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I

22

CHAP. succeeding ages." "2 Mr. S. cites these words with a point of admiration23, as if I had intended to insinuate that no improvement had been made in learning or science since the days of Aristotle. The possibility of this erroneous construction was anticipated by the words immediately preceding, in the same preface; where say, "it is time to draw the line between those writings of Aristotle, which still merit the attention of the modern reader, and those of which the perusal is superseded by more complete information." The question, therefore, is not about learning in general, much less concerning modern science: I speak of the learning or philosophy of Greece, which, I think, instead of advancing, has been fully shown in the supplement to my analysis to have been almost uniformly retrograde from the period that I specify.

Objection 2.

The following objection appears to me not answered. less frivolous. I had said in my analysis, " that Aristotle's logic, instead of being derived from any thing analogous to mathematical axioms, was founded on the natural and universal structure of language." Upon quoting these words, Mr. S. exclaims, "Is it possible that Aristotle should have thought of applying to mere grammatical principles the epithets, necessary, immutable, and eternal?" 25 This question implies an un

22 Aristotle's Ethics, &c. preface, p. x. 3d edit.

23 Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. ii. p.327 24 Analysis, p. 64. and the Greek texts there referred to.

25 Elements, vol. ii. p. 251.

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intentional 26, but exact coincidence of thought, CHAP. with the following passage in the far-famed "Diversions of Purley." "Truth is that which is trowed: that every man in his communications with others, should speak what he troweth, is of so great importance to mankind, that it ought not to surprise us, if we find the most extravagant praises bestowed upon truth. But truth supposes mankind, for whom, and by whom alone the word is formed, and to whom only it is applicable. If no man, no truth. There is, therefore, no such thing as eternal, immutable, and everlasting truth; unless mankind, such as they are at present, be also eternal, immutable, and everlasting." Now one and the same remark will serve to answer this captious sophism of Horne Tooke, and to obviate Mr. S.'s objection. It is well known, that the same word in Greek denotes both reason and speech, because in speech the acts of the mind are marked, expressed, and recorded, namely, those analyses and inductions, those comparisons, abstractions, and conclusions, which constitute, collectively, the whole body of reasoning. 28 By confounding

27

26 I say unintentional, because Mr. S. has animadverted at great length, and I think with great justice, on the general scope of Mr. Tooke's Philology. I wish, however, that his answers were more precise; and I hope that what he says in reply to Mr. Tooke, with regard to the point in question in the text, will appear more intelligible to many readers than it does to me. See Stewart's Philosophical Essays, Essay v. p. 181: “With regard to abstraction," &c. 27 Diversions of Purley, vol. ii. p. 404. 2d edit. 28 Aristot. Metaph. 1. iv. c. iv. p. 874. Isocrates ad Nicoclem, p. 28. edit. Wolf. holds the same doctrine; which Horace also countenances in his fanciful and frightful picture of men ignorant of language. Satir. 1. i., Satir. 3.

CHAP. the rules of grammar with the intellectual prin

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Answer to

objection iii.

ciples of man, to which language owes its formation, Mr. Tooke says, "I think I have said. enough to discard that imagined operation of the mind called abstraction, and proved that what we call by that name, is only one of the many contrivances of language for the purpose of more speedy communication." I would ask Mr. Tooke, or Mr. Stewart, whether the thing called language did, of itself, create these contrivances. Mr. T. speaks here as if it did so: but, such personifications, allowable in poetry and rhetoric, are mere quibbles in philosophy.30

29

Akin to this objection is another, which will of require a little, and but a little, more length discussion. Having observed that Aristotle's object was not merely to multiply or collect facts, but to arrange and to explain them, I subjoin, "this can be done only through the medium of a well defined and highly cultivated language, and the language of Aristotle will be found the most copious and complete, the most

29 Diversions of Purley.

30 A question has been agitated, whether God taught man language, or whether he only endowed him with the mental powers and bodily organs calculated to invent and frame it. The text in scripture, as it runs in Hebrew, Greek, and English, should seem to admit of either interpretation: "And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them to Adam, to see what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof." Genesis ii. 19. If we adopt the former interpretation, language is derived from the infinite intelligence of God; if we adopt the latter, language is derived from that limited portion of intellect communicated by God to man: by either interpretation my answer to Mr. Tooke is fully justified.

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precise and accurate, ever employed by any phi- CHAP. losopher, serving at once as the readiest channel of conveyance, and the fittest instrument of discovery. In his physical and moral works, facts known and ascertained are reduced to their simplest expressions, and those doubtfully inferred or suspected, are, according to the true spirit of analysis, denoted by words expressive merely of relations to facts previously established.""1 I had said before, that when terms are chosen with that propriety which shines in the works of the Stagirite, language became an analytic art, in which light Aristotle himself viewed it: "an opinion which philosophers had begun very generally to adopt." When I used these words, I had in view Lavoisier's Chemistry, which I had just happened to read in Mr. Kerr's translation, not having at hand the original. Lavoisier's words are," while engaged in this employment, (the composition of his Elements of Chemistry,) I perceived better than I had ever done before, the justice of the following maxims of the Abbé de Condillac. "We think only through the medium of words. Languages are true analytical methods; algebra is at the same time, a language and a method; the art of reasoning is nothing more than a language well arranged." To this opinion Mr. S. gave his sanction, in the first volume of his Elements; but, in the second, published twenty years afterwards, he was induced to make recantation, upon reading the Baron Degerando's improvements on Condillac.

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CHAP. He observes, therefore, "that after Dr. Gillies's strong and explicit assertion of the priority of Aristotle's claim to the opinion, which philosophers have begun very generally to adopt, it is to be hoped that Mr. Degerando will be allowed to enjoy the undisputed honour of having seen a little further into this fundamental article of logic than the Stagirite himself." 32

To what then do Mr. Degerando's improvements amount? Take them in his own words, as cited by Mr. S. 33 In asserting that languages may be regarded as analytical methods, I have added the qualifying phrase, in a certain sense, for the word method cannot be employed here with exact propriety. Languages furnish the occasion and the means of analysis; that is to say, they afford us assistance in following that method, but they are not the method itself. They resemble signals, or finger-posts, placed on a road to enable us to discover our way; and if they help us to analyse, it is because they are themselves the results of an analysis which has been previously made; nor do they contribute to keep us in the right path, but in proportion to the degree of judgment with which that analysis has been conducted." With the whole of

this doctrine I agree, and think that, in explaining Aristotle, I had completely anticipated it. The analysis, of which language is the monument, will certainly, like every other, be more or less perfect in proportion to the attention and

32 Elements, vol. ii. p. 137.

53 Elements, &c. p. 135.