ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 



351 



LECTURE IV. 



ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 



(The Subject continued.) 



In our preceding study we commenced a general survey of the chief opi- 

 nions and hypotheses that have been urged in different periods upon the im- 

 portant subject of Human Understanding ; and, opening our career with the 

 Greek schools, we closed it with that of Des Cartes. 



Des Cartes, who was born in 1596, was for nearly a century the Aristotle 

 of his age ; and, although from his very outset he was opposed by his 

 contemporaries and literary friends Gassendiand Hobbes, he obtained a com- 

 plete triumph, and steadily supported his ascendant, till the physical philo- 

 sophy of Newton, and the metaphysical of Locke, threw an eclipse over his 

 glory, from which he has now no chance of ever recovering. 



Nothing, however, can prove more effectually the influence which fashion 

 operates upon philosophy as well as upon dress, than a glance at the very 

 opposite characters by whom the Cartesian system was at one and the same 

 time principally professed and defended — Malebranche and Spinosa, Leibnitz 

 and Bayle. It would, perhaps, be impossible, were we to range through the 

 whole scope of philosophical or even of literary biography, to collect a more 

 motley and heterogeneous group : the four elements of hot, cold, moist, 

 and dry cannot possibly present a stronger contrast ; a mystical Catholic, 

 a Jewish materialist, a speculative but steady Lutheran, and a universal 

 skeptic. 



It was only, however, for want of a simpler and more rational system, that 

 Des Cartes continued so long and dO extensively to govern the metaphysical 

 taste of the day. That system was at length given to the world by Mr. 

 Locke, and the " Principia Philosophise" fell prostrate before the " Essay 



CONCERNING HuMAN UNDERSTANDING." 



This imperishable work made its first appearance in 1689 : it may, perhaps, 

 be somewhat too long ; it may occasionally embrace subjects which are not 

 necessarily connected with it : its terms may not always be precise, nor its 

 opinions in every instance correct; but it discovers intrinsic and most con- 

 vincing evidence that the man who wrote it must have had a head peculiarly 

 clear, and a heart peculiarly sound. It is strictly original in its matter, highly 

 important in its subject, luminous and forcible in its argument, perspicuous 

 in its style, and comprehensive in its scope. It steers equally clear of all 

 former systems: we have nothing of the*mystical archetypes of Plato, the 

 incorporeal phantoms of Aristotle, or the material species of Epicurus ; we 

 are equally without the intelligible world of the Greek schools, and the in- 

 nate ideas of Des Cartes. Passing by all which, from actual experience and 

 observation it delineates the features and describes the operations of the 

 human mind, with a degree of precision and minuteness which have never 

 been exhibited either before or since.* " Nothing," says Dr. Beattie, and I 

 readily avail myself of the acknowledgment of an honest and enhghtened 

 antagonist, "was farther from the intention of Locke than to encourage 

 verbal controversy, or advance doctrines favourable to skepticism. To do 

 good to mankind by enforcing virtue, illustrating truth, and vindicating 

 liberty, was his sincere purpose. His writings are to be reckoned among 

 the few books tl)at have been productive of real utility to mankind."! 



To take this work as a text-book, of which, however, it is well worthy, 

 would require a long life instead of a short lecture: and I shall, hence, beg 

 leave to submit to you only a very brief summary of the more important part 

 of its system and of the more prominent opinions it inculcates, especially in 



» Study of Med. vol. la. p. 49, 2d edit. 



t Essay on Truth, part ii. oh. ii. ^ 2. 



