As this part of our speculations has incurred more of Mr. Stewart's disapprobation than any thing which we have hitherto attempted to defend, we think ourselves called upon to state the substance of his objections, in his own eloquent and impressive words. After quoting the sentence we have already transcribed, he proceeds :—

curious and a very interesting occupation;- sation, in respect both to the certainty and the but we humbly conceive it to form no part, or, extent of its application; at the same time at least, a very small and inconsiderable part, that we felt ourselves constrained to add, that, of the occupation of a student of philosophy. | even as to this habit of the mind, Philosophy It is an occupation which can only be effec- could lay no claim to the honours of a distually pursued, in the world, by travelling, and covery; since the principle was undoubtedly intercourse with society; and, at all events, familiar to the feelings of all men, and was by vigilant observation of what is shown to acted upon, with unvarying sagacity, in almost us, by our senses, of the proceedings of our every case where it could be employed with fellow-men. The philosophy of mind, how- advantage; though by persons who had never ever, is to be cultivated in solitude and silence thought of embodying it in a maxim, or at-by calm reflection on our own mental ex- tending to it as a law of general application. periences, and patient attention to the sub- The whole scheme of education, it was ob jects of our own consciousness. But can we served, has been founded on this principle, ever be conscious of those varieties of temper in every age of the world. "The groom," it and character that distinguish the different was added, "who never heard of ideas or asconditions of human life?-or, even independ-sociations, feeds the young war-horse to the ent of Mr. Stewart's definition-is it reconcila- sound of the trumpet; and the unphilosophible to common usage or general understand- cal artists who tame elephants, or train daning, to call our attention to such particulars cing dogs, proceed on the same obvious and the study of the philosophy of mind?—Is it familiar principle." not, on the contrary, universally understood to be the peculiar and limited province of that philosophy, to explain the nature and distinctions of those primary functions of the mind, which are possessed in common by men of all vocations and all conditions?-to treat, in short, of perception, and attention, and memory, and imagination, and volition, and judgment, and all the other powers or faculties into which our intellectual nature may be distinguished?-Is it not with these, that Hobbes, and Locke, and Berkeley, and Reid, and all the other philosophers who have reasoned or philosophised about mind, have been occupied ?-or, what share of Mr. Stewart's own invaluable publications is devoted to those slighter shades of individual character, to which alone his supposed experiments have any reference? The philosophy of the human mind, we conceive, is conversant only with what is common to all human beings and with those faculties of which every individual of the species is equally conscious: and though it may occasionally borrow illustrations, or even derive some reflected light from the contemplation of those slighter varieties that distinguish one individual from another, this evidently forms no part of the study of the subjects of our consciousness, and can never be permitted to rank as a legitimate part of that philosophy.

|

46

The

The same

This argument, I suspect, leads a little too far for the purpose of its author; inasmuch as it concludes still more forcibly (in consequence of the great familiarity of the subject) against Physics, strictly so called, than against the Science of Mind. force of gravity, yet knows how to add to the mo savage, who never heard of the accelerating mentum of his missile weapons, by gaining an eminence; though a stranger to Newton's third law of motion, he applies it to its practical use, when he the shore: in the use of his sling, he illustrates, sets his canoe afloat, by pushing with a pole against with equal success, the doctrine of centrifugal forces, as he exemplifies (without any knowledge of the experiments of Robins) the principle of the rifle-barrel, in feathering his arrow. groom who, in feeding his young war-horse to the sound of the drum," has nothing to learn from ciation, might boast, with far greater reason, that, Locke or from Hume concerning the laws of assowithout having looked into Borelli, he can train that animal to his various paces; and that, when he exercises him with the longe, he exhibits an experimental illustration of the centrifugal force, and of the centre of gravity, which was known in the riding-school long before their theories were unfolded in the Principia of Newton. Even the opeThis exhausts almost all that we have to rations of the animal which is the subject of his say in defence of our supposed heresies as to discipline, seem to involve an acquaintance with the the importance and practical value of the same physical laws, when we attend to the mathephilosophy of mind, considered with refer-matical accuracy with which he adapts the obliquity

ence to the primary and more elementary both cases (in that of the man as well as of the of his body to the rate of his circular speed. In faculties of man. With regard to the Asso- brute) this practical knowledge is obtruded on the ciating principle, we have still a word or two organs of external sense by the hand of Nature to add. In our original observations we ad- herself: But it is not on that account the less useful mitted, that this principle seemed to stand in to evolve the general theorems which are thus ema situation somewhat different from the sim-bodied with their particular applications; and to pler phenomena of the mind-and that the elucidations which Philosophy had furnished with regard to its operations, were not so easily recognised as previously impressed on our consciousness, as most of her revelations. We allowed, therefore, that some utility might be derived from the clear exposition of this more complicated part of our mental organi-ling?"-Prel. Diss. p. lx. lxi.

combine them in a systematical and scientific form, for our own instruction and that of others. Does it detract from the value of the theory of pneumaties to remark, that the same effects of a vacuum, and of the elasticity and pressure of the air, which afford an explanation of its most curious phenocoeval with the first breath which we draw; and mena, are recognized in an instinctive process exemplified in the mouth of every babe and suck

Now, without recurring to what we have is it to be believed, that there can be many already said as to the total absence of power occasions for its employment in the governin all cases of mere observation, we shall ment of the human mind, of which men merely request our readers to consider, what have never yet had the sense to bethink is the circumstance that bestows a value, an themselves? Or, can it be seriously mainimportance, or an utility, upon the discovery tained, that it is capable of applications as and statement of those general laws, which much more extensive and important than are admitted, in the passage now quoted, to those which have been vulgarly made in Fast have been previously exemplified in practice. ages, as are the uses of Newton's third law Is it any thing else, than their capacity of a of motion, compared with the operation of more extensive application?-the possibility the savage in pushing his canoe from the or facility of employing them to accomplish shore? If Mr. Stewart really entertained any many things to which they had not been pre- such opinion as this, it was incumbent upon viously thought applicable? If Newton's third him to have indicated, in a general way, the law of motion could never have been em- departments in which he conceived that these ployed for any other purpose than to set afloat great discoveries were to be made; and to the canoe of the savage-or if the discovery have pointed out some, at least, of the new of the pressure of the atmosphere had led to applications, on the assumption of which nothing more than an explanation of the alone he could justify so ambitious a paral operation of sucking-would there have been lel.* Instead of this, however, we do not any thing gained by stating that law, or that find that he has contemplated any other discovery, in general and abstract terms? spheres for the application of this principle, Would there have been any utility, any dignity than those which have been so long conceded or real advancement of knowledge, in the mere to it-the formation of taste, and the conduct technical arrangement of these limited and fa- of education: and, with regard to the last and miliar phenomena under a new classification? most important of these, he has himself reThere can be but one answer to these in-corded an admission, which to us, we will terrogatories. But we humbly conceive, that all the laws of mental operation which philosophy may collect and digest, are exactly in this last predicament. They have no application to any other phenomena than the particular ones by which they are suggested and which they were familiarly employed to produce. They are not capable of being extended to any other cases; and all that is gained by their digestion into a system, is a more precise and methodical enumeration of truths that were always notorious.

confess, appears a full justification of all that we have now been advancing, and a sufficient answer to the positions we have been endeavouring to combat. "In so far." Mr. Stewart observes, "as education is effectual and salutary, it is founded on those principles of our nature which have forced themselves upon general observation, in conse quence of the experience of ages." That the principle of association is to be reckoned in the number of these, Mr. Stewart certainly will not deny; and our proposition is, that all From the experience and consciousness of the principles of our nature which are ca all men, in all ages, we learn that, when two pable of any useful application, have thus or more objects are frequently presented to- "forced themselves on general observation" gether, the mind passes spontaneously from many centuries ago, and can now receive one to the other, and invests both with some-little more than a technical nomenclature and thing of the colouring which belongs to the most important. This is the law of association; which is known to every savage, and to every clown, in a thousand familiar instances: and, with regard to its capacity of useful application, it seems to be admitted, that it has been known and acted upon by parents, pedagogues, priests, and legislators, in all ages of the world; and has even been employed, as an obvious and easy instrument, by such humble judges of intellectual resources, as common horse-jockies and bear-dancers.

If this principle, then, was always known, and regularly employed wherever any advantage could be expected from its employment, what reason have we to imagine, that any substantial benefit is to be derived from its scientific investigation, or any important uses hereafter discovered for it, in consequence merely of investing it with a precise name, and stating, under one general theorem, the common law of its operation? If such persons as grooms and masters of menageries have been guided, by their low intellects and sordid motives, to its skilful application as a means of directing even the lower animals,

description from the best efforts of philosophy,

The sentiments to which we have ventured to give expression in these and our former hasty observations, were suggested to us, we will confess, in a great degree, by the striking contrast between the wonders which have been wrought by the cultivation of modem Physics, and the absolute nothingness of the effects that have hitherto been produced by the labours of the philosophers of mind. We have only to mention the names of Astrono my, Chemistry, Mechanics, Optics, and Navigation;-nay, we have only to look around us, in public or in private,-to cast a glance on the machines and manufactures, the ships, observatories, steam engines, and elaborato ries, by which we are perpetually surrounded, -or to turn our eyes on the most common

*Upwards of thirty years have now elapsed since this was written; during which a taste for metaphysical inquiry has revived in France, and been greatly encouraged in Germany. Yet I am not aware to what useful applications of the science its votaries can yet point; or what practical improve. ment or increase of human power they can trace to its cultivation.

NOVELS, TALES,

AND

PROSE WORKS OF
OF FICTION.

As I perceive I have, in some of the following papers, made a sort of apology for seeking to direct the attention of my readers to things so insignificant as Novels, it may be worth while to inform the present generation that, in my youth, writings of this sort were rated very low with us-scarcely allowed indeed to pass as part of a nation's permanent literature -and generally deemed altogether unworthy of any grave critical notice. Nor, in truthin spite of Cervantes and Le Sage-and Marivaux, Rousseau, and Voltaire abroad-and even our own Richardson and Fielding at home-would it have been easy to controvert that opinion, in our England, at the time: For certainly a greater mass of trash and rubbish never disgraced the press of any country, than the ordinary Novels that filled and supported our circulating libraries, down nearly to the time of Miss Edgeworth's first appearance. There had been, the Vicar of Wakefield, to be sure, before; and Miss Burney's Evelina and Cecilia --and Mackenzie's Man of Feeling, and some bolder and more varied fictions of the Misses Lee. But the staple of our Novel market was, beyond imagination, despicable: and had consequently sunk and degraded the whole department of literature, of which it had usurped the name.

All this, however, has since been signally, and happily, changed; and that rabble rout of abominations driven from our confines for ever. The Novels of Sir Walter Scott are, beyond all question, the most remarkable productions of the present age; and have made a sensation, and produced an effect, all over Europe, to which nothing parallel can be mentioned since the days of Rousseau and Voltaire; while, in our own country, they have attained a place, inferior only to that which must be filled for ever by the unapproachable glory of Shakespeare. With the help, no doubt, of their political revolutions, they have produced. in France, Victor Hugo, Balsac, Paul de Cocq, &c., the promessi sposi in Italy-and Cooper, at least, in America.-In England, also, they have had imitators enough; in the persons of Mr. James, Mr. Lover, and others. But the works most akin to them in excellence have rather, I think, been related as collaterals than as descendants. Miss Edgeworth, indeed. stands more in the line of their ancestry; and I take Miss Austen and Sir E. L. Bulwer to be as intrinsically original ;—as well as the great German writers, Goethe, Tiek, Jean Paul, Richter, &c. Among them, however, the honour of this branch of literature has at any rate been splendidly redeemed ;—and now bids fair to maintain its place, at the head of all that is graceful and instructive in the productions of modern genius.

(July, 1809.)

Tales of Fashionable Life. By Miss EDGEWORTH, Author of "Practical Education," "Belinda," "Castle Rackrent," &c. 12mo. 3 vols. London: 1809.

If it were possible for reviewers to Envy the authors who are brought before them for judgment, we rather think we should be tempted to envy Miss Edgeworth; - not, however, so much for her matchless powers of probable invention-her never-failing good sense and cheerfulness-nor her fine discrimination of characters-as for the delightful consciousness of having done more good than

any other writer, male or female, of her generation. Other arts and sciences have their use, no doubt; and, Heaven knows, they have their reward and their fame. But the great art is the art of living; and the chief science the science of being happy. Where there is an absolute deficiency of good sense, these cannot indeed be taught; and, with an extraordinary share of it, they may be acquired

without an instructor: but the most common case is, to be capable of learning, and yet to require teaching; and a far greater part of the misery which exists in society arises from ignorance, than either from vice or from incapacity.

There are two great sources of unhappiness to those whom fortune and nature seem to have placed above the reach of ordinary miseries. The one is ennui-that stagnation of life and feeling which results from the absence of all motives to exertion; and by which the justice of providence has so fully compensated the partiality of fortune, that it may be fairly doubted whether, upon the whole, the race of beggars is not happier than the race of lords; and whether those

nate, are not, in this world, the chief ministers of enjoyment. This is a plague that infects all indolent persons who can live on in the rank in which they were born, without the necessity of working: but, in a free country, it rarely occurs in any great degree of virulence, except among those who are already at the summit of human felicity. Below this, there is room for ambition, and envy, and emulation, and all the feverish movements of aspiring vanity and unresting selfishness, which act as prophylactics against this more dark and deadly distemper. It is the canker which corrodes the full-blown flower of human felicity-the pestilence which smites at the bright hour of noon.

Miss Edgeworth is the great modern mistress in this school of true philosophy; and has eclipsed, we think, the fame of all her predecessors. By her many excellent tracts on education, she has conferred a benefit on the whole mass of the population; and dis-vulgar wants that are sometimes so importucharged, with exemplary patience as well as extraordinary judgment, a task which superficial spirits may perhaps mistake for an humble and easy one. By her Popular Tales, she has rendered an invaluable service to the middling and lower orders of the people; and by her Novels, and by the volumes before us, has made a great and meritorious effort to promote the happiness and respectability of the higher classes. On a former occasion we believe we hinted to her, that these would probably be the least successful of all her labours; and that it was doubtful whether she could be justified for bestowing so much of her time on the case of a few persons, who scarcely deserved to be cured, and were scarcely capable of being corrected. The The other curse of the happy, has a range foolish and unhappy part of the fashionable more wide and indiscriminate. It, too, torworld, for the most part, "is not fit to bear tures only the comparatively rich and foritself convinced." It is too vain, too busy, tunate; but is most active among the least and too dissipated to listen to, or remember distinguished; and abates in malignity as we any thing that is said to it. Every thing seri-ascend to the lofty regions of pure ennui. ous it repels, by "its dear wit and gay rhetoric" and against every thing poignant, it seeks shelter in the impenetrable armour of its conjunct audacity.

"Laugh'd at, it laughs again; and, stricken hard,

Turns to the stroke its adamantine scales,
That fear no discipline of human hands."

A book, on the other hand, and especially a witty and popular book, is still a thing of consequence, to such of the middling classes of society as are in the habit of reading. They dispute about it, and think of it; and as they occasionally make themselves ridiculous by copying the manners it displays, so they are apt to be impressed with the great lessons it may be calculated to teach; and, on the whole, receive it into considerable authority among the regulators of their lives and opinions. But a fashionable person has scarcely any leisure to read; and none to think of what he has been reading. It would be a derogation from his dignity to speak of a book in any terms but those of frivolous derision; and a strange desertion of his own superiority, to allow himself to receive, from its perusal, any impressions which could at all affect his conduct or opinions.

But though, for these reasons, we continue to think that Miss Edgeworth's fashionable patients will do less credit to her prescriptions than the more numerous classes to whom they might have been directed, we admit that her plan of treatment is in the highest degree judicious, and her conception of the disorder most luminous and precise.

This is the desire of being fashionable ;-the restless and insatiable passion to pass for creatures a little more distinguished than we really are—with the mortification of frequent failure, and the humiliating consciousness of being perpetually exposed to it. Among those who are secure of "meat, clothes, and fire," and are thus above the chief physical evils of existence, we do believe that this is a more prolific source of unhappiness, than guilt, disease, or wounded affection; and that more positive misery is created, and more true enjoyment excluded, by the eternal fretting and straining of this pitiful ambition, than by all the ravages of passion, the desolations of war, or the accidents of mortality. This may appear a strong statement; but we make it deliberately, and are deeply convinced of its truth. The wretchedness which it produces may not be so intense; but it is of much longer duration, and spreads over a far wider circle. It is quite dreadful, indeed, to think what a sweep this pest has taken among the comforts of our prosperous population. To be thought fashionable-that is, to be thought more opulent and tasteful, and on a footing of intimacy with a greater number of distinguished persons than they really are, is the great and laborious pursuit of four families out of five, the members of which are exempted from the necessity of daily industry. In this pursuit, their time, spirits, and talents are wasted; their tempers, soured; their affections palsied; and their natural manners and dispositions altogether sophisticated and lost.

These are the giant curses of fashionable