posed to reasoning, turns, I suspect, entirely on the circumstance of time. The former we conceive to be instantaneous; whereas the latter necessarily involves the notion of succession, or of progress. This distinction is sufficiently precise for the ordinary purposes of discourse, nay, it supplies us on many occasions with a convenient phraseology; but, in the theory of the mind, it has led to some mistaken conclusions, on which I intend to offer a few remarks in the second part of this section.

So much with respect to the separate provinces of these powers, according to Locke; a point on which I am, after all, inclined to think that my own opinion does not differ essentially from his, whatever inferences to the contrary may be drawn from some of his casual expressions. The misapprehensions into which these have contributed to lead various writers of a later date, will, I hope, furnish a sufficient apology for the attempt which I have made, to place the question in a stronger light than he seems to have thought requisite for its illustration.

In some of the foregoing quotations from his Essay, there is another fault of still greater moment, of which, although not immediately connected with the topic now under discussion, it is proper for me to take notice, that I may not have the appearance of acquiescing in a mode of speaking so extremely exceptionable. What I allude to is, the supposition which his language, concerning the powers both of intuition and of reasoning, involves, that knowledge consists solely in the perception of the agreement or the disagreement of our ideas. The impropriety of this phraseology has been sufficiently exposed by Dr. Reid, whose animadversions I would beg leave to recommend to the attention of those readers, who, from long habit, may have familiarized their ear to the peculiarities of Locke's philosophical diction. In this place, I think it sufficient for me to add to Dr. Reid's strictures, that Mr. Locke's language has, in the present instance, been suggested to him by the partial view which he took of the subject, his illustrations being chiefly borrowed from mathematics, and the relations about which it is conversant. When applied to these relations, it is

undoubtedly possible to annex some sense to such phrases as comparing ideas—the juxtaposition of ideas—the perception of the agreements or disagreements of ideas; but, in most other branches of knowledge, this jargon will be found, on examination, to be altogether unmeaning, and instead of adding to the precision of our notions, to involve plain facts in technical and scholastic mystery.

This last observation leads me to remark farther, that even when Locke speaks of reasoning in general, he seems in many cases to have had a tacit reference in his own mind to mathematical demonstration; and the same criticism may be extended to every logical writer whom I know, not excepting Aristotle himself. Perhaps it is chiefly owing to this that their discussions are so often of very little practical utility, the rules which result from them being wholly superfluous, when applied to mathematics; and, when extended to other branches of knowledge, being unsusceptible of any precise, or even intelligible interpretation.

[SUBSECTION] II.-Conclusions obtained by a Process of Deduction often mistaken for Intuitive Judgments.

It has been frequently remarked, that the justest and most efficient understandings are often possessed by men who are incapable of stating to others, or even to themselves, the grounds on which they proceed in forming their decisions. In some instances I have been disposed to ascribe this to the faults of early education; but in other cases, I am persuaded, that it was the effect of active and imperious habits in quickening the evanescent processes of thought, so as to render them untraceable by the memory, and to give the appearance of intuition to what was in fact the result of a train of reasoning so rapid as to escape notice. This I conceive to be the true theory of what is generally called common sense, in opposition to book-learning, and it serves to account for the use which has been made of this phrase, by various writers, as synonymous with intuition.

These seemingly instantaneous judgments have always ap

peared to me as entitled to a greater share of our confidence than many of our more deliberate conclusions, inasmuch as they have been forced, as it were, on the mind, by the lessons of long experience, and are as little liable to be biassed by temper or passion, as the estimates we form of the distances of visible objects. They constitute, indeed, to those who are habitually engaged in the busy scenes of life, a sort of peculiar faculty, analogous, both in its origin and in its use, to the coup d'œil of the military engineer, or to the quick and sure tact of the medical practitioner, in marking the diagnostics of disease.

For this reason I look upon the distinction between our intuitive and deductive judgments as, in many cases, merely an object of theoretical curiosity. In those simple conclusions which all men are impelled to form by the necessities of their nature, and in which we find a uniformity not less constant than in the acquired perceptions of sight, it is of as little consequence to the logician to spend his time in efforts to retrace the first steps of the infant understanding, as it would be to the sailor or the sportsman to study, with a view to the improvement of his eye, the Berkeleian theory of vision. In both instances, the original faculty and the acquired judgment are equally entitled to be considered as the work of Nature; and in both instances we find it equally impossible to shake off her authority. It is no wonder, therefore, that in popular language, such words as common sense and reason should be used with a considerable degree of latitude; nor is it of much importance to the philosopher to aim at extreme nicety in defining their province, where all mankind, whether wise or ignorant, think and speak alike.

In some rare and anomalous cases, a rapidity of judgment in the more complicated concerns of life, appears in individuals who have had so few opportunities of profiting by experience, that it seems, on a superficial view, to be the immediate gift of heaven. But, in all such instances, (although a great deal must undoubtedly be ascribed to an inexplicable aptitude or predisposition of the intellectual powers,) we may be perfectly

assured, that every judgment of the understanding is preceded by a process of reasoning or deduction, whether the individual himself be able to recollect it or not. Of this I can no more believe that the Arith

doubt than I could bring myself to metical Prodigy, who has, of late, so justly attracted the attention of the curious, is able to extract square and cube roots by an instinctive and instantaneous perception, because the process of mental calculation, by which he is led to the result, eludes all his efforts to recover it.1

It is remarked by Mr. Hume, with respect to the elocution of Oliver Cromwell, that "it was always confused, embarrassed, and unintelligible." "The great defect, however," he adds, "in Oliver's speeches, consisted, not in his want of elocution, but in his want of ideas; the sagacity of his actions, and the absurdity of his discourse, forming the most prodigious contrast that ever was known." "In the great variety of human geniuses," says the same historian, upon a different occasion, there are some which, though they see their object clearly and distinctly in general; yet, when they come to unfold its parts by discourse or writing, lose that luminous conception which they had before attained. All accounts agree in ascribing to Cromwell a tiresome, dark, unintelligible elocution, even when he had no intention to disguise his meaning: yet, no man's actions were ever, in such a variety of difficult incidents, more decisive and judicious."

The case here described may be considered as an extreme one; but every person in common observation must recollect facts somewhat analogous, which have fallen under his own. notice. Indeed, it is no more than we should expect a priori to meet with, in every individual whose early habits have trained him more to the active business of the world, than to those pursuits which prepare the mind for communicating to others its ideas and feelings with clearness and effect.

An anecdote which I heard, many years ago, of a late very eminent Judge, (Lord Mansfield,) has often recurred to my memory, while reflecting on these apparent inconsistencies of

1 See Note E.

intellectual character. A friend of his, who possessed excellent natural talents, but who had been prevented, by his professional duties as a naval officer, from bestowing on them all the cultivation of which they were susceptible, having been recently appointed to the government of Jamaica, happened to express some doubts of his competency to preside in the Court of Chancery. Lord Mansfield assured him, that he would find the difficulty not so great as he apprehended. "Trust," he said, "to your own good sense in forming your opinions; but beware of attempting to state the grounds of your judgments. The judgment will probably be right;-the argument will infallibly be wrong."1

From what has been said, it seems to follow, that although a man should happen to reason ill in support of a sound conclusion, we are by no means entitled to infer, with confidence, that he judged right, merely by accident. It is far from being impossible that he may have committed some mistake in stating to others (perhaps in retracing to himself) the grounds upon which his judgment was really founded. Indeed, this must be the case, wherever a shrewd understanding in business is united with an incapacity for clear and luminous reasoning; and something of the same sort is incident, more or less, to all men (more particularly to men of quick parts) when they make an attempt in discussions concerning human affairs, to remount to first principles. It may be added, that in the old, this correctness of judgment often remains, in a surprising degree, long after the discursive or argumentative power would seem, from some degree of attention, or confusion in the succession of ideas, to have been sensibly impaired by age or by disease.

1 [Since this sheet was cast off, I have been informed, from the best authority, that the conversation here alluded to, which I had understood to have taken place between Lord Chief Justice Mansfield and the late Sir Basil Keith, really passed between his Lordship and another very distinguished officer, the late gallant and accomplished

Sir Archibald Campbell. I have not, however, thought it worth while, in consequence of a mistake which does not affect the substance of the anecdote, to cancel the leaf;-more especially, as there is at least a possibility that the same advice may have been given on more than one occasion.-Note placed at the end of the volume in former editions.]