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CHAPTER VII.

LOCKE'S CRITICS.

We cannot leave the great Englishman without at least slightly adverting to the tone adopted by his critics. This tone has been anything but considerate. The sincerest and least dogmatic of thinkers has met with insincere and shallow criticism.

That men should misrepresent Spinoza, Hobbes, or Hume, is intelligible enough; men are frightened, and in their terror exaggerate and distort the object. That they should misrepresent Kant, Fichte, or Hegel, is also intelligible; the remoteness of the speculations and the difficulty of the language are sufficient excuses. But that they should misrepresent Locke is wholly inexcusable. He is neither an audacious speculator, nor a cloudy writer. His fault is that he spoke plainly and honestly. He sought the truth; he did not wish to mystify any one. He endeavoured to explain the Chemistry of the Mind (if the metaphor be permissible), renouncing the vague futile dreams of Alchemy. All those men who still seek to penetrate impenetrable mysteries, and who refuse to acknowledge the limits of man's intelligence, treat Locke with the same superb disdain as the ambitious alchemists treated the early chemists. The tone in

which modern Frenchmen and Germans speak of Locke is painful; the tone in which many Englishmen speak of him is disgraceful. To point out any error is honourable; but to accuse him of errors which are not to be found in his work, to interpret his language according to your views, and then accuse him of inconsistency and superficiality; to assume that his principles would "lead to Atheism" or elsewhere, and on that assumption to condemn them; to speak of him with superciliousness, as if he were some respectable but short-sighted gentleman dabbling with philosophy, and not one of the great benefactors of mankind, deserves the severest reprobation.

There is no excuse for not understanding Locke. If his language be occasionally loose and wavering, his meaning is always to be gathered from the context. He had not the lucidity of Descartes or Hobbes; but he was most anxious to make himself intelligible, and to this end he varied his expressions, and stated his meaning in a variety of forms. He must not be taken literally. No single passage is to be relied on, unless it be also borne out by the whole tenor of his speculations. Any person merely "dipping into " the Essay, will find passages which seem very contradictory; any person carefully reading it through will find all clear and coherent. But Locke is not read through: hence misconception.

The most considerable of Locke's modern critics is Victor Cousin. He has undertaken an examination and refutation of all Locke's important positions. The eminence of his name and the popular style of his lectures have given great importance to his criticism; but if we are to speak out our

opinion frankly, we must consider this criticism very unfair, and extremely shallow. There may be temerity in this declaration; yet such of our readers as do not suffer themselves to be imposed upon by reputations however showy, but are content to think conscientiously for themselves, will see that the present is not a fit occasion for idle courtesies.

We cannot here examine his examination: a volume would not suffice to expose all his errors. Let one example of his unfairness and one of his shallowness suffice.

Speaking of the principle of reflection, he says, "In the first place, remark that Locke here evidently confounds reflection with consciousness. Reflection, strictly speaking, is doubtless a faculty analogous to consciousness, but distinct from it, and which more particularly belongs to philosophers, whereas consciousness belongs to every

man.

We answer that in the first place, so far from its being evident that Locke confounds reflection with consciousness, his whole Essay proves the contrary. In the second place, M. Cousin, using the word reflection in a peculiar sense (viz., as tantamount to speculation), forces that sense upon Locke, and then exclaims about contradiction! If M. Cousin had interpreted Locke fairly, he could never have thus "caught him on the hip."

It is quite true that in the passage quoted by M. Cousin, the faculty of reflection is limited to the operations of the mind; but, as we said, to pin Locke down to any one passage is unfair; and his whole Essay proves, in spite of some ill-worded definitions, that by reflection he meant very much

what is usually meant by it, viz., the activity of the mind combining the materials it receives through sense, and being thus a second source of ideas.

This leads us to the second example. M. Cousin wishing to prove, against Locke, that we have ideas from some other source besides sensation and reflection, instances the idea of space, and examines how it was possible to obtain that idea through sensation and reflection. That the idea of pure space could not have been obtained through the senses, he seems to think is satisfactorily proved by proving that the idea has nothing sensuous in it; that it could not have been obtained through reflection, because it has nothing to do with the operations of our understanding, is equally evident to him. Hence, as both sources fail, he pronounces Locke's account of the origin of our knowledge "incomplete and vicious.”

This argument, which extends to several pages, is deemed by M. Cousin triumphant. Locke, indeed, says that "we get the idea of space both by our sight and touch." Any honest inquirer would never quibble upon this-would never suppose Locke meant to say that space is a sensation. He would understand that Locke meant to say, "the idea of space is an abstraction: the primary materials are obtained through our touch and sight." Locke did not anticipate any quibbling objection, so did not guard against it; but in his explanation of our idea of substance he has given an analogous case; and curiously enough his antagonists have frequently objected that the idea of substance never could have been obtained through sense! It has been thought an irresistible argument against

VOL. III.

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Locke's theory. The very fact that we have an idea of substance is supposed to be sufficient proof of some other source of knowledge than sensation and reflection—an example of how carelessly Locke has been read. He expressly tells us, in more places than one, that the idea of substance (and by idea he does not here mean image, but a thought) is an inference grounded upon our experience of external things. True it is that we perceive nothing but phenomena, but our minds are so constituted that we are forced to suppose these phenomena have substances lying underneath them.

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"If any one wiil examine himself," he says, concerning his notion of pure substance in general, he will find he has no other idea of it at all, but only a supposition of he knows not what support of such qualities which are capable of producing simple ideas in us, which qualities are commonly called accidents. If any one should be asked what is the subject wherein colour or weight inheres, he would have nothing to say but the solid extended parts; and if he were demanded what is it that solidity and extension inhere in, he would not be in a much better case than the Indian who, saying that the world was supported by a great elephant, was asked what the elephant rested on, to which his answer was, A great tortoise; but being again pressed to know what gave support to the great broad backed tortoise, replied, Something, he knew not what."

The same course of argument will apply to space-an idea suggested by place, which is surely one derived from the senses; but M. Cousin declaims away at a great rate, and brings forward many arguments and illustrations, all utterly

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