In these respects, Dr Reid possessed important advantages; familiarized, from his early years, to those experimental inquiries, which, in the course of the two last centuries, have exalted Natural Philosophy to the dignity of a science; and determined strongly, by the peculiar bent of his genius, to connect every step in the progress of discovery with the history of the human mind. The influence of the general views opened in the Novum Organon, may be traced in almost every page of his writings; and, indeed, the circumstance by which these are so strongly and characteristically distinguished, is, that they exhibit the first systematical attempt to exemplify, in the study of human nature, the same plan of investigation which conducted Newton to the properties of light, and to the law of gravitation. It is from a steady adherence to this plan, and not from the superiority of his inventive powers, that he claims to himself any merit as a philosopher; and he seems even willing (with a modesty approaching to a fault) to abandon the praise of what is commonly called genius, to the authors of the systems which he was anxious to refute. "It is genius," he observes in one passage, " and not the want of it, that adulterates philosophy, and "fills it with error and false theory. A creative imagina❝tion disdains the mean offices of digging for a foundation, " of removing rubbish, and carrying materials: leaving "these servile employments to the drudges in science, it plans a design, and raises a fabric. Invention supplies

"that species of literature which you have cultivated. "There are some objections which I would willingly pro

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pose to the chapter, Of Sight, did I not suspect that they proceed from my not sufficiently understanding it; and I am the more confirmed in this suspicion, as Dr Blair tells me, that the former objections I made had been derived chiefly from that cause. I shall therefore forbear till the "whole can be before me, and shall not at present propose

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66 any farther difficulties to your reasonings. I shall only say, that if you have been able to clear up these abstruse "and important subjects, instead of being mortified, I shall "be so vain as to pretend to a share of the praise; and shall "think, that my errors, by having at least some coherence, "had led you to make a more strict review of my principles, " which were the common ones, and to perceive their futility.

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"As I was desirous to be of some use to you, I kept a "watchful eye all along over your style; but it is really so "correct, and so good English, that I found not any thing "worth the remarking. There is only one passage in this

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chapter, where you make use of the phrase hinder to do, in"stead of hinder from doing, which is the English one; but "I could not find the passage when I sought for it. You

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may judge how unexceptionable the whole appeared to when I could remark so small a blemish. I beg my

me,

compliments to my friendly adversaries, Dr Campbell and “Dr Gerard; and also to Dr Gregory, whom I suspect to "be of the same disposition, though he has not openly de66 clared himself such.".

Of the particular doctrines contained in Dr Reid's Inquiry, I do not think it necessary here to attempt any abstract; nor indeed do his speculations (conducted as they were in strict conformity to the rules of inductive philosophizing) afford a subject for the same species of rapid outline, which is so useful in facilitating the study of a merely hypothetical theory, Their great object was to record and to classify the phenomena which the operations of the human mind present to those who reflect carefully on the subjects of their consciousness; and of such a history, it is manifest, that no abridgment could be offered with advantage. Some reflections on the peculiar plan adopted by the Author, and on the general scope of his researches in this department of science, will afterwards find a more convenient place, when I shall have finished my account of his subsequent publications.

The idea of prosecuting the study of the human mind, on a plan analogous to that which had been so successfully adopted in physics by the followers of Lord Bacon, if not first conceived by Dr Reid, was at least first carried successfully into execution in his writings. An attempt had long

before been announced by Mr Hume, in the title-page of his Treatise of Human Nature, to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects; and some admirable remarks are made in the introduction to that work, on the errors into which his predecessors had been betrayed by the spirit of hypothesis; and yet it is now very generally admitted, that the whole of his own system rests on a principle for which there is no evidence but the authority of philosophers; and it is certain, that in no part of it has he aimed to investigate by a systematical analysis, those general principles of our constitution which can alone afford a synthetical explanation of its complicated phenomena.

I have often been disposed to think, that Mr Hume's inattention to those rules of philosophizing which it was his professed intention to exemplify, was owing in part to some indistinctness in his notions concerning their import. It does not appear, that, in the earlier part of his studies, he had paid much attention to the models of investigation exhibited in the writings of Newton and of his successors: and that he was by no means aware of the extraordinary merits of Bacon as a philosopher, nor of the influence which his writings have had on the subsequent progress of physical discovery, is demonstrated by the cold and qualified encomium which is bestowed on his genius, in one of the most elaborate passages of the History of England.

In these respects, Dr Reid possessed important advantages; familiarized, from his early years, to those experimental inquiries, which, in the course of the two last centuries, have exalted Natural Philosophy to the dignity of a science; and determined strongly, by the peculiar bent of his genius, to connect every step in the progress of discovery with the history of the human mind. The influence of the general views opened in the Novum Organon, may be traced in almost every page of his writings; and, indeed, the circumstance by which these are so strongly and characteristically distinguished, is, that they exhibit the first systematical attempt to exemplify, in the study of human nature, the same plan of investigation which conducted Newton to the properties of light, and to the law of gravitation. It is from a steady adherence to this plan, and not from the superiority of his inventive that he claims to himself any merit as a philosopowers, pher; and he seems even willing (with a modesty approaching to a fault) to abandon the praise of what is commonly called genius, to the authors of the systems which he was anxious to refute. "It is genius," he observes in one passage, "and not the want of it, that adulterates philosophy, and "fills it with error and false theory. A creative imagina"tion disdains the mean offices of digging for a foundation, ❝ of removing rubbish, and carrying materials: leaving "these servile employments to the drudges in science, it W plans a design, and raises a fabric. Invention supplies