ferent modes of action; irritation, sensation, volition, and association. These four divisions are developed at considerable length, and illustrated by numerous references to particular states and conditions of the body. The result however is, that "We can create nothing new, we can only combine or separate the ideas which we have already received by our perceptions.". "Perceptions signify those ideas which are preceded by irritation, and succeeded by the sense of sensation, of pleasure, and pain." "Memory includes two classes of ideas, either those which are preceded by voluntary exertion, or those which are suggested by their associations with other ideas." ...... ....... ...... Reasoning is that operation of the sensorium by which we excite two or many tribes of ideas; and then re-excite the ideas in which they differ or correspond. If we determine this difference, it is called judgment; if we in vain endeavour to determine it, it is called doubting.". BELSHAM. It is scarcely necessary to enter into a formal examination of this author's "Elements of the Philosophy of the Mind," published in 1801, except for the mere purpose of finishing the historical group of writers connected with Dr. Hartley's system. Necessity and Materialism constitute the * Zoonomia, Vol. 1. p. 132. entire essence of Belsham's Treatise; and these two doctrines, he expresses a hope, he has made as clear and intelligible as it is possible to make them. The "Elements" will prove, even to metaphysical readers, very heavy and dry reading. CHAPTER XVIII. PRICE, OSWALD, BEATTIE, FERGUSON, KAIMES, AND MONBODDO. THE Continental interpretators of Locke's system, the speculative opinions of Hume and Berkeley, and the material theory of Hartley, excited alarm in the minds of many learned and pious persons in England. They thought that religious and moral opinions and sentiments were seriously damaged by the promulgation of such doctrines; and that something by way of antidote at least should be prepared to check the influence of the insidious poison. A more common-sense and spiritual tone was given to speculative tenets on the mind; and they were viewed more in conjunction with the spirit of religion and morality than heretofore. Those who felt it necessary to make a bold stand against what they considered erroneous and dangerous opinions, viewed human nature through a more familiar, but not less interesting, medium; the medium of common life, and every-day feelings and sentiments. They tested abstract principles by experience. They discovered striking discrepancies between theory and practice. They viewed man in all his relations in life; and collected into one common focus those opinions and judgments which seemed to have a universal influence over their minds and movements. These became their elements of philosophy, the definitions, and axioms, and propositions, on which appeals were afterwards made to the universal understanding, will, and feelings of the human race. The disquisitions of the authors whose names we have placed at the head of this chapter, do not therefore belong to the same category with many of the formal and systematic writers on the mind we have noticed; the former cultivating mental philosophy in conjunction with other branches of knowledge; and, on this account, their speculations are more varied, and have less of a theoretical and logical form about them, than the treatises of the latter. In the estimation of Price and Beattie, and their disciples, the discussion of mind is a means to an end; not the end itself. Man has higher and more important objects to attend to, than a mere gratification of his curiosity relative to the thinking principle. He has to look at things connected with his happiness, both here and in a future state of being; and must, therefore, make all the susceptibilities and appliances of his whole nature subservient to the attainment of the grand objects of his existence. These authors admit the paramount importance of metaphysical knowledge; but they all contend that it is not important per se, but only relatively to the condition of man as a religious, moral, and accountable being. DR. RICHARD PRICE. Dr. Price was a Non-conformist divine, and a man of great talents and philosophical attainments. His chief works connected with the science of mind are," A Review of the Principal Questions of Morals," 1757; and his controversial letters with Dr. Priestley relative to the nature of mind and spirit. Price is, in principle, diametrically opposed to Locke, and nearly coincides with the opinions of Cudworth, and some other of the early English Platonists. The Doctor's "Review" has a special reference to questions connected with our moral principles and sentiments, but still it is fundamentally based on the peculiar mental theory we have just now mentioned. We shall illustrate this by a quotation or two. In respect to the origin of our ideas, Dr. Price observes; "Sensation and reflection have been commonly reckoned the sources of our ideas; and Mr. Locke has taken no small pains to prove this. How much soever, on the whole, I admire his excellent "Essay," I cannot think him sufficiently clear and explicit on this subject......The power, I assert, that understands, or the faculty within us that discerns truth, and that compares all the objects of thought and judges of them, is a spring |