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, every body is apt to imagine, that he himself could have written in the same manner.

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But, in this sort of speculation, if all are qualified to un"derstand, all are not fitted to teach. The merit of accom❝modating 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 unfold"ing; 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. 99*

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 nomencla

"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.

semble que tout ce qu'on apprend dans un bonlivre de métaphysique, ne soit ❝ qu'une espèce de réminiscence de ce que notre ame a déja 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.

ture is, in itself, ne 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.

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 metaphy"sics. 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.

*"La génération de nos idées appartient à la métaphysique; c'est un de "ses objets principaux, et peut-être devroit elle s'y borner."-Ibid.

CHAPTER FIRST.

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 recognized in all our reasonings concerning contingent events, I shall have occasion to take notice under a different article.

SECTION 1.

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.

I.

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 sub

servient.

:

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 dif ficulty 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 subtilty 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 previ ously examined and admitted, yet that the truth is not less evident in the latter case than in the former. He observes farther, that it is in some of its particular applications, that the truth of every axiom is originally perceived by the mind; and, therefore, that the general proposition, so far from being the ground of our assent to the truths which it comprehends, is only a verbal generalization of what, in particular instances, has been already acknowledged as true.

The same author remarks, that some of these axioms "are "no more than bare verbal propositions, and teach us nothing "but the respect and import of names one to another. The "whole is equal to all its parts: what real truth, I beseech you, does it teach us? What more is contained in that "maxim, than what the signification of the word totum, or "the whole, does of itself import? And he that knows that "the word whole stands for what is made up of all its parts, "knows very little less, than that the whole is equal to all "its parts." And upon the same ground, I think, that this "proposition, A hill is higher than a valley, and several the "like, may also pass for maxims."

Notwithstanding these considerations, Mr. Locke does not object to the form which Euclid has given to his axioms, or to the place which he has assigned to them in his Elements. On the contrary, he is of opinion, that a collection of such maxims is not without reason prefixed to a mathematical system; in order that learners, "having in the beginning per

fectly acquainted their thoughts with these propositions "made in general terms, may have them ready to apply to "all particular cases as formed rules and sayings. Not that, "if they be equally weighed, they are more clear and evi"dent than the instances they are brought to confirm ; but "that, being more familiar to the mind, the very naming of "them is enough to satisfy the understanding." In farther illustration of this, he adds very justly and ingeniously, that, "although our knowledge begins in particulars, and so spreads itself by degrees to generals; yet afterwards, the