reasoning; but the most important parts of this science require a ripe understanding, capable of reflecting upon its own operations. Therefore, to make logic the first branch of science that is to be taught, is an old error that ought to be corrected.

SECT. 11.-OF THE IMPROVEMENT OF LOGIC.

IN compositions of human thought, expressed by speech or by writing, whatever is excellent and whatever is faulty fall within the province, either of grammar, or of rhetoric, or of logic. Propriety of expression is the province of grammar; grace, elegance, and force, in thought and in expression, are the province of rhetoric; justness and accuracy of thought are the province of logic.

The faults in composition, therefore, which fall under the censure of logic, are obscure and indistinct conceptions, false judgment, inconclusive reasoning, and all improprieties in distinctions, definitions, division, or method. To aid our rational powers in avoiding these faults, and in attaining the opposite excellencies, is the end of logic; and whatever there is in it that has no tendency to promote this end, ought to be thrown out. The rules of logic being of a very abstract nature, ought to be illustrated by a variety of real and striking examples taken from the writings of good authors. It is both instructive and entertaining to observe the virtues of accurate composition in writers of fame: we cannot see them without being drawn to the imitation of them, in a more powerful manner than we can be by dry rules. Nor are the faults of such writers less instructive or less powerful monitors. A wreck left upon a shoal, or upon a rock, is not more useful to the sailor than the faults of good writers, when set up to view, are to those who come after them. It was a happy thought in a late ingenious writer of English grammar, to collect under the several rules examples of bad English found in the most approved authors. It were to be wished that the rules of logic were illustrated in the same manner. By these means, a system of logic would become a repository, wherein whatever is most acute in judging and in reasoning, whatever is most accurate in dividing, distinguishing, and defining, should be laid up and disposed in order for our imitation, and wherein the false steps of eminent authors should be recorded for our admonition.

After men had laboured in the search of truth near two thousand years by the help of syllogisms, lord Bacon proposed the method of induction, as a more effectual engine for that purpose. His Novum Organum gave a new turn to the thoughts and labours of the inquisitive, more remarkable and more useful than that which the Organon of Aristotle had given before, and may be considered as a second grand era in the progress of human reason.

The art of syllogism produced numberless disputes, and numberless sects who fought against each other with much animosity, without gaining or losing ground, but did nothing considerable for the benefit of human life. The art of induction, first delineated by lord Bacon, produced numberless laboratories and observatories, in which nature has been put to the question by thousands of experiments, and forced to confess many of her secrets that before were hid from mortals: and, by these, arts have been improved, and human knowledge wonderfully increased.

In reasoning by syllogism, from general principles, we descend to a conclusion virtually contained in them. The process of induction is more

arduous, being an ascent from particular premises to a general conclusion. The evidence of such general conclusions is probable only, not demonstrative: but when the induction is sufficiently copious, and carried on according to the rules of art, it forces conviction no less than demonstration itself does.

The greatest part of human knowledge rests upon evidence of this kind. Indeed we can have no other for general truths which are contingent in their nature, and depend upon the will and ordination of the Maker of the world. He governs the world he has made by general laws: the effects of these laws in particular phenomena are open to our observation; and, by observing a train of uniform effects with due caution, we may at last decipher the law of nature by which they are regulated.

Lord Bacon has displayed no less force of genius in reducing to rules this method of reasoning than Aristotle did in the method of syllogism. His Novum Organum ought therefore to be held as a most important addition to the ancient logic. Those who understand it, and enter into its spirit, will be able to distinguish the chaff from the wheat in philosophical disquisitions into the works of God. They will learn to hold in due contempt all hypotheses and theories, the creatures of human imagination, and to respect nothing but facts sufficiently vouched, or conclusions drawn from them by a fair and chaste interpretation of nature.

Most arts have been reduced to rules, after they had been brought to a considerable degree of perfection by the natural sagacity of artists; and the rules have been drawn from the best examples of the art that had been before exhibited: But the art of philosophical induction was delineated by lord Bacon in a very ample manner, before the world had seen any tolerable example of it. This, although it adds greatly to the merit of the author, must have produced some obscurity in the work, and a defect of proper examples for illustration. This defect may now be easily supplied from those authors who, in their philosophical disquisitions, have the most strictly pursued the path pointed out in the Novum Organum. Among these, Sir Isaac Newton appears to hold the first rank; having in the third book of his Principia, and in his Optics, had the rules of the Novum Organum constantly in his eye.

I think lord Bacon was also the first who endeavoured to reduce to a system the prejudices or biases of the mind, which are the causes of false judgment, and which he calls the idols of the human understanding. Some late writers of logic have very properly introduced this into their system; but it deserves to be more copiously handled, and to be illustrated by real examples.

It is of great consequence to accurate reasoning to distinguish first principles which are to be taken for granted, from propositions which require proof. All the real knowledge of mankind may be divided into two parts: the first consisting of self-evident propositions; the second, of those which are deduced by just reasoning from self-evident propositions. The line that divides these two parts ought to be marked as distinctly as possible; and the principles that are self-evident reduced, as far as can be done, to general axioms. This has been done in mathematics from the beginning, and has tended greatly to the advancement of that science. has lately been done in natural philosophy: and by this means that science has advanced more in a hundred and fifty years, than it had done before in two thousand. Every science is in an unformed state until its first principles are ascertained; after which it advances regularly, and secures the ground it has gained.

It

Although first principles do not admit of direct proof, yet there must be certain marks and characters by which those that are truly such may be distinguished from counterfeits. These marks ought to be described and applied, to distinguish the genuine from the spurious.

In the ancient philosophy, there is a redundance, rather than a defect, of first principles. Many things were assumed under that character without a just title: that nature abhors a vacuum; that bodies do not gravitate in their proper place; that the heavenly bodies undergo no change; that they move in perfect circles, and with an equable motion. Such principles as these were assumed in the Peripatetic philosophy without proof, as if they were self-evident.

Des Cartes, sensible of this weakness in the ancient philosophy, and desirous to guard against it in his own system, resolved to admit nothing until his assent was forced by irresistible evidence. The first thing that he found to be certain and evident was, that he thought, and reasoned, and doubted. He found himself under a necessity of believing the existence of those mental operations of which he was conscious: and having thus found sure footing in this one principle of consciousness, he rested satisfied with it, hoping to be able to build the whole fabric of his knowledge upon it; like Archimedes, who wanted but one fixed point to move the whole earth. But the foundation was too narrow; and in his progress he unawares assumes many things less evident than those which he attempts to prove. Although he was not able to suspect the testimony of consciousness, yet he thought the testimony of sense, of memory, and of every other faculty, might be suspected, and ought not to be received until proof was brought that they are not fallacious. Therefore he applies these faculties, whose character is yet in question, to prove, That there is an infinitely perfect Being who made him, and who made his senses, his memory, his reason, and all his faculties: That this Being is no deceiver, and therefore could not give him faculties that are fallacious; and that on this account they deserve credit.

It is strange that this philosopher, who found himself under a necessity of yielding to the testimony of consciousness, did not find the same necessity of yielding to the testimony of his senses, his memory, and his understanding; and that, while he was certain that he doubted and reasoned, he was uncertain whether two and three made five, and whether he was dreaming or awake. It is more strange, that so acute a reasoner should not perceive that his whole train of reasoning, to prove that his faculties were fallacious, was mere sophistry; for if his faculties were fallacious, they might deceive him in this train of reasoning; and so the conclusion, That they were not fallacious, was only the testimony, of his faculties in their own favour, and might be a fallacy.

It is difficult to give any reason for distrusting our other faculties, that will not reach consciousness itself. And he who distrusts the faculties of judging and reasoning which God hath given him, must even rest in his scepticism till he come to a sound mind, or until God give him new faculties to sit in judgment upon the old. If it be not a first principle, That our faculties are not fallacious, we must be absolute sceptics: for this principle is incapable of a proof; and if it is not certain, nothing else can be certain.

Since the time of Des Cartes, it has been fashionable with those who dealt in abstract philosophy, to employ their invention in finding philosophical arguments, either to prove those truths which ought to be first principles, or to overturn them and it is not easy to say,

whether the authority of first principles is more hurt by the first of these attempts, or by the last for such principles can stand secure only upon their own bottom; and to place them upon any other foundation than that of their intrinsic evidence, is in effect to overturn them.

I have lately met with a very sensible and judicious treatise, wrote by Father Buffier about fifty years ago, concerning first principles and the source of human judgments, which, with great propriety, he prefixed to his treatise of logic. And indeed I apprehend it is a subject of such consequence, that if inquisitive men can be brought to the same unanimity in the first principles of the other sciences as in those of mathematics and natural philosophy, (and why should we despair of a general agreement in things that are self-evident?) this might be considered as a third grand era in the progress of human reason.

ESSAYS

ON THE

ACTIVE POWERS OF THE HUMAN MIND.

INTRODUCTION.

THE division of the faculties of the human mind into Understanding and 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 creation.

Our business is to manage these powers, by proposing to ourselves the best ends, planning the most proper system of conduct that is in our power, and executing it with industry and zeal. This is true wisdom; this is the very intention of our being.

Évery thing virtuous and praiseworthy must lie in the right use of our power; every thing vicious and blameable in the abuse of it. What is not within the sphere of our power, cannot be imputed to us either for blame or praise. These are self-evident truths, to which every unprejudiced mind yields an immediate and invincible assent.

Knowledge derives its value from this, that it enlarges our power, and directs us in the application of it. For in the right employment of our active power consists all the honour, dignity, and worth of a man, and, in the abuse and perversion of it, all vice, corruption, and depravity.

We are distinguished from the brute animals, not less by our active than by our speculative powers.

The brutes are stimulated to various actions by their instincts, by their appetites, by their passions. But they seem to be necessarily determined by the strongest impulse, without any capacity of self-government. 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.