munication of Truth lye in the imperfections of Language and the abuse of Words: and thus establishing the importance of Grammar to Philosophy+ he has taught us that the power of Reasoning extends itself with the art of Language. And lastly, in the application of his principles, he has directed us how to distinguish between Knowledge and Opinion, Certainty and Probability, Reason and Faith.

In the hope of extending the benefits of so excellent a work, the Editor ventures to offer to the student of Philosophy this Epitome; in which he has endeavoured to give the spirit, without sèrvile

*Words are but the images of matter; and except they have life of reason and invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall in love with a picture.”

Bacon's Proficience and Advancement of Learning p. 50. 8vo. "The truth of being and the truth of knowing are one; differing no more than the direct beam and the beam reflected." Id. p. 56.

John Locke and John Horne Tooke, after the example of Julius Cæsar, have laboured (to use the words of Ld. Bacon p. 105) "to make this same vox ad placitum to become vox ad licitum, and to reduce custom of speech to congruity of speech; and took, as it were, the picture of words from the life of reason."

pro

+ Le Metaphysicien et le Grammairien mesurent des portions correspondantes, l'un sur la pensée, l'autre sur sa peinture, Degerando, des Signes, &c. Pref.

ly copying the words of the original, and to comprise every sentiment of his Author's, however inconsistent it might seem with the tenor of the work, or however absurd in itself. His purpose has been to retain all that a judicious reader would wish to remember; restricted however by the consideration that he was not to curtail, but merely to compress the matter of the original, without altering its arrangement.

Where any passage appeared too remarkable for thought or expression to suffer abridgment, he has marked its insertion by inverted commas.*

Persuaded that the perception of Truth guides men to Virtue and to Happiness,+ he disdains not the humblest effort to extend the authority of Locke, and spread the light of his Philosophy; though he is conscious, that from the execution of

* Mr. Freret in his oeuvres Philosophiques, p. 418, remarks that the famous argument of Pascal on a future Life has been set in its full light by Locke (B. 2. C. 21. Sec. 70.) Lest it should seem to be not sufficiently noticed in the ab stract, at page 96, it is printed verbatim as an appendix at the end of the volume.

+"Certain it is that veritas and bonitas differ but as the seal and the print: for Truth prints Goodness; and they be the clouds of error which descend in the storms of passions and perturbations."

Bacon on Learning. p. 114.

1

his task, however happy, he can derive no credit but that of a zealous admiration of his archetype, and of an earnest wish to compensate for his inability to augment the patrimony of Knowledge, by his industry to improve it.*

Bacon on Learning p. 69.

(Note1. referred to in Pref. p. 2.)

The Editor cannot omit this opportunity of noticing the opinion of the most distinguished Philosopher of the age, who has given us the best criticism and commentary on Locke's Essay (see the Diversions of Purley, part 1. chap. 2.) and who never speaks of our author but in terms of the highest praise," Whom (says he) I reverence on this side of Idolatry (pt. 1. p. 201.), "Whose opinions in any matter are not slightly to be rejected, nor can they be modestly controverted without very strong arguments." (pt. 1. p. 211.) "Perhaps it was for mankind a lucky mistake (for it was a mistake) which Mr. Locke made, when he called his book an Essay on Human Understanding. For some part of the inestimable benefit of that book has, merely on account of its title, reached to many thousands more than, I fear, it would have done, had he called it (what it is merely) a grammatical essay, or a treatise on Words, or on Language. The human mind, or the human Understanding, appears to be a grand and noble theme; and all men, even the most insufficient, conceive that to be a proper object for their contemplation: whilst enquiries into the nature of Language (through which alone they can obtain any knowledge beyond the beasts) are fallen into such extreme disrepute and contempt, that even those who "neither have the accent of christian, pagan, or man," nor can speak so many words together with as much propriety as Balaam's ass did, do yet imagine words to be infinitely beneath the concern of their exalted understanding." pt. 1. p. 31.

Mr. Tooke's opinion of the Essay is in substance this that it is the best guide to, and a philosophical account of, the first sort of abbreviations in Language, namely, that of Terms, which is by far the most important to Knowledge; and that it goes no further than to the origin of Ideas (the proper starting post of a grammarian, who is to treat of their

signs) and the composition of Terms, that is, the force of Words; for that whatever is said of Language, as distinct from Ideas, concerns only the force of words, and not the manner of their signification, to which the consideration of the mind only could never lead: that it would have made much difference in the Essay, if Mr. Locke had sooner been aware of the inseparable connexion between Words and Knowledge; and that among other things, he would not have talked of the Composition of Ideas, but would have seen that it was merely a contrivance of Language, and that the only composition was in the Terms; and that consequently it was as improper to speak of a Complex Idea, as it would be to call a constellation a complex star; and that terms only, not ideas, are general and abstract.

See part 1. chap. 1, p. 29—the whole of chap. 2,-chap. 4. p. 52. see also chap. 3. p. 50, 51.

( Note 2 referred to in Pref. p. 11.)

Metaphysics has been so much abused both as a term and a science, that it may be useful, and not irrelevant, to take this occasion of explaining the meaning of the Term, in order to recommend the Science. It has received too the hardest usage from a quarter whence it was least to be expectedfrom that eminent Philosopher who has himself made the most important philological discovery in modern times, by the aid of Metaphysics.

"The very term Metaphysic (says he) being nonsense; and all the systems of it, and controversies concerning it, that are or have been in the world, being founded on the grossest ignorance of words and of the nature of Speech."

Diversions of Purley, Part 1. Chap. 9. p. 399. Yet he has himself used it as a term of great force,-has explained its meaning,—and has given in his own works the highest example of the value of the Science: for he confesses that his notions of Language were formed, before he