nature, were eternal and definite."-" Consonant to this was the advice of Plato, with respect to the progress of our speculations and inquiries, to descend from those higher genera, which include many subordinate species, down to the lowest rank of species, those which include only individuals. But here it was his opinion that our inquiries should stop, and, as to individuals, let them wholly alone; because of these there could not possibly be any science."1

"Such," continues this author, "was the method of ancient philosophy. The fashion at present appears to be somewhat altered, and the business of philosophers to be little else than the collecting from every quarter, into voluminous records, an infinite number of sensible, particular, and unconnected facts, the chief effect of which is to excite our admiration." In another part of his works the same author observes, that "the mind, truly wise, quitting the study of particulars, as knowing their multitude to be infinite and incomprehensible, turns its intellectual eye to what is general and comprehensive, and through generals learns to see and recognise whatever exists.”2

If we abstract from these obvious errors of the ancient philosophers with respect to the proper order to be observed in our inquiries, and only suppose them to end where the Platonists said that they should begin, the magnificent encomiums they bestowed on the utility of those comprehensive truths which form the object of science (making allowance for the obscure and mysterious terms in which they expressed them) can scarcely be regarded as extravagant. It is probable that, from a few accidental instances of successful investigation, they had been struck with the wonderful effect of general principles in increasing the intellectual power of the human mind; and, misled by that impatience in the study of particulars which is so often connected with the consciousness of superior ability, they laboured to persuade themselves that, by a life devoted to abstract meditation, such principles might be rendered as immediate objects of intellectual perception, as the individuals which compose the material world are of our external senses. By connecting this

Harris's Three Treatises, pp. 341, 342.

2 Ibid. p. 227.

opinion with their other doctrines concerning universals, they were unfortunately enabled to exhibit it in so mysterious a form, as not only to impose on themselves, but to perplex the understandings of all the learned in Europe for a long succession of ages.

The conclusion to which we are led by the foregoing observations is, that the foundation of all human knowledge must be laid in the examination of particular objects and particular facts; and that it is only as far as our general principles are resolvable into these primary elements, that they possess either truth or utility. It must not, however, be understood to be implied in this conclusion, that all our knowledge must ultimately rest on our own proper experience. If this were the case, the progress of science, and the progress of human improvement, must have been wonderfully retarded; for if it had been necessary for each individual to form a classification of objects, in consequence of observations and abstractions of his own, and to infer from the actual examination of particular facts, the general truths on which his conduct proceeds, human affairs would at this day remain nearly in the same state to which they were brought by the experience of the first generation. In fact, this is very nearly the situation of the species in all those parts of the world in which the existence of the race depends on the separate efforts which each individual makes in procuring for himself the necessaries of life, and in which, of consequence, the habits and acquirements of each individual must be the result of his own personal experience. In a cultivated society, one of the first acquisitions which children make is the use of language; by which means they are familiarized, from their earliest years, to the consideration of classes of objects, and of general truths; and before that time of life at which the savage is possessed of the knowledge necessary for his own preservation, are enabled to appropriate to themselves the accumulated discoveries of ages.

Notwithstanding, however, the stationary condition in which the race must, of necessity, continue, prior to the separation of arts and professions, the natural disposition of the mind to

VOL. II.

ascend from particular truths to general conclusions, could not fail to lead individuals, even in the rudest state of society, to collect the results of their experience, for their own instruction and that of others. But without the use of general terms, the only possible way of communicating such conclusions, would be by means of some particular example, of which the general application was striking and obvious. In other words, the wisdom of such ages will necessarily be expressed in the form of fables or parables, or in the still simpler form of proverbial instances, and not in the scientific form of general maxims. In this way, undoubtedly, much useful instruction, both of a prudential and moral kind, might be conveyed: at the same time, it is obvious that, while general truths continue to be expressed merely by particular exemplifications, they would afford little or no opportunity to one generation to improve on the speculations of another; as no effort of the understanding could combine them together, or employ them as premises, in order to obtain other conclusions more remote and comprehensive. For this purpose, it is absolutely necessary that the scope or moral of the fable should be separated entirely from its accessory circumstances, and stated in the form of a general proposition.

From what has now been said, it appears how much the progress of human reason, which necessarily accompanies the progress of society, is owing to the introduction of general terms, and to the use of general propositions. In consequence of the gradual improvements which take place in language as an instrument of thought, the classifications both of things and facts with which the infant faculties of each successive race are conversant, are more just and more comprehensive than those of their predecessors; the discoveries which, in one age, were confined to the studious and enlightened few, becoming in the next the established creed of the learned; and in the third, forming part of the elementary principles of education. Indeed, among those who enjoy the advantages of early instruction, some of the most remote and wonderful conclusions of the human intellect are, even in infancy, as completely familiarized to the mind, as the most obvious phenomena which the material world exhibits to their senses.

If these remarks be just, they open an unbounded prospect of intellectual improvement to future ages; as they point out a provision made by nature to facilitate and abridge more and more the process of study, in proportion as the truths to be acquired increase in number. Nor is this prospect derived from theory alone. It is encouraged by the past history of all the sciences, in a more particular manner by that of mathematics and physics, in which the state of discovery, and the prevailing methods of instruction, may at all times be easily compared together. In this last observation I have been anticipated by a late eminent mathematician, [Condorcet,] whose eloquent and philosophical statement of the argument cannot fail to carry conviction to those who are qualified to judge of the facts on which his conclusion is founded.

"To such of my readers as may be slow in admitting the possibility of this progressive improvement in the human race, allow me to state, as an example, the history of that science in which the advances of discovery are the most certain, and in which they may be measured with the greatest precision. Those elementary truths of geometry and of astronomy, which in India and Egypt formed an occult science, upon which an ambitious priesthood founded its influence, were become in the times of Archimedes and Hipparchus the subjects of common education in the public schools of Greece. In the last century, a few years of study were sufficient for comprehending all that Archimedes and Hipparchus knew; and at present, two years employed under an able teacher carry the student beyond those conclusions which limited the inquiries of Leibnitz and of Newton. Let any person reflect on these facts; let him follow the immense chain which connects the inquiries of Euler with those of a priest of Memphis; let him observe, at each epoch, how genius outstrips the present age, and how it is overtaken by mediocrity in the next; he will perceive that nature has furnished us with the means of abridging and facilitating our intellectual labour, and that there is no reason for apprehending that such simplifications can ever have an end. He will perceive, that at the moment when a multitude of particular

solutions, and of insulated facts, begin to distract the attention, and to overcharge the memory, the former gradually lose themselves in one general method, and the latter unite in one general law; and that these generalizations continually succeeding one to another, like the successive multiplications of a number by itself, have no other limit than that infinity which the human faculties are unable to comprehend." 1

SECT. VII.

CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT.—DIFFERENCES IN THE INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERS OF INDIVIDUALS, ARISING FROM THEIR DIFFERENT HABITS OF ABSTRACTION AND GENER

ALIZATION.

In mentioning as one of the principal effects of civilisation its tendency to familiarize the mind to general terms and to general propositions, I did not mean to say that this influence extends equally to all the classes of men in society. On the contrary, it is evidently confined, in a great measure, to those who receive a liberal education; while the minds of the lower orders, like those of savages, are so habitually occupied about particular objects and particular events, that although they are sometimes led from imitation to employ general expressions, the use which they make of them is much more the result of memory than judgment; and it is but seldom that they are able to comprehend fully any process of reasoning in which they are involved.

It is hardly necessary for me to remark, that this observation with respect to the incapacity of the vulgar for general speculations, (like all observations of a similar nature,) must be received with some restrictions. In such a state of society as that in which we live, there is hardly any individual to be found to whom some general terms, and some general truths, are not perfectly familiar; and therefore the foregoing conclusions are to be considered as descriptive of those habits of thought alone which are most prevalent in their mind. To abridge the labour of reasoning and of memory, by directing

1 See Note M.