short for want of light to carry them farther. Berkeley, frighted at the appearance of the dreadful abyss, starts aside, and avoids it. But the author of the "Treatise of Human Nature," more daring and intrepid, without turning aside to the right hand or to the left, like Virgil's Alecto, shoots directly into the gulf: "Hic specus horrendum, et sævi spiracula Ditis Monstrantur; ruptoque ingens Acheronte vorago Pestiferas aperit fauces." 4. We may observe, That the account given by the new system, of that furniture of the human understanding which is the gift of Nature, and not the acquisition of our own reasoning faculty, is extremely lame and imperfect. The natural furniture of the human understanding is of two kinds: First, The notions or simple apprehensions which we have of things; and, secondly, The judgments or the belief which we have concerning them. As to our notions, the new system reduces them to two classes-ideas of sensation, and ideas of reflection: the first are conceived to be copies of our sensations, retained in the memory or imagination; the second, to be copies of the operations of our minds whereof we are conscious, in like manner retained in the memory or imagination and we are taught that these two comprehend all the materials about which the human understanding is, or can be employed. As to our judgment of things, or the belief which we have concerning them, the new system allows no part of it to be the gift of nature, but holds it to be the acquisition of reason, and to be got by comparing our ideas, and perceiving their agreements or disagreements. Now I take this account, both of our notions, and of our judgments or belief, to be extremely imperfect; and I shall briefly point out some of its capital defects. : The division of our notions into ideas of sensation, and ideas of reflection, is contrary to all rules of logic; because the second member of the division includes the first. For, can we form clear and just notions of our sensations any other way than by reflection? Surely we cannot. Sensation is an operation of the mind of which we are conscious; and we get the notion of sensation by reflecting upon that which we are conscious of. In like manner, doubting and believing are operations of the mind whereof we are conscious; and we get the notion of them by reflecting upon what we are conscious of. The ideas of sensation, therefore, are ideas of reflection, The following summary refers principally to Locke.-H. It must be remembered that under Sensation Locke and others included Perception proper and Sensation proper.-H. as much as the ideas of doubting, or be lieving, or any other ideas whatsoever.* But, to pass over the inaccuracy of this division, it is extremely incomplete. For, since sensation is an operation of the mind, as well as all the other things of which we form our notions by reflection, when it is asserted that all our notions are either ideas of sensation or ideas of reflection, the plain English of this is, That mankind neither do nor can think of anything but of the operations of their own minds. Nothing can be more contrary to truth, or more contrary to the experience of mankind. I know that Locke, while he maintained this doctrine, believed the notions which we have of body and of its qualities, and the notions which we have of motion and of space, to be ideas of sensation. But Because he why did he believe this? believed those notions to be nothing else but images of our sensations. If, therefore, the notions of body and its qualities, of motion and space, be not images of our sensations, will it not follow that those notions are not ideas of sensation? Most certainly.† I do not see how this criticism on Locke's divi. sion can be defended, or even excused. It is perfectly evident that Reid here confounds the proper ideas of sensation-that is, the ideas of the qualities of matter, about which sensation (perception) is conversantwith the idea of sensation itself-that is, the idea of this faculty as an attribute of mind, and which is the object of a reflex consciousness. Nor would it be mediate knowledge of aught but of mind and its competent to maintain that Locke, allowing no imcontents, consequently reduces all our faculties to self-consciousness, and thus abolishes the distinction of sensation (perception) and reflection, as separate faculties, the one conversant with the qualities of the external world, the other with the qualities of the internal. For, in the first place, it would still be logically competent, on the hypothesis that all our knowledge is exclusively of self, to divide the ideas we possessed, into classes, according as these were given as representations of the non-ego by the ego, or as phænomena of the ego itself. In the se cond place, Reid's criticism does not admit of this excuse. But, in the third, if the defence were valid in itself, and here available, the philosophy of Reid himself would be obnoxiou to a similar criticism. For he makes perception (consequently the object known in perception) an object of consciousness; but con sciousness, in his view, is only of the phænomena of mind itself-all consciousness is to him self.consciousness. Thus, his perception, as contained under his consciousness, is only coguisant of the ego. With all this, however, Reid distinguishes perception and consciousness as special and co-ordinate faculties; perception being conversant about the qualities of matter, as suggested-that is, as represented in the percipien: subject-consciousness as conversant about perception and the other attributes of mind itself. compare Priestley's Examination," p 58, and -With the preceding observations, the reader may Stewart's" Philosophical Essays," Note N-H. I may here notice-what I shall hereafter more fully advert to that Reid's criticism of Locke, here and elsewhere, proceeds upon the implication that the English philosopher attached the same restricted meaning to the term Sensation that he did himself. But this is not the case. Locke employed Sensation to denote both the ideé and the sentiment of the Cartesians-both the perception and the sensation of Reid. To confound this distinction was, indeed, wrong, but this is a reparate and special ground of censure, and, in a general criticism of Locke's doc There is no doctrine in the new system which more directly leads to scepticism than this. And the author of the "Treatise of Human Nature" knew very well how to use it for that purpose; for, if you maintain that there is any such existence as body or spirit, time or place, cause or effect, he immediately catches you between the horns of this dilemma; your notions of these existences are either ideas of sensation, or ideas of reflection: if of sensation, from what sensation are they copied ? if of reflection, from what operation of the mind are they copied ? It is indeed to be wished that those who have written much about sensation, and about the other operations of the mind, had likewise thought and reflected much, and with great care, upon those operations; but is it not very strange that they will not allow it to be possible for mankind to think of anything else? The account which this system gives of our judgment and belief concerning things, is as far from the truth as the account it gives of our notions or simple apprehensions. It represents our senses as having no other office but that of furnishing the mind with notions or simple apprehensions of things; and makes our judgment and belief concerning those things to be acquired by comparing our notions together, and perceiving their agreements or disagreements. We have shewn, on the contrary, that every operation of the senses, in its very nature, implies judgment or belief, as well as simple apprehension. Thus, when I feel the pain of the gout in my toe, I have not only a notion of pain, but a belief of its existence, and a belief of some disorder in my toe which occasions it; and this belief is not produced by comparing ideas, and perceiving their agreements and disagree ments; it is included in the very nature of the sensation. When I perceive a tree before me, my faculty of seeing gives me not only a notion or simple apprehension of the tree, but a belief of its existence, and of its figure, distance, and magnitude; and this judgment or belief is not got by comparing ideas, it is included in the very nature of the perception. We have taken notice of several original principles of belief in the course of this inquiry; and trine, the fact that he did so confound perception proper and sensation proper, should always be taken into account. But, waving this, what is gained by the distinction in Reid's hands? In his doctrine, space, motion, &c., as perceived, are only conceptions, only modifications of self, suggested, in some unknown way, on occasion of the impression made on the sense: consequently, in the one doctrine as in the other, what is known is nothing beyond the affections of the thinking subject.itself; and this is the only basis required by the idealist and sceptic for the foundation of their systems.-H. when other faculties of the mind are examined, we shall find more, which have not occurred in the examination of the five senses. Such original and natural judgments are, therefore, a part of that furniture which Nature hath given to the human understanding. They are the inspiration of the Almighty, no less than our notions or simple apprehensions. They serve to direct us in the common affairs of life, where our reasoning faculty would leave us in the dark. They are a part of our constitution; and all the discoveries of our reason are grounded upon them. They make up what is called the common sense of mankind;* and, what is manifestly contrary to any of those first principles, is what we call absurd. The strength of them is good sense, which is often found in those who are not acute in reasoning. A remarkable deviation from them, arising from a disorder in the constitution, is what we call lunacy; as when a man believes that he is made of glass. When a man suffers himself to be reasoned out of the principles of common sense, by metaphysical arguments, we may call this metaphysical lunacy; which differs from the other species of the distemper in this, that it is not continued, but intermittent: it is apt to seize the patient in solitary and speculative moments; but, when he enters into society, Common Sense recovers her authority. A clear explication and enumeration of the principles of common sense, is one of the chief desiderata in logic. We have only considered such of them as occurred in the examination of the five senses. 5. The last observation that I shall make upon the new system, is, that, although it professes to set out in the way of reflection, and not of analogy, it hath retained some of the old analogical notions concerning the Sce Note A.-H. t No one admits this more promptly than the sceptic himself. See Hume's "Treatise of Human Concerning Human Understanding," 12, Part II. Nature," Book I, Part iv., 7, and Enquiry "Nature," says he in the latter, "is always too strong for principle; and, though a Pyrrhonian may throw himself or others into a momentary amazement and confusion by his profound reasonings, the first and most trivial event in life will put to flight all his point of action and speculation with the philosophers doubts and scruples, and leave him the same in every of every other sect, or with those who never con. cerned themselves in any philosophical researches. When he awakes from his dream, he will be the first to join in the laugh against himself, and to confess that all his objections are mere amusement, and can have no other tendency than to shew the whimsical condition of mankind, who must act, and reason, and believe, though they are not able, by their most diligent enquiry, to satisty themselves concerning the foundation of the operations, or to remove the objec tions which may be raised against them " "La Nature confond les Pyrrhoniens," (says Pascal,) et la Raison confond les Dogmatistes." How can philosophy be realized? is thus the grand question.-H. P operations of the mind; particularly, that things which do not now exist in the mind itself, an only be perceived, remembered, or imagined, by means of ideas or images of them in the mind, which are the immediate objects of perception, remembrance, and imagination. This doctrine appears evidently to be borrowed from the old system; which taught that external things make impressions upon the mind, like the impressions of a seal upon wax; that it is by means of those impressions that we perceive, remember, or imagine them; and that those impressions must resemble the things from which they are taken. When we form our notions of the operations of the mind by analogy, this way of conceiving them seems to be very natural, and offers itself to our thoughts; for, as everything which is felt must make some impression upon the body, we are apt to think that everything which is understood must make some impression upon the mind. sint ?" But Locke seems to place the ideas of sensible things in the mind; and that Berkeley, and the author of the "Treatise of Human Nature," were of the same opinion, is evident. The last makes a very curious application of this doctrine, by endeavouring to prove from it, That the mind either is no substance, or that it is an extended and divisible substance; because the ideas of extension cannot be in a subject which is indivisible and unextended. I confess I think his reasoning in this, as in most cases, is clear and strong. For whether the idea of extension be only another name for extension itself, as Berkeley and this author assert; or whether the idea of extension be an image and resemblance of extension, as Locke conceived; I appeal to any man of common sense, whether extension, or any image of extension, can be in an unextended and indivisible subject.+ But while I agree with him in his reasoning, I would make a differFrom such analogical reasoning, this ent application of it. He takes it for grantopinion of the existence of ideas or images ed, that there are ideas of extension in the of things in the mind, seems to have taken mind; and thence infers, that, if it is at all its rise, and to have been so universally a substance, it must be an extended and received among philosophers. It was ob- divisible substance. On the contrary, I served already, that Berkeley, in one in- take it for granted, upon the testimony of stance, apostatizes from this principle of common sense, that my mind is a substance the new system, by affirming that we have-that is, a permanent subject of thought; no ideas of spirits, and that we can think of them immediately, without ideas. But I know not whether in this he has had any followers. There is some difference, likewise, among modern philosophers with regard to the ideas or images by which we perceive, remember, or imagine sensible things. For, though all agree in the existence of such images,† they differ about their place; some placing them in a particular part of the brain, where the soul is thought to have her residence, and others placing them in the mind itself. Des Cartes held the first of these opinions; to which Newton seems likewise to have inclined; for he proposes this query in his " Optics :”—“ Annon sensorium animalium est locus cui substantia sentiens adest, et in quem sensibiles rerum species per nervos et cerebrum deferuntur, ut ibi præsentes a præsente sentiri pos That is, by representative entities different from the modes of the mind itself. This doctrine, I have already noticed, is attributed by Reid too universally to philosophers; and is also a comparatively unim. portant circumstance in reference to the Idealist and Sceptic. See Note C.-H. See last note. Berkeley dia hold the hypothesis of Ideas as understood by Reid.-H. An unqualified error, arising from not understanding the ambiguous language of Des Cartes; who calls, by the common name of Ideas, both the organic motions in the brain, of which the mind, in his doctrine, necessarily knows nothing, and the representations in the mind itself, hyperphysically determined on occasion of those motions, and of which he the mind is cognizant. But of this under the ways on the Intellectual Powers."—H, and my reason convinces me that it is an unextended and indivisible substance; and hence I infer that there cannot be in it anything that resembles extension. If this reasoning had occurred to Berkeley, it would probably have led him to acknow ledge that we may think and reason concerning bodies, without having ideas of them in the mind, as well as concerning spirits. I intended to have examined more particularly and fully this doctrine of the existence of ideas or images of things in the mind; and likewise another doctrine, which is founded upon it-to wit, That judgment or belief is nothing but a perception of the agreement or disagreement of our ideas; but, having already shewn, through the course of this inquiry, that the operations of the mind which we have examined, give no countenance to either of these doctrines, and in many things contradict them, I have thought it proper to drop this part of my design. It may be executed with more advantage, if it is at all necessary, after inquiring into some other powers of the human understanding. Locke's opinion on this point is as obscure and doubtful as that of Des Cartes is clear and certain. But Reid is probably right.-H +I do not recollect seeing any argument raised in favour of materialism, from the fact, that spice or extension is. a notion necessary to the mind; and yet it might, with some show of plausibility, be main tained, that extension is a necessary form of thought, because the thinking principle is itself extended-H. Although we have examined only the five senses, and the principles of the human mind which are employed about them, or such as have fallen in our way in the course of this examination, we shall leave the further prosecution of this inquiry to future deliberation. The powers of memory, of imagination, of taste, of reasoning, of moral perception, the will, the passions, the affections, and all the active powers of the soul, present a vast and boundless field of philosophical disquisition, which the author of this inquiry is far from thinking himself able to survey with accuracy. Many authors of ingenuity, ancient and modern, have made excursions into this vast territory, and have communicated useful observations: but there is reason to believe that those who have pretended to give us a map of the whole, have satisfied themselves with a very inaccurate and incomplete survey. If Galileo had attempted a complete system of natural philosophy, he had, probably, done little service to mankind: but by confining himself to what was within his comprehension, he laid the foundation of a system of knowledge, which rises by degrees, and does honour to the human understanding. Newton, building upon this foundation, and, in like manner, confining his inquiries to the law of gravitation and the properties of light, performed wonders. If he had attempted a great deal more, he had done a great deal less, and perhaps nothing at all. Ambitious of following such great examples, with unequal steps, alas! and unequal force, we have attempted an inquiry only into one little corner of the human mind— that corner which seems to be most exposed to vulgar observation, and to be most easily comprehended; and yet, if we have delineated it justly, it must be acknowledged that the accounts heretofore given of it were very lame, and wide of the truth. |