any operation of the mind there exists in it an object distinct from the mind itself.

With respect to the division of the qualities of bodies just adverted to, though derived from the views of Sir Isaac Newton, I am ready to admit that it is loose, and in some respects perhaps erroneous. Nor is this to be wondered at; for I have already had frequent occasions to observe that it is a subject upon which we are totally ignorant; and that we are rather obliged to suppose, than are capable of proving the existence of even the least controverted primary qualities of bodies, as extension, solidity, and figure, in order to avoid the falling into the absurdity of disbelieving a material substrate. But the supporters of the new hypothesis have no reason to triumph upon this point, since it is a general doctrine of their creed that all the qualities of matter are equally primary or real; in the interpretation of which, however, the sentiments of Mr. Stewart are wider from those of Dr. Reid than Dr. Reid's are from Mr. Locke's

Nor are they altogether clear from the very same charge here advanced against Mr. Locke: "Professor Stewart in his Elements says, Dr. Reid has justly distinguished the quality of colour from what he calls the appearance of colour, which last can only exist in a mind." And Dr. Reid himself says, 'The name of colour belongs indeed to the cause only, and not to the effect.'" Here, then, we have it unequivocally from Dr. Reid, that colour is a quality in an external body,—and the sensation occasioned by it in the mind is only the appearance of that external quality!!-Would any one suppose that such doctrine could come from the illustrious defender of non-resemblances ?-from the founder of the school which ridicules Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, for supposing that our ideas of primary qualities are resemblances of those qualities?" What is the ap pearance of any thing but a resemblance of it? An appearance of any thing means the highest degree of resemblance; or that precise resemblance of it which makes it seem to be the thing itself."* Appearance, in Dr. Reid's sense of the term, is precisely assimilated to the phantasm of Aristotle.

In reality, neither of these objections against Mr. Locke's theory seem to have weighed very heavy with Dr. Beattie; whose chief ground of controversy is drawn from another source; from Locke's having opposed the Cartesian doctrine of innate ideas and principles: or, in other words, from his having opposed M. Des Cartes's gratuitous assertion that infallible notions of a God, of matter, of consciousness, or moral right, together with other notions of a like kind, are implanted in the mind, and may be found there by any man who will search for them; thus superseding the necessity for discipline and education, and putting savages upon a level with theologians and moral philosophers. To confute this absurdity of M. Des Cartes is the direct object of the first book of the Essay on Human Understanding; "and it is this first book," says Dr. Beattie," which, with submission, I think the worst and most dangerous." Here again, however, it is altogether unnecessary for me to offer a vindication, for it has been already offered by one of the most able supporters of the new system, Mr. Dugald Stewart himself; who thus observes, as though in direct contradiction to his friend Dr. Beattie; "the hypothesis of innate ideas thus interpreted (by Des Cartes and Malebranche) scarcely *Fearne's Essay on Consciousness, ch. xii. p. 247. 2d edit. † Beattie on Truth, part ii. ch. ii. sect. i. § 2.

seems to have ever merited a serious refutation. In England, for many years past, it has sunk into complete oblivion, excepting as a monument of the follies of the learned."*

We have thus far noticed three objections advanced against Mr. Locke's system by the three warmest champions for the new hypothesis. And it is a curious fact that they are almost advanced singly; for upon these three points the three combatants are very little more in harmony with themselves than they are with the Goliah against whom they have entered the lists. There is a fourth objection, however, and it would be the chief and most direct, if it could be well supported, on which the metaphysicians of the north seem to be unanimous. The Essay on Human Uninto derstanding resolves all the ideas we possess, or can possibly possess, the two classes of those obtained by sensation, or the exercise of our external senses, and those obtained by reflection, or the operations of the mind on itself; and it defies its readers to point out a single idea which is not reducible to the one or the other of these general heads. The supporters of the northern hypothesis have specially accepted this challenge, and have attempted to point out a variety of ideas, or CONCEPTIONS, as Dr. Reid prefers calling them, which are in the mind of every man, and which are neither the result of sensation or reflection; and they have And hence peculiarly fixed upon those of extension, figure, and motion. this argument is regarded as decisive, and is proposed, both by Dr. Reid and Professor Stewart, "as an experimentum crucis, by which the ideal system must stand or fall."†

Now, strictly speaking, this invincible argument, as it is called, is no argument whatever. It is a mere question of opinion, whether the abovenamed ideas, together with those of time, space, immensity, and eternity, which belong to the same class, can be obtained either by means of the external senses of the operation of the mind upon its own powers, or whether they cannot. And, for myself, I completely concur in believing with Mr. Locke that they can: though I am ready to leave this part of the subject, as I am the whole question between us, to Mr. Stewart's own case of the boy born blind and deaf, as communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in the course of last year; who, it is admitted, is possessed of perfect soundness of mind; but who, at that time in his seventeenth year, was, as we are expressly told, without any idea of a being superior to himself; of any religious feelings; and who did not appear to have possessed any moral feelings upon the sudden death of an indulgent father, notwithstanding the utmost pains that had been taken to give him instruction. If this boy shall be found to possess as clear an idea of figure and motion as those who have the free use of their eyes, I will readily allow Mr. Locke's system to be unfounded. That he must have some idea follows necessarily from his system; because he appears to have a very fine touch, and has also, or at least had till very lately, some small glimmering of light and colours.§

But upon the northern hypothesis, he ought not only to have some idea of these qualities of bodies, but A MOST TRUE AND CORRECT IDEA, proba

* Essays, vol. i. p. 117.

t Reid's Inquiry, &c. p. 137. Stewart's Essays, vol. i. p. 549.

I "Some Account of a Boy born Blind and Deaf. By Dugald Stewart, Esq. F.R.S. Ed. 4to. Edin. 1812." With which compare, relating to the same individual, History of James Mitchell, a Boy born Blind and Deaf, &c. By James Wardrop, F.R.S." Ed. 4to.

bly more so, instead of less so, than that of other persons; since he is said to obtain it from a faculty which is not supposed to be injured, and since the want of one sense is usually found to strengthen the remainder.

With respect to the idea of extension, indeed, which, by some philosophers, is thought to be most difficult of the whole, it appears to me that it is capable of being obtained with at least as much perspicuity as that of most other qualities of bodies, and more so than ideas of any of them; for we have in this instance the power of touch to correct that of sight, or vice versa; while in a multitude of other instances we are compelled to trust to one sense alone. Extension, in its general signification, is a complex idea, resulting from a combination of the more simple ideas of length, breadth, and thickness; and hence evidently imports a continuity of the parts of whatever subject the idea is applied to; whether it be a solid substance, as a billiard ball, or the unsolid space which measures the distance between one billiard ball and another; the idea of measure being, indeed, the most obvious idea we can form of it. In both which cases we determine the relative proportions of the length, breadth, and thickness by the eye, by the touch, or by both and acquire, so far as I can see to the contrary, notwithstanding all that has been said upon the subject, as clear an idea as we do of substance. It is first obtained, I grant, from the sight or touch of what is solid alone; and it is afterwards made use of in a more abstract form, as a measure of what is unsolid; whence the mind is able to apply it not only to the subject of pure space, but to a contemplation of circles, triangles, polygons, or any other geometrical figure, even though such figures be not present to the senses, and exist alone in its own conceptions.

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Extension, by the Cartesian school, was only applied to solid substance, or body; but then they supposed the universe to consist of nothing but solid substance, or body, and that there is no such thing as vacuum, or pure space. Among the Newtonians, who admit space, extension is plied as generally to this latter as to the former; but in order to avoid the confusion to which the application of this term to things so totally opposite as matter and space has produced in common discourse, Mr. Locke advises to appropriate the term extension to body, and expansion to space; using both these terms, however, as perfect synonyms, and as equally importing the simple idea of measure; which, as I have just observed, is the most obvious and explanatory idea that can be offered upon this subject. Widely different, however, is the opinion of the metaphysical school of North Britain; and hence, in order to account for these abstruse ideas, to which they affirm that neither our senses nor our reason can give rise, as also in order to compel our belief that the external world exists in every respect precisely AS IT APPEARS TO EXIST, and that external bodies possess in themselves all the qualities, both primary and secondary, which THEY APPEAR TO POSSESS, and thus, with one wide sweep, to clear the ground as well of the errors of Des Cartes, Newton, and Locke, as of those of Berkeley and Hume; Dr. Reid, who, at one time, had been a follower of Berkeley, and, as he himself tells us," had embraced the whole of his system,' steps forth with his new theory, the more important doctrines of which may be comprised under the four following heads:

I. There exist in the mind of man various ideas or conceptions, both

*See Dugald Stewart's Essays, Note E. p. 543., and compare with ch. i. pp. C2, 63.

physical and metaphysical, which we have never derived either from sensation or reflection.

II. There must therefore exist, somewhere or other in the animal frame, a third percipient principle, from which alone such ideas can have been derived.

III. From this additional principle there is no appeal: it is higher in its knowledge, and surer in its decision, than either the senses or the reason; it compels our assent in a variety of cases, in which we should otherwise be left in the most distressing doubt; and gives us an assurance, not only that there is an external world around us, but that the primary and secondary qualities of bodies exist equally and uniformly in the bodies themselves, or, in other words, that every thing actually is as it appears to be.

This mandatory or superior principle is COMMON SENSE OF INSTINCT. And in order to ensure himself success in the establishment of the doctrines contained in this outline, Dr. Reid, with a warmer devotion than falls to the lot of metaphysicians in general, and in some degree breathing of poetic inspiration, opens his Inquiry with the following animated prayer: "Admired philosophy! daughter of light! parent of wisdom and knowledge! if thou art she! surely thou hast not yet arisen upon the human mind, nor blessed us with more of thy rays than are sufficient to shed a darkness visible upon the human faculties, and to disturb that repose and security which happier mortals enjoy, who never approached thine altar, nor felt thine influence! But if, indeed, thou hast not power to dispel those clouds and phantoms which thou hast discovered or created, withdraw this penurious and malignant ray: I despise philosophy, and renounce its guidance : let my soul dwell with common sense.

How far this petition was attended to, and the prostrate suppliant was enabled to obtain his object, we shall now proceed to examine.

It is not necessary again to inquire whether the abstruse ideas of extension, figure, and motion, time and space, together with various others of the same kind, can or cannot be derived from mental reflection or external sensation. I have already touched upon the subject, and must refer such of my audience as are desirous of entering into it more deeply to the writings of Locke and Tucker on the one side, and of Reid and Stewart on the other. I shall only observe, in addition, that Mr. Stewart himself admits, with that liberality which peculiarly characterizes his pen, that the ideas or notions of extension and figure, which he somewhat quaintly denominates "the mathematical affections of matter," presuppose the exercise of our external senses.* But this being admitted, they ought, if not derived from their immediate action, to be fundamentally dependent upon them./

Let us step forward at once to an investigation of the newly discovered and sublime principle itself, by which all these profundities are to be fathomed, and all the aberrations of sense and reason to be corrected.

Many of my hearers will perhaps smile at the idea that this high and mighty principle is nothing more than common sense; but, in truth, the founder and supporters of the northern system seem to have been wofully at a loss, not only what name to give it, but what nature to bestow upon it; and have hence variously, and at times most cloudily and incongruously, described it, and loaded it with as many names and titles as belong to a Spanish grandee or a Persian prime minister.

✦ Essays, vol. i. p. 95.

"If," says Dr. Reid, "there are certain principles, as I think there are, which the constitution of our nature leads us to believe, and which we are under a necessity to take for granted in the common concerns of life, without being able to give a reason for them, these are what we call the principles of COMMON SENSE."*

Upon this passage I shall only, for the present, remark, that the new percipient faculty, which it is the object of the Scottish theory to discover to us, is one, as we have just been told, that is capable of extending its survey far beyond "the common concerns of life," and of forming ideas of the mathematical affections of matter; and consequently that if the principles of common sense be limited, as they seem to be here, and in my judgment correctly so, to "the common concerns of life," they can never answer the purpose to which this faculty aspires, and for which it is started in the present hypothesis; which demands not only a common sense, but a moral and a mathematical sense; and all essentially distinct from and totally independent of corporeal sensation and mental intelligence.

It is much to be regretted, however, and forms an insuperable objection to the whole hypothesis, that its founders have never been able to agree among themselves upon the nature of their new principle.

"The power or faculty," says Dr. Reid," by which we acquire these conceptions, (those of extension, motion, and the other attributes of matter,) must be something different from any power of the human mind that hath been explained, since it is neither sensation nor reflection."

This is loosely written; for it seems to intimate that there may be conceptions or ideas in the mind derived from or dependent on itself, which are not conceptions or ideas of reflexion: while the phrase ideas of reflexion, as employed in Locke's system, embraces ideas of every kind of which the mind is or can be conscious, and which issue from any powers of its own.

Dugald Stewart gives the same doctrine more correctly as follows, and as a paraphrase upon this very passage: "That we have notions of external qualities which have no resemblance to our sensations, or to any thing of which the mind is conscious, is therefore a fact of which every man's experience affords the completest evidence, and to which it is not possible to oppose a single objection, but its incompatibility with the common philosophical theories concerning the origin of our knowledge."

But the question still returns, from what source then are these insensible, unintellectual notions derived? Where is the seat, and what is the meaning of that cOMMON SENSE which is to solve every difficulty? As these philosophers make a boast of their experimentum crucis, this is an experimentum crucis in return to them; nor does there seem to be an individual through the whole school that is able to work out a solution, or to offer any definite idea upon the subject.

I have already observed upon the looseness of Reid, who, in the passage just quoted, seems still to have a slight inclination to regard this principle of COMMON SENSE as a power of the MIND, and of course as seated in the mental organ; though a power that has not hitherto been explained. In the following passage he seems to regard it as a power of the external senses, and hence as seated in these senses themselves.

"The account which this system (Hume's) gives of our judgment and belief concerning things, is as far from the truth as the account it gives of + Essay, vol. i. p. 549.

* Inquiry, p. 52.

Reid, ch. v. sect. vii.