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is not to be supposed that mankind could consent to be inoculated with disease to any great extent, or for any considerable period of time. and ce the chief hypotheses that were countenanced at Rome, and till the dee of the Roman empire, were those of Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus. Ling the dark ages, Aristotle seems to have held an undivided sovereignty; though his competitors came in for a share of power upon the revival of ature, he still held possession of the majority of the schools, till, in the dle of the seventeenth century, Des Cartes introduced a new hypothesis, Ich served as a foundation for most of the systems or speculations which te appeared since.

With Aristotle and Epicurus Des Cartes contended that the mind perceives ernal objects by images or resemblances presented to it: these images he ed, after Plato, ideas; though he neither acceded to the meaning of this as given by Plato, nor allowed with Aristotle or Epicurus that they prod from the objects themselves, and are transmitted to the mind through the anel of the senses; so that the precise signification he attached to this term ot clear. With Epicurus he threw away the doctrine of an intellectual ld; but contended, in order to supply its place, that the mind has a large ek of ideas of its own, implanted by the hand of nature, and not derived n the world around us: ideas, therefore, that are strictly innate, and may ound on being searched for, though otherwise not necessarily present to mind's contemplation. Among these the principal are, the idea of thought, consciousness, of God, and of matter; all which may be fully depended n as so many established truths: and hence, upon his hypothesis, all real wledge flows from an internal source, or, in other words, from the mind lf. These ideas can never deceive us, though the senses may do so in ir report concerning external objects; and, consequently, such ideas are efly to be trusted to and reasoned from even in questions that relate to the

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n analyzing the idea of THOUGHT, the mind, according to Aristotle, disers it to be a power that has neither extension, figure, local motion, nor 7 other property commonly ascribed to body. In analyzing the idea of D, the mind finds presented to it a being necessarily and eternally existing, remely intelligent, powerful, and perfect, the fountain of all goodness and th, and the creator of the universe. In analyzing the idea of MATTER, the nd perceives it to be a substance possessing no other property than exitor, in other words, as having nothing else belonging to it than length, adth, and thickness; that space, possessing equally this property, is a part matter, and consequently that matter is universal, and there is no vacuum. om these, and other innate ideas, compared and combined with the ideas sensation, or those furnished to the mind by the senses, flows, on the hythesis of Des Cartes, the whole fund of human understanding, or all the owledge that mankind are or can be possessed of.

There are two fundamental errors, and errors, moreover, of an opposite aracter, that accompany, or rather introduce, this hypothesis, and to which, pular as it was at one time, it has at length completely fallen a sacrifice: ese are the attempting to prove what ought to be taken for granted, and the king for granted what ought to be proved.

The philosophy of Des Cartes sets off with supposing that every man is ore or less under the influence of prejudice, and consequently that he cannot how the real truth of any thing till he has thoroughly sifted it. It follows, ecessarily, as a second position, that every man ought, at least once in his e, to doubt of every thing, in order to sift it; not, however, like the skepes of Greece, that, by such examination, he may be confirmed in doubt, but at, by obtaining proofs, he may have a settled conviction.

Full fraught with these preliminary principles, our philosopher opens his reer of knowledge, and while he himself continues as grave as the noble night of La Mancha, his journey commences almost as ludicrously. His rst doubt is, whether he himself is alive or in being, and his next, whether y body is alive or in being about him. He soon satisfies himself, however,

upon the first point, by luckily finding out that he thinks, and, therefore, says he gravely, I must be alive: Cogito, ergo sum. "I think, and therefore I am." And he almost as soon satisfies himself upon the second, by feeling with his hands about him, and finding out that he can run them against a something or a somebody else, against a man or a post. He then returns home to himself once more, overjoyed with this demonstration of his fingers; and commences a second voyage of discovery by doubting whether he knows any thing besides his own existence, and that of a something beyond him. And he now ascertains, to his inexpressible satisfaction, that the soil of his own mind is sown with indigenous ideas precisely like that of thought or consciousness. These he digs up one after another, in order to examine them. One of the first that turns up is that of a God: one of the next is an idea that informs him that the outside of himself, or rather of his mind, is matter; and combining the whole he has thus far acquired with other information ob tained from the same sources, he finds that the people whom he has before discovered by means of his hands and eyes call this matter a body, and that the said people have bodies of the same kind, aud also the same kind of knowledge as himself, although not to the same extent or demonstration; and for this obvious reason, because they have not equally doubted and examined. It is difficult to be grave upon such a subject. What would be thought or said of any individual in the present audience, who should rise up and openly tell us that he had been long troubled with doubts whether he really existed or not; that his friends had told him he did, and he was inclined to believe so; but that as this belief might be a mere prejudice, he was at length determined to try the fact by asking himself this plain question,-" Do I think?" Is there a person before me but would exclaim, almost instinctively, "Ah! poor creature, he had better ask himself another plain question,whether he is in his sober senses?"

If, however, we attempt to examine seriously the mode which M. Des Cartes thus proposes of following up his own principles, it is impossible not to be astonished at his departure from them at the first outset. Instead of doubting of every thing and proving every thing, the very first position before him he takes for granted: "I think, therefore I am." Of these two positions, he makes the first the proof of the second, but what is the proof of the first! If it be necessary to prove that HE IS, the very groundwork of his system renders it equally necessary to prove that HE THINKS. But this, he does not attempt to do: in direct contradiction to his fundamental principles he here commits a petitio principii, and takes it for granted. I do not find fault with him for taking it for granted; but then he might as well have saved himself the trouble of manufacturing an imperfect syllogism, and have taken it for granted also that he was alive or that he existed, for the last fact must have been just as obvious to himself as the first, and somewhat more so to the world at large.

There is another logical error in this memorable enthymeme, or syllogism without a head, which ought not to pass without notice; I mean, that the proof does not run parallel with the predicate, and, consequently, does not answer its purpose. The subject predicated is, that the philosopher exists or is alive, and to prove this he affirms gratuitously that he thinks. “I think, and therefore I am." Now, in respect to the extent or parallelism of the proof, he might just as well have said "I itch," or "I eat, and therefore I am." I will not dispute that in all probability he thought more than he itched, or partook of food; but let us take which proof we will, it could only be a proof so long as he itched, or was eating; and, consequently, whenever he ceased from either of these conditions, upon his own argument, he would have no proof whatever of being alive. Now, that he must often have ceased from itching, or eating, there is no difficulty in admitting; but then he may also at times have ceased from thinking, not only in various morbid states of the brain, but whenever he slept without dreaming. And hence, the utmost that any such argument could decide in his favour, let us take which kind of proof we will, would be, that he could alternately prove himself to be alive and alter

ly not alive; that it was obvious to himself that he existed for and during ime that he thought, itched, or ate, but that he had no proof of existence Don as these were over.

at I have said, that M. Des Cartes's philosophy consists not only in deding proofs where no proofs are necessary, and where the truisms are so r as to render it ludicrous to ask for them, but in taking for granted protions that evidently demand proof. And I now allude to his whole docof innate ideas-of axioms or principles planted in the mind by the hand ature herself, and which are evidently intended to supply the place of the ligible world of Plato and Aristotle.

these I have only produced a small sample, and it is not necessary to g more to market. Let us state his innate idea of a God. It is, I admit, ry reverential, correct, and perfect one, and does him credit as a theolobut I am not at present debating with him as a theologist, but as a logiIt is in truth owing to its very perfection that I object to it; for there rong ground to suspect, notwithstanding all his care to the contrary, that as obtained it from induction, rather than from impulse; from an open d, than from a latent principle. If such an idea be innate to him, there be no question that it must be also innate to every one else. Now, it so ens that the ideas of other men, in different parts of the world, wander his own idea as far as the north pole from the south. There are e barbarians, we are told, so benighted as to have no idea of a God at all. 1, as Mr. Marsden, his Majesty's principal chaplain in New South Wales, rms us, are the very barbarous aboriginal tribes of that vast settlement. hey have no knowledge," says he, " of any religion, false or true." There others, whose idea of a God has only been formed in the midst of gloom - terror: and who hence, with miserable ignorance, represent him, in their den idols, under the ugliest and most hideous character their gross gination can suggest. Atheism, in the strictest sense of the term, is at moment, and has been for nearly a thousand years at least, the established ef of the majority, or rather of the whole Burman empire; the funda ntal doctrine of whose priesthood consists in a denial that there is any h power as an eternal independent essence in the universe; and that at * moment there is any God whatever; Guadama, their last Boodh, or deity, ing, by his meritorious deeds, long since reached the supreme good of bar, or annihilation; which is the only ultimate reward in reserve for the uous among mankind;* while the ideas of the wisest philosophers of rece appear to have fallen far short of the bright exemplar of M. Des Cartes. That Des Cartes himself was possessed of this idea at the time he wrote, man can have any doubt; but what proof have we that he possessed it ATELY, and that he found it among the ORIGINAL FURNITURE OF HIS MIND? in like manner, he tells us, that his knowledge of MATTER is derived from same unerring source; that its idea exists within him, and that this idea

ma.

The most authentic account of the tenets of Boodhism which have of late years been communicated he world, are those furnished by Mr. Judson, an American missionary, who for the last ten or twelve rs has been stationary at Rangoon or Ava, has acquired an accurate knowledge of the Burman and i, or vulgar and sacred tongue, and has translated the whole of the New Testament into the former. very interesting account of the mission of himself and his colleagues, as well as of the national creed this extraordinary people, is to be found in his correspondence with the American Baptist Missionary aid, as also in "An Account of the American Baptist Mission to the Burman Empire, in a Series of tters addressed to a Gentleman in London, by A. H. Judson, 8vo. Lond. 1823." The whole universe, cording to the principles of Boodhism, is governed by fate, which has no more essential existence than ance. A Boodh, or god, is occasionally produced, and appears on earth, the last of whoin was GuaBut gods and men must equally follow the law or order of fate; they must die, and they must ffer in a future state according to the sins they have committed on earth; and, when this penance has en completed, they reach alike the supreme good of Nigbar, or utter annihilation. Guadama, their last ity, many hundred years ago reached this state of final beatitude, and another deity is soon expected to ake his appearance. An eternal self-existent being is, in the opinion of the Boodhists, an utter impossi lity, and they hear of such a doctrine with horror. When Mr. Judson had obtained an audience of the urman emperor in his palace at Ava, to solicit protection and toleration, his petition was first read, and en a little tract, containing the chief doctrines of Christianity, printed in the Burman tongue, put into he emperor's hands. "He held the tract," says Mr. Judson, "long enough to read the first two sentences, which assert that there is one eternal God, who is independent of the incidents of mortality; and that, eside him, there is no god; and then, with an air of indifference, perhaps of disdain, he dashed it down the ground.-Our fate was decided."—Ib. p. 231.

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represents it to be an extended substance, without any other quality, and embracing space as a part of itself. Now, if such an idea appertained naturally to him, it must, in like manner, appertain naturally to every one. Let me, then, ask the audience I have the honour of addressing, whether the same notion has ever presented itself, as it necessarily ought to have done, to the minds of every one or of any one before me? and whether they seriously believe that SPACE is a part of MATTER? So far from it, that I much question whether even the meaning of the position is universally understood; while. with respect to those by whom it is understood, I have a shrewd suspicion it is not assented to; and that they would even apprehend some trick had been played upon them if they should find it in their minds. The good father Malebranche, as excellent a Cartesian as ever lived, and who possessed withal quite mysticism enough to have succeeded Plato, upon his death, and turned Xenocrates out of the chair, suspected that tricks like these are perpetually played upon us. For he openly tells us, in his Recherche de la Vérité, that ever since the fall, Satan has been making such sad work with our senses, both external and internal, that we can only rectify ourselves by a vigorous determination to doubt of every thing, after the tried and approved Cartesian recipe: and if a man, says he, has only learned to doubt, let him not imagine that he has made an inconsiderable progress. And for this purpose, he recommends retirement from the world, a solitary cell, and a long course of penitence and water-gruel: after which our innate ideas, he tells us, will rise up before us at a glance: our senses, which were at first as honest faculties as one could desire to be acquainted with, till debauched in their adventure with original sin, will no longer be able to cheat us, we shall see into the whole process of transubstantiation, and though we behold nothing in matter, we shall behold all things in God.

It may, perhaps, be conceived that I treat the subject before us somewhat too flippantly or too cavalierly. It is not, however, the subject before us that I thus treat, but the hypothesis; and, in truth, it is the only mode in which I feel myself able to treat it at all; for I could as soon be serious over the "Loves of the Plants," or "The Battle of the Frogs." And I must here venture to extend the remark a little farther, and to add, that there is but one hypothesis amid all those that yet remain to be examined, that I shall be able to treat in any other manner; for, excepting in this one, there is not a whit of superiority that I can discover in any of them; and the one I refer to, though I admit its imperfections in various points, is that of our own enlightened countryman, Mr. Locke. I may, perhaps, be laughed at in my turn, and certainly should be so if I were as far over the Tweed as over the Thames, and be told that I am at least half a century behind the times. Yet, by your permission, I shall dare the laugh, and endeavour, at least, to put merriment against merriment; and shall leave it to yourselves to determine, after a full and impartial hearing, who has the best claim to be pleasant. So that the study of metaphysics may not, perhaps, appear quite so gloomy and repugnant as the writings of some philosophers would represent it. If it have its gravity, it may also be found to have its gayety as well; and to prove that there is no science in which it better becomes us to adopt the maxim of the poet, and to

Laugh where we may, be serious where we can,

But vindicate the ways of God to man.

LECTURE IV.

ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.

(The Subject continued.)

our preceding study we commenced a general survey of the chief opiis and hypotheses that have been urged in different periods upon the imant subject of Human Understanding; and, opening our career with the ek schools, we closed it with that of Des Cartes.

es Cartes, who was born in 1596, was for nearly a century the Aristotle is age; and, although from his very outset he was opposed by his emporaries and literary friends Gassendi and Hobbes, he obtained a come triumph, and steadily supported his ascendant, till the physical philoy of Newton, and the metaphysical of Locke, threw an eclipse over his y, from which he has now no chance of ever recovering.

othing, however, can prove more effectually the influence which fashion ates upon philosophy as well as upon dress, than a glance at the very osite characters by whom the Cartesian system was at one and the same principally professed and defended-Malebranche and Spinosa, Leibnitz Bayle. It would, perhaps, be impossible, were we to range through the Pole scope of philosophical or even of literary biography, to collect a more ley and heterogeneous group: the four elements of hot, cold, moist, dry cannot possibly present a stronger contrast; a mystical Catholic, ewish materialist, a speculative but steady Lutheran, and a universal ptic.

i was only, however, for want of a simpler and more rational system, that Cartes continued so long and so extensively to govern the metaphysical se of the day. That system was at length given to the world by Mr. ke, and the "PRINCIPIA PHILOSOPHIE" fell prostrate before the "ESSAY =CERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING."

This imperishable work made its first appearance in 1689: it may, perhaps, somewhat too long; it may occasionally embrace subjects which are not cessarily connected with it: its terms may not always be precise, nor its nions in every instance correct; but it discovers intrinsic and most conicing evidence that the man who wrote it must have had a head peculiarly ar, and a heart peculiarly sound. It is strictly original in its matter, highly portant in its subject, luminous and forcible in its argument, perspicuous its style, and comprehensive in its scope. It steers equally clear of all mer systems: we have nothing of the mystical archetypes of Plato, the corporeal phantoms of Aristotle, or the material species of Epicurus; we e equally without the intelligible world of the Greek schools, and the inte ideas of Des Cartes. Passing by all which, from actual experience and servation it delineates the features and describes the operations of the man mind, with a degree of precision and minuteness which have never en exhibited either before or since. "Nothing," says Dr. Beattie, and I adily avail myself of the acknowledgment of an honest and enlightened tagonist, "was farther from the intention of Locke than to encourage erbal controversy, or advance doctrines favourable to skepticism. To do ood to mankind by enforcing virtue, illustrating truth, and vindicating berty, was his sincere purpose. His writings are to be reckoned among e few books that have been productive of real utility to mankind."t To take this work as a text-book, of which, however, it is well worthy, could require a long life instead of a short lecture: and I shall, hence, beg ave to submit to you only a very brief summary of the more important part f its system and of the more prominent opinions it inculcates, especially in

Study of Med. vol. 111. p. 49, 2d edit.

↑ Essay on Truth, part 1. ch. ii. § 2.

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