by the few who are competent to judge, I shall be allowed to have contributed my share, however small, towards the attainment of so great an object.

In the discussions which immediately follow, no argument will, I trust, occur beyond the reach of those who shall read them with the attention which every inquiry into the Human Mind indispensably requires. I have certainly endeavoured, to the utmost of my abilities, to render every sentence which I have written not only intelligible but perspicuous; and, where I have failed in the attempt, the obscurity will, I hope, be imputed not to an affectation of mystery, but to some error of judgment. I can, without much vanity, say, that, with less expense of thought, I could have rivalled the obscurity of Kant; and that the invention of a new technical language, such as that which he has introduced, would have been an easier task, than the communication of clear and precise notions, (if I have been so fortunate as to succeed in this communication,) without departing from the established modes of expression.

To the following observations of D'Alembert (with some trifling verbal exceptions) I give my most cordial assent; and, mortifying as they may appear to the pretensions of bolder theorists, I should be happy to see them generally recognised as canons of philosophical criticism: "Truth in metaphysics resembles truth in matters of taste. In both cases, the seeds of it exist in every mind; though few think of attending to this latent treasure, till it be pointed out to them by more curious inquirers. It should seem that everything we learn from a good metaphysical book is only a sort of reminiscence of what the mind previously knew. The obscurity, of which we are apt to complain in this science, may be always justly ascribed to the author; because the information which he professes to communicate requires no technical language appropriated to itself. Accordingly, we may apply to good metaphysical authors what has been said of those who excel in the art of writing, that, in reading them, everybody is apt to imagine that he himself could have written in the same manner.

But, in this sort of speculation, if all are qualified to understand, all are not fitted to teach. The merit of accommodating easily to the apprehension of others, notions which are at once simple and just, appears, from its extreme rarity, to be much greater than is commonly imagined. Sound metaphysical principles are truths which every one is ready to seize, but which few men have the talent of unfolding; so difficult is it in this, as well as in other instances, to appropriate to one's self what seems to be the common inheritance of the human race."1

I am, at the same time, fully aware, that whoever, in treating of the Human Mind, aims to be understood, must lay his account with forfeiting, in the opinion of a very large proportion of readers, all pretensions to depth, to subtlety, or to invention. The acquisition of a new nomenclature is, in itself, no inconsiderable reward to the industry of those who study only from motives of literary vanity; and, if D'Alembert's idea of this branch of science be just, the wider an author deviates from truth, the more likely are his conclusions to assume the appearance of discoveries. I may add, that it is chiefly in those discussions which possess the best claims to originality, where he may expect to be told by the multitude, that they have learned from him nothing but what they knew before.

1 "Le vrai en métaphysique ressemble au vrai en matière de goût; c'est un vrai dont tous les esprits ont le germe en eux mêmes, auquel la plupart ne font point d'attention, mais qu'ils reconnoissent dès qu'on le leur montre. Il semble que tout ce qu'on apprend dans un bon livre de métaphysique, ne soit qu'une espèce de réminiscence de ce que notre âme a déjà su; l'obscurité, quand il y en a, vient toujours de la faute de l'auteur, parce que la science qu'il se propose d'enseigner n'a point d'autre langue que la langue commune. Aussi peut-on appliquer aux bons auteurs de métaphysique ce qu'on a dit des bons écrivains, qu'il n'y a personne qui

en les lisant, ne croie pouvoir en dire autant qu'eux.

"Mais si dans ce genre tous sont faits pour entendre, tous ne sont pas faits pour instruire. Le mérite de faire entrer avec facilité dans les esprits des notions vraies et simples, est beaucoup plus grand qu'on ne pense, puisque l'expérience nous prouve combien il est rare; les saines idées métaphysiques sont des vérités communes que chacun saisit, mais que peu d'hommes ont le talent de développer; tant il est difficile, dans quelque sujet que ce puisse être, de se rendre propre ce qui appartient à tout le monde."-Elémens de Philosophie. [Mélanges, tom. iv. 2 6.]

The latitude with which the word metaphysics is frequently used, makes it necessary for me to remark, with respect to the foregoing passage from D'Alembert, that he limits the term entirely to an account of the origin of our ideas. "The generation of our ideas," he tells us, "belongs to metaphysics. It forms one of the principal objects, and perhaps ought to form the sole object of that science." If the meaning of the word be extended, as it too often is in our language, so as to comprehend all those inquiries which relate to the theory and to the improvement of our mental powers, some of his observations. must be understood with very important restrictions. What he has stated, however, on the inseparable connexion between perspicuity of style and soundness of investigation in metaphysical disquisitions, will be found to hold equally in every research to which that epithet can, with any colour of propriety, be applied.

1 "La génération de nos idées appartient à la métaphysique; c'est un de ses

objets principaux, et peut-être devroit elle s'y borner."-Elém. de Philosophie.

CHAPTER I.

OF THE FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF HUMAN BELIEF; OR THE PRIMARY ELEMENTS OF HUMAN REASON.

THE propriety of the title prefixed to this chapter, will I trust be justified sufficiently by the speculations which are to follow. As these differ, in some essential points, from the conclusions of former writers, I found myself under the necessity of abandoning, in various instances, their phraseology; but my reasons for the particular changes which I have made, cannot possibly be judged of, or even understood, till the inquiries by which I was led to adopt them be carefully examined.

I begin with a review of some of those primary truths, a conviction of which is necessarily implied in all our thoughts, and in all our actions, and which seem on that account rather to form constituent and essential elements of reason, than objects with which reason is conversant. The import of this last remark will appear more clearly afterwards.

The primary truths to which I mean to confine my attention at present are—1. Mathematical Axioms: 2. Truths, (or, more properly speaking, Laws of Belief,) inseparably connected with the exercise of Consciousness, Perception, Memory, and Reasoning. Of some additional laws of Belief, the truth of which is tacitly recognised in all our reasonings concerning contingent events, I shall have occasion to take notice under a different article.

SECTION I.- -OF MATHEMATICAL AXIOMS.

I have placed this class of truths at the head of the enumeration, merely because they seem likely, from the place which

they hold in the elements of geometry, to present to my readers a more interesting, and, at the same time, an easier subject of discussion, than some of the more abstract and latent elements of our knowledge, afterwards to be considered. In other respects, a different arrangement might perhaps have possessed some advantages, in point of strict logical method.

[SUBSECTION 1.-Of the Nature of Mathematical Axioms.]

On the evidence of mathematical axioms it is unnecessary to enlarge, as the controversies to which they have given occasion are entirely of a speculative or rather scholastic description, and have no tendency to affect the certainty of that branch of science to which they are supposed to be subservient.

It must, at the same time, be confessed, with respect to this class of propositions, (and the same remark may be extended to axioms in general,) that some of the logical questions connected with them continue still to be involved in much obscurity. In proportion to their extreme simplicity is the difficulty of illustrating or of describing their nature in unexceptionable language; or even of ascertaining a precise criterion by which they may be distinguished from other truths which approach to them nearly. It is chiefly owing to this, that in geometry there are no theorems of which it is so difficult to give a rigorous demonstration, as those of which persons unacquainted with the nature of mathematical evidence are apt to say, that they require no proof whatever. But the inconveniences arising from these circumstances are of trifling moment; occasioning at the worst some embarrassment to those mathematical writers, who are studious of the most finished elegance in their exposition of elementary principles, or to metaphysicians anxious to display their subtlety upon points which cannot possibly lead to any practical conclusion.

It was long ago remarked by Locke, of the axioms of geometry, as stated by Euclid, that although the proposition be at first enunciated in general terms, and afterwards appealed to, in its particular applications, as a principle previously examined and admitted, yet that the truth is not less evident