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Secundo-primary qualities, as merely contingent and a posteriori attributes of body.—Dr Whewell's opinions upon this and other kindred points are redargued with great acuteness by the Rev. Mr Mansel of St John's College, Oxford, in his late valuable work- Prolegomena Logica," (Nate A and pp. 77, sq.)-Mr Mansel has also subsequently, in answer to an able letter of Dr Whewell, more fully discussed the question, and placed the matter on its proper footing, in a most satisfactory pamphlet,-"The limits of Demonstrative Science considered." -See also Mr Stewart's Elements, (iii. pp. 283-290)].

I now proceed to the second head of reduction.

2°, It is derived from the logical analysis of thought.-Under this head my objection to Dr Whewell's "Axiom" is, that it is merely a predication of a thing of itself, a mistaken commutation of the analytical principle of identity in logic with a synthetical principle of some non-identity in mechanics. This pretended axiom is, in fact, nothing more than the tautological judgment, "that the whole is equal to all its parts;" the confusion being occasioned and veiled by different words being employed to denote the same thing. These different words are weight and pressure. But weight and pressure are (here) only various terms for the same force. What weighs, pro tanto, is supposed to press; what presses, pro tanto, is supposed to weigh. The pressure on the fulcrum-is thus only another phrase for-the weight on the fulcrum; and to say, with Dr Whewell, that "the pressure on the fulcrum is equal to the sum of the weights," this (waving always the inaccuracy) is only tantamount to saying,—either, that the pressure on the fulcrum is equal to the sum of the pressures on the lever,-or, that the weight on the fulcrum is equal to the sum of the weights on the lever. It consequently requires, as I said, only a logical analysis of the enouncement that "the whole is equal to all its parts, therefore, to its two halves," &c. to obtain the idle proposition which Dr Whewell has dignified by the name of—“ Axiom in Mechanics.” Dr Whewell's error from "confusion of thought," in this instance, is akin to a mistake which I have elsewhere found it necessary to expound, (Dissertations on Reid, p. 853);—I mean his attempted "Demonstration," (from a supposed law of thought,) "that all matter is heavy." "The

But, I had almost forgotten, -What shall we say of Archimedes ? Axiom" is apparently fathered upon him; he was a great mathematical inventor; and it is maintained above (p. 287, sq.) that mathematical invention and philosophical genius (in which are necessarily comprehended distinct and perspicuous thinking) coincide. I was certain, before re-examining the treatise on Æquiponderants by Archimedes, that it could contain no such principle, no such truism; nor does it.

The reader is now in a condition to decide :- Whether the charge of "confusion of thought and ignorance of the subject" weigh on the accuser or on the accused; and, in general, Whether "Mathematics be a means of forming logical habits better than Logic itself."

But before concluding, I am tempted to give one-in fact two other specimens of "the confusion of thought" in Dr Whewell's reasoning, and of the manner in which ("telumque imbelle sine ictu,") his "Mathematical Logic" is brought to bear against my arguments.

The first:-"I shall not pursue," he says, "the consideration of the beneficial intellectual influence of Mathematical studies. It would be easy to point out circumstances, which show that this influence has really operated ;—for instance, the extraordinary number of persons, who, after giving more than common attention to mathematical studies at the University, have afterwards become eminent as English Lawyers." (English University Education, p. 14.)-The fact of the con

secution I do not doubt. But if Dr Whewell had studied logic, as he has studied mathematics, he would not have confounded an antecedent with a cause, a consequent with an effect. There is a sophism against which logic, the discipline of unconfused thinking, puts us on our guard, and which is technically called the "Post hoc, ergo Propter hoc." Of this fallacy Dr Whewell is, in this his one selected instance, guilty. And how? English law has less of principle, and more of detail, than any other national jurisprudence. Its theory can be conquered, not by force of intellect alone; and success in its practice requires, with a strong memory, a capacity of the most continuous, of the most irksome application. Now mathematical study requires this likewise; it therefore tests, no doubt, to this extent, the "bottom" of the student. But, because a great English Lawyer has been a Cambridge Wrangler, it is a curious logic to maintain, that mathematical study CONDUCES to legal proficiency. The Cambridge honour only shows, that a man has in him, by nature, one condition of a good English lawyer. And we might as well allege, in trying the blood of a terrier puppy, by holding him up from ear or paw, that the suspension itself was the cause of his proving "of the right sort;" as that mathematical study bestowed his power of dogged application, far less his power of legal logic, on the future counsellor.

The second:-"I have already noticed," concludes Dr Whewell, "how well the training of the college appears to prepare men to become good lawyers. I will add, that I conceive our Physicians to be the first in the world," &c. (Ib. p. 51.) -I should be glad if Dr Whewell had specified these paragons, who with a modesty as transcendent as their merit, hide their talent under a bushel; for of their reputations, discoveries of their very names, I confess myself profoundly ignorant, and suspect that the world is not better informed touching those who are its "first physicians." But this fact, is it not on a level with the previous reasoning?

What then are we finally to think of the assertion so confidently made, that— "Mathematics form logical habits better than Logic itself?" As the elegant Lago'marsini (“vir melioris Latinitatis peritissimus," to use the words of Ruhnkenius), in his Oration on the Grammar Schools of Italy, said in reference to an English criticism,-in fact Locke's :-"Hoc tantum dicam; tunc me æquo animo de re latina præcipientes, Italorumque in ea tractanda rationem reprehendentes, Britannos homines auditurum, quum aliquid vere latinum (quod jamdiu desideramus) ab se elaboratum ad nos ex illo oceano suo miserint:" so for us, it will be time enough to listen to any Cambridge disparagement of non-mathematical logic, when a bit of reasoning has issued from that University, in praise of mathematical logic, not itself in violation of all logical law, for such, as yet, certainly, has never been vouchsafed. In truth, we need look no farther than the Cambridge panegyrics themselves of mathematical study, to see how illogical are the habits which a too exclusive devotion to that study fosters.-But this is not the worst.

For one man of genuine talent and accomplishment, who has sacrificed to the Moloch of Cambridge idolatry, how many illiterate incapables do the lists of mathematical Wranglers exhibit! How many noble minds has a forced application to mathematical study reduced to idiocy or madness! How many generous victims (they "died and made no sign,") have perished, and been forgotten, in or after the pursuit of a mathematical Honour! And this melancholy observation has been long familiarly made even in Cambridge itself; yet the torturing slaughterhouse is unabated !] *

* With others, above, and especially the two testimonies from the Quarterly Review (pp. 318, 319) see the Cambridge pamphlet lately published by a "Member of the Senate," entitled "The Next Step," (p. 43.) The author, likewise, refers to a pamphlet (which I have not seen) by Mr Blakesley, for a corresponding statement.

IL-ON THE CONDITIONS OF CLASSICAL

LEARNING.

WITH RELATION TO THE DEFENCE OF CLASSICAL
INSTRUCTION BY PROFESSOR PILLANS.

(OCTOBER, 1836.)

Three Lectures on the Proper Objects and Methods of Education in reference to the different Orders of Society; and on the relative Utility of Classical Instruction. Delivered in the University of Edinburgh, November, 1835. By JAMES PILLANS, M.A., F.R.S.E., Professor of Humanity in that University. 8vo. Edinburgh: 1836.

WE regret that circumstances prevented our noticing these discourses in either of our last Numbers. They are a good word spoken in due season; and sure we are, that it will not be spoken in vain, if our Scottish countrymen are not wholly disabled from appreciating at their real value, this vindication of classical studies, and the objections by which they have been here recently assailed. It would, however, be a disparagement of these lectures to view them as only of temporary and local value; far less, as merely an answer to what all entitled to an opinion on the matter must view as undeserving of refutation or notice-on its own account. They form, in fact, a valuable contribution to the philosophy of education; and, in particular, one of the ablest expositions we possess of the importance of philological studies in the higher cultivation of the mind. As an occasional publication, the answer does too much honour to the attack. Indeed, the

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only melancholy manifestation in the opposition now raised to the established course of classical instruction, is not the fact of such opposition; but that arguments in themselves so futile,―arguments which, in other countries, would have been treated only with neglect, should in Scotland not have been wholly harmless. If such attacks have had their influence on the public mind, this affords only another proof, not that ancient literature is with us studied too much, but that it is studied far too little. Where classical learning has been vigorously cultivated, the most powerful attacks have only ended in the purification and improvement of its study. In Germany and Holland, in Italy, and even in France, objections, not unreasonably, have been made to an exclusive and indiscriminate classical education; but the experimental changes they determined, have only shown in their result: that ancient literature may be more effectually cultivated in the school, if not cultivated alone; and that whilst its study, if properly directed, is, absolutely, the best mean toward an harmonious development of the faculties, the one end of all liberal education; yet, that this mean is not always, relatively, the best, when circumstances do not allow of its full and adequate application.

It is natural that men should be inclined to soothe their vanity with the belief, that what they do not themselves know is not worth knowing; and that they should find it easy to convert others, who are equally ignorant, to the same opinion, is what might also confidently be presumed. "Ce n'est pas merveille, si ceux qui n'ont jamais mangé de bonnes choses, ne sçavent que c'est de bonnes viandes." On this principle, Scotland is the country of all others in which every disparagement of classical learning might be expected to be least unsuccessful. For it is the country where, from an accumulation of circumstances, the public mind has been long most feebly applied to the study of antiquity, and where it is daily more and more diverted to other departments of knowledge. A summary indication of the more important of these circumstances may suffice to show, that the neglect of classical learning in Scotland is owing, neither to the inferior value of that learning in itself, nor to any want of capacity in our countrymen for its cultivation.

There are two principal conditions of the prosperity of classical studies in a country. The one,-The necessity there imposed of a classical training for the three learned professions; the other,

The efficiency of its public schools and universities in the promotion of classical erudition. These two conditions, it is evident, severally infer each other. For, on the one hand, where a certain amount and quality of learning is requisite for the successful cultivation of the Law, Medicine, and Divinity of a country, this of itself necessitates the existence of Schools and Universities competent to its supply; and on the other, where an efficient system of classical education has become general, there the three professions naturally assume a more learned character, and demand a higher complement of erudition from their members. The prosperity of ancient learning is everywhere found dependent on these conditions; and these conditions are always found in harmony with each other. To explain the rise and decline of classical studies in different nations and periods, is therefore only to trace the circumstances which have in these modified the learned character of the professions, and the efficiency and application of the great public seminaries.

It would be foolish to imagine that the study of antiquity can ever of itself secure an adequate cultivation. How sweet soever are its fruits, they can only be enjoyed by those who have already fed upon its bitter roots. The higher and more peculiar its ultimate advantages and pleasures, the more it educates to capacities of thought and feeling, which we should never otherwise have been taught to know or to exert,-and the more that what it accomplishes can be accomplished by it alone, the less can those who have had no experience of its benefits ever conceive, far less estimate their importance. Other studies of more immediate profit and attraction will divert from it the great mass of applicable talent. Without external encouragement to classical pursuits, there can be no classical public in a country, there can be no brotherhood of scholars to excite, to appreciate, to applaud, —συμφιλολογεῖν καὶ συνενθουσιάζειν. The extensive diffusion of learning in a nation is even a requisite of its intensive cultivation. Numbers are the condition of an active emulation; for without a rivalry of many vigorous competitors there is little honour in the contest, and the standard of excellence will be ever low. For a few holders of the plough there are many prickers of the oxen; and a score of Barneses are required as the possibility of a single Bentley.

In accounting, therefore, for the low state of classical erudition in Scotland, we shall, in the first place, indicate the causes why in

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