merely an assemblage of powers, that by their action produce in us the ideas of these external qualities. His curiosity, therefore, was naturally excited to inquire farther into the manner in which we form our conceptions of body, or into the nature of the intercourse which the mind holds with those things that exist without it. In pursuing this inquiry, he soon became convinced, that magnitude, figure, and impenetrability, are no otherwise perceived by the mind than colour, taste, and smell; that is, that what are called the primary qualities of body, are precisely on the same footing with the secondary, and are both conceptions of the mind, which can have no resemblance to the external cause by which those conceptions are produced. The world, therefore, as conceived by us, is the creation of the mind itself, but of the mind acted on from without, and receiving information from some external power. But though, according to this reasoning, there be no resemblance between the world without us, and the notions that we form of it, though magnitude and figure, though space, time, and motion, have no existence but in the mind; yet our perceptions being consistent, and regulated by constant and uniform laws, are as much realities to us, as if they were the exact copies of things really existing; they equally interest our happiness, and must equally determine our conduct. They form a system, not dependent on

the mind alone, but dependent on the action which certain external causes have upon it. The whole doctrine, therefore, of moral obligation, remains the same in this system, and in that which maintains the perfect resemblance of our ideas to the causes by which they are produced.

Many philosophers have regarded our ideas as very imperfect representations of external things; but Dr Hutton considers their perfect dissimilitude as completely proved. Plato has likened the mind to an eye, so situated, as to see nothing but the faint images of objects projected on the bottom of a dark cave, while the objects themselves are entirely concealed; but he thinks, that by help of philosophy, the mental eye may be directed toward the mouth of the cave, and may perceive the objects in their true figure and dimensions. But, with Dr Hutton, the figures seen at the bottom of the cave have no resemblance to the originals without; nor can man, by any contrivance, hold communication with those originals, nor ever know any thing about them, except that they are not what they seem to be, and have no property in common with the figures which denote their existence. In a word, external things are no more like the perceptions they give rise to, than wine is similar to intoxication, or opium to the delirium which it produces.

It has been already remarked, that this system,

however peculiar in other respects, involves in it the same principles of morals with those more generally received; and the same may be said as to the existence of God, and the immortality of the soul. The view which it presents of the latter doctrine deserves particularly to be remarked. Death is not regarded here as the dissolution of a connection between mind and that system of material organs, by means of which it communicated with the external world, but merely as an effect of the mind's ceasing to perceive a particular order or class of things; it is therefore only the termination of a certain mode of thought; and the extinction, not of mental power, but of a train of concepany tions, which, in consequence of external impulse, had existed in the mind. Thus, as nothing essential to intellectual power perishes, we are to consider death only as a passage from one condition of thought to another; and hence this system appeared, to the author of it, to afford a stronger argument than any other, for the existence of the mind after death.

Indeed, Dr Hutton has taken great pains to deduce from his system, in a regular manner, the leading doctrines of morality and natural religion, having dedicated the third volume of his book almost wholly to that object. It is worthy of remark, that while he is thus employed, his style assumes a better tone, and a much greater degree of perspicuity,

than it usually possesses. Many instances might be pointed out, where the warmth of his benevolent and moral feelings bursts through the clouds that so often veil from us the clearest ideas of his understanding. One, in particular, deserves notice, in which he treats of the importance of the female character to society in a state of high civilization. * A felicity of expression, and a flow of natural eloquence, inspired by so interesting a subject, make us regret that his pen did not more frequently do justice to his thoughts.

The metaphysical theory, of which the outline (though very imperfectly) has now been traced, cannot fail to recal the opinions maintained by Dr Berkeley concerning the existence of matter. The two systems do indeed agree in one material point, but differ essentially in the rest. They agree in maintaining, that the conceptions of the mind are not copied from things of the same kind existing without it; but they differ in this, that Dr Berkeley imagined that there is nothing at all external, and that it is by the direct agency of the Deity that sensation and perception are produced in the mind. Dr Hutton holds, on the other hand, that there is an external existence, from which the mind receives its information, and by the action of which impres

• Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge, Vol. III. p. 588, &c.

sions are made on it; but impressions that do not at all resemble the powers by which they are caused.

The reasonings, also, by which the two theories are supported, are very dissimilar, though perhaps they so far agree, that if Dr Berkeley had been better acquainted with physics, and had made it more a rule to exclude all hypothesis, he would have arrived precisely at the same conclusion with Dr Hutton. Indeed, I cannot help being of opinion, that every one will do so, who, in investigating the origin of our perceptions, determines to reason without assuming any hypothesis, and without taking for granted any of those maxims which the mind is disposed to receive, either, as some philosophers say, from habit, or, as others maintain, from an instinctive determination, (such as has been termed common sense,) that admits of no analysis. Though this may not be the kind of reasoning best suited to the subject, yet it is so analogous to what succeeds in other cases, that it is good to have an example of it, and, on that account, were it for nothing else, the theory we are now speaking of certainly merits more attention than it has yet met with. The great size of the book, and the obscurity which may

* I have hardly found this work of Dr Hutton's quoted by any writer of eminence, except by Dr Parr, in his Spital Sermon, a tract no less remarkable for learning and acuteness, than for the liberality and candour of the sentiments which it contains.