we are, in many respects, justified in doing, because, in the progress of our knowledge, we have, by a long course of induction, arrived at several conclusions which we may safely treat deductively; that is to say, we may make them the major premisses of new arguments. The same process has been seen in France, where the exclusively inductive philosophy of the eighteenth century preceded a partial resuscitation of deductive philosophy in the nineteenth century. In Scotland, however, there have been no such vicissitudes. In that country, men have always been deductive; even the most original thinkers being unable to liberate themselves from the universal tendency, and being forced to accept a method which time had consecrated, and which was interwoven with all the associations of the national mind.

To understand the investigation into which we are about to enter, the reader must firmly seize, and keep before his eyes, the essential difference between deduction, which reasons from principles, and induction, which reasons to principles. He must remember, that induction proceeds from the smaller to the greater; deduction, from the greater to the smaller. Induction is from particulars to generals, and from the senses to the ideas; deduction is from generals to particulars, and from the ideas to the senses. By induction, we rise from the concrete to the abstract; by deduction, we descend from the abstract to the concrete. Accompanying this distinction, there are certain qualities of mind, which, with extremely few exceptions, characterize the age, nation, or individual, in which one of these methods is predominant. The inductive philosopher is naturally cautious, patient, and somewhat creeping; while the deductive philosopher is more remarkable for boldness, dexterity, and often rashness. The deductive thinker invariably assumes certain cesses is so admirably clear, that he has probably contributed more than any other man towards impressing his contemporaries with a sense of the value of deductive reasoning. He has, however, not done sufficient justice to the opposite school, and has, indeed, fallen into the old academical error of supposing that all reasoning is by syllogism. We might just as well say that all movement is by descent.

premisses, which are quite different from the hypotheses essential to the best induction. These premisses are sometimes borrowed from antiquity; sometimes they are taken from the notions which happen to prevail in the surrounding society; sometimes they are the result of a man's own peculiar organization; and sometimes, as we shall presently see, they are deliberately invented, with the object of arriving, not at truth, but at an approximation to truth. Finally, and to sum up the whole, we may say that a deductive habit, being essentially synthetic, always tends to multiply original principles or laws; while the tendency of an inductive habit is to diminish those laws by gradual and successive analysis.

These being the two fundamental divisions of human inquiry, it is surely a most remarkable fact in the history of Scotland, that, during the eighteenth century, all the great thinkers belonged to the former division, and that, in the very few instances of induction which their works contain, it is evident, from the steps they subsequently took, that they regarded such inductions as unimportant in themselves, and as only valuable in so far as they supplied the premisses for another and deductive investigation. As the various departments of our knowledge have never yet been co-ordinated and treated as a whole, probably no one is aware of the universality of this movement in Scotland, and of the extent to which it pervaded every science, and governed every phase of thought. To prove, therefore, the force with which it acted, I now purpose to examine its working in all the principal forms of speculation, whether physical or moral, and to show that in each the same method was adopted. In doing this, I must, for the sake of clearness, proceed according to a natural arrangement of the different topics; but I will, whenever it is possible, also follow the chrono logical order in which the Scotch mind unfolded itself; so that we may understand, not only the character of that remarkable literature, but likewise the steps of its growth, and the astonishing vigour with which it emancipated itself from the shackles which superstition had imposed.

The beginning of the great secular philosophy of Scotland is undoubtedly due to Francis Hutcheson.11 This eminent man, though born in Ireland, was of Scotch family, and was educated in the University of Glasgow, where he received the appointment of Professor of Philosophy in the year 1729.12 By his lectures, and by his works, he diffused a taste for bold inquiries into subjects of the deepest importance, but concerning which it had previously been supposed nothing fresh was to be learned; the Scotch having hitherto been taught, that all truths respecting our own nature, which were essential to be known, had been already revealed. Hutcheson, however, did not fear to construct a system of morals according to a plan entirely secular, and no example of which had been exhibited in Scotland before his time. The principles from which he started, were not theological, but metaphysical. They were collected from what he deemed the natural constitution of the mind, instead of being collected, as heretofore, from what had been supernaturally communicated. He, therefore, shifted the field of study. Though he was a firm believer in revelation, he held that the best rules of conduct could be ascertained without its assistance, and could be arrived. at by the unaided wit of man; and that, when arrived at, they were, in their aggregate, to be respected as the Law of Nature. 13 This confidence in the power of the human understanding was altogether new in Scotland, and its

See a letter from Sir James Mackintosh to Parr, in Mackintosh's Memoirs, London, 1835, vol. i. p. 334. "To Hutcheson the taste for speculation in Scotland, and all the philosophical opinions (except the Berkleian Humism) may be traced." M. Cousin (Histoire de la Philosophie, première série, vol. iv. p. 35, Paris, 1846) observes, that before Hutcheson "il n'avait paru en Ecosse ni un écrivain ni un professeur de philosophie un peu remarquable."

12 Tytler's Memoirs of Kames, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. i. p. 223. Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. iii., London, 1755, 4to.

13 The intention of Moral Philosophy is to direct men to that course of action which tends most effectually to promote their greatest happiness and perfection; as far as it can be done by observations and conclusions discoverable from the constitution of nature, without any aids of supernatural revelation: these maxims or rules of conduct are therefore reputed as laws of nature, and the system or collection of them is called the LAW OF NATURE." Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. 1.

appearance forms an epoch in the national literature. Previously, men had been taught that the understanding was a rash and foolish thing, which ought to be repressed, and which was unfit to cope with the problems presented to it.14 Hutcheson, however, held that it was quite able to deal with them, but that, to do so, it must be free and unfettered. Hence, he strenuously advocated that right of private judgment which the Scotch Kirk had not only assailed, but had almost destroyed. He insisted that each person had a right to form his opinion according to the evidence he possessed, and that, this right being inalienable, none but weak minds would abstain from exercising it.15 Every one was to judge according to his own light, and nothing could be gained by inducing men to profess sentiments contrary to their convictions. 16 So far, however, was this from being understood, that we found all the little sects quarrelling among themselves, and abusing each other, merely because their views were different. It was strange to hear how the professors of

14 "The natural understanding is the most whorish thing in the world." "The understanding, even in the search of truth amongst the creatures, is a rash, precipitate, and unquiet thing." Rutherford's Christ Dying, p. 181. "Innocent Adam," indeed, says Boston, "Innocent Adam had a stock of gracious abilities, whereby he might have, by the force of moral considerations, brought himself to perform duty aright. But where is that with us?" Boston's Sermons, p. 65.

15"A like natural right every intelligent being has about his own opinions, speculative or practical, to judge according to the evidence that appears to him. This right appears from the very constitution of the rational mind, which can assent or dissent solely according to the evidence presented, and naturally desires knowledge. The same considerations show this right to be unalienable: it cannot be subjected to the will of another: though where there is a previous judgment formed concerning the superior wisdom of another, or his infallibility, the opinion of this other, to a weak mind, may become sufficient evidence. As to opinions about the Deity, religion, and virtue, this right is further confirmed by all the noblest desires of the soul; as there can be no virtue, but rather impiety in not adhering to the opinions we think just, and in professing the contrary." Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 295, 296. See also vol. ii. p. 311. "Every rational creature has a right to judge for itself in these matters: and as men must assent according to the evidence that appears to them, and cannot command their own assent in opposition to it, this right is plainly unalienable.

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16 "Thus no man can really change his sentiments, judgments, and inward affections, at the pleasure of another, nor can it tend to any good to make him profess what is contrary to his heart." Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 261, 262.

one creed would stigmatize the professors of other creeds as idolatrous, and would demand that penalties should be inflicted on them. In point of fact, all had much that was good; and their only real evil was, this love of persecution.17 But the vulgar deemed every one a heretic who did not believe what they believed; and this way of thinking had been too much countenanced by the clergy, many of whom felt their vanity offended at the idea of laymen pretending to be wiser than their spiritual teachers, and venturing to disagree with what they said.18

Such large views of liberty were far in advance of the country in which they were propounded, and could exercise no influence, except over a few thinking men. These, and similar doctrines, were, however, repeated by Hutcheson, in his lectures, every year.19 And strange, indeed, they must have seemed. To those who received them, they were utterly subversive of the prevailing theological spirit, which regarded toleration as impious, and which, seeking to confine the human mind within the limits of foregone conclusions, deemed it a duty to chastize those who overstepped them. In opposition to this, Hutcheson let in the elements of inquiry, of discussion, and of doubt. There is also another point in which

17 "Arians and Socinians are idolaters and denyers of God, say the orthodox. They retort upon the orthodox, that they are Tritheists; and so do other sects; and thus they spirit up magistrates to persecute. While yet it is plain that in all these sects there are all the same motives to all social virtues from a belief of a moral providence, the same acknowledgments that the goodness of God is the source of all the good we enjoy or hope for, and the same gratitude and resignation to him recommended. Nor do any of their schemes excite men to vices, except that horrid tenet, too common to most of them, the right of persecuting." Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 316. See also vol. i. p. 160; and Hutcheson's Inquiry into our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, London, 1738, p. 283.

18We all know the notions entertained by the vulgar concerning all hereticks; we know the pride of schoolmen and many ecclesiasticks; how it galls their insolent vanity that any man should assume to himself to be wiser than they in tenets of religion by differing from them." Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. 167.

19"As he had occasion every year in the course of his lectures to explain the origin of government, and compare the different forms of it, he took peculiar care, while on that subject, to inculcate the importance of civil and religious liberty to the happiness of mankind." Leechman's Life of Hutcheson, p. xxxv., prefixed to Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy.