and would have recompensed, the labour, we are not aware that, with one exception, any adequate attempt has yet been made to subject them, in whole or in part, to an enlightened and impartial criticism. The radical inconsistencies which they involve, in every branch of their subject, remain undeveloped; their unacknowledged appropriations are still lauded as original; their endless mistakes in the history of philosophy stand yet uncorrected; and their frequent misrepresentations of other philosophers continue to mislead. In particular, nothing has more convinced us of the general neglect, in this country, of psychological science, than that Dr. Brown's unmerited attack on Reid, and through Reid, confessedly on Stewart, has not long since been repelled; except, indeed, the general belief that it was triumphant.

In these circumstances we felt gratified, as we said, with the present honourable testimony to the value of Dr. Reid's speculations in a foreign country; and have deemed this a seasonable opportunity of expressing our own opinion on the subject, and of again vindicating, we trust, to that philosopher, the well-earned reputation of which he has been too long defrauded in his own. If we are not mistaken in our view, we shall, in fact, reverse the marvel, and retort the accusation, in proving that Dr. Brown himself is guilty of that "series of wonderful misconceptions" of which he so confidently arraigns his predecessors.

"Turpe est doctori, cum culpa redarguit ipsum."

This, however, let it be recollected, is no point of merely personal concernment. It is true, indeed, that either Reid accomplished nothing, or the science has retrograded under Brown. But the question itself regards the cardinal point of metaphysical philosophy; and its determination involves the proof or the refutation of scepticism.

The subject we have undertaken can, with difficulty, be compressed within the limits of a single article. This must stand our excuse for not, at present, noticing the valuable accompaniment to Reid's "Essays on the Intellectual Powers," in the "Fragments of M. Royer-Collard's Lectures," which are appended to the third and fourth volumes of the translation. A more appropriate occasion for considering these may, however, occur, when the first volume, containing M. Jouffroy's Introduction, appears; of which, from other specimens of his ability, we entertain no humble expectations.

"Reid," says Dr. Brown, "considers his confutation of the ideal system as involving almost every thing which is truly his. Yet there are few circumstances connected with the fortune of modern philosophy that appear to

* We refer to Sir James Mackintosh's chapter on Dr. Brown, in his late admirable Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, prefixed to the new edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. + We shall, in the sequel, afford a sample of these "inconsistencies," "mistakes," and "misrepresentations," of Dr. Brown: to complete the cycle, and vindicate our assertion, we here adduce one specimen of the way in which discoveries have been lavished on him, in consequence of his omission (excusable in the circumstances) to advertise the reader when he was not original. Brown's doctrine of Generalisation is identical with that commonly taught by philosophersnot Scottish; and, among these, by authors, with whose works his lectures prove him to have been well acquainted. But if a writer, one of the best informed of those who, in this country, have of late cultivated this branch of philosophy, could, among other expressions equally encomiastic, speak of his return to the vulgar opinion, on such a point, as of "a discovery, etc. which will, in all future ages, be regarded as one of the most important steps ever made in metaphysical science;" how incompetent must ordinary readers be to place Brown on his proper level?-how desirable would have been a critical examination of his Lectures, to distribute to him his own, and to estimate his property at its true value?

me more wonderful, than that a mind like Dr. Reid's, so learned in the history of metaphysical science, should have conceived, that on this point any great merit, at least any merit of originality, was justly referable to him particularly. Indeed, the only circumstance which appears to me wonderful, is, that the claim thus made by him should have been so readily and generally admitted."-Lect. xxv. p. 155.

Dr. Brown then proceeds at great length to show, 1. That Reid, in his attempt to overthrow what he conceived "the common theory of ideas," wholly misunderstood the catholic opinion, which was, in fact, identical with his own; and actually attributed to all philosophers "a theory which had been universally, or, at least, almost universally, abandoned at the time he wrote;" and, 2. That the doctrine of perception, which Reid so absurdly fancies he had first established, affords, in truth, no better evidence of the existence of an external world, than even the long-abandoned hypothesis which he had taken such idle labour to refule.

In every particular of this statement, Dr. Brown is completely, and even curiously, wrong. He is out in his prelusive flourish,-out in his serious assault. Reid is neither "so learned in the history of metaphysical science' as he verbally proclaims, nor so sheer an ignorant as he would really demonstrate. Estimated by aught above a very vulgar standard, Reid's knowledge of philosophical opinions was neither extensive nor exact; and Mr. Stewart was himself too competent and candid a judge, not fully to acknowledge the deficiency. But Reid's merits as a thinker are too high, and too securely established, to make it necessary to claim for his reputation an erudition to which he himself advances no pretension. And, be is learning what it may, his critic, at least, has not been able to convict him of a single error; while Dr. Brown himself rarely opens his mouth upon the older authors, without betraying his absolute unacquaintance with the matters on which he so intrepidly discourses. Nor, as a speculator, does Reid's superiority admit, we conceive, of doubt. With all our admiration of Brown's general talent, we do not hesitate to assert, that, in the points at issue between the two philosophers, to say nothing of others, he has completely misapprehended Reid's philosophy, even in its fundamental position,-the import of the sceptical reasoning,-and the significance of the only argument by which that reasoning is resisted. But, on the other hand, as Reid can only be defended on the ground of misconception, the very fact, that his great doctrine of perception could actually be reversed by so acute an intellect as Brown's, would prove that there must exist some confusion and obscurity in his own development of that doctrine, to render such a misinterpretation possible. Nor is this presumption wrong. In truth, Reid did not generalise to himself an adequate notion of the various possible theories of perception, some of which he has accordingly confounded: while his error of commission in discriminating consciousness as a special faculty, and his error of omission in not discriminating intuitive from representative knowledge,-a distinction without which his peculiar philosophy is naught,-have contributed to render his doctrine of the intellectual faculties prolix, vacillating, perplexed, and sometimes even contradictory.

Before proceeding to consider the doctrine of perception in relation to the points at issue between Reid and his antagonist, it is therefore necessary

* Dissertation on the History of Metaphysical Philosophy, Part ii. p. 197.

to disintricate the question, by relieving it of these two errors, bad in themselves, but worse in the confusion which they occasion; for as Bacon truly observes," citius emergit veritas ex errore quam ex confusione." And, first, of consciousness.

Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, and philosophers in general, have regarded consciousness, not as a particular faculty, but as the universal condition of intelligence. Reid, on the contrary, following probably Hutcheson, and followed by Stewart, Royer-Collard, and others, has classed consciousness as a co-ordinate faculty with the other intellectual powers; distinguished from them, not as the species from the individual, but as the individual from the individual. And as the particular faculties have each their peculiar object, so the peculiar object of consciousness is, the operations of the other faculties themselves, to the exclusion of the objects about which these operations are conversant.

This analysis we regard as false. For it is impossible, in the first place, to discriminate consciousness from all the other faculties, or to discriminate any one of these from consciousness; and, in the second, to conceive a faculty cognizant of the various mental operations, without being also cognizant of their several objects.

We know, and We know that we know: these propositions, logically distinct, are really identical; each implies the other. We know (i. e. feel, perceive, imagine, remember, etc.) only as we know that we thus know; and we know that we know, only as we know in some particular manner, (i. e, feel, perceive, etc.) So true is the scholastic brocard, "Non sentimus nisi sentiamus nos sentire; non sentimus nos sentire nisi sentiamus." The attempt to analyse the cognition I know, and the cognition I know that I know, into the separate energies of distinct faculties, is therefore vain. But this is the analysis of Reid. Consciousness, which the formula I know that I know adequately expresses, he views as a power specifically distinct from the various cognitive faculties comprehended under the formula I know, precisely as these faculties are severally contradistinguished from each other. But here the parallel does not hold. I can feel without perceiving, I can perceive without imagining, I can imagine without remembering, I can remember without judging, I can judge without willing. One of these acts does not immediately suppose the other. Though modes merely of the same indivisible subject, they are modes in relation to each other, really distinct, and admit, therefore, of psychological discrimination. But can I feel without being conscious that I feel?-can I remember without being conscious that I remember? or, can I be conscious without being conscious that I perceive, or imagine, or reason,-that I energise, in short, in some determinate mode, which Reid would view as the act of a faculty specifically different from consciousness. That this is impossible, Reid himself admits. "Unde, says Tertullian,- "unde ista tormenta cruciandæ simplicitatis et suspendendæ veritatis ?-Quis mihi exhibebit sensum non intelligentem se sentire?" But if, on the one hand, consciousness be only realised under specific modes, and cannot therefore exist apart from the several faculties in cumulo; and if, on the other, these faculties can all and each only be exerted under the condition of consciousness; consciousness, consequently, is not one of the special modes into which our mental activity may be resolved, but the fundamental form, the generic condition, of them all. Every intelligent act is thus a modified consciousness; and consciousness a comprehensive term for the complement of our intellectual energies.

But the defect of Dr. Reid's analysis is further manifested in his arbitrary limitation of the sphere of consciousness; proposing to it the various intellectual operations, but excluding their objects. "I am conscious," he says, "of perception, but not of the object I perceive; I am conscious of memory, but not of the object I remember.

The reduction of consciousness to a particular faculty entailed this limitation. For, once admitting consciousness to be cognizant of objects as of operations, Reid could not, without absurdity, degrade it to the level of a special power. For thus, in the first place, consciousness co-extensive with all our cognitive faculties, would be made co-ordinate with each: and, in the second, two faculties would be supposed to be simultaneously exercised about the same object, to the same intent.

But the alternative which Reid has chosen is almost equally untenable. The assertion, that we can be conscious of an act of knowledge, without being conscious of its object, is virtually suicidal. A mental operation is only what it is, by relation to its object; the object at once determining its existence, and specifying the character of its existence. But if a relation cannot be comprehended in one of its terms, so we cannot be conscious of an operation, without being conscious of the object to which it exists only as correlative. For example, we are conscious of a perception, says Reid, but are not conscious of its object. Yet how can we be conscious of a perception, that is, how can we know that a perception exists-that it is a perception, and not another mental state-and that it is the perception of a rose, and of nothing but a rose; unless this consciousness involve a knowledge (or consciousness) of the object, which at once determines the existence of the act-specifies its kind-and distinguishes its individuality? Annihilate the object, you annihilate the operation; annihilate the consciousness of the object, you annihilate the consciousness of the operation. In the greater number, indeed, of our intellectual energies, the two terms of the relation of knowledge exist only as identical; the object admitting only of a logical discrimination from the subject. I imagine a Hippogryph. The Hippogryph is at once the object of the act and the act itself. Abstract the one, the other has no existence: deny me the consciousness of the Hippogryph, you deny me the consciousness of the imagination; I am conscious of zero; I am not conscious at all.

A difficulty may here be started in regard to two faculties,-Memory and Perception.

Memory is defined by Reid "an immediate knowledge of the past ;" and is thus distinguished from consciousness, which, with all philosophers, he views as "an immediate knowledge of the present." We may, therefore, be conscious of the act of memory as present; but of its object as past, consciousness is impossible. And certainly, if Reid's definition of memory be admitted, this inference cannot be disallowed. But memory is not an immediate knowledge of the past; an immediate knowledge of the past is a contradiction in terms. This is manifest, whether we look from the act to the object, or from the object to the act. To be known immediately, an object must be known in itself; to be known in itself, it must be known as actual, now existent, present. But the object of memory is past-not present, not now existent, not actual; it cannot therefore be known in itself. If known at all, it must be known in something different from itself; i. e. mediately; and memory as an "immediate knowledge of the past," is thus impossible. Again: memory is an act of knowledge; an act exists

only as present; and a present knowledge can be immediately cognizant only of a present object. But the object known in memory is past; consequently, either memory is not an act of knowledge at all, or the object immediately known is present; and the past, if known, is known only through the medium of the present: on either alternative memory is not "an immediate knowledge of the past." Thus memory, like our other faculties, affords only an immediate knowledge of the present; and, like them, is nothing more than consciousness variously modified.*

In regard to perception: Reid allows an immediate knowledge of the affections of the subject of thought, mind, or self, and an immediate knowledge of the qualities of an object really different from self-matter. To the former he gives the name of consciousness; to the latter, that of perception. Is consciousness, as an immediate knowledge, purely subjective, not to be discriminated from perception, as an immediate knowledge, really objective? A logical difference we admit; a psychological we deny.

Relatives are known only together; the science of contraries is one. Subject and object, mind and matter, are known only in correlation and centrast-and in the same common act: while knowledge, as at once a synthesis and an antithesis of both, may be indifferently defined an antithetic synthesis, or a synthetic antithesis of its terms. Every conception of self necessarily involves a conception of not-self: every perception of what is different from me, implies a recognition of the percipient subject in contradistinction from the object perceived. In one act of knowledge, indeed, the object is the prominent element; in another the subject; but there is none in which either is known out of relation to the other. The immediate knowledge which Reid allows of things different from the mind, and the immediate knowledge of mind itself, cannot therefore be split into two distinct acts. In perception, as in the other faculties, the same indivisible consciousness is conversant about both terms of the relation of knowledge. Distinguish the cognition of the subject from the cognition of the object of perception, and you either annihilate the relation of knowledge itself, which exists only in its terms being comprehended together in the unity of consciousness; or you may postulate a higher faculty, which shall again reduce to one the two cognitions you have distinguished;—that is, you are at last compelled to admit, in an unphilosophical complexity, that common consciousness of subject and object, which you set out with denying its philosophical simplicity. Consciousness and immediate knowledge are thus terms universally convertible; and if there be an immediate knowledge of things external, there is consequently the consciousness of an outer world. †

The only parallel we know to this misconception of Reid's is the opinion on which Fromondus animadverts. "In primis displicet nobis plurimorum recentiorum philosophia, qui sensuum interiorum operationes, ut phantasiationem,memorationem, et reminiscentiam, circa imagines recenter aut olim spiritibus vel cerebro impressas, versari negant; sed proxime circa objecta quæ foris sunt. Ui cam quis meminit se vidisse leporem currentem, memoria, inquiunt, non intuetur et attingit imaginem leporis iu cerebro asservatam, sed solum leporem ipsum qui cursu trajiciebat campum," &c. &c. (Philosophia Christiana de Anima. Lovanii, 1649. L. iii. c. 8. art. 8.) Who the advocates of this opinion were, we are ignorant; but more than suspect that, as stated, it is only a misrepresentation of the Cartesian doctrine, then on the ascendant.

How correctly Aristotle reasoned on this subject, may be seen from the following passage :"When we perceive" (aiobavóμsba)-the Greeks, perhaps fortunately, had no special term for consciousness; -"when we perceive that we see, hear, &c. it is necessary, that by sight itself we perceive that we see, or by another sense. If by another sense, then this also must be a sense of sight, conversant equally about the object of sight, colour. Consequently, there must either be two senses of the same object, or every sense must be percipient of itself. Moreover, if the sense percipient of sight be different from sight itself, it follows either that there is a regress to infinity, or we must admit, at last, some sense percipient of itself; but if so, it is more reasonable to admit