the mind can avail itself, independently of words) still continues to keep up a sort of distinction between the Nominalists and the Conceptualists. As for the Realists, they may, I apprehend, be fairly considered, in the present state of science, as having been already forced to lay down their arms.

That the doctrine of the Nominalists has been stated by some writers of note in very unguarded terms, I do not deny,* nor am I certain it was ever delivered by any one of the schoolmen in a form completely unexceptionable; but after the luminous, and, at the same time, cautious manner in which it has been unfolded by Berkeley and his successors, I own it appears to me not a little surprising that men of talents and candor should still be found inclined to shut their eyes against the light, and to shelter themselves in the darkness of the middle ages. For my own part, the longer and the more attentively that I reflect on the subject, the more am I disposed to acquiesce in the eulogium bestowed on Roscelinus and his followers by Leibnitz; one of the very few philosophers, if not the only philosopher, of great celebrity, who seems to have been

Particularly by Hobbes, some of whose incidental remarks and expressions would certainly, if followed strictly out to their logical consequences, lead to the complete subversion of truth, as a thing real and independent of human opinion. It is to this, I presume, that Leibnitz alludes when he says of him, "Thomas Hobbes, qui, ut verum fatear, mihi plus quam nominalis videtur."

I shall afterwards point out the mistake by which Hobbes seems to me to have been misled. In the mean time, it is but justice to him to say, that I do not think he had any intention to establish those sceptical conclusions which, it must be owned, may be fairly deduced as corollaries from some of his principles. Of this I would not wish for a stronger proof than his favorite maxim, that, "words are the counters of wise men, but the money of fools; "a sentence which expresses, with marvellous conciseness, not only the proper function of language, as an instrument of reasoning, but the abuses to which it is liable when in unskilful hands.

Dr. Gillies, who has taken much pains to establish Aristotle's claims to all that is valuable in the doctrine of the Nominalists, has, at the same time, represented him as the only favorer of this opinion, by whom it has been taught without any admixture of those errors which are blended with it in the works of its modern revivers. Even Bishop Berkeley himself is involved with Hobbes and Hume in the same sweeping sentence of condemnation. "The language of the Nominalists seems to have been extremely liable to be perverted to the purposes of scepticism, as taking away the specific distinctions of things; and is in fact thus perverted by Hobbes, Berkeley, Hume, and their innumerable followers. But Aristotle's language is not liable to this abuse."-Gillies's Aristotle, Vol. I. p. 71, 2d. ed.

Among these sceptical followers of Berkeley, we must, I presume, include the late learned and ingenious Dr. Campbell: whose remarks on this subject, I will, nevertheless, venture to recommend to the particular attention of my readers. Indeed, I do not know of any writer who has treated it with more acuteness and perspicuity. (See Philosophy of Rhetoric, Book II. chap. vii.)

fully aware of the singular merits of those by whom this theory was originally proposed: "SECTA NOMINALI

UM, OMNIUM INTER SCHOLASTICAS PROFUNDISSIMA, ET HODIERNÆ REFORMATÆ PHILOSOPHANDI RATIONI CON

GRUENTISSIMA." It is a theory, indeed, much more congenial to the spirit of the eighteenth than of the eleventh century; nor must it be forgotten, that it was proposed and maintained at a period when the algebraical art (or to express myself more precisely universal arithmetic) from which we now borrow our best illustrations in explaining and defending it, was entirely unknown.

II.

Continuation of the Subject.—Of Language considered as an Instrument of Thought.

HAVING been led, in defence of some of my own opinions, to introduce a few additional remarks on the controversy with respect to the theory of general reasoning, I shall avail myself of this opportunity to illustrate a little farther another topic, (intimately connected with the foregoing argument,) on which the current doctrines of modern logicians seem to require a good deal more of explanation and restriction than has been commonly apprehended. Upon this subject I enter the more willingly, that, in my first volume, I have alluded to these doctrines in a manner which may convey, to some of my readers, the idea of a more complete acquiescence, on my part, in their truth, that I am disposed to acknowledge.

The

In treating of abstraction, I endeavoured to show that we think, as well as speak, by means of words, and that, without the use of language, our reasoning faculty (if it could have been at all exercised) must necessarily have been limited to particular conclusions alone. effects, therefore, of ambiguous and indefinite terms are not confined to our communications with others, but extend to our private and solitary speculations. Dr. Campbell, in his Philosophy of Rhetoric, has made some judicious and important observations on this

ject; and, at a much earlier period, it drew the attention of Des Cartes; who, in the course of a very valuable discussion with respect to the sources of our errors, has laid particular stress on those to which we are exposed from the employment of language as an instrument of thought. "And, lastly, in consequence of the habitual use of speech, all our ideas become associated with the words in which we express them; nor do we ever commit these ideas to memory, without their accustomed signs. Hence it is, that there is hardly any one subject, of which we have so distinct a notion as to be able to think of it abstracted from all use of language; and, indeed, as we remember words more easily than things, our thoughts are much more conversant with the former than with the latter. Hence, too, it is, that we often yield our assent to propositions, the meaning of which we do not understand; imagining that we have either examined formerly the import of all the terms involved in them, or that we have adopted these terms on the authority of others upon whose judgment we can rely."

*"Et denique propter loquela usum, conceptos omnes nostros verbis, quibus eos exprimimus, alligamus, nec eos, nisi simul cum istis verbis, memoriæ mandamus. Cumque facilius postea verborum quam rerum recordemur, vix unquam ullius rei conceptum habemus tam distinctum, ut illum ab omni verborum conceptu separemus; cogitationesque hominum fere omnium, circa verba magis quam circa res versantur; adeo ut persæpe vocibus non intellectis præbeant assensum, quia putant se illos olim intellexisse, vel ab aliis, qui eas recte intelligebant, accepisse.”—Princ. Phil. Pars Prima, lxxiv.

I have quoted a very curious passage nearly to the same purpose, from Leibneitz, in a note annexed to my first volume (see note L.) I was not then aware of the previous attention which had been given to this source of error by Des Cartes; nor did I expect to find so explicit an allusion to it in the writings of Aristotle, as I have since observed in the following paragraph:

Διὸ καὶ τῶν παρὰ τὴν λέξιν οὗτος ὁ τρόπος θετέος· πρῶτον μὲν, ὅτι μᾶλλον ἡ ἀπάτη γίνεται μετ ̓ ἄλλων σκοπουμένοις ἢ καθ ̓ ἑαυτούς· ἡ μὲν γὰρ μετ ̓ ἄλλων σκέψις διὰ λόγω· ἡ δὲ καθ ̓ αὑτοὺς, ἐχ ἧττον δι' αὐτὸ τοῦ πράγ ματος· εἶτα, καὶ καθ ̓ αὐτοὺς ἀπατᾶσθαι συμβαίνει, ὅταν ἐπὶ τοῦ λόγου ποιῆσαι τὴν σκέψιν· ἔτι, ἡ μὲν ἀπάτη ἐκ τῆς ὁμοιότητος· ἡ δὲ ὁμοιότης, ἐκ Tns Lisews. De Sophist. Elenchis, Lib. 1. Cap. 7.

"Quocirca inter eos (paralogismos) qui in dictione consistunt, hic fallendi modus est ponendus. Primum, quia magis decipimur considerantes cum aliis, quam apud nosmetipsos: nam consideratio cum aliis per sermonem instituitur; apud nosmetipsos autem non minus fit per rem ipsam. Deinde et per nosmetipsos ut fallamur accidit, cum in rebus considerandis sermo adhibetur. Præterea deceptio est ex similitudine: similitudo autem ex dictione."-Edit. Du Val. Vol. 1. p. 289.

Lest it should be concluded, however, from this detached remark, that Aristotle had completely anticipated Locke and Condillac in their speculations with respect to language, considered as an instrument of thought, I must beg of my readers to compare it with the previous enumeration given by the same author, of those paralogisms

To these important considerations it may be worth while to add, that whatever improvements may yet be made in language, by philosophers, they never can relieve the student from the indispensable task of analyzing, with accuracy, the complex ideas he annexes to the terms employed in his reasonings. The use of general terms, as Locke has remarked, is learned, in many cases, before it is possible for us to comprehend their meaning; and the greater part of mankind continue to use them through life, without ever being at the trouble to examine accurately the notions they convey. This is a study which every individual must carry on for himself; and of which no rules of logic (how useful soever they may be in directing our labors) can supersede the necessity.

Of the essential utility of a cautious employment of words, both as a medium of communication and as an instrument of thought, many striking illustrations might be produced from the history of science during the time that the scholastic jargon was current among the learned; a technical phraseology, which was not only ill-calculated for the discovery of truth, but which was dexterously contrived for the propagation of error; and which gave to those who were habituated to the use of it, great advantages in controversy (at least in the judgment of the multitude) over their more enlightened and candid nents. "A blind wrestler, by fighting in a dark chamber," to adopt an allusion of Des Cartes, "may not only conceal his defect, but may enjoy some advantages over those who see. It is the light of day only that can discover his inferiority." The imperfections of this phi

oppo

or fallacies which lie in the diction (De Sophist. Elenchis, Lib. 1. Cap. 4.)-recommending to them, at the same time, as a useful comment on the original, the twentieth chapter of the third book of a work entitled Institutio Logica, by the learned and justly celebrated Dr. Wallis of Oxford. I select this work in preference to any other modern one on the same subject, as it has been lately pronounced, by an authority for which I entertain a sincere respect, to be " a complete' and accurate treatise of logic, strictly according to the Aristotelian method;" and as we are farther told, that it is" still used by many in the university to which Wallis belonged, as the lecture-book in that department of study." I intend to quote part of ter on another occasion. At present I shall only observe, that it does not slightest reference to the passage which has led me to introduce these obse and which, I believe, will be now very generally allowed to b reater all those puerile distinctions put together, which Dr. We" pains to illustrate and to exemplify.

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losophy, accordingly, have been exposed by Des Cartes and his followers, less by the force of their reasonings, than by their teaching men to make use of their own faculties, instead of groping in the artificial darkness of the schools; and to perceive the folly of expecting to advance science by ringing changes on words to which they annexed no clear or precise ideas.

In consequence of the influence of these views, the attention of our soundest philosophers was more and more turned, during the course of the last century, to the cultivation of that branch of logic which relates to the use of words. Mr. Locke's observations on this subject form, perhaps, the most valuable part of his writings; and, since his time, much additional light has been thrown upon it by Condillac and his successors.

Important, however, as this branch of logic is in its practical applications; and highly interesting, from its intimate connexion with the theory of the human mind, there is a possibility of pushing, to an erroneous and dangerous extreme, the conclusions to which it has led. Condillac himself falls, in no inconsiderable a degree, under this censure; having, upon more than one occasion, expressed himself as if he conceived it to be possible, by means of precise and definite terms, to reduce reasoning, in all the sciences, to a sort of mechanical operation, analogous, in its nature, to those which are practised by the algebraist, on letters of the alphabet. The art of reasoning," he repeats over and over," is nothing more than a language well-arranged." "L'art de raisonner se réduit à une langue bien faite."

One of the first persons, as far as I know, who objected to the vagueness and incorrectness of this proposition, was M. De Gerando; to whom we are farther indebted for a clear and satisfactory exposition of the very important fact to which it relates. To this fact Condillac approximates nearly in various parts of his works; but never, perhaps, without some degree of indistinctness and of exaggeration. The point of view in which it is placed by his ingenious successor, strikes me as so just and happy, that I cannot deny myself the