FOR DECEMBER, 1807. For the Anthology. REMARKER, No. 28. Quot frutrices Sylvæ, quot flavas Tibris arenas; r is observed by philosophers, that in proportion as our knowl edge of nature becomes more extensive and exact, the simplicity of all her operations becomes more evident. Every new investigation discovers new relations, unfolds new affinities, and displays new points of resemblance between sub stances apparently the most dis similar, and the theory revived by Newton and Boscovich is no lon ger considered visionary, which supposes all the varieties of external nature to be only modifications of the same primary matter. What, indeed, may not be expected, when we find it demonstrated that water contains a large portion of the most combustible principle in nature; and that charcoal and the diamond are only varieties of the same elementary substance? Yet with all this simplicity it is curious to remark, that there is no identity; that nature never exactly repeats her own productions; never copies herself. The leaf of this tulip is a little more deeply and delicately tinged than that of yours, and a minute observer will detect some latent and almost impercep⚫ tible shades of difference between Vol. IV. No. 12. 4H Ovid. Tristia. your rose and mine. The same uniformity and the same variety is visible in the intellectual, as in the natural world. The minds of all men seem to have been originally cast in similar moulds; and the incomparable Hartley has shown how plausibly all the mental phe nomena may be explained by the application of the single theory of association. The particular diversity of men's minds is even more remarkable than their general similarity, and the proposition is assented to as soon as it is proposed, that no two men are in all respects exactly alike. This variety is no where more obvious than in the difference of our habits of investi gation and thought; and the Remarker, with the leave of his readers, intends to amuse himself by employing this month's specula tion in considering the various classes of thinkers among mankind. Rousseau makes but one sweeping division of our race, into those who think and those who never think; but the thought is hardly brilliant enough to atone for its want of accuracy. There are, to be sure, many, who, as they never appear to think rationally, seem scarcely to have a claim to the dignity of intellectual beings; yet, as they have been included in every definition of man, which has ever been made, and as it would be difficult to prove them to be any thing else, if you deny them to be men, we must from necessity, if not from courtesy, admit that they are members of the species. God made them, and therefore let them pass for men.' Yet of that class of beings, such as, for instance, the fop, the belle, and hoc genus omne, who float loosely on the current of life, mere idle gazers on the light of heaven, without regard for the past, or care for the future. Of those, too, such as your men of luxury and pleasure, who reverse the design of nature, and make mind the slave of sense, who employ their mental powers only as the ministers of passion and the panders of indulgence; of those, in fine, whose powers seem merely sensitive and mechanical, who spend their lives in calculations of immediate interest, without hope or fear beyond the acquisition of wealth; of such beings it is indeed difficult to conceive, as sharers of the same powers, and capable of the same designs, with those who have employed their lives in labouring in the cause of wisdom, virtue, and truth. It would be absurd to waste a moment in ascertaining the rank of men, thus feeble, effeminate, and degraded, in the scale of thinking beings. We will pass, therefore, to the consideration of the class of those, whom I shall denominate the superficial thinkers. There are some mental qualities, which it is not uncommon to hear men acknowledge that they do not possess. There are many, for instance, who, from real or assumed humility, will confess that they want the fancy of poetry, or the vivacity of wit; but the rêcords of literature and of life do not furnish an instance of one, who was willing to believe that he wanted the power of thinking justly and profoundly. Yet every man, who has exercised his faculties in the investigation of truth, knows that to be an original and philosophick thinker is the most difficult of all attainments. When we consider the difficulty of comprehending at one view a subject in all its bearings and dependences; of separating those circumstances which fairly affect a conclusion, from those which are accidental and superinduced; of balancing the opposing probabilities, which the ambiguity of language and the artifi ces of ingenuity create; of following all the windings, and disentangling all the multiplied involutions of errour; of anticipating and fairly appreciating all possible objections; in short, of contemplating right and wrong at one survey in their general, invariable, and abstracted state; it must be allowed, that to be a great and original thinker, calls for the highest exercise of all the nobler faculties of our minds. It requires a man. self-collected and independent, súperiour to passion, to prejudice, and sloth; humble yet not mean, active yet patient, bold yet cautious, persevering, fearless, and decisive, neither to be dazzled by novelty, ensnared by cunning, nor seduced by plausibility. For a man of the most resplendent powers to become a thinker of this description is no light task; it is not wonderful, therefore, that great thinkers are few. To think profoundly is always toilsome; and this sufficiently explains why the majority of those who think at all should think loosely and superfi cially. To doubt, too, is always painful, and this sufficiently explains why most men should leave the labour of investigation to others, and press hastily and rashly to confident conclusions. If I might be allowed to adopt the language of metaphysicks, I should say, that most men seem impatient to lose the liberty of indifference, and catch at the first motive, which has weight enough to make the intellectual balance preponderate, without stopping to consider, whether there are no objections, which may affect the opposite scale. It might be supposed, that those, who thus think superficially, would at least not decide dogmatically; yet exactly the reverse is usually found to be true. The credulous, who is too timid, and the sceptick, who is too vain to doubt iong and patiently, are always confident and exclusive in their opinions. As they arrive at the conclusions, which they hold, not by balancing, and analyzing, and comparing arguments, but by adopting some guide, whose boldness has overawed, whose wit has fascinated, or whose plausibility has ensnared them; and as of course their minds are nearly passive, while the premises are presented to them, their conclusions are implicitly and peremptorily adopted. As in such an investigation they have felt no objection themselves, by a very natural operation of self-love they 'believe, that none can exist, and therefore they, without hesitation, pronounce, that all who disagree with them, must take their choice between the epithets of fool or knave. It is not uncommon to find the superstructure of such men's faith more lofty and broad, in exact proportion as the foundation of it is weaker and more narrow. It may, indeed, almost be assumed as an universal truth, that they are always most presumptuous, whose opinions have the least support; and that those only lay claim to infallibility, who are farthest from truth. A man must know something of the difficulty of investigation before he can conceive of the possibility of erring in important subjects, without intention and without crime. There is another class of men, not much superiour in intellectual dignity, but for a very different reason. Those are superficial, because they read too little, but these because they read too much. I mean to speak of the mere readers of books, of those whose views terminate in the bare contemplation of other men's ideas, and who never dream that reading is only val uable, as it furnishes materials of thought. The sentence of Plautus, when applied to such men, almost ceases to be a paradox, nesciunt id quod sciunt. They often succeed in accumulating immense masses of learning, but their learning is always heavy, sluggish, and unproductive; we may admire it, as we do a pyramid, for its magnitude, but after all, when we examine it closely, we only see one huge stone piled on another, without object and without use. It is needless to point out any of the individuals of this class; for we find them in every profession. My gay readers, I suppose, will be disposed to single out their examples from among the mathematicians; and it is not to be denied that the mathematicians have their share of them. Let us not, however, join in the common cant of ignorance and frivolity. We must allow, indeed, that a man may know the mere practice of mathematicks, without possessing any other earthly knowledge. But the difference between such a man and a philosophical mathematician is exactly the same, as between the drudge who learns an art, and the genius who invents the theory on which it is founded. For myself, I am almost disposed to believe D'Alembert, when he asserts* that there is as much exercise of imagination in Geometry as in Poetry, and that, of all the great men of antiquity, Archimedes has the highest claims to be placed by the side of Homer. I return now from this digression to the consideration of a class of men of nobler powers and more exalted claims, but who must, notwithstanding, be denominated the visionary thinkers. These are men, în whom imagination predominates; who always think ingeniously, but seldom solidly; who are so busy in seeking what is uncommon and remote, that they of ten neglect what is obvious and important; who delight to refine, and distinguish, and invent, more than to weigh, to compare, and combine; mén, in short, who will teach you what Goldsmith means by cutting blocks with a razor,' L'imagination dans un Géometre, qui creé n'agit pas moins que dans un Poëte, qu'invente. Il est vrai, qu'ils operent differément sur leur objet; le premier le dépoulle et l'analyse, le second le compose et embellit. Il est encore vrai, que cette maniere diffé. rente d'opérer n'appartient qu'a diffé. rentes sortes d'esprits; et c'est pour cela, que les talens du grand Géometre et du grand Poëte ne se trouveront peut-être jamais ensemble. Mais soit qu'ils sexcluent, ou ne 's'excluent pas Fun de l'autre, ils ne sont nullement en droit de se mépriser réciproquement, De tous les grand hommes de l'antiquité, Archimede est peut-etre celui que merite le plus d'etre placé à coté 'Homere-Discours Preliminaire à Encylopedis, p. 16 and what Shakespeare may be sup posed to mean by cavilling on the ninth part of a hair.' Of this class you commonly find poets, when they attempt to become reasoners; when they lay aside the full and flowing robes of the prophets, and put on the cap and gown of the logician. Who needs to be referred for an illustration of this to the slender, yet subtle, speculations of Lucretius, to the ingenious refinements of Cowley, or to the unintelligible metaphysicks of Milton? To this class, rather than to any other, I should refer the reasoners from feeling and imagination more than from judgment and evidence. Here, then, I should rank Rousseau; and here, too, forgive me, ye his idolaters! here too, with hesitation and trembling, I should place the name of Burke. De Retz, in his memoirs, describes a man of extension, but without comprehension of mind; and this distinction must be kept in view in order to appreciate the next class, which I shall notice, and who may be called the acute or metaphysical thinkers. This is principally composed of those who reason so much, that they forget to feel; who are so much philosophers, that they cease to be men. They are seldom great enough to look down on the fame, which is raised merely on novelty and boldness of speculation, and their ingenuity is continually exercised and perverted in seeking after something, which may dazzle by its originality, and startle and confound by its opposition to established opinions. The few scepticks, who have not been so from fashion and vanity, have always been men of this class. They reason too well not to discover, that reason is limited and weak; but this knowledge of their ignor ance, instead of teaching them in patience and humbleness to wait till the designs of Providence are -developed and justified in a better life, only draws from them repinings at the evils of life, doubts of the goodness and even the existence of God, and all the vain and presumptuous struggles of reasoning pride' against the wisdom which ties it down to imperfection, and the earth.† These are the men whom Burke intends, when he talks of the thorough-bred metaphysicians. They are men, who always carry their distinctions and abstractions about them; they bring metaphysick from the head, and introduce it into the bosom ; they will theorize to you upon charity, and refine, and speculate, and distinguish upon mercy and love. They are men, who always breathe an atmosphere different from ours; they live in the loftier regions of a mountain, above, indeed, some of our clouds; but then the snows are eternal there, the air is too rarified for human life, and the flower, and the bud, and the fruit wither and die. Such are all the See Hume's Dialogues on Natural Religion, passim. There has always been a remarkable inconsistency in the conduct of scepticks. If a man, after slow and deep meditation, is compelled to believe, that the world is the offspring of chance, he ought, one would think, to doubt in silence and sorrow. Since he cannot enjoy the consolation of believing that he is under the protection of a God, his philosophy, if not his humanity, ought to teach him not to disturb the consolations of others. But the sceptick is al. ways found to be desirous of making proselytes, and fortifying his own hesitating belief by the assent of others. An apostate always hates the religion he has renounced. Le temple-l'importune, & son impiété disciples of Pyrrho, such were Spinoza, and Hobbes, and Collins, and Hume. There are some men, however, who seem to fall naturally into the class of acute and metaphysical thinkers, who yet are exceptions to most of these remarks. They are men, whose feeling has not been strangled by speculation, who have all that we admire in the men I have named, with nothing that we dread and detest. They usually reason wisely and solidly, always ingeniously, though sometimes fancifully. Of this description I suppose were Berkely, Descartes, and Leibnitz. We have now arrived at the last and least numerous class which I shall consider. I mean the profound and philosophick thinkers; the rare and sublime spirits, which are occasionally given to the earth by providence, to rectify the opinions of mankind, to redress the evils, which the pride and presumption of inferiour natures have introduced, and to vindicate the wisdom, the harmony, and benevolence of the arrangement of the universe. They survey man and nature from an eminence, high enough to raise them above the passions and prejudices of the world, but yet not so lofty and remote as to make them mistake the nature and destination of our race, or to remove them from a share in our feelings and hopes. Their theories are therefore as simple and practicable, as they are comprehensive and sublime. These men have none of the vanity of inferiour minds, none of the pomp of philosophy, none of the arrogance of learning; they alone, of all the world, seem ignorant of their own august powers. It is not necessary to repeat the names of any of these men; for the number of them is too small to make 落 |