thither is not altogether free from a certain uncouthness of manner, apt at first sight to chill our ardour and repel familiarity.

But they whom nature designed for metaphysicians are not to be discouraged by difficulties; since in philosophy, as in religion, the crown, they know, is reserved for those who "through faith and patience inherit the promises." The truths which in this world grow along the wayside, are few and of ordinary quality; to reach the noblest and most beautiful we must strike off into little-frequented paths, nor heed the briars and thorns, or the rocky, steep, and slippery places over which with sweat and toil it is necessary to force our way. For this reason the fastidious and luxurious student, who would enjoy the reputation of having made progress in philosophy, selects works of easier access than the masterpiece of Locke. In fact, compilers in this, as in other sciences, often possess greater charms for the generality than original speculators and inventors of systems; for, unable to overawe or dazzle mankind by opening up fresh views into the arcana of nature, or by the revelation of new truths, they betake themselves to the ample storehouses of rhetoric, and, by the help of sleights and artifices so metamorphose the ideas which they cull from the works of others that it would be difficult even for those from whose brains they sprung, to recognise them.

We accordingly often hear it said that, like Plato and Aristotle, Locke has now grown somewhat out of date, and that vast improvements have since his time been made in metaphysics.

It is far, however, from being clear to me that philosophy, in the proper sense, is a science at all, or that we can go on from generation to generation enlarging and improving it, as we do geography, astronomy, and the mathematics. On the contrary, it appears to partake very much of the nature of an art, which, depending partly on the genius and partly on the practice and experience of an individual, is perfectly intransmissible; otherwise the immediate disciples of Bacon and Locke would necessarily have been as wise if not wiser than they, all the accumulated stores of thought bequeathed by those great men to the world having been within their reach, together with whatever by their own industry they

could add to them. In this way each age would outgrow that which preceded it, until at length our wisdom would be that of gods, and our knowledge all but boundless.

The history of philosophy lays before us a far different picture. A great man arises and occupies himself with the study of nature; he reads, he inquires, he investigates, he meditates; his ideas and opinions, under the inexplicable influence of that peculiar conformation of mind which we designate character, arrange themselves harmoniously into a certain order; that is, grow up into a system of which the philosopher himself constitutes the centre, his intellectual idiosyncracies pervading the whole, and communicating to every part those peculiar features which prove it to have proceeded from his mind.

When this process is completed, men, smitten by the thirst of knowledge, ardent, enthusiastic, approaching within the sphere of the philosopher's influence, are attracted towards him and become his disciples; and his central light reflected from their minds, like that of the sun from the face of the planets, is what we denominate philosophy in its second stage of progression; after which, if the process be continued, it grows at every remove paler and paler until at length it dies away, and is no longer discernible. This circle being completed, the powers of that philosophy are supposed to be effete, and the necessity of a new system is felt. Then generally another inventive mind springs up into life, and contemplating man and the universe from a new point of view, creates another system more or less true and comprehensive in proportion to the elevation of its author's intellect.

The number of minds of this original and systematic character has in modern times been small, consisting of Descartes, Hobbes, Bacon, and Locke; and even Bacon ought perhaps to be considered rather as a great critic in philosophy than as the founder of a new system, since it would be difficult to name the doctrines or opinions he introduced, or say in what he innovated, save in the method of philosophizing. Other men indeed there have been, possessed by the ambition of founding a new philosophical sect, who have left behind them works of great ingenuity, and not without their value, as Leibnitz, Malebranche,

Hume, and Berkeley; but it may be doubted whether they would have favoured the world with their opinions at all had they not received the impulse from other thinkers. Descartes, Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke were themselves the originators and centres of a new motion, which, proceeding from them, diffused itself on all sides, until it embraced and agitated every speculative mind throughout the civilized. world. The influence, however, of Descartes and Hobbes was comparatively transient, while that of Locke and Bacon still exists, and appears destined long to continue in operation. Their philosophy, indeed, is seldom received directly from their own writings, but through other and inferior channels, more on a level with the minds that imbibe it.

But it would unquestionably be an advantage to the world could we multiply the number of those who come in contact with the philosophers themselves, and receive the vital warmth and motion directly from their original source. To facilitate this process is the aim of the present edition of the Essay on the Human Understanding, and those minor works which precede and follow it, constituting the most remarkable and by far the most influential body of philosophical writings to which modern times have given birth.

I am not ignorant, however, that the opinion is widely received, even among persons who affect to rank above the common herd, that Locke is a dry and crabbed writer, abounding perhaps with original thoughts, and acute and ingenious speculations, but incapable of affording to the reader that pleasure, which, in an indolent and luxurious age, is more sedulously sought after than truth or knowledge. But I am inclined to reckon this among the vulgar errors of our times, particularly as I have never found it to be entertained by any man familiar with the works of Locke. On the contrary, it is generally bandied about among persons who lack the healthful appetite for knowledge which would enable them to digest it when placed before them in his manly and highly vigorous style.

In many respects indeed Locke may be regarded as an exact representative of the whole English nation, which has never been celebrated for external polish and refinement, though no people in Europe has hitherto approached it for

impetuosity of eloquence, for profoundness in philosophy, or the highest flights of imaginative grandeur in poetry.

So with Locke, whose language, to acknowledge the truth frankly, is at times careless, rough, and even slovenly; but to make amends our minds are delighted and lifted up by the magnificence and vast dimensions of his thoughts, which, circling about the orbit of human genius, often project themselves beyond the remotest limits of the universe into the unfathomable abyss of space which appears to surround creation on all sides. Departing likewise from those two sources of all we know or can know, sensation and reflection, he conducts our understandings upwards through every gradation of intellectual being extending from man to God, respecting whose existence and ineffable nature he reasons with the precision of a mathematician and the piety of a saint. It would indeed be difficult in this respect to ex-.. aggerate his merits. Having with wonderful patience and accuracy sounded the depths and shallows of human knowledge, and discovered how little we comprehend of that infinitude of intelligible things which encompasses us, he had framed to himself the most exalted notion of the Divinity; and the deep and unaffected reverence for the Divine nature which pervades his whole philosophy sheds a glory and a lustre over it which no length of time, I feel confident, will suffice to destroy.

Nevertheless, in investigating the origin of our knowledge on this awful subject, he falls into an error, which in the proper place I have pointed out in the notes. It may, however, be well briefly to advert to it in this place. Being intent on overthrowing the doctrine of innate ideas, he argues that even the idea of a God is obtained through the medium of sensation and reflection. In proof of this he refers to the many nations of atheists which, according to certain travellers, are found in various parts of the world. Now if whole communities of men exist to whom the couception of a Deity has never presented itself, it must be self-evident that the doctrine of innate ideas is false; for if God impressed any idea on the mind of man from the first moment of its existence, it would doubtless be that of himself: but we find whole races of men, says Locke, who not only bring no such idea into the world with them, but

never acquire it at all; therefore the system of innate ideas is palpably unfounded. It was well, however, for him that the other parts of the foundation of his system were better than this; since it has never been proved, and in fact never can be proved, that there is anywhere to be found a whole nation among whom no idea of a Divinity exists. The travellers who have given currency to such a belief are altogether unworthy of credit, either because they had some purpose to serve by setting it on foot, or because, being in reality ignorant of what the people they described thought or believed, they jumped rashly, without inquiry, to the conclusion that they believed nothing. This may often, as in the case of Le Vaillant, be demonstrated from their own works, where affirming one thing in one place and the contrary in another, they not only authorise but compel us to believe that they either wholly misunderstood or wilfully misrepresented the people among whom they sojourned. Upon such writers it might have been expected that a cautious and able inquirer like Locke would have placed no reliance; but their relations appearing to support his views he had the weakness to receive their testimony, though his worst enemies never for one moment supposed that it interfered in any way with his own belief.

Of man himself his conception, in my opinion, was less just. He appears frequently to delight in humbling our pride by dwelling upon our weakness and insignificance, by recurring again and again to our want of power to extort from nature her secrets, by delineating in sad and humiliating colours diseases as well of the body as the mind. For something of this propensity he was, perhaps, indebted to those physiological and pathological studies connected with the profession for which he was designed, it being exceedingly difficult for a physician to emancipate himself from the influence of the hospital and the dissecting-room, however much he may desire it.

With this part of his notions, which strongly resemble the sarcastic declamation of Montaigne, the world has been rendered familiar through the Essay on Man, in which Pope often does nothing more than versify what he found in the works of Locke.

The defect, however, here pointed out can scarcely be said