with the single exception of Helvetius, hardly any attention has been paid to it, either by French or English metaphysicians. The same practical knowledge of the human understanding, modified and diversified, as we every where see it, by education and external circumstances, is occasionally discovered by his very able antagonist Arnauld; affording, in both cases, a satisfactory proof, that the narrowest field of experience may disclose to a superior mind those refined and comprehensive results, which common observers are forced to collect from an extensive and varied commerce with the world.

In some of Malebranche's incidental strictures on men and manners, there is lightness of style and fineness of tact, which one would scarcely have expected from the mystical divine, who believed that he saw all things in God. Who would suppose that the following paragraph forms part of a profound argument on the influence of the external senses over the human intellect?

"Si, par exemple, celui qui parle s'énonce avec facilité,

Malebranche, on whose clear yet concise statement he does not seem to have thrown much new light by his very diffuse and wordy commentary. "If in having our ideas in the memory ready at hand, consists quickness of parts; in this of having them unconfused, and being able nicely to distinguish one thing from another, where there is but the least difference, consists, in a great measure, the exactness of judgment and clearness of reason, which is to be observed in one man above another. And hence, perhaps, may be given some reason of that common observation, that men who have a great deal of wit, and prompt memories, have not always the clearest judgment, or deepest reason. For Wit, lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures, and agreeable visions in the fancy; Judgment, on the contrary, lies quite on the other side, in separating carefully, one from another, ideas wherein can be found the least difference, thereby to avoid being misled by similitude, and by affinity, to take one thing for another.' Essay, &c. B. ii. c. xi. § 2.

"Il y a donc des esprits de deux sortes. Les uns remarquent aisément les différences des choses, et ce sont les bons esprits. Les autres imaginent et supposent de la ressemblance entr'elles, et ce sont les esprits superficiels." Rech. de la Vérité. Liv. ii. Seconde Partie, chap. 9.

At a still earlier period, Bacon had pointed out the same cardinal distinction in the intellectual characters of individuals.

"Maximum et velut radicale discrimen ingeniorum, quoad philosophiam et scientias, illud est; quod alia ingenia sint fortiora et aptiora ad notandas rerum differentias; alia, ad notandas rerum similitudines. Ingenia enim constantia et acuta, figere contemplationes, et morari, et hærere in omni subtilitate differentiarum possunt. Ingenia autem sublimia, et discursiva, etiam tenuissimas et catholicas rerum similitudines et cognoscunt, et componunt. Utrumque autem ingenium facile labitur in excessum, prensando aut gradus rerum, aut umbras."

That strain I heard was of a higher mood! It is evident, that Bacon has here seized, in its most general form, the very important truth perceived by his two ingenious successors in particular cases. Wit, which Locke contrasts with judgment, is only one of the various talents connected with what Bacon calls the discursive genius; and indeed, a talent very subordinate in dignity to most of the others.

s'il garde une mesure agréable dans ses périodes, s'il a l'air d'un honnête homme et d'un homme d'esprit, si c'est une personne de qualité, s'il est suivi d'un grand train, s'il parle avec autorité et avec gravité, si les autres l'écoutent avec respect et en silence, s'il a quelque réputation, et quelque commerce avec les esprits du premier ordre, enfin, s'il est assez heureux pour plaire, ou pour être estimé, il aura raison dans tout ce qu'il avancera; et il n'y aura pas jusqu'à son collet et à ses manchettes, qui ne prouvent quelque chose."*

* I shall indulge myself only in one other citation from Malebranche, which I select partly on account of the curious extract it contains from an English publication long since forgotten in this country; and partly as a proof that this learned and pious father was not altogether insensible to the ludicrous.

"Un illustre entre les sçavans, qui a fondé des chaires de Géometrie et d'Astronomie dans l'Université d'Oxford,* commence un livre, qu'il s'est avisé de faire sur les huit premières propositions d'Euclide, par ces paroles. Consilium meum est, auditores, si vires et valetudo suffecerint, explicare definitiones, petitiones, communes sententias, et octo priores propositiones primi libri elementorum, cætera post me venientibus relinquere: et il le finit par celles-ci: Exsolvi, per Dei gratiam, Domini auditores, promissum, liberavi fidem meam, explicavi pro modulo meo definitiones, petitiones, communes sententias, et octo priores propositiones elementorum Euclidis. Hic annis fessus cyclos artemque repono. Succedent in hoc munus alii fortasse magis vegeto corpore et vivido ingenio. Il ne faut pas une heure à un esprit médiocre, pour apprendre par lui-même, ou par le secours du plus petit géomètre qu'il y ait, les definitions, demandes, axiomes, et les huit premières propositions d'Euclide: et voici un auteur qui parle de cette entreprise, comme de quelque chose de fort grand, et de fort difficile. Il a peur que les forces lui manquent; Si vires et valetudo suffecerint. Il laisse à ses successeurs à pousser ces choses: cætera post me venientibus relinquere. Il remercie Dieu de ce que, par une grace particulière, il a executé ce qu'il avoit promis: exsolvi, per Dei gratiam, promissum, liberavi fidem meam, explicavi pro modulo meo. Quoi? la quadrature du cercle? la duplication du cube? Ce grand homme a expliqué pro modulo suo, les definitions, les demandes, les axiomes, et les huit premières propositions du premier livre des Elemens d'Euclide. Peut-être qu'entre ceux qui lui succéderont, il s'en trouvera qui auront plus de santé, et plus de force que lui, pour continuer ce bel ouvrage : Succedent in hoc munus alii FORTASSE magis vegeto corpore et vivido ingenio. Mais pour lui il est tems qu'il se repose; hic annis fessus cyclos artemque repono."

After reading the above passage, it is impossible to avoid reflecting, with satisfaction, on the effect which the progress of philosophy has since had, in removing those obstacles to the acquisition of useful knowledge, which were created by the pedantic taste prevalent two centuries ago. What a contrast to a quarto commentary on the definitions, postulates, axioms, and first eight propositions of Euclid's First Book, is presented by Condorcet's estimate of the time now sufficient to conduct a student to the highest branches of mathematics! "Dans le siècle dernier, il suffisoit de quelques années d'étude pour savoir tout ce qu'Archimède et Hipparque avoient pu connoître; et aujourd'hui deux années de l'enseignement d'un professeur vont au delà de ce que savoient Leibnitz ou Newton." (Sur l'Instruction Publique.) In this particular science, I am aware that much is to be ascribed, to the subsequent invention of new and more general methods; but, I apprehend, not a little also to the improvements gradually suggested by experience, in what Bacon calls the traditive part of logic.

* Sir Henry Saville. The work here referred to is a 4to volume, entitled, _Prælectiones xiii. in Principium Elementorum Euclidis, Oxoniæ habitæ, Anno 1620.

In his philosophical capacity, Malebranche is to be considered in two points of view: 1. As a commentator on Descartes; and, 2. As the author of some conclusions from the Cartesian principles, not perceived or not avowed by his predecessors of the same school.

1. I have already taken notice of Malebranche's comments on the Cartesian doctrine concerning the sensible, or, as they are now more commonly called, the secondary qualities of matter. The same fulness and happiness of illustration are everywhere else to be found in his elucidations of his master's system; to the popularity of which he certainly contributed greatly by the liveliness of his fancy, and the charms of his composition. Even in this part of his writings, he always preserves the air of an original thinker; and, while pursuing the same path with Descartes, seems rather to have accidentally struck into it from his own casual choice, than to have selected it out of any deference for the judgment of another. Perhaps it may be doubted, if it is not on such occasions, that the inventive powers of his genius, by being somewhat restrained and guided in their aim, are most vigorously and most usefully displayed.

In confirmation of this last remark, I shall only mention, by way of examples, his comments on the Cartesian theory of Vision,-more especially on that part of it which relates to our experimental estimates of the distances and magnitudes of objects; and his admirable illustration of the errors to which we are liable from the illusions of sense, of imagination, and of the passions. In his physiological reveries on the union of soul and body, he wanders, like his master, in the dark, from the total want of facts as a foundation for his reasonings; but even here his genius has had no inconsiderable influence on the inquiries of later writers. The fundamental principle of Hartley is most explicitly stated in The Search after Truth; as well as a hypothesis concerning the

*

"Toutes nos différentes perceptions sont attachées aux différens changemens qui arrivent dans les fibres de la partie principale du cerveau dans laquelle l'âme réside plus particulièrement." (Rech. de la Vérité, Liv. ii. chap. 5.) These changes in the fibres of the brain are commonly called by Malebranche ébranlemens;-a word which is frequently rendered by his old English translator (Taylor) vibrations. "La seconde chose," says Malebranche, " qui se trouve dans chacune des sensations, est VOL. VI. 19

nature of habits, which, rash and unwarranted as it must now appear to every novice in science, was not thought unworthy of adoption in the Essay on Human Understanding.*

2. Among the opinions which chiefly characterize the system of Malebranche, the leading one is, that the causes which it is the aim of philosophy to investigate, are only occasional causes; and that the Deity is himself the efficient and the immediate cause of every effect in the universe.† From this single principle, the greater part of his distinguishing doctrines may be easily deduced, as obvious corollaries.

That we are completely ignorant of the manner in which physical causes and effects are connected, and that all our knowledge concerning them amounts merely to a perception of constant conjunction, had been before remarked by Hobbes, and more fully shown by Glanville in his Scepsis Scientifica. Malebranche, however, has treated the same argument much more profoundly and ably than any of his predecessors, and has, indeed, anticipated Hume in some of the most ingenious reasonings contained in his Essay on Necessary Connexion. From these data, it was not unnatural for his pious mind to conclude, that what are commonly called second causes

l'ébranlement des fibres de nos nerfs, qui se communique jusqu'au cerveau: "thus translated by Taylor; "The second thing that occurs in every sensation is the vibration of the fibres of our nerves, which is communicated to the brain." (Liv. i. chap. 12.) Nor was the theory of association overlooked by Malebranche. See in particular, the third chapter of his second book, entitled, De la liaison mutuelle des idées de l'esprit, et des traces du cerveau; et de la liaison mutuelle des traces avec les traces, et des idées avec les idées.

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Mais afin de suivre notre explication, il faut remarquer que les esprits ne trouvent pas toujours les chemins, par où ils doivent passer, assez ouverts et assez libres; et que cela fait qui nous avons de la difficulté à remuer, par exemple, les doigts avec la vitesse qui est nécessaire pour jouer des instrumens de musique, ou les muscles qui servent à la prononciation, pour prononcer les mots d'une langue étrangère: Mais que peu-à-peu les esprits animaux par leur cours continuel ouvrent et applanissent ces chemins, en sorte qu'avec le tems ils n'y trouvent plus de resistance. Car c'est dans cette facilité que les esprits animaux ont de passer dans les membres de notre corps, que consistent les habitudes." Rech. de la Vérité, Liv. ii. chap. 5.

"Habits seem to be but trains of motion in the animal spirits, which, once set a-going, continue in the same steps they have been used to, which, by often treading, are worn into a smooth path." Locke, Book ii. chap. 33, § 6.

"Afin qu'on ne puisse plus douter de la fausseté de cette misérable philosophie, il est nécessaire de prouver qu'il n'y a qu'un vrai Dieu, parce qu'il n'y a qu'une vraie cause; que la nature ou la force de chaque chose n'est que la volonté de Dieu; que toutes les causes naturelles ne sont point de véritables causes, mais seulement des causes occasionelles. De la Vérité, Livre vi. 2de Partie, chap. 3.

have no existence; and that the Divine power, incessantly and universally exerted, is, in truth, the connecting link of all the phenomena of nature. It is obvious,

that, in this conclusion, he went farther than his premises warranted; for, although no necessary connexions among physical events can be traced by our faculties, it does not therefore follow that such connexions are impossible. The only sound inference was, that the laws of nature are to be discovered, not, as the ancients supposed, by à priori reasoning from causes to effects, but by experience and observation. It is but justice to Malebranche to own, that he was one of the first who placed in a just and strong light this fundamental principle of the inductive logic.

On the other hand, the objections to the theory of occasional causes, chiefly insisted on by Malebranche's opponents, were far from satisfactory. By some it was alleged, that it ascribed every, event to a miraculous interposition of the Deity; as if this objection were not directly met by the general and constant laws everywhere manifested to our senses,-in a departure from which laws, the very essence of a miracle consists. Nor was it more to the purpose to contend, that the beauty and perfection of the universe were degraded by excluding the idea of mechanism; the whole of this argument turning, as is manifest, upon an application to Omnipotence of ideas borrowed from the limited sphere of human power. As to the study of natural philosophy, it is plainly not at all affected by the hypothesis in question; as the investigation and generalization of the laws of nature, which are its only proper objects, present exactly the same field to our curiosity, whether we suppose these laws to be the immediate effects of the Divine agency,

*

*This objection, frivolous as it is, was strongly urged by Mr Boyle (Inquiry into the Vulgar Idea concerning Nature), and has been copied from him by Mr. Hume, Lord Kames, and many other writers. Mr. Hume's words are these: " "It argues more wisdom to contrive at first the fabric of the world with such perfect foresight, that, of itself, and by its proper operation, it may serve all the purposes of providence, than if the great Creator were obliged, every moment, to adjust its parts, and animate by his breath all the wheels of that stupendous machine." (Essay on the Idea of Necessary Connexion.) An observation somewhat similar occurs in the Treatise De Mundo, commonly ascribed to Aristotle.