ESSAY THIRD.

ON THE INFLUENCE OF LOCKE'S AUTHORITY UPON THE PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS WHICH PREVAILED IN FRANCE DURING THE LATTER PART OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

THE account given by Locke of the origin of our ideas, which furnished the chief subject of one of the foregoing Essays, has, for many years past, been adopted implicitly, and almost universally, as a fundamental and unquestionable truth, by the philosophers of France. It was early sanctioned in that country, by the authority of Fontenelle, whose mind was probably prepared for its reception, by some similar discussions in the works of Gassendi; at a later period, it acquired much additional celebrity, from the vague and exaggerated encomiums of Voltaire; and it has since been assumed, as the common basis of their respective conclusions concerning the history of the human understanding, by Condillac, Turgot, Helvetius, Diderot, D'Alembert, Condorcet, Destutt-Tracy, De Gerando, and many other writers of the highest reputation, at complete variance with each other, in the general spirit of their philosophical systems.

But although all these ingenious men have laid hold eagerly of this common principle of reasoning, and have vied with each other in extolling Locke for the sagacity which he has displayed in unfolding it, hardly two of them can be named who have understood it exactly in the same sense; and perhaps not one who has understood it precisely in the sense annexed to it by the author. What is still more remarkable, the praise of Locke has been loudest from those who seem to have taken the least pains to ascertain the import of his conclusions.

*«Tous les philosophes François de ce siècle ont fait gloire de se ranger au nombre des disciples de Locke, et d'admettre ses principes."-(De Gerando, de la Génération des Connoissances Humaines, p. 81.) 15

VOL. IV.

The mistakes so prevalent among the French philosophers on this fundamental question, may be accounted for, in a great measure, by the implicit confidence which they have reposed in Condillac, (whom a late author has distinguished by the title of the Father of Ideology), as a faithful expounder of Locke's doctrines; and by the weight which Locke's authority has thus lent to the glosses and inferences of his ingenious disciple. In the introduction to Condillac's Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, after remarking, that "a philosopher often announces the truth, without being aware of it himself;" he adds, that it seems to have been, by some accident of this sort, that the Peripatetics were led to assume, as a principle, that all our knowledge comes by the senses:-a principle which they were so far from comprehending, that none of them was able to unfold it in detail; and which it was reserved for the moderns to bring to light, after a long succession of ages."

"Bacon," the same author continues, "was perhaps the first who perceived it; having made it the groundwork of a treatise, in which he gives excellent precepts for the advancement of the sciences. The Cartesians rejected it with contempt, because they formed their judgment of it only upon the statement given by the Peripatetics. At last, Locke laid hold of it, and has the merit of being the first by whom its truth was demonstrated."

Of the meaning which Condillac annexed to this discovery of Locke, a sufficient estimate may be formed from the following sentence: "According to the system which derives all our knowledge from the senses, nothing is more easy than to form a precise notion of what is meant by the word idea. Our ideas are only sensations, or portions abstracted from some sensation, in order to be considered apart. Hence two sorts of ideas, the sensible and the abstract." † On other occasions, he tells us, that "all the operations of the understanding are only transformed sensations; and that the

* Destutt-Tracy. Traité des Systèmes, p. 68. "Le jugement, la réflexion, les désirs, les passions, &c. ne sont que la sensation même qui se transforme différemment."-Traité des Sensations, p. 4.)

faculty of feeling comprehends all the other powers of the mind." I must acknowledge, for my own part, (with a very profound writer of the same country)" that these figurative expressions do not present to me any clear conceptions, but, on the contrary, tend to involve Locke's principle in much additional obscurity." *

To how very great a degree this vague language of Condillac has influenced the speculations of his successors, will appear from some passages which I am now to produce; and which, in my opinion, will sufficiently show through what channel the French philosophers have, in general, acquired their information, with respect to Locke's doctrine concerning the origin of our ideas.†

"When Aristotle," says Helvetius, "affirmed, nihil est in intellectu quod non fuit prius in sensu, he certainly did not attach to this maxim the same meaning with Locke. In the Greek philosopher, it was nothing more than the glimpse of a future discovery, the honor of which belongs to the Englishman alone." †

* De Gerando, de la Génération des Connoissances Humaines, p. 78.

In justice to some individuals, I must observe here, that the vagueness of Condillac's language, in this instance, has been remarked by several of his own countrymen. "Trompé par la nouveauté d'une expression qui paroit avoir pour lui un charme secret, renfermant toutes les opérations de l'esprit sous le titre commun de sensation transformée, Condillac croit avoir rendu aux faits une simplicité qu'il n'a placée que dans les termes." In a note on this passage, the same author adds, Cette observation a été faite par M. Prevost, dans les notes de son mémoire sur les signes; par M. Maine-Biran, dans son Traité de l'Habitude, &c. Cet abus des termes est si sensible, qu'on s'étonne de l'avoir vu rénouvellé depuis, par des écrivains très-éclairés." De Gerando Histoire Comparée, &c. Tome I. pp. 345, 346. The work of M. Maine-Biran here referred to, is entitled, " Influence de l'Habitude sur la faculté de penser. Ouvrage qui a remporté le prix sur cette question proposée par la classe des sciences morales et politiques de l'Institut National: Determiner quelle est l'influence de l'habitude sur la faculté de penser; ou, en d'autres termes, faire voir l'effet que produit sur chacune de nos facultés intellectuelles, la fréquente répétition des mêmes opérations.”

Although I differ from this author in many of his views, I acknowledge, with pleasure, the instruction I have received from his ingenious Essay.-For his criticism on Condillac's Theory of Transformed Sensations, see pp. 51 and 52 of the Traité de l'Habitude.

To prevent any ambiguities that may be occasioned by the general title of French Philosophers, it is necessary for me to mention, that I use it in its most restricted sense; without comprehending under it the writers on the Human Mind, who have issued from the school of Geneva, or who have belonged to other parts of Europe, where the French language is commonly employed by men of learning, in their publications.

"Lorsqu' Aristote a dit, nihil est in intellectu, &c. il n'attachoit certainement pas à cette axiome les mêmes idées que M. Locke. Cette idée n'étoit tout au plus, dans le philosophe Grec, que l'appercevance d'une découverte à faire, et dont l'honneur appartient en entier au philosophe Anglois." (De l'Esprit, disc. iv.)

It is observed by Dr. Gillies, in his very valuable Analysis of Aristotle's Works, that "he nowhere finds, in that author, the words universally ascribed to him,

What was the interpretation annexed by Helvetius himself to Locke's doctrine on this point, appears clearly from the corollary which he deduced from it, and which he has employed so many pages in illustrating; "that every thing in man resolves ultimately into sensation or the operation of feeling." This, therefore, is the whole amount of the discovery which Helvetius considered as the exclusive glory of Locke.

"It is to Aristotle we owe," says Condorcet, “that important truth, the first step in the science of mind, that our ideas even such as are most abstract, most strictly intellectual, (so to speak,) have their origin in our sensations. But this truth he did not attempt to support by any demonstration. It was rather the intuitive perception of a man of genius, than the result of a series of observations accurately analysed, and systematically combined, in order to derive from them some general conclusion. Accordingly, this germ, cast in an ungrateful soil, produced no fruit, till after a period of more than twenty centuries.*

"At length, Locke made himself master of the proper clue. He showed, that a precise and accurate analysis of ideas, resolving them into other ideas, earlier in their origin, and more simple in their composition, was the only means to avoid being lost in a chaos of notions, incomplete, incoherent, and indeterminate; destitute of order, because suggested by accident; and admitted among the materials of our knowledge without due examination.

"He proved by this analysis, that the whole circle of our ideas results merely from the operation of our intellect upon the sensations we have received; or more accurately speaking, that all our ideas are compounded of

nihil est in intellectu," &c. He quotes, at the same time, from Aristotle, the following maxim, which seems to convey the same meaning, almost as explicitly as it is possible to do, in a different language: ἐν τοῖς εἴδεσι τοῖς αἰσθητοῖς τὰ νοητά ἐστι. (Gillies's Arist. 2d edition, Vol. I. p. 47.) I must remark here, that the clause, which I have distinguished by italics, in the above quotation from Dr. Gillies, is somewhat too unqualified, at least when applied to the writers of this country. Mr. Harris (whose Hermes happens now to be lying before me) mentions explicitly the phrase in question, as a noted school axiom. (Harris's Works, Vol. I. p. 419.) Nor do I at present recollect any one author of reputation who has considered it in a different light.

• Outlines of Historic. View, &c. Eng. Trans. pp. 107, 108.

sensations, offering themselves simultaneously to the memory, and after such a manner, that the attention is fixed, and the perception limited to a particular collection, or portion of the sensations combined."

The

The language, in this extract, is so extremely vague, and loose, that I should have been puzzled in my conjectures about its exact import, had it not been for one clause, in which the author states, with an affectation of more than common accuracy, as the general result of Locke's discussions, this short and simple proposition, that all our ideas are compounded of sensations. clause immediately preceding these words, and of which they are introduced as an explanation, or rather as an amendment, certainly seems, at first sight, to have been intended to convey a meaning very different from this, and a meaning not liable, in my opinion, to the same weighty objections. But, neither the one interpretation nor the other, can possibly be reconciled with Locke's doctrine, as elucidated by himself in the particular arguments to which he applies it, in various parts of his Essay.

I shall only add to these passages a short quotation from Diderot, who has taken more pains than most French writers, to explain in a manner perfectly distinct and unequivocal, his own real opinion with respect to the origin and the extent of human knowledge.

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Every idea must necessarily, when brought to its state of ultimate decomposition, resolve itself into a sensible representation or picture; and, since every thing in our understanding has been introduced there by the channel of sensation, whatever proceeds out of the understanding, is either chimerical, or must be able, in returning by the same road, to re-attach itself to its sensible archetype. Hence an important rule in philosophy; That every expression which cannot find an external and a sensible object to which it can thus establish its affinity, is destitute of signification."†

*Outlines of Historic. View, &c. Eng. Trans. pp. 240, 241. Not having the original in my possession, I have transcribed the above passage very nearly from the English Translation, published at London in 1795.

f" Toute idée doit se résoudre en dernière décomposition en une représentation sensible, et puisque tout ce qui est dans notre entendement est venu par la voie de