completely undermine the foundations both of logic and of ethics. In truth, it is from this general principle, combined with a fact universally acknowledged among philosophers, (the impossibility of speaking about mind or its phenomena, without employing a metaphorical phraseology) that so many of our late philologists and grammarians, dazzled, as it should seem, with the novelty of these discoveries, have shown a disposition to conclude, (as Diderot and Helvetius formerly did from other premises) that the only real knowledge we possess relates to the objects of our external senses; and that we can annex no idea to the word mind itself, but that of matter in the most subtile and attenuated form which imagination can lend it.-Nor are these the only, or the most dangerous consequences, involved in Locke's max-. im, when thus understood. I point them out at present, in preference to others, as being more nearly related to the subject of this essay.

Mr. Tooke has given some countenance to these inferences, by the connexion in which he introduces the following etymologies from Vossius.

"Animus, Anima, IIvɛuua and Tuyn are participles." -"Anima est ab Animus. Animus vero est a Græco "Avεuos, quod dici volunt quasi "Aɛμos, ab "A∞ sive "Aɛμ, quod est Пvé; et Latinis a Spirando, Spiritus. Immo et Tuzn est a Tuzo quod Hesychius exponit IIvέw.”

I have already, on various occasions, observed, that the question concerning the nature of mind, is altogether foreign to the opinion we form concerning the theory of its operations; and that, granting it to be of a material origin, it is not the less evident, that all our knowledge of it is to be obtained by the exercise of the powers of consciousness and of reflection. As this distinction, however, has been altogether overlooked by these profound etymologists, I shall take occasion, from the last quotation, to propose, as a problem not unworthy of their attention, an examination of the circumstances which have led men, in all ages, to apply, to the sentient and thinking principle within us, some appellation syn

TUR RES, NIHIL SCIT IPSE."-(J. C. Scaliger, chap. 66.) Diversions of Purley, Vol. I. pp. 42, 43, 46, 47.

onymous with spiritus or avεvμa; and, in other cases, to liken it to a spark of fire, or some other of the most impalpable and mysterious modifications of matter. Cicero hesitates between these two forms of expression; evidently, however, considering it as a matter of little consequence which we should adopt, as both appeared to him to be equally unconnected with our conclusions concerning the thing they are employed to typify: "Anima sit animus, ignisve nescio: nec me pudet, fateri nescire quod nesciam. Illud, si ullâ aliâ de re obscurâ affirmare possem, sive anima sive ignis sit animus, eum jurarem esse divinum." This figurative language, with respect to mind, has been considered by some of our later metaphysicians, as a convincing proof, that the doctrine of its materiality is agreeable to general belief; and that the opposite hypothesis has originated in the blunder of confounding what is very minute with what is immaterial.

To me, I must confess, it appears to lead to a conclusion directly opposite. For, whence this disposition to attenuate and subtilize, to the very verge of existence, the atoms or elements supposed to produce the phenomena of thought and volition, but from the repugnance of the scheme of materialism to our natural apprehensions; and from a secret anxiety to guard against a literal interpretation of our metaphorical phraseology? Nor has this disposition been confined to the vulgar. Philosophical materialists themselves have only refined farther on the popular conceptions, by entrenching themselves against the objections of their adversaries, in modern discoveries concerning light and electricity, and other inscrutable causes, manifested by their effects alone. In some instances, they have had recourse to the supposition of the possible existence of matter, under forms incomparably more subtile than what it probably assumes in these, or in any other class of physical phenomena;—a hypothesis which it is impossible to describe better than in the words of La Fontaine :

"Quintessence d'atôme, extrait de la lumière."

It is evident that, in using this language, they have

only attempted to elude the objections of their adversaries, by keeping the absurdity of their theory a little more out of the view of superficial inquirers; divesting matter completely of all those properties by which it is known to our senses; and substituting, instead of what is commonly meant by that word,-infinitesimal or evanescent entities, in the pursuit of which imagination herself is quickly lost.

The prosecution of this remark would, if I am not mistaken, open a view of the subject widely different from that which modern materialists have taken. But as it would lead me too far aside from my present design, I shall content myself with observing here, that the reasonings which have been lately brought forward in their support, by their new philological allies, have proceeded upon two errors extremely common even among our best philosophers;-first, the error of confounding the historical progress of an art with its theoretical principles when advanced to maturity; and, secondly, that of considering language as a much more exact and complete picture of thought, than it is in any state of society, whether barbarous or refined. With both of these errors, Mr. Tooke appears to me to be chargeable in an eminent degree. Of the latter, I have already produced various instances; and of the former, his whole work is one continued illustration. After stating, for example, the beautiful result of his researches concerning conjunctions, the leading inference which he deduces from it is, that the common arrangement of the parts of speech, in the writings of grammarians, being inaccurate and unphilosophical, must contribute greatly to retard the progress of students in the acquisition of particular languages: whereas nothing can be more indisputable than this, that his speculations do not relate, in the least, to the analysis of a language, after it has assumed a regular and systematical form; but to the gradual steps by which it proceeded to that state, from the inartificial jargon of savages. They are speculations, not of a metaphysical, but of a purely philological nature; belonging to that particular species of disquisi

tion which I have elsewhere called theoretical history. To prove that conjunctions are a derivative part of speech, and that, at first, their place was supplied by words which are confessedly pronouns or articles, does not prove, that they ought not to be considered as a separate part of speech at present, any more than Mr. Smith's theory with respect to the gradual transformation of proper names into appellatives, proves, that proper names and appellatives are now radically and essentially the same; or than the employment of substantives to supply the place of adjectives, (which Mr. Tooke tells us is one of the signs of an imperfect language,) proves, that no grammatical distinction exists between these two parts of speech, in such tongues as the Greek, the Latin, or the English. Mr. Tooke, indeed, has not hesitated to draw this last inference also ; but, in my own opinion, with nearly as great precipitation, as if he had concluded, because savages supply the want of forks by their fingers, that therefore a finger and a fork are the same thing.

The application of these considerations to our metaphorical phraseology relative to the mind, will appear more clearly from the following chapter.

• See the account of the Life and Writings of Mr. Smith, prefixed to his Posthumous Essays.

CHAPTER THIRD.

THE incidental observations which I have made in different parts of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, on the circumstances which contribute to deprive that branch of science of an appropriate and specific phraseology, together with those on the same subject in the former chapter of this Essay, preclude the necessity of a formal reply to the philological comments of Mr. Tooke on the origin of our ideas. If any thing farther be wanting for a complete refutation of the conclusion which he supposes them to establish, an objection to it, little short of demonstrative, may be derived from the variety of metaphors which may be all employed, with equal propriety, wherever the phenomena of mind are concerned. As this observation (obvious as it may seem) has been hitherto very little, if at all attended to, in its connexion with our present argument, I shall endeavour to place it in as strong a light as I can.

A very apposite example, for my purpose, presents itself immediately, in our common language with respect to memory. In speaking of that faculty, every body must have remarked, how numerous and how incongruous are the similitudes involved in our expressions. At one time, we liken it to a receptacle, in which the images of things are treasured up in a certain order; at another time, we fancy it to resemble a tablet, on which these images are stamped, more or less deeply; on other occasions again, we seem to consider it as something analogous to the canvas of a painter. Instances of all these modes of speaking, may be collected from no less a writer than Mr. Locke. 66 Methinks," says he, in one place, "the understanding is not much unlike a closet, wholly shut up from light, with only some little opening left, to let in external visible resemblances, or ideas, of things without: Would the pictures coming into such a dark room but stay there, and lie so orderly as to be found upon occasion, it would very much resemble the understanding of a man, in reference to all objects