DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/discussionsonphi01hami DISCUSSIONS PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE, EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITY REFORM. CHIEFLY FROM THE EDINBURGH REVIEW; COR- RECTED, VINDICATED, ENLARGED, IN NOTES AND APPENDICES. BY SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BART. X WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY O BY ROBERT TURNBULL, D. D. Truth, like a torch, the more it's shook, it shines .” NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 329 & 331 PEARL STREET, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 1855 . 0 If “Ju “X- AUTHOR’S PREFACE, This publication will not, I hope, be deemed superfluous. Its contents have, in great part, been collected and translated in France and Italy ; in Germany many of the Discussions have been separately translated ; and their general collection has once and again been recommended in the leading critical journals of America. In this country also a considerable number are com- prised in the “ Selections from the Edinburgh Review,” by Mr. Crosse. M. Peisse, the learned French translator, has added to the articles, published by him under the name of “ Fragmens de Philosophie,” sundry important contributions of his own; — an Introduction, an Appendix, and Notes. Of the last especially I have frequently availed myself. In reprinting these criticisms, I have made a few unimportant corrections ; and some not unimportant additions — in length at least, for the new extends to above a half of the old. At the same time I was not averse from evincing, by the way, the punctual accuracy of certain statements, advanced in these crit- icisms, which had been variously and sometimes even vehemently assailed. In one instance, the counter criticism was indeed of such a character, and came from such a quarter, that I could not in propriety let it pass without a full and formal refutation. In preparing an Appendix, supplementary of the previous dis- cussions relative to the English Universities, I insensibly involved myself in a complication of details, which, after a fruitless and wholly unexpected expenditure of time, I found that leisure, and Y1 AUTHOR’S PREFACE. strength, and patience all failed me either to disentangle or to complete ; I was, therefore, in the end constrained to limit the consideration not only to Oxford exclusively, hut exclusively to the education afforded in its fundamental faculty, that of Arts. And in reference even to this, had I anticipated the amount of tedious toil which the mere collecting and verifying of the facts would cost, I might have been disposed to avoid what, though to me a real labor, is so disproportioned to any apparent result. Apart from the Appendices, the new matter, whether of text or notes, except where distinction was needless, is inclosed within square brackets. Edinburgh, March, 1852. *** The Addenda and Corrigenda at the end of the English edition are, in the American republieation, inserted in their proper places in the text. CONTENTS Introductory Essay PAGE xi PHILOSOPHY. I. On the Philosophy op the Unconditioned ; in Reference to Cousin’s Infinito-Absolute (Oct. 1829. — Edinburgh Review, Vol. 1., No. xcix., pp. 194-221.) II. Philosophy of Perception (Oct. 1830. — Vol. lii., No. ciii., pp. 158-207.) 45 III. Johnson’s Translation of Tennemann’s Manual of the History of Philosophy 103 (Oct. 1832. — Vol. lvi., No. cxi., pp. 160-177.) IY. Logic. The recent English Treatises on that Science 120 (April 1833. — -Vol. lvi., No. cxv., pp. 194-238.) V. Deaf and Dumb. History of their Instruction in Refer- ence to Dalgarno 174 (July 1835. — Vol. lxi., No. cxxiv., pp. 407-417.) 7 r VI. Idealism ; with Reference to the Scheme of Arthur Collier (April 1839. — Vol. lxviii., No. cxxxviii., pp. 337-353.) 185 CONTENTS. iii LITERATURE. I. Epistol/e Obscurorum Virorum ; the National Satire of Germany PAGE 202 (March 1831. — Vol. liii., No. ev., pp. 180-210.) II. On the Revolutions of Medicine LEN in Reference to Cul- 238 (July 1832. — Vol. lv., No. cx., pp. 461-479.) EDUCATION. I. On the Study of Mathematics, as an Exercise of Mind. 257 (Jan. 1836. — Vol. lxii., No. cxxvi., pp. 409-455. Note, Vol. lxiii., No. cxxvii., pp. 270-275.) II. On the Conditions of Classical Learning. With Rela- tion to the Defense of Classical Instruction, by Pro- fessor Pillans 325 (Oct. 1836. — Vol. lxiv., No. cxxix., pp. 106-124.) III. On the Patronage and Superintendence of Universities 345 (April 1834. — Vol. lix., No. cxix., pp. 196-227.) IV. On the State of ti-ie English Universities. With more especial Reference to Oxford 383 (June 1831. — Vol. liii., No. cvi., pp. 384-427.) V. On the State of the English Universities. With more especial Reference to Oxford (Supplemental) 430 (Dec. 1831. — Vol. liv., No. cviii., pp. 478-504.) CONTENTS. is PAGE YI. On the Eight of Dissenters to Admission into the En- glish Universities 458 (Oct. 1834. — Yol. lx., No. cxxi., pp. 202-230.) VII. On the Eight of Dissenters to Admission into the En- - glish Universities (Supplemental) 500 (Jan. 1835. — vol. lx., No. cxxii., pp. 422-445.) VIII. Cousin on German Schools 526 (July 1833. — Vol. Ivii., No. cxvi., pp. 505-542.) I. APPENDIX, PHILOSOPHICAL. (A.) Conditions of the Thinkable Systematized; Alphabet of Human Thought 567 (B.) Philosophical Testimonies to the Limitation of our Knowl- edge, from the Limitation of our Faculties 591 II. APPENDIX, LOGICAL. (A.) Of Syllogism, its Kinds, Canons, Notations, etc 602 / B.) On Affirmation and Negation — on Propositional Forms — on Breadth and Depth — on Syllogistic, and Syllogis- tic Notation 609 III. APPENDIX, EDUCATIONAL. (A.) Academical Patronage and Regulations in Reference to the University of Edinburgh ; 640 CONTENTS. PAGE (B.) Tiie Examination and Honors for a Degree in Arts, during Centuries established in the University of Louvain 663 (C.) On a Reform of tiie English Universities; with especial Reference to Oxford, and limited to the Faculty of Arts 669 Index 755 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. The remarkable passage, in which Pascal exhibits, in contrast, the greatness and the littleness of man, has received a striking illustration in the history of speculative philosophy. For, while it embraces some of the richest and profoundest truth ever given to the world, it abounds in the strangest absurdities. What Varro says upon this point is as true now as it was in his day : nihil tarn absurde did potest quod non dica- tur ab aliquis philosophorum. And yet some of the greatest names in history adorn its annals — -Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Leibnitz, Edwards, Kant, Yico, Schelling, Hegel, Reid, and though last, not least, Hamilton, universally acknowledged in Europe and in this country, as “ the first philosophical critic of the age .” 1 Philosophy, too, has often mingled with the highest forms of literature — nay, more — has penetrated into the life of whole nations, exalting, strengthening, and refining their character, by means of those august and beautiful thoughts — “ Which wander through eternity. As an intellectual gymnasium it has proved of immense service to innu- 1 Sir William Hamilton, Bart., is Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the Uni- versity of Edinburgh. He is descended from a noble Scottish family, one of whom, it is said by De Quincey, drew sword at the celebrated battle of Drumclog. He was admired, even when a young man, for his extraordinary literary attainments. His friends called him the Walking Encyclopedia. De Quincey, a competent judge, pro- nounces this impression correct, and says, that not in the region of metaphysics alone, but in almost all other departments of knowledge, he was, even then, thoroughly read. His manners are simple and dignified ; his whole character that of a great and a good man. Though rejecting ontological speculation in the domain both of philosophy and theology, he cherishes evidently the deepest veneration for the great truths not only of “ natural religion,” but of Christianity. He possesses a thorough contempt for the irreligious pantheism of the German philosophy, and especially for the mythic theory of Strauss and Bauer. No one, however, can become familiar with his writings with- out being impressed with his extraordinary candor, as well as his complete mastery of the entire field of philosophical speculation. His candor is not simply a moral qual- ity, but the natural accompaniment of knowledge and power. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. merable minds, in the way of discipline . 1 It is well known, also, that it lies at the basis of all theological science worthy of the name, giving strength and massive grandeur to the systems of Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, and Calvin. Sometimes perverting the simplicity of Christian faith, it has often come to its rescue, and beaten back the hosts of infi- delity and error. If through philosophy the Germans have been se- duced from evangelical truth, by philosophy they are returning to it . 2 Thought encounters thought, speculation wages war with speculation, till at last truth emerges from the strife, vigorous and triumphant. Error, indeed, is often long-lived, but it is not immortal. It may re-ap- pear in different ages, but it must die out at last. On the other hand, truth, which has its essence in the Divine mind, as well as in the course and constitution of nature, is imperishable. “ The eternal years of God are hers.” On which ground we vindicate the amplest and freest discussion in the domain both of religion and philosophy. It must be allowed, however, tha.t the aberrations of speculative in- quiry, thus far, form the larger portion of its history. Sir William Ham- ilton, with all his enthusiasm for philosophical research, is compelled to say, “ that the past history of philosophy has, in a great measure, been only a history of variation and error .” 3 For this there must exist some great underlying cause. Is it in the nature of the subject, or in the mode of its investigation, or in both ? We should reply, in both ; for the subject is one of extreme tenuity and difficulty, and the mode in which it has been investigated exceedingly variant and empirical. It embraces, in its higher relations, a vast and all but illimitable range of inquiry, although, at first sight, it may seem to lie within a narrow compass, and on the very surface of the soul. But it calls up at the outset the great questions pertaining to the foundations of our knowledge, with the possibility of scientific, or what some call, ab- solute truth, the limits of the human intellect, the reality of the distinc- tion between subject and object, the world without and the world within ; and at a higher point of inquiry, the relations of the finite to the infinite, the mind of man to the mind of God. 1 For proof of this see the papers in this volume on University Reform, the Study of Mathematics, &c., most of which, though written for specific occasions, contain much interesting information on this and kindred topics. - The philosophy of Jacobi, eminently spiritual and favorable to Christianity, has exerted great influence in the restoration of the German mind to better views. The movement commenced by Schleiermacher, whose last words were, “ In this faith I die,” has been advanced by the labors of Neander, Tholuck, Nitzsch, Muller, and oth- ers. The theory of Strauss, based upon the Hegelian philosophy, is even now effete in Germany. The French philosophy, at one time sunk in sensualism, has been emancipated by the labors of Cousin, Jouffroy, Damiron, and others. In this respect a great and happy change has been effected. 3 Reid’s Collected Works, vol. i. Note A. p. 747. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xiii The main source of aberration would thus seem to lie in the finite or conditioned nature of man himself, his necessary imperfection of knowl- edge and experience, and the extreme difficulty which he finds in abstract- ing himself from himself, or from the world of material and evanishing forms. In philosophy he is first to make himself the object of contem- plation, and so realize within his own sphere the two poles of subject and object, and thus analyze and disintegrate from himself all the elements of his inner life. Here, even when possessed of extraordinary penetration, patience, and analytic power, with a legitimate method of inquiry, he is almost sure to lose his way, or become bewildered by the singularly deli- cate, complicated, and ever-changing trains of thought and feeling. It is like trying to catch the changeable Proteus on the sea-shore, and extort from him the secrets of truth. Composed of diverse elements, a body and a soul, and thus linked mysteriously to two separate yet corresponding worlds, the world of matter and the world of mind, lying, so to speak, in the bosom of the infinite, with no capacity, except in the way of contra- diction, to form a conception of absolutely limited or unlimited time, float- ing like a star in the immensity of space, between the transient and the eternal, the inquirer can scarcely tell how much he owes to the one, and how much to the other. He finds it difficult, at the very commencement of his inquiries, to ascertain how much he can know of either ; nay, he perhaps finds it impossible to ascertain whether he can know any thing in a scientific or fundamental way. The world of phenomena lies before him obvious enough, and these, in their wide and beautiful classifications, are ranged as formal systems, which men call scientific ; but he wants to get beyond them into the real and immutable cause or causes of things. Especially he longs to penetrate beneath the surface of his own soul, and ascertain the real nature, origin, and authority of human thought. Con- sciousness seems to be his only sphere of knowledge in this matter, and there he finds every thing given apparently under a limit and a relation, which he longs constantly to transcend, and transcending which, he does not know whether he has found phantoms or realities. And even when he feels that he has ascertained some truths satisfactorily, he must con- clude that there is yet “ an infinity of knowledge beyond his reach.” The more he knows, as Socrates, Pascal, and other great thinkers confess, the more deeply he feels his ignorance, not only in reference to nature but to himself .” 1 Here emerges, then, the great cause of aberration in speculative phi- losophy. Its very nature and limits have not been adequately defined. From Thales to Kant, and from Kant to Sir William Hamilton, different methods of inquiry have been followed ; so that at the middle of the nine- teenth century, the question of method is yet in discussion, and we are 1 See upon this point the citations in the “Discussions.” — P. 601, et seq. XIV INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. uot ni possession, ns nil tlie philosophers acknowledge, of n complete sys- tem of psychology, to sny nothing of ontology, or the philosophy of the nbsolute . 1 "What cnn we know ? Is consciousness nn ndequate and supreme au- thority in nil speculative science ? Are subject and object, the Ego and the Eon Ego essentially different ? If so, what are their true connections ? Docs the one mirror the other ? Is every thing known under relation or limit; and is the cognizable to be determined by this fact? Are there ureat underlying principles, or mental data, which must be received by faith, or, which is the same thing, by reason as the faculty of intuitions, on their own simple authority ; and are these the basis and touchstone of all truth ? Can the finite transcend itself by means of reason? Can we deduce the absolute from the relative, the substance from its phenomena? Or, if this he impossible, can we discover, by an inward revelation ( Offen - barung) or intuition ( Anschamtng 2 ), the ground-elements of all science ; and thus, without deduction, grasp the real, the spiritual, and eternal ? Or if this be denied, must we confine ourselves to the manifested and phenomenal, and acknowledge, that the infinite and eternal Cause be- yond, though recognized as an ineffable reality, must remain unknown and incomprehensible ? Is knowledge thus presentative or representative, mediate or immediate ; or is it both ? Do the reason and the understand- ing differ, so that the one is occupied with infallible convictions, the other with mere framework and form ? Is all reason based upon faith (we mean philosophical, not theological faith), or is faith based upon reason ? Must we know to believe, or believe to know? In a word, What is the nature, the genesis, and the limits of human knowledge ? These are high and thrilling questions, interesting to all who are capa- ble, even in the slightest degree, of introspection and reflection, and espe- cially to those upon whom God has bestowed the gift of profound and original thought. In all ages they have engaged, more or less, the atten- tion of those great reflective souls, xvho have longed to realize the ancient philosophical adage of yvtiOi oeavTor. 1 No want is so deeply felt by thinkers as a complete psychology, which must form the basis of all higher speculation. Let any one read carefully Sir W. Hamilton’s “ Supplementary Dissertations,” that particularly on “ Common Sense” (Reid’s Col- lected Works, vol. i. p. 742), and he will be satisfied that this subject has to be in- vestigated afresh, and reconstructed upon a firm and permanent basis. We have in Reid, Stewart, Cousin, and others, lists of the fundamental axioms of human thought ; but they are all inadequate, and need revision. These works are only partial prepar- ations for a true science of mind. The labors of the Germans have been chiefly in the field of the absolute. The popular treatises which go under the name of psychologies, arc mere fragments or compilations. Hickok’s Rational Psychology is too rational- istic to be psychological at all. It is based upon the German notions of ontological or absolute science, and though indicating extensive research and considerable vigor of mind, fails to solve the problems suggested at the very outset of a true psycholo- gical inquiry. 2 Both of these terms are used by Jacobi. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY XV It might he inferred, however, from the very nature of man, determining the character and scope of his thought, which seems to hover midway between the material and the immaterial, the finite and the infinite, that the aberrations of speculative philosophy would he likely to take specific directions, as one or other extreme should prevail. From its limitation, as conditioned by the finite mind, thought would he liable, in the sphere of philosophy, to fall into idealism on the one hand, or materialism on the other ; or if overleaping its apparent boundaries, it would plunge now into absolute pantheism, and anon into universal skepticism. These are the actual extremes between which the pendulum of speculative thought has been found to swing, apparently resting at intervals in the centre, and then inclining now to this, and now to that outermost limit. That phi- losophy should remain in either of these extremes is impossible, so that until it find its true and immutable rest in the realty of things, variation will continue to he its law. But we propose to verify these general statements by a rapid survey of the progress of speculative thought from the earliest to the present times. This will aid us to appreciate the vast importance of a right method of philosophizing, as it will set before us the present condition of the science, and the peculiar position occupied by Sir William Hamilton, whose con- tributions to philosophy and logic, though occasional and fragmentary, are of a character so profound and fundamental, as to form an era in the his- tory of mental science. No one can be said to be familiar with the pres- ent condition and future prospects of philosophy who has not mastered these remarkable criticisms and discussions. 1 Our survey, of course, must be a mere outline, making no pretensions to completeness, but touching simply such points as may serve to bring out, in more articulate form, the general and somewhat imperfect statement already made respecting the nature and sources of philosophical error, falling as it does, now on this side, and now on that of what seems to be real and immutable truth, and thus giving rise to idealism and pantheism on the one hand, or to materialism and atheism on the other. The history of Philosophy may be divided into four periods — The Ori- ental; the Greek; the Medieval; the Modern. These we shall con- sider in their order. 1. If we ascend to the dawn of speculation among the Oriental philo- 1 We include those appended to his edition of the Collected Writings of Reid (Edinburgh, 1846) as also his various criticisms scattered through the body of that work ; for while defending Reid’s fundamental position, in opposition to Hume and the skeptical school, he has corrected his mistakes, and given occasionally clearer and fuller analyses of the fundamental elements of the human mind. On the subject of Logic, of which we have no room to speak, he has defended its validity, and simpli- fied its forms. For information upon this subject see “Discussions,” p. 116, et seq. p. 614, et seq.; Blakey’s History of Logic, and Mr. Spencer Baynes’s Essav on the ‘ New Analytic of Logical Forms.” XVI INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. sopkies, or rather theosophies, vast and shadowy, like the countries which gave them birth, we shall discover the two prevalent tendencies referred to ; though the current of Oriental thought has always inclined rather to idealism than to materialism. Both of these, however, are real- ized among the Brahminical sages, and are occasionally found existing in a blended form, giving rise to a confused, sensual pantheism. It was long, however, before philosophy disentangled itself, in any degree, from religion, so that we find, lying at the basis of all the speculations of the Hindoo mind, a complicated system of mythological worship, in which a few tra ditionary fragments respecting God and the soul are probably mingled with the veneration of nature or the universe. For this reason their religion is more a worship of the outward and carnal, than of the in- ward and divine. Still the world is regarded as a whole, and worshiped, in its various elements and forms, as a manifestation of the one indivisi- ble, eternal Brahm, or absolute Being. The moment, however, that speculative thought took a decisive form, it vacillated constantly between the real and the ideal, the inner and the outer worlds. Cousin states de- cisively that the first fruit of their philosophy, the moment it became in- dependent of the Yedas, or sacred books, was atheism . 1 This system, which goes far back into the annals of India, was called Sankhya, the author of which was Kapila, a sort of Hindoo Condillac. According to Kapila all thought is derived from sensation ; consequently there is nothing but matter. Synchronous with this but diverging from it, was the phi- losophy of Pantandjali, which as the other made nothing of God made every thing of God, but how is not so clearly explained . 2 Opposed to the narrow and atheistic philosophy of Kapila was the theory of rationalism, called Nyaya, which is found to be nothing less than a system of subject- ive idealism. As in Fichte’s philosophy, the soul is the centre of this phi- losophy, and is infinite in its principle. True, it is admitted to be a special substance, distinct from the body, and different in different indi- viduals ; so that this form of idealism was not consistently carried out. But this was subsequently done in the philosophy called Vedanta, which denied the existence as finite realities of both matter and mind, and recognized one universal Substance, as nature and God. The final abso- lute verity according to Karika, a celebrated commentator on the San- khya was this : “ I neither am, nor is aught mine, nor do I exist.” 1 Hist, de la Philosopliie. Second Series. Tome ii. p. 120. See also Tennemann’s Manual, p. 41. 2 There is much uncertainty respecting the forms of the Hindoo philosophy. Some, among whom is Ritter, doubt whether it ought to be dignified with the name of phi- losophy at all. Hegel in his Geschichte der Philosopliie, says that their philosophy is “ identical with their religion,” and that its “ fundamental idea is this, that there is one Universal Substance from which all things proceed, gods, animals, inorganic nature, and man.” INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xvn .Thus pantheism, in its most decisive form, was made the basis not only of Hindoo philosophy but of Hindoo worship. All things come from Brahm and thither all return. Mind is matter, and matter is mind, and all is God 1 Hegel is much pleased with the pantheistic philosophy of India, and quotes with approbation the Bhagavad Gita, in which the god Krishnu, an incarnation of Vishnu and thence of Brahm, is introduced addressing the warrior Ardjouna : “ I am the author and destroyer of the universe, etc. I am the breath which dwells in the body of the living, the progenitor and the governor. * * * * I am the beginning, the middle, and the end of all things. I am under the stars the radiant sun, under the lunar signs the moon, the sweet perfume of the earth, the splendor of the flame, the life in animals,” &c. 2 Hence the key for the deliverance of the soul, according to the school of Vedantam, is in these words, which the Hindoo sages have to repeat incessantly, Aham, Ava, param Brahma, I am the supreme God — the last result of a fanatical pantheism. 3 Tholuck in his interesting work on the pantheistic philosophy of the Persians (Ssufismus) informs us that the Mohammedan heretical philoso- phers, the Soofies, teach that God is every thing, in the most absolute sense of the expression, nihil esse prceter Deam, that the external universe is a divine emanation, and that absorption in the primal essence is the highest good. In a word, their doctrine is that of a sublime, inexor- able pantheism, in which all distinction between subject and object, being and thought, holiness and sin, God and man is swallowed up and lost. The Budhists of India, an offshoot from Brahminism, materialize all things, consequently deny an eternal God, and long for Burchan, which is simply annihilation. Thus the Oriental soul vibrates darkly between pantheism and atheism, longing for, but apparently never finding, the “ Unknown God.” 2. It was in Greece, however, that ancient speculative thought devel- oped itself with the greatest vigor. Somewhat under the influence of the Oriental mind, but acute, restless, penetrating, practical, and pressing philosophy, as all else, to its extreme logical verge, the Grecian thinkers 1 See Cousin’s Hist, de la Philosophie. Second Series. Tome ii. Sixieme Leqon. Tennemann’s Manual (Bohn’s Ed.) pp. 37, 38. Compare Ritter’s Ancient Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 60-128. For more extended information consult Colebrooke’s Essay, and Miscellanies. Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vols. i. and ii. 2 See Geschichte der Philosophie, Schriften, T. 13, p. 152, et seq. Hegel is espe- cially pleased with the Sankhya, and imagines that he sees in this his own funda- mental principle, especially the three momenta or qualities of “ The Absolute Idea.” p. 154. It is well known that, in the Hindoo Cosmogony, Brahm, the absolute and in- conceivable becomes manifest in Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, who represent the creat- ing, preserving, and destroying powers of the Universe. These form a circle, in which all things proceed from and return into the absolute. This, therefore, in the form of theosophy, would represent the three Momenta, or Trinity of Hegel’s AbsoluteTdea. 3 Tholuck's Ssufismus, p. 214, quoted from Lettres Edifiantes. b INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xviii seized, with avidity, the great problems of existence, and projected an infinite variety of plausible and splendid theories. But “the boundless Power, the infinite Substance of the Orientals,” as Hegel suggests, “ was determined, limited, individualized by the Hellenic genius.” In India, grand and colossal, the forces of nature are deified ; unity, immensity, eternity, are its leading ideas, absorption its longing and aim. On the other hand, the gods of Greece are “the offspring of passion and thought,” and its philosophy that of the Kosrnos, or visible universe, as limited, but complete, beautiful, harmonious. The outward and formal, indeed, is finally transcended, and the essence of philosophy is recognized in the absolute and ideal. But nature, with its grace, beauty, and movement, supplies the chief inspiration of the Greek mind, and the absolute or ideal is little more than an abstraction of material forms. Never in the annals of history did thought expatiate with more free- dom and energy ; and here, if anywhere, might philosophy have reached perfection and solved the enigma of the universe. But we find it con- stantly vacillating between subject and object, sensualism and idealism, atheism and pantheism, and finally, running out into a flat and arid skepticism. The earlier Greek philosophers are speculative naturalists, who attempt to solve the origin of the universe by a reference to natural or occult forces. The idea of a supreme and controlling mind seems to haunt them, but seldom comes out in clear and articulate form. Soon they range themselves under two determinate schools — the Ionian and the Eleatic ; the former, with some exceptions, teaching a system of natural- ism, or refined materialism, with occasional glimpses of an all-penetrating Mind or God; the other, a system of idealism, which issues in a lofty but bewildering pantheism . 1 Thales, the founder of the Ionian school, derived all things from water, or moisture, as a generative principle, accompanied or followed, it is difficult to say which, by a sort of magnetic or mental en- ergy, pervading universal nature . 2 Anaximander advanced a step further, and maintained that all things, or the material universe in its totality, is the only God. Anaximanes, and somewhat later Diogenes of Apollonia, asserted that air and not water is the true source of all existence ; while Hera- clitus of Ephesus, oracular and profound, found it in the more delicate and resplendent element of fire. Perhaps, as Hitter suggests, he used the term fire in a figurative sense, and really believed, as he seems to teach, 1 The Ionian school varies exceedingly, as Ritter (Hist, of A. Ph. p. 201, ct seq.) has shown. We do not find any decided continuity in their views. 2 Thales seems to have regarded the Kosmos as a sort of animal, having a vital, or seminal principle, by which it is nourished. He has been represented, on the author- ity of Cicero, who mistook the testimony of Aristotle, as a sublime Theist. If he believed in God, he made water and God primary essences. In his view, all things are “ ensouled.” Amber and the magnet, for example, he represents as possessing “ souls.” His term for soul is \]s vx q. — Aristotle, De Animo, i. 2. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xix that the all-creative, all-penetrating power is infinite and eternal Reason. Judging from the spirit and scope of his speculations, he belongs rather to the school of Elea than to that of Ionia. His Eternal Fire produces and absorbs all individual phenomena. “All is and is not.” “On the same stream we embark, and we embark not ; we are, and we are not.” “Life is death, and death is life.” “All is contrary, and yet all is har- mony.” A doctrine which must have been posited in the idea of abso- lute and eternal unity. To him the universe is “ensouled” and divine; in a word, pantheism, as in the school of Elea, is the logical result of his system. Whence the force of his favorite apothegm, “ Enter ; for here, too, are gods.” 1 It may be naturally supposed, that according to the views of most of the Ionian philosophers, the soul of man is either a natural energy, or a mere mechanical force, somewhat refined ; consequently fatalism is its logical issue. From this source sprang the atomic theory of Leucippus and Democri- tus, according to which the universe, internal and external, is composed of definite atoms. The soul is a collection of such atoms, igneous, and spherical, producing at once motion and thought. The theory was in- genious, and admitted, in its elucidation and defense, of much eloquent discussion, hut could never transcend the forms of matter, or lift the soul to the idea of supreme and eternal perfection. Xenophanes, a rhapsodist, as well as philosopher, is usually recognized as the founder of the Eleatic school, and certainly attained, at least by glimpses, to lofty views of God and the universe ; but he found himself bewildered by the problem of the One and the All, the All and the One Thus he says, mournfully : “ Certainly no mortal yet knew, and ne’er shall there be one Knowing well both the gods and the All, whose nature we treat of : For when, by chance, he at times may utter the true and the perfect, He wists not unconscious ; for error is spread over all things.” 2 Between the Ionian school, with its world of natural forces, and the Eleatic with its abstract or ideal one, we find the Italian school founded by Pythagoras, who, with a profounder insight than most of his contem- poraries, penetrated beneath mere phenomena, and tried to solve the in- terior relations of things. His mind, like that of Spinoza, in more modem times, was eminently mathematical, and so he constituted the universe 1 Ritter, Hist, of Anc. Phil. i. 255. 2 Hence the appropriateness of the words put into his mouth by Timon, the Sillograph : “ 0 that mine were the deep mind, prudent and looking to both sides ; Long, alas ! have I strayed on the road of error, beguiled, And am now hoary of years, yet exposed to doubt and distraction Of all kinds ; for wherever I turn to consider I am lost in the One and All." XX INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. of numbers, and recognized the Deity as a simple numerical unit, from which the universe is evolved. “ The Ionians,” says Hegel, “ conceived the absolute under a natural form ; instead of this, the Pythagoreans sub- stituted Number, which is neither a material thing, nor pure thought, but something between them, which partakes of the nature of both.” Chaos is organized by numbers, and the universe is both one and many. The Eleatic school veas formed under Pythagorean influence. Unity was its central principle, and diversity, or plurality, was gradually elim- inated. It was finally abandoned by Zeno, who denied the innate energy, and the consequent real existence of the external world. Parmenides maintained that thought is one with its object, one with actual existence, and thus approached the absolute idealism of the modern German school. In this way the schools of Ionia and Elea represented the two extremes of philosophical speculation, and combated each other with various suc- cess, the consequence of which was the rise of many Skeptics who despised them both, and a very few Eclectics who attempted, but without decided success, to blend the peculiarities of the two systems . 1 At last Socrates made his appearance, the noblest and purest of all tbe Greek philosophers, the friend and teacher of Alcibiades, Xenophon, and Plato, who, like Reid in Scotland, recalled his countrymen to the reality of things and the dictates of common sense, and thus created an epoch in the history of thought. It was not, however, in precisely the same import of the expression, as that attached to it by Dr. Reid, and explained by Sir W. Hamilton, that Socrates appealed to the dictates of ; common sense.” He made nn attempt, on philosophical grounds, to ascertain the fundamental axioms of thought, or to construct a psycho- logical system. He called attention only to common convictions, con- ceded principles, obvious every-day uses ; exhorted men to study them- selves, and not cheat their minds by prejudices and appearances, and especially by an unmeaning logomachy. His method, if he had any, was that of clear definitions, admirable within certain limits, but liable to great abuse. He poured contempt upon the shallow pretensions of the popular teachers, and endeavored to turn the minds of men in upon them- selves. “ Know thyself,” was his great maxim, goodness his end and aim. He had no theory, properly speaking, wrote no book, founded no school. He followed common sense, “the good demon,” as he symbolized it — the inspiration of the Almighty, we should say, “the light which lighteth every man,” who will heed it; in other words, the deep spon- taneous convictions of tbe well-ordered soul, which evermore suggest the reality of a Supreme Being, the beauty and authority of virtue. Man 1 When vve speak of the school of Ionia, it is rather in deference to usage, for we have already seen that one of the number was rather an idealist than a materialist. Indeed there is so much diversity among them, that its members alone might be taken as representatives of the two extremes of philosophical speculation. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xxi comes from God, as he is made for God, and he has only to open his eyes to see him, and his heart to feel him. “ He is not far from any one of us ; seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things ; for in him we live, and move, and have our being.” But the instant man begins to speculate on the absolute, as if he could comprehend it in its essence, he falls into error and doubt the most bewildering and fatal. By a kind of sacred intuition, Socrates seemed to understand this ; and his glory con- sists in following that intuition to its legitimate, practical results. That he had better views of the Divine nature and government of the universe than the most of his contemporaries, can not he questioned ; but he was wise enough not only to know, but to acknowledge his ignorance, as he playfully suggests when accounting for the decision of the oracle of Apollo, which pronounced him the wisest of men. Properly speaking, Socrates was a moralist, rather than a metaphysi- cian, and longed, as intimated in the Platonic dialogues, for some higher light than reason alone could furnish. His death, one of the most sublime in the history of ancient times, crowned his life with imperishable honor, and produced a deeper conviction than all the speculations of the schools, of the spirituality and immortality of man. Notwithstanding the beauty of his life and the excellence of his max- ims, it is singular that under the eyes of Socrates, and as one of the im- mediate results of the speculative spirit then rife among the Greeks, sprang two schools, the Cynic and the Cyrenaic, the one resulting in a fanatical rigor, the other in gross licentiousness. Skepticism was defend- ed by the Socratic dialectics under Euclid of Megara. But Grecian philosophy culminated in Plato and Aristotle, the first to present speculative thought in a truly scientific form. Apparently diverg- ing at the outset, we find these great thinkers coming together in the higher sphere of speculation, and constituting the universe of absolute thought . 1 The temperaments of the two men are different, but the re- sults to which they arrive are very much alike. Both transcend all out- ward forms, whether of nature or the finite intellect, and expatiate in the boundless regions of unconditioned being. Aristotle seems empirical, but in reality is pre-eminently rationalistic ; for while he rejects Plato’s ideas as actual entities, and maintains their simple subjective character, he is not quite consistent with himself, and in the end constitutes the universe 1 No man has been more completely misrepresented in modern times by the cur rent writers on the subject, than Aristotle. He is constantly charged with empiri cism, and in this respect unfavorably contrasted with Plato. Whereas he was Plato's proper successor, in the development of metaphysical science. Less eloquent and more logical, he stands much in the same relation to Plato, that Hegel does to Schel- ling. He uniformly begins with experience, perhaps never entirely loses sight of it. Still he is as speculative as Plato, even while he criticises him. But as he takes every opportunity of criticising his master, it has been inferred that his philosophy is entirely different. xxii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. of thought, and so becomes, in a different direction, as ideal as Plato . 1 2 The two men possess different temperaments and different styles both of thought and composition ; for while Aristotle with his peculiarly clear and methodical mind, constructs his vast edifice, according to architect- ural rules, to borrow the figure of Goethe, Plato, mystical and imagina- tive, ascends to heaven in a pyramid of flame. Yet Aristotle, while laying his foundations on the earth, advances in the same direction, and according to Hegel, transcends his master in the conception of the absolute idea . 3 By far the most learned man of his age, both in the departments of speculative and experimental science, more learned even than Plato, with whom he studied twenty years, the author of the syllogism, and the father of natural history, this illustrious thinker made a near approach to (he methods of Bacon and Newton. But enamored of speculation, Aris- totle finally identified being and thought, indulged in the most subtle speculation on entities and quiddities, and fell into a notion respecting the primal Essence, first as absolute or unknown, then as active and real- ized, making God (rather to Oelov the divine, to a-neepov the infinite), the mere thought of the universe, organized in matter, and coming to consciousness in man, a system akin to that of Hegel, and giving birth, in its last result, to a profound religious indifference. Plato, dialectical, yet imaginative, does not deny the facts of the ex- ternal world any more than the facts of consciousness. He starts from these, but speedily transcends them. His system is ideal and sublime. He derives all things from ideas, which he regards not merely as names or abstractions, but as actual entities, having a necessary and eternal ex- istence. To him existence and ideas are identical, the process of thought is the process of the Universe. Having gained this height, and beholding all things in the absolute, Plato proceeds to construe the real world by means of archetypal ideas. He naturally despises the outward and phenomenal, and while recognizing the Supreme Cause, as an infinite Essence, he makes him so absolute — in other words, so abstract and ideal — as to divest him of all personality . 3 The primal Idea or Essence, in which are included all other ideas, thus transcends all our approaches of thought, above all, of affection and worship. The reason or soul of man is a part or emanation of the Universal Reason, and finds its highest aim in min- gling with its perfect ideal and source. It is fallen from its primitive state, for it existed in the past eternity ; whence the doctrine of innate ideas, or of reminiscence — as Plato called it — through which it must once more re-ascend to its fountain, by abstraction from the outward and tran- 1 For proof of this see the 12th chapter of his “ Metaphvsica.” Compare Ritter, Hist, of Phil. iii. pp. 176-178. 2 See Gcschichte der Philosophic. (Schriften, T. xiv.) pp. 298-301. Plato’s god of the Universe (Kosrnos) is very different from the Supreme Idea , or Reason, for he represents it as created by the Supreme Reason. See the close of the Timaeus. Compare Timams, cxiv. ; Pha;drus, 55. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xxiii sient world . 1 The Supreme Reason organized chaos (Hyle, a sort of re- fined basis of matter, eternal as God) into order and beauty. But as there is nothing beautiful but intelligence, and no intelligence without a soul, he placed a soul in the body of the world (Kosmos), and represented it as a living, conscious existence. Being an animal, having a soul as well as a body, it resembles its Creator, as human beings resemble the Kosmos, or, to ~dv £o)ov, the universal animal ! This was the work of the Su- preme Reason ; so that the instant this vast animal began to live, think, and move, God looked upon it and was glad . 2 Plato combines, apparently, the peculiarities of the Oriental and Grecian minds ; and his system is not without its inconsistencies and contradic- tions. Unity, however, is its central idea ; abstraction and idealization its methods. He is dialectical and mystical, logical and poetical, by turns But evermore he soars upward and onward toward the true, the beauti- ful, and the good, in their perfect and eternal archetypes. The soul, though fallen into matter and sin, has a reminiscence of its sublime ori- gin, and renouncing the senses, ascends to purity and God . 3 If Plato’s metaphysical views are developed in the Parmenides, as his theosophic and cosmological are in the Timceus, then Hegel is probably right, when he maintains that Plato conceived God, cr the Absolute, as “ the identity of the identical and the non-identical,” in which all real and permanent dis- tinction between subject and object, finite and infinite, is lost, and nothing is left but relation and “ becoming.” The universe lies between two zeros, or abstractions, being and non-being ; so that, as Plato teaches, “ if the One exist it is nothing,” and yet “ it is every thing,” that is, nothing in itself as absolute, but every thing and all, as realized and concrete . 4 But without entering into this obscure and disputed matter, we may be permitted to say that idealism is the true genius of the Platonic philoso- phy. God geometrizes the universe by ideas and relations. From the one abstract fountain, all existence — sun, stars, worlds, gods, animals, and men — flow into outward, phenomenal existence. It is but a step to say that the external world is only an appearance, a beautiful but be- wildering masquerade ; or, as Emerson has expressed it, that “ God is the only substance, and his method illusion.” Plato scarcely says so : but he supplies the premises from which others deduce the appalling error. An ideal pantheism is the logical consequence of the Platonic philosophy. From Plato and Aristotle, then, we see the Platonic and Peripatetic schools inclining to the opposite extremes of abstract rationalism and 1 For the doctrine of reminiscence, see the Phsedo, 47, 48, 49 ; Phsedrus, 61, 62. See also Timasus, clxxii. 2 Timaeus, cxiv. 3 See the beautiful mythic hymn, as Socrates calls it, in which the fall and subse- quent re-ascension of the soul is figured. Phsedrus, 55, 56, et seq. 4 See the Parmenides, 'passim, which seems to be a discussion on the relations of being and non-being, or, as it were, the relations between yes and no, something and nothing. XXIV INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. blank materialism . 1 Epicurus, who founded a school of his own, which nearly absorbed all the rest, represents sensualism ; so that throughout Greece, all faith in the supernatural began to be lost. At last, about the time of Christ, the two prevalent forms of philosophy were, the stern doc- trine of the Stoics, founded on the idea of pantheism and inexorable fate ; and a system of Epicurean indifference, which resolved all virtue into a calculation of prudence, or a wise pursuit of pleasure. The same views reappeared among the Romans, with some revival in Cicero and others, of the Platonic spirit. It had lost, however, its genius and inspiration, and claimed attention only as a system of academic doubt . 2 Indeed a secret skepticism was the terrible shadow which accom panied all ancient speculation, and seemed eventually to take possession of the entire Greek and Roman minds. The Elder Pliny, who was willing to perish at Vesuvius, gives it mournful utterance in the following words. “ All religion is the offspring of necessity, weakness, and fear. What God is, if in truth he be any thing distinct from the world, it is beyond the compass of the human understanding to know. But it is a foolish delusion, which has sprung from human weakness and pride, to imagine that such an infinite spirit would concern himself about the petty affairs of man. It is difficult to say, whether it might not be better for men to be wholly without religion, than to have one of this kind, which is a reproach to its object. The vanity of man and his insatiable longing after existence, have led him also to dream of a life after death. A being full of contra- dictions, he is the most wretched of creatures ; since the other creatures have no wants transcending the bounds of their nature. Man is full of desires and wants, that reach to infinity, and can never be satisfied. His nature is a lie — uniting the greatest poverty with the greatest pride. Among these so great evils the best thing God has bestowed upon man is the power of taking his own life !” The “ nature” of man, however, must be met ; and skepticism can never satisfy the cravings of the soul. Hence we find, subsequently to the Chris- tian era, a revival of the Platonic philosophy in Alexandria, mingled with some Oriental elements of theosophic mysticism. Gorgeous and imposing, appealing to the deepest wants of our nature, and promising the realiza- tion of our fondest hopes, in union with infinite beatitude, Neo-Platonism now favored, and now opposed Christianity. Occasionally it was pro- foundly pious, as in Clement and Origen, and left an indelible impression on the new faith. It tended, however, to the absolute unity of all things. Its predominant element was pantheism. Both Plotinus and Proclus bor- 1 The Peripatetics did not fully understand their master. His system seemed em- pirical, and opposed to the Platonic — which Aristotle constantly took every opportu- nity of criticising. It thence became, in effect, really empirical and materialistic. 2 It is on this account we meet such singular inconsistencies in the philosophical writings of Cicero. For now he seems to believe in God and the immortality of the soul, and anon to doubt these fundamental truths. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XXV rowed largely, not only from Plato, but from the Eastern Magi. Their philosophy had some grand and imposing features ; but it could not escape the vortex of the absolute, and went out in a paroxysm of mystic trans- cendentalism. The same remarks will apply to the system of the Gnostics, who aimed at absolute knowledge, first opposing, and then adopting Christianity, in a modified, or mutilated form. God according to their system is the abso- lute Being, from whom emanate all other beings, seons, gods and men in regular gradation and succession. Creation is represented, as in the Hin- doo philosophy, as an emanation, pure and resplendent at its first issue, but becoming grosser and darker at its extremities. 1 This closes our review of the history of ancient philosophy ; and before proceeding to the consideration of the modern, including the mediaeval, we may be permitted to inquire, what is the net result ? Has the true method of philosophical investigation been found ? Has unity or con- sistency been attained ? Have the great truths of the soul, of God and immortality, and the relations between them been scientifically estab- lished ? Is man thoroughly known ? Is God plainly revealed ? If so, why all this variation and doubt, this “building up and tearing down’’ of theories, this strange and fatal bewilderment ? Do we not feel, at our inmost soul, that the very beginning of a reliable philosophy is yet to be sought ; and that its foundations must be laid, not in wild ontological con- jectures, which transcend the limits of the human mind, but in a true scientific investigation of the elementary facts of human consciousness ? A fine thing it is to be gods, soaring on wings of light, beyond the visible diurnal sphere, and reading the secrets of nature and of God, in the very centre of the absolute ; but alas ! we are compelled to confess ourselves plain mortals who by patient and legitimate inquiry, or by divine aid, must build up the pyramid of human science, with its summit bathed in light, and penetrating the encircling heavens. 3. We do not find the mediajval or the more recent philosophies com- pletely severed from the ancient systems, yet they have a character and a career of their own. The same questions, and the same modes of treat- ment reappear, but modified by new and powerful elements. Christianity especially has exercised an immense influence upon philosophical thought, now checking and now elevating its speculations, and above all giving it a more decisively moral and practical character. Still philosophical in- quiry has asserted its independence, and often lapsed into the old extremes, from which it would seem all but impossible to preserve it. The earlier Fathers of the Church, more practical than speculative, kept within narrow limits, contenting themselves with the divine authority of the new and 1 Ritter, vol. iv. p. 545, et seq. Histoire Critique Du Gnosticisme, par M. J. Matter. Tome i. pp. 220, 339. For an abridged statement see same author, “Histoire Du Christianisme.” Tome i. pp. 160-178. Neander, Church Hist, vol i. p. 366, et seq. XXVI INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. wonderful revelation which had broken upon their minds. As soon, how- ever, as they began to philosophize with any freedom they lost themselves, in the theory of matter and spirit, and especially of emanation. Though professing a spiritual religion, they found it difficult to dispossess their minds of material notions and images. Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, and especially Arius, with their divergent doctrines on the divinity of the Logos, all fall into this error. Clement and Origen, from their position, are under Platonic influence, and rise into higher re- gions, but give too much play to the mere sensuous imagination. Athan- asius and somewhat later Augustine, especially the latter, are more spirit- ual, and distinguish clearly between matter and mind, finite and infinite existence. The necessity of defending the great truths of Christianity against all opposers naturally introduced a more logical and systematic method of reasoning ; and, in course of time, we find the speculative spirit becoming predominant in the Church. The reverence cherished for the Scriptures by the early doctors, who attempt to philosophize, prevented them from wandering too far in the labyrinths of speculation, but they fre- quently marred the simplicity of the truth by their subtile reasonings and fierce polemics. 1 In the middle ages the predominant philosophy was that of Aristotle, applied as a form or method to the dogmas of the Church. This produced an elaborate system of theological dialectics, controlled and limited by ecclesiastical authority. The schoolmen could not, therefore, well rush into the extremes of speculation, and yet how frequently is the God of their reason, a mere logical quiddity, or metaphysical abstraction. It must be acknowledged, however, that this era, limited as it was, in facilities and resources for philosophical study, was rich in all the elements of profound and vigorous thought. The few that speculated at all, did so with a patience and a grasp which ought to command the respect of all succeeding times. The very names of the teachers and theologians of the middle ages, suggest, even to those but slightly acquainted with their liter- ature, a feeling of veneration. “ Scholasticos,” says Leibnitz, “ agnosco abundare ineptiis ; sed aurum est in illo coeno.” In truth there were giants in those days, though confined within narrow bounds, and beating with heavy tread the same circle of mystic speculation. Anselm of Can- terbury, a genius of the highest order, with the 'deepest reverence for the teachings of the Church, ranged the whole field of speculative thought, much in the imaginative spirit of Plato, mingled with the logical subtilty of Aristotle, and gave the process of “ reason seeking the faith,” and of “ faith seeking the reason.” His “ Cur Deus Homo,” is remarkable for the lofty and comprehensive range of its thought. He finds in the higher unity of absolute existence, which is God, and the necessity, as Plato and 1 For an ample and critical account of “ Christian Philosophy,” see the 5th and 6th vols. of Ritter’s “ Geschichte der Alt. Philos.” A French translation has appeared from the pen of Trullard. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. Xxvii the Platonics abundantly teach, that such absolute Being should limit himself in his manifestation through the Logos, in order to his comprehensi- bility by the human mind. So that in the very essence of the Divine Nature, he discovers a basis for the doctrine of the incarnation. But he is not satisfied with vindicating the essential truth of Christianity alone ; he must establish, on a firm foundation, the reality of natural religion. Finding the idea of absolute or infinite Being subsisting in the human mind, which is itself finite and limited, he infers that it could not have originated there. Its very possibility, on the principle of contradiction, as developed in the Aristotelian dialectics, above all its actual presence in the soul of man, proves its reality : the precise argument of Descartes and Leibnitz, the validity of which has been vehemently disputed to the pres- ent day. Anselm, great and good, is well entitled to the appellation, which he received in the middle ages, of the Doctor T rancendentahs . 1 Others followed him, some tending to idealism, others to sensationalism ; some holding to abstractions, others, as they supposed, to realities. Among these we have Peter Lombard, Mcigister Sententiarmn Sapientum; Alexander Hales, Count of Gloucester, the Doctor Irrefragibilis, author of the Sumrna TTniversse Theologiee ; and Thomas Aquinas, that high born Dominican monk, founder of the school of the Realists, called by his schoolmates at Cologne the Dumb Ox (perhaps from his early silence and strength), who fulfilled the prophecy of his master Albertus Magnus (Albert of Bollstadt) by “ giving such a bellow of learning as was heard all over the world .” 1 2 3 He was a profound thinker and a pious man, being justly denominated by his contemporaries “ the Angel of the Schools.” He maintained the reality of those great productive and universal ideas (or truths), under which all phenomena, both as particulars and as species, are ranged ; and hence reasoned a priori , from substance to attributes, from causes to effects. Having spent a long life, in the study of that philosophy, in which ideas, as with Plato, took the form of archetypal entities, mingled with prayers and canticles, he died in peace at Terracina, in Italy, saying, “This is my rest for ages without end.” Somewhat later we find John of Fidanza, com- monly called Bonaventura, the Doctor Seraphicus, who taught that religion is true philosophy, and rose, like Boehmen and Fenelon in subsequent times, to the sublimest heights of mystic fervor ; Henry de Gand, the Doctor Solemnis ; Richard of Middletown the Doctor Solidus ; Giles of Cologne, the Doctor Fundatissimus ; Vincent de Beauvais, the teacher of 1 Portions of Anselm’s Works have been recently published. They are very curi- ous, as containing speculations and modes of expression similar to those of the Ger- man philosophers. Des Cartes, Leibnitz, and even Hegel, are anticipated in many things. 2 The Realists maintained the reality of universal ideas, contending that they were more than names, as the Nominalists, their opponents, taught. They thus approached the Platonic view, and were actually the idealists of their time. The term Realists had a very different signification then from what it has now. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. x.wiii St. Louis, and author of the Speculum Doctrinale, Naturale, Historiale; and above all John Duns Scotus, the Doctor Subtilis, that arid but penetrating Scotchman or rather Northumbrian, the great expounder of Nominalism, who affirmed with Aristotle that universal ideas are only the names of ab- stract generalizations, under which all individual phenomena may be conveniently classified. He taught that the end of philosophy is to find out “ the quiddity of things — that every thing has a kind of quiddity or quiddi- tive existence, and that nothingness is divided into absolute and relative nothingness, which has no existence out of the understanding.” Belong- ing to the same era and climbing the same dizzy heights of philosophic speculation were Roger Bacon, the Doctcrr Mirabilis; Raymond Lully (Lulli), the Doctor Illmninatus, a fervid Spanish monk, who invented the logical system called Ars Universalis ; and John d’Occam, the Doctor Invincibilis , Singulciris ct Venerabilis, that redoubtable Franciscan monk, who told Louis of Bavaria, “ that if he would defend him with the sword, he would defend him with the pen.” He studied under Duns Scotus, revived the discussions of his master, and taught with such success, that the Nominalists became victorious in a dispute, which, in the spirit of the times, often proceeded from words to blows. In addition to these, we ought not to forget those other philosophical or religious doctors who illu- mined the dark ages, as we call them, starred as those ages were with such brilliant lights ; Francis of Mayence, Magister Acutus Abstract ionum ; William Durand, the Doctor Resolutissimus ; Walter Burleigh, the Doctor . ' Planus ct Perspicuus, author of the first history of Mediaeval Philosophy ; and especially Gerson of Paris, Doctor Cliristianissimus, who, familiar with all the science and learning of the times, abandoned the -whole for the knowledge of Christ, spent a life of great purity and devotion, vindi- cated communion with God as the only true philosophy, and wrote, there is reason to believe, “ The Imitation of Christ” by Thomas a’ Kempis . 1 We can not enter into the speculations of these acute and learned doc- tors — suffice it to say that they anticipate, in forms more or less perfect, many of the ideas and discussions of more recent times. Descartes, Leibnitz and others, often echo their most peculiar opinions. The same speculative and often extravagant disputes on the nature and origin of ideas, the relations of the finite to the infinite, the quiddity or essence of matter and of mind, the nature of God, and the production of the universe, with much that is good and beautiful and true, run through the entire history of mediaeval philosophy. The great truths of religion, modified by the notions of the times, were reduced, by means of the Aristotelian 1 For a brief and elegant account of Mediaeval Philosophy see Cousin, Hist, de la Philosophic, Second Series, Tome ii. pp. 221, 257. See also the article “Abelard” in the “ Fragmens Philosophiques.” Also “Abelard” par M. C. Reinusat. The 3d vol. Bruckcr’s Critical History of Philosophy ; Neander’s “Church History,” 3d and 4th vols Tenncmann, Gcschichte der Ph. Tom. viii. , Manual p. 215, et seq INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xxix dialectics, to the region of pure ideas, and set to fighting on scientific principles. One of the consequences was the prevalence, in the fifteenth century, within the Catholic church, of a heartless skepticism, making the reformation of the sixteenth a matter of absolute necessity. 4. Previous to this, however, philosophy had begun to extricate itself from the trammels of ecclesiastical authority ; but it was to fall as usual into the extremes of atheism and pantheism. The revival in Italy of classical literature introduced Plato and the Greek philosophy. The in- fluence of Aristotle and the Schoolmen was abjured. Great enthusiasm prevailed, and the transition, though blind, impulsive, and irregular, was not without hope. But the most vigorous and independent thinkers, with slight exceptions, were either materialists or ideal pantheists. On the side of the naturalists, or materialists, we have Campanella, Vanini and others, with a strong tendency to atheism ; on that of the idealists, the more generous and hopeful of the two, the two Picos de la Mirandola, Ramus, Patrizzi, Marsilio, Ficino, and Giordano Bruno. Bruno the most original and celebrated of these, and withal the martyr of the school, dashed into the boldest idealism. He maintained the absolute unity and identity of all things, and adored the All as the true and eternal God. The germ of Leibnitz’s Monadology may be found in Bruno. Several of Spinosa’s favorite terms as well as ideas, for example, his famous distinc- tion between the Natura Naturans and Natura Naturata, are found here. Schelling has entitled one of his works Bruno , and makes no secret of his admiration for his Italian prototype. Notwithstanding all his aberrations, Bruno, fickle, fervid, and absurd, was earnest and eloquent, sometimes even sublime. At the stake he welcomed death as a passage to a higher life, a transition from the finite to the infinite. More of a poet than a philosopher, with the genius and fire of his native clime, he strangely mingles the true and the false. His method is imagination, his reason- ing rhapsody. Hence he says himself, with marvelous simplicity, “ Phi- losophi quoad modo pictores atque poette to which he adds, “Non est philosophus nisi fingit et pingit /” 1 * 3 Our readers are acquainted with the prodigious influence of the Reform- ation on the study of speculative philosophy. All authority, ecclesiastical and scientific, was called in question. Aristotle was dethroned. Simple and rational investigation of nature and the Bible, divine revelations both, was encouraged. This led to what has been called the Inductive Phi- losophy, by the simple methods of observation and reflection. Bacon called men away from vague theorizings to the study of nature and themselves. His method followed to its practical results by Newton, has been de- 1 He was bom in the vicinity of Naples in 1550, and was publicly burned by order of the Inquisition at Rome, in 1600. For a complete account of his life and writings see Jordano Bruno, son Histoire et les CEuvres, trad, par M. C. Bartholomess. Paris 1847. XXX INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. nounced as mere classification., which, were it such, would prove it empirical enough. But while he directed attention less to the mental than to the material world, and laid more stress apparently upon induction than deduc- tion, he respects both, and uniformly proceeds upon the supposition of fun- damental convictions. Bacon’s Organon recognizes the great idea of cause or power, and calls attention not only to phenomena hut to principles. It recognizes spirit as well as matter, and gives us, at least as its last result, the great fact of spiritual power, that is, of a supreme and eternal God, “who is above all, through all, and in all .” 1 The philosophy of Bacon is pre-eminently a philosophy of fact and reality. Induction and deduc- tion, analysis and synthesis, on the basis of fundamental axioms, forms the simple and sublime circle of his method, the method of nature and of God. It must be confessed, however, that the Inductive philosophy occupied itself chiefly with material interests, and the mere phenomena of exter- nal nature. Its first application to speculative philosophy, by Hobbes of Malmesbury, was meagre and imperfect. Misunderstanding its princi- ples, he began to theorize, like all his predecessors, and gave to the world, in language of great force and precision, a system of downright material- ism and fatalism. According to him the one great fact of mind, to which all other facts may be reduced, is sensation, “produced by the impact of material objects around us upon a material organization which men call mind.” A fair beginning in England of what Herder calls “ the dirt philosophy.” Far superior to Hobbes, in all the elements of mental and moral power, Locke soon followed, enamored of the new philosophy, and feeling that it might be applied with success to mental science. But he too, imper- fectly carried out the Baconian method ; for instead of a thorough psy- chological examination of all the facts and elements of consciousness, he wandered into theoretical conjectures, and failed to discover some of the most obvious principles of the human mind. Nay, he violated his own professed method at the very outset, by starting a theoretical inquiry into the origin of our ideas, which he derived from sensation and reflec- tion. He assumed also the great error of most of his predecessors, which makes ideas (cognitions) the mere types or representatives of realities, as if the mind could have no direct or immediate knowl- edge of such realities, and must depend upon shadows or reflections both of the inner and the outer worlds. Like many others also he uses the term “ ideas” in all sorts of senses, and indeed wavers exceedingly in the use of language. Yet Locke possessed great sagacity, and a style of much raciness and strength. Some have called it dry, but it is very far indeed from possessing this characteristic. It is rather figurative and 1 Sec what Bacon in the “ Advancement of Learning,” says on the supremacy and authority of a “ Prima Philosophia,” Works i. pp. 193-195. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XXXI popular, than precise and philosophical. Hence the various estimates of his system, and hence also its different influence upon different minds. Right, perhaps, in rejecting the “innate ideas” of Descartes whom he did not quite understand, he failed to recognize the great primal truth which underlies the unfortunate nomenclature of the French philosopher; for the very first movements of our minds, and all our perceptions of external things, involve the possession of fundamental axioms of thought, which can never he derived from experience. The mind itself as a unit and a power implies this ; for if thoughts, emotions and ideas are derived from experience, then the mind itself is derived from experience. Experience or the con- tact of mind with matter, and of matter with mind, doubtless is necessary as an occasion for the development of our essential thoughts ; hut all these must first exist in the mind, not indeed formally but potentially, or matter "would be nothing to mind, as mind would be nothing to matter. Hence Locke fell into a great error when he represented all our cogni- tions as modifications of sensation and reflection. His generalization is narrow and defective, and has given rise to much false theorizing on mental philosophy. SStill Locke’s great work on the “ Human Under- standing” contains innumerable valuable suggestions, and many fine ana- lyses of particular powers or states of mind. Nor was he a mere sensa- tionalist, as some of the idealist philosophers are pleased to affirm. Prac- tically he was a spiritualist, and recognized the great facts of our spiritual and moral nature as well as the existence of God and the immortality of the soul . 1 It would be difficult, however, if not impossible, on his theory of the origin of ideas, to demonstrate the spirituality of man ; for if the mind does not see by its own light, in other words, possess certain pri- mary intuitions or fundamental convictions of “ common sense,” as the Scottish philosophers call them, it can never transcend the outward and material, or form the remotest conception of spiritual and immortal reali- ties. It is, therefore, by no means surprising if, in England, the principles of Locke, in the hands of less scrupulous men, and particularly of “the deistical” writers, as they are improperly called — for, on fundamental grounds, they are more atheistic than deistic — were used to defend all the errors of sensualism and fatalism . 2 It is the habit of speculative thinkers to run errors of this kind into extremes — a happy circumstance, at least, for those that come after them ; for, plausible at first, these errors become absolutely monstrous when pushed by reckless theorists to their logical results . 3 1 For proof of this we might cite page after page of the “ Essay on the Human Un- derstanding.” We are apprehensive, however, that those who declaim the most vehe- mently against Locke as the father of modem sensualism, are not peculiarly intimate with his writings. 2 See the results in Morell’s Hist, of Philosophy, p. 96, et seq. 3 Nowhere was this done more decisively than in France. Thoroughly misunder- XXX1J INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. This was pre-eminently the case with the supposed materialism of the Lockean school ; hence, in England we find the majority of her ingenious and profound thinkers uttering against it a loud and earnest protest. Among these, Shaftesbury, Cudworth, Clarke, and More, are especially distinguished by learning and genius. But the recoil, as usual, was too vio- lent; and we find Berkeley, the amiable and gifted Bishop of Cloyne, the most ingenious philosophical thinker of his day, falling into the opposite extreme of idealism. Assuming, as Locke did, the common philosophical error, that all our knowledge of external nature is mediate and represent- ative — a something, so to speak, figured to the mind and standing for the outward reality, which we can never know — he showed, on the clearest logical grounds, that the existence of matter, separate from the mind, can not be proved ; and thus cut up by the roots all materialism, fatalism, and atheism. He does not deem it necessary to deny the existence of the external world as a practical reality ; he simply maintains that its exist- ence can not be proved on metaphysical grounds . * 1 Mind, in his view, is first, is fundamental, and real, is the only thing fundamental and real ; and matter, if it exist at all, is dependent upon mind, and receives from it all its qualities and forms. Pure and devout himself, he exulted in the evanescent character of all terrestrial things ; for along with these he saw vanishing all error and sin. In the lofty ideal world still left, his rever- ent soul, transformed by Christian faith, saw nothing but God and truth, immutable and immortal. From the very same principles, however, Hume, cold and subtile, de- duced an absolute skepticism. As a mere mode of the subjective mind, according to him all is ideal, and nothing can be proved. Cause, Sub- stance, Spirit, God, Immortality — nay, our most common convictions, re- specting our own existence, or the existence of the external world, may be only dreams of the dreaming mind . 2 All we can know is our own subjective states ; and these, separated from realities by mere represent- ative images, for aught that we know, may be the grossest illusions. Thus Hume plunged into the abyss of atheism. No wonder that he con- fesses, mournfully, the confusion and bewilderment of his mind, in the stood, the Lockean philosophy was Teduced to the grossest materialism. This, how- ever, was accomplished with so much refinement and ingenuity, that it required the atheism of d’Holbach, and the horrors of the French revolution, to reveal its enor- mity. Condillac, facile and elegant, reigned supreme for years. Cabanis was ap- plauded when he said, “ Les nerfs, voila tout l’homme !” France, though much im- proved, is not yet free from the influence of Condillac. What is Comte's “ Philoso- phic Positive” but a refined and systematized materialism 1 To substitute the action of fixed laws for the free spirit of man, or the free spirit of God, is materialism, with its inevitable results of atheism and fatalism. 1 .See for proof of this, “ Principles of Human Knowledge,” §() 35-6-7-40. - Hume's views are developed, partly in his “Essay on Human Nature,” but chiefly in his Inquiry into the Human Understanding.” His skepticism is brought out fully in the 12th section of the Inquiry. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xxxiii prosecution of his metaphysical speculations ; — for not even the consola- tion of hope was left to his spirit, adrift on the illimitable ocean of specu- lative doubt. “ The intense view,” says he, “ of these manifold contra- dictions and imperfections in human reason, has so wrought upon me, and heated my brain, that I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another .” 1 The Scottish philosophers have been stigmatized by the German and French idealists as “insular,” timid, and empirical: this much, however, may be said of them, that, with the exception of Hume, they have been wonderfully preserved from all extremes of materialism or spiritualism, and have made a good beginning in the science of mental analysis. Dr. Reid, a Presbyterian clergyman, and professor in Glasgow University, if we except Sir W. Hamilton, is decidedly the most instructive and original of them all. Brown is imaginative and inconsequent. His most orig- inal and elaborate work (on Causation) is a splendid failure. Stewart, while accomplished and learned, is distinguished chiefly as an elegant expositor of the views of his predecessors, particularly of Reid. The latter has the honor of giving the death-blow to the ideal theory, upon which Hume based his skepticism. Imperfectly developed, the position of Reid, sound and impregnable as a whole, can only be thoroughly appreciated in connection with the comments and criticisms of Sir W. Hamilton, who is Reid’s proper successor, and the great defender of the philosophy of “Common Sense.” With his explanations and limitations, the doctrine of immediate and presentative knowledge may be considered as finally settled. Idealism may be held as a notion or a doubt, but never again as a well-grounded scientific conviction. But we must go back a little, and take a cursory view of the philosophy of Continental Europe, to understand fully the aberrations of speculative thought, and appreciate the position and attainments of Sir W. Hamilton, who is distinguished as much for his criticisms on the French and Ger- man schools, as on those of England and Scotland. Descartes is acknowledged, on all hands, as the founder of the Conti- nental, if not of all modern speculative philosophy. With a mind pro- found, energetic, and free, spurning the restraints of custom and authority, he resolved to investigate the whole subject of mental philosophy, from its foundations . 2 Less sagacious than Locke, he yet saw, with great clearness, the vast distinction between matter and mind, and commenced his studies with a purely psychological method. He did not, indeed, carry out, with full consistency, his own fundamental principles of inquiry, and, finally, 1 Quoted in Dugald Stewart’s Life of Reid, prefixed to Hamilton’s edition of Reid’s Works, p. 13. 2 The process through which his mind passed, is detailed in the first part of his “Discours de la Methode.” XXX IV INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. defended some egregious errors. At first, he refused to take any thing for granted not proved by the facts of consciousness ; but at last seemed to take every thing for granted ; so that D’Alembert is justified in saying that Descartes “ began with doubting of every thing, and ended in believ- ing that he had left nothing unexplained.” As nature is to be studied in itself, by means of observation, so Des- cartes justly concluded that mind is to be studied in itself, by means of consciousness, or conscious reflection . 1 His “ Cogito ergo sum,” though an apparent petitio j prineijni , furnished him with the fundamental princi- ple or fact of all mental science. For of whatever we doubt, we can not doubt that we doubt. Conscious personality, as an intuitive, inalienable conviction, is involved in every mental act ; consciousness, therefore, must supply us with all the facts of mind, all the laws of thought. Psychology, or a well-digested account of our mental phenomena, must thence form the basis of all philosophical speculations 2 On this ground Descartes asserted the pure spirituality, or, rather, im- materiality of mind ; for spirituality is only a negation of what we desig- nate material qualities. The profound conviction of Descartes upon this point, and his earnest assertion of it, was of immense service to the cause of truth. His theory of “ innate ideas,” unfortunate in its expression and application, though founded in truth, led him to assert the validity of all ideas lying “ clearly and distinctly” in the mind. His criterion of “ neces- sary” ideas, “ clearness and distinctness,” originally intended to assert the simple authority of consciousness, was easily abused. Here, for example, he found, as he supposed, the idea of the absolute and infinite — that is, as he explained it, of God ; and believing, like Anselm, that such an idea could not come from finite nature ; that infinite and absolute, in his view, being positive ideas, and not the mere negation of finite and relative ; he concluded that it was a necessary or intuitive idea, an idea from God himself, and, therefore, proving a priori, the Divine existence . 3 But all this is subjective ; how then do we prove the existence of the external world, as well as the existence of God ? This, too, exists in the mind, clearly and distinctly ; and it is not to be supposed, argues Des- cartes, forgetting utterly his psychological and truly rational method, that God would deceive us in such a matter. From this he infers that the external world has a real, and not merely apparent or phenomenal exist- ence. Our mental faculties prove the existence of God, and the existence of God proves the validity of our mental faculties, is the vicious circle which throws inextricable confusion into the Cartesian philosophy . 4 1 See “ Meditations Metaphysiques.” — Premiere Med. 2 Meditation Seconde. CEuvres (Ed. Charpentier), p. 66, et scq. 3 Meditation Troisieme, p. 87, et seq. See the same views, re-asserted in the fourth Meditation, which develops his idea of the true and the false, and the impos- sibility that God should deceive us respecting necessary convictions. 4 Meditation Cinquieme — particularly the close — pp. 107-108. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. mv But what is the precise relation of the finite universe to the infinite Spirit ? This is a great question which Descartes attempts to answer. He says, it is produced at first by God, and not only so, but is constantly reproduced. But the world of matter, according to Descartes, is a vast, formal mechanism, subject to external laws, and thence guided and con- trolled by the constant interposition of the Almighty. Matter and mind are distinct ; so much so, that they can have no direct action upon each other. Their action and interaction depend upon the all-creating, all-re- newing force. Therefore, concludes Descartes, there are no single or sec- ondary causes, and the whole universe lies, like a passive machine, in the hands of God, controlled forever by his resistless might . 1 After all, the existence of matter, or of the finite universe, is not then proved, except as an outward phenomenal thing, which the next bold, consistent thinker Avill not hesitate to reject, falling back, as he must, on his subjective ideas, and constituting the universe of a single infinite sub- stance. Thus the germs of an absolute spiritualism are lodged in the Cartesian metaphysics, which found their natural development in the speculations of Spinosa and Malebranche. In Descartes we thus see, what is not uncommon in the history of phi losophy, the most singular combinations of truth and error, of Aveakness and strength. For he not only denied the existence and operation of second or occasional causes, but he placed the essence of mind in thought — of matter, in extension ; thus confounding being or substance Avith attribute or quality, and laying the basis of a consistent, thorough-going panthe- ism. Malebranche indeed, who embraced these views as the basis of his sys- tem, held to the reality of external things, as commonly understood, on the authority of Revelation, and remained an orthodox minister of the Catholic Church ; but he constituted the universe of thought, and main- tained that the human mind sees all things in the Divine, as “ its intel- ligible Avorld.” Like Plato he blended the finite Avith the infinite, and saw there the archetypal ideas of all possible existence. Devout and elo- quent, this good man, in the spirit of Berkeley saw no danger in that “excessive bright,” or rather “dark” of absolute spiritualism, into Avhich Avith unutterable awe, like the angels of heaven, he desired to look . 2 It required therefore some one of bolder temper, and more relentless logic, to take the vieAVS of Descartes and push them to their extreme logi- 1 It is on this ground that M. Jules Simon, in his Introduction to his edition of the Works of Descartes, speaks (p. 57) of Cartesianism as “Une Systeme Mecanique. See the Sixth Med. p. 109. 2 Tennemann calls Malebranche “ the most profound of the French metaphysicians.” His works have been published in a convenient form by Charpentier, under the super- vision of M. Jules Simon, who has prefixed to them an instructive and elegant intro duction xxx vi INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. cal issue. Such a man was found in Benedict Spinosa, that profound and subtile Jew, whom Novalis in a “furor” of admiration calls “the God inspired Spinosa .” 1 Ignoring as Descartes had done the proper idea of cause, and really identifying being with thought, he posited the existence of a single, infinite, all comprehending Substance with two attributes, or rather projections of himself (itself?) thought and cxtensio?i, thought being manifest in mind, extension in matter . 2 As both mind and matter proceed from the same source, or rather are attributes of the same substance, he maintained, of course, their interior identity. All things come from God, and exist in God, thence all things or the universe of material and immaterial forms, are God — not indeed God in his absolute essence, but God immanent, that is God embodied or manifested . 3 A fundamental and favorite position of Spinosa’s is that “ one substance can not produce another;” if God therefore seems to produce finite matter or finite mind, it is but an extension of himself, or projection into space and time of his own inscrutable essence. The cause passes into the effect, the effect in this sense is the cause, and vice vena ; so that the ordinary idea of cause, and consequently of the creation, is abandoned. The one is God absolute, the other is God conditioned, or as he chose to express it, the one is Natura naturans, the other is Natura naturata . 4 Nor can we deny, if these fundamental positions are granted as just, namely, that the universe is constituted by ideas, and human thought and absolute being are identical, that there can be, in the sense of Spinosa, only a single all comprehending substance. All else which we call finite must be attribute, quality, phenomenon, however vast and varied, how- ever refined and beautiful. If all things and all beings arc in God, in an absolute literal sense, then God is in all things, nay constitutes all things. The universe is not dual, but one, and that one, the absolute all. Thought is infinite and eternal, and matter is its shadow. The omni- presence of God, or the infinite Substance, is what Spinosa calls extension, not meaning by extension any thing gross or palpable, but the universal 1 As proof that Spinosa based his system on the Cartesian metaphysics, we refer to the “ Principia Philosophise Cartesianse,” in the first volume of Spinosa’s works (Tauchnitz ed. 3 vols. edited by Dr. Bruder), as also to his little tract, “ De Emenda- tione Intellcctus” (vol. ii. p. 7), in which he lays down the true method of philoso- phical investigation. The following passage (vol. i. p. 24), deserves particular atten- tion. “ Hac igitur delecta veritate simul etiam invenit omnium scientiarum funda- mentum, ac etiam omnium aliarum veritatum, mensuram ac regulam ; scilicet Quic- quid lam dare ac distincte percipitur quam istud verum est.” The abuse of Descartes’ criterion has been a source of infinite mischief. 3 Opera, vol. i. Cog. Meta. p. 117. Ethica, pp. 187, 190. See also “ Ethica,” Part ii. p. 225. 3 Opera, vol. i. p. 197. Compare pp. 190 and 204, particularly Prop, xviii. “Deus est omnium rerum immanens.” 4 Ethica, Props, xxix. xxx. xxxi. Opera, vol. i. pp. 210, 211. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xxxvii presence of an infinite essence . 1 Particular things — souls or bodies, are only modifications of God . 2 All in fact, is literally and truly God. A single idea, namely unity, constitutes and construes the universe. Right and wrong, holiness and sin are only different aspects of the same thing. In ethics right is the correlate of power, while sin is weakness, negation, or deficiency; whence the object of all law is the exercise of force, and all law is limitation. The inexorable unity of God ought to he the type of the inexorable unity of all government and law . 3 How much all this differs from the material unity and inexorable fatal- ism of Hobbes, or from the grosser pantheism of the old Hindoo philoso- phers, it would require some ingenuity to say. It is more refined and spiritual perhaps, but the end is the same. So that one is almost tempted to believe with Dugald Stewart, in reference to the reproduction of old errors, “ that human invention is limited like a barrel organ to a specific number of tunes. 1 ’ It would seem as if Spinosa had carried the rationalistic method of in- quiry to its highest point, beyond which no human intellect can go. But the spirit of speculative thought is not to be repressed, and slight variations will satisfy even the profoundest minds that they have escaped the errors of their predecessors, and solved the enigma of the universe. On this ground Leibnitz, a man of vast erudition and almost illimitable range of thought, endeavored to lay the foundations of a vast superstructure of spir- itual philosophy. He rejected the sensational origin of ideas, defended, as he supposed, by Locke, and carried out the spiritual views of Descartes Avith reference to mind, giving a better exposition of fundamental ideas, and enlarging the criteria of their validity. His method, however, is ration- alistic and ontological . 4 * * * It is an attempt to ascertain the possible and the actual on what he calls the principle of “ contradiction,” and of li the sufficient reason.” The first gives us the possible, or what may be with- out a contradiction ; the second, the actual, or what ought to be, on the ground of second causes, or “ sufficient reason.” Applying these criteria to things as they are, he finds not only the idea of substance, with its attributes of thought and extension (that is, of em- bodiment, for such is Spinosa’s idea), but also of cause or power, sponta- neous and creative ; so that God, as the great primal Substance, or Sub- sistence, not only is, but acts and produces. Power does not reside in masses, for these are infinitely divisible ; power is inherent in substance from which all material qualities must he excluded, so that, strictly 1 Opera, vol. i. p. 208. 2 Ibid, vol. i. p. 228. 3 Ibid, vol. i. p. 115. Compare pp. 131, 212, 217. 4 This fact is well brought out by M. Jaques in the Introduction to his Ed. of the Works of Leibnitz, from the press of Charpentier, vol. i. p. 31. His views of the human mind are developed in his “Nouveaux Essais,” his theosophy or theology in the “ Monadologie,” and “ Theodicee.” INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xxrviii speaking, we come to power or force as a pure immaterial essence. This constitutes the basis of existence. Thence spring all the forms and forces of the universe, which is dynamical, and not, as Descartes taught, me- chanical . 1 Thus reducing, as usual, all things to the region of pure ideas, or ab- stract forms, as we may call them, he endeavors from the supposition of an absolute One, or Monad, to construe the universe of matter and of mind ; so that his system is a monadology, corresponding in some sense to the “numbers” of Pythagoras and Plato. His problem therefore is little more than a geometrical proposition. Given one necessary and eternal Monas, or Force, to find all other monads or forces . 2 God “ geometrizes” the universe, and does so, apparently, by an evolution of plurality from unity. From such a system all dualism of course is excluded. Of mat- ter, in its ordinary import, there is none. Identity runs through the whole. The universe is one, as God is one. Yet Leibnitz admitted the distinct existence of the external world, and brought it into union and connection with spirit by means of a system of “ pre-established harmony.” The different monads both of matter and of spirit have no intercommunion ; indeed this is impossible on Leibnitz’s theory ; but they move in unison, like automata, by the preformed ar- rangement of the Eternal Mind. Hence also the doctrines of philosophical necessity and optimism. By these suppositions it is evident that Leibnitz wished to avoid the difficulties which spring from the ill-understood distinctions between mat- ter and mind ; on which account his monads, or ones are simple forces, independent of each other, though springing from the same eternal source, possessing inherently the same characteristics, and capable of developing themselves in outward shape and act. Some are in a state of stupor, so to speak, and constitute matter, yet possess a sort of perceptive power ; others are conscious, forming, in the case of those distinct and clear, men and angels, of those dull and obscure, the souls of the lower animals. Each has its separate sphere, and each is a microcosm of the universe . 3 The original Monas or Power, however, is recognized as a conscious mind, an intelligent, self-controlling cause, capable by a voluntary pro- ductive act, of giving rise to distinct, inferior agents, possessed of intelli- gence and will ; so that in this respect his views differ from those of Spmosa, and so far harmonize with some of the highest forms of moral and theological truth. It is on this ground that in his Theodicee, he maintains “ The conformity of Faith with Reason,” and rises to the sub- limest heights of religious contemplation. His Theodicee has the charm 1 CEnvres, vol. ii. p. 463. 3 See his “ Monadologie,” passim. 3 CEuvrcs, vol. ii. p. 471, “Monadologie,” $ 51. Hence the expression, “ Chaque rnonade cree represente toute Tunivers.” Monad. $ 62. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XXXIX of a grand moral epic, in which are celebrated the perfections of the eter- nal Jehovah. The distinguished Genevese philosopher Bonnet tells us, that he used it as “ a manual of devotion.” But in the hands of others, and especially of less devotional minds, the Leibnitzian monadology, involving in its last analysis the interior identity of subject and object, of finite and infinite, and constituting the universe of simple spiritual forces, supplied the scientific basis for a system of ideal- ism. His speculations found a congenial home in the minds of his coun- trymen. In nearly all the theories which have successively followed each other among that speculative people, Leibnitz constantly reappears. It is the same lofty, but mysterious and fanciful melody, with endless and ever-recurring variations. In the hands of Wolf, who attempted to methodize the philosophy of his master, it lost its warmth and grandeur, and appeared as a formal system of ideal abstractions, giving rise to an arid skepticism, which lasted for many years. The eighteenth century closed with Kant and the Kantian philosophy, in which the possibility of metaphysics or ontology as a science is denied, and, as many think, completely demolished. Even reason is shown to be not only weak, but illusive, so that “ apodictical,” that is, demonstrative judgments, of absolute certainty, are proved to be impossible. This is the object of the “ Kritik of Pure Reason” ( reiner Vernunft'), so that to speak of “the Kantian metaphysics,” as many do, or to cite the Konigs- berg philosopher as an authority for the absolute demonstrations of “ Keason,” is a practical solecism. Kant swept the whole field of specu- lation ; and though denying neither the external nor the internal world, as practical realities, proved that neither the reason nor the understand- ing, formal powers both, gives us any thing in its absolute certainty. Both space and time, unity and cause, according to Kant, are subjective ideas, by means of which we systematize our knowledge, but can never be shown to have a real, or independent existence. Thus, agaiir, all things are reduced to pure ideas or abstractions. Reality escapes into the void, and truth remains, like a shadowy island in the midst of a boundless gulf. “ The region,” says Kant, “ of the pure understanding, is an island, and inclosed by nature itself in unchangeable limits. It is the region of truth [an engaging title], surrounded by a wide and stormy ocean .” 1 But the nature of Kant, like that of every other man, can not be satis- fied with abstractions ; and though truth is not theoretically demonstra- ble, it is necessary, it is real. Our moral nature and practical wants de- mand it ; and not only demand it, but prove it. So that what is demon- 1 Kritik of Pure Reason. — Eng. Tr. p. 222. As Sir W. Hamilton has shown, Kant is by no means precise in the use either of Vernunft or Verstand. His island of the pure understanding, after all, is a fabulous one. xl INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. strated to be illusive on one side of our nature, according to Kant, is proved to be real on the other — a strange logical contradiction — for which Kant poorly accounts, but to which he most earnestly clings. A happy inconsistency of which the most astute philosophers are not unfrequently guilty. Hence his “Kritik of the Practical Reason,” which gives us all moral truths, God, the soul, and immortality. The conscience, the affec- tions, the longings of the soul, the wants of the individual, and the wants of society, demand a God and a life to come ; and as all things are adapt- ed to each other, and ail permanent wants are met, God and a life to come are given in the Practical Reason. God exists for man ; man exists for God. Responsibility and justice, love and worship, are real and eter- nal. Here, then, Kant lays a broad foundation for religion and morality. But why should our nature be in contradiction ? Above all, why should Reason, which we are told is highest in man, mislead us ? Them must be some great error here ; and Sir W. Hamilton, to whom we refer the reader, in his Critique on the Eclectic Philosophy, thinks that the error consists in making reason not simply “ weak, but delusive.” Fichte, ambitious of absolute knowledge ( Wissejischaftslehre ), young, ardent, enthusiastic, with great force of character, and an imagination which nothing could linrit, took up the problem of the Kantian philoso- phy, and endeavored to determine the relation of subject and object, of finite and infinite. His mode of solution is summary ; object does not exist except as posited by subject. That is, the human mind creates its own intelligible world. Subject and object are one. A subjective ideal- ism is the true philosophy. God exists, but exists in consciousness ; he is known only as the Moral Order (moralische Ordnung) of the world. 1 Of course, such a system of subjective idealism, though held by its author with a lofty moral heroism, must give rise to the most startling errors and extravagancies. “ To-morrow, gentlemen,” he said, on one occasion, with singular audacity, “ I shall create God.” By this he meant that he would develop the process by which God comes into consciousness as subject and object. Fichte strenuously denied the charge of atheism, and, in later life, somewhat modified his views — but, at best, he is seen ever- more hovering over the abyss of absolute nothing. “ The sum total,” says he, “ is this : there is absolutely nothing permanent without me or within me, but only an unceasing change ; I know absolutely nothing of any existence, not even of my own. I myself know nothing, and am nothing. Images ( Bilder ) there are ; they constitute all that apparently exists, and what they know of themselves is after the manner of images ; images that pass and vanish, without there being aught to witness their transition ; that consist, in fact, of the images of images, without significance and 1 Sittenlehre (1798), pp. 184, 189. See also his “ Gottliche Weltordnung. 1 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xli without an aim. I myself am one of these images ; nay, I am not even thus much, but only a confused image of images. All reality is converted into a marvelous dream, without a life to dream of, and without a mind to dream ; into a dream made up only of a dream of itself. Perception is a dream ; thought, the source of all the existence and all the reality which I imagined to myself of my existence, of my power, of my destina- tion, is the dream of that dream.” 1 It is not necessary here to give any detailed account of the Philosophy of Schelling, the proper successor of Fichte, as this has been done by Sir W. Hamilton (Discussions, p. 26, et seq.) in a manner so clear and ade- quate. The philosophical patriarch of Berlin is an idealist, though labor- ing all his life long to reach “ the real,” and professing in his old age, to be- lieve in a personal God, in the divine mission of Christ, and the immor- tality of the soul. His method, however, is rationalistic, and the result ideal, and ideal only — that is, identity of subject and object, not in the individual .mind, as in the philosophy of Fichte, but in the absolute object, infinite and eternal. Psychology is abandoned as incapable of leading to absolute reality ; God, the absolute, the all-comprehending is discovered only to the supernatural intuition of the human mind. Hence knorvledge and being correspond. They are correlates. To know the Divine, the soul must be divine ; to discover the absolute, it must itself be absolute. Thus the system of Schelling may be described as a transcendental or ab- solute idealism — the title, in fact, of one of his principal works, “ System des Transcendentalen Idealismus.” 2 Hegel, who commenced his studies with Schelling, and, while possess- ing less imagination, had more logical power, is the real Coryphaeus of German idealism. He rejects what he conceives to be the partial views of both Fichte and Schelling, and attempts to construct a purely rational or ideal system, without assuming “ the finite Ego” of Fichte, or “ the in- tellectual intuition” of Schelling. He begins with nothing — that is, a pure abstraction — which, existing as thought, in his Anew, posits a real idea, as the basis of all logic and all philosophy. Nothing, for example, is the extreme of two contradictory poles — nothing — something — and the rela- tion between them. This is the order or process of thought ; this also must be the order or process of the universe. 3 Thus, unconsciously to him- self, he assumes the reality of thought, and not only so, but its identity 1 Quoted by Sir W. Hamilton. — Reid's Works, p. 129. The translation may be relied upon as precise and accurate. Fichte is here seen to be the most thorough- going and consistent idealist And yet in the “ Bestimmung des Menschen,” how loftily he speaks of God, of duty, and of destiny. ° For one of the most ample and satisfactory accounts of Schelling and his philoso- phy, see M. Willm’s Histoire de Philosophie Allemande. — Tome iii. 3 The following are his propositions upon this point : 1. Thought is the real essence of man. 2. Thought is the essence of the world — the reality of things. 3. The true knowledge of things is the work of my thought ; therefore my thought is identical with absolute thought. See Encyclopscdie, tj 19-83. xlii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. with existence. He is consistent enough, however, to maintain that we can know nothing of either, except in their relation. His universe is one — hut it is a universe of relations ; we can never say that it is, but only be- coming. The whole is negative and positive — this and that — nothing and something at once ; in other words, all is absolute and concrete, which we can never know except in their eternal oscillation. Thus subject and object, finite and infinite are lost in the boundless relations of absolute thought . 1 So that we may justly say, that the entire Hegelian philoso- phy, grand and comprehensive as it seems, lies between two Zeros, or nothings. This, then, is the sum of idealism, the apex of speculative or ontological thought. Philosophy has reached its goal, beyond which is nothing. We fully agree with Michelet, of Berlin, one of the most distinguished expounders of the Hegelian philosophy, in his “ Geschichte der letzen Systeme der Philosophie in Deutschland, von Kant bis Hegel,” that the true secret of nearly all the German philosophy is idealism, first subjective in Kant and Fichte ; secondly, objective in Schelling; and lastly, absolute in Hegel. “ When thought,” says Michelet, “ becomes the leading prin- ciple, then one of two things follows ; either real being or object entirely vanishes, and the subject of thought remains the sole reality — the philoso- phy of Kant and Fichte — or thought realizes itself in the object, and reality becomes intelligence — the philosophy of Schelling ; finally Hegel, who reunites the two opposite systems, and blends together idealism and realism, has carried philosophy to that lofty elevation, that last degree of development, where it deserves the name of Absolute Idealism.” What then, in the way of originality, is left to the speculative thinker, who wishes to make a tour of exploration in the region of the absolute ? One would say nothing. Cousin, however, replies, Eclecticism! Psychol- ogy and Ontology must be brought together. The passage must be made from the one to the other. Schelling, indeed, has pronounced it impossi- ble. Hegel has rejected the thought with disdain. The finite and formal, he would say, can never give the real and the absolute. But it can, is the decisive claim of Cousin, ingenious, learned, and eloquent, and there- fore bold and enterprising. For, in his view, man is both personal and impersonal — that is, finite and infinite ; personal and finite in his under- standing and will, impersonal and infinite in his spontaneity and reason. He can transcend himself, he can see God in his absolute essence, he can construe the universe from this awful height . 2 The words mysterious and incomprehensible, Cousin leaves to theology . 3 Knowledge, absolute and perfect, the comprehension of God, and in God of all things, he claims for philosophy ; for once more being and thought are identical, the process of logic is the process of the universe. 1 Encyclopadie, tj 93. 3 Histoire de la Philos. (Intro.) p. 95. 3 See Introduction a l’Hist. de la Philos, p. 18, p. 97. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. •gl iii But we leave him in the hands of Sir William Hamilton, who as Cousin himself confesses, has given one of the most candid and luminous statements of the Eclectic theory, and presented objections to its funda- mental positions, which have never been answered. Cousin has attempted a reply, but without changing the case in the slightest degree. It is quite amusing to see how Morell. after dogmatically asserting over and over again the validity of the Eclectic method, which he makes his own, turns away from the impregnable positions of the Scottish philosopher. It is as if a besieging general had proudly carried all the redoubts and outworks of a beleaguered city, and coming up close to the walls, bristling with cannon, had made a handsome how, and retired ! “ And here,” says he, “ we freely confess that we are not prepared to combat, step by step, the weighty arguments by which the Scottish metaphysician seeks to establish the negative character of this great fundamental con- ception ; neither on the other hand are we prepared to admit his infer- ence.” 1 We think Morell does not fully appreciate Sir W. Hamilton’s position, for even were it admitted, it is not necessary to abandon our belief in God and the soul, as immaterial and immortal realities. We simply confess, humbly and reverently, that we can not comprehend them in their essence. It is only as revealed to us in finite, yet august and fair forms, in nature or in “ Scripture,” that we can appreciate their vast and momentous relations. To us the Infinite Good, the All Beauti- ful and Everlasting is known, and yet unknown, an apparent paradox, but true as the boundless and ineffable nature of infinite existence. 2 It is on this ground that the Apostle Paul prays, with a philosophy as pro- found as it is devout, that the Ephesian converts might “ know the love of God, which passeth knowledge.” But more of this presently. In the mean while, let us indicate as briefly as possible, the fundamental views of Sir W. Hamilton, and the amount of his contributions to mental science. The leading principle of his philosophy is, that all our knowledge is conditioned and relative, true so far as it goes, but limited. Good, of course, for all practical purposes, both of life and religion, but not abso- lute or unconditioned, not infinite or boundless, and therefore not, in .the scientific sense, perfect. It is a legitimate inference from this that the science of the absolute is impossible. We can neither know (scientifically) the fi,7iite absolute — that is, mind or matter in its interior essence, or unconditioned state — nor the infinite absolute — that is, the essential totality, or unity of all 1 Hist, of the Philos, of the Nineteenth Century. — Am. Ed. p. 656. 3 We might have said, true as the finite and conditioned nature of the human soul. The finite may adore, but can never comprehend the infinite God. In this respect, we may well say with the prophet : “ Yerily, thou art a God that hidest thyself!” xliv INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. things, including infinite space or infinite duration, as also, infinite Spirit, which is God in his unlimited and eternal essence. To be known in any way, God must be manifested under conditions and limits, as possessing specific attributes, or performing specific acts, beyond which the loftiest intellect must exclaim reverently, “ 0 the depths !” And thus philosophy, as well as religion, is compelled to acknowledge the presence every where, in nature, in man, and in God, of inscrutable mystery. On this ground the French and German Ontologies are demolished. The adventurous wing of speculation is checked. Philosophy is brought from the ‘-'dim obscure” of the possible and transcendent, into the clear atmosphere of the actual and concrete. Pantheism is made impossible. Religion is left to stand upon its own grounds ; and man, the finite and fallible, is left to adore the One living and true God, unknown as essence, but well known as goodness, holiness, and love. The reason, in this view, does not contradict the conscience and the heart ; but rather aids them in the devout recognition of the invisible and ineffable Causa Causarum. Transcendent wonder, humility, and trust, are its necessary moral results. This fundamental principle of Sir 'William Hamilton’s philosophy, is not reached in an empirical or merely speculative way. It is not an hypothesis or an assumption ; but a fact reached by a rigid analysis of human thought. Nothing is assumed but the authority of Consciousness, which of course must be assumed, or thought itself is null. Hence it has been the life-labor of this acute and candid thinker to ascertain the ultimate facts of consciousness. Deduction, induction — in fact the first processes of thought — imply cer- tain fundamental principles, convictions, intuitions, or whatever they may be termed of the “ Communis Sensus,” or Common Consciousness. To these all our knowledge, all our reasonings, must be referred as basis or touchstone. These are original as the mind itself — bringing with them no reasons or explanations. They are not to be proved, but seen, felt, real- ized. Hence they have been termed, revelations, fundamental convic- tions, axioms of thought, interior ■perceptions, intuitions, imvard behold- ings, decisions of the reason, categories of thought, and so forth. What these are is a question to be determined, by no a priori reasoning, but by a simple appeal to universal consciousness. The criterion of Des- cartes, “ clearness and distinctness” is not sufficient. They must possess other features ; thus one of the great objects of Hamilton’s investigations, has been to settle the criterion by which to try the validity of what are claimed as fundamental or infallible convictions. This criterion he finds not merely in clearness, but in simplicity, necessity, and universality. They must be simple and incomprehensible — not modifications or infer- ences ; necessary and universal — acknowledged by all men ; and possess INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. Jdy a sort of unique or peculiar evidence, which can neither he proved or disproved by any thing clearer or more evident . 1 Hamilton, on these grounds, proceeds to ascertain what these funda- mental axioms of thought are. Among those upon which he has dwelt the most fully, as defended by Reid, in opposition to the idealists and skeptics, is the conviction not only of our own being, or the “ Cogito ergo sum ” of Descartes, but the conviction of an exterior existence. Mind is real — matter, or whatever it may be called, the external world, the not me, is also real. Hence also he contends that Perception is immediate or direct, present- ative as he calls it, and not mediate or representative. Idealism therefore is impossible. But he finds, by an appeal to conscience, to which all must respond, that thought, as actualized, is brought into relations or conditions. It involves ever the idea of subject and object, the thinking mind, and the thing thought of. The thought of cause is impossible without effect, of substance without qualities, of matter without extension or space, of mind without thought. Strip a thing of all conceivable qualities, it becomes an abstraction, it is, to us, a practical ?zo-thing. It may exist in reality, but it is not cognizable in thought. It escapes into the void. In a word, all thought is conditioned, whence the absolute or unconditioned as such, is not cog- nizable ; above all, can not be made the subject of scientific speculation. Thought would thus seem to play unconsciously between two extremes, or poles, as if it belonged in part to the finite, in part to the infinite, or as if neither finite nor infinite expressed the true reality, except by an apparent contradiction. So that all subjects of human inquiry have, so to speak, two sides, or two poles, which united give us reality. For example, man is free, but he is also under necessity — freedom and necessity may both be predicated of him, in the one case as a finite personality, in the other as a part of a whole, or as the object of divine control. Space may be spoken of as limited, and at the same time as unlimited. But we can not conceive either of these as possible — for beyond all space as limited is a boundless region, which belongs to it as much as the other; but this also as unlim- ited we can not conceive, for it advances as we advance, and beyond our furthest range of conception is unlimited extension. But practically space is limited, in this finite world of ours, as we speak of it; so that we are justified in saying it is both finite and infinite, limited and unlimited. Hence Sir William Hamilton’s enunciation of the axiom : “ That posi- tive thought lies in the limitation or conditioning of one or other of two opposite extremes, neither of which as unconditioned, can be realized to the mind as possible, and yet of which as contradictories, one or other must, by the fundamental laws of thought, be recognized as necessary.® 1 .See Reid’s Works, Note A, f) 4. 2 Reid’s Works, i. p. 743. xlvi INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. On this fundamental principle of thought being conditioned, Hamilton endeavors to generalize the cognizable ; with what success our readers must judge for themselves. For it is in the application of some compre- hensive principle like this that the greatest diversity of opinion is likely to prevail. It is here also that error is most liable to intervene. We confess to an honest doubt respecting the application of the princi- ple to the solution of what seems to be an infallible and authoritative conviction of the human mind, namely that of cause, or what may be termed perhaps with greater propriety, productive power. This idea or conviction is resolved by our author into the incompetence of the human mind. This appears to us inadequate ; for we are as conscious, each of us, of being a productive cause, as we are of possessing existence, or a distinct, self-contained personality. That is, we are conscious, in every voluntary mental, and even physical act, of being a productive will. This conviction is simple, original, necessary, universal, and inalienable. It is given as a primary datum in consciousness. Hamilton indeed con- tends that it can not possess this character, because it is given only in specific acts ; but so also is every other spontaneous conviction. We re- member the past — therefore past knowledge, though given in conscious- ness, when remembered, is for this reason, mediate and representative. It is not the source of our conviction of our personal existence, which is given only in specific, mental states or acts. Properly speaking, we are not conscious of continuous existence, but only of present existence. We infer our past existence from memory ; were that lost, our knowledge of personal identity in its relation to the past, would be lost also. So that conscious existence is given us in specific and instantaneous acts. The conviction or consciousness of being a cause, or a productive Will, is given to each of us in the same way, and brings with it equal authority. But can we transfer that idea to what we call external causes, of which we have no consciousness ; and can we claim on this ground to know any thing satisfactorily of real causes in nature ? By analogy we should seem justified in doing so; and yet we must always feel that there is something in natural causes beyond our grasp ; for one cause implies an- other, and another, and so on, till we recognize a great first Cause or Pro- ductive Will, of which man is the image. Here we reach the infinite , and how that is related to the finite , we do not and we can not know. Here then comes in the incompetence of human thought, and the great law of our philosopher. We know only “in part.” Still we are satis- fied, on the ground of consciousness, that we ourselves are productive causes, and by analogy, we infer that there must be a great Productive Cause of the Universe. The inference is almost as instantaneous and per- fect as the act of consciousness. It seems equally infallible ; so much so, that many have maintained that it is not an inference, but an original conviction given in conciousness. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xlvii It would seem, however, that in their last analysis, all finite causes, and even our own individual productive wills may be resolved, at least in thought, into the one infinite and eternal Cause or "Will, where we lose ourselves. Here, therefore, we are saved, and so restored to ourselves and to God, by acknowledging our mental incompetence. The matter is “ too high,” we can not “attain unto it.” It is possible that the defect which we feel in the application of Sir W. Hamilton’s principle to the primary conviction of cause, may arise from our imperfect conception of his views, or from his own inadequate, per- haps imperfect statement of it. For we would respectfully inquire, whether the particular position which he takes for its defense and eluci- dation may not fairly and logically be run into pantheism. (See Discus- sions pp. 575-583.) It is true indeed that something can never come from nothing ; for that would contradict our very idea of cause. Ulti- mately God must be conceived of as Cause of all that exists ; so that when he creates, he does not create out of nothing, but out of himself. That is to say, for the language must not be understood grossly and figuratively, he creates by his essential productive power. How, we know not, and can not know. By what means then do we save ourselves from pantheism ? By falling back upon our personal consciousness — and so recognizing the fundamental conviction of personal causality, as well as the distinction between subject and object, the me and the not me , which Sir William Hamilton has demonstrated. In our consciousness, we are free Productive Wills, all reasoning to the contrary notwithstanding ; and God himself must be a free Productive Will ; as Sir W. Hamilton, in his very explanation of this matter, frankly acknowledges. So that if there is any difficulty here, we shall cite Sir W. Hamilton against himself. For on the ground of “men- tal incompetence,” or the impossibility of conceiving two contradictories, he asserts that “ there is no ground for inferring a certain fact to be impos- sible , merely from our inability to conceive it possible.” So that, he adds, “ if the causal judgment be not an express affirmation of the mind, the unconditional testimony of consciotisness , that we are, though we know not how, the true and responsible authors of our actions” — (conscious then of being productive wills, or causes) — “not merely the worthless links in an adamantine series of effects and causes.” 1 Thus, on the same ground, though we find it impossible to conceive how matter can spring from spirit ; or how the universe of finite minds, or finite forms, can be created by Jehovah, we feel assured, that as we are free Productive Wills, he too must be a free Productive Will. If we 1 And again, “ How, therefore, I repeat, moral liberty is possible in man or God, we are utterly unable, speculatively to understand. But practically, the fact that we are free is given to us in the consciousness of an uncompromising law of duty, in the consciousness of our moral accountability.” Appendix A, p. 587. xlviii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. arc separated, by our personality, from the not me, or the finite world without us, he too by his personality (that is, his free causative will), is separated from the finite universe which he has made. He may be in it, as a presence or a power, but he is above it, as a free creative spirit, who controls it with the supreme and eternal dominion of Proprietor and Lord. If we say, that potentially the sum of being or existence is not increased by the creation ; or rather if we say, that we are incompetent to conceive how the sum of being is increased ; no matter ; the incompetence is the same in both cases. We exist — we are free — we are conscious personal- ities ; that is enough. And so it is enough to say, that God exists — is free — is an infinite yet conscious personality, who creates all things “ by the word of his power,” or, which is the same thing, by his inherent creative energy. “ God said, Let there be light, and there was light !” Here then we reverently unite with our author, in adoring, rvith pro- found humility, the ineffable Jehovah, the father of our spirits, who is “ above all, through all, and in all.” In conclusion also, we commend to thoughtful minds the cultivation of a philosophy so humble and trustful, and yet so profound and comprehensive. “For I may indeed say,” is the testimony of our author, “ with Chrysostom, The foundation of our phi- losophy is humility. (Homil. de Perf. Evang.) For it is professedly a demonstration of the impossibility of that wisdom in high matters, which the apostle prohibits us even to attempt ; and it proposes, from the limit- ation of the human powers, from our impotence to comprehend, what however we must admit, to show articulately why ‘ the secret things of God can not but be to man past finding out.’ Humility thus becomes the cardinal virtue, not only of revelation, but of reason.” 1 1 The whole passage is worthy of careful study as indicating the true relations of reason and faith, of philosophy and theology. See Appendix A, p. 588. Hartford, Conn., May , 1853. PHILOSOPHY. I.— PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNCONDITIONED. IN REFERENCE TO COUSIN’S DOCTRINE OF THE INFINITO-ABSOLUTE . 1 (October, 1829.) Cours de Pliilosopliie. Par M. Victor Cousin, Professeur de Philosophic a la Faculte des Lettres de Paris . — Introduction a PHistoire de la Philosophic. 8vo. Paris, 1828. The delivery of these Lectures excited an unparalleled sensa- tion in Paris. Condemned to silence during the reign of Jesuit ascendency, M. Cousin, after eight years of honorable retirement, not exempt from persecution, had again ascended the Chair of 1 [Translated 'into French, by M. Peisse ; into Italian, by S. Lo Gatto : also in Cross’s Selections from the Edinburgh Review. This article did not originate with myself. I was requested to write it by my friend, the late accomplished Editor of the Review, Professor Napier. Personally, I felt averse from the task. I was not unaware, that a discussion of the leading doc- trine of the book would prove unintelligible, not only to “ the general reader,” but, with few exceptions, to our British metaphysicians at large. But, moreover, I was still farther disinclined to the undertaking, because it would behove me to come for- ward in overt opposition to a certain theory, which, however powerfully advocated, I felt altogether unable to admit : while its author, M. Cousin, was a philosopher for whose genius and character I already had the warmest admiration— an admiration which every succeeding year has only augmented, justified, and confirmed. Nor, in saying this, need I make any reservation. For I admire, even where I dissent; and were M. Cousin’s speculations on the Absolute utterly abolished, to him would still remain the honor, of doing more himself, and of contributing more to what has been done by others, in the furtherance of an enlightened philosophy, than any other living individual in France — I might say in Europe. Mr. Napier, however, was resolute; it was the first number of the Review under his direction ; and the criticism was hastily written. In this country the reasonings were of course not understood, and naturally, for a season, declared incomprehensible. Abroad, in France, Germany, Italy, and latterly in America, the article has been rated higher than it deserves. The illustri- ous thinker, against one of whose doctrines its argument is directed, was the first to A * 1 10 PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNCONDITIONED. Philosophy ; and the splendor with which he recommenced his academical career, more than justified the expectation which his recent celebrity as a writer, and the memory of his earlier prelec- tions, had inspired. Two thousand auditors listened, all with ad- miration, many with enthusiasm, to the eloquent exposition of doctrines intelligible only to the few ; and the oral discussion of philosophy awakened in Paris, and in France, an interest unex- ampled since the days of Abelard. The daily journals found it necessary to gratify, by their earlier summaries, the impatient curiosity of the public ; and the lectures themselves, taken in short-hand, and corrected by the Professor, propagated weekly the influence of his instruction to the remotest provinces of the kingdom. Nor are the pretensions of this doctrine disproportioned to the attention which it has engaged. It professes nothing less than to be the complement and conciliation of all philosophical opinion ; and its author claims the glory of placing the key-stone in the arch of science, by the discovery of elements hitherto unobserved among the facts of consciousness. Before proceeding to consider the claims of M. Cousin to orig- inality, and of his doctrine to truth, it is necessary to say a few words touching the state and relations of philosophy in France. After the philosophy of Descartes and Malebranche had sunk into oblivion, and from the time that Condillac, exaggerating the too partial principles of Locke, had analyzed all knowledge into sensation, Sensualism (or more correctly, Sensuism), as a psycho- logical theory of the origin of our cognitions, became, in France, not only the dominant, but almost the one exclusive opinion. It was believed that reality and truth were limited to experience, and experience was limited to the sphere of sense ; while the very highest faculties of mind were deemed adequately explained when recalled to perceptions, elaborated, purified, sublimated, and trans- speak of it in terras which, though I feel their generosity, I am ashamed to quote. I may, however, state, that maintaining always his opinion, M. Cousin (what is rare, especially in metaphysical discussions), declared, that it was neither unfairly combated nor imperfectly understood — In connection with this criticism, the reader should com- pare what M. Cousin has subsequently stated in defense and illustration of his system, in his Preface to the new edition of the Introduction a VHistoire dc la Philosophic, and Appendix to the fifth lecture ( CEuvrcs , Serie II. Tome i. pp. vii. , ix., and pp. 112- 129) ; — in his Preface to the second edition, and his Advertisement to the third edition of the Fragments Pldlosophiqucs (CEuvres, S. III. T. iv.) — and in his Prefatory Notice to the Pensces dc Pascal ( CEuvrcs , S. IV. T. i.) — On the other hand, M. Peisse has ably advocated the counterview, in his Preface and Appendix to the Fragments dc Philosophic, &c.] PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE ; AND IN SCOTLAND. 11 formed. From the mechanical relations of sense with its object, it was attempted to solve the mysteries of will and intelligence ; the philosophy of mind was soon viewed as correlative to the phys- iology of organization. The moral nature of man was at last formally abolished, in its identification with his physical ; mind became a reflex of matter; thought a secretion of the brain. A doctrine so melancholy in its consequences, and founded on principles thus partial and exaggerated, could not be permanent : a reaction was inevitable. The recoil, which began about twenty years ago, has been gradually increasing ; and now it is perhaps even to be apprehended, that its intensity may become excessive. As the poison was of foreign growth, so also has been the antidote. The doctrine of Condillac was, if not a corruption, a development of the doctrine of Locke ; and, in returning to a better philosophy, the French are still obeying an impulsion communicated from with- out. This impulsion may be traced to two different sources — to the philosophy of Scotland, and to the philosophy of Germany. In Scotland, a philosophy had sprung up, which, though pro- fessing, equally with the doctrine of Condillac, to build only on experience, did not, like that doctrine, limit experience to the relations of sense and its objects. Without vindicating to man more than a relative knowledge of existence, and restricting the science of mind to an observation of the fact of consciousness, it, however, analyzed that fact into a greater number of more import- ant elements than had been recognized in the school of Condillac. It showed that phenomena were revealed in thought which could not be resolved into any modification of sense — external or inter- nal. It proved that intelligence supposed principles, which, as the conditions of its activity, can not be the results of its opera- tion ; that the mind contained knowledges, which, as primitive, universal, necessary, are not to be explained as generalizations from the contingent and individual, about which alone all expe- rience is conversant. The phenomena of mind were thus distin- guished from the phenomena of matter ; and if the impossibility of materialism were not demonstrated, there was, at least, demon- strated the impossibility of its proof. This philosophy, and still more the spirit of this philosophy, was calculated to exert a salutary influence on the French. And such an influence it did exert. For a time, indeed, the truth operated in silence ; and Reid and Stewart had already modified the philosophy of France, before the French were content to ac- 12 PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNCONDITIONED. knowledge themselves their disciples. In the works of Degerando and Laromiguiere, may be traced the influence of Scottish specu- lation ; hut it is to Royer-Collard, and, more recently, to Jouffroy, that our countrymen are indebted for a full acknowledgment of their merits, and for the high and increasing estimation in which their doctrines are now held in France. M. Royer-Collard, whose authority has, in every relation, been exerted only for the benefit of his country, and who, once great as a professor, is now not less illustrious as a statesman, in his lectures, advocated with distin- guished ability the principles of the Scottish school ; modestly content to follow, while no one was more entitled to lead. M. Jouffroy, by his recent translation of the works of Dr. Reid, and by the excellent preface to his version of Mr. Dugald Stewart’s “ Outlines of Moral Philosophy,” has likewise powerfully co- operated to the establishment, in France, of a philosophy equally opposed to the exclusive Sensualism of Condillac, and to the ex- clusive Rationalism of the new German school. Germany may be regarded, latterly at least, as the metaphysi- cal antipodes of France. The comprehensive and original genius of Leibnitz, itself the ideal abstract of the Teutonic character, had reacted powerfully on the minds of his countrymen ; and Rationalism, (more properly Intellectualism ,’) has from his time, always remained the favorite philosophy of the Germans. On the principle of this doctrine, it is in Reason alone that truth and reality are to be found. Experience affords only the occasions on which intelligence reveals to us the necessary and universal notions of which it is the complement ; and these notions consti- tute at once the foundation of all reasoning, and the guarantee of our whole knowledge of reality. Kant, indeed, pronounced the philosophy of Rationalism a mere fabric of delusion. He declared that a science of existence was beyond the compass of our facul- ties ; that pure reason, as purely subjective, and conscious of [On the modern commutation of Intellect or Intelligence (Noth, Mens , Intellectui, Vcrstand ), and Reason (Ad-yoy, Ratio, Vernunft ), see Dissertations on Reid, pp. 668, 669, 693. (This has nothing to do with the confusion of Reason and Reasoning.) Protesting, therefore, against the abuse, I historically employ the terms as they were employed by the philosophers here commemorated. This unfortunate reversal has been propagated to the French philosophy, and also adopted in England by Coleridge and his followers. — I may here notice that 1 use the term Understanding, not for the noetic faculty, intellect proper, or place of principles, but for the dianoetic or discursive faculty, in its widest signification, for the faculty of relations or comparison ; and thus in the meaning in which Verstand is now employed by the Germans. In this sense I have been able to be uniformly consistent.] PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY. 13 nothing hut itself, was therefore unahle to evince the reality of aught beyond the phenomena of its personal modifications . 1 2 But scarcely had the critical philosopher accomplished the recognition of this important principle, the result of which was, to circum- scribe the field of speculation by narrow hounds ; than from the very disciples of his school there arose philosophers, who, despising the contracted limits, and humble results, of a philosophy of ob- servation, re-established, as the predominant opinion, a bolder and more uncompromising Rationalism than any that had ever previously obtained for their countrymen the character of philo- sophic visionaries — “ Gens ratione ferox, et mentem pasta chimsris.” 1 (“Minds fierce for reason, and on fancies fed.”) 1 In the philosophy of mind, subjective denotes what is to be referred to the think- ing subject, the Ego ; objective what belongs to the object of thought, the Non-Ego. — It may be safe, perhaps, to say a few words in vindication of our employment of these terms. By the Greeks the word vn oKeipevov was equivocally employed to express either the object of knowledge (the materia circa quam), or the subject of existence >(the materia in qua). The exact distinction of subject and object was first made by the schoolmen ; and to the schoolmen the vulgar languages are prin- pally indebted for what precision and analytic subtilty they possess. These correla- tive terms correspond to the first and most important distinction in philosophy ; they embody the original antithesis in consciousness of self and not-self — a distinction which, in fact, involves the whole science of mind ; for psychology is nothing more Gian a determination of the subjective and the objective, in themselves, and in their reciprocal relations. Thus significant of the primary and most extensive analysis in philosophy, these terms, in their substantive and adjective forms, passed from the schools into the scientific language of Telesius, Campanella, Berigardus, Gassendi, Descartes, Spinosa, Leibnitz, Wolf, &c. Deprived of these terms, the Critical philo- sophy, indeed the whole philosophy of Germany, would be a blank. In this country, though familiarly employed in scientific language, even subsequently to the time of Locke, the adjective forms seem at length to have dropt out of the English tongue. That these words waxed obsolete was perhaps caused by the ambiguity which had gradually crept into the signification of the substantives. Object, besides its proper signification, came to be abusively applied to denote motive, end, final cause (a mean- ing not recognized by Johnson). This innovation was probably borrowed from the French, in whose language the word had been similarly corrupted after the commence- ment of the last century (Diet, de Trevoux, voce Objet.) Subject in English, as sujet in French, had been also perverted into a synonyme for object, taken in its proper meaning, and had thus returned to the original ambiguity of the corresponding term in Greek. It is probable that the logical application of the word ( subject of attribution or predication) facilitated or occasioned this confusion. In using the terms, therefore, we think that an explanation, but no apology, is required. The distinction is of para- mount importance, and of infinite application, not only in philosophy proper, but in grammar, rhetoric, criticism, ethics, politics, jurisprudence, theology. It is adequately expressed by no other terms ; and if these did not already enjoy a prescriptive right, as denizens of the language, it can not be denied, that, as strictly analogical, they would be well entitled to sue out their naturalization. — [Not that these terms were formerly always employed in the same signification and contrast which they now ob- tain. For a history of these variations, see Dissertations on Reid, p. 806, sq.- — Since this article was written, the words have in this country re-entered on their ancient rights; they are now in common use.] 2 [This line, which was quoted from memory, has, I find, in the original, “furens;” 14 PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNCONDITIONED. Founded by Fichte, but evolved by Schelling, this doctrine re- gards experience as unworthy of the name of science : because, as only of the phenomenal, the transitory, the dependent, it is only of that which, having no reality in itself, can not be estab- lished as a valid basis of certainty and knowledge. Philosophy must, therefore, either be abandoned, or we must be able to seize the One, the Absolute, the Unconditioned, immediately and in itself. And this they profess to do by a kind of intellectual vision .’ In this act, reason, soaring not only above the world of sense, but beyond the sphere of personal consciousness, boldly places itself at the very centre of absolute being, with which it claims to be, in fact, identified ; and thence surveying existence in itself, and in its relations, unvails to us the nature of the Deity, and explains, from first to last, the derivation of all cre- ated things. M. Cousin is the apostle of Rationalism in France, and we are willing to admit that the doctrine could not have obtained a more eloquent or devoted advocate. For philosophy he has suffered ; to her ministry he has consecrated himself — devoted without reserve his life and labors. Neither has he approached the sanc- tuary with unwashed hands. The editor of Proclus and Des- cartes, the translator and interpreter of Plato, and the promised expositor of Kant, will not be accused of partiality in the choice of his pursuits; while his two works, under the title of Philosoph- ical Fragments, bear ample evidence to the learning, elegance, and distinguished ability of their author. Taking him all in all, therefore translated — “Minds mad with reasoning — and fancy-fed.” The author certainly had in his eye the “ratione insanias” of Terence. It is from a satire by Abraham Remi, who, in the former half of the seventeenth century, was Professor Itoyal of Eloquence in the University of Paris ; and it referred to the disputants of the Irish College in that illustrious school. The “Hibernian Logicians” were, indeed, long famed over the continent of Europe, for their acuteness, pugnacity, and barbar- ism ; as is recorded by Patin, Bayle, Le Sage, and many others. The learned Menage was so delighted with the verse, as to declare, that he would give his best benefice (and he enjoyed some fat ones) to have written it. It applies, not only with real, but with verbal, accuracy to the German Rationalists ; who in Philosophy (as Aristotle has it), “in making reason omnipotent, show their own impotence of reason,” and in Theology (as Charles II. said of Isaac Vossius) — “believe every thing but the Bible.”] 1 U [liilellcctuelle Anschauung." — This is doubly wrong. — 1°, In grammatical rigor, the word in German ought to have been “ intellectual. ” 2°, In philosophical con- sistency the intuition ought not to have been called by its authors (Fichte and Schcll- ing) intellectual. For, though this be, in fact, absolutely more correct, yet relatively it is a blunder ; for the intuition, as intended by them, is of their higher faculty, the Reason (Vcrnunft), and not of their lower, the Understanding or Intellect (Verstand). In modern German Philosophy, Verstand is always translated by Intelleclus ; and this again corresponds to Nous - .] COUSIN’S PHILOSOPHY. 15 in France M. Cousin stands alone : nor can we contemplate his character and accomplishments without the sincerest admiration, even while we dissent from the most prominent principle of his philosophy. The development of his system, in all its points, betrays the influence of German speculation on his opinions. His theory is not, however, a scheme of exclusive Rationalism ; on the contrary, the peculiarity of his doctrine consists in the attempt to combine the philosophy of experience, and the philo- sophy of pure reason, into one. The following is a concise state- ment of the fundamental positions of his system : Reason, or intelligence, has three integrant elements, affording three regulative principles, which at once constitute its nature, and govern its manifestations. These three ideas severally sup- pose each other, and, as inseparable, are equally essential and equally primitive. They are recognized by Aristotle and by Kant, in their several attempts to analyze intelligence into its princi- ples ; but though the categories of both philosophers comprise all the elements of thought, in neither list are these elements nat- urally co-arranged, or reduced to an ultimate simplicity. Th e first of these ideas, elements, or laws, though fundament- ally one, our author variously expresses, by the terms unity , identity , substance, absolute cause , the infinite , pure thought, &c. (we would briefly call it the unconditioned'). The second, he denominates plurality , difference, phenomenon , relative cause , the finite, determined thought, &c. (we would style it the con- ditioned). These two elements are relative and correlative. The first, though absolute, is not conceived as existing absolutely in itself; it is conceived as an absolute cause, as a cause which can not but pass into operation ; in other words, the first element must manifest itself in the second. The two ideas are thus con- nected together as cause and effect ; each is only realized through the other ; and this their connection , or correlation, is the third integrant element of intelligence. Reason, or intelligence, in which these ideas appear, and which, in fact, they make up, is not individual, is not ours, is not even human ; it is absolute, it is divine. What is personal to us, is our free and voluntary activity ; what is not free and not voluntary, is adventitious to man, and does not constitute an integrant part of his individuality. Intelligence is conversant with truth ; truth, as necessary and universal, is not the creature of my volition ; and reason, which, as the subject of truth, is also universal and 16 PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNCONDITIONED. necessary, is consequently impersonal. We see, therefore, by a light which is not ours, and reason is a revelation of God in man. The ideas of which we are conscious, belong not to us, but to absolute intelligence. They constitute, in truth, the very mode and manner of its existence. For consciousness is only possible under plurality and difference, and intelligence is only possible through consciousness. The divine nature is essentially comprehensible. For the three ideas constitute the nature of the Deity ; and the very nature of ideas is to be conceived. God, in fact, exists to us, only in so far as he is known ; and the degree of our knowledge must al- ways determine the measure of our faith. The relation of God to the universe is therefore manifest, and the creation easily un- derstood. To create, is not to make something out of nothing, for this is contradictory, but to originate from self. We create so often as we exert our free causality, and something is created by us, when something begins to be by virtue of the free causal- ity which belongs to us. To create is, therefore, to cause, not with nothing, but with the very essence of our being — with our force, our will, our personality. The divine creation is of the same character. God, as he is a cause, is able to create ; as he is an absolute cause, he can not but create. In creating the universe, he does not draw it from nothing ; he draws it from himself. The creation of the universe is thus necessary ; it is a manifestation of the Deity, but not the Deity absolutely in him- self ; it is God passing into activity, but not exhausted in the act. The universe created, the principles which determined the creation are found still to govern the worlds of matter and mind. Two ideas and their connection explain the intelligence of God; two laws in their counterpoise and correlation explain the mate- rial universe. The law of Expansion is the movement of unity to variety ; the law of Attraction is the return of variety to unity. In the world of mind the same analogy is apparent. The study of consciousness is psychology. Man is the microcosm of exist- ence; consciousness, within a narrow focus, concentrates a knowl- edge of the universe and of God ; psychology is thus the abstract of all science, human and divine. As in the external world, all phenomena may be reduced to the two great laws of Action and Reaction ; so, in the internal, all the facts of consciousness may be reduced to one fundamental fact, comprising in like manner two principles and their correlation; and these principles are COUSIN’S PHILOSOPHY. 17 again the One or the Infinite , the Many or the Finite and the Connection of the infinite and finite. In every act of consciousness we distinguish a Self or Ego, and something different from self, a Non- ego ; each limited and modi- fied by the other. These, together, constitute the finite element. But at the same instant when we are conscious of these exist- ences, plural, relative, and contingent, we are conscious likewise of a superior unity in which they are contained, and by which they are explained ; — a unity absolute as they are conditioned, substantive as they are phenomenal, and an infinite cause as they are finite causes. This unity is God. The fact of conscious- ness is thus a complex phenomenon, comprehending three several terms : 1°, The idea of the Ego and Non-ego as Finite ; 2°, The idea of something else as Infinite ; and, 3°, The idea of the Rela- tion of the finite element to the infinite. These elements are revealed in themselves and in their mutual connection, in every act of primitive or Spontaneous consciousness. They can also he reviewed by Reflection in a voluntary act ; but here reflection distinguishes, it does not create. The three ideas, the three cate- gories of intelligence, are given in the original act of instinct- ive apperception, obscurely, indeed, and without contrast. Re- flection analyzes and discriminates the elements of this primary synthesis ; and as will is the condition of reflection, and will at the same time is personal, the categories, as obtained through re- flection, have consequently the appearance of being also personal and subjective. It was this personality of reflection that misled Kant : caused him to overlook or misinterpret the fact of sponta- neous consciousness; to individualize intelligence; and to collect under this personal reason all that is conceived by us as neces- sary and universal. But as, in the spontaneous intuition of rea- son, there is nothing voluntary, and consequently nothing person- al ; and as the truths which intelligence here discovers, come not from ourselves ; we have a right, up to a certain point, to impose these truths on others as revelations from on high : while, on the contrary, reflection being wholly personal, it would be absurd to impose on others, what is the fruit of our individual operations. Spontaneity is the principle of religion ; reflection of philosophy. Men agree in spontaneity ; they differ in reflection. The former is necessarily veracious ; the latter is naturally delusive. The condition of Reflection is separation : it illustrates by dis- tinguishing ; it considers the different elements apart, and while B 18 PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNCONDITIONED. it contemplates one, it necessarily throws the others out of view, Hence, not only the possibility, but the necessity, of error. The primitive unity, supposing no distinction, admits of no error ; reflection in discriminating the elements of thought, and in con- sidering one to the exclusion of others, occasions error, and a variety in error. He who exclusively contemplates the element of the Infinite, despises him who is occupied with the idea of the Finite ; and vice versa. It is the wayward development of the various elements of intelligence, which determines the imperfec- tions and varieties of individual character. Men under this par- tial and exclusive development, are but fragments of that hu- manity which can only be fully realized in the harmonious evo- lution of all its principles. What Reflection is to the individual, History is to the human race. The difference of an epoch con- sists exclusively in the partial development of some one element of intelligence in a prominent portion of mankind ; and as there are only three such elements, so there are only three grand epochs in the history of man. A knowledge of the elements of reason, of their relations and of their laws, constitutes not merely Philosophy, but is the con- dition of a History of Philosophy. The history of human reason, or the history of philosophy, must be rational and philosophic. It must be philosophy itself, with all its elements, in all their relations, and under all their laws, represented in striking char- acters by the hands of time and of history, in the manifested pro- gress of the human mind. The discovery and enumeration of all the elements of intelligence enable us to survey the progress of speculation from the loftiest vantage ground ; it reveals to us the laws by which the development of reflection or philosophy is determined ; and it supplies us with a canon by which the ap- proximation of the different systems to the truth may be finally ascertained. And what are the results ? Sensualism , Idealism, Skepticism, Mysticism, are all partial and exclusive views of the elements of intelligence. But each is false only as it is incorn- piete. They are all true in what they affirm ; all erroneous in what they deny. Though hitherto opposed, they are, consequent- ly, not incapable of coalition ; and, in fact, can only obtain their consummation in a powerful Eclecticism — a system which shall comprehend them all. This Eclecticism is realized in the doc- trine previously developed ; and the possibility of such a catholic philosophy was first afforded by the discovery of M. Cousin, made COUSIN’S PHILOSOPHY. 19 so long ago as the year 1817 — “that consciousness contained many more phenomena than had previously been suspected.” The present course is at once an exposition of these principles, as a true theory of philosophy, and an illustration of the mode in which this theory is to be applied, as a rule of criticism in the history of philosophical opinion. As the justice of the application must be always subordinate to the truth of the principle, we shall confine ourselves exclusively to a consideration of M. Cousin’s sys- tem, viewed absolutely in itself. This, indeed, we are afraid will prove comparatively irksome ; and, therefore, solicit indulgence, not only for the unpopular nature of the discussion, hut for the employment of language which, from the total neglect of these speculations in Britain, will necessarily appear abstruse — not merely to the general reader. Now, it is manifest that the whole doctrine of M. Cousin is involved in the proposition — that the Unconditioned , the Abso- lute , the Infinite , is immediately knoivn in consciousness , and this by difference, plurality , and relation. The unconditioned, as an original element of knowledge, is the generative principle of his system, hut common to him with others ; whereas, the mode in which the possibility of this knowledge is explained, affords its discriminating peculiarity. The other positions of his theory, as deduced from this assumption, may indeed be disputed, even if the antecedent be allowed ; hut this assumption disproved, every consequent in his theory is therewith annihilated. The recognition of the absolute as a constitutive principle of intelli- gence, our author regards as at once the condition and the end of philosophy ; and it is on the discovery of this principle in the fact of consciousness, that he vindicates to himself the glory of being the founder of the new eclectic , or the one catholic philos- ophy. The determination of this cardinal point will thus briefly satisfy us touching the claim and character of the system. To explain the nature of the problem itself, and the sufficiency of the solution propounded by M. Cousin, it is necessary to premise a statement of the opinions which may be entertained regarding the Unconditioned, as an immediate object of knowledge and of thought. These opinions may be reduced to four. — 1°, The Uncondi- tioned is incognizable and inconceivable ; its notion being only negative of the conditioned, which last can alone be positively known or conceived. — 2°, It is not an object of knowledge ; but 20 PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNCONDITIONED. its notion, as a regulative principle of the mind itself, is more than a mere negation of the conditioned. — 3°, It is cognizable, hut not conceivable ; it can be known by a sinking back into identity with the absolute, but is incomprehensible by conscious- ness and reflection, which are only of the relative and the differ- ent. — 4°, It is cognizable and conceivable by consciousness and reflection, under relation, difference, and plurality. The first of these opinions we regard as true ; the second is held by Kant; the third by Schelling; 1 and the last by our author. 1. In our opinion, the mind can conceive, and, consequently, can know, only the limited , and the conditionally limited. The unconditionally unlimited, or the Infinite , the unconditionally limited, or the Absolute , can not positively be construed to the mind ; they can be conceived, only by a thinking away from, or abstraction of, those very conditions under which thought itself is realized ; consequently, the notion of the Unconditioned is only negative — negative of the conceivable itself. For example, on the one hand we can positively conceive, neither an absolute whole, that is, a whole so great, that we can not also conceive it as a relative part of a still greater whole ; nor an absolute part, that is, a part so small, that we can not also conceive it as a relative whole, divisible into smaller parts. On the other hand, we can not positively represent, or realize, or construe to the mind (as here understanding and imagination coincide), 2 an infinite whole, for this could only be done by the infinite synthesis in thought of finite wholes, which would itself require an infinite time for its accomplishment ; nor, for the same reason, can we follow out in thought an infinite divisibility of parts. The result is the same, whether we apply the process to limitation in space, in time, or in degree. The unconditional negation, and the unconditional 1 [But not alone by Sclielling. For of previous philosophers, several held substan- tially the same doctrine. Thus Plotinus :• — v Elace, philosophers concur in acknowledging, that mankind at large believe, that the external reality itself consti- tutes the immediate and only object of perception. — So also Reid. “ On the same principle, the unlearned man says, I perceive the external object, and I perceive it to exist. ' n (L. c.) — “ The vul- gar 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 perfect lunacy to call in question the existence of external objects .” (L. c.) — “ The vulgar are firmly persuaded, that the very identical objects which they perceive continue to exist when they do not perceive them ; and are no less firmly persuaded, that when ten men look at the BROWN’S ARGUMENT FOR REID’S REPRESENTATION. 65 sun or the moon they all see the same individual object .” (P. 166.) — Speaking of Berkeley: “The vulgar opinion he reduces to this, that the very things which ive perceive by our senses do really exist. This he grants. (P. 165) — “ It is, therefore, ac- knowledged by this philosopher (Hume) to be a natural instinct or prepossession, an universal and primary opinion of all men, that the objects which we immediately perceive, by our senses, are not images in our minds , hut external objects , and that their existence is independent of us and our perception.” (P. 201. See also pp. 143, 198, 199, 200, 206.) In these circumstances, if Reid : either 1°, — maintains, that his immediate perception of external things is convertible with their reality ; or 2°, — asserts that, in his doctrine of perception, the external reality stands, to the percipient mind, face to face, in the same immediacy of relation which the idea holds in the representative theory of the philosophers ; or 3°, — declares the identity of his own opinion with the vulgar belief, as thus ex- pounded by himself and the philosophers : — he could not more emphatically proclaim himself a natural realist , and his doctrine of perception, as intended, at least, a doctrine of intuition. And he does all three. The first and second. — “ We have before examined the reasons given by philosophers to prove that ideas, and not external ob- jects, are the immediate objects of perception. We shall only here observe, that if external objects be perceived immediate- ly,” [and he had just before asserted for the hundredth time that they were so perceived] “ we have the same reason to believe THEIR EXISTENCE, AS PHILOSOPHERS HAVE TO BELIEVE THE EXISTENCE OF IDEAS, WHILE THEY HOLD THEM TO BE THE IMMEDIATE OBJECTS OF perception.” (P. 589. See also pp. 118, 138.) The third. — Speaking of the perception of the external world — “ AVe have here a remarkable conflict between two contradictory opinions, wherein all mankind are engaged. On the one side stand all the vulgar , who are unpracticed in philosophical re- searches, and guided by the uncorrupted primary instincts of nature. On the other side, stand all the philosophers , ancient and modern ; every man , ivithout exception , ivho reflects. In this DIVISION, TO MY GREAT HUMILIATION, I FIND MYSELF CLASSED AVITH THE VULGAR.” (P. 207.) Various other proofs of the same conclusion, could be adduced; these for brevity we omit. — Brown’s interpretation of the funda- E 66 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. mental tenet of Reid’s philosophy is, therefore, not a simple mis- conception, but an absolute reversal of its real and even unambi- guous import. [This is too strong. See Diss. p. 820.] But the ground, on which Brown vindicates his interpretation, is not unworthy of the interpretation itself. The possibility of an intuition beyond the sphere of self, he can hardly be said to have contemplated ; but on one occasion, Reid’s language seems, for a moment, to have actually suggested to him the question: — Might that philosopher not possibly regard the material object, as identical with the object of consciousness in perception? — On what ground does he reject the affirmative as absurd ? His rea- soning is to this effect : — To assert an intuitive perception of matter , is to assert an identity of matter and mind ( for an im- mediacy of knowledge is convertible with a unity of existence ) ; But Reid was a sturdy dualist ; Therefore , he could not main- tain cm immediate perception of the qualities of matter. (Led. xxv. pp. 159, 160.) In this syllogism, the major is a mere peti- tio principii , which Brown has not attempted to prove; and which, as tried by the standard of all philosophical truth, is not only false, but even the converse of the truth ; while, admitting its accuracy, it can not be so connected with the minor, as to legitimate the conclusion. If we appeal to consciousness, consciousness gives, even in the last analysis — in the unity of knowledge, a duality of existence ; and peremptorily falsifies Brown’s assumption, that not-self, as knozun, is identical with self as knowing. Reid therefore, as a dualist, and on the supreme authority of consciousness, might safely maintain the immediacy of perception ; — nay, as a dualist Reid could not , consistently, have adopted the opinion which Brown argues, that, as a dualist, he must be regarded to have held. Mind and matter exist to us only in their qualities ; and these qualities exist to us only as they are known by us, i. e. as phenomena. It is thus merely from knowledge that we can infer existence , and only from the supposed repugnance or compatibility of phenomena , within our experience, are we able to ascend to the transcendent difference or identity of substances. Now, on the hypothesis that all we immediately know, is only a state or mo- dification or quality or phenomenon of the cognitive subject itself — how can we contend, that the phenomena of mind and matter, known only as modifications of the same , must be the modifica- tions of different substances ; — nay, that only on this hypothesis BROWN’S ARGUMENT DISPROVED. 67 of their substantial unity in knowledge, can their substantial duality in existence be maintained ? But of this again. Brown’s assumption has no better foundation than the exagge- ration of a crotchet of philosophers ; which, though contrary to the evidence of consciousness, and consequently not only without but against all evidence, has yet exerted a more extensive and important influence, than any principle in the whole history of philosophy. This subject deserves a volume ; we can only afford it a few sentences. Some philosophers (as Anaxagoras, Heracli- tus, Alcmaeon) maintained that knowledge implied even a con- trariety of subject and object. But since the time of Empedocles, no opinion has been more universally admitted, than that the relation of knowledge inferred the analogy of existence. This analogy may be supposed in two potences. What knows and what is known, are either, 1°, similar , or, 2°, the same ; and if the general principle be true, the latter is the more philosophical. This principle it was, which immediately determined the whole doctrine of a representative perception. Its lower potence is seen in the intentional species of the schools, and in the ideas of Mallebranche and Berkeley ; its higher in the gnostic reasons of the Platonists, in the pre-existing species of Avicenna and the Arabians, in the ideas of Descartes and Leibnitz, in the pheno- mena of Kant, and in the external states of Dr. Brown. It me- diately determined the hierarchical gradation of faculties or souls of the Aristotelians — the vehicular medico of the Platonists — the theories of a common intellect of Alexander, Themistius, Averroes, Cajetanus, and Zabarella — the vision in the deity of Mallebranche — and the Cartesian and Leibnitian doctrines of assistance , and predetermined harmony. To no other origin is to be ascribed the refusal of the fact of consciousness in its prim- itive duality ; and the Unitarian systems of identity , material- ism , idealism , are the result. But however universal and omnipotent this principle may have been, Reid was at once too ignorant of opinions, to be much in danger from authority, and too independent a thinker, to accept so baseless a fancy as a fact. “ Mr. Norris,” says he, “ is the only author I have met with who professedly puts the question, Whether material things can be perceived by us immediately ? He has offered four arguments to show that they can not. First, Material objects are without the mind, and therefore there can be no union between the object and the percipient. Answer — 68 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. This argument is lame, until it is shown to he necessary, that in perception there should he 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 can not answer, because I do not understand it.'" ( Essays , I. P. p. 202.) The principle, that the relation of knowledge implies an anal- ogy of existence, admitted without examination in almost every school, but which Reid, with an ignorance wiser than knowl- edge, confesses he does not understand ; is nothing more than an irrational attempt to explain, what is, in itself, inexplicable. How the similar or the same is conscious of itself, is not a whit less inconceivable, than how one contrary is immediately perci- pient of another. It at best only removes our admitted ignorance by one step back ; and then, in place of our knowledge simply originating from the incomprehensible , it ostentatiously departs from the absurd. The slightest criticism is sufficient to manifest the futility of that hypothesis of representation, which Brown would substitute for Reid’s presentative perception ; — although this hypothesis, under various modifications, be almost coextensive with the his- tory of philosophy. In fact, it fulfills none of the conditions of a legitimate hypothesis. In the first place, it is unnecessary. — It can not show, that the fact of an intuitive perception, as given in consciousness, ought not to be accepted ; it is unable therefore to vindicate its own necessity, in order to explain the possibility of our knowledge of external things. That we can not show forth, hov) the mind is capable of knowing something different from self, is no reason to doubt that it is so capable. Every how (Scon) rests ultimately on a that (on) ; every demonstration is deduced from something given and indemonstrable ; all that is comprehensible, hangs from some revealed fact , which we must believe as actual , but, can not construe to the reflective intellect in its possibility . In consciousness — in the original spontaneity of intelligence ( vov> locus principiorum), are revealed the primordial facts of our in- telligent nature. Consciousness is the fountain of all compre- hensibility and illustration ; but as such , can not be itself illus- trated or comprehended. To ask how any fact of consciousness is possible, is to ask how consciousness its'elf is possible ; and to ask how consciousness is possible, is to ask how a being intelli- RE PEE SENT ATIONISM NOT A LEGITIMATE HYPOTHESIS. 69 gent like man is possible. Could we answer this, the Serpent had not tempted Eve by an hyperbole : — “"VVe should be as Gods.” But as we did not create ourselves, and are not even in the secret of our creation, we must take our existence, our knowledge upon trust : and that philosophy is the only true, be- cause in it alone can truth be realized, which does not revolt against the authority of our natural beliefs. “ The voice of Nature is the voice of God.” To ask, therefore, a reason for the possibility of our intuition of external things, above the fact of its reality, as given in our per- ceptive consciousness, betrays, as Aristotle has truly said, an imbecility of the reasoning principle itself: — u Tovtov typrelv \6yov, cKpevras ryv alcrdyaiv, appoxTTta ti? eem biavoias.''' The natural realist who accepts this intuition, can not, certainly, explain it, because, as ultimate, it is a fact inexplicable. Yet, with Hudibras : “ He knows what's what ; and that's as high As metaphysic wit can fly.” But the hypothetical realist — the cosmothetic idealist, who rejects a consciousness of aught beyond the mind, can not require of the natural realist an explanation of how such a consciousness is possible, until he himself shall have explained, what is even less conceivable, the possibility of representing (i. e. of knoioing) the unknown. Till then, each founds on the incomprehensible ; but the former admits the veracity, the latter postulates the falsehood of that principle, which can alone confer on this incomprehensi- ble foundation the character of truth. The natural realist, whose watchword is — The facts of consciousness, the ivhole facts, and nothing but the facts, has therefore naught to fear from his anta- gonist, so long as consciousness can not be explained nor redar- gued from without. If his system be to fall, it falls only with philosophy ; for it can only be disproved, by proving the menda- city of consciousness — of that faculty, “ Queb nisi sit veri, ratio quoque falsa fit omnis ;” (“ Which unless true, all reason turns a lie.”) This leads us to the second violation of the laws of a legitimate hypothesis ; — the doctrine of a representative perception annihi- lates itself, in subverting the universal edifice of knowledge. — Belying the testimony of consciousness to our immediate percep- tion of an outer world, it belies the veracity of consciousness 70 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. altogether. But the truth of consciousness, is the condition of the possibility of all knowledge. The first act of hypothetical realism, is thus an act of suicide ; philosophy, thereafter, is at best but an enchanted corpse, awaiting only the exorcism of the skeptic, to relapse into its proper nothingness. — But of this we shall have occasion to treat at large, in exposing Brown’s mis- prision of the argument from common sense. In the third place, it is the condition of a legitimate hypothe- sis, that the fact or facts for which it is excogitated to account, be not themselves hypothetical. — But so far is the principal fact, which the hypothesis of a representative perception is proposed to explain, from being certain ; its reality is even rendered prob- lematical by the proposed explanation itself. The facts, about which this hypothesis is conversant, are two ; — the fact of the mental modification , and the fact of the material reality. The problem to be solved is their connection ; and the hypothesis of representation is advanced, as the ratio of their correlation, in supposing that the former as known is vicarious of the latter as existing. There is, however, here a see-saw between the hypothe- sis and the fact : the fact is assumed as an hypothesis ; and the hypothesis explained as a fact ; each is established, each is expounded, by the other. To account for the possibility of an unknown external world, the hypothesis of representation is de- vised ; and to account for the possibility of representation, we imagine the hypothesis of an external world. Nothing could be more easy than to demonstrate, that on this supposition, the fact of the external reality is not only petitory but improbable. This, however, we are relieved from doing, by Dr. Brown’s own admis- sion, that “ the skeptical argument for the non-existence of an external world , as a mere play of reasoning , admits of no reply and we shall afterward prove, that the only ground on which he attempts to vindicate this existence (the ground of our natural belief in its reality), is one, not competent to the hypothetical realist. We shall see, that if this belief be true, the hypothesis itself is superseded ; if false, that there is no fact for the hypo- thesis to explain. In the, fourth place, a legitimate hypothesis must account for the phenomenon, about which it is conversant, adequately and without violence, in all its dependencies, relations, and peculiari- ties. — But the hypothesis in question, only accomplishes its end — nay only vindicates its utility, by a mutilation, or, more prop- REPRESENT ATIONISH NOT A LEGITIMATE HYPOTHESIS. 71 erly, by the destruction and re-creation , of the very phenome- non for the nature of which it would account. The entire phe- nomenon to be explained by the supposition of a representative perception, is the fact, given in consciousness, of the immediate knoiuledge or intuition of an existence different from self. This simple phenomenon it hews down into two fragments ; into the existence and the intuition. The existence of external things, which is given only through their intuition, it admits ; the intu- ition itself, though the ratio cognoscendi, and to us therefore the ratio essendi of their reality, it rejects. But to annihilate what is prior and constitutive in the phenomenon, is, in truth, to annihi- late the phenomenon altogether. The existence of an external world, which the hypothesis proposes to explain, is no longer even a truncated fact of consciousness ; for the existence given in con- sciousness , necessarily fell with the intuition on which it reposed. A representative perception, is therefore, an hypothetical ex- planation of a supposititious fact: it creates the nature it inter- prets. And in this respect, of all the varieties of the representa- tive hypothesis, the third , or that which views in the object known a modification of thought itself, most violently outrages the phenomenon of consciousness it would explain. And this is Brown’s. The first , saves the phenomenon of consciousness in so far as it preserves always the numerical, if not always the sub- stantial, difference between the object perceived and the percipi- ent mind. The second , does not violate at least the antithesis of the object perceived and the percipient act. But in the third or simplest form of representation, not only is the object known, denied to be itself the reality existing, as consciousness attests ; this object revealed as not-self, is identified with the mental ego ; nay, even, though given as permanent, with the transient energy of thought itself. In the fifth place, the fact, which a legitimate hypothesis is devised to explain, must be within the sphere of experience. — The fact, however, for which that of a representative perception ac- counts (the existence of external things), transcends, ex hypothesi , all experience ; it is the object of no real knowledge, but a bare ens rationis — a mere hyperphysical chimera. In the sixth and last place, an hypothesis itself is probable in proportion as it works simply and naturally ; that is in propor- tion as it is dependent on no subsidiary hypothesis, and as it in- volves nothing, petitory, occult, supernatural, as an element of its 72 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. explanation. In this respect, the doctrine of a representative per- ception is not less vicious than in others. To explain at all, it must not only postulate subsidiary hypotheses , but subsidiary miracles. — The doctrine in question attempts to explain the knoivl- cdge of an unknown world , by the ratio of a representative per- ception : but it is impossible by any conceivable relation, to apply the ratio to the facts. The mental modification, of which, on the doctrine of representation, we are exclusively conscious in percep- tion, either represents (i. e. affords a mediate knowledge of) a real external world, or it does not. (We say only the reality ; to in- clude all systems from Kant’s, who does not predicate even an existence in space and time of things in themselves , to Locke’s, who supposes the trancendent reality to resemble its idea, at least in the primary qualities .) Now, the latter alternative is an affirmation of absolute Idealism ; we have, therefore, at present only to consider the former. And here, the mind either knows the reality of what it represents, or it does not. — On the prior al- ternative, the hypothesis under discussion would annihilate itself, in annihilating the ground of its utility. For as the end of repre- sentation is knowledge ; and as the hypothesis of a representative perception is only required on the supposed impossibility of that presentative knowledge of external things, which consciousness affirms : — if the mind is admitted to be cognizant of the outer reality in itself, previous to representation, the end toward which the hypothesis was devised as a mean , has been already accom- plished ; and the possibility of an intuitive perception, as given in consciousness, is allowed. Nor is the hypothesis only absurd, as superfluous. It is worse. For the mind would, in this case, he supposed to know before it knew ; or, like the crazy Pentheus, to see its objects double — (“ Et solem geminum et duplices se ostendere Thebas :”) and, if these absurdities he eschewed, then is the identity of mind and self — of consciousness and knowledge , abolished ; and my intellect knows, what I am not conscious of it knowing ! — The oth,er alternative remains : — that the mind is blindly determined to represent , and truly to represent, the reality which it does not know. And here the mind either blindly determines itself, or is blindly determined by an extrinsic and intelligent cause. — The former lemma is the more philosophical, in so far as it assumes nothing hyperphysical ; hut it is otherwise utterly irrational, in REPRESENTATIONS NOT A LEGITIMATE HYPOTHESIS. 73 as much as it would explain an effect, by a cause wholly inade- quate to its production. On this alternative, knowledge is sup- posed to be the effect of ignorance — intelligence of stupidity — life of death. We are necessarily ignorant, ultimately at least, of the mode in which causation operates ; but we know at least, that no effect arises without a cause — and a cause proportionate to its existence. — The absurdity of this supposition has accordingly constrained the profoundest cosmothetic idealists, notwithstanding their rational abhorrence of a supernatural assumption, to em- brace the second alternative. To say nothing of less illustrious schemes, the systems of Divine Assistance, of a Pre-established Harmony, and of the Vision of all things in the Deity, are only so many subsidiary hypotheses — so many attempts to bridge, by supernatural machinery, the chasm between the representation and the reality , which all human ingenuity had found, by natural means, to be insuperable. The hypothesis of a representative perception, thus presupposes a miracle to let it work. Dr. Brown, indeed, rejects as unphilosophical, those hyperphysical subsidies. But he only saw less clearly than their illustrious authors, the necessity which required them. It is a poor philosophy that eschews the Deus ex mac kin a , and yet ties the knot which is only soluble by his interposition. It is not unphilosophical to assume a miracle, if a miracle be necessary ; but it is unphilosophical tc originate the necessity itself. And here the hypothetical realist can not pretend, that the difficulty is of nature’s, not of his crea- tion. In fact it only arises, because he has closed his eyes upon the light of nature, and refused the guidance of consciousness : but having swamped himself in following the ignis fcituus of a theory, he has no right to refer its private absurdities to the im- becility of human reason ; or to generalize his own factitious igno- rance, by a Quantum est quod nescimus! The difficulty of the problem Dr. Brown has not perceived ; or perceiving, has not ventured to state — far less attempted to remove. He has essayed, indeed, to cut the knot, which he was unable to loose; but we shall find, in the sequel, that his summary postulate of the reality of an external world, on the ground of our belief in its existence, is, in his hands, of all unfortunate attempts, perhaps the most unsuccessful. The scheme of Natural Realism (which it is Reid’s honor to have been the first, among not forgotten philosophers, virtually and intentionally, at least, to embrace) is thus the only system, on 74 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. which the truth of consciousness and the possibility of knowledge can be vindicated ; while the Hypothetical Realist, in his effort to be “wise above knowledge,” like the dog in the fable, loses the substance, in attempting to realize the shadow. “ Les homines ” (says Leibnitz, with a truth of which he was not him- self aware), “ les homines cherclient ce qu'ils savent, et ne savent pas ce qu'ils cherchent." That the doctrine of an intuitive perception is not without its difficulties, we allow. But these do not affect its possibility ; and may in a great measure be removed by a more sedulous examin- ation of flic phenomena. The distinction of perception proper from sensation proper, in other words, of the objective from the subjective in this act, Reid, after other philosophers, has already turned to good account ; but his analysis would have been still more successful, had he discovered the law which universally governs their manifestation : That Perception and Sensation, the objective and subjective, though both always co-existent, are al- ways in the inverse ratio of each other. But on this matter we can not at present enter. [See Diss. p. 876-885.] Dr. Brown is not only wrong in regard to Reid’s own doctrine; he is wrong, even admitting his interpretation of that philosopher to be true, in charging him with a “series of wonderful miscon- ceptions,” in regard to the opinions universally prevalent touch- ing the nature of ideas. We shall not argue the case upon the higher ground, that Reid, as a natural realist, could not be jihi- losophically out, in assailing the hypothesis of a representative perception, even though one of its subordinate modifications might be mistaken by him for another ; but shall prove that, supposing Reid to have been like Brown, an hypothetical realist, under the third form of a representative perception, he was not historically wrong in attributing to philosophers in general (at least, after the decline of the Scholastic philosophy), the first or second variety of the hypothesis. Even on this lower ground , Brown is fated to be unsuccessful ; and if Reid be not always correct, his antagonist has failed in convicting him even of a sin- gle inaccuracy. We shall consider Brown’s charge of misrepre- sentation in detail. It is always unlucky to stumble on the threshold. The para- graph (Lect. xxvii.) in which Dr. Brown opens his attack on Reid, contains more mistakes than sentences ; and the etymological dis- cussion if involves, supposes as true, what is not simply false, but HISTORICALLY, REID RIGHT, BROWN WRONG. 75 diametrically opposite to the truth. — Among other errors : — In the first place, the term “ idea ” was never employed in any system, previous to the age of Descartes, to denote “ little images derived from objects without.” In the second , it was never used in any philosophy, prior to the same period, to signify the immediate ob- ject of perception. In the third , it was not applied by the “ Peri- patetics or Schoolmen,” to express an object of human thought at all . 1 In the fourth , ideas (taking this term for species) were not “ in all the dark ages of the scholastic followers of Aristotle,” re- garded as “ little images derived from without for a numerous 1 The history of the word idea seems completely unknown. Previous to the age of Descartes, as a philosophical term, it was employed exclusively by the Platonists — at least exclusively in a Platonic meaning ; and this meaning was precisely the reverse of that attributed to the word by Dr. Brown ; — the idea was not an object of perception — the idea ivas not derived from without. — In the schools, so far from being a current psychological expression, as he imagines, it had no other application than a theological. Neither, after the revival of letters, was the term extended by the Aristotelians even to the objects of intellect. Melancthon, indeed (who was a kind of semi-Platonist) uses it on one occasion as a synonyme for notion, or intelligible species {Be Anima, p. 187, ed. 1555) ; but it was even to this solitary instance, we presume, that Julius Scaliger alludes {Be Subtilitate, vi. 4), when he castigates such an application of the word as neoteric and abusive. “ Melanch." is on the margin. Goclenius also probably founded his usage on Melanchthon. — We should have distinctly said, that previous to its employ- ment by Bescartes himself, the expression had never been used as a comprehensive term for the immediate objects of thought, had we not in remembrance the Historia Anim.cz Humana of our countryman David Buchanan. This work, originally written in French, had for some years been privately circulated previous to its publication at Paris in 1636. Here we find the word idea familiarly employed, in its most extensive signification, to express the objects, not only of intellect proper, but of memory, imagination, sense ; and this is the earliest example of such an employment. For the Biscourse on Method in which the term is usurped by Descartes in an equal latitude, was at least a year later in its publication — viz. in June, 1637. Adopted soon after also by Gassendi, the word under such imposing patronage gradually won its way into general use. In En- gland, however, Locke may be said to have been the first who naturalized the term in its Cartesian universality. Hobbes employs it, and that historically, only once or twice ; Henry More and Cudworth are very chary of it, even when treating of the Cartesian philosophy ; Willis rarely uses it ; while Lord Herbert, Reynolds, and the English philosophers in general, between Descartes and Locke, do not apply it psy- chologically at all. When in common language employed by Milton and Dryden, after Descartes, as before him, by Sidney, Spenser, Shakspeare, Hooker, &c., the meaning is Platonic. Our lexicographers are ignorant of the difference. The fortune of this word is curious. Employed by Plato to express the real forms of the intelligible world, in lofty contrast to the unreal images of the sensible ; it was lowered by Descartes, who extended it to the objects of our consciousness in general. When, after Gassendi, the school of Condillac had analyzed our highest faculties into our lowest, the idea was still more deeply degraded from its high original. Like a fallen angel, it was relegated from the sphere of divine intelligence, to the atmosphere of human sense ; till at last Ideologic (more correctly Idealogie), a word which could only properly suggest an a priori scheme, deducing our knowledge from the intellect, has in France become the name peculiarly distinctive of that philosophy of mind which exclusively derives our knowledge from the senses. — Word and thing, ideas have been the crux philosophomm, since Aristotle sent them packing (^aipe'rcocraj/ ideal) to the present day. 76 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. party of the most illustrious schoolmen rejected species , not only in the intellect , hut in the sense. In the fifth , “ phantasm ” in “the old philosophy,” was not the “ external cause of perception ,” but the internal object of imagination. In the sixth , the term “ shadowy film ” which here and elsewhere he constantly uses, shows that Dr. Brown confounds the matterless species of the Peripatetics with the corporeal effluxions of Democritus and Ep- icurus : “ Quae, quasi membrancB, summo de cortice rerum Dereptse, volitant ultro citroque per auras.” Dr. Brown, in short, only fails in victoriously establishing against Reid the various meanings in which “ the old writers'' employed the term idea , by the petty fact — that the old writers did not employ the term idea at all. Nor does the progress of the attack belie the omen of its outset. We shall consider the philosophers quoted by Brown in chronol- ogical order. Of three of these only (Descartes, Arnauld, Locke), were the opinions particularly noticed by Reid ; the others (Hobbes, Le Clerc, Crousaz), Brown adduces as examples of Reid’s general misrepresentation. Of the greater number of the philosophers specially criticised by Reid, Brown prudently says nothing. Of these, the first is Descartes; and in regard to him, Dr. Brown, not content with accusing Reid of simple ignorance, contends, “ that the opinions of Descartes are precisely opposite to the representations which he has given of them.” (Lect. xxvii. p. 172.) — Now Reid states, in regard to Descartes, that this phi- losopher appears to place the idea or representative object in per- ception, sometimes in the mind , and sometimes in the brain; and he acknowledges that while these opinions seem to him contra- dictory, he is not prepared to pronounce which of them their author held, if he did not indeed hold both together. “ Descartes,” he says, “ seems to have hesitated between the two opinions, or to have passed from one to the other.” On any alternative, how- ever, Reid attributes to Descartes, either the first or the second form of representation. Now here we must recollect, that the question is not whether Reid be rigorously right , but whether he be inexcusably wrong. Dr. Brown accuses him of the most ignorant misrepresentation — of interpreting an author, whose per- spicuity he himself admits, in a sense “ exactly the reverse ” of truth. To determine what Descartes’ doctrine of perception act- ually is, would be difficult, perhaps even impossible; but in refer- HISTORICALLY, E.EID RIGHT, BROWN WRONG 77 ence to the question at issue, certainly superfluous. It here suf- fices to show, that his opinion on this point is one mooted among his disciples ; and that Brown, wholly unacquainted with the dif- ficulties of the question, dogmatizes on the basis of a. single pas- sage — nay, of a passage in itself irrelevant. Reid is justified against Brown, if the Cartesian Idea he proved, either a material image in the brain, or an immaterial representa- tion in the mind, distinct from the percipient act. By those not possessed of the key to the Cartesian theory, there are many pas- sages 1 in the writings of its author, which, taken by themselves, might naturally be construed to import, that Descartes supposed the mind to be conscious of certain motions in the brain , to which, as well as to the modifications of the intellect itself, he applies the terms image and idea. Reid, who did not understand the Carte- sian philosophy as a system, was puzzled by these superficial ambi- guities. Not aware that the cardinal point of that system is — that mind and body, as essentially opposed, are naturally to each other as zero, and that their mutual intercourse can only be super- naturally maintained by the concourse of the Deity ; 2 Reid attrib- uted to Descartes the possible opinion that the soul is immediately cognizant of material images in the brain. But in the Cartesian theory, mind is only conscious of itself; the affections of body may, by the law of union, be the proximate occasions, but can never constitute the immediate objects, of knowledge. Reid, however, supposing that nothing could obtain the name of image , which did not represent a prototype, or the name of idea which was not an object of thought, thus misinterpreted Descartes ; who applies, abusively indeed, these terms to the occasion of perception (i. e., the motion in the sensorium, unknown in itself and resembling 1 Ex. gr. De Pass, (j 35, — a passage stronger than any of those noticed by De la Forge. 2 That the theory of Occasional Causes is necessarily involved in Descartes’ doc- trine of Assistance , and that his explanation of the connection of mind and body reposes on that theory, it is impossible to doubt. For while he rejects all physical influence in the communication and conservation of motion between bodies, which he refers exclusively to the ordinary concourse of God (Princ. P. II. Art. 36, etc.) ; con- sequently he deprives conflicting bodies of all proper efficiency, and reduces them to the mere occasional causes of this phenomenon. But a fortiori , he must postulate the hypothesis, which he found necessary in explaining the intercourse of things substan tially the same, to account for the reciprocal action of two substances, to him, of so incompatible a nature, as mind and body. De la Forge, Geulinx, Mallebranche, Corde- moi, and other disciples of Descartes, only explicitly evolve what the writings of their master implicitly contain. We may observe, though we can not stop to prove, that Tennemann is wrong in denying De la Forge to be even an advocate, far less the first articulate expositor, of the doctrine of Occasional Causes. 78 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. nothing;), as well as to the object of thought ( i . e. the representa- tion of which we are conscious in the mind itself). In the Leib- nitio-Wolfian system, two elements, both also denominated ideas , arc in like manner accurately to be contra-distinguished in the process of perception. The idea in the brain , and the idea in the mind, are, to Descartes, precisely what the “ material idea,' 1 ' 1 and the “ sensual idea,” are to the Wolfians. In both philosophies, the two ideas are harmonic modifications, correlative and co-existent; hut in neither, is the organic affection or material idea an object of consciousness. It is merely the unknown and arbitrary condition of the mental representation ; and in the hypotheses both of Assist- ance and of Pre-established Harmony, the presence of the one idea implies the concomitance of the other, only by virtue of the hyper- physical determination. Had Reid, in fact, not limited his study of the Cartesian system to the writings of its founder, the twofold application of the term idea , by Descartes, could never have seduced him into the belief, that so monstrous a solecism had been commit- ted by that illustrious thinker. By De la Forge, the personal friend of Descartes, the verbal ambiguity is, indeed, not only noticed, but removed ; and that admirable expositor applies the term “ cor- poreal species’’’ to the affection in the brain, and the terms “idea,” “ intellectual notion,” to the spiritual representation in the con- scious mind. — ( De I’Esprit, c. 10.) But if Reid be wrong in his supposition, that Descartes admit- ted a consciousness of ideas in the brain;’ is he on the other al- ternative wrong, and inexcusably wrong, in holding that Descar- tes supposed ideas in the mind , not identical with their percep- tions? Mallebranche, the most illustrious name in the school after its founder, (and who, not certainly with less ability, may be supposed to have studied the writings of his master, with far greater attention than either Reid or Brown,) ridicules, as “ con- trary to common sense and justice,” the supposition that Descartes had rejected ideas in “ the ordinary acceptation ,” and adopted the hypothesis of their being representations, not really distinct from their perception. And while “he is as certain as he possibly can be in such matters,” that Descartes had not dissented from the general opinion, he taunts Arnauld with resting his paradoxical interpretation of that philosopher’s doctrine “not on any passages 1 Reid’s error on this point is however surpassed by that of M. Royer-Collard, who represents the idea in the Cartesian doctrine of perception as exclusively situate in the brain . — ( CEuvres de Reid, III. p. 334). HISTORICALLY, REID RIGHT, BROWN WRONG. 79 of his Metaphysic contrary to the common opinion ,” hut on his own arbitrary limitation of il tlie ambiguous term perception ” (Rep. au Livre des Idees, passim ; Arnauld, CEuv. xxxviii. pp, 388, 389.) That ideas are “ found in the mind , not formed by itfi and consequently, that in the act of knowledge the representation is really distinct from the cognition proper, is strenuously asserted as the doctrine of his master by the Cartesian Roell, in the con- troversy he maintained with the Anti-Cartesian De Vries. (Ro- elli Dispp.; De Vries De Ideis innatis.) But it is idle to mul- tiply proofs. Brown’s charge of ignorance falls back upon himself ; and Reid may lightly bear the reproach of “ exactly reversing' 1 ’’ the notorious doctrine of Descartes, when thus borne, along with him, by the profoundest of that philosopher’s disciples. Had Brown been aware, that the point at issue between him and Reid, was one agitated among the followers of Descartes themselves, he could hardly have dreamt of summarily determin- ing the question by the production of one vulgar passage from the writings of that philosopher. But we are sorely puzzled to ac- count for his hallucination, in considering this passage pertinent. Its substance is fully given by Reid in his exposition of the Car- tesian doctrine. Every iota it contains, of any relevancy, is adopted by Mallebranche ; — constitutes, less precisely indeed, his famous distinction of perception (idee) from sensation ( sentiment ) : and Mallebranche is one of the two modern philosophers admitted by Brown to have held the hypothesis of representation in its first , and, as he says, its most “ erroneous ” form. But principles that coalesce, even with the hypothesis of ideas distinct from mind , are not, a fortiori , incompatible with the hypothesis, of ideas dis- tinct only from the perceptive act. We can not, however, enter on an articulate exposition of its irrelevancy. To adduce Hobbes, as an instance of Reid’s misrepresentation of the “common doctrine of ideas,” betrays, on the part of Brown, a total misapprehension of the conditions of the question ; or he forgets that Hobbes was a materialist. The doctrine of repre- sentation, under all its modifications, is properly subordinate to the doctrine of a spiritual principle of thought; and on the sup- position, all but universally admitted among philosophers, that the relation of knowledge implied the analogy of existence, it was mainly devised to explain the possibility of a knowledge by an immaterial subject, of an existence so disproportioned to its na- ture, as the qualities of a material object. Contending, that an 80 PHILOSOPHY OF PEECEPTION. immediate cognition of the accidents of matter, infers an essential identity of matter and mind, Brown himself admits, that the hy- pothesis of representation belongs exclusively to the doctrine of dualism (Lect. xxv. pp. 159, 160) ; while Reid, assailing the hypothesis of ideas, only as subverting the reality of matter, could hardly regard it as parcel of that scheme, which acknowledges the reality of nothing else. But though Hobbes can not be adduced as a competent witness against Reid, he is however valid evi- dence against Brown. Hobbes, though a materialist , admitted no knowledge of an external world. Like his friend Sorbiere, he was a kind of material idealist. According to him, we know nothing of the qualities or existence of any outward reality. All that we know is the “ seeming ,” the “ apparition ,” the “ aspect ,” the “ phenomenon ,” the “ phantasm ,” within ourselves ; and this subjective object , of which we are conscious, and which is con- sciousness itself, is nothing more than the 11 agitation” of our internal organism, determined by the unknown “ motions,” which are supposed, in like manner, to constitute the world without. Perception he reduces to sensation. Memory and imagination are faculties specifically identical with sense, differing from it simply in the degree of their vivacity; and this difference of in- tensity, with Hobbes, as with Hume, is the only discrimination between our dreaming and our waking thoughts. — A doctrine of perception identical with Reid’s ! In regard to Arnauld, the question is not, as in relation to the others, whether Reid conceives him to maintain a form of the ideal theory which he rejects, but whether Reid admits Arnauld' s opinion on perception and his own to be identical. “ To these authors,” says Hr. Brown, “whose opinions, on the subject of perception, Dr. Reid has misconceived, I may add one, whom even lie himself allows to have shaken off the ideal system , and to have considered the idea and the perception, as not distinct, but the same, a modification of the mind and nothing more. I allude to the celebrated Jansenist writer, Arnauld, who maintains this doc- trine as expressly as Dr. Reid himself, and makes it the founda- tion of his argument in his controversy with Mallebranche.” (Lecture xxvii. p. 173.) If this statement be not untrue, then is Dr. Brown’s interpretation of Reid himself correct. A represent- ative perception, under its third and simplest modification, is held by Arnauld as by Brown; and his exposition is so clear and artic- ulate, that all essential misconception of his doctrine is precluded. HISTORICALLY, REID RIGHT, BROWN WRONG. 81 In these circumstances, if Reid avow the identity of Arnauld’s opinion and his own, this avowal is tantamount to a declaration that his peculiar doctrine of perception is a scheme of representa- tion; whereas, on the contrary, if he signalize the contrast of their two opinions, he clearly evinces the radical antithesis — and his sense of the radical antithesis — of the doctrine of intuition , to every, even the simplest form of the hypothesis of representa- tion. And this last he does. It can not be maintained, that Reid admits a philosopher to hold an opinion convertible with his, whom he states : — “ to profess the doctrine, universally received, that ive perceive not material things immediately — that it is their ideas, which are the immediate objects of our thoughts — and that it is in the idea of every thing, that we perceive its properties." This fundamental contrast being established, we may safely allow, that the radical misconception, which caused Reid to overlook the difference of our presentative and representative faculties, caused him likewise to believe, that Arnauld had attempted to unite two contradictory theories of perception. Not aware, that it was possible to maintain a doc- trine of perception, in which the idea was not really distinguished from its cognition, and yet to hold that the mind had no imme- diate knowledge of external things : Reid supposes, in the first place, that Arnauld, in rejecting the hypothesis of ideas, as repre- sentative entities, really distinct from the contemplative act of perception, coincided with himself in viewing the material reality, as the immediate object of that act ; and, in the second, that Arnauld again deserted this opinion, when, with the philosophers, he maintained, that the idea, or act of the mind representing the external reality, and not the external reality itself, was the im- mediate object of perception. But Arnauld’s theory is one and indivisible ; and, as such, no part of it is identical with Reid’s. Reid’s confusion, here as elsewhere, is explained by the circum- stance, that he had never speculatively conceived the possibility of the simplest modification of the representative hypothesis. He saw no medium between rejecting ideas as something different from thought, and the doctrine of an immediate knowledge of the material object. Neither does Arnauld, as Reid supposes, ever assert against Mallebranche, “ that we perceive external things immediately,” that is, in themselves . 1 Maintaining i?hat all our 1 This is perfectly clear from Arnauld’s own uniform statements ; and it is justly observed by Mallebranche, in his Reply to the Treatise On True and False Ideas , (p. F 82 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. perceptions are, modifications essentially representative , Arnauld everywhere avows, that he denies ideas, only as existences distinct from the act itself of perception . * 1 Reid was therefore wrong, and did Arnauld less than justice, in viewing his theory “as a weak attempt to reconcile two incon- sistent doctrines he was wrong, and did Arnauld more than justice, in supposing, that one of these doctrines is not incom- patible with his own. The detection, however, of this error only tends to manifest more clearly, how just, even when under its influence, was Reid’s appreciation of the contrast, subsisting be- tween his own and Arnauld’s opinion, considered as a whole; and exposes more glaringly Brown’s general misconception of Reid’s philosophy, and his present gross misrepresentation, in affirming that the doctrines of the two philosophers were identical, and by Reid admitted to he the same. Nor is Dr. Brown more successful in his defense of Locke. Supposing always, that ideas were held to be something dis- tinct from their cognition, Reid states it, as that philosopher’s opinion, “that images of external objects were conveyed to the brain ; but whether he thought with Descartes [erratum for Dr. Clarke ?] 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.” This, Dr. Brown, nor is he orig- inal in the assertion, pronounces a flagrant misrepresentation. Not only does he maintain, that Locke never conceived the idea to be substantially different from the mind, as a material image in the brain; but, that he never supposed it to have an existence apart from the mental energy of which it is the object. Locke, he asserts, like Arnauld, considered the idea perceived and the percipient act, to constitute the same indivisible modification of the conscious mind. We shall see. In his language, Locke is, of all philosophers, the most figura- tive, ambiguous, vacillating, various, and even contradictory; — as has been noticed by Reid, and Stewart, and Brown himself — 123, orig. edit.) — that, “ in reality, according to M. Arnauld, we do not perceive bodies, we perceive only ourselves." 1 CEuvres t. xxxviii. pp. 187, 198, 199, 389, ct passim. It is to be recollected that Descartes, Mallebranche, Arnauld, Locke, and philosophers in general before Reid, employed the term Perception as co-extensive with Consciousness. — By Leibnitz, Wolf, and their followers, it was used in a peculiar sense — as equivalent to Repre- sentation or Idea proper, and as contradistinguished from Apperception, or conscious- ness. Reid’s limitation of the term, though the grounds on which it is defended are not of the strongest, is convenient, and has been very generally admitted. HISTORICALLY, HMD RIGHT, BROWN WRONG. 83 indeed, we "believe, by every author who has had occasion to comment on this philosopher. The opinions of such a writer are not, therefore, to be assumed from isolated and casual express- ions, which themselves require to be interpreted on the general analogy of his system ; and yet this is the only ground on which Dr. Brown attempts to establish his conclusions. Thus, on the matter under discussion, though really distinguishing, Locke verbally confounds, the objects of sense and of intellect — the operation and its object — the objects immediate and mediate — the object and its relations — the images of fancy and the notions of the understanding. Consciousness is converted with Percep- tion — Perception with Idea — Idea with Ideatum, and with No- tion, Conception, Phantasm, Representation, Sense, Meaning, &c. Now, his language identifying ideas and perceptions, appears conformable to a disciple of Arnauld ; and now it proclaims him a follower of Digby — explaining ideas by mechanical impulse, and the propagation of material particles from the external real- ity to the brain. The idea would seem, in one passage, an or- ganic affection — the mere occasion of a spiritual representation ; in another, a representative image, in the brain itself. In em- ploying thus indifferently the language of every hypothesis, may we not suspect, that he was anxious to be made responsible for none ? One, however, he has formally rejected : and that is the very opinion attributed to him by Dr. Brown — that the idea , or object of consciousness in perception, is only a modification of the mind itself. We do not deny, that Locke occasionally employs expressions, which, in a writer of more considerate language, would imply the identity of ideas with the act of knowledge ; and, under the circumstances, we should have considered suspense more rational than a dogmatic confidence in any conclusion, did not the follow- ing passage, which has never, we believe, been noticed, appear a positive and explicit contradiction of Dr. Brown’s interpretation. It is from Locke’s Examination of Mallebranche' s Opinion , which, as subsequent to the publication of the Essay, must be held authentic, in relation to the doctrines of that work. At the same time, the statement is articulate and precise, and possesses all the authority of one cautiously made in the course of a pole- mical discussion. Mallebranche coincided with Arnauld, and consequently with Locke, as interpreted by Brown, to the extent of supposing, that sensation proper is nothing but a state or 84 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. modification of the mind itself ; and Locke had thus the oppor- tunity of expressing, in regard to this opinion, his agreement or dissent. An acquiescence in the doctrine, that the secondary qualities, of which we are conscious in sensation, are merely mental states, by no means involves an admission that the pri- mary qualities of which we are conscious in perception, are nothing more. Mallebranche, for example, affirms the one and denies the other. But if Locke be found to ridicule, as he does, even the opinion which merely reduces the secondary qualities to mental states, a fortiori, and this on the principle of his own philosophy, he must be held to reject the doctrine, which would reduce not only the non-resembling sensations of the secondary, but even the resembling, and consequently extended, ideas of the primary qualities of matter, to modifications of the immaterial unextended mind. In these circumstances, the following passage is superfluously conclusive against Brown, and equally so, whe- ther we coincide or not in all the principles it involves. “ But to examine their doctrine of modification a little farther. Differ- ent sentiments (sensations) are different modifications of the mind. The mind, or soul, that perceives, is one immaterial in- divisible substance. Now I see the white and black on this paper, I hear one singing in the next room, I feel the warmth of the fire I sit by, and I taste an apple I am eating, and all this at the same time. Now, I ask, take modification for what you please, can the same unextended, indivisible substance have different, nay , inconsistent and opposite (as these of white and black must be) modifications at the same time ? Or must ive suppose dis- tinct parts in an indivisible substance, one for black, another for white, and another for red ideas, and so of the rest of those in- finite sensations , ivhicli ive have in sorts and degrees ; all which ive can distinctly perceive, and so are distinct ideas , some where- of are opposite, as heat and cold , which yet a man may feel at the same time ? I was ignorant before, how sensation was per- formed in us : this they call an explanation of it ! Must I say now I understand it better ? If this be to cure one’s ignorance, it is a very slight disease, and the charm of two or three insig- nificant words will at any time remove it ; probatum est .” (Sec. 39.) This passage, as we shall see, is correspondent to the doc- trine held on this point by Locke’s personal friend and philosoph- ical follower, Le Clerc. (But, what is curious, the suppositions which Locke here rejects, as incompatible with the spirituality HISTORICALLY, REID RIGHT, BROWN WRONG. 85 of mind, are the very facts, on which Ammonius Hermiee, Phi- loponus, and Condillac, among many others, found their proof of the immateriality of the thinking subject.) But if it be thus evident, that Locke held neither the third form of representation, that lent to him by Brown, nor even the second; it follows, that Reid did him any thing hut injustice, in supposing him to maintain, that ideas are objects, either in the brain , or in the mind itself. Even the more material of these alternatives has been the one generally attributed to him by his critics , 1 and the one adopted from him by his disciples . 2 Nor is this to be deemed an opinion too monstrous to be entertained by so enlightened a philosopher. It was, as we shall see, the com- mon opinion of the age ; the opinion, in particular, held by the most illustrious of his countrymen and contemporaries — by New- ton, Clarke, Willis, Hook, &c . 3 The English psychologists have indeed been generally very mechanical. Dr. Brown at length proceeds to consummate his imagined vic- tory, by 11 that most decisive evidence , found not in treatises read only by a few, but in the popular elementary works of science of the time, the general text books of schools and colleges.” He quotes, however, only two : — the Pneumatology of Le Clerc, and the Logic of Crousaz. “ Le Clerc,” says Dr. Brown, “ in his chapter on the nature of ideas, gives the history of the opinions of philosophers on this subject, and states among them the very doctrine which is most 1 To refer only to the first and last of his regular critics : see Solid Philosophy asserted against the Fajicics of the Ideists, by J. S. [John Sergeant.] Lond. 1697. p. 161 — a very curious book, absolutely, we may say, unknown ; and Cousin, Cours de Philosophic, t. ii. 1829 ; pp. 330, 357, 325, 365 — the most important work on Locke since the Nouvcaux Essais of Leibnitz. 2 Tucker’s Light of Nature, i. pp. 15, 18, ed. 2. 3 On the opinion of Newton and Clarke, see Des Maizeaux’s Recueil, i. pp. 7, 8. 9, 15, 22, 75, 127, 169, &c. Genovesi notices the crudity of Newton’s doctrine, “Mentem in cercbro prassidere atque in eo, suo scilicet sensorio, rerum hnagincs ccrnere:' On Willis, see his work, Be Anima Brutorum, p. 64, alibi, ed. 1672. On Hook, see his Lcct. on Light, () 7. We know not whether it has been remarked that Locke’s doctrine of particles and impulse, is precisely that of Sir Kenelm Digby ; and if Locke adopts one part of so gross an hypothesis, what is there improbable in his adoption of the other 1 — that the object of perception is, “a material participation of the bodies that, work on the outward organs of the senses.” (Digby, Treatise of Bodies, c. 32.) As a spe- cimen of the mechanical explanations of mental phenomena then considered satisfac- tory, we quote Sir Kenelm’s theory of memory : “ Out of which it followeth, that the little similitudes which are in the caves of the brain, wheeling and swimming about, almost in such sort as you see in the washing of currants or rice by the winding about and circular turning of the cook’s hand, divers sorts of bodies do go their course for a pretty while ; so that the most ordinary objects can not but present themselves quickly,” &c., &c. (ibidem.) 86 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. forcibly and accurately opposed to the ideal system of perception. < Alii putant ideas et perceptiones idearum easdem esse, licet rela~ tionibus differant. Idea, uti censent, proprie ad objectum refer- tur, quod mens considerat ; — perceptio, vere ad mentem ipsam quae percipit : sed duplex ilia relatio ad unam modificationem mentis pertinet. Itaque, secundum hosce philosophos, nullas sunt, proprie, loquendo, ideee a mente nostra distinctae.’ What is it, I may ask, ivhich Dr. Reid considers himself as having added to this very philosophical view of perception ? and if he added nothing, it is surely too much to ascribe to him the merit of de- tecting errors, the counter statement of ivhich had long formed a part of the elementary works of the school .” In the first place, Dr. Reid certainly “ added ” nothing “to this very philosophical view of perception,” but he exploded it altogether. In the second, it is false, either that this doctrine of perception 11 had long formed part of the elementary works of the schools ,” or that Le Clerc affords any countenance to this assertion. On the contrary, it is virtually stated by him to be the novel paradox of a single philosopher ; nay to carry the blunder to hyperbole, it is already, as such a singular opinion, discussed and referred to its author by Reid himself. Had Dr. Brown proceeded from the tenth paragraph, which he quotes, to the fourteenth, which he could not have read, he would have found, that the passage extracted, so far from containing the statement of an old and familiar dogma in tne schools, was, neither more nor less, than a statement of the contemporary hypothesis of — Antony Arnauld ! and of Antony Arnauld alone ! ! In the third place, from the mode in which he cites Le Clerc, his silence to the contrary, and the general tenor of his statement, Dr. Brown would lead us to believe, that Le Clerc himself coin- cides in “this very philosophical view of perception.” So far, however, from coinciding with Arnauld, he pronounces his opin- ion to be false ; controverts it upon very solid grounds ; and in delivering his own doctrine touching ideas, though sufficiently cautious in telling us what they are, he has no hesitation in as- suring us, among other things which they can not be, that they are not modifications or essential states of mind. “ Non est (idea sc.) modificatio aut essentia mentis : nam prseterquam quod sen- timus ingens esse discrimen inter idaea perceptionem et sensatio- nem ; quid habet mens nostra simile monti, aut innumeris ejus- modi ideis?” — ( Pneumat . sect. i. c. 5. § 10.) HISTORICALLY, REID RIGHT, BROWN WRONG. 87 On all this no observation of ours can he either so apposite or authoritative, as the edifying reflections with which Dr. Brown himself concludes his vindication of the philosophers against Reid. Brown’s precept is sound, hut his example is instructive. One word we leave blank, which the reader may himself supply. — “ That a mind so vigorous as that of Dr. should have been capable of the series of misconceptions which we have traced , may seem wonderful , and truly is so ; and equally , or rather still more wonderful , is the general admission of his merit in this respect. I trust it will impress you with one important lesson — to consult the opinions of authors in their own ivories, and not in the ivorks of those who profess to give a faithful account of them. From my own experience I can most truly assure you, that there is scarcely an instance in which I have found the view I had re- ceived of them to be faithful. There is usually something more, or something less, which modifies the general result ; and by the various additions and subtractions thus made, so much of the spirit of the original doctrine is lost, that it may, in some cases, he considered, as having made a fortunate escape, if it be not at last represented as directly opposite to ivhat it is?'' (Lect. xxvii. p. 175.) The cause must, therefore, he unconditionally decided in favor of Reid, even on that testimony, which Brown triumphantly pro- duces in court, as “ the most decisive evidence' 1 ' 1 against him: — here then we might close our case. To signalize, however, more completely the whole character of the accusation, we shall call a few witnesses ; to prove, in fact, nothing more than that Brown’s own “most decisive evidence” is not less favorable to himself, than any other that might he cited from the great majority of the learned. Mallebranche, in his controversy with Arnauld, every where assumes the doctrine of ideas, really distinct from their percep- tion, to he the one ‘ 1 commonly received nor does his adversary venture to dispute the assumption. {Rep. au Livre des Idees . — Arnauld, CEuv. t. xxxviii. p. 388.) Leibnitz, on the other hand, in answer to Clarke, admits , that the crude theory of ideas held by this philosopher, teas the com- mon. “ Je ne demeure point d’accord des notions vulgaires, comme si les Images des choses etaient transportees, par les or- ganes, jusqu'd Vame. Cette notion de la Philosophic Vulgaire n’est point intelligible, comme les nouveaux Cartesiens l’ont assez 88 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. montre. L’on ne saurait expliquer comment la substance imma- terielle est affectee par la matiere: et soutenir une chose non intelligible la-dessus, c’est recourir a la notion scholastique chi- merique de je ne sais quelles especes intentionelles inexpliquable, qui passentdes organes dans Fame.” {Opera, II. p. 161.) Nor does Clarke, in reply, disown this doctrine for himself and others. —{Ibid. p. 182.) Brucicer, in his Historia Philosophica Doctrines de Icleis (1723), speaks of Arnauld’s hypothesis as a “ peculiar opinion ,” rejected by “ philosophers in general (plerisque eruditis),” and as not less untenable than the paradox of Mallebranche. — (P. 248.) Dr. Brown is fond of text-books. Did we condescend to those of ordinary authors, we could adduce a cloud of witnesses against him. As a sample, we shall quote only three, but these of the very highest authority. Christian Thomasius, though a reformer of the Peripatetic and Cartesian systems, adopted a grosser theory of ideas than either. In his Introductio ad Pliilosophiam aulicam (1702), he defines thought in general, a mental discourse “ about images, by the motion of external bodies , and through the organs of sense , stamped in the substance of the brain.” (c. 3. § 29. See also his Inst. Jurispr. Div. L. i. c. 1., and Introd. in Phil, ration. c. 3.) S’G-ravesande, in his Introductio ad Pliilosophiam (1736), though professing to leave undetermined, the positive question concerning the origin of ideas, and admitting that sensations are “nothing more than modifications of the mind itself;” makes no scruple, in determining the negative , to dismiss, as absurd, the hypothesis, which would reduce sensible ideas to an equal sub- jectivity. “ Mentem ipsam has Ideas efficere, et sibi ipsi repre- sentare res, quarum his solis Ideis cognitionem acquirit, nullo modo concipi potest. Nulla inter causam et effectum relatio daretur.” (H 279, 282.) G-enovesi, in his Elementa Metaphysical (1748), lays it down as a fundamental position of philosophy, that ideas and the act cognitive of ideas are distinct (“ Prop. xxx. Idece et Percep- tiones non videntur esse posse una eademque res ”) ; and he ably refutes the hypothesis of Arnauld, which he reprobates as a paradox, unworthy of that illustrious reasoner. {Pars. II. p. 140.) HISTORICALLY, REID RIGHT, BROWN WRONG. 89 Voltaire’s Dictionnaire Pliilosophique may be adduced as re- presenting the intelligence of the age of Reid himself. 11 Qqi’est- ce qu’une Idee ? — C’est une Image qui se peint dans mon cer- veau . — Toutes vos pensees sont done des images ? — Assurement &c. (voce Idee.) What, in fine, is the doctrine of the two most numerous schools of modern philosophy — the Leibnitian and Kantian ? 1 Both maintain that the mind involves representations of which it is not, and never may be, conscious ; that is, both maintain the second form of the hypothesis, and one of the two that Reid understood and professedly assailed. [This statement requires qualification.] In Crousaz, Dr. Brown has actually succeeded in finding one example (he might have found twenty), of a philosopher, before Reid, holding the same theory of ideas with Arnauld and himself . 1 2 The reader is nowin a condition to judge of the correctness of Brown’s statement, “ that with the exception of Mallebranche and Berkeley, who had peculiar and very erroneous notions on the subject, all the philosophers whom Dr. Reid considered himself as opposing,” (what ! Newton, Clarke, Hook, Norris, Porterfield, 1 Leibnitz ; — Opera, Dutcnsii, tom. ii. pp. 21, 23, 33, 214, pars ii. pp. 137, 145, 146. CEuvres Philos, par Raspe, pp. 66. 67, 74, 96, ets. Wolf ; — Psychol. Rat. (j 10, ets. Psychol. Emp. (j 48. Kant — -Critik d. r. V. p. 376. ed. 2. Anthropologic, tj 5. With one restriction, Leibnitz’s doctrine is that of the lower Platonists, who maintained that the soul actually contains representations of every possible substance and event in the world during the revolution of the great year ; although these cogni- tive reasons are not elicited in consciousness, unless the reality, thus represented, be itself brought within the sphere of the sensual organs. ( Plotinus , Enn. V. lib. vii. cc. 1, 2, 3.) 2 In speaking of this author, Dr. Brown, who never loses an opportunity to depre- ciate Reid, goes out of his way to remark, “ that precisely the same distinction of sensations and perceptions, on which Dr. Reid founds so much, is stated and enforced in the different works of this ingenious writer,” and expatiates on this conformity of the two philosophers, as if he deemed its detection to be something new and curious. Mr. Stewart had already noticed it in his Essays. But neither he nor Brown seem to recollect, that Crousaz only copies Mallebranche, re et verbis, and that Reid had himself expressly assigned to that philosopher the merit of first recognizing the dis- tinction. This is incorrect. But M. Royer Collard (Reid, CEuvres, t. iii. p. 329) is still more inaccurate in thinking that Mallebranche and Leibnitz (Leibnitz!) were per- haps the only philosophers before Reid, who had discriminated perception from sensa- tion. The distinction was established by Des Cartes ; and after Mallebranche, but long before Reid, it had become even common ; and so far is Leibnitz from having any merit in the matter, his criticism of Mallebranche shows, that with all his learn- ing he was strangely ignorant of a discrimination then familiar to philosophers in general, which may indeed be traced under various appellations to the most ancient times. [A contribution toward this history, and a reduction of the qualities of matter to three classes, under the names of Primary, Secundo-primary, and Secondary, is given in the Supplementary Dissertations appended to Reid's Works (p. 825-875.)) 90 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. &c. ? — these, he it remembered, all severally attacked by Reid, Brown has neither ventured to defend, nor to acknowledge that he could not), “would, if they had been questioned by him, have admitted, before they heard a single argument on his part, that their opinions with respect to ideas were precisely the same as his own .” (Lect. xxvii. p. 174.) We have thus vindicated our original assertion : — Brown has NOT SUCCEEDED IN CONVICTING ReID, EVEN OF A SINGLE ERROR. Brown’s mistakes regarding the opinions on perception, enter- tained by Reid and the philosophers, are perhaps, however, even less astonishing, than his total misconception of the purport of Hume’s reasoning against the existence of matter, and of the argument by which Reid invalidates Hume’s skeptical conclusion. We shall endeavor to reduce the problem to its simplicity. Our knowledge rests ultimately on certain facts of conscious- ness, which as primitive, and consequently incomprehensible, are given less in the form of cognitions than of beliefs. But if con- sciousness in its last analysis — in other words, if our primary experience , be a faith ; the reality of our knowledge turns on the veracity of our constitutive beliefs. As ultimate, the quality of these beliefs can not be inferred ; their truth, however, is in the first instance to be presumed. As given and possessed, they must stand good until refuted ; “ neganti incumbit probation It is not to be presumed, that Intelligence gratuitously annihilates itself'; — that Nature operates in vain ; — that the Author of nature creates only to deceive. “ S’oWore TrapTrav anoKkvTai , fjvTiva iravres Aaol (friyii^ovcrL- Qeov vv rt eWl /cat avrlj.” But though the truth of our instinctive faiths must in the first instance be admitted, their falsehood may subsequently be estab- lished : this however only through themselves — only on the ground of their reciprocal contradiction. Is this contradiction proved, the edifice of our knowledge is undermined ; for “ no lie is of the truth” Consciousness is to the philosopher, what the Bible is to the theologian. Both are professedly revelations of divine truth ; both exclusively supply the constitutive principles of knowledge, and the regulative principles of its construction. To both we must resort for elements and for laws. Each may be disproved, but disproved only by itself. If one or other reveal facts, which, as mutually repugnant, can not but be false, the authenticity of that revelation is invalidated ; and the criticism BROWN’S MISCONCEPTION OE SKEPTICISM. 91 which signalizes this self-refutation, has, in either case, been able to convert assurance into skepticism — “to turn the truth of Grod into a lie,” “ Et violare fidem primam, et convellere tota Fundamenta quibus nixatur vita, salusque — Lucr. As psychology is only a developed consciousness, that is, a scientific evolution of the facts of which consciousness is the guarantee and revelation : the positive philosopher has thus a primary presumption in favor of the elements out of which his system is constructed; while the skeptic, or negative philoso- pher, must he content to argue back to the falsehood of these elements, from the impossibility which the dogmatist may expe- rience, in combining them into the harmony of truth. For truth is one ; and the end of philosophy is the intuition of unity. Skep- ticism is not an original or independent method ; it is the correl- ative and consequent of dogmatism ; and so far from being an enemy to truth, it arises only from a false philosophy, as its indi- cation and its cure. “ Alte dubitat, qui altius credit .” The skeptic must not himself establish, but from the dogmatist accept, his principles ; and his conclusion is only a reduction of philoso- phy to zero, on the hypothesis of the doctrine from which his premises are borrowed. — Are the principles which a particular system involves, convicted of contradiction ; or, are these princi- ples proved repugnant to others, which, as facts of consciousness, every positive philosophy must admit ; there is established a rel- ative skepticism, or the conclusion, that philosophy in so far as realized in this system, is groundless. — Again, are the principles, which, as facts of consciousness, philosophy in general must com- prehend, found exclusive of each other ; there is established an absolute skepticism ; — the impossibility of all philosophy is in- volved in the negation of the one criterion of truth. Our state- ment may be reduced to a dilemma. Either the facts of con-i sciousness can be reconciled, or they can not. If they can not, knowledge absolutely is impossible, and every system of philo-' sophy therefore false. If they can, no system which supposes? their inconsistency can pretend to truth. As a legitimate skeptic, Hume could not assail the foundations of knowledge in themselves. His reasoning is from their subse- quent contradiction to their original falsehood; and his premises, not established by himself, are accepted only as principles uni- versally conceded in the previous schools of philosophy. On the PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 03 assumption, that what was thus unanimously admitted by philo- sophers, must be admitted of philosophy itself, his argument against the certainty of knowledge was triumphant. — Philoso- phers agreed in rejecting certain primitive beliefs of conscious- ness as false, and in usurping others as true. If consciousness, however, were confessed to yield a lying evidence in one particu- lar, it could not be adduced as a credible witness at all : — “ Fal- sus in uno , falsus in omnibus .” But as the reality of our knowl- edge necessarily rests on the assumed veracity of consciousness, it thus rests on an assumption implicitly admitted by all sys- tems of philosophy to be illegitimate. “ Faciunt, nee, intelligendo, ut nihil intelligant /” Reid (like Kant) did not dispute Hume’s inference, as deduced from its antecedents. He allowed his skepticism, as relative, to be irrefragable ; and that philosophy could not be saved from ab- solute skepticism, unless his conceded premises could be disal- lowed, by refuting the principles universally acknowledged by modern philosophers. This he applied himself to do. He sub- jected these principles to a new and rigorous criticism. If his analysis be correct (and it was so, at least, in spirit and inten- tion), it proved them to be hypotheses, on which the credulous sequacity of philosophers — “ philosophorum credula natio” — had bestowed the prescriptive authority of self-evident truths ; and showed, that where a genuine fact of consciousness had been surrendered, it had been surrendered in deference to some ground- less assumption, which, in reason, it ought to have exploded. Philosophy was thus again reconciled with Nature ; consciousness was not a bundle of antilogies; certainty and knowledge were not evicted from man. All this Dr. Brown completely misunderstands. He compre- hends neither the reasoning of skepticism, in the hands of Hume, nor the argument from common sense, in those of Reid. Retro- grading himself to the tenets of that philosophy, whose contra- dictions Hume had fairly developed into skepticism, he appeals against this conclusion to the argument of common sense ; albeit that argument, if true, belies his hypothesis, and if his hypothesis be true, is belied by it. Hume and Reid he actually represents as maintaining precisely the same doctrine, on precisely the same grounds ; and finds both concurring with himself, in advocating that very opinion, which the one had resolved into a negation of all knowledge, and the other exploded as a baseless hypothesis. ARGUMENT FROM COMMON SENSE. 93 Our discussion, at present, is limited to a single question — to the truth or falsehood of consciousness in assuring us of the re- ality of a material world. In perception, consciousness gives, as an ultimate fact, a belief of the knowledge of the existence of something different from self. As ultimate, this belief can not be reduced to a higher principle ; neither can it be truly analyzed into a double element. We only believe that this something exists , because we believe that we know (are conscious of) this something as existing ; the belief of the existence is necessarily involved in the belief of the knowledge of the existence. Both are original, or neither. Does consciousness deceive us in the latter, it necessarily deludes us in the former ; and if the former, though a fact of consciousness, be false ; the latter, because a fact of consciousness, is not true. The beliefs contained in the two propositions : 1°, I believe that a material world exists ; 2°, I believe that I immediately knoiv a material world exist- ing (in other words, I believe that the external reality itself is the object of ivhicli I am conscious in perception ) ; though distinguished by philosophers, are thus virtually identical. The belief of an external rvorld, was too powerful, not to com- pel an acquiescence in its truth. But the philosophers yielded to nature, only in so far as to coincide in the dominant result. They falsely discriminated the belief in the existence , from the belief in the knowledge. With a few exceptions, they held fast by the truth of the first ; but, on grounds to which it is not here neces- sary to advert, they concurred, with singular unanimity, in abjur- ing the second. The object of which we are conscious in per- ception, could only, they explicitly avowed, be a representative image present to the mind ; — an image which, they implicitly confessed, we are necessitated to regard as identical with the unknown reality itself. Man, in short, upon the common doc- trine of philosophy, was doomed by a perfidious nature to realize the fable of Narcissus ; he mistakes self for not-self, “ corpus putat esse quod umbra est.” To carry these principles to their issue was easy ; and skepti- cism in the hands of Hume was the result. The absolute veraci- ty of consciousness was invalidated by the falsehood of one of its facts ; and the belief of the knowledge , assumed to be delusive, was even supposed in the belief of the existence , admitted to be true. The uncertainty of knowledge in general, and in particu- PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. lar, the problematical existence of a material world, were thus legitimately established. To confute this reduction on the con- ventional ground of the philosophers, Reid saw to be impossi- ble ; and the argument which he opposed, was, in fact, imme- diately subversive of the dogmatic principle, and only mediately of the skeptical conclusion. This reasoning was of very ancient application, and had been even long familiarly known by the name of the argument from Common Sense. [See Diss., 742- 803.] To argue from common sense is nothing more than to render available the presumption in favor of the original facts of con- sciousness — that what is by nature necessarily believed to be , truly is. Aristotle, in whose philosophy this presumption obtained the authority of a principle, thus enounces the argument : — “ What appears to all , that we affirm to be ; and he who rejects this belief , will, assuredly, advance nothing better worthy of credit.” (Eth. Nic. L. x. c. 2.) As this argument rests entire- ly on a presumption ; the fundamental condition of its validity is, that this presumption be not disproved. The presumption in favor of the veracity of consciousness, as we have already shown, is redargued by the repugnance of the facts themselves, of which consciousness is the complement ; as the truth of all can only be vindicated on the truth of each. The argument from common sense, therefore postulates, and founds on the as- sumption THAT OUR ORIGINAL BELIEFS BE NOT PROVED SELF-CON- TRADICTORY. The harmony of our primary convictions being supposed, and not redargued, the argument from common sense is decisive against every deductive inference not in unison with them. For as every conclusion is involved in its premises, and as these again must ultimately be resolved into some original belief ; the conclu- sion, if inconsistent with the primary phenomena of consciousness, must, ex hypothesis be inconsistent with its premises, i. e. be logically false. On this ground, our convictions at first hand , peremptorily derogate from our convictions at second. “ If we know and believe,” says Aristotle, “through certain original prin- ciples, we must know and believe these with paramount certainty , for the very reason that we know and believe all else through them ;” and he elsewhere observes, that our approbation is often rather to be accorded to what is revealed by nature as actual than to what can be demonstrated by philosophy as possible : — BROWN IMPOTENT AGAINST THE SKEPTIC. 95 “ IIpoai X eiv ov Sei 7 ravra roc? oia tcov \6ycov, dXXa 7 roWd/ct? fj.aXX.ov TO £9 $aLVOfJ.e.VOLs” 1 “ Novimus certissima scientia, et clamcinte conscientia ,” (to ap- ply the language of Augustine, in our acceptation),, is thus a pro- position, either absolutely true or absolutely false. The argu- ment from common sense, if not omnipotent, is powerless : and in the hands of a philosopher by whom its postulate can not be allowed, its employment, if not suicidal, is absurd. This condi- tion of non-contradiction is unexpressed by Reid. It might seem to him too evidently included in the very conception of the argu- ment to require enouncement. Dr. Brown has proved that he was wrong. Yet Reid could hardly have anticipated, that his whole philosophy, in relation to the argument of common sense, and that argument itself, were so to be mistaken, as to be ac- tually interpreted by contraries. These principles established, we proceed to their application. Dr. Brown’s error, in regard to Reid’s doctrine of perception, involves the other, touching the relation of that doctrine to Hume’s skeptical idealism. On the supposition, that Reid views in the immediate object of perception a mental modification, and not a material quality, Dr. Brown is fully warranted in asserting, that he left the foundations of idealism, precisely as he found them. Let it once be granted, that the object known in percep- tion, is not convertible with the reality existing; idealism re- poses in equal security on the hypothesis of a representative per- ception — whether the representative image be a modification of consciousness itself — or whether it have an existence independ- ent either of mind or of the act of thought. The former indeed as the simpler basis, would be the more secure; and, in point of fact, the egotistical idealism of Fichte, resting on the third form of representation, is less exposed to criticism than the theologi- cal idealism of Berkeley, which reposes on the first. Did Brown not mistake Reid’s doctrine, Reid was certainly absurd in think- ing, a refutation of idealism to be involved in his refutation of the common theory of perception. So far from blaming Brown, on this supposition, for denying to Reid the single merit which that philosopher thought peculiarly his own ; we only reproach 1 Jacobi ( Werhe , II. Vorr. p. 11, ets.) following Fries, places Aristotle at the head of that absurd majority of philosophers, who attempt to demonstrate every thing. This would not have been more sublimely false, had it been said of the German Plato him- self. 9G PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. him for leaving, to Reid and to himself, any possible mode of resisting the idealist at all. It was a monstrous error to reverse Reid’s doctrine of perception ; but a greater still, not to see that this reversal stultifies the argument from common sense ; and that so far from “ proceeding on safe ground ” in an appeal to our original beliefs, Reid would have employed, as Brown has actually done, a weapon, harmless to the skeptic , but mortal to himself. The belief, says Dr. Brown, in the existence of an external world is irresistible , therefore it is true. On his doctrine of per- ception, which he attributes also to Reid, this inference is, how- ever, incompetent, because on that doctrine he can not fulfill the condition which the argument implies. I can not but believe that material things exist : — I can not but believe that the material reality is the object immediately known in perception. The former of these beliefs, explicitly argues Dr. Brown, in de- fending his system against the skeptic, because irresistible, is true. The latter of these beliefs, implicitly argues Dr. Brown, in establishing his system itself, though irresistible is false. And here not only are two primitive beliefs, supposed to be repugnant, and consciousness therefore delusive ; the very belief which is as- sumed as true, exists in fact only through the other, which, ex hypolhcsi, is false. Both in reality are one . 1 Kant, in whose 1 This reasoning can only be invalidated either, 1°, By disproving the belief itself of the knowledge, as a fact ; or — 2°, By disproving its attribute of originality. The latter is impossible ; and if possible would also annihilate the originality of the belief of the existence, which is supposed. The former alternative is ridiculous. That we are naturally determined to believe the object known in perception, to be the external existence itself, and that it is only in consequence of a supposed philosophical necessity , we subsequently endeavor by an artificial abstraction to discriminate these, is admitted even by those psychologists, whose doctrine is thereby placed in overt contradiction to our original beliefs. Though perhaps superfluous to allege authorities in support of such a point, wc refer, however, to the following, which happen to occur to our recol- lection. — Descartes, Dc. Pass. art. 26. — Mallebranche, Rech. 1. iii. c. 1. — Berkeley, Works , i. p. 216, and quoted by Reid, Es. I. P. p. 165. — Hume, Treat. H. N. i. pp. 330. 338. 353. 358 361. 369. orig. cd. — Essays, ii. pp. 154. 157. ed. 1788. — As not generally accessible, we translate the following extracts — Schelling ( Llcen zu cincr Philosophic der Natur. Einl. p. xix. lit cd.) — “When (in perception) I represent an object, object and representation are one and thi same. And simply in this our inabil- ity to discriminate the object from the representation during the act, lies the conviction which the common sense of mankind (gemeine Verstand) has of the reality of extern- al things, although these become known to it, only through representations.” (See also p. xxvi.) — We can not recover, at the moment, a passage, to the same effect, in Kant ; but the ensuing is the testimony of an eminent disciple. — Tennemann, ( Gescli . d. Phil. II. p. 294.) speaking of Plato : “ The illusion that things in themselves are cog- nizable, is so natural, that we need not marvel if even philosophers have not been able to emancipate themselves from the prejudice. The common sense of mankind BROWN IMPOTENT AGAINST THE SKEPTIC. 97 doctrine as in Brown’s the immediate object of perception consti- tutes only a subjective phenomenon, was too acute, not to dis- cern that, on this hypothesis, philosophy could not, without con- tradiction, appeal to the evidence of our elementary faiths. — “Al- lowing idealism,” he says, “ to he as dangerous as it truly is, it would still remain a scandal to philosophy and human reason in general, to he compelled to accept the existence of external things on the testimony of mere belief. ” 1 But Reid is not like Brown, felo de se in his reasoning from our natural beliefs ; and on his genuine doctrine of perception, the argument has a very different tendency. Reid asserts that his doctrine of perception is itself a confutation of the ideal system ; and so, when its imperfections are supplied, it truly is. For it at once denies to the skeptic and idealist the premises of their con- clusion ; and restores to the realist, in its omnipotence, the argu- ment of common sense. The skeptic and idealist can only found on the admission, that the object known is not convertible with the reality existing ; and, at the same time, this admission, by placing the facts of consciousness in mutual contradiction, denies its postu- late to the argument from our beliefs. Reid’s analysis therefore in its result — that we have, as we believe we have, an immedi- ate knowledge of the material reality — accomplished every thing at once . 2 (gemeine Menschenverstand) which remains steadfast withn the sphere of experience , recognizes no distinction between things in themselves [unknown reality existing] and phenomena [representation, object known] ; and the philosophizing reason, commen- ces therewith its attempt to investigate the foundations of this knowledge, and to re- call itself into system.” — See also Jacobi’s David Hume , passim, { Werke , ii.) and his Allioills Briefsammlung, {Werke, i. p. 119. ets.) Reid has been already quoted — [Diss. p. 747, 748 give other testimonies of a similar purport.] 1 Cr. d. r. V. — Vorr. p. xxxix. Kant’s marvelous acuteness did not, however, enable him to bestow on his “ Only possible demonstration of the reality of an external world, ” {ibid p. 275, ets.) even a logical necessity ; nor prevent his transcendental, from being apodeictically resolved (by Jacobi and Fichte) into absolute idealism. In this argument, indeed, he collects more in the conclusion, than was contained in the antecedent ; and reaches it by a double saltus, overleaping the foundations both of the egotistical and mys- tical idealists. — Though Kant, in the passage quoted above and in other places, appar- ently derides the common sense of mankind, and altogether rejects it as a metaphysical principle of truth ; he at last, however, found it necessary (in order to save philosophy from the annihilating energy of his Speculative Reason ) to rest on that very principle of an ultimate belief, (which he had originally spurned as a basis even of a material reality.) the reality of all the sublimest objects of our interest — God, Free Will, Im- mortality, &c. His Practical Reason, as far as it extends, is, in truth, only another (and not even a better) term for Common Sense.- — Fichte, too, escaped the admitted nihilism of his speculative philosophy, only by a similar inconsequence in his practical. — (See his Bestimmung des Menschen.) “ Naturam expellas furca cj-c. 3 [This is spoken too absolutely. Reid I think was correct in the aim of his phi- Gr 98 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION Dr. Brown is not, however, more erroneous in thinking that the argument from common sense could he employed by him, than in supposing that its legitimacy, as so employed, was admitted by Hume. So little did he suspect the futility, in his own hands, of this proof, he only regards it as superfluous, if opposed to that phi- losopher, who, he thinks, in allowing the belief in the existence of matter to be irresistible, allows it to be true. (Lect. xxviii. p. 176.) Dr. Brown has committed, perhaps, more important mistakes than this, in regard to skepticism and to Hume ; — none certainly more fundamental. Hume is converted into a dogmatist ; the essence of skepticism is misconceived. On the hypothesis that our natural beliefs are fallacious, it is not for the Pyrrhonist to reject, but to establish their authenti- city ; and so far from the admission of their strength being a sur- render of his doubt, the very triumph of skepticism consists in proving them to be irresistible. By what demonstration is the foundation of all certainty and knowledge so effectually subverted, as by showing that the principles, which reason constrains us speculatively to admit, are contradictory of the facts, which our instincts compel us practically to believe ? Our intellectual nature is thus seen to be divided against itself; consciousness stands self-convicted of delusion. “ Surely we have eaten the fruit of lies !” This is the scope of the “ Essay on the Acaclemicod or Skeptical Philosophy ,” from which Dr. Brown quotes. In that essay, pre- vious to the quotation, Hume shows, on the admission of philoso- phers, that our belief in the knoivledge of material things, as im- possible is false ; and on this admission, he had irresistibly estab- lished the speculative absurdity of our belief in the existence of an external world. In the passage, on the contrary, which Dr. Brown partially extracts, he is showing that this idealism, which in theory must be admitted, is in application impossible. Specu- lation and practice, nature and philosophy, sense and reason, be- lief and knowledge, thus placed in mutual antithesis, give, as their result, the uncertainty of every principle ; and the assertion of this uncertainty is — Skepticism. This result is declared even in the sentence, with the preliminary clause of which, Dr. Brown abruptly terminates his quotation. losophy ; but in the execution of his purpose he is often at fault, often confused, and sometimes even contradictory. I have endeavored to point out and to correct these imperfections in the edition which I have not yet finished of his works.] BROWN IMPOTENT AGAINST THE SKEPTIC. 99 But allowing Dr. Brown to be correct in transmuting the skep- tical nihilist into a dogmatic realist ; he would still be wrong (on the supposition that Hume admitted the truth of a belief to be convertible with its invincibility ) in conceiving, on the one hand, that Hume could ever acquiesce in the same inconsequent con- clusion with himself; or, on the other, that he himself could, without an abandonment of his system, acquiesce in the legitimate conclusion. On this supposition, Hume could only have arrived at a similar result with Reid : there is no tenable medium be- tween the natural realism of the one and the skeptical nihilism of the other. — “Do you follow,” says Hume in the same essay, “the instinct and propensities of nature in assenting to the veracity of sense ?” — I do, says Dr. Brown. (Lect. xxviii. p. 176. alibi.) — “ But these,” continues Hume, “lead you to believe that the very perception or sensible image is the external object. Do you dis- claim this principle in order to embrace a more rational opinion, that the perceptions are only representations of something exter- nal ?” — It is the vital principle of my system, says Brown, that the mind knows nothing beyond its own states (Lectt. passim :) philosophical suicide is not my choice ; I must recall my admis- sion, and give the lie to this natural belief. — “ You here,” pro- ceeds Hume, “ depart from your natural propensities and more obvious sentiments ; and yet are not able to satisfy your reason, which can never find any convincing argument from experience to prove, that the perceptions are connected with any external objects.” — I allow, says Brown, that the existence of an external world can not be proved by reasoning , and that the skeptical ar- gument admits of no logical reply. (Lect. xxviii. p. 175.) — “ But” (we may suppose Hume to conclude) “as you truly maintain that the confutation of skepticism can be attempted only in tioo ways (ibid.) — either by showing that its arguments are inconclusive, or by opposing to them, as paramount, the evidence of our natural beliefs — and as you now, voluntarily or by compulsion, abandon both : you are confessedly reduced to the dilemma, either of ac- quiescing in the conclusion of the skeptic, or of refusing your assent upon no ground whatever. Pyrrhonism or absurdity ? — choose your horn.” Were the skepticism into which Dr. Brown’s philosophy is thus analyzed, confined to the negation of matter, the result would be comparatively unimportant. The transcendent reality of an outer world, considered absolutely, is to us a matter of supreme 100 PHILOSOPHY OP PERCEPTION. indifference. It is not the idealism itself that we must deplore ; but the mendacity of consciousness which it involves. Conscious- ness, once convicted of falsehood, an unconditional skepticism, in regard to the character of our intellectual being, is the melan- choly, but only rational result. Any conclusion may now with impunity be drawn against the hopes and dignity of human na- ture. Our Personality , our Immateriality , our Moral Liberty , have no longer an argument for their defense. “ Man is the dream of a shadow God is the dream of that dream. Dr. Brown, after the best philosophers, rests the proof of our personal identity , and of our mental individuality , on the ground of beliefs , which, as “ intuitive, universal, immediate, and irre- sistible,” he not unjustly regards as “ the internal and never-ceas- ing voice of our Creator — revelations from on high, omnipotent [and veracious] as their author.” To him this argument is how- ever incompetent, as contradictory. What we know of self or person , we know, only as given in consciousness. In our perceptive consciousness there is revealed as an ultimate fact a self and a not-self ; each given as independ- ent — each known only in antithesis to the other. No belief is more “ intuitive , universal , immediate , or irresistible,” than that this antithesis is real and known to be real ; no belief therefore is more true. If the antithesis be illusive, self and not-self , subject and object , I and Thou are distinctions without a difference ; and consciousness, so far from being “the internal voice of our Crea- tor,” is shown to be, like Satan, “ a liar from the beginning.” The reality of this antithesis in different parts of his philosophy Dr. Brown affirms and denies. — In establishing his theory of per- ception, he articulately denies, that mind is conscious of aught beyond itself ; virtually asserts, that what is there given in con- sciousness as not-self , is only a phenomenal illusion — a modifica- tion of self, which our consciousness determines us to believe the quality of something numerically and substantially different. Like Narcissus again, he must lament — “ Ille ego sum sensi, sed me mea fallit imago.’' After this implication in one part of his system that our belief in the distinction of self and not-self is nothing more than the deception of a lying consciousness ; it is startling to find him, in others, appealing to the beliefs of this same consciousness as to “revelations from on high;” — nay, in an especial manner alleg- ing “ as the voice of our Creator,” this very faith in the distinc- BROWN IMPOTENT AGAINST THE SKEPTIC. 101 tion of self and not-self, through the fallacy of which, and of which alone, he had elsewhere argued consciousness of falsehood. On the veracity of this mendacious belief, Dr. Brown establishes his proof of our personal identity. (Lect. xii. — xv.) Touching the object of perception, when its evidence is inconvenient , this belief is quietly passed over as incompetent to distinguish not- self from self ; in the question regarding our personal identity, where its testimony is convenient , it is clamorously cited as an inspired witness, exclusively competent to distinguish self from not-self. Yet, why, if, in the one case, it mistook sel f for not-self it may not, in the other, mistake not-self for self , would appear a problem not of the easiest solution. The same belief, with the same inconsistency, is again called in to prove the individuality of mind. (Lect. xciv.) But if we are fallaciously determined, in perception, to believe what is sup- posed idivisible, identical , and one, to he plural and different and incompatible (self = self + not-self) ; how, on the authority of the same treacherous conviction, dare we maintain, that the phenomenal unity of consciousness affords a guarantee of the reed simplicity of the thinking principle ? The materialist may now contend, without fear of contradiction, that self is only an illusive phenomenon ; that our consecutive identity is that of the Delphic ship, and our present unity merely that of a system of co-ordinate activities. To explain the phenomenon, he has only to suppose, as certain theorists have lately done, an organ to tell the lie of our personality ; and to quote as authority for the lie itself, the perfidy of consciousness, on which the theory of a representative perfection is founded. On the hypothesis of a representative perception, there is, in fact, no salvation from materialism, on the one side, short of idealism — skepticism — nihilism, on the other. Our knowledge of mind, and matter , as substances, is merely relative ; they are known to us only in their qualities ; and we can justify the postu- lation of two different substances , exclusively on the supposition of the incompatibility of the double series of phenomena to coinhere in one. Is this supposition disproved ? — the presumption against dualism is again decisive. “ Entities are not to be multiplied with- out necessity — “ A plurality of principles is not to be assumed where the phenomena can be explained by one.' 1 ' 1 In Brown’s theory of perception, he abolishes the incompatibility of the two series ; and yet his argument, as a dualist, for an immaterial prin- 102 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. ciple of thought, proceeds on the ground, that this incompatibility subsists. (Lect. xcvi. pp. 646, 647.) This philosopher denies us an immediate knowledge of aught beyond the accidents of mind. The accidents which we refer to body, as known to us, are only states or modifications of the percipient subject itself ; in other words, the qualities we call material, are known by us to exist, only as they are known by us to inhere in the same substance as the qualities we denominate mental. There is an apparent anti- thesis, but a real identity. On this doctrine, the hypothesis of a double principle losing its necessity, becomes philosophically ab- surd ; and on the law of parsimony, a psychological unitarianism, at best, is established. To the argument, that the qualities of the object are so repugnant to the qualities of the subject of percep- tion, that they can not be supposed the accidents of the same sub- stance ; the Unitarian — whether materialist, idealist, or absolutist — has only to reply : that so far from the attributes of the object, being exclusive of the attributes of the subject, in this act ; the hypothetical dualist himself establishes, as the fundamental axiom of his philosophy of mind, that the object known is universally identical with the subject knowing. The materialist may now derive the subject from the object, the idealist derive the object from the subject, the absolutist sublimate both into indifference, nay, the nihilist subvert the substantial reality of either ; — the hypothetical realist so far from being able to resist the conclusion of any, in fact accords their assumptive premises to all. The same contradiction would, in like manner, invalidate every presumption in favor of our Liberty of Will. But as Dr. Brown throughout his scheme of Ethics advances no argument in sup- port of this condition of our moral being, which his philosophy otherwise tends to render impossible, we shall say nothing of this consequence of hypothetical realism. So much for the system, which its author fondly imagines, “ allows to the skeptic no resting-place for his foot — no fulcrum for the instrument he uses so much for the doctrine which Brown would substitute for Reid’s ; — nay, which he even sup- poses Reid himself to have maintained. “ Scilicet, hoc totum falsa ratione receptum est !”* ' [In this criticism I have spoken only of Dr. Brown’s mistakes, and of these, only with reference to his attack on Reid. On his appropriating to himself the observa- tions of others, and in particular those of Destutt Tracy, I have said nothing, though an enumeration of these would be necessary to place Brown upon his proper level. That, however, would require a separate discussion.] III.— JOHNSON’S TRANSLATION OF TENNEMANN’S MANUAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. (October, 1832.) A Manual of the History of Philosophy ; translated from the German of Tennemann. By the Rev. Arthur Johnson, M.A., late Fellow of ’VYadham College. 8vo. Oxford: 1832. We took up this translation with a certain favorable prepos- session, and felt inclined to have said all we conscientiously could in its behalf ; but alas ! never were expectations more completely disappointed, and we find ourselves constrained exclusively to condemn, where we should gladly have been permitted only to applaud. We were disposed to regard an English version of Tenne- mann’s minor History of Philosophy — his “ Grundrissf as a work of no inconsiderable utility — if competently executed : hut in the present state of philosophical learning in this country we were well aware, that few were adequate to the task, and of those few we hardly expected that any one would he found so disinter- ested, as to devote himself to a labor, of which the credit stood almost in an inverse proportion to the trouble. Few works, in- deed, would prove more difficult to a translator. A complete mastery of the two languages, in a philological sense, was not enough. There was required a comprehensive acquaintance with philosophy in general, and, in particular, an intimate knowledge of the philosophy of Kant. Tennemann was a Kantian ; he esti- mates all opinions by a Kantian standard ; and the language which he employs is significant only as understood precisely in a Kantian application. In stating this, we have no intention of disparaging the intrinsic value of the work, which, in truth, with 104 JOHNSON’S TRANSLATION OF TENNEMANN’S all its defects, we highly esteem as the production of a sober, accurate, and learned mind. Every historian of philosophy must have his system, by reference to which he criticises the opinions of other thinkers. Eclecticism, as opposed to systematic philos- ophy, is without a meaning. For either the choice of doctrines must be determined by some principle, and that principle then constitutes a system ; or the doctrines must be arbitrarily as- sumed, which would be the negation of philosophy altogether. (We think therefore, that M. Cousin, in denominating his scheme distinctively the eclectic , has committed an act of injustice on himself.) But as it was necessary that Tennemann should be of some school — should have certain opinions — we think it any thing but a disadvantage that he was of the Kantian. The Critical Philosophy is a comprehensive and liberal doctrine ; and whatever difference may subsist with regard to its positive con- clusions, it is admitted, on all hands, to constitute, by its nega- tive, a great epoch in the history of thought. An acquaintance with a system so remarkable in itself, and in its influence so de- cisive of the character of subsequent speculation, is now a matter of necessity to all who would be supposed to have crossed the threshold of philosophy. The translation of a work of merit like the present, ought not therefore to be less acceptable to the En- glish reader, because written in the spirit and language of the Kantian system ; — provided, he be enabled by the translator to understand it. But what does this imply ? Not merely that certain terms in the German should be rendered by certain terms in the English ; for few philosophical words are to ibe found in the latter, which suggests the same analyses and combinations of thought as those embodied in the technical vocabulary of the former. The language of German philosophy has sometimes three or four expressions, precisely distinguishing certain gene- ralizations or abstractions ; where we possess only a single word, comprehensive of the whole, or, perhaps, several, each vaguely applicable to all or any. In these circumstances a direct trans- lation was impossible. The translator could only succeed by coming to a specific understanding with his reader. He behoved, in the first place, clearly to determine the value of the principal terms to be rendered ; which could only be accomplished through a sufficient exposition of that philosophy whose peculiar analyses these terms adequately expressed. In the second place, it was incumbent on him to show in what respects the approximating MANUAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 105 English term was not exactly equivalent to the original; and precisely to define the amplified or restricted sense, in which, hy accommodation to the latter, the former was in his translation specially to he understood. At the same time it must be remembered, that the Grundriss of Tennemann was not intended by its author for an independent treatise. It is merely a manual or text-book ; that is, an outline of statements to be filled up, and fully illustrated in lectures ; — a text-book also for the use of students, who, from their country and course of education, were already more or less familiar with the philosophy of the German schools. In translating this work as a system intended to be complete per se, and in favor of a public unlearned in philosophical discussion, and utterly ignorant of German metaphysics, a competent translator would thus have found it necessary, in almost every paragraph, to supply, to am- plify, and to explain. M. Cousin, indeed, when he condescended to translate this work (we speak only from recollection and a rapid glance), limited himself to a mere translation. But by him the treatise was intended to be only subordinate to the history of speculation delivered in his lectures ; and was addressed, among his countrymen, to a numerous class of readers, whose study of philosophy, and of German philosophy, he had himself powerfully contributed to excite. The fact, indeed, of a French translation, by so able an interpreter, was of itself sufficient to render a simple version of the work into another European tongue nearly superfluous ; and we were prepared to expect, that, if translated into English, something more would be attempted, than what had been already so well executed in a language with which every student of philosophy is familiar. It was, therefore, with considerable interest, that we read the announcement of an English translation, by a gentleman distin- guished for learning among the Tutors of Oxford ; whose compa- rative merit, indeed, had raised him to several of the most honorable and important offices in the nomination of the two “Venerable Houses.” Independently of its utility, we hailed the publication as a symptom of the revival, in England, of a taste for philosophical speculation ; and this more especially, as it ema- nated from that University in which (since its legal constitution had been subverted, and all the subjects taught reduced to the capacity of one self-elected teacher), Psychology and Metaphysics, as beyond the average comprehension of the College Fellows, had i 06 JOHNSON’S TRANSLATION OF TF.NNEMANN’S remained not only untaught, hut their study discouraged, if not formally proscribed. A glance at Mr. Johnson’s preface confirmed us in our prepossessions. We were there, indirectly, indeed, hut confidently, assured of his intimate acquaintance with philosophy in general, and German philosophy in particular; nor were we allowed to remain ignorant of the translator’s consciousness that he might easily have become the rival of his author. “As far,” he says, “as it appeared possible, I have preserved the technical expressions of my author, subjoining for the most part an expla- nation of their meaning, for the benefit of those English readers who may not have plunged into the profound abyss of Grerman metaphysics — the expositor himself having of course so plunged. “Whenever,” he adds, “it has appeared to me that an observa- tion of my author was of a nature impossible to be apprehended by any but a scholar long familiar with the disputes of the Grer- man lecture-rooms, I have endeavored to express the sense of it in other words;” — necessarily implying that the interpreter him- self was thus familiar. And again: — “ There are parts of Tenne- mann, which on this account I had much rather have composed anew than translated, particularly the Introduction.” The examination of a few paragraphs of the work, however, proved the folly of our expectations. We found it to be a bare translation ; and one concentrating every possible defect. We discovered, in th e, first place, that the translator was but superfi- cially versed in the German language ; — in the second , that he was wholly ignorant even of the first letter in the alphabet of Ger- man philosophy ; — in the third , that he was almost equally unac- quainted with every other philosophy, ancient and modern ; — in the fourth, that he covertly changes every statement of his author which he may not like ; in the fifth, that he silently suppresses every section, sentence, clause, word he is suspicious of not under- standing ; — and in the sixth, that he reviles, without charity, the philosophy and philosophers he is wholly incapable of appreciat- ing. — Instead of being of the smallest assistance to the student of philosophy, the work is only calculated to impede his progress, if not at once to turn him from the pursuit. From beginning to end, all is vague or confused, unintelligible or erroneous. We do not mean to insinuate that it was so intended (albeit the thought certainly did strike us), but, in point of fact, this translation is admirably calculated to turn all metaphysical speculation into contempt. From the character of the work, from the celebrity MANUAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 107 of its author and of its French translator, and even from the academical eminence of Mr. Johnson himself, his version would he probably one of the first books resorted to by the English stu- dent, for information concerning the nature and progress of phi- losophical opinions. But in proportion as the inquirer were capa- ble of thinking, would philosophy, as here delineated, appear to him incomprehensible ; and in proportion as he respected his source of information, would he either despair of his own capacity for the study, or be disgusted with the study itself. It is, indeed, by reason of the serious injury which this translation might occasion to the cause of philosophy in this country, that we find it impera- tive on us, by annihilating its authority, to deprive it of the power to hurt. But let us be equitable to the author while executing justice on his work. This translation is by no means to be taken as a test of the general talent or accomplishment of the translator. He has certainly been imprudent, in venturing on an undertak- ing, for which he was qualified, neither by his studies, nor by the character of his mind. That he should ever conceive himself so qualified, furnishes only another proof of the present abject state of philosophical erudition in this country ; for it is less to be ascribed to any overweening presumption in his powers, than to the lamentable lowness of the standard by which he rated their sufficiency. What Mr. Johnson has executed ill, there are prob- ably not six individuals in the British empire who could perform well. — But to the proof of our assertions. That Mr. Johnson, though a quondam Professor of ancient Saxon, is still an under-graduate in modern German , will, with- out special proof, be sufficiently apparent in the course of our criticism. Of his ignorance of the Kantian philosophy , in the language of which the work of Tennemann is written, every page of the translation bears ample witness. The peculiarities of this lan- guage are not explained ; nay, the most important sections of the original, from which, by a sagacious reader, these might have been partially divined, are silently omitted, or professedly sup- pressed as unintelligible. ( E . g. § 41.) Terms in the original, correlative and opposed, are, not only not translated by terms also correlative and opposed, but confounded under the same ex- pression, and, if not rendered at random, translated by the rule of contraries. To take, for example, the mental operations and 108 JOHNSON’S TRANSLATION OF TENNEMANN’S. their objects : In a few pages we have examined, we find among other errors, Vernunft (Reason), though strictly used in its pro- per signification as opposed to Ver stand, rendered sometimes by “ Reason,” hut more frequently by “ Understanding” or “ Intel- lect ;” and Verstand (Understanding), in like manner, specially used in opposition to Vernunft (Reason), translated indifferently by “Understanding” or “Reason,” 1 Vorstellung (Representa- tion), the genus of which Idee, Begriff, Anschauung are species, is translated “Perception,” “Idea,” “Apprehension,” “Impres- sion,” “ Thought,” “ Effort,” &c. — Begriff (Notion, Concept), 2 the object of the Understanding, as opposed to Idee (Idea), the object of the Reason, is commonly translated “ Idea,” (and this also in treating of the Aristotelian and Kantian philosophies, in which this term has a peculiar meaning very different from its Cartesian universality), sometimes “ Opinion,” “ Character ;” Idee der Vernunft (Idea of Reason) is rendered by “object of Under- standing,” and Ziveck der Vernunft (scope or end of Reason), by “mental object;” while Anschauung (immediate object of Per- ception or Imagination) is expressed by “ mental Conception,' 1 ' 1 “ Perce ptionf & c. — Yet Mr. Johnson professes, “ as far as it ap- peared possible, to have preserved the technical expressions of his author !” But of this more in the sequel. Of our translator’s knowledge of philosophy in general, a speci- men may be taken from the few short notes of explanation he has appended. These for the most part say, in fact, nothing, or are merely an echo of the text ; where they attempt more, they are uniformly wrong. Take, for example, the two first. At p. 55, on the words Syncretism and Mysticism, we have this luminous annotation: “The force of these terms, as used by the author, will be sufficiently explained in the course of the work. TranslP At p. 70 (and on a false translation), there is the following note, which, though not marked as the translator’s, at once indicates its source : “Idealism is used to denote the theory which asserts the reality of our ideas, 3 and from these argues the reality of ex- 1 By the time he is half through the work, our translator seems to have become aware that the Kantians “make a broad distinction between the Understanding and Rea son.” The discovery, however, had no beneficial effect on his translation. 2 It will be seen that wc do not employ Conception in the meaning attached to it by Mr. Stewart. 3 The stoutest skeptic never doubted that we are really conscious of what we are conscious — he never doubted the subjective reality of our ideas : the doubt would an- nihilate itself. MANUAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 109 ternal objects . 1 Pantheism is the opinion that all nature partakes of the divine essence.” 2 — To this head we may refer the author’s continual translation of Philosophic by “ Moral Philosophy,” which he tells us is convertible with Metaphysics in general ; his use of the word “ Experimentalism” for Empirism, Philosophy of Experience or of Observation ; to say nothing of the incorrect- ness and vacillation of his whole technical language criticised by any standard. — Under this category may be also mentioned the numerous and flagrant errors in philosophical history. For ex- ample, Joseph Priestley ( cils Physiker beruehnite ) is called “the celebrated Physician ;” and Ancillon (pere ), thus distinguished from his son, the present Prussian prime minister, himself a dis- tinguished philosopher, is converted from a Calvinist pastor to a Catholic priest — “ Father Ancillon.” But lest we should be supposed to have selected these defects, we shall vindicate the rigid accuracy of our strictures by a few extracts. AYe annex to each paragraph a literal translation, not such, assuredly, as we should offer, were we to attempt a com- plete version of the original, but such as may best enable the English reader to compare Mr. Johnson and Tennemann together. AYe find it convenient to make our observations in the form of notes : in these we pass over much that is imperfect, and can notice only a few of the principal mistakes. AYe can not, of course, hope to be fully understood except by those who have some acquaintance with German philosophy. — AYe shall first quote paragraphs from the Introduction. Johnson's Version, \ 1. — “ A history of philosophy, to be complete, de- mands a preliminary inquiry respecting the character of this science, as well as respecting its subject-matter, 4 its form and object ; 5 and also its extent 1 We had always imagined the proving the reality of external objects to be the ne- gation of Idealism — Realism. 2 Pantheism, however, is the very denial of such participation ; it asserts that “all nature” and the “ divine essence” are not two, one partaking of the other, but one and the same. 3 “ Complete,” inaccurate ; original, Zweckmacssige. 4 “Subject matter;” original, Inhalt, i. e. contents, the complement of objects. Subject or Subject-matter is the materia subjecta or in qua ; and if employed for the object, materia objecta or circa quam, is always an abuse of philosophical language, though with us, unfortunately a very common one. But to commute these terms in the translation of a Kantian Treatise, where subject and object subjective and objective, are accurately contradistinguished, and where the distinction forms, in fact, the very cardi- nal point on which the whole philosophy turns, is to convert light into darkness, or- der into chaos. 5 “ Object original, Zweck, end, aim, scope. The unphilosophical abuse of the term object for end is a comparatively recent innovation in the English and French lan- guages. Culpable at all times, on the present occasion it is equally inexcusable as the preceding. 110 JOHNSON’S TRANSLATION OF TENNEMANN’S or comprehensiveness, its method, its importance, and the different ways in which it may he treated. All these particulars, with the bibliography belonging to it will form, together with some previous observations on the progress of philosophical research, 1 the subject of a general introduc- tion.” Literal Translation , $ 1. — “The history of philosophy, if handled in conformity to the end in view, presupposes an inquiry touching the con- ception of the science conjoining a view of its contents, form, and end, as also of its compass, method, importance, and the various modes in which it may be treated. These objects, along with the history and literature of the history of philosophy, combined with some preparatory observaions on the progress of the philosophizing reason, affords the contents of a general introduction to the history of philosophy.” Johnson's Version, 4 2. — “ The human mind has a tendency to attempt to enlarge the bounds of its knowledge, and gradually to aspire to a clear development of the laws and relations of nature, and of its own operations. 2 At first it does nothing more than obey a blind desire, without accounting to itself sufficiently for this instinctive impulse of the understanding, 3 and without knowing the appropriate means to be employed, or the distance by which it is removed from its object. Insensibly this impulse becomes more deliberate, and regulates itself in proportion to the progress of the understanding, 4 which gradually becomes better acquainted with itself. Such a deliberate impulse is what we call philosophy. 5 ” Literal Translation, § 2. — “Man, through the tendency of his Reason (Vernunft), strives after a systematic completion (Yollendung) of his know'l- ecige considered in Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Modality, and conse- quently endeavors to raise himself to a science of the ultimate principles and laws of Nature and Liberty, and of their mutual relations. To this he is at first impelled by the blind feeling of a want ; he forms no adequate appreciation of the problem thus proposed by reason ; and knows not by what way, through what means, or to what extent, the end is to be at- tained. By degrees his efforts become more reflective, and this in propor- 1 “ Philosophic research.” The translation is a vague and unmeaning version of a precise and significant original — philosophiren.de Vernunft. (See $ 2.) 2 This sentence is mangled and wholly misunderstood. “ The end of philosophy,” says Trismegistus, “is the intuition of unity and to this tendency of speculation toward the absolute — to the intensive completion in unity, and not to the extensive en- largement to infinity, of our knowledge, does Tennemann refer. The latter is not philosophy in his view at all. In the translation, Vernunft (Reason), the faculty of the absolute in Kant’s system, and here used strictly in that sense, is diluted into “Mind and the four grand Categories are omitted, according to which reason en- deavors to carry up the knowledge furnished through the senses and understanding, into the unconditioned. 3 “Understanding just the reverse — “Reason;” original, Vernunft. The author and his translator arc in these terms, always at cross purposes. “ Instinctive impulse of the understanding” is also wrong in itself, and wrong as a translation. The whole sentence, indeed, as will he seen from our version, is one tissue of error. 4 “Understanding;” the same error; “Reason.” The whole sentence is ill ren- dered. 5 “ Philosophy ;” das Pliilosophircn, not philosophy vaguely, but precisely, philo- sophic act — philosophizing. Streben here, and before, is also absurdly translated “ impulse a “ deliberate impulse 1” a round square 1 MANUAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. Ill tion to the gradual development of the self-consciousness of reason. This reflective effort we denominate the act of philosophizing.” Johnson’s Version, § 3. — “ Thereupon arise various attempts to approxi- mate this mental object of the understanding, 1 attempts more or less differ- ing in respect of their principles, their methods, their consequences, 2 their extent, and, in general, their peculiar objects. In all these attempts, (which take the name of Philosophic Systems, when they present them- selves in a scientific form, and the value of which is proportionate to the degree of intelligence manifested by each particular philosopher), we trace the gradual development of the human understanding, 3 according to its peculiar laws.’' Literal Translation, § 3. — “ Out of this effort arise the various attempts of thinkers to approximate to this Idea of reason, or to realize it in thought ; attempts more or less differing from each other in principle, in method, in logical consequence, in result, and in the comprehension and general character of their objects. In these attempts (which, when they present themselves in a form scientifically complete, are denominated philosophic systems, and possess a value, varying in proportion to the pitch of intellect- ual cultivation, and to the point of view of the several speculators) the thinking reason developes itself in conformity to its peculiar laws.” Johnson’s Version, k 4. — “ But the development of human reason is itself subject to external conditions, and is sometimes seconded, sometimes retarded, or suspended, according to the different impressions it receives from without.” 4 Literal Translation 4. — “But the development of human reason does not take place without external excitement : it is consequently dependent upon external causes, in as much as its activity through the different direction given it from without, is now promoted in its efforts, now checked and held hack.” Johnson s Version, § 5. — “To give an account of the different works produced by the understanding, thus in the progress of improvement, and favored or impeded by external circumstances, is, in fact, to compose a history of philosophy.” 5 Literal Translation, § 5. — “An account of the manifold efforts made to realize that Idea of reason ( k 2) in Matter and Form, (in other words, to bring philosophy as a science to bear), efforts arising from the develop- ment of reason, and promoted or held in check by external causes — con- stitutes, in fact, the History of Philosophy.” Johnson's Version, § 6. — “ The subject matter 6 of the history of philos- ophy, is both external and internal. The internal or immediate embraces, 1. The efforts continually made by the understanding to attain to a per- ception of the first principles of the great objects of its pursuit ($2), with many incidental details relating to the subject of investigation, the degree of ardor or remissness which from time to time have prevailed ; with the 1 “ Object of the Understanding the opposite again ; original, Idee dcr Vernunft. 2 “ Consequences wrong ; Conscquenz. 3 “ Understanding,” usual blunder for Reason, and twice in this tj. It is so frequent in the sequel, that we can not afford to notice it again. The whole paragraph is in other respects mutilated, and inaccurately rendered. 4 Mangled and incorrect. s j bi( j 6 “ Subject-matter;” Stoff, matter, or object-matter: see note on 6 1. 112 JOHNSON’S TRANSLATION OP TENNEMANN’S influence of external causes to interest men in sucli pursuits, or the absence of them. 1 2. The effects of philosophy, or the views, methods, and systems it has originated ; effects varying with the energies out of which they sprang. In these we see the understanding avail itself of materials per- petually accumulating toward constituting philosophy a science, or rules and principles for collecting materials to form a scientific whole : or finally, maxims relating to the method to be pursued in such researches. 2 3. And lastly : We observe the development of the understanding as an instrument of philosophy, that is to say, the progress of the understanding toward researches in which it depends solely on itself; in other words, its gradual progress toward the highest degree of independence ; a progress which may he observed in individuals, in nations, and in the whole race of man.” 3 Literal Translation , § 6. “ The matter about which the history of philosophy is conversant, is consequently both internal and external. The internal or proximate matter, comprehends, in the first place, the contin- ued application of reason to the investigation of the ultimate principles and laws of Nature and Liberty ; for therein consists the act of philosophiz- ing (<: 2). And here are to be observed great differences in regard to subject and object — to the extensive application and intensive force of the philosophizing energy — to internal aims and motives (whether generous or interested) — as likewise to external causes and occasions. It comprehends, secondly, the products of the philosophizing act , in other words, pliilo- sopliic views, methods, and systems ($ 3), which are as manifold as the efforts out of which they spring. Through these reason partly obtains materials becoming gradually purer, for philosophy as science, partly rules and principles by which to bind up these materials into a scientific whole, partly, in fine, maxims for our procedure in the search after philosophy. Thirdly, it comprehends the development of reason, as the instrument of philosophy, i. e. the excitation of reason to spontaneous inquiry, in conform- ity to determined laws through internal inclination, and external occa- sion, and herein the gradual progress manifested by individuals, nations, and the thinking portion of mankind. This therefore constitutes an im- portant anthropological phasis of the history of philosophy.” Johnson's Version, §7. “ The external matter consists in the causes, events, and circumstances which have influenced the development of philosophic reason, and the nature of its productions. To this order of facts belong : 1. The individual history of philosophers, that is to say, the de- gree, the proportion, and the direction of their intellectual powers : the sphere of their studies and their lives, the interests which swayed them, and even their moral characters. 4 5 2. The influence of external causes, that is to say, the character, and the degree of mental cultivation preva- lent in the countries to which they belonged ; the prevailing spirit of the times ; and, to descend still farther, the climate and properties of the country ; its institutions, religion, and language. 6 3. The influence of 1 The whole sentence execrable in all respects ; we can not criticise it in detail. 2 In this sentence there are nine errors, besides imperfections. 3 In this sentence, what is suffered to remain is worse treated than what is thrown out. 4 In this sentence there are four inaccuracies. 5 In this sentence there are two omissions, one essential to the meaning, and one inaccuracy. MANUAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 113 individuals in consequence of the admiration and imitation they have ex- cited, by their doctrines or example ; an influence which betrays itself in the matter as well as in the manner of their schools.” 1 (Bacon, Locke, Leibnitz.) Literal Translation , §7. “ The external matter consists in those causes, events, and circumstances, which have exerted an influence on the development of the philosophizing reason, and the complexion of its pro- ductions. To this head belong, in the first place, the individual genius of the philosopher, i. e. the degree, the mutual relation, and the direction of his intellectual faculties, dependent thereon his sphere of view and opera- tion, and the interest with which it inspires him, and withal even his moral character. In the second place, the influence of external causes on individual genius, such as the character and state of cultivation of the nation, the dominant spirit of the age, and less proximately the cli- mate and natural qualities of the country, education, political constitution, religion, and language. In the third place, the effect of individual genius itself (through admiration and imitation, precept and example) on the in- terest, the direction, the particular objects, the kind and method of the subsequent speculation — an influence variously modified in conformity to intellectual character, to the consideration and celebrity of schools estab- lished, to writings, their form and their contents.” (Bacon, Locke, Leibnitz). Jolmson’s Version, § 9. “History in general is distinguished, when properly so called, from Annals, Memoirs, &c., by its form : i. e. by the combination of its incidents, and their circumstantial development.” 3 Literal Translation, § 9. “History, in the stricter signification, is distinguished by reference to its form, from mere annals, memoirs, &c., through the concatenation of events, and their scientific exposition,” \i. e. under the relation of causes and effects.] P-assing now to the body of the book : — we shall first take a paragraph from the account of Aristotle's philosophy, in which an Oxford Tutor and Examining Master may he supposed at home. With the exception, however, of four popular treatises, we sus- pect that the Stagirite is as little read or understood in Oxford, as in Edinburgh. Johnson! s Version, § 140. — “Aristotle possessed in a high degree the talents of discrimination and analysis, added to the most astonishing knowl- 1 Compare the literal version ! 3 “ Circumstantial development ; pragmatische Darstellung. No word occurs more frequently in the historical and philosophical literature of Germany and Holland, than pragmatisch, or pragmaticus, and Pragmatismus. So far from pragmatisch being tan- tamount to “ circumstantial,” and opposed (see (> 12 of translation) to “ scientific,” the word is peculiarly employed to denote that form of history, which, neglecting circum- stantial details, is occupied in the scientific evolution of causes and effects. It is, in fact, a more definite term than the histoire ra.ison.ee of the French. The word in this signification was originally taken from Polybius ; but founded, as is now acknowledged, on an erroneous interpretation. (See Schweigh. ad Polyb. L. i. c. 2 — C. D. Beckii Diss. Pragmatical Historic apud veteres ratio et judicium — and Borgeri Oratio de His- toria Pragmatica). H 114 JOHNSON’S TRANSLATION OF TENNEMANN’S edge of books, 1 and the works of Nature. To the latter, more especially, he had devoted himself. He rejected the doctrine of ideas ; maintaining that all our impressions and thoughts, and even the highest efforts 2 of the understanding, are the fruit of experience ; that the world is eternal, even in its form, and not the work of a creative providence. In the theory of composition he drew a distinction between the matter, which he referred to philosophy, and the form, which he derived from poetry. 3 Instead of following his master in his way of reasoning from the universal to the par- ticular, he always takes the opposite course, and infers the first from the latter. His writings contain valuable remarks on the system of his pre- decessors ; his own being that of Empiricism, modified in a slight degree by the nationalism of Plato.” Literal Translation, $ 140. — “Aristotle possessed in a high degree the talent of discrimination, and an extensive complement of knowledge derived from books, and from his own observation of nature. The investigation of nature was, indeed, his peculiar aim. He consequently rejected Ideas, and admitted that all mental representations (Vorstellungen), even the highest of the understanding, are, as to their matter given, being elaborated out of experience ; and that the universe is eternal even in its form, and not fashioned by a plastic intelligence. He had not a genius (Sinn) like Plato for the Ideal [the object of reason proper] but was more the philosopher of the understanding (Verstand) ; one, who in his intellectual system (Ver- standessystem) — an Empirism modified by Plato’s Rationalism — did not, like that philosopher, proceed from the universal to the particular, but from the particular to the universal.” Johnson’s Version, § 145. — “ Physiology (sic) is indebted to Aristotle for its first cultivation ; for an essay, imperfect indeed, but built upon ex- periment associated with theory. The soul he pronounced to be exclu- sively the active principle of life ; the primitive form of every body capa- ble of life, i. e. organized His remarks on the characteristics of our means of knowledge, that is, the senses, 4 * are deserving of particular attention; as well as his observations on the Common Sense; and on Con- sciousness 6 (the existence of which he was the first distinctly to recognize) ; 1 Tennemann does not make Aristotle a bibliographer. 2 The question of origin refers not to the subjective efforts of our faculties, but to the objective knowledge about which these efforts are conversant. The sentence is otherwise mutilated, and its sense destroyed. 3 What this may possibly mean we confess ourselves at a loss to guess. Is it an attempt at translating some interpolation of Wendt in the last edition of the Grund- riss 1 — ours is the fourth. It can not surely be intended for a version of what is other- wise omitted by Mr. Johnson. 4 “ On the characteristics of our means of knowledge, that is, the senses, are,” &c. The original is — ucher die Aeusserungen der Erkcnntnissthaetigkcit d. i. ueber die Smne, den Gemcinsinn, &c. See Literal Translation. 6 Neither by xAristotle nor by any other Greek philosopher, was Consciousness falsely analyzed into a separate faculty, and the Greek language contains no equivalent ex- pression ; a want which, considering the confusion and error which the word (however convenient) has occasioned among modern philosophers, we regard as any thing but a defect. That we can not know without knowing that we know, and that these arc not two functions of distinct faculties, but one indivisible energy of the same power, this is well stated by Aristotle in explaining the function of the Common Sense ; and to this Tennemann correctly refers. It is the error of his translator to make Aristotle treat explicitly of consciousness by name. MANUAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 115 on Imagination, Memory, and Recollection. Perception is the faculty which conveys to us the forms of objects. Thought is the perception of forms or ideas by means of ideas, 1 2 which presupposes the exercise of Sensa- tion and Imagination. Hence a passive and an active Intelligence. The last is imperishable (Immortality independent of Conscience 3 or Memory.) The thinking faculty is an energy distinct from the body, derived from without, resembling the elementary matter 3 of the stars Enjoy- ment is the result of the complete development of an energy, which at the same time perfects that energy. 4 The most noble of all enjoyments is the result of Reason.” Literal Translation , § 145. — “ Psychology is indebted to Aristotle for its first, though still imperfect, scientific treatment upon the principles of experience, although with these he has likewise combined sundry specula- tive views. The soul is the efficient principle of life (life taken in its most extensive signification) — the primitive form of every physical body suscepti- ble of animation, i. e. of one organically constituted His remarks are especially interesting on the manifestation of our cognitive energies, i. e. on the Senses — on the Common Sense, the first approach to a clear indication of Consciousness (die erste deutlichere Andeutung des Be- wusstseyns) — on Imagination, Reminiscence, and Memory. The Percep- tive and Imaginative act (Anschauen) is an apprehension of the forms of objects ; and Thought, again, an apprehension of the forms of those forms which Sense and Imagination presuppose. Hence a passive and an act - ive Intellect or Understanding. To the latter belongs indestructibility (immortality without consciousness and recollection.) Thought is, indeed, a faculty distinct from the corporeal powers, infused into man from with- out, and analogous to the element of the stars Pleasure is the result of the perfect exertion of a power; — an exertion by which again the power itself is perfected. The noblest pleasures originate in Reason. Practical Reason, Will, is, according to Aristotle, and on empirical princi- ples, determined by notions [of the Understanding], without a higher ideal principle [of Reason properly so called.”] We conclude our extracts by a quotation from the chapter on Kant. Johnson's Version , § 373. — “His (Kant’s) attention being awakened by the Skepticism of Hume, he was led to remark the very different degree of 1 No meaning, or a wrong meaning. The term Idea also, in the common modern signification, should have been carefully avoided, under the head of Aristotle. 2 Conscience is not used in English for Consciousness. Was Mr. Johnson copying from the F rench 1 3 The word “ matter” is here wrong. 4 “ Development of an energy" and “ perfecting an energy ,” in relation to Aristotle’s doctrine of the Pleasurable, is incorrect. The word in the original is, as it ought to be, Kraft, power, or faculty. The term “ complete” also does not render the original so well as “ perfect.” “ The perfect exertion of a power” is here intended to denote, both subjectively the full and free play of the faculty in opposition to its languid ex- ercise or its too intense excitement, and objectively, the presence of all conditions, with the absence of all impediments, to its highest spontaneous energy. Aristotle’s doctrine of Pleasure, though never yet duly appreciated, is one of the most important generalizations in his whole philosophy. The end of the section is otherwise much mutilated. lie JOHNSON’S TRANSLATION OF TENNEMANN’S certainty belonging to the deductions of Moral Philosophy , 1 and the con- clusions of Mathematics ; and to speculate upon the causes of this differ- ence. Metaphysics, of course, claimed his regard ; but he was led to be- lieve, that as yet the very threshold of the science had not been passed. An examination of the different philosophical systems, and particularly of the jejune Dogmatism of Wolf, led him to question whether, antece- dently to any attempt at Dogmatic philosophy, it might not be necessary to investigate the possibility of philosophical knowledge, and he concluded that to this end an inquiry into the different sources of information , 2 and a critical examination of their origin and employment, were necessary ; in which respect he proposed to complete the task undertaken by Locke. He laid down, in the first place, that Moral Philosophy and Mathematics are, in their origin, intellectual sciences . 3 Intellectual knowledge is distin- guished from experimental by its qualities of necessity and universality. On the possibility of intellectual knowledge depends that of the philoso- phical sciences . 4 These are either synthetic or analytic ; the latter of which methods is dependent on the first . 5 What then is the principle of synthet- ical a 'priori knowledge in contradistinction to experimental ; which is founded on observation ? The existence of a priori knowledge is deduci- ble from the mathematics, as well as from the testimony of common sense ; 6 and it is with such knowledge that metaphysics are chiefly conversant. A science, therefore, which may investigate with strictness the possibility of such knowledge, and the principles of its employment and application, is necessary for the direction of the human mind, and of the highest practical utility. Kant pursued this course of inquiry, tracing a broad line of dis- tinction between the provinces of Moral Philosophy and the Mathematics, and investigating more completely than had yet been done, the faculty of 1 “ Moral Philosophy Philosophic. Thrice in this (j. 2 “ Information Erkcnntnisse. The version is incorrect ; even Knowledge does not adequately express the original, both because it is not also plural, and because it is of a less emphatically subjective signification. Cognitions would be the best trans- lation, could we venture also on the verb cognize as a version of Erkennen. 3 “Intellectual sciences;” rationale oder Vernunft-Wissenchaften. Intelleclus or Intellekt is, in the language of German philosophers, synonymous with Verstand, Un- derstanding. The translator, therefore, here renders, as he usually does, one term of the antithesis by the other. The same capital error is repeated in the two following sentences. 4 “Philosophical sciences;” — philosophische Erkennlnisse, philosophic knowledges or cognitions. This and the following errors would have been avoided by an acquaint- ance with the first elements of the critical philosophy. 5 “ The latter of which methods is dependent on the first.” These few words con- tain two great mistakes. In the first place, there is no reference in the original to any synthetic and analytic methods, but to Kant’s thrice celebrated distinction of synthetic and analytic cognitions or judgments, a distinction from which the critical philosophy departs. In the second, there is nothing to excuse the error that analytic cognitions are founded on synthetic. Analytic cognitions are said by Tennemann to rest on the primary law of thought, i. e. on the principle of contradiction. (See Critik d. r. V. p. 189, ets.) — The present is an example of the absurdity of translating this work with- out an explanatory amplification. The distinction of analytic and synthetic judgments is to the common reader wholly unintelligible from the context. 6 “ Common sense.” Kant was not the philosopher to appeal to common sense. Die gemeine Erkennlniss is common knowledge, in opposition to mathematical. (See Grit. d. r. V. Einl. 6 5.) MANUAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 117 knowledge. 1 He remarked that synthetical a priori knowledge imparts a formal character to knowledge in general, and can only he grounded in laws affecting the Individual, and in the consciousness which he has of the harmony and unison of his faculties. 2 He then proceeds to analyze the particulars of our knowledge, and discriminates between its elementary parts so often confounded in practice, with a view to ascertain the true nature of each species : the characteristics of necessity and universality which belong to a priori knowledge being his leading principles.” 3 Literal Translation, k 381. — “ Awakened by the skepticism of Hume, Kant directed his attention on the striking difference in the result of medi- tation in Mathematics and in Philosophy, and upon the causes of this dif- ference. Metaphysic justly attracted his consideration, but he was con- vinced that its threshold had yet been hardly touched. Reflection, and a scrutiny of the various philosophical systems, especially of the shallow dogmatism of the "Wollian school, suggested to him the thought, that, pre- vious to all dogmatical procedure in philosophy, it was necessary, first to investigate the possibility of a philosophical Jcnmcledge ; and that to this end, an inquiry into the different sources of our knowledge — into its origin — and its employment (in other words, Criticism), was necessary. Thus did he propose to accomplish the 'work which had been commenced by Locke. Philosophy and mathematics, he presupposed to be, in respect of their origin, rational sciences, or sciences of reason. Rational knowl- edge is distinguished from emptirical by its character of necessity and uni- versality. "With its possibility stands or falls the possibility of philosophi- cal knowledge, which is of two kinds — synthetic and analytic. The lat- ter rests on the fundamental law of thought ; but what is the principle of synthetic laiowleclge a priori, as contrasted with empirical, of which perception is the source ? That such knowledge exists, is guaranteed by the truth of mathematical, and even of common knowledge, and the effort of reason in metaphysic is mainly directed to its realization. There is therefore a science of the highest necessity and importance, which investi- gates, on principles, the possibility, the foundation, and the employment of such knowledge. Kant opened to himself the way to this inquiry, by taking a strict line of demarkation between philosophy and mathematics, and by a more profound research into the cognitive faculties than had hitherto been brought to bear ; while his sagacity enabled him to divine, that synthetic knowledge a priori coincides with the form of our knowl- edge, and can only be grounded in the laws of the several faculties which co-operate in the cognitive act. Then, in order fully to discover these forms of knowledge, according to the guiding principles of universality and neces- sity, he undertook a dissection of knowledge, and distinguished [in reflec- tion] what in reality is only presented combined, for the behoof of scien- tific knoAvledge.” Johnson’s Version, \ 375. — . . . “ The laws of ethics are superior to the empirical and determinable free-will which we enjoy in matters of practice, and assume an imperative character, occupying the chief place in practi- 1 This sentence is inaccurately rendered, and not duly connected with the next. 2 This sentence is incomprehensible to all ; but its absurdity can be duly apprecia- ted only by those who know something of the Kantian philosophy. 3 The same observation is true of this sentence and of the following section, which ve leave without note or comment. 118 JOHNSON’S TRANSLATION OF TENNEMANN’S cal philosophy. This categorical principle becomes an absolute law of universal obligation, giving to our conduct an ultimate end and spring of action ; which is not to be considered as a passion or affection, but as a moral sense of respect for law.” Literal Translation, k 383. — . . . “The Moral Law, as opposed to an empirically determined volition, appears under the character of a Categori- cal Imperative, (absolute Ought [unconditional duty],) and takes its place at the very summit of practical philosophy. This imperative, as the uni- versal rule of every rational will, prescribes with rigorous necessity an universal conformity to the laiv [of duty ] ; and thereby establishes the supreme absolute end and motive of coxrduct, which is not a pathological feeling [blind and mechanical], but a reverence for the law [of duty, ra- tional and free].” That Mr. Johnson makes no scruple of violating the good faith of a translator, is a serious accusation — hut one unfortunately true. This, indeed, is principally shown, in the history of those philosophers whose speculations are unfavorable to revealed relig- ion. — Speaking of Hume , Tennemann says: — “On the empirical principles of Locke, he investigated with a profoundly penetrating genius the nature of man as a thinking, and as an active being. This led him through a train of consequent reasoning to the skeptical result that, &c And in these investigations of Hume, philosophical skepticism appeared with a terrific force, profundity (Gfrundlichkeit), and logical consequence, such as had never previously been witnessed, and at the same 'time in a form of greater precision, perspicuity, and elegance.” Thus rendered by Mr. Johnson : — “ Taking the experimental principles of Locke as the foundation of his system, he deduced from them many acute but specious conclusions respecting the nature and condi- tion of man, as a reasonable agent. He was led on by arguments, the fallacy of which is lost in their ingenuity, to the inference that, &c The investigations of Hume were recommended, not only by a great appearance of logical argumentation, but by an elegance and propriety of diction, and by all those graces of style which he possessed in so eminent a degree, and which made his skepticism more dangerous than it deserved to be.” — The same tampering with the text we noticed in the articles on Hobbes and Lord Herbert of Cherbury. — We hardly attribute to intention what Mr. Johnson says of Krug, that “he appears to add little to Kant, except a superior degree of obscurity.” Krug is known to those versed in German philosophy, not only as a very acute, but as a very lucid writer. In his autobiography, we recollect, he enumerates perspicuity as the first of his three great errors as MANUAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 119 an author ; reverence for common sense, and contempt of cant, being the other two. Tennemann attributes to him “uncommon clearness.” As a specimen of our translator’s contemptuous vituperation of some illustrious thinkers, we shall quote his notes on Fichte and Schelling, of whose systems, it is almost needless to say, his translation proves him to have understood nothing. After reversing in the text what Tennemann asserts of Fichte’s unmerited persecution, we have the following note : — “ It is pain- ful to be the instrument of putting on record so much of nonsense and so much of blasphemy as is contained in the pretended phi- losophy of Fichte; the statement, however, will not be without its good, if the reader be led to reflect on the monstrous absurdi- ties which men will believe at the suggestion of their own fancies, who have rejected the plain evidences of Christianity.” [Fichte was, for his country and generation, an almost singularly pious Christian. He was even attacked by the theologians — for his orthodoxy.] — On Schelling’s merits we have the following digni- fied decision : — “ The grave remarks of the author on this absurd theory, might perhaps have been worthily replaced by the pithy criticism of Mr. Burcliell, apud the Yicar of Wakefield, as applied to other absurdities, videlicet — Fudge — Fudge — Fudge.” But enough! — We now take our leave of Mr. Johnson, recom- mending to him a meditation on the excellent motto he has pre- fixed to his translation: — “ Difficile est in philosophia pane a esse ei not a, cui non sint aut pleraque aut omnia.” IV.— LOGIC. IN REFERENCE TO THE RECENT ENGLISH TREATISES ON THAT SCIENCE. 1 (April, 1833.) 1. Artis Logicce Rudimenta , with Illustrative Observations on each Section. Fourth edition, with Additions. 12mo. Ox- ford : 1828. 2. Elements of Logic. By Richard Whately, D.D., Principal of St. Alban’s Hall, and late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. Third edition. 8vo. London : 1829. 3. Introduction to Logic, from Dr. Whately' s Elements of Logic. By the Rev. Samuel Hinds, M.A., of Q,ueen’s College, and Vice-Principal of St. Alban’s Hall, Oxford. 12mo. Oxford : 1827. 4. Outline of a New System of Logic , with a Critical Exam- ination of Dr. Whately' s “ Elements of Logic," by George Bentham, Esq. 8vo. London : 1827. 5. An Examination of some Passages in Dr. Whately's Ele- ments of Logic. By George Cornewall Lewis, Esq., Stu- dent of Christ Church. 8vo. Oxford : 1829. 6. A Treatise on Logic on the Basis of Aldrich, with Illustra- tive Notes by the Rev. John Huyshe, M.A., Brazen-nose College, Oxford. 12mo. Second edition. Oxford : 1833. 7. Questions on Aldrich's Logic, tvith References to the most Popular Treatises. 12mo. Oxford : 1829. 8. Key to Questions on Aldrich's Logic. 12mo. Oxford: 1829. 9. Introduction to Logic. 12mo. Oxford : 1830. 10. Aristotle's Philosophy . (An article in Vol. iii. of the Seventh Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica , now publishing.) By the Rev. Renn Dickson Hampden, M.A., late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. 4to. Edinburgh : 1832. 1 [In French by M. Peisse ; in Italian bv S. Lo Gatto ; in Cross’s Selections.] FORTUNE OF LOGICAL STUDY IN GREAT BRITAIN. 121 Nothing, we think, affords a more decisive proof of the oblique and partial spirit in which philosophy has been cultivated in Britain, for the last century and a half, than the combined per- version and neglect, which Logic — the science of the formal laws of thought — has experienced during that period. Since the time, and principally, we suspect, through the influence of Locke (who, as Leibnitz observed, ‘ ‘ sprevit logfcam non intellexit”), no coun- try has been so poor in this department of philosophy, whether we estimate our dialectical literature by its mass or by its quality. Loth to surrender the subject altogether, yet unable, from their own misconception of its nature, to vindicate to logic, on the proper ground, its paramount importance, as a science a priori, distinct and independent: the few logical authors who appeared, endeavored, on the one hand, by throwing out what belonged to itself, of an unpopular and repulsive character, to obviate disgust ; and, on the other, by interpolating what pertained to other branches of philosophy — here a chapter of psychology, there a chapter of metaphysic, &c. — to conciliate to the declining study a broader interest than its own. The attempt was too irrational to succeed ; and served only to justify the disregard it was meant to remedy. This was to convert the interest of science with the interest of amusement : this was not to amplify logic, but to de- form philosophy ; by breaking down their boundaries, and running its several departments into each other. In the Universities, where Dialectic (to use that term in its universality) once reigned “ The Queen of Arts,” the failure of the study is more conspicuously remarkable. In those of Scotland the Chairs of Logic have for generations taught any thing rather than the science which they nominally profess — a science, by the way, in which the Scots have not lat- terly maintained the reputation once established by them in all , 1 1 “ Les Escossois sont bons Philosophes”— pronounced the Dictator of Letters. — ( Scaligerana Sccunda). — Servetus had previously testified to their character for logical subtility: “ Dialecticis argutiis sibi blandiuntur.” (Prof, in Ptolcm. Geogr. 1533.) [My learned friend, Mr. James Broun of the Temple, shows me that the unhappy heretic had here only copied the words of Erasmus — a far higher authority. ( Enc . Moritz.)'] — For a considerable period, indeed, there was hardly to be found a continental University of any note, without the appendage of a Scottish Professor of Philosophy [In the Key to Barclay's Satyricon, it is said of Cardinal Du Perron, under Henry IV “Ejus solicitudine, in Gallia plures Scoti celebri nomine bonas artes professi sunt, quam in ipsa Scotia foventur et aluntur a Rege.” Sir Thomas Urquhart is less eu- phuistic than usual, in his diction of the following passage : “ There was a professor of the Scottish nation, within these sixteen years, in Somure, who spoke Greek with as great ease as ever Cicero did Latin, and could have expressed himself in it as well 122 LOGIC. and still retained in other departments of philosophy. To the philosophers, indeed, of our country, we must confess, that, in great part is to he attributed the prevalence of the erroneous notions on this subject promulgated by Locke. No system of logic deserving of notice, in fact, ever appear- ed in Scotland; and for Scottish logical writers of any merit, we must travel hack for more than two centuries to three contemporary authors, whose abilities, like those, indeed, of almost all the more illustrious scholars of their nation, were developed under foreign influence — to Robert Balfour , * 1 Mark and as promptly as in any other language, [Urquhart refers to Johannes Camero, the celebrated theologian — and as he himself calls him, the “bibliotheca movens”] ; yet the most of the Scottish nation never having astricted themselves so much to the pro- priety of words as to the knowledge of things, [1] where there was one preceptor of languages among them, there were above forty professors of philosophy. Nay, to so high a pitch did the glory of the Scottish nation attaine over all the parts of France, and for so long a time together continued in that attained height, by vertue of an as- cendant, the French considered the Scots to have, above all nations, in matter of their subtlety in philosophical disceptations, that there have not been, till of late, for these several ages together, any lord, gentleman, or other in all that country, who being desirous to have his son instructed in the principles of philosophy, would intrust him to the discipline of any other than a Scottish master; of whom they were no less proud than Philip was of Aristotle, or Tullius of Cratippus. And if it occurred, as very often it did, that a pretender to a place in any French university, having in his tender years been subferulary to some other kind of schooling, should enter into com- petition with another aiming at the same charge and dignity, whose learning flowed from a Caledonian source, commonly the first was rejected, and the other preferred ; education of youth in all grounds of literature under teachers of the Scottish nation being then held by all the inhabitants of France to have been attended, cateris paribus, with greater proficiency than any other manner of breeding subordinate to the docu- ments of those of another country. Nor are the French the only men who have har- boured this good opinion of the Scots in behalf of their inward abilities, but many times the Spaniards, Italians, Flemins, Dutch, Hungarians, Sweds, and Polonians, have testified their being of the same mind, by the promotions whereunto, for their learning, they, in all those nations at several times, have attained.” {Jewel, 1652, Works, p. 258). As in literature and philosophy, so in war. Scots officers, in great numbers, and of distinguished merit, figured in the opposite armies of Gustavus and Ferdinand — especially of the former ; yet the commandant of the Fort of Egra, and all the executioners or murderers of Wallenstein, were Scots — with a sprinkling of Irish — gentlemen. The Scots, too, were long the merchants of Poland, and the “ trav- eling merchants,” Anglice, peddlers, of Europe. On this, see “ Hercules tuani jidem ,” (1608, p. 125) — one of the squibs against Scioppius in the Scaligeran controversy.] 1 [“ We find in La Logique, ou art de discourir et raisonner of Scipio Dupleix, Royal Counselor, &c., a handsome eulogy of Balfour. The author declares that he draws his doctrine from Aristotle, and his most celebrated interpreters. ‘ Sur tous lesquels je prise M. Robert Balfor, gentilhomme Escossois, tant pour sa rare et profonde doc- trine aux sciences et aux langues, que pour l’integrite de ses mosurs. Aussi luy doys- je lc peu de sijauoir que j’ay acquis, ayant eu l’honneur de jouir familierement de sa douce et vrayement philosophique conversation.’ ( Preface , f. 5.) Farther on, and in the body of the work (f. 25.), he calls ‘ M . Robert Balfor, le premier Philosophe de nostro memoire,’ &c. This Logic of Dupleix is, with L'Organe of Philip Canaye, and the Ditdectique of Ramus, one of the oldest treatises on this science written in French. It is a very competent analysis of the Organon. The third edition is of 1607 ; the first probably published at the close of the sixteenth century.” — M. Peisse. — My FORTUNE OF LOGICAL STUDY IN CAMBRIDGE. 123 Duncan , 1 and William Chalmers , 2 Professors in the Universities of Bordeaux, Saumur, and Anjou. In Cambridge the fortune of copy of Scipio Dupleix’s Logic is of the second edition, “ enlarged by the author,” and in 1604. From the “Privilege,” at the end, it appears that the first edition was of 1600. As M. Peisse remarks, it is an excellent work. Balfour’s learned countryman and contemporary, Thomas Dempster, in his Historia Ecclesiastica (§ 209) speaks of him, as “ sui seculi phoenix, Greece et Latine doctissimus, philosophus et mathematicus priscis conferendus,” &c. &c. ; and writing in Italy, he notices that Balfour was then (1627) living, having been for thirty years Principal of the College of Bourdeaux. Balfour's Cleomedes, edition and commentary are eulogized to the highest by Barthius and Bake; while his Council of Nice, and the notes, have gained him a distinguished reputation among theologians. His series of Commentaries on the Logic, Physics, and Ethics of Aristotle, were published at Bourdeaux, in 4°, and are all of the highest value. The second edition of that on the Organon appeared in 1620, and extends to 1055 pages. It is, however, a comparatively rare book, which may excuse subsequent editors and logicians for their ignorance of its existence.] 1 [It is impossible to speak too highly of the five books of the Institutio Logica by Mark Duncan, “ Doctor of Philosophy and Medicine.” The work, which extends only to about 280 octavo pages, was at least five times printed ; the first edition ap- pearing in 1612, at Saumur, for the use of that University, was republished at Paris, in the following year. It forms the basis of Burgersdyk’s Institutiones Logica. (Ley- den, 1626), who had been Duncan’s colleague in Saumur ; and that celebrated logician declares that from it (speaking only of the first or unimproved edition), he had received more assistance than from all other systems of the science put together. In fact, Duncan’s Institutions are, in many respects, better even than his own ; and were there now any intelligent enthusiasm for such studies, that rare and little book would incon- tinently be republished. I have not seen the author’s Synopsis Etliica. Duncan, as physician, figures in the celebrated process of Urban Grandier and the Nuns of Laudun (1634). Medical practice seems indeed to have withdrawn him from philosophical speculation. James VI. nominated Duncan Physician Royal, and he would have transferred himself to London, but his wife and her family were averse from migrating “ to a ferocious nation and an inclement sky.” His elder brother, William, as Dempster assures us, “bonis artibus supra hoc seculum, et maxime Grsecis literis ad miraculum imbutus,” was distinguished also as Professor of Philosophy and Physic in the schools of Tholouse and Montauban. His son, Mark also, but better known under the name of M. des Cerisantes, was a kind of Admirable Crichton ; his life is more romantic than a romance. He obtained high celebrity as a Latin poet ; for, though his pieces be few, they comprise what are not unjustly lauded, as the best imitations extant of Catullus. By him there is an elegiac address to his father, on the republication of the Logical Institution, in 1627. It is found also in the third, but not in the fourth, edition of that work ; and it establishes, once and again, that the logician, then alive, was a native of Scotland., and not merely bom of a Scottish grandfather in England : “Ecce Caleioniis Duncanus natus in oris and addressing the book, “ Scotia cumprimis pemice adeunda volatu, Namque patrem tellus edidit ilia tuum." Joseph Scaliger also testifies to the nativity of his friend Duncan, in Scotland, and apparently in the west of Scotland. Speaking of the Gaelic, he says : “qua in Scotije occidentalibus (unde Duncanus et Buchananus sunt oriundi) utuntur.” (Prima Scaligerana, voce Britones). Scaliger, I may notice, had resided for some time in Scotland. Dr. Kippis (Biogr. Brit. V. 494.) states, on very respectable authority, that William and Mark were born in London, their father, Alexander, in Beverley. He is, however, wrong.] 2 [The Disputationes Philosophica Gulielmi Camerarii Scoti, Congregationis Ora- torii Domini Jesu Preshyteri (in folio, Paris, 1630, pp. 620), is a work of much learning, and of considerable acuteness. The first part is logical ; but among other treatises 124 LOGIC. the study is indicated by the fact, that while its statutory teach- ing has been actually defunct for ages, the “ Elements of Logic ' * 1 ' 1 of William Duncan of Aberdeen, have long collegially dispensed a muddy scantling of metaphysic psychology, and dia- lectic, in the University where Downam taught ; 1 while Murray’s Compendium Logiccc, the Trinity College text-book, may show that matters are, if possible, at a lower pass in Dublin. In Oxford, the fate of the science has been somewhat different, but, till lately, scarcely more favorable. And here it is neces- sary to be more particular, as this is the only British seminary where the study of logic proper can be said to have survived ; and as, with one exception, the works under review all emanate from that University — represent its character — and are determined and modified by its circumstances. Indeed, with one or two in- significant exclusions, these works comprise the whole recent logical literature of the kingdom. During the scholastic ages, Oxford was held inferior to no University throughout Europe ; and it was celebrated, more espe- cially, for its philosophers and dialecticians. But it was neither the recollection of old academical renown, nor any enlightened persuasion of its importance, that preserved to logic a place among the subjects of academical tuition, when the kindred branches of philosophy, with other statutory studies, were dropt from the course of instruction actually given. These were abandoned from no conviction of their inutility, nor even in favor of others of superior value : they were abandoned when the system under which they could be taught, was, for a private interest, illegally superseded by another under which they could not. When the College Fellows supplanted the University Professors, the course of statutory instruction necessarily fell with the statutory instru- ments by which it had been carried through. The same exten- of this author, I have not seen his Introductio ad Logicam (in octavo, Anjou, and of the same year). It is a curious illustration of the “ Scoti extra Scotiam agentes that there were five Camerarii, five Chalmerses; all flourishing in 1630 ; all Scotsmen by birth; all living on the Continent; and there, all Latin authors; viz., two Williams, two Davids, and one George. The preceding age shows several others.] 1 [I understand that William Duncan’s Elements, and every other logical spectre, are now in Cambridge, even collegially, laid, and that mathematics are there at length left to supply the discipline which logic was of old supposed exclusively to afford. If, however, the “ Philosophical Society of Cambridge ” may represent the University, its Transactions are enough to show the wisdom of the old and statutory in contrast to the new and illegal, and that Coleridge (himself a Cantabrigian, and more than nominally a philosopher), was right in declaring “ Mathematics to he no substitute for Logic." — (Sec Alhenamm, 24th August 1850, and Appendix II.)] FORTUNE OF LOGICAL STUDY IN OXFORD. 125 sive, the same intensive, education which had once been possible when the work was distributed among a body of Professors, each chosen for his ability, and each concentrating his attention on a single study, could no longer he attempted, when the collegial corporations, a fortuitous assemblage of individuals, in so far as literary qualification is concerned, had usurped the exclusive pri- vilege of instruction ; and when each of these individuals was authorized to become sole teacher of the whole academical cyclo- paedia. But while the one unqualified Fellow-tutor could not perform the work of a large body of qualified Professors ; it is evident that, as he could not rise and expand himself to the former system, that the present, existing only for his behoof, must he contracted and brought down to him. This was accordingly done. The mode of teaching, and the subjects taught, were reduced to the required level and extent. The capacity of lecturing, that is, of delivering an original course of instruction, was not now to be expected in the tutor. The pupil, therefore, read to his tutor a lesson out of book ; on this lesson, the tutor might, at his dis- cretion, interpose an observation, or preserve silence ; and he was thus effectually guaranteed from all demands, beyond his ability or inclination to meet. This reversed process was still denomi- nated a i lecture. In like manner, all subjects which required in the tutor more than the Fellows’ average of learning or acute- ness, were eschewed. Many of the most important branches of education in the legal system were thus discarded ; and those which it was found necessary or convenient to retain in the in- trusive, were studied in easier and more superficial treatises. This, in particular, was the case with logic. By statute, the Professor of Dialectic was bound to read and expound the Organon of Aristotle twice a week ; and, by statute, regular attendance on his lectures was required from all under- graduates for their three last years. Until the statutory system was superseded, an energetic and improving exercise of mind from the intelligent study of the most remarkable monument of philosophical genius, imposed on all, was more especially secured in those who would engage in the subsidiary business of tuition. This, and the other conditions of that system, thus determined a far higher standard of qualification in the tutor, when the tutor was still only a subordinate instructor, than remained when he had become the exclusive organ of academical education. When, at last, the voice of the Professors was silenced in the University, 126 LOGIC. and in the Colleges the Fellows had been able to exclude all other graduates from the now principal office of Tutor, the study of logic declined with the ability of those by whom the science was taught. The original treatises of Aristotle were now found to transcend the College complement of erudition and intellect. They were accordingly abandoned ; and with these the various logical works previously in academical use, which supposed any reach of thought, or an original acquaintance with the Organon. The Compendium of Sanderson stood its ground for a season, when the more elaborate treatises (erst in academical use) of Brerewood, Crackanthorpe, and Smiglecius, were forgotten. But this little treatise, the excellent work of an accomplished logician, was too closely relative to the books of the Organon, and demanded too frequently an inconvenient explanation, to retain its place, so soon as another text-book could be introduced, more accommodated to the fallen and falling standard of tutorial com- petency. Such a text-book was soon found in the Compendium of Aldrich. The dignity of its author, as Dean of Christ Church, and his reputation as an ingenious, even a learned, writer in other branches of knowledge, insured it a favorable recommen- dation: it was yet shorter than Sanderson’s; written in a less scholastic Latin ; adopted an order wholly independent of the Organon ; and made no awkward demands upon the tutor, as comprising only what was either plain in itself, or could without difficulty be expounded. The book — which, in justice to the Dean, we ought to mention was not originally written for the public — is undoubtedly a work of no inconsiderable talent; but the talent is, perhaps, principally shown, in the author having- performed so cleverly a task for which he was so indifferently prepared. Absolutely considered, it has little or no value. It is but a slight eclectic epitome of one or two logical treatises in common use (that it is exclusively abridged from Wallis is incor- rect) ; and when the compiler wanders from, or mistakes, his authorities, he displays a want of information to be expected, perhaps, in our generation, but altogether marvelous in his. It is clear, that he knew nothing of the ancient, and very little of the modern, logicians. The treatise likewise omits a large proportion of the most important matters ; and those it does not exclude are treated with a truly unedifying brevity. As a slender introduc- tion to the after-study of logic (were there not a hundred better) it is not to be despised; as a full course of instruction — as an FORTUNE OF LOGICAL STUDY IN OXFORD. 127 independent system of the science, it is utterly contemptible Yet, strange to say, the Compend of Aldrich, having gradually supplanted the Compend of Sanderson, has furnished, for above a century, the little all of logic doled out in these latter days by the University of Bradvvardin and Scotus . 1 Even the meliorations of the academical system have not proved beneficial to this study : perhaps, indeed, the reverse. Since the institution of honors — since the re-introduction, however limit- ed, of a real examination for the first degree in arts, a powerful stimulus has been applied to other studies— to that of logic none. Did a candidate make himself master of tile Organon? — he would find as little favor from the dispensers of academical distinction, as he had previously obtained assistance from his tutor. For the public examiners could not be expected, either to put questions on what they did not understand, or to encourage the repetition of such overt manifestations of their own ignorance. The mini- mum of Aldrich, therefore, remained the maximum of the “schools;” and was “got up,” not to obtain honor, but to avoid disgrace. — Yet even this minimum was to be made less ; there was “a lower deep beneath the lowest deep.” The Compen- dium , a meagre duodecimo of a hundred and eighty pages, to be read in a day, and easily mastered in a week, was found too ponderous a volume for pupil, and tutor, and examiner. It was accordingly subjected to a process of extenuation, out of which it emerged, reduced to little more than a third of its original gra- cility — a skeleton without marrow or substance. “ Those who go deep in dialectic,” says Aristo Chius, “may be resembled to crab-eaters ; for a mouthful of meat, they spend their time over a heap of shells.” But your superficial student of logic, he loses his time without even a savor of this mouthful ; and Oxford, in her senility, has proved no Alma Mater, in thus so unpiteously cramming her alumni with the shells alone. As Dr. Whately observes : — “ A very small proportion even of distinguished stu- 1 Some thirty years ago, indeed, there was printed, in usurn academical juventutis, certain Excerpta ex Aristotelis Organo. The execution of that work shows how in- adequate its author was to the task he had undertaken. Nothing could be more con- ducive to the rational study of logic than a systematic condensation of the more essen- tial parts of the different treatises of the Organon, with original illustrations, and selections from the best commentators, ancient and modern. As it is, this petty pub- lication has exerted no influence on the logical studies of the University ; we should like to know how many tutors have expounded it in their lectures, how many candi- dates have been examined on it in the schools. On the logical authors, at least, of the University, it has exerted none. 128 LOGIC. dents ever become proficients in logic ; and by far the greater proportion pass through the University without knowing any thing at all of the subject. I do not mean that they have not learned by rote a string of technical terms, but that they under- stand absolutely nothing whatever of the principles of the science.” The miracle would be, if they ever did. Logic thus degraded to an irksome, but wholly unprofitable, penance, the absurdity of its longer enforcement was felt by some intelligent leaders of the University. “It was proposed,” says Dr. Whately, “to leave the study of logic altogether to the option of the candidates a proposal hailed with joy by the under-graduates, who had long prayed fervently with St. Ambrose — U A Dialectica Aristotelis libera nos , DomineA 1 In these circumstances, when even the Heads could not much longer have continued obstinate, and Logic seemed in Oxford on the eve of following the sister sciences of philosophy to an aca- demic grave, a new life was suddenly communicated to the expir- ing study, and hope, at least, allowed for its ultimate convales- cence under a reformed system. This was mainly effected by the publication of the Elements of Dr. Whately, then Principal of St. Alban’s Hall, and recently (we rejoice) elevated to the Archiepiscopal See of Dublin. (INo. 2, of the works at the head of this article.) Somewhat previously, the Rudimenta (abbreviated Compendium ) of Aldrich had been illustrated with English notes by an anonymous author, whom we find quoted in some of the subsequent treatises under the name of Hill. (No. 1.) The success and ability of the Elements prompted imitation and determined controversy. Mr. Bentham (nephew of Mr. Jeremy Bentham) published his Outline and Ex- amination., in which Dr. Whately is alternately the object of cen- sure and encomium. (No. 4.) The pamphlet of Mr. Lewis (on two points only) is likewise controversial. (No. 5.) The Princi- pal, as becoming, was abridged and lauded by his Vice (No. 3 ;) and the treatises of Mr. Huyshe and others (Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9), are all more or less relative to Dr. Whately’s, and all so many mani- festations of the awakened spirit of logical pursuit. The last decade, indeed, has done more in Oxford for the cause of this sci- ence than the whole hundred and thirty years preceding ; 2 for 1 [This addition of St. Ambrose to the Litany, I took as recorded by Cardinal Cusa.] 2 [Since that time, with a rise of the academical spirit, the study of logic has been still more zealously pursued in Oxford, and several resident members of the Univer- WORKS REVIEWED. 129 since the time of Wallis and Aldrich, until the works under re- view, we recollect nothing on the subject which the University could claim, except one or two ephemeral tracts; — the shallow Reflections of Edward Bentham, about the middle of the last century ; and after the commencement of the present, a couple of clever pamphlets in vindication of logic, and in extinction of the logic of Kett — which last also was a moon-calf of Alma Mater. It remains now to inquire : — At what value are we to rate these new logical publications? — Before looking at their con- tents, and on a knowledge only of the general circumstances under which they were produced, we had formed a presumptive estimate of what they were likely to perform ; and found our anticipation fully confirmed, since we recently examined what they had actually accomplished. None of the works are the pro- ductions of inferior ability ; and though some of them propose only a humble end, they are all respectably executed. A few of them display talent rising far above mediocrity ; and one is the effort of an intellect of great natural power. But when we look sity have published treatises on the science, of no ordinary merit. I may chronologi- cally notice those of Mr. Wooley, Mr. Thomson, Mr. Chretien, and Mr. Mansel. — To two of those gentleman I am, indeed, under personal obligations. — Mr. Thomson, in the second edition of his Laws of Thought, among other flattering testimonies of his favorable opinion, has done me the honor of publishing the specimen which I had com- municated to him, of a scheme of Syllogistic Notation ; and I regret to find, that this circumstance has been the occasion of some injustice, both to him and to me. To him : — inasmuch, as he has been unfairly regarded as a mere expositor of my system ; to me : — inasmuch, as his objections to that system have been unfairly regarded as de- cisive. In point of fact, though we coincide, touching the thoroughgoing quantifica- tion of the predicate in affirmative propositions, we are diametrically opposed, touch- ing the same quantification in negatives. But, while I am happy, in the one case, to receive even a partial confirmation of the doctrine, from Mr. Thomson’s able and in- dependent speculation ; I should be sorry, in the other, to subject, what I deem, the truth to the uncanvassed opinion of any human intellect. — To Mr. Mansel , besides sundry gratifying expressions of approval, in his acute and learned Notes on the Rudiments of Aldrich ; I am indebted for valuable aid in the determination of a curious point in the history of logic. Instead of Petrus Hispanus being a plagiarist, and his Summulce a translation from the Greek, as supposed by Ehinger, Keckermann, Placcius, J. A. Fabricius, Brucker — by all, in short, who for the last two centuries and a half, have treated of the matter ; it is now certain, that the “ Synopsis Organi," published under the name of Michael Psellus (the younger) is itself a mere garbled version of the great logical text-book of the west, and without any authority, capriciously fathered, by Ehinger, as an original work, on the illustrious Byzantine. I am now, in fact, able to prove : that in the Augsburg Library, the codex from which Ehinger printed, contained neither the title nor the author’s name under which his publication appeared ; and that in several of the European libraries there are extant Greek manuscripts, iden- tical with the text of that publication, and professing to be merely copies of a transla- lation from the Latin original of Hispanus. — This detection enables us also to trace the Tpdpfj.ara, J 'Eypa\lre, k. t. A. of Blemmides and the Greeks to the Barbara, Celar- ent, &c. of Hispanus and the Latins.] I 130 LOGIC. from the capacity of the author to his acquirements, our judg- ment is less favorable. If the writers are sometimes original, their matter is never new. They none of them possess — not to say a superfluous erudition on their subject — even the necessary complement of information. Not one seems to have studied the logical treatises of Aristotle ; all are ignorant of the Greek Com- mentators on the Organon, of the Scholastic, Ramist, Cartesian, Wolfian, and Kantian Dialectic. In none is there any attempt at the higher logical philosophy : we have no preliminary determ- ination of the fundamental laws of thought; no consequent evolution, from these laws, of the system itself. On the con- trary, we find principle buried in detail ; inadequate views of the science ; a mere agglutination of its parts ; of these some wholly neglected, and others, neither the most interesting nor important, elaborated out of bounds ; and always, though in very different proportions, too much of the “ shell,” too little of the “ meat.” They are rarely, indeed, wise above Aldrich. His partial views of the order and comprehension of the science have determined theirs ; his most egregious blunders are repeated ; and sometimes when an attempt is made at a correction, either Aldrich is right, or a new error is substituted for the old. Even Dr. Whately, who, in the teeth of every logician from Alexander to Kant, speaks of “the boundless field within the legitimate limits of the sci- ence,” “ walks in trodden ways,” and is guiltless of “ removing the ancient landmark.” His work, indeed never transcends, and generally does not rise to the actual level of the science ; nor, with all its ability, can it justly pretend to more than a relative and local importance. Its most original and valuable portion is but the insufficient correction of mistakes touching the nature of logic, long exploded, if ever harbored, among the countrymen of Leibnitz, and only lingering among the disciples of Locke. An articulate proof of the accuracy of these conclusions, on all the works under consideration, would far exceed our limits. Nor is this requisite. It will he sufficient to review that work, in chief, to which most of the others are correlative, and which stands among them all the highest in point of originality and learning ; and the rest occasionally, in subordination to that one. Nor in criticizing Dr. Whately’s elements can we attempt to vin- dicate all or even the principal points of our judgment. To show the deficiencies in that work, either of principle or of detail, would, in the universal ignorance in this country of logical philosophy WORKS REVIEWED. 131 and of a high logical standard, require a preliminary exposition of what a system of this science ought to comprehend, far beyond our space, were we even to discuss these points to the exclusion of every other. We must, therefore, omitting imperfections , con- fine ourselves to an indication of some of Dr. Whatley’s positive errors. This we shall attempt, “though the work,” as its author assures us, “has undergone, not only the close examination of himself and several friends, but the severer scrutiny of determ- ined opponents, without any material errors having been detected, or any considerable alteration found necessary.” In doing this, nothing could be farther from our intention than any derogation from the merit of that eminent individual, whom, even when we differ most from his opinions, we respect, both as a very shrewd, and (what is a rarer phenomenon in Oxford) a very independent, thinker. The interest of truth is above all personal considera- tions ; and as Dr. Whately, in vindication of his own practice, has well observed : — “ Errors are the more carefully to he pointed out in proportion to the authority by which they are sanctioned.” “ No mercy,” says Lessing, “ to a distinguished author.” This, however, is not our motto; and if our “scrutiny” he “severe,” we are conscious than it can not justly he attributed to “determ- ined opposition.” We find matter of controversy even in the first page of the Elements, and in regard even to the first question of the doctrine : — What is logic ? — Dr. Whately very properly opens by a state- ment, if not a definition, of the nature and domain of logic ; and in no other part of his work have the originality and correctness of his views been more applauded, than in the determination of this fundamental problem. He says : ‘ ‘ Logic, in the most extensive sense which the name can with propriety be made to hear, may he considered as the Science, and also as the Art of Reasoning. It investigates the principles on which argumentation is conducted, and furnishes rules to secure the mind from error in its deduc- tions. Its most appropriate office, however, is that of instituting an anal- ysis of the process of the mind in reasoning ; and in this point of view it is, as has been stated, strictly a science ; while, considered in reference to the practical rules above mentioned, it may he called the art of reasoning. This distinction, as will hereafter appear, has been overlooked, or not clearly pointed out by most writers on the subject ; logic having been in general regarded as merely an art, and its claim to held a place among the sciences having been expressly denied.” ( Elements , p. 1.) Here the inquiry naturally separates into two branches ; — the one concerns the genus , the other the object-matter , of logic. 132 LOGIC. In regard to the former : — Dr. Whately’s reduction of logic to the twofold category of Art and Science , has earned the praises of his Critical Examiner, but Mr. Bentham, it must he acknowl- edged, is as often out in his encomium as in his censure. He observes : “ Dr. Whately has in particular brought to view one very important fact, overlooked by all his predecessors, though so obvious, when once ex- hibited, as to make us wonder that it should not have been remarked : viz. that logic is a science as well as an art. The universally prevailing error, that human knowledge is divided into a number of parts, some of which are arts without science, and others sciences without art, has been fully ex- posed by Mr. [Jeremy] Bentham in his Chrestomthaia. There also it has been shown, that there can not exist a single art that has not its corres- ponding science, nor a single science which is not accompanied by some portion of art. The Schoolmen, on the contrary, have, with extraordinary effort, endeavored to prove that logic is an art only, not a science ; and in that particular instance, Dr. Whately is, I believe, one of the first who has ventured to contradict this ill-founded assertion.” — ( Outline , p. 12.) In all this there is but one statement with which we can agree. We should certainly “wonder” with Mr. Bentham, had any “so obvious and important fact” been overlooked by all Dr. Whately’s predecessors ; and knowing something of both, should assuredly be less disposed to presume a want of acuteness in the old logi- cians, than any ignorance of their speculations in the new. In the latter alternative, indeed, will he found a solution of the “wonder.” Author and critic are equally in error. In the first place, looking merely to the nomenclature, both are historically wrong. “ Logic,” says Dr. Whately, “ has been in general regarded merely as an art , and its claim to hold a place among the sciences has been expressly denied.” The re- verse is true. The great majority of logicians have regarded logic as a science, and expressly denied it to be an art. This is the oldest as well as the most general opinion. — “ The Schoolmen,” says Mr. Bentham, “ have with extraordinary effort endeavored to prove that logic is an art only A On the contrary, the School- men have not only “ with extraordinary effort,” hut with unex- ampled unanimity labored in proving logic to be exclusively a science ; and so far from “ Dr. Whately being” (with Mr. Jeremy Bentham) “ the first to contradict this ill-founded assertion,” the paradox of these gentlemen is only the truism of the world beside. This error is the more surprising, as the genus of logic is one of those vexed questions on which, as Ausonius has it, “ Omnis certat dialectica turbo, sophorum LOGIC— WHAT ? 133 indeed, until latterly, no other perhaps stands so obtrusively for- ward during the whole progress of the study. — Plato and the Platonists considered dialectic as a science ; hut with them dia- lectic was a real not a formal discipline, and corresponded rather to the metaphysic than to the logic of the Peripatetics. — Logic is not defined by Aristotle. — His Greek followers (and a consider- able body of the most eminent dialecticians since the revival of letters), deny it to be either science or art . — The Stoics in general viewed it as a science. — The Arabian and Latin Schoolmen did the same. In this opinion Thomist and Scotist, Realist and Nominalist, concurred ; an opinion adopted, almost to a man, by the Jesuit, Dominican, and Franciscan Cursualists. — From the restoration of letters, however, and especially during the latter part of the sixteenth century, so many Aristotelians, with the whole body of Ramists (to whom were afterward to be added a majority of the Cartesians, and a large proportion of the Eclec- tics), maintained that it was an art ; that the error of Sander- son may be perhaps excused in attributing this opinion to “al- most all the more recent authors” at his time. Along with these, however (so far is Dr. Whately from having “ brought to view this important fact, overlooked by all his predecessors,”) there was a very considerable party who anticipated the supposed novelty of this author in defining logic by the double genus of art and science / — In the schools of Wolf and Kant, logic again obtained the name of science. But — to look beneath the name — as Dr. Whately and his critic are wrong in imagining that there is any novelty in the observa- tion, they are equally mistaken in attributing to it the smallest importance. The question never concerned logic itself, but merely the meaning of the terms by which it should be defined. The old logicians (however keenly they disputed whether logic were 1 To make reference to these would be de trap ; we count above a dozen logicians of this class in our own collection. But independently of the older and less familiar authors, Mr. Jeremy Bentham and Dr. Whately have no claim (the latter makes none) to originality in this observation. Even the last respectable writer on logic in the British Empire, previous to these gentlemen, Dr. Richard Kirwan, w'hose popular and able volumes were published in 1807, defines logic as art and science ; and this in terms so similar to those of Dr. Whately, that we can not hesitate in believing that this author had his predecessor's definition (which we shall quote) immediately in view. “ Logic is both a science and an art ; it is a science inasmuch as, by analyzing the elements, principles, and structure of arguments, it teaches us how to discover their truth or detect their fallacies, and point out the sources of such errors. It is an art, inasmuch as it teaches now to arrange arguments in such manner that their truth may be most readily perceived, or their falsehood detected.” (Vol. i. p. 1.) 134 LOGIC. a science or an art — or neither — or both — a science speculative, or a science practical — or at once speculative and practical) — never dreamt that the controversy possessed, in so far as logic was concerned, more than a verbal interest. 1 In regard to the essential nature of logic they were at one ; and contested only, what was the comprehension of these terms in philosophical pro- priety, or rather what was the true interpretation of their Aris- totelic definitions. Many intelligent thinkers denounced, with Yives, the whole problem as frivolous. ‘ ‘ Q,U8estioni locum dedit misera homonymia,” says Mark Duncan, among a hundred others. The most strenuous advocates of the several opinions regularly admit, that unless the terms are taken in the peculiar significa- tion for which they themselves contend, that all and each of their adversaries may he correct ; while, at the same time it was rec- ognized on all hands, that these terms were vulgarly employed in a vague or general acceptation, under which every opinion might be considered right, or rather no opinion could be deemed wrong. The preparatory step of the discussion was, therefore, an elimination of these less precise and appropriate significations, which, as they could at best only afford a remote genus and dif- ference, were wholly incompetent for the purpose of a definition. But what the older logicians rejected as a useless truism, the re- cent embrace as a new and important observation. — In regard to its novelty : — Do Dr. Whately and Mr. Bentham imagine that any previous logician could ever have dreamt of denying that logic, in their acceptation of the terms, was at once an art and a science ? Let them look into almost any of the older treatises, and they will find this explicitly admitted, even when the terms Art and Science are employed in senses far less vague and uni- versal than is done by them. — As to its importance : — Do they suppose that a more precise and accurate conception of logic is thus obtained ? The contrary is true. The term Science Dr. Whately employs in its widest possible extension, for any knowl- edge considered absolutely, and not in relation to practice ; and in this acceptation every art in its doctrinal portion must be a 1 Father Buffier is unjust to the old logicians, but he places the matter on its proper footing in reference to the new. — “ Si la Iogique est une science. Oui et non ; selon l'idee qu’il vous plait d’attacher au nom de science, &c. Si la Iogique est un art. Encore un fois, oui et non ; — II plait aux logiciens de disputer si la Iogique est, ou n'est pas un art. ; et il ne leur plait pas toujours d’avouer ni d’enseigner a leurs dis- ciples, que e’est une pure ou puerile question de nom.” ( Cours dcs Sciences (Logi- que), p. 887.) LOGIC— WHAT ? 135 science. Art he defines the application of knowledge to practice ; in which signification, ethics , politics , religion , and all other ■practical sciences , must he arts. Art and Science are thus dis- tended till they run together. As philosophical terms, they are now altogether worthless; too universal to define; too vacillating between identity and difference, to distinguish. In fact, their application to logic, or any other subject, is hereafter only to un- define, and to confuse ; expressing, as they do, not any essential opposition between the things themselves, but only the different points of view under which the same thing may be contemplated by us ; — every art being thus in itself also a science , every science in itself also an art. — This Mr. Bentham thinks the correction of a universal error — the discovery of an important fact. If the question in the hands of the old logicians be frivolous, what is it in those of the new ! 1 So much for the genus, now for the object-matter. Of Dr. Whately ’s Elements , Mr. Hind says, and that emphati- cally : — “ This treatise displays — and it is the only one that has clearly done so — the true nature and use of logic ; so that it may be approached, no longer as a dark, curious, and merely 1 Such is the most favorable interpretation we can give of Dr. Whately’s meaning. But the language in which this meaning is conveyed is most ambiguous and inaccu- rate. E. g. he says : “A science is conversant about knowledge only." (P. 56.) He can not mean what the words express, that science has knowledge for its object-mat- ter, for this is nonsense ; and the words do not express, what, from the context, we must presume he means, that science has no end ulterior to the contemplative act of knowledge itself. Dr. Whately thus means by science what Aristotle meant by spec- ulative science, but how different in the precision of their definitions ! 0ec oprjTiKrjs fj.ev (ini (TTqpqs) reXoy aXrjdeia- npaKriKrjs 6 epyov ; — or, as Averroes has it, Per speculativam scimus ut sciamus ; per practicani scimus ut operemur. — In like manner, Dr. Whately gives, without being aware of it, two very different definitions of the term Art. In one place (p. 1) it is said, “that logic may be called the art of reasoning, while, considered in reference to the practical rules, it furnishes to secure the mind from error in its deductions.” This is evidently the AiaXeKTiKrj npaypariov of the Greek interpreters, the logica docens {quae tradit pracepta ) of the Arabian and Latin schools. Again, in another (p. 56) it is said, that “ an art is the application of knowledge to practice." If words have any meaning, this definition (not to wander from logic) suits only the A ioKcktikt) iv xpijaei Ka'i yvpvaaia npaypariov of the Greek, the logica utens {qua. utitur praceptis) of the Latin Aristotelians. The L. docens, and the L. utens, are, however, so far from being convertible, that by the great majority of philosophers, they have been placed in different genera. The Greek logicians denied the L. docens to be either science or art, regarding it as an instrument, not a part of philosophy ; the L. utens, on the contrary, they admitted to be a science, and a part of philosophy, but not separable and distinct. The Latins, on the contrary, held in gen- eral the L. docens to be a science, and part of philosophy ; the L. utens as neither, but only an instrument. Some, however, made the docens a science, the utens an art ; while by others this opinion was reversed, &c. These distinctions are not to be con- founds 1 with the pure and applied logics of a more modern philosophy. 136 LOGIC. speculative study ; such as one is apt, in fancy, to class with astrology and alchemy.” (Pref. p. viii.) These are strong words. We are disposed to admit that Dr. Whately, though not right, is perhaps not far wrong with regard to the “ true nature and use of logic — that he “ clearly displays” that nature and use, is palpably incorrect ; and that his is “ the only treatise which has clearly done so,” is hut another proof, that assertion is often in the inverse ratio of knowledge. W e shall not dwell on what we conceive a very partial concep- tion of the science — that Dr. Whately makes the process of reasoning not merely its principal, but even its adequate object; those of simple apprehension and judgment being considered not in themselves as constituent elements of thought, but simply as subordinate to argumentation. In this view logic is made con- vertible with syllogistic. This view, which may be allowed, in so far as it applies to the logic contained in the Aristotelic treatises now extant, was held by several of the Arabian and Latin school- men ; borrowed from them by the Oxford Crackanthorpe, it was adopted by Wallis; and from Wallis it passed to Dr. Whately. But, as applied to logic, in its own nature, this opinion has been long rejected, on grounds superfluously conclusive, by the im- mense majority even of the Peripatetic dialecticians ; and not a single reason has been alleged by Dr. Whately to induce us to waver in our belief, that the laws of thought , and not the laws of reasoning , constitute the adequate object of the science. This error, which we can not now refute, would, however, be of com- paratively little consequence, did it not — as is notoriously the case in Dr. Whately’s Elements — induce a perfunctory considera- tion of the laws of those faculties of thought ; these being viewed as only subsidiary to the process of reasoning. In regard to the “ clearness ” with which Dr. Whately “dis- plays the true nature and use of logic,” we can only say, that, after all our consideration, we do not yet clearly apprehend what his notions on this point actually are. In the very pas- sages where he formally defines the science, we find him in- distinct, ambiguous, and even contradictory ; and it is only by applying the most favorable interpretation to his words that we are able to allow him credit for any thing like a correct opinion. He says, that “ the most appropriate office of logic (as science) is that of instituting an analysis of the process of the mind in LOGIC— WHAT ? 137 reasoning ,” (p. 1) ; ana again, that “ the process ( operation ) of reasoning is alone the appropriate province of logic.” (Pp. 13, 140.) — The process or operation of reasoning is thus the object- matter about which the science of logic is conversant. Now, a definition which merely affirms that logic is the science which has the process of reasoning for its object, is not a definition of this science at all ; it does not contain the differential quality by which logic is discriminated from other sciences ; and it does not prevent the most erroneous opinions (it even suggests them) from being taken up in regard to its nature. Other sciences, as psychology and metaphysic, propose for their object (among the other facul- ties) the operation of reasoning, but this considered in its real nature : logic, on the contrary, has the same for its object, but only in its formal capacity ; in fact, it has, in propriety of speech, nothing to do with the process or operation , but is conversant only with its laics. Dr. Whately’s definition, is therefore, not only incompetent, but delusive. It would confound logic and psycho- logy and metaphysic, and occasion those very misconceptions in regard to the nature of logic which other passages of the Elements , indeed the general analogy of his work, show that it was not his / intention to sanction. But Dr. Whately is not only ambiguous; he is contradictory. We have seen, that, in some places, he makes the process of rea- soning the adequate object of logic ; what shall we think when we find, that, in others, he states that the total or adequate object of logic is language ? But, as there can not be two adequate objects, and as language and the operation of reasoning are not the same, there is therefore a contradiction. “ In introducing,” he says, “ the mention of language , previously to the definition of logic, I have departed from established practice, in order that it may be clearly understood, that logic is entirely conversant about language ; a truth which most writers on the subject, if indeed they were fully aware of it themselves, have cerieiinly not taken due care to impress on their readers.” 1 (P. 56.) And again: — “Logic is wholly concerned in the use of language.” (P. 74.) The term logic (as also dialectic ) is of ambiguous deriva- tion. It may either be derived from Aoyos (ivSladeros), reason, ' v> i l n r 1 Almost all logicians, however, impress upon their readers, that logic is (not, indeed, entirely, but) partially and secondarily occupied with language as the vehicle of thought, about which last it is adequately and primarily conversant. 138 LOGIC. or our intellectual faculties in general ; or from J.6709 yrpo- (popi/cbs), speech or language, by which these are expressed. The science of logic may, in like manner, be viewed either : — 1°, as adequately and essentially conversant about the former (the in- ternal X0709, verbum mentale ), and partially and accidentally about the latter, (the external X0709, verbum oris) ; or, 2°, as ade- quately and essentially conversant about the latter, partially and accidentally about the former. The first opinion has been held by the great majority of logi- cians, ancient and modern. The second, of which some traces may be found in the Greek commentators of Aristotle, and in the more ancient Nominalists during the middle ages (for the later scholastic Nominalists, to whom this doctrine is generally, but falsely, attributed, held in reality the former opinion), was only fully developed in modern times by philosophers, of whom Hobbes may be regarded as the principal. In making the analysis of the operation of reasoning the appropriate office of logic, Dr. Whately adopts the first of these opinions ; in making logic entirely con- versant about language, he adopts the second. We can hardly, however, believe that he seriously entertained this last. It is expressly contradicted by Aristotle ( Analyt . Post. i. 10, § 7) ; it involves a psychological hypothesis in regard to the absolute dependence of the mental faculties on language, once and again refuted, which we are confident that Dr. Whately never could sanction.; and, finally, it is at variance with sundry passages of the Elements , where a doctrine apparently very different is advanced. But, be his doctrine what it may, precision and perspicuity are not the qualities we should think of applying to it. But if the Yice-principal be an incompetent judge of what the Principal has achieved, he is a still more incompetent reporter of what all other logicians have not. If he had read even a hun- dredth plrt of the works it behoved him to have studied, before being entitled to assert that Dr. Whately’s “treatise is the only one that has clearly displayed the true use and nature of logic,” he has accomplished what not one of his brother dialecticians of Oxford has attempted. But the assertion betrays itself : TravToXyos dydOeia. To any one on a level with the literature of this science, the statement must appear supremely ridiculous — that the no- tions held of the nature and use of logic in the Kantian, not to say the AVolfian school, are less clear, adequate, and correct, than LOGIC— WHAT ? 139 those promulgated by Dr. Whatley. — A general survey, indeed, of the history of opinions on this subject would prove, that views essentially sound were always as frequent, as the carrying of these views into effect was rare. Many, speculatively, recognized principles of the science, which almost none practically applied to regulate its constitution. — Even the Scholastic logicians display, in general, more enlightened and profound conceptions of the nature of their science than any recent logician of this country. In their multifarious controversies on this matter, the diversity of their opinions on subordinate points is not more remarkable, than their unanimity on principal. All their doctrines admit of a favorable interpretation ; some, indeed, for truth and precision, have seldom been equaled, and never surpassed. Logic they all discriminated from psychology, metaphysic, &c. as a rational , not a real — as a formal , not a material science. — The few who held the adequate object of logic to be things in general , held this, however, under the qualification, that things in general were con- sidered by logic only as they stood under the general forms of thought imposed on them by the intellect — quatenus secundis in- tentionihus sub stab ant. — Those who maintained this object to be the higher processes of thought (three, two, or one), carefully explained, that the intellectual operations were not, in their own nature, proposed to the logician — that belonged to the psycholo- gist — but only in so far as they were dirigible , or the subject of laws. The proximate end of logic was thus to analyze f^e canons of thought ; its remote , to apply these to the intellectual acts. — Those, again (and they formed the great majority), who saw this object in second notions did not allow that logic was con- 1 The distinction (which we owe to the Arabians) of first and second notions, ( notiones , conceptus, intentiones, intellecta prima et secunda), is necessary to be known, not only on its own account, as a highly philosophical determination, but as the con- dition of any understanding of the scholastic philosophy, old and new, of which, especially the logic, it is almost the Alpha and Omega. Yet, strange to say, the knowledge of this famous distinction has been long lost in “ the (once) second school of the church.” — Aldrich’s definition is altogether inadequate, if not positively errone- ous. Mr. Hill and Dr. Whately, followed by Mr. Huyshe and the author of Questions on Logic, &c., misconceive Aldrich, who is their only authority, if Aldrich understood himself, and flounder on from one error to another, without even a glimpse of the light. {Hill, pp. 30-33 ; Whately, pp. 173-175 ; Huyshe, pp. 18, 19 ; Questions, pp. 10, 11, 71.) (Of a surety, no calumny could be more unfounded, as now applied to Oxford, than the “ clamor ,” of which Dr. Whately is apprehensive — “ the clamor against confining the human mind in the trammels of the schoolmen !”) — The matter is worth some little illustration ; we can spare it none, and must content ourselves with a defi- nition of the terms. — A first notion is the concept of a thing as it exists of itself, and independent of any operation of thought ; as, John, Man, Animal, &c. A second 140 LOGIC. cerneil with these second notions abstractly and in themselves, (that was the province of metaphysic), but only in concrete as applied to first ; that is, only as they were the instruments and regulators of thought. — It would require a longer exposition than we can afford, to do justice to these opinions — especially to the last. When properly understood, they will be found to contain, in principle, all that has been subsequently advanced of any value in regard to the object-matter and scope of logic. Nothing can be more meagre and incorrect than Dr. Whately’s sketch of the History of Logic. The part of his work, indeed, is almost wholly borrowed from the poverty of Aldrich. As specimens : Archytas ,‘ by Whately as by Aldrich, is set down as inventor of the Categories ; and this now exploded opinion is advanced without a suspicion of its truth. The same unacquaintance with philosophical literature and Aristotelic criticism is manifested by every recent Oxford writer who has alluded to the subject. We may refer to the Excerpta ex Organo, in usum Acadeviicce Ju- ventutis — to the Oxonia Purgata of Dr. Tatham — to Mr. Hill’s Notes on Aldrich — to Mr. Huyshe’s Logic — and to the Philoso- phy of Aristotle by Mr. Hampden. The last, even makes the Stagirite derive his moral system from the Pythagoreans ; al- though the forgery of the fragments preserved by Stobseus, under the name of Theages, and other ethical writers of that school, has nowabeen for half a century fully established. They stand likewise without an obelus in Dr. Gaisford’s respectable edition of the Florilegium. [The physical treatises, also, as those under notion is the concept, not of an object as it is in reality, but of the mode under which it is thought by the mind; as, Individual, Species, Genus, &c. The former is the concept of a thing — real — immediate — direct: the latter the concept of a concept — formal — me- diate — reflex. For elucidation of this distinction, and its applications, it is needless to make references. The subject is copiously treated by several authors in distinct treatises, but will be found competently explained in almost all the older systems of logic and philosophy. 1 [On Archytas, I may refer the reader to three excellent monographs : by Navarrus (Copenhagen, 1820) ; by Hartenstein (Lcipsic. 1833) ; and by Gruppe (Berlin, 1840.) The Metaphysical, Physical, and Ethical fragments, written in the Doric dialect, and bearing the name of Pythagorean philosophers, are all, to a critical reader, obtrusively spurious, and on all, this note has been superfluously branded by the German critics and historians of philosophy, for above half a century. Meiners began, and nearly ac- complished, the exposition. Instead of Plato and Aristotle stealing their philosophies from the Pythagoreans, and their thefts remaining, by a miracle, for centuries, un- known, and even unsuspected ; the forgers of these more modern treatises have only impudently translated the doctrines of the two philosophers into their supposititious Doric. Their non-exposure, at the time, is the strongest proof of the languid litera- ture of the decline.] LOGIC— WHAT ? 141 the names of Ocellus Lucanus and Timseus Locrius, are of the same character ; they are comparatively recent fabrications.] — Aristotle would be, indeed, the sorriest plagiary on record, were the thefts believed of him by his Oxford votaries not false only, but ridiculous. By Aldrich it is stated, as on indisputable evi- dence, that, while in Asia, he received a great part of his philos- ophy from a learned Jew and this silly and long derided fable even stands uncontradicted in the Compendium to the present day : while, by the Oxford writers at large, he is still supposed to have stolen his Categories and Ethics (to say nothing of his physical doctrines) from the Pythagoreans. What would Schlei- ermaoher or Creuzer think of this ! In discriminating Aristotle’s merits in regard to logic, Dr. Whately, we are sorry to say, is vague and incorrect. “No science can be expected to make any considerable progress, which is not cultivated on right principles. The greatest mistakes have al- ways prevailed respecting the nature of logic ; and its province has, in consequence, been extended by many writers to subjects with which it has no proper connection. Indeed with the exception of Aristotle (who is himself not entirely exempt from the errors in question), hardly a writer on logic can be mentioned who has clearly perceived, and steadily kept in view throughout, its real nature and object.” (P. 2.) On the contrary, so far is Aristotle — so far at least are his logical treatises which still remain (and these are, perhaps, few to the many that are lost), from meriting this comparative eulo- gium, than nine-tenths — in fact, more than nineteen-twentieths, — of these treat of matters, which, if logical at all, can be viewed as the objects, not of pure, but only of an applied logic ; and we have no hesitation in affirming, that the incorrect notions which have prevailed, and still continue to prevail, in regard to the “nature and province of logic,” are, without detraction from his merits, mainly to be attributed to the example and authority of the Philosopher himself. — The book of Categories, as containing an objective classification of real things, is metaphysical, not log- ical. The two books of Posterior Analytics, as sorely conversant about demonstrative or necessary matter, transcend the limits of the formal science ; and the same is true of the eight books of Topics, as wholly occupied with probable matter, its accidents and applications. Even the two books of the Prior Analytics, in 1 [The Jews have even made Aristotle a native Israelite— born at Jerusalem — of the tribe of Benjamin — and a Rabbi deep in the sacred books of his nation. (See Bartoloccii Bibliotheca Rabbinica, t. i. p. 471, sq.) ] 142 LOGIC. which the pure syllogism is considered, are swelled with extra- logical discussions. Such, for example, is the whole doctrine of the modality of syllogisms as founded on the distinction of pure, necessary, and contingent matter ; — the consideration of the real truth or falsehood of propositions, and the power so irrelevantly attributed to the syllogism of inferring a true conclusion from false premises ; — the distinction of the enthymeme, through the extrafonnal character of its premises, as a reasoning from signs and probabilities ; — the physiognomic syllogism, &c. &c. The same is true of the book On denouncement ; and matters are even worse with that on Fallacies , which is, in truth, only a sequel of the Topics. If Aristotle, therefore, did more than any other philosopher for the progress of the science ; he also did more than any other to overlay it with extraneous lumber, and to impede its development under a precise and elegant form. Many of his successors had the correctest views of the object and scope of logic ; and even among the schoolmen there were minds who could have purified the science from its adventitious sediment, had they not been prevented from applying their principles to details, by the implicit deference then exacted to the precept and practice of Aristotle. 1 “ It has been remarked,” says Dr. Whately, after Aldrich, “ that the logical system is one of those few theories which have been begun and perfected by the same individual. The history of its discovery, as far as the main principles of the science are concerned, properly commences and ends with Aristotle.” (P. 6.) — In so far as “ the main principles of the science are concerned,” this can not be denied. It ought, however, to have been stated with greater qualification. Aristotle left to his successors, much to reject — a good deal to supply — and the whole to simplify, digest, and arrange. — In regard alone to the deficiencies : — If Dr. Whately and the other Oxford logicians are right (we think de- cidedly otherwise), in adding the fourth syllogistic figure (which, by the way, none of them, from Aldrich downward, ever hint to the under-graduates not to be of Aristotelic origin), the Stagirite 1 [M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, to whom, among many other valuable Aristotelic labors of high talent, wc owe an excellent French translation of the Organon, with copious notes and introductions, has combated this opinion. (See the Preface to his first volume, especially pp. xvi-xx, cxlii.) I still, however, remain unconvinced ; though I can not now detail my reasons. — Assuredly, I do not plead guilty to the charge of disparaging the genius of Aristotle ; reverencing him as the Prince of Philosophers.] HISTORY OF LOGIC. 143 is wrong in recognizing the exclusive possibility of the other three (Analyt. Pr. i. 23, $ 1) ; and so far his system can hardly be affirmed by them to have been perfected by himself. To say no- thing of the five moods subsequently added by Theophrastus and Eudemus, the extensive and important doctrine of hypothetical, a doctrine, in a great measure, peculiar and independent, was, probably, an original supplement by these philosophers ; previous to which, the logical system remained altogether defective. [This requires some addition, and some modification.] The following is Dr. Whately’s sketch of the fortune of Logic, from Aristotle down to the Schoolmen : “ The writings of Aristotle were not only absolutely lost to the world for about two centuries [many, if not most, were always extant], but seem to have been but little studied for a long time after their recovery. An art, however, of logic, derived from the principles traditionally preserved by his disciples, seems to have been generally known, and to have been employed by Cicero in his philosophical works ; but the pursuit of the science seems to have been abandoned for a long time. Early in the Christian era the Peripatetic doctrines experienced a considerable revival; and we meet with the names of Galen and Porphyry as logicians ; but it is not till the fifth [sixth] century that Aristotle’s logical works were trans- lated into Latin by the celebrated Boethius. Not one of these seems to have made any considerable advances in developing the theory of reason- ing. Of Galen’s labors little is known ; and Porphyry’s principal work is merely on the Predicables. We have little of the science till the revival of learning among the Arabians, by whom Aristotle’s treatises on this as well as on other subjects were eagerly studied.” (P. 7.) In this sketch, Dr. Whately closely follows Aldrich ; and how utterly incompetent was Aldrich for a guide, is significantly shown by his incomparable (but still uncorrected) blunder of confound- ing Galen with Alexander of Aphrodisias ! ‘ ‘ Circa annum Chr isti 140, interpretum princeps Galenus floruit, sive Ex- positor, tear e^oyfiv, dictus.” Galen, who thus flourished at nine years old, never deserved, never received the title of The Com- mentator. This designation, as every tyro ought to know, was exclusively given to Alexander, the oldest and ablest of the Greek interpreters of Aristotle, until it was afterward divided with him by Averroes. — The names of Theophrastus and Eudemus , the great founders of logic after Aristotle, do not appear. — We say nothing of inferior logicians, hut the Aphrodisian and Ammonius Hermice were certainly not less worthy of notice than Porphyry. — Of Galen's logical labors, some are preserved, and of others we know not a little from his own information and that of others. Why is it not stated, here or elsewhere, that the fourth figure 144 LOGIC. has been attributed to Galen, and on what (incompetent) author- ity ? — Nothing is said of the original logical treatises of Boethius , though his work on Hypothetical is the most copious we possess. — Had Dr. Whately studied the subject for himself, he would hardly have failed to do greater justice to the Greek logicians. What does he mean by saying, “we have little of the science till the revival of learning among the Arabians ?” Are Averroes and Avicenna so greatly superior to Alexander and Ammonius ? Dr. Whately, speaking of the Schoolmen , says : “ It may be sufficient to observe, that their fault did not lie in their dili- gent study of logic, and the high value they set upon it, but in their ut- terly mistaking the true nature and object of the science ; and by the at- tempt to employ it for the purpose of physical discoveries involving every subject in a mist of words, to the exclusion of sound philosophical investi- gation. Their errors may serve to account for the strong terms in which Bacon sometimes appears to censure logical pursuits ; but that this cen- sure was intended to bear against the extravagant perversions, not the legitimate cultivation of the science, may be proved from his own obser- vations on the subject, in his Advancement of Learning .” (P. 8.) It has been long the fashion to attribute every absurdity to the Schoolmen ; it is only when a man of talent, like Dr. Whately, follows the example, that a contradiction is worth while. The Schoolmen (we except always such eccentric individuals as Ray- mond Lully), had correcter notions of the domain of logic than those who now contemn them, without a knowledge of their works. They certainly did not “attempt to employ it for the purpose of physical discoveries.” We pledge ourselves to refute the accusation, whenever any effort is made to prove it ; till then, we must be allowed to treat it as a groundless, though a common calumny. — As to Bacon, we recollect no such reproach directed by him either against logic or against the scholastic logi- cians. On the contrary, “Logic,” he says, “does not pretend to invent sciences, or the axioms of sciences, but passes it over with a cuique in sua arte crcdendumf 1 And so say the Schoolmen ; and so says Aristotle. We are not satisfied with Dr. Whately’s strictures on Locke , 1 Advancement of Learning : — and similar statements, frequently occur in the Be Argumentis and Novum Organum. The censure of Bacon, most pertinent to the point, is in the Organum , Aph. 63. It is, however, directed, not against the Schoolmen, but exclusively against Aristotle ; it does not reprobate any false theory of the nature and object of logic, but certain practical misapplications of it ; and, at any rate, it only shows that Bacon gave the name of Dialectic to Ontology. Aristotle did not corrupt physics by logic, but by metaphysic. The Schoolmen have sins of their own to an- swer for, but this, imputed to them, they did not commit. MODALITY OF PROPOSITIONS AND SYLLOGISMS. 145 Waits, &rc., but can not afford the space necessary to explain our views. One mistake in relation to the former we shall correct, as it can be done in a few words. After speaking of Locke’s ani- madversion on the syllogism, Dr. Whately says : “ He (Locke) presently after inserts an encomium upon Aristotle, in which he is equally unfortunate ; he praises him for the £ invention of syl- logisms,’ to which he certainly had no more claim than Linnaeus to the creation of plants and animals, or Harvey,” &c. (P. 19.) In the first place, Locke’s words are, “ invention of forms of argu- mentation ,” which is by no means convertible with “ invention of syllogisms ,” the phrase attributed to him. But if syllogism had been the word, in one sense it is right, in another wrong. “Aristotle,” says Dr. Gullies, 11 invented the syllogism,” &c. ; and in that author’s (not in Dr. Whately’s) meaning, this may be cor- rectly affirmed. — But, in the second place, Dr. Whately is wrong in thinking, that the word “ invention” is used by Locke, in the restricted sense in which it is now almost exclusively employed, as opposed to discovery. In Locke and his contemporaries, to say nothing of the older writers, to invent is currently used for to dis- cover. An example occurs in the sentence of Bacon just quoted ; and in this signification we may presume that “invention” is here employed by Locke, as it was also thus employed in French by Leibnitz, in relation to this very passage of Locke. But from the History, to proceed to the Science itself. Turning over a few pages, we come to an error not peculiar to Dr. Whately, but shared with him by all logicians — we mean the Modality of propositions and syllogisms ; in other words, the necessity, possibility , &c., of their matter, as an object of logical consideration. It has always been our wonder, how the integrity of logic has not long ago been purified from this metaphysical admixture. Kant, whose views of the nature and province of the science were peculiarly correct, and from whose acuteness, after that of Aris- totle, every thing might have been expected, so far from ejecting the Modality of propositions and syllogisms, again sanctioned its right of occupancy, by deducing from it, as an essential element of logical science, the last of his four generic categories, or fun- damental forms of thought. Nothing, however, can be clearer, than that this modality is no object of logical concernment. Logic is a formal science ; it takes no consideration of real existence, or of its relations, but is occupied solely about that existence and K 146 LOGIC. those relations which arise through, and are regulated by, the conditions of thought itself. Of the truth or falsehood of propo- sitions, in themselves, it knows nothing, and takes no account : all in logic may he held true that is not conceived as contradic- tory. In reasoning, logic guarantees neither the premises nor the conclusion, hut merely the consequence, of the latter from the former ; for a syllogism is nothing more than the explicit asser- tion of the truth of one proposition, on the hypothesis of other pro- positions being true in which that one is implicitly contained. A conclusion may thus be true in reality (as an assertion), and yet logically false (as an inference). 1 But if truth or falsehood, as a material quality of propositions and syllogisms be extralogical, so also is their modality. Neces- sity, Possibility, &c., are circumstances which do not affect the logical copula or the logical inference. They do not relate to the connection of the subject and predicate of the antecedent and con- sequent as terms in thought, but as realities in existence ; they are metaphysical, not logical conditions. The syllogistic inference is always necessary ; is modified by no extraformal condition ; and is equally apodictic in contingent as in necessary matter. If such introduction of metaphysical notions into logic be once admitted, there is no limit to the intrusion. This is indeed shown in the vacillation of Aristotle himself in regard to the number of the modes. In one passage ( De Interp. c. 12, § 1) he enumerates four — the necessary , the impossible , the contingent , the possible ; a determination generally received among logicians. In another [Ibid, i 9), he adds to these four modes hvo others , viz. the true , and, consequently, the false. Some logicians have accordingly admitted, but exclusively, these six modes ; his Greek interpreters, however, very properly observe (though they made no use of the observation), that Aristotle did not mean by these enumerations 1 [In a certain sense, therefore, all logical inference is hypothetical — hypothetically necessary ; and the hypothetical necessity of logic stands opposed to absolute or sim- ple necessity. The more recent scholastic philosophers have well denominated these two species — the necessitas consequential, and the necessitas consequcntis. The former is an ideal or formal necessity ; the inevitable dependence of one thought upon another, by reason of our intelligent nature. The latter is a real or material necessity ; the in- evitable dependence of one thing upon another because of its own nature. The former is a logical necessity, common to all legitimate consequence, whatever be the material modality of its objects. The latter is an extralogical necessity, over and above the syllogistic inference, and wholly dependent on the modality of the matter consequent. — This ancient distinction, modern philosophers have not only overlooked but con- founded. (See contrasted the doctrines of the Aphrodisian and of Mr. Dugald Stew- art, in Dissertations on Reid, p. 701 a, note *).] MODALITY OF PROPOSITIONS AND SYLLOGISMS. 147 to limit the number of modes to four or six, but thought only of signalizing the more important. [In general, indeed, astl previ- ously stated, he speaks only of the necessary and contingent. [Anal, passim.)] Modes maybe conceived without end; — as the certain , the probable , the useful , the good , the just — and what not ? All, however, must be admitted into logic if any are : the line of distinction attempted to he drawn is futile. Such was the confusion and intricacy occasioned by the four or two modes alone, that the doctrine of modals long formed, not only the most useless, hut the most difficult and disgusting branch of logic. It was, at once, the criterium et crux ingeniorum. “ De rnodali non gus- tabit asinusf said the schoolmen ; “ De moduli non gustabit logicusf say we. This subject was only perplexed because dif- ferent sciences were confounded in it ; and modals ought to he entirely, on principle (as they have been almost entirely in prac- tice), relegated from the domain of logic, and consigned to the grammarian and metaphysician. This was, indeed, long ago, obscurely perceived by a profound hut now forgotten thinker. “ Pronunciata ilia,” says Yives, “ quibus additur modus, non dialecticam sed grammaticam qusestionem habent.” Ramus also felt the propriety of their exclusion, though equally unable to explicate its reasons . 1 * * * * * Dr. Whately has very correctly stated — “ It belongs exclusively to a syllogism, properly so called (i. e. a valid argument, so stated that its conclusiveness is evident from the mere form of the expression), that if letters, or any other unmeaning symbols, he sub- stituted for the several terms, the validity of the argument shall still he evident.’' (P. 37.) Here logic appears in Dr. Whately’s exposition, as it is in 1 [M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire ( Logique d'Aristote, T. I. Pref. p. Ixv.) says : — “ Theophraste et Eudeme, dont on invoque l’autorite, avaient combattu sur plusieurs points la theorie de la modalite ; ils en avaient change quelques regies ; rnais ils l’avaient admise comme partie integrante de la theorie generale. Depuis eux, nul logicien n'a pretendu la supprimer. M. Hamilton est jusqu’a present le seul, si Ton excepte Laurentius Valla, au xv e siecle, qui ait propose ce retranchement. 7 ’ — Valla, whose Dialectica I take shame for overlooking, certainly does reject modals, as a spe- cies of logical proposition ; but on erroneous grounds. He confounds formal with material necessity ; and alleges no valid reason for the retrenchment. The reduction of the Necessary and Contingent to the Apodictic and Problematic is modem, and. I think, erroneous. For all the necessary is not apodictic or demonstrable ; and the con- tingent is by no means convertible with the doubtful or problematic. There is here also a mixing of the subjective with the objective. In my view, modes are only ma- terial affections of the predicate, or, it may be, of the subject ; and those which, from their generality, have been contemplated in logic, may, I think, be reduced to the re- lation of genus and species, and their consecution, thereby, recalled to the utmost simplicity. — I agree with Mr. Mansel (Pref. p. ii.), if I do not misapprehend him.] 148 LOGIC. truth, a distinct and self-sufficient science. What, then, are we to think of the following passages ? “ Should there he no sign at all to the common term, the quantity of the proposition (which is called an Indefinite proposition), is ascertained by the matter ; i. e. the nature of the connection between the extremes, which is either Necessary, Impossible, or Contingent, See., &c. (P. 64.) — “As it is evident, that the truth or falsity of any proposition (its quantity and quality being known) must depend on the matter of it, we must bear in mind, that, in necessary matter all affirmatives are true , and nega- tives false; in impossible matter , vice versa ; in contingent matter, all universals false, and particulars true : e.g. ‘all islands (or, some islands) are surrounded by water,’ must be true, because the matter is necessary : to say ‘no islands, or some — not ,' See., would have been false: again, ‘ some islands are fertile,’ 1 some are not fertile,’ are both true, because it is Contingent Matter : put ‘all' or ‘no,' instead of 1 some,' and the propo- sitions will be false,” Sec., Sec. (P. 67.) In these passages (which, it is almost needless to say, are only specimens of the common doctrine), logic is reduced from an inde- pendent science to a scientific accident. Possible , impossible , ne- cessary ', and contingent matter, are terms expressive of certain lofty generalizations from an extensive observation of real existence ; and logic, inasmuch as it postulates a knowledge of these general- izations, postulates its own degradation to a precarious appendage — to a fortuitous sequel, of all the sciences from which that knowl- edge must be borrowed. If in syllogisms, “unless unmeaning symbols can he substituted for the several terms, the argument is either unsound or sophistical — why does not the same hold good in propositions, of which syllogisms are hut the complement? But A, and B, and C, know nothing of the necessary, impossible, contingent. Is logic a formal science in one chapter, a real science in another ? Is it independent, as a constituted whole ; and yet dependent, in its constituent parts ? We can not pass without notice Dr. Whately’s employment of the term Argument. This word he defines, and professes to use in a “ strict logical sense and gives us, moreover, under a dis- tinct head, a formal enumeration of its other various significations in ordinary discourse. The true logical acceptation of the term, he, however, not only does not employ, but even absolutely over- looks ; while, otherwise, his list of meanings is neither well dis- criminated, nor at all complete. We shall speak only of the logical omission and mistake. “ Reasoning (or discourse) expressed in words is argument ; and an ar- gument stated at full length, and in its regular form, is called a syllo- ARGUMENT— MIDDLE TEEM. 149 gism ; the third part of logic, therefore, treats of the syllogism. Every argument consists of two parts ; that which is 'proved; and that by means of which it is proved,” &c. And in a note on this : — “ I mean, in the strict technical sense ; for, in popular use, the word Argument is often employed to denote the latter of these two parts alone : e. g. this is an argument to prove so and so,” &c. (P. 72.) Now, the signification, here (not quite correctly) given as the “popular use” of the term, is nearer to the “strict technical sense” than that which Dr. Whately supposes to he such. In technical propriety argument can not he used for argumentation , as he thinks — but exclusively for its middle term. In this mean- ing the word (though not with uniform consistency) was employed by Cicero, Quintilian, Boethius, &c. ; it was thus subsequently used by the Latin Aristotelians, from whom it passed even to the Ramists ; l and this is the meaning which the expression always, first and most naturally, suggests to a logician. Of the older dia- lecticians, Crackantliorpe is the only one we recollect, who uses, and professes to use, the word not in its strict logical signification, but with the vulgar as convertible with Reasoning. In vindicat- ing his innovation, he, however, misrepresents his authorities. Sanderson is, if we remember, rigidly correct. The example of Crackantliorpe, and of some French Cartesians, may have seduced Wallis ; and Wallis’s authority, with his own ignorance of logi- cal propriety, determined the usage of Aldrich — and of Oxford. — We say again Aldrich’s ignorance ; and the point in question supplies a significant example. “ Terminus tertius [says he] cui qusestionis extrema comparantur, Aristoteli Argumentum, vulgo Medium .” The reverse would be correct : — “ Aristoteli Medium , vulgo Argumentum P This elementary blunder of the Dean, corrected by none, is repeated by nearly all his epitomators, expositors, and imitators. It stands in Hill (p. 118) — in Huyshe (p. 84) — in the Questions on Logic (p. 41) — and in the Key to the Questions (p. 101) ; and proves emphatically, that, for a cen- tury and a half, at least, the Organon (to say nothing of other logical works) could have been as little read in Oxford as the Tar gum or Zendavesta. A parallel to this error is Dr. Whately’s statement, that “the 1 Ramus, in his definitions, indeed, abusively extends the word to both the other terms ; the middle he calls the te.rtiv.rn argumentum. Throughout his writings, how- ever — and the same is true of those of his friend Talreus — argumentum, without an adjective, is uniformly the word used for the middle term of a syllogism ; and in this he is followed by the Ramists and Semi-Ramists in general. 150 LOGIC. Major Premiss is often called Principle (P. 25.) The major premise is often called the Proposition ; never the Principle. A principle may, indeed, he a major premise ; but we make hold to say, that no logician ever employed the term Principle as a svnonyme for major premise. Speaking of the Dilemma , Dr. Whately says : — “Most, if not all, writers on this point, either omit to tell, whether the Dilemma is a kind of conditional or of disjunctive argument, or else refer it to the latter class, on account of its having one disjunctive pre- miss ; though it clearly belongs to the class of conditionals.” (P. 100.) Most, if not all, logical writers, do, not omit to: tell this, hut Dr. Whately, we fear, has omitted to consult them ; and the opinion he himself adopts, so far from being held by few or none, has been, in fact, long the catholic doctrine. For every one logi- cian, during the last century, who does not hold the dilemma to he a conditional syllogism, we could produce ten who do. Dr. Whately — indeed all the Oxford logicians — adopts the inelegant division of the Hypothetical proposition and syllogism into the Conditional and Disjunctive. This is wrong in itself. The name of the genus should not, without necessity, be con- founded with that of a species. But the terms Hypothetical and Conditional are in sense identical, differing only in the lan- guage from which they are taken. It is likewise wrong on the score of authority ; for the words have been used as synonymous by those logicians who, independently of the natural identity of the terms, were best entitled to regulate their conventional use. — Boethius, the first among the Latins who elaborated this part of logic, employs indifferently the terms hypotheticus , condi- tionalis, non simplex , for the genus, and as opposed to categori- cus or simplex ; and this genus he divides into the Propositio et Syllogismus conjunctivi (called also conjuncti , connexi , per con- nexionem), equivalent to Dr. Whately’s Conditionals ; and into the Propositio et Syllogismus disjunctivi (also disjuncti , per dis- junctionem ). Other logicians have employed other, none better, terms of distinction ; hut, in general, all who had freed themselves of the scholastic slime, avoided the needless confusion to which we object. But, to speak now of Hypothetical in their Aristotelic mean- ing , Dr. Whately says : “ Aldrich has stated, through a mistake, that Aristotle utterly despised hypothetical syllogisms, and thence made no mention of them ; but he did HYPOTHETICAL PROPOSITIONS AND SYLLOGISMS. 151 indicate his intention to treat of them in some part of this work, which either was not completed by him according to his design, or else (in com- mon with many of his writings) has not come down to us.” (P. 104.) Any ignorance of Aristotle on the part of Aldrich is conceiva- ble, but in his censure Dr. Whately is not himself correct. With the other Oxford logicians, he never suspects the HvWoyicrpol ig inrodeaea^ of Aristotle and our hypothetical syllogisms, not to be the same. In this error, which is natural enough, he is not without associates even of distinguished name. Those versed in Aristotelic and logical literature are, however, aware, that this opinion has been long, if not exploded, at least rendered ex- tremely improbable. We can not at present enter on the subject, and must content ourselves with stating, that hypothetical syllo- gisms, in the present acceptation, were first expounded, and the name first applied to them by Theophrastus and Eudemus. The latter, indeed, clearly discriminated such hypothetical syllo- gisms from those of Aristotle ; and, what has not, we believe, been observed, even Boethius expressly declares the JfiAAoyioyto? e£ d/xoAoyta? of the philosopher to be really categorical, while in regard to the SvWoyio-fios et? to aSvvarov, there is no ground of doubt. The only reason for hesitation arises from the passage (Analyt. Pr. i. 44, $ 4), in which it is said, that there are many other syllogisms concluding by hypothesis, and these the philoso- pher promises to discuss. Of what nature these were, we have now no means even of conjecture. If we judge from Aristotle’s notion of hypothesis, and from the syllogisms he calls by that name, we should infer that they had no analogy to the hypothe- ticals of Theophrastus and it will immediately be seen, that a complete revolution in the nomenclature of this branch of logic was effected subsequently to Aristotle. We may add, that no reliance is to be placed in the account given by Pacius of the Aristotelic doctrine on this point : he is at variance with his own authorities, and has not attentively studied the Greek logicians. 1 [M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire ( Logique D'Aristote , T. I. Pref. p. lx. sq. and T. IV. Top. i. 8, 9, notes) has done me the honor to controvert this opinion, and contends that the Hypothetical syllogisms of Aristotle, are the same with those which from Theophrastus have descended to us under that name. But however ingenious his arguments, to me they are not convincing ; and to say nothing of older authorities, he has also against him Dr. Waitz, the recent and very able editor of the Organon in Germany. — I am now, indeed, more even than formerly, persuaded, that our hypothe- ticals are not the reasonings from hypothesis of the father of logic ; for I think it can be shown, that our hypothetical and disjunctive syllogisms are only immediate infer- ences, and not therefore entitled, in Aristotelic language, to the style of syllogisms at all. ] 152 LOGIC. So far we state only the conclusions also of others. The fol- lowing observation, as farther illustrating this point, will proba- bly surprise those best qualified to judge, by its novelty and paradox. It must appear, indeed, at first sight, ridiculous to talk, at the present day, of discoveries in the Organon. The certainty of the fact is, however, equal to its improbability. The term Categorical [tcaTpyopucof), applied to proposition or syllo- gism, in contrast to Hypothetical (vTrodeTucos), we find employed in all the writings extant of the Peripatetic School, subsequent to those of its founder. In this acceptation it is universally ap- plied by the interpreters of Aristotle, up to the Aphrodisian ; and previously to him, we certainly know that it was so used by Theophrastus and Eudemus. Now, no logician, we believe, an- cient or modern, has ever remarked, that it was not understood in this signification by the philosopher himself . 1 The Greek com- mentators on the Organon, indeed, once and again observe, in par- ticular places, that the term categorical is there to be interpreted affirmative ; but none has made the general observation, that it was never applied by Aristotle in the sense in which it was exclu- sively usurped by themselves. But so it is. Throughout the Orga- non there is not to be found a single passage, in which categori- cal stands opposed to hypothetical (e£ viroOeaeaffi ; there is not a single passage in which it is not manifestly in the meaning of affirmative, as convertible with /caracjoaTiKb'i, and opposed to airo- (part/cbs and crrepyTucbs. Nor is the induction scanty. In the Prior Analytics alone, the word occurs at least eighty-five times. — Nay, farther ; as this never was, so there is another term al- ways employed by Aristotle in contrast to his syllogisms by hypo- thesis. The syllogisms of this class (whether they conclude by agreement , or through a reductio ad absurdum ), he uniformly 1 [M. Peisse, in his extensive logical reading, has found the following unexclusive, though merely incidental, observation by the thrice learned Gerard, John Vossius : — “ Nusquam in Aristotele syllogismus categoricus opponitur hypothetico.” ( De Natura Artium, L. iv. c. 8, <) 8.) — I have also met with an earlier authority, in Cardanus ; but he states only that Aristotle very frequently uses categoric for affirmative, not that he always does so. ( Conlr . Log. Ixxiv.) With these individual and partial excep- tions, the general statement in the text stands good. Boethius, I think, has greatly contributed to this confusion of the terms. In his versions from the Organon, he uniformly translates Aristotle’s KarriyopiKos (affirma- tive), by prcedicatibus ; and Aristotle’s KaratparLKos (a mere synonome), affiirmativus : whereas, in his original writings, he uses the term prcedicativus for Karr/yopiKos, in the post-Aristotelic signification. — Apuleius, on the contrary (followed by Cassiodorus and Isidore of Seville), always employs dedicativus in opposition to abdicativus ; uni prce- dicativus in opposition to conditionalis . And rightly. (De Dogm. Plat. 1. iii. )] HYPOTHETICAL PROPOSITIONS AND SYLLOGISMS. 153 opposes to those which conclude Set/m/ctw?, ostensively ; and the number of passages in which this opposition occurs are not a few. — Categorical , in our signification, is thus not of Aristotelic origin. The change in the meaning of the term was undoubtedly, we think, introduced by Theophrastus. The marvel is, that no logician or commentator has hitherto signalized the contrast be- tween the Aristotelic signification of the word, and that which has subsequently prevailed. 1 We may allude (we can do no more) to another instance, in which Aristotle’s meaning has been almost universally mistaken ; and to the authority of this mistake we owe the introduction of an illogical absurdity into all the systems of logic. We refer to the Enthymeme. — On the vulgar doctrine this is a species of rea- soning, distinguished from the syllogism proper, by having one or other of its premises, not expressed, but understood ; and this distinction, without a suspicion either of its legitimacy or origin, is fathered on the Stagirite. — The division of syllogism and enthymeme, in this sense, would involve nothing less than a dis- crimination of species between the reasoning of logic and the reasoning of ordinary discourse ; syllogism being the form pecu- liar to the one, enthymeme that appropriate to the other. — Nay, even this distinction, if admitted, would not avail; syllogism and enthymeme being distinguished as two intralogical forms of argu- mentation. Those who defend the distinction are thus driven back on the even greater absurdity — of establishing an essential difference of form, on an accidental variety of expression — of maintaining that logic regards the accident of the external lan- guage, and not the necessity of the internal thought. This, at least, is not the opinion of Aristotle, who declares : — “ Syllogism and Demonstration belong not to the outward discourse , but to the discourse zuhich passes in the mind : — Ov irpos tov ef : a> \6yov rj aTrbSei^i'i, akXa TTpos tov iv ~fj ’^rvyrp irrel oiibe cruWoy ur pbos C (Analyt. Post. i. 10, k 7.) — But if the distinction, in its general nature, be unphilosophical, it is still more irrational at the hands of its reputed author. For Aristotle distinguishes the enthymeme from the mere syllogism, as a reasoning of a peculiar matter — from signs and likelihoods ; so that, if he over-and-above discrim- inated these by an accident of form, he would divide the genus by tvjo differences, and differences of a merely contingent asso- ciation. Yet, strange to say, this improbability has been be- 1 [See note (') to p. 152.] 154 LOGIC. lieved; — believed without any cogent evidence; — believed from the most ancient times ; and even when the opinion was at last competently refuted, the refutation was itself so immediately for- gotten, that there seems not to be at present a logical author (not to say in England, but) in Europe, who is even aware of the ex- istence of the controversy. 1 A discussion of the question would exceed our limits. For those who may wish to study the point, we may briefly indicate the sources of information; and these, though few, will be found, we think, to be exhaustive. Toward the conclusion of the fifteenth century, the celebrated Rodolplius Agricola (t 1485), in his posthumous book, De In- vention Dialeclica, recognizes it as doubtful, whether Aristotle meant to discriminate the Enthymeme from the Syllogism, by any peculiarity of form ; and Phrissemius in his Scholia on that book (1523), shows articulately, that the common opinion was at variance with the statements of the Philosopher. Without, it is probable, any knowledge of Phrissemius, the matter was discuss- ed by Major agius , in his Reprehensions contra Nizolium, and his Explanations in Aristotelis Rhetoricam — the latter in 1572. Twenty-five years thereafter, Julius Pachis (who was not appa- rently aware of either) argued the whole question on far broader grounds ; and, in particular, on the authority of four Greek MSS., ejected as a gloss the term dreX?)? (imperfectus), ( Analyt . Pr. ii. 27, k 3), on which the argument for the common doctrine mainly rests; which has been also silently done by the Berlin Academicians, in their late splendid edition of Aristotle’s works, on two of the three MSS. of the Organon, on which they found. We may notice, that the Masters of Louvain , in their comment- ary on the logical treatises of Aristotle (1535), observe, that “the word imperfectus is not to be found in some codices, but that it ought to be supplied is shown, both by the Greek [printed] copies and by the version of Boethius.” Scaynus, in his Para- phrasis in Organum (1599), adopts the opinion without arguing the question ; and he does not seem to have been aware even of the Commentary of Pacius, published three years before. About 1620, Corydaleus , bishop of Mitylene, who had studied in Italy, maintained in his Logic the opinion of Pacius, but without addi- 1 In this country, some years ago, the question was stated in a popular miscellany, with his usual ability, by a learned friend to whom we pointed out the evidence ; but none of the subsequent writers have profited by the information. ENTHYMEME. 155 tional corroboration ; though in his Rhetoric (reprinted by Fabri- cius, in the Bibliotheca Grceca), he adheres to the vulgar doc- trine. [Becmanus ( Orig . 1608 and Manuel. 1626), and Heuman- nus ( Poec . 1729), have nothing new or determinate, though they moot the question.] In 1724, Facciolati expanded the argument of Pacius — (for he, as the others, was ignorant of Scaynus, Ma- joragius, Phrissemius, Agricola, &c., and adds nothing of his own except an error or two) — into a special Acroama: but his elo- quence was not more effective than the reasoning of his predeces- sors ; and the question again fell into complete oblivion. Any one who competently reargues the point, will have both to supply and to correct. 1 1 For example. — Pacius (whom Facciolati, by rhetorical hyperbole, pronounces — “ Aristotelis Intcrpres, quot sunt, quot fuerunt, quotque futuri sunt, longe prsestan- tissimus”), establishes it as one of the main pillars of his argument, that the Greek interpreters did not acknowledge the term dreXrjs : — “ quoniam Johannes Grammaticus hie nullam ejus mentionem facit ; et tarn ipse, quam Alexander, superiori libro, expli- cates definitionem syllogismi ab Aristotele traditam, ac distinguentes syllogismum ab argumentatione constante ex una propositione, non vocant hanc argumentationem enthymema, sed syllogismum povo Xrjpparov." {Comm, in Analyt. Pr. ii. 27, $ 3.) — Pacius is completely wrong.- — Philoponus, or rather Ammonius Hermise, on the place in question {Anal. Pr. ii. c. 27, (j 3), states, indeed (as far as we recollect, for our copy of his Commentary is not at hand), nothing to the point. [On since referring to the passage, we find that too much had been conceded. M. Peisse, too, notices its irrelevancy.] The fallacy of such negative evidence is however shown in his exposi- tion of the Posterior Analytics, where he says ; — “ ’E vdvpypa fie e’lpyrai, ano rov KaraXipndveiv red vr2 ivdv peicrdai ryv piav npordenv.’'' (f. 4. a. Edit. Aid. 1534.) Ammonius also, On the Jive words of Porphyry (f. 5 a, ed. Aid. 1546) expressly defines the Enthymeme — U A syllogism with one proposition unexpressed ; hence called an im- perfect syllogism.' 1 '’ How inaccurate, moreover, Pacius is in regard to the still higher authority of Alexander (whose interpretation of the second book of the Prior Analytics , which contains the passage in question, is still in MS., and probably spurious), maj be seen by his Commentary on the first book of the Prior Analytics (f. 7. a. b. Edit Aid. 1534), compared with his Commentary on the Topics (pp. 6, 7, Edit. Aid. 1513) This last we shall quote. He is speaking of Aristotle’s definition of the Syllogism : — “ Te Bevrco v” fie einev «AA’ ov “ r e 8 evr o s,” &s roves a^ovcriv, alnapevoL rbv A oyov — ort pybev avXhoyicrTiKcos St’ ivos redevros beiKvvrai, aAA’ ck 8vo to eXa^icr- rov. Ovs yap oi nepl Avrinarpov (Tarsensem Tyriumve!) pov oXrj p parov s avKkoyiapovs Xeyovcnv, ovk elcri crvXXoyurpo'i, aAA eVS eS>s epwrcovrai. — — Totou- rot fie curt Kal oi prjropiKol crvXXoyicrpol, obs i v Bv pr] par a A eyopev- /cat yap iv CKeivoLS fi ok.Il yiyverjBai Sta pids npordaeais avXXoyKrpoS, r<3 rrjv trepan yviopipov overav vno hiKaarav, rj rcov aKpoararv npoarlBeaBai oiov, K. r. A. - — A to ov fie oi tolovto t Kvplws avXXoyurpol, aXXd to oXov, prjropiKo'i o~u\Xoyicrpo\. ’E cov ovv pi] yviopipov icrrL ro napaXemopevov, ovk ear iv in t rovriov oiov re rov fit’ ivBvprf- paros yiyvecrdai crvXXoyicrpow teat yap /cat an avrov rov ovoparos crvXXoyicrpos crvvBeo-iv riva Xoyiov eoise arjpalveiw ioanep Kal 6 avp'lryfiicrpbs, yjsr/tfiaiv.— From these passages (which are confirmed by the anonymous Greek author of the book “Touching Syllogisms”), it is manifest against Pacius: — 1°, That the ’Ei /Bvpripa was used by the oldest commentators on Aristotle in the modern signification, as a syllogism of one expressed premise ; and, 2°, That the crvXXoyicrpbs povoXypparos was not a term of the Aristotelian, but of the Stoical School. This appears clearly from Sextus Empiricus (Inst. ii. § 167 ; Contra Math. viii. § 443 ; ed. Fabr.). Boe- 15C LOGIC. Wo proceed to consider a still more important subject — the nature of the Inductive inference ; and regret that we can not echo the praises that have been bestowed on Dr. Whately’s analysis of this process. We do not, indeed, know the logician tliius, and all the later Greek logicians (with the partial variation of Magentinus and Pachymeres), also favor the common opinion. Their authority is, however, of little weight, and the general result of the argument stands unaffected. — In these errors, it is needless to say, that Pacius is followed by Corydaleus and Facciolati. [I may here annex a general statement of the various meanings in which the term Enthymemc has been employed ; and though I can not tarry to give articulate refer- ences to the books in which the several opinions are to be found, this I think will exhibit a far completer view of the multiform significations of the word than is else- where to be found. These meanings may be first distributed into four categories, according as the word is employed to denote : — I. A thought or proposition in general; — II. A proposition, part of a syllogism; — III. A syllogism of some peculiar matter ; — IV. A syllogism of an unexpressed part. I. — Enthymeme denotes a thought or proposition: 1. Of any kind. — See Cicero, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Demetrius, Quintilian, Sopater, and one of the anonymous Scholiasts on Hermogenes. 2. Of any kind, with its reason annexed. — See Aristotle, Quintilian. 3. Of imagination or feeling, as opposed to intellection. — Isocrates, Author of the Rhe- toric to Alexander, the Halicarnassian. 4. Inventive . — Xenophon. 5. Facetious, witty, antithetic. — Quintilian, Juvenal, Agellius. II. — Enthymeme denotes a proposition, part of a syllogism: 1. Any one proposition. — Held by Neocles (1); See Quintilian, Scholiast on Hermo- genes, Greek author of the Prolegomena Statuum, Matthreus Camariota. 2. Conclusion of an Epichirema.- — Hermogenes, Scholiast on Hermogenes, Rufus, Greek author of the Rhetorical Synopticon, Maximus Planudes, Georgius Pletho, M. Camariota. This category it is impossible always rigorously to distinguish from IV. III. — Enthymeme denotes a syllogism of a certain matter : 1. Rhetorical of any kind. — Aristotle, Curius Fortunatianus, Harpocratian, Scholiast on Hermogenes, M. Camariota. 2. From consequents, or from opposites — repugnants, contraries, dissimilars, povTj(T lv 7 rXeicTTov), was taken, apart from the qualifications under which that illustrious thinker advanced the proposition (viz. that this was only by accident, inasmuch as hearing is the sense of sound, and sound contingently the vehicle of thought) ; and was alleged to prove, what was in fact the very converse of its true import, that the deaf are wholly incapable of intellectual instruction. In like manner, a dogma of the physicians, which remounts we believe to Galen, that dumbness was not, as Aristotle had affirm- ed, in general a mere consequent of deafness, but the effect of a common organic lesion of the lingual and auditory nerves, arising as they do from a neighboring origin in the brain — was generally admitted as conclusive against the possibility of a deaf person being taught to articulate sounds. It was, therefore, with great wonder and doubt, that the first examples of the falsehood of these assumptions were received by the learned. The disabilities which the Roman law, and the older codes of every European jurisprudence, imposed on the deaf and dumb, were all founded in the principle — “ Surclus natus, mutus est el plane indisciplina- bilis, v as the great French jurist, Molinaeus expresses it. Rodolphus Agricola, who died in 1485, is the oldest testimony we recollect to a capacity in the deaf and dumb of an intelligent education ; and it is remarkable, that there is none older. In the last chapter of his posthumous work, De Inventione Dialectica, DALGARNO. 177 as an illustration of “the immense and almost incredible power of the human mind,” he instances “as little less than miraculous, what he himself had witnessed — a person deaf from infancy, and consequently dumb, who had learned to understand writing, and, as if possessed of speech, was able to write down his whole thoughts.” — Ludovicus Yives, some fifty years later, in his treat- ise De Anima (L. ii. c. De Discendi ratione ), after noticing that Aristotle had justly styled the ear the organ of instruction, ex- presses his “wonder that there should have been a person horn deaf and dumb who had learned letters : let the belief in this, rest with Rodolphus Agricola, who has recorded the fact, and affirmed that he himself beheld it.” The countrymen of the un- believing Yives were, however, destined, in the following gene- ration, to be the inventors of the art in question. For — The oldest indication we have, of any systematic attempt at educating the deaf, is by Franciscus Yallesius, the celebrated Spanish physician, who, in his Philosophic/, Sacra , published in 1590, mentions that “a friend of his, Petrus Pontius, a Benedic- tine monk, taught the deaf to speak by no other art than instruct- ing them first to write, then pointing out to them the objects sig- nified by the written characters, and finally guiding them to those motions of the tongue, &c., which correspond to the charac- ters.” What more is now accomplished ? Petrus Pontius — who was a Spaniard, and not to be confounded with the celebrated Scotist, Joannes Poncius, Minorite, and native of Ireland — did not publish an account of his method. This, however, was done by John Paul Bonnet, of Arragon, secretary to the Constable of Castile, who, in 1620, printed in Spanish, at Madrid, his Reduc- tion of Letters , and Art of Instructing the Dumb. That this work of Bonnet contains only the practice of Pontius, is proved by the evidence of Perez in the book itself, and by that of Anto- nius in his Bibliotheca Hispanica. Of the signal success of the art in the hands of Pontius (among others on two brothers and a sister of the Constable of Castile), we have accounts by Antonius, by Morales ; and a very curious one by Sir Kenelm Digby, of what he himself saw in the younger brother of the Constable, when he accompanied Charles I., when Prince of Wales, in his expedition into Spain, and to whom he appeals as a fellow-witness Vvdth himself. “There was a nobleman of great quality that I knew in Spain, the younger brother of the Constable of Castile, who was taught to heare the M 178 DEAF AND DUMB. sounds of words with his eyes (if that expression may he permitted). This Spanish Lord was born deafe, so deafe that if a gun were shot off close by his care he could not heare it, and consequently he was dumbe ; for not being able to heare the sound of words, lie could never imitate nor understand them : The lovelinesse of his face, and especially the exceed- ing life and spiritfulnesse of his eyes, and the comlinesse of his person, and the whole composure of his body throughout, were pregnant signs of a well-tempered mind within. And therefore all that knew him la- mented much the want of rneanes to cultivate it, and to embrue it with the notions, which it seemed to be capable of, in regard of itself, had it not been crossed by this unhappy accident, which to remedie physicians and chyrurgions had long employed their skill, but all in vaine. At the last there was a priest, who undertooke the teaching him to understand others when they spoke, and to speake himselfe that others might understand him, for which attempt at first he was laughed at, yet after some yeares he was looked upon as if he had wrought a miracle. In a word, after strange patience, constancie, and pains, he brought the young lord to speak as distinctly as any man whatsoever ; and to understand so perfect- ly what others said, that he would not lose a word in a whole dayes con- versation. I have often discoursed with the priest whilst I waited upon the Prince of Wales (now our gracious Sovereign) in Spain, and I doubt not but his Majesty remembreth all I have said of him, and much more: for his Majesty was very curious to observe, and enquire into the utmost of it. It is true, one great misbecomeingnesse he was apt to fall into, whilst he spoke : which was an uncertainty in the tone of his voyce, for not hearing the sound he made when he spoke, he could not steadily governe the pitch of his voyce, but it would be sometimes higher and sometimes lower, though, for the most part what he delivered together he ended in the same key as he began it. But when he had once suffered the passage of his voyce to close, at the opening it again, chance, or the measure of his earnestness to speak or reply, gave him his tone, which he was not capable of moderat- ing by such an artifice, as is recorded Caius Gracchus used, when passion in his orations to the people, drove out his voice with too great a vehe- mency or shrillnesse. He could discerne in another whether he spoke shrill or low, and he would repeat after any bodie any hard word what- soever, which the Prince tried often, not only in English, but by making some Welchmen that served his Highnesse speak words of their language, which he so perfectly ecchoed, that I confesse I wondered more at that than at all the rest, and his master himselfe would acknowledge that the rules of his art reached not to produce that effect with any certainty. And, therefore, concluded this in him must spring from other rules he had framed unto himselfe out of his own attentive observation ; which the advantages which nature had justly, given him in the sharpnesse of senses to supply the want of this, endowed him with an ability and sagacity to do beyond any other man that had his hearing. He expressed it, surely, in a high measure by his so exact imitation of the Welch pronunciation ; for that tongue (like the Hebrew) employeth much the guttural letters, and the motions of that part which frameth them cannot be seen or judged by the eye, otherwise than by the effect they may happily make by consent in the other parts of the mouth exposed to view. For the knowledge he had of what they said sprung from his observing the mo- tions they made, so that he could converse currently in the light, though DALGARNO. 179 they he talked with whispered never so softly. And I have seen him at the distance of a large chamber’s breadth say words after one, that I standing close by the speaker could not hear a syllable of. But if he were in the darke, or if one turned his face out of his sight he was capa- ble of nothing one said .” — ( Treatise of Bodies.) The prejudice was now dispelled, that the deaf and dumb were incapable of education ; and during the course of the seventeenth century, many examples are recorded of their successful instruc- tion without even the aid of a teacher experienced in the art. Though nothing can be clearer than the right of Spain to the original invention of this art in all its branches, we, however, find it claimed, at a much later period, and in the same year (1670), by Lana , the Italian Jesuit, in his Prodromo ; and for Dr. John Wallis , Professor of Geometry in Oxford, in the Tran- sactions of the Royal Society of London. The precepts of the former are neither new nor important ; and the latter can only vindicate his originality by an ignorance of what had previously been effected. Wallis appears to have long (that is, before the appearance of Dalgarno’s work) applied himself mainly to the comparatively unimportant point of enabling the deaf to enun- ciate words. Without undervaluing the merit of his treatise on the nature and pronunciation of letters, in the introduction to his English grammar, or the success of his principles in enabling the deaf to speak — all this had been previously done by others with equal ability and success. The nature of letters, the organic mo- difications for the production of the various vocal sounds, had been investigated by Fabricius ab Aquapendente in his treatise De Locutione ; and thereafter with remarkable accuracy and minuteness by P. Montanus in his Account of a Neio Art called the Art of Speech, published in Holland many years prior to the grammar of Dr. Wallis ; — while Bonnet, in the work already mentioned, had, in the first book, treated “of the nature of letters and their pronunciation among different nations,” and in the se- cond, “ showed how the mute may be taught the figure and pro- nunciation of letters by manual demonstration, and the motion of the mouth and lips.” — Wallis’s originality can indeed hardly be maintained in relation even to English writers. To say nothing of Lord Bacon's recommendation of “the motions of the tongue, lips, throat, palate, &c., which go to the making up of the several letters, as a subject worthy of inquiry.” John Buliver had, in the year 1648, published his curious treat- 180 DEAF AND DUMB. ise, entitled — “ Philocophus, or the Deafe and Dumbe Man's Friend , exhibiting the philosophical verity of that subtile art , which may inable one ivitli an observant eie, to heare what any man speaks by the moving of his lips. Upon the same ground , ivith the advantage of an historical exemplification , apparently proving , that a man borne deafe and dumbe , may be taught to heare the sounds of words ivith his eie , and thence learn to speak with his tongue. By J. B. sirnamed the Chirosopher. London , 1648.” Bulwer appears to have been ignorant of Bonnet’s book, but he records many remarkable cases, several within bis own expe- rience, of wliat bad been accomplished for the education of the deaf. He was the first also to recommend the institution of “an academy of the mute,” and to notice the capacity which deaf persons usually possess of enjoying music through the medium of the teeth — a fact which has latterly been turned to excellent account, especially in Germany ; and there principally by Father Robertson , a monk of the Scots College of Ratisbon, by whose exertions a new source of instruction and enjoyment has thus been opened up to those otherwise insensible to sounds. It is remarkable that Bulwer, who had previously written a work on “ Chirologia, or the Natural Language of the Hand," and who had thence even obtained the surname of the Chirosopher, should have suggested nothing in regard to a method of speaking on the fingers ; and it is still more singular that his attention was not called to this device, as he himself has mentioned a remarkable case, in which it had been actually applied. “ A pregnant example,” he says “ of the officious nature of the touch, in sup- plying the defect or temporall incapacity of the other senses, we have in one Master Babington, of Burntwood, in the county of Essex, an ingenious gentleman, who, through some sicknesse, becoming deaf, doth, notwithstanding, feele words, and, as if he had an eye in his finger, sees signes in the darke ; whose wife discourseth very perfectly with him by a strange way of arthro- logie, or alphabet, contrived on the joynts of his fingers, who, taking him by the hand in the night, can so discourse with him very exactly ; for he feeling the joynts which she touche th for letters, by them collected into words, very readily conceives what she would suggest to him.” (P. 106.) We pass over Holder's “ Elements of Speech. An Essay of Inquiry into the Natural Production of Letters, ivith an Appendix DALGABNO. 181 to instruct Persons Deaf and Dumb f and Sibscote's 11 Deaf and. Dumb Man's Discourse which were published in the interval between Wallis’s practical application of his method and the appearance of Dalgarno’s hook. Dalgarno , we believe, may claim the merit of having first exhibited, and that in its most perfect form, a finger alphabet. He makes no pretensions, how- ever, to the original conception of such a medium of communi- cation. But the great and distinctive merit of his treatise is not so much, that it improved the mechanism of instruction, as that it corrected the errors of his predecessors, and pointed out the principles on which the art is founded, and by the observance of which alone it can be carried to perfection. As we first attempt to fix and communicate our notions by the aid of speech, it was a natural prejudice to believe that sounds were the necessary instrument of thought and its expression. The earlier instruct- ors of the deaf and dumb were thus led to direct their principal effort to the teaching their pupils to distinguish the different mechanical movements by which different sounds are produced, and to imitate these sounds by imitating the organic modification on which they depend. They did not consider that still there existed no sound for the deaf ; that the signs to which they thus attached ideas were only perceptions of sight and feeling ; that these were, on the one hand, minute, ambiguous, fugitive, and, on the other, difficult ; and that it would he better to associate thought with a system of signs more easy to produce, and less liable to he mistaken. The honor of first educating the deaf and dumb in the general principles of grammar, and in primarily associating their thought with written instead of with spoken symbols, is generally claimed for the eighteenth century, France, and the Abbe de VEpee. All this was, however, fully demon- strated a century before in the forgotten treatise of our country- man, as in a great measure also practiced by Pontius, the original inventor of the art, a century before Dalgarno. We are indebted, as we formerly observed, to Mr. Dugald Stewart for rescuing the name of Dalgarno from the oblivion into which it had fallen ; and the following quotation from that distinguished philosopher affords the most competent illustration of his merits : — “ After having thus paid the tribute of my sincere respect to the enlight- ened and benevolent exertions of a celebrated foreigner (Sicard), I feel myself called on to lay hold of the only opportunity that may occur to me of rescuing from oblivion the name of a Scottish writer, whose merits have 182 DEAF AND DUMB. been strangely overlooked, both by his contemporaries and by his success- ors. The person I allude to is George Dalgarno, who, more than a hundred and thirty years ago, was led, by his own sagacity, to adopt, a priori, the same general conclusion concerning the education of the dumb, of which the experimental discovery, and the happy application, have, in our times, reflected such merited lustre on the name of Sicard. I mentioned Dal- garno formerly, in a note annexed to the first volume of the 1 Philosophy of the Human Mind,’ as the author of a very ingenious tract, entitled Ars Signorum ,’ from which it appears indisputably that he was the pre- cursor of Bishop Wilkins in his speculations concerning a real character and a philosophical language ; and it now appears to me equally clear, upon a further acquaintance with the short fragments which he has left behind him, that, if he did not lead the way to the attempt made by Dr. Wallis to teach the dumb to speak, he had conceived views with respect to the means of instructing them, far more profound and comprehensive than any rve meet with in the works of that learned writer prior to the date of Dalgarno’s publications. On his claims in these two instances, I forbear to enlarge at present ; but I can not deny myself the satisfaction of transcribing a few paragraphs in justification of what I have already stated with respect to the remarkable coincidence between some of his theoretical deductions, and the practical results of the French Academician. “ ‘I conceive there might be successful addresses made to a dumb child, even in its cradle, when he begins risu cognoscere matrem, if the mother or nurse had but as nimble a hand, as commonly they have a tongue. For instance, I doubt not but the words hand, foot, dog, cat, hat, &c., written fair, and as often presented to the deaf child’s eye, pointing from the words to the things, and vice versa, as the blind child hears them spoken, would be known and remembered as soon by the one as the other ; and as I think the eye to be as docile as the ear, so neither see I any reason but the hand might be made as tractable an organ as the tongue, and as soon brought to form, if not fair, at least legible characters, as the tongue to imitate and echo back articulate sounds.’ 1 The difficulties of learning to read on the common plan, are so great, that one may justly wonder how young ones come to get over them. Now, the deaf child, under his moth- er’s tuition, passes securely by all these rocks and quicksands. The dis- tinction of letters, their names, their powers, their order, the dividing words into syllables, and of them again making words, to which may be added tone and accent — none of these puzzling niceties hinder his progress. It is true, after he had passed the discipline of the nursery, and comes to learn grammatically, then he must begin to learn to know letters written, by their figures, number, and order.’ “ The same author elsewhere observes, that 1 the soul can exert her powers by the ministry of any of the senses ; and therefore, when she is deprived of her principal secretaries, the eye and ear, then she must be contented with the service of her lackeys and scullions, the other senses ; which are no less true and faithful to their mistress than the eye and the ear, but not so quick for dispatch.’ “ I shall only add one other sentence, from which my readers will be enabled, without any comment of mine, to perceive with what sagacity and success this very original thinker had anticipated some of the most refined experimental conclusions of a more enlightened age. “ ‘ My design is not to give a methodical system of grammatical rules, DALGAENO- 183 but only such general directions, whereby an industrious tutor may bring his deaf pupil to the vulgar use and b~i of a language, that so he may be the more capable of receiving instruction in the Sloti, from the rules of grammar, when his judgment is ripe for that study ; or, more plainly, I intend to bring the way of teaching a deaf man to read and write, as near as possible to that of teaching young ones to speak and understand theii mother-tongue.’ “ In prosecution of this general idea, he has treated, in one very short chapter, of A Deaf Man's Dictionary, and in another of A Gramma, for Deaf Persons, both of them containing (under the disadvantages of a style uncommonly pedantic and quaint) a variety of precious hints, from which, if I do not deceive myself, useful practical lights might he derived, not only by such as may undertake the instruction of such pupils, as Mitchell or Massieu, but by all who have any concern in the tuition of children during the first stage of their education. “That Dalgarno’s suggestions with respect to the education of the dumb, were not altogether useless to Dr. "Wallis, will, I think, be readily admitted by those who take the trouble to compare his letter to Mr. Bev- erley (published eighteen years after Dalgarno’s treatise) with his Trac- tatus de Loqucla, published in 1653. In this letter, some valuable re- marks are to be found on the method of leading the dumb to the signifi- cation of words ; and yet the name of Dalgarno is not once mentioned to his correspondent.” "We may add, that Mr. Stewart is far more lenient than Dr. Wallis’ disingenuity merited, Wallis, in his letter to Mr. Bever- ley, has plundered Darlgarno, even to his finger alphabet. It is no excuse, though it may in part account for the omission of Dal- garno’s name, that Darlgarno, while he made little account in general of the teaching of the deaf and dumb to speak, had, in his chapter on the subject, passed over in total silence the very remarkable exploits in this department of “ the learned and my worthy friend Dr. Wallis,” as he elsewhere styles him. On this subject, indeed, it seems to have been fated, that every writer should either be ignorant of, or should ignore, his predecessors. Bulwer, Lana, and Wallis, each professed himself original ; Dal- garno entitles his Didascalocoplius “ the first (for what the author knows) that had been published on the subject and Amman, whose Surdns Loquens appeared only in 1692, makes solemn oath, “ that he had found no vestige of a similar attempt in any previous writer.” The length to which these observations have run on the Philo- coplius , would preclude our entering on the subject of the other treatise — the Ars Signorum , were this not otherwise impossible within the limits of the present notice. But indeed the most general statement of the problem of an universal character, and 184 DEAF AND DUMB. of the various attempts made for its solution, could hardly be comprised within the longest article. At the same time, regard- ing as we do the plan of a philosophical language, as a curious theoretical idea, hut one which can never he practically realized, our interest in the several essays is principally limited to the ingenuity manifested by the authors, and to the minor philosophi- cal truths incidentally developed in the course of these discussions. Of such, the treatise of Dalgarno is not barren ; but that which principally struck us, is his remarkable anticipation, on specula- tive grounds, a priori , of what has been now articulately proved, a posteriori, by the Dutch philologers and Horne Tooke (to say nothing of the ancients) — that the parts of speech are all reduci- ble to the noun and verb, or to the noun alone. VI.— IDEALISM. WITH REFERENCE TO THE SCHEME OF ARTHUR COLLIER. (April, 1839.) 1 . Metaphysical Tracts by English Philosophers of the Eighteenth Century. Prepared for the Press by the late Rev. Samuel Parr, D.D. 8vo. London : 1837. 2. Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Rev Arthur Collier, M.A., Piector of Langford Magna , in the County of Wilts. From A.D. 1704, to A.D. 1732. With some Account of his Family. By Robert Benson, M.A. 8vo. London : 1837. We deem it our duty to call attention to these publications : for in themselves they are eminently deserving of the notice of the few who in this country take an interest in these higher speculations to which, in other countries, the name of Philosophy is exclusively conceded; and, at the same time, they have not been ushered into the world with those adventitious recommenda- tions which might secure their intrinsic merit against neglect. The fortune of the first is curious. — It is known to those who have made an active study of philosophy and its history, that there are many philosophical treatises written by English authors — in whole or in part of great value, but, at the same time, of extreme rarity. Of these, the rarest are, in fact, frequently the most original : for precisely in proportion as an author is in ad- vance of his age, is it likely that his works will be neglected ; and the neglect of contemporaries in general consigns a book — espe- cially a small book — if not protected by accidental concomitants, at once to the tobacconist or tallow-chandler. This is more par- ticularly the case with pamphlets, philosophical, and at the same time polemical. Of these we are acquainted with some, extant perhaps only in one or two copies, which display a metaphysical 186 IDEALISM. talent unappreciated in a former age, but which would command the admiration of the present. Nay, even of English philosophers of the very highest note (strange to say!) there are now actually lying unknown to their editors, biographers, and fellow-metaphy- sicians, published treatises, of the highest interest and import- ance ; as of Cudworth, Berkeley, Collins, &c.] We have often, therefore, thought that, were there with us a public disposed to indemnify the cost of such a publication, a col- lection, partly of treatises, partly of extracts from treatises, by English metaphysical writers, of rarity and merit, would be one of no inconsiderable importance. In any other country than Britain, such a publication would be of no risk or difficulty. Almost every nation of Europe, except our own, has, in fact, at present similar collections in progress — only incomparably more ambitious. Among others, there are in Germany the Corpus Philosophorum, by G-froerer ; in France, the Bibliotheque Philo- sophique dies Temps Modernes, by Bouillet and Gamier ; and in Italy, the Collezione de' Classici Metafisici, &c. Nay, in this country itself, we have publishing societies for every department of forgotten literature — except Philosophy. But in Britain, which does not even possess an annotated edi- tion of Locke — in England, where the Universities teach the little philosophy they still nominally attempt, like the catechism, by rote, what encouragement could such an enterprise obtain ? It did not, therefore, surprise us, when we learnt that the pub- lisher of the two works under review — when he essayed what, in the language of “ the trade ” is called “ to subscribe' 1 ' 1 The Metaphysical Tracts, found his brother booksellers indisposed to venture even on a single copy. — Now, what was the work which our literary purveyors thus eschewed as wormwood to British taste ? The late Dr. Parr, whose erudition was as unexclusive as pro- found, had, many years previous to his death, formed the plan of reprinting a series of the rarer metaphysical treatises, of English authorship, which his remarkable library contained. With this view, he had actually thrown off a small impression of five such tracts, with an abridgment of a sixth; but as these probably formed only a part of his intended collection, which, at the same time it is known he meant to have prefaced by an introduction, containing, among other matters, an historical disquisition on Idealism, with special reference to the philosophy of Collier, the ENGLISH INDIFFERENCE TO PHILOSOPHY. 187 publication was from time to time delayed, until its completion was finally frustrated by his death. When his library was subse- quently sold, the impression of the six treatises was purchased by Mr. Lumley, a respectable London bookseller ; and. by him has recently been published under the title which stands as Num- ber First at the head of this article. The treatises reprinted in this collection are the following : ‘ 1 . Claris Universalis ; or a new Inquiry after Truth : being a demonstration of the non-existence or impossibility of an external ivorld. By Arthur Collier, Hector of Langford Magna, near Sarum. London : 1713. 2. A Specimen of True Philosophy ; in a discourse on Genesis, the first chapter and the first verse. By Arthur Coliier, Hector of Langford Magna, near Sarum, Wilts. Not improper to be bound up with his Claris Universalis. Sarum : 1730. 3. (An abridgement, by Dr. Parr, of the doctrines maintained by Col- lier in his) Logology , or Treatise on the Logos, in seven sermons on John 1. verses 1, 2, 3, 14, together with an Appendix on the same subject. 1732. 4. Conjecturce qucedam de Sensu, Motu, et Idearum generatione. (This was first published by David Hartley as an appendix to his Epistol- ary Dissertation, De Lithontriptico a J. Stephens nuper ixrvento (Leyden, 1741, Bath, 1746); and contains the principles of that psychological theory which he afterward so fully developed in his observations on Man.) 5. An Inquiry into the Origin of the Human Appetites and Ajfec- tions, shoiving how eoxli arises from Association, with an account of the entrance of Moral Evil into the world. To which are added some remarks on the independent scheme which deduces all obligation on God’s part and man’s from certain abstract relations, truth, &c. Written for the use of the young gentlemen at the Universities. Lincoln : 1747. (The author is yet unknown.) 6. Man in quest of himself ; or a defense of the Individuality of the Human Mind, or Self. Occasioned by some remarks in the Monthly Review for July, 1763, on a note in Search’s Freewill. By Cuthbert Comment, Gent. London : 1763. (The author of this is Search himself, that is, Mr. Abraham Tucker.)” These tracts are undoubtedly well worthy of notice ; but to the first — the Claris Universalis of Collier — as by far the most interesting and important, we shall at present confine the few observations which we can afford space to make . 1 This treatise is in fact one not a little remarkable in the history of philosophy ; for to Collier along with Berkeley is due the honor of having first explicitly maintained a theory of Absolute Ideal- ism ; and the Claris is the work in which that theory is devel- 1 [It never rains hut it pours. Collier’s Claris was subsequently reprinted in a very handsome form, by a literary association in Edinburgh. Would that the books wanting reimpression, were first dealt with !] 188 IDEALISM. oped. The fortune of this treatise, especially in its own country has been very different from its deserts. Though the negation of an external world had been incidentally advanced by Berkeley in his Principles of Human Knowledge some three years prior to the appearance of the Clavis Universalis , with which the publication of his Dialogues betiveen Hylas and Philonous was simultaneous ; it is certain that Collier was not only wholly unacquainted with Berkeley’s speculations, but had delayed promulgating his opinion till after a ten years’ meditation. Both philosophers are thus equally original. They are also nearly on a level in scientific talent ; for, comparing the treatise of Collier with the writings of Berkeley, we find it little inferior in metaphysical acuteness or force of reasoning, however deficient it may be in the graces of composi- tion, and the variety of illustration, by which the works of his more accomplished rival are distinguished. But how dispropor- tioned to their relative merits has been the reputation of the two philosophers ! While Berkeley’s became a name memorable throughout Europe, that of Collier was utterly forgotten : — it appears in no British biography ; and is not found even on the list of local authors in the elaborate history of the county where he was born, and of the parish where he was hereditary Rector ! Indeed, but for the notice of the Clavis by Dr. Reid (who appears to have stumbled on it in the College Library of Glasgow), it is probable that the name of Collier would have remained in his own country absolutely unknown — until, perhaps, our attention might have been called to his remarkable writings, by the consid- eration they had by accident obtained from the philosophers of other countries. In England the Clavis Universalis was printed, but there it can hardly be said to have been published ; for it there never attracted the slightest observation ; and of the copies now known to be extant of the original edition, “ numerus vix est totidem, quot Thcbarum porta, vel divitis ostia, Nili.” The public libraries of Oxford and Cambridge, as Mr. Benson observes, do not possess a single copy. There are, however, two in Edinburgh ; and in Glasgow, as we have noticed, there is an- other. The only country in which the Clavis can truly be said to have been hitherto published is Germany. In the sixth supplemental volume of the Acta Eruditonm (1717) there is a copious and able abstractof its contents. Through FATE OF THE CLAVIS UNIVEESALIS. 189 this abridgement the speculations of Collier became known — par- ticularly to the German philosophers ; and we recollect to have seen them quoted, among others, by Wolf and Bilfinger. In 1756 the work was, however, translated, without retrench- ment, into German, by Professor Eschenbach of Rostock, along with Berkeley’s Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. These two treatises constitute his “ Collection of the most distinguished Writers who deny the reality of their own body and of the whole corporeal world” — treatises which he accompanied with “Coun- ter observations, and an Appendix, in which the existence of matter is demonstrated These are of considerable value. [I have spoken of them in Stewart’s Dissertation, Note SS.] Speak- ing of Collier’s treatise, the translator tells us : — “ If any book ever cost me trouble to obtain it, the Clavis is that book. Every exertion was fruitless. At length, an esteemed friend, Mr. J. Selk, candidate of theology in Dantzic, sent me the work, after I had abandoned all hope of ever being able to procure it The preface is wanting in the copy thus obtained — a proof that it was rummaged, with difficulty, out of some old book magazine. It has not, therefore, been in my power to present it to the curious reader, but I trust the loss may not be of any great importance.” — In regard to the preface, Dr. Eschenbach is, however, mis- taken ; the original has none. By this translation, which has now itself become rare, the work was rendered fully accessible in Germany ; and the philos- ophers of that country did not fail to accord to its author the honor due to his metaphysical talent and originality. The best comparative view of the kindred doctrines of Collier and Berkeley is indeed given by Tennemann (xi. 399, sq.)\ whose meritorious History of Philosophy, we may observe, does justice to more than one English thinker, whose works, and even whose name, are in his own country as if they had never been ! Dr. Reid’s notice of the Clavis attracted the attention of Mr. Du s' aid Stewart and of Dr. Parr to the work; and to the nominal celebrity which, through them, its author has thus tardily attained, even in Britain, are we indebted for Mr. Ben- son’s interesting Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Arthur Collier: forming the second of the two publications prefixed to this article. What was his inducement and what his means for the execution of this task, the biographer thus informs us. 190 IDEALISM. Arthur Collier was born in 1680. He was the son of Arthur Collier, Rector of Langford-Magna, in the neighborhood of Salis- bury — a living, the advowson of which had for about a century been in possession of the family, and of which his great-grand- father, grandfather, father, and himself, were successively incum- bents. With his younger brother, William, who was also des- tined for the Church, and who obtained an adjoining benefice, he received his earlier education in the grammar-school of Salisbury. In 1697 he was entered of Pembroke College, Oxford ; but in the following year, when his brother joined him at the University, they both became members of Balliol. His father having died in 1697, the family living was held by a substitute until 1704, when Arthur, having taken priest’s orders, was inducted into the Rectory, on the presentation of his mother. In 1707 he married a niece of Sir Stephen Fox ; and died in 1732, leaving his wife, with two sons and two daughters, in embarrassed circumstances. Of the sons : — Arthur became a civilian of some note at the Com- mons ; and Charles rose in the army to the rank of Colonel. Of the daughters : — Jane was the clever authoress of the Art of In- geniously Tormenting ; and Mary obtained some celebrity from having accompanied Fielding, as his wife’s friend, in the voyage which he made in quest of health to Lisbon. Collier’s family is now believed to be extinct. Besides the Clavis Universalis (1713), The Specimen of True Philosophy (1730), and the Logology (1732), Collier was the author of two published Sermons on controversial points, which have not been recovered. Of his manuscript works the remains are still considerable, but it is probable that the greater propor- tion has perished. Our author was hardly less independent in his religious, than in his philosophical speculations. In the latter he was an Idealist ; in the former, an Arian (like Clarke) — an Apollinarian — and a Pligh Churchman, on grounds which high churchmen could not understand. Of Collier as a parish priest and a theologian, Mr. Benson supplies us with much interesting information. But it is only as a metaphysician that we at present consider him ; and in this respect the Memoirs form a valuable supplement to the Clavis. Besides a series of letters in exposi- tion of his philosophical system, they afford us, what is even more important, an insight into the course of study by which Collier was led to his conclusion. With philosophical literature he does not appear to have been at all extensively conversant. His writ- COLLIER’S BIOGRAPHY. 191 ings betray no intimate acquaintance with the works of the great thinkers of antiquity; and the compends of the German Scheib- lerus and of the Scottish Baronius, apparently supplied him with all that he knew of the Metaphysic of the Schools. Locke is never once alluded to. Descartes and Mallebranche, and his neighbor Mr. Norris, were the philosophers whom he seems prin- cipally to have studied ; and their works, taken by themselves, were precisely those best adapted to conduct an untrammeled mind of originality and boldness to the result at which he actually arrived. "Without entering on any general consideration of the doctrine of Idealism, or attempting a regular analysis of the argument of Collier, we hazard a few remarks on that theory — simply with the view of calling attention to some of the peculiar merits of our author. Mankind in general believe that an external world exists , only because they believe that they immediately know it as existent. As they believe that they themselves exist because conscious of a self or ego ; so they believe that something different from them- selves exists, because they believe that they are also conscious of this not-self or non-ego. In the first place, then, it is self-evident, that the existence of the external world can not be doubted, if we admit that we do, as we naturally believe we do — know it immediately as existent. If the fact of the knowledge be allowed, the fact of the existence can not be gainsaid. The former involves the latter. But, in the second place, it is hardly less manifest, that if our natural belief in the knowledge of the existence of an external world be disallowed as false, that our natural belief in the exist- ence of such a world can no longer be founded on as true. Yet, marvelous to say, this has been very generally done. For reasons to which we can not at present advert, it has been almost universally denied by philosophers, that in sensitive per- ception we are conscious of any external reality. On the con- trary, they have maintained, with singular unanimity, that what we are immediately cognitive of in that act, is only an ideal ob- ject in the mind itself. In so far as they agree in holding this opinion, philosophers may be called Idealists in contrast to man- kind in general, and a few stray speculators who may be called Realists — Natural Realists. In regard to the relation or import of this ideal object, philoso- 192 IDEALISM. pliers are divided ; and this division constitutes two great and opposing opinions in philosophy. On the one hand, the majority have maintained that the ideal object of which the mind is con- scious, is vicarious or representative of a real object, unknown immediately, or as existing, and known only mediately through this its ideal substitute. These philosophers, thus holding the existence of an external world — a world, however, unknown in itself, and therefore asserted only as an hypothesis, may he appro- priately styled Cosmothetic Idealists — Hypothetical or Assumptive Realists. On the other hand, a minority maintain, that the ideal object has no external prototype ; and they accordingly deny the existence of any external world. These may be denominated the Absolute Idealists. Each of these great genera of Idealists is, however, divided and subdivided into various subordinate species. The Cosmothetic Idealists fall primarily into two classes, inas- much as some view the ideal or representative object to be a tertium quid different from the percipient mind as from the represented object ; while others regard it as only a modification of the mind itself — as only the percipient act considered as repre- sentative of, or relative to, the supposed external reality. The former of these classes is again variously subdivided, according as theories may differ in regard to the nature and origin of the vicarious object ; as whether it be material or immaterial — whe- ther it come from without or rise from within — whether it ema- nate from the external reality or from a higher source — whether it be infused by God or other hyperphysical intelligences, or whether it be a representation in the Deity himself — whether it be innate, or whether it be produced by the mind, on occasion of the presence of the material object within the sphere of sense, &c. &c. Of Absolute Idealism only two principal species are possible ; at least, only two have been actually manifested in the history of philosophy ; — the Theistic and the Egoistic. The former sup- poses that the Deity presents to the mind the appearances which we are determined to mistake for an external world ; the latter supposes that these appearances are manifested to consciousness, in conformity to certain unknown laws, by the mind itself. The Theistic Idealism is again subdivided into three; according as God is supposed to exhibit the phenomena in question in his own substance — to infuse into the percipient mind representative en- IDEALISM IN GENERAL. 193 tities different from its own modification — or to determine the ego itself to an illusive representation of the non-ego. 1 Now it is easily shown, that if the doctrine of Natural Realism he abandoned — if it be admitted, or proved, that we are deceived in our belief of an immediate knowledge of aught beyond the mind ; then Absolute Idealism is a conclusion philosophically inevitable, the assumption of an external world being now an assumption which no necessity legitimates, and which is there- fore philosophically inadmissible. On the law of parsimony it must be presumed null. It is, however, historically true, that Natural Realism had been long abandoned by philosophers for Cosmothetic Idealism, before the grounds on which this latter dootrine rests were shown to be unsound. These grounds are principally the following : 1.) — In the first place, the natural belief in the existence of an external world was allowed to operate even when the natural belief of our immediate knowledge of such a world was argued to be false. It might be thought that philosophers, when they maintained that one original belief was illusive, would not con- tend that another was veracious — still less that they would as- sume, as true, a belief which existed only as the result of a belief which they assumed to be false. But this they did. The Cos- mothetic Idealists, all deny the validity of our natural belief in our knowledge of the existence of external things ; but we find the majority of them, at the same time, maintaining that such existence must be admitted on the authority of our natural belief of its reality. And yet, the latter belief exists only in and through the former; and if the former be held false, it is, therefore, of all absurdities the greatest to view the latter as true. Thus Descartes, after arguing that mankind are universally deluded in their conviction that they have any immediate knowledge of aught beyond the modifications of their own minds ; again argues that the existence of an external world must be admitted — because, if it do not exist, God deceives, in impressing on us a belief in its reality ; but God is no deceiver ; therefore, &c. This reasoning is either good for nothing, or good for more than Des- cartes intended. For, on the one hand, if God be no deceiver, he did not deceive us in our natural belief that we knew some- 1 [For a more detailed view of these distinctions, see Diss. on Reid, pp. 816-819 ; Compare also above, pp. 61, sy.] N 194 IDEALISM. thing more than the mere modes of self; hut then the funda- mental position of the Cartesian philosophy is disproved : and if, on the other hand, this position he admitted, Grod is thereby confessed to be a deceiver, who, having deluded us in the belief on which our belief of an external world is founded, can not be consistently supposed not to delude us in this belief itself. Such melancholy reasoning is, however, from Descartes to Dr. Brown, the favorite logic by which the Cosmothetic Idealists in general attempt to resist the conclusion of the Absolute Idealists. But on this ground there is no tenable medium between Natural Realism and Absolute Idealism. It is curious to notice the different views, which Berkeley and Collier , our two Absolute Idealists, and which Dr. Samuel Clarke the acutest of the Hypothetical Realists with whom they both came in contact, took of this principle. Clarke was, apparently too sagacious a metaphysician not to see that the proof of the reality of an external world reposed mainly on our natural belief of its reality ; and at the same time that this natural belief could not be pleaded in favor of his hypo- thesis by the Cosmothetic Idealist. He was himself conscious, that his philosophy afforded him no arms against the reasoning of the Absolute Idealist ; whose inference he was, however, in- clined neither to admit, nor able to show why he should not. Whiston, in his Memoirs, speaking of Berkeley and his Idealism, says : — “ He was pieased to send Dr. Clarke and myself, each of us, a book. After we had both perused it, I went to Dr. Clarke and discoursed with him about it to this effect: — That I, being not a metaphysician, was notable to answer Mr. Berkeley’s subtle premises, though I did not at all believe his absurd conclusion. I, therefore, desired that he, who was deep in such subtilities, but did not appear to believe Mr. Berkeley’s conclusions, would answer him ; ivhich task he declined .” Many years after this, as we are told in the Life of Bishop Berkeley, prefixed to his works : — There was, at Mr. Addison’s instance, a meeting of Drs. Clarke and Berkeley to discuss this speculative point ; and great hopes were entertained from the conference. The parties, however, separated without being able to come to any agTeement. Dr. Berkeley declared himself not well satisfied with the conduct of his antagonist on the occasion, tvho, though he could not an- siver, had not candor enough to own himself convinced.” Mr. Benson affords us a curious anecdote to the same effect in IDEALISM IN GENERAL. 195 a letter of Collier to Clarke. From it we learn — that when Collier originally presented his Clavis to the Doctor, through a friend, on reading the title, Clarke good-humoredly said : — “ Poor gentleman ! I pity him. He would be a philosopher, hut has chosen a strange task ; for he can neither prove his point himself nor can the contrary be proved against him.” In regard to the two Idealists themselves, each dealt with this ground of argument in a very different way ; and it must be confessed that in this respect Collier is favorably contrasted with Berkeley. — Berkeley attempts to enlist the natural belief of mankind in his favor against the Hypothetical Realism of the philosophers. It is true, natural belief is opposed to scientific opinion. Mankind are not, however, as Berkeley reports, Ideal- ists. In this he even contradicts himself ; for, if they he, in truth of his opinion, why does he dispute so anxiously, so learn- edly against tham ? — Collier , on the contrary, consistently rejects all appeal to the common sense of mankind. The motto of his work, from Mallebranche, is the watchword of his philosophy “ Vulgi assensus et approbatio circa materiam difficilem, est cer- tum argumentum falsitatis istius opinionis cui assentitur .” And in his answer to the Cartesian argument for the reality of matter, from “ that strong and natural inclination which all men have to believe in an external world;” he shrewdly remarks on the inconsistency of such a reasoning at such hands Strange ! That a person of Mr. Descartes’ sagacity should he found in so plain and palpable an oversight ; and that the late ingenious Mr. Norris should he found treading in the same track, and that too upon a solemn and particular disquisition of this matter. That while, on the one hand, they contend against the common inclina- tion or prejudice of mankind, that the visible world is not ex- ternal, they should yet appeal to this same common inclination for the truth or being of an external world, which on their prin- ciples must he said to be invisible ; and for which therefore (they must needs have known if they had considered it), there neither is, nor can be, any kind of inclination.” (P. 81.) 2.) — In the second place, it was very generally assumed in antiquity, and during the middle ages, that an external world was a supposition necessary to render possible the fact of our sensitive cognition. The philosophers who held, that the imme- diate object of perception was an emanation from an outer reality, and that the hypothesis of the latter was requisite to account for 196 IDEALISM. the phenomenon of the former — their theory involved the exist- ence of an external world as its condition. But from the moment that the necessity of this condition was abandoned, and this was done by many even of the scholastic philosophers ; — from the moment that sensible species or the vicarious objects in percep- tion were admitted to be derivable from other sources than the external objects themselves, as from G-od, or from the mind it- self : from that moment we must look for other reasons than the preceding, to account for the remarkable fact, that it was not until after the commencement of the eighteenth century that a doctrine of Absolute Idealism was, without communication, con- temporaneously promulgated by Berkeley and Collier. 3.) — In explanation of this fact, we must refer to a third ground, which has been wholly overlooked by the historians of philosophy ; but which it is necessary to take into account, would we explain how so obvious a conclusion as the negation of the existence of an outer world, on the negation of our immediate knowledge of its existence, should not have been drawn by so acute a race of speculators as the philosophers of the middle ages, to say nothing of the great philosophers of a more recent epoch. This ground is : — That the doctrine of Idealism is incompatible with the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. It is a very erro- neous statement of Reid, in which, however, he errs only in com- mon with other philosophers, that 11 during the reign of the Peri- patetic doctrine , we find no appearance of skepticism about the existence of matter .” On the contrary, during the dominance of the scholastic philosophy, we find that the possibility of the non- existence of matter was contemplated ; nay, that the reasons in support of this supposition were expounded in all their cogency. We do not, however, find the conclusion founded on these reasons formally professed. And why ? Because this conclusion, though philosophically proved, was theologically disproved : and such disproof was during the middle ages sufficient to prevent the overt recognition of any speculative doctrine ; for with all its ingenuity and boldness, philosophy during these ages was con- fessedly in the service of the church — it was always Philosphia ancillans Theologice. And this because the service was volun- tary ; a thralldom indeed of love. Now, if the reality of matter were denied, there would, in general, be denied the reality of Christ'’ s incarnation; and in particular the transubstantiation into his body of the elements of bread and ivine. There were CATHOLICISM INCONSISTENT WITH IDEALISM. 197 other theological reasons indeed, and these not without their weight ; hut this was, perhaps, the only one insuperable to a Catholic. We find the influence of this reason at work in very ancient times. It was employed by the earlier Fathers, and more espe- cially in opposition to Marcion’s doctrine of the merely phenome- nal incarnation of our Saviour. — “ Non licet” (says Tertullian in his book De Anivia, speaking of the evidence of sense — “ non licet nobis in dubium sensus istus revocare, ne et in Christo de fide eorum deliberetur : ne forte dicatur, quod falso Satanam pro- spectant de cselo preecipitatum ; aut falso vocem Patris auaierit de ipso testificatam ; aut deceptus sit cum Petri socrum tetegrit. Sic et Marcion phantasma eum maluit credere, totius cor- poris in illo dedignatus veritatem.” (Cap. xvii.) And in his book, Adversus Marcionem : — “ Ideo Christus non erat quod vide- batur, et quod erat mentiebatur ; caro, nec caro ; homo, nec homo : proinde Deus Christus, nec Deus ; cur enim non etiam Dei phantasma portaverit ? An credam ei de interiore substantia, qui sit de exteriore frustratus? Q,uomodo verax habebitur in occulto, tam fallax repertus in aperto ? . . . Jam nunc quum men- dacium deprehenditur Christus caro ; sequitur ut omnia quse per carnem Christi gesta sunt, mendacio gesta sint — congressus, con- tactus, convictus, ipsse quoque virtutes. Si enim tangendo ali- quern, liberavit a vitio, non potest vere actum credi, sine corporis ipsius veritate. Nihil solidum ab inani, nihil plenum a vacuo perfici licet. Putativus habitus, putativus actus ; imaginarius operator, imaginariae operae.” (Lib. iii. c. 8.) — In like manner, St. Augustin, among many other passages : — “ Si phantasma fuit corpus Christi, fefellit Christus ; et si fefellit, veritas non est. Est autem veritas Christus ; non igitur phantasma fuit corpus ejus.” ( Liber De Ixxxiii. Qucestionibus, qu. 14.) — And so many others. The repugnancy of the Catholic dogma of transubstantiation with the surrender of a substantial prototype of the species pre- sented to our sensible perceptions, was, however, more fully and precisely signalized by the Schoolmen ; as may be seen in the polemic waged principally on the great arena of scholastic subtil- ity — the commentaries on the four books of the Sentences of Peter Lombard. In their commentaries on the first book, especi- ally, will be found abundant speculation of an idealistic tendency. 198 IDEALISM. The question is almost regularly mooted : — May not God pre- serve the species (the ideas of a more modern philosophy) before the mind , the external reality represented being destroyed? — May not God, in fact, object to the sense the species representing an external world, that world , in reality, not existing ? To these questions the answer is, always in the first instance, affirmative. Why then, the possibility, the probability even, being admitted, was the fact denied. Philosophically orthodox, it was theologic- ally heretical ; and their principal argument for the rejection is, that on such hypothesis, the doctrine of a transubstantiated eucharist becomes untenable. A change is not — can not be — (spiritually) real. Such was the special reason, why many of the acuter School- men did not follow out their general argument, to the express negation of matter ; and such also was the only reason, to say nothing of other Cartesians, why Mallebranche deformed the simplicity of his peculiar theory with such an assumptive hors d? oeuvre, as an unknown and otiose universe of matter. It is, indeed, but justice to that great philosopher to say — that if the incumbrance with which, as a Catholic, he was obliged to burden it, be thrown off his theory, that theory becomes one of Absolute Idealism ; and that, in fact, all the principal arguments in sup- port of such a scheme are found fully developed in his immortal Inquiry after Truth. This Mallebranche well knew ; and know- ing it, we can easily understand, how Berkeley’s interview with him ended as it did . 1 Mallebranche thus left little for his Protestant successors to do. They had only to omit the Catholic excrescence ; the reasons vin- dicating this omission they found collected and marshalled to their hand. That Idealism was the legitimate issue of the Malle- 1 [I can not, however, concur in the praise of novelty and invention, which has always been conceded to the central theory of Mallebranche. His “ Vision of all things in the Deity,” is, as it appears to me, simply a transference to man in the flesh, to the Viator, of that mode of cognition, maintained by many of the older Catholic divines, in explanation of how the Saints, as disembodied spirits, can be aware of human invocations, and, in general, of what passes upon earth. “ They perceive,” it is said, “ all things in God.” So that, in truth, the philosophical theory of Mallebranche, is nothing but the extension of a theological hypothesis, long common in the schools ; and with scholastic speculations, Mallebranche was even intimately acquainted. This hypothesis I had once occasion to express : “ Quidquid, in his tenebris vitas, te came latcbat , Nunc legis in magno cuncta, beate, Deo.”] LOCKE’S IDEALISM. 199 branchian doctrine, was at once seen by those competent to meta- physical reasoning. This was signalized, in general, by Bayle, and, what has not been hitherto noticed, by Locke . 1 It was, 1 Compare Locke’s Examination of P. Mallebranche’s Opinion (