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be placed confiderably below the rank of the Iliad. Yet, although the Ody ffey be a leis perfect production than the Iliad, there is furely fuch a general refemblance in respect to the plan and execution of thefe poems, as to render it manifeftly proper to clafs them together. To narrow the field of epic poetry fo greatly as has been done by fome critics, we think in the highest degree pedantic and abfurd. Boffu is fo rigid in the qualifications which he demands for this exalted rank of poetical compofitions, that he feems inclined to exclude every pretender except the Iliad, the Eneid, and the Jerufalem of Taffo. Mr. Barron is fcarcely more accommodating, as befides the Odyffey, he rejects from the epic lift the Pharfalia of Lucan, and fome other productions which have been generally admitted to that rank. We think it much more congenial to the principles of found criticifin to clafs together, than to feparate, performances which agree in the effential points of giving a lengthened detail of heroic atchievements, and demanding the higheft embellifhments of which poetry is fufceptible.

Dramatic poetry, confidered under the heads of tragedy, comedy, and opera, is the laft fpecies of compofition to which Mr. Barron directs his attention. We have nothing particular to remark upon this part of his courfe, but that he feems to us to estimate too highly the moral effects of the flage. We can fcarcely allow that "the profeffed end of tragedy is to habituate the mind to the practice of what is right and good, by exciting and ftrengthening virtuous paffions and feelings;" and fill lefs that it furpaffes the exertions of the moralift, as all he attempts is, to gain the intereft of the underflanding in behalf of virtue, while the tragic poet pretends to engage in his favour the more powerful influence of the heart. (Lect. 55.)

The profeffed end of tragedy, we are afraid, cannot be fairly reckoned much higher than to intereft and affect the emotions agrecably. The moral of the fable is generally but a very fecondary confideration; and it were well, if in all our tragedies of repute, even this fecondary confideration were paid to that important point. If the ftage were always an innocent and rational recreation, the moralist would have no caufe to complain; but it must be matter of the deepest regret, that in inany of our tragedies, which have obtained the higheft repute for pathetic effect, the general tendency is the very reverfe of moral; and with refpect to most of our comedies, we are afraid that the cafe is fill worfe.

We proceed now to the fecond department of Mr. Bar

ron's

ron's work, the logic, which occupies by far the fmalleft fpace, as it is difcuffed in fourteen lectures, while the rheto ric is extended to fifty-feven. It is now very generally acknowledged, that the ancient logic of Ariftotle, or, as it is commonly called, the logic of the fchools, however ingenious and fubtle it may be, is of little or no real utility. Its boafted fyllogifm, after all the labour that has been beftowed upon it, and the thousand volumes that have been written to illuftrate its varieties and define its application, has never enriched fcience with a fingle ufeful difcovery.

Notwithstanding that this truth has been fo generally admitted, yet very little has been done by the moderns to place logic on a more rational foundation than it was left by the fchoolmen. Almoft all the modern treatifes which profeff edly difcufs this fubject, are occupied chiefly by the fame frivolous difquifitions which have brought reproach upon the logic of the ancients. This is the more remarkable, as Locke, in his immortal treatife on the Human Understanding, long ago completely expofed the futility of fuch purfuits; and gave an example of the only method by which a rational logic could be cultivated; namely, by a careful analyfis of the various faculties by which the human mind difcovers truth; a detection of the natural caufes of er ror, whether arifing from the imperfection of our faculties, the ambiguity of words, or the common prejudices to which men are expofed; and a cautious invelligation of thofe truths which are intuitive, or entitled to be admitted on their own evidence: and thofe which are brought to light only through the intervention of other truths, by the various procelles of reafoning.

The path which Locke fo clearly pointed out, and in fome measure explored, has been as yet but very little trodden; and the fcience of rational logic may be confidered as ftill affording a rich field of difcovery to the future enquirer. With this impreffion upon our minds, we were induced to expect much gratification from the labours of the prefent author; and to look for inftruction from a lecturer, who had been occupied more than twenty years in the investigation of this very fubject. In this expectation, however, we have been difappointed; for we do not find that Mr. Barron has done any thing to rescue the fcience of logic from the obfcurity under which it has hitherto laboured, or even to add to it thofe lights which the labours of recent writers might have enabled him to appropriate.

Having informed us, after the example of the old logical

writers,

writers, that the operations employed in the inveftigation of truth are only three in number, Perception, Judgment, and Reasoning, this author proceeds to examine the nature of ideas "as exifting feparately, or detached from one another." We need not inform our metaphyfical readers of the great confufion that has arifen in the philofophy of mind from the vague ufe of the term idea, and the fingular paradoxes that have been maintained, chiefly on the ground of the different fenfes affigned to this term. We certainly expected that Mr. Barron, fully aware of all this, would have ftrictly defined the meaning of this ambiguous term, and employed it with the greatest caution. This, however, is by no means the cafe, for idea is ready to ferve the author upon every occafion and he gives no other account of it than the old one, that it is the impreffion, picture, notion, or conception, made on the mind by external objects, or by its own internal feelings and operations, (Lect. 1.) At the end of his third lecture, after having treated at length of ideas as fimple and complex-diftinct and obfcure-adequate and inadequate particular and abftract, Mr. Barron writes as follows concerning the meaning of the word of which he had treated fo amply.

"Before I relinquish this branch of the fubject, I muft ob. ferve, that although in compliance with the example of all logical writers, I have hitherto confidered, and fhall, through the whole of this course continue to confider, all knowledge as compofed of ideas, and fhall call every impreffion made on the mind, whether derived from an external or an internal archetype by this name; yet that fome late writers of eminence have called these impref. fions by other names than that of ideas. All impreffions then, prompted by archetypes, which have a real exiftence without the mind, they diftinguish by the name of perceptions. All impreffions, of which the archetypes have no real exiftence, but are the creatures of the imagination, as a mountain of gold, and fea of milk, they denominate conceptions. Thofe impreffions only they call ideas, which have been formerly received into the mind, and are again recalled by memory. You will find this explanation ufeful in reading fome metaphyfical, and even fome critical writ ers; but it is more convenient for our purpose to give the name of idea to every impreffion, whether fimp'e or complex, and from whatever fource it may be derived."

We are at a lofs to determine what the purpofe is which Mr. Barron finds better anfwered by this vague ufe of the term idea, unless it be that of his own eafe. It certainly contributes greatly to obfcurity to employ the fame term in a variety of senses; and in the cafe of the term in question

the

the evil is greatly aggravated from the circumftance of its being affociated with a very peculiar and erroneous theory of the laws of human thought, by which we are taught that an idea is a kind of picture or fenfible representation of the object about which the mind is occupied, neceffarily prefent in the mind when it perceives, reafons, remembers or imagines. This is the theory that has afforded a foundation for the ftrange fceptical conclufions of certain metaphyfical fyftems concerning the non-existence of matter, and even of mind itself; and it certainly renders a cautious and restricted ufe of the term idea abundautly expedient.

Of this theory, Mr. Barron takes fome notice in his 4th lecture, where he gives an enumeration of the various fources of human knowledge; but he is by no means fuccessful in expofing its abfurdity. He mentions the opinions of Ariftotle and Epicurus concerning the images, phantasms, or films of external objects, which they fuppofed to be prefent in the mind during perception; and alfo fpeaks of the peculiar doctrines of Locke and Hume on this fubject. But what is not a little remarkable, he takes no notice of the fyftemns of Defcartes, or of Berkeley, although these fo materially influenced the progrefs of the ideal theory. His refutation of the fceptical doctrines founded upon this theory, amounts to no more than this, that "our total ignorance of the theory and manner of fenfation and perception, involves this fubject in impenetrable darknefs, and affords field for metaphyfical fpeculations, which, we are fure, maft be errone ous, but which it is not eafy to evince to be falfe."

It is fingular that Mr. Barron fhould not have made a better ufe of the labours of his countryman, Dr. Reid, in whofe Effay on the Intellectual Powers of Man, he might have found a very ample detail of the origin and progreis of the ideal theory, and a very fatisfactory refutation of the fcepticism to which it gave rife. Had he carefully ftudied the works of this metaphyfician,' and of others who have lately trodden in the fame path, his fyftem of logic might have been materially improved in more than one particular.

The enumeration which Mr. Barron gives of the fources of our knowledge, or of the different kinds of evidence by which propofitions are fupported is fenfation, conscious nefs, intention, reafoning, and teftimony. (Lect. 4.) Here we remark one very material omiflion, namely, memory, by which we have the immediate knowledge and evidence of that which is paft, as clearly and certainly as by fenfation or consciousness we have the immediate knowledge of that which is present. Memory is, indeed, a very important

4

fource

fource of information, as without its aid, the knowledge we derive from every other fource would be altogether evanefcent, and of no permanent utility; it ought, therefore, by no means to have been omitted in a claffification of the ori ginal fources of our belief.

After fome curfory obfervations on thefe first principles of knowledge, Mr. Barron proceeds to examine the common fources of error or prejudice. Here he adopts the well known arrangement of Lord Bacon into the Idola Tribus, Idola Fori, Idola Specus, and Idola Theatri; upon each of which claffes he offers fome remarks and illuftrations. Here again, we have to regret that Mr. Barron had not profited by the labours of Dr. Reid, who has a very mafterly chapter on this fubject. The illuftrations and examples offered by the prefent writer are extremely vague and indefinite, and are by no means ftrictly appropriate to the claffes under which they are introduced. Thus the prejudices arifing from party-fpirit, fashion, and authority, which are confidered by Mr. Barron as examples of the Idola Theatri, feem more properly to belong to the Idola Tribus, or that clafs of errors to which the whole human fpecies is liable.

The author next proceeds to treat of the various kinds of reafoning, which he divides into mathematical, moral, poetical, and prudential; and again, into intuitive, demonstrative, and probable. His illuftrations of the different kinds of proof are judicious and ufeful; but his account of the nature of proof itfelf, viz. that it confifts in difcovering the agreement or difagreement of our ideas, is liable to feveral objections which our limits will not at prefent permit us to flate. He fays, "Mathematics and arithmetic are the only fciences fufceptible of demonftrative proof." (Lect. 8.) But where, it may be afked, did he learn that arithmetic is not a branch of the mathematics? The remarks upon the nature of proof are followed by an account of the most ordinary fophifms.

Mr. Barron, at length, arrives at the fyllogifm, the great weapon of the ancient logic, and the principal object of all its laborious refearches. The account which he gives of its ftructure, and of its various modes and figures, is upon the whole fatisfactory, and we have already allowed that he does not eftimate its utility too low, when he fays, that "it never gratified fcience or bufinefs with the difcovery of one ufeful truth." It was, however, as he obferves, poffeffed of" high merit as an engine of wrangling and controverfy; and was the happieft contrivance that could have been devised for

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