Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

‘For because a property may be demonstrated to agree to some particular triangle, it will not thence follow that it equally belongs to every other with it. For example, having demonstrated that the three angles of an isosceles, rectangular triangle, are equal to two right ones, I cannot therefore conclude this affection argues to all other triangles, which have neither a right angle, nor two equal sides. It seems, therefore, that to be certain this proposition is universally true we must either make a particular demonstration for every particular triangle, which is impossible, or once for all demonstrate it of the abstract idea of a triangle, in which all the particulars do indifferently partake, and by which they are all equally represented.’ To which I answer, that though the idea I have in view, whilst I make the demonstration, be, for instance, that of an isosceles, not a regular triangle, whose sides are of a determinate length, I may nevertheless be certain it extends to all other rectilinear triangles of what sort or bigness soever. And that neither because the right angle, nor the equality, nor determinate length of the sides are at all concerned in the demonstration. It is true, the diagram I have in view includes all these particulars, but then there is not the least mention made of them in the proofs of the proposition. It is not said the three angles are equal to two right ones, because one of these is a right angle, or because the sides comprehending it are of the same length. Which sufficiently shews that the right angle might have been oblique and the sides unequal, and for all the others the demonstrations have held good. And for this reason it is that I conclude that to be true of any oblique angular, or scalenon, which I had demonstrated of a particular right angled, equicrural, triangle, and not because I demonstrated the proposition of the abstract idea of a triangle.’ The author then adds some further remarks on the use of abstract terms, and concludes—‘May we not, for example, be affected with the promise of a _good thing_, though we have not an idea of what it is? or is not the being threatened with danger sufficient to excite a dread, though we think not of a particular evil likely to befal us, and yet frame to ourselves an idea of danger in abstract?’ Introduction to Principles of Human Knowledge, p. 31.

Hume, who has taken up Berkeley’s arguments on this subject, and affirms that the doctrine of abstract ideas applies the flattest of all contradictions, that it is possible for the same thing to be and not to be, has enlarged a good deal on this last topic of the manner in which words may be supposed to excite general ideas. His words are these: ‘Where we have found a resemblance between any two objects that often occur to us, we apply the same name to all of them, whatever differences we may observe in the degrees of their quantity and quality, and whatever differences may appear among them. After we have acquired a custom of this kind, the hearing of that name revives the idea of one of these objects, and makes the imagination conceive it with its particular circumstances and proportions. But as the same word is supposed to have been frequently applied to other individuals that are different in many respects from the idea which is immediately present to the mind, the word not being able to revive the idea of all these individuals, only _touches_ the soul, if I may be allowed so to speak, and revives that custom, which we have acquired by surveying them. They are not in reality present to the mind, but only in power, nor do we draw them out distinctly in the imagination, but keep ourselves in readiness to survey any of them, as we may be prompted by a present design or necessity. The word raises up an individual idea, along with a certain custom; and that custom produces any other individual one, for which we may have occasion.’ Treatise of Human Nature, p. 43, 4. The author afterwards adds, with his usual candour, that this account does not perfectly satisfy him, but he relies principally on the logical demonstration of the impossibilities of abstract ideas just before given.

I confess it does not seem an easy matter to recover the argument in this state of it; however, I will attempt it. What I shall endeavour will not be so much to answer the foregoing reasoning as to prove that in a strict sense all ideas whatever are mere abstractions and can be nothing else; that some of the most clear, distinct, and positive ideas of particular objects are made up of numberless inconsistencies; and that as Hume expresses it, they do touch the soul, and are not drawn distinctly in the imagination, &c. Though I shall not be able to point out distinctly the fallacy of the foregoing reasonings, I hope to make it appear that there must be something wrong in the premises, and that the nature of thought and ideas is quite different from what is here supposed. I may be allowed to set off one paradox against another, and as these writers affirm that all abstract ideas are particular images, so I shall try to prove that all particular images are abstract ideas. If it can be made to appear that our ideas of particular things themselves are not particular, it may be easily granted that those which are in general allowed to be abstract are all so. The existence of abstract and complex ideas in the mind has been disputed for the same reason, that is, in falsely attributing individuality, or absolute unity to the objects of sense. While each thing or object was said to be absolutely one and simple, there was found to be no reach, compass, or expansion of mind, to comprehend it; and, on the other hand, there was no room on the same supposition for the doctrine of abstraction, for there is no abstracting from absolute unity. That which is one positive, indivisible thing, must remain entire as this, or cease to exist. There is no alternative between individuality and nothing. As long as we are determined to consider any one thing or idea, as the knot of a chain, or the figure of a man, or any thing else, as one individual, it must, as it were, go together: we can take nothing away without destroying it altogether. I have already shewn that there is no one object which does not consist of a number of parts and relations, or which does not require a comprehensive facility in the mind in order to conceive of it. Now abstraction is a necessary consequence of the limitation of this power of the mind, and if it were a previous condition of our having the ideas of things that we should comprehend distinctly all the particulars of which they are composed, we could have no ideas at all. An imperfectly comprehended is a general idea. But the mind perfectly comprehends the whole of no one object. That is, it has not an absolute and distinct knowledge of all its parts or differences, and consequently all our ideas are abstractions, that is a general and confused result from a number of undistinguished, and undistinguishable impressions, for there is no possible medium between a perfectly distinct comprehension of all the particulars, which is impossible, or that imperfect and confused one, that properly constitutes a general notion in the one case or the other. To explain this more particularly. In looking at any object, as a house on the opposite side of the way, it is supposed that the impression I have of it is a perfectly distinct, precise, or definite idea, in which abstraction has no concern. And the general idea of a house, it is said, is rather a mere word, or must reduce itself to some such positive, individual image as that conveyed by the sight of a particular house, it being impossible that it should be made up of the confused, imperfect, and undistinguishable impressions of several different objects of the same kind. Now it appears to me the easiest thing in the world to shew that this sensible image of a particular house, into which the general is to be resolved for greater clearness, is itself but a confused and vague notion, or numberless inconsistencies packed together; not one precise individual thing, or any number of things, distinctly perceived. For I would ask of any one who thinks his senses furnish him with these infallible and perfect conceptions of things, free from all contradiction and perplexity, whether he has a precise knowledge of all the circumstance of the object prescribed to him. For instance, is the knowledge which he has that the house before him is larger than another near it, in consequence of his intentively considering all the bricks of which it is composed, or can he tell that it contains a greater number of windows than another, without distinctly counting them? Let us suppose, however, that he does. But this will not be enough unless he has also a distinct perception of the numbers and the size of the panes of glass in each window, or of any mark, stain, or dirt in each separate brick? Otherwise his idea of each of these particulars will still be general, and his most substantial knowledge built on shadows; that is composed of a number of parts of the parts of which he has no knowledge. If objects were what mankind in general suppose them, single things, we could have no notion of them but what was particular, for by leaving out any thing we should leave out the whole object, which is but one thing. We may also be said to have a particular knowledge of things in proportion to the number of parts we distinguish in them. But the real foundation of all our knowledge, is and must be general, that is, a mere confused impression or effect of feeling produced by a number of things, for there is no object which does not consist of an infinite number of parts, and we have not an infinite number of distinct ideas answering to them. Yet it cannot be denied that we have some knowledge of things, that they make some impression on us, and this knowledge, this impression, must therefore be an abstract one, the natural result of a limited understanding, which is variously affected by a number of things at the same time, but which is not susceptible of itself to an infinite number of modifications. If it should be said that the sensible image of the house is still one, as being one impression, or given result, I answer that the most abstract ideas of a house, and the imperfect recollection of a number of houses is in the same sense one, and a real idea, distinct from that of a tree, though far from being a particular image. Again, it is said, that in conceiving of the idea of man in general, we must conceive a man a particular sign or figure. I would ask first is this to be understood merely of his height, or of his form in general? If the latter, it would imply that we have, wherever we pronounce the word _man_, no ideas at all, or a distinct conception of a man with a head and limbs of a certain extent and proportion, of every turn in each feature, of every variety in the formation of each part, as well as of its distance from every other part, a knowledge which no sculptor or painter ever had of any one figure of which he was the most perfect master, for it would be a knowledge of an infinite number of lines drawn in all directions from every part of the body, with their precise length and terminations. Those who have consigned this business of abstraction over to the senses with a view to make the whole matter plain and easy, have not been aware of what they have been doing. They supposed with the vulgar that it was only necessary to open the eyes in order to see, and that the images produced by outward objects are completely defined, and unalterable things, in which there can be no dimness and confusion. These speculators had no thought but they saw as much of a landscape as Poussin, and knew as much about a face that was before them as Titian or Vandyke would have done. This is a great mistake; the having particular and absolute ideas of things is not only difficult, but impossible. The ablest painters have never been able to give more than one part of nature, in abstracted views of things. The most laborious artists never finished to perfection any one part of an object, or had ever any more than a confused, vague, uncertain notion of the shape of the mouth or nose, or the colour of an eye. Ask a logician, or any common man, and he will no doubt tell you that a face is a face, a nose is a nose, a tree is a tree, and that he can see what it is as well as another. Ask a painter and he will tell you otherwise. Secondly, when it is asserted that we must necessarily have the idea of a particular sign, when we think of any in general, all that is intended by it is, I believe, that we must think of a particular height. This idea it is supposed must be particular and determinate, just as we must draw a line with a piece of chalk, or make a mark with the slides of a measuring rule, in one place and not in the other. I think it may be shewn that this view of the question is also utterly fallacious, and out of the order of our ideas. The height of the individual is thus resolved with the ideas of the lines terminating or defining it, and the intermediate space of which it properly consists is entirely forgotten. For let us take any given height of a man, whether tall, short, or middle-sized, and let that height be as visible as you please, I would ask whether the actual height to which it amounts, does not consist of a number of other lengths: as if it be a tall man, the length will be six feet, and each of these feet will consist of so many inches, and those inches will be again made up of decimals, and those decimals of other subordinate parts, which must be all distinctly placed, and added together before the sum total, which they compose, can be pretended to be a distinct particular, or individual idea; I can only understand by a particular thing either one precise individual, or a precise number of individuals.

Instead of its being true that all general ideas of extension are deducible to particular positive extension, the reverse proposition is I think demonstrable: that all particular extensions, the most positive and distinct, are never any thing else than a more or less vague notion of extension in general. In any given visible object we have always the general idea of something extended, and never of the precise length; for the precise length as it is thought to be is necessarily composed of a number of lengths too many, and too minute to be necessarily attended to, or jointly conceived by the mind, and at last loses itself in the infinite divisibility of matter. What sort of distinctness or individual can therefore be found in any visible image, or object of sense, I cannot well conceive: it seems to me like seeking for certainty in the dancing of insects in the evening sun, or for fixedness or rest in the motions of the sea. All particulars are thought nothing but generals, more or less defined by circumstances, but never perfectly so; in this all our knowledge both begins and ends, and if we think to exclude all generality from our ideas of things, we must be content to remain in utter ignorance. The proof that our ideas of particular things are not themselves particular, is the uncertainty and difficulty we have only in comparing them with one another. In looking at a line an inch long, I have a certain general impression of it, so that I can tell it is shorter than another, three or four times as long, drawn on the same sheet of paper, but I cannot immediately tell that it is shorter than one only a tenth or twentieth of an inch longer. The idea which I have of it is therefore not an exact one. In looking at a window I cannot precisely tell the number of panes of glass it contains, yet I can easily say whether they are few or many, whether the window is large or small. Now if all our ideas were made up of particulars, we never could pronounce generally whether there were few or many of these panes of glass, but we should know the precise number, or at least pitch on some precise number in our minds, and this we could not help knowing. There must be either 5, 10, 20, or 30; for it is in vain to urge that the idea in my mind is a floating one, and shifts from one of them to another, so that I cannot tell the moment after which it was; but what is this imperfect recollection but a confused contradictory and abstract idea? Here is a plain dilemma: it is a fact that we have some idea of a number of objects presented to us. It is also a fact that we do not know the precise number, nor can we assign any number confidently whether right or wrong. Whether this idea is but an abstract and general one it seems hard to say. Those who contend that we cannot have an idea of a man in general, without conceiving of some particular man, seem to have little reason, since the most particular idea we can form of a man, either in imagination or from the actual impression, is but a general idea. Those who say we cannot conceive of an army of men without conceiving of the individuals composing it, ought to go a step further, and affirm that we must represent to ourselves the features, form, complexion, size, posture, and dress, with every other circumstance belonging to each individual.

We must admit the notion of abstraction, first or last, unless any one will contend for this infinite refinement in our ideas of things, or assert that we have no idea at all. For the same process takes place in it, and is absolutely necessary to our most particular notions of things, as well as our most general, namely, that of abstracting from particulars, or of passing over the minute differences of things, taking them in the gross, and attending to the general effect of a number of distinguished and distinguishable impressions. It is thus we arrive at our first notion of things, and thus that all our after knowledge is acquired. The knowledge upon which our ideas rest is general, and the only difference between abstract and particular, is that of being more or less general, of leaving out more or fewer circumstances, and more or fewer objects, perceived either at once or in succession, and forming either a particular whole, aggregate, or a class of things. It may be asked farther whether our ideas of things, however abstract in general, with respect to the objects they represent, are not in their own nature, and absolute existence particular. To this hard question I shall return the best answer I can.

1. It is sufficient to the present purpose that ideas are general in their representation, however particular in themselves. Each idea is something in itself, and not another idea. This is equally true of the most abstract or particular ideas of things. The abstract idea of a man is the abstract idea of a man, not the abstract idea of a horse, nor the particular one of any given individual man. It is characterized by general properties, and distinguished by general circumstances, and is neither a mere word without any idea, nor a particular image of one thing; so the idea of a particular man, though still only a general result from a number of particulars is sufficiently positive for the actual purposes of thought, and distinguishable from that other general result or impression which institutes the idea of a particular horse, for instance.

2. That our general notions are any otherwise particular than as they are the same with themselves, and different from one another, is more than I know. I must demur on this question, whatever others may do. Whatever contradictions are involved in the one side of it, those on the other seem as great. For it is not easy to imagine any thing more absurd than the supposition that the idea of a line for instance is precisely, and to a hair’s breadth or to the utmost possible exactness, of a certain length, when neither the precise number nor the precise proportion of the parts composing this line are at all known. It is like saying that we cast up an account to the utmost degree of nicety, when not one of the items is known, but as of an average conjecture or in round numbers. We generally estimate our notion of a particular extension by the point or matter at all terminating it, and it seems as if this did not admit of an ambiguity, or variation. But in fact all ideas are a calculation of particulars, and when the parts are only known in gross, the sum total, or resulting idea can only be so too. The smallest division of which our notions are susceptible is a general idea. In the progress of the understanding, we never begin from absolute unity but always from something that is more. How then is it possible that these general conceptions should form a whole always commensurate to a precise number of absolute unity I cannot conceive, any more than how it is possible to express a fraction in whole numbers. The two things are incompatible. As to any thing like conscious individuality, i.e. that which assigneth limits to our ideas, we know they have it not.

3. I would observe that ideas, as far as they are distinct and particular, seem to involve a greater contradiction than when they are confused and general. For, in proportion to their distinctness, must be the number of different acts of the mind excited at the same time; i.e. in proportion to the individuality of the image or idea, if I may so express myself, the thought ceases to be individual, inasmuch as the simplicity of the attention is thus necessarily broken and divided into a number of different actions, which yet are all united in the same conscious feeling, or there could be no connection between them. How then we should ever be able to conceive of things distinctly, clearly, and particularly, seems the wonder: not how different impressions acting at once on the mind should be confused, and as it were massed together, in a general feeling, for want of sufficient activity in the intellectual faculties to give form and a distinct place to all that throng of objects which at all times solicit the attention. Let any one make the experiment of counting a flock of sheep driven fast by him, and he will soon find his imagination unable to keep pace with the rapid succession of objects, and his idea of particular number slide into the general idea of multitude; not that because there are more objects than he possibly can count, he will think there are many, or that the word flock will present to his mind a mere name, without any particulars corresponding to it. Every act of the attention, every object we see or think of, presents a proof of the same kind.

4. I conceive that the mind has not been fairly dealt with in this and other similar questions of the same sort. Matter alone seems to have the privilege of presenting difficulties, and contradictions at every turn; but the moment any thing of this kind is observed in the understanding, all the petulance of logicians is up in arms, and the mind is made the mark on which they vent all the modes and figures of their impertinence. Let us take an example from some of these self-evident matters of fact, which contain at least as many, and as great contradictions, as any in the most abstruse metaphysical doctrine, such as in extension, motion, and the curve of lines. Now as to the first of these, extension: if we suppose it to be made up of points, which are in themselves without extension, but by their combination produce it, we must suppose two unextended things, when joined together, to become extended, which is like supposing, that by adding together several nothings, we can arrive at something. On the other hand, if we suppose the ultimate parts of which extension is composed, to be themselves extended, we then attribute extension to that which is indivisible, or affirm a thing to consist of parts, and to have none, at the same time. The old argument against the possibility of motion is well known: it was said that the body moving must either be in the place where it was, or in that into which it was passing. Now, if it was in either of these, or in any one place, it must be at rest; and as it could not be in both at once, it followed that a body moving could exist no where, or that there was no such thing as motion in nature. Again, a curve line is described mathematically by a point moving, but always out of a strait line. Now, a strait line is the nearest between any two points. But that a body should move forward, and not move strait forward to the next point to which it is going, seems to imply no less an absurdity than the affirming that a thing never moves in the direction in which it is going, but always out of it; for, if it moves in the same direction, the smallest moment of time, this is not a curve, but a strait line; and if it does not continue to move in the same direction at all, it seems utterly inconceivable that it should make any progress, or move either in a curve or a strait line. Yet any one who, on the strength of the contradiction involved in the ideas of extension, motion, or curve lines, should severally deny or disbelieve any one of them, would be thought to want common sense. I think there are certain facts of the mind which are equally evident and unaccountable. Those who contend that the one are to be admitted, and the other not, because the one are the objects of sense, and the other not, do not deserve any serious answer. It is as much a fact, that I remember having seen the sun yesterday, as that I see it to-day, and both of them are much more certain facts than that there is any such body as the sun really existing out of the mind.

I will now return to Berkeley, and endeavour to answer his chief objections to the doctrine of abstract ideas. First, then, I conceive that he has himself virtually given up the question, when he allows that the mind may be affected with the promise of a good thing, or terrified by the apprehension of danger, without thinking of any particular good or evil that is likely to befal us. What this idea of good or evil, which is not particular, can be, other than abstract, I cannot conceive; and to say that it is not an idea, but a mere feeling excited by custom, is an answer very little to the purpose. For this feeling, this custom, is itself a general impression, and could not, without a power of abstraction in the mind, think, without a power of being acted upon by a number of different impulses of pleasure and pain, concurring to produce a general effect, abstracted from the particular feelings themselves, or the objects first exciting them. All abstract ideas are several impressions of the same kind, and are merely customary affections of the mind, not distinct images of things. But if it be said that the word idea properly signifies an image, and must be something distinct, then I answer, first, that this would only restrict the use of the word _idea_ to particular things, and not affect the real question in dispute, and secondly, that there is no such thing as a distinct and particular image in the mind. The manner in which Berkeley explains the nature of mathematical demonstrations, according to his system, shews its utter inadequateness to any purposes of general reasoning, and is a plain confession of the necessity of abstract ideas. For all the answer he gives to the question, how can we know any proposition to be true in general, from having found it so in a particular instance, comes to this, that though the diagram we have in view includes a number of particulars, yet we know the principle to be true generally, because _there is not the least mention made of these particulars in the proof of the proposition_. But I would ask also, whether there is not the least thought of them in the mind? The truth is, that the mind upon Berkeley’s principle must think of the particular right angled, isosceles, triangle in question, or it can have no idea at all, for it has no general idea of a triangle to which it can apply the name generally. If we suppose that there is any such general form, or notion to which the other particular circumstances are merely superadded, and which may be left standing, though they are taken away, we then run immediately to all the absurdities of abstraction, which he so much wishes to avoid. If we then demonstrate the proposition of the particular diagram before us, as of a determinate size, shape, &c., this demonstration cannot hold good generally. If we are supposed to omit all these particular circumstances in our minds, then we either demonstrate the proposition of the general and abstract idea of a triangle, or of no idea at all; for after the particulars are omitted, or not attended to by the mind, the only idea remaining must be a general one. Farther, that on which I am willing to rest the whole controversy, is the following remark, _viz._, that without the general idea of a line or triangle, there could be no particular one; that is, no idea of any one line or triangle, as of the same form, or as any way related to any other, so that there could be no common measure or line to connect any of our thoughts or reasoning together into a general conclusion. For to take the former instance as the most simple. When we speak of any particular extension, it is evident that we understand something which is not particular. Besides what is peculiar to it, it must have something which is not peculiar to it, but general, to merit the common appellation. Berkeley says, ‘An idea which in itself is particular, becomes general, by being made to represent or stand for all other particular ideas _of the same sort_.’ I do request that the import of these last words may be attended to. Do they suggest any idea or none; if they mean any thing, it must be something more than the particular ideas which are said to be of the same sort, _i.e._ some general notion of them. But this will involve all the absurdities of abstraction. If there is any thing in the mind besides these particular ideas themselves—any thing that compares or contrasts them, that refers to this or that belief, this comparison or classifying can be nothing but a perception of a general nature in which these things agree, or the general resemblance which the mind perceives between the several impressions. If there is no such comparison or perception of resemblance, or idea of abstract qualities, then there can be no idea answering to the words ‘of the same sort;’ but these particular ideas will be left standing by themselves, absolutely unconnected. As far as our ideas are merely particular, _i.e._ are negations of other ideas, so far they must be perfectly distinct from each other: there can be nothing between them to blend or associate them together. Each separate idea would be surrounded with a _chevaux de frise_ of its own, in a state of irreconcilable antipathy to every other idea, and the fair form of nature would present nothing but a number of discordant atoms. A particular line would no more represent another line, than it would represent a point: one colour could no more resemble another colour, or suggest its idea, than it could that of a sound, or a smell; there could be no clue to make us class different shades of the same colour under one general name, any more than the most opposite: one triangle would be as distinct from another, as from a square or a cube, and so through the whole system of art and nature. There must be a mutual leaning, a greater proximity between some ideas than others: a common point to which they tend, that is a common quality: a general nature, in which they are identified: or there could not be in the mind more ideas of same or like, or different, or judgment, or reasoning, or truth, or falsehood, than in the stones in the fields, or the sands of the sea-shore. The idea of classing things implies only the same sort of general comparison, or abstract idea of likeness, that is necessary to the idea of any simple sensible quality of an object. In both cases, we only contemplate a number of things as alike or under the same general notion, without attending to their actual differences. Take the idea, for instance, of a slab of white marble. As long as only one such piece of marble is considered, it is supposed to be a particular object, and its whiteness is supposed to be perceived by the mind as a simple sensible quality. If, on the contrary, several such slabs of marble are presented to the mind, this is commonly considered as producing a general idea of marble and of whiteness. But this idea of whiteness, not as a quality of a particular thing, but as a common quality of different things, is rejected by the moderns as implying the supposition, that several different ideas can coalesce in the same general notion, which amounts, they say, to the contradiction that a thing may be the same, and different at the same time. Now I would affirm whatever there is absurd or inconceivable in this latter case applies equally to the former. For what possible idea can any man form of a slab of white marble, in any other way than that of abstraction? Is the idea of its whiteness as a sensible quality the idea of a point. Is it one single impression? This Berkeley and others deny, for they say there can be no idea of colour without extension, or of quality without quantity. If there are in this object several impressions of colour, I would ask are they all distinctly perceived? Are they all the same? Or if not, are all their differences perceived by the mind, before it possibly can be impressed with the general idea of a certain sensible quality, or that the object before it is white? Is the mind aware of even the slightest stain in this object, of every thing that may happen to vary it? Yet, if the idea falls anything short of this minute and perfect knowledge, it can only be an imperfect and general notion. That is, a number of differences must be massed together in a common feeling of likeness, and a number of separate parts make up the idea of a given object. Yet this is all that is implied in forming the ideas of whiteness in general, as belonging to several objects, or of colour, or extension, or any other idea whatever, drawn from numberless objects, impressed at numberless times. If particular objects or qualities were single things, there would then be some precise limit between them and abstract or general ideas, but as the most particular object, or qualities, as well as the most general combinations and classes of things are necessarily confused and mixed results, and nothing more than a number of impressions, never distinctly analyzed by the mind, there can be no general reasoning to disprove abstracted ideas in the common sense of the word.

ON THE WRITINGS OF HOBBES

In the following Essays I shall attempt to give some account of the rise and progress of modern metaphysics, to state the opinions of the principal writers who have treated on the subject, from the time of Lord Bacon to the present day, and to examine the arguments by which they are supported. In the first place, it will be my object to shew what the real conclusions of the most celebrated authors were, and the steps by which they arrived at them: to trace the connexion or point out the difference between their several systems, as well as to inquire into the peculiar bias and turn of their minds, and in what their true strength or weakness lay. This will undoubtedly be best done by an immediate reference to their works whenever the nature of the subject admits of it, or whenever their mode of reasoning is not so loose and desultory as to render the quotation of particular passages a useless as well as endless labour. In the History of English Philosophy, of which I published a prospectus some time ago, I intended to have gone regularly through with all the writers of any considerable note who fell within the limits of my plan, and to have given a detailed analysis of their several subjects and arguments. But this would lead to much greater length and minuteness of inquiry than seems consistent with my present object, and would besides, I am afraid, prove (what Hobbes, speaking of these subjects in general, calls) ‘but dry discourse.’ To avoid this as much as possible, I shall pass over all those writers who have not been distinguished either by the boldness of their opinions, or the logical precision of their arguments. Indeed I shall confine my attention more particularly to those who have made themselves conspicuous by deviating from the beaten track, and who have struck out some original discovery or brilliant paradox; whose metaphysical systems trench the closest on morality, or whose speculations, by the interest as well as novelty attached to them, have become topics of general conversation.

Secondly, besides stating the opinions of others, one principal object which I shall have in view will be to act as judge or umpire between them, to distinguish, as far as I am able, the boundaries of true and false philosophy, and to try if I cannot lay the foundation of a system more conformable to reason and experience, and, in its practical results at least, approaching nearer to the common sense of mankind, than the one which has been generally received by the most knowing persons who have attended to such subjects within the last century; I mean the material or _modern_ philosophy, as it has been called. According to this philosophy, as I understand it, all thought is to be resolved into sensation, all morality into the love of pleasure, and all action into mechanical impulse. These three propositions, taken together, embrace almost every question relating to the human mind, and in their different ramifications and intersections form a net, not unlike that used by the enchanters of old, which, whosoever has once thrown over him, will find all his efforts to escape vain, and his attempts to reason freely on any subject in which his own nature is concerned, baffled and confounded in every direction.

This system, which first rose at the suggestion of Lord Bacon, on the ruins of the school-philosophy, has been gradually growing up to its present height ever since, from a wrong interpretation of the word _experience_, confining it to a knowledge of things without us; whereas it in fact includes all knowledge relating to objects either within or out of the mind, of which we have any direct and positive evidence. We only know that we ourselves exist, the most certain of all truths, from the experience of what passes within ourselves. Strictly speaking, all other facts of which we are not immediately conscious, are so in a secondary and subordinate sense only. Physical experience is indeed the foundation and the test of that part of philosophy which relates to physical objects: further, physical analogy is the only rule by which we can extend and apply our immediate knowledge, or infer the effects to be produced by the different objects around us. But to say that physical experiment is either the test or source or guide of that other part of philosophy which relates to our internal perceptions, that we are to look to external nature for the form, the substance, the colour, the very life and being of whatever exists in our minds, or that we can only infer the laws which regulate the phenomena of the mind from those which regulate the phenomena of matter, is to confound two things entirely distinct. Our knowledge of mental phenomena from consciousness, reflection, or observation of their correspondent signs in others is the true basis of metaphysical inquiry, as the knowledge of _facts_, commonly so called, is the only solid basis of natural philosophy.

To say that the operations of the mind and the operations of matter are in reality the same, so that we may always make the one exponents of the other, is to assume the very point in dispute, not only without any evidence, but in defiance of every appearance to the contrary. Lord Bacon was undoubtedly a great man, indeed one of the greatest that have adorned this or any other country. He was a man of a clear and active spirit, of a most fertile genius, of vast designs, of general knowledge, and of profound wisdom. He united the powers of imagination and understanding in a greater degree than almost any other writer. He was one of the strongest instances of those men, who by the rare privilege of their nature are at once poets and philosophers, and see equally into both worlds. The schoolmen and their followers attended to nothing but essences and species, to laboured analyses and artificial deductions. They seem to have alike disregarded both kinds of experience, that relating to external objects, and that relating to the observation of our own internal feelings. From the imperfect state of knowledge, they had not a sufficient number of facts to guide them in their experimental researches; and intoxicated with the novelty of their vain distinctions, taught by rote, they would be tempted to despise the clearest and most obvious suggestions of their own minds. Subtile, restless, and self-sufficient, they thought that truth was only made to be disputed about, and existed no where but in their demonstrations and syllogisms. Hence arose their ‘logomachy’—their everlasting word-fights, their sharp debates, their captious, bootless controversies.

As Lord Bacon expresses it, ‘they were made fierce with dark keeping,’ signifying that their angry and unintelligible contests with one another were owing to their not having any distinct objects to engage their attention. They built altogether on their own whims and fancies, and buoyed up by their specific levity, they mounted in their airy disputations in endless flights and circles, clamouring like birds of prey, till they equally lost sight of truth and nature. This great man therefore intended an essential service to philosophy, in wishing to recall the attention to facts and ‘experience’ which had been almost entirely neglected; and thus, by incorporating the abstract with the concrete, and general reasoning with individual observation, to give to our conclusions that solidity and firmness which they must otherwise always want. He did nothing but insist on the necessity of ‘experience,’ more particularly in natural science; and from the wider field that is open to it there, as well as the prodigious success it has met with, this latter application of the word, in which it is tantamount to physical experiment, has so far engrossed the whole of our attention, that mind has for a good while past been in some danger of being overlaid by matter. We run from one error into another; and as we were wrong at first, so in altering our course, we have turned about to the opposite extreme. We despised ‘experience’ altogether before; now we would have nothing but ‘experience,’ and that of the grossest kind.

We have, it is true, gained much by not consulting the suggestions of our own minds in questions where they inform us of nothing; namely, in the particular laws and phenomena of the natural world; and we have hastily concluded, reversing the rule, that the best way to arrive at the knowledge of ourselves also, was to lay aside the dictates of our own consciousness, thoughts, and feelings, as deceitful and insufficient guides, though they are the only means by which we can obtain the least light upon the subject. We seem to have resigned the natural use of our understandings, and to have given up our own existence as a nonentity. We look for our thoughts and the distinguishing properties of our minds in some image of them in matter, as we look to see our faces in a glass. We no longer decide physical problems by logical dilemmas, but we decide questions of logic by the evidences of the senses. Instead of putting our reason and invention to the rack indifferently on all questions, whether we have any previous knowledge of them or not, we have adopted the easier method of suspending the use of our faculties altogether, and settling tedious controversies by means of ‘four champions fierce—hot, cold, moist and dry,’ who with a few more of the retainers and hangers-on of matter determine all questions relating to the nature of man and the limits of the human understanding very learnedly. That which we seek however, namely, the nature of the mind and the laws by which we think, feel, and act, we must discover in the mind itself or not at all. The mind has laws, powers, and principles of its own, and is not the mere puppet of matter. This general bias in favour of mechanical reasoning and physical experiment, which was the consequence of the previous total neglect of them in matters where they were strictly necessary, was strengthened by the powerful aid of Hobbes, who was indeed the father of the modern philosophy. His strong mind and body appear to have resisted all impressions but those which were derived from the downright blows of matter: all his ideas seemed to lie like substances in his brain: what was not a solid, tangible, distinct, palpable object was to him nothing. The external image pressed so close upon his mind that it destroyed the power of consciousness, and left no room for attention to any thing but itself. He was by nature a materialist. Locke assisted greatly in giving popularity to the same scheme, as well by espousing many of Hobbes’s metaphysical principles as by the doubtful resistance which he made to the rest. And it has been perfected and has received its last polish and roundness in the hands of some French philosophers, as Condillac and others. It has been generally supposed that Mr. Locke was the first person who, in his ‘Essay on the Human Understanding’ established the modern metaphysical system on a solid and immoveable basis. This is a great mistake. The system, such as it is, existed entire in all its general principles in Hobbes before him; this was never unequivocally or explicitly avowed by the author of the ‘Essay on the Human Understanding.’ Locke merely endeavoured to accommodate Hobbes’s leading principle to the more popular opinions of the time; and all that succeeding writers have done to improve upon his system, and clear it of inconsistent and extraneous matter, has only tended to reduce it back to the purity and simplicity in which it is to be found in Hobbes. The immediate and professed object of both these writers is indeed the same, namely, to account for our ideas and the formation of the human understanding from sensible impressions. But in the execution of this design, Mr. Locke has deviated widely and at almost every step from his predecessor. This difference would almost unavoidably arise from the natural character of their minds, which were the most opposite conceivable. Hobbes had the utmost reliance on himself, and was impatient of the least doubt or contradiction. He saw from the beginning to the end of his system. He is always therefore on firm ground, and never once swerves from his object. He is at no pains to remove objections, or soften consequences. Granting his first principle, all the rest follows of course. There is an air of grandeur in the stern confidence with which he stands alone in the world of his own opinions, regardless of his contemporaries, and conscious that he is the founder of a new race of thinkers. Locke, on the other hand, was a man, who without the same comprehensive grasp of thought had a greater deference for the opinions of others, and was of a much more cautious and circumspect turn of mind. He could not but meet with many things in the peremptory assertions of Hobbes that must make him pause, that he would be at a loss to reconcile to an attentive observation of what passed in his own mind, and that would equally shock the prevailing notions both of the learned and the ignorant. He was therefore led to consider the different objections to the system which had been left unanswered and unnoticed, to make a compromise between the received doctrines, and the violent paradoxes contained in the ‘Leviathan’ and the ‘Treatise of Human Nature,’ or to admit these last with so many qualifications, with so much circumlocution and preparation, and after such an appearance of the most mature and candid examination, and of willingness to be convinced on the other side of the question, as to obviate the offensive and harsh effect which accompanies the abrupt dogmatism of the original author. It was perhaps necessary that the opinions of Hobbes should undergo this sort of metamorphosis before they could gain a hearing: as the direct rays of the sun must be blunted and refracted by passing through some denser medium in order to be borne by common eyes. So sheathed and softened, their sharp, unpleasant points taken off, his doctrines almost immediately met with a favourable reception, and became popular. The general principle being once established without its particular consequences, and the public mind assured, it was soon found an easy task to point out the inconsistency of Mr. Locke’s reasoning in many respects, and to give a more decided tone to his philosophical system. Berkeley was one of the first who tried the experiment of pushing his principles into the verge of paradox on the question of abstract ideas, which he has done with admirable dexterity and clearness, but without going beyond the explicitness of Hobbes on the same question. Subsequent writers added different chapters to supply the deficiencies of the Essay, which, with scarcely a single exception, may be found essentially comprized in that institute and digest of modern philosophy, our author’s ‘Leviathan.’

In thus giving the praise of originality and force of mind to Hobbes, and regarding Locke merely as his follower, I may be thought to venture on dangerous ground, or to lay unhallowed hands on a reputation which is dear to every lover of truth. But if something is due to fame, something is also due to justice. I confess however, that having brought this charge against the ‘Essay on the Human Understanding,’ I am bound to make it good in the fullest manner; otherwise, I shall be inexcusable.