may be improved; and thus the speculative gives birth to the practical. Eut according to the primary classification, which we are now discussing, each of these sciences, of politics, political economy, morals, and natural theology, which are universally and justly considered as one, must be split into two, and the fractions be arranged under totally different heads of human inquiry. It is impossible that such a violent separation could be really carried through; and therefore the system which requires it must be considered no less useless for application, than erroneous in principle.

The classification of the sciences now most generally adopted, is that into the physical and moral, meaning by physical that relating to matter; by moral, that which respects the mind. Still we sometimes find the word physical used in the sense above alluded to, as synonymous with speculative, and by authors of very high reputation.' How little purpose it can serve when thus employed I have already attempted to show, and therefore I shall always take it as synonymous with material. Mind and matter being so essentially different, that they never can be confounded, form the only really philosophical basis on which we can build with safety. The distinction is so natural, that in truth it is always followed in practice; for in all academies and universities, the

1 I may instance Dr. Brown, in his well-known Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind; and Sir James Mackintosh, in his valuable Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, first published in the Encyclopædia Britannica.

sciences of mind and matter are taught in different classes, and by different professors; and rarely do we see the same individuals apply themselves eagerly to both. The term moral being often used in a much more limited sense, and not expressing with sufficient precision the simple idea we wish to convey, we may with advantage substitute the word mental, and divide the sciences accordingly into the mental and the physical, or material.

Still this does not exhaust the subject. In addition to these there is another branch of science which overshadows all the rest, without being incorporated with any of them; maintaining itself, as it were, in a more elevated region, where it serves to protect from injury the tender twigs, and allows them to shoot and swell till they grow to their due proportion. This is logic taken in its most comprehensive sense, the objects of which are so vast and so important, that it may well be considered as occupying the first rank in the scale of human pursuits. Logic undertakes to classify all the objects of knowledge, to assign to each its proper limits, and mark where it touches upon others; to point out new branches of inquiry to the curiosity of mankind; to give rules for the proper cultivation of all the sciences, as well as for each in particular; to show the kind and degree of evidence which each admits of, to explain the different sorts of reasoning,

2 The Institute of France, besides its literary academies, contains two separate scientific ones: the Académie des Sciences, i. e. Sciences Physiques; and the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques.

and disclose the various sources of fallacy, whether arising from the nature of man in general, from the peculiarities of classes or individuals, from the vagueness of words and ideas used in daily intercourse, or from false systems of philosophy. Logic also teaches us what is the real object or objects of all philosophy; and in addition to the lofty purposes above enumerated, which regard discovery and judgment, it likewise instructs us in the arts of retaining and communicating truth. Here, it will be allowed, is enough to constitute one leading branch of the sciences, and therefore we may divide them into the Physical, the Mental, and the Logical. The noblest specimen of universal logic which has ever been presented to the world, is to be met with in the two grand works of Bacon-on the Advancement

3 The Idola Tribus, Specus, Fori, and Theatri of Bacon.

Another classification, which seems to have been but little attended to, is that of Bacon, who divides all philosophy into three parts-de Numine, de Natura, de Homine. It belongs properly to a treatise on logic to discuss at length the merits of this and other classifications; suffice it to observe, that although we consider Bacon's system decidedly superior to the one mentioned in the commencement of this Chapter, the physical, practical, logical, which is adopted by Locke; yet we by no means think it so true to nature as that brought forward in the text. The following objection at once presents itself. Man is composed of mind and body; and although we should grant that his mind were altogether different from that of the brutes, yet his bodily structure is surely very similar, as we know from comparative anatomy. But according to the arrangement of Bacon, the physiology of man would belong to a different leading class from that of animals, which are comprehended under the term Natura.

of Learning, and the Novum Organum. After these, may be mentioned the third and fourth book of Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding.

Dismissing the physical and the logical sciences, as foreign to our present purpose, let us turn our attention to the mental. These may be properly divided into two principal branches, the pure and the mixed; the former being purely speculative, the latter partly speculative, partly practical. The one is commonly called metaphysics, or the philosophy of the human mind, and has in view two objects: first, to consider the nature of mind or spirit as a substance distinct from matter; secondly, and more particularly, to examine the phenomena or appearances which mind presents, to analyse and classify these, and to discover the general laws according to which they arise and succeed each other. This science, as we see, is in itself purely speculative, though remotely it may lead to most important practical applications.

The second branch of the mental sciences is of a mixed nature, combining practice with speculation, and to this the term moral may well be applied.5

5 This being the first occasion on which the term moral occurs, it may be well to mention the various significations which have been given to the word, and particularly to determine in what sense it is used throughout the present work. No less than four different meanings have been attached to this term. In the first and most extensive sense, it signifies mental, and is opposed to physical, as when the sciences are divided into the physical and the moral. Secondly, in a less extended sense, it means the active powers of man, or those mental powers which are imme

It admits of several subdivisions, to be mentioned presently; but before entering upon these, I shall here take the opportunity of pointing out what may be called a new science, a general doctrine of human happiness. It has been remarked by Bacon,6 that the partitions of the sciences are not similar to diverse lines, which meet at an angle, but rather to the branches of trees, which are joined in one trunk, this trunk being whole and continuous for a certain space ere it split into branches. Before pursuing

diately connected with action; and here it is opposed to the intellectual. The assemblage of these active powers is what the French call caractère. Thirdly, in a sense still less extensive, it signifies those qualities in which virtue resides, or those connected with duty; and then it is opposed to vicious.

Lastly, it sometimes means merely one kind of virtues, those comprehended under the general term chastity; and in this case it is opposed to immoral. A very moral man often implies one who is strict merely in this particular. In the first Book of this inquiry, which treats of Moral Science in general, the word is used in the second sense above mentioned; and in the following Book, which discourses of Ethics, it is employed in the third and more limited signification. Moral science, then, in the widest sense here given to it, is that which has for its object so to regulate the thoughts, feelings, and actions of men, as to produce the greatest possible sum of human happiness.

Hence thoughts, feelings, and actions are the constant subjects of moral science, and the human mind as the source of thought, feeling, and action. It differs from pure metaphysics in this, that the bare knowledge of the mind, not its regulation, is the object of the latter. Moral qualities differ from the intellectual in this, that the former are immediately connected with the regulation of thought, feeling, and action, and hence with human happiness; whereas the intellectual are connected immediately with bare knowledge, not with regulation or practice.

6 De Augm. Scient. lib. iii. cap. 1.