[32] See [lecture 1].
[33] See vol. i. of the 1st Series, course of 1816, and 2d Series, vol. iii., lecture 18, p. 140-146.
[34] We have developed this analysis, and elucidated these results in the 17th lecture of vol. ii. of the 2d Series.
[35] We have already twice recurred, and more in detail, to the impossibility of legitimately explaining universal and necessary principles by any association or induction whatever, founded upon any particular idea, 2d Series, vol. iii., Examen du Système de Locke, lecture 19, p. 166; and 3d Series, vol. iv., Introduction aux Œuvres de M. de Biran, p. 319. We have also made known the opinion of Reid, 1st Series, vol. iv., lecture 22, p. 489. Finally, the profoundest of Reid's disciples, the most enlightened judge that we know of things philosophical, Sir W. Hamilton, professor of logic in the University of Edinburgh, has not hesitated to adopt the conclusions of our discussion, to which he is pleased to refer his readers:—Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, etc., by Sir William Hamilton, London, 1852. Appendix I, p. 588.
[36] Œuvres de Reid, vol. iv., p. 435. "When we revolt against primitive facts, we equally misconceive the constitution of our intelligence and the end of philosophy. Is explaining a fact any thing else than deriving it from another fact, and if this kind of explanation is to terminate at all, does it not suppose facts inexplicable? The science of the human mind will have been carried to the highest degree of perfection it can attain, it will be complete, when it shall know how to derive ignorance from the most elevated source."
[37] On conceptualism, as well as on nominalism and realism, see the Introduction to the inedited works of Abelard, and also 1st Series, vol. iv., lecture 21, p. 457; 2d Series, vol. iii., lecture 20, p. 215, and the work already cited on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, p. 49: "Nothing exists in this world which has not its law more general than itself. There is no individual that is not related to a species; there are no phenomena bound together that are not united to a plan. And it is necessary there should really be in nature species and a plan, if every thing has been made with weight and measure, cum pondere et mensura, without which our very ideas of species and a plan would only be chimeras, and human science a systematic illusion. If it is pretended that there are individuals and no species, things in juxtaposition and no plan; for example, human individuals more or less different, and no human type, and a thousand other things of the same sort, well and good; but in that case there is nothing general in the world, except in the human understanding, that is to say, in other terms, the world and nature are destitute of order and reason except in the head of man."
[39] On the just limits of the personality and the impersonality of reason, see the following [lecture], near the close.
[40] We have everywhere maintained, that consciousness is the condition, or rather the necessary form of intelligence. Not to go beyond this volume, see farther on, [lecture 5].
[41] 1st Series, vol. iv., lecture 22, p. 494.