Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove.’
We should hope that Mr. Stewart will examine into and state his conviction on this question fully and clearly in the account of Mr. Locke’s Essay, which he has promised in the continuation of his work. If he would lend the sanction of his name to shew the real foundation on which Mr. Locke’s reputation rests, it would not be the least service he has rendered to philosophy. ‘To trace an error to its source is often the only way to refute it.’ The task is no doubt an invidious, but it is a necessary one. The name of Locke is in a manner dear to every lover of truth; but truth itself should be still dearer.
It will perhaps be amusing to the reader (though not initiated in such studies) to see the manner in which an idea is bandied about, in these speculations, from author to author, to no sort of purpose. ‘In one of Mr. Locke’s most noted remarks,’ (says the learned Professor) ‘he has been anticipated by Malbranche, on whose clear yet concise statement he does not seem to have thrown much new light by his very diffuse and wordy commentary.’—‘If in having our ideas in the memory ready at hand, consists quickness of parts; in this of having them unconfused, and being able nicely to distinguish one thing from another, where there is but the least difference, consists, in a great measure, the exactness of judgment and clearness of reason; which is to be observed in one man above another. And hence perhaps may be given some reason of that common observation, that men who have a great deal of wit and prompt memories, have not always the clearest judgment or deepest reason. For Wit, lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy: Judgment on the contrary, lies quite on the other side, in separating carefully one from another, ideas wherein can be found the least difference, thereby to avoid being misled by similitude and by affinity to take one thing for another.’—Essay, etc. B. ii. c. xi. § 2.
‘Il y a donc des esprits de deux sortes. Les uns remarquent aisément les différences des choses, et ce sont les bons esprits. Les autres imaginent et supposent de la ressemblance entr’elles, et ce sont les esprits superficielles.’—Recherche de la Vérité.
‘At an earlier period, Bacon had pointed out the same cardinal distinction in the intellectual characters of individuals.
“The greatest and as it were radical distinction of geniuses, in respect of philosophy and science, is this; that some are more able and apt at noting the differences of things; others at noting their similitudes. For steady and acute minds can fix their contemplations, and remain and dwell on every subtlety of distinction; whereas more lofty and discursive imaginations recognize and compound even the slightest and commonest resemblances of things.”
‘That strain I heard was of a higher mood!—It is evident that Bacon has here seized, in its most general form, the very important truth perceived by his two ingenious successors in particular cases. Wit, which Locke contrasts with Judgment, is only one of the various talents connected with what Bacon calls the discursive genius; and indeed a talent very subordinate in dignity to most of the others.’—Note to the Dissertation, p. 116.
Mr. Locke, by Wit, in the passage here referred to, evidently means ingenuity or fancy generally speaking; for in the last hundred years, the use of this term has undergone a great alteration. He however borrowed his definition immediately from ‘that exploded author,’ Hobbes, who says in the Leviathan, p. 32,—‘Whereas, in the succession of thoughts, there is nothing to observe in the things we think on, but either in what they be like one another, or in what they be unlike;—those that observe their similitudes, in case they be such as are but rarely observed by others, are said to have a good wit, by which is meant on this occasion a good fancy. But they that observe their differences and dissimilitudes, which is called distinguishing and discerning and judging between thing and thing, in case such discerning be not easy, are said to have a good judgment; and particularly in matters of conversation and business, wherein times, places, and persons, are to be discerned, this virtue is called Discretion.’