ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 



359 



ideas of going to London Bridge, and the man's right to know the way, hut 

 can find no connexion or agreement between them, and consequently is 

 ignorant of what I mean. He applies to me, therefore, for the intermediate 

 idea by the question, " Why so ]" and I give it to him by answering, " Be- 

 cause he has repeatedly been the same road before :" and although he does 

 not put the three ideas into the measured form of the schools, which is called 

 a syllogism, every one as regularly passes through his mind, and gives him 

 the same satisfactory information as if they were to assume such order; in 

 which case they would perhaps run as follows : — 



Every man. who goes repeatedly the same road should know iiis way ; 

 This man has been repeatedly the same road : 

 Therefore this man should know his way. 



It would be absurd to introduce this part of logical analysis into common dis- 

 course : but it is of high use in the closet, as teaching us precision, by com- 

 pelling us to measure the force and value of every idea and word of which a 

 proposition consists. We are indebted to Aristotle for its invention : and 

 though it was at one time carried to an absurd excess, it has of late years 

 been far too generally discontinued. 



The connective or intermediate idea is not always expressed either in 

 speaking or writing ; and hence is not always obvious to the hearer or reader, 

 though it is, or ought to be, so to the framer of the argument. Let me exer- 

 cise the ingenuity of the audience before me by throwing out as a trial, the 

 following well-known sentiment of Mr. Pope : — 



Who governs freemen should himself be free. 



Here are two distinct propositions ; and Dr. Johnson, not immediately per- 

 ceiving their agreement, nor immediately hitting upon any intervening idea or 

 proposition by which they might be united, declared the whole to be a riddle, 

 and that the poet might just as well have written, 



Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat. 



Had Johnson, however, lived in our own day, and turned his attention to 

 the Continent, it would have been a riddle to him no longer ; for he would have 

 called to mind, as I doubt not every one before me has done already, the 

 mischief that has happened to many a free people on the Continent, from the 

 unfortunate want of freedom in the sovereign who is placed over them, and 

 his being under the detestable control of one of the worst, and, unluckily, one 

 of the most universal, tyrants the world has ever witnessed.* He would have 

 been, as every one before me must be, at once prepared to have connected the 

 two ideas of freemen, — and the propriety of their being governed by a free 

 sovereign, by means of a third or intervening idea to this effect, that other- 

 wise the people themselves might run no small risk of having their freedom 

 destroyed by foreign force ; the whole of which might assume the following 

 appearance if reduced to the form of a syllogism : — 



Who governs freemen should be able to maintain their freedom : 

 But he who is not free himself is not able to maintain their freedom : 



Therefore, 



Who governs freemen should himself be'free. 



Proper or real knowledge, then, is of two kinds or degrees, intuition and 

 DEMONSTRATION ; bclow which, all the information we possess is imperfect 

 knowledge or opinion. Mr. Locke, nevertheless, out of courtesy to the Car 

 tesian hypothesis, rather than from any other cause, makes proper or rea 



* Napoleon Buonaparte. This lecture was delivered in 1814. 



