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'Orations, episles, and apophthegmes,' lord Bacon informs us are appendices to history.' In like manner, he Appends mathematics,' divided into arithmetic and geometry,' to natural philosophy;' the doctrine of angels and spirits,' to 'natural theology;' and 'problems and placits,' or propositions to 'physics;' because he could not mathematically arrange them in any place. From logic he derives Elocution, and from Elocution the sciences of Grammar, Method, and Rhetoric.' We have not time to pursue him through all his ramifications of logic, ethics, and the civil history of man; nor is it needful; for we have followed him to his disclosure of all the sciences. Our readers have now before them, the famed classification of all human knowledge by Bacon; which Mr. Stewart says, has not been much improved by all the labours of Locke, D'Lembert, Diderot, the Germans, and the great lights of the eighteenth century. Of ever obtaining such a philosophical partition as he deems desirable, the professor seems to despair. So did not Bacon. He says, 'touching impossibility, I determine thus; 'all those things are to be held possible and performable, which 'may be accomplished by some person, though not by every one; and which may be done by the united labours of many, though 'not by any one apart; and which may be effected in a succession "of ages, though not in the same age; and in brief, which may be 'finished by the public care and charge, though not by the ability and industry of particular persons.' Adv. of Learn. B. II. Proem. Bacon requests, moreover, in his Preface, p. 19. that men would 'cheer up themselves, and conceive well of the enterprise; and not figure unto themselves a conceit and fancy, that this Our Instau'ration is a matter infinite, and beyond the power and compass of Mortality; seeing it is in truth the right and legitimate end and 'period of Infinite Error.' 'It seems to me,' he says, that men "neither understand the Estate they possess, nor their abilities to 'purchase; but of the one to presume more, of the other less, than indeed they should. So it comes to pass, that over-prizing the Arts received, they make no further inquiry; or undervaluing 'themselves, more than in equity they ought, they expend their ' abilities upon matters of slight consequence, never once making "experiment of those things which conduce to the sum of the bu 'siness. Wherefore, Sciences also have, as it were their Fatal Columns; being men are not excited, either out of desire or hope, to penetrate further.' Persons who have entertained a design to 'make trial themselves, and to give some advancement to sciences, and to propagate their bounds, even these authors durst not 'make an open departure from the common received opinions; nor 'visit the Head-springs of nature, but take themselves to have done a great matter, and to have gained much upon the age, if they 'may but interlace, or annex any thing of their own; providently considering with themselves, that by these middle courses, they 'may both conserve the modesty of assenting; and the liberty of 'adding.'

Stewart's Dissertation, which is introductory to the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica, deserves the greater part of the encomiums passed upon it in the Edinburgh Review for September 1816. This discourse is the most splendid of Mr. Stewart's works;' says that critical journal, and places the author at the head of the elegant writers on philosophy in our language,' p. 192. Splendid as it is, we cannot ascertain wherein it excels his other works, unless it be in this, that it is his last; which with some writers, as with some hearers of sermons, is a sufficient reason for pronouncing it the best. In his sketch of classifications, Stewart proceeds not beyond the essays of three literary luminaries; and is defective in not giving a candid narrative of several reputable enterprizes of this nature which might have been found in the annals of literature.

He represents Locke as attempting to distribute into classes, the whole of human knowledge, while the Edinburgh Reviewer is of a different opinion. Stewart seems, in his opinion, to suppose that the "plans of Bacon and Locke are for different distributions of the same subject. But they plainly relate to different matters. That of Bacon respected all the objects of those faculties of the human mind called intellectual, which in the philosophy of his age, were distinguished from the senses on the one hand, and from the will on the other. The object of Locke was more limited. His distribution is only of what falls under the compass of the understanding;' meaning, by that term, what Bacon denotes by Reason.' Mr. Locke, therefore, proposed only a subdivision of one of Bacon's classes, that namely of Philosophy:' and Dr. Smith uses the same language when speaking of a similar distribution adopted by the Greeks. It is plain, indeed, that an arrangement which includes history and the fine arts, cannot be intended to apply to the same subject with one which excludes them. That of Bacon, therefore, is a distribution of all the objects of mind;-that of Locke, only of what are strictly called sciences." In reply to this ingenious reviewer, and in defence of Stewart whom he modestly assails on this point, we quote Locke himself, who must have known what was his own design. A man can employ his thoughts about nothing, but either the contemplation of things themselves, for the discovery of truth; or about the things in his own power, which are his own actions, for the attainment of his own ends; or the signs the mind makes use of, both in the one and the other, and the right ordering of them for its clearer information. All which three, viz. things as they are in themselves knowable; actions as they depend on us, in order to happiness; and the right use of signs in order to knowledge, being toto cœlo different, they seemed to me to be the three great provinces of the intellectual world, wholly seperate and distinct one from another.'* He means then to classify every thing about which man can employ his thoughts, or what he elsewhere calls the whole of human knowledge. The * Essay on the Understanding. B. iv. ch. 21. sec. 5.

understanding Locke used sometimes to denote one faculty, but more frequently all the faculties by which we have knoweldge, whether it be of history, of the fine arts, or of philosophy. History and the fine arts were so far from being excluded by him that he would have included the last under the general head of actions, or things done, and the first under the head of signs; for history consists in the signs of things performed. At any rate, we can think of history and the fine arts, and they might, therefore, with every other science and object of contemplation be arranged among his things knowable. This, by the way, exhibits something of the imperfection of Locke's Division of the Sciences,' while it proves against the critic of Scotland, that Bacon and Locke DID attempt different distributions of the same subject.'

We were gratified with the confession of this same critic, contained in the same review of Stewart's Introduction, p. 196. that 'the very defective nomenclature, and imperfect subdivision of the moral and political sciences is attended with practical inconveniences.' The same inconveniences in a great measure have been experienced, in relation to the sciences in general. We agree, too, that the very general divisions'-are much less useful subjects of consideration than the subdivisions. The number and exactness of these last, in the physical sciences, must be regarded both as an indication and as a cause of their great advances in modern times.' Ed. Review, p. 195. But how could there be any subdivisions, without some previous divisions? And why might not universal science gain as much from an accurate nomenclature and classification of its constituent parts, as any one particular branch of that universal science? Why would you, having written very well on the subject, proceed to contradict yourself, in a subsequent page (229), by assuring us, that Descartes made an attempt to give a new system of all the sciences; an attempt excusable only when lectures were the only means of instruction, and when one professor might have been obliged to conduct his pupil through the whole circle of education? Why should you affirm it to be impracticable' to frame a sytematic arrangement of the sciences? It is well, then, for one professor to have before him a plan of the whole instruction which he is to communicate, if he must teach all the sciences: but if those sciences are to be partitioned among different professors, the division should not be made, nor the parts allotted, from any comprehensive and systematic view of the whole! How, then, should the distribution be made to the professors? Shall each take what part he pleases; two occupy one department; and all leave some portions wholly neglected? What renders it impracticable to reduce to system and natural order all the parts of human knowledge? By a system of universal science, no one intends all which man may in future ages know, or which the Supreme Being now comprehends; but simply all the knowledge which the children of men now have, which may be written down, and arranged in some order, so as to be presented to our companions and posterity.