it would by no means amount to an adequate description of his condition to say, that he was destitute of common sense. We should at once pronounce him to be destitute of reason, and would no longer consider him as a fit subject of discipline or of punishment. The former expression, indeed, would only imply that he was apt to fall into absurdities and improprieties in the common concerns of life. To denominate, therefore, such laws of belief as we have now been considering, constituent elements of human reason, while it seems quite unexceptionable in point of technical distinctness, cannot be justly censured as the slightest deviation from our habitual forms of speech. On the same grounds, it may be fairly questioned, whether the word reason would not on some occasions, be the best substitute which our language affords for intuition, in that enlarged acceptation which has been given to it of late. If not quite so definite and precise as might be wished, it would be at least employed in one of those significations in which it is already familiar to every ear; whereas the meaning of intuition, when used for the same purpose, is stretched very far beyond its ordinary limits. And in cases of this sort, where we have to choose between two terms, neither of which is altogether unexceptionable, it will be found much safer to trust to the context for restricting, in the reader's mind, what is too general, than for enlarging what use has accustomed us to interpret in a sense too narrow.

I must add too, in opposition to the high authorities of Dr. Johnson and Dr. Beattie,* that, for many years past,

* Dr. Johnson's definition of Reason was before quoted. The following is that given by Dr. Beattie.

reason has been very seldom used by philosophical writers, or indeed by correct writers of any description, as synonymous with the power of reasoning. To appeal to the light of human reason from the reasonings of the schools, is surely an expression to which no good objection can be made, on the score either of vagueness or of novelty. Nor has the etymological affinity between these two words the slightest tendency to throw any obscurity on the foregoing expression. On the contrary, this affinity may be of use in some of our future arguments, by keeping constantly in view the close and inseparable connexion which will be afterwards shown to exist between the two different intellectual operations which are thus brought into immediate contrast.

The remarks which I have stated in the two preceding sections, comprehend every thing of essential importance which I have to offer on this article of logic. But the space which it has occupied for nearly half a century, in some of the most noted philosophical works which have appeared in Scotland, lays me under the necessity, before entering on a new topic, of introducing in this place, a few critical strictures on the doctrines of my predeces

sors.

"Reason is used by those who are most accurate in distinguishing, to signify that power of the human mind by which we draw inferences, or by which we are convinced, that a relation belongs to two ideas, on account of our having found that these ideas bear certain relations to other ideas. In a word, it is that faculty which enables us, from relations or ideas that are known, to investigate such as are unknown, and without which we never could proceed in the discovery of truth a single step beyond first principles or intuitive axioms."-Essay on Truth, Part I. Chap. i.

SECTION III.

Continuation of the Subject.-Critical Remarks on some late Controversies to which it has given rise.-Of the Appeals which Dr. Reid and some other Modern Writers have made, in their Philosophical Discussions, to Common Sense, as a Criterion of Truth.

I OBSERVED, in a former part of this work, that Dr. Reid acknowledges the Berkeleian system to be a logical consequence of the opinions universally admitted by the learned at the time when Berkeley wrote. In the earlier part of his own life, accordingly, he informs us, that he was actually a convert to the scheme of immaterialism; a scheme which he probably considered as of a perfectly inoffensive tendency, as long as he conceived the existence of the material world to be the only point in dispute. Finding, however, from Mr. Hume's writings, that, along with this paradox, the ideal theory necessarily involved various other consequences of a very different nature, he was led to a careful examination of the data on which it rested; when he had the satisfaction to discover that its only foundation was a hypothesis, unsupported by any evidence whatever but the authority of the schools.*

* It was not, therefore, (as has very generally been imagined by the followers of Berkeley) from any apprehension of danger in his argument against the existence of matter, that Reid was induced to call in question

From this important concession of a most impartial and competent judge, it may be assumed as a fact, that till the refutation of the ideal theory in his own " Inquiry into the Human Mind," the partizans of Berkeley's system remained complete masters of the controversial field; and yet, during the long period which intervened, it is well known how little impression that system made on the belief of our soundest philosophers. Many answers to it were attempted, in the meantime, by various authors, both in this country and on the Continent; and by one or other of these, the generality of the learned professed themselves to be convinced of its futility;-the evidence of the conclusion (as in many other cases) supporting the premises, and not the premises the conclusion.* A very

the ideal theory; but because he thought that Mr. Hume had clearly shown, by turning Berkeley's weapons against himself, that this theory was equally subversive of the existence of mind. The ultimate object of Berkeley and of Reid was precisely the same; the one asserting the existence of matter from the very same motive which led the other to deny it.

When I speak of Reid's asserting the existence of matter, I do not allude to any new proofs which he has produced of the fact. This he rests on the evidence of sense, as he rests the existence of the mind on the evidence of consciousness. All that he professes to have done is, to show the inconclusiveness of Berkeley's argument against the former, and that of Hume against the latter, by refuting the ideal hypothesis which is the common foundation of both.

* The impotent, though ingenious attempt of Berkeley (not many years after the date of his physical publications) to shake the foundations of the newly-invented method of Fluxions, created, in the public mind, a strong prejudice against him, as a sophistical and paradoxical disputant; and operated as a more powerful antidote to the scheme of immaterialism, than all the reasonings which his contemporaries were able to oppose to it. This unfavourable impression was afterwards not a little confirmed, by the ridicule which he incurred in consequence of his pamphlet on the virtues of Tar-water; a performance, however, of which it is but justice to add, that it con

curious anecdote, in illustration of this, is mentioned in the life of Dr. Berkeley. After the publication of his book, it appears that he had an interview with Dr. Clarke ; in the course of which, Clarke (it is said) discovered a manifest unwillingness to enter into the discussion, and was accused by Berkeley of a want of candour.* The story (which, if I recollect right, rests on the authority of Whiston) has every appearance of authenticity; for as Clarke, in common with his antagonist, regarded the principles of the ideal theory as incontrovertible, it was perfectly impossible for him, with all his acuteness, to detect the flaw to which Berkeley's paradox owed its plausibility. In such circumstances, would it have been unphilosophical in Clarke to have defended himself, by saying: "Your conclusion not only contradicts those perceptions of my senses, the evidence of which I feel to be irresistible; but by annihilating space itself as an external existence, bids defiance to a conviction inseparable from the human understanding; and, therefore, although I cannot point out the precise oversight which has led you astray, there must necessarily be some error, either in your original data, or in your subsequent reasoning." Or, supposing Clarke to have perceived, as clearly as Reid, that Berkeley's reasoning was perfectly unexceptionable, might he not

tains a great deal more, both of sound philosophy and of choice learning, than could have been expected from the subject.

* Philosophical Essays, Note E.

That Clarke would look upon the Berkeleian theory with more than common feelings of suspicion and alarm, may be easily conceived, when it is recollected that, by denying the independent existence both of space and of time, it put an end at once to his celebrated argument a priori, for the existence of God.

I