logists and grammarians, dazzled with the discoveries which they have made, have shewn a disposition to conclude, (as Diderot and Helvetius formerly did from other principles,) that the only real knowledge we possess relates to the objects of our external senses; and that we can annex no idea to the word mind itself, but that of matter in the most subtile and attenuated form which imagination can lend it.'-p. 169.

Nothing, we confess, ever appeared to us more weak or extravagant, than to attempt to deduce the philosophical theory of the mind, from its metaphorical and analogical phraseology. The transference of words originally applied to matter and its phenomena to the qualities of mind, was, as Mr. Stewart justly observes, the natural consequence of our perceptive powers having been long and incessantly exercised upon matter, before the phenomena of mind became objects of attention. It was natural, when terms came to be wanted for these after objects of knowledge, that they should be taken from things long and familiarly known. It may amuse and gratify the philologer to show that even the terms which denote our most abstracted thoughts were at first borrowed from material phenomena; but it is very necessary to remind him, says Mr. Stewart, that these etymological discoveries can never interfere with our actual conceptions of the objects of our conscious

ness.

After the philologer has told us (for example) that imagination is borrowed from an optical image, and acuteness from a Latin word, denoting the sharpness of a material instrument, we are no more advanced in studying the theory of the human intellect, than we should be in our speculations concerning the functions of money, or the political effects of the national debt, by learning, from Latin etymologists, that the word pecunia, and the phrase as alienum had both a reference, in their first origin, to certain circumstances in the early state of Roman manners.'It appears to me,' he adds, that to appeal to etymology in a philosophical argument (excepting, perhaps, in those cases where the word itself is of philosophical origin) is altogether nugatory; and can serve, at the best, to throw an amusing light on the laws which regulate the operations of human fancy.pp. 161-166.

Mr. Stewart shows very satisfactorily, that it was indispensably necessary, towards the communication of thought, to borrow from the familiar objects of sense such words as came to be wanted to express new ideas about things abstracted from matter; and therefore he adds, nature seems to have given the mind a tendency to express itself metaphorically or analogically upon such occasions. In this way, the same circumstances which open an easier vent to the utterance of the speaker, must necessarily contribute powerfully to assist and prompt the apprehension of the hearer.

The prevalence of this tendency has been often,' he says, 're

marked among rude nations; and has been commonly accounted for, partly from the warmth of imagination supposed to be peculiarly characteristical of savages, and partly from the imperfections of their scanty vocabularies. The truth, however, is, that the same disposition is exhibited by man in every stage of his progress; prompting him uniformly, whenever the enlargement of his knowledge requires the use of a new word for the communication of his meaning, instead of coining at once a sound altogether arbitrary, to assist, as far as possible, the apprehension of his hearers, either by the happy employment of some old word in a metaphorical sense, or by grafting etymologically on some well known stock, a new derivative, significant, to his own fancy, of the thought he wishes to impart.'-p. 150.

In farther illustration of this tendency of the mind to enrich language, rather by a modification of the old than by a creation of new materials, he remarks, that it is owing to this cause

'that the number of primitive or radical words, in a cultivated tongue, bears so small a proportion to the whole amount of its vocabulary. In an original language, such as the Greek, the truth of this remark may be easily verified; and, accordingly, it is asserted by Mr. Smith, that the number of its primitives does not exceed three hundred. In the compounded languages now spoken in Europe, it is a much more difficult task to establish the fact; but an irresistible presumption in its favour arises from this circumstance, that all who have turned their attention of late, in this island, to the study of etymology, are impressed with a deep and increasing conviction, founded on the discoveries which have been already made, that this branch of learning is still in its infancy; and that the roots of an immense variety of words, commonly supposed to be genuine radicals, may be traced, in a satisfactory manner, to the Saxon or to the Icelandic. The delight which all men, however unlettered, take in indulging their crude conjectures on the etymological questions which are occasionally started in conversation, is founded on the same circumstance; their experimental knowledge of the difficulty of introducing into popular speech a new sound, entirely arbitrary in its selection, and coined out of materials unemployed before.'-p. 151.

From these considerations Mr. Stewart draws the conclusion, that the application to the mind of words borrowed from the properties of matter, is only the natural and necessary consequence of that progressive order in which the mind becomes acquainted with the different objects of its knowledge, and of those general laws which govern human thought in the employment of arbitrary signs.

In order the more strongly to show that the metaphors we employ in speaking of the mental phenomena, have no connexion with our actual notions of them, or with their philosophical theory, Mr. Stewart aptly appeals to the fact that a variety of metaphors may be applied with equal propriety and significancy to the

same phenomena. What numerous and incongruous images do we not apply to memory for example! We liken it indiscriminately to a tablet, to a canvas, and to a receptacle; and to the sound philosopher, no inconvenience can arise from these incongruous and hypothetical expressions; because he rests his reasonings upon the thing signified, and not upon the sign. But to him who attempts to philosophize about our faculties upon Mr. Tooke's plan, this variety must be extremely embarrassing. To an inquirer of this description it may not,' says Mr. Stewart,' be improper to hint, that the several hypotheses involved in the various metaphors alluded to are completely exclusive of each other; and to submit to his consideration, whether the indiscriminate use, among all our most precise writers, of these obviously inconsistent images, does not justify us in concluding, that none of them has any connexion with the true theory of the phenomena which he conceives them to explain; and that they deserve the attention of the metaphysician, merely as familiar illustrations of the mighty influence exerted over our most abstracted thoughts, by language and by early associations.'

The total proscription of figurative terms from all abstract discussions, has been recommended by some philosophical grammarians, as the only means of avoiding errors similar to those which have misled Mr. Tooke. Mr. Stewart shows in a very few words that the execution of such a scheme would be found wholly impracticable: acutely observing, that the only effectual remedy against the inconvenience to which these writers allude is, to vary, from time to time, the metaphors we employ, so as to prevent any one of them from acquiring an undue ascendent over the others, either in our own minds or in those of our readers.'-' It is by the exclusive use of some favourite figure,' he adds, that careless thinkers are gradually led to mistake a simile or distant analogy for a legitimate theory.'

Some late metaphysicians, too easily misled by etymological fancies, have stated with confidence that the figurative language applied to the mind, affords a proof that the doctrine of its materiality is agreeable even to general belief; and that the opposite hypothesis has originated in the blunder of confounding what is very minute, with what is immaterial. These writers, says Mr. Stewart, would do well to examine the circumstances which have led men, in all ages, to apply to the thinking principle some appellation synonymous with spiritus or veμa; and in other cases to liken it to a spark of fire, or some other of the most impalpable and mysterious modifications of matter. The sequel of his argument upon this point is animated and beautiful.

• Whence this disposition to attenuate and subtilize, to the very verge

of existence, the atoms or elements supposed to produce the phenomena of thought and volition, but from the repugnance of the scheme of materialism to our natural apprehensions: and from a secret anxiety to guard against a literal interpretation of our metaphorical phraseology? nor has this disposition been confined to the vulgar. Philosophical materialists themselves have only refined farther on the popular conceptions, by entrenching themselves against the objections of their adversaries, in the modern discoveries concerning light and electricity, and other inscrutable causes, manifested by their effects alone. In some instances, they have had recourse to the supposition of the possible existence of matter, under forms incomparably more subtile than what it probably assumes in these or in any other class of physical phenomena; a hypothesis which it is impossible to describe better than in the words of La Fontaine : "Quintessence d'atôme, extrait de la lumière!"

It is evident that, in using this language, they have only attempted to elude the objections of their adversaries, by keeping the obscurity of their theory a little more out of the view of superficial inquirers; divesting matter completely of all those properties by which it is known to our senses; and substituting, instead of what is commonly meant by that word, infinitesimal or evanescent entities, in the pursuit of which, imagination herself is quickly lost.'-pp. 171-2.

Mr. Stewart admits that the philological speculations upon which he animadverts, have been prosecuted by many writers, who have not ventured, and who have not perhaps meant to draw from them any inferences in favour of materialism. Such writers will here learn that they have been pursuing very fallacious lights, if their object was to make discoveries in philosophy. In their proper province the researches of the philologer may be highly useful; but the philosophy of the human mind does not fall within that province, and must be built upon other and better data than can be derived from grammars and lexicons. Mr. Stewart frequently bestows merited and liberal praises upon the learning and genius of Mr. Tooke, and observes that,

as long as the philologer confines himself to the discussion of Grammar and of Etymology, his labours, while they are peculiarly calculated to gratify the natural and liberal curiosity of men of erudition, may often furnish important data for illustrating the progress of laws, of arts, and of manners; for clearing up obscure passages in ancient writers; or for tracing the migrations of mankind, in ages of which we have no historical records.' But, he indignantly adds, 'when the speculations of the mere scholar or glossarist presume to usurp, as they have too often done of late, the honours of philosophy, and that for the express purpose of lowering its lofty pursuits to a level with their own, their partisans stand in need of the admonition which Seneca addressed to his friend Lucilius, when he cautioned him against those grammatical sophists, who, by the frivolous details of their verbal controversies, had brought discredit upon the splendid disputations of the stoical school: Relinque istum

ludum literarium philosophorum, qui rem magnificentissimam ad syllabas vocant, qui animum minuta docendo dimittunt et conterunt, et id agunt ut philosophia potius difficilis quam magna videatur.'—p. 188.

The following passage is so characteristic of Mr. Stewart's truly philosophic mind, and of that animated and impressive eloquence which never forsakes him when dangerous scepticism is to be rebuked, or the dignity of human nature vindicated, that we cannot refuse our readers the gratification of perusing it.

When I study the intellectual powers of man, in the writings of Hartley, of Priestley, of Darwin, or of Tooke, I feel as if I were examining the sorry mechanism that gives motion to a puppet. If, for a moment, I am carried along by their theories, of human knowledge, and of human life, I seem to myself to be admitted behind the curtain of what I had once conceived to be a magnificent theatre; and while I survey the tinsel fripery of the ward-robe, and the paltry decorations of the scenery, am mortified to discover the trick which had cheated my eye at a distance. This surely is not the characteristic of truth or of nature; the beauties of which invite our closest inspection; deriving new lustre from those microscopical researches which deform the most finished productions of art. If, in our physical inquiries concerning the material world, every step that has been hitherto gained, has at once exalted our conceptions of its immensity, and of its order, can we reasonably suppose, that the genuine philosophy of the mind is to disclose to us a spectacle less pleasing, or less elevating, than fancy or vanity had disposed us to anticipate ?'-p. 187.

Mr. Stewart has, greatly to the advantage of his reader, taken a wider range than the immediate subject of his essay required, and shows with equal elegance and acuteness, that Mr. Tooke's inculcation of the necessity of etymological research, in order to discover the import of words in common use, is as productive of errors in criticism as in philosophy.

It is implied as an axiom,' he observes, 'in almost every page of Mr. Tooke's work, that in order to understand with precision, the import of any English word, it is necessary to trace its progress historically through all the successive meanings which it has been employed to convey, from the moment it was introduced into our language; or if the word be of foreign growth, and transmitted to us from some dialect of our continental ancestors; that we should prosecute the etymological research, till we ascertain the literal and primitive sense of the root from whence it sprung.'-p. 191.

The necessary consequence of this preposterous doctrine is, that usage has nothing to do in adjusting the meaning of words, and that in matters of style, we must appeal from the authority of our standard writers, to the woods of Germany. We must take counsel as to our forms of speech, not from those who are universally allowed to have purified and adorned our language by their classical com positions, but from the dubious researches of glossarists and antiqua