nizing the simplicity of these ideas, considers them to be extremely complex, and looks upon their universality and necessity as merely the resul of a frequent and intimate association. 15

16

17

This is the first important difference which is inevitably consequent on the adoption of different methods. The idealist is compelled to assert, that necessary truths and contingent truths have a different origin. The sensationalist is bound to affirm they have the same origin. The further these two great schools advance, the more marked does their divergence become. They are at open war in every department of morals, of philosophy, and of art. The idealists say that all men have essentially the same notion of the good, the true, and the beautiful. The sensationalists affirm that there is no such standard, because ideas depend upon sensations, and because the sensations of men depend upon the changes in their bodies, and upon the external events by which their bodies are affected.

Such is a short specimen of the opposite conclusions to which the ablest metaphysicians have been driven, by the simple circumstance that they have pursued opposite methods of investigation. And this is the more important to observe, because after these two methods have been employed, the resources of metaphysics are evidently exhausted. 18 Both parties agree that men

15 "As Space is a comprehensive word, including all positions, or the whole of synchronous order, so Time is a comprehensive word, including all successions, or the whole of successive order." Mill's Analysis of the Mind, vol. ii. p. 100; and on the relation of time to memory, vol. i. p. 252. In Jobert's New System of Philosophy, vol. i. p. 33, it is said that "time is nothing but the succession of events, and we know events by experience only." See also p. 133, and compare respecting time Condillac, Traité des Sensations, pp. 104-114, 222, 223, 331-333. To the same effect is Essay concerning Human Understanding, book ii. chap. xiv., in Locke's Works, vol. i. p. 163; and see his second reply to the Bishop of Worcester, in Works, vol. iii. pp. 414-416; and as to the idea of substance, see vol. i. pp. 285-290, 292, 308, vol. iii. pp. 5, 10, 17.

16 Reid (Essays on the Powers of the Mind, vol. i. p. 281) says, that necessary truth"cannot be the conclusions of the senses; for our senses testify only what is, and not what must necessarily be." See also vol. ii. pp. 53, 204, 239, 240, 281. The same distinction is peremptorily asserted in Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, 8vo, 1847, vol. i. pp. 60-73, 140; and see Dugald Stewart's Philosophical Essays, pp. 123, 124. Sir W. Hamilton (Additions to Reid's Works, p. 754) says, that non-contingent truths "have their converse absolutely incogitable." But this learned writer does not mention how we are to know when any thing is "absolutely incogitable." That we cannot cogitate an idea, is certainly no proof of its being incogitable; for it may be cogitated at some later period, when knowledge is more advanced.

17 This is asserted by all the followers of Locke; and one of the latest productions of that school declares, that "to say that necessary truths cannot be acquired by experience, is to deny the most clear evidence of our senses and reason.' Jobert's New System of Philosophy, vol. i. p. 58.

To avoid misapprehension, I may repeat, that, here and elsewhere, I mean by metaphysics, that vast body of literature which is constructed on the supposition that the laws of the human mind can be generalized solely from the facts of individual consciousness. For this scheme, the word "metaphysics" is rather incon

tal laws can only be discovered by studying individual minds, and that there is nothing in the mind which is not the result either of reflection or of sensation. The only choice, therefore, they have to make, is between subordinating the results of sensation to the laws of reflection, or else subordinating the results of reflection to the laws of sensation. Every system of metaphysics has been constructed according to one of these schemes; and this must always continue to be the case, because when the two schemes are added together, they include the totality of metaphysical phenomena. Each process is equally plausible;' the supporters of each are equally confident; and by the very nature of the dispute, it is impossible that any middle term should be found; nor can there ever be an umpire, because no one can mediate between metaphysical controversies without being a metaphysician, and no one can be a metaphysician without being either a sensationalist or an idealist; in other words, without belonging to one of those very parties whose claims he professes to judge.20

19

On these grounds, we must, I think, arrive at the conclusion, venient, but it will cause no confusion if this definition of it is kept in view by the reader.

19 What a celebrated historian of philosophy says of Platonism, is equally true of all the great metaphysical systems: "Dass sie ein zusammenhängendes harmonisches Ganzes ausmachen (i. e. the leading propositions of it) fällt in die Augen." Tennemann, Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. ii. p. 527. And yet he confesses (vol. iii. p. 52) of it and the opposite system: "und wenn man auf die Beweise siehet, so ist der Empirismus des Aristoteles nicht besser begründet als der Rationalismus des Plato." Kant admits that there can be only one true system, but is confident that he has discovered what all his predecessors have missed. Die Metaphysik der Sitten, in Kant's Werke, vol. v. p. 5, where he raises the question, "ob es wohl mehr, als eine Philosophie geben könne." In the Kritik, and in the Prolegomena zu jeder künftigen Metaphysik, he says that metaphysics have made no progress, and that the study can hardly be said to exist. Werke, vol. ii. pp. 49, 50, vol. iii. pp. 166, 246.

20 We find a curious instance of this, in the attempt made by M. Cousin to found an eclectic school; for this very able and learned man has been quite unable to avoid the one-sided view which is to every metaphysician an essential preliminary; and he adopts that fundamental distinction between necessary ideas and contingent ideas, by which the idealist is separated from the sensationalist: "la grande division des idées aujourd'hui établie est la division des idées contingentes et des idées nécessaires." Cousin, Hist. de la Philosophie, II. série, vol. i. p. 82: see also vol. ii. p. 92, and the same work, I. série, vol. i. pp. 249, 267, 268, 311, vol. iii. pp. 5154. M. Cousin constantly contradicts Locke, and then says he has refuted that profound and vigorous thinker; while he does not even state the arguments of James Mill, who, as a metaphysician, is the greatest of our modern sensationalists, and whose views, whether right or wrong, certainly deserve notice from an eclectic historian of philosophy.

Another eclectic, Sir W. Hamilton, announces (Discussions on Philosophy, p. 597) "an undeveloped philosophy, which, I am confident, is founded upon truth. To this confidence I have come, not merely through the convictions of my own consciousness, but by finding in this system a centre and conciliation for the most opposite of philosophical opinions." But at p. 589, he summarily disposes of one of the most important of these philosophical opinions as "the superficial edifice of Locke."

that as metaphysicians are unavoidably, and by the very nature of their inquiry, broken up into two completely antagonistic schools, the relative truth of which there are no means of ascertaining; as they, moreover, have but few resources, and as they use those resources according to a method by which no other science has ever been developed,-we, looking at these things, ought not to expect that they can supply us with sufficient data for solving those great problems which the history of the human mind presents to our view. And whoever will take the pains. fairly to estimate the present condition of mental philosophy, must admit that, notwithstanding the influence it has always exercised over some of the most powerful minds, and through them over society at large, there is, nevertheless, no other study which has been so zealously prosecuted, so long continued, and yet remains so barren of results. In no other department has there been so much movement, and so little progress. Men of eminent abilities, and of the greatest integrity of purpose, have in every civilized country, for many centuries, been engaged in metaphysical inquiries; and yet at the present moment their systems, so far from approximating towards truth, are diverging from each other with a velocity which seems to be accelerated by the progress of knowledge. The incessant rivalry of the hostile schools, the violence with which they have been supported, and the exclusive and unphilosophic confidence with which each has advocated its own method,-all these things have thrown the study of the mind into a confusion only to be compared to that in which the study of religion has been thrown by the controversies of theologians.21 The consequence is, that if we except a very few of the laws of association, and perhaps I may add the modern theories of vision and of touch,22 there is not to be found in the whole compass of metaphysics a single principle of importance, and at the same time of incontestable truth. Under these circumstances, it is impossible to avoid a suspicion that there is some fundamental error in the manner in which these inquiries have been prosecuted. For my own part, I believe

21 Berkeley, in a moment of candour, inadvertently confesses what is very damaging to the reputation of his own pursuits: "Upon the whole, I am inclined to think that the far greater part, if not all, of those difficulties which have hitherto amused philosophers, and blocked up the way to knowledge, are entirely owing to ourselves. That we have first raised a dust, and then complain we cannot see." Principles of Human Knowledge, in Berkeley's Works, vol. i. p. 74. Every metaphysician and theologian should get this sentence by heart: "That we have first raised a dust, and then complain we cannot see."

22 Some of the laws of association, as stated by Hume and Hartley, are capable of historical verification, which would change the metaphysical hypothesis into a scientific theory. Berkeley's theory of vision, and Brown's theory of touch, have, in the same way, been verified physiologically; so that we now know, what otherwise we could only have suspected.

that, by mere observations of our own minds, and even by such rude experiments as we are able to make upon them, it will be impossible to raise psychology to a science; and I entertain very little doubt that metaphysics can only be successfully studied by an investigation of history so comprehensive as to enable us to understand the conditions which govern the movements of the human race.23

23 In regard to one of the difficulties stated in this chapter as impeding metaphysicians, it is only just to quote the remarks of Kant: "Wie aber das Ich, der ich denke, von dem Ich, das sich selbst anschaut, unterschieden (indem ich mir noch andere Anschauungsart wenigstens als möglich vorstellen kann), und doch mit diesem letzteren als dasselbe Subject einerlei sei, wie ich also sagen könne: Ich als Intelligenz und denkend Subject, erkenne mich selbst als gedachtes Object, so fern ich mir noch über das in der Anschauung gegeben bin, nur, gleich anderen Phänomenen, nicht wie ich vor dem Verstande bin, sondern wie ich mir erscheine, hat nicht mehr auch nicht weniger Schwierigkeit bei sich, als wie ich mir selbst überhaupt ein Object und zwar der Anschauung und innerer Wahrnehmungen_sein könne." Kritik der reinen Vernunft, in Kant's Werke, vol. ii. p. 144. I am very willing to let the question rest on this: for to me it appears that both cases are not only equally difficult, but, in the present state of our knowledge, are equally impossible.

CHAPTER IV.

MENTAL LAWS ARE EITHER MORAL OR INTELLECTUAL. COMPARISON OF MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL LAWS, AND INQUIRY INTO THE EFFECT PRODUCED BY EACH ON THE PROGRESS OF SOCIETY

In the preceding chapter, it has, I trust, been made apparent, that, whatever may hereafter be the case, we, looking merely at the present state of our knowledge, must pronounce the metaphysical method to be unequal to the task, often imposed upon it, of discovering the laws which regulate the movements of the human mind. We are, therefore, driven to the only remaining method, according to which mental phenomena are to be studied, not simply as they appear in the mind of the individual observer, but as they appear in the actions of mankind at large. The essential opposition between these two plans is very obvious: but it may perhaps be well to bring forward further illustration of the resources possessed by each for the investigation of truth; and for this purpose, I will select a subject which, though still imperfectly understood, supplies a beautiful instance of the regularity with which, under the most conflicting circumstances, the great Laws of Nature are able to hold their course.

The case to which I refer, is that of the proportion kept up in the births of the sexes; a proportion which if it were to be greatly disturbed in any country, even for a single generation, would throw society into the most serious confusion, and would infallibly cause a great increase in the vices of the people.' Now, it has always been suspected that, on an average, the male and female births are tolerably equal; but, until very re

1 Thus we find that the Crusades, by diminishing the proportion of men to women in Europe, increased licentiousness. See a curious passage in Sprengel, Histoire de la Médecine, vol. ii. p. 376. In Yucatan, there is generally a considerable excess of women, and the result is prejudicial to morals. Stephens's Central America, vol. iii. pp. 380, 429. On the other hand, respecting the state of society produced by an excess of males, see Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 259; Journal of Geographical Society, vol. xv. p. 45, vol. xvi. p. 307; Southey's Commonplace Book, third series, p. 579.