THE BRITISH CRITIC, CRITIC, For JANUARY, 1806. Οὐδέπω ἱκανὸν ἂν μὴ εἰδῆς τὴν ἀρετὴν καὶ κακιαν ἑκάσου τῶν ἐγγεγραμ μένων, καὶ συνίης ὅσις μὲν ὁ νοῦς σύμπασι, τις δὲ ἡ τάξις τῶν ὀνομάτων, ὅσατε πρὸς τὸν ὀρθὸν κανόνᾳ τῷ συγγραφεῖ ἀπηκρίβωται, καὶ ὅσα κίβδηλα, και νόθα, καὶ παρακεκομμένα. LUCIAN. Your duty as a Critic is not fully performed unless you difcern the merit and the defect of every writing, the drift of each, the arrangement of the language, how much is fuitable to the strict rules of compofition, and what parts falfe, irregular, and im perfect. ART. 1. Academical Questions. By the Right Honourable William Drummond, K. C. F. R. S. F. R. S. E. Author of a Tranflation of Perfius. 4to. vol. I. 412 pp. 15$. Cadell and Davies. 1805. S the human mind muft be employed in fome way or other, and as men of rank and fortune are not under the neceffity of exerting their talents to procure either the neceffaries or what are commonly called the comforts of life, it is extremely fortunate for fuch men to have acquired when young a tafte for fcience and literature. They have thus within themfelves fources of happiness, not only more refined but more durable than thofe of the fenfualift; and, which is of ftill greater importance, while they are indulging in the enjoyments which they relifh moft, they may be instructing A BRIT, CRIT. VOL. XXVII, JAn, 1806, ftru&ting the public, and contributing to the happiness of the human race. A friend of ours, born to a small fortune, was ferioufly exhorted by an old and rich baronet to attend, above all things, to the pleasures of the table; "becaufe," said the fage Mentor," they are the only pleasures which a man can relish through the whole of his life!" It is needlefs to ask, what this man, if alive, would have thought of Mr. Drummond's employment of his leifure hours in tranflating Perfius, and in writing Academical Queftions; and it is equally needless to afk Mr. Drummond's opinion of him who confidered the pleasures of the table as the only objects worthy of a wife man's regard! There are not, it is to be hoped, many perfons, who have enjoyed the advantages of a liberal education, so completely fenfual and grovelling as to avow fuch fentiments as thofe now mentioned; but there are not a few, who exprefs on all occafions their contempt of fpeculative fcience. Me. chanical philofophy and chemiftry are indeed allowed to be mterefting fubjects of study, because they lend their aid to the arts of life; but whatever can be called metaphysics is confidered as intricate, abftrufe, useless, and dangerous. The mere claffical fcholar, as Warburton has fomewhere faid, will fpend his days and his nights in turning round the dark-lantern of Lycophron; the antiquary, in reading the taftelefs legends of monkifh fuperftition; and each will think himself employed in a rational and liberal purfuit; while both turn with abhorrence from every work in which an attempt is made to afcertain the laws of human thought. Aware of the prevalence of these prejudices, Mr. Drum. mond, in an elegant preface, pleads the cause of the firft philofophy, and obviates the objections, which he doubtlefs forefaw that the very title of his book would particularly fuggeft; but we wilh that he had beftowed more difcriminating praife on Athenian writers and Athenian liberty; and that he had not, at least in the preface to Academical Queftions, mentioned the admiration in which Helvetius was held in the circle of Paris. The Athenians, with all their merits, were a turbulent and factious people; and in the prefent itate of Europe, an appeal to the fentiments of the inhabitants of Paris will contribute nothing to remove prejudices entertained by good men against the fcience of metaphyfics. We with likewife that he had more accurately explained what he means by the word idea; for the vague uíe of that word has been the fource of much con-* fufion; and its meaning is not fufficiently fixed by the fol lowing note, which is the only preliminary attempt that he has made to fix it. "I think it may not be improper to obferve here, that although I have generally understood the word idea in the fame fenfe with moft other modern philofophers, I am yet ready to acknowledge, that it may bear another and an higher meaning. I cannot, indeed, comprehend any thing, which is neither a fenfation, nor obtained from one: I do not, however, on that ac count, deny the existence of divine and intelligible ideas, as these were explained by Plato, to be poffible." Pref. p. 14. Modern philofophers have employed the word idea in very different fenfes; and Locke, who with all his defects is ftill at the head of them, has done fo in the fame work, in the fame book, in the fame chapter, and even in the fame section! With him it is fometimes confounded with actual and prefent fenfation; fometimes it is the appearance of a fenfible object recollected by the memory, or contemplated by the imagination; at one time it is a fenfible quality inherent in fome external fubftance; at another, it is the external fubftance itself; now, it is virtue or vice; and again, understanding or will! Other philofophers of modern times have endeavoured in vain to banish the word idea from the language of science, and to substitute in its stead notion or conception; but no fubftitution would be attended with any advantage, if the word fubftituted were to be used with the fame ambiguity with which Locke and fome of his followers have ufed the word idea. What then is to be done in this cafe? Is ambiguity infeparable from the language of metaphyfics? and are the culti vators of that science to go on for ever mistaking one another, and difputing about mere founds? We hope not. Some good may furely be done by paying attention to the etymology of words, and ufing them always in one fenfe; and fince the verb idea is evidently derived from the Greek verb sow, it might be properly employed to denote the appearance to" the mind's eye" of recollected objects of fight, or, if this meaning be thought too confined, of recol. lected or imagined objects of fenfe in general, whi'e fome other word is ufed to denote the objects of pure intellect. An author, whom Mr. Drummond has quoted as acute, propofes to employ for this purpofe the word notion; and as that word is certainly derived from the Latin verb nosco, a better will not perhaps be readily found. According to this diftinétion, a man has a notion of courage, and an idea of a battle; a notion of fubftance, and an idea of figure or colour, qualities or fuppofed qualities of fubstance. That we can talk and reafon with as much accuracy about courage in the abstract, as about a battle, is incontrovertible; but that the one fubject of converfation does not figure in the fancy in the fame manner as the other, must be evident to every man who has paid attention to what is paffing or has paffed in his own mind. When we think of a battle, we fancy that we faintly fee two armies engaged, hear the report of their mufquets, and perceive the smoke, as we have been accustomed to do at reviews; but when we think of courage, we figure nothing to ourselves, unlefs, perhaps, the letters or found of the word, by which that virtue. is expreffed. Yet we know perfectly what courage is, and may therefore be said to have a notion of it, though it prefents to our fancy no fuch ideas as are prefent with us when we think of a battle. Objects of knowledge fo perfectly diftin&t in themselves ought furely to be expreffed by different words; but without contending for the propriety of the word idea in the one cafe, and of notion in the other, we only beg the reader never to lofe fight of the diftinction itself, which he will find of fome importance in every metaphyfical difcuffion. We must request him likewife to confider well, whether all our firft truths be not particular. No truth, entitled to the name of an axiom, in the proper fenfe of the word, is a first truth. Every man of common underflanding muft indeed admit the truth of Euclid's first axiom as foon as it is fully prefented to his mind; but it cannot be at once fully prefented to the mind of a boy in his fourth or fifth year; and we have all perceived, it is hard to fay how often, that two individual pieces of matter applied fucceffively to a third, and found to be each equal to that third, are equal to one another, before we could either give or refufe our affent to the general truth." Things equal to one and the fame thing are equal to one another." We do not by this mean to affert, that the one truth follows as a confequence from the other, for, in the language of metaphyfics, they are both neceffary and eternal but only that the progrefs of the human mind, being from particulars to generals, we muft often have perceived and reflected on the truth of particular propofitions of the fame kind, before we could comprehend the meaning of the general axiom under which they are all included. Having made thefe preliminary obfervations, to which we fhall have occafion frequently to refer, we now proceed to confider fome of Mr. Drummond's Academical Questions, for our limits will not admit of a difcuffion of the whole; but before we enter on that confideration, we must request the reader not to fuppofe that we think meanly of the book, 2 though |