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plied that term to characterise the Berkleian theory. But let Berkley speak for himself; and in his own writings, not in the commentaries of his scholars; and it will be found that he dogmatised (we do not mean in the invidious, but in the proper sense of that word) as steadily as Zeno or Epicurus; though perfectly free from the austerity of the one, and the pride of the other. In later days, symptoms of an unlavourable disposition towards Christianity have certainly been visible in the works of some of the most celebrated metaphysical writers in Scotland, and upon the continent; and this probably is the real explanation of the evil report which has gone forth against metaphysics. But we suspect that this is exactly one of those hasty conclusions from first appearances which we have just now condemned. Speculative men have for some time past turned their attention a good deal to the philosophy of mind, and it has happened (from causes which are perfectly explicable) that speculative men, during the same period, bave had a sort of vanity in professing scepticism upon religious subjects; but it does not therefore follow that metaphysics and infidelity have any natural alliance. It was not always thus. In the ancient world, the infidels were found among the natural philosophers; in the schools of Epicurus, not in those of Plato and Aristotle. In the middle ages, metaphysics were assiduously cultivated by the stoutest doctors of the church: Aquinas and Abelard, and Ockham, and all the pillars of orthodoxy, were deep in the philosophy of Aristotle, and fought as fiercely about universals as if the fate of religion had depended on the controversy; while those, who, neglecting such matters, quietly cultivated researches into physics, laboured under a pretty general suspicion of infidelity. Galileo was sent to a dungeon in his old age, not for any speculations upon mind, but for the discoveries he had made re

specting the constitution of nature. So late as the days of Sir Thomas Brown, that learned and eloquent writer informs us that the physicians had long been generally supposed to entertain opinions unfavourable to the truth of Christianity; and he published his Religio Medici to rescue himself from the imputation which attached to his profession. And, in our own time, the greatest naturalist in Italy professed Atheism. It may therefore, perhaps, be fairly said, that, in respect of any supposed tendency to scepticism, the evidence of history is full as strong against natural philosophy as against metaphysics; yet who ever dreamed of proscribing the natural sciences? Let us at least be just, and either condemn the researches of Galileo and Newton, or acknowledge that neither the philosophy of mind nor the philosophy of nature have any natural alliance with scepticism, though sceptics may occasionally be found among the students of both.

The end of all knowledge is to enable us better to understand the will of God, and more perfectly to obey it. Unsanctified by these principles, neither wit nor learning can be of any lasting benefit to their possessors, and may but swell the sad account they must one day render. Let us not be misunderstood. If we recommend metaphysical studies, or any other studies not strictly religious, it is not for their own sake that we recommend them. Every thing is trifling which has not some respect to our everlasting destiny; and it matters really very little, if the amusement of the present time is our only object, whether that is sought at a puppet-show, or in the schools of philosophy. Life resembles a well-constructed drama. There must be variety of incidents; and some little episodes may fairly be admitted. But unity of action is indispensable, and every lesser part must tend upon the whole to swell the interest of the great catastrophe. In the pursuits of learning, if we would be wise to any purpose, the

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glory of God must be our great aim; the advancement of practical holiness in our own hearts, and in the world, an object continually present to our thoughts. Directed towards such ends, the value of learning is unquestionable, and is indeed now doubted only by weak and ignorant enthusiasts. Different pursuits may be suited to different understandings and conditions of life: some studies may be in their nature more practically profitable than others: but in the circle of useful sciences, we can. not hesitate to include the philosophy of the human mind: we see many reasons for expecting advantages to result from its cultivation, and none of any real moment for proscribing it.

Mr. Stewart, after dismissing the topics discussed in his preliminary chapters, employs about an hundred and fifty pages in noticing different theories which have prevailed respecting the sources of human know ledge. It is certainly to be lamented that these inquiries should have engaged too exclusively the attention of metaphysical writers; so that, by many persons, the whole science of the philosophy of the mind is imagined to be confined to this. the least satisfactory and least useful, part of it. Yet the subject is curious in itself, and is rendered still more so by the efforts which some very powerful and original thinkers have made to clear its obscurity. It would be a very serious undertaking to follow Mr. Stewart systematically through this "dark,illimitable ocean;" but we may track his voyage, and admire the skill with which he keeps his reckoning, notwithstanding a cloudy sky, shifting winds, and cross

currents.

The first Essay, which is divided into four chapters, treats principally of the account which Mr. Locke gave of the origin of human knowledge. This great man was the first who applied the canons of philosophy, which Bacon had recommended, to metaphysical researches; and though his conclusions were far

from being always correct, his labours were so considerable as to have purchased for him, both in this country and upon the continent, the character of the father of the intellectual philosophy. The following are his leading opinions respecting the origin of our knowledge. He insists that the mind naturally is unfurnished with any of the materials of knowledge; in contradiction to the schoolmen, and to Des Cartes, who held the doctrine of innate ideas. Through the medium of the senses (he says), we acquire all our ideas of external objects; and (agreeing with the schoolmen in their opinion that the external objects themselves are not united to the mind), he describes the ideas thus received to be copies or images of the objects. The other class of our ideas he conceives to be derived from the "perception of the operations of our own minds within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got." These ideas, thus acquired, "the understanding has the power to repeat, compare, and unite; and so can make at pleasure new complex ideas; but it has not the power to invent or frame one new simple idea in the mind, not taken in by the ways before mentioned *.”

This fair structure, stately and imposing as it was, when the band of Locke erected it, has suffered some loss of its early splendor. It has been assailed by more modern artists, and though enough of it remains to testify to the magnificence of the design, a considerable portion of the building has been levelled with the ground. First came Leibnitz and Lord Shaftesbury, who insist that many things are innate in the mind, particularly the intellectual powers themselves, and the simple ideas which are necessarily unfolded by their exercise. A part of this, doubtless, is true; but the truth is so obvious that it may, perhaps, safely be affirmed, that Mr. Locke never dreamed of denying it. That

Locke's Essay, Book ii. Chap. 1, 2.

our faculties, as conception, memory, and the like, are not ideas acquired by sensation or reflection, is just as plain as that the powers of perceiving and reflecting are not so acquired. It is mere trifling, to say that Mr. Locke has not marked the distinction. He was not bound to mark it. It is involved of necessity in the statement of his theory. For the rest; by what sort of logic is it that ideas, "unfolded by the exercise of our faculties *" can be shewn to be innate?

But a much ruder shock was soon afterwards given to a large part of Mr. Locke's system by the hand of Berkley. Locke, believing firmly in the independent existence of the external world; yet seeing that the mind could take notice only of its own perceptions, imagined (according to the old doctrine of the schools) that these perceptions, or ideas, must be exact resemblances of material things and though he made a distinction between the primary and secondary qualities of matter, holding the former, as extension, solidity and figure, to exist in the external things themselves; but the latter, as heat and colour, to exist only in the mind; yet, on the whole, his doctrine was, that our knowledge of the material world is obtained from the ideas or images of it introduced through the senses; "the one being the perfect resemblance of the other as they are in a mirror t." This is what is generally called the ideal theory, which, though manifestly by pothetical, incapable of proof, and almost unintelligible, has maintained its ground in this country against all opposition, and is to this day gravely taught to the young students of at least one of our universities. Against this theory Berkley's metaphysical writings were principally directed; and the substance of his argument is pretty well given in the following

We quote from Mr. Stewart's translation, rather version, of the passage in Leibnitz's works; the original is very obscure. t Locke's Essay, Book ii. ch. 8. Christ, Obsery. No. 129.

passages. "As for our senses, by them we have the knowledge only of our sensations, ideas, or those things which are immediately perceived by sense, call them what you will; but they do not inform us that things exist without a mind, or unperceived, like to those which are perceived." On the contrary, "as there can be no notion or thought but in a thinking being, so there can be no sensation but in a sentient being; its very essence consists in being felt. Nothing can resemble a sensation but a similar sensation in the same or some other mind. To think that any quality in a thing inanimate can resemble a sensation, is absurd, and a contradiction in terms." Whoever will be at the trouble of considering attentively these passages, will see, that, as against Mr. Locke and his followers, they are conclusive. How far they render doubtful (supposing that to be possible) the independent existence of the material world, which Dr. Reid and others say is made known to us in quite another manner from that described by Mr. Locke, is an entirely different question.

To another part of Mr. Locke's system, Mr. Stewart has himself furnished some considerable objections. They are borrowed, in substance, from Leibnitz and Lord Shaftesbury, but are arranged so much more skilfully by the writer who has adopted them than they had been by their first assertors, that he seems to have acquired some right to be considered as the proper owner. Locke maintained, that all our ideas are originally acquired from the perception of external objects, and of the operations of our own minds; or, as he often expresses himself, from sensation and reflection. This is, in effect, saying that consciousness is exclusively the source of all our knowledge; and it would follow as a necessary inference, even though he had not

* Principles of Human Knowledge, § 18. 4 H

distinctly so stated it, that "the understanding has not the power of inventing one new simple idea." The difficulties attending this doctrine, will be sufficiently explained by the following extract from Mr. Stewart.

"There are a variety of notions so connected with our different intellectual faculties, that the exercise of the faculty may be justly regarded as a condition indispensably necessary to account for the first origin of the notion. Thus, by a mind destitute of the faculty of memory, neither the ideas of time, nor of motion, nor of personal identity could possibly have been formed; ideas, which are confessedly among the most familiar of all those we possess, and which cannot be traced immediately to consciousness by any effort of logical subtilty. In like manner, without the faculty of abstraction, we never could have formed the idea of number; nor of lines, surfaces, and solids, as they are considered by the mathematician; nor would it have been possible for us to comprehend the meaning of such words as classes or assortments, or indeed of any of the grammatical parts of speech but proper names. Without the power of reason or understanding, it is no less evident that no comment could have helped us to unriddle the import of the words, truth, certainty, probability, theorem, premises, conclusion; nor of any one of those which express the various sorts of relation which fall under our knowledge. In such cases, all that can be said, is, that the exercise of a particular faculty furnishes the occasion on which certain sini-ple notions are, by the laws of our constitution, presented to our thoughts; nor does it ecem possible for us to trace the origin of a particular notion, any farther than to ascertain what the nature of the occasion was, which in the first instance introduced it to our acquaintance."

It is manifest, that the objections here stated against Mr. Locke's theory, are the same in kind with those above mentioned to have been urged by Leibnitz and Lord Shaftesbury, when they insist that certain innate ideas are necessarily unfolded by the exercise of our faculties. Existence, personal identity, and truth, are the ideas mentioned by Leibnitz. Order, administration, and the notion of a God, are specified by Lord

Essay I. chap. ii. page 15.

Shaftesbury *. But Mr. Stewart,
with the caution of an able com-
mander, who knows the country in
which he is acting, and the am-
bushes that may beset him, is not
only careful to avoid the impropriety
of terming the ideas which he spe-
cifies innate ideas, but avoids giving

any opinion as to the manner in
which they are acquired; only af-
contradiction to Mr.
firming, in
Locke, that they cannot be traced
immediately to consciousness.

We feel very little disposition to enter into this controversy. It is of small importance how the ideas mentioned by Mr. Stewart are acquired; whether, as seems most likely, by a rapid and almost intuitive act of the understanding, or by some less intelligible process, which we call a law of our constitution, because we know not what else to call it. We agree with him in thinking that they cannot be traced to consciousness; and we think, too, that Mr. Locke was rather rash in affirming, that the understanding We do not, however, agree, that all cannot frame one new simple idea. the words mentioned by Mr. Stewart and Lord Shaftesbury express simple ideas. Time is not a simple notion, for it implies succession: so does motion: so does personal identity. Order is not a simple idea, for it supposes the arrangement of seve ral things; so does administration: and the idea of Deity is one of the most complex in nature. But ex-istence is a simple idea; and it is not easy to see how it can be acquired, except by a rapid act of the understanding immediately conse quent upon perception.

Mr. Stewart appears to attach importance to the observations which we have above extracted; not on account of any anxiety he feels repecting the origin of our knowledge, but for a reason far better suited to his just and comprehensive understanding. That part of Mr.

See Letters to a Student at the Univers sity. Letter &

Locke's theory, which represents consciousness as the source of all our knowledge, has been made the ground-work of some very pernicious opinions respecting morals. Dr. Hutcheson saw, that, according to the received system, if right and wrong express simple ideas, their origin must be referred not to reason, but to some appropriate power of perception. To this power he gave the name of the moral sense, little aware of the dangerous conclusions towards which he was adyancing. Mr. Hume, more acute, and far more daring, immediately perceived, that if right and wrong are made known to us by sense, they stand in exactly the same relation to us as taste, colours, and other sensible qualities, of which it is difficult to affirm, as of truth and error, that they are fixed and immutable, but which seem to depend much upon the organs of the sentient being, and to be, really and essentially, such as they are perceived to be. True to this distinction, we find him continually representing morality as the object, not of reason, but of taste; and the inference is, that it shifts with the shifting fashions and opinions of men, being one thing at Athens, another at Rome, and a third in London *.

It is highly gratifying to see so distinguished a writer as Mr. Stewart engaged on the side of virtue, and employing his learning and sagacity to sap a system of licentious sentiment miscalling itself morals. Yet we do not think that his just criticism, upon that part of Locke's opinions which Mr. Hume adopted, was necessary for the dissolution of the moral (or rather, immoral) theory above mentioned. Right and wrong are evidently terms of reference, and have respect to some rule previously established. What

See the dialogue in the second volume of Mr. Hume's Essays, which immediately precedes the history of natural religion. See also Essays, vol. i. note [F.]; and vol. ij. Appendix, concerning Moral Sentiment.

that rule should be, is of no importance to the present argument; for surely it is abundantly plain, that so momentous a concern as the discovery of the true principles. which are to govern the whole sy stem of our lives, ought not to be abandoned to mere feeling; that it is, at the least, our duty to be se cure, that the impulses of sentiment (supposing all that can be urged in favour of a moral sense to be true) are guaranteed, ratified, and established by the deliberate conclusions of the understanding; that reason is the highest principle of our nature, and ought to decide upon our highest interests.

After Locke comes Berkley; a man equally eminent for his genius and his benevolence; a zealous defender of the Christian truth, and at one period of his life a sort of missionary for its propagation*. The leading feature of his philosophy is pretty generally known, and has excited a great deal of ridicule among those who do not understand it, and a great deal of surprise among those who do. When Berk. ley told men that there is no external world, they stared, and thought him mad. When he assured them, that if his principles were once admitted, atheism and scepticism would be utterly destroyed; many intricate points made plain; great difficulties solved; speculation referred to practice; and men reduced from paradoxes to common sense t;" they only stared the more, and thought him still more mad. But when they had heard him explain the meaning of his propositions, and state the reasonings on which they

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* Berkley, during many years of his life, laboured zealously to effect the establish ment of a college at Bermuda, for the purpose of converting the American Indians, which he proposed to superintend personally; and he went there himself for the purpose of forwarding the scheme; but it' failed ultimately through the inactivity of others.

+ Preface to the Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous,

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