A Treatife on Man, his Intellectual Faculties and his Education. A Poflhumous work of M. Helvetius. Translated from the French, with Additional Notes, By IV. Hooper, M. D. 2 vol. 8vo. 12s. Law. (Continued from page 303.)

In the fecond fection, of this ingenious and entertaining work, the author difcuffes the queftion "whether men, commonly well organized have not, all, an equal aptitude to understanding." This he determines in the affirmative; endeavouring to demonftrate, what he had afferted, in his former treatife, that all the operations of the mind are reducible to fenfation. To prove this, he enters firft into the difference between the mind and the foul: between which he makes the following diftinctions.

FIRST DIFFERENCE.

The foul exifts intire in the infant as well as in the adult. The infant, as well as the man, is fenfible of pleasure and pain, but he has not fo many ideas, nor confequently fo much mind or understanding as the adult. Now if the infant have as much foul without having as much mind, the foul is not the mind. In fact, if the foul and the mind were one and the fame thing, to explain the fuperiority of the adult over the infant, we muft admit more foul in the former, and agree that his foul has encreased with his body: a fuppofition abfolutely gratuitous, and infignificant, when we distinguish the mind from the foul or principle of life.

SECOND

DIFFERENCE.

"The foul does not leave us till death. As long as I live I have a foul. Is it the fame of the mind? no. I can lofe it during my life: because, while I yet live, I can lose my memory; and the mind is almost entirely the effect of that faculty. The Greeks gave the name of Mnemofyne to the Mother of the Mufes, because, being attentive obfervers of man, they perceived that his judgement, wit, &c. were in great part the produce of his memory.

"If a man be deprived of this faculty, of what can he judge? of fenfations paft? No: he has forgot them; and of fenfations prefent, it is neceffary to have at least as much memory as will give him an opportunity of comparing them together, that is, of obferving alternatively the different impreffions he feels at the prefence of two objects. Now, without a memory to preserve impreffions, how perceive the difference between thofe of this inftant, and those that the inftant before were perceived and forgotten? There is then no comparison of ideas, no judgement, no mind, without memory. An ideot, who fits on the bench at his door, is only a man who has little or no memory. If he do not answer to questions that are asked him, it is because he does not remember the ideas affixed to the words, or that he forgets the first words of a sentence before he hears the latt. If we confult experi ence, we fhall find that it is to the memory (whofe existence fuppofes the faculty of perception) that man owes his ideas and his understand.

ing.

ing. There can be no fenfations without a foul; but without a memory there can be no experience, no comparison of objects, no ideas: a man would be the fame in his old age that he was in his infancy. A man is reputed an ideot when he is ignorant; but he is only really fo when his memory no longer exerts its functions. Now, without lofing our foul, we can lofe our memory; as by a fall, an apoplexy, or other accident of the like nature. The mind, therefore, differs effentially from the foul, as we can lose the one and still live, and the other is not loft but with life itself.

"I have faid, that the mind of man is compofed of an affemblage of ideas. There is no mind without ideas.

"Is it the fame with the foul? No: neither thought nor underftanding are neceffary to its existence. As long as man is fenfible, he has a foul. It is therefore the faculty of perception that forms its effence. Deprive the foul of what does not properly belong to it, that is of the faculty of remembrance, and what faculty is left it? That of perception. It then does not even preserve a consciousness of its own exiftence, because that confcioufnefs fuppofes a concatenation of ideas, and confequently a memory. Such is the state of the foul, when it has yet no use of the faculty of remembrance.

"We may lofe our memory by a blow, a fall, or a difeafe. Is the foul deprived of this faculty? It must then, without a miracle, or the exprefs will of God, find itself in the fame state of imbecillity it was in the human animalcule. Thought, therefore, is not abfolutely neceffary to the existence of the foul. The foul then, is in us nothing but the faculty of perceiving, and this is the reafon why, as Locke and experience prove, all our ideas come to us by the fenfes.

It is to my memory I owe the comparison of my ideas and my judgements, and to my foul I owe my fenfations. It is therefore properly my fenfations, and not my thoughts, as Defcartes afferts, that prove to me the existence of my foul. But what is the faculty of perception in man? is it immortal and immaterial? Of this human reafon is ignorant, and revelation inftructs us. Perhaps it will be objected, that if the foul be nothing more than the faculty of perception, its action, like that of one body's striking another, is conftantly neceffary, and that the foul in this cafe must be regarded as merely paffive. So Mallebranche believed, and his fyftem has been publicly taught. If the theologians of the prefent day condemn it, they will fall into a con tradiction with themfelves that will certainly fomewhat embarrass them. For the reft, as men are born without ideas of virtue, vice, &c. whatever fyftem the theologians adopt, they will never prove that thought is the effence of the foul; and that the foul, or the faculty of fenfation, cannot exist in us, without its being put in action, that is to say, without our having either ideas or fenfations.

"The organ exifts, when it does not found. Man is in the fame ftate with the organ, when in his mother's womb; or when, overcome with labour, and not troubled by dreams, he is buried in a profound fleep. If all our ideas moreover, can be ranged under fome of the claffes of our knowledge, and we can live without having any ideas of mathematics,

mathematics, phyfics, morality, mechanics, &c. it is then not metaphyfically impoffible to have a foul without having any ideas.

"The favages have little knowledge, they have nevertheless souls. There are some of them who have no ideas of justice, nor even words to exprefs that idea. They fay, that a man deaf and dumb, having fuddenly acquired his hearing and fpeech, confeffed, that before his cure, he had no idea of God or of death.

"The King of Pruffia, Prince Henry, Hume, Voltaire, &c. have no more foul than Bertier, Lignac, Seguy, Gauchat, &c. The former, however, have minds as fuperior to the latter, as they have to monkeys, and other animals that are exposed in public fhews.

"Pompignan, Chaumeix, Caveirac, &c. have certainly very little understanding: however, we always fay of them, he speaks, he writes, and even he has a foul. Now, if by having very little understanding, a man has not the lefs foul; ideas make no part of it: they are not el fential to its being. The foul, therefore, may exist independent of all ideas, and of all understanding.

"Let us here recapitulate the most remarkable differences between the foul and the mind.

"The first is, that we are born with a perfect foul, but not with a perfect mind.

"The fecond, that we can lofe our mind, or understanding, while we yet live, but that we cannot lose the foul but with life itself.

"The third, that thought is not neceffary to the foul's existence. "Such was doubtlefs the opinion of the theologians, when they maintained, after Aristotle, that it was to the fenfes the foul owed its ideas. Let it not be imagined, however, that the mind can be confidered as entirely independent of the foul. Without the faculty of fenfation, memory, the productive power of the mind, would be without functions, it would be of no effect *. The existence of our ideas and our mind, fuppofes that of the faculty of fenfation. This faculty is the soul itself: from whence I conclude, that if the foul be not the mind, the mind is the effect of the foul, or the faculty of fenfation +."

In

* The Treatife on the Mind, fays, that memory is nothing more than a continued, but weakened fenfation. In fact, the memory is nothing more than the effect of the faculty of sensation.

+ I shall be asked, perhaps, what is the faculty of fenfation, and what produces this phenomenon in us? The following is the opinion of a celebrated English chemift, on the foul of animals: "We find, fays he, in "bodies, two forts of properties, the existence of one of which is perma"nent and unalterable; fuch are its impenetrability, gravity, mobility, &c. Thefe qualities appertain to phyfics in general."

There are in the fame bodies other properties, whose transient and fugitive existence is by turns produced and deftroyed by certain combinations, analyfes, or motions in their interior parts. Thefe forts of properties form the different branches of natural hiftory, chemistry, &c. and belong to particular parts of phyfics.

Iron, for example, is a compofition of a phlogifton and a particular earth. In this compofite ftate it is fubject to the attractive power of the magnet. When this iron is decompofed, that property vanishes: the magnet has no influence over a ferruginous earth deprived of its phlogiston.

When

In the next chapter the author proceeds to treat of the em ployment of the mind, the objects on which it acts, and the modes of its action. There is little propriety, however, in confidering the mind as an agent; after having declared it to be merely an aflemblage of ideas. Hume and others, indeed, have placed the mind nearly in the fame point of view: that of every man being characterifed, if not defined, by his peculiar fyftem of thinking. But an affemblage of ideas or a fyftem of thinking cannot with propriety be confidered as a phyfical agent *. We fhould rather adopt Dr. Priestley's notion in regard to the mind, viz. that of its confifting of the affemblage or fyftem of the organs of fenfation. In which cafe, though a compound object, it has a real and phyfical existence. - With this correction, in the definition of the agent, our author may be faid to proceed with propriety enough in refpe&t to the modes of its agency.

"All the operations of the mind are reducible to the obferving of the refemblances and differences, the agreements and difagreements that objects have among themfelves and with us. The juftness of the mind or judgement depends on the greater or lefs attention with which its obfervations are made,

When a metal is combined with another fubftance, as a vitriolic acid, this union destroys in like manner in iron the property of being attracted by the magnet.

Fixed alkali, and a nitrous acid have each of them feparately an infinity of different qualities; but when they are united, there does not remain any veftige of thofe qualities, they each of them then ferment with nitre.

In the common heat of the atmosphere, a nitrous acid will difengage itfelf from all other bodies, to combine with a fixed alkali.

If this combination be expofed to a degree of heat, proper to put the nitre into a red fufion, and any inflammable matter be added to it, the nitrous acid will abandon the fixed alkali, to unite with the inflammable fub ftance, and in the act of this union arifes the claftic force whofe effects are fo furprifing in gunpowder.

All the properties of fixed alkali are deftroyed, when it is combined with fand, and formed into glafs, whofe tranfparency, indiffolubility, electric power, &c. are, if I may be allowed the expreffion, so many new creations, that are produced by this mixture, and deftroyed by the decompofition of glafs.

Now in the animal kingdom, why may not organization produce in like manner that fingular quality we call the faculty of fenfation? All the phenomena that relate to medicine and natural hiftory, evidently prove that this power is in animals nothing more than the refult of the ftructure of their bodies; that this power begins with the formation of their organs, lafts as long as they fubfift, and is at last destroyed by the diffolution of the fame organs.

If the metaphyficians afk me, what then becomes of the faculty of fenfa tion in an animal? That which becomes, I fhould anfwer them, of the qua lity of attracting the magnet in iron that is decompofed.

We should almost as foon adopt the abfurdity, of the existence of a fimple thinking substance, as that of the action of a compound body of

ideas.

"Would

Would I know the relations certain objects have to each other? What do I do? I place before my eyes, or prefent to my memory, two or more of thefe objects; and then I compare them. But what is this comparison? It is an alternate and attentive obfervation of the different impreffions thefe objects, prefent or abfent, make on me. This obfervation made, I judge, that is, I make an exact report of the impreffions I have received.

"Am I, for example, much interested to diftinguish between two shades of the fame colour, that are almost indistinguishable; I examine a long time and fucceffively, two pieces of cloth tinged with thofe two fhades. I compare them, that is, I regard them alternatively. I am very attentive to the different impreffions the reflected rays of these two patterns make on my eyes, and I at last determine, that one of them is of a deeper colour than the other; that is to fay, I make an exact report of the impreffions I have received. Every other judgement would be falc. All judgement therefore is nothing more than a recital of the two fenfations, either actually proved, or preferved in my memory.

"When I obferve the relation objects have to me, I am in like manner attentive to the impreffions I receive. Thele impreffions are either agreeable or difagrecable. Now in either cafe what it is to julge? To tell what I feel. Am I ftruck on the head? Is the pain violent? The fimple recital of what I feel forms my judgement.

"I fhall only add one word to what I have here faid, which is, that with regard to the judgements formed on the relations objects have to each other, or to us, there is a difference, which though of little im portance in appearance, deferves however to be remarked.

"When we are to judge of the relation objects have to each other, we must have at least two of them before our eyes. But when we judge of the relation an object has to ourlelves, it is evident, as every object can excite a fenfation, one alone is fufficient to produce a judgement.

"From this obfervation I conclude, that every affertion concerning the relation of objects to each other, fuppofes a comparison of thofe objects; every comparison a trouble; every trouble, an efficacious mo→ tive to take it. But on the contrary, when we are to oblerve the relation of an object to ourselves, that is to fay, a fenfation, that fenfation, if it be lively, becomes itself the efficacious motive to excite our atten➡ tion.

"Every fenfation of this kind carries therefore conftantly with it a judgement. I fhall not ftop longer at this obfervation, but repeat," agreeable to what I have faid above, that in every cafe to judge, is to feel.

"This being fettled, all the operations of the mind are reduced to mere fenfations. Why then admit in man a faculty of judging diftinct from the faculty of fenfation? But this is the general opinion: I own it; and it even ought to be fo. We fay, I perceive, and I compare; there is therefore in man a faculty of judging and comparing, diftinct from the faculty of fenfation. This method of reafoning is fullicient to impofe on the greatest part of mankind. However, to fhew its fallacy it is only neceflary to fix a clear idea to the word compare. When this word is properly elucidated, it will be found to expreis no one real operation of the mind; that the bufinefs of comparing, as I have before - VOL. VI.

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