dence between his opinions, and the principles of the modern system of philosophy. The praise of originality at least, of boldness and vigour of mind, belongs to him. The strength of reason which his application of a general principle to explain almost all the phenomena of human nature implies, can hardly be surpassed. The truth of the system is another question, which I shall hereafter proceed to consider.

I will first, however, distinctly enumerate the leading principles of this philosophy, as they are to be found in Hobbes, and in the latest writers of the same School. They are, I conceive, as follows:

1. That all our ideas are derived from external objects, by means of the senses alone.

2. That as nothing exists out of the mind but matter and motion, so it is itself with all its operations nothing but matter and motion.

3. That thoughts are single, or that we can think of only one object at a time. In other words, that there is no comprehensive power or faculty of understanding in the mind.

4. That we have no general or abstract ideas. 5. That the only principle of connexion between one thought and another is association, or their previous connexion in sense.

6. That reason and understanding depend entirely on the mechanism of language.

7 and 8. That the sense of pleasure and pain is the sole spring of action, and self-interest the source of all our affections.

9. That the mind acts from a mechanical or physical necessity, over which it has no controul, and consequently is not a moral or accountable agent. The manner of stating and reasoning upon this point is the only circumstance of importance in which modern writers differ from Hobbes.

10. That there is no difference in the natural capacities of men, the mind being originally passive to all impressions alike, and becoming whatever it is from circumstances.

All of these positions it is my intention to oppose to the utmost of my ability. Except the first, they are most or all of them either denied or doubtfully admitted by Locke. And as it is his admission of the first principle which has opened a door, directly or indirectly, to all the rest, I shall devote the Essay next but one to an examination of the account which he gives of the origin of our ideas from sensation.

It may perhaps be thought, that the neglect into which Hobbes's metaphysical opinions have fallen was originally owing to the obloquy ex

cited by the misanthropy and despotical tendency of his political writings. But it seems to me that he has been almost as hardly dealt with in the one case as in the other.

As to his principles of government, this may at least be said for them, that they are in form and appearance very much the same with those detailed long after in Rousseau's Social Contract,' and evidently suggested the plan of that work, which has never been considered as a defence of tyranny. The author indeed requires an absolute submission in the subject to the laws, but then it is to be in consequence of his own consent to obey them. Every man is at least supposed to be his own lawgiver.

Secondly, as to the misanthropy with which he is charged, for having made fear the actual foundation and cement of civil society, he has I think made his own apology very satisfactorily in these words:

"It may seem strange to some man that hath not well weighed these things, that nature should thus dissociate and render men apt to invade and destroy one another; and he may therefore, not trusting to the inference made from the passions, desire perhaps to have the same confirmed by experience. Let him therefore consider with himself-when taking a journey he

arms himself, and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep he locks his doors; when even in his house, he locks his chests, and this when he knows there be laws and public officers, armed to revenge all injuries that shall be done him;-what opinion I say, he has of his fellow subjects when he rides armed, of his fellow citizens when he locks his doors, and of his children and servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not then accuse mankind as much by his actions as I do by my words? Yet neither of us accuse man's nature in it."-Leviathan, p. 62.

It is true the bond of civil government according to his account, is very different from Burke's "soft collar of social esteem," and takes away the sentimental part of politics. But I confess I see nothing liberal in this "order of thoughts," as Hobbes elsewhere expresses it, "the crime, the officer, the prison, the judge and the gallows," which is nevertheless a good description of the nature and end of political institutions.

The true reason of the fate which this author's writings met with was that his views of things were too original and comprehensive to be immediately understood, without passing through the hands of several successive generations of

commentators and interpreters. Ignorance of another's meaning is a sufficient cause of fear, and fear produces hatred: hence arose the rancour and suspicion of his adversaries, who, to quote some fine lines of Spenser,

"Stood all astonied like a sort of steers

'Mongst whom some beast of strange and foreign race Unwares is chanced, far straying from his peers:

So did their ghastly gaze betray their hidden fears."