Lectures on the philosophy of the human mind / by the late Thomas Brown ; with a memoir of the author by David Welsh.

  • Thomas Brown
Date:
1830
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on the philosophy of the human mind / by the late Thomas Brown ; with a memoir of the author by David Welsh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    tioiis upon the use that Dr. Brown made of it in his philosophical investigations. The only real use of abstract language, as has been seen, is to make us acquainted with the truths of which the world is already in pos- session, and to give permanence to the truths which we ourselves may discover. This fact, however, obvious though it may appear, has been disputed by almost all metaphysical philosophers. Language has been represent- ed by them as the instrument of thought; and indeed, to read the trifling and merely verbal disputes of many metaphysicians, it woidd appear that it was often their only instru- ment. Dr. Bro^vn, at a very early period of life, acquired correct views of the true piuposes for which language is to be employ- ed, and by a habit of analysing every complex term, escaped completely from what Bacon calls the Idola Fori. The habit to which I allude was a very striking characteristic of his intellect; and no account of his charac- ter as a philosopher would be complete, in which it was not very particularly noticed. It is impossible to say how much greater efficacy it gave to his acuteness. It derived its origin doubtless from his great activity and higenuity, and no one, unless he had these qualities in an equal degree of perfec- tion, could arrive at the same dexterity and power; it therefore detracts nothing from the merits of his discoveries, to ascribe the most important of them to this habit. That I do not over-rate its influence, those who are at all acquamted with his works will ad- mit, when they are reminded of the words Power, Volition, Occasional, Efficient, and Physical Causes Dr. Brown himself has remarked in the preface to the third edition of his work on Cause and Effect, that The veiy simplification of the language itself, in which we are accustomed to think of the abstract relations of things, is one of the most important contributions which meta- physical analysis is occasionally able to m.ike to the Philosophy of Physical Inquiry,—that highest and noblest logic, which, compre- hendmg at once our intellectual nature and every thing which is known to exist, con- siders the mind in all its possible relations to the species of truths which it is capable of discovering. To remove a number of cumbrous words is, in many cases, all that is necessary to render distinctly visible, as it were, to our very glance, truths which they, and they only, have been for ages hiding from our view. In these respects, the benefits Dr. Brown has conferred upon phi]ofioi)hy are inestimable. He has in a thousand in- stances simplified the language in which we are accustomed to think of the abstract re- lations of things, and he has removed and explained many of those words which, more than any other cause, have had the effect of blinding and misleading metaphysicians. This, indeed, is his favourite organ in the discovery and elucidation of truth. He does not in his reasonings trust much to analogy, nor to the bringing of an individual example under a general rule ; nor does he attempt to gain our prejudices on his side, by addressing himself to our pride of understanding on the one hand, or to our common sense on the other—the usual methods of our metaphysi- cians. His object is, by clearly defining his terms, to withdraw the attention of the reader from Avords to things. This is not always perhaps the most agreeable, but it is by far the shortest and the surest road to truth ; for if we could all look upon nature herself with our own eyes, unbiassed by the views that others have taken of her, our conclusions would seldom be erroneous. In metaphysics, and indeed in all the sciences where the human mind is directly concern- ed, the chief art that we have to learn is to analyse, quickly and directly, the language we employ. For explaining and teaching this art, and for evincing its importance, I know of no works equal to those of Dr. Brown; and they might be recommended to those who wish to acquire this art of thinking, in the same spirit that dictated the famous saying of Locke, If you wish your son to leam logic, make him read Chil- lingworth. To his power of analysis, then, there can be no hesitation in giving the first place, in the view of Dr. Brown's intellectual cha- racter. But a mere capacity of analysing, as has been already remarked, though indis- pensably necessary to all those who would extend the boundaries of science of any description, and above all of metaphysical science, is not of itself sufficient to consti- tute a philosopher. To form a perfect phi- losopher, another quality is necessarj'; a quality which, as Dr. Brown has observed, sees through a long train of thought a dis- tant conclusion, and separating at every stage the essentid fiom the accessory cir- cumstances, and gathering and combining analogies as it proceeds, arrives at length at a system of harmonious tnith. This com- prehensive energy is a quality to which a- cuteness is necessary, but which is not itself necessarily implied in acuteness; or, rather, it is a combination of qualities for which we have not yet an exact name, but which forms a peculiar character of genius, and is, in truth, the vcrj' guiding spirit of all philo- sophic investigation. The idea is very prevalent, that this com- prehensive enci^', though involving acute- ness, is incompatible with that quality when it exists in a more than usual degree. And it certainly has generally happened that those who have been distinguished for their in- genuity, have wasted their powers in un-
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