Imatges de pàgina
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D'Alembert's "Elements of Philosophy," a work which brought him such a host of enemies, are of a very meagre and unsubstantial nature. Here the author seems to have entered into the philosophy of mind with great coldness and no small degree of prejudice; not certainly in keeping with the zeal and warmth of feeling he afterwards displayed, on divers occasions, in reference to this branch of knowledge.

The only thing we shall notice here is, a quotation from his Preliminary Discourse prefixed to the Encyclopedia, respecting the classification of human knowledge generally; a piece of writing well worthy of preservation in every history of the philosophy of the mind.

He says: "The objects about which our minds are occupied, are either spiritual or material; and the media employed for this purpose are our ideas, either directly received, or derived from reflection. The system of our direct knowledge consists entirely in the passive and mechanical accumulation which belongs exclusively to the province of memory. Reflection is of two kinds, according as it is employed in reasoning on the objects of our direct ideas, or in studying them as models for imitation.

"Thus Memory, Reason (strictly so called), and Imagination, are the three modes in which the mind operates on the subjects of its thoughts. By Imagination, however, is here to be understood, not the faculty of conceiving or representing to ourselves what we have formerly perceived, a faculty

which differs in nothing from the memory of these perceptions, and which, if it were not relieved by the invention of signs, would be in a state of continual exercise. The power which we denote by this name has a nobler province allotted to it, that of rendering imitation subservient to the creations of genius.

"These three faculties suggest a corresponding division of human knowledge into three branches. 1st. History, which derives its materials from Memory; 2nd. Philosophy, which is the product of Reason; and 3rd. Poetry (comprehending under this title all the fine arts), which is the offspring of Imagination. If we place Reason before Imagination, it is because this order appears to us conformable to the natural progress of our intellectual operations. The Imagination is a creative faculty; and the mind, before it attempts to create, begins by reasoning on what it sees and knows. Nor is this all. In the faculty of Imagination both Reason and Memory are, to a certain extent, combined; the mind never imagining or creating objects but such as are analogous to those whereof it has had previous experience. Where this analogy is wanting, the combinations are extravagant and displeasing; and consequently, in that agreeable imitation of nature, at which the fine arts aim in common, invention is necessarily subjected to the control of rules, which it is the business of the philosopher to investigate.

"In farther justification of this arrangement it may be remarked, that reason, in the course of its

successive operations on the subjects of thought, by creating abstract and general ideas, remote from the perceptions of sense, leads to the exercise of imagination as the last step of the process. 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. They operate, indeed, differently on their object; the former abstracting and analysing, where the latter combines and adorns ; two processes of the mind, it must at the same time be confessed, which seem from experience to be so little congenial, that it may be doubted if the talents of a great geometer and of a great poet will ever be united in the same person. But whether these talents be or be not mutually exclusive, certain it is, that they who possess the one, have no right to despise those who cultivate the other. Of all the great men of antiquity, Archimedes is perhaps he who is the best entitled to be placed by the side of Homer."

We find some passages in the metaphysical writings of D'Alembert which evidently show that he was inclined to the doctrine of original mental powers, or instinctive feelings. In his "Discours

Préliminaire,” he remarks, “The fact is, that, as no relation can be discovered between a sensation of the mind, and the object which produces it, or at least to which we refer it, it does not appear possible to trace, by a process of reasoning, any practicable passage from the sensation to the object. Nothing but a kind of instinct, more certain in its operations than reason itself, could so forcibly carry us across that wide interval which divides mind from matter." We also find, in his "Elémens de Philosophie," the following observations on the same topic. "There are, in every science, principles, true, or supposed to be true, which the mind lays hold of by a species of instinct. To the guidance of this instinct we ought implicitly to commit ourselves; otherwise we shall be compelled to recognise the existence of a series of principles without limit, and abandon the possibility of any fixed points for the commencement of our reasonings, and, consequently, we must be plunged into universal scepticism."

D'Alembert was a materialist of the most absolute kind. He maintains that "Creation is absurd and impossible. Matter is, therefore, not to be created, consequently has not been created, consequently is eternal."*

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CHAPTER XII.

THE MENTAL PHILOSOPHY OF FREDERIC THE GREAT, KING OF PRUSSIA, AND THE BERLIN ACADEMY.

THE metaphysical school of Frederic the Great, and the Royal Academy of Berlin, exercised a very powerful influence over the philosophic mind of Europe for many years. The Academy was founded in 1700, chiefly for the purpose of cultivating physical science, history, and the belles-lettres; and to these objects it principally confined itself for many years. Leibnitz was one of its early pillars, and almost all the most distinguished members of this learned association displayed a marked predilection for his speculative philosophy. As Frederic approached to manhood, he displayed a great fondness for metaphysical subjects. Indeed he tells us in his posthumous works, and in his voluminous correspondence, that topics of philosophy were his incessant study, the mistress of his affections. The influence and power he exercised over the Academy,

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