plexing hindrance be thrown in the way of free inquiry and of the progress of knowledge.

§. 28. Mr. Locke's opinions on this subject.

Mr. Locke in the first book of his Essay on the Human Understanding has examined this subject at very considerable length. It has indeed been said of his argument, that it is both too long and not always sufficiently to the point, but it makes up in the variety and weight of its considerations, what it wants in exactness of arrangement; and it will be found by no means easy to confute it.

It is one among the merits of this writer, that he has successfully laboured to do away many of our ancient prejudices, (what may be termed the rubbish of the science,) and shown us where to make a good and satisfactory beginning. In accordance with what there is so much evidence to consider the true doctrine, we are presented in his writings with the mind, not as a mere recipient, already in a good degree filled up with articles of knowledge, but as a principle or power of action; and all we have to do, is, to mark its operations, as they necessarily exist in consequence of its being furnished with the aid of the senses and surrounded with material objects. It knows nothing at the first; but it possesses the ability to explore the forms of matter in its various shapes, to mark the aspects and the operations of intellect; and in this way it becomes possessed of a great variety of information. It is, therefore, a most wonderful principle, and, as it raises us far above the brute creation, it would for its own nobleness be highly worthy of the student's attention, even if no practical benefit should result from the pursuit.

§ 29. Opinions of Plato and Aristotle.

It may properly enough be remarked here, that the discussion on the subject of innate ideas and propositions is one of long standing. We refer in this remark to the statement, which a French writer, DE GERANDO, in his History of Philosophy, has given of the conflicting opinions of Plato and Aristotle, taking the translation of the passage,

as we find it in an American periodical publication of merited reputation. "Ideas, (says Plato,) are not made up of deductions from experience. They have a different origin. It would be impossible to explain the production of them, if they were not independent of experience, and, consequently, innate, that is, placed in the mind by God himself, to serve as the elements of knowledge. Before they were communicated to us, they dwelt in the Divine mind, as so many forms or models, according to which the Deity arranged the universe."

The following is the reply of Aristotle. "If ideas are innate (he says) how happens it, that we are not always conscious of them? And that it is so long before we obtain the knowledge, which they ought to impart to us? How can we have an idea of a thing, which we never perceived? To call our ideas models, on which existing objects were formed, is merely a poetical figure.

Who is there, that acts with his eyes fixed on these supposed models? We know, that objects may exist, may be

made without reference to them."

"Plato was, therefore, (he says,) clearly in an errour. His ideas are evidently a product of the understanding, formed by a generalization of the particular qualities of individual objects."

It is this very question, namely, Whether we have any ideas, any thing, which can be called knowledge previous to sensation, which divided different writers so late as the time of Des Cartes, who appears to have adopted sentiments, similar to those of Plato. It was this question, therefore, which Mr. Locke thought it necessary to examine at the commencement of his metaphysical writings, and with what ability is generally known.

§. 30. Prevailing opinions at the present time.

It would seem then from the remarks, which have been made, that in former times there has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject of the original state of the mind as respects knowledge. This diversity of opinion does not exist in so great a degree at present. Few are found,

who hold to the doctrine of innate or connatural ideas and propositions, as that doctrine was formerly stated and maintained. The opinions of Mr. Locke on this particular subject, and also on the progressive rise and combinations of thought from its simplest to its most complex forms, are adopted, with some slight modifications, by nearly all mental philosophers, not only in America and England, but in France, and on the continent of Europe generally.

In the statements, which are to be made respecting the origin and combinations of our ideas, we have, accordingly, followed in his footsteps with such deviations, as might be expected from more recent, and, in some cases, more accurate and satisfactory inquiries. We take the great mass of knowledge; we make it the subject of examination, and are able to resolve it into its elements; and then we gradually trace the history of those elements from its commencement to its completion. This is what has recently been termed IDEOLOGY, and seems to be the first great subject of examination in the Philosophy of the Mind; and we shall be led to see in this particular department of philosophical inquiry, as every where else in nature, what complicated results are made to follow from the operation of a few principles, which at first appeared not only simple, but limited in their application.

NOTE. See, in reference to the subject of this chapter, Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding, BK. I. Watt's Philosophical Essays, III. Cudworth's Intellectual System of the Universe, BK. I. CHAP. 5. Stewart's Philosophical Essays, I. CHAP. 3. Historical Dissertation by the same Author, PT. II. §. 1. Buffier's First Truths, Pr. II. Adam Smith's History of Ancient Logic and Metaphysics.

CHAPTER FOURTH.

THE SENSES AND EXTERNAL PERCEPTION.

§. 31. On general classifications of the intellectual powers.

Ir will assist us in the more ready knowledge and recollection of the statements, which are to be made, and will be a matter of no small convenience, to adopt a common name, and to arrange together those mental states or operations, whether simple or complex, which are of the same nature. To certain operations of the mind of one sort, (that is, which are found to exist only under certain circumstances and to answer to a particular description,) we give the name, PERCEPTION; while operations or states of another kind, differing from perception and also from each other, are designated by the terms, memory, imagination, reasoning, &c. But it is not necessary for our present purpose to attempt any classification more general than this, although it has often been done, as, for instance, in the well known and superannuated division of the intellect into the Understanding and Will.

The classification of certain operations of the same sort under the names, PERCEPTION, MEMORY, IMAGINATION, &c. is not only a subordinate division, but is in its very nature different. It does not necessarily imply any theory or hypothesis in respect to the mental constitution. These common names are merely abridged or condensed statements of facts in our intellectual history, which are ascertained to exist and to be of frequent recurrence, and which without such common names would continually tax us with

burdensome circumlocutions. But the mere agreement, that certain common names shall stand for certain ascertained facts in our mental economy is a different thing from a classification, which arranges together a multitude of operations, which have no common and distinctive character, with the intention of having them considered as forming an entirely separate fraternity. This has certainly been done in some instances, although the more urgent topics of this chapter will permit only a brief illustràtion of it.

§. 32. Of the classification into the Understanding and Will.

The operations of the mind as before intimated have formerly been divided and classed under the two general names of the Understanding and Will.

Under the Will seems to have been included that ability, in whatever way it might exhibit itself, which was supposed to be necessary in bringing the mental constitution into action; it was the mind's operative & controlling principle; something which moved and governed it. Agreeably, then, to this division, we find, on the one hand, the Will, and, on the other, as its opposite, was the Understanding. To determine, however, what operations belonged to the one and what belonged to the other, was by no means a matter well settled, but of great contention. This dif ference of opinion could not well have happened, if the classification itself had truly resulted from the constitution of the mind, and if the faculties, which were attributed to the Understanding and Will, had respectively possessed distinctive and common characteristics. This classification, which was once sanctioned with the approbation of great names, has at last fallen into comparative discredit.

§. 33. Of the classification into active and intellectual powers.

Another general classification of the powers of the mind was this, into the Intellectual and the Active powers. Under the intellectual, were comprehended perception, memory, judgment, reasoning, abstraction, &c.; under the