philosophy, that the true source of the hypothesis, which we are now reviewing, is to be found. This very eminent father of the church,-whose acuteness and eloquence would have entitled him to very high consideration, even though his works had related to subjects less interesting to man, than those noble subjects of which they treat,-seems to have met with peculiar honour from the French theologians, and to have given a very evident direction to their intellectual inquiries. It is indeed impossible to read the works of any of the theological metaphysicians of that country, without meeting with constant references to the opinions of St Austin, and an implied reference, even where it is not expressed, particularly to the very opinions most analogous to those of Malebranche.

The opinion of Augustine, to which I particularly allude, is that which forms the principal doctrine of his metaphysical philosophy, that there is a supreme eternal universal Truth, which is internally present to every mind, and in which all minds alike perceive the truths, which all alike are, as it were, necessitated to believe, the truths of arithmetic and geometry, for example, and the primary essential truths of morality.

These truths we feel to be eternal, because we feel that they are not contingent on the existence of those who perceive them, but were, and are, and must forever be the same; and we feel also, that the truth is one, whatever be the number of individuals that perceive it, and is not converted into many truths, merely by the multitude of believers. "If," says he, in discoursing of any truth, I perceive that to be true which you say, and you perceive that to be true which I say,-where, I pray you, do we both see this at the very moment? I certainly see it not in you, nor you in me, but both see it in that unchangeable truth, which is beyond and above our individual minds. "Si ambo videmus verum esse quod dicis, et ambo videmus verum esse quod dico, ubi, quæso, id videmus? Nec ego utique in te, nec tu in me; sed ambo in ipsa quæ supra mentes nostras est, incommutabili veritate."

You must not conceive that I am contending for the justness of the opinion which I am now stating to you-I state it merely as illustrative of the system of Malebranche. If we suppose, with Augustine, that there is one eternal Truth, which contains all truths,

and is present to all minds that perceive in it the truths which it contains, it is but one step more, and scarcely one step more, to believe that our ideas of all things are contained and perceived in one omnipresent Mind, to which all other minds are united, and which is itself the eternal Truth, that is present to all. Indeed, some of the passages which are quoted in the Search of Truth, from St Austin, show how strongly the author conceived his own opinions to be sanctioned by that ancient authority.

For some of the happiest applications which have been made of this very ancient system of Christian metaphysics, I may refer you particularly to the works of Fenelon,-to his demonstration of the existence of God, for example, in which many of the most abstract subtleties of the Metaphysics of Augustine become living and eloquent, in the reasonings of this amiable writer, who knew so well how to give, to every subject which he treated, the tenderness of his own heart, and the persuasion and devout confidence of his own undoubting belief.

In this Protestant country, in which the attention of theologians has been almost exclusively devoted to the Scriptures themselves, and little comparative attention paid to the writings of the Fathers, unless, as strictly illustrative of the texts of Scripture, or of the mere History of the Church,-the influence of the metaphysical opinions of St Austin is less to be traced; and the argument drawn from the eternal omnipresent ideas of unity, and number and infinity, on which so much stress is laid by Catholic philosophers, in demonstrating the existence of God, is hence scarcely to be found at all, or, at least, occupies a very inconsiderable place, in the numerous works of our countrymen, on the same great subject. The system of Malebranche, might, indeed have arisen in this country; for we have had writers, who, without his genius, have adopted his errors; but there can be no doubt, that it was, by its very nature, much more likely to arise, in the country which actually produced it.

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474

LECTURE XXXI.

HISTORY OF OPINIONS REGARDING PERCEPTION, CONCLUDEDON THE EXTERNAL AFFECTIONS COMBINED WITH DESIRE, OR ON ATTENTION.

IN my last Lecture, Gentlemen, I gave you a slight sketch of some theories,-or, to speak more accurately, of some hypothetical conjectures, which have been formed with respect to perception,-pointing out to you, at the same time, the two supposed difficulties which appear to me to have led to them, in false views of the real objects of perception, and of the nature of causation; the difficulty of accounting, with these false views, for the supposed perception of objects at a distance, and for the agency of matter on a substance, so little capable as mind, of being linked with it, by any common bond of connexion.

Of such hypotheses, we considered three,-the doctrine of the Peripatetics as to perception by species, or shadowy films, that flow from the object to the organ,-the Cartesian doctrine of the indirect subserviency of external objects, as the mere occasions on which the Deity himself, in every instance, produces in the mind the state which is termed perception, and the particular doctrine of Malebranche, himself a zealous defender of that general doctrine of occasional causes, as to the perception of objects, or rather of the ideas of objects in the divine mind.

The only remaining hypothesis, which deserves to be noticed, is a very celebrated one, of Leibnitz, the doctrine of the pre-established harmony, which, I have no doubt, originated in the same false view of the necessity of some connecting link in causation; and was intended, therefore, like the others, to obviate the supposed difficulty of the action of matter on mind, and of mind on

matter.

According to this doctrine, the body never acts on the mind, uor the mind on the body, but the motions of the one, and the feelings of the other, are absolutely independent, having as little influence on each other, as they have on any other mind and body. The mind feels pain, when the body is bruised, but, from the preestablished order of its own affections, it would have felt exactly the same pain, though the body, at that moment, had been resting upon roses. The arm, indeed, moves at the very moment, when the mind has willed its motion; but, it moves of itself, in consequence of its own pre-established order of movement, and would move, therefore, equally, at that very moment, though the mind had wished it to remain at rest. The exact correspondence of the motions and feelings, which we observe, arises merely from the exactness of the choice of the Deity, in uniting with a body, that was formed by Him, to have of itself, a certain order of independent motions, a mind, that was formed of itself to have a certain order of independent but corresponding feelings. In the unerring exactness of this choice, and mutual adaptation, consists the exquisiteness of the harmony. But, however exquisite, it is still a harmony only, without the slightest reciprocal action.

The mind, and its organic frame, are, in this system,―to borrow the illustration of it which is commonly used,-like two timepieces, which have no connexion with each other, however accurately they may agree,-and each of which would indicate the hour, in the very same manner, though the other had been destroyed. In like manner, the soul of Leibnitz,-for the great theorist himself may surely be used to illustrate his own hypothesis, would, though his body had been annihilated at birth, have felt and acted, as if with its bodily appendage, studying the same works, inventing the same systems, and carrying on, with the same warfare of books and epistles, the same long course of indefatigable controversy;-and the body of this great philosopher, though his soul had been annihilated at birth, would not merely have gone through the same process of growth, eating, and digesting, and performing all its other ordinary animal functions,— but would have achieved for itself the same intellectual glory, without any consciousness of the works which it was writing and correcting, would have argued, with equal strenuousness, for the principle of the sufficient reason,-claimed the honours of the dif

ferential calculus,—and laboured to prove this very system of the pre-established harmony, of which it would, certainly, in that case, have been one of the most illustrious examples.

To say of this hypothesis, which was the dream of a great mind, -but of a mind, I must confess, which was very fond of dreaming, and very apt to dream,—that it is a mere hypothesis, is to speak of it too favourably. Like the doctrine of occasional causes, it supposes a system of external things, of which, by the very principle of the hypothesis, there can be no evidence, and which is absolutely of no utility whatever, but as it enables a philosopher to talk, more justly, of pre-established harmonies, without the possibility, however, of knowing that he is talking more justly. If the mind would have exactly the same feelings as now, the same pleasures, and pains, and perceptions of men and houses, and every thing external, though every thing external, comprehending of course the very organs of sense, had been annihilated ages of ages before itself existed, what reason can there be to suppose, that this useless system of bodily organs, and other external things, exist at present? The universal irresistible belief of mankind, to which philosophers of a different school might appeal, cannot be urged in this since the admission of it, as legitimate evidence, would at once, disprove the hypothesis. We do not more truly believe, that light exists, than we believe, that it affects us with vision, and that, if there had been no light, there would have been no sensation of colour. To assert the pre-established harmony, is, indeed, almost the same thing, as to affirm and deny the same proposition. It is to affirm, in the first place, positively, that matter exists, since the harmony, which it asserts, is of matter and mind; and then to affirm, as positively, that its existence is useless, that it cannot be perceived by us, and that we are, therefore, absolutely incapable of knowing whether it exists or not.

case,

After stating to you so many hypotheses, which have been formed on this subject, I need scarcely remark, what a fund of perpetual conjecture, and, therefore, of perpetual controversy, there is in the varied wonders of the external and internal universe, when it is so very difficult for a few philosphers to agree, as to what it is which gives rise to the simplest sensation of warmth, or fragrance, or colour. It might be thought, that, in the intellectual opera, if I may revert to that ingenious and