ciples, their inherent power over the minds' emotion; and yet, if they are unable to do this, we tell them of their utter unfitness to their undertaking. We tell them, that if we pity them, others of subtler intentions regard them as the willing and weak tools of one who just needs such; but who respects them as much as, and no more than, the mover of punch's puppets respects the blocks of wood, cut into shapes of men and women, to perform the bidden gesticulations of their owner.

After what has been said, it would seem a work of supererogation to express our opinions, at great length, upon the importance of this branch of metaphysical knowledge to the clergyman. He will find in it a sure aid in training his mind and habits, which will assist him in detecting the deceitfulness with which he is too often unintentionally and intentionally assailed in his necessary intercourse with others. We are aware there is a natural sagacity which goes a long way, in practice, in enabling men to unmask false pretensions; but unless it rests on certain principles it will often be distrusted, and its guidance rejected where most needed. Let any one who doubts this view of the science consult the practical writings of one of the greatest masters of it, Jonathan Edwards, in which it will be seen how he could strip bare the human heart, and exhibit the true sources, and therefore the true worth, of actions which the thoughtless would fall down to and almost worship. It is a most true proposition that the heart is "deceitful above all things;" and the fact implied in it is its victory over intended goodness; for deceit implies knowledge on one side, and ignorance on the other. This knowledge, we believe, to be far rarer than is supposed; for the kind credulity of many clergymen is well known, and in reality fosters imposture. Hence, this science must be very important: aided by such a sharpener of the human wit, he will sooner unmask the hypocrite, and lay open the heart which imagined, what is utterly impossible, that falsehood should not present some one vulnerable point for the practised, and patient, and vigilant eye to detect. Aided by it, he will be able to show to the enthusiast that excitement and principle are not of the same parent, and to warn him, therefore, that it must be speedily converted into principle, ere it passes away and leaves exhaustion, and disappointment, and unbelief in its place. Religion will thus be spared many a scandal in the eyes of those who knew the professor, and heard of his saintly professions, and have seen the sad issue without knowing the cause; for it is only the philosopher who can boldly link together cause and effect, and, by pointing out the true cause, nullify the evil of the misconstrued effect.

Once more: "The consideration of ideas and words, as the great instrument of knowledge, makes no despicable part of their knowledge, who would take a view of human nature in the whole extent of it." This is the pregnant sentiment of John Locke. The mistakes into which the popular uses of words lead are manifold, and can only be corrected by tracing them up to their origin the human mind. For the accuracy which is required in scientific researches, a mastery of language is most deeply important. To give an instance of the mistakes we allude to: the understanding needs for its purposes abstract terms. By thousands, however, these are dealt with as if they represented realities. There would be some difficulty in making superficial thinkers believe that there were no ideas corresponding to goodness and virtue; that they refer only to states and conditions of some reality; namely, the human mind. It might be an useful enquiry to endeavour to ascertain the amount of injury which must arise from the habit of contemplating these vague abstractions apart from the mind, which alone gives any meaning to them. The corrective of this is to consider all language as an emanation of the human mind, and not merely as a collection of facts classified by the grammarian, and popularly explained (not defined) by the lexicographer. Mental science will enable us to see in language the picture of the mind's movements-the glass in which it may behold its more secret processes. true philologist must first of all be a psychologist.

The

Another use of the wider study of this science might be to divert men from those merely material views of human nature which the peculiar habits of the age tend so forcibly to foster. The intensely absorbing nature of modern discoveries of the power of matter tends much to confine men to earthly views, which these studies, calling upon them to look within, might help to correct. We leave this as a very important topic for expansion.

We will conclude by drawing attention to what we believe will be new to the majority of our readers-the fundamental distinction between the two great systems of philosophy, of which Locke and Kant are the modern representatives. In attempting this, we shall freely avail ourselves of the assistance afforded by the able and luminous little work standing at the head of this article. We know of no English publication in which this difficult topic is so clearly managed, and brought down to the comprehension of the uninitiated.

Locke's system is technically called the sensualistic, because he traces up all our knowledge to the senses, and to reflection upon that which they alone yield to be reflected on. Before

the senses are acted upon and impressed by the objects of the outer world to awaken thoughts and feelings, he compares the mind, to illustrate his view of its unfurnished condition, to a sheet of white paper (as Hobbes does to a slate) on which merely a susceptibility of being written upon exists, but no idea or element of knowledge.

According to this system, then, we have no knowledge which does not come to us through one of the senses, and by reflecting on the materials supplied by them. The sensations themselves are those of colour, sound, touch, taste, fragrance, heat or cold; of titillation; of pain and pleasure; and they are produced by the secondary qualities of matter, as its hardness, softness, heat, &c., impress themselves on the senses. This is evident, and admitted by all parties. But it is not evident, as Locke contends, that all our knowledge is directly deduced from the senses, so that our highest knowledge is but the combination and expansion of these elements. This is the point of separation. Locke contends that the reason is incapable of arriving at any truth, whose generating or constituting elements have not first entered the senses. Thus the senses, with reflection, become the sources and measure all knowledge. This system has not stood the test of more rigid thinking and subtler analysis. Kant came forward with another philosophy, now familiarly known by the name of transcendental. This word, we believe, has become, with many, another name for all that is mystical and absurd. It is, however, merely expressive of a simple fact, viz., that the human mind, though susceptible of external impressions, limited by its faculties, nevertheless contains within itself those elements of truth, those forms of knowledge, those first principles of thought and reasoning, which transcend the power of the senses to arrive at. It is not denied, for it is a truism, that ideas (in Locke's sense of the word) cannot be innate, since sensation must, of necessity, be created by something acting upon the senses. But the innate ideas (not Locke's ideas) contended for, are those primordial laws of knowing, thinking, and reasoning, and those necessary and absolute elementary truths which are inseparable from the mind itself. Kant makes the sensations the conditions under which the knowing faculty begins to act in producing them. As this is not an easy point, we will give an illustration of it, premising only, that it is intended not to suggest the mode of thinking which may help to make it clear. Transcendentalism says that the sensations are but the conditions under which the innate knowing faculties begin to act. We suggest this illustration :-An immense rock may be considered to be so accurately poised on

the summit of a hill, that the force of an infant's push should send it rolling, and dashing down in its course trees and buildings. Now the child's touch was the condition only of the stone's producing all this mischief; it did not create (we need not speak of an evanescent quantity) one particle of its power. And thus it is with the sensations. Their awakening is the law, or the conditions (according to the terms of the union of body and mind), upon which the reason awakes to do her work. The sensations are but the infant's touch to set in motion the vast stone-which is the reason.

In

The followers of Locke naturally ask what proof there is that the mind does not obtain all its knowledge from the senses. producing this proof we proceed thus :-It will be admitted that no mere composition can contain more than the original elements that formed it, however transformed they may have become in the process. For the strictest analysis seeks only to bring to light the original elements, not to discover new ones. Now we can easily analyse our sensations., Those of the eye consist of light and colour, those of the ear consist of various sounds: those of smelling and tasting consist of odour and sapidness in their endless varieties; those of touch consist of simple and uniform impressions on the nerves, wherever they are distributed; those of muscular resistance consist of hardness and softness, smoothness and roughness, and the sensations of pleasure, pain, and of titillation. But our actual knowledge brings to light cause, time, truth, justice, &c. These are ideas which no analysis of the mere sensations can ever unfold. For they cannot be tested by any of the senses; for neither the eye, ear, nor any other sense can perceive time, cause, &c. The analysis of the sensations not only does not yield but excludes them. How, then, could that which by no forced means can be connected with sensations have been previously evolved out of them?

How, in this case, it is enquired, is the mind furnished with its knowledge of causes, substances, &c.? The reply given is, the reason acknowledges them as intuitively true, universal, and necessary. Consciousness is the knowing faculty for the sensations: Reason is the knowing faculty for those elementary truths, which are beyond the sensations. The mind, through means of its corporeal organism, the senses, can learn all that the external world has to tell it; and the higher faculty, that of pure reason, is just as capable, in its assigned sphere of action, of affirming elementary truths, in the forms of perception, and the laws of reasoning, as the sense is, in its sphere of action, of producing sensations to form knowledge resulting from them.

VOL. XVII.-C C

Kant, then, does not, as Locke does, make the sensations the sole elements of knowledge. With the former, they are the necessary conditions under which the knowing faculty begins to act, and suggestions upon which, and according to its own ideas. and laws, it forms its knowledge.

We will conclude with the following remarks:

"The principle on which transcendental truths are denied involves the denial of all objective reality whatever, beyond immediate consciousness. It is not merely the ideas of pure reason which lie beyond immediate consciousness: all the pure mathematics transcend it likewise. Nay, the entire outer world transcends it; for all must allow, that not the received objects of the external world are immediate objects of consciousness, but only the sensations supposed to arise from those objects. Indeed, in this way were Berkley and Hume led to deny all objective reality out of consciousness. It is plain, that they deduced their doctrines legitimately from the system of Locke."-" The denial of that which transcends immediate consciousness involves the destruction of all philosophy. If we are shut up to mere phenomena (of consciousness) we can account for nothing. We have only to observe, classify, and name-to mark a ceaseless involution and evolution, where nothing absolutely begins, and nothing can be truly finished. Thus, the whole field of human thought becomes a panorama of shadows." p. 38.

There is no fear that Englishmen should ever embrace the ideal philosophy of Hume (ideal quasi idle), and so disbelieve in the reality of railroads, and promissory notes, and sovereigns. Still it is as well to know that the theory of the non-existence of matter can be disproved without laying a stick heavily upon the doubter's back.

We add, that Mr. Tappan's little work will really repay the labour of thought required for its comprehension.

ART. VI.-An Address to Members of Convocation in Protest against the Proposed Statute. By the Rev. W. G. WARD, M.A., Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. London: Toovey,

1845.

2. The Subject of Tract 90 Historically examined, &c. By the Rev. FREDERICK OAKELEY, M.A., Fellow of Balliol College, &c. Second Edition. Revised, with a Preface on the Measure about to be submitted to the Oxford Convocation. London: Toovey, 1845.

THE very important question which has agitated the University of Oxford for the last few months, has at length been brought to a decision in convocation; and the propositions put forth