: 3 Netices respecting New Books. 143 
of cautious inquiry, worthy to be studied by all who may attempt 
" to investigate the laws regulating the union between mind and 
bedy. His illustration of the different classes of prejudices 
ineident to human nature, is, in point of practical utility. at least 
equal to any thing on that head to be found in Locke; of whom 
it is impossible to forbear remarking, as a circumstance not 
easily explicable, that he should have resumed this important 
_ discussion, without once mentioning the naine of his great pre- 
- decessor. The chief improvement made by Locke, in the 
further prosecution of the argument, is the application of Hobbes’s 
theory of association, to explain in what manner these prejudices 
are originally generated. 
“In Bacon’s scattered hints on topics connected with the 
~ philosophy of the mind, strictly so called, nothing is ‘more re- 
markable than the precise and just ideas they display of the pro- 
per aim of this science. He had manifestly reflected much and 
successfully on the operations of his own understanding, and had 
- studied with uncommon sagacity the intellectual characters of 
¢ others. Of his reflections and observations on both subjects, he 
___~ has recorded many important results; and has in general stated 
them without the slightest reference to any physiological theory 
concerning their causes, or to any analogical explanations founded 
on the caprices of metaphorical language. If, on some occasions; 
he assumes the existence of animal spirits, as the mediun of 
communication between soul and body, it must be remembered, 
that this was then the universal belief of the learned; and that 
it was at a much later period not less confidently avowed by 
Locke. Nor onght it to be overlooked (1 mention it to the cre-- 
dit of both authors), that in such instances the fact is commonly 
so stated, as to render it easy for the reader to detach it from 
the theory. As to the scholastic questions concerning the na- 
ture and essence of mind,—whether it be extended or unex- 
_ tended? whether it have any relation to space or to time? or 
whether (as was contended by others) it exist in every ul2, but 
“in 20 place ?—Bacon has uniformly passed them over with silent 
contempt; and has probably contributed not less effectually to 
_ bring them into general discredit, by this indirect intimation of 
his own opinion, than if he had descended to the ungrateful 
task of exposing their absurdity. 
“ While Bacon, however, so cautiously avoids these unpro- 
- fitable discussions about the nature of mind, he decidedly states 
his conviction, that the faculties of man differ not merely in de- 
Bree, but in kind, from the instincts of the brutes. ‘I do not, 
therefore,’ he observes on one occasion, ‘ approve of that con- 
fused and promiscuous method in which philosophers are accus- 
‘tomed to treat of pneumatology; as if the human soul salen 
above 
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