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the scholastic doctrines; which they did not abandon till the period when the succeeding school, which first triumphed over the dogmas of Aristotle, had, in several of the other countries of Europe, shared the fate of its predecessor. "The theory of "the Vortices," he observes, "was not adopted "in France, till it had received a complete refuta"tion by Newton. It is not yet thirty years," he adds, " since we began to renounce the system of "Descartes. Maupertuis was the first person who "had the courage openly to avow himself a New"tonian." *

As a farther confirmation of D'Alembert's observation, I must take the liberty to add (at the risk, perhaps, of incurring the charge of national partiality), that, on most questions connected with the Philosophy of the Human Mind, his countrymen are, at least, half a century behind the writers of this island. While Locke's account of the origin of our ideas continued to be the general creed in Great Britain, it was almost unknown in France; and now that, after long discussion, it begins, among our best reasoners, to shrink into its proper dimensions, it is pushed, in that country, to an extreme,

* Melanges, &c. Tom. I. p. 149. (Amsterdam edition, 1770.) This Discourse was first published in 1751.

+ I need scarcely add, that, in this observation, I speak of the general current of philosophical opinion, and not of the conclusions adopted by the speculative few who think for themselves. On many important points, every candid Englishman, who studies the history of this branch of science, will own, with gratitude, the obligations we owe to the lights struck out by Condillac and his successors.

which hardly any British philosopher of the smallest note ever dreamed of. In consequence of the writings of Reid, and of a few others, the word idea itself is universally regarded here, even by those who do not acquiesce implicitly in Reid's conclusions, as at the best a suspicious and dangerous term; and it has already nearly lost its technical or Cartesian meaning, by being identified as a synonyme with the simpler and more popular word notion. Our neighbours, in the meantime, have made choice of the term ideology (a Greek compound, involving the very word we have been attempting to discard), to express that department of knowledge, which had been previously called the science of the human mind; and of which they themselves are always reminding us, that it is the great object to trace, in the way of induction, the intellectual phenomena to their general laws. It is a circumstance somewhat ludicrous, that, in selecting a new name for this branch of study, an appellation should have been pitched upon, which seems to take for granted, in its etymological import, the truth of a hypothesis, which has not only been completely exploded for more than fifty years, but which has been shewn to be the prolific parent of half the absurdities both of ancient and modern metaphysicians.

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*We are told, by one of the most acute and original partizans of this new nomenclature, that Ideology is a branch of Zoology; having, for its object, to examine the intellectual faculties of 66 man, and of other animals." The classification, I must own, appears to myself not a little extraordinary ; but my only reason

Among the French philosophers above mentioned, there is one whom I ought, perhaps, to have taken an earlier opportunity of separating from the rest, on account of the uncommon union displayed in his writings, of learning, liberality, and philosophical depth. To those who have read his works, it is scarcely necessary for me to add the name of De Gerando; an author, between whose general views and my own, I have been peculiarly flattered to remark a striking coincidence; and whose dissent from some of the conclusions which I have endeavoured to establish, I would willingly believe, is owing more to the imperfect statement I have yet given of my opinions, than to the unsoundness of the arguments which led me to adopt them. In the present instance, at least, his opinion seems to me to be, at bottom, nearly, if not exactly, the same with that which I proposed in my first volume; and yet a careless reader would be apt to class us with two sects diametrically opposed to each other.

*

"All the systems which can possibly be imagined, "with respect to the generation of our ideas, may "be reduced," according to M. De Gerando, "as to their fundamental principle, to this simple "alternative: either all our ideas have their origin

for objecting to it here is, that it is obviously intended to prepare the way for an assumption, which at once levels man with the brutes, without the slightest discussion. "Penser, c'est toujours "sentir, et ce n'est rien que sentir."-Elém. d'Idéologie, par L. C. Destutt-Tracy, Senateur. Paris, 1804.

That I may do no injustice to M. De Gerando, by any misapprehension of his meaning on so nice a question, I have quot ed the original in Note (N.)

"in impressions made on our senses, or there are "ideas which have not their origin in such impres“sions; and which, of consequence, are placed in "the mind immediately, belonging to it as a part of "its nature or essence.

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Thus, the opinions of philosophers, whether "ancient or modern, concerning the generation of “our ideas, arrange themselves in two opposite co"lumns; the one comprehending the systems which adopt for a principle, nihil est in intellectu quin

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prius fuerit in sensu; the other, the systems "which admit the existence of innate ideas, or of "ideas inherent in the understanding.'

That M. De Gerando himself did not consider this classification as altogether unexceptionable, appears from the paragraph immediately following; in which he remarks, that, " among the philosophers "who have adopted these contradictory opinions, "there are several, apparently attached to the "same systems, who have not adopted them from "the same motives; or who have not explained "them in the same manner; or who have not dedu"ced from them the same consequences." Nothing can be juster or better expressed than this observation; and I have only to regret, that it did not lead the very ingenious and candid writer to specify, in the outset of his work, the precise import of the various systems here alluded to. Had he done so, he could not have failed to have instantly perceived, that, while some of the opinions which he has classed under one common denomination, agree with each other merely in language, and are completely

hostile in substance and spirit; others which, agreeably to his principle of distribution, must be considered as disputing between them the exclusive possession of the philosophical field, differ, in fact, chiefly in phraseology; while, on every point connected with the foundations of a sound and enlightened logic, they are perfectly agreed.

If, in endeavouring to supply this omission in my friend's treatise, I should be successful in establishing the justness of the criticism which I have hazarded on some of his historical statements, the conclusion resulting from my argument will, I am confident, be not less acceptable to him than to me, by shewing, not only how very nearly we are agreed on this fundamental article of our favourite science, but that the case has been similar with many of our predecessors, who little suspected that the difference between the tenets, for which they contended so zealously, was little more than nominal.

Without entering into a nice discrimination of systems, evidently the same in their nature and tendency, and distinguished only by some accessory peculiarities (such, for example, as the respective doctrines of Descartes and Malebranche concerning innate ideas), it appears to me, that the most noted opinions of modern philosophers, with respect to the origin of our knowledge, may be referred to one or other of the following heads.

1. The opinion of those who hold the doctrine of innate ideas, in the sense in which it was understood by Descartes and Malebranche; that is, as implying the existence in the mind, of objects of

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