and with all the nobler concerns of human life. If this view of it be just, as we shall afterwards endeavour to show, it must follow that this study cannot be neglected without material injury to the general system of human knowledge, and the means of human improvement. We are therefore disposed to set a high value upon Mr. Stewart's persevering and powerful efforts for its advancement; and observe with singular satisfaction, the intimation with which he closes the volume before us, that he hopes soon to be able to resume and complete his unfinished analysis of the intellectual powers and capacities. The work with which he has in the mean time favoured the public, will be found in every respect correspondent to his fame. It is a collection of essays, all upon subjects connected with the philosophy of the mind. It commences with a long preliminary discourse in explanation of the nature and in vindication of the utility of that philosophy; and is then divided into two parts, each part containing a series of essays. In the first series, the author examines in the first place Locke's theory of the origin of ideas, and then points out, in separate essays, the errors to which that theory has given rise in various metaphysical systems, both of this country and of France. In the second series, he is occupied with subjects of a more brilliant and interesting nature,-those of beauty, sublimity, and taste.

We propose, on account of their superior importance, to enter at some length into the consideration of the points discussed in the preliminary dissertation; and we begin by observing, that the philosophy of the mind is not a little injured in the public opinion from its common designation by the word metaphysics-a word equally applied to the repulsive and visionary speculations of the schoolmen. In the ancient systems of Greece, the philosophy of the mind was classed among the branches of physical science; and as the laws of mind are as much parts of the general system of nature as those of matter, this classification was evidently correct. But in after-times, it came to be considered as a branch of metaphysics, and to be classed with the useless sciences commonly included under the same name, in consequence of its forming a part of the subjects treated in those fourteen books of Aristotle's works, which their editor, Andronieus of Rhodes, chose to distinguish by the words Ta μera Ta quoixa. Among the schoolmen, the science of mind was studied with the same spirit as the frivolous sciences with which it was thus fortuitously classed; but now, after the improvements which it has received from those who have prosecuted it upon the plan of induction recommended by Bacon, it can no longer be considered as having any affinity with ontology, and its kindred absurdities. The inductive science of mind indeed differs from the inductive

inductive science of matter only in its subject and instruments; they are both essentially founded upon fact, and as the object of the latter is to investigate the general laws that regulate the material phenomena which we perceive, so the object of the former is to investigate the general laws that regulate the phenomena of which we are conscious.

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From this view of the nature of the philosophy of the mind, it follows that all speculations regarding the causes or mechanism by which the intellectual phenomena are supposed to be produced, lie beyond its legitimate province. They belong to the region of conjecture, and not to that of inductive philosophy. Our propositions regarding the laws of thought may be verified by an appeal to experience; but no proposition regarding the essence of the thinking principle is capable of being examined by any such test; and it is therefore improper and unphilosophical to commix and confound these two very different classes of propositions under a common name. the great aim of the physiologico-metaphysical theories, so much in fashion in the present day, to explain how our different mental operations are produced by means of vibrations, and other changes in the state of the sensorium; but in truth, these speculations are exceedingly visionary, and at any rate it is quite clear that as they have neither the same objects nor the same evidence, so neither ought they to pass under the same name with conclusions founded upon consciousness. We admire the philosophy and the spirit of the following passage.

For my part, I have no scruple to say that I consider the physiological problem in question, as one of those which are likely to remain for ever among the arcana of nature; nor am I afraid of being contradicted by any competent and candid judge, how sanguine soever may be his hopes concerning the progress of future discovery, when I assert that it has hitherto eluded completely all the efforts which have been madetowards its solution. As to the metaphysical romances above alluded to, they appear to me, after all the support and illustration which they have received from the ingenuity of Hartley, of Priestly, and of Darwin, to be equally unscientific in the design, and uninteresting in the execution; destitute, at once, of the sober charms of truth, and of those imposing attractions which fancy, when united to taste, can lend to fiction. In consequence of the unbounded praise which I have heard bestowed upon them, I have repeatedly begun the study of them anew, suspecting that I might be under the influence of some latent and undue prejudice against this new mode of philosophizing, so much in vogue at present in England; but notwithstanding the strong predilection which I have always felt for such pursuits, my labour has uniformly ended in a sentiment of regret, at the time and attention which I had misemployed in so hopeless and so ungrateful a task.-Prel. Dissert. p. 4.

To all the theories which attempt to materialize the mind, there is, according to Mr. Stewart, one decisive objection-that they are un philosophical and nugatory. Their object is to show that the qualities we call mental, belong to the same substance which upholds those we call material. But we know absolutely nothing of this substance but by its qualities, which are essentially different from the mental; and therefore when it is said that these two classes of qualities belong to the same substance, the proposition is not only purely hypothetical, but one which makes it just as proper to say that matter is spiritual as that mind is material. The line of distinction between the legitimate science of mind, and those spurious kinds of it to which we have alluded, is admirably illustrated by Mr. Stewart.

'The circumstance which peculiarly characterizes the inductive science of the mind is, that it professes to abstain from all speculations concerning its nature and essence; confining the attention entirely to phenomena, which every individual has it in his power to examine for himself, who chooses to exercise the powers of his understanding. In this respect, it differs equally in its scope from the pneumatological discussions concerning the seat of the soul, and the possibility or the impossibility of its bearing any relation to space or to time, which so long gave employment to the subtility of the schoolmen;-and from the physiological hypotheses which have made so much noise at a later period, concerning the mechanical causes on which its operations depend. Compared with the first, it differs, as the inquiries of Galileo concerning the laws of moving bodies differ from the disputes of the ancient sophists concerning the existence and the nature of motion. Compared with the other, the difference is analogous to what exists between the conclusions of Newton about the law of gravitation, and his query concerning the invisible ether, of which he supposed it might possibly be the effect.'-Prel. Dissert. p. 9.

In prosecuting these remarks upon the theories of Hartley and his followers, Mr. Stewart takes occasion to show, that their attempt to explain all the phenomena of the mind by the single principle of association, is directly at variance with the fundamental rules of inductive philosophy. It forms a complete counterpart, he justly observes, to the extravagant pursuits of the alchemists. All the sciences, indeed, have had their alchemists, who have endeavoured to reduce all phenomena to one primary element or principle. To an alchemist, says Mr. Stewart, the new chemical nomenclature would only have afforded a subject of ridicule; and in like manner, the metaphysical alchemist of the Hartleian school treats with ridicule every system which admits of more than one explanatory principle of the mental phenomena. But what are the steps by which the Hartleian theory has attained to this boasted simplicity? Nothing can be more easy than to make discoveries upon the plan of its author. His generalizations are purely verbal; 'deriving,' as Mr. Stewart con

clusively

clusively observes, whatever speciousness they may possess, from the unprecedented latitude given to the meaning of common terms. After telling us, for example, that "all our internal feelings, excepting our sensations, may be called ideas," and giving to the word association a corresponding vagueness in its import, he seems to have flattered himself that he had resolved into one single law, all the various phenomena, both intellectual and moral, of the human mind.' When it is once determined to call every thing of which we are conscious, an idea, and every kind of connexion among our thoughts, an association, what difficulty is there in showing that all the phenomena of mind are cases of the association of ideas? But what advantage,' continues Mr. Stewart, do we reap from this pretended discovery;-a discovery necessarily involved in the arbitrary definitions with which the author sets out? Its only effect is, by perverting ordinary language to retard the progress of a science, which depends more than any other, for its improvement, on the use of precise and definite expressions.'

Coudillac, a greater philosopher than Hartley, furnishes, we may observe, another striking instance of this arbitrary sort of generalization in his attempt to shew that all the faculties and operations of the mind, are in reality only sensations transformed. All the just distinctions of words and things are here clearly sacrificed to a passion for generalization. This is indeed the rock upon which ingenious minds are most apt to split. But it ought to be recollected that if it is unphilosophical, unnecessarily to multiply ultimate principles, that it is no less unphilosophical prematurely to generalize. It is the business of the metaphysician to endeavour, by a refined analysis, to discover the primary principles of our intellectual nature; but he ought to take care that his advances have the sanction of the cautious maxims of inductive philosophy. Mr. Stewart, therefore, holds the language of a true philosopher when he expresses his determination rather to subject himself to ridicule for the timidity of his researches, than not to follow the footsteps of those faithful interpreters of nature, who, disclaiming all pretensions to conjectural sagacity, aspire to nothing higher, than to rise slowly from particular facts to general laws."

The philosophy of the mind, in order to have any chance of improving upon former advances, must share at least some degree of that estimation which the other sciences enjoy. But we are told, by some persons, that when the pretensions of this boasted philosophy are sifted to the bottom, it will be found that it is incapable of making any substantial additions either to our knowledge or to our power. To counteract these depretiatory views, is the main object of Mr. Stewart in his preliminary dissertation. He rightly judges that his favourite science has much at issue in such an inves

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tigation. The public seems already sufficiently disposed to neglect if not to undervalue it; and if the idea should prevail that it has nothing either new or useful to communicate, it is pretty clear that all remaining curiosity about the laws of the intellectual world would be extinguished, and all farther improvement of this great and interesting department of knowledge entirely abandoned. The occasion of this important discussion, which occupies the far greater part of the preliminary discourse, is stated by Mr. Stewart in the fol lowing passage.

'When I first ventured to appear before the public as an author, I resolved that nothing should ever induce me to enter into any controversy in defence of my conclusions, but to leave them to stand or to fall by their own evidence. As this indifference, however, about the fate of my particular doctrines, arose from a deep rooted conviction, both of the importance of my subject, and of the soundness of my plan, it was impossible for me to be insensible to such criticisms as were directed against either of these two fundamental assumptions. Some criticisms of this description I had, from the first, anticipated; and I would not have failed to obviate them in the introduction to my former work, if I had not been afraid to expose myself to the imputation of prolixity, by conjuring up objections for the purpose of refuting them. I longed, therefore, for an opportunity of being able to state those objections in the less suspicious words of another; and still more in the words of some writer whose talents might contribute to draw the public attention to an argument in which I conceived the credit of my favourite studies to be so peculiarly interested. For such an opportunity, I am indebted to a very able article in the Edinburgh Review, in replying to which I shall have occasion to obviate most of the objections which I had foreseen, as well as various others which, I must own, had never occurred to me.' Prel. Dissert. pp. 29, 30.

The article to which Mr. Stewart here particularly refers, is the review of the excellent account which he some years ago published of the Life and Writings of Dr. Reid. In his survey of the scope and spirit of that great philosopher's writings, he insisted a good deal upon the general analogy between the inductive science of mind, and the inductive science of matter; maintaining that the same rules of philosophizing were equally applicable, and equally promised advancement to both. In the article alluded to, it was on the other hand argued, that induction can only be applied to the study of the mind in the way of observation,— that observation without experiment never increases our power,and that all that the observer of mind can do, is merely to classify and give names to phenomena perfectly notorious to all mankind. Mr. Stewart here largely controverts all those positions, and vindicates the claims of the philosophy of the mind to increase both our knowledge and our power, in terms to which all must allow

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