pels us to suppose, and at length discover that the rainbow is the effect of the refraction of the solar rays by the watery particles of a cloud. Having ascertained the cause, but not till then, we are satisfied that we fully know the effect.

Now, this knowledge of the cause of a phænomenon is different from, is something more than, the knowledge of that phænomenon simply as a fact; and these two cognitions or knowledges1 have, accordingly, received different names. The latter, we have seen, is called historical, or empirical knowledge; the former is called philosophical, or scientific, or rational knowledge. Historical, is the knowledge that a thing is -philosophical, is the knowledge why or how it is. And as the Greek language, with peculiar felicity, expresses historical knowledge by the ὅτι - the γνῶσις ὅτι ἔστι: 80, it well expresses philosophical knowledge by the diórt the yvois Stóri T, though here its relative superiority is not the same. To recapitulate what has now been stated:- There are two kinds or degrees of knowledge. The first is the knowledge that a thing is ὅτι χρῆμα ἔστι, rem esse, -and it is called the knowledge of the fact, historical, or empirical knowledge. The second is the knowledge why or how a thing is, dori xona čστɩ, cur res sit;— and is termed the knowledge of the cause, philosophical, scientific, rational knowledge.

Philosophy implies

a search after first

causes.

Philosophical knowledge, in the widest acceptation of the term, and as synonymous with science, is thus the knowledge of effects as dependent on their causes. Now, what does this imply? In the first place, as every cause to which we can ascend is itself also an effect, it follows that it is the scope, that is, the aim of philosophy, to trace up the series of effects and causes, until we arrive at causes which are not also themselves effects. These first causes do not indeed lie within the reach of philosophy, nor even within the sphere of our comprehension; nor, consequently, on the actual reaching them does the existence of philosophy depend. But as philosophy is the knowledge of effects in their causes, the tendency of philosophy is ever upwards; and philosophy can, in thought, in theory, only be viewed as accomplished, which in reality it never can be, when the ultimate causes, the causes

1 Knowledges is a term in frequent use by Bacon, and though now obsolete, should be revived, as, without it, we are compelled to borrow cognitions to express its import.] — Oral Interpolation. [See Bacon's Advancement of Learning, p. 176, ( Works, vol. ii., ed. Mont.);

and Sergeant's Method to Science, Preface, p. 25, p. 166 et passim. - ED.

2 Wolf, Philosophia Rationalis, 6; Kant, Kritik der reiden Vernunft, Methodenlehre, c. 3.- ED.

3 Arist. Anal. Post. ii. 1.-ED.

on which all other causes depend, - have been attained and understood.1

But, in the second place, as every effect is only produced by the concurrence of at least two causes, (and by cause, be it observed, I mean everything without which the effect could not be realized), and as these concurring or coëfficient causes, in fact, constitute the effect, it follows, that the lower we descend in the series of causes, the more complex will be the product; and that the higher we ascend, it will be the more simple. Let us take, for example, a neutral salt. This, as you probably know, is the product — the combination of an alkali and an acid. Now, considering the salt as an effect, what are the concurrent causes, the co-efficients,— which constitute it what it is? These are, first, the acid, with its affinity to the alkali; secondly, the alkali, with its affinity to the acid; and thirdly, the translating force (perhaps the human hand) which made their affinities available, by bringing the two bodies within the sphere of mutual attraction. Each of these three concurrents must be considered as a partial cause; for, abstract any one, and the effect is not produced. Now, these three partial causes are each of them again effects; but effects evidently less complex than the effect which they, by their concurrence, constituted. But each of these three constituents is an effect; and therefore to be analyzed into its causes; and these causes again into others, until the procedure is checked by our inability to resolve the last constituent into simpler elements. But, though thus unable to carry our analysis beyond a limited extent, we neither conceive, nor are we able to conceive, the constituent in which our analysis is arrested, as itself anything but an effect. We therefore carry on the analysis in imagination; and as each step in the procedure carries us from the more complex to the more simple, and, consequently, nearer to unity, we at last arrive at that unity itself,

at that ultimate cause which, as ultimate, cannot again be conceived as an effect.2

Philosophy thus, as the knowledge of effects in their causes, necessarily tends, not towards a plurality of ultimate or first causes, but towards one alone. This first cause, the Creator, it can

1 Arist. Anal Post. i. 24. ETI μéxpI TOÚTOV ζητοῦμεν τὸ διὰ τί, καὶ τότε οιόμεθα εἰδέναι, ὅταν μὴ ᾖ ὅτι τι ἄλλο τοῦτο ἢ γινόμενον ἢ ἄν· τέλος γὰρ καὶ πέρας τὸ ἔσχατον ἤδη οὕτως ἐστίν. Cf. Metaph. i. 2: δεῖ γὰρ ταύτην τῶν πρώτων ἀρχῶν καὶ αἰτίων εἶναι θεωρητικήν. - ED.

2 I may notice that an ultimate cause, and a first cause, are the same, but viewed in dif

ferent relations.

What is called the ultimate cause in ascending from effects to causes,— that is, in the regressive order, is called the first cause in descending from causes to effects, that is, in the progressive order. This synonymous meaning of the terms ultimate and primary it is important to recollect, for these words are in very common use in philosophy.

Philosophy necessarily tends towards a first cause.

indeed never reach, as an object of immediate knowledge; but, as the convergence towards unity in the ascending series is manifest, in so far as that series is within our view, and as it is even impossible for the mind to suppose the convergence not continuous and complete, it follows, unless all analogy be rejected, unless our intelligence be declared a lie,- that we must, philosophically, believe in that ultimate or primary unity which, in our present existence, we are not destined in itself to apprehend.

Such is philosophical knowledge in its most extensive signification; and, in this signification, all the sciences, occupied in the research of causes, may be viewed as so many branches of philosophy.

Sciences denominated philosophical by preeminence.

There is, however, one section of these sciences which is denominated philosophical by preeminence;-sciences, which the term philosophy exclusively denotes, when employed in propriety and rigor. What these sciences are, and why the term philosophy has been specially limited to them, I shall now endeavor to make you understand.

Man's knowledge relative.

"Man," says Protagoras, "is the measure of the universe;" and, in so far as the universe is an object of human knowledge, the paradox is a truth. Whatever we know, or endeavor to know, God or the world,-mind or matter, the distant or the near, we know,

and can know, only in so far as we possess a faculty of knowing in general; and we can only exercise that faculty under the laws which control and limit its operations. However great, and infinite, and various, therefore, may be the universe and its contents,these are known to us, not as they exist, but as our mind is capable of knowing them. Hence the brocard-"Quicquid recipitur, recipitur ad modum recipientis." 2

The primary problem of philosophy.

In the first place, therefore, as philosophy is a knowledge, and as all knowledge is only possible under the conditions to which our faculties - the primary problem of philosophy

are subjected, the grand,

1 See Plato, Theatetus, p. 152; Arist. Metaph. x. 6. Ed.

2 Boethius, De Consol. Phil. v. Prosa iv. Omne enim quod cognoscitur, non secundum sui vim, sed secundem agnoscentium potius comprehenditur facultatem. Proclus in Plat. Parm. p. 748, ed. Stallbaum, Td yiyvŵσkov κατὰ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γιγνώσκει φύσιν. Aquinas, Summa, part i. Q. 79, art. 3. Similitudo agen

tis recipitur in patientem secundum modum patientis. Ibid. part i. Q. 14, art. 1. Scientia est secundum modum cognoscentis. Scitum enim est in sciente secundum modum scientis. Chauvin gives the words of the text. See Lexicon Philosophicum, art. Finitas. See alɛo other authorities to the same effect quoted in the Author's Discussions, p. 644.-ED.

must be to investigate and determine these conditions, as the necessary conditions of its own possibility.

The study of mind the philosophical study.

Branches of this

study.

In the second place, as philosophy is not merely a knowledge, but a knowledge of causes, and as the mind itself is the universal and principal concurrent cause in every act of knowledge; philosophy is, consequently, bound to make the mind its first and paramount object of consideration. The study of mind is thus the philosophical study by preeminence. There is no branch of philosophy which does not suppose this as its preliminary, which does not borrow from this its light. A considerable number, indeed, are only the science of mind viewed in particular aspects, or considered in certain special applications. Logic, for example, or the science of the laws of thought, is only a fragment of the general science of mind, and presupposes a certain knowledge of the operations which are regulated by these laws. Ethics is the science of the laws which govern our actions as moral agents; and a knowledge of these laws is only possible through a knowledge of the moral agent himself. Political science, in like manner, supposes a knowledge of man in his natural constitution, in order

Logic.

Ethics.

Politics.

The Fine Arts.

on study of mind.

to appreciate the modifications which he receives, and of which he is susceptible, in social and civil life. The Fine Arts have all their foundation in the theory of the beautiful; and this theory is afforded by that part of the philosophy of mind, which is conversant with the phænomena of feeling. Religion, Theology, in fine, is not independent of the same philosophy. For as God only exists for us as Theology dependent we have faculties capable of apprehending his existence, and of fulfilling his behests, nay, as the phænomena from which we are warranted to infer his being are wholly mental, the examination of these faculties and of these phænomena is, consequently, the primary condition of every sound theology. In short, the science of mind, whether considered in itself, or in relation to the other branches of our knowledge, constitutes the principal and most important object of philosophy, -constitutes in propriety, with its suit of dependent sciences, philosophy itself.1

The limitation of the term Philosophy to the sciences of mind,

1 Cf. Cousin, Cours de Première Partie du Cours.

Histoire de la Phil. Mod., Prem. Ser. tom. ii.; Programme de la
ED.

Misapplication of the term Philosophy in this country.

when not expressly extended to the other branches of science, has been always that generally prevalent; yet it must be confessed that, in this country, the word is applied to subjects with which, on the continent of Europe, it is rarely, if ever, associated. With us the word philosophy, taken by itself, does not call up the precise and limited notion which it does to a German, a IIollander, a Dane, an Italian, or a Frenchman; and we are obliged to say the philosophy of mind, if we do not wish it to be vaguely extended to the sciences conversant with the phænomena of mat

ter.

We not only call Physics by the name of Natural Philosophy, but every mechanical process has with us its philosophy. We have books on the philosophy of Manufactures, the philosophy of Agriculture, the philosophy of Cookery, etc. In all this we are the ridicule of other nations. Socrates, it is said, brought down philosophy from the clouds, the English have degraded her to the kitchen; and this, our prostitution of the term, is, by foreigners, alleged as a significant indication of the low state of the mental sciences in Britain.1

From what has been said, you will, without a definition, be able to form at least a general notion of what is meant by philosophy. In its more extensive signification, it is equivalent to a knowledge of things by their causes, and this is, in fact, Aristotle's definition; while, in its stricter meaning, it is confined to the sciences which constitute, or hold immediately of, the science of mind.

1 See Hegel, Werke, vi. 13; xiii. 72; Scheidler, Encyclop. der Philosophie, i. p. 27.-ED.

2 Μetaph. ν. 1: πᾶσα ἐπιστήμη διανοητικὴ περὶ ἀιτίας καὶ ἀρχάς ἐστιν ἢ ἀκριβεστέρας ἢ ἁπλουστέρας. 1. 1 : τὴν ὀνομαζομένην σοφιάν περὶ τὰ πρῶτα αἴτια καὶ τὰς ἀρχὰς