THE ENGLISH REVIEW. For OCTOBER, 1785. ART. I. Efays on the Intellectual Powers of Man. By Thomas Reid, D. D. F. R. S. Profeffor of Moral Philofophy in the Univerfity of Glasgow. 4to. l. 5s. boards, Bell, Edinburgh. Robinfons, London, 1785. THE (Continued from September.) 'HE fubftance of Dr. Reid's philofophy is, that there is nothing external to which any thing in the mind bears the leaft resemblance, but that, nevertheless, the mind has a power of perceiving, judging, and knowing their existence, the evidence of which exiftence is as clear, ftrong, and certain as that of our perceptions and fenfations, and alfo, precifely of the fame kind. Upon this doctrine, in general, we proceed to make, as we propofed, fome obfervations. First, it is remarkable that a philofopher who endeavours to account for the appearances and operations of the human mind, upon the principles of the common fenfe and natural judgment of mankind fhould, in the theory he aims to establish, oppose a general and almost universal difpofition or propenfity among all men, of all nations and ages, who are given to reflection, abftraction, and reafoning, to refolve the notices or knowledge we have, or think we have of things, into impreffions, ideas, images, pictures, or in general, into fome means analogous to the manner in which one material object communicates, and operates upon another: In other words to believe, that in all the operations of the understanding there must be fome immediate intercourse between the minds and its object,-That this has been the general difpofition of all philofophers from the earENG. REV. OCT. 1785. e lieft lieft times with which we are at all acquainted to the prefent, will not be denied by any perfon fo well acquainted with antiquity as Dr. Reid certainly is. The most renowned philofopher of antiquity, and him to whom all writers point as the great father of philofophy, though fome of his notions are referred to ftill more remote origins, is Pythagoras, who was induftrious to collect, improve, confirm, and fyftematize the ideas of philofophers who went before him. It was the opinion of Pythagoras, that the objects of sense are perceived only by certain images or fhadows of them which he called ideas, and which he confidered as eternal and immutable. Plato was of the fame opinion, who held ideas to be eternal, uncreated, and immutable forms or models, according to which the deity out of matter which was eternal, made every fpecies of things that exifts. The latter Platonifts, among whom we are to rank all the philofophical theologians of the earlier periods of Chriftianity, differed from their mafter, not in the great principle of the eternal and immutable existence of ideas, but in their conceptions concerning the manner of their exiftence. They held ideas to be the conceptions of things in the divine understanding, to which the intimate nature and effence of all things were prefent and perfectly known from all eternity. Father Malbranche too, may be confidered as a disciple of the fame school: for he is of opinion that we perceive external objects, not immediately, or in the language of Dr. Reid by intuitive judgments, but only through the medium and intervention of ideas. Ariftotle was of opinion that there are no innate ideas, but that the whole furniture of the mind, all the objects of our thought, enter at firft by the fenfes. But that, fince the fenfes cannot receive objects themselves it receives their species; that is, their images or forms, without the matter. Thefe images, or forms, or impreffions on the mind through the fenfes, are ftiled by him fpecies fenfible, and are the objects only of the fenfitive part of the mind, or, if our memory does not fail us, what he calls the fenfitive mind: for Plato and Ariftotle, with their followers, divided, as it were, the mind into diftinct fubftances or beings according to the feveral claffes of its objects and operations. Ariftotle fpeaks of the fenfitive, and of the intellectual mind: and Plato of the concupifcible, the irafcible, and the rational foul. It is not certain but some of their followers believed that in the nature of man there exift three different fouls poffeffing separate and individual identity, and of which the term and idea of I, myself, might be exclufively and properly pronounced. Perhaps Perhaps the Apostle Paul was of this opinion. For he speaks repeatedly, diftinctly, and precifely, of an old man, in his nature, and of a new-man. He was fenfible of a perfon, an I, or felf, whofe determination, bent, and whole force, and impetus of foul, was to walk after the flesh; and of another perfon, I, or felf, conceived, nourished, and confifting of the thoughts or ideas infpired by the gospel of Chrift whofe determination and bent, and whole force and impetus of foul, carried him to walk, that is, to live, to think, to exift after the fpirit. Between these two perfons or fouls a war was carried on, in which the new gradually prevailed over the old man, and gained at last a final triumph by death. This diftinction between two felfs or perfons is visible through out all his writings, but efpecially in the feventh chapter of his epiftie to the Romans. In the Cyropædia of Xenophon alfo, who was a cotemporary and fellow-ftudent of Plato's, we find the existence of two perfons or felfs totally oppofite in nature and difpofition, very plainly afferted. But, for an account of the ancient opinions refpecting the co-existence of different minds in the fame perfon or man and woman, we may refer our readers to Lord Monboddo, who, by a ftrange mixture of whim and infanity, with application to letters, has taken more pains than any man alive to confirm his prejudices, and to learn errors. But to return to our fubject. The images or forms of things, according to Aristotle, impreffed upon the fenfes, by various internal powers, or the mechanifm of human nature, are retained, refined, and fpiritualized fo as to become objects of memory and imagi nation, and at laft of pure intellect. When objects of me- : mory and imagination, they are, by him, called phantafms: when objects of the intellect, intelligible fpecies. This doctrine concerning ideas, of Ariftotle and the Peripatetics, is the foundation of that of Des Cartes, Mr. Locke, Leibnitz, Bishop Berkely, and Mr. Hume. It is the doctrine too of Gaffendi and Sir Ifaac Newton, and all the greateft names among fuch modern philofophers as maintain the existence of a fupreme mind, the foul of the universe, and the immateriality or fpiritual nature of the human foul in whatever part of our corporeal frame fhe holds her refidence and receives the informations of fenfe. And that we derive our information of things in fome fuch way as bodies influence and act upon bodies, is the opinion of all materialifts needs not any proof. Democritus and Epicurus maintained that all bodies continually fend forth flender films or fpectres from their furface, of fuch extreme fubtilty, that Q 2 they they eafily penetrate our grofs bodies, or enter by the organs of fenfe, and imprefs their image upon the mind. The modern materialists at the head of whom we are to place Dr. Hartley, fuppofing that matter may be endued with the moft fimple kind of fenfation, endeavour to account for all our feelings and ideas, and for all the operations of our minds, by certain vibrations and vibratiuncles of the medullary fubftance of the nerves and brain. Thefe too are to be ranked among those philofophers who do not pretend to fee things by intuitive judgments, but who only judge of them by their effects: and, it is plain that their principles lead to fcepticism, as much as thofe of the ideal philofophy, fince they know nothing more of external objects than as they are affections or impreffions excited, as they conceive, in the mind, by certain vibrations in the medullary fubftance of the nerves and brain. Thus it appears that from the earlieft dawnings of abftraction with which we are acquainted to the present times, all philofophers who have treated of the human mind, have endeavoured to investigate the origin of our ideas under fimilitudes taken from the material world. The inference we would draw from this fact, is, that according to the general fenfe of mankind there is no other way of reafoning on the fubject. The common fenfe of mankind therefore, is not on the fide of Dr. Reid's theory, but against it. For in matters of abstraction, if we are to be determined by the greatest number of votes, the appeal lies not to the vulgar, but to men of reflection and general fpeculation. But Dr. Reid affirms, that in the question before us, the analogical mode of reafoning is unfatisfactory. We therefore observe, Secondly, that in many cafes analogy is the only ground on which we can form any judgment. And, when the fubjects compared have a great degree of fimilarity in their nature, a degree of evidence is furnished that they are fubject to the fame laws: and this degree is higher or lower according as the inftances in which the things compared are more or less in number. But that there is, in reality a strong fimilitude, and affinity, amounting almoft to a fameness of kind between mind and matter is evident in the first place from the very construction of all human languages; in which the terms that denote the operations and affections of the mind are without exception borrowed from the objects of fenfe. There is nothing elfe that the mind can fix upon, and with certainty and clearness define. Even our moft abstracted ideas, when made objects of reflection are in volved in matter however spiritual and refined: nor is it poffible, to think on relations of any kind, without referring them to fome confufed adumbration of the qualities of matter. In the fecond place, whoever attends to the process of his mind in thinking, and particularly to the conduct of the paffions will trace the strongest resemblance between the laws of mind and those of matter: -Nec una quidem Nec diverfa tamen, qualis decet effe fororum. We shall endeavour to illuftrate this pofition by a few examples. It is easier to give a new direction to a body in motion than to move a body at reft: fo it is, in like manner eafier to lead the mind from one paffion to another, than to infufe paffion into a mind in a state of perfect tranquillity and repose. The influences of external bodies upon each other are ftronger upon their first approach and contact, than after continued application, or repetition: fo in like manner every object is conceived with the greatest ardour by the mind, at the first view when fully comprehended and understood: and the force of novelty, if duly attended to, will be found ale. moft miraculous. When two paffions that are not repugnant in their nature co-exift in the mind, the predominant or ftronger paffion fwallows up the inferior, and converts it into its own nature a fimilar effect is produced in chemical mixtures, and in the process of vegetation, where the ftronger plant draws and affimilates to itfelf the nourishment and effence of the weaker. Those ideas or fentiments which we call great and fublime, naturally exprefs themselves by an erect posture, hands ftretched forth to the utmost extent of the arm, and eyes turned up towards the immeafurable expanfe of the furrounding heavens, other expreffions of other emotions and paffions alfo denote an affinity between the mind and matter; which will clearly appear to any one who perufes what has been written on the natural expreffion of the paffions by Des Cartes, and after him by Mr. Hogarth. But the analogy between the conduct of the mind whether it acts or fuffers is an inexhauftible fubject of obfervation; and will no doubt be farther illuftrated by the inquiries of men of genius. To this analogy between the laws of mind and matter, we may add the direct, proof of the imagination of mothers impreffing marks on children, |
