formed from a hasty survey or an occasional acquaintance. The weakest and most unprincipled, if seen at some lucky conjuncture, when interest, or humour, or fashion, happen to point out the same path with reason and duty, may be supposed to be actuated by motives to which he is a stranger; while, on the other hand, a man of the most decided character and the most comprehensive sagacity, if judged of by an observer of a more limited mind than himself, may be censured as wavering and inconsistent in his purposes, from a hasty view of those very measures which, if combined with the other parts of his history, would afford the most unequivocal proofs of the unceasing constancy with which he had prosecuted his object. It is they alone who are acquainted with all the circumstances of a long voyage-with the variable winds and the accidental currents, according to which the pilot was forced, from time to time, to shape his course-who are able to pronounce on his attention and skill as a navigator. To a spectator who happened only to observe the ship when on a particular tack, how different might its destination appear from what it was in reality! And how essentially necessary may have been this apparent deviation, to steer it to the harbour for which it was bound!

Of the differences now remarked in the conduct of individuals, part depend on intellectual, and part on moral character. To the former class must be referred the original conception of a magnificent design, and the arrangement of the measures by which it is to be accomplished. To the latter, the steadiness, perseverance, and force of mind displayed in carrying it into execution; and, above all, its ultimate tendency with respect to the happiness and improvement of our fellow-creatures. Notwithstanding, however, the justness of this theoretical distinction, it will be found to require less attention in the actual study of human nature than might at first be expected. A comprehensive and enlightened understanding is but rarely unaccompanied with a corresponding enlargement and benevolence of heart; and still fewer are the cases in which a weak, shallow, and contracted head does not contrive to shape, for its own ends, a selfish, casuistical, and pettyfogging code of morality.

If, from the crowd who are occupied only about their own. personal concerns, we turn our thoughts to those who move in a higher sphere, and study the history of the few statesmen who have laboured to identify their fame with the permanent interests of their country and of mankind, we shall find many additional reasons for distrusting, in their case, the opinions formed with respect to them by their contemporaries. Accus-tomed by their habits of thought (and wisely accustomed for the objects they had in view) to look rather to general principles than to temporary expedients, they no doubt laid their account, in proportion as they were confident of the ultimate result, with sinking, in the meantime, below the level of men who, by flattering the passions and prejudices of their times, have seemed to lead that multitude which they only followed. "The children of this world," it is said in Scripture, "are wiser in their generation than the children of light;" and it is, accordingly, from generations yet to come, that they who "shine as lights in the midst of darkness" must expect their reward.

Nor is even this reward certain, excepting where a long career of public life has completely unfolded the general principles of policy by which their conduct, amidst all its apparent anomalies, was systematically guided. What was formerly remarked with respect to projectors in the concerns of private life, is still more strikingly exemplified in the case of statesmen; that they are often overtaken by ruin, while sowing the seeds of a harvest which others are to reap. "A few years more might have secured to themselves the prize which they had in view; and changed the opinion of the world, (which is always regulated by the accidental circumstances of failure or of success,) from contempt of their folly, into admiration of their sagacity and perseverance.

"It is observed by Comte de Bussi, [Bussy-Rabutin ?] that 'time remedies all mischances, and that men die unfortunate, only because they did not live long enough. Mareschal d'Estrées, who died rich at a hundred, would have died a beggar, had he lived only to eighty.' The maxim, like most

other apophthegms, is stated in terms much too unqualified; but it may furnish matter for many interesting reflections to those who have surveyed, with attention, the characters which have passed before them on the stage of life; or who amuse themselves with marking the trifling and fortuitous circumstances by which the multitude are decided, in pronouncing their verdicts of foresight, or of improvidence."1

But in this field, which is obviously of boundless extent, I must not indulge myself in expatiating longer. A much more limited view of the subject is all that I have destined for the matter of this Chapter; in which I propose only to treat, and that very briefly, of the practical tendency of certain scientific pursuits to modify the intellectual powers. I begin, first, with considering the tendency, in this respect, of Metaphysical Inquiries; after which, I shall consider, secondly, the Effects of Mathematical Studies; and, thirdly, the Effects produced by the Culture of those Arts which are addressed to the Imagination. The considerations stated under these three heads, together with a few remarks which I shall add on the Characteristical Differences of the Sexes, will serve as a sufficient specimen of the disquisitions to which I allude.

SECTION II.-THE METAPHYSICIAN.

I had formerly occasion to mention the etymology of the word Metaphysics, and the different acceptations in which it has, at different times, been used in the schools of philosophy.† In this section, however, I employ it in that loose and popular sense in which it is generally understood in our own language; -a sense so very extensive, as to confound together, in the common apprehensions of mankind, a great variety of studies. which have a very remote relation to each other; but which, as they all require nearly the same sort of mental exertion,

1 Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. ii. p. 110.

* [For sundry remarks upon the effect of metaphysical studies, see above, Elem. vol. i. (Works, ii.) p. 419, seq.-Ed.]

† [See above, Dissertation, &c. (Works, vol. i.) p. 475, seq.; below, Essays, (Works, vol. v.) Prel. Diss. ch. i.-Ed.]

may, without any impropriety, be classed together in the following disquisition. Of these studies, the first, in point of dignity, as well as utility, is unquestionably that which relates to the faculties and powers of the human mind: to which may be added, as branches of the same science, our logical inquiries concerning the conduct of the understanding,—our ethical inquiries concerning the theory of morals,—our philological inquiries concerning universal grammar,-our critical inquiries concerning the philosophy of rhetoric and of the fine arts. The same word Metaphysics is applied to those abstract speculations which relate to the objects of mathematics and of physics, -to our speculations, for example, with respect to number, proportion, space, duration,-the first principles of the algebraical art, the first principles of the method of fluxions,the first principles of the calculus of probabilities,-the measurement of forces, and of the other quantities which fall under the consideration of the natural philosopher,—the history of our ideas of hardness, softness, extension, figure, motion, and of other analogous affections of matter, which, in consequence of our early familiarity with them, are seldom subjected to a scientific examination. Above all, it continues to be applied (and, according to vulgar opinion, with peculiar propriety) to the scholastic discussions concerning the nature and essence of the soul, and various other topics on which experience and observation supply us with no data as a foundation for our reasonings.

In the different acceptations which have been just enumerated, of the word Metaphysics, it appears, at first sight, to convey ideas altogether unconnected. It is not improbable, however, that we may be able, by a little attention, to trace some circumstances common to them all. When a philosophical term is transferred from one thing to another, it seldom happens that the transference is made wholly at random. Some sort of connexion or analogy has been perceived between the two subjects, by a kind of intuition, although it may require much reflection to enable us to say in what the connexion consists. The study of the metaphorical, and perhaps still

more of (what I have elsewhere called) the transitive application of language, may, in this way, often assist us in tracing the relations among the different objects of our knowledge; or, at least, may help us to account for the intellectual process by which men have been led to comprehend, under a common term, things apparently different, and even heterogeneous.

With respect to the inquiries formerly enumerated, they will all be found, upon examination, to agree in this,—that they require the same sort of mental exertion for their prosecution, inasmuch as all of them depend, for their chief materials, on that power (called by Mr. Locke Reflection) by which the mind turns its attention inwards upon its own operations, and the subjects of its own consciousness. In researches concerning our intellectual and active powers, the mind directs its attention to the faculties which it exercises, or to the propensities which put these faculties in motion. In all the other inquiries which were mentioned, the materials of our reasoning are drawn chiefly, if not entirely, from our own internal resources. Thus, the knowledge we have of Space and Duration is not derived from an experimental examination of things external, but from reflection upon ideas coeval with the first exercise of our senses. The ideas are, indeed, at first suggested to the mind by the perceptions of sense; but when we engage in metaphysical inquiries concerning them, all our knowledge is derived from materials within ourselves. In like manner, it is from sense that we derive our ideas of Hardness, Softness, Figure, and Motion; but when these ideas have been once formed, the metaphysician is in possession of all the data from which his subsequent conclusions with respect to them are to be deduced: nor could he derive any assistance in such inquiries from a thousand experiments on hard, soft, figured, or moving bodies. Indeed, all the metaphysical knowledge which we ever can acquire about these qualities, amounts only to a knowledge of

1 An expression which I have borrowed from the late very ingenious Mr. Payne Knight, author of the An¬lytical VOL. IV.

Inquiry into the Principles of Taste. -See Philosophical Essays, p. 218. [Infra, Works, vol. v.]

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