Chapter V (4)

Even in the rest of his work, which is full of refined and curious speculation, he uses facts, not to demonstrate his conclusions, but to illustrate them. He, therefore, selected those facts which suited his purpose, leaving the others untouched. And this, which many critics would call unfair, was not unfair in him; because he believed, that he had already established his principles without the aid of those facts. The facts might benefit the reader, by making the argument clearer, but they could not strengthen the argument. They were more intended to persuade than to prove; they were rather rhetorical than logical. Hence, a critic would waste his time if he were to sift them with a minuteness which would be necessary, supposing that Hume had built an inductive argument upon them. Otherwise, without going far, it might be curious to contrast them with the entirely different facts which Cudworth, eighty years before, had collected from the same source, and on the same subject. Cudworth, who was much superior to Hume in learning, and much inferior to him in genius,[719] displayed, in his great work on the _Intellectual System of the Universe_, a prodigious erudition, to prove that, in the ancient world, the belief in one God was a prevailing doctrine. Hume, who never refers to Cudworth, arrives at a precisely opposite conclusion. Both quoted ancient writers; but while Cudworth drew his inferences from what he found in those writers, Hume drew his from what he found in his own mind. Cudworth, being more learned, relied on his reading; Hume, having more genius, relied on his intellect. Cudworth, trained in the school of Bacon, first collected the evidence, and then passed the judgment. Hume, formed in a school entirely different, believed that the acuteness of the judge was more important than the quantity of the evidence; that witnesses were likely to prevaricate; and that he possessed, in his own mind, the surest materials for arriving at an accurate conclusion. It is not, therefore, strange, that Cudworth and Hume, pursuing opposite methods, should have obtained opposite results, since such a discrepancy is, as I have already pointed out, unavoidable, when men investigate, according to different plans, a subject which, in the existing state of knowledge, is not amenable to scientific treatment.

[719] Not that he was by any means devoid of genius, though he holds a
rank far below so great and original a thinker as Hume. He had,
however, collected more materials than he was able to wield; and
his work on the _Intellectual System of the Universe_, which is a
treasure of ancient philosophy, is badly arranged, and, in many
parts, feebly argued. There is more real power in his posthumous
treatise on _Eternal and Immutable Morality_.

The length to which this chapter has already extended, and the number of topics which I have still to handle, will prevent me from examining, in detail, the philosophy of Reid, who was the most eminent among the purely speculative thinkers of Scotland, after Hume and Adam Smith, though, in point of merit, he must be placed far below them. For, he had neither the comprehensiveness of Smith, nor the fearlessness of Hume. The range of his knowledge was not wide enough to allow him to be comprehensive; while a timidity, almost amounting to moral cowardice, made him recoil from the views advocated by Hume, not so much on account of their being false, as on account of their being dangerous. It is, however, certain, that no man can take high rank as a philosopher, who allows himself to be trammelled by considerations of that kind. A philosopher should aim solely at truth, and should refuse to estimate the practical tendency of his speculations. If they are true, let them stand; if they are false, let them fall. But, whether they are agreeable or disagreeable, whether they are consolatory or disheartening, whether they are safe or mischievous, is a question, not for philosophers, but for practical men. Every new truth which has ever been propounded, has, for a time, caused mischief; it has produced discomfort, and often unhappiness, sometimes by disturbing social or religious arrangements, and sometimes merely by the disruption of old and cherished associations of thought. It is only after a certain interval, and when the framework of affairs has adjusted itself to the new truth, that its good effects preponderate; and the preponderance continues to increase, until, at length, the truth causes nothing but good. But, at the outset, there is always harm. And, if the truth is very great, as well as very new, the harm is serious. Men are made uneasy; they flinch; they cannot bear the sudden light; a general restlessness supervenes; the face of society is disturbed, or perhaps convulsed; old interests, and old beliefs, are destroyed, before new ones have been created. These symptoms are the precursors of revolution; they have preceded all the great changes through which the world has passed; and while, if they are not excessive, they forebode progress, so if they are excessive, they threaten anarchy. It is the business of practical men to moderate such symptoms, and to take care that the truths which philosophers discover, are not applied so rashly as to dislocate the fabric, instead of strengthening it. But the philosopher has only to discover the truth, and promulgate it; and that is hard work enough for any man, let his ability be as great as it may. This division of labour, between thinkers and actors, secures an economy of force, and prevents either class from wasting its power. It establishes a difference between science, which ascertains principles, and art, which applies them. It also recognizes, that the philosopher and the practical man, having each a separate part to play, each is, in his own field, supreme. But it is a sad confusion for either to interfere with the other. In their different spheres, both are independent, and both are worthy of admiration. Inasmuch, however, as practical men should never allow the speculative conclusions of philosophers, whatever be their truth, to be put in actual operation, unless society is, in some degree, ripe for their reception; so, on the other hand, philosophers are not to hesitate, and tremble, and stop short in their career, because their intellect is leading them to conclusions subversive of existing interests. The duty of a philosopher is clear. His path lies straight before him. He must take every pains to ascertain the truth; and, having arrived at a conclusion, he, instead of shrinking from it because it is unpalatable, or because it seems dangerous, should on that very account, cling the closer to it, should uphold it in bad repute, more zealously than he would have done in good repute; should noise it abroad far and wide, utterly regardless what opinions he shocks, or what interests he imperils; should, on its behalf, court hostility and despise contempt, being well assured, that, if it is not true, it will die, but that, if it is true, it must produce ultimate benefit, albeit unsuited for practical adoption by the age or country in which it is first propounded.

But Reid, notwithstanding the clearness of his mind and his great powers of argument, had so little of the real philosophic spirit, that he loved truth, not for its own sake, but for the sake of its immediate and practical results. He himself tells us, that he began to study philosophy, merely because he was shocked at the consequences at which philosophers had arrived. As long as the speculations of Locke and of Berkeley were not pushed to their logical conclusions, Reid acquiesced in them, and they were good in his eyes.[720] While they were safe and tolerably orthodox, he was not over-nice in inquiring into their validity. In the hands of Hume, however, philosophy became bolder and more inquisitive; she disturbed opinions which were ancient, and which it was pleasant to hold; she searched into the foundation of things, and by forcing men to doubt and to inquire, she rendered inestimable service to the cause of truth. But this was precisely the tendency at which Reid was displeased. He saw that such disturbance was uncomfortable; he saw that it was hazardous; therefore, he endeavoured to prove that it was groundless. Confusing the question of practical consequences with the totally different question of scientific truth, he took for granted that, because to his age the adoption of those consequences would be mischievous, they must be false. To the profound views of Hume respecting causation, he gravely objects, that if they were carried into effect, the operation of criminal law would be imperilled.[721] To the speculations of the same philosopher concerning the metaphysical basis of the theory of contracts, he replies, that such speculations perplex men, and weaken their sense of duty; they are, therefore, to be disapproved of, on account of their tendency.[722] With Reid, the main question always is, not whether an inference is true, but what will happen if it is true. He says, that a doctrine is to be judged by its fruits;[723] forgetting that the same doctrine will bear different fruits in different ages, and that the consequences which a theory produces in one state of society, are often diametrically opposed to those which it produces in another. He thus made his own age the standard of all future ones. He also trammelled philosophy with practical considerations; diverting thinkers from the pursuit of truth, which is their proper department, into the pursuit of expediency, which is not their department at all. Reid was constantly stopping to inquire, not whether theories were accurate, but whether it was advisable to adopt them; whether they were favourable to patriotism, or to generosity, or to friendship;[724] in a word, whether they were comfortable, and such as we should at present like to believe.[725] Or else, he would take other ground, still lower, and still more unworthy of a philosopher. In opposing, for instance, the doctrine, that our faculties sometimes deceive us,--a doctrine which, as he well knew, had been held by men whose honesty was equal to his own, and whose ability was superior to his own,--he does not scruple to enlist on his side the prejudices of a vulgar superstition; seeking to blacken the tenet which he was unable to refute. He actually asserts, that they who advocate it, insult the Deity, by imputing to the Almighty that He has lied. Such being the consequence of the opinion, it of course follows that the opinion must be rejected without further scrutiny, since, to accept it, would produce fatal results on our conduct, and would, indeed, be subversive of all religion, of all morals, and of all knowledge.[726]

[720] 'I once believed this doctrine of ideas so firmly, as to embrace
the whole of Berkeley's system in consequence of it; till, finding
other consequences to follow from it, which gave me more
uneasiness than the want of a material world, it came into my mind
more than 40 years ago, to put the question, What evidence have I
for this doctrine that all the objects of my knowledge are ideas
in my own mind? From that time to the present, I have been
candidly and impartially, as I think, seeking for the evidence of
this principle but can find none, excepting the authority of
philosophers.' _Reid's Essays on the Powers of the Human Mind_,
edit. Edinburgh, 1808, vol. i. p. 172. And, in a letter which he
wrote to Hume in 1763, he, with a simple candour which must have
highly amused that eminent philosopher, confesses that 'your
system appears to me not only coherent in all its parts, but
likewise justly deduced from principles commonly received among
philosophers; principles which I never thought of calling in
question, until the conclusions you draw from them in the
"Treatise on Human Nature" made me suspect them.' _Burton's Life
and Correspondence of Hume_, vol. ii. p. 155.

[721] 'Suppose a man to be found dead on the high-way, his skull
fractured, his body pierced with deadly wounds, his watch and
money carried off. The coroner's jury sits upon the body, and the
question is put, What was the cause of this man's death, was it
accident, or _felo de se_, or murder by persons unknown? Let us
suppose an adept in Mr. Hume's philosophy to make one of the jury,
and that he insists upon the previous question, whether there was
any cause of the event, or whether it happened without a cause.'
_Reid's Essays on the Powers of the Mind_, vol. ii. p. 286.
Compare vol. iii. p. 33: 'This would put an end to all
speculation, as well as to all the business of life.'

[722] 'The obligation of contracts and promises is a matter so sacred,
and of such consequence to human society, that speculations which
have a _tendency to weaken that obligation_, and to perplex men's
notions on a subject so plain and so important, ought to _meet
with the disapprobation of all honest men_. Some such
speculations, I think, we have in the third volume of Mr. Hume's
"Treatise of Human Nature," and in his "Enquiry into the
Principles of Morals;" and my design in this chapter is, to offer
some observations on the nature of a contract or promise, and on
two passages of that author on this subject. I am far from saying
or thinking, that Mr. Hume meant to weaken men's obligations to
honesty and fair dealing, or that he had not a sense of these
obligations himself. It is not the man I impeach, but his
writings. Let us think of the first as charitably as we can, while
we freely examine the import and _tendency_ of the last.' _Reid's
Essays on the Powers of the Mind_, vol. iii. p. 444. In this, as
in most passages, the italics are my own.

[723] 'Without repeating what I have before said of causes in the first
of these Essays, and in the second and third chapters of this, I
shall here mention some of the consequences that may be justly
deduced from this definition of a cause, that we may judge of it
by its fruits.' _Reid's Essays_, vol. iii. p. 339.

[724] 'Bishop Berkeley surely did not duly consider that it is by means
of the material world that we have any correspondence with
thinking beings, or any knowledge of their existence, and that by
depriving us of the material world, he deprived us at the same
time of family, friends, country, and every human creature; of
every object of affection, esteem or concern, except ourselves.
The good bishop surely never intended this. He was too warm a
friend, too zealous a patriot, and too good a Christian to be
capable of such a thought. _He was not aware of the consequences
of his system_' (poor, ignorant Berkeley), 'and therefore they
ought not to be imputed to him; but we must impute them to the
system itself. It stifles every generous and social principle.'
_Reid's Essays_, vol. ii. pp. 251, 252.

[725] In his _Essays_, vol. i. p. 179, he says of Berkeley, one of the
deepest and most unanswerable of all speculators, 'But there is
one _uncomfortable consequence_ of his system which he seems not
to have attended to, and from which it will be found difficult, if
at all possible, to guard it.'

[726] 'This doctrine is dishonourable to our Maker, and lays a foundation
for universal scepticism. It supposes the Author of our being to
have given us one faculty on purpose to deceive us, and another by
which we may detect the fallacy, and find that he imposed upon
us.' ... 'The genuine dictate of our natural faculties is the
voice of God, no less than what he reveals from heaven; and to say
that it is fallacious, is to impute a lie to the God of truth.'
... 'Shall we impute to the Almighty what we cannot impute to a
man without a heinous affront? Passing this opinion, therefore, as
shocking to an ingenuous mind, and, in its consequences,
subversive of all religion, all morals, and all knowledge,' &c.
_Reid's Essays_, vol. iii. p. 310. See also vol. i. p. 313.

In 1764, Reid published his _Inquiry into the Human Mind_; and in that, and in his subsequent work, entitled _Essays on the Powers of the Mind_, he sought to destroy the philosophy of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. And as Hume was the boldest of the three, it was chiefly his philosophy which Reid attacked. Of the character of this attack, some specimens have just been given; but they rather concern his object and motives, while what we have now to ascertain is, his method, that is, the tactics of his warfare. He clearly saw, that Hume had assumed certain principles, and had reasoned deductively from them to the facts, instead of reasoning inductively from the facts to them. To this method, he strongly, and perhaps fairly, objects. He admits that Hume had reasoned so accurately, that if his principles were conceded, his conclusions must likewise be conceded.[727] But, he says, Hume had no right to proceed in such a manner. He had no right to assume principles, and then to argue from them. The laws of nature were to be arrived at, not by conjecturing in this way, but by a patient induction of facts.[728] Discoveries depended solely on observation and experiment; and any other plan could only produce theories, ingenious, perhaps, and plausible, but quite worthless.[729] For, theory should yield to fact, and not fact to theory.[730] Speculators, indeed, might talk about first principles, and raise a system by reasoning from them. But, the fact was, that there was no agreement as to how a first principle was to be recognized; since a principle which one man would deem self-evident, another would think it necessary to prove, and a third would altogether deny.[731]

[727] 'His reasoning appeared to me to be just; there was, therefore, a
necessity to call in question the principles upon which it was
founded, or to admit the conclusion.' _Reid's Inquiry into the
Human Mind_, p. v. 'The received doctrine of ideas is the
principle from which it is deduced, and of which, indeed, it seems
to be a just and natural consequence.' p. 53. See also _Reid's
Essays_, vol. i. pp. 199, 200, vol. ii. p. 211.

[728] 'The laws of nature are the most general facts we can discover in
the operations of nature. Like other facts, they are not to be hit
upon by a happy conjecture, but justly deduced from observation.
Like other general facts, they are not to be drawn from a few
particulars, but from a copious, patient, and cautious induction.'
_Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind_, pp. 262, 263.

[729] 'Such discoveries have always been made by patient observation, by
accurate experiments, or by conclusions drawn by strict reasoning
from observations and experiments; and such discoveries have
always tended to refute, but not to confirm, the theories and
hypotheses which ingenious men had invented.' _Reid's Essays_,
vol. i. p. 46.

[730] 'This is Mr. Hume's notion of a cause.' ... 'But theory ought to
stoop to fact, and not fact to theory.' _Reid's Essays_, vol. iii.
p. 276.

[731] 'But yet there seems to be great difference of opinions among
philosophers about first principles. What one takes to be
self-evident, another labours to prove by arguments, and a third
denies altogether.' _Reid's Essays_, vol. ii. p. 218. 'Mr. Locke
seems to think first principles of very small use.' p. 219.

The difficulties of deductive reasoning are here admirably portrayed. It might have been expected, that Reid would have built up his own philosophy according to the inductive plan, and would have despised that assumption of first principles, with which he taunts his opponents. But it is one of the most curious things in the history of metaphysics, that Reid after impeaching the method of Hume, follows the very same method himself. When he is attacking the philosophy of Hume, he holds deduction to be wrong. When he is raising his own philosophy, he holds it to be right. He deemed certain conclusions dangerous, and he objects to their advocates, that they argued from principles, instead of from facts: and that they assumed themselves to be in possession of the first principles of truth, although people were not agreed as to what constituted a first principle. This is well put, and hard to answer. Strange, however, to say, Reid arrives at his own conclusions, by assuming first principles to an extent far greater than had been done by any writer on the opposite side. From them, he argues; his whole scheme is deductive; and his works scarcely contain a single instance of that inductive logic, which, when attacking his opponents, he found it convenient to recommend. It is difficult to conceive a better illustration of the peculiar character of the Scotch intellect in the eighteenth century, and of the firm hold, which, what may be called, the anti-Baconian method, had upon that intellect. Reid was a man of considerable ability, of immaculate honesty, and was deeply convinced that it was for the good of society that the prevailing philosophy should be overthrown. To the performance of that task, he dedicated his long and laborious life; he saw that the vulnerable point of the adverse system was its method; he indicated the deficiencies of that method, and declared, perhaps wrongly, but at all events sincerely, that it could never lead to truth. Yet, and notwithstanding all this, such was the pressure of the age in which he lived, and so completely did the force of circumstances shape his understanding, that, in his own works, he was unable to avoid that very method of investigation which he rebuked in others. Indeed, so far from avoiding it, he was a slave to it. The evidence of this I will now give, because, besides its importance for the history of the Scotch mind, it is valuable as one of many lessons, which teach us how we are moulded by the society which surrounds us; how even our most vigorous actions are influenced by general causes of which we are often ignorant, and which few of us care to study; and, finally, how lame and impotent we are, when, as individuals, we try to stem the onward current, resisting the great progress instead of aiding it, and vainly opposing our little wishes to that majestic course of events, which admits of no interruption, but sweeps on, grand and terrible, while generation after generation passes away, successively absorbed in one mighty vortex.

Directly Reid, ceasing to refute the philosophy of Hume, began to construct his own philosophy, he succumbed to the prevailing method. He now assures us, that all reasoning must be from first principles, and that, so far from reasoning to those principles, we must at once admit them, and make them the basis of all subsequent arguments.[732] Having admitted them, they become a thread to guide the inquirer through the labyrinth of thought.[733] His opponents had no right to assume them, but he might do so, because to him they were intuitive.[734] Whoever denied them, was not fit to be reasoned with.[735] Indeed, to investigate them, or to seek to analyze them, was wrong as well as foolish, because they were part of the constitution of things; and of the constitution of things no account could be given, except that such was the will of God.[736]

[732] 'All reasoning must be from first principles; and for first
principles no other reason can be given but this, that, by the
constitution of our nature, we are under a necessity of assenting
to them.' _Reid's Inquiry_, p. 140. 'All reasoning is from
principles.' ... 'Most justly, therefore, do such principles
disdain to be tried by reason, and laugh at all the artillery of
the logician when it is directed against them.' p. 372. 'All
knowledge got by reasoning must be built upon first principles.'
_Reid's Essays_, vol. ii. p. 220. 'In every branch of real
knowledge there must be first principles, whose truth is known
intuitively, without reasoning, either probable or demonstrative.
They are not grounded on reasoning, but all reasoning is grounded
on them.' p. 360.

[733] 'For, when any system is grounded upon first principles, and
deduced regularly from them, we have a thread to lead us through
the labyrinth.' _Reid's Essays_, vol. ii. p. 225.

[734] 'I call these "first principles," because they _appear to me_ to
have in themselves an intuitive evidence which _I cannot resist_.'
_Reid's Essays_, vol. iii. p. 375.

[735] 'If any man should think fit to deny that these things are
qualities, or that they require any subject, _I leave him to enjoy
his opinion, as a man who denies first principles, and is not fit
to be reasoned with_.' _Reid's Essays_, vol. i. p. 38.

[736] 'No other account can be given of the constitution of things, but
the will of Him that made them.' _Reid's Essays_, vol. i. p. 115.

As Reid obtained his first principles with such ease, and as he carefully protected them by forbidding any attempt to resolve them into simpler elements, he was under a strong temptation to multiply them almost indefinitely, in order that, by reasoning from them, he might raise a complete and harmonious system of the human mind. To that temptation he yielded with a readiness, which is truly surprising, when we remember how he reproached his opponents with doing the same thing. Among the numerous first principles which he assumes, not only as unexplained, but as inexplicable, are the belief in Personal Identity;[737] the belief in the External World;[738] the belief in the Uniformity of Nature;[739] the belief in the Existence of Life in Others;[740] the belief in Testimony;[741] also in the power of distinguishing truth from error,[742] and even in the correspondence of the face and voice to the thoughts.[743] Of belief generally, he asserts that there are many principles,[744] and he regrets that any one should have rashly attempted to explain them.[745] Such things are mysterious, and not to be pried into. We have also other faculties, which being original and indecomposable, resist all inductive treatment, and can neither be resolved into simpler elements, nor referred to more general laws. To this class, Reid assigns Memory,[746] Perception,[747] Desire of Self-Approbation,[748] and not only Instinct, but even Habit.[749] Many of our ideas, such as those concerning Space and Time, are equally original;[750] and other first principles there are, which have not been enunciated, but from which we may reason.[751] They, therefore, are the major premisses of the argument; no reason having yet been given for them, they must be simple; and not having yet been explained, they are, of course, inexplicable.[752]

[737] _Reid's Essays_, vol. i. pp. 36, 37, 340, 343, vol. ii. p. 245.

[738] _Reid's Essays_, vol. i. pp. 115, 116, 288-299, vol. ii. p. 251.

[739] Or, as he expresses it, 'our belief of the continuance of the laws
of nature.' _Reid's Inquiry_, pp. 426-435; also his _Essays_, vol.
i. p. 305, vol. ii. p. 268.

[740] _Reid's Essays_, vol. ii. p. 259.

[741] _Reid's Inquiry_, p. 422; and his _Essays_, vol. ii. p. 266.

[742] 'Another first principle is, "That the natural faculties by which
we distinguish truth from error are not fallacious."' _Reid's
Essays_, vol. ii. p. 256.

[743] 'Another first principle I take to be, "That certain features of
the countenance, sounds of the voice, and gestures of the body,
indicate certain thoughts and dispositions of mind."' _Reid's
Essays_, vol. ii. p. 261. Compare his _Inquiry_, p. 416.

[744] 'We have taken notice of several original principles of belief in
the course of this inquiry; and when other faculties of the mind
are examined, we shall find more, which have not occurred in the
examination of the five senses.' _Reid's Inquiry_, p. 471.

[745] 'And if no philosopher had attempted to define and explain belief,
some paradoxes in philosophy, more incredible than ever were
brought forth by the most abject superstition, or the most frantic
enthusiasm, had never seen the light.' _Reid's Inquiry_, p. 45.

[746] _Reid's Essays_, vol. i. p. 329, 334, vol. ii. p. 247.

[747] _Reid's Essays_, vol. i. pp. 9, 71, 303, 304.

[748] _Reid's Essays_, vol. ii. p. 60.

[749] 'I see no reason to think, that we shall ever be able to assign
the physical cause, either of instinct, or of the power of habit.
Both seem to be parts of our original constitution. Their end and
use is evident; but we can assign no cause of them, but the will
of Him who made us.' _Reid's Essays_, vol. iii. p. 119.

[750] 'I know of no ideas or notions that have a better claim to be
accounted simple and original, than those of space and time.'
_Reid's Essays_, vol. i. p. 354.

[751] 'I do not at all affirm that those I have mentioned are all the
first principles from which we may reason concerning contingent
truths. Such enumerations, even when made after much reflection,
are seldom perfect.' _Reid's Essays_, vol. ii. p. 270.

[752] 'Why sensation should compel our belief of the present existence of
the thing, memory a belief of its past existence, and imagination
no belief at all, _I believe no philosopher can give a shadow of
reason_, but that such is the nature of these operations. They are
all simple and original, and _therefore inexplicable_ acts of the
mind.' _Reid's Inquiry_, p. 40. 'We can _give no reason_ why the
retina is, of all parts of the body, the only one on which
pictures made by the rays of light cause vision; and _therefore we
must resolve this solely into a law of our constitution_' p. 258.

All this is arbitrary enough. Still, in justice to Reid, it must be said, that, having made these assumptions, he displayed remarkable ability in arguing from them, and that, in attacking the philosophy of his time, he subjected it to a criticism, which has been extremely serviceable. His lucidity, his dialectic skill, and the racy and masculine style in which he wrote, made him a formidable opponent, and secured to his objections a respectful hearing. To me, however, it appears, that notwithstanding the attempts, first of M. Cousin, and afterwards of Sir William Hamilton, to prop up his declining reputation, his philosophy, as an independent system, is untenable, and will not live. In this I may be mistaken; but what is quite certain is, that nothing can be more absurd than to suppose, as some have done, that he adopted the inductive, or, as it is popularly called, Baconian method. Bacon, indeed, would have smiled at such a disciple, assuming all sorts of major premisses, taking general principles for granted with the greatest recklessness, and reserving his skill for the task of reasoning from propositions for which he had no evidence, except that on a cursory, or, as he termed it, a common-sense, inspection, they appeared to be true.[753] This refusal to analyze preconceived notions, comes under the head of what Bacon stigmatized as the _anticipatio naturæ_, and which he deemed the great enemy of knowledge, on account of the dangerous confidence it places in the spontaneous and uncorrected conclusions of the human mind. When, therefore, we find Reid holding up the Baconian philosophy, as a pattern which it behoves all inquirers to follow;[754] and when we, moreover, find Dugald Stewart, who, though a somewhat superficial thinker, was, at all events, a careful writer, supposing that Reid had followed it,[755] we meet with fresh proof of how difficult it was for Scotchmen of the last age to imbibe the true spirit of inductive logic, since they believed, that a system which flagrantly violated its rules, had been framed in strict accordance with them.

[753] In a recent work of distinguished merit, an instance is given of
the loose manner in which he took for granted that certain
phenomena were ultimate, in order that, instead of analyzing them,
he might reason from them. 'Dr. Reid has no hesitation in classing
the voluntary command of our organs, that is, the sequence of
feeling and action implied in all acts of will, among instincts.
The power of lifting a morsel of food to the mouth, is, according
to him, an instinctive or pre-established conjunction of the wish
and the deed; that is to say, the emotional state of hunger,
coupled with the sight of a piece of bread, is associated, through
a primitive link of the mental constitution, with the several
movements of the hand, arm, and mouth, concerned in the act of
eating. _This assertion of Dr. Reid's may be simply met by
appealing to the facts._ It is not true that human beings possess,
at birth, any voluntary command of their limbs whatsoever. A babe
of two months old cannot use its hands in obedience to its
desires. The infant can grasp nothing, hold nothing, can scarcely
fix its eyes on anything.' ... 'If the more perfect command of our
voluntary movements implied in every art be an acquisition, so is
the less perfect command of these movements that grows upon a
child during the first year of life.' _Bain on the Senses and the
Intellect_, London, 1855, pp. 292, 293.

[754] See _Reid's Inquiry_, pp. 436, 446, as well as other parts of his
works: see also an extract from one of his letters to Dr. Gregory,
in _Stewart's Biographical Memoirs_, p. 432.

[755] 'The idea of prosecuting the study of the human mind on a plan
analogous to that which had been so successfully adopted in
physics by the followers of Lord Bacon, if not first conceived by
Dr. Reid, was, at least, first carried successfully into execution
in his writings.' _Stewart's Biographical Memoirs_, p. 419. 'The
influence of the general views opened in the _Novum Organon_, may
be traced in almost every page of his writings; and, indeed, the
circumstance by which they are so strongly and characteristically
distinguished, is that they exhibit the first systematical attempt
to exemplify, in the study of human nature, the same plan of
investigation which conducted Newton to the properties of light,
and to the law of gravitation.' p. 421. From this passage one
might hazard a supposition that Dugald Stewart did not understand
Bacon much better than he did Aristotle or Kant. Of the two last
most profound thinkers, he certainly knew little or nothing,
except what he gathered secondhand. Consequently, he underrates
them.

Leaving mental philosophy, I now come to physical science, in which, if anywhere, we might expect that the inductive plan would predominate, and would triumph over the opposite, or deductive, one. How far this was the case, I will endeavour to ascertain, by an examination of the most important discoveries which have been made by Scotchmen concerning the organic and inorganic world. And, as my object is merely to indicate the turn and character of the Scotch mind, I shall avoid all details respecting the practical effects of those discoveries, and shall confine myself to such a narration as will exhibit their purely scientific aspect, so as to enable the reader to understand what additions were made to our knowledge of the laws of nature, and in what way the additions were made. The character of each discovery, and its process, will be stated, but nothing more. Neither here, nor in any part of this Introduction, do I pretend to investigate questions of practical utility, or to trace the connexion between the discoveries of science and the arts of life. That I shall do in the body of the work itself, where I hope to explain a number of minute social events, many of which are regarded as isolated, if not incongruous. For the present, I solely aim at those broad principles, which, by marking out the epochs of thought, underlie the whole fabric of society, and which must be clearly apprehended before history can cease to be a mere empirical assemblage of facts, of which the scientific basis being unsettled, the true order and coherence must be unknown.

Among the sciences which concern the inorganic world, the laws of heat occupy a conspicuous place. On the one hand, they are connected with geology, being intimately allied, and, indeed, necessarily bound up, with every speculation respecting the changes and present condition of the crust of the earth. On the other hand, they touch the great questions of life, both animal and vegetable; they have to do with the theory of species, and of race; they modify soil, food, and organization; and to them we must look for valuable help towards solving those great problems in biology, which, of late years, have occupied the attention of the boldest and most advanced philosophers.

Our present knowledge of the laws of heat, may be briefly stated as branching into five fundamental divisions. These are: latent heat; specific heat; the conduction of heat; the radiation of heat; and, finally, the undulatory theory of heat; by which last, we are gradually discarding our old material views, and are accustoming ourselves to look upon heat as simply one of the forms of force, all of which, such as light, electricity, magnetism, motion, gravitation, and chemical affinity, are constantly assuming each other's shape, but, in their total amount, are incapable either of increase or of diminution.[756] This grand conception, which is now placing the indestructibility of force on the same ground as the indestructibility of matter, has an importance far above its scientific value, considerable as that undoubtedly is. For, by teaching us, that nothing perishes, but that, on the contrary, the slightest movement of the smallest body, in the remotest region, produces results which are perpetual, which diffuse themselves through all space, and which, though they may be metamorphosed, cannot be destroyed, it impresses us with such an exalted idea of the regular and compulsory march of physical affairs, as must eventually influence other and higher departments of inquiry. Our habits of thought are so connected and interwoven, that notions of law and of the necessary concatenation of things, can never be introduced into one field of speculation, without affecting other fields which lie contiguous to it. When, therefore, the modern doctrine of conservation of force,[757] becomes firmly coupled with the older doctrine of conservation of matter, we may rest assured that the human mind will not stop there, but will extend to the study of Man, inferences analogous to those already admitted in the study of Nature. Having once recognized that the condition of the material universe, at any one moment, is simply the result of every thing which has happened at all preceding moments, and that the most trivial disturbance would so violate the general scheme, as to render anarchy inevitable, and that, to sever from the total mass even the minutest fragment, would, by dislocating the structure, bury the whole in one common ruin, we, thus admitting the exquisite adjustment of the different parts, and discerning, too, in the very beauty and completeness of the design, the best proof that it has never been tampered with by the Divine Architect, who called it into being, in whose Omniscience both the plan, and the issue of the plan, resided with such clearness and unerring certainty, that not a stone in that superb and symmetrical edifice has been touched since the foundation of the edifice was laid, are, by ascending to this pitch and elevation of thought, most assuredly advancing towards that far higher step, which it will remain for our posterity to take, and which will raise their view to so commanding a height, as to insure the utter rejection of those old and eminently irreligious dogmas of supernatural interference with the affairs of life, which superstition has invented, and ignorance has bequeathed, and the present acceptance of which betokens the yet early condition of our knowledge, the penury of our intellectual resources, and the inveteracy of the prejudices in which we are still immersed.

[756] The theory of the indestructibility of force has been applied to
the law of gravitation by Professor Faraday, in his _Discourse on
the Conservation of Force_, 1857; an essay full of thought and
power, and which should be carefully studied by every one who
wishes to understand the direction which the highest speculations
of physical science are now taking. I will quote only one passage
from the opening, to give the reader an idea of its general scope,
irrespective of the more special question of gravitation. 'The
progress of the strict science of modern times has tended more and
more to produce the conviction that force can neither be created
nor destroyed; and to render daily more manifest the value of the
knowledge of that truth in experimental research.' ... 'Agreeing
with those who admit the conservation of force to be a principle
in physics, as large and sure as that of the indestructibility of
matter, or the invariability of gravity, I think that no
particular idea of force has a right to unlimited or unqualified
acceptance, that does not include assent to it.'

[757] As an illustration of this doctrine, I cannot do better than quote
the following passage from one of the most suggestive and clearly
reasoned books which has been written in this century by an
English physicist: 'Wave your hand; the motion which has
apparently ceased, is taken up by the air, from the air by the
walls of the room, &c., and so by direct and reacting waves,
continually comminuted, but never destroyed. It is true that, at a
certain point, we lose all means of detecting the motion, from its
minute subdivision, which defies our most delicate means of
appreciation, but we can indefinitely extend our power of
detecting it accordingly as we confine its direction, or increase
the delicacy of our examination. Thus, if the hand be moved in
unconfined air, the motion of the air would not be sensible to a
person at a few feet distant; but if a piston of the same extent
of surface as the hand be moved with the same rapidity in a tube,
the blast of air may be distinctly felt at several yards'
distance. There is no greater absolute amount of motion in the air
in the second than in the first case, but its direction is
restrained, so as to make its means of detection more facile. By
carrying on this restraint, as in the air-gun, we get a power of
detecting the motion, and of moving other bodies at far greater
distances. The puff of air which would in the air-gun project a
bullet a quarter of a mile, if allowed to escape without its
direction being restrained, as by the bursting of a bladder, would
not be perceptible at a yard's distance, though the same absolute
amount of motion be impressed on the surrounding air.' _Grove's
Correlation of Physical Forces_, London, 1855, pp. 24, 25. In a
work now issuing from the press, and still unfinished, it is
suggested, with considerable plausibility, that Persistence of
Force would be a more accurate expression than Conservation of
Force. See Mr. Herbert Spencer's _First Principles_, London, 1861,
p. 251. The title of this book gives an inadequate notion of the
importance of the subjects with which it deals, and of the reach
and subtlety of thought which characterize it. Though some of the
generalizations appear to me rather premature, no well-instructed
and disciplined intellect can consider them without admiration of
the remarkable powers displayed by their author.

It is, therefore, natural, that the physical doctrine of indestructibility applied to force as well as to matter, should be essentially a creation of the present century, notwithstanding a few allusions made to it by some earlier thinkers, all of whom, however, groped vaguely, and without general purpose. No preceding age was bold enough to embrace so magnificent a view as a whole, nor had any preceding philosophers sufficient acquaintance with nature to enable them to defend such a conception, even had they desired to entertain it. Thus, in the case now before us, it is evident, that while heat was believed to be material, it could not be conceived as a force, and therefore no one could grasp the theory of its metamorphosis into other forces; though there are passages in Bacon which prove that he wished to identify it with motion. It was first necessary to abstract heat into a mere property or affection of matter, and there was no chance of doing this until heat was better understood in its immediate antecedents, that is, until, by the aid of mathematics, its proximate laws had been generalized. But, with the single exception of Newton, whose efforts, notwithstanding his gigantic powers, were, on this subject, very unsatisfactory, and who, moreover, had a decided leaning towards the material theory, no one attempted to unravel the mathematical laws of heat till the latter half of the eighteenth century, when Lambert and Black began the career which Prevost and Fourier followed up. The mind, having been so slow in mastering the preliminaries and outworks of the inquiry, was not ripe for the far more difficult enterprise of idealizing heat itself, and so abstracting it, as to strip it of its material attributes, and leave it to nothing but the speculative notion of an immaterial force.

From these considerations, which were necessary to enable the reader to appreciate the value of what was done in Scotland, it will be seen how essential it was that the laws of the movement of heat should be studied before its nature was investigated, and before the emission theory could be so seriously attacked as to allow of the possibility of that great doctrine of the indestructibility of force, which, I make no doubt, is destined to revolutionize our habits of thought, and to give to future speculations a basis infinitely wider than any previously known. In regard to the movements of heat, we owe the laws of conduction and of radiation chiefly to France and Geneva, while the laws of specific heat, and those of latent heat, were discovered in Scotland. The doctrine of specific heat, though interesting, has not the scientific importance which belongs to the other departments of this great subject; but the doctrine of latent heat is extremely curious, not only in itself, but also on account of the analogies it suggests with various branches of physical inquiry.

What is termed latent heat, is exhibited in the following manner. If, in consequence of the application of heat, a solid passes into a liquid, as ice, for instance, into water, the conversion occupies a longer time than could be explained by any theory which had been propounded down to the middle of the eighteenth century. Neither was it possible to explain how it is, that ice never rises above the temperature of 32° until it is actually melted, no matter what the heat of the adjacent bodies may be. There were no means of accounting for these circumstances. And though practical men, being familiar with them, did not wonder at them, they caused great astonishment among thinkers, who were accustomed to analyze events, and to seek a reason for common and every-day occurrences.