notice here. I allude to them, merely as an apology for those defects of method, which are the natural, and perhaps the unavoidable consequences of the frequent interruptions by which the train of my thoughts has been diverted to other pursuits. Such of my readers as are able to judge how very large a proportion of my materials has been the fruit of my own meditations; and who are aware of the fugitive nature of our reasonings concerning phenomena so far removed from the perceptions of Sense, will easily conceive the difficulty I must occasionally have experienced, in decyphering the short and slight hints on these topics, which I had committed to writing at remote periods of my life; and still more, in recovering the thread which had at first connected them together in the order of my researches. I have repeatedly had occasion to regret the tendency of this intermitted and irregular mode of composition, to deprive my speculations of those advantages, in point of continuity, which, to the utmost of my power, I have endeavoured to give them. But I would willingly indulge the hope, that this is a blemish more likely to meet the eye of the author than of the reader; and I am confident, that the critic who shall honour me with a sufficient degree of attention, to detect it where it may occur, will not be inclined to treat it with an undue severity. A Third Volume (of which the chief materials are already prepared) will comprehend all that I mean to publish under the title of the Philosophy of the Human Mind. The principal subjects allotted for it are Language; Imitation; the Varieties of intellectual Character; and the Faculties by which Man is distinguished from the lower animals. The two first of these articles belong, in strict propriety, to the second part of my work; but the size of the volume has prevented me from entering on the consideration of them at present. The circumstances which have so long delayed the publication of these volumes on the Intellectual Powers, have not operated, in an equal degree, to prevent the prosecution of my inquiries into those principles of Human Nature, to which my attention was, for many years, statedly and forcibly called by my official duty. Much, indeed, still remains to be done in maturing, digesting, and arranging many of the doctrines which I was accustomed to introduce into my lectures; but if I shall be blessed, for a few years longer, with a moderate share of health and of mental vigour, I do not altogether despair of yet contributing something, in the form of Essays, to fill up the outline which the sanguine imagination of youth encouraged me to conceive, before I had duly measured the magnitude of my undertaking with the time or with the abilities which I could devote to the execution. The volume which I now publish is more particularly intended for the use of Academical Students; and is offered to them as a guide or assistant, at that important stage of their progress when, the usual course of discipline being completed, an inquisitive mind is naturally led to review its past attainments, and to form plans for its future improvement. In the prosecution of this design, I have not aimed at the establishment of new theories; far less have I'aspired to the invention of any new organ for the discovery of truth. My principal object is to aid my readers in unlearning the scholastic errours which, in a greater or less degree, still maintain their ground in our most celebrated seats of learning; and by subjecting to free, but I trust, not sceptical discussion, the more enlightened though discordant systems of modern Logicians, to accustom the understanding to the unfettered exercise of its native capacities. That several of the views opened in the following pages appear to myself original, and of some importance, I will not deny; but the reception these may meet with, I shall regard as a matter of comparative indifference, if my labours be found useful in training the mind to those habits of reflection on its own operations, which may enable it to superadd to the instructions of the schools, that higher education which no schools can bestow. KINNEIL-HOUSE, 22 November, 1813. CONTENTS. Page. OF REASON, OR THE UNDERSTANDING PROPERLY SO CALLED; Preliminary Observations on the Vagueness and Ambiguity of the common Philosophical Language relative to this part of our Constitution.-Reason and Reasoning,-Understanding,-Intellect,-Judgment, &c. CHAPTER I.-Of the Fundamental Laws of Human Belief; or the Pri- II. Continuation of the same Subject SECTION II. Of certain Laws of Belief, inseparably connected with the exercise of Consciousness, Memory, Perception, and Reasoning SECTION III.-Continuation of the Subject.-Critical Remarks on some late Controversies to which it has given rise. Of the appeals which Dr. Reid and some other Modern Writers have made, in their Philosophical III. Continuation of the Subject.-Visionary Theories of some Logicians, occasioned by their inattention to the Essential Distinction between Mathematics and other sciences IV. Continuation of the Subject.-Peculiar and supereminent Advantages possessed by Mathematicians, in consequence SECTION III.-Of Mathemathical Demonstration I. Of the circumstance on which Demonstrative Evidence II. Continuation of the Subject.-How far it is true that all III. Continuation of the Subject.-Evidence of the Mechani- cal Philosophy, not to be confounded with that which is properly called Demonstrative or Mathematical.—Op- posite Errour of some late Writers SECTION IV. Of our Reasonings concerning Probable or Contingent Page. I. Narrow Field of. Demonstrative Evidence.-Of Demon- strative Evidence, when combined with that of Sense, as in Practical Geometry; and with those of Sense and of Induction, as in the Mechanical Philosophy.-Remarks on a fundamental Law of Belief, involved in all our Reasonings concerning Contingent Truths II. Continuation of the Subject.-Of that Permanence or Stability in the Order of Nature, which is presupposed in our Reasonings concerning Contingent Truths III. Continuation of the Subject.-General Remarks on the |