16 
euncl SRW equitlly into bath worlds—the 
material and the visible, and the incorpo- 
val and invisible form: of things. ‘Lhe 
schoolemen and ther followers attended 
to nothing but the latter: they seem to 
have discarded with the same inditfeirei ce 
Both kinds of ‘experience, that which 
relates to external objects, and to owr own 
internal feelings, From the imperfect 
state-of knowlcdge, they had fey facts 
togo by; and intoxicated with the no- 
velty of their vain distinctions they 
would be likely erough to despise the 
clearest and nist obvi ee a suggestions of 
the own minds. Hence arose ‘their 
Fogomachies,” their everlasting word- 
fignts, their sharp disputes, their ca nupe, 
Lootless controversies. AS” Leva’? Bacon 
eileai cs it, ““they were made fierce 
with dark keeping” signifying that their 
angry and unintelligible comests with one 
another, were the consequetee of their 
not having really any distinct objects to 
engage their attention. “ They built en- 
tircly on their own whims and fancies: 
and, buoyed up by their speeitic levity, 
they mounted in their airy dispatations, 
in endless flichts and circles, clamouring 
hike birds of prey, tli they equally lost 
sight of truth and nature.” Whis great 
man did the highest service to philosophy 
in wishing to recal men’s attention to 
ficts end experience, which had been 
foolishly neglected ; and so by mecorpo- 
riting the abstract with the concrete, and 
gene! ral notions with individual objects to 
give to our reasonings that solidity and 
Pines which they must otherwise al- 
ways want. He did nothimg therefore but 
sist upon the necessity of experience. 
He Jaid the most stress upon this, be- 
cause it was the most 3 anted at the tine, 
particularly in natural science ; and from 
the wider field that is open to 2t there, as 
well as the prodigious success it has met 
with, this latter sense of the word, in 
which itis tantamount to physical expe- 
rinent, bas so far engrossed all ouratten- 
tion, that mind has for a good while past 
been in great danger cf being overlaid by 
mattcr. We ran from ene error mito an- 
other; and as we were wrong at first, so 
mn altering our course, we have faced 
about into the oppasite extreme; we de- 
spised experience altogether before, now 
we would have nothing but experience, 
and experience of the grossest kind, as 
if there was some charm or dficu ale in 
the name. Webhave (it is true) gained 
much by not consulting the suggestions of 
our own minds in things where they could 
taform us of nothing, hamely j in the laws 
° * ; 
Proposal for the Basts of a new Systemt of 
{ Feb. 1, 
and phenomena of the material world ; 
and we have basuly concluded (revers ing 
the problem) that the only w ay to arrive 
at the knowiedge af ourselves also was to 
lay aside the dictates of our own con- 
sciousiess, thuuchts, and feelings as de- 
ceittuland insu dicient guides, though they. 
are the only things that can give us the 
least Light upon the subject. We seem to 
huve reece the use of our natural un- 
dersiandings, and to have given up our 
own existence asa non-entity. We look 
for our thoughts and the distinguishing 
properties of our minds in some linage of 
them im matter, as we lack to see cur 
faces in a glass. We no longer decide 
physical problems by, logical “dilemmas, 
but we decide questions of logic by the 
evidence of the scnses, Instead of aa 
our reason and invention to the rack, and 
. $etimig our ideas to quarrel with one ano- 
theron ali subjects, whether we have any 
knowledyve of them or not, we have a- 
dopted the casicr method of suspending 
the use of our faculties altogcther, and 
settle all controversies by means of "four 
champions fierce, hot, cold, moist, and 
dry,” who, with a few thord e of the re-" 
tainers' and hangers-on of matter, deter~ 
mine all questions relating to the nature 
Of ian and the mits of the human un- 
derstanding very learnedly. That which 
we seek however, vamely the nature of 
the mind, and the laws by which we 
think, feel, and act, we must find m the 
mind itself, or notatall. ‘Phe mind has 
laws, powers, and principles of its own, 
and is not amere dependent on matter. 
Dis original bias in favour of mechanical 
reasoning and physical demonstration, 
was itself owing to the previous to-" 
tal neglect of them in matters where they 
were ‘strictly necessary, strengthened by 
the powerful aid of Hobbes; who was 
indeed the father of the modern philosa- 
phy. His strong mind and body appear - 
to have resisted Fail inipressions but those 
which were derived from the downright 
blows of inatter. All his ideas seemed 
to he, ‘like substances in his brain: 
«what was not a solid, tangible, distinct,” 
palpable, object, was to him nothing. The 
external image pressed so close upon his 
inind that itdestroyed alk power of con- 
sciousness, and le!t no room for attention 
to any thing but itself. He was by ia- 
ture a materialist. Locke assisted greatly 
m giving popularity to the same scheme, 
25° well by espousing many of Hobbes’s 
metaphysical principles, as by the doubt- 
ful resistance he made to the rest. And 
it has of late been perfected, and has 
received 
