that the belief which accompanies sensation and memory, is a simple act of the mind, which cannot be defined. It is, in this respect, like seeing and hearing, which can never be so defined as to be understood by those who have not these faculties; and to such as have them, no definition can make these operations more clear than they are already. In like manner, every man that has any belief-and he must be a curiosity that has none-knows perfectly what belief is, but can never define or explain it. I conclude, also, that sensation, memory, and imagination, even where they have the same object, are operations of a quite different nature, and perfectly distinguishable by those who are sound and sober. A man that is in danger of confounding them, is indeed to be pitied; but whatever relief he may find from another art, he can find none from logic or metaphysic. I conclude further, that it is no less a part of the human constitution, to believe the present existence of our sensations, and to believe the past existence of what we remember, than it is to believe that twice two make four. The evidence of sense, the evidence of memory, and the evidence of the necessary relations of things, are all distinct and original kinds of evidence, equally grounded on our constitution: none of them depends upon, or can be resolved into another. To reason against any of these kinds of evidence, is absurd; nay, to reason for them is absurd. They are first principles; and such fall not within the province of reason, but of common sense. Section VI. APOLOGY FOR METAPHYSICAL ABSURDITIES— SENSATION WITHOUT A SENTIENT, A CONSEQUENCE OF THE THEORY OF IDEASCONSEQUENCES OF THIS STRANGE OPINION. Having considered the relation which the sensation of smelling bears to the remembrance and imagination of it, I proceed to consider what relation it bears to a mind, or sentient principle. It is certain, no man can conceive or believe smelling to exist of itself, without a mind, or something that has the power of smelling, of which it is called a sensation, an operation, or feeling. Yet, if any man should demand a proof, that sensation cannot be without a mind or sentient being, I confess that I can give none; and that to pretend to prove it, seems to me almost as absurd as to deny it. This might have been said without any apology before the Treatise of Human Nature" appeared in the world. For till See Note † at p. 100, b-H. that time, no man, as far as I know, ever thought either of calling in question that principle, or of giving a reason for his belief of it. Whether thinking beings were of an ethereal or igneous nature, whether material or immaterial, was variously disputed; but that thinking is an operation of some kind of being or other, was always taken for granted, as a principle that could not possibly admit of doubt. However, since the author above mentioned, who is undoubtedly one of the most acute metaphysicians that this or any age hath produced, hath treated it as a vulgar prejudice, and maintained that the mind is only a succession of ideas and impressions without any subject; his opinion, however contrary to the common apprehensions of mankind, deserves respect. I beg therefore, once for all, that no offence may be taken at charging this or other metaphysical notions with absurdity, or with being contrary to the common sense of mankind. No disparagement is meant to the understandings of the authors or maintainers of such opinions. Indeed, they commonly proceed, not from defect of understanding, but from an excess of refinement the reasoning that leads to them often gives new light to the subject, and shews real genius and deep penetration in the author; and the premises do more than atone for the conclusion. If there are certain principles, as I think there are, which the constitution of our nature leads us to believe, and which we are under a necessity to take for granted in the common concerns of life, without being able to give a reason for them-these are what we call the principles of common sense; and what is manifestly contrary to them, is what we call absurd. Indeed, if it is true, and to be received as a principle of philosophy, that sensation and thought may be without a thinking being, it must be acknowledged to be the most wonderful discovery that this or any other age hath produced. The received doctrine of ideas is the principle from which it is deduced, and of which indeed it seems to be a just and natural consequence. And it is probable, that it would not have been so late a discovery, but that it is so shocking and repugnant to the common apprehensions of mankind, that it required an uncommon degree of philosophical intrepidity to usher it into the world. It is a fundamental principle of the ideal system, that every object of thought must be an impression or an idea-that is, a faint copy of some preceding impression. This is a principle so commonly received, that the author above mentioned, although his whole system is built upon it, never offers the least proof of it. It is upon this principle, as a fixed point, that he erects his metaphysical engines, to overturn heaven and earth, body and spirit. And, indeed, in my apprehension, it is altogether sufficient for the purpose. For, if impressions and ideas are the only objects of thought, then heaven and earth, and body and spirit, and everything you please, must signify only impressions and ideas, or they must be words without any meaning. It seems, therefore, that this notion, however strange, is closely connected with the received doctrine of ideas, and we must either admit the conclusion, or call in question the premises. Ideas seem to have something in their nature unfriendly to other existences. They were first introduced into philosophy, in the humble character of images or representatives of things; and in this character they seemed not only to be inoffensive, but to serve admirably well for explaining the operations of the human understanding, But, since men began to reason clearly and distinctly about them, they have by degrees supplanted their constituents, and undermined the existence of everything but themselves. First, they discarded all secondary qualities of bodies; and it was found out by their means, that fire is not hot, nor snow cold, nor honey sweet; and, in a word, that heat and cold, sound, colour, taste, and smell, are nothing but ideas or impressions. Bishop Berkeley advanced them a step higher, and found out, by just reasoning from the same principles, that extension, solidity, space, figure, and body, are ideas, and that there is nothing in nature but ideas and spirits. But the triumph of ideas was completed by the "Treatise of Human Nature," which discards spirits also, and leaves ideas and impressions as the sole existences in the universe. What if, at last, having nothing else to contend with, they should fall foul of one another, and leave no existence in nature at all? This would surely bring philosophy into danger; for what should we have left to talk or to dispute about? However, hitherto these philosophers acknowledge the existence of impressions and ideas; they acknowledge certain laws of attraction, or rules of precedence, according to which, ideas and impressions range themselves in various forms, and succeed one another: but that they should belong to a mind, as its proper goods and chattels, this they have found to be a vulgar error. These ideas are as free and independent as the birds of the air, or as Epicurus's atoms when they pursued their journey in the vast inane. Shall we conceive them like the films of things in the Epicurean system? Principio hoe dico, rerum simulacra vagari, Multa modis multis, in cunctas undique parteis Tenuia, quæ fcile inter se junguntur in auris, Utvia cum veniunt.-LUCH. Or do they rather resemble Aristotle's intelligible species, after they are shot forth from the object, and before they have yet struck upon the passive intellect? But why should we seek to compare them with anything, since there is nothing in nature but themselves? They make the whole furni ture of the universe; starting into existence, or out of it, without any cause; combining into parcels, which the vulgar call minds; and succeeding one another by fixed laws, without time, place, or author of those laws. Yet, after all, these self-existent and independent ideas look pitifully naked and destitute, when left thus alone in the universe, and seem, upon the whole, to be in a worse condition than they were before. Des Cartes, Malebranche, and Locke, as they made much use of ideas, treated them handsomely, and provided them in decent accommodation; lodging them either in the pineal gland, or in the pure intellect, or even in the divine mind. They moreover clothed them with a commission, and made them representatives of things, which gave them some dignity and character. But the "Treatise of Human Nature," though no less indebted to them, seems to have made but a bad return, by bestowing upon them this independent existence; since thereby they are turned out of house and home, and set adrift in the world, without friend or connection, without a rag to cover their nakedness; and who knows but the whole system of ideas may perish by the indiscreet zeal of their friends to exalt them? However this may be, it is certainly a most amazing discovery that thought and ideas may be without any thinking being -a discovery big with consequences which cannot easily be traced by those deluded mortals who think and reason in the common track. We were always apt to imagine, that thought supposed a thinker, and love a lover, and treason a traitor: but this, it seems, was all a mistake; and it is found out, that there may be treason without a traitor, and love without a lover, laws without a legislator, and punishment without a sufferer, succession without time, and motion without anything moved, or space in which it may move: or if, in these cases, ideas are the lover, the sufferer, the traitor, it were to be wished that the author of this discovery had farther condescended to acquaint us whether ideas can converse together, and be under obligations of duty or gratitude to each other; whether they can make promises and enter into leagues and covenants, and fulfil or break them, and be punished for the breach. If one set of ideas makes a covenant, another breaks it, and a third is punished for it, there is rea son to think that justice is no natural virtue in this system. continues the same identical self when all his ideas and impressions are changed. It is impossible to trace the origin of this opinion in history; for all languages have it interwoven in their original construction. All nations have always believed it. The constitution of all laws and governments, as well as the common transactions of life, suppose it. It is no less impossible for any man to recollect when he himself came by this notion; for, as far back as we can remem It seemed very natural to think, that the "Treatise of Human Nature" required an author, and a very ingenious one too; but now we learn that it is only a set of ideas which came together and arranged themselves by certain associations and attractions. After all, this curious system appears not to be fitted to the present state of human nature. How far it may suit some choice spirits, who are refined from the dregs of common sense, I cannot say. It is acknowledged, I think, that even these can enter into this system ouly in their most specula-ber, we were already in possession of it, tive hours, when they soar so high in pursuit of those self-existent ideas as to lose sight of all other things. But when they condescend to mingle again with the human race, and to converse with a friend, a companion, or a fellow-citizen, the ideal system vanishes; common sense, like an irresistible torrent, carries them along; and, in spite of all their reasoning and philosophy, they believe their own existence, and the existence of other things. Indeed, it is happy they do so; for, if they should carry their closet belief into the world, the rest of mankind would consider them as diseased, and send them to an infirmary. Therefore, as Plato required certain previous qualifications of those who entered his school, I think it would be prudent for the doctors of this ideal philosophy to do the same, and to refuse admittance to every man who is so weak as to imagine that he ought to have the same belief in solitude and in company, or that his principles ought to have any influence upon his practice; for this philosophy is like a hobby-horse, which a man in bad health may ride in his closet, without hurting his reputation; but, if he should take him abroad with him to church, or to the exchange, or to the play-house, his heir would immediately call a jury, and scize his estate. Section VII. THE CONCEPTION AND BELIEF OF A SENTIENT and as fully persuaded of our own existence, And But by what rules of logic we make these inferences, it is impossible to shew; nay, it is impossible to shew how our sensations and thoughts can give us the very notion and conception either of a mind or of a faculty. The faculty of smelling is something very different from the actual sensation of smelling; for the faculty may remain when we have no sensation. the mind is no less different from the faculty; for it continues the same individual being when that faculty is lost. Yet this sensation suggests to us both a faculty and a mind; and not only suggests the notion of them, but creates a belief of their existence; although it is impossible to discover, by reason, any tie or connection between one and the other. What shall we say, then? Either those inferences which we draw from our sensa BEING OR MIND IS SUGGESTED BY OUR tions—namely, the existence of a mind, CONSTITUTION-THE NOTION OF RELA- Leaving this philosophy, therefore, to those who have occasion for it, and can use it discreetly as a chamber exercise, we may still inquire how the rest of mankind, and even the adepts themselves, except in some solitary moments, have got so strong and irresistible a belief, that thought must have a subject, and be the act of some thinking being; how every man believes himself to be something distinct from his ideas and impressions-something which and of powers or faculties belonging to it— are prejudices of philosophy or education, mere fictions of the mind, which a wise man should throw off as he does the belief of fairies; or they are judgments of nature—* judgments not got by comparing ideas, and perceiving agreements and disagreements, but immediately inspired by our constitution. If this last is the case, as I apprehend it is, it will be impossible to shake off those opinions, and we must yield to them at last, though we struggle hard to get rid of them. And if we could, by a determined obstinacy, shake off the principles of our nature, this is not to act the philosopher, but the fool or the madman. It is incumbent upon those who think that these are not natural principles, to shew, in the first place, how we can otherwise get the notion of a mind and its faculties; and then to shew how we come to deceive ourselves into the opinion that sensation cannot be without a sentient being. It is true that this suggestion is not natural and original; it is the result of experience and habit. But I think it appears, from what hath been said, that there are natural suggestions: particularly, that sensation suggests the notion of present exist. ence, and the belief that what we perceive or feel does now exist; that memory suggests the notion of past existence, and the It is the received doctrine of philosophers, belief that what we remember did exist in that our notions of relations can only be time past; and that our sensations and got by comparing the related ideas: but, thoughts do also suggest the notion of a in the present case, there seems to be mind, and the belief of its existence, and of an instance to the contrary. It is not by its relation to our thoughts. By a like having first the notions of mind and sensa- natural principle it is, that a beginning of tion, and then comparing them together, existence, or any change in nature, sugthat we perceive the one to have the rela-gests to us the notion of a cause, and comtion of a subject or substratum, and the other that of an act or operation: on the contrary, one of the related things-to wit, sensation-suggests to us both the correlate and the relation. I beg leave to make use of the word suggestion, because I know not one more proper, to express a power of the mind, which seems entirely to have escaped the notice of philosophers, and to which we owe many of our simple notions which are neither impressions nor ideas, as well as many original principles of belief. I shall endeavour to illustrate, by an example, what I understand by this word. We all know, that a certain kind of sound suggests immediately to the mind, a coach passing in the street; and not only produces the imagination, but the belief, that a coach is passing. Yet there is here no comparing of ideas, no perception of agreements or disagreements, to produce this belief: nor is there the least similitude between the sound we hear and the coach we imagine and believe to be passing." "The word suggest" (says Mr Stewart, in refer. ence to the preceding passage) "is much used by Berkeley, in this appropriate and technical sense, not only in his Theory of Vision,' but in his Principles of Human Knowledge,' and in his Minute Philosopher.' It expresses, indeed, the cardinal principle on which his Theory of Vision' hinges, and is now so incorporated with some of our best metaphysical speculations, that one cannot easily conceive how the use of it was so long dispensed with Locke uses the word ercite for the same purpose; but it seems to imply an hypothesis concerning the mechanism of the mind, and by no means expresses the tact in question, with the same force and precision. "It is remarkable, that Dr Reid should have thought it incumbent on him to apologise for introducing into philosophy a word so familiar to every person conversant with Berkeley's works. I beg leave to make use of the word suggestion, because,' &c. So far Dr Reid's use of the word coincides exactly with that of Berkeley; but the former will be found to annex to it a meaning more extensive than the latter, by employing it to comprehend, not only these intima ions which are the result of experience ant habit; but another class of intimations (quite overlooked by Berkeley,) those which reult from the original frame of the human mind."-Disserta. pels our belief of its existence. And, in like manner, as shall be shewn when we come to the sense of touch, certain seusations of touch, by the constitution of our nature, suggest to us extension, solidity, and motion, which are no nowise like to sensations, although they have been hitherto confounded with them.* tion on the History of Metaphysical and Ethical Science. P. 167. Second edition Mr Stewart might have adduced, perhaps, a higher and, certainly, a more proxima e authority, in favour, not merely of the term in general, but of Reid's restricted employment of it, as an intimation of what he and others have designated the Common Sense of mankind. The following sentence of Tertullian contains a singular anticipation, both of the philosophy and of the philosophical phraseology of Speaking of the universal belief of the soul's immortality:-" Natura pleraque sugger. untur, quasi de publico sen‹u quo animam Deus di. tare dignatus est."-DE ANIMA, C. 2. our author. Some strictures on Reid's employment of the term suggestion may be seen in the "Versuche" of Tetens, I., p. 508, sqq. —H. tion This last statement is not historically correct. But, waving this, there may be adduced, in illustra of the two last paragraphs, the following remarkable passage from St Augustine:—“ AU. Recte fortasse exis'imas. Sed responde obsecro, utrum omne quod per visum cognoscimus, videamus. EV. Ita credo. AU. Credis etiam omne quod videndo cognoscimus, per visum nos cognoscere? V. Et hoc credo. AU. Cur ergo plerumque fumum solum videndo, ignem subter latere cognoscimus quem non videmus? EV Verum dicis. Et jam non puto nos videre quicquid per visum cognoscimus: possu. mus enim, ut docuisti, aliud videndo aliud cognoscere quod visus non attigerit. AU Quid, illud quod per Visum sentimus, possumusne non videre? Ev. Nullo modo. AU. Aliud est ergo sentire, aliud cognos ere, V. Omnino al ud, nam sentimus fumum quem videmus, et ex eo ignem quem non videmus, subesse cognoscimus. A. Bene intelligis Sed vile, erte cum hoc accidit, corpus nostrum, id est oculos, nihil pati ex igne, sed ex fumo quem solum vident. Etenim videre sentire, et sentire pati esse, iam supra consensimus. EV. Teneo, & assentior. AU. Cum ergo per passionem corporis non latet al quid animam, non continuo sensus vocatur unus de quinque memoratis, sed cum ipsa passio non latet: namque ille ignis non visus, nec auditus, nec olfactus, nec gustatus, nec tactus a nobis, non tamen latet animam fumo viso. Et cum boc non latere non vocetur sen us, quia ex igne corpus nihil est pa-sum, vocatur tamen cognitio ner sensum, quia ex passione corporis quamvis alia, id est ex alterius rei visione, conjectatum est atque compertum. V. Intelligo, et optime video is ud congruere ac favere il definitioni tuæ, quam ut meam mihi defendendam dedisti: nam ita memini esse abs te sensum definitum, cum animam non latet quod patitur corpus. Itaque illud quod fumus videtur, Section VIII. THERE IS A QUALITY OR VIRTUE IN BODIES, WHICH WE CALL THEIR SMELL-HOW THIS IS CONNECTED IN THE IMAGINATION WITH THE SENSATION. We have considered smell as signifying a sensation, feeling, or impression upon the mind; and in this sense, it can only be in a mind, or sentient being: but it is evident that mankind give the name of smell much more frequently to something which they conceive to be external, and to be a quality of body: they understand something by it which does not at all infer a mind; and have not the least difficulty in conceiving the air perfumed with aromatic odours in the deserts of Arabia, or in some uninhabited island, where the human foot never trod. Every sensible day-labourer hath as clear a notion of this, and as full a conviction of the possibility of it, as he hath of his own existence; and can no more doubt of the one than of the other. Suppose that such a man meets with a modern philosopher, and wants to be informed what smell in plants is. The philosopher tells him, that there is no smell in plants, nor in anything but in the mind; that it is impossible there can be smell but in a mind; and that all this hath been demonstrated by modern philosohy. The plain man will, no doubt, be apt to think him merry: but, if he finds that he is serious, his next conclusion will be that he is mad; or that philosophy, like magic, puts men into a new world, and gives them different faculties from common men. And thus philosophy and common sense are set at variance. But who is to blame for it? In my opinion the philosopher is to blame. For if he means by smell, what the rest of mankind most commonly mean, he is certainly mad. But if he puts a different meaning upon the word, without observing it himself, or giving warning to others, he abuses language and disgraces philosophy, without doing any service to truth: as if a man should exchange the meaning of the words daughter and cow, and then endeavour to prove to his plain neighbour, that his cow is his daughter, and his daughter his cow. I believe there is not much more wisdom in many of those paradoxes of the ideal philosophy, which to plain sensible men appear to be palpable absurdities, but with the adepts pass for profound discoveries. I sensum vocamus; passi sunt enim cum oculi videndo qui sunt corporis partes et corpora; ignem autem ex quo nihil corpus est possum, quamvis cognitus fuerit, sensum non vocamus.-D QUANTITATE ANIME, C. xxiv. 45.-H. resolve, for my own part, always to pay a great regard to the dictates of common sense, and not to depart from them without absolute necessity: and, therefore, I am apt to think that there is really something in the rose or lily, which is by the vulgar called smell, and which continues to exist when it is not smelled: and shall proceed to inquire what this is; how we come by the notion of it; and what relation this quality or virtue of smell hath to the sensation which we have been obliged to call by the same name, for want of another. Let us therefore suppose, as before, a person beginning to exercise the sense of smelling; a little experience will discover to him, that the nose is the organ of this sense, and that the air, or something in the air, is a medium of it. And finding, by farther experience, that, when a rose is near, he has a certain sensation, when it is removed, the sensation is gone, he finds a connection in nature betwixt the rose and and this sensation. The rose is considered as a cause, occasion, or antecedent of the sensation; the sensation as an effect or consequence of the presence of the rose; they are associated in the mind, and constantly found conjoined in the imagination. more But here it deserves our notice, that, although the sensation may seem closely related to the mind its subject, or to the nose its organ, yet neither of these connections operate so powerfully upon the imagination as its connection with the rose its concomitant. The reason of this seems to be that its connection with the mind is more general, and noway distinguisheth it from other smells, or even from tastes, sounds, and other kinds of sensations. The relation it hath to the organ is likewise general, and doth not distinguish it from other smells; but the connection it hath with the rose is special and constant; by which means they become almost inseparable in the imagination, in like manner as thunder and lightning, freezing and cold. Section IX. THAT THERE IS A PRINCIPLE IN HUMAN NATURE, FROM WHICH THE NOTION OF THIS, AS WELL AS ALL OTHER NATURAL VIRTUES OR CAUSES, IS DERIVED. In order to illustrate further how we come to conceive a quality or virtue in the rose which we call smell, and what this smell is, it is proper to observe, that the mind begins very early to thirst after principles which may direct it in the exertion of its powers. The smell of a rose is a certain affection or feeling of the mind; and, as it is not constant. but comes and |