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was, I fay, a man of mild difpofition, of command of temper, of an open, focial, and cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little fufceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all my. paffions. Even my love of literary fame, my ruling paffion, never foured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent difappointments. My company was not unacceptable to the young and carelefs, as well as to the studious and literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modeft women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with from them. In a word, though most men, anywife eminent, have found reafon to. complain of calumny, I never was touched, or even attacked, by her baleful tooth; and though I wantonly expofed myfelf to the rage of both civil and religious factions, they feemed to be difarmed in my behalf of their wonted fury. My friends never had occafion to vindicate any one circumftance of my character and conduct; not but that the zealots, we may well fuppofe, would have been glad to invent and propagate any story to my disadvantage, but they could never find any which they thought would wear the face of probability. I cannot fay there is no vanity in making this fu neral oration of myfelf; but I hope it is not a mifplaced one; and this is a matter of fact which is eafily cleared and afcertained."

In his literary character, Mr. Hume is to be confidered, 1. As a m taphyfician: 2. As a moralift: 3. As a writer in general pli y: and 4. As a hifto

rian. His lighter pieces on fubjects connected with the belles letters or polite literature, we may pass over unnoticed, as agreeable trifles involving none of those important queftions which intereft the welfare, or demand the ferious inquiry, of mankind.

1. In appreciating Mr. Hume's knowledge of metaphyfical fcience, we naturally commence with a review of his first work, or Treatife on Human Nature; taking care, however, not to ascribe to him any of its tenets, which have been fubfequently altered in his Effay on the Human Understanding.

It may, perhaps, appear to be a homely remark, but it is not the lefs juft, that, in perusing any work of a difquifitionary nature, the first thing, to which a reader ought to direct his attention, is the table of contents. It is not a mere enumeration of the different topics treated of in the text, which this table prefents to an intelligent inquirer. If he finds in it a lucidus ordo in the arrangement of the plan; if he finds that natural fucceflion, or connect series of difcuffion, which gives perfpicuity and precifion to a literary performance, he is inclined to form a favourable opinion of the abilities of the writer. A very flight infpection of the tables of contents, prefixed to the writings of Adam Smith or Dr. Reid, who were contemporaries of Mr. Hume, will enable a man of ordinary capacity to obferve the intimate dependence, which each fucceffive chapter has

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on that preceding it, and to comprehend at one view the general fcope and object of the author. But we look for this in vain in Mr. Hume's Treatife; and the confequence of his failure or neglect in correctness of arrangement and divifion of the subject, is a tirefome repetition of arguments and opinions, which tends to involve the whole in confufion and obfcurity.

Our author begins his Treatife with an inquiry into the origin of ideas; and as this forms the bafis of his fyftem, it merits particular notice. He informs us, that all perceptions of the human mind refolve themselves into two diftin&t kinds, which he ftyles, impreffions and ideas. The difference between these he makes to confift in the degrees of force and livelinefs, with which they ftrike upon the mind, and make their way into our thought or confcioufnefs. The perceptions, which enter with most force and violence are impreffions, and comprehend our fenfations, paffions, and emotions, as they make their firft appearance in the foul. By ideas he means "the faint images of thefe impreffions in thinking and reasoning; fuch as, for inftance, are all the perceptions excited by the prefent difcourfe, excepting only thofe which arife from the fight and touch, and excepting the immediate pleasure or uneafinefs it may occafion *." Without attempting to elucidate the obfcure verbiage in the latter part of this fentence, it may be ob

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ferved, that the distinction made by our author, al though not very perfpicuous, feems to refer the first series of perceptions to feeling, and the last to thinking. If an uncouthness of style occasionally appear in the detail of Mr. Hume's opinions in this work, it will ferve as an apology that his own language is always employed, which, in his earlier productions, was not very remarkable for its claffic elegance and correctnefs.

He farther explains in a note, the meaning which he affixes to each of these words. "I here," he obferves, "make use of these terms, impreffion and idea, in a sense different from what is ufual, and I hope this liberty will be allowed me. Perhaps I rather restore the word idea to its original fense, from which Mr. Locke had perverted it in making it ftand for all our perceptions. By the term impreffion, I would not be understood to exprefs the manner in which our lively perceptions are produ ced in the foul, but merely the perceptions them. felves, for which there is no particular name, either in the English or any other language that I know of." Mr. Hume, however, and not Mr. Locke, has perverted the true fenfe of the word idea; for according to the philofophical import of that term, it does not fignify that act of the mind, which we call thought, and with which our author confounds it; but it implies fome object or agent of thought, or, more correctly speaking, ideas and perceptions, whether lively or faint, are effentially the fame, and they are fo without the intermedium of images.

Metaphyficians

Metaphyficians who reafon by analogy from the phenomena of the material world, without confi. dering that the laws of matter are inapplicable to the operations of mind, are continually expofing themselves to error by the affumption of erroneous data, and the deduction of false conclufions; and in no instance is this more frequent than in the examples derived from the fenfe of fight. Mr. Hume, indeed, profeffes to employ the experimental mode of reafoning; but he deviates from it in the very outfet. Inftead of trusting to an accurate obfervation of the manner, in which his own mind is called into action, and continues to act, he readily adopts the arguments of his predeceffors, which they again have borrowed from the common theories of vifion, without trying them by the test of their other fenfes.

It would require greater amplitude of investigation than the nature of this work will permit, to point out the causes which have given rise to so univerfal a mistake on the part of metaphyficians. To draw general inferences, whether well or illfounded, from one fenfe only, is obviously taking too narrow a view of the fubject. We can easily understand a perfon, when he speaks of an external object and of its coloured image on the retina of the eye. That image, however, is neither an impreffion nor an idea: it is an agent employed by nature to excite an idea, or produce a perception; but the manner in which it does fo is unknown; and in confequence of a morbid state of the optic nerve, X 2

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