in its effect, to the aid which is furnished to the infant understanding by the structure of its mother-tongue; the generic words which abound in language assorting, and (if I may use the expression) packing up, under a comparatively small number of comprehensive terms, the multifarous objects of human knowledge. In consequence of the generic terms to which, in civilized society, the mind is early familiarized, the vast multiplicity of things which compose the furniture of this globe are presented to it, not as they occur to the senses of the untaught savage, but as they have been arranged and distributed into parcels or assortments by the successive observations and reflections of our predecessors. Were these arrangements and distributions agreeable, in every instance, to sound philosophy, the chief source of the errors to which we are liable in all our general conclusions, would be removed; but it would be too much to expect, with some late theorists, that, even in the most advanced state either of physical or of moral science, this supposi tion is ever to be realized in all its extent. At the same time, it must be remembered, that the obvious tendency of the progressive reason and experience of the species, is to diminish more and more the imperfections of the classifications, which have been transmitted from ages of comparative ignorance; and, of consequence, to render language more and more a safe and powerful organ for the investigation of truth.

The only science which furnishes an exception to those observations is mathematics; a science essentially distinguished from every other by this remarkable circumstance, that the precise import of its generic terms is fixed and ascertained by the definitions which form the basis of all our reasonings, and in which, of consequence, the very possibility of error in our classifications is precluded, by the virtual identity of all those hypothetical objects of thought to which the same generic term is applied.

I intend to prosecute this subject farther, before concluding my observations on general reasoning. At present, I have only to add to the foregoing remarks, that, in the comprehensive theorems of the philosopher, as well as in the assortments of the tradesman, I can not perceive a single step of the understanding, which implies any thing more than the notion of number, and the use of a com

mon name.

Upon the whole, it appears to me, that the celebrated dispute concerning abstract general ideas, which so long divided the schools, is now reduced, among correct thinkers, to this simple question of fact, Could the human mind, without the use of signs of one kind or another, have carried on general reasonings, or formed general conclusions? Before arguing with any person on the subject, I should wish for a categorical explanation on this preliminary

*The same analogy had occured to Locke. "To shorten its way to knowledge, and make each perception more comprehensive, the mind binds them into bundles."

point. Indeed, every other controversy connected with it turns on little more than the meaning of words.

A difference of opinion with respect to this question of fact (or rather, I suspect, a want of attention in some of the disputants to the great variety of signs of which the mind can avail itself, independently of words) still continues to keep up a sort of distinction between the Nominalists and the Conceptualists. As for the Realists, they may, I apprehend, be fairly considered, in the present state of science, as having been already forced to lay down their

arms.

That the doctrine of the Nominalists has been stated by some writers of note in very unguarded terms, I do not deny, nor am I certain that it was ever delivered by any one of the schoolmen in a form completely unexceptionable; but after the luminous, and, at the same time, cautious manner in which it has been unfolded by Berkeley and his successors, I own it appears to me not a little surprising, that men of talents and candor should still be found inclined to shut their eyes against the light, and to shelter themselves in the darkness of the middle ages. For my own part, the longer and the more attentively that I reflect on the subject, the more am I disposed to acquiesce in the eulogium bestowed on Roscellinus and his followers by Leibnitz; one of the very few philosophers, if not the only philosopher, of great celebrity, who seems to have been fully aware of the singular merits of those by whom this theory was originally proposed: "Secta Nominalium, omnium inter scholasticas profundissima, et hodiernæ reformatœ

* Particularly by Hobbes, some of whose incidental remarks and expressions would certainly, if followed strictly out to their logical consequences, lead to the complete subversion of truth, as a thing real, and independent of human opinion. It is to this, I presume, that Leibnitz alludes, when he says of him, "Thomas Hobbes, qui ut verum fatear, mihi plus quam nominalis videtur."

I shall afterwards point out the mistake by which Hobbes seems to me to have been misled. In the mean time, it is but justice to him to say, that I do not think he had any intention to establish those skeptical conclusions which, it must be owned, may be fairly deduced as corollaries from some of his principles. Of this I would not wish for a stronger proof than his favorite maxim, that "words are the counters of wise men, but the money of fools;" a sentence which expresses, with marvelous conciseness, not only the proper function of language, as an instrument of reasoning, but the abuses to which it is liable, when in unskillful hands. Dr. Gillies, who has taken much pains to establish Aristotle's claims to all that is valuable in the doctrine of the Nominalists, has, at the same time, represented him as the only favorer of his opinion, by whom it has been taught without any admixture of those errors which are blended with it in the works of its modern revivers. Even Bishop Berkeley himself is involved with Hobbes and Hume in the same sweeping sentence of condemnation. "The language of the Nominalists seems to have been extremely liable to be perverted to the purpose of skepticism, as taking away the specific distinctions of things; and is in fact thus perverted by Hobbes, Berkeley, Hume, and their innumerable followers. But Aristotle's language is not liable to this abuse." Gillies' Aristotle, vol. i. p. 71, 2d edit.

Among these skeptical followers of Berkeley, we must, I presume, include the late learned and ingenious Dr. Campbell; whose remarks on this subject I will, nevertheless, venture to recommend to the particular attention of my readers. Indeed, I do not know of any writer who has treated it with more acuteness and perspicuity. See Philosophy of Rhetoric, Book ii. chap. vii.

philosophandi rationi congruentissima." It is a theory, indeed, much more congenial to the spirit of the eighteenth than of the eleventh century; nor must it it be forgotten, that it was proposed and maintained at a period when the algebraical art (or to express myself more precisely, universal arithmetic,) from which we now borrow our best illustrations in explaining and defending it, was entirely unknown.

2.-Continuation of the Subject.-Of Language considered as an Instrument of Thought.

HAVING been led in defense of some of my own opinions to introduce a few additional remarks on the controversy with respect to the theory of general reasoning, I shall avail myself of this opportunity to illustrate a little farther another topic, (intimately connected with the foregoing argument) on which the current doctrines of modern logicians seem to require a good deal more of explanation and restriction than has been commonly apprehended. Upon this subject I enter the more willingly, that in my first volume, I have alluded to these doctrines in a manner which may convey to some of my readers, the idea of a more complete acquiescence, on my part, in their truth, than I am disposed to acknowl edge.

In treating of abstraction, I endeavored to show that we think, as well as speak, by means of words, and that, without the use of language, our reasoning faculty, if it could have been at all exercised, must necessarily have been limited to particular conclusions alone. The effects, therefore, of ambiguous and indefinite terms are not confined to our communications with others, but extend to our private and solitary speculations. Dr. Campbell, in his Philosophy of Rhetoric, has made some judicious and important observations on this subject; and, at a much earlier period, it drew the attention of Des Cartes; who, in the course of a very valuable discussion with respect to the sources of our errors, has laid particular stress on those to which we are exposed from the employment of langugage as an instrument of thought. "And, lastly, in consequence of the habitual use of speech, all our ideas become associated with the words in which we express them; nor do we ever commit these ideas to memory, without their accustomed signs. Hence, it is, that there is hardly any one subject, of which we have so distinct a notion as to be able to think of it abstracted from all use of language; and, indeed, as we remember words more easily than things, our thoughts are much more conversant with the former than with the latter. Hence, too, it is, that we often yield our assent to propositions, the meaning of which we do not understand; imagining that we have either examined formerly the import of all

deny myself the pleasure of enriching my book with a few of his observations.

"It is the distinguishing characteristic of a lively and vigorous conception, to push its speculative conclusions somewhat beyond their just limits. Hence, in the logical discussions of this estima ble writer, these maxims (stated without any explanation or restriction,) That the study of a science is nothing more than the acquisition of a language; and, that a science properly treated is only a language well contrived.' Hence the rash assertion, That mathematics possess no advantage over other sciences, but what they derive from a better phraseology; and that all of these might attain to the same characters of simplicity and of certainty, if we knew how to give them signs equally perfect."" (Des Signes et de l'Art de Penser, &c., Introd. pp. xx. xxi.)

"The same task which must have been executed by those who contributed to the first formation of a language, and which is executed by every child when he learns to speak it, is repeated over in the mind of every adult when he makes use of his mother tongue; for it is only by the decomposition of his thoughts that he can learn to select the signs which he ought to employ, and to dispose them in a suitable order. Accordingly, those external actions which we call speaking or writing, are always accompanied with a philosophical process of the understanding, unless we content ourselves, as too often happens, with repeating over mechanically what has been said by others. It is in this respect that languages, with their forms and rules, conducting (so to speak) those who use them, into the path of a regular analysis; tracing out to them, in a well-ordered discourse, the model of a perfect decomposition, may be regarded in a certain sense, as analytical methods.-But I stop short: Condillac to whom this idea belongs, has developed it too well to leave any hope of improving upon his statement.'

In a note upon this passage, however, M. De Gerando has certainly improved not a little on the statement of Condillac. "In asserting," says he, " that languages may be regarded as analytical methods, I have added the qualifying phrase, in a certain sense, for the word method cannot be employed here with exact propriety. Languages furnish the occasions and the means of analysis; that is to say, they afford us assistance in following that method; but they are not the method itself. They resemble signals or finger-posts placed on a road to enable us to discover our way; aud if they help us to analyze, it is because they are themselves the results, and, as it were, the monuments of an analysis which has been previously made; nor do they contribute to keep us in the right path, but in proportion to the degree of judgment with which that analysis has been conducted." (Ibid. pp. 158, 159, Tom. i.)

I was the more solicitous to introduce these excellent remarks, as I suspect that I have myself indirectly contributed to propagate in this country the erroneous opinion which it is their object to

Of the essential utility of a cautious employment of words, both as a medium of communication and as an instrument of thought, many striking illustrations might be produced from the history of science during the time that the scholastic jargon was current among the learned; a technical phraseology, which was not only ill-calculated for the discovery of truth, but which was dexterously contrived for the propagation of error; and which gave to those who were habituated to the use of it, great advantages in controversy, at least in the judgment of the multitude, over their more enlightened and candid opponents. "A blind wrestler, by fighting in a dark chamber," to adopt an allusion of Des Cartes, "may not only conceal his defect, but may enjoy some advantages over those who see. It is the light of day only that can discover his inferiority." The imperfections of this philosophy, accordingly, have been exposed by Des Cartes and his followers, less by the force of their reasonings, than by their teaching men to make use of their own faculties, instead of groping in the artificial darkness of the schools and to perceive the folly of expecting to advance science by ringing changes on words to which they annexed no clear or precise ideas.

In consequence of the influence of these views, the attention of our soundest philosophers was more and more turned, during the course of the last century, to the cultivation of that branch of logic which relates to the use of words. Mr. Locke's observations on this subject form, perhaps, the most valuable part of his writings; and, since his time, much addititional light has been thrown upon it by Condillac and his successors.

Important, however, as this branch of logic is in its practical applications; and highly interesting, from its intimate connection with the theory of the human mind, there is a possibility of pushing, to an erroneous and dangerous extreme, the conclusions to which it has led. Condillac himself falls, in no inconsiderable a degree, under this censure; having, upon more than one occasion, expressed himself as if he conceived it to be possible, by means of precise and definite terms, to reduce reasoning in all the sciences, to a sort of mechanical operation, analogous, in its nature, to those which are practised by the algebraist, on letters of the alphabet. "The art of reasoning (he repeats over and over) is nothing more than a language well arranged."-"L'art de raisonner se réduit à une langue bien faite."

One of the first persons, as far as I know, who objected to the vagueness and incorrectness of this proposition, was M. De Gerando; to whom we are farther indebted for a clear and satisfactory exposition of the very important fact to which it relates. To this fact Condillac approximates nearly in various parts of his works; but never, perhaps, without some degree of indistinctness and of exaggeration. The point of view in which it is placed by his ingenious successor, strikes me as so just and happy, that I can not