which we retain a distinct remembrance, we are not under the necessity of employing words. It frequently, however, happens, that when the subjects of our consideration are particular, our reasoning with respect to them may involve very general notions; and, in such cases, although we may conceive, without the use of words, the things about which we reason, yet we must necessarily have recourse to language in carrying on our speculations concerning them. If the subjects of our reasoning be general, (under which description I include all our reasonings, whether more or less comprehensive, which do not relate merely to individuals,) words are the sole objects about which our thoughts are employed. According as these words are comprehensive or limited in their signification, the conclusions we form will be more or less general; but this accidental circumstance does not in the least affect the nature of the intellectual process; so that it may be laid down as a proposition which holds without any exception, that, in every case, in which we extend our speculations beyond individuals, language is not only an useful auxiliary, but is the sole instrument by which they are carried on.

* I have thought it proper to add this limitation of the general proposition; because individual objects, and individual events, which have not fallen under the examination of our senses, cannot possibly be made the subjects of our consideration, but by means of language. The manner in which we think of such objects and events, is accurately described in the following passage of Wollaston; however unphilosophical the conclusion may be which he deduces from his reasoning.

"A man is not known ever the more to posterity, because his name is transmitted to them; he doth not live, because his name does. When it is said, Julius Cæsar subdued Gaul, beat Pompey, changed the Roman commonwealth into a monarchy, &c. it is the same thing as to say, the conqueror of Pompey was Cæsar; that is, Casar, and the conqueror of Pompey, are the same thing; and Cæsar is as much known by the one distinction as the other.-The amount then is only this: that the conqueror of Pompey conquered Pompey; or somebody conquered Pompey; or rather, since Pompey is as little known now as Cæsar, somebody conquered some. body. Such a poor business is this boasted immortality; and such, as has been here described, is the thing called glory among us !"

Religion of NAT. DEL. p. 117.

These remarks naturally lead me to take notice of what forms the characteristical distinction between the speculations of the philosopher and of the vulgar. It is not, that the former is accustomed to carry on his processes of reasoning to a greater extent than the latter; but that the conclusions he is accustomed to form, are far more comprehensive, in consequence of the habitual employment of more comprehensive terms. Among the most unenlightened of mankind, we often meet with individuals who possess the reasoning faculty in a very eminent degree, but as this faculty is employed merely about particulars, it never can conduct them to general truths, and, of consequence, whether their pursuits in life lead them to speculation or to action, it can only fit them for distinguishing themselves in some very limited and subordinate sphere. The philosopher, whose mind has been familiarized by education, and by his own reflections, to the correct use of more comprehensive terms, is enabled, without perhaps a greater degree of intellectual exertion than is necessary for managing the details of ordinary business, to arrive at general theorems; which, when illustrated to the lower classes of men, in their particular applications, seem to indicate a fertility of invention, little short of supernatural.*

The analogy of the algebraical art may be of use in illustrating these observations. The difference, in fact, between the investigations we carry on by its assistance,.

"General reasonings seem intricate, merely because they are general; nor is it easy for the bulk of mankind to distinguish, in a great number of particulars, that common circumstance in which they all agree, or to extract it, pure and unmixt, from the other superfluous circumstances. Every judgment or conclusion with them is particular. They cannot enlarge their view to those universal propositions, which comprehend under them an infinite number of individuals, and include a whole science in a single theorem. Their eye is confounded with such an extensive prospect; and the conclusions derived from it, even though clearly expressed, seem intricate and obscure." HUME's Political Discourses.

and other processes of reasoning, is more inconsiderable than is commonly imagined; and, if I am not mistaken, amounts only to this, that the former are expressed in an appropriate language, with which we are not accustomed to associate particular notions. Hence they exhibit the efficacy of signs as an instrument of thought in a more distinct and palpable manner, than the speculations we carry on by words, which are continually awakening the power of Conception.

When the celebrated Vieta shewed algebraists, that, by substituting in their investigations letters of the alphabet, instead of known quantities, they might render the solution of every problem subservient to the discovery of a general truth, he did not increase the difficulty of algebraical reasonings; he only enlarged the signification of the terms in which they were expressed. And if, in teaching that science, it is found expedient to accustom students to solve problems by means of the particular numbers which are given, before they are made acquainted with literal or specious arithmetic, it is not because the former processes are less intricate than the latter, but because their scope and utility are more obvious, and because it is more easy to illustrate, by examples than by words, the difference between a particular conclusion, and a general theorem.

The difference between the intellectual processes of the vulgar and of the philosopher, is perfectly analogous to that between the two states of the algebraical art before and after the time of Vieta; the general terms which are used in the various sciences, giving to those who can employ them with correctness and dexterity, the same sort of advantage over the uncultivated sagacity of the bulk of mankind, which the expert algebraist possesses over the arithmetical accomptant.

If the foregoing doctrine be admitted as just, it exhibits a view of the utility of language, which appears to me to be peculiarly striking and beautiful; as it shews that the same faculties which, without the use of signs, must necessarily have been limited to the consideration of individual objects and particular events, are, by means of signs, fitted to embrace, without effort, those comprehensive theorems, to the discovery of which, in detail, the united efforts of the whole human race would have been unequal. The advantage our animal strength acquires by the use of mechanical engines, exhibits but a faint image of that increase of our intellectual capacity which we owe to language.-It is this increase of our natural powers of comprehension, which seems to be the principal foundation of the pleasure we receive from the discovery of general theorems. Such a discovery gives us at once the command of an infinite variety of particular truths, and communicates to the mind a sentiment of its own power, not unlike to what we feel when we contemplate the magnitude of those physical efects, of which we have acquired the command by our mechanical contrivances.

It may perhaps appear, at first, to be a farther conscquence of the principles I have been endeavouring to estab lish, that the difficulty of philosophical discoveries is much less than is commonly imagined; but the truth is, it only follows from them, that this difficulty is of a different nature, from what we are apt to suppose on a superficial view of the subject. To employ, with skill, the very delicate instrument which nature has made essentially subservient to general reasoning, and to guard against the errours which result from an injudicious use of it, require an uncommon capacity of patient attention, and a cautious circumspection in conducting our various intellectual processes, which can only be acquired by habits of philosophical reflection. To

assist and direct us in making this acquisition ought to form the most important branch of a rational logic; a science of far more extensive utility, and of which the principles lie much deeper in the philosophy of the human mind, than the trifling art which is commonly dignified with that name. The branch in particular to which the foregoing observations more immediately relate, must for ever remain in its infancy, till a most difficult and important desideratum in the history of the mind is supplied, by an explanation of the gradual steps by which it acquires the use of the various classes of words which compose the language of a cultivated and enlightened people. Of some of the errours in reasoning to which we are exposed by an incautious use of words, I took notice in the preceding section, and I shall have occasion afterwards to treat the same subject more in detail in a subsequent part of my work.

SECTION VI.

Of the Errours to which we are liable in Speculation, and in the Conduct of Affairs, in consequence of a rash Application of general Principles.

It appears sufficiently from the reasonings which I offered in the preceding Section, how important are the advantages which the philosopher acquires, by quitting the study of particulars, and directing his attention to general principles. I flatter myself it appears farther, from the same reasonings, that it is in consequence of the use of language alone, that the human mind is rendered capable of these comprehensive speculations.

In order, however, to proceed with safety in the use of general principles, much caution and address are necessary, both in establishing their truth, and in applying them to practice. Without a proper attention to the circumstances by which their application to particular cases