that I have uniformly attained, but which I am conscious of having, at least, uniformly attempted. How far I have succeeded, they alone who have followed my reasonings with a very critical attention are qualified to determine; for it is not by the statement of formal definitions, but by the habitual use of precise and appropriate language, that I have endeavoured to fix in my reader's mind the exact import of my expressions. In appropriating, however, particular words to particular ideas, I do not mean to censure the practice of those who may have understood them in a sense different from that which I annex to them; but I found that, without such an appropriation, I could not explain my notions respecting the human mind, with any tolerable degree of distinctness. This scrupulous appropriation of terms, if it can be called an innovation, is the only one which I have attempted to introduce; for in no instance have I presumed to annex a philosophical incaning to a technical word belonging to this branch of science, without having previously shown, that it has been used in the same sense by good writers, in some passages of their works. After doing this, I hope I shall not be accused of affectation, when I decline to use it in any of the other acceptations in which, from carelessness or from want of precision, they may have been led occasionally to employ it. Some remarkable instances of vagueness and ambiguity, in the employment of words, occur in that branch of my subject of which I am now to treat. The word Reason itself is far from being precise in its meaning. In common and popular discourse, it denotes that power by which we distinguish truth from falsehood, and right from wrong, and by which we are enabled to combine means for the attainment of particular ends. Whether these different capacities are, with strict logical propriety, referred to the same power, is a question which I shall examine in another part of my work; but that they are all included in the idea which is generally annexed to the word reason, there can be no doubt; and the case, so far as I know, is the same with the corresponding term in all languages what ever. The fact probably is, that this word was first employed to comprehend the principles, whatever they are, by which man is distinguished from the brutes; and afterwards came to be somewhat limited in its meaning, by the more obvious conclusions concerning the nature of that distinction, which present themselves to the common sense of mankind. It is in this enlarged meaning that it is opposed to instinct by Pope: "And Reason raise o'er Instinct as you can; In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis Man." It was thus, too, that Milton plainly understood the term, when he remarked, that smiles imply the exercise of reason:Smiles from Reason flow, To brutes denied: " And still more explicitly in these noble lines: "There wanted yet the master-work, the end Of all yet done; a creature who, not prone And worship God Supreme, who made him chief Of all his works." Among the various characteristics of humanity, the power of devising means to accomplish ends, together with the power of distinguishing truth from falsehood, and right from wrong, are obviously the most conspicuous and important, and accordingly it is to these that the word reason, even in its most comprehensive acceptation, is now exclusively restricted.1 'This, I think, is the meaning which most naturally presents itself to common readers, when the word reason occurs in authors not affecting to aim at any nice logical distinctions; and it is certainly the meaning which must be annexed to it, in some of the most serious and important arguments in which it has ever been employed. In the fol lowing passage, for example, where Mr. Locke contrasts the light of Reason with that of Revelation, he plainly proceeds on the supposition, that it is competent to appeal to the former, as affording a standard of right and wrong, not less than of speculative truth and falsehood; nor can there be a doubt that, when he speaks of truth as the object of natural By some philosophers, the meaning of the word has been of late restricted still farther; to the power by which we distinguish truth from falsehood, and combine means for the accomplishment of our purposes;-the capacity of distinguishing right from wrong being referred to a separate principle or faculty, to which different names have been assigned in different ethical theories. The following passage from Mr. Hume contains one of the most explicit statements of this limitation. which I can recollect:-" Thus, the distinct boundaries and offices of Reason and of Taste are easily ascertained. The former conveys the knowledge of truth and falschood; the latter gives the sentiment of beauty and deformity - vice and virtue. Reason, being cool and disengaged, is no motive to action, and directs only the impulse received from appetite or inclination, by shewing us the means of attaining happiness or avoiding misery. Taste, as it gives pleasure or pain, and thereby constitutes happiness or misery, becomes a motive to action, and is the first spring or impulse to desire and volition."1 On the justness of this statement of Mr. Hume, I have no remarks to offer here; as my sole object in quoting it was to reason, it was principally, if not wholly, moral truth which he had in his view: "Reason is natural revelation, whereby the eternal Father of Light, and fountain of all knowledge, communicates to mankind that portion of truth which he has laid within the reach of their natural faculties. Revelation is natural reason, enlarged by a new set of discoveries, communicated by God immediately, which reason vouches the truth of, by the testimony and proofs it gives that they come from God. So that he who takes away Reason to make way for Revelation, puts out the light of both, and does much the same as if he would persuade a man to put out his eyes, the better to receive the remote light of an invisible star by a telescope." -Essay, b. iv. c. 19. A passage still more explicit for my present purpose occurs in the pleasing and philosophical conjectures of Huygens, concerning the planetary worlds. "Positis vero ejusmodi planetarum incolis ratione utentibus, quæri adhuc potest, anne idem illic, atque apud nos, sit hoc quod rationem vocamus. Quod quidem ita esse omnino dicendum videtur, neque aliter fieri posse; sive usum rationis in his consideremus quæ ad mores et æquitatem pertinent, sive in iis quæ spectant ad principia et fundamenta scientiarum. Etenim ratio apud nos est, quæ sensum justitiæ, honesti, laudis, clementiæ, gratitudinis ingenerat, mala ac bona in universum discernere docet: quæque ad hæc animum discip linæ, multorumque inventorum capacem reddit," &c. &c.-Hugenii Opera Varia, vol. ii. p. 663. Ludg. Batav. 1724. illustrate the different meanings annexed to the word reason by different writers. It will appear afterwards, that, in consequence of this circumstance, some controversies which have been keenly agitated about the principles of morals, resolve entirely into verbal disputes, or, at most, into questions of arrangement and classification, of little comparative moment to the points at issue.1 Another ambiguity in the word reason, it is of still greater consequence to point out at present-an ambiguity which leads us to confound our rational powers in general with that particular branch of them, known among logicians by the name of the Discursive Faculty. The affinity between the words reason and reasoning sufficiently accounts for this inaccuracy in common and popular language; although it cannot fail to appear obvious, on the slightest reflection, that in strict propriety, reasoning only expresses one of the various functions or operations of reason, and that an extraordinary capacity for the former by no means affords a test by which the other constituent elements of the latter may be measured. Nor is it to common and popular language that this inaccuracy is confined. It has extended itself to the systems of some of our most acute philosophers, and has, in various instances, produced an apparent diversity of opinion where there was little or none in reality. 1 In confirmation of this remark, I shall only quote at present a few sentences from an excellent discourse, by Dr. Adams of Oxford, on the nature and obligations of virtue. Nothing can bring us under an obligation to do what appears to our moral judgment wrong. It may be supposed our interest to do this, but it cannot be supposed our duty. Power may compel, interest may bribe, pleasure may persuade, but REASON only can oblige. This is the only authority which rational beings can own, and to which they owe obedience." It must appear perfectly obvious to every reader, that the apparent differ ence of opinion between this writer and ... 66 The two most different things in the world," says Locke, are a logical chicaner, and a man of reason."—Conduct of the Understanding, 2 3. "No hypothesis," says Dr. Campbell, "hitherto invented, hath shewn that, by means of the discursive faculty, without the aid of any other mental power, we could ever obtain a notion of either the beautiful or the good." The remark is undoubtedly true, and may be applied to all those systems which ascribe to Reason the origin of our moral ideas, if the expressions reason and discursive faculty be used as synonymous. But it was assuredly not in this restricted acceptation, that the word reason was understood by those ethical writers at whose doctrines this criticism seems to have been pointed by the ingenious author. That the discursive faculty alone is sufficient to account for the origin of our moral ideas, I do not know that any theorist, ancient or modern, has yet ventured to assert. Various other philosophical disputes might be mentioned, which would be at once brought to a conclusion, if this distinction between reason and the power of reasoning were steadily kept in view.2 1 Philosophy of Rhetoric, vol. i. p. 204. 2 It is curious that Dr. Johnson has assigned to this very limited, and (according to present usage) very doubtful interpretation of the word reason, the first place in his enumeration of its various meanings, as if he had thought it the sense in which it is most properly and correctly employed. 'Reason," he tells us, "is the power by which man deduces one proposition from another, or proceeds from premises to consequences." The authority which he has quoted for this definition is still more curious, being manifestly altogether inapplicable to his purpose. "Reason is the director of man's will, discovering in action what is good; for the laws of well-doing are the dictates of right reason."-Hooker. In the sixth article of the same enumeration, he states as a distinct meaning of the same word, ratiocination, discursive power. What possible differ ence could he conceive between this signification and that above quoted? The authority, however, which he produces for this last explanation is worth transcribing. It is a passage from Sir John Davis, where that fanciful writer states a distinction between reason and understanding, to which he seems to have been led by a conceit founded on their respective etymologies. "When she rates things, and moves from ground to ground, The name of Reason she obtains by this; But when by Reason she the truth hath found, And standeth fixt, she Understanding is." The adjective reasonable, as employed in our language, is not liable to the same ambiguity with the substantive from which it is derived. It denotes a character in which reason (taking that word in its largest acceptation) possesses a decided ascendant over the temper and the passions; and implies no particular propensity to a display of the dis |