OF THOMAS REID, D.D. NOW FULLY COLLECTED, WITH SELECTIONS FROM HIS UNPUBLISHED LETTERS. PREFACE, NOTES AND SUPPLEMENTARY DISSERTATIONS, BY SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BART., ADVOCATE; A.M. (OXON.); ETC.; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE; PREFIXED, STEWART'S ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF REID. VOL. II. SIXTH EDITION. EDINBURGH: MACLACHLAN AND STEWART. LONDON: LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS, AND GREEN. MDCCCLXIII. HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY 1875, March 22. ON EARTH, THERE IS NOTHING GREAT BUT MAN; IN MAN, THERE IS NOTHING GREAT BUT MIND. ESSAYS ON THE ACTIVE POWERS OF MAN. BY THOMAS REID, D.D., F.R.S.E., PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. "He hath shewed thee, O Man, what is good."-MICAH. The only authentic edition of the "Essays on the Active Powers" is that of 1788, in 4to; and from that edition the present is taken. The pages of the original impression are here also marked, and by them all prospective references made.-H. INTRODUCTION. THE division of the faculties of the human mind into Understanding and Will is very ancient, and has been very generally adopted; the former comprehending all our Speculative, the latter all our Active powers.+ It is evidently the intention of our Maker, that man should be an active and not merely a speculative being. For this purpose, certain active powers have been given him, limited indeed in many respects, but suited to his rank and place in the crea tion. Our business is to manage these powers, by proposing to ourselves the best ends, planning the most proper system of conduct that is in our power, and executing it with industry and zeal. This is true wisdom; this is the very intention of our being. Everything virtuous and praiseworthy must lie in the right use of our power; everything vicious and blameable in the abuse of it. What is not within the sphere * See above, p. 242, a, note t. The division of the powers into those of the Understanding and those of the Will, is very objection able. It is, as I have before observed, taken from the Peripatetic distinction of these into gnostic or cognitive, and orectic or appetent; but the original division is far preferable to the borrowed; for, in the first place, the term Understanding usually and properly denotes only a part-the higher part-of the cognitive faculties, and is then exclusive of sense, imagination, memory, &c., which it is now intended to include. In the second place, the term Will is also usually and properly limited to our higher appetencies, or rational determinations, as opposed to our lower ap. petencies, or irrational desires, which last, however, it is bere employed to comprehend. In the third place, both the original and borrowed divisions are improper, inasmuch as they either exclude or improperly include a third great class of mental phænomena-the phænomena of Feeling.-H. of our power cannot be imputed to us either for blame or praise. These are self-evident truths, to which every unprejudiced mind yields an immediate and invincible assent. [2] Knowledge derives its value from this, that it enlarges our power, and directs us in the application of it. For, in the right employment of our active power consists all the honour, dignity, and worth, of a man, and, in the abuse and perversion of it, all vice, corruption, and depravity. We are distinguished from the brute animals, not less by our active than by our speculative powers. The brutes are stimulated to various actions by their instincts, by their appetites, by their passions. But they seem to be necessarily determined by the strongest impulse, without any capacity of self-government. Therefore we do not blame them for what they do; nor have we any reason to think that they blame themselves. They may be trained up by discipline, but cannot be governed by law. There is no evidence that they have the conception of a law, or of its obligation. Man is capable of acting from motives of a higher nature. He perceives a dignity and worth in one course of conduct, a demerit and turpitude in another, which brutes have not the capacity to discern. He perceives it to be his duty to act the worthy and the honourable part, whether his appetites and passions incite him to it or to the contrary. When he sacrifices the gratification of the strongest appetites or passions to duty, this is so far from diminishing the merit of his conduct, that it greatly increases it, and affords, upon reflection, an inward satisfaction and triumph, of which brute-animals are not susceptible. When he acts a contrary part, he has a consciousness of demerit, to which they are no less strangers. [3] The distribution of our powers into Speculative and Active, is also very objectionable. Independently of the objection common to it with that into the powers of the understanding and the powers of the will-that the Feelings are excluded or improperly included-it is liable to objections peculiar to itself. In the first place, Speculation, or Theory, is a certain kind or certain application of knowledge; therefore, Speculation is not a proper term by which to denote Since, therefore, the active powers of the cognitive operations in general. In the second place, speculation and knowledge are not opposed to man make so important a part of his conaction, but to practice or doing, or, as it is best ex-stitution, and distinguish him so eminently pressed in German, das Handeln. Speculative powers ought not, therefore, to have been opposed to active. In the third place, the distinction of active powers is in itself vicious, because it does not distinguish, or distinguishes wrongly. Active is opposed to inactive; but it is not here intended to be said, that the cognitive powers are inactive; but merely that the action of the powers of appetency is different in kind from the action of the powers of knowledge. The term active does not, therefore, express what was meant, or rather does express what was not meant. It is to be observed, however, that the English language is very defective in terms requisite to denote the distinctions in question.-H. [1-4] from his fellow-animals, they deserve no less to be the subject of philosophical disquisition than his intellectual powers. A just knowledge of our powers, whether intellectual or active, is so far of real importance to us, as it aids us in the exercise of them. And every man must acknowledge, that to act properly is much more valuable than to think justly or reason acutely. [4] |