some plausibility to the opinion that the study of our mental powers is visionary and useless. If society, it is said, has existed for so long a time, and made such progress in arts and refinement, without the aid of intellectual science, where is the proof that the cultivation of this science will be of advantage? But are there no improvements yet to be made in politics, in education, or in morals? and is it not to the philosophy of mind that we must look for these improvements?
Other circumstances have contributed to bring the science into disrepute, and to divert from its use, that practical sense and calm judgment which are more important in this, than in any other inquiry, because its objects are subtle and abstract, and its language vague and figurative. One of the most influential of these causes has been, the maxims and systems received from the ancients. That turn for intellectual pursuits which distinguished the Greeks above every other people of antiquity, was in a great measure directed to metaphysical inquiries; but in consequence of a false method of philosophizing, error instead of truth was often the result of their efforts. When we reflect on the high endowments and vast labour, which have been wasted by them, as well as by later philosophers, in vain speculations, we are ready to pardon those who regard the philosophy of the human mind as a fruitless study. "Zeno," says Dr. Reid, "endeavoured to demonstrate the impossibility of motion; Hobbes, that there was no difference between right and wrong; and Hume, that no credit is to be given to our senses, to our memory, or even to demonstration."
The ancient philosophers mistook not less in the object of their study, than in the method of its investigation. Their inquiries were directed to the nature and essence of mind, and the mode of its union with matter, rather than to the laws of its operation and influence, as exhibited in the human constitution. On this subject, the most they could effect, was the invention of hypotheses which appeared plausible to their finite apprehension, but which could not, from the very limited nature of the human understanding, have approached the truth. Adopting these hypotheses as axioms, because nothing which appeared nearer the truth had been devised, they raised on this foundation vast systems of philosophy, which, set off by the eloquence of Plato, and the acuteness of the Stagirite, absorbed in vain speculation some of the rarest geniuses of ancient and even modern times.
"Could half the zeal, and even half the genius, (says Brown,) which were during so many ages employed in attempting things impossible, have been directed to investigations adapted to our limited faculties, there are many names which we now regard