OF COMMON SENSEi 



425 



seeras to have ever merited a serious refutation. In England, for many- 

 years past, it has sunk into complete obhvion, excepting as a monument 

 of the follies of the learned. 



We have thus far noticed three objections advanced against Mr. Locke's 

 system by the three warmest champions for the new hypothesis. And 

 it is a curious fact that they are almost advanced singly ; for upon these 

 three points the three combatants are very little more in harmony with 

 themselves than they are with the Goliah against whom they have entered 

 the lists. There is a fourth objection, however, and it would be the chief 

 and most direct, if it could be well supported, on which the metaphysi- 

 cians of the north seem to be unanimous. The Essay on Human Un- 

 derstanding resolves all the ideas we possess, or can possibly possess, into 

 the two classes of those obtained by sensation, or the exercise of our ex- 

 ternal senses, and those obtained by reflection, or the operations of the 

 mind on itself ; and it defies its readers to point out a single idea which 

 is not reducible to the one or the other of these general heads. The 

 supporters of the northern hypothesis have specially accepted this chal- 

 lenge, and have attempted to point out a variety of ideas, or conceptions, 

 as Dr, Reid prefers calling them, which are in the mind of every man, 

 and which are neither the result of sensation or reflection ; and they have 

 pecuharly fixed upon those of extension, figure, and motion. And hence 

 this argument is regarded as decisive, and is proposed, both by Dr. Reid 

 and Professor Stewart, "as an experimentum crucis, by which the ideal 

 system must stand or fall. "t 



Now, strictly speaking, this invincible argument, as it is called, is no 

 argument whatever. It is a mere question of opinion, whether the above- 

 named ideas, together with those of time, space, immensity, and eternity, 

 which belong to the same class, can be obtained either by means of 

 the external senses of the operation of the mind upon its own powers, or 

 whether they cannot. And, for myself, I completely concur in behoving 

 with Mr. Locke that they can : though I am ready to leave this part of 

 the subject, as I am the whole question between us, to Mr. Stewart's 

 own case of the b i^^ born blind and deaf, as communicated to the Royal 

 Society of Edinburgh in the course of last year ;J who, it is admitted, is 

 possessed of perfect soundness of mind ; but who, at that time in his 

 seventeenth year, was, as we are expressly told, without any idea of a 

 being superior to himself; of any religious feelings; and who did not 

 appear to have possessed any moral feehngs upon the sudden death of an 

 indulgent father, notwithstanding the utmost pains that had been taken to 

 give him instruction. If this boy shall be found to possess as clear an 

 idea of figure and motion as those who have the free use of their eyes, I 

 will readily allow Mr. Locke's system to be unfounded. That he must 

 have some idea follows necessarily from his system ; because he appears 

 to have a very fine touch, and has also, or at least had till very lately, 

 some small glimmering of light and colours. § 



But upon the northern hypothesis, he ought not only to have some idea 

 of these qualities of bodies, but a most teue and coreect idea, proba- 



* Essays, vol. i. p. 117. 

 ,.j$)^eid's Inquiry, &c. p. 137. Ste"srart's Essays, vol. i. p. 549. 



_ 'X *' Some Account of a Boy born Blind and Deaf. By Dugald Stewart, Esq. F.R.S., 

 E(i. 4to. Edin. 1812." With which cojjipare, relating to the same individual, " History 

 of James Mitchell, a Boy born Blind and Deaf, &c. By James Wardrop, F.R.S." Ed, 4to. 

 4-813. 



§ See Edin. Kov. No. si. p. 468. 



