ties.* The supposition in which all these different philosophers seem to have agreed, of the existence of latent ideas in the mind, previous to the exercise of the senses, (a supposition bordering nearly on the old Platonic scheme of the soul's reminiscence) cannot be guarded against with too great caution; but as to the arguments in the Essay of Human Understanding, which have exposed the phrase innate ideas to the ridicule of Locke's, followers, I must own, that they have very little weight with me, when I recollect that Locke himself, no less than Descartes, gave his express sanction to the Ideal Theory. If that theory be rejected, and the word idea be understood as exactly synonymous with thought or notion, the phrase innate ideas becomes much less exceptionable; implying nothing more (though perhaps not in the plainest language) than the following propositions, which I have already endeavoured to prove: 'That there are many of our most familiar notions (altogether unsusceptible of analysis) which relate to things bearing no resemblance either to any of the sensible qualities of matter, or to any mental operation which is the direct object of consciousness; which notions, therefore, (although the senses may furnish the first occasions `on which they occur to the understanding) can neither be referred to sensation nor to reflection, as their fountains or sources, in the acceptation in which these words are employed by Locke.' f

The period at which these thoughts first arise in the

* What I mean, in this instance, by a mixture of fact and of hypothesis, will be still more clearly illustrated by two quotations from Mr. Harris's notes; which have the merit of stating fairly and explicitly the theories of their respective authors, without any attempt to keep their absurdity out of view (according to the practice of their modern disciples) by a form of words, in which they are only obscurely hinted to the fancy. For these quotations, see Note (C.)

†D'Alembert's opinion on this question, although not uniformly maintained through all his philosophical speculations, appears to have coincided nearly with mine, when he wrote the following sentence.

"Les idées innées sont une chimère que l'expérience reprouve; mais la manière dont nous acquérons des sensations et des idées refléchies, quoique prouvée par la méme expérience, n'est pas moins incomprehensible."—Elém. de Phil. article Métaphysique.

From various other passages in D'Alembert's writings, it might be easily shown, that by the manner of acquiring sensations, he here means, the manner in which we acquire our knowledge of the primary qualities of matter; and that the incomprehensibility he alludes to, refers to the difficulty of conceiving how sensations, which are the proper subjects of consciousness, should suggest the knowledge of external things, to which they bear no resemblance.

VOL. IV.

10

mind is a matter of little consequence, provided it can be shown to be a law of our constitution that thy do arise, whenever the proper occasions are presented. The same thing may be said with respect to what Locke calls innate practical principles; and also with respect to what other writers have called innate affections of human nature. The existence of both of these some have affirmed, and others denied, without any suspicion that the controversy between them turned on little more than the meaning of a word.

CHAPTER FOURTH.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

MR. LOCKE'S quibbles, founded on the word innate, were early remarked by Lord Shaftesbury. "Innate is a word he poorly plays upon; the right word, though less used, is connatural. For what has birth, or progress of the fœtus out of the womb, to do in this case? The question is not about the time the ideas entered, or the moment that one body came out of the other; but whether the constitution of man be such, that being adult or grown up, at such or such a time, sooner or later, (no matter when) certain ideas will not infallibly, inevitably, nccessarily spring up in him." +

It has often struck me as a very remarkable circumstance, after what Locke has written with so much zeal against innate principles, both speculative and practical, that his own opinion upon this subject, as distinctly stated by himself in other parts of his works does not seem to have been, at bottom, so very different from

* If any of my readers should think, that in this section, I make too wide, and too abrupt a transition from the question concerning the origin of our knowledge, to that which relates to the moral constitution of human nature, I must beg leave to remind them that, in doing so, I am only following Mr. Locke's arrangement in his elaborate argument against innate ideas. The indefinite use which he there makes of the word idea, is the chief source of the confusion which runs through that discussion. It is justly observed by Mr. Hume, that "he employs it in a very loose sense, as standing for any of our perceptions, our sensations and passions, as well as thoughts." Now, in this sense," continues Mr. Hume, "I should desire to know what can be meant by asserting, that self-love, or resentment of injuries, or the passion of love between the sexes, is not innate?" The following passage, which forms a part of the same note, bears a close resemblance in its spirit to that quoted in the text from Lord Shaftesbury.

"It must be confessed, that the terms employed by those who denied innate ideas, were not chosen with such caution, nor so exactly defined, as to prevent all mistakes about their doctrine. For what is meant by innate? If innate be equivalent to natural, then all the perceptions and ideas of the mind must be allowed to be innate or natural, in whatever sense we take the latter word, whether in opposition to uncommon, artificial, or miraculous. If by innate be meant contemporary to our birth, the dispute seems to be frivolous; nor is it worth while to inquire at what time thinking begins, whether before or after our birth.”—Hume's Essays, Vol. II. (Note A.)

† I have substituted, in this quotation, the phrase certain ideas, instead of Shaftesbury's example, the ideas of order, administration, and a God; with the view of separating his general observation from the particular application which he wished to make of it, in the tract from which this quotation is borrowed.-(See Letters to a Student at the University, Letter 8.)

Lord Shaftesbury's, as either of these eminent writers imagined. All that has been commonly regarded as most pernicious in the first book of his essay, is completely disavowed and done away by the following very explicit declaration :

"He that hath the idea of an intelligent, but frail and weak being, made by and depending on another, who is omnipotent, perfectly wise and good, will as certainly know, that man is to honor, fear, and obey God, as that the sun shines when he sees it. For if he hath but the idea of two such beings in his mind, and will turn his thoughts that way and consider them, he will as certainly find, that the inferior, finite, and dependent, is under an obligation to obey the supreme and infinite, as he is certain to find that three, four, and seven are less than fifteen, if he will consider and compute those numbers; nor can he be surer in a clear morning that the sun is risen, if he will but open his eyes, and turn them that way. But yet these truths being never so certain, never so clear, he may be ignorant of either, or all of them, who will never take the pains to employ his faculties as he should to inform himself about them."*

It would not be easy to find a better illustration than this of the truth of Locke's observation, that most of the controversies among philosophers are merely verbal. The advantage, in point of unequivocal expression, is surely, in the present instance, not on his side; but notwithstanding the apparent scope of his argument, and still more, of the absurd fables which he has quoted in its support, the foregoing passage is sufficient to demonstrate, that he did not himself interpret (as many of his adversaries, and I am sorry to add, some of his admirers, have done,) his reasonings against innate ideas, as leading to any conclusion inconsistent with the certainty of human knowledge, or with the reality and immutability of moral distinctions."

(

I have enlarged on this collateral topic at greater length than I would otherwise have done, in consequence chiefly of the application which has been made,

* Locke's Essay, B. iv. c. xiii. § 3.

since Locke's time, of the principles which I have been controverting in the preceding chapters, to the establishment of a doctrine subversive of all our reasonings concerning the moral administration of the universe. Dr. Hutcheson, one of the most zealous and most able advocates for morality, seems to have paved the way for the scepticism of some of his successors, by the unguarded facility with which, notwithstanding his hostility to Locke's conclusions concerning innate practical principles, he adopted his opinions, and the peculiarities of his phraseology, with respect to the origin of our ideas in general. I already observed, that, according to both these writers, "it is the province of sense to introduce ideas into the mind; and of reason, to compare them together, and to trace their relations; "a very arbitrary and unfounded assumption, undoubtedly, as I trust has been sufficiently proved in a former part of this argument; but from which it followed as a necessary consequence, that, if the words right and wrong express simple ideas, the origin of these ideas must be referred, not to reason, but to some appropriate power of perception. To this power Hutcheson, after the example of Shaftesbury, gave the name of the moral sense: a phrase which has now grown into such familiar use, that it is occasionally employed by many who never think of connecting it with any particular philosophical theory.

Hutcheson himself was evidently apprehensive of the consequences which his language might be supposed to involve; and he has endeavoured to guard against them, though with very little success, in the following caution: "Let none imagine, that calling the ideas of virtue and vice perceptions of sense, upon apprehending the actions and affections of another, does diminish their reality, more than the like assertions concerning all pleasure and pain, happiness or misery. Our reason often corrects the report of our senses about the natural tendency of the external action, and corrects such rash conclusions about the affections of the agent. But whether our moral sense be subject to such a disorder as to have different perceptions from the same apprehended affections in any agent, at different times, as the