and Stewart were liberal-but from not taking high enough ground, and studying opinions with sufficient accuracy, and from a sufficiently lofty point of view.

On the nature and domain of the philosophy of mind.

Reid and Stewart do not lay it out properly, though their practice is better than their precept. They do not take notice of the difference between mental and physical inquiry-that the latter is mere inductive classification, the former more speculative, secerning necessary from contingent. But an element of thought being found necessary, there remains a further process -to ascertain whether it be, 1°, by nature or by education; 2°, ultimately or derivatively necessary; 3°, positive or negative. A law of nature is only got by general induction; a law of mind is got by experiment whether we can not think it; e. g. cause in objective and subjective philosophy. The progress of the two sciences not parallel-error of Stewart (Essays, p. xiii.*)

An experimental analysis, but of different kinds, is competent to physical and mental science, besides the observation common to both. To mental, the trying what parts of a concrete thought or cognition can be thought away, what cannot.

[Further developments supplementary to the philosophy of the Scottish school, as represented by Reid and Stewart.]

[A. On the Principle of Common Sense.]

I would, with Leibnitz,† distinguish truths or cognitions into those of Fact, or of Perception, (external and internal), and those of Reason. The truths or cognitions of both classes rest on an ultimate and common ground of a primary and inexplicable belief. This ground may be called by the names of Common Sense, of Fundamental or Transcendental Consciousness,

"The order

*Coll. Works, vol. v. p. 13. established in the intellectual world seems to be

regulated by laws perfectly analogous to those which we trace among the phænomena of the material system; and in all our philosophical inquiries, (to whatever subject they may relate,) the progress of the mind is liable to be affected by the same tendency to a premature generalisation." On this passage, there is the following marginal note in Sir W. Hamilton's copy: "Shew how this analogy is vitiated by the fact that the most general facts, being necessities of thought, are among the first established. Existence, the last in the order of induction, is the first in the order

of."-ED.

Nouveaux Essais, L. iv. ch. 2.-ED.

of Feeling of Truth or Knowledge, of Natural or Instinctive Belief. This, in itself, is simply a fact, simply an experience, and is purely subjective and purely negative. It supports the validity of a proposition, only on the fact that I find that it is impossible for me not to hold it for true, to suppose it therefore not true- without denying, in the one case, the veracity of consciousness; and, in the other, the possibility of thought; [without presuming] that I am necessitated to hold the false for the true, the unreal for the real, and therefore that my intelligent nature is radically mendacious. But this is not to be gratuitously presumed; therefore the proposition must be admitted. But to apply it to the two classes of truths. I. Truths of Fact or of Perception (External and Internal.)

Am I asked, for example, how I know that the series of phænomena called the external world or the non-ego existsI answer, that I know it by external Perception. But if further asked, how I know that this Perception is not an illusion that what I perceive as the external world, is not merely a particular order of phænomena pertaining to the internal-that what I am conscious of as something different from me, is not merely self representing a not-self I can only answer, that I know this solely inasmuch as I find that I cannot but feel, hold, or believe that what I perceive as not-self, is really presented in consciousness as notself. I can, indeed, in this, as in the case of every other truth of Fact, imagine the possibility of the converse-imagine that what is given as a mode of not-self, may be in reality only a mode of self. But this only in imagining that my primary consciousness deceives me; which is not to be supposed without a ground. Now, the conviction here cannot in propriety be called Reason, because the truth avouched by it is one only of Fact, and because the conviction avouching it is itself only manifested as a Fact. It may, however, be well denominated Common Sense, Fundamental or Transcendental Consciousness. Other examples may be taken from Memory and its reality, Personal Identity, &c. II. Truths of Reason.

Again, if I am asked, how I know that every change must have its cause, that every quality must have its substance,

dictories, &c., I answer, that I know it by Reason, vous-Reason or vous being a name for the mind considered as the source, or as the complement, of first principles, axioms, native notions, κοιναὶ or φυσικαὶ ἔννοιαι.

that there is no mean between two contra

But if further asked, how I know that Reason is not illusive-that this, or that first principle may not be false--I can only answer, that I know it to be true, solely inasmuch as I am conscious that I cannot but feel, hold, believe it to be true, seeing that I cannot even realise in imagination the possibility of the converse. Now, this last ground of conviction, in the conscious impotence of conceiving the converse, is not, I think, so properly styled Reason, which is more of a positive character, as Common Sense, Fundamental Consciousness, &c. This is shewn in the quotations from Locke and Price. Note A, Testimonies, Nos. 51, 78.

[The substance of these remarks on the Principle of Common Sense, has been already printed, in an abbreviated form, in Note A, p. 754. The present fragment, which has the appearance of being an earlier sketch of the same note, has been inserted in this place, as containing a somewhat fuller statement of an important distinction, which is perhaps liable to be overlooked in the brief form in which it was previously published. Though not apparently designed for this Preface, it is sufficiently cognate in matter to the preceding fragments, to be entitled to a place with them. The following fragment, which is marked "Preface," may be regarded as a continuation of the same subject, being a step towards that further analysis of the Truths of Reason, in relation to the Philosophy of the Conditioned, which the Author regarded as his peculiar addition to the philosophy of his predecessors. This analysis will be found further pursued in Notes H and T, and especially in the Philosophical Appendix to the Discussions. - ED.]

Philosophy, and of Reid as its founder.] [Testimonies to the merits of the Scottish

1.-PORET.-Manuel de Philosophie par Auguste Henri Matthiæ, traduit de l'Allemand sur la troisième édition, par M. H. Poret, Professeur suppléant à la Faculté des Lettres, et Professeur de Philosophie au Collége Rollin. Paris, 1837.

Préface du Traducteur.-'Il suffit d'avoir une idée de l'état des études en France pour reconnaître que la philosophie écossaise y est aujourd'hui naturalisée. Nous la voyons défrayer à peu près seule l'enseignement de nos colléges; sa langue et ses doctrines ont passé dans la plupart des ouvrages élémentaires qui se publient sur les matières philosophiques; sa méthode sévère et circonspecte a satisfait les plus difficiles et rassuré les plus défiants, et en même temps son profond respect pour les croyances morales et religieuses lui a concilié ceux qui reconnaissent la vérité surtout à ses fruits. Les penseurs prévoyants qui se donnèrent tant de soins pour l'introduire parmi nous ont eu à se féliciter du succès de leur efforts. La seule apparition de cette philosophie si peu fastueuse suffit pour mettre à terre le sensualisme; une doctrine artificielle dut s'évanouir devant la simple exposition des faits; le sens intime fut rétabli dans sa prérogative; les éléments a priori de l'intelligence, si ridiculement honnis par Locke et son école, rentrèrent dans la science dont on avait prétendu les bannir, et y reprirent leur place légitime. Cette espèce de restauration philosophique devait avoir ses conséquences: des questions assoupies, mais non pas mortes, se réveillèrent; les limites arbitrairement posées à la connaissance disparurent; la philosophie retrouva son

Three degrees or stages in the method of mental science.

1o, When the mind is treated as matter, and the mere Baconian observation and induction applied.

3o, When the necessity is distinguished into two classes--the one being founded on a power or potency, the other upon an impotence of mind. Hence the Philosophy

of the Conditioned.

dans toute son étendue. Aujourd'hui même qu'elles ont porté ces premiers fruits, les bons effets de ces doctrines ne sont pas, nous le croyons, près de s'épuiser, prospérité des études philosophiques tout et nous regarderions comme un échec à la ce qui tendrait à en contrarier l'influence.' phie de Thomas Reid, Paris, 1840. 2.-GARNIER.-Critique de la Philoso

P. 112.-Demandez à ce philosophe une distribution méthodique des matériaux

qu'il a recueillis, une adroite induction qui des phénomènes nous conduise à un petit nombre de causes, vous ne trouverez ni cette classification, ni cette analyse. Ce n'était pourtant pas la tâche la plus malaisée; et le dépit de lui voir négliger ce facile travail est ce qui nous a mis la plume à la main. Mais ces matériaux innombrables, ces milliers de phénomènes si patiemment décrits, faut-il les oublier? N'est-ce pas Reid qui nous a montré à ne plus confondre les perceptions des différents sens, et en particulier, celles de la vue et du toucher? Malgré quelques contradictions, n'est-ce pas chez lui seul qu'on peut recontrer une théorie raisonnable de la perception ? Où trouver une plus savante exposition de la mémoire et des merveilles si variées qui présente la suite de nos conceptions? Ses essais sur l'abstraction, le jugement, et le raisonnement sont encore plus lumineux et plus instructifs que les mêmes chapitres dans l'admirable Logique de Port-Royal, et les savants solitaires ont partagé la faute de regarder ces opérations de l'esprit comme les actes d'autant de facultés distinctes. Enfin, avec quel profit et quel intérêt ne lit-on pas les chapitres sur le goût intellectuel, sur les affections si variées qui se partagent notre âme, sur le sens du devoir et sur la morale? Avec tous ses défauts, l'ouvrage de Reid offrira longtemps encore la lecture la plus instructive pour l'esprit, la plus délicieuse pour le cœur, et la plus profitable pour la philosophie.'

P. 118. En présence des constructions fantastiques de l'Allemagne, j'aime mieux les matériaux épars de l'Ecosse. Thomas Reid est l'ouvrier laborieux, qui a péniblement extrait les blocs de la carrière, qui a taillé les mâts et les charpentes: vienne l'architecte, il en construira des villes et des flottes. L'Allemand est l'entrepreneur audacieux qui dans la hâte de bâtir se contente de terre et de paille.'

3.-RÉMUSAT.-Essais de Philosophie, Paris 1842, t. i. p. 250.- La philosophie de Reid nous paraît un des plus beaux résultats de la méthode psychologique. Plus approfondie, mieux ordonnée, elle peut devenir plus systématique et plus complète; elle peut donner à l'observation une forme plus rationnelle. Sans doute elle n'est pas tout la vérité philosophique; mais dans son ensemble elle est vraie, et nous croyons qu'elle doit être considérée par les écoles modernes comme la philosophie élémentaire de l'esprit humain.'

'L'érudition choisie et variée qu'il a su y répandre, l'amour sincère de la vérité qui s'y montre partout, et la dignité calme de l'expression en rendent la lecture extrêmement attachante.'

5.-COUSIN. [Cours d'Histoire de la Philosophie Morale au dix-huitième Siècle, seconde partie, publiée par MM. Danton et Vacherot, Paris, 1840], p. 241 sq.*

There is a final merit in the doctrine of the Scottish philosopher, which it is impossible too highly to extol. He has done better than ruin the hypotheses which had shaken all the bases of human belief; in fixing with precision the limits of science, he has destroyed for ever the spirit itself which had inspired them. The philosophy which Reid combated had not understood that there were facts inexplicable, facts which carry with them their own light; and had therefore gone, in quest of a principle of explanation, into a foreign sphere. It is thus that to explain the phænomena of perception, of memory, of imagination, recourse was had to images from the external world; the phanomena of the soul were represented as the effects of sensible impressions, themselves resulting from a contact between the mind and the body. Reid has laid down the true criterium, in virtue of which we can always recognise the point at which an attempt at explanation ought to stop, when he says:-Facts simple and primitive are inexplicable. It is thus that he has cut short those hypotheses, those presumptuous theories, which history has consigned for ever to the romances of Metaphysic.

'In the meanwhile, it remains for me to consider, whether the remedy be not excessive, and whether the philosophy of Reid, in ruining the metaphysical hypotheses, has not proscribed the metaphysical spirit itself. But before entering upon the question, it is requisite to premise, that even if this be done by Reid, still there is nothing in the proceeding at which criticism ought to take offence. His mission was to proclaim the application of the experimental method to the philosophy of the human mind, on the ruins of the hypotheses which had issued from the Cartesian school; this mission he has completely fulfilled, for he has purged philosophy, one after another, of the theory of ideas, of the desolating scepticism

This passage is given in a translation found among Sir W. Hamilton's papers. The other testimonies have been added from his extracts

of Hume, of the idealism of Berkeley, of the demonstrations of Descartes; he has thus made a tabula rasa. Were it then the fact, that the abuse of the metaphysical spirit, and the spectacle of the aberrations into which this spirit has betrayed the human mind, had carried Reid to pronounce its banishment from science, for this we ought no more seriously to reproach him, than we should condemn Bacon for his proscription of the Syllogism, of which the Schoolmen had made so flagrant an abuse. My intention, therefore, in touching on this delicate point, is, far less to evince the too empirical character of the philosophy of Reid, than to relieve a great and noble science from the unjust contempt to which it has been exposed from the philosophers both of the school of Bacon and of the Scottish school. 'But let us first see, how far Reid's neglect of Metaphysic has extended.-According to him, to explain a fact is to carry it up into a fact more simple; so that the explanatory principle is of the same nature as the fact explained, nor, in our explanation of facts, is it ever necessary for us to transcend experience. I admit the truth of this definition for a certain number of the sciences which ought not to transgress the bounds of observation: thus in Physics, in Natural History, in Psychology even, the explanation of the fact can possess no other character, can propose no other aim. But I believe the human mind goes farther; the explanation which consists in the connecting one fact to another more simple does not suffice for it, nor does it even recognise this as a veritable explanation. To explain, to explicate, in the strict propriety of language, is to reduce that which is to that which ought to be, in other words, to connect a fact to a principle. Reid, therefore, in the view he takes of the explanation of facts, has banished from science the research of principles, of the necessary causes and reasons of things, that is, precisely, metaphysical speculation. On the other hand, to distinguish philosophy from the sciences which have nature for their object, he defines it-the science of the human mind; he thus conders philosophy as a science no less special than the others, which is only discriminated from them by the nature of its object, and which, moreover, has with them the same method and the same end. The same method: for, like the natural sciences, it observes; only the facts which it observes are immaterial. The same end; for it proposes the discovery of laws, hke the sciences of nature; the only dif

ference lying in the nature of these laws. As to that general and synthetic science, which applies itself to all, and to which no matter comes amiss, which is distinguished from other sciences, not by the character of its object but by the elevated point of view from which it contemplates the universe of things, which styles itself philosophy of Nature, philosophy of Mind, philosophy of History, according to the limitation of the object which for the moment it considers,-of such a science Reid does not appear to have even suspected the existence.

'In fine, we ought not to forget that Reid is a partisan of the Baconian method, which he has extended from the sciences of nature to the science of mind. Now, as is well known, Bacon had a proud contempt of Metaphysic, and names it only to deride it, or to shew that in retaining the word, he rejects the thing. Accordingly, in his classification of the sciences, he reduces Metaphysic to the mere science of the immutable and universal forms of nature, that is to say, to a transcendental physics; while subsequently, in his Novum Organum, there is no mention of it at all. Reid, who inherited from Bacon his method, inherited likewise from him his contempt of Metaphysic; and, with Reid, the whole Scottish school.

'Once more I repeat, the reaction of the experimental philosophy, so much and so long oppressed by speculation, is excusable in Reid as in Bacon, because on their part it was natural and almost necessary; but in the present day, when this philosophy has everywhere triumphed over the obstacles which the spirit of system, the prejudices and the authority of the past, had accumulated in its path,-in the present day, when this philosophy in its turn oppresses Metaphysic, and would, if it could, exclude it from the domain of science, it may not be unimportant briefly to shew, that Metaphysic also has its titles, and its legitimate place in the cycle of human knowledge.

'In the first place, it is a very ancient science; under definitions the most diverse, it has always appeared as the science of principles. Until the eighteenth century, it has never for a moment quitted the philosophic stage, and on that stage has never ceased to occupy the most distinguished part. The reason of this preeminence was very simple; for to Metaphysic was confided the task of resolving the most extensive, arduous, and important problems: Metaphysic alone spoke of God and his attributes, of the universe considered in its totality and its