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considerations already stated, strongly incline me to entertain an idea directly contrary. My reasons for thinking so may be easily collected from the tenor of the preceding remarks.

It is time, however, to proceed to the examination of those discursive processes, the different steps of which admit of being distinctly stated and enunciated in the form of logical arguments; and which, in consequence of this circumstance, furnish more certain and palpable data for our speculations. I begin with some remarks on the Power of General Reasoning; for the exercise of which, (as I formerly endeavoured to show) the use of language, as an instrument of thought, is indispensably requisite.

SECTION II.

Of General Reasoning.

I.

Illustrations of some Remarks formerly stated in treating of Abstraction.

I SHOULD Scarcely have thought it necessary to resume the consideration of Abstraction here, if I had not neglected, in my first volume, to examine the force of an objection to Berkeley's doctrine concerning abstract general ideas, on which great stress is laid by Dr. Reid, in his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man; and which some late writers seem to have considered as not less con

clusive against the view of the question which I have taken. Of this objection I was aware from the first; but was unwilling, by replying to it in form, to lengthen a discussion which savoured so much of the schools; more especially, as I conceived that I had guarded my own argument from any such attack, by the cautious terms in which I had expressed it. Having since had reason to believe that I was precipitate in forming this judgment, and that Reid's strictures on Berkeley's theory of General Signs have produced a deeper impression than I had expected,* I shall endeavour to obviate them, at least as far as they apply to myself, before entering on any new speculations concerning our reasoning powers; and shall, at the same time, introduce some occasional illustrations of the principles which I formerly endeavoured to establish.

To prevent the possibility of misrepresentation, I state Dr. Reid's objection in his own words.

"Berkeley, in his reasoning against abstract general ideas, seems unwillingly or unwaringly to grant all that is necessary to support abstract and general conceptions.

"A man (says Berkeley) may consider a figure merely as triangular, without attending to the particular qualities of the angles, or relations of the sides. So far he may ab

See a book entitled, Elements of Intellectual Philosophy, by the late learned and justly regretted Mr. Scott, of King's College, Aberdeen, p. 118. et seq. (Edinburgh, 1805.) I have not thought it necessary to reply to Mr. Scott's own reasonings, which do not appear to me to throw much new light on the question; but I thought it right to refer to them here, that the reader may, if he pleases, have an opportunity of judging for himself.

stract. But this will never prove that he can frame an abstract general inconsistent idea of a triangle."

"Upon this passage Dr. Reid makes the following remark: If a man may consider a figure merely as triangular, he must have some conception of this object of his consideration; for no man can consider a thing which he does not conceive. He has a conception, therefore, of a triangular figure, merely as such. I know no more that is meant by an abstract general conception of a triangle."

"He that considers a figure merely as triangular (continues the same author) must understand what is meant by the word triangular. If to the conception he joins to this word, he adds any particular quality of angles or relation of sides, he misunderstands it, and does not consider the figure merely as triangular. Whence I think it is evident, that he who considers a figure merely as triangular, must have the conception of a triangle, abstracting from any quality of angles or relations of sides."*

For what appears to myself to be a satisfactory answer to this reasoning, I have only to refer to the first volume of these Elements. The remarks to which I allude are to be found in the third section of chapter fourth ;† and I must beg leave to recommend them to the attention of my readers as a necessary preparation for the following dis

cussion.

Reid's Intellectual Powers, p. 483, 4to edit.
+ P. 195. 3d edit.

In the farther prosecution of the same argument, Dr. Reid lays hold of an acknowledgment which Berkeley has made, "That we may consider Peter so far forth as man, or so far forth as animal, inasmuch as all that is perceived is not considered."-"It may here (says Reid) be observed, that he who considers Peter so far forth as man, or so far forth as animal, must conceive the meaning of those abstract general words man and animal; and he who conceives the meaning of them, has an abstract general conception."

According to the definition of the word conception, which I have given in treating of that faculty of the mind, a general conception is an obvious impossibility. But, as Dr. Reid has chosen to annex a more extensive meaning to the term than seems to me consistent with precision, I would be far from being understood to object to his conclusion, merely because it is inconsistent with an arbitrary definition of my own. Let us consider, therefore, how far his doctrine is consistent with itself; or rather, since both parties are evidently so nearly agreed about the principal fact, which of the two have adopted the more perspicuous and philosophical mode of stating it.

In the first place, then, let it be remembered as a thing admitted on both sides, "that we have a power of reasoning concerning a figure considered merely as triangular, without attending to the particular qualities of the angles, or relations of the sides;" and also, that "we may reason concerning Peter or John, considered so far forth as man, or so far forth as animal." About these facts there is but one opinion; and the only question is, Whether it

throws additional light on the subject, to tell us, in scholastic language, that "we are enabled to carry on these general reasonings, in consequence of the power which the mind has of forming abstract general conceptions." To myself it appears, that this last statement (even on the supposition that the word conception is to be understood agreeably to Dr. Reid's own explanation,) can serve no other purpose than that of involving a plain and simple truth in obscurity and mystery. If it be used in the sense in which I have invariably employed it in this work, the proposition is altogether absurd and incomprehensible.

For the more complete illustration of this point, I must here recur to a distinction formerly made between the abstractions which are subservient to reasoning, and those which are subservient to imagination. "In every instance in which imagination is employed in forming new wholes, by decompounding and combining the perceptions of sense, it is evidently necessary that the poet or the painter should be able to state or represent to himself the circumstances abstracted, as separate objects of conception. But this is by no means requisite in every case in which abstraction is subservient to the power of reasoning; for it frequently happens, that we can reason concerning the quality or property of an object abstracted from the rest, while, at the same time, we find it impossible to conceive it separately. Thus, I can reason concerning extension and figure, without any reference to colour, although it may be doubted, if a person possessed of sight can make extension and figure steady objects of conception, without connecting with them the idea of one colour or another. Nor is this always owing (as it is in the instance just men

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