more uncommon, which is said to be produced by Gastriloquists-that is, persons who have acquired the art of modifying their voice, so that it shall affect the ear of the hearers, as if it came from another person, or from the clouds, or from under the earth I never had the fortune to be acquainted with any of these artists, and therefore cannot say to what degree of perfection the art may have been carried. I apprehend it to be only such an imperfect imitation as may deceive those who are inattentive, or under a panic. For, if it could be carried to perfection, a Gastriloquist would be as dangerous a man in society as was the shepherd Gyges,* who, by turning a ring upon his finger, could make himself invisible, and, by that means, from being the king's shepherd, became King of Lydia. [299] If the Gastriloquists have all been too good men to use their talent to the detriment of others, it might at least be expected that some of them should apply it to their own advantage. If it could be brought to any considerable degree of perfection, it seems to be as proper an engine for drawing money by the exhibition of it, as legerdemain or rope-dancing. But I have never heard of any exhibition of this kind, and therefore am apt to think that it is too coarse an imitation to bear exhibition, even to the vulgar. rance of the laws of nature, are more numerous and more remarkable than those of hearing. The rays of light, which are the means of seeing, pass in right lines from the object to the eye, when they meet with no obstruction; and we are by nature led to conceive the visible object to be in the direction of the rays that come to the eye. But the rays may be reflected, refracted, or inflected in their passage from the object to the eye, according to certain fixed laws of nature, by which means their direction may be changed, and consequently the apparent place, figure, or magnitude of the object. Thus, a child seeing himself in a mirror, thinks he sees another child behind the mirror, that imitates all his motions. But even a child soon gets the better of this deception, and knows that he sees himself only. All the deceptions made by telescopes, microscopes, camera obscuras, magic lanthorns, are of the same kind, though not so familiar to the vulgar. The ignorant may be deceived by them; but to those who are acquainted with the principles of optics, they give just and true information; and the laws of nature by which they are produced, are of infinite benefit to mankind. There remains another class of errors, commonly called deceptions of sense, and the only one, as I apprehend, to which that name can be given with propriety: I mean such as proceed from some disorder or pre or of the nerves and brain, which are internal organs of perception. Some are said to have the art of imitating the voice of another so exactly that internatural state, either of the external organ the dark they might be taken for the person whose voice they imitate. I am apt to think that this art also, in the relations made of it, is magnified beyond the truth, as wonderful relations are apt to be, and that an attentive ear would be able to distinguish the copy from the original. It is indeed a wonderful instance of the accuracy as well as of the truth of our senses, in things that are of real use in life, that we are able to distinguish all our acquaintance by their countenance, by their voice, and by their handwriting, when, at the same time, we are often unable to say by what minute difference the distinction is made; and that we are so very rarely deceived in matters of this kind, when we give proper attention to the informations of sense. However, if any case should happen, in which sounds produced by different causes are not distinguishable by the ear, this may prove that our senses are imperfect, but not that they are fallacious. The ear may not be able to draw the just conclusion, but it is only our ignorance of the laws of sound that leads us to a wrong conclusion. [300] Deceptions of sight, arising from igno *See Cicero, De Officiis. The story told by Herodotus is different.-H. In a delirium or in madness, perception, memory, imagination, and our reasoning powers, are strangely disordered and confounded. There are likewise disorders which affect some of our senses, while others are sound. Thus, a man may feel pain in his toes after the leg is cut off. He may feel a little ball double by crossing his fingers. [301] He may see an object double, by not directboth eyes properly to it. By pressing the ball of his eye, he may see colours that are not real. By the jaundice in his eyes, he may mistake colours. These are more properly deceptions of sense than any of the classes before mentioned. We must acknowledge it to be the lot of human nature, that all the human faculties are liable, by accidental causes, to be hurt and unfitted for their natural functions, either wholly or in part: but as this imperfection is common to them all, it gives no just ground for accounting any of them fallacious. Upon the whole, it seems to have been a common error of philosophers to account the senses fallacious. And to this error they have added another-that one use of reason is to detect the fallacies of sense. It appears, I think, from what has been said, that there is no more reason to account our senses fallacious, than our reason, our memory, or any other faculty of judging which nature hath given us. They are all limited and imperfect; but wisely suited to the present condition of man. We are liable to error and wrong judgment in the use of them all; but as little in the informations of sense as in the deductions of reasoning. And the errors we fall into with regard to objects of sense are not corrected by reason, but by more accurate attention to the informations we may receive by our senses themselves. Perhaps the pride of philosophers may have given occasion to this error. Reason is the faculty wherein they assume a superiority to the unlearned. The informations of sense are common to the philosopher and to the most illiterate: they put all men upon a level; and therefore are apt to be undervalued. We must, however, be beholden to the informations of sense for the greatest and most interesting part of our knowledge. [302] The wisdom of nature has made the most useful things most common, and they ought not to be despised on that account. Nature likewise forces our belief in those informations, and all the attempts of philosophy to weaken it are fruitless and vain. I add only one observation to what has been said upon this subject. It is, that there seems to be a contradiction between what philosophers teach concerning ideas, and their doctrine of the fallaciousness of the senses. We are taught that the office of the senses is only to give us the ideas of external objects. If this be so, there can be no fallacy in the senses. Ideas can neither be true nor false. If the senses testify nothing, they cannot give false testimony. If they are not judging faculties, no judgment can be imputed to them, whether false or true. There is, therefore, a contradiction between the common doctrine concerning ideas and that of the fallaciousness of the senses. Both may be false, as I believe they are, but both cannot be true. [303] CHAPTER I. ESSAY III. OF MEMORY. THINGS OBVIOUS AND CERTAIN WITH REGARD TO MEMORY. In the gradual progress of man, from infancy to maturity, there is a certain order in which his faculties are unfolded, and this seems to be the best order we can follow in treating of them. The external senses appear first; memory soon follows-which we are now to consider. It is by memory that we have an immediate knowledge of things past." The senses give us information of things only as they exist in the present moment; and this information, if it were not preserved by memory, would vanish instantly, and leave us as ignorant as if it had never been. Memory must have an object. Every man who remembers must remember some In thing, and that which he remembers is called the object of his remembrance. this, memory agrees with perception, but differs from sensation, which has no object but the feeling itself." [304] Every man can distinguish the thing remembered from the remembrance of it. We may remember anything which we have seen, or heard, or known, or done, or suffered; but the remembrance of it is a particular act of the mind which now exists, and of which we are conscious. To confound these two is an absurdity, which a thinking man could not be led into, but by some false hypothesis which hinders him from reflecting upon the thing which he would explain by it. In memory we do not find such a train of operations connected by our constitution as in perception. When we perceive an object by our senses, there is, first, some impression made by the object upon the organ of sense, either immediately, or by means of some medium. By this, an im An immediate knowledge of a past thing is a contradiction. For we can only know a thing imme. * But have we only such a mediate knowledge of diately, if we know it in itself, or as existing; but the real object in perception, as we have of the real what is past cannot be known in itself, for it is non-object in memory? On Reid's error, touching the existent.-H. object of memory, see, in general, Note B.-H. pression is made upon the nerves and brain, in consequence of which we feel some sensation; and that sensation is attended by that conception and belief of the external object which we call perception. These operations are so connected in our constitution, that it is difficult to disjoin them in our conceptions, and to attend to each without confounding it with the others. But, in the operations of memory, we are free from this embarrassment; they are easily distinguished from all other acts of the mind, and the names which denote them are free from all ambiguity. The object of memory, or thing remembered, must be something that is past; as the object of perception and of consciousness must be something which is present. What now is, cannot be an object of memory; neither can that which is past and gone be an object of perception or of consciousness. Memory is always accompanied with the belief of that which we remember, as perception is accompanied with the belief of that which we perceive, and consciousness with the belief of that whereof we are conscious. Perhaps in infancy, or in a disorder of mind, things remembered may be confounded with those which are merely imagined; but in mature years, and in a sound state of mind, every man feels that he must believe what he distinctly remembers, though he can give no other reason of his belief, but that he remembers the thing distinctly; whereas, when he merely imagines a thing ever so distinctly, he has no belief of it upon that account. [305] This belief, which we have from distinct memory, we account real knowledge, no less certain than if it was grounded on demonstration; no man in his wits calls it in question, or will hear any argument against it. The testimony of witnesses in causes of life and death depends upon it, and all the knowledge of mankind of past events is built on this foundation. There are cases in which a man's memory is less distinct and determinate, and where he is ready to allow that it may have failed him; but this does not in the least weaken its credit, when it is perfectly distinct. Memory implies a conception and belief of past duration; for it is impossible that a man should remember a thing distinctly, without believing some interval of duration, more or less, to have passed between the time it happened, and the present moment; and I think it is impossible to shew how we could acquire a notion of duration if we had no memory. Things remembered must be things formerly perceived or * But see below, p. 362.-H. | known. I remember the transit of Venus over the sun in the year 1769. I, must therefore have perceived it at the time it happened, otherwise I could not now remember it. Our first acquaintance with any object of thought cannot be by remembrance. Memory can only produce a continuance or renewal of a former acquaintance with the thing remembered. The remembrance of a past event is necessarily accompanied with the conviction of our own existence at the time the event happened. I cannot remember a thing that happened a year ago, without a conviction as strong as memory can give, that I, the same identical person who now remember that event, did then exist. [306] What I have hitherto said concerning memory, I consider as principles which appear obvious and certain to every man who will take the pains to reflect upon the operations of his own mind. They are facts of which every man must judge by what he feels; and they admit of no other proof but an appeal to every man's own reflection. I shall therefore take them for granted in what follows, and shall, first, draw some conclusions from them, and then examine the theories of philosophers concerning memory, and concerning duration, and our personal identity, of which we acquire the knowledge by memory. CHAPTER II. MEMORY AN ORIGINAL FACULTY. FIRST, I think it appears, that memory is an original faculty, given us by the Author of our being, of which we can give no account, but that we are so made. The knowledge which I have of things past, by my memory, seems to me as unaccountable as an immediate knowledge would be of things to come; and I can give no reason why I should have the one and not the other, but that such is the will of my Maker. I find in my mind a distinct conception, and a firm belief of a series of past events; but how this is produced I know not. I call it memory, but this is only giving a name to it—it is not an account of its cause. I believe most firmly, what I distinctly remember; but I can *An immediate knowledge of things to come, is equally a contradiction as an immediate knowledge of things past. See the first note of last page. But if, as Reid himself allows, memory depend upon certain enduring affections of the brain, determined by past cognition, it seems a strange assertion, on this as on other accounts, that the possibility of a knowledge of the future is not more inconceivable than of a knowledge of the past. Maupertuis, however, has advanced a similar doctrine; and some, also, of the advocates of animal magnetism.-H. give no reason of this belief. It is the inspiration of the Almighty that gives me this understanding. [307] When I believe the truth of a mathematical axiom, or of a mathematical proposition, I see that it must be so: every man who has the same conception of it sees the same. There is a necessary and an evident connection between the subject and the predicate of the proposition; and I have all the evidence to support my belief which I can possibly conceive.< and the thing that exists, because there is no such necessary agreement; and therefore no such agreement can be perceived either immediately or by a chain of reasoning. The thing does not exist necessarily, but by the will and power of him that made it; and there is no contradiction follows from supposing it not to exist. Whence I think it follows, that our knowledge of the existence of our own thoughts, of the existence of all the material objects about us, and of all past contingencies, must be derived, not from a perception of necessary relations or agreements, but from some other source. When I believe that I washed my hands and face this morning, there appears no necessity in the truth of this proposition. It might be, or it might not be. A man may Our Maker has provided other means for distinctly conceive it without believing it at giving us the knowledge of these thingsall. How then do I come to believe it? I mean's which perfectly answer their end, remember it distinctly. This is all I can and produce the effect intended by them. say. This remembrance is an act of my But in what manner they do this, is, I fear, mind. Is it impossible that this act should beyond our skill to explain. We know our be, if the event had not happened? I con- own thoughts, and the operations of our fess I do not see any necessary connection minds, by a power which we call consciousbetween the one and the other. If any man ness: but this is only giving a name to this can shew such a necessary connection, then part of our frame. It does not explain its I think that belief which we have of what fabric, nor how it produces in us an irrewe remember will be fairly accounted for; sistible conviction of its informations. but, if this cannot be done, that belief is un- perceive material objects and their sensible accountable, and we can say no more but qualities by our senses; but how they give that it is the result of our constitution. us this information, and how they produce our belief in it, we know not. We know many past events by memory; but how it gives this information, I believe, is inexplicable. We Perhaps it may be said, that the experience we have had of the fidelity of memory is a good reason for relying upon its testimony. I deny not that this may be a reason to those who have had this expeIt is well known what subtile disputes rience, and who reflect upon it. But I be- were held through all the scholastic ages, lieve there are few who ever thought of this and are still carried on about the prescience reason, or who found any need of it. It of the Deity. [309] Aristotle had taught must be some very rare occasion that leads that there can be no certain foreknowledge a man to have recourse to it; and in those of things contingent; and in this he has who have done so, the testimony of memory been very generally followed, upon no other was believed before the experience of its grounds, as I apprehend, but that we canfidelity, and that belief could not be caused not conceive how such things should be by the experience which came after it. foreknown, and therefore conclude it to be impossible. Hence has arisen an opposition and supposed inconsistency between divine prescience and human liberty. Some have given up the first in favour of the last, and others have given up the last in order to support the first. We know some abstract truths, by comparing the terms of the proposition which expresses them, and perceiving some necessary relation or agreement between them. It is thus I know that two and three make five; that the diameters of a circle are all equal. [308] Mr Locke having discovered this source of knowledge, too rashly concluded that all human knowledge might be derived from it; and in this he has been followed very generally-by Mr Hume in particular. But I apprehend that our knowledge of the existence of things contingent can never be traced to this source. I know that such a thing exists, or did exist. This know ledge cannot be derived from the perception of a necessary agreement between existence "The inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding."-JOB.-H. It is remarkable that these disputants have never apprehended that there is any difficulty in reconciling with liberty the knowledge of what is past, but only of what is future. It is prescience only, and not memory, that is supposed to be hostile to liberty, and hardly reconcileable to it. Yet I believe the difficulty is perfectly equal in the one case and in the other. I admit, that we cannot account for prescience of the actions of a free agent. But I maintain that we can as little account for me. mory of the past actions of a free agent. If any man thinks he can prove that the actions of a free agent cannot be foreknown, he will find the same arguments of equal force to prove that the past actions of a free agent cannot be remembered.⚫ It is true, that what is past did certainly exist. It is no less true that what is future will certainly exist. I know no reasoning from the constitution of the agent, or from his circumstances, that has not equal strength, whether it be applied to his past or to his future actions. The past was, but now is not. The future will be, but now is not. The present is equally connected or unconnected with both. The only reason why men have apprehended so great disparity in cases so perfectly like, I take to be this, That the faculty of memory in ourselves convinces us from fact, that it is not impossible that an intelligent being, even a finite being, should have certain knowledge of past actions of free agents, without tracing them from anything necessarily connected with them. [310] But having no prescience in ourselves corresponding to our memory of what is past, we find great difficulty in admitting it to be possible even in the Supreme Being. A faculty which we possess in some degree, we easily admit that the Supreme Being may possess in a more perfect degree; but a faculty which has nothing corresponding to it in our constitution, we will hardly allow to be possible. We are so constituted as to have an intuitive knowledge of many things past; but we have no intuitive knowledge of the future.+ We might perhaps have been so constituted as to have an intuitive knowledge of the future; but not of the past; nor would this constitution have been more unaccountable than the present, though it might be much more inconvenient. Had this been our constitution, we should have found no difficulty in admitting that the Deity may know all things future, but very much in admitting his knowledge of things that are past. Our original faculties are all unaccountable. Of these memory is one. He only who made them, comprehends fully how they are made, and how they produce in us not only a conception, but a firm belief and assurance of things which it concerns us to know. * This is a marvellous doctrine. The difficulty in the two cases is not the same. The past, as past, whether it has been the action of a free agent or not, is now necessary; and, though we may be unable to understand how it can be remembered, the supposi tion of its remembrance involves no contradiction. On the contrary, the future action of a free agent is ex hypothesi not a necessary event. But an event cannot be now certainly foreseen, except it is now certainly to be; and to say that what is certainly to be is not necessarily to be, seems a contradiction.-H. If by intuitive be meant immediate, such a know. ledge is impossible in either case; for we can know neither the past nor the future in themselves, but only in the present-that is, mediately.-H. CHAPTER III. OF DURATION. FROM the principles laid down in the first chapter of this Essay, I think it appears that our notion of duration, as well as our belief of it, is got by the faculty of memory. It is essential to everything remembered that it be something which is past; and we cannot conceive a thing to be past, without conceiving some duration, more or less, between it and the present. [311] As soon therefore as we remember anything, we must have both a notion and a 'belief of duration. It is necessarily suggested by every operation of our memory; and to that faculty it ought to be ascribed. This is, therefore, a proper place to consider what is known concerning it. Duration, Extension, and Number, are the measures of all things subject to mensuration. When we apply them to finite things which are measured by them, they seem of all things to be the most distinctly conceived, and most within the reach of human understanding. Extension having three dimensions, has an endless variety of modifications, capable of being accurately defined; and their various relations furnish the human mind with its most ample field of demonstrative reasoning. Duration having only one dimension, has fewer modifications; but these are clearly understood-and their relations admit of measure, proportion, and demonstrative reasoning. Number is called discrete quantity, because it is compounded of units, which are all equal and similar, and it can only be divided into units. This is true, in some sense, even of fractions of unity, to which we now commonly give the name of number. For, in every fractional number, the unit is supposed to be subdivided into a certain number of equal parts, which are the units of that denomination, and the fractions of that denomination are only divisible into units of the same denomination. Duration and extension are not discrete, but continued quantity. They consist of parts perfectly similar, but divisible without end. In order to aid our conception of the magnitude and proportions of the various intervals of duration, we find it necessary to give a name to some known portion of it, such as an hour, a day, a year. These we consider as units, and, by the number of them contained in a larger interval, we form a distinct conception of its magnitude. [312] A similar expedient we find necessary to give *Reid thus apparently makes Time an empirical or generalized notion.-H. |