MISTAKES AS TO THEORY OF IDEAS.

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he conceives there can be no considerable obstacle. Now, it is needless, we think, to investigate the legiti macy of this reasoning very narrowly, because the foundation, we are persuaded, is unsound. The axiom, we believe, is now admitted to be fallacious (in the sense at least here assigned to it) by all who have recently paid any attention to the subject. But what does Mr. Drummond understand exactly by ideas! Does he mean certain films, shadows, or simulacra, proceeding from real external existences, and passing through real external organs to the local habitation of the soul? If he means this, then he admits the existence of a material world as clearly as Dr. Reid does; and subjects himself to all the ridicule which he has himself so justly bestowed upon the hypothesis of animal spirits, or any other supposition, which explains the intercourse between mind and matter, by imagining some matter, of so fine a nature as almost to graduate into mind! If, on the other hand, by ideas, Mr. Drummond really means nothing but sensations and perceptions (as we have already explained that word), it is quite obvious that Dr. Reid has never called their existence in question; and the whole debate comes back to the presumptions for the existence of an external world; or the reasonableness of trusting to that indestructible belief which certainly accompanies those sensations, as evidence of their having certain external causes. cannot help doubting, whether Mr. Drummond has clearly stated to himself, in which of these two senses he proposes to defend the doctrine of ideas. The doctrine of IMAGES proceeding from actual external existences, is the only one in behalf of which he can claim the support of the ancient philosophers; and it is to it he seems to allude, in several of the remarks which he makes on the illusions of sight. On the other supposition, however, he has no occasion to dispute with Dr. Reid about the existence of ideas; for the Doctor assuredly did not deny that we had sensations and perceptions, notions, recollections, and all the other affections of mind to which the word idea may be applied, in that

We

634 PLAIN FALLACY OF HUME'S ILLUSTRATION.

other sense of it. There can be no question upon that supposition, but about the origin of these ideas which belongs to another chapter.

Mr. Drummond seems to lay the whole stress of his argument upon a position of Hume's, which he applies himself to vindicate from the objections which Dr. Reid has urged against it. "The table which I see," says Mr. Hume, "diminishes as I remove from it; but the real table suffers no alteration:-it could be nothing but its image, therefore, which was present to my mind. Now this statement, we think, admits pretty explicitly, that there is a real table, the image of which is presented to the mind: but, at all events, we conceive that the phenomenon may be easily reconciled with the supposition of its real existence. Dr. Reid's error, if there be one, seems to consist in his having asserted positively, and without any qualification, that it is the real table which we perceive, when our eyes are turned towards it. When the matter however is considered very strictly, it will be found that by the sense of seeing we can perceive nothing but light, variously arranged and diversified; and that, when we look towards a table, we do not actually see the table itself, but only the rays of light which are reflected from it to the eye. Independently of the cooperation of our other senses, it seems generally to be admitted, that we should perceive nothing by seeing but an assemblage of colours, divided by different lines; and our only visual notion of the table (however real it might be) would, therefore, be that of a definite portion of light, distinguished by its colour from the other portions that were perceived at the same time. It seems equally impossible to dispute, however, that we should receive from this impression the belief and conception of an external existence, and that we should have the very same evidence for its reality, as for that of the objects of our other senses. But if the external existence of light be admitted, a very slight attention to its laws and properties, will show how its appearances must vary, according to our distance from the solid objects which emit it. We perceive the form of bodies by sight, in short, very

WHAT WE TRULY KNOW BY SIGHT.

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nearly as a blind man perceives them, by tracing their extremities with his stick: It is only the light in one case, and the stick in the other, that is properly felt or perceived; but the real form of the object is indicated, in both cases, by the state and disposition of the medium which connects it with our sensations. It is by intimations formerly received from the sense of Touch, no doubt, that we ultimately discover that the rays of light which strike our eyes with the impressions of form and colour, proceed from distant objects, which are solid and extended in three dimensions; and it is only by recollecting what we have learned from this sense, that we are enabled to conceive them as endued with these qualities. By the eye itself we do not perceive these qualities: nor, in strictness of speech, do we perceive, by this sense, any qualities whatever of the reflecting object; we perceive merely the light which it reflects; distinguished by its colour from the other light that falls on the eye along with it, and assuming a new form and extension, according as the distance or position of the body is varied in regard to us. These variations are clearly explained by the known properties of light, as ascertained by experiment; and evidently afford no ground for supposing any alteration in the object which emits it, or for throwing any doubts upon the real existence of such an object. Because the divergence of the rays of light varies with the distance between their origin and the eye, is there the slightest reason for pretending, that the magnitude of the object from which they proceed must be held to have varied also?

636

LIFE OF DR. BEATTIE.

(APRIL, 1807.)

An Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie, LL. D. late Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic in the Marischal College and University of Aberdeen: including many of his original Letters. By Sir W. FORBES, of Pitsligo, Baronet, one of the Executors of Dr. Beattie. 2 vols. 4to. pp. 840. Edinburgh and London: 1806.*

DR. BEATTIE'S great work, and that which was undoubtedly the first foundation of his celebrity, is the " Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth;" on which such unmeasured praises are bestowed, both by his present biographer, and by all the author's male and female correspondents, that it is with difficulty we can believe that they are speaking of the performance which we have just been wearying ourselves with looking over. That the author's intentions were good, and his convictions sincere, we entertain not the least doubt; but that the merits of his book have been prodigiously overrated, we think, is equally undeniable. It contains absolutely nothing, in the nature of argument, that had not been previously stated by Dr. Reid in his "Inquiry into the Human Mind;" and, in our opinion, in a much clearer and more unexceptionable form. As to the merits of that philosophy, we have already taken occasion, in more places than one, to submit our opinion to the judgment of our readers; and, after having settled our accounts with Mr. Stewart and Dr. Reid, we really do not think it worth while to enter the lists again with Dr. Beattie. Whatever may be the excellence of the common-sense school of philosophy, he certainly has no claim to the honours of a founder. He invented none of it; and it

The greater part of this article also is withheld from the present reprint, for the reasons formerly stated; and only those parts given which bear upon points of metaphysics.

BEATTIE NO GREAT PHILOSOPHER.

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is very doubtful with us, whether he ever rightly understood the principles upon which it depends. It is unquestionable, at least, that he has exposed it to considerable disadvantage, and embarrassed its more enlightened supporters, by the misplaced confidence with which he has urged some propositions, and the fallacious and fantastic illustrations by which he has aimed at recommending many others.

His confidence and his inaccuracy, however, might have been easily forgiven. Every one has not the capacity of writing philosophically: But every one may at least be temperate and candid; and Dr. Beattie's book is still more remarkable for being abusive and acrimonious, than for its defects in argument or originality. There are no subjects, however, in the wide field of human speculation, upon which such vehemence appears more groundless and unaccountable, than the greater part of those which have served Dr. Beattie for topics of declamation or invective.

His first great battle is about the real existence of external objects. The sceptics say, that perception is merely an act or affection of the mind, and consequently might exist without any external cause. It is a sensation or affection of the mind, to be sure, which consists in the apprehension and belief of such external existences: But being in itself a phenomenon purely mental, it is a mere supposition or conjecture to hold that there are any such existences, by whose operation it is produced. It is impossible, therefore, to bring any evidence for the existence of material objects; and the belief which is admitted to be inseparable from the act of perception, can never be received as such evidence. The whole question, is about the grounds of this belief, and not about its existence; and the phenomena of dreaming and madness prove experimentally, that perception, as characterised by belief, may exist where there is no external object. Dr. Beattie answers, after Dr. Reid, that the mere existence of this instinctive and indestructible belief in the reality of external objects, is a complete and sufficient proof of their reality; that nature meant