These seemingly instantaneous judgments have always appeared to me as entitled to a greater share of our confidence than many of our more deliberate conclusions; inasmuch as they have been forced, as it were, on the mind by the lessons of long experience; and are as little liable to be biased by temper or passion, as the estimates we form of the distances of visible objects. They consti tute, indeed, to those who are habitually engaged in the busy scenes of life, a sort of peculiar faculty, analogous, both in its origin, and in its use, to the coup d'oeil of the military engineer, or to the quick and sure tact of the medical practitioner, in marking the diagnostics of disease.

For this reason, I look upon the distinction between our intuitive and deductive judgments as, in many cases, merely an object of theoretical curiosity. In those simple conclusions which all men are impelled to form by the necessities of their nature, and in which we find an uniformity not less constant than in the acquired perceptions of sight, it is of as little consequence to the logician to spend his time in efforts to retrace the first steps of the infant understanding, as it would be to the sailor or the sportsman to study with the view to the improvement of his eye, the Berkeleian theory of vision. In both instances, the original faculty and the acquired judgment are equally entitled to be considered as the work of nature; and in both instances we find it equally impossible to shake off her authority. It is no wonder, therefore, that, in popular language, such words as common sense and reason should be used with a considerable degree of latitude; nor is it of much importance to the philosopher to aim at extreme nicety in defining, their province, where all mankind, whether wise or ignorant, think and speak alike.

In some rare and anomalous cases, a rapidity of judgment in the more complicated concerns of life, appears in individuals who have had so few opportunities of profiting by experience, that it seems, on a superficial view, to be the immediate gift of heaven. But, in all such instances (although a great deal must undoubtedly be ascribed to an inexplicable aptitude or predisposition of the intel lectual powers,) we may be perfectly assured that every judgment of the understanding is preceded by a process of reasoning or deduction, whether the individual himself be able to recollect it or Óf this I can no more doubt, than I could bring myself to believe that the arithmetical prodigy, who has, of late, so justly attracted the attention of the curious, is able to extract square and cube roots by an instinctive and instantaneous perception, because, the process of mental calculation, by which he is led to the result, eludes all his efforts to recover it.*

not.

*The arithmetical prodigy, alluded to in the text, is an American boy, still, I believe, in London, of whose astonishing powers in performing, by a mental process, hitherto unexplained, the most difficult numerical operations, some accounts have lately appeared in various literary Journals. When the sheet containing the reference to this Note was thrown off, I entertained the hope of having an op

proper for me to take notice, that I may not have the appearance of acquiescing in a mode of speaking so extremely exceptionable. What I allude to is, the supposition which his language, concerning the powers both of intuition and of reasoning involves, that, knowledge consists solely in the perception of the agreement or the disagreement of our ideas. The impropriety of this phraseology has been sufficiently exposed by Dr. Reid, whose animadversions I would beg leave to recommend to the attention of those readers, who, from long habit, may have familiarized their ear to the peculiarities of Locke's philosophical diction. In this place, I think it sufficient for me to add to Dr. Reid's strictures, that Mr. Locke's language has, in the present instance, been suggested to him by the partial view which he took of the subject; his illustrations being chiefly borrowed from mathematics, and the relations about which it is conversant. When applied to these relations, it is undoubtedly possible to annex some sense to such phrases as comparing ideas, the juxtaposition of ideas,-the perception of the agreements or disagreements of ideas: but, in most other branches of knowledge, this jargon will be found, on examination, to be altogether unmeaning; and, instead of adding to the precision of our notions, to involve plain facts in technical and scholastic mystery.

This last observation leads me to remark farther, that even when Locke speaks of reasoning in general, he seems in many cases to have had a tacit reference in his own mind, to mathematical demonstration; and the same criticism may be extended to every logical writer whom I.know, not excepting Aristotle himself. Perhaps it is chiefly owing to this, that their discussions are so often of very little practical utility; the rules which result from them being wholly superfluous, when applied to mathematics; and, when extended to other branches of knowledge, being unsusceptible of any precise, or even intelligible interpretation.

2.-Conclusions obtained by a Process of Deduction often mistaken for Intuitive Judgments.

Ir has been frequently remarked, that the justest and most efficient understandings are often possessed by men who are incapable of stating to others, or even to themselves, the grounds on which they proceed in forming their decisions. In some instances I have been disposed to ascribe this to the faults of early education; but in other cases, I am persuaded, that it was the effect of active and imperious habits in quickening the evanescent processes of thought, so as to render them untraceable by the memory; and to give the appearance of intuition to what was in fact the result of a train of reasoning so rapid as to escape notice. This I conceive to be the true theory of what is generally called common sense, in opposition to book learning; and it serves to account for the use which has been made of this phrase, by various writers, as synonymous with intuition.

These seemingly instantaneous judgments have always appeared to me as entitled to a greater share of our confidence than many of our more deliberate conclusions; inasmuch as they have been forced, as it were, on the mind by the lessons of long experience; and are as little liable to be biased by temper or passion, as the estimates we form of the distances of visible objects. They const tute, indeed, to those who are habitually engaged in the busy scenes of life, a sort of peculiar faculty, analogous, both in its origin, and in its use, to the coup d'œil of the military engineer, or to the quick and sure tact of the medical practitioner, in marking the diagnostics of disease.

For this reason, I look upon the distinction between our intuitive and deductive judgments as, in many cases, merely an object of theoretical curiosity. In those simple conclusions which all men are impelled to form by the necessities of their nature, and in which we find an uniformity not less constant than in the acquired perceptions of sight, it is of as little consequence to the logician to spend his time in efforts to retrace the first steps of the infant understanding, as it would be to the sailor or the sportsman to study with the view to the improvement of his eye, the Berkeleian theory of vision. In both instances, the original faculty and the acquired judgment are equally entitled to be considered as the work of nature; and in both instances we find it equally impossible to shake off her authority. It is no wonder, therefore, that, in popular language, such words as common sense and reason should be used with a considerable degree of latitude; nor is it of much importance to the philosopher to aim at extreme nicety in defining, their province, where all mankind, whether wise or ignorant, think and speak alike.

In some rare and anomalous cases, a rapidity of judgment in the more complicated concerns of life, appears in individuals who have had so few opportunities of profiting by experience, that it seems, on a superficial view, to be the immediate gift of heaven. But, in all such instances (although a great deal must undoubtedly be ascribed to an inexplicable aptitude or predisposition of the intellectual powers,) we may be perfectly assured that every judgment of the understanding is preceded by a process of reasoning or deduction, whether the individual himself be able to recollect it or not. Of this I can no more doubt, than I could bring myself to believe that the arithmetical prodigy, who has, of late, so justly attracted the attention of the curious, is able to extract square and cube roots by an instinctive and instantaneous perception, because, the process of mental calculation, by which he is led to the result, eludes all his efforts to recover it.*

The arithmetical prodigy, alluded to in the text, is an American boy, still, I believe, in London, of whose astonishing powers in performing, by a mental process, hitherto unexplained, the most difficult numerical operations, some accounts have lately appeared in various literary Journals. When the sheet containing the reference to this Note was thrown off, I entertained the hope of having an op

cursive processes, the different steps of which admit of being distinctly stated and enunciated in the form of logical arguments, and which, in consequence of this circumstance, furnish more certain and palpable data for our speculations. I begin with some remarks on the Power of General Reasoning, for the exercise of which (as I formerly endeavored to show) the use of language, as an instrument of thought, is indispensably requisite.

SECTION II.

OF GENERAL REASONING.

1.-Illustrations of some Remarks formerly stated in treating of Abstraction.

I SHOULD Scarcely have thought it necessary to resume the consideration of Abstraction here, if I had not neglected, in my First Part, to examine the force of an objection to Berkeley's doctrine concerning abstract general ideas, on which great stress is laid by Dr. Reid, in his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man; and which some late writers seem to have considered as not less conclusive against the view of the question which I have taken. Of this objection I was aware from the first, but was unwilling, by replying to it in form, to lengthen a discussion which savored so much of the schools, more especially as I conceived that I had guarded my own argument from any such attack, by the cautious terms in which I had expressed it. Having since had reason to believe that I was precipitate in forming this judgment, and that Reid's strictures on Berkeley's theory of General Signs have produced a deeper impression than I had expected,* I shall endeavor to obviate them, at least as far as they apply to myself, before entering on any new speculations concerning our reasoning powers, and shall, at the same time, introduce some occasional illustrations of the principles which I formerly endeavored to establish.

To prevent the possibility of misrepresentation, I state Dr. Reid's objection in his own words.

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Berkeley, in his reasoning against abstract general ideas, seems unwillingly or unwaringly to grant all that is necessary to support abstract and general conceptions.

"A man," says Berkeley," may consider a figure merely as tri

"See a book entitled, Elements of Intellectual Philosophy, by the late learned and justly regretted Mr. Scott, of King's College, Aberdeen, p. 118, et seq. (Edinburgh, 1805.) I have not thought it necessary to reply to Mr. Scott's own reasonings, which do not appear to me to throw much new light on the question ; but I thought it right to refer to them here, that the reader may, if he pleases, have an opportunity of judging for himself.

From what has been said, it seems to follow, that although a man should happen to reason ill in support of a sound conclusion, we are by no means entitled to infer with confidence, that he judged right merely by accident. It is far from being impossible that he may have committed some mistake in stating to others (perhaps in retracing to himself) the grounds upon which his judgment was really founded. Indeed this must be the case, wherever a shrewd understanding in business is united with an incapacity for clear and luminous reasonings; and something of the same sort is incident, more or less, to all men (more particularly to men of quick parts) when they make an attempt, in discussions concerning human affairs, to remount to first principles. It may be added, that in the old, this correctness of judgment often remains, in a surprising degree, long after the discursive or argumentative power would seem, from some decay of attention, or confusion in the succession of ideas, to have been sensibly impaired by age or by disease.

In consequence of these views, as well as of various others foreign to the present subject, I am led to entertain great doubts about the solidity of a very specious doctrine laid down by Condorcet, in his "Essay on the Application of mathematical Analysis to the Proba bilities of Decisions resting upon the Votes of a Majority." "It is extremely possible," he observes, "that the decision which unites in its favor the greatest number of suffrages, may comprehend a variety of propositions, some of which, if stated apart, would have had a plurality of voices against them; and, as the truth of a system of propositions supposes that each of the propositions composing it is truc, the probability of the system can be rigorously deduced only from an examination of the probability of each proposition, sepa rately considered."*

When this theory is applied to a court of law, it is well known to involve one of the nicest questions in practical jurisprudence; and, in that light, I do not presume to have formed any opinion with respect to it. It may be doubted, perhaps, if it be not one of those problems, the solution of which, in particular instances, is more safely intrusted to discretionary judgment than to the rigorous ap plication of any technical rule founded on abstract principles. I have introduced the quotation here, merely on account of the proof which it has been supposed to afford, that the seeming diversities of human belief fall, in general, greatly short of the reality. On this point, the considerations already stated, strongly incline me to entertain an idea directly contrary. My reasons for thinking so may be easily collected from the tenor of the preceding remarks.

It is time, however, to proceed to the examination of those dis

Essai sur l'Application de l'Analyse à la probabilité des Décisions rendues à la pluralité des Voix.-Disc. Prel. pp. 46, 47.

Some of the expressions in the above quotation are not agreeable to the idiom of our language; but I did not think myself entitled to depart from the phraseology of the original. The meaning is sufficiently obvious.