The Scottish Philosophy [205]
can, but surely when we know approximately and (which is all we know in chemistry) the laws of the senses, of memory, of association, imagination, judgment, reasoning, feeling, and conscience, we may get benefits of another kind in being better able to regulate our own minds and influence the minds of others. On one point he seems rather to have the advantage of Stewart. In his review of Stewart's " Life and Writings of Reid," he maintains that it is principally by , and not by mere observation, that those splendid improvements have been made which have erected so vast a trophy to the prospective genius of Bacon." Stewart replied, in his " Philosophical Essays " and " Dissertation," showing that experiment is a species of observation and that mind can be and has been experimented on: " Hardly any experiment can be imagined which has not already been tried by the hand of nature." But Jeffrey has a truth which however, he has not elaborated successfully. The physical investigator has much more accurate tests than the mental philosopher in the means which modern science has provided for weighing and measuring the results; and this, I apprehend, is the main reason for the fact that there is less disputing about physical than mental laws. On the other hand, we have more immediate, constant, and familiar access to our thoughts and feelings than we have to any facts of natural philosophy; and thus our knowledge of mind, scientific and practical, may, without being so much observed by the vulgar, be as useful as our knowledge of physics, as it may at all times be restraining and constraining us, though unconsciously, and enabling us to sway the minds and actions of others. {346}
XLVI.-SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.[88] "I /WAS\ born," he tells us, " at Aldowrie, on the banks of Loch Ness within seven miles of the town of Inverness, in Scotland, on the 26th of October, 1765." His father was a subaltern and younger brother, possessed of a small family property, and his mother was pressed with many anxieties; but she and the whole female kindred combined to lavish kindness upon the child and possibly fondled him too much. In 1775, he was sent to the school at Fortrose. The boarding mistress was very pious and orthodox, and at times rebuked the usher who was suspected of some heretical opinions. He betook himself early to reading thoughtful works, some of them beyond his years, such as Burnet on the Thirty-Nine Articles, and he formed opinions of his own, and became a warm advocate for free-will.
"About the same time," be says,
"I read the old translation (called Dryden's) of Plutarch's 'Lives' and Echard's 'Roman History.' I well remember that the perusal of the last led me into a ridiculous habit. from which I shall never be totally free. I used to fancy myself emperor of Constantinople. I distributed offices and provinces amongst my school fellows; I loaded my favorites with dignity and power, and I often made the objects of my dislike feel the weight of my imperial resentment. I carried on the series of political events in solitude for several hours;. I resumed them, and continued them from day to day for months. Ever since, I have been more prone to building castles in the air than most others. My castle-building bas always been of a singular kind. It was not the anticipation of a sanguine disposition, expecting extraordinary success in its pursuits. My disposition is not sanguine, and my visions have generally regarded things as much unconnected with my ordinary pursuits and as little to be expected as the crown of Constantinople at the school of Fortrose. These fancies, indeed, have never amounted to conviction, or, in other words, they have never influenced my actions; but I must confess that they have often been as steady and of as regular recurrence as conviction itself, and that they have sometimes created
XLVI.-SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.[88] "I /WAS\ born," he tells us, " at Aldowrie, on the banks of Loch Ness within seven miles of the town of Inverness, in Scotland, on the 26th of October, 1765." His father was a subaltern and younger brother, possessed of a small family property, and his mother was pressed with many anxieties; but she and the whole female kindred combined to lavish kindness upon the child and possibly fondled him too much. In 1775, he was sent to the school at Fortrose. The boarding mistress was very pious and orthodox, and at times rebuked the usher who was suspected of some heretical opinions. He betook himself early to reading thoughtful works, some of them beyond his years, such as Burnet on the Thirty-Nine Articles, and he formed opinions of his own, and became a warm advocate for free-will.
"About the same time," be says,
"I read the old translation (called Dryden's) of Plutarch's 'Lives' and Echard's 'Roman History.' I well remember that the perusal of the last led me into a ridiculous habit. from which I shall never be totally free. I used to fancy myself emperor of Constantinople. I distributed offices and provinces amongst my school fellows; I loaded my favorites with dignity and power, and I often made the objects of my dislike feel the weight of my imperial resentment. I carried on the series of political events in solitude for several hours;. I resumed them, and continued them from day to day for months. Ever since, I have been more prone to building castles in the air than most others. My castle-building bas always been of a singular kind. It was not the anticipation of a sanguine disposition, expecting extraordinary success in its pursuits. My disposition is not sanguine, and my visions have generally regarded things as much unconnected with my ordinary pursuits and as little to be expected as the crown of Constantinople at the school of Fortrose. These fancies, indeed, have never amounted to conviction, or, in other words, they have never influenced my actions; but I must confess that they have often been as steady and of as regular recurrence as conviction itself, and that they have sometimes created