Elements of the philosophy of the human mind / by Dugald Stewart.

Date:
1816
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Elements of the philosophy of the human mind / by Dugald Stewart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    “ as why grass is green, or snow is white; why fire burns, or « co](j congeals. By a speculative reason, I mean assigning an « immediate efficient cause a priori, together with the manner •< of its operation, for any effect whatsoever purely natural. « We find, indeed, by observation and experience, that such “ and such effects are produced; but when we attempt to « think of the reason ivhy, and the manner hoi0 the causes “ work those effects, then we are at a stand, and all our rea- “ soning is precarious, or at best but probable conjecture. “ If any man is surprised at this, let him instance, in some “ speculative reason he can give for any natural phenomenon ; « and how plausible soever it appears to him at first, he will, “ upon weighing it thoroughly, find it at last resolved into no- « thing iftore than mere observation and experiment, and will “ perceive that these expressions generally used to describe “ the cause or manner of the productions of nature, do really “ signify nothing more than the effects.”—The Procedure, Extents, and Limits of Human Understanding. Ascribed to Dr Peter Brown, Bishop of Cork. (London, 1737, 3d ed.) For the following very curious extracts (together with many others of a similar import, both from English and from Foreign writers) I am indebted to a learned correspondent, William Dickson, LL. D., a gentleman well known by his able and me- ritorious exertions for the abolition of the slave-trade. “ Confidence of science is one great reason we miss it: for “ on this account, presuming we have it everywhere, we seek “ it not where it is ; and, therefore, fall short of the object of “ our inquiry. Now, to give further check to dogmatical pre- “ tensions, and to discover the vanity of assuming ignorance, “ we’ll make a short inquiry, whether there be any such thing “ as science in the sense of its assertors. In their notion, then, “ it is the knowledge of things in their true, immediate, necessary “ causes : Upon this I’ll advance the following observations : “ 1. All knowledge of causes is deductive ; for we know • “ none by simple intuition, but through the mediation of their “ effects. So that we cannot conclude any thing to be the “ cause of another, but from its continual accompanying it;