behind other parts that present a front too formidable for their attack. We shall now do our endeavour, however, to give our readers a brief and intelligible account of the whole contents of the publication.

The first part of the Preliminary Dissertation, is dedicated to the correction of some prevailing errors, with regard to the nature and object of the inductive philosophy of mind; which is shown, very clearly, to be necessarily limited to the investigation of those laws of thought that may be deduced from actual observation of the objects of our consciousness; and to be totally independent of any speculation on the nature of mind itself, and equally certain and substantial, whatever theory or hypothesis may be adopted as to the effence of the thinking principle. Even the materialist must admit, that feeling, remembering, and willing, are qualities effentially different from thofe of being folid, rough, hot, or extended; and that we come to the knowledge of them in a perfectly different way. The latter are made known to us by our perceptions, and are neceffarily apprehended as external, and independent of the percipient ;-the former we know only by consciousness, and neceffarily refer to a principle identified with our own existence. The phenomena that are exhibited by the one fet of qualities, are to be afcertained, therefore, by attending to our perceptions; and those that belong to the other, by attending to the intimations of our consciousness; and, whatever is fairly deduced from obfervation, in either cafe, is legitimate and certain knowledge, whatever opinion we may entertain as to the difference or identity, the existence or non-existence, of matter or of mind. On any hypothefis, the phenomena which we call the phenomena of thought, form a distinct and interefting fubject of investigation, and are to be inveftigated, like all other phenomena, by afcertaining, from actual obfervation, the laws of their fucceffion, and generalizing from thofe laws when afcertained. This, and this alone, Mr Stewart confiders to be the legitimate province of philofophy; and every thing that is beyond this, he rightly fets down as a domain, into which our limited faculties do not as yet permit us to enter, and which must ever be, in this world, an object of mere conjecture and uncertainty.

He then proceeds to take notice of the pernicious and unphilofophical precipitancy which has led impatient inquirers, in all branches of fcience, to attempt to explain every thing by means of one fimple principle; and illuftrates the mifchief of fuch a plan of philofophizing in metaphyfics, by a reference to its confequences in chemistry and general phyfics.

It required," he observes, "nothing less than the united splen

dour

dour of the discoveries brought to light by the new chemical school, to tear the minds of men from the pursuit of a simple and primary element; a pursuit renewed in every age with an indefatigable perseverance, and always renewed in vain. With what feelings of contempt would the physiologists of former times have looked down on the chemists of the present age, whose timid and circumscribed system admits nearly forty different principles in the composition of bodies! What a subject of ridicule would the new nomenclature have afforded to an alchemist!-The philosophy of mind has its alchemists also ;-men whose studies are directed to the pursuit of one single principle, into which the whole science may be resolved; and who flatter themselves with the hope of discovering the grand secret, by which the pure gold of Truth may be produced at pleasure." Prelim. Dissert. p. xv. xvi.

Of fuch metaphyfical alchemists, Hartley, he obferves, is clearly entitled to the first place, having attempted to explain the whole of our intellectual operations by the fingle principle of the Affociation of Ideas.' On this fyftem, Mr Stewart contents himself with making this one decifive remark, that all its generalizations are Verbal or nominal only, and that it fucceeds in reducing all our mental operations to cafes of association of ideas, only by ufing these two words in fuch an unprecedented latitude, as to make them comprehend all forts of mental operations, and all forts of connexions. Every thing, according to Hartley, of which we are confcious, except only our fenfations, may be called ideas; and every kind of relation that can be imagined among them, he terms an affociation; and accordingly, has no fcruple in faying, in direct terms, that the connexion between twice two and four, is merely an affociation of ideas, and that all mathematical relations are of the fame denomination. This, it is cvident, is not a difcovery in philofophy, but an innovation in language.

In the fecond part of the Preliminary Differtation, we will confefs, that we take a more lively intereft-as Mr Stewart has there taken occafion to make a formal reply to fome of our hafty speculations, and has done us the honour of embodying several of our tranfitory pages in this enduring volume. If we were at liberty to yield to the common weakneffes of authors, we fhould probably be tempted to defend ourselves in a long differtation; but we know too well what is due to our readers and to the public, to think of engaging any confiderable fhare of their attention wi.h a controverfy which may be confidered in fome measure as perfonal to ourselves; and therefore, however honourable we think it, to be thus fingled out for equal combat by fuch an antagonist, we fhall put what we have to fay within a very narrow compafs.

The obfervations to which Mr Stewart has here condefcended to

reply,

reply, occur in an early Number of our pullication, and were intended to fhow, that as mind was not the proper fubject of experiment, but of observation, fo, there could be no very clofe analogy between the rules of metaphyfical investigation, and the moft approved methods of inquiry as to thofe phyfical fubftances which are fubjected to our difpofal and control;-that as all the facts with regard to mind must be derived from previous and univerfal confcioufnefs, it was difficult to fee how any arrangement of them could add to our fubftantial knowledge; and that there was, therefore, no reafon either to expect difcoveries in this branch of science, or to look to it for any real augmentation of our power. The argument upon this head was fummed up in the following paffage, which Mr Stewart has not thought it neceffary to quote in the Differtation before us, though it was certainly intended to contain that ultimate view of the fubject, by which we were moft willing to abide, and moft defirous to be tried.

For these reasons, we cannot help thinking that the labours of the metaphysician, instead of being assimilated to those of the chemist or experimental philosopher, might, with less impropriety, be compared to those of the Grammarian, who arranges into technical order the words of a language which is spoken familiarly by all his readers; or of the Geographer who exhibits to them a correct map of a district, with every part of which they were previously acquainted. We acquire a perfect knowledge of our own minds without study or exertion, just as we acquire a perfect knowledge of our native language, or our native parish; yet we cannot, without much study and reflection, compose a grammar of the one, or a map of the other. To arrange in correct order all the particulars of our practical knowledge, and to set down, without omission and without distortion, every thing that we actually know upon a subject, requires a power of abstraction, recollection, and disposition, that falls to the lot of but few. In the science of mind, perhaps, more of those qualitics are required than in any other; but it is not the less true of this, than of all the rest, that the materials of the description must always be derived from a previous acquaintance with the subject-that nothing can be set down technically that was not practically known-and that no substantial addition is made to our knowledge by a scientific distribution of its particulars. After such a systematic arrangement has been introduced and a correct nomenclature applied, we may indeed conceive more clearly, and will certainly describe more justly, the nature and extent of our information; but our information itself is not really increased; and the consciousness by which we are supplied with all the materials of cur reflections, does not become more pro ductive by this disposition of its contributions.'

* Vol. III. p. 273, &c.

With

With regard to perception and the other primary functions of mind, it was added, that this doctrine seemed to hold without any limitation; and as to the associating principle, while it was admitted that the case was somewhat different, it was observed, that all men were in reality aware of its existence, and acted upon it in all practical cases, though they might never have made its laws a subject of reflection, nor ever stated its general phenomena in the form of an abstract proposition.

To all this, Mr Stewart proceeds to answer, by observing, that the distinction between experiment and observation is really of no importance whatever, in reference to this argument; because experiments are merely phenomena that are observed; and the inferences and generalizations that are deduced from the observation of spontaneous phenomena, are just of the same sort with those that are inferred from experiment, and afford equally certain grounds of conclusion, provided they be sufficiently numerous and consistent. The justice of the last general proposition, we do not mean to dispute; and assuredly, if any thing inconsistent with it is to be found in our former speculations, ir must have arisen from that haste and inadvertence which, we make no doubt, have often betrayed us into still greater errors. But it is very far from following from this, that there is not a very material difference between experiment and observation; or that the philosophy of mind is not necessarily restrained within very narrow limits, in consequence of that distinction. Substances which are in our power, are the objects of experiment; those which are not in our power, of observation only. With regard to the former, it is obvious, that, by well contrived experiments, we may discover many things that could never be disclosed by any length of observation. With regard to the latter, an attentive observer may, indeed, see more in them than strikes the eye of a careless spectator; but he can see nothing that may not be seen by every body; and, in cases where the appearances are very few, or very interesting, the chance is, that he does see nothing more-and that all that is left to philosophy is, to distinguish them into classes, and to fit them with appropriate appellations. Now, mind, we humbly conceive, considered as a subject of investigation, is the subject of observation only; and is known nearly as well by all nien, as by those who have most diligently studied its phenomena. We cannot ⚫ decompose our sensations,' we formerly observed, ' in a crucible, nor divide our perceptions with a prism. The metaphor was something violent; but, the meaning obviously was, dat we cannot subject those faculties to any analogous process, nor discover more of their nature than consciousness has tangur all

the beings who possess them. Is it a satisfactory answer, then, for Mr Stewart, to say, that we may analyze them by reflection and attention, and other instruments better suited than prisms or crucibles to the intellectual laboratory which furnishes their materials? Our reply is, that we cannot analyze them at all; and can never know more of them than has always been known to all to whom they had been imparted; and that, for this plain reason, that the truth of every thing that is said with regard to the mind, can be determined by an appeal to consciousness alone, and would not be even intelligible, if it informed men of any thing that they did not previously feel to be true.

With regard to the actual experiments to which Mr Stewart alludes, as having helped to explain the means by which the eye judges of distances and magnitudes, these, we must observe, are, according to our conception, very clearly experiments, not upon mind, but upon matter; and are only entitled to that name at all, in so far as they are carried on by means of the power we possess of disposing certain pieces of matter in certain masses and intervals. Strictly considered, they are optical experiments on the effects produced by distance on the appearance of bodies; and are nearly akin to experiments on the effects produced on their appearance by the interposition of media of different refracting powers, whether in the shape of prisms, or in any other shape. At all events, they certainly are not investigations carried on solely by attending to the subjects of our consciousness, which is Mr Stewart's own definition of the business of the philosophy of mind.

In answer to our remark, that no metaphyfician expects, by analysis, to difcover a new power, or to excite a new fenfation in the mind, as the chemift difcovers a new earth or a new metal,' Mr Stewart is pleafed to obferve

That it is no more applicable to the anatomy of the mind, than to the anatomy of the body. After all the researches of physiolo gists on this last subject, both in the way of observation and of experiment, no discovery has yet been made of a new organ, either of power or of pleasure, or even of the means of adding a cubit to the human stature; but it does not therefore follow that these researches are useless. By enlarging his knowledge of his own internal structure, they increase the power of man in that way in which They furnish him with resources alone they profess to increase it. for remedying many of the accidents to which his health and his life are liable; for recovering, in some cases, those active powers which disease has destroyed or impaired; and, in others, by giving sight to the blind, and hearing to the deaf, for awakening powers of perNor must we overlook what ception which were dormant before. they have contributed, in conjunction with the arts of the optician

and