philosophy of Bacon, but that branch of the philosophy of the mind, which teaches us how to apply our faculties with success in the discovery of truth? When, therefore, the Reviewer talks of 'the absolute nothingness of the effects which have been produced by the study of the mind,' he does not seem to have duly attended to the fact, that the whole of philosophy has been purified of fundamental errors, and misconceptions by the lights reflected from this very study; and that it was these lights which pointed out the road to physical truth, and traced the legitimate boundaries of physical science. The utility of the philosophy of the mind must appear, we think, very obvious to every one who recollects, that it forms the groundwork of all the moral and political sciences. They are in fact only dependent provinces of this capital and centre,' as Mr. Hume calls it, of human knowledge. If we would know their foundations and springs, we must trace them to the powers, and principles, and feelings, of our intellectual constitution. There can be no scientific reasoning in regard to them that is not bottomed upon that foundation. All their fundamental ideas and principles derive their explanation and their authority from the laws of the mind. The analysis of its various powers and principles seems, as Mr. Bentham has remarked in one of his profound works upon the subject of legislation, to be as necessary to the science in question, as the anatomy of the body is to the other branches of medical knowledge. These views have, we may add, the invaluable sanction of Bacon's authority; for he distinctly points out the analytical examination of the principles and affections of the human mind as the nourishing source of all civil and political philosophy.*

We must here terminate these imperfect remarks with the following impressive passage, which forms the conclusion of Mr. Stewart's eloquent dissertation.

I have only to repeat once more before the close of this Dissertation, that the correction of one single prejudice has often been attended with consequences more important and extensive than could be produced by any positive accession to the stock of our scientific information. Such is the condition of man, that a great part of a philosopher's life must necessarily be spent, not in enlarging the circle of his knowledge, but in unlearning the errors of the crowd, and the pretended wisdom of the schools; and that the most substantial benefit he can bestow on his fellow-creatures, as well as the noblest species of power to which he can aspire, is to impart to others the lights he has struck out by his meditations, and to encourage human reason, by his example, to assert its liberty. To what did the discoveries made by Luther amount, but to a detection of the impostures of the Romish church, and of absurdities sanctioned by the authority of Aristotle? Yet, how vast the space which is filled by his name in the subsequent history of Europe! and

* Nov. Organ. Aph. 80. Lib. 1.

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how proud his rank among the benefactors of mankind! I am doubtful if Bacon himself did so much by the logical rules he gave for guiding the inquiries of his followers, as by the resolution with which he inspired them to abandon the beaten path of their predecessors, and to make excursions into regions untrodden before; or if any of his suggestions concerning the plan of experimenting, can be compared in value to his classification and illustration of the various prejudices or idols which mislead us from the pure worship of truth. If the ambition of Aristotle has been compared, in the vastness of its aim, and the plenitude of its success, (and who can say that it has been compared unjustly?) to that of his Royal Pupil who conquered the world; why undervalue the efforts of those who first raised the standard of revolt against his universal and undisputed despotism? Speedily after the death of Alexander, the Macedonian empire was dismembered among his principal officers. The empire founded by the philosopher continued one and undivided for the period of two thousand years.In consequence of this slow and gradual emancipation of the mind, the means by which the final result has been accomplished, attract the notice only of the reflecting inquirer; resembling in their silent, but irresistible operation, the latent and imperceptible influence of the roots, which, by insinuating themselves into the crevices of an ancient edifice, prepare its infallible ruin, ages before its fall; or that of the apparently inert moisture, which is concealed in the fissures of a rock, when enabled, by the expansive force of congelation, to rend asunder its mass, or to heave it from its basis.

As it is seldom, in such instances, easy to trace to particular individuals what has resulted from their exertions, with the same precision with which, in physics or mechanics, we refer to their respective inventors the steam-engine or the thunder-rod, it is not surprising, that the attention of the multitude should be so little attracted to the intellectual dominion of superior minds over the moral world; but the observer must be blind indeed, who does not perceive the vastness of the scale on which speculative principles, both right and wrong, have operated on the present condition of mankind; or who does not now feel and acknowledge, how deeply the morals and the happiness of private life, as well as the order of political society, are involved in the final issue of the contest between true and false philosophy.'-Prel. Dissert. pp. lxxii, lxxiii, lxxiv.

It is proper for us now to mention, what we could not so well have done before, that the Preliminary Dissertation contains some admirable remarks on the scope and spirit of Bacon's philosophy. The erroneous views of it which have been lately held forth to the world, render it the more necessary that we should direct the attention of our readers to Mr. Stewart's animadversions. These were occasioned by an opinion pretty confidently delivered by the Reviewer, that Bacon meditated nothing farther in his Novum Organum, than the advancement of inquiries relating to the laws of the material world. We are at a loss, we confess, to

account for such an error; for even a superficial view of that unequalled work, might suffice to show that its author intended it as an instrument by which to regenerate and advance the whole system of philosophical knowledge. The error is the more remarkable that Bacon has himself expressly cautioned his reader against the supposition, that he had nothing else in view but the improvement of physics.-Etiam dubitabit quispiam potius quam objiciet, utrum nos de naturali tantum philosophia, an etiam de scientiis reliquiis, logicis, ethicis, politicis, secundum viam nostram perfciendis loquamur. At nos certe de universis hæc, quæ dicta sunt, intelligimus: atque quemadmodum vulgaris logica, quæ regit res per syllogismum, non tantum ad naturales, sed ad omnes scientias pertinet; ita et nostra, que procedit per inductionem, omnia complectitur.* It would appear, therefore, that the opinion of the Reviewer is not only remarkably at variance with the general spirit of the Novum Organum, but also with the very words of its author. The length of our preceding remarks will oblige us, reluctantly, to limit ourselves to a very slight sketch of the coutents of this valuable and interesting publication. We may observe in general, that all the essays which it contains are remarkable for extensive and various knowledge, elevated sentiments, and uncommon dignity and beauty of style; and that some of them also display great acuteness, originality, and profundity. The first series is chiefly adapted to those readers who are conversant in the more abstract discussions of metaphysical science; the second, while equally interesting to this class, may be read with pleasure by those who have but little relish for scholastic disputations. In truth, however, there is nothing repulsive in any of the disquisitions of the volume before us ;-there is nothing which any man of education may not read with ease and advantage; for of all the teachers of abstract knowledge, Mr. Stewart is by far the most eloquent and attractive. Philosophy, pourtrayed by his masterly pencil, wears an aspect the most pleasing as well as sublime. That noble love of truth and science by which he is actuated, diffuses through every page an ardour and animation which can hardly fail to warm and to interest every cultivated reader. He always relieves and illustrates his subject by the happiest allusions and quotations, and decorates even the most unpromising discussions with the various colouring of his chaste and cultivated imagination. Such, indeed, are the great and engaging qualities of mind which Mr. Stewart displays, that even when there is room to question the solidity or importance of any of his conclusions, it is impossible to dissent from him but with hesitation and respect.

Mr. Stewart's object in the two first essays is to refute Locke's theory of the origin of ideas, and to show its connection with the sceptical doctrines of Berkeley and Hume. Locke maintained that all our elementary ideas are derived either from sensation or consciousness; but Mr. Stewart, as Dr. Reid indeed had done before, shows indisputably, that there are many of them which have no sort of resemblance to any sensation, or to any operation of miud of which we are conscious; and of the origin of which, all that can be said is, that the exercise of certain faculties furnishes the occasions when they were first presented to our thoughts. Mr. Stewart also shows, that Locke's theory, by his having blended with it the old ideal hypothesis which represents images in the mind as the only immediate objects of perception, in fact resolves into the supposition, that consciousness is exclusively the source of all our knowledge; and that it was from these principles, regarding the origin and nature of ideas, that Berkeley and Hume deduced the non-existence of matter and other equally sceptical conclusions. Iu adverting to the hypothesis of Berkeley, Mr. Stewart takes occasion to remark, that Dr. Reid's refutation of it has been in general much misunderstood; and that his book has been the subject of gross misapprehensions, from its unfortunate title of an Inquiry into the Human Mind, on the Principles of Common Sense.'

The object of.Dr. Reid is not,' he says, to bring forward any new proofs that matter does exist, nor (as has been often very uncandidly affirmed) to cut short all discussion upon this question, by an unphilosophical appeal to popular belief; but to overturn the pretended demonstration, that matter does not exist, by exposing the futility and absurdity of the principles which it assumes as data. That from these data (which have been received, during a long succession of ages, as incontrovertible articles of faith,) both Berkeley and Hume have reasoned with unexceptionable fairness, as well as incomparable acuteness, he acknowledges in every page of his works; and only asserts, that the force of their conclusion is annihilated by the falseness and inconsistency of the hypothesis on which it rests. It is to reasoning, therefore, and to reasoning alone, that he appeals in combating their doctrines; and the ground of his objection to these doctrines is not that they evince a blameable freedom and boldness of discussion;-but that their authors had suffered themselves too easily to be carried along by the received dogmas of the schools.'-pp. 58-9.

In the third essay Mr. Stewart traces the influence of Locke's authority upon the French metaphysicians; and shows, that though they have in general adopted his account of the origin of knowledge as a fundamental truth, hardly two of them can be named who have understood it in the same sense, and scarcely one who has understood it precisely in the sense of its author. When they began to perceive the absurdities involved in Des Cartes' hypothesis of innate

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innate ideas, they eagerly turned to a theory which stands opposed to it in the grand principle of deriving all our knowledge, either immediately or mediately from the senses; but they all carried this principle to an extravagant length; and from holding that the mind is originally furnished with ideas whose existence has no sort of dependence upon any information collected by the senses, they proceeded immediately to the directly opposite error, that sensation is the only source of all our ideas. It may, undoubtedly, be said with truth, that the sum of our knowledge originates in sensation,-if by this, it be only meant, that the impressions on our senses furnish the occasions on which all our faculties and their connected ideas are successively developed; but this is by no me as the sense in which the proposition is understood by the French metaphysicians. On the contrary, their grand dogma is, that all our ideas are literally resolvable in their ultimate state of decomposition into mere sensations. This at all events is the doctrine maintained by Condillac, Helvetius, Condorcet, and Diderot; all of whom, it is remarkable, vie in their praises of Locke's theory, though it is extremely clear that they have fastened upon it an interpretation of which he never dreamed. M. De Gerando is almost the only French metaphysician who has arrived at sound conclusions upon this subject; for notwithstanding some ambiguities of expression in his Tate work upon the Origin of knowledge, it appears, upon the whole, that his opinions very nearly coincide with those of Dr. Reid and Mr. Stewart. In general, however, Mr. Stewart is inclined to think, that on most questions connected with the philosophy of the mind, the metaphysicians of France have always been, and still are, greatly behind the writers of this island.

While,' says he, Locke's account of the origin of our ideas continued to be the general creed in Great Britain, it was almost unknown in France; and now that, after long discussion, it begins, among our best reasoners, to shrink into its proper dimensions, it is pushed, in that country, to an extreme, which hardly any British philosopher of the smallest note ever dreamed of. In consequence of the writings of Reid, and of a few others, the word idea itself is universally regarded here, even by those who do not acquiesce implicitly in Reid's conclusions, as at the best a suspicious and dangerous term; and it has already nearly lost its technical or Cartesian meaning, by being identified as a synonyme with the simpler and more popular word, notion. Our neighbours, in the mean time, have made choice of the term ideology, (a Greek compound, involving the very word we have been attempting to discard,) to express that department of knowledge, which had been previously called the science of the human mind; and of which they themselves are always reminding us, that it is the great object to trace, in the way of induction, the intellectual phenomena to their general laws. It is a circumstance somewhat ludicrous, that, in selecting a new name

for