them, that this difficulty is of a different nature from what we are apt to suppose, on a fuperficial view of the subject. To employ, with skill, the very delicate inftrument which nature has made effentially fubfervient to general reasoning, and to guard against the errors which refult from an injudicious ufe of it, require an uncommon capacity of patient attention, and a cautious circumfpection in conducting our various intellectual proceffes, which can only be acquired by early habits of philofo phical reflexion. To affift and direct us in making this acquifition ought to form the most important branch of a rational logic; a fcience of far more extenfive utility, and of which the principles lie much deeper in the philofophy of the human mind, than the trifling art which is commonly dig nified with that name. The branch in particular to which the foregoing obfervations more immediately relate, muft for ever, remain in its infancy, till a most difficult and important defideratum in the history of the mind is fupplied, by an explanation of the gradual fteps by which it acquires the ufe of the various claffes of words which compofe the language of a cultivated and enlightened people. Of fome of the errors of reafoning to which we are exposed by an incautious ufe of words, I took notice in the preceding Section; and I fhall have occafion afterwards to treat the fame fubject more in detail in a fubfequent part of my work.

SECTION VI.

Of the Errors to which we are liable in Speculation, and in the condua of Affairs, in confequence of a rash Application of general Principles.

T appears fufficiently from the reasonings which I offered in the preceding Section, how important are the advantages which the philofopher acquires, by quitting the ftudy of particulars, and directing his attention to general principles. I flatter myself it appears farther, from the fame reafonings, that it is in consequence of the use of language alone, that the human mind is rendered capable of these comprehenfive fpeculations.

In order, however, to proceed with fafety in the ufe of general principles, much caution and address are neceffary, both in establishing their truth, and in applying them to practice. Without a proper attention to the circumstances by which their application to particular cafes must be modified, they will be a perpetual fource of mistake, and of disappointment, in the conduct of affairs, however ri gidly just they may be in themselves, and however accurately we may reafon from them. If our general principles happen to be falfe, they will involve us in errors, not only of conduct but of fpeculation; and our errors will be the more nume.

rous, the more comprehensive the principles are on which we proceed.

To illuftrate thefe obfervations fully, would lead to a minutenels of difquifition inconfiftent with my general plan; and I fhall therefore, at prefent, confine myself to fuch remarks as appear to be of most effential importance.

And, in the first place, it is evidently impoffible to establish folid general principles, without the previous ftudy of particulars in other words, it is neceffary to begin with the examination of individual objects, and individual events; in order to lay a ground-work for accurate claflification, and for a juft investigation of the laws of nature. It is in this way only that we can expect to arrive at ge neral principles, which may be fafely relied on, as guides to the knowledge of particular truths: and unless our principles admit of fuch a practical application, however beautiful they may appear to be in theory, they are of far lefs value than the limited acquifitions of the vulgar. The truth of these remarks is now fo univerfally admitted, and is indeed fo obvious in itself, that it would be fuperfluous to multiply words in fupporting them; and I should scarcely have thought of stating them in this Chapter, if fome of the most celebrated philofophers of antiquity had not been led to dispute them, in confequence of the mistaken opinions which they entertained concerning the nature of univerfals. Forgetting that genera and Species are mere arbitrary creations which the human mind. forms, by withdrawing the attention from the dif , tinguishing

tinguishing qualities of objects, and giving a common name to their refembling qualities, they conceive univerfals to be real exiftences, or (as they expreffed it) to be the effences of individuals; and flattered themselves with the belief, that by directing their attention to these effences in the first inftance, they might be enabled to penetrate the fecrets of the universe, without fubmitting to the ftudy of nature in detail. These errors, which were common to the Platonists and the Peripatetics, and which both of them feem to have adopted from the Pythagorean fchool, contributed, perhaps more than any thing else, to retard the progrefs of the antients in phyfical knowledge. The late learned Mr. Harris is almost the only author of the prefent age who has ventured to defend this plan of philofophifing, in oppofition to that which has been fo fuccefsfully followed by the difciples of lord Bacon.

"The Platonifts," fays he, " confidering science as "fomething afcertained, definite, and fteady, would "admit nothing to be its object which was vague, in"definite, and paffing. For this reason they excluded "all individuals or objects of fenfe, and (as Ammo"nius expreffes it) raised themselves in their con"templations from beings particular to beings uni"versal, and which, from their own nature, were "eternal and definite."-"Confonant to this was "the advice of Plato, with refpect to the progress "of our fpeculations and inquiries, to defcend from "thofe higher genera, which include many fubordi"nate fpecies, down to the lowest rank of fpecies, "those which include only individuals. But here it

was

" was his opinion, that our inquiries fhould ftop, " and, as to individuals, let them wholly alone; be"cause of these there could not poffibly be any "fcience *."

"Such," continues this author, " was the method "of antient philofophy. The fashion, at prefent, ap66 pears to be fomewhat altered, and the business of "philofophers to be little elfe, than the collecting "from every quarter, into voluminous records, an "infinite number of fenfible, particular, and uncon"nected facts, the chief effect of which is to excite "our admiration."-In another part of his works the fame author obferves, that "the mind, truly wife, quitting the study of particulars, as knowing their "multitude to be infinite and incomprehenfible, turns "its intellectual eye to what is general and compre"hensive, and through generals learns to fee, and re"cognise whatever exifts t."

66

If we abstract from these obvious errors of the antient philofophers, with refpect to the proper order to be observed in our inquiries, and only suppose them to end where the Platonists faid that they should begin, the magnificent encomiums they beftowed on the utility of those comprehensive truths which form the object of science (making allowance for the obfcure and mysterious terms in which they expreffed them) can scarcely be regarded as extravagant. It is probable that from a few accidental inftances of fuccefsful investigation, they had been ftruck with the wonderful

* HARRIS'S Three Treatifes, pages 341, 342.

Ibid. page 227.

effect