writers. It is also most agreeable to the literal meaning which its etymology suggests, expressing the original point from which our reasoning sets out or commences.

Dr. Reid often uses the word in this sense, as, for example, in the following sentence already quoted: "From three or four axioms, which he calls regulæ philosophandi, together with the phenomena observed by the senses, which he likewise lays down as first principles, Newton deduces, by strict reasoning, the propositions contained in the third book of his Principia, and in his Optics."

On other occasions, he uses the same word to denote those elemental truths (if I may use the expression) which are virtually taken for granted or assumed in every step of our reasoning, and without which, although no consequences can be directly inferred from them, a train of reasoning would be impossible. Of this kind, in mathematics are the axioms, or (as Mr. Locke and others frequently call them) the maxims; in physics, a belief of the continuance of the Laws of Nature; in all our reasonings, without exception, a belief in our own identity, and in the evidence of memory. Such truths are the last elements into which reasoning resolves itself when subjected to a metaphysical analysis, and which no person but a metaphysician or a logician ever thinks of stating in the form of propositions, or even of expressing verbally to himself. It is to truths of this description that Locke seems in general to apply the name of maxims; and, in this sense, it is unquestionably true, that no science (not even geometry) is founded on maximus as its first principles.

In one sense of the word principle, indeed, maxims may be called principles of reasoning; for the words principles and elements are sometimes used as synonymous. Nor do I take upon me to say that this mode of speaking is exceptionable. All that I assert is, that they cannot be called principles of reasoning, in the sense which has just now been defined; and that accuracy requires that the word on which the whole question hinges, should not be used in both senses in the course of the same argument. It is for this reason that I have employed the

phrase principles of reasoning on the one occasion, and elements of reasoning on the other.

It is difficult to find unexceptionable language to mark distinctions so completely foreign to the ordinary purposes of speech; but, in the present instance, the line of separation is strongly and clearly drawn by this criterion-that from principles of reasoning consequences may be deduced; from what I have called elements of reasoning, none ever can.

A process of logical reasoning has been often likened to a chain supporting a weight. If this similitude be adopted, the axioms or elemental truths now mentioned may be compared to the successive concatenations which connect the different links immediately with each other; the principles of our reasoning resemble the hook, or rather the beam, from which the whole is suspended.

The foregoing observations, I am inclined to think, coincide with what was, at bottom, Mr. Locke's opinion on this subject. That he has not stated it with his usual clearness and distinctness, it is impossible to deny; at the same time I cannot subscribe to the following severe criticism of Dr. Reid :

"Mr. Locke has observed, That intuitive knowledge is necessary to connect all the steps of a demonstration.'

"From this, I think, it necessarily follows, that in every branch of knowledge we must make use of truths that are intuitively known, in order to deduce from them such as require proof.

"But I cannot reconcile this with what he says, (section 8th of the same chapter): 'The necessity of this intuitive knowledge in every step of scientifical or demonstrative reasoning, gave occasion, I imagine, to that mistaken axiom, that all reasoning was ex præcognitis et præconcessis, which how far it is mistaken I shall have occasion to shew more at large when I come to consider propositions, and particularly those propositions which are called maxims, and to shew that it is by a mistake that they are supposed to be the foundation of all our knowledge and reasonings.""1

Essays on Intellectual Powers, p. 643, 4to edit.

The distinction which I have already made between elements of reasoning, and first principles of reasoning, appears to myself to throw much light on these apparent contradictions.

That the seeming difference of opinion on this point between these two profound writers, arose chiefly from the ambiguities of language, may be inferred from the following acknowledgment of Dr. Reid, which immediately follows the last quotation:

"I have carefully examined the chapter on Maxims which Mr. Locke here refers to, and though one would expect, from the quotation last made, that it should run contrary to what I have before delivered concerning first principles, I find only two or three sentences in it, and those chiefly incidental, to which I do not assent."1

Before dismissing this subject, I must once more repeat, that the doctrine which I have been attempting to establish, so far from degrading axioms from that rank which Dr. Reid would assign them, tends to identify them still more than he has done with the exercise of our reasoning powers; inasmuch as, instead of comparing them with the data, on the accuracy of which that of our conclusion necessarily depends, it considers them as the vincula which give coherence to all the particular links of the chain; or (to vary the metaphor) as component elements, without which the faculty of reasoning is inconceivable and impossible.2

1 Essays on Intellectual Powers, p. 643, 4to edit.

D'Alembert has defined the word principle exactly in the sense in which I have used it; and has expressed himself (at least on one occasion) nearly as I have done, on the subject of axioms. He seems, however, on this, as well as on some other logical and metaphysical questions, to have varied a little in his views (probably from mere forgetfulness) in different parts of his writings. "What then are the truths which are entitled to have a place in the elements of philosophy? They are of two kinds;

those which form the head of each part of the chain, and those which are to be found at the points where different branches of the chain unite together.

"Truths of the first kind are distinguished by this-that they do not depend on any other truths, and that they possess within themselves the whole grounds of their evidence. Some of my readers will be apt to suppose, that I here mean to speak of axioms; but these are not the truths which I have at present in view. With respect to this last class of principles, I must refer to what I have elsewhere said of them, that not

SECTION II.-OF CERTAIN LAWS OF BELIEF, INSEPARABLY CONNECTED WITH THE EXERCISE OF CONSCIOUSNESS, MEMORY, PERCEPTION, AND REASONING.

1. It is by the immediate evidence of consciousness that we are assured of the present existence of our various sensations,

whether pleasant or painful; of all our affections, passions, hopes, fears, desires, and volitions. It is thus, too, we are assured of the present existence of those thoughts which, during our waking hours, are continually passing through the mind, and of all the different effects which they produce in furnishing. employment to our intellectual faculties.

According to the common doctrine of our best philosophers,1 it is by the evidence of consciousness we are assured that we ourselves exist. The proposition, however, when thus stated, is not accurately true; for our own existence (as I have elsewhere observed)2 is not a direct or immediate object of consciousness, in the strict and logical meaning of that term. We are conscious of sensation, thought, desire, volition; but we are not conscious of the existence of Mind itself; nor would it be possible for us to arrive at the knowledge of it, (supposing us to be created in the full possession of all the intellectual capacities which belong to human nature,) if no impression were ever to be made on our external senses. The moment that, in consequence of such an impression, a sensation is excited, we learn two facts at once, the existence of the sensation, and our own existence as sentient beings;-in other words, the very first exercise of consciousness necessarily implies a belief, not only of the present existence of what is felt, but of the present existence of that which feels and thinks: or (to employ plainer language) the present existence of that being which I denote by the words I and myself. Of these facts, however, it is the former alone of which we can properly be said to be conscious, agreeably to the rigorous interpretation of the expression. A conviction of the latter, although it seems to be so inseparable

ni contester; en physique les phénomènes journaliers que l'observation découvre à tous les yeux; en géométrie les propriétés sensibles de l'étendue; en mechanique, l'impénétrabilité des corps, source de leur action mutuelle; en métaphysique, le résultat de nos sensations; en morale, les affections premières et communes à tous les hommes." -Pp. 26, 27.

In cases of this sort, where so much depends on extreme precision and nicety in the use of words, it appears to me to be proper to verify the fidelity of my translations by subjoining the original

passages.

See, in particular, Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric.

2 Philosophical Essays, p. 7, [infra, vol. v.]

4to edit.