Locke is by far the most celebrated metaphysician in modern times. There is a perspicuity and good sense apparent in his writings, which insures the at tention and good will of the reader. He carefully ba nished the pedantic phraseology of the schools ; and the world was astonished that subjects so profound should be rendered so simple. Even yet he is scarce ly considered by some as a metaphysician, solely, we believe, because he employed the language of common life and common sense, in illustrating some of the pro foundest points in ontology and psychology. For merly none but the initiated dared to approach these subjects. They were discussed in a peculiar language, which was as remote from the common conceptions of mankind, and as unintelligible to common understand ings, as the signs of free-masonry are to the uninitiat ed. Socrates was said to have brought philosophy down from heaven : and we may at least say of Locke, that he has brought metaphysics down from the clouds, and planted them in a congenial soil, and reared them with proper culture on the surface of this earth. Per haps no one ever accomplished so much on such a subject, with fewer errors, and fewer marks of failure. In the article logic, we have pointed out what we con ceive to be deficiencies or mistakes in his reasoning ;— but we shall have conveyed to our readers an impres sion very different from our real feelings, if- they ima gine that we do not entertain the very highest reve rence for the genius of Locke, and the highest grati tude for the important services which he has perform ed, in rendering easy and attractive the science of meta physics and the study of the human mind.
Descartes had said that the Peripatetic philosophers resembled blind persons, who, in order to equalize the combat with persons who had the use of their eyes, endeavoured to draw them into a dark cavern, where vision could be of no use to them. It is impossible not to admit the justice of the remark, for, if ever there were any who darkened counsel by words without knowledge, this charge may be applied to the school men who adopted the philosophy of Aristotle. No small part of the merit of Locke consisted in sweeping away this useless rubbish, and in teaching mankind to define their ideas and conceptions before they attempted to reason about them.
We are extremely sorry that an attempt has been made in modern times to veil philosophy in her an cient mystery, with a view to exclude her from the profane eyes of the vulgar. This attempt consists not in reviving the phraseology of the Peripatetic school, but in the invention of a set of new terms equally in comprehensible, and equally susceptible of ambiguity and misconception. The author who has made this attempt is Kant, the founder of the Critical and Trans cendental Philosophy, as it is called in Germany. We have never been fortunate enough to meet with any who pretended to comprehend his system ; and for ourselves, we have never yet attempted it. We will be excused for this confession of our ignorance, after the following declaration from Mr. Stewart. " As to Kant's own works, I must fairly acknowledge, that, although I have frequently attempted to read them in the Latin edition printed at Leipsic, I have always been forced to abandon the undertaking in despair, partly from the scholastic barbarism of the style, and partly from my utter inability to unriddle the author's mean ing. Wherever I have happened to obtain a momen tary glimpse of light, 1 have derived it, not from Kant himself, but from my previous acquaintance with those opinions of Leibnitz, Berkeley, Hume, Reid, and others, which he has endeavoured to appropriate to himself un der the deep disguise of his new phraseology."* This mode of philosophizing deserves to be reprobated and exploded ; and we sincerely hope that the German adepts will never be able to make a system of mysticism popu lar in any country which has been imbued with the phi losophy of Locket.
For sonic account of the leading principles of Locke's system, and some strictures upon them, see the article LOGIC. At present, we mean merely to advert to the revolution which his opinions have produced in the philosophy of the human mind ; and to the very sin gular and opposite conclusions to which they have been made subservient. For, on the one hand, they gave rise to the system et Berkeley, Hume, and other ideal ists, who deny the separate existence of matter, and hold, that what we call by that name is only a modifi cp:Ion of thought ; whilst, on the other hand, they have given birth, particularly on the Continent, to the mate rial system of Diderot and others, who maintain that mind is only a more refined species of material sub stance.
It may appear strange that such opposite conclu sions should arise out of the same system ; but it must appear stranger still, that they are both legitimately deduced from it. That is to say, that Locke, by not sufficiently guarding some of his principles, has afford ed room for their being applied or perverted in both these ways. He himself never intended to teach any such doctrines as those which succeeding philosophers and sceptics have deduced from his opinions.
The most celebrated of these systems is that of Berke ley; and we have no hesitation in saying, that it is the most difficult to refute by reasoning. It not only de nies the existence of the material world, but affirms that the existence of matter is impossible. Talking of the
qualities of matter, Locke had said, that " the ideas of primary qualities of bodies are resemblances of them, and their patterns do really exist in the bodies them selves ; but the ideas produced in us by these second ary qualities have no resemblance of them at all. There is nothing like our ideas existing in the bodies them selves. They are in bodies we denominate from them only a power to produce those sensations in us ; and what is sweet, blue, or warm in idea, is but the certain bulk, figure, and motion of the insensible parts in the bodies themselves which we call so." On these data Berkeley builds his system. 44 They who assert," says he, " that figure, motion, and the rest of the primary or original qualities, do exist without the mind in unthinking substances, do at the sante time acknowledge that colours, sounds, heat, cold, and such like secondary qualities, do not ; which, they tell us, are sensations existing in the mind alone, that depend on and are occasioned by the different size, texture, and motion of the minute particles of matter. This they take for an undoubted truth, which they can de monstrate beyond all exception. Now, if it be certain that those original qualities are inseparably united with the other sensible qualities, and not even in thought capable of being abstracted from them, it plainly fol lows that they exist only in the mind. But I desire any one to reflect, and try whether he can, by any ab straction of thought, conceive the extension and motion of a body without all other sensible qualities. For my own part, I see evidently that it is not in my power to frame an idea of a body extended and moved, but I most withal give it some colour, or other sensible quality, which is acknowledged to exist only in the mind. In short, extension, figure, and motion, abstracted from all qualities, are inconceivable. Where, therefore, the other sensible qualities are, there must be these also, to wit, in the mind, and no where else." Before we advert to the way in which these argu ments have been answered, we may take notice of the consequences which are supposed to flow from them. These are thought to amount to nothing less than the unhinging of all belief, and the introduction of uni versal scepticism. Nothing certainly could be farther from the intention of the amiable and ingenious author. For, in the preface to his Dialogues, he says, " If the principles which I here endeavour to propagate are ad mitted for true, the consequences I think that evidently flow from them are, that atheism and scepticism will be utterly destroyed; many intricate points made plain ; great difficulties solved ; speculation referred to prac tice ; and men reduced from paradoxes to common sense." In fact, nothing was ever so completely misunder stood and misrepresented as the system of Berkeley, and that too by men of some name in philosophy. Berkeley anticipated these conclusions, and, in our opi nion, gives a most triumphant refutation of them. To do him full justice, we use his own words : " I am of a vulgar cast," says he, enough to believe my senses, and leave things as 1 find them. It is my opi nion, that the real things are those very things I see, and feel, and perceive by my senses. That a thing should really be perceived by my senses, and at the same time not really exist, is to me a plain contradic tion. When I deny sensible things an existence out of the mind, I do not mean my mind in particular, but all minds. Now it is plain they have an existence ex terior to my mind, since 1 find them, by experience, to be independent of it. There is, therefore, some other mind wherein they exist during the intervals between the times of my perceiving them, as likewise they did before my birth, and would do after my annihilation. And as the same is true with regard to all other finite created spirits, it necessarily follows that there is an omnipotent eternal mind, which knows and compre hends all things, and exhibits them to our view in such a manner, and according to such rules, as he himself hath ordained, and are by us termed the laws of nature." No man who knows any thing of philosophy can doubt that all this is perfectly possible, and, if receiv ed in the way in which Berkeley has explained it, could have no unfavourable influence on the conduct, the happiness, and the hopes of men; and we may affirm, without hesitation, that it is grossly misrepresented, and indeed totally misunderstood by Beattie, when he says, " It is subversive of man's most important inter ests, as a moral, intelligent, and percipient being; and not only so, but also, if it were universally and seri ously adopted, the dissolution of society, and the de struction of mankind, would necessarily ensue within the compass of a month." So thought not Plato, who conceived it possible that life might be a continued sleep, and all our thoughts and sensations only dreams. Beattie seems to have confounded the principles of Ber keley with those of Pyrrho, who also denied the exist ence of the material world, in the most unqualified sense ; so that his friends, as it is reported, were obliged to accompany him wherever he went, that he might not be run over by carriages, or fall down precipices.