His writings are to be reckoned among the few books that have beers productive of real utility to mankind."*

To take this work as a text-book, of which, however, it is well worthy, would require a long life instead of a short lecture: and I shall, hence, beg leave to submit to you only a very brief summary of the more important part of its system and of the more prominent opinions it inculcates, especially in respect to the powers and process of the mind in acquiring knowledge. The work consists of four divisions, the first of which, however, is merely introductory, and intended to clear the ground of that multitude of strong and deep-rooted weeds at which we have already glanced, and which, under the scholastic name of præcognita, innate ideas, maxims, and dictates, or innate speculative and practical principles, prevented the growth of a better harvest; and, to a certain extent, superseded the necessity of reason, education, and revelation, of national institutions and Bible societies; by teaching that a true and correct notion of God, of self or consciousness, of virtue and vice, and consequently of religious and moral duties, is imprinted by nature on the mind of every man; and that we cannot transgress the law thus originally implanted within us without exposing ourselves to the lash of our own consciences. Discarding for ever all this jargon of the schools, the Essay before us proceeds in its three remaining parts to treat of IDEAS, which, in the popular, and not the scholastic sense of the term, are the elements of knowledge; of WORDS, which are the signs of ideas, and consequently the circulating medium of knowledge; and of KNOWLEDGE itself, which is the subject proposed and the great end to be acquired.

The whole of the preceding rubbish, then, being in this manner cleared away, the elaborate author proceeds to represent to us the body and mind as equally at birth a tabula rasa, or unwritten sheet of paper, as consisting equally of a blank or vacuity of impressions, but as equally capable of acquiring impressions by the operation of external objects, and equally and most skilfully endowed with distinct powers or faculties for this purpose; those of the body being the external senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch; and those of the mind the internal senses of perception, reason, judgment, imagination, and memory.t

It is possible that a few slight impressions may be produced a short time antecedently to birth; and it is certain that various instinctive tendencies, which, however, have no connexion with the mind, are more perfect, because more needful, at the period of birth than ever afterwards; and we have also frequent proofs of an hereditary or accidental predisposition towards particular subjects. But the fundamental doctrine before us is by no means affected by such collateral circumstances; to the correctness of which our most eminent logicians of later times have given their entire suffrage. Thus Bishop Butler, and it is not necessary to go farther than this eminent casuist :" In these respects," meaning those before us," mankind is left by nature an unformed, unfinished creature, utterly deficient and unqualified before the acquirement of knowledge, experience, and habits, for that mature state of life which was the end of his creation, considering him as related only to this world. The faculty of reason is the candle of the Lord within us; though it can afford no

Essay on Truth, Part ii. ch. ii. § 2.

† An abstract of this view of Mr. Locke's system, abbreviated for the occasion, the Author found himself called upon to introduce into his Study of Medicine.-Vol, iv. p, 50-55. 2d edit. 1825.

light where it does not shine, nor judge where it has no principles to judge upon."*

External objects first impress or operate upon the outward senses, and these senses, by means hitherto unexplained, and, perhaps, altogether inexplicable, immediately impress or operate upon the mind, or excite in it perceptions or ideas of the presence and qualities of such objects; the word idea being employed in the system before us, not as we have already hinted at, in any of the significations of the schools, but in its broad and popular meaning, as importing "whatever a man observes and is conscious to himself he has in his mind;" whatever was formerly intended by the terms archetype, phantasm, species, thought, notion, conception, or whatever else it may be, which we can be employed about in thinking. And to these effects, without puzzling himself with the inquiry how external objects operate upon the senses, or the senses upon the mind, Mr. Locke gave the name of ideas of SENSATION, in allusion to the source from which they are derived.

But the mind, as we have already observed, has various powers or faculties as well as the body; and they are quite as active and lively in their respective functions. In consequence of which the ideas of external objects are not only perceived, but retained, thought of, compared, compounded, abstracted, doubted, believed, desired; and hence another fountain, and of a very capacious flow, from which we also derive ideas, namely, a reflex act or perception of the mind's own operations; whence the ideas derived from this fountain are denominated ideas of REFLEXION. The ideas, then, derived from these two sources, and which have sometimes been called OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE,§ constitute all our experience, and consequently all our knowledge. Whatever stock of information a man may be possest of, however richly he may be stored with taste, learning, or science, if he turn his attention inwards and diligently examine his own thoughts, he will find that he has not a single idea in his mind but what has been derived from the one or the other of these two channels. But let not this important observation be forgotten by any one; that the ideas the mind possesses will be fewer or more numerous, simpler or more diversified, clear or confused, according to the number of the objects or subjects presented to it, and the extent of its reflection and examination. Thus, a clock or a landscape may be for ever before our eyes, but unless we direct our attention to them, and study their different parts, although we cannot be deceived in their being a clock or a landscape, we can have but a very confused idea of their character and composition. The ideas presented to the mind, from which of these two sources soever derived, or in other words, whether objective or subjective, are of two kinds, SIMPLE and COMPLEX.

Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, Part i. ch. v. Part ii. Conclusion. † Locke, Book i. ch. i. § 3. Ib. § 8. §"On appelle, dans la philosophie Allemande, idees subjectives celles que naissent de la nature de notre intelligence et de ses facultes, et idees objectives toutes celles que sont excitees par les sensations."-Mad. de Stael Holstein, de l'Allemagne, tom. iii. p. 76.

Mad. de Stael, however, has fallen into the common error of the French philosophers, from whom she appears to have generally informed herself of the principles of Locke's system, in supposing that he derived all ideas from sensation. "A l'epoque ou parut la Critique de la Raison pure, il n'existoit que deux systemes sur l'entendement humain parmi les penseurs ; l'une, celui de Locke, attribuoit toutes nos idees a nos sensations; l'autre, celui de Descartes et de Leibnitz, s'attachoit a demontrer la spiritualite et l'activite de l'ame, de libre arbitre, enfin toute la doctrine idealiste."-Id. p. 70."

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SIMPLE IDEAS Consist of such as are limited to a single notion or perception; as those of unity, darkness, light, sound, hardness, sweetness, simple pain or uneasiness. And in the reception of these the mind is passive, for it can neither make them to itself, nor can it, in any instance, have any idea which does not wholly consist of them: or, in other words, it cannot contemplate any one of them otherwise than in its totality. Thus, on looking at this single sheet of paper, I have the idea of unity; and though I may divide the single sheet of paper into twenty parts, I cannot divide the idea of unity into twenty parts; for the idea of unity will and must as wholly accompany every part as it accompanies the collective sheet. And the same remark will apply to all the rest.

COMPLEX IDEAS are formed out of various simple ideas associated together, or contemplated derivatively. And to this class belong the ideas of an army, a battle, a triangle, gratitude, veneration, gold, silver, an apple, an orange in the formation of all which it must be obvious that the mind is active, for it is the activity of the mind alone that produces the complexity out of such ideas as are simple. And that the ideas I have now referred to are complex must be plain to every one; for every one must be sensible that the mind cannot form to itself the idea of an orange without uniting into one aggregate the simple ideas of roundness, yellowness, juiciness, and sweetness. In like manner, in contemplating the idea of gold, there must necessarily be present to the mind, and in a complex or aggregate form, the ideas of great weight, solidity, yellowness, lustre; and if the idea be very accurate, great malleability and fusibility.

Complex ideas are formed out of simple ideas by many operations of the mind; the principal of which, however, are some combination of them, some abstraction, or some comparison. Let us take a view of each of these:

And, first, of complex ideas of COMBINATION. Unity, as I have already observed, is a simple idea; and it is one of the most common simple ideas that can be presented to the mind, for every object without, and every idea within, tend equally to excite it. And, as being a simple idea, the mind, as I have also remarked, is passive on its presentation; it can neither form such an idea to itself, nor contemplate it otherwise than in its totality, but it can combine the ideas of as many units as it pleases, and hence produce the complex idea of a hundred, a thousand, or a hundred thousand. So beauty is a complex idea, for the mind, in forming it, combines a variety of separate ideas, into one common aggregate. Thus Dryden, in delineating the beautiful Victoria, in his "Love Triumphant :"

Her eyes, her lips, her cheeks, her shape, her features,
Seem to be drawn by Love's own hand; by Love
Himself in love.

In like manner the mind can produce complex ideas by an opposite process, and that is, by ABSTRACTION, or separation. Thus chalk, snow, and milk, though agreeing, perhaps, in no other respect, coincide in the same colour; and the mind, contemplating this agreement, may abstract or separate it from the other properties of these three objects, and form the idea which is indicated by the term whiteness; and having thus acquired a new idea by the process of abstraction, it may afterwards apply

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it as a character to a variety of other objects: and hence particular ideas become general or universal.

Other complex ideas are produced by COMPARISON. Thus, if the mind take one idea, as that of a foot, as a determinate measure, and place it by the side of another idea, as the idea of a table, the result will be a formation of the complex idea of length, breadth, and thickness. Or if we vary the primary ideas, we may obtain as a result, the secondary ideas of coarseness and fineness.

And hence complex ideas must be almost infinitely more numerous than simple ideas, which are their elements or materials, as words must be always far more numerous than letters. I have instanced only a few of their principal kinds; but even each of these kinds is applicable to a variety of subjects, of which Mr. Locke mentions the three following: I. IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES; or such as we have uniformly found connected in the same thing, and without which, therefore, such thing cannot be contemplated. To this head belong the complex ideas of a man, a

horse, a river, a mountain.

II. IDEAS of MODES ; or such as may be considered as representative of the mere affections, or properties of substance; of which the idea of number may once more be offered as an example: the ideas of expansion or extension and duration belong to the same stock; and in like manner those of power, time, space, and infinity, which are all modes, properties, or af fections of substance; or secondary ideas derived from or excited by the primary idea of substance of some kind or other.

III. IDEAS of RELATIONS; which are by far the most extensive, if not the most important, branch of subjects from which our complex ideas are derived; for there is nothing whatever, whether simple idea, substance, mode, relation, or even the name of any of them, which is not capable of an almost infinite number of bearings in reference or relation to other things. It is from this source, therefore, that we derive a very large proportion of our thoughts and words. As examples under it, I may mention all those ideas that relate to, or are even imported by the terms father, brother, son, master, magistrate, younger, older, cause and effect, right and wrong, and consequently all moral relations.

It must hence appear obvious that many of our ideas have a NATURAL CORRESPONDENCE, congruity, and connexion with each other. And as many, perhaps, on the contrary, a NATURAL REPUGNANCY, incongruity, and disconnexion. Thus if I were to speak of a cold fire, I should put together ideas that are naturally disconnected and incongruous, and should consequently make an absurd proposition, or, to adopt common language, talk nonsense. I should be guilty of the same blunder if I were to speak of a square billiard ball, or a soft reposing rock. But a warm fire, on the contrary, a white, or even a black billiard ball, and a hard, rugged rock, are congruous ideas, and consequently consistent with good sense. Now it is the direct office of that discursive faculty of the mind which we call reason, to trace out these natural coincidences or disjunctions, and to connect or separate them by proper relations. For it is a just perception of the natural connexion and congruity, or of the natural repugnancy and incongruity of our ideas, that constitutes all real knowledge. The wise man is he who has industriously laid in and carefully assorted an extensive stock of ideas; as the stupid or ignorant man is he who, from natural hebetude, or having had but few opportunities, has collected and arranged but a small number. The man who discovers the natural relations of his ideas

quickly is a man of sagacity; and, in popular language, is said, and correctly so, to possess a quick, sharp intellect. The man, on the contrary, who discovers these relations slowly, we call dull or heavy. If he rapidly discover and put together relations that lie remote, and perhaps touch only. in a few points, but those points striking and pleasant, he is a man of wit, genius, or brilliant fancy; of agreeable allusion and metaphor. If he connect ideas of fancy with ideas of reality, and mistake the one for the other, however numerous his ideas may be, and whatever their organ of succession, he is a madman: he reasons from false principles; and, as we say in popular language, and with perfect correctness, is out of his judgment.

Finally, our ideas are very apt to ASSOCIATE or run together in trains; and upon this peculiar and happy disposition of the mind, we lay our chief dependence in sowing the important seeds of education. It often happens, however, that some of our ideas have been associated erroneously, and even in a state of early life, before education has commenced: and hence, from the difficulty of separating them, most of the sympathies and antipathies, the whims and prejudices that occasionally haunt us to the latest period of old age. Peter the Great, having been terrified by a fall into a sheet of water when an infant, could never, till he became a man, go over a bridge without shuddering; and even at last had no small difficulty in breaking the connexion of the ideas that were thus early and powerfully associated. Avarice did not by any kind of predisposition belong to the miser Elwes, for in his youth he was of gay manners, and a spendthrift; but he caught the vice by living with his uncle: uninterrupted habit, the strong power of association, gave strength to its influence, and what was originally his abhorrence, became at length his idol.

Such, then, is the manner in which the mind, at first a sheet of white paper, without characters of any kind, becomes furnished with that vast store of ideas, the materials of wisdom and knowledge, which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety. The whole is derived from experience-THE EXPERIENCE OF SENSATION OR REFLECTION; from the observations of the mind employed either about external sensible objects, or the internal operations of itself, perceived and reflected upon by its own faculties.

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But man is a social as well as a rational being; he is dependent for the supply of his wants upon his fellow man; and his happiness is made to consist in this dependence. The ideas he possesses he feels a desire of communicating, and those possessed by others he feels an equal desire of diving into. But ideas in themselves are incommunicable; he requires here, as in the case of sensible objects, a circulating medium by which their value may be expressed. And what he requires is freely granted to him it consists in the high faculty of speech; in reducing ideas to articulate sounds or words, the aggregate of which constitutes language. And hence the great and valuable systematic work to which I have now chiefly directed your attention, proceeds from a general analysis of our ideas to a general analysis of their vocal representatives: a subject which every one must perceive to be of the utmost importance in the progress of human understanding. Important, however, as it is, it is a subject rather collateral than direct. We have briefly glanced at it already,* and may perhaps return to it hereafter, but I shall postpone it for the present,

* Ser. II. Lect. VIII. IX. X.