NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

NOTE (A), P. 65.

THAT there are many words used in philosophic discourse, which do not admit of logical definition, is abundantly manifest. This is the case with all those words that signify things uncompounded, and consequently unsusceptible of analysis;—a proposition, one should think, almost self-evident; and yet it is surprising, how very generally it has been overlooked by philosophers.

That Aristotle himself, with all his acuteness, was not aware of it, appears sufficiently from the attempts he has made to define various words denoting some of the simplest and most elementary objects of human thought. Of this, remarkable instances occur in his definitions of time and of motion; definitions which were long the wonder and admiration of the learned; but which are now remembered only, from their singular obscurity and absurdity. It is owing to a want of attention to this circumstance, that metaphysicians have so often puzzled themselves about the import of terms, employed familiarly without the slightest danger of mistake by the most illiterate;-imagining, that what they could not define must involve some peculiar mystery; when, in fact, the difficulty of the definition arose entirely from the perfect simplicity of the thing to be defined. Quid sit Tempus, (said St. Augustine) si nemo quærat a me, scio; si quis interroget, nescio.

According to Dr. Reid, Des Cartes and Locke are the earliest writers by whom this fundamental principle in logic was stated;

but the remark is by no means correct. I do not know if Mr. Locke himself has expressed it more clearly than our celebrated Scottish lawyer Lord Stair, in a work published several years before the Essay on Human understanding; and it is worthy of observation, that, so far from ascribing the merit of it to Des Cartes, he censures that philosopher, in common with Aristotle, for a want of due attention to it.

"Necesse est quosdam terminos esse adeo claros, ut clariori"bus elucidari nequeant, alioquin infinitus esset progressus in "terminorum explicatione, adeo ut nulla possit esse clara cogni❝tio, nec ullus certo scire possit alterius conceptus."

"Tales termini sunt Cogitatio, Motus, quibus non dantur cla❝riores conceptus aut termini, et brevi apparebit, quam inutiliter "Aristoteles et Cartesius conati sunt definire Motum."

Physiologia Nova Experimentalis, &c. (p. 9.) Authore D. de Stair, Carolo II. Britanniarum Regi a Consiliis Juris et Status. Ludg. Batav. 1686.-See also p. 79 of the same book.

Locke's Essay (as appears from the dedication) was first printed in 1689. Lord Stair's work must have been published a considerable time before. The Latin translation of it (which is the only edition of the book I have seen) is dated 1686; and bears, on the title page, that the original had appeared before. Nuper Latinitate donata.

According to a learned and ingenious writer, Aristotle himself "had taught, before Mr. Locke, that what the latter calls simple "ideas could not be defined."-(Translation of Aristotle's Ethics and Politics, by Dr. Gillies, Vol. I. p. 138, 2d edit.) The passages, however, to which he has referred, seem to me much less decisive evidence in support of this assertion, than Aristotle's own definitions are against it. Nor can I bring myself to alter this opinion, even by Dr. Gillies's attempt to elucidate the celebrated definition of Motion.

NOTE (B), P. 83.

It may be of use to some of my readers, before proceeding to the third chapter, to read with attention, the following extracts from Dr. Reid.

"The word idea occurs so frequently in modern philosophical "writings upon the mind, and is so ambiguous in its meaning, "that it is necessary to make some observations upon it. There "are chiefly two meanings of this word in modern authors, a po"pular and a philosophical.

“First, In popular language, idea signifies the same thing "as conception, apprehension, notion. To have an idea of any "thing, is to conceive it. To have a distinct idea is to conceive it "distinctly. To have no idea of it, is not to conceive it at all.

"When the word is taken in this popular sense, no man can "possibly doubt, whether he has ideas. For he that doubts must "think, and to think is to have ideas.

"Secondly, According to the philosophical meaning of the "word idea, it does not signify that act of the mind which we "call thought or conception, but some object of thought. Ideas, "according to Mr. Locke, (whose frequent use of this word has "probably been the occasion of its being adopted into common "language) are nothing but the immediate objects of the mind "in thinking.' But of those objects of thought called ideas, diffe"rent sects of philosophers have given a very different account. "Mr. Locke, who uses the word idea so very frequently, tells that he means the same thing by it, as is commonly meant "by species or phantasm. Gassendi, from whom Locke bor"rowed more than from any other author, says the same. The "words species and phantasm, are terms of art in the Peripatetic "system, and the meaning of them is to be learned from it.

us,

"Modern philosophers, as well as the Peripatetics of old, have

"conceived, that external objects cannot be the immediate objects "of our thought; that there must be some image of them in the "mind itself, in which, as in a mirror, they are seen. And the “name idea, in the philosophical sense of it, is given to those "internal and immediate objects of our thoughts. The external "thing is the remote or mediate object; but the idea or image "of that object in the mind, is the immediate object, without "which we could have no perception, no remembrance, no con"ception of the mediate object.

"When, therefore, in common language, we speak of having "an idea of any thing, we mean no more by that expression, but "thinking of it. The vulgar allow, that this expression implies

a mind that thinks; and an act of that mind which we call "thinking. But besides these, the philosopher conceives the "existence of an idea which is the immediate object of thought. "The idea is in the mind itself, and can have no existence but "in a mind that thinks; but the remote or mediate object may "be something external, as the sun or moon; it may be some"thing past or future; it may be something which never existed. "This is the philosophical meaning of the word idea; and we "may observe, that this meaning of that word is built upon a "philosophical opinion: For if philosophers had not believed "that there are such immediate objects of all our thoughts in the "mind, they would never have used the word idea to express « them.

"I shall only add on this article, that although I may have ❝occasion to use the word idea in this philosophical sense, in "explaining the opinions of others, I shall have no occasion to "use it in expressing my own, because I believe ideas, taken in "this sense, to be a mere fiction of philosophers. And, in the "popular meaning of the word, there is the less occasion to use "it because the English words thought, notion, apprehension, « answer the purposes as well as the Greek word idea; with this "advantage, that they are less ambiguous."-(Essays on the Intellectual Powers, p. 22. et seq.)