Analysis, in the mouth of one set of philosophers, means precisely what synthesis denotes in the mouth of another; nay, what is even still more frequent, these words are perpetually converted with each other by the same philosopher. I may notice, what has rarely, if ever, been remarked, that synthesis in the writings of the Greek logicians is equivalent to the analysis of modern philosophers: the former, regarding the extensive whole as the principal, applied analysis, Kar' έoxy, to its division;1 the latter, viewing the comprehensive whole as the principal, in general limit analysis to its decomposition. This, however, has been overlooked, and a confusion the most inextricable prevails in regard to the use of these words, if the thread to the labyrinth is not obtained.

1 Thus the Platonic method of Division is called Analytical. See Laertius, ii. 24. Compare Discussions, p. 178. -ED. [Cf. Zabarella,

In Post Analyt. 1. ii. c. xii. t. 70, Opera Logica, p. 1190, and t. 81, p. 1212.]

LECTURE XXXVIII.

The Regulative Faculty.

Peculiarity of sense in which the term Faculty is here employed.

THE REGULATIVE FACULTY.

I Now enter upon the last of the Cognitive Faculties, the faculty which I denominated the Regulative. Here the term faculty, you will observe, is employed in a somewhat peculiar signification, for it is employed not to denote the proximate cause of any definite energy, but the power the mind has of being the native source of certain necessary or a priori cognitions; which cognitions, as they are the conditions, the forms, under which our knowledge in general is possible, constitute so many fundamental laws of intellectual nature. It is in this sense that I call the power which the mind possesses of modifying the knowledge it receives, in conformity to its proper nature, its Regulative Faculty. The Regulative Faculty is, however, in fact, nothing more than the complement of such laws,it is the locus principiorum. It thus corresponds to what was known in the Greek philosophy under the name of vous, when that term was rigorously used. To this faculty has been latterly applied the name Reason; but this term is so vague and ambiguous, that it is almost unfitted to convey any definite meaning. The term Common Sense has likewise been applied to designate the place of principles. This word is also ambiguous. In the first place, it was the expression used in the Aristotelic philosophy to denote the Central or Common Sensory, in which the different external senses met and were united. In the second place, it was employed to signify a sound understanding applied to vulgar objects, in contrast to a scientific or speculative intelligence, and it is in this signification that it has been taken by those who have derided the principle on which the philosophy, which has been distinctively denominated the Scottish,

Designations of the Regulative Faculty. Noûs, Reason.

Common Sense, - its various meanings.

1 See De Anima, iíì. 2, 7. Cf. in loc. cit. Conimbricenses, pp. 373, 407.-ED.

professes to be established. This is not, however, the meaning which has always or even principally been attached to it; and an incomparably stronger case might be made out in defence of this

Authorities for the use of the term Common Sense as equivalent to Noûs.

expression than has been done by Reid, or even by Mr. Stewart. It is in fact a term of high antiquity, and very general acceptation. We find it in Cicero,1 in several passages not hitherto observed. It is found in the meaning in question in Phædrus, and not in the signification of community of sentiment, which it expresses in Horace and Juvenal.* "Natura," says Tertullian," speaking of the universal consent of mankind to the immortality of the soul,-"Natura pleraque suggeruntur quasi de publico sensu, quo animam Deus dotare dignatus est." And in the same meaning the term Sensus Communis is employed by St. Augustin. In modern times it is to be found in the philosophical writings of every country of Europe. In Latin it is used by the German Melanchthon, Victorinus, Keckermannus, Christian Thomasius, Leibnitz," Wolf,12 and the Dutch De Raei, by the Gallo-Portuguese Antonius Goveanus, the Spanish Nunnesius,15 the Italian Genovesi, and Vico," and by the Scottish Abercromby;18 in French by Balzac,19 Chanet, Pascal, Malebranche,22 Bouhours, Barbeyrac; in English by Sir Thomas Browne, Toland,25 Charleton.26 These are only a few of the testimonies I could adduce in support of the term Common Sense for the faculty in question; in fact, so far, as use and wont may be allowed to weigh, there is perhaps no philosophical expression in support of which a more numerous array of authorities may be alleged. The expres

10

16

23

1 See Reid's Works, p. 774.-Ed.

2 L. i. f. 7.-ED.

3 Sat. i. 3, 66. But see Reid's Works, p. 774.

-ED.

4 Sat. viii. 73.- ED.

5 See Reid's Works, p. 776.- Ed.

6 Ibid., p. 776.-ED.

7 Ibid., p. 778.-ED.

8 [Victorini Strigelii, Hypomnemata in Dia

lect. Melanchthonis, pp. 798, 1040, ed. 1566.]

9 See Reid's Works, p. 780.- Ed.

10 Ibid., p. 785.- ED.

11 See Reid's Works, p. 785.-ED.

12 Ibid., p. 790.- ED.

13 See Clavis Philosophia Naturalis AristotelicoCartesiana, Dissert. i. De Cognitione Vulgari et Philosophica, p. 7. "Communis facultas omnium hominum." Dissert. ii. De Præcognitis in Genere, §§ iv. v. pp. 34, 35. "Communes Notiones; "x. p. 41. "Communis Sensus." -ED.

14

20

21

9

13

23 Des Droits de la Puissance Souveraine, Recueil de Discours, t. i. pp. 36, 87. A translation from the Latin of Noodt, in which mens sana and sensus communis are both rendered by le sens commun.- ED.

24 See Reid's Works, p. 782. — ED.

25 Ibid., p. 745. -- ED.

26 Charleton uses the term in its Aristotelian signification, as denoting the central or common sensory and its function. See his Immortality of the Human Soul demonstrated by the Light of Nature (1657), pp. 92, 98, 158.-ED.

sion, however, is certainly exceptionable, and it can only claim toleration in the absence of a better.

I may notice that Pascal and Hemsterhuis1 have applied Intuition and Sentiment in this sense; and Jacobi originally employed Glaube (Belief or Faith), in the same way, though he latterly superseded this expression by that of Vernunft (Reason). Were it allowed in metaphysical philosophy, as in physical, to discriminate scientific differences by scientific terms, I would employ the word noetic, as derived from vous, to express all those cognitions that originate in the mind itself, dianoetic to denote the operations of the Discursive, Elaborative, or Comparative Faculty. So much for

Noetic and Diano

etic, how to be employed.

Nomenclature of the cognitions due to the Regulative Faculty.

the nomenclature of the faculty itself.

On the other hand, the cognitions themselves, of which it is the source, have obtained various appellations. They have been denominated κοιναὶ προλήψεις, κοιναὶ ἔννοιαι, φυσικαὶ ἔννοιαι, πρῶται ěvvoiai, πрôτa voýpara; naturæ judicia, judicia communibus hominum sensibus infixa, notiones or notitiæ connatæ or innatæ, semina scientiæ, semina omnium cognitionum, semina æternitatis, zopyra (living sparks), præcognita necessaria, anticipationes; first principles, common anticipations, principles of common sense, self-evident or intuitive truths, primitive notions, native notions, innate cognitions, natural knowledges (cognitions), fundamental reasons, metaphysical or transcendental truths, ultimate or elemental laws of thought, primary or fundamental laws of human belief, or pri mary laws of human reason, pure or transcendental or a priori cognitions, categories of thought, natural beliefs, rational instincts, etc., etc.3

Importance of the distinction of native and adventitious knowledge.

The history of opinions touching the acceptation, or rejection, of such native notions, is, in a manner, the history of philosophy: for as the one alternative, or the other, is adopted in this question, the character of a system is determined. At present I content myself with stating that, though from the earliest period of philosophy, the doctrine was always common, if not always predominant, that our knowledge originated, in part at least, in the mind, yet it was only at a very recent date that the criterion was explicitly enounced, by which the native may be discriminated from the adventitious elements of knowledge. Without touching on some ambiguous expressions in more ancient philoso

1 See Reid's Works, p. 792.-Ed.

2 Ibid., p. 793.- ED.

3 See Reid's Works, note A, § v. p. 755 et seq.

ED.

Criterion of necessity first enounced by Leibnitz.

Partially anticipated by Descartes.

phers, it is sufficient to say that the character of universality and necessity, as the quality by which the two classes of knowledge are distinguished, was first explicitly proclaimed by Leibnitz. It is true, indeed, that, previously to him, Descartes all but enounced it. In the notes of Descartes on the Programma of 1647 (which you will find under Letter XCIX. of the First Part of his Epistola), in arguing against the author who would derive all our knowledge from observation or tradition, he has the following sentence: "I wish that our author would inform me what is that corporeal motion which is able to form in our intellect any common notion, for example, things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other, or any other of the same kind; for all those motions are particular, but these notions are universal, having no affinity with motions, and holding no relation to them." Now, had he only added the term necessary to universal, he would have completely anticipated Leibnitz. I have already frequently had occasion incidentally to notice, that we should carefully distinguish between those notions or cognitions which are primitive facts, and those notions or cognitions. which are generalized or derivative facts. The former are given us; they are not, indeed, obtrusive, they are not even, cognizable of themselves. They lie hid in the profundities of the mind, until drawn from their obscurity by the mental activity itself employed upon the materials of experience. Hence it is, that our knowledge has its commencement in sense, external or internal, but its origin in intellect. "Cognitio omnis a sensibus exordium, a mente originem habet primum." The latter, the derivative cognitions, are of our own fabrication; we form them after certain rules; they are the tardy result of Perception and Memory, of Attention, Reflection, Abstraction. The primitive cognitions, on the contrary, seem to leap ready armed from the womb of reason, like Pallas from the head of Jupiter; sometimes the mind places them at the commencement of its operations, in order to have a point of support and a fixed basis, without which the operations would be impossible; sometimes they form, in a certain sort, the crowning, - the consummation, of all the intellectual operations. The derivative or generalized notions are an artifice of intellect, an ingenious mean of giving order and compactness to the materials of our knowledge. The primitive and general notions are the root of all principles, the foundation of the whole edifice of human science. But how different soever be the two classes of our cognitions, and however

1

1 See above, lect. xxi. p. 285.-ED.