but only such general directions, whereby an industrious tutor may bring his deaf pupil to the vulgar use and or of a language, that so he may be the more capable of receiving instruction in the diori, from the rules of grammar, when his judgment is ripe for that study; or, more plainly, I intend to bring the way of teaching a deaf man to read and write, as near as possible to that of teaching young ones to speak and understand their mother-tongue.'

"In prosecution of this general idea, he has treated, in one very short chapter, of A Deaf Man's Dictionary, and in another of A Grammar for Deaf Persons, both of them containing (under the disadvantages of a style uncommonly pedantic and quaint) a variety of precious hints, from which, if I do not deceive myself, useful practical lights might be derived, not only by such as may undertake the instruction of such pupils, as Mitchell or Massieu, but by all who have any concern in the tuition of children during the first stage of their education.

That Dalgarno's suggestions with respect to the education of the dumb, were not altogether useless to Dr. Wallis, will, I think, be readily admitted by those who take the trouble to compare his letter to Mr. Beverley (published eighteen years after Dalgarno's treatise) with his Tractatus de Loquela, published in 1653. In this letter, some valuable remarks are to be found on the method of leading the dumb to the signification of words; and yet the name of Dalgarno is not once mentioned to his correspondent."

We may add, that Mr. Stewart is far more lenient than Dr. Wallis' disingenuity merited, Wallis, in his letter to Mr. Beverley, has plundered Darlgarno, even to his finger alphabet. It is no excuse, though it may in part account for the omission of Dalgarno's name, that Darlgarno, while he made little account in general of the teaching of the deaf and dumb to speak, had, in his chapter on the subject, passed over in total silence the very remarkable exploits in this department of "the learned and my worthy friend Dr. Wallis," as he elsewhere styles him. On this subject, indeed, it seems to have been fated, that every writer should either be ignorant of, or should ignore, his predecessors. Bulwer, Lana, and Wallis, each professed himself original; Dalgarno entitles his Didascalocophus "the first (for what the author knows) that had been published on the subject ;" and Amman, whose Surdus Loquens appeared only in 1692, makes solemn oath, "that he had found no vestige of a similar attempt in any previous writer."

The length to which these observations have run on the Philocophus, would preclude our entering on the subject of the other treatise the Ars Signorum, were this not otherwise impossible within the limits of the present notice. But indeed the most general statement of the problem of an universal character, and

of the various attempts made for its solution, could hardly be comprised within the longest article. At the same time, regarding as we do the plan of a philosophical language, as a curious theoretical idea, but one which can never be practically realized, our interest in the several essays is principally limited to the ingenuity manifested by the authors, and to the minor philosophical truths incidentally developed in the course of these discussions. Of such, the treatise of Dalgarno is not barren; but that which principally struck us, is his remarkable anticipation, on speculative grounds, a priori, of what has been now articulately proved, a posteriori, by the Dutch philologers and Horne Tooke (to say nothing of the ancients)-that the parts of speech are all reducible to the noun and verb, or to the noun alone.

VI.-IDEALISM.

WITH REFERENCE TO THE SCHEME OF ARTHUR COLLIER.

(APRIL, 1839.)

1. Metaphysical Tracts by English Philosophers of the Eighteenth Century. Prepared for the Press by the late Rev. SAMUEL PARR, D.D. 8vo. London: 1837.

2. Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Rev Arthur Collier, M.A., Rector of Langford Magna, in the County of Wilts. From A.D. 1704, to A.D. 1732. With some Account of his Family. By ROBERT BENSON, M.A. 8vo. London : 1837.

WE deem it our duty to call attention to these publications: for in themselves they are eminently deserving of the notice of the few who in this country take an interest in these higher speculations to which, in other countries, the name of Philosophy is exclusively conceded; and, at the same time, they have not been ushered into the world with those adventitious recommendations which might secure their intrinsic merit against neglect.

The fortune of the first is curious.-It is known to those who have made an active study of philosophy and its history, that there are many philosophical treatises written by English authors -in whole or in part of great value, but, at the same time, of extreme rarity. Of these, the rarest are, in fact, frequently the most original: for precisely in proportion as an author is in advance of his age, is it likely that his works will be neglected; and the neglect of contemporaries in general consigns a book-especially a small book-if not protected by accidental concomitants, at once to the tobacconist or tallow-chandler. This is more particularly the case with pamphlets, philosophical, and at the same time polemical. Of these we are acquainted with some, extant perhaps only in one or two copies, which display a metaphysical

talent unappreciated in a former age, but which would command the admiration of the present. Nay, even of English philosophers of the very highest note (strange to say!) there are now actually lying unknown to their editors, biographers, and fellow-metaphysicians, published treatises, of the highest interest and importance; as of Cudworth, Berkeley, Collins, &c.]

We have often, therefore, thought that, were there with us a public disposed to indemnify the cost of such a publication, a collection, partly of treatises, partly of extracts from treatises, by English metaphysical writers, of rarity and merit, would be one of no inconsiderable importance. In any other country than Britain, such a publication would be of no risk or difficulty. Almost every nation of Europe, except our own, has, in fact, at present similar collections in progress-only incomparably more ambitious. Among others, there are in Germany the Corpus Philosophorum, by Gfroerer; in France, the Bibliothèque Philosophique des Temps Modernes, by Bouillet and Garnier; and in Italy, the Collezione de' Classici Metafisici, &c. Nay, in this country itself, we have publishing societies for every department of forgotten literature-except Philosophy.

But in Britain, which does not even possess an annotated edition of Locke-in England, where the Universities teach the little philosophy they still nominally attempt, like the catechism, by rote, what encouragement could such an enterprise obtain? It did not, therefore, surprise us, when we learnt that the publisher of the two works under review-when he essayed what, in the language of "the trade" is called "to subscribe" The Metaphysical Tracts, found his brother booksellers indisposed to venture even on a single copy.-Now, what was the work which our literary purveyors thus eschewed as wormwood to British taste?

The late Dr. Parr, whose erudition was as unexclusive as profound, had, many years previous to his death, formed the plan of reprinting a series of the rarer metaphysical treatises, of English authorship, which his remarkable library contained. With this view, he had actually thrown off a small impression of five such tracts, with an abridgment of a sixth; but as these probably formed only a part of his intended collection, which, at the same time it is known he meant to have prefaced by an introduction, containing, among other matters, an historical disquisition on Idealism, with special reference to the philosophy of Collier, the

.

publication was from time to time delayed, until its completion was finally frustrated by his death. When his library was subsequently sold, the impression of the six treatises was purchased by Mr. Lumley, a respectable London bookseller; and by him has recently been published under the title which stands as Number First at the head of this article.

The treatises reprinted in this collection are the following:

1. Clavis Universalis; or a new Inquiry after Truth: being a demonstration of the non-existence or impossibility of an external world. By Arthur Collier, Rector of Langford Magna, near Sarum. London :

1713.

2. A Specimen of True Philosophy; in a discourse on Genesis, the first chapter and the first verse. By Arthur Collier, Rector of Langford Magna, near Sarum, Wilts. Not improper to be bound up with his Clavis Universalis. Sarum: 1730.

3. (An abridgement, by Dr. Parr, of the doctrines maintained by Collier in his) Logology, or Treatise on the Logos, in seven sermons on John 1. verses 1, 2, 3, 14, together with an Appendix on the same subject.

1732.

4. Conjectura quædam de Sensu, Motu, et Idearum generatione. (This was first published by David Hartley as an appendix to his Epistolary Dissertation, De Lithontriptico a J. Stephens nuper invento (Leyden, 1741, Bath, 1746); and contains the principles of that psychological theory which he afterward so fully developed in his observations on Man.)

5. An Inquiry into the Origin of the Human Appetites and Affections, showing how each arises from Association, with an account of the entrance of Moral Evil into the world. To which are added some remarks on the independent scheme which deduces all obligation on God's part and man's from certain abstract relations, truth, &c. Written for the use of the young gentlemen at the Universities. Lincoln 1747. (The author is yet unknown.)

6. Man in quest of himself; or a defense of the Individuality of the Human Mind, or Self. Occasioned by some remarks in the Monthly Review for July, 1763, on a note in Search's Freewill. By Cuthbert Comment, Gent. London: 1763. (The author of this is Search himself, that is, Mr. Abraham Tucker.)"

These tracts are undoubtedly well worthy of notice; but to the first-the Clavis Universalis of Collier-as by far the most interesting and important, we shall at present confine the few observations which we can afford space to make.1

This treatise is in fact one not a little remarkable in the history of philosophy; for to Collier along with Berkeley is due the honor of having first explicitly maintained a theory of Absolute Idealism; and the Clavis is the work in which that theory is devel

1

[It never rains but it pours. Collier's Clavis was subsequently reprinted in a very handsome form, by a literary association in Edinburgh. Would that the books wanting reimpression, were first dealt with!]