342 



ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 



it is engraved on pages of adamant, and attested by the affirmation of the 

 Godhead. It tells us, in words that cannot lie, that the soul is immortal from 

 its birth ; that the strong and inextinguishable desire we feel of future being 

 is the true and natural impulse of a high-born and inextinguishable principle : 

 and that the blow which prostrates the body and imprisons it in the grave, 

 gives pinions to the soaring spirit, and crowns it with freedom and triumph. 

 But this is not all : it tells us, too, that gross matter itself is not necessarily 

 corruptible : that the freedom and triumph of the soul shall hereafter be ex- 

 tended to the body ; that this corruptible shall put on incorruption, this mortal 

 immortality, and a glorious and beatified reunion succeed. By what means 

 such reunion is to be accomplished, or why such separation should be neces- 

 sary, we know not, — for we know not how the union was produced at first. 

 They are mysteries that yet remain locked up in the bosom of the great 

 Creator, and are as inscrutable to the sage as to the savage, to ths philosopher 

 as to the schoolboy ; — they are left, and perhaps purposely, to make a mock 

 at all human science ; and, while they form the groundwork of man's future 

 happiness, forcibly to point out to him that his proper path to it is through 

 the gate of humility. 



LECTURE III. 



ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 



Having taken a brief survey of the essence and duration of the soul, mind, 

 or intelligent principle, as far as we have been able to collect any informa- 

 tion upon this abstruse subject, from reason, tradition, and revelation, let us 

 now proceed, with equal modesty and caution, to an examination into its 

 faculties, and the mode by which they develope themselves, and acquire 

 knowledge. 



" All our knowledge," observes Lord Bacon, " is derived from experience." 

 It is a remark peculiarly characteristic of that comprehensive judgment with 

 which this great philosopher at all times contemplated the field of nature, 

 and which has been assumed as the common basis of every system that has 

 since been fabrir^ated upon the subject. "^^ hence," inquires Mr. Locke, 

 " comes the mind by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of 

 man has painted on it with an almost endless variety ? Whence has it all 

 the materials of reason and knowledge ) 1 answer, in a word, from expe- 

 rience. In this all our knowledge is founded; from this the whole emanates 

 and issues." M. Degerando, and, in short, all the French philosophers of the 

 present day, in adopting Locke's system, have necessarily adopted this im- 

 portant maxim as the groundwork of their reasoning; and though, as a 

 general principle, it has been lately called in question by a few of the ablest 

 advocates for what they have ventured to denominate the Theory of Common 

 Sense, and especially by Professor Stewart,* as I may perhaps find it neces- 

 sary to notice more particularly hereafter, it is sufficient for the present to 

 observe that the shrewd and learned projector of this theory, Dr. Reid, admits 

 it in its utmost latitude : " Wise men," says he, " now agree or ought to 

 agree in this, that there is but one way to the knowledge of nature^s works, the 

 way of observation and experiment. By our constitution we have a strong 

 propensity to trace particular facts and observations to general rules, and to 

 apply such general rules to account for other effects, or to direct us in the 

 production of them. This procedure of the understanding is familiar to every 

 human creature in the common affairs of life, and it is the only one by 



WHICH ANY REAL DISCOVERY IN PHILOSOPHY CAN BE MADE."f 



Now the only mode by which we can obtain experience is by the use and 



* Philos. Essays, vol i. p. 122. 



t Inquiry into the Human Mind, p. 2. 



