discussion, to contract, in various instances, those designs in which I was accustomed to indulge myself, when I looked forward to it from a distance. The execution of them at present, even if I were more competent to the task, appears to me, on a closer examination, to be altogether incompatible with the comprehensiveness of the general plan which was sketched out in the advertisement prefixed to the former volume; and to the accomplishment of which I am anxious, in the first instance, to direct my efforts. If that undertaking should ever be completed, I may perhaps be able afterwards to offer additional illustrations of certain articles, which the limits of this part of my work prevent me from considering with the attention which they deserve. I should wish, in particular, to contribute something more than I can here introduce, towards a rational and practical system of Logic, adapted to the present state of human knowledge, and to the real business of human life.

"What subject (says Burke) does not branch out to in"finity! It is the nature of our particular scheme, and the "single point of view in which we consider it, which ought "to put a stop to our researches."* How forcibly does the remark apply to all those speculations which relate to the principles of the Human Mind!

I have frequently had occasion, in the course of the foregoing disquisitions, to regret the obscurity in which this department of philosophy is involved, by the vagueness and ambiguity of words; and I have mentioned, at the same time, my unwillingness to attempt verbal innovations, wherever I could possibly avoid them, without essential injury to my argument. The rule which I have adopted in my own practice is, to give to every faculty and operation of the mind its own appropriate name; following, in the selection of this name, the prevalent use of our best

*Conclusion of the Inquiry into the Sublime and the Beautiful."

writers; and endeavouring afterwards, as far as I have been able, to employ each word exclusively, in that acceptation in which it has hitherto been used most generally. In the judgments which I have formed on points of this sort, it is more than probable that I may sometimes have been mistaken; but the mistake is of little consequence, if I myself have invariably annexed the same meaning to the same phrase ;-an accuracy which I am not so presumptuous as to imagine that I have uniformly attained, but which I am conscious of having, at least, uniformly attempted. How far I have succeeded, they alone who have followed my reasonings with a very critical attention are qualified to determine; for it is not by the statement of formal definitions, but by the habitual use of precise and appropriate language, that I have endeavoured to fix in my reader's mind the exact import of my ex, pressions.

In appropriating, however, particular words to particular ideas, I do not mean to censure the practice of those who may have understood them in a sense different from that which I annex to them; but I found that, without such an appropriation, I could not explain my notions respecting the human mind, with any tolerable degree of distinctness. This scrupulous appropriation of terms, if it can be called an innovation, is the only one which I have. attempted to introduce; for in no instance have I presumed to annex a philosophical meaning to a technical word belonging to this branch of science, without having previously shewn, that it has been used in the same sense by good writers, in some passages of their works. After doing this, I hope I shall not be accused of affectation, when I decline to use it in any of the other acceptations in which, from carelessness or from want of precision, they may have been led occasionally to employ it.

1

Some remarkable instances of vagueness and ambiguity in the employment of words, occur in that branch of my subject of which I am now to treat. The word reason itself is far from being precise in its meaning. In common and popular discourse, it denotes that power by which we distinguish truth from falsehood, and right from wrong; and by which we are enabled to combine means for the attainment of particular ends. Whether these different capacities are, with strict logical propriety, referred to the same power, is a question which I shall examine in another part of my work; but that they are all included in the idea which is generally annexed to the word reason, there can be no doubt; and the case, so far as I know, is the same with the corresponding term in all languages whatever. The fact probably is, that this word was first employed to comprehend the principles, whatever they are, by which man is distinguished from the brutes; and afterwards came to be somewhat limited in its meaning, by the more obvious conclusions concerning the nature of that distinction, which present themselves to the common sense of mankind. It is in this enlarged meaning that it is opposed to instinct by Pope:

"And Reason raise o'er Instinct as you can;
"In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis Man."

It was thus, too, that Milton plainly understood the term, when he remarked, that smiles imply the exercise of rea

son;

Smiles from Reason flow,

"To brutes denied :".

And still more explicitly in these noble lines:

"There wanted yet the master-work, the end
"Of all yet done; a creature who, not prone
"And brute as other creatures, but endued
"With sanctity of reason, might erect
"His stature, and upright with front serene

Among the various characteristics of humanity, the power of devising means to accomplish ends, together with the power of distinguishing truth from falsehood, and right from wrong, are obviously the most conspicuous and important; and accordingly it is to these that the word reason, even in its most comprehensive acceptation, is now exclusively restricted.*

By some philosophers, the meaning of the word has been, of late, restricted still farther; to the power by which we distinguish truth from falsehood, and combine means for the accomplishment of our purposes;-the capacity of distinguishing right from wrong, being referred to a separate

* This, I think, is the meaning which most naturally presents itself to common readers, when the word reason occurs in authors not affecting to aim at any nice logical distinctions; and it is certainly the meaning which must be annexed to it, in some of the most serious and important arguments in which it has ever been employed. In the following passage, for example, where Mr. Locke contrasts the light of Reason with that of Revelation, he plainly proceeds on the supposition, that it is competent to appeal to the former, as affording a standard of right and wrong, not less than of speculative truth and falsehood; nor can there be a doubt that, when he speaks of truth as the object of natural reason, it was principally, if not wholly, moral truth, which he had in his view: "Reason is natural revelation, whereby the eternal Father of light, and Fountain of all knowledge, communicates to mankind that portion of truth which he has laid within the reach of their natural faculties. Revelation is natural reason, enlarged by a new set of discoveries, communicated by God immediately, which reason vouches the truth of, by the testimony and proofs it gives that they come from God. So that he who takes away reason to make way for revelation, puts out the light of both, and does much the same, as if he would persuade a man to put out his eyes, the better to receive the remote light of an invisible star by a telescope.”—Locke's Essay, B. iv. c. 19.

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A passage still more explicit for my present purpose occurs in the pleasing and philosophical conjectures of Huyghens, concerning the planetary worlds. Positis vero ejusmodi planetarum incolis ratione utentibus, quæri adhuc potest, anne idem illic, atque apud nos, sit hoc quod rationem vocamus. Quod quidem ita esse omnino dicendum videtur, neque aliter fieri posse: sive usum rationis in his consideremus quæ ad mores et æquitatem pertinent, sive in iis quæ spectant ad principia et fundamenta scientiarum. Etenim ratio apud nos est, quæ sensum justitiæ, honesti, laudis, clementiæ, gratitudinis ingenerat, mala ac bona in universum discernere docet: quæque ad hæc animum disciplinæ, multorumque inventorum capacem reddit," &c. &c.-Hugenii Opera Varia, Vol. II. p. 663. Lugd. Batav. 1724.

principle or faculty, to which different names have been assigned in different ethical theories. The following passage from Mr. Hume contains one of the most explicit statements of this limitation which I can recollect: "Thus "the distinct boundaries and offices of reason and of taste "are easily ascertained. The former conveys the knowl"edge of truth and falsehood; the latter gives the senti"ment of beauty and deformity,-vice and virtue. Rea

son, being cool and disengaged, is no motive to action, and "directs only the impulse received from appetite or incli"nation, by shewing us the means of attaining happiness or "avoiding misery. Taste, as it gives pleasure or pain, "and thereby constitutes happiness or misery, becomes a "motive to action, and is the first spring or impulse to de"sire and volition.'

On the justness of this statement of Mr. Hume, I have no remarks to offer here; as my sole object in quoting it was to illustrate the different meanings annexed to the word reason by different writers. It will appear afterwards, that, in consequence of this circumstance, some controversies, which have been keenly agitated about the principles of morals, resolve entirely into verbal disputes; or at most, into questions of arrangement and classification, of little comparative moment to the points at issue.†

* Essays and Treatises, &c. Appendix, concerning Moral Sentiment.

† In confirmation of this remark, I shall only quote at present a few sentences from an excellent discourse, by Dr. Adams of Oxford, on the nature and obligations of virtue." Nothing can bring us under an obligation to do what appears to our moral judgment wrong. It may be supposed our interest to do this; but it cannot be supposed our duty.- -Power may compel, interest may bribe, pleasure may persuade; but reason only can oblige. This is the only authority which rational beings can own, and to which they owe obedience.'

It must appear perfectly obvious to every reader, that the apparent difference of opinion between this writer and Mr. Hume, turns chiefly on the different degrees of latitude with which they have used the word reason. Of the two, there cannot be a doubt that Dr. Adams has adhered by far the most faithfully, not only to its acceptation in the works of our best English authors, but to the acceptation of the corresponding term in the ancient languages. "Est quidem vera lex, recta ratio- -quæ vocet ad officium, jubendo; vetando, a fraude deter reat," &c. &c.