3740 A INQUIRY INTO THE HUMAN MIND on the principles of common sense By Thomas Reid The sixth edition dinlurgh 1810 TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JAMES, EARL OF FINDLATER AND SEAFIELD, CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OLD ABERDEEN MY LORD, THOUGH I apprehend that there are things new and of some importance, in the following inquiry, it is not without timidity that I have consented to the publication of it. The subject has been canvassed by men of very great penetration and genius: for who does not acknowledge DES CARTES, MALEBRANCHE, LOCKE, BERKELEY, and HUME, to be such? A view of the human understanding, so different from that which they have exhibited, will, no doubt, be condemned by many without examination, as proceeding from temerity and vanity. BUT I hope the candid and decerning Few, who are capable of attending to the operations of their own minds, will weigh deliberately what is here advanced, before they pass sentence upon it. To such I appeal, as the only competent judges. If they disapprove, I am probably in the wrong, and shall be ready to change my opinion upon conviction. If they approve, the Many will at last yield. to their authority, as they always do. HOWEVER Cntrary my notions are to those of the writers I have mentioned, their speculations have been of great use to me, and seem even to point out the road which I have taken and our Lordship knows, that the merit of useful discoveries is sometimes not more justly due to those that have hit upon them, than to others that have ripened them, and brought them to the birth. I ACKNOWLEDGE, my Lord, that I never thought of ca ling in question the principles commonly received with regard to the hu man man understanding, until the Treatise of Human Nature was published in the year 1739. The ingenious author of that treatise, upon the principles of LOCKE, who was no sceptic, hath built a system of scepticism, which leaves no ground to believe any one thing rather than its contrary. His reasoning appeared to me to be just there was therefore a necessity to call in question the principles upon which it was founded, or to admit the conclusion. BUT can any ingenuous mind admit this sceptical system without reluctance? I truly could not, my Lord: for I am persuaded, that absolute scepticism is not more destructive of the faith of a Christian, than of the science of a philosopher, and of the prudence of a man of common understanding. I am persuaded, that the unjust live by faith as well as the just; that, if all belief could be laid aside, piety, patriotism, friendship, parental affection, and private virtue, would appear as ridiculous as knight a 3 |