our belief that the future course of nature will resemble the past. And here, too, (as I already hinted,) it is very generally admitted, that he has succeeded completely in overturning all the theories which profess to account for this belief by resolving it into a process of reasoning.* The only difference which seems to remain among philosophers, is, whether it can be explained, as Mr. Hume imagined, by means of the association of ideas; or, whether it must be considered as an original and fundamental law of the human understanding;-a question, undoubtedly abundantly curious, as a problem connected with the Theory of the Mind; but to which more practical importance has sometimes been attached than I conceive to be necessary.†

* The incidental reference made, by way of illustration, in the following passage, to our instinctive conviction of the permanency of the laws of Nature, encourages me to hope, that, among candid and intelligent inquirers, it is now received as an acknowledged fact in the Theory of the Human Mind.

"The anxiety men have in all ages shown to obtain a fixed standard of value, and that remarkable agreement of nations, dissimilar in all other customs, in the use of one medium, on account of its superior fitness for that purpose, is itself a convincing proof how essential it is to our social interests. The notion of its permanency, although it be conventional and arbitrary, and liable, in reality, to many causes of variation, yet had gained so firm a hold on the minds of men, as to resemble, in its effects on their conduct, that instinctive conviction of the permanency of the laws of nature which is the foundation of all our reasoning." (A Letter to the Right Hon. R. Peel, M. P. for the University of Oxford, by one of his Constituents. Second edition, p. 23.)

†The difference between the two opinions amounts to nothing more than this, whether our expectation of the continuance of the laws of nature results from principle coeval with the first exercise of the senses; or whether it arises gradually from the accommodation of the order of our thoughts to the established order of physical events, "Nature," as Mr. Hume himself observes, "may certainly produce whatever can arise from habit; nay, habit is nothing but one of the principles of nature, and derives all its force from that origin." (Treatise of Human Nature, Vol. I. p. 313.) Whatever ideas, therefore, and whatever principles we are unavoidably led to acquire by the circumstances in which we are placed, and by the exercise of those faculties which are essential to our preservation, are to be considered as parts of human nature, no less than those which are implanted in the mind at its first formation. Are not the acquired perceptions of sight and of hearing as much parts of human nature as the original perceptions of external objects which we obtain by the use of the hand?

The passage quoted from Mr. Hume, in Note 2, p. 401, if attentively considered, will be found, when combined with these remarks, to throw a strong and pleasing light on his latest views with respect to this part of his philosophy.

In denying that our expectation of the continuance of the laws of nature is founded on reasoning, as well as in asserting our ignorance of any necessary connexions among physical events, Mr. Hume had been completely anticipated by some of his predecessors. (See the references mentioned in the Note, p. 399.) I do not, however, think that, before his time, philosophers were at all aware of the alarming consequences which, on a superficial view, seem to follow from this part of his system. Indeed, these consequences would never have been apprehended, had it not been supposed to form an essential link in his argument against the commonly received notion of Causation.

That Mr. Hume himself conceived his refutation of the theories which profess to assign a reason for our faith in the permanence of the laws of nature, to be closely connected with his sceptical conclusions concerning causation, is quite evident from the general strain of his argument; and it is therefore not surprising, that this refutation should have been looked on with a suspicious eye by his antagonists. Dr. Reid was, I believe, the first of these who had the sagacity to perceive, not only that it is strictly and incontrovertibly logical, but that it may be safely admitted, without any injury to the doctrines which it was brought forward to subvert.

Another of Mr. Hume's attacks on these doctrines was still bolder and more direct. In conducting it he took his vantage ground from his own account of the origin of our ideas. In this way he was led to expunge from his Philosophical Vocabulary every word of which the meaning cannot be explained by a reference to the impression from which the corresponding idea was originally copied. Nor was he startled in the application of this rule by the consideration, that it would force him to condemn, as insignificant, many words which are to be found in all languages, and some of which express what are commonly regarded as the most important objects of human knowledge. Of this number are the words cause and effect; at least, in the sense in which they are commonly understood both by the vulgar and by philosophers. "One event," says he, "follows another, but we never observe any tie between them. They seem conjoined, but never connected. And as we can have no idea of any thing which never appeared to our outward sense or inward sentiment, the necessary conclusion seems to be, that we have no idea of connexion or power at all; and that these words are absolutely without any meaning, when employed either in philosophical reasonings or common life." (Hume's Essays, Vol. II. p. 79. Ed. of Lond. 1784.)

When this doctrine was first proposed by Mr. Hume, he appears to have been very strongly impressed with its repugnance to the common apprehensions of mankind. am sensible," he observes, "that of all the paradoxes which

I have had, or shall hereafter have occasion to advance in the course of this treatise, the present one is the most violent." (Treatise of Human Nature, Vol. I. p. 291.) It was probably owing to this impression that he did not fully unfold in that work all the consequences which, in his subsequent publications, he deduced from the same paradox; nor did he even apply it to invalidate the argument which infers the existence of an intelligent cause from the order of the universe. There cannot, however, be a doubt that he was aware, at this period of his life, of the conclusions to which it unavoidably leads, and which are indeed too obvious to escape the notice of a far less acute inquirer.

In a private letter of Mr. Hume's to one of his most intimate friends,* some light is thrown on the circumstances which first led his mind into this train of sceptical speculation. As his narrative has every appearance of the most perfect truth and candor, and contains several passages which I doubt not will be very generally interesting to my readers, I shall give it a place, together with some extracts from the correspondence to which it gave rise, in the Notes at the end of this Dissertation. Every thing connected with the origin and composition of a work which has had so powerful an influence on the direction which metaphysical pursuits have since taken, both in Scotland and in Germany, will be allowed to form an important article of philosophical history; and this history I need not offer any apology for choosing to com

Sir Gilbert Elliot, Bart. grandfather of the present Earl of Minto. The originals of the letters to which I refer are in Lord Minto's possession.

A foreign writer of great name (M. Frederic Schlegel), seems to think that the influence of Mr. Huine's Treatise of Human Nature on the Philosophy of England has been still more extensive than I had conceived it to be. His opinion on this point I transcribe as a sort of literary curiosity.

"Since the time of Hume, nothing more has been attempted in England, than to erect all sorts of bulwarks against the practical influence of his destructive scepticism; and to maintain, by various substitutes and aids, the pile of moral principle uncorrupted and entire. Not only with Adam Smith, but with all their late philosophers, national welfare is the ruling and central principle of thought ;—a principle excellent and praiseworthy in its due situation, but quite unfitted for being the centre and oracle of all knowledge and science." From the connexion in which this last sentence stands with the context, would not one imagine that the writer conceived the Wealth of Nations to be a new moral or metaphysical system, devised by Mr. Smith, for the purpose of counteracting Mr. Hume's scepticism? I have read this translation of Mr. Schlegel's lectures with much curiosity and interest, and flatter myself that we shall soon have English versions of the works of Kant, and of other German authors, from the pens of their English disciples. Little

municate to the public rather in Mr. Hume's words than in my own.

*

From the reply to this letter by Mr. Hume's very ingenious and accomplished correspondent, we learn that he had drawn from Mr. Hume's metaphysical discussions the only sound and philosophical inference: that the lameness of the proofs offered by Descartes and his successors, of some fundamental truths universally acknowledged by mankind, proceeded, not from any defect in the evidence of these truths, but on the contrary, from their being self-evident, and consequently unsusceptible of demonstration. We learn, farther, that the same conclusion had been adopted, at this early period, by another of Mr. Hume's friends, Mr. Henry Home, who, under the name of Lord Kames, was afterwards so well known in the learned world. Those who are acquainted with the subsequent publications of this distinguished and most respectable author will immediately recognise, in the account here given of the impression left on his mind by Mr. Hume's scepticism, the rudiments of a peculiar logic, which runs more or less through all his later works; and which, it must be acknowledged, he has, in various instances, carried to an unphilosophical extreme.t

The light in which Mr. Hume's scepticism appears from these extracts to have struck his friends, Sir Gilbert Elliot and Lord Kames, was very nearly the same with

more, I am fully persuaded, is necessary in this country, to bring down the philosophy of Germany to its proper level.

In treating of literary and historical subjects, Mr. Schlegel seems to be more in his element, than when he ventures to pronounce on philosophical questions. But even in cases of the former description, some of his dashing judgments on English writers can be accounted for only by haste, caprice, or prejudice. "The English themselves," we are told, "are now pretty well convinced, that Robertson is a careless, superficial, and blundering historian; although they study his works, and are right in doing so, as models of pure composition, extremely deserving of attention during the present declining state of English style. With all the abun

dance of his Italian elegance, what is the overloaded and affected Roscoe when compared with Gibbon? Coxe, although master of a good and classical style, resembles Robertson in no respect so much as in the superficialness of his researches; and the statesman Fox has nothing in common with Hume but the bigotry of his party zeal." Such criticisms may perhaps be applauded by a German auditory, but in this country they can injure the reputation of none but their author.

See Note (Ww.)

I allude particularly to the unnecessary multiplication, in his philosophical arguments, of internal senses and of instinctive principles.

that in which it was afterwards viewed by Reid, Oswald, and Beattie, all of whom have manifestly aimed, with greater or less precision, at the same logical doctrine which I have just alluded to. This, too, was the very ground on which Father Buffier had (even before the publication of the Treatise of Human Nature) made his stand against similar theories, built by his predecessors on the Cartesian principles. The coincidence between his train of thinking, and that into which our Scottish metaphysicians soon after fell, is so very remarkable, that it has been considered by many as amounting to a proof that the plan of their works was, in some measure, suggested by his; but it is infinitely more probable, that the argument which runs, in common, through the speculations of all of them, was the natural result of the state of metaphysical science when they engaged in their philosophical inquiries.*

The answer which Mr. Hume made to this argument, when it was first proposed to him in the easy intercourse of private correspondence, seems to me an object of so much curiosity, as to justify me for bringing it under the eye of my readers in immediate connexion with the foregoing details. Opinions thus communicated in the confidence of friendly discussion, possess a value which seldom belongs to propositions hazarded in those public controversies where the love of victory is apt to mingle, more or less, in the most candid minds, with the love of truth.

"Your notion of correcting subtilty by sentiment is cer

Voltaire, in his catalogue of the illustrious writers who adorned the reign of Louis XIV., is one of the very few French authors who have spoken of Buffier with due respect: "Il y a dans ses traités de métaphysique des morceaux que Locke n'aurait pas désavoués, et c'est le seul Jésuite qui ait mis une philosophie raisonnable dans ses ouvrages." Another French philosopher, too, of a very different school, and certainly not disposed to overrate the talents of Buffier, has, in a work published as lately as 1805, candidly acknowledged the lights which he might have derived from the labors of his predecessor, if he had been acquainted with them at an earlier period of his studies. Condillac, he also observes, might have profited greatly by the same lights, if he had availed himself of their guidance, in his inquiries concerning the human understanding. "Du moins est il certain que pour ma part, je suis fort faché de ne connoître que depuis peu de temps ces opinions du Père Buffier; si je les avais vues plutôt énoncées quelque part, elles m'auraient épargné beaucoup de peines et d'hésitations."-"Je regrette beaucoup que Condillac, dans ses profondes et sagaces méditations sur l'intelligence humaine, n'ait pas fait plus d'attention aux idées du Père Buffier," &c. &c.-Elémens d'Idéologic, par M. DestuttTracy, Tom. III. pp. 136, 137. (See Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, Vol. II. pp. 88, 89, 2d edit.)