OF COMMON SENSE. 



4^5 



ns Ibrm. Instinct is the operation of the power of organized life by the 

 exercise of certain natural laws, directing it to the perfectiqn of the indi- 

 vidual ; and wherever organized life is to be found there is instinct. — 

 Irritation exists in the muscular fibre ; sensation in nervous cords ; intelli- 

 gence in the gland of the brain ; for there is its seat, whatever may be 

 its essence. But where is the seat, and what is the nature of this new 

 principle ? Is it capable of a separate existence ? Does it expire with 

 the body ? Or does it accompany and still direct the soul after death ? 

 These are important questions ; what is the answer to them ? Or is there 

 any other to be found than that of Dr. Reid already noticed ? " Common 

 sense is a part of human nature which hath never been explained. ""^ 



And what, after al4 is it designed to teach us ? What is the number 

 and the precise character of those primary maxims, or instinctive notions, 

 or natural dictates, or inspired truths, or whatsoever else they may be called, 

 which form the sum of its communication ? How are we to know what 

 is a genuine and infallible first principle from what has the mere semblance 

 of one and is spurious ? Are the founders of the system agreed upon 

 this subject among themselves ? If so, they are far more fortunate than 

 the Cartesians upon the first principles, the y.oivcci snotxt of their own 

 school. If they be not, their foundation slips from them in a moment, 

 and all is wild and visionary ; and every one may find a first principle in 

 what his own fancy may suggest, or his own inclination lead him to. Yet 

 we have no proof that any such convention has ever been settled ; nor 

 iias any individual been bold enough to furnish a catalogue from the re- 

 pository of his own endowment. 



In few words, the whole of this hypothesis is nothing more than an 

 attempt to revive the Cartesian scheme, so far as relates to, perhaps, the 

 most obnoxious part of it, the doctrine of innate ideas, but to revive it 

 under another name. Beattie and Stewart have in fiiCt indirectly admit- 

 ted as much, though neither of them have chosen to avow the design 

 openly. The worst and most dangerous part of Mr. Locke's system, in 

 the opinion of Dr. Beattie, is his first book — that very book in which this 

 doctrine meets with its death blow. While Mr. Stewart, notwithstanding 

 the contempt with which he professes to treat this fanciful tenet of innate 

 ideas, asserts almost immediately afterwards, that his chief objection to it 

 consists in its name, and the absurdities that have been connected with 

 itjt and adds, that '''•perhaps he might even venture to sciy^^^ if separated 

 from these, it would agree in substance with the conclusion he had been 

 attempting to establish. J 



It was my intention to have pursued this hypothesis in another direction, 

 and to have pointed out its decisive tendency to an encouragement of men- 

 tal indolence and immorality ; a tendency, however, altogether unper- 

 ceived by the uncorrupt and honourable minds of its justly eminent lead- 

 €rs. But our time has already expired, and I must leave it to yourselves 

 to calculate at home, what must be the necessary result of a theory, pro- 

 vided it could ever be seriously embraced upon an extensive scale, that 

 teaches, on the one hand, that intelligence is subordinate to instinct, and 



* Inquiry, cli, v. sect. iii. p. 115. 

 t Essay iii. p. 120. 



1 " Perhaps I might even venture to say that, were the ambiguous and obnoxious epithet 

 innate laid aside, and all the absurdities discarded which are connected either with the Pla- 

 tonic, with the Scholastic, or with the Cartesian hypothesis, concerning the nature of ideas, 

 this last theory (" the antiquated theory of innate ideas," as he has just above called it, and 

 to which he here refers,) would a^ree in subbtance with the conclusion which t have been 

 attenrjpting- tf> establish by an induction of fact;."— Phi!, E^say iii, p. YIO. 4to. 1810, 



/ 



