CHAPTER VIII.

BROWNE AND HUME.

PETER BROWNE.

THIS author was Bishop of Cork and Ross, and published his work, entitled "The Procedure, Extent, and Limits of the Human Understanding," in 1729.

The author maintains, "That we have no other faculties of perceiving or knowing anything divine or human but our five senses and our reason." The sensations from external objects are the materials with which the "pure intellect" operates, and produces all those ideas which we usually ascribe to the mind as a whole.

The work is interesting in a historical point of view, as well as for its intrinsic merits. It is mentioned in a note to Professor Stewart's "Dissertation" as affording a singular instance of a coincidence of opinion between Browne and Mr. Hume. "The Procedure" was published full ten years before Hume's "Treatise on Human Nature" ap

peared. There is no proof that the latter author ever saw the Bishop's work. There is, however, a very singular anticipation of the philosopher's views as to some of our abstract ideas, particularly those of power, cause and effect, existence, infinity, and the like.

The Reverend author ridicules the practice of modern metaphysicians, of calling certain judgments or conclusions of the mind by the name of ideas. His speculations on power are curious, and the reader will find them in the 69th page of the volume. We shall here, however, quote a single passage on this subject. "The want of distinguishing rightly between the simple perceptions of sense, and the simple apprehensions of the intellect; between the primary and simple ideas of sensation which are independent of the pure intellect, and those secondary compound ideas which are its creatures; for want, I say, of observing these fundamental distinctions through our modern systems of logic and metaphysics, their authors, instead of helping the understanding, and enabling it to clear up things obscure and difficult, have on the contrary rendered the plainest truths mysterious and unintelligible."*

The mind, according to Bishop Browne, is a tabula rasa, and "the ideas of sense are the first foundations on which we raise our whole superstructure of knowledge."+ Sensations are thus

"the original materials and groundwork of all our information......The very idea of existence, which is the most direct and immediate one we have with respect to immaterial beings, is from the senses..........So likewise all the idea or notion we have of power, is from the operations we observe in things purely material one upon another; or from the operation of the mind upon its ideas, and its voluntary moving of the body; and therefore, because we have no proper notion or direct idea of the power of creation, or of producing a thing into being, no part of which existed before, we endeavour to conceive it after the best manner we can.......Thus we form a conception of eternity itself from time. And likewise, by enlarging the idea we have of space and extension, the mind forms to itself the best positive conception of infinity; and all the notion we have of it, is only a negation of any stop or boundary."*

DAVID HUME.

Mr. Hume's metaphysical speculations are expounded in his "Treatise on Human Nature," which was his first publication; and in his "Essays," which contain the opinions of his riper years.

The first work appeared in 1739, but, according to his own account, it excited no public attention. "Never literary attempt," says he, "was more un

fortunate. It fell dead-born from the reaching such distinction as even to mur amongst the zealots."

press, without excite a mur

The leading objects of the "Treatise on Human Nature," are detailed by the author in the following words. "It is evident that all the sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature, and that however wide any of them may seem to run from it, they still return back by one passage or another. Even mathematics, natural philosophy, and natural religion, are in some measure depen-. dent on the science of Man; since they lie under the cognizance of men, and are judged of by their powers and faculties. If therefore the sciences of mathematics, natural philosophy, and natural religion, have such a dependence on the knowledge of Man, what may be expected in the other sciences, whose connection with human nature is more close and intimate? The sole end of logic is to explain the principles and operations of our reasoning faculty, and the nature of our ideas; morals and criticism regard our tastes and sentiments; and politics consider men as united in society and dependent on each other. Here then is the only expedient from which we can hope for success in our philosophical researches, to leave the tedious lingering method which we have hitherto followed, and, instead of taking now and then a castle or village on the frontier, to march up directly to the capital or centre of these sciences, to human nature itself; which, being once masters of, we may everywhere else hope for an easy victory. From this station

we may extend our conquests over all those sciences which more intimately concern human life, and may afterwards proceed at leisure to discover more fully those which are the objects of pure curiosity. There is no question of importance whose decision is not comprised in the science of Man, and there is none which can be decided with any certainty before we become acquainted with that science. In pretending therefore to explain the principles of human nature, we in effect propose a complete system of the sciences, built on a foundation almost entirely new, and the only one upon which they can stand with any security.

"And as the science of man is the only solid foundation for the other sciences, so the only solid foundation we can give to this science itself, must be laid on experience and observation. It is no astonishing reflection to consider that the application of experimental philosophy to moral subjects should come after that to natural, at the distance of above a whole century; since we find, in fact, that there was about the same interval betwixt the origin of these sciences; and that, reckoning from Thales to Socrates, the space of time is nearly equal to that betwixt my Lord Bacon and some late philosophers in England, who have begun to put the science of man on a new footing, and have engaged the attention and excited the curiosity of the public."

There is a striking resemblance between the speculations of Mr. Hume, on the human mind, and those of his immediate predecessors, especially Mr.