judgment in making use of it, and all those other qualities of the mind which are so differently dispensed to different persons, both by nature and education. And though the reason itself is the same in all men, yet the means of exercising it, and the materials,—that is, the facts and conceptions-on which it is exercised, being possessed in very different degrees by different persons, the practical result is, of course, equally different—and the whole ground work of Rousseau's philosophy ends ¡ in a mere nothingism.-Even in that branch of knowledge, where the conceptions, on the congruity of which with each other, the reason is to decide, are all possessed alike by all men, namely in geometry;-for all men in their senses possess all the component images, namely simple curves and straight lines, yet the power of attention required for the perception of linked truths, even of such truths, is so very different in A and in B, that Sir Isaac Newton professed that it was in this power only that he was superior to ordinary men. In short, the sophism is as gross as if I should say, the souls of all men have the faculty of sight in an equal degree-forgetting to add, that this faculty cannot be exercised without eyes, and that some men are blind and others short-sighted,—and should then take advantage of this my omission to conclude against the use or necessity of spectacles, and microscopes,- or of choosing the sharpest sighted men for our guides. Having exposed this gross sophism, I must warn against an opposite error-namely, that if reason, as distinguished from prudence, consists merely in knowing that black cannot be white-or when a man has a clear conception of an inclosed figure, and another equally clear conception of a straight line, his reason teaches him that these two conceptions are incompatible in the same object, that is, that two straight lines cannot include a space— · the reason must therefore be a very insignificant faculty. For a moment's steady self-reflection will shew us, that in the simple determination 'black is not white'—or, 'that two straight lines cannot include a space'-all the powers are implied, that distinguish man from animals;-first, the power of reflection-2d, of comparison-3d, and therefore of suspension of the mind-4th, therefore of a controlling will, and the power of acting from notions, instead of mere images exciting appetites; from motives, and not from mere dark instincts. Was it an insignificant thing to weigh the planets, to determine all their courses, and prophesy every possible relation of the heavens a thousand years hence? Yet all this mighty chain of science is nothing but a linking together of truths of the same kind, as, the whole is greater than its part; -or, if A and B⇒C., then A=B: or 3+4=7, therefore 7+5=12, and so forth. X is to be found either in A or B, or C or D: it is not found in A, B, or C; therefore it is to be found in D.— What can be simpler? Apply this to a brute animal. A dog misses his master where four roads meet;-he has come up one, smells to two of the others, and then with his head aloft darts forward to the fourth road without any examination. If this were done by a conclusion, the dog would have reason;-how comes it then, that he never shews it in his ordinary habits? Why does this story excite either wonder or incredulity?—If the story be a fact, and not a fiction, I should say-the breeze brought his master's scent down the fourth road to the dog's nose, and that therefore he did not put it down to the road, as in the two former instances. So awful and almost miraculous does the simple act of concluding, that 'take three from four, there remains one,' appear to us, when attributed to one of the most sagacious of all brute animals. |