discover this. Thirdly, The man perceives that each of these planes has four equal sides and four equal angles; and that the opposite sides of each plane and the opposite planes are parallel.

To begin with the objects of sense. It is acknowledged, on all hands, that the first notions we have of sensible objects are got by the external senses only, and probably before judgment is brought forth; but these first notions are neither simple, nor are they accurate and distinct: they are gross and indistinct, and, like the chaos, a rudis indigestaque moles. Before we can have any distinct notion of this mass, it must be analysed; the heterogeneous parts must be separated in our conception, and the simple elements, which before lay hid in the common mass, must first be distinguished, and then put together into one whole.

In this way it is that we form distinct notions even of the objects of sense; but this process of analysis and composition, by habit, becomes so easy, and is performed so readily, that we are apt to overlook it, and to impute the distinct notion we have formed of the object to the senses alone; and this we are the more prone to do because, when once we have distinguished the sensible qualities of the object from one another, the sense gives testimony to each of them.

You perceive, for instance, an object white, round, and a foot in diameter. I grant that you perceive all these attributes of the object by sense; but, if you had not been able to distinguish the colour from the figure, and both from the magnitude, your senses would only have given you one complex and confused notion of all these mingled together.

A man who is able to say with understanding, or to determine in his own mind, that this object is white, must have distinguished whiteness from other attributes. If he has not made this distinction, he does not understand what he says. [512]

Suppose a cube of brass to be presented at the same time to a child of a year old and to a man. The regularity of the figure will attract the attention of both. Both have the senses of sight and of touch in equal perfection; and, therefore, if anything be discovered in this object by the man, which cannot be discovered by the child, it must be owing, not to the senses,

It will surely be allowed, that a man of ordinary judgment may observe all this in a cube which he makes an object of contemplation, and takes time to consider; that he may give the name of a square to a plane terminated by four equal sides and four equal angles; and the name of a cube to a solid terminated by six equal squares: all this is nothing else but analysing the figure of the object presented to his senses into its simplest elements, and again compounding it of those elements.

By this analysis and composition two effects are produced. First, From the one complex object which his senses presented, though one of the most simple the senses can present, he educes many simple and distinct notions of right lines, angles, plain surface, solid, equality, parallelism; notions which the child has not yet faculties to attain. Secondly, When he considers the cube as compounded of these elements, put together in a certain order, he has then, and not before, a distinct and scientific notion of a cube. The child neither conceives those elements, nor in what order they must be put together in order to make a cube; and, therefore, has no accurate notion of a cube which can make it a subject of reasoning. [513]

Whence I think we may conclude, that the notion which we have from the senses alone, even of the simplest objects of sense, is indistinct and incapable of being either described or reasoned upon, until it is analysed into its simple elements, and considered as compounded of those elements.

If we should apply this reasoning to more complex objects of sense, the conclusion would be still more evident. A dog may be taught to turn a jack, but he can never be taught to have a distinct notion of a jack. He sees every part as well as a man; but the relation of the parts to one another and to the whole, he has not judgment to comprehend.

A distinct notion of an object, even of sense, is never got in an instant; but the sense performs its office in an instant. Time is not required to see it better, but to analyse it, to distinguish the different parts, and their relation to one another and to the whole.

Hence it is that, when any vehement passion or emotion hinders the cool application of judgment, we get no distinct notion of an object, even though the sense be long directed to it. A man who is put into a panic, by thinking he sees a ghost, may stare at it long without having any distinct notion of it; it is his understanding, and not his sense, that is disturbed by his horror. If he can lay that aside, judgment immediately enters upon its office, and examines the length and breadth, the colour, and figure, and distance of the object. Of these, while his panic lasted, he had no distinct notion, though his eyes were open all the time.

When the eye of sense is open, but that of judgment shut by a panic, or any violent emotion that engrosses the mind, we see things confusedly, and probably much in the same manner that brutes and perfect idiots do, and infants before the use of judgment. [514]

There are, therefore, notions of the objects of sense which are gross and indistinct, and there are others that are distinct and scientific. The former may be got from the senses alone, but the latter cannot be obtained without some degree of judgment.

The clear and accurate notions which geometry presents to us of a point, a right line, an angle, a square, a circle, of ratios direct and inverse, and others of that kind, can find no admittance into a mind that has not some degree of judgment. They are not properly ideas of the senses, nor are they got by compounding ideas of the senses, but by analysing the ideas or notions we get by the senses into their simplest elements, and again combining these elements into various accurate and elegant forms, which the senses never did nor can exhibit.

Had Mr Hume attended duly to this, it ought to have prevented a very bold attempt, which he has prosecuted through fourteen pages of his "Treatise of Human Nature," to prove that geometry is founded upon ideas that are not exact, and axioms that are not precisely true.

A mathematician might be tempted to think that the man who seriously undertakes this has no great acquaintance with geometry; but I apprehend it is to be imputed to another cause, to a zeal for his own system. We see that even men of genius may be drawn into strange paradoxes, by an attachment to a favourite idol of the understanding, when it demands so costly a sacrifice.

We Protestants think that the devotees of the Roman Church pay no small tribute to her authority when they renounce their five senses in obedience to her decrees. Mr Hume's devotion to his system carries him

even to trample upon mathematical demonstration. [515]

The fundamental articles of his system are, that all the perceptions of the human mind are either impressions or ideas, and that ideas are only faint copies of impressions. The idea of a right line, therefore, is only a faint copy of some line that has been seen, or felt by touch; and the faint copy cannot be more perfect than the original. Now of such right lines, it is evident that the axioms of geometry are not precisely true; for two lines that are straight to our sight or touch may include a space, or they may meet in more points than one. If, therefore, we cannot form any notion of a straight line more accurate than that which we have from the senses of sight and touch, geometry has no solid foundation. If, on the other hand, the geometrical axioms are precisely true, the idea of a right line is not copied from any impression of sight or touch, but must have a different origin and a more perfect standard.

As the geometrician, by reflecting only upon the extension and figure of matter, forms a set of notions more accurate and scientific than any which the senses exhi bit, so the natural philosopher, reflecting upon other attributes of matter, forms another set, such as those of density, quantity of matter, velocity, momentum, fluidity, elasticity, centres of gravity, and of oscillation. These notions are accurate and scientific; but they cannot enter into a mind that has not some degree of judgment, nor can we make them intelligible to children, until they have some ripeness of understanding.

In navigation, the notions of latitude, longitude, course, leeway, cannot be made intelligible to children; and so it is with regard to the terms of every science, and of every art about which we can reason. They have had their five senses as perfect as men for years before they are capable of distinguishing, comparing, and perceiving the relations of things, so as to be able to form such notions. They acquire the intellectual powers by a slow progress, and by imperceptible degrees; and by means of them, learn to form distinct and accurate notions of things, which the senses could never have imparted. [516]

Having said so much of the notions we get from the senses alone of the objects of sense, let us next consider what notions we can have from consciousness alone of the operations of our minds.

Mr Locke very properly calls consciousness an internal sense. It gives the like immediate knowledge of things in the mindthat is, of our own thoughts and feelingsas the senses give us of things external. There is this difference, however, that an

external object may be at rest, and the | sense may be employed about it for some time. But the objects of consciousness are never at rest: the stream of thought flows like a river, without stopping a moment; the whole train of thought passes in succession under the eye of consciousness, which is always employed about the present. But is it consciousness that analyses complex operations, distinguishes their different ingredients, and combines them in distinct parcels under general names? This surely is not the work of consciousness, nor can it be performed without reflection, recollecting and judging of what we were conscious of, and distinctly remember. This reflection does not appear in children. Of all the powers of the mind, it seems to be of the latest growth, whereas consciousness is coeval with the earliest.+

Consciousness, being a kind of internal sense, can no more give us distinct and accurate notions of the operations of our minds, than the external senses can give of external objects. Reflection upon the operations of our minds is the same kind of operation with that by which we form distinct notions of external objects. They differ not in their nature, but in this only, that one is employed about external, and the other about internal objects; and both may, with equal propriety, be called reflection. [517]

Mr Locke has restricted the word reflec

*See above, p. 22, a, note *.-H.

† See above, p. 239, b.-As a corollary of this truth, Mr Stewart makes the following observations, in which he is supported by every competent authority in education. The two northern universities have long withdrawn themselves from the reproach of placing Physics last in their curriculum of arts. In that of Edinburgh, no order is prescribed; but in St Andrew's and Glasgow, the class of Physics still stands after those of Mental Philosophy. This absurdity is, it is to be observed, altogether of a modern intro. duction For, when our Scottish universities were tounded, and long after, the philosophy of mind was taught by the Protessor of Physics." I apprehend," says Mr Stewart, "that the study of the mind should form the last branch of the education of youth; an order which nature herself seems to point out, by what I have already remarked with respect to the developement of our faculties. After the under. standing is well stored with particular facts, and has been conversant with particular scientific pursuits, it will be enabled to speculate concerning its own powers with additional advantage, and will run no hazard in indulging too far in such inquiries. Nothing can be more absurd, on this as well as on many other accounts, than the common practice which is followed in our universities, [in some only,] of beginning a course of philosophical education with the study of Logic. If this order were completely re. versed; and if the study of Logic were delayed till after the mind of the student was well stored with particular facts in Physics, in Chemistry, in Natural and Civil History, his attention might be led with the most important advantage, and without any dan. ger to his power of observation, to an examination of his own faculties, which, besides opening to him a new and leasing field of speculation, would enable An estimate of his own powers, of the As made, of the habits he has formed, improvements of which his mind

1.

tion to that which is employed about the operations of our minds, without any authority, as I think, from custom, the arbiter of language. For, surely, I may reflect upon what I have seen or heard, as well as upon what I have thought.* The word, in its proper and common meaning, is equally applicable to objects of sense, and to objects of consciousness. He has likewise confounded reflection with consciousness, and seems not to have been aware that they are different powers, and appear at very different periods of life

If that eminent philosopher had been aware of these mistakes about the meaning of the word reflection, he would, I think, have seen that, as it is by reflection upon the operations of our own minds that we can form any distinct and accurate notions of them, and not by consciousness without reflection, so it is by reflection upon the objects of sense, and not by the senses without reflection, that we can form distinct notions of them. Reflection upon anything, whether external or internal, makes it an object of our intellectual powers, by which we survey it on all sides, and form such judgments about it as appear to be just and true.

I proposed, in the third place, to consider our notions of the relations of things: and here I think, that, without judgment, we cannot have any notion of relations.

There are two ways in which we get the notion of relations. The first is, by comparing the related objects, when we have before had the conception of both. By this comparison, we perceive the relation, either immediately, or by a process of reasoning. That my foot is longer than my finger, I perceive immediately; and that three is the half of six. This immediate perception is immediate and intuitive judgment. That the angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal, I perceive by a process of reasoning, in which it will be acknowledged there is judgment.

Another way in which we get the notion of relations (which seems not to have occurred to Mr Locke) is, when, by attention to one of the related objects, we perceive or judge that it must, from its nature, have a certain relation to something else, which before, perhaps, we never thought of; and thus our attention to one of the related ob

*See note before last, and note at p. 347, b.-H. + Mr Stewart makes a curious mistatement of the meaning attached by Reid to the word Reflection, if this passage and others are taken into account.-See Elements, I. p. 106, note f.-H.

+ Consciousness and Reflection cannot be analysed into different powers. Reflection is only, in Locke's meaning of the word, (and this is the more correct,) Consciousness, concentrated by an act of Will on the phænomena of mind-i. e., internal Attention; in Reid's, what is it but Attention in general ?-H."

jects produces the notion of a correlate, and of a certain relation between them. [518]

Thus, when I attend to colour, figure, weight, I cannot help judging these to be qualities which cannot exist without a subject; that is, something which is coloured, figured, heavy. If I had not perceived such things to be qualities, I should never have had any notion of their subject, or of their relation to it.

By attending to the operations of thinking, memory, reasoning, we perceive or judge that there must be something which thinks, remembers, and reasons, which we call the mind. When we attend to any change that happens in Nature, judgment informs us that there must be a cause of this change, which had power to produce it; and thus we get the notions of cause and effect, and of the relation between them. When we attend to body, we perceive that it cannot exist without space; hence we get the notion of space, (which is neither an object of sense nor of consciousness,) and of the relation which bodies have to a certain portion of unlimited space, as their place.

I apprehend, therefore, that all our notions of relations may more properly be ascribed to judgment as their source and origin, than to any other power of the mind. We must first perceive relations by our judgment, before we can conceive them without judging of them; as we must first perceive colours by sight, before we can conceive them without seeing them. I think Mr Locke, when he comes to speak of the ideas of relations, does not say that they are ideas of sensation or reflection, but only that they terminate in, and are concerned about, ideas of sensation or reflection. [519]

The notions of unity and number are so abstract, that it is impossible they should enter into the mind until it has some degree of judgment. We see with what difficulty, and how slowly, children learn to use, with understanding, the names even of small numbers, and how they exult in this acquisition when they have attained it. Every number is conceived by the relation which it bears to unity, or to known combinations of units; and upon that account, as well as on account of its abstract nature, all distinct notions of it require some degree of judgment.

In its proper place, I shall have occasion to shew that judgment is an ingredient in all determinations of taste, in all moral determinations, and in many of our passions and affections. So that this operation, after we come to have any exercise of judgment, mixes with most of the operations of our minds, and, in analysing them, cannot be overlooked without confusion and error.

CHAPTER II.

OF COMMON SENSE.'

THE word sense, in common language, seems to have a different meaning from that which it has in the writings of philosophers; and those different meanings are apt to be confounded, and to occasion embarrassment and error.

Not to go back to ancient philosophy upon this point, modern philosophers consider sense as a power that has nothing to do with judgment. Sense they consider as the power by which we receive certain ideas or impressions from objects; and judgment as the power by which we compare those ideas, and perceive their necessary agreements and disagreements. [520]

The external senses give us the idea of colour, figure, sound, and other qualities of body, primary or secondary. Mr Locke gave the name of an internal sense to consciousness, because by it we have the ideas of thought, memory, reasoning, and other operations of our own minds. Dr Hutcheson of Glasgow, conceiving that we have simple and original ideas which cannot be imputed either to the external senses or to consciousness, introduced other internal senses; such as the sense of harmony, the sense of beauty, and the moral sense. Ancient philosophers also spake of internal senses, of which memory was accounted one.

But all these senses, whether external or internal, have been represented by philosophers as the means of furnishing our minds with ideas, without including any kind of judgment. Dr Hutcheson defines a sense to be a determination of the mind to receive any idea from the presence of an object independent on our will.

"By this term (sense) philosophers, in general, have denominated those faculties in consequence of which we are liable to feelings relative to ourselves only, and from which they have not pretended to draw any conclusions concerning the nature of things; whereas truth is not relative, but absolute and real.-(Dr Priestly's "Examination of Dr Reid," &c., p. 123.)

On the contrary, in common language, sense always implies judgment. A man of sense is a man of judgment. Good sense is good judgment. Nonsense is what is evidently contrary to right judgment. Common sense is that degree of judgment which is common to men with whom we can converse and transact business.

Seeing and hearing, by philosophers, are called senses, because we have ideas by

* On Common Sense, name and thing, sce Note A. -H.

them; by the vulgar they are called senses, because we judge by them. We judge of colours by the eye; of sounds by the ear; of beauty and deformity by taste; of right and wrong in conduct, by our moral sense or conscience. [521]

Sometimes philosophers, who represent it as the sole province of sense to furnish us with ideas, fall unawares into the popular opinion that they are judging faculties. Thus Locke, Book IV. chap. 2 :-" And of this, (that the quality or accident of colour doth really exist, and hath a being without me,) the greatest assurance I can possibly have, and to which my faculties can attain, is the testimony of my eyes, which are the proper and sole judges of this thing."

This popular meaning of the word sense is not peculiar to the English language. The corresponding words in Greek, Latin, and, I believe, in all the European languages, have the same latitude. The Latin words sentire, sententia, sensa,* sensus, from the last of which the English word sense is borrowed, express judgment or opinion, and are applied indifferently to objects of external sense, of taste, of morals, and of the understanding.

I cannot pretend to assign the reason why a word, which is no term of art, which is familiar in common conversation, should have so different a meaning in philosophical writings. I shall only observe, that the philosophical meaning corresponds perfectly with the account which Mr Locke and other modern philosophers give of judgment. For, if the sole province of the senses, external and internal, be to furnish the mind with the ideas about which we judge and reason, it seems to be a natural consequence, that the sole province of judgment should be to compare those ideas, and to perceive their necessary relations.

These two opinions seem to be so connected, that one may have been the cause of the other. I apprehend, however, that, if both be true, there is no room left for any knowledge or judgment, either of the real existence of contingent things, or of their contingent relations.

To return to the popular meaning of the word sense. I believe it would be much more difficult to find good authors who never use it in that meaning, than to find such as do. [522]

We may take Mr Pope as good authority for the meaning of an English word. He uses it often, and, in his "Epistle to the Earl of Burlington,” has made a little descant upon it.

*What does sensa mean? Is it an erratum, or does he refer to sensa, once only, I believe, employed by Cicero, and interpreted by Nonius Marcellus, as "quæ sentiuntur ?"-H.

"Oft have you hinted to your brother Peer, A certain truth, which many buy too dear: Something there is more needful than expense, And something previous ev'n to taste-'tis sense. Good sense, which only is the gift of heaven, And, though no science, fairly worth the seven; A light which in yourself you must perceive, Jones and Le Notre have it not to give." This inward light or sense is given by heaven to different persons in different degrees. There is a certain degree of it which is necessary to our being subjects of law and government, capable of managing our own affairs, and answerable for our conduct towards others: this is called common sense, because it is common to all men with whom we can transact business, or call to account for their conduct.

The laws of all civilised nations distinguish those who have this gift of heaven, from those who have it not. The last may have rights which ought not to be violated, but, having no understanding in themselves to direct their actions, the laws appoint them to be guided by the understanding of others. It is easily discerned by its effects in men's actions, in their speeches, and even in their looks; and when it is made a question whether a man has this natural gift or not, a judge or a jury, upon a short conversation with him, can, for the most part, determine the question with great assurance.

The same degree of understanding which makes a man capable of acting with common prudence in the conduct of life, makes him capable of discovering what is true and what is false in matters that are self-evident, and which he distinctly apprehends. [523]

All knowledge, and all science, must be built upon principles that are self-evident; and of such principles every man who has common sense is a competent judge, when he conceives them distinctly. Hence it is, that disputes very often terminate in an appeal to common sense.

While the parties agree in the first principles on which their arguments are grounded, there is room for reasoning; but when one denies what to the other appears too evident to need or to admit of proof, reasoning seems to be at an end; an appeal is made to common sense, and each party is left to enjoy his own opinion.

There seems to be no remedy for this, nor any way left to discuss such appeals, unless the decisions of common sense can be brought into a code in which all reasonable men shall acquiesce. This, indeed, if it be possible, would be very desirable, and would supply a desideratum in logic; and why should it be thought impossible that reasonable men should agree in things that are self-evident?

All that is intended in this chapter is to explain the meaning of common sense, that it may not be treated, as it has been by some, as a new principle, or as a word with