Various authors

“ To those who are familiarly acquainted with the writings of Locke, and of the very few among his successors who have thoroughly entered into the spirit of his philosophy, the foregoing observations may not appear to possess much either of originality or of importance; but when first given to the world, they formed the greatest step ever made in the science of Mind, by a single individual. What a contrast do they exhibit, not only to the discussions of the schoolmen, but to the analogical theories of Hobbes at the very same period! ”

“ It is observed, with great truth, by Condorcet, that, in the times of which we are now speaking, “the science of political economy did not exist. Princes estimated not the number of men, but of soldiers in the state;—finance was merely the art of plundering the people, without driving them to the desperation that might end in revolt;—and governments paid no other attention to commerce but that of loading it with taxes, of restricting it by privileges, or of disputing for its monopoly.” ”

“ What is it, indeed, that renders one form of government more favourable than another to human happiness, but the superior security it provides for the enactment of wise laws, and for their impartial and vigorous execution? These considerations will sufficiently account for my passing over in silence, not only the names of Needham, of Sidney, and of Milton, but that of Harrington, whose Oceana is justly regarded as one of the boasts of English literature, and is pronounced by Hume to be “the only valuable model of a commonwealth that has yet been offered to the public.” ”

“ Of this sagacity much must, no doubt, be ascribed to the native vigour of a mind struggling against and controlling early prejudices; but it must not be forgotten, that, notwithstanding his retired and monastic life, Malebranche had breathed the same air with the associates and friends of Descartes and of Gassendi; and that no philosopher seems ever to have been more deeply impressed with the truth of that golden maxim of Montaigne—“Il est bon de frotter et limer notre cervelle contre celle d’autrui.” ”

“ In the bright constellation of scholars, historians, artists, and wits, who shed so strong a lustre on Italy during that splendid period of its history which commences with the revival of letters, it is surprising how few names occur, which it is possible to connect, by any palpable link, with the philosophical or political speculations of the present times. As an original and profound thinker, the genius of Machiavel completely eclipses that of all his contemporaries. ”

“ But then, it will be said, by sight we have also the ideas of extension, and figure, and motion; all which may well be thought without, and at some distance from the mind, though colour should not. In answer to this, I appeal to any man’s experience, whether the visible extension of any object doth not appear as near to him as the colour of that object; nay, whether they do not both seem to be in the same place. Is not the extension we see coloured; and is it possible for us, so much as in thought, to separate and abstract colour from extension? ”

“ D’Anville, with the qualities which form the great Geographer, united all the essentials of an honourable and worthy character. The advancement of the science to which he had devoted himself, formed almost the sole passion of his life; and mingling little with society, he contracted peculiarities, which solitary study is but too apt to engender. He talked with little interest on any subject except geography. ”

“ Thus metaphysics and geometry are, of all the sciences belonging to Reason, those in which Imagination has the greatest share. I ask pardon for this observation from those men of taste, who, little aware of the near affinity of geometry to their own pursuits, and still less suspecting that the only intermediate step between them is formed by metaphysics, are disposed to employ their wit in depreciating its value. The truth is, that, to the geometer who invents, Imagination is not less essential than to the poet who creates. ”

“ It is remarkable, that Montesquieu has never once mentioned the name of Grotius;—in this, probably, as in numberless other instances, conceiving it to be less expedient to attack established prejudices openly and in front, than gradually to undermine the unsuspected errors upon which they rest.
If the foregoing details should appear tedious to some of my readers, I must request them to recollect, that they relate to a science which, for much more than a hundred years, constituted the whole philosophy, both ethical and political, of the largest portion of civilized Europe. ”

“ Few books can he mentioned, combining, in so great a degree, the utmost depth and abstraction of thought, with the most pleasing sallies of imagination and eloquence; and none, where they who delight in the observation of intellectual character may find more ample illustrations, both of the strength and weakness of the human understanding. It is a singular feature in the history of Malebranche, that, notwithstanding the poetical colouring which adds so much animation and grace to his style, he never could read, without disgust, a page of the finest verses ”

“ Restless and unquiet, he posted with the utmost rapidity through the towns of Italy; and his improvement was such as was to be expected from his mode of travelling and his previous habits. Dissatisfied with himself, he felt as little relish for spectacles or entertainments as for literature; and was as little amused by the gaiety of a carnival at Naples, as he was impressed by the remains of antiquity at Rome, or the exhibitions of modern art at Florence and Bologna. ”

“ It is wonderful, that it should have escaped the penetration of this most acute thinker, that a vicious circle of the same description is involved in every appeal to the intellectual powers, in proof of their own credibility; and that unless this credibility be assumed as unquestionable, the farther exercise of human reason is altogether nugatory. The evidence for the existence of God seems to have appeared to Descartes too irresistible and overwhelming, to be subjected to those logical canons which apply to all the other conclusions of the understanding. ”

“ From the indissoluble union between the notions of colour and of extension, Dr Berkeley has drawn a curious, and, in my opinion, most illogical argument in favour of his scheme of idealism;—which, as it may throw some additional light on the phenomena in question, I shall transcribe in his own words.
“Perhaps, upon a strict inquiry, we shall not find, that even those who, from their birth, have grown up in a continued habit of seeing, are still irrevocably prejudiced on the other side, to wit, in thinking what they see to be at a distance from them. ”

“ Nulle puissance humaine ne peut forcer le retranchement impénétrable de la liberté du cœur. La force ne peut jamais persuader les hommes ; elle ne fait que des hypoсrites. Quand les rois se mêlent de religion, au lieu de la protéger, ils la mettent en servitude. Accordez à tous la tolerance civile, non en approuvant tout comme indifférent, mais en souffrant avec patience tout ce que Dieu souffre, et en tâchant de ramener les hommes par une douce persuasion.”
And so much for the French philosophy of the seventeenth century. ”

“ What abuse of language can be greater, than to apply a common name to departments of knowledge which invite the curiosity in directions precisely contrary, and which tend to form intellectual talents, which, if not altogether incompatible, are certainly not often found united in the same individual? The word Physics, in particular, which, in our language, long and constant use has restricted to the phenomena of Matter, cannot fail to strike every ear as anomalously, and therefore illogically, applied, when extended to those of Thought and of Consciousness. ”

“ The history of Letters affords no example of any association for the advancement of the Sciences, so truly useful, and so free from all paltry cabals, and degrading influences, as those through which such publications are formed. Nor are there any other undertakings of a literary nature, in which the talents of so many individuals of different parties, and of all varieties of intellectual pursuit and attainment, can be so happily and efficiently combined, in the common cause of Science and Learning. ”

“ In a country which is subdivided into so many distinct sovereign states, possessing no common political centre, and no national institution whose authority could command deference in matters of taste; in a country whose indigenous literature was but of recent growth, and where the dialect of the people was held in contempt at the several courts,—it was no easy task for a single writer to undertake to fix the standard of a language which had branched out into a variety of idioms, depending, in a great measure, upon principles altogether arbitrary. ”

“ Notwithstanding all this weight of authority, it is difficult to reconcile one’s self to an arrangement which, while it classes with Astronomy, with Mechanics, with Optics, and with Hydrostatics, the strikingly contrasted studies of Natural Theology and of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, disunites from the two last the far more congenial sciences of Ethics and of Logic. The human mind, it is true, as well as the material world which surrounds it, forms a part of the great system of the Universe ”

“ It is still more remarkable to find the same depressing spirit shedding its malignant influence on French literature, as early as the time of La Rochefoucauld, and even of Montaigne; and to observe how very little has been done by the successors of these old writers, but to expand into grave philosophical systems their loose and lively paradoxes;—disguising and fortifying them by the aid of those logical principles, to which the name and authority of Locke have given so wide a circulation in Europe. ”

“ But whatever subjects he chooses, his dramas are always formed on the Grecian model, and breathe a freedom and independence worthy an Athenian poet. Indeed, his Agis and Bruto may rather be considered oratorical declamations and dialogues on liberty than tragedies. The unities of time and place are not so scrupulously observed in his, as in the ancient dramas; but he has rigidly adhered to a unity of action and interest. He occupies his scene with one great action, and one ruling passion, and removes from it every accessary event or feeling. ”

“ When Malebranche touches on questions not positively decided by the church, he exhibits a remarkable boldness and freedom of inquiry; setting at nought those human authorities which have so much weight with men of unenlightened erudition; and sturdily opposing his own reason to the most inveterate prejudices of his age. His disbelief in the reality of sorcery, which, although cautiously expressed, seems to have been complete, affords a decisive proof of the soundness of his judgment, where he conceived himself to have any latitude in exercising it. ”

“ Prior to the time of Bacon, the physical systems of the learned performed their periodical revolutions in orbits as small as the metaphysical hypotheses of their successors; and yet, who would now set any bounds to our curiosity in the study of the material universe? Is it reasonable to think, that the phenomena of the intellectual world are less various, or less marked with the signatures of Divine wisdom? ”

“ Among the opponents of Descartes, Gassendi was one of the earliest, and by far the most formidable. No two philosophers were ever more strongly contrasted, both in point of talents and of temper; the former as far superior to the latter in originality of genius—in powers of concentrated attention to the phenomena of the internal world—in classical taste—in moral sensibility, and in all the rarer gifts of the mind ”

“ But it is a question, whether the revolutions that are past, or those which must hereafter take place, have been, or can be, of any utility to the human race. Will they add to the tranquillity, to the enjoyments, and to the happiness of mankind? ”

“ While Bacon, however, so cautiously avoids these unprofitable discussions about the nature of Mind, he decidedly states his conviction, that the faculties of Man differ not merely in degree, but in kind, from the instincts of the brutes. “I do not, therefore,” he observes on one occasion, “approve of that confused and promiscuous method in which philosophers are accustomed to treat of pneumatology; as if the human Soul ranked above those of brutes, merely like the sun above the stars, or like gold above other metals.” ”

“ That the capacities of the human mind have been in all ages the same; and that the diversity of phenomena exhibited by our species, is the result merely of the different circumstances in which men are placed, has been long received as an incontrovertible logical maxim; or rather, such is the influence of early instruction, that we are apt to regard it as one of the most obvious suggestions of common sense. And yet, till about the time of Montesquieu, it was by no means so generally recognized by the learned, as to have a sensible influence on the fashionable tone of thinking over Europe. ”