' on the succession and number of his own thoughts got the notion or idea of duration, he can apply that notion to things 'which exist while he does not think, as he that has got the idea of extension from bodies by his sight or touch can apply it to distances where no body is seen or felt.' (Book II. ch. xiv. § 5.) He elsewhere expresses it, The mind, having got the idea of any portion of time, as a day or a year, it can repeat it as often as it will, and so enlarge its ideas of duration beyond the being or motion of the sun, and have as clear an idea of the 763 years of the Julian period before the beginning of the world as of any 763 years since.' Yet according to M. Cousin, Locke's theory conducts to the result that time is nothing else than what the succession of our ideas makes it;' that if a man sleep, or be seized with lethargy, or the clock stop,' time vanishes to him. There is not the shadow of a reason for misrepresenting Locke on this point.

We must also be permitted to say, that in arguing to Locke's imputed 'sensational' tendencies from the supposed deficiencies of his representation of our notions of the infinite, or of its two forms-immensity and eternity M. Cousin has viewed the matter far too much from a transcendental' position. Locke affirms, that we get our idea of infinity, and its forms—at best an inadequate one-from the power of the mind to augment and multiply indefinitely and ad libitum the notion of finite magnitudes or duration. This may or may not be metaphysically correct, and therefore the subject of discussion. But whether he be right or M. Cousin, who supposes that we have a positive idea of infinity, it is plain that an idealist may consistently maintain Locke's view. It is evident that, though Locke thought that the mind in the course of its development would necessarily come to a dim apprehension of the infinite, yet that a positive idea of it we have not. The whole chapter on Infinity,' but especially the two last sections, as well as many other portions of his Essay, show that he deemed a philosophy of the un'conditioned' impossible to man.* But if all are to be denominated 'sensationalists,' or suspected of a tendency thereto, who

*But yet after all this, there being men who persuade themselves that they have clear positive comprehensive ideas of infinity, it is fit they enjoy their privilege; and I should be very glad to be better informed by their communication. For I have been hitherto apt to think that the great and inextricable difficulties which perpetually involve all discourses concerning infinity, whether of space, duration, or divisibility, have been the certain marks of a defect in our ideas of infinity, and the disproportion the nature thereof has to the comprehension of our narrow capacities.' (Book ii. ch. 17. § 21.)

VOL. XCIX. NO. CCII.

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deny that the idea of the infinite is any thing more than negative, who deny the capacity of man for a philosophy of the "unconditioned,' some of the most strenuous opponents of the sensationalists must be henceforth reckoned in their ranks - Sir W. Hamilton among the number. M. Cousin says, Empiricism, which is exclusively grounded on internal or external ' experience, is quite naturally led to the denial of the infinite; 'whilst idealism, which is exclusively grounded on the reason, very easily forms a conception of the infinite, but finds great difficulty in admitting the finite, which is not its proper object.'

Pleasant dilemmas of philosophy!' the world may well say. One man tells us that he has great difficulty in forming a notion of the finite; another, that he can properly form no notion of the infinite! Such diversities might almost tempt one to adopt Pascal's sarcastic view of the true province of philosophy, Se 'moquer de la philosophie, c'est vraiment philosopher.'

Similar observations apply to M. Cousin's strictures on Locke's notion of substance, which was so much canvassed, even in Locke's time. We have seen him, in his reply to Stillingfleet, conceding that, from the very constitution of the mind, we cannot but suppose that there is some unknown 'somewhat,' in which the qualities of objects and properties of thought, which we perceive or of which we are conscious, inhere; his admission of this is as distinct as M. Cousin's or the Bishop of Worcester's can be; and he as distinctly attributes it to an inability of our minds to think otherwise; to a necessary condition—a fundamental law of thought. Yet M. Cousin says that Locke systematically denies the idea of substance,' though, he adds, doubtless, many passages might be cited in which he implicitly admits it. Locke every where repels the idea of substance; and, when he professedly explains himself in regard to it, he resolves it into a collection of simple ideas of sensation and reflection. Admitting only

ideas explicable by sensation or reflection, and being able to explain the idea of substance by neither, it was necessary for him to deny it, to reduce it to qualities which are easily attained by sensation or reflection. Hence the systematic • confusion of qualities and substances, of phenomena and being; that is, the destruction of being, and consequently of beings.' We must be permitted to say that Locke says nothing to justify any such representations; and his answers to the charges of Stillingfleet fully show it. He admits that we have and cannot but have an idea of substance, of some entity which underlies and supports-(it is impossible to avoid using figurative lan

guage)—the qualities which we cannot conceive to exist separately; he admits that the idea of a somewhat is clear and definite, though it is not the idea of a clear or definite somewhat;' just as, if we saw something moving in a sack, we might be sure that there was a living and moving 'somewhat' there, though we could not tell what; or, to use his own illustration, we might be sure that a house rested on a foundation, though whether it were rock, brick, or piles, we might be ignorant.

It has often been asked, and was in Locke's time, what precise sense he attached to the word 'Ideas,' which so perpetually occurs throughout his Essay. He says, 'It being that term " which I think best serves to stand for whatsoever is the object ' of the understanding when a man thinks, I have used it to express whatsoever is meant by phantasm, notion, species, or whatever it is which the mind can be employed about in 'thinking.'

And is not this enough? it may be said. may be said. Why, yes; rather too much. It is one of the cases in which, perhaps, the half would have been more than the whole. It simply says, that whatsoever ideas' are, Locke means to treat of them as things which men are conscious they have, and variously denominate. But this gives no answer to the above question. It having been a very widely prevalent-at one time, almost universal-notion that ideas were something distinct both from external objects and the percipient mind (philosophers could not agree what), did Locke, or did he not, concur in this opinion? The answer is, that very many of his expressions would favour the former notion; many, on the other hand, would imply the contrary; as would also his enumeration of the popular terms which, he says, he regards as synonymous with Ideas.' Our own view is, that Locke, if pressed to give a precise answer, would have said that he did not know what answer to give. It is a question, apparently, which (however erroneously) he deemed us incapable of deciding; and therefore, in conformity with the general practical spirit of his philosophy already adverted to, evades it as a question which he felt little inclination to discuss. The subject has assumed interest, as is well known, from the controversy respecting Reid's claims to having confuted the ancient ideal theory of perception. He classes Locke, as well as the generality of philosophers of his time, as among those who used the word idea' in the sense of a tertium quid between the percipient mind and the external object. Brown ridiculed this notion, alleged that in Locke's time the word had generally been used metaphorically, and affirmed that Reid's achievement was much like that of seriously refuting the Grecian mythology in

hope of converting some unfortunate poetaster who still talks in his rhymings to his mistress, of Cupid and the Graces.'

We suppose that all who have read Sir W. Hamilton's profound researches on the history of the theories of perception will admit that Reid had much more ground for his assertions as to the meaning generally attached to the term since Descartes' time, than Brown imagined. Whether Reid rightly represents Locke's use of the term, however, we have always had, and still have, our doubts. There is one passage in Locke's notice of Malebranche's theory which, in Sir W. Hamilton's judgment, favours the notion that Locke shared in the current notions; were it not for this, the accomplished critic, it appears, would share in our doubts.* He says, 'In employing thus indifferently the language of every hypothesis, may we not suspect he was 'anxious to be made responsible for none?'

This, in our judgment, truly represents the case. hard to reconcile such expressions as the following:

But it is

He says, in the chapter on Retention':-But our ideas 'being nothing but actual perceptions in the mind, which cease to be any thing, when there is no perception of them, this laying up of our ideas in the repository of the memory, signifies 6 no more but this, that the mind has a power in many cases 'to revive perceptions which it has once had.

And in

this sense it is that our ideas are said to be in our memories, "when, indeed, they are actually nowhere, but only there is an ' ability in the mind, when it will, to revive them again.' In the chapter on 'Duration' he speaks thus: That a man may have one selfsame single idea a long time alone in his · mind, without any variation at all, I think, in matter of fact, is not possible; for which (not knowing how the ideas of our ' minds are framed, of what materials they are made, whence they have their light, and how they come to make their appearances) I can give no other reason but experience.' These passages no doubt may be made to harmonise with either hypothesis in question; but the former would more naturally suggest the one, and the latter the other.

But whatever doubts may attach to Locke's use of the word idea,' there can be none that M. Cousin, in his 21st and 22nd lectures (Theory of Representative Ideas') has done him

*We have read, and re-read the passage in question, and cannot make up our minds that it implies anything more than Locke's dissatisfaction with the theory proposed as well as of every other. The reader may consult the passage in Sir W. Hamilton's Essays,' p. 77., or Locke's works, 'Examination,' &c. § 39., vol. viii. p. 234. London.

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grievous injustice. M. Cousin assumes that what Locke says of the necessity, in order to constitute knowledge,' that ideas be 'conformed' to their objects, is to be taken in strict literality, and not at all metaphorically. He argues at great length on this hypothesis, and then assumes that Locke must mean that, in every case, this conformity' of ideas to their objects must imply resemblance; resemblance, an image; an image, a material image, since there can be no immaterial image. Yet he himself proceeds to show at length that Locke distinctly declares that the ideas of what he calls the secondary qualities of matter, are not conformed to any objects in this literal sense- a point on which he also dwells in his controversy with Stillingfleet. M. Cousin fully admits all this; but then sets it down as usual to Locke's gross inconsistencies and contradictions; that is, having resolved that Locke shall be interpreted literally when his express declarations show that he intended to be understood metaphorically, the critic easily proves that Locke is full of paralogisms! Surely the supposition of metaphor, since there are cases in which the literal is avowedly abandoned, would have been the more charitable, or, rather, the more just interpretation, except where Locke expressly affirms the contrary.

The misconception of Locke in these two lectures is carried to the extent of inferring that, in consistency with principles here arbitrarily imputed to him, Locke's philosophy left him in scepticism as to the existence of any finite spiritual existences, even including human spirits! Only revelation, it seems, rescues him from the dilemma. The passage is so remarkable, that it is worth inserting:

'But when Locke comes to the spiritual world, to which the sensualistic school adhere less closely, the arguments which naturally arise from his own theory, strike him more forcibly, and see what he declares (book i. ch. xi. § 12.): "We can no more know that there are "finite spirits really existing by the idea we have of such beings in our "minds, than by the ideas any one has of fairies, or centaurs, he can come to know that things answering those ideas do really exist." This seems to me to be absolute scepticism; and you, perhaps, think that the last conclusion of Locke will be that there is no knowledge of finite spirits, consequently none of our soul, consequently again, none of any of the faculties of our soul; for the objection is as valid against the phenomena of the soul as against its substance. In this he should have terminated; but he did not venture to do it, because there is no philosopher at the same time more wise and more inconsistent than Locke. What does he then do?

In the danger in which his philosophy involves him, he abandons his philosophy, and all philosophy, and he appeals to Christianity, to revelation, to faith.'*

Lecture xxi.