Chapter I: OF SENSE.—‘Concerning the thoughts of man, I will consider (8)

But to proceed to a more particular account of the origin of the idea of self, which is the connexion of a being with itself. This can only be known in the first instance from reflecting on what passes in our own minds. I should say that individuality in this sense does not arise either from the absolute simplicity of the mind, or from its identity with itself, or from its diversity from other minds, which are not in the least necessary to it, but from the peculiar and intimate connection which subsists between the several faculties and perceptions of the same thinking being constituted as man is; so that, as the subject of his own reflection or consciousness, the same things impressed on any of his faculties produce a quite different effect upon him from what they would do, if they were impressed in the same way on any other being. The sense of personality seems then to depend entirely on the particular consciousness which the mind has of its own operations, sensations, or ideas. Self is nothing but the limits of the mind’s consciousness; as far as that reaches it extends, and where that can go no further, it ceases. The mind is one, from the confined sphere in which it acts; or because it is not all things. It is nearer and more present to itself than to other minds. What passes within it, what acts upon it immediately from without, of this it cannot help being conscious; and this consciousness is continued in it afterwards, more or less perfectly. All that does not come within this sphere of personal consciousness, all that has never come within it, is equally without the verge of self; for that word relates solely to the difference of the manner, or the different degrees of force and certainty with which, from the imperfect and limited nature of our faculties, certain things affect us as they act immediately upon ourselves, and are supposed to act upon others. Hence it is evident that personality itself cannot extend to futurity; for the whole of this idea depends on the peculiar force and directness with which certain impulses act upon the mind. It is by comparing the knowledge I have of my own impressions, ideas, feelings, powers, &c. with my knowledge of the same or similar impressions, ideas, &c. in others, and with this still more imperfect conception that I form of what passes in their minds when this is supposed to be entirely different from what passes in my own, that I acquire the general notion of self. If I could form no idea of any thing passing in the minds of others, or if my ideas of their thoughts and feelings were perfect representations, _i.e._ mere conscious repetitions of them, all personal distinction would be lost either in pure sensation or in perfect universal sympathy. In the one case it would be impossible for me to prefer myself to others, as I should be the sole object of my own consciousness; and in the other case I must love all others as myself, because I should then be nothing more than a part of a whole, of which all others would be equally members with myself. This distinction, however, subsists as necessarily and completely between myself and those who most nearly resemble me, as between myself and those whose characters and properties are the very opposite to mine. Indeed, the distinction itself becomes marked and intelligible in proportion as the objects or impressions themselves are intrinsically the same, as then it is impossible to mistake the true principle on which it is founded, namely, the want of any direct communication between the feelings of one being and those of another. This will shew why the difference between ourselves and others appears greater to us than that between other individuals, though it is not really so.

Considering mankind in this twofold relation, as they are to themselves, or as they appear to one another, as the subjects of their own thoughts, or the thoughts of others, we shall find the origin of that wide and absolute distinction which the mind feels in comparing itself with others, to be confined to two faculties, viz., sensation, or rather consciousness, and memory. To avoid an endless subtilty of distinction, I have not given here any account of consciousness in general; but the same reasoning will apply to both. The operation of both these faculties is of a perfectly exclusive and individual nature, and so far as their operation extends (but no farther) is man a personal, or if you will, a selfish being. The sensation excited in me by a piece of red-hot iron striking against any part of my body is simple, absolute, terminating as it were in itself, not representing any thing beyond itself, nor capable of being represented by any other sensation, or communicated to any other being. The same kind of sensation may be indeed excited in another by the same means, but this sensation will not imply any reference to, or consciousness of mine; there is no communication between my nerves and another’s brain, by which he can be affected with my sensations as I am myself. The only notice or perception which another can have of this sensation in me, or which I can have of a similar sensation in another, is by means of the imagination. I can form an imaginary idea of that pain as existing out of myself; but I can only feel it as a sensation when it is actually impressed on myself. Any impression made on another can neither be the cause nor object of sensation to me. Again, the impression or idea left in my mind by this sensation, and afterwards excited either by seeing iron in the same state, or by any other means, is properly an idea of memory. This recollection necessarily refers to some previous impression in my own mind, and only exists in consequence of that impression, or of the continued connexion of the same mind with itself: it cannot be derived from any impression made on another. My thoughts have a particular mechanical dependence only on my own previous thoughts or sensations. I do not remember the feelings of any one but myself. I may, indeed, remember the objects which must have caused such and such feelings in others, or the outward signs of passion which accompanied them. These, however, are but the recollections of my own immediate impressions of what I saw, and I can only form an idea of the feelings themselves by means of the imagination. But, though we take away all power of imagination from the human mind, my own feelings must leave behind them certain traces, or representations of themselves retaining the same general properties, and having the same intimate connexion with the conscious principle. On the other hand, if I wish to anticipate my own future feelings, whatever these may be, I must do so by means of the same faculty by which I conceive of those of others, whether past or future. I have no distinct or separate faculty on which the events and feelings of my future being are impressed before hand, and which shows, as in an enchanted mirror, to me, and me alone, the reversed picture of my future life. It is absurd to suppose that the feelings which I am to have hereafter, should excite certain correspondent impressions of themselves before they have existed, or act mechanically upon my mind by a secret sympathy. The romantic sympathies of lovers, the exploded dreams of judicial astrology, the feats of magic, do not equal the solid, substantial absurdity of this doctrine of self-interest, which attributes to that which is not and has not been, a mechanical operation and a reality in nature. I can only abstract myself from this present being, and take an interest in my future being, in the same sense and manner in which I can go out of myself entirely, and enter into the minds and feelings of others. In short, there neither is nor can be any principle belonging to the individual that antecedently identifies his future events with his present sensation, or that reflects the impression of his future feelings backwards with the same kind of consciousness that his past feelings are transmitted forward through the channels of memory. The size of the river as well as its taste depends on the water that has already fallen into it. I cannot roll back its course, nor is the stream next the source affected by the water which falls into it afterwards, yet we call both the same river. Such is the nature of personal identity. It is founded on the continued connexion of cause and effect, and awaits their gradual progress, and does not consist in a preposterous and wilful unsettling of the natural order of things. There is an illustration of this argument, which, however quaint or singular it may appear, I rather choose to give than omit any thing which may serve to make my meaning clear and intelligible. Suppose then a number of men employed to cast a mound into the sea. As far as it has gone, the workmen pass backwards and forwards on it: it stands firm in its place, and though it advances further and further from the shore, it is still joined to it. A man’s personal identity and self-interest have just the same principle and extent, and can reach no farther than his actual existence. But if any man of a metaphysical turn, seeing that the pier was not yet finished, but was to be continued to a certain point, and in a certain direction, should take it into his head to insist that what was already built, and what was to be built were the same pier, that the one must therefore afford as good footing as the other, and should accordingly walk over the pier-head on the solid foundation of his metaphysical hypothesis—he would act a great deal more ridiculously, but would not argue a whit more absurdly than those who found a principle of absolute self-interest on a man’s future identity with his present being. But, say you, the comparison does not hold in this, that a man can extend his thoughts (and that very wisely too), beyond the present moment, whereas in the other case he cannot move a single step forwards. Grant it. This will only show that the mind has wings as well as feet, which is a sufficient answer to the selfish hypothesis.

If the foregoing account be true (and for my part, the only perplexity that crosses my mind in thinking of it arises from the utter impossibility of conceiving of the contrary supposition), it will follow that those faculties which may be said to constitute self, and the operations of which convey that idea to the mind, draw all their materials from the past and present. But all voluntary action, as I have before largely shown, must relate solely and exclusively to the future. That is, all those impressions or ideas with which selfish, or more properly speaking, personal feelings must be naturally connected are just those which have nothing to do at all with the motives to action in the pursuit either of our own interest, or that of others. If indeed it were possible for the human mind to alter the present or the past, so as either to recal what was past, or to give it a still greater reality, to make it exist over again, and in some more emphatical sense, then man might, with some pretence of reason, be supposed naturally incapable of being impelled to the pursuit of any _past_ or _present_ object but from the mechanical excitement of personal motives. It might in this case be pretended that the impulses of imagination and sympathy are of too light, unsubstantial, and remote a creation to influence our real conduct, and that nothing is worthy of the concern of a wise man in which he has not this direct, unavoidable, and homefelt interest. This is, however, too absurd a supposition to be dwelt on for a moment. The only proper objects of voluntary action are (by necessity) future events: these can excite no possible interest in the mind but by the aid of the imagination; and these make the same direct appeal to that faculty, whether they relate to ourselves or to others, as the eye receives with equal directness the impression of our own external form or that of others. It will be easy to perceive by this train of reasoning how, notwithstanding the contradiction involved in the supposition of a generally absolute self-interest, the mind comes to feel a deep and habitual conviction of the truth of this principle. Finding in itself a continued consciousness of its past impressions, it is naturally enough disposed to transfer the same sort of identity and consciousness to the whole of its being. The objects of imagination and of the senses are, as it were, perpetually playing into one another’s hands, and shifting characters, so that we lose our reckoning, and do not think it worth while to mark where the one ends and the other begins. As our actual being is constantly passing into our future being, and carries the internal feeling of consciousness along with it, we seem to be already identified with our future being in this permanent part of our nature, and to feel by a mutual impulse the same necessary sympathy with our future selves that we know we shall have with our past selves. We take the tablets of memory, reverse them, and stamp the image of self on that which as yet possesses nothing but the name. It is no wonder then that the imagination, constantly disregarding the progress of time, when its course is marked out along the straight unbroken line of individuality, should confound the necessary differences of things, and convert a distant object into a present reality. The interest which is hereafter to be felt by this continued conscious being, this indefinite unit, called _me_, seems necessarily to affect me in every state of my existence,—‘thrills in each nerve, and lives along the line.’ In the first place we abstract the successive modifications of our being, and _particular_ temporary interests, into one simple nature and general principle of self-interest, and then make use of this nominal abstraction as an artificial medium to compel those particular actual interests into the closest affinity and union with each other, as different lines meeting in the same centre must have a mutual communication with each other. On the contrary, as I always remain perfectly distinct from others (the interest which I take in their former or present feelings being like that which I take in their future feelings, never any thing more than the effect of imagination and sympathy), the same illusion and transposition of ideas cannot take place with regard to these; namely, the confounding a physical impulse with the rational motives to action. Indeed the uniform nature of my feelings with regard to others (my interest in their welfare having always the same source and sympathy) seems by analogy to confirm the supposition of a similar simplicity in my relation to myself, and of a positive, natural, absolute interest in whatever belongs to that self, not confined to my actual existence, but extending over the whole of my being. Every sensation that I feel, or that afterwards recurs vividly to my memory strengthens the sense of self, which increased strength in the mechanical feeling is indirectly transferred to the general idea, and to my remote, future, imaginary interest; whereas our sympathy with the feelings of others being always imaginary, standing only on its own basis, having no sensible interest to support it, no restless mechanical impulse to urge it on, the ties by which we are bound to others hang loose upon us: the interest we take in their welfare seems to be something foreign to our own bosoms, to be transient, arbitrary, and directly opposed to that necessary, unalienable interest we are supposed to have in whatever conduces to our own well-being.

There is another consideration (and that probably the principal one) to be taken into the account in explaining the origin and growth of our selfish habits, which is perfectly consistent with the foregoing theory, and evidently arises out of it. There is naturally, then, no essential difference between the motives by which I am impelled to the pursuit of my own good or that of others: but though there is not a difference in kind, there is one in degree. We know better what our own future feelings will be than what those of others will be in a like case. We can apply the materials afforded us by experience with less difficulty and more in a mass in making out the picture of our future pleasures and pains, without frittering them away or destroying their original sharpnesses: in a word, we can imagine them more plainly, and must therefore be more interested in them. This facility in passing from the recollection of my former impressions to the anticipation of my future ones makes the transition almost imperceptible, and gives to the latter an apparent reality and presentness to the imagination, to a degree in which the feelings of others can scarcely ever be brought home to us. It is chiefly from this greater readiness and certainty with which we can look forward into our own minds than out of us into those of other men, that that strong and uneasy attachment to self, which often comes at last to overpower every generous feeling, takes its rise; not, as I think I have shown, from any natural and impenetrable hardness of the human heart, or necessary absorption of all its thoughts and purposes in a blind exclusive feeling of self-interest. It confirms this account, that we constantly are found to feel for others in proportion as we know from long acquaintance with the turn of their minds, and events of their lives, ‘the hair-breadth scapes’ of their travelling history, or ‘some disastrous stroke which their youth suffered,’ what the real nature of their feelings is; and that we have in general the strongest attachment to our immediate relatives and friends, who from this intercommunity of thoughts and feelings may more truly be said to be a part of ourselves than from even the ties of blood. Moreover, a man must be employed more usually in providing for his own wants and his own feelings than those of others. In like manner he is employed in providing for the immediate welfare of his family and connexions much more than in providing for the welfare of those who are not bound by any positive ties. And we accordingly find that the attention, time, and pains bestowed on these several objects give him a proportionable degree of anxiety about, and attachment to his own interest, and that of those connected with him; but it would be absurd to conclude that his affections are therefore circumscribed by a natural necessity within certain impassable limits, either in the one case or the other. It should not be forgotten here that this absurd opinion has been very commonly referred to the effects of natural affection as it has been called, as well as of self-interest; parental and filial affection being supposed to be originally implanted in the mind by the ties of nature, and to move round the centre of self-interest in an orbit of their own, within the circle of our families and friends. This general connexion between the habitual pursuit of any object and our interest in it, will account for the well-known observation, that the affection of parents to children is the strongest of all others, frequently overpowering self-love itself. This fact does not seem easily reconcilable to the doctrine that the social affections are all of them ultimately to be deduced from association, or the reputed connexion of immediate selfish gratification with the idea of some other person. If this were strictly the case we must feel the strongest attachment to those from whom we had received, instead of those to whom we had done, the greatest number of kindnesses, or where the greatest quantity of actual enjoyment had been associated with an indifferent idea. Junius has remarked that friendship is not conciliated by the power of conferring benefits, but by the equality with which they are received and may be returned.

I have hitherto purposely avoided saying any thing on the subject of our physical appetites and the manner in which they may be thought to affect the principle of the foregoing reasonings. They evidently seem at first sight, to contradict the general conclusion which I have endeavoured to establish, as they all of them tend either exclusively or principally to the gratification of the individual, and at the same time refer to some future or imaginary object, as the source of this gratification. The impulse which they give to the will is mechanical, and yet this impulse, blind as it is, constantly tends to and coalesces with the pursuit of some rational end. That is, here is an end aimed at, the desire and regular pursuit of a known good, and all this produced by motives evidently mechanical, and which never impel the mind but in a selfish direction: it makes no difference in the question whether the active impulse proceed directly from the desire of positive enjoyment, or a wish to get rid of some positive uneasiness. I should say then that, setting aside what is of a purely physical nature in the case, the influence of appetite over our volitions may be accounted for consistently enough with the foregoing hypothesis, from the natural effects of a particularly irritable state of bodily feeling, rendering the idea of that which will heighten and gratify its susceptibility of pleasurable feeling, or remove some painful feeling, proportionably vivid, and the object of a more vehement desire than can be excited by the same idea, when the body is supposed to be in a state of indifference, or only ordinary sensibility to that particular kind of gratification. Thus the imaginary desire is sharpened by constantly receiving supplies of pungency, from the irritation of bodily feeling, and its direction is at the same time determined according to the bias of this new impulse; first, indirectly by having the attention fixed on our own immediate sensation; secondly, because that particular gratification, the desire of which is increased by the pressure of physical appetite, must be referred primarily and by way of distinction to the same being, by whom the want of it is felt, that is, to myself. As the actual uneasiness which appetite implies can only be excited by the irritable state of my own body, so neither can the desire of the correspondent gratification subsist in that intense degree, which properly constitutes appetite, except when it tends to relieve that very same uneasiness by which it was excited, as in the case of hunger. There is in the first place the strong mechanical action of the nervous and muscular systems co-operating with the rational desire of my own belief, and forcing it its own way. Secondly, this state of uneasiness grows more and more violent, the longer the relief which it requires is withheld from it: hunger takes no denial, it hearkens to no compromise, is soothed by no flattery, tired out by no delay. It grows more importunate every moment, its demands become larger the less they are attended to. The first impulse which the general love of personal ease receives from bodily pain will give it the advantage over my disposition to sympathise with others in the same situation with myself, and this difference will be increasing every moment, till the pain is removed. Thus, if I at first, either through compassion or by an effort of the will, am regardless of my own wants, and wholly bent upon satisfying the more pressing wants of my companions, yet this effort will at length become too great, and I shall be incapable of attending to any thing but the violence of my own sensations, or the means of alleviating them. It would be easy to show from many things that mere appetite (generally, at least, in reasonable beings) is but the fragment of a self-moving machine, but a sort of half organ, a subordinate instrument even in the accomplishment of its own purposes; that it does little or nothing without the aid of another faculty to inform and direct it. Before the impulses of appetite can be converted into the regular pursuit of a given object, they must first be communicated to the understanding, and modify the will through that. Consequently, as the desire of the ultimate gratification of the appetite is not the same with the appetite itself, that is mere physical uneasiness, but an indirect result of its communication to the thinking or imaginative principle, the influence of appetite over the will must depend on the extraordinary degree of force and vividness which it gives to the idea of a particular object; and we accordingly find that the same cause which irritates the desire of selfish gratification, increases our sensibility to the same desires and gratification in others, where they are consistent with our own, and where the violence of the physical impulse does not overpower every other consideration.

MADAME DE STAËL’S ACCOUNT OF GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE.

_The Morning Chronicle._] [_Feb. 3, 1814._

The most interesting part of Madame De Staël’s very ingenious and elegant work on Germany is undoubtedly (to literary readers) that in which she has sketched with so much intelligence and grace, the present state of opinions with respect to philosophy and taste in that country. I have not yet seen any satisfactory abstract of her reasonings on either of these subjects. The article in _The Edinburgh Review_ touches but lightly and incidentally on them, from the variety and pressure of other topics of a more lively and general interest. I shall attempt to supply this deficiency, and at the same time to offer some farther thoughts on each subject. The two points on which I wish to enlarge are the view which Madame De Staël takes of German poetry, as contrasted with the French, and secondly of the spirit and principles of the German philosophy, that of Professor Kant, as opposed to the French system of philosophy which is not indeed peculiar to them as a nation, but common to the age. I shall begin with the last first, not only because it is perhaps the most important, but because I think that as the English were the first to propagate the latter system (for the French have only adopted it from us, carrying its practical and popular application farther), we ought not to be the last to disclaim and explode it. It may not be uninteresting as a branch of national literature, to take a general view of the rise and progress of their philosophy, before we come to examine Madame De Staël’s account of the system which Kant has opposed to it, and to shew in what that system is well-founded, and where it fails.

According to the prevailing system,—I mean the material or modern philosophy, as it has been called, all thought is to be resolved into sensation, all morality into the love of pleasure, and all action into mechanical impulse. These three propositions taken together, embrace almost every question relating to the human mind, and in their different ramifications and intersections form a net, not unlike that used by the enchanters of old, which, whosoever has once thrown over him, will find all farther efforts vain, and his attempts to reason freely on any subject in which his own nature is concerned, baffled and confounded in every direction.

This system, which first rose at the suggestion of Lord Bacon, on the ruins of the school-philosophy, has been gradually growing up to its present height ever since, from a wrong interpretation of the word _experience_, confining it to a knowledge of things without us; whereas it in fact includes all knowledge, relating to objects either within or out of the mind, of which we have any direct and positive evidence. We only know that we ourselves exist, the most certain of all truths, from the experience of what passes within ourselves. Strictly speaking, all other facts of which we are not immediately conscious, are such in a secondary and subordinate sense only. Physical experience is indeed the foundation and the test of that part of philosophy which relates to physical objects: farther, physical analogy is the only rule by which we can extend and apply our immediate knowledge, or infer the effects to be produced by the different objects around us. But to say that physical experiment is either the test, or source, or guide of that other part of philosophy which relates to our internal perceptions, that we are to look in external nature for the form, the substance, the colour, the very life and being of whatever exists in our minds, or that we can only infer the laws which regulate the phenomena of the mind from those which regulate the phenomena of matter, is to confound two things entirely distinct. Our knowledge of mental phenomena from consciousness, reflection, or observation of their correspondent signs in others is the true basis of metaphysical inquiry, as the knowledge of _facts_, commonly so called, is the only solid basis of natural philosophy. To assert that the operations of the mind and the operations of matter are in reality the same, so that we should always regard the one as symbols or exponents of the other, is to assume the very point in dispute, not only without any evidence, but in defiance of every appearance to the contrary.

Lord Bacon was undoubtedly a great man, indeed one of the greatest that have adorned this or any other country. He was a man of a clear and active spirit, of a most fertile genius, of vast designs, of general knowledge, and of profound wisdom. He united the powers of imagination and understanding in a greater degree than almost any other writer. He was one of the most remarkable instances of those men, who, by the rare privilege of their nature, are at once poets and philosophers, and see equally in both worlds—the individual and sensible, and the abstracted and intelligible forms of things. The Schoolmen and their followers attended to nothing but names, to essences and species, to laboured analyses and artificial deductions. They seem to have alike disregarded all kinds of experience, whether relating to external objects, or to the observation of our own internal feelings. From the imperfect state of knowledge, they had not a sufficient number of facts to guide them in their experimental researches; and intoxicated with the novelty of their vain distinctions, learnt by rote, they were tempted to despise the clearest and most obvious suggestions of their own minds. Subtle, restless, and self-sufficient, they thought that truth was only made to be disputed about, and existed no where but in their demonstrations and syllogisms. Hence arose their ‘logomachies’—their everlasting word-fights, their sharp debates, their captious, bootless controversies. As Lord Bacon expresses it, ‘they were made fierce with dark keeping,’ signifying that their angry and unintelligible contests with one another were owing to their not having any distinct objects to engage their attention. They built altogether on their own whims and fancies; and, buoyed up by their specific levity, they mounted in their airy disputations in endless flights and circles, clamouring like birds of prey, till they equally lost sight of truth and nature. This great man, therefore, intended an essential service to philosophy, in wishing to recall the attention to facts and experience which had been almost entirely neglected; and thus, by incorporating the abstract with the concrete, and general reasoning with individual observation, to give to our conclusions that solidity and firmness which they must otherwise always want. He did nothing but insist on the necessity of experience, more particularly in natural science; and from the wider field that is open to it there, as well as the prodigious success it has met with, this latter application of the word, in which it is tantamount to physical experiment, has so far engrossed the whole of our attention, that mind has, for a good while past, been in some danger of being overlaid by matter. We run from one error into another, and as we were wrong at first, so in altering our course, we have passed into the opposite extreme. We despised experience altogether before: now we would have nothing but experience, and that of the grossest kind. We have, it is true, gained much by not consulting the suggestions of our own minds in questions where they inform us of nothing, namely, on the particular laws and phenomena of the material world; and we have hastily concluded (reversing the rule) that the best way to arrive at the knowledge of ourselves also, was to lay aside the dictates of our own consciousness, thoughts, and feelings, as deceitful and insufficient guides, though they are the only means by which we can obtain the least light upon the subject. We seem to have resigned the natural use of our understandings, and to have given up our own existence as a nonentity. We look for our thoughts and the distinguishing properties of our minds in some image of them in matter as we look to see our faces in a glass. We no longer decide physical problems by logical dilemmas, but we decide questions of logic by the evidence of the senses. Instead of putting our reason and invention to the rack indifferently on all questions, whether we have any previous knowledge of them or not, we have adopted the easier method of suspending the use of our faculties altogether, and settling tedious controversies by means of ‘four champions fierce—hot, cold, moist and dry,’ who with a few more of the retainers and hangers on of matter determine all questions relating to the nature of man and the limits of the human understanding very learnedly. But the laws by which we think, feel, and act, we must discover in the mind itself, or not at all.

This original bias in favour of mechanical reasoning and physical analogy was confirmed by the powerful aid of Hobbes, who was, indeed, the father of the modern philosophy. His strong mind and body appear to have resisted all impressions, but those which were derived from the downright blows of matter: all his ideas seemed to lie like substances in his brain: what was not a solid, tangible, distinct, palpable object, was to him nothing. The external image pressed so close upon his mind that it destroyed the power of consciousness, and left no room for attention to any thing but itself. He was by nature a materialist. Locke assisted greatly in giving popularity to the same scheme, as well by espousing the chief of Hobbes’s metaphysical principles as by the doubtful resistance which he made to the rest. And it has been perfected and has received its last polish and roundness in the hands of some French philosophers, as Condillac and others.

The modern metaphysical system assumes as its basis that the operations of the intellect are only a continuation of the impulses existing in matter; or that all the thoughts and conceptions of the mind are nothing more than various modifications of the original impressions of things on a being endued with sensation or simple perception. This system considers ideas merely as they are caused by outward impressions acting on the organs of sense, and excludes the understanding as a distinct faculty or power from all share in its own operations.

The following is a summary of the general principles of this philosophy as they are expressly laid down by Hobbes, and by the latest writers of the French school.

1. That our _ideas_ are copies of the impressions made by external objects on the senses.

2. That as nothing exists out of the mind but matter and motion, so it is itself with all its operations nothing but matter and motion.

3. That thoughts are single, or that we can think of only one object at a time.

4. That we have no general nor abstract ideas.

5. That the only principle of connection between one thought and another is association, or their previous connection in sense.

6. That reason and understanding depend entirely on the mechanism of language.

7 and 8. That the sense of pleasure and pain is the sole spring of action, and self-interest the source and centre of all our affections.

9. That the mind acts from a mechanical or physical necessity, over which it has no controul, and consequently is not a moral or accountable agent.—_The manner of reasoning upon this last question is the only circumstance of importance in which Hobbes differs decidedly from modern writers._

10. That there is no difference in the natural capacities of men, the mind being originally passive to all impressions alike, and becoming whatever it is from circumstances.

Except the first, all of these positions are either denied or doubtfully admitted by Mr. Locke. It is, however, his admission of the first principle, which has opened a door directly or indirectly to all the rest. The system of Kant is a formal and elaborate antithesis to that which bears the name of Locke, and it is built on ‘the _sublime_ restriction (as Madame de Staël expresses it) added by Leibnitz to the well-known axiom _nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu_—NISI INTELLECTUS IPSE.’

It is in the manner of proving this restriction, and of explaining this word, _the intellect_, that the whole question depends, and to this I shall devote another letter.

AN ENGLISH METAPHYSICIAN.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED

_The Morning Chronicle._] [_Feb. 17, 1814._

The principle that _all the ideas, operations, and faculties of the mind may be traced to, and ultimately accounted for, from simple sensation_, is all that remains of Mr. Locke’s celebrated Essay, and that to which it owes its present rank among philosophical productions. His various attempts to modify this principle, or reconcile it to common notions have been gradually exploded, and have given place, one by one, to the more severe and logical deductions of Hobbes from the same general principle. Mr. Locke took the faculties of the mind as he found them in himself and others, and instead of levelling the structure, was contented to place it on a new foundation. By this compromise with prudence and candour, he prepared the way for the introduction of the principle, which being once established, very soon overturned all the trite opinions, and vulgar prejudices, which had been improperly associated with it. There was in fact, no place for them in the new system. I confess it strikes some degree of awe into the mind, and makes it feel, that fame, even the best, is not a substantial thing, but the uncertain shadow of real excellence, when we reflect that the immortal renown, which attends the name of Locke as the great luminary of the age in which he lived, is but a dim and borrowed lustre from the writings of one, whom he himself calls, and who has been universally considered as ‘a justly decried author.’ The sentence of the poet is as applicable here as it ever was—

‘Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies;
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove!’

The great defect with which the Essay on Human Understanding is chargeable, is that there really is not a word about the understanding in it, nor any attempt to shew what it is, or whether it is, or is not any thing, distinct from the faculty of simple perception. The operations of thinking, comparing, discerning, reasoning, willing, and the like, which Mr. Locke generally ascribes to it, are the operations of nothing, or of we know not what. All the force of his mind seems to have been so bent on exploding innate ideas, and tracing our thoughts to their external source, that he either forgot, or had not leisure to examine what the internal principle of all thought is. He took for his basis a bad simile, namely, that the mind is like a blank sheet of paper, originally void of all characters, and merely passive to the impressions made upon it: for this, though true as far as relates to innate ideas, that is, to any impressions previously existing in the mind, is not true of the mind itself, or of the manner in which it forms its ideas of the objects actually impressed upon it. The obvious tendency of this simile was to convert the understanding into the mere passive receiver and retainer of physical impressions, a convenient repository for the straggling images of things, or a sort of empty room into which ideas are conveyed from without through the doors of the senses, as you would carry goods into an unfurnished lodging. And hence, again, it has been found necessary, by subsequent writers, to get rid of those different faculties and operations, which Mr. Locke elsewhere supposes to belong to the mind, but which are in truth only compatible with the active powers, and independent nature of the mind itself. It was to remedy this deficiency that Leibnitz proposed to add to the maxim of Locke, _that there is nothing in the understanding which was not before in the senses_—‘that sublime restriction,’ so much applauded by Madame de Staël—‘EXCEPT THE UNDERSTANDING ITSELF:’ and it is to the establishment and development of this distinction, that the whole of the Kantean philosophy appears to be directed. In what manner, and in what success (judging from the representations we have received of it) remains to be shewn.

The account which Madame de Staël has given of this system is full of the graces of imagination and the charm of sentiment: it passes slightly over many of the difficulties, and softens the abruptness of the reasoning by the harmony of the style. It is therefore the most popular and pleasing account which has been given of the system of the German Philosopher: but after all, it will be better to take his own statement, though somewhat ‘harsh and crabbed’ as the most tangible, authentic, and satisfactory.

‘The following,’ says his translator Willich, ‘are the elements of his _Critique of Pure Reason_, the first of Kant’s systematical works, and the most remarkable for profound reasoning and the striking illustrations, with which it throughout abounds.

‘We are in possession of certain notions _à priori_[8] which are absolutely independent of all experience, although the objects of experience correspond with them, and which are distinguished by necessity, and strict universality. To these are opposed empirical notions, or such as are only possible _à posteriori_, that is, through experience. Besides these, we have certain notions, with which no objects of experience ever correspond, which rise above the world of sense, and which we consider as the most sublime, such as God, liberty, immortality. There is always supposed in every empirical notion, or impression of external objects, a pure perception _à priori_, a form of the sensitive faculty, _viz._ space and time. This form first renders every actual appearance of objects possible. By the sensitive faculty we are able to form perceptions; by the understanding we form general ideas. By the sensitive faculty we experience impressions, and objects are given to us; by the understanding we bring representations of these objects before us: we think of them. Perceptions and general ideas are the elements of all our knowledge. Without the sensitive faculty, no object could be given (proposed to) us; without the understanding none would be thought of by us. These two powers are really distinct from one another; but neither of the two without the other can produce a _notion_. In order to obtain a distinct notion of any one thing, we must present to our general ideas objects in perception, and reduce our perceptions to, or connect them with, these general ideas. As the sensitive faculty has its determined forms, so has our understanding likewise forms _à priori_. These may be properly termed _categories_; they are pure ideas of the understanding, which relate, _à priori_, to the objects of perception in general. The objects of experience, therefore, are in no other way possible; they can in no other way be thought of by us, and their multiplied diversity can only be reduced to one act of judgment, or to one act of consciousness, by means of these categories of sense. Hence, the categories have objective reality. They are either categories of

1. _Quantity_, as unity, number, totality; or,

2. Of _Quality_, as reality, negation, limitation; or,

3. Of _Relation_, as substance and accident, cause and effect; or,

4. Of _Modality_, as possibility and impossibility, existence and non-existence, necessity and contingency.

‘The judgment is the capacity of applying the general ideas of the understanding to the information of experience. The objects of experience are regulated according to these ideas; and not, _vice versâ_, our ideas according to the objects.’

Such is the outline of this author’s account of the intellect, which, after all, appears to be rather dogmatical than demonstrative. He is much more intent on raising an extensive and magnificent fabric, than on laying the foundations. Each part does not rest upon its own separate basis, but, like the workmanship of some lofty arch, is supported and rivetted to its place by the weight and regular balance of the whole. Kant does not appear to trouble himself about the evidence of any particular proposition, but to rely on the conformity and mutual correspondence of the different parts of his general system, and its sufficiency, if admitted, to explain all the phenomena of the human intellect with consistency and accuracy;—in the same manner as the decypherer infers that he has found the true key of the hieroglyphic hand-writing, when he is able to solve every difficulty by it. However profound and comprehensive we may allow the views of human nature unfolded by this philosopher to be, his method is necessarily defective in simplicity, clearness, and force. His reasoning is seldom any thing more than a detailed, paraphrased explanation of his original statement, instead of being (what it ought to be) an appeal to known facts, or a deduction from acknowledged principles, or a detection of the inconsistencies of other writers. The extreme involution and technicality of his style proceed from the same source; that is, from the necessity of adapting a conventional language to the artificial and arbitrary arrangement of his ideas. The whole of Kant’s system is evidently an elaborate antithesis or contradiction to the modern philosophy, and yet it is by no means a real approximation to popular opinion. Its chief object is to oppose certain fundamental principles to the _empirical_ or mechanical philosophy, and it either rejects or explains away the more common and established notions, except so far as they coincide with the rigid theory of the author. He sets out with a preconceived hypothesis; and all other facts and opinions are made to bend to a predominant purpose.

The founder of the _transcendental_ philosophy very properly insists on the distinction between the sensitive and the intellectual faculties, and makes this division the ground-work of his entire system. He considers the joint operation of these different powers as necessary to all our knowledge, and enumerates with scrupulous formality the different ideas which originate in this complex progress, and points out the share which each has in each. The author conceives of certain general ideas, as _substance_ and _accident_, _cause_ and _effect_, _totality_, _number_, _quantity_, _relation_, _possibility_, _necessity_, etc. as pure ideas of the understanding; and he classes _space_ and _time_ as primary forms of the sensitive faculty.[9] All this may be very true; but the proof may also be required, and it is not given. Yet modern metaphysicians are not likely, either as sceptical inquirers after truth, or as lovers of abstruse paradoxes, to be satisfied with the bare assumption of a common prejudice. They will say, either that all these ideas have no real existence in the mind, that they are mere abstract terms which owe their force and validity to the mechanism of language; or admitting their existence in the mind, they will contend with Locke, that they are only general, reflex, and compound ideas, originally derived from sensation. ‘Whence do all the ideas and operations of the mind proceed?’ _From experience_, is the answer given by the modern philosophy—_From experience and from the understanding_, is the answer given by Kant. The former solution has the advantage of simplicity; and the logical proof is wanting to the latter. To compare grave things with gay, the display which this celebrated philosopher makes of his categories, his forms of the sensitive faculty, his pure ideas, and _à priori_ principles, somewhat resembles the method taken by Sir Epicure Mammon in _The Alchymist_ to persuade his sceptical friend that he is about to discover the philosopher’s stone by overpowering his imagination with the description of the fine things he will do when he has it:—‘And all this I will do with the stone.’ ‘But will all this give you the stone?’ says Pertinax Surly, who ‘will not believe antiquity’ any more than our modern sceptics.

I think that the truth may be got at much more simply, and without all this parade of words. The business of the mind is twofold—to receive impressions and to perceive their relations; without which there can be no ideas. Now the first of these is the office of the senses, and is the only original function of the mind, according to the prevailing system. The second is properly the office of the understanding, and is that, the nature or existence of which is the great point in debate between the contending parties. The more complex and refined operations of this faculty, such as judging, reasoning, abstraction, willing, etc. are either totally denied, or at best resolved into simple ideas of sensation by modern metaphysical writers. I know of no better way, therefore, to establish the contrary hypothesis than to take these simple ideas of the moderns, and shew that they contain the same necessary principles of the understanding, the same operations of judging, comparing, distinguishing, abstracting, which they discard with so much profound contempt, or treat as accidental and artificial results of some higher faculty. If it can be proved that the understanding, in the strict and exclusive sense, is necessary to our having any _ideas_ whatever,—that the very terms are synonymous and inseparable—that in the first original conception of the simplest object of nature there is implied the same principle, a power of perceiving the relations of different things, which is only exerted in a more perfect and comprehensive manner in the most complex and difficult processes of the human intellect, one would think that there must be an end of the question.

AN ENGLISH METAPHYSICIAN.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED

_The Morning Chronicle._] [_March 3, 1814._

‘For men to have recourse to subtleties in raising difficulties, and
then to complain that they should be taken off by minutely examining
these subtleties, is a strange kind of proceeding.’

I cannot better explain the modern theory of the understanding (which it will be the object of this letter to consider) than in the words of one of the best and ablest commentators of that school, Mr. Horne Tooke.

‘The business of the mind,’ he says ‘appears to me to be very simple. It extends no farther than to receive impressions, that is, to have sensations or feelings. What are called its operations are merely the operations of language. The greatest part of Mr. Locke’s Essay, that is, all which relates to what he calls _the composition_, _abstraction_, _complexity_, _generalization_, _relation_, etc. of ideas, does indeed merely concern language. If he had been sooner aware of the inseparable connection between words and knowledge, he would not have talked of the composition of ideas, but would have seen that the only composition was in the terms, and consequently, that it was as improper to talk of a complex idea as of a complex star! I will venture to say that it is an easy matter, upon Mr. Locke’s own principles and a physical consideration of the senses and the mind, to prove the impossibility of the composition of ideas, and that they are not ideas, but merely terms, which are general and abstract.’—Diversions of Purley, Vol. i. p. 39, 51, &c.[10]