ment. "In what does the value and the real nature of "stock reserved for immediate consumption differ from "stock that yields, what Dr. Smith calls a revenue or "profit? Merely in this-that the former is wanted "and used itself by the owner; the latter is not want"ed by him, and therefore is exchanged for something "which he does want."" According to Dr. Smith "there is some difference between revenue and enjoy"ment; and that part of a man's property yields him 66 no profit which is most useful and necessary to him; "by which he can support and enjoy life without the "necessity of any operation of barter." If the fundamental error lie with him who considers that to be productive of wealth, which does not yield a tangible return, it will follow that the identity of capital and revenue, of the hen and the golden eggs, cannot be established. But the Reviewer instantly contradicts himself by admitting that there is a difference, which, says he, consists "merely in this," that a man's re venue is the exact measure of his wants, and that he does not encroach upon his capital, because his capaci ty of enjoyment has been already saturated by the expenditure of his revenue! a representation, which, if it were founded in truth, it would be difficult to reconcile with the existence of vice and misery in the world. It does not appear how the Reviewer would prove that there is no "difference between revenue and enjoy"ment;" and that revenue yields profit, because it enables a man to "support and enjoy life," i. e. is the source and measure of enjoyment, i. e. of itself! Revenue and enjoyment are the same thing; but revenue yields profit, because it yields enjoyment! Ohe, jam satis est.

ART. VII. On the Nominalism of Berkeley, Hume, Campbell, Burke, and Stewart.

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"Scarce two great scholars in an age, but with bitter invectives they fall foul one on the other, and their adherents; Scotists, Thomists, Reals, Nominals, Plato and Aristotle, Galenists and Paracelsians, &c.; it holds in all professions." BURTON.

ALL the words of a language, except proper names, represent general ideas, or things connected with them. How we conceive these ideas is no more wonderful, or incomprehensible, than any other operation of the mind: that we do conceive them is a fact of which we are conscious; and we may pronounce that a system founded on the negation of this fact must be erroneous. Every thing in nature is particular, therefore ideas must refer to particulars, say the nominalists. This conclusion depends on an inadmissable analogy; for though analogy may sometimes supply the defect of, it ought never to be substituted for, real phenomena. The phenomena of mind must be studied with the same unbiassed attention with which we observe those of matter; and it would be equally improper to transfer, by analogy, the laws of the physical to the moral, as of the moral to the physical world. The colour green exists only as a quality of certain objects; it has no separate, independent, existence: but that the abstract idea of green, without reference to any individual object, should exist in the mind, is as simple a fact as that the idea of a green tree should exist in it. Rejecting abstract and general ideas, the nominalists explain the mode in which the signs of such ideas affect the mind

in two ways: 1. General terms excite ideas of particular objects which represent all those comprehended under the term; abstract terms also excite ideas of particular objects of which we attend only to the qua. lity expressed by the term, as the colour of a tree without regard to its other properties: 2. They sometimes answer their purpose without exciting any ideas, like the letters used in Algebra. From the first explanation they have been called Particularists, and the errors it involves have been unanswerably exposed by Dr. Reid and Mr. Brown. From the second they may be called Nihilists, and as it has not attracted the attention of those two great Conceptualists, I shall venture, under their auspices, to examine it.

BERKELEY. (Prin. Hum. Know. Introd.)

"In reading and discoursing, names being for the "most part used as letters are in Algebra, in which "though a particular quantity be marked by each "letter, yet, to proceed right, it is not requisite that "in every step each letter suggest to your thoughts "that particular quantity it was appointed to stand "for."

This is a favourite illustration with Leibnitz and all the nominalists; and if they could shew that in one science signs may be used without attending to the things signified, (a contradictory proposition which they confidently advance) we might readily concede its practicability in all cases. In stating the conditions of an equation it is allowed that we must attend to the values of the several letters: of course we cannot consider the particular number represented by those whose values are required, but they suggest the general idea of number. In the subsequent steps of the operation

it is not requisite that the letters suggest the particular quantities they were appointed to stand for, but they are not therefore insignificant; they suggest general ideas of quantity, under certain relations whose signs are carefully attended to, for now the truth depends on the immutable relations of number and quantity, and it is sufficient that the letters suggest ideas of something susceptible of such relations. The result being obtained, it becomes necessary to advert to the particular significations originally assigned them. The signs + →, &c. constantly suggest the ideas of addition, substraction, &c:: are we then adding nothing to nothing, and substracting nothing from nothing? That would be absurd. It appears, therefore, that we do conceive abstract general ideas, and that the illustration proves the reverse of what it was intended to prove.

Signs, whether words, or Algebraic characters, that do not suggest particular ideas must be insignificant, according to the system I am considering; so that, in reading or discourse, we may be employed in observing the relations of nonentities! It is true that words may be used as letters are in Algebra;" but I have endeavoured to shew that when we do not attend to the particular significations of the latter, we do attend to their general significations. In the same manner words must constantly suggest their significations, whether they refer to general or particular ideas. Reasoning consists in observing the relations of objects. In mathematics, the most abstract of all the sciences, the objects of our attention are number and quantity, and, their few relations: in all the other departments of knowledge, we consider innumerable objects connected by as many relations, and we cannot advance a step

Bb

without apprehending the ideas represented by each word. In this process we find that the general ideas answer to the summons with as much promptitude as the particular; and they are not convertible, but are distinct objects of thought possessing relations peculiar to themselves. The several parties in imaginary law cases are generally distinguished by letters of the alphabet; as in Algebra, we do not attach to these letters ideas of particular men, for we are considering relations common to all men; but we do attach to them abstract ideas of human beings susceptible of all these relations, and not ideas of inferior animals; or of things in the vegetable, or in the mineral, kingdom; or of nonentities destitute of any relations. Even when Aristotle uses letters of the Alphabet to illustrate the different forms of syllogisms, according to the positions of the subject, predicate, and middle term, they must suggest abstract ideas of substance, for we cannot say, All Xs are Ys, if we do not carry our attention beyond the letters.

HUME. (Essays.)

The way in which Hume says we can reason without annexing "distinct and complete ideas to the terms we "make use of," is this: "the custom which we have "acquired of attributing certain relations to ideas still

follows the words, and makes us immediately per"ceive the absurdity of that proposition. [Viz. 'in "war the weaker have always recourse to conquest.']"

Words, in discourse, have no relations to each other but those of articulate sound, except as they represent ideas, and if these are not conceived they can convey no proposition; but, in the above quotation, it is assumed that they have conveyed a proposition, since we