It has now extended to about six times this length; and yet we are informed that he has only discussed one of the three divisions, under which he had projected to arrange his subject. We cannot but observe, that we think this fact sufficiently justifies all that we had ventured to say of the unpremeditated and desultory manner in which the work must have been prepared. It is in the laying out and arrangement of our thoughts that the laborious part of composition principally consists; the materials are seldom difficult to find; and the value of them, when found, depends, commonly, more upon the quality of the mind in which they were created, than upon the painfulness of the effort by which they were produced.

As Mr. Stewart does not appear to have been guided by any particular rule in determining upon the order in which he has treated his subject, we cannot pretend to follow him step by step from name to name and criticism to criticism. To abridge our author's opinions, spread as they are over such an immense surface, would literally be impossible; and to review them, would often require more room than to repeat them at the entire length with which they are given. That portion of the Dissertation which is now more immediately before us, commences with some observations on the account, which Locke has given, of the origin of our ideas, and of the mistakes into which the French metaphysicians have been led, from not having properly understood his opinion. From Locke Mr. Stewart proceeds to Leibnitz;-Newton, Clarke, Collins are next considered; and after them the opinions of the Hartleian school are examined. From this we are taken to a class of writers who, without having been metaphysicians by profession, contributed nevertheless to the diffusion of a taste for speculative science; such are Bayle, Addison, Fontenelle. Kant and the German metaphysicians come next in order; and the Dissertation closes with a long and not very luminous account of Hume's philosophy, and that of the school which succeeded to him in Scotland. The titles, however, prefixed to Mr. Stewart's chapters, convey but a very imperfect account of the multifarious nature of their contents. The text is illustrated in most places by two, and in many by three tier of notes; and there is scarcely a name of any celebrity in modern times but is mentioned either in the body of the text or in the commentaries. As to the critical acumen which is displayed in these rapid sketches, we are in many instances, from ignorance of the writers whose works or opinions are brought under our notice, quite incompetent to venture an opinion. The fault, however, which we should find, judging from those examples that are more familiar to us, is that Mr. Stewart does not always take a sufficiently comprehensive view of the several systems to which he directs our attention. He seems always to take for

granted

granted that the reader is acquainted with their general outline, and accordingly seldom does more than merely animadvert upon particular observations. This is remarkably the case in the instance of Locke, of Leibnitz, of Berkeley, and even of Dr. Reid. It would be impossible to divine the general character of the several views in philosophy, of which these writers were respectively the advocates, from any thing which Mr. Stewart says in this Dissertation. The only exception to our remark would perhaps be found in the case of Hume, to whose metaphysical writings he seems to attach a degree of importance which to us is quite incomprehensible. We speak with some confidence as to the justice of what we are now saying, from having ourselves experienced the disappointment which, we are persuaded, every reader will meet with who consults the essay before us for any specific purpose, be that purpose what it may. If there is one subject rather than another respecting which it might have been hoped that full information would have been found, it is on the subject of what may be called the systems of Locke and Dr. Reid. The metaphysical views of most of those who have written upon the science of the human mind in this country, during the last hundred years, may justly be referred to one or other of the schools of which these writers are respectively considered as the head; and yet, in no work, have we ever been able to find what appeared to us a true and satisfactory account of the principles by which their metaphysical systems are distinguished. It was principally in the hope of seeing this point more accurately explained, that we felt any considerable anxiety for the appearance of this second part of Mr. Stewart's Dissertation; and our readers may perhaps remember that, while reviewing the former part, we purposely reserved, until the present occasion, and in this very hope, the examination of the principles of Mr. Locke's philosophy. If Mr. Stewart had contrived his essay on purpose to disappoint us in our expectation, he could not have succeeded more completely; but, however, as we pledged ourselves to our readers to give this subject a more full investigation than we have hitherto had an opportunity of accomplishing, we shall make no apology to Mr. Stewart for omitting all further consideration of the particular merit of the present dissertation, and proceed at once to redeem the promise which we made.

To speak plainly, we are more disappointed than surprized, at the little light which is to be found either in this, or in any of Mr. Stewart's writings, respecting what we consider as the fundamental peculiarity in Locke's views of metaphysics, when compared with those of every other writer with whom we are acquainted. It is a common way of speaking to talk of Locke's theory, of Locke's followers, and of the school which Locke founded; nevertheless if we

were

were to ask the greater number of those who make use of these phrases, what the opinions are to which they allude, as constituting Locke's claim to be considered as the founder of a system, we doubt much whether we should often be able to procure such an answer, as would meet the question. And the same remark might be applied to Dr. Reid. People talk very fluently of inductive philosophy and Scottish metaphysics, and seem, no doubt, to understand the signification of these phrases, while they are reading the writings of Mr. Stewart; but were we to inquire what it is that they mean by inductive philosophy, as applied to the study of the human mind, or what are the points of disagreement between the views which were taken of metaphysical science by Dr. Reid, and those which we meet in the Essay upon the Human Understanding, we should soon discover how imperfectly the real character of that new system of philosophy, which passes under the name of the Scotch school, has been apprehended even by those who profess to be in the number of its disciples. The vulgar supposition seems to be, that Dr. Reid's claim to distinction is founded upon the attempt which he made to overturn Locke's system, by refuting the theory of ideas. But be Locke's system what it may, it certainly is totally independent of the particular opinions which he may have embraced respecting the ideal theory. Mr. Stewart is no doubt perfectly aware, that as that theory is usually interpreted, and as it was interpreted by Berkeley and Hume, very few writers, at least in this country, can properly be said to have received it. Locke took the theory as he found it; but in his review of Malebranche he has pointedly and emphatically disavowed that particular interpretation of it against which Dr. Reid directs his attack. It seems to have been a hypothesis respecting which, as a hypothesis, he meant not to deliver any opinion. It was currently received at the time in which he wrote, and served the purpose of his argument as well as any other; but he tells us, nevertheless, repeatedly, that by ideas' he only meant to express whatever is the object of the mind when thinking. This is the definition from which he invariably reasons; and we think it may be safely asserted, that in no instance does he deduce any conclusions, which would not be just as sound upon the supposition of Dr. Reid's theory of perception, as upon that of Plato's phantasms or Aristotle's species.

6

With respect, indeed, to Hume and Berkeley, the case is different; the ideal hypothesis is, in their writings, the corner-stone of the argument, which being removed, the whole edifice which they reared, proofs, conclusions, premises, and theories, crumbles at once to the ground. On this point, then, the merit of Dr. Reid is clear and unquestionable. His writings have shown satisfactorily that the supposition of ideas, as a medium of thought, is a mere

assump

assumption, founded neither upon experience nor reason, nor commou sense. Be the merit of this observation, however, what it may, it is of a character too negative to come within the definition of a discovery; at all events, the mere denial of a fact cannot be made what is called, a principle in philosophy. One part, indeed, of Dr. Reid's opinion in the matter of this controversy is, we admit, of a more positive and tangible character: we mean his doctrine respecting the nature of the secondary qualities of matter when considered merely as sensations in the mind. But in order to understand the merit and true bearing of his reasonings upon this subject, it may be useful, perhaps, to premise a few words connected with the history of his opinions.

The great argument by which Malebranche endeavours to disprove the existence of a material world, is deduced not so much from any theory respecting the nature of ideas, as from the manifest fallacies which are imposed by the senses upon our understandings; and with a view to the illustration of this fact, the leading topic in his book upon Truth is, that our senses give us no information respecting the properties of bodies, as they are in themselves, but only as they affect our particular constitution. This point he fully, and, as we think, most satisfactorily demonstrates, (so far as our knowledge of bodies is founded solely upon sensation,) by showing in the instance of every particular sense, but more evidently in that of sight, that our sensations are merely signs by which nature instructs us to avoid, among the bodies around us, whatever is hurtful to our constitution, and to seek whatever is necessary to its preservation. In the case of the visible properties of matter, it may be proved, almost to a geometrical demonstration, that the final cause of our perceptions is merely, that we may judge of the relative distances of the objects around us; and in like manner, hardness and roughness, smell and taste, are also symbols by which other qualities of bodies are signified to our minds. Why a particular sensation in my mind shall represent to my imagination a property in bodies, to which it cannot possibly bear a real resemblance, any more than the sounds of a language bear a real resemblance to the things for which they stand, is doubtless a secret which it would be just as impossible to divine, as to explain why the properties themselves, of which we are thus admonished, should be noxious or otherwise to a particular frame. But the fact itself is not the less certain on that account; nor ought we to withhold the praise which is justly due to the philosopher by whom it was first observed, because he did not himself at once perceive all its importance. A finer or a more profoundly true remark has never been made by any metaphysician; and we feel singular pleasure in thus attributing the full honour of it to its

real

real author, the eloquence and originality of whose writings have never yet been sufficiently appreciated.

It was from that part of Malebranche's argument in which he examines the means by which the eye judges of distance and magnitude in bodies, that Berkeley evidently took the first hint and no small portion of the matter of his Theory of Vision;' the only original part of which consists in his remarks concerning the confusion which has arisen from not distinguishing properly between tangible and visible dimension. Whether at the time when Dr. Reid published his Inquiry' he had ever read the writings of Malebranche, is a point which it is of no importance to determine; but it is quite certain that his explanation of what he calls the Theory of Perception,' so far as concerns the fact, is in all fundamental respects precisely the same as that of the French philosopher. Dr. Reid does not speak of the Theory' as a discovery of his own, except so far as it is connected with his system of original instinctive principles; and, in point of fact, there is no doubt but that the whole of what he says on this subject was originally suggested to his mind from Berkeley's book. The illustrations which he adduces, the analogies by which he supports his argument, in some places almost the very words which he uses, may all be found in the New Theory of Vision.' In saying this we have no desire to detract from Dr. Reid's general merits; and we cheerfully admit, that the acuteness with which he seized Berkeley's theory as to the nature of our knowledge respecting the visible and tangible properties of bodies, and turned it against the same writer's own conclusions on the subject of our knowledge in general, intitles him to the highest praise; but still the merit of originality, so far as regards the principle, is unquestionably due solely to Malebranche; but for whose book neither Berkeley's Theory' nor Reid's Inquiry' would, it is possible, have ever seen the light. Let the praise, however, of Dr. Reid's account of Perception' belong to whom it may, there can be no controversy, we think, respecting the truth of the very important fact upou which it is founded, or in which, to speak more properly, it consists. When, indeed, it is added, that the judgments which follow in our minds from the intimations of sense, are produced by a principle of human nature, hitherto unnoticed by philosophers,' and which has been given to us by our Maker, for the express purpose of creating a belief in the information of our senses, here, we are involving ourselves in quite another question, and one which it will be more convenient to examine hereafter; but all that we are at present concerned to show is, that when we talk of Dr. Reid's philosophy as opposed to Locke's, it is altogether a mistake to imagine, that the point where the difference between them begins is at the

opinions