estimation, since I had the pleasure to peruse a late work of M. De Gerando; in which I find, that the same analogy has presented itself to that most judicious philosopher, and has been applied by him to the same practical purpose, of exposing the false pretensions and premature generalizations of some modern metaphysi

cians.

"It required nothing less than the united splendor of the discoveries brought to light by the new chemical school, to tear the minds of men from the pursuit of a simple and primary element; a pursuit renewed in every age with an indefatigable perseverance, and always renewed in vain. With what feelings of contempt would the physiologists of former times have looked down on the chemists of the present age, whose timid and circumscribed system admits nearly forty different principles in the composition of bodies! What a subject of ridicule would the new nomenclature have afforded to an Alchemist!"

"The Philosophy of Mind has its Alchemists also;men whose studies are directed to the pursuit of one single principle, into which the whole science may be resolved; and who flatter themselves with the hope of discovering the grand secret, by which the pure gold of Truth may be produced at pleasure." *

Among these Alchemists in the science of mind, the first place is undoubtedly due to Dr. Hartley, who not only attempts to account for all the phenomena of human nature, from the single principle of Association, combined with the hypothetical assumption of an invisible fluid or ether, producing Vibrations in the medullary substance of the brain and nerves; but indulges his imagination in anticipating an æra, "when future generations shall put all kinds of evidences and inquiries into mathematical forms; reducing Aristotle's ten categories, and Bishop Wilkins's forty summa genera, to the head of Quantity alone, so as to make mathematics and logic, natural history and civil history, natural philosophy, and philosophy of all other kinds, coincide omni ex parte." If I

* De Gerando, Hist. des Systêmes, tom. II. pp. 481, 482.

had never read another sentence of this author, I should have required no farther evidence of the unsoundness of his understanding.

It is however, on such rash and unwarranted assertions as this, combined with the supposed comprehensiveness of his metaphysical views, that the peculiar merits of Hartley seem now to be chiefly rested by the more enlightened of his admirers. Most of these, at least whom I have happened to converse with, have spoken of his physiological doctrines as but of little value, compared with the wonders which he has accomplished by a skilful use of the Associating Principle. On this head, therefore, I must request the attention of my readers to a few short remarks.

III. Of the most celebrated theorists who have appeared since the time of Lord Bacon, by far the greater part have attempted to attract notice, by displaying their ingenuity in deducing, from some general principle or law, already acknowledged by philosophers, an immense variety of particular phenomena. For this purpose, they have frequently found themselves under a necessity of giving a false gloss to facts, and sometimes of totally misrepresenting them; a practice which has certainly contributed much to retard the progress of experimental knowledge; but which, at the same time, must be allowed (at least in Physics) to have, in some cases, prepared the way for sounder conclusions. The plan adopted by Hartley is very different from this, and incomparably more easy in the execution. The generalizations which he has attempted are merely verbal; deriving whatever speciousness they may possess, from the unprecedented latitude given to the meaning of common terms. After telling us for example, that "all our internal feelings, excepting our sensations, may be called ideas;" and giving to the word Association a corresponding vagueness in its import, he seems to have flattered himself, that he had resolved into one single law, all the various phenomena, both intellectual and moral, of the human mind. What advantage, either theoretical or practical, do we reap from this pretended discovery;-a discovery necessarily involved in the arbitrary definitions with which the author sets out?

I must acknowledge, that I can perceive none :—while on the other hand, I see clearly its necessary effect, by perverting ordinary language, to retard the progress of a science, which depends, more than any other, for its improvement, on the use of precise and definite expressions.*

With respect to the phrase association of ideas, which makes such a figure not only in Hartley, but in most of the metaphysical writers whom England has since produced, I shall take this opportunity to remark, how very widely its present acceptation differs from that invariably annexed to it in Mr. Locke's Essay. In his short chapter on this subject (one of the most valuable in the whole work,) his observations relate entirely to "those connexions of ideas that are owing to chance; in consequence of which connexions, ideas that, in themselves are not at all a-kin, come to be so united in some men's minds that it is very hard to separate them; and the one no sooner, at any time, comes into the understanding, but its Associate appears with it." His reason for dwelling on these, he tells us expressly is, "that those who have children, or the charge of their education, may think it worth their while diligently to watch, and carefully to prevent the undue connexion of ideas in the minds of young people. This, he adds is the time most susceptible of lasting impressions; and though those relating to the health of the body are, by discreet people, minded and fenced against; yet I am apt to doubt, that those which relate more peculiarly to the mind, and terminate in the understanding, or passions, have been much less heeded than the thing deserves; nay, those relating purely to the understanding have, as I suspect, been by most men wholly overlooked."

From these quotations, it is evident that Mr. Locke

Under the title of Association, Hartley includes every connexion which can possibly exist among our thoughts; whether the result of our natural constitution, or the effect of accidental circumstances, or the legitimate offspring of our rational powers. Even our assent to the proposition, that twice two is four, is (according to him) only a particular case of the same general law. "The cause that a person affirms the truth of the proposition, twice two is four, is the entire coincidence of the visible or tangible idea of twice two with that of four, as impressed upon the mind by various objects. We see everywhere, that twice two and four are only different names for the same impression. And it is mere association which appropriates the word truth, its definition, or its internal feeling, to this coincidence."-Hartley on Man, Vol. I. p. 325, 4th edit.

meant to comprehend, under the association of ideas, those Associations alone, which, for the sake of distinction, I have characterized, in my former work, by the epithet casual. To such as arise out of the nature and condition of Man (and which in the following Essays, I generally denominate Universal Associations,) Mr. Locke gives the title of Natural Connexions; observing, with regard to them, that "it is the office and excellency of reason to trace them, and to hold them together in union." If his language on this head had been more closely imitated by his successors, many of the errors and false refinements would have been avoided, into which they have fallen. Mr. Hume was one of the first who deviated from it, by the enlarged sense in which he used Association in his writings; comprehending under that term, all the various connexions or affinities among our ideas, natural as well as casual; and even going so far as to anticipate Hartley's conclusions, by representing "the principle of union and cohesion among our simple ideas as a kind of attraction, of as universal application in the Mental world as in the Natural.” * As it is now, however, too late to remonstrate against this unfortunate innovation, all that remains for us is to limit the meaning of Association, where there is any danger of ambiguity, by two such qualifying adjectives as I have already mentioned. I have accordingly, in these Essays, employed the word in the same general acceptation with Mr. Hume, as it seems to me to be that which is most agreeable to present use, and consequently the most likely to present itself to the generality of my readers; guarding them, at the same time, as far as possible, against confounding the two very different classes of connexions, to which he applies indiscriminately this common title. As for the latitude of Hartley's phraseology, it is altogether incompatible with precise notions of our intellectual operations, or with any thing approaching to logical reasoning concerning the Human Mind;-two circumstances which have probably contributed not a little to the popularity of his book, among a very numerous class of inquirers.

• Treatise of Human Nature, Vol. I. p. 30.

For my own part, notwithstanding the ridicule to which I may expose myself, by the timidity of my researches, it shall ever be my study and my pride, to follow the footsteps of those faithful interpreters of nature, who, disclaiming all pretensions to conjectural sagacity, aspire to nothing higher, than to rise slowly from particular facts to general laws. I trust, therefore, that while, in this respect, I propose to myself the example of the Newtonian School, I shall be pardoned for discovering some solicitude, on the other hand, to separate the Philosophy of the Human Mind from those frivolous branches of scholastic learning with which it is commonly classed in the public opinion. With this view, I have elsewhere endeavoured to explain, as clearly as I could, what I conceive to be its proper object and province; but some additional illustrations, of a historical nature, may perhaps contribute to place my argument in a stronger light than it is possible to do by any abstract reasoning.

IV. It is a circumstance not a little remarkable, that the Philosophy of the Mind, although in later times considered as a subject of purely metaphysical research, was classed among the branches of physical science, in the ancient enumeration of the objects of human knowledge. In estimating the merit of those who first proposed this arrangement, something, I suspect, may be fairly ascribed to accident; but that the arrangement is in itself agreeable to the views of the most enlightened and refined logic, appears indisputably from this obvious consideration, that the words matter and mind express the two great departments of nature which fall under our notice; and that, in the study of both, the only progress we are able to make, is by an accurate examination of particular phenomena, and a cautious reference of these to the general laws or rules under which they are comprehended. Accordingly, some modern writers, of the first eminence, have given their decided sanction to this old and almost forgotten classification, in preference to that which has obtained universally in modern Europe.

"The ancient Greek philosophy," says Mr. Smith,