tainty which is attainable by sense. Infallibility was never, as far as I know, guaranteed to man; nor is there any danger left, like the Children in the Wood, we should lay us down and die, left we should fall into the pit of error. We differ from one another in every circumftance of conduct, taste, and fentiment with perfect self-fatisfaction; and opinions for which he has only weak indirect evidence, each man entertains with the fulleft affurance, notwithstanding he has against him the bulk of his fpecies. Often as human proneness to error is bewailed, it does not appear that many among us feel a fincere anxiety for that degree of certainty, any more than for that extent of knowledge, of which we are perfectly capable.

Opinions were unfortunately, long prevalent in the world, of which the direct tendency was to deprive men of the most valu

able, as being the most certain, portion of knowledge; namely, that which we acquire from our intuitions. Now there is, I am difpofed to believe, no abfurdity of opinion which is not productive of fome pernicious practice. Even when the opinions are renounced and forgotten, the practices, into which they have deluded mankind, may still prevail for ages. Of this truth, I either fancy or find a deplorable proof in the common conduct of liberal education. And if Mr. Locke * has in vain discovered the principles upon which education ought to proceed, and in vain applied them with great, but not unexceptionable skill, I attribute his want of fuccefs, very much to

*I by no means forget Mr. Locke's great predeceffor, Bacon, of whose Advancement of Learning I wish to fee a new 8vo. edition. The common old thin 4to. is not adapted to modern delicacy in books, and it is not indeed a pleasant book to read.

the

the deep impreffion left by the Antient Metaphyfics. We know how ftudiously Plato depreciated the body, the fenfes, and the informations of fenfe; how his excommunication of our perceptive powers was confirmed by the peripatetic phantafms, and how both were amalgamated with the fantastic religious opinions, that fo long bewildered and brutalized mankind; as also what authority this monftrous mixture of heterogeneous reveries maintained during a long fucceffion of "The Platonifts," fays Mr. Harris *. "confidering science as "fomething ascertained, definite and steady "would admit nothing to be its object "which was vague, indefinite and paffing. "For this reason they excluded all indivi"duals or objects of sense, and, as Am"monius expreffes it, raised themselves in

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ages.

*Treatifes, p. 341.
I 4

"their

"their contemplations from beings parti"cular to beings univerfal, and which "from their own nature, were eternal "and durable

"Confonant to this, was the advice of "Plato, with refpect to the progress of "our fpeculations and inquiries, to descend "from those higher genera, which include

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many fubordinate fpecies, down to the

"lowest rank of fpecies, those which in"clude only individuals. But here it was "his opinion that our enquiries fhould "ftop, AND AS TO INDIVIDUALS LET

THEM WHOLLY ALONE; because of thefe there could not poffibly be any fcience."

Such were the ravings of the parent of mysticism. And as the Barbarians of the Weft could not but furvey with an enthufiafm, bordering on adoration, the fine compofitions of the antient writers, this

fenti

fentiment greatly contributed, by an obvious affociation, to their baneful effect.

What has been the progrefs of phyfical and moral science, fince their cultivators have gone directly contrary to the advice of Plato, is well understood. The fcience of grammar has been juft created upon precisely the fame principle; but moral, physical, and grammatical inftruction, which, as well as discovery, muft in order to be efficacious, proceed from the obfervation, or, if you please, the exhibition of particulars, is ftill conducted after Plato's own heart; and were he now to vifit our feminaries, there is every reafon to prefume, that this contemplator of beings univerfal, would be fatisfied with our conformity to his injunctions. For affuredly, we neglect, as much as in us lies, the cultivation of all fuch knowledge as the fenfes convey, and we let individuals wholly

alone.