excellence and glory of God, on the offices of Christ, and the work of the Spirit, in our redemption. Let us often think of the worth of the soul, and of the value of the prize at stake, -the prize for which the christian runs," the prize of the high calling of God, in Christ Jesus our Lord." As we are careful to guard against a false view of our dependence, so, too, let us not be satisfied with a slight and feeble sense of our dependence. Let us have the sentiment firmly established within us, so that we can carry it with us, practically, into all the employments of life. Let it be present with us in our trials and sorrows. Let it not be laid aside, nor forgotten, in our brighter and more prosperous days. Let it guide, and let it animate us, through all our pilgrimage on earth. Let it support us in death. Let it be the theme of our everlasting songs. But, we reiterate the caution already given, let it not be mistaken for something else, nor perverted to any other use, than its true and legitimate one. Let it be, only and always, a stimulus to effort and diligence, in promoting holiness and happiness, as far as we can, and as long as we live.

ART. V. COUSIN'S PSYCHOLOGY.

Elements of Psychology: included in a critical examination of Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding. By VICTOR COUSIN, Professor of Philosophy of the Faculty of Literature, at Paris; Peer of France; and member of the Royal Council of Public Instruction. Translated from the French, with an introduction, notes, and additions, by C. S. HENRY. Hartford: Cooke, & Co. 1834.

WE entered on the reading of this volume with unusual interest. The Edinburgh reviewer, and others, had spoken of the work in terms of admiration. We had a curiosity to see, what fashion would be given to mental philosophy, by habits of thinking, so peculiar as those of the French people. We were anxious to know, how the principles of Locke would fare, in the hands of a a metaphysician so distinguished as Cousin. The Essay on the Human Understanding has so long been read as a text-book, in our schools and colleges, that our philosophical speculations derive much of their support, from the foundation which that work has laid. If this should prove to be unsound, we may be under the necessity of looking around for other means of giving stability to many of our favorite metaphysical structures. On the other hand, if the ground-work of Locke is found to stand the trial of a thorough examination, by the philosophers of Paris, and to receive their sanction, our confidence in the correctness of his principles will naturally be strengthened. For, as Voltaire says, "When a Frenchman and an Englishman think alike, there must be some very good reason for it."

VOL. VII.

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The translator makes the following statement, in the advertisement prefixed to the volume :

In the year 1829, M. COUSIN delivered a course of Lectures, which was published in two volumes octavo, under the title of "History of Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century." Of this course, the second volume contains an extended critical analysis of Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding. The Lectures, from the sixteenth to the twenty-fifth inclusive, are taken up with this analysis. These are the Lectures of which a translation is here given to the public.

This examination of the Essay on the Human Understanding, is pronounced, by the writer of the article on the "Philosophy of Perception," in the EDINBURGH REVIEW, for October, 1830, No. 103, Art. IX. p. 191, to be "the most important work on Locke, since the Nouveaux Essais of Leibnitz."

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In regard to the form of the work, I have thought it best to print the ten Lectures of which the work is composed, as so many distinct chapters; changing the numbering, to give to it the form of a work by itself. As to the rest, I have aimed to give an exact translation, with no other changes than the omission of some of the more direct forms of address used by a lecturer to his audience, and also an explanatory word or clause occasionally inserted in brackets.

In the appendix, I have brought together, without any pretensions to a regular plan of elucidating the text, and without having any particular class of readers in view, -such remarks as occurred to me in the progress of preparing the work; and also, extracts from the author's other writings, and from other sources, - partly as they were indicated by the author, and partly as they occurred to my own recollection. pp. iii, iv.

A correct knowledge of the system maintained by Locke, is essential to an advantageous study of the history of modern intellectual philosophy; as his opinions are interwoven in the discussions of almost all succeeding writers on the subject, both in Great Britain, and on the continent of Europe. They are either his followers, or perverters, or opposers. The object of his celebrated Treatise on the Understanding, is, to "inquire into the origin, extent, and certainty of human knowledge;" and in preparing the way for this, to explain the origin and nature of our ideas. In entering on an examination of his work, almost every page of which treats of ideas, we are met with the preliminary question, whether we really have any ideas? Some philosophers affect to consider what they are pleased to call Mr. Locke's ideal system, as already exploded. We shall in vain look for a satisfactory decision on this point, unless we have a distinct understanding of the meaning of the term idea. We think, that it is used in three different senses. In common discourse, it is, perhaps, generally understood to be synonymous with thought. To have an idea, is to have a thought. But by some philosophers, and sometimes even in familiar conversation, the term idea is used to signify, not thought itself, but the object of thought; that about which any one is thinking: not the act of the mind, but the object which is presented to its view; that which any one sees, or hears, or imagines, or remembers. Again, it has been supposed by many, that an external object can be perceived only by means of an image, or species, as it is termed, introduced into the brain, and there presented to the view of the mind, in some such manner, as a distant object is seen, by means of an image painted on the retina of the eye. We have, then, these three significations of the term idea.

1. Thought.

2. The object of thought.

3. The medium of thought.

The latter may be called, for distinction sake, a representative idea.

Whole systems of philosophy, as we apprehend, owe their origin to the coufounding of these several meanings. As Mr. Locke uses the term in almost every paragraph; as his whole work is an inquiry into the origin, nature, and comparison of ideas, and the knowledge which we derive from them; it is all-important, in reading his treatise, to be able to interpret correctly the meaning which he gives to the word. His style is not distinguished for philosophical precision in the use of terms. His language is often figurative, and not unfrequently ambiguous. Avoiding, for the most part, the technical phraseology of metaphysics, he endeavors to express philosophical opinions in common English; a language, which, in his day, was far from being brought to the state of precision which it has since attained, by the labors of philologists and lexicographers, and the influence of logical, and scientific, and literary discussion. As he introduced a new philosophy, there was then no scientific language accommodated to the original views which he wished to express. The technical words and phrases of the old philosophy, would not answer his purpose. He gives to certain terms a latitude of signification, which would scarcely be admissible, in philosophical writings, at the present day. For example, the word perception he employs to express the notice which the mind takes of any object, whether material or mental; whereas, it is now commonly restricted, in logical use, to our observation of the qualities of matter. He appears not to have particularly marked the distinction, so advantageously made by later writers, between perception and sensation; using them interchangeably, except that he applies the latter term to the effects produced on the mind by material objects only. His language is not so logically exact, that the precise signification can

always be determined from a single sentence, cut out from its place, and transferred to the pages of another writer, so as to exclude the opportunity of illustration from adjoining passages. His meaning is to be gathered, rather from the general current of the composition, than from particular and insulated expressions. There are few writers who would be more liable to be misunderstood, from mere fragments of passages presented in quotations. Whole volumes of finely-wrought speculation, have originated in the misconstruction of a single sentence. On one essential point, however, as if anticipating the blunders of his commentators, he has taken special pains to guard against misapprehension; though, we have reason to believe, without much success. As his whole Essay on the Human Understanding depends upon the meaning of the word idea, he has opened the work with a formal definition.

In what sense, then, does Mr. Locke use the term idea? Does he mean by it, thought, simply, or the object of thought, or the medium of thought? Let him speak for himself. "I must here, in the entrance, beg pardon of my reader, for the frequent use of the word idea, which he will find in the following treatise. It being that term which, I think, serves best to stand for whatsoever is the object of the understanding, when a man thinks; I have used it to express whatever is meant by phantasm, notion, species, or whatever it is which the mind can be employed about in thinking; and I could not avoid frequently using it. I presume it will be granted me, that there are such ideas in men's minds; every one is conscious of them in himself; and men's words and actions will satisfy him, that they are in others." B. I. ch. i. § 8. Again, "Every man being conscious to himself, that he thinks; and that which his mind is applied about whilst thinking, being the ideas that are there; 'tis past doubt, that men have in their minds several ideas, such as are those expressed in the words, whiteness, hardness, sweetness, thinking, motion, man, elephant, army, drunkenness, and others; it is, in the first place, to be inquired, how he comes by them." B. II. ch. i. § 1. "Whatsoever the mind perceives in itself, or is the immediate object of perception, thought, or understanding, that I call idea." B. II. ch. viii. § 8. In Mr. Locke's second letter to the bishop of Worcester, he says, "The things signified by idea, are nothing but the immediate objects of our minds in thinking. So that, unless any one can oppose the article your lordship defends, without thinking on something, he must use the things signified by ideas for he that thinks, must have some immediate object of his mind in thinking: i. e., must have ideas."

Does Mr. Locke, in these passages, by defining idea to be the "immediate object of the mind in thinking," mean to say, that it is that image or species in the brain, which some philosophers sup

pose to be the medium of thought; the means by which objects are brought into the view of the mind? He has, it is true, introduced into his definitions, the ambiguous terms, phantasm, notion, and species. These are sometimes used to signify an image on the brain. But they are not invariably to be so understood. With respect to "such ideas" as Mr. Locke has defined, he says, "Every one is conscious of them in himself." Now, is every man conscious of having images or species in the brain; those phantasms which are supposed, by some philosophers, to be the medium of thought? Are these the only objects on which we are conscious of thinking? Phantasms in the brain may be ideas, even in Mr. Locke's sense, whenever some philosopher, in his speculations, happens to be thinking of them; that is, to make them the object of his thoughts. But do we never think of any thing else? Are these the only objects to which, according to the evidence of consciousness, our attention is directed, when we look abroad, upon the diversified scenes of the world around us? Mr. Locke says he uses the word idea, to signify whatever it is which the mind can be employed about in thinking. The hypothesis concerning the means of thought, is wholly distinct from the fact, that whenever we think, we are thinking of something; and that this something is the object of our thoughts.

What, then, is the meaning which Mr. Locke intends to give to the term ideas? We understand him to mean, THE OBJECTS OF THOUGHT; the things, either real or imaginary, on which we are at any time thinking: to use his own language, "whatever is the object of the understanding, when a man thinks." He takes it for granted, that a man cannot think, "without thinking on something," and that something is the "thing signified by idea."

Can it be so, then, that, according to Locke, things themselves, and not mere images of things, are signified by the term ideas? Does he mean to call the heavens and the earth, mountains, rivers, forests, and every thing else, ideas? Is there no distinction to be made between ideas and things? We answer, that so far as things are brought before any man's mind; so far as they are made the objects of his thoughts; they are, for the time, that man's ideas, in the sense in which we understand Mr. Locke. Speaking of our complex ideas of substances, he observes, " I shall consider them as collections of simple ideas in the mind, taken from combinations of simple ideas existing together constantly in things." B. II. ch. xxxii. § 18. Again, the mind is said to make a false judgment, "when in its complex idea, it has united a certain number of simple ideas that do really exist together, in some sorts of creatures; but has left out others as much inseparable." B. II. ch. xxii. § 23. "Our complex ideas of substances, are such combinations of sim