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sonings to be logically accurate, it would still be necessary for us, from time to time, in all our speculations, to lay aside the use of words, and to have recourse to particular examples, or illustrations, in order to correct and to limit our general conclusions.-To a want of attention to this circumstance, a number of the speculative absurdities which are current in the world, might, I am persuaded, be easily traced.

Besides, however, this source of errour, which is in some degree common to all the sciences, there is a great variety of others, from which mathematics are entirely exempted, and which perpetually tend to lead us astray in our philosophical inquiries. Of these, the most important is that ambiguity in the signification of words, which renders it so difficult to avoid employing the same expressions in different senses, in the course of the same process of reasoning. This source of mistake, indeed, is apt, in a much greater degree, to affect our conclusions in metaphysics, morals, and politics, than in the different branches of natural philosophy, but, if we except mathematics, there is no science whatever, in which it has not a very sensible influence. In algebra, we may proceed with perfect safety through the longest investigations, without carrying our attention beyond the signs, till we arrive at the last result. But in the other sciences, excepting in those cases in which we have fixed the meaning of all our terms by accurate definitions, and have rendered the use of these terms perfectly familiar to us by very long habit, it is but seldom that we can proceed in this manner without danger of errour. In many cases, it is necessary for us to keep up, during the whole of our investigations, a scrupulous and constant attention to the signification of our expressions; and, in most cases, this caution in the use of words, is a much more difficult effort of the mind, than the logical process. But still this furnishes no ex

ception to the general doctrine already delivered; for the attention we find it necessary to give to the import of our words, arises only from the accidental circumstance of their ambiguity, and has no essential connection with that process of the mind, which is properly called reasoning, and which consists in the inference of a conclusion from premises. In all the sciences, this process of the mind is perfectly analogous to an algebraical operation; or, in other words, (when the meaning of our expressions is once fixed by definitions,) it may be carried on entirely by the use of signs, without attending, during the time of the process, to the things signified.

The conclusion to which the foregoing observations lead, appears to me to be decisive of the question, with respect to the objects of our thoughts when we employ general terms; for if it be granted, that words, even when employed without any reference to their particular signification, form an instrument of thought sufficient for all the purposes of reasoning, the only shadow of an argument in proof of the common doctrine on the subject, (I mean that which is founded on the impossibility of explaining this process of the mind on any other hypothesis,) falls to the ground. Nothing less, surely, than a conviction of this impossibility, could have so long reconciled philosophers to an hypothesis unsupported by any direct evidence, and acknowledged even by its warmest defenders, to involve much difficulty and mystery.

It does not fall within my plan, to enter, in this part of my work, into a particular consideration of the practical consequences which follow from the foregoing doctrine. I cannot, however, help remarking the importance of cultivating, on the one hand, a talent for ready and various illustration, and, on the other, a habit of reasoning by means of general terms. The former talent is necessary, not only for correcting and limiting our general conclusions,

but for enabling us to apply our knowledge, when occasion requires, to its real practical use. The latter serves the double purpose, of preventing our attention from being distracted during the course of our reasonings, by ideas which are foreign to the point in question, and of diverting the attention from those conceptions of particular objects and particular events, which might disturb the judgment, by the ideas and feelings, which are apt to be associated with them in consequence of our own casual experience.

This last observation points out to us, also, one principal foundation of the art of the orator. As his object is not so much to inform and to satisfy the understandings of his hearers, as to force their immediate assent, it is frequently of use to him to clothe his reasonings in that specific and figurative language, which may either awaken in their minds associations favourable to his purpose, or may divert their attention from a logical examination of his argument. A process of reasoning so expressed, affords at once an exercise to the judgment, to the imagination, and to the passions, and is apt, even when loose and inconsequential, to impose on the best understandings.

It appears farther from the remarks which have been made, that the perfection of philosophical language, considered either as an instrument of thought, or as a medium of communication with others, consists in the use of expressions, which from their generality, have no tendency to awaken the powers of conception and imagination; or, in other words, it consists in its approaching, as nearly as possible, in its nature, to the language of algebra. And hence the effects which long habits of philosophical speculation have, in weakening, by disuse, those faculties of the mind, which are necessary for the exertions of the poet and the orator, and of gradually forming a style of

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composition, which they who read merely for amusement are apt to censure for a want of vivacity and of ornament.

SECTION III.

Remarks on the Opinions of some modern Philosophers on the subject of the fore going Section.

AFTER the death of Abelard, through whose abilities and eloquence the sect of Nominalists had enjoyed, for a few years, a very splendid triumph, the system of the Realists began to revive; and it was soon so completely re-established in the schools, as to prevail, with little or no opposition, till the fourteenth century. What the circumstances were, which led philosophers to abandon a doctrine, which seems so strongly to recommend itself by its simplicity, it is not very easy to conceive. Probably the heretical opinions, which had subjected both Abelard and Roscelinus to the censure of the church, might create a prejudice also against their philosophical principles; and probably too, the manner in which these principles were stated and defended, was not the clearest, nor the most satisfactory. The principal cause, however, I am disposed to think, of the decline of the sect of Nominalists, was their want of some palpable example, by means of which they might illustrate their doctrine. It is by the use which algebraists make of the letters of the alphabet in carrying on their operations, that Leibnitz and Berkeley have been most successful in explaining the use of language as an instrument of thought; and, as in the twelfth century, the algebraical art was entirely unknown, Roscelinus and Abelard must have been reduced to the necessity of conveying their leading idea by general circumlocutions, and

* The great argument which the Nominalists employed against the existence of universals was: "Entia non sunt multiplicanda præter necessitatem.

must have found considerable difficulty in stating it in a manner satisfactory to themselves: a consideration, by the way, which, if it accounts for the slow progress which this doctrine made in the world, places in the more striking light, the genius of those men, whose sagacity led them, under so great disadvantages, to approach to a conclusion so just and philosophical in itself, and so opposite to the prevailing opinions of their age.

In the fourteenth century, this sect seems to have been almost completely extinct; their doctrine being equally reprobated by the two great parties which then divided the schools, the followers of Duns Scotus and of Thomas Aquinas. These, although they differed in their manner of explaining the nature of universals, and opposed each other's opinions with much asperity, yet united in rejecting the doctrine of the Nominalists, not only as absurd, but as leading to the most dangerous consequences. At last, William Occam, a native of England, and a scholar of Duns Scotus, revived the ancient controversy, and with equal ability and success vindicated the long-abandoned philosophy of Roscelinus. From this time the dispute was carried on with great warmth, in the universities of France, of Germany, and of England; more particularly in the two former countries, where the sovereigns were led, by some political views, to interest themselves deeply in the contest, and even to employ the civil power in supporting their favourite opinions. The emperour Lewis of Bavaria, in return for the assistance which, in his disputes with the Pope,* Occam had given to him by his writings, sided with the Nominalists. Lewis the Eleventh of France, on the other hand, attached himself to the Realists, and made their antagonists the objects of a cruel persecution.†

"Tu me defen BRUCKER, vol. ii. p. 848,

*Occam, we are told, was accustomed to say to the emperor : das gladio, et ego te defendam calamo."

MOSHEIM'S Ecclesiastical History.

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