fr6m 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 philosophers would 
 keep by this meaning of the word idea, when applied to the objects of 
 sense, they would at least be more intelligible. Let us hear how Mr. 
 Locke explains the nature of those ideas, when applied to primary and 
 secondary qualities. Book 2, chap. 8, sect. 7, 10th edition. " To discover 
 the nature of our ideas the better, and to discourse of them intelligibly, it 
 will be convenient 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 something 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 : and if ideas are ideas or perceptions in our-minds, and at the 
 same time the modifications of matter in the bodies that cause such per- 
 ceptions 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 understanding, 
 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 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 qualities in the objects 
 which produce them in us." 
 
 These are the distinctions which Mr. Locke thought convenient, in 
 order to discover the nature of our ideas of the qualities 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 intractible 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, several other passages in the same chapter, in which 
 a like obscurity appears ; but I do not choose to dwell upon them. The 
 conclusion drawn by him from the whole is, that primary and secondary 
 qualities are distinguished by this, that the ideas of the former are resem- 
 blances or copies of them ; but the ideas of the other are not resemblances 
 of them. Upon this doctrine, I beg leave to make two observations. 
 
 First, Taking it for granted, that; by the ideas of primary and se- 
 condary 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 sen- 
 sation of sound be the idea of that vibration of the sounding 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 
 
128 OBJECTS OF PJER'CEPTION. I^ESSAY II. 
 
 of those qualities, he seems neither to have given due attention to those 
 sensations, nor to the nature of sensation in general. 
 
 Let a man press his hand against a hard body, and let him attend to 
 the sensation he feels, 'excluding from his thought everything external, 
 even the body that is the cause of his feeling. This abstraction indeed is 
 difiicult, and seems to have been little, if at all, practised : but it is not 
 impossible, and it is evidently the only way to understand the nature of 
 the sensation. A due attention to this sensation will satisfy 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 that I have the sensation of pain, by 
 pressing my hand against it. 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 eflfect the idea of its cause. 
 
 Neither did Mr. Locke give due attention to the nature of sensation in 
 general, when he alfirmed, that the ideas of primary qualities, that is, the 
 sensations excited by them, are resemblances of those qualities. 
 
 That there can be nothing like sensation in an insentient being, or like 
 thought in an unthinking being, is self-evident, and has been shown, 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 in- 
 genious 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. 
 
 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 sentiments common to philosophers, 
 concerning the ideas we have by our senses, to wit, that they are all sen- 
 sations, 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 distinction 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 in- 
 sentient. 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 philosophers about primary and secondary qualities, I think it appears, 
 that all the darkness and intricacy that thinking men have found in this 
 subject, and the errors they have fallen into, have been owing to the dif- 
 ficulty of distinguishing clearly sensation from perception ; what we feel 
 from what we perceive. 
 
 'j'he external senses have a double province ; to make us feel, and to 
 make us perceive. They furnish us with a variety of sensations, some 
 
CHAP. XVIII.] OTHEll OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION. 129 
 
 pleasant, others painful, and others indifferent; at the same time thev 
 give us a conception, and an invincible belief of the existence of external 
 objects. 11ns conception of external objects is the work of nature. The 
 belief of their existence, which our senses give, is the work of nature : so 
 likewise IS the sensation that accompanies it. This conception and belief 
 which nature produces by means of the senses, we call perception. The 
 teeling which goes along with the perception, we call semation. The per- 
 ception and Its corresponding sensation are produced at the same time. 
 In our experience we never find them disjoined. Hence we are led to con- 
 si^r them as one thing, to give them one name, and to confound their 
 ditterent 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 believe, that 
 in every branch of the philosophy of nature, the productipns of human 
 fancy and conjecture will be found to be dross ; and that the only pure 
 metal that will endure the test, is what is discovered by patient observa- 
 tion, and chaste induction. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 OF OTHBK 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 following 
 classes. 1st, Certain states or conditions of our own bodies. 2d, Me- 
 chanical powers or forces. 3d, Chemical powers. Ath, Medical powers 
 or virtues. 5th, Vegetable and animal powers. 
 
 That we perceive certain disorders in our own bodies by means of un- 
 easy sensations, which nature hath conjoined with them, will not be dis- 
 puted. Of this kind are toothach, headach, 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 tpgtl^ach, for instance, theare i& first, a painful feeling ; and se- 
 condly, a conception and. b^ief of some disorder in the tooth, which is 
 believed to be the cause of^tbe uneasy feeling.- The first of these is a sen- 
 sation, 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 constantly conjoined in our experience, and in our imagination, that we 
 consider them as one. We give the same name to both ,• for the toothach 
 is the proper pame of the pain we feel ; and it is the proper name of the 
 disorder in the tooth which, causes ^hat pain. If it should be made a ques- 
 tion, whether the toothach be in the mind that feels it, or in the tooth 
 that is affected ? much might be said on both sides, while it i.s nnt observed 
 
130 OTHEll OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION. [^ESSAY II. 
 
 that the word has two meanings." But a little reflection satisfies us, that 
 the pain is in the mind, and the disorder in the tooth. If some philosopher 
 should pretend to have made a discovery, that the toothach, the gout, the 
 headach, 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 paradox. But both these systems, like 
 most paradoxes, will be found to be only an abuse of words. 
 
 We say that we feel the toothach, not that we perceive it. On the other 
 hand, we say ithat we perceive the colour of a body, not that we feel it. 
 Can any reason be given for this difference of phraseology ? In answer to 
 this question, I apprehend, that both when we feel the toothach, and when 
 we see a coloured body, there is sensation and perception conjoined. 
 But, in the toothach, 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 different, 
 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 conception 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 all the 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 sordetimes to be perceived. When disorders of the body occasion very 
 acute pain, the uneasy sensation 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 particular part of his body; 
 in his toe, for instance. Now reason assures us, that pain, being a sensa- 
 tion, can only be in the sentient being, as its subject; that is, in the mind. 
 And though philosophers have disputed much about the place of the mind ; 
 yet none of them ever placed it in the toe. 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 ? I answer, ^w*. That, when 
 a man says he has pain in his toe, he i? perfectly understood, both hj him- 
 self, and those who hear him. This is all that he intends. He really 
 feels what he and all men caU a pain in the toe ; and there is no deception 
 m the matter. Whether therefore there be any impropriety in the phrase 
 or not, is of no consequence in common life. It answers all the ends of 
 speech, both to the speaker and the hearers. 
 
 In aU languages, there are phrases which have a distinct meaning: 
 v^hile,_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 phi- 
 losophy. And the reason is, because language is not made either by gram- 
 marians or philosophers. Thus we speak of feeling pain, as if pain was 
 something distinct from the feeling of it. We speak of a pain coming and 
 going, and removing from one place to another. Such phrases are meant 
 
CBAF. XVItI.3 OTHER OBJECTS OF PERCKPTION. 131 
 
 by those who use them in a sense tliat 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 consider the sensation of pain by 
 itself, without 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 remem- 
 bered, 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 business of the philosopher to analyse this com- 
 plex notion, and to give different names to its different ingredients. He 
 gives the name oi 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 sensa- 
 tion and its cause. 
 
 Cases sometimes happen, which give occasion even to the vulgar to dis- 
 tinguish 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 imme- 
 diate conviction of some hurt or disorder in the toe. 
 
 The same phenomenon may lead the philosopher, in aU cases, to dis- 
 tinguish sensation 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 
 sensations cannot be deceitful ; they must be what we feel them to be, and 
 can be nothing else. Where then lies the deceit .'' 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 perception, 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 caUed a deception of sense. As when one, who has the jaun- 
 dice, 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 corresponding perception 
 follows even when there is no object, and in that case is apt to deceive us. 
 In like manner, nature has connected our sensations with certain impres- 
 sions that are made upon the nerves and brain : and, when the impression 
 is made, from whatever cause, the corresponding sensation and perception 
 immediately follow. Thus, in the man who feels pain in his toe after the 
 leg is out off, the nerve that went to the toe, part of which was cut off with 
 the leg, had the same impression made upon the remaining part, which, in 
 the natural state of his body, was caused by a hurt in the toe : and im- 
 mediately this impression is £olk)wed by the sensation and perception which 
 nature connected with it. , , . , j ^ .. 
 
 In like manner, if the same impresMons, which are made, al; present 
 
 K 2 
 
132 OTHER OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION- [^fiSSAf II. 
 
 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 ob- 
 jects which I now see. The impressions 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 accurate experiments. 
 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 s^me state : so that, 
 although this property of bodies is called their vis iusita, 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 planetary system gravitate towards each other. This has been ftilly 
 proved by the great Newton. But this gravitation is not conceived 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 neces- 
 sarily yield. Whether this force be impressed by some subtile ether, 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 phi- 
 losophy, particularly that of Newton, supposes it to be an impressed force, 
 and not inherent in bodies. 
 
 So that, when bodies gravitate, they do not properly act, but they 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 gravitation may be applied to other 
 mechanical powers, such as cohesion, magnetism, electricity ; and no less 
 to chemical and medical powers. By all these, certain effects are pro- 
 duced, ufon the application of one body4o another. Our senses discover 
 the effeet ; 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 eflFect : 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 multiplying 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 unknown causes of certain known effects. 
 
CHAP. XIX.] MATTER AND SPACE. 133 
 
 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 secondary qualities, of the disorders we feel in 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 tp the effect, 
 and to its cause; and they are a proper subject of philosophical dis- 
 quisition. 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 investigation of philosophers, whose proper business 
 it is to better th« condition of humanity, by discovering what was before 
 hid from human knowledge. 
 
 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 an extension, figure, divisibility, motion, hard- 
 ness, 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 eflfects 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 qualities, which may be subdivided 
 into various kinds ; a.s 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 mechanical, chemical, medical, animal, or vege- 
 table ; or if there ba any other powers not comprehended 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 business of a philosopher, and it is the glory 
 of a man, and the best reward of his labour, to discover what Nature has 
 thus concealed. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 OF MATTER AND OP SPACK. 
 
 The obiects of sense we have hitherto considered are qualities. But 
 qualities must have a subject. We give the names of matter, material 
 lubstance, and body, to the subject of sensible qualities; and it may be 
 asked, what this matter is .' 
 
134 MATTER AND SPACE. [ESSAY II. 
 
 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 qualities, and cannot exist without 
 •a subject ? 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 j that a body is 
 nothing but a collection of what we call sensible qualities ; and that they 
 neitlier have nor need any subject. This is the opinion of Bishop Berkeley 
 and Mr. Hume ; and they were led to it by findjing, that they had not in 
 their minds any idea of substance. It could neither be an idea of sensation 
 nor of reflection. 
 
 But to me nothing seems more absurd, than that there should be exten- 
 sion without any thing extended; or motion without any thing moved: 
 yet I cannot give reasons for my opiniono 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 understood ; 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 dif- 
 ference 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 imme- 
 diately perceived 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 afraid it must always be obscure until men have other faculties. 
 
 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 weU 
 as 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 equaUy obscure. 
 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, 
 ^nd solid, and moveable. 
 
 The relation which sensible qualities bear to their subject, that is, to 
 
CHAP. XIX.] MATTER AND SPACE. 135 
 
 body, is not, however, so dark, but that it is easily distinguished 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 understanding to distinguish the 
 quabties of a body from the body. Perhaps this distinction is not made by 
 brutes, nor by infents; and if any one thinks that this distinction is not 
 made by our senses, but by some other power of the mind, I will not dis- 
 pute this point, provided it be granted, that men, when their faculties are 
 npe, have a natural conviction, that sensible qualities cannot exist by 
 themselvesj without some subject to which they belong. 
 
 I think, indeed, that some of the determinations we form concerning 
 matter, cannot be deduced solely from the testunony of sense, but must be 
 referred to some other source. 
 
 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 
 conclusion is not deduced solely from the testimony 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 further divided, or that such division 
 would make it not to be a body. 
 
 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 
 cannot be carried. 
 
 For if there be any limit to this division, one of two things must neces- 
 sarily 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 
 divisible, 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 necessary conse- 
 quence 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 division : any one part may con- 
 tinue to exist though all the other parts were annihilated. 
 
 There is, indeed, a principle, long received as an axiom in metaphysics, 
 which I cannot reconcile to the divisibility of matter. It is. That every 
 being is' one, omne ens est unum. By which I suppose is meant, that 
 every thing that exists must either be one indivisible being, or composed of 
 a determinate number of indivisible beings. Thus an army may be divided 
 into regiments, 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 every thing, according to 
 this axiom, must be an individual, or made up of individuals. 
 
 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 Boscovick into his hypothesis. 
 
136 MATTER AND SPACE. ^KSSAY II. 
 
 which seems much more ingenious ; to wit, that matter is composed of a 
 definite number of mathematical 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 meta- 
 physical axiom, considering 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 good- 
 ness ; 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 concerning matter, which, I think, are 
 not solely founded upon the testimony of sense : such as, that it is im- 
 possible 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 intermediate 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 
 necessarily be. 
 
 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 pre- 
 sents itself as a necessary concomitant : for there can neither be extension 
 nor motion, nor figure, nor division, nor bohesion 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 we 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 contain 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 intro- 
 duced, it remains in our conception and belief, though the objects which in- 
 troduced it be removed. We see no absurdity in supposing a body to be 
 annihdated ; but the space that contained it remains : and to suppose that 
 annihilated, seems to be absurd. It is so much allied to nothing or empti- 
 ness, that it seems incapable 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 im- 
 mensity. 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 immense, eternal, immovable, and indestructible void or 
 emptiness. Perhaps we may apply to it what the Peripatetics said of 
 their farst matter, that whatever it is, it is potentiaUy only, not actually. 
 
 When we consider parts of space that have measure and figure, there is 
 pothing we understand better, nothing about which we can reason so clearlv. 
 and to so great extent. Extension and figure are circumscribed parts of 
 space, and are the object of geometry, a science in which human reason has 
 
CHAP. XIX.] MATTER AKD SPACE. 13? 
 
 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 
 trace it to its origin, we lose ourselves in the search. The profound spe- 
 culations of ingenious men upon this subject differ so widely, as may lead 
 us to suspect, that the line of human understanding 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 language, and of which 
 geometry treats, are originally perceived by the sense of touch only ; but 
 that there is a notion of extension, 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 important in the philosophy of our 
 senses, I shall adopt the names used by the inventor to express it ; remem- 
 bering what. has been abeady observed, that space, whether tangible or 
 visible, is not so properly an object of sense, as a necessary concomitant of 
 the objects both of sight and tou(^. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 appearances of the 
 same object may serve to illustrate the different conceptions of space, 
 according as they are drawn from the information 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 according 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 complete than 
 those we have from both senses. Another sense added to those of sight 
 and touch, might, for what I know, give us conceptions of space, as dif- 
 ferent 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 corresponding. 
 He acknowledges likewise, that Nature has established such a connexion 
 between the visible figure and magnitude of an object, and the tangible, 
 that we learn by experience to know the tangible figure and magnitude 
 from the visible. And haying been accustomed to do so from infancy, we 
 get the habit of doing it vnth such facility and quickness, that we think 
 we see tangible figure, magnitude, and distance of bodies, when, in reahfcy. 
 
138 MATTER AND SPACE. [ESSAY II. 
 
 we only collect those tangible qualities from the corresponding visible 
 qualities, which are natural signs of them. 
 
 The correspondence and connexion which Berkeley shows to be between 
 the visible figure and magnitude of objectSj 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 
 connected. 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 persuade 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 bevond the reach of touch. With regard 
 to them, what Berkeley calls visible magnitude waSj by astronomers^ 
 called apparent magnitude. 
 
 There is surely an apparent magnitude, and an apparent figure of ter- 
 restial objects, as well as of celestisd ; and this is what Berkeley calls their 
 visible figure and magnitude. But this was never made an object of thought 
 among phUosophers, until that author gave it a name, and observed the 
 correspondence and connexion between it and tangible magnitude and 
 figure, and how the mind gets the habit of passing so instantaneously 
 from the visible figure, as a sign to the tangible figure, as the thing signi- 
 fied by it, that the first is perfectly forgot, as if it had never been perceived. 
 
 Visible figure, extension, and space, may be made a subject of mathe- 
 matical speculation, as well as the tangible. In the visible we find two 
 dimensions only ; in the tangible three. In the one, magnitude is measured 
 by angles ; in the other by lines. Every part of visible space bears some 
 proportion to the whole; but tangible space being immense, any part of it 
 bears no proportion 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 have a real extension and figure, it must be either tangible 
 extension and figure, or visible, or 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. 
 
 It has been proved very fully by Bishop Berkeley, that sight alone, with- 
 out any aid from the informations of touph, gives us no perception, nor 
 
CHAP. XX.] EVlD3iNCE OF SENSE, &C. 139 
 
 even conception, of the distance of any object from the eye. But he was 
 nofaware that this very principle overturns the argument for his system, 
 taken from the difference between visible and tangible extension and figure : 
 for, supposing external objects to exist, and to have that tangible exten- 
 sion and figure which we perceive, it follows demonstrably, from the prin- 
 ciple now mentioned, that their visible extension and figure must be just 
 what we see it to be. 
 
 The rules of perspective, and of the projection of the sphere, which is a 
 branch of perfective, are demonstrable. They suppose the existence of 
 external objects, which have a tangible extensian and figure ; and, upon 
 that supposition, they demonstrate what must be the visible extension and 
 figure of such objects, when placed in such a position, and at such a 
 distance. . 
 
 Hence, it is evident, that the visible figure and extension of objects is 
 sojfar from being incompatible with the tangible, that the first is a necessary 
 consequence from the last, in beings that see as we do. The correspondence 
 between them is not ai^itrary, 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 experience 
 to be exactly what the rules of perspective show that it ought to be if the 
 senses give true information, is an argument of the truth of both. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 OP THE EVIDENCE OP SENSE, AND OP BELIEF IN GBNEHAL. 
 
 The intention of nature in the powers which we call the external senses, 
 is evident. They are intended to give us that information of external 
 objects which the Supreme Being saw to be proper for us in our present 
 state ; and they give to all mankind the information necessary for life, 
 without reasoning, without any art or investigation on our part . 
 
 The most uninstructed peasant has as distinct a conception, and as firm 
 a belief of the immediate objects of his senses, as the greatest philosophy ; 
 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 eonception of external objects, and his belief of their existence, is pro- 
 duced. This, I am afraid, is hid in impenetrable darkness. But where 
 there is no knowledge, there is the more room for conjecture ; and of this 
 philosophers have alvmays been very liberal. 
 
 The dark cave and shadows of Plato, the species of Aristotle, the films 
 of Epicurus, and the ideas and impressions of modem philosopfaers, are 
 the productions of human fancy, successively invented to satisfy the eager 
 desire of knowing how we perceive external objects ; but they are all de- 
 ficient in the two essential characters of a true and philosophical account 
 of the phenomenon : for we neither have any evidence of their existence, 
 nor, if they did exist, can it be shown how they would produce perception. 
 
 It was before observed, tliat there are two ingredients in this operation 
 of perception : First, The conception or notion of the objects ; and, secondly,^ 
 Tbe belief of its present 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 w« have 
 
-140 EVIDEKCE OF SENSE, &C. [ESSAY II. 
 
 certain conceptions ; but how they are produced, we know no more than 
 how we ourselves were produced. 
 
 When we have got the conception of external objects by our senses, we 
 can analyse them in our thought into their simple ingredients ; and we 
 can compound those ingredients into various new forms, which the senses 
 never presented. But it is beyond the power of human imagination to 
 form any conception, whose simple ingrefients 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 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 manner, 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 connexion 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, appears very absurd. Nor can we perceive any necessary 
 connexion between sensation and the conception and belief of an external 
 object. For any thing we can discover, we might have been so framed as 
 to have all the sensations we now have by our senses, without any impres- 
 sions upon our organs, and without any conception of any external object. 
 For any thing we know, we might have been so made as to perceive 
 external objects, without any impressions on bodily organs, and without 
 any of those sensations which invariably accompany perception in our 
 present frame. 
 
 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 think do not admit of 
 logical definition, because the operation of mind signified by them is per- 
 fectly simple, and of its own kind. Nor do they need to be defined, because 
 they are common words, and well understood. 
 
 " Belief must have an object. For he that believes, must believe some- 
 thing ; 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 obscure j 
 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 some- 
 thing 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 affirmation nor denial, nor should we have any form of words 
 to express either. Belief admits of all degrees, from the slightest suspicion 
 to the fullest assurance. 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. 
 
€HAP. XX.] EVIDENCK OF SENSEj &C. 141 
 
 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 cannot perceive an object of sense, 
 without believing that it exists. He cannot distinctly remember a past 
 event without believing that it did exist. Belief therefore is an ingredient A, 
 in consciousness, in perception, and in remembrance. 
 
 Not only in most of our intellectual operations, but in many of the active 
 principles of the human mind, belief enters as an ingredient. Joy and 
 sorrow, hope and fear, imply a belief of good or ill, either present or in 
 expectation. Esteem, gratitude, pity, and resentment, imply a belief of 
 certain 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 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 whatever is a' ground of belief. To 
 believe without 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 any thing 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 governing their belief. It is 
 the business of the logician to explain its nature, and to distinguish its va- 
 rious kinds and degrees; but every man of understanding can judge of it, and 
 commonly judges right, when the evidence 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. 
 
 The common occasions of life lead us to distinguish evidence into difl'erent 
 kinds, to which we give names that are well understood; such as the 
 evidence of sense, the evidence of memory, the evidence of consciousness, 
 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 analysing the difl'erent sorts of 
 evidence, to find out some common nature wherein they all agree, and 
 thereby to reduce them dll to one. This was the aim of the schoolmen in 
 their intricate disputes about the criterion of truth. Des Cartes placed 
 this criterion of truth in clear and distinct perception, 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 distjnct 
 perception in this maxim. Mr. Locke placed it in a perception of the 
 agreement or disagreement of our ideas, which perception, is immediate 
 in intuitive knowledge, and by the intervention of other ideas in reasoning. 
 
 I confesst hat, although I have, as I think, a distinct notion of the dif- 
 ferent kinds of j^dgnce above mentioned, and perhaps of some others,, 
 which TtlTMnecessary here to enumerate, yet I am not able to hnd 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 m- 
 
142 EVIDENCE OF SENSE, &C, QESSAY II. 
 
 the human mind, some of them in the liighest degi^, which we call cer- 
 tainty, others in various degrees according to circumstances. 
 \ I shall take it for granted, that the evidence of sense, when the proper 
 circumstances occur, 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. 
 
 ' First, It seems to be quite different from the evidence of reasoning. All 
 
 good evidence is commonly called reasonable evidence, 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 wiU direct us 
 to receive that information 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 reason- 
 ing, from propositions already known and believed. Thus the evidence of 
 the fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid's Elements consists in this, 
 That it is shown to be the necessary consequence of the axioms, and of the 
 preceding propositions. In all reasoning, there must be one or more pre- 
 mises, and a conclusion drawn from them : and the premises are called the 
 reason why we must believe the conclusion which we see to follow from 
 them. 
 
 That the evidence of sense is of a different 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 be- 
 lieving his senses, his belief remains as firm as if it were grounded on de- 
 monstration. 
 
 Many eminent philosophers thinking it unreasonable to believe, when 
 they could not show 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 philosophers have shown very clearly the fallacy 
 of these reasons, and have, as they imagine, discovered invincible reasons 
 against this belief; but they have never been able either to shake it in them- 
 selves, or to convince others. 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 seriously 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 ? I answer, first, That all modern philo- 
 sophers 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 subtile 
 reasoning, others to refute it. Neither of these can consider it as self- 
 evident. 
 
 Secondly, I would observe, that the word axiom 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 necessary, 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. 
 
CHAPi, XX.] EVIDENCE OF SENSE, &C. 143 
 
 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 eternal, 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 at an axiom, would, I apprehend, be to deviate^ 
 from the common use of the word. 
 
 Thirdly, If the word axiom be put to signify every truth which is known 
 Immediately, without being deduced from any antecedent truth, then the 
 existence of the objects of sense may be callea an axiom. For my senses 
 give me as immediate conviction of v^hat they testify, as my understanding 
 gives me 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 languages the analogical ex- 
 pressions of the testimony of sense, of giving credit to our sense, 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 ? I 
 think this may be said in a good sense ; for I take it to be the immediate 
 effect of our constitution, which is the work of the Almighty. But if in- 
 spiration be understood to imply a persuasion of its coming from God, our 
 belief of the oTjjectS of sense is not inspiration; for a man would believe 
 his senses though he had no notion of a Deity. He who is persuaded that 
 he is the workmanship of God, and that it is a part of his cpnstitution 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 resemblance, but still some difference. I remember distinctly to have 
 dined yesterday with such a company. What is the meaning of this ? It 
 is, that I have a distinct conception and firm belief of this past event; not 
 by reasoning, nor by testimony, but immediately from my constitution : 
 and T give the name of memory to that part of my constitution, by which 
 I have this kind of conviction of past events. 
 
 I see a chair on my right hand. What is the meaning of this ? 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 
 conviction which they give. They agree in this also, that the things be-i 
 lieved are not necessary, but contingent, and limited to time and place. 
 But they differ in two respects ; /»-.»<, that memory has something 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 darkness, though it has its limitations of another 
 
 These differences are obvious to all men, and very reasonably lead them 
 to conside;r seeing and remembering as operations specifically diferent. 
 But the nature Of the evidence they give has a great resemblance. A like 
 difference and a like resemblance there is between the evidence of sense 
 and that of consciousness, which I leave the reader to trace. 
 
144 IMPROVEMENT OF THE SENSES. [ESSAY II. 
 
 As to the opinion, that evidence consists in a perception of the agreement 
 or disagreement of ideas, we may have occasion to consider it more par- 
 ticularly 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 evi- 
 dence of memory, or' to that of the senses. 
 
 When I compare the different kinds of evidence above mentioned, I con- 
 fess, 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 per- 
 fectly comprehended ; and, therefore, I do not think it strange that philo- 
 sophers should have endeavoured to reduce all kinds of evidence to these. 
 
 When I see a proposition to be self-evident 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 foUoAvs from one or more self-evident 
 propositions, I want nothing more with regard to my belief of that conse- 
 quence. The light of truth so fills my mind in these cases, that I can 
 neither conceive, nor desire any thing more satisfying. 
 . On the other hand, when I remember distinctly 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 conclusions 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 accustomed to think that the treasure of 
 his knovidedge 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. 
 
 It is no wonder that the pride of philosophy should lead somfe to invent 
 vaiu theories, in order to account for this knowledge ; and others, who see 
 this to be impracticable, to spurn at a knowledge they cannot account for, 
 and vainly attempt to throw it off, as a reproach to their understanding. 
 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 OP THE SENSES. 
 
 Ova senses maybe considered in two views ; Jirst, as they afford us 
 agreeable sensations, or subject us to such as are disagreeable ; 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 
 
CHAT. XXI J IMPROVEMENT OF THE SENSES. 145 
 
 rf JITt ^r ^''"'A.*'"*^- By diminishing or increasing them, we should 
 not mend, but mar the work of nature. 
 
 .A?."^]^ P*'f "^ indications of some disorder or hurt of the body, and 
 admonitions to use the best means in our power to prevent or remove their 
 
 ^r't"-ii ^it'' f *.^;^ ''''" ^^ •^""^ ^y temperance, exercise, regimen, or 
 the skiJl of the physician, every man hath sufficient inducement to do it. 
 
 When pam cannot be prevented or removed, it is ereatly alleviated bv 
 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 be- 
 hind it, but rather matter of triumph and agreeable reflection, when borne 
 properly and m a good cause. The Canadians have taught us, that even 
 savages may acquire a superiority to the most excruciating pain; and, in 
 every region of the earth, instances wiU be found, where a sense of duty, 
 ot 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 mmd 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 disagreeable 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 disagreeable, by use 
 become tolerable, and at last perfectly indifiierent ; and tliose that are at 
 first very agreeable, by frequent repetition become insipid, and at last per- 
 haps give disgust. Nature has set limits to the pleasures of sense, which 
 we cannot pass ; and aU 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 delicacies and refinements, 
 has all the enjoyments 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 gicing 
 us information, is a subject more worthy of our attention : for although 
 they are not the noblest and most exalted powers of our nature, yet they 
 are not the least useful. All Ihat we know or can know of the material 
 world must be grounded upon their information ; 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 sensations are occasioned 
 by some external object. We give a name to that quality of the object by 
 which it is fitted to produce such a sensation, and connect that quality vidth 
 the object, and with its other qualities. 
 
 Thus we le^rn, 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 sensation is ori- 
 ginal. The perception, that the rose has that quality which we call its 
 
146 IMPROVEMENT OF THE SENSES. [|ESSAY II_ 
 
 smellj 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 sensa- 
 tions 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 tlieir sound, taste, and smell. I5y 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. 
 
 By touch, we not only perceive the temperature of bodies as to heat and 
 cold, which are secondary qualities, but we perceive 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 connexion 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 immediately to the conception 
 and belief of the thing signified : and although the connexion 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 original 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 dimensions. 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 jierceive two dimensions, 
 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 
 immediately see the three dimensions of the sphere. 
 
 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 apparent 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 ap- 
 pearance 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 acquired, there is something wlrich 
 
CHAP. XXI.] IMPROVEMENT OF THE SENSES. 147 
 
 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 any thing 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 eflFect of my constitution, and this I call original per- 
 ception. 
 
 In acquired perception, the sign may be either a sensation, or something 
 originally perceived. The thing signified, is something which, by ex- 
 perience, has been found connected with that sign. 
 
 Thus, when the ivory ball is placed before 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 
 tie perception of its colour. All these things I perceive by sight distinctly, 
 and with certainty : yet it is certain, 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 circular object, having its colour gradually more faint 
 towards the shaded side. But I should not have perceived it to have 
 three dimensions, 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 sufiiciently evident 
 from the principles of optics, and from the art of painters, in painting 
 objects of three dimensions, 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 eye-sight from infancy, acquire such per- 
 ceptions 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 persuaded, that there is any just 
 foundation for such a distinction. In all languages men speak with equal 
 assurance of their seeing objects to be spherical or cubical, as of their 
 feeling them to be so ; nor do they ever dream, that these perceptions of 
 sight were not as early and original as the perceptions they have of the 
 same objects by touch. 
 
 This power which we acquire of perceiving things by our senses, which 
 originally we should not have perceived, is not the eflFect of any reasoning 
 on our part : it is the result of our constitution, and of the situation in 
 which we happen to be placed. 
 
 We are so made, that when two things are found to be conjoined in 
 certain circumstances, we are prone to believe that they are connected by 
 nature, and will always be found together in like circumstances. The 
 belief which we arc led into in such cases, is not the eflTect of reasoning, 
 nor does it arise from intuitive evidence in the thing believed; it is, as I 
 apprehend, the immediate eflFect of our constitution : accordingly it js 
 
 h 2 
 
f 
 
 148 IMPKOVEMENT OF, THE SENSES. [ESSAY 11. 
 
 Strongest in infancy, before our reasoning power appears, before we are 
 capable of drawing 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 con- 
 stitution 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 come 
 into the world without the exercise of reason ; we are merely animal 
 before we are rational creatures ; and it is necessary for our preservation, 
 that we should believe many things before we can reason. How then is 
 our belief to be regulated before we have reason to regulate it .■' has Na- 
 ture left it to be regulated by chance ? By no means. It is regulated by 
 certain principles, which are parts of our constitution ; whether they 
 ought to be called animal principles, or instinctive principles, or what 
 name we give to them, is of small moment ; but they are certainly dif- 
 ferent from the faculty of reason : they do the office of reason while it is 
 in its infancy, and must as it were be carried in a nurse's arms, and they 
 are leading-strings to it in its gradual progress. 
 
 From what has been said, I think it appears, that our original powers 
 of perceiving objects by our senses receive great improvement by use and 
 habit ; and without this improvement, would be altogether insufficient 
 for the purposes of life. The daily occurrences of life not only add to our 
 stock of knowledge, but give additional perceptive 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 understanding, but 
 is various in different persons, according to their different occupations, and 
 the different circumstances in which they are placed. Every artist ac- 
 quires an eye as well as a hand in his own profession : his eye becomes 
 skilled in perceiving, no less than his hand in executing, what belongs to 
 his employment. 
 
 Besides this improvement of our senses, which nature produces without 
 our intention, there are various ways in which they may be improved, or 
 their defects remedied 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 
 department of the Medical Faculty. 
 
 Secondly, By accurate attention to the objects of sense. The effects of 
 such attention 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 objects which others do not. Those who 
 happen to be deprived of one sense, frequently supply that defect, in a 
 great degree, by giving more accurate attention to the objects of the senses 
 they have. '1 he blind have often been known to acquire uncommon acute- 
 ness in distinguishing things by feeling and hearing; and the deaf are 
 uncomrnonly quick in reading men's thoughts in their countenance. 
 
 A third way in which our senses admit of improvement is, by additional 
 organs or instruments contrived by art. By the invention of optical 
 
CHAP. XXI.] IMPEOVEMKNT OF THE SKNSES. 149 
 
 glasses, and the gradual improvement of them, the natural power of vision 
 is wonderfully improved, and a vast addition made to the stock of know- 
 ledge which we acquire by the eye. By speaking trumpets, and ear 
 trumpets, some improvement has been made in the sense of hearing. 
 Whether by similar inventions the other senses may be improved, seems 
 uncertain. 
 
 Pi. fourth method by which the information, got by our senses may be 
 improved, is, by discovering the connexion which nature hath established 
 between the sensible qualities of objects and their more latent qualities. 
 
 By the sensible qualities of bodies, I understand those that are per- 
 ceived immediately by the senses, such as their colour, figure, feeling, 
 sound, taste, smell. The various modifications, and various combinations 
 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, sometimes by experiment 
 or observation. The most important part of our knowledge of bodies, is 
 the knowledge of the latent qualities of the several species by which they 
 are adapted to certain purposes, either for food, medicine, or agriculture, 
 or for the materials or utensils of some art or manufacture. 
 
 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 .' This 
 must be known by the sensible 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 another. 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 the branches, is informed by his senses of 
 innumerable things of real moment, which are hidden 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 m 
 natural history, in natural philosophy, and in the arts. 
 
 It would be an improvement still higher, if we were able to discover 
 any connexion between the sensible qualities of bodies and their latent 
 qualities, without knowing the species, or what may have been discovered 
 
 ^SomFphilosophers of the first rate have made attempts towards this 
 noble improvement, not without promising hopes of success. Ihus the 
 celebrated Linnaeus has attempted to point out certain sensible qualities 
 bv which a plant may very probably be concluded to be poisonous, without 
 knowing its name or species. He has given several other instances, 
 wherein certain medical and economical virtues of plants are indicated 
 by their external appearances. Sir Isaac Newton hath attempted to show, 
 tfiat from the colours of bodies we may form a probable conjecture of the 
 size of their constituent parts by whicfi the rays of light are reflected 
 
 No man can pretend to set limits to the discoveries that may be made by 
 human genius and industry, of such connexions between the latent and 
 the sensfwe qualities 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. 
 
150 FAtLACY OF THE SKNSES. [IesSAY II. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 OP THE FALLACY OP THE SENSES. 
 
 Complaints of the fallacy of the senses have been very common in 
 ancient and in modern times, especially among the philosophers : 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 qualities of bodies which 
 the moderns call secondary 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 knowledge of material things ; 
 and that eternal and immutable ideas are the only objects of real know- 
 ledge. The Academics and Sceptics anxiously sought for arguments to 
 prove the fallaciousness of our senses, in order to support their favourite 
 doctrine, that even in things that seem most evident, we ought to withhold 
 assent. 
 
 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 common-place 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 appear- 
 ances, 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 phenomena, and served 
 the same purpose 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, ex- 
 presses the sentiments of the sect as follows : " Since all our senses are fal- 
 lacious, and we are frequently deceived by them, common reason advises, 
 that we should not put too much trust in them, nay, that we should sus- 
 pect falsehood in every thing they represent ; for it is imprudence and te- 
 merity to trust to those who have but once deceived us ; 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 perverted 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 important concerns 
 upon the testimony of sense, it will be very difficult to reconcile their 
 conduct with the speculative opinion so generally entertained of the fal- 
 laciousness of the senses. And it seems to be a very unfavourable account 
 of the workmanship 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 
 
CHAP. XXII.] FALLACY OF THE SENSES. 151 
 
 senses be not a common error, which men have been led into, from a desire 
 to conceal their ignorance, or to apologise for their mistakes. 
 
 There are two powers which we owe to our external senses, sensation 
 and the perception 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 im- 
 possible that a man should be in pain, when he does not feel pain ; and 
 when he 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 present, it can be nothing but what we feel. 
 
 If, therefore, there be any fallacy in our senses, it must be in the per- 
 ception of external objects, which we shall next consider. 
 
 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 
 organs ; and these are liable to various disorders, which sometimes aflFect 
 our powers of perception. The nerves and brain, which are interior organs 
 of perception, are likewise liable to disorders, as every part of the human 
 frame is. 
 
 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 us in 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 disorders : but we have no 
 reason to think that God has given fallacious powers to any of his 
 creatures : this would be to think dishonourably 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 testi- 
 mony 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 conclusions we draw from their testimony. 
 
 Thus, when a man has taken a counterfeit 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 impression ? No. But this is all that 
 they testified, and this they testified truly : from these premises you con- 
 cluded 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 : not only are your senses innocent of this error, 
 but it is only by their information that it can be discovered. If you con- 
 sult them properly, they will inform you that what you took for a gumea is 
 base metal, or is deficient in weight, and this can be known only by the 
 
 testimony of sense. , , , ^ j t, 
 
 I remember to have met with a man who thought the argument used by 
 
152 FALLACY OF THE SENS£S. . [KSSAY II. 
 
 Protestants against the popish doctrine of transubstantiation, from the tes- 
 timony of our senses, inconclusive; because; said he, instances may be 
 given 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 ? I begged of him to show an instance wherein 
 several of our senses deceive us. I take, said he, a piece of soft turfj I cut 
 it into the shape of an apple ; with the essence of apples^ Igive 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 applo. 
 
 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 and 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 deception ? it is evident it lies in this, that because this body has some 
 qualities belonging 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 the 
 relative which we perceive. A little reflection may satisfy us of this. 
 
 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 removed out of its 
 place, the space which it filled remains empty till it is filled by some other 
 body, and would remain if it should never be filled. Before any body ex- 
 isted, the space which bodies now occupy was empty space, capable of re- 
 ceiving bodies ; for no body can exist where there is no space to contain it. 
 There is space therefore wherever 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 movable, 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, pr removed 
 farther from, another. 
 
 This 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 
 another, yve. can infer with certainty that there is absolute motion ; but 
 whether in the one or the other, or partly in both, is not discerned 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 philosophical 
 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 antipodes ; 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. 
 
CHAP. XXII.] FALLACY OF THE SENSES. 153 
 
 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 perceivoj 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 whidi produce them. 
 
 AU motion must be estimated from some point or place which is supposed 
 to be at rest. We perceive not the points of absolute 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 his 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 fal- 
 lacies of the senses, to be no fallacy 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. In our past 
 experience, we have found certain things conjoined 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 con- 
 joined 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 imme- 
 diate perceptions of sense, and in all languages are called by the same name. 
 We are therefore authorised 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 con- 
 clusions, 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 re- 
 membrance, 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 acquired perception wiU fall under the first class before men- 
 tioned. 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 senses. 
 
 Thus, when a globe is set before me, I perceive by my eyes that it has 
 three dimensions and a spherical figure. To say that this is not per- 
 ception, 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 
 seeing, every philosopher knows. I see only a circular form, having the- 
 
154 FALLACY OF THE SENSES. ^ESSAY II. 
 
 light and colour distributed in a certain way over it. But being ac- 
 customed to observe this distribution of light and colour only iri 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 iigure 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 judgments 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 corrected by a more en- 
 larged experience, and a more perfect knowledge of the laws of nature : 
 and the general laws of our constitution, by which we are sometimes led 
 into them, are of the greatest utility. 
 
 We come into the world ignorant of every thing, 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 discovered by experience. 
 
 We must learn much from experience before we can reason, and there- 
 fore 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 should 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 dangerous. 
 Reason directs, that experiments that are full of danger should not be 
 made without a very urgent cause. It would therefore 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 every thing without 
 the cautious admonitions of reason, and to believe every thing 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 qualities, and better instructors, than rea- 
 son 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 
 
CHAP. XXII.] .FALLACY OF THE SENSES. 155 
 
 goodness of the Author of Nature are no less conspicuous in withholding the 
 exercise of our reason in this period, than in bestowing it when we are 
 ripe fSr it. 
 
 A third class of errors, ascribed to the fallacy of the senses, proceeds from 
 ignorance 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, especially those of hearing 
 and of sight ; which false judgments are often, without good reason, called 
 fallacies of sense. 
 
 Sounds affect the ear differently, according 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 sounding body; and in most cases we judge.right. 
 But we are sometimes deceived by echos, or by whispering galleries, or 
 speaking trumpets, wliich return the sound, or alter its direction, or convey 
 it to a distance without diminution. 
 
 The deception is still greater, because more uncommon, which is said to 
 be produced 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 cannot say to what degree of perfection the art may have been 
 carried. 
 
 I apprehend it to be only such an imperfect imitation as may deceive 
 those who are inattentive or under a panic. For if it could be carried to 
 perfection, a gastriloquist would be as dangerous a man in society as was 
 the shepherd Giges, 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. 
 
 If the gastriloquists have all been too good men to use their talents to 
 the detriment 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 
 drawing money by the exhibition of it, as legerdemain 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 imitating 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 acquaintances by their countenance, by their voice, and 
 by their hand-vniting, 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. 
 
156 FALLACY OF THE SENSES. [ESSAY II. 
 
 Howeverj if any case should happen, in which sounds produced by dif- 
 ferent 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. 
 
 Deceptions of sight, arising from ignorance of the laws of nature, are 
 more numerous, 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 obstruction ; 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 cer- 
 tain 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 be- 
 hind the mirror, that imitates all his motions. But even a child soon gets 
 the better of this deception, and knows that he sees himself only. 
 
 All the deceptions made by telescopes, microscopes, camera obscuras, 
 magic lanthorns, 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 informa- 
 tion, 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 internal organs of perception. 
 
 In a delirium, or in madness, perception, memory, imagination, and our 
 reasoning powers, are strangely disordered and confounded. 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 little ball double, by crossing his fingers. He may see an object 
 double, by not directing 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 feculties are liable, by accidental causes, to be hurt and unfitted for 
 their natural functions, either wholly or in part : but as this imperfection is 
 common to them all, it gives no just ground for accounting any of them 
 fallacious more than another. 
 
 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. 
 
 it appears, I think, from what has been said, that there is no more rea- 
 son 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 informations 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. 
 
CHAP. XXII.] FALLACY OF THE SENSES. 157 
 
 Perhaps the pride of philosophers may have given occasion to this error. 
 Reason is the faculty wherein they assume a superiority 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, hovrever, be beholden to the informations of 
 sense for the greatest and most interesting part of our knowledge. The 
 wisdom of nature has made the most useful things most common, 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 testimony. If they are not judging faculties, no judgment can 
 be imputed to them, whether false or true. There is, therefore, a con- 
 tradiction between the common doctrine concerning ideas and that of the 
 fallaciousness of the senses. Both may be false, as I believe they are, but 
 both cannot be true. 
 
ESSAY III. 
 
 OF MEMORY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THINGS OBVIOUS AND CERTAIN WITH KEGAHD 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 ; memory soon follows, which we are 
 now to consider. 
 
 It is by memory that we have an immediate 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 re- 
 member something, 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. 
 
 Every man can distinguish the thing remembered from the remembrance 
 of it. We may remember any thing which we have seen, or heard, or 
 known, or done, or suifered ; but the remembrance of it is a particular 
 act of the mind which now exists, and of which we are conscious. To 
 confound these two is an absurdity, which a thinking man could not be 
 led into, but by some false hypothesis which hinders 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 impression 
 is made upon the nerves and brain, in consequence of which we feel some 
 sensation ; and that sensation is attended by that conception and belief of 
 the external object which we call perception. These operations are so 
 connected in our constitution, that it is difficult to disjoin them in our 
 conceptions, and to attend to each without confounding it with the others. 
 But in the operations of memory we are free from this embarrassment ; 
 they are easily distinguished from all other acts of the mind, and the 
 names which denote them are free from all ambiguity. 
 
 The object of memory, or thing remembered, must be something that is 
 past ; as the object of perception and of consciousness 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 conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 Memory is always accompanied with the belief of that which we re- 
 member, as perception is accompanied with the belief of that which we 
 
CHAP. II.] MEMORY AK ORIGINAL FACULTY. ]59 
 
 perceive, and consciousness with the belief of that whereof we are conscious. 
 Perhaps in infancy, or in a disorder of mind, things remembered may be 
 confounded with those which are merely imagined ; 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 distinctly ; whereas, when he merely 
 imagines a thing ever so distinctly, he has no belief of it upon that account. 
 
 This belief, which we have from distinct memory, we account real 
 knowledge, no less certain than if it was grounded on demonstration ; 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 foun- 
 dation. 
 
 There are cases in which a man's memory is less distinct and deter- 
 minate, 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 distinct. 
 
 Memory implies a conception and belief of past duration ; for it is im- 
 possible 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 show 
 how we could acquire a notion of duration if we had no memory. 
 
 Things remembered must be things formerly perceived or 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 remember it. Our first acquaintance with any object of thought 
 cannot be by remembrance. Memory can only produce a continuance or 
 renewal of a former acquaintance with the thing remembered. 
 
 The remembrance of a past event is necessarily 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 conviction, as 
 strong as memory can give, that I, the same identical person who now 
 remember that event, did then exist. 
 
 What I have hitherto said concerning memory, I consider as principles 
 which appear obvious and certain to every man who will take the pains to 
 reflect upon the operations 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 reflection. I shall therefore take them 
 for granted in what follows, and shall first draw some conclusions from 
 them, and then examine the theories of philosophers concerning memory, 
 and concerning duration, and our personal identity, of which we acquire 
 the knowledge by memory. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MEMORY AN ORIGINAL. FACULTY. 
 
 First, I tliiuk it appears that memory is an original faculty given us 
 by the Author of our being, of which we can give no account, but that we 
 are so made. 
 
 The knowledge which I have of things past, by my memory, seems to 
 me as unaccountable 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 wall of my Maker. I find in my mind a 
 
160 MEMOliy AN ORIGINAL FACULTY. QeSSAY III. 
 
 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 j it is not an account of its cause. I believe most firmly what 
 I distinctly remember ; but I can give no reason of this belief. It is the 
 inspiration of the Almighty that gives me this understanding. 
 
 When I believe the truth of a mathematical axiom, or of a mathematical 
 proposition, I see that it must be so : every man who has the same con- 
 ception of it sees the same. There is a necessary and an evident con- 
 nexion between the subject and the predicate 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 necessity 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. It is impossible 
 that this act should be, if the event had not happened. I confess I do not 
 see any necessary connexion between the one and the other. If any man 
 can show such a necessary connexion, 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 unaccountable, and we can say no more but that 
 it is the result of our constitution. 
 
 Perhaps it may be said, that the experience we have had of the fidelity 
 of memory is a good reason for relying upon its testimony. I deny not 
 that this may be a reason to those who have had this experience, and who 
 reflect upon it. But I believe 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 comparing the terms of the proposi- 
 tion which expresses them, and perpeiving some necessary 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. Mr. Locke having dis- 
 covered this source of knowledge, too rashly concluded that all human 
 knowledge might be derived from it ; and in this he has been followed 
 very generally ; by Mr. Hume in particular. 
 
 But I apprehend, that our knowledge of the existence of things con- 
 tingent can never be traced to this source. I know that such a thing 
 exists, or did exist. This knowledge cannot be derived from the percep- 
 tion of a necessary agreement between existence and the thing that exists, 
 because there is no such necessary agreement ; and therefore no such 
 agreement can be perceived either immediately, or by a chain of reasoning. 
 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 I think it follows, that our knowledge 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 
 efiect intended by them. But in what manner they do this, is, I fear, 
 beyond our skill to explain. We know our own thoughts, and the ope- 
 rations of our minds, by a power which we call consciousness : but this is 
 
CHAP. II.] MEMOUY AN ORIGINAL FACULTY. 161 
 
 only giving a name to this part of our frame. It does not explain its 
 fabric, nor how it produces in us an irresistible conviction of its informa- 
 tions. We perceive material objects and their sensible qualities by our 
 senses; but how they give us informatiouj 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 inexplicable. 
 
 It is well known what subtile disputes were held through all the scho- 
 lastic ages, and are stiU carried on about the prescience of the Deity. 
 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 cannot conceive how such things 
 should be foreknown, and therefore conclude it to be impossible. Hence 
 has arisen an opposition and supposed inconsistency between divine pre- 
 science 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 canndt account for prescience of the actions of a 
 free agent. But I maintain that we can as little account for memory 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, he will find the same argu- 
 ments 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 certainly exist. I know no reasoning 
 from the constitution of the agent, or from his circumstances, 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 connectefd, or unconnected with both. 
 
 The only reason why men have apprehended so great disparity in cases 
 so perfectly like, I take to be this. That the faculty of memory in ourselves 
 convinces us from fact, that it is not impossible that an intelligent being, 
 even a finite being, should have a certain knowledge of past actions of free 
 agents, without tracing them from any thing necessarily connected with 
 theiji. But having no prescience in ourselves 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 degree, we easily admit that the 
 Supreme Being may possess in a more perfect degree ; but a faculty, 
 which has nothing corresponding to it in our constitution, we will hardly 
 allow to be possible. We are so constituted as to have an intuitive kno%v- 
 ledge of many things past; but we have no intuitive knowledge of the 
 future. We might perhaps have been so constituted as to have an in- 
 tuitive knowledge of the future, but not of the past : nor would this con- 
 stitution have been more unaccountable than the present, though it might 
 be much more inconvenient. Had this been our constitution, 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 unaccountable. 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 
 •f things which it concerns us to know. 
 
 M 
 
162 DTIKATIO-N. [essay III. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF DURATION. 
 
 From the principles laid down in the first chapter of this Essay, I think 
 it appears that our notions of duration, as well as our belief of it, is got by 
 the faculty of memory. It is essential to every thing remembered that it 
 be something which is past ; and we cannot conceive a thing to be past, 
 without conceiving some duration, more or less, between it and the present. 
 As soon therefore as we remember any thing, 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 mensuration. AVhen we apply them to finite things which are mea- 
 sured by them, they seem of aU things to be the most distinctly conceived, 
 and most within the reach of human understanding. 
 
 Extension having three dimensions, has an endless variety of modifica- 
 tions, capable of being accurately defined; and their various relations 
 furnish the human mind with its most ample field of demonstrative rea- 
 soning. Duration having only one dimension, has fewer modifications; 
 but these are clearly understood ; and their relations admit of measure, 
 proportion, and demonstrative reasoning. 
 
 Number is called discrete quantity, because 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 number. 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 de- 
 nomination are only divisible into units of the same denomination. Du- 
 ration 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 magnitude and proportions of the 
 various intervals 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 consider 
 as units, and by the number of them contained in a larger interval, we 
 form a distinct conception of its magnitude. A similar expedient we find 
 necessary to give us a distinct conception of the magnitudes and proposi- 
 tions 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 discovered, by the sa- 
 gacity of mathematicians, that this expedient does not in all cases answer 
 its intention. For there are propositions of continued quantity, which 
 cannot 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 notion 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' 
 
CHAP. III.J DURATION. 163 
 
 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 analogical sense. 
 
 The extension of bodies which we perceive by our senses, leads us ne- 
 cessarily to the conception and belief of a space which remains immovable 
 when the body is removed. And the duration of events which we re- 
 member leads us necessarily to the conception and belief of a duration, 
 which would have gone on uniformly, though the event had never hap- 
 pened. 
 
 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 extension and duration are not more clear and in- 
 telligible, than space and time are dark and difficult objects of contem- 
 plation. 
 
 As there must be space wherever any thing extended does or can exist, 
 and time when there is or can be any thing that has duration, we can set 
 no bounds to either, even in our imagination. They defy all limitation. 
 The one swells in our conception to immensity, the other to eternity. 
 
 An eternity 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 measure it, such as days and years. We can 
 conceive a beginning of these sensible measures 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 contra- 
 diction. 
 
 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 every where, and 
 space at all times. They embrace each the other, and have that mys- 
 terious union which the schoolmen conceived 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 existence. 
 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 .' 
 
 Sir Isaac Newton thought, that the Deity, by existing every where, 
 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 partial conceptions of an 
 immensity and eternity, which forces itself upon our belief. And as im- 
 mensity and eternity are not substances, they must be the attributes of 
 a Being who is necessarily immense and eternal. These are the specula- 
 tions 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 understanding, I am unable to determine. 
 
 The schoolmen made eternity to be a nunc stans, that is, a moment of 
 time that stands still. This was to put a spoke into the wheel of time, 
 and might give satisfaction to those who are to be satisfied by word* 
 
 M 2 
 
164 IDENTITY. LeSSAY III. 
 
 without meaning. But I can as 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 com- 
 prehend their nature. They are probably things of which the human 
 faculties give an imperfect and inadequate 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 neces- 
 sary to remove the darkness which hangs over them, and makes us so apt 
 to bewilder ourselves when we reason about them. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OP 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 phi- 
 losophy can weaken it without first producing some degree of insanity. 
 
 The philosopher, however, may very properly consider this conviction as 
 a phenomenon 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 original constitution, or an effect of that 
 constitution produced in a manner unknown to us. 
 
 We may observe, first of all, that this conviction is indispensably neces- 
 sary to all exercise of reason. The operations of reason, whether in action 
 or in speculation, are made up of successive parts. The antecedent are the 
 foundation of the consequent, and without the conviction that the antece- 
 dent have been seen or done by me, I could have no reason to proceed to 
 the consequent, 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 con- 
 vince me that I existed before the earliest tiring I can remember ; but to 
 suppose that my memory reaches a moment farther back than my belief 
 and conviction of my existence, is a contradiction. 
 
 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. 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 subsequent step that supposes it to 
 be his doing. 
 
 Prom 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 any thing, 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 relation 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 dif- 
 ferent things, every man of common sense understands the meaning of your 
 
CHAP. IV.] IDENTITY. 165 
 
 question perfectly. Whence we may infer with certainty, that every man 
 of common sense has a clear and distinct notion of identity. 
 
 If you ask a definition of identity, I confess I can give none ; it is too 
 simple a notion 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 relation, and that similitude and dis- 
 similitude are another couple of contrary relations, which every man easily 
 distinguishes in his conception from identity and diversity. 
 
 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. Continued 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 operation of our minds. 
 The pain felt this day is not the same individual pain which I felt yester- 
 day, 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 successive 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 proceed 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 subject : it is sufficient 
 for our purpose to observe, that all mankind place their personality 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 stiU 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 engagements : it would be entitled to a share 
 of his merit and demerit, which is manifestly absurd. A person is some- 
 thing indivisible, and is what Leibnitz calls a monad. 
 
 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 sufl^ers. My thoughts, and actions, and fee.lings, 
 change every moment ; they have no continued, but a successive existence ; 
 but that se/f or /, to which they belong, is permanent, and Las 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 aU be fancy without reality. How do you know, 
 what evidence have vou, that there is such a permanent self which has a 
 claim to aU the thoughts, actions, and feelings, which you call yours ? 
 
 To this I answer, that the proper evidence I have of all this is remem- 
 brance. I remember that twenty years ago I conversed 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 
 
166 ' IDENTITY. QeSSAY III. 
 
 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 every thing he remembers convinces him that he existed at the time 
 remembered. 
 
 Although memory gives the most irresistible 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 remember : I 
 know who bare me, and suckled me, but I do not remember these events. 
 
 It may here be observed, (though the observation would have been un- 
 necessary, if some great philosophers had not contradicted 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 remembrance of it. To say that my remembering 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 our- 
 selves, we proceed upon other grounds, and determine from a variety of 
 circumstances, which sometimes produce the firmest assurance, and some- 
 times leave room for doubt. The identity of persons has often furnished 
 matter 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 
 remembeTed. 
 
 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 our- 
 selves, 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 cannot 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. 
 
 We probably at first derive our notion of identity from that natural con- 
 viction which every man has from the dawn of reason of his own identity 
 and continued existence. The operations of our mind are all successive, 
 and have no continued existence. But the thinking being has a continued 
 existence, 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 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 pre- 
 sented 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 pro- 
 
CHAP, v.] LOCKE'S IDEA OF DURATION. ]67 
 
 ceeds, it certainly 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 dif- 
 ferences. 
 
 A man challenges a thief whom he finds in possession of his horse or his 
 ivatch, only on similarity. When the watchmaker swears that he sold 
 this watch to such a person, his testimony is grounded on similarity. 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 pergons, or of objects of sense. The first is grounded 
 on memory, and gives undoubted 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. 
 
 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, increasing, diminishing, changing insensibly. 
 When such alterations are gradual, because language could not afford a 
 different name for every different state of such a changeable 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, her planks, and her timbers, 
 whilst 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 something, 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 common 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 when 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 accountableness ; and the notion of it is fixed 
 and precise. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MR. Locke's account op the obigin op ouk ideas, and particularly 
 
 OF THE IDEA OP 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 investigation; and I believe no man ever 
 engaged in it with a more sincere love of truth. 
 
 , His success, though great, would, I apprehend, have been greater, if he 
 had not too early formed a system or hypothesis upon this subject, without 
 
lb'8 Locke's idea of duration. ^essay in. 
 
 all the caution aud'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 
 witj sensation and reflection ; 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 
 reflection, 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 it is not in the power of the most exalted wit, or enlarged 
 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 : that as our power over the material world reaches only to the 
 compounding, dividing, and putting together, in various forms, the matter 
 whicli God has made, but reaches not to the production or annihilation of 
 a single atom ; so we may compound, compare, 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 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 philosophers, who have a high 
 esteem of Locke's Essay, are dissatisfied with it. 
 
 Dr. Hutchinson of Glasgow, in his Inquiry into the Ideas of Beauty 
 and Virtue, has endeavoured to show 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 Difliculties 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 understanding, that is, by our judging 
 and reasoning power, we are furnished with many simple and original 
 notions. 
 
 Mr. Locke says, that, by reflection, he would be understood to mean 
 " the notice wljich 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 every thing we can 
 conceive is either some object of sense, or some operation of our own minds, 
 which is far from being true. 
 
 But the word reflection is commonly used in a much more extensive 
 sense; it is applied to many operations of the mind, with more propriety 
 than to that of consciousness. 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 there- 
 fore more proper, than the sense which Mr. Locke has put upon it, it may 
 
CHAP, v.] Locke's idea of duration. 169 
 
 be justly said to be the only source of all our distinct and accurate 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 consciousness, these first notions are neither simple nor clear. 
 Our senses and our consciousness are continually shifting from one object 
 to another; their operations are transient and momentary, and leave no 
 distinct notion of their objects, until they are recalled by memory, ex- 
 amined with attention, and compared with other things. 
 
 This reflection is not one power of the mind ; it comprehends many ; 
 such as recollection, attention, distinguishing, comparing, 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 notions 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 reflection. 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. 
 
 Mr. Locke seems to me to have used the word reflection sometimes in 
 that limited sense which he has given to it in the definition before men- 
 tioned, and sometimes to have fallen unawares into the common sense of 
 the word; and by this ambiguity his account 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 observations on his account 
 of the idea of duration. 
 
 " 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 succes- 
 sion ; 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, pre-supposes duration, and can in 
 no sense be prior to it ; and therefore 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. 
 
 Reflecting upon the train of ideas can ,be nothing but remembering it, 
 and giving attention to what our memory testifies concerning 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 consequently no idea of suc- 
 cession. 
 
 It may here be observed, that if we speak strictly and philosophically, 
 no kind of succession can be an object either of the senses, or of conscious- 
 ness ; 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 motion 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 
 
170 Locke's IDEA OF DnRATiON. [^essay iii. 
 
 in the meaning they put upon what is called the present timej and are 
 thereby led to make a different limit between sense and memory. 
 
 Philosophers give the name of the present 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 oi present to a portion 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 confined 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 different 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 present, the same reason leads men to extend the province of 
 sense, and to carry its limits 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 authorised by custom, 
 and has a distinct meaning : but if we speak pbUosophicaUy, 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 indi- 
 visible 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 object 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 suc- 
 cession, 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 element of duration ; the 
 distance between an idea and the second that succeeds it, two elements, 
 ja.nd so on: if ten such elements make duration, then one must make 
 duration, otherwise duration must be made up of parts that have no dura- 
 tion, which is impossible. 
 
 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 duration in every single interval or 
 element of which the whole duration is made up. Nothing indeed is more 
 
CIJAV. V.3 LOCKE'S IDEA OF DURATION. 17i 
 
 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 duration ; whence we may conclude with certainty, 
 that there is a conception of duration, where there is no succession of ideas 
 in the mind. 
 
 We may measure duration by the succession of thoughts in the mind, 
 as we measure 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 man awake, to keep only one idea 
 in his mind without variation, or the succession of others, he would have 
 no perception of duration at allj 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 a mul- 
 tiplication of that no duration should seem to have duration, appears to me 
 as impossible as that the multiplication of nothing should produce some- 
 thing. 
 
 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 
 circumstances 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 suc- 
 cession of ideas is very quick, and in the last very slow : I am rather in- 
 clined to think that the very contrary is the truth. When a man is racked 
 with pain or with expectation, he can hardly think of any thing 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 cheer- 
 ful music, with lively conversation, and brisk saUies 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 appeared 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 succeeding 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- 
 
 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. Different parts of space, as it has three 
 dimensions, may dWkr both in figure and in magnitude ; but time having 
 
172 Locke's idea ov duration. [kssay hi. 
 
 only one dimension, its parts can diflfer 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 dimensions of extension, but the sense of touch discovers three : and 
 reason, from the contemplation of finite extended things, leads us neces- 
 sarily to the belief of an immensity that contains them. In like manner, 
 memory gives us the conception and belief of finite intervals of duration. 
 From the contemplation of these, reason leads us necessarily to the belief 
 of an eternity, which comprehends all things that have a beginning and 
 end. Our conceptions, both of space and time, are probably partial and 
 inadequate, and therefore we are apt to lose ourselves, and to be embar- 
 rassed 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 without end or 
 limit ; but there are limits beyond 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 in- 
 terval 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 itself, and, by beings of superior perfection, may be divided into thou- 
 sands of parts. 
 
 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 be- 
 lieve there are some human eyes still more perfect. But even this degree 
 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 thousandth part of an inch. This 
 shows such a wonderful degree of accuracy in the refracting 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 shows, 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 discernible by the mind. 
 
 In order to judge to what degree of accuracy 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; aiid I 
 doubt not but by long practice he might do it still more accurately. From 
 this I think it follows, that the sixtieth part of a second of time is dis- 
 cernible by the human mind. 
 
CHAP. VI.] LOCKE ON PKRSONAL lUENTlTV. 173 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 OF MR. Locke's account op ouk personal identity. 
 
 In a long chapter upon identity and diversity, Mr, Locke has made 
 many ingenious 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 con- 
 tinued 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 vWiich have 
 a different beginning or a different ending of their existence, cannot pos- 
 sibly 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 wth 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 intelligent, 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. 
 
 One would think that the definition of a person should perfectly as- 
 certain 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 
 personal identity. 
 
 Mr. Locke tells us, however, "that personal 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." 
 
 This doctrine has some strange consequences, 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 show to be 
 impossible, then two or twenty intelligent beings may be the same person. 
 And if the intelligent being may lose the consciousness of the actions done 
 by him, which surely is possible, then he is not the person that did those 
 actions ; so that one intelligent being may be two or twenty different 
 persons, if he shall so often lose the consciousness 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. 
 
 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 : suppose 
 also, which must be admitted to be possible, that when he took the standard, 
 
174 LOCKE ON PERSONAL IDENTITY. [ESSAY III. 
 
 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. 
 
 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, ac- 
 cording 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 consciousness the conviction we 
 have of our past actions, as if a man may now be conscious 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 we 
 have an immediate knowledge of our past actions. 
 
 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 common discourse, to fix accurately the limits between 
 consciousness and memory. This was formerly shown to be the case with 
 regard to sense and memory : and therefore distinct remembrance is some- 
 times called sense, sometimes consciousness, without anv inconvenience. 
 
 But this ought to be avoided in philosophy, 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 sucli faculty. The faculties of consciousness and memory are chiefly 
 distinguished by this, that the first is an immediate knowledge of the 
 present, the second an immediate knowledge of the past. 
 
 When, therefore, Mr, Locke's notion of 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 distinctly remember that I did it. 
 
 Secondly, It may be observed, that in this doctrine, not only is con- 
 sciousness confounded with memory, but, which is still more strange, per- 
 sonal identity is confounded with the evidence which we have of our per- 
 sonal 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 consciousness, 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 magical power of producing its object, though that 
 object must have existed before the memory or consciousness which pro- 
 duced 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 any thing be, and could not have been said 
 by Mr. Locke, if he had not confounded the testimony with the thing 
 testified. 
 
CHAP. VI.] LOCKE ON PKESONAI, IDENTITV. 175 
 
 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. But 
 would It not be ridiculous from this to infer that the identity of a horse 
 consists in similitude only ? 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 
 iniet from this, that personal identity consists in consciousness, is an ar- 
 gument, 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 sameness or identity of a person 
 should consist in a thing which is continually changing, and is not any two 
 minutes the same ? 
 
 Our consciousness, our memory, and every operation of the mind, are 
 still flowing like the water of a river, or like time itself. The conscious- 
 ness I have this moment, can no more be the same consciousness 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 con- 
 tinued existence ; and therefore, if personal identity consisted in con- 
 sciousness, it would certainly follow, that no man is the same person any 
 two moments of his life ; and as the right- and justice of reward and pu- 
 nishment is founded on personal identity, no man could be responsible for 
 his actions. 
 
 But though I take this to be the unavoidable consequence of Mr. Locke's 
 doctrine concerning personal identity, and though some persons may have 
 liked the doctrine the better on this account, I am far from imputing any 
 thing of this kind to Mr. Locke. He was too good a man not to have 
 rejected viath abhorrence, a doctrine which he believed to draw this con- 
 sequence after it. 
 
 Fourthly, There are many expressions used by Mr. Locke in speaking 
 of personal identity, which to me are altogether uninteUigible, unless we 
 suppose that he confounded that sameness or identity, which we ascribe 
 to an individual, with the identity which in common 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 similarity 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 yesterday, can no more be the pain 
 I feel to-day, thaii 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 diflierent men, or in the same man 
 at different times ; but it is impossible that the same individual operation 
 should be in different 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 consciousness extending to actions 
 past and to come ;" these expressions are to me unintelligible, unless he 
 means not the same individual consciousness, but a consciousness that is 
 similar or of the same kind. 
 
 If our personal identity consists in consciousness, as this consciousness 
 cannot be the same individually any two moments, but only of the same 
 
176 THEOllIES CONCERNING MEMORY- [ESSAY III. 
 
 kind, it would follow, that we are not for any two moments the same in- 
 dividual 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 two beginnings of existence, so that our identity would 
 be irrecoverably gone every time we cease to think, if it was but for a 
 moment. 
 
 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 faculties of memory and imagination, as well as that of per- 
 ception by the senses. 
 
 The sentiments of the Peripatetics are expressed by Alexander Aphro- 
 disiensis, one of the earliest Greek Commentators on Aristotle, in these 
 words, as they are translated by Mr. Harris in his Hermes, " Now what 
 fancy or imagination is, we may explain as follows : we may conceive to be 
 formed within us, from the operations of our senses about sensible objects, 
 some impression, as it were, or picture in our original 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 pre- 
 served, becomes the cause of our having memory : now such a sort of relict, 
 and as it were impression, they call fancy or imagination." 
 
 Another passage from Alcinous of the doctrines of Plato, Chap. IV. 
 shews the agreement of the ancient Platonists and Peripatetics 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." 
 
 Upon this principle Aristotle imputes the shortness of memory in chil- 
 dren to this cause, that their brain is too moist and soft to retain im- 
 pressions 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 phenomenon : 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 ter- 
 minate in the brain, and because disorders and hurts of the brain are 
 found to aiFect our powers of perception when the external organ and 
 nerve are sound ; but we are totally ignorant of the nature of this im- 
 pression upon the brain : it can have no resemblance to the object per- 
 ceived, nor does it in any degree account 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 insufficient to account for the per- 
 ception of objects that are present, it can as little account for the memory 
 of those that are past. 
 
CHAP. VII.] THEORIES CONCERNING MEMORY. 177 
 
 So that if it were certain, that the impressions 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 con- 
 nexion established between that impression, and the remembrance of that 
 object. But how the impression contributes to this remembrance, we 
 should be quite ignorant ; it being impossible to discover how thought of 
 any kind should be produced by an impression on the brain, or upon any 
 part of the body. 
 
 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 unaccountable as 
 before. 
 
 If a philosopher should undertake to account for the force of gunpowder, 
 in the discharge of a musket, and then tell us gravely, that the cause of 
 this phenomenon .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 necessary 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 proba- 
 bility, that the cause assigned does exist ; that is, that the impression made 
 upon the brain in perception 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. Philo- 
 sophers suppose, without any evidence, that when the object is removed, 
 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 re- 
 moved the effect continues. The brain surely does not appear more fitted 
 to retain an impression than the organ and nerve. 
 
 But granting that the impression upon the brain continues after its 
 cause is removed, 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 supposed 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 remains, the effect ceases. 
 
 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 operation essentially different, both from sensation 
 and perception. 
 
 A fourth supposition must be made. That this cause, though it be per- 
 manent, does not produce its effect at all times; it must be like an in- 
 scription which is sometimes 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 
 foi^ot. After all, many things are remembered which were never per- 
 ceived by the senses, being no objects of sense, and, therefore, which could 
 make no impression upon the brain by means of the senses. 
 
 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 unaccountable ; and we know as little how we 
 remember things past, as how we are conscious of the present. 
 
178 THEORIES OOXCERNING MEMORY. j^ESSAY III. 
 
 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 dependant on some proper state or tem- 
 perament of the brain. 
 
 Although the furniture of our memory bears no resemblance to any tem- 
 perament of brain vi'hatsoever, as indeed it is impossible it should; yet 
 nature may have subjected us to this law, that a certain constitution or 
 state of the brain is necessary to memory. That this is really the case 
 many well-known facts lead us to conclude. 
 
 It is possible that, by accurate observation, the proper means inay be 
 discovered of preserving that temperament of the brain which is favour- 
 able to memory, and of remedying the disorders of that temperament. 
 This would be a very noble improvement 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 philosopher show how this 
 cause produces the effect : 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 con- 
 tributes to memory. We might have been so constituted, for any thing 
 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 un- 
 accountable than the present. 
 
 The body and mind operate on each other 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 inscrutable to the human under- 
 standing. 
 
 Mr. Locke, and those who have followed him, speak with more reserve 
 than the ancients, and only incidentally, of impressions 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 sometime actually in view, which is called contemplation. Se- 
 condly, By the power to revive 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 storehouse of our 
 ideas." 
 
 To explain this more distinctly, he immediately adds the following ob- 
 servation : " But our ideas being nothing but actual perceptions in the 
 mind, which cease to be any thing when there is no perception of them, 
 this laying up of our ideas in the repository of the memory, signifies no 
 more b>it this, that the mind has a power, in many cases, to revive per- 
 ceptions 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 no where ; 
 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 ob- 
 scurely." 
 
 In this account of memory, the repeated use of the phrase, as it mere, 
 leads one to judge that it is partly figurative ; we must therefore endea- 
 
CVA.I'. VU.'J THEORIES CONCERNING MEMORY. 179 
 
 vour tp distinguish the figurative part from the philosophical. The fir^t 
 heing addressed to the imagination, exhibits a picture of memory, which, 
 to have its effect, must be viewed at a proper distance, and from a par- 
 ticular point of view. The second, being addressed to the understanding, 
 ought to bear a near inspectiouj and a critical examination. 
 
 The analogy between memory and a repository, and between remem- 
 bering and retaining, is obvious, and is to be found in all languages, it 
 being very natural to express the operations of the mind by images taken 
 from things material. But in philosophy 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 are laid up when not perceived, and again brought forth as 
 there is occasion, I take this to be popular and rhetorical. 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 ipe as difficult to revive things that have ceased to be 
 any thing, 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 pro- 
 duced, 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 existence. 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 
 oply like to those we had before, this perception, one would think, sup- 
 poses a remembrance of those we had before, otherwise 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." 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 
 show, that his system of ideas gives no light to this faculty, but rather 
 t^ds to darken it : as little does it make us understand how we remember, 
 and by that means have the certain "knowledge of things past. 
 
 Every man knows what meniory is, and has a distinct notion of it : _ but 
 when Mr. 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 gight, 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. 
 ' ' ■ N 2 
 
180 THEORIES CONCERNING MEMORY. QeSSAY III. 
 
 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 towards the picture, and 
 immediately the perception is revived. But is this memory.' no surely; 
 yet it answers the definition as well as memory itself can do. 
 
 We may observe that the word perception is used by Mr. Locke in too 
 indefinite a way, as well as the word idea. 
 
 Perception, in the chapter upon that subject, is said to be the first faculty 
 of the mind exercised about our ideas. Here we are told, that ideas are 
 nothing but perceptions : yet I apprehend it would sound oddly to say, 
 that perception is the first faculty of the mind exercised about perception ; 
 and still more strangely to say, that ideas are the first faculty of the mind 
 exercised about our ideas. But why should not ideas be a faculty as well 
 as perception, if both are the same ? 
 
 Memory is said to be a power to revive our perceptions. Will it not 
 
 - follow from this, that every thing that can be remembered is a per- 
 ception ? If this be so, it will be difficult to find any thing 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 immediate 
 object which it does or can contemplate but its own ideas. Does it not 
 appear from this, either that Mr. Locke held the operations of the mind 
 to be the same thing with the objects of those operations, or that 
 he used the word idea sometimes in one sense and sometimes in another, 
 without 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 operations of the mind and their objects. But 
 I see no reason to impute this opinion to Mr. Locke. I rather think, that 
 notwithstanding his great judgment and candour, his understanding was 
 entangled by the ambiguity of the word idea, and that most of the imper- ' 
 fections of his Essay are owing to that cause. 
 
 Mr. Hume saw farther into the consequences of the common system con- 
 cerning 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 existence, but when we are conscious of it. According to this 
 system, we have no intercourse with the external world, but by means of 
 the internal world of ideas, vi'hich 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 .' Whether all mankind, 
 learned and unlearned, had feigned the existence of the external world 
 without good reason .? or whether philosophers had feigned the internal 
 world of ideas^n order to account for the intercourse of the mind with the 
 external.' Mrr.'ilume adopted the first of these opinions, and employed 
 his reason and eloiquence in support of it. 
 
 Bishop Berkeley- had gone so far in the same tract as to reject the 
 material world, as fictitious ; but it was left to Mr. Hume to complete 
 the system. ■ 
 
 According to his system, therefore, impressions and ideas in his own 
 mind ^re the only things a man can know, or can conceive : nor are 
 these ideas representatives, as thejr were in the old system. There is 
 nothing else in nature, or at least within the reach of our faculties, to be 
 
CHAP. VII.] " THEORIES CONCERNING MEMORY. 181 
 
 represented. What the vulgar call the perception of an external object^ is 
 nothing but a strong impression upon the mind. What we call the remem- 
 brance 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, 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 diflferent ways, either when in its new appearance it 
 retains a considerable degree of its first vivacity, and is somewhat inter- 
 mediate betwixt an impression and an idea, or when it entirely loses that 
 vivacity, and is a perfect idea. The faculty by which we repeat our im- 
 pressions in the first manner, is called the memory, and the other the 
 imagination." 
 
 Upon this account of memory and imagination I shall make some 
 remarks. 
 
 First, I wish to know, what we are here to understand by experience .-' 
 It is said, we find all this by experience ; and I conceive nothing can be 
 meant by this experience 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 some- 
 thing past. Our author does not admit that there is any such know- 
 ledge in the human mind. He maintains that memory is nothing but a 
 present idea or impression. But, in defining 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, notwithstanding that, in the 
 interval, it has undergone a very considerable change ? 
 
 AH experience supposes memory ; and there can be no such thing as 
 experience, vidthout 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 
 exercising that kind which he rejects. 
 
 Secondly, What is it we find by experience or memory ? 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 certainly deceives us; for the thing 
 is impossible, and the author shows it to be so. Impressions and ideas 
 are fleeting perishable things, which have jio existence, but when we are 
 conscious of them. If an impression could make a second and a third ap-- 
 pearance to the mind, it must have a continued existence during the in- 
 terval of these appearances, which Mr. Hume acknowledges to be a gross 
 absurdity. It seems, then, that we find, by experience, a thing which is 
 impossible. We are imposed upon by our experience, and made to believe 
 contradictions. . 
 
 Perhaps it may be said, that these different appearances of the im- 
 pression 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 
 onetime; afterwards a thing of a middle nature, between an impression 
 and an idea, which we caU memory ;. and last of aU, a perfect idea, which 
 
182 THEORIES CONCERNING MEMORY. QesSAY III. 
 
 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 impressions in a more or less lively 
 manner. To repeat an impression is a figurative way of speaking, which 
 signifies making a new impression similar to the former. 
 
 If, to avoid the absurdity implied in the literal meaning, we under- 
 stand the philosopher in this figurative one, then his definitions of me- 
 mory 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 imagination 
 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 diiferent nature from those that are defined. 
 
 When we are said to have a faculty of making a weak impression after 
 a corresponding 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. He has a faculty by which he can just touch 
 the wall with his head, so that the impression 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 any thing 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 efficient causes of our ideas of ftiemory and imagination ; 
 but this contradicts wliat tlie author says a little before, where he proves, 
 by what he calls a convincing argument, that impressions are the cause 
 of their corresponding ideas. The argument that proves this had need 
 indeed to be very convincing ; 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 the ideas are the only 
 immediate objects of thought, leads to scepticism with 'regard to me- 
 mory, as well as with regard to the objects of sense, whether those ideas are 
 placed in the mind or in the brain. 
 
 Ideas are said to be things internal and present, which have ito 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 phantasms, conclude the existence of an 
 external world corresponding to them .!■ 
 
 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- The same course was followed by Male- 
 branche, Arnaijld, 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 memory naturally arises from the 
 system of idfeas ; and the only reason why it was not observed by philo- 
 sophers, is, because they give less attention to. the memory than to the 
 senses: for since ideas are things present, how can we, from our having 
 
CHAP. VII.] THEORIES CONCERNING MEMORY. 183 
 
 a certain idea presently in our mind, conclude that an event really hap- 
 pened ten or twenty years ago corresponding to it ? 
 
 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 externsd objects which now exist. In both cases, it will be 
 impossible to find any argument that has real weight. So that this hypo- 
 thesis leads us to absolute scepticism, with regard to those things which 
 we most distinctly remember, 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 testimony of memory 
 as the testimony of the senses. 
 
 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 system is therefore more consistent than theirs, and the 
 conclusions agree better with the premises. 
 
 But 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 comes to pass that perception and memory are 
 accompanied with belief, while bare imagination is not ? Though this 
 belief cannot be justified upon his system, it ought to be accounted for as 
 a phenomenon of human nature. 
 
 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 mo- 
 dification 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 
 nothing but a modification of the idea of the thing believed, or a different 
 manner of conceiving it. Hear himself: 
 
 " An 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 represent 
 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 im- 
 pression. 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 j 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. 
 A great part of his system indeed is built upon it ; and it is of itself suf- 
 ficient 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 account 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 syllogism, by making the major 
 
184 THEOEIES CONCEKNING MEMORY. QeSSAV HI. 
 
 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 such gross absurdities as in 
 treating of the powers of the mind. I cannot help thinking, that never 
 any thing 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 operation of mind of which every man 
 is conscious, and what it is, he understands perfectly, 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 comprehend; 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 object of belief, has a contrary pro- 
 position 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 vi- 
 vacity : that is, contraries differ only in degree ; and so pleasure may be 
 a degree of pain, and hatred a degree of love. But it is to no purpose to 
 trace the absurdities that follow from this doctrine, for none of them can 
 be more absurd than the doctrine 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 imagining, 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 retract 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." 
 
 There is nothing, more meritorious in a philosopher than to retract an 
 error upon conviction; but in this instance I humbly apprehend Mr. 
 Hume claims that merit upon too slight a ground : for 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 expresses the same modification 
 more properly. Whatever modification of the idea he makes belief to be, 
 whether its vivacity, or some other without a name, to make perception, 
 memory, and irnagination 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 
 distmction which Aristotle makes between memory and reminiscence, 
 because the distinction has a real foundation in nature, though in our lan- 
 guage, I think, we do not distinguish them by different names. 
 
 Memory is a kind of habit which is not always in exercise with regard 
 
CHAP. Vil.] THEORIES CONCERNING MEMORY. 185 
 
 to things we remember, but is ready to suggest them when there is oc- 
 casion. The most perfect degree of this habit is, when the thing presents 
 itself to our remembrance spontaneously, 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 Aristotle calls reminiscence, 
 as distinguished from memory. 
 
 Reminiscence, therefore, includes a will to recollect something past, and 
 a search for it. But here a diificulty occurs. It may be said, that what 
 we will to remember we must conceive, as there can be no will without 
 a conception of the thing willed. A will to remember 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 con- 
 ception 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 recollect distinctly what the commission was. 
 
 Aristotle says, that brutes have not reminiscence, 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 a 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 a 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 
 experience, which seems to imply metnory. 
 
 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 diflferent from wbaA 
 it is, and perhaps resemble more the memory of brutes,. 
 
ESSAY IV. 
 
 OF CONCEPTION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OF CONCEPTION, OK SIMPLE APPREHENSION IN GENEHAL. 
 
 Conceiving, imagining, apprehending, understanding, having a notion 
 of a thing, are common words used to express that operation of the under- 
 standing, which the logicians 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 concep- 
 tion and apprehension are only synonymous words; and that we may as 
 well define conception by apprehension, as apprehension 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. 
 
 Every man is conscious that he canconceivea thousand things, of which 
 he believes nothing at all ; as a horse with wings, a mountain of gold : 
 but although conception 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 objects 
 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 wliat we will to do ; there can be no desire nor aversion, love nor hatred, 
 without some conception of the object : we cannot feel pain without con- 
 ceiving it, though we can conceive it without feeling it. These things are 
 self-evident. 
 
 In every operation of the mind, therefore, in every thing we call thought, 
 there must be conception : when we analyse the various operations either 
 of the understanding 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 Pe- 
 ripatetics ; but though there is no operation of mind without conception. 
 
CHAP. I.] SIMPLE APPREHENSION IN GENERAL. 187 
 
 yet it may be found naked, detached from aU others, and then it is called 
 simple apprehension, or the bare conception of a thing. 
 
 As all the operations of our mind are expressed by language, every one 
 knows that it is one thing to understand what is said, to conceive or ap- 
 prehend Its meaning, whether it be a word, a sentence, or a discourse ; 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. 
 
 _ 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 e^qiressSd, 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 propositidhs which express judgment. In the bare conception 
 of a thing there is no judgment, opinion, or belief included, and therefore 
 it cannot be either true or false. 
 
 But it may be said, Is there any thing more certain than that men may 
 have true or false conceptions, true or false apprehensions of things.? I 
 answer, that such ways of speaking are indeed so common, and so well 
 authorised by custom, the arbiter of language, that it would be presump- 
 tion 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 dif- 
 ferent. We must therefore remember what was before observed. Essay I. 
 Chap. 1, 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 modestly expressed, must be 
 either true or false ; but a bare conception, which expresses 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. A child con- 
 ceives 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 notion, 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 
 authorises us to call conceptions ; and they may be true or false. But 
 bare conception, or what the logicians call simple apprehension, implies 
 no opinion, however slight, and therefore can neither be true or false. 
 
 What Mr. Locke says of ideas (by which word he very often means 
 nothing but conceptions) is very just, when the word idea is so understood, 
 book 2, chap, 32, § 1: '' ITiough 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 
 
188 SIMPLE APPREHENSION IN GENERAL. [ESSAY IV. 
 
 and simply in themselves be said to be true or false, no more than a simple 
 name of any thing 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 vi'ord perception, as vi^ell as the word idea, to 
 signify what I call conception, or simple apprehension. And in his 
 chapter upon perception, book 2, chap. 9, he uses it in the same sense. 
 Perception, 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. It seems to be that which puts 
 the distinction betwixt tlie animal kingdom and the inferior parts of nature. 
 It is the first operation of aU our faculties, and the inlet of all knowledge 
 into our minds." 
 
 Mr. Locke has followed the example given by Des Cartes, Gassendi 
 and other Cartesians, in giving the name oi perception to the bare con- 
 ception of things : and he has been followed in this by Bishop Berkeley, 
 Mr. Hume, and many late philosophers, when they treat of ideas. They 
 have probably been led into this impropriety, by the common doctrine 
 concerning ideas, which teaches us, that conception, perception by the 
 senses, and memory, are only diflfierent ways of perceiving ideas in our own 
 minds. If that theory be well founded, it will indeed be very difficult to 
 find any specific distinction between conception and perception. 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 con- 
 found his conceptions with what he perceives or remembers, 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 ex- 
 press 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 ima- 
 gined it. 
 
 It may be doubted, whether children, when their imagination first 
 begins to work, can distinguish what they barely conceive from what they 
 remember. I have been told by a man of knowledge and 6bservation, 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 in- 
 tention 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 ^vith 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 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 ? 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 
 
CHAP. Ij SIMPLE APPREHENSION IN GENERAL. 189 
 
 unripeness of understanding, may be apt to confound diflFerent powers, will 
 It follow that others cannot clearly distinguisl^ them ? 
 
 To return from this digression, into which the abuse of the word per- 
 ception, by philosophers, has led me, it appears evident, that the bare con- 
 ception 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 operations of body and those of the 
 •mind, there is none so strong and so obvious to all mankind as that which 
 there is between painting, 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 modifications are expressed, are ana- 
 logical, and borrowed from those arts. 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 we should attempt to avoid this . analogical language, for we 
 have no other language upon the subject ; yet it is dangerous, 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 
 borrowed and figurative meaning into the primitive. We are prone to 
 carry the parallel between the things compared farther than it will hold, 
 and thus very naturally to fall into error. 
 
 To avoid this as far as possible in the present 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 philosopher 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 language 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 dif- 
 ferent from his action in making it ; for it remains and continues to exist 
 when the action ceases. The action of painting is 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. But does it produce any 
 effect besides the act itself? Surely common sense answers this question in 
 the nej&tive : for every one 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. Conceiving as well as projecting or resolving, are what the 
 schoolmen called immanent 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, 
 
190 SIMPLE APPKEHJiNSION IN GENERAL. QeSSAY IV. 
 
 What is meant by conceiving a thing ? we should very naturally answer. 
 That it is having an image of it in the mind ; and perhaps we could not 
 explain the word better. This shows, 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 eflFect produced by 
 conception as a cause. It is conception itself. That very mode of 
 thinking, which we call conception, is by another name called an image in 
 the mind. 
 
 Nothing more readily gives the conception of a thing than the seeing an 
 image of it. Hence, by a iigure common in language, conception is called 
 an image of the thing conceived. But to show 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 any thing else is said 
 to be in the mind, the expression must be figurative, and signify some kind 
 of thought. 
 
 1 know that philosophers very unanimously maintain, that in conception 
 there is a real image in the mind, which is the immediate object of concep- 
 tion, and distinct from the act of conceiving it, I beg the reader's indul- 
 gence 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, 
 authorises us to understand the conception of a thing, and an image of it in 
 the mind, not as two different things, but as two different 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 seduction 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 different 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 con- 
 ceptions admit of a division very similar. 
 
 First, There are conceptions which may be called fancy pictures. They 
 are commonly called-creatures of fancy or of imagination. They are not the 
 copies of any original that exists, but are originals themselves. Such was 
 the conception which Swift formed of the island of Laputa and of the 
 country of the Lilliputians ; Cervantes 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 
 qualities of true or false to them, because they are not accompanied with 
 any belief, nor do they imply any affirmation or negation. 
 
 Setting aside those creatures of imagination, 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. 
 
CHAP. I.J SIMPLE APPKEHENSTON IN GENERAL. 191 
 
 The _first kind is analogous to pictures taken from the life. We have 
 conceptions of individual things that really exist, such 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 conceived. 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 
 inadequate ; 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 universals ; 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 ? And when are they said to be true or false } 
 
 It appears to me, that the original from which they are copied, that isj 
 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 individual would be impossible. We could never 
 attain the knowledge of them that is necessary, nor converse and reason 
 about them, withojit sorting them according to their 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 individual 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 nothing 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 conception to them. The common meaning is the standard 
 by which su«h conceptions are formed, and they are said to be true or false, 
 accwding 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 distinguish that individual 
 from all others; if it is unknown, it may, when an object of sense and 
 \vithin reach, be pointed out to the senses ; when beyond the reach of the 
 senses, it may be ascertained by a description, which, though very imper- 
 fect, 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 taking one individual for another. 
 
 Yet, as was before observed, our conception 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 
 
192 SlMtLE APPREHENSION IN GENEEAL. [ESSAY IV. 
 
 da not comprehend: they are therefore incapable of definition; for a 
 definition ought to comprehend the whole nature or essence of the thing 
 defined. 
 
 Thus, Westminster bridge is an individual object ; though I had never 
 seen nor heard of it before, if I am only made to conceive that it is a bridge 
 from Westminster over the Thames, this conception, however imperfect, 
 is true, and is sufiicient 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 inaterials, 
 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 general words ; and all the words of 
 language, excepting proper names, are general words ; they are the signs 
 of general conceptions, 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 therefore be adequate, and perfectly agree with the thing conceived.' 
 This implies no more than that men who speak the same language 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 hy three right lines, I have both a true and an adequate 
 conception of it. 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 understood, 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 conversation. 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 persons 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 diflicult to find, and 
 apt to be mistaken, even by the candid and attentive. Hence, in innu^ 
 merable disputes, men do not reaUy differ in their judgments, but in the 
 way of expressing them. 
 
 Our conceptions, therefore, appear to be of three kinds : they are either 
 the conceptions of individual things, the creatures of God; or they are 
 conceptions of the meaning of general words ; or they are the creatures 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 properly belong to 
 our conceptions, though we have no names for them but such as are ana- 
 logical. 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. 
 
OHAP. I.] SIMPLE APPREHENSION IN GENERAL- 193 
 
 Those who liave lively conceptions, commonly 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 
 cornrersation, and the most acceptable in their writings. 
 
 The liveliness of our conceptions proceeds from different causes. Some 
 objects from their own nature, or from accidental associations, are apt to 
 raise strong emotions in the mind. Joy and hope, ambition, zeal, and re- 
 sentment, tend to enliven our conceptions : disappointment, disgrace, grief, 
 and envy, tend rather to flatten them. Men of keen passions are com- 
 ^o^Y lively and agreeable in conversation ; and dispassionate men often 
 make dull companions: there is in some men a natural strength and 
 vigour of mind, which gives strength to their conceptions on all subjects, 
 and m all the occasional variations of temper. 
 
 It seems easier to form a lively conception of objects that are familiar, 
 than- of those that are not ,• our conceptions of visible objects are com- 
 monly the most lively, when other circumstances are equal ; hence poets 
 not only delight in the description' of visible objects, but find means by 
 metaphor, 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. 
 
 Abstract and general conceptions are never lively, though they may be 
 distinct ; and therefore, however necessary in philosophy, seldom enter 
 into poetical description, 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 creation is ani- 
 mated, 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 conception 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 obscure, indistinct, and wavering. The livelinesa of our con- 
 ceptions 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 ^vriting 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 conception of what he said -or 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 se- 
 quuntur." But it is impossible that a man should distinctly express what 
 he has not distinctly conceived. 
 
194 SIMPLE APPllEHENSION IN GENERAL. [[ESSAY IV. 
 
 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, I apprehend, that indistinct conceptions 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 ? Is it possible for two 
 persons to diflFer with regard to the conclusion of a syllogism who have the 
 same conception of the premises ? 
 
 Some persons find it difficult to enter into a mathematical demonstration. 
 I believe 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 under- 
 stand. On the other hand, I think a man cannot understand a demon- 
 stration 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 sup- 
 plied by the reader. 
 
 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 .'' You may find, by a little conversa- 
 tion 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 meaning, you may venture to affirm that he wiU be 
 able to understand the demonstrations of that book, and to see the force 
 of them. 
 
 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 in- 
 separable companion of a clear and steady apprehension : 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 individual 
 things, others of things general and abstract. It may happen, that a man 
 who has very clear conceptions of things individual, 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 
 ve]^ difficult to enter into abstract reasoning. 
 
 That I may not appear singular in putting men so much upon a level 
 m point of mere judgment, I beg leave to support this opinion by the 
 authority of two very thinking men, Des Cartes and Cicero. The former, 
 in his Dissertation on Method, expresses himself to this purpose • " No- 
 thing 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 rfeht reason), is 
 by nature equal in all men; and therefore that the diversity of our opi- 
 
CHAP. I.] SIMPLE APPREHENSION IN GJENKRAL. 195 
 
 nions docs 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 thoughts 
 m the same tract, nor attend to the same things." 
 
 Cicero, in his third book De Oratore, makes this observation, " It is 
 \yonderfuI, when the learned and unlearned differ so much in art, how 
 little they differ in judgment. For art being derived from nature, is good 
 for nothing, unless it move and delight nature." 
 
 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 be- 
 tween one man and another in this respect, yet that it is in a very Con- 
 siderable degree in our power to have clear and distinct apprehensions of 
 things about which we think and reason, cannot be doubted. 
 
 7- It has been observed by many authors, that, when we barely con- 
 ceive 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 attributes 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 conscience, 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 presents ; but it cannot, by the utmost efforts of that 
 creative power which we ascribe to it, bring any one simple ingredient to 
 its productions, which nature has not framed, and brought to our know- 
 ledge by some other faculty. 
 
 This Mr. Locke has expressed as beautifully 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 ma- 
 naged by art and skill, reaches no farther than to compound and divide 
 the materials that are made to his hand,' but can do nothing towards 
 making the least particle of matter, or destroying one atom that is already 
 in being. 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 sentiment. Mr. Hume, indeed, 
 after acknowledging 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 ; be- 
 cause a particular 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 attribute or relation : and thus our most simple conceptions 
 are not those of any object in nature, but of some single attribute or re- 
 lation of such objects. j j . t. 
 
 Thus nature presents to our senses, bodies that are extended in three 
 dimensions, and solid. By analysing the notion we have of body from our 
 senses we form to ourselves the conceptions of extension, solidity, space, 
 ' o 2 
 
196 SIMPLE APPREHENSION IN GENERAL. [ESSAY IV. 
 
 a pointj 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 un- 
 derstood, so as to be inconsistent with it. 
 
 8. Though our conceptions must be confined to the ingredients men- 
 tioned in the last article, we are unconfined with regard to the arrange- 
 ment of those ingredients. Here we may pick and choose, and form an 
 endless variety of combinations and compositions, which we call creatures 
 of the imagination. These may be clearly conceived, though they never 
 existed : and indeed every thing 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 is brought to execution. And we cannot avoid' thinking, that the Al- 
 mighty, before he created the universe by his power, had a distinct con- 
 ception 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 un- 
 limited 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 affection, 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 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 passion 
 or appetite which is strongest at the time leads them. 
 
 9. The last property I shall mention of this faculty, is that which es- 
 sentially distinguishes 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 in- 
 cline my judgment in the least to the belief, that a winged horse or a 
 centaur ever existed. 
 
 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 consciousness 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 sensation, of perception, of memory, 
 and of consciousness, 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 dis- 
 tinguish between that act or operation of the mind, which we call con- 
 ceiving an object, and the object which we conceive. When we conceive 
 
CHAP. II.] THEORIES CONCERNING CONCEPTION. 197 
 
 any thing, 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 vi'ho are unacquainted 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 con- 
 ceive things 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 autho- 
 rity 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. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THEORIES CONCEHNING CONCEPTION. 
 
 The theory of ideas has been applied to the conception of objects as 
 well as to perception and memory. Perhaps it will be irksome to the 
 jeader, 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 properly have been introduced before, gives a more comprehensive 
 view of it, and of the prejudices which have led philosophers so unani- 
 mously 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 appeared 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 operations, they are prejudices which those who speculate upon this 
 subject are very apt to be led into by analogy. 
 
 The^rst is. That in aU the operations of the understanding there must 
 be some immediate intercourse between the mind and its object, so that 
 the one may act upon the other. The second. That in all the operations 
 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. 
 
 . The first of these principles has led philosophers 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 im- 
 mediate object of perception, distinct from the external object, has been 
 very unanimously held by philosophers, though they have differed much 
 about the name, the nature, and the origin of those immediate objects. 
 
 We have considered what has been said in support of this principle. 
 Essay II. Chap. XIV., to which the reader is referred, to prevent repe- 
 tition. 
 
 I shall only add to what is there said, that there appears no shadow ot 
 reason why the mind must have an object immediately present to it in its 
 
198 THEOllIES OONCKaHING CONCEPTION. []eSSAY IV. 
 
 intellectual operations, any more than in its aflFections and passions. Philo- 
 sophers 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 conception 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 ridi- 
 culous to defend it by reasoning as to oppose it. 
 
 The philosopher says, though there may be a remote object which does 
 not exist, there must be an immediate object which really exists ; for that 
 which is not, cannot be an object of thought. The idea must be per- 
 ceived 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 mentioned depends upon it; for although the last may be true, 
 even if the lirst were 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 
 of one object, which in perception is something external that exists • in 
 memory, something that did exist ; and in conception, may be something 
 that never existed : but the immediate object of the philosophers, the idea, 
 IS said to exist, and to be perceived in all these operaiions. 
 
 These prindples have not only led philosophers 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 conception, 
 as well as perception, to be the perception of ideas. But nothing appears 
 more evident to the vulgar, than that what is only remembered, or only 
 conceived, ,s not perceived; and to speak of the perceptions of memory, 
 appears to them as absurd, as to speak of the hearing of sight 
 th.L^JTA *^''^ f"^" principles carry us into the whole philosophical 
 theory of ide^ and furnish every argument that ever was used for their 
 existence. If they are true, that system must be admitted with all is 
 consequences: If they are only prejudices, grounded upon analogical rea 
 soniiig, the Whole system must fall to the ground with them ^ 
 .hi! f ' *f ^^^"'■f' of ^Portance to trace those principles, as far as we are 
 able, to their origin, and to see, if possible, whether they have aJy iust 
 foundation m reason, or whether thej^are rash conclusions^ driwn from a 
 supposed analogy between matter and mind ' 
 
CHAP. II.] THEORIES CONCEBNING CONCEPTION. 199 
 
 that the object which they distinctly remember certainly did exist, but 
 now may not ; but as to things that are barely conceived, 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 
 existence. 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 great and important works, and draw the attention and admira- 
 tion of men. 
 
 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. Every thing that is produced 
 must be produced of something ; and from nothing, nothing can be pro- 
 duced. 
 
 Some such reasoning as this seems to me to have given the first rise to 
 the philosophical 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 imagination. I shall, in compliance vidth custom, call it the Platonic 
 system of ideas, though, in reality, it was the invention of the Pythagorean 
 school. 
 
 The most arduous question which €mployed the wits of men m the in- 
 fancy of the Grecian philosophy was, what was the origin of the world .^ 
 From what principles and causes did it proceed ? To this question very 
 different answers were given in the different schools. Most of them ap- 
 pear to us very ridiculous. The Pythagoreans, however, judged very 
 rationally, frota the order and beauty of the universe, that it must be the 
 workmanship of an eternal, intelligent, 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, because 
 every thing that is made must be made of something. 
 
 Nullam rem e nihilo gigni divinitus unquam. 
 
 LUCB. 
 
 De nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse reverti. 
 
 Pbbs. 
 
 This maxim never was brought into doubt : even in Cicero's time it con- 
 tinued to be held by all philosophers. What natural philosopher (says that 
 author in his second book of Divination) ever asser ed that any thing 
 could take its rise from nothing, or be reduced to nothing ? Because men 
 must have materials to work upon, they concluded it must be so with the 
 Dcitv. This was reasoning from analogy. 
 
 From this it foUowed, that an eternal uncreated matter was another 
 
200 THKOKIES CONCEllNING CONCEPTION. [[ESSAY IV. 
 
 first principle of the universe. But this matter, they believed, had no 
 form nor quality. It was the same with the materia prima, or first matter 
 of Aristotle, who borrowed this part of his philosophy from his prede- 
 cessors. 
 
 To us it seems more rational to think, that the Deity created matter 
 with its qualities, than that the matter of the universe should be eternal 
 and self-existent. But so strong was the prejudice of the ancient philo- 
 sophers 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 conception 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. 
 
 From this investigation of the principles or causes of the universe, those 
 philosophers concluded them to be three in number, to wit, an eternal 
 matter as the material cause, eternal ideas as the model or exemplary 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 existence. They are as various as the species of things, 
 there being one idea of every species, but none of individuals. The idea 
 is the essence of the species, and existed before 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. While we are in this prison of the body, sense, as a 
 dead weight, bears us down from the contemplation of the intellectual ob- 
 jects ; and it is only by a due purification 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 concerning ideas, of which we have 
 any account. And however different from the modern, it appears to be 
 built upon the prejudices we have mentioned ; to wit, that in every ope- 
 ration there must be something to work upon ; and that even in concep- 
 tion there must be an object which really exists. 
 
 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 principles 
 as well as the Deity himself. ' 
 
 Whether they believed that the ideas were not only eternal, but eter- 
 nally, and without a cause, arranged in that beautiful and perfect order 
 
CHAP. II.] THEOllIKS CONCEUNISG CONCKPTION. 201 
 
 which they ascribe to this intelligible world of ideas, I cannot say ; but 
 this seems to be a necessary consequence 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 principles, 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 unfavour- 
 able 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 refractoriness 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 
 vrise and good Being .-' 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 philo- 
 sophers, 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 Platonic ideas, arises from attributing existence to them. Take 
 away this one attribute, all the rest, however pompously expressed, are 
 easUy admitted and understood. 
 
 What is a Platonic idea } 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 beirig 
 multiplied or divided. It was an object of the Divine Intellect from eter- 
 nity, and is an object of contemplation and of science to every intelligent 
 being. It is eternal, immutable, and uncreated ; and, to crown all, it not 
 only exists, but has a more real and permanent existence than any thing 
 that ever God made. 
 
 Take this description altogether, and it would require an CEdipus to 
 unriddle it. But take away the last part of it, and nothing 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. 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 circle?, 
 have one and the same nature. It was an object of the Divine Intellect 
 
202 THEOmES CONCEIINING CONCEPTION. [^ESSAI VI. 
 
 from all eternity, and may be an object of contemplation and of science to 
 every intelligent 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 any thing 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 every thing which the ancients called 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 Al- 
 mighty without a model that -really existed, we must go back to the Pla- 
 tonic system, however mysterious. 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 re- 
 tained the prejudices that gave rise to them, and therefore substituted 
 something in their place, but under a different name, and of a different 
 origin. 
 
 He called the objects of intellect, intelligible 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, which we translate species ox form, is so near to the 
 Greek word idea, both in its sound and signification, that from their ety- 
 mology, it would not be easy to give them different meanings. Both are 
 derived 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 xiisio. 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 notion, 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 intelligible, to distinguish them 
 from sensible species, which Aristotle held to be the immediate 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 matter ; as wax receives the form of a seal 
 without any of the matter of it. In like manner, he thought that the in- 
 tellect receives the forms of things intelligible, and he calls it the place of 
 forms. 
 
 I take it to have been the opinion of Aristotle, that the intelligible forms 
 in the human intellect are derived from the sensible by abstraction, and 
 other operations of the mind itself. As to .the intelligible forms in tlie 
 Divine Intellect, they must have had another origin ; but I do not 
 remember that he gives any opinion about them. He certainly main- 
 tained, however, that there is no intellection without intelligible species ; 
 no memory or imagination without phantasms; no perception without 
 sensible species. Treating of memory he proposes a difficulty, and endea- 
 vours to resolve it, how a phantasm, that is a present object in the mind, 
 should represent a thing that is past. 
 
CHAl'. II ] THEOllIKS CONCEUNING CONCEPTION. 203 
 
 Thus, I think, it appears, that the Peripatetic system of species and 
 phantasms, as Avell 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. 
 Wliether this immediate object be called an idea with Plato, or a phantasm 
 or species with Aristotle ; whether it be eternal and uncreated, or produced 
 by the impressions of external objects, is of no consequence in the present 
 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 any thing that 
 did not exist, but by means of a model that reaUy existed. 
 
 The philosophers of the Alexandrian school, commonly called the latter 
 Platonists, 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 archetypes of things that are made. 
 
 Modern philosophers, still persuaded that of every thought there must 
 be an immediate object that really exists, have not thought it necessary 
 to distinguish by different names the immediate objects of intellect, 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 they are perceived; whether they are the work- 
 manship of the Deity or of the mind itself, or of external natural 
 causes ; with regard to these points, different authors seem to have dif- 
 ferent opinions, and the same author sometimes to waver or be diffident ; 
 but as to their existence, there seems to be great unanimity. 
 
 So much is this opinion fixed in the minds of philosophers, that I doubt 
 not but it will appear to most a very strange paradox, or rather a con- 
 tradiction, that men should think without ideas. 
 
 That it has the appearance of a contradiction, 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 
 thinking about it, which is the most common meaning of the word, to think 
 without ideas, is to think without thought, which is undoubtedly a con- 
 tradiction. 
 
 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 .'' 
 
 I acknowledge that a man cannot perceive 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 } Is it an animal, half 
 
204 THEORIES CONCEIINING CONCEPTION. [ESSAY IV. 
 
 horse and half man ? No. Then I am certain it is not the thing Icon- 
 ceive. Perhaps 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. 
 
 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 conceive, 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 
 conceive is a body of a certain iigure and colour, having life and spontane- 
 ous 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 con- 
 ceive it, this would be no evidence of its existence, any more than my 
 conception of a centaur is of its existence. Philosophers sometimes 
 say that we perceive ideas, sometimes that . we are conscious of them. 
 I can have no doubt of the existence of any thing 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 aifirm that he per- 
 ceived an object, but whether by his eyes, or his ears, or his touch, he 
 could not say. 
 
 But 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 philosophical 
 theory of ideas, I iind no fault with it. By a distinct image in the mind, 
 the vulgar mean a distinct conception ; 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 account of this analogy, obvious to "all mankind, this operation is 
 called imagination, and an image in the mind is only a periphrasis for 
 imagination. But to infer from this that there is really an image in the 
 mind, distinct from the operation of conceiving 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 con- 
 ception, do no doubt facilitate their being taken in a literal sense. But if 
 we can only attend carefully 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 mechanical 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 under- 
 standing, 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 language viathout 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 
 
CHAP. 11.3 THEORIES CONCERNING CONCEPTION. 205 
 
 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 any thing 
 else, because we Itnow 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 any 
 thing else, unless perhaps the existence of an intelligent Author of them. 
 In this Bishop Berkeley reasoned right. 
 
 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 object of his 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, therefore, the conception must go before the existence. This argu- 
 ment we applied before to the Platonic system of eternal and immutable 
 ideas, and it may be appUed with equal force to all the systems of ideas. 
 
 If now it should be asked. What is the idea of a circle ? I answer. It is 
 the conception of a circle. What is the immediate object of this con- 
 ception ? The immediate and the only object of it is a circle. But where 
 is this circle .'' It is no where. If it was an individual, and had a real 
 existence, 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 ? 
 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, signifying 
 that the thing is conceived or remembered. 
 
 It may be asked. Whether this conception is an image or resemblance of 
 a circle.'' 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 conception is not an image or resemblance of a circle ; for it is a 
 circle, and nothing can be an image of itself. 
 
 If the question be. Whether the operation of mind in conceiving a circle 
 be an image or resemblance of a circle ? 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 resemblance to the object desired, or resentment to the object of resent- 
 ment. 
 
 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 be 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 altogether 
 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 a hundred times more probable that they are 
 false than "that they are true. 
 
206 MISTAKES COXCEKNING CONCEPTION. [^ESSAY IV. 
 
 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 philo- 
 sophy, 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. AnA.fourlhly, That 
 the perception of individual images in the mind, or in the brain, gives us 
 the conception of universals, which are the attributes of many individuals. 
 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, 
 and materia jnima of Aristotle, and the vortices of Des Cartes. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MISTAKES CONCERNING CONCEPTION. 
 
 1. Writers on logic, after the example of Aristotle, divide the opera- 
 tions of the understanding into three ; simple apprehension, which is an- 
 other word for conception, 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 subject or predicate of a pro- 
 position. 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, without 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 judgment about it, though we perfectly understand 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 dis- 
 covering the means of attaining his end ; and therefore it is laid aside, or 
 employed solely for that purpose. 
 
 The business of an orator is said to be, to find out what is fit to per- 
 suade. 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 j 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 logicians, of simple apprehension, 
 into sensation, imagination, and pure intellection, seems to me very im- 
 proper 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 operations of the mind ; and although they are commonly 
 conjoined by nature, ought to be carefully distinguished by philosophers. 
 
CHAP. III.] MISTAKES CONCERNING CONCEPTION. 207 
 
 Secondly, Neither sensation, nor the perception of external objects, is 
 simple apprehension. Both include judgment and belief, which are ex- 
 ■ eluded from simple apprehension. 
 
 Thirdly, Thej distinguish imagination from pure intellection by this, 
 that^ in imagination the image is in the brain, in pure intellection it is in 
 the intellect. This is to ground a distinction upon an hypothesis. We 
 have no evidence that there are images either in the brain or in the 
 intellect. 
 
 I take imagination, in its most proper sense, to signify a lively con- 
 ception of objects of sight. This is a talent of importance to poets and 
 orators, and deserves a proper name, on account of its connexion with 
 those arts. According to this strict meaning of the word, imagination is 
 distinguished 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 judgment, reasoning, propositions, and arguments; 
 but it is rather improper to say that we imagine these things. 
 
 This distinction between imagination and conception, may be illustrated 
 by an example, which Des Cartes uses to illustrate 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 thousand equal sides and angles, so clearly. The 
 best eye by looking at it, could not distinguish it from every figure of 
 more or fewer sides. And that conception of its appearance to the eye, 
 which we properly call imagination, cannot be more distinct than the ap- 
 pearance 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 faculty, that 
 we form the notion of a great number, such as a thousand : and a distinct 
 notion of this number of sides not being to be got by the eye, it is not 
 imagined, but it is distinctly conceived, and easily distinguished from 
 every other number. 
 
 3. Simple apprehension is commonly represented as the first operation 
 of the understanding ; and judgment, as being a composition or combina- 
 tion of simple apprehensions. 
 
 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 probably the first operations of the mind, but they are not 
 simple apprehensions. 
 
 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 not the 
 first operation of the understanding ,■ and instead of saying, that the more 
 complex operations of the mind are formed by compounding simple ap- 
 prehensions, we ought rather to say, that simple apprehensions are got by 
 analysing 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 concep- 
 tions are got immediately by the senses, or by consciousness, and the 
 complex afterwards formed by compounding them. I apprehend, it is 
 far otherwise. 
 
 Nature presents no object to the senses, or to consciousness, that is not 
 
208 MISTAKES CONCERNING CONCEPTION. [eSSAY IV. 
 
 complex. ThuSj by our senses we perceive bodies of various kinds ; but 
 every body is a complex 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 separate the different qua- 
 lities belonging to the same subject, and have only a complex and con- 
 fused notion of the whole : such also would be our notions of the objects 
 of sense, if we had not superior powers of understanding, by which we 
 can analyse the complex object, abstract every particular attribute from 
 the rest, and form a distinct conception of it. 
 
 So that it is not by the senses immediately, but rather by the powers 
 of analysing and abstraction that we get the most simple, and the most 
 distinct notions even of the objects of sense. This wiU be more fully ex- 
 plained in another place. 
 
 4. There remains another mistake concerning conception, which deserves 
 to be noticed. It is, that our conception of things is a test of their pos- 
 sibility, so that, what we can distinctly conceive, we may conclude to be 
 possible ; and of what is impossible, we can have no conception. 
 
 This opinion has been held by philosophers for more than a hundred 
 years, without contradiction or dissent, as far as I know ; 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 received 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 ? As if men could have 
 any other way to distinguish truth from error, but by the right use of that 
 power of judgment which God has given them. 
 
 Des Cartes endeavoured to put an end to this controversy, by making 
 it a fundamental 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 understand- 
 ing ; and in explaining this very maxim, he tells us, that sense, imagina- 
 tion, and pure intellection, are only different modes of perceiving, and so 
 the maxim was understood by all his followers. 
 
 The learned Dr. Cudworth seems also to have adopted this principle : 
 " The criterion of true knowledge, (says he) is only to be looked for in 
 our knowledge and conceptions 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 understood. A falsehood 
 can never be clearly conceived or apprehended to be true." Etern. and 
 Immut. Morality, p. 172, &c. 
 
 This Cartesian maxim seems to me to have led the way to that now 
 under consideration, which seems to have been adopted as the proper cor- 
 rection of the former. When the authority of Des Cartes declined, men 
 began to see that we may clearly and distinctly conceive what is not true, 
 but 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 consequence of the received doc- 
 trine of ideas ; it being evident, that there can be no distinct image, either 
 in the mind or any where else, of that which is impossible. The am- 
 biguity of the word conceive, which we observed Essay I. Chap. I. and the 
 common phraseology of saying tve cantiot conceive such a thing, when we 
 
CHAP. III.] MISTAKES CONCERNING CONCEPTION. 209 
 
 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 uni- 
 versally, and to be received as a maxim. 
 
 " The bare having an idea of the proposition proves the thing not to be 
 impossible ; for of an impossible proposition there can be no idea." — Dr. 
 Sam. Clarke. 
 
 "Of that which neither does nor can exist we can have no idea." — L. 
 Bolingbroke. 
 
 " 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. 
 
 " 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 cannot exist." — Dr. Price. 
 
 " Impossibile est cujus nuUam notionem formare possumus; possibile 
 e contra, cui aliqua respondet notio."— Wolfii Ontolog. 
 
 " It is an established maxim in metaphysics, that whatever the mind 
 conceives, includes 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 passage above quoted, we sliall have a short road to the de- 
 termination 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, wiU 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 unwarily led into, from the causes before mentioned. My reasons 
 are these : 
 
 1. Whatever is said to be possible or impossible is expressed by a pro- 
 position. 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 can 
 be meant by simple apprehension, or conception, when applied to a pro- 
 position. The axiom, therefore, amounts to this : every proposition, of 
 which you understand the meaning distinctly, is possible. I am persuaded 
 that I understand as distinctly the meaning of this proposition. Any two 
 sides of a triangle are together equal to the third, as of this, Any tteo 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, .^ou 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 suppose it to be true, 
 because I can draw consequ€nces from it which I find to be impossible, as 
 well as the proposition itself. 
 
 If by conceiving it to be true be meant giving some degree of assent to 
 it, however small, this, I confess, I cannot do. But will it be said, that 
 ei'ery proposition to which I can give any degree of assent is possible? 
 
 V 
 
210 MISTAKES CONCERNING CONCEPTION. [ESSAY IV. 
 
 This contradicts experience^ and therefore the maxim cannot be true in 
 this sense. 
 
 Sometimes when we say that tve cannot conceive a thwg to be true, we 
 mean by that expression^ that me 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, then, 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 impossible .'' The maxim, therefore, is not true 
 in this sense. 
 
 I am not able to find any other meaning of conceiving a proposition, or 
 of conceiving it to be true, besides these I Jiave mentioned. I know no- 
 thing that can be meant by having the idea of a proposition, but either 
 the understanding its meaning, or the judging of its truth. I can under- 
 stand 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 evi- 
 dence that it is possible .'' 
 
 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 comprehend, and I shall be glad to be 
 informed. 
 
 2. Every proposition, that is necessarily true, stands opposed to a con- 
 tradictory proposition that is impossible ; and he that conceives one, con- 
 ceives 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 pro- 
 position carries its contradictory in its bosom, and both are conceived at 
 the same time. " It is confessed," says Mr. Hume, " that in all cases 
 where we dissent from any person, we conceive both sides of the question, 
 but we can believe only one." From this it certainly follows, that when 
 we dissent from any person about a necessary proposition, we conceive one 
 that is impossible ; 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 now quoted, 
 the truth of which is evident, he contradicts it himself. 
 
 3. Mathematicians have, in many cases, proved some things to be pos- 
 sible, and others to be impossible, which, without demonstration, would 
 not have been believed : yet I have never found, that any mathematician 
 has attempted to prove a thing to be possible, because it can be conceived ; 
 or impossible, because it cannot be conceived. Why is not this maxim 
 applied to determine whether it is possible to square the circle ? a point 
 about which very eminent 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 an- 
 other, as the side of a square bears to its diagonal ; yet, however conceiv- 
 able this may be, it may be demonstrated to be impossible. 
 
 4. Mathematicians often require us to conceive things that are im- 
 possible, in order to prove them to be so. This is the case in all their 
 demonstrations, ad ahsurdum. Conceive, says Euclid, a right line drawn 
 
CHAP. IV.J TRAIN OF THOUGHT IN THE MIND. 211 
 
 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 show that our power of conceiving a proposition 
 is no criterion of its possibility or impossibility, I shall add a few observa- 
 tions on the extent of our knowledge of this kind. 
 
 1. There are many propositions which, by the faculty 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 proposi- 
 tions must be impossible. Our knowledge, therefore, of what is impossible, 
 must at least be as extensive as our knowledge of necessary truth. 
 
 2. By our senses, by memory, by testimony, and by other means, we 
 know many things to be true, which do not appear to be necessary. But 
 whatever is true, is possible. Our knowledge, therefore, of what is pos- 
 sible, must at least extend as far as our knowledge of truth. 
 
 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, particularly in 
 mathematics. But I say, that his being able to conceive a thing, is no 
 proof that it is possible. Mathematics afford many instances of impossi- 
 bilities in the nature of things, which no man would have believed, if they 
 had not been strictly demonstrated. 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 possible. 
 
 It is possible, you say, that God might have made an universe of sen- 
 sible and rational 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 i.s possible .'' 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 any thing 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. 
 
 The mind on this account may be compared 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. But, in the state of 
 fermentation, it has some cause of motion in itself, which, even when there 
 is no impulse 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 modifications of thought have no name but ISiuch as is 
 borrowed from the modifications of motion. Many thoughts are eiKited by 
 the senses. The causes or occasions of these may be considered as ex- 
 
 p 2 
 
212 TRAIN or THOUGHT IN THE MIND. [^:ESSAV IV. 
 
 ternal : but, when such external causes do not operate upon us, we con- 
 tinue 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 sentiments, 
 passions and affections, which attend them. 
 
 This continued succession of thought has, by modern philosophers, been 
 called the iwaginntion. I think it was formerly called the fancy or the phan- 
 tasy^ If the old name be laid aside, it were to be wished that it had got 
 a name less ambiguous than that of imagioatiou, 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 conceptions, or 
 ideas. 
 
 Memory, judgment, reasoning, passions, affections, and purposes ; in a 
 word, every operation of the mind, excepting those of sense, is exerted 
 bccasionally in this train of thought, and has its share as an ingredient : 
 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. 
 
 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 exertion 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 
 jnixed, 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 di- 
 rection : 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. 
 
 On the other hand, when a man is giving the most intense application 
 to any speculation, or to any scheme of conduct, when he wills to exclude 
 every thought that is foreign 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 purpose. One man may have the command of his thoughts 
 more than another man, and the same man more at one time than at an- 
 other : but I apprehend, in the best trained mind the thoughts will some- 
 times be restive, sometimes capricious and self-willed, when we wish to 
 have them most under command. 
 
 It has been observed, very justly, that we must not ascribe to the mind 
 the power of calling up any thought at pleasure, because 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 con- 
 siderable 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 present themselves to the fancy in 
 crowds, as a ^eat man treats those that attend his levee. They are all 
 ambitious- of his attention ; he goes round the circle, bestowing a bow upon 
 one, a smile upon another ; asks a short question of a third ; while a 
 
CHAP. IV.] TRAIN OF THOUGHT IN TUE MIND. 213 
 
 fourth is honoured with a particular conference ; and the greater part 
 have no particular 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 
 spontaneously ; but if we pay no attention to them, nor hold any con- 
 ference 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 attention, 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 eflFort to regulate their succession. 
 
 Thus we see, that the fancy is made up of trains of thinking j 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 pre- 
 mised 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 one faculty only that is 
 employed ; there are many that join together in its production. Some- 
 times 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, but realities, which we remember ; yet in this case the 
 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 indifferent to us can hardly appear, even to the 
 imagination, without some friendly or unfriendly 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. 
 
 There are others which we may call romantic, 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 sen- 
 timent, as well as the passions and affections, come in and tajie a.share m 
 the execution. ,. . . , j 
 
 In these scenes, the man himself commonly acts a very distinguished 
 part, and seldom does any thing which he cannot approve. Here the 
 miser will be generous, the coward brave, and the knave honest. Mr. 
 Addison, in the Spectator, caUs this play of the fancy, castle bmldmg. 
 
214 TRAIX OF THOUGHT IN THE MIND- [ESSAY IV. 
 
 The young politician, who has turned his thoughts to the affairs of go- 
 vernment, becomes 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 come. 
 
 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- approbation 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 conceives 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 wiU lead into some of those arts 
 of self-deceit, which create a false opinion of worth. 
 
 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 bottom 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 constitu- 
 tion, or have been most cherished by education, impatient to exert them- 
 selves, 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 builders, they use different materials ; 
 and while the young soldier is carried into the field of Mars, where he 
 pierces the thickest squadrons of the enemy, despising death in all its forms, 
 the gay and lovely nymph, whose heart has never felt the tender passioUi 
 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. 
 
 Jn 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 imagination immediately raises them to manhood 
 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 marriage, and bring new alliances to the family. Her children's 
 children rise up before her, and venerate her grey hairs. 
 
CHAl'. IV.] TRAIN OF THOUGHT IN THE MIND. 215 
 
 Thus the spontaneous sallies of fancy are as various as the cares and fearSj 
 the desires and hopes, of man. 
 
 " 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 excursions into the ima- 
 gination, and acts such scenes upon that theatre as are agreeable to the 
 prevailing passion. The man of traific, 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 disposed 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 Homer and 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 j 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. 
 
 In persons come to maturity, there is even in these spontaneous sallies 
 of fancy some arrangement of thought ; and I conceive that it will be 
 readily allowed; that in those who. have the greatest stock of knowledge, 
 and the best natural parts, even the spontaneous movements of fancy will 
 be the most regular and connected. They have an order, connexion, 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 .' It has all the marks 
 of judgment and reason, yet it seems to go before judgment, and to spring 
 forth spontaneously. 
 
 ShaU we believe with Leibnitz, that the mind was originally formed 
 like a watch wound up ; and that all its thoughts, purposes, passions, and 
 actions, are efi"ected 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 ? 
 
 If a child of three or four years were put to account for the phenomenon 
 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, attraction of ideas, or from any other 
 unthinking cause, whether mechanical or contingent, seems equally ir- 
 
 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 evi- 
 
216 TRAIN OF THOUGHT IN THE MIND. [^ESSAY IV. 
 
 dence of thought in any of our fellow-men, nay, that we have no evidence 
 of thought or design in the structure and government of the universe. 
 If a good period or sentence was ever produced without having had any 
 judgment previously employed ahout it, why not an Iliad or ^neid ? 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 concurrence of unthinking causes may produce a rational 
 train of thought. 
 
 It is, therefore, in itself highly probable, to say no more, that what- 
 soever is regular and rational in a train of thought, which presents itself 
 spontaneously to a man's fancy^ without any study, is a copy of what had 
 been before composed by his own rational powers, or those of some other 
 person. 
 
 We certainly judge so in similar cases. Thus, in a book I iind a train 
 of thinking, which has the marks of knowledge and judgment. I ask how 
 it was produced.'' 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 perhaps 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 believe that such a train of thinking could 
 originally be produced by any cause that neither reasons nor thinks. 
 
 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 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 in- 
 fants. 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 smUe at is not easy to guess : for they do not smile at any 
 thing 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 minds 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, according to some rule, 
 or with some intention. Thus the conception of a design, and of the means 
 of executing it; the conception 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 pf any consequence in the present argument) whereby he distinguishes 
 between a composition 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. It does not appear to me that 
 children have any regular trains of thought until this power begins to 
 
CHAP. IV.] TRAlK OF TttOtGlIT IN THE MIKD. 217 
 
 operate. Those who are born such idiots as never to show any signs of 
 this power, show 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 themselves in children about two years 
 of age. They can then give attention to the operations of older children 
 in making their little houses, and ships, and other such tilings, in imitation 
 of the works of men. They are then capable of understanding a little of 
 language, which shows 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 dis- 
 covery of his famous theorem. He seems then first to reflect upon himself, 
 and to swell with self-esteem. His eyes sparkle. He is impatient to 
 show his performance to all about him, and thinks himself entitled to their 
 applause. He is applauded by all, and feels the same emotion from this 
 applause, as a Roman Consul did from a triumph. He has now a con- 
 sciousness of some worth in himself. He assumes a superiority over those 
 who are not so wise ; and pays respect to those who are vriser than him- 
 self. 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 : every thing of this kind stores the fancy 
 with a new regular train of thought, which becomes familiar by repetition, 
 so that one part draws the whole after it in the imagination. 
 
 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 for- 
 ward, 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 m 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, therefore, 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 innu- 
 merable 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 than almost any other. When it is able to produce any thing 
 that is interesting to mankind, we call it genius ; a talent which is the lot 
 of very few. But there is perhaps a lower kind, or lower degree ot in- 
 vention, that is more common. However this may be, it must be allowed. 
 
218 TRAIN OF THOUGHT IN THE MIND- [ESSAY IV. 
 
 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 artj in 
 writing, or in discourse, wiU be copied by others. 
 
 Thus I conceive the minds of chUdren, as soon as they have judgment to 
 distinguish what is regular, orderly, and connected, from a mere medley of 
 thought, are furnished with regular trains of thinking by these means. 
 
 First and chiefly, by copying what they see in the works and in the dis- 
 course of others. Man is the most imitative of all animals ; he not only 
 imitates with intention, 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 accustomed 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 characterised in comedies 
 and works of humour. The bulk of men of the same nation, of the same 
 rank, and of the same occupation, are oast 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. 
 
 The condition of man requires a longer infancy and youth than that of 
 other animals ; for this reason, among others, ,that almost every station in 
 civil society requires a multitude of regular trains of thought, 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 emotion 
 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 wonderful in many instances ; in none more wonderful, than in that 
 versatility of imagination which a well-bred man acquires, by being much 
 exercised in the various scenes of life. In the morning he visits a friend 
 in affiiction. Here his imagination brings forth from its store every topic 
 of consolation ; every thing that is agreeable to the laws of friendship and 
 sympathy, and nothing 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 manner, according to the degree 
 of acquaintance or familiarity, of rank or dependence, of opposition or con- 
 currence 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 disguises. From the levee he goes to the house of commons, 
 and speaks uj)on the affairs of the nation ; from thence to a ball or as- 
 sembly, and entertains the ladies. His imagination puts on the friend, the 
 
CHAP. IV .] TRAIN OF THOUGHT IN THE MIND. 219 
 
 courtier, the patriot, the fine gentleman, with more ease than we put off 
 one suit and put on another. 
 
 This is the effect of training and exercise. For a man of equal parts 
 and knowledge, 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 wonderful 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. However, such 
 unusual phenomena show what habits of imagination may be acquired. 
 
 A¥hen such habits are acquired and perfected, they are exercised without 
 any laborious effort ; like the habit of playing upon an instrument of music. 
 There are innumerable 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 distinct idea of the 
 tune, and wills to play it. The motions of the fingers arrange themselves, 
 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 neces- 
 sary to make his discourse sensible, 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. 
 
 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 methodically 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 operations of fancy that are either 
 spontaneous, or at least require no laborious effort to guide and direct them^ 
 and have endeavoured to account for that degree of regularity and arrange- 
 ment 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 imitation of others, and the effect 
 of practice and habits, seem to me sufficiently to account for this pheno- 
 ^ menon, without supposing 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 themselves .■' That the sentiments, the manners, and 
 the passions arranged themselves at once in the mind of Homer, so as to 
 
220 TllAlN OF THOUGHT IN I'HE MIND. QeSSAY IV. 
 
 form the Iliad ? Was there no more effort in the composition, than there 
 is in telling a well-known tale, or singing a favourite song ? This cannot 
 be believed. 
 
 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 materials ; was not judgment necessary to select what was proper, 
 to reject what was improper, to arrange the materials into a just com- 
 position, and to adapt them to each other, and to the design of the whole ? 
 
 No man can believe that Homer's ideas, nierely by certain sympathies 
 and antipathies, by certain attractions and repulsions inherent in their 
 natures, arranged themselves 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 ar.t, 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 certain move- 
 ments, and many useful habits, that make him more subservient to our pur- 
 poses 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 motions, to which it has 
 been trained by a long course of discipline and exercise ; and by which it 
 may extempore, and without much effort, produce things that have a con- 
 siderable degree of beauty, regularity, and design. 
 
 But the most perfect works of design are never extemporary. Our first 
 thoughts are reviewed ; we place them at a proper distance : examine every 
 part, and take a complex view of the whole : by our critical 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 
 marshalled anew, according to a second and more deliberate judgment ; 
 what was deficient, is "supplied; what was dislocated, is 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 believe Horace, a competent judge, no production in that art can have 
 merit, which has not cost such labour as this in the birth. 
 
 " Vos O ! 
 
 Pompilius sanguis, carmen reprehendite quod non 
 Multa dies, et multa litura coercuit, atque 
 Perfectum decies non castigavit ad unguem." 
 
 The conclusion I would draw from all that has been said upon this sub- 
 ject is. That every thing 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 productions of human genius, was originally the offspring 
 of judgment or taste, applied with some effort greater or less. What one 
 
CIIAP. IV.3 TKAIN OF THOUGHT IN THE MIND. 221 
 
 person composed with art end judgment, is imitated by another with great 
 ease. What a man himself at first composed with pains, becomes by 
 habit so familiar, as to oflFer itself spontaneously to his fancy afterwards : 
 but nothing that is regular, was ever at first conceived without design, 
 attention, and care. 
 
 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 distinctly 
 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 cer- 
 tain relations to them. He thinks the complex ideas, which are the 
 common subjects of our thoughts and reasoning, are owing to the same 
 cause. The relations viTiich 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 con- 
 trariety as a principle of connexion among ideas , in order to reconcile this 
 to his system, he tells us gravely, that contrariety may perhaps be con- 
 sidered as a mixture of causation and resembltince. 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 therefore 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 
 eflTect, 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 philosophy, implies 
 nothing more than a constant conjunction observed between the cause and 
 the effect, and therefore contiguity must include causation, and his three 
 principles of attraction are reduced to two. 
 
 But when we take aU the three, the enumeration i? 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. Hujne 
 says, that contrariety may perhaps be considered as a mixture " of causation 
 and resemblance," I can as little comprehend as if he had said that figure 
 may perhaps be considered as a mixture of colour and sound. 
 
 Our thoughts pass easily from the end to the means ; from any truth 
 to the evidence on which it is founded, the consequences 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 temper and disposition 
 of the mind ; their relation to the habits we have acquired, whether moral 
 or intellectual; to the company we have kept, and to the business in which 
 we have been chiefly employed. The same event will suggest very dif- 
 ferent reflections to different persons, and to the same person at different 
 
222 TRAIN OF THOUGHT IK THE MIND. [ESSAY IV. 
 
 times, according as he is in good or bad humourj as he is lively or dull, 
 angry or pleased, melancholy or cheerful. 
 
 Lord Kames, in his Elements of Criticism, and Dr. Gerard, in his Essay 
 on Genius, have given a much fuller and juster enumeration of the causes 
 that influence our train of thinking, and I have 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. 
 
 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 ne- 
 cessity. 
 
 That trains of thinking, which by frequent repetition have become 
 familiar, should spontaneously offer themselves to our fancy, seems to 
 require no other original 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 accustomed 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 undoubtedly 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 own 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 contrasts ; 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 persons of his fable, which appears very natural, 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, con- 
 tiguity, and similitude in the ideas ? This, surely, is the least part of its 
 merit. But the chief part consists 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. 
 
 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 imaginations when awake, and 
 to others such as are horrible and distressing. 
 
 These influences of the body upon the mind can only be known by expe- 
 rience, 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 originally disposed, in 
 imagination, to pass from any one object of thought to others that are 
 
CHAP. IV.] TRAIN OF THOUGHT IN THE MIND. 223 
 
 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 regulated. 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 be formed at once ; not of ideas 
 to ideas only, but of ideas to passions and emotions; and that strong 
 associations are never formed at once, but when accompanied by some 
 strong passion or emotion. I believe this must be resolved into the con- 
 stitution 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, wiU come 
 under consideration in another place. 
 
 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 the view of philo- 
 sophers, and carrying it a, certain length. But I see nothing in this 
 theory that should hinder us to conclude, that every thing 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 attrac- 
 tion 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 circumstances, 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 composi- 
 tion, nor, indeed, any room for their operation. 
 
 There are other reflections of a more practical nature, and of higher im- 
 portance, to which this subject leads. 
 
 I believe it wiU 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,' therefore as the direction 
 of our thoughts is in our power, (and that it is so in a great measure can- 
 not be doubted,) it is of the last importance to give them that direction 
 which is most subservient to those valuable purposes. 
 
 What enjoyment can he have worthy of a man, whose imagination is 
 occupied only about things low and base, and grovels in a narrow field of 
 
224 TRAIN OF THOUGHT IN THE JIIND. ^ESSAY IV. 
 
 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 imagination, 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, 
 sometimes through the more regular and sober walks of science and 
 philosophy. 
 
 The various objects which he surveys, according to their different degrees 
 of beauty and dignity, raise in him the lively and agreeable emotions of 
 taste. 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. 
 
 The human imagination is an ample theatre, upon which every thing 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 judgment, 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 gorgims and hydras, imd chimeras di.ie. Sometimes it is 
 haunted with all the infernal demons, and made the forge of plots, and 
 rapine, and murder. Here every thing 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 venge- 
 ance upon the self-condemned criminal. 
 
 How happy is that mind, in which the light of real knowledge dispels 
 the phantoms of superstition : in which the belief and reverence of a per- 
 fect all-governing Mind casts out all fear but the fear of acting wrong: in 
 which serenity and cheerfulness, innocence, humanity, and candour, guard 
 the imagination against the entrance of every luihallowed intruder, and 
 invite more amiable and worthier guests to dwell ! 
 
 There shall the muses, the graces, and the virtues, fix their abode; for 
 every thing that is great and worthy in human conduct must have been 
 conceived in the imagination 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. 
 
ESSAY V. 
 
 OF ABSTRACTION. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OP GENBRAL 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, kingdoms, 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 one individual 
 thing, but equally related to many. 
 
 Under general words, therefore, I comprehend 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. Hatris calls them ; such as prepositions, 
 conjunctions, articles, which are all general words, though they cannot 
 properly be called general 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. All pro- 
 nouns, verbs, partipiples, adverbs, articles, prepositions, conjunctions, and 
 interjections, are general words. Of nouns, all adjectives are general 
 words, and the greater part of substantives. Every substantive that has a 
 plural number, is a general word ; for no proper name can have a plural 
 number, because it signifies only one individuEU. 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 per- 
 ceive are individuals. ' Every object of sense, of memory, or of conscious- 
 ness, is an individual object. AU 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 beneath, 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 ? . i , -i 
 
 This seemingly strange phenomenon may, I think, be easily accounted 
 for bv the following 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 
 
 Q 
 
226 GENEllAI, WOKDS. [ESSAY V- 
 
 which we think fit to give proper names are local; known perhaps to a 
 village or to a neighbourhood, but unknown to the greater part of those 
 who speak the same language, and to all the rest of mankind. The names 
 of such things being confined to a corner, and having no names answermg 
 to them in other languages, are not accounted a part of the language, any 
 more than the customs of a particular hamlet are accounted a part of the 
 law of the nation. 
 
 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 ; 
 J 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 attributes of things only 
 that we can communicate our knowledge of them to others :_ by their 
 attributes, our hopes or fears from 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, 
 jand are so expressed in all languages. In the ancient philosophy, attri- 
 butes in general were called by two names which express their nature. 
 They were called vniversals, 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 signifies the same thing as an attribute, with 
 this difference only, that the first is Latin, the last English. The attri- 
 butes we find either in the creatures of God, or in the works of men, are 
 common to many individuals : we either find it to be so, or presume 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 attri- 
 butes. Most attributes are capable of different degrees, and different mo- 
 difications, which must be expressed by general words. 
 
 Thus it is an attribute of many bodies to be 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 primary or secondary, are expressed 
 by general words, it follows, that in every proposition we express in lan- 
 guage, what is affirmed or deni*ed 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 belonging to the same subject, and give names to them, enable 
 us likewise to observe, that many subjects agree in certain attributes, 
 while they differ in others. By this means we are enabled to reduce indi- 
 viduals which are 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 
 itssignificatiqn not one attribute only, but all the attributes which distin- 
 guish that class; and by affirming this name of any individual, we affirm 
 
CHAP. I.] GENERAL WORDS. 227 
 
 it to have all the attributes which characterize 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. 
 
 Nor is it only substances that we thus form into classes. "We do the 
 same with regard to qualities, relations, actions, affections, passions, and all 
 other thii;gs. 
 
 When a class is very large, it is divided into subordinate classes in the 
 same manner. The higher class is called a ^enus 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 know- 
 ledge. 
 
 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 attri- 
 butes 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 signification, but the less 
 extensive in their application to individuals, 
 I Hence it is an axiom in logic, that the more extensive any general term 
 i is, it is the less comprehensive ; and, on the contrary, the more comprehen- 
 sive, the less extensive : thus, in the following series of subordinate general 
 terms, animal, man. Frenchman, Parisian, every subsequent term compre- 
 hends in its signification all that is in the preceding, and something more ; 
 and every antecedent term extends to more individuals than the sub- 
 sequent. 
 
 Such divisions and subdivisions of things into genera and species with 
 general name.s, 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 
 operation, and reduce it to canons and aphorisms ; but men of common 
 understanding, without knowing any thing 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. 
 
 Every genus, and every species of things, may be either the subject or 
 the predicate of a proposition, nay of innumerable propositions ; 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 is an animal made up ot 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, 
 every thing common to the species may be affii'med 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 shaU be, it itiay be affirmed that they are men. In 
 all such propositions, which are innumerable, man is the predicate of the 
 
 ^^"Tobserved above an extension and a comprehension in general terms ; 
 and that in any subdivision of things the name of the lowest species is most 
 
228 GENERAL CONCEPTIONS. [ESSAY V. 
 
 comprehensive, and that of the highest genus most extensive. I would now 
 observe, that, by means of such general terms, there is also an extension 
 and comprehension of propositions, which is one of the noblest powers of 
 language, and fits it for expressing, with great ease and expedition, the 
 highest attainments in knowledge, of which the human understanding is 
 capable. 
 
 When the predicate is a genus or a species, the proposition is more or less 
 comprehensive, according as the predicate is. Thus, when I say, that his 
 seal is gold, by this single proposition, I affirm of it all the properties which 
 that metal is known to have. When I say of any man that he is a mathe- 
 matician, this appellation comprehends 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 ApoUonius and other geometricians have 
 discovered or may discover, of that species of figure. 
 
 Again, when the subject of a proposition is a genus or a species, the pro- 
 position 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 property extends 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 knowledge 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 distinctness and perspicuity. 
 
 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 
 enclosed 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 respect, 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 proposition 
 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 nutshell, and transmitted to future gene- 
 rations. And this noble purpose of language can only be accomplished by 
 means of general words annexed to the divisions and subdivisions of things. 
 
 What has been said in this chapter, I think, is sufficient to show, that 
 there can be no language, not so much as a single proposition, without 
 general words ; that they must make the greatest part of every language, 
 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 
 
CHAP. II.3 GENERAL CONCEPTIONS. 229 
 
 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 understood. It is therefore impossible that 
 words can have a general signification, unless 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 
 m conceiving, which is an individual act, but from the object or thing con- 
 ceiyedj which is general. 
 
 We are therefore here to consider, whether we have such general concep- 
 tions, and how they are formed. 
 
 To begin with the conceptions expressed by general terms, that is, by- 
 such general words as may be the subject or the predicate 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 individuals 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 ? Every man may know this from his con- 
 sciousness. He wiU 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 individual, 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 conception 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 oflice, 
 has such a fortune, that he is tall or short, well or iU made, comely or ill 
 favoured, young or old, married or unmarried; to this we ftiay add, his 
 temper, his character, his abilities, and perhaps some anecdotes of his 
 history. 
 
 Such is the conception we form of individual persons of our acquaintance. 
 By such attributes we describe them to those who know them not ; and by 
 such attributes historians give us a conception of the personages of former 
 times. Nor is it possible to do it in any other way. 
 
 All the distinct knowledge we have or can attain of any individual, is 
 the knowledge of its attributes : for we know not the essence of any indi- 
 vidujl. This seems to be beyond the reach of the human faculties. 
 ""Now, every attribute is what the ancients called an universal. It is,, or 
 may be, common to various individuals. There is no attribute belonging 
 to any creature of God which may not belong to others ; and, on this ac- 
 count, 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 
 
230 GENEKAL CONCEPTIONS. QesSAY V. 
 
 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. xix. to 
 which we refer, and it is no less evident with regard to minds. What is 
 it we call a mind .' It is a thinking, intelligent, active being. Granting 
 that thinking, intelligence, and activity, are attributes of mind, I want to 
 know what the thing or being is to which these attributes belong } 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 notion. 
 
 Nature teaches us, that thinking and reasoning are attributes, which 
 cannot exist without a subject; but of that subject I believe 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 attributes 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 
 beyond 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 every thing that exists has a real essence, which is above our compre- 
 hension ; 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 convic- 
 tion that there is a subject to which those attributes belong. 
 
 Enough, I think, has been said to show, not only that we may have 
 clear and distinct 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 and species ; because they are 
 only collections of attributes which we conceive to exist in a subject, and 
 to which we give a general name. 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 understand 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 defined by 
 the writers in the various branches of natural history ; so that, to all future 
 
CHAP. H.] GENEllAL CONCEPTIONS. 231 
 
 g«neratioiiSj the definition will convey a distinct 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 j 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 definition of them that has authority. Their meaning, therefore, has 
 not been learned by a definition, but by a Idnd 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. A man may know, that 
 to certain individuals they may be applied vrith propriety ; but whether 
 they can be applied to certain other individuals, he may be uncertain, 
 either from want of good authorities, or from having contrary authorities, 
 which leave him in doubt. 
 
 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 uncertain. 
 If there was any accurate definition of a beast and of a bird, that was of 
 sufiicient authority, he could be at no loss. 
 
 It is said to have been sometimes a matter of dispute, with regard to a 
 monstrous birth of a woman, whether it was a man or not. Although this 
 be in reality a question about the meaning of a word, it may be of import- 
 ance, on account of the privileges 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 definition, 
 which might be attended with unforeseen 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 di- 
 minution of its ingredients in the conception of difiierent 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, I conceive it is evident, that the words which 
 signify genera and species of things have often as precise and definite a 
 signifiqition as any words whatsoever ; and that when it is otherwise, 
 their want of precision is not owing to their being general "words, but to 
 othej" causes. . . - 
 
 Having shown that we may .have a perfectly clear and distinct con- 
 ception 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 pre- 
 positions, conjunctions, articles. My design at present being only to show 
 that we have general conceptions no less clear wd distinct 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 con- 
 ceive distinctly that which thev signify. But such terms do not signify 
 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. 
 
232 CONCEPTIONSj BY ANALYSING OBJECTS. QESSAY V. 
 
 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 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 conceived. The thing conceived is an attribute common to many 
 subjects, or it is a genus or species common to many individuals. 
 
 Suppose I conceive a triangle, that is, a plane 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 individual ; it 
 is a species. The act of my understanding in conceiving it is an individual 
 act, and has a real existence ; but the thing conceived is general, and 
 cannot exist without other attributes, which are not included in the de- 
 finition. 
 
 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 attributes; and 
 therefore they are not included in the conception of a triangle, which 
 cannot 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. 
 
 OP GENEKAL 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 ; Jirst, 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 subjects. The first is by philosophers called abstraction ; the second 
 may be called generalising ; but both are commonly included 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 precedence. For, on the 
 one hand, to perceive an agreement between two or more objects in the 
 same attribute, seems to require nothing more than to compare them to- 
 gether. A savage, upon seeing snow and chalk, would find no difficulty 
 iu perceiving that they have the same colour. Yet, on the other hand, it 
 seems impossible that he should observethis agreement without abstrac- 
 tion, 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 
 abstraction ; 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 conception, but not a general one, while 
 applied to one individual only. These two operations, however, are sub- 
 servient 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. 
 
CHAP. III.] CONCEPTIONS, BY ANALYSING OBJECTS. 233 
 
 A tJiird 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 ? In a man, for instance,' to distinguish his size, bis 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 un- 
 derstanding, is surely within the reach of every man endowed with the 
 human faculties. 
 
 There may be distinctions that require nice discernment, or an ac- 
 quaintance 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 the 
 law. One man may excel another in the talent of distinguishingi as he 
 may in.Bjpmory 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 reasonable 
 creature. 
 
 It ought likewise to be observed, that attributes may with perfect ease 
 be distinguished 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 distin- 
 guish length, breadth, and thickness, yet none of these can be' separated 
 from the body, or from one another. There may be attributes 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 dis- 
 tinctly 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 definition ; yet a man may have 
 a perfectly distinct notion of a circle who knows very few of those pro- 
 perties of it which mathematicians have demonstrated ; and a circle pro- 
 bably has many properties which no mathematician ever dreamed of. 
 
 It is therefore certain, that attributes, which in their nature are abso- 
 lutely inseparable from their subject, and from one another, may be dis- 
 joined 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. 
 
 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 under- 
 standing. It is certain, therefore, that there are innumerable attributes 
 that are reaUy common to many individuals ; and if this be what the 
 schoolmen called universale 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 
 
234 CONCEPTIONS, BY ANALYSING OBJECTS. [kS&AY V. 
 
 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 vrhich is the quality of one subject cannot be the quality of an- 
 other 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, white- 
 ness 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 conception, though it be an abstract 
 one : the second signifies a general conception, which implies no existence, 
 but may be predicated of every thing 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 perceives this to be absurd ; but 
 when he says both sheets are white, this is true and perfectly understood. 
 The conception of whiteness implies no existence ; it would remain the 
 same, though every thing in the universe that is white were annihilated. 
 
 It appears, therefore, that the general names of qualities, , as well as of 
 other attributes, are applicable to many individuals in the same sense, 
 which cannot be if there be not general conception^ signified by such 
 names. 
 
 If it should be asked, how early, or at what period of life men begin to 
 form general conceptions ? I answer, as soon as a child can say, with un- 
 derstanding, that he has two brothers or two sisters ; as soon as he can 
 use the plural number, he must have general conceptions ; for no indivi- 
 dual can have a plural number. 
 
 As there are not two individuals in nature that agree in every thing, so 
 there are very few that do not agree in some things. We take pleasure 
 from very early years in observing such agreements. One great branch of 
 what we call wit, which, when innocent, gives pleasure to every good-na- 
 tured man, consists in discovering unexpected agreements 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 some- 
 thing common to wit and an old cheese. Such unexpected agreements 
 may show wit; but there are innumerable agreements of things which 
 cannot escape the notice of the lowest understanding ; such as agreements 
 in colour, magnitude, figure, features, time, place, age, and so forth. 
 These agreements are the foundation of so many common attributes, which 
 are found in the rudest languages. 
 
 The ancient philosophers called these, universals, or predicables, and 
 endeavoured to redupe them to five classes ; to wit, genus, species, specific 
 difference, properties, and accidents. Perhaps there may be more classes 
 of universals or attributes ; for enumerations so very general are seldom 
 complete; but every attribute, common to several individuals, may be 
 e?:pressed by a general term, which is the sign of a general conception. 
 
 How prone men are to form general conceptions, we may see from the 
 use of metaphor, and of the other figures of speech grounded on similitude. 
 Similitude is notliing 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 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 
 
CHAP. HI.] CONCKl'TIONS, BY ANALYSING OBJECTS. 235 
 
 in the ordinary communication of our thoughts and sentiments by lan- 
 guage. In the rude languages of barbarous nations, similitudes and ana- 
 logies 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 proportion 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 lan- 
 guage, 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 proper 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 denomination of figurative, and acquired a right to be considered 
 as proper words. This observation will be found to extend to a great part, 
 perhaps tlie greatest part, of the words of the most perfect languages ; 
 sometimes the name of jin individual is given to a general conception, and 
 thereby the individual in a manner generalised. As when the Jew Shy- 
 lock, in Shakespeare, says, A-Daniel come to judgment ; yea, a Daniel ! 
 In this speech, ji 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 persons. 
 
 Upon the whole, these two operations of abstracting and generalising 
 appear common to all men that have understanding. The practice of 
 them is, and must be familiar 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 pro- 
 vince of all men, and is the natural and e^sy 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 itself, has been much perplexed by the 
 ambiguity 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 coliesion of its parts is signified by cdling 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 attributes is signified, have one distinct 
 meaning, and in this meaning are applicable to m^^ny individuals. They 
 signify not any individual 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 dissi- 
 militude in some respects, that we may be led into error, by applying to 
 one what belongs to the other. 
 
 It is obvious, that the chemical analysis is an operation of the hand upon 
 matter, by various material instruments. The analysis we are now ex- 
 
236 CONCEI-TIONS, BY ANALYSING OBJECTS. QeSSAY Vi 
 
 plaining is purely an operation of the understanding, which requires 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 subject 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 in-- 
 gredients produces such a body. 
 
 Thus pure sea-salt is a body to appearance 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 quickest 
 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 produced by the combination of those two ingredients. But 
 how this combination prbduces sea-salt, no man has been able to discover. 
 The ingredients are both as unlike 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 ingredients should produce such a compound as sea-salt. 
 Such in many cases are the phenomena of the chemical analysis of a com- 
 pound body. 
 
 If we consider the intellectual analysis of an object, it is evident that 
 nothing of this kind can happen ; because the thing analysed is not an 
 external object imperfectly known ; it is a conception of the mind itself. 
 And to suppose that there can be any thing in a conception that is not 
 conceived, 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 per- 
 fect 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 j or as a chemical composition may appear per- 
 fectly simple, and retain no similitude to any of the ingredients. 
 
 From which those 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 the ideas of 
 reflection, 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, because a com- 
 pound body may appear to our senses to be perfectly simple. 
 
 Upon this fundamental proposition of this system, I beg leave to make 
 two remarks : 
 
 1. Supposing it to be true, it affirms only what may he. 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 
 
CHAP. IV ] CONCEPTIONS FOKMKD BY COMBINATION. 237 
 
 easy to those who have a predilection for a hypothesis ; but to a man who 
 seeks truth without prejudice or prepossession, it is a very wide and dif- 
 ficult step, and he will never pass from the one to the other, without evi- 
 dence 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 un- 
 derstanding reflecting upon, that idea, there should be no appearance of 
 composition, nothing similar to the simple ideas of which it is compounded, 
 seems to me to involve a contradiction. The idea is a conception of the 
 mind. If any thing 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 any thing 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 not exist, or that a thing 
 should be conceived, 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 resemblance to any of them. I 
 grant it. But what can be inferred from this with regard to the compo- 
 sition of ideas .-' to bring this argument home to the point, they must say, 
 that because a white colour is compounded of the primary colours, there- 
 fore 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. 
 
 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 fer- 
 mentations and elective attractions, and may be analysed in a furnace 
 by the force of fire and of menstruums. Until this discovery be made, we 
 must hold those to be simple ideas, which, upon the most attentive re- 
 flection, have no appearance of composition ; and those only to be the in- 
 gredients 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 ? there is the same evidence for the last may he as for 
 the first. And why may not the idea of sound be compounded of the ideas 
 of colour ; or the idea of colour of those of sound ? 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 those mysterious may hes to them that have 
 faith to receive them. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OP GENERAL CONCEPTIONS FORMED BY COMBINATION. 
 
 As, by an intellectual analysis of objects, we form general conceptions 
 of -single attributes, (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 combination, we form general con- 
 ceptions that may be very complex, and at the same time very distinct. 
 
 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 plane surface, terminated by four equal straight lines 
 
238 CONCEPTIONS FOUJIED BY COMBINATION. [KSSAY V. 
 
 meeting in four points at right angles. To this species of figure he_ gives 
 the name of a square. In lilce manner^ he can conceive 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 
 complex 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 elements of which it is formed, and the manner of their combi- 
 nation. The definition contains the whole essence of it : and every pro- 
 perty 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 indi- 
 vidual ; 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 modifications of inhabited 
 territory, under certain forms of government. 
 
 DiiOFerent 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 intentions, which are accurately defined in criminal law, and 
 which it is found convenient to comprehend under one name, and consider 
 as one thing .'' 
 
 When we observe, that nature, in her animal, vegetable, and inanimate 
 productions, has formed many individuals that agree in many of their 
 qualities and attributes, we are led by natural instinct to expect their 
 agreement in other qualities, which we have not had occasion to perceive. . 
 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 experience may afterwards correct ; but it preserves us from de- 
 struction in innumerable dangers to which we are exposed. 
 
 The reason of taking notice of this principle in human nature in this 
 place is, that the distribution of the productions of nature 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 
 wiU have like medical virtues with that which he has prescribed on former 
 occasions. Two parcels of rhubarb agree in certain sensible qualities, 
 from which agreement they are both called by the same general name 
 rhubarb. Therefore it is expected that they will agree in the 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 animals to be of a 
 species that is tame and inoffensive. 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 innumerable dangers, from the various productions of nature, animal, 
 vegetable, and inanimate. The life of man, if a hundred times longer 
 than it is, would be insufficient to learn from experience the useful and 
 hurtful qualities of every individual production of nature taken singly. 
 
 The Author of Nature hath made provision for our attaining that know- 
 Jedge of his works which is necessary for our subsistence and preservation. 
 
CHAP. IV.] COXCEPTIONS FORMED BY COMBINATION. 239 
 
 partly by the constitution of the productions of nature, and partly by the 
 constitution of the human raind. 
 
 . For, first. In the productions of nature great numbers 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, 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 aire common to all the 
 individuals of that class. 
 
 Secondly, The human mind is so framed, that from the agreement of 
 individuals in the more qbvious 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 
 natural substances 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 qua- 
 lities 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. 
 
 We shall find a great part of the words of every language, nay, I ap- 
 prehend, the far greater part, to signify combinations of more simple ge- 
 neral conceptions, which men have found proper to be bound up, as it were, 
 in one parcel, by being designed by one name. 
 
 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 com- 
 positions 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 magistrates, 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 
 perfect and complete. They are nothing but what the author conceived, 
 and what he can express by language, so as to convey his conception per- 
 fectly 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 th6 objects 
 of judgment and of taste, than of bare conception or simple apprehension. 
 
 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 combining such simple attributes, and such a number of them 
 as we find proper ; and of giving one name to that combination, and con- 
 sidering it as one object of thought. 
 
240 CONCEPTIONS FORMED BY COMBINATION. [^KSSAVT V. 
 
 The simple attributes of things, which fall under our observation, are 
 not so numerous, but that they may a'll 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 impossible. 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 diflferent languages of civil- 
 ized nations that have intercourse with one another. Hence it is, that 
 the lexicographer, for the most part, can give words in one language an- 
 swering perfectly, or very nearly, to those of another ; and what is wrote in 
 a simple style in one language, can be translated almost word for word into 
 another. 
 
 From these observations we may conclude, that there are either certain 
 common principles of human nature, or certain common occurrences of 
 human life, which dispose men, out of an infinite number that might be 
 formed, to form certain combinations rather than others. 
 
 Mr. Hume, in order to account for this phenomenon, has recourse to 
 what he palls the associating qualities of ideas; to wit, causation, con- 
 tiguity in time and place, and similitude. He conceives, " that one of 
 the most remarkable eifects of those associating 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." 
 
 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, 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 understanding 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 
 complex notions that have names. 
 
 In the rudest state of society, men must have occasion to form the ge- 
 neral 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 ex- 
 press 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 workmanship, 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 otherwise would never 
 have occurred to theiis thoughts. 
 
 The same thing may be said of agriculture, of pasturage, of every art they 
 practise, and of every branch of knowledge they attain. The necessity of 
 general terms for communicating our sentiments is obvious ; and the in- 
 vention of them, as far as we find them necessary, requires no other talent 
 but that degree of understanding which is common to men. 
 
 The notions of debtor and creditor, of profit and loss, of account, balance, 
 stock on hand, and many others, are owing to commerce. The notions of 
 latitude, longitude, course, distance run; and those of ships, of their 
 V3,rious parts, furniture, and operations, are owing to navigation. The 
 
CHAP. IV.3 CONCEPTIONS rOHMED EV COMBINATION. 241 
 
 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, symptoms, aud 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 invention of these 
 is easy to those who have a distinct notion of the thing to be expressed ; 
 and such words will readily be adopted, and receive the public sanction. 
 
 If, on the other hand, any man of eminence, through vanity or want of 
 judgement, should invent new words, to express combinations 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 judicious wiU laugh at them, and 
 they will soon lose their credit. So true was the observation 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. 
 
 New inventions of general use give an easy birth to new complex notions 
 and new names, which spread as far as the invention 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 optical glasses ? The simple ideas, 
 combined in those complex notions, and of the associating qualities of those 
 ideas, are very ancient : but they never produced those complex notions 
 until there was use for them. 
 
 What is peculiar to a nation in its customs, 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 languages. 
 
 I apprehend, therefore, that it is utility, and not the associating qualities 
 of the ideas, that has led men to form only certain combinations, 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 
 occupations, give occasion to many complex notions. 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 
 circumstances of time, place, and persons. This we can do with great 
 ease by giving a name to what is common to all those individual occur- 
 rences. Such a name is a great aid to language, because it comprehends 
 in one word, a great number of simple notions, which it would be very 
 tedious to express in detail. 
 
 Thus men have formed the complex notions of eating, drinking, sleeping, 
 
 H 
 
242 CONCEPTIONS FORMED UY COMBINATION. ' [^ESSAY V. 
 
 walking, riding, runnings buying, selling, ploughing, sowing, a dance, a 
 feast, war, a battle, victory, triumph ; and others without number. 
 
 Such things must frequently be the subject 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 diflFerent 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 j such as wise, foolish, knowing, ignorant, plain, cunning. 
 In every operative art, the tools, instruments, materials, the work pro- 
 duced, and the various excellencies and defects of these, must have genera"! 
 names. 
 
 The various relations of persons and of things, which cannot escape the 
 observation of men in society, lead us to many complex general notions ; 
 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, definition, problem, theorem, 
 demonstration. 
 
 I do not attempt a complete enumeration even of the classes of complex 
 general conceptions. Those I have named as a specimen, I think are 
 mostly comprehended under what Mr. Locke calls mixed modes and re- 
 lations ; 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 communicating our thoughts 
 by language. 
 
 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 notions to be such, and only such, as the use of language requires. 
 There remains a very large class of complex 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 natural substances ; but, in combining the attributes which are 
 included under the specific name, we are more aided and directed by 
 nature, than in forming other combinations of mixed modes and relations. 
 In the last, the ingredients are brought together 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 combination; which name is 
 common to all substances having those attributes, which either do or may 
 exist. The specific name comprehends neither more nor fewer attributes 
 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 absolutely necessary for speaking 
 mtelhgibly of the productions of nature, and for reaping the benefits we 
 receive, and avoiding the dangers we are exposed to from them. The in- 
 dividuals are so many, that to give a proper name to each would be beyond 
 the- power of language. If a good or bad quality was observed in an in- 
 
CHAP. IV.~| CONCEPTIONS FORMED BY, COMBINATION. 243 
 
 dividual, of how small use would this be, if there was not a species in which 
 the same quality might be expected } 
 
 Without some general knowledge of the qualities of natural substances, 
 human life could not be preserved. And there can be no general know- 
 ledge 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 philosophers 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 useful qualities discovered. In order that this im- 
 portant 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 language, 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 
 name. 
 
 Nothing could have prevented this loss but an accurate definition of the 
 name, by which the species might have been distinguished from all others, 
 as long as that name and its definition remained. 
 
 To prevent such loss in future times, modern philosophers have very 
 laudably attempted to give names and accurate definitions of aU the known 
 species of substances, wherewith the bountiful Creator hath enriched our 
 globe. 
 
 This is necessary, in order to form a copious and distinct language con- 
 cerning 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 aiid important. 
 
 For, first. We perceive numbers of individual 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 ex- 
 periment, 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 
 particular facts, to draw general conclusions. This kind of induction is 
 indeed the master-key to the knowledge of nature, without which we 
 could form no general conclusions in that branch of philosophy. 
 
 And, thirdly. By the very constitution of our nature, we are led, without 
 reasoning, to ascribe to the whole species what we have found to belong to 
 
244 CONCEPTIONS FORMED BY COMBINATION. []ESSAY V. 
 
 the individuals. It is thus we come to know that fire burns, and water 
 drowns ; that bodies gravitate, and bread nourishes. 
 
 The species of two of the kingdoms of nature, to wit, the animal and 
 the vegetable, seem to be fixed by nature, by the power they have of pro- 
 ducing their like. And 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 
 inconsiderable, 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 purpose. 
 
 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 sub- 
 divisions, 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 de- 
 finition of each species, without the trouble of repetition. 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. 
 
 The effect of such a systematical distribution of the productions of 
 nature, is seen in our systems of zoology, botany, and mineralogy ; 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 extremes: some have treated them with contempt, 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 systematic arrangement of them is chiefly to be valued 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 useful and important branch of knowledge is made easy in all 
 time to come ; especially when this labour requires both extensive know- 
 ledge 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 in- 
 trinsic beauty in arrangement, which captivates the mind, and gives 
 pleasure, even abstracting from its utility; as in most other things, so in 
 
CHAP, v.] NAMES GIVEN TO GENERAL NOTIONS. 245 
 
 this particularly, nature has joined beauty with utility. The arrangement 
 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 im- 
 portant end of those systems, surely is to form a copious and an unam- 
 biguous language 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. 
 
 General terms, especially such as are complex in their significatioir, will 
 never keep one precise meaning without accurate definitions ; and accurate 
 definitions of such terms can in no way be formed so easily and advan- 
 tageously, as by reducing the things they signify into a regular system. 
 
 Very eminent men in the medical profession, in order to remove all am- 
 biguity in the names of diseases, and to advance the healing art, have of 
 late attempted to reduce into a systematical order the diseases of the human 
 body, and to give distinct names, and accurate definitions, of the several 
 species, genera, orders, and classes, into which they distribute them ; and 
 I apprehend, 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 general terms which we find in com- 
 mon language, 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 perhaps the obstacles to this are insurmountable. I know 
 no man who has attempted it but bishop Wilkins, in his Essay towards a 
 real character and a philosophical language. The attempt was grand, and 
 worthy of a man of genius. 
 
 The formation of such systems, therefore, of the various productions of 
 nature, instead 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. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE NAMES GIVEN TO OUR GENERAL 
 
 NOTIONS. 
 
 Having now explained, as well as I am able, those operations of the 
 mind by which we analyse the objects which nature presents to our obser- 
 vation, 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 
 contributed to darken our speculations about them, and to render them 
 difficult and abstruse. 
 
 We call them general notions, conceptions, ideas. The words notion and 
 conception, in their proper and most common sense, signify the act or 
 operation of the mind in conceiving an object. , In a figurative sense, they 
 are sometimes put for the object conceived. And I think they are rarelyi, 
 if ever, used in this figurative sense, except when we speak of what we call 
 
246 KAMES GIVEN TO GENERAL NOTIOKS. [ESSAY V. 
 
 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 con- 
 ceived. Every act of the mind is an individual act, which does or did 
 exist. 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 object of conception 
 with the conception of 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 ambiguity, and I 
 think were much more fit to express what was meant by them than the 
 names we use. 
 
 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 repeatedly to warn the reader, that when, in compli- 
 ance 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 
 unambiguous word to distinguish things barely conceived 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. 
 
 They were led to give existence to ideas, from the common prejudice, 
 that every thing which is an object of conception must really exist ; and 
 having once given existence to ideas, the rest of their mysterious .system 
 about ideas followed of course ; for things merely conceived, have neither 
 beginning nor end, time nor place ; they are subject to no change ; they 
 are the patterns and exemplars according to which the Deity made every 
 thing 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 mysterious 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 Platonists 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 currency, until long after his time. It came at last to be 
 used, and the schoolmen fell into much the same opinions concerning 
 
CHAP, v.] NAMES GIVEN TO GENERAL NOTIONS. 247 
 
 essences, as the Platonists held concerning ideas. The essences of things 
 Avere 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 in- 
 dividual 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 without regard to existence. 
 
 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 
 Platonists and Pythagoreans, many things 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 (indeed 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 sensa- 
 tion, or from consciousness ; that no simple idea is got by either, without 
 the co-operation of other powers. The objects of sense, of memory, and of 
 consciousness, are not ideas but individuals ; they must be analysed by the 
 understanding into their simple ingredients, before we can have simple 
 ideas; and those simple ideas must be again combined by the under- 
 standing, in distinct parcels with names annexed, in order to give us com- 
 plex ideas : it will be probable not only that brutes have no abstract 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 acquisition to our 
 language, should be used by the moderns in so vague and ambiguous a 
 manner, that it is more apt to perplex and darken our speculations, than to 
 convey useful knowledge ! 
 
 From all that has been said about abstract and general conceptions, 
 I think we may draw the following conclusions concerning them. 
 
 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 compounding the simple notions got by abstraction. 
 
 Thirdly, Without the powers of abstracting 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 defi- 
 nition can only be applied to universals, and no individual can be defined. 
 
 Fifthly, Without abstract and general notions, there can neither be 
 ■reasoning nor language. 
 
 SiMhly, As brute animals show no signs of being able to distinguish the 
 
248 Ol-INIOXS ABOUT UNIVEESALS. [^ESSAY V. 
 
 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 between them and the 
 human species. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OPINIONS OP PHILOSOPHERS ABOUT UNIVERSALS. 
 
 In the ancient philosophy, the doctrine of universals, that is, of things 
 which we express by general terms, makes a great figure. The ideas of 
 the Pythagoreans and Platonists, of which so much has been already said, 
 were universals. AH 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 mutable, and in a per- 
 petual 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 concerning them. But they held,' that there are 
 objects of intellect of a superior order and nature, which are permanent and 
 immutable. 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 mag- 
 nificent 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 existed 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 indi- 
 viduals 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 species, without division or multipli- 
 cation, and making the essence of the species ; and, thirdly, as an object of 
 intellect and of science in man. 
 
 Such I take to be the doctrine of Plato, as far as I am able to compre- 
 hend it. His disciple Aristotle rejected the first of these views of ideas as 
 visionary, but difi'ered little from his master with regard to the two last. 
 He did not admit the existence of universal natures antecedent to the exist-' 
 ence 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 
 
CHAP. VI.] OPINIONS ABOUT UNIVEESALS. 249 
 
 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 witj genus, , species, spe- 
 cific difference, properties, and accidents, is likewise very ancient, and I 
 conceive was borrowed by the Peripatetics from the Pythagorean school. 
 
 Porphyry has given us a very distinct treatise upon these, as an intro- 
 duction to Aristotle's categories. But he has omitted the intricate meta- 
 physica;l questions that were agitated about their nature ; such as. Whether 
 genera and species do Ireally exist in nature ? Or, Whether they are only 
 conceptions 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 dis- 
 cussion. It is probable, that these questions exercised the wits of the 
 philosophers till about the twelfth century. 
 
 About that time, Roscelinus or Ruscelinus, 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 Abelard, 
 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 beginning 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 conceptualists : 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 reformers turned the attention 
 of the learned world to more important subjects. 
 
 After the revival of learning, Mr. Hobbes adopted the opinion of the 
 nominalists. Human Nature, chap 5, sect. 6, " It is plain, therefore, (says 
 he,) that there is nothing universal but names." And in his Leviathan, 
 part 1, chap. 4, " There being nothing universal but names, proper names 
 bring to mind one thing only ; universals recall any one of many." i 
 
 Mr. Locke, according to the division before 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 under- 
 standing between men and brutes. 
 
 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 nominalists. The former thinks, " That the opinion, 
 that the mind hath a power of forming abstract ideas, or notions of things, 
 has had a chief part in rendering speculation intricate and perplexed, and 
 has occasioned innumerable errors and difliiciilties 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 
 
250 OPINIONS ABOUT UNIVERSALS; QESSAY V. 
 
 circumstance, 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 ensnared, 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 general ideas." 
 
 The good bishop, therefore, in twenty-four pages of the Introduction to 
 his Principles of Human Knowledge, encounters this principle with a zeal 
 proportioned to his apprehension of its malignant and extensive 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. sect. 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. Berkeley) 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 mqst valuable 
 discoveries that have been made of late years in the republic of letters, I 
 shall here endeavour to confirm it by some arguments, which I hope will 
 put it beyond all doubt and controversy." 
 
 I shall make an end of this subject, mth 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 conceiving 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 object 
 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. Indeed, if there were really such images in the mind, or 
 in the brain, they could not be general, because every thing 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 hypothesis, when they con- 
 cluded from it, that there is neither a material world, nor any such power 
 in the human mind as that of abstraction. 
 
 A triangle, in general, or any other universal, might be called an idea 
 by a Platonist ; but, in the style of modern philosophy, 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 attributes 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 j but universals have no real existence, When we ascribe 
 
CHAP. VI.] OPINIONS ABOUT UNIVERSALS. 25l 
 
 existence to them, it is not an existence in tmie or place, but existence 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 eve I imagine, it must have some particular shape or colour. Like- 
 wise, 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. 
 
 Imagination, as we before observed, properly signifies a conception of 
 the appearance 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 distinctly conceived. When Mr. Pope says, " The 
 proper study of mankind is man," I conceive his meaning distinctly, though 
 I neither imE^ine 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 synonymous. I can conceive 
 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 universals, but I cannot imagine them. 
 
 As to the manner how we conceive universals, I confess my ignorance. 
 I know not how I hear, or see, or remember ; as little do I know how I 
 conceive things that have no existence. In all our original 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 universal. 
 
 3. It seems to me, that on this question, Mr. Locke and his two an- 
 tagonists have divided the truth between them. He saw very clearly, 
 that the power of forming abstract 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 irreconcileable to his doctrine concerning ideas. 
 
 His opponents saw this inconsistency; but, instead of rejecting the 
 hypothesis of ideas, they explain away the power of abstraction, and leave 
 no specific distinction between the human understanding and that of brutes. 
 
 4. Berkeley, in his reasoning against abstract general ideas, seems un- 
 willingly or unwarily to grant all that is necessary to support abstract and 
 general conceptions. 
 
252 OPINIONS ABOUT UNIVEESALS. .QliSSAV V. 
 
 " A man," he says, " may consider a figure merely as triangular, without 
 attending 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 inconsistent idea of a triangle." 
 
 If a man may consider a figure merely as triangular, he must have some 
 conception of this object of his consideration : for no man can consider a 
 thing which he does not conceive. He has a conception, therefore, 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 triangular, must understand what 
 is meant by the word triangular. If to the conception he joins to this 
 word, he adds any particular quality of angles or relation of sides, he mis- 
 xmderstands 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 framing the fore-mentioned 
 abstract idea, inasmuch 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 animal, must conceive the meaning of those abstract general 
 words man and animal, and he who conceives the meaning of them, has an 
 abstract general conception. 
 
 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 concessions 
 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 inconsistent 
 with experience. 
 
 If we consider a figure merely as triangular, without attending to the 
 particular 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 know from experience, that a man may have a di- 
 stinct conception of a triangle, without having any conception or know- 
 ledge 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 ab- 
 stract general ideas. " An idea," he says, " which, considered in itself, is 
 particular, becomes general, by being made to represent or stand for all 
 other particular ideas of the same sort. To make this plain by an example, 
 suppose a geometrician 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 particular 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 being made a sign, so the name line, which, taken 
 absolutely, is particular, by being a sign is made general." 
 
 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 cha- 
 
CHAP. VI.] OPINIOXS ABOUT UXIVERSALS. 253 
 
 racterise 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 abstract 
 general conception. ' 
 
 The particular idea cannot surely be made a sign of a thing of which we 
 have no conception. 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 representative of it, otherwise your particular idea 
 represents you know not what. 
 
 When I demonstrate any general property of a triangle, such as that 
 the three angles are equal to two right angles, I must understand or con- 
 ceive 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, 
 vcithout 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 
 demonstration exteads 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 de- 
 monstration, be, for instance, that of an isosceles rectangular triangle, 
 Avhose 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." 
 
 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 conception 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 expresses (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 
 communication 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 beyond the reach of persons of weak understanding ; 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 under- 
 stood : and they no doubt do so. 
 
 The labour of forming abstract notions, is the labour of learning to 
 speak, and to understand what is spoken. As the words of every lan- 
 guage, excepting a few proper names, are general words, the minds of 
 children are furnished with general conceptions, 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 
 
254 OPINIONS ABOUT UNIVERSAI.S. [ESSAY V. 
 
 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 con- 
 ception. 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'thcse 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 together of their sugar -plums and rattles, and the rest of 
 their little trinkets, till they have first tacked together numberless incon- 
 sistencies, and so formed in their minds abstract general ideas, and an- 
 nexed them to every common name they make use of.'" 
 
 However hard a thing it may be, it is an evident truth, that a couple of 
 children, even about their sugar-plums 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, Sect. 7, Treatise of Human Nature. He agrees perfectly with 
 the bishop, " That all general ideas are nothing but particular ones an- 
 nexed to a certain term, which gives them a more extensive signification, 
 and makes them recall upon occasion other individuals which are similar 
 to them. A particular idea becomes general, by being annexed to a 
 general term ; that is, to a term which, from a customary conjunction, has 
 a relation to many other particular ideas, and readily recalls them in the 
 imagination. Abstract ideas are therefore in themselves individual, how- 
 ever they may become general in their representation. 'J he image in the 
 mind is only that of a particular object, though the application of it in our 
 reasoning 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 nominalists, 
 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 arguments, by which Mr. Hume 
 hopes to have it put 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 undertakings 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. 
 
 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 conception of a pound troy is the conception 
 of a quantity, and of the precise degree of that quantity ; but it is an ab- 
 stract general conception notwithstanding, because it may be the attribute 
 
CHAP. VI.] OPINIONS ABOUT UNIVERSAI-S. 255 
 
 of many individual bodies, and of many kinds of bodies. He ought there- 
 tore 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 Englishman or a Frenchman. It is true, a Japanese is 
 neither quantity nor quality, but it is an attribute common to every indi- 
 vidual of a populous nation. I never saw an individual 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 undertakes to prove, it would by no means be sufficient to show that 
 we have no abstract general conceptions. 
 
 Passing this, let us attend to his arguments for proving this extra- 
 ordinary position, that it is impossible to conceive any quantity or quality, 
 without forming a precise notion of its degree. 
 
 The first argument is, that it is impossible to distinguish things that are 
 not actually separable. « The precise length of a line is not different or 
 distinguishable from the line." 
 
 I have before endeavoured to show 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 individual, 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 indeed justly drawn from the pre- 
 mises. If it be true that ideas differ in nothing from objects of sense but 
 in strength and vivacity, as it must be granted that all the objects of sense 
 are individuals, it will certainly follow that all ideas are individuals. Grant- 
 ing therefore the justness of this conclusion, I beg leave to draw two other 
 conclusions from the same premises, which will foUow no less necessarily. 
 
 First, If ideas differ from the objects of sense only in strength and vi- 
 vacity, 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 i 
 
 Secondly, If ideas diflFer 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 respect of a very different 
 nature from strength and vivacity. 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 therefore, 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 every thing in nature is individual ; and that it is utterly 
 absurd to suppose a triangle really existent, which has no precise propor- 
 tion of sides and angles. If this, therefore, be absurd in fact and reality, 
 
256 OPINIONS ABOUT UNIVERSALS. [ESSAY V. 
 
 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 individuals, 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. Ill, Essay 4. It is evident, that in every mathematical demon- 
 stration ad absurdum, of which kind almost one half of mathematics 
 consists, we are required to suppose, and consequently to conceive a thing 
 that is impossible. 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 
 contradictory is true. 
 
 As this is the nature of all demonstrations 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 reasoning, 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 
 Ave may observe in the degrees of their quantity and quality, and whatever 
 other differences may appear among them. After we have acquired a cus- 
 tom of this kind, the hearing of that name revives the idea of one of these 
 objects, and makes the imagination conceive it, with all its circumstances 
 and proportions." But along with this idea, there is a readiness to survey 
 any other of the individuals to which the name belongs, and to observe, 
 that no conclusion be formed contrary to any of them. If any such con- 
 clusion 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 suggest not always 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 foregoing paradox, that some ideas are particular in their nature, but 
 general in their representation." Upon this account I shall make some 
 remarks. 
 
 1. He allows that we find a resemblance among several objects, and such 
 a resemblance as leads us to apply the same name to all of them. This 
 concession is suificient to show that we have general conceptions. There 
 can be no resemblance in objects that have no common attribute ; and if 
 there be attributes belonging in common to several objects, and in man a 
 faculty to observe and conceive these, and to give names to them, this is to 
 have general conceptions. 
 
 I believe indeed we may have an indistinct perception of resemblance, 
 without knowing wherein it lies. Thus, I may see a resemblance between 
 one face and another, when I cannot distinctly say in what feature they 
 
CHAP. VI,] OPINIONS ABOUT UNIVEKSAI.S. 257 
 
 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, \vould 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 animals 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 attri- 
 butes wherein 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 attribute in common, that they are 
 comprehended under six equal squares ; and this attribute only, is signified 
 by applying the name of cube to them all. When I compare 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 attribute 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. 
 
 It must be here observed, that there are two kinds of names which the 
 author seems to confound, though they are v'ery different in nature and m 
 the power they haive 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 similitude, because the very intention of a proper name is to distin- 
 guish one individual from all others ; and hence it is a maxim in grammar, 
 that proper names have no plural number. A proper name signifies no- 
 thing but the individual whose name it is ; and when we apply it to the 
 individual, we neither affirm nor "deny any thing concerning 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 names therefore signify common attributes. Thus, 
 when I apply the name of son or brother to several persons, this signifies 
 and affirms that this attribute is common to all of them. 
 
 From this it is evident, that the applying the same nanie to several indi- 
 viduals, on account of their resemblance, can, in consistence vnth grammar 
 and common sense, mean nothing else than the expressing 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 imagination 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. 
 
 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 imagination one 
 individual, with all its circumstances 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 individual of the kind ; but this effect is by no means 
 
 constant. 
 
 s 
 
258 OPINIONS ABOUT UNIVEllSALS. [ESSAY V 
 
 I understand perfectly what mathematicians call a line of the fifth order ; 
 yet I never conceived in my imagination any one of the kind in all its 
 circumstances and proportions. -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 described 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 
 perpendicular, may serve us in talking of a figure, a rectilin-ear %ure, a 
 regular figure, a triangle, 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 tlie particular 
 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." How foolish 
 have mankind been to give diffei;ent names, in all ages and in all languages, 
 to things undistinguishable, and in effect the same.'' Henceforth, in all 
 books of science and of entertainment, we may substitute figure for colour, 
 and colour for figure. By this ^ve shall make numberless curious dis- 
 coveries, without danger of error. 
 
ESSAY VI. 
 
 OF J U D f} HI E N T. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 or JUDGMENT IN GENBRAL. 
 
 Judging is an operation of the mind so familiar to every man who hath 
 understanding, 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 definition 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 definition is to prompt him to that reflection ; and without it the 
 best definition will be apt to mislead him. 
 
 The definition commonly given of judgment, 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 otiier, I shall make two remarks 
 upon it, and then ofl'er some general observations on this subject. 
 
 1. It is true, that it is by affirmation or denial that we express our 
 judgments ; but there may be judgment which is not expressed. 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 affirmation or 
 denial, which indeed is only another name for judgment. 
 
 2. Affirmation and denial is very often the expression of testimony, 
 which is a different 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 some- 
 thing. 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 expression of his judgment. 
 
 Testimony is a social act, and it is essential 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 ex- 
 pressed. 
 
 In testimony a man pledges his veracity for what he affirms ; so that a 
 false testimony 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, M'lth a 
 verb in what is called the indicative mood, expresses both. To distinguish 
 them by the form of speech, it would be necessary that verbs should have 
 
260 JUDGMENT IN GENEllAL. [^liSSAY VI. 
 
 two indicative moods, one for testimony, and another to express judgment. 
 I know not that this is found in any language. 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 
 testimony, 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 speculate about judgment, and that the word may be borrowed 
 from the practice of tribunals. As a judge, after taking the proper evi- 
 dence, passes sentence in a cause, and that sentence 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 evi- 
 dence leave no room for doubt. Sentence is passed immediately, without 
 seeking 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 pro- 
 'bable, that the word judgment, as well as many other words we use in 
 speaking of this operation of mind, are grounded on this analogy. 
 
 Having premised these things, that it may be clearly understood what I 
 mean by judgment, I proceed to make some general observations con- 
 cerning it. 
 
 First, Judgment is an act of the mind specifically different from simple 
 apprehension, 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. 
 
 Although there can be no judgment without a conception of the things 
 about which we judge; yet conception may be without any judgment. 
 Judgment can be expressed by a proposition only, and a proposition is a 
 complete sentence ; but simple apprehension 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 fulse. 
 
 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 
 shown 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 contradictory propositions may be conceived at the 
 same time without any difficulty. Tliat the sun is greater than the earth, 
 and that the sun is not greater than the earth, are contradictory pro- 
 positions. 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 c ertain, that judgment and simple appre- 
 hension are acts of the mind specifically different. 
 
 Secondly, There are notions or ideas that ought to be referred to the 
 faculty of judgment 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. 
 
CHAP. I.] JUDGMENT IN GENKllAL. 261 
 
 Among these we may reckon the notion of judgment itself; the notions 
 of a proposition, of its subjectj predicate, and copula : of affirmation and 
 negation, of true and false, of knowledge, belief, disbelief, opinion, assent, 
 evidence. From no source could we acquire those 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 judgment, as will appear afterwards. 
 
 'riurdlt/, In persons come to years of understanding, judgment ne- 
 cessarily accompanies 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 question, 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 judgment. 
 
 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 bo ; nor is it in his power 
 to avoid such judgment. And the like may be said of memory, and of con- 
 sciousness. Whether judgment ought to be called a necessary concomitant 
 of these operations, or rather a part or ingredient 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 de- 
 tlermination 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 proposition 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 name to it. 
 
 The judgments we form, are either of things necessary, or of things 
 contingent. That three times three are nine ; that the whole is greater 
 than a part ; are judgments about things necessary. Our assent to such 
 necessary propositions is not grounded upon any operation of sense, of 
 memory, or of consciousness, nor does it require their occurrence ; it is un- 
 accompanied by any other operation but that of conception, which must 
 accompany all judgment ; 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 greeii cloth, is a contingent 
 event, which I judge to be most undoubtedly true. My judgment is 
 grounded upon my perception, and is a necessary concomitant or ingredient 
 of my perception. That I dined with such a company yesterday, I judge 
 to be true, because I remember it ; and iny judgment necessarily goes along; 
 with this remembrance, or makes a part of it. 
 
 There are- many forms of speech in common language which show that 
 the sen.ses, 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 remembering any thing, we indeed' hardly 
 ei*r add that we judge it to be true. But the reason of this appears to be, 
 
262 JUDGMENT IN GENJLKAL. [iSSSAY VI. 
 
 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 any thing that is self-evident or 
 strictly demonstrated, we do not say that we judge it to be true. This 
 would be superfluity of speech, because every man knows that we must 
 judge that to be true which we hold self-evident or demonstrated. 
 
 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 demon- 
 strated, 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 tautology, 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 aFong 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 apprehension, or of acquiring ideas ; and 
 that it is no part of their office to judge. 
 
 I apprehend the same cause has led Mr. Locke into a notion of judg- 
 ment 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 
 disagreement 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 per- 
 ceive 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 alto- 
 gether so certain as our intuitive knowledge, or the deductions of our 
 reason about abstract ideas, yet is an assurance that deserves the name of 
 knowledge." 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 understand, that I give the name of judgment to every determi- 
 nation of the mind concerning 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 
 
CHAl'. I.] aUDGJlENT IN GENERAL. 263 
 
 it be granted, that by our senses, our memory and consciousness, we not 
 only have ideas or simple apprehensions, but form determinations con- 
 cerning what is true, and what is false; whether these determinations 
 ought to be called knowledge, or Judgment, is of small moment. 
 
 The judgments grounded .upon the evidence of sense, of memory, and of 
 consciousness, put all men upon a level. The philosopher, with regard to 
 these, has no prerogative 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 judgment to that wherein the most ignorant and un- 
 improved of the species are his equals. 
 
 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 
 consciousness, nor any definition of simple apprehension which can compre- 
 hend those determinations. 
 
 Our judgments of this kind are purely the gifts 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 assurance 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 constitution of our nature, without 
 any effort of our own, so no effort of ours can overturn it. 
 
 The sceptic may perhaps persuade himself 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. 
 
 These judgments may, in the strictest sense, be called judgments of 
 nature. Nature 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 neces- 
 sary to aU men for their being and preservation, and therefore is uncondi- 
 tionally given to all men by the Author of Nature. 
 
 I acknowledge, that if we were to rest in those judgments of nature of 
 Avhich we now speak, without building others upon them, they would not 
 entitle us to the denomination of reasonable beings. But yet they ought 
 not to be despised, for they are the foundation upon which the grand 
 superstructure 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 attracted 
 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^ exercise of judgment is necessary in 
 the fdrmation of all abstract and general conceptions, whether more simple 
 or more complex ; in dividing, in defining, and, in general, in formmg all 
 clear and distinct conceptions of things, which are the only fit materials of 
 
 '"'"'rhesToperations are allied to each other, and therefore I bring them 
 under one observation. They are more allied to our rational nature than 
 those mentioned in the last observation, and therefore arc considered by 
 themselves. 
 
264 JUDGMENT IN GENEEAI,. [ESSAY VI. 
 
 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. 
 
 It is impossible to distinguish the different attributes belonging to the 
 same subject, without judging that they are really different and dis- 
 tinguishable, and that they have that relation to the subject which logicians 
 express, by saying that they may be predicated of it. We cannot gene- 
 ralise, without judging that the same attribute does or may belong to many 
 individuals. It has been shown, that our simplest general notions are 
 formed by these two operations of distinguishing and generalising ; judg- 
 ment therefore is exercised in forming the simplest general notions. 
 
 In those that are more complex, and which have been shown to be formed 
 by combining the more simple, there is another act of the judgment re- 
 quired; 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 arranging our thoughts in discourse and 
 reasoning; and therefore, of an infinite number of combinations that might 
 be formed, we choose only those that are useful and necessary. 
 
 That judgment must be employed in dividing as well as in distin- 
 guishing, appears evident. It is one thing to divide a subject properly, 
 another to cut it in pieces. Hoc noit est dividere, sedjrangere rem, said 
 Cicero, when he censured an improper division of Epicurus. Season 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 without 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 
 determines to be right in all cases. 
 
 I add in general, that, without some degree of judgment, we can form no 
 accurate and distinct notions of things ; so that one province of judgment 
 is, to aid us in forming clear and distinct conceptions of things, which are 
 the only fit materials for reasoning. 
 
 This will probably appear to be a paradox to philosophers who have 
 always considered the formation of ideas of every kind as belonging to 
 simple apprehension ; and that the sole province of judgment is to put 
 them together in afiirmative or negative propositions; and therefore it 
 requires some confirmation. 
 
 First, I think it necessarily follows, from what has been already said in 
 this observation. For if, without some degree of judgment, a man can 
 neither distinguish, nor divide, nor define, nor form any general notion, 
 simple or cornplex, he surely, without some degree of judgment, cannot 
 have in his mind the materials necessary to reasoning. 
 
 There cannot be any proposition in language which does not involve 
 some general conception. The proposition, that I emsl, which Des Cartes 
 thought the first of all truths, and the foundation oJF 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 any thing he sees or remembers, until he has so much judg- 
 ment as to distinguish things that really exist from things which are oiily 
 conceived. He sees a man six feet high ; he conceives a man sixty feet 
 
CHAP. 1.] JUDGMENT IK GENERAL. 265 
 
 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 exis.tence to the first object, and not to the second, 
 without knowing what existence means ? It is impossible. 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 any thing with un- 
 derstanding, that it exists. 
 
 In every other proposition, the predicate at least must be a general 
 notion ; a predicable 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 concep- 
 tions, 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 contradiction. It may be 
 said, that every judgment 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 proposition must be conceived before we can judge of it. If therefore 
 we cannot conceive the meaning of a proposition vidthout a previous ex- 
 ercise of judgment, it follows that judgment must be previous to the con- 
 ception of any proposition, and at the same time that the conception of a 
 proposition must be previous to all judgment, which is a contradiction. 
 
 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 im- 
 perceptible degrees, they grow to maturity, each giving aid to the other, 
 and receiving aid from it. But which of them first began this friendly 
 intercourse, is beyond my ability to determine. It is like the question 
 concerning the bird and the egg. 
 
 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 judgment, and distinct 
 judgment supposes distinct copception. 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 ever was CQncei\^ed by the man, and the first judgment he ever formed, 
 I determine nothing 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 judgment to clear and distinct concep- 
 tions of things, may, I think, be illustrated by this similitude : — 
 
266 JUDGMEKT IN GENEllAL. [ksSAV VI. 
 
 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 ne- 
 cessary 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 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. 
 
 The necessity of some degree of judgment in forming accurate and di- 
 stinct notions of things will further 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 indigestncjue 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 common mass, must first be distin- 
 guished, 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 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 testi- 
 mony to each of them. 
 
 You perceive, for instance, an object white, round, and a foot in dia- 
 meter : I grant that you perceive all these attributes of the object of 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 understanding, or to determine in his 
 own mind, that this object is white, must have distinguished whiteness 
 from other attributes. If he has not made this distinction, he does not 
 understand what he says. 
 
 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 chUd, 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 distinguish the body from the surface 
 which terminates itj 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 opposite 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 contemplation, and taker 
 time to consider ; that he may give the name of a square to a plane ter- 
 minated by four equal sides and four equal angles ; and the name of a 
 
CHAP. I.] JUDGMENT IN GKNERAL. 267 
 
 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 elemontSj and again compounding 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 di- 
 stinct notions of right lines, angles, plane surface, solid, equality, paral- 
 lelism ; 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 conceives 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 subject of rea- 
 soning. 
 
 Whence I think we may conclude, that the notion whicli we have from 
 the senses alone, even of the simplest objects of sense, is indistinct and in- 
 capable of being either described or reasoned upon, until it is analysed 
 into its simple elements, and considered as compounded of those elements. 
 
 If we should apply this reasoning to more complex objects of sense, the 
 conclusion would be stiU 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 no 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. 
 
 Hence it is, that when any vehement passion or emotion hinders the 
 cool application 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 immediately 
 enters upon its office, and examines the length and breadth, the colour, 
 ahd 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, i 
 or any violent emotion that engrosses the mind, we see things confusedly, ( 
 and probably much in the same manner that brutes and perfect idiots do, 
 and infants before the use of judgment. 
 
 There are therefore notions of the objects of sense, which are gross and 
 indistinct ; and there are others that are distinct and scientific. The 
 former may be got from the senses alone ; but the latter cannot be obtained 
 without some degree of judgment. 
 
 The clear and accurate notions which geometry presents to us of a point, 
 a right Une, 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 serises, nor are 
 they got by compounding ideas of the senses ; but by analysing the ideas 
 or notions we get by the senses into their simplest elements, and again 
 combining these elements into various, accurate, and elegant forms, which 
 the senses never did nor can exhibit. 
 
 Had Mr. Hume attended duly to this, it bught to have prevented u very 
 bold attempt, which he has prosecuted through fourteen pages of his 
 
268 JUDGMENT IN GENEllAt. t^SSAY VI. 
 
 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 
 undertakes this has no great acquaintance with geometry ; but I apprehend 
 it is to be imputed 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 tlie 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 demonstration. 
 
 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 impressions. 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 pre- 
 cisely true; for two lines that are straight to our sight or touch may in- 
 clude 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 founda- 
 tion. 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 difi^erent 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 exhibit ; so the natural philosopher, reflecting upon other 
 attributes of matter, forms another set, such as those of density, quantity 
 of matter, velocity, momentum, fluidity, elasticity,' centres of gravity, and 
 of oscillation. These notions are accurate and scientific ; but they cannot 
 enter into a mind that has not some degree of judgment, nor can we 
 make them intelligible to children, until they have some ripeness of under- 
 standing. 
 
 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 perceiving 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. 
 
 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 con- 
 sciousness alone of the operations of our minds. 
 
 Mr. Locke very properly calls consciousness an internal sense. It gives 
 the like immediate knowledge of things in the mind, that is, of our own 
 tjioughts and feelings, as the senses give us of things external. There is 
 this difference, however, that an external object may be at rest, and the 
 sense may be employed about it for some time : but the objects of con- 
 sciousness are never at rest; the stream of thought flows like a river, 
 without stopping a moment ; the whole train of thought passes in suc- 
 cession under the eye of consciousness, which is always employed about 
 
CHAP. I.]' JUDGMENT IN GOiNKKAI,. 269 
 
 the present. But is it consciousness that analyses complex operations, 
 distinguishes their different ingredients, and combines them in distinct 
 parcels under general names ? This surely is not the work of consciousness, 
 nor can it be performed without reflection, recollecting and judging of what 
 we were conscious of, and distinctly remember. This reflection does not 
 appear in children. Of all the powers of the mind, it seems to be of latest 
 growth, whereas consciousness is coeval with the earliest. 
 
 Consciousness being a kind of internal sense, can no more give us di- 
 stinct and accurate notions of the operations of our minds, than the ex- 
 ternal 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 
 distinct notions of external objects. They difl'er not in their natures, but 
 in this only, that one is employed about external, and the other about in- 
 ternal objects ; and both may, with equal propriety, be called reflection. 
 
 Mr. Locke has restricted the word reflection 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 
 consciousness, 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 distinct notions of them. Re- 
 flection 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 upon it as appear to be just and true. 
 
 I proposed, in the third place, to consider our notions of the relations of 
 things : and here I think, that without judgment we cannot have any 
 notion of relations. 
 
 There are two ways in which we get the notion of relations. The first 
 is, by comparing the related objects, when we have before had the con- 
 ception of both. By this comparison, we perceive the relation, either im- 
 mediately, 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 pro- 
 cess of reasoning, in which it will be acknowledged there is judgment. 
 
 Another way in which we get the notioii of relations (which seems not 
 to have occurred 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 objects produces the notion of a 
 correlate, and of a certain relation between them. 
 
 Thus, when I attend to colour, figure, weight, I cannot help judging 
 the^e to be qualities which cannot exist without a subject ; that is, some- 
 thing 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 thinking, memory, reasoning, we per- 
 
2/0 COMMON SEXSE. [^ESSAY VI. 
 
 ceive 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 perceive that it cannot exist without space ; hence we get the 
 notion of space, (which is neither an object of sense nor of consciousness,) 
 and of the relation which bodies have to a certain portion of unlimited 
 space, as their place. 
 
 I apprehend, therefore, that all our notions of relations may more pro- 
 perly 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 re- 
 lations, 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. 
 
 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 acquisition 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 show, that judgment is an 
 ingredient in all determinations of taste ; in aU moral determinations ; 
 and in many of our passions and affections. So that this operation, after 
 we come to have any exercise of judgment, mixes with most of the opera- 
 tions of our minds, and, in analysing them, cannot be overlooked without 
 confusion and error. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OP COMMON SENSE. 
 
 The 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 philoso- 
 phers 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 
 impressions from objects; and judgment as the power by which we com- 
 pare those ideas, and perceive their necessary agreements and disagree- 
 ments. 
 
 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 consciousness, because by it we have the ideas of thought, 
 memory, reasoning, and other operations of our minds. Dr. Hutcheson of 
 Glasgow, conceiving that we have simple and original ideas which cannot 
 be imputed either to the external senses, or to consciousness, introduced 
 
CHAP, ir.] COMMON SJfiNSE. 271 
 
 Other internal senses ; such as the sense of harmony, the sense of beauty, 
 and the moral sense. Ancient philosophers also spoke of internal senses, 
 of which memory was accounted one. 
 
 But all these senses, whether external or internal, have been represented 
 by philosophers 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 con- 
 clusions concerning the nature of things ; whereas truth is not relative, 
 but absolute and real." Dr. Priestley's Exam, of Dr. Reid, &c. page 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. Common sense 
 is that degree of judgment which is common to men with whom we can 
 converse and transact business. 
 
 Seeing and hearing by philosophers are called senses, because we have 
 ideas by 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. 
 
 Sometimes philosophers, who represent it as the sole province of sense 
 to furnish us with ideas, fall unawares into the popular opinion, that they 
 are judging faculties. Thus Locke, book 4, chap. 11, " 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^s 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 indif- 
 ferently to objects of external sense, of taste, of morals, and of the under- 
 standing. 
 
 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 virritings. I shall only observe, that the philo- 
 sophical 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 con- 
 sequence, 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 connected, 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. 
 
 We may take Mr. Pope as good authority for the meaning of an English 
 
272 COMMON SENSK. [ESSAY VI. 
 
 word. He uses it often, and in his Epistle to the Earl of Burlington, hag 
 made a little descant upon it. 
 
 " 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 even. 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 degrees. 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 civilized nations distinguish those Avho 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 under- 
 standing 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 
 ponveisation 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 common prudence in the conduct of life, makes him capable of dis- 
 covering what is true and what is false in matters that are self-evident, 
 and which he distinctly apprehends. 
 
 AU 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 common sense. 
 
 While the parties agree in the first principles on which their arguments 
 are grounded, there is room for reasoning ; but when one denies what to 
 the other appears too evident to need, or to admit of proof, reasoning seems 
 to be at an end ; an appeal is made to common sense, and 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 reasonable 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 ? 
 
 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 without any meaning. I have endeavoured to 
 show, 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 
 
CHAP. 11-2 COMMON SENSE. 273 
 
 is beyond it on the one hand, and from what falls short of it on tlie other, 
 may be difficult to determine ; and men may agree in the meaning of the 
 word who have different opinions about those limits, or who even never 
 thought of fixing them. This is as intelligible, 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. 
 
 Indeed, it seems to me, that common sense is as unambiguous a word, 
 and as well understood as the county of York. We find it in innumerable 
 places in good writers ; we hear it on innumerable occasions in conversa- 
 tion ; 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 show that the word sense 
 signifies understanding, 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 purpose, 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 occasipnally 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 common sense, as a prin- 
 ciple 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 philosopher 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 purpose, 
 which it is unnecessary here to repeat. 
 
 Men rarely ask what common sense is; because every man believes 
 himself possessed of it, and would take it for an imputation upon his un- 
 derstanding 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 subject so frequently mentioned, and so 
 rarely canvassed. 
 
 It is well known, that lord Shaftesbury gave to one of his treatises the 
 title of Sensus Communis; an Essay on the Freedom of fVit and Humour, 
 in a letter to a friend; in which he puts his friend in mind of a free con- 
 versation with some of their friends on the subjects of morality arid re- 
 ligion. 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 sense 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 common sense, it would change as often as men changed. That 
 in religion, common sense was as hard to determine as catholic or orthodox. 
 What to one was absurdity, to another was demonstration. . 
 
 " In policy, if plain British or Dutch sense were right, Turkish and 
 
274 COMMON SUNSE. [|eSSAY VI. 
 
 French must certainly be wrong. And as mere nonsensej as passive 
 obedience seemed, we found it to be the common sense of a great party 
 amongst ourselves, a greater part 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." 
 
 This is the substance of the gentleman's speech, which, I apprehend, ex- 
 plains the meaning of the word perfectly, and contains all that has been, 
 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 intention in that Essay, corre- 
 sponding to the double title prefixed to it. One intention is, to justify 
 the use of wit, humour, and ridicule, in discussing among friends the 
 gravest subjects. " I can very well suppose, says he, men may be frighted 
 out of their wits ; but I have no apprehension 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 show, 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 hu- 
 mour,) by which all certainty, you thought, was lost, and an endless 
 scepticism introduced." 
 
 He gives some criticisms upon the word sensus communis in Juvenal, 
 Horace, and Seneca ; and after showing, in a facetious way, throughout 
 the Treatise, that the fundamental 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 phi- 
 losophical 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 any thing 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 metaphysical arguments which Des Cartes had invented to 
 prove the being of the Deity. For this purpose, he begins with the Car- 
 tesian doubt. He proceeds to find out the truth of his own existence and 
 then to examine wherein the evidence and certainty of this and other 'such 
 primary truths consisted. This, according to Cartesian principles, he places 
 ill the clearness and distinctness of the ideas. On the contrary, he places 
 
CHAP. II ] COMMON SENSK. 275 
 
 the absurdity of the contrary propositions, in their being repugnant to his 
 clear and distinct ideas. 
 
 To illustrate this^ lie gives various examples of questions manifestly 
 absurd and ridiculous, which every 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? Wherein does this 
 ridicule precisely consist? 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. 
 '1 his common sense, which . is always and in all places the same ; w^hich 
 prevents inquiry ; which make inquiry in some cases ridiculous ; which, 
 instead 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 shows itself at the first glance, and immediately discovers 
 the evidence or the absurdity of a question ; is not this the same that I 
 call my ideas ? 
 
 " 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 any 
 thing is proposed to me, which is evidently contrary to what these im- 
 mutable 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 intel- 
 ligible 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 show 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 parva dijudicant. Tdque cum 
 faciant in picturis, et in signis, et in aliis operibus, ad quorum intelli- 
 gentiam a natura minus habent instrumenti, turn multo ostendunt magis 
 in verborum, numerorum, vocumque judicio ; quod ea sint in communibus 
 infixa sensibus; neque earum rerum quemquam 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 engaging colours, if by accident he commits a mistake, goes no 
 further, but renewing his appeal to common sense, and the natural sen- 
 timents of the mind, returns into the right path, and secures himself from 
 any dangerous illusion." 
 
 Hume's Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, p. 2, " Those 
 who have refused the reality of moral distinctions may be ranked among 
 the disingenuous disputants. The only way of converting an antagonist 
 of this kind, is to leave him to himself: for finding that nobody keeps up 
 the controversy with him, 'tis probable he will at last, of himself, from 
 mere weariness, come over to the side of common sense and reason." 
 
 Priestley's Institutes, IPrelim. 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 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 instruction, 
 they would be savages with respect 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 ? 
 
 T 2 
 
276 COMMON SENSE. [ESSAY VI. 
 
 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 de- 
 prived of common sense as not to be able to distinguish truth from false- 
 hood in one case, he would be equally incapable of distinguishing it in 
 another." 
 
 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 principle 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 ve- 
 nerable, and has prescription 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 reason.'' This is equally applicable to common sense. 
 
 From the account I have 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 common sense. It is indeed the first-born of reason, and as they are 
 commonly joined 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. Perhaps it may be said, why then should you give it a particular 
 name, since it is acknowledged to be only a degree of reason ? 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 without some use. 
 
 But there is an obvious reason why this degree of reason should have a 
 name appropriated 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 af- 
 fairs, 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. 
 1 The first is purely the gift of Heaven. And where Heaven has not 
 given it, no education can supply the want. The second 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 principles or to reason from 
 them. 
 
 1 have only this further to observe, thatthe province of common sense 
 is more extensive in refutation than in confirmation. A conclusion drawn 
 
CHAP. III.] SENTIMENTS CONCERNING JUDGMENT. 277 
 
 by a train of just reasoning from true principles cannot possibly contradict 
 any decision of common sense, because truth will always be consistent with 
 itself. Neither can such a conclusion receive any confirmation from 
 common sense, because it is not within its jurisdiction. 
 
 But it is possible, that, by setting out from false principles, or by an 
 errorin reasoning, a man may be led to a conclusion that contradicts the 
 decisions of common sense. In this case the conclusion is within the ju- 
 risdiction of common sense, though the reasoning on which it was grounded 
 be not ,- and a man of common sense may fairly reject the conclusion, 
 without being able to show the error of the reasoning that led to it. 
 
 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, without pretending to be a judge of the demon- 
 stration, is well entitled to reject the conclusion, and to pronounce it 
 absurd. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SENTIMENTS OF PHILOSOPHBRS CONCERNING 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 
 sucli differences, in order to prevent verbal disputes. There are,' indeed, 
 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 peculiarity in Mr. Locke with 
 regard to the meaning of the word judgment, and mentioned what I ap- 
 prehend may have led him into it. But let us hear himself; Essay, 
 book 4, chap. 14, " The faculty which God has given to man to supply 
 tlie 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 demonstrative evidence in the proofs. Thus the mind has two faculties, 
 conversant about truth and falsehood. First, Knowledge, whereby it 
 certainly perceives, and is undoubtedly satisfied of the agreement or dis- 
 aoreement of any ideas. Secondly, Judgment, which is the putting ideas 
 together, or separating them from one anothipr in the mind, when their 
 certain agreement or disagreement is not perceived, but presumed to be so." 
 
 Knowledge, 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. lii 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 Mt. Locke assigns to it ; because the far greatest part of what all 
 men call human knowledge, is in things which neither admit of intuitive 
 nor of demonstrative proof. 
 
 I have all along used the v/ovd. judgment in a more extended sense than 
 ilr. Locke does in the passage above mentioned. I understand by it that 
 
278 SENTIMENTS CONCERNING JUDGMENT. [^ESSAY VI. 
 
 operation of mind, by which we determine concerning any thing that may 
 be expressed by a proposition, whether it be true or false. Every pro- 
 position 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 proposition, but a mental affirmation or negation, an 
 assent or dissent of the understanding, whether weak or strong, that is 
 judgment. 
 
 I think, that since the days of Aristotle, logicians have taken the word 
 in this sense, and other writers, for the most part, though there are other 
 meanings, which there is no danger of confounding with this. 
 
 We may take the authority of Dr. Isaac Watts, as a logician, as a 
 man who understood 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 nut swift j 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 ivorld ; a righteous governor mil make a difference betwi/rt 
 the evil and the good ; which sentences are the effect of judgment, and are 
 called propositions." And part 2, chap. 2, sec. 9, " The evidence of sense 
 is, when we frame a proposition according to the dictate of any of our 
 senses. So we judge, Mai ^tom is green; thai a trumpet gives a pleasant 
 sound; that Jire burns txood ; writer 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 
 the most parta ecurate 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 con- 
 cerning judgment, which maybe a proper test of its truth ; for as they are 
 necessarily connected, they must stand or fall together : Their connexion 
 is thus expressed by Mr. Locke, book 4, 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 contemplate, it is as evident that our 
 knowledge is only conversant about them. Knowledge then seems to me 
 to be nothing but the perception of the connexion and agreement, or dis- 
 agreement and repugnancy of any of our ideas. In this alone it consists." 
 
 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 
 baid to have no other immedia!e object hut 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 explication 
 of the first ; and the inference that our knowledge is only conversant 
 about ideas, will be perfectly just and logical. 
 
CHAP. III.] SENTIMENTS CONCEKNING JUDGMENT. 279 
 
 But if the word immediate in the first clause be intended to limit the 
 general proposition^ 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 limitation 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. 
 
 First, Because, when he purposely defines the word idea, in the intro- 
 duction to the Essay, he says it is whatsoever is the object of the under- 
 standing when a man thinks ; or whatever the mind can be employed 
 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. Sometimes, 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 im- 
 proper, and apt to mislead his reader. 
 
 Secondly, He has never attempted to show how there can be objects of 
 thought, which are not immediate objects ; and indeed this seems im- 
 possible. For whatever 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. 
 
 Thirdli), Though Malebranche and bishop Berkeley believed that we 
 have no ideas of mind, 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 ante- 
 cedent proposition 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 contrary, he meant 
 that ideas are the only objects of thought, then the conclusion drawn is 
 perfectly just and obvious ; and he might very well say, thttt since it is 
 ideas only that the mind does or can contemplate, it is evident that our know- 
 ledge is only conversant about them. " i_ i. 
 
 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 judg- 
 ment, 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 con- 
 versant about objects of the mind, or about things which the mind can 
 contemplate. Judgment, as well as knowledge, supposes the conception ot 
 the object about which we judge; and to judge of objects that never were 
 nor can be objects of the mind, is evidently impossible. 
 
280 SENTIMENTS CONCERNING JIjDGMENT. [^ESSAY VI. 
 
 This therefore we may take for granted, that if knowledge be con- 
 versant about ideas only, because there is no other object of the mind, 
 it must be no less certain, that judgment is conversant about ideas only, 
 for the same reason. 
 
 Mr. Locke adds, as the result of his reasoning. Knowledge then seems 
 to me to be nothing but the perception of the connexion 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 ac- 
 count of its necessary connexion with his system concerning 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 follow, that there are objects of 
 thought and of contemplation which are not ideas. 
 
 This point, therefore, deserves to be carefully examined. With this 
 view, let us first attend to its meaning, which I think can hardly be mis- 
 taken, though it may need some explication. 
 
 Every point of knowledge, and every judgment, is expressed by a pro- 
 position, wherein something is affirmed or denied of the subject of the pro- 
 position. 
 
 By perceiving the connexion or agreement of two ideas, I conceive is 
 meant perceiving the truth of an affirmative proposition, of which the 
 subject and predicate are ideas. In like manner, by perceiving the dis- 
 agreement and repugnancy of any two ideas, I conceive is meant perceiving 
 the trutli 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 
 chapterj 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 T)e a just one, the subject, as well as the 
 predicate of every proposition, by which any point of knowledge is ex- 
 pressed, 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 
 shown 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 Platonists, 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. 
 
 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, 
 whoiaew no other ideas, called them ideas without addition. 
 
 Such ideas are both subject and predicate in every proposition which 
 expresses abstract knowledge. 
 
 The whole body of pure mathematics is an abstract science; and in 
 every mathematical proposition, both subject and predicate are ideas, in the 
 sense above explained. Thus, when I say the side of a square is not com- 
 mensurable to its diagonal : in this proposition the side and the diagonal of 
 a square are the subjects, (for being a relative proposition it must have 
 two subjects). A square, its side, and its diagonal, are ideas or universals; 
 
CHAP. III.] SENTIMENTS CONCERNING JUDGMENT. 281 
 
 they are not individuals, but things predicable of many individuals. Ex- 
 istence is not included in their definition, nor in the conception we form 
 of them. The predicate of the proposition is commensurable, which must 
 be a universal, 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 evi- 
 dence, 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 
 believe in this they judged right. It is true, we often meet with demon- 
 stration in astronomy, in mechanics, and in other branches of natural phi- 
 losophy ; but I believe we shall always find that such demonstrations are 
 grounded upon principles or suppositions, which have neither intuitive nor 
 demonstrative evidence. 
 
 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 demonstrable : and in the demonstration, we reason from 
 the laws of motion, which are principles not capable of demonstration, but 
 grounded on a diflFerent kind of evidence. 
 
 Ideas, in the sense above explained, are creatures of the mind ; they are 
 fabricated 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 conceived. They may be objects of conception to intelligent ■ 
 beings in every place, and at all times. Hence the Pythagoreans and Pla- 
 tonists were led to think that they are eternal and omnipresent. If they 
 had existence, 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 existence 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 
 intelligible and rational system concerning ideas. 
 
 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 patterns or exemplars, by which 
 every thing 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 
 
282 SENTIMENTS CONCERNING JUDGMENT. [^ESSAY VI. 
 
 speciesj without division or multiplication. This indeed is expressed some- 
 what 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 aifirmed. 
 Thus, to be above Jifty years of age, is an attribute or idea. This at- 
 tribute may be in, or aifirmed 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 therefore 
 ideas, according to the ancient meaning of that word. 
 
 It is true, that after the Platonists entered into disputes with the peri- 
 patetics, 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 general, nor of 
 things artificial. They were unwilling to multiply beings beyond what 
 was necessary : but in this I think they departed from the genuine prin- 
 ciples of their system. 
 
 The definition of a species, is nothing, but the definition of the genus, 
 with the addition of a specific diflTerence ; 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 universals : they are ex- 
 pressed by general words ; and have an equal title to be called by the name 
 of ideas. 
 
 I liliewise agree with those ancient philosophers, that ideas are the 
 object, and the sole object of science, strictly so called ; that is of demon- 
 strative 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 triangle are equal to two right angles, 
 always was, and always will be true, though no triangle had ever existed. 
 
 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 Pytha- 
 goreans ascribed eternity to the ideas about which they are conversant. 
 They may very properly be called necessary truths ; because it is impos- 
 sible 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, ^ve 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 
 
CHAP. Ill,] SKNTIMENTS C0NC£11NING JUDGMENT. 283 
 
 necessary^ and therefore cannot be perceived in the agreements and dis- 
 agreements of ideas. These are all the truths we know concerning the real 1 
 existence of things ; the truth of our own existence ; of the existence of 
 other things JnanimatCj animal and rational, and of their various attributes 
 and relations. 
 
 These truths may be called contingent truths. I except only the ex- 
 istence 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 be- 
 longs to it, upon the will and power of the first cause ; therefore, neither 
 their existence, nor their nature, nor any thing that befalls them is neces- 
 sary, but contingent. 
 
 But although the existence of the Deity be necessary, I apprehend we 
 can only deduce it from contingent truths. The only arguments for the 
 existence of a Deity which I am able to comprehend, are grounded upon the 
 knowledge of my own existence, and the existence of other finite beings. 
 But these are contingent truths. 
 
 I believe, therefore, that by perceiving agreements and disagreements of 
 ideas,' no contingent truth whatsoever can be known, nor the real existence 
 of any thing, not even our own existence, nor the existence of a Deity, 
 which is a necessary truth. Thus I have endeavoured to show what know- 
 ledge may, and what cannot be attained, by perceiving the agreements and 
 disagreements of ideas, when we take that word in its primitive sense. 
 
 We are, in the next place, to consider, whether knowledge consists in 
 pex'ceiving 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 phi- 
 losophers. 
 
 1. Very often the word idea is used so, that to have the idea of any 
 thing is a periphrasis 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 introduction to his Essay, when he is making an apology for the fre- 
 quent use of it. " It being that term, I think, which serves best to stand 
 for whatsoever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks, or 
 whatever it is which a man can be employed about in thinking." 
 
 By this definition, indeed, every thing 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 wliich we believe to have a real existence. Such is the Creator of 
 all things, and all his creatures that fall within our notice. 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 ex- 
 istence. 
 
 A second class of objects of the understanding 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 existed. Every attribute. 
 
284 SENTIMENTS CONCERNING JUDGMENT. [kSSAY VI. 
 
 every species, and every genus of things, considered abstractly^ without any 
 regard to their existence or non-existence, may be an object of the under- 
 standing. 
 
 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 considered what knowledge does, and what does not consist 
 in p'erceiving the agreements and disagreements of such ideas. 
 
 But if we take the word idea in so extensive 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 perceiving the 
 ag|reements 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 understanding 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 objects of the understanding. 
 
 Tiiough bishop Berkeley believed that sun, moon, and stars, and all 
 material things, are ideas, and nothing but ideas, Mr. Locke no where pro- 
 fesses this opinion. He believed 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 inquired so carefully into the 
 origin of all our ideas, he did not surely mean to find the origin of what- 
 soever may be the object of the understanding, nor to resolve the origin of 
 every thing that may be an object of understanding into sensation and 
 reflection. 
 
 3. Setting aside, therefore, the two meanings 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 meaiiing 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 opinioUj and has been very generally received among philosophers, 
 that we cannot perceive or think of such objects immediately, 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. 
 iModern philosophers have given them the name of ideas. " It is evident," 
 says Mr. Locke, book 4, 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.'"' 
 
 This theory I have already considered, in treating of perception, of me- 
 mory, and of conception. The reader will there find the reasons that lead 
 me to think, that it has no solid foundation in reasoning, 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 Py- 
 thagoreans 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 
 
CHA1>. III.] SENTIMENTS CONCERNING JUBGMENT. 285 
 
 tovvork by; and that this theory, when its necessary consequences are 
 fairly pursued, leads to absolute scepticism, 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 perceiving the agreements and di.s- 
 agrcements 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, knowledge will continue to 
 stand firm, upon a more permanent basis. 
 
 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 foun- 
 dation 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 understanding. If they should likewise at last be found to be fictions, 
 human knowledge and judgment would suffer nothing, by being disen- 
 gaged from an unwieldy hypothesis. Mr. Locke surely did not look upon 
 the existence of ideas as a philosophical hypothesis. He thought that we 
 are conscious of their existence, otherwise, he would not have made the 
 existence of all our knowledge to depend upon the existence of ideas. 
 
 Secondly, Supposing this hypothesis to be true, I agree with JMr. 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 know- 
 ledge, 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. 
 
 Every thing we can know of any object must be either some attribute of 
 the object, or some relation it bears to some other object or objects. By the 
 agreements and disagreements of objects, I apprehend Mr. Locke intended 
 to express both their attributes 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 consequence is, to show that the hypo- 
 thesis 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. 
 
 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 dis- 
 agreements of ideas. And 1 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 acquaintance were ideas ; that the Supreme Being, to speak with re- 
 verence, is an idea ; or that the sun and moon, the earth and the sea, and 
 
286 SENTIMENTS CONCERNING JUDGMENT. [^ESSAY VI. 
 
 Other external objects of sense, are ideas. He believed that he had some 
 certain knowledge of all those objects. His knowledge, therefore, did not 
 consist solely in perceiving the agreements and disagreements of his ideas : 
 for, surely, to perceive the existence, the attributes, and relations of things, 
 M-hich are not ideas, is not to perceive 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 evidence ; 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 Su- 
 preme 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. 
 
 Mr. Hume saw very clearly the consequences of this theory, and adopted 
 them in his speculative moments ; but candidly acknowledges, that, in the 
 common business of life, he found himself under a necessity 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. 
 
 ]\Ir. 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 
 reconciled to it. 
 
 He not only believed his own existence, the existence of external things, 
 and the existence of a Deity ; but he has shown very justly how we come 
 by the knowledge of these existences. 
 
 It might here be expected, that he should have pointed out the agree- 
 ments and disagreements of ideas from which these existences are deduced ; 
 but this is impossible, and he has not even attempted it. 
 
 Our own existence, he observes, we know inluilively ; but this intuition 
 is not a perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas ; for the sub- 
 ject of the proposition, / exist, is not an idea, but a person. 
 
 The knowledge of external objects of sense, he observes, xve can have only 
 hy sensation. This sensation he afterwards expresses more clearly by the 
 testimony of our senses, lohich are the proper and sole judges of this thing ; 
 whose testimony is the greatest assurance we can possibly have, and to which 
 our 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 
 constitution, we rely with assurance upon their testimony, without seeking 
 a reason for doing so. This assurance, Mr. Locke acknowledges, deserves 
 the name of knowledge. 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. 
 
 To reconcile this to the theory of ideas, Mr. Locke says. That it is the 
 actual receiving of ideas from without that gives us notice of the existence of 
 those eHernal things. 
 
 This, if understood literally, would lead us back to the doctrine of 
 
CHAl-. III.] SEXTIMENTS CONCERNING JUDGMENT. 287 
 
 Aristotle^ tLat 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 ourselves. 
 
 Bishop Berkeley acknowledges all tliis, and shows very clearly, that it 
 does not afford the least shadow of reason for the belief of any material ob- 
 ject. 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 agreements 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 disagreements of ideas ; yet " he thought it an ill way of 
 establishing that truth, and silencing Atheists, to lay the whole stress of so 
 important a point upon that sole foundation." 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. By memory, Mr. Locke 
 says we have the knowledge of the past existence of several things : but all ' 
 conception of past existence, as well as of external existence, is irreconcile- 
 able to the theory of ideas ; because 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 exist- 
 ence, 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 jiast 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 agreement or disagreement of ideas, there 
 can be no knowledge of any proposition which does not express some agree- 
 ment 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 now knowledge of any thing but of ideas. And, on the 
 other hand, if we have any knowledge of any thing besides ideas, that theory 
 must be false. 
 
 There can be no knowledge, no judgment, or opinion about things which 
 are not immediate objects of thought. This I take to be self-evident. If, 
 therefore, ideas he 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 opinion. 
 
 This necessary consequence of the common 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 
 any thing whatsoever. If Mr. Locke had seen this consequenct;, there is 
 reason to think that he would have made another use of it. 
 
 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 de- 
 
288 SENTIMENTS CONCERNING JUDGMENT. |^ESSAY VI. 
 
 fined ideas to be whatsoever is the object of the understanding when we 
 think, he takes it very often in that unlimited sense ; and so every thing 
 that can be an object of thought is an idea. At other timeSj he uses the 
 word to signify certain representative images of things in the mind, which 
 philosophers have supposed' to be the immediate objects of thought. At 
 other times things conceived abstractly, without regard to their existence, 
 are called ideas. Philosophy is much indebted to Mr. Locke for his ob- 
 servations on the abuse of words. It is pity he did not apply these ob- 
 servations to the word idea, the ambiguity and abuse of which has very 
 much hurt his excellent Essay. 
 
 There are some other opinions of philosophers concerning judgment, of 
 which I think it unnecessary to say much. 
 
 Mr. Hume sometimes adopts Mr. Locke's opinion, that it is the per- 
 ception of the agreement or disagreement of our ideas ; sometimes he main- 
 tains that judgment and reasoning resolve themselves into conception, 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 Human Nature, vol. 1, 
 page 172. 
 
 I have endeavoured before, in the first chapter of this Essay, to show 
 that judgment is an operation of mind specifically distinct from the bare 
 conception of an object. I have also considered his notion of belief, in 
 treating of the theories concerning memory. 
 
 Dr. Hartley says, " That assent and dissent 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 arid negations in particular." 
 
 This, if I understand its meaning, agrees with the opinion of Mr. Hume 
 above mentioned, and has therefore been before considered. 
 
 Dr. Priestley has given another definition of judgment : " It is nothing 
 more than the perception of the universal concurrence, or the perfect coin- 
 cidence of two ideas ; or the want of that concurrence or coincidence." This 
 I think coincides with Mr. Locke's definition, and therefore has been al- 
 ready 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 conversions 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 syl- 
 logism ; the utility of the school logic, and the improvements that may be 
 made in it, may be found in a Short Account of Aristotle's Logic, with Re- 
 warks, which Lord Kames has honoured with a place in his Sketches of the 
 History of Man. 
 
CHAP. IV.] OF I'IKST PRINCIPLES IN GKNEIIAL. 289 
 
 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 necessarily 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 un- 
 derstanding 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 judgment remains in sus- 
 pense, until it is inclined to one side or another by reasons or arguments. 
 
 But there are other propositions which are no sooner understood than 
 they are believed. The judgment follows the apprehension of them neces- 
 sarily, and both are equally the work of nature, and the result of our original 
 powers. There is no searching 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. 
 
 Propositions of the last kind, when they are used in matters of science, 
 have commonly been called aieioms ; and on whatever occasion they are 
 used, are called^^wi principles, principles of common sense, common notions, 
 self-evident truths. Cicero calls them Naturce judicia, judicia communibus 
 hominiim sensibus irtfixa. Lord Shaftesbury expresses them by the words 
 natural knowledge, fundamental reason, and common sense. 
 
 What has been said, I think, is sufScient to distinguish first principles, 
 or intuitive judgments, from those which may be ascribed 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 drawing 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 applica- 
 tion." 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 we 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 swallowing our food. It is 
 purely natural, and therefore common to the learned, and the unlearned ; 
 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, denies 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 diflPerence of opinions among philosophers 
 
290 OF FIKST PEINCIPLES IN GEKERAL. QeSSAY VI; 
 
 about first principles. What one takes to be self-evident, another labours 
 to prove by arguments, and a third denies altogether. 
 
 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, vchich really exist, whe- 
 ther we think of them or not. Des Cartes thought that the existence of 
 those things ought to be proved by argument; and in this he has been fol- 
 lowed by Malebranche, Arnauld, and Locke. They have all laboured to 
 prove, by very 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 altogether. 
 
 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 prin- 
 ciples. 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 casein the respect 
 paid to first principles in ancient and in modern times. 
 
 Des Cartes thought one principle, expressed in one word, cogito, a suifi- 
 cient 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 disagree- 
 ment of our ideas ; when we have clear ideas, and are able to compare them 
 together, we may always fabricate first principles as often as we have oc- 
 casion for them. Such diff^erences we find among philosophers about first 
 principles. 
 
 It is likewise a question of some moment, whether the difiFerences among 
 men about first principles can be brought to any issue .' When, in disputes, 
 one man maintains that to be a first principle, which another denies, com- 
 monly both parties appeal to common sense, and so the matter rests. Now, 
 is there no way of discussing this appeal ? Is there no mark or criterion, 
 whereby first principles that are truly such, may be distinguished from 
 those that assume the character without a just title } 1 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. 
 
 I. First, I hold it to be certain, and even demonstrable. That all know- 
 ledge got by reasoning must be built upon first principles. 
 
 This is as certain as that every house must have a foundation. The 
 power of reasoning,, in this respect, r-esembles the mechanical powers of 
 engines ; it must have a fixed point to rest upon, otherwise it spends its 
 force in the air, and produces no efl^ect. 
 _ When we examine, in the way of analysis, the evidence of any proposi- 
 tion, 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 that sup- 
 port It ; and of those that support them, as far back as we can go. But 
 we cannot go back in this tract of infinity. Where then must this analysis 
 stop ? 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. 
 
€HAP. IV.] OF FIRST PKINCIFLES IN GENERAL. 291 
 
 When the last is the case, the proof of the propositions, thus assumed, is 
 a part of our proof; and the proof is deficient without it. Suppose then 
 the deficiency supplied, and the proof completed, is it not evident that it 
 must set out with self-evident propositions, and that the whole evidence 
 must rest upon them ? So that it appears to be demonstrable that, without 
 first principles, analytical reasoning could have no end, and synthetical 
 reasoning could have no beginning ; and that every conclusion got by rea- 
 soning must rest with its whole weight upon first principles, as the building 
 does upon its foundation. 
 
 2. A second proposition is. That some first principles yield conclusions 
 that are certain, others such as are probable, in various degrees, from the 
 highest probability to the lowest. 
 
 In just reasoning, the strength or weakness of the conclusion wiU always 
 correspond to that of the principles on which it is grounded. 
 
 In a matter of testimony, it is self-evident, 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-evident probability of its suc- 
 ceeding in a new trial ; but there is no certainty. The probability, in 
 some cases, is much greater than in others ; because, in some cases, it is 
 much easier to observe all the circumstances 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 philoso- 
 phy, that a property which has been found in all bodies upon which we 
 have had access to make experiments, and which has always been found in 
 its quantity to be in exact proportion to the quantity of matter in every 
 body, is to be held as an universal property of matter. 
 
 This principle, as far as I know, has never been called in question. The 
 evidence we have, that all matter is divisible, moveable, 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 shown, 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 
 as an exception to the general law of gravitation. 
 
 In games of chance, it is a first princij)le, 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. de- 
 monstrative 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 fountain, 
 
 U A 
 
292 OF FIRST PRINCIPLES IK GENEEAL. [^ESSAY VI? 
 
 however artfully it be conducted ; so no conclusion of reasoning can have a 
 greater degree of evidence than the first principles from vi^hich 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 conclusions ; and that the lowest degree of probability 
 must be grounded on first principles as well as absolute certainty. 
 
 3. A third proposition is, that it would contribute greatly to the stability 
 of human knowledge, and consequently to the improvement of it, if the fii-st 
 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 knowledge in which this method has 
 been followed, to wit, mathematics and natural philosophy ; in mathematics, 
 as far back as we have books. It is in this science only, that, for more than 
 two thousand years since it began to be cultivated, we find no sects, no con- 
 trary systems, and hardly any disputes ; or, if there have been disputes, 
 they have ended so soon as the animosity of parties subsided, and have 
 never been again revived. The science, once firmly established upon the 
 foundation of a few axioms and definitions, as upon a rock, has grown from 
 age to age, so as to become the loftiest and the most solid fabric that human 
 reason 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 6f their side ; 
 but finding them insufficient to support the fabric which their imagination 
 had raised, they were only brought in as auxiliaries, and so intermixed with 
 conjectures, and with lame inductions, that their systems were like Nebu- 
 chadnezzar's image, whose feet were partly of iron and partly of clay. 
 
 Lord Bacon first delineated the only solid foundation on which natural 
 philosophy can be built; and Sir Isaac Newton reduced the principles laid 
 down by Bacon into three or four axioms, which he calls regulce philoso- 
 pliandi. From these, together 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 dis- 
 putation, but stands immoveable upon the basis of self-evident principles. 
 
 This fabric has been carried on by the accession of new discoveries ; but 
 is no more subject to revolutions. 
 
 The disputes about materia prima, substantial forms, nature's abhorring 
 a vacuum, 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 employ- 
 ment 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 principles, it would have 
 been to this day a field of battle, wherein every inch of ground would have 
 been disputed, and nothing fixed and determined. 
 
 I acknowledge that mathematics and natural 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 
 thfey are employed ; but as this difficulty is not insuperable, it affords a 
 
CHAP. IV.] OF FIRST PRINCIPLES IN GENERAL. 293 
 
 good reason, indeed, why other sciences should have a longer infancy ; but 
 no reason 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 therefore lead us to conclude, that if in 
 other branches of philosophy the first principles were laid down, as has 
 been done in mathematics and natural philosophy, and the subsequent con- 
 clusions 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. 
 
 But laying aside facts, the nature of the thing leads to the same con- 
 clusion. 
 
 For when any system is grounded upon first principles, and deduced re- 
 gularly 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 materials 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 
 distinction. 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 differences 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, definitions 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 dispute 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 rea- 
 soning laid dovm by Aristotle, and repeated by every writer in dialectics. 
 
 And we may observe by the way, that the reason why logicians^ have 
 been so unanimous in determining the rules of reasoning, froni 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 jiiay further 
 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 every thing 
 which begins to eiist 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 pro- 
 perly explained, the first principles upon which the reasoning is grounded 
 be laid down and exposed to examination, and the conclusions regularly 
 deduced from them, it might be expected, that men of candour and capacity, 
 who love truth, and have patience to examine things coolly, might come to 
 unanimity with regard to the force of the deductions, and that their differ- 
 ences might be reduced to those they may have about first principles. 
 
294 OF FIKST PEINCIPLES IN GEKERAL. [^ESSAY VI. 
 
 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 una- 
 nimity when they happen to differ about first principles. 
 
 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 mans common sense gives one determination, 
 another man's a contrary determination, there seems to be no remedy but 
 to leave every man to enjoy his own opinion. This is a common observa- 
 tion, and I believe 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 reasoning is grounded. Thus, it would be in vain to attempt 
 the proof of a proposition in Euclid to a man who denies the axioms. In- 
 deed, 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 .'' 
 
 I think it is possible, and that it cannot, without great want of charity, 
 be denied to be possible. 
 
 When this happens, every man who believes that there is a real distinc- 
 tion 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 de- 
 fect 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 sus- 
 pect his own judgment, so far as to be desirous to enter into a serious ex- 
 amination, even of what he has long held as a first principle. He will think 
 it not impossible, that although his heart be upright, his judgment may 
 have been perverted, by education, by authority, by party zeal, or by some 
 other of the common causes of error, from the influence of which neither 
 parts nor integrity exempt the human understanding. 
 
 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 ? 
 
 I hope it is not so. I hope that, by the means which nature has furnished, 
 controversies 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 proposition is discovered, or its falsehood detected, is, by showing its 
 necessary connexion with first principles, or its repugnancy to them. It 
 is true, likewise, that when the controversy is, whether the proposition be 
 itself a first principle, this process cannot be applied. The truth, therefore, 
 in controversies of this kind, labours under a peculiar disadvantage. But 
 it has advantages of another kind to compensate this. 
 
 1. For, in tlas first place, in such controversies, every man is a competent 
 judge ; and therefore it is difficult to impose upon mankind. 
 
 I'o judge of first principles, requires no more than a sound mind free 
 from prejudice, and a distinct conception of the question. The learned 
 and the unlearned, the philosopher 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 com- 
 
CHAP. IV.] • OF riKST riUNClPLES IN GENERAL. 295 
 
 mon sense, the few must yield to the many, when local and temporary pre- 
 judices 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 succession of ages, by very able and acute philosophers 
 who taught men to believe nothing at all, and esteemed it the highest 
 pitch of human wisdom to withhold assent from every proposition what- 
 soever. It was supported with very great subtilty and learning, as we see 
 from the_ writings of Sextus Empiricus, 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 Dogmatists. 
 
 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 no- 
 velty, it will die away also, though it should never be refuted. 
 
 The modern scepticism, I mean that of Mr. Hume, is built upon prin- 
 ciples which were very generally maintained by philosophers, though they 
 did not see that they led to scepticism. Mr. Hume, by tracing, with great 
 acuteness and ingenuity, the consequences of principles commonly received, 
 has shown that they overturn all knowledge, and at last overturn them- 
 selves, and leave the mind in perfect suspense. 
 
 2. Secondly, We may observe, that opinions 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 in- 
 tended for this very purpose of putting out of countenance what is absurd 
 either in opinion or pnactice. 
 
 This weapon, when properly applied, cuts with as keen an edge as argu- \ 
 ment. 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 properly used. 
 
 Both may be abused to serve the cause of error : but the same degree 
 of judgment, which serves to detect the abuse of argument in false reason- 
 ing, 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 coun- 
 tenance, when there is not some religious panic, or very powerful pre- 
 judice, to blind the understanding. 
 
 But it must be acknowledged, that the emotion of ridicule, even when 
 most natural, may be stifled by an emotion of a contrary nature, and cannot 
 operate tiU that is removed. , , 
 
 Thus, if the notion of sanctity is anneiied 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 ridiculous to 
 all who consider them coolly and indifferently, have no such appearance to 
 those who never thought of them, but under the impression of religious 
 
 awe and dread. • ■ ^ iv 
 
 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 js 
 
296 OF FIRST PEINCIPLES IN GENERAL. " [ESSAY VI. 
 
 introduced : the opinion we have entertained of the author : its apparent 
 connexion with principles already embracedj or subserviency to interests 
 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. 
 
 But if ever we are able to view it naked, and stripped of those adven- 
 titious circumstances from which it borrowed its importance 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 object 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 constitution of human nature, support themselves, and gain rather 
 than lose ground among mankind. 
 
 3. Thirdly, It may be observed, that although it is contrary to the na- 
 ture of first principles to admit of direct or apodictical proof; yet there are 
 certain ways of reasoning 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 shown, 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 in- 
 consistency 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 as- 
 signed 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 aUow that what it testifies is to be held as a first 
 principle. If therefore they reject the immediate testimony of sense, or of 
 memory, they are guilty of an inconsistency. 
 
 Secondly, A first principle may admit of a proof ad ahsurdum. 
 
 In this kind of proof, which is very common in mathematics, we suppose 
 the contradictory 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 therefore 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 unconnected. 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 unlearned, ought to have great authority with regard to first principles, 
 where every man is a competent judge. 
 
 Our ordinary conduct in life is buUt upon first principles, as well as 
 our speculations in philosophy ; and every motive to action supnoses 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 show, that his system of the non-existence of a material world did not 
 
CHAP. IV.3 OF FIRST PEINCIPLES IN GENEEAL. 297 
 
 contradict the sentiments of the vulgar, but those only of the philo- 
 sophers. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 .'' 
 
 I am aware, that, in this age, an advocate for authority has a very un- 
 favourable plea; but I wish to give no more to authority than is its due. 
 
 Most justly do we honour the names of those benefactors to mankind 
 who have contributed 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 mistress to private judgment, may 
 yet, on some occasions, be an useful handmaid; this is all she is entitled to, 
 and this is all I plead in her behalf. 
 
 The justice of this plea wiU 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 demonstration in just order ; 
 and after examining it with an attentive eye, has found no flaw in it ; I 
 would ask, will there not be stiU in his breast some diffidence, some jea- 
 lousy lest the ardour of invention may have made him overlook some false 
 step .' This must be granted. 
 
 He commits his demonstration to the examination 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 further 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 occasions; yet here. we see 
 a man's judgment, even in a mathematical demonstration, conscious 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 nev^ 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 individual ; it removes that timidity which is as 
 naturally the companion of solitary judgment, 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 judges 
 than a mathematician is in a mathematical demonstration ; and there 
 
298 OF FIRST PRINCIPLES IN GENERAL. QeSSAY VI. 
 
 must be a great presumption that the judgment of manlsindj in such a 
 matter, is the natural issue of those faculties 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 shown to be the case, I 
 acknowledge it to have its due weight. But to suppose a general deviation 
 from truth among mankind in things self-evident, of which no cause can be 
 assigned, is highly unreasonable. 
 
 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 iirst principles. But I apprehend, that, 
 in many cases, this is neither impossible nor difficult. 
 
 Who can doubt whether men have universally believed the existence of 
 a material world .' Who can doubt whether men have universally believed, 
 that every change that happens in nature must have a cause .'' Who can 
 doubt whether men have universally believed, that there is a right and a 
 wrong in human conduct ; some things that merit blame, and others that 
 are entitled to approbation ? 
 
 The universality of these opinions, and of many such that might be 
 named, is sufficiently evident, from the whole tenor of human conduct, as 
 far as our acquaintance reaches, apd 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 picture of human thoughts; and 
 from the picture we may draw some certain conclusions concerning the 
 original. 
 
 We find in aU languages the same parts of speech ; we find nouns, sub- 
 stantive 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. 
 
 The distinction between substances and the qualities belonging to them ; 
 between thought, and the being that thinks; between thought, and the 
 objects of thought ; is to be found in the structure of all languages : and 
 therefore, systems of philosophy, which abolish those distinctions, wage 
 war with the common sense of mankind. 
 
 We are apt to imagine, that those who formed languages were no meta- 
 physicians ; but the first principles of all sciences are the dictates of common 
 sense, and lie open to all men ; and every man who has considered the 
 structure of language in a philosophical 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 forming general 
 conceptions, as well as philosophers. Nature has given those powers to all 
 men, and they can use them when their occasions 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 structure 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 reasoning, have a good claim to 
 be considered as first principles. Thus the belief we have, that the persons 
 about us are living and intelligent beings, is a belief for which perhaps we 
 can give some reason when we are able to reason ; but we had this belief 
 
CHAP, v.] FIRST PRINCIPLES OF CONTINGENT TRUTHS. 299 
 
 before we could reason, and before we could learn it by instruction. It 
 seems therefore to be an iminediate effect of our constitution. 
 
 The last topic I shall mention is, when an opinion is so necessary in the 
 conduct of life, that wthout 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. 
 
 Thus I have endeavoured to show, that although first principles are not 
 capable of direct proof, yet differences, that may happen with regard to 
 them among men of candour, are not withftut remedy ; that nature has not 
 left us destitute of means by whicli we may discover errors of this kind ; 
 and that there are ways of reasoning with regard to first principles, by 
 which those that are truly such may be distinguished from vulgar errors or 
 .prejudices. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 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 principles of know- 
 ledge ; to sift and examine them on all sides." What was said in the last 
 chapter, is intended both to show 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. 
 
 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 therefore not first principles; in these 
 things every man must judge for himself. I shall rejoice to see an enumer- 
 ation 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 advancement of knowledge in general, than 
 the agreement of mathematicians in the axioms of geometry has been to the 
 advancement 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, 
 depending 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 cylinder 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 immutably 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 dif- 
 
300 FIRST PRINCIPLES OF CONTINGENT TRUTHS. [|eSSAY VI. 
 
 ferent 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 any thing in nature. 
 
 We use the present tense in expressing necessary truths ; but it is only 
 because there is no flexion of the verb which includes all times When I 
 say that three is the half of six, I use the present tense only ; but I mean 
 to express not only what now is^ but what always waSj and always will be ; 
 and so every proposition is to be understood by which we mean to express 
 a necessary truth. Contingent truths are of another nature. As they are 
 mutable^ they may be true at one time, and not at another ; and therefore 
 the expression of them must include some point or period of time. 
 
 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 propositions, 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 contingent ; lan- 
 guages are fitted to express the last rather than the first. 
 
 The distinction commonly made between abstract truths, and those that 
 express matters 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 existence and nature of the Supreme 
 Being, which is necessary. Other existences are the efl^ects 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 com- 
 monly be necessary 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 neces- 
 sary, must be a necessary truth, and that no contingent truth can be inferred 
 from principles that are necessary. 
 
 Thus, as the axioms in mathematics are all necessary truths, so are all 
 the conclusions drawn from them ; that is, the whole body of that science. 
 But from no mathematical truth can we deduce the existence of any thing ; 
 not even of the objects of the science. 
 
 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 exist- 
 ence 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 every thing 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 
 
CHAP, v.] FIRST PRINCIPLES OF CONTINGENT TRUTHS. 301 
 
 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 conscious 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. 
 
 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 evidence 
 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. 
 
 No philosopher has attempted by any hypothesis to account for this con- 
 sciousness of our own thoughts, and the certain knowledge of their real 
 existence which accompanies it. By this they seem to acknowledge, that 
 this at least is an original power of the mindj a power by which we 
 not only have ideas, but original judgments, and the knowledge of real 
 existence. 
 
 I cannot reconcile this immediate knowledge of the operations of our own 
 minds with Mr. Locke's theory, that all knowledge consists in perceiving 
 the agreement and disagreement of ideas. What are the ideas, from whose 
 comparison the knowledge of our own thoughts results .'' Or what are the 
 agreements or disagreements which convince a man that he is in pain when 
 he feels it .^ 
 
 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 con- 
 ception 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 objects of belief; in all that variety of thoughts and passions, 
 of which we are conscious, we believe the existence of the weak as well as 
 of the strong, the faint as well as the lively. No modification of the 
 operations 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 feelings of our own minds, is believed by all men ; as we find our- 
 selves 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 
 important branch of human knowledge rests upon it. 
 
302 FIRST PRINCIPI-ES OF CONTINGENT TRUTHS. [ESSAY VI. 
 
 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 know- 
 ledge 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, and so little fixed and determined ? Is it 
 possible that philosophers should differ most where they have the surest 
 means of agreement ? where every thing is built upon a species of evidence 
 which all men acquiesce in, and hold to be the most certain .'' 
 
 This strange phenomenon may, I think, be accounted for, if we dis- 
 tinguish 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 operations of which we are con- 
 scious, and of their mutual relations, and minute distinctions. The second, 
 to wit, attentive reflection upon those operations, making them objects of 
 thought, surveying them attentively, 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 attained 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 attention 
 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 back- 
 ward 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 capable 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 myidf, my mind, my 
 person. 
 
 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 myself, 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 resist. Shall I 
 think, that thought can stand by itself without a thinking being ? or that 
 ideas can feel pleasure or pain.? My nature dictates to me that it is 
 impossible. 
 
 And that nature has dictated the same to all men, appears from the 
 structure of all languages : for in all languages men have expressed think- 
 ing, reasoning, willing, loving, hating, by personal verl)s, which, from their 
 
CHAP, v.] FIRST PKINCPILES OF CONTINGENT TRUTHS. 303 
 
 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 reasoiier, and love a lover. 
 
 Here we must leave Mr. Hume, who conceives 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 any thing else than impressions 
 and ideas, it must be a word without a meaning. The mind therefore, ac- 
 cording to this philosopher, is a word which signifies a bundle of percep- 
 tions ; 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. 
 
 Hence I learn, that this succession of ideas and impressions intimately 
 remembers, and is conscious of itself. I would wish to be further instructed, 
 whether the impressions remember and are conscious of the ideas, or the 
 ideas remember and are conscious of the impressions, or if both remember 
 and are conscious of both ? 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 succession of ideas and impressions, 
 not only remembers and is conscious, but that it judges, reasons, affirms, 
 denies ; nay, that it eats and drinks, and is sometimes merry, and some- 
 times sad. 
 
 If these things can be ascribed to a succession of ideas and impressions, 
 in a consistency 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. Num. chimcera hombinans in vacuo 
 possit comedere secundas intentiones ? and I believe the wit of man cannot 
 invent a more ridiculous question. 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 Suppose that a learned counsel, in defence of a client against the con- 
 curring 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 remember what they have given in evi- 
 dence ; it does not follow that the prisoner is guilty. It has never been 
 proved that the most distinct memory may not be fallacious. Show 
 me any necessary connexion between that act of the mind which we call 
 memory, and the past existence of the event remembered. No man has 
 
304 FIRST PRINCIPLES OP CONTIXGENT TRUTHS. [eSSAY VI. 
 
 ever offered a shadow of argument to prove such a connexion ; 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 : untU 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 con- 
 vince them that he was disordered in his judgment. Counsel is allowed 
 to plead every thing 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? 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 
 ridiculous, if delivered to a jury of honest sensible 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 memory ; but he has laid down the premises by which its 
 authority is overturned, leaving it to his reader to draw the conclusion. 
 
 He labours to show, that the belief or assent which always attends the 
 memory and senses is nothing but the vivacity of those perceptions which 
 they present. He shows very clearly, that this vivacity gives no ground 
 to believe the existence of external 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, Malebranche, and Locke, were aware that this theory made it 
 necessary for them to find out arguments to prove the existence of external 
 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 existence of things past, which we 
 remember, and to support the authority of memory. 
 
 All the arguments they advanced to support 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 immediate 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 memory I am left to 
 infer, by reasoning, that six months, or six years ago, there did exist an 
 object similar to this idea. 
 
 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 .? Or what evidence 
 have I that it had an archetype, and that it is not' the first of its kind ? ' 
 
 Perhaj)s 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 ? 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 
 
CHAP, v.] PtRST PRINCIPLES OF CONTINGENT TRUTHS. 305 
 
 it. When I remember a thing distinctly, I disdain eqnally to hear reasons 
 for it or against it. And so I think does every man in his senses. 
 
 4. Another first principle is our own personal identity and continued 
 existence, as far back as we remember any thing 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 existence 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 remembers any thing distinctly, 
 if his memory be not fallacious. This principle, therefore, is so connected 
 with the last mentioned, 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 sentiments of Mr. Locke on this subject, 
 have been considered before under the head of memory. 
 
 5. Another first principle is. That those things do really exist 
 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 philosophy. 
 
 How came we at first to know that there are certain beings about 
 us whom we call father and mother, and sisters, and brothers, and nurse .' 
 Was it not by the testimony of our senses.' How did these persons 
 convey to us any .information or instruction ? Was it not by means of 
 our senses ? 
 
 It is evident we can have no communication, no correspondence or 
 society with any created being, but by means of our senses. And until 
 we rely upon their testimony, 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 consider, that it is bjr 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 afl^ection, esteem, or concern, 
 except ourselves. 
 
 The good bishopsurely never.intended this. He was too warm a friend, too 
 zealous 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 to him : but we must impute them to the system 
 itself. It stifles every generous and social principle. 
 
 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 shows me, that this is all a dream ; that I see not a 
 human face ; that all the objects I see, and bear, and handle, are only the 
 ideas of my own mind ;• ideas are my only companions. Cold company, 
 indeed ' Every social affection freezes at the thought ! 
 
 But my lord bishop, are there no minds left in the universe but my own ? 
 Yes, indeed; it is only the material world that is annihilated; every 
 thing else remains as it was. 
 
306 FIRST PRINCIPLES OF CONTINGEST TUUTHS. [^KSSAY VI. 
 
 This seems to promise some comfort in my forlorn solitude. But do I 
 see those minds .'' No. Do I see their ideas ? No. Nor do they see me 
 or my ideas. They are then no more to me than the inhabitants of Solo- 
 mon's isles, or of the moon ; and my melancholy solitude returns. Every 
 social tie is broken, and every social affection is stifled. 
 
 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 principles commonly received by philosophers concern- 
 ing 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. 
 
 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. Without repeating what 
 has before been said upon those points, we shall only here observe, that if 
 external objects be perceived immediately, we have the same reason to 
 believe their existence as philosophers have to believe the existence of ideas, 
 whUe they hold them to be the immediate objects of perception. 
 I 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 depends, and it is al- 
 ways subject to his control. 
 
 Beings to whom God has given any degree of power, and understanding 
 to direct them to the proper use of it, must be accountable to their Maker. 
 But those who are entrusted with no power, can have no account to make ; 
 for all good conduct consists 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 an 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 its approbation ; and when abused, 
 renders us obnoxious to his displeasure. 
 
 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 consciousness. We see events, one 
 succeeding another ; 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 ope- 
 ration of mind. If we had no notions but such as are furnished by the ex- 
 ternal senses, and by consciousness, it seems to be impossible that we should 
 ever have any conception of power. Accordingly, 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 an hypothesis 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 con- 
 viction that they have some degree 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. 
 
CHAP, v.] FIRST PKINCJIPI.ES OF CONTINGJINT TRUTHS. 307 
 
 First, It is implied in every act of volition. " Volition, it is plain," 
 says Mr. Locke, " is an act of the mind, knowingly exerting that dominion 
 which it takes itself to have over any part of the man, by employing it in, 
 or withholding it from, any particular action." Every volition therefore 
 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 Jupiter ; but nothing but in- 
 sanity 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 deliberates whether he shall do what he believes 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 insignifi- 
 cant action which he believes not to be in his power. The same thing may 
 be said of every promise or contract wherein a man plights his faith ; for he 
 is not an honest man vsjho promises what he does not believe he has power 
 to perform. 
 
 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 appro- 
 bation, 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 engage- 
 ment, 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 conviction 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 existence of a material world in this 
 respect also, that even those who reject it in speculation, 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 faculties, by which we 
 distinguish truth from error, are not fallacious. If any man should de- 
 mand 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. 
 
 If a man's honesty were called in question, it would be ridiculous to refer 
 it to the man's own word, whether he be honest or not. The same ab- 
 surdity there is in attempting 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 re- 
 solve at least to withhold assent until it be proved that they are not ; it 
 would be impossible by argument to beat him out of this strong hold, and 
 he must even be left to enjoy his scepticism. 
 
 Des Cartes certainly made a false step in this matter ; for having sug- 
 
 X 2 
 
308 FIRST PRINCIPLES OF CONTINGENT TRUTHS. [^KSSAY VI. 
 
 gested 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 deceiver ; whence he concludes, that the faculties 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 rea- 
 soning 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 to be trusted in this in- 
 stance without a voucher, why not in others .'' 
 
 Every kind of reasoning for the veracity of our faculties, amounts to no 
 more than taking their own testimony for their veracity ; and this we must 
 do implicitly, until God give us new faculties to sit in judgment upon the 
 old ; and the reason why Des Cartes satisfied himself with so weak an argu- 
 ment for the truth of his faculties, most probably was, that he never se- 
 riously 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 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 coresponding 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 monster 
 than a man born without hands or feet. 
 ' We are born under a necessity of trusting 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 dexterity, and he will, like other men, betake himself 
 to his legs. 
 
 We may here take notice of a property of the principle under consider- 
 ation, 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 reason- 
 ing ; 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 considers the grounds of scepticism ; yet it in- 
 variably 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 
 hrnij 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 
 
CHAP, v.] FIRST PRINCIPLKS OF COXTINGENT TRUTHS. 809 
 
 assent in particular instances more powerfully than when they are turned 
 into a general proposition. Many sceptics have denied every general prin- 
 ciple of science, excepting perhaps the existence of our present thoughts : 
 yet these men reason, and refute, and prove, they assent and dissent, in parti- 
 cular cases. They use reasoning to overturn all reasoning, and judge that 
 they ought to have no judgment, and see clearly that they are blind. Many 
 have m general maintained that the senses ar? faUacious, yet there never 
 was found a man so sceptical as not to trust his senses in particular in- 
 stances when his safety required it ; and it njay be observed of those who 
 have professed scepticism, that their scepticism lies in generals, while in 
 particulars they are no less dogmatical than others. 
 
 8. Another first principle relating to existence, 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 show the signs of love, of resentment, or of any other 
 aflrection, they must be convinced, that those with whom they have this in- 
 tercourse are intelligent beings. 
 
 It is evident they are capable of such intercourse long before they can 
 reason. Every one knows, that there is a social intercourse 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 happy in her soothing and 
 caresses, and unhappy 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 reasoning 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 re- 
 flecting upon our own thoughts at that period of life, and before we attain 
 this capacity, we have quite forgot 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 connected it solely either with any 
 object of sight, or with any object of hearing. When we grow up to the 
 years of reason andreflection, this belief remains. No man thinks of asking 
 himself what reason he has to believe that his neighbour is a living creature. 
 He would be not a little surprised if another person should ask him so ab- 
 surd a question ; and perhaps could not give any reason 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 belief, 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. 
 
 Setting aside this natural conviction, I believe the best reason we can 
 give, to prove that other men are living and intelligent, is, that their 
 words and actions indicate like powers of understanding as we are con- 
 scious of in ourselves. The very same argument applied to the works of 
 nature^ 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 reasoning. 
 
310 FIEST PUINCIPLES OF CONTINGENT TEUTHS. [^KSSAY VI. 
 
 might not as soon discover the existence of a Deity, as that other men have 
 life and intelligence. 
 
 The knowledge of the last is absolutely necessary to our receiving any im- 
 provement 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 reasoning powers. This knowledge, therefore, 
 must be antecedent to reasoning, and therefore must be a first principle. 
 
 It cannot be said, that the judgments we form concerning life and in- 
 telligence 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 attribute 
 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 necessary for us 
 before we are capable of reasoning ; and therefore the Author of our being 
 hath given us this belief antecedently to all reasoning. 
 
 9. Another first principle 1 take to be. That certain features of the 
 countenance, sounds of the voice, and gestures of the body, indicate cer- 
 tain thoughts and dispositions of mind. 
 
 That many operations of the mind have their natural signs in the coun- 
 tenance, voice, and gesture, I suppose every man will admit. -Oimtis enim 
 motus animi, says Cicero, suum quemdam habel a natura vultum, et vocem, et 
 gestum. The only question is, whether we understand the signification of 
 those signs, by the constitution of our nature, by a kind of natural per- 
 ception similar 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 .■" I take the 
 first to be the truth. 
 
 It seems to me incredible, that the notions men have of the expression 
 of features, voice, and gesture are entirely the fruit of experience. Children, 
 almost as soon as born, may be frightened and thrown into fits by a threat- 
 ening 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 altering his key, and the strain of his music, could make the- 
 child leap and dance for joy. 
 
 It is not by experience surely that we learn the expression of music ; for 
 its operation is commonly strongest the first time we hear it. One air ex- 
 presses mirth and festivity ; so that, when we hear it, it is ivith 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 steal out, and tears begin to flow. 
 Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found. 
 And the world's victor stood subdued by sound. 
 
 It is not necessary that a man have studied either music or the passions, 
 in order to his feeling these efiiects. The most ignorant and unimproved^ 
 to whom nature has given a good ear, feel them as strongly as the most 
 knowing. 
 
HAP. v.] FIIIST PRINCIPLES OF CONTINGENT TRUTHS. 311 
 
 The countenance and gesture have an expression no less strong and na- 
 tural 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 
 hostUe countenance has as agreeable an appearance as the most gentle and 
 benign ? This surely would contradict all experience ; for we know that 
 an angry countenance will fright a child in the cradle. Who has not ob- 
 served, 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 fea- 
 tures of the face ? They judge by these natural signs, even when they 
 seem to contradict the artificial. 
 
 If it were by experience that -we learn the meaning of f^iatures, 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 operations of children, can easily dis- 
 cover 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 expression 
 of the face, voice, and gesture were learned. 
 
 Nay, I apprehend, that it is impossible that this should be learned from 
 experience. 
 
 When we see the sign, and see the thing signified always conjoined with 
 it, experience may be the instructor, and teach us how that sign is to be 
 interpreted. But how shall experience instruct us when we see the sign 
 only, when the thing signified is invisible ? Now this is the case here ; 
 the thoughts and passions of the mind, as well as the mind itself, are in- 
 visible, and therefore their connexion with any sensible sign cannot be 
 ' first discovered by experience ; there must be some earlier source of this 
 knowledge. 
 
 Nature seems to have given to men a faculty or sense, by which this 
 connexion is perceived. And the operation of this sense is very analogous 
 to that of the external 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 j it is an act or 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 belief 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 na- 
 ture, the visible object 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 thafsensation. 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 considerable degree, even by those who are wholly un- 
 experienced in that language. 
 
 It is seen in the traffic which has been frequently carried on between 
 people that have no common acquired language. They can buy and sell, 
 and ask and refuse, and show a friendly or hostile disposition by natural 
 signs. 
 
312 riEST PRINCIPLES OF CONTINGENT TKUTHS. [^ESSAY VI. 
 
 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 any thing by words, which the 
 actor could not express in dumb show by gesticulation ; and whether the 
 same sentence or thought could not be acted in all the variety of ways in 
 which the orator could express it in words. 
 
 But the most surprising exhibition of this kind %vas that of the panto- 
 mimes among the Romans, who acted plays, or scenes of plays, without any 
 recitation, and yet could be perfectly understood. 
 
 And here it deserves our notice, that although 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 understood by all men, whether Romans, Greeks, 
 or Barbarians, by the learned and the unlearned. 
 
 Lucian relates, that a king, whose dominions bordered upon the Euxine 
 sea, happening to be at Rome in the reign of Nero, and having seen a pan- 
 toifiime 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 interpreters, in order to keep a correspond- 
 ence with neighbours who speak many languages, and do not understand 
 mine ; but this fellow will make them all understand him. 
 
 For these reasons, I conceive, it must be granted, not only that there is 
 a connexion 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 understand the meaning of those signs, and 
 from the sign conclude the existence of the thing signified. 
 
 10. Another first principle appears to me to be, That there is a certain 
 regard due to human testimony in matters of fact, and even 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 doing so. 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 a 
 literal sense, perish for lack of knowledge. It is not more necessary that 
 thejr should be fed before they can feed themselves, than that they should 
 be mstructed 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 regard due to them, 
 and see it to be a childish weakness to lay more stress upon them than reason 
 justifies. Yet, I believe, to the end of life, most men are more apt to ao 
 into this extreme than to the contrary; and the natural propensity still re- 
 tains some force. .r x- 
 
 The natural principles, by which our judgments and opinions are re- 
 gulated 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. 
 
 11. There are many events depending upon the will of man, in which 
 
CHAP, v.] FIRST PRINCIPLES OF CONTINGENT TRUTHS. 313 
 
 there is a self-evident probability, greater or less, according to circum- 
 stances. 
 
 There may be in some individuals such a degree of phrenzy 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 con- 
 duct ; 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 circumstances, 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 re- 
 gulated in a great measure by the common principles of human nature. 
 
 It may always be expected, that they will regard their own interest and 
 reputation, and that of their families and friends ; that they will repel in- 
 juries, and have some sense of good olHces ; and that they will have some 
 regard to truth and justice, so far at least as not to swerve from them with- 
 out temptation. 
 
 It is upon such principles as these, that all political reasoning is grounded. 
 Such reasoning is never demonstrative ; but it may liave a very great de- 
 gree of probability, especially when applied to great bodies of men. 
 
 12. The last principle of contingent truths I mention, is. That, in the 
 phenomena of nature, what is to be, will probably be like to what has been 
 in similar circumstances. 
 
 We must liave this conviction as soon as we are capable of learning any 
 thing from experience ; for all experience is grounded upon a belief that 
 the future will be like the past. Take away this principle, and the expe- 
 rience of a hundred years makes us no wiser with regard to what is to 
 come. 
 
 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 probably, on another occasion, obstruct it. 
 
 But the principle is necessary for us before we are able to discover it by 
 reasoning, and therefore is made a part of our constitution, 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 application of it. We observe more 
 carefully the circumstances on which tlie past event depended, and learn to 
 distinguish them from those which were accidentally conjoined with it. 
 
 In order to this, a number of experiments, varied in their circumstances, 
 is often necessary. Sometimes a single experiment is thought suflicient 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. 
 
 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 philosophising, in these words, Effectuum naturalimii ejusdem generis 
 
314 FIRST PIUNCIPLES OF NECESSARY TRUTHS. [ESSAY VI. 
 
 easdem esse causas. This is what every man-assents to. as soon as he under- 
 stands 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 asking what is the ground of this belief. 
 
 Mr. Hume, I think, was the first who put this question ; and he has 
 shown clearly and invincibly, that it is neither grounded upon reasoning, 
 nor has that kind of intuitive 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 mankind ; 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 reasoning, 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 aflSrm, that those I have mentioned are all the first prin- 
 ciples from which we may reason concerning contingent truths. Such 
 enumerations, even when made after much reflection, are seldom perfect. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FIRST PRINCIPLES OF NECESSARY TRUTHS. 
 
 About most of the first principles of necessary 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 diff'erent classes ; to mention some, by 
 wajf of specimen in each class ; and to make some remarks on those of 
 which the truth has been called in question. 
 
 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 ex- 
 pressed or understood: that every complete sentence must have a verb. 
 
 Those who have attended to the structure of language, and formed dis- 
 tinct notions of the nature and use of the various parts of speech, perceive, 
 without reasoning, that these, and many other such principles, are neces 
 sarily true. 
 
 2. There are logical axioms : such as, that any contexture 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 j)roves nothing ; that whatever may 
 be truly affirmed of a genus, may be truly affirmed of all the species, and 
 all the individuals belonging to that genus. 
 
 3. Every one 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 encouragement to attempt to lay the foundation of other sciences in 
 a similar manner, as far as we are able. 
 
 Mr. Hume hath discovered, as he apprehends, 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 
 
CHAP. VI.] FIRST PRINCIPLES OF NECESSARY TRUTHS. 315 
 
 preceding impression j and therefore, iu its precision and accuracy, can 
 never go beyond its original. From which he reasons in this manner : 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 geometry, such as, those of equality, 
 of a straight line, and of a square surface, are far, he says, from being dis- 
 tinct and determinate; and the definitions destroy the pretended demon- 
 strations. Thus, mathematical 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 compounding the rude materials exhibited" by his senses, can fabricate, 
 in his own mind, those elegant and accurate forms of mathematical lines, 
 surfaces, and solids. 
 
 If a man finds himself incapable of forming a precise and determinate 
 notion of the figure which mathematicians call a cube, he not only is no 
 mathematician, but is incapable of being one. But, if he has a precise 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 deter- 
 minate, as every mathematician is, it is in vain to bring metaphysical argu- 
 ments 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 fol- 
 lows, 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. Mathematical notions are formed in the understanding 
 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 con- 
 tingent, depending 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. 
 
 4. I think there are axioms even in matters of taste. Notwithstanding 
 the variety found among men in taste, there are, I apprehend, some com- 
 mon 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 Homer ! Yet, in this long tract of ages, there never was found a man 
 who took Thersites for a beauty. 
 
 The Jine arts are very properly called the arts of taste, because the prin- 
 ciples 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 Shakespeare, and Milton, had the same taste ; 
 
316 FIRST PRINCU'LES OF NECESSAKV TRUTHS. [eSSAY VI. 
 
 and all men who have been acquainted with their writings, 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 respect both to the external sense of taste and the internal. Habit 
 and passien 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. 
 
 But there are tastes that are more intellectual. It is the dictate of our 
 rational nature, that love and admiration are misplaced when there is no 
 intrinsic worth in the object. 
 
 In those operations of taste which are rational, we judge of the real worth 
 and excellence 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 
 j lies not in the feelings of the spectator, but in the real excellence of the 
 I object. If we do not perceive their beauty, it is owing to the defect or to 
 the perversion of our faculties. 
 
 And as there is an original beauty in certain moral and intellectual qua- 
 lities, so thei-e is a borrowed and derived beauty in the natural signs and 
 expressions of such qualities. 
 
 The features of the human face, the modulations of the voice, and the 
 proportions, attitudes, and gesture of the body, are all natural expressions 
 of good or bad qualities 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 ad- 
 ditional 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. 
 
 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 reasons, has formed us 
 so as to receive pleasure from the contemplation of certain objects, and dis- 
 gust from others, before we are capable of perceiving any real excellence 
 in one, or defect in the other. But that taste which we may call rational, 
 • is that part of our constitution by which we are made to receive pleasure 
 j from the contemplation of what we conceive to be excellent in its kind, the 
 ; pleasure being annexed to this judgment, and regulated by it. This taste 
 1 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 morals. 
 
OHAP. VI.] FIRST PRINCIPLES OF NECKSSARY TRUTHS. 317 
 
 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 unjust or unfair to be done 
 to us in like circumstances: These are moral axioms, and many others 
 might be named which appear to me to have no less evidence than those of 
 mathematics. 
 
 Some perhaps may think, that our determinations, either in matters of 
 taste or in morals, ought not to be accounted necessary 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 faculties 
 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 disagrees with the external 
 sense called taste ; so there is nothing beautiful or ugly in itself, but ac- 
 cording as it agrees or disagrees 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. 
 
 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 necessary truths. For, according to this system, 
 all our determinations, both with regard to matters of taste, and with re- ! 
 gard 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 feel- { 
 ings, and on other occasions certain disagreeable 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 a 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, prudence, 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 necessarily so. For this reason, I have ranked the 
 first principles of morals and of taste under the class of necessary truths. 
 
 6. The fast class of .first principles I shall mention, we may call meta- 
 physical. 
 
 I shall particularly consider three of these, because they have been called 
 in question by Mr. Hume. 
 
 The Jirst is. That the qualities which we perceive by our 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 evidient 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 something 
 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 sensible 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 
 
318 FIRST PUrNCIPLES OF NECESSARY TRUTHS. [ESSAY VI. 
 
 idea of substance derived ? It is not a copy of any impression ; therefore 
 there is no such idea. 
 
 The distinction between sensible qualities, and the substance to which 
 they belong, and between thought, and the mind that thinks, is not the 
 invention of philosopliers ; it is found in the structure of all languages, and 
 therefore must be common to aU men who speak witli 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 saying things that 
 imply his belief of the reality of these distinctions. 
 
 Mr. Locke acknowledges, " that we cannot conceive how simple ideas of 
 sensible qualities should subsist alone ; and therefore 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. But in his first letter to the bishop of Worcester, he 
 removes this doubt, and quotes many passages of his Essay, to show that 
 he neither denied, nor doubted of the existence of substances, both thinking 
 and material ; and that he believed their existence 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 repug- 
 nancy ; 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 sub- 
 ject which we call body, and that thought must have a subject whicli we 
 call mind. A due attention to these two opinions which govern the belief 
 of all men, even of sceptics, in the practice of life, would probably have led 
 him to perceive, that sensation and consciousness are not the only sources 
 of human knowledge j and that there are principles of belief in human 
 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 fallacious ; why we believe what we are conscious 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^f 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 
 show 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 mth 
 the lot of humanity, we shall throw off common sense. 
 
 The second metaphysical principle I mention is. That whatever begins 
 to exist, must have a cause which produced it. 
 
 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 
 m question whether things that begin to exist must have a cause. 
 
CHAP. VI.'l FIRST PRINCIPLES OF NECKSSAllY TRUTHS. 319 
 
 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 
 reasoning, I am afraid we shall find the proof extremely difficult, if not al- 
 together impossible. 
 
 I know only of three or four arguments that have been urged by philo- 
 sophers, 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 ex- 
 amined them all; and, in my opinion, has shown, 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. 
 
 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 reasons : 
 
 \st. Because the proposition to be proved is not a contingent but a ne- 
 cessary proposition. 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. 
 
 For this reason no mathematical proposition can be proved by induction. 
 Though it should be found by experience in a thousand cases, 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 show us what is the established 
 course of nature, but can never show what connexions of things are in their 
 nature necessary. 
 
 2dly, General maxims, grounded on experience, 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 experience 
 shall discover any such. 
 
 The law of gravitation has as fuU a proof from experience and induction 
 as any principle can be supposed to have. Yet if'any philosopher should, 
 by clear experiment, show that there is a kind of matter in some bodies 
 which does not gravitate, the law of gravitation ought to be limited by that 
 ex(Seption. 
 
 Now it is evident, that men have never considered the principle of the 
 
320 FIRST PRINCIPLES OF NECESSARY TRUTHS. [eSSAY VI. 
 
 necessity of causes, as a truth of this kind which may admit of limitation 
 or exception ; and therefore it has not been received upon this kind of 
 evidence. 
 
 3%, I do not see that experience could satisfy us that every change in 
 nature actually has a cause. 
 
 In the far greatest parts of ^;he 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 beginning, must have a cause. 
 
 For these reasons, this principle cannot be drawn from experience, any 
 more than froin 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. 
 
 i St. The universal consent of mankind, not of philosophers only, but of 
 the rude and unlearned vulgar. 
 
 Mr. Hume, as far as I know, was the first that ever expressed any 
 doubt of this principle. And when we consider that he has rejected every 
 principle of human knowledge, excepting that of consciousness, and has 
 not even spared the axioms of mathematics, his authority is of small weight. 
 
 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 
 prerogative 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 ? this it has always professed when we trace it to 
 its cradle. It never entered into any man's thought, before the philo- 
 sopher we have mentioned, to put the previous question, 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 supposed that it had no cause. We know not any 
 Atheistic 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 necessity, as the cause of 
 the universe. 
 
 The accounts which philosophers have given of particular phenomena, 
 as well as of the universe in general, proceed upon the same principle. 
 That every phenomenon must have a cause, was always taken for granted. 
 Nil turpius physko, says Cicero, quam fieri sine causa qukquam dicere. 
 Though an academic, he was dogmatical in this. And Plato, the father of 
 the academy, was no less so. " Uayli ya.q dS-jvalov x'"i'S "''^"* yevKTiv 
 lyiw." Timaeus. It is impossible that any thing should have its origin 
 without a cause. 
 
CHAP. VI.] FIRST I-RINCIPLES OF NECESSARY TRUTHS. 321 
 
 • } ''f^^®^^ ^^- Hume was the first who ever held the contrary. This, 
 indeed, he avows, and assumes the honour of the discovery. " 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 reasonings, 
 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 ex- 
 plained, we shall discover in it no mark of such intuitive certainty." The 
 meaning of this seems to be, that it did not suit with this theory of in- 
 tuitive certainty, and therefore he excludes it from that privilege. 
 
 The vulgar adhere to this maxim as firmly and universally as the philo- 
 sophers. Their superstitions have the same origin as the systems of philo- 
 sophers, to wit, a. desire to know the causes of things. Felix qui potuil 
 rerum cognoscere causas, is the universal sense of men ; but to say that 
 any thing 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 necessity 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 
 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 endeav.our to show 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 universal without 
 any cause. 
 
 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 per- 
 sonage called nuhidy, 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 government, many events will happen of which 
 no other author can be found : so that, if we trust merely to experience in 
 this matter, nobody will be found to be a very active person, and to have 
 no inconsiderable share in the management of affairs. But whatever 
 countenance this system may have from experience, it is too shocking to 
 common sense to impose upon the most ignorant. A child knows, that 
 when his top, or any of his playthings are taken away, it must be done by 
 somebody. Perhaps it would not be diflScult 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 appa- 
 rent cause ; and were he only to reason from experience in such a case, 
 how must he behave ? 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 common understanding have recourse 
 to such an expedient to direct his judgment ? 
 
322 FIEST PKINCir-LES OF-NECESSARY TRUTHS. QeSSAY VI. 
 
 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, was it accident, ovfelo de se, or murder 
 by persons unknown ? 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 ; or 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 prudence. 
 
 Many passages might be produced, even in Mr. Hume's philosophical 
 writings, in which he, unawares, betrays the same inward conviction of 
 the necessity of causes, which is common to other men. I shall mention 
 only one, in the Treatise of Human 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, per- 
 fectly inexplicable by human reason ; and it will always be impossible 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. 
 
 The arguments which Mr. Hume offers, to prove that this is not a self- 
 evident principle, are three. First, That all certainty arises from a com- 
 parison of ideas, and a discovery of their unalterable relations, none of 
 which relations imply this proposition. That whatever has a beginning 
 must have a cause of existence. This theory of certainty has been ex- 
 amined before, in Chap. 3. of this Essay. 
 
 The second argument is. That whatever we can conceive is possible. This 
 has likewise 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 frcan 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 last metaphysical principle I mention, which is opposed by the 
 same author, is. That design and intelligence in the cause mav be inferred 
 with certainty, from marks or signs of it in the effect. 
 
 Intelligence, design, and skill, are not objects of the external senses, nor 
 can we be conscious of them in any person but ourselves. Even in our- 
 selves, 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 ta know his awn 
 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 Jhis speech. In the same manner we judge 
 of his virtue, of his fortitude, and of all his talents and qualities of mind. 
 
CHAP. VI.] FIRST PRINCIPLES OF NECESSARY TRUTHS.. 323 
 
 Yet it is to be observed, that we judge of men's talents with as little 
 doubt or hesitation 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 pnnishment, is found upon trial to have the under- 
 standing of a mauj and to be accountable for his conduct. We perceive 
 one man to be open, another cunning ; 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 corporeal 
 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 applica- 
 tion of the general principle, that intelligence, wisdom, and pther 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 scenes. We only conclude their existence and their 
 degrees frpm our observation of the effects. 
 
 From wise conduct we infer wisdom in the cause, from brave actions we 
 infer courage ; and so in other cases. 
 
 This inference is made with perfect security by aU 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 principle may be learned either by 
 reasoning or by experience, and therefore that, there is no ground to think 
 it a first principle. 
 
 If it can be shown to be got by reasoning, by all, or the greater part of 
 those who are governed by it, I shall very readily acknowledge that it 
 ought not to be esteemed a first, principle. But I apprehend the contrary 
 appears from very convincing arguments. 
 
 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 the most 
 illiterate ; to the civilized and to the savage : and of those who are go- 
 verned 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 reason for it, or any medium of proof, 
 but appealing to the common sense of mankind ; mentioning particular 
 instances 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 absurdities, 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 prm- 
 Giple than, any others I remember to have met with, and whose good sense 
 and ability to reason, where reasoning is proper, will not be doubted. 
 
 The first is Cicero, whose words, lib. 1, cap. 13, Be dhnmtione, may be 
 thus translated : g 
 
324 riasT rRiNcir-LEs of necessary truths. [essay vi. 
 
 " Can any thing done by chance have all the marks of design ? 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 ? 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 ? A hog turning up the ground with his nose may make 
 something of the form of the letter A ; but do you think that a hog might 
 describe on the ground the Andromache of Ennius ? Carneades 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 an 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. 
 
 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 sense. 
 
 Let us next see how the same point is handled by the excellent Arch- 
 bishop Tillotson, 1st Sermon, vol. 1. 
 
 " For I appeal to any man of reason, whether any thing can be more 
 unreasonable, than obstinately to impute an effect to chance which carries 
 in the face of it all the arguments and characters of design ? 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 } 
 Will chance fit means to ends, and that in ten thousand instances, and not 
 fail in any one .'' 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 .'' 
 And may not a little book be as easily made as this great volume of the 
 world? How long might a man sprinkle colours upon canvas with a 
 careless hand before they would make the exact picture of a man ? 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 before they would all meet upon 
 Salisbury plains, and faU into rank and file in the exact order of an army ? 
 And yet this is much more easy to be imagined than how the innumerable 
 blind parts of matter should rendezvous themselves into a world. A man 
 that sees Henry the Seventh's chapel at Westminster might with as good 
 reason maintain, (yea, and much better, considering the vast difference 
 between tliat 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 to have been cut 
 and graven ; and that upon a time, (as tales usually begin,) the materials 
 of that building, the stone, mortar, timber, iron, lead, and glass, happily 
 met together, and very fortunately ranged themselves 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 ? If they would do him right, they ought to look upon him as mad. 
 But yet he might mamtain 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 any thing 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 ex- 
 periment in any age or history to countenance so monstrous a supposition ? 
 
CHAV. VI ] FIRST PRINCIPLES OF NECESSARY TRUTHS. 325 
 
 The thing is at first sight so gross and palpable, that no discourse about it 
 can make it more apparent. And yet these shameful beggars of principles, 
 who give this precarious account of the original of things, assume 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 
 convmcing evidence for every thing, and can admit nothing without a 
 clear demonstration for it." 
 
 In this passage, the excellent author takes what I conceive to be the 
 proper method of refuting an absurdity, by exposing it in different lights, in 
 which every man of common understanding perceives 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 show how improbable 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 doc- 
 trine of chances is a branch of matheipatics little more than a 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 con- 
 clusion draivn from it, or whether it is not a particular instance of that 
 general conclusion. 
 
 We are next to consider whether we may not learn this truth from ex- 
 perience. That effects which have all the marks and tokens of design 
 must proceed from a designing cause. 
 
 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 per- 
 pendicular. 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 
 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 necessarily make six, so neither can we learn from 
 experience that certain effects must proceed from a designing and in- 
 telligent cause. Experience informs us only of what has been, but never 
 of what must be. 
 
 Secondly, It may be observed, that experience can show a connexion 
 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 per- 
 ceived in conjunction. But if there be any case where the sign only is 
 perceived, experience can never show its connexion 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 ? If 
 any man should say that he knows this by experience, he deceives himself. 
 It is impossible 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 
 
328 FiKST pniNCiPLKs OF necessahy tuuths. Qessay VI. 
 
 is not an immediate object either of sense or of consciousness. We may 
 therefore justly conclude, that the necessary connexion between thought 
 and mind, or thinking being, is not learned from experience. 
 
 The same reasoning may be applied to the connexion 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 per- 
 ception. But the design and purpose of the author cannot be an immediate 
 object of perception ; and therefore experience can never inform us of any 
 connexion between the one and the other, far less of a necessary connexion. 
 
 Thus I think it appears, that the principle 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 intellectual or moral 
 qualities in the cause, is a principle which we get neither by reasoning nor 
 by experience ; and therefore, if it be a true principle, it must be a first 
 principle. There is in the human understanding 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 wisdom, power, and goodness, in the 
 constitution 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 advantage, 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. 
 
 But since the true system of the sun, moon, and planets, has been dis- 
 covered, no man, however atheistically disposed, has pretended to show 
 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 constitution 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 wisdom. 
 
 I know of no person who ever called in question the principle now 
 under our consideration, 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 eflrontery to deny. 
 
 But, in aU ages, those who have been unfriendly to the principles of 
 rehgion, have made attempts to weaken the force of the argument for the 
 existence and perfections 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 ot this name is well understood, we shall use it 
 
 The argument from final causes, when reduced 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 we may call it the major pro- 
 position of the argument. The second, which we call the minor pro- 
 
CHAP. VI.3 riEST PRINCIPLES OF NKCESSAUY TitUTHS. 327 
 
 positioners. That there are in fact the clearest marks of design and 
 wisdom m 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. 
 
 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 ; con- 
 ceiving 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 sawsuch 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 argu- 
 ment from final causes, have quitted the strong hold of the ancient Atheists, 
 which had become untenable, 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 Peri- 
 patetics, because they often mixed fined causes with physical, in order to 
 account for the phenomena of nature. 
 
 He maintained, therefore, that physical causes only should be assigned 
 for phenomena; that the philosopher has nothing to do with final 
 causes; and that it is presumption in us to- pretend to determine for what 
 end any work of nature is framed. Some of those who are great admirers 
 of Des Cartes, and followed him in many points, differed fom him in this, 
 particularly Dr. Henry More and the pious Archbishop Fenelon : but 
 others, after the example of Des Cartes, have shown a contempt of all rea- 
 soning from final causes. Among these, I think, we may reckon Mau- 
 pertuis 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 Epi- 
 curean, 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 argument, 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 expe- 
 rience, conclude, that this world was made by wisdom ; but having no such 
 experience, we have no means of forming any conclusion about it. 
 
 That -this is the strength of the argument, appears, because if the marks 
 of vdsdom seen in one world be no evidence of wisdom, the like marks 
 seen in ten thousand will give us little evidence, unless, in time past, we 
 perceived wisdom itself conjoined with the tokens of it ; and, from their 
 perceived conjunction in time past, conclude, that although, in the present 
 world, we see only one of the two, the other must accompany it. 
 
328 OPINIOJfS ABOUT FIRST PRINCIPLES. [|ESSAY VI. 
 
 Whence it appears, that this reasoning of Mr. Hume is built on the sup- 
 position, that our inferring design from the strongest marks of it, is entirely 
 owing to our past experience of having always found those two things con- 
 joined. 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 evi- 
 dence of mind or design in any of our fellow-men. 
 
 How do I know that any man of my acquaintance has understanding ? 
 I never saw his understanding. I see only certain effects, which my judg- 
 ment leads me to conclude to be marks and tokens of it. 
 
 Butj says the sceptical philosopher^ you can conclude nothing from these 
 tokens unless past experience has informed you that such tokens are always 
 joined with understanding. Alas ! Sir, it is impossible I can ever have 
 this experience. The understanding of another man is no immediate 
 object of sight, or of any other faculty which God has given me ; and 
 unless I can conclude its existence from tokens that are visible, I have no 
 evidence that there is understanding in any man. 
 
 It seems then, that the man who maintains, that there is no force in the 
 argument from iinal causes, must, if he will be consistent, see no evidence 
 of the existence of any intelligent being but himself. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OPINIONS ANCIENT AND MODERN ABOUT FIRST PRINCIPLES. 
 
 I KNOW no writer who has treated expressly of first principles before 
 Aristotle ; but it is probable that in the ancient Pythagorean school, from 
 which both Plato and Aristotle borrowed much, this subject had not been 
 left untouched. 
 
 Before the time of Aristotle, considerable progress had been made in the 
 mathematical sciences, particularly in geometry. 
 
 The discovery of the forty-seventh proposition 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 discoveries without 
 knowing many other propositions in mathematics. Aristotle mentions 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 in- 
 demonstrable principles of mathematical 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 distinguished from the propositions which require proof. 
 
 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 understanding will permit, if we suppose that the in- 
 ventions 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. 
 
CHAF. VII.] OPINIONS ABOUT FlEST P1UNCIPLE9. 329 
 
 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 shows very clearly that all demonstration 
 must be built upon truths which are evident of themselves, but cannot be 
 demonstrated. His whole doctrine of syllogisms 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, many things 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 vacuuin ; 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 ; ^nd 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 vidthhold assent, and keep his judgment in a perfect equi- 
 librium between contradictory opinions. But though this sect was de- 
 fended by some persons of great erudition and acuteness, it died of itself, 
 and the dogmatic philosophy of Aristotle obtained a complete triumph 
 over it. 
 
 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 controversy with tliem, 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 sceptics, 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 multiply 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 prin- 
 ciples beyond reason, was a strong presage, that, when the authority of the 
 Peripatetic system was at an end, 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 phi- 
 losophy, cautious to avoid the snare in which Aristotle was taken, of ad- 
 mitting things as first principles too rashly, resolved to doubt of every 
 thing, 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 ancient 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 
 
330 OPINIONS ABOUT FIEST PEINCIPLES. [^ESSAY VI. 
 
 from caution, that he might not be imposed upon, and embrace a cloud 
 instead of a goddess. 
 
 His very doubting convinced him of his own existence ; for that which 
 does not existj can neither doubt, nor believe, nor reason. 
 
 Thus he emerged from universal scepticism by this short enthymeme, 
 cogito, ergo sum. - 
 
 This enthymeme consists of an antecedent proposition, / think, and a con- 
 clusion drawn from it, therefore I exist. 
 
 If it should be asked, how Des Cartes came to be certain of the antece- 
 dent proposition, it is evident, that for this he trusted to the testimony of 
 consciousness. He was conscious 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 sup- 
 posed, that all you see, and hear, and handle, may be an illusion. Why 
 therefore should the power of consciousness have this prerogative, to be 
 believed implicitly, when all our other powers are supposed fallacious .'' 
 
 To this objection, I know no other answer that can be made, but that 
 we find it impossible 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 suflicient to justify Des Cartes, in assuming, as a 
 first principle, the existence of thought, of which he was conscious. 
 
 He ought, however, to have gone further in this track, and to have con- 
 sidered whether there may not be other first principles which ought to be 
 adopted for the same reason. But he did not see this to be necessary, 
 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 ex- 
 istence of his thought he infers his own existence. Here he assumes an- 
 other 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 existence, he proceeds to prove the ex- 
 istence 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 testimony of our senses, and of all our faculties, excepting that of 
 consciousness, ought not to be taken for granted, but to be proved by ar- 
 gument. 
 
 Perhaps some may think that Des Cartes meant only to admit no other 
 first principle of contingent truths besides that of consciousness ; but that 
 he allowed the axioms of mathematics, and of other necessary truths, to be 
 j'eceived without proof. 
 
 But I apprehend this was not his intention : for the truth of mathema- 
 tical 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 trusting to 
 
CHAP. VII.] OPINIONS ABOUT FIRST PRINCIPLES. 331 
 
 it. Therefore, as he supposes that all our faculties, excepting conscious- 
 ness, may be fallacious, and attempts to prove by argument that they are 
 not, it follows, that, according to his principles, even mathematical axioms 
 require proof. Neither did he allow that there are any necessary truths, 
 but maintained, that the truths which are commonly so called, depend 
 upon the will of God. And we find his followers, who may be supposed 
 to understand 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 mathematical 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 
 mathematical sciences, seems to have been ambitious to give the same beau- 
 tiful simplicity to his system of philosophy ; and therefore sought only one 
 first principle as the foundation of all our knowledge, at least of contingent 
 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 prin- 
 ciples of contingent truths but this one, that the thoughts and operations 
 of our own minds, of which we are conscious, are self-evidently real and 
 true ; but that every thing else that is contingent is to be proved by argu- 
 ment. 
 
 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 aU our 
 faculties, is no deceiver, and therefore they are not fallacious. 
 
 I endeavoured to show, that if it be not admitted as a first principle, 
 that our faculties 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 ma- 
 terial world requires proof; but being dissatisfied with Des Cartes's argu- 
 ment from the perfection of the Deity, thought that the only solid proof 
 is from divine revelation. 
 
 Arnauld, who was engaged in controversy with Malebranche, approves 
 of his antagonist in offering an argument to prove the existence of the 
 material world, but objects to the solidity of his argument, and oflFers other 
 arguments of his own. 
 
 Mr. Norris, a great admirer of Des Cartes and of Malebranche, seems to 
 have thought all the arguments ofl'ered 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 know- 
 ledge, and distinguishes it by the name of sensitive knowledge ,• and, as 
 the ground of this sensitive knowledge, he oiFers some weak arguments, 
 which would rather tempt one to doubt than to believe. 
 
 At last bishop Berkeley and Arthur Collier, vrithout 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 excellent style and ele- 
 gant composition of the former have made his writings to be known and 
 
332 OPINIONS ABOUT FIRST PRINCIPLES. QkSSAY VI. 
 
 read, and this system to be attributed to him only, as if Collier had never 
 existed. 
 
 Both, indeed, owe so much to Malebranche, 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 Berkeley. 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 Berkeley's arguments against the ex- 
 istence of matter, and thinks them unanswerable. 
 
 We may observe, that this great metaphysician, though in general he 
 declares in favour of universal scepticism, and therefore may seem to have 
 no first principles at all, yet, with Des Cartes, he always acknowledges the 
 reality of those thoughts and operations of mind of which we are conscious. 
 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 conscious. 
 
 Thus we see that the modern philosophy, of which Des Cartes may justly 
 be accounted the founder, being built upon the ruins of the Peripatetic, 
 has a spirit quite opposite, and runs into a contrary extreme. The Peripa- 
 tetic not only adopted as first principles, those which mankind have always 
 rested upon in their most important transactions, 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 narrowed 
 the foundation so much, that every superstructure raised upon it appears 
 top-heavy. 
 
 From the single principle of the existence of our own thoughts, very 
 little, if any thing, can be deduced by just reasoning, especially if we sup- 
 pose that all our othet 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. 
 
 Whether these Egoists, like Mr. Hume, believed themselves to be no- 
 thing but a train of ideas and impressions, or to have a more permanent ex- 
 istence, 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 Buffer, in his Treatise of First Principles. 
 
 Those Egoists and Mr. Hume seem to me to have reasoned more conse- 
 quentially from Des Cartes's principle than he did himself; and indeed I 
 cannot help thinking, that all who have followed Des Cartes's method, of 
 requiring proof by argument of every thing 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. 
 
CHAP. VII.] OPINIONS ABOUT FIRST HIINCIPLE9. 338 
 
 The philosophers I have hitherto mentioned, 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 principles, or given any opinion of 
 their utilityor inutility. We only collect their opinion from their following 
 Des Cartes in requiring proof, or pretending to offer proof, of the existence 
 of a material world, which surely ought to be received as a first principle- 
 if any thing be beyond what we are conscious of. 
 
 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, iu 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 ingenious 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 consists solely in the perception of 
 the agreement or disagreement of our ideas, has been already considered. 
 But supposing it to be just, still it would be true, that some agreements 
 and disagreements of ideas must be immediately perceived ; and such agree- 
 ments or disagreements, when they are expressed by affirmative or negative 
 propositions, are first principles, because their truth is immediately dis- 
 cerned as soon as they are understood. 
 
 This 1 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 knowledge 
 is the clearest and most certain that human frailty is capable of. This part 
 of knowledge is irresistible, and, like bright sunshine, forces itself imme- 
 diately to be perceived, as soon as ever the mind turns its view that way." 
 
 He farther observes, '' That this intuitive knowledge is necessary to 
 connect all the steps of a demonstration." 
 
 From this, I think, it necessarily follows, that, in every branch of know- 
 ledge, 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, sect. 8. of the same chap- 
 ter : " The necessity of this intuitive knowledge in every step of scienti- 
 fical or demonstrative reasoning gave occasion, I imagine, to that mistaken 
 axiom, that all reasoning was eje preecugnitis el preeconcessis, which, how 
 far it is mistaken, I shall have occasion to show more at large when I come 
 to consider propositions, and particularly those propositions which are 
 called maxims, and to show, that it is by a mistake that they are supposed 
 to be the foundation of all our knowledge and reasonings." 
 
 I 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 contrary to what I have before delivered concerning 
 first principles, I find only two or three sentences in it, and those chiefly 
 incidental, to which I do not assent ; and I am always happy in agreeing 
 with a philosopher whom I so highly respect. 
 
 He endeavours to show, that axioms or intuitive truths are not innate. 
 
334 OPINIONS ABOUT FIRST PRINCIPLES. [kSSAY VI. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 propositions ; but they are, as Mr. Locke 
 very justly calls them, trifling propositions. Tillotson very wittily says of 
 such'propositions, that they are so surfeited with truth, that they are good 
 for nothing ; and as they deserve not the name of axioms, so neither do they 
 deserve the name of knowledge. 
 
 He observes, that such trifling self-evident 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 them- 
 selves 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 propositions contained under a general 
 axiom are no less self-evident, than the general axiom, and that they are 
 sooner known and understood. 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. 
 
 A great part of this chapter on maxims is levelled against a notion, 
 which, it seems, some have entertained, that all our knowledge is derived 
 from these two maxims, to wit, whatever is, is ; and it is impossible for 
 the same thing to be, and not to be. 
 
 This I take to be a ridiculous notion, justly deserving the treatment which 
 Mr. 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 principles, 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 show, that there are maxims or first principles with 
 regard to other existences. Mr, Locke acknowledges that we have a know- 
 ledge of such existences, which, he says, is neither intuitive nor demon- 
 strative, and which therefore he calls sensitive knowledge. It is demon- 
 strable, and was long ago demonstrated by Aristotle, that every proposition 
 to which we give a rational assent, must either have its evidence in itself, 
 or derive it from some antecedent proposition. And the same thing may 
 be said of the antecedent proposition. As, therefore, we cannot go back to 
 antecedent propositions without end, the evidence must at last rest 
 
CHAP. VII.] OPINIONS ABOUT FIRST PRINCIPLES. 333 
 
 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. 
 
 With regard to our own existence, says he, we perceive it so plainly, and 
 so certainly, 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 apply- 
 ing 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 suifer 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 own existence, according to the 
 view that Mr. Locke gives of it, is grounded upon two t)f those first prin- 
 ' ciples which we had occasion to mention. 
 
 If we consider the argument he has given for the existence of a first in- 
 teHigent 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 exist- 
 ence ; and the second. That an unintelligent and unthinking being cannot 
 be the cause of beings that are thinking and intelligent. 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. 
 
 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 demonstration in 
 geometry is grounded, either upon propositions formerly demonstrated, or 
 upon self-evident principles. 
 
 Mr. Locke further says, that maxims are not of use to help men forward 
 in the advancement of the sciences, or new discoveries of yet unknown 
 truths: that Newton, in the' discoveries he has made in his never enough 
 to be admired book, has not been assisted by the general maxims, whatever 
 is, is ; or the whole is greater than a part, or the like. 
 
 I answer, the first of these is, as was before observed, an identical trifling 
 proposition, of no use in mathematics, or in any other science. The second 
 is often used by Newton, and by all mathematicians, and many demon- 
 strations 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. 
 
 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 
 
336 OPINIONS ABOUT FIRST PRINCIPLES. QeSSAY VI. 
 
 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 
 calls Regulce Philosophandi, and in his PhcBnomena, 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 example of Sir 
 Isaac Newton, who, by laying down the first principles upon which he 
 reasons 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 re- 
 tain to the end of the world. 
 
 I am now to give some account of a philosopher, who wrote expressly on 
 the subject of first principles, after Mr. Locke. 
 
 Pere Buffier, a French Jesuit, first published his Traite des Premieres 
 Verites, et de la source de nos jugemens, in 8vo., if I mistake not, in the 
 year 1724. It was afterwards published in folio, as a part of his Cows 
 des Sciences, Po.ris, 1732. 
 
 He defines first principles to be propositions so clear, that they can 
 neither be proved, nor combated by those that are more clear. 
 
 The first source of first principles he mentions, is that intimate con- 
 viction which every man has of his own existence, and of what passes in 
 his own mind. Some philosophers, he observes, admitted these as first 
 principles, who were unwilling to admit any others ; and he shows the 
 strange consequences that follow from this system. 
 
 A second source of first principles he makes to be common sense ; which, 
 he observes, philosophers have not been wont to consider. He defines it 
 to be, the disposition 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 con- 
 sciousness, nor are founded on any antecedent judgment. 
 
 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, pru- 
 dence, and that these things are not purely arbitrary. 
 
 3. That there is something in me which I call intelligence, and some- 
 thing which is not that intelligence, which I call my body, and that these 
 things have diff^erent properties. 
 
 4. That all men are not in a conspiracy to deceive me and impose upon 
 my credulity. 
 
 5. That what has not intelligence cannot produce the effects of intel- 
 ligence, nor can pieces of matter thrown together by chance form any re- 
 gular work, such as a clock or watch. 
 
 He explains, very particularly the several parts of his definition of com- 
 mon sense, and shows how the dictates of common sense may be distin- 
 guished from common prejudices ; and then enters into a particular con- 
 sideration 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 sentiments on these subjects. I 
 think there is more which I take to be original in this treatise, than in 
 most books of the metaphysical kind I have met with ; that many of his 
 notions are solid ; and that others, which I cannot altogether approve, are 
 ingenious. 
 
 The other writers I have mentioned, after Des Cartes, may, I think, 
 
GHAP. VIII, ] OF PRKJUDICKS. THE CAUSES OF ER«OJti 33? 
 
 without impropriety, be called Cartesians: for though they diiTer 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 exist- 
 ence, and the existence of those operations of mind of which they are con- " 
 scious, and requiring that the existence of a material world, and the exist- 
 ence 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 in- 
 troduced by Des Cartes, I call it, the Cartesian system, and those who follow 
 It Cartesians, not intending any disrespect by this term, but to signify a 
 particular method of philosophising common to them all, and begun by 
 Des Cartes. 
 
 Some of these have gone the utmost length in scepticism, leaving no ex- 
 istence 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 understanding, and which, though adopted in the 
 closet, men find themselves under a necessity of throwing off and dis- 
 claiming when they enter into society. 
 
 Indeed, in my judgment, those who have reasoned most acutely and cen- 
 sequentially upon this system, are they that have gone deepest into scep- 
 ticism. 
 
 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 foundation 
 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- 
 Some late visiters, particularly Dr. Oswald, Dr. Beattie, and Dr. Camp- 
 bell, have been led into a way of thinking somewhat similar to that of Buf- 
 fier ; the two former, as I have reason to believe, without any intercourse 
 with one another, or any knowledge 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 apprehend, that, to support 
 the fabric of human knowledge, some other principles are necessary 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 ray 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 animadversions of a celebrated writer, that 
 we may be thought too near of kin to give our testimony of one another. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OF PHEJUDICBS, THE CAUSES OP BRBOR. 
 
 Our. inteUectud powers are wisely fitted by the Author of our natur* 
 for the discovery of truth, as far as suits our present state. Error is not 
 
338 OF PREJUDICES, THE CAUSES OF EllllOR. [ESSAY VI. 
 
 their natural issue, any more than disease is of the natural structure^ of the 
 body. Yet, as we are liable to various diseases of body from accidental 
 causes, external and internal ; so we are, from like causes, liable to wrong 
 judgments. 
 
 Medical writers have endeavoured to enumerate the diseases of the body, 
 and to reduce them to a system, under the name of nosology ; and it were 
 to be wished that we had also a nosology of the human understanding. 
 
 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 materials for this purpose, and some 
 have endeavoured to reduce them to a system. I like best the general 
 division given of them by Lord Bacon in his fifth book, De augment'is 
 scientiarum, and more fully treated in his Novum Organum. He divides 
 them into four classes, idoln tribus, idoln spiciis, idola fori, and idola theatri. 
 The names are perhaps fanciful; but I think the division judicious, like 
 most of the productions 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, with- 
 out confining myself to those which Lord Bacon has given, and without 
 pretending to a complete enumeration. 
 
 To every 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 re- 
 ceive the homage which is due only to truth. 
 
 The first class are the idola tribus. Tliese 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 actions, and yet, without pro- 
 per 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 following instances : — r 
 
 1. First, Men are prone to be led too much by authority in theiiS 
 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 in- 
 struction, and incapable of improvement. 
 
 When judgment is ripe, there are many things in which we are incom- 
 petent 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 proportion 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 fallibility in judging, is in danger of giving too 
 much to authority ; the arrogant of giving too little. 
 
CHAP. VIII.] OF PREJUDTCKS, THE CAUSES OF EllEOU. 339 
 
 In all matters belonging to our cognisance, 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 prerogative. If a man pretend to be an ambassador 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 indifference 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 exercise of industry, fortitude, self-denial, candour, 
 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 acquire some property of their own ; so there are many more 
 who may be called mere beggars with regard to their opinions. Through 
 laziness and indifliere'nce about truth, they leave to others the drudgery of 
 digging for this commodity : they can have enough at second hand to serve 
 their occasions. 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. 
 
 This distemper of the understanding has taken so deep root in a great 
 part of mankind, that it can hardly be said that they use their own judg- 
 ment 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 determine their opinions in 
 religion, in politics, and in philosophy. 
 
 2. A second general prejudice arises from a disposition to measure things 
 legs known, and less familiar, by those that are better known and more 
 familiar. 
 
 This is the foundation of analogical reasoning, 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 reasoning altogether, and it is 
 difiicult 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 familiar through the whole of it. Hen.ce, in all ages, mgn have 
 been prone to attribute the human figure and human jiassions and frailties 
 to superior intelligencies, and even to' the Supreme Being. 
 
 There is a disposition in men to materialize every thing, 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 ipind is made to think by impressions made upon it, and that 
 there must be some kind of contiguity between it and the objects of 
 
 z2 
 
340 OF PREJB DICKS, THE CAQSKS OF KREOB. [^ESSAY Vi; 
 
 thought. Hence the theories of ideas and impressions have so generally- 
 prevailed. 
 
 Because the most perfect works of human artists are made after a model, 
 and of materials that before existed, the ancient philosophers 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 in- 
 numerable, 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 benevolence and public spirit to be mere hypo- 
 crisy 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 profligate can hardly be persuaded that there is any such 
 thing as real virtue in the world. The rustic forms his notions of the 
 manners 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 diflFerent 
 ranks, professions, and nations; and that the man whose acquaint- 
 ance has been confined within a narrow circle, must have many pre- 
 judices and narrow notions, which a more extensive intercourse would have 
 cured. 
 
 3. Men are often led into error by the love of simplicity, which disposes 
 us to reduce things to few principles, and to conceive a greater simplicity 
 ijn nature than there really is. 
 
 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 
 btit be pleased to observe that all the changes of motion produced by the 
 collision of bodies, hard, soft, or elastic, are reducible to three simple laws 
 of motion, which the industry of philosophers has discovered* 
 
 When we consider what a prodigious variety of effects depend upon the 
 law of gravitation; how m'any phenomena in the earth, sea, and air, which, 
 in all preceding ages, had tortured the wits of philosophers, and occasioned 
 d thousand vain theories, are shown to be the necessary consequences of this 
 Onelaw ; 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 simplicity 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 sim- 
 plicity 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 prin- 
 ciple, 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 wisdom 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, appeared the simplest and best way. But could he ever 
 hit upon the true way ? No, surely. When he learns from fact howthesfr 
 
CHAP, vni.] OP PREJUDICKS, THK CAUSES OF ERllOR. 341 
 
 effects are produced, he will then see how foolish his childish coniectures 
 were. ■" 
 
 We may learn something of the way in which nature operates, from fact 
 and observation ; but if we conclude that it operates in such a manner, only 
 because, to oiu- 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 com- 
 pounded, and into which they may be resolved. It was the simplicity of 
 this theory, and not any evidence from fact, that made it 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 simplicity. Pythagoras, by his skill in mathematics, discovered that 
 there can be no more than five regular solid figures, terminated 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 tliat the dis- 
 covery of the properties and relations of the regular solids ^ould be a key 
 to open the mysteries of nature. 
 
 This notion of the Pythagoreans and Platonists has undoubtedly great 
 beauty and sinjpUcity. 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 relations of 
 the fire r^ular solids. Thjs 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. 
 
 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 philosophy. 
 
 It was long believed, that all the qualities of bodies, and all their medical 
 virtues, were reducible to four ; moisture and dryness, 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, arid mercury, was of tlie same kind. 
 For how many ages did men believe, that the division of all the objects of 
 thought into ten categories, and of all that can be affirmed or denied of any 
 thing, into five universals or predicables, were perfect enumerations } 
 
 The evidence ^om reason that could be prodiiced from those systems was 
 next to nothing, 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 simplicity. Upon one proposition, / think, he builds the whole fabric 
 of human knowledge. And from mere matter, with a certain quantity of 
 motion given it at first, he accounts for all the phenomena of the material 
 world. 
 
 The physical part of this system was mere hypothesis. It had nothing 
 to recommend it but its simplicity j' yet it had force enough to overturn 
 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. 
 
342 OF PREJUDICES, THE CAUSES OF EKUOK. [^ESSAV VI. 
 
 after Sir Isaac Newton had given the strongest evidence of their j'eal ex- 
 istence in nature, were rejected by the greatest part of Europe for halfa 
 century, because they could not be accounted for by matter and motion. 
 So much were men enamoured with the simplicity of the Cartesian system. 
 
 Nay, I apprehend it was this love of simplicity, more than real evidence, 
 that led Newton himself to say, in the preface to hisi Principia, speaking 
 of the phenomena of the material world, " Nam multa me movent ut non- 
 nihil suspicer, ea omnia ex viribus quibusdam pendere posse, quibus cor- 
 porum partipulse, per causas nondum cognitas, vel in se mutuo impelluntur, 
 et secundum figuras regulares cohaerent, vel ab invicem fugantur et rece- 
 dunt." For certainly we have no evidence from fact, that all the pheno- 
 mena of the material world are produced by attracting or repelling 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 
 phenomena of nature depended upon causes of this kind j and therefore 
 was disposed, from the simjdicity of nature, to think that all do. 
 
 When a real cause is discovered, the same love of simplicity leads men 
 to attribute effects to it which are beyond its province. 
 
 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 particular cause, by discovering it to have remarkable effects, they are 
 in, great danger of extending its influence, upon slight evidence, to things 
 with which it has no connexion. Such prejudices arise from the natural 
 desire of simplifying natural causes, and of accounting for many phenomena 
 from the same principle. 
 
 4. One of the most copious sources of error in philosophy, is the misap- 
 plication of our noblest intellectual power to purposes for which it is in- 
 competent. 
 
 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 shows a superiority in the talent of finding the 
 means of accomplishing an end ; who can, by a happy combination, pro- 
 duce an effect, or make a discovery beyond the reach of other men ; who 
 can draw important conclusions from circumstances that commonly pass 
 unobserved ; who judges with the greatest sagacity of the designs of other 
 men', and the consequences of his own actions. To this superiority of un- 
 derstanding we give the name of genius, and look up with admiration to 
 every thing that bears the marks of it. 
 
 Yet this power, so highly valuable in itself, 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 purposes for which it is altogether incompetent. 
 
 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 to see them to the bottom. What is contrived and executed by one 
 man may be perfectly understood by another man. With great probabi-: 
 lity, he may from a part conjecture the whole, or from the effects may con- 
 jecture the causes ; because they are effects of a wisdom not superior to his 
 own. 
 
 But the works of nature are contrived and executed by a wisdom and 
 power infinitely superior to that of man ; and when men attempt, by the 
 force of genitis, to discover the causes of the phenomena of nature, they 
 
CHAP. VIII.] OK niKJHBICKS, THE CAUSES OF ERROR. 343 
 
 mlv p"i?^ chance Of going wrong more ingeniously. Their conjectures 
 may appear very probable to beings no wiser than themselves; but thev 
 
 how a^hli'T *° ^'l* -f *'"^^ ^^^y "'^ ^'^' '^' conjectures of a chili 
 Jiow a ship of war is built, and how it is managed at sea 
 
 n,atf n 1 ?"" "^ ^^"'"' ^'y,*" """^^ ^" '*"™^' e^en the meanest; to 
 r^T.if .P n ,:°'' ^T ^''°Sle leaf of a plant, orfeather of a bird; he will 
 mid that aU his wisdom and sagacity can bear no comparison with the wis- 
 aom ot nature, nor his power witli the power of nature. 
 
 The experience of all ages shows how prone ingenious men have been to 
 invent hypotheses to explain the phenomena of nature ; how fond, by a kind 
 ot anticipation, to discover her secrets. Instead of a slow and gradual ascent 
 m the scale ot natural causes, by a just and copious induction, thev would 
 ^orten the work, and, by a flight of genius, get to the top at once. 
 Ihis gratifies the pride of human understanding; 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 ingenuity in fabricating a system, he 
 views It with the eye of a parent ; he strains phenomena to make them 
 tally with It, and make it look like the work of nature. 
 
 The slow and patient method of induction, 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 constantlv in mind that his most ingenious conjectures 
 with regard to the works of God are pitiful and childish. 
 
 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 interpretation of 
 that volume is the work of man; and the wo'rk of, God ought not to be 
 contaminated by any mixture with it. 
 
 To a man of genius, self-denial is a diflieult lesson in philosophy as well 
 as in religion. To bring his fine imaginations and most ingenious con- 
 jectures 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 constitution of nature it must act a subordinate 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 conjecture. 
 It may display its powers by putting nature to the question in well-con- 
 trived experiments, but it must add nothing to her answers. 
 
 5. In avoiding one extreme, 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 in- 
 visible beings ; but when philosophy has discovered natural causes of many 
 events, which, in the days of ignorance, were ascribed to the immediate 
 operation of gods or demons, they are apt to think that all the phenomena 
 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. 
 
 Rude men are at fir-st disposed to ascribe intelligence and active power 
 to every thing they see move or undergo any change. " Savages," says 
 the Abbe Raynal, " wherever they see motion which they cannot account 
 for, there they suppose a soul." When they come to be convinced of the 
 
344 OF FEKJUDIGES, THE CAUSES OF ERROE. [ESS.\Y TI. 
 
 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 natui-e, 
 to that of excluding it altogether, and making even the determinations of 
 intelligent beings, the links of one fatal chain, or the wheels of one great 
 machine. 
 
 The abuse of occult qualities in the Peripatetic philosophy led Des Cartes 
 and his followers to reject all occult qualities ; to pretend to explain all the 
 phenomena 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 acknovi'ledged, that it 
 needs no proof nor illustration. 
 
 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 nature, but from something peculiar to the individual. 
 
 As in a cave objects vary in their appearance according to the form of 
 the cave, and the manner in which it receives the light, lord Bacon con- 
 ceives the mind of every man to resemble a cave, which has its particular 
 form, and its particular manner of being enlightened ; and, from these cir- 
 cumstances, often gives false colours and a delusive appearance to objects 
 seen in it. 
 
 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 confined to a certain track by his pro- 
 fession or manner of life, is very apt to judge wrong when he ventures out 
 of that track. He is apt to draw every thing within the sphere of his pro- 
 fession, 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 ap- 
 plied by an ingenious author to measure human affections, and the moral 
 worth of actions. An eminent mathematician attempted to ascertain bv 
 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 consequence 
 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 division of things into ten categories, he maintains that there are 
 no more, and can be no more, than two categories, to wit data and qucedta. 
 
 The ancient chemists were wont to explain 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 seventh, 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. 
 
 The learned and ingenious Dr. Henry More having very elaborately and 
 methodically compiled his Enchiridium Metaphijsicuw, and Enchirid'mm 
 Ethirum, found all the divisions and subdivisions of both to be allegorically 
 taught in tlie first chapter of Genesis, Thus, even very ingenious men are 
 
CHAP. Vm.3 OF PREJUDICES, THE CAUSES OF KllKOB. 345 
 
 apt to make a ridiculous figure, by drawing into the track, iii which their 
 thoughts have long run, things altogether 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 antiquity, and contempt of whatever 
 is modern ; others go as far into the contrary extreme. It may be judged 
 that the former are persons who value themselves upon their acquaintance 
 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 singularities, and of 
 every thing that has the air of paradox. 
 
 Some are desultol-y 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. 
 
 The idola fori are the fallacies arising from the imperfections and the 
 abuse of language, which is an instrument of thought as well as of the com- 
 munication of our thoughts. 
 
 Whether it be the effect of constitution or of habit, I will not take 
 upon me to determine ; 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 asso- 
 ciated 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 language, must think in that lan- 
 guage. If he thinks in one language what he would express 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 shows, that our thoughts take their colour in some degree from the 
 language we use ; and that, although language ought always to be sub- 
 servient to thought, yet thought must be at sometimes, 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 
 J;o the servant ; such is the case with regard to language. Its intention 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 certain 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 philoso- 
 phical language, which should be free from the imperfections of vulgar lan- 
 guages. Whether this attempt will ever succeed, so far as to be generally 
 usenil, 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. 
 
 He founds liis philosophical language and real character upon a sys- 
 
346 OF -PREJUDICES, IHE CAUSES OF EIUIOK. [ESSAY VI. 
 
 tematical division and subdivision of all the things which maybe expressed 
 by language ; and^ instead of the ancient division into ten categories^ has 
 made forty categories, or summagenera. 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 he made 
 in human knowledge, may be doubted. The difficulty is still greater in 
 the subdivisions ; 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 tlie 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 indistinctness ; and that improve- 
 ments in knowledge and in language may go hand in hand, and facilitate 
 each other. But I fear the imperfections of language can never be per- 
 fectly 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 difference 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 Understanding about words ; their various kinds ; their imper- 
 fection and abuse, and the remedies of both ; and has made many observa- 
 tions upon these siibjects well worthy of attentive perusal. 
 
 The fourth class of prejudices are the idola thentri, 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 tincture from it, and appear 
 of another colour than when seen by a pure light. 
 
 Upon the same subject, a Platonist, a Peripatetic, and an Epicurean, 
 will think differently, not only in matters connected with his peculiar 
 tenets, but even in things remote from them. 
 
 Ajudicious history of the different sects of philosophers, and the diflTerent 
 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 moment is not so much a minute detail of the 
 dogm.'ita 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 morals, is executed with 
 great judgment and candour by Dr. Smith in his Theory of Moral Sen- 
 timents. 
 
 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 
 jof that kind, when they happen by accident, are apt to induce the tempera- 
 ment that is suited to them ; there is something analogous to this in the 
 diseases of the understanding. 
 
 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 complexion 
 to the understanding which is suited to them. 
 
 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 distinguished false philosophy into the sophistical, the 
 empirical, and superstitious, and has made judicious observations upon 
 each of these kinds. But I apprehend this subject deserves to be treated 
 more fully by such a hand, if such a hand can be found. 
 
ESSAY VII. 
 
 OF REASONING. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OF REASONING IN GENERAL, AND OP 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 reasoning and judging. Reasoning is 
 the process by which we pass' from one judgment to another which is the 
 consequence of it. Accordingly our judgments are distinguished into in- 
 tuitive, which are not grounded upon any preceding judgment, and discur- 
 sive, vrhich 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 proposition inferred 
 being called the conclusion, and the proposition or propositions from which 
 it is inferred, the premises. 
 
 Reasoning may consist of many steps ; the first conclusion being a pre- 
 mise to a second, that to a third, and so on till we come to the last con- 
 clusion. 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 process is sometimes called judgment, sometimes reasoning. 
 
 It is not strange that, in common discourse, judgment and reasoning 
 should not be very nicely distinguished, since they are in some cases con- 
 founded even by logicians. We are taught in logic, that judgment is 
 expressed by one proposition, but that reasoning requires two or three. 
 But so various are the modes of speech, that what in one mode is expressed 
 by twoor three propositions, may in another mode be expressed by one. Thus 
 I may say, God is good; therefore good men shall be happy. This is 
 reasoning of that kind which logicians call an enthymeme, consisting of an 
 antecedent proposition, and a conclusion drawn from it. But this reasoning 
 may 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 judgment; yet the enthymeme, which is reasoning, 
 expresses no more. 
 
 Reasoning, as well as judgment, must be true or false ; both are grounded 
 upon evidence which may be probable or demonstrative, and both are 
 accompanied with assent or belief. 
 -The power of reasoning is justly accounted one of the prerogatives of 
 
348 REASONING AND DEMONSTRATION. ^ [^ESSAY VII. 
 
 human nature ; because by it many important truths have been and may 
 be discovered, which without 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 intui- 
 tively, which we can only discover by reasoning. For this cause, though 
 we must ascribe judgment 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 inferring, ' 
 drawing a conclusion, and the like. The very notion of reasoning, there- 
 fore, 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, paralogism, 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 
 
 Although the capacity be purely the gift of nature, and probably given 
 in very diflFerent degrees to diflfierent persons ; yet the power of reasoning 
 seems to be got by habit, as much as the power of walking or running. 
 Its first e.xertions we are not able to recollect in ourselves, or clearly to 
 discern in others. They are very feeble, and need to be led by example, 
 and supported by authority. By degrees it acquires strength, chiefly by 
 means of imitation and exercise. 
 
 The exercise of reasoning on various subjects 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 sub- 
 jects, 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 supplied by the reader or hearer, must be immediately discernible to 
 every man of ripe understanding who has a distinct comprehension 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 dif- 
 ficult, 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 remote from the premises are brought to light. In all works of un- 
 derstanding, invention has the highest praise; it requires an extensive 
 view of what relates to the subject, and a quickness in discerning those 
 aflinities 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 
 
CHAP. 1.3 REASONING AND DSMONSTRATIOi*. 349 
 
 this chiefly, as I apprehend, and in clear and distinct conceptions, consist 
 that superiority of understanding which we call genius. 
 
 In every chain of reasoning, the evidence «f the last conclusion can be 
 no greater than that of the weakest link of the chain, whatever may be the 
 strength of the rest. 
 
 The most remarkable distinction of reasonings is, that some are probable 
 others demonstrative. ' 
 
 In every step of demonstrative reasoning, the inference is necessary, and 
 we perceive it to be impossible that the conclusion should not follow from 
 the premises. In probable reasoning, the connexion between the premises 
 and the conclusion is not necessary, 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 demon- 
 stration be stronger than another, though, in relation to our faculties, one 
 may be more easily comprehended than another. Every demonstration 
 gives equal strength to the conclusion, and leaves no possibility of its 
 being false. 
 
 It was, I think, the opinion of all the ancients, that demonstrative 
 reasoning can be applied only to truths that are necessary, and not to those 
 that are contingent. In this, I believe they judged right. Of all created 
 things, the existence^ the attributes, and consequently the relations re- 
 sulting 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 conceive, without regard to 
 their existence. Of these, as they are conceived by the mind, and are no- 
 thing but what they are conceived to be, we may have a clear and adequate 
 comprehension. Their relations and attributes are necessary and immu- 
 table. 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 philosophers, and then I must agree with 
 them, that ideas are the only objects about which we can reason demoi;- 
 stratively. 
 
 There are many even of our ideas about which we can carry on no con- 
 siderable 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 reasoning, 
 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 mathematical. 
 
 ' In metaphysical reasoning, the process Is always short. The conclusion 
 
 lis but a step or two, seldom more, from the first principle or axiom on 
 
 which it is grounded, and the different conclusions depend not upon one 
 
 another. 
 
 It is otherwise in mathematical reasoning. 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 
 
 mathematics, while, in other abstract subjects, it is confined within very 
 
 narrow limits } I conceive this is chiefly owing to the nature of quantity, 
 
 the object of mathematics. 
 
350 KEASONING AND DKMONSTRATION.. [ESSAY VII. 
 
 Every quantity, as it has magnitude, and is divisible into parts without 
 end, so, in respect qf 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. All the powers of number are insufficient to 
 express the variety of ratios. For there are innumerable ratios which can- 
 not be perfectly expressed by numbers, such as, the ratio of the side to the 
 diagonal of a square, of the circumference of a circle to the diameter. Of 
 this infinite variety of ratios, every one may be clearly conceived, and dis- 
 tinctly expressed, so as to be in no danger of being mistaken for any other. 
 
 Extended quantities, such as lines, surfaces, 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 compounded of a few indivisible parts ; and therefore, 
 if we may be allowed the expression, can touch only in few points. But 
 mathematical quantities being made up of parts without number, can 
 touch in innumerable points, and be compared in innumerable different 
 ways. 
 
 There have been attempts made to measure 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 ubsurdum. In these the proposition contradictory 
 to that which is to be proved is demonstrated to be false, or to lead to an 
 absurdity ; whence it foUows, that its contradictory, that is, the proposition 
 to be proved, is true. This inference is grounded upon an axiom in logic. 
 That of two contradictory propositions, if one be false, the other must 
 be true. 
 
 Another kind of indirect demonstration proceeds by enumerating all the 
 suppositions that can possibly be made concerning the proposition to be 
 proved, and then 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 demonstrated 
 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 conclusion. The nature of the evidence and 
 its strength is the same in all : only we are conducted to it by different 
 roads. 
 
CHAP. II.] ^ WHISTHER MOUALITY BE DEMONSTRABLE. 351 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WHETHER MORALITY BE CAPABLE OP DBMQNSTRATION. 
 
 What has been said of demonstrative reasoning may help us to judge of 
 an opinion of Mr. Locke, advanced in several places of his Essay, to wit, 
 " That morality is capable of demonstration as well as mathematics." 
 
 In book 3, chap. 11, having observed that mixed modes, especially those 
 belonging 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 — 
 
 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 dis- 
 covered, in which consists perfect knowledge. Nor let any one object. 
 That the names of substances are often to be made use of in morality, as 
 well as those of modes, from which will arise obscurity : for as to sub- 
 stances, when concerned in moral discourses, their diverse 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 4, chap. 3, sect. 18, " The idea of a Supreme Being, 
 whose workmanship 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 capable of demonstration, if due 
 methods were thought on to examine or pursue their agreement or dis- 
 agreement." 
 
 He afterwards gives as instances two propositions, as moral propositions 
 of which we may be as certain as of any in mathematics ; 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. 
 
 Again, in the 12th chapter of the same book, sect. 7, 8, " This I think 
 I may say, that if other ideas that are the real as well as nominal essences 
 of their sevieral species, were pursued in the way familiar to mathematicians, 
 they would carry our thoughts farther, and with' greater evidence and clear- 
 ness, than possibly we are apt to imagine. This gave me the confidence to 
 advance that conjecture which I suggest, chap. 3, 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 resolved in his mind on different 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, particularly his friend Mr. Molyneux, 
 urged and importuned him to compose a system of morals according to the 
 idea he had advanced in his Essay ; and in his answer to these solicr- 
 
352 WHETipiR MOKALITV BE DEMONSTRABXE. [^ESSAV VII. 
 
 tations he only pleads other occupations, without suggesting any change of 
 his opinion, or any great diificulty 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 founda- 
 tion 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 indeed 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 favourable to virtue. 
 
 Those philosophers who think that our determinations in morals are not 
 real judgments, that right and wrong in human conduct 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 
 morals be not a matter of judgment, but of 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 contemplate 
 with pleasure the actions we call virtuous, 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 examination, since it is 
 founded upon what they think a false hypothesis. But if our determi- 
 nations in morality be real judgments, 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 show that morality is capable of 
 demonstration, 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 perfect 
 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 de- 
 monstration as mathematics. 
 
 I acknowledge, that the names of the virtues and vices, of right and ob- 
 ligation, 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. 
 
 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 demonstration in Euclid." 
 
 When injustice is defined to be a violation 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 metaphysical rather than moral. We 
 give the name of mathematical, to truths that express the relations of 
 quantities considered abstractly : all other abstract truths may be called 
 
CHAV II.] WHETHER MORALITY BE DEM0NST11ABT,E. 353 
 
 metaphysical. But if those mentioned by Mr. Locke are to be called 
 moral truths, I agree ^rith him that there are many such that are neces- 
 sarily true, and that have all the evidence that mathematical truths can 
 have. 
 
 It_ ought however to be remembered, that, as was before observed, the 
 relation of things abstract, perceivable by us, excepting those of mathe- 
 matical 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 mathe- 
 matical 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 demonstrative : 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. 
 
 The propositions which I think are properly called moral, are those that 
 aifirm some moral obligation to be, or not to be incumbent on one or more 
 individual persons. To such propositions Mr. Locke's reasoning does not 
 apply, because the subjects of the proposition are not things whose real 
 essence may be perfectljr 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 
 therefore 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 cer- 
 tain moral obligations. In like manner, the evidence we have of the I 
 existence 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 a man had not the faculty given him by God of perceiving certain I 
 things in conduct to be right, and others to be wrong, and of perceiving i 
 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 therefore there must be in morals, as in other sciences, 
 first principles, which do not derive their evidence from any antecedent 
 principles, but may be said to be intuitively discerned. 
 
 Moral truths, therefore, may be divided 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, by 
 any reasoning. 
 
 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 j to injure no man ; I know not what 
 reasoning, either probable or demonstrative, 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 
 
 A A 
 
354 WHeTHSB MOKAJ^ITY BE PSM0N3TRABLE. QESSAY VII. 
 
 denies the first principles of morals. The man who does not, by the light 
 of his o'lvn 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, other- 
 wise 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 thstt he ought with candour to 
 use tiie best means of knowing his duty. To every man who has a con- 
 science, these things are self-evident. They are immediate 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 
 Qther§ that might be named, appears therefore to me to be intuitive rather 
 than demonstrative. 
 
 The man who acts according to the dictates of his conscience, and takes 
 due pains to be rightly informed of his duty, is a perfect man with regard 
 to morals", and merits no blame, whatever may be the imperfections 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 reasoning to convince him that it is so. 
 
 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, indeed, 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 oflTer to 
 prove this to him by reasoning would be to aifront him. But whether 
 such a scheme of conduct in his ofiice, or another, may best serve that end, 
 he may in many cases be doubtful. I believe, in such cases he can very 
 rarely have demonstrative evidence. His conscience determines the end 
 he ought to pursue, and has intuitive evidence that his end is good ; but 
 prudence must determine the means of attaining that end ; and prudence 
 can very rarely use dejnonstrative reasoning, but must rest in what appears 
 most probable. 
 
 I apprehend, that in every kind of duty we owe to God or man, the 
 «ase 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 re- 
 quires reasoning, that reasoning can very rarely be of the demonstrative, but 
 must be of the probable 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 
 ore things which admit not of demonstration. 
 
 Every man is bound to employ the talents which God hath given hiro 
 to the best purpose ; 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 
 
CHAP. II.J WHETHER MORALITY BK DEMONSTRABLE. 355 
 
 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, unfores eenaccidents, and invincible ignorance, which affect deeply all 
 the concerns 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 demonstration 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 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 discovered by demonstrative rea- 
 soning, 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 business of all men, the first principles of it 
 are written in their hearts, in characters so legible, that no man can pre- 
 tend ignorance of them, or of his obligation to practise them. 
 
 Some knowledge of duty and of moral obligation is necessary to all men. 
 Without it they could not be moral and accountable creatures, nor capable 
 of being members 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 attain- 
 able 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 byreasoning that this knowledge is got, far less by demonstrative 
 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 cannot, 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 abilities of aU men than demonstrative reasoning 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 ana- 
 logous to the perceptions of sense than to the conclusions of demonstra- 
 tive reasoning. 
 
 Upon the whole, I agree with Mr. Locke, that propositions expressing the 
 congraities and incongruities of things abstract, which moral words stand 
 for, may have aU the evidence of mathematical truths. But this is not pe- 
 culiar 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 necessary truths, 
 and as evident as any in mathematics. Indeed, they are very ilearly 
 allied to the two which Mr. LoCke gives as instances of tnoral propoi=ition^ 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 PllOBAEI.E REASONING. QkSSAY VII. 
 
 capable of demonstration. Of such abstract proiiositions, I think it may- 
 more properly be said, that they have the evidence of mathematical axioms, 
 than that they are capable of demonstration. 
 
 There are propositions of another kind, which alone deserve the name 
 of moral propositions. They are such as affirm something 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 rea- 
 soning, and makes the proper use of it, shall be accepted, as well as he 
 to whom God has given ten. 
 
 ! 
 
 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 induction which draws a general conclusion from particular premises. 
 This is not strict demonstration, 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 demonstrated. In other cases, a ma- 
 thematical proposition may have such probable evidence from induction or' 
 analogy, as encourages the mathematician to investigate its demonstration. 
 But still the reasoning proper to mathematical and other necessary truths, 
 is demonstration ; and that which is proper to contingent truths, is pro- 
 bable reasoning. 
 
 These two kinds of reasoning differ in other respects. In demonstrative 
 reasoning, one argument is as good as a thousand. One demonstration 
 may be more elegant than another ; it may be more easily comprehended, 
 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 itself; 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 demonstration, clearly comprehended, gives all 
 the evidence we are capable of receiving. 
 
 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 insufficient 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 
 
CHAP. 111.] PROBABLE KEASO-NING. 357 
 
 arguments to prove that there were such persons as king Charles the First) ' 
 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 nnreasonable to require demonstra- 
 tion for things which do not admit of it. It is no less unreasonable to require 
 reasoning of any kind for things which are known without reasoning. All 
 reasoning muit be grounded upon truths which are known without rea- 
 soning. 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 shown, that there are first fwinciples of 
 necessary truths, and first principles of contingent truths. Demonstrative 
 reasoning is grounded upon the former, and probable 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. 
 
 In common language, probable evidence is considered as an inferior de- 
 gree of evidence, and is opposed to certainty : so that what is certain is 
 more than probable, and what is only probable is not certain. Philosophers 
 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 demonstration. 
 
 Demonstrative evidence has no degrees ; but probable evidence, taken 
 in the philosophical 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 of any proposition 
 in Euclid ; but the evidence is not demonstrative, but of that kind which 
 philosophers call probable. 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 comprehended clearly and 
 without prejudice. Every degree of evidence perceived by the mind, pro- 
 duces 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 immoveable. This degree of 
 evidence, the highest the human faculties can attain, we call certainty. 
 
 Probable evidence not only differs in kind from demonstrative, but is 
 itself of different kinds. The i:hief of these I shall mention, without pre- 
 tending to make a complete enumeration. 
 
 The first kind is that of human testimony, upon which the greatest par 
 of human knowledge is built. , , . , c ^ 
 
 The faith of history depends upon it, as well as the judgment ot sole - 
 
358 PHOHABLK KKASb-KING. QesSAY VI I. 
 
 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 veracity of the testifier. 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 cir- 
 cumstantial, we consider how far the circumstances agree together, 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 
 ian 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 cir- 
 fiumstances, without the possibility of a previous concert, the evidence may 
 be equal to that of demonstration. 
 
 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 
 relates 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 ourselves. 
 
 A third kind of probable evidence, is that by which we recognize 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 distinguishable 
 by those to whom they are best known, cannot be shown 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 aU other individuals of the 
 kind. 
 
 This evidence we rely upon in the most important affairs of life ; and, 
 by this evidence, the identity, both of things and of persons, is determined 
 in courts of judicature. 
 
 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 is to be found among men, there 
 is a certain degree of prudence and probity which we rely upon in every 
 jnan that is not insane. If it were not so, no man would be safe in the com- 
 pany of another, and there could be no society among mankind. If men 
 were as much disposed to hurt as to do good, to lie as to speak truth, they 
 could not live together ; they would keep at as great distance from one 
 another as possible, and the race would soon perish. 
 
 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 
 reseiitment of injuries, 
 
CHAP. III.3 PROBABLE EEAS0N1U(J. • 359 
 
 ,.J*°''^ "*"""'* "^^^ ,'*^^''^ *" '^"'"^" '*<'°'J"<=t are the foundation of all 
 political reasoning, and of common prudence in the conduct of life. Hardlv 
 can a man forti 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 evidenpe 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 
 weuld 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 principles 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 mathe- 
 maticians call the probability of chances. 
 
 We attribute some events to chance, because we know only the remote 
 cause which must produce some one event of a number ; but know not the 
 more immediate cause which determines a particular event of that number, 
 in preference to the others. 
 
 _ I think all the chances about which we reason 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 per- 
 son who throws, nor the bystanders, know the precise measure of force and 
 direction necessary to turn up any one side rather than another. There are 
 here therefore six events, one of which must happen ; and as all are sup- 
 posed to have equal probability, 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 vrith two dice is as one to thirty- 
 five ; because here there are thirty-six events, each of which has equal 
 J»robability. 
 
 Upon such principles as these, the doctrine of chances has furnished a 
 field of demonstrative reasoning of great extent, although the events about 
 which this reasoning is employed be not necessary, but contingent, 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 iflay 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 fact* that fall within our own ob- 
 servation, or are properly attested by those who haVe observed them. 
 
 The knowledge of some of the laws of nature is necessary to all men in 
 the conduct of life. These are soon disiibvered, 6Ven by savages. They 
 know that fire bums, that water drown's, fhat bodies gravitate towards thk 
 
3t30 ^ MR.. Hume's scepticism about reason. ^essay vii. 
 
 earth. They know that day and night, summer and winter, regularly suc- 
 ceed each other. As far back as their experience and information reach, 
 they know that these have happened regularly ; and, upon this ground, 
 they are led, by the constitution of human nature, to expect 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 phenomena that 
 lead to the same conclusion, and compares them with those that seem to 
 contradict or to limit it. He observes the circumstances on which every 
 phenomenon depends, and distinguishes them carefully from those that are 
 accidentally 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 acquires 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 ? 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 pro- 
 perties. These are matters of fact, attested by sense, memory, and testi- 
 mojiy, just as the few facts which the vulgar know are attested to ithem. 
 
 And what conclusions does the philosopher draw from tlie facts he has 
 collected? They are, that like events have happened in former times in 
 like circumstances, and will happen in time to come ; and these conclusions 
 are built on the very same ground on which the simple rustic concludes 
 that the sun will rise to-morrow. 
 
 Facts reduced to general rules, and the consequence 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 philo- 
 sophers call probable. General rules may have exceptions or limitations 
 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 
 I probable evidence ; but those I have mentioned are sufficient to show, that 
 j the far greatest part, and the most interesting part of our knowledge, 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 MB. Hume's scepticism with regard to reason. 
 
 In the Treatise of Human Nature, book 1, part 4, sect. I, the author 
 undertakes to prove two points : First, That all that is called human 
 knowledge (meaning demonstrative knowledge) is only probability j and, 
 secondly. That this probability, when duly examined, evanishes by decrees', 
 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 fool? who reason, or believe any thing." 
 
 According to this account, reason, that boasted prerogative of man and 
 
CHAP. IV.] MR. Hume's scepticism about reason. 361 
 
 the light of his mind, is an ignis Jittuus, which misleads the wandering 
 traveller, and leaves him at last in absolute darkness. 
 
 How unhappy is the condition of man, born under a necessity of believing' 
 contradictions, and of trusting to a guide who confesses herself to be a false 
 one ! 
 
 It is some comfort that this doctrine can never be seriously adopted by 
 any inan in his senses. And after this author had shown that " all the 
 rules of logic require a total extinction of all belief and evidence/' he him- 
 self, and all men that are not insane, must have believed many things, 
 and yielded assent to the evidence which he had extinguished. 
 
 This indeed he is so candid as to acknowledge. " He finds himself ab- : 
 solutely and necessarily determined, to live and talk and act like other 
 people in the common affairs of life. And since reason is incapable of dis- 
 pelling these clouds, most fortunately it happens, that nature herself suffices 
 to that purpose, and cures him of this philosophical melancholy and delirium." 
 See sect. 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 (whatever 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 pro- 
 bable, that if the cure was the work of nature, the disease came from another 
 hand, and was the work of the philosopher ? 
 
 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 commoa 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 reasoning : 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 de-. 
 generates 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 be- 
 comes 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 scepticism, 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 perfect than they really are, may 
 have aU the belief that is necessary in the conduct of life, and all that is 
 necessary to his acceptance with his Maker. 
 
 It is granted, then, 'that human judgments 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 fal- 
 lible. And if this be all that is meant by our knowledge degenerating iiita' 
 probability, I know no person of a different opinion. 
 
362 jia. Hume's scepticism about iieason. [essay vit. 
 
 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 un- 
 derstand probability as opposed to demonstration; the vulgar as opposed 
 to certainty; but this author understands 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, without making any pretence to infallibility. 
 
 If we use words in their proper meaning, it is impossible that demon- 
 stration should degenerate into probability from the imperfection of our 
 faculties. Our judgment cannot change the nature of the things about 
 which we judge. What is really demonstration, will stiU 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 consequence of 
 this mistake is, not that demonstration 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 cannot turn it into another kind 
 of proof. 
 
 Upon the whole, then, this first conclusion of our author. That the fal- 
 libility of human judgment turns all knowledge into probability, if under- 
 stood literally, is absurd ; but if it be only a figure of speech, and means 
 no more, but that, in all our judgments, we ought to be sensible of our fal- 
 libility, and ought to hold our opinions with that modesty that becomes 
 fallible creatures, which I take to be what the author meant, this, I think, 
 nobody denies, nor was it necessary to enter into a laborious proof of it. 
 
 One is never in greater danger of transgressing against the rules of logic, 
 than in attempting to prove what needs no proof, Of this we have an in- 
 ^ance in this very case : for the author begins hrs proof, that aU. human 
 judgments are fallible, with affirming that some are infallible. 
 
 " In aH. demonstrative sciences," says he, "■ the rules are certain and in- 
 fallible ; but when we apply them, our fallible and uncertain faculties are 
 yery apt to depart from them, and fall into error." 
 
 He had forgot, surely, that the rules of demonstrative sciences are dis- 
 covered by our fallible and uncertain faculties, and have no authority but 
 that of human judgment. If they be infallible, some human judgments 
 are infallible ; and there are many in various branches of Imman knowledge 
 which have as good a el aim 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 probabiiity, 
 when duly examined^ suffers a continual diminution, and at last a total ex- 
 tinction. 
 
 The obvious consequence of this is, that no fallible being can hare good 
 reason to believe any thing at all ; but let us hear the proof. 
 
 "In every judgment, we ought to correct the first judgment derived 
 from the nature of the object, by another judgment derived from the nature 
 of the understanding. Besides the original uncertainty inherent in the 
 subject, there arises another, derived from the weakness of the fticnlty 
 which judges. Having adjusted these two uncertainties together. We are 
 obliged, by our reason, to add a new uncertainty, derived from the possibility 
 of error in the estimation we make of the truth and fidelity of our faculties 
 
CHAP. IV.] AiB. Hume's scepticism aboui' ueason. , 363 
 
 This is a doubt, of which, if we would closely pursue our reasoning, we 
 rannot avoid giving a decision. But this decision, though it shouM be 
 favourable to our preceding judgment, being founded only on probability, 
 must weaken still further our first evidence. The third uncertainty must 
 in like manner be criticised by a fourth, and so on without end. 
 
 _ " Now, as every one of these uncertainties takes away a part of the ori- 
 ginal evidence, it must at last be reduced to nothing. Let our first belief 
 be ever so strong, it must infallibly perish, by passing through so many ex- 
 aminations, each of which carries off somewhat of its force and vigour. No 
 iinite object can subsist under a decrease repeated in infinitum. 
 
 " When I reflect on the natural fallibility 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 further, to turn the scrutiny 
 against every successive estimation 1 make of my faculties, all the rules of 
 logic require a continual dimmution, 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 cogitative, 
 but of the sensitive part of our nature. 
 
 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, sup- 
 pose the old man to set out a thousand paces before AchiDes, and that while 
 Achilles has travelled the thousand paces, the old man has got five hundred ; 
 when AchiUes 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 irifinitum, and you will still find the old man foremost ; there- 
 fore 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 corresponding 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 examine 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 iften call demonstration, and that belief of it, which we call cer- 
 tainty. 
 
 Here my sceptical friend interposes, and assures me, that the rules of 
 logic reduce this demonstration to no evidence at all. I am willing to hear 
 what step in it he thinks fallacious, and why. He makes no objection 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 shovra to have only probable evidence : the second 
 arising from the weakness of the faculty thait judges. I answer. It is the 
 weakness of the faculty only that reduces this demonstration to what you 
 
364 MB HUME'S SCEPTICISM ABOUT REASON. QeSSAY VII. 
 
 call probability. You must not therefore make it a second uncertainty ; 
 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 estimation you make of the truth 
 and fidelity of your faculties. I answer. This estimation is ambiguously 
 expressed : it may either mean an estimation of my liableness to err by the 
 misapplication arid 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 fallacious 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 creatures, to carry along with us, in all our judgments, a sense of 
 our fallibility. It is true also, that we are fli greater danger of erring in 
 some cases, and less in others ; and that this danger of erring may, ac- 
 cording to the circumstances of the case, admit of an estimation, which we 
 ought likewise to carry along with us in every judgment we form. 
 
 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, there is 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 further urges, that this decision, though favourable to my 
 first judgment, being founded only on probability, must still weaken the 
 evidence of that judgment. 
 
 Here I cannot help being of a quite contrary opinion, nor can I imagine 
 how an ingenious author could impose upon himself so grossly, for surely 
 he did not intend to impose upon his reader. 
 
 After repeated examinations of a proposition 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 judgment. 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 evidence, 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 wit- 
 ness ; the second, after a scrutiny into the character of the witness, wipes 
 ofi^ every objection that can be made to it, and therefore surely must con- 
 firm and not weaken his testimony. 
 
 But let us suppose, that, in another case, I examine my first judgment 
 upon some point, and find, that it was attended with unfavourable circum- 
 stances. What, in reason, and according to the rules of logic, ought to be 
 the effect of this discovery ? 
 
 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. 
 
CHAP. IV.] MR. Hume's scepticism about reason. 365 
 
 It is evident, that this review of the subject may confirm my first judg- 
 ment, notwithstanding 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 character-of the judge, but upon the nature of the case. From that 
 only, it must be determined whether the decision be just. The circum- 
 stances that rendered it suspicious are mere presumptions, which have no 
 force against direct evidence. 
 
 Thus, I have considered the eflfect 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 we have direct evidence. The effect of an un- 
 favourable presumption should only be, to make us examine the evidence 
 with the greater care. 
 
 The sceptic urges, in the last place, that this estimation must be sub- 
 jected to another estimation, that to another, and so on in infinitum ; and 
 as every new estimation takes away from the evidence of the first judgment, 
 it must at last be totally annihilated. 
 
 I answer, Jirst, it has been shown above, that the first estimation, sup- 
 posing it unfavourable, can only afford a presumption against the first 
 judgment ; the second, upon the same supposition, will be only the pre- 
 sumption of a presumption ; and the third, the presumption that there is a 
 presumption of a presumption. This infinite series of presumptions 
 resembles an infinite series of quantities decreasing in geometrical pro- 
 portion, which amounts only to a finite sum. The infinite series of stages 
 of Achilles's journey 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 judgment, supposing them all to be un- 
 favourable to it. 
 
 Secondly, I have shown, that the estimation of our first judgment may 
 strengthen it ; and the same thing may be said of all the subsequent esti- 
 mations. It would, therefore, be as reasonable to conclude, that the first 
 judgment will be brought to infallible certainty when this series of estima- 
 tions 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 judg- 
 ment is supported, has, and in reason ought to have, more force to strengthen 
 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. 
 
 •A wise man who has practised reasoning knows that he is fallible, and 
 carries this conviction along with him in every judgment 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 subse- 
 quent judgment, he discovers 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. 
 
366 MB. Hume's scepticism about reason. Cessay vh. 
 
 If the man proceed in this order, I grant, that his second judgment will, 
 with good reason, bring down the first from supposed infallibility to falli- 
 bility ; and that his third judgment will, in some degree, either strengthen 
 or weaken the first, as it is corrected by the second. 
 
 But every man of understanding proceeds in a contrary order. When 
 about to judge in any particular point, he knows already that he is not in- 
 fallible. ' 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 judgment, 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 estimations, as this 
 author requires, but to examine the evidence of his first judgment care- 
 fully and coolly ; and this review may very reasonably, according to its 
 result, either strengthen or weaken, or totally overturn his first judgment. 
 
 This infinite series of estimations, therefore, 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 
 matter 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 inconsistent with what he advanced before. 
 
 By the possibility of error in the estimation of the truth and fidelity of 
 our faculties, may be meant, that we may err by esteeming 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, Jird, That the truth and fidelity of our 
 faculty of judging 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 judgment 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, Avhich 
 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 reasoning, and to the possibility of conviction 
 by that means. The sceptic has here got possession of a strong hold which 
 is impregnable to reasoning, and we must leave him in possession of it, till 
 nature, by other means, makes him give it up. 
 
 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 efiect 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 princJpH. 
 
CHAr. IV.] MR. HUME'S SCEPTICISM ABOUT REASON. 367 
 
 All we would ask of this kind of sceptic is, 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 shown 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 person, was ever 
 sincerely and constantly of that opinion. Nature, by an absolute and un- 
 controllable necessity, has determined us to judge, as well as to breathe and 
 feel. My intention, therefore," says he, "in displaying so carefully the 
 arguments of that fantastic sect, is only to make the reader sensible of the 
 truth of my hypothesis, that all our reasonings concerning causes and 
 eflFects, are derived from nothing but custom, and that belief is more 
 properly an act of the sensitive than of the cogitative part of our nature." 
 
 We have before considered the first part of this hypothesis. Whether 
 our reasoning about causes be derived only from custom ? 
 
 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 h? 
 calls the cogitative part of our nature. 
 
 If this be the meaning, I agree to it in part. The belief of first prin- 
 ciples is not an act of the reasoning power : for all reasoning must be 
 grounded upon them. We judge them to be true, and believe them with- 
 out 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 reasoning from first 
 principles, may, I think, be called an act of the reasoning faculty. 
 
 Upon the whole, I see only two conclusions that can be fairly drawn 
 from this profound and intricate reasoning against reason, 'rhe first is. 
 That we are fallible in all our judgments and in all our reasonings. 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 hypothesis, but a manifest truth ; though I conceive 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. 
 
ESSAY VIII. 
 
 OF TASTE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OF TASTE IN GENERA!,. 
 
 That power of the mind by which we are capable of discerning and re- 
 lishing the beauties of nature, and whatever is excellent 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 contem- 
 plate. 
 
 ' 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 
 influenced by habit, by associations, and by opinion. These obvious ana- 
 logies 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. 
 
 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 account 
 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 occasion 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 internal 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 object 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 gleases 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 ex- 
 cellent air. 
 
CHAP. I.] OF TASTE IN GENERAL. 369 
 
 This ought the rather to be observed, because it is become a fashion 
 among modern philosophers, to resolve all our perceptions into mere feel- 
 ings or sensations in the person that perceives, without any thing corre- 
 sponding to those feelings in the external object. According to those phi- 
 losophers, 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 sensation or feel- 
 ing in the person that perceives 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 con- 
 tradicts it. I had occasion to show, that there is no solid foundation for it 
 when applied to the secondary qualities of body ; and the same arguments 
 show equally, that it has no solid foundation when appilied 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 efl^ect, and have no more knowledge of the cause, but 
 that it is something 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 why. To one who understands it perfectly, and per- 
 ceives 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 distin- 
 guish them by the bodies in which they are found. 
 
 In like manner all the objects of our internal taste are either beau- 
 tiful, or disagreeable, 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 woman, 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 diflferent objects to which they belong. 
 
 As there is such diversity in the kinds of beauty as well as in the de- 
 grees, 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 natural ; beauties in the objects of 
 sense, and in intellectual objects ; in the works of men, and in the works of 
 God ; in things inanimate, 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 difficult to enumerate the in- 
 gredients of beauty as the ingredients of real excellence. 
 
 3. The taste 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 contrary nature. The manifest intention of Nbt 
 ture in giving us this sense, is, that we may discern what it is fit for us 
 
370 OF TASTE IN GKNEUAt. [kSSAV Vllt. 
 
 to eat and to drink, and what it is not. Brute animals are directed in 
 the choice of their food merely by their taste. 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 com- 
 positions. In infants likewise the taste is commonly sound and uncor- 
 rupted, and of the simple productions 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 depraved 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 depraved 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 arid 
 corrupted taste. For it is too evident, that, by bad education, bad habits, 
 and wrong associations, men may acquire a relish for nastiness, 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 de- 
 lights 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 Esquimaux 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 ipecacuanha, to some persons, who may be brought by use to relish 
 what they once found so disagreeable. 
 
 When we see such varieties in the taste of the palate produced by cus- 
 tom and associations, and some perhaps by constitution, 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 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 
 absurdities; and why should it be thought that the taste is less capable of 
 being perverted than the judgment ? It must indeed be acknowledged, 
 that men differ more in the faculty of taste than in what we commonly 
 call judgment ; and therefore it maybe 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 ac- 
 count for the variety of tastes, though there be in nature a standard of true , 
 
mAV. 1.3 OF TASTE IN GENERAr,. 37J 
 
 lewty, and consequently of good taste; as it is to account for the variety 
 ana contrariety of opinions, though there be in nature a standard of truth, 
 and consequently of right judgment. 
 
 6. Nay, if we apeak accurately and strictly, we shall find, that in every 
 operation of taste, there is judgment implied! 
 
 When a man pronounces a poem or a palace to be beautiful, he affirms 
 Somethmg 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 show, when treating of judgment, that it is implied in 
 every perception of our external senses. There is an immediate 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 perceives, without any belief of excellence in the object, the ne- 
 cessary consequence of this opinion is, that when I say Virgil's Georgics 
 is a beautiful poem, I mean not to say any thing of the poem, but only 
 something concerning myself and my feelings. Why should I use a 
 language that expresses the contrary of what I mean ? 
 
 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 perceives it, find themselves under a necessity of 
 expressing themselves, as if beauty were solely a quality of the object, and 
 Iiot of the percipient. 
 
 No reason can be given why all mankind should express themselves 
 thus, but that they believe what they say. It is therefore 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. 
 
 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 accompanied with an agreeable 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 ex- 
 cellence, some superiority to those that do not please. In some cases, that 
 superior excellence is distinctly perceived, and can be pointed out ; in other 
 cases we have only a general notion 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, results from its nature or structure. 
 To perceive the beauty, therefore, we must perceive 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 any thing 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 unless the object be perceived by some other power of the mind. 
 
 B Bj2 
 
372 OF NOVELTY. [eSSAY A'lll. 
 
 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 may 
 be a good judge of beauties of another kind, but can have no notion of 
 melody or harmony. The like may be said of beauties in colouring and in 
 figure, which can never be perceived without the senses by which colour 
 and figure are perceived. 
 
 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 philosopher, 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, novelty, 
 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 qualities that please the taste, but not for all ; and therefore all those 
 fall under the general 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 enumerate 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 deformitv. 
 
 The division of our external senses is taken from the organs of per- 
 ception, and not from the qualities perceived. We have not the same 
 means of dividing the internal ; 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 
 distinct names for the various kinds of beauty and deformity ; and I sus- 
 pect 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. What is new to one 
 man, may not be so to another ; what is new this moment, may be familiar 
 to the same person some time hence. When an object is first brought to 
 our knowledge, it is new, whether it be agreeable or not. 
 
 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 
 
CHAP. H.] OF NOVELTY. 373 
 
 pleasure upon that account, if it be not in itself disagreeable. It rouses 
 our attentioDj and occasions an agreeable exertion of our faculties. 
 
 The pleasure we receive from novelty in objects has so great influence 
 in human life, that it well deserves the attention of philosophers; and 
 several ingenious authors, particularly Dr. Gerard in his Essay on Taste, 
 have, I think, successfully accounted for it, from the principles of the 
 human constitution. 
 
 We can perhaps conceive a being so made, that his happiness consists 
 in a continuance 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 vnthout it ; his enjoyments 
 seem to be given by nature, not so much for their own sake, as to en- 
 courage the exercise of his various powers. That tranquillity of soul in 
 which some place human happiness, is not a dead rest, but a regular pro- 
 gressive 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 virith them. That our desire and hope be properly di- 
 rected, 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 faculties, or their exercise will become languid, and 
 the pleasure that attends it sicken of course. 
 
 The notions of enjoyment, and of activity, considered abstractly, are no 
 doubt very different, and we cannot perceive a necessary connexion be- 
 tween them. But, in our constitution, 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. 
 
 An object at first, pe'rhaps, gave much pleasure, while attention was di- 
 rected 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 
 pleasure we have from novelty in objects. 
 
 Curiosity is commonly strongest in children and in young persons, and 
 accordingly novelty pleases them most. In all ages, in proportion as no- 
 velty gratifies curiosity, and occasions a vigorous exertion of any of our 
 mental powers in attending to the new object, in the same proportion it 
 gives pleasure. 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 owmg 
 solely or chiefly to their being new, but to some other circumstance that 
 gives them value. The new fashion in dress, furniture, equipage, and 
 other accommodations of life, gives pleasure, 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. 
 
374 OF GKAKDEUB. CeSSAY VIII. 
 
 In srane 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 ar6 
 justly disgusted. 
 
 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 compared 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 GRANDEUK. 
 
 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 invigorates 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 Supreme Being is the most grand. 
 His eternity, his immensity, his irresistible power, his infinite knowledge 
 and unerring wisdom, his inflexible justice and rectitude, his supreme 
 government, conducting all the movements of this vast universe to the 
 noblest ends, and in the wisest manner, are objects which fill the utmost 
 capacity of the soul, and reach far beyond its comprehension. 
 
 The emotion which this grandest of all objects raises in tie humaii 
 mind, is what we call devotion ; a serious recollected temper, which inspires 
 magnanimity, and disposes to the most heroic acts of virtue. 
 
 The emotion produced by other objects which may be called grand, 
 though in an inferior degree, is, in its nature and in its eflTects, similar to 
 that of devotion. It disposes to seriousness, elevates the mind above its 
 usual state, to a kind of enthusiasm, and inspires magnanimity, and a 
 contempt of what is mean. 
 
 Such, I conceive, is the emotion which the cohtemj^latio^n of grand 
 objects raises in us. We are next to consider what this grandeur lA 
 objects is. 
 
 To me it seems to be nothing else but such a d^ree of excellenee, ia 
 one kind or another, as merits our admiration. 
 
 There are some attributes of mind which have a real and intrinsic ex- 
 cellence, compared with their contraries, and which, in every degree, are 
 the natural objects of esteem, but, in an uncommon degree, are objects 
 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 SelnSation in oui- miflds, and 
 not any thing inherent in the object; and that we might have beensocon* 
 
CHAP. UI J OF GRANDEUE. 375 
 
 Btituted as to put the highest value upon the things which we now despise, 
 ,and to despise the qualities which we now highly esteem. 
 
 It gives me pleasure to observe, that Dr. Price, in his Review of the 
 <Juestions concerning Morals, strenuously opposes this opinion, as well^s 
 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 generality of modern 
 philosophers, of the origin of all our ideas ; which account he shows to be 
 very defective. 
 
 This proneness to resolve every thing 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, men are prone by nature and by habit to give all their atten- 
 tion to things external. Their notions of the mind, and its operations, are 
 formed from some analogy they bear to objects of sense ; and an external 
 existence is ascribed to things which are only conceptions or feelings of 
 the mind. 
 
 This spirit prevailed much in the philosophy both of Plato and of 
 Aristotle, and produced the mysterious notions 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 discovered, that many things supposed tq 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 every 
 thing into sensations, 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 sen- 
 sations 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 external existence, found that extension, solidity, figure, and all the 
 primary quaUties of body, are sensations or feelings of the mind; and 
 that the material world is a phenomenon only, and has no existence but 
 in our mind. 
 
 It was then a very natural progress to conceive, 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 constitution, whether we do, or do not 
 perceive excellence 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 excellence, grandeur. 
 
376 OF GEANDEUB. [ESSAr VIII. 
 
 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 mankind and true philosophy not to be at variance. 
 
 Is not power in its nature more excellent than weakness ; knowledge 
 than ignorance; wisdom than folly; fortitude than pusillanimity? 
 
 Is there no intrinsic excellence in self-command, in generosity, in public 
 spirit ? Is not friendship a better aifection of mind than hatred ; a noble 
 emulation, than envy ? 
 
 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 any thing 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 operation of his oivn 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 excellence 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 admiration ; 
 and that which merits admiration we call grand. 
 
 In the contemplation of uncommon excellence, the mind feels a noble 
 enthusiasm, which disposes it to the imitation of what it admires. 
 
 When we contemplate the character of Cato, his greatness of soul, his 
 superiority to pleasure, to toil, and to danger, his ardent 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 > 
 
 Such a spectacle of a great soul struggling with misfortune, Seneca 
 thought not- unworthy of the attention of Jupiter himself: " Ecce spec- 
 taculum 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 de- 
 scriptions given in holy writ of his attributes and works, even when 
 clothed in simple expressions, are acknowledged to be sublime. The ex- 
 pression 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 pro- 
 per expression of the admiration and enthusiasm which the subject pro- 
 duces in the mind of the speaker. If this admiration and enthusiasm 
 appears to be just, it carries the .hearer along with it involuntarily, and by 
 a kind of violence rather than by cool conviction : 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 justified by the subject or the occasion, it produces in the ju- 
 dicious hearer no other emotion 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. 
 
CHAP. III.] OF GUANDKUR. 377 
 
 though it should be artless^ is .irresistible^ like fire thrown into th,e midst 
 of combustible matter. 
 
 When we contemplate the earthy 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 golden compasses, prepared 
 In God's eternal store, to circumscribe 
 This universe, and all created things. 
 One foot he center' d, and the other turn'd 
 Round through the vast profundity obscure ; 
 And said, Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds ; 
 This be thy just circumference, O world. 
 
 When we contemplate the world of Epicurus, and conceive the uni- 
 verse 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 spec- 
 tacle which elevates the understanding and fills the soul with devout 
 admiration. 
 
 A great work is a work of great power, great wisdom, and great good- 
 ness, well contrived for some important end. But power, wisdom, and 
 goodness, are properly the attributes 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 inhe- 
 rent 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 persons only, and not of actions. 
 In the action considered abstractly, th«re is neither valour, nor virtue, nor 
 generosity. The same action done from a diflierent motive may deserve 
 none of those epithets. 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 efiiect a quality 
 which is inherent dnly in the cause. 
 
 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. 
 
378 01' GRANDEUR. [ESSAY VIII. 
 
 Next to the Deity and his works, we admire great talents and heroic 
 virtue in men, whether represented in history or in fiction. The virtues 
 of Cato, Aristides, Socrates, 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 per- 
 sonages. 
 
 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. 
 
 Sic ait, ac dicto citius tumida aequora placat : 
 Ac veluti magno in populo, si forte coorta est 
 Seditio, saevitque animis ignobile vulg'us ; 
 Jamque faces et saxa volant, furor arraa ministrat ; 
 Turn pietate gravem, et meritis, si forte virum quern 
 Conspexere, silent, arrectisque auribus adstant. 
 Ille regit dictis animos, et pectora mulcet. 
 Sic cunctus pelagi cecidit fragor. 
 
 The wonderful genius of Sir Isaac Newton, and his sagacity in dis- 
 covering 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 ? 
 
 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 eflFects 
 or si^s, or to which they bear some relation or analogy. 
 
 Besides the relations of eflfect and cause, of sign and thing signified, 
 there are innumerable 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 re- 
 membered, 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. 
 
 The poverty of language, no doubt, contributes in part to the use of 
 metaphor ; and therefore we find the most barren and uncultivated lan- 
 guages the most metaphorical. But the most copious language may be 
 called barren, compared with the fertility of human conceptions, and can 
 never, without the use of iigures, keep pace with the variety of their delicate 
 modifications. 
 
 But another cause of the use of metaphor is, that we find pleasure in 
 discovering relations, similitudes, analogies, and even contrasts that are not 
 obvious to every eye. All figurative speech presents something of this 
 kind ; and the beauty of poetical language seems to be derived in a great 
 measure from this source. 
 
 Of all figurative language^ that is the most common, the most natural. 
 
CHAP. III.] OF GKANDEtra. 379 
 
 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, intellectual objects may perhaps ap- 
 pear to most advantage in their naked simplicity. But we can hardly con- 
 ceive 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, between 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 some- 
 thing common in the nature of the things. 
 
 But we shall find many qualities of mind, denoted by names taken from 
 some quality of body to which they have some analogyj without any thing 
 common in their nature. 
 
 Sweetness and austerity, simplicity and duplicity, rectitude and crooked- 
 ness, 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 qua- 
 lities 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 ascribing to them intellectual qualities which have some analogy 
 to those they really possess. The sea rages, the sky lours, the meadows 
 smile, the rivulets murmur, the breezes whisper, the soil is grateful or un- 
 grateful : such expressions are so familiar in common language, that they 
 are scarcely accounted poetical or figurative : but they give a kind of dig- 
 nity to inanimate objects, and make our conteption of them more agreeable. 
 
 When we consider matter as an Inert, extended, -divisible, and moveable 
 substance, there seems to be nothing in these qualities which vce can call 
 grand ; 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 ; or, perhaps, because it produces in the mind an emotion that has 
 some resemblance to that admiration which truly grand objecte raise ? 
 
 A very elegant Writer on the sublime and beautiful, makes every thing 
 grand or sublime that is terrible. Might he not be led to this by the 
 similarity between dread and admiration ? Both are grave and solemn pas- 
 sions ; both make a strong impression upon the mind ; and both are very 
 infectious. But they differ specifically, in this respect, that admiration 
 supposes some uncommon 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 
 naturally accompanies admiration, and is a chief ingrediient 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 excellence as is fit to raise an enthusiastical admiration ; that this 
 
380 OF BEAUTY, , [kssay vii;. 
 
 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 
 difl'erent in their nature, and produce very different emotions in the mind 
 of the spectator. 
 
 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 
 jnotion. There are beauties of speech, and beauties of thought ; beauties 
 in the arts, and in the sciences i 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 ? 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 ? 
 
 I am indeed unable to conceive any quality 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 ? This 
 cannot be without a reason. If there be nothing common 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. 
 
 All the objects we call beautiful agree in two things, which seem to con- 
 cur 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 contemplating beautiful objects may 
 have any necessary connexion with the belief of their excellence, or whether 
 that pleasure be conjoined with this belief, by the good pleasure only of 
 our Maker, I wrill not determine. The reader may see Dr. Price's senti- 
 ments upon this subject, which merit consideration, 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 disjoined, this affords no evidence that they have no necessary 
 connexion. It has indeed been maintained, that whatever we can conceive, 
 is possible : but I endeavoured, in treating of conception, to show, that this 
 opinion, though very common, is a mistake. There may be, and probably 
 are, many necessary connexions of things in nature, which we are too dim- 
 sighted to discover. 
 
 The emotion produced by beautiful objects is gay and pleasant. It 
 
CHAP. IV.] OF BEAUTY. 381 
 
 sweetens and humanizes the temper, is friendly to every benevolent affec- 
 tion, and tends to aUay 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, abstracted from its utility. 
 
 In things that may be possessed as property, beauty greatly enhances 
 the price. A beautiful dog or horse, a beautiful coach or house, a beautiful 
 picture or prospect, is valued by its owner and by others, not only for its 
 utility, but for its beauty. 
 
 If the beautiful object be a person, his company and conversation are, on 
 that account, the more agreeable, and we are disposed to love and esteem 
 him. Even in a perfect stranger, it is a powerful recommendation, and 
 disposes us to favour and think well of him, if of our own sex, and still 
 more if of the other. 
 
 ''There is nothing," says Mr. Addison, "that makes its way more 
 directly to the soul than beauty, which immediately diffuses a secret satis- 
 faction and complacence through the imagination, and gives a finishing to 
 any thing 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 we ascribe beauty, not only to persons, but to inanimate things, we 
 give the name of love or liking 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 affection of mind from liking to an inanimate thing. The 
 first always implies benevolence; but what is inanimate cannot be the 
 object of benevolence. 
 
 The two affections, however different, have a resemblance in some 
 respects ; and, on account of that resemblance, have the same name : 
 and perhaps beauty, in these two different kinds of objects, though it has 
 one name, may be as different in its nature as the emotions which it pro- 
 duces in us. 
 
 Besides the agreeable emotion which beautiful objects produce in the 
 mind of the spectator, they produce also an opinion or judgment of some 
 perfection or excellence in the object. This I take to be a second ingredient 
 in our sense of beauty, though it seems not to be admitted by modern 
 philosophers. 
 
 The ingenious Dr. Hutcheson, who perceived some of the defects of Mr. 
 Locke's system, and made very important improvements upon it, seems to 
 have been carried away by it, in his notion of beauty. In his Inquiry con- 
 cerning Beauty, Sect. 1, "Let it be observed," says "he, that, in the fol- 
 lowing 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 understood 
 any quality supposed to be in the object which should, of itself, be beau- 
 tiful, without relation to any mind which perceives it : for beauty, like 
 other names of sensible ideas, properly denotes the perception 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 otherwise. 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 philosophers, to apply to beauty, what Des Cartes and. 
 
383. OF BEAUTJt;. [essay vhi. 
 
 Locke had taught concerning the secondary qualitieSj perceived by 4Jie 
 external senses. 
 
 Mr. Locke's doctrine concerning the secondary qualities of body, is not 
 so much an error in judgment as an abuse of words. 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 simi- 
 litude between one of these and the other, 'ihey 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 sen- 
 sations are the very form and image of the quality in the object by which 
 they are produced. 
 
 What remained to be determined was, whether the words, heat and cold, 
 in common 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 monstrous 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 sweetness. 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, must be true or false. 
 If it be a true judgment, there is some real excellence in the object. And 
 the use of all languages shows, that the name of beauty belongs to this 
 excellence of the object, and not to the feelings 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 j 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 duU to perceive. We see many beauties, both of human and divine 
 art, which the brute animals are incapable of perceiving; and superior 
 beings may excel us as far in their discernment of true beauty as we excel 
 the brutes. 
 
 The man vrho is skilled in painting or statuary, sees more of the beauty 
 of a fine picture or statue than a common spectator. The same thing holds 
 in all the fine arts. The most perfect works of art have a beauty that 
 strikes even the rude and ignorant ; 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 
 
CHAP. 1V.3 OF beauty; 383 
 
 laws by which they are governed, the greater beauty, and the more delight, 
 -ful marks of art, wisdom, and goodness, we discern. 
 
 Thus the expert anatomist sees numberless 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, occultations, 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. 
 
 In every part of nature's works, there are numberless beauties, which, 
 on account of our ignorance, we are unable to perceive. Superior beings 
 may see more than we ; but He only who made them, and, upon a review, 
 pronounced them all to be very good, can see all their beauty. 
 
 Our determinations with regard to the beauty of objects, may, I think, 
 be distinguished into two kinds ; the first we may call instinctive, the other 
 rational. 
 
 Some objects strike us at once, and appear beautiful at first sight, with- 
 out any reflection, without our being able to say why we call them beau- 
 tiful, or being able to specify any perfection which justifies our judgment. 
 Something of this kind there seems to-be in brute animals, and in children 
 before the use of reason; nor does it end with infancy, but continues 
 through life. 
 
 In the plumage of birds and of butterflies, in the colours and form of 
 flowers, of shells, and of many other objects, we perceive a beauty that 
 delights ; but cannot say what it is in the object that should produce that 
 emotion. 
 
 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 proper subject 
 of philosophical disquisition ; and, by a careful examination of the objects 
 to which nature hath given this amiable quality, we may perhaps discover 
 some real excellence in the object, or, at least, some valuable purpose that 
 is served by the effect which it produces upon us. 
 
 This instinctive sense of beauty, in different species of animals, may 
 differ as much as the external sense of taste, and in each species be adapted 
 to its manner of life. By this perhaps the various tribes are led to associate 
 with their kind, to dwell among certain objects rather than others, and to 
 construct their habitation in a particular manner. 
 
 There seem likewise to be varieties in" the sense of beauty in the indi- 
 viduals 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 ofthem is most 
 affected with the beauties of its own kind. This is no where more remark- 
 able than in birds of the same shape and proportion, where we often see 
 the mate determined in his courtship by the single grain or tincture of a 
 fleather, and never discovering any charms but in the colour of its own 
 species." 
 
384 OTF BEAUTY. [KSSAY VIII. 
 
 "Scit thalamo servare fidenij sanctasque veretur 
 Conhubii leg6s ; non ilium in pectore candor 
 Sollicitat niveus ; neque pravum accendit amorem 
 Splendida lanugo, vel honesta in vertice crista ; 
 Purpureusve nitor pennarum ; ast agmina late 
 Foenainea explorat cautus, maculasque requirit 
 Cognatas, paribusque interlita corpora guttis : 
 Ni faceretj pictis sylvam circum undique monstris 
 Confusam aspiceres vulgo, partusque biformes, 
 Et genus ambiguum^ et veneris monumenta nefandoe. 
 
 " Hinc msrula in nigro se oblectat nigra marito ; 
 Hinc socium lasciva petit philomela canorum, 
 Agnoscitque pares sonitus ; hinc noctua tetram 
 Canitiem alarum, et glaucos miratur ocellos. 
 Nempe sibi semper constat, crescitque 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 vifhich 
 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. 
 
 As far as our determinations of the comparative beauty of objects are 
 instinctive, they are no subject of reasoning or of criticism ; 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 con- 
 ceived, and may be specified. 
 
 This distinction between a rational judgment of beauty and that which 
 is instinctive, may be illustrated by an instance. 
 
 In a heap of pebbles, one that is remarkable for brilliancy of colour and 
 regularity of figure, will be picked out of the heap by a child He per- 
 ceives 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, 
 constitution, 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 materials, and of 
 the most proper form ; nothing 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 par- 
 ticular perfections of the object on which it is grounded. 
 
 Although the instinctive and the rational sense of beauty may be per- 
 fectly distinguished in speculation, yet, in passing judgment upon par- 
 ticiilar objects, they are often 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 perfection, 
 of which that beauty in the object is a sign. 
 
CHAP. IV.] OF BEAUTY. 385 
 
 As the sense of beauty may be distinguished into instinctive and 
 rational ; so I think beauty itself may be distinguished into original and 
 derived. 
 
 As some objects shine by their ovifn 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 language of all nations, than what may be called a communication 
 of attributes ; that is, transferring an attribute from the subject to which 
 it properly belongs, to some related or resembling subject. 
 
 The various objects which nature presents to our view, even those that 
 are most difierent in kind, have innumerable similitudes, 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 language under heaven is 
 made up of words borrowed from one thing, and applied to something sup- 
 posed to have some relation or analogy to their first signification. 
 
 The attributes of body we ascribe to mind, and the attributes of mind 
 to material objects. To inanimate things we ascribe life, and even in- 
 tellectual 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 metaphorically, these different senses are often so mixed in our ima-» 
 gination, as to produce the same sentiment with regard to both. 
 
 It is therefore natural and agreeable to the strain of human sentiments 
 and of human language, that in many fcases 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 perfectly analogous to it. I shall there- 
 fore only illustrate it by an example. 
 
 There is nothing in the exterior of a man more lovely and more attractive 
 than perfect good-breeding. But what is this good-breeding? It consists 
 of aU the external signs of due respect to our superiors, condescension 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. . j . • 4.1, 
 
 This is the original, of which good-breeding is the picture ; and it is the 
 beauty of the original that is reflected to our sense by the picture. 1 he 
 beauty of good-breeding, therefore, is not originally in the external be- 
 haviour in which it consists, but is derived from the qualities ot 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 naturaUy 
 
 ^"^Havfng explained these distinctions of our sense of beauty into in- 
 stinctive and rational, and of beauty .itself into original and derived, 1 
 would now proceed to give a general view of those qualities in objects 
 
 C C ' 
 
38,6 OF BEAUTY. [iCSSAY Villi 
 
 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 every thing that pleasesa 
 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 re- 
 membered, or imagined. Yet it is admitted by all men, that there 
 are beauties in music ; that there is beauty as well as sublimity in com- 
 position, both in verse and in prose ; that there is beauty in characters, in 
 affections, and in actions. These are not objects 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 division 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 every thing fitted by its nature to 
 please a good taste, that is, every real perfection and excellence in the 
 objects we contemplate. 
 
 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 philo- 
 sophers. And this connexion of beauty with real perfection, was a capital 
 doctrine of the Socratic school. It is often ascribed to Socrates in the 
 dialogues 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 admiration, beauty naturally prodjices 
 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 constitute a lovely character. Innocence, gentleness, condescension, 
 humanity, natural affection, public spirit, and the whole train of the soft 
 and gentle virtues. These qualities, are amiableifrom their very nature, and 
 on account of their intrinsic worth. 
 
CHAf.;IV.3 OF BEAUTY. 387 
 
 There are other virtues that raise admiration, and are therefore grand ; 
 such as magnanimity, fortitude, self-command, superiority 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 cha- 
 racter ; 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 aremanyintellectualtalentswhich 
 have an intrinsic value, and draw our love and esteem to those who possess 
 them. Such are knowledge, good sense, wit, humour, cheerfulness, 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 me- 
 chanic 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 per- 
 fections of mind, and in its active powers, that beauty originally dwells ; 
 and that from this as the fountain, aU the beauty which we perceive in the 
 visible world is derived. 
 
 This, I think, was the opinion of the ancient philosophers before 
 named; and it has been adopted by Lord Shaftesbury and Dr. Aken- 
 side among the moderns. 
 
 " Mind, mind alone, bear witness earth and heaven. 
 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 ob- 
 ject of perception to man. We are, indeed, immediately 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 flattering 
 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 intellectual quality 
 in other beings. The signs of those qualities are immediately perceived by 
 the senses ; by them the qualities themselves are reflected to our under- 
 standing ; and we are very apt to attribute to the sign tlie beauty or the 
 grandeur, which is properly and originally in the thing 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 production. Their external behaviour 
 and conduct in life express the good or bad qualities of their mind. 
 
 In every species of animals, we perceive by visible signs their instinctSj 
 
388 OF BEAUTY. [ESSAV VIII. 
 
 their appetites, their afFections, their sagacity. Even in the inanimate 
 world there are many things analogous to the qualities of mind ; so that 
 there is hardly any thing belonging to mind, which may not be repre- 
 sented 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 invisible in themselves, are per- 
 ceived in the object 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 beautiful. 
 
 When we consider inanimate matter abstractly, as a substance endowed 
 with the qualities of extension, solidity, divisibility, and mobility, there 
 seems to be nothing in these qualities that affects our sense of beauty. 
 But when we contemplate the globe which we inhabit as fitted by its form, 
 by its motions, and by its furniture, 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 structures of human art can bear no comparison. 
 
 The only perfection of dead matter is its being, by its various forms and 
 qualities, so admirably fitted for the purposes of animal life, and chiefly 
 that of man. It furnishes 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 vegetable kingdom, ande ndowed 
 with a kind of life ; a work which human art cannot imitate, nor human 
 understanding comprehend. 
 
 In the bodies and various organs of the animal tribes, there is a com- 
 position of matter still more wonderful and more mysterious, though we 
 see it to be admirably adapted to the purposes and manner of life of every 
 species. But in every form, unorganized, 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 exhibits. 
 
 The qualities of inanimate matter in which we perceive beauty, are, 
 sound, colour, form, and motion ; the first an object of hearing, the other 
 three of sight ; which we may consider in order. 
 
 In a single note, sounded by a very fine voice, there is a beauty which 
 we do not perceive in the same note, sounded by a bad voice, or an im- 
 perfect 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 perfection ; and the per- 
 fection 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 vta-y 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 propej-ly signify. 
 
CHAP. IV.] OF BEATJTY. 389 
 
 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 friendship, 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 voice, even when they 
 are angry, as in the lowest rank, who express their angry passions without 
 any restraint. 
 
 When discord arises occasionally in conversation, 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 iu 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 fanciful, or have any real 
 foundation in fact, I submit to those who liave 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 ap- 
 plication of the names of concord and discord to the relations of sounds ; 
 to account for the pleasure we have from harmony in music ; and to show, 
 that the beauty of harmony is derived from the relation it has to agreeable 
 affections 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 th« tones of 
 the human voice in the expression of some sentiment or passion, or an imi- 
 tation of some other object in nature ; and that music, as well as poetry, 
 is an imitative art. 
 
 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 produced 
 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 commonly signs of some good or bad- 
 quality in the object ; or they may suggest to the imagination something 
 agreeable or disagreeable. 
 
 In dress and furniture, fashion has a considerable influence on the pre- 
 ference we give to one colour above another. 
 
 A number of cjouds of different and everchanging 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 b^h 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 furniture 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 presi?nt, but to be poured down 
 
390 OP BEAUTY. [essay VIII. 
 
 upon the earth in due season. 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 arrange- 
 ment gives the most distinct, the most natural, and the most agreeable 
 image of that which the painter intended to represent. 
 
 If we consider, in the last place, the beauty of form or figure in in- 
 animate objects, this, according to Dr. Hutcheson, results from regularity^ 
 mixed with variety. Here it ought to be observed, that regularity, in aU 
 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 observed, that regular figures 
 are more easily and more perfectly comprehended by the mind than this 
 irregular, of which we can never form an adequate conception. 
 
 Although straight lines and plain surfaces have a beauty from their re- 
 gularity, 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 therefore, 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 
 every thing made for an end, the form must be^ adapted to that end; and 
 every thing in the form that suits the end, is a beauty ; every thing that 
 unfits it for its end, is a deformity. 
 
 The forms of a pillar, of a sword, and of a balance, are very diiferent. 
 Each may have great beauty ; but that beauty. is derived from the fitness 
 of the form, and of the matter, for the purpose intended. 
 
 Were we to consider the form of the earth itself, and the various fur- 
 niture it contains, of the inanimate 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 
 ef the seasons ; the beauty of all these, which indeed is superlative, con- 
 sists 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 in- 
 animate matter, 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 instinct, recommends to his attention. By de- 
 grees, 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 pro- 
 ductions of nature, and traces them from their embryo state in the seed to 
 
CHAP. IV.] or BlilAUTY. 391 
 
 their maturitVj he sees a thousand beautiful contrivances of nature, which 
 feast his understanding more than their external form delighted his eye. 
 
 Thus, every beauty in the vegetable creation, of vi'hich he has formed 
 any rational judgment, expresses some perfection in the object, or some 
 wise contrivance in its Author. 
 
 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 Ihe 
 powers they possess, their outward form, and their inward structure, 
 exactly adapted to it. In every species, the more perfectly any individual 
 is fitted for its end and manner of life, the greater is its beauty. 
 
 la a race-horse, ei^ery thing that expresses agility, ardour, and emulation, 
 gives beauty to the animal. In a pointer, acuteness of scent, eagerness on 
 the game, "and tractableness, 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 celeteated Linnaeus, that, in the vegetable 
 kingdom, the poisonous plants have commonly a lurii and disagreeable 
 appearance to the eye, of which he gives many instances. I apprehend 
 the observation may be extended to the animal kingdom, in which we 
 commonly see something shocking to the eye in the noxious and poisonous 
 animals. 
 
 The beauties which anatomists and physiologists describe in the internal 
 structure of the various tribes of animals ; in the organs of sense, of nutri- 
 tion, and of motion, are expressive of wise design and contrivance, in fitting 
 them for the various kinds of life for which they are intended. 
 
 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 expressive of wise design in Him who made them, 
 and that their beauty is derived from the perfection 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 surveying 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 their looks divine, 
 The image of their glorious Maker, shone 
 Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe, and pure ; 
 Severe, but in true filial freedom placed, 
 I Whence true authority in man ; though both 
 
 Not equal, as their sex not equal seem'd : 
 For contemplation he, and valour form'd. 
 For softness she, and sweet attractive grace. , 
 
 In fTiia wpll known mssafffi of Milton, We see that this great poet' 
 
392 OF BEAUTY. [ESSAY VIII. 
 
 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 account 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 Pdymetis, and 
 republished by Dodsley in his Collection of Fugitive Pieces. 
 
 I shall borrow from that author some observations, which, I think, tend 
 to show 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 njuch greater charms they receive from being 
 properly blended together ; 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 authority of Cicero : Ve- 
 nustas et pulchritudo corporis secerni non potest a vuletudine. 
 
 Here I observe, that as the colour of the body is very different in dif- 
 ferent 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 preference ; this diversity of taste has no 
 standard in the common principles of human nature, but must arise from 
 something that is different in different nations, and in different 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- 
 common judgment of mankind, can be called beauty in the colour of the 
 species, but what expresses perfect health and liveliness, and in the fair sex 
 softness and delicacy ; and nothing that can be called deformity 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, how- 
 ever, of all the ingredients of beauty, is the least. 
 
 The next in order is form, or proportion of parts. The most beautiful 
 form, as the author thinks, is that which indicates delicacy and softness in 
 the fair sex, and in the male either strength or agility. The beauty 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 almost 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 ; because, 
 when they are together, the most pleasing 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 
 
CHAP. IV.] OF ISEAUTY. 393 
 
 upon their countenances, which does not appear when they are absent 
 from one another, or even in company that lays a restraint upon their 
 features. 
 
 There is a great difference in the same face, according as the person is 
 m a better or a worse humour, or more or less lively. The best complexion, 
 the finest features, and the exactest shape, without any thing 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. 
 
 The last and noblest part of beauty is grace, which the author thinks 
 undefinable. 
 
 Nothing causes love so generally and irresistibly as grace. Therefore, in 
 th« mythology 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 every thing 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 majestic and the familiar ; the first 
 more commanding, the last more delightful and engaging. The Grecian 
 painters and sculptors used to express the former most strongly in the looks 
 and attitudes of their Minervas, 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 Paradise, Milton has made the same 
 distinction : 
 
 For contemplation he, and valour form'd ; 
 For softness she, and sweet attractive grace. 
 
 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, grace appears only on those 
 features that are moveable, and change with the various emotions and sen- 
 timents of the mind, such as the eyes and eye-brows, the mouth and parts 
 adjacent. When Venus appeared to her son iEneas in disguise, and, after 
 some conversation with him, retired, it was by the grace of her motion in 
 retiring that he discovered her to be truly a goddess ; 
 
 Dixit, et avertens rosea cervice refulsit, 
 Ambrosieeque comae divinum ve!rtice odorem 
 Spiravere ; pedes vestis defluxit ad imos ; 
 Et vera incessu patuit dea. lUe, ubi matrem 
 Agnovit, &c. 
 
 A second observation is. That there can be no grace with impropriety, or 
 that nothing can be graceful that is not adapted to the character and situ- 
 ation of the person. 
 
394 OF BEAUTY. [kSSAY VI ir. 
 
 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 diiferent in different characters ; they must vary 
 with every variation of emotion and sentiment ; they may express either 
 dignity or respect, confidence or reserve, love or just resentment, esteem or 
 indignation, zeal or indifference. Every passion, sentiment, or emotion, 
 that in its nature and degree is just and proper, and corresponds perfectly 
 with the character of the person, and with the occasion, is what we may 
 call the soul of grace. The body or visible part consists of those motions 
 and features which give the true and unaffected expression of thjs soul. 
 
 Thus, I think, all the ingredients of human beauty, as they are enume- 
 rated and described by this ingenious author, terminate 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 be denied, that the expression of a fine countenance 
 may be unnaturally disjoined from the amiable qualities which it naturally 
 expresses : but we presume the contrary, till we have clear evidence ; 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 show that aU the beauty of the objects 
 of sense is borrowed, and derived from the beauties of mind which it ex- 
 presses or suggests 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 conceived more nearly allied to the 
 celestial, than she has commonly been represented. 
 
 To make an end of this subject, taste seems to be progressive as man is. 
 Children, when refreshed by sleep, and at ease from pain and hunger, are 
 disposed to attend to the objects about them ; they are pleased with bril- 
 liant colours, gaudy ornaments, regular forms, cheerful countenances, noisy 
 mirth, and glee. Such is the taste of childhood, which we must conclude 
 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. 
 
 As they advance in years and in understanding, other beauties attract 
 their attention, which, by their novelty or superiority, throw a shade upon 
 those they formerly admired. They delight in feats of agility, strength, 
 and art ; they love those that excel 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 disgust. The intel- 
 lectual and moral powers begin to open, and, if cherished by favourable 
 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 appointed by nature ; the meanest first ; those of more dignity in 
 succession, until the moral 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 beautiful in its season ; but not 
 so much so, when carried beyond its season. Not that the man ought to 
 
CHAP. IV.] OF BEAUTY. 395 
 
 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 
 acquainted. 
 
 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 eifect of constitution, or of 
 some habit or casual association. A fond mother may see a beauty in her 
 darling 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 conceives to be due. When affection is not carried away by some 
 natural or acquired bias, it naturally is and ought to be led by the 
 judgment. 
 
 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 necessary to be said upon it has been 
 already said. Essay 6. Chap. 5. As to the faculty of moral perception, it 
 is indeed a most important part of human understanding, and well worthy 
 of the most attentive consideration, since without it we could have no con- 
 ception of right and wrong, of duty and moral obligation, and since the 
 first principles of morals upon which all moral reasoning 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. 
 
ESSAY 
 
 ON 
 
 QUANTITY; 
 
 OCCASIONED BY READING A TREATISE IN WHICH SIMPLE AND COMPOUND 
 RATIOS 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 doctrine of measure ; and the object 
 of this science is commonly said to be quantity ; therefore quantity ought 
 to be defined, what may be measured. Those who have defined 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 .'' 
 
 Whatever has quantity, or is measurable, must be made up of parts, 
 which bear proportion 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 
 quantity of the same kind, that one line or number can bear to another. 
 That this is essential to all mathematical quantity, is evident 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 alge- 
 braical 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 relations may be measured with 
 mathematical accuracy and certainty. 
 
 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, 
 without 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 perceive one body to move faster, 
 another slower ; but we can have no distinct idea of a proportion or ratio 
 
 * This Essay was originally published in the London Philosophical 
 Transactions, volume xlv. 
 
AN ESSAY ON QUANTITY. 397 
 
 between their velocities, without taking in some quantity of another kind 
 to measure them by. leaving therefore observed, that by a greater velocity 
 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 measure 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 intro- 
 duce 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 proportion. Though propor- 
 tion be measurable in its own nature, and therefore has proper quantity, 
 yet as things canjiot have proportion which have not quantity of some 
 «ther kind, it follows, that whatever has quantity must have it in one or 
 other of these three kinds, extension, duration, or number. These are the 
 measures of themselves, and of all things else that are measurable. 
 
 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 pro- 
 portions of those which are compounded of them may be demonstrated. 
 
 Velocity, the quantity of motion, density, elasticity, the vis insita and 
 impressa, the various kinds of centripetal forces, and different orders of 
 fluxions, are all improper quantities ; which therefore ought not to be 
 admitted into mathematics, without having 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 considered 
 this as carefully as Sir Isaac Newton 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 defi- 
 nitions, having frequent occasion to treat of such improper quantities, 
 never fails to define them, so as to give a measure of them, either in proper 
 quantities, or in such as had a known measure. This inay be seen in the 
 definitions prefixed to his Princip. Phil. Nat. Math. 
 
 It is not easy to say how many kinds of improper quantity may, in time, 
 be introduced 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 any 
 thing but what has these two properties : first, it must admit of degrees of 
 greater and less : secondly, it must be associated with or related to some- 
 thing that has proper quantity, so as that when one is increased the other 
 is increased; when one is diminished, the other is diminished also; and 
 every degree of the one must have a determinate magnitude or quantity of 
 the other corresponding to it. 
 
 It sometimes happens, that we have occasion to apply different measures 
 to the same thing. Centripetal force, as defined by Newton, may be 
 measured various ways; he himself gives different measures of it, and 
 distinguished them by different names, as may be seen in the above-men- 
 tioned definitions. , 
 
 In reality Dr. M. conceives, that the api)lying of measures to things that 
 properly have not quantity, is only a fiction or artifice of the mmd, for 
 enaWing us to conceive more easily, and more distinctly to express and 
 
398 AN ESSAY ON aUANTITY. 
 
 demonstrate, th& properties and relations of those things that have real 
 quantity. The propositions contained in the first two books of Newton's 
 Principia might perhaps be expressed and demonstrated Vithout those 
 various measures of motion, and of centripetal and impressed forces which 
 he useSj but this would occasion such intricate and perplexed circumlocu- 
 tions, and such a tedious length of demonstrations, as would frighten any- 
 sober person from attempting to read them. 
 
 From the nature of quantity we may see what it is that gives mathe- 
 matics such advantage over other sciences, in clearness and certainty; 
 namely, that quantity admits 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 mensuration. 
 
 Extended quantities, such as lines, surfaces, and solids, besides what 
 they have in common with all other quantities, have thi^ peculiar, that 
 their parts have a particular place and disposition among themselves : a 
 line may not only bear any assignable proportion to another, in length or 
 magnitude, but fines 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 regard 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 geometry, 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 algebra 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 proposition 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 or less, which perhaps are not 
 capable of mensuration. Tastes, smells, the sensations of heat and cold, 
 beauty, pleasure, all the affections and appetites of the rnind, wisdom, folly, 
 and most kinds of probability, with many other things too tedious to enu- 
 merate, admit of degrees, but have not yet been reduced to measure, nor 
 perhaps ever can be. I say, most kinds of probability, because one kind 
 of it, viz. the probability of chances, is properly measurable 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 
 
AN ESSAY ON CltlANTITY. 399 
 
 and appetites shall themselves be reduced to quantity, and exact measures 
 of their various degrees be assigned, in vain shall we essay to measure 
 virtue 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 quantity, may also throw some light on the controversy about the 
 force of moving bodies, which long exercised the pens of many mathema- 
 ticians, and perhaps is rather dropped than ended ; to the no small scandal 
 of mathematics, which has always boasted of a degree of evidence, incon- 
 sistent 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 diminished 
 v^hen that is diminished. But this vague notion of force, in which both 
 sides' agree, though perhaps sufficient for common 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 perceived but by a measure ; 
 and that measure must be settled, not by mathematical reasoning, but by 
 a definition. Let any one consider 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 effiicts, and 
 thM-efore can measure it only by its effects. Till force then is defined, and 
 by that definition 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 con- 
 troversy will presently be ended. 
 
 Of the Newtonian Measure of Force. — You say, the force of a body in 
 motion is as 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 proposition ca- 
 pable 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 ve- 
 locity to the same body, a triple force which gives a triple velocity, and so 
 on in proportion. This he entirely agrees to : no mathematical definition 
 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 aU 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 force ? 
 
 Several other things might be advanced to show 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, th e vulgar would pronounce, with- 
 out hesitation, that they met vdth equal force ; and so they do, according to 
 the measure of force above laid down ; for we find by experience, that in 
 this case their velocities are reciprocally as their quantities of matter. In 
 medianics, where by a machine two powers or weights are kept in equUibrio, 
 the vulgar would reckon that these powers act with equal force, and so by 
 this definition they do. The power of gravity being constant and uniform. 
 
400 AN ESSAY ON aUANTITV. 
 
 any one would expect that it should give equal degrees of force to a body 
 in equal times, and so by this definition 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 contains a measure of force. 
 Some primary measure of force must be taken for granted, or laid down by 
 way of definition ; otherwise 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 experifcient, 
 to prove that the force of a body is as its velocity, 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 Leibn.it zian 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 nine times the force, that 
 which gives three times the velocity, and so on in duplicate proportion. 
 While he keeps by his definition, it wiU 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 changing 
 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 pf force to be distinct, and cannot be 
 charged with falsehood, for no definition can be false, yet I say, in thejirst 
 place. It is less simple thtm the other ; for why should a duplicate ratio he 
 used where the simple ratio wiU do as well ? In the next place. This measure 
 of force is less agreeable to the common use of the word force, as has been 
 shown above ; and this indeed is all that the many laboured arguments and 
 experiments, 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 un- 
 dertake 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 measure 
 of force .'' The only measure I remember to have been given by the philo- 
 sophers 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 unfor- 
 tunate. Yor, first, whereas all proof should be taken from principles that 
 are common to both sides, in order to prove a thing we deny, he assumes a 
 principle which we think farther from the truth ; namelv, that the height 
 
AN ESSAY ON QUANTITY. 401 
 
 to 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 weU against 
 him as for him : for may I not plead with as good reason at least thus ? 
 The velocity given by an impressed force is the whole effect of that im- 
 pressed force; and therefore the force mu^t be as the velocity. Thirdly, 
 Supposing 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 diminished, if the power of 
 gravity is increased. _ Bodies, descend slower at the equator, and faster to- 
 wards 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 tast ; the one to prove, 
 by mathematical reasoning 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 prin- 
 ciples 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 philosopher 
 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 controversy 
 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 giving the same name 
 te different mathematical conceptions. Had they distinguished these mea- 
 sures of centripetal force as Newton has done, calling the one vk centripetce 
 quantitatis acceleratrix, the other giiantitntis matrix ; all appearance of 
 contradiction had ceased, and their propositions, which seem so contrary, 
 had exactly tallied. 
 
 D D 
 
ANALYSIS 
 
 OF 
 
 ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC, 
 
 WITH REMARKS*. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OP THE FIRST THKEB TKEATISES. 
 SECTION I. OP THE AUTHOH. 
 
 Akistotle had very unconimon advantages : born in an age when the 
 philosophical 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 sup- 
 plied him with every thing necessary for the prosecution of his inquiries. 
 
 These advantages he improved by indefatigable study, and immense 
 reading. He was the first we know, says Strabo, who composed a library. 
 And in this the Egyptian and Pergamenian kings copied his example. As 
 to his genius, it would be disrespectful to mankind not to allow an uncom- 
 mon 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 philo- 
 sopher or of the sophist. The opinion of lord Bacon is not without proba- 
 bility. 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 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 upon a battle, with full 
 assurance of success. He delivers his decisions oracularly, and without any 
 fear of mistake. Rather than confess his ignorance, he hides it under hard 
 words and ambiguous expressions, of which his interpreters can make what 
 they please. There is even reason to suspect, that he wrote often with 
 affected obscurity, either that the air of mystery might procure great vene- 
 ration, or that his books might be understood oidy by the adepts who had 
 been initiated in his philosophy. 
 
 * This Analysis originally appeared in lord Karnes's Sketches of the 
 History of Man, published in 1773, and is esteemed the best analysis yet 
 given of that philosopher's writings. 
 
ANALYSIS OF AKISTOTLE'S LOGIC- 403 
 
 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 ujjJess he killed all his brethren. 
 Ludoyicus Vives charges him with detracting from all philosophers, that 
 he might derive that glory to himself, of which he robbed them. 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 justice 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 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 writings 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 Aristotle's writings, which is judi- 
 ciously related 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 Ana- 
 lytics, two books. 5. Topics, eight books. 6. Of Sophisms, one book. 
 Diogenes Laertius mentions many others that are lost. Those I have 
 mentioned have commonly :been published together under the name of 
 Aristotle's Organon, or his f^ogic ; and, for many ages. Porphyry's Intro- 
 duction to the Categories has been prefixed to them. 
 
 SECT. II. OF PORPHYBY S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In this introduction, which is addressed to Chrysoarius, 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 know- 
 ledge of these is also very useful in definition, in division, and even in de- 
 monstration : therefore he proposes, in this little tract to deliver shortly 
 and simply the doctrine of the ancients, and chiefly of the Peripatetics, 
 concerning these five predicables ; avoiding the more intricate questions 
 concerning them ; such as. Whether genera and species do really exist 
 in nature f or. Whether they are only conceptions 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, he says, are very difiicult questions, and require accurate discussion ; 
 but that he is not to meddle with them. 
 
 After this preface he explains very minutely each of the five words 
 above mentioned, divides and subdivides each of them, and then pursues 
 all the agreements and differences between one and another through six- 
 teen chapters. 
 
 dd2 
 
404 ANALYSIS OF AKISTOTLE'S LOGIC. 
 
 SECT. III. — OP THE CATEGOKIES. 
 
 The boot begins with an explication of what is meant by univocal 
 words, what by equivocal, and what by denominative. Then it is observed, 
 that what we say is either simple, without composition or structure, as 
 man, horse ; 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 any thing 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, cannot possibly exist without 
 it, as figure in the thing figured. Of things that are, says Aristotle, 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. Some again 
 are in a subject, but can be predicated of no subject. Thus my know- 
 ledge in grammar is in me as its subject ; but it can be predicated of no 
 subject ; because it is an individual thing. 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. Lastly, Some things 
 can neither be in a subject, nor be predicated of any subject. Such are 
 all individual substances, which cannot be predicated, because 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 cate- 
 gories themselves; the things above-mentioned being called by the school- 
 men the antepradicamenta. It may be observed, however, that, notwith- 
 standing the distinction now explained, the being 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 persons to think that the 
 Categories were not written by Aristotle. 
 
 Things that 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 place, or time, or having, or doing, 
 or suffering. These are the predicaments or categories. The first four are 
 largely treated of in four chapters ; the others are slightly passed over, as 
 sufficiently clear of themselves. As a specimen, 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 subject, 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 species is more a substance than the 
 genus. If there were no primary, there could be no secondary substances. 
 
 The properties of substance are these : I. No substance is capable of in- 
 tention or remission. 2. No substance can be in any other thing as its 
 subject of inhesion. 3. No substance has a contrary ; for one substance 
 cannot be contrary to another ; nor can there be contrariety between a 
 substance and that which is no substance. 4. The most remarkable pro- 
 perty of substance is, that one and the same substance may, by some change 
 in itself, become the subject of things that are contrary. l""hus 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 cate- 
 gories. After them we have some chapters, which the schoolmen call 
 post pradicamenta ; wherein, first, the four kinds of opposition of terms 
 
ANALYSIS OF ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC. 405 
 
 are explained ; to wit, relative, privative, of contrariety, and of con- 
 tradiction. This is repeated in all systems of logic. Last of all, we have 
 distinctions of the four Greek words which answer to the Latin ones, 
 frius, slmul, motus, and habere. 
 
 SECT. IV. OF THE BOOK CONCEKNING INTEEPHETATION. 
 
 Wb are to consider, says Aristotle, what a noun is, what a verb, what 
 affirmation, what negation, what speech. Words are the signs of what 
 passeth in the mind ; writing is the sign of words. The signs both of 
 writings 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 nouns 
 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 irifinitum. 
 
 A verb signifies something by compact with relation to time. Thus 
 valet ^ is a verb ,• but valetudo is a noun, because its signification has no 
 relation to time. It is only the present tense of the indicative that is pro- 
 perly called a verb : the other tenses and moods are variations of the verb. 
 Non valet may be called a verbum irifinitum. 
 
 Speech is sound significant by compact, of which some part is also signi- 
 ficant. And it is either enunciative, or not enunciative. Enunciative 
 speech is that which affirms or denies. As to speech which is not enimcia- 
 tive, such as a prayer or wish, the consideration of it belongs to oratory 
 or poetry. Every enunciative speech must have a verb, or some varia- 
 tion of a verb. Affirmation is the enunciation of one thing concerning 
 another. Negation is the enunciation of one thing from another. Con- 
 tradiction is an affirmation and negation that are opposite. This is a 
 summary of the first six chapters. 
 
 The seventh and eighth treat of the various kinds of enunciations or 
 propositions, universal, particular, indefinite, and singular : and of the 
 various kinds of opposition in propositions, and the axioms concerning them. 
 These things are repeated in every system of logic. In the ninth chapter 
 he endeavours to prov©> by a long metaphysical reasoning, that pro- 
 positions respecting future contingencies are not, determinately, either 
 true or false; and that, if they were, it would follow that all things 
 happen necessarily, and could not have been otherwise than as they are. 
 The remaining chapters contain many minute observations concerning the 
 equipollency of propositions both pure and modal. 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 BEMABKS. 
 SECT. I. — ON THE FIVE PREDICABLES. 
 
 The writers on logic have borrowed their materials almost entirely 
 from Aristotle's Organon, and Porphyry's Introduction. The Organon, 
 
406 ANALYSIS OP AKISTOTLE'S LOtilC. 
 
 howeverj was not written by Aristotle as one work. It comprehends 
 various tracts, written without the view of making them parts of one 
 whole, and afterwards 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 un- 
 connected with each other, and with those that follow. And although the 
 first was undoubtedly compiled by Porphyry, and the two last probably 
 by Aristotle, yet I consider them as the venerable remains of a philosophy 
 more ancient than Aristotle. Archytas of Tarentum, an eminent mathe- 
 matician 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 
 doctrine 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 judg- 
 ment and of propositions ; and the third, of reasoning and of syllogisms. 
 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 grammatical form of the word, might seem 
 to signify .whatever might be predicated, that is, affirmed or denied, of a 
 subject ; and in that sense every predicate would be a predicable. But 
 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 pre- 
 dicate 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 we say. 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 tvio right angles. And a fifth class is when 
 the predicate is something accidental to the subject ; as when we say. 
 This triangle is neatly drawn. 
 
 Each of these classes comprehends a great valriety of propositions, having 
 different subjects, and different predicates ; but in each class the relation 
 between the predicate and the subject is the same. Now, it is to this 
 relation that logicians have given the name of a predicable. Hence it is, 
 that although the number of predicates be infinite, yet the number of pre- 
 dicables can be no greater than that of the different relations which may 
 be in propositions between the predicate and the subject. And if all pro- 
 positions 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 predicates ; but use has determined them to be 
 called the five predicables. 
 
 It may also be observed, that as some objects of thought are individuals, 
 such as Julius Casar, 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 in- 
 dividuals were by the anciehts called universals. All predicates are 
 universals, for they have the nature of adjectives ; and on the other hand, 
 
ANALYSIS OP Aristotle's logic. 40^ 
 
 !1 uniyersals may be predicates. On this account, universals may be di- 
 vided into the same classes as predicates; and as the five classes of pre- 
 dicates above mentioned have been called the five predicables, so, by the 
 same kind of phraseology, they have been called the Jive universals; al- 
 though they may more properly be called the Jive classes of universals. 
 
 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 shows that the autho^ 
 of this division, whosoever he was, intended it as a complete enumeration 
 of all the kinds of things that can be affirmed of any subject : and so it 
 has always been understood. It is accordingly implied in this division, 
 that all that can be affirmed of any thing whatever is either the genus of 
 the thing, or its species, or its specijic d^erence, or some property, or ac- 
 cident belonging to it. 
 
 Burgersdic, a very acute writer in logic, seems to have been aware, that 
 strong objections might be made to the five predicables, considered as a 
 complete enumeration : but, unwilling to allow any imperfection in this 
 ancient division, he endeavours to restrain the meaning of the word pre- 
 dicahle, so as to obviate objections. Those things only, says he, are to be 
 accounted predicables, which may be affirmed of many individuals, truly, 
 properly, and immediately. The consequence of putting such limitations 
 upon the word predicable is, that in many propositions, perhaps in most, 
 the predicate is not a predicable. But, admitting all his limitations, the 
 enumeration will still be very incomplete: for of many things we may 
 affirm truly, properly, and immediately, their existence, their end, their 
 cause, their eflfect, and various 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 number five, yet Aristotle himself in the beginning 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 ; and shall only 
 here observe, that as Burgersdic justifies the fivefold division, by re- 
 straining the meaning of the word predicable, so Aristotle justifies the 
 fourfold division, by enlarging the meaning of the words property and 
 accident. 
 
 After all, I apprehend that this ancient division of predicables, with all 
 its imperfections, wiU bear a comparison with those which have been svih- 
 stituted 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 agree- 
 ments and disagreements between our ideas, reduces these agreements and 
 disagreements to four heads : to wit, 1. Identity and diversity ; 2. Re- 
 lation ; 3. Co-existence ; 4. Real existence*. Here are four predicables 
 given as a complete enumeration, and yet not one of the ancient pre- 
 dicables is included in the number. 
 
 The author of the Treatise of Human Nature, proceeding upon thfe 
 same principle, that all our knowledge is only a perception of the relations 
 ef our ideas, observes, " That it may perhaps be esteemed an endless task 
 to enumerate all those qualities 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 niay be com- 
 prised under seven general heads: 1. Resemblance ; 2. Identity; 3. Re- 
 
 * Book 4, Chap. 1. 
 
408 ANALYSIS OF ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC. 
 
 lations of Space and Time ; 4. Relations of Quantity and Number ; 5. 
 Degrees of Quality; 6. Contrariety; 7- Causation*." Here again are 
 seven predicates given as a complete enumeration, wLerein all the pre- 
 dicables 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 dehnition ot 
 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. 
 
 SECT. II. — C^N THE TB>f CATEGOHlES, AND ON DIVISIONS IN GENERAL. 
 
 The intention of the categories or predicaments is, to muster every 
 object of human apprehension under ten heads : for the categories are 
 given as a complete enumeration of every thing which can be expressed 
 ivithout composition and structure; that is, of every thing that can be 
 either the subject or the predicate of a proposition. So that as every 
 soldier belongs to some company, and every company to some regiment, m 
 like manner every thing that can be the object of human thought has its 
 place in one or other of the ten categories ; and by dividing and subdivi- 
 ding properly the several 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. 
 The perfection of the division of categories into ten heads has been 
 strenuously 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 furniture of 
 the human mind is presented to us at one view, and contracted, as it were, 
 into a nut-shell. To attempt, in so early a period, a methodical deli- 
 neation 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, with- 
 out doubt, a great help both to memory and judgment. As the philo- 
 sopher's province includes all things human and divine, that can be objects 
 of inquiry, he is naturally led to attempt some general division like that of 
 the categories. 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 philo- 
 sophy, have been substituted in place of the ten categories, are more perfect. 
 Locke has reduced all things to three categories, viz. substances, modes, 
 and relations. In this division, time, space, and number, three great ob- 
 jects of human thought, are omitted. 
 
 The author of the 'Treatise of Human Nature has reduced all things 
 to two 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 a very excellent mathematician in a printed thesis I have seen. In it 
 the author, after a severe censure of the ten categories of the Peripatetics, 
 
 * Vol. i. p. 33, and 125. 
 
ANALYSIS OF AKISTOTLE's LOGIC. 409 
 
 maintains that there neither are nor can be more than two categories of 
 things^ viz. data and qucesita. 
 
 There are two ends that may be proposed by such divisions. The first 
 isj to methodise 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 acquainted with the divisions of the 
 logicians and metaphysicians, without a superstitious attachment to them, 
 may be of use in dividing the same subjects, or even those of a diflferent 
 nature. Thus Quintilian borrows from the ten categories his division 
 of the topics of rhetorical argumentation. Of all methods of arrange- 
 ment, the most antiphilosophical seems to be the invention of this age ; 
 I mean the arranging the arts and sciences by the letters of the alphabet, 
 in dictionaries and encyclopedias. With these authors the categories are 
 A, B, C, &c. 
 
 Another end commonly proposed by such divisions, but very rarely 
 attained, is to exhaust 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 whole subject at one view. When our knowledge of the 
 subject is imperfect, any division we can m^ke must' be like the first 
 sketch of a painter, to be extended, contracted, or mended, as the subject 
 shall be found to require. Yet nothing is more common, not only among 
 the ancients, but even among modern philosophers, than to draw from their 
 incomplete divisions, conclusions which suppose them to be perfect. 
 
 A division is a repository which the philosopher frames for holding his 
 ware in convenient order. The philosopher maintains, that STich 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 ap- 
 pear ridiculous in a.ny other traific. 
 
 Peter Ramus, who had the spirit of a reformer in philosophy, and who 
 had force of genius sufficient to shake the Aristotelian fabric in many 
 parts, ■ but insufficient to erect any thing 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 contradictory to 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 comprehends 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 touchstone 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 memory ; and, after it has put one out of breath by endless subdivisions. 
 
410 ANALYSIS OF AUISTOTLE's LOGIC. 
 
 there is still a negative term left behind^ which shows 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 divi- 
 sions, 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 compre- 
 hendedj add to the last member an et cestera. That this et cattera makes 
 the division complete, is undeniable; and therefore it ought to hold its 
 place as a member, and to be always understood, whether expressed or not, 
 until clear and positive proof be brought that the division is complete 
 without it. And this same et ccetera is to be the repository of all members 
 that shall at any future time show a good and valid right to a place in the 
 subject. 
 
 SECT. 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 com- 
 mon topic of wit and raillery to inveigh against metaphysical 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 con- 
 demns distinctions that have no foundation in the nature of things, must 
 perceive, that indiscriminately to decry distinctions is to renounce all pre- 
 tensions to just reasoning: .for as false reasoning commonly proceeds from 
 confounding things that are different, so without distinguishing such 
 things, it is impossible to avoid error, or detect sophistry. The authority 
 of Aquinas, or Suarez, or even of Aristotle, can neither stamp a real 
 value upon distinctions of base metal, nor hinder the currency of those of 
 true metal. 
 
 Some distinctions are verbal, others are real. The first kind distinguish 
 the various meanings of a word, whether proper or metaphorical. Distinc- 
 tions 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 contained in one whole. 
 
 Many of Aristotle's distinctions are verbal merely, and therefore more 
 proper materials for a dictionary of the Greek language, than for a philo- 
 sophical 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 foreign idioms into it 
 without necessity or use, and to make it ambiguous where it was not. 
 The distinction in the end of the categories of the four words, prius, simul, 
 motus, and habere, are all verbal. 
 
 The modes or species of prius, according to Aristotle, are five. One 
 thing may be prior to another ; first, in point of time ; secondly, in point 
 of dignity ; thirdly, in point of order ; and so forth. The modes 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, cor- 
 ruption, increase, decrease, alteration, and change of place. 
 
 The modes or species of liming are eight. 1. Having a quality or habit. 
 
ANALYSIS OF ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC. 4ll 
 
 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. 6. 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. 
 
 Another distinction of this kind is Aristotle'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 language ; 
 but, in English or Latin, they adulterate the language. Yet so fond were 
 the schoolmen of djctinctions of this kind, that they added to Aristotle's 
 enumeration an impulsive cause, an exemplary cause, and I do not know 
 how many more. We seem to have adopted into English a final cause ; 
 but it is merely a term of art borrowed from the Peripatetic philosophy, 
 wdthout necessity or use; for the English word end is as good ssjinal 
 cause, though not so long nor so learned. 
 
 SECT. IV. — ON DEFINITIONS. 
 
 It remains that we make some remarks on Aristotle's definitions, which 
 have exposed him to much censure and ridicule. Yet I think it must be 
 allowed, that in things which need definition, and admit of it, his defini- 
 tions 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 philosophers 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 specific difference. The 
 definition, therefore, consists of these two parts. And, for finding them, 
 we must have recourse to the ten categories; in one or other of which 
 every thing in nature is to be found. Each category is a genus, and is 
 divided into so many species, which are distinguished by their specific dif- 
 ferences. Each of these species is again subdivided into so many species, 
 with regard to which it is a genus. This division and subdivision conti- 
 nues until we come to the lowest species, which can only be divided into 
 individuals distinguished from one another, not by any specific difference, 
 but by accidental difiierences 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 compared with those that are below it, and a species com- 
 pared with those above it. To find the definition of any thing, therefore, 
 you must take the genus which is immediately above its place in the 
 category, and the specific difference, hj which it is distinguished from other 
 species of the same genus. These two make a perfect definition. 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 appearance of this system, it has its 
 defects. Not to repeat what was before said of the imperfection 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 ; 
 
412 . ANALYSIS OF ARISTOTLE's LOGIC 
 
 and, as far as he goes, his followers pretty unanimously take the same road. 
 Butj 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, because it is not a species ; nor 
 could individuals 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 under- 
 standing. Thus, green, red, and blue, are very distinct species of colour ; 
 but who can express in words wherein green differs from red or blue .'' 
 
 Without borrowing light from the ancient system, we may perceive that 
 every definition 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 the meaning 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 have a meaning, is 
 beyond my comprehension. All the rules of definition agree to the defini- 
 tion of a word : and if they mean, by the definition of a thing, the giving 
 an adequate conception of the nature and essence of any thing that exists, 
 this is impossible, and is the vain boast of men unconscious of the weakness 
 of human understanding. 
 
 The works of God are but imperfectly known, by us. We see their 
 outside, or perhaps we discover some of their qualities and relations, by 
 observation and experiment, assisted by reasoning : but, even of the sim- 
 plest of them, we can give no definition that 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. I take 
 them to be one of the most important improvements made in logic since 
 the days of Aristotle ; not so much because they enlarge our knowledge, 
 as because they make us sensible of our ignorance, and show that a great 
 part of what speculative men have admired as profound philosophy, is only 
 a darkening of knowledge by words without understanding. 
 
 SECT. V. ON THE STRUCTURE OF SPEECH. 
 
 The few hints contained in the beginning of the book concerning Inter- 
 pretation relating 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 thought, the analysis of the one must correspond to that of the 
 other. Nouns adjective and substantive, verbs active and passive, with 
 their various moods, tenses, and persons, must .be expressive of a like 
 variety in the moods of thought. Things that are distinguished in all 
 
ANALYSIS OP AUISTOTLE's LOGIC. 413 
 
 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 commentators 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 noun, 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 accu- 
 rate 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 contract, and many others. These Aristotle pro- 
 nounces 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 philo- 
 sophy 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. 
 
 SECT. VI. — ON PROPOSITIONS. 
 
 Mathematicians use the word proposition in a larger sense than 
 logicians. A problem is called a proposition in mathematics, 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 affirmative or negative; and this is 'called thdr quality. All 
 affirmative propositions 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 universal 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 : but 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 particularity annexed to the subject : thus, 
 Man is offevi days, is an indefinite proposition ; but it must be under- 
 stood either as universal 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 conquemr. 
 These are considered by logicians as universal, because the subject being 
 
414 ANALYSIS or Aristotle's logic 
 
 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 particular 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, sed universaliter ambse ; 
 Asserit I, negat O, sed particulariter ambo. 
 
 When the young logician is thus far instructed in the nature of propo- 
 sitions, he is apt to think there is no difficulty in analysing any proposition, 
 and showing 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 iind there are some difficulties in this analysis^ which are 
 overlooked by Aristotle altogether; and although they are sometimes 
 touched, they are not removed by his followers. For, 1. There are pro- 
 positions in which it is difficult to find a subject and a predicate ; as in 
 these. It rains, it snows. 2. In some propositions, either term may be made 
 the subject or the predicate, as you like best ; as in this. Virtue is the road 
 to happiness. 3. The same example may serve to show, that it is sometimes 
 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 propo- 
 sitions 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 propositions ; and to them only the rules concerning, 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 the rest by rules of common sense. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ACCOUNT OP THE FIRST ANALYTICS. 
 SECT. I. — OP THE CONVEBSION OF PHOPOSITIONS., 
 
 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 in- 
 telligible, 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 ? If I had lived in those ages when the knowledge 
 of Aristotle's Organon 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 resolution, when the first ardour began 
 
ANALYSIS OF AKISTOTLE'S LOGIC. 415 
 
 to cool. AH 1 can say is, that I have read some part of the different books 
 with care, some slightly, and some perhaps not at all. I have glanced 
 oyer the whole often, and when any thing 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 demon- 
 stration, 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 Categories, or in the book of Inter- 
 pretation, that Aristotle could claim as his own invention : but the whole 
 theory of syllogisms 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 reasoning into its simple in- 
 gredients. 
 
 The first book of the first Analytics," consisting of forty-six chapters, 
 may be divided into four parts ; the first treating of the conversion of pro- 
 positions ; the second, of the structure of syllogisms, in all the different 
 figures and modes ; the third, of the invention of a middle term ; and the 
 last, of the resolution of syllogisms. We shall give a brief account of 
 each. 
 
 To convert a proposition is to infer from it another proposition, whose 
 subject is the predicate of the first, and whose predicate is the subject of 
 the first. This is reduced by Aristotle to three rules. 1. An universal 
 negative may be converted into an universal negative : thus, No man is a 
 quadruped ; therefore, A'^o quadruped is a man. 2. An universal affirm- 
 ative-can be converted only into a particular affirmative: thus. All men 
 are mortal ; therefore. Some mortal beings are men. 3. A particular af- 
 firmative may be converted into a particular affirmative ; as. Some men are 
 just ; therefore. Some just persons are men. When a proposition may be 
 converted mthout changing its quantity, this is called simple conversion ; 
 but when the quantity is diminished, as in the universal affirmative, it is 
 called conversion per accidens. 
 
 There is another kind of conversion omitted in this place by Aristotle, 
 but supplied 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 con- 
 version therefore is. That an universal affirmative, and a particular nega- 
 tive, may be converted by contraposition. 
 
 SECT. II. — OF THE FIGURES AND MODES OF SYLLOGISMS. 
 
 A SYLLOGISM is an argument, or reasoning, consisting of three pro- 
 positions, the last of which, called the conclusion, is inferred from 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 a third term, called the middle 
 term. By this means one of the premises will have for its own terms. 
 
416 ANALYSIS OF AEISTOTLE's LOGIC. 
 
 the major term and the middle 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 mmor proposition. Thus the syllogism consists of three propositions> 
 distinguished by the names of the mnjor, 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 subject 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 conclusion, but stands in both 
 premises, either in the position of subject or of predicate. 
 
 According to the various positions which the middle term may have in 
 the premises, syllogisms are said to be of various figures. Now, all the 
 possible positions of the middle 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 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 famous Galen, and is often called the Gnlenical 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 pro- 
 positions of which it consists. Each of the three propositions must be 
 either an universal affirmative, or an universal negative, or a particular 
 affirmative, or a particular negative. These four kinds of propositions, as was 
 before observed, 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, denotes that mode in which the major, minor, and con- 
 clusion, are all universal affirmatives ; E, A, E, denotes that mode in which 
 the major and conclusion are universal negatives and the minor is an 
 universal affirmative. 
 
 To know all the possible modes of syllogism, we must find how many 
 different combinations may be made of three out of the four vowels ; and 
 from the art of combination 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 show what are the par- 
 ticular modes in each figure, which do or do not form a just and conclusive 
 syllogism, that so the legitimate may be adopted, and the spurious rejected. 
 This Aristotle has shown 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 affirmative ; and it has this 
 property, that it yields conclusions of all kinds, affirmative and negative, 
 universal and particular. 
 
 The second figure has also four legitimate 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. 
 
 The third figure has six legitimate modes. Its minor must always be 
 
ANALYSIS OF AUISTOTLE'S' LOGIC. 41 7 
 
 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. 1 . 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 universally in one of the premises. 3. Both premises 
 must not be particular propositions, nor both negative. 4. The con- 
 clusion must be particular, if either of the premises be particular ; and 
 negative, if either of the premises be negative, .t. No term can be 
 taken universally in the conclusion, 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 par- 
 ticularly, when it is either the subject of a particular, or the predicate 
 of an affirmative proposition. 
 
 SECT, nl.— OP THE INVENTION OF A MIDDLE TERM. 
 
 The third part of this book contains rules, general and special, for the 
 invention of a middle term ; and this the author conceives to be of great 
 utility. '1 he general rules amount to this. That you are to consider well 
 both terms of the proposition to be proved ; their definition, their pro- 
 perties, 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 anil 
 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 subject 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 properties ; first, That 
 the predicate of the proposition 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 special rules for all the various kinds «f pro- 
 positions to be proved; points out the various 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 
 rather, in my opinion, purposely darkened, by putting letters of the 
 alphabet for the several terms. 
 
418 ANALYSIS OF ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC. 
 
 SECT. IV. OP THE REMAINING PART OP THE FIRST BOOK. 
 
 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 supplying one 
 of the premises when it is understood, by rectifying inversions, and 
 putting the propositions in the proper order. 
 
 Here he speaks also of hypothetical syllogisms ; 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. 
 
 SECT. V. — OP THE SECOND BOOK OP THE FIRST ANALYTICS. 
 
 The second book treats of the powers of syllogisms, and shows, in 
 twenty-seven chapters, 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 premises ; in some, by 
 assuming the conclusion 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 
 Aristotle introduced in his own school the practice of syllogistical dis- 
 putation, instead of the rhetorical disputations which the sophists were 
 wont to use in more ancient times. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 REMARKS. 
 SECT. I. OP THE CONVERSION OP 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 de- 
 monstration, and all invented and perfected by one man. It shows a force 
 of genius, and labour 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 themselves with illustrating each of the rules by an example con- 
 ceiving 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 supposition will not be true; 
 for C is of the B s. In this demonstration, if I understand it, the third 
 rule of conversion IS assumed, that if B is in some A, then A must 
 be in some B, which indeed is contrary to the first supposition. If the 
 third rule be assumed for proof of the first, the proof of all the three 
 
ATSfALYSIS OP AllISTOTLE'S LOGIC. 419 
 
 goes round in a circle; for the second and tliird rules ate proved by the 
 first, llus IS a fault in reasoning which Aristotle coiidemns, and which 
 1 would be unwilling to charge him with, if I could find any better 
 meaning in his demonstration. But it is indeed a feult very difficult to 
 be avoided, when men attempt to prove things that are self-evident. 
 
 1 he rules of conversion cannot be applied to all propositions, but only 
 to those that are categorical; and we are left to the direction of common 
 sense m the conversion of other propositions. To give an example : 
 Alexander was the son of Philip; therefore Philip was the father of 
 Alexander : A is greater than B ; " therefore B is less than A. 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 tule in such cases. 
 
 Even in the conversion of categorical propositions, it is not enough to 
 transpose the subject and preditiate. Both must undergo some changie, iit 
 order to fit them for their new station ; for in every proposition the subject 
 must be a substantive, or have the force of. a substantive ; aiid 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 con- 
 version. How, for instance, shall we convert this prdposition, God is 
 omniscient? 
 
 These observatiohs show, that the doctrine of the conversion of pro- 
 positions is not so complete as it appears. The rules are laid down w'ithotit 
 any limitation ; yet they are fitted only to one class of propositions, viz. 
 the categorical ; and of these only to such as have a general term for their 
 subjeet. 
 
 SECT. II ON ADDITIONS MADE TO ARIST^O'l^LE's THEORY. 
 
 Although the logicians have enlarged the first and second parts of 
 logic, by explaining some technical words and distinctions which Aristotle 
 Las 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 fuU, more minute and particular, than a^ny of them ; so that thejf 
 seem to have thought this capital part of the Organon rather redundaiut 
 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 ignorance or inattention, but of design, as con- 
 taining only some indirect modes, which when properly expressed, fall 
 into the first figure. 
 
 It is true also that Peter Ramus, n professed enemy of Aristotle, intiHj- 
 duced 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 syllogism. But the friends of Aristotle 
 have shown that this improvement of Rani us is more specious than 
 usefiil. Singular propositions have the force of universal propositions, 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, show rather inclination than power to dis- 
 cover any material defoct in Aristotle's theory. 
 
 The most valuable addition made to the theory of categorical syllogisms 
 seems to he the iiivention of those (echilical names given to the legitimate 
 
 F. e2 
 
420 ANALYSIS OF ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC 
 
 modes, by which they may be easily remembered, and which have been 
 comprised in these barbarous verses : 
 
 Barbara, Calarent Dar'ii, Ferlo, dato prima; ; _ 
 
 Cesare, Camcstris, Fesiino, Boroco, secundse ; 
 Tertia grande sonans recitat Darnpii Felaplon; 
 Adjungens Disomis, Datisi, Bocardo, Ferison. 
 
 In these verses, every legitimate mode belonging 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 consonants: 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 difi^erent' species of it, called ostensive 
 and 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 in 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 Efticient com- 
 mentators on the Analytics, either to confute or confirm it. 
 
 SECT. III. ON EXAMPLES USED TO ILLUSTRATE THIS THEORY. 
 
 We may observe that Aristotle hardly ever gives examples of real 
 syllogisms ta illustrate his rules. In demonstrating the legitimate modes, 
 he takes A, 3, 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 ne- 
 cessarily, that A may be attributed to every C." For disprovino- the illegi- 
 timate modes, he uses the same manner; with this difference, that he 
 commonly, for an example, gives three real terms, such as bonuin, habitus, 
 prudeiitia .■ 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 legitimate mode in all the 
 figures. We acknowledge 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 tfeis was to 
 uncover the nakedness of the theory : it has undoubtedly contributed' 
 to bring it into contempt; for when one considers the silly and un- 
 instructive reasonings that have been brought forth by this grand organ' 
 
ANALYSIS OF ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC. 421 
 
 of science, lie can hardly forbear crying out, Parturiunt monies, el iiiiscilur 
 ndiculus mils. Many of the writers of logic are acute and ingenious, and 
 mucli practised in the syllogistical art ; and there must be some reason why 
 the examples they have given of syllogisms are so lean. 
 
 We shall speak of the reason afterwards ; 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 conclusion 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 
 affirmative ; it is also agreeable to all the general rules ; so that it main- 
 tains its character in every trial. And to show of what ductile materials 
 syllogisms are made, we may,, by converting simply the major proposi- 
 tion, reduce it to a good syllogism of the second figure, and of the mode 
 Cesiire, 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 virtuous. 
 
 Here the middle tetva praiseworthy being the predicate of both premises, 
 the syllogism is of the second figure ; and seeing 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 converting the major by contraposition, 
 thus: 
 
 What is not praiseworthy is not virtuous ; 
 
 Some pleasures are not praiseworthy; 
 
 Therefore some pleasures are not virtuous. 
 
 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 dispute ; but to what mode of that 
 figure shall we refer it .'' 
 
 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 negative particles in the major are 
 equivalent to an affirmative; and that therefore the major proposition. 
 What is not praiseworthy is not virtuovsj is to be accounted an affirmative 
 proposition. This, if granted, solves one difficulty ; but the other remains. 
 The most ingenious solution, therefore, is this ; let the middle term be not 
 praisemotthy. 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 virtuous. 
 
422 ANALYSIS OF AKISTOTLE's LOGIC. 
 
 By this analysis, the major becopnes 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 invari- 
 able, 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 ijgure, and of the mode Darapti ; and it may be 
 yeduced 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 syllo- 
 gisms as will stay his q,ppetite for that kind of entertainment. 
 
 SECT. IV. ON THE DEMONSTRATION OP THE THEOBY. 
 
 Ahistotle and all his followers have thought it necessary, in order to 
 bring this theory of categorical syllogisms to a science, to demonstrate 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, demonstrate the four modes of the first figure directly from an 
 axiom called the Dictum de onmi et nulla. The amount of the axiom is. 
 That what is affirmed of a whole genus may be affirmed of all the species 
 and individuals belonging to that genus; and that what is denied of the 
 whole genus may be denied of its species and individuals. The four modes 
 of the first figure are evidently included in this axiom. And as to the 
 legitimate modes of the other figures, they are proved by reducing them tp 
 some mode 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, prudence ; in the negative, gwd, habit, igno- 
 rance." This laconic style, the use of symbols not familiar, and, in ^ace 
 of giving an example, his leaving us to form Que from three assigned terms, 
 give such embarrassment 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 particular rules of that figure, which seem to be deduced from the par- 
 ticular 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 Aristotle'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. 
 
ANALYSIS or ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC. 423 
 
 from three axioms; then, from the general rules and the nature of eacli 
 ngure, 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. 
 
 This method has a very scientiiic appearance ; and when we consider 
 that, by a few rules once demonstrated, an hundred and seventy-eight false 
 modes are destroyed at 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 
 objection 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 evidence that an axiom ought to have : but the logicians apply them 
 m 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 dress, and to set them down in plain English, as the logicians 
 understand them. They amQunt, 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 tliird, 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 communicated to 
 the whole edifice raised upon them. 
 
 It may even be suspected, that an attempt, by any method, to demon- 
 strate that a syllogism is conclusive, is an impropriety somewhat like that 
 of attempting to demonstrate an axiom. In a just syllogism, the con- 
 nexion between the premises and the conclusion is not only real, but 
 immediate ; so that no proposition can come between them to make their 
 connexion more apparent. The very intention of a syllogism is to leave 
 nothing to be supplied that is- necessary to a complete demonstration. 
 Therefore a man of common understanding, who has a perfect comprehen- 
 sion of the premises, finds himself under a necessity of admitting the con- 
 clusion, 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 premises by the light of common sense ; 
 and where that is wanting, no kind of reasoning will supply its place. 
 
 SECT. V. ON THIS THEORY, CONSIDERED AS AN ENGINE OP SCIENCE. 
 
 The slow progress of useful knowledge, during the many ages in which 
 the syllogistic art was most highly cultivated as the only guide to science, 
 and its quick progress since that art was disused, suggest a presumption 
 against it ; and this presumption is strengthened by the puerility of the 
 examples 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. By observa- 
 
424 ANALYSIS OF ARISTOTLE's LOGIC. 
 
 tion, and experiments properly conductedj the stock of human knowledge 
 may be enlarged without end; but the power of reasoning alone, applied 
 with vigour through a long life, would only carry a man round like a horse 
 in a mill, who labours hard, but makes no progress. There is indeed an 
 exception to this observation in the mathematical sciences. The relations 
 of quantity are so various, and so susceptible of exact mensuration, that 
 long trains of accurate reasoning on that subject may be formed, and con- 
 clusions 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 inconsiderable. If any man doubt this, let 
 him produce in any subject unconnected with mathematics, a train of 
 reasoning of some length leading to a conclusion, which, without 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 believe they are few, and not easily found ; and that if they are found, 
 it will not bo in subjects that can be expressed by categorical propositions, 
 to which alone the theory of figure and mode extends. 
 
 In 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 sub- 
 jects to which this theory can be applied, it would be unreasonable to 
 expect great effects from it. And hence we see the reason why the 
 examples brought to illustrate it by the most ingenious logicians have 
 rather tended to bring it into contempt. 
 
 If it should be thought that the syllogistic art may be an useful engine 
 in mathematics, 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 ApoUonius, or Archimedes, or Huygens, or Newton, 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 Aristotle 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 mathematics are commonly of that kind. But it is 
 to be observed, that the propositions of mathematics are not categorical 
 propositions, 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 propositions, nor can 
 they enter into a syllogism of any of the figures or modes. We observed 
 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 
 Ji to C, therefore A is equal to C, cannot be brought into any syllogism 
 in figure and mode. There are indeed syllogisms into which mathematical 
 propositions may enter, and of such we shall afterwards speak : but they 
 have nothing 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 demonstration as in that part 
 
ANALYSIS OF AMSTOTLE'S LOGIC. 425 
 
 of logic which treats of the figures and modes of syllogism ; but the few 
 remarks we have made show 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, as an engine of science, may be 
 discerned 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 individual. 
 
 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 conchision that falls within 
 the compass of the three figures, as well as the mean of proof, is compre- 
 hended. 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 another 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 
 conclusion, O curas hominum ! quantum est in rebus inane ! 
 
 SECT. VI. ON MODAL SYLLOGISMS. 
 
 Categoeical propositions, besides their quantity and quality, have 
 another affection, by which they are divided into pure and modal. In a 
 pure proposition, the 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 effect an affirmation or negation, and that the enumeration 
 is complete. O.thers maintain, that this enumeration is complete; 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 observe, that the epithets oi pure and modal are applied to syllogisms as 
 well as to propositions. 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 consider, that 
 through all the figures and modes, a svUogism may have one premise modal 
 of any of the four modes, while the' other is pure, or it may have both 
 
426 ANALYSIS OF AKISTOTLE'S LOGIC. 
 
 premises modal^ and that they may be either of the same mode, or of dif- 
 ferent modes, what prodigious variety arises from all these combinations ? 
 Now, it is the business of a logician to show 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 respect to Aristotle, or with a low esteem of the syllo- 
 gistic art. 
 
 Keckerman, a famous Dantzican professor, who spent his life in teaching 
 and writing logic, in his huge folio system of that science, published nnno 
 1600, calls the doctrine of the modals the cruo! Logkorum. With regard 
 to the scholastic doctors, among whom this was a proverb, De modalibus 
 non gustabit asinus, he thinks it very dubious 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 
 observed, 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 the Latin 
 tongue, you shall hardly ever meet with th«m. 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 ignorance of the modals. 
 
 This author, however, out of respect to Aristotle, treats pretty fuUy of 
 modal propositions, showing how to distinguish their subject and predicate, 
 their quantity and quality. But the modal syllogisms he passes over 
 altogether. 
 
 Ludovicus Vives, 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. 
 
 Burgersdick, after enumerating five classes of modal syllogisms, observes, 
 that they require many rules and cautions which Aristotle hath handled 
 diligently ; but that, as the use of them is not great, and their rules dif- 
 ficult, he thinks it not worth while to enter into the discussion of them ; 
 recommending to those who would understand them, the most learned 
 paraphrase of Joannes Monlorius upon the first book of the First Analytics. 
 
 All the writers of logic for two hundred years back that have fallen into 
 my hands, have passed over the rules of modal syllogisms with as little 
 ceremony. So that this great branch of the doctrine of syllogism, so dili- 
 gently handled by Aristotle, fell into neglect, if not contempt, even while 
 the doctrine of pure syllogisms continued in the highest esteem. Moved 
 by these authorities, I shall let this doctrine rest in peace, without giving 
 the least disturbance to its ashes. 
 
 SECT. VII. — ON SYLIOGISMS THAT DO NOT BELONG TO FIGUBB AND MODE. 
 
 AnisTOTLE gives some observations upon imperfect syllogisms; such as 
 the Bnthymema, in which one of the premises is not expressed, but under- 
 
ANALYSIS OF ARISTOXLE's LOGIC. 42? 
 
 Stood; induction, wherein we collect an universal from a full enumeration 
 of particulars; and examples, which are an imperfect induction. The 
 logicians have copied Aristotle, upon these kinds of reasoning, without any 
 considerable improvement. But to compensate the modal syllogisms, 
 which they have laid aside, they have given rules for several kinds of 
 syllogisms, of which Aristotle takes no notice. These may be reduced to 
 two classes. 
 
 The first class comprehends the syllogisms into which any exclusive, 
 restrictive, exceptive, or reduplicative proposition enters. Such proposi- 
 tions are by some called exponible, by others imperfectly modal. The rules 
 given with regard to these are obvious, from a just interpretation of the 
 propositions. 
 
 The second class is that of hypothetical syllogisms, which take that 
 denomination from having a hypothetical proposition for one or both pre- 
 mises. Most logicians give the name of hypothetical to all complex propo- 
 sitions which have more terms than one subject and one predicate. I use 
 the word in this large sense, and mean, by hypothetical 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 ascer- 
 tained. The logicians have given names to some ; such as the copulative, 
 the conditional, by some called the hypothetical, and the disjunctive. 
 
 Such syllogisms cannot be tried by the rules of iigure and mode. Every 
 kind would require rules peculiar to itself. Logicians have given rules for 
 some kinds ; but there are many that have not so much as a name. 
 
 The dilemma is considered by most logicians as a species of the disjunc- 
 tive syllogism. A remarkable property of this kind is, that it may some- 
 times be happily retorted : it is, it seems, like a hand grenade, which, by 
 dexterous management, may be thrown back, so as to spend its force upon 
 the assailant. We shall conclude this tedious account of syllogisms with a 
 dilemma mentioned by A. Gellius, and from him by many logicians, as 
 insoluble in any other way. 
 
 " 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 ? for if the judges 
 give sentence for me, you must pay by their sentence ; if against me, the 
 condition of our bargain is fulfilled, and you have no plea left for your 
 delay, after having plea,ded and gained a cause. To which Euathlus 
 answered : O most wise master, I might have avoided the force of your 
 argument, by not pleading my own cause. But, giving up this advantage, 
 do you not see that, whatever sentence the judges pass, I am safe } 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 unanswerable on both sides, put 
 off tlie cause to a long day." 
 
428 ANALYSIS OF AUISTOTLE'S LOGIC. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ACCOUNT OF THE KBMAINING BOOKS OF THE OKGANON. 
 SECT. I. OF THE LAST ANALYTICS. 
 
 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 connexion between the premises and the conclusion ; 
 and where such a connexion is wanting, they are said to be informal, or 
 vitious 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 improbable. 
 
 When the premises are certain, and the conclusion drawn from them in 
 due form, this is demonstration, and produces science. Such syllogisms 
 are called apndiclical, and are handled in the two books of the Last Ana- 
 lytics. When the premises are not certain, but probable only, such syllo- 
 gisms are called dialectical ; and of them he treats in the eight books of the 
 Topics. But there are some syllogisms which seem to be perfect both in 
 matter and form, when they are not really so ; as, a face may seem beau- 
 tiful 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 these books, for Aristotle's 
 writings do not admit of abridgment : no man, in fewer Tvords, 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 wliich 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 prin- 
 ciples, 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 in- 
 finite number of middle terms between the first principle and the conclusion. 
 
 In all demonstration, the first principles, the conclusion, and all the in- 
 termediate 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 aflfected ; others 
 prove, why it is thus aflfected. Thie former may be drawn from a remote 
 cause, or from an efi'ect ; but the latter must be drawn from an immediate 
 cause, and are the most perfect 
 
 The first figure is best adapted to demonstration, because it aflFords con- 
 clusions universally afiirmative ; and this figure is commonly used by the 
 mathematicians. 
 
 The demonstration of an affirmative proposition 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. 
 
ANALYSIS OF ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC 429 
 
 _ There cannnot be opinion and science of the same thing at the same 
 time. 
 
 In tlie second book we are taughtj that the questions that may be put 
 with regard to any thing are four : 1 . Whether the thing be thus af- 
 fected. ' 2. Why it is thus affected. 3. Whether it exists. 4. What 
 it is. 
 
 The last of these questions Aristotle, in good Greek, calls the What is 
 it of a thing. The school-men, in very' barbarous Latin, called this the 
 quiddity of a thing. This quiddity, he provesi 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 defines it to be the 
 first odd number. 
 
 In this book he treats also of the four kinds of causes ; efficient, ma- 
 tegal, formal, and final. 
 
 Another thing treated of in this book, is, the manner in which we ac- 
 quire first principles, which are the foundation of all demonstration. 
 These are not innate,. because we may be for a great part of life ignorant 
 of them : nor can they be deduced demonstratively from any antecedent 
 knowledge, 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 
 Aristotle, That there is nothing in the understanding which was not before 
 in some sense. 
 
 The knowledge of first principles, as it is not acquired by demonstration, 
 ought not to be called science ; and therefore he calls it intelligence. 
 
 SECT. II. OF THE TOPICS. 
 
 The professed' design of the Topics is, to show a method by which a 
 man may be able to reason with probability and consistency upon every 
 question that can occur. 
 
 Every question is either about the genus of the subject, or its specific 
 difference, or something proper to it, or something accidental. 
 
 To prove that this division is complete, Aristotle reasons thus : What- 
 ever is attributed to a subject, it must either be, that the subject can be 
 reciprocally attributed to it, or that it cannot. If the subject and attri- 
 bute can be reciprocated, the attribute either declares what the subject is, 
 and then it is a definition ; or it does not declare what the subject is, and 
 then it is a property. If the attribute cannot be reciprocated, 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 specific 
 difference ; for the definition consists of these two. If it be not contained 
 in the definition of the subject, it must be an accident. 
 
 The furniture proper to fit a man for arguing dialectically may be re- 
 duced to these four heads : 1. Probable propositions of all sorts, which may 
 on occasion be assumed in an argument. 2. Distinctions of words which 
 are nearly of the same signification. 3. Distinctions of things which are 
 not so far asunder but that they may be taken for one and the same. 
 4. 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 oc- 
 
430 ANALYSIS OF Aristotle's logic. 
 
 easionally he introduces the topics for proving things to be the same or dif- 
 ferent, and the topics for proving one thing to be better or worse than an- 
 other. 
 
 In this enumeration of topics, Aristotle has shown 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 considered the topics of argumentation as 
 reducible 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 defined ; and so of other questions, 
 They have therefore reduced the doctrine of the topics to certain axioms or 
 canons, and disposed these axioms in order under certain heads. 
 
 This method seems to be more commodious 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 ; every thing 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 provide 
 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 any thing new. 
 
 The last book of the Topics is a code of the laws according to which a 
 syllogistical disputation ought to be managed, both on the part of the as- 
 sailant and defendant : from which it is evident, that this philosopher 
 trained his disciples to contend, not for truth merely, but for victory. 
 
 SECT. III. OF THE BOOK CONCEH.NING SOPHISMS. 
 
 A SYLLOGISM which leads to a false conclusion must be vitious, 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 denied by the defendant. If the form be 
 - faulty, some rule of syllogism is transgressed ; and it is the part of the de- 
 fendant to show what general or special rule it is that is transgressed : 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 syl- 
 logisms which may seem to be perfect both in matter and form, when they 
 are not really so, as a piece of money *nay seem to be good coin when it is 
 adulterate, such fallacious syllogisms are considered in this treatise, in 
 order to make a defendant more expert in the use of his defensive 
 weapons. 
 
 And here the author, with his usual magnanimity, attempts to bring 
 all the fallacies that can enter into a syllogism under thirteen heads ; 
 of which six lie in the diction oir language, and seven not in the 
 diction. 
 
 The fallacies in diction are, 1. When an ambiguous word is taken at 
 
ANALYSIS OF ARISTOTLE's LOGIC. 431 
 
 one time in one sense, and at another time in another. 2. When an am- 
 biguous phrase is taken in the same manner. 3. and 4. Are ambiguities 
 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 lan- 
 guage, or even rendered into unambiguous expressions in the same lan- 
 guage, the fallacy is evident, and the syllogism appears to have four 
 terms. 
 
 The seven fallacies which are said not to be in the diction, but in 
 the thing, 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 conjunction of things for a natural 
 or necessary connexion : 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 certain limitation. The construction of language 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 un- 
 limited 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 con- 
 comitant. 
 
 4. Begging the question. This is done when the thing to be proved, or 
 some thing 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, because 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 
 affirmations, 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 af- 
 firmed 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 lo- 
 gicians have made any additions to it when taken in this view ; although 
 they have given some other fallacies that are incident to syllogisms of the 
 hypothetical kind, particularly the fallacy of an incomplete enumeration 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 application ; and it is often dubious under what par- 
 ticular species a sophistical syllogism ought to be classed. We even find 
 the same example brought under one species by one author, and under an- 
 other species by another. Nay, what is more strange, Aristotle, 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 elenchi. And indeed 
 
432 ANALYSIS OF aeistotle's logic. 
 
 the proof of this is easy, without that laborious detail which Aristotle uses 
 for the purpose ; for. if you lop off from the conclusion of a sophistical 
 syllogism all 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 ignoratio elenchi. 
 
 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 divided 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 Aristotle's division of the sophisms, by his own acknowledg- 
 ment. 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 a law for the redress of wrongs. For every wrong tliere 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 men- 
 tioned 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 syllo- 
 gistical dispute with an antagonist. And indeed, if the passion for this 
 kind of litigation, which reigned for so many ages, should ever again 
 lift up its head, we may predict, that the Organon of Aristotle will then 
 become a fashionable study ,• for it contains such admirable materials and 
 documents for this art, that it maybe 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 succeeding 
 times, will be brought to greater perfection. 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 produced 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 in- 
 deed, with regard to rhetorical declamation, there are many precepts 
 handed down from ancient times; but with regard to the construction of 
 syllogisms, not one. 
 
 " We have therefore employed much time and labour upon this sub- 
 ject ; and if our system appears to you not to be in the number of those 
 things which, being before carried a certain length, were left to be per- 
 
ANALYSIS OF ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC. 433 
 
 fected, we hope "for your favourable acceptance of what is done, and your 
 indulgence in what is left imperfect." 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 REFLECTIONS ON THE UTILITY OF LOGIC, AND THE MEANS OF ITS 
 
 IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 SECT. I. — OF THE UTILITY OPLOGIC. 
 
 Men rarely leave one extreme without running into the coutrary. 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 grandfathers were to go into the contrary. 
 
 Laying aside prejudice, whether fashionable or unfashionable, let us 
 consider whether logic is, or may be made, subservient to any good pur- 
 pose. 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 observed, that our rational faculty is 
 the gift of God, given to men in a very diflFerent measure. Some have a 
 large 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 improvement ; 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 ; 
 whUe 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 dif- 
 ferent 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 skiU 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 Chilling- 
 worth." 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 consumed in it. His counsel, therefore, 
 was judicious and reasonable; to wit. That the improvement of our 
 reasoning power is to be expected much more from an intimate ac- 
 quaintance 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 deserved any attention, he surely would not have 
 taken the pains to have made so considerable an addition to it by his 
 Essay on the Human Understanding, and by his Thoughts on the Conduct 
 of the Understanding. Nor would he have remitted his pupil to Chilling- 
 worth, 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 
 
 F P 
 
434 ANALYSIS OF Aristotle's logic. 
 
 in that pedantip Age, matkes the happiest application of the ruleg of logic, 
 for unravelling the sophistical reasoning of his antagonist. 
 
 Our reasoning power makes no appearance in infancy ; but as we grow 
 up, it unfolds itself by degrees, like the bud of a tree. When a child first 
 draws an inference, or perceives the force of an inference drawn by 
 another, we may call this the birth of his reaaon : 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 gather strength. 
 
 I believe no man remembers the birth of his reason : but it is pro- 
 bable that his decisions 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 authority, 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 cul- 
 tivating 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, 
 suifer 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 a multitude, or by their 
 own passions. Such persons, however learned, however acute, may be 
 said to be all their days children in understanding. They reason, they 
 dispute, and perhaps write ; but it is not that they may find the truth, 
 but that they may defend opinions which have descended to them by in- 
 heritance, or into which they have fallen by accident, or been led by 
 afiection. 
 
 I agree with Mr. Locke, that there is no study better fitted to exercise 
 and strengthen the reasoning powers, than that of the mathematical 
 sciences, for two reasons ; first. Because there is no other branch of science 
 which gives such scope to long and accurate trains of reasoning ; and, 
 secondly. Because in mathematics, there is no room for authority, nor for 
 prejudice of any kind which may give a false' bias to the judgment. 
 
 When a youth of moderate parts begins to study Euclid, every thing 
 at first is new to him. His apprehension is unsteady ; his judgment is 
 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 conceptions : 
 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 authority 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 experience teaches him, that this 
 is a kind of evidence that cannot be had in most things ; and that, in his 
 most important concerns, he must rest contented with probability. 
 
 Ashe 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 dis- 
 covering and demonstrating mathematical truths. 
 
 Thus a man, without rules of logic, may acquire a habit of reasoning 
 
ANALYSIS OF AKISTOTLE's LOGIC. 435 
 
 justly in mathematics, 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 
 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 in- 
 utility of logic, 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 Edin- 
 burgh 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 reducing it to rules. 
 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 judginent, 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 ? 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 com- 
 bined^ in judging and reasoning ? Is it of no use to mark the various 
 fallacies in reasoning, by which even the most ingenious men have 
 been led into error ? It must surely betray great want of understanding, 
 to think these things useless or unimportant. These are the things which 
 logicians have attempted, and which they have executed; not indeed 
 so completely as to leave no room for improvement, but in such a manner 
 as to give very considerable aid to our reasoning powers. That the prin- 
 ciples laid down with regard to definition and division, with regard to the 
 conversion and opposition of propositions, and the general rules of reasoning, 
 are not without use, is sufficiently apparent from the blunders committed 
 by those who disdain any acquaintance with them. 
 
 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 sacrilegious hands, destroy 
 or deface them, his memory would he 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 reason. 
 
 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 understanding. 
 One may as well expect to understand grammar before he can speak, as to 
 understand logic before he can reason. It must even be acknowledged, 
 that commonly we are capable of reasoning in mathematics 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 capable 
 of attentive reflection upon the operations 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 
 
 F f2 
 
436 ANALYSIS OF ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC. 
 
 reasoning; but the most important 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. 
 
 SECT. II. OP THE IMPROVEMENT OF LOGIC. 
 
 In compositions of human thought, expressed by speech or by writing, 
 whatever is excellent andwhatever is faulty fall within the province, either 
 of grammar, or of rhetoric, or of logic. Propriety of expression is the pro- 
 vince of grammar ; grace, elegance, and force, in thought and in expression, 
 are the province of rhetoric ; justness and accuracy of thought are the 
 province 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 
 attaining 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 must approved authors. It were to 
 be wished that the rules of logic were illustrated in the same manner. ■ By 
 these means, a system of logic would become a repository, wherein what- 
 ever 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 eficctual engine for that purpose. His Novum Organum gave a 
 new turn to the thoughts and labours of the inquisitive, more remarkable 
 and more useful than that which the Organon of Aristotle had given 
 before, and may be considered as a second grand era in the progress of 
 human reason. 
 
 The art of syllogism produced numberless disputes, and numberless sects 
 who fought against each other with much animosity, 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 numberless 
 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 wonderfully increased. 
 
 In reasoning by syllogism, from general principles, we descend to a con- 
 clusion virtually contained in. them. The process of induction is more 
 
ANALYSIS OF AEISTOTLE's LOGIC. 437 
 
 arduous, being an ascent from particular premises to a general conclusion. 
 The evidence of such general conclusions is probable only, not demon- 
 strative: but when the induction is sufficiently 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 phenomena are open to'our observation ; and, by 
 observing a train of uniform effects with due caution, we may at last deci- 
 pher 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 method of syllogism. 
 His Novum Orgttnum 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 
 disquisitions into the works of God. They will learn to hold in due con- 
 tempt all hypotheses and theories, the creatures of human imagination, and 
 to respect nothing but facts sufficiently vouched, or conclusions drawn from 
 them by a fair and chaste interpretation of nature. 
 
 Most arts have been reduced to rules, after they had been brought to a 
 considerable degree of perfection by the natural sagacity 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 ex- 
 amples for illustration. 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 Ofganum. Among these. Sir 
 Isaac Newton appears to hold the first rank ; having in the third book of 
 his Princifjia, 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 biases of the mind, which are the causes of false 
 judgment, and which he calls the idols of the human understanding. Some 
 late ■writers of logic have very properly introduced this into their system ; 
 but it deserves to be more copiously handled, 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 advancement of that science. It 
 has lately been done in natural philosophy : and by this means that science 
 has advanced more in a hundred and fifty years, than it had done before 
 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. 
 
438 ANALYSIS OF akisTotle'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 counterfeits. 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 that 
 he found to be certain and evident was, that he thought, and reasoned^ 
 and doubted. He found himself under a necessity of believing the existence 
 of those mental operations of which he was conscious : 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 consciousness, 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 
 an infinitely 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 ne- 
 cessity 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 rea- 
 soned, he was uncertain whether two and three made five, and whether 
 he was dreaming or E^wake. It is more strange, that so acute a reasoner 
 should not perceive that his whole train of reasoning, to prove that 
 his faculties were fallacious, was x 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 fallacious, was only the testimony, 
 of his faculties in their own favour, and might be a fallacy. 
 
 It is difficult to give any reason for distrusting our other faculties, that 
 will not reach consciousness itself. And he who distrusts the faculties of 
 judging and reasoning 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 fallacious, 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 philo- 
 sophical arguments, either to prove those truths which ought to be 
 received as first principles, or to overturn them : and it is not easy to say, 
 
ANALYSIS OF ARISTOTLE's LOGIC. 439 
 
 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 evidencej 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 indeed 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 
 and natural philosophy, (and why should we despair of a general agree- 
 ment in things that are self-evident ?) this might be considered as a third 
 grand era in the progress of human reason. 
 
ESSAYS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 ACTIVE POWERS OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The division of the faculties of the human mind into Understanding and 
 TFill 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 Maker, that man should be an active, 
 and not merely a speculative being. Foj this purpose certain active powers 
 have been given him, limited indeed in many respects, but suited to his 
 rank and place in the creation. 
 
 Our business is to manage these powers, by proposing to ourselves the 
 best ends, planning the most proper system of conduct that is in our power, 
 and executing it with industry and zeal. This is true wisdom ; this is the 
 very intention of our being. 
 
 Every thing virtuous and praiseworthy must lie in the right use of our 
 power ; every thing vicious and blameable in the abuse of it. What is not 
 within the sphere of our power, cannot be imputed to us either for blame 
 or praise. These are self-evident truths, to which every unprejudiced 
 mind yields an immediate and invincible assent. 
 
 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 animals, not less by our active than 
 by our speculative powers. 
 
 The brutes are stimulated to various actions by their instincts, by their 
 appetites, by their passions. But they seem to be necessarily determined 
 by the strongest impulse, without any capacity of self-government. There- 
 fore 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 diminishing the merit of his conduct, that it 
 greatly increases it, and affords, upon reflection, an inward satisfaction 
 and triumph, of which brute animals are not susceptible. \Vhen he acts 
 a contrary part, he has a consciousness of demerit, to which' they are no 
 less strangers. 
 
INTllODUCTION. 441 
 
 _ Since, therefore, the active powers of man make so important a part of 
 his constitution, and distinguish him so eminently from his fellow animals, 
 they deserve no less to be the subject of philosophical disquisition than his 
 intellectual powers. 
 
 A just knowledge of our powers, whether intellectual or active, is so far 
 of real importance to us, as it aids us in the exercise of them. And every 
 man must acknowledge, that to act properly is much more valuable than 
 to think justly or reason acutely. 
 
 ESSAY I. 
 
 OF ACTIVE POWER IN GENERAL. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OP THE NOTION OF ACTIVE POWER 
 
 To consider gravely what is meant by Active Power, may seem alto- 
 gether unnecessary, 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 
 understood, and to show 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 difficulties about a thing which, to the rest of mankind, 
 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. 
 
 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 give a logical 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 synonimous word or phrase, but it will probably be a worse for 
 a better. If they will define, the definition will either be grounded upon 
 an hypothesis, or it will darken the subject rather than throw light upon it. 
 
 The Aristotelian definition of motion, that it is '^ Actus entis iifpotentia, 
 quatenus in potenlia," has been justly censured by modern 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 impression." Treatise of 
 Human Nature, vol. i. p. 172. " Memory," according to the same philo- 
 sopher, " 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 tetwixt an idea and an impression." 
 
442 OF THE NOTION OF ACTIVE POWER. [ESSAY I. 
 
 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 cfensure j but shall offer some observations that may lead 
 us to attend to the conception we have of it in our own minds. 
 
 1. Power is not an object of any of our external senses, nor even an 
 object of consciousness. 
 
 That it is not seen, nor heard, nor touched, 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 immediate knowledge of its own operations. 
 Power is not an operation of the mind, and therefore no object of con- 
 sciousness. Indeed every operation of the mind is the exertion of some 
 power of the mind ; but 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 con- 
 sciousness, but of reason. 
 
 I acknowledge, therefore, that our having any conception or idea of power 
 is repugnant 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 repugnancy, 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 show, that we have very early, from our consti- 
 tution, 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 j he knows not whether he can 
 move his hands and arms tiU he makes the trial ; and if, without making 
 a trial, he consults his consciousness ever so attentively, it will give him no 
 information whether he has lost these powers or still retains them. 
 
 From this we must conclude, that the powers we have are not an object 
 of consciousness, though it would be foolish to censure this way of speaking 
 in popular discourse, which requires not accurate attention to the different 
 provinces of our various facilities. The testimony of consciousness 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 relative conception, 
 power belongs to the latter class. 
 
 As this distinction is overlooked by most writers in logic, I shall beg 
 leave to illustrate 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 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 relative. 
 
 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 
 
CHAP. I.] OF THE NOTION OP ACTIVE POWEB. 443 
 
 thousand that are under his care. But what conception does he form of it 
 from my words ? they inform him neither of the author, nor the suhject, 
 nor the language, nor the size, nor the binding, but only of its mark and 
 place. His conception of it is merely relative to these circumstances ; yet 
 this relative notion enables him to distinguisli it from every other book in 
 the library. 
 
 There are other relative notions that are not taken from accidental re- 
 lations, as in the example just now mentioned, but from qualities or at- 
 tributes essential to the thing. 
 
 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 pro- 
 perties. To this demand I am afraid the querist will meet with no satis- 
 factory answer ; because our notion of body is not direct but relative to its 
 qualities. We know that it is something extended, solid, and divisible, 
 and we know no more. 
 
 Again, if it should be asked. What is mind? 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 conception. 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. 
 
 Havii^ given examples of things of which our conception is only re- 
 lative, it may be proper to mention some of which it is direct. Of this 
 kind, are all the primary qualities of body; figure, extension, solidity, 
 hardness, fluidity, and the like. Of these we have a direct and immediate 
 knowledge from our senses. To this class belong also all the operations of 
 mind of which we are conscious. I know what thought is, what memory 
 what a purpose, what a promise. 
 
 There 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 attending to the relations which this num- 
 ber has to other numbers, greater or less. Then I perceive that the re- 
 lative 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 indistinct, that it has the same ap- 
 pearance to my eye, or to my direct conception, as a polygon of a thousand 
 and one, or o£ nine hundred and ninety-nine sides. But when I form a 
 relative conception of it, by attending to the relation it bears to poly- 
 gons of a greater or less number of sides, my notion of it becomes distinct 
 
444 OF THE NOTION OF ACTIVE POWER. [|eSSAY I. 
 
 and scientific, and I can demonstrate the properties by wliicli it is distin- 
 guished from all other polygons. From these instances it appears, that 
 our relative conceptions of things are not always less distinct, nor less fit 
 materials for accurate 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 ex- 
 ertion 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. 
 
 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 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 sub- 
 ject to which it belongs. 
 
 That power may exist without any being or subject to which that power 
 may be attributed, is an absurdity, shocking to every man of common un- 
 derstanding. 
 
 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 produce. 
 
 Thus a power to fly, and a power to reason, are different kinds of power, 
 their effects being different in kind. But a power to carry one hundred 
 pounds 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 oc- 
 casion 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 affirmation ; but there is no contrary to power. Weakness or impotence 
 are defects or privations of power, but not contraries to it. 
 
 If what has been said of power be easily understood, and readily assented 
 to, by all 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 any thing 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 understanding 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 obvious things concerning it. 
 
 The term active power is used, I conceive, to distinguish it from spe- 
 culative powers. As all languages distinguish action from speculation, the 
 same distinction is applied to the powers by which, they ai-e produced. 
 The powers of seeing, hearing, remembering, distinguishing, judging, rea- 
 
CHAP. II.] OF THE NOTION OF ACTIVE rOWEK. 445 
 
 soiling, are speculative 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 notion of them if we have none of power. 
 
 The exertion of active power we call action j and as every action ' pro- 
 duces 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 ejict 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 eflFect, exertion and operation, have such a relation 
 to active power, that if it be understood, they are understood of consequence ; 
 but if power be a word without any meaning, all those words which are 
 related to it must be words without any meaning. 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 mankind had always used these words 
 so familiarly, 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 maintained, that though there are words 
 in all languages to express sight, and words to signify 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 
 concerning ideas. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT. 
 
 There are, I believe, no abstract notions, 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 between 
 striking and being struck, must have the conception of action and passion. 
 
 We find, accordingly, that there is no language so imperfect, but that it 
 has active and passive verbs, and participles ; the one signifying some kind 
 of action ; the other the being acted upon. This distinction enters into the 
 original contexture of all languages. 
 
 Activeverbs have a form and construction proper to themselves ; passive 
 verbs have a different form and a different construction. In all languages, 
 the nominative to an active verb is the agent ; the thing acted upon is put 
 in an oblique case. In passive verbs, the thing acted upon is the nominative, 
 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 denote an action, nor is the nominative before an active 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 maybe thought a just con- 
 clusion, that in contriving the different forms of active and passive verbs, 
 
446 OF THE NOTION OF ACTIVE POWER. [jCSSAY I. 
 
 and their different construction^ men have not been governed by a regard 
 to any distinction between action and passion, but by chance, or some ac- 
 cidental cause. 
 
 In answer to this objection, the fact on which it is founded must be ad- 
 mitted ; but I think the conclusion not justly drawn from it, for the fol- 
 lowing reasons : 
 
 1. It seems contrary to reason, to attribute to chance or accident, what 
 is subject to rules", even though there may be exceptions to the rule. The 
 exceptions may, in such a case, be attributed to accident, but the rule can- 
 not. There is perhaps hardly any thing in language so general, as not to 
 admit of exceptions. It cannot be denied to be a general rule, that verbs 
 and participles 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 shows 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 different from those for which they were originally intended. The 
 varieties of a language, 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 capacity of human memory. Therefore, in all languages, there must 
 be a kind of frugality used, to make one form of expression serve many 
 different purposes, like Sir Hudibras's 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 all the various relations that one thing 
 could bear to another. The genitive case must have been at first intended 
 to express some one capital relation, such as that of possession or of pro- 
 perty ; but it would be very difficult to enumerate all the relations which, 
 in the progress of language, it was used to express. The same observation 
 may be applied to other cases of nouns. 
 
 The slightest similitude or analogy is thought sufficient to justify the 
 extension of a form of speech beyond its proper meaning, whenever the 
 language does not afford a more proper fotm. In the moods of verbs, a 
 few of those which occur most frequently 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 therefore must use some one or other 
 of those that are to be found in the language, though at first intended for 
 another purpose. 
 
 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 activity; — a cause which extends to the greater part of such 
 misapplications, and which confirms the account I have given of the ptoper 
 intention of active and passive verbs. 
 
 As there is no principle, that appears to be more universally acknow- 
 ledged by mankind, 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 observation. Felia? qui potuit rerum 
 cognoscere causas, is the voice of nature in all men. Nor is there any thing 
 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. 
 
CHAP. II.3 OF THE NOTION 01' ACTIVE POWER. 447 
 
 It must surely be admitted, that in those periods whef ein languages are 
 formed, men are but poorly furnished for carrying on this investigation 
 with success. We see, that the experience of thousands of years is neces- 
 sary to bring men into the right track in this investigation, if indeed they 
 can yet be said to be brought into it. What innumerable 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 expe- 
 rience ; froin which, I think, it is evident, that supposing active verbs to 
 have been originally intended to express what is properly called action, and 
 their nominatives to express the agent ; yet, in the rude and barbarous 
 state wherein languages are formed, there must be innumerable misappli- 
 cations 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 any thing to be changed, and do not per- 
 ceive 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 animated, 
 so far as to have the po-yver of producing 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, fauntains, and groves, are conceived 
 to be active and animated beings. As this is a sentiment natural to man 
 in his rude state, it has, on that account, even in polished nations, the veri- 
 similitude that is required in poetical fiction and fable, and makes personi- 
 fication 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 ac- 
 tivity which we know to be in ourselves. 
 
 A little girl ascribes to her doll the passions 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. 
 
 Whatever be the origin of this prejudice 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 inerely passive ; because, when such 
 forms of speech were invented, those things were reaUy believed to be ac- 
 tive. 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 furniture, which is never perfectly suited to the pre- 
 sent taste, but retains something of the fashion of the times when it was 
 made. 
 
 Thus, though all men of knowledge believe, that the succession of day 
 aiid night 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 
 &f 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 
 
448 OF THE NOTION OP ACTIVE POWEK. ^ESSAY 1. 
 
 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. 
 
 Active 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 intention, either from analogy, or because more proper forms 
 for the purpose are not found in the language. 
 
 Even the misapplication of this notion of action and active power shows 
 that there is such a notion in the human mind, and shows the necessity 
 there is in philosophy of distinguishing the proper application of these 
 words, from the vague and improper application of them, founded on com- 
 mon language, or on popular prejudice. 
 
 Another argument to show that all men have a notion or idea of active 
 power is, that there are many operations of mind common to all men who 
 have reason, and necessary 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, ex- 
 hortations 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 conclude him to be lunatic ; 
 and even lunacy would not account for his conduct, unless it made him be- 
 lieve the thing to be in his power. 
 
 If a man promises to pay me a sum of money to-morrow, without be- 
 lieving 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 de- 
 pendence on his promise. 
 
 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 continuance of any of his powers of body or mind for a 
 moment ; and, therefore, in every promise, there is a condition understood, 
 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 pro- 
 vidence 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 
 existence of active power in themselves and in others, and therefore must 
 have a notion or idea of active power. 
 
 It might further be observed, that power is the proper and immediate, 
 object of ambition, one of the most universal passions of the human mind, 
 
CHAP. II.] THE NOTION OF ACTIVE POWER. 449 
 
 and that which makes the greatest figure in the history of all ages. Whe- 
 ther Mr. Hume, in defence of his system, would maintain that there is no 
 such passion in mankind as ambition, or that ambition is not a vehement 
 desire of power, or that men may have a vehement desire of power, with- 
 out having any idea of power, I will not pretend to divine. 
 
 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 imagine 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 Treatise 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 received 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 Catholics, 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 con- 
 scious that I know what I mean by that word, and, while I have this con- 
 sciousness, 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 con- 
 descend to use such arguments as the subject will afford, and such as we 
 should use with a man who should deny that mankind have any idea of 
 magnitude or of equality. . 
 
 The arguments I have adduced are taken from these five topics: 1. That 
 there are many things that we can affirm or deny concerning power, with 
 understanding. 2. That there are, in all languages, words signifymg not 
 only power, but signifying many other things that imply power, such as, 
 action and passion, cause and effect, energy, operation, and others. 3. That 
 in the structure 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 famfliar to every man come to the use of reason, and ne- 
 cessary 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. 
 
450 iril/l,0("KE's ACCOUNT OF OUIl IDEA OF POWEIl. LESSAY I. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 OP MR. Locke's account of our idea of power. 
 
 This author, having refuted the Cartesian doctrine of innate ideas, took 
 np, perhaps, 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 con- 
 sciousness of the operations of our minds. 
 
 Through the whole of his Essay, he shows 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 ac- 
 count 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 ac- 
 count he gives of our idea of power. 
 
 The sum of it is. That observing, by our senses, various changes in ob- 
 jects, we collect a possibility in one object to be changed, 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 attributes 
 to reflection, as he refers the former to sensation. 
 
 On this account of the origin of our idea of power, I would beg leave to 
 ma,ke two remarks, with the respect that is most justly due to so great a 
 philosopher, and so good a man. 
 
 l._ Whereas he distinguishes power into aclive and passke, 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. 
 
 Perhaps he was unwarily led into it, as an opposite to active power. But 
 I conceive we call certain powers active, to distinguish them from other 
 powers that are called speculative. As all mankind distinguish action from 
 speculation, it is very proper to distinguish the powers by which those dif- 
 ferent 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. Locke seems to have imposed upon him- 
 , self, in attempting 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 in 
 forming this idea of power ; Jirst, It observes changes in things • and se- 
 condly From these changes, it infers a cause of them, and a power to Dro- 
 duce them. '^ 
 
 If both these steps are operations of the external senses, or of conscious- 
 
CHAP. IV.] MR. HUME'S OPINION OF POWER. 451 
 
 ness, then the idea of power may be called an idea of sensation, or of re- 
 flection. But, if either of these 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, con- 
 sider each of these steps by itself. 
 
 First, We observe various changes in things. And Mr. Locke takes it 
 tor 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, when it 
 IS so used in popular discourse. But 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 me- 
 mory- 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, there- 
 fore, 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 conclusion, or is it by consciousness ? Is reasoning the province of the 
 senses, or is it the province of consciousness ? If the senses <&n draw ohe 
 conclusion from premises, they may draw live hundred, and demonstrate 
 the whole elements of Euclid. 
 
 Thus, I think, it appears, that the account which Mr. Locke himself 
 gives of the origin of our idea of power, cannot be reconciled to his fa- 
 vourite doctrine. That all our simple i4eas have their origin from sen- 
 sation or reflection ; and that, in attempting 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 MK. 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. Thifl he seems to understand, even in a stricter sense than Mr. 
 
 gg2 
 
452 Mil. hitme's opinion of poweu. Ci'-ssay I- 
 
 Locke did. For lie will have all our simple ideas to be copies of preceding 
 impressions, either of our external senses or of consciousness. " After the 
 most accurate 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 impression which resembles it, and every simple im- 
 pression 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 conclusion that admits of no 
 proof, but by induction ; 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 shown to be copied from a resembling 
 impression of sense or of consciousness. No man can pretend to have made 
 this examination of all our simple ideas without exception ; and, therefore, 
 no man can, consistently with the rules of philosophising, assure us, that 
 this conclusion holds without any exception. 
 
 The author professes, in his title page, to introduce into moral subjects 
 the experimental method of reasoning. This was a very laudable attempt ,- 
 but he ought to have known, that it is a rule in the experimental method of 
 reasoning. That conclusions established by induction ought never to ex- 
 elude exceptions, if any such should afterwards appear from observation or 
 experiment. Sir Isaac Newton, speaking of such conclusions, says, " Et si 
 quando in experiundo postea reperiatur aliquid, quod a parte contraria 
 faciat ; turn demum, uon sine istis exceptionibus affirmetur conclusio op- 
 portebit." "-But," says our author, " I will venture to affirm, that the 
 rule here holds without any exception." 
 
 Accordingly, throughout the whole treatise, this general rule is consi- 
 dered as of sufficient authority, in itself, to exclude, even from a hearing, 
 every thing that appears to be an exception to it. This is contrary to the 
 fundamental principles of the experimental method of reasoning, and there- 
 fore may be called rash and unphilosophical. 
 
 Having thus established this general principle, the author does great ex- 
 ecution by it among our ideas. He finds, that we have no idea of sub- 
 stance, material or spiritual ; that body and mind are only certain trains of 
 related impressions and ideas ; that we have no idea of space or duration, 
 and no idea of power, active or intellective. 
 
 Mr Locke used his principle of sensation and reflection with greater 
 moderation and mercy. Being unwilling to thrust the ideas we have men- 
 tioned into the limbo of non-existence, he stretches sensation and reflection 
 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 showing them any favour, seems fond to get 
 rid of them. 
 
 Of the ideas mentioned, it is only that of power that concerns our pre- 
 sent subject. And, with regard to this, the author boldly affirms, " That 
 we never have any idea of power ; that we deceive ourselves when we ima- 
 gine 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 oi povcer and efficacy." 
 
 Surely this author was not ignorant, that there are many things of which 
 -*e have a clear and distinct conception, which are so simple in their nature. 
 
CHAP. IV.] MR. HUMK'h Oi-IKION Of POWKE. 453 
 
 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 iopovoer and efficacy what he says, in another 
 place, of pride and humility. " The passions of pride and hnmilily," 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 
 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." 
 
 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 philosophical, we need but reflect on two very obvious principles ; 
 Jirst, That reason alone can never give rise to any original idea : and, se- 
 condly. That reason, as distinguished from experience, can never make us 
 conclude, that a cause, or productive quality, is absolutely requisite to 
 every beginning of existence." *■ 
 
 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 opinions, which, on that very ac- 
 count, 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 indeed so popular an 
 opinion, that, I believe, this author is the first of mankind that ever called 
 it in question. It is so popular, tliat there is not a man of common pru- 
 dence 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 confined as insane, and continue in that state, till a suf- 
 ficient cause was found for his enlargement. 
 
 Such a popular opinion as this stands upon a higher authority than 
 that of philosophy, and philosophy must strike sail to it, if she would not 
 render herself contemptible to every man of common understanding. 
 
 For though, in matters of deep speculation, the multitude must be guided 
 by philosophers, yet, in things that are within the reach of every man's un- 
 derstanding, and upon which the whole conduct of human life turns, the 
 philosopher must follow the multitud,e, or make himself perfectly ridiculous. 
 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 .■" 
 
 The_/?r.s/of the very obvious principles which the author opposes to Mr. 
 Locke's account of the idea of power, is. That reason alone can never give 
 rise to any original idea. 
 
 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.? As our idea of sight takes its rise from our being 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 conclusion, 
 of an enthymemc, dilemma, sorites, and all the various modes of reasoning 
 
454 MR. Hume's opinion of poweu. . [^essay i. 
 
 take their rise from the faculty of reason ? Or is it possible^ that a being, 
 not endowed with the faculty of reasoning, should have these ideas ? '1 his 
 principle^ therefore, is so far from being obviously true, that it appears to 
 be obviously false. 
 
 The ieeowrf obvious principle is. That reason, as distinguished from ex- 
 perience, can never make us conclude, that a cause, or productive quality, 
 is absolutely requisite to every beginning of existence. 
 
 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 
 prevent repetition, I beg leave to refer the reader to what is said upon this 
 subject. Essay vi. Chap. vi. I endeavoured to show that it is a first prin- 
 ciple, evident to all men come to years of understanding. 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 abso- 
 lutely necessary in the ordinary afiairs of life, and wdthout 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 experience. I endea- 
 voured to show, that we do not learn it from experience, for two reasons : 
 
 First, Because it 'is a necessary truth, and has always been received as a 
 necessary truth. Experience gives no information of what is necessary, or 
 of what must be. 
 
 We may know from experience, what is or what was, and from that may 
 probably conclude what shall be in like circumstances ; 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. 
 
 In like manner, if we had experience, ever so constant, that every change . 
 in nature we have observed, actually had a cause, this might alford 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 show that this principle is not learned from ex- 
 perience is. That experience does not show us 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 advanced, 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 be- 
 ginning of the world, has been to investigate the causes of things. What 
 pity is it, they never thought of putting the previous question. Whether 
 things have a cause or not ? This question has at last been started ; and 
 what is there so ridiculous as not to be maintained by some philosopher ? 
 
 Enough has been said upon it> and more, I think, than it deserves. But, 
 being about to troat of the active powers of the human mind, I thought it 
 improper to take no notice of what has been said by so celebrated a philoso- 
 pher, to show, that there is not, in the human mind, any idea of power. 
 
CHAP, v.] BKIMGS THAT HAVK NO UNDKUSTAKDING. 455 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 WHETHER BEINGS THAT HAVE NO WILL NOH UNDERSTANDING MAY HAVK 
 
 ACTIVE POWER. 
 
 That active power is an attribute, which cannot exist but in some being 
 possessed of that power, and the subject of that attribute, I take for granted 
 as a self-evident truth. Whether there can be active power in a subject 
 which has no thought, no understanding, no will, is not so evident. 
 
 The ambiguity of the words power, cause, agent, and of all the words re- 
 lated to these, tends to perplex this question. The weakness 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 ob- 
 serve 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 discovered. 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 circumstances 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 mjnd, whether of a superior or inferior order, concerns us little. 
 
 Thus it is with regard to all the effects wa asciibe to nature. 
 
 Nature is the name we give to the efficient cause of innumerable effects 
 which fall daily under our observation. But if it he asked what nature is ? 
 whether the first universal cause, or a subordinate one, whether 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 matter. 
 
 From the course of events in the natural world, we have sufficient reason 
 to conclude the existence of an eternal intelligent First Cause. But whe- 
 ther he acts immediately in the production of those events, or by subordi- 
 nate intelligent agents, or by instruments that are unintelligent, and what 
 the number, the nature, and the different offices of those agents or instru- 
 ments may be ; these I apprehend to be mysteries placed beyond the limits 
 of human knowledge. 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 regard 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 bodies by our senses, we have but a very imperfect 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 forbear, continue or end, several 
 actions of our minds and motions of our bodies, barely by a thought or pre- 
 ference of the mind, ordering, or, as it were, commanding the doing or not 
 doing such a particular action. This power which the mind has thus to 
 
456 BKING3 THAT HAVE NO USDEUSTANDING. [eSSaY.I- 
 
 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 versa, in any 
 particular instance, is that which we call l/ie will. The actual exercise of 
 that power, by directing any particular action, or its forbearance, is that 
 which we call vdition or willing." 
 
 According to Mr. Locke, therefore, the only clear notion 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 
 understanding 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, tliat 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 contin- 
 gent. Contingent existence is that which depended upon the power and 
 will of its cause. Opposed 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 between contingent and necessary 
 truth. 
 
 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 immu- 
 table. Contingency, therefore, has a relation to active power, as all ac- 
 tive power is exerted in contingent 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 activity, seems to be derived, not only 
 the clearest but the only conception we can form of activity, or the exer- 
 tion 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 ab- 
 straction and reasoning, we could not have had any conception of these opera- 
 tions. 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. 
 
 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 con- 
 viction of the necessity of a cause to every event. 
 
 And of the manner in which a cause may exert its active power, we can 
 
CHAP, v.] BKIKGS THAT HAV£ NO UNDERSTANDING. 457 
 
 have no conception 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, whatever the agents may be, whatever the manner 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 concern. 
 
 It is of the highest importance to us, as moral and accountable creatures, 
 to know what actions are in our oivn power, because it is for these only that 
 we can be accountable to our Maker, or to our feUow-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, vidth regard to them 
 the wise Author of nature has not left us in the dark. 
 
 Every man is led by nature to attribute to himself the free determina- 
 tions 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 cir- 
 culates, 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 ? Because they are 
 not subject to our will. This is the infallible criterion by which we distinguish 
 what is our doing from what is not, what is in our power from what is not. 
 Human, power, therefore, can only be exerted by will, and we are unable 
 to conceive any active power to be exerted without will. Every man 
 knows infallibly that what is done by his conscious will and intention, is to 
 ,be imputed to him as the agent or cause ; and that whatever is done with- 
 out his will and intention, cannot be imputed to him vrith truth. 
 
 We judge of the actioits 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 tlie 
 object either of approbation or of blame for what he did not. But how 
 shall we know whether it is his doing or not i" 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 particular action ought to be im- 
 puted, the doubt arises only from our ignorance of facts ; when the facts re- 
 lating to it are known, no man of understanding has any doubt to whom 
 the action ought to be imputed. 
 
 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 pwer, 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. 
 
 Reason leads us to ascribe unlimited power to the Supreme Being. But 
 what do we mean by unlimited power ? It is power to do whatsoever he 
 wills. To suppose 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 ina being by which he can do certain things if he wills. This.. 
 after all, is only a relative conception. It is relative to the effect, and to 
 the will of producing it. Take away these, and the conception vanishes. 
 
458 BEIKGS THAT HAVli NO 0NDEUSTANDJKG. QesSAY I. 
 
 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 demonstration ; but our conception of 
 it is relative to space and time. What is velocity in a body } It is a state 
 in which it passes through a certain space in a certain time. Space and 
 time are very diiferent 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 relation 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 ourselves, I am not able to determine with certainty. The 
 origin of many of our conceptions, and even of many of our judgments, is 
 not so easily traced as philosophers have generally conceived. No man can 
 recollect the time when he first got the conception of an efficient cause, or 
 the time when he first got the belief that an efficient cause is necessary to 
 every change in nature. The conception of an efficient cause may very 
 probably be derived from the experience 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 ex- 
 perience 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 ex- 
 perience. 
 
 If it be so that the conception of an efficient 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 the most distinct notion, and, I think, the only notion we 
 can form of real efficiency. 
 
 Now it is evident, that to constitute the relation between me and my 
 action, my conception 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 con- 
 ceive nor will, he speaks a language which I do not understand. If he 
 has a meaning, his notion of power and efficiency must be essentially dif- 
 ferent from mine ; and, until he conveys his notion of efficiency to my un- 
 derstanding, I can no more assent to his opinion, than if he should affirm, 
 that a being without life may feel pain. 
 
 It seems, therefore, to me most probable, that such beings only as have 
 some degree of understanding and will, can possess active power ; and that 
 inanimate beings must be merely passive, and have no real activity. No- 
 thing we perceive without us affords any good ground for ascribing active 
 power to any inanimate being ; and every thing we can discover in our 
 own constitution, leads us to think, that active power cannot be exerted 
 without wiU and intelligence. 
 
CHAP. VI.] THE PHENOMENA OF NATURE. 459 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 or THE EFFICIENT CAUSES OP THE PHENOMENA OF NATURE. 
 
 If active power, in its proper meaning, requires a subject endowed with 
 will and intelligence, what shall we say of those active powers which phi- 
 losophers teach us to ascribe to matter ; the powers of corpuscular at- 
 traction, magnetism, electricity, gravitation and others ? Is it not uni- 
 versally 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 ? Have the most eminent natural phi- 
 losophers been imposing upon us, and giving us words instead of real 
 causes ? 
 
 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 under- 
 stand 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 natural philosophy, in a wrong 
 sense, and in a sense which is neither necessary for establishing the true 
 principles of natural philosophy, nor was ever meant by the most en- 
 lightened in that science. 
 
 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 im- 
 pressed upon it by some external cause, which they do not pretend 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 8th definition pre- 
 fixed to his Principia : " Voces autem attractionis, impulsus, vel propen- 
 sionis cujuscunque in centrum, indifferenter et pro se mutuo promiscue 
 usurpo ; has voces non physics sed mathematice considerando. Unde 
 caveat lector, ne per hujus modi voces cogitet me speciem vel modum ac- 
 tionis, 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 understanding 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. 
 
 Every object whicli, undergoes any change, must be either active or 
 passive in that change. TJiis is self-evident to all men from the first dawn 
 
460 THE PHENOMENA OF NATUKE. ^ESSAY I. 
 
 of reason ; and therefore 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 a little advance in knowledge and experience teaches us to 
 be merely passive. This property common to all languages, I endeavoured 
 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 shows that this keen 
 appetite, rather than go empty, will feed upon the husks of real knowledge 
 where the fruit cannot be found. 
 
 While we are very much in the dark with regard to the real agents or 
 causes which produce the phenomena 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. 
 
 Thus in a very ancient system love and strife were made the causet of 
 things. Plato made the causes of things to be matter, ideas, and an ef- 
 ficient architect. Aristotle, matter, form, and privation. Des Cartes 
 thought matter, and a certain quantity of motion given it by the Almighty 
 at first, to be all that is necessary to make the material world. Leib- 
 nitz 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 be- 
 ginning of its existence to eternity. 
 
 In common language, we give the name of a cnuse 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 efficient, the material, the formal, and the final. This, like 
 many of Aristotle's distinctions, 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 trans- 
 late 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, instrumental causes, 
 occasional causes, and I know not how many others. 
 
 Thus the word cause has been so hackneyed, 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. 
 
 With regard to the phenomena of nature, the important end of knowing 
 tlieir 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 im- 
 
ClIA?. VI. THE PHKNOMENA OP NATURE. 461 
 
 portance 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 phenomenon. 
 
 If a magnet be brought near a to 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 effect 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 phenomenon. 
 He observes, that the magnet does not touch the needle, and therefore 
 can give it no impulse. He pities the ignorance of the sailor. The effect is 
 produced, says he, by magnetic effluvia or subtile matter, which passes from 
 the magnet to the needle, and forces it from its place. He can even show 
 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 perfectly 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 business, as -a philosopher, 
 is only to find from experiment the laws by which it is regulated in all 
 cases. 
 
 These three persons differ much in their sentiments with regard to the 
 real cause of this phenomenon : 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 
 attractive or repulsive power of the magnet. 
 
 What has been said of this may be applied to every phenomenon that 
 falls within 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 natural philosophy was that of the 
 law of gravitation, which opens such a view of our planetary system, that 
 it looks like something divine. But the author of this discovery was per- 
 fectly aware, that he discovered no real cause, but only the law or rule, 
 according to which the unknown cause operates. 
 
 Natural philosophers, who think accurately, have a precise meaning to 
 the terms they use in the science ; and when they pretend to show the 
 cause of any phenomenon of nature, they mean by the cause, a law of 
 nature of which that phenomenon 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 discover the laws of nature, and then to apply those 
 laws to the solution of the phenomena of nature. This was all that this 
 great philosopher attempted, and all that he thought attainable. And this 
 indeed he attained in a great measure, with regard to the motions of our 
 planetary system, and with regard to the rays of light. 
 
 But supposing that all the phenomena 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 
 
462 THE PHENOMENA OF NATUllE. [ESSAY I. 
 
 Utmost perfection^ it, does not discover the efficient cause of any one phe- 
 nomenon in nature. 
 
 The laws of nature are the rules according to which the eflFects are pro- 
 duced ; but there must be a cause which operates according to these rules. 
 The rules of navigation never navigated a ship. The rules of archi- 
 tecture 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 phenomena ; but they have never discovered the efficient 
 cause of any one phenomenon ; nor do those who have distinct notions 
 of the principles of the science, make any such pretence. 
 
 Upon the theatre of nature; we see innumerable 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 ^bordinate cause or causes ; 
 and if subordinate causes be employed by the Almighty ; what their na- 
 ture, their number, and their different oiiices may be, are things hid, for 
 wise reasons without doubt, from the human eye. 
 
 It is only in human actions, that may be imputed for praise or blame, 
 that it is necessary for us to know who is the agent ; and in this, nature 
 has given us all the light that is necessary for our conduct. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OF THE EXTENT OP 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 accountable, must have more or less of it. For, 
 to call a person to account, to approve or disapprove 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 underrate it is ingratitude to the giver ; 
 to overrate it, begets pride and presumption, and leads to unsuccessful 
 attempts. It is therefore, in every man, a point of wisdom to make, a 
 just estimate of his own power. Quid ferre recuseiit, 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 t6 do many 
 things which he did not, arid 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. 
 
 The effects of human power are either immediate, or they are more 
 remote. 
 
CHAP. VII.] THE EXTENT OF HUMAN POWER. 463 
 
 • Tire immediate effects, I think, are reducible 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 produce thought in any 
 other person, but by thought and motion in ourselves. 
 
 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 direction. 
 
 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 direction 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 direction. 
 
 This is the case with regard to all animal and voluntary motions, which 
 come within the reach of our senses. They are performed by the con- 
 traction of certain muscles ; 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 volition of the animal, we know 
 nothing, and can say nothing about them. 
 
 We know not even how those immediate effects of our power are pro- 
 duced by our willing them. We perceive not any necessary connexion 
 between the volition and exertion on our part, and the motion of our body 
 that follows them. 
 
 Anatomists inform us, that every voluntary motion of the body is per- 
 formed 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 mo- 
 tions of our bodies, and the operation of the nerves and muscles which pro- 
 duces 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 efiicient, 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. 
 
 We have good reason to believe, that matter had its origin from mind, as 
 well as all its motions ; but how, or in what manner, it is moved by mind, 
 we know as little as how it was created. 
 
 It is possible, therefore, for any thing we know, that what we call the 
 
464 THE EXTENT OF HUMAN POWER. [^ESSAY I. 
 
 immediate effects of our power^ may not be so in the strictest sense. 
 Between the will to produce 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 pro- 
 duce 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 production. 
 
 Thus, he who maliciously intends to shoot his neighbour dead, and vo- 
 luntarily does it, is undoubtedly the cause of his death, thoug;h 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 
 followed by the man's death, and did it with that intention ; and therefore 
 he is justly chargeable with the murder. 
 
 Philosophers may therefore dispute innocently, 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 
 determination of tHis question, if it can be determined, can have no efFedt 
 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 conviction of all mankind. 
 
 Wefe we to examine minutely into the connexion 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 certain time, 
 and turn our attention to another when we choose, we might perhaps find 
 it difficult to determine, whether the mind itself be the sole efficient cause 
 of the voluntary changes in the direction of our thoughts, or whether it 
 requires the aid of other efficient 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 fruit- 
 less. 
 
 Nothing appears more evident to our reason, than that there must be an 
 efficient cause of every change that happens in nature. But when I 
 attempt to comprehend the manner in which an efficient cause operates, 
 either upon body or upon mind, there is a darkness which my faculties are 
 not able to penetrate. 
 
 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 the other great rivers, which make a figure upon the globe of 
 the earth, and traversing vast regions, bring sometimes great benefit, at 
 other times great mischief, to many nations ; yet, when we' trace those 
 
CHAl'. VII.] THE EXTENT OP HUMAN POWER. 465 
 
 rivers to their source, we find them to rise from inconsiderable fountains 
 and nils. 
 
 The command of a mighty prince, what is it, but the sound of his breath, 
 modihed by his organs of speech .? 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 himself 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 iirst ; and, if 
 they were as much disposed to it, human socipty 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 annual or diurnal 
 motions of our own. 
 
 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 discovered 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 supplying his wants ; and his labour is made necessary 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 accommodation of man. 
 
 It is capable of cultivation, in most places, to such a degree, that, by 
 human labour, it may afford subsistence to a 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 accommodation ; and their supply is more or less comfortable, in pro- 
 portion 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 fertility of the earth, and a great addition to his own 
 accommodation and comfortable state. 
 
 By clearing, tilling and manuring the ground, by planting and sowing, 
 by building 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 wilder- 
 ness 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 
 
 H H 
 
466 THE EXTENT OF HUMAN FOWEK. [liSSAY I. 
 
 the material system-, in changing the face of the earth, and furnishing the 
 accommodations 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 grovif 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 baiTen 
 by nature, but capable of a high degree of culture ; and this culture he 
 must receive from parents, from instructors, from those with whom he 
 lives in society, joined with his own industry. 
 
 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. 
 
 Upon his own mind he may make great improvement in acquiring the 
 treasures of useful knowledge, the habits of skill in arts, the habits of 
 wisdom, prudence, self-command, and every other virtue. It is the con- 
 stitution 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 efl^ects 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 im- 
 provement 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 ! 
 
 The power of man over his o^vn andother 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 pretend to determine. 
 
 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 Ave know not how 
 it produces this effect. The communication of thought, sentiment and 
 passion, from one mind to another, has something in it as mysterious as the 
 communication of motion from one body to anotlier. 
 
 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 knowing what is the bond that unites them. In order 
 to produce a certain event, we use means which, by laws of nature, are 
 connected with that event ; and we call ourselves the cause of that event, 
 though other efficient causes may iiave 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 
 
CHAP. VII.] THE EXTKNT OF HUMAN POWER. 467 
 
 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 insensible,, 
 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 paradise. On the contrary, 
 its perversion and abuse is the cause of most of the evils that afilict human 
 life. 
 
 II II 2 
 
ESSAY 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. 
 
 Volition, therefore, signifies the act of 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, especially in the writings of philo- 
 sophers, a more extensive meaning, which we must carefully 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. 
 
 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 modifications 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 determination consequent to that 
 advice, are things so different in their nature, that it would be improper to 
 call them modifications of one and the same thing. In like manner, the 
 motives to action, and the determination to act or not to act, are things 
 that have no common nature, and therefore ought not to be confounded 
 under one name, or represented as different modifications of the same thing. 
 For this reason, in speaking of the will in this Essay, I do not compre- 
 hend under that term any of the incitements or motives which may have an 
 influence upon our determinations, but solely the determination itself, and 
 the power to determine. 
 
 Mr. Locke has considered this operation of the mind more attentively, 
 and distinguished 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 witliholding it from, any particular action." 
 
 It may more briefly be defined. The determination of the mind to do, or 
 not to do something which we conceive to be in our power. 
 
 If this were given as a strictly logical definition, 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 
 
CHAP. I.] OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE WILL, 469 
 
 mind do not admit of a logical definition. The way to form a clear notion 
 of them is, to reflect attentively upon them as we feel them in ourselves. 
 Without this reflection, no definition can give us ar distinct conception of 
 them. 
 
 For this reason, rather than sift any definition of the will, I shall make 
 some observations upon it, which may lead us to reflect 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 remember without 
 remembering something, so neither can he will without willing something. 
 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 distinguished 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 con- 
 ception of that complex operation, or how it is performed. It cannot, 
 therefore, with propriety, be said, that it wills to suck. 
 
 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 volun- 
 tary. 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 immediate object of will must be some 
 action of our own. 
 
 By this, will is distinguished from two acts of the mind, which some- 
 times take 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 wiU agree in this, that both must have an object, of which 
 we must have some conception ; and therefore both must be accompaniqd 
 with some degree of understanding. But they differ in several things. 
 
 The object of desire may be any thing which appetite, passion, or afl'ec- 
 tion, leads us to pursue ; it may be any event which we think good for us, 
 or for those to whom we are well aflfected. 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 therefore a distinction in common 
 language between 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 action, it may be no action at all. 
 
 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 
 
470 OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE WILL. QeSSAY II. 
 
 reason, lie 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 affection, he desires that he should live. A man 
 for health may take a nauseous draught, for which he has no desire, but a 
 great aversion. Desire, therefore, even when its object is some action of 
 our own, is only an incitement to will, but it is not volition. The deter- 
 mination of the mind may be, not to do what we desire to do. But as 
 dfesire 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 dif- 
 ferent 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. 
 
 Jn giving a command all these acts concur ; and as they go together, it 
 is not uncommon 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. 
 
 Perhaps it may be thought that a command is only a desire expressed by 
 language, that the thing commanded should be done. But it is not so. 
 For a desire may be expressed by language when there is no command ; 
 and there may possibly be a command 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 disobedience, or to furnish a pretence for their punishment. 
 
 We might farther observe, that a command is a social act of the mind. 
 It can have no existence but by a communication of thought to some intel- 
 ligent 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 commix- 
 nication or belief. 
 
 The immediate object of volition, thei-efore, must be some action, and our 
 own action. 
 
 A ihird observation is. That the object of our volition must be some- 
 thing which we believe to be in our power, and to depend upon our will. 
 
 I A man may desire to make a visit to the moon, or to the planet Jupiter, 
 but he cannot 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 
 lirst make him believe it to be in his power. 
 
 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 persons have recovered the power of 
 speech after they had lost it by a paralytica! 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 heavjr 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. 
 
CHAP. II.] INFLUENCE OF MOTIVES UPON THE WILL. 471 
 
 therefore, that what we will must be believed to be in our power, and>to 
 depend upon our will. 
 
 The next 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 proportioned 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«flf"ort at all. But this, I apprehend, must be understood either 
 as a figurative way of speaking, by which things very small are accounted 
 as nothing ; or it is owing to our giving no attention to very small efforts, 
 and therefore having no name for them. 
 
 G?reat 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 fffort is commonly appropriated 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 attenti'on to it ; and 
 there is nothing in which we are in a more Strict sense active. 
 
 The last observation is. That in all determinations of the mind that are 
 of any importance, 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 any thing, or our volitions would be per- 
 fectly unmeaning and futile, being neither wise nor foolish, virtuous 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 particular 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. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF THE INFLUENCE OF INCITEMENTS 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 CMTied in arms, and kept warm by his nurse ; but he must 6u«k and 
 swallow his food for himself. And this must be done before he has any 
 comception of sacking or swdlowing, or of the manner in which they are to 
 be performed. He is led by nature to do these actions without knowing 
 for what end, or what he is about. This we call instinct. 
 
472 INFLUENCE OF MOTIVES UPON THE WILL. [^ESSAY II. 
 
 In-many cases there is no time for voluntary determination. The motions 
 must go on so rapidly., that the conception and volition 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 balance, the motion necessary to 
 prevent his fall would come too late, if it were the consequence of thinking 
 what is fit to be done, and making a voluntary effort for that purpose. He 
 does this instinctively. 
 
 When a man beats a drum or plays a tune, he has not time to direct 
 every particular beat or stop by a voluntary determination ; but the habit 
 which may be acquired 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. 
 
 Suppose a man to know that, in order to live, he must eat. What shall 
 he eat."" How much.'' And how often? His reason can answer none of 
 these questions ; and therefore can give no direction how he should deter- 
 mine. Here again nature, as an indulgent parent, supplies the defects of 
 his reason ; giving him appetite, which shows 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 passions, 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 done, 
 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 impulse there is no judgment implied. It may be weak or strong ; we 
 can even conceive it irresistible. In the case of madness it is so. Madmen 
 have their appetites and passions ; but they want the power of self-govern- 
 ment ; 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 supposed to be irresistible, we do not impute them to the 
 man at all. 
 
 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 actions are not subject to 
 law. Men are in a like state in infancy, in madness, and in the delirium 
 of a fever. They have appetites and passions, but they want that which 
 makes them moral agents, accountable for their conduct, and objects of 
 moral approbation or of blame. 
 
 In some cases, a stronger impulse of appetite or passion may oppose a 
 
CHAP. II.] INFLUENCE OF MOTIVES UPON THE WILL. 473 
 
 weaker. Here also there may be determination and action without judg- 
 ment. 
 
 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 present death if he retreats, is an overbalance to the pro- 
 bability of being killed if he goes on. The man is pushed by contrary 
 forces, and it requires neither judginent nor exertion 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 for- 
 ward, 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. 
 
 Sometimes, however, there is a calm in the mind from the gales of pas- 
 sion or appetite, and the man is left to work his way in the voyage of life, 
 ■\vithout those impulses 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 situ- 
 ation ; and the determination is wholly imputable to the man, and not in 
 any degree to his passion. 
 
 Every man come to years of understanding, vfho 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-ap- 
 probation, and of the approbation of his Maker. These things, and their 
 contraries, have a comparative importance in his cool and deliberate 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. 
 
 Every thing worthy of pursuit must be so, either intrinsically, and upon 
 its own account, or as the means of procuring something that is intrinsi- 
 cally valuable. That it is by judgment that we discern the fitness of means 
 for attaining an end, is self-evident ; 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. 
 
 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 another. 
 
 Thus, if one man prefers cheese to lobsters, another lobsters to cheese, 
 it is vain, say they, to apply judgment to determine which is right. In 
 like manner, if one man prefers pleasure to virtue, another virtue to plea- 
 sure, this is a matter of taste, judgment has nothing to do in it. This 
 seems to be the opinion of some philosophers. 
 
 I cannot help being of a contrary opinion. I think we may form a judg- 
 ment, both in the question about cheese and lobsters, and in the more im- 
 portant question about pleasure and virtue. 
 
 When one man feels a more agreeable relish in cheese, another in lob- 
 sters, this, I grant, requires no judgment; it depends only upon the con- 
 stitution 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. 
 
474 INFLUKNCE OF MOTIVF.S UPON THK WILL. [kSSAY II. 
 
 and that, with a small share of this faciiltjr, we may give a very certain de- 
 termination, to wit, that tiie two tastes are equally good, and that both of 
 the persons 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, 
 notwithstanding that difference, agree perfectly in their judgment, that 
 both tastes are upon a footing of equality, and that neither has a just claim 
 to preference. 
 
 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 pleasure 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 condemn the other. £ach chooses according to his taste, in matters which 
 his best judgment determines to be perfectly indifferent. 
 
 But it is to be observed, that this supposition cannot have place, when 
 we speak of men, or indeed of moral agents. The man who is incapable 
 of perceiving the obligation of virtue, when lie uses his best judgment, 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 judgment is unbiassed, sees, that 
 there are certain 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, 
 although 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 constitution that may have influence upon our voluntary actions. 
 These we call by the general names oi passion and reason; and we shall 
 find, in all languages, names that are equivalent. 
 
 Under the former, we comprehend various 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 com- 
 mon 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 further view, by a kind of violence ; a violence wliich 
 indeed may be resisted if the man is master of himself, but cannot be re- 
 sisted without a struggle. 
 
 Cicero's phrase folr expressing their influence is, " Hominem hue it illuc 
 rapiunt." Dr. Hutcheson uses a similar phrase, " Quibus, agitatur mens 
 et bruto quodam impetu fertur." There is no exercise of reason or judg- 
 ment 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 calkd reason, 
 as opposed to passion, there have been very subtile disputes among modern 
 philosophers, whether 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. 
 
CHAP. II.] INFLUKNCE OF MOTIVES UPON THE WILL. 475 
 
 As to this point, I think, all men must allow that this is the manly part 
 of our constitution, tlie other the brute part. This operates in a calm and 
 dispassionate manner ; a manner so like to judgment or reason, that even 
 those who do not allow it to be called by that name, endeavour to account 
 for its having always had the name ; because, in the manner of its opera- 
 tion, it has a similitude to reason. 
 
 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 opposition. 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, whether it have merit or demerit ; whereas, what he does from 
 passion is imputed in part to the passion. If the passion be conceived to 
 be irresistible, the action is imputed 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 pur- 
 sued, how far every appetite and passion may be indulged, and when it 
 ought to be resisted. 
 
 It directs us, not only to resist the impulse of passion when it would lead 
 us wrong, but to avoid the occasions of inflaming it ; like Cyrus, who re- 
 fused 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 thafthe superiority of human nature appears, and 
 the specific difl^erence between it and that of brutes. In them we may ob- 
 serve one passion combating another, and the strongest prevailing ; but we 
 perceive no calm principle in their constitution, that is superior to every 
 passion, and able to give law to it. 
 
 The difference between these two parts of our constitution may be far- 
 ther illustrated by an instance or two wherein passion prevails. 
 
 If a man, upon great provocation, strike another when he ought to keep 
 the peace, he blames himself for what he did, and acknowledges that he 
 ought not to have yielded to his passion. Every other person 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, acknowledging, at the same time, that it is alleviated 
 in proportion to the provocation ; so that th« 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 exe- 
 cutes it, the action admits of no alleviation, 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 im- 
 portance, with which he is intrusted, 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 admire his fortitude as truly heroical. 
 
476 INFLUENCE OF MOTIVES UPON THE WILL. pCSSAY II. 
 
 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 judgment, and without authority. The second is 
 always accompanied with authority. All wisdom and virtue consists in 
 following its dictates; all vice and folly in disobeying them. We may 
 resist the impulses of appetite and passion, not only without regret, but 
 with self-applause and triumph ; but the calls of reason and duty can never 
 be resisted, without remorse and self-condemnation. 
 
 The ancient philosophers agreed with the vulgar, in making this dis- 
 tinction of the principles of action. The irrational part the Greeks called 
 dp/iri. Cicero calls it appetitus, taking that word in an extensive sense, so 
 as to include every propensity to action which is not grounded on judgment. 
 
 The other principle the Greeks called vovq ; Plato calls it the fiyrjfioyiKuy, 
 
 or leading principle. " Duplex ejiim est vis animorum atque naturae" says 
 
 Cicero, "una pars in appetitii posUa est, quae est opfiri Grceca, quae hominem 
 
 hue et illuc rapit ; altera In ratione, quae doeet, et explanat, quid faciendum 
 
 Jugiendumve sit ; ilti sit ut ratio peesit, appetitus obtemperet." 
 
 The reason of explaining this distinction here, is, that these two prin- 
 ciples 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. 
 
 It is one thing to push a man from one "part of tlie 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 im- 
 pute 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 prin- 
 ciple. 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 con- 
 viction ; and on this account, orators, who would persuade, find it necessary 
 to address the passions, as well as to convince the understanding ; and, in 
 all systems of rhetoric, these two have been considered as different inten- 
 tions of the orator, and to be accomplished by different means. 
 
CHAf. III.] OF VOLUNTAliy Oi>£llATIONS. 477 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF OPERATIONS OP MIND WHICH MAY BE CALLED 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 apprehend, that, in fact, they are always conjoined in 
 the operations of our minds. 
 
 It is probable, I think, that there is some degree of activity in those 
 operations which we refer 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 operation of the under- 
 standing ; for he that wUIs must apprehend what he wills, and apprehen- 
 sion belongs to the understanding. 
 
 The operations I am to consider in this chapter, I think have commonly 
 been referred 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, a.ndjia'ed puipoie or resolution. 
 
 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 attention, what does he carry away 
 with him ? If he sees St. Peter's, or the Vatican without attention, what 
 account can he give of it ? While two persons are engaged in interesting 
 discourse, the clock strikes within their hearing, to which they give no at- 
 tention : what is the consequence } The next minute they know not whether 
 the clock struck or not. Yet their ears were not shut. The usual im- 
 pression was made upon the organ of hearing, and upon the auditory 
 nerve and brain ; but from inattention the sound either was not perceived, 
 or passed in the twinkling of an eye, without 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 any thing of the matter, till he discover 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 acknowledged that, as the game advanced and 
 drew his attention, his 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 
 
478 OF VOLUNTAUY OPEKATIONS. |[eSSAY II. 
 
 deadly wound ; on which he lamented only that he had lost a fine demon- 
 stration. 
 
 It is needless to multiply instances to show, 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 any thing that can be called 
 geniui, 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 onewhocomplimentedhimupontheforceof hisgenius, 
 which had made such improvements in mathematics and natural philosophy, 
 is said to have made this reply, which was both modest and judicious. That, 
 if he had made any improvements in those sciences, it was owing more to 
 jiatient 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 voluntary act, and depends upon his will. 
 
 But what was before observed of the will in general, is applicable to this 
 particular exertion of it. That the mind is rarely in a state of indifference 
 left to turn its attention to the object which to reason appears most de- 
 serving of it. There is, for the most part, a bias to some particular 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 uncommon, things grand, and 
 things that are beautiful, draw our attention, not in proportion to the in- 
 terest we have, or think we have in them, but in a much greater pro- 
 portion. 
 
 Whatever moves our passions or affections draws our attention, very often, 
 more than we wish. 
 
 You desire a man not to think of an unfortunate 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 any thing else. Strange ! when happiness 
 and misery stand before him, and depend upon his choice, he chooses misery, 
 and rejects happiness with his eyes open ! 
 
 Yet he wishes to be happy, as all men do. How shall we reconcile this 
 contradiction between his judgment and his conduct. 
 
 The account of it seems to me to be this : The afflicting event draws his 
 attention 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 it is misery, without any good to balance it. 
 
 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 of chess in the agony of the gout, to engage 
 
CHAP. HI.] OF VOLUNTARY Or-EIlA'f IONS. 479 
 
 his attention to anotlier object, acted the reasonable part, and consulted his 
 real happiness ; but it required a great effort to give that attention to his 
 game which was necessary to produce tie 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, 
 Avhich makes it very diificult to give that fixed attention to important ob- 
 jects 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 how- 
 ever 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. 
 
 Another operation that may be called voluntarj/, 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 bis judgment, he may either honestly usetlie best means 
 in his power to form an impartial 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. 
 
 The general rules of deliberation are perfectly evident to reason when 
 we consider tliem 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 importance 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 de- 
 liberate. 
 
 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 confidence 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 appetites, our affections, 
 and passions, oppose aU 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 dishonest. 
 
 We ought sorely to deliberate how far every appetite and passion may 
 be indulged, and what limits should be set to it. But our appetites and 
 passions°pn^ us on to the attainment of their objects, in the shortest 
 road, and without delay. 
 
 Thus, it happens, that if we yield to their impulse, we shall often trans- 
 gress those rules of deliberation, which reason approves. In this conflict 
 between the dictates of reason, and the blind impulse of passion, we must 
 voluntarily determine. When we take part with our reason, though in 
 opposition to passion, we approve of our own conduct. 
 
480 OF VOLUNTARY OPERATIONS. [eSSAIT II. 
 
 What we call a fault of ignorance, is always owing to the want of due 
 deliberation. 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 determination how we shall act, and if it is not brought to this issue, it 
 is lost labour. 
 
 There are two cases in which a determination may take place ; when 
 the opportunity of putting it in execution is present, and when it is at a 
 distance. 
 
 When the opportunity is present, the determination to act is imme- 
 diately followed by the action. Thus, if a man determine 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 stiU when he has power to walk, we conclude 
 infallibly that he has not determined, 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, without any judgment in- 
 terposed. And when judgment is interposed, we may determine and act 
 either according to that judgment or contrary to it. 
 
 When a man sits down hungry to dine, he eats from appetite, very often 
 without exercising his judgment at all ; nature invites, 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 respect. 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 im- 
 pulse 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 considerations are not in his 
 thoughts. But we can suppose a man who eats with a view to enjoy the 
 pleasure of eating. Such a man reasons 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 discriminations. 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 civil things to another, not from 
 affection, but in order to serve some end by it, or because he thinks it his 
 duty. 
 
 To act with a view to some distant interest, 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 appetite, 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. 
 
 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 can- 
 not be denied, that there are too many instances of both in human life. 
 Video meliora prnbique, deteriora sequor, is neither an impossible, nor an 
 unfrequent case. 
 
 While a man does what he really thinks wisest and best to be done, the 
 more his appetites, his affections and passions draw him the contrary way, 
 the more he approves of his own conduct, and the more he is entitled to the 
 approbation of every rational being. 
 
CHAP. III.] OF VOLUNTAUY OPERATIONS. 481 
 
 The third operation of mind I mentioned, which may be called volun- 
 tary, is, A fixed purpose or resolution with regard to our future conduct. 
 
 This naturally takes place, when any action, or course of action, about 
 which we have dehberated, is not immediately to be executed, the occasion 
 of acting being at some distance. 
 
 A fitted purpose to do, some time hence, something which we believe shall 
 then be in our power, is strictly and properly a determination of will, no 
 less than a determination to do it instantly. Every definition of volition 
 agrees to it. Whether the opportunity of doing what we have determined 
 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 resolution, therefore, is truly and properly an act 
 of will. 
 
 Our purposes are of two kinds. We may call the one particular, the 
 other general. By a particular purpose, I mean that which has for its ob- 
 ject an individual action, limited to one time and place ; by a general pur- 
 pose, that of a course or train of action, intended for some general end, or 
 regulated by some general rule. 
 
 Thus, I may purpose to go to London next winter. When the time 
 comes, I execute my purpose, if I continue of the same mind ; and the 
 purpose, when executed, is no more. Thus it is with every particular 
 purpose. 
 
 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 medi- 
 cine, or of theology. This general purpose directs the course of his reading 
 and study. It directs him in the choice of his company and compa- 
 nions, and even of his diversions. It determines his travels and the place 
 of his abode. It has influence upon his dress and manners, and a consider- 
 able effect in forming his character. 
 
 There are other fixed purposes which have a still greater effect in form-i 
 ing the character. I mean such as regard our moral conduct. 
 
 Suppose a man to have exercised his intellectual and moral faculties, so 
 far as to have distinct notions of justice and injustice, and of the conse- 
 quences 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 .■' 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 according to the rules of justice, 
 when there is opportunity. 
 
 The Roman law defined justice, ^ steady and perpetual tvill to give to 
 every man his due. When the opportunity of doing justice is not present, 
 this can mean nothing else than a steady purpose, which is very properly 
 called will. Such a purpose, if it is steady, will infallibly produce just 
 conduct ; for <!very known transgression of justice 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 according to a certain rule. 
 
 By this, the virtues may be easily distinguished, in thought at least, 
 
 I I 
 
482 OF VOLUNTARY OPERATIONS. QbSSAY II- 
 
 from natural affections that bear the same name. Thus, benevolence is a 
 capital virtue, which, though not so necessary to the being of society, is en- 
 titled to a higher degree of approbation 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 distinguished ? 
 
 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 oppor- 
 tunity, 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 often lead to voluntary 
 actions. A good natural 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 misfortune of a bad natural temper. 
 
 The physiognomist saw, in the features of Socrates, the signatures of 
 many bad dispositions, which that good man acknowledged he felt within 
 him ; but the triumph of his virtue was the greater in having conquered 
 them. 
 
 In men who have no fixed rules of conduct, 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 revolu- 
 tion 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 principles of belief; and 
 men who have made the greatest advance in self-government, are go- 
 verned, 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 understanding ; from his education, 
 from his company, or from his study, he forms to himself a set of general 
 principles, a creed, which governs his judgment in particular points that 
 occur. 
 
 If new evidence be 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 into a new and serious examination 
 of them. 
 
 They get a habit of believing them, which is strengthened by repeated 
 acts, and remains immovable, 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 prin- 
 ciples, 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 
 
CHAP. III.] OF VOLUNTARY OPERATIONS. 483 
 
 the degree of his understanding, how he will determine 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 conduct of most men who 
 have any self-government^ and any consistency of conduct, is governed by 
 fixed purposes. 
 
 A man of breeding may, in his natural temper, be proud, passionate, re- 
 vengeful, 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 command all his passions before company, a 
 slave to them in private ? The reason is plain : he has a fixed resolution 
 to be a man of breeding, but hath no such resolution to be a man of virtue. 
 He hath combated his most violent passions a thousand times before he be- 
 came master of them in company. The same resolution and perseverance, 
 would have given him the command of them when alone. 
 
 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 re- 
 tains its influence upon the belief, when the evidence of it is forgot. The 
 former may be called a habit of the xuill, the latter a habit of the under- 
 standing. By such habits chiefly, men are governed in their opinions, and 
 in their practice. 
 
 A man who has no general fixed purposes may be said, as Pope says of 
 most women, (I hope unjustly,) to have no character at all. He wiU be ho- 
 nest or dishonest, benevolent or malicious, compassionate or cruel, as the 
 tide of his passions and aflfections drives him. This, however, -I believe, is 
 the case of but a few in advanced life, and these, with regard to conduct, 
 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 ambition, and from ambition to avarice. But every man 
 who uses his reason in the conduct of life, will have some end, to which he 
 gives a preference above all others. To this he steers his course ; his pro- 
 jects and his actions will be regulated by it. Without 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 pf winds 
 and tides. 
 
 We observed before, that there are moral rules respecting the attention 
 we ought to give to objects, and respecting our deliberations, which are 
 no less evident than mathematical axioms. The same thing may be ob- 
 served with respect to our fixed purposes, whether particular or general. 
 
 Is it not self-evident, that, after due deliberation, we ought to resolve 
 upon that conduct, or that course of conduct, wjiich, to our sober judgment, 
 appears to be best and most approvable ? That we ought to be firm and 
 steady in adhering to such resolutions, 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 wiong. 
 
 Fickleness, inconstancy, facility, on the one hand, wilfulness, inflexibi- 
 lity, and obstinacy, on the other, are moral qualities, respecting our pur- 
 poses, which every one sees to be wrong. A manly firmness, grounded 
 upon rational conviction, is the proper mean which every man approves and 
 
 ii2 
 
484 COROLLARIES. QeSSAY II. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 COBOLLAKIBS. 
 
 From what has been said concerning the wiU, it appears, jfr*;. That as 
 some acts of the will are transient and momentary, so others are permanent, 
 and may continue for a long time, or even through the whole course of our 
 rational Hfe. 
 
 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 begins and ends in a moment. 
 But "when I will to attend to a mathematical proposition, to examine the de- 
 monstration 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 proposition longer than he wills. 
 
 The same thing may be said of deliberation, 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, 
 
 A purpose or resolution, which we have shown to be an act of the will, 
 may continue for a great part of life, or for the whole, after we are of age to 
 form a resolution. 
 
 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 conti- 
 nues it no longer than he wills, for he may at any time change his reso- 
 lution. 
 
 There are, therefore, acts of the will which are not transient and mo- 
 mentary, which may continue long, and grow into a habit. This deserves 
 the more to be observed, because a very eminent philosopher has advanced 
 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 character of man. 
 
 A second corollary is, That nothing in a man, wherein the will is not 
 concerned, can justly be accounted either virtuous or immoral. 
 
 That no blame can be imputed to a man for what is altogether involun- 
 tary, 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. 
 
 VoT, Jirst, such is the connexion betweefl 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 conse- 
 quence. Secondly, When laws intend to appoint any punishment of inno- 
 cent 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 effectually 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. 
 
CHAP. IV.] COHOLLAKIKS. 485 
 
 By the law of England, if a man is killed by an ox goring him, or a carl 
 running over him, though tliere be no fault or neglect in the owner, the ox 
 or the cart is a deodand, and is confiscated to the church. The legislature 
 surelydid 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 man. 
 
 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 that wise judica- 
 ture intended to punish the house. 
 
 If any judicature should, in any instance, find a man guilty, and an ob- 
 ject of punishment, for what they allowed to be altogether involuntary, all 
 the world would condemn them as men who knew nothing of the first and 
 most fundamental rules of justice. 
 
 I have endeavoured to show 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 resolutions, 
 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 at- 
 tention to things that concern him, had deliberated duly and impartially 
 about his conduct, had formed his resolutions, and executed them according 
 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 pas- 
 sions and affections, as far as they were involuntary. 
 
 A third corollary is. That all virtuous habits, when we distinguish them 
 from virtuous 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 resolution to do his duty in every in- 
 stance, and who adheres steadily to his resolution, is a perfect man. The 
 man who has a determined 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. 
 
ESSAY III. 
 
 OF THE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 OP THE MECHANICAL PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OP 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 vifiUed or determined to do. 
 In morals we commonly employ the word in this sense, and never impute 
 any thing to a man as his doing, in which his will was not interposed. 
 Biit 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 distinguished 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 performed without any 
 interposition of will. 
 
 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 every thing that incites us to act. 
 
 If there were no incitements to action, active power would be given us 
 in vain. Having no motive to direct our active exertions, the mind would, 
 ■in all cases, be in a state of perfect indiiFerence, to do this or that, or no- 
 thing at all. The active power would either not be exerted at all, or its 
 exertions would be perfectly unmeaning and frivolous, neither wise nor 
 foolish, neither good nor bad. To every action that is of the smallest im- 
 portance, there must be some incitement, some motive, some reason. 
 
 It is therefore a most important part of the philosophy of the human 
 mind, to have a distinct and just view of the various principles of action, 
 which the Author of our being hath planted in our nature, to arrange them 
 properly, and to assign to every one its rank. 
 
 By this it is, that we may discover the end of our being, and the part 
 which is assigned 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 sys- 
 tem of his own ; and that no man has been so happy as to give general 
 satisfaction to those who came after him. 
 
CHAP. 1-2 OF THE miNCIl-LES OF ACTION. 487 
 
 There is a branch of knowledge much valued^ and very justly^ which we 
 call knowledge of the world, knowledge of mankind, knowledge of human 
 nature : This, I think, consists in knowing from what principles men gene- 
 rally act ; and it is commonly the fruit of natural sagacity joined with ex- 
 perience. 
 
 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 circumstances; 
 and how they may be most effectually induced to act the part which he de- 
 sires. To know this is of so great importance 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 specu- 
 late upon the subject we have proposed, but is not, by itself, sufficient for 
 that purpose. 
 
 The man of the world conjectures, perhaps with great probability, how 
 a man will act in certain given circumstances ; and this is all he wants to 
 know. To enter into a detail of the various principles which influence the 
 actions of men, to give them distinct names, to define them, and to ascertain 
 their different provinces, is the business 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 mate- 
 rial 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 imperceptible degrees, to the, animal, and, at last, to the rational life, 
 and has the principles that belong to all. 
 
 Another cause of the difficulty of tracing the various principles of action 
 in man, is. That the same action, nay, the same course and train of action, 
 may proceed from very different principles. 
 
 Men who are fond of an hypothesis, commonly seek no other proof of 
 its truth, but that it serves to account for the appearances 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 un- 
 favoiirably 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 uncertainty 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 ; according 
 as they are in the company of their superiors, 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 principles from which they act. 
 
488 OF THE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. |[f,SSAY III 
 
 A man may, no doubt, know with certainty the principles from which 
 he himself acts, because he is conscious of them. But this knowledge re- 
 quires an attentive reflection upon the operations of his own mind, which 
 is very rarely, to be found. It is perhaps more easy to find a man who has 
 formed a just notion of the character of man in general, or of those of his 
 familiar acquaintance, than one who has a just notion of his own character. 
 
 Most men, through pride and self-flattery, are apt to think themselves 
 better than they really are ; and some, perhaps from melancholy or from 
 false principles of religion, are led to think themselves worse than they 
 reaUy 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 prin- 
 ciples which influence his conduct. That this is a matter of great difficulty, 
 we may judge from the very different and contradictory systems of philo- 
 sophers upon this subject, from the earliest ages to this day. 
 
 During the age of Greek philosophy, 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 controversy 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 association 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. 
 
 The names we give to the various principles of action, have so little pre* 
 cision 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, interest, reason, cannot be said to 
 have one definite signification. They are taken sometimes in a larger, and 
 sometimes in a more limited sense. The same principle is sometimes called 
 by one of those names, sometimes by another ; and principles of a very 
 difl^erent nature are often called by the same name. 
 
 To remedy this confusion of names, it might perhaps seem proper to in- 
 vent 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 de- 
 liberation, 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. 
 
CHAP. 11.] OF INSTINCT. 4S9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF INSTINCT. 
 
 The mechanical principles of action maj, I think, be reduced to two 
 species, instincts and habits. 
 
 By instinct, I mean a natural blind impulse to certain actions, without 
 having any end in view, vidthout deliberation, and very often without any 
 conception of what we do. 
 
 Tims 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 breathing 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 mother's breast, sucks and 
 swallows its food as if it knew the principles of that operation, and had 
 got the habit of working according to them. 
 
 Sucking and sv^allowing are very complex operations. Anatomists de- 
 scribe>about thirty pairs of muscles that must be employed 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 other in a certain order, and their order is no less necessary 
 than the exertion itself. 
 
 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 sensation 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 alike 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 countenance, 
 or an angry tone of voice, and are soothed and comforted by a placid coun- 
 tenance, 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 them- 
 selves 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 
 
490 OF INSTINCT. [ESSAY III. 
 
 kick, the dog to bite, the lion to use his paws, the boar his tusks, the ser- 
 pent his fangs, and the bee and wasp their sting. 
 
 The manufactures of animals^^ if we may call them by that name, present . 
 us with a wonderful variety of instincts, belonging to particular sjjecies, 
 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 
 silk- worm ; 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. 
 
 Every manufacturing art among men was invented by some man, im- 
 proved by others, and brought to perfection by time and experience. Men 
 learn to work in it by long practice, which produces a habit. 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 in- 
 troduced any new improvement, or any variation from the former practice. 
 Every one of the species has equal skill from the beginning, without 
 teaching, without experience, or habit. Every one has its art by a kind 
 of inspiration. 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. 
 
 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, according to their sagacity and their training. But, in their 
 own arts, they need no teaching nor training, nor is the art ever improved 
 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 sang 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 pos- 
 sible, 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 conveniency and strength. Bees, as 
 if they knew this, make their cells regulM hexagons. 
 
 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 partitions between the cells on the other side, which will 
 serve as a buttress to strengthen it. The last way is best for strength ; 
 accordingly the bottom of each cell rests against the point where three par- 
 titions meet on the other side, which gives it aU the strength possible. 
 
 The bottom of a cell may either be one plane perpendicular to the side 
 
CHAP. 11.'] OF INSTINCT, 491 
 
 partitions, or it may be composed of several planes, meeting 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 making the bottoms of the cells to 
 consist of three planes meeting in a point, there is a saving of material and 
 labour no way inconsiderable. The bees, as if acquainted with these prin- 
 ciples of solid geometry, follow 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 inter- 
 section 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 saving, or the least expense, of material and labour. 
 
 This is one of those problems belonging to the higher parts of mathe- 
 matics, which are called problems of maxima and minima. It has been 
 resolved by some mathematicians, particularly by the ingenious Mr. Mac- 
 laurin, 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 mensuration 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 actually meet. 
 
 Shall we ask here, who taught the bee the properties of solids, and to 
 resolve problems of tnaxima and minima ? If a honey-comb were a work of 
 human art, every man of common sense would conclude, without hesitation, 
 that he who invented the construction, must have understood the principles 
 on which it is constructed. 
 
 We need not say that bees know none of these things. They work most 
 geometrically, without any knowledge of geometry ; somewhat like a child, 
 who, by turning the handle of an organ, makes good music, without 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 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 every thing necessary to our preserva- 
 tion, 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 intellec- 
 tual 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. 
 
 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 nothing ; and if it were to be directed solely by his under- 
 standing and will, he would starve before he learned how to perform it. 
 
492 OFINSTINCT. [essay III- 
 
 Hare instinct comes in to his aid. He needs do no more than will to 
 swallow. All the requisite motions of nerves and muscles 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 ? 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 unknown, without any thought, will, or intention 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 immediately 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 complication of 
 levers, pulleys, and other mechanical powers, that are behind the curtain, 
 and altogether unknown to me. I will to raise the weight ; and no sooner 
 is this volition exerted, than the machinery behind the curtain falls to work 
 and raises the weight. 
 
 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 agoing, is hid from us ; so 
 strangely and wonderfully are we made. This, however, is evident, that 
 those internal 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 employments of the mind. 
 
 We must breathe often every minute whether awake or asleep. We must 
 often close the eyelids, 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 impulse to do 
 them as often as is necessary, without any thought at all. They consume 
 no time, they give not the least interruption to any exercise of the mind ; 
 because they are done by instinct. 
 
 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. 
 
 When ahy thing threatens our eyes, we wink hard, by instinct, and can 
 hardly avoid doing so, 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 an- 
 other aimed a stroke at them jn jest. The difficulty of doing this shows 
 that there may be a struggle between instinct and will ; and that it is not 
 easy to- resist the irapuLse of instinct, even by a strong resolution not to 
 yield to it. 
 
 Thus the merciful Author of our nature hath adapted our instincts to 
 
CHAP. II.] OF INSTINCT. 493 
 
 the defects, and to the weakness of our understanding. In infancy we are 
 ignorant of every thing ; yet many things must be done by us for our pre- 
 servation : these are done by instinct. When we grow up there are many 
 motions of our limbs and bodies necessary, which can be performed only 
 by a curious and complex internal machinery ; a machinery of which the 
 bulk of mankind are totally ignorant, and which the most skilful anatomist 
 knows but imperfectly. AH this machinery is set agoing by instinct. We 
 need only to will the external motion, and all the internal motions, pre- 
 viously necessary 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 required attention and will, we should be able to do nothing else : 
 these go on regularly by instinct. 
 
 Our preservation from danger often requires such sudden exertions, that 
 there is no time to think and to determine : accordingly 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. 
 
 Aristotle observed, long ago, that man is an imitative animal. He is so 
 in more respects than one. He is disposed to imitate what he approves. 
 In all arts men learn more, and more agreeably, by example than by rules. 
 Imitation by the chisel, by the pencil, by description prosaic and poetical, 
 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 dia- 
 lect, but a firm resolution to preserve his own pure and unmixed, he wiU 
 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 Scoticism, which 
 perhaps may overcoine the natural instinct. 
 
 It is commonly thought that children often learn to stammer by imita- 
 tion ; 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 peculiarities of provincial dialects, the peculiarities of voice, gesture, 
 and manner, which we see in some families, the manners peculiar to differ- 
 ent ranks, and different professions ; and perhaps even in forming national 
 characters, and the human character in general. 
 
 The instances that history furnishes of wild men, brought up from early 
 years, without the society of any of their own species, are so few that we 
 cannot build conclusions upon them with great certainty. But all I have 
 heard of agreed in this, that the wild man gave but very slender indications 
 of the rational faculties ; and.'with regard to his mind, was hardly distin- 
 guishable from the more sagacious of the brutes. 
 
 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 sec 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 
 measure, though not wholly, the effect of undesigned and instinctive 
 imitation. 
 
494 OF INSTINCT. [essay III. 
 
 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 de- 
 monstrative j and it is, I think, commonly taken for granted, that it is al- 
 ways 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 judgment 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, many things without any evidence at all. 
 
 The faculties which we have in common with brute animals, are of earlier 
 growth than reason. We are irrational animals for a considerable time be- 
 fore we can properly be called rational. The operations of reason spring 
 up by imperceptible degrees ; 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 look so like reason, that they are 
 not easily distinguished from it." Whether brutes have any thing that can 
 properly be called belief, I cannot say ; but their actions show 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 belief which is grounded on evidence j but that there is some- 
 thing in man which we call belief, which is not grounded on evidence, I 
 think, must be granted. 
 
 We need to be informed of many things before we are capable of dis- 
 cerning 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 instruction and information, without which we could 
 never attain the use of our rational faculties. 
 
 Man would never acquire the use of reason if he were not brought up in 
 the society of reasonable creatures. The benefit he receives from society, is 
 derived partly from the 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 destruction, 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. 
 
 Opm tet disceritem credere is a common adage. Children have every thing 
 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 .? 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. Nature 
 supplies the want of evidence, and gives them an instinctive kind of faith 
 without evidence. 
 
 They believe implicitly whatever they are told, and receive with assu- 
 rance the testimony of every one, without ever thinking of a reason why 
 they should do so. 
 
 A parent or a master might command them to believe ; but in vain ; for 
 
CHAP, m.] OF HABIT. 495 
 
 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 mat- 
 ters, 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 showing that they are not to be im- 
 posed 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 assured, they are also assured. 
 
 It is well known what a deep impression religious principles, zealously 
 incuL;ated, makes 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 
 circumstances, 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 efl«ct of 
 a natural impulse, and may be called instinct. 
 
 Another instance of belief which appears to be instinctive, is that which 
 children show even in infancy, that an event which they have observed in 
 certain circumstances, will happen again in like circumstances. 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 show 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 shown 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 
 phenomenon, I shall not now examine it ; because it is sufficient for the 
 present argument, 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. 
 
 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 con- 
 stitution ; which produces its effects without any operation of reason on our 
 part, and in a manner of which we are entirely ignorant. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF HASIT. 
 
 Habit differs from instinct, not in its nature, but in its origin ; the latter 
 being natural, the former acquired. Both operate without will or inten- 
 tion, without thought, and therefore may be called mechanical principles. 
 
 Habit is commonly defined ' A facility of doing a thirty, acquired by' 
 
496 OF HABIT. [essay III. 
 
 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 aA inclination or impulse 
 to do the action ; and that, in many cases, habits have this force, cannot 
 be doubted. 
 
 How many awkward habits, by frequenting improper company, are 
 children apt to learn, in their address, motion, looks, gesture, and pro- 
 nunciation ! 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 
 convinced 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 e,very occasion, to resist its impulse, until it be 
 undone by the habit of opposing it. 
 
 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 it 
 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 performer. 
 A good illiterate Roman Catholic does not sleep sound if he goes to 
 bed without 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 his name to all those intellectual and moral qualities, than that 
 they are all strengthened and confirmed 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 accustomed to do, we acquire, not only a facility, 
 but a proneness to do on like occasions ; so that it requires a particular 
 will. and eflFort to forbear it, but to do it, requires very often no wiU at 
 all. We are carried by habit as by a stream in swimming, if we make no 
 resistance. 
 
 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 language ; 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 teaching the deaf to pronounce the 
 letters and words, though experience shows that it can be done. 
 
 What is it that makes this pronunciation so easy at last which was so 
 difficult at first .'' It is habit. 
 
 But from what cause does it happen, that a good speaker no sooner con- 
 
CHAP. III.] OF HABIT. 497 
 
 ceives 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 ? He means to express 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 in- 
 numerable rules of grammar, logic and rhetoric, and accompanied with a 
 particular tone and emphasis. He does all this as it were by inspiration, 
 without thinking of any of these rules, and without breaking one of them. 
 
 This art, if it were not more common, would appear more wonderful, 
 than that a man should dance blindfold amidst a thousand burning plough- 
 shares, without being burnt ; yet all this may be done by habit. 
 
 It appears evident, that as, without instinct, the infant could not live to 
 become a man, so, without habit, man would remain an infant through life, 
 and would be as helpless, as unhandy, as speechless, and as much a child 
 in understanding at threescore 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 evident ; but we can assign no cause of them but the will of him who 
 made us. 
 
 With regard to instinct, which is a natural propensity, this will perhaps 
 be easily granted j but it is no less true with regard to that power and in- 
 clination which we acquire by habit. 
 
 No man can show a reason why our doing a thing frequently should 
 produce either facility or inclination to do it. 
 
 The fact is so notorious, and so constantly 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 inanimate 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 fertility by the custom of bearing crops. 
 
 It is said, that trees and other vegetables, by growing long in an un- 
 kindly 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 no- 
 thing that resembles it. 
 
 A stone loses nothing of its weight by being long supported, or made to 
 move upward. A body by being tossed about ever so long, or ever so 
 violently, loses nothing of its inertia, nor acquires the least disposition to 
 change its state. 
 
 K K 
 
ESSAY III. PART II. 
 
 OF ANIMAL PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OP APPETITES. 
 
 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 sup- 
 pose any exercise 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 appetites, taking that word in a 
 stricter sense than it is sometimes taken, even by good writers. 
 
 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 authorised, I beg leave to limit it to a 
 particular class of desires, which are distinguished 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 |)rinci pies of action, to which I beg leave, in this Essay, 
 to appropriate the name of appetitrs. 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, v/e 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 interval. 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 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 connected, in their imagination, the 
 uneasy sensation with the means of removing it, the desire of the last 
 comes to be so associated with the first, that they remain through life in- 
 separable : and we give the name of hunger to the principle that is made 
 up of both. 
 
 That the appetite of hunger includes the two ingredients I have men- 
 tioned will not, I apprehend, be questioned. I take notice of it the rather 
 because we may, if I mistake not, find a similar composition in other 
 principles of action. They are made up of different ingredients, and may 
 be analysed into the parts that enter into their composition, 
 
CHAP. I.] OF APPETITES. 499 
 
 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 similitude. 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 principles of action ; and it deserves to be considered 
 whether they may not be terminated in a similar manner. 
 
 The ends for which our natural appetites are given are too evident to 
 escape the observation 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 altogether insuflicient 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 matter, 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. 
 
 Every man must be convinced, that, without our appetites, even sup- 
 posing mankind inspired with all the knowledge requisite 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 devours 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. 
 
 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 the effect 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 pervert 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 appetite. I believe a 
 brute mav do this also. He may eat for the sake of health, when neither 
 ' kk2 
 
500 OF APPETITES. [^ESSAY Ill- 
 
 appetite nor taste invites. Thisj 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 definition of virtuous actions, given 
 by the ancient Stoics, and adopted by some modern authors, is imperfect. 
 They defined virtuous actions to be such as are according to nature. What 
 is done according to the animal part of our nature, which is common to us 
 with the brute-animals, is in itself neither virtuous nor vicious, but per- 
 fectly indifferent. Then only it becomes vicious, when it is done in op- 
 position to some principle of superior importance and authority. And it 
 may be virtuous, if done for some important or worthy end. 
 
 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. Tliere 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 appe- 
 tites, 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 animals, an uneasy sensation, which always attends ex- 
 cessive labour, and which we cskWfatifrue, ivcariness, lassitude. This un- 
 easy sensation is conjoined with the desire of rest, or intermission of our 
 labour. And thus nature calls us to rest, when we are weary, in the same 
 manner as to eat when we are hungry. 
 
 In both cases there is a desire of a certain object, and an uneasy sen- 
 sation accompanying that desire. In both cases the desire 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 in- 
 tervals without action, and leads to a certain action : in weariness, the un- 
 easy sensation arises from action too long continued, and leads to rest. 
 
 But nature intended that we should be active, and we need some prin- 
 ciple to incite us to action, when we happen not to be invited by any appe- 
 tite 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 cannot be supposed to know how useful and necessary it is 
 
CHAP. 1.2 OF -APPETITES. 501 
 
 for their improvement to be constantly employed. Their constant activity 
 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. 
 
 Nor is this principle confined to childliood ; it has great effects in ad- 
 vanced life. 
 
 When a man has neither hope, nor fear, nor desire, nor project, nor em- 
 ployment, of body or mind, one might be apt to think him the happiest 
 mortal upon earth, having nothing 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 more miser- 
 able than the sailor ^vrestling with a storm, or the soldier mounting a 
 breach. 
 
 This dismal state is commonly the lot of tlie man who has neither 
 exercise of body, nor employment of mind. For the mind, like water, 
 corrupts and puerifies by stagnation, but by running purifies and refines. 
 
 Besides the appetites which nature hath given us for useful and ne- 
 cessary purposes, we may create appetites which nature never gave. 
 
 The frequent use of things which stimulate the nervous system, pro- 
 duces a languor when their effept is gone off, and a desire to repeat them. 
 By this means a desire of a certain object is created, accompanied 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 in- 
 clination to do it. All arts are habits of this kind, but they cannot be 
 called principles of action. Other habits produce a proneness to do an 
 action, without thought or intention. Tliese we considered before as me- 
 chanical 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 appetites, in that tone and degree 
 of strength which nature gives them, so we ought to beware of acquiring 
 appetites which nature never gave. They are always useless, and very j 
 often hurtful. 
 
 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. 
 
 When appetite is opposed by some principle drawing a contrary way, 
 there must be a determination of the will, which shall prevail, and this de- 
 termination may be, in a moral sense, right or wrong. 
 
 Appetite, even in a brute-animal, may be restrained by a stronger prin- 
 ciple opposed 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 punishment. 
 In this case his fear operates more strongly than his desire. 
 
 Do we attribute any virtue to the dog on this account ? I think not. 
 Nor should we ascribe any virtue to a man in a liie case. The animal is 
 carried by the strongest moving 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 
 
502 OF DESIRES. [ESSAY III. 
 
 nor vice. We consider them as being neither objects of moral 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 convinced that he ought not to yield to 
 appetite, yet there is not an equal or a greater impulse to oppose it. There 
 are circumstances, indeed, that convince the judgment, but these are not 
 sufficient to determirie the will against a strong appetite, without self- 
 government. 
 
 I apprehend that brute animals have no power of self-government. From 
 their constitution, 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 
 incapable of being governed by laws, though some of them may be subjects 
 of discipline. 
 
 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 prescribe 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 interest, 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 opposed to them. It js 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 natural conviction 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 appetite, when there 
 is no principle of greater authority to oppose it, be a matter indifferent ; 
 yet there may be a great deal of virtue or of vice in the management of 
 our appetites i and that the power of self-government is necessary for their 
 regulation. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OP DESIRES. 
 
 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 sensation proper to each, and always accompanying it; and that 
 they are not periodical, but constant, not being sated with their objects for 
 a time, as appetites are. 
 
 The desires I have in view are chiefly these three : the desire of power, 
 the desire Of esteem, and the desire of knowledge. 
 
CHAP. 11.3 OF DESIRES. 503 
 
 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 con- 
 spicuous, and have a larger sphere. 
 
 In a herd of black cattle there is a rank and subordination. When a 
 stranger is introduced 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 gregarious 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 sought for that end, must be considered as instances of the desire 
 of power. 
 
 The desire of esteem is not peculiar to man. A dog exults in the appro- 
 bation 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 interpret in our own favour tlie signs of their good opinion, 
 even when they are ambiguous. 
 
 There are few injuries that are not more easy to be borne than con- 
 tempt. 
 
 We cannot always avoid seeing, in the conduct of others, things that 
 move contempt ; but in all polite circles, the signs of it must be sup- 
 pressed, otherwise men could not converse together. 
 
 As there is no quality, common to good and bad men, more esteemed 
 than courage, nor any thing in a man more the object of contempt than 
 cowardice j hence every man desires to be thought a man of courage ; and 
 the reputation of cowardice is worse than death. How many have died to 
 avoid being thought cowards ! 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 na- 
 ture, might be referred to the desire of esteem, or the dread of contempt. 
 
 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 objects. Novelty is considered as one great source of the plea- 
 sures 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 knowledge as a principle of action in 
 
504 OF DESIRES. CeSSAY III 
 
 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 show 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 shows the force of that prin- 
 ciple, more than when it is directed to matters worthy to be known. 
 
 I think it unnecessary to use arguments to show, 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 principles. 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 thp 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 ex- 
 istence.? 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 suppose, that men should sacrifice the end to what they 
 desire only as the means of promoting that end. 
 
 The natural desires I have mentioned are, in themselves, neither virtuous 
 nor vicious. They are parts of our constitution, and ought to be regulated 
 and restrained, when they stand in competition with more important 
 principle^. But to eradicate them if it were possible (and I believe it is 
 not), would only be like cutting oif a leg or an arm, that is, making our- 
 selves other creatures than God has made us. 
 
 They cannot, with propriety, be called selfish principles, though they 
 have commonly 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 be- 
 nevolence. Tlie 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 continua- 
 tion of the species ; and without the natural desires we have mentioned. 
 
CHAP. II.] OF DESIRKS. 505 
 
 human virtue would be insufficient to influence mankind to a tolerable con- 
 duct 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 society. It is true, indeed, that perfect virtue, joined 
 with perfect knowledge, would make both our appetites and desires unneces- 
 sary incumbrances of our nature ; but as human knowledge and liuman 
 virtue are both very imperfect, these appetites and desires are necessary 
 supplements to our imperfections. 
 
 Society among men could not subsist without a certain degree of that 
 regularity of conduct which virtue prescribes. To this regularity of con- 
 duct, men who have no virtue are induced by a regard to character, some- 
 times by a regard to interest. 
 
 Even in those who are hot destitute of virtue, a regard to character 
 is often a useful auxiliary to it, when both principles concur in their 
 direction. 
 
 The pursuits of power, of fame, and of knowledge, require 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 
 general y, for this no doubt admits of exceptions, especially in the case of 
 ambition, or the desire of power. 
 
 The evils which ambition has produced in the world are a common 
 topic of declamation. 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 desire 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 re- 
 putation, or of knowledge, cannot be accounted virtuous, or be entitled to 
 moral approbation ; yet we allow them to be manly, ingenious, and suited 
 to the dignity of human nature ; and therefore they are entitled to a degree 
 of estimation', superior to those which proceed from mere appetite. 
 
 Alexander the Great deserved that epithet in the early part of his life, 
 when ease and pleasure, and every appetite, were sacrificed 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 pursued pleasure as eagerly as 
 Alexander pursued 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 desire 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 hun.an nd 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 
 judgment is founded, may deserve to be considered 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 discijjline of 
 men. 
 
506 OF DESIRES. [ESSAY 111. 
 
 In training brute-animals to such habits as they are capable of, the fear 
 of punishment is the chief instrument to be used. But in training men 
 of ingenious disposition, ambition to excel, and the love of esteem, are 
 much nobler and more powerful engines, by which they may be led to 
 worthy conduct and trained to good habits. 
 
 To this we may add, that the desires we have mentioned are very 
 friendly to real virtue, and make it more easy to be acquired.. 
 
 A man that is not quite abandoned must behave so in society as to 
 presserve 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 passions within the bounds which common 
 decency requires, and so as to make himself a tolerable member of society, 
 if not a useful 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 influence. 
 
 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 the 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. 
 
 For this reason, I apprehend, they err very grossly who conceive the 
 life of a hermit 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-government, as- well as of every opportunity of 
 exercising the social virtues. 
 
 A very ingenious author has resolved our moral sentiments respecting 
 the virtues of self-government, into a regard to the opinion of men. This 
 I think is giving a great deal too much to the love of esteem, and putting 
 the shadow of virtue in the place of the substance ; but that a regard to the 
 opinion of others is, in most instances of our external behaviour, a great 
 inducement to good conduct, cannot be doubted. For whatever men may 
 practise themselves, they will always 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 im- 
 portunate as the natural. The same thing may be applied to desires. 
 
 One of the most remarkable acquired desires is that of money, which, in 
 commercial 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 accounted a principle of action, 
 when it is desired for its own sake, and not merely as the means of pro- 
 curing something else. 
 
 It seems 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 consti- 
 tution. It seems to be the effect of habit. 
 
 In commercial nations, money is an instrument by which almost every 
 thing may be procured that is desired. Being useful for many different 
 purposes as the means, some men lose sight of the end, and terminate their 
 
CIIAl'. III.] OF BENEVOLENT AFFECTION IN GENERAL. 507 
 
 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 exercised. 
 
 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 virtue, yet acquired desires are not only useless 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 ornamental, is allowed by 
 all to be weakness and folly. 
 
 The natural desires I have been considering, though they cannot be called i 
 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 show most evidently the intentioti*of nature to be, 
 that man should live in society. 
 
 The desire of knowledge is not more natural than is the desire of com- 
 municating our knowledge. Even power would be less valued if there 
 were no opportunity of showing 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. 
 
 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 men 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. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF BENEVOLENT AFFECTION IN GENERAL. 
 
 We have seen how, by instinct and habit, a kind of mechanical prin- 
 ciples, man, without any expense of thought, without deliberation or will, 
 is led to many actions, necessary for his preservation and well-being, which, 
 without those principles, all his skill and wisdom would not have been able 
 to accomplish. 
 
 It may perhaps be thought, that his deliberate 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 prerogatives of man, are of 
 the latest growth. They come to maturity by slow degrees, and are too 
 weak, in the greater part of the species, to secure the preservation of indi- 
 viduals, 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 inferior principles of action, which, with little or no aid of reason or 
 virtue, preserve the species, and produce the various exertions, and the va- 
 rious changes and revolutions which we observe upon the theatre of life. 
 
 In this busy -scene, reason and virtue have access to act their parts, and 
 do often produce great and good effects ; but whether they interpose or 
 
508 OF BENEVOLENT AFFECTION IN GENERAL. [ESSAY HI. 
 
 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 common 
 with other animals, appetites, by which those important purposes are 
 secured, wliether men be wise or foolish, virtuous or vicious. 
 
 Reason, if it were perfect, would lead men neither to lose the benefit 
 of their active 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 being useful to others. Here again, nature, to supply the 
 defects of reason, hath given us a strong natural desire of those objects, 
 which lead us to pursue them without regard to their utility. 
 
 These principles we have already considered ; and, we may observe, that 
 all of them have things, not persons, for their object. They neither imply 
 any good nor ill affection towards any other person, nor even towards our- 
 selves. They cannot therefore, with propriety, be called either selfish or 
 social. But there are various principles of action in man, which have per- 
 sons 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 being. 
 
 Such principles I shall call by the general name of affections ; whether 
 they dispose us to do good or hurt to others. 
 
 Perhaps, in giving them this general name, I extend the meaning of the 
 word affection beyond its 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 affection, which, ac- 
 cording to analogy, ought to have the same latitude of signification with 
 that from which it is derived, and therefore ought to be applicable to 
 ill affections as well as to good, seems, by custom, to be limited to good af- 
 fections. When we speak of having affection for any person, it is always 
 understood to be a benevolent affection. 
 
 Malevolent principles, such as anger, resentment, envy, are not com- 
 monly called affection'', but rather passions. 
 
 I take the reason of this to be, that the malevolent affections are almost 
 always accompanied with that perturbation of mind which we properly call 
 passion ; and this passion, being the most conspicuous ingredient, gives its 
 name to the whole. 
 
 Even love, when it goes beyond a certain degree, is caUed 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 himself. 
 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 unattended 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 to desire the good of others, and 
 
CHAP. II 1.3 OF BENEVOLENT AFFECTION IN GENERAL. 509 
 
 those that lead us to desire their hurt, agree in this, that persons, and not 
 things, are their immediate object. Both imply our being some way af- 
 fected 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 affectiim. 
 
 Taking aiFection therefore in this extensive sense, our affections are very / 
 naturally divided into benevolent and malevolent, according as they im- 1 
 ply 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 sensation, 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 distress, to a mistress, differ not more in their object, than in the feel- 
 ings they produce in the mind. We have not names to express the differ- 
 ences of these feelings, but every man is conscious of a difference. Yet, with 
 all this difference, they agree in being agreeable feelings. 
 
 I know no exception to this rule, if we distinguish, as we ought, the feel- 
 ing 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 misfor- 
 tune or misbehaviour 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 feel- 
 ing; but where it does not meet with a proper return, it may give the most 
 pungent distress. 
 
 The joy and comfort of human life consists in the reciprocal exercise of 
 kind affections, 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 intercourse, and a reciprocal ex- 
 change of kind affections, 
 
 Cicero has observed, that the word covvkium, 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 entertainment, gives the 
 name to the whole. 
 
 Mutual kind affections are undoubtedly the balm of life, and of all the en- 
 joyments 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 ! Surely a man capable of reflection 
 would choose to pass out of existence rather than to live in such a state. 
 
 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, Oder'mt dum meluuni; " I care not for 
 their hatred, providing 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 will. 
 
 We may therefore lay it down as a principle, that all benevolent affec-' \ 
 
510 OF BENEVOLENT AFFECTION IN GENEUAL. [|kSSAY III. 
 
 tions are, in their nature, agreeable ; and that, next to a good conscience, 
 to which they are always friendly, and never can be adverse, they make 
 the capital part of human happiness. 
 
 Another ingredient essential to every benevolent affection , and from which 
 it takes the name, is a desire of the good and haj)piness of the object. 
 
 The object of benevolent affection, therefore, must be some being capable 
 of happiness. 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 benevolent or malevolent affection. 
 
 A thing may be desired either on its own account, or as the means in 
 order to something else. That only cau 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 any thing is desired as the means 
 only, there must be an end for which it is desired ; and the desire of the 
 end is, in tliis case, the principle of action. The means are desired only as 
 they tend to that end ; and if different, or even contrary means tended to 
 the same end, they would be equally desired. 
 
 On this account I consider those affections 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 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 iii 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 benevolent 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 preservation 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 seek the former and to avoid 
 the latter. 
 
 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 consequently to the existence of the human species, be accomplished ? 
 
 If we judge from analogy, we must conclude, 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 
 
CHAP. IV.] OF PARTICULAR BENEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 511 
 
 regularity 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. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. i( 
 
 OF THE PARTICULAR BENEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 
 
 _ Having premised these things in general concerning benevolent affec- 
 tions, I shall now attempt some enumeration of them. 
 
 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 animals; and is 
 variously modified in different animals, according as it is more or less 
 necessary for the preservation of the species. 
 
 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 commonly 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 neighbouring bough, and sometimes fed by him, sometimes 
 relieved in her incubation, while she gathers a scanty meal, and with the 
 greatest despatch returns to her post. 
 
 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 perfectly 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 
 constitution, 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 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 
 aflection is expressed by brute animals. 
 
 He must, in my apprehension, have a very strange complexion of under- 
 standing, 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 acquainted with, the end of the parental 
 
512 OF PARTICULAll BF.NEVOI.UNt AFFECTIONS. [eSSAY III. 
 
 uffectiou 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 profound 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. 
 
 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 wonder- 
 ful 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 thought- 
 less, as well as in the thoughtful. 
 
 Nature has assigned different departments to the father and mother in 
 rearing their offspring. This may be seen in many brute animals ; and 
 that it is so in the human species, was long ago observed by Socrates, and 
 most beautifully illustrated by him, as we learn from Xenophon's (Econo- 
 micn. The parental affection in the diflferent 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 trans- 
 ferred 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 com- 
 monly the same affection for her nursling, as if she had born 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. 
 
 Reason might teach a man that his 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 peculiar charge ; but reason could not teach him 
 to love them more than other children 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 constitution 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 in- 
 creased by merit and diminished by demerit, I think no inan will sav, 
 that it took its rise from an opinion of merit. It is not an opinion that 
 creates the affection, but affection often creates opinion. It is apt to per- 
 vert the judgment, and create an opinion of merit where there is none. 
 
 The absolute necessity of this parental affection, in order to the continu- 
 ance of the human species, is so apparent, that there is no need of argu- 
 
CHAP. IV.] OF PARTIOULAR BENEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 513 
 
 ments 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 ten thousand would ever be reared. 
 
 Beside the absolute necessity of this part of the human constitution to 
 the preservation 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 encouraging industry and frugality in 
 the parents, in order to provide for their children, for the solace and sup- 
 port 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 answering their end. If they 
 were too weak, 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 the other. 
 
 When these affections are exerted according to their intention, under the 
 direction of wisdom and prudence, the economy 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 ne.rl benevolent affection I mention is, gratitude to benefactors. 
 
 That good offices are, by the very constitution of our nature, apt to pro- 
 duce 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 judgment 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 cor- 
 ruption. 
 
 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 
 prevailed upon to accept the good office, as a testimony of pure and disin- 
 terested friendship, it is left to work upon his gratitude. He finds himself 
 under a kind of moral obligation to. consider the cause of his benefactor and 
 friend in the most favourable light. He finds it easier to justify his 
 conduct to himself, by favouring the interest of his benefactor, than by 
 opposing it. 
 
 Thus the principle of gratitude is supposed, even in the nature of a bribe. 
 Bad men know how to make this natural principle the most effectual means 
 of corruption. 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 goodwill 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 increase. 
 
 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 im- 
 portant difference between their gratitude and that of the human kind, 
 that, in the last, the niiiid of the benefactor is chiefly regarded, in the firsts 
 the external action only. A brute animal will be as kindly affected to 
 
 L, L 
 
514 OF PAIITICULAR BENEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. [ESSAY III. 
 
 him who feeds it in order to kill and eat it, as to him who does it from 
 aflfection. 
 
 A man may be justly entitled to our gratitude,, 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 olfice that claims our gratitude, but such only as are not due to 
 us in justice. A favour alone gives a claim to gratitude ; and a favour 
 must be something more than justice requires. It does not appeJir that 
 brutes have any conception of justice. They can neither distinguish 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 distressed. 
 
 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 creature a powerful advocate to plead their cause. 
 
 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 lan- 
 guage ; they move our hearts and produce a sympathy, and a desire to give 
 relief. 
 
 There are few hearts so hard, but great distress will conquer their anger, 
 their indignation, 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 men. 
 
 The practice of the Canadian nations toward their prisoners would tempt 
 one to think, that they have been able to root out the principle of compas- 
 sion 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. 
 
 Compassion with bodily pain is no doubt weakened among the savages, 
 because they are trained from their infancy to be superior to death, and to 
 every degree of pain ; and he is thought unworthy the name of a man who 
 cannot defy his tormentors, and sing his death-song in the midst of the 
 most cruel tortures. He who can do this is honoured as a brave man, 
 though an enemy. But he must perish in the experiment. 
 
 A Canadian has the most perfect contempt for every man who thinks 
 pain an intolerable evil. And nothing is so apt to stifle compassion as 
 contempt, and an apprehension 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 never think them- 
 selves 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 
 revenge, and opens the heart to compassion with every human woe. 
 
 It seems to be false religion only, that is able to check th'e tear of com- 
 passion. 
 
 We are told that, in Portugal and Spain, a man condemned to be burned 
 as an obstinate 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- 
 
tHAP. IV,] OF PARTICULAR BENKVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 515 
 
 sion ? Surely it would, if they were not taught, that, in this case, it is a 
 crime to show compassion, or even to feel it. 
 
 4. A fourth benevolent affection is, esteem of the wise and the good. 
 
 1 he worst men cannot avoid feeling this in some degree. Esteem, vene- 
 ration , devotion, are different degrees of the same affection. The perfection 
 of wisdom, power, and goodness, which belongs only to the Almightv, 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 principles, or if they 
 ought not rather to be placed in a higher order. They are certainly more 
 allied to the rational nature than the others that have been nained ; nor is 
 it evident, that there is any thing 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 men. 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 most 
 degenerate part of our species, even in those in whom we hardly perceive 
 any exertion 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 im- 
 portance what name we give it, if we are satisfied that there is such a 
 principle in the human constitution. 
 
 5. Friendship is another benevolent affection. 
 
 Of this we have some instances famous in history ; few indeed, but suf- 
 ficient to show, 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 attachments of 
 that kind between Epicureans than in any other sect. But the difficulty 
 was, to account for real friendship upon Epicurean 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, examines all the three, and shows 
 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 Epicureans boasted of among those of 
 their sect, Cicero does not question the fact, but observes, that, as there 
 are many whose practice 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 
 sexes cannot be overlooked. 
 
 Although it is commonly the theme of poets, it is not unworthy of the 
 pen of the philosopher, as it is a most important part of the human con- 
 stitution. 
 
 L L 2 
 
516 OF PARTICULAU BENEVOLEN'T AFFECTIONS. QeSSAY III. 
 
 It is no doubt made up of various ingredients, 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, every thing 
 that is amiable and excellent, and even something more than human. I 
 consider it here only as a benevolent 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 whom he desires to live, and to rear an offspring. 
 
 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 prudence, and meet with a pro- 
 per 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 in- 
 tended by nature to yield the greatest worldly felicity, should, by being ill re- 
 gulated, 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 Parnassus. 
 
 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 narrow sphere, and be 
 very much engrossed by their private concerns. With regard to an ex- 
 tensive 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 com- 
 munity of which he is a member .'' 
 
 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. 
 
 The object extends as our connexions extend ; and a sense of the con- 
 nexion carries the affection along with it to every community to which we 
 can apply the pronouns we and our. 
 
 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 over- 
 powered by the apprehension he has of the worthlessness, the baseness, and 
 
CHAP. IV.] OF PAUTICULAU BENEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 517 
 
 the ingratitude of mankind. Convince him, that there is any amiable qua- 
 lity in the species, and immediately his philanthropy revives, and rejoices 
 to iind an object on which it can exert itself. 
 
 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 animosities 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 diff"uses 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 constitution. 
 
 If any one thinks the enumeration iacomplete, and that there are natural 
 benevolent afliections, which are not included under any of those that have 
 been named, I shall very readily listen to such a correction, being sensible 
 that such enumerations are very often incomplete. 
 
 If others should think that any, or aU, the aflections 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 determined from what a man, by careful 
 reflection, 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 
 principle of action, which we commonly call self-love. 
 
 I shall conclude this subject with some reflections upon the benevolent 
 aifections. 
 
 The^V«iis, That all of them, in as far as they are benevolent, in which 
 view only I consider them, agree very much in the 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 for- 
 tune. 
 
 It is impossible that there can be benevolent affection without sympathy, 
 both with the good and bad fortune of the object ; and it appears to be im- 
 possible that there can be sympathy without benevolent afiection. Men 
 do not sympathise with one whom they hate ; nor even with one to whose 
 good or ill they are perfectly indifl^rent. 
 
 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 diff"erent 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 constitution of our nature very power- 
 fully invites us to cherish and cultivate in our minds the benevolent affec- 
 tions. 
 
518 OF rARTICULAR BENEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. [ESSAY III. 
 
 The agreeable feeling which always attends them as a present reward, 
 appears to be intended by nature for this purpose. 
 
 Benevolence, from its nature, composes the mind, warms the heart, en- 
 livens 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 natural kind affections 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 irresistible 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 exercise 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. 
 
 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 different 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 uniform judgment of mankind. 
 
 If we apply tlie 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 showed the 
 least degree of courage in her own defence, become valiant and intrepid in 
 defence 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 economy 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 dwel- 
 ling-place, and the affliction they feel when some unlucky boy has robbed 
 them of the dear pledges of their affection, and frustrated all their hopes of 
 their rising family ! 
 
 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 accomplished good breeding charms 
 every one he converses with. And what is this good breeding ? 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 } I believe it consists chieHy in the 
 features which indicate good affections. Every indication of meekness, 
 
CHAP, v.] OF MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 519 
 
 gentleness, and benignity, is a beauty. On the contrary, every feature 
 that indicates 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 species. Indeed they 
 are the joy and the comfort 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 rustling 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. 
 
 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 every thing 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 affection. But the man 
 in whom these more private affections are swallowed up in zeal for the good ; 
 of his country, and of mankind, who goes about doing good, and seeks op- ; 
 portunities of being useful to his species, we revere as more than a good / 
 man, as a hero, as a good angel. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OP MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Are there, in the constitution of man, any affections that may be called 
 malevolent ? What are they ? And what is their use and end ? 
 
 To me there seem to be' two, which we may call by that name. They 
 are emulation 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 excellent use. But, as their excess or abuse, to 
 which human nature is very prone, is the source and spring of all the male- 
 volence 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, without malevolence, to this 
 I have no objection. 
 
 By emulation, I mean, a desire of superiority to our rivals in any pur- 
 suit, 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 expres- 
 sion) of superiority among men are infinitely diversified. 
 
 There is no man so contemptible in his own eyes as to hinder him from 
 
520 OF MALKVOLENT AFFECTIONS. [eSSAY III. 
 
 entering the lists in one form or another ; and he will always find com- 
 petitors 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 show 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 emulation of the human 
 kind has a much wider field. 
 
 In every profession, and in every accomplishment of body or mind, real 
 or imaginary, there are rivalships. Literary men rival one another in lite- 
 rary 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 
 administration, there is a rivalship for power and influence. 
 
 Men have a natural desire of power, without respect to the power of 
 others. This we call ambition. But the desire of superiority, either in 
 power, or in any thing we think worthy of estimation, has a respect to 
 rivals, and is what we properly call emulalion. 
 
 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 stagnate, and the discoveries of art and genius would be at a stand. 
 This principle produces a constant fermentation in society, by which, though 
 dregs may be produced, the better part is purified and exalted to a per- 
 fection, which it could not otherwise attain. 
 
 We have not sufticient data for a comparison 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 overbalances 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 passion and folly, they are often 
 very bad. 
 
 Reason directs us to strive for superiority, only in things that have real 
 excellence; otherwise we spend our labour for that which profiteth not. 
 To value ourselves 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, ivho swelled herself till she burst, in order to equal the ox iu mag» 
 nitude. 
 
 To check all desire of things not attainable, and every uneasy thought 
 in the want of them, is an obvious dictate of prudence, as well as of virtue 
 and religion. 
 _ If emulation be regulated by such maxims of reason, and all undue par- 
 tiality to ourselves be laid aside, it will be a powerful principle of our im- 
 provement, 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 
 3nd 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 undoubt- 
 edly true in many cases. A man cannot be grateful without the opinion 
 
CHAP, v.] OF MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONK. 521 
 
 of a favour done him. He cannot have deliberate resentment without the 
 opinion of an injury ; nor esteem vrithout the opinion of some estimable 
 quality ; nor compassion without the opinion of suffering. 
 
 But it is no less true, that opinion sometimes follows affection, not that 
 it ought, but that it actually does so, by giving a false bias to our judg- 
 ment. We are apt to be partial to our friends, and still more to ourselves. 
 
 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 uncorrupted 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 to get be- 
 fore 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 v/ill endeavour to trip 
 him, or to throw a stumbling-block 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 happiness of those who are most de- 
 serving 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 pro- 
 pagate scandal, to what principle in human nature must we ascribe these 
 qualities? 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 superiority to those from 
 whom' we detract. 
 
 Is it not possible, that the same desire of superiority may have some 
 secret influence upon those who love to display their eloquence in declaiming 
 upon the corruption of human nature, and the wickedness, fraud, and in- 
 sincerity of mankind in-general } It ought always to be taken for granted, 
 that the declaimer is an exception to the general rule, otherwise he would 
 rather choose, even for his own sake, to draw a veil over the nakedness of 
 his species. But hoping that his audience will be so civil as not to include 
 him in the black description, he rises superior by the depression of the spe- 
 cies, and stands aloncj like Noah in the antediluvian world. This looks 
 like envy against the human race. 
 
 It would be endless, and no way agreeable, 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 matter 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 re- 
 gulated 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 constitution, is highly useful 
 
 'and important in society ; that in the wise and good, it produces the best 
 
522 OF MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. [ESSAY HI. 
 
 effects without any harm ; but in the foolish and vicious, it is the parent 
 of a great part of the evils of life, and of the most malignant vices that 
 stain human nature. 
 
 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. Tliis, in general, 
 is what we call anger or resentment. 
 
 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 Criti- 
 cism. What Butler calls sudden, he calls instinctive. 
 
 We have not, in common language, different names for these different 
 kinds of resentment ; but the distinction is very necessary, 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 principle common to us with brute animals. But that resentment 
 whic'i 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, capable, by his rational 
 faculties, of distinguishing between hurt and injury ; a distinction which 
 no brute animal csin make. 
 
 Both these kinds of resentment are raised, whether the hurt or injury 
 be done to ourselves, or to those we are interested in. 
 
 Wherever there is any benevolent affection towards others, we resent 
 their wrongs, in proportion to the strength of our affection. 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 show 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 show great animosity in defending their 
 young, who hardly show 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 him- 
 self, without any intention or deliberation. 
 
CHAP, v.] OF MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 523 
 
 In such eflFortSj 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-men- 
 tioned is solely defensive^ and is prompted by fear. This sudden resent- 
 ment 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 every thing 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 apply it. But, in many cases, the mischief 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 mentioned, by which the 
 body, upon the appearance of danger, is instantly, and without thought or 
 intention, put in that posture which is proper for preventing the danger, 
 or lessening it. Thus we wink hard when our eyes are threatened ; we 
 bend the body to avoid a stroke ; we make a sudden effort to recover our 
 balanciBjwhen 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 retaliation. 
 
 The first of these principles operates upon the defender only ; but this 
 operates both upon the defender and the assiilant, inspiring 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 me impune lacesset. 
 By this, in innumerable cases, men and beasts are deterred from doing 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 sometimes in our own spe- 
 cies, we see it wreaked upon inanimate things, which are incapable of 
 suffering by it ? 
 
 Perhaps it might be a sufficient answer to this question. That nature 
 acts by general laws, which, in some particular cases, may go beyond, or 
 fall short of their intention, though they be ever so well adapted Jo 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 considered as inanimate, and 
 consequently incapable 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 .'' There must therefore, I 
 conceive, be some momentary notion 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 andfeeling. 
 
 Several phenomena 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 
 
524 OF MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. [eSSAV III. 
 
 and of her play- things. And so we see rude nations judge of the heavenly 
 bodies, of the elements, and of the sea, rivers, and fountains. 
 
 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 before considered 
 as inanimate. It ought rather to be said. That by reason and experience 
 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 argument, whether this be, or he not 
 the cause, why a dog pursues and gnashes at the stone that hurt him ; 
 and why a man in a pafssion, for losing at play, sometimes wreaks his ven- 
 geance on the cards or dice. 
 
 It is not strange that a blind animal impulse should sometimes lose its 
 proper direction. In brutes this has no bad consequence; in men the least 
 ray of reflection corrects it, and shows its absurdity. 
 
 It is sufliciently evident, upon the whole, that this sudden, or animal 
 resentment, is intended by nature for our defence. It prevents mischief 
 by the fear of punishment. It is a kind of penal statute, promulgated by 
 nature, the execution of which is committed to the sufl^erer. 
 
 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 resentment of the other party. 
 
 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. 
 
 The right of redressing and punishing 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 principles ; yet, as both have the same name, and are distinguished 
 only by philosophers, and as in real life they are commonly intermixed, 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 sufl^er grievously by the hand of another, not only without injury, 
 but with the most friendly intention ; as in the case of a painful chirurgical 
 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 operator, because it brought back the idea of that 
 agony which he had endured from his hands. 
 
 In this case we see distinctly the operation 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 judgment, and make us apprehend in- 
 
CHAF. VI.] OF PASSION. 525 
 
 jury 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 entitled 
 to every office of humanity consistent with the safety of the conquerors. 
 
 If we analyze that deliberate resentment which is proper to rational crea- 
 tures, 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, arid consequently a moral 
 faculty. 
 
 The very notion 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 stand- 
 ard. No man, therefore, can have the idea either of a favour or of an in- 
 jury who has not the idea of justice. 
 
 That very idea of justice which enters into cool and deliberate resent- 
 ment, tends to restrain its excesses. For as there is injustice in doing an 
 injury, so there is injustice in punishing it beyond measure. 
 
 To a man of candour and reflection, consciousness of the frailty of hu- 
 man nature, and that he has often stood in need of forgiveness himself, the 
 pleasure of renewing good understanding, after it has been interrupted, the 
 inward approbation of a generous and forgiving disposition, and even the 
 irksomeness and uneasiness of a mind ruifled by resentment, plead strongly 
 against its excesses. 
 
 Upon the whole, when we consider, that, on the one hand, every benevo- 
 lent affection is pleasant in its nature, is health to the soul, and a cordial to 
 the spirits ; that nature has made even the outward expression of benevolent 
 affections in the countenance pleasant to every beholder, and the chief in- 
 gredient 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 de- 
 grees, is vexation and disquiet to the mind, and even gives deformity to 
 the countenance ; it is evident that, by these signals, nature loudly admo- 
 nishes 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 without necessity ; and even then in no greater quantity than the 
 necessity requires. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OF PASSION. 
 
 Before 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 consideration. I shall call them 
 by the names oi passion, disposition, and opinion. 
 
526 OF PASsioK. [k?say in. 
 
 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 iradoe, which answers to it in the Greek language, is, hy 
 Cicero, rendered by the word perturbatlo. 
 
 It has always been conceived to bear analogy to a storm at sea, or to a 
 tempest in the air. It does not therefore signify any thing in the mind 
 that is constant and permanent, but something tjiat is occasional, 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. 
 
 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 judg- 
 ment, making a man quicksighted in every thing that tends to inflame his 
 passion, and to justify it, but blind to every thing that tends to moderate 
 and allay it. Like a magic lantern, it raises up spectres and apparitions 
 that have no reality, and throws false colours upon every object. It can 
 turn deformity into beauty, vice into virtue, and virtue into vice. 
 
 The sentiments of a man under its influence will appear absurd and ri- 
 diculous, 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 siich are the effects of passion, I think all men agree. They have 
 been described in lively colours by poets, orators, 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 aflixing different 
 meanings to the word. The one sect maintained, that the passions are 
 good, and useful parts of our constitution while they are held under the 
 government of reason. The other sect, conceiving that nothing is to be 
 called passion which does not, in some degree, cloud and darken the under- 
 standing, considered all passion as hostile to reason, and therefore main- 
 tained , that, in the wise mah, passion should have no existence, but be 
 utterly exterminated. 
 
 If both sects had agreed about the definition of passion, they would pro- 
 bably have had no difference. But while one considered 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 mean- 
 ings to the same word. 
 
 The precise meaning of this word seems not to be more clearly ascer- 
 tained among modern philosophers. 
 
CHAP. VI.] OF PASSION. 527 
 
 Mr. Hume gives the name of passion to every principle of action in the 
 human mind ; and^ in consequence of this, maintains, that every man is, 
 and ought to be, led by his passions, and that the use of reason is to be sub- 
 servient to the passions. 
 
 Dr. Hutcheson, considering all the principles of action as so many de- 
 terminations or motions of the will, divides them into the calm and the 
 turbulent. 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 persons 
 beloved or esteemed." 
 
 It appears, therefore, that this excellent author gives the name oi pas- 
 sions, 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. 
 
 Our natural desires and affections may be so calm as to leave room for 
 reflection, so that we find no difficulty in deliberating coolly, whether, in 
 such a particular instance, they ought to be gratified or not. On other oc- 
 casions, they may be so importunate as to make deliberation very diflicult, 
 urging us, by a kind of violence, to their immediate gratification. 
 
 Thus, a man may be sensible of an injury without being inflamed. He 
 judges coolly of the injury, and of the proper means of redress. This is re- 
 sentment 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 consequences, 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. 
 
 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 hear- 
 ing, appears a shocking paradox, repugnant to good morals and to com- 
 mon sense ; but, like most other paradoxes, when explained according 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 sub- 
 servient 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 desires and affections before explained, but such a de- 
 gree 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 
 
528 OF PASSION. [ESSAY III. 
 
 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 passions, I think it unnecessary to 
 enter into any enumeration of them, since they differ, not in kind^ but ra- 
 ther 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 by almost 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 prin- 
 ciple of action, animal and rational. 
 
 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 modified 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 observations on passion in ge- 
 neral, which tend to show 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 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 undei:standing. 
 
 Fix'd 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? Milton. 
 
 Thus our parents were tempted to disobey their Maker, and all their poste- 
 rity are liable to temptation from the same cause. Passion, or violent ap- 
 petite 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 nature in the present period of our ex- 
 istence. 
 
 Human vjrtue must gather strength by struggle and effort. As infants, 
 before they can walk without stumbling, must be exposed to many a fall and 
 bruise ; as wrestlers 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 temptation and trial, but by these means 
 if acquires its strength and vigour. 
 
CHAP. VI.] OF PASSION. 529 
 
 Men must acquire patience by suffering, and fortitude by being exposed 
 to danger, and every other virtue by situations that put it to trial and 
 exercise. 
 
 This, for any thing we know, may be necessary in the nature of things. 
 It is certainly a law of nature with regard to man. 
 
 Whether there may be orders of intelligent 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 circumstances, 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 op- 
 pose the dictates of passion. 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 sa- 
 tisfaction 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 prevails against the sense of duty, the 
 man is conscious 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 dic- 
 tates of reason and conscience, is not a theory invented to solve the pheno- 
 mena 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, in which there are various powers, some that ought to 
 govern, and others that ought to be subordinate. 
 
 The good of the whole, which is the supreme law in this, as in every 
 commonwealth, requires that this subordination be preserved, and that the 
 governing powers have always the ascendant over the appetites and pas- 
 sions. AH wise and good conduct consists in this. All folly and vice in 
 the prevalence of passion over the dictates of reason. 
 
 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, without a 
 regard to them, the influence of the passions, and their rank in our consti- 
 tution, 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. Hutchesoa observes, that are benevo- 
 lent, as well as others that are selfish. 
 
 The afi'ections of resentment and emulation, 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, 
 
530 ' OF PASSION. [essay III. 
 
 and are rarely carried beyond the bounds of reason, are very seldom called 
 passions. We do not give the name of passion to benevolence, 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. 
 
 All our natural desires and affections are good and necessary parts of our 
 constitution; and passion, being only a certain degree of vehemence in 
 these, its natural tendency 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 pre- 
 sent gratification. It belongs to reason to attend to the accidental circum- 
 stances which may sometimes 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 cooUy, have not that influence upon men which in reason they 
 ought to have. Imagination, like the eye, diminisheth its objects in pro- 
 portion to their distance. The passion of hope and fear must be raised, in 
 order to give such objects their due magnitude in the imagination, and their 
 due influence 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. 
 
 There is no bad action which some passion 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 passions. 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 deter- 
 mine what share men's passions may have in its production. 
 
 The last observation is. That if we distinguish, in the efl^ects of our pas- 
 sions, those which are altogether involuntary, and without the sphere of 
 our power, from the effects which may be prevented by an exertion, 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 transient and careless glance is all that we bestow 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 true and stable judgment of any object. 
 
 _ Take away the passions, and it is not easy to say how great a part of man- 
 kind 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 
 
CHAP. VII.3 OF DISPOSITION. 531 
 
 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 faculties 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 exertions necessary to raise themselves 
 above the ignoble and 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 de- . 
 serves admiration. The signification of those signs is known to all men by 
 nature, and previous to all experience. 
 
 They are so many openings into the souls of our fellow men, by which 
 their sentiments become visible to the eye. They are a natural language 
 common to mankind, without which it would have been impossible to have 
 invented any artificial language. 
 
 It is from the natural signs of the passions and dispositions of the mind 
 that the human form derives its beauty ; that painting, poetry, and music, 
 derive their expression ; that eloquence derives its greatest force, and con- 
 versation its greatest charm. 
 
 The passions, when kept within their proper bounds, give life and vigour 
 to the whole man. Without them man would be a slug. We see what 
 polish and animation the passion of love, when honourable and not unsuc- 
 cessful, gives to both sexes. 
 
 The passion for military glory raises the brave commander in the day of 
 battle for above himself, making his countenance to shine, and his eye.s 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 iippulse, 
 though strong, was not irresistible, othei-wise he could not condemn himself. 
 
 We allow that a sudden and violent passion, into which a man is sur- 
 prised, alleviates a bad action ; but if it was irresistible, it would not only 
 alleviate, but totally exculpate, which it never does, either in the judg- 
 ment 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. 
 
 Bv disposition I mean a state of mind which, while it lasts, gives a ten- 
 dency or proneness, to be moved by certain animal principles, rather than 
 by others ; while, at another time, another state of mind, in the same per- 
 son may give the ascendant to other animal principles. 
 
 It was before observed, that it is a property of our appetites to be pe- 
 riodical, ceasing for a time, when sated by their objects, and returning re- 
 gularly after certain periods. 
 
532 OF DISPOSITION. Qessav III. 
 
 Even those principles which are not periodical, have their ebbs and 
 flows occasionally, 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 connexion 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 associating 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 for- 
 tune, 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, shows 
 every thing in the most agreeable light. Then a man is prone to be- 
 nevolence, compassion, and every kind affection ; unsuspicious, not easily 
 provoked. 
 
 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, putting a man in the capacity of enjoying every thing 
 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 aU men, 
 to sympathy with the distressed. It presents every object in the most 
 favourable light, and disposes us to avoid giving or taking offence. 
 
 This happy disposition seems to be the natural fruit of a good con- 
 science, 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 senti- 
 ment of piety. 
 
 Good humour is likewise apt to be produced by happy success or un- 
 expected good fortune : joy and hope are favourable to it ; vexation and 
 disappointment are unfavourable. 
 
 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 de- 
 gree of caution, and of attention to the future consequences of our actions. 
 
 There is a disposition opposite to good humour which we call bad humour, 
 of which the tendency is directly contrary, and therefore 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, 
 
CHAP. VII.] OF DISPOSITION. 533 
 
 is hurt by every thing 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 according 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 wUl 
 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. 
 
 But there is an elation of mind arising from a vain opinion of our having 
 talents, or worth, which we have not ; or from putting an undue value upon 
 any of our endowrments 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 imperfections of human nature, and of 
 our ovvm 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 dis- 
 position ; 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 advantage and ornament to bqth, and be faithful monitors against 
 the extremes to which each has the greatest tendency. 
 
 But there is a depression of mind which is the opposite to magnanimity, 
 which debilitates 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 conception 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 worth- 
 less as himself. Is not the soul of such a man depressed as much as his 
 body or his fortune? And, if fortune should smile upon him v^hile 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. _ , 
 
 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 giyes 
 rise to strange and absurd opinions in religion, or in other interesting 
 matters. Yet, where there is real worth at bottom, some rays of it will 
 break forth even in this depressed state of mind. 
 
534 OF oiiNioN. [essay III. 
 
 A remarkable instance of this was exhibited in Mr. Simon Brown, a 
 dissenting clergyman 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 profanation to worship God without a soul. 
 
 In this dismal state of mind, he wrote an excellent defence of the 
 Christian religion, against Tindal's Christianity as old as the Creation. 
 To the book he prefixed an epistle dedicatory to Queen Caroline, wherein 
 he mentions, " That he was once a man, but, by the immediate hand of 
 God, for his sins, his very thinking substance 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. 
 
 Thus this good man, when he believed that he had no soul, showed a 
 most generous and disinterested concern for those who had souls. 
 
 As depression of mind may produce strange opinions, especially in the 
 case of melancholy, so out opinions may have a very considerable influ- 
 ence, either to elevate or to depress the mind, even where there is no 
 melancholy. 
 
 Suppose, on one hand, a man who believes 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 exist- 
 ence 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 greatness 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. Some of those 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; resent- 
 ment 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. 
 
 Although natural affection to parents, children, and near relations, is not 
 grounded on the opinion of their merit, it is much increased by that con- 
 sideration. So is every benevolent affection. On the contrary, real male- 
 volence can hardly exist without the opinion of demerit in the object. 
 
 There is no natural desire or aversion, which may not be restrained by 
 
CHAP. VIII.] „F OPINION. 535 
 
 opinion. Thus, if a man were athirst, 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 mfluence upon our animal principles, to strengthen or weaken, 
 to excite or restrain them ; and, by that means, have great influence upon 
 human actions and characters. 
 
 That brute animals have both passions and dispositions similar, in many 
 respects, to those of men, cannot be doubted. Whether 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 
 man 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 agriculture. 
 
 They feel the evils or enjoyments that are present ; probably they ima- 
 gine those which experience has associated with what they feel. But they 
 can take no large prospect either of the past or of the future, nor see through 
 a train of consequences. 
 
 A dog may be deterred from eating what is before him, by the fear of 
 immediate punishment, which he has felt on like occasions; but he is 
 never deterred by the consideration of health, or of any distant good. 
 
 I have been credibly informed, that a monkey, having once been in- 
 toxicated 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 any thing but pure water. I believe 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. 
 
 AU men, in the early part of life, must be under the discipline and 
 government of parents and tutors. Men, who live in society, must be 
 under the government of laws and magistrates through life. The govern- 
 ment 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 government, should know the nature of man, and how he 
 is to be trained and governed. 
 
 Of all instruments of government, opinion is the sweetest, and the most 
 agreeable to the nature of man.. 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 considerable degree, are in the power of those who 
 govern them. 
 
 Man, uncorrupted by bad habits and bad opinions, is of all animals 
 the most tractable; corrupted by these, he is of all animals the most 
 untractable. 
 
 I apprehend, therefore, that if ever civil 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 consti- 
 tution, and prevents diseases by good regimen ; the rest is somewhat like 
 propping a ruinous fabric at great expense, and to little purpose. The art 
 
536 OF OPINION. [essay III. 
 
 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 education 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 feUow-subjects of other professions. Aijd I 
 know not why it should be thought impossible to train men to equal per- 
 fection in the other duties of good citizens. 
 
 What an immense difference is there, for the purpose of war, between an 
 army properly trained, and a militia hastily draivn out of the multitude ? 
 What should hinder us from thinking, that, for every purpose of civil 
 government, there may be a like difference between a civil society properly 
 trained to virtue, good habits, and right sentiments, and those civil societies 
 which we now behold ? — 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 principles of no higher order,' to have no conscience 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 conduct and tenor of 
 action might be expected 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 man- 
 kind is. 
 
 He would be capable of considering the distant consequences of his 
 actions, and of restraining or indulging his appetites, desires, 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 subservient 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 
 qualities. 
 
 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 affections, 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 properly with little effort. 
 
 His natural temper leads him, in most cases, to do what virtue requires. 
 And if he happens not to be exposed to those trying 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 
 
CHAr. VIII.] OF OPINION. 537 
 
 principles alone, without self-governmentj 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. 
 
 Every natural appetite, desire, and affection, has its own present grati- 
 fication 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. 
 
 Every man who pursues an end, be it good or bad, must be active when 
 he is disposed 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 paths 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 an uniform and 
 consistent character, must sweat and toil, and often struggle with his 
 present 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 enjoyment than those who have no end at all, but to 
 gratify the present prevailing inclination. 
 
 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 aU the' pleasures his nature is capable of, he soon 
 becomes a dull, torpid, unhappy animal. 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 burdensome. 
 
 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 indeed 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 fox-hunter, who has no higher pursuit than his dogs, has 
 more enjoyment than he who has no pursuit at all. He 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. 
 
 Manet sub Jove frigido 
 Venator, tenerae conjugis immemor ; 
 Seu visa est catulis cerva fidelibus, 
 Seu rupit teretes Marsus aper plagas. 
 
ESSAY III. PART III. 
 
 OF THE RATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THERE AKB KATIONAL PRINCIPLES OV 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 wiU and effort, it is produced without them. 
 
 Animal principles of action require intention and will in their operation, 
 but not judgment. They are, by ancient moralists, very properly called 
 ccecee 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 beings not endowed with reason, and, in all their exertions, 
 require, not only intention and will, but judgment or reason. 
 
 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 our actions and conduct. 
 
 Whatever we believe, we think agreeable 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 therefore 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 unreasonable or contrary to reason. 
 
 A way of speaking so universal among men, common to the learned and 
 the unlearned in all nations, and in all languages, must have a meaning. 
 To suppose it to be words without meaning, is to treat, with undue con- 
 tempt, the common sense of mankind. 
 
 Supposing this phrase to have a meaning, 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. 
 
 If, therefore, there be any principles of action in the human constitution, 
 which, in their nature, necessarily imply such judgment, they are the prin- 
 ciples which we may call rational, to distinguish them from animal prin- 
 ciples, which imply desire and will, but not judgment. 
 
CHAP. 11.3 OF REGAHD TO OUR GOOB ON THE WHOLE. 539 
 
 Every deliberate human action must be dBne either as the means, or as 
 an end ; as the means to some end, to whiqh it is subservient, or as an end, 
 for its own sake, and without regard to any thing 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 denied. But some philo- 
 sophers, 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 propriety, be called a principle of 
 action. Its office can only be to minister to the principles of action, by 
 discovering the means of their gratification. Accordingly Mr. Hume main- 
 tains, that reason is no principle of action ; but that it is, and ought to be, 
 the servant of the passions. 
 
 I shall endeavour to show, that, among the various ends of human ac- 
 tions, 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. 
 
 These I shall call rational principles ; because 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 us upon the whole, and what appears to be our duty. They are very 
 strictly connected, lead to tlie same course of conduct, and co-operate with 
 each other ; and, on that account, have commonly been comprehended under 
 one name, that of reason. But as they may be disjoined, and are really 
 distinct principles of action, I shall consider them separately. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF REGARD TO OUR GOOD ON THE WHOLE. 
 
 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 can- 
 not pretend to determine. It is one of the most general and abstract no- 
 tions 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 similar to those of brute animals. 
 
 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 disappoint- 
 ment, and sympathy with the suffering 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 present desire ; 
 no other measure of evil but the present aversion. 
 
540 OF UEGARD ;ro OUK GOOD ON THE WHOLE. [ESSAY III. 
 
 Every animal desire has some particular and present object^ and looks 
 not beyond that object to its consequences, or to the connexions it may have 
 with other things. 
 
 The present object, which is most attractive, or excites the strongest de- 
 sire, determines the choice, whatever be its consequences. 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 extend our view both forward and 
 backward. We reflect upon what is past, and, by the lamp of experience, 
 discern what will probably 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 medicines, 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 existence, past, present, 
 and future, we correct our first notions of good and ill, and form the con- 
 ception of what is good or ill upon the whole ; which must be estimated, 
 not from the present feeling, or from the present animal desire or aversion, 
 but from a due consideration of its consequences, certain or probable, during 
 the whole of our existence. 
 
 That which, taken with all its discoverable connexions 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 be so far advanced, 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 conception of what is good or ill for 
 us upon the whole, is the ofl'spring 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 properly 
 be called a rational principle of action. 
 
 I pretend not in this to say any thing that is new, but what reason sug- 
 gested 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 elegance, he expresses the substance of what I have 
 said. And there is good reason to think that Cicero borrowed it from 
 Panaetius, a Greek philosopher, whose books of Oifices are lost. 
 
 " Sed inter hominem et belluam hoc maxime interest, quod hsec tantum 
 quantum sensu movetur, ad id solum quod adest, quodque prsesens est se 
 accommodat, paululum admodum sentiens prseteritum aut futurum : Homo 
 autem quoniam rationis est particeps, per quam consequentia cernit, causas 
 rerum videt, earumque prsegressus et quasi antecessiones non ignorat ; simi- 
 litudines comparat, et rebus preesentibus adjungit atque annectit futuras ; 
 facile totius vitse cursum videt, ad eamque degendam preparat res neces- 
 sarias." 
 
 I observe in the next 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 principle 
 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 necessarily connected 
 
CHAP. II.] OF REGARD TO OUR GOOD ON THE WHOLE. 541 
 
 with the intelligent nature : and that it is a contradiction to suppose such 
 a being to have the notion of good without the desire of it, or the notion of 
 ill without aversion to it. Perhaps there may be other necessary connexions 
 between understanding 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 present evil,, in order to avoid a greater evil, or 40 obtain a greater 
 good, is, in the judgment of all men, wise and reasonable conduct ; 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 common 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 
 arc 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. 
 
 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 principle of action, 
 grounded upon our constitution 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 language 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 judgment 
 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 passions, 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 
 important 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. 
 
 To judge of what is true or false in speculative 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 practical reason. Of true and false there are no de- 
 grees ; 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. TJiey have laboured to dis- 
 cover 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 commonly account the goods 
 and ills of life, to alleviate or to aggravate them. 
 
542 THE TENDENCY OF THIS PRINCIPLE. [ESSAY III. ' 
 
 The Stoics carried this so far, as to conclude that they all depend on 
 opinion. Slavra 'XiroXriypiQ 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 in- 
 diflFerent. We see men miserable through life, from vain fears, and anxious 
 desires, grounded solely upon wrong opinions. We see men wear them- 
 selves 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 different 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 con- 
 sequently happier. 
 
 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 opinions, 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 contrary to their cool judgment and opinion of what is best for them. 
 Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor, is the case in every wilful de- 
 viation 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 conduct, he imputes them to him- 
 self, and would be stung with remorse for his folly, though he had no ac- 
 count to make to a superior Being. He has sinned against himself, and 
 brought upon his own head the punishment which his foUy 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 luise and a foolish. It produces a kind of self-ap- 
 probation, 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. 
 
 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 philo- 
 sophers, 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 show, when I come to treat of con- 
 science. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE TENDENCY OP THIS PRINCIPLE. 
 
 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 Epicurus ,• and the best moralists among 
 
CHAP. III.] THE TENDENCY OF THIS PEINCIPLE. 543 
 
 the ancients derived all the virtues from this principle. For, among them, 
 the whole of morals was reduced to this question. What is tlie greatest 
 good ? Or what course of conduct is best for us upon the whole ? 
 
 In order to resolve this question, they divided goods into three classes, 
 the goods of the body ; the goods of fortune, or external goods ; and the 
 goods of the mind ; meaning, by the last, wisdom and virtue. 
 
 Comparing these different classes of goods, they showed, with convincing 
 evidence, that the goods of the mind are, in many respects, superior to those 
 of the body and of fortune, 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. 
 
 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 of fortune, and even those of 
 the body, depend much on opinion ; and that, when our opinion of them is 
 duly corrected by reason, we shall find them of small value in themselves. 
 
 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 sick- 
 ness, or a stroke of fortune, may tear him asunder ? 
 
 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 un- 
 easiness ceases. 
 
 The fear of the evils of body and of fortune is often a greater evil than 
 the things we fear. As the wise man moderates his desires by temperance, 
 so, to real or imaginary 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 de- 
 sires 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, according 
 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. 
 
 This noble and elevated conception of human wisdom and duty was 
 taught by Socrates, free from the extravagances 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 quae sunt a Gadibus usque 
 Auroram et Gangen, pauci dignoscere possunt 
 Vera bona, atque illis multum diversa, remota 
 Erroris nebula. Quid enim ratione timemus ? 
 Aut cupimus ? Quid tam dextra pede concupis ut te 
 Conatus non poeniteat, votique peracti i 
 Nil ergo optabunt homines } Si consilium vis, 
 Permittes ipsis expendere numinibns, quid 
 Conveniat nobis, rebusque sit utile nostris. 
 Nam pro jucundis aptissima quaeque dabunt Dii. 
 Charier est iUis homo quam sibi. Nos animorum 
 Impulsu, et caeca magnaque cupidine ducti. 
 
544 THE TENDENCY OF THIS PRINCIPLE. [|ESSAY III. 
 
 Conjugium petimuSj partumque uxoris ,• at illis 
 Notum qui pueri, qualisque futura sit uxor. 
 Fortem posce animum, et mortis terrore carentem. 
 Qui spatium vitae extremum inter munera ponat 
 Naturae ; qui ferre queat quoscunque labores, 
 Nesciat irasci, cupiat nihil, et potiores 
 Herculis aerumnas credat, saevosque labores 
 Et venere, et coeniSj et plumis, Sardanapali. 
 
 Monstro quid ipse tibi possis dare. Semita certe 
 Tranquillae per virtutem patet unica vitae. 
 Nullum numen abest si sit prudentia ; sed te 
 Nos facimus, Fortunaj Deam, coeloque locamus. 
 
 Even Horace, in his serious moments, falls into this system. 
 
 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 sin- 
 cerely 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 en- 
 lightened 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 
 afl'ection, and whtise 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 constant 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 con- 
 dition, that he acquit himself honourably in it, and acquire just reputation, 
 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. 
 
 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 object of any of our animal principles, they being all directed to par- 
 ticular objects, 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 ex- 
 
CHAP. IV.] DEFECTS OF THIS PIIINCIPLK. 545 ' 
 
 ercise of reason, and therefore cannot be an object to beings tliat have not 
 some degree of reason. 
 
 As soon as we have the conception of this object, we axe led, by our con- 
 stitution, to desire and pursue it. It justly claims a preference to all 
 objects of j)ursuit that can come in competition with it. In preferring it 
 to any gratification that opposes it, or in submitting to any pain or morti- 
 fication which it requires, we act according to reason ; and every such 
 action is accompanied with self-approbation, and the approbation of man- 
 kind. The contrary actions are accompanied with shame and self-con- 
 demnation in the agent, and with contempt in the spectator, as foolish and 
 unreasonable. 
 
 The right application of this principle to our conduct requires an ex- 
 tensive prospect of human life, and a correct judgment and estimate of its 
 goods and evils, with respect to their intrinsic worth and dignity, their 
 constancy and duration, and their attainableness. He must be a wise man 
 indeed, 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 aiFections planted in our constitution, whose ex- 
 ertions make a capital part of our good and enjoyment ; from these consider- 
 ations, this principle leads us also, though more indirectly, to the practice 
 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 oAvn good ought to lead us to cultivate and exercise them, as every 
 benevolent affection makes the good of others to be our own. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DEFECTS OP THIS PBINCIPLE. 
 
 Having explained the nature of this principle of action, and shown in 
 general the tenor of conduct to which it leads, I shall conclude what relates 
 to it, by pointing 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 per- 
 fection 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 disin- 
 terested regard to duty. 
 
 First, I apprehend the greater part of mankind can never attain such 
 extensive views of human life, and so correct a judgment of good and ill, 
 as the right application of this principle requires. 
 
 The authority of the poet before quoted is of weight in this point. 
 
 N N 
 
546 DEFECTS OF THIS PRINCIPLE. QeSSAY III. 
 
 " Pauci dignoscere possunt vera bona, remota erroris nebula." The igno- 
 rance of the bulk of mankind concurs with the strength of their passions 
 to lead them into error in this most important point. 
 
 Evety man, in his calm raomentSj wishes to know what is best for him 
 on the whole, and to do it. But the difficulty of discovering it clearly, 
 amid such variety of opinions and the importunity of present desires, 
 tempt men to give over the search,- and to yield to the present inclination. 
 
 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 sometimes little even upon the philosopher 
 himself. 
 
 Speculative discoveries gradually spread from the knowing to the ig- 
 norantj and diffuse themselves over all, so that, with regard 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 than the bare appre- 
 hension of having mistaken 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 shows, by a copious and just induction, what is our real 
 good and what our ill. But this kind of reasoning is not easily appre- 
 hended 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 particular 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. 
 
 Secondly, Though a steady pursuit of our own real good may, in an en- 
 lightened 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 pro- 
 secutes 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 appetites 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 centered 
 ultimately in himself, who indulges even his social aflfections 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 
 
CHAP. IV.3 DEFECTS OF THJS PllINClPLE, 547 
 
 this account. Even when he does ggod to others he means only to serve 
 himself; and therefore has no just claim to their gratitude or affection. 
 
 This surely, if it be virtue, is not the noblest kind, but a low and mer- 
 cenary species of it. It can neither give a noble elevation to the mind 
 that possesses it, nor attract the esteem and love of others. 
 
 Our cordial love and esteem is due only to the man whose soul is not 
 contracted within itself, but embraces a more extensive object : who loves 
 virtue, not for her dowry only, but for lier 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 despicable 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 de- 
 votion. And it is the image of this divine attribute in the human cha- 
 racter 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 devotion 
 and real virtue require. 
 
 Thirdly, Though one might be apt to think, that he has the best chance 
 for happiness, who has no other end of his deliberate actions but his own 
 good ; yet a little consideration may satisfy us of the contrary. 
 
 A concern for our own good is not a principle 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. 
 
 We may here compare, in point of present happiness, two imaginary 
 characters ; the first, of the man who has no other ultimate end of his de- 
 liberate 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 disinterested 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 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 em- 
 ployed 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 ne- 
 cessity. To the other it is victory and triumph, in the most honourable 
 warfare. 
 
 N n2 
 
548 OF THE NOTION OF DUTY. QeSSAY III. 
 
 It ought farther to be considered, That although wise men have concluded 
 that virtue is the oidy 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 suppose a man, 
 as we now do, altogether destitute 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, 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 up- 
 right 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, fuU 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 consolation to know, that he consults his happiness 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 supposed the only regu- 
 lating 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 principle, to wit, a jegard^to duty. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF THE NOTION OF DUTY, RECTITUDE, MORAL OBLIGATION. 
 
 A BEING endowed with the animal principles of action only, may be 
 capable of being trained to certain purposes by discipline, as we see many 
 brute animals are, but would be altogether incapable of being governed by 
 law. 
 
 The subject of law must have the conception 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 ani- 
 mal desires to draw him the contrary way. 
 
 This inducement may be, a sense of interest, or a sense of duty, or both 
 concurring. 
 
 These are the only principles I am able to conceive, which can reason- 
 ably, induce a man to regulate all his actions according to a certain general 
 rule or law. They may therefore be justly called the rational principles 
 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 government. 
 
 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 
 
CHAF. V.J IlECTlTUDte, MOKAL OBLIGATION. 549 
 
 of life; to take the advantage of winds and tides when they are favourable, 
 and to bear up against them when they are unfavourable. 
 
 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 done by which he is capable either of 
 virtue or vice. 
 
 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 human 
 conduct to be right, and others to be wrong. 
 
 With regard to the notion or conception 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 pro- 
 perties and necessary concomitants ; as when we say, that it is what we 
 ought to do, what is fair and honest, 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 nea^i place. That the notion of duty cannot be resolved 
 into that of interest, or what is most for our happiness. 
 
 Every man may be satisfied of this who attends to his own conceptions, 
 and the language of all mankind shows 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 conceptions are very different. Both are 
 reasonable motives to action, but quite distinct in their nature. 
 
 I jiresume 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 disregard his 
 interest, but to do what is dishonourable is baseness. The first may move 
 our pity, or, in some cases, our contempt, but the last provokes our indig- 
 nation. 
 
 As these two principles are different in their nature, and not resolvable 
 into one, so the principle of honour is evidently superior in dignity to that 
 of interest. 
 
 No man will allow him to be a man of honour, who should plead his 
 interest to justify what he acknowledged to be dishonourable ; but to sacri- 
 fice 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. 
 
 I take it for granted, therefore, that every man of real honour feels an 
 abhorrence of certain actions, because they are in themselves base, and feels 
 an obligation to certain other actions, because they are in themselves what 
 honour requires ; and this, independently of any consideration of interest or 
 reputation. 
 
 This is an imnaediate moral obligation. This principle of honour, which 
 
550 OF THE NOTION OF DVIY, QjSSRAY III. 
 
 is acknowledged 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 arc 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 } The very question shocks him. To suppose that he needs any 
 other inducement to do it but the principle of honour, is to suppose 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 differ much in opinion with regard to the extent of this principle, 
 and of what it commands and forbids ; but the notion 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. 
 
 Men of rank call it honour, 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 
 understanding 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 resentment of injuries, of gratitude for favours, of indignation against 
 the worthless, are parts of the human constitution which suppose a right 
 and a wrong in conduct. Many transaptions that are found necessary in 
 the rudest societies go upon the same supposition. In all testimony, in all 
 promises, and in all contracts, there is necessarily implied 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 accounted 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 distinc- 
 tion 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, because he was not wont to go rashly into vulgar opinions. 
 
 " 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 showing 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. 
 
 " Let a man's insensibility be ever so great, he must often be touched 
 with the images of right and wrong; and let his prejudices be ever so 
 obstinate, he must observe that others are susceptible of like impressions. 
 The only way, therefore, of convincing 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." 
 
 What we call right and honourable in human conduct, was, by the 
 
CHAP, v.] UECTITUDE, MORAL OBLIGATION. 551 
 
 ancients, called /lonestum, to /caXoc; of which Tully says^ "Quod vere 
 dicimus, etiamsi a nuUo laudetur, natura esse laudabile." ' . 
 
 All the ancient sects, except the Epicureans, distinguished the honestum 
 from the utile, as we distinguish what is a man's duty from what is hiS 
 interest. 
 
 The word nfftcium, KaOr/Kov, 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 ojftcium. It is defined by Cicero to be, " Id 
 quod cur factum sit ratio probabilis reddi, potest." We commonly render 
 it by the word duty, but it is more extensive : for the word dutii, in the 
 English language, I think, is commonly applied only to what the ancients 
 called honestum. Cicero, and Pansetius 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 agreeable to nature, is that 
 which we find in some fragments of the ancient Pythagoreans, and which 
 is adopted by Plato, and explained in some of his dialogues. 
 
 According to this system, there is a leading principle in the soul, whidi, 
 like the supreme power in a commonwealth, has authority and right to 
 govern. This lea^ng principle they called reason. It is that which dis- 
 tinguishes 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 naturae. Una pars in appetitu posita est, 
 quse liominem hue et illuc rapit, quae est opjuij graece, altera in ratione, quae 
 docet, et explanat quid faciendum fugiendumve sit. Ita fit ut ratio praesit, 
 appetitus obtemperet." 
 
 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, com- 
 prehends 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 very 
 natural to comprehend them under one name ; because both are leading , 
 principles, both suppose the use of reason, and, when rightly understood, / 
 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 appe- 
 tite or passion, and when, on another occasion, without any selfish con- 
 sideration, 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 reasonable, or according to reason. 
 
 So that, when we speak of reason as a principle of action in man, it 
 includes a regard both to the honestum 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 ojjicium, and in the Greek under KadrjKov. 
 
 If we examine the abstract notion of duty, or moral obligation, it appears 
 to be neither any real quality of the action considered by itself, nor of the 
 
552 OF THE SENSE OF DUTY. [|ESSAY III. 
 
 agent considered 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 existence. 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 between quantities, which every man understands, 
 but no man can define. - 
 
 Moral obligation is a relation of its own kind, which every man under- 
 stands, but is perhaps too simple to admit of logical definition. 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. 
 
 Perhaps it may not be improper to point out briefly the circumstances, 
 both in the action and in the agent, which are necessary to constitute 
 moral obligation. The universal agreement of men in thesS, shows 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 person obliged, and not of another. There can be no moral obliga- 
 tion 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 imputed 
 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 obligation upon a stone or 
 a tree is ridiculous, because it contradicts every man's notion of moral 
 obligation. 
 
 The person obliged must have understanding and wUl, and some degree 
 of active power. He must not only have the natural faculty of under- 
 standing, but the means of knowing his obligation. An invincible igno- 
 rance of this destroys all moral obligation. 
 
 The opinion of the agent in doing the action gives it its moral denomi- 
 nation. 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. 
 
 Thus, if a man should give to his neighbour 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 
 benefactor. 
 
 These qualifications of the action and of the agent, in moral obligation, 
 are sel£-_evident ; and the agreement of all men in them shows, that ^1 men 
 have the same notion, and a distinct notion, of moral obligation. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OF THE SENSE OF DUTY. 
 
 We are next to consider, how we learn to judge and determine that this 
 is right, and that is wrong. 
 
CHAP. VI.] OF THE SENSE OF DUTY, 563 
 
 • 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 particular actions, and 
 determining what is morally good, and what is morally ill. 
 
 Some phUosophers, •with, whom I agree, ascribe this to an original power' 
 or faculty in man, which they caU the moral sense, the moralJacuHy, con- 
 science. Others think, that our moral sentiments may be accounted for 
 without supposing any original sense or faculty appropriated to that pur- 
 pose, and go into very different systems to account tor 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. 
 
 The name of the moral sense, though more frequently given to con- 
 science since Lord Shaftesbury and Dr. Hutcheson wrote, is not new. The 
 sensus recti et honesii is a phrase not unfrequent among the ancients, 
 neither is the sense of duty among us. 
 
 It has got this name of sense, no doubt from some analogy which it is 
 conceived to bear to the external senses. And if we have just notions of 
 the oflice of the external 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. 
 
 The oflFence taken at this name seems to be owing to this. That philo-' 
 sophers hav,e 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 circle. 
 
 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 synchronous 
 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 tinctured 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 testimony, for 
 no other reason but because it is given by our senses. 
 
 In vain do sceptics endeavour to overturn this evidence by metaphysical 
 reasoning. Though we should not be able to answer their arguments, we 
 believe our senses still, an drest 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 superior to every other power of 
 the mind ; but there is this analogy between it and the external senses. 
 
554 01" THE SENSE OF DUTY. [^KSSAY 111. 
 
 that, as by tliem we have not only the original conceptions of the various 
 qualities of bodies, but the original judgments that this body has such a 
 quality, that such another ; so by our moral faculty, we have both the 
 original conceptions of 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. 
 
 The truths immediately testified by the external senses are the first prin- 
 ciples 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 knowledge 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 indifi^erent. 
 
 I know the term mural 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 distinct 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, indifferent. 
 
 All reasoning must be grounded on first principles. This holds in 
 moral reasoning, as in all other kinds. There must therefore 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 synthetically with regard 
 to the moral conduct of life ; and particular duties or virtues may be traced 
 back to such principles, analytically. 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. 
 
 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 circumstances. 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 con- 
 vinced of it by reasoning. 
 
 From what topic can you reason with such a man ? 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 ? 
 
 We reason upon this question, by balancing the advantages and dis- 
 advantages to the family, and to society in general, that are naturally con- 
 
CHAP. VI.] OF THE SENSE OF DUTY. 556 
 
 sequent both upon monogamy and poljrgamy. And if it can be shown that 
 the advantages are greatly upon the side of monogamy, we think the point 
 is determined. 
 
 Butj 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 monogamy from the intention of 
 nature, discovered by the proportion of males and of females that are born ; 
 a proportion which corresponds perfectly with monogamy, but by no means 
 with polygamy j this argument can have ho weight with a man who 
 does not perceive that he ought to have a regard to the intention of nature. 
 
 Thus we shall find that all moral reasonings rest upon one or more first prin- 
 ciples of morals, whose truth is immediately perceived 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 natural faculties ; nor is it possible that we should have any other evi- 
 dence of their truth. And in different sciences the faculties 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 believe them to be within 
 the reach of human capacity, the first principles are phenomena attested 
 solely by that little organ, the human eye. If we disbelieve its report, 
 the whole of those two noble fabrics of science 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 attested 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 sixe 
 immediately perceived by the understanding. 
 
 The science of politics borrows its principles 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 circumstances. From such principles we reason 
 concerning the causes and effects of different forms of government, laws, 
 customs, and manners. If man were either a more perfect or a more im- 
 perfect, 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 the immediate dictates of the moral, 
 faculty. They show us not what man is, but what he ought to be. What- 
 ever is immediately perceived to be just, honest, and honourable, in hu- 
 man conduct, carries moral obligation along with it, and the contrary 
 carries demerit and blame ; and, from those moral obligations that are 
 immediately perceived, 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 contiguous objects that 
 may give it a false tinge. But in vain will he consult every other faculty 
 in this matter. 
 
 In like manner, he that will judge of the first principles of morals, must 
 
556 OF MORAL APPROBATION, [ESSAY lit. 
 
 consult his conscience, or moral faculty, when he is calm and dispassionat6, 
 unbiassed by interest, aifection, or fashion. 
 
 As we rely upon the clear and distinct testimony of our eyes, con- 
 cerning 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, moral 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, unless God should give us new faculties to sit 
 in judgment upon the old. But we are born under a necessity of trusting 
 them. 
 
 Every man in' his senses believes his eyes^ his ears, and his other 
 senses. He believes his consciousness^ with respect to his own 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 reason, and, indeed, 
 is under the same necessity 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 inoral 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 faculties. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OF SIORAL APPROBATION AND DISAPPROBATION. 
 
 OuK 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 indifiierent. 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 judgment in 
 speculative matters. 
 
 But we approve of good actions, and disapprove of bad ; and this appro- 
 bation and disapprobation, when we analyse it, appears to include, not only 
 a moral judgment of the action, but some aflFection, favourable or un- 
 favourable, 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 connexion, 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 intellectual accomplish- 
 ments, his birth, fortune, and connexion with us. 
 
 Moral worth, when it is not set off by eminent abilities, and external 
 
CHAP. VII.] AND DISAPPROBATION. 557 
 
 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. 
 
 But, when it is attended with these advantages, 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 further observe, that esteem and benevolent regard not only 
 accompany real worth, by the constitution of our nature, but are per- 
 ceived to be really and properly due to it ; and that, on the contrary, un- 
 worthy conduct really merits dislike and indignation. 
 
 There is no judgment in 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 indignation. 
 
 The esteem,that is due to worthy conduct, Is not lessened when a man 
 is conscious 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 advantages, 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 per- 
 haps 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 virtue. 
 
 A man who has a character with himself, which he values, will disdaiii 
 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 con- 
 cerned to vindicate it from unjust imputations. But he owes much more 
 to his character with 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 ovni 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 dishonourable 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 imputed 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 disapproba- 
 tion, either of the conduct of others, or of our own. 
 
 Every thing 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. 
 
 In such faults of our friends, and much more of ourselves, we are dis- 
 
558 OF MOUAL APPROBATION QesSAY III. 
 
 jKJsed 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 characters 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, indiffer- 
 ence 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 counte- 
 nance 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 conduct. 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 feelingj, in the breast 
 of the spectator or judge, which naturally accompany moral approbation 
 and disapprobation. 
 ^ There is no affection that is not accompanied with some agreeable or 
 uneasy emotion. It has often been observed, that all the benevolent affec- 
 tions give pleasure, and the contrary ones pain, in one degree or another. 
 
 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 re- 
 presented to us. We rejoice in his prosperity, we are afflicted in his dis- 
 tress. We even catch some sparks of that celestial fire that animated his 
 conduct, 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 benevolent affection, such as esteem, love, pity, or 
 humanity. 
 
 When the person whom we approve is connected with us by acquaint- 
 ance, friendship, 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 shows a stronger degree of sympathy, 
 which gathers strength from every social tie. 
 
 But the highest pleasure of aU is, when we are conscious of good con- 
 duct in ourselves. 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 happiness of this life (a thing that 
 has been so much sought after) in any one kind of enjoyment, that which 
 arises from the consciousness of integrity, and an uniform endeavour 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 accideut$ of time and 
 fortune. 
 
CHAP. VII.] AND DISAFPIIOBATION. 6.59 
 
 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 connected 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 dishonoured by their 
 ill conduct. 
 
 But, when there is a high degree of depravity in any person connected 
 with us, we are deeply humbled and depressed by it. The sympathetic 
 feeling has some resemblance to that of guilt, though it be free from all 
 guilt. We are ashamed to see our acquaintance ; we would, if possible, 
 disclaim all connexion with the guilty person. We wish to tear him from 
 our hearts, and to blot him out of our remembrance. 
 
 Time, however, alleviates those sympathetic sorrows which arise from 
 bad behaviour in our friends and connexions, if we are conscious that we 
 had no share in their guilt. 
 
 The wisdom of God, in the constitution of our nature, hatli intended, 
 that this sympathetic 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 unfavourable to vice. 
 
 How common is it, even in vicious parents, to be deeply afflicted when 
 their children go into those courses in which perhaps they have gone before 
 them, and by their example, shown them the way ! 
 
 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 persuasion, 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 coun- 
 terpoise to their vices, both in the opinion of others and in their own. 
 
 For no man can bear the thought of being absolutely destitute of all 
 worth. 'ITie 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 nothing of our natural faculties, but by their opera- 
 tions within us. Of their operations in our own minds 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 indifferent, in the conduct of moral agents ; 
 the approbation of good conduct and disapprobation of bad in consequence 
 of that judgment, and the agreeable emotions which attend obedience, and 
 disagreeable which attend disobedience to its dictates. 
 
 The Supreme Being, who has given us eyes to discern what may be 
 useful and what hurtful to our natural life, hath also given us this light 
 within to direct our moral conduct. 
 
560 OBSEfeVATlONS CONCERNING CONSCIENCE. [ESSAY III. 
 
 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 show, that a regard to our 
 present happiness 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, without the labour of 
 reasoning. Its voice is heard by every man, and cannot be disregarded 
 with impunity. 
 
 The sense of guilt makes a man at variance 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 sacred regard to the dictates of his 
 conscience, cannot fail of a present reward, and a reward proportioned to 
 the exertion required in doing his duty. 
 
 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. Tempests may beat, and floods roar ; but he stands firm as a rock, 
 in the joy of a good conscience, and confidence of divine approbation. 
 
 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 itj merely from the consideration 
 of a reward present or future. 
 
 CHAPTER VIH. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING CONSCIENCE. 
 
 1 SHALL now conclude thjs Essay with some observations concerning 
 this power of the mind which we call conscience, by which its nature may 
 be better understood. 
 
 The ,^w^ is. That like all our 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 infancy and their state of maturity. 
 
 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 distinguishing right from wrong in human conduct ; neither are 
 they capable of abstract reasoning 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 order. 
 They require moisture and heat, and air and shelter to bring them to 
 maturity, and may be much improved by culture. According to the 
 variations of soil, season, and culture, some plants are brought td much 
 
CHAP. VIII.] OBSERVATIONS CONCEBNIXG CONSCIENCE. , 561 
 
 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 wonderful 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 gradujd .progress, they may be greatly assisted 
 or retarded, improved or corrupted, by education, instruction, 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 instruction and 
 education, of improvement and degeneracy, is the work of God, and not the 
 operation of second causes. 
 
 Such we may justly account conscience, or the faculty of distinguishing, 
 right conduct 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 discernment 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 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 appears not in infancy. It 
 springs up, by insensible ' 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 perceived. 
 
 Our intellectuai discernment is not so strong and vigorous by nature, as 
 to secure us from errors in speculation. On the contrary, 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 improved, easily throws off. 
 
 It would be extremely absurd, from the errors and ignorance of mankind, 
 to conclude that there is no such thing as truth ; or that man has not a 
 natural faculty of discerning it, and distinguishing it from error. 
 
 In like manner, our mord 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 mistakes wth regard to our duty. 
 
 In matters of conduct, as well as in matters of speculation, we are liable 
 to be misled by prejudices of education, or by wrong instruction. 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 
 example. 
 
 We must not therefore think, because man has the natural power of dis- 
 cerning what is right and what is wrong, that he has no need of in- 
 struction ; 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 conclude that he needs not be 
 taught to dance, or to fence, to ride, or to swim ? All these exercises are 
 performed by that power of moving our limbs, which we have by nature ; 
 
562 OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING CONSCIENCE. [ESSAY III. 
 
 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 distinguishing what is true from what is false, should conclude 
 that he has no need to be taught mathematics, or natural philosophy, or 
 other sciences ? It is by the natural power of human understanding that 
 every thing in those sciences has been discovered, and that the truths they 
 contain are discerned. 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 uninstructed in those matters. 
 
 Our natural power of discerning between right and \vrong, needs the 
 aid of instruction, education, exercise, and habit, as well as our other 
 natural powers. 
 
 There are persons who, as the scripture speaks, hare, 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 improvement 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 adting 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 
 wonders 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 kno^vn by his father. He would 
 never find that this is his son. But, when he discovers himself, the father 
 soon finds, by many circumstances, 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 afiinity with a candid fnind, 
 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 perceives 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 former state, we were acquainted with. 
 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 condem'n him. 
 
 Yet if he be fair and candid, and, when the tumult of passion is over, 
 have the virtues of clemency, generosity, and forgiveness, 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 compared. 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 
 
CHAP. VIII.] OBSliRVATIONS CONCEUNING CONSCIENCE. 563 
 
 human nature, who does not see that he has need of all the aid which his 
 situation aflFords 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. 
 
 firute-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 a.ppetites. 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 give manifest signs of 
 sympathy with them. 
 
 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 punish- 
 ments, to many things useful to man. 
 
 All this must be granted ; and if our perception 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 seri- 
 ously 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; ^nd, 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 themselves, which they are not to trans- 
 gress, though prompted by appetite, or ruffled by passifti. We see no 
 reason to think that they can form the conception of a general rule, or of 
 obligettion to adhere to it. 
 
 They have no conception of a promise or contract ; nor can you enter 
 into any treaty with th?m. 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 invented a language, nor learned the 
 use of one before invented. They never formed a plan of government, 
 nor transmitted inventions to their posterity. 
 
 These things, and many others that are obvious to common observation, 
 show, 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 next 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, show 
 intuitively the end for which they were made. 
 
 A man who knows the structure of a watch or clock, can have no doubt 
 in ooncludingthat 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 bpdy, the intention of the several parts is, in many 
 instances, so evident, as to leave no possibility of doubt. Who can doubt 
 -MThether the musdeg , were intended to move the parts in which they 
 
 o 2 
 
564 OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING CONSCIENCE. [^ESSAY Ilf. 
 
 were inserted ? 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 evdent, 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 know- 
 ledge we have acquired ? Judgment and understanding, that we may 
 distinguish what is true from what is false ? 
 
 The natural appetites of hunger and thirst, the natural affections of 
 parents to their offspring, and of relations to each other, the natural doci- 
 lity and credulity of children, the affections of piety and sympathy 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 con- 
 stitution which plainly point out their end, so that he must be blind or very 
 inattentive, who does not perceive it. Even the passions 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 viTitten 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 show us what 
 is good, what bad, and what indifferent in human conduct. 
 
 It judges of every action before it is done. For we can rarely act so 
 precipitately, but we have the consciousness that what we are about to do 
 is right, or wrong, or indifferent. Like the bodily eye, it naturally looks 
 forward, though its attention may be turned back to the past. 
 
 To conceive, tis 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 con- 
 ceive, 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. 
 
 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 innocence, nor even with impunity. 
 
 We condemn ourselves, or, in the language of scripture, our heart con- 
 demns us, 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 nature, 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 imjpel, but this only authorises. Other principles 
 ought to be controlled by this ; this may be, but never ought to be, con- 
 trolled by any other, and never can be with innocence. 
 
 The authority of conscience over the other active principles of the mind, 
 I do not consider as a point that requires proof by argument, but as self- 
 evident. For it implies no more than this. That in all cases a man ought 
 
CHAPb VIII.] OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING CONSCIENCE. 565 
 
 to do his duty. He only who does in all cases what he ought to do, is the 
 perfect man. 
 
 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 honeshim 
 swallowed up every other principle of action. 
 
 The isiise man of the Stoics, like the perfect 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 exhibited 
 to the heathen world ; and some of those who copied after it, were orna- 
 ments to human nature. 
 
 The 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 virtuous 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 regard 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 motive 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 principles. Passion or appetite may urge to what we know to be 
 wrong. In every instance of this kind, the moral principle ought to pre- 
 vail, and the more dilficult its conquest is, it is the more glorious. 
 
 In some cases, a regard to what is right may be the sole motive, without 
 the concurrencie or opposition of any other principle of action ; as when a 
 judge or an arbiter determines a plea between two inditi^erent persons, 
 solely from a regard to justice. 
 
 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 show, 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 there are, ther;efore, 
 two regulating or leading principles 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 maintained, That all regard to our- 
 selves 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 accompanied 
 with eternal misery. 
 
 This seems to have been the extravagance of some Mystics, which per- 
 haps they were led into, in opposition to a contrary extreme of the school- 
 men of the middle ages, who made the desire of good to ourselves 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 ex- 
 tremes. . . , , 11 
 
 On the one hand, the disinterested love of virtue is undoubtedly 
 the noblest principle in human nature, and ought never to stoop to apy 
 
 other. . . 1 1 . 1 /-I 1 1 1 1 1 
 
 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 
 
566 OBSERVATIONS CONCERNINe (JONSCIISNCE. QeSSA* lit. 
 
 within their proper bounds, and keeping them in due subordination to the 
 governing principles. 
 
 As to the supposition of an opposition between the two governing prin- 
 ciples, that isj between a regard to our happiness upon the whole, and a 
 regard to duty, this supposition 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 happi- 
 ness upon the whole, this case, as Lord Shaftesbury justly observes, 
 is without remedy. It will be impossible 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 reduced to this miserable 
 dilemma, whether it be best to be a fool or a knave. 
 
 This shows the strong connexion between morality and the principles of 
 natural religion ; as the last only can secure a man from the possibility of 
 an apprehension, that he may play the fool by doing his duty. 
 
 Hence, even Lord Shaftesbury, in his gravest work, concludes, T%at 
 virtue luithout piety is incomplete. Without piety, it loses its brightest 
 example, its noblest object, and its firmest support. 
 
 I conclude with observing. That conscience, or the moral faculty, is like- 
 wise an intellectual power. 
 
 By it solely we have the original conceptions or ideas of right and 
 wrong in human conduct. And of right and wrong, there are not only 
 many different degrees, but many different species. Justice and injustice, 
 gratitude and ingratitude, benevolence and malice, prudence and foUy, 
 magnanimity and meanness, decency and indecency, are^ various moral 
 forms, all comprehended under 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 qualities, we have by our moral faculty ; 
 and by the same faculty, when we compare them together, we perceive 
 various moral relations 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 justice, and unmerited 
 beneficence must give place to both. 
 
 Many such relations between the various moral qualities compared 
 together, are immediately discerned by our moral faculty. A man needs 
 only to consult his own heart to be convinced of them. 
 
 AH our reasonings in morals, in natural jurisprudence, in the law of 
 nations, as well as our reasonings about the duties of natural religion, and 
 about the moral government of the Deity, must be grounded upon the 
 dictates of our moral faculty, as first principles. 
 
 As this faculty, therefore, furnishes the human mind witli many of its 
 original conceptions or ideas, as well as with the first principles of many 
 important branches of human knowledge, it may jiistly be accounted an 
 intellectual, as well as an active power of the mind, 
 
ESSAY IV. 
 
 OK THE LIBERTY OF MORAL AGKNTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ' THE NOTIONS OF MORAL LIBERTY AND NECESSITY STATED. 
 
 By the liberty of a moral agent, I understand^ a power over the deter- 
 minations of his own will. 
 
 Ifj 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 action, the determination 
 of his wiU be the necessary consequence of something involuntary in the 
 state of his mind, or of something in his^external circumstances, he is not 
 free ; he has not what I call the liberty of a moral agent, but is subject to 
 necessity. 
 
 This liberty supposes the agent to have understanding and will ; for the 
 determinations of the will are the sole object about which this power is 
 employed ; and there can be no will without, at least, such a degree of 
 understanding as gives the conception of that which we will. 
 
 The liberty of a moral agent implies, not only a conception of what he 
 wills, but some degfee of practical judgment or reason. 
 
 For, if he has not the judgment to discern one determination to be pre- 
 ferable to another, either in itself, or for some purpose which he intends, 
 what can be the use of a power to determine .'' His determinations must be 
 made perfectly in the dark, without reason, motive, or end. They can 
 neither be right nor wrong, wise nor foolish. 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 otherwise than 
 he did. 
 
 We mav perhaps be able to conceive a being endowed with power over 
 the determinations 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 we 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 iU, wisely or foolishly, and this, for dis- 
 tinction's sake I shall call moral liberty. 
 
 What kind, or what degree of liberty belongs to brute-animals, or to our 
 own species, 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 constitution, to which they yield, as the 
 inanimate creation does, without any conception of the law, or any intention 
 of obedience. 
 
 But of civil or moral government, which are addressed to the rational 
 
568 THE NOTIONS OF MORAL LIBEUTY, &C. [ESSAY IV. 
 
 powers, and require a conception of the law and an intentional obedience, 
 they are, in the judgment 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 intractable by discipline, which we see 
 they are not. 
 
 The effect of moral liberty is. That it is in the 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 tliereby justly merit disapprobation and blame. 
 
 By necessity, I understand the want of that moral liberty which I have 
 above defined. 
 
 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 intitled to the esteem and 
 moral approbation of those who knew and believed this necessity. What 
 was, by an ancient author, said of Cato, might indeed be said of him ; He 
 was good because he could not be otherwise. But this saying, if understood 
 literally and strictly, is not the praise of Cato, but of his constitution, 
 which was no more the work of Cato, than his existence. 
 
 On the other hand, if a man be necessarily determined to do iU, this 
 case seems to me to move pity, but not disapprobation. He was iU, because 
 he could not be otherwise. Who can blame him .'' Necessity has no law. 
 
 If he knows that he acted under this necessity, 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 viTong, 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 iU 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 conse- 
 quences inseparably 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, any more than the brutes. That power over the deter- 
 minations 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 understanding 
 to define its limits with precision. We can only say, in general, that it 
 extends to every action for which he is accountable. 
 
 This power is given by his Maker, and at his pleasure whose gift it is, 
 it may be enlarged or diminished, continued or withdrawn. 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 ascribe liberty to man or to any created being. 
 
 Supposing it therefore to be true. That man 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 melancholy or in madness ; it may be impaired or 
 lost by vicious habits ; it may in particular cases be restrained by divine 
 interposition. 
 
CHAP. I.] THE KOTIONS OF MOUAL LIBERTY, &C. 569, 
 
 We call man a free agent in the same way as we call him a reasonable 
 agent. In 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 
 limitations. 
 
 The liberty I have described has been represented by some philosophers 
 as inconceivable, 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 deter- 
 mined 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 difiierent from that which I have given, and 
 therefore does not apply to moral liberty, as above defined. 
 
 But it is said that this is the only liberty that is possible, that is con- 
 ceivable, that does not involve an absurdity. 
 
 It is strange, indeed ! if the word liberty has no meaning but this one. 
 I shall mention three, all very common. The objection applies to one oJF 
 them, but to neither of the other two. 
 
 Liberty is sometimes opposed to external force or confinement of the 
 body. Sometimes it is opposed to obligation by law, or by lawful autho- 
 rity. Sometimes it is opposed to necessity. 
 
 1. It is opposed to confinement of the body by superior force. So we 
 say a prisoner is set at liberty when his fetters are knocked off, and he is 
 discharged from confinement. This is the liberty defined in the objection : 
 and I grant that this liberty extends not to the will, neither does the con- 
 finement, because the will cannot be confined by external force. 
 
 2. Liberty is opposed to obligation by law, or lavirfiil authority. This 
 liberty is a right to act one way or another, in things which the law has 
 neither commanded nor forbidden ; 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 obe- 
 dience nor transgression. Law supposes a power to obey or to transgress ; it 
 does not takeawaythis power, but proposes the motives of duty andof interest, 
 leaving the power to yield to themj or to take the consequence of transgression. 
 
 3. Liberty is opposed to necessity, and in this sense it extends to the de- 
 terminations of the will only, and not to what is consequent to the will. 
 
 In every voluntary action, the determination of the will is the first part 
 of the action, upon which alone the moral estimation of it depends. It has 
 been made a question among philosophers. Whether, in every instance, this 
 determination be the necessary 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 } 
 
570 OF THE WORDS CAUSE AND EFFECT, &C. [ESSAY IV. 
 
 This has, by some, been called the philosophical 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 difficulty in conceiving 
 it. I consider the determination of the wiU 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 determi- 
 nation of his own will, he was free in that action, and it is justly imputed 
 to him, whether it be good or bad. But if another being was the cause 
 of this determination, either by producing it immediately, 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. 
 
 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 per- 
 ceived, 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 exchiding his will from being in his power, that 
 it necessarily implies it. For to say that what depends upon the will is in 
 a tnan'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 
 necessarily implied, and therefore always understood. Thus when we say 
 that all things depend upon God, God himself is necessarily excepted. Jh. 
 like manner, when we say, that all that is in our power depends upon the 
 Avill, the will itself is necessarily excepted : for if the wUl be not, nothing 
 else can be in our power. Every effect must be in the power of its cause. 
 The determination 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, nor involves any absurdity or contradiction. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 or THE WOKDS CAUSE AND EFFECT, ACTION, AND ACTIVE POWER. 
 
 The writings upon liberty and necessity have been much darkened by 
 the ambiguity of the words used in reasoning upon that subject. The 
 words cause and effect, action and active povoer, liberty and necessity, are 
 related to each other : the meaning of one determines the meaiiing of the 
 
CHAP. II.] OF THE WORDS CAUSE AND EFFECT, &C. 571 
 
 Test. 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 
 liberty ; but to keep to this strict sense is difficult, because in all languages 
 they have, by custom, got a great latitude of signification. 
 
 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 show from what causes they have become so ambiguous in 
 all languages, as to darken and embarrass our reasonings upon it. 
 
 Every thing that begins to exist, must have a cause of its existence, 
 which had power to give it existence. And every thing that undergoes 
 any change, must have some cause of that change. 
 
 That neither existence, 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 universEil, and so firmly rooted in human nature, that the most 
 determined scepticism cannot eradicate it. ' 
 
 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 every thing that is called common prudence, and be fit only to be 
 confined as insane. 
 
 From this principle it follows. That every thing which undergoes any 
 change, must either be the efficient cause of that change in itself, or it must 
 be changed by some other being. 
 
 In ihe^rst case it is said to have active pffoier, 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 motion, 
 is the effect. Active power, therefore, is a quality in the cause, which 
 enables it to produce the eflfect. And the exertion of that active power in 
 producing the efiect, is called action, agency, efficiency. 
 
 In order to the pi'oduction of any eflfect, there inust be in the cause, not 
 only power, but the exertion of that power : for power that is not exerted 
 produces no eflFect. 
 
 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 aU. the means necessary to its production be in his 
 power. 
 
 If is no less a contradiction to say, that a cause has power to produce a 
 certain effect, 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 observe. 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 hie is confined by superior force. In common language, he may be 
 said to have a power which he cannot then exert. But this popular ex- 
 pression means only that he commonly has this power, and will have it 
 
57^ OF THE WOllDS CAUSE AND EFFECT, &C. [ESSAY IV. 
 
 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 consequences from the principle first men- 
 tioned. That every change which happens in nature 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 eificient causes in our deliberate and voluntary actions. 
 
 We are conscious of making an exertion, sometimes with difficulty, in 
 order to produce certain effects. An exertion made deliberately and volun- 
 tarily, in order to produce an effect, implies a conviction that the effect ife 
 in our power. No man can deliberately attempt what he does not believe 
 to be in his power. The language of all mankind, and their ordinary con- 
 duct in life, demonstrate, that they have a conviction of some active power 
 in themselves to produce certain motions in their own and in other bodies, 
 and to regulate and direct their own thoughts. This conviction we have 
 so early in life, that we have no remembrance when, or in what way, we 
 acquired it. 
 
 That such a conviction is at first the necessary result of our constitution, 
 and that it can never be entirely obliterated, is, I think, acknowledged by 
 one of the most zealous defenders of necessity. Free discussion, &c. p. 298. 
 "Such are the influences'to which all mankind, without distinction, 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 k superior 
 agent. Consequently, the associations which refer actions to themselves, 
 get so confirmed, that they are never entirely obliterated ; and therefore 
 the common language, and the common feelings of mankind, will be 
 adapted to the first, the limited and imperfect, or rather erroneous view of 
 things." 
 
 It is very probable, that the very conception or idea of active power, 
 and of efficient causes, is derived from our voluntary exertions in producing 
 effects ; and that, if we were not conscious of such exertions, 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 notion, 
 even of almighty power, is derived from the notion of human power, by 
 removing from the former those imperfections and limitations to which 
 the latter is subjected. 
 
 It may be difficult to explain the origin of our conceptions and belief 
 concerning efficient causes and active power. The common theory, that 
 all our ideas are ideas of sensation or reflection, and that all our belief 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 reflection. 
 They maintain, therefore, that a cause is only something prior to the 
 effect, and constantly conjoined with it. This is Mr. Hume's notion of a 
 cause, and seems to be adopted by Dr. Priestley, who says, " That a cause 
 
CHAP. III.] THE AMBIGUITY OF THOSE WORDS. 573 
 
 cannot be defined to be any thing, but such previovs circumstances as are- 
 constantly folloived by a certain effect, the constancy of the result making 
 usconcludej that there must be a sufficient reason, in the nature of the 
 things, why it should be produced in those circumstances." 
 
 But theory ought to stoop to fact, and not fact to theory. Every man 
 who understands 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 iic causa 
 intelligi debet, ut quod cuique anlecedat, id et causa sit, sed quod cuique 
 efficieiiter antecedit. 
 
 The very dispute, whether we have the conception of an efficient cause, 
 shows that we have. For though men may dispute about things which 
 have no existence, they cannot dispute about tilings of which they have no 
 conception. 
 
 What has been said in this chapter is intended to showj That the con- 
 ception of causes, of action and of active power, in the strict and proper 
 sense of these wordsj is found in the minds of all men very early, even in 
 the dawn of their rational life. It is therefore probablcj that, in all 
 languages, the words by which these conceptions were expressed were at 
 first distinct and unambiguous, yet it is certain, that, among the most en- 
 lightened nations, these words are applied 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 phenomenon, at first view, seems very unaccountable. But a 
 little reflection may satisfy us, that it is a natural consequence 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 shoW 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. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CAUSES OP 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 liave understanding and active power as we have. 
 
 " Savages," says the Abbe Kaynal, " wherever they see motion which 
 
 they cannot account for, there they suppose a soul." 
 
 All men may be considered as savages in this respect, until they are 
 
 capable of instruction, and of using their faculties in a more perfect manner 
 
 than savages do. ,r. . t^ Li j 
 
 The rational conversations of birds and beasts m ^sops tables do not 
 shock the belief of children. To them they have that probability which 
 we require in an epic poem. Poets give us a great deal of pleasure, by 
 
574 THE AMBIGUITY OP THOSE WOllDS. QesSAY IV. 
 
 .clothing every object with intellectual 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 senti- 
 ments ? 
 
 However this may be, the Abbe Raynal's observation is sufficiently con- 
 firmed, 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 implore their favour, is a kind of idolatry natural to 
 
 AU languages carry in their structure the marks of their being formed 
 when this belief 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 vei'bs applied to 
 those objects, in which, according to the Abbe 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 believed those 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 records than by the structure of their language, which, notwith- 
 standing 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. 
 
 When a few of superior intellectual abilities find leisure for speculation, 
 •they begin to philosophise, 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 superstitions, and invites to farther dis- 
 coveries 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 necessarily ; 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 philosophy, even in its infancy, 
 may lead men from idolatry and polytheism into ;atheism, and from as- 
 cribing active power to inanimate beings to conclude all things to be 
 carried on by necessity. 
 
 Whatever origin we ascribe to the doctrines of atheism and of fatal ne- 
 cessity, it is certain, that both may be traced almost as far back as phi- 
 losophy ; 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 
 ycto, that those objects were discovered to be inanimate and inactive, to 
 which the many ascribed life and .activity. But while the fern are con- 
 vinced of this, they. must speak the language lof the many in order to be 
 understood. So we see, that when the iPtokmaic system of astronomy, 
 
CHAP. III.] THE AMBIGUITy OF THOSE WOEDS. 575 
 
 which agrees with vulgar prejudice 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. 
 
 In like manner, those active verbs and participles, 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 fDund, 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, multi- 
 plication always 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 multiply- 
 ing 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 resembles 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 imperfection of language, and it appears 
 very remarkably in those verbs and participles which are active in their 
 form, but are frequently used so as to have inothing active in their signifi- 
 cation. 
 
 Hence we are authorised by custom to ascribe action and active power 
 to things which we believe to be passive. The proper and original signi- 
 fication of every word, which at first signified action and causation, is 
 buried and lost under that vague meaning which custom has affixed to it. 
 
 That there is a real distinction, and perfect opposition, between acting 
 and being acted upon, every man may be satisfied who is capable of reflec- 
 tion. 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 
 phenomena of nature ; that is, the causes of those appearances in nature 
 which are not the effects of human power. Felix qui.potuit rerum eog- 
 noscere causas, is the sentiment of every mind that has a turn to specula- 
 tion. . , , , 
 
 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 enlightened part of mankind this knowledge has been pursued 
 in all ages with an avidity proportioned to its importance. 
 
 In nothing does the difference between the intellectual powers of man 
 
576 THE AMBIGUITY OF THOSE WORDS ' [ESSAY IV. 
 
 and those of brutes appear more conspicuous than in this For in them 
 we perceive no desire to investigate the causes of thingSj nor indeed any 
 sign that they have the proper notion of a cause. 
 
 There is reason, however, to apprehend, that, in this investigation, men 
 have wandered 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 connexion in the phenomena 
 of nature. We learn, in many cases, from what has happened, to know 
 what will happen. The discoveries of this kind, made by common obser- 
 vation, are many, and are the foundation of common prudence in the con- 
 duct of life. Philosophers, by more accurate observation 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 phenomena of nature, how little do we 
 know ! AU our knowledge of things external must be grounded upon the 
 information of our senses : but causation and active power are not objects 
 of sense ; nor is that always the cause of a phenomenon which is prior to 
 it, and constantly conjoined with it ; otherwise night would be the cause 
 of day, and day the cause of the following night. 
 
 It is to this day problematical, whether all the phenomena of the ma- 
 terial system be produced by the immediate operation of the First Cause, 
 according to the laws which his wisdom determined, or whether subordi- 
 nate causes are employed by him in the operations of nature ; and if they 
 be, what their nature, their number, and their diflferent offices are .-' And 
 whether, in all cases, they act by commission, or, in some, according to 
 their discretion. 
 
 When we are so much in the dark with regard to the real causes of the 
 phenomena 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 
 instead of wheat. 
 
 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 Aristotle, matter, form and privation. Des Cartes thought, 
 that matter, and a certain quantity of motion given at first by the Almighty, 
 are suflBcient to account for all the phenomena 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 tolerated, because however hurtful it may be to sound philosophy, 
 it has little influence upon the concerns of life. A constant antecedent, or 
 concomitant, of the phenomenon 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. 
 
 Those philosophers seem to have had the justest views of nature, as 
 
CHAP. HI.] THE AMBIGUITY OF THOSK WOltDS. 577 
 
 well as of the weakness of human understanding, who^ giving up the pre- 
 tence of discovering the causes of the operations of nature, have applied 
 themselves to discover, by observation and experiment, the rules, or laws 
 of nature according to which the phenomena 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 
 electricity. 
 
 We call them causes of many of the phenomena 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 un- 
 known cause acts. 
 
 Thus, it appears, that our natural desire to know the causes of the 
 phenomena 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 
 natures, that they have in a manner lost their proper and original meaning, 
 and yet we have no other words to express it. 
 
 Every thing joined ivith the effect, and prior to it, is called its cause. 
 An instrument, an occasion, a reason, a motive, an end, are called causes. 
 And the related words effect, agent, poiner, are extended in the same vague 
 manner. 
 
 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 autho- 
 rised by custom, the arbiter of language, and therefore cannot be censured, 
 perhaps cannot 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 agent, and a cause, and is not merely acted upon 
 as a passive instrument. On the contrary, to say that he acts from neces- 
 sity, is to say that he does not act at aU, that he is no agent, and that, for 
 any thing we know, there is only one agent in the universe, who does 
 every thing that is done,- whether it be good or ill. 
 
 If this necessity be attributed even to the Deity, the consequence must 
 be, that there neither is, nor can be, a cause at aU; that nothing acts, but 
 every thing is acted upon; nothing moves, but every thing is moved; all 
 is passion without action ; all instrument without an agent ; and that every 
 thing that is, or was, or shall be, has that necessary existence in its season, 
 which we commonly consider as the prerogative of the First Cause. 
 
 This I take to be the genuine, and the most tenable, system of necessity. 
 It was the system of Spinosa. though he was not the first that advanced 
 it ; for it is very ancient. And if this system be true, our reasoning to 
 prove the existence of a first cause of every thing that begins to exist, 
 must be given up as fallacious. _ i, tv, * 
 
 If it be evident to the human understanding, as I take it to be, 1 nat 
 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 
 
578 OF THE INFLUENCK (JF MOTIVES, [ESSAV IV. 
 
 goodnesSj 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 every thing that begins to exist 
 has a cause, be got only by experience ; and if, as Mr. Hume maintains, 
 the only notion of a cause be something prior to the eflfect, which experience 
 has shown to be constantly conjoined with suck an effect, I see not how, 
 from these principles, it is possible to prove the existence 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 singular 
 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 conjoined with any effect. He seems to 
 me to reason justly from his definition of a cause, when he maintains, that 
 any thing may be the cause of any thing ; since priority and constant con- 
 junction 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 any thing but such previous circumstances 
 as are constantly follotxed 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." 
 
 This seems to me to be Mr. Hume's definition 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 consequences which Mr. Hume draws from it, however 
 necessary they may appear to others. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OP 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 determine 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 a 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 absolutely ungovernable." 
 
 In order therefore to understand distinctly, 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 in- 
 fluenced by motives. But the influence of motives is of a very different 
 nature from that of efficient causes. They are neither causes nor agents. 
 They suppose an efficient cause, and can do nothing without it. 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 iiifluence to action, but they 
 
CHAP. IV.] OF THE INFLUENCE OP MOTIVKS. 5^9 
 
 do not act. They niay be compared to advice, or exhortation, which leaves a 
 man still at liberty. For in vain is advice given ivhen there is not a 
 power either to do, or to forbear, what it recommend*. In like mariner, 
 motives suppose liberty in the agent, otherwise 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 impressedi and in the direc- 
 tion of that force. The scheriie of necessity supposes a similar law to 
 obtain in all the actions of intelligent beings ; which, with little alt-eration, 
 may be expressed thus : every action, or change of action, in an intelligent 
 being, is proportional to the force of motives impressed> and in the direc- 
 tion 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 supposi- 
 tion. That an intelligent being is an inert, inactive substance> which does 
 not act, but is acted upon. 
 
 2. Kational beings, in proportion as they are wise and good, will act 
 according to the best- motives ; and- every rational being,- who does other- 
 wise, abuses his liberty. The most perfect being, in every thing 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 conti^adiction 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. 
 
 ■ Tlie moral perfection of the Deity consists, not in having no power to 
 do ill, otherwise, as Dr. Clark justly observes, there would be no ground 
 to thank him for his goodness to us any more than for his eternity or im- 
 mensity ; but his moral perfection consists in this, that, when he has 
 power to do every thing, 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 opposites. We 
 grant, therefore, that motives have influence similar to that of advicfe or 
 persuasion; but this influence is perfectly consistent with liberty, and 
 indeed supposes liberty. 
 
 3. Whether every deliberate action must have a motive, depends on the 
 meaning we put upon the word deliberate. If, by a deliberate action, we 
 mean an action wherein motives are weighed, which seems to be the origi- 
 nal meaning of the word, surely there must be motives, and contrary 
 motives, 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 deter- 
 mination of the mind, with forethought and wiU, I believe there are innu- 
 merable such actions done without a motive. 
 
 This must be appealed to every man's consciousness. I dt> 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 ivithout 
 any evidence, and then, it is to say, that I may be convinced by an argu- 
 ment which never entered into my thought. 
 
 Cases frequently occur, in which an end, that is of some importance, 
 
 may be answered equally well by any one of several different means. In 
 
 such cases, a man who 'intends the end finds not the l«ast 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. 
 
 p p 2 
 
580 OF THE INFLUENCE OF MOTIVES. QCSSAY IV. 
 
 To say that this is a case that cannot happen, is to contradict the 
 experience of mankind ; 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. 
 
 If a man could not act without a motive, he would have no power at all ; 
 for motives are not in our power ; and he that has not power over a ne- 
 cessary 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 of the controversy. I grant it to be a self-evi- 
 dent proposition, and I know no author that ever denied it. 
 
 How insignificant soever, in moral estimation, 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 acting without a motive, that power, joined to a weaker motive, 
 may counterbalance a stronger. 
 
 4. It can never be proved. That when there is a motive on one side 
 only, that motive 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 shadow of argument, 
 which does not take for granted the thing in question, to wit, that motives 
 are the sole causes of actions. 
 
 Is there no such thing as wilfulness, caprice, or obstinacy, among man- 
 kind ? 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 motives the strongest always pre- 
 vails, this can neither be affirmed nor denied with understanding, until 
 we know distinctly what is meant by the strongest motive. 
 
 I do not find, that those who have advanced 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 motive 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. Sut when the motives are of dif- 
 ferent kinds, as money and fame, duty and worldly interest, health and 
 strength, riches and honour, by what rule shall we judge which is the 
 strongest motive? 
 
 Either we measure the strength of motives, 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 
 
CHAP. IV.] OF THE INFLUENCE OF MOTIVES. 581 
 
 strongest motive mean only the motive that prevails, it will be true indeed 
 that the strongest motive 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 measure the cause by 
 its effect, and from the superiority of the eflFect conclude the superiority 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 supposition, it is 
 concluded that he does not act. This is to reason in a circle, or rather 
 it is not reasoning, but begging the question. 
 
 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, because sen- 
 tence was given on his side. The sentence is in the power of the judge; 
 not of the advocate. It is equally weak reasoning, in proof of necessity; 
 to say, such a motive prevailed, therefore it is the strongest ; since the de- 
 fenders of liberty maintain that the determination was made by the man, 
 and not by the motive. 
 
 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. 
 
 Every thing 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 lattery rational. 
 
 Hunger is a motive in a dog to eat ; so 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 motives 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. 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 lest of 
 the strength of motives. , 
 
 If it be asked, whether in motives of this kind, the strongest always 
 prevails ? I answer. That in brute-animals, I believe it does, 'i'hey do not 
 appear to Lave any self-command ; an appetite or passion in themis oveN 
 
582 OF THE INFLUENCK OF MOTIVES- [ESSAY IV. 
 
 eome only by a stronger contrary one. On this accountj they are not 
 acouutable for their aetionSj 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 motive does not always pre- 
 vail. The flesh does not always prevail against the spirit, though too 
 often it does. And if men were necessarily determined by the stro9ge8t 
 animal motive, they could no more be accountjible, 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 judg- 
 ment, by convincing us that such an action oii(ght to be done, th^t it is 
 our duty, or conducive to our real good, or to some end which we have 
 deterniined to pursue. 
 
 They do not give a blind impulse to the will, as animal motives do. 
 They convince, but they do not impel, unless, as may often happen, they 
 excite some passion 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; £(nd the convict jon of what 
 we ought to do, in order to some end which we have judged fit to be pur- 
 sued, is what I call a rational motive. 
 
 Brutes, I think, cannot be influenced by such motives. They have not 
 the conception of ought and ought not. Children acquire these con- 
 ceptions 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 rational motives, it is evident, that 
 the strongest, 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 pursue 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 con- 
 flict 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 .-' The answer is. 
 That the first is commonly strongest, when they are tried by the animal 
 test. If they were not so, human life would be no state of trial. It would 
 not be a warfare, nor would virtue require any eflbrt or self-cominand. 
 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 rational motive 
 is always the strongest. 
 _ And now, I think, it appears, that the strongest njotive, according to 
 either of the tests I have mentioned, does not always prevail. 
 
 In every wise and virtaous action, the motive that prevails is the 
 Strongest, accojding 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 stronge^st according to the animal 
 test, but always the weakest according to the rational. 
 
 6. It is true that we reason from men's motives to their actions, and, in 
 many cases with great probability, but never with absolute certainty. And 
 to infer from this, that men are necessarily determined by motives, is very 
 weak reasoning. 
 
CHAP. IV.] OF THE INFLUENCE OF MOTIVES. 583 
 
 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 ? It may surely 
 be expected, that, of the various actions within the sphere of their power, 
 they will choose \yhat pleases them most for the present, or what appears 
 to be most for their real, though distant good. When there is a competition 
 between 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 } Is it not 
 from the presumption that they act in this way, that we reason from their 
 motives to their actions .^ Surely it is. Is it not weak , reasoning, there- 
 fore, 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 ne- 
 cessarily determined by motives, all their actions must be capricious. 
 
 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. 
 
 ^ To act against rational motives, must always be foolish, vicious, or capri- 
 cious. 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 vicious, therefore it can never be put to its proper use, 
 which is to act wisely and virtuously .'' 
 
 8. It is equally unreasonable to conclude, that if men are not necessarily 
 determined by motives, rewards and punishments 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 fact, the best and wisest laws, both human 
 and divine, are often transgressed, notwithstanding the rewards and punish- 
 ments 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, vipon the supposition 
 of necessity, that, in every instance of transgression, the motive of reward 
 or punishment was not of sufficient strength to produce obedience to the 
 law. This implies a fault in the lawgiver ; but there can be no fault in 
 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 pu- 
 nishment, in the proper sense, as those words imply good and iU desert. 
 Reward and punishment are only tools employed to produce a mechanical 
 effect. When the effect is not produced, the tool must be unfit or wrong 
 applied. 
 
 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 transgression 
 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. 
 
584 LIBEETY CONSISTENT WITH GOVEnNMENT. ^^SSAY IV. 
 
 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 conclusion^ it is necessary 
 to know distinctly what is meant by government. There are two kinds of 
 government, very diflFerent in their nature. The one we may, for distinc- 
 tion'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. 
 
 An instance of mechanical government may be, that of a master or 
 commander of a ship at sea. Supposing her skUfully built and furnished 
 with every thing proper for the destined voyage, to govern her properly 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 governor. 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 law 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 voyage, 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 } If the form ; Who made 
 it ? If the rules of navigation were not observed ; Who transgressed 
 them ? If a storm occasioned 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 im- 
 pulse 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 puppets, 
 but solely to their maker or their governor. 
 
 If we suppose, for a moment, the puppets to be endowed with under- 
 standing 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 de^ee of active power, can produce no effect. They might, 
 upon this supposition, be called intelligent machines ; but they would be 
 machines still, as much subject to the laws of motion as inanimate matter, 
 and therefore incapable of any other than mechanical government. 
 
 Let us next consider the nature of moral government. This is tlie 
 
CHAP, v.] LIBERTY CONSIS'^'ENT WITH GOVERNMENT. 585 
 
 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 power to obey, or to require a service 
 beyond their power, would be tyranny and injustice in the highest degree. 
 
 When the laws are equitable, and prescribed by just authority, they 
 produce moral obligation in those that are subject to them, and disobedience 
 is a crime deserving punishment. But if the obedience be impossible ; if 
 the transgression be necessary; it is self-evident, that there can be no 
 moral obligation to what is impossible, that there can be no crime in 
 yielding to necessity, and that there can be no justice in punishing a person 
 for what it was not in his power to avoid. These are first principles in 
 morals, and, to every unprejudiced mind, as self-evident as the axioms of 
 mathematics. The whole science of morals must stand or fall with- them. 
 
 Having thus explained the nature both of mechanical and of moral 
 government, the only kinds of government I am able to conceive, 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 ; every thing done is the doing of the governor 
 only. The praise of every thing well done is his solely ; and his is the 
 blame if there be any thing ill done, because he is the sole agent. 
 
 It is true that, in common language, praise or dispraise is often meta- 
 phorically given to the work ; but, in propriety, it belongs solely to the 
 author. Every workman 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 ne- 
 cessity in the governed, there can be no moral government. 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 t)f government which 
 do actually exist, whether human or divine, we shall find that, among men, 
 even mechanical govermnent 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. 
 
 Civil government among men is a species of moral government, but im- 
 perfect, 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 
 acknowledged as rules which ought never to be violated. Indeed, the 
 rules of justice are so evident to -all men, that the most tyrannical govern- 
 ments 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 obligation to what is impossible ; that 
 he cannot be criminal in yielding to necessity, nor justly punished for what 
 
586 LIBERTY CONSISTENT WITH GOVERNMENT. QesSAY IV. 
 
 he could not avoid, are maxims admitted, in all criminal courts, as funda- 
 mental rules of justice. 
 
 In opposition to this, it has been said by some of the most able defenders 
 of necessity. 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 neces- 
 sary. 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 voluntary ; for, if it be not volun- 
 tary, 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 imputed, even to voluntary 
 actions. 
 
 This is evident from the following instances : First, The actions of brutes 
 appear 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 chargeable with crimes. Thirdly, Madmen have both under- 
 standing 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 ex- 
 culpates or very much alleviates a voluntary action, which, in other circum- 
 stances, would be highly criminal ; whence it is evident, that if the motive 
 were absolutely irresistible, the exculpation 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 voluntary. 
 
 The government of brutes, so far as they are subject to man, is a species 
 of mechanical government, or something very like to it, and has no resem- 
 blance to moral government. As inanimate matter is governed by our 
 knowledge of the qualities which God hath given to the various produc- 
 tions of nature, and our knowledge of the laws of nature which he hath 
 established ; so brute animals are governed by our knowledge 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 
 unknown 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, 
 vchich may be much aided by proper instruction and example, is that which 
 makes them, by degrees, capable of moral government. 
 
 Reason teaches us to ascribe to the Supreme 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 government 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 instruments are not 
 causes, they are not agents, though we sometimes improperly call them so. 
 
 It is therefore no less agreeable to reason, than to the language of holy 
 writ, to impute to the Deity whatever is done in the natural world. When 
 
CHAP, v.] LIBERTY CONSISTEKT WITH GOVEKNMENT. 587 
 
 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 
 government. Their determinations, whether we call them good or ill, piust 
 be the actions of the Supreme Being, as much as the productions of the 
 earth : fgr life, intelligence, and will, without active power, can do nothing, 
 and therefore nothing can justly be imputed to it. 
 
 This gr^nd machine of the natural world, displays the power and wisdom 
 of the artificer. But in it, there can be no, display of moral attributes, 
 which have a relation to moral conduct in his creatures, such as justice and 
 equity in rewarding or punishing, the love of virtue and abhorrence of 
 wickfidness. For, as every thing in it is God's doing, there can be no vice 
 to be punished or abhorred, jio virtue in his creatures to be rewarded. 
 
 According to the system of necessity, the whole universe of creatures is 
 this natural world; and of every thing done in it, God is the sole agent. 
 There can be no moral government, nor moral obligation. Laws, rewards, 
 and punishments, are only mechanical engines, and the will of the lawgiver 
 is obeyed as much vi'hen his laws are transgressed, as when they are ob- 
 served. Such must be our notions 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 hypothesis. 
 
 Let us consider, on the other hand, what notion of the divine govern- 
 ment we are naturally led into by the supposition of liberty. 
 
 They who adopt tj&is 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 connexion there may be in the nature of things, between reason 
 and active power, we know not. But we see evidently that as reason with- 
 out active power can do nothing, so active power without reason has no 
 guide to direct it to any end. 
 
 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 servant, 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 approbation; and no less an object of disapprobation and just 
 punishment when he abuses the power with which he is intrusted. And 
 he must finally render an account of the talent committed to him, to the 
 Supreme Governor and righteous Judge. 
 
 This is the moral goveriunent 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 n£cessity than light with darkness. 
 
 It ought likewise to be observed, that as active power in man, and in 
 
588 FIRST ARGUMENT. [^ESSAY IV. 
 
 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 man. 
 
 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 accomplished by men, acting freely, and having diflferent 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.^ 
 
 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 neces- 
 sity. How far such determinations ought to be imputed to the person who 
 applied 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 fellow 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 con- 
 sistent 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 benevolent purposes. The justice of his govern- 
 ment requires, that his creatures should be accountable only for what they 
 have received, and not for what was never intrusted 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 every thing 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. 
 
 The arguments to prove that man is endowed with moral liberty, which 
 have the greatest weight with me, are three : Jirst, because he has a natural 
 conviction or belief, that, in many cases, he acts freely ; secondly, because 
 he is accountable ; and, thirdly, because he is able to prosecute an end by 
 a long series of means adapted to it. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 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 constitution, and the 
 work of him that made us. 
 
 Some of the most strenuous advocates for the doctrine of necessity ac- 
 
.CHAP. VI.] FIRST ARGUMENT. 589 
 
 knowledge, 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 fallacious 
 sense. 
 
 This doctrine is dishonourable to our Maker, and lays a foundation for 
 universal scepticism. It supposes the Author of our being to have given 
 us one faculty on purpose to deceive us, and another by which we may 
 detect the fallacy, and find that he imposed upon us. 
 
 If any one of our natural faculties be fallacious, there can be no reason to 
 trust to any of them j for he that made one made all. 
 
 The genuine dictate of our natural faculties is the voice of God, no less 
 than what he reveals from heaven ; and to say that it is fallacious is to im- 
 pute a lie to the God of truth. 
 
 If candour and veracity be not an essential 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 conscious of guilt and of meanness. Shall we 
 impute to the Almighty what we cannot impute to a man without a 
 heinous afifront ? 
 
 Passing this opinion, therefore, as shocking to an ingenuous mind, and, 
 in its consequences, 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 some- 
 thing in our own constitution. It is impossible to account for it otherwise. 
 We see events, but we see hot the power that produces them. We perceive 
 one event to follow another, but we perceive not the chain that binds them 
 together. The notion of power and causation, 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 origin from something in our 
 constitution ; and that it is natural to man, appears from the following 
 observations. 
 
 1. \^^e are conscious of many voluntary exertions, some easy, others more 
 difiicult, some requiring a great eiFort. 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 wUlingly exerts it, with intention to produce some effect. 
 
 2. Deliberation about an action of moment, whether we shall doit or not, 
 implies a conviction that it is in our power. To deliberate about an end, 
 we must be convinced 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 resolution or purpose, without 
 any conviction of power to execute it.? 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. Again, when I plight my faith in any promise or contract, I must 
 believe that I shall have power to perform what I promise. Without this 
 persuasion, a promise would be downright fraud. 
 
 There is a condition implied in every promise, iftve live, and if God 
 continue with us the power which he hath given us. Our conviction, there- 
 
590 FIEST ARGUMENT. QesSAY IV. 
 
 fore, of this power derogates not in the least from our dependence upon 
 God. The rudest savage is taught by nature to admit this condition in all 
 promises, 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 impossible 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 wUl 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 
 promise, upon the actions of other men as upon his own. 
 
 It is no less evident, that we have a conviction of power in other men, 
 when we advise or persuade, or command, or conceive 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 possible for 
 him to do, wherein is he to be blamed .'' 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 connexion with that doctrine appears self-evident : and 
 therefore some late patrons of it have had the boldness to avow them. 
 " They cannot accuse themselves of having done any thing 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 fallacious 
 view of things." 
 
 Those who can adopt these sentiments, may indeed celebrate, with high 
 encomiums, the gre'at and glorious doctrine of necessity. It restores them, 
 in their own conceit, to the state of innocence. It delivers them from all 
 the pangs of guilt and remorse, and from all fear about their future 
 conduct, though not about their fate. They may be as secure that they 
 shall do nothing viTong, 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. 
 
 After all, it is acknowledged by those who boast of this glorious doc- 
 trine, " That every man, let him use what efibrts 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 sifts himself before 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 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 ; 
 
CHAP. VI.] FIRST ARGUMENT. 591 
 
 it must be as universal 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 education, 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 belief that those we converse with are living and intelligent 
 beings ; our belief that those things did really happen which w'e distinctly 
 remember, and our belief that we continue the same identical persons. 
 
 We find difficulty in accounting for our belief of these things ; and some 
 philosophers think, that they have discovered good reasons for throwing it 
 oflF. 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 mentioned, because those 
 operations are performed 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 belief 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 belief 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 be- 
 lief, as a philosopher and a man of sense. 
 
 There are few persons who can look down from the battlement of a very 
 high tower vidthout fear, while their reason convinces them that they are 
 in no more danger than when standing upon the ground. 
 
 There have been persons who professed to believe that there is no di- 
 stinction between 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 necessary, 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 respects 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 delibe- 
 rations, our purposes, our promises, are ojily in things that depend upon 
 our wih.. Our advices, exhortations, and commands, are only in things 
 that depend upon the will of those to whom they are addressed. We im- 
 pute no guilt to ourselves, nor to others, in things where the will is not 
 concerned. 
 
5!)2 FIRST AUGCMENT. [ESSAY IV. 
 
 But it deserves our notice, that we do not conceive every thing 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 import- 
 ance in the question concerning the liberty of man 
 
 In the rage of madness, men are absolutely deprived of the power of self- 
 governmentr 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 de- 
 grees, advances to the perfect 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 command of himself. If real madness could be proved, it must 
 have the effect of madness 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 
 incapable of proof; and therefore is not admitted in human tribunals as an 
 exculpation. 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 allowance 
 is due in cases of this kind. 
 
 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 con- 
 sequently 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 constitution 
 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 account 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 
 
■CHAP. VI.] FIRST ARGUMENT. 693 
 
 treason to disclose, 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. 
 : What is the reason that all men agree in condemning this man as a 
 traitor in the first case, and in the last either exculpate him, or think his 
 fault greatly alleviated ? 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 the^e different judgments is evidently this : That the 
 love of money, and of what is called a man's interest, is a cool motive, 
 which leaves to a man the entire power over himself. But the torment 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 wliat 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 impute 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 blame- 
 able in acquiring them, yet when they are confirmed to a certain degree we 
 consider him as no longer master of himself, and hardly reclaimable with- 
 out 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 
 ^vill are easy, others very difficult, and some, perhaps, beyond our power. 
 In diflferent men, the power of self-government is different, and in the same 
 man at diflferent times It may be diminished, or perhaps lost, by bad 
 habits ; it may be greatly increased by good habits. 
 
 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 there be an easy and a difficult in actions equally subject to necessity ? 
 or. How can power be greater or less, increased or diminished, in those who 
 have no power .'' 
 
 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 qucesitum, or a right of ancient possession, which ought to stand 
 good fill 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 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 
 convincing proof is brought against it. 
 
 QQ 
 
594 SECOND ARGUMENT. [^ESSAY IV. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SECOND ABGUMENT. 
 
 That there is a real and essential distinction between right and ivrong 
 conduct^ between 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 proclaimed by every man's conscience ; principles upon which 
 the systems of morality and natural religion, as well as the system of re- 
 velation, 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 ; 
 understanding and active power. 
 
 First, He must understand the law to which he is bound, and his obli- 
 gation 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 obedience. He does not understand my command, and therefore can 
 have no will to obey it. He has not the conception of moral 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. 
 
 Brute animals are incapable of moral obligation, because they have not 
 that degree of understanding which it implies. They have not the con- 
 ception 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 prescribed to him, and of perceiving its obligation. 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 obligation, he would not 
 be a moral and accountable being. 
 
 Secondly, Another thing implied in the notion of a moral and account- 
 able being, is power to do what he is accountable for. 
 
 That no man can be under a moral obligation 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 contradicted, 
 without overturning all notion of moral obligation ; nor can there be any 
 exception to it, when it is rightly understood. 
 
 Some moralists have mentioned what they conceive 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 sumptuous 
 living has become bankrupt, his inability to pay his debt does not take 
 away his obligatioij. 
 
 To judge whether, in this and similar cases, there be any exception to 
 the axiom above mentioned, they must be stated accurately. 
 
CHAP. VII.] SECOND ARGUMENT. 595 
 
 No doubt a man is highly criminal in living above his fortune, and his 
 crime is greatly aggravated by the circumstances of his being thereby un- 
 able to pay his just debt. Let us suppose, therefore, that he is punished 
 tor this crime as much as it deserves ; that his goods are fairly distributed 
 among his creditors, and that one half remains unpaid: Let us suppose 
 also, that he adds no new crime to what is past, that he becomes a new 
 man, and not only supports himself by honest industry, but does all in his 
 power to pay what he still owes. 
 
 I would now ask. Is he further punishable, and really guilty for not 
 paying more than he is able ? 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 bankruptcy is out of the question, as he has re- 
 ceived 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 can- 
 celled; 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 ? Will he com- 
 mand him to go aloft when it is impossible for him to do it, and punish 
 him as guilty of disobedience ? Surely if there be any such thing as justice 
 and injustice, this would be unjust and wanton cruelty. 
 
 Suppose a servant, through negligence, and inattention, mistakes thfi 
 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 inaccurate, because it does not show where 
 the fault lies : The fault was solely in that inattention, or negligence, 
 which was the occasion 4)f his mistake : There was no subsequent fault. 
 
 This becomes evident, when we vary the case so far as to suppose, that 
 he was unavoidably led into the mistake without any fault on his part. 
 His mistake is now invincible, 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 way 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 in- 
 temperance, has entirely destroyed his rational faculties, so as to have be- 
 come 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 deserving of severe punishment. Suppose him punished as he de- 
 serves ; 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 .' Surely we may as well suppose a plant, or a clod 
 of earth, to be a subject of moral duty. 
 
 The decisions I have given of these cases, are grounded upon the fun- 
 damental principles of morals, the most immediate dictates of conscience. 
 If these principles are given up, all moral reasoning is at an end, and no 
 
 qq2 
 
596 THIRD AneCMENT. [^I'.SSAY IV. 
 
 distinction is left between what is just and what is unjuSt. And it is 
 evident, that none' of these cases furnishes any exception to the axiom 
 above mentioned. No moral obligation can be consistent with impossibility 
 in the performance. 
 
 Active power, therefore, is necessarily implied in the very notion of a 
 moral accountable 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, is 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 ob- 
 served, 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 ac- 
 countable, or capable of moral obligation. In ripe age man is accountable 
 in a gi'eater degree than in nonage, 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. 
 
 There is, therefore, a perfect correspondence between power on the one 
 band, and moral obligation and accountableness on the other. They not 
 only coiTespond in general, as they respect voluntary actions only, but 
 oyery 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 certain 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^ vir- 
 tuous nor vicious. 
 
 If we adopt the system of necessity, the terms moral obligation and nc- 
 countableness, praise and blame, merit and demerit, justice and injusticej 
 reward and punishment, wisdom and. Jolly, virtue and vice, ought to be dis- 
 used, or to have new meanings given to them when they are used in re- 
 ligion, in morals, or in civil government ; for upon that system, there can 
 be no such things as they have been always used to signify. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THIBD ARGUMENT. 
 
 That man has povrer over his own actions and volitions appears, because 
 lie is capable of carrying on, wisely^ and prudently, a system of conduct, 
 which he has before conceived in his mind, and resolved to prosecute. 
 
 I take it for granted, that, among the various characters of men, therg 
 
CHAP. Vlll] THIRD AUGDMENT. 5&7 
 
 iave been some, who, after they came to years of understanding, deliber- 
 stely laid down a plan of conduct, which they resolved 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 approbation of his Maker. I suppose only that he has pru- 
 dently 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 understanding, no man ever doubted ; and, I say, it demonstrates, with 
 equal force, a certain degree of power over his voluntary determinations. 
 
 This will appear evident, if we consider, that understanding without 
 power may project, but can execute nothing. A regular plan of conduct, as 
 it cannot be contrived without understanding, so it cannot be carried into 
 execution without power ; and, therefore, the execution, as an effect, de- 
 monstrates, with equal force, both power .and understanding in the cause. 
 Every indication of wisdom, taken from the effect, is equally an indication 
 of power to execute that 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 demon- 
 strating the being and perfections of the First Cause of all things. 
 
 The effects we observe in the cause of nature require a cause. Effects 
 wisely adapted to an end, require a wise cause. Every indication of the 
 "wisdom of the Creator 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 vrisdom of the architect. His wisdom contrived it, and wisdom 
 could do no more. The execution required, both a distinct conception of 
 the plan, and power to operate according to that plan. 
 
 Let us apply these principles to the supposition we have made. That a 
 anan, in a long course of conduct, has determined and acted prudently in 
 the prosecution of a certain end. If the man had both the wisdom to plan 
 this course oi conduct, and that power over his own actions that was ne- 
 xjcssary to carry it into execution, he is a free agent, and used his liberty, in 
 this instance, with understanding. s 
 
 But if all his particular determinations, which concurred in the execution 
 of this plan, were produced, not by himself, but by some cause acting ne- 
 cessarily upon him, then there is no evidence left that he contrived this 
 plan, or that he ever spent a thought about it. 
 
 The cause that directed all these determinations 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 determinations was produced by 
 motives ; motives 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 ap- 
 plying them, in their proper order and season, so as to bring about the en4. 
 
 This intelligent being must have understood the plan, and intended" to 
 
598 THIRD ARGUMENT. [ESSAY IV. 
 
 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 haiid 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 concourse of atoms, without an intel- 
 ligent and powerful cause. 
 
 If a lucky concourse of motives could produce the conduct of an Alex- 
 ander or a Julius Ceesar, no reason can be given why a lucky concourse of 
 atoms might not produce the planetary system. 
 
 If, therefore, wise conduct in a man demonstrates that he has some de- 
 gree of wisdom, it demonstrates, with equal force and evidence, that he has 
 some degree of power over his own determinations. 
 
 . AU the reason we can assign for believing 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 a mechanical 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 proper to mention. 
 
 Suppose a fatalist, rather than give up the scheme of necessity, should 
 acknowledge 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 Deity acts freely, 
 every argument brought to prove that freedom of action is impossible, must 
 fall to the ground. 
 
 The First Cause gives us evidence of his power by every effect tliat 
 gives 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 communicate 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 pro- 
 duced necessarily, and, consequently, that the First Cause must be a free 
 agent, has been demonstrated so clearly and unanswerably by Dr. Clarke, 
 both in his Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, and in the 
 end. of his Remarks on CoUins's Philosophical Inquiry concerning Human 
 Liberty, that I can add nothing to what he has said ; nor have I found any 
 objection made to his reasoning, by any of the defenders of necessity. 
 
CHAP. IX.] OF AKGUMEKTS FOR NECESSITY. 599 
 
 CHAP. IX. 
 OF ARGUMENTS FOB NECESSITY. 
 
 Some of the arguments that have been oiFered for necessity were already 
 considered in this Essay. 
 
 It has been said. That human liberty respects only the actions that are 
 subservient to volition ; and that power over the determinations of the will 
 is inconceivable, and involves a contradiction. This argument was con- 
 sidered in the first chapter. 
 
 . It has been said. That liberty is inconsistent with the influence of mo- 
 tives, that it would make human actions capricious, and man ungovernable 
 by God or man. These arguments were considered in the fourth and fifth 
 chapters. 
 
 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 that liberty of determination is impossible, 
 or that it would be hurtful, or that, in fact, man has no such liberty. 
 
 To prove that liberty of determination is impossible, it has been said, 
 That there must be a suificient reason for every thing. For every existence, 
 for every event, for every truth, there must be a sufficient reason. 
 
 The famous German philosopher Leibnitz 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 principle 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 maintained, that the case supposed 
 could not happen ; or, if it did, that none of the means could be used, for 
 want of suiEcient reason 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 ; Tjut the case, he says, could npj; 
 happen without a miracle. 
 
 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 un- 
 limited space rather than another, or created at one point ©f unlimited 
 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 maintaining, That there is no such thing as unoccupied space or 
 duration; that space is nothing but the order of things co-existing, and 
 duration is nothing but the order of things successive ; that all motion is 
 relative, 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 suppose, he 
 understood the same of every part of duration. So that, according to this 
 system, the world, like its Author, must be infinite, eternal, and im* 
 movable ; or, at least, as great in extent and duration as it is possible for 
 it to be. 
 
600 OF AllGIJMENTS FOR NECESSITY. (^ESSAY iV. 
 
 When it was objected to the principle of a sufScient reason, That of 
 two particles of matter perfectly similar, there can be no reason but the 
 will of God for placing this here and that there ; this objection Leibnitz 
 obviated by maintaining. That it is impossible that there can be two par- 
 ticles of matter, or any two things, perfectly similar. And this seems to 
 have led him to another of his grand principles, which he calls. The iden- 
 tity of indincerJiibles. 
 
 When the principle of a sufficient reason had produced so many sur- 
 prising discoveries in philosophy, it is no wonder that it should determine 
 the long disputed question about human liberty. This it does in a moment. 
 The determination of the will is an event for which there must be a suifi- 
 cient reason, that is, something previous, which was necessarily followed 
 by that determination, and could not be followed by any other determina- 
 tion: therefore it was necessary. 
 
 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 consequences that 
 hang upon it. To fix them aU 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. Leibnitz 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 regard 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 point in 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 explanation ; though it 
 be evidently a vague proposition, capable of various meanings, as the word 
 reason is. It must have different meanings when applied to things of so 
 different nature as an event and a truth; and it may have different 
 meanings when applied to the same thing. We cannot therefore 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 connexion with the dispute 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 ? 
 
 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, in- 
 nocent ? Surely, in this sense, there is not a sufficient reason for every 
 human action, because there are many that are foolish, unreasonable and 
 unjustifiable. 
 
 If the meaning of the question be. Was there a cause of the action .? 
 Undoubtedly 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. - - - 
 
CHAP. IX.3 OF ARGUMENTS FOR NECESSITY. 601 
 
 _ If, again, the meaning of the question be. Was there something pre- 
 vious to the action, which made it to be necessarily produced ? 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 reason, when applied to the determinations of the human will, 
 besides 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 philosopher has assigned 
 a sufficient reason for such a phenomenon. 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 phenomenon of nature must there- 
 fore be some law or laws of nature, of which the phenomenon is a necessary 
 consequence. But are we sure that, in this sense, there is a sufficient 
 reason for every phenomenon of nature ? I think we are not. ^ 
 
 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 administration,' 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, 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 arid 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 impossible that every act of the administration should be directed by 
 established laws. Some things must be left to the direction of the execu- 
 tive 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. 
 
 ' W^e have no authority to pray that God would counteract or suspend the 
 laws of nature in our behalf. Prayer, thereforcj 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. 
 
 It was indeed an article of the system of Leibnitz, Thatihe Deity, since 
 the creation of the world, never did any thing, excepting in the case 
 t(f 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. 
 
 There is no evidence, therefore, that there is a sufficient reason for every 
 natural event ; if, by a sufficient reason, we understand some fixed law, or 
 laws of nature, of which that event is a necessary consequence. 
 
 But, what shall we say, is the sufficient reason for a truth ? 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 
 
W2 OF AUGITMENTS FOE NECESSITY. QeSSAY IV. 
 
 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 appears, that this principle of the 
 necessity of a sufficient reason for every thing, 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 fatality, and has many strange, not to say absurd, conse- 
 quences : 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. 
 
 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 pro- 
 duced by a being who had power and will to produce it ; therefore it is 
 not an effect without a cause. 
 
 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 ^eat 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 observation to which I entirely 
 agree : It is. That to establish this doctrine of necessity, nothing is ne- 
 cessary but that, throughout all nature, the same consequences should 
 invariably result from the same circumstances. 
 
 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 invariably result from the same circumstances, the 
 doctrine of liberty must be given up. 
 
 To prevent all ambiguity, I grant, that, in reasoning, the same conse- 
 quences throughout aU nature, will invariably follow from the same pre- 
 mises : 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 proved, therefore, in order to establish that doctrine, is, 
 That, through aU 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 ca.use. Why so .'' " For, says he, a cause can- 
 not be defined to be any thing but such previous circumstances as are con- 
 stantly 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 circumstances." 
 
 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 causei,? 
 
CHAP. IX.] OF ARGUMENTS FOE NECESSITY. 603 
 
 With regard to this pointy we may observe, Jirst, 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 
 inventor. For I know of no author before Mr. Hume, who maintained^ 
 that we have no other notion of a cause, but that it is something prior to 
 the efiect, which has been found by experience to be constantly followed 
 by the eflFect. This is a main pillar of his system ; and he has drawn 
 very important consequences from this definition, which I am far from 
 thinking this author will adopt. 
 
 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 consequences 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 con- 
 stantly followed each other since the beginning of the world. 
 
 Secondly, It foUows from this definition of a cause, that, for what we 
 know, any thing may be the cause of any thing, 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 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 fallacious. 
 
 Thirdly, From this definition of a cause, it follows, that we have no 
 reason to conclude that every event must have a cause : for innumerable 
 events happen, when it cannot be shown that there were certain pre- 
 vious 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. 
 
 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 constantly 
 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 following from his definition of a cause, and as favourable to his 
 system of absolute scepticism. Those who adopt the definition of a cause, 
 from which they follow, may choose whether they will adopt its conse- 
 quences, or show that they do not follow from the definition. 
 
 A second observation with regard to this argument is. That a de- 
 finition of a cause may be given, which is not burdened with such unto- 
 ward consequences. 
 
 Why may not an. efficient cause be defined to be, a being that had power 
 and will to produce the effect } 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, tlie effect must be produced, 
 
 . This, I think, is the proper meaning of the word cause, when it is used 
 in metaphysics; and particularly when we affirm, that every thing that 
 
604 OF ARGUMENTS FOR NECESSITY. [ESSAY IV. 
 
 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 con- 
 stantly followed by such an eflFect ? or. Was it produced by a Being that had 
 power to produce it, and willed its production ? 
 
 In natural philosophy, the word cause is often used in a very different 
 sense. When 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 nature 
 -is not the eificient cause of any event. It is only the rule, according to 
 which the efficient cause acts. A law is a thing conceived in the mind of 
 a rational being, not a thing that has a real existence ; and, therefore, 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 
 determined to be what it was by the laws of nature, in the same sense as 
 mechanical motions are determined by tlie 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 exist without a cause." 
 
 It ought here to be observed, that there are two kinds of laws, both very 
 properly called laxus of nature, which ought not to be confounded. There are 
 moral laws of nature, and physical laws of nature. The lirst are the rules 
 which God has prescribed to his rational creatures for their conduct. They 
 lespect 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 often transgressed, by men. There is therefore no impossibility in 
 the violation of the moral laws of nature, nor is such a violation an 
 effect without a cause. The transgressor is the cause, and is justly ac- 
 countable for it. 
 
 The physical laws of nature are the rules according to which the Deity 
 commonly acts in his natural government of the world ; and, whatever is 
 done according to them, is not done by man, but by God, either immedi- 
 ately or by instruments under his direction. These laws of nature neither 
 restrain the power of the Author of nature, nor bring him under any obliga- 
 tion to do nothing beyond their sphere. He has sometimes 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 physical 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 undeni- 
 able. If the physical laws of nature make his obedience to the moral laws 
 to be impossible, then he is, in the literal sense, bo7-n under one law, bound 
 •unto another, which contradicts every notion of a righteous government of 
 the world. 
 
 But though this supposition were attended with no such shocking con- 
 sequence, 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 taking 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 
 
CHAP. X.J THE SAME SUBJECT; 605 
 
 into it. This argument, though urged by almost every writer in defence 
 pf 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 logicians call petitio 
 priiicipii ; and such, in my apprehension, are all the arguments offered to 
 prove that liberty of action is impossible. 
 
 It may farther be observed, that every argument of this class, if it were 
 really conclusive, must extend to the Deity, as well as to all created beings ; 
 and necessary existence, which has always been considered as the preroga- 
 tive 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 ancienta 
 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 shown to be fallacious, a thing which I have not seen atteiftpted, 
 such weak arguments as have been brought to prove the contrary ought to 
 have little weight. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT. 
 
 With regard to the second class of arguments for necessity, which are 
 intended to prove, that liberty of action would be hurtful 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 inconsistent with the 
 doctrine of liberty, or that it is more unaccountable upon this system than 
 upon that of necessity. 
 
 In order, therefore, to draw any solid argument against liberty from its 
 hurtfulness, it ought to be proved. That, if a 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 
 capricious ; 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. ^ 
 
 These arguments have been already considered in the fourth and fifth 
 chapters of this Essay ; and, therefore, I shall now proceed to the third 
 class of arguments 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 preceding chapters, is taken 
 from the prescience of the Deity. 
 
 God foresees every determination of the human mind. It must there- 
 fore be what he foresees it shall be ; and therefore must be necessary. 
 
 This argument may be understood three different ways, each of which 
 we shall consider, 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 fore- 
 seen, or from the impossibility of its being foreseen, if it was not necessary. 
 
606 THE SAME SUBJECT. [^ESSAY IV. 
 
 First, It may be thought, that as nothing can be known to be future 
 which is not certainly future; so, if it be certainly future, it must be 
 necessary. 
 
 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 order to defend 
 the liberty of human actions maintained. That contingent events have no 
 certain futurity ; but I know of no modern advocate 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 iden- 
 tical propositions, and cannot 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 neces- 
 sary. The manner of its production, whether free or necessary, cannot be 
 concluded from the time of its production, 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 connexion with necessity than they have with freedom. 
 
 I grant, therefore, that from events being foreseen, it may be justly con- 
 cluded, that they are certainly future; but from their being certainly 
 future, it does not follow that they are necessary. 
 
 Secondly, If it be meant by this argument, that an event must be neces- 
 sary, 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 known 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. 
 
 A third way in which this argument may be understood, is this : it is 
 impossible that an event which is not necessary should be foreseen ; there- 
 fore every event that is certainly foreseen, 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 can be proved. That no free action 
 can be certainly foreseen. If this can be proved, it will follow, either that 
 all actions are necessary, or that all actions cannot be foreseen. 
 
 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, believes, that, in doing what is right, 
 and in fulfilling his promises, the Deity acts with the most perfect freedom. 
 
 Secondly, I observe. That every man who believes that it is an absurdity 
 or contradiction, that any free action should be certainly foreseen, must 
 believe, if he will be consistent, 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. 
 
 Thirdly, Without considering the consequences which this general pro- 
 
CHAP. X.] THE SAME SUBJECT. 607 
 
 position carries 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 j and maintains it to be, not only a dif- 
 ficulty and a mystery, as it has been called, that a contingent event should 
 be the object of knowledge, 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 from what does ewixt, 
 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 circumstances." 
 
 This argument, when stripped of incidental 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 
 reasoning, 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 circumstances. 
 
 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 not arising from what does eseist. There- 
 fore, in order to make the two propositions to correspond, we must under- 
 stand by arising from what does exist, arising 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 neces- 
 sarily from what does exist ; therefore a contingent event cannot be known 
 to arise necessarily 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 sophisnt 
 which logicians call ignorantia elenchi. 
 
 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 argument is what logi- 
 cians call petitio principii. 
 
 To the same purpose he says, " That nothing can be known at present, 
 except itself or its necessary cause exist at present." 
 
 This is affirmed, but I find no proof of it. 
 
 Again he says, " That knowledge supposes an object, which, in this 
 case, does not exist." It is true that knowledge supposes an object, and 
 
608 THE SAME SUBJECT. [^ESSAY IV. 
 
 every thing 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 pro- 
 portion to the confidence of the assertion. That there cannot be a greater 
 absurdity or contradiction, than that a contingent event should be the 
 object of knowledge. 
 
 To those who, without pretending to show a manifest absurdity or con- 
 tradiction 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 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 
 connexion with the present course of nature, or from their connexion with 
 the character of the agent that produces them. Our knowledge, even of 
 those future events that necessarily 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 knowledge 
 even of events of this kind. 
 
 The character of perfect wisdom arid perfect rectitude in the Deity, 
 gives us certain knowledge that he will always be true in all his declara- 
 tions, 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 im- 
 portant worldly concerns, 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 suf- 
 ficient to give certainty to our knowledge of his future actions ; because, in 
 some actions, both good and bad men deviate from their general character. 
 
 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 .'' Can we conceive how God made this world 
 without any pre-existent matter .>' All the ancient philosophers believe this 
 to be impossible : and for what reason but this, that they could not con- 
 ceive how it could be done ? Can we give any better reason for believing 
 that the actions of men cannot be certainly foreseen ? 
 
 3. Can we conceive how we ourselves have certain knowledge by those 
 faculties with which God has endowed us ? 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. 
 
 4. There seems to me to be a great analogy between the prescience of 
 future contingents, and the memory of past contingents. 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 
 
CHAP. *XI.] OF THE PERMISSION OF EVIL. 609 
 
 has any necessary connexion 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 necessarily 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 unless 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 connexion, 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 unaccountable to the human understanding than prescience is ? It 
 is more reasonable, as well as more agreeable to the sacred writings, to 
 conclude, with a pious father of the church, " Quocirca nullo modo cogimur, 
 aut retenta prascientia Dei tollere voluntatis arbitrium, aut retento volun- 
 tatis arbitrio, Deum, quod nefas est, negare preescium futurorum: sed 
 utrumque amplectimur, utrumque fideliter et veraciter confitemur : illud 
 ut bene credamus ; hoc ut bene vivamus." Aug. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OP 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 consequences 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 sup- 
 pose 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 distinctly foresees all the actions of a man's life, and all the conse- 
 quences 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 contradict 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 a contradiction : and the same contradiction there is, in sup- 
 posing 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. 
 
 The knowledge here supposed is neither prescience nor science, but 
 something very different from both. It is a kind of knowledge, 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 maintained the divine prescience. 
 
 It was called scienlia media, to distinguish it from prescience ; and by 
 this scientia media was meant, not the knowing from eternity all things 
 
610 OF THE PERMISSION OF EVIL. QeSSAY IV. 
 
 that shall exist, which is prescience^ nor the knowing all the connexions 
 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 knowing 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 media, arguments may be urged, 
 which cannot be applied to prescience. Thus it may be said, that nothing 
 can be known but what is true. It is true that the future actions of a free 
 agent shall exist, and therefore we see no impossibility in its being known 
 that they shall exist : but with regard 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 certainly 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 consequence of the conception ; but this con- 
 tradicts the supposition of its being a free action. 
 
 Things merely conceived have no relations or connexions 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 centres is equal to the sum of their semidia- 
 meters. It is true of these circles, that they will touch one another, be- 
 cause this follows from the conception ; but it is not true that they will 
 be equal or unequal, because neither of these relations is implied in the 
 conception, noi* is consequent from it. 
 
 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 conception, 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 applying 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. \<72en<ia media, I only observe that to suppose that the Deity prevents 
 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 ex- 
 istence 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 phenomenon 
 which cannot he disputed. To account for this phenomenon under the 
 government of a Being of infinite goodness, justice, wisdom and power, 
 has, in all ages, been 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 phenomenon 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. 
 
 The defenders of necessity, to reconcile it to the principles of Theism, 
 find themselves obliged to give up all the moral attributes of God, except- 
 ing 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, ve- 
 racity, faithfulness, are only modifications of goodness, the means of pro- 
 
CHAP. XI.^ OF THE PERMISSION OF EVIL. 611 
 
 moting its purposes, and are exercised only so far as they serve that end. 
 Virtue is acceptable to him, and vice displeasing, only as the first tends ttt 
 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 wicked- 
 ness 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 require much strength of coun- 
 tenance to profess it, 
 
 In this system, as in Cleanthes's Tablature 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. 
 
 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 disposition in some degree, is he not pleased with this 
 image of himself in his creatures, and displeased with the contrary } Why 
 then should he be the author of malice, envy, revenge, tyranny, and op- 
 pression, in their hearts .'' Other vices that have no malevolence in them 
 may please such a Deity, but surely malevolence cannot please him. 
 
 If we form our notions of the moral attributes of the Deity from what 
 we see of his government of the world, from the dictates of reason and con- 
 science, or from the doctrine of revelation ; justice, veracity, faithfulness, 
 the love of virtue and dislike of vice, appear to be no less essential attri- 
 butes of his nature and 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 pro- 
 moting general good, why may not false declarations and false promises ? 
 And then what ground have we left to believe the truth of what he reveals, 
 or to rely upon what he promises .'' 
 
 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 re- 
 solved. 
 
 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 happi- 
 ness to his creatures in general, how comes it to j)ass, that there is so 
 much misery in a system made and governed by infinite wisdom, and power 
 for a contrary purpose } 
 
 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 connexion bet-ivixt the greatest sum of happiness and all 
 the misery that is in the universe, must be fatal and necessary in the nature 
 
 •' K R 2 
 
612 OP THE I'EKMISSION OF EVIL. QeSSAY -IV. 
 
 of things, so that even almighty power cannot break it : for benevolence 
 can never lead to inflict misery without necessity. 
 
 This necessary connexion 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 established, 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 connexion may be temporary or eternal, or what proportion of the 
 happiness may be balanced by it. 
 
 A world made by perfect wisdom and almighty power, for no other end 
 but to make it happy, presents the most pleasing prospect that can be 
 imagined. We expect nothing but uninterrupted happiness to prevail for 
 ever. But alas ! when we consider 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 
 ofnecessity, when it-is joined with Theism; and they have accordingly been 
 adopted by the ablest defenders of that doctrine. 
 
 If some defenders of liberty, by limiting too rashly the divine prescience, 
 in order to defend that system, have raised high indignation in their op- 
 ponents ; 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 J)estowed it. 
 
 If it be asked, Why does God permit so much sin in his creation ? I 
 confess I cannot answer the question, but must lay my hand upon my 
 mouth. He giveth no account of his conduct to the coildren of men. It 
 is our part to obey his commands, and not to say unto him. Why dost thou 
 thus > 
 
 Hypotheses might be framed; but, while we have ground to be satisfied, 
 that he does nothing but what is right, it is more becoming us to acknow- 
 ledge that the ends and reasons of his universal government are beyond our 
 knowledge, and perhaps beyond the comprehension of human under- 
 standing. We cannot penetrate so far into the counsel of the Almighty, 
 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 children, 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 re- 
 verence, 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 . 
 
 Let us observe first of all, that to permit hath two meanings. It sig- 
 nifies not to forbid ; and it signifies not to hinder by superior 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 encourage- 
 ment to good conduct, and every discouragement to bad. But he does not 
 
CHAP. XI.] OF THE PERMISSION OF EVIL 613 
 
 ^ways, by his superior power, hinder it from being committed. This is 
 tne ground of the accusation; 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 
 nught be sufficient to deny it until it be proved. But without resting 
 Darelyon the defensive, we may observe, that tlie only moral attribute! 
 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 maintain that goodness is the only essential moral attribute of the 
 Deity, and the motive of all his actions, must, if they will be consistent, 
 maintain. That to wiU, 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 is surely unnecessary to attempt to 
 reconcile the permission of sin with the goodness of God, since an incon- 
 sistency between that attribute 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 perfect goodness, what pretence can there be to say, that not to hinder 
 it is inconsistent with perfect goodness ? 
 
 What is incumbent upon them, therefore, to prove, is. That the per- 
 mission 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 consistent with goodness in .the Deity, but inconsistent with 
 justice .'' 
 
 Is it not as easy to conceive, that he should permit sin, though virtue 
 be his delight, as that he inflicts misery, when his sole delight is to bestow 
 happiness ? 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 ? 
 
 The justice, as well as the goodness of God's moral government of man- 
 kind, appears in this : That his laws are not arbitrary nor grievous, as it 
 is only by the obedience of them that our nature can be perfected and qua- 
 lified for future happiness ; that he is ready to aid our weakness, to help 
 our infirmities, and not to suffer us to be 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 nation he that fears God and works 
 righteousness is accepted of him ; that of every man he will require an ac- 
 count, proportioned to the talents he hath received ; that he delights in 
 niercy, but hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; and therefore in 
 punishing will never go beyond the demerit of the criminal, nor beyond, 
 what the rules of his universal government require. 
 
 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 ? 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 ? Repent, 
 
614 OF THE PEIIMISSION OF EVIL. QeSSAY IV. 
 
 ajid turn from all your transgressions, so iniquity 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 you die, 0_ 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 shall 
 briefly consider. 
 
 It has been maintained, that the power of thinking is the result of a cer- 
 tain modification of matter, and that a certain configuration of brain makes 
 a s(ftll; and if man be wholly a material being, it is said, that it will 
 not be denied that he must be a mechanical being ; that the doctrine of 
 necessity is a direct inference from that of materialism, and its undoubled 
 consequence. 
 
 As this argument can have no weight witli 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 notion of matter ; that it has not the pro- 
 perties we supposed, and, in fact, has no properties but those of attraction 
 and repulsion ; 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. 
 
 Herein, however, he deceives himself. If matter be what we conceived 
 it to be, it is equally incapable of .thinking and of acting 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 impossible to show any good reason why the same configuration may not 
 make it act rationally and freely. If its reproach of solidity, inertness 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 ? 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 ? 
 
 Those, therefore, who reason justly from this system of materialism will 
 easily perceive, that the d,octrine 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 he 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 thos^ that 
 exalt the powers of man too high on the one hand, or sink them too low on 
 the other. 
 
 By raising them too high, we feed pride and vain glory, we lose the 
 sense of our dependence upon God, and engage in attempts 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 to do, but to be carried passively along by the stream of 
 necessity. 
 
 Some good men, apprehending that to kill pride and vain glory, our 
 active powers cannot be too much depressed, have been led, by ze^ for 
 religion, to deprive us of all active power. 
 Other good men, by a like zeal, have been led to depreciate the human 
 
CHAP. XI.] OF THE PERMISSION OF EVIL. 615 
 
 understanding, and to put out the light of nature and reason, 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, accounted the bulwark 
 of orthodoxy, is become the stronghold of atheism and infidelity. 
 
 Atheists join hands with theologians, in depriving man of all active 
 power, that they may destroy aU 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 
 speculative 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. 
 
 There is little reason to fear, that the conduct of men, with regard to 
 the concerns of the present life, will ever be much affected, 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 characters 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. 
 
 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 opiniou will 
 probably do him little hurt. But, if he trust so far to the doctrine of 
 necessity, as to indulge sloth and inactivity in his duty, and hope to excul- 
 pate himself to his Maker by that doctrine, let him consider whether he 
 sustains this excuse from his servants and dependants, when they are neg- 
 ligent or unfaithful in what is committed to their charge. 
 
 Bishop Butler, in his Analogy, has an excellent chapter upon the opinion 
 of necessity considered as influencing practice, -which I think highly de- 
 serving the consideration of those who are inclined to that opinion. 
 
ESSAY V. 
 
 OF MORALS. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OP THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF MORALS. 
 
 Morals, like all other sciences, mast have principles on which all moral 
 reasoning is grounded. 
 
 In every branch of knowledge where disputes have been raised, it is 
 useful to distinguish the first principles from the superstructure. 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 reasoning, the appeal must be made to the rules of 
 reasoning, which have been very unanimously 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. 
 
 How the genuine decisions of common sense may be distinguished from 
 the counterfeit, 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 of 
 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 every 
 thing they think fit to deny : and when we attempt to prove by direct 
 argument, what is really self-evident, the reasoning will always be incon- 
 clusive ; for it will either take for granted the thing to be proved, or some- 
 thing not more evident ; and so, instead of giving strength 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 prin- 
 ciples of morals, without pretending to a complete enumeration. 
 
 The principles I am to mention, relate either to virtue in general, or to 
 the different particular branches of virtue, or to the comparison of virtues 
 where they seem to interfere. 
 
 1. 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 approba- 
 tion nor blame. 
 
 3. What is done from unavoidable necessity may be agreeable or dis- 
 agreeable, useful or hurtful, but cannot be the object either of blame or of 
 moral approbation. 
 
 4. Men may be highly culpable in omitting what they ought to have 
 done, as^well as in doing what they ought not. 
 
 5. We ought to use the best means we can to be well informed of our 
 
CHAP. I.] OF THE FIKST PRINCIPLES OF MORALS. 617 
 
 duty, by serious attention to moral instruction; by observing what we 
 approve, and what we disapprove, in other men, whether our acquaintance 
 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 virong, what was right, and what might have been better; by 
 debberating coolly and impartially upon our future conduct, as far as we 
 can foresee the opportunities we may have of doing good, or the temptations 
 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 
 aU knowledge. 
 
 6. It ought to be our most serious concern to do our duty as far as we 
 know it, and to fortify our minds against every temptation to deviate from, 
 it ; by maintaining a lively sense of the beauty of right conduct, and of itsf 
 present and future reward, of the turpitude of vice, and of its bad conse- 1 
 quences here and hereafter: by having always in our eye the noblest V 
 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 natural power of his mind. I proceed to others that are more 
 particular. 
 
 1. We ought to prefer a greater good, though more distant, to a le§s; 
 and a less evil to a greater. 
 
 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 
 suflfer the evil which he kno\vingly brought upon his own head. 
 
 We observed before, that the ancient moralists, and many among the 
 modem, 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 virtues of self-government, to prudence, to temperance, and to forti- 
 tude ; and, though more indirectly, even to justice, humanity, and all the 
 social virtues, when their influence upon our happiness is well understood. 
 Though it be not the noblest principle bf 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 indiflFerent to his own 
 happiness or misery. When he is become insensible to every nobler 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 pru- 
 dence deserves 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 p, 
 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. 
 
618 OF THE FIEST PRINCIPLES OF MORALS. QlSSSAlT V. 
 
 I cannot therefore approve of those moralists, who would banish all per- 
 suasives 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 reclaiming the abandoned. 
 
 2. As far as the intention of nature appears 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 action, of dif- 
 ferent nature and dignity, to direct us in the exercise of our active power. 
 
 From the constitution of every species of the inferior animals, and espe- 
 cially 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 reflection upon it, or intention of obeying its dictates. Man only, of 
 the inhabitants of this world, is made capable of observing his own consti- 
 tution, what kind of life it is made for, and of acting according to that 
 intention, or contrary to it. He only is capable of yielding 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 shown, that as 
 his natural instincts and bodily appetites are well adapted to the preserva- 
 tion of his natural life, and to the continuance of the species ; so his natural 
 desires, affections, and passions, when uncorrupted by vicious habits, and 
 under the government of the leading principles of reason and conscience, 
 are excellently fitted for the rational and social life. Every vicious action 
 shows 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. 
 
 The Stoics defined virtue to be a life according to nature. Some of them 
 more accurately, 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 cannot disobey without acting unnaturally, and being self-con- 
 demned. 
 
 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 resentment and emulation, is very obvious, and 
 has been pointed out in treating of those principles. Nor is it less evi- 
 dent, that reason and conscience are given us to regulate the inferior prin- 
 ciples, 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 societies to which he belongs, such as family, friends, 
 neighbourhood, country ; and to do 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 in- 
 directly to the virtues of self-government, by which only we can be qualified 
 for discharging the duty we owe to society. 
 
 4. In ev€ry case, we ought to act that part towards another, which we 
 would judge to be right in him to act towards us, if we were in his circum- 
 
CHAP. 1.] OF THE FIKST PRINCIPLES OF MOIIALS. 619 
 
 stances^ and he in ours ; or, more generally, what we approve in others^' 
 that we ought to practise in like circumstances, 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 circumstances. 
 
 We stand all in the same relation to him who made us, and will call ns 
 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 circum- 
 stances. 
 
 It is not want of judgment, but want of candour and impartiality, that 
 hinders men from discerning what they owe to others. They are quick- 
 sighted 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 circum- 
 stances. That men ought to judge with candour, asjnall other cases, so 
 especially in vt^hat 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, pronounces judgment 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 laxv and the prophets. 
 
 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 subject, of hus- 
 band 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 approves 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 judgment. 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 vnW only be such as are invincible. 
 
 It may be observed, "that this axiom supposes 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. 
 
 5. To every man who believes the existence, 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 
 
620 OF THE FIEST PRINCIPLES OF MOEALS. [ESSAY V. 
 
 the duty, we owe to him obvious to every intelligent being, but like- 
 wise add the authority of a divine law to every rule of right conduct. 
 
 There is another class of axioms in morals by which, when there seem* 
 to be an opposition between the actions that different virtues lead to, we 
 determine to which the preference is due. 
 
 Between the several virtues, as they are dispositions of mind, or de- 
 terminations 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 pcissibility of hostility or opposition, and, taken 
 altogether, make one uniform and consistent rule of conduct. But between 
 particular external actions, which different virtues would lead to, there 
 may be an opposition. 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, unmerited generosity should yield to gratitude, 
 and both to justice, is self-evident. Nor is it less so, that unmerited 
 beneficence to those who are at ease should yield to compassion to the 
 miserable, and external 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. 
 
 I call these first principles, because they appear to me to have in them- 
 selves 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 tUl 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 imperceptible 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 disapprobation. 
 
 These sentiments are at first feeble, easily warped by passions and pre- 
 judices, 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 dictates 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 ourselves. 
 
 There is a strong analogy between the progress of the body from infancy 
 to maturity, and the progress of all the powers of the mind. This pro- 
 
CHAP. II.] OP SYSTEMS OF MORALS. 621 
 
 gression in both is the work of nature, and in both may be greatly aided or 
 hurt by proper education. It is 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 con- 
 duct ; and to such a man, I think, the principles of morals I have above- 
 mentioned will appear self-evident. Yet there may be individuals of the 
 human species so little accustomed. to think or judge of any thing, 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 reasoning, that every man of 
 common understanding who wishes to know his duty may know it. The 
 path of duty is a plain path, which the upright in heart can rarely mistake. 
 Such it must be, since every man is bound to walk in it. There are some 
 intricate cases in morals which admit of disputation; but these seldom 
 occur in practice ; and, when they do, the learned disputant has no great 
 advantage : for the unlearned man, who 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 of immorality. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF SYSTEMS OF MOBALS. 
 
 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 instruction 
 in morals. 
 
 From what cause then has it happened, that we have many large and 
 learned systems of moral philosophy and systems of natural jurisprudence, 
 or the law of nature and nations ; and that, in modern times, public pro- 
 fessions have been instituted in most places of education for instructing 
 youth in these branches of knowledge .'' 
 
 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. 
 
 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 shows that this happens 
 often in matters that are indifferent. Much more may it happen in matters 
 where interest, passion, prejudice and fashion, are so apt to pervert the 
 judgment. 
 
 The most obvious truths are not perceived without some ripeness of 
 judgment. For we see that children may be made to believe any thing, 
 tl^ough ever so absurd. Our judgment of things is ripened, not by time 
 only, but chiefly by being exercised about things of the same or of a 
 similar kind. 
 
 Judgment, even in things self-evident, requires a clear, distinct and 
 steady conception of the things about which we judge. Our conceptions 
 
622 OF SYSTEMS OV MORALS. [^ESSAY V. 
 
 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 have seen if their attention had been turned to them. 
 
 The most knowing derive the greatest part of their knowledge, even in 
 things obvious, from instruction and information, and from being taught 
 to exercise their natural faculties, which, without instruction, 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 show any 
 sign, either of moral judgment, or of the power of reasoning. 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 vege- 
 tation is of the seed. 
 
 Our first moral conceptions are probably 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 as naturally 
 as the sensations of sweet and bitter 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 appetite be timely checked, and good 
 habits planted ; if we be excited by good examples, and bad examples be 
 shown in their proper colour ; if the attention be prudently directed 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 conduct, 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 under- 
 standing, 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. 
 
 The history of past ages shows that nations, highly civilized and greatly 
 
CHAJP. II.] OF SYSTEMS OF MORALS. 623 
 
 enlightened 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, particvilarly to children, to 
 servants, to strangers, to enemies, and to those who diifer from us in re- 
 ligious opinions. 
 
 Such corruptions in religion, and in morals, had spread so wide among 
 mankind, and were so confirmed by custom, as to require a light from 
 heaven to correct them. Revelation 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 mentioned, has contri- 
 buted much to correct the 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 application extends to every part of human conduct, in every 
 condition, every relation, and every transaction of life. They are the rule 
 of life to the magistrate and to the subject, 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 natural world, which, though 
 few and simple, serve to regulate an infinite variety of operations through- 
 out the universe. 
 
 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 comprehensive view of their application to every 
 condition and relation, and to every transaction of human society. 
 
 This is, or ought to be, the design of systems of morals. They may be 
 made more or less extensive, having no limits fixed by nature, but the 
 wide circle of human transactions. When the principles are applied to 
 these in detail, the detail is pleasant and profitable. It requires no pro- 
 found reasoning ( excepting, perhaps, iii a few disputable points) . It 
 admits of the most agreeable illustration from examples and authorities ; 
 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 circumstances of life, will probably be more enlightened in 
 his own duty, and more able to enlighten others. 
 
 The first writers in morals we are acquainted with, delivered their 
 moral instructions, not in systems, but in short unconnected 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 atten- 
 tive. 
 
 Subsequent writers, to improve the way of treating this subject, gave 
 method and arrangement to moral truths, by reducing them under certain 
 divisions and subdivisions, as parts of one whole. By this means the 
 whole is more easily comprehended and remembered, and from this arrange- 
 ment gets the name of a system and of a science. 
 
 A system of morals is not like a system of geometry, where the subse- 
 quent parts derive their evidence from the preceding, and one chain of 
 reasoning is carried on from the beginning ; so that, if the arrangement is 
 changed, the chain is broken, and the evidence is lost. It resembles more 
 a Systran of botany, or mineralogy, where the subsequent parts depend not 
 
624 OF SYSTEMS OF NATURAL JURISPRUDENCE. QeSSAY V. 
 
 for their evidence upon the preceding, and the arrangement is inade to 
 facilitate apprehension and memory, and not to give evidence. 
 
 Morals have been methodized in different ways. The ancients commonly 
 arranged them under the four cardinal virtues 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 neigh- 
 bour. 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 improperly, 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 conceptions, and distinguish right from wrong in human actions. 
 This, indeed, is an intricate subject, and there have been various theories 
 and much controversy about it iii ancient and in modern times. But, it 
 Las little connexion 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 comprehen- 
 sive knowledge of what is right and what is wrong in human conduct, 
 who never studied the structure of our moral powers. 
 
 A good ear in music may be much improved by attention and practice 
 in that art ; but very little by studying the anatomy 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 im- 
 portant part of the philosophy of the human mind, and ought to be con- 
 sidered 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 meta- 
 physician. 
 
 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 invention, which soon acquired 
 such reputation, as gave occasion to many public establishments 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. 
 
CHAP. III.] SYSTEMS OF NATURAL JURISPRUDENCE. 625 
 
 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 jurisprudencej 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 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 sup- 
 poses an equivalent debt j so all right supposes a corresponding 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 shows the sum of debt ; and the sum of 
 men's rights shows, in like manner, the sum of their duty to one another. 
 
 The word ri^lit 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 artiiicial meaning. It is a term of art in law, and signifies 
 all that a mta may lawfully do, all that he may lawfully possess and use, 
 and all that he may lawfully claim of any other person. 
 
 This comprehensive meaning of the word right, and of the Latin word 
 jus, which corresponds 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 comprehended under the -worA-jus or right, which they define 
 Facultas aliyuid augendi, vel posxidendi,xielah aVo consequendi : A lawful 
 claim to do any thing, to possess anji thing, or to demand some prestation 
 from 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 right, the 
 third is called personal right, because it respects some particular person or 
 persons of whom the prestation may be demanded. 
 
 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 connexion, but, in reality, they are only different expres- 
 sions 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, 
 1 am your father, and to say, you are my son. 
 
 Thus we see that there is such a correspondence 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 find oflice to a man who has no claim 
 of right to it ; and therefore a system of the rights of men, though it teach 
 aU the duties of strict justice, yet it leaves out all the duties of chanty 
 and humanity, without which the system of morals must be verylame. 
 
 In answer to this objection, it may be observed. That, as there is a strict 
 notion of justice, in which it is distinguished from humanity and chanty, 
 so there is a more extensive signification of it, in which it includes those 
 
 s s 
 
626 OF SYSTJSMS OF NATURAL JUIlISPKUDENt'E. [|ESSAY V. 
 
 virtues. The ancient moralists, both Greek and Roman, under the cardi- 
 nal 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 uncommon, 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 jurisprudence 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 cor- 
 responding 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, perfect or imperfect, corresponds. 
 
 We are bound in duty to pay due respect, not only to what is truly the 
 right of another, but to what, through ignorance or mistake, we believe io 
 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 
 conceived 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 
 correspond in every instance, writers in jurisprudence 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 
 ignorance 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 reflection, as it were, from the rights of other men .-■ 
 
 Perhaps it may be thought, that this indirect way may be more agree- 
 able 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 humi- 
 liating 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 Sudi is the weakness of human understanding, 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 methodised into a system. And the most natural and 
 
CHAP, in.] OF SYSTEMS OF NATURAL JURISPKUDENCE. 627 
 
 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 systems of law, but a language 
 proper for expressing them. Every art has its terms of art, for expressing 
 the conceptions that belong 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 accurately 
 defined for the various crimes by which men's rights are violated, not to 
 speak of the terms which express the different forms of action at law, and 
 the various steps of the procedure of judicatories. 
 
 Those who have been bred to any profession 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 signification, 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 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 considered 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 antiquity 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 nature and of nations. 
 
 The idea of a system of this law was worthy of the genius of the im- 
 mortal Hugo Grotius, and he was the first who executed it in such a man- 
 ner, 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 pro- 
 fessions for the teaching of this law. 
 
 The multitude of commentators and annotators upon this work of 
 Grotius, and the public establishments to which it gave occasion, are suf- 
 ficient 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 mankind, 
 and so agreeably illustrated by examples from ancient history, and autho- 
 rities from the sentiments of ancient authors. Heathen and Christian, ihat 
 it must always be esteemed as the capital work of a great genius upon a 
 most important subject. 
 
 The utility of a just system of natural jurisprudence appears, 1. 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 systematically 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 European nations is 
 grounded. 3, It is of use to lawyers, who ought to make their laws as 
 agreeable as possible to the laws of nature. And as laws made by men, 
 like all human works, must be imperfect, it points out the errors and ini- 
 perfections of human laws, 4. To judges and interpreters of the law it 
 
 s s 2 
 
628 OBJECT OF MORAL APPROBATION. [liSSAY V. 
 
 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 controversies between states, 
 or between individuals who have no common superior. In such contro- 
 versies, the appeal must be made to the law of nature ; and the standard 
 systems of it, particularly that of Grotius, have great authority. And 6, 
 to say no more upon this point, it is of great use to sovereigns 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 dishonour, in public 
 estimation, will follow every violation of it. 
 
 Some authors have imagined, that systems of natural jurisprudence 
 ought to be confined to the perfect rights of men, because 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 greatest 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 important 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. Third li/. 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 en- 
 courage the duties of humanity. Where human laws cannot enforce 
 them by punishments, they may encourage them by rewards. Of this the 
 wisest legislators have given examples | and how far this branch of legisla- 
 tion may be carried, no man can foresee. 
 
 The substance of the four following chapters was wrote long ago, and 
 read in a literary society, with a view to justify some points of morals 
 from metaphysical objections urged against them in the writings of David 
 Hume, Esq. If they answer that end, and, at the same time, serve to 
 illustrate 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 tlieir 
 being wrote at different times, and on different occasions. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WHETHER AN ACTION DESERVING MOfiAL APPROBATION MUST BE DONE 
 WITH THE BELIEF OF ITS BEING MORALLY GOOD. 
 
 There is no part of philosophy more subtile and intricate than that 
 which is called The Theory of Morah. 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 Peripatetic, 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 human 
 knowledge in which there is so general an agreement among ancients and 
 moderns, learned and unlearned, as in the practical rules of morals. ' 
 
 From this discord in the theory, and harmony in the practical part, we 
 
CHAP. IV.J OBJECT OF MORAL APPROBATION. 629 
 
 may judge, that the rules of morality stand upon another 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 attend to the judgment we form of others 
 in like circumstances. But, to judge of the various theories of morals, 
 we must be able to analyse and dissect, as it were, the active powers of 
 the human mind, and especially to analyse accurately that conscience or 
 moral power by which we discern right from wrong. 
 
 The conscience may be compared to the eye in this, as in many other 
 respects. The learned and the unlearned see objects with equal distinct- 
 ness. 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 practical rules of 
 morality, which have been received in all ages, and the principles of any 
 of the theories advanced upon this subject, the practical rules ought to be 
 the standard by which the theory is to be corrected, and that it is both 
 unsafe and unphilosophical to warp the practical rules, in order to make 
 them tally with a favourite theory. 
 
 The question to be considered in this chapter belongs to the practical 
 part of morals, and therefore is capable of a more easy and more certain 
 determination. And if it be determined in the affirmative, I conceive 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 proper object of moral appro- 
 bation belongs to practical morals, and such is the question now under 
 consideration : Whether 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 approbation? 
 
 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 ex- 
 ercised 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 negligence or inattention which led him to 
 a wrong judgment, or hindered his forming a right one, that I do not excul- 
 pate. I only consider the action done, and the disposition with which it was 
 done, without its previous circumstances. And in this there appears nothing 
 that merits disapprobation. As little can it merit any degree of moral ap- 
 probation, 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 dubious, I am guilty to myself, and justly deserve the disapprobation of 
 others. Nor am I less guilty in this case, though what I judged to be bad 
 
630 OBJECT QF MORAI. AVPROBATION. j^ESSAY V. 
 
 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 pronounces to be right and my duty, 
 either I have some regard to duty, or I have none. The last is not sup- 
 posable ; 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 in- 
 - terest, my appetites or inclinations, draw me strongly the contrary way, 
 my following the dictates of my conscience, in opposition to these motives, 
 adds to the moral worth of the action. 
 
 When a man acts from an erroneous judgment, if his error be invincible, 
 aU agree that he is inculpable : But if his error be owing to some previous 
 negligence or inattention, there seems to be some difference 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 
 informed. 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 lake 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 approvable in what followed it. 
 
 Let us suppose, for instance, that a man believes that God has indis- 
 pensably required him to observe a very rigorous fast in Lent ; and that, 
 from a regard to 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 aU the 
 blame upon this account that he deserves. But now, having this opinion 
 fixed in his mind, shall he act according to it, or against it ? 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 wilful 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 dis- 
 obedience would be inhuman and unjust. 
 
 These determinations appear to me to have intuitive evidence, no less 
 than that of mathematical axioms. A man who is come to years of under- 
 standing, and who has exercised his faculties in judging of right and ivrong, 
 sees their truth as he sees day-light. 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 ap- 
 pears evident, therefore, that those actions only can truly be called virtuous, 
 or deserving of moral approbation, 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 principle makes it to be of no con- 
 sequence 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 judg- 
 
CHAP. IV.3 OBJECT OV MOUAL APPROBATION. 631 
 
 ment, but that lie 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 according to the light of his conscience, even when he is in an error. 
 But, when he has time to deliberate, he €(ught 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 cannot justly be imputed 
 to him as a fault. 
 
 A second objection is. That we immediately approve of benevolence, 
 gratitude, and other primary virtues, without inquiring whether they are 
 practised from a persuasion 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 virtues, are, by the con- 
 stitution of human nature, necessarily accompanied with a conviction 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 man- 
 kind. 
 
 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 
 Hiay 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, Jor 
 whatsoever is not of faith is sin. To him that esteemeth any thing 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. 
 
 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 na- 
 turEd but an artificial virtue^ To prove this, he has exerted the whole 
 strraagth of his reason and eloquence. And as the principle we are con- 
 sidering stood in. his way, he takes pains to refute it. 
 
 " 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 expiration of the 
 term he demands the sum. I ask, what reason or motive have I to restore 
 the money ? It will perhaps be said, That my regard to justice, and ab- 
 horrence of villany and knavery, are sufficient reasons for me." And; this, 
 he acknowledges, would be a satisfactory answer to a man in a 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 rejieeted as perfectly 
 TMiiiHtelligible and sophistical. 1 • 1 
 
 " For wherein consists this honesty and justice? Not surely m th« ex- 
 ternal action. It must, therefore, consist in the motive from which th« 
 external action is derived. This motive can never be a regard to the 
 honesty of the action. For it is a plain fallkcy to say. That a_ virtuous 
 motive is requisite to render an action honest, and, at the same time, that 
 
632 OBJECT OF MOKAL APPROBATION. | V-SSAY V. 
 
 a regard to the honesty is the motive to the action. We can never 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 regard to its virtue. iSome 
 virtuous motive, therefore, must be antecedent to that regard. Nor is this 
 merely a metaphysical subtility," &c. Treatise of Human Nature, book 8, 
 part 2, sect. 1. 
 
 I am not to considerj at this time, how this reasoning is applied to 
 support the author's opinion. That justice is not a natural 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 reasoning amounts to this : 
 
 When we judge an action to be good or bad, it must hav^e been so in its 
 own nature antecedent to that judgment, otherwise the judgment is erro- 
 neous. 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 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 erroneously 
 judge it to be. This, I think, is the objection in its fuU strength. And 
 in answer to it. 
 
 First, If we could not loose this metaphysical knot, I think we might 
 fairly and honestly cut it, because it fixes an absurdity upon the clearest 
 and most indisputable principles of morals and of common sense. For I 
 appeal to any man whether there be any principle of morality, or any prin- 
 ciple of common sense, more clear and indisputable than that which we 
 just now quoted from the apostle Paul, That although a thing be not un- 
 clean in itself, yet to him that esteemeth it to be unclean, to him it is un- 
 clean. But the metaphysical argument makes this absurd. For, says the 
 metaphysician, If the thing was not unclean in itself, you judged wrong in 
 esteeming 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 ? 
 
 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 belief that it tends to promote the good of our 
 neighbour. But this is absurd, says the metaphysician. For, if it be not 
 a benevolent 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 absurd. 
 
 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- intending 
 to do a good office ; very malicious, without ever intending any hurt ; very 
 revengeful, without ever intending to retaliate an injury ; very grateful, 
 without ever intending 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. 
 
CHAP. IV.] OBJECT OF MOllAL APPROBATION. 633 
 
 2. But let us try, in the second place, whether the fallacy of this argu- 
 ment may not be discovered. 
 
 We ascribe moral goodness to actions considered abstractly, without any 
 relation to the agent. We likewise ascribe moral 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 un- 
 awares change the meaning of the word, according as we apply it to the 
 one or to the other. 
 
 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 essential to that moral goodness which belongs to a man ; for if 
 a man had not understanding 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. 
 
 This will be more evident when we consider what is meant by the 
 moral goodness which we ascribe to a man for doing an action, and what 
 by the goodness which belongs 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 ? 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 .-' 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 opportunity, 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 tliis goodness is inherent in its nature, and inseparable 
 from it. No opinion or judgment of an agent can in the least after its 
 nature. 
 
 Suppose the action to be that of relieving an innocent person out of 
 great distress. This surely has all the moral goodness that an action con- 
 sidered 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. 
 
 Suppose, Jirst, 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 } 
 
 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 lust place, we suppose a person, from real sympathy and 
 humanity, to bring relief to the distressed person, with considerable 
 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 ? 
 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 
 
634 OBJECT OF MOEAI. APrROBATION. £eSSAY V. 
 
 man. He did what his heart approved^ and therefore he is apprwed by- 
 God and man. 
 
 Upon the whole, if we distinguish between that goodness which may 
 be ascribed to an action considered by itself, and that goodness 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, con- 
 sidered abstractly, can have no dependence upon the opinion or belief of 
 an agent, any more than the truth of a proposition depends upon out be- 
 lieving it to be true. But, when a man exerts his active power well or 
 iE, there is a moral goodness or turpitude which we figuratively impute 
 to the action, but which is truly and properly imputable to the man onlyj 
 and this goodness or turpitude depends very much upon the intention of 
 the agent, and the opinion he had of his action. 
 
 This distinction has beeti understood in all ages by those who gave any 
 attention to morals, though it has been variously expressed. The Greek 
 moralists gave the name of KadijKov 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 
 KaTop^iojxa. This distinction is explained by Cicero in his Offices. He' 
 calls the first nfficium medium, and the second nfficium perftclum, or 
 rec/um. 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 
 formally good. This last way of expressing the distinction is still familiar 
 among theologians ; 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 reasonings on the subject of morals. 
 
 Whether it be consistent with Mr. Hume's own system, that an action 
 maybe produced 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 conscience, nay, when 
 all other motives distinct from this are on the other side : If this, I say, b© 
 true, then that undoubted maxim of Mr. Hume must be false, and all the 
 conclusions built upon it must fall to the ground. 
 
 From the principle I have endeavoured to establish, I think some con- 
 sequences may be drawn with regard to the theory of morals. 
 
 First, If there be no virtue without the belief that what we do i« right, 
 it follows. That a moral faculty, that is, a power of discerning moral good- 
 ness and turpitude in human conduct, is essential to every being capable 
 of virtue or vice. A being who has no more coneeption 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 
 I nor vicious. 
 
 I He may have qualities that are agreeable or disagreeable, useful or 
 hurtful, so may a plant or a machinei And we sometimes use the word 
 mrfue 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 moral approbation. 
 
 This virtue a man could not have if he had' not a power of discerning a 
 
CHAP. v.] OF JUSTICE. 635 
 
 right and a wrong in human eonduetj and of being influenced by that: dis- 
 cernmeot. 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 amy such 
 poveer, and therefore are not moral or accountable agents. They are capable 
 of culture and discipline, but not of virtuous or criminal conduct. 
 
 Even human creatures, in infancy and nonage, are not moral agents, 
 because their moral faculty is not yet unfolded. These sentiments are 
 supported by the common sense of mankind, which has always determined, 
 that neither brutes nor infants can be indicted for crimes. 
 
 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 
 aa 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 nwraLseme, although I conceive this name has given ocea.-, 
 sion 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 conception 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. eon- 
 seience. 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 
 principle. 
 
 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 private 
 interest, nor in benevolent affections towards others, nor in qualities useful 
 or agreeable to ourselves or to others, nor in sympathising with the passions 
 ajid affections of others, and in attuning our own conduct to the tone 
 ' of other men's passions ;■ 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 couv 
 mon 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 con- 
 trary, which is discerned by a good man. And so far only he is virtuous 
 as he pursues the former and avods the latter. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 WHETHEB JUSTICE BE A NATURAL OB 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 Enquirt/ concerning the Principles of Morals, 
 which was first published by iitself, and then in several editions of bis, 
 Essays and Treatises. 
 
636 OP JUSTICE. [kssay v. 
 
 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 involuntary, a part of the constitution of the man, and i 
 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 con^ 
 templating certain characters or qualities of mind coolly and impartially. 
 
 This feeling, when agreeable, is moral approbation ; when disagreeable, 
 disapprobation. The qualities of mind which produce this agreeable 
 feeling are the moral virtues, and those that produce the disagreeable, 
 the vices. 
 
 These preliminaries being granted, the question about the foundation of 
 morals is reduced to a simple question of fact, viz. What are the qualities 
 of mind which produce, in the disinterested observer, the feelingof appro- 
 bation, or the contrary feeling ? 
 
 In answer to this question, the author endeavours to prove, by a very 
 copious induction. That all personal merit, all virtue, all that is the object 
 of moral approbation, consists in the qualities of mind which are agreeable 
 or us(j'ul to the person who possesses them, or to others. 
 
 The dulce and the utile 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 hune>,tum which Cicero thus defines, Honestum igitur id 
 intelligimus, quod tale est, ut detracta omni uiilitute, sine ullis premiis 
 frnctibusve, per se ipsum posslt jure laudari. 
 
 Among the ancient moralists, the Epicureans were the only sect who 
 denied that there is any such thing as koneUum, 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, pleasure 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 ten- 
 dency to produce pleasure. 
 
 Agreeableness and utility are not moral conceptions, nor have they any 
 connexion with morality. What a man does, merely because it is agree- 
 able, or useful to procure what is agreeable, is not virtue. Therefore the 
 Epicurean system was justly thought by Cicero, and the best moralists 
 among the ancients, to subvert morality, and to substitute another prin- 
 ciple in its room ; and this system is liable to the same censure. 
 
 In one thing, however, it differs remarkably from that of Epicurus. It 
 allows, that there are disinterested affections in human nature ; that the 
 love of children and relations, friendship, gratitude, compassion and 
 humanity, are not, as Epicurus maintained, different modifications of self- 
 love, but simple and original parts of the human constitution ; that \yheu 
 
CHAP, v.] OF JUSTICE. . 637 
 
 interest, or envy, or revenge, pervert not our disposition, we are inclined, 
 from natural philanthropy, to desire, and to be pleased with the happiness 
 of the human kind. 
 
 , All thisi 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 philosopher. Ac- 
 cording to Epicurus, virtue is whatever is agreeable to ourselves; Ac- 
 cording 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 catalogue of moral virtues, by bringing into that catalogue 
 every quality of mind that is useful or agreeable. Nor does there appear 
 any good reason why the useful and agreeable qualities of body and of 
 fortune, as well as those of the mind, should not have a place among moral 
 virtues in this system. They have the essence of virtue, that is, agree- 
 ableness and utility, why then should they not have the name .'' 
 
 But, to compensate this addition to the moral virtues, one class of them 
 seems to be greatly degraded and deprived of aU intrinsic merit. The 
 useful virtues, as was above observed, are only ministering servants of the 
 agreeable, and purveyors for them : they must, therefore, be so far inferior 
 in dignity, as hardly to deserve the same name. 
 
 Mr. Hume, however, gives the name of virtue to both ; and to di- j 
 stinguish them, calls the agi-eeable qualities natural virtues, and the useful I 
 artificial. ' 
 
 The natural virtues are those natural affections of the human constitu- 
 tion, 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 pos- 
 sessor, as industry, discretion, frugality, 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, con- 
 cerning 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. 
 
 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 under- j 
 standing, he perceives certain things that depend on his will to be his duty, 
 and other things to be base and unworthy ; if the notion of duty be a 
 simple conception of its own kind, and of a different nature from the con- 
 ceptions 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 regulate aU our animal affec- 
 tions 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 affections which we have in common with the brutes, is to seek the 
 
638 OF JUSTICE. [iJssAir v. 
 
 living among the dead, and to change the glory of man, and the image of 
 God in his soul, into the similitude 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 accordiflg to a certain rule when 
 there is opportunity, and not in qualities of mind which are involuntary. 
 
 It is true, that every virtue is both agreeable and useful in the highest 
 degree ; and that every quality that is agreeable or useful 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. 
 
 We give the name of esteem both to the regard we have for things use- 
 ful and agreeable, and to the regard we have for virtue; but these are 
 different kinds of esteem. I esteem a man for his ingenuity and learning : 
 I esteem him for his moral worth. The sound of esteem in both these 
 speeches is the same, but its meaning is very different. 
 
 Good breeding is a very amiable quality ; and even if I knew that the 
 man had no moitive 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 puppies; so has a man for his 
 children. 'l"he 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 .-' 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 consider his notion of the particular virtue of justice, that its merit 
 consists wholly in its utility to society. 
 
 That justice is highly useful and, necessary 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 perhaps 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. 
 
 It may be granted to Mr. Hume, that men have no conception of the 
 virtue of justice till they have lived some time in society. 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 
 pretend to know how early, or in what order, we acquire the conception of 
 the several virtues. The conception of justice supposes some exercise of 
 the moral faculty, which being the noblest part of the human constitution, 
 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 sucli. 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. The 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 '\s,Jirst, That when men come to the exercise of their 
 moral faculty, they perceive a turpitude in injustice, as they do in other 
 
CHAP, v.] OF JUSTICE. 039 
 
 crimes, and consequently an- obligation to justice, abstracting from tbe con« 
 sideration of its utility. And, seconaly. That as soon as men have any 
 rational conception of a favour, and of an injury, they must have the con^ 
 ception of justice, and perceive its obligation distinct from its utility. 
 
 The first of these points hardly admits of any other proof, but an appeal 
 to the sentiments of every honest man, and every man of honour, Whether 
 his indignation is not immediately inflamed against an atrocious act of 
 villany, without the cool consideration of its distant consequences upon the 
 good of society ? 
 
 We might appeal even to robbers and pirates, Whether they have not 
 had great stni^les with their conscience, wheft they first resolved to break 
 through all the rules of justice ? And vi'hether, in a solitary and serious 
 hour, they have not frequently felt the pangs of guilt ? They have veiry 
 often confessed this at a time \Vhen 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 small indeed. It would be 
 confined to the higher ranks, who, by their education, or by their office, 
 are led to make the public good an object ; but that it is so confined, 1 
 believe no man will venture to affirm. 
 
 The temptations to injustice are strongest in the lowest class of men ; 
 and if nature 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 corrupted, injustice, as well as cruelty 
 and ingratitude, is an object of disapprobation on its own account. There 
 is a voice vnthin 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- 
 Iei%ed that, in some cases, without this reluctance and antipathy to dis- 
 honesty, a sensible knave would find no sufficient motive from public good 
 to be honest. 
 
 I shall give the passage at large from the Enquiry concerning the Pfin- 
 dples of Morals, section 9, near the end. 
 
 " Treating vice with the greatest candour, and making it all possible 
 concessions, we must acknowledge that there is not, in any instance, the 
 smallest pretext for giving 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 affairs 
 are conducted, a sensible knave, in particular incidents, may think that an 
 act of iniquity or infidelity will make a considerable addition to his- fortune, 
 without causing any considerable breach in the social union and confede- 
 racy. That honisty 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 him- 
 self with most wisdom who observes the general rule, and takes advantagfe 
 of all the exceptions. 
 
 " I must confess that, if a man think that this reasomng much requires 
 an answer, it will be a little difficult to find any which will to him appear 
 satisfactory and convincing. If his heart rebel not against such pernicious 
 maxims, if he feel no reluctance to the thoughts of villany and baseness, he 
 
640 or JUSTICE. Qessay V. 
 
 has indeed lost a considerable motive to virtue, and we may expect that his 
 practice vs^ill be answerable to his speculation. But in all ingenuous 
 natures, the antipathy to treachery and roguery is too strong to be counter- 
 balanced by any views of profit or pecuniary advantage. , Inward peace of 
 mind, consciousness of integrity, a satisfactory 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." 
 
 The reasoning of the sensible knave in this passage seems to me to be 
 justly founded upon the principles of the Enquiry and of the Treatise of 
 Human Nature, and therefore it is no wonder that the author should find 
 it a little difficult to give any answer which would appear satisfactory 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 pernicious 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 Kis 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 man. 
 
 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 testimony of our senses is sufficient to overbalance 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 without examination, as fallacious 
 and sophistical, because it concludes against a self-evident principle ; just 
 as we reject the subtile reasoning of the metaphysician against the evidence 
 of sense. 
 
 If, therefore, the reluctance, the antipnthy, the rebellion of the heart 
 against injustice, which Mr. Hume sets against the reasoning of the knave, 
 include in their meaning a , natural intuitive judgment of conscience that 
 injustice is base and unworthy, the reasoning of the knave is convincingly 
 answered; but the principle. Thai justice is an artificial virtue, approved 
 solely for "its utility, is given up. 
 
 If, on the other hand, the antipathy, reluctance, 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 man. 
 
 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 show was, that as soon as men have any 
 rational conception of a favour and of an injury, they must have the con- 
 ception 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. V^'hen 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. Jus- 
 tice 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. 
 
 The notions of a, favour and of an injury appear as early in the mind of 
 
CHAP, v.] OF JUSTICE. 641 
 
 man as any rational notion whatever. They are discovered, not by lan- 
 guage only, but by certain 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 excited 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 fevour ; that of resentment, a person who has 
 done us an injury. 
 
 Before the use of reason, the distinction between a favour and an agree- 
 able office is not perceived. Every action of another person which gives 
 present pleasure produces love and good will towards the agent. Every' 
 action that gives pain or uneasiness produces resentment. This is common 
 to mall before the use of reason, and to the more sagacious brutes ; and it 
 shows 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 injury, grows more distinct and better defined. 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 spiders in a medicine to a drop- 
 sical 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 grati-~ 
 tude ; that is, is no favour. .Tg* 
 
 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 intention"; 
 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 dojg^ 
 on either part, nor any object of gratitude ; because, though each party hW 
 benefited the other, yet neither has done more than he was bound to do. 
 
 What I infer from this is, that the conception of a favour in every man 
 come to years of understanding, implies the conception of things not ^e, 
 and consequently the conception of things that are due. . _ .'■ 
 
 A negative cannot be conceived by one who has no conception oifuie 
 correspondent positive. Not to be due is the negative of being due_^%id 
 he who conceives one of them must conceive both. The conception of 
 tilings due and not due must therefore be found in every mind which ias 
 any rational conception of a favour, or any rational sentiment of gratitude. 
 
 If we consider, on the other hand, what an injury is which is the object 
 of the natural passion of resentment, every man capable of reflection "per- 
 ceives, that an injury 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 convulsive 
 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 ^tions, 
 there must be the will and intention of the agent to do the hurt. ^ 
 
 Nor is this sufficient to constitute an injury. The man who br^ks my, 
 fences, or treads down my corn, when he cannot otherwise preserve him- 
 
642 ■ OF JUSTICE. [ESSAy V. 
 
 self from destruction, who has no injurious intention, and is willing to in- . 
 demnify 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 con- 
 demned criminal, 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 resentment, 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 jus- 
 tice, 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 injury is a just action. 
 
 As soon, therefore, as men come to have any proper notion of a favour 
 and of an injury ; as soon as they have any rational exercise of gratitude 
 and of resentment ; so soon they must have the conception of justice 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. 
 
 The notion of justice carries inseparably along with it a perception of its 
 moral obligation : 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 obligation 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 opposedbyinterest or passion; but we perceive a high degree of turpitude 
 and demerit in unjust actions, or in the omission of what 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 con- 
 ception of justice implies its obligation. 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 obligation. Its obligation, therefore, is inseparable 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 produces it : so no action can 
 properly be denominated an act of justice, unless it be done from a regard 
 to justice. 
 
 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. 
 
CHAP, v.] OF JUSTICE. 643 
 
 Good music and good cookery have the merit of utility, in procuring 
 what IS agreeable both to ourselves and to society, but they never obtained 
 among mankind the denominateion of moral virtues. Indeed, if this author's 
 system be well founded, great injustice has been done them on that account. 
 
 1 shall now make some observations upon the reasoning of this author, 
 m proof of his favourite principle. That justice is not a natural hnt an arti- 
 ficial 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. 
 
 \. It must be acknowledged, that this principle has a necessary connexion 
 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, pleasure 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 intrinsic worth in 
 justice, and demerit iu injustice, be discerned by every man that hath a 
 conscience ; if there be a natural 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. 
 
 2. We may observe, That as justice is directly opposed to injury, and as 
 there are various ways in which a man may be injured, so there must be 
 various branches of justice opposed to the different kinds of injury. 
 
 A man may be vayax&A., first, in his person, by wounding, maiming, or 
 killing him ; secondly, in his family, by robbing him of his children, or any 
 way injuring those he is bound to protect ; tliircili/, in his liberty, by con- 
 finement ; Jburthly, in his reputation ; fifthly, in his goods or property ; 
 and, lastly, in the violation of contracts or engagements made with him. 
 Tliis enumeration, whether complete or not, is sufficient for the present 
 purpose. 
 
 The different branches of justice, opposed to these different kinds of 
 injury, are commonly expressed by saying, that an innocent man has a 
 right to the safety of his person and family, a right to his liberty and repu- 
 tation, a right to his goods, and to fidelity to engagements made with him. 
 To say that he has a right to these things, has precisely the same meaning 
 as to say, that justice requires that we 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 expressing 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. 
 
 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, aud are, by his Creator, 
 committed to his care and keeping. By b^ing 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 natural rights sup- 
 pose 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 judg- 
 
 T T 2 
 
644 OF JUSTICE. Qessay v. 
 
 ment 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 proper 
 object, and excites him to defend his right. Even the injurious person is 
 conscious 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 deserved. 
 
 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 eflfrontery, be denied. We find them 
 equally strong in the most savage and in the most civilized tribes of man- 
 kind ; and nothing can weaken them but an inveterate habit of rapine and 
 bloodshed, which benumbs the conscience, and turns men into wild beasts. 
 
 The public good is very properly considered 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 difference between the 
 resentment he feels for an injury done to himself, and his indignation 
 against a wrong done to the public. 
 
 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 contrary ? 
 
 To this question I answer, that his doctrine seems to imply it, but I hope 
 he meant it not. 
 
 He affirms in general, tliat justice is not a natural virtue : that it derives 
 its origin solely from public utility, and that reflections on the beneficial 
 consequences of this virtue are the sole foundation of its merit. He men- 
 tions no particular branch of justice as an exception to this general rule j 
 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, according 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 na- 
 turally 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 he never meant it. 
 
 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, accomplish ; 
 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 has the authority of Cicero in its favour. 
 
CHAP, v.] Oj, JUSTICE. 645 
 
 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 en- 
 deavours to refute an hypothesis very like it, in the 2d, 3d, and 4th books 
 JJe nepublica. Cicero, on the contrary, supposes it certain and universally 
 acknowledged, in the foUowing passage, &c. Pro Sextio, L 42." 
 
 i he 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 
 A]r. Hobbes. Be this as it may, Mr. Hume might have added, that Cicero, 
 in his orations, like many other pleaders, sometimes says, not what he be- 
 lieved, but what was lit 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 verv well known. 
 
 6. As Jilr. Hume, therefore, has said nothing to prove the'four branches 
 of justice which relate to the innate rights of men to be artificial or to de- 
 rive their origin 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 constitution of man, but upon his actions. Writers on juris- 
 prudence 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 pro- 
 duce to one, another part to another, must be the work of men who have 
 power and understanding given them, by which every man may accom- 
 modate himself 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 another. 
 
 The earth is a great theatre, furnished by the Almighty, with perfect 
 wisdom and goodness, for the entertainment and employment of all man- 
 kind. Here every man has a right to accommodate himself as a spectator, 
 and to perform his part as an actor, but without hurt to others. 
 
 He who does so is a just man, and thereby entitled to some degree of 
 moral approbation ; 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 degree 
 of moral approbation. But he who jostles and molests his neighbour, who 
 deprives him of any accommodation which his industry has provided with- 
 out hurt to others, is unjust, and a proper object of resentment. 
 
 It is true, therefore, that property has a beginning from the actions of 
 men, occupying, and perhaps improving by their industry, what was com- 
 mon by nature. It is true also, that before property exists, that branch 
 of justice and injustice which regards property cannot exist. But it is 
 also true, that where there are men, there will very soon be property of one 
 kind or another, 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. 
 
 Ihejirst is what must presently be consumed 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 
 
646 OF JUSTICE. [ESSAY V. 
 
 and appropriated. If another person may, without injusticej rob me of 
 what I have innocently occupied for present subsistence, the necessary con- 
 sequence must be, that he may, without injustice, take away my life. 
 
 A right to life implies a right to the necessary means of life. And that 
 justice which forbids the taking away the life of an innocent 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. 
 
 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 in- 
 nocent labour, or to deprive him of the fruit of it, is an injustice 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 property 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 connexions. 
 
 He therefore acts in perfect conformity to his nature, when he stores of 
 the fruit of his labour, what may afterwards be useful to himself or to 
 others ; when he invents and fabricates utensils or machines by which his 
 labour may be facilitated, and its produce increased ; and when, by ex- 
 changing with his fellow men commodities or labour, he accommodates both 
 himself and them. These are the natural and innocent exertions of that 
 understanding wherewith his Maker has endowed him. He has therefore 
 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 storehouse, against all invaders. 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 invasion of others that may frustrate it. 
 
 Two instances of this provident sagacity seem to be peculiar to man. I 
 mean the invention of utensils and machines for facilitating 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 de- 
 gree. 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 evident, that man, even in the state 
 of nature, by his powers of body and mind, may acquire permanent pro- 
 perty, or what we call riches, 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 connexion with any public beyond their own family, 
 have acquired property, and had distinct notions of that justice and injustice, 
 of which it is the object. 
 
 Ey^ry man, as a reasonable creature, has a right to gratify his natural 
 and innocent desires without hurt to others. No desire is more natural. 
 
CHAP, v.] OP JUSTICE. 647 
 
 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 de- 
 sire property, and to labour for it ; and his right to it is only a right to 
 labour for his own benefit. 
 
 That public utility is the sole origin, even of that branch of justice 
 which regards property, is so far from being true, that when men con- 
 federate 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 receives from civil society. In the state of nature, he 
 was sole judge in his own cause, and had right to defend his property, his 
 liberty, and life, as far as his power reached. In the state of civil society, 
 he must submit to the judgment of the society, and acquiesce in its sen- 
 tence, though he should conceive it to be unjust. 
 
 What was said above, of the natural right every man has to acquire per- 
 manent property, and to dispose of it, must be understood with this con- 
 dition. 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 present 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 neces- 
 sities 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 supplying themselves, should be supplied from what might 
 otherwise be stored for future wants. 
 
 From this it appears. That the right of acquiring and that of disposing 
 of property, may be subject to limitations and restrictions, even in the state 
 of nature, and much more in the state of civil society, in which the public 
 has what writers on jurisprudence call an eminent dominion over the pro- 
 perty, as well as over the lives of the subjects, as far as the public good re- 
 quires. 
 
 If the.se principles be well founded, Mr. Hume's arguments to prove 
 that justice is an artificial virtue, or that its public utility is the sole foun- 
 dation of its merit, may be easily answered. 
 
 He supposes, Jint, a state in which nature has bestowed on the human 
 race such abundance of external goods, that every man, without care or in- 
 dustry, finds himself provided 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, ^rif. That this argument 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 thfs observa- 
 tion applies to almost all his arguments, 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 con- 
 sequence, there can be no exercise of that branch of justice which respects 
 
648 OF JUSTICE. [essay v. 
 
 property. But does it follow from this, that where property exists, and 
 must exist, that no regard ought to be had to it ? 
 
 He next supposes that the necessities of the human race continuing the 
 same as at present, the mind is so enlarged with friendship 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. 
 
 I answer, the conduct which this extensive benevolence leads to, is either 
 perfectly consistent with justice, or it is not. First, If there be any case 
 where this benevolence would lead us to do injustice, the use of justice is 
 not suspended. Its obligation is superior to that of benevolence ; and, to 
 show benevolence to one, at the expense of injustice to another, is immoral. 
 Secondly, Supposing no such case could happen, the use of justice would 
 not be suspended, because by it we must distinguish good offices to which 
 we had a right, from those to which we had no right, and which therefore 
 require a return of gratitude. Thirdly, Supposing the use of justice to be 
 suspended, as it must be in every case where it cannot be exercised. Will 
 it follow, that its obligation is suspended, where there is access to ex- 
 ercise it ? 
 
 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 partition of bread, without regard to private pro- 
 perty, though eiFected by power, and even by violence, would be regarded 
 as criminal and injurious ? And the author conceives, 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 being criminal or injurious, that justice requires it ; and surely that 
 cannot be a suspension 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 insolvent, without any fault on his part. Justice requires that he 
 should be forborne with till he is able to pay. It is strange that Mr. Hume 
 should think that an action, neither criminal nor injurious, should be a 
 suspension of the laws of justice. This seems to me a contradiction, for 
 justice and injury are contradictory terms. 
 
 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 justice 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 suspension of the rules of justice, and at the same time equitable, 
 seems to me a contradiction. It is possible that equity may interfere 
 with the letter of human laws, because 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 re- 
 quares that a criminal should be treated in the same way as an innocent man. 
 
 Another argument is taken from public war. What is it, says he, but 
 a suspension of justice among the warring parties ? The laws of war, which 
 then succeed to those of equity and justice, are rules calculated for the ad- 
 vantage and utility of that particular state in which men are now placed 
 
CHAP, v.] OF JUSTICE. 649 
 
 I answer, when war is undertaken for self-defence, or for reparation of 
 intolerabk injuries, justice authorises it. The laws of war, which have 
 been described by many judicious moralists, are all drawn from the foun- 
 tain 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 ; pre- 
 scribes 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. 
 
 The next argument is this, were there a 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 resistance, and could 
 never, upon the highest provocation, make us feel the effects of their re- 
 sentment ; the necessary consequence, 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, exclusive of such arbi- 
 trary lords. 
 
 If Mr. Hume liad not owned this sentiment as a consequence of his 
 Theory of Morals, I should have thought it very uncharitable 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 par- 
 ticular virtue, is false, than when it subverts the practical rules of morals. 
 This defenceless species of rational creatures 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 doctrine, Mr. 
 Hume adds. That as no inconvenience 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. 
 
 We may here observe, that though, in other places, Mr. Hume founds 
 the obligation 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 exist. But as no inconvenience to ourselves can ever result from our 
 treatment of them, he concludes, that justice would be useless, and there- 
 fore 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 solitary a being would be as much incapable of justice as of 
 social discourse and conversation. 
 
 And would not so solitary a being be as incapable of friendship, generosity, 
 and compassion, as of justice.' If this argument prove justice to be an arti- 
 ficial virtue, it will, with equal force, prove every social virtue to be arti- 
 ficial. 
 
 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 no* so clearly distinguished, nor 
 
650 OP JUSTICE. , [essay v. 
 
 can they be easily collected. I shall offer some remarks 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 u&.with 
 the same conclusion : The good of mankind is the only object of all those 
 laws and regulations." 
 
 It is not easy to perceive where the stress of this argument lies. The 
 good of mankind is the object of all the laws and regulations hy which justice 
 is directed and property determined ; therefore justice is not a natural virtue, 
 but has its origin solely from public utility, and its beneficial consequences 
 are the sole foundation oj' its merit. 
 
 Some step seems to be wanting to connect the antecedent proposition 
 with the conclusion, which, I think, must be one or other of these two pro- 
 positions ; first. All the rules 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 con- 
 sequence ; nor can Mr. Hume admit it without overturning his own sys- 
 tem : 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 reject ap- 
 pearances which may be false, though specious ; and must search for those 
 rules which are on the whole most useful and beneficial ; and endeavours 
 to show, that the established rules which regard property are more for the 
 public good, than the system, either of those religious fanatics of the last 
 age, who held, that saints only should inherit 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 general, his argument is confined to one branch of justice, to wit, 
 the right of property ; aud it is well known, that, to conclude from a part 
 to the whole, is not good reasoning. 
 
 Besides, the proposition from which his conclusion is drawn cannot be 
 granted, either with regard to property, or with regard to the other branches 
 of justice. 
 
 We endeavoured before to show, that property, though not an innate but 
 an acquired right, may be acquired in the state of nature, and agreeably 
 to the laws of nature ; 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 luiow 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/)bserve towards his neighbour. 
 
 The simple rule, of not (Jping to his neighbour what he would think 
 
CHAP, v.] OF JUSTICE. 651 
 
 wrong to be done to himself, would lead liim to the knowledge of every 
 branch of justice, without the consideration of public good, or of laws and 
 statutes made to promote it. 
 
 It is not true, therefore, that public utility is the only standard of jus- 
 tice, and that the rules of justice can be de'duced 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 assembly, 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 
 standard of justice, made justice to be the standard of utility. 
 
 " What is a man's propertt/ ? Any thing which it is lawful for him, and 
 for him alone, to use. Bui what rule have we by uhich we can distinguish 
 these objects ? 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 distinc- 
 tion of property ? If so, Mr. Hume's state of nature is the same with that 
 of Mr. Hobbes'. 
 
 It is true, that, when men become members of a political society, they 
 subject their property, as well as themselves, to the laws, and must either 
 acquiesce in what the laws determine, or leave the society. But justice, 
 and even that particular branch of it wliich 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. 
 
 Justice requires, that a member of a state should submit to the laws of 
 the state, when they require nothing unjust or impious. There may, there- 
 fore, be statutory rights and statutory crimes. A statute may create alright 
 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 bechargeable with injustice if he disobeys, 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 reasons and analogies, or 
 even for no other reason but that it is better that such a point should be de- 
 termined by law than that it should be left a dubious subject of contention. 
 But this, far from presenting us with the conclusion which the author 
 would establish, presents us with a contrary conclusion. For all these par- 
 ticular laws and statutes derive their whole obligation and force from a ge- 
 neral rule of justice antecedent 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 super- 
 stitions, and can find no foundation for nioral sentiment in the one more 
 than in the other, excepting that justice is requisite to the well being and 
 existence of society. 
 
 It is very true, that, if we examine mine and thine by ihe senses of sight, 
 smell or touch, or scrutinize them by the sciences of medicine, chemistry ur 
 physics, we perceive no difference. But ther*reason is, that none of these 
 
652 OF JUSTICE. Qessay v. 
 
 senses or sciences are the judges of right or \vrong, or can give any con- 
 ception of thenij 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 
 perceives daylight. When that sense or faculty is not consulted, in vain 
 do we consult every other in a question of right and wrong. 
 
 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 obli- 
 gation tOjdo what tends to the good of mankind. 
 
 If such a moral obligation be admitted, why may we not admit a stronger 
 obligation to do injury to no man ? 
 
 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 promote public utility, and 
 to support civil society, the sentiment of justice is either derived from our 
 reflecting on that tendency, or, like hunger, thirst and other appetites, re- 
 sentment, love of life, attachment to offspring, and other passions, arises 
 from a simple original instinct in the human breast, which nature has im- 
 planted for like salutary purposes. If the latter be the case, it follows, 
 That property, which is the object of justice, is also distinguished by a 
 simple original instinct, and is not ascertained by any argument or reflec- 
 tion. 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 ap- 
 petites and to all our passions. From this principle, I think, we derive the 
 sentiment of justice. 
 
 As the eye not only gives us the conception of colours, but makes us per- 
 ceive one body to have one colour, and another body another ,• and as our rea- 
 son 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 conscience 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 dis- 
 honest. By this faculty we perceive a merit in honest conduct, and a de- 
 merit in dishonest, without 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 professed 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 himself to be under no obligation of 
 honour or honesty, of truth or justice, in his dealings with men. 
 
 Nor does this faculty of conscience require innate ideas of property, and 
 of the various ways of acquit ing and transferring it, or innate ideas of kings 
 and senators, qfpretors and chancellors and juries, any more than the fa- 
 culty of seeing requires innate ideas of colours, or that the faculty of rea- 
 soning requires innate ideas of cones, cylinders and spheres. 
 
CHAP. VI.] OP THK NATDRE AND OBLIGATION OF A CONTRACT. 653 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OP THE NATURE AND OBLIGATION OP A CONTRACT. 
 
 Thk obligation of contracts and promises is a matter so sacred, and of 
 such consequence to human society, that speculations, which have a ten- 
 dency to weaken that obligation and to perplex men's notions on subjects 
 so plain and so important, ought to meet with the disapprobation of all 
 honest men. 
 
 Some such speculations, I think, we have In the third volume of Mr. 
 Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, and in his Enquiry into the Prin- 
 ciples of Morals ; and my design in this chapter is, to offer some observa- 
 tions 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 
 obligations to honesty and fair deling, or that he had not a sense of these 
 obligations himself. It is not the man I impeach, but his writings. 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 under- 
 stood by all men of common understanding ; yet, by attention to the ope- 
 rations of mind signified by the words, we shall be better enabled to judge 
 of these metaphysical subtilties which have been raised about them. A pro- 
 mise and a contract differ so little in what concerns 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 reciprocally acquires a right to what is promised by the other. 
 
 The Latin word pactum seems to extend to both ; and the definition 
 given of it in the Civil Law, and borrowed from Ulpian, is, Duurum 
 pluriumve in idem phtcitum consenmcs. Titius, a modern civilian, has en- 
 deavoured to make this definition more complete, by adding the words, 
 Obligntionis Ikite constittiendts vel totlendce cauiU dat/is. With this ad- 
 dition, the definition is. That a contract is the consent of two or more per- 
 sons in the same thing, given with the intention of constituting or dissolv- 
 ing lawfully some obligation. 
 
 This definition is perhaps as good as any other that can be given ; yet, I 
 believe, every m.an will acknowledge that it gives him no clearer or more 
 distinct notion of a contract than he had before. If it is considered as a 
 strictly logical definition, I believe 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 understanding. For this is 
 common to many operations of the mind, that although we understand them 
 perfectly, and are in no danger of confounding them with any thing else ; 
 yet we cannot define them according to the rules of logic, by a genus and a 
 specific difference. And when we attempt it, we rather darken than give 
 light to them. 
 
654 OF THE NATURE AND OBLIGATION OF A CONTRACT. [ESSAY V. 
 
 Is there any thing more distinctly Understood by all men, than what it is 
 to see, to hear,'to remember, to judge ? Yet it is the most difficult thing 
 in the world to define these operations according to the rules of logical de- 
 finition. But it is not more difficult than it is useless. 
 
 Sometimes philosophers attempt to define them ; but, if we examine 
 their definitions, we shall find, that they amount to no morejthan giving one 
 synonymous word for another, and commonly a worse for a Better. So whfen 
 we define a contract, by calling it a consent a convention, an agreement, 
 what is this but giving a "synonymous word for it, and ft' word that is nei- 
 ther more expressive nor bettei"*^ understood ? 
 
 One boy has atop, another a scourge; says the first to the other.j 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 Jceep 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, tbc 
 solitary and the social. As promises and contracts belong 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 so- 
 litude, without intercourse with any other intelligent being. 
 
 I call those operations social, which necessarily imply social intercourse 
 with some other intelligent being who bears a part in them. 
 
 A man may see, and hear, and remember, and judge, and reason ; he may 
 deliberate and form purposes, and execute them, without the intervention 
 of any other intelligent being. They are solitary acts. But when he asks 
 a question for information, when he testifies a fact, when he give 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 solitary, 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 operations, 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 furnished him with a language to express them, he might think, and 
 reason, and deliberate, and will ; he might have desires and aversions, joy 
 and sorrow ; in a word, he might exert all those operations of mind, which 
 tbe -(vriters in logic and pneumatology have so copiously described ; but, at 
 the same tirrie, he would still be a solitary being, even when in a crowd ; it 
 would be impossible 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 opera- 
 tions of the human mind are not specifically different from the solitary, and 
 that they are only various modifications or compositions of our solitary 
 operations, and may be resolved 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 lan- 
 guages. 
 
CHAF. VI.] OF THE NATURE AND OBLIGATION OF A CONTRACT. 655 
 
 I apprehend, however, it will be found extremely difficult, if not irupos- 
 sible, to resolve our social operations into any modification 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 solitary. They are found in every individual of the species, even be- 
 fore the use of reason. 'J ^ 
 
 The power which man has of holding social- 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 ouj: Maker, and a part of our constitution, like the powers of seeing and 
 hearings, or it must be a human invention. If men have invented this art 
 of socisd intercourse, it must follow that every individual of the species must 
 have invented it for himself. It cannot be taughfc> for though, when once 
 carried to a certain pitch, it may be improved by teaching ; yet it .is im- 
 possible it can begin in that way, because all teaching supposes a social in- 
 tercourse and language already established between the teacher and the 
 learner. This intercourse must, from the very first, be carried on by sen- 
 sible signs ; for the thoughts of other men can be discovered in no other 
 way. I think it is likewise evident, that this intercourse, 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 social intercourse. 
 
 I apprehend, therefore, that the social intercourse of mankind, consisting 
 of those social operations which I have mentiouod, 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 in- 
 tercourse, 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 writing, could never have been invented by human 
 art. 
 
 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 instruction, 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 superadding the language of nature to the language of 
 articulate sounds. The pantomimes among the Romans carried it to the 
 highest pitch of perfection. For they could act part of comedies and tra- 
 gedies in dumb show, so as to be understood, not only by those who were 
 accustomed to this entertainment, 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 
 demonstrates it to be a part of the human constitution), that although it 
 require practice and study to enable a man to express his sentiments by it 
 in the most perfect manner, yet it requires neither study nor practice in 
 the spectator to understand it. The knowledge of it was before latent in 
 the mind, and we no sooner see it, than we immediately recognise it, as 
 we do an acquaintance whom we had long forgot, and. could not have de- 
 scribed ; but no sooner do we see him, than we know for certain that he is 
 the verv man. 
 
656 OF THE NATUKE AND OBLIGATION OF A CONTRACT. [ESSAY V, 
 
 This knowledge, in all mankind, of the natural signs of men's thonghts 
 and sentiments, 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 contracted brow, and a fierce 
 
 look, is a sign of anger. It is not from reason that we learn to know the 
 
 ■ natural signs of consenting and refusing, of affirming and denying, of 
 
 threatening and supplicating. 
 
 No man can perceive any necessary connexion between'the signs of such 
 operations, and the things signified by them. But we are so formed by the 
 Author of our nature, that the operations themselves become visible as it 
 were by their natural signs. This knowledge resembles reminiscence, in 
 this respect, that it is immediate. We form the conclusion with great 
 assurance, without knowing any premises from which it may be drawn by 
 reasoning. 
 
 It would lead us too far from the intention 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 invention. 
 
 It is sufficient to observe, that this intercourse 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 per- 
 ceptible. But it is a certain fact, that we can perceive some communication 
 of sentiments between the nurse and her nurseling, 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. 
 
 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 
 altogether incapable. They can neither plight their veracity by testimony, 
 nor their fidelity by any engagement or promise. If nature had made 
 them capable of these operations, they would have had a language to ex- 
 press 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 testimony, 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 making 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 sensible of the obligation of a promise or con- 
 tract. 
 
 It is therefore a prerogative of man, that he can communicate his know- 
 ledge of facts by testimony, and enter into engagements by promise or con- 
 tract. God has given him these powers by a part of his constitution, 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 consider a little far- 
 ther the economy of nature, in relation to this part of the human con- 
 
CHAF. yi.] OF THE NATITRE AND OBLIGATION OF A CONTRACT, 657 
 
 stitution, we shall perceive the wisdom of nature in the structure of it, and 
 discover clearly our duty in consequence of it. 
 
 ^* is evident, in the Jirst 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 deceiving. 
 
 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 
 become useless. 
 
 Hence it appears, thirdly, That this 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 counterpart, 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 society, 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 \h.e fifth place, that man is evidently made for > 
 living in society. His social affections show this as evidently as that the \ 
 eye was made for seeing. His social operations, particularly those of testi- 
 fying and promising, make it no less evident. 
 
 From these observations it follows, that if no provision were made by 
 nature, to engage men to fidelity in declarations and promises, human 
 nature would be a contradiction 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 opening their eye-lids. There 
 are no blunders of this kind in the works of God. Wherever 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 before 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 consti- 
 tution. 
 
 So that the things essential to human society, I mean good faith on the 
 one part, and trust on the other, are formed by nature in the' minds of 
 children, before they are capable of knowing their utility, or being in- 
 fluenced 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 conduct, the turpitude of lying, falsehood, and dishonesty, is 
 discerned not by any train of reasoning, but by an immediate perception. 
 For we see that every man disapproves it in others, even those who are 
 conscious of it in themselves. 
 
 Every man thinks himself injured arid ill used, and feels resentment 
 
658 OF THE NATURE AND OBLIGATION or A CONTllACT. QESSAVV^. 
 
 when he is imposed 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. 
 
 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 appear in those 
 who speak. And it may reasonably be thought, that dumb persons, at 
 that time of life, have had as little advantage, 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 obli- 
 gation 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 appears 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 
 necessary 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 disposition to them. In riper years 
 we feel our obligation to fidelity as much as to any moral duty whatsoever. 
 
 Nor is it necessary to mention the collateral inducements to this virtue, 
 from considerations of prudence, which are obvious 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 detection ; 
 that it inspires courage and magnanimity, and is the natural ally of every 
 virtue ; so that there is no virtue whatsoever, to which our natural obliga- 
 tion appears more strong or more apparent. 
 
 An observation or two, with regard to the nature of a contract, will he 
 suflicient for the present purpose. 
 
 It is obvious that the prestation promised must be understood by both 
 parties. One party engages to do such a thing, another accepts of this 
 engagement. An engagement 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 con- 
 tract, 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 engaged. 
 The last can signify nothing else than an intention and fixed purpose to 
 do what we have engaged to do. The wiU to become bound, and to 
 confer a right upon the other party, is indeed the very essence of a con- 
 tract ; but the purpose of fulfilling our engagement is no part of the con- 
 tract at all. 
 
 A purpose is a solitary act of mind, which lays no obligation on the 
 person, nor confers 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 r^ard to his obligation. He is as 
 much bound as the honest man, who contracts with a fixed purpose of per- 
 forming. 
 As the contract is binding Avithout any regard to the purpose, so there 
 
CHAP, vr.] OF THE NATURE AND OBLIGATION OP A CONTBACT. 659 
 
 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 contract, such a speech would be a contradiction, and 
 would be the same as if one should say, I promise to do such a thing, but 
 I do not promise. 
 
 AU this is so plain to every man of common sense, that it would have 
 been unnecessary to be mentioned, had not so acute a man as Mr. Hume 
 grounded some of the contradictions he finds in a contract, upon con- 
 founding a will to engage in a contract with a Will or purpose to perform 
 ■ the engagement. 
 
 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 ten- 
 dency 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 produce 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 virtuous 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 absurdities, which no 
 metaphysical subtilty can ever justify. 
 
 Nothing is more evident than that every human action takes its deno- 
 mination and its moral nature from the motive from which it is performed. 
 That is a benevolent action, 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 distiiict from 
 its morality, is so far from being undoubtedly true, that it is undoubtedly 
 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 principles 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 El)icurus, may be applied 
 to him : hledarguiiur ipse a sese, vincunlurque scripla ejusprobitate ipsius 
 et moribus, et ut alii existima ntur dicere melius quam facere, sic ille mihi 
 viddarjiacere melius quam dicere. 
 
 u u 2 
 
660 OF THE NATDKE AXD OBUGATIOIJJ OF A CONTEACT. |[ESSAY V. 
 
 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. I ask, what reason or motive have I to restore the money ? It will 
 perhaps be said, that my regard to justice and abhorrence 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 
 satisfactory to man in his civilized state, and when trained up according 
 to a certain discipline 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 passage is this. That though a man, 
 in a civilized 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 considerations of honesty, justice, 
 duty, and obligation, will be perfectly unintelligible and sophistical. And 
 this is brought as an argument to show, 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 con- 
 ceive, 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 per- 
 son who judges, make that to be just reasoning which before was sophistical. 
 Mr. Hume's argument requires, 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 judg- 
 ment, 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 natural state may be urged to it, must be a sophism in reality, 
 and not in appearance only ; and the eifect of discipline and education 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 ingenious author had shown us, why 
 that state of man, in which the obligation to honesty, and an abhorrence 
 of villany, appear perfectly 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, childhood to youth, youth to manhood, and 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 meaning. In like manner, in human society, there 
 is a natural progress from rudeness to civilization, from ignorance to know- 
 ledge. What period of this progress shall we call man's natural state? 
 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 situa- 
 tion aifords. 
 
 Mr. Hume, indeed, shows some timidity in affirming the rude state to 
 
CHAP. VI.] OF THK NATURE AND OBLIGATION OF A CONTRACT. 661 
 
 be the more natural state of man; and, therefore, ^dds this qualifying 
 parenthesis. If you are pleased to call such a condition natural. 
 
 i!** * j"i!*^ *° ^® 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 shown from fact, 
 that there ever did exist such a state of man as that which he calk his 
 more natural state. It is a state wherein a man borrows a sum of money, 
 on the condition that he is to restore 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 proper 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 tliey were fishes with tails. 
 
 Indeed, such a state seems impossible. That a man should lend without 
 any conception of his having a right to be repaid, or that a man should 
 borrow on the condition of paying in a few days, and yet have no con- 
 ception 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 conception of a right to be 
 repaid, is a contradiction. In like manner, a fraudulent man may borrow 
 without an intention of paying back ; but that he should borrow, while 
 an obligation to repay is perfectly unintelligible to him, this is a con- 
 tradiction. 
 
 The same author in his Enquiry into the Principles of iWorals, sect. 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 tliewiU must be expressed by words or signs, in order to impose 
 a tie upon any man. The expression being once brought in as sub- 
 servient to the will, soon becomes the principal 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 occasions, the whole of the pro- 
 mise, 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 without 
 any sense of the consequences, would not certainly be bound by it. Nay, 
 though he knows its meaning ; yet if he uses it in jest only, and with such 
 signs as show evidently he has no serious intention of binding himself, he 
 would not be under any obligation of performance ; but it is necessary 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 conjecture 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 conclusion 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 usefulness to 
 society, but will never be explained on any other hypothesis." 
 
 Here we Iiave the opinion of this great moralist and acute metaphysician, 
 that the principles of honesty and fidelity are at bottom a bundle of con- 
 tradictions. This is one part of his moral system which, I cannot help 
 
662 OF THE NATURE AND OBLIGATION OF A CONTRACT. QeSSAY V. 
 
 thinking, borders upon licentiousness. 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 believes that its essential rules contradict each other? 
 Can a man be bound by contradictory rules of conduct ? No more, surely, 
 than he can be bound to believe contradictory principles. 
 
 He tells us, " That all these contradictions 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 attempting 
 to account for these contradictions upon his own hypothesis, he pro- 
 nounces, in a decisive tone, that they will never be explained upon any 
 other hypothesis. 
 
 What if it shall appear, that the contradictions 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 ? 
 
 The first mistake is. That a promise is some kind of will, consent, or in- 
 tention, which may be expressed, or may not be expressed. This is to mis- 
 take the nature of a promise : For no will, no consent or intention, that 
 is not expressed, is a promise. A promise, being a social transaction be- 
 tween two parties, without being expressed, can have no existence. 
 
 Another capital mistake that runs through the passage cited is. That 
 this will, consent, or intention, which makes a promise, is a will or inten- 
 tion to perform what we promise. Every man knows that there may be a 
 fraudulent promise made witliout intention of performing. But the in- 
 tention 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 
 obligation. What makes a promise is, that it be expressed to the other party 
 with understanding, 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 consent 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 con- 
 tradiction that that which is not a promise should not cause the obligation 
 of a promise ? He goes on : The expression being once brought in as sub- 
 servient 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 sub- 
 servient 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 sub- 
 servient. 
 
 He adds. Nor will a man be less bound by his word, though he secretly 
 , give a different direction to his intention, and withholds the assent of his 
 mind. 
 
 The case here put needs some explication. Either it means, that the 
 man knowingly and voluntarily gives his word, without any intention of 
 
Chap, vn.] appkobation implies judgment. 663 
 
 giving his word, or that he gives it without the intention of keeping it, 
 and performing what he promises. The last of these i& indeed a possible 
 case, and is, I apprehend, what Mr. Hume pieans. 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 im- 
 possible : For such is the nature of all social acts of the mind, that, 
 as they cannot be without being expressed, so they cannot be ex- 
 pressed knowingly and willingly, but they must be. If a man puts a 
 question knowingly and willingly, it is impossible that he should at the 
 same ime 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 im- 
 possible 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 pro- 
 mise, 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 under- 
 standing, 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 supposition made in the former sentence. And 
 as th^re can be no promise without knowledge and will to engage, is 
 it marvellous that words which are not understood, or words spoken in jest, 
 and without any intention to become bound, should not have the effect of 
 a promise ? 
 
 The last case put by Mr. Hume is that of a man who promises fraudu- 
 lently 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 obliga- 
 tion, as has been repeatedly 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 not the least appearance of 
 contradiction in the principles of morality relating to contracts. 
 
 It would indeed appear wonderful that such a man as My. Hiime should 
 have imposed upon himself in so plain a matter, if we did not see fre- 
 quent instances of ingenious men, whose zeal in supporting a favourite 
 hypothesis darkens their understanding, and hinders them from seeing 
 what is before their eyes. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THAT MOBAL APPROBATION IMPLIES A REAL JUDGMENT. 
 
 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 conduct, or attend to the conduct of 
 
664 APPEOBATION IMPWES JUDGMENT. QeSSAY V. 
 
 others with whom we live, or of whom we hear or read, we cannot help 
 approving of some things, disapproving of others, and regarding 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 agreeable 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 
 could have appeared more absurd than to say, that when I condemn a 
 man for what he has done, I pass no judgment at all about the man, but 
 only express some uneasy feeling in myself. 
 
 Nor did the new system produce this discovery at once, but gradually, by 
 several steps, according as its consequences were more accurately traced, 
 and its spirit more thoroughly imbibed by successive philosophers. 
 
 Des Cartes and Mr. Locke went no farther than to maintain, that the 
 secondary qualities of body, heat and cold, sound, colour, taste, and smell, 
 which we perceive and judge to be in the external object, are mere feelings 
 or sensations in our minds, there being nothing in bodies themselves 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 or sensa- 
 tions, from which we are by reasoning to deduce the existence of a material 
 world without us, as well as we can. 
 
 Arthur CoUier and Bishop Berkeley discovered, from the same principles, 
 that the primary as well as the secondary qualities of bodies, such as ex- 
 tension, figure, solidity, motion, are only sensations in our mindsj and 
 therefore, that there is no material 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 any thing in the objects to 
 which men, from the beginning of the world ascribed them, but certain 
 feelings in the mind of the spectator. 
 
 The next step was an easy consequence from all the preceding, that 
 moral approbation and disapprobation are not judgment, which must be 
 true or false, but barely agreeable and uneasy feelings or sensations. 
 
 Mr. Hume made the last step in this progress, 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. 
 
 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 nature, I am not able 
 to comprehend. 
 
 I have had occasion to consider each of these .paradoxes, excepting that 
 which relates to morals, in Essays on the Intetlectnal Powers of Man ; 
 and, thotigh they be strictly connected with each other, and with the system 
 which has produced them, I have attempted to show that they are incon- 
 sistent with just notions of our intellectual powers, no less than they are 
 with the common sense and common language of mankind. And this, I 
 think, will likewise appear 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 possible, let us attend to the meaning 
 
CHAP. VII.] APPaOBATION IMPLIES JUDGMENT. 665 
 
 oi feeling and oi judgment. These operations of the mind, perhaps, cannot 
 be logically defined;' but they are well understood, and easily distinguished, 
 by their properties and adjuncts. 
 
 Feeling, or sensation, seems to be the lowest degree of animation we can 
 conceive. We give the name of animal to every being that feels pain or 
 pleasure ; and this seems to be the boundary between the inanimate and 
 animal creation. 
 
 We know no being of so low a rank in the creation of God, as to possess 
 this animal power only without any other. 
 
 We commonly distinguish ^e?;ng- from thinking, because it hardly- de- 
 serves 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 inani- 
 mate. 
 
 A feeling must be agreeable, ^r uneasy, or indifferent. It may be weak 
 or strong. It is expressed in language either by a single word, or by such 
 a contexture of words as may be the subject or predicate of a proposition, 
 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 ex- 
 presses testimony grounded upon an intuitive judgment. 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 nature from the inanimate ; so judging 
 seems to distinguish the rational nature from the merely animal. 
 
 Though judgment in general is expressed by one word in language, as 
 the most complex operations of the mind may be ; yet a particular judg- 
 ment can only be expressed 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 determination of the 
 understanding, with regard to what is true, or false, or dubious. 
 
 In judgment, we can distinguish the .object about which we jud^e, 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 pro- 
 position ; 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 whe- 
 ther it be true or false, we must doubt. 
 
 The toothach, the headach, are words which express uneasy feelings ; 
 but to say that they express a judgment would be ridiculous. 
 
 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 expresses judgment ; but to say that it expresses 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 diffisrent, and easily distinguished. When we feel without judging, 
 or judge without feeling, it is impossible, without very gross inattention, 
 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. 
 
666 APPROBATION IMPLIES JUDGMENT. QeSSAY V, 
 
 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, Sect. 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, it is 
 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, l)rought 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." 
 
 That those philosophers attended chieily 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 feelings, and thereby to resolve into mere feeling, complex acts of the 
 mind, of which feeling is only one ingredient. 
 
 I had occasion, in the preceding Essays, to observe. That several opera- 
 tions of the mind, to which we give one name, and consider as one act, are 
 compounded of more simple acts, inseparably united in our constitution, 
 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 the desire, of food or drink. In our benevolent 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 de- 
 sire. 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 consequence of the sensation, and to be 
 regulated by it. In other instances, the sensation is the consequence of 
 the judgment. 
 
 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 subtlety of metaphysics been able to dis- 
 join what nature has conjoined in our constitution. Des Cartes and Locke 
 endeavoured, by reasoning, to deduce the existence of external objects from 
 our sensations, but in vain. Subsequent philosophers, finding no reason 
 for this connexion, 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 sen- 
 sation, as the sensation is the consequence of the impression 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 agreeable feeling, and a contrary account would give me a very un- 
 easy feeling ; but these feelings depend entirely upon my belief of the re- 
 port. 
 
CHAP. VII.] AtPllOBATION IMPLIES.JUDGMEKT. 667 
 
 In hope, there is an agreeable feeling, depending upon the belief or ex- 
 pectation of good to come : Fear is made up of contrary ingredients ; in 
 both, the feeling is regulated by the degree of belief. 
 
 In the respect we bear to the worthy, and in our contempt of the worth- 
 less, there is both judgment and feeling, and the last depends entirely upon 
 the first. . 
 
 The same may be said of gratitude for good offices, and resentment of 
 injuries. 
 
 Let me now consider how I am affected when I see a man exerting him- 
 self nobly in a good cause. I am conscious that the effect of his conduct 
 on my mind is complex, 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 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 feeling. The man is the object of this esteem ; but in 
 mere feeling there is no object. 
 
 I am likewise conscious, that this agreeable 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, im- 
 mediately my esteem and my agreeable feeling vanish^ 
 
 In the approbation of a good action, therefore, 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 determination of the understanding with regard to what is true 
 or false, is judgment. 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 arguments unnecessary, 
 with regard to the operations of myown mind. 
 
 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. 
 
 Suppose that, in a case well known to both, my friend says. Such a man 
 did iveil and xuorihily ; his conduct is highly npprovea/ile. 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, I'he 
 man's conduct 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 express neither more nor 
 less. But this cannot be, for two reasons. 
 
 First, Because there is no rule in grammar or rhetoric, nor any usage in 
 language, by which these two speeches can be construed, 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 second only 
 testifies a fact concerning the speaker, to wit, that he had such a feeling. 
 
APPROBATION IMPLIES JUDGMENT. ^ESjSAY V. 
 
 Anothtr reason why these two speeches cannot niean the same thing is, 
 that the iirst may be contradicted without any*'ground of offence ; such con- 
 tradiction being only a difference' of opinion, which, to a reasonable 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. 
 If moral approbation be a real judgment, which produces an agreeable 
 feeling in the mind of him who judges, both speeches are perfectly iiltel- 
 ligible, in the most obvious and literal sense. Their meaning is different, 
 but they are related, so that the one may be inferred from the o^her, 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 contemplates with plea- 
 sure ; and what he contemplates with pleasure must, in his judgment, 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 contemplation 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 
 characters, such speeches as the first are not as frequent, as familiar, and 
 as well understood, as any thing in language ; and whether they have not 
 been common in all ages that we can trace, and in all languages .'' 
 
 This doctrine, therefore, that moral approbation is merely a feeling 
 without judgment, 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 
 1 ages of the world, 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, intro- 
 duced by some man of eminence, from caprice or ■wTong judgment, and 
 followed, by servile imitators, for a time, till it be detected, and, of con- 
 sequence, 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 opinions of modern philo- 
 sophy, which we before 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 feelings in the mind of the spectator ; 
 that the secondary qualities are not in external objects, but are merely 
 feelings or sensations in him that perceives them ; and, in general, that our 
 external and internal senses are faculties by which we have sensations or 
 feelings only, but by which we do not judge. 
 
CHAr, Vll.] APPROBATION IMPLIES JUDGMENT. 669 
 
 That every form of 'speech, which language affords to express our judg- 
 ment, should, in all ages, and in all languages, be used to express what is 
 no judgment ; and that feelings, which are easily expressed in proper lan- 
 guage, shouM as universally be expressed by language altogether improper 
 and absurd, I cannot believe ; and therefore must conclude, that if lan- 
 guage be the expression of thought, me^n judge of the primary and secondary 
 qualities of body bjc their external senses, of beauty and deformity by their 
 taste, and of virtue and vice by their moral faculty. 
 
 A truth so evident as this is, can hardly be obscured and brought into j 
 doubt,*tuit by the abuse of words. And much abuse of words there has | 
 been upon this subject. To avoid this, as much as possible, I have used 
 the wor A. judgment, on one side, and sensation 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 sec- 
 tions upon it, the titles of which are. Moral Distinctions not derived from 
 Reason, and Moral Distinctions derived from a Moral Sense. 
 
 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 itself is inactive? 
 and perfectly inert:" That " actions may be laudable or blameable, but' 
 cannot be reasonable or unreasonable ;" That " it is not contrary to reason, 
 to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger :" 1 
 That " it is not contrary to reason, for me to choose my total ruin to pre- 
 vent 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." _ 
 
 If we take the word reason to mean what common use, both of philoso- 
 phers, 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 censure. 
 
 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 ap- 
 pearance of plausibility. I have before made some observations upon the 
 meaning of this word. Essay II, Chap. 2, and Essay III, Part 3, Chap. I, 
 to which the reader is referred. 
 
 When Mr. Hume derives moral distinctions 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 sentiment, to express feeling without judgment. This I take like- 
 wise to be an abuse of a word. Our moral determinations may, with 
 propriety, be called moral sentiments. For the word sentiment, in the 
 English language, never, as I coilceive, signifies mere feeling, but judgment 
 accompanied with feeling. It was wont to signify opinion or judgment of 
 any kind, but, of late, is appropriated to signify an opinion or judgment 
 that strikes and produces some agreeable or uneasy emotion. So we speak 
 
670 APrKOBATION IMtLIES JDDGMENX. [ES&AY V. 
 
 of sentiments of respect^ of esteem, of grati]tude. But I never heard the 
 pain of the gout, or any other mere feeling, called a sentiment. 
 
 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 
 3, page 3, " The term perception is no less applicable to those judgments 
 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 judgment for what he 
 held to be mere feeling. 
 
 All the words most commonly used, both by philosophers and by the 
 vulgar, to express the operations of our moral faculty, such as decision, 
 determination, sentence, approbation, disapprobation, applause, censure, 
 praise, blame, necessarily imply judgment in their meaning. When, there- 
 fore, they are used by Mr. Hume, and others who hold his opiijion, to 
 signify feelings only, this is an abuse of words. If these philosophers wish 
 ^to speak plainly and properly, they must, in discoursing of morals, discard 
 these words altogether, because their established signification in the lan- 
 guage is contrary 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 particulal: observation 
 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 reasonings 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 pro- 
 ,ceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the 
 being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs ; when of 
 a sudden, 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. This change is imperceptible, but is, how- 
 ever, of the last consequence. For as this ought or ought not expresses 
 «ome new relation or afiirmation, it is necessary that it should be observed 
 and explained ; and, at the same time, that a reason should be given for 
 what seems altogether inconceivable ; how this new relation can be a 
 deduction from others which are entirely different from it. But as authors 
 do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume 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 per- 
 ceived by reason." 
 
 We may here observe, that it is acknowledged, that the words ought 
 and ought not express some relation or affirmation ; but a relation or affirm- 
 ation which Mr. Hume thought inexplicable, or, at least, inconsistent witli 
 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 tiot be explained. 
 
 To a man that understands English, there are surely no words that 
 require explanation less. Are not all men taught, from their early years, 
 that they ought not to lie, nor steal, nor swear falsely ? But Mr. Hume 
 thinks that men never understood what these precepts mean, or rather that 
 
CHAt. vii.;] Approbation tMPtiES JUDOMEistt '671 
 
 they are unintelligible. If this be so, I think indeed it will follow, that 
 all the vulgar systems of morals are subverted. 
 
 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 3, Chap. 5. 
 
 The sfcmd 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 deductions. And 
 ■moral truths, that are not self-evident, are deduced, not from relations quite 
 different from them, but from the first principles of morals. 
 
 In a matter so interesting to mankind, and so frequently the subject of 
 conversation 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 consistently with the rules of language. An 
 opinion, therefore, which makes the language of all ages and nations, upon 
 this subject, to be improper, contrary to all rules of language, and fit to be 
 discarded, needs no other refutation. 
 
 As mankirid have, in all agesj understood reason to mean the power by 
 which not only our speculative opinions, but our actions, ought to be regu- 
 lated, we may say, with perfect propriety, that all vice is contrary to 
 reason ; that, by reason, we are to judge of what we ought to do, as well 
 as of what we ought to believe. 
 
 But though all vice be contrary to reason, I conceive that it would not 
 be a proper definition of vice to say, that it is a conduct contrary to reason, . 
 because this definition would apply equally to folly, which all men distin- 
 guish 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 fitness of 
 things, to the truth of things, to absolute fitness. These phrases have not 
 the authority 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 intended 
 as definitions of vice, they are improper; because, in the most favourable 
 sense they can bear, they extend to every kind of foolish and absurd con- 
 duct, as well as to that which is vicious. 
 
 I shall conclude this chapter with some observations upon the five argu- 
 ments which Mr. Hume has offered upon this point in his Enquiry. 
 
 Thefirst is. That it is impossible that the hypothesis he opposes can, in 
 any particular instance, be so much as rendered intelligible, whatever spe- 
 cious figure it may make in general discourse. " Examine," says he, " the 
 crime of ingratitude, anatomize 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 ingrati- 
 tude which he conceives may be given by those whom he opposes, because 
 I agree vidth him in that which he himself adopts, to wit, " That this crime 
 arises from a complication of circumstances, which, being presented to the 
 spectator, excites the sentiment of blame by the particular structure and 
 fabric of his mind." 
 
 This he thought a true and intelligible account of the criminality of 
 
672 APPROBATIOK IMPLIES JUDGMENT. [^JCSSAY V. 
 
 ingratitude. So do li And therefore I think the hypbtliesis he opposes 
 is intelligible when applied to a particular instance. 
 
 Mr. Humcj no doubt, thought, that the account he gives of ingratitude 
 is inconsistent 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, ^rs/. That the senii- 
 ment of blame means a feeling only, without judgment ; or, secondly. That 
 whatever is excited by the particular fabric and structure of the mind must 
 be feeling only, and not judgment. But I cannot grant either the one or 
 the other. 
 
 For, as to thej?r«i, it seems evident to me, that both sen^ment and blame 
 imply judgment ; and, therefore, that the sentiment of blame means a judg- 
 ment accompanied with feeling, and not mere fueling without judgment. 
 
 The second can as little be granted ; for no operation of mind, whether 
 judgment or feeling, can be excited but by that particular 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 virtue and vice. If we suppose a being without any 
 moral faculty in his fabric, I grant that he could not have the sentiments 
 of blame and moral approbation. 
 
 There are, therefore, judgments, as well as feelings, that are excited by 
 ,the particular structure and fabric of the mind. But there is this remark- 
 able difference between them, that every judgment is in its own nature 
 true, or false ; and though it depends upon the fabric of a mind, whether 
 it have such a judgment or not, it depends not upon that fabric whether 
 the judgment 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 perceiving that truth. Nothing like this can be said of 
 mere feelings, because the attributes of true or false do not belong to them. 
 
 Thus I think it appears, that the hypothesis which Mr. Hume opposes 
 is not unintelligible, when applied to the particular instance of ingratitude ; 
 , because the account of ingratitude which he himself thinks true and intel- 
 ligible is perfectly agreeable to it. 
 
 . The second argument amounts to this : That in moral deliberation, we 
 must be acquainted beforehand with all the objects and all their relations. 
 After these things are known, the understanding has no farther room to 
 operate. Nothing remains but to feel, on our part, some sentiment of 
 blame or approbation. 
 
 Let us apply tliis reasoning to the office of a judge. In a cause that 
 comes before him, he must be made acquainted with all the objects, and all 
 their relations. After this, his understanding has no farther room to 
 operate. Nothing remains, on his part, but to feel the right or the wrong ; 
 and mankind have, very absurdly, called him a judge ; he ought to be 
 called a feeler. 
 
 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 casesi this point will 
 appear self-evident to a man who has been accustomed to exercise his 
 moral judgment ; in some cases it may require reasoning. 
 
CHAP. VII.] APPROBATION IMPLIES JUDGMENT. 673 
 
 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 f^/rrf argument is taken ffom 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 ? This is 
 indeed a paradox of modern philosophy, built upon a philosophical theory ; 
 but a paradox so contrary to the common language and common 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." 
 
 By the qualities of the circle he must mean its properties ; and there are 
 here two mistakes. 
 
 First, Euclid has not fuUy 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 demon- 
 strate the mathematical properties of the circle. Beauty is a quality of the 
 circle, not demonstrable by mathematical reasoning, but immediately per- 
 ceived 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/oartA 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 fiercej or more ravenous, than another .'' Are these relations to be 
 found in inanimate objects.'' May not one man be a better painter, or 
 sculptor, or shipbuilder, or tailor, or shoemaker than another ? Are these 
 relations to be found in inanimate objects, or even in brute animals .' May 
 not one moral agent be more just, more pious, more attentive to any moral 
 duty, or more eminent in any moral virtue, than another } Are not these 
 relations peculiar to moral agents.'' But to come to the relations most 
 essential to morality. 
 
 When I say that / 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 cannot be between inanimate objects, or between 
 any otiier 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 languages ? 
 
 Again, when in deliberating about two actions in my power, which can- 
 not 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. 
 
 X X 
 
674 APPROBATION IMPLIES JODGMENT. QeSSAY V. 
 
 There are, therefore, moral relations wliich 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, and not of mere feeling. 
 
 The last argument is a chain of several propositions, which deserve dis- 
 tinct consideration. They may, I think, be summed up in these four: 1. 
 There must be ultimate ends of action, beyond which it is absurd to ask a 
 reason of acting. 2. The ultimate ends of human actions can never be 
 accounted for by reason ; 3. But recommend themselves entirely to the 
 sentiments and affections of mankind, without any dependence 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 to call it, 
 which distinguishes moral good and evil, and which embraces the one and 
 rejects the other. 
 
 To ih.e_first of these propositions I entirely agree. The ultimate ends of 
 action are what I have called the principles of action, which I have endea- 
 voured in the third Essay to enumerate, and to class under three heads of 
 mechanical, animal, and rational. 
 
 The second proposition needs some explication. 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 con- 
 firmation of it : " Ask a man, whi/ he uses exercise 1 he will answer, because 
 he desires to keep his health. If you then inquire why he desires health T 
 he will readily reply, because sickness 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 referred to 
 any other object." To account by reason for an end, therefore, is to show 
 another end, for the sake of which that end is desired and pursued. And 
 that, in this sense, an ultimate end can never be accounted 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. 
 
 The third proposition is, that ultimate ends recommend themselves 
 entirely to the sentiments and affections of mankind, without any depend- 
 ence on the intellectual faculties. 
 
 By sentiments he must here mean feelings, 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. 
 
 'J his being understood, I cannot assent to this proposition. 
 
 The author seems to think it implied in the preceding, or a necessary 
 consequence from it, that because an ultimate end cannot 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 
 
CHAP. VII.] AfPllOBATION IMPLIES JUDGMENT. 675 
 
 implies a judgment and belief of favours received, and therefore is de- 
 pendent on the intellectual faculties. A man msty- act from respect to a 
 worthy character as an ultimate end ; but this respect necessarily implies 
 a judgment of worth in the person, and therefore is dependent on the intel- 
 lectual faculties. 
 
 I have endeavoured in the third Essay, before mentioned, to show that, 
 beside the animal principles of our nature, which require will and attention,: 
 but not judgment, there are also in human nature rational 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 aU their exertions, they require not only intention and will, 
 but judgment or reason. 
 
 Therefore until it can be proved that an ultimate end cannot be de- 
 pendent 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 follow, that virtue 
 has no dependence on the intellectual faculties. But as that proposition 
 is not granted, nor proved, this conclusion is left without any support from 
 the whole of the argument. 
 
 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 con- 
 trary 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 founda- 
 tion but an arbitrary structure and fabric in the constitution of the human 
 mind : so that by a change in our structure, 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 feelings, may have 
 different, nay opposite measures of moral good and evil. 
 
 It follows that, from our notions of morals, we can conclude nothing con- 
 cerning 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 descripton of a nature eternal, immutable, and necessarily existent. 
 Mr. Hume seems perfectly consistent with himself, in allowing of no evi- 
 dence 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 a real judgment, the 
 principles of morals stand upon the immutable foundation 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 perceiving 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. 
 
 If it be true that piety, justice, benevolence, wisdom, temperance, for- 
 titude, are in their own nature the most excellent and most amiable qua- 
 lities of a human creature; that vice has an inherent turpitude which 
 merits disapprobation and dislike ; these truths cannot be hid from Him 
 
676 APPROBATION IMPLIES JUDGMENT. [ESSAY V, 
 
 whose understanding is infinite, whose judgment is always according to 
 truth, and who must esteem every thing 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 present 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. 
 
 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 excel- 
 lence 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 imita- 
 tion of God, and the way to obtain his favour. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 fRINIED BY XHOMAS DAVISON, WniXErKIAIlS.. 
 
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