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important class of our ideas. There is a scientific method. of stating this subject adopted by Cousin, which is clear and precise. The origin of any idea he calls the LOGICAL condition of its existence; its occasion the CHRONOLOGICAL (Hist. de la Phil. Leçon 17). Of any two ideas, that is the logical condition of the other, which virtually includes or involves the other. The chronological is that we first become conscious of. Logically, e. g. the idea of space is the condition of that of body, since we cannot conceive of body but as in space; chronologically it may be otherwise, the idea of body may be even the first to occur to the mind, on occasion of sensible experience. Logically, all our abstract ideas are primary ones and involve those of sensation and experience; chronologically the ideas of sensation and experience are contemporary with the former, if not in order of time prior to them. It would be, then, scientifically more correct to say that the idea of space is the origin of that of body, than the reverse, since the former logically includes the latter.

It has been very generally supposed that Locke's system of philosophy was subversive of all moral distinctions. If the mind of man is a mere tabula rasa at birth, has no innate ideas, no innate laws of thought, then virtue and vice, good and evil, are mere arbitrary distinctions, it is said, creations of human law. Shaftesbury accuses him of throwing all law and virtue out of the world and making the very ideas of these unnatural and without foundation in our minds. Dr. Beattie urges a similar complaint. Both, however, acquit him from any such intention. Fortunately there are passages in which Locke unequivocally avows his firm belief in the natural and immutable foundation of moral distinctions, of virtue and vice, of the idea of a God. "I would not be mistaken," he says, “as if because I deny an innate law I thought there were none but positive laws. There is a great deal of difference between an innate law and a law of nature; between

something imprinted on our minds in their original, and something that we, being ignorant of, may attain to the knowledge of by the use and due application of our natural faculties, (Book i. ch. 3. § 13). In another place, he speaks of the extreme danger of principles "taken up without due question or examination; especially if they be such as influence men's lives and give a basis to all their actions. He that, with Archelaus, shall lay it down as a principle that right and wrong, honest and dishonest, are defined only by laws and not by nature, will have other measures of moral rectitude and pravity, than those who take it for granted that we are under obligations antecedent to all human constitutions." We cannot, then, admit the justice of the charge so frequently brought against Locke, at least as regards his real opinions and his sincere intentions. Whether the tendency, however, of his philosophical system on the whole is favorable or not to sound views of truth may admit of question. It is a significant fact that the great majority of Locke's avowed disciples and followers have advocated essentially the views of Hobbes and Gassendi, as Stewart himself reluctantly admits, and that from the principles of his philosophy subsequently Hume and Berkeley derived the materials for the strongest and most impregnable system of scepticism ever constructed by man. "It must be confessed," says Morell, "that notwithstanding all the admirable lessons which his writings contain, they manifested a decided leaning towards sensationalism, and included, although unknown to himself, germs which after a time bore the fruits of utilitarianism in morals, of materialism in metaphysics, and of scepticism in religion (Hist. Phil. p. 95). We are not surprised, on the whole, at the popularity of his writings in France-at their enthusiastic reception by Voltaire and the Encyclopedists. Yet from all this Locke would have shrunk with horror. He was a genuine lover of virtue, truth and morality.

His

character is of the noble, lofty sort. He was born a sage. His disinterested patriotism, his love of liberty, his personal integrity and unbending rectitude, his zeal for the advancement of true religion and manly piety, his liberality and tolerance, his ready forgiveness of injuries, his moderation and calmness of temper, are equalled only by the strength and acuteness of his intellect. No name is more worthy of honor, no tomb in Westminster Abbey will inspire in your bosom profounder emotion than the simple monument of John Locke in the plain country church which shelters his honored dust.

CHAPTER IX.

SUCCESSORS OF LOCKE IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

IT has been already remarked that very many of the professed disciples of Locke were decided materialists, and while calling themselves by his name were really indebted not to him but to Hobbes and Gassendi for their principles. In order to trace the progress of philosophy from this period onward in Europe, it becomes necessary to dwell a little upon this point, and mark out more definitely the positions and doctrines of some of the more celebrated successors of Locke. Of the Deistical school of English writers which flourished at this period the main and avowed philosophy was in its essential principles a system of materialism, based upon the conclusions of Locke. Collins built on this foundation a stern and gloomy doctrine of necessity. Mandeville struck boldly at the root of all morality and virtue with the doctrine borrowed from Locke, that there are no innate principles of human action. These dangerous. publications called out the strength of such controversialists as Stillingfleet, Shaftesbury, Norris and, par eminence, Clark. Into the merits of this grand controversy, wherein

not so much philosophy as theology was the goddess of the strife, we cannot enter.

In the domain of speculative philosophy, Hartley stands prominent as a sensationalist, deriving his principles from the system of Locke. He was, like Locke, a physician, educated at Cambridge, and was led by the nature of his profession to give a decidedly physiological cast to his psychological investigations. He undertook to account for the phenomena of sensation, which Locke had wisely left unattempted, by the theory of vibrations. His fame rests however chiefly on his doctrine of association, a term first used by Locke, but employed in a new and much wider sense by Hartley to denote, as stated by Morell, "any combination of thought and feeling which is capable of becoming habitual by means of repetition." The theory is that the vibrations produced along the nerves by the action of external objects, when oft repeated, have a tendency to reproduce or repeat themselves spontaneously, even in the absence of the external object. These repetitions are ideas, relics of former sensations, and by mutual association they recall each other. Sensations, ideas, and muscular movements are all thus affected by the law of association. Our emotions, passions, natural and religious affections, are all traced to and included under sensation. As all our ideas and emotions are controlled according to the laws of association, man is a passive being, will is a nonentity, necessity rules all things. Though not himself a materialist, the system of course was decidedly of that tendency. Priestly carried out the principles of Hartley, which he adopted and maintained with enthusiasm, to their natural result-bold materialism. Thought and sensation are with him, essentially the same thing. Darwin carries out the scheme still further and banishes the idea of spirit from the universe, leaving only the powers. of nature in place of God. This is the goal of sensationalism in this direction-bold atheism. In the sensational

school of England there are other names of celebrity. Tooke the grammarian, Bentham the moralist and politician, Paley, the pleasing, accomplished, superficial moralist and theologian, are all of this school, building, each in his way and his department, with the essential principles of the great master of English philosophy.

More noted as metaphysicians were the French disciples of the school of Locke. Chief of these Condillac, next Condorcet. These writers were thorough and decided sensationalists; philosophers both of no mean reputation or merit. Losing sight of the second source of knowledge as laid down by Locke, they make all our ideas transformed sensations, and profess to follow Locke in so doing. The source of most of our mental faculties is found in language, the parent and origin of our distinctive intellectual powers. A statue is represented, or a perfectly organized human being enclosed in marble, which little by little comes to consciousness and sensation; first an idea is perceived, then sensation and attention are developed, next other sensations; these are remembered, compared, etc., thus step by step the whole machinery of mind comes into play, and all as the result of sensation and experience alone. Condillac is one of the chief philosophers of France of that century. Condorcet, epicurean in his philosophy, advocates strongly the perfectibility of the race by means of educational development. Diderot, D'Alembert, Voltaire, the whole school of Encyclopedists, following in the track of this system, carrying out with more or less consistency its principles, close this period of philosophy.

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