Supplement to the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica/Dissertation First/Notes and Illustrations
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
The chief purpose of these Notes and Illustrations, is to verify some of the more important views contained in the foregoing Historical Sketch. The errors into which I have frequently been led by trusting to the information of writers, who, in describing philosophical systems, profess to give merely the general results of their researches, unauthenticated by particular references to the original sources, have long convinced me of the propriety, on such occasions, of bringing under the eye of the reader, the specific authorities on which my statements proceed. Without such a check, the most faithful historian is perpetually liable to the suspicion of accommodating facts to his favourite theories; or of unconsciously blending with the opinions he ascribes to others, the glosses of his own imagination. The quotations in the following pages, selected principally from books not now in general circulation, may, I hope, at the same time, be useful in facilitating the labours of those who shall hereafter resume the same subject, on a scale more susceptible of the minuteness of literary detail.
For a few short biographical digressions, with which I have endeavoured to give somewhat of interest and relief to the abstract and unattractive topics which occupy so great a part of my Discourse, I flatter myself that no apology is necessary; more especially, as these digressions will, in general, be found to throw some additional light on the philosophical or the political principles of the individuals to whom they relate.
Note A, p. 22.
Sir Thomas More, though, towards the close of his life, he became “a persecutor even unto blood, defiling with cruelties those hands which were never polluted with bribes,”[1] was, in his earlier and better days, eminently distinguished by the humanity of his temper, and the liberality of his opinions. Abundant proofs of this may be collected from his letters to Erasmus; and from the sentiments, both religious and political, indirectly inculcated in his Utopia. In contempt for the ignorance and profligacy of the monks, he was not surpassed by his correspondent; and against various superstitions of the Romish church, such as the celibacy of priests, and the use of images in worship, he has expressed himself more decidedly than could well have been expected from a man placed in his circumstances. But these were not the whole of his merits. His ideas on Criminal Law are still quoted with respect by the advocates for a milder code than has yet been introduced into this country; and, on the subject of toleration, no modern politician has gone farther than his Utopian Legislators.
The disorders occasioned by the rapid progress of the Reformation, having completely shaken his faith in the sanguine speculations of his youth, seem at length, by alarming his fears as to the fate of existing establishments, to have unhinged his understanding, and perverted his moral feelings. The case was somewhat the same with his friend Erasmus, who (as Jortin remarks) “began in his old days to act the zealot and the missionary with an ill grace, and to maintain, that there were certain heretics, who might be put to death as blasphemers and rioters.” (pp. 428, 481). In the mind of Erasmus, other motives, it is not improbable, concurred; his biographer and apologist being forced to acknowledge that “he was afraid lest Francis, and Charles, and Ferdinand, and George, and Henry VIII., and other persecuting princes, should suspect that he condemned their cruel conduct.” Ibid. p. 481.
Something, it must at the same time be observed, may be alleged in behalf of these two illustrious persons; not, indeed, in extenuation of their unpardonable defection from the cause of religious liberty, but of their estrangement from some of their old friends, who scrupled not to consider, as apostates and traitors, all those who, while they acknowledged the expediency of ecclesiastical reform, did not approve of the violent measures employed for the accomplishment of that object. A very able and candid argument on this point may be found in Bayle, Article Castellan, Note Q.
Note B, p. 24.
The following short extract will serve to convey a general idea of Calvin’s argument upon the subject of usury.
“Pecunia non parit pecuniam. Quid mare? quid domus, ex cujus locatione pensionem percipio? an ex tectis et parietibus argentum proprie nascitur? Sed et terra producit, et mari advehitur quod pecuniam deinde producat, et habitationis commoditas cum certa pecunia parari commutarive solet. Quod si igitur plus ex negotiatione lucri percipi possit, quam ex fundi cujusvis proventu: an feretur qui fundum sterilem fortasse colono locaverit ex quo mercedem vel proventum recipiat sibi, qui ex pecunia fructum aliquem perceperit, non feretur? et qui pecunia fundum acquirit, annon pecunia illa generat alteram annuam pecuniam? Unde vero mereatoris lucrum? Ex ipsius, inquies, diligentia atque industria. Quis dubitat pecuniam vacuam inutilem omnino esse? neque qui à me mutuam rogat, vacuam apud se habere à me acceptam cogitat. Non ergo ex pecunia illa Iucrum accedit, sed ex proventu. Illæ igitur rationes subtiles quidem sunt, et speciem quandam habent, sed ubi propius expenduntur, reipsa concidunt. Nunc igitur concludo, judicandum de usuris esse, non ex particulari aliquo Scripturæ loco, sed tantum ex æquitatis regula.” Calvini Epistolæ.
Note C, p. 34.
The prevailing idea among Machiavel’s contemporaries and immediate successors certainly was, that the design of the Prince was hostile to the rights of mankind; and that the author was either entirely unprincipled, or adapted his professed opinions to the varying circumstances of his own eventful life. The following are the words of Bodinus, born in 1530, the very year when Machiavel died; an author whose judgment will have no small weight with those who are acquainted with his political writings: “Machiavel s’est bien fort mésconté, de dire que l’éstat populaire est le meilleur :[2] et néantmoins ayant oublié sa première opinion, il a tenu en un autre lieu,[3] que pour restituer l’Italie en sa liberté, il faut qu’il n’y ait qu’un Prince ; et de fait, il s’est efforeé de former un éstat le plus tyrannique du monde ; et en autre lieu[4] il confesse, que l’éstat de Venice est le plus beau de tous, lequel est une pure Aristocratic, s’il en fût onques : tellement qu’il ne sçait à quoi se tenir.” (De la République, Liv. vi. chap. iv. Paris, 1576.) In the Latin version of the above passage, the author applies to Machiavel the phrase, Homo levissimus ac nequissimus.
One of the earliest apologists for Machiavel was Albericus Gentilis, an Italian author of whom some account will be given afterwards. His words are these: “Machiavel, a warm panegyrist and keen assertor of democracy; born, educated, promoted under a republican government, was in the highest possible degree hostile to tyranny. The scope of his work, accordingly, is not to instruct tyrants; but, on the contrary, by disclosing their secrets to their oppressed subjects, to expose them to public view, stripped of all their trappings.” He afterwards adds, that “Machiavel’s real design was, under the mask of giving lessons to sovereigns, to open the eyes of the people; and that he assumed this mask in the hope of thereby securing a freer circulation to his doctrines.” (De Legationibus, Lib. iii. c. ix. Lond. 1585.) The same idea was afterwards adopted and zealously contended for by Wicquefort, the author of a noted book entitled the Ambassador; and by many other writers of a later date. Bayle, in his Dictionary, has stated ably and impartially the arguments on both sides of the question; evidently leaning however very decidedly, in his own opinion, to that of Machiavel’s Apologists.
The following passage from the excellent work of M. Simonde de Sismondi on the Literature of the South, appears to me to approach very near to the truth in the estimate it contains both of the spirit of the Prince, and of the character of the author. “The real object of Machiavel cannot have been to confirm upon the throne a tyrant whom he detested, and against whom he had already conspired; nor is it more probable that he had a design to expose to the people the maxims of tyranny, in order to render them odious. Universal experience made them at that time sufficiently known to all Italy; and that infernal policy which Machiavel reduced to principles, was, in the sixteenth century, practised by every government. There is rather, in his manner of treating it, a universal bitterness against mankind; a contempt of the whole human race; which makes him address them in the language to which they had debased themselves. He speaks to the interests of men, and to their selfish calculations, as if he thought it useless to appeal to their enthusiasm or to their moral feelings.”
I agree perfectly with M. de Sismondi in considering the two opposite hypotheses referred to in the above extract, as alike untenable; and have only to add to his remarks, that, in writing the Prince, the author seems to have been more under the influence of spleen, of ill-humour, and of blasted hopes, than of any deliberate or systematical purpose, either favourable or adverse to human happiness. The prevailing sentiment in his mind probably was, Si populus vult decipi, decipiatur.[5]
According to this view of the subject, Machiavel’s Prince, instead of being considered as a new system of political morality, invented by himself, ought to be regarded merely as a digest of the maxims of state policy then universally acted upon in the Italian courts. If I be not mistaken, it was in this light that the book was regarded by Lord Bacon, whose opinion concerning it being, in one instance, somewhat ambiguously expressed, has been supposed by several writers of note (particularly Bayle and Mr Roscoe) to have coincided with that quoted above from Albericus Gentilis. To me it appears, that the very turn of the sentence appealed to on this occasion is rather disrespectful than otherwise to Machiavel’s character. “Est itaque quod gratias agamus Machiavellio et hujusmodi scriptoribus, qui aperte et indissimulanter proferunt, quid homines facere soleant, non quid debeant.” (De Aug. Scient. Lib. vii. cap. ii.) The best comment, however, on these words, is to be found in another passage of Bacon, where he has expressed his opinion of Machiavel’s moral demerits in terms as strong and unequivocal as language can furnish. “Quod enim ad malas artes attinct; si quis Machiavellio se dederit in disciplinam; qui præcipit,” &c. &c. &c. See the rest of the paragraph (De Aug. Scient. Lib. viii. cap. ii.) See also a passage in Book vii. chap. viii. beginning thus: “An non et hoc verum est, juvenes multo minus Politicæ quam Ethicæ auditores idoneos esse, antequam religione et doctrina de moribus et officiis plene imbuantur; ne forte judicio depravati et corrupti, in eam opinionem veniant, non esse rerum differentias morales veras et solidas, sed omnia ex utilitate.—Sie enim Machiavellio dicere placet, Quod si contigisset Cæsarem bello superatum fuisse, Catilina ipso fuisset odiosior,” &c. &c. After these explicit and repeated declarations of his sentiments on this point, it is hard that Bacon should have been numbered among the apologists of Machiavel, by such high authorities as Bayle, and the excellent biographer of Lorenzo de Medicis.
Note D, p. 41.
The charge of plagiarism from Bodin has been urged somewhat indelicately against Montesquieu, by a very respectable writer, the Chevalier de Filangieri, “On a cru, et l’on croit peut-être encore, que Montesquieu, a parlé le premier de l’influence du climat. Cette opinion est une erreur. Avant lui, le délicat et ingénieux Fontenelle s’étoit exercé sur set objet. Machiavel, en plusicurs endroits de ses ouvrages, parle aussi de cette influence du climat sur le physique et sur Ie moral des peuples. Chardin, un de ces voyageurs qui savent observer, a fait beaucoup de réflexions sur l’influence physique et moral des climats. L’Abbé Dubos a soutenu et développé les pensées de Chardin ; et Bodin, qui peut-être avoit lu dans Polybe que le climat détermine les formes, la couleur, et les mœurs des peuples, en avoit déja fait, ceut cinquante ans auparavant, la base de son systême, dans son livre de la République, et dans sa Méthode de l’Histoire. Avant tous ces ecrivains, l’immortel Hippocrate avoit traité fort au long cette matière dans son fameux ouvrage de l’air, des eaux, et des lieux. L’Auteur de l’Esprit des Lois, sans citer un seul de ces philosophes, établit à son tour un systême ; mais il ne fit qu’altérer les principes d’Hippocrate, et donner une plus grande extension aux idées de Dubos, de Chardin, et de Bodin. Il voulut faire croire au public qu’il avoit eu le premier quelques idées sur ce sujet ; et le public l’en crut sur sa parole.” La Science de la Législation, ouvrage traduit de l’Italien. Paris, 1786. Tom. I. pp. 225, 226.
The enumeration here given of writers whose works are in everybody’s hands, might have satisfied Filangieri, that, in giving his sanction to this old theory, Montesquieu had no wish to claim to himself the praise of originality. It is surprising, that, in the foregoing list, the name of Plato should have been omitted, who concludes his fifth book, De Legibus, with remarking, that “all countries are not equally susceptible of the same sort of discipline ; and that a wise legislator will pay a due regard to the diversity of national character, arising from the influence of climate and of soil.” It is not less surprising, that the name of Charron should have been overlooked, whose observations on the moral influence of physical causes, discover as much originality of thought as those of any of his successors. See De la Sagesse, Livre i, chap. xxxvii.
Note E, p. 44.
Innumerable instances of Luther’s credulity and superstition are to be found in a book entitled Martini Lutheri Colloquia Mensalia, &c. first published (according to Bayle) in 1571. The only copy of it which I have seen, is a translation from the German into the English tongue by Captain Henric Bell. (London 1652.) This work, in which are “gathered up the fragments of the divine discourses which Luther held at his table with Philip Melanchthon, and divers other learned men,” bears to have been originally collected “out of his holy mouth” by Dr Anthony Lauterbach, and to have been afterwards “digested into common-places” by Dr Aurifaber. Although not sanctioned with Luther’s name, I do not know that the slightest doubts of its details have been suggested, even by such of his followers as have regretted the indiscreet communication to the public, of his unreserved table-talk with his confidential companions. The very accurate Seckendorff has not called in question its authenticity; but, on the contrary, gives it his indirect sanction, by remarking, that it was collected with little prudence, and not less imprudently printed: “Libro Colloquiorum Mensalium minus quidem cantè composito et vulgato.” (Bayle, Article Luther, Note L.) It is very often quoted as an authority by the candid and judicious Dr Jortin.
In confirmation of what I have said of Luther’s credulity, I shall transcribe, in the words of the English translator, the substance of one of Luther’s Divine Discourses, “concerning the devil and his works.” “The devil (said Luther) can transform himself into the shape of a man or a woman, and so deceiveth people; insomuch that one thinketh he lieth by a right woman, and yet is no such matter; for, as St Paul saith, the devil is strong by the child of unbelief. But inasmuch as children or devils are conceived in such sort, the same are very horrible and fearful examples. Like unto this it is also with what they call the Nix in the water, who draweth people unto him as maids and virgins, of whom he begetteth devils’ children. The devil can also steal children away; as sometimes children within the space of six weeks after their birth are lost, and other children called supposititii, or changelings, laid in their places. Of the Saxons they were called Killcrops.
“Eight years since,” said Luther, “at Dessau, I did see and touch such a changed child, which was twelve years of age; he had his eyes, and all members, like another child; he did nothing but feed, and would eat as much as two clowns were able to eat. I told the Prince of Anhalt, if I were prince of that country, I would venture homicidium thereon, and would throw it into the river Moldaw. I admonished the people dwelling in that place devoutly to pray to God to take away the devil. The same was done accordingly, and the second year after the changeling died.
“In Saxony, near unto Halberstad, was a man that also had a killcrop, who sucked the mother and five other women dry, and besides devoured very much. This man was advised that he should, in his pilgrimage at Halberstad, make a promise of the killcrop to the Virgin Marie, and should cause him there to be rocked. This advice the man followed, and carried the changeling thither in a basket. But going over a river, being upon the bridge, another devil that was below in the river, called and said, Killcrop! Killcrop! Then the child in the basket (which never before spake one word), answered, Ho, ho. The devil in the water asked further, Whither art thou going? The child in the basket said, I am going towards Hocklestad to our loving mother, to be rocked. The man being ouch affrighted thereat, threw the child, with the basket, over the bridge into the water. Whereupon the two devils flew away together, and cried Ho, ho, ha, tumbling themselves over one another, and so vanished.” (pp. 386, 387.)
With respect to Luther’s Theological Disputes with the Devil, see the passages quoted by Bayle, Art. Luther, Note U.
Facts of this sort, so recent in their date, and connected with the history of so great a character, are consolatory to those, who, amid the follies and extravagancies of their contemporaries, are sometimes tempted to despair of the cause of truth, and of the gradual progress of human reason.
Note F, p. 59.
Ben Jonson is one of the few contemporary writers by whom the transcendent genius of Bacon appears to have been justly appreciated; and the only one I know of, who has transmitted any idea of his forensic eloquence; a subject on which, from his own professional pursuits, combined with the reflecting and philosophical cast of his mind, Jonson was peculiarly qualified to form a competent judgment. “There happened,” says he, “in my time, one noble speaker, who was full of gravity in his speaking. No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of its own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. The fear of every man that heard him was, that he should make an end.” No finer description of the perfection of this art is to be found in any author, ancient or modern.
The admiration of Jonson for Bacon (whom he appears to have known intimately)[6] seems almost to have blinded him to those indelible shades in his fame, to which, even at this distance of time, it is impossible to turn the eye without feelings of sorrow and humiliation. Yet it is but candid to conclude, from the posthumous praise lavished on him by Jonson and by Sir Kenelm Digby,[7] that the servility of the courtier, and the laxity of the judge, were, in the relations of private life, redeemed by many estimable and amiable qualities. That man must surely have been marked by some rare features of moral as well as of intellectual greatness, of whom, long after his death, Jonson could write in the following words.
“My conceit of his person was never increased toward him by his place or honours; but I have and do reverence him, for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by his works, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that had been in many ages. In his adversity, I ever prayed that God would give him strength, for greatness he could not want. Neither could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest.”
In Aubrey’s anecdotes of Bacon,[8] there are several particulars not unworthy of the attention of his future biographers. One expression of this writer is more peculiarly striking: “In short, all that were great and good loved and honoured him.” When it is considered, that Aubrey’s knowledge of Bacon was derived chiefly through the medium of Hobbes, who had lived in habits of the most intimate friendship with both, and whose writings shew that he was far from being an idolatrous admirer of Bacon’s philosophy, it seems impossible for a candid mind, after reading the foregoing short but comprehensive eulogy, not to feel a strong inclination to dwell rather on the fair than on the dark side of the Chancellor’s character, and, before pronouncing an unqualified condemnation, carefully to separate the faults of the age from those of the individual.
An affecting allusion of lis own, in one of his greatest works, to the errors and misfortunes of his public life, if it does not atone for his faults, may, at least, have some effect in softening the asperity of our censures. “Ad literas potius quam ad aliud quicquam natus, et ad res gerendas nescio quo fata contra genium suum abreptus.” De Aug. Sc. L. viii. c. iii.
Even in Bacon’s professional line, it is now admitted, by the best judges, that he was greatly underrated by his contemporaries. “The Queen did acknowledge,” says the Earl of Essex, in a letter to Bacon himself, “you had a great wit, and an excellent gift of speech, and much other good learning. But in law, she rather thought you could make shew, to the utmost of your knowledge, than that you were deep.”
“If it be asked,” says Dr Hurd, “how the Queen came to form this conclusion, the answer is plain. It was from Mr Bacon’s having a great wit, an excellent gift of speech, and much other good learning.” Hurd’s Dialogues.
The following testimony to Bacon’s legal knowledge (pointed out to me by a learned friend) is of somewhat more weight than Queen Elizabeth’s judgment against it: “What might we not have expected,” says Mr Hargrave, after a high encomium on the powers displayed by Bacon in his ‘Reading on the Statute of Uses,’ “what might we not have expected from the hands of such a master, if his vast mind had not so embraced within its compass the whole field of science, as very much to detach him from professional studies!”
It was probably owing in part to his court-disgrace, that so little notice was taken of Bacon, for some time alter his death, by those English writers who availed themselves, without any scruple, of the lights struck out in his works. A very remarkable example of this occurs in a curious, though now almost forgotten book (published in 1627), entitled, An Apology or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God in the Government of the World, by George Hakewill, D. D. Archdeacon of Surrey. It is plainly the production of an uncommonly liberal and enlightened mind; well stored with various and choice learning, collected both from ancient and modern authors. Its general aim may be guessed at from the text of Scripture prefixed to it as a motto, “Say not thou, what is the cause that the former days are better than these, for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this;” and from the words of Ovid, so happily applied by Hakewill to the “common error touching the golden age,”
Gratulor.
That the general design of the book, as well as many incidental observations contained in it, was borrowed from Bacon, there cannot, I apprehend, be a doubt; and yet I do not recollect more than one or two references (and these very slight ones) to his writings, through the whole volume. One would naturally have expected, that, in the following passage of the epistle dedicatory, the name of the late unfortunate Chancellor of England, who had died in the course of the preceding year, might have found a place along with the other great clerks there enumerated: “I do not believe that all regions of the world, or all ages in the same region, afford wits always alike; but this I think (neither is it my opinion alone, but of Scaliger, Vives, Budæus, Bodin, and other great clerks), that the wits of these latter ages, being manured by industry, directed by precepts, and regulated by method, may be as capable of deep speculations, and produce as masculine and lasting births, as any of the ancienter times have done. But if we conceive them to be giants, and ourselves dwarfs; if we imagine all sciences already to have received their utmost perfection, so as we need not but translate and comment on what they have done, surely there is little hope that we should ever come near them, much less match them. The first step to enable a man to the achieving of great designs, is to be persuaded that he is able to achieve them; the next not to be persuaded, that whatsoever hath not yet been done, cannot therefore be done. Not any one man, or nation, or age, but rather mankind is it, which, in latitude of capacity, answers to the universality of things to be known.” In another passage, Hakewill observes, that, “if we will speak properly and punctually, antiquity rather consists in the old age, than in the infancy or youth of the world.” I need scarcely add, that some of the foregoing sentences are almost literal transcripts of Bacon’s words.
The philosophical fame of Bacon in his own country may be dated from the establishment of the Royal Society of London; by the founders of which, as appears from their colleague, Dr Sprat, he was held in so high estimation, that it was once proposed to prefix to the history of their labours some of Bacon’s writings, as the best comment on the views with which they were undertaken. Sprat himself, and his illustrious friend Cowley, were among the number of Bacon’s earliest eulogists; the latter, in an Ode to the Royal Society, too well known to require any notice here; the former, in a very splendid passage of his History, from which I shall borrow a few sentences, as a conclusion and ornament to this note.
“For, is it not wonderful, that he who had run through all the degrees of that profession, which usually takes up men’s whole time; who had studied, and practised, and governed the common law; who had always lived in the crowd, and borne the greatest burden of civil business; should yet find leisure enough for these retired studies, to excel all those men, who separate themselves for this very purpose? He was a man of strong, clear, and powerful imaginations; his genius was searching and inimitable; and of this I need give no other proof than his style itself; which as, for the most part, it describes men’s minds, as well as pictures do their bodies, so it did his above all men living. The course of it vigorous and majestical; the wit bold and familiar; the comparisons fetched out of the way, and yet the more easy:[9] In all expressing a soul equally skilled in men and nature.”
Note G, p. 62.
The paradoxical bias of Hobbes’s understanding is never so conspicuous as when he engages in physical or in mathematical discussions. On such occasions, he expresses himself with even more than his usual confidence and arrogance. Of the Royal Society (the Virtuosi, as he calls them, that meet at Gresham College) he writes thus: “Conveniant, studia conferant, experimenta faciant quantum volunt, nisi et principiis utantar meis, nihil proficient.” And elsewhere: “Ad causas autem propter quas proficere ne paullum quidem potuistis nec poteritis, accedunt etiam alia, ut odium Hobbii, quia nimium libere scripserat de academiis veritatem: Nam ex eo tempore irati physici et mathematici veritatem ab eo venientem non recepturos se palam professi sunt.” In his English publications, he indulges in a vein of coarse scurrility, of which his own words alone can convey any idea. “So go your ways,” says he, addressing himself to Dr Wallis and Dr Seth Ward, two of the most eminent mathematicians then in England, “you uncivil ecclesiastics, inhuman divines, de-doctors of morality, unasinous colleagues, egregious pair of Issachars, most wretched indices and vindices academiarum; and remember Vespasian’s law, that it is unlawful to give ill language first, but civil and lawful to return it.”
Note H, p. 64.
With respect to the Leviathan, a very curious anecdote is mentioned by Lord Clarendon. “When I returned,” says he, “from Spain by Paris, Mr Hobbes frequently came to me, and told me that his book, which he would call Leviathan, was then printing in England, and that he received every week a sheet to correct; and thought it would be finished within a little more than a month. He added, that he knew when I read the book I would not like it; and thereupon mentioned some conclusions; upon which I asked him why he would publish such doctrines; to which, after a discourse between jest and earnest, he said, “The truth is, I have a mind to go home.” In another passage, the same writer expresses himself thus: “The review and conclusion of the Leviathan is, in truth, a sly address to Cromwell, that, being out of the kingdom, and so being neither conquered nor his subject, he might, by his return, submit to his government, and be bound to obey it. This review and conclusion he made short enough to hope that Cromwell might read it; where he should not only receive the pawn of his new subject’s allegiance, by declaring his own obligations and obedience; but by publishing such doctrines as, being diligently infused by such a master in the art of government, might secure the people of the kingdom (over whom he had no right to command) to acquiesce and submit to his brutal power.”
That there is no exaggeration or misrepresentation of facts in these passages, with the view of injuring the character of Hobbes, may be confidently presumed from the very honourable testimony which Clarendon bears, in another part of the same work, to his moral as well as intellectual merits. “Mr Hobbes,” he observes, “is a man of excellent parts; of great wit; of some reading; and of somewhat more thinking; one who has spent many years in foreign parts and observations; understands the learned as well as modern languages; hath long had the reputation of a great philosopher and mathematician; and in his age hath had conversation with many worthy and extraordinary men. In a word, he is one of the most ancient acquaintance I have in the world, and of whom I have always had a great esteem, as a man, who, besides his eminent learning and knowledge, hath been always looked upon as a man of probity, and of a life free from scandal.”
Note I, p. 89.
It is not easy to conceive how Descartes reconciled, to his own satisfaction, his frequent use of the word substance, as applied to the mind, with his favourite doctrine, that the essence of the mind consists in thought. Nothing can be well imagined more unphilosophical than this last doctrine, in whatever terms it is expressed; but to designate by the name of substance, what is also called thought, in the course of the same argument, renders the absurdity still more glaring than it would otherwise have been.
I have alluded, in the text, to the difference between the popular and the scholastic notion of substance. According to the latter, the word substance corresponds to the Greek word ουσια, as employed by Aristotle to denote the first of the predicaments; in which technical sense it is said, in the language of the schools, to signify that which supports attributes, or which is subject to accidents. At a period when every person liberally educated was accustomed to this barbarous jargon, it might not appear altogether absurd to apply the term substance to the human soul, or even to the Deity. But, in the present times, a writer who should so employ it may be assured, that, to a great majority of his readers, it will be no less puzzling than it was to Crambe, in Martinus Scriblerus, when he first heard it thus defined by his master Cornelius.[10] How extraordinary does the following sentence now sound even to a philosophical ear! and yet it is copied from a work published little more than seventy years ago, by the learned and judicious Gravesande: “Substantiæ sunt aut cogitantes, aut non cogitantes; cogitantes duas novimus, Deum et mentem nostram. Duæ etiam substantiæ, quæ non cogitant, nobis notæ sunt, spatiam et corpus.” Introd. ad Phil. § 19.
The Greek word ουσια (derived from the participle of ειμι) is not liable to these objections. It obtrudes no sensible image on the fancy; and, in this respect, has a great advantage over the Latin word substantia. The former, in its logical acceptation, is an extension to Matter, of an idea originally derived from Mind. The latter is an extension to Mind of an idea originally derived from Matter.
Instead of defining mind to be a thinking substance, it seems much more logically correct to define it a thinking being. Perhaps it would be better still, to avoid, by the use of the pronoun that, any substantive whatever, “Mind is that which thinks, wills,” &c.
The foregoing remarks afford me an opportunity of exemplifying what I have elsewhere observed concerning the effects which the scholastic philosophy has left on the present habits of thinking, even of those who never cultivated that branch of learning. In consequence of the stress laid on the predicaments, men became accustomed in their youth to imagine, that, i order to know the nature of anything, it was sufficient to know under what predicament or category it ought to be arranged; and that, till this was done, it remained to our faculties a subject merely of ignorant wonder. Hence the impotent attempt to comprehend under some common name (such as that of substance) the heterogeneous existences of matter, of mind, and even of empty space; and hence the endless disputes to which the last of these words has given rise in the Schools.
In our own times, Kant and his followers seem to have thought, that they had thrown a new and strong light on the nature of space and also of time, when they introduced the word form (forms of the intellect) as a common term applicable to both. Is not this to revert to the scholastic folly of verbal generalization? And is it not evident, that of things which are unique (such as matter, mind, space, time) no classification is practicable? Indeed, to speak of classifying what has nothing in common with anything else, is a contradiction in terms. It was thus that St Augustine felt, when he said, “Quid sit tempus, si nemo quærat a me, scio; si quis interroget, nescio.” His idea evidently was, that, although he annexed as clear and precise a notion to the word time, as he could do to any object of human thought, he was unable to find any term more general, under which it could be comprehended; and consequently, unable to give any definition, by which it might be explained.
Note K, p. 89.
“Les Méditations de Descartes parûrent in 1641. C’étoit, de tous ses ouvrages, celui qu’il estimoit Ie plus. Ce qui characterise sur tout cet ouvrage, c’est qu’il contient sa fameuse démonstration de Dieu par l’idée, démonstration si répétée depuis, adoptée par les uns, et rejettée par les autres ; et qu’il est le premier où la distinction de l’esprit et de la matière soit parfaitement développée, car avant Descartes on n’avoit encore bien approfondi les preuves philosophiques de le spiritualité de l’ame.” Eloge de Descartes, par M. Thomas. Note 20.
If the remarks in the text be correct, the characteristical merits of Descartes’ Meditations do not consist in the novelty of the proofs contained in them of the spirituality of the soul (on which point Descartes has added little or nothing to what had been advanced by his predecessors), but in the clear and decisive arguments by which they expose the absurdity of attempting to explain the mental phenomena, by analogies borrowed from those of matter. Of this distinction, neither Thomas, nor Turgot, nor D’Alembert, nor Condorcet, seem to have been at all aware.
I quote from the last of these writers an additional proof of the confusion of ideas upon this point, still prevalent among the most acute logicians. “Ainsi la spiritualité de l’ame, n’est pas une opinion qui ait besoin de preuves, mais le résultat simple et naturel d’une analyse exacte de nos idées, et de nos facultés.” (Vie de M. Turgot.) Substitute for spirituality the word immateriality, and the observation becomes equally just and important.
Note L, p. 90.
The following extract from Descartes might be easily mistaken for a passage in the Novum Organon.
“Quoniam infantes nati sumus, et varia de rebus sensibilibus judicia prius tulimus, quam integrum nostræ rationis usum haberemus, multis præjudiciis à veri cognitione avertimur, quibus non aliter videmur posse liberari, quam si semel in vitâ, de iis omnibus studeamus dubitare, in quibus vel minimam incertitudinis suspicionem reperiemus.
“Quin et illa etiam, de quibus dubitabimus, utile erit habere pro falsis, ut tanto clarius, quidnam certissimum et cognitu facillimum sit, inveniamus.
“Itaque ad serio philosophandum, veritatemque omnium rerum cognoscibilium indagandam, primò omnia præjudicia, sunt deponenda; sive accuratè est cavendum, ne ullis ex opinionibus olim à nobis receptis fidem habeamus, nisi prius, iis ad novum examen revocatis, veras esse comperiamus.” Princ. Phil. Pars Prima, §§ lii. Ixxv.
Notwithstanding these and various otter similar coincidences, it has been asserted, with some confidence, that Descartes had never read the works of Bacon. “Quelques auteurs assurent que Descartes n’avoit point lu les ouvrages de Bacon ; et il nous dit lui-même dans une de ses lettres, qu’il ne lut que fort tard les principaux ouvrages de Galilée.” (Eloge de Descartes, par Thomas.) Of the veracity of Descartes, I have not the slightest doubt; and therefore I consider this last fact (however extraordinary) as completely established by his own testimony. But it would require more evidence than the assertions of those nameless writers alluded to by Thomas, to convince me that he had never looked into an author, so highly extolled as Bacon is, in the letters addressed to himself by his illustrious antagonist, Gassendi. At any rate, if this was actually the case, I cannot subscribe to the reflection subjoined to the foregoing quotation by his eloquent eulogist. “Si cela est, il faut convenir, que la gloire de Descartes en est bien plus grande.”
Note M, p. 100.
From the indissoluble union between the notions of colour and of extension, Dr Berkeley has drawn a curious, and, in my opinion, most illogical argument in favour of his scheme of idealism;—which, as it may throw some additional light on the phenomena in question, I shall transcribe in his own words.
“Perhaps, upon a strict inquiry, we shall not find, that even those who, from their birth, have grown up in a continued habit of seeing, are still irrevocably prejudiced on the other side, to wit, in thinking what they see to be at a distance from them. For, at this time, it seems agreed on all hands, that colours, which are the proper and immediate objects of sight, are not without the mind. But then, it will be said, by sight we have also the ideas of extension, and figure, and motion; all which may well be thought without, and at some distance from the mind, though colour should not. In answer to this, I appeal to any man’s experience, whether the visible extension of any object doth not appear as near to him as the colour of that object; nay, whether they do not both seem to be in the same place. Is not the extension we see coloured; and is it possible for us, so much as in thought, to separate and abstract colour from extension? Now, where the extension is, there surely is the figure, and there the motion too. I speak of those which are perceived by sight.”[11]
Among the multitude of arguments advanced by Berkeley, in support of his favourite theory, I do not recollect any that strikes me more with the appearance of a wilful sophism than the foregoing. It is difficult to conceive, how so very acute a reasoner should not have perceived that his premises, in this instance, lead to a conclusion directly opposite to what he has drawn from them. Supposing all mankind to have an irresistible conviction of the outness and distance of extension and figure, it is very easy to explain, from the association of ideas, and from our early habits of inattention to the phenomena of consciousness, how the sensations of colour should appear to the imagination to be transported out of the mind. But if, according to Berkeley’s doctrines, the constitution of human nature leads men to believe that extension and figure, and every other quality of the material universe, exists only within themselves, whence the ideas of external and of internal; of remote, or of near? When Berkeley says, “I appeal to any man’s experience, whether the visible extension of any object doth not appear as near to him as the colour of that object;” how much more reasonable would it have been to have stated the indisputable fact, that the colour of the object appears as remote as its extension and figure? Nothing, in my opinion, can afford a more conclusive proof, that the natural judgment of the mind is against the inference just quoted from Berkeley, than the problem of D’Alembert, which has given occasion to this discussion.
Note N, p. 104.
It is observed by Dr Reid, that “the system which is now generally received with regard to the mind and its operations, derives not only its spirit from Descartes, but its fundamental principles; and that, after all the improvements made by Malebranche, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, it may still be called the Cartesian system.” Conclusion of the Inquiry into the Human Mind.
The part of the Cartesian system here alluded to is the hypothesis, that the communication between the mind and external objects is carried on by means of ideas or images;—not, indeed, transmitted from without (as the Aristotelians supposed) through the channel of the senses, but nevertheless bearing a relation to the qualities perceived, analogous to that of an impression on wax to the seal by which it was stamped. In this last assumption, Aristotle and Descartes agreed perfectly; and the chief difference between them was, that Descartes palliated, or rather kept out of view, the more obvious absurdities of the old theory, by rejecting the unintelligible supposition of intentional species, and by substituting, instead of the word image, the more indefinite and ambiguous word idea.
But there was another and very important step made by Descartes, in restricting the ideal Theory to the primary qualities of matter; its secondary qualities (of colour, sound, smell, taste, heat, and cold) having, according to him, no more resemblance to the sensations by means of which they are perceived, than arbitrary sounds have to the things they denote, or the edge of a sword to the pain it may occasion. (Princ. Pars iv. §§ 197, 198.) To this doctrine he frequently recurs in other parts of his works.
In these modifications of the Aristotelian Theory of Perception Locke acquiesced entirely; explicitly asserting, that “the ideas of primary qualities are resemblances of them, but that the ideas of secondary qualities have no resemblance to them at all.” Essay, B. ii. c. viii. § 15.
When pressed by Gassendi to explain how images of extension and figure can exist in an unextended mind, Descartes expresses himself thus : “Quæris quomodo existimem in me subjecto inextenso recipi posse speciem ideamve corporis quod extensum est. Respondeo nullam speciem corpoream in mente recipi, sed puram intellectionem tam rei corporeæ quam incorporeæ fieri absque ulla specie corporeæ; ad imaginationem vero, quæ non nisi de rebus corporeis esse potest, opus quidem esse specie quæ sit verum corpus, et ad quam mens se applicet, sed non quæ in mente recipiatur.” Responsio de iis quæ in sextam Meditationem objecta sunt, § 4.
In this reply it is manifestly assumed as an indisputable principle, that the immediate objects of our thoughts, when we imagine or conceive the primary qualities of extension and figure, are ideas or species of these qualities; and, of consequence, are themselves extended and figured. Had it only occurred to him to apply (mutatis mutandis) to the perception of primary qualities his own account of the perception of secondary qualities (that it is obtained, to wit, by the media of sensations more analogous to arbitrary signs, than to stamps or pictures), he might have eluded the difficulty started by Gassendi, without being reduced to the disagreeable necessity of supposing his ideas or images to exist in the brain, and not in the mind. The language of Mr Locke, it is observable, sometimes implies the one of these hypotheses, and sometimes the other.
It was plainly with the view of escaping from the dilemma proposed by Gassendi to Descartes, that Newton and Clarke were led to adopt a mode of speaking concerning perception, approaching very nearly to the language of Descartes. “Is not,” says Newton, “the sensorium of animals the place where the sentient substance is present; and to which the sensible species of things are brought, through the nerves and brain, that there they may be perceived by the mind present in that place?” And still more confidently Dr Clarke: “Without being present to the images of the things perceived, the soul could not possibly perceive them. A living substance can only there perceive where it is present. Nothing can any more act or be acted upon where it is not present, than it can when it is not.” The distinction between primary and secondary qualities was afterwards rejected by Berkeley, in the course of his argument against the existence of matter; but he continued to retain the language of Descartes concerning ideas, and to consider them as the immediate, or rather as the only objects of our thoughts, wherever the external senses are concerned. Mr Hume’s notions and expressions on the subject are very nearly the same.
I thought it necessary to enter into these details, in order to shew with what limitations the remark quoted from Dr Reid in the beginning of this note ought to be received. It is certainly true, that the Cartesian system may be said to form the ground-work of Locke’s Theory of Perception, as well as of the sceptical conclusions deduced from it by Berkeley and Hume; but it is not the less true, that it forms also the ground-work of all that has since been done towards the substitution, in place of this scepticism, of a more solid fabric of metaphysical science.
Note O, p. 105.
After the pains taken by Descartes to ascertain the seat of the soul, it is surprising to find one of the most learned English divines of the seventeenth century (Dr Henry More) accusing him as an abettor of the dangerous heresy of nullibism. Of this heresy Dr More represents Descartes as the chief author; and, at the same time, speaks of it as so completely extravagant, that he is at a loss whether to treat it as the serious opinion of a philosopher, or as the jest of a buffoon. “The chief author and leader of the Nullibists,” he tells us, “seems to have been that pleasant wit, Renatus Descartes, who, by his jocular metaphysical meditations, has luxated and distorted the rational faculties of some otherwise sober and quick-witted persons.” To those who are at all acquainted with the philosophy of Descartes, it is unnecessary to observe, that, so far from being a Nullibist, he valued himself not a little on having fixed the precise ubi of the soul, with a degree of accuracy unthought of by any of his predecessors. As he held, however, that the soul was unextended, and as More happened to conceive that nothing which was unextended could have any reference to place, he seems to have thought himself entitled to impute to Descartes, in direct opposition to his own words, the latter of these opinions as well as the former. “The true notion of a spirit,” according to More, “is that of an extended penetrable substance, logically and intellectually divisible, but not physically discernible into parts.”
Whoever has the curiosity to look into the works of this once admired, and, in truth, very able logician, will easily discover that his alarm at the philosophy of Descartes was really occasioned, not by the scheme of nullibism, but by the Cartesian doctrine of the non-extension of mind, which More thought inconsistent with a fundamental article in his own creed—the existence of witches and apparitions. To hint at any doubt about either, or even to hold any opinion that seemed to weaken their credibility, appeared to this excellent person quite a sufficient proof of complete atheism.
The observations of More on “the true notion of a spirit” (extracted from his Enchiridion Ethicum) were afterwards republished in Glanville’s book upon witchcraft;—a work (as I before mentioned) proceeding from the same pen with the Scepsis Scientifica, one of the most acute and original productions of which English philosophy had then to boast.
If some of the foregoing particulars should, at first sight, appear unworthy of attention in a historical sketch of the progress of science, I must beg leave to remind my readers, that they belong to a history of still higher importance and dignity—that of the progress of Reason, and of the Human Mind.
Note P, p. 107.
For an interesting sketch of the chief events in the life of Descartes, See the Notes annexed to his Eloge by Thomas; where also is to be found a very pleasing and lively portrait of his moral qualities. As for the distinguishing merits of the Cartesian philosophy, and more particularly of the Cartesian metaphysics, it was a subject peculiarly ill adapted to the pen of this amiable and eloquent, but verbose and declamatory academician.
I am doubtful, too, if Thomas has not gone too far, in the following passage, on a subject of which he was much more competent to judge than of some others which he has ventured to discuss: “L’imagination brillante de Descartes se décèle partout dans ses ouvrages ; et s’il n’avoit voulu être ni géométre ni philosophe, il n’auroit tenu qu’à lui d’être le plus bel esprit de son temps.” Whatever opinion may be formed on this last assertion, it will not be disputed by those who have studied Descartes, that his philosophical style is remarkably dry, concise, and severe. Its great merit lies in its singular precision and perspicuity;—a perspicuity, however, which does not dispense with a moment’s relaxation in the reader’s attention; the author seldom repeating his remarks, and hardly ever attempting to illustrate or to enforce them either by reasoning or by examples. In all these respects, his style forms a complete contrast to that of Bacon’s.
In Descartes’ epistolary compositions, indeed, ample evidences are to be found of his vivacity and fancy, as well as of his classical taste. One of the most remarkable is a letter addressed to Balzac, in which he gives his reasons for preferring Holland to all other countries, not only as a tranquil, but as an agreeable residence for a Philosopher; and enters into some very engaging details concerning his own petty habits. The praise bestowed on this letter by Thomas is by no means extravagant, when he compares it to the best of Balzac’s. “Je ne sçais s’il y a rien dans tout Balzac où il y ait autant esprit et d’agrément.”
Note Q, p. 111.[12]
It is an error common to by far the greater number of modern metaphysicians, to suppose that there is no medium between the innate ideas of Descartes, and the opposite theory of Gassendi. In a very ingenious and learned essay on Philosophical Prejudices, by M. Trembley,[13] I find the following sentence: “Mais l’expérience dément ce systême des idées inneés, puisque la privation d’un sens emporte avec elle la privation des idées attachées à ce sens, comme l’a remarqué l’illustre auteur de l’Essai Analytique sur les Facultés de l’Ame.”
What are we to understand by the remark here ascribed to Mr Bonnet? Does it mean nothing more than this, that to a person born blind, no instruction can convey an idea of colours, nor to a person born deaf, of sounds? A remark of this sort surely did not need to be sanctioned by the united names of Bonnet and of Trembley: Nor, indeed, does it bear in the slightest degree on the point in dispute. The question is not about our ideas of the material world, but about those ideas on metaphysical and moral subjects, which may be equally imparted to the blind and to the deaf; enabling them to arrive at the knowledge of the same truths, and exciting in their minds the same moral emotions. The signs employed in the reasonings of these two classes of persons will of course excite by association, in their respective fancies, very different material images; but whence the origin of the physical and moral notions of which these signs are the vehicle, and for suggesting which, all sets of signs seem to be equally fitted? The astonishing scientific attainments of many persons, blind from their birth, and the progress lately made in the instruction of the deaf, furnish palpable and incontestible proofs of the flimsiness of this article of the Epicurean philosophy;—so completely verified is now the original and profound conclusion long ago formed by Dalgarno, “That the soul can exert her powers by the ministry of any of the senses: And, therefore, when she is deprived of her principal secretaries, the eye and the ear, then she must be contented with the service of her lackeys and scullions, the other senses; which are no less true and faithful to their mistress than the eye and the ear; but not so quick for dispatch.” Didascalocophus, &c. Oxford, 1680.
I was once in hopes of being able to throw a still stronger light on the subject of this note, by attempting to ascertain experimentally the possibility of awakening and cultivating the dormant powers of a boy destitute of the organs both of sight and of hearing; but unexpected occurrences have disappointed my expectations.
I have just learned, that a case somewhat similar, though not quite so favourable in all its circumstances, has recently occurred in the state of Connecticut in New England; and I have the satisfaction to add, there is some probability that so rare an opportunity for philosophical observations and experiments will not be overlooked in that quarter of the world.
Note R, p. 113.
Of Gassendi’s orthodoxy as a Roman Catholic divine, he has left a very curious memorial, in an inaugural discourse pronounced in 1645, before Cardinal Richelieu, when he entered on the duties of his office as Regius Professor of Mathematics at Paris. The great object of the oration is to apologize to his auditors for his having abandoned his ecclesiastical functions, to teach and cultivate the profane science of geometry. With this view, he proposes to explain and illustrate the saying of Plato, who, being questioned about the employment of the Supreme Being, answered, Γεωμετρειν τον θεον. In the prosecution of this argument, he expresses himself thus on the doctrine of the Trinity.
“Anne proinde hoc adorandum Trinitatis mysterium habebimus rursus ut sphæram, cujus quasi centrum sit Pater Æternus, qui totius divinitatis fons, origo, principium accommodatè dicitur; circumferentia Filius, in quo legitur habitare plenitudo Divinitatis; et radii centro circumferentiæque intercedentes Spiritus Sanctus, qui est Patris et Filii nexus, vinculumque mutuum? Anne potius dicendum est eminere in hoc mysterio quicquid sublime magnificumque humana geometria etiamnum requirit? Percelebre est latere eam adhuc, quam quadraturam circuli vocant; atque idcirco in eo esse, ut describat triangulum, cujus si basin ostenderit circuli ambitui æqualem, tum demum esse circulo triangulum æquale demonstrat. At in hoc mysterio augustissimo gloriosissima Personarum Trias ita infinitæ essentiæ, ipsiusque fœcunditati, tanquam circulo exæquatur, seu, ut sic loquar, et veriùs quidem, penitùs identificatur; ut cum sit omnium, et cujusque una, atque eadem essentia, une proinde ac eadem sit immensitas, æternitas, et perfectionum plenitudo.
“Sic, cum nondum nôrit humana geometria trisecare angulum, dividereve, et, citra accommodationem mechanicam, ostendere divisum esse in tria æqualia; habemus in hocce mysterio unam essentiam non tam trisectam, quàm integram communicatam in tria æqualia supposita, quæ cum simul, sigillatimque totam individuamque possideant, sint inter se tamen realiter distincta.”
The rest of the oration is composed in exactly the same taste.
The following interesting particulars of Gassendi’s death are recorded by Sorbière.
“Extremam tamen horam imminentem sentiens, quod reliquum erat virium impendendum existimavit præparando ad mortem animo. Itaque significavit, ut quamprimum vocaretur Sacerdos, in cujus aurem, dum fari poterat, peccata sua effunderet. . . . . . Dein, ut nihil perfectæ Christiani militis armaturæ deesset, sacro inungi oleo efflagitavit. Ad quam cæremoniam animo attendens, cum sacerdos aures inungens pronuntiaret verba solennia, et lapsu quodam memoriæ dixisset, Indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid per odoratum peccasti, reposuit statim æger, imo per auditum; adeo intentus erat rei gravissimæ, et eluendarum sordium vel minimarum cupidum se et sitibundum gerebat.” Sorberii Præfatio.
Having mentioned in the text the avowed partiality of Gassendi for the Epicurean ethics, it is but justice to his memory to add, that his own habits were, in every respect, the reverse of those commonly imputed to this school. “Ad privatam Gassendi vitam sæpius attendens,” says Sorbière, “anachoretam aliquem cernere mihi videor, qui medià im urbe vitam instituit planè ad monachi severioris normam; adeo paupertatem, castitatem et obedientiam coluit; quanquam sine ullo voto tria ista vota solvisse videatur.Abstemius erat sponte sua, ptisanam tepidam bibens pulmoni refrigerando humectandoque. Carne raro, herbis sæpius, ac maceratâ offâ manè et vesperè utebatur.” Ibid.
END OF PART FIRST.
- ↑ Burnet.
- ↑ Discourses upon Livy.
- ↑ Prince, Book i. c. ix.
- ↑ Discourses upon Livy.
- ↑ Many traces of this misanthropic disposition occur in the historical and even in the dramalic works of Machiavel. It is very justly observed by M. de Sismondi, that “the pleasantry of his comedies is almost always mingled with gall. His laughter at the human race is but the laughter of contempt.”
- ↑ Jonson is said to lave translated into Latin great part of the books De Augmentis Scientiarum. Dr Warton states this (I do not know on what authority) as an undoubted fact. Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope.
- ↑ See his letters to M. de Fermat, printed at the end of Fermat’s Opera Mathematica, Tolosæ, 1679.
- ↑ Lately published in the extracts from the Bodleian library.
- ↑ By the word easy, I presume Sprat here means the native and spontaneous growth of Bacon’s own fancy, in opposition to the traditionary similies borrowed by common-place writers from their predecessors.
- ↑ “When he was told, a substance was that which was subject to accidents, then soldiers, quoth Crambe, are the most substantial people in the world.” Let me add, that, in the list of Philosophical reformers, the authors of Martinus Scriblerus ought not to be overlooked. Their happy ridicule of the scholastic Logic and Metaphysics are universally known; but few are aware of the acuteness and sagacity displayed in their allusions to some of the most vulnerable passages in Locke’s Essay. In this part of the work it is commonly understood that Arbuthnot had the principal share.
- ↑ Essay toward a New Theory of Vision, p. 255.
- ↑ The reference to this Note was accidentally omitted in the proper place. It ought to have been in page 111, line 21, at the end of the paragraph.
- ↑ Essai sur les Préjugés, &c. Neuchatel, 1790.