whose honesty was equal to his own, and whose ability was superior to his own,-he does not scruple to enlist on his side the prejudices of a vulgar superstition; seeking to blacken the tenet which he was unable to refute. He actually asserts, that they who advocate it, insult the Deity, by imputing to the Almighty that He has lied. Such being the consequence of the opinion, it of course follows, that the opinion must be rejected without further scrutiny, since, to accept it, would produce fatal results on our conduct, and would, indeed, be subversive of all religion, of all morals, and of all knowledge.114

In 1764, Reid published his Inquiry into the Human Mind; and in that, and in his subsequent work, entitled Essays on the Powers of the Mind, he sought to destroy the philosophy of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. And as Hume was the boldest of the three, it was chiefly his philosophy which Reid attacked. Of the character of this attack, some specimens have just been given; but they rather concern his object and motives, while what we have now to ascertain is, his method, that is, the tactics of his warfare. He clearly saw, that Hume had assumed certain principles, and had reasoned deductively from them to the facts, instead of reasoning inductively from the facts to them. To this method, he strongly, and perhaps fairly, objects. He admits, that Hume had reasoned so accurately, that if his principles were conceded, his conclusions must likewise be conceded.115

114 This doctrine is dishonourable to our Maker, and lays a foundation for universal scepticism. It supposes the Author of our being to have given us one faculty on purpose to deceive us, and another by which we may detect the fallacy, and find that he imposed upon us." "The genuine dictate of our natural faculties is the voice of God, no less than what he reveals from heaven; and to say that it is fallacious, is to impute a lie to the God of truth." "Shall we impute to the Almighty what we cannot impute to a man without a heinous affront? Passing this opinion, therefore, as shocking to an ingenuous mind, and, in its consequences, subversive of all religion, all morals, and all knowledge," &c. Reid's Essays, vol. iii. p. 310. See also vol. i. p. 313.

115 His reasoning appeared to me to be just; there was, therefore, a necessity to call in question the principles upon which it was founded, or to admit the conclusion." Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind, p. v. "The received doctrine of ideas is the principle from which it is deduced,

But, he says, Hume had no right to proceed in such a manner. He had no right to assume principles, and then to argue from them. The laws of nature were to be arrived at, not by conjecturing in this way, but by a patient induction of facts.116 Discoveries depended solely on observation and experiment; and any other plan could only produce theories, ingenious, perhaps, and plausible, but quite worthless.117 For, theory should yield to fact, and not fact to theory.118 Speculators, indeed, might talk about first principles, and raise a system by reasoning from them. But the fact was, that there was no agreement as to how a first principle was to be recog nized; since a principle which one man would deem selfevident, another would think it necessary to prove, and a third would altogether deny.119

The difficulties of deductive reasoning are here admirably portrayed. It might have been expected, that Reid would have built up his own philosophy according to the inductive plan, and would have despised that assumption of first principles, with which he taunts his opponents. But it is one of the most curious things in the history of metaphysics, that Reid, after impeaching the method of Hume, follows the very same method himself.

and of which, indeed, it seems to be a just and natural consequence.” p. 53. See also Reid's Essays, vol. i. pp. 199, 200, vol. ii. p. 211.

116 The laws of nature are the most general facts we can discover in the operations of nature. Like other facts, they are not to be hit upon by a happy conjecture, but justly deduced from observation. Like other general facts, they are not to be drawn from a few particulars, but from a copious, patient, and cautious induction." Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind, pp. 262, 263.

117 Such discoveries have always been made by patient observation, by accurate experiments, or by conclusions drawn by strict reasoning from observations and experiments; and such discoveries have always tended to refute, but not to confirm, the theories and hypotheses which ingenious men had invented." Reid's Essays, vol. i. p. 46.

"But theory ought

118 This is Mr. Hume's notion of a cause." to stoop to fact, and not fact to theory." Reid's Essays, vol. iii. p. 276. 119" But yet there seems to be great difference of opinions among philosophers about first principles. What one takes to be self-evident, another labours to prove by arguments, and a third denies altogether." Reid's Essays, vol. ii. p. 218. Mr. Locke seems to think first principles of very small use." p. 219.

When he is attacking the philosophy of Hume, he holds deduction to be wrong. When he is raising his own philosophy, he holds it to be right. He deemed certain conclusions dangerous, and he objects to their advocates, that they argued from principles, instead of from facts; and that they assumed themselves to be in possession of the first principles of truth, although people were not agreed as to what constituted a first principle. This is well put, and hard to answer. Strange, however, to say, Reid arrives at his own conclusions, by assuming first principles to an extent far greater than had been done by any writer on the opposite side. From them, he argues; his whole scheme is deductive; and his works scarcely contain a single instance of that inductive logic, which, when attacking his opponents, he found it convenient to recommend. It is difficult to conceive a better illustration of the peculiar character of the Scotch intellect in the eighteenth century, and of the firm hold, which, what may be called, the anti-Baconian method, had upon that intellect. Reid was a man of considerable ability, of immaculate honesty, and was deeply convinced that it was for the good of society that the prevailing philosophy should be overthrown. To the performance of that task, he dedicated his long and laborious life; he saw that the vulnerable point of the adverse system was its method; he indicated the deficiencies of that method, and declared, perhaps wrongly, but at all events sincerely, that it could never lead to truth. Yet, and notwithstanding all this, such was the pressure of the age in which he lived, and so completely did the force of circumstances shape his understanding, that, in his own works, he was unable to avoid that very method of investigation which he rebuked in others. Indeed, so far from avoiding it, he was a slave to it. The evidence of this I will now give, because, besides its importance for the history of the Scotch mind, it is valuable as one of many lessons, which teach us how we are moulded by the society which surrounds us; how even our most vigorous actions are influenced by general causes of which we are often ignorant, and which few of

VOL. II.

I I

us care to study; and, finally, how lame and impotent we are, when, as individuals, we try to stem the onward current, resisting the great progress instead of aiding it, and vainly opposing our little wishes to that majestic course of events, which admits of no interruption, but sweeps on, grand and terrible, while generation after generation passes away, successively absorbed in one mighty vortex.

Directly Reid, ceasing to refute the philosophy of Hume, began to construct his own philosophy, he succumbed to the prevailing method. He now assures us, that all reasoning must be from first principles, and that, so far from reasoning to those principles, we must at once admit them, and make them the basis of all subsequent arguments.120 Having admitted them, they become a thread to guide the inquirer through the labyrinth of thought.121 His opponents had no right to assume them, but he might do so, because to him they were intuitive.122 Whoever denied them, was not fit to be reasoned with.123 Indeed, to investigate them, or to seek to analyze them, was wrong as well as foolish, because they were part of the constitution of things; and of the constitution of

...

120 All reasoning must be from first principles; and for first principles no other reason can be given but this, that, by the constitution of our nature, we are under a necessity of assenting to them." Reid's Inquiry, p. 140. "All reasoning is from principles." "Most justly, therefore, do such principles disdain to be tried by reason, and laugh at all the artillery of the logician when it is directed against them." p. 372. "All knowledge got by reasoning must be built upon first principels." Reid's Ess 1ys, vol. ii. p. 220. "In every branch of real knowledge there must be first principles, whose truth is known intuitively, without reasoning, either probable or demonstrative. They are not grounded on reasoning, but all reasoning is grounded on them." p. 360.

121For, when any system is grounded upon first principles, and deduced regularly from them, we have a thread to lead us through the labyrinth." Reid's Essays, vol. ii. p. 225.

122I call these 'first principles,' because they appear to me to have in themselves an intuitive evidence which I cannot resist." Reid's Essays, vol. iii. p. 375.

123 If any man should think fit to deny that these things are qualities, or that they require any subject, I leave him to enjoy his opinion, as a man who denies first principles, and is not fit to be reasoned with." Reid's Essays, vol. i. p. 38.

things no account could be given, except that such was the will of God.124

As Reid obtained his first principles with such ease, and as he carefully protected them by forbidding any attempt to resolve them into simpler elements, he was under a strong temptation to multiply them almost indefinitely, in order that, by reasoning from them, he might raise a complete and harmonious system of the human mind. To that temptation he yielded with a readiness, which is truly surprising, when we remember how he reproached his opponents with doing the same thing. Among the numerous first principles which he assumes, not only as unexplained, but as inexplicable, are the belief in Personal Identity;125 the belief in the External World;126 the belief in the Uniformity of Nature;127 the belief in the Existence of Life in Others; 128 the belief in Testimony,129 also in the power of distinguishing truth from error, 130 and even in the correspondence of the face and voice to the thoughts.131 Of belief generally, he asserts that there are many principles, 132 and he regrets that any one should have rashly attempted to explain them. 133 Such things are mysterious, and not to be pried

124 No other account can be given of the constitution of things, but the will of Him that made them." Reid's Essays, vol. i. p. 115.

125 Reid's Essays, vol. i. pp. 36, 37, 340, 343; vol. ii. p. 245. 126 Reid's Essays, vol. i. pp. 115, 116, 288-299; vol. ii. p. 251. 127 Or, as he expresses it, 66 our belief of the continuance of the laws of nature." Reid's Inquiry, pp. 426-435; also his Essays, vol. i, p. 305; vol. ii. p. 268.

128 Reid's Essays, vol. ii. p. 259.

129 Reid's Inquiry, p. 422; and his Essays, vol. ii. p. 266.

130 Another first principle is, "That the natural faculties by which we distinguish truth from error are not fallacious.'" Reid's Essays, vol. ii. p. 256.

131 Another first principle I take to be, "That certain features of the countenance, sounds of the voice, and gestures of the body, indicate certain thoughts and dispositions of mind." Reid's Essays, vol. ii. p. 261. Compare his Inquiry, p. 416.

132"We have taken notice of several original principles of belief in the course of this inquiry; and when other faculties of the mind are examined, we shall find more, which have not occurred in the examination of the five senses. Reid & Inquiry, p. 471.

133 "And if no philosopher had attempted to define and explain belief, some paradoxes in philosophy, more incredible than ever were brought forth