Presented to the LIBRARY of the

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

by

PROFESSOR R. F. McRAE

THE

INTELLECTUALS! OF LOCKE:

BY

THOMAS E. WEBB, M.A.,

PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN.

DUBLIN:

WILLIAM MCGEE & CO., 18, NASSAU-STREET. LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, LONGMANS, & ROBERTS.

1857.

DUBLIN :

^rtntefl at tlje gani&ersttp

BY M. H. GILL.

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1

VV4-

TO

THE RIGHT REVEREND

WILLIAM FITZGEBALD, D,D,,

LORD BISHOP OF CORK, CLOYNE, AND ROSS,

IS DEDICATED, IN GRATITUDE FOR THE INTEREST HE HAS TAKEN IN ITS PROGRESS,

AND IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE BENEFIT IT HAS DERIVED FROM HIS SUGGESTIONS.

s

PREFACE.

object of this Book is indicated by its Title. It professes to establish by a rigorous analysis of the Essay concerning Human Understanding, that Locke is neither a Sensualist, ignoring the existence of any Elements of Thought but those supplied by the External Senses, nor an Empiricist, recognising the existence of no Elements of Thought but those supplied by Sense, External or Internal. It professes to establish that Locke, on the contrary, as recognis ing Ideas of which Intellect is properly the source, and Cognitions of which Intellect is exclusively the guarantee, is an Intellectualist — an Intellectualist in the sense of Reid and Kant.

To enunciate this doctrine is to proclaim that Locke's Philosophy has hitherto been interpreted by opposites. Any attempt to propitiate the pre possessions of the Reader in such a case is plainly out of the question ; the utmost I can hope is to

PEEFACE.

guard against misapprehension. To secure this ob ject I shall give, though at the expense of any in terest which my Essay might otherwise possess, a synopsis of the results at which it professes to have arrived.

In the First Chapter, then, I give a brief sketch of the History of Locke's Philosophy, and point out certain antecedent probabilities in favour of my general conclusion. In the Second, I show that Locke regarded our Ideas neither as Separate Enti ties, nor as Latent Modifications of Mind, but as Percipient Acts ; — in other words, that his Ideal Theory was identical with that of Arnauld. In the Third, I show that Locke was not misled by an Ignis Fatuus in his Polemic against Innate Ideas, on the one hand ; and that, on the other, he syste matically recognised the element of truth of which the Doctrine of Innate Ideas was the disguised expression. In the Fourth, I determine the mean ing attached by Locke to the words Sensation and Eeflection, and show that in declaring Sensation and Eeflection to be the sole " Originals" of our Ideas, Locke merely contemplated the Chronological Conditions of Thought. In the Fifth, I show that, ulterior to Sensation and Reflection, Locke recog-

PREFACE. vii

nises the Understanding itself as a principle genetic I of Ideas which Sensation and Reflection are wholly incompetent to give. In the Sixth, I show that^ Locke anticipated the Kantian distinction of Know ledge into A posteriori and A priori, Synthetic and Analytic. In the Seventh, I endeavour to systematize Locke's views on the subject of the Three Ontologic Realities, the World, the Soul, and God. In the Eighth, I endeavour to perform the same office with respect to his views on Freedom and the Moral Law. In the Ninth, by a minute comparison of Locke's doctrines with those of Hume and Kant, I endea vour to show that Hume's doctrine was not the sceptical development, but the dogmatic reversal, of that of Locke, and that Locke, on all the funda mental questions of Psychology, was agreed with Kant, though with regard to the Science of Meta physics the two Philosophers diverged.

These conclusions are so utterly alien to the ac credited Criticism of the last hundred and fifty years, that, perhaps, I may be suspected of having failed to comprehend the nature of the question I have undertaken to discuss. To obviate this suspicion, I have selected as the expression of the received opi nions on the subject of Locke's Philosophy, the two

PREFACE.

greatest Philosophers which this generation has pro duced — M. Cousin and Sir William Hamilton. I have selected these from the great mass of Locke's Critics for a variety of reasons. In the first place, their acquaintance with the general Problems of Philosophy was so accurate, and their expression of Philosophical Opinion so clear, that a controversy which would have been vague when directed against others, becomes definite when directed against them. In the second place, the present reputation of these Philosophers stands so high, that a professed expo- sure of their errors of Criticism would be more likely to attract attention than any professed exposition of the Philosophy of Locke. In the third place, I must acknowledge the existence of some such feel ing as that which animated the Unknown Knight in Ivanhoe, and, instead of selecting as antagonists those whose seat was least sure, I have preferred touching the shield of the most redoubted cham pions that the lists of Metaphysics can supply.

Should any professional Critic deem the subject worthy of his notice, all I would ask is, that he will study it with the attention which, from its very na ture, the subject itself demands. This Essay pro fesses to expose an error which for a century and a

PREFACE. IX

half has vitiated the History of Philosophy, and thrown a shade upon the reputation of the chief of British Philosophers. Let it be studied, then, with the care due to the interests of Philosophy. Let it be studied with the respect due to the memory of Locke.

POSTSCRIPT.

THE opinion which identifies Locke's Theory of Ideas with the Peripatetic Theory of Intentional Species has been so strenuously maintained by Reid, by Cousin, and by Sir William Hamilton, that, pro- bably, there is no portion of the following Essay which will be regarded with so much incredulity as that which professes to demonstrate the contrary. I trust I shall be excused, therefore, if I direct at tention to a perfectly decisive passage which I un fortunately overlooked when writing the chapter on Ideas.* In speaking of the fourth "Abuse of Words," —that of " taking them for things," — Locke ex pressly mentions the Peripatetic Doctrine of " Inten tional Species" as an instance (in. x. 14). He ridi cules it as the fitting pendant of a Philosophy which asserted the reality of " Substantial Forms," " Vege tative Souls," and " Abhorrence of a Vacuum." He classes it with the " Soul of the World" of the Pla- tonists, and with the " Endeavour towards Motion" in the " Atoms at Rest" of the Epicureans. He com pares it to the Doctrine of " Aerial and Etherial Ve hicles." He pronounces it to be "gibberish"

* See page 32.

CONTENTS.

PAG*.

I. — HISTORICAL, j

II. — IDEAS, 20

III. — INNATE IDEAS, 39

IV. — THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS, 59

V. — THE GENESIS OF IDEAS, 75

VI. — INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE, 107

VII. — EEAL EXISTENCE, 126

VIII. — FREEDOM AND THE MORAL LAW, 146

IX. — LOCKE, HUME, AND KANT, 160

APPENDIX, 137

The Editions referred to in this Essay a/re : — The Second Edi tion of Sir William Hamilton1 s Discussions ; the last Paris Edition of the Works of M. Cousin; and Sir William Hamilton's Editions of the Works of Reid and Stewart.

THE

INTELLECTUALS! OF LOCKE,

i.

HISTORICAL.

three works which have vindicated for Eng- land a name in the Philosophy of Europe are, the Instauratio Magna of Bacon, the Levi athan of Hobbes, and Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding. Of these three works, Locke's Essay is, perhaps, that which has produced the most powerful and permanent effect. The de velopment of Natural Science which has taken place since the time of Bacon is to be referred rather to the necessary tendencies of the age than to the genius of that great man. The Ethical controver sies which were once connected with the name of Hobbes have long ceased to be a matter of interest to any but the recluse student of Philosophy. Locke's Essay, on the contrary, is not only the starting-point of Metaphysical Science in this coun try, it is still the text-book in all our Univer-

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2 HISTOKICAL.

sities and Schools. On the Continent of Europe, and on the Continent of America, it is the same. The name of Locke is still a watchword in Philo sophy ; and the history of the Essay concerning Human Understanding is, in a great measure, the history of modern Thought.

The circumstances under which Locke made his first appearance as a Philosopher were, in many respects, unfavourable. Maintained in ancient times by the School of Epicurus, the system which educes all knowledge from Experience had, in the preceding age, been reproduced on the theatre of speculation by Gassendi, and accredited to Europe on the sup posed authority of Hobbes. The Ethical theories of Hobbes had excited a mingled feeling of terror and disgust, and had called forth a powerful anta gonist in Cudworth. Impressed with the necessity of investigating the Psychological foundations of morals, Cudworth, in combating Hobbes, repro duced the argument with which Socrates had combated the Scepticism of Protagoras, and anti cipated the argument with which Kant combated the Scepticism of Hume. The efforts of Cudworth were worthily seconded by Cumberland. In the meanwhile, Cartesianism had effected a footing in this country ; the Platonic tendencies of the age had been developed by More and Smith ; and the first dim intimations of a Philosophy of Common Sense had been given by Lord Herbert. It was in this state that Metaphysical Science was found by

HISTOKICAL. 3

Locke. But Locke unfortunately was a Politician as well as a Philosopher, — a Politician, too, identified with a party in the highest degree obnoxious to those who, at that period, claimed to be arbiters in all questions of Philosophy. The Church and the Universities were then, as now, the chief centres of speculative activity, and the Clergy, though they acquiesced in the Revolution as a disagreeable neces sity, had little sympathy with its principles, and were inclined to look upon its advocates with sus picion. Hence it was that, on his first appearance as a Philosopher, Locke was universally greeted as a second Hobbes, and the Essay was universally de nounced as a a new Leviathan. True it is that Locke expressly disclaimed an intimate acquain tance with the works of his predecessor. True it is that he coupled the name of Hobbes with the ill- omened name of Spinosa, and pronounced him to have been justly decried by his antagonists.* Locke's disclaimer was unheeded. There was on some leading points a superficial appearance of agree ment between the two philosophers, and the result was what might have been predicted. The whole Church militant, to employ the expression of War-

* Yet Mr. Stewart, who in one page quotes the passage in which Locke " disclaims any intimate acquaintance with the works of Hobbes" (Diss., p. 213), in the preceding page asserts that, "to those who are well acquainted with his speculations, it must ap pear evident that he had studied diligently the metaphysical writings both of Hobbes and Gassendi" (Diss., p. 212).

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4 HISTORICAL.

burton, resumed the arms, the temper of which had been tried in thundering on the steel cap of the Philosopher of Malmesbury. The University of Ox ford, by a private agreement between the Heads of Houses, determined to ignore the existence of the obnoxious book. Even Newton was so carried away by the prevalent excitement as to wish that Locke were dead. In spite of this opposition, how ever, partly, perhaps, in consequence of its violence, the dry metaphysical tractate passed through suc cessive editions with the rapidity of a romance. Pope satirized the abortive efforts of —

" Each fierce Logician still expelling Locke."

The doctrines of the Essay were popularized by Addison in the pages of the Spectator. Even the ridicule of Arbuthnot and the Scriblerus Club con tributed to make the new Philosophy familiar to the reading public. The physico-metaphysical spe^ culations of the School of Hartley belonged to a re gion in which Locke professedly declined to wander. But the intellectual impetus communicated by the author of the Essay was perpetuated by thinkers of a different order. Berkeley developed Philo sophy into an Idealism which denied the objective existence of the world of matter ; Hume, into a Nihilism which recognised the existence of nothing but our own Ideas. Outraging the ordinary con victions of humanity, and fraught with danger to life and morals, the Scepticism of Hume elicited

HISTORICAL. 5

the indignant protest of Reid. The Scottish Philo sophy was called into existence, and the result was the formation of the School of Common Sense.

Nor has the influence of Locke's Philosophy been less conspicuous in France. Struck with its apparent clearness, — attracted to it, perchance, by the hostility with which it was regarded by the English Church, Voltaire pronounced Locke to be the Hercules of Metaphysics, and proclaimed the Es say concerning Human Understanding to be a book which contained nothing but truths — truths, too, enunciated in the most unambiguous manner. But Montesquieu's sarcasm againstVoltaire is well known. " Quant a Voltaire," said the illustrious President, " il a trop d'esprit pour m'entendre ;" and the remark is as applicable to Voltaire's estimate of the Essay concerning Human Understanding as it was to his strictures on the Spirit of the Laws. Voltaire was a Gassendist, and unfortunately identified Locke with Gassendi. The system of the Essay in this manner became synonymous with Sensualism, and was made responsible for its results. Introduced to public notice by the Freethinker, it was no wonder that Locke became an object of hostility to the Eccle siastic, and, so powerful was the feeling of animosity excited in the Church of France, that Voltaire him self complained that for thirty years he had been subjected to incessant persecution for the praises he had bestowed upon the English Philosopher. But even this added to the popularity of Locke. The most

6 HISTORICAL.

austere of Philosophers became the Philosopher a la mode. In the salons of Paris, and the gardens of Versailles, fine gentlemen descanted with fine ladies on the origin of Ideas, and even the heroines of the stage amused their audience with disquisitions on the original, certainty, and extent of Knowledge.* Buf Locke's Philosophy was destined to produce more permanent results. Misled by the same error as Voltaire, Condillac enunciated the system of Trans formed Sensations, and presented it to the world as a development of the Philosophy of Locke. The writers in the " Encyclopaedia" participated in the views of Condillac. The Philosophy of Sensualism, thus accredited, was developed by D'Holbach into Athe ism; byHelvetius, into an Animalism which acknow ledged no characteristic difference between man and the lower animals. The hypothesis of the Man Statue was succeeded by the hypothesis of the Man Machine ; which, in its turn, gave way to the hy pothesis of the Man Triton. The stream of French speculation was thus poisoned at its source ; the " dirt Philosophy" was everywhere triumphant ; and even to the present day the disciples of the higher Philosophy denounce England as having debauched the morality of France.

Nor has the influence of the Philosophy of Locke been less powerfully felt in Germany. At tracted amidst his dreams of universal knowledge by

* For the influence of Locke on the fashionable circles in France see Stewart's "Dissertation," pp. 222, 552.

HISTOKICAL. 7

the celebrity of the Essay concerning Human Un derstanding, Leibnitz, for a moment, devoted his energies to the study of the new system, tracked it from position to position, and confronted it at every turn with the doctrines of the " Nouveaux Essais." But it was not through Leibnitz that Locke was des tined to influence the Philosophy of Germany. The universal genius looked with contempt on the talents of the English Metaphysician. M. Locke, he said, had subtlety and address, and a sort of superfi cial Metaphysic, which he knew how to make the most of ; but, on the whole, he missed the gateway of Philosophy, and understood nothing of the nature of the mind.* Hence it was that Locke's influence in Germany was neither immediate nor direct. It was the Scepticism of Hume that had aroused the indignant common sense of Reid, and it was the Phantom of the modern Pyrrho that aroused the speculative reason of Kant, — startled him, as he him self expressed it, from his dogmatic slumber. Re garding the Scepticism of Hume as the logical development of the Empiricism of Locke, Kant de voted his whole energies to supplying the alleged

* Locke, as Mr. Stewart has observed, was not backward in returning the compliment. "I see yon and I agree pretty well concerning Mr. Leibnitz," lie says in a letter to Molyneux, " and this sort of fiddling makes me hardly avoid thinking that he is not that very great man as has been talked of him." "Even great parts," he says in another letter, "will not master any subject without great thinking, and even the largest minds have but nar row swallows."

8 HISTOKICAL.

deficiencies of the Essay concerning Human Under standing, and the Kritik of the Pure Reason was the result. The reaction thus originated in Germany was, as is usual in such cases, Europeanized by France. Belonging to the German school of specu lation rather than to the French, M. Cousin re sumed the Kantian polemic, and his lectures on Locke's Philosophy constitute the best known, and in the estimation of his admirers, the most valuable portion of his voluminous productions. The Scot tish School became modified in the same manner as the French. The whole Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton is an attempt at the conciliation of the School of Common Sense with the School of the Speculative Reason ; and, inheriting the animosities of both Reid and Kant, Sir William has accepted the criticism of M. Cousin, and pronounced his Lectures to be the most important work on Locke since the " Nouveaux Essais" of Leibnitz.

Locke is thus the centre of the Philosophy of Great Britain, Germany, and France. He is to the metaphysical disputes of modern Europe what in the eyes of Arnold the great Carthaginian was to the Second Punic War. The history of Philosophy gathers itself around his single person, and in the collision of contending Schools we see nothing but Locke, his followers, and his foes.

That the scope of a book which has thus for a century and a half been the centre of controversies and the source of systems, should never yet have

HISTOKICAL. 9

been properly conceived, may appear a paradox too extravagant to be entertained. Yet Dugald Stewart, in his Dissertation on the Progress of Metaphysical Science, does not hesitate to aver that in his opinion the Essay concerning Human Understanding had been far more generally talked about than read, — far more generally read than understood. Nor, even at first sight, is this paradox without certain ante cedent probabilities in its favour. In the first place, the opinions concerning the purport of Locke's Phi losophy are almost as various as the opinions enu merated by Cicero concerning the Nature of the Gods. " Res nulla est, de qua tan to opere non solurn indocti, sed etiam docti dissentiant." While one set of commentators maintain, with Reid, that Locke re garded our Ideas as separate entities, another main tains, with Brown, that he regarded them as mere percipient acts. While one historian of Philosophy informs us that Locke rejected the Cartesian theory of Innate Ideas, another informs us that on the sub ject of Innate Ideas Descartes and Locke were in reality at one. If we ask Diderot, Condorcet, or La Harpe, " What was Locke's great and capital disco very ?" they will answer, in the words of Condorcet, " Locke was the first who proved that all our Ideas are compounded of Sensations" (Diss., p. 227). Put the same question to Reid, Stewart, and Sir William Hamilton, they will answer, in the words of Stewart, that the term which expresses " the peculiar and characteristic doctrine by which his system is dis-

10 HISTORICAL.

tinguished" is "Reflection" (Diss., p. 230). Evenhere the diversity of opinion does not cease. What does Locke mean by " Reflection" ? Stewart tells us that under Reflection Locke includes the Understanding proper, and that "it is in this sense he uses it when he refers to Reflection our Ideas of Cause and Effect, of Identity and Diversity, and of all other Relations" (Diss., p. 229). Sir William Hamilton, on the con trary, insists that Locke employs the term exclu sively in its etymological sense of eTrtarpocp^ TT/X)? eairro, and regards it " merely as a source of adven titious, empirical, or a posteriori knowledge" (Reid, p. 346). The disciple of Condillac maintains, with La Harpe, that " the faculty of Reflection is the power which the mind possesses of comparing and combining its Perceptions." It is the same with re ference to Sensation. Reid supposes that Locke's Sensation is merely Sensation proper (Reid, pp. 208, 290, 317)— Sir William Hamilton denounces Reid, and protests that it comprehends Sensation proper and Perception (Reid, pp. 208, 290, 317). It is the same Avith regard to a variety of other questions. Is Locke a Conceptualist, or is he a Nominalist? Is he a Materialist, or is he a believer in the Immateriality of the Soul ? Is he a Necessitarian, or is he a believer in the Freedom of the Human Will ? Does he reduce all Moral Distinctions to the accidental variations of opinion, to the arbitrary appointment of the civil magistrate, to the mere edict of the Deity — or does he repudiate the conclusions of Epicurus, Hobbes,

HISTOKICAL. 11

and Ockham, and acknowledge an Eternal and Im mutable Morality with Plato, with Cudworth, and with Clarke ? The question of Morality is a speci men of the irreconcilable diversity of opinion that subsists among the commentators. While Shaftes- bury identifies Locke's doctrines with those of Hobbes, Stewart identifies them with those of Shaftesbury (Diss., p. 243). Dissentient even from himself, Stewart at one time classes Locke with the "Minute Philosophers" (Diss.,p. 248) ; at another, he makes him responsible for the ethical paradoxes that are associated with the names of Helvetius and Mandeville (D-iss., pp. Ill, 429). Where all is thus doubt and dissension, the conclusion to be entertained is obvious. It is that of Cicero in the corresponding case. "Opiniones cum tarn varioe sint tamque inter se dissidentes, alterum profecto fieri potest, ut earum nulla, altera certe non potest, ut plus una vera sit." Nor is this diversity of view the only circumstance that rouses the suspicion that Locke's Philosophy has been the subject of misapprehension. The mon strous absurdities for which he has been made re sponsible lead us to the same conclusion. The Scrib- lerusClub could find no parallel for Locke's Abstract Idea of a Triangle except Crambe's Abstract Idea of a Lord Mayor. Brown can compare Locke's theory of Personal Identity to nothing but the speculations which Gulliver listened to in the Island of Philoso phers. But if we want the type of the criticism to which Locke has been subjected, we must have

12 HISTOKICAL.

recourse to the Lectures of M. Cousin — a work which professes to embody the criticisms of Reid and Kant — a work which has received the sanction of Sir William Hamilton — a work which may, there fore, be regarded as the expression of the philosophic sentiment of Europe on the merits of the great English Philosopher. If we are to believe his French expositor, Locke starts with a gratuitous " hypothe sis" (p. 81). Throughout the Essay "contradic tions gross as yea and nay are to be met with, not only from chapter to chapter, but from paragraph to paragraph of the same chapter" (p. 100). "In a critical point of view the most general charac teristic of Locke's metaphysical system" is "confu sion" (p. 116). The only expedient by which he maintains even the semblance of consistency is the systematic "mutilation of ideas" and "distortion of facts" (p. 148). He confounds what everybody else distinguishes (p. 109) ; he is guilty of" paralogism," "confusion," and "extravagance" (p. 128); he "destroys the belief of the human race" (p. 134) ; he "annihilates all moral responsibility and juridical action" (p. 139) ; he confounds consequent with an tecedent, and antecedent with consequent (passim) ; at every step he is bewildered amid "Abysses of Paralogism" (p. 245) ; and "Absolute Nihilism" is the gulf in which his progress inevitably ends (p. 250). Surely, if M. Cousin be in the right, this is the very " midsummer madness" of Malvolio. As Lee was named the Bedlam Poet, so Locke should

HISTORICAL. 13

be designated the Bedlam Philosopher. The great English Metaphysician is, after all, but a Metaphy sician in motley. But who is the man whose master piece is thus stigmatized as a farrago of fatuity and falsehood ? A man whose metaphysical sagacity has never been denied — a man proverbial for so briety of judgment and breadth of common sense — a man described by M. Cousin himself as a " born Philosopher," a second " Socrates," " the sage Locke." Add to this, a man whose devotion to truth, as M. Cousin also admits, is attested by all his con temporaries, and demonstrated by every action of his life. That such a man should have produced such a book is, of all unlikely things, the most un likely. M. Cousin's criticism is not only an insult to the memory of Locke, — it is an insult to Phi losophy and to common sense. Whenever an au thor appears peculiarly absurd, the first suggestion should be that he has been misunderstood. A great genius is not gratuitously to be charged with absur dities which an idiot might detect. In any case, it is a mere balancing of probabilities, and it is at least as possible that M. Cousin may have misconceived the meaning of Locke, as that Locke should have merited the criticism of M. Cousin.

The probability of the existence of some strange misconception in connexion with Locke's Philosophy is confirmed by another circumstance. Strange to say, the points which M. Cousin and the critics select as points of attack are the very points which Locke

1 4 HISTORICAL.

himself regards with peculiar complacency. Instead of regarding his fundamental principle as a gratui tous Hypothesis, he confidently appeals to " Obser vation and Experience" for the confirmation of its truth (i. iv. 25 ; n. i. 1 ; n. xi. 15). Instead of re garding his system as a rude mass of incoherent ma terial, he exults in the reflection that it will be ac knowledged to be "an edifice uniform and consistent with itself," even by those who may be disposed to view it as " a castle in the air" (i. iv. 25). Instead of regarding his Philosophy as exhibiting the muti lation of ideas and the distortion of facts, he insists that " if we examine the whole course of men in their several ages, countries, and educations," their " no tions" will be found to depend on the " foundations" which he has laid, and to correspond in every re spect with the " method" which he has thought proper to adopt (n. xi. 16).

Nor can it be said that Locke was ignorant of the conditions of the problem which he undertook to solve. Every metaphysical difficulty which was ob truded upon Reid and Kant, by the Philosophy of Hume, had already been obtruded upon Cudworth and Cumberland by the Philosophy of Hobbes. Nor, even if Locke had been ignorant of the meta physical controversies which had agitated the pre ceding age, would he have been permitted by his contemporaries to ignore the great principles at issue. Never was any book greeted with such a storm of opposition as the Essay concerning Hu-

HISTORICAL. 15

man Understanding on its first appearance. At the head of its assailants appeared the Bishop of Wor cester. He took exception to Locke's theory of Ideas. He maintained that the reasoning against In nate Ideas invalidated the argument for the exist ence of a God. He challenged the theory of the origin of Ideas to account for the existence of the Idea of Substance. He denounced the theory of Knowledge as incompetent to give either the Immate riality of the Soul, or the expectation of a Future Life. Nor was Stillingfleet the only opponent that Locke was called upon to encounter. The efforts of the philosophic Bishop were seconded by Sherlock and by Norris. " Solid Philosophy" was " asserted against the Fancies of theldeists" by Sargent. Lee confronted the supposed Scepticism of the Essay with an " Anti- Scepticism" in folio. Lowde assailed its fancied Hobbism with a " Discourse concerning the Nature of Man." Every leading objection that has been adduced against Locke's system by Leibnitz, Kant, or Cousin, by Reid, Stewart, or Sir William Hamil ton, was thus obtruded on Locke's own notice by his own contemporaries. And what was the result ? Locke tells us, in the Epistle to the Reader prefixed to the sixth edition of the Essay. He had not had the good luck to receive any light from those excep tions he had met with in print against any part of his book. Whether the subject he had in hand re quired more attention than cursory readers, at least such as were prepossessed, were willing to allow, or

16 HISTORICAL.

whether any obscurity in his expressions cast a cloud over it, and those notions were made difficult to others' apprehensions in his way of treating them, he did not undertake to say ; but so it was, that his meaning, he found, was often mistaken, and he had not the good luck to be everywhere rightly under stood. Whichever was the case, it was merely his own reputation that was affected. He declined, therefore, to trouble the reader with what he thought might be said in answer to the several objections he had met with to isolated passages in his book, " since I persuade myself," he said, " that he who thinks them of moment enough to be concerned whether they are true or false will be able to see, that what is said is either not well founded, or else not contrary to my doctrine, when I and my opposer come both to be well understood."

Now, if Locke professed to have derived no light from the exceptions of Stillingfleet, assuredly he would have derived no light from the exceptions of M. Cousin. If he protested that he had been mis taken by Lowde and Sherlock, he would equally have protested that he had been mistaken by Sir William Hamilton. If he declared that he was agreed with his antagonists of the School of Cudworth, he would have as readily avowed that he was agreed with his antagonists of the School of Keid and Kant. And this suggests the principle on which the Philo sophy of Locke should in reality be judged. When, with reference to " the origin of the pure cognitions

HISTORICAL. 17

of Reason," Kant divided philosophers into Noolo- gists and Empiricists, he regarded Aristotle as the head of the Empiricists, and Locke as the follower of Aristotle in modern times. But if after the lapse of two thousand years it may be made a question whe ther Aristotle in reality regarded all knowledge as educed from Experience, a similar question may surely be raised concerning Locke. Fontenelle has said that History is merely a collection of fables con- venues ; what if the Empiricism of Locke be one of the fables convenues of Philosophy ? This is the fact which it is the object of this Essay to establish, and it is on the establishment of this fact that I rest Locke's claims to be regarded as a great thinker. Viewed as a system of Empiricism, Locke's Philosophy has been the theme of ten thousand discordant judgments : viewed in its true character, it will exhibit in corre lation the doctrines of which each of these discordant judgments was a partial glimpse. Viewed as a system of Empiricism, his Philosophy has been regarded as a chaos of contradiction : viewed in its true character, it will be seen to be, what he himself considered it, an edifice uniform and consistent with itself. Viewed as a system of Empiricism, his Philosophy presents the appearance of abysses of paralogism : viewed in their true light, these abysses of paralogism will be seen to be nothing but a species of metaphysical mirage thrown up by the ambiguities of language. Viewed in an Empiric aspect, the Essay concerning Human Understanding, to use an adaptation of

c

18 HISTORICAL.

Locke's own metaphor, presents to the spectator nothing but a picture of confusion : viewed in the " cylindrical mirror" of a just criticism, the confusion ceases, the irregular lines are reduced to order, and the Essay presents to the eye the very form and fea tures of a true Philosophy.

Nor is it merely as a point of speculative curio sity that this discussion commends itself to the at tention of those who have the interests of Philosophy at heart. The great opprobrium of Metaphysics has hitherto been the diversity of opinion that exists amongst the acknowledged masters of the science. In modern times, the two chiefs under whose stan dards the rival factions of Philosophy have ranged themselves are Locke and Kant ; and it will be no mean triumph over the enemies of Philosophy if it can be demonstrated that on all essential and fun damental points the rival chiefs are in reality at one. Nor is this discussion devoid even of the in terest which nationality can give. It has long been the fashion to denounce the English School of Phi losophy as essentially material, and to account for the alleged fact by the practical tendencies of the English people ; as if the most practical nation of antiquity had not produced the most Ideal Philo sophy, and as if England were not the native country of Shakspeare and of Milton. It is the object of this Essay to show that, rightly understood, the Philo sophy of England is not unworthy of its Poetry — that Europe has no valid ground of complaint against

HISTORICAL. 19

the English School — and that if the true Philosophy was developed in a reaction from the false, the false Philosophy was itself engendered by a misconcep tion of the true. But a still more; serious con side- ration remains to be pointed out. Locke has hi therto been identified with those whom the Roman orator denounces as the Plebeians of Philosophy. Sensualist and Sceptic — Materialist, Fatalist, and Atheist — those who centre all morality in self-inte rest, and all self-interest in sense — these have hitherto been regarded as the legitimate representatives of Locke's principles, the faithful depositories of his system. I wish to deprive them of that glory. I wish to transfer the authority of a great name to a higher and purer School of Speculation. I wish, in fine, to identify the chief of British Philosophers with a Philosophy which recognises the Intellectual dignity of Man — the Immutability of the Moral Law — the Being and the Attributes of God.

II.

IDEAS.

ACCORDING to Kant, the cause of the failure of the Metaphysicians who had preceded him was to be found in the fact that they had occupied themselves with the objects of knowledge before they had ex amined into the capabilities of the subject ; and it was to supply this deficiency that he instituted his analysis of the laws to which Reason is itself sub jected, and embodied the results in the Kritikof the Pure Reason. It was to a conviction of the same kind that the world is indebted for the Essay con cerning Hum an Understanding. Findinghimself per plexed with certain metaphysical difficulties, Locke fell into the same train of reflection as Kant. " It came into my thoughts," he says, " that we took a wrong course, and that, before we set ourselves upon inquiries of that nature, it was necesary to examine our own abilities, and see what objects our Under standings were, or were not, fitted to deal with" (Epistle). — "I thought that the first step towards satisfying several inquiries the mind of man was very apt to run into was to take a survey of our own Understandings, examine our own powers, and

IDEAS. 21

see to what things they were adapted" (Introduc tion). — " Till that was done," he adds, almost in the very words of the German Philosopher, " I suspected we began at the wrong end, arid in vain sought for satisfaction in a quiet and sure possession of truths that most concerned us, whilst we let loose our thoughts into the vast Ocean of Being, as if all that boundless extent were the natural and undoubted possession of our Understanding" (Ibid.). Locke, therefore, at the very outset repudiates what M. Cousin calls " the thesis of Sensualism."* He does not proceed from the Object to the Subject, from Being to Thought, from Ontology to Psychology.

* " Lectures on Kant," p. 45. — So little, however, is this the thesis of Sensualism — so little is Kant entitled to any originality for the counter-thesis, that even Hume enounces the Kantian method as unambiguously as either Locke or Kant. " Here then," he says in his " Treatise of Human Nature," " is the only expedient from which we can hope for success in our philosophical researches — to leave the tedious, lingering method which we have hitherto fol lowed, and, instead of taking now and then a castle or village in the frontier, to march up directly to the capital or centre of the Sci ences, to Human Nature itself: which, heing once masters of, we may everywhere else hope for an easy victory." In his " Essays" he holds exactly the same language. " The only method of freeing learning at once from these abstruse questions," he says, "is to inquire seriously into the nature of the Human Understanding, and show, from an exact analysis of its powers and capacity, that it is by no means fitted for such remote and abstruse subjects. We must submit to this fatigue in order to live at ease ever after." This last sentence gives the ipsissima verla of the Philosopher of Koenigsberg.

22 IDEAS.

Impressed with the conviction that we can only know according to the measure of our capacities of knowing, he undertakes to survey our capacities of knowing as the necessary preliminary to the deter mination of the question he proposed to discuss — " the original, certainty, and extent of human know ledge" (i. i. 2).*

But this is not all. Knowledge, according to Locke, "is nothing but the perception of the con nexion and agreement, or disagreement and repug nancy, of any of our Ideas" (iv. i. 2). In order to ascertain the original and extent of knowledge, there fore, it is necessary to determine the original and extent of the Ideas with which knowledge is exclu sively concerned. This enables us to see the whole lie of the Essay concerning Human Understanding, as it were, from the bird's-eye point of view. In the first book, Locke professes to demonstrate that we have no Ideas prior to Experience. In the second, he shows the nature of the Experience by which our Original Ideas are supplied, and the manner in which other Ideas are subsequently developed by the Mind itself. In the third he points out the nature of those General Ideas, in the contemplation of which, in his opinion, all General Knowledge consists. In

* M. Cousin considers the celebrated comparison which Kant institutes between himself and Copernicus, as referring to the ne cessity of commencing a System of Metaphysics with an Analysis of the Laws of Reason. The comparison, however, has a different reference.

IDEAS. 23

the fourth, he investigates the nature of the con nexions established among our various Ideas, deter mines their objective value, and pronounces the judgment of his Philosophy on the three great On- tologic Realities, — the World, the Soul, and God.

What, then, is the nature of these Ideas which play so prominent a part in the Philosophy of Locke ? According to Kant, the mind is conscious of nothing but its own Ideas ; the Ideas of the mind are nothing but its various acts ; and these acts are to be referred partly to the recipient capacities of Sense, and partly to the generative faculties of the Mind itself. Now, that Locke agrees with Kant in holding the mind to be conscious of nothing but its own Ideas, is ad mitted ; it is the fundamental principle of the Essay. The first thing, therefore, to be ascertained with re spect to the Ideology of Locke is the light in which Ideas themselves are to be regarded, That there are Ideas in the mind, Locke presumes will be easily granted. " Every one," he says, " is conscious of them in himself, and men's words and actions will satisfy him that they are in others" (i. i. 8). So far all is clear. But Locke, unfortunately, has himself created a difficulty in attempting to obviate a mis conception. He defines Ideas to be " the immediate objects of our minds in thinking" (i. i., Note} ; and this naturally suggests a query. Are these "objects" separate objects, or are they the mere acts of the mind regarded in an objective point of view? In the words of Sir William Hamilton, are they objec-

24 IDEAS.

tivo-objects, or are they subjective-objects ? With regard to many of our Ideas, Locke's opinion on this point admits of no dispute. He speaks, for instance, of Ideas of Pleasure and Pain, which can be nothing but mental affections ; of Ideas of Perception and Volition which can be nothing but mental acts ; of Ideas of Relation which cannot possibly be separate entities ; of general Ideas which he distinctly tells us are " something imperfect that cannot exist" (iv. vii. 9). The whole controversy, therefore, re lates exclusively to Locke's opinion as to the es sence of our Ideas of Sense. According to Reid, " Mr. Locke thought that there are Images of exter nal things conveyed to the brain ; but whether he thought, with Descartes and Newton, that the Images in the brain are perceived by the mind there pre sent, or that they are imprinted on the mind itself, is not so evident" (Reid, p. 256). According to Brown, " the doctrine of this truly eminent Philoso pher is, that the presence of the external object and the consequent organic change are followed by an Idea, which is nothing but the actual Perception" (Lect. xxvii., p. 171). Sir William Hamilton un dertakes to adjudicate in this dispute, and the fol lowing are the words with which he opens the con sideration of the question : —

" In his language, Locke is, of all Philosophers, the most figurative, ambiguous, vacillating, various, and even contradictory — as has been noticed by Reid and Stewart, and Brown himself; indeed, we be-

IDEAS. 25

lieve by every author who has had occasion to com ment on this Philosopher. Thus, on the matter .under discussion, though really distinguishing, Locke verbally confounds, the objects of Sense and of In tellect, the operation and its object, the objects immediate and mediate, the object and its relations, the Images of Fancy and the Notions of the Under standing. Consciousness is converted with Percep tion, Perception with Idea, Idea with Ideatum, and with Notion, Conception, Phantasm, Representation, Sense, Meaning, &c. Now his language, identifying Ideas and Perceptions, appears conformable to a disciple of Arnauld — and now it proclaims him a follower of Digby, explaining Ideas by mechanical impulse, and the propagation of material particles from the external reality to the brain. The Idea would seem, in one passage, an organic affection, the mere occasion of a spiritual representation ; in another, a representative Image in the brain itself. In employing thus indifferently the language of every hypothesis, may we not suspect that he was anxious to be made responsible for none? One, however, he has formally rejected ; and that is the very opinion attributed to him by Dr. Brown — that the Idea, or object of consciousness in Perception, is only a modification of the mind itself (Disc., pp. 78, 79). If this representation be just, Locke's Idea would seem to be a Psychologic Proteus from which we should vainly seek to extort an intelligible response. " Omnia transformat sese in miracula rerum."

26 IDEAS.

But the first thing to be remarked with reference to the preceding criticism is, that if Locke be confused, his confusion is worse confounded by his critic. Among the various hypotheses the language of which Locke is represented as using indifferently, there are enumerated hypotheses wholly independent in cha racter : hypotheses involved in the connotation of the term — hypotheses as to the physical antecedents of the phenomenon — and hypotheses as to the essence of the phenomenon itself. On each of these points let us endeavour to ascertain the sentiments of Locke.

As to the connotation of the term, the word Idea in Locke's system performs two incongruous functions. At one time it denotes a Quality of Matter — an employment of the term which is evidently abusive, and which gives to Locke's system an appearance of Berkeleianism which it was never intended to pre sent ; at another, it denotes a Modification of Thought — and in this sense Locke employs it in its full Cartesian comprehensiveness, to include the ob jects of our consciousness in general. It is true that Locke sometimes employs the word with an exclu sive reference to its etymological and anti-Platonic meaning of Idea, 'I8ea, or Image ; as, for instance, when he denies that we have any Idea of the Infi nite, or any Idea of Substance. Nor does the exclu sive employment of the term in this sense date, as Sir William Hamilton asserts, from the School of Con- dillac (Disc., p. 70). It was in this sense it was em-

IDEAS. 27

ployed by Hobbes, when he denied that we have any Idea of Spirit, Substance, the Infinite, or God ( Obs. ad Cart.Med.)} by Clarke, when he admitted that we have no Idea of Substance (Attributes, Prop, x.) ; by Berkeley, when he denied that we can form any Idea of Spirits and Relations (Principles, Sect. Ixxxix.) Nay, Locke's contemporary, King, asserts that the employment of the term Idea to denote anything but the Intuitions of Sense is an abuse of language which bids defiance to the universal associations of mankind (De Origine, i. i. vi., Note A}. But this is not the sense in which the term is systematically employed by Locke. It stands for " whatsoever is the object of the Understanding when a man thinks" (i. i. 8). It is used to express " whatever is meant by Phantasm, Notion, Species" (Ibid.) It is "the immediate object of Perception, Thought, or Under standing" (n. viii. 8). In a word, it is a general term which comprehends under it the Sensible In tuition, the Intellectual Concept, and the Rational Idea, of the Kantian.*

* Mr. B. H. Smart, according to Mr. J. S. Mill, has "justly" observed that " Locke will be much more intelligible if, in the majority of places, we substitute ' the knowledge of for what he calls 'the idea of.' " " Among the many criticisms on Locke's use of the word Idea," says Mr. Mill, " this is the only one which, as it appears to me, exactly hits the mark" (Logic, i. 126). As it appears to me, the mark could not have been more ignominiously missed by the quoit-players of old, when Diogenes seated himself beside it to avoid being hit. Ideas, according to Locke, are, " as it were, the materials of Knowledge" (n. xxxiii. 19)— Knowledge

28 IDEAS.

With regard to the physical antecedents of our Ideas, Locke, it is true, professedly declines to be made responsible for any hypothesis (i. i. 2). But he subsequently lays aside this sage reserve, and pronounces that, in the case of the Primary and Secondary Qualities of Matter, our Ideas are pro duced by Impulse, this, he says, being the only way in which we can conceive bodies to operate (u. viii. 11). Yet how little Sir William Hamilton was justified in identifying Locke's doctrine with the gross material hypothesis of Sir Kenelm Digby (Disc., p. 81), is evident from Locke's own explana- tipn of his meaning. He distinctly admits that "motion, according to the utmost stretch of our Ideas, is able to produce nothing but motion, so that when we allow it to produce pleasure or pain, or the Idea of a colour, or a sound, we are fain to quit our reason, go beyond our Ideas, and attribute it wholly to the good pleasure of our Maker" (iv. iii. 6 ; II. viii. 13). This is not only Reid's opinion, it is his very language (p. 257). Locke's "Impulse" cor responds, in fact, to Reid's "Impression" (p. 248).

is " the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our Ideas " (iv. i. 2). " Ideas," in fact, "being nothing but bare appear ance, or perceptions in our minds, cannot," in Locke's opinion, "be said to be true or false" (n. xxxii. 1). Mr. Smart's error has not even the merit of novelty. Stillingfleet, in one of his Controversial Letters, confounded the Idea with the Being of Sub stance; and what was Locke's reply? It is well worthy the attention of Mr. Mill: — " If your Lordship please, let it be the Idea" (n. xxiii. Note A).

IDEAS. 29

It is merely a name for the change produced in the the organ, the nerves, and the brain, by the opera tion of the external cause (n. viii. 12). It is merely a name for the physical antecedents of Perception.

But neither with regard to the connotation of the term, nor with regard to the physical conditions of the phenomenon, have Locke's views anything to do with the point on which Sir William Hamilton un dertook to adjudicate. Here the question, it is to be observed, is, not whether Locke held the Perception of external things to be merely by way of Idea, but whether he held the Idea of external things to be identical with their Perception, — two questions which Sir William Hamilton has frequently con founded, and to the confusion of which he is indebted for much of the apparent triumph of his celebrated polemic against Brown. According to Sir William Hamilton, all possible forms of the Representative Hypothesis may be reduced to three : — that which regards the representative object as "not a Modifi cation of the Mind ;" that which regards it as "a Modification of Mind dependent for its apprehen sion, but not for its existence, on the act of thought;" and that which regards it as " a Modifica tion of Mind, non-existent out of consciousness, the Idea and its perception being only different re lations of an act or state in reality identical" (Disc., p. 57). Now let us examine the intimations of Locke's Essay with reference to each of these forms of the Representative Hypothesis. Does Locke hold

30 IDEAS.

the doctrine which regards our Sensible Ideas as numerically and substantially distinct from the sen tient Mind ? — distinct, to employ the material meta phors of Tucker, just as wafers are distinct from the box in which they are contained, or the fish from the water by which it is enveloped? Even the most objectionable passages in the whole Essay afford no countenance to such a view. It is true, Locke speaks of Ideas as existing " objectively" in the mind (Epistle). But it is evident that an act of mind may be an object of thought as much as a Separate Entity ; and the first remark in the whole Essay is that the mind can make itself its own ob ject (i. i. 1). Even Arnauld, from whom Locke may, perhaps, have borrowed the phrase, speaks of the objective presence of Ideas, nay, designates it "objective," to distinguish it from the "local" presence of external objects (Reid, p. 296). It is true that Locke holds our Ideas of the Primary Qualities of Matter to be "exact resemblances" (n. viii. 15). But so far is this from justifying Sir William Ha milton in attributing to him the absurdity of " Ex tended Ideas" (Disc., p. 79), that a reference to the passages in question will show that, in stating our Ideas of the Primary Qualities to be exact resem blances, Locke merely meant to assert that those Qualities exist in nature exactly as in thought we conceive them to exist (n. viii. 9, 15, 17, 23). As to the expressions, Ideas " in" the mind, and Impres sions "on" the mind, they are metaphors which

IDEAS. 3

every philosopher employs; and to illustrate the injustice of converting them into expressions of phi losophical opinion, I cannot do better than adduce the example of a great thinker, who, if we may be lieve Sir William Hamilton, " is one of the philo sophers who really held the doctrine of Ideas, erroneously by Reid attributed to all" ( Reid, p. 288). " Look you, Hylas," says Berkeley, — speaking under the character of Philonous, in the third of the Dia logues which he wrote to illustrate his Principles of Human Knowledge, — " Look you, Hylas, when I speak of objects as existing in the mind or im printed on the senses, I would not be understood in the gross literal sense, as when bodies are said to exist in a place, or a seal to make an impression upon wax. My meaning is only that the mind comprehends or perceives them, and that it is affected from without, or by some being distinct from itself — in other words, by God."* Locke, undoubtedly, if

* According to Sir William Hamilton, "the Egoistical Ideal ism of Fichte, resting on the third form of representation, is less exposed to criticism than the Theological Idealism of Berkeley, which reposes on the first" (Disc., p. 91). This I hold to be a representation of Berkeley's Idealism, which is not only opposed to Berkeley's reiterated and express declarations, but which, if adopted, would render his whole system a mass of unintelligible absurdity. It is not a little remarkable with respect to the Ideal controversy, that this, almost the only case in which Sir "William Hamilton admits Brown to have been in the right, is almost the only case in which Brown can be demonstrated to have been in the wrong.

32 IDEAS.

questioned, would have given a similar explanation of those passages in which he describes the Senses as the " Inlets" of Ideas, arid speaks of the " Audience- chamber" of the Mind. Even Sir William Hamilton admits that no argument can be legitimately based on expressions so essentially vague and metaphori cal. In point of fact the only passage in the whole of the four books of the Essay, which gives the slightest countenance to the views of Sir William Hamilton and Reid, is a parenthetical remark on our " not knowing how the Ideas of our Minds are framed, of what materials they are made, whence they have their light, and how they make their appear ance" (n. xiv. 13) ; a remark which may well enough refer to the physical antecedents of Perception — the Species Impressae of the Schoolmen, the Corporeal Ideas of Descartes. And as Locke's expressions can not be identified with the dogma which asserts the Idea to be a Separate Entity, so he explicitly repu diates the dogma which asserts the Idea to be " a mo dification of Mind, dependent for its apprehension, but not for its existence, on the act of conscious ness." " To imprint anything on the Mind, without the mind's perceiving it," seems to him " hardly intel- gible" (i. ii. 5). " To say a notion is imprinted on the mind, and yet at the same time to say that the mind is ignorant of it," is, in his opinion, " to make this impression nothing" (i. ii. 5). " To be in the understanding arid not to be understood, to be in the mind and never to be perceived," this he regards as

IDEAS. 33

a contradiction in terms (i. ii. 5). His whole pole mic against Innate Ideas, in fact, is a polemic against >\ the doctrine that the existence of Ideas can be la tent. But the strongest proof that Locke rejected both the first and second of the forms into which Sir William Hamilton has analyzed the Representative Hypothesis, is supplied by the passages in which he unequivocally avows his adoption of the third, — that the Idea is " a Modification of Mind, non-ex istent out of Consciousness, the Idea and its Percep tion being only different relations of an act in reality identical." On this point Locke not merely adopts the sentiments, he reproduces the very language of Arnauld. He tells us that, " whatever Idea is in the mind, is either an actual Perception, or else, hav ing been an actual Perception, is so in the mind, that by Memory it can be made an actual Perception again" (i. iv. 20). He tells us, that when he says, "the Senses convey into the mind the Ideas of the Sensible Qualities" of Matter, he means that " they from external objects convey into the mind what produces there those Perceptions" (n. i. 3). He tells us, that " external objects furnish the mind with the Ideas of Sensible Qualities which are all those different Perceptions they produce in us" (n. i. 5). He tells us, that "whatsoever is so con stituted in nature as to be able by affecting our Senses to cause any Perception in the mind, doth thereby produce in the understanding a Simple Idea" (n. viii. 1 ). He tells us that the names of Sim-

34 IDEAS.

pie Ideas "are never referred to any other essence but barely that Perception they immediately signify" (in. ix. 18). He tells us, in fine, that " our Ideas are nothing but actual Perceptions in the mind, which cease to be anything when there is no percep tion of them"* (n. x. 2).

Now in what manner would Sir William Hamilton require us to treat these declarations, — declarations, be it remembered, which might be multiplied ad libitum ?f " We do not deny," he says, " that Locke occasionally employs expressions which, in a writer of more considerate language, would imply the identity of Ideas with the act of Knowledge" (p. 79); but "the opinions of such a writer are not to be assumed from isolated and casual expressions which them selves require to be interpreted on the general ana logy of his system ; and yet this is the only ground on which Dr. Brown attempts to establish his con clusion" (Disc., p. 78). Now, in the first place, this statement is grossly unjust to Brown. In addition to quoting certain passages from Locke, Brown argues that Locke uses Idea as the synonym of No tion and Conception, which no one could suppose to denote anything but Mental Acts ; that he employs his most objectionable expressions in cases in which

* Locke should have said, "actual Perceptions which cease to be anything when there is no consciousness of them." This em ployment of a word in two senses in one and the same sentence is characteristic.

f Compare Locke's Essay (IT. viii. 7, 8; n. xxxi. 2, 12; n. xxxii. 1, 3, 14, 16 ; m. ix. 18 ; iv. iv. 4).

IDEAS. 35

their literal interpretation would be absurd; and, " especially," that there is not a single argument in his Essay, or any of his other works, that is founded on the substantial reality of our Ideas as separate and distinct things. But, granting that Sir Wil liam Hamilton has done no injustice to Brown, the answer of the advocate of Locke is obvious. The expressions of Locke are neither isolated nor casual; even if they were isolated and casual, they are perfectly unambiguous ; and, even if they were am biguous, the interpretation given is in perfect ac cordance with the general analogy of Locke's system, for Locke's system is a recoil from Scholasticism — a protest against all gratuitous hypothesis — an appeal to the authority of experience and common sense. Add to this, that the Ideal Theory had already been exploded by his predecessor, Arnauld. But what is the ground on which Sir William Hamilton at tempts to establish his own conclusion in opposition to that of Brown ? The general analogy of Locke's system ? No. Doubtless, then, the reiterated and official declarations of the work which embodies the principles of his Philosophy? Again we are doomed to disappointment. The critic who protests against the validity of an argument, based on the isolated and casual expressions of the Essay, bases his own argument on a casual and isolated expression ex tracted from Locke's Examination of Malebranche's Opinion — " which," he says, " as subsequent to the publication of the Essay, must be held authentic

D 2

36 IDEAS.

in relation to the doctrines of that work" (p. 79). Even to this I must demur. The last hours of Locke's life were devoted to the preparation of the sixth edition of his Essay, and in the Epistle pre fixed to that edition he tells the reader he has nothing to alter or to add. But what is the purport of the passage which, according to Sir William Ha- milton, supplies " a positive and explicit contradic tion of Dr. Brown's interpretation"? Locke, it

seems, is found to ridicule the doctrine which re-

«

duces our Ideas of the Secondary Qualities of Mat ter to " Mental States," and, therefore, a fortiori, the doctrine which reduces "the resembling, and consequently extended," Ideas of the Primary Qualities to "Modifications of the immaterial, unex- tended Mind" (p. 77). A more infelicitous argu ment could scarcely be advanced. Sir William Ha milton is like the Stoic in the "De Finibus" — " quum perspicuis dubia debeat illustrare, dubiis perspicua conatur tollere." The phrase, "Modification of Mind," is ambiguous. It may either denote a Modification of the mental Energy, or a Modification of the men tal Substance. If any one were to explain our dif ferent Ideas as different Modifications of Mind, in the same sense that the different images into which a piece of wax could be moulded are different modifications of the wax — such a declaration would be undoubt edly absurd. It would, in fact, correspond with the cruder form of the Egoistical Theory of Representa tion, which, as we have already seen, Locke, in his

IDEAS. 37

Essay, has rejected. But what if by Modification of Mind we understand a Modification of mental action ? The sense in which Locke understood the phrase is evident from the very passage quoted by Sir William Hamilton. " Can the same unextended, indivisible Substance," he asks, " have different, nay, inconsistent and opposite Modifications at the same time ? Must we suppose distinct parts in an indi visible Substance, one for black, another for white, and another for red Ideas ?" Irresistibly conclusive against the doctrine which represents our Ideas to be Modifications of the mental Substance, these questions have riot the slightest force against the doctrine which represents our Ideas to be Modifica tions of the mental Energy, and, therefore, identical with the percipient act. Nay, the sequel of the passage so "superfluously conclusive" against Brown, is, in reality, superfluously conclusive against Sir William Hamilton — for Locke acknowledges that these "black, white, and red Ideas," as he calls them, are merely so many " Sensations? different " in sorts and degrees," which we can " distinctly perceive," or be conscious of, " at the same time," and " so are distinct Ideas" (Ibid.) Sir William Hamilton's ar gument is like the missile of the Australian. Hurled vigorously against Brown, it misses its mark, and recoils with fatal effect upon himself. The doctrine of the Examination is, in reality, the same as the doctrine of the Essay. In the one Locke repudiates the error ; in the other, he enunciates the truth.

38 IDEAS.

Hence it is that in the Examination Locke denies that our Ideas are " Modifications of Mind" while in the Essay he consistently admits that they are "Modifications of Thinking" (11. xix. 1); and hence, while in the one work he denies that the same un- extended indivisible Substance can have different modifications at the same time, in the other he adopts the very phraseology of Brown, and argues that " the more probable opinion is that Conscious ness is annexed to, and the affection of, one indivi dual, immaterial Substance (n. xxvii. 25).

Brown, therefore, I conceive to be in the right. The Idea of Locke, like the Idea of Arnauld, is the mere act of thought considered as an object of re flection. The only Ideas he speaks of are those "Ideas which a man observes and is conscious to himself he has in his mind" (i. i. 8). If his antago nists " dislike the name, they may call them ' No tions," Conceptions,' or how they please" (iv. \.,Note). Locke presumes it will be easily granted him that there are such Ideas — a fact which is itself a proof that he was postulating no scholastic entities ; and his " first inquiry" is, " how they come into the mind" (i. i. 8).

III.

INNATE IDEAS.

IN order clearly to comprehend the scope of the i celebrated polemic against Innate Ideas with which Locke opens the Essay concerning Human Un derstanding, it is necessary to advert to several distinctions, the existence of which has been very generally overlooked. In the first place, if there be any such thing as knowledge, there must be some thing which knows ; and if there be anything which knows, it must be originally endowed with the capa city of knowing. Every philosopher, therefore, must recognise the existence of certain Innate Capacities and Powers. The Sensationalist must postulate as Innate our Capacities of Sense / the disciple of the School of Empiricism must postulate as Innate those

Powers of Observation, Memory, and Induction,

(u, .

without which even Experience would be impossible.

Granting the soul to be a sheet of white paper, we must still regard it as endued with certain proper ties before it can receive the handwriting of Expe rience ; granting it to be a mere daguerreotype plate, we must still regard it as endued with certain susceptibilities before it can be painted by the Light

40 INNATE IDEAS.

of Observation and reflect the image of the World. But not only must all philosophers, without excep tion, recognise the existence of certain Innate Ca pacities and Powers, they also, under one form or another, must recognise the existence of certain In nate Laws of Intellectual Development. If, for instance, they deny the existence of an Innate Law which predetermines the human mind to the anticipation of Experience, they admit the existence of an Innate Law which predetermines it to the Association of Ideas ; if they deny an instinctive apprehension of the phenomena of the Future, they admit a sugges tion of the phenomena of the Past, which is equally instinctive. And this, too, with perfect reason. Even if the mind of man be regarded merely as an animated and self-conscious magic lanthorn, we must admit a certain pre- arrangement and pre- adjustment of the mysterious chamber of thought, or thought itself would be merely the phantasma goria of a delirious dream. But at this point the unanimity of Philosophers will be found to end. According to one School, the Mind possesses no power beyond that of combining, according to cer tain Laws, the various Ideas which it has passively received through its capacities of Sense : according to another, not only does the Mind receive, repro duce, and variously combine the phenomena of Sense, it regards them as subjected to Relation. It regards them, for instance, as subjected to the Laws of Space and Time. It regards them as inherent in

INNATE IDEAS. 41

some Substance, and produced by some efficient Cause. Not only so, but it forms certain combina tions of Ideas, elevates them into an Ideal, and ob jectifies these Ideals in the World, the Soul, and God. Now, these Forms of Sensibility, these Cate gories of the Understanding, these Ideas of the Rea son — how are we to account for their existence in the Human Mind ? That they exist is demonstrated by the very effort to explain away their existence. That they are not furnished by our Capacities of Sense is evident from the fact that they belong to the region of the Super-Sensible. But Sense and Intellect are the only conceivable sources of Human Knowledge. It is plain, therefore, that they must owe their existence to the Intellect. As the offspring of the Intellect, it is true, they may be regarded in a twofold light. They may be regarded either as Illusions of the Imagination or as Revelations of the Reason. As Illusions of the Imagination they may either be tacitly ignored, as was the procedure of the School of Condillac, or they may be merged into Habit and Association of Ideas, as was the procedure of Hume. As Revelations of the Reason, on the other hand, they may be regarded as Ideas having an actual existence in the human mind prior to all mundane experience, as was the opinion of Plato ; or they may be regarded as Ideas having no actual existence till the human mind develops them by its own inherent force of thought on the occasion of Experience, as was the opinion of Descartes and

42 INNATE IDEAS.

Kant. Of these latter Theories, the one may be de nominated the Theory of Innate Principles and Ideas, the other the Theory of Innate Forms of Thought, and it is by a reference to these distinctions that the character of Locke's Polemic against Innate Ideas is to be determined.

Now, that Locke denies the existence of Innate Ideas is certain. It is equally certain that he de nies the existence of Innate Principles. But what are we to understand by the terms Ideas and Prin ciples, as employed by Locke ? Locke's doctrine, it must be admitted, is disguised in a masquerade of metaphor. "Constant Impressions," "Inscriptions written by the finger of God," and " Native beams of Light" — such is a sample of the phraseology which occurs at every step in this celebrated argument. On certain occasions, however, Locke's meaning has laid aside its mask. By Ideas he gives us to understand he means not the capacity of Thought, but Thought itself — by Principles, not Truth in its latent energy, but Truth in its logical expression as an abstract " Proposition" or " Maxim"* (i. iv. 21). In denying

* Nor was this employment of the term "Principle" peculiar in the age of Locke. In his criticism on Archbishop Whately's Logic, Sir William Hamilton " makes bold to say," in oppo sition to the Archbishop, " that no Logician ever employed the term Principle as a synonome for Major Premiss." The Italics are his own. But is not this rather too dogmatic ? Through out the fifth book of the De Augmentis, Bacon uses the term " Principium" exclusively in the sense of Major Proposition, — a

INNATE IDEAS. 43

Innate Ideas, accordingly, Locke merely denies the existence of Ideas " before impressions from Sensa tion and Reflection" (i. iv. 20). In denying Innate Principles he merely denies the existence of any knowledge anterior to Experience (n. ix. 6).

But what philosopher, it is asked, has ever main- tained the doctrine of Innate Ideas, under the form in which it is denied by Locke ? M. Cousin regards the Theory of Innate Ideas as a mere chimera. M. Cousin's translator professes his surprise that "Locke should ever have gravely instituted such a polemique, or that it should ever have gained such celebrity." Coleridge intimates that "the supposed error" which Locke labours to subvert is " a mere thing of straw" — " an absurdity which no man ever did- or ever •; could believe." Even Sir William Hamilton him self, in spite of all his acquaintance with the Phi losophers of the past, considers that Locke in his refutation of Innate Ideas was led astray by an " ignis fatuus." In opposition to these criticisms,

fact which it is of some importance to notice, as the ignorance of it has misled Mr. Mill into the assertion that Bacon ignored the Deductive method in Physical investigations. Bacon's account of Syllogism is decisive on this point : " In Syllogismo fit reductio propositionum && principia per propositiones medias" (De Aug., lib. v. cap. ii.) — " Ars judicandi per Syllogismum nihil aliud est quam reductio propositionum ad principia per medios terminos" (cap. iv.) — " Numerus vero terminorum mediorum minuitur aut augetur, pro remotione propositionis a principio" (Hid.} This employment of the word " Principium" throws considerable light on Locke's Polemic against Innate Principles.

44 INNATE IDEAS.

however, Locke tells us that the theory against which he contends was " an established opinion" (i. ii. 1), " a doctrine commonly taken for granted" (i. ii. 2), a "great point" (i. ii. 5). Moreover, this ques tion of Innate Ideas was one which had established peculiar claims upon Locke's attention. He had been told that an Epitome of his doctrine which he published as the precursor of his Essay had been generally rejected because it denied Innate Ideas. He knew that his denial of Innate Ideas had caused him to be denounced by Sherlock from the Pulpit of the Temple as little better than an Atheist. He knew that his denial of Innate Ideas had caused even Newton to identify his moral doctrine with the ethi cal enormities of Hobbes. Nor is Locke the only person whose scientific reputation is here at stake. The Epitome was published under the superinten dence of Leclerc. The Essay grew up under the eye of the metaphysical Earl of Pembroke. Locke was in constant communication with Molyneux, and Molyneux with a wide circle of philosophic friends. Add to this, that if Locke was deluded in this point, so also was the Philosopher of Malmesbury. Under these circumstances it is impossible to believe that Locke was labouring under a species of metaphysical monomania in contending against Innate Ideas — we have every reason to take him at his word, and to regard the theory of Innate Ideas as a " received doctrine" (ii. i. 1).

Nor was the doctrine of Innate Ideas a doctrine too

INNATE IDEAS. 45

monstrous to be received. On the contrary, it was the only theory by which the highest Schools of specu lation in the ancient world could account for the existence of our a priori Concepts. So obviously was the doctrine of Innate Ideas involved in the prin ciples of the Pythagorean Philosophy, that Pytha goras professed actually to remember the events of his antenatal life. So completely did it interpe netrate the Philosophy of Plato, that Plato denomi nated Philosophy itself by no other name than that of Reminiscence. Nor was this expression of Plato a mere metaphor. In the Tusculan Disputations the Roman orator reproduces the arguments of the Platonic Socrates as enounced in the Meno and the Phaedo, and proclaims the doctrine of Pre-existent Ideas to be a necessary truth : — " Nee vero fieri ullo modo posse, ut a pueris tot rerum atque tantarum insitas, et quasi consignatas in animis, Notiones quas 'Ei/iWa? vocant haberemus, nisi animus, antequam in corpus intravisset, in rerum cognitione viguisset. Cumque nihil esset,* ut omnibus locis a Platone disseritur, (nihil enim putat esse quod oriatur et in- tereat, idque solum esse quod semper tale sit quale et'Seai/ appellat ille, nos speciem), non potuit ani mus hgec in corpore inclusus agnoscere, cognita

* This passage is somewhat obscure, and the reading probably corrupt. The meaning is, that in the sphere of Experience, in which the Mind meets nothing but Phenomena, it could not pos sibly gain the necessary Ideas which it unquestionably possesses ; — it must, therefore, have brought them with it. The Kantian argument is enounced, the Kantian alternative ignored.

46 INNATE IDEAS.

adtulit" (Tusc. Disp., I 24). Now compare these words with Locke's enunciation of the doctrine against which he protests. " It is an established opinion among some men," he says, " that there are in the Understanding certain Innate Principles — some Primary Notions, Koival "Eyyomi, Characters, as it were, stamped upon the Mind of man, which the soul receives in its very first being, and brings into the world with it" (i. ii. 1). Divested of the doctrine of Pre-existence, this is the very doctrine of Plato, enounced in the very words of Cicero. In deed, so striking are the verbal coincidences, and so familiar does Locke show himself with the Tusculan Disputations in his controversy with Stillingfleet on the Immateriality of the Soul, that I can scarcely avoid suspecting that he had the very passage I have quoted before his view when he opened his polemic against Innate Ideas. Nor were these ancient speculations alien from the spirit of modern thought. The Philosophy that superseded Scholas ticism was, in fact, essentially Platonic. The tide of speculation which sunk in Greece reappeared, like the Alpheus, with the chaff and stubble still floating on its surface. Locke speaks of the doctrine of Pre-ex istence as a doctrine still actually held (11. xxvii. 14). He regards the doctrine of Reminiscence as worthy of a set refutation (i. iv. 20). What, then, is more probable than that in the time of Locke Philosophy might have required an elaborate polemic against Innate Ideas even in their ancient and most objec tionable form?

INNATE IDEAS. 47

Nor was it merely in connexion with the doctrine of Pre-existence that the theory of Innate Ideas was maintained. It was also maintained in connexion with the doctrine of Infusion — the doctrine which regarded our a priori Ideas as infused into the In tellect by the act of God. The difference between such a doctrine and that which is at present held is obvious. Instead of regarding the human Intellect as an energetic principle of thought, it regarded it as a mere passive recipient of adventitious Ideas. Instead of regarding our a priori Ideas as necessary Concepts essential to Intelligence, it regarded them merely as the arbitrary results of a Divine appoint ment. Instead of regarding the concurrence of Ex perience as a necessary condition to the excitation of the spontaneous force of thought inherent in In tellect, it regarded the contents of the Intellect as independent of Experience.

Whether the Pre-existent Ideas of the Platonist and the Infused Ideas of the Cartesian were re garded as Separate Entities, corresponding to the tertium quid of Eeid, is a different question. As commonly understood, the doctrine of Innate Ideas, in either of its forms, would, doubtless, have been repudiated by every Philosopher as energetically as it was repudiated by Dr. Henry More. No sane man could ever have believed " that there is a certain number of Ideas flaring and shining, like so many torches or stars in the firmament, to our outward sight, or that there are figures that take their distinct

48 INNATE IDEAS.

places, and are legibly writ there, like the red letters or astronomical characters in an almanac." But the doctrine of Innate Ideas entailed no such monstrous consequence. Our a priori Concepts might have been regarded as latent Modifications of Mind, depending for their apprehension, though not for their exis tence, on the act of Consciousness ; and the doctrine of Innate Ideas, whether Pre-existent or Infused, would thus correspond with that form of the Ideal Theory which constitutes the second variety of the Representative Hypothesis, as analyzed by Sir Wil liam Hamilton. It is this very form of the doctrine of Innate Ideas that Locke opposes in the passages already quoted in connexion with his sentiments about Ideas. It is in this sense that he pronounces it to be a contradiction to assert that there are "truths imprinted on the soul" before perception (i. ii. 5). It is in this sense that he denies that " the Understanding hath an implicit knowledge of these principles before first hearing" (i. ii. 22).

But the opinions of the Philosophers of the se venteenth century on the subject of Innate Ideas are best exhibited in their own language. When, in order to satisfy his mind upon the subject, Locke had recourse to the works of his predecessors, he did not, as Sir William Hamilton asserts, rely exclusively on the authority of Gassendi (Eeid, p. 784) ; he consulted the work (i. iii. 15), which, even in the opinion of Sir William Hamilton, contains the most formal and articulate enoun cement of the doctrines of Common

INNATE IDEAS. 49

Sense, which at that time had appeared (Reid, p. 781). And what did Locke discover from the "De Veritate" of Lord Herbert? He discovered that the mind was not originally a Tabula Rasa, but a Book already printed, though only opened on the presentation of objects. He discovered that our ne cessary cognitions are " tanquam Dei effata in Foro interior! descripta f that the truths of Natural Re ligion are " Veritates in ips& Mente ccelitus descripta1, nulliscjue traditionibus sive scriptis sive non scriptis obnoxice ;" that their great characteristic is " Prio- ritas." The language of the Laureate of Metaphysics is more objectionable still : —

" Yet hath the Soul a dowry natural,

And Sparks of Light some common things to see ; Not being a Blank where nought is writ at all, But what the Writer will may written be."

The language of Sir Matthew Hale is as objection able as that of Sir John Davies. " I come now to consider those Rational Instincts, as I call them," says the great lawyer, " the Connate Principles en graven on the Human Soul, which, though they are truths acquirable and deducible by rational conse quence and argumentation, yet seem to be inscribed in the very crasis and texture of the soul antecedent to any acquisition by industry or exercise of the discursive faculty in man." Or take the case of Dr. Henry More. Though he repudiates the theory of " Flaring Torches" and " Red Letters," he repro-

E

50 INNATE IDEAS.

duces, in words at least, the theory of Plato. He speaks of the Mind as possessing " actual know ledge" from the first. He describes this actual knowledge as "an active sagacity in the Soul, or quick Recollection, as it were, whereby some small business being hinted to her, she runs out presently into a more clear and larger conception." He com pares the original state of the Soul to that of a Mu sician who has fallen asleep upon the grass, and practises his art the moment he awakes. Even the philosophical phraseology of Cudworth is vitiated by the admixture of incongruous metaphor. " The Mind," he says, " contains in itself virtually (as the future plant or tree is contained in the seed) general notions of all things, which unfold and discover themselves as occasions invite and proper circum stances occur." Sixteen years before Locke's first appearance as a Philosopher, Cumberland, in the Prolegomena to his celebrated work against the Philosophy of Hobbes, speaks of the Platonic theory of Innate Ideas as the accredited doctrine of the Platonists of the day, and himself gives it a modi fied support. Even subsequently to the publication of the Essay, and in professed antagonism to its doctrine, the Platonic theory was zealously main tained. " Should they admit that the Mind was coeval with the body," exclaims Mr. Harris, in high indignation, " yet, till the body gave it Ideas, and awakened its dormant powers, it could at best have been nothing more than a sort of dead capacity, for

INNATE IDEAS. 51

Innate Ideas it could not possibly have any." King, in the Preface to his Treatise " De Origine Mali," maintains that even our Sensible Ideas are " Innate and Inexistent in the Mind from its first creation" — " Pre-existent as the statue in the block" (Note A). According to Sir William Hamilton himself, that Ideas are " found in the Mind, not formed by it," is strenuously asserted as the doctrine of his master by the Cartesian Roell, in the controversy he maintained with the anti-Cartesian De Yries (Disc., p. 74). Nay, if we may believe the testimony of Dugald Steward, Brucker, himself a historian of Philosophy, " could imagine no intermediate opinion between the theory of Innate Ideas as taught by the Cartesians, and the Epicurean account of our know ledge as revived by Gassendi and by Hobbes" (Diss.j p. 226). But why multiply examples ad infinitum ? On this subject of Innate Ideas, no less a man than Leibnitz himself speaks in high com mendation of the doctrine enounced by Plato and embraced by Tully — the doctrine which, according to our modern metaphysical critics, no man in his senses ever did or ever could believe.

Whether much of the language I have quoted should or should not be regarded as figurative, it is needless to pause to inquire. One thing, at all events, is certain. If the Platonic Dogma was defunct, the language of the Dogma survived. If the Phi losophers had abandoned their old positions, they had left their camp-fires burning on the heights.

E 2

52 INNATE IDEAS.

Locke's Polemic against Innate Ideas at least pos sesses the merit of Reid's Polemic against Ideas. The opinions against which both the one and the other protested may have become mere metaphors ; but their protest will for ever prevent those me taphors from being reconverted into opinions. Poets, indeed, may still tell us, with Wordsworth, that—

" Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,"

and that —

" The Soul which rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting."

They may describe our higher intuitions, with Bai ley's Festus, as —

" The imaged hint of ante-mundane life — A Photograph of pre-existent light, Or Paradisal Sun."

But the opinion has departed from Philosophy ; its very language is forgotten. The first book of the Essay concerning Human Understanding has done justice upon both ; and to this extent at least Phi losophy is under everlasting obligation to Locke.

But this great Metaphysician has been subjected to a more serious charge. " Locke," says Reid, " endeavours to show that Axioms or Intuitive Truths are not Innate" (p. 465). " He does more," says Sir William Hamilton. " He attempts to show that they are all Generalizations from Experience ;

INNATE IDEAS. 53

whereas Experience only affords the occasion on which the Native (not Innate) or a priori cognitions virtually possessed by the Mind actually manifest their existence" (Beid, p. 465). But here the task of the vindicator of Locke is comparatively easy. This is a reproduction of an old objection, and to de monstrate its injustice he has merely to reproduce the old reply. Lowde objected to Locke's Theory exactly in the same spirit as Sir William Hamilton. Locke's answer is to be found in a note appended to the commonest editions of the Essay, and it is briefly

this : " We are better agreed than he thinks in

what he says concerning Natural Inscription and Innate Notions : there is no controversy between him and me upon the point" (n. xxviii. Note). Locke, it is true, objects to the phraseology of Lowde as " misleading men's thoughts by an insinuation as if these Notions were in the Mind before the Soul exerts them, i. e., before they are known ; whereas truly," he says, " before they are known there is nothing of them in the Mind but a capacity to know them when the concurrence of the circumstances, which this in genious author thinks necessary in order to the Soul's exerting them, brings them into our know ledge" (Ibid.) Here then we have a remarkable coincidence. The " whereas" with which Locke pro fesses to rectify the phraseology of Lowde is the very " whereas" with which Sir William Hamilton professes to rectify the theory of Locke. Locke's preliminary declaration is verified, and upon the

54 INNATE IDEAS.

cardinal point of Intellectualism he and his opposer are found to be agreed, when each comes to be rightly understood.

Nor is Locke's note at variance with the indica tions of his text. TVre need not insist on those pas sages in which he recognises the existence of certain "Natural" and " Inherent" Faculties (i. ii. 1, 2), or on the still more celebrated passage in which he at tributes to the Mind certain "Operations proceeding from Powers intrinsical and proper to itself" (n. i. 24). The existence of such Faculties and Powers is recognised by all. Neither need we insist on Locke's recognition of " Antipathies," which " are truly na tural, depend upon our original constitution, and are born with us" (n. xxxiii. 7) — a point which both Shaftesbury and Harris, in fancied opposition to Locke, so needlessly undertook to demonstrate. The Essay contains intimations of opinion far more un equivocal than these. So far is Locke from rejecting the element of truth embodied in the Cartesian doc trine, that on this point he is a professed Cartesian. " Nunquam scripsi vel j udicavi Mentem indigere Ideis qua) sint aliquid diversum ab ejus Facultate Cogitandi :" — such are the words of the Father of Modern Intellectualism. " If the Capacity of Know ing be the Natural Impression contended for, this great point will amount to no more but only to a very improper way of speaking, which, while it pre tends to assert the contrary, says nothing different from those who deny Innate Principles :" — such are

INNATE IDEAS. 55

the corresponding words of Locke (i. ii. 5). Locke, in short, exhibits the whole scope of his Polemic against Innate Ideas in a single sentence. He ex pressly tells us that "the only confessed difference" between himself and those whose opinion he opposed, related to the " dependence" of the Ideas and Prin ciples in question " on the constitution and organs of the body"* (i. ii. 27).

The positive portion of Sir William Hamilton's criticism is as infelicitous as the negative. So far is Locke from holding Axioms or Maxims to be " Ge neralizations from Experience," that he holds them

* Nothing can be more confusing than the celebrated criticism, which, according to Mr. Stewart, affords the "key to all the confusion running through Locke's argument" against the exist ence of Innate Ideas (Dm., p. 243). " Innate," says Shaftesbury, " is a word he poorly plays upon." But if there be any play upon words, it is not upon the word Innate, but upon the word Idea. "The question," says Shaftesbury, "is not about the time the Ideas entered." But it is the question of time, — in other words, the question of the chronological conditions of thought, — that Locke is professedly discussing. "The question," says Shaftesbury, " is whether the constitution of man be such that, sooner or later, no matter when, the Idea will not infallibly spring up." This Locke admits — admits it in the very language of Shaftesbury — admits it with reference to the very Idea on which Shaftesbury particularly insists. " From the consideration of ourselves," he says, " and what we infallibly find in our own constitutions, our Reason leads us to the knowledge of this certain and evident Truth, that there is an eternal, most powerful, and most knowing Being" (iv. x. 6). After this, the assertion that Locke had made the Idea of God " wwnatural" may be dismissed with the con tempt it merits. It is simply a calumny of criticism.

56 INNATE IDEAS.

to be Generalizations from "Intuition" (i. ii. 11; iv. vii. 19; iv. xvii. 14),— Generalizations, not be- cause we compass their certainty by repeated and comparative experiments, but because all Intuitive Truths are first recognised in the particular instance, and subsequently embodied in the general expression (iv. vii. 10). " A man," he says, " will be in a capa city to know the truth of these Maxims upon the first occasion that shall make him put together" the re- quisite Ideas (i. ii. 16). They are "propositions which every man in his wits at first hearing what the names stand for must necessarily assent to" (i. ii. 18); they are "self-evident" propositions, ad mitted " without any proof," and assented to " at first sight" (iv. vii. 1,2); they are "propositions, which, whether they come in view of the mind earlier or later, are all known by their native evidence" (iv. vii. 10). Hence it is that Locke refers the Prin ciple of Contradiction for its credentials to "Common Sense" (i. iii. 4). Sir William Hamilton thinks this a "confession," the importance of which has been ob served neither by Locke, nor by his antagonists (JfewJ, p. 784). But Sir William Hamilton might have de tected a thousand such confessions ; for these confes sions are not Locke's repugnancies, they are his sys tem. Not only does Locke refer the Analytical Axioms

of Logic to Common Sense and and Intuition he

describes the Principles of Morality as constituting a " Natural Law," discoverable by our " Natural Fa culties," and revealed to us by the " Light of Nature" (i. iii. 13; iv. iii. 20). In the same manner he iden-

INNATE IDEAS. 57

tifies the Principles of Causality and Final Causes with " the Common Light of Reason" (i. iv. 9), with the "Principles of Common Reason" (i. iv. 10), with " Reason, and the Natural Propensity of our Thoughts" (i. iv. 11). It is by means of this portion of our "Intuitive Knowledge" that we attain the knowledge of the existence of a God (iv. x. 1), — a knowledge which Locke repeatedly attributes to the "Light of Reason" (in. ix. 23), an Idea which he systematically represents as a " necessary" develop ment of the human mind (n. xvii. 5, 20), a disco very which, in his opinion, " a rational creature who will but seriously reflect" could never miss (i. iv. 9). Locke's definition of Reason is in itself decisive of the dispute. " Reason," he says, " is Na tural Revelation, whereby the Eternal Father of Light and Fountain of all Knowledge communicates to mankind that portion of Truth which He has laid within the reach of our Natural Faculties" (iv. xix. 4). Nay, so impressed is Locke with the lofty prerogatives of the master faculty, that he scarcely hesitates to reproduce the very language which he has reprobated in others ; and in speaking of the impediments to the progress of the Moral Sciences, he describes Reason as " the Candle of the Lord, set up by Himself in men's minds, which it is impossible for the breath or power of man wholly to extinguish" (iv. iii. 20).

We are now in a position to determine in what sense Locke supposes the Mind to be originally, " as it were, White Paper" (u. i. 2). It is White Paper,

58 INNATE IDEAS.

riot as devoid of all intrinsic properties, not as desti tute of all spontaneous force, but, to use Locke's own language, as " void of all Characters, without any Ideas" (Ibid.) — in other words, as aboriginally White. The metaphor by which Professor Sedgwick has proposed to supersede the Tabula Rasa of Locke and Aristotle is well known. Admitting that the soul is at first an unvaried blank, " yet has this blank," he adds, " been already touched with an immortal hand ; and when plunged in the colours which sur round it, it takes not its tinge from accident, but de sign, and comes out covered with a glorious pattern." It may be doubted whether this metaphor is an im provement upon that of Locke. A self-acting and self- conscious principle of thought, the Human Intellect stands isolated in the world of Matter, and material analogies are wholly inadequate to typify its action. The Mind is its own mirror, as it is its own place. Nought but itself can be its parallel. If we compare it to the enchanted sabre of the Caliph Vathek, we reduce Human Knowledge to a mere magical con juration. If we compare it to the mysterious gem which flashed upon the breastplate of the High Priest, we ignore the inherent force of Intellect, and in reality preach the doctrine of Infusion. Divested of hypothesis, and undisguised by metaphor, the fact is simply this, — the Human Intellect comes into the sphere of Experience, endued with certain Capabilities and Powers; and in the presence of Ex perience it frames to itself the corresponding Con cepts.

IV.

THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS.

" THAT all our knowledge begins with Expe- perience," says Kant, "there can be no doubt. For, how is it possible that the Faculty of Cognition should be awakened into exercise otherwise than by means of objects which affect our Senses, and partly of themselves produce Representations, partly rouse our Powers of Understanding, to compare, to con nect, or to separate these, and so to convert the raw material of our Sensuous Impressions into a know ledge of objects, which is called Experience ? In respect of time, therefore, no knowledge of ours is antecedent to Experience — all knowledge com mences with it." This, as we have seen, is the great point contended for by Locke in his Polemic against Innate Ideas. " But," says Kant, " though all our knowledge commences with Experience, it by no means follows that all our knowledge arises from Experience," and accordingly he establishes his celebrated distinction between knowledge a priori, and the a posteriori knowledge of which Experience is the exclusive source. This distinction, according to the all but universal opinion of Philosophers,

60 THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS.

Locke has either utterly ignored, or, if he has recog nised it, he has only recognised it in opposition to his fundamental principles.

Sir William Hamilton, as we have seen, is guilty of a twofold injustice to Locke on the subject of Innate Ideas. He represents him as misled by an Ignis Fatuus in what he denied. He represents him as misled by a Theory in what he dogmati cally affirmed. But let us do justice to the Scottish Critic. He observes, whether consistently or not, that, "had Descartes and Locke expressed themselves on the subject of Innate Ideas and Principles with due precision, the latter would not so have misun derstood the former, and both would have been found in harmony with each other and with truth" (Eeid, p. 785). But then with respect to "the question con cerning the Origin of our Knowledge," Locke, it seems, "relied exclusively on Gassendi" (p. 784). He did not prepare himself for the discussion of that im portant question by studying " the writings of Aris totle, his Greek Commentators, and the Schoolmen" (p. 784). Otherwise, says Sir William Hamilton, " he would have seen that, in appealing to Com mon Sense or Intellect, he was, in fact, surrendering his thesis, — that all our Knowledge is an Educt from Experience" (p. 784).

But before charging Locke with having sur rendered this thesis, Sir William Hamilton would have done well to have asked himself in what por tion of Locke's writings this thesis is maintained.

THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS. Gl

That Locke holds all our knowledge to be grounded f on Experience cannot be denied. Neither can it be denied that he holds that there are but two Modi- • fications of Experience — Sensation and Reflection (n. i. 2), and that he represents Sensation and Re flection to be the two "Fountains of Knowledge" (n. i. 2), the two " Sources of Ideas" (11. i. 3), the only " Passages to the Understanding," whether of Ideas or of Knowledge (n. xi. 17). But here again ; we have the old masquerade of metaphor; and here again the question arises, what is the meaning which ? lies concealed beneath the mask 1

Before, however, we can ascertain the functions which Sensation and Reflection discharge in the Philosophy of Locke, so dense is the obscurity in which that Philosophy is involved, that we must first ascertain what Locke understands by Sensation and Reflection. Of the word Sensation Locke gives a variety of definitions, — each of them, however, contemplating a different phasis of the question. As an Organic Affection, it is " such an impression or motion made in some part of the body as produces some perception in the Understanding" (n. i. 23). As a Mental Act, it is, " as it were, the actual entrance of any Idea into the Understanding by the Senses" (n. xix. 1). As a Primitive Capa city, it is that "Capacity of Human Intellect" whereby " the Mind is fitted to receive the Impressions made on it through the Senses by outward objects" (n. i. 24). Reid tells us that Locke's Sensation is

62 THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS.

equivalent to Sensation Proper ; his Editor tells us that it comprehends both Sensation Proper and Perception (Eeid, pp. 208, 290, 317). But this controversy may be quickly settled. " Our Senses," savs Locke, " conversant about particular Sensible Objects, do convey into the Mind several distinct Perceptions of things, according to those various ways wherein those objects do affect them; and thus we come by Ideas of all those which we call Sensible Qualities''' (n. i. 3). Now what are the Sensible Qualities of Matter ? " The power that is in any body,by reason of its insensible Primary Qua lities, to operate, after a peculiar manner, on any of our Senses, and thereby produce in us the different Ideas of several Colours, Sounds, Smells, Tastes, &c., these," says Locke, " are usually called Sensible Qualities" (n. viii. 23). The Sensible Qualities of Matter, therefore, are the Secondary Qualities, and Locke's Sensation, consequently, is merely a Capacity recipient of Sensations.

But, according to Locke, when the Mind has once been furnished with Sensations, there are certain "Operations proceeding from Powers Intrinsical and Proper to itself," which it performs upon the Ideas thus supplied (n. i. 24); there is a "notice which the Mind takes of its own Operations, and the manner of them" (11. i. 4) ; and the " Capacity of Human Intel lect," by which " the Mind is fitted to receive the Impressions made on it by its own Operations when it reflects upon them," Locke denominates " Reflec-

THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS. 63

tion" (n. i. 24). As "the Understanding turning inwards upon itself, and making its own Operations the object of its own contemplation," it may be denominated " Reflection" (n. i. 8); as a mere "Capa city," recipient of nothing but the various Pheno mena " obtruded" upon it from within, it may be denominated "Internal Sensation" (n. xi. 17), or "Internal Sense" (n. i. 4). Its objects are the various mental Operations, considered merely as Operations, and as distinguished at once from the Ideas operated upon, and from the Ideas developed in the Operation. Like the Empiric Consciousness of Kant, it is a " Capacity of receiving Representa tions through the mode in which the mind is affected by its own activity." Thus characterized by an utter absence of spontaneity, to use the Kantian term, it is with strict propriety referred to our Ca pacities of Sense. On this point there is even a verbal agreement between the English and the Ger man Philosopher ; and, as Locke designates Reflec tion by the name of " Internal Sensation? " Internal Sense? so Kant regards Consciousness as a " Mode of Sensibility? and names it " der innere Sinn.1'*

But the Consciousness of Kant is not to be con founded with the Consciousness of Locke. Reid as-

* Obvious as this coincidence appears, it has been altogether overlooked by M. Cousin, whose whole criticism of Kant is vitiated by the oversight. Confounding the Consciousness which Kant regards as a Mode of Sensibility with the Consciousness which he himself considers as the Synonym of Reason, M. Cousin reduces Kant's System to a ruin of absurdity which rivals even the ruin

64 THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS.

serts (p. 420), and Cousin re-echoes the assertion, that Locke has confounded Consciousness with Reflec tion, and " seems not to have been aware that they are different powers, and appear at different periods of life." Never was charge more gratuitously ad- vanced. While Locke regards " Reflection" as a se parate capacity restricted to the definite function which is implied in its very name (n. i. 4, 8), he regards "Consciousness" as the "essential" condition and " inseparable" concomitant of every modification of thought, whether Sensation, Reflection, or Under standing proper (n. xxvii. 9 ; 11. i. 19). While he regards Consciousness as forced and inevitable, com mon to all, and coeval with even the first dim sensa tions of our ante-natal state (IT. i. 25 ; n. ix. 5), "Ideas of Reflection," he tells us, " come later because they need attention ; men seldom make any consi derable reflection on what passes within them till they come to be of riper years ; and some scarce ever at all" (n. i. 8). In fact, so far is Locke from meriting the censure of Reid upon this point, that the very passage in which Reid himself distinguishes between Consciousness and Reflection (p. 239) might have been borrowed, both meaning and meta-

to which he has reduced that of Locke. That Kant in one chapter should have regarded Consciousness as a Mode of Sensibility, and in another as one of the Primary Faculties in the service of the Understanding, M. Cousin pronounces to be a contradiction so flagrant, that it is marvellous it has never been exposed (Kant, p. 91).

THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS. 65

phor from Locke (n. i. 7, 8), except, indeed, that Locke has avoided the absurdity into which Reid has suffered himself to be betrayed — that of regard ing Consciousness as a specific faculty.

Equally erroneous is another statement of Reid's (p. 347) which has been reproduced by Stewart (Diss., p. 229). It represents Locke as inconsis tently identifying Reflection with the a priori Rea son. " It is in this sense Locke uses it," says Mr. Stewart, "when he refers to Reflection, our Ideas of Cause and Effect, of Identity and Diversity, and of all other Relations" But where has Locke been guilty of such a reference ? He regards our Relative Ideas, it is true, as developed in an operation of which Reflection may take cognizance, but he nowhere considers them as Ideas of Reflection. The recogni tion of these Ideas as Ideas of Reflection would, in fact, entail the distortion of his whole system. Re flection in that system is a mere mode of " Expe rience" (n. i. 2), an "Internal Sense" (11. i. 4), a " Capacity " recipient of nothing but mere Pheno mena (n. i. 24), a source of those "Simple Ideas" from which our Ideas of Relation are expressly discriminated as "Complex" (n. xii. 1, 3). Add to this, Locke, as we shall see, expressly denies that Reflection is competent to give the Ideas in question. The Theory attributed to Locke by Mr. Stewart is in reality the Theory attributed by Sir William Ha milton to the " Subtle Doctor" (Reid, p. 777). The Theory of the Subtle Doctor, as Sir William Hamil-

F

66 THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS.

ton perceived, has no existence in the work of Locke — Locke's Reflection is " merely a source of adventitious, empirical, or a posteriori knowledge" (p. 346).*

Such then are Sensation and Reflection, as con ceived by Locke. Such are the two modifications of Experience, which he proclaims to be the Sources of all our Ideas, the Fountains of all our Knowledge. But what is the doctrine which lies latent beneath these metaphors ? Sir William Hamilton will tell us that Locke adopts as the basis of his Philosophy "the twofold Origin of Knowledge" (Disc., p. 272); and he will tell us right. But then it is to be noted that while by the term " Origin" Sir William Hamilton understands one thing, Locke understands another diametrically the reverse. The Intellectualist doc trine, as given by the Editor of Reid, is that " our Knowledge chronologically commences with Sense, but logically originates with Intellect" (p. 772 ) ; or — as some modern anti- Aristotelian has "incomparably enounced it" — " Cognitio nostra omnis a Mente pri- mam Originem, a Sensibus Exordium habet primum" (Ibid.) But while Locke's opponents have thus em-

* Mr. Stewart's mistake is reproduced in the Article upon Locke which appeared in a recent Number of the " Edinburgh Keview." Every attempt, indeed, which has hitherto been made to vindicate Locke's Philosophy on Intellectualist principles has proceeded upon this enlargement of the functions attributed to Eeflection. Even Mr. Hallam, in his " History of the Literature of Europe," lends the weight of his authority to countenance the error of Mr. Stewart.

THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS. 67

ployed the term " Origin" in the sense of Genesis or Logical Development, Locke unfortunately has em ployed the corresponding term " Original" in the exclusive sense of Exordium or Chronological Condi tion. No sooner has he announced his purpose to " inquire into the Original of Human Knowledge" than he forewarns the reader that it is merely a "Historical Method" he intends to pursue (i. i. 2); no sooner has he brought his inquiry to a conclusion, than he takes care to remind us that he has only given " a short and true History of the first begin nings of human knowledge, whence the Mind has its first objects" (n. xi. 15). If he tells us that Sensa tion and Reflection are " the only Originals of our Ideas," he tells us in the same breath that they are " the only Originals from whence all our Ideas take their beginnings" (n. i. 4). If he tells us that Sensa tion and Reflection are " the Original of all our Knowledge," he explains that they constitute " the first capacity of human Intellect" — that they enable us to take " the first step towards the discovery of any thing" — that they supply "the groundwork where on to build all those notions, which ever we shall have naturally in this world" — that " all those sub- lime thoughts which tower above the clouds, and reach as high as heaven itself, take their rise and footing there" (u. i. 24). In fine, when Locke states that Sensation and Reflection are " the Originals of all our Ideas," he merely states that "all our Original Ideas" are furnished by Sensation and Reflection

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68 THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS.

(u. i. 5; ii. xxi. 73). Locke's theory of Sensation and Reflection is thus, as he himself intimates (n. i. 1), the mere counterpart and complement of his Polemic against Innate Ideas. In the first book of the Essay he shows that we have no Ideas anterior to Experience ; in the second he shows the nature of that Experience, with which all cognition must commence.

But " at any rate," says Sir William Hamilton, " according to Locke, all our knowledge is a Deriva tion from Experience" (Reid, p. 294). Undoubtedly. At the very threshold of the second book Locke pro claims that "in Experience all our knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately derives itself" (n. i. 2). But here again we have a criticism, which is truth to the ear and falsehood to the sense. Full of the Kantian distinction between " coming with" and " coming from" Experience, Sir William Hamilton has failed to observe that Locke employs the term " coming from" and its equivalents in the sense of "coming with." Yet even the context of the passage which caused him to stumble thus ominously at the threshold of Locke's system, the very question which Locke is professedly answering, might have convinced him that he employs " derived from" merely as a rhetorical amplification of "founded in" But Locke has not left us to mere inference in this matter. If by the inadvertent utterance of the wrong spell the magician has evoked a host of idola, he has himself furnished the counter-spell by which they

THE OK1GIN OF IDEAS. 69

are to be exorcised. " Even the most abstruse Ideas,"\ says Locke, " are derived from Sensation and Reflec- j tion." How ? As being derived from Sensation i and Reflection in Sir William Hamilton's sense of derivation ? On the contrary, as " being no other than what the Mind by the ordinary use of its own Faculties employed about Ideas received from ob jects of Sense, or from the operations it observes in itself about them, may arid does attain to" (n. xii. 8). " This," says Locke, " I shall endeavour to show in the Ideas we have of Time, Space, and Infinity, and some few others that seem the most re mote from those Originals" (11. xii. 8). " A la bonne heure," exclaims M. Cousin, " ceci a un peu 1'air d'un defi" (p. 100). Yet what is the utmost that Locke shows with respect to these Ideas ? Nothing but what is shown by M. Cousin himself, — that they are " derived from" Sensation or Reflection, because Sensation or Reflection furnishes those Ideas " with out which" they would never have been developed (11. xiv. 4), — that they are " received from" Sensa tion or Reflection, because, however remote they may seem from any objects of Sense, or operations of the Mind, they have their " Original" their Chro nological Condition, " there" (n. xvii. 22), — that they " terminate in and are conversant about our Simple Ideas either of Sensation or Reflection," and are " so originally derived from" one or the other of those two Sources of our Knowledge (n. xxv. 9). In connexion with the Idea of Cause and Effect, Locke

70 THE OKIGIN OF IDEAS.

explicitly raises the question, " How derived from the twoFountains of all our Knowledge" (n. xxv.l 1 ), and his answer is, that " the notion of Cause and Effect has its rise from Ideas, received by Sensa tion or Reflection, and terminates at last in them" (n. xxvi. 2). What Locke says with respect to the Ideas of Substance must set this question for evermore at rest. " The general Idea of Substance," he says, " may be grounded on plain and evident Reason ; and yet it will not follow from thence that it is not ultimately grounded on and derived from Ideas which come in by Sensation or Reflection" (n. ii. Note).

This drives the misapprehension of Locke's doc trine of Sensation and Reflection to its last retreat. According to Reid, " Dr. Price, in his ' Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals,' has observed, very justly, that if we take the words Sensation and Reflection, as Mr. Locke has denned them in the beginning of [the second book of] his excellent Essay, it will be impossible to derive some of the most important of our Ideas from them ; and that, by our Understanding — that is, by our Judging and Reasoning Power — we are furnished with many Simple and Original Notions" (p. 347 ). The objection thus advanced by Price, and ratified by Reid, is ac quiesced in by Sir William Hamilton, and is, per haps, the simplest expression of the views which have influenced Locke's Intellectualist opponents from the time of Stillingfleet and Leibnitz to the

THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS. 71

present. It proceeds, however, on a fundamental misconception of Locke's nomenclature and System. Locke, it is true, denies that the Understanding can fashion a single new Simple Idea It is the funda mental principle of his System, that " Simple Ideas, the Materials of all our knowledge, are suggested and furnished to the Mind only by the two ways, Sensa tion and Reflection" (n. ii. 2). But what does Locke mean by " Simple Ideas" ? " The better to under stand the nature, manner, and extent of our know ledge," says Locke, " one thing is carefully to be observed concerning the Ideas we have ; and that is, that some of them are Simple, and some Complex" (n. i. 2). Strange to say, it is under the head of Complex Ideas that Locke considers the Ideas which his opponents persist in denominating Simple. What, then, is the ground of this diversity of language ? As Notions that are essentially uncompounded, our Intellectual Conceptions may certainly be regarded as Simple Elements of Thought ; but as Notions that are developed ex hypothesi in an act of Judg ment, they cannot possibly be regarded as Simple Apprehensions of Sense. In the Simple Apprehen sions of Sense, moreover, the various Sensible Phe nomena are given successive and unconnected ; in the a priori Concepts of the Understanding, the Phenomena of Sense are viewed as connected by a variety of insensible relations. It is plain, therefore, that the Ideas referred to the Judging and Reasoning Power may be denominated either Simple or Complex,

72 THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS.

according as the Philosopher regards their essence on the one side, or their genesis and relativity on the other. The point of view selected by Locke is easily determined. Locke has described Simple Ideas as " uncompounded appearances" (n. ii. 1 ), and his critics have inferred that he regarded all uncompounded Ideas as Simple. But the fact is, that, properly speaking, Locke's Simple Idea is merely an uncompounded appearance, a Phenomenon, of Sense (n. ii. 1). It is an Idea which the mind does not "make," but " receive" (ii. xii. 1). It is an Idea " in the reception of which" the mind is purely reci pient, and, therefore, " wholly" (ii. xii. 1), or at least ufor the most part" (ii. i. 25) "passive." It is an Idea "obtruded" upon Consciousness with no co-ope ration of Intellect beyond that involved in the "bare naked perception" (n. i. 25 ; n. ix. 1; n. xii. 1). It is an Idea which " we receive from corporeal objects by Sensation, and from the operations of our own minds as the objects of Reflection" (iv. iii. 23). In a word, it is a " Sensible Idea" (n. xxx. 2). When, therefore, Locke denies, as he does deny, that the Understanding can frame to itself a single new Sim ple Idea (n. ii. 2), the very context shows that he merely meant to assert, what he asserts more explicitly elsewhere, — that the Understanding " can have no other Ideas of Sensible Qualities than what come from without by the Senses, nor any Ideas of other kind of Operations of a thinking substance than what it finds in itself" (n. xii. 2), When he

THE ORIGIN OF IDEAS. 73

proclaims that " all the Simple Ideas we have are confined to those we receive from Corporeal Objects by Sensation, and from the Operations of our own minds as the objects of Reflection" (iv. iii. 23), he merely proclaims, with Kant, that the Sensibility, External or Internal, is the only inlet of Intuition, the only modification of Experience. The assertion that all our Simple Ideas are furnished by Sensation and Reflection is, in reality, a mere definition of the term Simple Idea, The Simple Idea of Locke, in fine, would thus far seem to coincide with the Sen sible Intuition of Kant, and we might as well charge Kant with ignoring the so called Intuitions of Intel lect, because he restricts all Intuition to Sensibility, as charge Locke with ignoring the so-called Simple Ideas of the Understanding, because he recognises no Simple Ideas but those of Sensation and Reflection. But if Simple Ideas be thus restricted to the Sen sible Qualities of Matter and the Intro-Sensible Ope rations of Mind, how, it will be asked, are we to explain Locke's Classification of Simple Ideas ? If Sensation be a Capacity recipient of nothing but Sensations, how can Locke enumerate our Ideas of the Primary Qualities of Matter among our "Simple Ideas of Sensation"? No Sense is receptive of any thing but its appropriate object ; how then can he speak of " Simple Ideas of Divers Senses" ? If Reflec tion be merely a Capacity recipient of mental Opera tions, how can he reckon our Ideas of the mental Powers among our "Simple Ideas of Reflection"? No

74 THE OHIGIN OF IDEAS.

object can be at once a Quality of Matter and an Operation of Mind ; how then can Locke speak of "Simple Ideas of both Sensation and Reflection"? The answer to these questions will place Locke's Philo sophy in a new and unexpected light.*

* Locke, says M. Cousin, evidently confounds Eeflection with Consciousness (p. 95). Locke, as we have seen, most carefully distinguishes between them. Locke, says M. Cousin, capriciously restricts the province of Reflection to the Mind. Locke is both etymologically and philosophically correct, for, as Bacon remarks, we behold the objects of Sense with a " direct" ray, the opera tions of Mind with a " reflex." Is it Sensation, or is it the opera tions of the Mind which first enter into exercise ? M. Cousin asks. The question is absurd, for, according to Locke, Sensation is itself an operation of the Mind. Locke, says M. Cousin, places the ac quisitions of Sense before the acquisitions of Reflection. How could there be an Idea of Mental Operation, before a Mental Ope ration had occurred? Locke's Perception, says M. Cousin, is equivalent to Consciousness. Consciousness, according to Locke, is the concomitant of all our Faculties, the equivalent of none. Locke's System, says M. Cousin, consists in deducing all our Ideas from Sensation and Reflection. In Locke's System our Ideas are not deduced from Sensation and Reflection, — they are derived. According to Locke, says M. Cousin, our Faculties add nothing to the data of Sense, but the knowledge of their own existence and mode of action. This, as we shall see, is absolutely and unequi vocally false.

V.

THE GENESIS OF IDEAS.

THE Origin of Ideas, as understood by Locke, refers exclusively to the Chronological Conditions of the / development of Thought, and is, therefore, consis tently centred in Sensation and Reflection — the two modifications of human Experience. But in addi tion to the data of Sensation and Reflection there is a class of Ideas, which, in the opinion of a large School of Philosophers, owes its existence to the generative force of the Understanding, and is spon taneously developed from within. The Genesis of Ideas by the Understanding is thus correlative to the Origin of Ideas in Sensation and Reflection, and must be discussed by every Philosopher who pro poses to give a complete solution of the great Ideo logic problem.

The manner in which Reid accounted, not only for our Intellectual Concepts, but for our Intuitions of the Primary Qualities of Matter, was by a process of Simple Suggestion. " I beg leave to make use of the woYdSuggestion^he says," because I know not one more proper, to express a power of the mind, which seems entirely to have escaped the notice of Philo-

76 THE GENESIS OF IDEAS.

sophers, and to which we owe many of our Simple Notions which are neither Impressions nor Ideas, as well as many original Principles of Belief. I shall endeavour to illustrate, by an example, what I understand by this word. We all know that a certain kind of sound suggests immediately to the mind a coach passing in the street ; and not only produces the imagination, but the belief that a coach is passing. Yet there is here no comparing of Ideas, no perception of agreements or disagree ments, to produce this belief : nor is there the least similitude between the sound we hear and the coach we imagine and believe to be passing. It is true that this Suggestion is not natural and original ; it is the result of experience and habit. But I think it appears, from what has been said, that there are Natural Suggestions; particularly, that Sensation suggests the notion of present Existence, and the belief that what we perceive or feel does now exist ; that Memory suggests the notion of past Existence, and the belief that what we remem ber did exist in time past ; and that our Sensations and Thoughts do also suggest the notion of a Mind, and the belief of its existence, and of its relation to our Thoughts. By a like natural principle it is that a Beginning of existence, or any Change in nature, suggests to us the notion of a Cause, and compels our belief of its existence. And, in like manner, as shall be shown when we come to the Sense of Touch, certain Sensations of Touch, by the

THE GENESIS OF IDEAS. 77

constitution of our nature, suggest to us Extension, Solidity, and Motion, which are nowise like to Sen sations, although they have been hitherto con- founded with them."

Such is the theory of Rational Suggestion as enounced by Reid. Dugald Stewart thinks it " re markable that Dr. Reid should have thought it incumbent on him to apologize for introducing into Philosophy a word so familiar to every person con versant with Berkeley's works," though he admits that Reid's employment of the term is different from that of Berkeley (Diss., p. 347 ). Sir William Ha milton, on the other hand, thinks that " Mr. Stewart might have adduced, perhaps, a higher and, certainly, a more proximate authority, in favour, not merely of the term in general, but of Reid's restricted em ployment of it as an intimation of what he and others have designated the Common Sense of Man kind ;" and accordingly Sir William adduces a higher and more proximate authority in Tertullian (Reid, p. 111). But we need not go so far into the region of antiquity for " a singular anticipation both of the Philosophy and of the Philosophical Phraseo logy of Reid." The anticipation is to be found in the Essay concerning Human Understanding ; a higher and more proximate authority is to be found in Locke.*

* Reid's principle of Rational Suggestion was anticipated not only by Locke, but by Locke's immediate predecessor, Cumber land. ' ' Utrobique intelligimus propositiones quasdam immutabilis

78 THE GENESIS OF IDEAS.

The fundamental proposition of the second book of the Essay declares, as we have seen, that "Simple Ideas, the materials of all our knowledge, are sug gested and furnished to the Mind only by the two ways, Sensation and Reflection" (n. ii. 2). Nor is this a mere rhetorical distinction. When Locke tells us that "the Idea of Solidity we receive by our touch, and it arises from the Resistance which we find in body" (n. iv. 1), it is plain he regards Re sistance as an Idea furnished by Sensation, and So lidity as an Idea suggested by Resistance. When he tells us that " the Idea of Extension joins itself inse parably with all Visible and most Tangible Qualities" (n. xiii. 25), it is plain he regards the Ideas of Vi sible and Tangible Qualities, as furnished by Sight and Touch, and the Idea of Extension, as suggested by the Ideas of which it is regarded as the necessary concomitant. So also, when Locke enumerates our

veritatis. Hujusmodi aliquot veritates a rerum hominumque na- tura mentibus humanis necessario suggeri, hoc est quod a nobis affirmatur, hoc idem ab adversariis non minus diserte denegatur" (JDe Legg. Nat., c. i. s. i.) Berkeley employs the term in a simi lar sense, so also does Bishop Butler. As an English word, the term is at least as old as Shakspeare : —

If good why do I yield to that suggestion Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair, And make my sealed heart knock at my ribs,

n mae my seae ear Against the use of nature?

Bacon also employs it in his < 'Advancement of Learning : " ' * To pro cure the ready use of Knowledge there are two courses, — Prepa ration and Suggestion."

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Ideas of the mental Powers among our simple Ideas of Reflection, it is evident that he regards the Idea of the Power as suggested to the Mind by the Idea of the Operation. But if we wish to see the full purport of the Lockian doctrine of Suggestion, we must examine with peculiar attention Locke's ana lysis of our "Simple Ideas of both Sensation and Re flection." As enumerated by Locke, these Simple Ideas are our Ideas of Pleasure and Pain, of Unity and Existence, of Power and Succession (n. vii. 1-9). The vices of this enumeration are obvious. Pleasure and Pain, by Locke's own definition, are mere Ideas of Reflection (n. i. 4), and, by the fundamental distinction of his system, Succession and Power are not Simple Ideas, but Ideas of Relation, and accord ingly Complex (n. xxi. 3, n. xxiii. 7). But, preter- mitting these vices of detail, let us examine into the principle involved. The Ideas in question are de scribed as " Simple Ideas suggested to the Understand ing by all the ways of Sensation and Reflection" (n. iii. 1 ). And how suggested ? Suggested appa rently, not by Sensation, but by Ideas of Sensation ; not by Reflection, but by Ideas of Reflection. Delight and Uneasiness "join themselves to" (n. vii. 2), and are "concomitant" of (n. vii. 3), "almost all our Ideas both of Sensation and Reflection" (n. vii. 2) ; "Ex istence and Unity are two other Ideas that are sug gested to the Understanding by every object without and every Idea within" (n. vii. 7); "Power is another of those Simple Ideas which we receive from

80 THE GENESIS OF IDEAS.

Sensation and Reflection" by a similar process (n. vii. 8) ; " Succession is another Idea which, though suggested by our Senses, yet is more con stantly offered us by what passes within our own Minds" (n. vii. 9). Nor are these the only intima tions of Locke's opinion on the subject. When dis cussing the Simple Modes of Space, he tells us that " there is not any object of Sensation or Reflection which does not carry with it the Idea of One" (11. xiii. 26) ; at the commencement of his chapter on Number he tells us that "every object our Senses are employed about, every Idea in our Understand ing, every thought of our Mind, brings this Idea along with it" (LI. xvi. 1) ; in his opening remarks on In finity he tells us that " the obvious portions of Ex tension that affect our Senses," as well as " the ordi nary periods of Succession," both " carry with them the Idea of the Finite" (n. xvii. 2).* Here, then, as it seems to me, we have the Understanding unequi vocally recognised as a source of Simple Ideas. If certain Ideas be suggested by, they must be super- added to, the data of Sensation and Reflection ; if they be suggested to, they must be superadded by, the faculty of Understanding. Consider now what

* Locke is more accurate than M. Cousin. " L'Idee de Fini," says that Philosopher, "vient aisement de la Sensation ou de la Reflexion" (p. 131). A similar remark is made with respect to the Idea of Succession. But though Phenomena are both finite and successive, they cannot be regarded <w finite and successive by any mere capacities of Sense.

THE GENESIS OF IDEAS. 81

Locke tells us with regard to the genesis of our Ideas of Unity and Existence. " "When Ideas are in our minds," he says, " we consider them as being actually there, as well as we consider things to be actually without us, which is that they exist or have exist* ence ; and whatever we can consider as one thing, whether a real being or an Idea, suggests to the Un derstanding the Idea of Unity" (n. vii. 7). These Ideas, therefore, according to Locke, are not only suggested to the Understanding, but they are sug* gested to the Understanding in an act of Judgment. Why, then, are they denominated Simple Ideas ? Apparently because they are suggested to the Un derstanding in an act of Judgment that reposes on a single datum of Experience — a way of getting the notion of relations which, according to Reid and to Reid's echo, M. Cousin, " seems not to have oc curred to Mr. Locke" (p. 420). Whether Locke was right in mixing up the Simple Ideas furnished by Sense with the Simple Ideas suggested to the Understanding — whether it would not have been better if Locke had restricted the term Simple Idea to the domain of Sense, and thus rendered it convertible with the Intuition of Kant — this is an other question. The main fact bids defiance to dis pute. The formula which proclaims that " Simple Ideas, the materials of all our knowledge, are sug gested and furnished to the Mind by Sensation and Reflection," recognises, in addition to the recipient capacities of Sensation and Reflection, a spontaneous

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82 THE GENESIS OF IDEAS.

faculty of Suggestion which belongs essentially to the Understanding — Eeid and Locke are in reality at one.*

But even if we ignore the existence of the prin ciple of Rational Suggestion, the Essay concerning Human Understanding is not a mere Essay con cerning Sensation and Reflection — it contains a Theory of the Understanding proper. Ideas, as we have seen, are divided by Locke into Simple and Complex. Simple Ideas are the Ideas " suggested and furnished to the Mind by Sensation arid Reflec tion" (n. ii. 2) ; Complex Ideas, on the other hand, are the Ideas " made by the Mind out of Simple ones, as the materials and foundations of the rest"

* Since writing the above, I have discovered an unexpected corroboration of the justice of my views on this portion of the subject, in the last edition of Mr. Hallam's " Introduction to the Literature of Europe. ' ' Struck with the peculiarity of Locke' s ex pressions with respect to the simple Ideas of both Sensation and Reflection, Mr. Hallam regards them as a decisive proof " that Locke really admitted the Understanding to be so far the source of new Simple Ideas, that several of primary importance arise in our minds, on the Suggestion of the Senses, or of our observing the inward operations of our minds, which are not strictly to be classed themselves as Suggestions or acts of Consciousness (Vol. iv. p. 128). But Mr. Hallam's criticism is vitiated by the error of Mr. Stewart. Misled by Locke's reiterated assertion that Sensation and Reflec tion are the exclusive sources of our Ideas, he has identified the Understanding proper with Reflection. Of the functions of the Understanding in connexion with the genesis of Ideas of Rela tion — the central point of the Intellectualism of Locke — Mr. Hallam, like every critic with whose writings on the subject I am acquainted, is altogether silent.

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(u. xii. 1). As distinguished from the Simple Idea, the Complex Idea is an Idea which the Mind does not " receive," but " make" (ii. xii. 1). It is an Idea in the making of which the Mind exerts " acts of its own" (n. xii. 1), and manifests "its own power" (n. xii. 2). It is an Idea which the Mind frames by means of " operations proceeding from powers in- trinsical and proper to itself" (11. i. 24). It is the Idea of the Intellect.

But here again the whole Chorus of Critics bursts forth into a symphony of objection. " The Com plex Idea of Locke," says M. Cousin as its Coryphaeus, "is a Compound Idea" (p. 201) ; " the Materials of which it is composed are the mere Ideas of Sensation and Reflection" (p. 98) ; Locke restricts the func tions of the Understanding to the " mere combina tion of the scattered elements of Sense" (p. 201) ; he concedes to the Understanding the possession of " no originative virtue" (p. 99).* Let us examine into the justice of this charge.

That Locke holds " the Materials of all our Know ledge" to be suggested and furnished by " Sensation and Reflection" (n. ii. 2) cannot be denied. Neither can it be denied that he holds " the Understand ing" to be impotent to create " the least particle of new Matter" (n. ii. 2). But here a question similar to those already asked immediately suggests itself, — what does Locke understand by the word

* M. Cousin's criticism is here, as elsewhere, a mere re chauffe of Reid's. Cf. Reid, pp. 346, 347.

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Material ? That Reid should have stumbled over the expressions that lie scattered at the threshold of the Essay was natural ; but the expositor of Kant might have recollected when expounding Locke, that if in the Essay concerning Human Understanding it is Experience which supplies " the Materials of Thinking" (n. i. 2), it is Experience which, even in the Ivritik of the Pure Reason, supplies the " Mat ter" as distinguished from the " Form" of Thought. If Locke asserts that we cannot have any Idea which does not " wholly consist" of Ideas of Sense (n. xii. 1 ), if he asserts that even our Ideas of Relation are " col lections" of Simple Ideas" (n. xxxi. 14 ; u. xxv. 11), I need remind no Student of the German Philo sophy that, even according to Kant, our Concepts without Content are vacuous abstractions, and that on the fundamental principles of the Transcen dental Logic it is as necessary to make our Concepts sensuous as it is to make our Intuitions intellectual. The sense in which Locke employs the word " Mate rial" is evident from the mere juxtaposition of the two propositions which constitute the ^Esthetic of the Essay, — " Simple Ideas, the Materials of all our Knowledge, are suggested and furnished to the Mind only by the two ways, Sensation and Reflection" (n. ii. 2) ; " Ideas of Relation all terminate in and are concerned about those Simple Ideas, either of Sensation or Reflexion, which are the whole Mate rials of our Knowledge" (n. xxv. 9) — propositions which have their exact counterpart in the Kantian

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doctrine that all our Intuitions are furnished by Sen sibility, External or Internal, and that all Thought must, directly or indirectly, by means of certain signs, relate ultimately to Intuitions. That the Concepts of the Understanding exist only in relation to the Intuitions of Sense is, in fact, one of the cardinal doctrines of the Critical Philosophy. It is also the doctrine of the Essay concerning Human Under standing. " Our Moral Ideas," says Locke, " signify nothing if removed from all Simple Ideas quite" (n. xxviii. 8), and the remark is equally applicable to every other Concept. Regarded in this light, the Scholastic brocard which proclaims " nil in Intel lect u quod non prius in Sensu" is rigorously true, and the " sublime limitation of Leibnitz,"* the " nisi Intellectus ipse," betokens an utter misapprehension of the question. If Phillis were to say to Amaryllis, " there is nothing in the cheese- vat which was not previously in the milk-pail," and Amaryllis were to add, "except the cheese-vat itself," the addition would be regarded as palpably unmeaning. The metaphor may be a coarse one, but it conveys a true idea. Every Concept must have its Content, and the Con tent of every Concept must be supplied exclusively by Sense. In the System of Locke, as also in the System of Kant, the Understanding superadds no thing to the data of Experience but the Form of Thought. The Waters well from the Fountains of Sensation and Reflection — the Understanding de- * The expression of Madame de Stacl,

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termines the Channel in which they are to flow ; the Materials are supplied rough from the quarry by our Capacities of Sense — the Understanding, as the Architectonic Faculty, supplies the Design of the edifice into which they are to be combined.

But does Locke admit that in the formation of our Complex Ideas the Understanding superadds the Form of Thought ? " The acts of the Mind wherein it exerts its power over its Simple Ideas," accord ing to Locke, are chiefly three, Combination, Com parison, and Abstraction (n. xii. 1 ), and " Com plex Ideas," he thinks, may be all reduced under the threefold head of Modes, Substances, and Rela tions (n. xii. 3). Let us examine each of these heads, and we shall find that under each, Locke ad mits the existence of an a priori element of thought, and concedes to the Understanding the possession of an " originative virtue."

Take, for instance, the Forms of Sensibility which Locke considers under the head of Modes. The most important of our Sensible Ideas, as we have seen, are given as Simple Suggestions of the Under standing. But the intellectual process does not terminate in this. " The Mind," says Locke, " hav ing once got the Idea of Solidity from the grosser Sensible bodies, traces it farther, and considers it as well as Figure in the minutest particle of matter that can exist, and finds it inseparably inherent in body, wherever or however modified" (n. iv. 1). All " the Primary Qualities," in fact, arc " such as

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Sense constantly finds in every particle of matter which has bulk enough to be perceived, and the Mind finds inseparable from every particle of matter, though less than to make itself singly be perceived by the Senses" (n. viii. 9 ). In other words, the Na tural Suggestion is elevated into a Necessary Con-J cept by a subsequent act of Judgment, and so far is Locke from sensualizing the Intellect, as Kant com plains, that he intellectualizes the Sensibility itself. It is the same with respect to Space. The Simple Idea of Space is suggested by our Ideas of Sight or Touch (n. xiii. 2) ; the Simple Mode of Space, as a Complex Idea, is the creature and invention of the Understanding (n. xii. 1) ; the Necessary Concept of Space is the product of an act of Judgment which proclaims it to be " plainly and sufficiently" distinguished " from Body, since its parts are inse parable, immovable, and without resistance to the motion of Body" (n. xiii. 14). But this is not all. Ac cording to Locke, " we are apt to think that Space, in itself, is actually boundless" (n. xvii. 4). How does he account for the genesis of this Idea of Infinity ? In order to compass this Idea, he tells us, that, " at first step we usually make some very large Idea, as, perhaps, of millions of miles, which possibly we double and multiply several times" (n. xvii. 5); and this being effected, Locke detects a triple ele ment of thought;— "the Idea of so much," which, he says, is "positive and clear," — "the Idea of greater," which he describes as "comparative," — and

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thirdly, "the Idea of so much greater as cannot be comprehended," and this he says is "plain negative, not positive" (11. xvii. 1,5). Now, whence this "Idea of greater" which Locke admits? Whence this "Idea of so much greater as cannot be comprehended"? These Ideas, it is evident, are neither data of Sen- sation, nor products of the mere compositive Energy of Thought. How then does Locke account for their appearance in the theatre of Consciousness? As " the obvious portions of Extension that affect our Senses carry with them the Idea of the Finite" (n. xvii. 2), so, he says, the "addition" of the units of Finite Space " suggests the Idea of Infinite, by a power we find we have of still increasing the sum, and adding more of the same kind, without coming one jot nearer to the end of such progression" (n. xvii. 13). But is this Idea of Infinity merely a Natural Suggestion ? On the contrary, " wherever the Mind places itself by any thought, either amongst or remote from all bodies, it can in this uniform Idea of Space nowhere find any bounds, any end, and so must necessarily conclude it by the very nature and Idea of each part of it to be ac. tually infinite" (n. xvii. 4). In other words, the Idea of Infinity is suggested to the Understanding by its experienced incompetence to reconcile, in the synthesis of Thought, the Idea of any given Finite Space with the Idea of an Absolute Termination. It is true that Locke denies that we have any Idea of the Infinite (n. xvii. 7, 8, &c.) But by Idea, in

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this case, as in the parallel case of Substance, he merely means Sensible Idea, or Idea of Imagina tion. That he admits the necessary Concept is evi dent from his assertion of the necessary existence. It is true, also, that Locke defines Simple Modes to be " only variations, or different combinations of the same Simple Idea" (n. xii. 5). But Locke, in con nexion with this very subject, protests against being bound down by any mere " scholastic" defi nitions ; he " contents himself to employ the prin cipal terms that he uses, so that from his use of them the reader may easily comprehend what he means by them" (n. xv. Note). Besides, he is speaking merely of the Content of the Idea. Locke's account of the Idea of Eternity, and of the Idea of the Infinite Divisibility of Matter, is identical with his account of the Idea of the Infinity of Space (n. xvii. 5, 12). In each of these cases the Mind finds it "impossible to find or suppose an end" (n. xvii. 4) — there is a "supposed endless progres sion of the Mind" (n. xvii. 7) — the Concept is a mere "negation" of the conceivable (n. xvii. 18). In the words of Bacon, whose doctrine upon this subject Locke has reproduced, these Ideas are "Idola ex inotu inquieto Mentis," " Subtilitates ex impo- tentia Cogitationis" (Nov. Org. lib. i. aph. xlviii.) In the words of Sir William Hamilton, whose doc trine upon this subject Locke has anticipated, " the Infinite and the Absolute are only the names of two counter-imbecilities of the Human Mind, transmuted

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into properties of the nature of Things, of two sub jective negations converted into objective affirma tions" (Disc. p. 21).*

In the Genesis of Simple Modes, therefore, Locke recognises a twofold Intellectual element — a com positive act of the Imagination, and a suggestion of Intellect occasioned by an innate impotence of thought. In the second of Locke's Categories the Intellectual element is equally conspicuous. Not only does Locke intellectualize Sense by referring to Intellect our Ideas of the Primary Qualities of Mat ter ; — he further intellectualizes it by referring even our Ideas of Sensible Objects to the synthetic ener gies and a priori Concepts of the Understanding. The Phenomena of Sense as given by Sensation and Reflection, are isolated and successive. Our " Ideas of Substances," on the other hand, are " Combina tions of Simple Ideas taken to represent distinct particular things subsisting by themselves, in which the supposed or confused Idea of Substance, such as it is, is always the first and chief" (n. xii. 6). They are " Collections of Simple Ideas with a Supposition of something to which they belong, and in which

* I may add that, as far as Time and Space are concerned, Sir William Hamilton's doctrine of the Conditioned, and the argu ments by which it is sustained, borrowed as they are from Kant, arc anticipated by Locke (n. xvii. 12, 18, 20, 21). Much of the dispute on the subject of the Infinite seems to me to be verbal. Sir William Hamilton agrees that the Infinite exists ; M. Cousin agrees that the Infinite cannot be realized in Imagination. The controversy turns upon the meaning of the word Idea.

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they subsist" (n. xxiii. 37). Reid, it is true (p. 376), and Cousin after Reid (p. 201), charge Locke with having in this reversed the procedure of the Under standing in the acquisition of Ideas.* But in reality Locke agrees with both Reid and Cousin. He ad mits that " the qualities that affect our Senses are in the things themselves so united and blended that there is no separation, no distance between them" (n. ii. 1). All he asserts is that "the Ideas they produce in the Mind enter by the Senses simple and unmixed " (Ibid.), and that they are combined into the unity of Sensitive Perception by a higher energy than that of Sense. Locke's "power of composi tion" (n. xxiv. 2) is in fact the TO avvOe-riKov of the Greek Intellectualists (Reid, p. 830). His doctrine is that enounced by Plato, and reproduced by Kant.f So far, however, Locke has only recognised the com positive energy of the Soul. But if, as Locke's critics assert, Locke restricts the functions of the Under-

* M. Cousin represents Locke as making the Understanding commence with " Abstractions" His language leaves it doubtful whether by " Abstractions" M. Cousin meant abstract simple Ideas or abstract general Ideas. That the mind does not commence with abstract general Ideas, Locke has repeatedly asserted (iv. vii. 9 ; in. iii. 7 ; IT. xi. 9 ; i. ii. 14). Indeed, he treats such a notion with the most unmitigated contempt (i. ii. 25). His words in that passage are almost identical with those of Berkeley (Prin. Int., sect, xiv.), who, nevertheless, attributes to him the notion which he ridicules.

f Comp. Cic., Tusc. Disp.., i. 20 : — " Quid, quod eadem Mente res dissimillimas comprehciidimus, ut colorem, saporem, calorem, odorem sonum?"

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standing to the mere " Combination" of the Data of Sense whence this " Supposition" of Substance which he superadds to the " Collection" of Simple Ideas, and considers as the chief ingredient in our complex Ideas of Substances ? Kant defines a Noumenon to be a " Hypothesis of the Understanding," and here we find Locke employing the very phraseology of Kant. " He abandons his system," says Reid ; " he surrenders his thesis," says Sir William Hamilton. But a great consecutive thinker does not so easily surrender thesis and abandon system. Let us ex amine what his system and his thesis are.

" Man's power and its way of operation," says Locke, " is much- what the same in the material and intellectual world. For the materials in both being such as he has no power over, either to make or de stroy, all that man can do is either to unite them to gether, or to set them by one another, or wholly sepa rate them" (11. xii. 1 ; n. ii. 2 ). Such is the declaration, which, of all others, would seem to be most fatal to the conclusion which I have undertaken to establish.

But what are we to understand by the expression

" Set them by one another" ? " The second act of the Mind," says Locke, " is bringing two Ideas, whether Simple or Complex, together, and setting them by one another, so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one" (n. xii. 1 ), " though still considered as distinct" (n. xxv. 1). The Setting to gether of Ideas, therefore, it would seem, is not to be confounded with their " Combination." But Locke

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goes further. " Every one's experience," he says, " will satisfy him that the mind, either by perceiving or supposing the agreement of any of its Ideas, does tacitly put them into a kind of proposition, which I have endeavoured to express by the term ' putting together'" (iv. v. 6). The Setting together of Ideas, therefore, is in reality an act of Judgment, or, to employ the peculiar phraseology of the Essay, an act of " Comparison" Mark now what follows. "Besides the Ideas, whether Simple or Complex, that the Mind has of things as they are in them selves, there are others it gets from their* Comparison one with another" (n. xxv. 1 ; n. xii. 1 ; n. xi. 4). It appears, then, not only that the Understanding can " combine" the Data of Sensation and Reflec tion, but that it can " compare" them ; not only that it can " compare" them, but that there is a new class of Ideas which it develops on the occasion of the Comparison. These are the Ideas which Locke va riously designates Relations, Relative Ideas, and Ideas of Relation. Now, what are the Ideas which Locke comprehends under this Category of Relation ? With that disregard to system which is the great blemish of the Essay considered as a work of Art, no sooner has Locke divided Ideas into Simple and Complex, than for "brevity's sake" and "in a looser sense" he regards the Relative Idea of Power as Simple (n. xxi. 3 ; n. xxiii. 7) ; no sooner has he divided Com plex Ideas into Modes, Substances, and Relations, than he discusses the Relations of Space amongst

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Modes (n. xiii. 5, 7, &c.), and the Relation of Sub stance among Substances (n. xxiii. 1-4). But when he comes to the official consideration of the subject, what are the Relations which he enumerates ? The Relation of Cause and Effect (n. xxv. 11), the Re lations of Time and Space (n. xxvi. 3, 5), the Rela tions of Identity and Diversity (n. xxvii. 1), the Relations of Equality and Excess (n. xxviii. 1), and lastly, the Relations of Right and Wrong (u. xxviii. 4), — the very Ideas enumerated by Price and Reid and Stewart as the Simple Ideas for which we are indebted to the Reasoning Power ; the very Ideas comprehended by Kant under the Forms of Sensibility, the Categories of the Understanding, and the Revelations of the Practical Reason. Locke, it is true, does not designate these Ideas as Simple. On the contrary, he regards them as Complex. But why Complex ? Complex, apparently, not because they are Compound, but because they are generated in a complex act of Comparison. "My Notion of Substance in general," says Locke, " is quite different from my Idea of Substances, and has no such com bination of Simple Ideas in it ;" it is " only a Sup position of we know not what" (n. xxiii. Note A ). Simple in their Essence, therefore, our Ideas of Re lation are Complex only in their Genesis. The na ture of this Genesis Locke has repeatedly exemplified. " Because we cannot conceive how Sensible Qualities should subsist alone, nor one in another" — in other words, on comparing the Idea of a Sensible Quality

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with " the Idea of Self-Subsistence" (iv. iii. Note) — "we suppose them existing in and supported by some common subject, which support we denote by the name ' Substance'" (ir. xxiii. 4). "From the observation of the constant vicissitude of things" — in other words, from comparing the two terms in the Complexldea of Change — "we get our Ideas of Cause and Effect" (n. xxvi. 1) ; " the Mind must collect a Power somewhere, able to make that Change, as well as a possibility in the thing itself to receive it" (ii. xxi. 4). " Considering anything as existing at any determined time and place, we compare it with itself existing at another time, and thereon form the Ideas of Identity and Diversity" (IT. xxvii. 1). All these Ideas are expressly described as " the creatures and inventions of the Understanding" The utmost that Locke claims for Sensation and Reflection in their genesis is that they all " terminate in, and are ultimately founded on the Simple Ideas we have got from Sensation and Reflection" (n. xxviii. 18) ;* in other words, that Sensation and Reflection supply the Content of the Concept and the chronological condition of its development. That the Idea is not educed from, but superadded to, the Data of Sensi tive Experience, Locke most unequivocally asserts. " Relation," he says, " is a Notion superinduced " (n. xxv. 4) — " it is not contained in the real exis tence of things ; it is something extraneous and su-

* Comp. IT. xxv. 9 ; n. xxvi. 2, 6 ; n. xxviii. 1 ; IT. xxviii. 14.

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perinduced" (n. xxv. 8). Whether the Relations enumerated by Locke are all suggested to the Un derstanding on the comparison of two Ideas, or whether, like the Simple Ideas of Unity and Exis tence, some of them may not rather be regarded as suggested on the contemplation of one, is another matter.* Yet even the process and nomenclature of Locke is not without authority in the very highest Schools of Intellectualism. What, for instance, is the language of the British Plato ? " That there are some Ideas of the Mind which were not stamped or imprinted upon it from sensible objects, and, therefore, must needs arise from the innate vigour and activity of the Mind itself, is evident in that there are many RELATIVE NOTIONS AND IDEAS, at tributed as well to corporeal as incorporeal things that proceed wholly from the activity of the Mind COMPAKING one thing with another ;" and, accord-

* Thus it may be contended that the Idea of Self-Subsistence, which forms the second term in the comparison by which the Idea of Substance is suggested, is itself the Idea sought for. On other occasions, however, Locke expresses himself in a manner to which no exception can be taken. " All Simple Ideas, all Sensible Qua lities," he says, "carry with them a Supposition of a Substratum to exist in, and of a Substance wherein they inhere" (IT. xxiii. Note B}. But though Substance may be suggested by the Sen sible Quality, the Quality and the Substance, it must be remem bered, are two different things, though mutually related. This constitutes a difference between the Idea of Substance and the Idea of Existence which justifies Locke in regarding them under different categories.

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ingly, he proceeds to enumerate the very Ideas enu merated by Locke, commencing with the Idea which has since played so prominent a part in the history of Philosophy — the Idea of Causation. Quoted by Mr. Stewart to prove that Kant was anticipated in the fundamental principle of his Philosophy by Cud- worth, this passage equally proves that Kant was anticipated in the fundamental principle of his Phi losophy by Locke. But why have recourse to indi rect argument ? Kant himself reproduces the words of Locke, just as Locke reproduces the words of Cudworth. " How is it possible," he asks, " that the Faculty of Cognition should be awakened into exercise otherwise than by means of objects which affect our Senses, and partly of themselves produce Representations, partly rouse our powers of Under standing into activity to COMPARE, to connect, or to separate these, and so to convert the raw material of our Sensuous Impressions into a knowledge of objects which is called Experience?" And under what Category does the great Critic of the Reason arrange our Ideas of Substance and Causation, the most important of all our a priori Concepts ? Under the Category of " RELATION."

Nor is this " seeing in Homer more than Homer saw." Against the assertion that " the materials of all our knowledge are suggested and furnished to the mind only by Sensation and Reflection," the Bishop of Worcester objected just as Sir William Hamilton objects. "If the Idea of Substance," he

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said, " be grounded upon plain and evident Reason, then we must allow an Idea of Substance which comes not in by Sensation or Reflection." The reply of Locke is so conclusive as to the sense in which he himself interpreted his Philosophy, that I make no apology for quoting the passage in extenso : —

" These words of your Lordship's contain nothing that I see in them against me ; for I never said that the General Idea [or Concept] of Substance comes in by Sensation or Reflection, or that it is a Simple Idea [or Intuition] of Sensation or Reflection, though it be ultimately founded in them ; for it is a Complex Idea, made up of the General Idea of something, or being, with the Relation of a support to accidents. For General Ideas come not into the mind by Sen sation, or Reflection, but are the creatures and inven tions of the Understanding, as I think I have shown ; arid also how the Mind makes them from Ideas which it has got by Sensation and Reflection ; and as to the Ideas of Relation, how the Mind forms them, and how they are derived from, and ultimately termi nates in, Ideas of Sensation and Reflection, I have likewise shown" (n. ii. Note}.

The words which Locke adds to " explain himself and clear his meaning in this matter" are still more decisive as to his recognition of the Understanding as a source of Ideas ulterior to Sensation and Reflec tion: — "All the Ideas [or Intuitions] of the Sensible Qualities of a cherry come into my mind by Sensa tion ; the Ideas [or Intuitions] of Perceiving, Think-

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ing, Reasoning, Knowing, &c., come into my mind by Reflection. The Ideas of these Qualities and Actions or Powers are perceived by the Mind to be by them selves inconsistent with [the Idea of] Existence ; or, as your Lordship well expresses it, 4 we find that we' can have no true conception of any Modes or Acci dents, but we must conceive a Substratum, or Subject, wherein they are ;' i. e., that they cannot exist or subsist of themselves. Hence the Mind perceives the necessary connexion with inherence, or being sup ported, which, being a Relative Idea, superadded to the red colour in a cherry, or to thinking in a man, the Mind frames the correlative Idea of a support. For I never denied that the Mind can frame to itself Ideas of Relation, but have showed the quite con trary in my chapters about Relations" (n. ii. Note). Not a single element of the Kantian solution of the problem is wanting in this exposition of his views by Locke. Our Ideas of Relation are not educed from, but superadded to, our Ideas of Sensation and Re flection. They are superadded in an act of Judg ment. They are characterized by a perception of necessary connexion. They are the creatures and inventions of the Understanding. They are Rational Ideas. " Your Lordship," says Locke, " calls it l the Rational Idea of Substance ;' and says, ' I grant that by Sensation and Reflection we come to know the powers and properties of things ; but our Reason is satisfied there must be something beyond them, because it is impossible that they should subsist by

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themselves :' so that if this be that which your Lord ship means by i the Rational Idea of Substance, I see nothing there is in it against what I have said" — What, then, is it that Locke professes to have said? — "that it is founded on Simple Ideas of Sensation or Reflection, and that it is a very obscure Idea :" ob scure, as he has just before explained, because it is not given as an Intuition of Sense — obscure, because it is not an Idea, I Sea, or Image (i. iv. 18 ) — obscure, because, in the very language of Kant, it is an " in- determined" Concept of the Understanding (n. ii. Note) — obscure, because it is " a supposition of we know not what" (n. xxiii. 2).*

Such is the exposition of Locke's doctrine of Re lation, as given by Locke himself. " I never said that Ideas, such as that of Substance, come in by Sensation or Reflection — I never denied that the Mind could frame to itself Ideas of Relation — I have showed the quite contrary in my chapters about Relation" — such are the emphatic and reite-

* This is the answer to M. Cousin's criticism on Locke's em ployment of the term " Obscure" (p. 143). M. Cousin himself defines a Cause to be a "Je ne sais quoi a la quelle vous rapportez la production du phenomene" (p. 151). Sir William Hamilton's doctrine of Substance is even verbally the same as Locke's. Sub stance, he says, " expresses a Relation;" it is " only supposed by a necessity of thought ;" " even as a Relative it is not positively knoivn" (Disc., p. 644). Reid's doctrine is equally coincident. " Our notion of Body or Matter," he says, " as distinguished from its qualities, is a Relative Notion ; and I am afraid it must always be obscure until men have other faculties" (p. 322).

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rated terms in which he repudiates the Sensualism and the Empiricism with which his name has been so long arid so universally identified. As he ex pressed his agreement with Lowde on the subject of Innate Ideas, so he expresses his agreement with Stillingfleet on the subject of the Genesis of our a priori Concepts. All that his opponents contend for he himself insists upon, and here again he has verified the declaration of his Epistle to the Reader ; — he and his opponents are at one when each comes to be rightly understood.

What, then, is the general result at which we have arrived ? Locke " sees no reason to believe that the Soul thinks before the Senses have furnished it with Ideas to think on" (n. i. 20) — he conceives that "Ideas in the Understanding are coeval with Sensation" (n. i. 23). So far Condillac, Diderot, and Condorcet, are in the right. So far Locke places the Origin of Ideas in Sensation. So far he undoubtedly belongs to the School of Sensualism. Locke holds that " Simple Ideas, the materials of all our knowledge, are suggested arid furnished by Sensation and Reflection" (n. ii. 2), and that "Complex Ideas are made by the Mind out of Simple ones, as the materials and founda tions" which constitute at once their content and the condition of their development" (n. xii. 1). So far Kant, Cousin, and Sir William Hamilton are in the right. So far Locke places the Origin of Ideas in Sensation and Reflection. So far Locke is to be regarded as the Evangelist of Empiricism. But

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among our Simple Ideas Locke enumerates certain a priori Concepts, which he describes as "suggested to the Understanding" by the isolated Data of Sen sation and Reflection (n. vii. 1-9); among the Complex Ideas, which he professedly regards as " the creatures or inventions of the Understanding," he enumerates certain " Modes, which are " suggested" to the Understanding by an Impotence of Thought (n. xvii. 4, &c.); certain "Relations," "supposed," "superinduced," and " superadded," by the Under standing in an act of Comparison or Judgment (n. xxv-xxviii.) Here, then, we have a triple element of Intellectualism. Here we have the Un derstanding unequivocally recognised as a sponta neous energy and a generative force. And here Locke is to be identified neither with Sensualism nor Empiricism, but with that great School of Speculation which from Plato to Kant has pro claimed the a priori origin of our higher principles of thought.

We are now in a position to estimate the critical value of the work which Sir William Hamilton styles " the most important work on Locke since the ' Nouveaux Essais' of Leibnitz" (Disc., p. 80). Con founding Locke's order of Exposition with his order of Thought, M. Cousin charges him with rushing prematurely into the question of the Origin of Ideas (p. 80) ; confounding Locke's views on the question of the Origin of Ideas with his own views on the question of their Genesis, M. Cousin charges him with assigning an Origin that is essentially

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defective (p. 81). Ignoring the systematic discus sions of the Essay, ignoring the very titles of the chapters of the second Book, M. Cousin next asserts that Locke precluded himself from the very possi bility of a return to truth by the omission of the pre-eminently experimental question of "the In ventory of Ideas" (p. 84); and, lest a fictitious rea son should be wanting for an imaginary fact, informs us that the experimental method was in its infancy in the time of Locke ; — in its infancy at a time when every canon of that method had been laid down in the " De Augmentis" and the " Novum Organon," and when its proudest triumph had been already achieved in the "Principia" and the "Optics." Thus stumbling at the threshold of his criticism, it is no wonder that M. Cousin misconceives the whole purport of Locke's Philosophy. Misconceiving what Locke means by a Simple Idea, he regards the Com plex Idea as essentially Compound. Not only does he ignore the Simple Ideas suggested to the Un derstanding by the isolated data of Sense, and the Simple Modes framed by the Understanding in con sequence of an impotence of Thought — he ignores even the Ideas of Comparison developed in the Com parison of Ideas. He reiterates that according to Locke the Understanding can only " combine, com- pare, and abstract" the data of Sensation and Re flection, without pausing to inquire what is meant by the term " compare." In a word, he overlooks the fact that Locke regards the most important of

104 THE GENESIS OF IDEAS.

our a priori Concepts as Ideas of Relation, and that lie enumerates Ideas of Relation among those Com plex Ideas which, by the fundamental distinction of his system, are " the creatures or inventions of the Understanding" (n. ii. Note). Accordingly, M. Cou sin imposes upon Locke the necessity of explaining the Genesis of these Concepts by Sensation and Re flection (p. 100), — a necessity which could only eventuate in the mutilation and distortion of the Concepts. To show that Locke actually mutilates arid distorts these elements of Thought, M. Cousin mutilates and distorts the words of Locke. In elu cidation of his Idea of " Place," Locke remarks that " to say the universe is somewhere, means no more than it does exist" (11. xiii. 10) ; M. Cousin, confounding " Place" with " Space," represents him as openly identifying "Space" with "Body" (pp. 103, 120). In his account of the chronologi cal conditions of the development of the Idea of Time, Locke observes that " we have no perception of Duration but by considering the train of Ideas" in our Minds (n. xiv. 4) ; M. Cousin represents him as holding that " Time in itself is nothing but the Succession of Ideas" (p. 129). Locke tells us that it is " the endless addibility of number" that gives us "the clearest Idea of Infinity" (n. xvi. 8); M. Cousin represents him as reducing the Idea of the Infinite to that of some "determined number" (p. 134). Locke holds that "Personal Identity," as distinguished from Identity of Spiritual Substance,

THE GENESIS OF IDEAS. 105

consists in "Consciousness" (n. xxvii. 7, 9); M. Cousin represents him as holding that Consciousness constitutes the only Identity of which we are suscep tible (p. 138). Locke holds that our Ideas of " Substances" are " collections of Simple Ideas, with a supposition of something in which they subsist" (n. xxiii. 37); M. Cousin represents him as " officially" resolving the Idea of " Substance" into "a collection of Simple Ideas" (p. 144). Locke states that "from the observation of the constant vicissitudes of things we get our Ideas of Cause and Effect" (n. xxv. 1 ; n. xxi. 1) ; M. Cousin represents him as holding that our Ideas of Cause and Effect are nothing but Ideas of Succession (p. 150). Locke holds that the mea sure of what is everywhere "called and esteemed" Virtue and Vice is Praise and Blame (n. xxviii. 10); M. Cousin represents him as holding that Virtue and Vice in themselves are merely matter of opinion (p. 198). But M. Cousin is Orator as well as Critic. Not only does he slay his enemy — he drags him in triumph at his chariot- wheels. With respect to the Idea of Space, it seems, Locke " contradicts himself from paragraph to paragraph" (p. 100) ; with refer ence to the Idea of Time he is guilty of " Confusion," "Paralogism," and " Extravagant Results" (p. 128) ; with reference to the Idea of Infinity, he " annihi lates the belief of the human race" (p. 134) ; with reference to Personal Identity, he " puts an end to all moral responsibility, to all juridical action"

106 THE GENESIS OF IDEAS.

(p. 139) ; with reference to the Idea of Substance, he is "hurled headlong into Nihilism" (p. 146); with reference to the Ideas of Right and Wrong, he " denaturalizes and corrupts Virtue" (p. 198) ; with reference to Religion itself, he evokes Deity from the "Abyss of Paralogism" (p. 245), and "avoids Atheism only at the cost of an Inconsequence" (p. 376).

If any apology for these remarks on M. Cousin were required, it is supplied by the illustrious His torian of the Literature of Europe. Admiring, as I do, the genius of M. Cousin, I cannot but regret with Mr. Hallam, that he " had nothing so much at heart as to depreciate the glory of one whom Europe has long reckoned among the founders of Metaphy sical Science." " The name of Locke," as Mr. Hallam observes, " is part of our literary inheritance, which, as Englishmen, we cannot sacrifice. If, indeed, the University at which he was educated cannot disco ver that he is, perhaps, her chief boast ; if a declaimer from that quarter presumes to speak of ' the Sophist Locke,' we may console ourselves by recollecting how little influence such a local party is likely to obtain over the literary world. But the fame of M. Cousin is so conspicuous, that his prej udices readily become the prejudices of many, and his misrepresentations pass with many for unanswerable criticisms."

VI.

INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE.

A JUDGMENT of the Understanding, as we have seen, is presupposed in Locke's account of the Genesis of our a priori Concepts, whether regarded as Simple Ideas, as Simple Modes, or as Ideas of Eelation. In the Genesis of our Ideas of Relation, especially, we have seen that Locke explicitly enounces the neces sity of an act of Comparison, which, in his phrase ology, is in reality an act of Judgment. Locke's Theory of Judgment, therefore, would seem the ap propriate pendant of his Theory of Relation. But all General Knowledge, according to Locke, consists in the contemplation of General Abstract Ideas (iv. vi. 13), and the consideration of Abstraction and Generalization, therefore, is a necessary prelimi nary to the consideration of the Theory of Know ledge. Hence, the discussions contained in the third book of the Essay, — discussions which Locke tells us he did not originally contemplate (in. v. 16 ; in. ix. 21), and which, interposing as a huge paren thesis between his Theory of Knowledge and his Theory of the Genesis of Ideas, have hitherto pre-

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vented these theories from being viewed in their na tural correlation.

Into Locke's Theory of General Ideas I do not intend, in this place, to inquire. Those who feel an interest in the subject will find it discussed at the end of this Essay, in the Appendix upon Berke ley. Suffice it to state, that I regard the absurdity of Abstract Ideas as a mere chimera of the Critics, j Avhich has no existence in the Essay concerning , Hum an Understanding; and that, in opposition to the ! views of the Scottish School, I hold Locke to have \ been a moderate Nominalist. This being premised, I | make no apology for omitting the consideration of I what Mr. Mill justly denominates " that immortal j third book of Locke," — and pass forthwith to the consideration of Locke's Theory of Knowledge.

" Knowledge," says Locke, " seems to me to be no thing but the perception of the connexion and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy, of any of our Ideas" (iv. i. 2) : a statement which has been vehemently impugned, but which in reality merely amounts to the self-evident assertion that in every proposition there must be a Subject and a Predicate, and that in every intelligible proposition the Subject and the Predicate must stand for definite Ideas. But how is this synthesis of Thought effected ? On what grounds are we justified in asserting the connexions which exist among Ideas ? According to the Philosopher of Koenigsberg, we may either

INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE. 109

have recourse to Experience, and discover that two Ideas are actually connected in point of fact — as in the Judgment which asserts that all Body is endued with Weight ; or we may have recourse to Reason, and discover that two Ideas are absolutely con nected by a necessity of thought, as in the Judgment which asserts that every Change must have some efficient Cause. This distinction, if we are to be lieve Sir William Hamilton, has no existence in the theory of Locke. "In Locke's Philosophy all our Knowledge is a Derivation from Experience" (Reid, p. 294) ; uhe endeavours to show that Intuitive truths are all Generalizations from Experience" (p. 465); he maintains the " thesis that all our knowledge is anEduct from Experience" (p. 784); he "dogmati cally" asserts that it is to " Experience" we are in debted even for the truths of Geometry itself (Disc., p. 272). Once more from Locke's critic let us ap peal to Locke.

" In some of our Ideas," says Locke, " there are certain Relations, Habitudes, and Connexions so visibly included in the nature of the Ideas them selves that we cannot conceive them separable from them by any power whatsoever ; and in these only we are capable of Certain and Universal Knowledge1 (iv. iii. 29). Now what is the knowledge with which this is deliberately contrasted? " The things," says Locke, "that, as far as our Observation reaches, we constantly find to proceed regularly, we may conclude do act by a law set them, but yet by a law that we know

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not ; whereby, though causes work steadily, and ef fects constantly flow from them, yet their connexions and dependencies being not discoverable in our Ideas, we can have but an Experimental Knowledge of them" (Ibid.) The distinction between Rational and Em piric Knowledge is here laid down with Kantian precision ; but the following passage is, if possible, more striking still. " We must, therefore, if we will proceed as reason advises, adapt our methods of in quiry to the nature of the Ideas we examine, and the Truth we search after. General and certain Truths are only founded in the Habitudes and Relations of Abstract Ideas. A sagacious and methodical appli cation of our thoughts for the finding out these Re lations is the only way to discover all that can be put with truth and certainty concerning them into ge neral propositions .... What then are we to do for the improvement of our knowledge in substantial beings ? Here we are to take a quite contrary course. The want of the Ideas of their real essences sends us from our own Thoughts to the Things them selves as they exist. EXPEEIENCE here must teach us what REASON cannot ; and it is by trying alone that I can certainly know what other qualities co exist with those of my Complex Idea" (iv. xii. 7, 9). But not only did Locke thus anticipate Kant in the recognition of the distinction between Rational and Empiric knowledge — he also anticipates him in the recognition of the Criterion by which they are to be distinguished.

INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE. Ill

The Criterion of Necessity, as we have already seen, is explicitly recognised in connexion with the Gene sis of our Ideas of Relation. But in the fourth Book the recognition of the Criterion recurs at every step. To elucidate the distinction between what we learn from " Experience" and what we learn from " Rea son," between what we must ascertain from "Things," and what we may ascertain by " Thought," Locke takes the Synthetic a posteriori Judgment, "Gold is malleable." This he pronounces to be an " Experi mental Truth" — and why ? " The necessity or in con sistence of malleability," he says, " hath no visible connexion with the combination of qualities which make up the other constituents of gold" (iv. xii. 9). To quote all the passages in which similar state ments occur would be as tedious as it would useless. In one single paragraph Locke tells u with every variety of expression, that what distin guishes Experimental from Universal knowledge is the absence of "necessary connexion," of "necessary coexistence," of " necessary dependence and visible connexion," of "evident dependence or necessary connexion," of "the necessary connexion of the Ideas themselves" (iv. iii. 14). Yet what is the state ment of Sir William Hamilton ? " Reid, and to his honour be it spoken," says Sir William Hamilton, " stands alone among the Philosophers of this coun try in his appreciation and employment of the Crite rion of Necessity" (Eeid, p. 753).*

* Previously to Locke the Criterion of Necessity had been

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Once more, however, let us listen to Sir William Hamilton. " No subject, perhaps, in modern spe culation," he says, "has excited an in tenser interest, or more vehement controversy than, Kant's famous distinction of A nalytic and Synthetic Judgments a priori. The interest in this distinction was naturally extended to its history. The records of past Philo sophy were ransacked, and for a moment it was thought that the Prussian Sage had been forestalled in the very groundwork of his system by the Me- garic Stilpo. But the originality (I say nothing of the truth) of Kant's distinction still stands un touched. The originality of its author, a very dif ferent question, was always above any reasonable doubt. Kant himself is disposed indeed to allow that Locke (iv. iii. 9, sq.) had, perhaps, a glimpse of the discrimination ; but, looking to the places re ferred to, this seems on the part of Kant an almost gratuitous concession. Locke, in fact, came nearer to it in another passage (i. ii. 19, 20); but there, although the examples on which the distinction could have been established are stated, and even stated in contrast, the principle was not appre hended, and the distinction consequently [was] permitted to escape" (Reid, p. 787).

Now, in opposition to Sir William Hamilton, I

enounced by Cumberland. " Cavendum, praecipue cum de primis seu universalissimis veritatibus meditamur, ne ulli proposition! assentiamur absque summa et ineluctalili Necessitate" (De Legg. Nat., cap. ii. sect, ix.) The reader will not have forgotten the " necessario mggeri" to which attention has already been directed.

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maintain that the principle of the Kantian distinc tion was apprehended by Locke, and that the dis tinction was not permitted to escape. The Kantian distinction cannot be better expressed than in the words of Kant. " In all Judgments wherein the relation of a subject to a predicate is cogitated," says the Intellectual Critic, " this relation is possible in two different ways. Either the predicate B be longs to the subject A, as something which is con tained (though covertly) in the conception A; or the predicate B lies completely out of the concep tion A, although it stands in connexion with it. In the first instance I term the Judgment Analyti cal, in the second, Synthetical. Analytical Judg ments are, therefore, those in which the connexion of the predicate with the subject is cogitated through Identity ; those in which this connexion is cogitated without Identity are called Synthetical. The former may be called Explicative, the latter Augmentative Judgments : for the former in the predicate add nothing to the conception of the subject, but only analyze it into its constituent conceptions ; the lat ter add to our conception of the subject a predicate which is not contained in it, and which no analysis could ever have discovered therein." Such is the Kantian distinction as enounced by Kant. Such also, I contend, is the Kantian distinction as anti cipated by Locke.

" To understand a little better wherein the agree ment or disagreement of our Ideas consists, I think,"

I

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says Locke, " we may reduce it all to these four sorts," — Identity, Relation, Coexistence, and Real Existence (iv. i. 3). If we wish for an exemplifica tion of these distinctions, Locke supplies it : — " 'Blue is not Yellow,' is of Identity ; ' Two triangles upon equal bases between two parallels are equal,' is of Relation ; ' Iron is susceptible of magnetical im pressions,' is of Coexistence ; ' God is,' is of Real Existence" (iv. i. 7). That the examples on which the Kantian distinction can be founded are here stated is evident, — an assertion that can scarcely be made in connexion with the passage referred to by Sir William Hamilton (i. ii. 19. 20). "Real Ex istence" being discounted as belonging to the do main of Ontology, " Coexistence" corresponds to the Synthetic a posteriori Judgment of Kant, " Iden tity" and " Relation" to his Analytic and Synthetic a priori. Nor can it be maintained that Locke merely stated the examples. Not only is the distinction the fundamental distinction of his theory of Know ledge, but the terms in which he justifies it show that he was aware of its import in all its fulness. — " Though Identity and Coexistence," he says, " are truly nothing but Relations, yet they are so pecu liar ways of agreement or disagreement of our Ideas," they are "so different grounds of affirmation and negation," that "they deserve well to be consi dered as distinct heads, and not under Relation in general" (iv. i. 7), — "as will easily appear," he adds, " to any one who will but reflect on what is said in

INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE. 1L5

several places of this Essay" (iv. i. 7). Now what is it that is said in several places of this Essay? What is said with reference to our Judgments of Coexist ence, as distinguished from those of Identity and Relation, we have already seen ; and, if we were to quote every passage in which the distinction be tween "Universal" and "Experimental" knowledge is recognised, we might quote half the fourth book of the Essay. But what is it that is said by Locke of the Judgments of Identity, and the Judgments of Relation, as distinguished from each other? "We can know the truth of two sorts of propositions with perfect certainty," says Locke ; " the one is of those trifling propositions which have a certainty in them, but it is only a verbal certainty, but not instruc tive ; and, secondly, we can know the truth, and so may be certain, in propositions which affirm some thing of another which is a necessary consequence of its precise Complex Idea, but not contained in it; this is a real truth, and conveys with it instructive real knowledge" (iv. viii. 8). What has Kant added to the distinction thus enounced by Locke ? Absolutely nothing. The very language of the two Philoso phers is one. The summary of the Kantian account of our Analytic Judgments is that they are Intui tive Truths, arrived at by the analysis of a single Idea, conveying no new knowledge, but at once in dispensable and unproductive. What is the sum mary of the Lockian account of Axioms or Maxims? " The evidence of all these Maxims consists in that

i 2

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Intuitive Knowledge which is certain beyond all doubt, and needs no probation, nor can have any" (iv. xvii. 14; iv. vii. 19; iv. vii. 2); "their cer tainty is founded only upon the knowledge we have of each Idea by itself, and of its distinction from all others" (iv. vii. 14); they are "truths, self-evident truths, and so cannot be laid aside" (iv. vii. 14); they are " universal propositions, which, though they be certainly true, yet they add no light to our understandings, bring no increase to our know ledge" fiv. viii. 1). To illustrate the futility of attempting to increase our knowledge by means of Axioms, Locke describes a monkey shifting an oys ter from one paw to the other, and fancying the oyster to be multiplied by the process. This rouses the ire of M. Cousin. " It is not exact," he says, " it is not fair, to concentrate all Axioms, all Prin ciples, all Primitive and Necessary Truths, in the Axiom, c what is, is,' ; the same is the same' — aux exemples vains et bouffons de Locke j' op pose les exemples, les Axiomes suivants" (p. 320) ; and M. Cousin opposes the Principle of Substance and the like. Here again we have the reproduction of an old error ; what can we do but reproduce the old reply ? — " If those who blame my calling them Trifling Propositions," says Locke, " had but read and been at the pains to understand what I had above writ down in very plain English, they could not but have seen that by ' Identical Propositions' I mean only such wherein the same Term importing

INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE. 117

the same Idea is affirmed of itself" (iv. viii. 3). In other words, while Locke restricts the term Axiom to our Intuitive Judgments of Identity and Ana lysis, M. Cousin, like Sir William Hamilton and Reid, understands him as applying it to our Intui tive Judgments in general.* Locke's examples of Synthetic a priori Judgments, it is true, are mostly taken from Geometrical Science ; but he has not left us in doubt as to his views on the Principles of Metaphysics and of Morals. The Principle of Sub stance, as we have already seen, he recognises as a Rational Principle, with every variety of expres sion, and every concomitant of emphasis.f The Principle of Causation and Final Causes he ex pressly designates — "Principles of Common Rea son" (i. iv. 10), and describes them as portions of our " Intuitive Knowledge" (iv. x. 1, 3, 4, et seq.}.

* M. Cousin has charged Locke with extending his proscription of Identical Propositions to Propositions which arc not Identical, as, for instance, in the case of— " all Gold is fusible." " So far is this from being an Identical Proposition," says M. Cousin, "that the man who first enounced it enounced a great Physical disco very ; it can only be regarded as Identical when the notion of fusibility has become a part of the ordinary connotation of the word Gold." This is precisely the view of Locke himself: — " 1 see not how it is any jot more material to say * Gold is fusible' [than to say ' Gold is yellow'], unless that quality be left out of the Complex Idea of which the sound ' Gold' is the mark in ordi nary speech. What instruction can it carry with it, to tell one that which he hath been told already, or he is supposed to know before" (iv. viii. 5).

f ii. ii. Note; n. xxiii. 1, 4, Notes A and B; iv. iii. Note.

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He proclaims the Principles of Morality to be "Self- evident Propositions" (iv. iii. 18), and numbers them among those " Relations, Habitudes, and Con nexions, so visibly included in the nature of the Ideas themselves, that we cannot conceive them separable from them by any power whatsoever" (iv. iii. 29). And under what category does Locke rank these Principles ? If we ignored every intima tion of the fourth Book, the very titles of the chap ters of the second would tell us it is under the category of Relation. Does Locke regard these Principles as unproductive ? On the contrary, it is by means of these principles we make the 44 endless discoveries" of Mathematics (iv. iii. 18 ; iv. xii. 7). It is by means of these that Mo ral Science may be invested with the progres sive and demonstrative character of Mathematical (iv. iii. 18, 20). It is by means of these that we arrive at the " discovery" of a God (i. iv. 9, 17 ; iv. x. 1).

The mention of Mathematical Science suggests an other misrepresentation of Sir William Hamilton, which it may be well to consider — the more so, as the consideration will place the Intellectual character of Locke's Philosophy in the strongest light. In illustration of the principle that the Mathematician is better fitted than the Metaphysician to perceive the difference bet ween Necessary Truths and Truths that are furnished by Experience, Dr. Whewell re fers to the case of Hume as holding that Geometri-

INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE. 119

cal Truths themselves are only ascertained by Expe rience. Indignant at this " inculpation of the Me taphysicians," Sir William Hamilton asks, " why was Locke not mentioned in the place of Hume ?" " If Hume did advance such a doctrine," he says, " he only sceptically took up what Locke dogmati cally laid down. But in regard to Hume, Mr. Whewell is wholly wrong. So far is this philo sopher from holding ' that Geometrical Truths are learnt by Experience/ that, while rating Mathemati cal Science as a study at a very low account, he was all too acute to countenance so crude an opinion in regard to its foundation, and, in fact, is celebrated for maintaining one precisely the reverse. On this point Hume was neither Sensualist nor Sceptic ; but deserted ^Enesidemus and Locke to encamp with Descartes and Leibnitz" (Disc., p. 272). In this passage everything is incorrect. In the first place Sir William Hamilton neglects to tell us that, al though Hume in his " Essays" admitted the a priori origin of Geometrical Science, in his "Treatise of Human Nature" he held even in its most para doxical form the opinion attributed to him by Dr. Whewell. In the second place, in asserting that Hume merely sceptically took up what Locke dog matically laid down, Sir Wm. Hamilton misrepre sents the scope of the scepticism of Hume, which, as we shall see, was essentially dogmatic. But in the third place, granting that Dr. Whewell was wholly in the wrong with regard to Hume, Sir William

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Hamilton is wholly in the wrong with regard to Locke. So far is Locke from regarding Geometrical Science as an educt from Experience, that he regards it as a product of pure Intellect. " The Mathematician," says Locke, " considers the truth and properties be longing to a rectangle or a circle only as they are in Idea in his own Mind. For it is possible he never found either of them existing mathematically, i. e., precisely true, in his life" (iv. iv. 6). " Real things," he says, " are no farther concerned, nor intended to be meant by any such propositions, than as things really agree to these Archetypes in his Mind" (Ibid. ) " Intending things no farther than they agree with those his Ideas," he continues, " he is sure what he knows concerning those Figures when they have barely an Ideal Existence in the Mind will hold true of them also when they have a Real Existence in Matter" (Ibid.) These are the systematic de clarations of the Essay. Like all other Abstract Ideas, our Ideas of Geometrical Figure, according to Locke are, " the creatures and inventions of the Un derstanding" (in. iii. 11). Like all other General Truths, Geometrical Propositions are discovered ex clusively by "the contemplation of our own Abstract Ideas" (iv. vi. 16). The very example given to illus trate the nature of "Certain and Universal," as distin guished from " Experimental," Knowledge, is taken from Mathematical Science (iv. iii. 29). Accord ingly, Locke tells us that our Mathematical Ideas are "Ingenerable and Incorruptible" (in. iii. 19); and

INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE. 121

that Mathematical Propositions, as expressive of Im mutable Kelations, are " Eternal Truths" (iv. xi. 14). In other words, Locke adopts the very phraseo logy of the School of Plato — and Sir William Hamilton boldly identifies him Avith the School of Epicurus.*

One thing more, and the confutation of Sir Wil liam Hamilton's criticism is complete. Among the charges preferred against Locke by Stillingfleet was that of" affecting the honour of an original." " But," says Locke, " how little I affect the honour of an original may be seen in that place of my book where,

* I may add that Locke gives in his adhesion to the doctrine maintained by Stewart, — that the Principles of Mathematical discovery are not the Axioms, but the Definitions, or, as Locke would call them, the Abstract Ideas. "It is evident," he says, " that it was not the influence of these Maxims which are taken for Principles in Mathematics, that hath led the Masters of that Science into those wonderful discoveries they have made" (iv. xii. 15.) In connexion with this subject of Geometrical Figure I cannot resist quoting a curious remark of Mr. Hallam : — "On the supposition of the Objectivity of Space, as truly ex isting without us, which Locke undoubtedly assumes, it is certain that the passage just quoted (iv. iv. 6) is entirely erroneous, aud that it involves a confusion between Geometrical Figure itself and its delineation to the eye. A Geometrical Figure is a portion of Space contained in boundaries, determined by given Kelations. It exists in the Infinite round about us, as the Statue exists in the block .... The expression, therefore, of Locke, ' whether there be any Square or Circle existing in the world or no,' is highly inaccurate, the latter alternative being an absurdity" (Lit. Hist. iv. 133-4). I doubt whether this criticism bo just. It is the ' delineation to the eye' that is exclusively contemplated by Locke (in. iii. 19).

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if anywhere, that itch of vain-glory was likeliest to have shown itself, had I been so overrun with it as to need a cure." Now, where is it that Locke af fects the honour of an original ? — for there, if any where, we are likely to find the key to the interpre tation of his system. Locke tells us it is where he speaks of Certainty. "I think," he says, "I have shown wherein it is that Certainty, real Certainty, consists" (i. i. Note). In what, then, does Certainty, real Cer tainty, consist, according to Locke ? Doubtless in the Revelations of Sense, as might be expected from " The Sensualism of Locke" — doubtless in the Dictates of Experience, as might be expected from " Locke's Empiricism." So says Sir William Ha milton (Eeid, pp. 207, 294, 465, 784). But what says Locke ? " Sensitive knowledge," says the Sensualist, " reaches no further than the existence of things present to the Senses" (iv. iii. 5) — "Experimen tal knowledge," says the Empiric, " reaches no far ther than the bare instance" (iv. 6, 7). In what, then, does Certainty, real Certainty, consist ? Locke tells us. He tells us that " the certainty and evi dence of all our knowledge" depends on the " bright sunshine" of" Intuition" (iv. ii. 1). He tells us that " the only true way of certain and universal know ledge" is " by our Ideas" and " the perception of their necessary connexions" (iv. iii. 14). He tells us that "the foundation of all knowledge and certainty" is to be found in that "Intuitive knowledge" which " neither requires nor admits proof" (iv. vii. 19 ; iv. xvii. 14).

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He tells us that " as to all general knowledge, we must search and find it only in our own Minds (iv. iii. 31). He tells us that "general certainty is never to be found but in our Ideas" (iv. vi. 16). In short, he " founds Knowledge on Belief, the ob jective certainty of Science on the subjective neces sity of Believing," and the doctrine of " Aristotle, his Greek commentators, and the Schoolmen," is thus enounced by the Philosopher who is said to have relied exclusively on the authority of " Gassendi" (fieid, pp. 771, 784). What, then, is the real po sition in which, at the close of this discussion, Sir William Hamilton stands to Locke ? Locke centres the whole originality of his Philosophy in its de velopment of scientific knowledge from Intuition ; and Sir William Hamilton represents him as main taining the thesis that all our knowledge is an educt from Experience ! Well might Locke exclaim to Stillingfleet — " Truly, my Lord, my book hath most unlucky stars !"

The manner in which Sir William Hamilton closes his vindication of Reid against Brown is well known. " On all this," he says, " no observation of ours can be either so apposite or authoritative as the edifying reflections with which Dr. Brown him self concludes his vindication of the Philosophers against Eeid. Brown's precept is sound, but his ex ample is instructive. One word we leave a blank, which the reader may himself supply. That a mind so vigorous as that of Dr. - - should have been ca-

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pable of the series of misconceptions which we have traced may seem wonderful, and truly is so ; and equally, or rather still more wonderful, is the general admission of his merit in this respect. I trust it will impress you with one important lesson — to consult the opinions of authors in their own works, and not in the works of those who profess to give a faithful account of them"— (Disc.,?. 82).

Quam temcrc in nosmet legem saneimus iniquam !

The blank supplied by Brown with the name of Reid, and by Sir William Hamilton with the name of Brown, may, with respect to Locke, be supplied with the name of Sir William Hamilton himself. That Sir William Hamilton was a great philosophical genius, I admit. I acknowledge the powerful stimu lus he has communicated to the spirit of Philosophy, which in this country had so long lain dormant, and to all appearance dead. The editor of Reid, the expositor of Kant, the critic of M. Cousin, above all, the author of that invaluable Analysis of the various Theories of Perception which constitutes his great contribution to the stores of Philosophy, Sir William Hamilton stands without a rival, the phi losophic glory of an unphilosophic age. I do all homage to his memory. But a great Philosophical Thinker is not necessarily a patient and impartial Philosophical Critic. To the just appreciation of an alien system a certain passivity of intellect is re quired. A strong current of original thought prc-

INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE. 125

vents the mind from being an equal mirror to the thoughts of others. The standing pool reflects the forest and the sky more faithfully than the running stream ; and it is possible to be a more faithful critic than a great man — not because one is a greater man, but because one is a less,

VII.

REAL EXISTENCE.

AT the opening of the second book of the Essay concerning Human Understanding, Locke proclaims that " in Experience all our Knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately derives itself" (u. i. 2). At the opening of the fourth he proclaims that " it is on Intuition that depends all the certainty and evidence of all our Knowledge" (iv. ii. 1). Viewed in a spirit of antagonism, these two propositions present the appearance of an irreconcilable con tradiction, — viewed in a conciliating spirit, which is, after all, the true spirit of criticism, they are found to correspond to the declaration of Sir William Hamilton, that " our Knowledge chronologically commences with Sense, but logically originates with Intellect."

To complete our analysis of Locke's Theory of Knowledge one point still remains to be considered — his doctrine of Real Existence. It is on this point that the doctrine of the Essay is especially impugned by M. Cousin. Locke, as we have seen, resolves all knowledge into a perception of the " conformity" or " difformity" of Ideas. This Theory M. Cousin at-

REAL EXISTENCE. 127

tacks from every side. What, for instance, he says, are the Conditions of Conformity? (p. 225). All Con formity, it seems, supposes Representation, — all Representation implies Resemblance, — all Resem blance involves an Image, — there can be no Image without Figure, — and Figure is one of the Primary Qualities of Matter. Locke's Idea, therefore, says M. Cousin, is a "Material Idea-Image" (p. 226), — a doctrine which, considered in relation to the " Ob ject" of Knowledge, eventuates in "Nihilism" (p. 245 ), which, considered in relation to the " Subject" of Knowledge, entails "Materialism" (p. 251), and which, considered in relation to the Act of knowing, involves a Pleonasm if we possess the Original, and a Parologism if we possess it not (p. 261). But the chain of M. Cousin gives way at every link. In the first place, Locke's Conformity does not always imply Representation, for in Scientific Knowledge Confor mity is nothing but " necessary connexion" (iv. iii. 14). In the second place, Locke's Representation does not always involve Resemblance, for in the case of the Secondary Qualities, our Ideas are merely the " con stant effect" of an unresembling power (n. xxx. 2). In the third place, Locke's Resemblance does not en tail the Idea-Image, for even in the case of the Pri mary Qualities of Matter the " exact resemblance" of the Idea is a mere assertion of the " real existence" of its object (n. viii. 15, 17, 23). The Idea-Image is thus a mere chimera of M. Cousin. Locke's Nihi lism and Materialism, his Paralogism and Pleonasm,

128 REAL EXISTENCE.

die with the chimera that gave them birth. Nor is M. Cousin more fortunate when he assails Locke's Theory of Knowledge with respect to the "Condi tions of Agreement" (p. 281). The Conditions of Agreement, he says, are three, — the existence of two Ideas "anterior" to the act of comparison, a com- parison of these two Ideas, and a perception of their congruity (p. 281) ; a theory, he says, which ends in abstractions, which starts from abstractions, and which starts from abstractions only by the most ridiculous paralogism (p. 290). The answer of the advocate of Locke is as brief as it is triumphant. The word " anterior" has no existence in the Theory of Locke. According to Locke, Knowledge does not " result from," it " consists in," the comparison, the mutual predication, of Ideas (iv. i. 2). Of the com pared Ideas one may be given in the very act of comparison. The Idea on which M. Cousin so stre- nously insists is a case in point. The Idea of Exist ence, according to Locke, is suggested to the Under standing by a single datum of Experience, a sugges tion which is immediately followed up by a judgment which affirms that the datum of Experience in reality exists (n. vii. 7). The same answer is to be made when M. Cousin attacks Locke's Theory with respect to the " Conditions of Comparison" (p. 302). "Pour qu' il y ait comparaison," says M. Cousin, " il faut deux termes a comparer" (p. 304). Nothing can be more true. " Et il faut," M. Cousin continues, " que ces deux termes soient presents a 1'esprit avant que

REAL EXISTENCE. 129

Fesprit les compare et juge" (p. 304). Nothing can be more false. " Eh bien !" M. Cousin triumphantly exclaims, " cela saint pour renverser la Theorie du Jugement Comparatif en matiere de Realite et d'Existence" (p. 304).

But let us examine Locke's doctrine of Real Exist ence more narrowly. That doctrine is summed up in the proposition that " we have an INTUITIVE knowledge of our own Existence, a DEMONSTRATIVE knowledge of the Existence of God, and of every thing else a SENSITIVE knowledge, which extends not beyond the objects present to the Senses" (iv. iii. 21). On each of the three great Ontological Realities let us endeavour to ascertain the views of Locke.

What, for instance, are Locke's views with respect to the Ontologic Reality of the WORLD ? In pro fessed opposition to Locke, M. Cousin asserts that we attain the knowledge of material existence " di rectly" (p. 262). Yet, he admits as distinctly as Locke himself, that all that Consciousness can attain " directly" is our own Ideas (pp. 75, 140). Here again we have a collision of shades ; the fancied opponents are in reality agreed. " Existence? says Locke, "is an Idea suggested to the Understanding by every object without ; — we consider things to be actually without us, which is that they have exis tence" (n. vii. 7). In the words of M, Cousin, our first notion of External Existence is a Suggestion of the Understanding on the occasion of a single datum of Sensation (pp. 297, 309). " Simple Ideas," says

K

130 REAL EXISTENCE.

Locke, " since the mind can by no means make them to itself, must necessarily be the product of things operating on the mind in a natural way" (iv. iv. 4) ; " it must needs be some Exterior Cause that produces those Ideas in my mind" (iv. xi. 5). In the words of M. Cousin, the Principle of Causality is " the Sire of the External World" (p. 157). "All Sensible Qualities," says Locke, " carry with them a supposi tion of a Substratum to exist in" (IL xxiii. Note B) ; " we cannot conceive how Sensible Qualities should subsist alone, and, therefore, we suppose them to exist in some common Subject" (n. xxiii. Note A). In the words of M. Cousin, Material Substance is a Revelation of Reason in the exercise of Sense (p. 142). When, therefore, Locke asserts that we have a " Sensitive Knowledge " of the External World (iv. ii. 14) — when he asserts that " Sensa tion" convinces us that there are Material Substances (iv. xi. 1; ii. xxiii. 29) — he merely asserts that the Understanding possesses a knowledge of external things, to the development of which Sensation af fords occasion — which is precisely the doctrine of M. Cousin.

Reid deems it " strange that Locke, who wrote so much about Ideas, should not see those consequences which Berkeley thought so obviously deducible from that doctrine" (p. 286). This is an injustice to Locke's philosophical acumen. " There can be no thing more certain," he says, "than that the Idea we receive from an external object is in our minds ;

REAL EXISTENCE. 131

this is Intuitive Knowledge. But whether there be anything more than barely that Idea in our minds, whether we can thence certainly infer the existence of anything without us which corresponds to that Idea, is that whereof some men think there may be a question made ; because men may have such Ideas in their minds when no such thing exists, no such object affects their Senses (iv. ii. 14; iv. xi. 1, seq.). Who these ante- Berk eleian Idealists may have been, we need not inquire ; but Berkeleianism evi dently existed before Berkeley. Locke settles the controversy much in the same way as Reid. An External Reality, he says, is the natural Suggestion of the Understanding (n. vii. 7) ; and " the confi dence that our faculties do not herein deceive us is the greatest assurance we are capable of concerning the existence of material things" (iv. xi. 3).

But if Locke recognised the objective existence of the World of Matter, a fortiori, he recognised the ob jective existence of the Universe of Space. M. Cou sin charges Locke with " explicitly" identifying the Universe of Space with the Material Universe, and professes to quote Locke's words in support of the allegation : — " To say that the world is somewhere means no more than that it does exist" (n. xiii. 10). Yet even the very context of the passage which M. Cousin so monstrously perverts might have con vinced him of his error. " When one can find out and frame in his mind clearly and distinctly the place of the Universe," says Locke, " he will be able

K2

132 REAL EXISTENCE.

to tell us whether it moves or stands still in the un- distinguishable Inane" (Ibid.). If we demand whe ther Space be Substance or Accident, Locke, more wise in his profession of ignorance than his oppo nents in their plenitude of knowledge, replies, " I know not" (n. xiii. 17). That it is not a mere Form of the Sensibility, he is convinced. Here, again, the Speculative Reason of the Philosopher acquiesces in the dictates of the Common Sense of Mankind. The very Idea of Space, he says, " naturally leads us" to the belief of its objective reality. Adaman tine walls would be unable to arrest the mind in its progress through it ; Thought is incompe tent to realize the Idea of its non-existence. Even here Locke does not abandon the sobriety of the true sage. Though Reason reveals the Existence of the Infinite, Imagination is unable to compass the Idea. " All our positive Ideas have always bounds" (n. xvii. 18). Man " can no more have a positive Idea of the greatest than he has of the least Space" (Ibid.). The Infinite and the Absolute are equally beyond the reach of his Imagination, and u the defect in his Ideas" on the subject is a mark of the dispro portion that exists between his " narrow capacities" and the boundless extent of things (n. xvii. 21).

With regard to the World, Locke, according to M. Cousin, is betrayed into semi-scepticism — with regard to the SOUL, his Scepticism is absolute. " Sur Texistence de VEsprit" says Locke, if we are to believe M. Cousin, " nous devons nous contenter de

REAL EXISTENCE. 133

Tevidence de la foi" — " voila bien," he exclaims, " ce me semble le Scepticisme absolu." But what are the words of which this passage professes to give the translation ? — " Concerning the existence of Finite Spirits we must content ourselves with the Evidence of Faith" (iv. xi. 12). Is this absolute Scepticism? Then all mankind are absolute Sceptics. The days have long passed since the Angel conversed with Adam. No longer do we hear the voice of " Woman wailing for her Daemon lover." The denizens of the invisible world may still mix themselves up in the affairs of men as the gods and goddesses in " the tale of Troy divine ;" but the mist which Pallas Athene removed from the eyes of Diomed still rests on the vision of ordinary men. Carried away with his illusion, however, M. Cousin is pitiless to Locke. The vehemence with which he precipitates himself upon his foe is characteristic of his nation. " There is no Philosopher at once more sage and more in consequent than Locke — he explains obscurum per obscurius — he evokes Faith from the Abyss of Pa ralogism— partout, a chaque pas dans la Theorie de Locke des Abimes de Paralogisme" (p. 245).* >

* Monstrous as is this misrepresentation, it is gravely reproduced by M. Cousin's American translator — a Professor of Philosophy— a speaker of the English language — a countryman of Locke. " It was a question," he says, " about the Existence of Finite Spirits, our own Souls." In fact, every misrepresentation of M. Cousin is blindly reproduced by Dr. Henry— with one solitary exception in the case of the Freedom of the Human Will.

134 HEAL EXISTENCE.

But from the din of a contentious criticism let us escape to the calm Philosophy of its illustrious ob ject. "Experience," says Locke, "convinces us that we have an Intuitive knowledge of our own exist ence, and an internal infallible perception that we are. I think, I reason, I feel pleasure and pain: can any of these be more evident to me than my own existence ? If I doubt of all other things, that very doubt makes me perceive my own existence, and will not suffer me to doubt of that" (iv. ix. 3). Locke's Doctrine of the Soul, therefore, starts from the " Cogito ergo sum" of Descartes. But Locke is far from acquiescing in the Cartesian conclusion that the Essence of the Soul consists in Thought* "We know certainly by experience that we sometimes think ; and hence," he says, " we draw the infallible consequence that there is something in us that has a power to think" (n. i. 10); "the Idea of this ac tion or mode of thinking is inconsistent with the Idea of Self-subsistence, and, therefore, has a neces sary connexion with a support or subject of inhe sion" (iv. iii. Note). Locke recognises, therefore, the existence of a Thinking Substance. Whether he

* I say the Cartesian conclusion, for, as Mr. Stewart has shown, we have no reason for considering it the opinion of Descartes him self (Elements, vol. i., Note A}. In stating that Thought "con stitutes" the Substance of the Soul, and that Extension "constitutes" the Substance denominated Matter, he merely means that Thought and Extension determine the nature of the two Substances in which they are inherent — as he has just before stated, "ex quo vis Attribute cognoscitur Substantial'

REAL EXISTENCE. 135

regards this Substance as Material or not, is ano ther question. " Concluding the operations of the Mind," he says, " not to subsist of themselves, nor apprehending how they can belong to body, or be produced by it, we are apt to think these the ac tions of some other Substance which we call "Spirit" (n. xxiii. 5). Here we have a recognition of the great Philosophic argument by which the Immateriality of the Soul has been vindicated by every Intellectual Philosopher from Aristotle and Cicero to Sir William Hamilton and M. Cousin. Mind has none of the attributes of Matter — Matter possesses none of the attributes of Mind. Locke, it is true, concedes that he has not proved, and that on his principles it cannot be "demonstratively" proved, " that there is an Immaterial Substance in us that thinks" (iv. iii. Note) ; yet "from our Ideas," he conceives, " it may be proved that it is to the highest degree probable that it is immaterial" (iv. iii. Note). "Matter," as he elsewhere says, "is evidently in its own nature void of Sense and Thought" (iv. iii. 6) — Thought "cannot be the ac tion of base insensible Matter, nor ever could be, without an Immaterial thinking Being" (n. xxiii. 15). The reason of Locke's reserve on this subject has been strangely misunderstood. — " Since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort of Substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power, I see no contradiction in it," he says, " that the first eternal thinking Being should, if he

136 KEAL EXISTENCE.

pleased, give to certain systems of created sense less Matter, put together as he thinks fit, some de gree of Sense, Perception, and Thought" (iv. iii. 6). So far, therefore, is Locke from having recourse to Deity to prove the Immateriality of the Soul, as M. Cousin asserts, that it is only from a reluctance to set limits to the Omnipotence of God that he admits the possibility of its being material. Was Locke right in thus modifying his Philosophy by theo logical considerations ? That is another question. That "all Quality presupposes a Substance," is a proposition, the negation of which involves a con tradiction not only to the Laws of Thought, but to the Nature of Things. That " such as is the Qua lity, such also must be the Substance," is a proposi tion which is so far from being a Law of Nature that many Philosophers, the Philosopher of Kcenigs- berg among the rest, have denied it even to be a Law of Thought. " It is not an easy matter," says Stillingfleet, "to give an account how the Soul should be capable of Immortality, unless it be an Immaterial Substance." M. Cousin goes farther — " If the Soul be not an Immaterial Substance," he says, " we ought not to say that its Immortality is doubtful; we ought to say that it is impossible" (Kant, p. 169). In other words, the whole fabric of our future hopes is founded on the floating island of a Metaphysical abstraction. The doctrine of Locke is more modest and more true. The Im mortality of the Soul is dependent on the will

KEAL EXISTENCE. 137

of the Deity. The power that created the Soul may continue its existence through Eternity, or annihilate it according to his own good pleasure. No necessary existence, no emanation from the divine essence, no attribute of divinity, is attri buted to the Soul by Locke. Its hopes of Immor tality are centred all in God.* "All the great ends of Morality and Religion," he says, " are well enough secured without Philosophical proof of the Soul's Immateriality, since it is evident that He who made us at the beginning to subsist here, sensible and

* According to Kant — and Tenneman is the mere echo of his master — Locke, "after having derived all the conceptions and principles of the Mind from Experience, goes so far in the employ ment of these conceptions and principles as to maintain that we can prove the Existence of God, and the Immortality of the Soul, — "both of them lying beyond the limits of possible [actual] experience, — with the same force of demonstration as any ma thematical proposition." But here there is a double misrepre sentation. Locke did not derive all the principles of the Mind from Experience. Locke did not hold that the Immortality of the Soul is a demonstrable Truth. He holds the very contrary — that "it neither was nor could be made out by natural Keason without Kevelation" (iv. iii. Note). Locke himself seems to have fallen into an historical error in his controversy with Stillingneet. He states that in the whole first book of the Tusculan Disputa tions "there is not one syllable showing the least thought that the Soul was an Immaterial Substance." But the doctrine enounced by Aristotle, and adopted by Cicero himself, the doctrine of the "Quinta Natura," was itself the doctrine of Immaterial Substance, and Cicero supports it by the very argument of M. Cousin,— Mind has none of the attributes of Matter, Matter has none of the attributes of Mind (Tuse. Lisp. i. 27). Locke

138 REAL EXISTENCE.

intelligent beings, and for several years continued us in such a state, can restore us to the like state of sensibility in another world, and make us capable there to receive the retribution He has designed to men according to their doings in this life"* (iv. iii. 6).

But our difficulties with respect to Locke's theory of the Soul are not yet exhausted. " He that shall, with a little attention, reflect on the Kesurrection," says Locke, " and consider that Divine Justice shall

makes a still stranger mistake, in which, however, he has been very generally followed, among others by Clarke. As a proof of the necessity of a Revelation to decide the question of the Immor tality of the Soul, he quotes the remark of Cicero — " harum sen- tentiarum quae vera sit Dcus aliqui viderit, quae verisimillima magna quaestio" (i. 11). But the truth is, Cicero is here speak ing not of the Immortality of the Soul, but of its Essence — whether it was Air, or Fire, or Blood ; whether it was a Number, a Har mony, or an Entelecheia — and the "Deus aliqui viderit," instead of being a recognition of the necessity of a Revelation, is merely a profane "God knows."

* The value of the doctrine of Immateriality in the establish ment of the Soul's Immortality seems to me purely negative. It is in this light it is regarded by Bishop Butler : — " Upon suppo sition that living agent each man calls himself is a single being," he says, " it follows that our organized bodies are no more our selves or part of ourselves than any other matter around us," and that, therefore, " the dissolution of the body has no conceiva ble tendency to destroy the living being." Compare this with the conclusion deduced by Cicero from the same fact : — "cum simplex natura animi esset, non posse eum dividi ; quod si non possit, non posse interire." It is no wonder that with such a view Cicero proclaimed the Soul to be not only Divine, but God.

REAL EXISTENCE. 139

bring to Judgment at the last day the very same persons to be happy or miserable in the other, who did well or ill in this life, will find it, perhaps, not easy to resolve with himself what makes the same man, or wherein Identity consists" (i. iv. 15). This brings us to the consideration of Locke's Theory of Personal Identity — a theory which has passed into a byword of philosophical contempt, and which has been regarded only as an example of the absurdities into which genius may be betrayed. But the ridicule of Locke's critics has proceeded on the confusion of two things, which Locke has most carefully dis tinguished. Locke " agrees that the more probable opinion is that Consciousness is annexed to, and the affection of, one individual immaterial Substance" (n. xxvii. 25) ; and he holds that " whatever Sub stance begins to exist, must during its existence be necessarily the same" (n. xxvii. 28). With regard to the Identity of the Spiritual Substance, therefore, he concedes everything for which his antagonists contend. " But," says Locke, " it is not unity of Substance that comprehends all sorts of Identity, or will determine it in every case ; it being one thing to be the same ' Substance ;' another, the same ' Man ;' and another, the same ' Person' (n. xxvii. 7). What then is Locke's Theory of Personal Identity? " To find wherein Personal Identity consists," he says, " we must consider what Person stands for, which, I think, is a thinking, intelligent being that has Reason and Reflection, and can consider itself as it-

140 REAL EXISTENCE.

self, the same thinking thing, in different times and places" (n. xxvii. 9). Now how is it that a think ing thing can consider itself as itself, the same in dif ferent times and places ? Evidently by an act of Judgment, and accordingly, in strict consistency with himself, Locke enumerates the idea of Personal Identity among those Relative Ideas which he sys tematically regards as " the creatures or inventions of the Understanding." But what is the Chro nological Condition of the development of this Judgment ? Evidently an act of Consciousness. " Consciousness," says Locke, " is inseparable from thinking, and essential to it" (n. xxvii. 9) — "Con sciousness," as he subsequently adds, including un der it "a present representation of a past action" (n. xxvii. 13). But Consciousness is not only the Chronological Condition of the development of the Judgment. All self-regard is centred in hap piness and misery, and all happiness and misery are centred in Consciousness. — What becomes of " any Substance not joined to or affected with our Con sciousness" is a matter of the most complete indiffe rence (11. xxvii. 17, 18). In this sense, therefore, our Personal Identity may be said to " consist" in Con sciousness — Consciousness, by a third deviation of meaning, being employed by Locke to designate the continuity of correlated Consciousnesses (n. xxvii. 25). But this is not all. For the best refutation of Locke's theory of Personal Identity Sir William Hamilton refers us to M. Cousin (Reid, p. 351) — it

REAL EXISTENCE. 141

is to M. Cousin I would refer for its best elucidation and defence. In his Introduction to the Gorgias of Plato, the French Philosopher discovers the " Princi ple of Penality " in the fact that the unjust man thinks, and cannot but think, that he is undeserving. " That which declares and measures the Moral Imputability of Actions," he says in his Lectures on Locke, " is the Consciousness of the free will that has produced them" (p. 139) — "the Consciousness of Merit and Demerit is the condition of all Reward and Punish ment" (p. 191). Expressed in other language, these are the very views of Locke. " Person," he says, " is a forensic term, appropriating actions and their merit" (n. xxvii. 26). The Consciousness in the continuity of which he makes Personal Identity con sist is the " Consciousness which draws Eeward and Punishment with it" (n xxvii. 13). It is in sup port of this view that he appeals both to the Com mon Sense of Mankind, and to the Justice of God. " Human Laws," he says, " do not punish the mad man for the sober man's actions, nor the sober man for what the madman did" (n. xxvii. 20). " Sup posing a man punished i/ow for what he had done in another life, whereof he could be made to have no Consciousness at all, what difference is there," he asks, " between that punishment and being created miserable" (§ 26)? Nay, in this matter Locke does not hesitate to appeal to Revelation itself. " Con formable to this," he says, " the Apostle tells us that at the great day, when everyone shall ' receive accord-

142 REAL EXISTENCE.

ing to his doings, the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open.' The sentence shall be justified by the Con sciousness all persons shall have that they themselves, in what bodies soever they appear, or what substance soever that Consciousness adheres to, are the same that committed those actions, and deserve that pun ishment for them" (Ibid.).

Locke's theory of Personal Identity is thus the theory, not, as Brown would say, of our Mental, but of our Moral Identity. M. Cousin denounces it as the annihilation of all Moral Responsibility ; it is in connexion with our Moral Responsibility that its truth is most conspicuously clear. Moral Respon sibility is no longer the mere creature of a Meta physical dogma. If, as Locke believes, the soul throughout the term of its existence be one indivi dual immaterial substance, then Identity of Sub stance arid Identity of Person are coincident and one. But even if, as the Materialist asserts, the substance of the soul be subjected to fluctuations as incessant as the substance of the body — even if atom after atom and essence after essence should disappear in the running stream of change — yet if Consciousness continue, none of the constituents of our Moral Agency are necessarily lost. In the Moral world, as Conscience is the only judge, so Conscious ness is the only witness. Before the august tribunal of the God within, the metaphysical subtilties of Substance and Essence are never raised. It is not upon these that Virtue builds her security, her exul-

REAL EXISTENCE. 143

tation, or her hope. It is not in these that Vice seeks refuge from the agonies of regret, repentance, and remorse. The Consciousness of good or ill desert is the condition of Moral Retribution ; the Conscious ness of happiness or misery is the essence of Reward and Punishment. All the elements of our Persona lity thus gather around Consciousness ; and it is in Consciousness, therefore, that Locke has centred the Moral Identity of Man.

Such is Locke's doctrine with reference to the World ; such is his doctrine with reference to the Soul. What is the decision of his Philosophy with reference to GOD ? " The Theodicy of Locke," says M. Cousin, " in rejecting the argument a priori, and in employing by preference the argument a poste riori, still retains and develops the fundamental character of his system" (p. 375). But here there is a twofold error. In the first place, Locke does not reject the a priori argument. " Our Idea of a most Perfect Being," he says, " is not the sole proof of a God" (iv. x. 7). Neither in the second place is the argument which he adopts in preference the argument which is commonly designated a posteriori. Divested of the mystical speculations which would identify the Deity with Space, Locke's argument is in reality the argument of Clarke. Like Clarke, he postulates o-ur Personal Existence, and by means of the Principle of Causality attains to the conception of a Primeval Cause ; like Clarke, he postulates our Personal Intelligence, and by the aid of the Principle

144 REAL EXISTENCE.

of the Complement of Effects, arrives at the know ledge of a Primeval Mind (iv. x. 3, 5). It is true Locke's Theodicy retains and develops the funda mental character of his Philosophy. But the fun- damental character of that Philosophy is not the eduction of knowledge from Experience — it is the deduction of knowledge from Intuition. It is on the principles of "Intuitive Certainty" — it is by an appeal to the " necessary" development of the Laws of Thought — it is on the authority of our Rational Faculties that he repudiates both the Atheistic Ma terialism of the disciple of Hobbes and the Pan theistic Materialism of the disciple of Spinoza (iv. x. 1-19). The manner in which we frame the Idea of God, when, by the aid of the " Principles of Reason," we have arrived at a knowledge of his Existence, is purely Kantian. We combine all the various perfections which our Experience enables us to conceive, enlarge them with the Idea of Infinity, and then objectify the Concept (n. xxiii. 33-35). Nor in the formation of this " Ideal" are the Moral Attributes omitted. " Locke's theory," says M.

Cousin, " tends to make God an Arbitrary King

to substitute in God will and power for reason and wisdom. It is a Theodicy of the Senses, not of the Reason — made for slaves and brute beasts, not for beings intelligent and free" (p. 195). But here again M. Cousin's charge is based on a mutilation of Locke's expressions. Locke does not assert, as M. Cousin says he asserts, that " the punishments

REAL EXISTENCE. 145

and rewards of another life are the sole touchstone, the sole measure of the rectitude of our actions" (p. 194) ; he asserts that " the only true touchstone of moral rectitude" is, " whether, as Sins and Duties, our actions are like to procure us happiness or mi sery from the hands of the Almighty" (n. xxviii. 8). If Locke proclaims the duty of a passive obedience to Heaven, it is not by a reference to a brute omni potence of force. If God has imposed a law which we are called upon implicitly to obey, " He has a right to do it ; we are His creatures. He has goodness and wisdom to direct our actions to that which is best11 (Ibid.) So far, indeed, is Locke from regarding the Divine Will as the fountain of the Moral Law, that he regards the Moral Law as the regulative principle of the Divine Will. " If," he says, " it were fit for such poor finite creatures as we are to pronounce what Infinite Wisdom and Goodness could do, I think we might say that God himself cannot choose what is not good. The Freedom of the Almighty hinders not his being determined by what is best" (u. xxi. 49). Locke, therefore, is neither the disciple of Democritus nor the follower of Ockham. In the great Polity of Worlds he pro claims neither an Anarchy of Chance nor an Au tocracy of Arbitrary Will. He regards it as the Free . Monarchy of God. God, in his view, is not an Ar- \ bitrary King, nor is Man the slave of Omnipotence. '.' Even the divine prerogative is limited by the Moral Law; the Moral Law is the charter of the rights and liberties of the universe.

VIII.

FREEDOM AND THE MOKAL LAW.

" I OWN freely to you the weakness of my Under- standing," says Locke in one of his letters to Moly- neux, " that though it be unquestionable that there is Omnipotence and Omniscience in God our Maker, and though I cannot have a clearer perception of anything than that I am free ; yet I cannot make Freedom in Man consistent with Omnipotence and Omniscience in God, though I am as fully persuaded of both as of any truth I most firmly assent to ; and, therefore, I have long since given off the considera tion of that question ; resolving all into this short conclusion, that if it be possible for God to make a Free Agent, then Man is free, though I see not the way of it."

Locke, then, is professedly a believer in the Free dom of the Human Will. In the Essay, it is true, he asserts that " Liberty belongs not to the Will" (n. xxi. 14). But the contradiction is merely ver bal. " I think the question is not proper," he says, " whether the Will be free, but whether a Man be free" (n. xxi. 21). Locke, therefore, does not, as M. Cousin asserts, destroy the question of Liberty ;

FREEDOM AND THE MORAL LAW. 147

does he, as M. Cousin asserts, destroy Liberty itself? All depends on the sense in which he attributes Liberty to Man.

In the first place, then, is Locke's Liberty the Liberty of Spontaneity — the Liberty of acting as we will, the Will being predetermined to act by the ope ration of certain motives ? In this case Liberty is a mere Liberty in words —

" Free-will is but Necessity in play, The clattering of the golden reins which guide The thunder-footed coursers of the Sun."

Such a Liberty is so far from being incompatible with Omniscience, that its effects could be mathe matically calculated by athe Eternal Geometer," and had such been Locke's notion of Liberty, his difficulty would have had no existence. Is Locke's Liberty, then, the Liberty of Indifference — a Liberty indepen dent on any motive and antecedent to any determi nation of the Understanding — a Liberty of which the expression is an irrational sic volo, and in which stat pro ratione voluntas ? In that case Liberty is but a synonym for Caprice, and Man escapes being the Slave of Necessity only to become the Sport of Chance. Locke rejects such a notion with disdain. " To place Liberty in an IndiiFerency antecedent to the thought and judgment of the Understanding," he says, " seems to me to place Liberty in a state of darkness" (u. xxi. 71). What, then, is Locke's Liberty the Liberty of Self-determination ? Is it a

L 2

148 FREEDOM AND THE MORAL LAW.

liberty which leaves man as free to will as he is free to act ? " In all proposals of present action," says Locke, " a man is not at liberty to will or not be cause he cannot forbear willing" (n. xxi. 24). In other words, we must either will to act or we must will riot to act ; " not to resolve," as Bacon says, " is to resolve ;" the Will cannot remain passive ; we cannot choose but will. But what of the selection of the alternative ? Does man possess the power to will his will in this ? " In that case," says Locke, " we must suppose one Will to determine the acts of another, and another to determine that ; and so on, in infinitum" (n. xxi. 25). Locke's Liberty, there fore, would seem to be neither the Liberty of Spon taneity, nor the Liberty of Indifference, nor the Liberty of Self-determination. What, then, is this Liberty of Locke's? It is the Liberty of Self -sus pense.

To understand the meaning of this phrase we must give Locke's answers to a variety of queries. " What is it that determines the Will ?" According to Locke, " the true and proper answer is, the Mind" (n. xxi. 29). "What is it that determines the Mind ?" Locke tells us it is " the uneasiness of De sire" (n. xxi. 33). What is it that moves Desire ? Locke's answer is " Happiness, and that alone " (n. xxi. 41). But Happiness, according to Locke, may be either true or false. Our Pleasures and Pains are sometimes found in competition. In the rational pursuit of our well-being it is frequently

FREEDOM AND THE MORAL LAW. 149

wise to sacrifice the gratification of the moment to the Happiness on the whole. This is true of the present life, and a fortiori with reference to the future,, Here, then, the Seat of Liberty is placed by Locke. The Mind possesses " a power to suspend the execution and satisfaction of any of its desires ;" it is " at liberty to consider the objects of them, examine them on all sides, and weigh them with others" (n. xxi. 47). All that follows is moral ne cessity. " It is not a fault but a perfection of our nature to desire, will, and act according to the last result of a fair examination" (Ibid.) All " Liberty lies in this, that men can suspend their desires and stop them from determining their wills to any ac tion, till they have duly arid fairly examined the good and evil of it, as far forth as the weight of the thing requires" (n. xxi. 52). Such is the theory of Locke.

But this theory of Locke involves a latent para dox. " Till we are as much informed upon this in quiry as the weight of the matter and the nature of the case demands," says Locke, u we are, by the ne cessity of preferring and pursuing true happiness as our greatest good, obliged to suspend the satisfaction of our desire in particular cases" (n. xxi. 51) ; in other words, to quote the heading of the paragraph from which this passage is extracted, " the necessity of pursuing true happiness is the foundation of all Liberty.'" Locke's Liberty, therefore, in words at least, glides down the slope of Motives into the

150 FREEDOM AND THE MORAL LAW.

chasm of Necessity. But is this result entailed by the exigencies of Locke's Theory ? It is. How, in fact, can the Mind be determined to the act of Self- suspense ? By the operation of a definite motive ? The Liberty of Self-suspense becomes at once trans muted into the Liberty of Spontaneity. By the operation of no motive ? The Liberty of Self-sus pense becomes either the Liberty of Indifference on the one hand, or the Liberty of Self-determination on the other. The Problem of Liberty remains unsolved by Locke.

The Metaphysical Problem, indeed, is insoluble by the faculties of man. The question agitated by the Lost Spirits on the " hill retired" has been agi tated by Philosophers for three thousand years, and all in vain. We may reason high —

" Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Fate and Will, Fixed Fate, Free will, Foreknowledge Absolute ;"

but Reason now, as heretofore, can "find no end." It is in vain that Thought alights on that Hadean Hill. Still, as of old, it is condemned to roam " in wandering mazes lost." Its subtlest speculations are still —

''Vain Wisdom all and false Philosophy."

But is there no Practical Solution of the Meta physical Problem? no solution in which the Com mon Sense of Mankind can acquiesce ? The only question which can be philosophically stated on the subject of Free-will, according to Mr. Stewart, is the

FREEDOM AND THE MORAL LAW. 151

question of the matter of fact, as ascertained by the deliverance of Consciousness. But Conscious ness is as unable to untie this Gordian knot as the Speculative Eeason. Libertarian and Necessita rian alike appeal to its deliverance. The oracle gives but an ambiguous response. If determinable by any mortal faculty, the question is to be deter mined, not by Consciousness, but by Conscience. " "We ought, therefore we can," — such was the sub lime enthymeme of Kant, the " Cogito ergo sum" of Morals. But this escape from the jaws of Neces sity was impossible to Locke. What, in fact, was the sole Obligation which he conceded to Mora lity ? — The Obligation to consult for one's own indi vidual Happiness. The Desire of Happiness was the sole principle of Action which he recognised. It is true, he admitted that Virtue might itself be a source of Happiness. But what if a man found his Happiness in Vice? "A man may justly incur punishment," says Locke, "though it be certain that in all the particular actions that he wills, he does, and necessarily does, will that which he then judges to be good" (n. xxi. 56); and why ?— "He has imposed on himself wrong measures of good and evil;" — "he has vitiated his own palate ;"- "he had a power to suspend his determination" (n. xxi. 59). But by what is this suspense of determination to be determined? The Desire of Happiness is the sole possible motive, and Self-sus pense, therefore, is the mere offspring of Self-love.

152 FREEDOM AND THE MORAL LAW.

What Moral Responsibility can consist with such a theory ? Given the strength of a man's Self-love, and the circumstances in which he is placed, his conduct is a matter of calculation. The Metaphy sical difficulty subsists — the Practical solution is impossible. If Happiness be the sole motive, Moral Responsibility is a mere figment — if Moral Re sponsibility be a figment, Moral Freedom is a gratuitous hypothesis.

But on what grounds are we justified in pro claiming that the Desire of Happiness is the exclu sive principle of Action? It is true that a man must act either to escape an Inconvenience, or to procure a Pleasure, or to promote an Interest, or to discharge a Duty. Everything else is the result of blind Instinct, and scarcely deserves the name of Action. But what right have we to assert that Duty can only be performed from a Desire of Hap piness ? Dependent on an inevitable Desire, it ceases to be Duty. That " Reason is not a sufficient mo tive to Action in such a creature as Man," we may readily acknowledge with Butler ; but to assert with Sir James Mackintosh and Hume that " Reason as Reason can never be a motive to action," is to assert that Man cannot act because he ought, and that God cannot act at all. The fact of the case is, that the Rational Conception of Right is of itself sufficient to determine the will of a Rational crea ture in a case where his own Happiness is altogether unconcerned. That Man is under an Obligation to

FREEDOM AND THE MORAL LAW. 153

secure his own Happiness is certain ; but it is equally certain that he is under an Obligation to act aright. What should be the course of conduct if these two Obligations came into collision, is another matter. The Master of Moral Science has not hesi tated to concede " that our Ideas of Happiness and Misery are of all our Ideas the nearest and most important to us ; and that they will, nay, if you please, that they ought, to prevail over those of Order, and Beauty, and Harmony, and Proportion, if there ever should be, as it is impossible there ever should be, any inconsistency between them ; though these last two, as expressing the Fitness of Actions, are real as Truth itself. Let it be allowed," he con tinues, " though Virtue or Moral Rectitude does indeed consist in affection to and pursuit of what is Right and Good as such ; yet, that when we sit down in a cool hour, we can neither justify to our selves this or any other pursuit, till we are convinced that it will be for our Happiness, or, at least, not contrary to it." The harmony between Duty and Happiness being thus established by the hypothesis of a Moral Government, it is evident a man may perform his Duty, not because it is his Happiness, but because it is his Duty.* Here, then, if any-

* Comp. Aristotle : — H/I^V Se KOI TjSovrjv /cat vow icai traaav ape-r^v aipovfieOa fiev /cat Si avrd (fiajOevot <yap airofiaivovrov e\olfJL€0" av CKaa-rov avwv), alpo^^eOa Se /cat T^S evcatpovias X«V»«"»

Sia rovrwv viroXa/Jipdvovres evdaifjiov^aeif (EtJl. NtC., I. V, 5.

Ed. Bek.)

154 FREEDOM AND THE MORAL LAW.

where, both Freedom and Disinterestedness are possible. Whatever is done from blind Impulse is Automatism rather than Action. Whatever is done from motives oi Happiness, — whether it be Indolentia, Pleasure, or Interest, — can be calcu lated with Mathematical precision. An action done from a regard to Duty is the sole disinter ested action, — it is the sole action that can with any propriety be denominated free. Here, then, we discover the great oversight of Locke. That the Will should be determined by the Judgment is conceded by the most cautious advocates of Free dom. " There is a Moral Fitness or Unfitness oi Actions," says Butler, " which I apprehend as cer tainly to determine the Divine conduct, as Specula tive Truth and Falsehood necessarily determine the Divine judgment." The sufficiency of this Concep tion of Moral Fitness to determine the Will to Action was what Locke failed to see. It is this that constitutes the great blemish in his Moral Doc- trine, the great defect in his solution of the Prob lem of the Will. Hence it was that he unconsciously allowed himself to be seduced into the Morality of Self; hence it was that, counter to his own inten tion, he was precipitated into the Metaphysics of Fate. But if Locke's doctrine be erroneous with regard to the Obligation of Morality, if he failed to give the true answer to the question — "Why should Morality be made the guide of Action, and the rule of Life"? there is a point, scarcely less irnpor-

FREEDOM AND THE MORAL LAW. 155

tant, in which his doctrine is liable to no exception. Condemning Locke to educe all our Ideas from Sensation and Reflection, M. Cousin considers him necessitated to refer the existence of our Moral Ideas to Sensation. But even on this narrow view of his Philosophy, Locke was not reduced to the necessity imposed upon him by his critic. Even if he had ignored the existence of Reason, he might consistently have referred our Moral Ideas to Re flection. That there is in man a susceptibility to the pleasures of Virtue, that there is, therefore, in man a Moral Sense, — whether original or acquired it matters not, — Locke repeatedly asserts (n. xxi. 69). Why then might he not, consistently with his own theory, have reckoned our Moral Sentiments among those "Satisfactions or Uneasinesses arising from any thought," of which, by the fundamental principle of his Philosophy, it is the function of Reflection to take cognisance? (n. i. 4). Why might he not have acquiesced in the conclusion which satisfied the moral convictions of Shaftesbury, of Hutche- son, of Hume? But Locke took his stand upon a loftier ground than this. He considered the great Concepts of Morality as no mere modification of Sense, no accident relative merely to the constitu tion of Humanity. On the contrary, he reckoned them among the " Relations" which he regarded as revealed by Reason, as essential to Thought, as independent even of the power of the Deity him self. Here Locke not only acquiesced in the con-

156 FREEDOM AND THE MORAL LAW.

elusions, he reproduced the very language of Cudworth and of Clarke. With the Disciple of Plato, he recognised the " Archetypal Ideas" which pre-existed in the Eternal Mind. With the Scholar of Newton, he recognised the " Immutable Rela tions" which are invested with the Eternity of God. / Hence it was that he held Moral Science to be sus- / ceptible of Demonstration. Hence it was that he I regarded Morality as based on the foundations of / the Mathematics. Locke reduce all Morality to Education and Opinion! Locke denaturalise and corrupt Virtue ! M. Cousin might as well have pre ferred the charge against Socrates or Kant. Lowde, 150 years ago, preferred the same charge, and see with what calm dignity the great Englishman protests against its injustice : — " If he had been at the pains to reflect on what I have said, he would have known what I think of the Eternal and Unalterable Nature of Right and Wrong, and what / call Virtue and Vice ; and if he had observed in the place he quotes, I only report as matter of fact what others call Virtue and Vice, he would not have found it liable to any great exception" (n. xxviii. Note). No : it was not with regard to the Reality of Moral Dis tinctions, it was not with reference to the Fa culty by which those distinctions are conceived, that Locke was wrong. It was with reference to the Obligation of Morality, — it was with reference to the legitimate influence of Moral Ideas on the Will.

FREEDOM AND THE MORAL LAW. 157

A third question, and the analysis of Locke's Moral Doctrine is complete. We have considered the question of the Obligation, and the question of the Principle of Morality ; the question of the Cri terion remains. In what does Morality consist, according to Locke ? What are the Chronological Conditions of the development of our Moral Ideas ? What is the Standard of Moral Right and Wrong ? " Divine Law," says Locke, " is the measure of Sin and Duty" (n. xxviii. 8) ; and he has been identified with Ockham and those who reduce all Morality to the arbitrary edict of the Deity. " Civil Law," says Locke, " is the measure of Crimes and Innocence" (ii. xxviii. 9) ; and has been identified with Hobbes and those who refer Moral Distinctions to the ap pointment of the Leviathan. " Philosophical Law," says Locke, " is the Measure of Virtue and Vice" (n. xxviii. 10) ; and he has been identified with Helvetius and the Sciolists who reduce Virtue and Vice to the mere accident of Fashion. Locke, in short, is explaining the application of a class of words, and his critics have regarded him as dis cussing a question concerning the reality of things. But the falsehood of these inferences is demon strated by what has been already said. If Locke holds the will of God to be " determined by what is best" (n. xxi. 49), he acknowledges a Morality inde pendent of the will of God. If he acknowledges the existence of a Light " which it is impossible for the breath or power of man to extinguish" (iv. iii. 20),

158 FREEDOM AND THE MOKAL LAW.

he acknowledges a Morality independent of the will of Man. If he enumerates our Moral Ideas among the Immutable Relations which Reason, whether Finite or Infinite, must necessarily con ceive (iv. iii. 29), he acknowledges a Morality inde pendent of Fashion, and Immutable as Mind itself. Whether Locke would have held the welfare of the universe to be the sole object of Morality — whether he would have regarded a perception of Consequences as the chronological condition of the Moral Concept, it is needless to inquire. Locke has not professedly discussed the question. Intima tions of his opinion on this matter are, doubtless, to be detected in the Essay, and such as they are, they point in the direction of Eudgemonism. But far above the domain of mere Happiness, Locke re cognises the existence of Conceptions of a higher order. He recognises the existence of a Rational Conception of Right, whatever the occasion of its development. He recognises the existence of a Rational Conception of Duty, formed on the occasion of the Conception of Right. He recognises the Rational Conception of Merit and Demerit, founded on the occasion of the performance or non-perfor mance of Duty. Here, then, is the great glory of the Moral Philosophy of Locke. On the question of Obligation he is erroneous — the question of the Criterion he has overlooked ; but on the question of the Reality of Moral Distinctions, and the nature of the Faculty by which they are conceived, Locke

FREEDOM AND THE MORAL LAW. 159

takes his stand upon the very summit of Moral Science. There, with the Stoic of old, he recognizes the existence of the Lex Vera in the " Right Reason, congruent to Nature, diffused through all, constant, everlasting." There, with the Greek Tragic Poet, he does homage to " those sublime Laws which have their original in Heaven, of which God is the foun tain ; neither did the mortal nature of Man produce them, nor shall Oblivion ever lull them into sleep."*

* Sophocles, (Edipus Tyrannus, 1. 865, et seq.

With regard to Locke's opinion that Moral Science is suscep tible of Mathematical Demonstration, there is one remark which I wish to make. Whatever may become of the question, whether all Morality may be resolved into an effort to promote the general Happiness, it is evident that Happiness occupies an important position in Moral Science. Benevolence is an affection to the Happiness of others ; Prudence, an affection to our own. A being insensible to Pleasure or Pain could suffer no Injustice ; and even the foundation of Piety itself is to be discovered in the fact that God is the source of the Happiness of the universe. In any case, we must determine in what the Happiness of any given being consists, before we can determine either the Rights which he enjoys, or the Duties of which he is the object. Moral Science, therefore, is to be compared to Mathematical Physics rather than to Mathematics. Eight, Duty, and Desert are the Mathematical Conceptions to be employed in the solution of the Problem of Morals — Happiness is a Physical Element which intervenes, and destroys the purely Mathematical character of the Problem.

IX.

LOCKE, HUME, AND KANT.

THE preceding analysis of Locke's Philosophy has either effected nothing, or it has shown that for a century and a half that Philosophy has not only been misinterpreted, but interpreted by opposites. But an error in the Criticism entails an error in the History of Philosophy ; and to complete the task which I have undertaken, I proceed to determine the relation in which Locke stands to his successors, and the position which he is entitled to hold in the development of modern Thought. The character of the conclusion at which I shall arrive may be rea dily foreseen. Warburton remarks, as a charac teristic of the controversies of his own times, a strange propensity in the Clergy to mistake their friends for their enemies, and as strange a propen sity in the Freethinkers to mistake their enemies for their friends. The remark of the great Theolo gian typifies the fate of the great Philosopher. He has been canonized by the Schools whose principles he devoted his energies to subvert ; he has been anathematized by the Schools whose doctrine it was the great object of his Philosophy to enforce.

LOCKE, HUME, AND KANT. 161

Locke's relation to the School of CONDILLAC may be easily determined. " The Essay concerning Hu man Understanding," says M. Cousin, " contained the germ of the theory of Transformed Sensation" (Locke, p. 99). "The doctrine of Condillac," says Sir William Hamilton, " was, if not a corruption, a development of the doctrine of Locke" (Disc. p. 3). But the injustice of this criticism is self-evident. Confounding our Ideas of Operation with the Ideas operated upon, the theory of Transformed Sensation ignores the existence of Locke's Ideas of Reflection; confounding our Ideas of Relation with the Ideas related, it ignores the existence of the a priori Ideas which Locke regarded as " the creatures or inven tions of the Understanding." Add to this, that in restricting the elements of thought to Sensations, it ignores the existence of the a priori Ideas which Locke regarded as " suggested to the Understanding" by the isolated data of Sense.

But the error which has peculiarly vitiated the History of Philosophy is not so much the identifica tion of Locke with Condillac, as the identification of Locke with HUME. " As a legitimate Sceptic," says Sir William Hamilton, " Hume could not assail the foundations of knowledge in themselves ; his pre mises, not established by himself, are accepted only as principles universally conceded in the previous Schools of Philosophy" (Disc., p. 87)— conceded by the " Sensualism of Locke" (Disc., p. 616). Such also is the verdict of Reid and Kant, of Stewart,

M

162 LOCKE, HUME, AND KANT.

Tenneman, and Cousin, in fact, of every historian of Philosophy — all have regarded Hume's system as the logical development of that of Locke. But with what gratuitous injustice let any dispassionate Philosopher decide. While the Intellectualist re garded the Materials of Knowledge as constituted not only by the Ideas which Sensation and Reflection immediately " furnish," but by the Ideas which the data of Sense immediately " suggest," — the Sceptic dogmatically restricts the Materials of Knowledge to the Ideas furnished by Outward and Inward Sen timent (Enquiry* sect, ii.) While the Intellec tualist concedes to the Understanding not only the function of " combining" the isolated data of Expe rience, but the still higher function of " comparing" its original Ideas and developing a new class of Ideas on the occasion of the " comparison," — the Sceptic dogmatically maintains that " the creative power of the Mind amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminish ing the materials afforded us by the Senses and Ex perience" (sect, ii.) While the Intellectualist com-

* In obedience to Hume's demand, in determining his philo sophical sentiments I refer not to his Treatise of Human Nature, but to the second volume of his Essays. " Several writers who have honoured the Author's Philosophy with answers," says Hume, in his advertisement to the latter, ' ' have taken care to direct all their batteries against that juvenile work which the Author never acknowledged. Henceforth the Author desires that the following pieces may alone be regarded as containing his philosophical sentiments and principles."

163

prehends under our "Intuitive Knowledge" not merely the Mathematical Relations of Quantity and Number, but the Metaphysical Relations of Sub stance and Causation, together with the Moral Rela tions of Right and Wrong, — the Sceptic dogmati cally restricts all Intuitive Knowledge to the domain of Mathematics (sect. iv. part 1 ; sect. xii. part 3).* To see the true correlation which exists between the two Philosophers, we have only to turn to the great problem which the Dogmatic Sceptic proposed to "the Lockian Sensualism" (Disc., p. 616). Ac cording to Hume, " Mr. Locke, in his chapter of Power, says that, finding from Experience that there are several new productions in Matter, and con cluding there must somewhere be a Power capable of producing them, we arrive at last by this reason ing at the Idea of Power. But no reasoning can give us a new, original, Simple Idea, as this Philo sopher himself confesses. This, therefore, can never be the origin of that Idea" (sect, vii., part 1, Note). Here it is evident the Scepticism of Hume is affili ated upon " the Sensualism of Locke" by a mere accident of nomenclature. According to Locke,

* Cf. Cousin's Kant, pp. 62, 63 : — "Kant remarque que si Hume au lieu de s'en tenir au principe de causalite, eut examine tous les autres principes necessaires, il aurait peut-etre recule devant

les consequences rigoreuses de son opinion II aurait du

rejeter tout jugement synthetique a priori c'est-a-dire les mathe- matiques pures et la haute physique, consequence extreme qui peut- etre aurait retenue cet excellent esprit sur la pcnte du Scepticisme.' '

M2

164 LOCKE, HUME, AND KANT.

the Idea of Power is not a " Simple Idea" — it is a Complex though uncompounded Idea of Relation, and as a Complex Idea it is by the fundamental distinction of his system " the creature or invention of the Understanding." It is true that Locke occa sionally denominates the Idea of Power a Simple Idea, but, as if to obviate the very possibility of Hume's misconception, he tells us that he denomi nates it Simple merely "for brevity's sake," and " in a looser sense," since in reality it is "Complex" (n. xxi. 3 ; n. xxiii. 7).

The misconception thus commenced in the Idea of Cause is perpetuated in the Principle of Causa- tion. " It was, as far as I know," says Mr. Stewart, "first shown in a satisfactory manner by Mr. Hume, that 'every demonstration which has been produced for the necessity of a Cause to every new existence, is fallacious and sophistical.' In illustration of this assertion he examines three different arguments which have been alleged as proofs of the proposi tion in question ; the first by Mr. Hobbes, the se cond by Dr. Clarke, and the third by Mr. Locke. And I think it will now be readily acknowledged by every competent judge that his objections to all these pretended demonstrations are conclusive and unanswerable" (Diss., pp. 441, 442). But where is this pretended demonstration of • Locke's to be dis covered? Nowhere. Locke regards the Principle of Causality as " a Principle of Common Reason" (i. iv. 9), — as a portion of our "Intuitive Know-

LOCKE, HUME, AND KANT. 165

ledge" (iv. x. 1), — as a proposition, therefore, which " neither requires nor admits of proof" (iv. vii. 19). Locke maintains the doctrine by which the Scep tical conclusion of Hume was subsequently avoided. Locke agrees with Reid and Kant. What has Hume to object to this conclusion ? He did not see the alternative, says Mr. Stewart. On the con trary, Hume saw it, and refused to recognise it as the truth. In the Essays to which he appealed as the sole depository of his Philosophical opinions, strange to say, there is no trace of the problem with which his name has been so generally identified. He shows that we cannot determine, a priori, by what Effect a given Cause will be attended (sect, iv.) ; he accounts for our belief in the Uniformity of the operation of natural Causes by "a species of natural instinct," " a mechanical tendency of thought," " a kind of pre-established harmony between the course of nature and the succession of our Ideas" (sect, v.); on his own exclusive principles of Empiricism he dogmatically denies the existence of any Idea of Causation, and merges it in the Idea of Antecedence (sect, vii.);* but to the Principle which proclaims that whatever begins to be must have an efficient

* On this subject I cannot refrain from pointing out the paro- logistic nature of Hume's argument. "When we analyze our Thoughts or Ideas, however compounded or sublime," he says, " we always find that they resolve themselves into such Simple Ideas as were copied from a precedent feeling or sentiment" (sect, ii.) You demur to this proposition. " There is one, and that an easy method of refuting it," says Hume, "by producing

166 LOCKE, HUME, AND KANT.

Cause of its being — to this Principle Hume never once alludes, except, indeed, when he endeavours by its aid to destroy our belief in the Freedom of the Human Will (sect. viii.). But though the problem is not proposed, Hume has clearly inti mated the principles upon which it should be solved. " All Intuitive Knowledge," he says, " is restricted to Quantity and Number" (sect. xii.). You de mand a reason. " All other inquiries of men," he says, "regard only matter of fact and existence, and these are evidently incapable of demonstration" (Ibid.). You are not yet satisfied. "No nega tion of a fact," he says, " can involve a contradic tion" (Ibid.). In vain you urge that a Change without a Cause is as much a contradiction of the Laws of Thought as a contradiction in terms. Hume has nothing to add. The matter is settled with the dixi of the Sage of Samos. And Nihilism is the result. Is Locke responsible for this Nihil ism ? Hume commences with a misconception of his doctrine, and ends with its positive reversal.

Hume, therefore, as it appears, was no legitimate Sceptic. His Nihilism was the illusion of an Intel lect that denied itself. He was the Dogmatist of

that Idea which, in your opinion, is not derived from that source" (Hid.}. You produce the Idea of Causation. " As we can have no Idea of anything," says Hume, " which never appeared to our outward sense or inward sentiment, the necessary conclusion seems to be, that we have no Idea of Connexion or Power at all" (sect. vii.). " Verum enim vero, quandoquidem, dubio procul." This is the very Logic of Master Janotus de Bragmardo.

LOCKE, HUME, AND KANT. 167

Doubt. But whatever the character of his Scepti cism, whether Sceptical or Dogmatic, whether Re- lative or Absolute, its effect upon the development of the Philosophy of Europe is beyond denial or dispute. Hume's Philosophy was the sowing of the dragon's teeth in the field of modern speculation ; his theory of Causation was the rock of Cadmus, the throwing of which was the signal of mutual war to the host of Metaphysicians that sprang from the ground, like the warriors in the Grecian legend. It was the Scepticism of Hume that roused the indig nant Common Sense of Reid ; it was the scepticism of Hume which roused into action the Speculative Reason of Kant. But, as I have already said, if the true Philosophy occasioned the false by the force of misconception, the reaction from the false Philo sophy only reproduced the true. Enounced by Reid, and systematized by Kant, the Intellectualism of modern Europe is merely a reproduction of the In tellectualism of Locke. Conceding more to the Common Sense of Mankind than Kant, conceding more to the Speculative Reason of the Philosopher . than Reid, Locke is in reality at one with the two Philosophers who have proclaimed themselves his; foes. Does any one reject this as a monstrous para dox ? Let us compare Locke with KANT.

If Locke asserts that " there appear not to be any Ideas in the Mind before the Senses have conveyed any in," and that " Ideas in the Understanding are coeval with Sensation," Kant asserts that " in respect

168 LOCKE, HUME, AND KANT.

of time, no knowledge of ours is antecedent to Ex perience, all knowledge commences with it." If Locke holds that it is Experience which " supplies our Understandings with all the Materials of Think ing," Kant holds that it is Experience which supplies the " Matter" as distinguished from the " Form" of Thought. If Locke contends that "External and Internal Sensation are the only passages of know ledge to the Understanding," Kant contends that External and Internal Sensibility supply the Under standing with the conditions of its development. If Locke declares that " Simple Ideas, the materials of all our knowledge, are suggested and furnished only by Sensation and Reflection," and that our " Ideas of Relation all terminate in and are concerned about those Simple Ideas, either of Sensation or Reflection, which are the whole materials of all our knowledge" (n. xxv. 9), Kant declares that all our "Intuitions" are furnished by the External Senses or the Internal Sense, and that " all Thought must, directly or in directly, by means of certain signs, relate ultimately to Intuitions." And in the same manner, if Kant views our Ideas of Sensible Objects as the product of the synthetic energies of the Understanding, it is as " collections" of the Understanding that our Ideas of Substances are viewed by Locke. If Kant regards Time and Space as native Forms of Sen sibility and pure Intuitions of Reason,* Locke

* Cousin and Sir William Hamilton object to Kant that he has attributed our a priori Knowledge and Ideas to three separate

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regards them as " Simple Modes" which the Under standing is not only prompted, but necessitated, to form on the contemplation of the data of Internal and External Sense. If, in addition to the Intuitions of Sense, Kant recognises certain Categories of the Understanding which Reason develops into Con cepts, Locke recognises the existence of certain "Ideas of Relation," which he regards as "super- added" to the data of Experience, and which he ex pressly denominates " the Creatures and Inventions of the Understanding." If Kant insists upon certain composite Conceptions which the Human Intellect is necessitated to form, and which he denominates the Ideas of the Reason, Locke also admits the existence of certain "Abstract Ideas" which he attributes to " the workmanship of the Understanding," and which he regards as " Archetypes" and " Forms." In the Theory of Knowledge the unanimity of the two Phi losophers is as conspicuous as in the Origin and Ge nesis of Ideas. If Kant divides all knowledge into A posteriori and A priori, the distinction between Ex perimental knowledge and knowledge supplied by Reason is fundamental in the Logical analysis of

Faculties. But the title of Kant's great work, the " Kritik of the Pure Reason," seems to demonstrate this to be a misconception. It is true, Kant speaks of the Forms of Sensibility, the Categories of the Understanding, and the Ideas of Reason, — but Forms, Cate gories, and Ideas he regards merely as Laws of development. The Intuitions, Concepts, and Ideas Proper that result are all alike the product of Pure Intellect.

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Locke. If Kant regards all knowledge as either Analytic or Synthetic, A priori or A posteriori, Locke makes the distinction of knowledge with reference to Identity, Relation, and Co-existence, the basis of his Theory of Cognition. Finally, if Kant regards all Scientific Knowledge as a development of the Laws of Intellect, it is in the Faculty of Intellectual In tuition that the foundation of all Rational Certainty is laid by Locke.

Nor is this coincidence the result of accident. The two systems were not merely coincident in doctrine, they were coincident in the history of their evolution. Struck with the diversities of opinion that characterized the speculations of preceding Phi losophers, the German was led to investigate the cause. Struck with the same spectacle of the various and contradictory opinions by which mankind are influenced, the Englishman was led to institute the same inquiry. Like Kant, he arrived at the conclu sion, that " the first step towards satisfying the va rious inquiries into which the mind of man was apt to run, wras to take a Survey of our own Understand ing, and ascertain its Powers" (i. i. 7). Like Kant, he saw that we built upon " floating and uncertain principles," till we had examined our Primary and Original Notions, and determined their " necessary connexions and dependencies" (n. xiii. 28). Thus, at the very outset of their Metaphysical Speculations are the two Philosophers agreed. The Preliminary Condition, the Propaedeutic, of the Science, according

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to both, is an Analysis of the Laws of Thought. In the fundamental conception of Metaphysical Method, Locke is the prototype of Kant, and the Essay con cerning Human Understanding is in reality an earlier Kritik of the Reason.

The common object of Locke and Kant was to de monstrate that all Rational Certainty is an empiri cally determined evolution of the Laws of Reason. The System of each was a fabric of Intellectualism reared upon an Empiric basis. Each, to employ the metaphor of Bacon, celebrated the Metaphysical es pousals of Reason and Experience. But the deve lopment of every Philosophy is modified not only by the Spirit of the Philosopher but by the Spirit of the Age ; and while Kant recoiled from the ex clusive Sensualism of Condillac and Hume, Locke recoiled from the exclusive Intellectualism of the Schoolman and the Cartesian. Hence it happened that Kant was more peculiarly the Analyst of Intellect, Locke more peculiarly the Analyst of Sense ; the Logical Element predominated in one, the ^Esthetic Element in the other. And this dif ferent bias is apparent at every step in the progress of the two Philosophers. Both agreed in the repu diation of Innate Ideas, and in the recognition of Innate Forms of Thought ; but while Kant was eager to determine the Forms of Thought, Locke was anxious to dispel the illusion of Innate Ideas. Both recognised the Origin of Ideas in Sense, and the Ge nesis of Ideas by the Understanding ; but while Kant

172 LOCKE, HUME, AND KANT.

devoted himself to the question of the Genesis, Locke threw his whole force into the question of the Origin. Both saw that there are two species of Knowledge, — the one Universal, and the product of Reason ; the other, Particular, and the Educt from Experience ; but while Kant was constantly proclaiming that our Rational Knowledge could not possibly be educed from Experience, Locke was constantly proclaiming with equal emphasis, that our Experimental Know ledge could not possibly be the product of Reason.

Starting from the same point, and journeying for awhile in the same direction, the two Philosophers, however, at length diverged. The point of diverg ence was with reference to the nature of Experience. According to Locke, our Experimental Knowledge was the result of a species of pre-established har mony. The World was invested with an actual existence on the one hand, and the Mind was prede termined to believe in its existence on the other (u. xxxi. 2). The various natural Causes operated uniformly in the production of their effects, and the Mind was predetermined to anticipate the uni formity (ii. xxi. 1). Experience, in short, was the result of the correspondence between the external reality and thought. But Locke's successors aban doned his position. While Hume, though inconsis tently, held that the Forms of Thought are deter mined by the Facts of Experience, Kant, on the contrary held that the Facts of Experience are de termined by the Laws of Thought. It was on the

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establishment of this principle, indeed, that Kant's Metaphysical System rests ; it was here that he diverged not only from Locke, but from the Intel- lectualists in general.* So far is the Rational Idea of Space from being given by Experience, that it is the condition of the possibility of Experience, — such was the Kantian Formula, so celebrated in the re cent history of thought. Whether Kant held that Space was nothing but a Form of Sensibility, may be doubted. It is inconceivable that so consecutive and acute a thinker should have denied the possibility of a knowledge of the Objective, and yet dogmatically have affirmed the objective non-existence of what, even on his own admission, possesses an Empiric reality, that is, a reality relative to our Experience. However this may be, the sentiments of Kant were far from being the sentiments of Locke. The Spirit of the Critical Philosophy pronounced its inexorable

* It was with reference to this procedure that Kant compared the revolution he effected in Metaphy sics to the revolution effected by Copernicus in Astronomy. According to M. Cousin, Kant, instead of making Man revolve around Objects, made Objects re volve around Man, just as Copernicus, instead of making the Sun revolve around the Earth, made the Earth revolve around the Sun (Kant, p. 40), But Kant's comparison will not bear this exacti tude of parallel. If the Spectator be transported to the Sun, the heavenly body is not the object ; if, on the contrary, the Spectator remains upon the Earth, the object does not revolve around the subject. The true point of the comparison is this : — As the ex istence of certain motions in the Spectator makes the heavenly bodies appear to move, so the existence of certain Forms of Thought in Man makes certain so-called realities appear to exist.

174 LOCKE, HUME, AND KANT.

non liquet on every argument in favour of the Objec tive. But, to go no farther, Locke's very distinction between the Primary and the Secondary Qualities is based upon the counter supposition. A fortiori the English Philosopher asserted the Objective Rea lity of Space.

The Philosophy of Locke was distinguished from that of Kant by an Empiric bias. In one respect, however, the Philosophy of Kant was more Empiric than that of Locke. Whatever his views on the nature of Experience, Locke recognised existence beyond its verge. But while the Englishman made Rational Certainty coextensive with the domain of Thought, the German restricted Rational Certainty to the domain of Actual Experience. Here Kant is to be compared, not with Locke, but Hume. On all questions of Ontology, indeed, the speculative Scep ticism of the Critic of Reason was even more palpa ble, more all-pervading, than the dim shadow that dogged the footsteps of the Sophister of Sense. Ad mitting that we are necessitated to "cogitate" the great Ontologic Realities, the German Philosopher denied that we are able to " cognize" them ; our thought, he said, never could be verified. Within the sphere of Experience, Reason anticipates, and Experience confirms ; but what confirmation could the Anticipations of Reason admit when they tran scended the sphere of all possible Experience ? With regard to the World, the imagination was distracted on every side by counter inconceivabilities ; the

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Mind was divided against itself ; Antinomy was its very Law. The argument in favour of the Immate riality of the Soul was a mere begging of the ques tion — a Paralogism of Psychology ; the controversy on the subject was a Metaphysical top that was kept standing on its point merely by being involved in an everlasting whirl. Even God himself, in a Meta physical point of view, was a mere " Ideal." The do main of Experience, in fine, according to Kant, was an Enchanted Isle, from which the Understanding in vain attempted to escape, and all beyond was fog-bank and illusion. But Locke's Philosophy was animated by a more manly spirit. With that con fidence in Keason which constant contact with reality rarely fails to produce, he reverenced its dic tates as a Natural Eevelation. Whatever we are ne cessitated to think, that, in his opinion, we may be said to know. Hence it was that he proclaimed that we have a knowledge of the World of Matter, and the Abyss of Space. Hence he proclaimed that Matter is evidently in its own nature void of thought, and that, the rights of Omnipotence reserved, the Soul is therefore Immaterial. Hence he proclaimed that the existence of God is a fact impossible to be denied, impossible to be made a theme for more than mo mentary doubt. Like Kant, he held that the Soul is confined to the Isle of Consciousness ; like Kant, he protested against our " letting loose our thoughts into the vast Ocean of Being, as if that boundless extent were the natural possession of our Under-

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standings" (i. i. 7). But in Locke's system the Soul is not left upon a desert shore, a desolate Ariadne, abandoned to darkness and despair. The ocean sur rounds it, and the heavens stretch overhead. True, it can neither traverse the one, nor soar into the other. But its belief transcends the sphere of its Experience ; arid why should it gratuitously reject its own belief?

But while the Philosophy of Locke is thus advan tageously contrasted with that of Kant on the sub ject of the reality of knowledge, there is one point with respect to which the genius of the German reached a far higher elevation of thought than that of his illustrious rival. By no Philosopher, ancient or modern, has the Moral Law been invested with such majesty as by the great Critic. Other Philo sophers have recognised the eternal and immutable nature of Morality ; others have recognised the uni versal and unconditional obligation which the mere conception of Duty is sufficient to impose. But to the eye of Kant the light of the Moral Law not only illumed the Path of Life — it lit up the Abyss of Spe culation. It revealed the Freedom of the Will, the Immortality of the Soul, and the Existence of a God, The Metaphysical arguments by which the subtlest wits had for upwards of two thousand years con tended for and against these great realities, he com pared to the bootless encounters of the heroes in Valhalla. Each shadow mortally wounded its op posing shade ; but the wound closed, the combat was

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renewed, and each airy champion again wounded "the intrenchant air." The Moral Argument, on the con trary, Kant viewed as bidding defiance to dispute. We ought, therefore we can — such, for instance, was the sublime en thy m erne with which he demonstrated the Freedom of the Will. But far different was the case with Locke. The speculative perception of " the eternal and unalterable nature of Right and Wrong" it was the glory of his system to admit. He neither ignored the existence of these Concepts, with Hobbes, nor did he degrade them to mere Senti ments, with Hume ; still less did he represent them to be the offspring of Education and Fashion, with the licentious Moralists who insulted his memory by proclaiming themselves his followers. With Cud- worth and with Clarke, he placed our Moral Con cepts among those " Relations" so " visibly included in the nature of our Ideas that we cannot conceive them separable by any Power whatsoever." With Cud worth and Clarke, he was the assertor of an Eternal and Immutable Morality. But the legiti mate influence of the Concepts of Right and Wrong upon the Will, Locke utterly ignored. It is true, he speaks of the Moral and Eternal Obligation which the Rules of Morality evidently possess. It is true, he compares the perception of Moral Obligation to the perception of Mathematical Truth. But Locke never rises to " the height of this great argument." Not only does he hold that the Will is determined by something from without ; he holds that what

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immediately determines the Will is the uneasiness of Desire. The Desire of Happiness is with him the sole motive by which man can be influenced, and Morality is thus divested of all its Moral Power.

If on minor points we compare the two Philoso phers, the advantage is wholly on the side of Kant. The Philosophy of Transcendentalism we might de scribe as Cato describes the Philosophy of the Porch: — " Quid, aut in natura, qua nihil est aptius, nihil de- scribtius, aut in operibus manu factis, tarn composi- tum tamque compactum et coagmentatum inveniri potest ? Quid posterius priori non convenit ? Quid sequitur quod non respondeat superiori ?" In the case of Kant, indeed, as in the case of Bacon, the love of System frequently degenerates into an affec tation of Symmetry, in which all System is violated and lost. But if the Kritik is disfigured by the distor tions of System, Locke's Essay is characterized by its utter absence. Never was there so systematic a thinker whose exposition was so unsystematic. His cardinal doctrine of Relation, for instance, is to be gathered not only from his chapters on Relation, but from his chapters on Modes and Substances, nay, from the notes appended to his discussion of Simple Ideas ; while the whole doctrine of Relation, as de veloped in the second book, is utterly unintelligible without a constant reference to the doctrine of In tuitive Knowledge, as developed in the fourth. It is the same with his Metaphysic as with his Psycho logy. His doctrine of Real Existence is to be

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sought not only in the fourth book, but in the second and the first — nay, even among the merely logical questions which constitute the matter of the third. Its fragments are to be found scattered up and down through the whole Essay, like the limbs of Absyrtus, the " disjecta membra" of Ontology. Add to this that Definitions are no sooner made than they are abandoned ; Divisions are no sooner laid down than they are disregarded ; Doctrines are no sooner enounced than fresh elements are incidentally intro duced. Locke's Essay, in fact, is not so much an Es say, as a collection of materials for an Essay. All the Elements of the World of Thought are there, but it presents the appearance of a world emerging from Chaos rather than that of a world developed into Creation.

Closely connected with this absence of Systema tic Exposition there is another serious defect in the Essay concerning Human Understanding, — the ab sence of a truly Scientific Language. Here again Locke presents a contrast with his rival. The Scienti fic Language of Kant satisfies all the requirements of Science. Mr. Stewart, indeed, with that disposition to disparage Kant which he had no anxiety to con ceal, sneers at the invention of a new technical Lan guage, and plumes himself on " the communication of clear and precise notions without departing from the established modes of expression." But these established modes of expression have been the ruin of Philosophy. Not only have they enabled an

N 2

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unscientific Common Sense to constitute itself the arbiter of the subtlest speculations of the Scientific Reason, but they have been the main cause of that apparent diversity of opinion among Philosophers which has so long been the opprobrium of their Science. Do we wish for an illustration of the truth of this ? It is supplied by Locke. Locke adopted the views of Mr. Stewart. Locke objected to the coining of new words. Locke abandoned the lan guage of the schools. Locke endeavoured to satisfy the exigencies of speculation by the use of the ordi nary modes of expression. To use his own metaphor, he made Philosophy appear in the garb and fashion of the times. And what has been the consequence ? A superficial and illusive clearness, which has called down the plaudits of superficial thinkers. " No one," says Shaftesbury, " has done more towards the re calling of Philosophy from barbarity into use and practice of the world, and into the company of the better and politer sort." " The beauties of Mr. Locke's style," says Goldsmith, " though not so much celebrated, are as striking as those of his understand ing. He never says more nor less than he ought, and never makes use of a word that he could have changed for a better." But these panegyrics have been dearly purchased. Whatever may be the merits of Locke's style in a mere literary point of view, the Philosophic Critic is constrained to admit, with Sir "William Hamilton, that in his language Locke is of all Philosophers the most vague, vacillating, and

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various. " Simple Ideas, the Materials of all our knowledge, are suggested and furnished to the Mind only by the two ways, Sensation and Reflection," — such is the fundamental principle of Locke's Philo sophy, enounced in language familiar to the most unphilosophical of readers. But what does Locke mean by " Simple Ideas" ? What does he mean by " Materials of Knowledge" ? What does he mean by " suggested" as distinguished from " furnished" ? What does he mean by " Sensation" ? What does he mean by " Reflection" ? So far are these expressions from being clear, that they have been universally misunderstood ; nay, they have been understood in a sense diametrically the reverse of that which they were intended to convey. It is the same with the terms " Original" and " Derived," " Complex" and " Compound," " Ideas of Comparison" and " Com parison of Ideas." Every word in Locke's Philoso phy is an equivoque. Never was there such curious mfelicity of language.

If we compare Locke and Kant with respect to what is commonly understood by Genius, we must certainly award the palm to Kant. The German Sage was not only endowed with the Spirit of the Philosopher, he was also endowed with the Spirit of the Poet. In the elevation of its tone, and the splendour of its diction, as well as in the unity of its plan, the Kritik of the Pure Reason is a Me taphysical Epic. We might style Kant, as Cicero styled Plato, the Homer of Philosophers. But the

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temperament of Locke was cold. Like his great contemporary, Newton, he possessed the power, but not the passion, of Genius. He discusses the Im mortality of the Soul and the Obligations of Mora lity in the same spirit as he discusses the Primary and Secondary Qualities of Matter. " The Thoughts that wander through Eternity" are invested with no superhuman grandeur as they flit across his page. The austerity of his countenance is reflected in the austerity of his style. Locke was the Philosopher of the Puritans.

Even as a Philosopher the superiority of Kant to Locke can scarcely be denied. He had a clearer and more comprehensive view of the great Meta physical Problem. He was a more systematic thinker. But in contrasting the Essay concerning Human Understanding with the Kritik of the Pure Reason, one thing should never be forgotten, and that is the diversity of the circumstances under which they were produced. The Philosopher of Koenigsberg was a Philosopher by profession. Throughout his whole life he was the Solitary of Science. Twelve years he spent in slowly elabora ting his system in thought, and its embodiment in language was the result of one grand and unin terrupted effort. The absence of all contact with reality may, perhaps, have occasioned that shadowy Scepticism which only haunts the closet of the Recluse. It may also have developed that Ideal purity which floats around his Moral Doctrine. But

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Silence arid Solitude are the true associates of System. It is no marvel, therefore, if the Transcendental Phi- losophy issued from the brain of the solitary thinker full-grown and armed at all points, like the Goddess of Wisdom. But while Kant, like Socrates, had scarcely moved beyond the precincts of his native city, and, unlike Socrates, even amidst the buzz and bustle of that city, had moved self-centred and alone ; Locke, from the first, had been a man of the world and a man of action. He had been bred to the profession of Physic. He had been mixed up in the most turbulent politics of the period as the friend and confidant of its most turbulent politi cian. He had visited most of the capitals of Europe in the train of Ambassadors and Diplomatists. He had been driven into exile on the charge of com plicity with Rebellion. He was the companion of the men who consummated the great Revolution. He returned to his native country to subside into a Commissioner of Trade. Physician, Politician, Po litical Economist, and Philosopher, — Philosophy in his life was but an episode. The account which he gives of the composition of his great work is itself a justification of all its defects. "Begun by chance," "continued by entreaty," "written by incoherent parcels," resumed " as humour or occasions permit ted" — what wonder is it if such a work reflects the agitations of his life? The agitations of his life detract from the perfection of his Philosophy, but they can only enhance our estimate of the Philoso phical genius which under such circumstances be-

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queathed to posterity so proud a memorial of its power.

The defects of the Essay concerning Human Un derstanding are undeniable. Locke takes no pains to conciliate prejudice, or to guard against misap prehension. He protests against errors without sufficiently marking his recognition of the truths they embody. He inculcates truths without mark ing his reprobation of the errors to which they are akin. He gives undue prominence to certain elements of thought. Add to this, his exposition is confused ; his language is ambiguous; his book abounds in repetition and digression. But the merits of this great work are as undeniable as its defects. It con tains the first and most complete exposition of Metaphysical Science to be found in the English language. It furnishes a Philosophy which at once satisfies the exigencies of the Schools and the exi gencies of common life. With a sage reserve in pronouncing on matters which lie beyond the reach of our faculties, there is an equally sage reliance upon the veracity of our faculties with reference to the matters which lie within their sphere. Locke is the Metaphysical embodiment of the good sense and practical character of the nation from which he sprung.

But the spirit of Locke's Philosophy, to adopt a phrase originally employed with reference to Des cartes, is more valuable than even his Philosophy itself. There breathes throughout the Essay a spirit of Intellectual Independence. There breathes a spirit

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of Intellectual Toleration which is still more rare. The oaiov TrpoTifjLav Tfy aXvjfautv of Aristotle, " the sacred and religious regard for Truth" inculcated fey Butler, is seen conspicuous in every page of Locke. Nor has this absolute devotedness to the interests of Truth been unrewarded. The doctrine of the Essay may be enveloped in ambiguity, disguised by metaphor, darkened by defective exposition ; but still it is, for the most part, true. And it is this presence of Truth, " unseen, but not unfelt," that has proved its salvation. No book has been professedly confuted so often, and with such a parade of demon stration, and yet no book has suffered so little from its professed confuters. The philosophical instinct of the ordinary reader has proved a more unerring guide than the philosophical acumen of the pro fessed critic. Though unable to demonstrate that Locke was right, he was dissatisfied with every effort to demonstrate him wrong. He acquiesced, though he could not analyze. Hence it is that the Essay concerning Human Understanding, though the driest of all Metaphysical books, has also been the most popular. Hume prophesied that Addison would be read with pleasure when Locke was forgot ten, yet it may be doubted whether even the Spec tator has had a wider circulation than the Essay. The secret of this success was at once divined by the masculine sagacity of Warburton. Nowhere is the eloquence of the great Theologian so pure as where he manifests his sympathy with kindred genius,

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and his eulogy on Locke will bear comparison even with his eulogy on Shaftesbury and Bayle : — " The sage Locke supported himself by no system on the one hand ; nor, on the other, did he dishonour him self by any whimsies. The consequence of which was, that, neither following the Fashion nor striking the Imagination, he had at first neither followers nor admirers ; but being everywhere clear and everywhere solid, he at length worked his way, and afterwards was subject to no reverses. He was not affected by the new fashions of Philosophy who leaned upon none of the old ; nor did he afford ground for the after attacks of envy and folly by any fanciful hypotheses which, when grown stale, are the most nauseous of all things." This pane gyric Mr. Stewart regards as " an additional example of that national spirit which, according to Hume, forms the great happiness of the English, and leads them to bestow on all their great writers such praises and acclamations as may often appear partial and excessive" (Diss., p. 162). But the panegyric of Warburton is not more eloquent than just. Suc ceeding time will only confirm its justice, and to the latest posterity, when the native of a foreign land shall wish to pay homage to the philosophical genius of this country, he will speak of it as the country of Bacon and of Locke.

APPENDIX.

BERKELEY AND ABSTRACT IDEAS.

ACCORDING to Locke, "it is the contemplation of our own Abstract Ideas that alone is able to afford us General Know ledge" (iv. vi. 16). This passage suggests two questions — What, according to Locke, is the nature of our Abstract Ideas? — "What, according to Locke, is the immediate object of the Mind in General Reasoning ?

The consideration of these questions cannot be better intro duced than by quoting two celebrated passages, which, though often commented on, have never yet been understood : —

" The next thing to be considered is, how General Words come to be made. For, since all things that exist are only Particulars, how come we by General Terms, or where find we those General Natures they are supposed to stand for ? Words become general by being made the Signs of General Ideas ; and Ideas become general by separating from them the circumstances of time and place, and any other Ideas that may determine them to this or that particular existence. By this way of Abstraction they are made capable of representing more individuals than one ; each of which having in it a conformity to that Abstract Idea, is (as we call it) of that sort . . . . . There is nothing more evident than that the Ideas of the persons children converse with (to instance in them alone), are, like the persons themselves, only particular. The names they first give to them are confined to these individuals.

188 APPENDIX.

Afterwards, when time and a larger acquaintance has made them observe that there are a great many other things in the world, that in some common agreements of shape and several other qua lities resemble their father and mother, and those persons they have been used to, they frame an Idea which they find those many particulars do partake in; and to that they give, with others, the name 'man,' for example. Wherein they make no thing new, but only leave out of the Complex Idea they had of Peter and James, Mary and Jane, that which is peculiar to each, and retain only what is common to them all"* (in. iii. 6, 7).

" Thus Particular Ideas are first received and distinguished, and so knowledge got about them ; and next to them the less ge neral or specific, which are next to particular ; for Abstract Ideas are not so obvious or easy to children, or the yet unexercised Mind, as particular ones. If they seem so to grown men, it is only because by constant and familiar use they are made so ; for when we nicely reflect upon them, we shall find that General Ideas are fictions and contrivances of the Mind, that carry diffi culty with them, and do not so easily offer themselves as we are apt to imagine. For example, does it not require some pains and skill to form the General Idea of a Triangle ? (which is yet none of the most abstract, comprehensive, and difficult) ; for it must be neither oblique, nor rectangle, neither equilateral, equicrural, nor scalenon ; but all and none of these at once. In effect, it is some thing imperfect that cannot exist ; an Idea wherein some parts of several different and inconsistent Ideas are put together" (iv. vii. 9).

On this latter passage, Berkeley in the Introduction to his Prin ciples of Human Knowledge remarks: — "If any man has the

* According to the Theory of Smith and Condillac, a name is first given to an individual, then instinctively transferred to all individuals that bear a resem blance to the first, and lastly, by an act of Reflection, made the symbol of the points in which the individuals agree to the exclusion of those in which they differ. According to Locke, the individual name is not transferred — a general name is fabricated. In the preceding quotation I have somewhat abridged the words of Locke.

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faculty of framing in his Mind such an Idea of a Triangle as is here described, it is in vain to pretend to dispute him out of it, nor would I go about it. All I desire is, that the reader would fully and certainly inform himself, whether he has such an Idea or no" (sect. xiii.). The sense in which Berkeley understood Locke's Abstract General Idea is evident from what he has pre viously said. He considered Locke as holding that a General Idea might be idealized in its generality, that the Abstract Idea could be mentally realized " in Abstract" (sects, vii.-xi.). The criticism thus enounced by Berkeley was reproduced by Hume and accepted by Eeid, Stewart, and Brown. It is acquiesced in by the Editor of Reid. Crambe's General Idea of a Lord Mayor, in fact, is, in the opinion of Philosophers, the type and parallel of Locke's Ge neral Idea of a Triangle. But, as Mr. Hallam has well observed on another occasion, "it ought surely to have occurred that, in proportion to the absurdity of such a notion, is the want of likeli hood that a mind eminently cautious and reflective should have embraced it" (Lit. Hist., iv. 148). Locke's General Idea, in fact, is not so much an Idea as a collection of the Ideas connoted by a General Term (m. iii. 6, 10, 13); his Abstract Idea is not a generalization capable of being individualized " in Abstract," it is a generalization obtained by a process of " Abstraction" (HI. iii. 6). Locke's General Abstract Idea is in reality a mere " Definition" (in. iii. 10). It is true, Locke speaks of the General Idea of a Triangle as including "all and none" of the peculiarities of the various Individual Triangles " at once ;" but it is the very nature of a Definition virtually to comprehend the peculiarities which it actually excludes. It is true, Locke speaks of the difficulty con nected with the formation of our Abstract Ideas ; but he is speak ing of a difficulty, not of an impossibility, and the difficulty he alludes to is constantly betraying itself in minds unaccustomed to speculation, by abortive attempts to reduce the Abstract to the Concrete, the General to the Particular, the Definition framed by Intellect to an Image conceivable by Sense. The Abstract Idea is " the measure of name and the boundary of species" (in. iii. 14). It is, in the only proper sense of the term, a " Form"

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(in. iii. 13). It is the Idea of Plato, the General Concept of the recent Logicians of Germany. In short, it is the " Scheme" of Kant. " No Image," says Kant, " could ever be adequate to our conception of a Triangle in general. It never could attain to the generality of the conception which includes under itself all Tri angles, whether right-angled, acute-angled, &c. The Scheme of the Triangle can exist nowhere else than in thought, and it indi cates a Kule of the Synthesis of the Imagination in regard to Figures in pure Space."

The ulterior question may now easily be settled. Locke's Ab stract Idea is not the Separate Essence attributed to the Eealist ; for he holds that it is " something imperfect which cannot exist" (iv. vii. 9). It is not the Idea-Image attributed to the Concep- tualist; for he tells us it is " an Idea wherein some parts of seve ral different and inconsistent Ideas are put together" (ibid.). It is not the Arbitrary Abstraction attributed to the Nominalist ; for though he holds it to be " the creature and invention of the Un derstanding" (in. iii. 11), he also holds that it must have its " foundation in the similitude of things" (in. iii. 13). It is a collection of the Ideas connoted by a general term (in. iii. 13, 14). But, the Concept once formed, did Locke hold that the whole col lection of Ideas must be actually present to the Mind at every step of the reasoning process ? If so, he must be regarded as a Con- ceptualist. Or did he hold that the connotation of the general term being once fixed, it might be employed as an Algebraic Sym bol, the meaning lying latent during the process, and being called into evidence only when we come to interpret the result ? In that case Locke is in reality a Nominalist. This point may be easily determined. Locke, it is true, maintains that "it is the contem plation of our own Abstract Ideas that alone is able to afford us General Knowledge" (iv. vi. 16) ; and this with perfect reason. The contemplation of the Concept must certainly have preceded the employment of the Symbol Even in Algebra we must con sider the Conditions of the Question before we can form the Sym bolic Equation. But the meaning of the Symbol once determined, the Equation once formed, Locke unequivocally admits that the

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General Term may be employed as an Instrument of Reasoning. This is evident enough from his distinction between Mental and Verbal Propositions (iv. v. 4) ; but one passage is decisive of the question. "I do not say," says Locke, "a man need stand to recollect, and make this analysis at large every time the word comes in his way ; but this, at least, is necessary, that he have so examined the signification of that name, and settled the Idea of all its parts in his mind, that he can do it when he pleases" (m. xi. 9).

In spite of all apparent differences, Locke, and Berkeley, and Reid, are, in reality, at one. "How can you employ a General Term," says Locke, "unless you have a General Idea to regulate its application ?" "I do not deny absolutely that there are Gene ral Ideas," says Berkeley, "but only that there are Abstract Ge neral Ideas" (Int., sect. xii.). "My Abstract General Idea," Locke would reply, " is not a General Idea idealized in Abstract, — it is a General Idea obtained by a process of Abstraction." "Even admitting that modification of your doctrine," says Berkeley, "it is not necessary (even in the strictest reasonings) significant terms which stand for Ideas should, every time they are used, excite in the Understanding the Ideas they are made to stand for" (sect, xix.)*~ "Granted," says Locke, "I have stated precisely the same in the third book of my Essay." " But," ex claims Reid, addressing himself to Berkeley, " your reasoning seems unwillingly or unwarily to grant all that is necessary to support Abstract and General Conceptions. If, as you say, a man may consider a figure merely as Triangular (sect, xvi.) ; if an Idea becomes general, by being made to represent or stand for all other particular Ideas of the same sort (sect, xii.), then you concede

* According to Mr. Hansel, " throughout Berkeley's Dissertation, too little notice is taken of the important fact, that we can, and in the majority of cases do, employ Concepts as Instruments of thought, without submitting them to the test of even possible individualization" (Prolegomena, p. 31). I think Mr. Man- sel, if he were to re-peruse that dissertation, would see reason to retract his asser tion. In the Minute Philosopher, at all events (Dialogue vii., sect, vi.-viii.), Berkeley has left no doubt as to his views upon this point.

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everything for which the Conceptualist contends" {Reid, p. 408). The answer of both Locke and Berkeley is obvious. " You con found the manner in which the Symbol is employed with the manner in which it was originally framed. Framed to connote the Attributes comprehended in a Concept, it may consistently be employed as an unmeaning Symbol."

The Scottish School is thus guilty of a double misrepresenta tion. It attributes to Locke an absurdity he never held — the absurdity of the Abstract Idea-Image. It refuses to Berkeley a doctrine which he undoubtedly did hold — the doctrine of General Notions obtained by Abstraction,

According to M. Cousin, the Realist was right with reference to the General Necessary Idea, such as that of Space, and the Nominalist was right with reference to the General Collective Idea, such as that of a Book. It is sufficient to remark that the Idea of Space is not a General Idea, and that it is with re ference to General Collective Ideas alone that the whole con troversy raged.

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