friends, and relations, which we enjoy; land, houses, and moveables, which we possess. But philosophers, pitying the credulity of the vulgar, resolve to have no faith but what is founded upon reason. They apply to philosophy to furnish them with reason for the belief of those things, which all mankind have believed, without being able to give any reason for it. And surely one would expect, that, in matters of such importance, the proof would not be difficult: but it is the most difficult thing in the world. For these three great men, with the best good will, have not been able, from all the treasures of philosophy, to draw one argument, that is fit to convince a man that can reason, of the existence of any one thing without him. Admired Philosophy! daughter of light! parent of wisdom and knowledge! if thou art she! surely thou hast not yet arisen upon the human mind, nor blessed us with more of thy rays than are sufficient to shed a " darkness visible" upon the human faculties, and to disturb that repose and security which happier mortals enjoy, who never ap- proached thine altar nor felt thine influence! But if indeed thou hast not power to dispel those clouds and phantoms which thou hast discovered or created, withdraw this penurious and malignant ray: I despise Philosophy and renounce its guidance: let my soul dwell with Com- mon Sense.
SECT. IV.
Apology for those Philosophers.
BUT instead of despising the dawn of light, we ought rather to hope for its increase: instead of blaming the phi- losophers I have mentioned, for the defects and blemishes of their system, we ought rather to honour their memories, as the first discoverers of a region in philosophy formerly unknown; and, however lame and imperfect the system may be, they have opened the way to future discoveries, and are justly entitled to a great share in the merit of them. They have removed an infinite deal of rust and SECT. IV.] INTRODUCTION. 11 rubbish, collected in the ages of scholastic sophistry, which had obstructed the way. They have put us in the right road, that of experience and accurate reflection. They have taught us to avoid the snares of ambiguous and ill defined words, and have spoken and thought upon this subject with a distinctness and perspicuity formerly un- known. They have made many openings that will lead to the discovery of truths which they did not reach, or to the detection of errors in which they were involuntarily en- tangled.
It may be observed, that the defects and blemishes in the received philosophy concerning the mind, which have most exposed it to the contempt and ridicule of sensible men, have chiefly been owing to this; — that the votaries of this philosophy, from a natural prejudice in her favour, have endeavoured to extend her jurisdiction beyond its just limits, and to call to hef bar the dictates of Common Sense. But these decline this jurisdiction; they disdain the trial of reasoning, and disown its authority; they nei- ther claim its aid nor dread its attacks.
In this unequal contest betwixt Common Sense and Philosophy, the latter will always come off both with dis- honour and loss; nor can she ever thrive till this rivalship is dropped, these encroachments given up, and a cordial friendship restored: for, in reality, Common Sense holds nothing of Philosophy, nor needs her aid. But on the other hand, Philosophy (if I may be permitted to change the metaphor) has no other root but the principles of Common Sense; it grows out of them, and draws its nourishment from them: severed from this root, its honours wither, its sap is dried up, it dies and rots.
The philosophers of the last age, whom I have men- tioned, did not attend to the preserving this union and subordination so carefully as the honour and interest of philosophy required; but those of the present have waged open war with Common Sense, and hope to make a com- plete conquest of it by the subtilties of Philosophy; an attempt no less audacious and vain than that of the giants to dethrone almighty Jove.
OF THE HUMAN MIND. [CHAP. I.
SECT. V.
Of Bishop Berkeley — the Treatise of Human Nature — and of Scepticism.
THE present age, I apprehend, has not produced two more acute or more practised in this part of philosophy, than the Bishop of Cloyne, and the author of the Treatise of Human Nature. The first was no friend to scepticism, but had that warm concern for religious and moral prin- ciples which became his order: yet the result of his in- quiry was a serious conviction, that there was no such thing as a material world; nothing in nature but spirits and ideas; and that the belief of material substances, and of abstract ideas, are the chief causes of all our errors in philosophy, and of alltufidelbjjty and heresy in religion. His arguments are founded upon the principles which were formerly laid down by Des Cartes, Malebranche, and Locke, and which have been very generally received.
And the opinion of the ablest judges seems to be, that they neither have been nor can be confuted; and that he hath proved, by unanswerable arguments, what no man in his senses can believe.
The second proceeds upon the same principles, but carries them to their full length; and as the Bishop undid the whole material world, this author, upon the same grounds, undoes the world of spirits, and leaves nothing in nature but ideas and impressions, without any subject on which they may be impressed.
It seems to be a peculiar strain of humour in this author, to set out in his introduction, by promising, with a grave face, no less than a complete system of the sciences, upon a foundation entirely new, to wit, that of human nature; when the intention of the whole work is to show that there is neither human nature nor science in the world. It may perhaps be unreasonable to complain of this con- duct in an author, who neither believes his own existence nor that of his reader; and therefore could not mean to SECT. V.] INTRODUCTION. 13 disappoint him or to laugh at his credulity. Yet I cannot imagine, that the author of the Treatise of Human Na- ture is so sceptical as to plead this apology. He be- lieved, against his principles, that he should be read, and that he should retain his personal identity till he reaped the honour and reputation justly due to his metaphysical acumen. Indeed, he ingenuously acknowledges, that it was only in solitude and retirement that he could yield any assent to his own philosophy; society, like daylight, dispelled the darkness and fogs of scepticism, and made him yield to the dominion of Common Sense. Nor did I ever hear him charged with doing any thing, even in soli- tude, that argued such a degree of scepticism as his prin- ciples maintained. Surely if his friends apprehended this, they would have the charity never to leave him alone.
Pyrrho the Elean, the father of this philosophy, seems to have carried it to greater perfection than any of his suc- cessors: for if we may believe Antigonus the Carystian, quoted by Diogenes Laertius, his life corresponded to his doctrine. And, therefore, if a cart run against him, or a dog attacked him, or if he came upon a precipice, he would not stir a foot to avoid the danger, giving no credit to his senses. But his attendants, who, happily for him, were not so great sceptics, took care to keep him out of harm's way, so that he lived till he was ninety years of age. Nor is it to be doubted, but this author's friends would have been equally careful to keep him from harm, if ever his principles had taken too strong a hold of lum.
It is probable the Treatise of Human Nature was not written in company; yet it contains manifest indications, that the author every now and then relapsed into the faith of the vulgar, and could hardly, for half a dozen pages, keep up the sceptical character.
In like manner, the great Pyrrho himself, forgot his principles on some occasions; and is said once to have been in such a passion with his cook, who probably had not roasted lu's dinner to his mind, that, with the spit in his hand, and the meat upon it, he pursued him even into the market-plaoe.
14 OF THE HUMAN MIND. [CHAP. I.
It is a bold philosophy that rejects, without ceremony, principles which irresistibly govern the belief and the con- duct of all mankind in the common concerns of life; and to which the philosopher himself must yield, after he ima- gines he hath confuted them. Such principles are older and of more authority than Philosophy: she rests upon them as her basis, not they upon her. If she could over- turn them, she must be buried in their ruins; but all the engines of philosophical subtilty are too weak for this pur- pose; and the attempt is no less ridiculous than if a me- chanic should contrive an axis in peritrochio to remove the earth out of its place; or if a mathematician should pretend to demonstrate, that things equal to the same thing are not equal to one another.
Zeno endeavoured to demonstrate the impossibility of motion; Hobbes, that there was no difference between right and wrong; and this author, that no credit is to be given to our senses, to our memory, or even to demon- stration. Such philosophy is justly ridiculous, even to those who cannot detect the fallacy of it. It can have no other tendency than to show the acuteness of the sophist, at the expense of disgracing reason and human nature, and inakina: mankind Yahoos.
SECT. VI.
Of the Treatise of Human Nature.
THERE are other prejudices against this system of human nature, which, even upon a general view, may make one diffident of it.
Des Cartes, Hobbes, and this author have each of them given us a system of human nature; an undertaking too vast for any one man, how great soever his genius and abilities may be. There must surely be reason to appre- hend, that many parts of human nature never came under their observation; and that others have been stretched and distorted, to fill up blanks and complete the system.
SECT. VI.] INTRODUCTION. 15 Christopher Columbus, or Sebastian Cabot, might almost as reasonably have undertaken to give us a complete map of America.
There is a certain character and style in Nature's works, which is never attained in the most perfect imita- tion of them. This seems to be wanting in the systems of human nature I have mentioned, and particularly in the last. One may see a puppet make variety of motions and gesticulations, which strike much at first view; but when it is accurately observed, and taken to pieces, our admiration ceases; we comprehend the whole art of the maker. How unlike is it to that which it represents! what a poor piece of work compared with the body of a man, whose structure the more we know, the more won- ders we discover in it, and the more sensible we are of our ignorance! Is the mechanism of the mind so easily compre- hended, when that of the body is so difficult? Yet, by this system, three laws of association, joined to a few original t'eelings, explain the whole mechanism of sense, imagina- tion, memory, belief, and of all the actions and passions of the mind, is this the man that nature made? I suspect it is not so easy to look behind the scenes in Nature's work. This is a puppet, surely, contrived by too bold an appren- tice of Nature, to mimic her work. It shows tolerably by candlelight, but brought into clear day, and taken to pieces, it will appear to be a man made with mortar and trowel. The more we know of other parts of nature, the more we like and approve them. The little I know of the planetary system; of the earth which we inhabit; of minerals, vege- tables, and animals; of my o\vn body, and of the laws which obtain in these parts of nature; opens to my mind grand and beautiful scenes, and contributes equally to my happiness and power. But when I look within, and con- sider the Mind itself, which makes me capable of all these prospects and enjoyments; if it is indeed what the Treatise of Human Nature makes it, I find I have been only in an enchanted castle, imposed upon by spectres and appari- tions. I blush inwardly to think how I have been de- luded; I am ashamed of my frame, and can hardly forbear 16 OF THE HUMAN MIND. [CHAP. I.
expostulating with my destiny? Is this thy pastime, O Nature, to put such tricks upon a silly creature, and then to take off the mask, and show him how he hath been be- fooled? If this is the philosophy of human nature, my soul enter thou not into her secrets. It is surely the forbidden Tree of Knowledge; I no sooner taste of it than I perceive myself naked and stript of all things, yea, even of my very self. I see myself and the whole frame of Nature shrink into fleeting ideas, which, like Epicurus's atoms, dance about in emptiness.
SECT. VII.
Tlie System of all these Authors is the same, and leads to Scepticism.
BUT what if these profound disquisitions into the first principles of human nature, do naturally and necessarily plunge a man into the abyss of scepticism? May we not reasonably judge from what hath happened? Des Cartes no sooner began to dig in this mine than scepticism was ready to break in upon him. He did what he could to shut it out. Malebranche and Locke, who dug deeper, found the difficulty of keeping out this enemy still to in- crease; but they laboured honestly in the design. Then Berkeley, who carried on the work, despairing of securing all, bethought himself of an expedient: by giving up the material world, which he thought might be spared without loss, and even with advantage, he hoped, by an impreg- nable partition, to secure the world of spirits. But, alas! the Treatise of Human Nature wantonly sapped the foun- dation of this partition, and drowned all in one universal deluge.
These facts, which are undeniable, do indeed give reason to apprehend, that Des Cartes's system of the human un- derstanding, which I shall beg leave to call the ideal sys- tem, and which, with some improvements made by later writers, is now generally received, hath some original de- SECT. VII.] INTRODUCTION. 17 feet; that this scepticism is inlaid in it, and reared along with it; and, therefore, that we must lay it open to the foundation, and examine the materials, before we can ex- pect to raise any solid and useful fabric of knowledge on this subject.
SECT. VIII.
We ought not to despair of a better.
BUT is this to be despaired of, because Des Cartes and his followers have failed? By no means. This pusilla- nimity would be injurious to ourselves and injurious to truth. Useful discoveries are sometimes indeed the effect of superior genius, but more frequently they are the birth of time and of accidents. A traveller of good judgment may mistake his way, and be unawares led into a wrong track; and while the road is fair before him, he may go on without suspicion and be followed by others; but when it ends in a coal-pit, it requires no great judgment to know that he hath gone wrong, nor perhaps to find out what misled him.
In the mean time, the unprosperous state of this part of philosophy had produced an effect, somewhat discouraging indeed to any attempt of this nature, but an effect which might be expected, and which time only and better success can remedy. Sensible men, who never will be sceptics in matters of common life, are apt to treat with sovereign contempt every thing that hath been said or is to be said upon this subject. — It is metaphysic, say they: who minds it? Let scholastic sophisters entangle themselves in their own cobwebs; I am resolved to take my own ex- istence, and existence of other things, upon trust; and to believe that snow is cold, and honey sweet, whatever they may say to the contrary. He must either be a fool, or want to make a fool of me, that would reason me out of my reason and senses.
I confess I know not what a sceptic can answer to this, 18 OF THE HUMAN MIND. [CHAP. I.
nor by what good argument he can plead even for a hear- ing; for either his reasoning is sophistry, and so deserves contempt; or there is no truth in the human faculties, and then why should we reason?
If therefore a man find himself entangled in these meta- physical toils, and can find no other way to escape, let him bravely cut the knot which he cannot loose, curse meta- physic, and dissuade eveiy man from meddling with it. For if I have been led into bogs and quagmires, by follow- ing an ignis fatuus, what can I do better than to warn others to beware of it? If Philosophy contradicts herself, befools her votaries, and deprives them of every object worthy to be pursued or enjoyed, let her be sent back to the infernal regions from which she must have had her original.
But is it absolutely certain that this fair lady is of the party? Is it not possible she may have been misrepre- sented? Have not men of genius in former ages often made their own dreams to pass for her oracles? Ought she then to be condemned without any farther hearing? This would be unreasonable. I have found her in all other matters an agreeable companion, a faithful counsellor, a friend to Common Sense, and to the happiness of man- kind. This justly entitles her to my correspondence and confidence, till I find infallible proofs of her infidelity.
19 CHAP. II. OF SMELLING.
SECT. I.
The Order of Proceeding. Of the Medium and Organ of Smell.
IT is so difficult to unravel the operations of the human understanding, and to reduce them to their first principles, that we cannot expect to succeed in the attempt, but by beginning with the simplest, and proceeding, by very cau- tious steps, to the more complex. The five external senses may, for this reason, claim to be first considered in an analysis of the human faculties. And the same reason ought to determine us to make a choice even among the senses, and to give the precedence, not to the noblest, or most useful, but to the simplest, and that whose objects are least in danger of being mistaken for other things.
In this view, an analysis of our sensations may be car- ried on, perhaps with most ease and distinctness, by taking them in this order: Smelling, Tasting, Hearing, Touch, and, last of all, Seeing.
Natural philosophy informs us, that all animal and ve- getable bodies, and probably all or most other bodies, while exposed to the air, are continually sending forth effluvia of vast subtilty, not only in their state of life and growth, but in the states of fermentation and putrefaction. These volatile particles do probably repel each other, and so scatter themselves in the air, until they meet with other bodies to which they have some chemical affinity, and with which they unite and form new concretes. All the smell of plants and of other bodies is caused by these vo- latile parts, and is smelled wherever they are scattered in tho air: and the acuteness of smell in some animals, 20 OF THE HUMAN MIND. [CHAP. II.
shows us, that these effluvia spread far, and must be in- conceivably subtile.
Whether, as some chemists conceive, every species of bodies hath a spiritus rectus, a kind of soul, which causes the smell and all the specific virtues of that body, and which, being extremely volatile, flies about in the air in quest of a proper receptacle, I do not inquire. This, like most other theories, is perhaps rather the product of ima- gination than of just induction. But that all bodies are smelled by means of effluvia which they emit, and which are drawn into the nostrils along with the air, there is no reason to doubt. So that there is manifest appearance of design in placing the organ of smell in the inside of that canal, through which the air is continually passing in in- spiration and expiration.
Anatomy informs us, that the membrana pituitaria, and the olfactory nerves, which are distributed to the vilious parts of this membrane, are the organs destined by the wisdom of nature to this sense; so that when a body emits no effluvia, or when they do not enter into the nose, or when the pituitary membrane or olfactory nerves are rendered unfit to perform their office, it cannot be smelled.
Yet notwithstanding this, it is evident that neither the organs of smell, nor the medium, nor any motions we can conceive excited in the membrane above mentioned, or in the nerve or animal spirits, do in the least resemble the sensation of smelling; nor could that sensation of itself ever have led us to think of nerves, animal spirits, or ef- fluvia.
SECT. II.
The Sensation considered abstractly.
HAVING premised these things, with regard to the me- dium and organ of this sense, let us now attend carefully to what the mind is conscious of when we smell a rose or a lily; and since our language affords no other name for SECT. II.] OF SMELLING. 21 this sensation, we shall call it a smell or odour, carefully excluding from the meaning of those names every thing but the sensation itself, at least till we have examined it.
Suppose a person who never had this sense before, to receive it all at once, and to smell a rose; can he perceive any similitude or agreement between the smell and the rose? or indeed between it and any other object whatso- ever? Certainly he cannot. He finds himself affected in a new way, he knows not why or from what cause. Like a man that feels some pain or pleasure formerly unknown to him, he is conscious that he is not the cause of it himself; but cannot, from the nature of the thing, determine whe- ther it is caused by body or spirit, by something near or by something at a distance. It has no similitude to any- thing else, so as to admit of a comparison; and therefore he can conclude nothing from it, unless perhaps that there must be some unknown cause of it.
It is evidently ridiculous, to ascribe to it figure, colour, extension, or any other quality of bodies. He cannot give it a place, any more than he can give a place to melan- choly or joy: nor can he conceive it to have any existence but when it is smelled. So that it appears to be a simple and original affection or feeling of the mind, altogether in- explicable and unaccountable. It is indeed impossible that it can be any body: It is a sensation; and a sensation can only be in a sentient thing.
The various odours have each their different degrees of strength or weakness. Most of them are agreeable or dis- agreeable; and frequently those that are agreeable when weak, are disagreeable when stronger. When we com- pare different smells together, we can perceive very few resemblances or contrarieties, or indeed relations of any kind between them. They are all so simple in themselves, and so different from each other, that it is hardly possible to divide them into genera and species. Most of the names we give them are particular; as the smell of a rose, of a jessamine, and the like. Yet there are some general names; as sweet, stinking, musty, putrid, cadaverous, aromatic. Some of them seem to refresh and animate the mind, others to deaden and depress it.
22 OF THE HUMAN MIND. [CHAP. II.
SECT. III.
Sensation and Remembrance, Natural Principles of Belief.
So far we have considered this sensation abstractly. Let us next compare it with other things to which it bears some relation. And first I shall compare this sensation with the remembrance and the' imagination of it.
I can think of the smell of a rose when I do not smell it; and it is possible that when I think of it, there is neither rose nor smell any where existing. But when I smell it, I am necessarily determined to believe that the sensation really exists. This is common to all sensations, that as they cannot exist but in being perceived; so they cannot be perceived but they must exist. I could as easily doubt of my own existence, as of the existence of my sensations. Even those profound philosophers who have endeavoured to disprove their own existence, have yet left their sensa- tions to stand upon their own bottom, stript of a subject, rather than call in question the reality of their existence.
Here then a sensation, a smell for instance, may be pre- sented to the mind three different ways: it may be smelled, it may be remembered, it may be imagined or thought of. In the first case, it is necessarily accompanied with a be- lief of its present existence; in the second, it is necessarily accompanied with a belief of its past existence; and in the last, it is not accompanied with belief at all, but is what the logicians call a simple apprehension.
Why sensation should compel our belief of the present existence of the thing, memory a belief of its past existence, and imagination no belief at all, I believe no philosopher can give a shadow of reason, but that such is the nature of these operations: They are all simple and original, and therefore inexplicable acts of the mind.
Suppose that once, and only once, I smelled a tuberose in a certain room where it grew in a pot, and gave a very grateful perfume. Next day I relate what I saw and smelled. When I attend as carefully as I can to what SECT. III.] OF SMELLING. 23 passes in my mind in this case, it appears evident, that the very thing: I saw yesterday, and the fragrance I smelled, are now the immediate objects of my mind when I remem- ber it. Further, I can imagine this pot and flower trans- ported to the room where I now sit, and yielding the same perfume. Here likewise it appears, that the individual thing which I saw and smelled, is the object of my imagi- nation.
Philosophers indeed tell me, that the immediate object of my memory and imagination in this case, is not the past sensation, but an idea of it, an image, phantasm, or species of the odour I smelled: that this idea now exists in my mind or in my sensorium; and the mind, contemplating this present idea, finds it a representation of what is past, or of what may exist; and accordingly calls it memory or imagination. This is the doctrine of the ideal philosophy; which we shall not now examine, that we may not inter- rupt the thread of the present investigation. Upon the strictest attention, memory appears to me to have things that are past, and not present ideas, for its object. We shall afterwards examine this system of ideas, and endea- vour to make it appear, that no solid proof has ever been advanced of the existence of ideas; that they are a mere fiction and hypothesis, contrived to solve the phenomena of the human understanding; that they do not at all an- swer this end; and that this hypothesis of ideas or images of things in the mind, or in the sensorium, is the parent of those many paradoxes so shocking to common sense, and of that scepticism, which disgrace our philosophy of the mind, and have brought upon it the ridicule and contempt of sensible men.
In the mean time, I beg leave to think with the vulgar, that when I remember the smell of the tuberose, that very sensation which I had yesterday, and which has now no more any existence, is the immediate object of my me- mory; and when I imagine it present, the sensation itself, and not any idea of it, is the object of my imagination. But though the object of my sensation, memory, and ima- gination be in this case the same, yet these acts or opera- 24 OF THE HUMAN MIND. [CHAP. II.
tions of the mind are as different and as easily distin- guishable as smell, taste, and sound. I am conscious of a difference in kind between sensation and memory, and between both and imagination. I find this also, that the sensation compels my belief of the present existence of the smell, and memory my belief of its past existence. There is a smell, is the immediate testimony of sense; there was a smell, is the immediate testimony of memory. If you ask me, why I believe that the smell exists? I can give no other reason, nor shall ever be able to give any other, than that I smell it. If you ask, why I believe that it existed yesterday? I can give no other reason but that I remember it.
Sensation and memory therefore are simple, original, and perfectly distinct operations of the mind, and both of them are original principles of belief. Imagination is dis- tinct from both, but is no principle of belief. Sensation implies the present existence of its object; memory its past existence; but imagination views its object naked, and without any belief of its existence or nonexistence, and is therefore what the schools call simple apprehension.
SECT. IV.
Judgment and Belief in some Cases precede simple Apprehension.
BUT here again the ideal System comes in our way; it teaches us, that the first operation of the mind about its ideas is simple apprehension; that is, the bare concep- tion of a thing, without any belief about it; and that after we have got simple apprehensions, by comparing them together, we perceive agreements or disagreements between them; and that this perception of the agreement or dis- agreement of ideas is all that we call belief, judgment, or knowledge. Now this appears to me to be all fiction, without any foundation in nature: for it is acknowledged by all, that sensation must go before memory and imagina- SECT. IV.] OF SMELLING. 25