when he makes the experiment, at the facilities it affords him in disentangling all kinds of affairs. It is not less useful in solitude. Sufficiently comprehensive to satisfy the most powerful mind, sufficiently various and interesting to calm the most agitated soul, it consoles the unhappy, it soothes animosities. Once elevated to the contemplation of that harmony of nature irresistibly regulated by Providence, how weak and insignificant appear those causes which it has been pleased to leave dependant on the arbitrary will of man. How astonishing to behold so many examples of fine genius consuming themselves so vainly for their own happiness, or that of others, in the pursuit of empty speculations, whose very traces a few years suffice to sweep away." But is the motto "homo est naturæ minister" applicable solely to physical and not to metaphysical, moral, and political science? Can we study the human mind and human interests without a careful observation of the phenomena or facts? Is man to interpret his mental and moral constitution by means of some à priori principles, which are to be received, without question, upon the ipse dixit of this or that philosopher? There is indeed a growing perception of the importance of the Baconian method, in moral and political science as well as in other departments of human inquiry, notwithstanding the tendency of many productions of eminence to draw away men's attention from the palpable instruction of nature to the cloudy, obscure, inconsistent, and unmeaning language of the schools. But a slight acquaintance with the most popular works on ethical and metaphysical philosophy, will lead to the conclusion that they are sadly deficient in that exact language which is the essential characteristic of all true science, and must be its foundation. "A plain and unadorned style," says Lord Bacon, "is the proper style for philosophy." Yet how far from being plain,— how studied in variety of phrase,—how redundant in poetic and metaphoric ornament, are the pages of a Stewart and Mackintosh! Their pages seem to have been written under - the impression that no effort of art should be spared to beguile the reader in the study of matters so dry and so laborious as ethics and metaphysics. But the result of this is to give the real student, who is carefully looking out for facts and principles, more trouble than can be estimated in finding the object of his search, in separating the important from the trivial,-in testing, by the application of precise logic, the presence and quantity of meaning in a cloudy solution of verbiage. Their dissertations leave hardly any definite impression on the mind. Nor is this owing to any peculiar difficulty in coming at the facts which lay the foundation for principles, so much as to an erroneous view of the true method, or from a bad habit of philosophising, or perhaps to an indisposition for that patient and cautious examination of details, with that simplicity and exactness of phrase, which have few charms for any but the obscure devotees of truth. Metaphysical discussions are pre-eminently discussions about words. Ideas, feelings, principles, faculties, powers, affections, materialism, spiritualism, necessity, free-will, cum multis aliis, occur so constantly in these discussions, with so little exactness of meaning, and such variety of indistinct associated notions, that the student is still, like Milton's angels, "in wandering mazes lost." The dissertations of Stewart and Mackintosh, prefixed to the Encyclopædia Britannica, enjoy a high degree of reputation. They are spoken of by critics of eminence as inimitable and invaluable. Reviews of great authority delight in recording the highest estimation of their merit. They are unquestionably useful and pleasing; but of what are they the history? If we compare them with the accompanying dissertation by Playfair, on the History of Natural Philosophy, they must sink in the comparison, inasmuch as they fail to give that systematic view of real though gradual additions to human knowledge,―of discoveries, with the authors, and times of discovery, which can alone properly constitute a history of any science or philosophy. They do not fasten upon im portant epochs of improvement in the mode of studying and treating the philosophy or mind. They do not give the details of writers and their systems, in the clear and exact manner most essential to the reader, nor sum up their respective merits and defects by the application of any well-stated, established, and acknowledged principles or criteria of excel lence. Mr. Stewart makes the chief merit of Locke to consist in the inquiring spirit with which he imbues his reader. Speaking of the general effect of Locke's discussions, in preparing the thinking part of his readers to a degree till then unknown, for the unshackled use of their own reason, he says, "This has always appeared to me the most characteristical feature of Locke's Essay; and that to which it is chiefly indebted for its immense influence on the philosophy of the eighteenth century." The Essay of Locke is certainly the production of a profoundly thoughtful mind; and the diligent reader, called into sympathy with such a mind, must partake, and imbibe in some degree, the spirit |