some other fish, out of the sea into rivers, for the purpose of shedding their spawn in fresh water.'

In Dr. Paley's very able and convincing reasonings on these various points, he has undoubtedly approached nearer to the spirit of what has been ironically called Scottish philosophy,† than any of Mr. Locke's English disciples, since the time of Dr. Butler; a circumstance which, when compared with the metaphysical creed of his earlier years, reflects the greatest honor on the candor and fairness of his mind, and encourages the hope, that this philosophy, where it is equally sound, will gradually and silently work its way among sincere inquirers after truth, in spite of the strong prejudices which many of our southern neighbours still appear to entertain against it. The extravagancies of Darwin, it is probable, first opened Dr. Paley's eyes to the dangerous tendency of Locke's argument against innate principles, when inculcated without due limitations.‡

With this very faint outline of the speculations of Locke's chief successors in Scotland, prior to the close of

Paley's Natural Theology, p. 324.

May I take the liberty of requesting the reader to compare a few pages of Dr. Paley's Section on Instinct, beginning, "I am not ignorant of the theory which resolves instinct into sensation," &c. with some remarks made by the author of this Dissertation, in an Account of the Life and Writings of Dr. Reid? See the passage in section second, beginning thus, "In a very original work, on which I have already hazarded some criticisms," &c. As both publications appeared about the same time, (in the year 1802,) the coincidence, in point of thought, must have been wholly accidental, and as such affords no slight presumption in favor of its soundness.

When Dr. Paley published his Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, he seems to have attached himself much too slavishly to the opinions of Bishop Law, to whom that work is inscribed. Hence, probably, his anxiety to disprove the existence of the moral faculty. Of the length to which Law was disposed to carry Locke's argument against innate principles, he has enabled us to judge by his own explicit declaration: "I take implanted senses, instincts, appetites, passions, and affections, &c. to be a remnant of the old philosophy, which used to call every thing innate that it could not account for; and therefore heartily wish that they were in one sense all eradicated, which was undoubtedly the aim of that great author last mentioned, (Mr. Locke,) as it was a natural consequence of his first book." (Law's translation of Archbishop King, On the Origin of Evil, p. 79, note.)

In justice, however, to Dr. Law, it must be observed, that he appears to have been fully aware that the dispute about innate principles was, in a great measure, verbal. "It will really," says he, "come to the same thing with regard to the moral attributes of God and the nature of virtue and vice, whether the Deity has implanted these instincts and affections in us, or has framed and disposed us in such a manner, has given us such powers, and placed us in such circumstances, that we must necessarily acquire them." (Ibid.) But if Dr. Law was aware of this, why should he and his followers have attached such infinite importance to the controversy ?

Dr. Reid's literary labors, I shall for the present finish my review of the metaphysical pursuits of the eighteenth century. The long period which has since elapsed has been too much crowded with great political events to favor the growth of abstract science in any of its branches; and of the little which appears to have been done, during this interval, in other parts of Europe, towards the advancement of true philosophy, the interrupted communication between this island and the Continent left us for many years in a state of almost total ignorance. This chasm, in our information concerning foreign literature, it may not be a difficult task for younger men to supply. At my time of life it would be folly to attempt it; nor, perhaps, is any author, who has himself been so frequently before the public, the fittest person to form an impartial estimate of the merits of his living contemporaries. Now, however, when peace is at length restored to the world, it may reasonably be hoped that the human mind will again resume her former career with renovated energy; and that the nineteenth century will not yield to the eighteenth in furnishing materials to those who may hereafter delight to trace the progressive improvement of their species. In the meantime, instead of indulging myself in looking forward to the future, I shall conclude this section with a few general reflections suggested by the foregoing retrospect.

Among these reflections, what chiefly strikes my own mind is the extraordinary change which has gradually and insensibly taken place since the publication of Locke's Essay, in the meaning of the word Metaphysics; a word formerly appropriated to the ontology and pneumatology of the schools, but now understood as equally applicable to all those inquiries, which have for their object to trace the various branches of human knowledge to their first principles in the constitution of our nature.* This change

The following is the account of Metaphysics given by Hobbes :-" There is a certain Philosophia prima, on which all other Philosophy ought to depend; and consisteth principally in right limiting of the significations of such appellations, or names, as are of all others the most universal: which limitations serve to avoid ambiguity, and equivocation in reasoning; and are commonly called Definitions ; such as are the Definitions of Body, Time, Place, Matter, Form, Essence, Subject, Substance, Accident, Power, Act, Finite, Infinite, Quantity, Quality, Motion, Action, Passion, and divers others, necessary to the explaining of a man's conceptions

can be accounted for only by a change in the philosophical pursuits of Locke's successors; a change from the idle abstractions and subtleties of the dark ages, to studies subservient to the culture of the understanding; to the successful exercise of its faculties and powers; and to a knowledge of the great ends and purposes of our being. It may be regarded, therefore, as a palpable and incontrovertible proof of a corresponding progress of reason in this part of the world.

On comparing together the multifarious studies now classed together under the title of Metaphysics, it will be found difficult to trace any common circumstance but this, that they all require the same sort of mental exertion for their prosecution; the exercise, I mean, of that power (called by Locke reflection) by which the mind turns its attention inwards upon its own operations, and the subjects of its own consciousness. In researches concerning our intellectual and active powers, the mind directs its attention to the faculties which it exercises, or to the propensities which put these faculties in motion. In all the other inquiries which fall under the province of the Metaphysician, the materials of his reasoning are drawn chiefly from his own internal resources. Nor is this observation less applicable to speculations which relate to things external, than to such as are confined to the thinking and sentient principle within him. In carrying on his researches (for example) concerning hardness, softness, figure, and motion, he finds it not less necessary to retire within himself, than in studying the laws of imagination or memory. Indeed, in such cases, the whole aim of his studies is to obtain a more precise definition of his ideas, and to ascertain the occasions on which they are formed.

From this account of the nature and object of metaphysical science, it may be reasonably expected, that those with whom it is a favorite and habitual pursuit, should acquire a more than ordinary capacity of retiring, at pleasure, from the external to the internal world.

concerning the nature and generation of bodies. The explication (that is, the settling of the meaning) of which, and the like terms, is commonly in the schools called Metaphysics." (Moral and Political Works. Folio Edit. Lond. 1750, p. 399.)

They may be expected also to acquire a disposition to examine the origin of whatsoever combinations they may find established in the fancy, and a superiority to the casual associations which warp common understandings. Hence an accuracy and a subtlety in their distinctions on all subjects, and those peculiarities in their views which are characteristical of unbiassed and original thinking. But, perhaps, the most valuable fruit of their researches, is that scrupulous precision in the use of language, upon which, more than upon any one circumstance whatever, the logical accuracy of our reasonings, and the justness of our conclusions, essentially depend. Accordingly it will be found, on a review of the history of the moral sciences, that the most important steps which have been made in some of those, apparently the most remote from metaphysical pursuits, (in the science, for example, of political economy,) have been made by men trained to the exercise of their intellectual powers by early habits of abstract meditation. To this fact Burke probably alluded, when he remarked, that "by turning the soul inward on itself, its forces are concentred, and are fitted for stronger and bolder flights of science; and that in such pursuits, whether we take, or whether we lose the game, the chace is certainly of service." The names of Locke, of Berkeley, of Hume, of Quesnai, of Turgot, of Morellet, and, above all, of Adam Smith, will at once illustrate the truth of these observations, and show, that, in combining together, in this Dissertation, the sciences of Metaphysics, of Ethics, and of Politics, I have not adopted an arrangement altogether capricious.

*

It furnishes no objection to these remarks, that some of our best treatises on questions of political economy have proceeded from men who were strangers to metaphysical studies. It is enough for my purpose if it be granted, that it was by habits of metaphysical thinking that the minds of those authors were formed, by whom political economy was first exalted to the dignity of a science. To a great proportion even of the learned, the rules of a sound logic are best taught by examples; and when a precise and well-defined phraseology is once introduced, the speculations of the most ordinary writers assume an appearance (sometimes, it must be owned, a very fallacious one) of depth and consistency.

Fontenelle remarks, that a single great man is sufficient to accomplish a change in the taste of his age, and that the perspicuity and method for which Descartes was indebted to his mathematical researches, were successfully copied by many of his contemporaries who were ignorant of mathematics. A similar observation will be found to apply, with still greater force, to the models of metaphysical analysis and of logical discussion, exhibited in the political works of Hume and of Smith.

In farther justification of this arrangement, I might appeal to the popular prejudices so industriously fostered by many against these three branches of knowledge, as ramiñcations from one common and most pernicious root. How often have Mr. Smith's reasonings in favor of the freedom of trade been ridiculed as metaphysical and visionary! Nay, but a few years have elapsed, since this epithet (accompanied with the still more opprobrious terms of Atheistical and Democratical) was applied to the argument then urged against the morality and policy of the slave-trade; and, in general, to every speculation in which any appeal was made to the beneficent arrangements of nature, or to the progressive improvement of the human race. Absurd as this language was, it could not, for a moment, have obtained any currency with the multitude, had there not been an obvious connexion between these liberal doctrines, and the well known habits of logical thinking, which so eminently distinguished their authors and advocates. Whatever praise, therefore, may be due to the fathers of the modern science of political economy, belongs, at least in part, (according to the acknowledgment of their most decided adversaries,) to those abstract studies by which they were prepared for an analytical investigation of its first and fundamental principles.

Other connexions and affinities between Political Economy and the Philosophy of the Human Mind will present themselves afterwards. At present I purposely confine myself to that which is most obvious and indisputable.

The influence of metaphysical studies may be also perceived in the philosophical spirit so largely infused into the best historical compositions of the last century. This spirit has, indeed, been often perverted to pernicious purposes; but who can doubt, that, on the whole, both history and philosophy have gained infinitely by the alliance?

How far a similar alliance has been advantageous to our poetry, may be more reasonably questioned. But on the most unfavorable supposition, it must be admitted, that the number of poetical readers has thereby been greatly increased, and the pleasures of imagination pro