THERE

On the Knowledge of Ourselves.

HERE is no precept of wisdom which has been more generally or justly celebrated than that which enjoins the knowledge of ourselves; a precept which was held, even by pagan antiquity, in such high estimation, as to be ascribed to the oracle at Delphi.

Though we should take this knowledge in the lowest sense, and refer it only to the body, it deserves to be placed at the head of all natural science; since we are more concerned to be acquainted with that little portion of matter to which we are so intimately united, than with the whole extent of the material universe: and should we consider it in relation to the soul, then it evidently transcends all knowledge of corporeal nature, and ought to be ranked, in point of importance, next

to the knowledge of God. We cannot, therefore, be surprised, that man, in his various composition, has powerfully engaged the attention of the inquisitive in all ages; that he has been a subject of so much curious and elaborate investigation, and furnished matter for innumerable volumes.

The labours of the physiologist, espe cially since the revival of learning in the sixteenth century, have been crowned with remarkable suceess. By the help of anatomical dissections, with other experiments and observations, he has acquired a more critical knowledge of the principal parts and members of the body, and has ascertained both their structure and uses to a degree of accuracy, which shews that his particular branch of study has fully shared in the general progress of experimental science; while the medical professor, by availing himself of the lights of the physiologist, has been better able to explain the causes and symptoms of diseases, and to point out their peculiar remedies,

The metaphysician has been equally diligent to explore the nature and operations of the soul, though, as would appear, with less reason to applaud himself for his discoveries. His motions have been rather circular than progressive, and have sometimes recalled to my imagination a flock of sheep (absit invidia verbo), which I was used to observe in a morning, coursing round and round the top of a hill, though it seemned, I suppose, to them, as if they went straight forward. Something, however, has been done; the essential difference that exists between matter and mind, and the impossibility that thought either is or can be an affection of the former, has been demonstrated in a manner so conclusive, as may bid defiance to all opposition from the schools of Democritus or Spinoza *. It must be acknowledged, indeed, that this demonstration is purely negative, and leaves us still much in the

* Of the many excellent discourses upon this argument, there is none, perhaps, superior to Dr. Clarke's Five Letters to Dodwell.

dark respecting the thinking principle within us, both as to its real nature and its various operations. And after all that has been advanced by some to prove, that we may know as much of mind as of matter, it is certain, that the spiritual part of our composition is not so easily subjected to our investigation as a body, which, by presenting one constant appearance to the senses, may be examined at leisure; whereas the phænomena of the former are fugitive and variable, and are often with difficulty seized for a single moment. This, undoubtedly, has been one chief obstruction to the progress of metaphysics; and perhaps it is fairly questionable, whether any modern metaphysician has, upon the whole, given a more probable account, either of the origin of our ideas, or of our mode of perception, of judging, or of reasoning, than Aristotle and some other ancient philosophers havė done. The great error seems to have been, both with ancients and moderns, that instead of a humble history, they have

affected to give a theory of the human mind, and thus suffered nature to escape through the subtilty of their abstractions *.

This want of progression in the philosophy of mind we shall not much regret, when we consider, that the cause of virtue and happiness, and even of useful knowledge, is but little connected with such disquisitions; that a man may think justly, act virtuously, and live and die comfortably, without any assistance from the ideal speculations of Plato or Aristotle, of Malbranche or Locke; and that, with all the metaphysical skill of these great men united, he may pass his days to no practical purpose, and at last die in a fatal self-ignorance.

To know ourselves, therefore, in the important sense of the precept, is to know

*«He who would philosophize in a due and proper manner, must dissect nature, but not abstract her, as they are obliged to do who will not dissect her."

BACON, vol, iii. p. 587. Shaw's edit.