ing hourly advances in developing relations of cause and effect in aid of practical progress and the improvement of life, yet no cause can be traced out which is not itself an effect of something else, and multitudes of the oldest and most obvious facts, both of mind and matter, remain still unaccounted for, even to this limited extent. But, in the former case, inductive research has acquired proud rewards. There is scarcely any sphere of knowledge in which the inquirer after truth will not find inexhaustible stores already provided for him by the industry of his fellow-men; and wherever ignorance conduces to human misconduct, either an available stock of experience and knowledge has been wilfully neglected, or some independent cause has barred the opportunities of approach. To have opened an original and magnificent field of observation in this department, to have conducted his disciples a very considerable way in it, and, during his whole investigation, to have set the example of abstaining from all speculations unsuited to the powers of man, is JOHN LOCKE's title to celebrity. "To inquire into the original, certainty, and extent of human Knowledge, together with the grounds and degrees of Belief, opinion, and assent," is his own brief statement of his vast undertaking. But although the object* of his inquiry is the Human Mind, yet it is not

* It may be useful here to transcribe a note of Dr. Lardner's: "The object and the end in popular works are frequently confounded. The object is the subject-matter of a treatise; the end, the purpose to be attained by treating of the object. Thus the objects of this Essay are the operations of the mind. The end is to teach proper methods of searching after truth."

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' the mind' in the largest sense of that term." sical consideration of the mind" he expressly declines: and it is one of his chief merits that he rendered the inquiry into the nature of mind entirely independent of all theories whatever respecting the agency of matter.

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LOCKE," to use the words of his ablest modern opponent, Cousin, "it is true, is not the first who started the question concerning the Origin of Ideas;' but it is LOCKE who first made it the Grand Problem of Philosophy;" and in full keeping with this "grand problem" is the grand simplicity of process which he proposes for its solution. The phenomena of mind are by him named in their widest sense- -'Ideas;' a term borrowed from the Platonic philosophy, and signifying primarily the eternal 'patterns,' species,' or 'forms,' supposed by Plato to exist in nature, and according to which he held that the Deity fashioned all things. With LOCKE, however, the term will be found to have a less imaginary meaning and the most general form of the process by which he seeks to advance his inquiry respecting Ideas' is fairly enough stated by Dr. Lardner, in his "Lectures upon Locke's Essay:"

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"The main doctrine which he establishes is, that all our primitive ideas originate in sensation. After the mind becomes furnished with ideas by the senses, it begins to exercise its capacities of compounding, comparing, abstracting, &c. The mind contemplating these, its own operations, acquires ideas of them, which ideas form a new class wholly distinct from the former, and which he calls ideas of reflection. His principal argument to establish the doctrine that sensation and reflec

tion are the original of all our ideas, is an induction completed a fortiori. As it would be impossible to enumerate all our ideas, and prove each separately to come from one or other of these sources, he shows, in a general way, that very comprehensive classes undoubtedly arise from them; the most obvious are the ideas peculiar to each of the five senses, the ideas of the different operations of the mind, &c. This induction, which must, from its very nature, be imperfect, he confirms, by showing that those ideas which seem to be most abstruse in their origin, and most unlikely to proceed from the sources he assigns, do, nevertheless, actually proceed from them, and from no other. The ideas he selects for this purpose, are space, time, and infinity."

Upon the contents of the First Book Dr. Lardner further remarks:

"Those who denied sensation and reflection to be the only sources alleged many of our ideas to be innate; that is, to be originally impressed upon the mind in the first moment of its creation, and to constitute an essential and inseparable part of the mind itself. They not only alleged that there were certain ideas thus impressed, but also maintained that there were actually some truths, the perception of which was simultaneous with the creation of the living principle. To state this more plainly; they maintained that at the moment that life is communicated to that portion of organized and hitherto inert matter designed to receive it, there are at the same time conveyed to it clear and distinct perceptions of certain ideas, and even of the truth of certain abstract propositions, and hence these ideas and propositions have

been called innate. Locke devotes his First Book to the refutation of this doctrine; and if this be the only source assigned for ideas, his own doctrine may be considered to be thus established, by reasoning from the remotion of one part to the position of the others. No idea can be considered innate, the existence of which may be accounted for by any of the ordinary ways whereby we get other ideas. For it is unphilosophical to ascribe more causes than are sufficient to solve the phenomenon. It is contrary to the economy of nature to do by two different causes that which might have been done by one and the same."

He then proceeds to say:

"In the course of his investigations respecting the original of our ideas, he enters into several inquiries which do not strictly come under that head. Thus he examines other qualities of ideas, as their clearness, distinctness, reality, adequacy, &c. These considerations conclude his Second Book.

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According to the method laid down in the introduction, he should next have proceeded to the consideration of knowledge and its attributes. In his progress, however, finding a more intimate connexion between language and ideas than he at first had expected, he conceived it necessary to devote a part of his work to the consideration of language, and its influence upon our ideas and knowledge. This subject he has fully treated in his Third Book. The Fourth Book is altogether devoted to investigations respecting knowledge and probability, and their attributes."

Upon the preceding extracts it should be observed,

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that Dr. Lardner is not strictly correct in calling LOCKE'S Induction an 66 argument." So far as it is inferential respecting the origin of our ideas, it is, of course, an "argument;" and its proper force as such we shall presently examine. But so far as it is a collection of facts and instances as a ground of inference (and in this view Lardner seems chiefly to regard it), it is not an argument," but a form of inquiry with a view to obtain the premises of such. These are wholly distinct matters. The former belongs to logic, and is to be adjusted merely by logical rule. The latter, which is the primary sense of the word Induction (i. e. a ‘bringing in' of particulars), is wholly an exercise of practical experience based on competent observation, and no further depends on logic than in so far as the observer may argue right or wrong in the act of 'bringing in,' and appropriating as relevant, any particular instance. In this department practical skill in any given art or science is the best guarantee for a correct Induction; and no logical rules can compensate the want of it. In the former (i. e. in ‘inducing' the conclusion), a double peculiarity arises, of the exact nature of which the reader of LOCKE'S Essay should be apprized beforehand: and therefore an attempt is here made to describe and adjust any apparent confusion that may disturb the student.

It will be granted that the 'collection' of instances constituting what we may call the primary Induction must, of course, be either perfect or imperfect: if it be perfect (which rarely happens), then the secondary Induction can evidently bring no increase to knowledge-it is, as Bacon terms it, a "res puerilis;"—but if it be not perfect,