troversy hitherto so perplexing laid asleep for ever: but it seems to us that this method of reconciliation is to evade, and not confront the difficulties of the question. The objection of the libertarian is this, that according to the hypothesis of his opponent, the state of the mind which immediately precedes, and indeed produces the physical or corporeal action, that state to which we give the name volition, is itself produced by causes, whether within or without the mind, over which the agent has no control, and for which therefore, though he may be made accountable in fact, he cannot be responsible in equity. And it is no sufficient answer to his objection," that according to these laws of concatenation, not an event can arrive, nor can an action be performed, which is not to be ascribed to a series of preceding causes and effects; yet we are to recollect that the will of man is not only one of the links, but it is a link of peculiar energy and importance; and it often takes the lead, in a manner which is more than an equivalent for the apparent disgrace of submission. If it be the effect of preceding circumstances, it is, in its turn, a cause of numberless other effects. It introduces and conducts the most important events. It erects, establishes and destroys empires. If it be the parent of vice, it is also the parent of virtue. It is this which subdues vice, arrests its pernicions consequences, directs to right conduct, and fosters all the principles of religion and morality. It is the will of man which turns a wilderness into a garden, and renders deserts fruitful. It cultivates all the sciences, and introduces every useful art. It is incessantly working its way through difficulties innumerable, and perfecting itself in its progress.' It is admitted that "the act being performed, the whole process of volition is terminated, and all power respecting it terminates also. The deed must now work its own way, to the production of good or evil. From absolute masters, as we thought ourselves before the commission, we now feel that we are compelled to be passive subjects, to the whole train of consequences induced by it:" and the reason is, that the action proceeds through all its consequences according to the unalterable laws of nature, over which the agent has no control: but is not this also true of the state of the mind, or the volition, which immediately preceded the outward action, as well as of all the consequences which follow? And how does it appear to be more just and reasonable, that I should be made responsible for the volition which is one link in the chain of fixed concatenation, than for any other link, since of neither of them am I absolute master, or master at all unless subjection to laws and control of laws are the same thing. If every link in the chain is what, and where it is, in the order of nature, and by the operation of its laws, to make me accountable for any link, and volition as much as the rest, is to make me responsible that nature is what it is, and to regard the subject of natural laws as if he were the author of them. Thus reasons the libertarian; and it is evident that nothing can satisfy his notion of just responsibility, but the admission of a power in man, which is indeed derived from God, but which, being derived, has a sphere of uncontrolled and independent operation, and is the proper and ultimate author of its own acts. In the two succeeding Essays we are upon controversial ground. In both our author attacks literary names of high reputation; and in the latter he questions opinions, some of which have not commonly been opposed with such a firm aspect of open hostility. In his preface Dr. C. informs us, that in consequence of long residence in foreign parts, his refutation of Beattie's Essay on Truth was written before Priestley's examination of it had fallen into his hands. The question is well argued, and the doctrine ably exploded. If any of our readers have either any doubts upon the subject, or any desire to become acquainted at very little expense of time and labour with the merits of a question, which was agitated for a short time with much warmth on both sides, though with little parity of reasoning, we can recommend this Essay to his perusal, as at once concise and satisfactory. Some of the opponents of the doctrine of co.nmon sense have unwarily and inconsistently admitted the existence of self-evident truths; but Dr. C. was too well acquainted with his ground to concede what is merely assumed, and what, if proved, would have made his victory a task of much greater difficulty. "I think (he says) that I have proved, that the proposition which is most clearly When perceived, cannot be termed self-cvident, according to the meaning which is eagerly annexed to the term; that there must have been an intellectual process, however rapid; that if an axiom be clear to the mathematician or metaphysician, it is not to an uncultivated mind. philosophers commence their abstruse researches, it is always at a mature age. They enter their studies with the immense advantage of a previous education. They have imperceptibly been gathering up principles in their infancy, childhood, and youth, by which alone they become qualified to philosophize, and to which they have been so long habituated, that, as it plainly appears, they have totally forgotten the origin of their philosophical knowledge. If this be the case, and I defy the disciples of our theorist to disprove it, the term intuitive is intrusive and absurd. He takes for granted what he is bound to prove, that intuitive principles exist, and theu to point out what they are. Will he send us away with the assertion, that I know by intuition the existence of intuitive principles? Is positiveness an attribute of intuition? Can he expect to satisfy us, though he may himself, with the syllogism, whenever I am positive a thing exists, or a principle is true, it is by intuition; and therefore every time I am positive, I have an intuitive knowledge independent of all proof?"-Pp. 216, 217. in order to discover the weakness of the, intellectual faculties; and he conducts us through various propositions, which he professes to consider as truths, in order gradually and imperceptibly to undermine them. He takes the liberty of uniting two opposite systems in his current language, that which he attempts to subvert, and the one he wishes to establish; he talks of us, we, men, the experience of mankind, as if he were assured that other beings exist as well as himself; yet his grand attempt is to weaken all the arguments which support this belief. He seems to acknowledge the doctrine of cause and effect, at the moment he combats every principle most intimately connected with it. He frequently retires behind ambiguous phraseology, and undefined expressions; and not unfrequently claims a right to fix ideas to words, totally different from the general acceptation. Hence it is as difficult to contend with such an adversary, as it is for regular troops to contend with the bush-fighters of America, who are at one moment in one position, and the next in another; whose professed discipline cousists in concealing themselves behind brambles and thorns and other interposing bodies, that they may take aim in greater security, at forces which disdain to shelter themselves, and yet find it difficult to return the salute, in consequence of the obscure situation of the foe. To follow this philosopher through all the turns and windIt will suffice, The sixth Speculation is an attackings, is impracticable. upon Mr. Hunie's Sceptical Questions, and it will be, as it ought to be, exanined the more rigorously, because the attack upon Mr. Hume's opinions is coupled with a censure of the man, in which the admirers of that very acute metaphysician will not readily acquiesce. if we shew that his leading principles are erroneous, and that the most specious arguments adduced for their support, are destitute of solidity."-Pp. 245-247. "Perhaps (says our author) there never was a writer, whose principles are more unsatisfactory, but whom it is more difficult to oppose with success, than this philosopher. His crudition and unaffected eloquence demand our admiration; and the embarrassments he has thrown in the way of the most revered opinions, are supported with so much ingenuity, subtilty, and address, that those who are dissatisfied with his sentiments are com pelled to respect his talents. Whoever attends closely to his mode of writing, will, however, perceive that he has the art of combining the greatest contrarieties in one assemblage. He is sometimesprofound, sometimes superficial, sometimes extremely sceptical, sometimes extremely positive. He obviously delights to exert all the powers of his intellects, Again: "Had he (Mr. Hume) made a proper use of his distinguished talents, he might have shone like a superior luminary, aud have thrown masses of light upon the greatest obscurities in science; but be has preferred rendering his mental powers subservient to the office of a midnight taper, just glimmering to shew mankind the surrounding darkness. The only proposition which his most attentive disciples can discover is, that the whole human race is deplorably and invincibly ignorant. He labours assiduously to prove by abstruse reasoning, that the human mind is not in the least adapted to abstruse subjects; a solecism which can only be rivalled by that of his antagonist, who attempts to prove by reasoning that reason is not to be trusted."-Pp. 251, 252. It is well known that Mr. Hume divides all the perceptions of the human mind into two classes, or species, which he calls impressions and ideas, and which he supposes to differ from each other only in force or vivacity. "By the term impression (he says) I mean all our more lively perceptions when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will: and impressions are distinguished from ideas, which are the less lively perceptions of which we are conscious, when we reflect on any of these sensations or movements abovementioned." As it is impossible to speak at all on the powers and operations of the mind without using terms which are not strictly proper, being derived from names which at first represented sensible objects, the writer on such subjects claims indulgence, and more than any other has a right to complain of injury, if his commentator insists upon the literal meaning of terms, which he has admitted less from choice than from necessity. For this reason it has appeared to us that Mr. Locke has not been well used by several of the Scotch metaphysicians in their strictures upon his doctrine of ideas and if, as we think, Mr. Hume has not been fortunate in his application of the term impression, which i agrees with what is supposed to be his own doctrine of the origin of ideas, we should not be disposed to insist upon a literal meaning, or contest his use of the term as long as having defined it, he keeps within his definition. Having divided all our perceptions into two classes, Mr. Hume found it necessary to devise a name for that class which as he says wanted one in our language. The less lively perceptions had always been called thoughts, and, since Mr. Locke wrote, ideas pretty generally; but the more lively perceptions, of which he considered the weaker as a copy, had no name which could describe the whole class: they were sensations, feelings, sentiments, passions. Mr. Hume has called them all impressions, and not very philosophically perhaps, since they are acknowledged to be perceptions, and the liveliest of which the mind is conscious. In the name however we see nothing to confirm the opinion," that Mr. Hume has manifestly advanced his doctrine of impressions in order to account for the origin of our ideas independent of, a material world:" as far as his selection of the term goes we should rather suppose the contrary. But it is *more material to enquire whether our ideas are or are not said truly to resemble the stronger perceptions, so as to differ from them only in force or vivacity. Dr. Cogan maintains, that they bear no marks of being copies of those impressions, or perceptions (as Mr. Hume calls them) of the external and internal senses; and when he tries the question not by the impressions of sight, but by those of some of the other senses, he brings facts, which it must be acknowledged are rather stubborn, against Mr. Hume's opinion. "After a disciple of Mr. Hume has heard a noise in the street, is he conscious of an echo every time he remembers it? Should a bon vivant have regaled himself with copious draughts of Burgundy, when in France, will he every time he recollects his good fortune, rejoice that he has brought home with him a delicate flavour in his mouth? When we reflect upon a musical performance which gave us peculiar pleasure, do we enjoy a lesser degree of satisfaction at the remembrance, by putting into fainter movements those undulations of air, which vibrated upon Or should any one be most painfully our acoustic nerves during the concert? scorched by being too near a conflagration, will this vivid impression hereafter subside into moderate warmth, and make him comfortable during the remainder of his days, by the easy expedient of recollecting the event?"-Pp. 260, 261. that an air in music has been noted down, at some distance of time after it was first heard, so correctly, as to Is it not however a well-known fact enable one, who never heard it, to repeat it as well as if he had heard it; that is, the ideas of him who noted it down so well resemble the sensations, or impressions, that a third person shall reproduce the sensations in him, from the notes which were suggested, not by the impressions, but the recollected perceptions or the ideas. With respect to the ideas of things visible, our author remarks: "We are charmed with a romantic or luxuriant prospect; but we cannot recollect, with that accuracy which this system demands, the precise objects with which the When I read scenery was enriched. Vienna, Moscow, Pekin in China, for the name of a city which I have not seen ; after its own manner, totally unlike the example; the imagination builds city original. It uses those very materials which this philosopher considers as exact resemblances of other cities. It must be confessed that these fainter materials have been wonderfully decomposed in the mind, since they are ready for the building of a new imaginary town with them in an instant. Here then are two phænomena, which demand an explanation. How come I to build a city in thought, the moment I read the words Vienna, Moscow, Pekin, inscribed upon paper? I ought to expect nothing more miniature word, and a fainter ink. The sight of a word ought not to build a town: and when I borrow materials from former impressions, what provision does Mr. Hume's system make for their decomposition, ince the fainter copy is to remain entire, every time we recollect the impression?"-Pp. 259, 260. Again : than a Every new perception gives us clear Ideas of the thing perceived. Information is thus conveyed to the mind that things exist, possessing certain characters and properties. But this information is as remote from resemblance, as the tidings of a murder having been committed, are from the sight of a mangled corpse; or as the telegraphic news of the capture of a man-of-war, is from the vessel, the crew, the guns, thunder, flames and smoke, and confusion of the engagement. The primary impressions can only be considered as notifications of existent objects, diversified according to the diversities in the objects. Thoughts thus suggested by things external, become the occasions of other thoughts also, to an infinite extent; but in what manner such wonderful effects are produced; how this wonderful process is carried on, who can explain? Every attempt hitherto made, degenerates into an unsatisfactory metaphor, having a very imperfect, and a very trivial relation to the subject; and when extended beyond its limits, lays itself open to complcte confutation."-P. 264. Mr. Hume, being well aware of this, has introduced his use of the word impression with the notice," that he employs the word in a sense somewhat different from the usual;" and in the explanation of what he means by them, which immediately follows, he has been very careful to avoid as much as possible every metaphorical expression. He does indeed afterwards call ideas copies of the original impressions, and this he does in a passage in which he proposes 66 to express himself in philosophical language." Still it appears plain from other passages, that when he describes ideas as the copies of impressions, he means only simple or elementary ideas, and not the groupes in which they may be combined with out limit; for in the Essay on the Origin of Ideas, Mr. Hume is so far from denying a single percipient, or a mind endowed with various faculties, that he assumes it throughout. We shall quote one passage in proof, "Nor is any thing beyond the power of thought except what implies an absolute contradiction. But though our thought seems to possess this unbounded liberty, we shall find upon a nearer examination that it is really confined within very narrow limits, and that all this creative power of the mind amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting or diminishing the materials afforded us by the senses, and experience." Grant this faculty, which Mr. Hume always supposes, and with it the simple ideas which Mr. Locke says are gained only from sensation, and reflection, and which Mr. Hume calls copies of the impressions of our external and internal senses, and we shall be furnished with a tolerable answer to our author's question, "How come I to build a city in thought, the moment I read the words Vienna, The mind is, and we apprehend it is Moscow, Pekin, inscribed upon paper?" affirmed by Mr. H. to be, the builder and the materials are its own recollected perceptions, which, if they resemble any thing, might seem to resemble most the primitive perceptions of which they are the recollection. We would ask, how is it that very exact likenesses are thrown upon paper in the absence of the living original? The artist painted from his ideas, or recollections only, and if they are not a copy of the impression on the sense of sight, how comes it that his picture is so good a copy of it? We proceed to the Doctor's examination of Mr. Hume's Sceptical Doubts concerning the Operations of the Human Understanding. The object of that celebrated Section is to establish the proposition, that causes and effects are discoverable not by reason but by. experience. "It is confessed (he says) that the utmost effort of human reason is to reduce the principles productive of natural phænomena to a greater simplicity, and to resolve the many particular effects into a few general. causes by means of reasoning from analogy, experience and observation; but as to the causes of these general causes we should in vain attempt their discovery, nor shall we ever be able to satisfy ourselves by any particular explication of them. These ultimate springs and principles are totally shut out from human curiosity and enquiry." Hence he maintains, “ that in our conclusion from past to future experience, there is a certain step taken, a process of thought, and an inference which wants to be explained; there is required a medium which may enable us to draw such an inference, if indeed it be drawn by reasoning and argument. What that medium is I must confess passes my comprehension, and it is incumbent on those to produce it who assert that it really exists, and is the origin of all our conclusion concerning matters of fact." Here it should be remarked that Mr. Hume no where insinuates that the inference is false: on the contrary he admits that it is verified in fact: he only demands the process, or medium of deduction, the middle term, by which it is drawn, To this challenge our author replies: "I therefore maintain, in opposition to the bold assertion of our philosopher, that the discovery of powers and properties, inherent in different substances, and invariably connected with different circumstances, is the discovery of a medium, which renders the experience of the past of the utmost importance to the future; a medium, which is infallible, whenever our knowledge is sufficiently extensive and accurate. If one substance possess exactly the same properties as another, and if it be placed in a situation in all respects similar, a similar effect must be produced. If one mode of acting be productive of a particular event, and this mode be imitated subsequently, every circumstance connected with it being exactly the same, in its nature and strength of operation, the result must have a perfect correspondence. To suppose the contrary, is to suppose that these properties are endowed with a principle of caprice, merely to tease and disappoint us; or that the same bodies and the same circumstances combat against themselves! It is to suppose, that they are precisely the same, and yet that they act in a manner which demonstrates that they are not the same. When the result is different from what we had expected, it does not shake the immutable laws of nature; it simply indicates our ignorance; it teaches us to inquire more accurately into the state of things, and to be less presumptuous in the future."--Pp. 288, 289. VOL. XII. 2 H In a writer of less acumen than Dr. C. we should suspect that this answer was built upon a mistake of Mr. Hume's meaning. He also admits the facts. He no where denies that the effects are uniformly conjoined with the cause, or that there exist causes in nature which are discoverable in their effects. All that he maintains is, "that we never can by our utmost scrutiny discover any thing but one event following another without being able to comprehend any force or power by which the cause operates, or any connection between it and its supposed effect:" and consequently" that there is not in any single particular instance of cause and effect, any thing which can suggest the idea of power, or necessary connexion." To this Dr. C. does however well reply in his remarks on the Section, On the Idea of Necessary Connexion: "Mr. H. maintains, with infinitely more boldness than facts will admit, that there is not, in any particular instance of suggest the idea of power or necessity. cause and effect, any thing which can Whence comes it, then, that the idea is actually suggested to every thinking If he means ought not to suggest these mind in the universe, excepting his own? ideas, formidable should be the proofs that cause and effect are incessantly acting in opposition to their own natures; philosopher absurdly expects, that powers, for they are doing it perpetually. Our and influence, and connexion, should assume some corporeal form. Their esheard, in order to produce the indubitable sence must be seen, smelt, tasted, or impression. But this is not their proTheir office consists in producing effects, vince, it does not belong to their nature. and these effects are to make impressions, these are to be perceived by the mind, according to their specific characters."Pp. 310, 311. Mr. Hume has said, "that it is allowed, on al! hands, that there is no known connexion between the sensible qualities of bread, and the secret powers of nutrition; and consequently, the mind is not led to form a conclusion, concerning the constant and regular conjunction between eating bread, and being nourished by it, by any thing which is known of their nature." And our author replies, that it is not allowed, on all hands, that there is no known connexion between the sensible qualities of bread and its nutritious |