us pleasure to find the eloquent pen of Mr. Stewart employed in supplying, but which we willingly admit he is not to be blamed for not having attempted on the present occasion. The Encyclopædia Britannica is assuredly a very useful work, and we make no doubt that the supplementary volumes with which it is now proposed to complete it, will be respectably prepared; but we think that Mr. Stewart, in contributing, by way of a preface to it, the popular, and, in many parts, able essay, which we are now examining, has performed quite as much, or even more than either the public or his employers had any right to expect.

We are informed in the Advertisement prefixed to the first volume of the Supplement already published, that the

'Dissertation,' before us, forms the first of a series of similar discourses, with one of which each volume in the work will commence ; and whose object is to exhibit a rapid view of the progress made since the_revival of letters, first in those branches of knowledge which relate to Mind, and next in those which relate to Matter. In so far as regards the philosophy of mind, and its kindred branches, this historical sketch is brought down in the present dissertation to the beginning of the last century; and the inquiry will be concluded in another dissertation to be prefixed to the third volume. The second volume will commence with a similar view of the progress of the mathematical and physical sciences during the same period, by Professor Playfair; who will in like manner conclude the history of these sciences in another discourse to be given with the fourth volume. This series will be concluded by a dissertation on the history of chemical discovery and chemical theory, and by Mr. William Thomas Brande, to be prefixed to the last volume.'

We have made this extract merely for the purpose of acquainting our readers with the matter of fact which it contains; but we cannot resist a temptation to observe, that both the division which is here made of human knowledge, and the order in which the various dissertations are to be given to the world, seem to be exceed ingly arbitrary. We shall not, however, stop to examine the grounds of these arrangements, but proceed to the consideration of our author's Dissertation.

He informs us at the conclusion of his Preface, that the sciences to which he means to confine his observations are metaphysics, ethics and political philosophy;' and he commences his labours by reviewing, in a rapid way, the effect produced on all these branches of human knowledge by the discovery of the Pandects, the revival of letters, the Reformation, and other subsidiary causes. Our author's remarks upon these subjects are all of them sensible, and expressed with liveliness; which upon a subject that has been so much and so often trodden is all that it was possible to perform. A large portion however of his first chapter is taken up with an

It

exposition of the mischievous effects which he supposes the writings of Machiavel to have produced upon the political morals of Europe in the age immediately subsequent to that in which he lived. We have not leisure for entering upon an examination of the particular grounds on which our author builds the opinions he entertains upon this subject, but we cannot help thinking that he refines not a little in attributing so much to the political character of the time in which Machiavel wrote to the causes which he assigns. would, we believe, be much more safe to explain the depraved morality of Machiavel's writings by the peculiar circumstances of the age and country in which he lived. The political maxims which prevailed among the petty states of Italy during the fifteenth century will be found recorded and reduced into a sort of theory of government in the 'Prince' but to suppose that this work was materially instrumental in introducing them to practice is, we conceive, mistaking the effect for the cause. A much better explanation of the wicked principles of politics which spread from Italy over a great part of Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries will be found by comparing the history of those times with the remarks which Thucydides makes in his third book upon the Machiavelism which wars and continued dissentions had created in Greece at the period in which he wrote.

Before we quit this chapter, we cannot avoid noticing the silence of our author respecting the influence which the revival of Greek literature in Europe exercised upon the metaphysical taste of the times immediately following. It is indeed true, as he remarks, that no substantial improvement took place in the science itself in consequence of that event; nevertheless, the changes which it produced were sufficiently remarkable, in a literary point of view, fully to deserve notice in any historical sketch on the subject. To commence the history of metaphysics, as our author may be said to do, with the writings of Bacon, is not without inconvenience. So many of his opinions, and so many particular passages in his works, can only be fully explained by reference to the metaphysical notions that prevailed at the time in which he lived, that a person altogether unacquainted with these will necessarily be liable to misunderstand sometimes the scope of his philosophy. The metaphysical science which at present exists is not among the number of modern inventions; it has been handed down, in regular descent. from the times of Grecian philosophy; question has begotten question, and opihion has begotten opinion, in such a way, that in order to understand the metaphysics of one age it will commonly be found necessary to know something of the metaphysics of the age immediately preceding. However, as we have no room for supplying the omis sion of Mr. Stewart respecting the state of the metaphysical

sciences at the period when Bacon began to write, we shall follow our author's steps, and proceed with him to the second chapter, the subject of which is the state of philosophy from the publication of Bacon's philosophical works till that of the Essay on the Human Understanding.'

Ego cum me ad utilitates humanas natum existimarem, says Bacon in his Fragments De Interp. Nat. et curam reipublicæ inter ea esse, quæ publici sunt juris, et velut undam aut auram omnibus patere interpretarer, et quid hominibus maxime conducere posset quæsivi, et ad quid ipse a natura optimè factus essem deliberavi-me ipsum autem ad veritatis contemplationes, quam ad alia magis fabrifactum deprehendi; ut qui mentem et ad rerum similitudinem (quod maximum est) agnoscendam, satis nobilem, et ad differentiarum subtilitates satis fixam et intentum haberem, qui et quærendi desiderium, et dubitandi patientiam, et meditandi voluptatem, et asserandi cunctationem, et resipiscendi facilitatem, et disponendi solicitudinem tenerem ; quique nec novitatem affectarem, nec antiquitatem admirarer, et omnem imposturam odissem. We know not that among all the many long and laboured panegyrics which we have met with upon Bacon's character as a writer, any one is to be found more just or better discriminated than this which we have extracted from his own works. The tone, indeed, in which he talks of himself and of the qualities of his genius, is somewhat high, considering who it is that speaks: but he attributes to himself nothing more than he really possessed; for he was truly a man of admirable wisdom; with all his moral errors a sincere lover of mankind, and with all his intellectual errors sincerely zealous for truth.

But the soundness of an author's philosophical opinions is not always proportioned to the greatness of his genius; and accordingly, although we profess as much veneration for the powers of Bacon's mind as Mr. Stewart himself can well be supposed to feel, and possibly not less admiration for his writings, yet we cannot but think that when our author rests the fame of Bacon upon the superior knowledge, which he supposes his works to display, of the proper objects of philosophy and of the resources and limits of the human understanding, it is placing them precisely in the least favourable point of view in which they can well be looked at. No doubt there are many observations upon this subject scattered through Bacon's writings which, taken separately, reflect great credit upon his good sense; but we are now speaking of his philosophical views in general; and these are manifestly so loose, wavering and erroneous, that when we hear Mr. Stewart perpetually talking of the Baconian school, and the Baconian logic, and describing his own particular doctrines in philosophy as modelled upon Bacon's precepts, by way of contradistinction from those who profess to be the followers of

Locke in philosophy, we should sometimes be tempted to suspect, did we not know the unimpeachable integrity of Mr. Stewart's opinions, that he and Dr. Reid were merely availing themselves of Bacon's venerable name, (to use an expression of this last,) vice lictorum aut viatorum, ad summovendam turbam ut dogmatibus suis viam aperirent.

The merits of Bacon,' says our author, as the father of experimental philosophy, are so universally acknowledged, that it would be superfluous to touch upon them here. The lights which he has struck out in various branches of the philosophy of mind have been much less attended to; although the whole scope and tenor of his speculations show, that to this study his genius was far more strongly and happily turned than to that of the material world, It was not, as some seem to have imagined, by sagacious anticipation of particular discoveries, that his writings have had so powerful an influence in accelerating the advancement of that science. In the extent and accuracy of his physical knowledge, he was far inferior to many of his predecessors; but he surpassed them all in his knowledge of the laws, the resources, and the limits of the human understanding. The sanguine expeetations with which he looked forward to the future were founded solely in his confidence in the untried capacities of the mind; and on a conviction of the possibility of invigorating and guiding by logical rules those faculties, which, in all our researches after truth, are the organs or instruments to be employed. "Such rules," as he himself has observed, "do in some sort equal man's wits, and leave no great advantage in pre-eminence to the excellent notions of the spirit. To draw a straight line, or to describe a circle by aim of hand only, there must be a great difference between an unsteady and unpractised hand, and a steady and practised; but to do it by rule or compass, it is much alike."

Nor is it merely as a logician that Bacon is entitled to notice on the present occasion. It would be difficult to name another writer prior to Locke whose works are enriched with so many valuable observations on the intellectual phenomena. Among these the most valuable relate to the laws of memory and imagination; the latter of which subjects he seems to have studied with peculiar care. In one short but beautiful paragraph concerning poetry, (under which title may be comprehended all the various creations of this faculty,) he has exhausted every thing that philosophy and good sense have yet had to offer on what has since been called the beau ideal; a topic which has furnished occasion to so many false refinements among the French critics, and to so much extravagance and mysticism in the cloud capt metaphysics of the new German school. In considering imagination as connected with the nervous system, more particularly as connected with that species of sympathy to which medical writers have given the name of imitation, he has suggested some very important hints which none of his successors have hitherto prosecuted; and has at the same time left an example of cautious inquiry worthy to be studied by all who may attempt to investigate the laws regulating the union between Mind and Body. His illustration of the different classes

of prejudice incident to human nature is, in point of practical utility at least, equal to any thing on that head to be found in Locke; of whom it is impossible to forbear remarking, as a circumstance not easily explicable, that he should have resumed this important discussion without once mentioning the name of his great predecessor.-The improvement made by Locke, in the further prosecution of the argument, is the application of Hobbes's theory of, association to explain in what manner these prejudices are originally generated.

In Bacon's scattered hints on topics connected with the philosophy of the mind, strictly so called, nothing is more remarkable than the precise and just idea they display of the proper aim of this science. He had manifestly reflected much and carefully on the operations of his own understanding, and had studied with uncommon sagacity the intellectual character of others. Of his reflections and observations on both subjects, he has recorded many important results; and has in general stated them, without the slightest reference to any physiological theory concerning their causes, or to any analogical explanations founded on the caprices of metaphorical language. If on some occasions he assumes the existence of animal spirits as the medium of communication between soul and body, it must be remembered that this was then the universal belief of the learned; and that it was at a much later period not less confidently avowed by Locke. Nor ought it to be overlooked (I mention it to the credit of both authors) that in such instances the fact is commonly so stated as to render it easy for the reader to detach it from the theory. As to the scholastic questions concerning the nature and essence of mind,-whether it be extended or unextended? whether it have any relation to space or to time? or whether (as was contended by others) it exist in every ubi but in no place? Bacon has uniformly passed them over in silent contempt; and has probably contributed not less effectually to bring them into general discredit, by this indirect intimation of his own opinion, than if he had descended to the ungrateful task of exposing their absurdity.

'While Bacon, however, so cautiously avoids these unprofitable discussions about the nature of mind, he decidedly states his conviction, that the faculties of man differ not merely in degree but in kind, from the instincts of brutes. "I do not, therefore," he observes on one occasion, 66 approve of that confused and promiscuous method in which philosophers are accustomed to treat of pneumatology, as if the human soul ranked above those of brutes, merely like the sun above the stars, or like gold above other metals."—p. 52.

Our author then proceeds to quote Bacon's remark upon the mutual influence which thought and language exercise over each other, and upon the dependence which subsists between them. Having attributed to the views of Bacon upon this subject quite as much importance as they are entitled to, and animadverted upon the capital error into which he falls, by inferring from the more artificial construction of the ancient languages, that the human intellect was much more acute and subtle in ancient, than it is now in modern times,' Mr. Stewart concludes his long eulogium of